shiver and shake (rooster bradshaw)
AN: the one where rooster keeps a huge secret from his girl and lives to regret it for most of his days. under a cut due to sexual content and very angsty feelings.
warnings: vaginal sexual intercourse, rough language, allusions to a major accident
characters: rooster bradshaw x female reader (she/her pronouns)
musical inspo: shiver and shake - ryan adams
He was discharged from the hospital a week ago today.
The only indications that he had been closer to death’s door than any other time before, are in the stubborn lacerations to his face and arms that refuse to heal in a timely fashion.
She watches the steady rise and fall of his golden chest in the indigo morning light. Before the accident, it was enough to feel the warmth of his sleeping body beside her. It was enough to watch him sleep and to know that in this particular moment- he was safe.
But then his FA/18 plummeted from the sky over the roiling Atlantic Ocean and when she finally found out about it, she assumed her next visit with him would be through the confines of a wooden casket.
Taking a deep breath, she ghosts a feather light fingertip down the prominent bridge of his nose; and while she doesn’t want to wake him just yet, she does want to commit every part of him to her memory before its too late.
Rooster Bradshaw stirs under her touch, and his eyelids slide open to reveal breathtaking hazel orbs- like top shelf whisky.
“Hi kid.” He smiles, sleepily.
A lump swells in her throat and she takes cover from the heat of his gaze in the hollow crook of his neck.
“What time is it?”
His large, warm hands traverse the dips and valleys of her lower back with the expertise one can only glean from having known her as long as he has.
“It’s too early, go back to bed.” She mumbles.
Except he doesn’t listen to her. He taps her shoulder gently and says, “Look at me, kid.”
She pulls herself from his neck hesitantly.
His gaze searches hers and she knows without a doubt that he can tell something’s wrong.
“Where are you? You feel light years away.”
“Kiss me, Rooster.”
And it isn’t the answer he’s looking for- not even close, but he's always had a difficult time saying no to her so he does as he’s told and the soft, languid pull of their lips helps to ease the ache in her heart for the time being.
When he pulls away, it’s to murmur earnestly- “Come back to me, kid.”
“I’m right here, Rooster.”
I’m right here.
“I want you,” he whispers.
And she can give him this.
She will give him this.
“I am yours, Rooster.”
And it’s true. In every sense of the word, she is his. Even when tomorrow comes, and he’ll waken to the void spot beside him, her side of his bed devastatingly cool to the touch- she will still be his.
She moves to straddle his thighs, and he takes the hem of her top and slowly lifts it over her head, discarding it to the hardwood floor beneath them. His skilled fingertips roam over her exposed body with purpose; like somehow he knows this is the last time, too. He marvels openly at the goosebumps that bloom over her skin where he touches, watches in unconcealed awe as her nipples harden beneath his calloused fingertips.
“You are so beautiful.” He whispers.
And she knows that he means it; he’s never treated her like anything less than a priceless piece of art. Something to be hung in a museum somewhere for the entire world to watch and wonder at.
She doesn’t trust the words that threaten to tumble from her lips, so she bends down and captures his in a kiss that is as needing as they are for each other. He taps her ass twice and she lifts up without breaking contact so that he can position the achingly hard shaft of his cock beneath her now-soaked entrance.
“Want you to ride me, baby.” He mumbles and all she can do is nod against him as she sinks herself onto him. Rooster throws his head back, cursing at the sensation of her all-encompassing heat around him. “That’s it,” He gasps.
She will miss this too. How perfectly they fit together; like they were meant to be joined like this since the beginning of everything.
“Fuck, Rooster.”
She drags her bottom lip between her teeth, and bites down hard enough that the subtle metallic twinge of blood fills her mouth. Leaning down over him, she presses kisses to the mass of angry scar tissue that cover the expanse of his left shoulder blade, and Rooster whimpers into the feeling, fucking his hips harder into her. When she pulls back up, his fingertips dance along the softness of her lips- a wordless request for entrance, and she opens them for him, sucking two of his digits into her mouth.
“So fucking good, sweetheart.” He groans, loudly.
And she will miss this connection the most when it is gone; the notion that she knows his body better than anyone else’s on the planet. She has no intention of learning someone else when the dust settles from this; Rooster will always be it for her.
His fingers fall from her mouth where they leave a wet trail of saliva down her collar bone, her nipples, her stomach. The slow push and pull of his cock inside of her makes quick work of the fire building rapidly in her lower abdomen, and she clenches around him involuntarily as a wave of white-hot pleasure washes over her. They move together like lovers unencumbered by the heavy weight of grief or loss; there is this moment and this moment only. A desperate moan claws its way out of the base of her throat, and she tilts her head back as his achingly skilled hands traverse her hips, her ribs, her breasts, her neck. If she didn’t know any better, she would think he was memorizing her as well.
There is something about being with him like this that never ceases to feel like it’s the first time all over again. She watches his face with a hooded gaze; watches perspiration glisten on his forehead and cheekbones, watches a rosy blush flood the apples of those cheeks. His mustache twitches as his mouth falls slack, and she can tell by the way his cock throbs inside of her that he’s not far off from release.
“You take me so damn well,” Rooster praises, breathlessly. “Only you can make me feel this good, sweetheart.”
And she wonders briefly if he can feel her heart splinter under the weight of those words.
“Not going to last much longer.” He gasps and his hands are everywhere now.
She fucks him faster, harder- clenches around him to help get him there and it works because a string of incoherent sounds tumble from his mouth, and she wants to be as close to him as she can when he finishes because that signifies the beginning of the end. And she’s not ready to let go just yet.
