Sweetness and Light: Part Nine, Pt. 1
I've put this off for wayyyyyyyy too long, and good god I am so sorry for the wait - and the worst part is that I'm still working on the second half of this part. This thing is going to be a monster when it's done. Not that it even matters because it's getting posted in two parts at this point, but ANYWAY. Y'all (@thestagsheadsblog specifically) have been waiting a literal year for this. The very least I can do is give you something to read while I finish the last half of this part. Trust me, it'll be worth it.
Friday brings unexpected feelings. For both of them.
BobxFemale!OC. F/C: Kacey Rohl
Word count: Let's not go there right now
MAJOR WARNINGS: 18+ ONLY. MENTION OF SMUT. MINORS DNI.
MINOR WARNINGS: Colorful language, not beta-read (we die like men)
Katie wakes up the next morning feeling more exhausted than the night before.
Stirring awake sometime around 0520, she finds herself laying perpendicular on her bed, the pillows still neatly propped up against the headboard, the bedsheets twisted around her like a python. Her body aches too, likely from sleeping in a weird position with no head support.
Oh, she’s gonna be miserable in the cockpit this morning.
With a groan, she begins unraveling herself from the tangle of bedsheets. She flings herself onto her stomach, rolling her way towards the pillows, muscles and bones barking at her for the sudden disturbance in position.
It’s only when she’s able to kick free of the covers that Katie finds herself completely naked, and oh wait, that’s right.
She’d gotten herself off late last night, to thoughts of Bob - thoughts of his hands, specifically. The mere recollection of it is enough to make heat bloom in Katie’s cheeks. She’d better hope that her poker face is in fine form during class today, because there’s no way she can let Bob know even a little bit about what she got up to last night. She even contemplates skipping her usual morning coffee with him - at least, until the thought of it sends a shudder of ‘no’ running through her body. The morning caffeine dose is non-negotiable at this point. She has to have it.
Suppose I oughta’ start working on that poker face now then, Katie thinks with a grumble before swinging her legs over the side of the bed and trudging off to the bathroom for a shower.
She stands under the shower head, letting the hot water soak her and turn her skin pink. She needs to think, as much as she can in the little bit of time she has available to her. There’s no denying that she feels something for Bob, and a lot of it at that. There’s also no denying that she wants him physically, so much that it makes her whole body ache. That is its own kind of madness. Were it literally anyone else, Katie would be doing everything she could to find a way to fix it.
But this isn’t just anyone. This is Bob Floyd she’s dealing with, a man she’s not only friends with, but also works with. They have to be careful with how they approach this. She has to be careful.
At least, that’s what she’s telling herself.
You didn’t seem to care too much about being careful last night, did you? Then again, it was obvious you were only thinking about yourself. Selfish, aren’t we?
Katie grits her teeth and cranks the water temperature up, letting the sudden burn shock away the intrusive thoughts. She’s having a hard enough time with this as it is. She definitely doesn’t need to be entertaining thoughts that sound like her estranged mother. Not now, not ever.
Let’s just focus on getting through the morning, shall we?
She heaves a sigh, shuts off the water, steps out to towel off. At least the intrusive thoughts are gone.
Once she’s dried off and has wiped away the steam fogging the vanity mirror, Katie forces herself to slow down her routine, to really pay attention and hone in on her movements, on the dabs of concealer under her eyes, on the swipes of moisturizer across her cheeks, on the twisting of her hair. She opts for something intricate this morning - a four-strand braid, woven from top to bottom and swirled into a bun in the low center. She’s silent as her fingers work, weaving her thoughts, her doubts, and her anxieties into each section of the braid, strangling the life out of them as she crosses the strands. What’s happened has happened; she’s not going to torture herself over it - and why should she? She’s a grown-ass woman with needs, and Bob Floyd is really - insanely - attractive. No doubt someone else would’ve done the same if they’d been in her shoes last night.
You don’t have to let this eat at you unless you want it to, Katie tells herself as she twists the braid into bun form and pins it in place. You did what you did and you don’t regret doing it, and that’s that.
Now she just needs to keep reminding herself of that.
Five minutes later Katie’s uniform is on and zipped up, her boots done up and the laces tucked in. When she takes a final look in the mirror, she’s as put-together as always. No indication that her brain is roiling with nervousness and unease and want. That she can’t get the image, the feel of Bob’s hands out of her head.
You don’t have to let this eat at you unless you want it to.
But she’s not about to let anyone else know that. Especially Bob.
