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bedlamsbardTitle: Never Tell Me the Odds
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bedlamsbard
Fandom: Space: Above and Beyond
Rating: PG-13
Summary: "Have you seen the way they look at us?" Phousse shudders. "It's like we're already dead."
Disclaimer: Space: Above and Beyond belongs to some lovely people who are not me.
Author's Notes: For![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
alien_altars femslash cliche challenge (Prompt: about to die, must have hot sex).
“Have you seen the way they look at us?” Phousse shudders. “It’s like we’re already dead.”
Shane doesn’t answer, just sips at her drink and watches the boys at the bar. Phousse is right, though; the other pilots are avoiding the Wildcards, so Wang and West and Hawkes are all crowding into each other, bunched together like some many-limbed beast.
Back on Earth, when she was a little girl, her father used to tell her how close he and the men in his unit were. In space, trapped in an ISSCV without communications to the outside world, there really is no one else – saying the same things, finishing sentences, not even having to talk – they haven’t even been together a year and the Wildcards are already there. They would kill for each other, die for each other. Shane wonders what her father would say if he saw his baby girl today.
“We’re not dead yet,” she says finally, because it’s what Phousse is expecting. At the bar Cooper is leaning hard into West and West is smiling, just a little bit, while Wang reaches around him to rifle Coop’s hair.
“They think we are,” Phousse says.
“Not for another twelve hours,” Shane says, and knocks back her shot. She learned how to down shots in college, hustling pool for book money and letting the frat jocks bet on her. She always won.
“If that bastard van der Ryn looks at Coop like that again, I’m going to punch his face in,” Phousse says suddenly, slamming her glass down. “I’m a Marine. I can do that. He’s just a Navy grunt.”
“Don’t do that, they’ll pull us off the mission,” Shane says, amused.
“No, they won’t,” Phousse says. “How many times have West and Coop gotten into it and we’ve never been pulled off a mission? How many times have they gotten into it on missions? Me smacking some Navy boy upside the head isn’t even going to make McQueen blink.”
“Yeah, but it might drive Ross up the wall and he could scrub the mission. Or give it to the Screaming Eagles,” she adds as an afterthought. Like the 62nd could do what the 58th does, anyway.
Phousse snorts her disdain of the idea and picks up her glass to drain the last of the beer from it. “I’m heading in,” she says. “You coming?”
“Yeah, I think so.” Shane stands and goes over to the bar. West is the first to notice and he notches his hip against the bar to brace himself as he twists around.
“You done for the night?”
“Yeah, we’re hitting the sack. You should too,” she adds.
Wang turns. “I think I might get lucky,” he says. “Wenger from the on-planet brigade we’re escorting in keeps giving me looks. This war heroes thing is really working out well.”
Shane smacks him upside the head, just on principle. “Remember we’re out at 0630 tomorrow,” she reminds them as Wang rubs the back of his head, looking insulted, and Coop laughs. Even West grins.
“Yeah, and we’re not the ones we need to worry about,” West adds. Taking the 9th in is easy. It’s getting out that’ll be the main problem. No one else wanted this mission, so McQueen volunteered them for it. They’ll need to be a hundred and twenty percent there to survive this.
Shane points as she’s walking away. “You take care of them for me, Nathan,” she says, and doesn’t care when a lieutenant from the 43rd snickers at her. West’s the one who grins, quick and nasty, baring his teeth at the guy. He’s new to the Saratoga; the 58th is already full of war heroes and they’re only ten months into this war.
Phousse is waiting at the door. “Look what I’ve got,” she says smugly, swinging a half-full bottle of whiskey by the neck. “You sure you don’t want to get fall-down drunk? It’s not like flying in is going to be a problem and by the time we turn around we’ll be back to stone-cold sober.”
“Or hung over,” Shane points out severely, but grins nonetheless. “Where –”
“Hey, honcho or not, I can’t reveal my sources,” Phousse says. “What do you say?”
“I say, ‘not fall-down drunk,’” Shane says, commandeering the bottle. “Just don’t tell Wang.”
