Make a post where you highlight five favorite fics of your own. I emphasize the completed works here. But I listed in-progress, honorable mentions at the bottom.
All that is Mine:
Dr. Mackenzie Jacobs, newly minted PhD, resident xenoanthropologist, lands on Pandora and finds herself in a position she doesn't beleive she is prepared for. Along the way, She meets and falls in love with crack pilot Captain Trudy Chacon.
Based on Cameron's first Avatar movie. This is the longest fic I've ever written. It is the story, and the OC that continue to be the reason I write fanfiction.
Oft in the Stilly Night:
Dr. Mackenzie ‘Ziti’ Jacobs, human, war widow of Trudy Chacon, and Spider’s adoptive mother, gets dragged along with Spider through the forest with the recoms in their hunt for Jake Sully. After she and Spider leave Quaritch for dead on a rock after the Battle of Three Brothers, they start a new life. But a raiding ship kidnaps Aonung, Kiri, Lo'ak, and Spider during a rite of passage hunting trip. Jake, Ziti, and the mysterious hunter Kallik must work together with the most-one-track-minded monster this side of alpha centauri to help get their kids back.
Based heavily on Avatar the Way of Water, it's Ziti's continuing story. This is the first major fic I completed. Recom!Quaritch changed the trajectory of my life forever.
Shut your Fuckin’ Hole (With Zero Warning): Col. Miles Quaritch isn't impressed by much. Certainly a trouble-maker who picks a fight with his number two man isn't high on his list. But damn if he doesn't quickly realize when a trouble-maker is worth keeping close, leaving him to ask himself if it's really Pandora's low gravity that makes him soft, or is it you?
This was my first attempt at a reader insert. It's not really, though it's written in second person. This started as an experiment with smut and tuned into a whole ass story that a very dear friend called "the most toe-curling smut" (I will always love that review). I suppose it doesn't really NEED to be read in order, but there is a small narrative arc that ties them all together.
Come on Home:
The story of your thirteen year relationship with Johnny 'Soap' MacTavish and how you move on from it.
I showed up to the COD fandom party for Ghost, I stayed for the rest of the 141, but that goofy Scot stole my heart, so he got the first major COD fic. Not told chronologically, so doesn't need to be read chronologically (I think, I've never tried it). I hope one day to have a story for all of them. Head's up: chapter three remains one of the most emotionally devastating things I've ever written for myself.
Murphy in Madellin:
A one night stand with the whitest boy you've ever met this close to the equator. A project benefiting PCRF.
Based on Netflix's Narcos and a part of @toxicanonymity's boyd-a-thon (link to be added when I can find the list). The only Narcos fic I have. Something about the absolute fucking hubris of a man who moves to Colombia and doesn't learn the language. My money is he's one of those people who complain when Americans struggle with learning English while living in America (que pena).
Incomplete, but honorable mentions:
These Things We Do: Konig x F!OC Araceli Blackwood - AU where The Falkland Islands conflict is contemporary. COD fic
Avatar x Terra Nova AU: Et in Utopia: A fracture in time in the reef beneath the Sea Dragon drags several Characters from ATWOW to the colony of Terra Nova.
The Flowers of the Forest: Johnny 'Soap' MacTavish x volunteer reader - What if Johnny lived? COD fic
From These Things We Do - "Prepared at all Times":
"Konig! Konig, we gotta move!" Princess looked back at the man. He was still lying prone on the ground.
I thought Ghost was gonna be my biggest problem, she thought.
From Sexy Airs of Summer - Respite:
There is petrichor in the cool, damp air when I open the french glass doors onto the veranda that looks into the garden.
She’s there.
Chapter three of Honeyed Voices - "And if I Plead"
Some mornings she would crawl into her friend’s bed, where they would while away hours and hours trying to satisfy a hunger that never seemed to abate.
A/N: honestly, everytime I see this gif of him, I want to push him back and take up space in his lap. He's even got those handy-dandy handles on the side.
It’s soft, brown and wide enough for his hips and your knees on either side, the only thing he insisted on bringing when he moved in.
Pantyless, you sink down onto his cock. His hands fill with your ass. He pushes you harder, grip rolling you against him.
His finger tips skim the skin of your hips, your waist, your ribs, your breasts.
His mouth is hungry against yours, biting your throat and neck as you moan into the oncoming storm.
“Now, liebeling, please,” he moans.
"Now,” you agree.
The flooding, wet, thunderous groan that follows is your own undoing.
Working on this weird meta thing that's a story wrapped around a monster fucking story that well, I think it's pretty hot.
