Taken to Flight [Baccano!, Eve/Luck, R]
Title: Taken to Flight
Author/Artist: eleni459
Rating: R
Warnings: sex
Prompt: Baccano!, Eve/Luck: inexperience - embracing her inner Mafia princess
Word count: 1922
Summary: Business can get a little hectic. Sometimes it’s good to get away.
A/N: Inspiration came more from the novel version of 1932 as opposed the anime version of events.
* * *
Away. The word hummed in her mind throughout the meeting, danced across her eyes as the yelling increased, and lulled her to calm as she did her best to ease the tension. But it was only after the various brothers and associates had left that Eve dared to utter the word aloud. As happened after every other meeting over the proceeding few months, this utterance received a response from Luck Gandor: “We can do that.” While five years had not quite eased the shock from the actions that had led to their first encounter, he was presently the only one who understood her need for release.
As was their routine, they silently walked to the car. He motioned toward the driver’s side door and she nodded. She would drive. It had been in that same car that she drove for the first time. There was still a ding on the front from where she had sideswiped a post. That first mistake had left her slightly shaken. Yet she took comfort in the nonjudgmental silence between them and returned the car back the building with cautious grace. The next time she requested to get “away,” Luck still offered to let her drive. So she had managed to get in a great deal of practice behind the wheel in the following three months. Few would recognize that she was, relatively speaking, a driving novice.
Once they were both seated, Luck handed her a slip of paper. She opened it, read its contents, and handed it back. “Do you think you’ll be able to find it?” he asked. She nodded. She had been finding it just fine for the last three weeks.
The drive, like all of those that followed the initial folly, was unremarkable. But it wasn’t a happy ride. While the pervading silence was never awkward or malicious, it didn’t cover what lurked beneath. Eve would look over to him, his head against the glass and without his trademark smile, and think that he looked smaller. She had joked to herself that five years and three inches had just changed her perceptions of him the first time she noticed the difference. But as the weeks progressed and Luck remained the same, she was forced to look at it from a different perspective. While the deal they were working on would be mutually beneficial, it would mostly protect herself and the last of her family holdings. He was always so calm with her but she recognized that it could not be easy to deal with the baggage she brought along. Her family, in the form of her brother, had taken so much from them and would be getting so much in return. Eve almost wanted to talk with him about the situation; instead, she would let him wrestle with those thoughts alone, freeing him from the pity she would bring to the conversation. He deserved at least that much.
They arrived at their destination in a half hour. As Eve pulled up to the building, she couldn’t help but wonder if the blatantly middle class neighborhood realized who lived amongst them. But she knew that if they hadn’t realized it when her father kept the apartment, they would now know the difference now. The building was old and stood out surrounded by the newer buildings. They were probably just annoyed that it would take another month before the apartment would be put on the market. After all, the building manager had been most excited to see her before she asked for the key.
The stairway to the apartment was so narrow that they had to climb up in single file. As Eve led the way, she found that her hand lingered behind her. She would only pull it back when she felt his fingers brush her own. Though she tried her best to keep her hands from loitering behind her, their hands seemed to touch with increasing frequency. When she reached the top of the stairs, she bolted down the hall, careful not to leave him in the dust but not too afraid to put distance between them. Yet she fumbled with the keys once she reached the door. By the time she found the right one, he was behind her with his hand resting on her shoulder. She sighed and turned the key.
The apartment was austere by anyone’s standards. Yet Eve couldn’t bear to replace the threadbare furnishings or dress the empty walls. Despite the lies, she wanted to hold onto the last untainted bit of her father for just a bit longer. It would remain just the way he left it until the day she would give it up.
For that reason, she had at first felt awkward allowing a stranger inside. Would one criminal allow another into his hideaway? Yet it eventually felt right to let Luck sip away at her father’s scotch as she picked through his meager library. Perhaps, she began to think, Luck had such a hideaway himself where he did things that others weren’t supposed to see. Then her mind would shift to those private matters and she would try to wipe those thoughts from her mind as quickly as possible. She had found the sordid vestiges of her father’s other life. She couldn’t stand the thought of someone else - let alone someone she knew - engaging with those devices and gooey prophylactics. Yet these thoughts persisted and intensified when they were alone in the apartment.
On that night, the thoughts began to plague her immediately and she wanted to do everything she could to forget. She made a beeline for the bar. “Do you really want start so soon?” he asked.
“I don’t see why not,” she said, fumbling with the decanter. “This is what you’re supposed to do on the other side of the law, isn’t it? Just drink and stare out windows?”
