#pocket deadlock

“And we just have to sit here. With her. It’s bad enough she’s walking free, it’s bad enough we have to work with her, but now we’re doing ‘down time’ with her too?”

“Preaching to the choir, kid.” Holliday sipped her beer.

Initially, Holliday’s badge glittering openly had made Pocket just as nervous as the war criminal they had to share a bar with. But they were now a few drinks deep themself, were 80% sure she wasn’t on their father’s payroll, and had decided she had a reserved yet straightforward disposition that made her easy to talk to. Or at least bitch with.

“It’s terrible,” they went on, their own beer going straight to their cheeks.

“Nothin’ we can do about it ‘til the Ritual’s over.”

“It’s just ridiculous that such a horrible, amoral woman can have such huge tits.”

“What,” Holliday said.

“What,” Pocket said. “H-hey! Don’t look at me like that! You were staring at them too!”

“I was not.”

Jezebel’s clattered with revelry and clinking glasses. A purple trail of light zig-zagged outside the window before disappearing into the night.

“Well now you’re staring at them,” Pocket said.

“Only ‘cause you pointed them out!” Holliday stopped with her tankard halfway lifted, probably because if she attempted a quaff right now it’d go right down her front. “…Christ.”

That about surmised it, yeah. Denim straps were freed from shoulders, dangling from hips, sultry as lingerie peeking from a closed drawer. They had absolved their responsibility to the overall’s bib, which now flapped forward onto McGinnis’ waist, ventilation in the swelter of the bar which itself fought back the chill of outside. The breasts jostled each other to see which could spill out into the light cotton shirt more cheekily.

Pocket found themself in the state one gets after a night of good clean fun, forgetting to speak for minutes at a time. Sometimes longer. And then sometimes forget the people around them couldn’t hear the little internal conversation they were having the whole time.

“The things she’s been allowed to get away with,” they said randomly. “When I get control of Fairfax, she’ll be the first one to go.”

“Might not want to say that to her,” Infernus said. “She might reconsider the whole helping you get your wish thing.”

Pocket jumped. Holliday’s seat was empty and they had no idea it’d been like that. They scanned the bar for her, simultaneously trying to process what Infernus had just said and also maybe considering asking for another drink since Hank was footing the bill after all, when they spied her making her way toward the cluster of tables.

With the certainty of someone who’d just received a religious revelation, they thought, she’s going to make a move on McGinnis!

Wait what? a more sane part of them asked. What was that. Why would we care?

Too late! Moving!

And they were, the stool they left behind considering its options for a few moments before landing on all four legs.

So many bodies. So many people out of options, whose only course of action was to put their trust in something from the outer planes. No, more specific than that, Pocket had spent years with no home and no options themself, and knew there were plenty of people whose problems could only be solved through divine intervention. This bar was jam-packed with the specific set of people who were both at the end of the rope and were uniquely good at killing.

They beat Holliday to McGinnis’ table. How, they weren’t sure, but the sheriff was already fading from their mind when confronted with the eager puppies climbing out of Maggie’s shirt.

“You,” pointing, slurring, “are an awful person. You wasted all your genius building weapons for Fairfax and you don’t even have the decency to feel bad about it. People die every day, here, the rest of the world, places you don’t even think about, mowed down by your guns. How do you-?” They gripped the table to keep from teetering sideways. “How you live with yourself?”

One elbow reached back, resting easily, supporting the top-heavy engineer as she smirked unconcerned. Her confidence sickened them.

“Hey,” McGinnis said, “I know how it is. Listen kid I got,” she checked her watch, “forty minutes until my next shift. You want a quickie in the bathroom, time’s yours.”

You are a disgusting human being. I hate everything you stand for, they thought. They said, “Oh god. Please.”

It was embarrassing how fast they got their hands under her shirt. The entanglement didn’t even make it to the bathroom — occupied — instead stumbling out into the back alley, settling for a freezing cold lack of privacy to enmesh their tongues in. Kissing her seemed even more of a moral failing. Fucking Margret McGinnis was bad enough, but putting their tongue down her throat? She gripped the back of their neck like she knew.

McGinnis landed on her back, Pocket swinging one leg over her wide stomach. The layer of blue popped open with no problem, but the undershirt they had to pull over her head. She lazily extended her arms, grinning all the while.

If you got it, flaunt it, some part of Pocket said, which they told to shut up.

The tits were more magnificent unveiled than they were taunting Pocket from across the bar. They sagged to either side, large enough to nearly touch the ground via the path of McGinnis’ ribcage.

“Why aren’t you wearing a bra?” they moaned.

“Hurts my back. Just like carrying this team all the time does.”

So weighed down by their own mass, they were taut at her sternum, and when Pocket leaned forward to bury their face between them they were met with only bone and the gentle oil-scent of Maggie’s skin. They breathed deep.

“Wanna fuck ‘em?” Maggie asked.

Face smushed, their voice both muffled and shaking with frustration, they said, “Fine. As long as you know I really had to lower my standards for this.”

“Y’okay.”

The frustration-shaking impeded their ability to free themself from their pants. By the time they managed to slap their cock against her chest and grab each tit like they were folding over a blob of dough, they were practically vibrating. The first thrust into the space between those globes of flesh nearly made them come all on its own. Her skin was icy, cooling in the winter air, gooseflesh rising on it in a texture Pocket had never fucked before. They rocked desperately between the tight gap. Maggie smirked no matter how hard they squeezed.

“Bet you wanna come on my face, don’t you?” she said. “Don’t worry about it. I’m used to this sort of attention.”

That only made Pocket feel worse. Not only were they falling for this, but everyone else on the planet was too.

They came right as the tip of their cock crested cleavage — just the tip, so completely engulfed was their size in comparison to Maggie’s. They couldn’t even get satisfaction from that. Being splattered in cum only fed into her ego.

She licked a drop at the corner of her mouth, then used Pocket’s scarf to clean up the rest before they could slink away.

They returned to the party cold and corrupted.

Maggie followed later, buttoning up her shirt and whistling, feeling appropriately belauded. She was just about to return to her seat, pick up that beer she’d been courting, maybe see if the gorgon at the dartboard had managed to hit a single shot yet, when Holliday wobbled up to her.

She had just come from the bathroom, looking both a little green around the gills and like someone had pissed in her cereal. She pointed one accusing finger in Maggie’s direction and said, “You. You got all the moral fiber of a sponge cake.”

—

“it’s not worth it”

“is that all you have to say about us?”

it comes out as more of a rhetorical question than anything. perhaps a part of you always knew that there was no such thing as permanence when it came to someone who was always running from someone or something.

‘security’ came in waves, momentary silence that crashed over moonlit nights, one pillow and half open windows. it made sense that an opening was necessary for a fugitive on the run from their past. the curtains kept you both shielded enough from the light that peeked during dawn. anything more or anything less would've trapped them far too suffocated in a closed room or far too open to melt into a comfort they could not afford (would it be right to put yet before that?).

“what changed?”