Fic: Midnight Blue: Sometimes She's Wrong, Sometimes I'm Right (1/3)
Title: Midnight Blue: Sometimes She's Wrong, Sometimes I'm Right (1/3)
Fandom: Stargate
Rating: T
Genres: smutty smut smut... SMUT
Summary: Sergeant Evan Lorne really has had it with Officer Laura Cadman... and he's gonna tell her so.
A/N: Heh, challenge time! This little trilogy that never was intended to actually become one is the result of the AU challenge over on major_explosion. I took scherryzade's prompt "Bomb disposal team AU (Cadman's a little vague on the whole 'not blowing things up' thing)" (well, and one that pingulotta issued and that I'll probably finish in... oh, two years or something... sorry, pingu :S) and I'm not quite sure if this is what scherry thought would come out of it *coughs
Also, after betaing it, mackenziesmomma suggested I slap a BIG language warning on it since she counted 48 swear words and that's apparently even too much for being awarded a Gold Star (don't ask... just don't ask ;)). Oh, oh, oh, and thanks so much to pingulotta for introducing me to LFO's song Every Other Time (and subsequently also finally convincing me to openly ship Sam/Cam :D) because without that song... this story might not have become what it is now :)
Sometimes She’s Wrong, Sometimes I’m Right
“Sometimes it’s black
Sometimes it’s white
Sometimes she’s wrong
Sometimes I’m right
Sometimes we talk about it or we figure it out
But then she just changed her mind
Sometimes she’s hot
Sometimes I’m cold
Sometimes my head wants to explode
But when I think about it I’m so in love with her.”
LFO, “Every Other Time”
He’ll kill her. Today he will kill her. He’s been thinking about it a few times since… no, scratch that, he’s been thinking about it since the day she joined the team. But today he’ll go through with it. Seriously, he will.
Because, see, he’s the NYPD Alpha Bomb Disposal Team’s Sergeant, and he’s been that for almost eight years now and before that he did time in an EOD unit in the USMC and never in all his time with crazy bomb experts he met someone like her. Officer Laura Cadman, superior nutcase and probably the death of him if he doesn’t kill her first.
“I can do that in my sleep,” she’d said and almost skipped off to deal with the bomb some stupid wannabe terrorist had planted in one of Grand Central Station’s baggage lockers - even though he’s still trying to figure out how anyone could skip in a damn EOD suit.
Dammit, he’d wanted to say, we’ve got robots for that but she had insisted on doing it by hand, saying something about the nature of the bomb and its location making it impossible for a robot to reach it and grudgingly, he’d agreed, while O’Brien and Mendoza had been giving him those looks again… like they were wondering if he’d argue with them like he argued with her or if he’d just let them do their job, seeing as they were both male.
Yeah, right, “I can do that in my sleep,” his ass. No one can do that in their sleep, not even Cadman, despite her records stating that she was always the best in practically everything she did. Right from the beginning that had irked him, since he hadn’t been and it had taken him years of painfully learning the ropes and working his ass off to get where he is today.
And then a little red-head breezes in and takes the entire department by force, charming them into oblivion so no one would realize how insane she is. Because, you know, after he’d given her his grudging approval that she was going to be the one to defuse the bomb - with the only half-joking addition of “Try not to blow it up this time, Caddy” from O’Brien - she’d skipped off in that suit… only to re-appear without it after a few minutes.
He’d tried to call her back - even contemplated arresting her for a moment or two - but she’d already been inside and they’d been on the clock and so he’d let her go, hoping to God that just for once Cadman wouldn’t be so vague on the whole ‘not blowing things up’ thing.
Okay… okay, so usually, she really isn’t. She’d only blown up things three times since she came to the team, and at two of them, he’d ordered her to do it… even though that glinting in her eyes had weirded him out pretty much. However today, she wasn’t supposed to blow it up but she still did and he’ll never forget the way his heart seemed to stop beating when the blast shook the building… all the way until they heard her confirm to them that she was still alive between coughing and gagging.
Seriously, he swears, in the seconds - minutes, hours, eternity - until they heard her voice again he just stood there… couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think… could only stare and… no, could only stare. And for that he’ll kill her. No one makes Sergeant Evan Lorne just stand there and stare, really no one. Most of all not some explosions happy red-head with a temper that was more volatile than every bomb he ever had to deal with - and there had been some real whoppers among them - and a laugh that still rang in his ear even hours after it stopped and a perpetual spark in her eyes that always seemed to challenge him…
Dammit. He won’t go there again. He’s been there much too often since she joined the team and he knows how dangerous it is to go there - so dangerous that he doesn’t even dare to put a name on it - and that’s why he’ll finally get rid of her right now.