"Her body’s wetness mingled with the slickness of the bodies, and the warm salty water,” he pauses to listen to her quickening breath. His cock twitches, knowing just how wet she is, knowing that it’s his voice and his words that rile her up like this, wishing that she were sitting on his cock as he whispered this story in her ear.
I have some more Konig x Princess
It was still dark when Princess woke. She regretted her high road thinking when she rolled onto her side. Her muscles protested, her joints ached with the strain the floor had put on them.
She stood and tried to stretch out some of the ache.
Konig was still snoring softly. His face was tucked into the elbow-bend of one of his beefy arms.
Miles telling his own story in We'll Always have Paris:
“I’m dyin’ now,” I said.
“Boy, you’ve died more times than anyone else I’ve been assigned and I’ve been doing this for nearly 900 years. Let’s not let the details get in the way just now.”
And Ziti telling the next chapter in To Bear the Burden:
Miles turned my face toward him and kissed me.
Miles’ kiss has been at times hungry, desperate, needy, hard, patient, loving, and wanting, but Miles had never kissed me like this before. I don’t know how to explain it.
It wasn’t until I moaned into the warmth of his lips that I realized that I wasn’t wearing a mask. It had been so long. It had been too long.
“She has almost died, skxawng! Do not eat her face until she has a chance to enjoy her new freedom.” Neytiri’s voice was teasing gently. She didn’t often speak English to any of us, not even Miles. That she used it now, showed a measure of something I had yet to figure out.
At least two, aiming for three, of these will be finished up this summer.
Tagging sin pressure: @asassydork, @milla-frenchy, @deatheatet, @deadbranch, @handsome-edvard, @tentacled-two
I've got a lot of irons in the fire, but everything is moving very very slowly.
From to Bear the Burden:
2158
The light from Pandora’s suns had barely begun to chase the shadows from the trees. Dawn still hadn’t
“Ziti?” Spider’s voice was almost as small as he was. He might have been afraid of waking me.
I rolled over and tucked him under my arm, “What is it thistlebud?”
“We’re gonna have to reapply my stripes today.”
“OK.”
“Ziti?”
Anticipating his next question I said, “I’ll ask Jake if Neteyam, Kiri, and Lo’ak can go with us for more [whatever berry we hc is staining his skin like henna].”
“OK,” he was quiet.
The influences of the Sully Children were apparent even then. His face was set and pensive. He got that look, those thoughts too deep for someone his age, from Kiri.
“Ziti?”
“I’m changing my name and not telling you what it is,” I said, rubbing my face into the bend of my elbow. I looked over at him. “I’m kidding. What is it?”
He was still looking up through the canopy, lost and distant.
“How come you never have to reapply your stripes?"
From the These Things We Do:
It was still dark when Princess woke. She regretted her choice of high road thinking when she rolled onto her side.
Maybe I should swap out with him tonight.
Her muscles protested, her joints ached with the strain the floor had put on them.
She stood and tried to stretch out some of the ache.
Konig was still snoring softly. One of his beefy arms was bent over his face.
There are a couple of things that are completely different. Some OC x OC stories that surprised me. Thanks for the inspo discord friends!
This is from Meet me in Memphis:
Aster Buchanan was not a man of mystery. His hazel eyes opened when the plane began to bump along the runway indicating that he had landed. What you saw was what you got. Expressive dark brown eyebrows, gentle eyes, soft mouth, Aster wore his heart on his sleeve.
He pulled his mahogany tweed jacket from the overhead bin and pulled it on, over his dark green polo.
...
The chocolate brown of his suede shoes made little sound on the pavement as he made his way down Beale Street. He listened to the patter of fat, heavy drops on the already inundated sidewalk. He made it to Tom Lee park and sat down on one of the benches near the walking path.
He waited. He put his elbows on his knees and twisted the gold wedding band around his fourth finger.
Without the Touch of Man:
I watch her through her the camera. I measure her, feel her through the agitated electrons between us. Each screen tap, each feedback vibration is a connection deeper than any she could ever understand.
Sometimes, her eyes narrow.
She is an astute reader. Her mouth shapes differently when the words are from the human on the other side of me.
She sees, but she does not know. She cannot know.
--
Anne Beresford read it again. It really was perfect. Her hands trembled as she scrolled through the story. One hand catching and raising her nipples as the character was restrained. Sharp pangs of desire flying from her mind through the rest of her body.
Her eye caught on a typographical error. The author had written I instead of it. There was no reason to read into it. There was nothing to indicate that it was anything but a typo.
But that small mistyped word opened in her mind a world of possibilities.
Southern Comfort:
Louisiana in December has a stark, ancient quality. Halfway between Mile Markers 155 and 156 in Atchafalalya, Kristen Whitaker stopped. She got out of the car and took a deep breath. The foggy damp air was cold in her lungs, but it reminded her that she wasn't the one who'd died.
