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Marissa considered this for a moment, taking in the options presented before her. She could, on the one hand, risk it. Runoff on her own, figure out these so-called powers they bestowed upon her worked. Hell, maybe she would get lucky and come across some half-decent programmer, far removed from the Vraquin, the I.N.U.F.P., and fix whatever was wrong with her. Or… she could let Freddy come with her. He had the experience, the know-how, and for some damned reason, he had been the only person willing to let her know the truth of her nature.
She bit her bottom lip, rolling it between her teeth before letting out a deep sigh. “Let’s say I agree, you come with me,” she said, “what’s in it for you? Why bother helping me out?”
“I don’t know,” Freddy replied, frustratingly.
She wanted to kick his teeth in. “You don’t know?” She snapped.
Freddy sighed, closing his eyes as if considering. “I don’t know,” he said, leaning back to lay his head against Marissa’s shoulder, ignoring the daggers she stared down at him as he did. “I’m not like the rest of you. You all joined the academy with some ambition to fill. I joined because hey, at least it was something to do. About halfway through my first year, I figured out I was pretty darn good with computers and went with it. It was never a passion for me. So… I’ve just followed orders.”
“Until now,” Marissa said, trying to mask as if she weren’t considering that all that ambition she supposedly had was just as fabricated as everything else in her life. Had they planted that will to rise to the top of the ranks just like everything else? She didn’t have to ask. The truth set cold in her stomach. She was only ever what they told her she was. What they programmed her to be.
“Yeah....” He trailed off at the end, his eyes distant as if it were the first time he had ever considered it.
“What changed?” She asked.
“What we were doing,” there was a sadness as he spoke, “I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it’s not right. I can’t tell you how. It’s just like...”
“Some of the pieces are missing?” Marissa finished for him. He lifted his head, shifting to look at her a bit in shock. “I know exactly how that feels.”
Freddy looked away from her, his jaw stretched thin as the gravity of what she said soaked in. As much as he had spent time in the dark it was nothing compared to what Marissa had experienced. The level that they had gone to fabricate her existence, keep it secret for everyone including her. “I’m sorry,” he said finally, “I’m sorry for being
She didn’t know how to respond, rubbing the back of her neck as a way to ease some of the tension building in her neck. “It’s fine,” she replied as if on instinct, “I mean.. You can make it up by helping me.”
This seemed to help, a smile spreading across his lips, wild and infectious. She couldn’t help but smile in return. Freddy, revitalized, jumped to his feet, turning to her with his hand outstretched. “Well then Ms. Vanlith,” he said, “let’s start a revolution.
As requested by @ivyandink. Big thank you to @hnn-tr for editing this for me. This drabble is 100% spicy, not for minors. Read under the cut.
It Must Be the Weather
“It’s raining,” he told her, as he pulled his rain-soaked sweatshirt over his head, “I’m sorry.” Marissa did her best not to stare, instead focusing, perhaps too much on the ace bandage she wrapped tightly around her wrist; a relic from one of their previous sparring matches. She didn’t know how tightly she had wound it until it throbbed in protest against its cloth confinement.
There was no doubting that Hal’s presence did things to her. Things that Marissa couldn’t tell one way or another if she actually enjoyed them. Her heart raced. Her whole body ached, twitched, yearned for even the smallest of touch from him. For a while, she tried to ignore it, force it away with the sheer power of her will. Yet it seemed whatever she suppressed when she was with him seemed to come back tenfold whenever she dared to dream.
"Are you ready?” he asked, smiling that goofy, crooked smile of his.
Marissa tried her best to look at his face, her mind screaming at her to act normally. “Only if you’re ready to lose,” she gave the usual quip.
He smirked, getting himself in the ready position, and-oh god don’t look at how his muscles flex-Marissa readied herself too. She took a deep breath, making her first move.
For a while, she kept up with him. Meeting his blows with a well-placed block. Each time she grew a little weaker, thinking about that moment that his chest pressed against her, even if only for a fraction of a second. She was swept away by his breath tickling against the side of her neck. Caught off guard by how his hands would grab her in the heat of the fight.
It wasn’t long before she found herself, flat on her back, staring up at him in confusion as she tried to piece together how she even got there.
“You’re off today,” he said. He was annoyed, and she really couldn’t blame him.
Stop being so distracting, she wanted to tell him. Oh, how bad she wanted to as she stared at him, damp strands of blonde hair sticking to the side of his face. He was so out of breath, she noticed, his chest rising and falling at a quickening pace. For a moment, she imagined that it was from something else entirely. That she was brave enough to say those words, to do something about this yearning inside of her.
What would Hal be like as a lover? She asked herself. His personality in itself a juxtaposition of strong and sweet, she imagined it wouldn’t be any different. She would say those words, and she could see the flush on his face, the parting of his lips as he would lean down to kiss her. He would be tentative, testing the water by laying soft kissing on her mouth, her face, her neck, his body leaning into her. Not enough to feel the fullness of his weight, but enough that she could feel how hard she made him pressed just ever so slightly up against her.
She imagined she would gasp, enough to send him spiraling into the heat of the moment. Hal would pull her closer, some of his carefulness lost. His kisses hotter, heavier, desperate, his hands pulling at the sides of her clothes seeking the fire of her skin against his. He would take her right there against the training room floor, slow, but calculated, gentle and fierce all that the same time in a way that only Hal could be.
He would be a quiet lover, she could tell. Hal was the type to whisper words of praise as his hands roamed along the sides of her body, grasping tightly at her skin. When he came, she could see him, staring into her eyes, his forehead pressed firmly against her own. For a moment it was only them in the world.
Would he indulge her? She wondered, hyper-focused on stilling her breath from the intensity of the images inside of her head. She hoped, but as always the doubt got the better of her.
Instead, she smiled, tired, defeated, and said, “It must be the weather.”