With that resolve firmly in his head, he practically throws open the female officers’ locker room door, so forcefully that it actually hits the wall with a crash and startles a few officers who just got dressed or are in the process of doing so. Somewhere deep down he knows that every one of them could sue him for sexual harassment and that every one of them would win, hands down but right now he’s past caring about such delicacies.
Shocked, they all look at him but before one of them can start screaming, he just growls “Out,” and to his amazement - or at least the small part of his usual rule-adhering, controlled, and before Cadman came to the team even laid-back self that’s still there is amazed at that - they hastily pack their belongings and scramble to get out of the room as fast as they can.
Well… all except a red-head in civvies that looks maddeningly unimpressed, with her duffel slung over her shoulder and her eyebrows raised, as if she’s just mildly wondering what his questionable entry is all about.
Okay.
Right.
Composure. He can still kill her but first he needs to get some of his usual decorum back. Deliberately slow, he turns around and closes the door, trying to exchange this red hot fury that seems to have taken him over ever since he heard her over the radio, telling them that they shouldn’t get their panties in a twist because jeez, of course she’d survive one little blast with a kind of cold detachment that would allow him to talk low enough that no one would hear him shouting out of the damn women’s locker room.
When he turns back… she’s still standing there, still looking unmoved. He takes a deep breath. “What, in the name of Jesus, Mary and holy St. Joseph, did you think you were doing, Officer Cadman?” Dammit, there was far too much repressed rage and fury in that. Too much growling, not enough detachment.
And yes, it just results in her eyebrows rising just a little higher. “Uh… my job?” What the… the audacity.
After just two words from her, he already feels his resolve crumbling. And it’s all her damn fault. “Don’t give me that crap, Cadman. I’m still your goddamn Sergeant.”
Also, it really doesn’t help that she looks very much like she had to resist the temptation to roll her eyes. “I was doing my job, sir.”
Couldn’t she at least flinch? Wince? Bat an eyelash? Knowing full well how menacing he can appear - you had to, if you wanted to keep an EOD company under your command - he takes a few steps towards her. “Your job, Officer, is listening to your superior, first and foremost. And your superior told you to go in there in that damn fucking suit.”
“With all due respect, sir… my job is to defuse bombs. And that’s what I did in there. I defused a bomb. Well… or tried to, at least.” There! There it was! Just a tiny little flicker of insecurity. Very minute but he did see it - and he’ll just ignore the fact that apparently he knows her well enough to actually notice it by now and that it slightly creeps him out and annoys him.
But at least that’s new fuel for his agitation. “If I may remind you, Cadman, you didn’t defuse the bomb. The thing fucking exploded.” Okay, what had he wanted to avoid at any cost and just did anyway? Right… no shouting anymore. Shouting doesn’t exactly give you the air of superiority he desperately needs now to put her in her place.
She sets the duffel back on the bench in front of her, in a motion that looks deliberately controlled. “If I may remind you, sir, that wasn’t my fault. I did the best I could to actually contain the explosion.”
Wait… that’s not how it’s supposed to go. She’s not supposed to be the calm and collected one… the one that has a point. “You… you could have been dead, Cadman!” Mh… no, that wasn’t what he’d wanted to say. But at least there was no trace of worry in his voice, only justified anger.
“Actually, sir… I would have been dead if I’d worn the suit.” Ah, there’s the temper building up. She’s trying to keep her cool but he can see it in the way her hands curled into fists. And is her breathing starting to get uneven?
A few more steps towards her… until he’s only an arm length or so away from her. “That’s bullshit, and you know it. They’re not protective suits for nothing and…”
“And I would have never been able to get away in time if I’d worn the damn thing!” Right. Now she is shouting. And apparently, she’s not finished yet. “I knew the layout of the compartment and I knew exactly what to do in case I couldn’t defuse it. If I’d worn the suit, I’d never have been able to duck behind a corner and get away from the blast. Yes, then I’d have been dead. I’d have been dead if I’d listened to your orders!” That’s not true.
Even though a little voice in his head tells him that it is… he’s convinced she’s wrong because dammit, he’s the Sarge and the Sarge’s orders never kill his people. He gets ready to tell her where exactly she can shove her accusations but… she’s still not done. “So, if you don’t mind, I’ll go home now which I can still do only because I didn’t follow you like a lemming. Good night, sir.”
