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sometimes-i-write-good · 1 year

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5 + 1

Top Gun: Maverick - Robert ‘Bob’ Floyd x f!pilot reader (callsign: Fallbeil)

4.4k || 5 times Bob remembers your little quirks and habits, and 1 time you remember his.

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Genre: Fluff, crushing, love confessions

CW: mentions of drinking, swearing

Author’s Note: Bob is such an acts of service kind of person - I can feel it deep in my soul. Also, I thought the idea of him ending up with someone who has a scary ass callsign like Guillotine (which is Fallbeil in German) despite him being a cinnamon roll would be the funniest thing in the world. || cross-posted on ao3

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The first time you noticed something was because Hangman had that stupid ass look on his face again. That same one he always had, the only one he had in all honesty. The one that, recently, only ever seemed to be directed at you and that pissed you off most of all.

“What?” He asked, but the smirk pulling his lips back into the stupid, smug fucking smile told you clearly: he knew exactly what.

“Leave her alone, Bagman. I’m not in the mood today,” Rooster said, and you could tell he meant it. HIs voice sounded surprisingly tired considering mornings were his prime time of existence. Maverick insisted on calling these meetings earlier and earlier, chinking away at everyone's stability, and it was proving to be too much for even the earliest of risers.

Hangman scoffed, pressing his hand to his chest, and feigning offense. “Why am I always the bad guy? What if today was the day Fallbeil finally snapped and did something to me instead?”

You rolled your eyes. “If I snapped, you wouldn’t be holding a conversation with me. Your head wouldn’t even be attached to your body.”

“Living up to your name as always, doll.”

Rooster slid into one of the empty chairs at the conference table, slapping down a notebook, and turned to look at you. “I’ll punch him if you want.”

“I’m perfectly capable of throwing my own punches, thank you.” The look on Rooster’s face said he didn’t trust you not to take it too far.

“And coffee mugs.” Hangman glanced over his shoulder; eyes trained on the spot where a cracked, open travel cup lay open. Opened and spilled, everywhere. “Which I managed to dodge.”

“Try to dodge my-” but your insult was cut short by Rooster saying, “Coffee? You hate coffee.”

You set your lips in a thin, embarrassed line. “He told me that it was tea.”

“And you believed him?” Rooster snorted.

You slunk back into your chair, crossing your arms with a pout. “It’s early! I’m basically the walking dead right now, birdbrain.”

As with every mission of this sheer level of importance, your anxiety had been too great to let you sleep. Usually Bob or Phoenix or Rooster, the early risers of the group, would be up to go for a job or hit the gym with you. You were up well before all of them today and had taken it upon yourself to go for a run, shower, and be painfully early to this briefing. You had hoped Bob would be the first one there, he typically was, but the universe was out to get you because instead of those sweet, doe eyes behind some thick-lensed glasses all you got was a stupid pair of lips messing with a toothpick.

“Don’t be too hard on, Rooster.” Phoenix called out, walking into the hangar with Fanboy, Payback, and Coyote in tow. “I already smoked him during our run this morning. He’s fragile.”

Before Rooster could get all up in arms or Hangman could jump on a moment of vulnerability, Maverick walked in. He had his way to the head of the table while everyone else found their seats. “Good morning, everyone.” Tired, disjointed voices repeated the sentiment, pulling a smile onto Mav’s face. “I see we’re all ready for a busy day. What do you say we get started?”

“Sorry, I’m late, sir!” Bob’s voice comes from behind you. “I couldn’t find the kettle.”

Kettle, you thought to yourself, but Maverick just waved for him to sit down and continued talking. Before Bob headed over to the only open seat, by Hangman of all people, he placed a small cup of tea in front of you without a word. In your favorite mug, too. You brought it up to your lips to taste it… and it was perfect. Exactly the way you liked it.

‘Thank you,’ you mouthed at him after he sat down. Bob just nodded and focused his attention on Maverick. You did the same, not even registering that he didn’t have a cup of anything for himself.

–

The second time you noticed something nice Bob did for you was during poker night. Fanboy and Payback had decided tempting fate and coming out the other side had bonded you all for life. A point any of you could hardly disagree with. That mission was not something any of you were supposed to come back from. So, the idea of a movie night had been tossed around, but Payback always tried to guess the endings and Hangman tried to outdo the one-liners and Rooster just had to know if he knew that actor from another movie - needless to say, movie nights were shelved very fast.

Then the idea of bar hopping came about, followed by karaoke night, followed by trivia night. Each of which ended up in all of you spending too much money on booze and drunkenly embarrassing yourselves with horrible vocals or blatantly wrong answers to obscure history questions. You all settled on the idea of a game night. It seemed to work well enough. A ‘family’ dinner followed by a board game. Except for the fact that Payback instead of placing bets no matter if it was CandyLand or Monopoly, which Coyote would double, and Hangman would triple. Leaving you all spending just as much money as you had at the bar.

It was Bob who brought up the idea of having poker nights. Something with betting already designed into it so that none of you had to worry about emptying your bank accounts at the end of the night. That was the problem with setting elite competitors against one another, they never knew when to quit.

You’d all been kept relatively close to TOPGUN, usually stationed a few hours away max. Months where distance wasn’t a problem, you all tried to meet once a week. If one of you weren’t stateside, then once a month worked just fine. Six months into poker nights so far and you’d been able to have at least one every month. Every time the list of things to bring shifted down a person, so that each time a new person would be in charge of chips or appetizers or the main entree, etc. It was a system that worked with military precision.

Until the one time it didn’t.

Bob was the last through the door of Payback’s small apartment. At least, it looked small with so many people crammed in there. “Here, I got special plates this time.” He raised them high above his head like a prize. Large, sturdy, and compartmentalized. Like the trays you’d get in the mess hall or for a school lunch.

The statement caused immediate uproar.

“I was on plates and napkins!” Coyote said around a mouthful of sour cream and onion chips, brought by yours truly. And Hangman started making comments about how if no one was going to follow the list, then he wasn’t going to either.

“You weren’t in charge of plates, Bob!” Fanboy tried his best not to get too worked up over it. He had created a spreadsheet of everyone’s responsibilities. Verifying everyone knew their roles was his main role in making sure this whole operation ran smoothly. “Please tell me you still brought dessert.”

“I’ve got dessert. My grandma came out this weekend and made a peach cobbler.”

The mention of his grandma’s baking ensured the pitchforks and torches were put away, for now. That woman had godly skills in the kitchen. You would gladly sit down and eat an entire cobbler of hers by yourself in one sitting.

Coyote, still hurt by his duty being impeded on, asked, “So then what are the plates for?”

“Fallbeil doesn’t like when her food touches,” Bob said as though it were the most common knowledge in the world. “You guys always insist on getting plates that are way too small.”

He set down the plates on the counter, followed by the pie, and went to take off his shoes and didn’t bring anything like that up again for the rest of the night.

–

The third time you noticed something nice that Bob did for you was a day he had to leave early. A helicopter was coming to pick him and Phoenix up to take them overseas. Just for a few days, or so said those in charge, and you knew how easily a few days could change to a few weeks to a few months.

The thought of possibly not seeing them for a while aggravated you. It meant being stuck on a ship hundreds of miles from the nearest shore without your two best friends. You’d known what you were signing up for when you first started. The military liked to keep their secrets. At any moment you could be swept away for a mission, but it still felt unfair when you woke up only to realize that your wingwoman and her WSO are replaced by strangers.

Back soon, take care.

Not signed but the handwriting was so obviously Bob. Cursive with careful, purposeful loops. Hangman tried to tear him apart for taking so much care in his notes during the pre-briefs before the uranium mission. The insults died out fast once everyone realized he had chicken scratch for handwriting. Funny how spreading a rumor Hangman deserved the callsign Rooster over Bradley could put him in his place so quickly.

Back soon, take care.

You stared at the sticky note, so carefully pressed against the outside of your locker. It was easy to imagine the conversation among him and Phoenix.

“I’m leaving her a note.”

“She’ll be fine, Bob. We’ve got to go.”

“Four words.”

He’d gotten into the habit of leaving sticky note updates in between lengthy letters. They held more emotion than an email or text, and you found that you liked it more than digital words on a screen. You could trace your fingers over each letter. Pretend as though he were pressed up in the seat next to you like when you’d go to the Hard Deck on a busy night and everyone would shove together in a few booths. A closeness you’d found yourself longing for in all moments spent together despite there being no reason for the two of you to share an armchair in the common room.

You had crushes before. A few relationships littered your history of schooling, but you, like many others who had graduated from TOPGUN, assumed the sky was to be your first and only love. And then Bob showed up with his quiet, gentle ways and your heart would soar every time he walked into a room. There were days you went without talking, but you could count on some kind of a note to be waiting for you on your door or waiting for you on the control of your jet.

Reminders that he was thinking of you. The way a best friend would. Surely. That’s all it had to be. No sense in constructing something out of nothing. Something that could wreck this perfect routine the two of you had created in one another’s lives.

You peeled the sticky note off the front of your locker to place inside, out of harm's way. Your finger traced each letter. It was likely he and Phoenix were off somewhere with Coyote or Rooster or Hangman doing something far more dangerous than the intelligence patrol you’d been assigned to. As you swung open your locker, you wished you’d had enough sense to write him a letter before he’d left. Something reminding him and Phoenix to be safe, but you hadn’t known he was leaving. You hadn’t even let the thought cross your mind.

“Oh, Bob,” you sighed.

A smile tugs its way onto your face. He’d left a mug in your locker. Not filled with tea this time, but with pens and highlighters and all your favorite stationary to use on your paperwork. You usually had a pencil case with you filled with pens that flowed smoothly and didn’t smudge or highlighters that didn’t bleed through the page.

He must have packed extra in his bag in case you’d forgotten that pencil case, which you had. But that wasn’t the best part. Somehow he’d managed to keep a rose alive and blooming to stick amongst the stationary. For, what it seemed to you, the sole purpose of making you smile.

–

The fourth time you noticed something nice that Bob did for you was at Coyote’s birthday cookout. You were running late. Very late. More late than you’d ever been in your whole life to a point that you would have turned around if you could have, but you had been stuck on a highway without an exit for miles on end. The need to pee had never been stronger.

Stuck in the literal sense. Construction fed into traffic fed into cars stopping for no reason at all fed into fender benders fed into your frustration. “Please just move!” You shouted at the trail of brake lights in front of you. All you had to do was make it to the next exit two miles away.

But no one met your frustrated request. Instead, the standstill continued. You were destined to never arrive at this party. It had been weeks since you’d seen everyone together in one spot. Poker night had been postponed to tomorrow. Bound to be a dismal affair of hangovers and stale chips left out in bowls overnight. A slice of heaven on earth. Though, you would say that for just about anything if it meant being released from a fucking prison of a car.

Your phone went off. The distinct sound of big band music filling your car. Bob’s ringtone.

“Where are you?” His voice came through the other line at the same moment you shouted, “I want to rip my head off!”

An amused chuckle filled your car which only caused you to fume further. “I’m serious, Robert. This two-hour drive has become four- maybe five. I lost count when I had to come to a full and complete stop for the three millionth time today. It would be so much easier if Coyote had a runway in his backyard. Then I could just fly there-”

“Fallbeil,” Bob cut in, “are you almost here?”

“I’m a mile from my exit. I should be there in twenty. If I’m allowed to take my foot off the brake for more than a few seconds.” You let out a loud groan. “I’m going to stop at a gas station because I think my bladder might explode. So expect me in thirty actually-”

Bob laughed and spoke once more, saving you from yet another breathless tangent. “I’m excited to see you.”

You smiled to yourself. Grinning at the stopped cars in front of you like an idiot. “Yeah?”

“Have I ever not been?”

“I’m excited to see you too.” You could envision Bob’s own shy grin. No, you couldn’t hear the sounds of the party going on around him. He had closed himself off alone in a room to talk to you, which would mean the smile would be big and beaming. “Coyote enjoying himself?”

“I think he might have cried when Natasha put on the birthday playlist she made for him.”

“She’s good at that.”

“Good?” Bob laughed. “She’s elite at it.” Then, after a moment of comfortable silence fell over the two of you he said, “Want me to stay on the phone until you show up?”

If it were a normal poker night, you would have jumped on the offer. Phone calls with Bob had become a staple in that routine in one another’s lives. Letters and notes were not nearly enough to tide the two of you over. But today was a special occasion.

“No,” you told him. “I’ll be there soon.” He deserved to go enjoy the party. Not be tied up in a phone call where you were bound to blow your lid if the car in front of you did not speed up.

“Be careful. Drive safe.” The line clicked.

Be careful, you turned the words over in your head wondering what they would sound like punctuated with a kiss every morning when you headed out the door.

You turned down Coyote’s street, knowing exactly what you’d find. Cars taking every spot. Coyote was the most popular out of the crew. Charming personality, willingness to help everyone so much as passing by, and good looks. The combination needed for a party of the century.

And the shouts of excitement that flowed from his backyard told you just that was happening. Without you, and it would continue to go on without you if you couldn’t find an open spot to park. Bob waited at the end of Coyote’s packed driveway, hands stuffed into his jeans. A surprising amount of muscle strained beneath the button up shirt he wore to every part. More cars shoved onto the asphalt and spilled over onto the lawn.

Bob waved, waited patiently for you to park the car in the middle of the street, and then came around to the driver's side of the car. “Hey,” he said as he popped open your door. “How was the drive?”

You shot him a look. One that immediately set that bright, beautiful smile on his face. “Funny.”

“Here, get out.”

“What?”

“Get out. Go inside and say hi.” He leaned over to unbuckle you and the scent of his cologne tickled your nose. “I have a plate of food for you in the oven, on low so it stays warm. There’s one in the fridge too with the cold stuff.”

“Bob-”

“They’re all separated.” He waved you out of the car, grabbing your hand to help, and pressed a kiss to your cheek. “I’m glad you’re here, Fallbeil.”

You saw him again ten minutes later because he had to park two blocks away and walk back.

–

The fifth time you really noticed Bob going out of his way for you was a few months into the two of you moving in together. Solely as roommates, two best friends making the most of a perfect situation. Rent was going up, you had an extra room, and Bob had just gotten hired as an instructor at TOPGUN. The timing couldn’t have been better.

In truth, nothing could be better. The two of you fit perfectly into each other’s lives. Bob with his early habits. Having tea on the table for you alongside the crossword section of the newspaper he insisted on reading every morning. The hardest word always filled in as a starting point. He’d saved you the frustration of straining your mind over a word you couldn’t have dreamed up in the wildest corners of your imagination.

The preference over sticky notes as communication over texts still remained the same. Left on the mirror in your shared bathroom always signed with “be careful” or “take care.” Sometimes there is nothing of importance to say, but Bob would write those two words anyway as a reminder.

You’d leave voicemails if it was something that needed your immediate attention - talking on the phone to Bob became a bright spot in your week. You tried your hardest to leave them only for emergencies but hearing his voice every day had spoiled you. Sometimes your mind would lock on something you would absolutely have to tell him. Then you would find yourself pulling out your phone, typing in his number, and putting it away with a great sigh. You had planes to fly, he had students to teach, and the torture of being apart for a few hours each day made returning home to him all the sweeter. Returning home to movie nights or long walks on the beach or stories of students who remind Bob of each member of the Dagger Crew.

Phoenix would crash often when she got called back to TOPGUN, and Bradley hung around often enough seeing that Mav and Penny had made their lives here. Everyone cycled through at some point. Even Hangman had a welcome place on your couch if he ever needed it.

There was one night Jake had spent the night. Out of the blue and completely inconvenient as was the case with Hangman, but he offered to cook dinner while the two of you were at work and you came home to a good meal and surprisingly good company. What a sight to see the three of you laughing at a small table.

You hadn’t minded Hangman staying over. Though he did scare the shit out of you when he knocked on your door and let himself into your room to talk. “You know he likes you,” he had said, perched on the corner of your bed with that same stupid ass look on his face that meant trouble. “I think he might even be in love with you.”

“Bagman-”

“Hey, I come in here to tell you some life-altering news and you start with insulting me.” Hangman had let out a low whistle. “Think about it, Fallbeil.”

“What if it ruins everything? We’re doing so well.”

“What if it changes everything for the better?”

You hadn’t expected those words to play in your head as often as they did when Hangman finally left. It had been weeks since you’d last seen him. Poker night was tonight. He was hosting, and you had a feeling he was going to corner you with all sorts of questions as to if you’d made a move on Bob yet. A foolish notion. Bob might not be a skittish dog, but making a move on him still might cause spontaneous combustion. You were just trying to figure out which one of you it would be.

What could be the right time to tell your best friend and roommate that you loved him? That you have always wanted to be more?

You thought it over as you wiped sleep from your eyes and made your way into the bathroom. Bob had left earlier than usual this morning. It was a test day for the students and he was nothing if not prepared. Likely that kind, painfully chirpy teacher in the early hours of the day.

There was a sticky note on the mirror. As expected. Longer than usual. Unexpected.

Took your car this morning. Saw you needed an oil change. Be home late, then he can head to Bagman’s. Hope that’s okay. My keys are on the counter. Be safe. Love you.

You traced those last two words with the tip of your finger. It was the first time he’d added those two words.

And they fit so naturally on the note. Like they always belonged there.

–

The one time (the first time) you realized you were going out of your way to do things because you loved Robert Floyd when you went into the mall with a head full of ideas to get for Rooster’s birthday and came out twenty minutes later with one thing. One thing not for Rooster.

A model plane for Bob. Before he’d gotten so overwhelmed with his responsibilities at TOPGUN to cease having many hobbies, he’d built model planes. It’s what had gotten him into a love of planes. At least, that’s what he had told you one night at the Hard Deck, when the two of you were shoved up against one another.

Growing up in a small midwestern farm town didn’t give him many chances growing up to be around planes, but he’d watch the ones that flew over crops with rapt interest. He memorized flight patterns, sat alongside fields, and watched them every chance he got. Then, in the late nights where he only had his imagination to keep him company, Bob built model planes and memorized their histories.

“I’ve always wanted to be around planes.” He had slurred the words a bit back then. One too many sips of beer between handfuls of peanuts. “I kept them around me as much as I could.”

You hadn’t been able to figure out how crop planes became fighter jets in his history, but more stories came out as the two of you moved in together. Dismissive comments about school bullies. Talks about how he knew he wasn’t the strongest, but had always felt the need to prove himself. It seemed to fit into this idea people created of him - always a bit behind the rest. You respected him for sticking to what people told him he couldn’t do and making a name for himself in spite of it all.

And you loved that he trusted you enough to bring you in on those hobbies of his. Building fighter jets in the low light of desk lamps and night lights. Reminding you of the purpose of each piece. Telling the history of each plane. But your favorite part of all was when the two of you would build a jet you were flying and he would include all your statistics, everything you’ve accomplished, and, when you caught him in rare form, things Bob imagined you would do that would etch your name into the very fabric of history.

“Did you get a present for Bradley?” He asked, hearing the click of the door behind you. There was a rag thrown over his shoulder. Bob turned to face you with a smile. In the midst of cooking, glasses slightly fogged from whatever it was he was cooking, and your heart couldn’t take it.

“N-no,” you said, tripping up on your words. “I, um, I forgot.”

“But on the phone you said you couldn’t wait to show me what you got?” He tilted his head, watching as you kicked off your shoes, and placed your shopping bag on the table. “I hope you’re not trying to sign your name onto my gift, Fallbeil. I spent three months finding a vintage record of ‘Great Balls of Fire’ for him.”

You smiled at his thoughtfulness. “No, Robert, I will not steal credit for your gift. He’ll know it’s from you anyway.” You took a deep, shaky breath. “I got something for you instead.”

Bob’s brows scrunched in confusion. “Me, but it’s Bradley’s birthday?”

You pulled the model F-18 from the bag and held it out towards him. Your hands shook slightly. Silly considering the two of you were always going out of your way to do things for each other. Plates and oil changes and parking cars. Small things. Nothing as momentous as a declaration of pure understanding of one another.

He said your name with a softness you’d never heard before. As though he were praying.

“I love you.” You said it at the same time as him. And the words fell so naturally from both your lips. Like they always belonged there.

===

ask and you shall receive (taglist): @whoeverineedtobe @dhwanishah09

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horseshoegirl · 10 days

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Set Me Alight: Part 8 - Salt and The Sea

📜Everyone has been on a Bob kick lately (I think), so this is coming right when it should! Let's see how Grace and Bob feel about all this. Shall we? 👀

‼️ - +18, Minors DNI, Strong Language, Original Female Character (s), Bradley Bradshaw x Natasha Trace, Bob Floyd x Original Female Character (This is all in their perspective), Angst, mentions of bullying, hurt, overheard fights, preventing a panic attack, frustration, and Grace being sad and done with Bullshit.

#4.6k

Part 7 | Masterlist | Part 9

Present Day

Sixteen hours.

That's how long Bob's carefully guarded, carefully constructed walls took to crumble after all these years.

There was an inkling the night before as he settled into his tent, a feeling that knocked once or twice from the inside of his chest. It wasn't there when he woke up this morning or during the trek here to the falls.

But the second Grace raced up behind him, everyone watching Veronica climb out of the water, that feeling returned. It seemed no longer content to sit around and wait for Bob to figure out why it had.

Grace grasped his hand, pulling herself to hide behind his body so she could stifle her giggles into the back of his shoulder. Bob couldn't help the few snorts that shook through his body either. However, he pitied Javy, watching as he tried to console his girlfriend, who was stomping her foot like a three-year-old child over the fact that her makeup had been ruined.

The both of them couldn't say it wasn't an unwelcome sight. They knew what you had done, catching you hooking something onto the loop of Veronica's jeans, knowing it was damn well meant for Jake. Though the pair knew better than to act on it, they imagined themselves holding up a fist to the air, like in the Breakfast Club, silently praising the act of Karma on your behalf.

Maybe even quietly counting tallies next to your name in Bob's traveller's journal.

You needed a win. A big win against one of those two. They weren't going to say shit about it. They only wished, deep down, they could have helped.

But when Bradley took you by the arm, leading you way, another knock, this time harder, thumped in his chest. Another followed it. And another, until that feeling morphed into what Bob could only describe as a white-hot pain, burning every nerve in the pit of his stomach.

Bob knew what was about to happen.

While there hadn't been much to discuss, Bradley had pulled all the guys together after you went to bed last night to discuss his proposal. Standing in that circle, Bob realized it had been more of a pep talk than anything else.

Everyone already had a predetermined role—some part to play in helping Nat get to the right spot. Bob and Grace merely had to act surprised, with the rest of the group save Jake, you, and Rueben, when they eventually emerged from the bush, a shiny new ring hopefully on her finger.

It was a horrible plan, he had thought then. He knew—more so than most—that involving Jake and you in such an event would only result in disaster. He even had said as much to Grace when he turned in for the night, climbing into their shared tent.

Grace merely highlighted Nat's inconsiderate behaviour regarding your feelings, turning her back to him as she settled into her sleeping bag. The action was so absolute, so final, they said nothing else about it the rest of the night.

But laying awake, staring at Grace's back, Bob couldn't help but think about it. Grace was right. With all the shit Jake and you threw at each other since the moment you two met, Nat would have to be completely stupid not to realize just how fucked up it was not to tell you Jake would be coming on this trip.

It wasn't the first time Grace brought it up, either. Bob knew how his girlfriend felt about Nat, you, the entire group, their inability to stand up for you, and their failure to separate themselves from Nat.

He'd be lying if he hadn't felt the same at one point or another.

But Bob knew why everyone didn't, why he didn't, and why, even to some extent, Jake didn't either, even if he was more verbal about it than anyone else.

From behind the scenes, everyone tried to protect you and themselves from a fallout with Natasha. Not the fallout itself but the aftermath. At that point, he had rolled on his back, trying to figure it all out from the safety and privacy of his tent.

But who was he kidding? There was nothing to figure out.

Nat's scandal was an anvil, and her history and behaviour were hanging over every person in the group by a single thread. Even in the years since it happened, since they had all left school and Grace and Cora joined the group, it still had everyone in a chokehold.

And you were oblivious to it all.

Bob wasn't sure when it happened, but it became an unspoken agreement to protect you from that truth. So they were burying it to keep the peace—at least, everyone but Bradley. Bob couldn't say what was happening inside his friend's head, nor would he ask him.

But nobody would go out of their way to upset the group's 'supposed' hierarchy—not when real friendships and relationships, whether made with Nat's influence or not, were at stake.

You had to deal with the brunt of it, and Bob would regret it every day for the rest of his life.

No kind words or assurances could help the cluster of nerves swimming in Bob's stomach when Grace hooked her arm through his. Leading him to a section of the pond free from tourists, she wanted to avoid the temper tantrum Javy and Rueben, to an extent, would have to deal with. Seeing fish in the water earlier and knowing Bob would get a kick out of trying to identify them, she welcomed the distraction.

But as the pair searched through their books to match the first fish they saw, the first shout vibrated through the air, and Bob felt like he was going to hurl.

There was no mistaking it for what it was. Nat was, for lack of a better word, shitting on you and Jake. It was loud. It was scary. And no matter where anyone went, it was impossible to block out the noise.