“And never connect?”
“No, never connect.” Eve poured the scotch and took a deep swig. She cringed inside as the liquor burned its way down her throat. But she refused to outwardly flinch. She turned to Luck, drink in hand, and walked forward. “We just exist together and that doesn’t feel quite right,” she explained. “Now, I know that I haven’t done my part to bridge the gap but I am willing to try.”
Luck only smirked. He reached out and took the glass from her hand. “And what do you want to do?” he asked before taking a sip.
“I…I don’t know. But I do know that I don’t want you moping, drinking, and thinking of…”
“‘Thinking of’ what?”
“I think you know.”
“Do I?” He took another drink. With smirk erased, he asked, “And what do you want?”
She stared, dumfounded, into his eyes. What did she want? Her hand, seemingly of its own accord, reached out and grabbed his. Carefully, she rose to her toes and kissed him on the mouth. She started to pull away but he closed the distance between them in an instant. Stunned, her mouth remained slack until she felt his tongue flicker against her mouth.
The moments afterward felt like a blur: the crash of glass against the floor, feet tumbling and bodies crashing into walls, and the touch of hands across any and every surface. Eve’s fingers struggled with the maze of buttons that stood before her. Coat, shirt, and tie came off in a cinch. The pants, however, refused the budge. She eventually stood back and watched as Luck fumbled with the clasp himself. She stepped out of her dress and latched onto his body the moment he finished. The frenzy finally ended at the bed with them naked yet apart.
“Do…do you want this?” she asked.
He almost laughed. “Shouldn’t that be my line?”
“Maybe. But do you?” She reached out and stroked his cheek with her thumb. “I am fine. And I am ready.”
He just smiled. Slowly, his mouth turned in toward her hand and kissed the palm. She slipped back into the bed, carefully not too fall to fast and yank her hand from his touch. He followed her down, his mouth trailing down her arm until he met her shoulder. She nearly cringed as his mouth nuzzled at her neck. The feeling was foreign - electric against her night-chilled skin - but not unpleasant. She turned to meet his mouth with an urgency she hadn’t felt before. Her own kisses came out more ferocious and, for a moment, she feared she would bite him. But in that instant, his mouth pulled away from hers.
He shifted between her before she had quite realized that it had happened. And yet she felt ready to proceed the moment she realized what had happened. She steeled herself against the motion. Yet when he slipped inside, she bit her lip to contain the hiss. Instinctively, she reached and grabbed his shoulder as he bent toward her. Something in her eyes startled him and he pulled up a bit, still hovering over her body but not as closely as before. She released the breath, relaxed, and pulled him back to where he had been before. “Do you…” he began to ask, voice sounding slightly ragged.
“Just keep going,” she said, more sigh than solid vocalization.
So he did. It took a moment for Eve to sense the rhythms, but she quickly tried to match the way his hips rolled into her own. Her hands dug trails into his shoulders as her body shuddered against his own. It only seemed to push him, increasing his rhythms and changing his stride as her grip changed.
Rapture came to her as a surprise. The tension had felt as if it would build forever. When it started to break, she tried to slow down, tried to hold onto that feeling for as long as possible. Yet the moment she slowed was the moment it shattered, contracting everything at once. Her voice came out in jagged sighs as her arms wrapped around his neck. As she pulled him down toward her body she dragged him into her moment. His body shuddered against her chest as he hissed against her ear.
They remained in that state - he warm against her body, her nearly motionless as she cradled him in her arms - for a seeming eternity. He was the first to finally speak, asking, “What have you suspected?”
“What haven’t I suspect?” she answered. “I’ve learned more than I wanted to about these organizations. Not much of it is good.”
“No, much of it isn’t.”
“I…I didn’t want to have to hate you,” she said as her fingers entwined with his hair.
“So it was all about trust.”
“It’s always about trust. And after all that has happened, I’m left with one question: who can I trust now?”
“Whomever you want,” he answered.
“I suppose,” she said nonchalantly. Luck slipped from atop her and plopped down next to her. The silence that had covered them before had returned. Some things, she thought, will never change. But she still had a question to ask. Eve shook her head ruefully and asked, “Why have you been so willing to ride around with me these last few months?”
His brow furrowed and, for a moment, he seemed lost in thought. Eventually, he turned to her and shrugged. “Sometimes, it’s just good to get away. Well, isn’t it?” he asked, smiling.
Eve couldn’t help but smile back. She slid up against him and nestled herself against his arm. “Yes,” she said wistfully, “it is good.”