With that, she grabs her bag and brushes past him and the only reason why he lets her do that is that no one ever talked to him like that and that did shock him. Honestly, no subordinate ever dared to make preposterous statements and then even tried to get away with it.
Thankfully, he catches himself just in time. “I didn’t dismiss you, Officer.” She… oh, she stops and he half expects her turn around and just give him the raised eyebrows but… she doesn’t. She just stays there, waiting… for what?
Dammit, he’s really had it with her and for some reason… this is the moment where everything inside of him - the pent-up frustration about how she shook up the team when she joined them and that she never stopped shaking it up and the anger about her irreverence and the confusion about the tight feeling in his chest whenever she readily walks into a potential death trap - makes him explode.
“Now, listen to me, Officer, and listen good. I’ve had it with you.” With you and your goddamn laughter and your grins and your hazel eyes that just won’t leave me alone. “You breeze in here, with your spotless record and your sparkling awards and your stellar results and you think everyone will fall to your feet.” Just like I would, if I’d actually allow myself to. “But I’ve got news for you. I don’t and I’m sick and tired of you thinking that all that crap entitles you to behave like an idiot and endanger anyone’s life. You may have been your Academy tutors’ pet and have everything presented to you on a silver platter but…”
He never gets to finish that sentence, though, because… because he gets slammed into the row of lockers behind him. 140 pounds live weight are pressing him to the wall and a pair of hazel eyes are blazing at him from beneath a few loosened red strands… and there’s a surprisingly strong forearm pressed against his throat. “You don’t know anything about me, Sarge,” she hisses and yeah, he totally believes her because he never saw her like this, ever before. “And I’d suggest you’d just shut your damn mouth if you don’t want to be dismembered right now. Sir.”
Jesus fucking Christ, that’s definitely a side of her he hasn’t seen before… and God, she’s beautiful. Her cheeks are flushed with anger, her gaze is alert, her mouth is just a little open and she’s breathing heavily and… too… fucking… close…
Suddenly, from one moment to the next those lips he just admired are on his and he has no idea who started it but it doesn’t matter anyway because fuck that feels good… way too good. She’s not cutting him any slack in the kissing department but he wouldn’t want it any other way, anyway. Want… need… more…
He barely registers that one of her hands is immersed in his hair like she’s holding on for dear life and that the other has somehow found its way beneath his shirt because he’s way too busy with freeing her hair from the bun she usually wears and freeing her shirt from her jeans - and then freeing her from the shirt - with the other one.
When it doesn’t work, he grudgingly uses both his hands but his mouth never leaves her skin and oh God, how he loves that hair and the way she growls when unbuckling his belt apparently takes way too long for her likening and just… just basically everything she does and whoa, those fingers opening his jeans and tugging at the hem and… “Aaah, fuck.”
What… somehow they reversed their position and she just hit the locker doors with her back and… “You okay?” And there it is. The worry he could keep out of his voice when he was yelling at her just came back with a vengeance.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Now can we please…” Damn, that impatience turns him on like there’s no tomorrow but the way she just swore when her back hit the locker doors… like it hurt.
“Cadman…” She shakes her head.
“I’m good. Now just fucking stop talking, will you?” And yeah, in true Cadman fashion she doesn’t even wait for him to answer, just draws him in for another kiss and there’s nothing left to do for him than to oblige her.
Well, and it’s not like he doesn’t like doing it. Because, damn, if he’s honest, he’s been dreaming about kissing that creamy, freckled skin ever since she showed up at the PD’s annual picnic in a spaghetti strap shirt and a skirt that showed off the gorgeous legs he just had the pleasure of liberating from the jeans they were clad in.
So much wonderful soft skin under his fingers and his mouth… and her fingers all over his body, feeling cool against his overheated skin, digging into his back, pressing him against her breasts, her firm, flat stomach… the hot triangle between her thighs.
Thank God he got rid of his pants and boxers early enough because there’s no way in hell he could have borne having to wait to get inside of her. As he enters her, it feels way better than in any of his dreams - yeah, yeah, if he’s honest he did dream about this, way too many times to keep count - mostly because she actually urges him to, planting her hands firmly on his buttocks and meeting him halfway.
Oh fuck, it feels good and he can’t stop he just has to go on and on and oh God there it is and it feels like she’s surrounding him or he’s surrounding her and it doesn’t matter anymore who’s surrounding whom because… holy Mother of God don’t ever let this stop make it go on…
It does stop, though, but somehow that’s not all that bad because she’s still there and he can feel her hot breath against the skin of the crook of his neck and he doesn’t ever want to let her go again.