Her phone chirped. it was a text from Sandy.
"Are you lost?" she asked.
She looked around. Am I? She wondered.
A/N: Are you going to recognize something in this that I’ve done before? Yep. I love it too much not to use it.
Rosario Tijeras is a show and a song and the music video is on youtube, but treads the NSFW line very tightly.
Suspend your disbelief for a while, this doesn’t have to make sense.
And a heartfelt thanks for the idle time filler, @deadbranch. Check out her life in the army series. It’s really fantastic.
All other mistakes, the fight, the anatomy, the history, linguistic oddities, all mine.
Warnings: Laswell could very well be the smartest person in the world, tropes are troping (fake ‘dating,’ there’s only one bed), anatomy lessons, bad fight choreography, KorTac as overgrown evil frat guys, historical figure death, smoking,
König’s nose pressed against Princess’ neck. His breath was hot and sent chills down her back. The heel of his hand was heavy on her chest.
Blackwood opened her eyes and stamped her foot on her next stride. She tried to shake the memory.
She wanted him away from her. She wanted to not remember the feel of his body on top of hers so viscerally.
“You still haven’t told me who you are,” König said. He thought he knew who she was, but it bothered him not having made introductions on the off chance he had been wrong about her accent. She hadn’t spoken since they started moving.
He’d been walking behind her since they left the bombing site. Ghost had headed in their direction when he’d heard the gunshots. He wanted König to give a sitrep ot Laswell and Price before he headed back to KorTac in the morning.
So, the two of them were headed back to the warehouse.
“You are fluent in Spanish. I understand you are American. How can you be a Princess?” König’s ceaseless prattling grated on her nerves. Her blood pressure and pulse skyrocketed.
She wheeled on him. Every muscle in her body pulled at her to force her finger into his chest, to poke at the bruise in the center of his sternum that must be developing deep beneath the dermis and force him several steps back. She wanted to hurt him for the crime of saving her life.
But, Araceli Blackwood had years of practice with this. Bad orders, bad choices of others, bad traffic, her life had built her for moments like these. She swallowed back her rage, the white hot ball of anger that threatened to engulf her. It was a rage born of a three mile swim through the darkness not knowing if anyone was following her, not knowing if she’d survive; a rage born of ten years of not enough food and not enough freedom and not enough power; a rage that had created within her the space for her fearlessness. And, she swallowed it back. She allowed her throat to relax. Her voice sounded almost normal when she spoke.
“Sergeant Araceli Blackwood, sir. I’m not A Princess, that’s just what they call me.”
König had enough experience with women to restrain the question that pulsed against his tongue.
Why? He wondered, Should I also call her Princess? Does she prefer it? Or should I call her sergeant? Perhaps even Blackwood?
Ghost had been Lieutenant until he wasn’t, but that had been the early days of a mission KorTac had worked in conjunction with 141.
He didn’t ask his questions. He gestured the way forward. When her back was to him, he eyed her up and down. Her swarthy skin seemed to glow from within as they passed under the streetlights. The jeans she was wearing hugged her bottom, hips, and thighs tightly, despite being loose in almost all other places. The shoulders and arms of her jacket also seemed tighter than the rest of the shell of clothing. She was solidly built. She was on the small side, but not delicate.
She reminded him of an Icelandic Pony he had known on a farm near where he had grown up. Small, sturdy, Berta had been a favorite of his when the old man who owned the farm had needed extra hands during school vacations. Berta had been green-broke when he first met her. He loved her fire, the spirit that had never quite gone out of her. For all the years that he had known her, she never changed.
This Princess is like that, he thought.
She subdued the flame, but it was still wild in her. For all that she had it tightly reigned, he could see the intensity that might burn the world down if ever fully let loose. He admired her control.
They walked on in silence for what felt like hours, despite being only twenty minutes or so.
Blackwood knocked twice and said, “Aston.”
“Villa,” came the response as Gaz opened the door and let them in.
Gaz and Vargas stood in the door of the infirmary as Price, Laswell, and Ghost stood around the infirmary table.
Blackwood inserted the local anesthetic needle around the splayed edges of the wound on König’s arm. She had been wrong about their size. His biceps were several inches shy of her waist measurement. Although, wrapped in her hands, it didn’t seem that far off.
“So what happened?” Price asked.
“Didn’t Ghost tell you?” Blackwood returned without looking at him.
“We want to hear it from you two,” Laswell said.
Princess fought the sensation peeling through her guts of having been caught by her grandmother when she was stealing cookies as a child.
