Arthur: callsignbob

Rooster jumped and spiked the ball down onto the net, and you dove at it hard as it bounced back up, but your fingertips barely swiped before it landed on the ground, along with your thoroughly bruised body. Everyone cheered and booed in equal measure, a cacophony of noise surrounding you as you glared up at Rooster from the sand. 

The sun glinted off his shades and his teeth and he grinned his shit-eating grin down at you. “Maybe next time you’ll get it, kid,” he chuckled, offering a hand to pull you up. You swatted the hand away and grumbled something not suitable for work back at him. Rooster laughed it off and swiped his hand up into his hair, pretending to adjust an imaginary fly-away.

You could push your own self off the ground, thank you very much, and you did. Some of the guys were crowding around Rooster, slapping him on the back and congratulating him. Phoenix jogged over from where she had been standing in the ankle-deep surf and brushed your shoulders off fussily.

“You were so close to having that one for the ladies!” she moaned. You shook your head, ponytail flaring sand everywhere, which made Phoenix spit and wrinkle her nose as it hit her in the face. Others were crowding in around you now and murmuring good-natured encouragement and “you’ll get him next time!”s, but everything had been reduced to a dull buzz in your ears as you watched your opponent showboat around his group of admirers.

Bradley Fucking “Rooster” Bradshaw.

Evidently, God’s gift to humanity. He was a decent pilot and, it had to be said, a pretty good spikeball player, and you could have almost respected him, if he didn’t insist on one-upping you at every. Availably. Opportunity. You kept your head down and performed your pilot-ly duties in an efficient and successful manner, but that wasn’t enough for Bradshaw.

No, he needed to prove that he could do everything just a bit better than you. Written tests, back at the academy: you’d flush with pride upon seeing a 98% marked across the top of your paper, only to look up and see him smugly flash his 100% across the room at you. Tactical training: you would fly every turn, every obstacle, every tiny thing expected of you perfectly, but Rooster would do it ten seconds faster. 

Spikeball on the beach: you would make it through the tournament-style game into the final two players, and who would beat you?

“Rooster!” Bob swore under his breath as he crouched between you and Phoenix, snapping his fingers in a very aw, fiddlesticks! way. “It’s like we have to end each beach day with him obliterating everyone at spikeball. He couldn’t have let you win just this once?”

“I don’t want him to let me win,” you practically growled. You glared down at Bob, who looked back up with one eye squeezed shut to block out the setting sun. “I’ll beat him just fine next time,” you promised. Bob shrugged and allowed Phoenix to pull him back into a standing position. Saltwater sprayed from the shore onto the three of you as you gazed, momentarily silent, out into the ocean. 

Phoenix suddenly smiled and looked around to make sure no one was in earshot of the three of you. “You know what I think he’s doing?” she asked, and you frowned in response, having lost the train of thought. “I think he’s yanking your pigtails.” 

A gasp from Bob. “Oh, wow, he totally is!” he crowed, then remembered to be quieter (the remembering was partially thanks to an affectionate but no less painful tweak on the ear from Phoenix). 

The frown hadn’t left your face. You asked what the hell Phoenix meant as Bob trotted away to retrieve his shirt from the duffel bag he’d brought with him. “I mean, like, he’s doing the ‘little boy on the playground who likes the little girl on the playground’ thing,” she explained, and the very thought made you roll your eyes to the pink and orange sky. 

“Is that a valid excuse for him to be a jerk to me?” you asked. Your friend scoffed.

“He’s not doing anything actively harmful, you drama queen,” she replied. Sea breeze ruffled the pieces of your hair that had fallen out of your braid. You supposed Phoenix was technically right, but that still didn’t stop the mere sound of Rooster approaching from boiling your blood.

The jerk in question came up behind you and Phoenix and placed a hand on each of your shoulders, saying, “Ladies, were we having a rehash of my greatest moments in that game and discussing how sexy I looked while playing?” He was obviously joking, his easy smile shining on both of you, but you plain hated him. 