In between trying to catch his breath, he can’t help placing a few more little kisses on her skin, unwilling to let her go because he’s pretty sure it was just a one time thing - well, it really should be just a one time thing, at least - born of both their frustrations and it had nothing to do with any feelings and… and he should really let her go.
Forcing himself to do it, he finally pulls away from her, averting her gaze because whatever is in there, he doesn’t want to see it. He also tries not to look at her while getting dressed but against his better judgment his gaze does fall on her when she’s turned her back to him… and it nearly makes him miss a beat.
There are bruises all over her back and a few scratches on her arms as well. Why… why ever didn’t he see them before? And it also… dawns on him… that this wasn’t a one time thing, at least not for him. Seeing those bruises… it suddenly awakens the furious wish to take care of her, just as tenderly as he’d been fiery with her a moment ago. He swallows.
And then… as if by themselves… his legs carry him over to her and his hand has reached out to gently touch a bruise of deep purple on her shoulder blade. Now she winces and turns her face towards him, if not the rest of her upper body… it’s a strange gesture of vulnerability that somehow touches him. “Laura…” He swallows again, wondering briefly what to say… until he settles with an almost clumsy, “let’s get you home, huh?”
When it registers with her what he just said - he’s pretty sure it’s the implied we that gets to her - she turns away and something in her posture makes him feel like she just closed herself off again. “I’m fine. You don’t have to take… I don’t want to…” Oh. Oh… he… he thinks he got what this is about. Laura is a bad-ass female cop among bad-ass male cops who tries to be more bad-ass than all of them together, after all. Kinda weird how easy reading her suddenly comes to him, now that pretending to himself that she doesn’t mean anything to him became kind of obsolete.
“I’m not taking pity on you, Laura. I just want to… take care of you.” There. It’s out. And it’s scaring him a little how easy that was. It’s not supposed to be that easy, right?
Laura, however… still can’t look at him and it’s starting to wrench his nerves because… good God, what if it really was just a one time thing for her? “I’ll be fine. It’s not the first time I got a little banged up. I’ll get over it.”
Argh. He feels irritation building up again because “a little banged up” his ass. Sure, he’s seen worse in his time both with the Corps and the force but damn… the fact that it’s her back that’s covered in bruises somehow makes it all worse than it probably is and the thought of letting her go home with that and having to deal with it all on her own… it doesn’t appeal to him. Trying to be gentle, he grabs her shoulders and turns her to face him. “I know… hey, look at me.”
She tries to avert his eyes again but he’ll be damned if he lets her go on with this. “I mean it. Look at me, Laura.” Something in his tone makes her look up again and it astounds and even shocks him a little how suddenly he can see the toll today took on her and that she knows very well just how close she came to dying today. He takes a deep breath. “I know you’ll get over it on your own.” And now… for his last resort. “But you don’t have to. At least not for tonight.” And maybe not anymore at all, if you let me, he wants to say but senses in a rare bout of empathy that it wouldn’t do any good if he did, at least not yet.
It takes her a moment of hesitation… but then she bites her lip and looks up, with a mixture of insecurity and sheepishness in her eyes. “So… you’re not mad at me anymore?”
God, no. Or at least… at least not for the wrong reasons. He still is mad at her, at least kind of, but he also kind of gave up trying to tell himself that it was because she disregarded a direct order. But yeah, it’s just not the right place and time for that, now. He sighs. “No, I’m not.” There’s relief on her face… and then it just kind of slips out, “But if you ever do that again and survive it, I will kill you. Do I make myself clear?”
Dammit. Dammit, dammit, dammit. Why did he just say that? If he’d wanted to tell her that he was madly in love with her, he could have just said it because it would have meant the exact same thing. There’s another moment of silence and he’s ready to leave the room because from the look on her face, it was very plain in his face what he’d really meant to say… but then she just says, “Crystal, sir,” and he… believes her. She did get what he wanted to say and she’s… dead serious that she understood him. “And… you’re right. Let’s just… go home, huh?” What? “My home… Evan.” There’s a tiny bit of impatience on her face and a hint of amusement and…
Oh.
Huh.
Oh, right. She wants… she wants him to accompany her home. Okay… okay, he can do that. After all, it had been him who’d proposed it first. “Yeah,” he says and grabs her duffel, simply ignoring her attempts at protesting, “let’s go home.” She just smiles… and then she slips her hand into his, as if she’d done it a thousand times and maybe she really did in her head, just like he gave her a kiss top of her head a thousand times in his head… well, he thinks and gives her that kiss, only one way to find out, after all.
