Chapter Text
0200 hours, Archangel, Tyrus – A few hours before Emergence Day
Weeks of relentless flirting and teasing had ultimately worn Scott down to accepting an invitation to join Chelsea and her friends for a night of celebration. That in turn had led to where he was now; smacking the headboard of his bed against the wall as he threw everything he had into the thrusts of his hips while she writhed underneath his much larger frame. He was about two-hundred and twenty pounds of pure muscle, she was barely one-hundred and ten, yet she begged, pleaded even, for him to go harder and faster.
Her nails dug into his chest and back and anywhere else she grabbed onto him as her legs either wrapped around him and pulled him into her or just locked up as her body spasmed repeatedly. When she wasn’t kissing him, she was just staring up at him in a way that Scott could only describe as awestruck and it was a very motivating thing.
The raven-haired woman was very captivated by the COG tags around his neck and every once and a while they would slide down and dangle around his neck and she would catch them with her teeth and let out the most excited laugh and smile. Scott had to admit that Chelsea was not what he’d expected her to be in bed, all of their previous interactions had been overall quiet and normal. She hadn’t struck him as this wild thing he now had in his bed.
He was slamming himself against her so hard at this point that the smack of their bodies was almost as loud as the headboard and she still wanted more out of him. Scott knew that if he gave her what he wanted he might very well break her slender frame, but he was positive she was going to be sore later on in the morning once they were done.
Her breathing began to quicken and she arched her back at such a severe angle he though her spine was going to snap. She let out her loudest pleasure induced cry yet and her arms and legs wrapped around him like she never wanted to let go. Scott gave one hard shove into the warmth between her legs as muscles clamped down around his length and spasmed.
“Don’t stop, don’t stop.” She panted over and over, her pale skin turning a rosy pink as her body flushed with arousal.
He flipped her onto her stomach and continued to give her long, deep lunges rather than the rapid pounding she’d been getting previously. He growled liked a crazed animal in her ear, reveling in the way her flesh rippled under the impact of his body. He gripped her face with his right hand and she quickly wrapped her ruby colored lips around his index finger and moaned louder.
Her left hand reached up to the headboard, just for something to hold onto and Scott did the same, placing his hand over hers and interlocking their fingers. She looked up over her shoulder at him, making eye contact and that was all it took for Scott in that moment. He pressed his lips firmly to hers and erupted violently inside of her, slamming into her with five of the hardest thrusts yet and each one capped off with a strong burst of his seed.
Once the last drop had left him he just laid on top of her, kissing her much more gently now as they tried to catch their breath, he back rising up into his chest with each deep lungful of air they took in between kisses.
She let her head drop down onto the mattress with a very satisfied smirk on her face and let out an exhausted “Wow.”
Scott silently kissed the back of her neck and shoulder blade before rolling off of her with a heavy sigh. It was the first night in a very long time where he hadn’t thought about the army or what his old squadmates were doing. He wasn’t thinking about the circ*mstances that had gotten him discharged from the COG. Instead he was thinking about the very big smile he had put on the face of the woman beside him.
“That was like, what? Five times?” She asked him. She had still yet to open her eyes and her legs kept shifting around on the bed before she ultimately linked them with his. “That’s a new record for me.” Her eyes finally opened and she looked up at him with an expression that could only be described as extreme contentment.
Scott grinned at her as she slowly curled up beside him and traced the outline of his torso muscles with her index finger. “Might be one for me too.” He said as he laid his head back into the pillows.
“What was I doing with my life messing around with all these musicians and poets. I should have been dating a Gear.” She laughed.
He looked down at her and studied her face for a few seconds. He wasn’t sure what this relationship between them was becoming but he knew better than to try and figure it out while they were both drunk. He rolled onto his side and ran his hand down the side of her face and gave her a soft kiss, which she returned.
It wasn’t too much longer before they both passed out, tangled up in each other and the blankets. It was the best sleep of his life. For too long he’d spent countless nights in stiff cots or out in the elements running on military rations and filtered water, but then his alarm clock went off shattering the peacefulness with a remorseless abruptness. Chelsea groaned, but not in the sultry way she had been hours earlier. Her hand reached over and slammed down on the clock a couple of times before she let her head collapse back onto the bed.
“What kind of sad*st wakes up at five in the morning?” She grumbled.
“One trained by the army.” He replied as he ran his hand over his face. Military life had made him a creature of habit and he was used to waking up before the sun was up. There was no way he was going to be getting back to that realm of peaceful sleep he’d been ripped out of. “Go back to sleep.”
He looked down at her and laughed quietly because she was already out like a light again. He climbed out of the bed and stretched before changing into his jogging gear, a shower could wait until he was done with his morning run.