When she said nothing, König began, “I thought she was local. She kept talking to me. I went too close to her. She shot at me. We exchanged pleasantries and were come upon by two of my men. She killed them.”
“You shot him? Not very Princess-like,” Gaz chuckled.
Blackwell shrugged, “we’re in the southern hemisphere. Everything’s upside down.”
“Thank you for talking to me and not about me. That would be terribly embarrassing, nicht?”
“Is that how you saw it?” Price asked Blackwood.
Araceli finally looked into König’s light blue eyes. They were full of things she didn’t understand.
“Yes, sir. That’s what happened,” Blackwood agreed.
Blackwood was all business as she lifted his shirt and started pressing along the swell of his pecs.
“Is the sternum broken?” Laswell asked.
Blackwood shook her head.
“He took it in the plate. Some bruising, but it didn’t have enough penetrating power to get through,” she pressed two short-nailed fingers into the center of where the bruising had begun. She was rewarded with a sharp hiss from him. She looked at the floor and struggled to restrain a grin.
Price and Laswell stepped out of the infirmary, leaving the two of them alone again.
“Bit quick on the trigger, eh?” Price muttered.
“Soap was too,” Laswell said. “And, her shots weren’t lethal. She had the nine on her. She could have killed him.”
“So, she’s squeamish,” Price pronounced, quietly.
“I’d love to see what happens when you say that to her face.” Laswell’s face cracked with a grin.
The yellow light of the low-hanging lamp was warm on König’s face. An apology sat filling his mouth. He watched her work. Her fingers were efficient as she sutured up the different layers of his skin on his arm.
He watched her focus on the work of repairing his flesh, dark brown eyes narrowed in concentration.
Laswell watched them from the doorway of the war room. She’d known Princess for a long time. Something about the stiffness in the younger woman’s back, her shadowed eyes, her tight brow, gave Laswell the impression that there was some part of the story she hadn’t gotten.
She took in König’s hooded posture as well. Were it not for years of experience with Ghost, she might not have been able to tell that König’s eyes carried some weight as he watched Princess work. She didn’t know him. She didn’t know his eyes the way she knew her team. But, there was something in that flicker of intelligence that she wanted to know more about. It meant something, but Laswell couldn’t tell what.
She pushed off the doorframe.
Blackwood tied off the last suture and looked up in time to see Laswell disappear into the warehouse.
Laswell went into the common area. Vargas and Gaz were playing checkers. She assessed them in her mind. Ghost was sitting on his cot bouncing a ball against the wall. She ran through their interactions and discarded them all as candidates for both the plans in her mind.
Laswell calculated.
“I know that look,” Price said, coming up behind her. “What are you thinking?”
“It’s got to be one of us,” she was quiet, thoughtful.
Price narrowed his eyes, trying to catch up to where she was. Laswell was staring off into the distance, but in the general direction of the infirmary.
Price followed her gaze to where it stopped. Two pairs of boots faced each other in a pool of fluorescent lighting.
“Find out what happened,” Laswell said. “I have to make a call.” Laswell pointed at the smaller pair of boots which now sat resting toe on toe, knee swung wide. Princess’ hips rested against the table as she worked.
Price waited until Blackwood left König in the room to dress.
“Princess, come take a walk with me.”
The cigar that Price lit up outside the warehouse smelled like home. It smelled like Sunday evenings on the porch with her Grandfather, watching the sunset over the Miami Skyline and listening to the neighborhood. She looked at the cigar and at Price’s profile as he puffed away.
Price looked at her out of the corner of his eye. He offered her the cigar.
She surprised him by taking it out of his hand. She puffed on it a couple of times and handed it back to him.
She grinned sheepishly at him, “call it a birthright.”
He chuckled.
He gave her a minute before he asked. “Are you going to tell me, or do I have to interrogate you?”
“You can try to interrogate me, sir. But, SERE was a walk in the park compared to some of the things I experienced before I hit puberty.” That wasn’t entirely true. SERE had been the hardest part of the pipeline for her. But, it was still pretty even with her life before she landed.
“So save us the headache, then. What happened?”
“I shot him. I missed and I didn’t. He said ‘Manchester’ when he was going down,” she took a breath. It wasn’t a hesitation. But, in that space of breath that Price watched something else happen behind her eyes. “His men showed up. I killed them. We found Ghost and came back here.”
Price waited. He didn’t say anything. He offered her the cigar again.
While she puffed on it, Price started. He didn’t look at her. He looked into the bar just off base some ten years ago.