~*~
TBC in Trying to Protect my Point of View.
Fandom: Stargate
Rating: T
Genres: smutty smut smut... SMUT
Summary: Sergeant Evan Lorne really has had it with Officer Laura Cadman... and he's gonna tell her so.
A/N: Heh, challenge time! This little trilogy that never was intended to actually become one is the result of the AU challenge over on major_explosion. I took scherryzade's prompt "Bomb disposal team AU (Cadman's a little vague on the whole 'not blowing things up' thing)" (well, and one that pingulotta issued and that I'll probably finish in... oh, two years or something... sorry, pingu :S) and I'm not quite sure if this is what scherry thought would come out of it *coughs
Also, after betaing it, mackenziesmomma suggested I slap a BIG language warning on it since she counted 48 swear words and that's apparently even too much for being awarded a Gold Star (don't ask... just don't ask ;)). Oh, oh, oh, and thanks so much to pingulotta for introducing me to LFO's song Every Other Time (and subsequently also finally convincing me to openly ship Sam/Cam :D) because without that song... this story might not have become what it is now :)
Sometimes She’s Wrong, Sometimes I’m Right
“Sometimes it’s black
Sometimes it’s white
Sometimes she’s wrong
Sometimes I’m right
Sometimes we talk about it or we figure it out
But then she just changed her mind
Sometimes she’s hot
Sometimes I’m cold
Sometimes my head wants to explode
But when I think about it I’m so in love with her.”
LFO, “Every Other Time”
He’ll kill her. Today he will kill her. He’s been thinking about it a few times since… no, scratch that, he’s been thinking about it since the day she joined the team. But today he’ll go through with it. Seriously, he will.
Because, see, he’s the NYPD Alpha Bomb Disposal Team’s Sergeant, and he’s been that for almost eight years now and before that he did time in an EOD unit in the USMC and never in all his time with crazy bomb experts he met someone like her. Officer Laura Cadman, superior nutcase and probably the death of him if he doesn’t kill her first.
“I can do that in my sleep,” she’d said and almost skipped off to deal with the bomb some stupid wannabe terrorist had planted in one of Grand Central Station’s baggage lockers - even though he’s still trying to figure out how anyone could skip in a damn EOD suit.
Dammit, he’d wanted to say, we’ve got robots for that but she had insisted on doing it by hand, saying something about the nature of the bomb and its location making it impossible for a robot to reach it and grudgingly, he’d agreed, while O’Brien and Mendoza had been giving him those looks again… like they were wondering if he’d argue with them like he argued with her or if he’d just let them do their job, seeing as they were both male.
Yeah, right, “I can do that in my sleep,” his ass. No one can do that in their sleep, not even Cadman, despite her records stating that she was always the best in practically everything she did. Right from the beginning that had irked him, since he hadn’t been and it had taken him years of painfully learning the ropes and working his ass off to get where he is today.
And then a little red-head breezes in and takes the entire department by force, charming them into oblivion so no one would realize how insane she is. Because, you know, after he’d given her his grudging approval that she was going to be the one to defuse the bomb - with the only half-joking addition of “Try not to blow it up this time, Caddy” from O’Brien - she’d skipped off in that suit… only to re-appear without it after a few minutes.
He’d tried to call her back - even contemplated arresting her for a moment or two - but she’d already been inside and they’d been on the clock and so he’d let her go, hoping to God that just for once Cadman wouldn’t be so vague on the whole ‘not blowing things up’ thing.
Okay… okay, so usually, she really isn’t. She’d only blown up things three times since she came to the team, and at two of them, he’d ordered her to do it… even though that glinting in her eyes had weirded him out pretty much. However today, she wasn’t supposed to blow it up but she still did and he’ll never forget the way his heart seemed to stop beating when the blast shook the building… all the way until they heard her confirm to them that she was still alive between coughing and gagging.
Seriously, he swears, in the seconds - minutes, hours, eternity - until they heard her voice again he just stood there… couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think… could only stare and… no, could only stare. And for that he’ll kill her. No one makes Sergeant Evan Lorne just stand there and stare, really no one. Most of all not some explosions happy red-head with a temper that was more volatile than every bomb he ever had to deal with - and there had been some real whoppers among them - and a laugh that still rang in his ear even hours after it stopped and a perpetual spark in her eyes that always seemed to challenge him…
Dammit. He won’t go there again. He’s been there much too often since she joined the team and he knows how dangerous it is to go there - so dangerous that he doesn’t even dare to put a name on it - and that’s why he’ll finally get rid of her right now.