Even at this early hour there were still people out celebrating the end of the war. It was going on six weeks since the Pendulum War had been won by the COG and the parties showed no signs of stopping. The sanitation department of Archangel were definitely earning their paychecks with how hard they were working to keep the streets clean. He nodded to the driver of a street sweeper as it went down the road.
Most people wouldn’t be up this early, let alone out jogging, after drinking as much as he had the previous night. He’d done a good job hydrating though throughout the night, Chelsea wasn’t going to be doing nearly as well he suspected. The cool, early morning air helped him to clear his head and think and damn if he didn’t have a lot to think about this morning. Ever since they’d met at the window in the hallway of their apartment there had been nothing but endless flirting and teasing between the two of them, and she’d made several attempts to get him to go out and take part in the celebrations.
He’d simply just run out of reason to turn her down and he was glad that he did, but that being said he decided it was still best to take things slow and see how they played out. The usual four block run around the neighborhood seemed to not take as long as it usually did while he was thinking about the woman out cold in his bed. As Scott returned home the sun was starting to rise and the other occupants of the building were beginning to stir.
Scott walked down the hallway just in time for the door next to his to open and one of the elderly couple who lived next to him, the old man this time, stepped out and grinned at him.
“Wish they fed us whatever they feed you Gears nowadays when I was in the army.” He said slapping Scott on the shoulder. “Quite the performance, son.” He made his way down the hallway to start his day and left Scott standing there feeling a bit embarrassed and also very proud of himself.
Scott unlocked his door and slipped into his apartment with all the stealth of a highly trained commando only to find Chelsea still sleeping soundly and having taken up the entirety of the bed. He quietly crept by her and into the bathroom where he began to undress and climbed into the shower. He wasn’t in there very long, just long enough to wake himself up for the day and shake the sleep from his eyes. Despite the long and active night he’d had, Scott was feeling pretty good as he climbed out of the shower and toweled off.
He changed into a pair of gray cargo pants and a plain black t-shirt and made is way into the kitchen to make some coffee. It wasn’t much later when the aroma of fresh brewing coffee filled the apartment that he heard movement in the bedroom. Chelsea came out into the open, her thick hair knotted and just a mess. Her makeup was streaked down her face and her movements were sluggish. She’d wrapped the bedsheet around herself as she made her way over to where he was in the kitchen.
She looked up at him and let out disgruntled groan. “How in the blue hell are you so bright eyed and bushy-tailed after last night?” She said exhaustedly.
“Because I stayed hydrated last night,” He grinned as he slid her a cup of coffee. “I remember telling you to do the same all night.”
She took the coffee in both hands and inhaled the scent of it before doing anything else. “I remember doing exactly that.”
“I meant with water, not more vodka.” He laughed.
“Hey, liquid is liquid right?” She shrugged her shoulders and fixed him with that half smirk that she’d used to win him over the other night.
“Not really.” He said leaning against his countertop and watching her as she drank the coffee. “You should know something, our little hook up last night didn’t go unnoticed by the neighbors. The old man congratulated me when I was coming back from my run.”
She let her head drop down to the countertop with a sigh. “f*ck, guess I’ll be making the walk of shame shortly.” She looked up at him. “How did you have the stamina to go running after all we had just done?”
He winked at her. “Endurance training.”
She let out a short “Uh huh.” Before finishing her coffee. “I’d hate to be that girl who f*cks and slips away the next morning, but I’ll be heading home shortly. Can’t shower here because I’ll wind up smelling like a Gear.” She grinned.
Scott nodded his head. Sure he would have liked her to stick around for a while longer but he wasn’t going to force her to. She made her way back to the bedroom and found the clothing she’d been wearing before he’d removed it from her body. It was just a black minidress, nothing too fancy, but it sure had caught his eye with the way it hugged her frame. She was brushing the knots out of her hair and must have seen how he was eyeing her.
“Don’t get any ideas big guy.” She laughed as she pulled her hair back into a tail and walked up to him, putting her hands flat against his chest. “There will be plenty of time for more of that later, maybe next time I’ll bring some of my shower stuff over so I won’t have to leave right away.” She said under her breath and standing up on her tippy-toes to press her lips to his in a quick, gentle kiss before turning and heading to the door.
Scott watched her go and let out a long sigh when he was alone in his apartment. He settled down onto his couch and turned on his television to take in some of the news for the day. Most of it was still centered on the resolution of the Pendulum Wars and the assimilation of Ostri, Pelles and other UIR nations into the COG. There was some talk about the ongoing hostilities with Gorasnaya and the small band of UIR holdouts.
As long as there were holdouts there would always be ongoing skirmishes. With the way things were now Scott figured it would be special forces conducting those skirmishes. With the world no longer at war for the first time in almost a century the COGs civilian population wouldn’t be in favor of large scale engagements and the politicians had to know that. It was the first time that his old unit had entered his mind that day and some of that anger and resentment towards COG command came with it.
