Don't you have a ship to fly?
Characters: Kennedy and Adam Setting: The Hummingbird, evening
This was always the worst part, the floating through space, in between their stops to drop off one thing or another. It was nice because you know, it was space, but there was very little captaining to do. Rosa and Angel were...somewhere. He tended to avoid them when they got on the ship alone. They either fought or made up from fighting which was fun for them and something Adam made a point of avoiding them. He dropped by the kitchen to make up mugs of tea then carried the spare towards the bridge. “Hey Ken,” he said holding out one of the mugs to her. “How’s it going?”
Kennedy was on the bridge, the lights down very low, allowing the consoles and monitors to illuminate the space. The pilot's chair was leaned back, and she had her feet propped up on the side of her station, quiet music playing as she made a few adjustments to their flight plan. When Adam arrived, she glanced up, then smiled. "Aww, who's a sweetiepie? You are, big poppa! You are!" she said, reaching out for the mug. "It goes. Y'know. Adjusting things, hoping something random doesn't explode or shut down, adjusting more things...flight. It's a hell of an adrenaline rush." Adam gave her a look and held the mug out of reach. “I was trying to be nice,” he said regretting it. Why was life with Kennedy so damn complicated? Why was his whole crew so complicated? It was like he’d lost a bet. “Are you being sarcastic? We’re just supposed to be floating to the next station so we can drop stuff off,” he said shifting nervously on his feet. “Don’t drive us into another asteroid field. Please.”
She dropped her feet down to reach farther for the mug. "Aw, c'mon, Captain my Captain," she said, giving him a 'pleeeeaase' look. "And sure. I'm being sarcastic," she deadpanned. In reality, flight was more than just setting coordinates. Everything in space was constantly moving. Nothing ever remained at a fixed point. The areas they were traversing wasn't so well known that her job was obsolete quite yet. But he also looked nervous, so she didn't play up details, just let him believe that she was being sarcastic and totally not doing anything important, or things could go pretty terribly wrong if she was so much as a degree off on her flight patterns. "And that totally wasn't my fault," she added. "I still say that shit is on Angel, and whatever 'friend' he was going to 'see', and I'm just going to stop right there because I'll wear out my air quotes allotment for the month if I continue."
Adam stared at her, not sure she was telling the truth at all, but what else could he do. Instead he just handed over the mug and tried not to roll his eyes. He knew what she did was important, but sometimes he felt like his pilot took the dangerous way on purpose. “You’re the one that knows the way, just because Angel was the one that sent us that way.” He did roll his eyes this time. “You were out of air quotes ages ago. What did I do wrong?” he asked the ceiling. “I swear I just wanted to be a captain.”
Kennedy laughed a little, watching him even if his eyes weren't anywhere near her. "You hired me because I know what I'm doing, remember? I'm that girl who will fly places no one else will, so we can get jobs that pay the big, sweet, juicy money?" she rubbed her fingers together then sighed sensually, leaning farther back in her hair. "See this? This is me, bathing in cash."
The money wasn’t at all why he hired her. He’d hired her because she was skilled and he was pretty sure that he’d been sucked in by how pretty she was because damnit, as strange as she was, she was gorgeous. “I’m not sure I see it…” he said, surprised that he’d slipped into confusion meets teasing. That she got him to talk like that was probably another reason why he hired her.
Stretching, Kennedy sat back up, flipped a few more switches, one of which slid a panel up the ship, revealing an ocean of stars. She walked toward the nose of the craft, and dropped down to sit on the floor, leaning back on one arm and sipping her tea. "Well you know, you could see it, we could always head right on to your bunk, so we can both do it. You have a tub, right? If not, there's a great little place at our destination that totally has them. It's pretty sweet."
She glanced over her shoulder at him, and smirked, winking at him. "Or you could just come sit with me and look at the pretty," she commented, gesturing downward with her mug. There was a distant but close enough to see color spray of some belt of space dust, the tail of some comet, or maybe even the remains of a tiny planet that got wiped out millenia ago. Whatever it was, it was gorgeous, a splash across a black canvas. Kennedy could have been a lot of things, she chose to be a pilot for a reason.