She heaves a long sigh - then squares her shoulders, starts her walk down to the stairway and to Bob’s room.
Coffee this morning is going to be very interesting.
Bob has no idea how he’s going to interact with Katie today.
At least, not without a straight face.
Because after the events of last night… Whoo boy.
To say that he’d been a bit out of sorts after Katie had left his room would be an understatement. She’d walked out, back to her room, and for several moments afterward, he’d just sat there, painfully hard and straining against his jeans, brain replaying the last several minutes of making out with her over and over and over, nerves reliving the sensations of her hands on his body, on his face, the sheer warmth of her…
And then suddenly Bob couldn’t take it anymore. He’d all but marched into the bathroom, blood thundering in his veins as he’d undone his jeans, wrapped his hand around his cock, and fucked himself raw, so raw that it damn near made him lightheaded afterward. The mere thought of her, of her hand around his shaft, holding him, stroking him… It was fucking electrifying. He’d come with her name on his lips, body shuddering with the force of it, and he’d just…
He still can’t believe he did that last night.
He now tends to his shower-dampened hair with a comb, brain cycling through the moment, through his thoughts for the morning, for the day, for the rest of all time. There’s no way she can know - not right now. It’s been barely a week since their relationship changed, and she’s made it clear that she wants to go slow with him. He has to honor that. Even if it kills him, he can’t be jumping ahead and wanting things from her. He can’t do it - and he sure as shit can’t do what he did last night either. That is a definite no-go.
Bob sets the comb down on the counter, gazes at his reflection in the half-fogged mirror. Neat and proper as always. Not a hair out of place, literally and figuratively.
Unless told otherwise, he plans to keep it that way.
He slips his black undershirt over his head, shakes out his neatly folded flight suit before stepping into it and zipping it halfway. Katie will be knocking on his door any second; he needs to be ready to face her before then.
Thankfully, Bob is ready by the time he has the arms of his flight suit tied around his waist. It’s just like any other morning, he realizes. Shame and embarrassment and thoughts of last night don’t need to play a part in their routine, not unless he wants them to. Hell, what even is there to be ashamed of? Nothing, that’s what. He did what he had to do; surely he can’t be faulted for that.
He takes a deep breath, steadies himself. You’re fine. There’s nothing to worry about.
The universe, it seems, is hell-bent on testing that theory, because no sooner does the thought go through Bob’s head than there’s a knock at his front door. She’s here.
And it turns out there is something to worry about.
He notices it the second he kisses her. She lets him, sure, but she pulls away just as quickly as she leans in, puts space between the two of them with little more than a quiet ‘hey’.
Oh no. That can’t be good.
Still, Bob plays it off like there’s nothing wrong. He ushers Katie in, heads for his usual spot behind the counter to make coffee for the both of them, smiling softly all the while. “Sleep okay?” he asks her as he’s filling the grinder with medium roast beans.
Katie seems to stiffen at the question, something that sends a pang of unease through Bob. “Kind of?” She shrugs after a moment. “It was eh.”
One-word answers. This really can’t be good.
Bob has half a mind to ask her if she’s sure, to push and pry and prod. His nerves are suddenly through the roof and every cell in his body is screaming at him to ask, to make sure and sure again that her behavior isn’t his fault, that he didn’t scare her in some way last night.
But he doesn’t. Something tells him that that would only make things worse.
So he lets it go. He makes them coffee and buries his worry deep, far away from the prying of his racing mind. And it works, for the most part. He’s able to carry on some semblance of conversation with Katie, something about today’s impending lecture and flight ops, with a calm expression on his face and a smooth, even tone in his voice.
But goddamn if he doesn’t sweat internally the whole time. This is the most at-odds Bob’s felt with a member of the opposite sex, someone he’s really, seriously, overwhelmingly attracted to, in who knows how long, and he really, really doesn’t like the feeling. They were on the same page yesterday - hell, the same damn sentence. What on earth happened between now and then to make her this quiet and him this uneasy?
It’s a question that plagues Bob long after they’ve finished their coffee and set out for the schoolhouse. Katie drives them this morning, murmuring along to her Milo Korbenski songs, but doesn’t do much else beyond that. She’s quiet - far too quiet. God, Bob thinks, this day is gonna be hell if she doesn’t say something.
Unfortunately for him, that’s exactly what the universe has in store for him.