With that resolve firmly in his head, he practically throws open the female officers’ locker room door, so forcefully that it actually hits the wall with a crash and startles a few officers who just got dressed or are in the process of doing so. Somewhere deep down he knows that every one of them could sue him for sexual harassment and that every one of them would win, hands down but right now he’s past caring about such delicacies.
Shocked, they all look at him but before one of them can start screaming, he just growls “Out,” and to his amazement - or at least the small part of his usual rule-adhering, controlled, and before Cadman came to the team even laid-back self that’s still there is amazed at that - they hastily pack their belongings and scramble to get out of the room as fast as they can.
Well… all except a red-head in civvies that looks maddeningly unimpressed, with her duffel slung over her shoulder and her eyebrows raised, as if she’s just mildly wondering what his questionable entry is all about.
Okay.
Right.
Composure. He can still kill her but first he needs to get some of his usual decorum back. Deliberately slow, he turns around and closes the door, trying to exchange this red hot fury that seems to have taken him over ever since he heard her over the radio, telling them that they shouldn’t get their panties in a twist because jeez, of course she’d survive one little blast with a kind of cold detachment that would allow him to talk low enough that no one would hear him shouting out of the damn women’s locker room.
When he turns back… she’s still standing there, still looking unmoved. He takes a deep breath. “What, in the name of Jesus, Mary and holy St. Joseph, did you think you were doing, Officer Cadman?” Dammit, there was far too much repressed rage and fury in that. Too much growling, not enough detachment.
And yes, it just results in her eyebrows rising just a little higher. “Uh… my job?” What the… the audacity.
After just two words from her, he already feels his resolve crumbling. And it’s all her damn fault. “Don’t give me that crap, Cadman. I’m still your goddamn Sergeant.”
Also, it really doesn’t help that she looks very much like she had to resist the temptation to roll her eyes. “I was doing my job, sir.”
Couldn’t she at least flinch? Wince? Bat an eyelash? Knowing full well how menacing he can appear - you had to, if you wanted to keep an EOD company under your command - he takes a few steps towards her. “Your job, Officer, is listening to your superior, first and foremost. And your superior told you to go in there in that damn fucking suit.”
“With all due respect, sir… my job is to defuse bombs. And that’s what I did in there. I defused a bomb. Well… or tried to, at least.” There! There it was! Just a tiny little flicker of insecurity. Very minute but he did see it - and he’ll just ignore the fact that apparently he knows her well enough to actually notice it by now and that it slightly creeps him out and annoys him.
But at least that’s new fuel for his agitation. “If I may remind you, Cadman, you didn’t defuse the bomb. The thing fucking exploded.” Okay, what had he wanted to avoid at any cost and just did anyway? Right… no shouting anymore. Shouting doesn’t exactly give you the air of superiority he desperately needs now to put her in her place.
She sets the duffel back on the bench in front of her, in a motion that looks deliberately controlled. “If I may remind you, sir, that wasn’t my fault. I did the best I could to actually contain the explosion.”
Wait… that’s not how it’s supposed to go. She’s not supposed to be the calm and collected one… the one that has a point. “You… you could have been dead, Cadman!” Mh… no, that wasn’t what he’d wanted to say. But at least there was no trace of worry in his voice, only justified anger.
“Actually, sir… I would have been dead if I’d worn the suit.” Ah, there’s the temper building up. She’s trying to keep her cool but he can see it in the way her hands curled into fists. And is her breathing starting to get uneven?
A few more steps towards her… until he’s only an arm length or so away from her. “That’s bullshit, and you know it. They’re not protective suits for nothing and…”
“And I would have never been able to get away in time if I’d worn the damn thing!” Right. Now she is shouting. And apparently, she’s not finished yet. “I knew the layout of the compartment and I knew exactly what to do in case I couldn’t defuse it. If I’d worn the suit, I’d never have been able to duck behind a corner and get away from the blast. Yes, then I’d have been dead. I’d have been dead if I’d listened to your orders!” That’s not true.
Even though a little voice in his head tells him that it is… he’s convinced she’s wrong because dammit, he’s the Sarge and the Sarge’s orders never kill his people. He gets ready to tell her where exactly she can shove her accusations but… she’s still not done. “So, if you don’t mind, I’ll go home now which I can still do only because I didn’t follow you like a lemming. Good night, sir.”
With that, she grabs her bag and brushes past him and the only reason why he lets her do that is that no one ever talked to him like that and that did shock him. Honestly, no subordinate ever dared to make preposterous statements and then even tried to get away with it.