-
-
They don’t quite get fall-down drunk, but they do get a little swaying on their feet drunk. Shane finally manages to make it over to her bunk, after face-planting on Nathan’s bed while Phousse giggles hysterically. After she’s managed to nearly kill herself by knocking her head against the bunk above, Phousse practically falls down next to Shane, leaning into her hard.
“You really think we’re going to die tomorrow?” she asks, syllables overly exaggerated.
“We’re always going to die tomorrow,” Shane says, turning her head. She can hear her dogtags clinking softly together beneath her shirt, against her chest, between the curve of her breasts.
“I’d hate for you to be positive or something,” Phousse says, and kisses her.
Shane has kissed girls before, so her mouth opens automatically under Phousse’s, one hand sliding around to her back, feeling the knobs of her spine beneath her flightsuit.
“I calculated a ninety percent chance,” Phousse says distractedly, pushing Shane down, fingers working at her zipper.
“Of coming back?”
“Of not coming back. This time.” She bites at Shane’s jaw, the way down her neck. “All in all, for us – for the Wildcards, for the missions we fly – maybe about seventy-three percent. That’s factoring in our inexperience. Maybe in a year it’ll be lower. Probably not.”
“Never tell me the odds,” Shane says breathlessly, getting Phousse’s flightsuit open, palming the weight of one breast.
Phousse puts her mouth against Shane’s ear. “Ninety-seven percent chance all five of us won’t live to next year,” she says, and Shane shuts her up by kissing her.
“I said don’t tell me the chances,” she says, and rolls Phousse over, onto her back.
end
Author:
bedlamsbardFandom: Space: Above and Beyond
Rating: PG-13
Summary: "Have you seen the way they look at us?" Phousse shudders. "It's like we're already dead."
Disclaimer: Space: Above and Beyond belongs to some lovely people who are not me.
Author's Notes: For
alien_altars femslash cliche challenge (Prompt: about to die, must have hot sex).“Have you seen the way they look at us?” Phousse shudders. “It’s like we’re already dead.”
Shane doesn’t answer, just sips at her drink and watches the boys at the bar. Phousse is right, though; the other pilots are avoiding the Wildcards, so Wang and West and Hawkes are all crowding into each other, bunched together like some many-limbed beast.
Back on Earth, when she was a little girl, her father used to tell her how close he and the men in his unit were. In space, trapped in an ISSCV without communications to the outside world, there really is no one else – saying the same things, finishing sentences, not even having to talk – they haven’t even been together a year and the Wildcards are already there. They would kill for each other, die for each other. Shane wonders what her father would say if he saw his baby girl today.
“We’re not dead yet,” she says finally, because it’s what Phousse is expecting. At the bar Cooper is leaning hard into West and West is smiling, just a little bit, while Wang reaches around him to rifle Coop’s hair.
“They think we are,” Phousse says.
“Not for another twelve hours,” Shane says, and knocks back her shot. She learned how to down shots in college, hustling pool for book money and letting the frat jocks bet on her. She always won.
“If that bastard van der Ryn looks at Coop like that again, I’m going to punch his face in,” Phousse says suddenly, slamming her glass down. “I’m a Marine. I can do that. He’s just a Navy grunt.”
“Don’t do that, they’ll pull us off the mission,” Shane says, amused.
“No, they won’t,” Phousse says. “How many times have West and Coop gotten into it and we’ve never been pulled off a mission? How many times have they gotten into it on missions? Me smacking some Navy boy upside the head isn’t even going to make McQueen blink.”
“Yeah, but it might drive Ross up the wall and he could scrub the mission. Or give it to the Screaming Eagles,” she adds as an afterthought. Like the 62nd could do what the 58th does, anyway.
Phousse snorts her disdain of the idea and picks up her glass to drain the last of the beer from it. “I’m heading in,” she says. “You coming?”
“Yeah, I think so.” Shane stands and goes over to the bar. West is the first to notice and he notches his hip against the bar to brace himself as he twists around.
“You done for the night?”
“Yeah, we’re hitting the sack. You should too,” she adds.
Wang turns. “I think I might get lucky,” he says. “Wenger from the on-planet brigade we’re escorting in keeps giving me looks. This war heroes thing is really working out well.”
Shane smacks him upside the head, just on principle. “Remember we’re out at 0630 tomorrow,” she reminds them as Wang rubs the back of his head, looking insulted, and Coop laughs. Even West grins.