Resting her head in the warm crook of Rooster’s sweat-damp neck, she slows her pace to a crawl, lifting her hips almost all the way off him, and then sinking them all the way down and she commits the sounds he’s making to memory. Pressing her lips to the soft skin of his neck, she urges him to come for her. He doesn’t hold back; his entire body arches off the bed beneath him, hazel eyes dance beneath blue-veined eyelids, mouth open in a slack o. He gives it all to her, every last drop, and when she lifts herself off him a minute later, the sudden loss of fullness is almost painful. She misses it the second it’s gone.
It’s mostly silent in the room while she tries to regulate her breathing; the only other sound is the slight pitter-patter of drizzle on the glass panes, and the odd police siren. Rooster turns on his side and gestures for her to turn over too so that he can curl up around her and she obliges him for the last time. Sleep comes for their spent bodies fast, and when she wakens hours later, the drizzle from before has turned to a downpour. Rooster lies on his back, and the steady rise and fall of his chest tells her that now is the time. Lifting the duvet from her body, she exits the warmth and comfort of the bed to make quick work of getting dressed and collecting the rest of her things.
“Where are you going, kid?” Rooster’s voice pierces the silence, catching her off guard, and causes her to drop the empty wineglass in her hand. It hits the glossy hardwood floor with a muted tinkle and explodes in a mess of shattered crystal.
Swallowing hard, she turns to face his sat-up figure fully. His burnt-umber hair is wild and unkempt from sex and slumber.
“I’m leaving, Rooster.”
He gives his head an almost imperceptible shake; the sudden guarded and disbelieving look in his eyes speaks novels and causes her heart to break further.
“What do you mean you’re leaving?”
Clearing her throat, she gestures to the few bags at her feet. “I’m going home.”
He nods his head in understanding this time and scrubs the palm of his hand down his face. “Right- but you’ll be back…” It comes out as a statement but morphs into a question in the still air before them.
She shakes her head; tears prickle threateningly in the depths of her eyes. “I won’t be.”
Making for the brass doorknob a few feet away, she turns from the glare of his piercing gaze, but he’s already out of bed and throwing on a pair of boxers. He reaches for a sweater pooled on the floor next to the bed and throws that on too.
“What is going on here, really? Where is all of this coming from… I was just inside of you for Christ sakes.” His tone is equal parts venomous and distraught, and it stings like a fresh wound.
They’re stood before each other now, her arms crossed defensively over her chest. “I don’t know what to say except that I can’t pretend like these last couple of years with you haven’t been some of the best of my life.”
But also, the worst.
She wants to look anywhere but at him, but like the night he first waltzed into her life, her gaze is implicitly his. “I’m not sure I can do this anymore, Rooster.”
He leans back against the wall, eyes wide and entirely ensure. “And to that I will repeat myself. Where on earth is this coming from?”
Sighing heavily, she closes her eyes and tries in vain to ignore the pinch of looming tears. “You lied to me.” It comes out more broken than she was hoping for- the depths of the betrayal she still feels rival that of the deepest ocean. They regard each other silently; her words hang heavily in the damp bedroom air. “And it wasn’t just a small omission of the truth- you lied to me about what happened to you on your mission.” Anger rises like thick smoke in her throat. “I had to find out how close you came to death from Hangman.”
“I tried to protect you.” He murmurs, lowly.
And she’s already shaking her head in disbelief.
“Don’t do that, Rooster. Don’t you dare do that. You need to give me a little more credit, here.”
“I know how much you worry when I’m gone- and I know how painful it is to watch the partners of friends pick up the pieces after an accident.” Rooster’s hoarse voice fizzles out. “I couldn’t bear to put you through that.”
She takes a deep breath to steady herself. “Do you know what it’s like to know that you’re the last one privy to news that your significant other almost died? To not know whether you’ll be bringing him home in a pine box or not?”
Rooster is speechless.
“I’m sorry.” She finally says. “But I can’t do it, Rooster.”
“So that’s it. You’re leaving.” His voice is defeated, broken. She opens her mouth to say something, but his eyes flash dangerously and the right words fizzle and fade. “You of all people…” A flash of yellow on the streetcorner below causes her heart to sink lower; her taxi is here. “Jesus, you could have said something- anything before now.”
A painful lump swells in the hollow of her throat, and she offers him a defeated half-shrug.
“I couldn’t bear to watch you die, Rooster.”
Her fragile voice cracks and breaks then, and a single tear cascades down her check, drops from her face, and gets lost amongst the jagged shards of glass beneath her.
Rooster clears his throat, thick and cumbersome with unspoken emotion.
“Yeah, well. I can’t bear to watch you leave.”
Because everyone always does.
A car horn blares impatiently in the distance and Rooster’s face drops at the realization that the end is near. “Please don’t go- I love you.”
Numbness seeps into her bones the moment she steps out into the damp morning air. One by one, she loads the last of her belongings into the trunk of the taxi. Sliding into the cracked leather backseat, she turns just in time to see Rooster step out onto his front porch, with tears racing steadily down his face. He hugs his arms up tight around his body and the urge to leap from a moving vehicle has never been more pressing.
Three words that still surprised her when he uttered them; she was never sure he knew how to articulate something so finite and personal. Tears flow freely from her now as she hugs her arms tighter to her frame. “I love you too. With every fiber of my being.”
“But you're breaking my heart.” Rooster's anguish rolls off of him in palpable waves- and she knows exactly what he means because she's breaking her own heart in the process.
But there is a version of her in another life.
She is wondrous and full of millions of particles of light, and she never has to wonder how it feels to let go of the love of her life. Because he is there, has been there all along, and he is so happy about it.
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