Chapter Text
"So… What is he like?"
Her gaze, that had been lost in the void of contemplation, snapped back to his figure as soon as the velvety of his voice tumbled through her ear drums. It took her a moment to fully register what her blonde companion had just asked.
Oh.
"S-sorry?" Her voice was small, timid. By all gods ruling over Gunsmoke, she regretted having invited him in. She blinked at him a few times, her mind reeling at a thousand light-speeds per hour, trying to gain time and find a way out. Her shoulders went stiff, rising slightly, trying to make herself look tinier, and she wanted to disappear from the face of the planet. Fuck. She wasn’t expecting that question.
As if the whole situation they were about to crash into wasn’t awkward enough, a short, amused chuckle resonated from his chest as he raised his beer can for a quick sip. The sudden tension so palpable, so discernible that it seemed to have thrown off time and space around them. When did the air become so thick and unbreathable? She clutched the fabric of her sleeves, hands starting to sweat. Surely, there had to be a way out of this, right? The more she let the milliseconds tick by, the more she found herself engulfed in a slowed-down version of reality: the speedy, flickering lights of the city shooting from behind her, painting bolts of saturated colors in the room, over his large form in front of her. His golden hair shone like a ray of sunlight, blinding her for a brief moment. And when her eyes dropped slightly defensively, something else met her half-way; ever so gently gripping, holding her full attention as they always managed to annoyingly do as invisible –albeit, dare she say, begrudgingly familiar– fingers lacing themselves around her wildly beating heart. She gulped heavily.
The aqua-blue of his mesmerising eyes remained trained on her face, in their full beauty now that they were not covered by the orange tint of his shades. The half-moons of his irises poked through a sliver at the top of the tin can, glinting in an icy-blue sparkle as the passing dashes of light crossed over his handsome features. Focused, observing… eager.
And that’s how she knew. He knew.
As he lowered his refreshment down, she saw the smirk that’d been already waiting to greet her staining the corner of his mouth; a mischievous curiosity, amusedly dancing behind the blue skies of his orbs.
"The guy you're head over heels for, what is he like?"
Fuck.
A sneaky ray of sunlight escaped the worn-out, clanky shades, licking its way through her rented room.
Graciously raising its luminous flash as the minutes ticked by, until it found a resting place right on her face, poking a merciless burning finger into it.
She scrunched her features up– nose wrinkling in distaste against the bright intruder. Slowly, and unfortunately surely, that bright light shone on the depths of her consciousness, bringing her back into the world of the living. Ugh, not now. That was the first night in a long time she’d had the capacity to sleep through like a baby– no dreams, no nothing. Just a good old void of pure relaxation. It had taken so much for her to finally relax. And now, her peace was being taken away from her.
Fuck this, dude. Her firstborn thought. The prelude to a wonderful morning ahead.
A second later, waves upon waves of different memories flooded her brain, the first remembrance brought forward by the sunshine lick being her work; her office back in November popped back into her mind’s eye as if it were a distant memory. She’d been on the road for so long that it was almost comical how her cushy, city-girl life had turned completely upside down.
She felt her heart smile at the familiar scenes she missed about her hometown. Warm and fuzzy, fun memories of a simpler time: her co-workers' faces crowding around her cluttered desk, mountains of unfinished reports, and phones ringing all over; smiles, familiar touches, and greetings; their heated and friendly discussions over monthly drinks. All so close to her heart, and yet so far away now. Another spark of a memory popping from behind it all– an oblivious and petulant past self she wasn’t quite proud of. She’d learned a lot, the hard way.
"And what a spoiled, little missy from uptown knows about the world, uh?"
Mnpf. Unfunny echoes from a hurtful experience weren’t exactly her favorite way of emerging back into reality.
Remembrance became consciousness, and with consciousness, awareness saluted its friend: annoyance, paving the way for her personality to rise back into life from the back of her brain, forcefully. The gears were back and kicking.
Fancying a little challenge, she silently battled against the ray of light, waiting for whoever was going to break contact first.
Playing dead, she waited for a couple more minutes without seeing any signs of the little brilliant trickster scurrying away. Then, another couple of minutes. Or had it been like a full eternity?
Ugh.
With a strained face and eyes still closed, she slowly reached for the soothing blanket –annoyed at herself for the miserable mute squabble with the ray of light– ready to flip on her side.