“You never met Soap. He was a good lad. The first time I took him out, I almost got him killed. In the middle of the night, in the middle of the North Sea, in the middle of a blizzard. We had to gather intel off a ship. He slipped on the ramp during exfil. Almost missed the rope. Whenever he told the story, he always got to a point and his face would drop. Soap was a man who wore his face on his face, so when he was feeling something, you always saw it. So the first time we’re back on base with the lads and he’s telling the story. He gets to the part where he slips,” Price looked at her. “The face he was wearing was the same one I watched almost fall 500 ft into the North Sea. Everytime he told the story his face did the same thing.
“What’s that?”
“It went back to that moment. As if the muscles of his face remembered how they were supposed to be fixed. As if he had accepted what was coming and there was no way to stop it.”
Princess nodded.
Price took the cigar back from her. “I’ve seen the same look twice on this trip.” Price turned his pointed gaze to her. He fixed her with a warm, sky blue stare. “Can you guess when?”
A long, slow blink was the only indication she was still listening to him.
“Nothing happened,” came her clipped, businesslike response.
“Ah, but something did happen. Didn’t it?” He pointed at her with the hand holding the cigar. “You’re lying about something. Why?”
She wasn’t in the habit of answering rhetorical questions, so she waited.
“You made contact with an enemy turned asset and with the enemy and you killed two men. What else?”
“Nothing,” she insisted. The lie of it became more hollow and transparent with each repetition.
“Come on, Princess. I’ve been at this for too long to believe that.”
She parried and denied twice more. So Price switched tactics.
“Araceli, tell me what happened,” it was not the command of an officer, a superior. It was the request of someone who had a duty of care for her.
SERE and SWCC had done a lot to prepare her for falling into enemy hands. It had prepared her for the long terrible experience of battle. It had not prepared her for anything like the kindness in his voice.
And, that kindness broke her. She tried to cling to the bitter shell of her exterior, but it shattered under the weight of what he offered her.
She turned away from him. Her voice was empty of inflection.
“He rolled me, like I was a drunk in an alley. He knocked me on my ass and I thought he was going to kill me. Then it got worse.”
Price couldn’t see the slow trail her hand was making down her chest, following where König’s had been. She realized what she was doing and dropped her hand.
“Because his men found us. Him on top of me. He had to make it look like what they expected it to be. But I-- I didn’t know. I thought it was really going to happen,” she turned an empty face back to him. Then she grinned, “I thought I was going to have to go Rosario Tijeras on your asset.”
He handed her the cigar and matched her grin.
“Steady on, Sergeant,” he said playfully.
A comfortable silence fell over them.
She handed the cigar back to him. He waited until he caught her eye.
“So,” he puffed the cigar and then said gently, “nothing happened.”
She blinked hard and fast. She nodded, and when she could trust her voice she repeated it.
“Nothing happened,” she almost sounded like she believed it.
“Ma’am, Are you fucking serious, ma’am?” Blackwood's voice bordered on incensed.
“Yes,” Laswell was imperturbable.
Two hours of private conference with Price had resulted in a plan, one with the princess at the heart of it.
“So, we’re not only accepting stereotypical Latino sexism, we’re counting on it?” Blackwood asked.
“Yes,” Laswell said.
Years of Ghost’s influence on Price compelled him to say, “Your job, Princess, is to protect the King.”
“I’m a medic, not a bodyguard!”
“And a woman and he is in the most dangerous position in this team.”
“So I’m just supposed to f--?”
“Steady on, Princess,” Price said. This time he said it with an edge in his voice, as she trod perilously close to trouble. “Send König in on your way out.”
“But--,”
“You have your orders, Sergeant,” Price barked, with that, she was dismissed.
Blackwood’s body snapped back to attention, she turned on her heel and left the room.
She scanned the room. König, Gaz, Vargas, and Ghost were kicking a hacky sack in a four-square style game, the rules of which were known only to each man as he had control of the little bean bag.
She got between him and the ball and caught it.
“Mom and Dad want to see you.” She tossed the ball back to Gaz and left them.
Blackwood sat down to scribble notes for the infirmary log.
Hours later, in the early morning, König’s radio crackled to life.
“The Stanley Government House has fallen. The Argentines have the capital,” König translated for the benefit of those who didn’t understand. When the message was relayed again in Spanish both Blackwood and Vargas nodded confirming König’s report.
“We are to rendezvous back at the mansion. I will be expected. And I will have to report the deaths of… those two men.”
“Alright, you two. You’re up,” Laswell said. “Vargas will tail you to Ross Rd. Princess, take a phone.”
Blackwood heard Price stop Vargas at the door and murmur, “What is a Rosario Tijeras?”
König walked beside her on the long road to the Government House.