Author/Artist: eleni459
Rating: R
Warnings: sex
Prompt: Baccano!, Eve/Luck: inexperience - embracing her inner Mafia princess
Word count: 1922
Summary: Business can get a little hectic. Sometimes it’s good to get away.
A/N: Inspiration came more from the novel version of 1932 as opposed the anime version of events.
* * *
Away. The word hummed in her mind throughout the meeting, danced across her eyes as the yelling increased, and lulled her to calm as she did her best to ease the tension. But it was only after the various brothers and associates had left that Eve dared to utter the word aloud. As happened after every other meeting over the proceeding few months, this utterance received a response from Luck Gandor: “We can do that.” While five years had not quite eased the shock from the actions that had led to their first encounter, he was presently the only one who understood her need for release.
As was their routine, they silently walked to the car. He motioned toward the driver’s side door and she nodded. She would drive. It had been in that same car that she drove for the first time. There was still a ding on the front from where she had sideswiped a post. That first mistake had left her slightly shaken. Yet she took comfort in the nonjudgmental silence between them and returned the car back the building with cautious grace. The next time she requested to get “away,” Luck still offered to let her drive. So she had managed to get in a great deal of practice behind the wheel in the following three months. Few would recognize that she was, relatively speaking, a driving novice.
Once they were both seated, Luck handed her a slip of paper. She opened it, read its contents, and handed it back. “Do you think you’ll be able to find it?” he asked. She nodded. She had been finding it just fine for the last three weeks.
The drive, like all of those that followed the initial folly, was unremarkable. But it wasn’t a happy ride. While the pervading silence was never awkward or malicious, it didn’t cover what lurked beneath. Eve would look over to him, his head against the glass and without his trademark smile, and think that he looked smaller. She had joked to herself that five years and three inches had just changed her perceptions of him the first time she noticed the difference. But as the weeks progressed and Luck remained the same, she was forced to look at it from a different perspective. While the deal they were working on would be mutually beneficial, it would mostly protect herself and the last of her family holdings. He was always so calm with her but she recognized that it could not be easy to deal with the baggage she brought along. Her family, in the form of her brother, had taken so much from them and would be getting so much in return. Eve almost wanted to talk with him about the situation; instead, she would let him wrestle with those thoughts alone, freeing him from the pity she would bring to the conversation. He deserved at least that much.
They arrived at their destination in a half hour. As Eve pulled up to the building, she couldn’t help but wonder if the blatantly middle class neighborhood realized who lived amongst them. But she knew that if they hadn’t realized it when her father kept the apartment, they would now know the difference now. The building was old and stood out surrounded by the newer buildings. They were probably just annoyed that it would take another month before the apartment would be put on the market. After all, the building manager had been most excited to see her before she asked for the key.
The stairway to the apartment was so narrow that they had to climb up in single file. As Eve led the way, she found that her hand lingered behind her. She would only pull it back when she felt his fingers brush her own. Though she tried her best to keep her hands from loitering behind her, their hands seemed to touch with increasing frequency. When she reached the top of the stairs, she bolted down the hall, careful not to leave him in the dust but not too afraid to put distance between them. Yet she fumbled with the keys once she reached the door. By the time she found the right one, he was behind her with his hand resting on her shoulder. She sighed and turned the key.
The apartment was austere by anyone’s standards. Yet Eve couldn’t bear to replace the threadbare furnishings or dress the empty walls. Despite the lies, she wanted to hold onto the last untainted bit of her father for just a bit longer. It would remain just the way he left it until the day she would give it up.
For that reason, she had at first felt awkward allowing a stranger inside. Would one criminal allow another into his hideaway? Yet it eventually felt right to let Luck sip away at her father’s scotch as she picked through his meager library. Perhaps, she began to think, Luck had such a hideaway himself where he did things that others weren’t supposed to see. Then her mind would shift to those private matters and she would try to wipe those thoughts from her mind as quickly as possible. She had found the sordid vestiges of her father’s other life. She couldn’t stand the thought of someone else - let alone someone she knew - engaging with those devices and gooey prophylactics. Yet these thoughts persisted and intensified when they were alone in the apartment.
On that night, the thoughts began to plague her immediately and she wanted to do everything she could to forget. She made a beeline for the bar. “Do you really want start so soon?” he asked.
“I don’t see why not,” she said, fumbling with the decanter. “This is what you’re supposed to do on the other side of the law, isn’t it? Just drink and stare out windows?”