Sleeping arrangements like these were the only reason she would miss home nowadays. What would she give to be in her perfectly comfortable, spacious bed, where her sheets smelled like deep, fragrant laundry soap. Blinds graciously shut to avoid the two suns' intrusion, and her pwecious, little Miss Twinkle purring at her feet. Miss Twinkle… She missed her. The corners of her lips turned downward at the memory of her furry companion. She still could feel the soft, glossy, black fur between her fingers; big green eyes and a sweet meowing greeting her every morning. Argh… home sounded nice right now.
Stupid-ass, garbage shad–
A deep exhale vibrated through the air.
She halted all her movements and thoughts immediately; hands falling silently over her chest.
Did she just imagine that? Did the ray of light fry her brain too?
As if on cue, a relaxed, heavy sigh was heard. A different, slow stir on her mattress made her fully aware she wasn’t alone. Oh by all gods.
Her eyes snapped open as fast as a bullet.
What in the name of all newspaper anchors in Noman’s Land–
Very carefully, and still oh so brutally confused, the young woman turned her head on her pillow ever so slowly; her breath hitching at the sight.
Her eyes full-blown widened almost comically, if this wasn’t tragic. Heat crawled up aggressively from her bosom, up her neck, smearing her cheeks furiously; disconcerting bafflement and utter perplexity washing over her throbbing heart like a powerful black blizzard.
Her orbs falling on a much larger –and very masculine– frame laying on the other side of her bed. Soft, pale skin now showing flushed, red pools where the blood was closest to the surface were the first hues to overwhelmingly hit her eyes.
She quickly glanced over at a dangerously powerful arm wrapping itself around a pillow. An –oh so deliciously, she had to admit– well-built shoulder and bicep still visible; rippling muscles danced underneath the alabaster skin as he loosely flexed before relaxing around the cushion. Her half-present understanding of the alien form by her side reeled her mind a thousand miles a second as her orbs tried to process what it was doing in there, absorbing the other details as fast as a Plant could generate electricity.
Only then, her desperate scanning captured the soft, spikey, and dense mass of blonde hair at the top of his skull; his undercut currently facing her. The solid build of a muscular –and heavily– scarred back poking through the burgundy fabric of the bed sheets, and she immediately felt realisation hit her brain back into this crazy, wide –freaking wild– world with monster-truck force.
Her heart skipped a million beats and went straight to cardiac arrest; whispering embarrassment and flooding memories, barging at the gates of her blooming emotions.
Oh. OH.
No, no, no, NO.
What has she done? This had to be a fucking dream. No way. No way did this happen.
All previous memories and thoughts of her –what it seemed now– distant past were being forcefully kicked out of her internal storage as her inner self scrambled and tumbled upon her struggling recollection, rummaging like a madwoman for any plausible explanations for… this.
Laying there as if he ruled her sheets– heck, the soft, cool, satin sheets she’d especially requested for herself– for just one special night since it’d been a while since she’d gotten a treat in this onslaught of running and hiding they called life.
She recalled seeing a picture in an Old World book so many years ago of the said gods that once ruled the humans of Earth. She couldn’t help but compare how these sheets were embracing this man’s form better than a godly tunic wrapped around Hercules himself. She didn’t even know that the fabric could do that. What the actual hell was this.
Okay, okay, calm down. Oh god, by the Five Moons, this can’t be real.
Her fingers clasped onto the silky sheets on her chest so hard that her knuckles went white. She didn’t even notice when her breathing became completely erratic– a mix of distress and embarrassing panic bubbling up so strongly within herself that she felt her palms start to sweat.
The worst part? She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the athletic man lying beside her. That solid and wide back raising and falling delicately with each inhale and exhale. Completely oblivious to her manic desperation.
"Ahh… Can you feel it?" Ragged panting. Heat. So much heat. "Do you believe in me now?"
What the actual fuck.
His voice suddenly echoed loudly inside her memories. A crystal-clear glimpse of flushed skin paired up with otherworldly, striking blue eyes, so, so close… and a fervent breath fanning over her lips busted into her mind’s eye so powerfully –so loudly– that she let out a panicked squeak, feeling her whole body being consumed by… whatever this was.
Her fingers trembled abruptly; she still could feel the now ghostly, tight grip they supposedly had around the blonde locks in her –what could only be– hallucination.
"Focus, love. Don’t let your mind wander… All that matters is that I want to show you how I feel." Pulsating patterns shimmering under her digits, a brilliant star cluster inside his pupils. "Focus on me."