Thankfully, he catches himself just in time. “I didn’t dismiss you, Officer.” She… oh, she stops and he half expects her turn around and just give him the raised eyebrows but… she doesn’t. She just stays there, waiting… for what?
Dammit, he’s really had it with her and for some reason… this is the moment where everything inside of him - the pent-up frustration about how she shook up the team when she joined them and that she never stopped shaking it up and the anger about her irreverence and the confusion about the tight feeling in his chest whenever she readily walks into a potential death trap - makes him explode.
“Now, listen to me, Officer, and listen good. I’ve had it with you.” With you and your goddamn laughter and your grins and your hazel eyes that just won’t leave me alone. “You breeze in here, with your spotless record and your sparkling awards and your stellar results and you think everyone will fall to your feet.” Just like I would, if I’d actually allow myself to. “But I’ve got news for you. I don’t and I’m sick and tired of you thinking that all that crap entitles you to behave like an idiot and endanger anyone’s life. You may have been your Academy tutors’ pet and have everything presented to you on a silver platter but…”
He never gets to finish that sentence, though, because… because he gets slammed into the row of lockers behind him. 140 pounds live weight are pressing him to the wall and a pair of hazel eyes are blazing at him from beneath a few loosened red strands… and there’s a surprisingly strong forearm pressed against his throat. “You don’t know anything about me, Sarge,” she hisses and yeah, he totally believes her because he never saw her like this, ever before. “And I’d suggest you’d just shut your damn mouth if you don’t want to be dismembered right now. Sir.”
Jesus fucking Christ, that’s definitely a side of her he hasn’t seen before… and God, she’s beautiful. Her cheeks are flushed with anger, her gaze is alert, her mouth is just a little open and she’s breathing heavily and… too… fucking… close…
Suddenly, from one moment to the next those lips he just admired are on his and he has no idea who started it but it doesn’t matter anyway because fuck that feels good… way too good. She’s not cutting him any slack in the kissing department but he wouldn’t want it any other way, anyway. Want… need… more…
He barely registers that one of her hands is immersed in his hair like she’s holding on for dear life and that the other has somehow found its way beneath his shirt because he’s way too busy with freeing her hair from the bun she usually wears and freeing her shirt from her jeans - and then freeing her from the shirt - with the other one.
When it doesn’t work, he grudgingly uses both his hands but his mouth never leaves her skin and oh God, how he loves that hair and the way she growls when unbuckling his belt apparently takes way too long for her likening and just… just basically everything she does and whoa, those fingers opening his jeans and tugging at the hem and… “Aaah, fuck.”
What… somehow they reversed their position and she just hit the locker doors with her back and… “You okay?” And there it is. The worry he could keep out of his voice when he was yelling at her just came back with a vengeance.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Now can we please…” Damn, that impatience turns him on like there’s no tomorrow but the way she just swore when her back hit the locker doors… like it hurt.
“Cadman…” She shakes her head.
“I’m good. Now just fucking stop talking, will you?” And yeah, in true Cadman fashion she doesn’t even wait for him to answer, just draws him in for another kiss and there’s nothing left to do for him than to oblige her.
Well, and it’s not like he doesn’t like doing it. Because, damn, if he’s honest, he’s been dreaming about kissing that creamy, freckled skin ever since she showed up at the PD’s annual picnic in a spaghetti strap shirt and a skirt that showed off the gorgeous legs he just had the pleasure of liberating from the jeans they were clad in.
So much wonderful soft skin under his fingers and his mouth… and her fingers all over his body, feeling cool against his overheated skin, digging into his back, pressing him against her breasts, her firm, flat stomach… the hot triangle between her thighs.
Thank God he got rid of his pants and boxers early enough because there’s no way in hell he could have borne having to wait to get inside of her. As he enters her, it feels way better than in any of his dreams - yeah, yeah, if he’s honest he did dream about this, way too many times to keep count - mostly because she actually urges him to, planting her hands firmly on his buttocks and meeting him halfway.
Oh fuck, it feels good and he can’t stop he just has to go on and on and oh God there it is and it feels like she’s surrounding him or he’s surrounding her and it doesn’t matter anymore who’s surrounding whom because… holy Mother of God don’t ever let this stop make it go on…
It does stop, though, but somehow that’s not all that bad because she’s still there and he can feel her hot breath against the skin of the crook of his neck and he doesn’t ever want to let her go again.