Adam looked down, not looking at the space but looking at the girl instead. “Definitely pretty,” he said, sipping at his mug of tea before moving closer. He wasn’t sitting with her yet, but he was within reach at the very least.
"Oh take a load off. I promise I don't have to adjust anything for at least a few minutes. Be all...Captain-y. Sit with me, give me a performance review, then threaten my job before you threaten it if I don't...do something cool. I don't know. Give it a shot." She patted the floor next to her, hoping he did sit. She gave the guy a hard time, but the truth was, she really liked Adam. Kennedy was more or less made of sarcasm, and she couldn't help that, but there'd been more than one time since she'd signed on to his crew that she'd thrown a drunken punch at a bar when someone said something bad about the guy. So he was sorta short, and didn't look like a typical captain, and his ship was named 'The Hummingbird', possibly the least manly ship name that wasn't the 'Giant Pussy Crybaby'. But she liked him. He meant well. He was adorable. And she knew he was more ripped under the clothes he wore than one would think.
He watched her for a long moment then nodded and sat with her. “Performance review? Aren’t those better when I’m yelling at you for flying us into an asteroid field or restricted space or the other multitude of things you’ve gotten us into since I hired you?” The worst part was, as often as he threatened her job, all their jobs, he kept the ship at dock until they were all back on board and accounted for.
She snickered at that. "Psh. You know this puppy would be boring as hell if I wasn't around to get us in and out of trouble. And they were totally fucking jumping the gun that one time. I was just brushing restricted airspace, I wasn't in it. Their maps were wrong. I swear," she said, holding her hand up like she was in court. "So yeah, they could be better, your speech certainly gets more colorful, and it won't quite be the same without your blood pumping so hard that little vein in your neck stands out, but still. Maybe it's time we tried one. Or you could skip to the part where you threaten my job, or tell me I have to...I don't know, clean out the cargo hold with a toothbrush or some shit for an infraction I barely remember." She sipped more tea. "I really should not have trusted the toothless, half blind coger at the mining colony. Whatever I was drinking there I'm kind of sure would have killed a lesser woman."
“Their maps were right. You were cheating. We made a five day journey in three. I’m not stupid.” Though his crew did have a habit of keeping him in the dark. “Even if I did make you clean out the cargo hold, you’d either not do it or do with it Angel’s toothbrush or my toothbrush and then I either have a disgusting toothbrush or an angry Angel.” Adam sighed and looked over at her. “Why are you noticing my neck when I’m trying to yell at you? Is it that in effective?” He frowned. “Wait...what happened in the mining community?”
"Well, when they figure out how to make lazer fences, I'll abide by them until I figure a way past them. Until then, I maintain my innocence," Kennedy said with a firm nod and barely kept straight face. "And it would be angry Angel," she added, not denying in the slightest that she would do something like that. Also, she knew that she was completely and utterly wrong about the place being boring without her. It wouldn't be, by a long shot. Angel and Rosa were the ones who really brought the blood pumping shit to the party. Her own antics were probably mild in comparison. She shifted her gaze to him, smirking. "Because it stands out! And usually when you're yelling at me I'm doing death defying piloting, so I can't exactly make tons of eye contact, I can just shoot you glances," she decided. "And nothing! Just some heinous moonshine. I mean the engine the guy made it out of looked clean enough, and I only blacked out like, fifteen hours or something of memory, so, y'know. Nothing to worry about." She paused, head tilting to the side. "Though I admit I do still wonder why I wound up with bruised ribs and a dislocated middle knuckle."
“If they put up laser fences, you’ll find a way to get around those too. More of a challenge right?” he asked, glancing at her with a half smile. She was the best. “Let’s not make him angry. For you know...this week. Maybe I’ll make you clean my quarters. But that’s just punishment for noticing trivial things about me when I’m trying to yell at you.” He smirked at her but then his face fell. “You lost..Oh my god.” He groaned and pressed his hand against his forehead. “You’re attempting to give me an ulcer.”