As if on a warpath, mercilessly, her mind pulled these words from the depths of her conscience as intrusively as the first one. A myriad of extremely intense –absolutely intoxicating– feelings and confusing, smoldering, carnal images flourished from within her like a puzzle that'd been smashed into a thousand pieces, with such force, she immediately choked. These were so intimate, so powerful, that her body jerked violently in response, a visceral reaction, so deep and rooted in her emotions that it was evoking uncontrollable spasms all over her body.
What the fuck was happening to her?
She tried her best to hold onto the sheets over her chest, knuckles hurting so much that the pain was making them numb. She whimpered, her eyes shutting off in an attempt to contain the sensations, but all she could feel were tears rolling down her temples. Another involuntary jerk of her body made her back arch; her body seeking something –or rather, someone– who was supposed to be there, to meet her half-way through with the same crashing force of physicality and emotions. She could feel the rush of her pulse, her heart thudding so erratically inside her rib cage, and in her ears, screaming, yearning so intensely, she swore she was about to pass out.
A mixture of dread and terrified confusion mingled with the most fantastic things she’d ever felt, rushing through the rivulets of her veins and pumping these unearthly sensations all over her nervous system. Inexplicable waves of warmth, bursting into colorful galaxies, shone behind her closed eyelids, something she couldn’t understand with her limited mind capacity, and yet, she could only vaguely perceive as a… higher intelligence, intricately interweaving a myriad of fervent emotions into her core, into her soul; all of which were blooming and eternally expanding, emanating from her throbbing, erratic heart; ever unfurling fans of fractal emotional layers touching every extremity of her being, washing over her in powerful ripples, prickling her skin, from the tip of her toes to the roots of her hair. Her spine danced in that mysterious, supernatural rhythmicality; and oh as much as this was scary, she didn’t want it to stop.
Pressing her lips tightly together, she swallowed down the heavy lump of absurdly intense emotions, suppressing them to the best of her abilities. The brutal force of her attempt inflated her cheeks, forcing a strained whimper out through her clenched teeth. Was she about to...?
What in the name of the fucking Five Moons was going on?!
As the main target of universal mockery that she was certain she was, the big mass of a man moved so suddenly at her treacherous movements that her panicked state evolved into pure torturing terror.
Shit, shit, SHIT.
She had to run. The urge to flee washed over her like a ferocious Sand Worm travelling the Sand Lakes; she wanted to disappear, to evaporate immediately. She had to get the hell out of there, now.
No supernatural entity out there could contain the squeak that escaped her throat upon realising she had woken him up; her neck and face burning up on a level of mortification she swore she’d never felt before in her entire fucking life. Fuckery fuck, please let her survive this. She’d just barely managed to suppress that insanity she’d just gone through –still fervently pulsating at the back of her mind– when desperation clutched its fangs on her gut with such an atrocious force, that dizziness started to cloud her mind, her heart speeding up to record leaps in her ribcage. So she did the only thing she could do: calculate a route out. The distance between the bed and the door was a few feet apart; if she was quick enough, she could beat him and take the next Steamer right out of the door, get off in the middle of nowhere, and live amongst the nomads on the other side of Gunsmoke as an outlaw for the rest of her pathetic existence, never to see any of them again. Fuck Bernardelli Times, her career, the prospects, and most of all, fuck this pursuit of "The Stampede" plan. How could she possibly ever face the others? Face him ever again? She’d rather die on her own terms as an outcast than perish through burning, eternal embarrassment. This was all a reasonable plan; she was in total control. Top dog.
And yet, time had again played one of its infamous tricks around her, and she was absolutely sure she would never get used to its atrocious disloyalty; she was sure it’d never be by her side.
As her shaky hands were about to throw the delicate material of the satin sheets away from her body, reading herself for the biggest dash of her life, the quantum flow of space around her came to an unbearably slow motion, and she had to witness in pure horror as the legendary Vash the Stampede manoeuvred his head around; soft and thick blonde locks that looked like licks of sunshine themselves swayed perfectly into place, yet beautifully dishevelled. Oh god, please, please. She wouldn’t be able to survive this. She’d never asked for anything, so please, why did she have to go through this?
Not surprisingly, her prayers remained unanswered, as she felt her heart rate flatline when his long, dusky eyelashes fluttered open, framing big, incredible blue orbs, a mirror of Gunsmoke’s eternal azure skies themselves. Their special shimmer immediately zeroed in on her petrified face, finding their marker with accurate precision as the most charming and enchanted smile she’d ever seen sprawled over his thin lips, and all she wanted to do was to die.