Katie hardly says a word to him the whole time they’re in the schoolhouse - and sure, a large part of it has to do with Everhardt throwing them some heavy lecture and needing to focus, but…
He can feel her eyes on him at times, can sense the something that’s dying to be said. And he knows Katie has something to say, because every time he twists his head and makes eye contact with her, her mouth twitches, just the tiniest bit, like the words are trying to fight and claw their way out.
But she keeps them in, and Bob just… stews. This is bad. Christ, it’s bad enough that Fanboy picks up on it. At one point, he looks over at Bob with his eyebrows furrowed and nods towards Katie, and all Bob can do is shrug, because how the hell is he supposed to explain what’s going on at this point, or even know, for that matter?
God, maybe he did do something wrong last night. What other explanation is there?
Bob spends the rest of the school day – to include a hop in the afternoon with Rapture and Ad-Rock – with his stomach in knots and his heart pounding in his chest. He can’t remember the last time he had an anxiety attack, let alone a long-lasting one. He certainly can’t remember the last time a girl was the cause of it.
He winds up hardly speaking to Katie when they’re released from the schoolhouse for the weekend, not that he doesn’t want to. Each time he looks at her, words form in his mouth, then promptly fail him. After all, what exactly is he supposed to say to her when she’s barely said anything to him?
They ride back to the lodge in Katie’s car, the silence near suffocating. It’s so bad that it catches Bob off-guard when she says “see you” to him in the elevator.
And still the words fail him.
He makes his way back to his room, head whirling with replays of the day’s events and his own analysis of it all, wondering where it could’ve possibly gone wrong, wondering if there had been signs and he’d just been too oblivious to notice them. Had it gone wrong, though? Hell, he’s not even sure about that. This whole day has been nothing short of weird and at this point, he just wants to sink himself into one of his books and let his mind drift for a while.
So, he does just that. With no regard for his uniform or his boots as he enters his room, he grabs his battered copy of The Eye of the World off the kitchen counter, trudges over to the couch, and flops down without a second thought, fully prepared to sink into a world of high fantasy and sword fighting. Katie and the awkward morning between them are the last things on Bob’s mind as he opens to where he last left off.
At least, they almost are.
She lingers in the back of his mind as he reads, often standing in for certain characters when his brain isn’t doing a good-enough job at imagination. If he didn’t like the idea of Moiraine Sedai resembling his blue-eyed classmate from Oregon, he might be annoyed with the whole thing.
He just wishes she’d reach out and talk to him—even just a little bit.
But she doesn’t. His phone stays silent - and Bob reads, and reads, and reads.
It isn’t until a couple of hours later, after he’s long since changed out of his flight suit and into his weekend uniform of jeans and a t-shirt (and ripped through a chapter or three in The Eye of the World), that he gets a text from her, and to his surprise - and utter relief, if he’s being honest - it’s an invitation to dinner out in town.
Bob can’t type his reply fast enough. “Sure. Where are you thinking?”
“Not sure yet. How do you feel about pub food?”
“I could go for a burger.”
Boy, does he. “There’s actually a really good brewery not far from base - Ballast Point Brewing. Ever been?”
“Haven’t been. I trust your food judgment though. Haven’t steered wrong yet, haha.”
Thank god, she’s laughing - in text form, maybe, but Bob will take any form of laughter from her right now. It’s better than any of the awful alternatives his brain keeps coming up with.
“Sounds good to me. When do you wanna go?”
“Uhhhhh give me some time to get ready? I’m still in my flight suit.”
Bob snorts at that one. “Class ended almost 2 hours ago…”
“Sometimes the work day hits you hard homie. Lol. I’ll let you know when I’m downstairs.”
Somewhere in the back of Bob’s mind, a voice bearing considerable resemblance to his mother’s warns him about the pains of being taken advantage of, but he pushes it to the side with a huff to himself. He knows he’s in fairly uneven territory with her, but Katie wouldn’t do something like that to him - hell, to anyone.
She wouldn’t do that to him. No way.
He’s still telling himself that half an hour later, when he finally gets a text from her saying that she’s waiting downstairs in the lobby. He likely will be telling himself that all night.
He leaves his room with a deep breath, taking in the smell of the cologne he’d spritzed just before walking out - woody and spicy, quietly intense, a confidence booster in a bottle. It belongs to a man who’s sure of himself and confident in the company he keeps. Bob is willing himself to be that man tonight. I am that man.
He hops on an elevator, hits the button for the lobby. At floor two, it dings to a stop and on walks Halfpint, who nods his head in greeting before sweeping an eye over Bob. “You’re lookin’ pretty snazzy, guy.”