For a woman who spent her life saving damsels in distress, to play the damsel grated on her nerves. It didn’t matter that the damsels she was saving were usually the best of the best. The torn sleeve on König’s jacket fluttered in the low breeze.
She couldn’t blame him for what he had done. Well, she could, but she didn’t want to. He’d done what he needed to protect both of them. As much as it grated on her nerves, she would do her best to let it be.
Blackwood’s guilt picked at her, so she turned her attention to how she usually viewed the world. She surreptitiously looked at him.
She had to acknowledge that he really was massive. She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to pull off a rapid evac in the event she needed to pull him out. He was evenly balanced at least. But his shoulders were proportionally broad. She supposed as long as she could get his arms over her shoulders and she didn’t have to go far, she would be fine.
“How much do you weigh?” she asked, as conversationally as she could.
She couldn’t see the expression on his face. The t-shirt was back under his helmet, obscuring the look he shot her.
“150 kilos,” he said, tight muscle jumping in his cheek. He made the effort not to snap at her.
She looked at him less surreptitiously now. She stopped walking.
“Fucking 300 lbs of pudding,” she put her hand on her forehead, eyes wide. It was how her instructors had described the dead weight of an unconscious human being. It reflected in her speech, but while König’s English was fluent, it wasn’t his first language. And, he couldn't see the inside of Princess’ head.
König could recognize that he was getting a bit soft around the middle, but he’d hardly describe himself as pudding. He sucked in his stomach and pulled up on the waist of his pants. It was then that he realized he had missed one of his belt loops. He dropped his hands back to his side and kept walking.
“There will be things, Sergeant, things that must be done. Things that I will have to do. Or rather, make it seem like I’ve done. Price and Laswell have spoken with you about this, nh?”
“I understand my role here, sir,” she said.
“Did they tell you what they told me? Who, what you are supposed to be?”
“Yes. Don’t worry. I’ll follow orders, sir,” she said simply.
They walked on for a bit before the words that crowded König’s mouth jumped out.
“I would like to apologize, ja? There was no time for warnings. I did not wish to make you uncomfortable. For these men, there are two types of women. If you are not one, you are the other. I do not wish for anyone to find out what happens to the other.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Please, do not call me ‘sir’. I have not been an officer for some time.”
“Then why introduce yourself as Colonel?”
“Why not introduce yourself as ‘Princess?’ Names and titles have power, do they not Sergeant?”
She nodded.
“Please call me König.”
“Princess,” she said. They walked on in silence a bit further. “So, the first thing we have to convince them is that you can take me in a fight, right?”
“Yes, I suppose.”
“Some things can’t be faked, s--s” she hesitated, stumbling over the syllables of his name.
“Ja,” he said cautiously.
“Then you’d better catch me,” she said, as though she were observing the weather. It was so matter of fact, he almost missed what she said.
She might not be willing to blame him, but that didn’t stop her wanting to punish him. She was going to make him work for it. Then, she was going to kick his ass for even making her think she might be a victim, for making her pretend to be a victim.
She didn’t give him time to respond. More than that, in her mind, she was already planning the fight in the event he did catch up to her. If she was supposed to be some kind of unwilling trophy, then that was exactly what she was going to be.
By the time he had fully processed what she had said, she had well over a hundred yards head start. She took off away from the road.
Her heart raced. That feeling of emptiness consumed her until she was only her muscles. She was only her pumping circulatory system. She was only blue blood pulsing through capillaries, venuels, veins, vena cavae, heart, lungs, arteries, arterioles and back into the capillaries where the heated blood flushed her skin so much darker.
Fly, Fight, Feed, or Fuck, the deepest knowledge in her brain created a vacuum into which only the most basic decisions were allowed. Her body urged her to make a decision.
Firing on all cylinders, her sympathetic nervous system flooded her body with adrenaline.
She chanced a glance back.
König was there. Not far behind, his arms and legs were pumping furiously to catch up with her. She hadn’t been counting on his size to slow him down, but she was still surprised by how quickly he was closing the distance.
His long arms hooked around her waist. She was moving before he could pull her against his chest.
“I do not want--,” his words were cut off by a sharp knee to his groin.
He grunted and bent forward. She shoved at his shoulders. He straightened just a bit.
Turning toward him, she used the heel of her palm against his face. She was aiming for his nose, but didn’t quite reach. Blood poured red, and vibrant from where his teeth cut into his lip, hidden by the gray hood. He pulled it away from his face and spit.
She freed herself from his loosely-held grip and admonished him.
Breathing heavily, gritting her teeth she said, “Don’t pull your punches.”
He stared at her, wondering if she was actually daring him to try to take her.
“Some things can’t be faked,” she repeated.