They stood there, staring down at the words and diagrams in their books, no longer interested in the fish, scared any movement or action would have them on a chopping block. Though her eyes blurred, Grace was sure there were no more fish to look at anyway, for they, too, would have felt the noise vibrate against the water and would have been scared away.

At least they felt like they were able to.

When it finally fell silent, Grace nervously reached for Bob's hand. She led them away from the water through a tiny gap in the bush, deep into the forest. She didn't dare stop, walking blindly for minutes until she saw a little nook encased by a massive tree.

Its branches hung low, as did those of the surrounding trees. Each covered the space in a vibrant green shade, offering a safe place from the events leading up to this moment. A giant, thick tree root rested above the ground, and Grace pulled Bob down as she sat upon it.

Neither one spoke, nervous to say anything. Birds, the wind and bugs filled this space instead. It could have been hours, though Grace started to play with Bob's fingers only minutes later. He let her slide her fingertips over his skin and grasp around each finger until she smoothly threaded each together. Over and over, she did this, never once altering her pattern or rhythm.

Grace was trying to ground herself. And for Bob, it made everything that much worse.

It had been sixteen hours to the dot since that first knock in his chest. And while Bob had admitted last night and perhaps now that the trip, the excuses, the group dynamic, Nat's behaviour—was hopelessly warped—the truth was he had known for days, months, maybe even years.

He'd simply shoved it all deep down under lock and key, partly for selfish reasons. Sixteen hours was merely all the time it took for that lock to break and for everything to come rushing back to the surface. Because while the person he loved was hurting on behalf of someone else, it was too silent in this forest, even at this distance.

It was the lack of you and Jake tearing each other apart.

"I think something happened to Jake and Maeve," Bob said in a rough voice, finally finding the courage to speak.

Grace's hands froze, not moving an inch. She lifted her head, eyebrows knitting together. Bob didn't meet her gaze, too nervous to look away from their joined hands.

"It's too quiet," he offered softly. "Especially after that."

Grace also dropped her eyes to their hands, biting the inside of her cheek hard. "She'd be tearing into him right now. Forget Nat. Maeve would clear out the whole damn park with a single shout."

Bob nodded absentmindedly, turning his hand to mock Grace's earlier pattern, a silent gesture to let her know he had been paying attention.

"Or she'd be running off to apologize to Nat, and Jake would be seeking us out, tail between his legs."

"Nat should be the one apologizing to her."

Grace's statement was so blunt and sharp that Bob feathered his jaw. And something in that quick movement made a thread in Grace's gentle heart snap.

She tore her hand from Bob's grip and shuffled away from him further down the log. She swallowed hard, refusing to turn back and look at him as she fiddled with a ring on her finger. When Bob went to follow, naturally reaching for her like it was second nature, she shuffled again.

"No," she mumbled lowly, shying away from his touch. Bob frowned, sliding closer once again, softly calling her name. But Grace only pushed herself up from the log, her fists balled and clenched tight. "No!"

She stomped forward a few steps, not wanting to leave the found safety of their little nook. Threading her fingers through her hair, she paced back and forth, trying to count her breath.

"Grace..."

She spun wildly, her eyes narrowing, her lips pressing into a thin line, and her jaw clenching. "Don't 'Grace' me," she gritted out behind her teeth.

Bob dropped his forehead into the palm of his hand, his elbow digging hard into his knee. "Don't..."

"Don't what, exactly?" she seethed. "Don't talk about 'it'?

Bob dug his nails into the denim of his jeans - enough to feel a pinch through the fabric on his thigh.

The laugh Grace let out was bitter, morphing into a harsh shout. "Come on, Bob! Cora and I might have been the last ones to join whatever fucked up friend group this is, but Nat couldn't give two shits about Maeve! And it's this unspoken thing nobody talks about. Why?!"

"Grace..."

"Don't!" she snapped, stomping her foot, making clumps of dirt fly out in all directions. "I don't care about some fucked up unspoken agreement! I care about Maeve! Don't tell me you don't, Robert?!"

Bob finally lifted his head, though he focused on the way they came, not once meeting his girlfriend's angry stare.

"Bob, so help me... If you say no..."

"You know I do!" he rushed out, shaking his head.

"Then why don't you fucking say something?!" she cried out. "Why doesn't anyone say something?! She's suffering, and nobody does anything!"

She didn't even know she was crying hot, angry tears until she felt one fall off her cheek, a slight cool breeze marking a path on her skin.

"I wanted to. I wanted to, so badly, the first time I noticed it. And you told me not to."

Bob did, and he always wondered if Grace resented him for it.

She sighed, wiping the tears from her face. She paced back and forth a little bit, trying to calm herself down. Because Bob didn't deserve her anger, it was unfair of her to even yell at him in the first place.

Instead, she walked up to the tree, pressing her forehead into the bark, once again trying to count her inhales and exhales.

"When Bradley told me about Nat when he was going to school, I thought she was just a phase. Whenever he called to talk to Dad, I just sat back and wondered. I wondered how long it would take and what the reason behind the break between those two would be."

Grace lifted her head, fixing her eyes on a ladybug climbing the trunk. "You could imagine my surprise when he brought her home for spring break."

She placed her hand on the wood, twisting back to look at her boyfriend. "I never told you this, but I didn't like her the second I met her."

Bob lifted his head to meet her gaze. "Why..?"

"Because she thought I was a threat. That I harboured a crush on Bradley, and I would steal him from her," she shrugged.

Bob's eyes shot up his skull. "... I mean, you two grew up together... did you... ever?"

Grace audibly gagged, adding a few choking noises for a dramatic effect. "He's like my brother, Bob. What the hell?"

He held his hands up in surrender. "I had to ask."

Grace didn't address the remark when she continued, "She treated me horribly that entire week. She sweet-talked my dad and only was nice to me when he was around. Thank God he saw right through her. The second he left, he said that Carole, Bradley's mom, wouldn't have approved. I agreed."

With a narrowed forehead, Bob's mouth gaped open, bobbing like a fish. "Wait... then why did she..."

"Why did she suddenly start inviting me to stuff? It's cause I was dating you. I was no longer a threat. And she acted like she had never done what she did in the first place."

While Bob might have met Grace through work, he was surprised to learn she had grown up with Bradley. How she acted around Bradley, bore no resemblance to a long-lasting, familiar childhood friendship. However, the longer he thought about it, the more it made sense—her closed-off and quiet nature when she was around them.

That the first time they saw each other again, all Bradley could manage was a slight nod.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Grace only offered causally, "You'd be surprised at all the stuff that doesn't require your input. Sometimes you gotta leave people to do the lame shit they do and watch them fuck it up on their own."

A ball formed in her throat. "But Maeve... when I met Maeve and saw what was happening, my heart broke. And she is the only exception to what I just said."

Bob knew what was coming next. Like a coward, he braced himself hard.

"You told me not to say anything when I first brought it up. But now? I can't keep doing it. Not after what she just did to them. Not after that."

"Grace... Don't..."

"Maeve is drowning, Bob! Drowning!" she shouted angrily, startling a nearby bird on a branch. "And I can't stand it any longer. We need to find her, grab her, and take her home. Take her away from all this. From Nat, from those two bitches... God, if they gaslight anything else, they could practically set the whole fucking forest on fire."

"You don't believe in swearing, Grace," he deadpanned.

"Maybe I do now!" she cried. "I feel guilty. Guilty Bob! Cause I bit my lip like a good girl when Nat just what? Uses her? Ignores her? Disregard her feelings? Like hell, why didn't she try harder to figure the fuck out why Jake and Meave are at each other's throats?! Or how those two bully the fuck out of her?"

"Maeve wouldn't tell us about Jake when we asked."

"And you don't find it strange she wouldn't?" she challenged him. "Out of everyone in the group, she didn't tell a soul. Why? Why didn't she? Why wouldn't she?!"

Grace's heart was hurting, and she knew Bob truly knew why. He had been around them longer than she had, so there must have been a reason he told her not to. There had to be.

"At first, I thought it was something everyone accepted, you know? That everyone was trying to figure out what had happened between her and Jake. I thought tensions were high because of that.

She blew out a shaky breath, Bob not once interrupting her.

"Maybe it was a fucking game they were playing with each other until they finally worked up the courage to admit they like each other enough to get into each other's pants. Cause whatever the cause, Maeve wouldn't be so goddamn hurt if she didn't care!"

Bob closed his eyes, a huff of a laugh escaping his mouth.

"But last to join the group, right? You have to be quiet. Read the room. Get a sense of how to act and what you can say. Cause learning to fit in with new people, you have to pick up these things. The best way to get along with everyone else. Like how Maeve runs the second Jake walks into the room? How she avoids conversations about him if she can help it?"

Grace blew a raspberry out of pure frustration. "Jake was never the real issue, though. Everyone just made it out to be. Everyone should have noticed how Maeve bit her tongue as Nat walked over her opinions. How Nat derails conversations, not just where Maeve is concerned, but practically with everyone to make it about her."

Grace laughed, shaking her head. "She got the brunt of all of it, and we just... watched."

Grace finally approached Bob, standing before him, though he didn't lift his head from where it hung low on his shoulders. Had he chosen to look up, he would have noticed how the sun finally peeked through the leaves, beams of light breaking the shade, leaving Grace in their spotlight.

"I meant, she invites us all on this trip so we can watch her get proposed to? And she doesn't bother to tell her that Jake is coming along, too? I mean... how selfish can she get?!"

"Grace, this isn't going to solve..."

"WHAT ELSE CAN I DO?!" she yelled, throwing her hands at the sky. "That ship left the fucking dock ages ago."

Bob's eyes fixed on a leaf stuck under a fallen branch at her words. Grace knew from that reaction alone that she had resonated with something within his kind, caring soul.

"I just... can't... I can't anymore, Bob. If I'm the first to take the leap and break up this group, then good fucking riddance. It needs to be done so we all can get some peace."

She slid to her knees in the dirt in front of him, her hands resting firmly on the sides of his thighs.

"How many years have Nat and Maeve known each other, and not once did Nat realize how hard her supposed best friend had been falling? How could she not recognize that, Bob? And how could she continue to force Jake and Maeve together when Maeve just wanted to escape?"

She reached forward to cup his cheek, guiding his gaze to meet hers. While silent rage resonated within them, Bob knew it wasn't meant for him.

"Why did you tell me to be quiet that first time I brought this up? Why do you still tell me, too?"

Bob gulped, forcing his eyes away. Grace stroked her thumb under his eye, encouraging him on. "I don't know what happened, baby, but I don't think it will be all sunshine and rainbows when we return to the group. Not this time. Just tell me, please."

Bob blew out a shakey breath and shook his head. "Because I wanted you to stay."

"Stay?"

He had contemplated all the reasons, stacking them up brick by brick last night, refusing to acknowledge the leverage Natasha could have used against him. But Bob had damned himself with that one word.

Stay—He wanted Grace to stay. Because if he brought this up, if he told her, there was a chance she wouldn't—at least, there was a possibility.

He lifted his chin, staring into her eyes.

Nat's so-called leverage was kneeling in front of him, begging him to tell her the truth. Her eyes were desperate, so much so that Bob knew he was possibly damned if he did and undoubtedly damned if he did not. Grace had chosen her path, and he would steadfastly follow her wherever she decided to go.

There was no ever questioning that.

Bob reached for her sides, pulling Grace close between his spread legs. She let him, hands landing softly on his biceps before they slid down to his forearms. Bob traded his grip on her jacket to hold her hands, only to trace the same pattern she had a few minutes before.

He braced himself and took several sharp breaths before asking, "Did anyone ever tell you about Natasha's so-called scandal? Back in school?"

Grace cocked an eyebrow. "Only what Maeve's told me. Bradley and I weren't on speaking terms, and he'd never tell Dad if she had one. Though, Maeve didn't even know the complete story."

She let Bob turn her hand over and trace the lines on the palm of her hand. "But she shut me down hard after that. Saying Nat worked to put it behind her and move on, so we all should, too."

Bob scoffed. "Always protecting her."

"Bob?"

Bob hesitated, his gaze flickering away from Grace's expectant eyes. He swallowed hard, the reluctance clear in his tight jaw. Then he closed his eyes, leaning over to whisper in her ear, his voice cautious but a whisper.

Grace's eyes widened, and a gasp slipped through her parted lips at his words. She could hardly breathe as he told her the story. And when he was finished, she tilted so far back on her heels in shock that she almost fell onto her butt.

"Bob! What the hell? After everything I just told you?!"

Bob still hadn't opened his eyes, his head hung low in shame.

"I would have never left you over that! Over complete and utter bullshit? Who do you think I'd believe more? Her or my boyfriend?"

"I didn't know. I didn't want to risk losing you."

"You listen here, Bob Floyd," Grace urged, grabbing his face with both hands and forcing him to look at her. "I'm in a relationship with you. I love you. I would have never believed her if she had done that to us."

He kissed the inside of Grace's wrist, a deep weight lifting off his chest.

"God, I want to throttle her."

"I think that's why everyone doesn't call her out. Cause they don't want it to happen to them. Or at least, deep down, I never did 'cause I didn't want Maeve or Bradley to be alone with..."

Grace nodded, letting Bob know he did not need to continue explaining.

"We should try to find her, Bob. Let her know we love her and that we'd follow her. I have no idea if anyone else would besides Mickey and Cora. Hell, I'd even offer to leave with her and get drunk on her Aunt's apple cider 'cause this whole damn trip was a bad idea."

Bob huffed a sad laugh. "It is apple picking season. I bet she'd love it if we went with her."

Grace snorted. "You just want free apples so I can make my apple crisp."

With the tension from before gone and the weight of Bob's chest finally disappearing with his confession, he joked comedically, "Ssshh, don't jinx it."

Grace rolled her eyes, letting the moment pass before offering quietly, "Where do you think she is? Maeve?"

Bob regarded her for a moment before letting out a long sigh. "Considering the lack of voices, Maeve's probably tried to separate herself. Or she made a rash decision and decided to leave alone."

Grace gasped. "What about Jake?"

"Jake ... I bet 50 bucks Jake ran after her regardless."

Her face contorted into one of disgust. "What? Why? Can he not leave her alone for once in his life?"

Bob stood, wiping his hands on his jeans, before extending a hand to Grace. She took it without another word and allowed him to guide her up and off the tree. He revealed yet another truth as he helped her step over the massive root.

"Remember when I went with Bradley and Jake before Maeve hurt her wrist? Jake wanted to show us a fishing spot...?"

Grace winced. When Bob told her what happened, she instantly regretted not being out there with you. Hold up in her tent, she had been working on plans for a museum exhibit. Even if she had to do a little work, she could have at least done it in the company of a friend.

"I found out Bradley's been trying to coach Jake into mending things with Maeve. We might have been giving him some... advice."

Grace froze with her two feet atop the curved piece of wood.

"What!!?" she shrieked, making Bob wince. "Please tell me you weren't the one who encouraged him to keep up the prank thing. Bob, if you told him to scream 'there's a Bear..'."

"It wasn't me! Nor was it Bradley! We just told him to try to talk to her without anyone around. Cause things seem to go to shit when everyone else is there. He just needed to incite her to stay. Make her laugh. Talk to her like a human being!"

"Men," she scoffed, jumping down off the root. "Never go to a group of idiots to do a woman's job."

Bob froze, eyeing her carefully. "Are you calling me an idiot?"

Grace smiled, reaching up to stroke across his cheek. She kissed his lips with a quick peck and leaned back. "Hmm... my idiot, though."

She took several steps back towards the falls when she called out over her shoulder to a befuddled Bob. "You realize if we locked them in a room or trapped them in an elevator, with nobody else around, they'd probably figure it out?"

"How so?" he called back, finally following her.

"Jake obviously wants to fix it. Maeve runs. All you need to do is stop her from running. She'll give in if you provoke her enough, which Jake already does."

Bob paused, reflecting for a moment. "He doesn't think when it comes to her, does he?"

"Does she?"

When they emerged from the bush, Bob and Grace ran to the first person they saw, hoping at least someone saw either you or Jake. Nobody had. Not until a few minutes later did a couple mention seeing someone bearing your resemblance climbing the waterfall. They also mentioned seeing someone who looked like Nat go up, but she had already come back down.

Grace stared at them in horror. "I'll go get Mickey and Cora," she rushed out quickly, leaving Bob alone to start the trek up the rocky slope. As he did, a million thoughts crossed his mind.

Finding you and Jake tearing each other apart, hoping Mickey and Cora's skills weren't needed. Or the more stupidly optimistic thought - either of you was trying to find a few moments of peace.

As if.

Or perhaps it was none of those things. Maybe what awaited him above was something far worse than he could ever fathom.

But when he reached the top of the falls, neither you nor Jake were there, and Bob didn't spare the effort to take in the view. Instead, he searched the ground, kneeling when he spied several tracks in the mud.

Two sets, both inherently female, were marked along the river bank in the mud. Bob's eyes followed them until he saw a separate path of them walking back. Then he noticed another pair of tracks, the boot tread clearly belonging to a man. They followed one of the other tracks, veering quickly off into the bushes. They were noticeably disturbed, leaves and branches bent unnaturally, and the longer he followed the underbrush and mud, the more he understood what happened to the two of you.

Bob set off, knowing just exactly where he needed to go.

Can I just say I love Bob and Grace?

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filmtv2022 · 1 year

Text

All Series/Works Masterlist:

I'm going to compile my series masterlists & any standalone pieces that I write in this post (at least for now). The look of the list will change as I write more. Happy reading!

Please assume that ALL works are 18+

All reader pairings are written as female readers unless otherwise stated in the description

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(Series) To The Bitter End: Doc Holliday x Earp!reader (completed)

15 Chapters (word count - approx. 47k)

Story Summary: The youngest Earp sibling joins her older brothers in Tombstone with the hope that the new climate will ease her consumption/tuberculosis symptoms and reconnect her family. But as she settles into this new life, will she find something worth living for? Someone who can tame the loneliness? --------------------------------------------- (Series) By Your Side: Rhett Abbott x reader (completed)

23 Chapters (word count - 115k)

Story Description: Returning to Wabang was never something that Y/N had planned on, but with the loss of her father leaving her the sole owner of her family’s farm she must go back. Time spent at home forces Y/N to face the people she left behind. Will Y/N be able to navigate the murky waters of her past and present as the lines between them blur?

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(One-shot) One More Ride: Rhett Abbot x Reader

(18+ MDNI) Rhett & Y/N spend their last night in Wabang together. Pushing away the weight of the world by falling into one another's arms.

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(One-shot) When does it stop?: Jake Seresin x original character (reference to Bradley Bradshaw x original character)

Word Count - 397

Based on the thought of what would have happened if Bradley had been married before the Uranium mission, and Jake had been unable to save him and Maverick.

________________________________ (One-shot) Coming Home: Mickey ‘Fanboy’ Garcia x Reader

Word Count - approx. 5k

Story Summary: Mickey and Y/N are visiting Y/N’s hometown while away on leave. Shockingly, the pair find themselves invited to her childhood friend’s Halloween gathering. This might sound like a dream, but it’s been four years since Y/N’s had any real contact with her friend, but with a little encouragement she decided to face her fears and go. While Y/N expects awkwardness to ensue, she certainly never expected to catch a raging case of baby fever.

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(One-shot) Summer Haze: Robert 'bob' Floyd x Reader

Word Count: approx. 3k

Story Summary: After years of dancing around their feelings for one another, Y/N and Bob find their way back to one another at a community potluck.

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(Mini-series - Completed)

Together: Jake 'Hangman" Seresin x Reader

Together Part 2: Jake "Hangman" Seresin x Reader

Together Part 3: Jake 'hangman' Seresin x Reader

Word Count: approx. 6k

Story Summary: Y/N and Jake have been friends since their time at the Naval Academy. The two of them acting as each others’ refuge during every up and down. But when a death in the family rocks Y/N’s foundation the two are forced to acknowledge the reality that their feelings for one another go far beyond just a friendship.

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(Series) Moving Foward Masterlist

Y/N Kazansky is many things. A loyal daughter, a world-class fighter pilot, and a fierce protector of those she holds most dear. But beyond the shiny exterior is a wounded woman looking to find her way back to the life she'd known and loved. When a mission brings her back to Top Gun, she is forced to confront the sins of her past while focusing on the uncertain future falling into place in front of her.

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(Series) (In the Bleak Midwinter)

Left with the dying wish of her husband, Y/N finds herself in Birmingham in search of one Thomas Shelby. Old wounds for both will be brought to light as the pair finds a way to heal from the hurt of the past together.

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(One-shot) Every Part of You - Aziraphale x Reader

(One-shot) Ineffable Agony - Aziraphale x Reader x Crowley (gender neutral reader)

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roosterbruiser · 1 year

Text

𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬𝐥𝐢𝐝𝐞 ☾☽ 𝐂𝐡. 𝐗𝐈𝐈

☾☽ 𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐥𝐞𝐲 "𝐑𝐨𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫" 𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐰 𝐱 𝐅𝐚𝐲𝐞 "𝐂𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫" 𝐋𝐞𝐝𝐠𝐞𝐫

☾☽ 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: It’s been almost three years since the accident that took half of her, and Faye “Clover” Ledger seems fine, really. She loves her old house, she has a perpetually expanding vinyl collection, she’s got a job she likes on base, and she is only a short drive from the beach. She’s grounded--literally. Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw feels like he’s been homesick his entire life. He’s always on the move; jumping from one squadron to another, living one mission to the next. Somewhere in between losing both his parents and carving a successful career as a Naval aviator, he’s never found himself a home. When a call to serve on a high-priority mission with an elite squadron brings Rooster back to Miramar, he finds that home. Except it’s not a house that he finds--it’s the former backseater that observes and records the mission for the Official Navy Record.

☾☽ 𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬𝐥𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

☾☽ 𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐛𝐫𝐮𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐫'𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

☾☽ 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐯𝐞 𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐲 𝟐𝟗𝐭𝐡, 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟗

The morning feels short. From the moment Rooster and I are awake we are helping each other: kissing each other’s closed lips and pulling the other out of bed, brushing out teeth at the same time but taking turns spitting into the basin.

I dress myself in the dark, slipping into a cold pair of slacks and a cotton shirt that will hardly touch my skin--it’s supposed to be a scorcher today. And I leave Rooster in the bedroom, belting his pants, to start the coffee maker. It all feels very routine, very easy.

He pours the coffee and I feed Stevie. The house was very dark, very quiet.

In the foyer, as I am slipping into my block-heeled mules, Rooster leans against the doorway and watches me. His eyes are gleaming in the morning light, which is only just bright enough for us to see each other. His mouth is pink and clean and smooth.

“What?” I whisper to him.

He exhales softly--his cotton tee ripples with his breath. He pulls his eyebrows together as he watches me, shaking his head just slightly.

“I’m still sorry,” he says and his voice is not shy and quiet--it is clear and steady, “that I froze. That I didn’t know what to do.”

He says this like I haven’t already forgiven every single bit of him--like we didn’t sleep in the same bed last night, like he didn’t wake me up by pressing kisses against my throat and slamming his hand down on my alarm. He says this like we did not shower together last night, holding each other under a stream of boiling water. He says this like he hasn’t already said it before.

“Bob handled it,” I say, just as clear and steady, except I’m smiling just slightly.

His eyes fall from mine to the middle of my chest. He stares there for a long moment, still just slightly shaking his head, his eyes untrained.

“You would’ve said something if it was me he was pounding into,” he says, pulling his arms to cross over his chest.

I think of when Hangman brought up Goose--when they almost fought, when Hangman stalked out like a tomcat and had the audacity to wink at me. But I say nothing to Rooster. He is still staring at my chest, right where my heart is beating, when I cross the small space between us. Tenderly, I put my hands on his cheeks and hold him for a moment. I savor it--savor his warmth beneath me.

“C’mon,” I whisper, smiling, “it’s take-your-girlfriend-to-work day. Can’t be late.”

And then he brings his eyes to mine and a smile is dominating his face, eating his pretty pink mouth. I smooth my thumbs over his mustache and grow woozy just feeling it under the pads of my fingers.

“Girlfriend, huh?”

I bite my lip, nodding, pretending like my heart isn’t about to fall out of my body.

“Maybe,” I say, still smiling, “unless you’ve had a change of heart--ow!”

He releases the skin of my hip from between his two fingers and now we’re both laughing, my mouth held open in mock-astoundment. He smooths his hand over my hip where he pinched even though he didn’t truly hurt me, would never, could never.

My heart pulses because we have these things between us that are only ours. He pinches when I tease, I kiss his palms when he’s sweet, he smoothes the crease between my brows when I’m thinking too hard, and I take little pieces of his anger when his arms are full. Yes, these are only ours, him and mine. It makes my chest ache with want to be able to share these things with someone again, these small little actions that feel so minute and so gargantuan at the same time.

“Kiss me, baby,” he says, crooning.

And when we do kiss, he holds my body close to his, presses every one of my hills against every one of his valleys. I am throbbing entirely, tangling my hands in the ungelled parts of his hair, pouring every ounce of affection into his mouth and out of mine.

When he pulls back, still pressed tightly against me, he looks down at me with that silly loved-up expression that makes my knees weak. He pushes my hair behind my ears, kisses both of my temples.

“Ohhh,” he sighs, still crooning just a little bit in that knucklehead way, “that feels good.”