“And never connect?”
“No, never connect.” Eve poured the scotch and took a deep swig. She cringed inside as the liquor burned its way down her throat. But she refused to outwardly flinch. She turned to Luck, drink in hand, and walked forward. “We just exist together and that doesn’t feel quite right,” she explained. “Now, I know that I haven’t done my part to bridge the gap but I am willing to try.”
Luck only smirked. He reached out and took the glass from her hand. “And what do you want to do?” he asked before taking a sip.
“I…I don’t know. But I do know that I don’t want you moping, drinking, and thinking of…”
“‘Thinking of’ what?”
“I think you know.”
“Do I?” He took another drink. With smirk erased, he asked, “And what do you want?”
She stared, dumfounded, into his eyes. What did she want? Her hand, seemingly of its own accord, reached out and grabbed his. Carefully, she rose to her toes and kissed him on the mouth. She started to pull away but he closed the distance between them in an instant. Stunned, her mouth remained slack until she felt his tongue flicker against her mouth.
The moments afterward felt like a blur: the crash of glass against the floor, feet tumbling and bodies crashing into walls, and the touch of hands across any and every surface. Eve’s fingers struggled with the maze of buttons that stood before her. Coat, shirt, and tie came off in a cinch. The pants, however, refused the budge. She eventually stood back and watched as Luck fumbled with the clasp himself. She stepped out of her dress and latched onto his body the moment he finished. The frenzy finally ended at the bed with them naked yet apart.
“Do…do you want this?” she asked.
He almost laughed. “Shouldn’t that be my line?”
“Maybe. But do you?” She reached out and stroked his cheek with her thumb. “I am fine. And I am ready.”
He just smiled. Slowly, his mouth turned in toward her hand and kissed the palm. She slipped back into the bed, carefully not too fall to fast and yank her hand from his touch. He followed her down, his mouth trailing down her arm until he met her shoulder. She nearly cringed as his mouth nuzzled at her neck. The feeling was foreign - electric against her night-chilled skin - but not unpleasant. She turned to meet his mouth with an urgency she hadn’t felt before. Her own kisses came out more ferocious and, for a moment, she feared she would bite him. But in that instant, his mouth pulled away from hers.
He shifted between her before she had quite realized that it had happened. And yet she felt ready to proceed the moment she realized what had happened. She steeled herself against the motion. Yet when he slipped inside, she bit her lip to contain the hiss. Instinctively, she reached and grabbed his shoulder as he bent toward her. Something in her eyes startled him and he pulled up a bit, still hovering over her body but not as closely as before. She released the breath, relaxed, and pulled him back to where he had been before. “Do you…” he began to ask, voice sounding slightly ragged.
“Just keep going,” she said, more sigh than solid vocalization.
So he did. It took a moment for Eve to sense the rhythms, but she quickly tried to match the way his hips rolled into her own. Her hands dug trails into his shoulders as her body shuddered against his own. It only seemed to push him, increasing his rhythms and changing his stride as her grip changed.
Rapture came to her as a surprise. The tension had felt as if it would build forever. When it started to break, she tried to slow down, tried to hold onto that feeling for as long as possible. Yet the moment she slowed was the moment it shattered, contracting everything at once. Her voice came out in jagged sighs as her arms wrapped around his neck. As she pulled him down toward her body she dragged him into her moment. His body shuddered against her chest as he hissed against her ear.
They remained in that state - he warm against her body, her nearly motionless as she cradled him in her arms - for a seeming eternity. He was the first to finally speak, asking, “What have you suspected?”
“What haven’t I suspect?” she answered. “I’ve learned more than I wanted to about these organizations. Not much of it is good.”
“No, much of it isn’t.”
“I…I didn’t want to have to hate you,” she said as her fingers entwined with his hair.
“So it was all about trust.”
“It’s always about trust. And after all that has happened, I’m left with one question: who can I trust now?”
“Whomever you want,” he answered.
“I suppose,” she said nonchalantly. Luck slipped from atop her and plopped down next to her. The silence that had covered them before had returned. Some things, she thought, will never change. But she still had a question to ask. Eve shook her head ruefully and asked, “Why have you been so willing to ride around with me these last few months?”
His brow furrowed and, for a moment, he seemed lost in thought. Eventually, he turned to her and shrugged. “Sometimes, it’s just good to get away. Well, isn’t it?” he asked, smiling.
Eve couldn’t help but smile back. She slid up against him and nestled herself against his arm. “Yes,” she said wistfully, “it is good.”