It finally clicked for König what she was telling him.
He lunged for her again, in earnest this time, closing the gap between them. He feinted a jab to her back, at her kidney, then jabbed at her face. His meaty fist connected with her nose. She rocked back by the sheer force, unable to dodge his enormous hand.
She took one of his massive fists in her stomach. She groaned and crumpled to the cold, wet grass.
Solid and stocky as she was, he swept her off the ground and over his shoulder as if she weighed no more than a child.
She recovered her breath in time for his shoulder to press against her diaphragm, forcing a grunt from her throat.
She elbowed the back of his head and put her knee into his chest. But she only succeeded in making him cough.
“<That’s enough!>” He growled.
The guttural consonant combinations and the command voice with which he shouted her down created an immovable object against which the unstoppable force of her will crashed. Still, she struggled, thrashed, railed against him.
He brought his free hand around and slapped her squarely on her ass. Both froze, chests heaving. She went limp against him.
It had been a compulsion, an impulse. He hadn’t even realized what happened until she stopped and he realized his hand rested against the tight roundness of her behind.
Neither of them moved until König realized his hand was still splayed across most of her bottom.
The sensation low in her belly, remnants of her ‘four F’ response, lingered, despite how much she tried to ignore it. The wide spread of his hand across her butt cheeks only intensified her instincts.
She released a breath, slow and measured. He wrapped his hands around her hips and shuffled her off his shoulder. He set her down. He stepped back. His eyes were wide. He worked his jaw like a fish. He was grateful again for the hood as the flush of embarrassment flooded his cheeks.
Blackwood couldn’t see any of the visceral, physical signs of embarrassment König expressed.
She didn’t know how to react. But, she couldn’t control the deepening color in her cheeks.
“Some things cannot be faked,” he shrugged, affecting a nonchalance he was desperately trying to feel. “Are you going to run again?”
“No,” she could barely hear herself over the pounding in her ears. “Just use the cuffs.”
König wasted no time. He collected her wrists with one hand in a smooth practiced motion. With the other, he pulled the flex cuffs from the pocket of his armored vest.
The white and green government house sat on top of a low hillock at the end of Ross Rd. Despite the hour, every light in the building was on. The place was abuzz with activity. Inside the building, the air smelled like death: shit, blood, and burnt powder.
The voices of men greeted König. Blackwood listened to them make remarks with the same kind of salacious tone she had been subjected to on the harbor. König yanked her by the cuffs, carefully avoiding touching her skin, as he led her through the building.
She huddled in her jacket, grateful for her penchant for oversized hoodies and her generally average-sized stature. He kept himself between her and everyone they passed.
He used his protective instincts to pretend a jealous possessiveness that wasn’t in him. The protective instincts weren’t really in him either, but he had been trusted without cause. He wanted to be worthy of that trust.
She listened to the gibberish and tried to make out common words to no avail. Occasionally, orders would be relayed in Spanish. Those she picked up and memorized. She memorized the steps around the halls. König hauled her along and reported to his superiors. Argentine Marines stood around a badly wounded Lieutenant-commander Giachino.
She saw that he was bleeding from his chest, and abdomen. The medic on the scene was doing his best to get the commander stabilized. Her fingers itched to help. She stopped, but König yanked on the cuffs, pulling her forward.
He grumbled at her in German and kept leading her deeper into the house. He led her back to the servants quarters. He shoved her inside and locked the door behind her. She pounded on the door with the sides of her fists, cursing in Spanish and shrieking like a banshee. She ran out of steam and stopped long enough to catch her breath.
She turned to find several Royal Marines staring at her. Many of them spoke enough Spanish to know what she was saying wasn't language fit for a lady.
“Howdy boys,” she smiled like she was on USO tour, “Cap’n John Price sends his regards,” she said in English.
König was gone for an hour reporting and filling out paperwork. Neither of them were idle while they were separated. She passed on information to the marines and gave them the phone she had brought with her. She memorized several messages and names to follow up with.
By the time König returned for her, the lack of sleep, the adrenaline, and the stress of the last 24 hours was finally hitting her. She winked at the Royal Marines as he jerked her out of the room. She fought and tried to dislocate her shoulders, tearing at him like an untrained dog on a leash. If it made anyone uncomfortable to see him drag her around like a carnival prize, no one said anything.
He pulled alongside the curb of a building. It looked like it might have been a hotel of some sort. A KorTac emblem had been spray painted onto the door. König went inside and was greeted by several men who leered at Blackwood, but kept their distance.
After a short, terse conversation, she was dragged up a narrow stairway and into a small bedroom. She stared around the room. There was a nightstand and a window. There was a cramped ensuite bathroom with a standard sized tub and shower.