It makes my chest tingle. Even in the darkness, even that early in the morning, he is so hauntingly beautiful. He was like a statue, standing tall and proud and broad, right here in my entryway. Something that could hold my coat at the end of a long day, but also something I want to see every time I come in and out of that door.

“That might’ve been a dealbreaker for me--hey!”

Then he’s all over me, pinching my hips and grabbing my arms and kissing my face. It’s good--just thoroughly, intrinsically good. We could stay right here and be good forever.

The rising sun is lemon yellow, feeble and pale, against the cornflower-blue sky. It is a cloudless day and I sit in the middle of the bench on our first drive to work together, in the same car.

And when we walk into the building together, our skin goosing under the fluorescents because of the frigid air conditioning, we have one more moment of aloneness before the building becomes crowded. I am holding the leather strap on my shoulder, biting a grin, and he has his hands on his hips. It is the moment right before I go left and he goes right.

“See you in there,” I smile.

He nods. I know he wants to kiss me again.

“Looking forward to it,” he returns, pretending to be all sorts of casual, his jaw flexed, his eyes fixed on mine, “Lieutenant Ledger.”

It is quiet when I walk into the lounge after lunch. The country radio station Hangman always tunes into is playing very lowly on the portable radio beside him, on the couch where he’s lounging. It’s playing so lowly that I can’t even make out what song is on, even as I set my bag down on one of the counters. The oscillating fan is on and whirring discreetly in the corner, sending sporadic wafts of cool air around the stuffy room. The sun is pouring in, golden as ever before, shimmering against the bleached tiles.

My heels are the loudest sound in the room--maybe even the entire hallway.

Hangman glances up through his lashes at first--and I know it’s because he wants to make sure whoever just came in is worth turning his face for--then turns slightly on the couch to behold me unloading my bag. His face is still one of the most handsome ones I’ve ever seen--smooth and tan, but with just enough fine lines to make him seem real. His lip, though--his lip is swollen slightly and bruised the color of a pale plum. It’s scabbed over by now, just a line of red where his lip broke.

Bob really got him good. It makes me want to hug Bob, look at his knuckles again. I’m still in mild disbelief that Bob even knew how to hold his fist, let alone the fact that he sprang into the action so suddenly and completely. Maggie would’ve bought him a beer for what he did to Hangman’s pretty mouth.

“Clover,” Hangman nods and for once, his voice isn’t dripping with that melodramatic gallant tone.

He sounds, at least I think, normal.

“Lieutenant,” I greet.

It’s the first time I’ve spoken to him since the bonfire, since he said what he said and did what he did. My voice sounds firm, but not unfriendly.

“No ‘Bagman’?” he asks softly before he sighs, “can’t tell if that’s better or worse.”

Everyone is calling him Bagman again--and they’re not being subtle about it. Politely, I give a single dry chuckle. Just one hah. Just one forceful exhale through my nose. He doesn’t turn away from me, even when I look back to the desk, setting my pens and highlighters beside my dictionary.

His messages--I still haven’t responded to any of them. After the initial text, the one Rooster read with a sneer, only one more was sent. He didn’t try to call again and leave a voicemail, no, no. Just one more five-word message.

Do you hate me now?

It was sent after Rooster and I had already showered and gone to bed, when we were already sleeping together, when I was praising a higher power for the hunk of man drooling into my naked neck and being lulled to sleep by his loud, heavy breathing.

This is to say that it was sent late--too late for someone who has to be on base as early as he does. I imagine that maybe he laid awake and replayed the sequence in his head. Maybe he keeps having nightmares about it. Maybe he keeps thinking back to just one thing, one small part of it. Maybe the small part he incessantly thinks about is the blistering, inadvertent tears on my face when I staunched his wound. Maybe it’s my silence that he thinks about, the way I stared at him doe-eyed and slack-jawed as he mouthed off to me. Maybe, and I think this is the most likely scenario, he keeps finding himself awake thinking about the one moment we shared just before he did what he did; when he didn’t draw attention to me, when there was a secret between us, when he was just watching me and I was just watching him.

Or maybe his ego is so inflated that he just can’t stand to be hated by anyone. This, though--this feels less likely.

I know his shoulders are stiff now--I know he’s tense. I wish that I could just turn around and tell him to move on--that there are more important things to focus on other than the shitty things he said to me. It’s true, at least partly. When I think about what he said, or how he looked at me, it makes my throat tighten and alarm bells cry inside my skull. When I think about the pile of empty cans at his feet or the way he leaned forward to come close to me or the way he bit his words at me before I pressed cotton to his lips--it makes me want to draw into myself.

I am still somehow embarrassed by what he did, what he said.

“Everyone thinks Hangman’s the asshole,” Bob had told me during our lunch break, “so don’t fret.”

I was eating an apple then, sitting with him in the cafeteria at a table in the corner. We were sitting by ourselves, both of us propping our feet in empty chairs. I was strategically eating half of the apple in hopes he would grade me a granola bar.

I nodded.

It was so like Bob to find that out, perusing conversations stealthily until he attained the general consensus. It was so like Bob to synthesize the information with his own free will and then relay it to me like it was his genuine job.

“Doesn’t everyone always think he’s the asshole?”

Bob, who was finishing his salad, pushed his glasses back up his nose as he eyed me. He chewed for a long moment, narrowing his eyes. Then he pointed his fork at me, swallowing hard.

“Are you implying that my internal investigation is ineffective, Faye?”

He’d been nothing short of perfect since the bonfire--validating me but not condescending me. Now he was back to calling me everything else besides Fee--which meant whatever pity he felt for me was dissipating. He was stepping down from his position as surrogate sibling, at least in one small way. He was back to teasing me, chiding with me.

It made me heave a breath I didn’t even know I was holding.

Even with my back turned, I know Hangman’s eyes haven’t left my form. I know he’s still watching me. And I can feel it, sense it, when he opens his mouth to say something to me--can feel that little intake of breath and the muscles in his face working to speak.

“Listen, I--!”

That’s when Rooster walks into the room, just as I turn to look at Hangman over my shoulder, at his bobbing Adam’s apple and sweat-spackled forehead. If Rooster heard anything Hangman said when he was walking into the room, he doesn’t show it.

He’s smiling as soon as he sees me, but in a smaller way now than yesterday. I know the mission is weighing heavy on him, especially today when they are relentlessly running the fruitless simulation. His shoulders are pulled together tightly, just like Hangman’s, but his eyes are soft when he looks at me.

“Hey, you,” I say softly, smiling, letting my hand rest on the table.

His smile broadens a hair, just a hair. I think he is just about to reach out for me, just about to push my hair behind my ear or lay his hand over my own, when he suddenly realizes Hangman is in the room.

I watch it--watch his eyes dart between Hangman and myself, watch the way his smile begins to falter. But then he’s looking at me again.

“Hey yourself, Ledger,” he sighs, “who’s up?”

“Blue team,” Hangman says before I can, “Coyote, Phoenix, Bob.”

Rooster just nods, not breaking his eyes from mine. Still, I know, Hangman is looking at me, my back turned to him. It makes my throat burn.

When Rooster is this close to me, I can see the sweat in his pretty hair from where his helmet was secured on his head. I can see how red his cheeks are, how bitten his lips seem. He’s stressed. No doubt about it. It makes me want to kiss his face all over, makes me want to serve him dinner in bed, makes me want to wrap my lips around him.

“Coffee?” Rooster asks.

He’s close to me now, close enough that I can feel the naked skin of his arms against mine, close enough that my fingertips are tingling and my lungs are shivering and my knees are weakening. I want to touch him always--but especially when we are this close.

“Yes,” I tell him, my voice thin, “please.”

“I take mine regular,” Hangman calls, smirking.

Rooster pretends not to hear him, doesn’t even glance in Hangman’s direction.

He winks at me, flirty and sweet, and lets our arms graze as he walks past me. He doesn’t have to ask me how I take my coffee, doesn’t have to ask how much I want. He throws one more glance at me before he enters the hallway again and I smile my prettiest smile.

“What were you saying,” I immediately ask once Rooster’s form has disappeared, “before?”

I don’t even turn around. I don’t know if I can look at him when he’s being sincere. So I make my hands busy with papers and pens and clips and sticky notes, pretend like I can’t feel the intensity of his gaze.

“I know I’m a dick,” he says, “and I know I’m especially a dick when I drink too much, which I did.”

He sounds genuinely awkward for the first time, his smooth voice suddenly jagged as he navigates pauses and stammers. I still can’t get myself to turn around.

“I went…too far. I know I hurt your feelings,” he sighs.

I nod.

“Humiliated me,” I add and my tone is just as thin as before.

He inhales sharply and I think if I was watching him, he would be nodding, his eyes untrained as he stared down at the floor.

“For what it’s worth,” he adds quietly, softly, “I am sorry.”

I am sorry.

It almost knocks me off my feet. Hangman is the kind of guy no one has to know very long before they immediately understand that he isn’t a “sorry” kind of guy. It stuns me into complete silence.

The silence between us swallows him and I let it, try to look busy still, try to look like I’m organizing my things and preparing my setup, preparing to listen to the comms, re-engaging after our lunch break. But I can’t get myself to move.

“I take it you probably don’t like me very much now,” he adds.

I know then and there that he also isn’t someone who can sit in silence. He squirms in it--it makes him crazy.

“I never said that,” I say quickly, finally turning so he can see my cheek.

Maybe I mean it, too. Maybe I just can’t help it. Maybe it’s because the man that danced with me at The Hard Deck, the one who was so cocky and sure of himself but still sweet with me, is still inside him somewhere. Maybe it’s because I knew even at the bonfire that he had drank too much--everyone did. Maybe it’s because I want to be punished for what I did and he was my unknowing, unlikely punisher. Or maybe he’s just too pretty to not like.

He’s just looking at me, his face somehow both anguished and soft. His brows are pulled together and his lips are tightly pressed against another in a straight line. His forehead is lined with worry and so are the crinkled beside his eyes, but his gaze is soft now.

Maybe he wants to say more. His jaw flexes, he inhales through his nose deeply, but then Rooster walks back into the room with two paper cups of coffee, beaming at me.

“Thanks,” I say, taking the steaming cup into my palms.

The heat burns intensely through the paper material--and in some ways, it brings me back to where I am right now: I am at work, in the lounge, and I have a job to complete.

Rooster is searching my face and just his eyes on me make me want to melt into the tiles. I want to lean forward and kiss him on his pretty mouth, on his perfect lips. But I just smile at him, biting my lip. Then I settle into the chair and pick up a pen.

Hangman abruptly turns his portable radio off--a louder quietness fills the lounge. I can feel Rooster and him looking at each other, can hear the rustling of Hangman standing up and readjusting his uniform. Before I can even take the cap off my pen, before I can really blur them out and listen in on the comms, Rooster falls in place beside me with his cup of sugary coffee and Hangman falls into place a few seats away from me with his hands folded.

The tension is palpable. Neither men are willing to speak first.

But I am at work--it would be silly for me to engage in whatever conversation is necessary between the pilots.

“Could you turn the comm up?” Hangman asks.

His voice is still that same soft voice from before--the one that seems achingly normal.

Without looking between the two of them, I turn the dial on the radio and begin transcribing. Their eyes are burning holes into both sides of my face--both my cheeks are flushed and I can feel the blood spreading to my neck and chest.

“Is it hot in here?” Hangman asks.

I say nothing--wish the world would gobble me up.

☾ ☽

There is a water spot on the drop ceiling, brown and big and ugly.

I am sitting here in the waiting room of the closest hospital to base and I know that it is warm in here. I know that it is crowded with crying babies and crying mothers and whining children and bleeding men and pregnant teenagers. I know that the lights above me are bright white but feel like they’re neon. I know that the air conditioning isn’t working and that the staff is overworked and underpaid. I know that outside the sun is beginning to sink.

But I can’t get myself to move--can’t adjust, can’t blink, can hardly breathe. And I can’t look away from the ugly, stupid water spot on the ceiling.

Vaguely, I’m aware that Hangman is on one side of me and Rooster is on the other. I know, I think I know, that they are both standing instead of sitting because they gave their seats to an elderly woman and a pregnant woman respectively.

We listened to the bird strike--the three of us. We all listened to Bob and Phoenix burn in, listened to Maverick direct them to eject. Listened to their voices scream through the comms.

“We’re going down, Phoenix! We’re going in! We’re going in!”

I don’t know how I did it, but I did not panic at first. I trailed behind Rooster and Hangman as they hurried to Hondo. I think my ears rang from the moment I heard the calls for ejection. And when Rooster and Hangman started for the parking lot, I was right behind them, my vision tunneling.

Yes, yes, I was watching them in their flight suits and I could see the blue of the sky and feel the heat of the sun--but I was not really there, no.

I was back up in our jet on that October day, in the endless blue sky, soaring above the snowy terrain of Somewhere, Europe. I was behind my sister, looking at her pink helmet with the scratches on the back. I was turning my cheek and spotting the third dagger. I was watching Maneater switch to guns. I was being pressed against my seat as we bustered. I was pressing the flare-deployment button and nothing was happening. I was listening to my sister call for help, listening to her scream mayday! Mayday! I was pulling my ejection handle, bursting into the sky in tandem with my twin. And then I was watching her die. That’s where I was--from start to finish, from top to bottom--that’s where I really was. Even when I was in the front seat of the Bronco, my hands folded in my lap, my eyes blinking at the road--I wasn’t there.

I’m still not here. No, not really.

When Maverick comes down the hallway, when Hangman and Rooster jump forward to speak to him, I don’t think I can move. They’re a million miles away on the other side of the waiting room and I am stuck here, in this stupid little chair, and the pregnant woman beside me is crying.

Rooster keeps turning to look at me over his shoulder like I’m a toddler bound to wander off--or maybe that’s just how boyfriends are supposed to check in on their shell-shocked girlfriends. I don’t know.

And very suddenly, all three of the men are looking at me, I can feel it. So I grip the sides of the chair, grip them until my knuckles are as white as rice, and pry myself out of the seated position. Even though I feel like I’m in the endless blue of an October sky, even though I feel like the plane is about to drop out from under me, I square my shoulders and walk in a straight and narrow line to the three of them.

“Lieutenant Ledger,” Maverick says and his voice sounds so hollow and deep and if Bob is gone I think I will die, just fucking die, and I will wait to do it until I am out of the hospital so they won’t put me on a crash cart and pump my heart and give me oxygen, “they’re going to keep them overnight for observation, but they’re alright. Cuts and bruises.”

So that’s when I nod solemnly and excuse myself to the restroom.

My vision is tunneling, but I don’t want to touch the walls. Bob’s face, Bob’s sweet and cute and familiar face, is all I can see as I stumble down, down the hallway and into the public restroom. It’s too bright and smelly and pink and ugly in here. It smells like bile and shit and bleach and antiseptic all at once. And it’s much, much quieter here. So quiet that I can faintly hear Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go by Wham! playing over the speakers.

“Fuck,” I whisper and it really does sound like I am saying it from behind myself, like my body and soul have untethered.

Locking myself in a stall, I don’t even have time to fall to my knees or wipe the yellow piss off the toilet seat before my body is reacting to the porcelain toilet under me.

The bile is acidic, burns me all the way from deep in my gut to my throat and to my mouth. The bile is somewhere between green and brown--coffee and apple and granola bar--and my belly is quivering inside my body.

Fuck. What would I do if Bob died? My best friend on this empty fucking planet. The only boy in the class, the only boy in our degree interested in learning about Virginia Woolf. The boy who sang into my mouth, his breath hot and scented like UV Blue, at a fraternity party on a dirty rug in a dirty house. The boy whose hair I would cut in my little galley kitchen, who always wanted to listen to Aretha Franklin and Elton John. The boy who would pick me up at my apartment with an umbrella and walk me to my classes. The boy who loved my sister as much as I did. The boy who turned into a man somewhere between graduating college and living beneath the California sun. The man who asked my sister’s dates for their ID’s, who kept a folder on his phone especially for them. The man who hates dancing but will always dance with me when our song comes on. The man who memorized poetry and never showed it off, never became cocksure about it--just said it quietly in my ear.

If he died today, if he burned in, he would die with a mangled fist because of me. His body would be stunted, perfectly branded by the one and only time he ever punched someone. And it was because of me.

Him, that boy, that man.

The world would be mighty empty without him--my life would be hollow, echoey.

And I’m crying now, crying as puke spews out of my nostrils and I have to cough so I don’t choke, but maybe I’m crying because I couldn’t guard him. My shield, the shield I thought was supposed to protect everyone else I love, was penetrable. I had more faith in the universe, in whatever being is controlling this life, before. I thought that I would get just one really, really bad thing that would happen and the rest of my life would be pulling the shards of it out of my skin. I thought if I loved someone hard enough, deep enough, then the shitty parts of it would reflect off me and onto them like a burning ray of sunshine. I thought my shitty thing would be their shitty thing. I thought, if nothing else, that the people I loved would be safe. So, so safe.

When my heaving is dry, when my belly is empty, I straighten myself out. I wipe my face in the mirror, pushing the black mascara staining my undereyes off my skin with shaking fingers. My mouth tastes putrid--I know my breath smells too. So I swish soap in my mouth, ignoring the bitterness, and wash myself thoroughly with water.

I leave the bathroom, one foot in front of the other, and pretend like I am okay. I’m fine. I just feel like I’m going to faint. Hangman is standing against an outdated poster wall and when he sees me, he nods in my direction. A nod that says come here.

When I’m standing in front of him, he looks down at me, starting to survey my features, but I wipe under my nose and speak before he can say anything.

“Can I see him?”

His open mouth closes. He nods. The blue of his eyes deepens as he stares at the white tile below my feet.

“C’mon,” he offers, “I’ll walk you.”

I don’t need to ask where Rooster is. His best friend burned in, too. I know exactly where he is, where he should be. And I know why Hangman was waiting for me outside the bathroom.

“You okay, kid?”

Kid. He’s never called me this before. I almost have to strain to hear him over the ringing in my ears.

“Fine,” I say, my throat still burning from the bile.

“I know we aren’t the best of friends,” he starts and I look around us, at the blue-green curtains and the foggy glass windows and the pale people in dirty beds and the nurses with their tired eyes and I want to cry again, “but if you want to talk…”

He leaves the end of his sentence open, open for me to finish.

Shaking my head, I look at the floor. Count my steps. One, two. Three, four. My feet fucking hurt.

“I don’t,” I say.

And now we are in front of Bob’s hospital room. Hangman lets his head fall when we stand in the threshold, not pushing his luck. He won’t go in.

It’s a private room, one that is nice and spacious--too nice and too spacious for just one person with some cuts and bruises. Navy perks. It’s still terribly outdated and smells too much like body and antiseptic. There’s steel appliances and beeping machines and blinking screens and sterile sheets and trash cans and moving beds. But there’s a nice, big window beside Bob’s bed. He's watching the sunset from his spot in the middle of his big, big bed.

I come rushing back into my body and it feels like running full force at a brick wall and making it to the other side. The ringing in my ear subsides, the vision that is tunneled broadens until I can even see the view from his window. I can feel my body again, every single part and every single nerve, and it hurts so good.

“Floyd,” I choke out, putting my hands on my hips.

Bob snaps his head in my direction. His face looks perfect--unblemished with wounds, no matter how minuscule. Thank fucking God.

“Faye,” he says and his voice sounds so relieved, so sad.

Swallowing feels like such a task. Hangman is looking at my face and I’m growing pink.

“You’re grounded,” I say, pointing at him and I don’t mean to but I’m choked up again, my eyes watery, “forever. For the rest of your life.”

Softly, I hear Hangman chuckle quietly. Then Hangman nods one time, sharply, his eyebrows furrowing.

“I’ll leave you to it,” he mumbles and just before he spins on his heel and starts down the hallway, he glances at Bob, “don’t die on us, Floyd.”

Bob is shrugging at me, smiling very small, very shyly.

“You’re the boss,” he says to me, to Hangman.

Hangman starts down the hallway by himself, his hands in fists by his side. And now I’m walking to him, putting my arms around him, being careful to navigate the IV in his arm, being careful with his body that suddenly feels very small and precious in my arms.

Stay here. Stay here with me. Don’t move.

He still smells like he just took a shower, still smells like a clean infant. But he also smells like hand sanitizer and sweat and hospital laundry. His hospital shirt is thin and papery against my arms as I hug him to me, as I let my head fall onto his shoulder.

“Scared me,” I choke, tears rolling down my face, “you asshole.”

Even though he’s soft under me, I know that his face is becoming wet now, too. I know he was scared. I know that the breath was knocked out of his lungs when he launched out of the burning jet, I know his chest was heavy with the weight of the atmosphere. I know his belly dropped and he felt like he was soaring, falling. I know he thought of me, of Maggie. I know he was worried about Phoenix--I know he shot out first, flying high above the canyon and in those split seconds where he was alone, I know he was worried that he’d left her behind.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, “I’m sorry.”

Maybe he’s saying sorry because he scared me. Maybe he’s saying sorry because he knows that if he died, knows that if he was gone, that I would be thoroughly and completely alone here.

“Are you okay?”

I pull back and my nose is running and I can smell the remnants of vomit that came out of my nose but I hold his arms in mine and try to see his body, even if my vision is obscured with fat tears. His hair is messy and I think there’s a cut there, splitting the skin of his scalp, but it’s small and bandaged. His hands are a bit gnarled, I can tell from the amount of bandage on them, but other than that he looks okay. Perfectly okay.

“I was scared,” he says quietly and that’s when I realize his glasses are bent and sitting lopsided on his pale face, “but I’m okay. I’m good.”

Chewing my lip, I nod, just watching his sweet face. I told him I would see to it that he is okay. And for some reason, as I watch his eyes land on the spot of vomit on my shirt, I know that I don’t have that ability. I cannot see to anything, not here, not when I’m on the ground. Perpetually below everyone, everything.

I want to tell him that if I lost him, I wouldn’t be able to move on. But what good would it do? What purpose would it serve?

So I just hold his face in my hands; my best friend. My hero. I can feel myself frowning.

“You two did everything right. Everything. You’re the best WSO.”

The earnestness surprises him. His blue eyes glaze with tears and I stroke his cheeks very softly, very sweetly. The fluorescents are burning my skin.

“Now that you’re grounded I am,” he whispers.

I can’t help the wet laugh that falls from my mouth. It hurts and it feels so, so good at the same time. Sweet Bob, his face between both my hands.

“Okay, I’m gonna say it,” I warn him, widening my eyes.

He nods a few times.

“I love you, Bob,” I say, shrugging, “just can’t help myself.”

“Who could?” He asks.

☾ ☽

We meet between Phoenix and Bob’s rooms, in the empty vast hallway that connects them. I am slumped over by now, too tired to straighten my shoulders, my belly very empty and my eyes suddenly too dry. No more tears to cry, no more bile to heave.

Rooster doesn’t look much better. His hair is falling, his mustache drooping under his frowning lips. His flight suit is unzipped halfway, black t-shirt clinging to his skin. He can’t get himself to perk up either.

“Hey,” I whisper to him, meeting in the middle, face angled towards him, “she okay?”

His hands very softly find my elbows and he holds them solidly, looking down at me with his brow furrowed deeply. He’s holding himself steady, grounding himself with my weight. It makes me plant my feet more surely on the tile. His eyes are downcast to look at my parted lips, my pale cheeks.

“She’s fine,” he says, his voice crackly and deep, “Bob?”

I nod, coming a little bit closer to him, close enough for my folded hands to touch his canvas flightsuit.

“Fine,” I whisper.

The intercom over us is mumbling something, there is distant 80s music playing somewhere near the nurse’s station, babies are crying, machines are beeping. And in this quiet, but also not-so-quiet, hallway we just stand there. His hands over my elbows, the backs of my hands pressed against the flat plane of his belly. We are both looking down at the floor, down at our feet.

“I’ll drive you home,” he whispers to me.

I nod, looking at the stuff on the toe of his laced-up boots.

“You aren’t staying?”

I make my voice flat when I say it--can’t possibly give him anymore grief today. He’s been through enough--too much even. I just want to lay him down on my bed and let him sleep.

He pushes my knotted hair off my shoulders then lets his hands come to my waist. He grips me, holding me tighter but not closer. My eyes flutter shut. His hands feel like bathing in a pool of warm, soapy water.

“Have to go back to base,” he whispers, “but I’ll come back late tonight. That okay?”

That okay? As if he couldn’t show up on any day, any time and I wouldn’t have a glass of sparkling wine waiting for him. Like there wouldn’t already be cookies in the oven.

“Whatever you want, Bradley,” I whisper and I really mean it--mean it with every piece of myself.

Finally, he closes the distance between us. When he wraps his arms around me, really wraps his arms around me, everything else melts away like we’ve just stepped into the shower together. All the shit, all the awful. Every single bit of the day washes away.

If only we were together during the worst parts of each other’s lives. If only he was here when I was discharged from the hospital after the accident, when I was wheeled outside the automatic hospital doors without my twin sister and my parents cried in strange silence. If only I was there when his mother passed, holding his hand as he held hers. If only we had stood beside each other at the funerals--then maybe we wouldn’t have been so lost. Then maybe things wouldn’t hurt so wholly.