As you shrugged his hand off your shoulder, you noticed that the majority of your friends and classmates had already begun trekking up the beach towards the parking lot. “Where’s everyone going?” Phoenix asked. Bob, who had started making his way behind them, called over his shoulder, “They wanna go get ice cream, come on!” 

Phoenix’s eyes grew wide at the promise of ice cream, and she took off, leaving you and Rooster to enjoy each other’s company alone. “What, you got some sand in your shorts?” he chuckled as soon as Phoenix and Bob were out of earshot. “You look pissed.”

“Pissed at you,” you replied, prompt and disinterested. You turned up your nose and moved to go retrieve your things from the picnic table you’d all been sitting at. It was littered with everyone’s empties, and you experienced a slight annoyance that no one had thought to clean it up before leaving, but it was nothing compared to the annoyance that followed closely behind you.

“What?! Me?! What did I do?” he cried, watching as you picked up two White Claws and tossed them in the trash. You spun around with your hands on your hips when you’d finished. 

“You annoy me! You irritate me! I don’t want to be stuck on a beach一” The words died in your throat when you looked around and realized you really were alone with Rooster. The one party that had braved camping next to a group of tipsy off-duty pilots had long since cleared out, and the beach was deserted in every direction you could see. “一alone, with you, for one more second than I have to.” 

Rooster pressed his lips into a thin line, which he did whenever he was holding something back. “You don’t exactly make life easy for me, princess,” he retorted. “Every single fucking thing I do gets an eye roll from you. You want me to split the atom? Find a cure for cancer? What will be good enough for you to not scoff at?”

A low scream of frustration left you as you crushed an empty Blue Moon in your left hand. “You have any idea how much you get under my fucking skin?” you yelled, your voice hoarse by this point. There was something cathartic about screaming at him by the ocean. Your words floated past him and over the water, rolling out to God knows where and leaving some small part of you feeling better. 

“I don’t see what your problem is,” Rooster yelled right back. The crashing waves forced him to shout the next part even louder: “You’re the one who wants to ride my dick so bad that it’s making you angry.”

Oh, he didn’t have a clue about angry. Words were falling from your grasp as you marched over to him, nearly shaking from the indignance. All you could manage to do was glare, your teeth clenching together so hard, you worried you might shatter all thirty-two of them. “You are disgusting.” 

Rooster made a pfft noise that almost had you choking him to the ground then and there, and replied, while leaning in close to your face in the most condescending way possible, “If you weren’t so hot, I would have planted evidence of misconduct on you a long time ago and gotten you discharged. No hard feelings, though? I know you’d do the same for me.”

Come on, brain. Come on, please stop focusing on the way he said I’m hot. What else did he say? He said something about planting and missed contact or something? 

Your chest was heaving with rage as you spat, “You always have to one-up me! Always! What, is your dick so small that you have to make yourself feel superior? Is that what it is, Rooster?” You threw his call-sign in his face like it was a knife, and there was a barely noticeable recoil on his part. 

“You know what?” he breathed. You had no idea when he’d gotten so near to you. Or when his bare and sculpted chest had bumped into yours, or when his lips had started looking so soft and pink. You did, however, notice when he trailed one long finger up your breast bone, which was left exposed by your black bikini top, and up your throat, until it was resting under your chin and propping it up. “A well-oiled machine can’t function well when bits of sand and rubble get into the gears.”

“Oh, so now you’re a well-oiled machine?” you snorted, or at least tried to. His finger was still forcing you to look him in the eye, and something about his eyes peeking over the top of his sunglasses was suddenly causing heat to bloom in your lower stomach.

Rooster hummed. “Or maybe you are, and you have a little irritant that just won’t let you get anything done,” he said, and grinned his white, flashy grin at you. The heat in your stomach was compounded by anger, making you shove his chest harder than you really meant to. 