“Yeah, and we’re not the ones we need to worry about,” West adds. Taking the 9th in is easy. It’s getting out that’ll be the main problem. No one else wanted this mission, so McQueen volunteered them for it. They’ll need to be a hundred and twenty percent there to survive this.
Shane points as she’s walking away. “You take care of them for me, Nathan,” she says, and doesn’t care when a lieutenant from the 43rd snickers at her. West’s the one who grins, quick and nasty, baring his teeth at the guy. He’s new to the Saratoga; the 58th is already full of war heroes and they’re only ten months into this war.
Phousse is waiting at the door. “Look what I’ve got,” she says smugly, swinging a half-full bottle of whiskey by the neck. “You sure you don’t want to get fall-down drunk? It’s not like flying in is going to be a problem and by the time we turn around we’ll be back to stone-cold sober.”
“Or hung over,” Shane points out severely, but grins nonetheless. “Where –”
“Hey, honcho or not, I can’t reveal my sources,” Phousse says. “What do you say?”
“I say, ‘not fall-down drunk,’” Shane says, commandeering the bottle. “Just don’t tell Wang.”
-
-
They don’t quite get fall-down drunk, but they do get a little swaying on their feet drunk. Shane finally manages to make it over to her bunk, after face-planting on Nathan’s bed while Phousse giggles hysterically. After she’s managed to nearly kill herself by knocking her head against the bunk above, Phousse practically falls down next to Shane, leaning into her hard.
“You really think we’re going to die tomorrow?” she asks, syllables overly exaggerated.
“We’re always going to die tomorrow,” Shane says, turning her head. She can hear her dogtags clinking softly together beneath her shirt, against her chest, between the curve of her breasts.
“I’d hate for you to be positive or something,” Phousse says, and kisses her.
Shane has kissed girls before, so her mouth opens automatically under Phousse’s, one hand sliding around to her back, feeling the knobs of her spine beneath her flightsuit.
“I calculated a ninety percent chance,” Phousse says distractedly, pushing Shane down, fingers working at her zipper.
“Of coming back?”
“Of not coming back. This time.” She bites at Shane’s jaw, the way down her neck. “All in all, for us – for the Wildcards, for the missions we fly – maybe about seventy-three percent. That’s factoring in our inexperience. Maybe in a year it’ll be lower. Probably not.”
“Never tell me the odds,” Shane says breathlessly, getting Phousse’s flightsuit open, palming the weight of one breast.
Phousse puts her mouth against Shane’s ear. “Ninety-seven percent chance all five of us won’t live to next year,” she says, and Shane shuts her up by kissing her.
“I said don’t tell me the chances,” she says, and rolls Phousse over, onto her back.
end
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-17 12:31 am (UTC)I like the way you've captured the quiet desperation underneath the everydayness of their lives -- the way the constant threat of death just is their lives, now. And the closeness of all the Wild Cards, but also the way they sort of split up into mini-factions, girls on on side, boys on the other.
You have Phousse and Vansen down to a T: Phousse's nervous worrying at the odds, Vansen's matter-of-factness, and I love the way you keep them as they are even into the sex.
I really liked this.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-17 12:47 am (UTC)One of the things I was working with in this story was to manage to convey that difference of perception in life -- how much the Wildcards, especially, walk on the edge, but at the same time how much they've been touched and changed by this war. Not, necessarily, to do it overtly, but just to do it. I'm glad that worked. And the characterization, too (I didn't get a chance to rewatch my DVDs before writing this).
Thank you again for reading!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-17 01:00 pm (UTC)Lovely writing and you really captured the characters and the tone of the show. I'm so glad you wrote S:AAB.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-17 11:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-17 02:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-17 11:54 pm (UTC)The Air Force never showed up in the show, did it? I mean, we had the Navy with the Saratoga and the Army in "Pearly" and obviously Marines all over the place, but I don't think the Air Force ever showed. Interesting.
Thank you!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-11-17 03:14 am (UTC)Phousse/Vansen! My original femslash love!
God, I loved this show. So many great characters, so goddamn competent, and such angst, omg. McQueen was my favorite, but I loved them all.