She grinned when she caught the half smile. She finished her tea, and set the mug safely aside. "A girl's got to stay sharp," she agreed about the challenge. For her, she just didn't like the idea of there being anywhere she couldn't get to in case of emergency. The place was dangerous, barely held together chaos as everyone figured out what the fuck this was they were doing now. And maybe she didn't exactly show it, but she did take the lives of the people on the ship seriously. To her, she kept people safe by being able to get anywhere, get past anything. She was just happy for everyone to think that she was just a complete nutter who couldn't stand rules or boundaries.
"Oh! I'll clean your quarters! I'll totally leave you a surprise in there. It'll be great. We've still got whipped cream on board, right? That's totally unrelated, by the way," she assured him, unable to hide the grin. When he groaned, she knocked her shoulder against his. "I'm pretty sure I didn't lose any more than that, I mean, I remember what all the buttons do and muscle memory kicks in when I'm piloting anyway, so, no harm no foul. But I might just say on the ship next time we go there, in case I knocked anyone's teeth out. I forgot to mention the fight bite along with the dislocated knuckle..."
“I need to get you a hobby that isn’t trying to get my ship blown up,” Adam said, setting his own mug aside and rubbing his temples. “No whipped cream. Not...no surprises. You aren’t allowed to leave surprises in my room. I sleep there for god’s sake.” He opened one eye and looked at her as if she was painful. She really wasn’t, it was just from time to time he wanted to bash his head in when he realized how much trouble she was prone to getting people into. “You drank moonshine, out of an engine, then you got in a fight on the mining community, what if someone punches me because of you?” Not that he was useless in a fight, but up against miners he was probably half useless.
She gave him a big, cheesy 'don't hurt me!' grin. "I have hobbies! Some involve whipped cream!" she insisted. She then gave a fake groan and sighed, lying down on the floor to stare up through the skylight at the stars up there. She propped her knees up. "I remember the guy, sorta. I remember the rig, better. And I don't think anyone would punch you because of me. The fights I get into aren't usually about anything that could blow back on you." Which was actually true. “Besides. They’re miners, who drink shit out of an engine. They probably don’t even remember third grade, let alone some dumb pilot that got in a fight.”
“What involves whipped cream? Seriously. Name me a hobby that involves whipped cream.” Adam raised an eyebrow at that, watching her flop backwards over his shoulder before hiding his smile. “You remember the guy...did you sleep with the guy?” That would justify a fight that was for sure.
"The intricate and delicious art of whipped cream genital coverings meant for feasting upon by other connoisseurs." Kennedy deadpanned. "See now if I were to leave you a present in your quarters, I would lie down on your bed, and there'd be whipped cream here," she circled one breast, "here," she circled the other, "And riiight down here," she finished, of course circling her crotch. "It's a pretty intense hobby. You should definitely try it." She paused and then shook her head. "No. I played chess with him though! I remember that. Only he kept fucking up the Knight's moves. Crotchety bastard. I mean, I know I occasionally sleep with guys that just barely qualify as human, but this dude was like, a billion. Or fifty something, and just aged super badly because of that moonshine. Wait. I think he had a kid. Brad? Duncan? Busch? I dunno."
Adam really wished he hadn’t asked. Or that he’d come up with a damn fine mental image of that. Flush danced across his cheeks and he looked away, shaking his hand and rubbing a hand over the back of his neck to cover up that flush too. Damn that was a nice idea. “Do I need to remind you that you work for me?” he said, but it didn’t come out as harsh as he wanted it to. Instead it sounded just as flushed as he was. “Busch? No one names their kid Busch.” He was quiet for a moment. “I’m glad you didn’t sleep with him.” God he was loser. He needed to not talk ever.
Kennedy's eyes were of course glued to him, since she'd said something designed to make him blushy. He was adorable like that. Pretty much anything that even remotely had to do with sex made him blush. It was why occasionally, she just sprung on him 'wanna make out with me?' on long flights when they were in the middle of nowhere and nothing exciting was going to happen unless pirates showed up to attack or something. "Nope, you totally don't, Captain," she said, saluting him. "Your wish is my command, and all that shit." She couldn't help but smile when he told her he was glad she hadn't slept with him. Every once in a while he said something like that, and she'd be lying if she said it didn't give her warm fuzzies. "Because you don't want to picture me getting plowed by the ghost of christmas past?"