But then I jolt, jolt myself back to reality. Because if something bad could happen to Bob, Bob who I’ve known for what feels like my entire life, then something bad could absolutely happen to Rooster, too. And then it wouldn’t matter how lost either of us ever got because it would be over. Then I would be the one alone, standing over the grave, the blank shots of the rifles ringing through the--

Without a single word, Rooster kisses my throat very tenderly. He kisses my four freckles, still doesn’t speak. But it is enough. It is enough right now to keep me here with him.

Rooster doesn’t release me, his nose finding its way back in my hair. I don’t interrupt him, just stand here, gripping him, digging my nails into his flight suit. Stay here with me, baby.

“Lead the way,” I whisper finally, pretending like I hadn’t just imagined standing over his open grave, pretending like the smile on my lips is really authentic, really me, “tramp.”

When we walk back through the waiting room, we both see Hangman at the same time. He is leaning against the wall by the exit, his eyes on the floor as he incessantly rubs the scab on his lip. His hair is falling, too, but the most prevalent part of his being that Rooster and I seem to also both notice in tandem are the purple bags under his eyes.

I think about his message late at night, think about how early he had been on base this morning. And now it’s night time and he is still here in this dingy waiting room.

“Hangman,” Rooster says softly when we approach him, our hands joined.

Hangman snaps to attention immediately, hands dropping to his sides, his lip red with irritation.

He looks at Rooster with his bloodshot eyes widened just slightly--then flickers his eyes to mine. He looks small standing here by himself, like he is our forgotten child. And I wish I could help it, but my heart throbs because I suddenly want to take care of him, too. I want to run him a bath and let him stay in my bathroom for as long as he wants. I want to pour him a glass of wine and let him pick a movie.

“They’re good?”

He is looking between us again. I nod sharply.

“Fine,” I whisper.

His shoulders drop, chest loosens. I wish that my fingers weren’t tingling, wish that my heart was not throbbing, wish my eyes weren’t so glossy right now. Rooster squeezes my hand and I squeeze his, too. I wish I could press my lips against his palm right now, right this moment. But Hangman is looking down at me very seriously, very gravely.

“Can I walk out with you guys?”

Then they’re both looking at me, both of them so exhausted, so stressed, so tight. I think about Bob calling me the boss, think about Rooster looking to me for every decision now. So I nod again, biting my lip.

“Of course you can.”

So we walk out together, the three of us. Our eyes are half-shut and our walks are stilted by tight joints and even tighter, more stressed muscles. The night is dark and wide and our cars are parked very far away. Fuck, my feet fucking hurt.

“Hold on,” I mumble to them before we can even get ten feet from the hospital entrance.

They both pause, looking back at me as I slip my shoes off and fall back onto the earth four inches shorter and a million pounds lighter. I have to smile at them, smile very small. Silently, Rooster reaches out and takes my shoes from me, holding them. It makes my throat tight--makes me think of the suitors that would hold Maggie’s shoes for her when she got tired of wearing them. Oh, Lord.

“Do you want dinner, Hangman?” I ask.

Rooster glances at me from the corner of his eye, mouth flat. I squeeze his hand again. It’s okay. It’s fine. And he seems to understand this--understand that I cannot help but forgive. I cannot help but move forward and take care of everyone. I have always had a soft spot for pilots.

Hangman is pretending like he isn’t shocked. He’s blinking rapidly at the night around us, his hands in his pockets, his spine straightened.

“That would be nice,” he says tightly, “thank you.”

Rooster drives me home silently, the headlights from Hangman’s purring Jaguar lighting our silhouettes. I am sitting in the middle of the bench, my head on Rooster’s shoulder. He drives with one hand, his legs spread, his arm draped over me and his free hand holding on tight to my arm.

Going to California by Led Zeppelin is playing now.

It is peaceful in here, listening to the cars whizz past us, listening to the radio, feeling the night air leak in through the cracked windows. Life will not be peaceful for a long time after this. No, no. This feels like the last stop in a while.

And when we pull onto Mulberry Street--the street with the house that I own, the street where my sister used to drive down all the time--he finally speaks. He clears his throat first and I look away from the eucalyptus trees and the purple sage and desert mariposas being illuminated by the Broncos headlights, look up at his serious face and his flexed jaw. He’s watching the road very seriously, his lips parted.

“I love you,” he says and I hear it clear as day.

It sounds like being called home when the streetlights turned on. It sounds like the dinner bell is ringing. It feels like my entire body is being dipped in nectar. It sounds perfectly correct.

His grip on my arm tightens slightly, just enough for me to notice. He doesn’t tear his eyes away from the road, doesn’t dare glance at me. He just keeps watching the street before us, keeps waiting for my breathing to even out.

“I know,” I finally say because I do know, I really do.

His face slacks, his grip lessens.

We pull into my driveway as Hangman parks on the sidestreet. And then Rooster looks at me and the motion light above my garage blinks on. We are just sitting, our thighs pressed together, looking at each other in the warm July air. Here we are, at my house, and he is not going to come inside.

I stroke his cheek, his skin like smooth leather beneath my cold fingers.

“Come back, okay?”

He nods, mouth flat, eyebrows pulled together. He’s looking at my mouth.

“Okay,” he whispers.

And we both know what I mean. We both know that I mean tonight--and every single night after. He knows I mean the mission, if he’s chosen. We both know that I mean always. Come back always, okay?

He presses his lips to mine and we kiss softly, tenderly, sweetly.

And then I’m squeezing his knee and climbing out of his car and closing the door and standing there with my leather bag and my heels in my hands and waiting for Hangman to approach me, his hands in his pockets. He falls in-step beside me and we both wave to Rooster, who is watching us with his throat tight.

We silently watch the Bronco pull out and start down the street, darkness falling over us, Rooster just a dot of cyan in the dark. Crickets are chirping and somewhere distantly, cars roar on the highway and seagulls cry out fleetingly. If we strain and don’t breathe, don’t make a sound, maybe we can hear the tide coming in.

“Do you like prosecco?” I ask, turning to Hangman.

The motion-sensor light blinks off.

It’s almost eleven o’clock when I set our bowls in the sink, dirtied with spinach and white-wine and little pieces of spaghetti. I refill our glasses, taking a deep breath alone in my dark kitchen, my cheeks red and my eyes tired. And then I hold them in my hands, push through the kitchen door, and return to the living room.

Hangman is sitting against the marmalade ottoman, his legs spread open as he twiddles with the fibers in one of the rugs he sits on. He takes the glass from me thankfully, holding it with two hands.

I go back to the couch, where I lay against its plushness, my feet on the coffee table. The candles are lit and the curtains are drawn. There is a distinct sense that we are both just waiting for Rooster to come back to us, to come home.

The Rolling Stones’ album Sticky Fingers is spinning. Wild Horses is playing.

We haven’t said much to each other. He sat at my kitchen table while I cooked and was polite when I served him. We ate in almost complete silence, too, and I don’t know if it’s because we are so tired or maybe because the day has been so long. Or maybe we don’t have anything to say to each other.

It’s only been an hour since Rooster left us here together, only an hour and a half since we left the hospital as a trio. Not very long at all since we came into the living room after dinner.

In place of words, Hangman has been looking around my house with shining eyes. It’s the same way other people look at my house when they see it for the first time. Filled with so much color, so much exuberance. It is so interesting to see how I live, the researcher who exclusively wears linen earth tones. My home is beautiful, I know this. I know this because it has been built with my hands, with my brain, with my love. It is everything I have ever wanted in a home.

Finally, he speaks.

“Your house is nice,” he says quietly.

I nod, glancing at him on my floor. He’s looking down into his glass.

“Thank you,” I whisper, “took a long time to get it here.”

Another beat passes and he sucks in a breath, looking up at me with his tired eyes and his mouth a singular plane on his face. A shadow is beginning to appear on his face--stubble, a very dark blonde.

“I like you, you know,” he says and it’s not hasty or reckless. He just says it.

My eyes fall to my glass, too. Fuck. I say nothing. My throat is tight.

“You’re a good person,” he continues, “like an actual good person--no bullshit.”

Graceless lady / You know who I am / You know I can't let you / Slide through my hands

I take a long, long drink. The bubbles are making my nose tingle. Stevie is sitting on top of the stairs, blinking slowly at Hangman the same way she blinked at Bob. Well, you definitely aren’t Him.

“Thanks,” I mutter.

I wish he would stop talking now. My heart is in my throat. But there is also that need to keep him talking, to let him cry on my shoulder, to spill all of his feelings so I can sweep them into a dustpan and keep the floor spick and span.

“When I say I like you…” he trails off and I let him, blinking at the sofa, measuring my breaths, “but you haven’t thrown me a second glance. I know you only have eyes for Bradshaw.”

Fuck. Fuck.

“You two deserve each other,” he says again, “he’s crazy about you.”

My throat aches with a dry laugh. He’s looking at me.

I can’t help it--it’s the prosecco, it’s the image of Bob in a hospital bed, it’s Rooster’s confession in my driveway, it’s the ghost of my sister in the room with us.

“Why’d you do it?”

I finally turn and look at his face. I can’t stop looking at the spot where his lip is split. His mouth is ajar, his hair is messy. He’s blinking at me, incessantly rubbing his finger around the rim of his glass. He knows what I’m asking. I don’t have to spell it out for him, I don’t have to point at the elephant standing in the corner. He just knows.

“I just told you why,” he says softly, shrugging. His voice is almost a whisper, which is the first time I have heard him speak so quietly.

He sounds kind when he speaks to me quietly--sounds real and grounded.

Except he’s talking like he just tugged on my pigtails at recess. He’s talking like he just cut in line in the cafeteria and stuck his tongue out at me. He’s talking like he’s a little boy and I’m a little girl and we still abide by the societal rules of the youth. Be mean to girls when you like them. Pick on them. It makes me a little bit sick to my stomach.

I actually scoff out loud, loud enough to make him blink in surprise.

“How elementary of you,” I say, taking another long drink.

He shakes his head, his eyes falling down to the empty space beside me. Don’t fucking sit here. Don’t move. I feel like anything in the world could happen if he moved and sat beside me. We are two people who should not be alone in a room together--two people so exhaustively different, so on two opposite ends of different spectrums. This empty couch around me, this space beside me--it is not for him.

He doesn't move.

“Never said I was a complicated guy,” he responds.

There’s another beat and I can’t stop thinking about the way his entire body softened when I pressed the cotton to his lips, when I was crying and couldn’t help myself, when I felt like I was on fire.

“But you don’t hate me,” he says before continuing, “you don’t even dislike me.”

I shake my head, furrowing my eyebrows just slightly.

“No,” I confirm verbally, rolling my cheek to my shoulder to look at him again.

He has turned so his entire body faces me. He is still leaning up against the ottoman, his legs splayed before him, his feet slightly obscured by the couch. His face is warm in the candlelight.

“Why not?”

Now I blink in surprise. Why not?

“Because then what’s the point?” I say and I mean it, I really do.

What is my purpose here, on this earth that my sister is buried in, if not to love? What is the point of my own being, my own entire being, if not to forgive and push forward? Who am I if I am not taking care of anyone--of everyone? What is the reason for my existence if not to nurture?

I can’t say any of this to him, though--this I am crucially, keenly aware of.

“The point of what?” He presses.

I gesture to the air around me.

“Of this,” I chuckle humorlessly, “of anything.”

He slouches back against the ottoman further, his chest sinking.

“See,” he quietly says, eyes falling to the rugs, “there it is. That goodness.”

I want to roll my eyes. I want my sister to be here beside me to lighten Hangman up. He is so wholly deflated, sitting here in my house with his belly full of my pasta, and I don’t know how to pump all that cocksure air back inside him.

“I’m not that good of a person,” my voice quivers, “you know that. Everyone does now.”

Even I know that blow is low when I say it. My face is hot. He doesn’t seem fazed.

“Having a high body count doesn’t make you--!”

He stops talking when he meets my eyes. I can’t help the expression that holds my features--my eyebrows sloped, my mouth pursed, eyes narrowed. It is a mom look--a look of disappointment, a look that says shhh. A look that is still, in its own way, nurturing.

But as soon as he feels his face flatten, he inflates a bit. He sits up a little straighter, setting his glass on the ground beside him.

“Okay then,” he says, “I’ll bite. What makes you not that good of a person?”

I gape at him for a moment, chest flushed. Fucking pilots.

“Lots of things.”

My addiction. The booze. Not knowing I was pregnant for fourteen weeks. Not knowing who the father was. Being in rehab on mine and my sister’s 25th birthday. Wanting to die with her in the woods. Wanting to make my parents whatever parents are when they lose all their children.

“Like?”

He’s really pressing now.

I scoff again.

“Why do you wanna know?”

My voice is that silly, unintentional bitter voice that I get when I’m upset.

He gestures to me with wide eyes. Oh, right. Because he likes me. It makes me soften, makes me pull my legs into myself.

With my eyes downcast, I pick lint off my pants and say, “What, you want me to talk you out of having a crush on me?”

I don’t look up, but I see his head when it nods one time, just one solid jerk. Fucking Christ. But I am not ready to give him all the parts of myself that I have given Rooster--not ready to let him know me like Bob does

“Because I’m still messed up after what happened to me,” I say, “and I saw things that nobody else should have to see.”

He’s staring at me and my throat is raw. I take another drink, my face so hot that it could make a cake bake.

“Like what?”

I snap up at that. His face is soft, plain. He isn’t challenging me. He’s inviting me in a strange, strange way. But no. No, no. These things I’ve seen--they will be mine until I die. Because no one needs to know. I will put her to bed, let her rest, in that small way. No one needs to know about the smell of her body or the way her eyes were wide open. It’s just for me--we were born together and her death will die when I do.

“You really, really don’t want to know.”

When I say this to him, my voice is thin and flat.

“What if I do?”

I have to bite down hard on my lip. He sounds like Maggie--challenging me in that quiet, intense way.

“Trust me, Jake,” I say a little bit louder now, emptying my glass before I finish, “you don’t.”

Then I stand up and cross the living room, through the kitchen door, and open my fridge. I am shaking so badly that I almost let the cold bottle slip out of my grip and onto the floor. But I just pour myself another drink and come back into the living room with my glass and the bottle.

He watches me set the bottle on the table, watches me return to my spot, chewing my lip.

“That doesn’t help,” he says.

His voice is calm. That doesn’t help him not like me? I could puke again.

“Well, fuck me then,” I sigh, exasperated, throwing my hand up and looking at him.

Then I realize what I’ve said. We both shift in our spots and I shake my head, that silly blush creeping up my chest again.

“I don’t listen to music past 2016,” I start and I don’t even have to tell him that it’s because it was the last year I was able to listen to music with my sister--the last year she was alive, “and I want to get married and have kids and buy project houses. I don’t want to be in the Navy forever.”

His face is pulling together, lips pursing, eyes narrowing.

“Maybe I just don’t know you very well, but I’m guessing those are the last things that you want, right?” I ask.

He nods.

“Well,” I sigh, smiling, “there you go. Crush averted.”

A quietness falls over us. I get up and flip the record, running my cold hands over my face before I sit back on the couch. He is more pulled into himself now, his legs criss-crossed.

There is a strange energy in the air--somewhere between buzzing and limp. He’s looking at me still, fingering the carpet beneath his hands.

“Faye,” he says, his voice profoundly big and loud in this living room.

It’s the first time he’s ever called me by my name--my actual name, the one that was dissected from my sister’s.

Our eyes meet.

“I never meant to make you cry,” he says and I know, can tell, that he means it.

I can’t help but smile. He is such an asshole. He would be so, so perfect for someone like Maggie. He could make a different girl very happy, fill her up so nicely with his words and that face and his body.

But even as I sit here in his sweet gaze, I am radically and indisputably in love with Bradley Bradshaw. There is not even the beginnings of a single doubt. It is intrinsic to me, the same as forgiveness and kindness is to me.

“No one ever does.”

After one more moment, one where he rakes his hands through his hair and finishes off his glass and throws his legs out in front of him again, he grins at me. His inflating bit by bit.

“You wanna know what made me text you?”

No, no. Not really. Not at all. Because this is making me very dizzy. Because this is making me ache for my sister in a way that I usually don’t ache for her. I wish I could go give her a panicked phone call in the privacy of my backyard and beg her to come save me. Fuck, she would have a hay-day with this. Relentlessly teasing the two pilots pining after me. Me of all people. Fuck.

I don’t answer, so he just says it, before I can stop him.

“It was when you came back to get your things,” he says and he still sounds soft but there’s an edge to his voice, “and I said another shitty thing to you--on top of the shitty things that made Bob of all people actually punch me in the face--and instead of shitting on me too--you took care of me. My lip--the cotton. I made you cry and you were still cleaning up my face.”

It makes me embarrassed when he explains it. It makes me embarrassed because I did not attack him the way Maggie would have--all teeth and torn flesh and sharp nails and decisive strikes. No, no. I froze--just like Rooster--and let Hangman say all the shitty things that he said and then I went back and took care of him.

“You don’t think that makes me weak?”

The voice that says this hardly sounds like my own--so meek, so doubtful.

He shakes his head, eyebrows furrowing.

“I think it makes you better than the rest of us,” he says gently, “tougher, really.”

“Tougher?” I echo.

He’s watching me bite my lip. He nods again.

“Yes,” he confirms, “tougher.”

I’m biting my lip so hard that I taste metal. I wish Rooster would come home now, right now, and interrupt whatever energy is invading this room. Hangman is being too friendly, too sweet--it’s starting to scare me. Maybe he’s delirious. Maybe today has traumatized him more than we thought before.

He’s just looking at me now, smiling faintly, softly. He’s looking at me the way Rooster looks at me--his eyes just a touch too bright, his face a touch too open and pretty. I swallow hard.

Moonlight Mile is playing now.

It’s when I move my eyes from his, my chest starting to hurt, that he looks down at his glass again. He sighs very deeply, seems to be thinking about something very hard. I wish we weren’t alone--I wish someone else was seeing him like this so they would understand why I am so soft in some spots.

“It’s also when I realized you were too good for me,” he says, a little louder now.

My chest is burning, pulsing. Fuck. I can’t get myself to say anything else--no words will come to me. Not now, not when he is being so obscurely soft.

“I think I should go,” he tells me.

I nod, biting my lip.

“Okay.”

So we stand up and he looks tired as he ever has before, his lip plum-colored and still swollen. The rest of his face is so pretty that it’s actually mildly offensive. He takes his glass to the kitchen without me saying anything and I trail behind him and cork the bottle before putting it on my fridge.

There’s that silence again. We don’t say anything as he washed the glass with his hand, don’t say anything while he dries it with a linen tea towel, don’t say anything when he turns to me with his face golden and rosy.

I am just living to be lying by your side / But I'm just about a moonlight mile on down the road

It isn’t until he’s on my front porch that we say anything to each other. I’m holding the door open with my foot, leaning against the doorway with my arms crossed. He is meandering down the steps, but pauses and turns to me. He looks very tired--his eyes are red.

“Did I stand a chance?” He asks.

How could I be anything but honest when he’s standing there looking like that?

“No,” I sigh, “you didn’t.”

This gives him some sort of solace. He nods, sucking his lip under his teeth. If his ego is wounded, he doesn’t say anything to me. He doesn’t let his expression run free with the good grief of the situation.

“Right,” he says, nodding.

“If you’re too tired,” I say because I have to, because I really have to, “you can sleep here. On the couch.”

He blinks at me a few times before roses paint his cheeks. He shakes his head determinedly.

“No,” he tells me, “I might get the wrong idea.”

He winks at me a final time before he finishes the trek to his car, which is parked dutifully on the street and glowing under the moonlight.

Fucking Christ.

He waves from inside the car and I smile, raising my hand, too. It isn’t until he’s driving down the street that I finally close the door.

☾☽ 𝐚/𝐧: I literally can't help myself, I love Hangman so much...such a complex character. and I really love writing dialogue for him!!!

☾☽ 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫

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roosterforme · 2 months

Text

Covering the Classics Part 1 | Bob Floyd x OC

Summary: Bob is happy for his friends, but feeling like the fifth wheel every weekend has gotten old. Anna's main goal is to fly under the radar as she starts work at San Diego State University with her shiny, new graduate degree. She is convinced that the only company she needs is her own, but a specific flyer in the faculty lounge catches her interest.

Warnings: Fluff, angst, adult language, eventually 18+

Length: 2800 words

Pairing: Robert "Bob" Floyd x Female OC (this story is part of the Beer Boy/Sugar and Jake/Jessica universe)

Covering the Classics masterlist. Check my masterlist for more! Thank you to @mak-32 for the beautiful banner!

Bob hated it when Natasha was deployed without him. He always ended up feeling like the fifth wheel now that Bradley was married and Jake was dating Jessica. Well, both of those were actually understatements. Bradley was devoted to his wife, and Jake was soppy now that Jessica moved in with him. And Bob's feelings on the matter were never more evident than on nights out at the Hard Deck.

Without fail, a girl or two or three would hit on one of the other guys, and they would deftly try to pawn said girl off on Bob only for the girl to look rather disappointed and kind of wander away. He just had that effect on women. He was a lot better with the written word than with the spoken, and something just didn't translate well for him when he was met face-to-face with an intriguing smile and an attractive body.

He groaned as he watched another woman head off in the direction of the bar as soon as he nervously stumbled his way through a sentence where he tried to introduce himself. How exactly was he supposed to compete with Jake Seresin anyway? Nobody who originally wanted him was going to settle for Bob.

"I got you more peanuts." Bob looked up to see Bradshaw's wife smiling at him and holding out a cup. Ever since he visited Chippy's bar, he didn't want to admit to Penny that hers weren't quite as good, but if someone went out of their way to bring him a cup full, he was going to eat them. And it was also nice of her to make sure he was included tonight while Mickey was babysitting his nephews.

"Thank you," he replied softly, and she patted his shoulder.

"I saw you talking to that girl?" she asked, nodding her head toward the bar. "She's really cute."

Bob shook his head as he looked down at his ginger ale. "I mean, yes, she was very pretty, but I wasn't really talking to her. She didn't want to talk to me, actually." He could feel the heat rising in his cheeks as he looked up at her from his stool. "She wanted to talk to Jake."

She rolled her eyes, and Bob kept his fingers occupied by cracking open a peanut. He craved the familiar intimacy he saw when he looked at his friends and their partners. Maybe jealousy wasn't the right word, but he always felt left out of the loop. They all knew something he didn't, and he craved to be on the inside with someone of his own.

"I'd choose you over Jake any day, Bob. You're smart, and I like talking to you."

He smiled at her as he said, "That may be the case, but you'd choose Bradley over me."

"You got me there," she said with a laugh as she kissed his cheek, making him avert his eyes to the floor. "I'm probably not the best judge of character though."

Bob looked toward where she was smiling now and saw Bradley with his hideous tie dye shirt and idiotic looking backwards baseball cap as Jessica slaughtered him in a game of pool. "Yes, you are," Bob told her quietly. Because as soon as Bradley looked at his wife, his expression became one of complete wonder.

"Sugar! Come here! Jessica is being mean to me again!"

She squeezed Bob's shoulder and then took him by the hand, bringing him along with her to the pool table. He blushed again as he looked a little nervously at Bradley, but everyone knew Bob was harmless. He was the one just drinking a ginger ale since he had to drive home.

"Baby," Bradley whined. "She won't even let me try to make a shot."

"That's not her being mean to you. That's her being better than you," his wife replied. "And what's the moral of the story again?"

"Women should never be underestimated," Bradley and Jake said in unison.

"That's right," Jessica said as she sunk the 8-ball into one of the corner pockets. "Especially ones who have a PhD and tenure." She handed her pool cue to Bradley and did a little dance. Then she reached into Bob's cup of peanuts and said, "Chippy's are better."

"They are," he agreed with a nod and a grin. He cleared his throat as Bradshaw's wife finally dropped his hand. "So I heard the new semester starts on Monday?"

"Yes," Jessica gushed as she fixed her glasses. "And Brian took a position at the community college, so this should be my best semester yet."

Bob already knew that Jake was relieved that his girlfriend would be going to work in a more comfortable environment every day, but it was nice to see how excited she was.

"You know what I was thinking?" Jessica asked Bradshaw's wife quietly. Bob wondered if he should step away and give them some privacy, but they both kept helping themselves to the cup of peanuts. "Maybe we could put something up on the notice board in the main building, kind of inviting the other female teachers at the school to have lunch together one day? I felt so embarrassed and excluded from things because of Brian, I just thought it might be nice for anyone else who feels marginalized?"

Bradley's wife nodded. "I think that's a great idea."

Bob listened to them for a few more minutes before he wished them good luck as they started back to school for the fall term, and then he excused himself for the night. He stood outside in the dark parking lot for a few minutes and listened to the sound of the ocean before he climbed into his truck and headed for his silent house.

--------------------------

"Dr. Webber."

Anna looked at the name placard on her office door and bounced up and down. "Dr. Webber," she read out loud again. She had the worst office on campus, no doubt about that. It was miniscule and kind of smelled like stale bread since it was so close to the cafeteria, but she loved it. All of the shelves were crammed with her books, and she could lock the rest of the world out when she needed a minute to herself. She just hoped that the tiny office wasn't a sign of bad things to come after San Diego State University willingly hired her less than a month before the start of the term.