Compliments - Bob’s old enemy. He smiles sheepishly and rubs the back of his head. “No snazzier than I usually do after class.”
“Modest ass. Got a date or somethin’?”
A chuckle. “Yeah, something like that.” Bob regards Halfpint, dressed casually in a hoodie and a pair of black joggers - definitely not an outfit for going out on a Friday evening. “All by your lonesome tonight, huh?”
“Yeah. Fanboy said he was going out to the Hard Deck with Rapture and Bojack.”
“Didn’t feel like tagging along?”
“Nah,” Halfpint shrugs. “Sometimes you need to be a solitary creature.”
Bob feels a small smirk curl across his face. He knows the feeling all too well. Too bad tonight isn’t one of those times.
“Fair enough,” he says before stepping out of the elevator and into the lobby. “You have a good night, man.”
Halfpint only gives Bob a halfhearted wave, not that Bob notices it - his attention is on Katie sitting on one of the lobby couches, and only her as he walks towards her. He’s seen her probably a dozen times now in civilian attire, and none of those other times have made him pause and stare - not like this one. She has her hair down again, in that same pretty, loose half-up-half-down style she wore when they went to the aquarium, and it spills over the front of one shoulder and down the back of the other. Bare shoulders, Bob notes. She’s wearing a soft-looking, square-necked white tank top, jeans, and her Birkenstocks, with a red and white flannel (her favorite one, he’s noticed after the last few times sharing beers and snacks with her on the lodge’s back patio) tied around her waist. It’s as casual as the numerous other outfits she’s worn outside of the schoolhouse, and yet, this one…
Bob blinks, swallows, a bit louder than he was expecting. Christ almighty, this woman is going to be the death of him. In less than a second she’s managed to zap away all the thoughts and nervous ‘what-if’s’ from earlier. It has to be the shoulders, the exposed clavicle. They’re exposed and delicate and she’s beautiful and -
He blinks again. He really needs to stop doing that.
“I’m good” - You sure about that, Floyd? - “I’m good. You sure you’re okay with driving tonight?”
Katie smiles and palms her ring of keys in her hand. “I’m sure. Now c’mon.”
Bob’s left to trot after Katie as she spins and beelines for the parking lot. She’s still not talking a whole lot, but at least she’s not clamming up and pulling away from him anymore. He wouldn’t know what to do if that were still the case.
In her 4Runner in the rearmost part of the parking lot, Katie dials up her chosen music for the evening, an older Pastel Ghost album that reminds Bob of some of the video games he played when he was younger. At first it seems a little outside of her normal range, all electronica with heavy synth and eight-bit noises, but the longer Bob listens, the more he understands that she’s in it for the dream feel of it. These songs, these sounds, they’re like floating on a cloud - and given her penchant for shoegaze, it all makes perfect sense for her.
He chuckles as the thought passes through his head. “I was gonna say this stuff seems a little outta left field for you, but I’d be wrong on that one. It’s very spacey and… floaty.”
“I mean, you’re not entirely wrong. I had no idea about this album until, like, three days ago. Fanboy put me onto it, believe it or not.”
“Huh. Wouldn’t have pegged him for a fan of this stuff either.”
“Right? Like all I’ve ever heard him play is Deftones or car bro phonk.” Katie cranks the steering wheel ‘round and maneuvers them out of the parking lot, head bobbing gently in time with the music. “Didn’t strike me as a pastel electronica type of guy, but… guess you never know with some people. Really glad he put me onto this though; this whole album is amazing.”
Bob should be glad that she’s herself again, that she’s chatting and not resorting to one-word replies. Hell, he is.
But he can’t stop thinking about how detached she was earlier.
Bob licks his lips. “Y’know, Fanboy was worried about you earlier. You were really quiet today.” He contemplates voicing his own concern for her, but leaves it at that. Something tells him that Katie will know.
Sure enough, when she glances over at him, there’s a glimmer in her eyes that tells him she does. “Yeah,” she says softly. “I was, wasn’t I?”
“Just promise me you won’t be quiet for the rest of it.” He feels foolish and uncomfortably exposed saying what’s on his mind, but to hell with it. “I like… I like hearing you talk.”
The glimmer in Katie’s eyes goes from knowing to guilty. “I’ll try to keep that in mind,” she replies, a small, tight smile crossing her face. There’s no missing the twinge of unease in her voice.
Neither of them say much else for the rest of the ride.
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