In between trying to catch his breath, he can’t help placing a few more little kisses on her skin, unwilling to let her go because he’s pretty sure it was just a one time thing - well, it really should be just a one time thing, at least - born of both their frustrations and it had nothing to do with any feelings and… and he should really let her go.
Forcing himself to do it, he finally pulls away from her, averting her gaze because whatever is in there, he doesn’t want to see it. He also tries not to look at her while getting dressed but against his better judgment his gaze does fall on her when she’s turned her back to him… and it nearly makes him miss a beat.
There are bruises all over her back and a few scratches on her arms as well. Why… why ever didn’t he see them before? And it also… dawns on him… that this wasn’t a one time thing, at least not for him. Seeing those bruises… it suddenly awakens the furious wish to take care of her, just as tenderly as he’d been fiery with her a moment ago. He swallows.
And then… as if by themselves… his legs carry him over to her and his hand has reached out to gently touch a bruise of deep purple on her shoulder blade. Now she winces and turns her face towards him, if not the rest of her upper body… it’s a strange gesture of vulnerability that somehow touches him. “Laura…” He swallows again, wondering briefly what to say… until he settles with an almost clumsy, “let’s get you home, huh?”
When it registers with her what he just said - he’s pretty sure it’s the implied we that gets to her - she turns away and something in her posture makes him feel like she just closed herself off again. “I’m fine. You don’t have to take… I don’t want to…” Oh. Oh… he… he thinks he got what this is about. Laura is a bad-ass female cop among bad-ass male cops who tries to be more bad-ass than all of them together, after all. Kinda weird how easy reading her suddenly comes to him, now that pretending to himself that she doesn’t mean anything to him became kind of obsolete.
“I’m not taking pity on you, Laura. I just want to… take care of you.” There. It’s out. And it’s scaring him a little how easy that was. It’s not supposed to be that easy, right?
Laura, however… still can’t look at him and it’s starting to wrench his nerves because… good God, what if it really was just a one time thing for her? “I’ll be fine. It’s not the first time I got a little banged up. I’ll get over it.”
Argh. He feels irritation building up again because “a little banged up” his ass. Sure, he’s seen worse in his time both with the Corps and the force but damn… the fact that it’s her back that’s covered in bruises somehow makes it all worse than it probably is and the thought of letting her go home with that and having to deal with it all on her own… it doesn’t appeal to him. Trying to be gentle, he grabs her shoulders and turns her to face him. “I know… hey, look at me.”
She tries to avert his eyes again but he’ll be damned if he lets her go on with this. “I mean it. Look at me, Laura.” Something in his tone makes her look up again and it astounds and even shocks him a little how suddenly he can see the toll today took on her and that she knows very well just how close she came to dying today. He takes a deep breath. “I know you’ll get over it on your own.” And now… for his last resort. “But you don’t have to. At least not for tonight.” And maybe not anymore at all, if you let me, he wants to say but senses in a rare bout of empathy that it wouldn’t do any good if he did, at least not yet.
It takes her a moment of hesitation… but then she bites her lip and looks up, with a mixture of insecurity and sheepishness in her eyes. “So… you’re not mad at me anymore?”
God, no. Or at least… at least not for the wrong reasons. He still is mad at her, at least kind of, but he also kind of gave up trying to tell himself that it was because she disregarded a direct order. But yeah, it’s just not the right place and time for that, now. He sighs. “No, I’m not.” There’s relief on her face… and then it just kind of slips out, “But if you ever do that again and survive it, I will kill you. Do I make myself clear?”
Dammit. Dammit, dammit, dammit. Why did he just say that? If he’d wanted to tell her that he was madly in love with her, he could have just said it because it would have meant the exact same thing. There’s another moment of silence and he’s ready to leave the room because from the look on her face, it was very plain in his face what he’d really meant to say… but then she just says, “Crystal, sir,” and he… believes her. She did get what he wanted to say and she’s… dead serious that she understood him. “And… you’re right. Let’s just… go home, huh?” What? “My home… Evan.” There’s a tiny bit of impatience on her face and a hint of amusement and…
Oh.
Huh.
Oh, right. She wants… she wants him to accompany her home. Okay… okay, he can do that. After all, it had been him who’d proposed it first. “Yeah,” he says and grabs her duffel, simply ignoring her attempts at protesting, “let’s go home.” She just smiles… and then she slips her hand into his, as if she’d done it a thousand times and maybe she really did in her head, just like he gave her a kiss top of her head a thousand times in his head… well, he thinks and gives her that kiss, only one way to find out, after all.
~*~
TBC in Trying to Protect my Point of View.