He went back for his mug, giving himself something to do with his hands. Something that wasn’t thinking about her. “Well...God, you make that sound like an innuendo.” He rolled his eyes sipped at his drink again. “No. I didn’t need that image either. Shut up. I just...no. Not saying anything.” He didn’t like watching her with others. He hated seeing it at the bars they went to between jobs, not that he blamed anyone, it just made him oddly jealous.
"What? I know tons of Captains who can't wait to give the 'hoist the mast' command!" she insisted, cracking a laugh just a little. "Well I could go back to the mental imagery of me in nothing but whipped cream and a cherry on top," she added. "Oh! Or I could bring in the mental image of me on that mining colony getting banged harder than a jackhammer by that dude's daughter - lord she was pretty. Y'know, arms like a body builder, but super smoldering eyes..."
“Kennedy,” Adam said, drawing her name out and turning to look at her. “Kennedy. What are you doing? What is the point of this?” He wasn’t going to be able to sleep for days. Not without imaging her in whipped cream or worse with some other woman.
She couldn't help it then, she burst into giggles, and she reached up to tug his arm hard enough that he'd be laid out on the floor next to her. "The point is to make you blush, because you're pretty goddamned adorable when you're all red like that. I have to make my own fun, when I can't go invading people's airspace or dodge patrols of one description or another." Plus, she would in a heartbeat pull the whipped cream trick if she thought he'd actually go for it.
Adam just managed to not spill his tea before she pulled him down, setting it aside. “So really, your hobby is making me blush,” he said with a sigh before he rolled his head to look at her. “So it’s not about actually following through on any of that is it?”
Kennedy turned her head to look at him too, looking him in the eyes. She smiled. "Why?" she asked, expression amused, but not teasing for once. "You want to really find out where the cherry goes?" she asked.
He smiled a little, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from blushing again. He looked up at the skylight instead, shrugging his shoulder. “Maybe. I’m not against it.” Maybe. He probably would freak out halfway there or after, but again, he’d been suckered in by those eyes when he hired her.
Kennedy blinked, then rolled onto her side, closer to him, so she could look down at him, her hair spilling over her shoulder. "Oh yeah?" she asked, eyes ticking to his lips for an instant, before they were back on his eyes. "Because you know that could be arranged," she told him. Or, they could totally mess around right there on the bridge. She wouldn't turn that down either. She glanced down him, then back up, reaching out to walk her fingertips over his forearm onto his stomach. "I never asked...you ever christen this baby?"
He watched her eyes drop down, then waited for her eyes to come back to his before licking his lips. “No. Rosa and Angel did it for me.” And he’d walked in on it and thank god they hadn’t heard him because Angel might have killed him. “So now it can be arranged? It’s not all teasing? Or are you going to yank the football away the moment I decide to kick it?”
"Whatever, they don't count, it's your ship," Kennedy said. She just about lit up when he continued, though. "Are you going to decide that?" she asked. "You could just go for it, see what happened. Or order me to go clean your quarters, and see what happens there," she suggested, stopping the walk of her fingers at his chest, where she tapped twice.
“I think they count enough. I’ve not really had a chance to christen it anyway.” People weren’t really banging down his door. “Don’t you have a ship to fly?” he asked, raising an eyebrow, though he at least sounded amused, shifting so he could tuck an arm behind his head. “Wouldn’t that a be a blatant abuse of power, ordering you to clean my quarters just to get you in my bed?”
There were times when Adam just looked hot. He was a sweet, cute guy, but every so often, he just stood a certain way, or like where he propped his head up, he was lying there, deliciously in reach, and he lost that 'cute' thing and forged ahead into 'hot' land. "You know, I do? But there are a lot of sturdy surfaces in here, y'know," she told him, nodding as she spoke. "And we could always play 'blatant abuse of power'," she told him, leaning a little closer. "I could get into that game," she added, voice a little lower.
“Anyone could walk in,” he chided gently, but damned if his his heart rate didn’t bump up a little at the thought. Which was not her it had just been a while. Not forever, just a while. “How exactly does that game go?” he asked, dropping his own voice to his own low whisper.