It was one thing to be a former Gear on Victory Day but it was an entirely different thing to be an active Gear on Victory Day. He hadn’t felt like he’d helped to end the war even though he’d fought in it for a large portion of his adult life. He was bitter and angry that his supervisors had felt he was letting the stress of combat get to him and ripped away that ultimate feeling of success from him just months before the end of the war. He wondered what Niko, Tirut, Natto, Ian, Keller and the rest of Sigma Company were up to at that moment. For all he knew they were in town since the Ninety-First was based in Archangel out of Redfield Airbase.
In all reality though they were most likely deployed to one of the countries still fighting the COG working on a way to destabilize it and bring it down to where it would relent and surrender to the Coalition. He spent the next couple hours stewing in his own self pity before there was a knock on his door. He stood up and shut his TV off and made his way to the door, ready to tell off some door to door salesman trying to pawn off cheap victory merchandise. There were hundreds of those people doing that out on the streets.
He opened the door and was met by a dressed and showered Chelsea, but she didn’t look all that happy. She’d changed into a pair of jeans, a white shirt and a gray cardigan complete with a pair of sunglasses.
“Hey, sorry to bother you but my sink isn’t working and I was wondering if you could take a look at it?” She asked him. “I’m just too hungover to deal with that creep landlord today.”
Instantly his frustrations were forgotten and the corner of his mouth twisted upwards in a grin that would have been completely foreign there a few seconds ago. “Yeah I can take a look at it. What’s wrong with it?”
“The garbage disposal won’t work and the drain has some kind of mega clog that all those chemical solutions in the stores won’t even touch.” She sighed.
“Alright, let’s see what I can do.” He said as he walked out into the hall with her and locked up his own door. “Seems like last night finally caught up with you.” He grinned as they started walking back towards her apartment.
“f*ck yeah it did.” She said looking up at him. “I’m sore all over. Not that that’s a bad thing.” It was her turn to grin at him.
She opened up the door to her apartment and Scott was surprised to find that it was messier than his, but not in an off-putting way. Her things weren’t just as ordered as his, which like most of his behavioral habits came from his time in the army. Her apartment was the exact same layout as his so finding the sink wasn’t too hard to find.
Upon a quick inspection he determined that her sink was indeed ‘mega clogged’ as she had so aptly described it. He then checked the disposal and discovered it wouldn’t even engage. “I’ll start with the clog, that will probably be the easier of the two to fix.” He said looking over his shoulder at her.
She gave him a thumbs up as she leaned over her kitchen counter and removed her sunglasses. “I think there are some tools in the closet. One of my exes thought he was a handyman, he’s probably the one who broke all that stuff.”
“Well lucky for you I’m pretty good with my hands.” He said with a wink as he went over to the closet and found a small toolbox in the far corner of it. He also found an Archangel Sabers cap that looked to be in pretty good shape.
“I hope I’m not bothering you or anything with this.” She said to him as he opened the box and examined what was inside of it. The selection of tools was sparse but he figured it would do.
“Oh no, I was just watching the news and getting caught up in old war memories.” He said as he set the box down on the counter beside the sink and opened the cupboards beneath it. “In fact, you’re doing me a favor by giving me something else to do right now. You a Sabers fan?”
“You kind of have to be if you’re living in this city.” She grinned as she took the cap and set it on his head. “Bought it for my handyman ex, but it looks good on you too.” She grinned.
He turned it so it was facing backwards so it would be out of his way while he worked. After a few minutes of fiddling with the sink he just decided to remove the whole elbow joint and discovered that it was packed full of what he could only call gunk. He had to use a long screwdriver to get it out of the joint and when he started moving it around it created a…pungent odor. Right away Chelsea began to gag and motioned towards her couch. “I’m gonna go sit down over there.” She said as she backed away from the kitchen.
It was far from the foulest thing he’d ever handled and he wasn’t going to let the smell get to him in front of Chelsea. Five minutes, and one ruined sense of smell later, Scott had cleaned out the elbow joint and then replaced it. He ran the faucet and the water ran right through the now clean pipe. He washed his hands and walked over to where she was sitting and watching her own TV. She was watching some over the top soap opera.
“Well I fixed your drain.” He said as he watched the scene unfolding on the screen in front of them. “Don’t know if I can help with your taste in TV shows though.”
“Shut up.” She laughed as she stood up and went over to inspect his work. She tested the faucet just like he had and nodded. “Alright, you fixed the sink now what about the garbage disposal.” She said turning and leaning against the counter.
“I’ll get it working, but I think we should maybe figure out my payment for the services rendered here.” He grinned as he walked up to her and put his hands on either side of the counter.
“Oh really?” She replied raising her eyebrow a bit and placing her arms around his waist. “How about lunch? I’ll order us some food and we can sit on the couch and maybe find some more things for you to fix.” She smiled up at him.