“Yeah, maybe that’s it,” you snarled through gritted teeth. “Maybe I just need to fuck the Fabulous Rooster out of my system.” 

The Fabulous Rooster stumbled backwards a few steps from the shove, and a dazed expression came over his face as he pulled the sunglasses off. They were dropped carelessly in the sand as he walked back towards you, his wet swim trunks sticking to his thighs and making you fight tooth and nail not to look below his waist.

“Ok, so do it,” he said, his voice an octave or two deeper than average. Coarse and rough, like the hand that reached up to stroke the delicate line of your jawbone. “Fuck me out of your system.”

Your arms were around his neck and your lips on his before he finished the sentence. Rooster anticipated the move and he immediately threw you up onto the picnic table, empty beer and White Claw cans scattering as he swept one arm across it to make room for your body. He was all but devouring you, the kiss on your mouth quickly growing sloppy and traveling down to your jawline and neck. One of his hands reached down to your breast and massaged it roughly, pulling a squeak out of you when he pinched the nipple. The other hand slid down your side until it landed on your ass, and he used the position to yank you closer to him. Your legs, traitorous as they were, instinctually wrapped around his waist as you raked your fingernails through his salt-sprayed hair.

Rooster paused when he had left a string of light purple marks along your collarbone. “Fuck,” he swore. “You taste so goddamn sweet.” He sounded as annoyed as he was turned on. Well that made two of you.

“Yeah? Just wait,” you snapped back, but you pulled him to your mouth again all the same. His lips were so irritatingly soft, and his tongue licked into your mouth quickly, effectively silencing you. He tasted like summer shandy and coconut sunscreen and sweat. It should have been gross; it was Rooster, for God’s sake, but the taste and the scent was getting you drunk. You nudged his chin up with your nose and dragged your teeth lightly down his throat. Your main intention had been to kiss the muscle between his neck and shoulder, but the breathy, uninhibited whine that left him when your teeth sunk in spurred you into biting him. Hard.

He didn’t really deserve a soft, delicate little love bite, anyway. 

Rooster’s grip on your ass tightened and you knew you’d won. You couldn’t help letting out a “Ha,” and he rolled his eyes. “You like a little biting, baby?” you simpered, batting your eyelashes and looking up at him through them. In response, he pressed his lips together tightly and ripped your bikini top down, letting it fall around your waist and exposing your chest to the empty beach. You wished a snappy remark were within reach, but all that you were able to muster was a throaty moan as Rooster leaned down to take your nipple in his mouth. He sucked it between his lips with a pop, and shame and pleasure rolled through you in a confusing, concerning tidal wave. Shame at watching Rooster have his way with your body, and shame at enjoying it far too much, but pleasure that far outweighed that shame at how fucking good it felt. “You still annoy me,” you choked out, needing desperately to hang onto a shred of dignity somehow. “You’re just fucking me and then I’m back to hating you.” “Fine by me,” Rooster muttered between switching to kiss and nip at your other breast. His tongue was warm and the feeling of his mustache against your skin was…

If you admitted to yourself that this was the hottest situation you’d ever felt, he would win this game. If you admitted that Rooster was the hottest man you’d ever laid eyes on, he would sweep the whole damn season.

His cock was pressing into you while you made out, and though he was trying his best to suppress the urge, you felt him grind into you with need during the kiss. It was subtle; his hips seemed to be working independently of his brain as he bumped into your core and tugged tiny moans and groans of pleasure from the both of you. You hitched your hips closer to the end of the table so you could be closer to him. Not something you ever thought you’d seek out.

Ok, maybe, in the back of your head, you had pictured this before. Maybe, maybe you’d considered just cornering him in an empty classroom and hate-fucking his brains out until he stopped bugging you so much. Maybe you had thought about it once or twice, alone in bed, with your fingers inside you and mouth pressed tightly together to stop yourself from saying it out loud, and you’d pictured getting on your knees and sucking him off until he finally stopped talking.