"And?" Kennedy asked at the idea that anyone could walk in. She so didn't care. Among things Kennedy worried about, that didn't even make the list. "Maybe they'd learn something," she posed. When he lowered his own voice, however, she got closer, and leaned in to murmur near his ear. "You give me orders, as my Captain, and I do my own special interpretation of that order. Like, going to clean your quarters. Or get those hard to reach places, or give you a massage, or anything that imagination of yours could come up with." She smiled, palm resting against his chest now. “It could always start with ‘get on your knees’.”
“Maybe they’d learn something? Them?” he asked, but her voice in his ear had him closing his eyes, liking that idea way too much. “On your knees,” he echoed softly, not really meaning to, but unable to help himself when she talked like that.
"Hey, just because they're banging all the time doesn't mean they couldn't use a few new ideas," Kennedy told him. When he said 'on your knees', however, a little rush went through her. And, because she was absolutely up for games, she pushed herself up onto her hands and knees, gazing down at him. "Yes, Sir," she practically purred.
“What? No I hadn’t…” he started, but her voice like that did him in a little bit. “Say it again,” he said softly.
She grinned at that, a wicked sort of expression. She crawled closer, leaned more over him, and let her lips brush his earlobe this time. "Yes, Sir," she said, more than happy to oblige him that. She put a lot into it, wanting her breath to tickle his ear while she was at it. She did her best sexy voice, which wasn't hard to do when she was turned on.
“Why can’t you be like this always,” he mused, though he liked her spunk. It was her spunk that had her over him like this, leaving him shivering with her breath against his ear. He turned into her, chasing her mouth, but not completely following through on the action.
Kennedy gave a little throaty laugh, and was going to answer, but then he almost kissed her. She thought he was going to, but he stopped shy of it. Her stomach had done a pleasant little drop, and she felt like she was some kid, or something. She turned her lips toward his, and was about to kiss him when a communication alert shrilled it's way through the bridge from her station.
Literally growling, Kennedy shot a death glare toward her chair, then pushed herself to her feet, literally stomping all the way there. "This better be fucking good--" she snapped, right before she connected the 'call'. "What?"
Adam thunked his head back against the floor of his ship twice before sitting up and running his fingers through his hair. “Yelling at them gets us nowhere…” he said but not harshly because he hadn’t quite caught his breath yet. It was for the best really, that they get interrupted and he grabbed the abandoned mugs with the idea of getting the hell out of his bridge and heading for a cold shower somewhere.
Her ire ramped up when she had Angel on the other end telling her they were going to have to bump up their travel time by, like, a lot. Like they needed to get there as soon as possible, and she swore she could hear a riot or bar brawl or something in the background. "Bitch - you owe me!" she snapped at him, then flicked the communication off. "Goddamnmotherfuckingstupidsonsabitches..." she growled under her breath, dropping her ass down in her seat.
She looked at Adam, as she was already flicking the autopilot mechanisms off. "Might wanna strap yourself in, Cap. It's gonna be bumpy. Again." God, she was frustrated. She wanted that stupid kiss worse than anything right then and there, and stupid freaking Angel and Rosa were in stupid freaking trouble again. Dammit.
“Don’t tell him...what in the hell did they get into?” he asked then deposited the mugs in a space where they wouldn’t break. He dropped into his chair, and buckled himself into it. “Please don’t do anything drastically illegal, but yes get us there before they get locked up and shot,” he said, wishing for something other than the warmness in his belly and the need for that cold shower.
"I have no idea, I didn't ask, he'd just vague it up anyway," Kennedy said. Or, he'd vague it up now, then maybe when he was totally drunk and bored he'd tell her. It wasn't that she didn't enjoy Angel and Rosa's bullshit from time to time either - just baaad timing. She wanted to have sexy fun times with Adam and now she had to pilot like a bat out of hell. Fucking great. Usually she'd love it, but yeah. Not when she was pretty much dying to know what he tasted like, and she for the first time had the inkling that she would have been able to find out. Adam was a shy guy, she would have no problem believing that he'd have to be coaxed back to that place, or maybe it was gone now and he was going to decide that he couldn't do anything with her because he was the Captain, and that was final. Grr.
"Yes, Sir," she said, half a second before she punched it, off to the damn rescue.