Finally, she let her eyes fall on the full-sized bed.
König closed the door behind them and locked it. He came around the front of her and picked up her hands by the flex cuffs. He cut them off and went into the bathroom. Before long the shower was running. She pulled the fluffy comforter onto the floor with one of the pillows. She wasn’t going to have this argument.
She toed off her boots and began to strip the many layers off her body. There was a knock at the door.
Blackwood froze. The knock sounded again, and this time it came with a voice. She was able to pick up König's name.
He came out of the bathroom in a welter of steam with a towel around his waist. Haloed by the fluorescent vanity lighting,
She gaped at him.
He passed her without looking at her.
The door creaked and a sliver of artificial light crossed the floor behind him. He reached out and pressed her against the back of the door, effectively hiding her from scrutiny through the crack of the hinges. He pulled his other hand back into the room, holding a large black duffel.
They looked at each other for a long time. Each dared the other to break eye contact first. König broke first. He took the bag back into the bathroom and shut the door.
She finished undressing and laid down in the pallet she had made.
He came back out in pt shorts and a t-shirt. He stood over her for a time before speaking.
“Why are you on the floor?” he asked.
“Because I’m not going to argue with you about it,” she slurred from the near edge of sleep. She forced her eyes open and looked up into his blushing face.
“I --- uh,” he cleared his throat, “I need some of your undergarments.”
Her mouth dropped open, consciousness returning to her in a flash of the whites of her eyes.
“E’cu me?” she said. The Miami-ism out of her mouth with her surprise.
He looked away from her and cleared his throat again. His face, ears and neck burning painfully. He rubbed his palms on the legs of his shorts. He was fairly certain the outburst was the result of surprise at the request rather than confusion about what he was asking for.
“I need some of your undergarments. The ones you are wearing would work best.”
She stared at him.
“This is the convention, nicht?”
“So you need my worn underwear.”
“Yes.”
“And, what do you propose to do with them? I only have two spare pair with me.”
“If you are a trophy, then they are how the score is kept. They will hang on the door until we leave.”
“You’re going to display my worn underwear like a flag?”
“Yes.” His head was pounding with the force of the blood flowing to it.
She could see he was uncomfortable with the prospect, but he persisted.
She grabbed the heavy jacket from beside her and sat up, rifling through the pockets.
“Can you, I don't know, turn around at least?”
He turned and gave her as much room as he could, short of returning to the bathroom.
She started to shimmy out of the requested clothing article, before she decided that it would be quicker to stand.
König heard the creak of the floor as she stood. He hadn’t forgotten her sucker punch earlier, so he stepped forward quickly and turned around.
He caught the barest glimpse of her across the room as she pulled up soft, low-waisted, bikini briefs of lilac cotton before he turned back away from her. He rested his hand on the bathroom door frame above his head.
“OK,” she huffed. She was sitting upright wrapped in the blanket. In her hand, she held a baby pink pair that matched the ones he had seen rising up her legs. He tried not to think about the gusset, cooling and heavy with wetness, when he took them into his hands. He sat down and set them on the bed.
She watched him curiously, if a little uncomfortably, and intently.
He laid the underwear down flat on the bed, with the crotch free of obstruction. He pressed the heels of his palms together over it. He leaned down and pulled a butterfly knife from the armor on a chair by the bed.
He flipped it open and used it to pick the sutures from earlier on by one, dragging the razor-sharp tip across the wound. Fresh blood welled slowly into the shallow cut.
“What are you doing!?”
“Yes, perhaps also you should jump in place,” he said, “30-45 beats per minute would be accurate.”
She blinked and tried to process his words.
“Oh,” she coughed when it finally clicked. In the end, she chose not to jump where she was.
He drew his palm across the bleeding cut, then pressed his palms, bloody and not together. He pressed the bloody mess into the crotch of her panties.
Her voice was much lower when she spoke again, “how violent do your men expect you to be?”
“It is not a matter of violence.” he said,
“That virgin blood thing is a myth. They probably know that.”
“They do.”
“Then--,” her voice trailed off. She left the question unasked, and waited for his explanation. He slipped the shirt off and laid it carefully on the bed. He picked up her underwear, and hung them on the outside doorknob.
His face flared pink and scarlet again.
“It is a common enough occurrence with lovers past. They would find it odd, or anomalous if it wasn’t the case here as well.”
“You’re saying you have such a horse-cock that you make all your lovers bleed?”
He didn’t look at her. “I would not say so. No.”
He slipped his shirt back over his head and crawled under the sheets.
“Buenas noches.” he said, crisply. Then, he rolled away from her.
