SOLDIER BOY, 1948. YOUR MUSE KISSES MY MUSE.
THERE'S A PROBLEM WITH HER TRAILER THAT NO ONE SEEMS TO BE ABLE TO SOLVE.
the hinges of her door — they squeak. the brass vocal chords stripped down from overuse into some ever-repeating squeal like she's got andy hardy for a stage door johnny. it's far from the most grating male attention she's dealt, but the fact is that this is only a symptom of the actual illness: her lock is broken, and nobody's willing to fix it. she's asked and asked and asked. pushed. demanded.
but there's an open-door policy when it comes to white diamond ⸺
when you want her, she's available.
the only person that's made an attempt at fixing it is @amerigasms, and he finds solutions the way a blunt object does: with full weight and a hard swing. in the case of her ever-revolving door, it's his shield rather than his body: the slant of concentrated tungsten lodged between the floor and the entry, leaving an indentation in both — like it does now, alerting her to turn around. the metal creaks at the impact, but doesn't give.
so far as bedpost notches go, it's a particular visible one. tacky for it. the grooves — multiple by now, demarcating time like violent tree rings — are going to be there until production inevitably hammers it back in or subs out the actual door. the indents his shield leaves are so deep that the raised lines go hot from sun exposure, the jutting metal soaking up the heat. she knows this because she touched one just last week, pressing her fingers to where it looked like metallic gills, the burn making her hand jump away in the same second.
she turns back to what she's doing, twisting the cap on a bottle of scotch even as she hears his footfall, but it doesn't matter. they call soldier boy the strongest man alive, and dove knows it to be true. has the experience to prove it: no matter what excuse she puts between them, he's capable of prying it apart.
"ben," he's warm even through the suit and the coat of her pride. she tries to sound cautioning, but her mouth pries open into laughter at the familiarity, the body's anticipatory giddiness of a heat it recognizes. craves, in increasing amounts. waves of nausea.
and then he kisses her. his mouth on hers once it's exposed, an impulse which is either like a soldier or an animal or, most likely, a man. like a woman, she folds into it. him. her eyes close, a hand moving up and over the expanse of his chest to where the last ring of kevlar is. she prefers touching skin; a predilection that's partially responsible for the establishing of this ritual. the vein in his neck is hot and immovable like those imprints on the outside her door. taut with strain. she lays a thumbpad over it and doesn't pull away.
that doesn't mean it doesn't burn.
there's a knock at her door, hesistant, that she doesn't address. she knows, same as he will, that in all likelihood it's someone from production. as an asset she's far easier to control than soldier boy; she knows this. she also knows that gets harder when they're together ⸺ vought holds the leash, but ben being near frequently emboldens her to slip it.
BECAUSE THEY'RE ANIMALS, THE PAIR OF THEM. some of the rarest on earth, and certainly the most deadly. it's why she isn't unaware of the fact that each time he does this, it locks her in with him the same way it obstructs others from entering, but why it doesn't frighten her either. they've been in an enclosure fenced off from the rest of the world for years. this is just the gate locking from the inside.
"you were late." she says into his mouth, not yet departed, her voice echoing from somewhere inside it. it's quiet and heady with the honey his nearness always thickens her blood into. "to set." which means they were all late. there's no movie without soldier boy, but they act like there's no america without him either ⸺ which is why he gets away with showing up so late to the goddamn set.
she puts her palms flat on his chest and pushes. that amount of strength does nothing to him, but it's not for him. she needs momentum to make herself separate.
"i told you." dove runs a hand through the nape of her hair, a replacement-touch, making an offering to her buzzing nerve endings. it's a poor substitute. "i don't have time. i've got to get ready."