In a matter of eight weeks, she had finally- finally- graduated with her PhD in English Literature and secured a job on the other side of the country. She sold everything she could think of, including her rings, and moved from gloomy New Jersey to a studio apartment in sunny southern California. Sure, all she had in her kitchen was a toaster oven and a mini fridge, but she was on her own. She had nobody to answer to. And she never would again.

"I guess everything is smaller here," Anna told herself as she locked her office door and went in search of the classroom where she would be holding the first lecture of her teaching career. She was too early for the class, but she was filled with nervous energy and decided that walking around would help.

She looked in classrooms and listened to a poetry lecture on the third floor. She found a really secluded ladies' bathroom as well as a reading nook. Eventually, she and her copy of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn managed to wander all the way to the main building where she found a faculty lounge.

It smelled like coffee, and there were snacks out on the counter, and everyone was talking in pairs or small groups. She should probably get to know her colleagues, but she also didn't mind the anonymity that came with observing everyone without engaging. She was good at that, and she'd spend too much time around people who needed to be in the spotlight all the time. As she reached for a donut with pink frosting, she saw a notice board across the room and went to take a look.

The hum of conversation around her was comforting as she read about a yoga class in the quad, alumni night, and a teacher appreciation banquet. Then her eyes caught on a single piece of paper with a plain black font. It wasn't flashy, and somehow it reminded her of a page from a favorite book.

WELCOME BACK FOR THE FALL SEMESTER, LADIES!

If you're interested in getting to know some other women who work on campus, let's meet for a friendly lunch on the first Tuesday of the term! Noon in the quad next to the weird tree.

Anna laughed. She knew where the quad was, but she wasn't sure which tree was the weird one. They actually all seemed a bit out of place to her since she wasn't used to living near palm trees. She started to skim a notice about how to recycle old textbooks, but she didn't get far before she was re-reading the one about meeting up for lunch.

If it was truly meant just for women, then it sounded kind of nice. She could eat her sandwich outside. She liked weird trees. The idea of having zero men around made it even more appealing. The last thing she wanted was to develop an interest in anyone right now. Or maybe ever again.

She took out her phone and snapped a picture of the page before checking the time and leaving with her donut. Twenty minutes later, with her class assembled before her in a small lecture hall, she cleared her throat and said, "Welcome to English 205. I'm Dr. Webber, and this semester we will be covering the classics."

------------------------

"You can do this. You'll be fine," Anna said as she walked slowly across the quad toward a palm tree that looked like it somehow started growing sideways about six feet up from the ground. "It's just some people."

But she wasn't good with people. Kevin had been quick to tell her that all the time. He liked to point out that she was awkward unless she was talking about literature or poetry or something from the New York Times bestseller list. Apparently she didn't know how to talk about normal things. Her hands started to sweat as she held onto her brown paper bag and can of ginger ale.

"Oh god," she groaned as she got a little closer. Truly, there was nothing to be afraid of. It was just two women smiling as they talked to each other with their lunches. But they were both beautiful. Like the kind of stunning girls that Anna was always afraid to talk to when she was a teenager. One was wearing a suit and high heels, and the other was wearing cute brown loafers and some tweed, and she felt like her own outfit looked awful now by comparison.

It wasn't too late to just walk past them and loop back toward her office and never try to socialize again. "Yes, let's do that." She nodded and picked up the pace a little bit. She could turn left at the weird tree and then maybe even make a run for it. "What are you doing?" she whispered, slowing down again. It was one thing to swear off men, but it wasn't going to be an enjoyable existence if she never tried to make a single friend here.

With a deep breath, she forced herself forward, and then soon two sets of eyes were on her. All she saw was matching smiles as she approached and said, "Hi. I'm Anna Webber. Is this the weird tree?"

"It's the weirdest tree I've ever seen," said the first woman as the other one jumped to her feet.

"Hi! Are you here for lunch?" she asked as she adjusted her glasses. "I told you someone would come," she whispered to the first woman before sticking her hand out. "I'm Jessica Reed! I work in the physics department, and this is my friend, and we are so, so happy you're joining us."

Anna smiled at how bubbly she was as she briefly shook her hand. "I just got here," she said with a wince. "I mean... it's my second day working here? I just got hired. In the English department. I'm teaching literature." God, could she sound like any more of an idiot right now?

But Jessica gasped in response. "Advanced Literature!" Then both women squealed, and soon the other one was introducing herself and talking about the math department and pointing out a building Anna had never been inside yet.

"It's silly, we know, but we kind of have code names for each other. I'm Advanced Calculus, and Jessica is Advanced Physics. You can be Advanced Literature. If you want." Now she looked a little uncertain while Jessica bounced in her high heels. "Wow, we sound like absolute nerds."

"We are nerds," Jessica confirmed with no shame as she looked at Anna. "I collect scientific journals. She uses math as foreplay with her husband. Do you want to eat lunch with us, Anna?"

Her response came with an ease that she hadn't felt in a long time. "Yes. Please." Then both women were shifting their lunches down and making room in the middle of the bench. Anna took a seat and watched Advanced Calculus pick a carrot stick out of the most beautifully organized lunch container she'd ever seen. She also had a tie dyed lunch box that was charming in a hideous way.

"How's your first week going?" Jessica asked as she bit into a delicious looking sandwich on fancy, multigrain bread. Anna knew she didn't fit in here at all as she pulled a plain turkey sandwich and some peanuts from her bag, but it was all she could afford right now.

"Well," she said with a sigh. "It's better than New Jersey."

Both women squealed again. "You're from the east coast!"

"Yeah," she replied as she opened her ginger ale. "I grew up in New Jersey. I went to college and grad school in New Jersey. I attempted to move to New York, and then somehow I ended up here." She left out the heartbreaking parts about Kevin, because he didn't really belong in a conversation where she was surprisingly kind of enjoying herself.

She learned the two women were from Massachusetts and Virginia, and that they both had PhDs from prestigious universities. They were both in committed relationships with naval aviators who also happened to work together. And both of the men loved packing their ladies lunches.

"Lucky," Anna muttered as she popped a peanut into her mouth and thought about the kitchen in her studio apartment. It was so small, it almost didn't exist. She was almost thirty and essentially still lived in a dormitory. How sad.

"Hey," Jessica said suddenly. "If you like peanuts, you'd probably love Chippy's!"

"What's Chippy's?" Anna asked curiously.

"Eww, no. Don't listen to Jess. Chippy's is a disgusting dive bar on the other side of campus."

"It's not disgusting! He just doesn't clean the floor."

Anna laughed. "I actually do love peanuts, but I'm not a big drinker." Then both women silently studied her, and she could feel heat rising in her cheeks. She'd said something wrong already. Of course things couldn't be this easy.

"Huh. You like ginger ale," said Advanced Calculus as she sat paused with a carrot stick halfway to her mouth.

Anna nodded as she said, "My... well, a guy I know used to make fun of me for being a ginger and loving ginger ale." She gestured to her auburn hair which was clipped up at the back of her head.

"Are you married? Or in a relationship?" she asked, and she finally bit into the carrot.

Anna didn't even have a chance to reply as Advanced Physics gasped on her other side. "You like peanuts. And ginger ale. How do you feel about men with glasses?"

"How do you feel about men with greenish blue eyes?"

"How do you feel about sweet men who blush?"

"Would you ever date a guy in the Navy?"

"Are you fond of beat up pickup trucks and country boys?"

"Do you want to come to the Hard Deck this weekend?"

Anna was starting to get whiplash as she looked back and forth between the two of them. "Wait, I'm sorry. What? I thought we were talking about a place called Chippy's?"

"We were. But now we're talking about a man called Bob."

-----------------------

Omg omg omg. Okay, here we are with a story for our lovable Bob. Thanks for reading about the Sugarverse. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thanks @mak-32 and @beyondthesefourwalls

PART 2

@thedroneranger

@theamuz

@cherrycola27

@katiedid-3

@yuckosworld

@je-suis-prest-rachel

@callsign-magnolia

@avaleineandafryingpan

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@wkndwlff

@eddiemunsonreader

@wintercap89

@the-fever-of-mankind

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@lovingperfectionsblog

@daisydont-lie

@sappy-seresin

@birdy-bat-writes

@cutelittlefakejourneys

@cottagecori

@fandom-princess-forevermore

@sotalife

@novastories

@xoxabs88xox

@rileyanntoinette

@midnightmagpiemama

@greatszu

@zetasaturno99

@lovingrobertfloyd

@taytaylala12

@captain-fandomwriter58

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@paintlavillered

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#bob floyd x oc #robert floyd x oc #robert bob floyd #bob floyd #bob floyd imagine #robert floyd imagine #robert bob floyd x oc #bob floyd fic #bob floyd fanfiction #robert floyd fic #robert floyd #top gun imagine #top gun maverick imagine #top gun fanfiction #top gun maverick fanfiction #roosterforme #covering the classics

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floydsglasses · 2 months

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A Quiet Place- DAGGER EDITION

SUMMERY: If they hear you, they hunt you. The world we once knew full of sound is gone, and silence is the key to survival, if you wanna avoid mysterious creatures that hunt by sound. Knowing that even the slightest whisper or footstep can bring death.

Dagger Squad X Various Original Female Characters ( Basically each story involves one of the dagger's with an original character, each set in the world of A Quiet Place)

Contents Involve: Post Apocalyptic, Angst, Use of ASL, Fluff, Death/Mention of death, implied smut, pregnancie for one story, mention's child death, blood

MASTERLIST

ᴀ ᴡʜɪꜱᴘᴇʀ ɴᴏᴛ ᴀ ʏᴇʟʟ- Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw

𝙑𝙖𝙣𝙞𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙂𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙚- Jake "Hangman" Seresin

Way Out There- Mickey "Fanboy" Garcia 𝙒𝙖𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙏𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝘿𝙖𝙬𝙣 - Robert "Bob" Floyd

MOODBOARDS

A Whisper Not A Yell - Moodboard

Vanishing Grace- Moodboard

Way Out There - Moodboard

Waiting till Dawn- Moodboard

#top gun maverick #top gun au #top gun fan fiction #top gun fanfic #bradley rooster bradshaw #jake hangman seresin #natasha phoenix trace #robert bob floyd #mickey fanboy garcia #rueben payback fitch #javy coyote machado #top gun x reader #top gun x oc #top gun x you

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fangirlvibez · 9 months

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The Festival of Hearts (a royal AU) - Introduction

Characters: King!Jake “hangman” Seresin x Queen!female!reader, Royal Huntsman!Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw, Master of Arms!Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, lady-in-waiting!Natasha “Phoenix” Trace, Royal Advisor!Robert “Bob” Floyd, King Champion!Javy “Coyote” Machado, Queen Champion!Reuben “Payback” Fitch and Queen Champion!Mickey “Fanboy” Garcia

Warnings: mention of arrange marriage, mention of dead parents and passing away during childbirth, mention of hanging, mention of killing, mention of illness, mention of attacking a person, inaccuracies in terms of the Middle Ages (Let me know if I forgot a warning)

Summary of the story: princess, now Queen Y/N (Y/M/N) Y/L/N was forced into marrying King Jake “Hangman” Seresin. Leaving her own kingdom, Eldoria, behind she left to live and rule Jakes kingdom, Misthaven. The time for an age-old tradition in Y/N kingdom came. Miraculously the Queen convinces Jake to invite her old village to come celebrate the tradition with them. This is the story on how the ruthless King learns how to love his Queen.

A/N: English is not my first language, so if there is any spelling or grammar errors: please let me know

Next part - masterlist

Queen Y/n (y/m/n) l/n used to be Princess of Eldoria. She was sighed away after the king, her father, passed away of an unknown illness. The Queen, her mother, passed away during her birth. Y/n was only 19 when she had to look after her small kingdom.

When other kingdoms heard she became queen, they target Eldoria. Y/n’s kingdom didn’t have a big army and was easily over powered by others. Her father knew she would be targeted the moment other kingdoms found out he passed away. Eldoria was the smallest kingdom of them all, only having a small village of a little over one hundred villagers. Her father made an agreement with the kingdom Misthaven, agreeing on giving his daughter away to King Jake Seresin, to assure she would be saved from a violent attack from enemy kingdoms. Why her father chose the most ruthless young king to marry her, she would never understand.

King Jake “Hangman” Seresin is the king of Misthaven. Becoming king at the ripe age of 17 after his dad passed away in an attack between Misthaven and an enemy kingdom. Now at age 21 he is know to be the most ruthless king to ever exist. Villagers and enemy kingdoms started calling him Hangman after an ambushed village was found where their whole army was hanged. It was later revealed the army of Misthaven ambushed the village, leaded by Jake Seresin.

When the King of Eldoria proposed a marriage between him and his daughter, he originally refused. Only agreeing when his Royal Advisor told him it would help his imagine in his own kingdom and their villagers.

Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw is the Royal Huntsman of Misthaven. A Royal Huntsman is an expert tracker and skilled hunter who accompanies the king on hunting expeditions, ensuring their safety and providing sustenance. When the king wouldn’t be available for a battle, he, together with Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, will lead the army in the battle. He got his nickname “Rooster” from the other knights because he was always waking up the earliest to check the castle for any dangers. He isn’t afraid to kill when needed.

Pete “Maverick” Mitchell is the Master of Arms in the kingdom Misthaven. A Master of Arms is a military commander who oversees the kingdom's armed forces and advises the king on matters of defense and security. He makes the attack plans of the kingdom and is the first one that will protect his kingdom.

Natasha “Phoenix” Trace is the lady-in-waiting of the Eldoria Kingdom. A lady-in-waiting is a trusted female attendant who serves the queen closely, providing companionship, assisting with personal needs, and attending to her daily routines. Y/n and Natasha have been friends since Y/n was a young princess. Natasha isn’t afraid in standing up against knights. If woman could become knights, she would be the first one to volunteer. Being Y/n’s lady-in-waiting, she followed her to Misthaven.

Robert “Bob” Floyd is the Royal Advisor from Misthaven. A Royal Advisor is a wise and trusted counselor who offers guidance and expertise in matters of governance, diplomacy, and strategy. They provide insight to the king and help shape their decisions. Bob convinced Jake into marrying Queen y/n after he heard the dark rumors the villagers spread about their King. Bob is convinced the marriage will help Jake into becoming the loving king he needs to be.

Javy “Coyote” Machado is the Kings Champion of Misthaven. A King Champion is the personal knight of a king. This title signifies that the knight is specifically chosen and sworn to defend and protect the king at all costs. Javy and Jake have been best friends since they were little. So it wasn’t a surprise when Jake choose Javy as his champion. Javy would do anything to protect the king, even if it costs his life.

Mickey “Fanboy” García is the Queens Champion of Eldoria. Similar to the King's Champion, the Queen's Champion is selected to be the queen's dedicated defender and protector. They are responsible for ensuring the queen's safety and representing her in tournaments, ceremonies, and other royal events. Mickey became the queens champion at age 14 when the 11 year princess was almost attacked by a dangerous villager. Together with Ruben “Payback” Fitch, he will protect the Queen with his life. Like Natasha, Mickey followed the queen to Misthaven.

Reuben “Payback” Fitch is the second Queens Champion. He was given the role at age 16 when the king started to become ill. The King was scared that more dangerous villagers would attack his daughter now that he couldn’t look after his daughter like he used to do. Luckily the villagers loved the princess and the King didn’t have to worry about his worrying thoughts. Rueben went with the Queen to Misthaven but occasionally would go back to Eldoria to look after the villagers there.

Taglist: @mirrorball-6 @corriegrace06 (let me know if you want to be tagged)

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footprintsinthesxnd · 1 year

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Love and War Masterlist

Synopsis: Bob Floyd never expected to fall in love during the war, especially not with a pretty, young nurse during basic training. But love works in funny ways and can their love stand the rest of time, the war and the distance that separates them. Warnings: mentions of graphic themes, war, injury, weapons, sexual images, language, 18+. Pairings: Robert Floyd x female!nurse reader Disclaimer: This series is a cross over of ideas from TGM and Band of Brothers, a WW2 series based on the real life events of the 101st Airborne Division. All characters are original characters (except for Bob Floyd) and they are not representations of the real, brave men who fought in WW2. I have tried to make all the events in this series as accurate as possible but please bare in mind this is fanfiction and i have added/ changed certain things to fit with this.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Character Moodboards and OC profiles

Part 1 - Camp Toccoa, Georgia - 1942

Part 2 - Upottery Airfield, England - 1944

Part 3 - Operation Market Garden, Netherlands - 1944

Part 4 - Mourmelon-le-grand and Paris , France - 1944

Part 5 - Ardennes Offensive, Bastogne - 1944

Part 6 - Hagenau and Germany 1945

Part 7 - Austria - 1945

Part 8 - Home, Alabama - 1947

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you’d like to be tagged in this series or some of my other fics please fill in the taglist form provided.

#robert bob floyd x reader #robert bob floyd #ww2 au #top gun maverick #Bob floyd ww2 #101stairbornedivision #ww2 nurse #bob floyd x reader

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coyotesamachado · 2 years

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Picture Perfect Porcelain

Robert “Bob” Floyd x Reader/Original Female Character

Her arm curls around the door so it’s lined up along the edge of it, Bob thinks he sees a droplet of water track from her wrist back down to her elbow, but his glasses are back in his locker and he really wishes they weren’t right now. He swallows thickly, because it’s different when he knows she’s naked behind there as opposed to it being salt water after she had been thrown into the ocean by Coyote during dogfight football.

Basically, I love hot showers.

Title is from Ever After by Marianas Trench.

Callsign is Mist.

This is cross posted from my AO3, link in the source.

WC: 2907.

Warnings: 18+, smut, hot showers, girl can’t deep throat, oral (male receiving), vaginal fingering, rooster is a menace.

Walking into the shower room, Bob could kick himself. She always waits until everyone else is finished with their showers, because she likes to have hot showers, the kind of ones that turn the room into a sauna, and leave no hot water for anyone else. Apparently, he hadn’t been fast enough though, because Mist is in here and he still hasn’t had a shower.

The door closes behind him and he flinches as the resounding bang echoes around the room. He hears her gasp, and she’s opening the door to her stall and peaking her head out.

“Bob! Shit, sorry, I was told everyone had been through already, I’ll finish up,” she rushes out.

“No, no, it’s fine, I’ll just have a cold one. I don’t mind,” he says quickly, trying to placate the situation because he doesn’t want to take away her shower time. His own are a moment to decompress from the day, and since she tends to take the longest and the hottest whenever she has the chance, he can only imagine that it’s the same for Mist. Her arm curls around the door so it’s lined up along the edge of it, Bob thinks he sees a droplet of water track from her wrist back down to her elbow, but his glasses are back in his locker and he really wishes they weren’t right now. He swallows thickly, because it’s different when he knows she’s naked behind there as opposed to it being salt water after she had been thrown into the ocean by Coyote during dogfight football.

“No seriously, just give me a minute and I'll wash all this soap off and then it’s all yours, plenty of water left.”

She pulls her arm back and goes to lock the door behind her when Bob speaks again, it’s so soft that she can barely hear him.

“What was that?” she calls out, her voice singing out over the noise of the shower.

Bob rubs the back of his neck, wondering whether he should repeat himself or just let those words disappear with the steam.

“Bob?”

This was going to end badly, he could tell.

“What if...”

The door opens again, her head and shoulder appear before him. While he wishes he had the kind of easy assurance that Hangman does to ask for what he wants, he doesn’t. It deflates him a little and he sighs.

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll be out in the locker room when you’re done,” he says, turning away from her and going to walk out.

“Wait! Were you... Are you... Will you...” she stutters, and she wishes she had the kind confidence that Phoenix has, to say what she wants without stuttering over it.

The steam is still thick around them, but it feels thicker than it had a minute ago.

“Bob, what if you just joined me, instead of waiting or...” she trails off again, and it’s so difficult to just put herself out there.

He turns back to her, and the door is open a little more, her collarbone now in his line of sight and he feels ridiculously overdressed. He stands there staring at her a beat too long and she breaths a long sigh.

“Sorry Bob, I just, I promise I’m nearly done, just forget what I said.”

It’s the door closing again that pulls Bob from his head and he’s dragging his shirt over his head, and unbuttoning his pants as he walks over. The shower turns off before he can knock or speak again. He feels like his lost his shot, but for once, he doesn’t want to walk away from it without trying.

“Turn it back on,” there’s a demand in his voice, and it kind of shocks him because he only really talks like that when he’s in the plane and needs Phoenix to do something in particular. He hears the gasp behind the door, and he smirks to himself. But her shower is back on and he feels the steam where he’s standing. The snick of the lock opening again captures his attention, and his heart is beating an unhealthy rhythm. Her hand is darting out like she’s trying to grab his shirt and pull him in, but when she only meets the smooth skin of his chest, there’s a choked off groan hitting the back of her throat.

She pulls open the door and steps back into the heat of the water, hoping the steam gives her a little bit of modesty. For the fact that Bob isn’t wearing his glasses, he really wishes she was closer right now. He drops his shirt on the little bench seat next to him, and turns to lock the door behind him. He takes in a deep breath, it’s all humid air at this point, and tells himself he can do this. She’s watching him carefully from where she’s near pressed up against the back corner. She feels like she should look away, but he’s bending down to shed himself of his pants and she can’t take her eyes off him. He folds both his pants and underwear neatly and puts them with his shirt, and her eyes are glued to the curve of ass down to the muscle of his thighs. When he turns, she’s suddenly very interested in the tile beneath her feet.

He hisses when the water touches his skin, used to the more tepid temperatures that came with being on a carrier, not this, which feels like she hasn’t even got the cold water turned on.

“You can turn it down, I won’t die not having a hot as hell shower,” she laughs, and it’s cutting through the tension, so Bob feels himself smiling.

“I’d rather not walk out looking like a lobster,” his voice is jovial, but he means it as he tries to avoid giving Hangman another reason to tease him.

“I think you’d make a very attractive lobster.”

And that’s what breaks his resolve, so he turns to face her, finally close enough that he can see the droplets of water caught on her collar bone, the lines of her hair plastered to her shoulder, and he picks a freckle that’s sitting right there at the front so he’s got something to look at.

“You’re being a gentleman,” she utters, taking a step closer to him. And yeah, he is, because this feels like he’s about to wake up any moment, alone in his bed and he’ll miss the heat of the shower. He doesn’t know how he’ll look at her in the morning if that’s the case.

He’s just blinking at her, and he knows he should be doing something but it’s been a while since he’s been in this position. Well, not this position exactly, but a woman, naked in front of him isn’t something that happens every day.

“Bob, I’m going to kiss you now,” she whispers and she’s right in front of him, her eyelashes sticking together in the damp. She places a hand on his cheek, her thumb moving in a comforting motion, but she’s really waiting for him to tell her to stop, to tell her that he doesn’t want this.

When he doesn’t, she gives him a gentle kiss, and Bob’s grateful that his brain switches back on in that moment, and he’s able to kiss her back rather than just stand there dumbly. His hand wraps around her hip and his thumb digs into the soft flesh above it. He backs her up until her back hits the wall of the stall and she’s barely in the spray of the water. She sucks in a breath at the change of temperature that hits her suddenly.

A quick sorry is mumbled against her lips, but she shifts her hand to the back of his neck, her other one reaching up to meet it, so she can pull him closer and deepen their kiss.

He hisses when the heat of her skin is pressed up against his chest, and she grins into him. She breaks the kiss but keeps him close and Bob doesn’t really know what to do with that information.

“We should get you cleaned up.”

“We should?”

“Mmhmm.”

And she’s letting him go, slipping from between him and the wall, and if he wasn’t getting hard before, the drag of her body would do it.

He smells the citrus of her body wash, and no, he would not admit to anyone else that he had paid that close of attention to her, that he recognizes the scent of her soap. There’s a slip of her hands on his back, the cold of her wash, and he moans at the feel of her hands running over him. She rubs at the knots in his shoulders, he feels them loosening up in the warmth of the shower and the careful ministrations of her fingers. She runs her hands down the length of his back, over the curve of his ass and he jumps a little when she smacks him gently. The soap suds fall around their feet as her laughter rings through the shower room.

She moves around him, a hand on the back of his neck, up over his shoulder and down the line of his chest. He finds the freckle on her shoulder again, giving something to focus on rather than the feel of her hands against him. She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, concentrating on her work as she lathers him up. He finds it just a little bit adorable when he looks back up at her, and he wonders whether she does it while she’s flying. God, now he’s going to be thinking about that when he’s up in a plane. Thankfully, Phoenix sits in front of him.

Her eyes roam over him, easily giving herself permission to look. Her hands track a path over his chest, down his front until her hands dip low across his hips and he sucks in a breath through his teeth at the sensation.

“You don’t...” “I want to,” she interrupts quickly, not giving him a chance to shy away from her.

Bob moans loudly at the feeling of her hand wrapped around him because it’s been so long since it wasn’t his own hand. She kisses him quickly, trying to silence him, but it’s messy as laughter starts falling from her lips, because it doesn’t work. So instead, she buries her face in his neck as her body wracks with her giggles. It brings a smile to his own face, despite the fact that her hand is still on his cock. He wraps his arms around her, pulling her under the shower spray with him, and grins when she looks up at him, hair plastered to her forehead. He pushes it away with a gentle hand before gripping the side of her face and kissing her hard. He bites at her bottom lip when she squeezes him, her hand slick with water and soap, so she glides easily over him. When her thumb pushes on his tip, Bob tosses his head back, when she does it again, the moan is ripped from him, echoing off the walls of the shower room.