He nodded his head. “Lunch is good.”
She laughed softly and walked out of his arms to her phone and placed their lunch order, sitting back on the couch as she did so. Scott sat down beside her and fixed his gaze on the TV screen and the cheesy show that was playing out on it. This was probably the most normal thing he’d done with another person since becoming a civilian. In all honesty it felt kind of weird, not wrong but he still wasn’t completely used to it.
“Hope you don’t mind Kashkuri food.” She said hanging up the phone and looking over at him. “You okay?” She asked him. “You look kind of tense all of the sudden.”
“Yeah, just still getting used to being a civilian I guess.” He admitted. “It’s been a while since I’ve just sat around with someone and just had lunch or anything like that.”
“What did you do during the war?” She asked him, her tone getting serious as she turned her body to face him and propped her head up on one arm.
“Well,” Scott began trying to find a way to tell her what he did without giving up classified information. “I served in a special unit in the COG army, the public term is special forces. I received a lot of specialized training that average Gears didn’t get, survivalist training and enhanced combat training.” That was all matter of public record, the COG had publicly recruited people for its commando units. Any citizen who thought they could cut it just needed to apply. “Once all that was done it was mostly sitting in the barracks with other Gears harassing each other until we were deployed. When that happened it was…intense.”
She was quiet for a moment and looked down at the sofa. “You must have killed more Indies than a regular Gear. That had to have been hard on you, kind of explains a lot.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She repeated. “Like why you were so jumpy and avoiding everyone when you first moved in. At least you’re coming out of your shell.” Chelsea said and gave him a warm smile before climbing up into his lap and kissing him. “If this is moving too fast for you, just let me know.” She said when she pulled away from him.
All of Scott’s previous feelings about taking things slow went out the window. He felt different with her around, he actually felt at peace. He shook his head. “I need this.” Before the words had even finished leaving his mouth she was kissing him again and moving her hips rhythmically against his lap. “Aren’t you sore?” He said breathlessly.
“I’m a big girl, I can handle it.” She said back as she removed her cardigan and tossed it across the room. That was as far as they got though. A sharp tone ran through her TV jolting them both from what they had been doing. Chelsea twisted in his lap to look at the screen behind them and they both watched as an urgent news report cut into the show that had been on before it.
“GCN has received several reports from it’s affiliates across the Coalition that there have been multiple large scale attacks. We’re working to confirm these reports, but as of right now we can only confirm that the city of Jannermont has in fact been attacked and we’re receiving word of massive casualties.” The reporter on the TV said calmly.
Chelsea let out a sharp intake of breath. “My parents live in Jannermont!” She said as she bolted up from his lap and dove for the phone and hurriedly pressed the buttons.
Scott just stood up and watched not sure what to make of this. Gorasnaya didn’t have the infrastructure to mount wide scale attacks such as the ones being reported. Had Ostri and Pelles pulled a fast one on Chairman Dalyell? If they had then the hellstorm they were going to be facing was one of unimaginable proportions.
“They’re not picking up!” Chelsea shrieked as she walked back over to the TV.
“We can confirm that these attacks are worldwide and not just focused on Tyrus.” The reporter. “The cities of Bonbourg, Porra, Shavad, Andros and Seiden have all come under attack in what appears to be a highly coordinated offensive. As of yet there has been no response from the office of Chairman Dalyell.”
“This doesn’t make sense.” Scott said. “It can’t be the UIR, Bonbourg, Seiden, Andros, why would they attack their own cities?” He said walking over to Chelsea and putting an arm around her. “I’ll be right back.” He said kissing the side of her head as he sat her down on the couch. “You stay right here.”
Something told him he needed his sidearm and commando knife. He calmly left her apartment but once he was in the hallway he sprinted to his apartment and into his bedroom and the trunk where he kept the things he’d brought home from the war. Archangel was a port city and held a sizeable military garrison just like Jannermont and that meant it was at the same risk of attack.
He only had two clips of ammo for the snub pistol, three if he counted the one already loaded in it. He placed it snugly in his waistband and rushed back to Chelsea’s apartment. She looked even more terrified now than she did when he’d left.
“They just said Kinnerlake, Ilima and even Ephyra is now under attack.” She said standing up as he entered the room.
“sh*t.” He said standing beside her in front of the TV. “Kinnerlake isn’t but a few hours drive from here. Have they said anything about who is responsible for the attacks?”
She shook her head. “What do we do?” She looked up at him in sheer terror.
Scott thought on it for the moment. “Right now we stay off the streets, it’ll be a panic out there. If anything should happen here then we make our way to the airbase. I’ll be able to talk us past the guards and we should be safe there. Until then we just sit tight and see what the GCN reports have to say.”
We’ll need as much information as we can get for when the attack does come. He thought to himself as he put his arms around her.