“Shhh Bob, someone might walk in,” she chides, but the fact she swipes her thumb over it a third time, tells him there’s absolutely no heat behind it.

She pushes him up against the opposite wall, giving him a quick smirk before she’s squatting down in front of him and licking a stripe up the underside of his cock.

“Oh fuck,” he utters, and Mist grins because she doesn’t think the word ever sounded so sweet.

It’s not comfortable, but knees on a tile floor would be significantly worse. She takes him in her mouth and Bob honestly doesn’t know what to do with his hands right now. It’s an overload for his senses, the heat of her mouth and hand around him, the near suffocating steam, the spray of the water and the cold wall behind him. It’s a lot.

She works her mouth over him, trying to take him as far as she can, but she can only get to her hand before she’s choking and pulling back with a cough.

“Sorry,” she mumbles, before trying again with the same result, it’s definitely not as easy as they make it look in porn. But Bob places a comforting hand on her cheek, like he’s telling her that she’s doing great, that it’s the effort that counts. So, she swirls her tongue around the head, focusing on making that feel good while her hand takes care of the rest of his length. His breath is coming out in short pants mixed with the occasional moan when she twists her hand just so, and then her hand is speeding up while her tongue laves over him, and Bob’s moans grow louder and more frequent until he’s pulling her by her hair off him and she’s moaning at the sensation. He comes, it mostly missing her still open mouth but landing in painted stripes across her cheek, chin and chest. Bob wishes he had photographic memory at that point, because it’s an image he never wants to forget.

It’s cleaned off pretty quickly with her in the direct line of the shower.

She stands up slowly, taking Bob’s offered hand to help her, and once she’s level again, he's on her in an instant. His mouth slips over hers and he’s quickly deepening the kiss before she can really react. She wraps her arms around him again, pressing closer this time, and he’s less careful in his movements now. His hands run up and down the length of her back, over her sides and when he brushes the swell of her breasts, she huffs out a satisfied breath. He turns them around, taking the heat of the shower spray, one of his hands running down the length of her body until his fingers are sliding through her folds, teasing her gently. She’s so so wet, and Bob wonders idly whether she touches herself when she showers or if getting him off really affected her that much. A part of him wants to ask, but the other part of him doesn’t really want to know the answer to that. The self-conscious part of him is telling him that it’s just a part of her nightly ritual, but the other part that can acknowledge her soft moans and the cant of her hips chasing his fingers, tells him that it’s all about him.

He circles one of his fingers over her clit, drawing the sweetest sounds from her, and his cock jumps in interest. She’s practically mewing under his hands, but it’s just not enough for her.

“Please Bob,” she whines, her voice high pitched. He smirks at her and pushes a finger inside her, groaning at the heat around him. He brings his lips to hers again, and he swallows her little moans like they’re an oasis in the dessert. His thumb swipes over her clit as they kiss, and he hopes he’s making her feel as good as she made him feel.

As he plunges two fingers inside her, he pulls her hair at the same time, and Mist near about screams at the sensation. Bob hadn’t realized hair pulling was a thing he liked until it made her make those pretty little sounds, and by God, if he hadn’t just come, he’d be coming again. She rocks herself back and forth on his fingers, and the only thing that would make it better, is if it was his cock inside of her instead of his fingers. But then her moans pitch up and she drops her head to his shoulder, sucking messy, wet kisses there while she rides his fingers to her orgasm. He tugs on her hair again and she’s trembling around him, coming silently like it’s a surprise.

He lets go of her hair and wraps that arm around her, holding her close as he slows his fingers. He slips them from her when she stops shaking and washes them off in the shower that’s slowly cooling. When she looks up at him again, her smile is bright, but her expression quickly turns to embarrassment when she notices the line of red and purpling bruises she had sucked into his collar while she rode out her high.

“I’m so sorry Bob, I’ll help you hide those,” she says quickly, tucking her chin and looking down.

“Hey, no need for that Mist, don’t care if anyone sees them,” he says, cupping her chin and forcing her to look up at him.

He’s smiling, satiated and happy, glad that she had been in the shower when he’d walked in. She smiles shyly back, and he kisses her again, this time soft, like an assurance that everything is fine between them. He holds her close, pressing his forehead to hers and she finds something comforting in that.

“If you ever want a round t....”

“Yes, absolutely, as soon as possible.”

Phoenix walks into their common area, and throws herself on the lounge opposite Rooster.

“Where’s Mist?” she asks him.

“Showers,” he grunts in response.

“What about Bob?”

Rooster has the decency to look a little sheepish as he finally catches her eye.

“Showers.”

Phoenix’s jaw drops.

“Rooster, what did you do?

#robert bob floyd #robert floyd #robert bob floyd x reader #robert bob floyd x ofc #bob floyd #bob floyd x reader #bob floyd x female reader #top gun maverick #top gun: maverick #robert bob floyd fanfic #top gun maverick fanfiction #my fic

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sometimes-i-write-good · 1 year

Text

alma perdida - prologue

Top Gun: Maverick - original character insert

725 | "Don't you dare do anything stupid, Stinger."

Clearly whoever was shouting into the radio didn't know her very well. She'd spent years buzzing control towers, stealing jets for joyrides, and making the higher ups so miserable they almost missed Maverick.

Wouldn't dream of it. She thought. Doing, though? Now that was another story.

===

Genre: Canon Divergence, Angst, Coming of Age

CW: canon-typical violence, mentions of possible character death

Author’s note: This is my first fic for Top Gun/Top Gun: Maverick. I apologize for any and all inconsistencies, there are going to be quite a few. I know nothing of the military, and I suck at creating believable timelines that follow the movies to a precise science, so this is very much a canon divergence. || It’s also cross-posted on Ao3 with a lot more information, so please show it some love there as well <3

===

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.

It really wasn’t.

Mav had been clear. More clear than she had ever known him to be. If you did not meet the parameters, you did not come home. And she knew better than anyone, save Bradley, that Pete “Maverick” Mitchell did not just spend the past few weeks teaching them to push their limits out of the kindness of his heart. He did it to get everyone home.

And it was starting to look like that would be more wishful thinking than anything. Masters and the rest of those on the mission, her closest friends, knew there would be SAMs waiting for them after Coffin Corner. The sheer amount still managed to shock her. Screaming chaos reminded her of active-duty years ago. She was the only one to make it back that time. Who is making it back this time? She thought to herself.

“I can’t shake ‘em!” Rooster screamed into the radio. He never used to scream. When the two of them were growing up, she would push his lawful good mentality to the limits, and he only ever raised his voice once - and that was the day he stopped being her friend and became an enigma. Some weird variation of not being friends but wishing we were.

Am I cursed? Bee craned her head in all directions. Smoke in the air. All over the place and she was running out of flares and countermeasures to protect everyone with. Growing up Bradley had never been one to put himself in life-or-death situations. He’d only ever been the kind to pull her out of them, and yet here she was with his screams, “I can’t shake ‘em,” filling the cabin of her Boeing F/A 18E/18F Super Hornet. Stinger in a Hornet sent to take out a nasty hive. It had felt ironic a few hours ago.

Mav had chosen her as team leader. She got to choose who flew with her. It should have been Hangman out here. Someone who would have been fast enough, capable enough. Someone who would understand that this SAM headed for him was going to take him down and headquarters would tell the rest of them to fly back to that damn aircraft carrier. He would have had a smart-ass comment. “Don’t worry, everyone,” Masters could practically hear him croon with the slightest hitch in his voice. The voice of a man whose fate had already been signed. "Someone has to play the hero. It might as well be me.”

But it wasn’t. It was Rooster up here freaking out. It was Mav waiting for him back on the carrier. That missile would be sending two people to the grave, and you couldn’t have that on your conscience.

Fanboy glanced out his canopy at Bee. In the pandemonium - the screaming and spinning and smoke - he caught her eye and read her mind. Payback banked right to avoid a SAM. Fanboy’s gaze wasn’t there, but Masters could still feel the weight of his stare. He knew her well enough. They’d stolen kisses in between briefings and talked on the phone for hours at a time when they were stationed thousands of miles apart. He knew her well enough to know that Rooster’s screams did something to her. Activated this tiny part in her brain where abandonment turned her blood to ice.

“Don’t do anything stupid, Stinger!” But she couldn’t hear him over the sound of everyone screaming. “Don’t you dare!”

Maybe if she had locked onto Fanboy’s voice instead of Rooster’s “Holy fuck, guys!” she wouldn’t have made the split decision to do a cobra maneuver over Rooster and deploy her flares. Then there would be no need to scream Mickey’s name to beg for forgiveness of a higher power she wasn’t sure she even believed in.

Outside her F-18 everything went silent. The aftermath of a mission gone awry. Purgatory. A limbo holding her jet by the strings of fate. In an instant, all that changes. Those strings snapped. There’s nothing Bee can do but plummet down beneath everyone’s line of sight. She can listen to alarms blaring as she struggles to grab onto her eject lines, and she can hear Fanboy’s panicked shrieks.

“Stinger! Stinger! Masters, oh fuck no. Please, Bee!”

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.

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ohtobeleah · 10 months

Text

My Nightmares & You // A ToE Blurb

Summary: Jake is struggling with a reoccurring nightmare after the death of Bob Floyd. Amilia makes it so that Jake shouldn’t ever have to feel alone. Helping to release the stigma he so desperately wanted to shake.

Warnings: Mentions of Depression, eating disorders. Jake Seresin x Original Female Character. Mentions of death. Dark sense of humour surrounding mental health.

Word Count: 4.4k

-> Transport into the Terms of Endearment universe here. Read yesterday’s ToE blurb (Sticks & Tones) Here. & Rhett’s eulogy here.

“Don’t act so tough, Seresin.” Jaidyn scoffed as he pulled Bob up by his collar. “You already made your choice, remember?” Jake's heart sank as it all played out. Within seconds Bobs was lying in a heap on the floor as blood soaked into the cream carpet. The gunshot made Jake flitch in utter fear. Your terrified screams echoed off every wall it came into contact with. Bouncing left to right up and down.

“Remember this Jacob?” Jaiydn asked as he held the gun towards Jake's chest. “This was the part where you killed Robert Floyd.”

“I didn’t—“ Jake croaked out as tears ran down his face, mixing with blood that poured from his own ear wounds.

“Oh but you did Jakey boy, it was you who made it clear he wasn’t worth jack shit.” Jaidyn was ruthless as he stepped closer and closer to where Jake stood frozen, unable to move in his terrified state. “But it doesn’t matter anyway, because you couldn’t save them either.”

In the blink of an eye Jaidyn turned and fired a single bullet your way. Jake watched you fall to the ground in agony as Jaidyn turned and fired at Bradley—then Odette.

“NO—!”

In the middle of the night Amilia woke with a dastardly fright as the man who slept soundly beside her amongst a mess of bedsheets and pillows stirred and shouted into the darkness that encompassed them.

“NO—!”

“Jake?” She mumbled as she sat up and held the covers up to her chest to ward off the chill of the night. “Jake you right?”

“You couldn’t save her Jake—“ Jaidyn snarled as Jake fell to his knees completely heartbroken. His entire life had been torn apart at the seams right before his very eyes. “You couldn’t save them.”

Reaching over to turn on the bedside lamp that made her bedside table its humble abode, Amilia sat up in the dim orange hume to assess the situation going on beside her.

“Jake, baby? Open your eyes darling you’re dreaming—“ Jake laid in a pool of his own night sweats, shaking like he were as cold as ice. “You’re alright.”

“And you wanna know the best part Seresin?” Jaidyn laughed as minimally as he could as he lowered the gun—pressing it against Jake's temple as he closed his eyes. “The best part is that you’re the one who pulled the fucking trigger!!!”

In his nightmare, when Jake opened his eyes Jaidyns gun was in his blood stained hands.

“NO—!!”

“Jake! Wake up!” Amilia tried not to shake the six foot something aviator too aggressively but her heart broke in her chest listening to his whimpers. Fresh tears rolled down his cheeks and settled in the stubble present and prominent on his cheeks. “You’re okay, you’re dreaming.”

The second Jake woke from what had been a reoccurring nightmare ever since that fateful day— he held in a breath so desperately full of fright that he just stared up at the ceiling, trying to coax himself away from the metaphorical ledge he was ready to jump off.

“Jake?” Amelia's sweet and gentle voice broke through the fear and soon enough Jake was turning to face the woman he’d fallen asleep next to. “You okay? Looks like you had a bit of a nightmare?” She was full of concern as Jake ran a casual hand through his golden locks and reached up to pull Amilia down into his sweaty but warm embrace. Amilia let out a soft “Oof—“ as she collided with Jakes exposed chest. She could hear the way his heart raced with adrenaline from the nightmare his subconscious had concocted to torture him with in the depths of the night. “It’s okay, I get them too.” Amilia admitted without hesitation as she held Jake in the embrace she knew he needed to ground him.

“I’m good—“ Jake grumbled as he let out that heavy breath that had been crushing his lungs. “I’m fine, I promise.”

“Jake?” Amilia wasn’t buying it, but she didn’t press him to talk about it. Not now—not when sleep was pulling her back. “I can leave the light on, if you want?” Was all Amilia said as she yawned and kissed Jake's sternum.

“I’m good Oz, it was just a dream.” But it wasn’t just a dream, it was a reoccurring fuck of a nightmare Jake couldn’t shake and it was beginning to mess with him. “I’m fine—“ Amilia knew if anything that Jake was trying to convince himself that he was fine. “I’m fine.” Because he kept repeating it like a mantra. “I’m fine.”

“You need a dreamcatcher.” It was the middle of the night, Amilias eyelids grew heavier and heavier with every passing second as she laid her head on Jake's chest. Listening to his heartbeat settle.

Jake thought about the image of you and your little girl, Bradley and Bob all laying bloodied and dead before him as he held the very gun that killed you all in his hand. It terrified him to no end, that nightmare that had him in a vice grip.

His own subconscious was reminding him of his worst and greatest fear. Losing his family:

“I’ve already got one.” Jake tried to hide the way his voice shook as he held Amilia just a little tighter. Afraid if he let her go she’d be ripped away from him too. “Got her right here with me.”

***~***~***~***~****~****~***~

Javy Machado loved Chelsea Fitch’s chicken parmigianas with his whole ass heart. Every Wednesday night was Chicken Parmigiana night, with a chopped salad, garlic bread and homemade chips to go with.

Javy would race home from work, shower, change and head on over to Paybacks place with a six pack of beer in hand and a bunch of flowers for Chelsea. He appreciated her so much and the effort she went to to include his single ass in the Fitch Family Wednesday night dinner.

Soon enough it wasn’t just Coyote that was joining in on Parmi night. Amilia had officially moved into the spare room and had begun to make the space her own. You can call it a coincidence if you want but there was nothing coincidental about the way Wednesday night Fitch Family dinner went from an affair of four, to five, to six within the space of three weeks.

Because once Amilia Fisher had made her mark on Jake Seresin, there was not an excuse under the damn sun he wouldn’t use to spend more time with her.

So Chelsea Fitch’s Chicken Parmigiana’s were suddenly Jake Seresin favourite meal—and he suddenly wasn’t a Wednesday night regular at the Hard Deck anymore.

“Hey guys.” Chelsea cooed as she made herself busy in the kitchen. “Dinner’s almost ready, just waiting on the garlic bread.” Coyote leaned in to kiss the four foot nothing woman who stole their friends heart on the cheeks. She knew it was coming, so with a gentle grin and a side hug she accepted the warm gesture.

“As always, a beautiful bouquet for a beautiful lady.” Javy Machado was a flirt, that much was true, but the way he flirted with his friend's wife was as innocent as could be. Payback knew it was full of admiration for the woman who made her house a home with an open door to anyone.

Chelsea smiled ear to ear as she accepted the flowers she already had a vase set aside for. It was her favourite thing in the whole world. Those beautiful flowers she got every Wednesday as a show of appreciation from her husband's best friends.

“Thanks Javy—“ It wasn’t hard for Jake to see the similarities between Amilia and Chelsea, from the way they had the same intoxicating smile to the way they both seemed to twirl fabric between the pads of their fingers when they were thinking silently. Jake would watch Amilia do it with her bar apron—the same way Chelsea would do it with her dress. “Amilias out the back lover boy.” Chelsea chuckled softly as Jake came back into the conversation.

“Who says I’m here for Oz?” Jake tried to puff his chest as he greeted Mrs Fitch, towering over her with no trouble at all. “I’m here for you and your Parmigiana’s Chels, ain’t no ulterior motive.”

“Mmhmm, sure Hangman, I’ll bite.” Chelsea tapped his chest three times as he kissed her cheek, again, nothing but a loving gesture but the second Jake's lips were pressed against Chelsea cheek Payback was rounding the corner with a freshly showered Chase waddling beside him hand in hand.

“Hey, get your hands off my wife man—I don’t know where you’ve been.” Payback teased as Chase came running up to his mother. Tugging on her dress before she reached down to collect her four year old and sat him on the kitchen counter top.

“I know exactly where he’s been.” Chelsea turned to Jake and suddenly his cheeks were as hot as the surface of the sun—maybe he wasn’t as discreet as he thought he’d been leaving Amilias room this morning . Maybe it would have been a better idea if she had come to his. Perhaps that way he would have felt a little less awkward about his not so casual night terror. He’d been a little less than radio silent today—usually Jake would call or text whenever he got the chance. But after last night he had rendered himself speechless.

How exactly do you say sorry for waking you up in the middle of the night, I had a dream I killed everyone that ever meant anything to me.

“Again, she’s outside.”

“I’ll be right back.” Jake pressed his lips together into a fine line and headed in the direction of the backyard. He could see Amilia laying in the afternoon sun that was slowly starting to disappear over the horizon.

Everytime Jake saw Amilia his heart skipped a little beat inside his chest—he’d never felt that before. That little flip. They’d only been an ‘item’ for a few short weeks and yet Jake knew he was falling in love. Something he’d never been in before. It was all uncharted territory for him and it scared the ever living Christ from him. He wasn’t in love yet, but he could very much see himself hurtling uncontrollably in that direction.

“Hey!” Amilia had seen Jake standing in the sliding doorway out to the back patio before he even announced his presence. He’d gotten too caught up staring at her—wondering how to approach the situation he found herself in. “I didn’t know if you were coming over this afternoon or not.” Amilia admitted as she sat up from where she’d been lounging. The book she’d been reading was quickly discarded at her side. “You okay?”

That was the all important question these days wasn’t it. If Jake was okay—to be perfectly honest Jake hadn’t felt okay in weeks. Not since Bob. Not since he got Bob killed.

“Couldn’t get much worse I don’t think.” Jake shrugged as he stepped out to the back patio and shut the sliding glass door behind him. “So yeah—I think I’m okay.”

“I don’t think you should be in the business of tempting life, Jake—“ Amilia patted the space beside her on the lounge chair as an open invitation for Jake to come and sit beside her. He did without question or hesitation. “I’ll tell you something about tempting life—“

“Oh pray do tell Oz.” Jake smirked as he nudged at the woman who had come into his life in a whirlwind. “Pray do tell—“ Amilia smiled up at Jake as he sat beside her, pressed as close as he could be as they watched the sun disappear into the late afternoon sky.

“The first time I tried to kick my own bucket—“ Oh fuck this was not what Jake thought it was. “I decided to hang myself up in my closet like a new sweater—“ Amilia took a moment to pause before she continued, watching as Jake listened intently to what she was saying. She could tell he didn’t know how to react. “And the rack broke.” Jake didn’t mean to laugh, but the way Amilia said it had him letting out a little chuckle that he caught with a hand over his mouth and wide eyes to match, fear evident from the lack of empathy he failed to show. But that fear quickly softened as Amilia laughed too, she mimicked Jake's initial reaction almost instantly. “So then I had depression and an eating disorder.”

“Oh my god—“ Jake didn’t know how to react. “Oz—“ He and Amilia had spent many a night together talking about everything that made them uniquely themselves. “That’s so messed up.” The one thing they had in common that shocked the both of them was how they’re struggles with depression were so similar.

But the one thing Amilia had that Jake Seresin didn’t—was a dark sense of humour that helped her crawl her way back from the depth of her own personal hell.

“It’s okay you can laugh—“ Amilia nudged at the man who had stolen her heart from the moment she met him on the steps of the Miramar police station. “I laugh about it all the time, but the lesson still remains the same, don’t tempt life—it’ll just backhand you back—you think it can’t get any worse and then damn, you're still alive and afraid of carbs.”

“You’re just a plethora of knowledge aren’t you?” Jake shook his head as he reached around to pull Amilia into his side, his hand fell to her hip casually as she leaned her head on his shoulder. “But noted—don’t tempt life.”

“I’m gonna ask you again Jake.” Amilia already knew the answer, after the incident last night she knew that answer as clear as day. But she wanted Jake to tell her the truth. “Are you doing okay? Because I just keep noticing little things here and there that I'm a little concerned about.”

Jake paused as he let out a deep breath, the question his girlfriend asked lingered in the air like a bad taste would linger in your mouth. But ultimately—he told her the truth.

“No.” Jake shook his head as his shoulders slumped. “Yeah no I’m not doing too good.” Again there was a silence that lingered in the air.

“You wanna talk about it?” They were genuine and sincere questions. “I reckon Chels wouldn’t mind if we took those parmis to go?” It was a tempting offer that made the corner of Jake's lips pin into his cheeks. The idea of it just being him and Amilia, Amilia and him? Was far too enticing to refuse.

“Yeah, yeah I’d really like that.”

***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***

“What do you mean you’re taking yours and Jakes to go?” Chelsea huffed as she dished up dinner like a pro. “Ams?” The only thing Chelsea got as a response was a look. A single look that Chelsea knew all too well, someone was spiralling— but the deep pit in Chelsea’s stomach told her that out of the two souls who stood side by side like love drunk teenagers asking to stay out a little later on a school night. She knew it wasn’t Amilia spiralling this time.

Not after the gut wrench shouting she heard Jake Seresin doing in the middle of the night last night. It had been loud enough to wake both Chelsea and Payback.

“You should go see if he’s okay Re—“ Chelsea whispered to her husband worryingly. All Reuben did was shake his head and pull his wife close.

“If I know one thing about Hangman it’s that he’ll only talk to who he’s ready to talk to.” Reuben explained as he kissed his wife’s temple. “Something tells me that’s not me.”

“Okay—“ Chelsea huffed. “Fine, but please don’t come barging in at all hours of the night.” It was more of a whine than a gruff. “I got a kid who’s got ears like a Hawk.”

“Yes ma’am.” Jake smiled as he watched Amilia shovel off the neatly organised food that Chelsea had made into two Tupperware containers she’d fished from the cupboard frantically. “We won’t, scouts honour.” The way Jake held his hand over his heart and swore to Chelsea Fitch they would sneak back in at all hours of the night made Amilia chuckle as she worked to collect their food.

“I'm gonna pinch a fizzy drink too–” Amilia added as she opened the fridge, Jake frowned for a split second when Chelsea instinctively took it from Amilias grapes and scratched at the label–peeling the sunkist logo right from the clear plastic bottle. Leaving it naked. “We’ll share?” Amilia asked as she looked at Jake, he simply nodded–still trying to figure out the label situation in his mind.

“Thanks again for dinner.” Jake made sure his appreciation for Chelsea was known one final time. “Really.”

“My pleasure, now go on before it gets dark and the sand flies come out.” The mere mention of those pesky things had Amilia darting to the medicine cabinet for an antihistamine or two. She was mildly allergic. “Drive safe, for the love of god—and by drive safe I mean Jake drives—!”

“I’m not feeling suicidal Chels.” Jake teased as Amilia deadpanned him. The joke was getting old already but it was justified. Amilia wasn’t the best driver around, especially when all the road rules were flipped on their axis. “Sorry—“ Jake cooed. “But I’m driving honey.”

***~***~***~***~***~***~***~

It wasn’t all that cold down by the beach, but there was an awfully present breeze that would pick up from time to time that made Amilia shiver. Jake—with his warm blooded furness like self, offered out his jumper to the woman who couldn’t have been more supportive of him even if she tried.

Jake would later grab the spare jacket he kept in the cab of his truck. He was feeling the brisk breeze too—but he knew Amilia liked that particular jumper and it smelt like him too.

“How long have you been having nightmares for?” Amilia asked softly as the waves carved on the shore, Jake didn't answer right away, he simply stared out over the horizon, just above Amilias head. He could smell the familiar notes in her shampoo–Strawberries and vanilla and just knew he was safe in every way there ever was to be safe. Amilia was his person.

“I think the first time I had it was a week after–” Amilia had never heard her jake sound so vulnerable before, but he was being honest, open, and oh so raw. It was a side to him he didn't let anyone see. The vulnerable side. The side his dad would have called weak. The side his mother would have told him to build a brick wall around. The side he never wanted you to see because how would you ever come to him with your problems if you thought he was struggling with his own. “It's the same damn dream, every time.”

“You never did tell me what happened.” Amilia knew what she had been told and was able to glue the broken pieces together to create a broken mosaic image of that fateful night. “And you don't have to if you don’t want to.” She added. “But if you do wanna talk about it, you can trust me.”

Again, Jake didn't answer right away, but the silence was comfortable as the gentle crashing of the soft waves lapped at the shoreline. The push and pull of the moon's force mimicked the caring nature Amilia approached his current predicament with.

“No!” Jaidyn snapped. He was spiralling out of control quickly. “No, I want you to choose Jake! Choose one of them because either easy its your decision that chooses who lives and who fucking does and she ends up hating you anyway.” Not a day went by that Jake didn't hear play in his mind. It was stuck on an endless loop.

“He wanted me to choose–” Jake finally spoke. He wasn't sure how much time had passed the pair of them but he was grateful that Amilia didn't press him. She sat between his legs with her back to his chest drawing unidentifiable objects into his jean clad knee. “Between Odette and Bob.” Amilia didn't know what to say, so all she did was listen to what Jake had to say. “I told him to shoot me.”

“Bold Strategy Seresin.” Amilia couldn't see it, but there was a soft smile that for a millisecond, crept across Jake's face as he leaned in to kiss the top of her head and took a deep breath in of the comforting aroma of strawberries and vanilla. “You dream about that choice?”

“Yeah–yeah and in my nightmares it's all of them, Bob, Fe, Bradshaw, even Dot.” Jake choked out as he tried to hold in the tears his eyes threatened to spill. “I can’t save any of them and every time I close my eyes it's all I see. Bob and his blood all over my hands.”

“Jake–” Amilia saw it as a good a time as any to shift between Jake's legs to face him. She moved so that she sat cross legged between Jakes. Cupping his face to pull him close. “You didn't kill Bob baby–Jaidyn was always going to do what he did.”

“I could have stopped him if I did more.'' Jake shook his head, it broke Amilias heart to see the man she’d started a relationship with break before her very eyes. But his tears were as pretty as he was. “I should have done more–”

“When you pray for rain you gotta deal with the mud too.” Jake chuckled as he sniffled up a sob. He needed his notes app right now.

“What the hell does that one mean?” Amilia smiled at the way Jake tried his hardest to keep himself from falling apart. Sitting this close face to face she noticed just how dark the bags under Jake's eyes really were. How tired he looked.

“It means that I think even if you had done more, someone still would have gotten hurt.” Amilia explained as she wiped away the tears that had fallen freely down Jake's cheeks. “It very well could have been Dot if you hadn't gotten the hell outta there when you did.”

“Rhett still hasn't spoken to me since.” That much was true. Rhett hadn’t really looked in Jake's direction since Bob’s funeral. Jake thought it was because Rhett blamed him, but it was because Rhett didn't know how to say thankyou for doing all that Jake could.

“Yeah well judging by Rhett's eulogy baby he's on his own path of trying to figure all this out.” Amilia smiled softly as she leaned in the press a gentle but all loving kiss against Jake's lips. She could taste the tears. It broke her heart. “Rhett doesn't blame anyone but the person who deserves the blame.”

“You reckon?” All Jake wanted was another kiss, his wish was granted as Amilia nodded and pressed her lips against his once again.

“I don't tell fibs Seresin, you’re just gonna have to trust me.”

“Do you trust me?’ Jake asked softly as he drank in Amilia's features. She was everything Jake thought his soulmate would be. If he ever had the chance to find his that was. Looking at Amilia now he thought he may have been the luckiest guy on earth.

“Eh–I did meet you on the steps at the police station so I may need a little more time to decide.” Amilia teases as she bit her bottom lip, Jake wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his lap, leaning in and over to kiss her deeper than she had kissed him. “Yes, yes I trust you.”

“You trust me enough to tell me why your sister pulls the labels off your soda?” it was Amilias turn to not respond right away. She froze for a moment but ultimately decided if Jake could open up about the nightmares plaguing his subconscious, then she could open up about the nightmare she was living.

“It's so I can't count the calories.” Jake knew about Amilias struggles with food, she’d been pretty open about her past. But for some reason Jake thought it was just that–in the past. “It's just something our mum used to do when I was younger–so I couldn't spiral out of recovery and into a replace.”

“My dad used to make me a protein smoothie for breakfast every morning when I was a teenager–” Jake didn't know how to relate to Amilias struggles but he thought sharing his own, it may give her a sense that she could trust him just a little more. He wanted to know everything about her. “It had like two thousand calories in it with fifty grams of protein.” All her weaknesses and her flaws, along with all the beautiful things about her that made her, her.

“I'm sorry to tell you that your body would have only digested about twenty, twenty five of that fifty grams.”

“That explains the shitty digestive issues I had back then–.” Jake chuckled as Amilia looked up at him with her head in his lap as he looked down at her. “He used to do it because he thought I was a scrawny kid, thought he was helping, but it wasn't. If anything it just gave me a bad case of body dysmorphia.”

“Oh I know that bitch all too well.” Amilia scoffed to herself before the conversation died down to nothing. To a point were both Jake and Amilia just at and listened to the waves in a comfortable silence, falling deeper in love with one another than they had ever loved anyone before.

***~***~***~***~***~***~***~

The next afternoon as Amilia made her way into work, Penny was sending her a smoke from behind the bar. It looked playful enough, so Amila bit.

“I got shit on my face or something Pen?”

“Lover boy left you a present.” Penny explained as she cleaned the top of the bar. “Said he’d be back a little later, but dropped this off before he dashed.” With intrigue, Amilias heart began to beat a little faster inside her chest as she looked at the small box of chocolates sitting on the counter. A card with Jake chicken scratch handwriting sat atop the box.

“Thanks for the therapy session last night Sigmund Freud, see you later–much love Hangman.” Read the card. Amilia could feel the heat rising to the apples of her cheeks as she tried to hide her smile. As she turned the box of chocolates over Amilia raised a brown in surprise.

The nutritional information had been scratched away.

Jake had listened as intently to her as she had listened to him.

***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~**

Tags: @a-serene-place-to-be @lilyevanswhore @thescarletknight2014 @blindedbythelightt @averyhotchner @emma8895eb @blairfox04 @caitsymichelle13 @oxxolovemelikeyoudooxxo @teacupsandtopgun @aemondssiut @akalei349 @notjustsomeblonde @americaarse e @avaleineandafryingpan @phoenix1388 @xoxabs88xox @je-suis-prest-rachel @pono-pura-vida @rosiahills22 @starset21 @anarchyrising @caidi-paris @starkleila @criticalroleobssedperson @enchantingdreamergothprune @flrboyd @emma8895eb @endofdays56 @seresinsaint @topguncortez @mandylove1000 @clancycucumber230 @kmc1989

#terms of endearment // jake seresin #terms of endearment universe #jake hangman imagine #jake seresin fanfiction #jake seresin x oc #top gun maverick hangman #tw: mental health

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thatdammchickennugget · 6 months

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REQUESTING GUIDELINES

Currently [ x ] open // [ ] closed

RULES;

✩ I will write character x reader, character x character and character x original character

✩ I especially love au's and I'm up for pretty much anything weird that gives me the ability to go wild and creative, so even if you think your idea might be a little out there, don't be nervous about sending it in

✩ don’t request smut for underage characters, also don't request fics for real life people, I will only write about characters

✩ I usually write from a female reader perspective but will write a gender neutral or male reader if requested

✩ I’m willing to write about characters that aren’t on the list below if I like the request and feel like I know the character well enough

✩ please try to be at least a little bit descriptive, and by that I mean literally everything that's more than just "enzo smut"

✩ unfortunately it can take me a while to get to your requests, but I'll do my best at getting them done as quickly as possible. but if I don't have any ideas for your request at all I might not write it. I'm trying to keep writing a fun thing, so I'm not going to force myself to write something I don't vibe with

✩ if you're unsure about your request and don't want to send it in as an ask because you might want to discuss it first, my dm's are always open for you!

✩ Harry Potter

➵ Marauders Era - Remus Lupin, James Potter, Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, Lily Evans, Marlene McKinnon, Mary Macdonald ➵ Golden Trio Era - Lorenzo Berkshire, Blaise Zabini, Theodore Nott, Mattheo Riddle, Pansy Parkinson, Draco Malfoy, Ron Weasley, Luna Lovegood, Fred Weasley, George Weasley, Bill Weasley, Charlie Weasley, Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger ➵ Hogwarts Legacy Era - Garreth Weasley, Poppy Sweeting

✩ Other Fandoms

➵ Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase, Grover Underwood, Leo Valdez, Clarisse La Rue, Luke Castellan, Sally Jackson, Connor Stoll ➵ Top Gun Maverick - Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw, Jake “Hangman” Seresin, Robert “Bob” Floyd, Natasha “Phoenix” Tracer ➵ The Summer I Turned Pretty - Steven Conklin, Cam Cameron ➵ Avatar The Last Airbender - Sokka, Katara, Suki, Zuko, Toph ➵ Baldur's Gate 3 - Karlach, Astarion, Shadowheart, Wyll, Gale, Dammon ➵ Julie And The Phantoms - Luke, Alex, Reggie, Julie, Flynn, Willie ➵ Tom Holland Characters - Peter Parker, Todd Hewitt ➵ Dylan O'Brien Characters - Stiles Stilinski, Joel Dawson, Stuart

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ready-steady-freddie · 2 years

Text

Beyond (Part one)

Robert Bob Floyd x original female character

Warnings: None, really. Mentions of alcohol and death.

Word count: 2,8K

Notes: So, I recently watched Top Gun: Maverick and instantly fell for everyone's favourite Bob. It's funny, he is so far from my usual type but oh, that boy does things to me.

And thus this fic basically writes itself. Let me know what you think.

This isn't beta'ed.

PART TWO | PART THREE | PART FOUR | PART FIVE | PART SIX

‘The Hard Deck’. Kate did not know what that meant. It sounded very navy-like, almost boat-like but she was sure it must have had a specific meaning. She would ask someone in uniform later that night if the opportunity arose.

The bar did not look like much from the outside. Placed on the southern beach on the North Island Naval Air Station, Kate had been told it was usually frequented by both permanent and temporary employees of the station. She did not know much about the navy or people employed in the navy but she wanted to spend time with her sister and support her in meeting and getting to know her new co-workers on the premises. So here they were on a Friday night, ready yet did not know what to expect.

Kate and Lily stepped inside and were met with the sight of an endless number of khaki-uniformed men and women and a hefty amount of noise that almost drowned out the jukebox currently playing some random rock hit from the 80s. Kate took a deep breath and looked at her sister. Lily grabbed her hand, beaming a smile at her. She was excited. A little nervous too, Kate sensed.

“Thank you for joining me here. I know it’s not really your thing.”

Kate smiled. “It’ll be fun. I hope.”

They ordered two colourful, fruit-flavoured drinks at the bar and found a spot by a window overlooking the beach. The place was busy but not entirely packed. None of the nearby pool tables were occupied yet.

“So, your first week at the air base, huh?” Kate looked around the place. It was not quite evening yet and most people seemed in good, loud spirits. She briefly wondered what life was like for these people in the navy. Did they live on the premises? Did they have a normal family life? She appreciated that her sister had not enrolled in the navy but simply found a job inside the air station. They had been separated for far too long now and she could not bear the thought of not being able to see her whenever she wanted.

Lily nodded while sipping on her pineapple cocktail. “Yep, it’s been interesting.”

Kate raised an eyebrow, wanting her sister to elaborate on her reply. But she did not get an explanation as a tall figure came up and interrupted them.

“Hello ladies,” came a deep voice. Kate and Lily both turned their attention towards the man. Kate’s mouth fell slightly open at the sight of him while Lily sat up straight, almost automatically pushing her chest out. He stood broad-shouldered, broad-chested in his uniform with dark blonde hair styled to perfection, name tag revealing his rank of lieutenant and last name Seresin. His gaze was intense upon them, his smile wide and inviting. He was gorgeous and he knew it.

“Hi,” Lily immediately replied.

“Oh my god, you’re twins,” was the man’s only words before another handsome man turned up behind him. He stood just as tall and broad-shouldered but dressed very casually in a white top with aviator sunglasses hanging from the neckline and a subtle form of Hawaiian shirt. He sported thick, wavy dark hair and a unique moustache that reminded Kate of pictures she had seen of her father in the 80s. She smiled to herself and did not know if she found it attractive or weird. Perhaps both.

“Hangman’s wettest dream come true,” he laughed. He reached out to shake their hands and they happily obliged. “Hey, I’m Bradley.”

“I’m Lily and this is Kate.” She gazed briefly at the blonde man - Hangman? - and smirked while looking back at Kate. “We’re not twins.”

Kate nodded with a similar tiny smirk. “We’re not even related.”

“This happens all the time," Lily sighed.

Both Bradley and Hangman looked dumbfounded, eyes wide and mouths shaped in confused smiles. “What?”

Kate and Lily laughed to themselves. "Just kidding!"

"We are sisters."

"But not twins."

"Pseudo twins, though."

"Oh yeah, that's true."

“Thirteen months between us.”

The sisters enjoyed teasing the two men, grinning slightly as their gaze shifted from one sister to the other like watching a tennis match.

Hangman cleared his throat after a few seconds of silence. “I haven’t seen you around here before. Are you both stationed here?”

“No, we’re not in the navy. But I just started a new position as physiotherapist at the fitness centre on site.” Hangman looked intrigued and smirked. Judging by his muscular physique, Lily could be almost certain to run into him there. Kate smiled behind her almost empty cocktail. As if Lily would mind seeing this hunk of a man again. Add to that a tight t-shirt and shorts and you would have to mop her up from the floor.

Kate was not sure what to answer or if they even wanted an answer from her. She honestly did not want to disturb whatever was happening between Hangman and her sister and so she casually finished her drink and slid off the stool. She motioned to Lily that she would head to the bar. Hangman immediately yet nonchalantly took her place opposite her sister.

“Let me accompany you to the bar,” Bradley offered, “I’m heading there myself to buy some beers.”

Kate smiled. “Thank you, that’s very nice of you.”

“It’s easy to be overlooked when you’re not that tall and the place is getting packed,” Bradley replied with a wink. Kate smiled slightly as she figured he had a point. Standing almost an entire foot taller than her, he would undoubtedly have more luck ordering drinks at the bar than she would. “So, what are you having?”

“Just something very sweet and very girly. You know, colourful and fruity.”

Bradley grinned. “Gotcha.”

Kate gazed back at her sister and the officer. Lily was totally engrossed in conversation with him. Her entire face was lit up with interest and enjoyment and Kate smiled at her sister’s fortune this evening. She deserved to meet someone who would treat her right, and if this guy had any intention of not treating her right, Kate would simply have to find him and cut his balls off.

In front of them stood a lone officer in khaki uniform bent over a pool table, racking up the balls to start a game. He looked tall but not nearly as broad-shouldered as Bradley or Hangman. Kate made a quick mental note to find out Hangman’s real name because ‘Hangman’ was just silly. The lone officer had a neat side parting in his sandy blonde hair and wore glasses that looked too big for his slender face. Kate caught his eyes and smiled at him. He was cute. Very cute indeed. Kate felt heat creeping up her neck and cheeks as she held his gaze for a few moments.

The man in question furrowed his brow slightly as Kate smiled and turned to look over his shoulder. There was no one behind him. She was smiling at him. Kate giggled a little behind her hand at his reaction.

Bradley came up next to Kate and handed her two pink-purple drinks. “Here you go.”

“Again, thank you so much. What do I owe you?”

“Oh, no problem. These are on me. You can buy the next round.” Kate smiled in gratitude and sensed that he would never let her or any other woman pay for their own drinks while he was around.

“So, Bradley,” Kate said as they walked back to Hangman and Lily and handed them their new drinks, “Are you in the navy, too?”

“I am, I am. Looks can be deceiving,” he gestured to his choice of clothing, “But I am indeed a navy boy. I just hate wearing khakis.”

As they reached the pool table Bradley greeted the lone officer with a fist bump and placed a cup of clear liquid on the rail of the table. He, too, was a lieutenant. Lieutenant Floyd. “Hey, man. Here’s your drink.”

“Thanks, Rooster.”

Kate shook her head with a slight smile and asked the man, “If that’s Hangman and he’s Rooster, what do they call you?”

“I’m Bob.”

Kate laughed. She found that very endearing. He could definitely be a Bob. “Just Bob?”

Bob smiled. “Just Bob.”

“Alright, Bob. I’m Kate.” She shook his hand.

“Just Kate?”

Kate grinned a little and confirmed, “Just Kate.”

“Do you play, Kate?” Bob stood with a pool cue in each hand, gingerly offering her one of them. Kate looked around for Bradley, figured he and Bob were to play a game, but he had bounced off to talk to a few other people in uniform.

She accepted the cue from him and rested it on the pool table. “Not really, no.”

“I’ll show you how,” he suggested and quickly added, “Uhm, if you want to.”

Kate noticed a bit of flushing on his cheeks, nodding at his proposal. "Please do."

As the night progressed Kate found herself getting more and more tipsy as both Hangman and Rooster kept filling her and Lily up with delicious, sweet cocktails - and somehow she found her game at the pool table improving as well. Bob, on the other hand, despite keeping up with her tempo of drinking, did not seem one bit drunk.

"Bob, what are you drinking? You seem to be holding your liquor very well." Kate could not tell if she was slurring her speech or not. She hoped she sounded more sober than she felt.

"It's just water. I'm the designated driver tonight and I usually don't drink alcohol anyway."

"Ohhh. And here I am, getting to the point where I can barely see which hole to pocket the balls in. I'm sorry, what must you be thinking about me." She rubbed her temples.

Bob smiled. "Let's take a break. Get some fresh air."

"That is such a good idea."

The sun had not yet set below the horizon but it was nearing the time of night where the darkness took over the blue, purple, red and pink hues of the sky. Kate was almost brought to her knees with the freshness of the southern California sea air. She slumped down on the wooden porch outside the bar, Bob joining her on the ground.

Kate glanced up at the sign above the door of the building, making her dizzy. "What does 'the hard deck' mean? Do you know?"

"It's the expression we use during flight training exercises to represent the ground level. It's ten thousand feet."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that if we go below that altitude during exercises, we have basically crashed and are no longer part of that exercise."

"Oh." Kate's brow furrowed. "Is it difficult to stay above the hard deck?"

"Not if you're a good pilot and know what you're doing."

Kate smiled mischievously. "Are you a good pilot?"

Bob laughed a little. "I'm actually not a pilot, I'm a wizzo. Hangman and Rooster whom you met earlier are naval aviators. Pilots."

Kate wagged a finger at him and giggled. "Are you just making stuff up now? What's a wizzo?"

He laughed again and held his hands up in defence. "I'm not, I swear. It's short for Weapon Systems Officer, or WSO. Basically, I sit in the backseat of the jet and I'm responsible for manning the weapon system on that jet."

Bob told of his duties with such unpretentiousness that Kate for a second doubted if he was even in the navy. Weren't naval flight officers supposed to be overly confident, brazen and loud? He was a strange one. Sort of reserved yet open and honest. The warm wind pushed his locks around a bit, making him look a little less rigid.

"Honestly, that sounds very complicated and dangerous."

"I suppose it can be." Bob rubbed his neck self-consciously. He offered Kate a drink of water which she gladly accepted. "What do you do for a living, Kate?"

"Well .. uhm, I'm in between jobs right now." Kate had not yet figured out for herself if she was embarrassed by the fact that she was out of a job. She had her reasons, but she was not sure if she wanted Bob to know why or if he was even remotely interested. Why would he be? "But I am a registered nurse and had been working at a hospice for some years prior to moving here down south."

"A hospice, huh? So you must be used to people dying."

Kate raised her eyebrows. Bob was a straight talker. People usually did not know how to react when she told of her profession and former place of work. Death was not something most people liked to talk or even think about. Strange, Kate mused, as the only certain thing in this life is that we must all leave it again at some point. But, she supposed, Bob was used to that risk every time he sat in a jet. No need to sugar-coat things.

"Yeah. Not the shot-down-by-enemy-jets, crash-and-burn type of deaths." She eyed him with a wry smile. "But the slow ones. Surrounded by peace and quiet and hopefully the ones you love."

Bob took a deep breath and sighed. "I have so much respect for the work you do."

Something hitched in Kate's chest or throat or somewhere in-between. A naval flight officer, probably not much older than she was, who had definitely seen combat, been to war, in all likelihood shot down enemy planes, had respect for the work she did? She became dazed, heat once again making its way across her chest, neck and face, further fuelled by the alcohol consumed. She appreciated how the dim lighting hid that from Bob.

"It-it's nothing. I mean, someone dying is not nothing. It's special. It's very intimate and sorrowful and it's beautiful and it's such an honour to be able to give people a dignified death."

"My grandpa Donald died in a hospice some years ago, and I remember there was this one nurse who made all the difference to him and us while he stayed there. She was so good to him." He let out a shaky breath and looked Kate in the eyes. "You make all the difference to people. Please know that."

Bob seemed pained at the memory of his grandfather's death. Kate wanted to reach out and hold his hand. As she had done many, many times as a loved one passed away in her care. But she did not. Bob's kind and earnest words were sobering to Kate. And something about the way he observed her made her feel confident and competent, even if he had not spoken about her personally. But she felt seen and acknowledged.

Bob shook his head and smiled despite himself. "I can't believe I've already told you my grandfather's name. I'm not going to say a single word for the rest of the evening."

Kate laughed a little. "Well, thank you for sharing your memory of your grandfather with me."

"He was - is .. He is very special to me."

"I can tell."

Moments of comfortable silence fell over them and passed until Bob spoke again. "I gather you're not from around here? You said you moved down here?"

"I did," Kate nodded, "I came all the way down from the northern part of Washington to be close to my sister. I'm practically Canadian."

Bob chuckled. "We're both so far away from home. Not that I really have a home to return to-"

A commotion near the entrance to the bar snapped them out of their conversation. Bradley and Hangman had one arm each of Lily's slung over their shoulders and they were just about carrying her outside. They were all laughing, drunk and happy. Lily spotted Kate on the ground and wrestled out of the two pilots' supportive holds to hug her sister. "Jake! It's Kate. It's my sister Kate!"

"Kaaaaaate!" she called as she fell on top of Kate, awkwardly putting her arms around her. Kate laughed and embraced Lily who fell quiet and closed her eyes. Kate heard the three officers laughing amongst themselves.

"We called a cab to take you back home," Hangman said. "We, ah, probably gave her one drink too many."

"Oh, she'll definitely be suffering tomorrow," Kate replied with a grin. "I'll take care of her. Thanks for keeping her entertained tonight."

Hangman helped Lily up while Bob offered Kate a hand to get her on her feet again. She smiled shyly at the taller man, feeling bold. "Thank you, Bob. You have very kind eyes."

He cleared his throat, slightly perplexed, holding her hand still. The cab arrived and the sisters were helped into the car.

Before closing the door behind Kate, Bob said, "I'm not just Bob, you know."

"No?" Kate smiled.

"Robert. My name is Robert."

"Well, Robert. I'm not just Kate either."

"No?" he replied with one raised eyebrow.

"Katherine."

He grinned slightly as he closed the car door gently.

"I hope to see you around, Katherine."

"See you, Robert. Bradley. Jake."

The cab sped off into the night, leaving four hearts beating just a little bit faster.

PART TWO

#bob floyd #bob floyd top gun #lieutenant bob floyd #bob floyd fanfiction #top gun fanfiction #everyone's favourite bob

32 notes · View notes

ready-steady-freddie · 2 years

Text

Beyond (Part four)

Robert Bob Floyd x original female character

Warnings: 18+! Explicit sexual acts, mentions of masturbation and adult language.

Word count: 3,2K

Notes: The layout for this is way off as I posted it from my phone. I will try to fix it once I have access to a laptop or tablet. Other than that, enjoy!

PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE | PART FIVE | PART SIX

"Lily, get in here, please! I need your help!"

"You must be really desperate if you're calling on your slutty sister to help you get dressed." They stood quietly and looked at each other for a minute. "And you're not even going to argue against the whole 'slutty sister' thing?"

"I am desperate. Help me, please."

Lily stared at the mess on Kate's bedroom floor, kicking a few items of clothing aside.

"I forgot, where is he taking you?"

"I don't actually know. He said to dress classy-casual. I don't even know what that means!"

"Where is that dress you wore to Isabelle's wedding a few years ago?"

"The dark blue one?"

Lily nodded as Kate trawled through her wardrobe to find the specific dress. "And what are you wearing underneath?"

"Uhm .. Underwear."

Lily rolled her eyes. "Kate, seriously. You're acting like you've never met a man, been on a date or had sex before. You need some sexy underwear!"

Kate just looked lost. "Well, I am not particularly experienced in any of those categories."

"Look, some of us are expecting you to get laid tonight. I'm sure Bobby would appreciate if he was the one doing the laying and he would appreciate it even more if you showed him that you did all of this just for him."

"I am doing all of this just for him."

"But he doesn't know that, does he? Until he gets to see the part of you that only he gets to see. You in your underwear."

Kate sighed in frustration. She knew Lily was right. She was so nervous about their date and she had spent many hours doing something nice but not too complicated with her hair and she had put on makeup and it was almost 7pm and she was still dressed in her pyjamas. She pulled out the dress Lily had asked for. That would have to do. She did not have time to try on any more clothes and not make a decision.

"Kate, I found some underwear that matches your dress and I am honestly a little astounded that you even own a set like this." Lily giggled and threw the underwear on Kate's bed.

Kate glanced at it. She could not remember where or why she bought it. It was extremely impractical, more lace than actual fabric. It looked so itchy and Kate hated the idea of wearing it. She hesitated.

"I'm not saying you have to wear this. I'm just saying, you wanna impress this guy, right? Maybe even have sex with him."

Kate nodded.

"This will impress him."

Kate took a deep breath. "Okay, okay, okay. Get out of my room and I'll get dressed."

Kate had barely closed the clasp on her necklace when the doorbell rang. Her heart skipped a beat. He was here. And right on time. She panicked. She needed a drink to calm her nerves. But she did not have any alcohol at home and she had promised herself only one drink tonight at dinner and, even if she did have alcohol at home, she did not have time to mix a drink right now. She hurried to the door, eager to get there before Lily did. She buzzed Bob in and opened the door before steadying herself against the frame.

He was a sight for sore eyes as he walked up the stairs, a plethora of wild flowers in one hand. He had discarded his glasses for the evening and looked like he had not shaved in a couple of days. He was dressed classy-casual in the same outfit as last weekend with a nice jacket thrown over. Kate's breathing increased, her mouth went dry and her ears were filled with the pounding of her heart. She felt dizzy.

"You brought flowers? For me?" She looked them over and did not recognise many of them but the smell of lavender was unmistakable. Her eyes lit up when they found his and her smile widened.

"My grandma didn't raise a fool. She taught me that whenever you visit someone's home for the first time, you bring flowers or you bring a pie. I-I didn't have time to bake a pie."

"Thank you, Bob. They're beautiful."

A dash of pink came over his cheeks and ears. He breathed deeply and replied, "Not nearly as beautiful as you. You look breathtak-"

It would have been a very romantic moment, had Lily not showed up that very second and groaned, "Urgh, just go bone each other already."

Kate sent her a sharp look. "Lily, put these in a vase, please."

Lily took the flowers and gave Bob a nod.

"Bobby."

"Lily."

"You take good care of my sister, alright?"

"I will." He stuck out his hand for Kate to take. "Wanna get out of here?"

"More than anything."

He hoped his palms did not feel too sweaty as he led her to his car. He opened the car door and helped her inside. Still holding her hand, he eyed her up and down, making sure she noticed.

"You really look amazing, Kate."

"You do too, Bob."

They returned to the apartment building around midnight, taking a long stroll down by Mission Beach after dinner. There had been many moments of fingertips touching, bare feet caressing clothed calves, stolen looks across the table and a warm hand on a bare thigh on the car ride back to Kate's place, starting a fire in Kate's core every time they touched. Bob walked Kate to the front door. He circled her upper arm with one hand once the door was unlocked.

"Kate," he murmured. She turned to look up at him. He was so handsome and he probably did not even know it. His beautiful blue eyes and his cute, slightly lopsided mouth. His hand moved slowly from her arm to the side of her neck and her jaw, his thumb almost unnoticeably brushing against her cheek. She closed her eyes for a moment and savoured the feel of his rough fingers against her soft skin. Parting her lips slightly, she expected him to kiss her any second now.

Any second now …

Any. Second. Now.

It did not happen. She glanced up at him again. He stood frozen. Not like he was nervous or panicking but like he wanted to remember this very moment and not ruin it by moving a muscle.

Finally, he spoke. "I suppose this is the part of the evening where I'm forced to kiss you goodnight."

Kate closed her eyes briefly and chuckled. "Forced to? Would it be that bad?"

He shrugged with a relaxed smile. "I'm sure I could suffer through it."

"Me too."

Neither made the next move. Kate wanted to do something, anything. Her body called out for him, only him, and she could not and would not put all of this unexpressed pressure on him alone to move things along.

"Hey, do you, uh ... Do you want to come up for some more dessert? Or watch a movie or ...?"

"Yes. To all of it."

Kate's heart jumped a little again. She tried to hide her shaking hands by holding tight onto the strap of her bag. This was it. Bob had not run away after their date. He had even implied he would not mind kissing her. Kate felt lightheaded with the anticipation of what could possibly happen tonight.

Lily was seemingly not home. They occupied the sofa after filling a bowl each with ice cream. Kate turned the TV on and found an old favourite rom-com.

"Do you mind watching this?" she asked, almost apologetic.

"What? No way, I love Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan."

Kate's eyebrows flew up and then she giggled.

He added "I mean, yeah, the premise of the movie is kinda weird and he does have a slight stalker-feel to him. But it all ends well, so it's okay, right?"

They ate and watched the film in relative quiet, trying to get comfortable on the sofa but not really knowing how. They started off at opposite ends, nearing each other as the film progressed. It started with an innocent arm of Bob's on the sofa behind Kate's neck. It moved onto Kate resting her side against Bob's, his hand suddenly upon her upper arm, stroking languidly up and down. She then settled her head on his chest, one hand laying across his body, fingertips barely moving down his hip and thigh. It ended with Kate resting her head on a pillow in his lap as his fingers played around on her exposed shoulder, moving over and under the strap of her dress and her bra and across her collarbone and her shoulder blade.

Bob was getting heated. He could barely think a coherent thought with her head and pretty mouth so close to his crotch. He had absolutely no expectations of her mouth going anywhere near his dick this evening but he could hope. He sure could hope. He yearned to feel her close, much closer than they were in this moment. She looked so stunning in that dress which did all it could to show her curves. How he had been able to carry on a conversation for hours when all he could think about was getting her out of that dress was beyond him. But he was an expert multitasker. His spot in the jet required that of him.

The movie ended. She did not stir. He moved to glance down at her. Eyes closed, breathing slowly, she had fallen asleep under his touch. He smiled a little. She felt safe. From his position he could perhaps lift her up and carry her to her bed. It was not an easy feat. He had forgotten how difficult it was to carry another grown person around, especially when also having to open doors in the process.

He placed her gently on her bed and contemplated if he should take off her dress. He was sure it would be a nuisance to sleep in - but he also did not want her to feel disrespected or vulnerable. She looked so content, he could hardly bring himself to disturb her.

He pushed a lock of hair away from her face and said softly, "Kate, I've put you in your own bed. I'm gonna go now. Thank you for a great evening."

She finally stirred. Bob could not tell if she was awake or if she still had her eyes closed. She touched his arm and whispered, "Stay. Please."

He hesitated but not for long. He stripped down to his underwear, placing his dog tags on her dresser. Just before getting into bed, Kate mumbled, "Help me take my dress off, please."

His breath caught in his throat. Was it really going to happen now? He gingerly unzipped the back of the dress and moved the shoulder straps down. She was not much help in getting the dress off. He had to sort of wriggle the dress down over her chest and hips and legs. But he did it without tearing the dress or waking her. He gazed at her black underwear, enjoying how the lace scalloped and followed her curves. When she did not wake any further, he tucked her in and settled for the night on top of the duvet, trying to fall asleep with his hands behind his head, his desire for her almost unbearable. He sighed. She was right there next to him, soft and beautiful and tangible. Thinking about her as he jerked off at night - sometimes in the morning - in his quarters had brought a silly smirk to his face. She was even more soft and beautiful and tangible in the moonlight than he had imagined.

It was nearing dawn when Bob felt Kate's lips upon his own. He was not entirely sure at first that it was not a dream. They were warm, moist and gentle. Bob tenderly cupped her head as he woke, tangling his fingers in her hair, while she rested beside him, her upper body touching his. The lace fabric of her bra created a wonderful friction against his bare chest and tiny goosebumps appeared all over his skin. He sighed longingly into her mouth. She pulled back slightly with a tiny smile and half-closed eyes.

"I thought you would never kiss me," he whispered breathlessly.

"I didn't want to steal your thunder. In case you wanted to kiss me first."

"I should have."

"Just kiss me now."

His lips were on hers. Kate let out a surprised laugh when Bob grabbed her upper thighs and pulled her on top of him to straddle his hips as he sat upright. Bob grasped at any bare skin on Kate's body within reach. Moving his hands up and down her thighs, her hips, sides, chest, neck, arms, shoulders, her back, her behind. Every move she made against him made his cock harder and he felt he might be physically sick if he did not free it soon from the cotton constraints.

Kate leaned back slightly to unclasp her bra. She suddenly felt very self conscious under his tender gaze, stirring to put it back on.

"Hey, sweetheart. Are you okay?" Bob asked, supporting her position with two strong hands on her back. In the dim lighting his blue eyes looked almost black with desire. Kate saw something else there but she could not define it at that moment.

"I am okay." She was here with him, she trusted him and everything was right. She felt safe in his embrace. She let the bra slide off her shoulders onto the floor.

"You are so beautiful," Bob whispered in-between two soft kisses. Kate blushed a little, thankful that it was not too obvious in the early morning light. She grinded her bottom against his crotch as he placed kisses on her chest, moaning when his cock pressed onto her. This was actually happening. It sent a surge of excitement through Kate's entire body.

Kate pushed Bob onto his back, moved lazily down his chest and abdomen, occasionally kissing and nipping at him. She glanced up at him when she reached the waistband of his boxers. He was not looking at her, his eyes were closed and his jaw was clenched. She took a brief moment to look him over. Bob was exactly as gorgeous as she had imagined, something his uniform would never have revealed. She nuzzled his erection though the cotton and he moaned. It quivered and bounced back when she did it again.

“P-Please,” Bob mumbled.

She touched it fully with her hand, still outside his boxers. She whispered, “What do you want me to do?”

“Anything,” he pleaded.

Kate giggled softly. She had done this only a few times before. She was confident it would be alright. She tugged down his underwear and his manhood sprang free. She did not spend another second thinking, she immediately put her lips and one hand around it. Bob fisted the duvet with both hands as he bucked into her mouth. She only went slow to savour the sounds he made. She wanted to give him that sweet release but not just yet.

“Oh my god, Kate ..” he murmured after a while. Bob stirred under her and grabbed her hand with his own. He lifted his head slightly and looked at her. “I am so turned on by you. If you keep going like this, I’m going to finish in like a minute.”

She awaited his next move.

“Let’s save that for later.”

In a few swift moves he had Kate lying on her side and their lips met again. His cock poked her lower abdomen as he roughly pulled down her panties with one hand. He dragged her upper leg slightly forward so her knee rested on his thigh. Feeling in-between their bodies he found her soaking wet pussy and Kate's head rolled back when he stroked it. His hand came to his mouth and he tasted the finger that had been between her folds a moment ago. Bob moaned loudly and Kate stared mesmerised at him.

She moaned, “I want you now.”

"Shit, I don't have …" Bob panted. He glanced at the bedside table. “Condom?”

Kate nodded, glad she had been prepared. She picked out one that seemed fitting for him. He was quick to put it on and position himself between her legs. All of this felt so very, very right and when he looked down into her eyes with a slight smile Kate knew he felt the same.

Bob entered her gently. She could tell he tried to hold back and not move too fast. She had never before been more turned on, never been wetter and he simply fit perfectly. The moment was perfect. Bob was perfect. With Kate's silent permission he found a steady pace to move in. Bob shifted his weight from his hands to his forearms and their bodies were now flush against each other. His sweaty forehead touched hers briefly and he captured her lips in a kiss.

With one hand he lifted one of her legs slightly higher and it made his body grind against her clit. A tremor went through her entire body. She whimpered with pleasure.

He panted, “This feels so good, you feel so good.”

Kate circled his body with her legs, pressing him closer to her and he picked up the pace slightly. One hand was under her neck and the fingers of the other were intertwined with hers. Kate's moaning once again spurred him on and she suddenly found them changing positions as Kate ended up on top of him with Bob on his back. He kept thrusting and she tried to move with him. He held onto her hips with one hand and with the other he circled her clit with his thumb. Kate's whole body quivered.

Bob let Kate set the pace. She was inexperienced in this position but he did not seem to know or care. Their moans turned louder and she was momentarily afraid to wake up Lily. But she did not care enough to keep her noises down. This was a new thing for Kate, she would be damned if she was going to let anyone ruin it for her.

Bob’s thrusting paired with his expert hand skills made Kate's body tremble. She could feel her body closing in on the one sensation that started it all: the warmth between her legs. She cried out – not as loud as she had expected – and fell forwards onto Bob’s chest, panting. He kept thrusting in a quicker and quicker pace and not long after did he also call out. He breathed heavily and held her close for a long time. She giggled at the feeling of him pulling his now flaccid cock out. Still holding her, he carefully took off the condom and put it on the floor. Kate grabbed a napkin to wipe off herself and Bob.

He shifted so they once again lay on their sides facing each other. He caressed her cheek and kissed her. “Good morning.”

Kate giggled. "Hi."

“Are you okay, sweetheart?"

Kate lifted her hand to cup his cheek and she loved the sensation of his stubble under her fingers. She smiled and nodded. "More than okay. And you?"

He nodded.

“Thank you for sharing this moment with me. I really like you, Kate,” he whispered. His tender kisses to her lips were heaven-sent. They lay like that for a long time until they fell asleep in each other’s arms.

#bob floyd #bob floyd fanfiction #bob floyd top gun #everyone's favourite bob #lieutenant bob floyd #top gun fanfiction

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ready-steady-freddie · 2 years

Text

Beyond (Part six)

Robert Bob Floyd x original female character

Warnings: 18+! Explicit sexual acts.

Word count: 2,6K

Notes: Formatting ... Anyway. Enjoy, my lovelies, and thank you for taking the time to read this 🥰 every like, comment and reblog means the world to me. You are all wonderful! Also, this part was definitely just an excuse to practice writing the sexy stuff. Oh well 😏

PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE | PART FOUR | PART FIVE

"I'm not usually rattled by things that are supposed to be a surprise. But this actually makes me kind of nervous."

Kate glanced at Bob with the tiniest of smiles that had been present on her face for most of the evening as they rode the bus into San Diego. She, too, was nervous. Nervous if he would like or hate what she had planned for them for their third date in as many weeks. Kate fiddled with her hands in her lap, her smile faltering. Perhaps it had been a bad idea after all. Why on Earth had she come up with the idea to surprise him with a jazz concert? Did he even like jazz that much?

"We can always leave if it turns out to be horrible. Or-or we can do something else entirely. Go see a movie or something? We can perhaps catch the last movie of the eveni-"

Bob covered both of her fiddling hands with one of his and squeezed gently. "I'm sure it'll be great. I appreciate you doing this, Kate. I really do."

She let his hand drop to her thigh, feeling his warm palm against her skin through the thin material of her dress. She helped his hand find the spot near the very top of her leg where his fingers could almost reach the innermost part of her thigh. Kate noticed how Bob's breathing quickened the way her own did, and how a deep red coated his neck and cheeks as she felt intense heat creep over her own.

Kate looked around at the other passengers. Not a single one paid them any attention and they sat in solitude in their two-person seat at the back of the bus. If Bob moved his hand a mere inch further down, Kate was sure he would find her just as wet and throbbing for him as she felt she was.

Bob leaned in closer and whispered, "We can't do this here …"

"I know," Kate replied longingly, "But I so want you to."

"So do I." With that Bob slowly withdrew his hand. Kate sighed deeply and let her head fall back. She felt two of Bob's fingers drag a line across her palm and she smiled at the sensation.

Their eyes locked. Kate wanted nothing more in this moment than to attack his mouth with her lips. Bob was so close and warm and handsome and his scent was intoxicating - but she held back. They had not exactly talked about it but Kate had noticed that Bob was flustered by open public displays of affection and she did not want to embarrass him. That did not, however, make her long for or want him any less. It simply made him even more precious to her.

"This is our stop."

Kate tried to gauge his reaction while they walked to the venue. Bob's smile widened when he realised where they were heading, stopping near dead in his tracks when he saw who was playing that night. He turned to her with excitement. Contained but nearly bubbling over.

"This is an awesome surprise." Kate squeaked when Bob unexpectedly cupped her face and kissed her quickly. She turned to putty in his hands, leaning into the kiss and following him when he pulled away from her.

Kate breathed deeply, already feeling dazed. "I had heard he was a fantastic drummer so I hope you will like it."

"It will be amazing. Thank you."

Kate had not heard any of the music played before the concert but she enjoyed it and loved how Bob seemed so fixated on the performance that he got lost in his own little world where only he and the musicians existed. Kate saw how Bob observed the drummer very intently as if he was trying to memorise what he was playing. It was turning her on in a way she had not expected.

They stood close in the dark venue, very, very close. It was hot and stuffy in the room, nearing the point of sweaty hot. For once Bob had asked for a drink with alcohol in it and that single drink paired with the bustling atmosphere in the venue and Kate's rousing lavender scent made him lightheaded. She stood slightly in front of him with her butt against his thigh. His arm moved around her body and his hand was on her stomach, long fingers splayed across her body protectively. He moved his hand once in a while, grasping at her waist and hip, pulling her even closer and bunching the fabric of her dress in his hand.

Kate's heart pounded in her chest and in her ears. Bob's hand felt burning hot through her dress and the way he held her body against his own while ignoring her glances and silent calls for attention had her dizzy with want once again. She pressed her temple into his collarbone and he finally looked down at her with dark, glazed eyes. How she yearned for a kiss from him. Just a quick, soft one. Something innocent. He leaned down, lips inches from hers, and he purposefully denied her that kiss when he moved close to her ear, leaving the ghost of a kiss there. He murmured, "Not here, sweetheart."

She groaned inwardly. The rumble of his voice had a tightness coiling up between her legs and she had to clench her thighs together, whimpering as she did so. She downed the rest of her drink and breathed shakily. Turning to Bob, she said, "I n-need something to drink. Are you okay, do you need anything?"

Bob smiled innocently. "Just you."

Kate walked determinedly to the bar, biting her lower lip. She wanted him so bad right now. She remembered with a tremble how good it felt to be impossibly close with him, the feeling of him sinking deep into her, his hot breath against her skin and his fingers pressing into her flesh. Kate ordered another Mojito. She stood at the bar for a while observing her date. She would never tire of looking at Robert Floyd. He was beautiful and Kate felt so lucky to be the one to receive his attention and his kisses. He could without a doubt have whoever he wanted but right now he wanted her.

She watched as Bob left his spot on the floor at the back of the room and came up to the bar. Kate swallowed hard. She was startled by the boldness with which he walked up to her, looked deep into her eyes for a few moments and led her away from the music with a hand on the small of her back. "This way, sweetheart."

Kate's breaths were so shallow she thought she might faint. The suspense in where he was leading her and what was going to happen was thrilling her to no end. Usually a bit of a control freak, Kate was honestly enjoying letting Bob taking charge. It was also somewhat distressing - but she trusted him.

They stopped at the restrooms. Bob looked over their shoulders before gently pushing Kate inside the women's toilets. Before she had a chance to look around, she found herself locked inside a tiny stall face to face with a smiling Bob. He opened his mouth to speak. Kate's lips were on his before he uttered a single word.

She had not been foreseeing enough to wear high heels. She had to level out their height difference by standing on her toes. Bob held her close in his embrace, soon lifting her off the floor with his hands on the back of her thighs. Kate held on tight with her hands around his neck and her legs around his hips. Bob turned so Kate had her back pressed up against the stall door. She moaned at the friction between her, Bob and the door. Bob's hands glided up to cup and squeeze her ass under her dress.

"Fuck, Bob …" He smiled into her moans as they kissed deeply. He grinded his hardening cock into her core, her soft whimpers sending shivers down his spine. Kate took a moment away from his mouth to open the top buttons on his shirt and gained easier access to his neck where she planted light kisses. She whispered heatedly, "Do you have condoms?"

Bob pulled away from her with wide eyes. "Ah. No."

Bob cursed himself for not being prepared. He had not expected this to happen but now that it was actually happening, he felt like an idiot for not bringing any. He sighed disappointedly.

"Don't worry about it." Kate stroked his cheek with her thumb. "I've got something else in mind."

She slipped down to the floor to her feet, turning them both again so Bob had his back to the door. Kate pushed him flush against it, grabbing his belt and unbuckling it with shaky hands. She dared not look at him but she felt bold and confident despite her shaking hands. His cock was hard, warm and heavy in her hand as she stroked it. With closed eyes he moaned and leaned into her touch. Bob then grabbed her wrist with one hand, tilting her face up towards his with the other, making deep eye contact.

"You don't have to do this," he panted.

She smiled. "I want to."

Kate got on her knees before him. The tile floor of the toilet stall was unforgiving on her knees but the look Bob gave her when he saw her down there made it all worth it. His eyes were full of gratitude and Kate felt the gratitude in his touch of her cheek. That same hand came to rest gently in her hair when she slowly took him in her mouth with one hand. She put her other hand on the back of his thigh for support.

His moans turned deeper. Kate used her few skills and little experience the best she could, trying to suppress her gagging reflex to the best of her abilities. She had no clue if she was doing it to his liking. He looked focused on trying to keep his balance. Kate figured that was a good sign.

She felt like she was kneeling before him for a long time. He moaned softly and whispered affirmations of her actions. All of his small noises went straight to her core and she felt like she was dripping with desire. Suddenly she felt him shifting ever so slightly with the movements of her hand and mouth. His right leg tensed. He breathed harder and rasped, “I'm close.”

Kate went on, unsure of what to do with that information. He tensed even more and moved to pull away but she moved with him, continuing to stroke and suck. Bob came into her mouth with a deep moan. Kate sat back on her heels, looked up into his eyes and swallowed. The salty liquid pricked her mouth and throat. He helped her to her feet with a soft chuckle. He kissed her, a long and thankful kiss, before pulling up his clothes.

“That was unexpected,” he stated. Kate saw a blush colouring his cheeks and ears and she adored him for it.

“Well, I didn't mind you coming in my mouth. Thanks for the, um, heads up, though.” She looked down briefly at her already bruised knees.

"Of course, of course. I didn't know how you felt about that, so I figured that was the safe thing to do."

"You are so considerate," she giggled.

"Considerate enough to return the favour."

They turned once more and Kate found stability against the stall walls with both hands. Bob crawled under her dress, pressing small kisses to her inner thighs. Heat arose within her as he neared her core. His breaths were hot through her soaked panties. He pulled them down and helped her to step out of them, stuffing her panties in his back pocket. He took off his glasses but Kate did not see where he placed them as her head rolled back when his tongue met her soaked cunt.

He lifted one of her legs over his shoulder and he licked deeper, more forcefully, making Kate whimper. She was certain she heard a couple of women come into the restroom and fall silent at the sound of her and Bob's moaning - but she did not really care. Her focus was back on Bob and the amazing sensations he was waking in her. Hours of pent-up tension between them had her extremely hot and bothered for him and she knew it would not take much for him to make her come. His own moans of pleasure had her writhing even more under his touch.

Her orgasm came closer and closer as Bob pushed first one, then two fingers inside her tight warmth. She had to brace herself against the stall or she would collapse onto the floor and onto Bob. She whimpered loudly when he thrusted his fingers in and out, slipping easily with her wetness. His tongue drew circles around her clit while his fingers curled and thrusted inside her.

She hissed faintly when his thumb started circling her clit along with his tongue. "Too much, it's too much."

"Sorry, sweetheart." He grinned slightly, continuing to draw delightful sounds from her quivering body, but removed his thumb at her request. Once the orgasm overtook Kate's body, she pressed Bob's face, his mouth and his tongue further into her sopping wet core and she came with a deep sigh. He lapped softly at her cunt, careful not to overstimulate her again, merely taking his time to taste every last drop of her. Her entire body shook with strain and pleasure. He helped her down into his lap and they sat awkwardly pressed together between the toilet and the door.

"My teeth have gone numb," she mumbled into his shoulder.

He laughed softly. "Is that a good thing?"

She nodded and kissed him. He tasted sweet and tangy. Salty. It was her. She threaded her fingers lightly through his hair to make it look less uncombed.

"I think we missed the last part of the gig. I'm sorry."

Bob laughed again. "I saw all I needed of that gig. This was the best part of it."

Kate looked up at him with a little smile. "You surprised me."

"I surprised myself, too."

The restroom filled up with concert-goers after the show ended. Bob and Kate sat staring at each other with wide eyes, laughing faintly.

"Bob, what do we do?"

"We can stay here until everyone is gone. It's .. sort of safe here. It's not comfy but it's cozy, right? Or we leg it. Like, we don't look at anyone, we just get the hell out of here."

Kate gave him a challenging look. "We get out of here now."

Kate put her panties back on before they opened the stall door and walked very quickly out of the restroom. A few whistles and catcalls followed them out into the entrance hall of the venue. Faces red with embarrassment and excitement, they walked a few blocks in the warm San Diego night. They came to a halt at the bus stop and giggled, settling down on the bench to catch their breath.

Bob reached for Kate's hand, dragging two fingers across her palm. He eyed her nervously, clearing his throat. "So, uhm .. I was kind of hoping you'd let me keep those panties you wore."

"Bob!" she laughed exasperatedly. The now familiar heat rose in her stomach. This man was driving her insane and she loved it. How he challenged, emboldened her, empowered her. Light pink dusted over her face and she replied softly, "You can have them after next time you take them off me."

Taglist: @blessupblessup ❤️

#bob floyd #top gun fanfiction #bob floyd fanfiction #bob floyd top gun #everyone's favourite bob #lieutenant bob floyd #robert bob floyd

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