Haven: Collapse 8: Freedom [NSFW]

[amichan]

 

It feels like it takes forever from the announcement that we can leave until actually getting out the door, between paperwork that has to be filed, the damnable catheter to be removed (they refused to let me bring it home to burn it), final checks from doctors, adjustments to bandages on my foot, crutches issued and adjusted, medications being dispensed and re-dispensed because, “What part of non-narcotic pain medicine does your pharmacy not understand?” tiny angry girlfriend on the warpath as I'm putting on my shirt.

Eventually though, as it's going dark, supported with her on one side carrying one of the crutches the hospital gave us and the other crutch under my arm I'm on the deck of the Cape and it's glorious. I haven't felt quite so free in a long time.

“Doing okay?” she asks, fumbling in her purse for the keys.

“I'd like to be doing you,” I point out.

She laughs and tugs on my shirt until I bend down so she can kiss me, “Soon enough,” I hear the keys jingling in her hand, and we're inside.

I lean down and kiss her. For half a moment I worry things might be too bruised from the catheter being removed to actually work but I needn't. A few moments of deep kisses is all it needs for things to be stirring down there. My next port of call would be to lift her up to the kitchen counter but I don't have enough support and the crutch clatters to the floor.

“No, no--” she pushes my hands away, “You'll hurt yourself,” and while her hands work to open my shirt she carefully guides me towards the state room and down into the comfy wide arm chair.

“What are you doing?” I ask her, coyly, as she pulls down my pants.

She just gives me a mischievous grin as the pants come free of my legs and get tossed into the corner and she delicately tickles the tip of my penis with one finger, sending shivers through me.

“Naughty wench.”

“Naughty wenches walk the plank,” she says, leaning closer and wrapping her tongue around and licking slowly up the shaft bringing me to full attention, “I am a very naughty wench,” as she wriggles out of her own lower clothing, and turns around so that I get a view of her back and gives a little butt shake.

I start to ask her what her plan is but she shushes me turning around and putting her finger to her lips before backing up and carefully situating herself over my cock and sliding home. She grips the arms of the chair and I put my hands over hers as she leans backwards against my chest. She turns her head and licks part of my shoulder, my shirt coming the rest of the way off and falling behind me, as she moves up to my mouth, pulling her lower body up slowly, further and further a painful teasing without fully disconnecting as she kisses me.

My complaint of, “Wench,” dies, buried in a groan as she thrusts me deeply back inside her again by sitting back down.

“Naughty wench,” she corrects, rolling her cheeks slowly from side to side across my groin.

“That you are,” I assure her, pushing to meet her.

She bucks me down into the chair, scolding, digging her hands into mine, “Stay still,” she says, with a wink, “The wench is walking.”

It's a slow rhythm and it's wild-driving. I pull my hands from underneath hers, despite her attempts to stop me and run my hands up under her shirt. She pulls her lower body up away from mine as punishment but as I remove her shirt and nibble at her shoulders she drops down again, moaning as that drives me deep into her. The pattern repeats then, me squeezing her breasts, teasing her nipples, nibbling at her shoulders when she's lower on the ride and then her pulling herself up again and dropping down, occasionally in between there's a quick stolen kiss, or a much deeper one, promising more passion.

She holds sway for a while then, wiggling back and forth above me, half my shaft exposed to air, despite the gasps as I fondle her breasts to the point I'm wondering if she has something else in mind now she doesn't move. Then she slams down so hard I see stars for a moment and the full grind begins, down and round, a rhythm some part of my brain manages to connect to a truck and a canter despite being on the edge, after a moment, it speeds up evenly, expertly and I feel myself pulling the rest of my upper body closer to her back, as my brain becomes focused on the point of explosion and the hope that she will get there too.

Soon I'm thankfully falling backwards into the chair and not forwards out of it and knocking her to the floor, considering angle and slippage and loss of body control. She carefully detaches herself and spins around in my lap to lean against me.

“See,” I tell her, tilting my head slightly to kiss her forehead, “This is why I've wanted to come home. Nurses can't make me feel that good.”

“They damn well better not!” she punches me in the shoulder, “There I was apologizing for tricking you in the hospital and you go and do that.”

I rub my shoulder, putting on the pout though I know it's not going to do much for me, “There's no need to be abusive about it. Considering nothing actually ever happened!” I retort.

She puts her hands on her hips. Tiny naked mock-angry girlfriend it is so this could easily go interesting places anyway, “Sure,” she says, “You say that now but I've heard countless stories of Duke Crocker, you know. I don't think a bum leg and horrible detox could stop you.”

“Yes, delirium and puking are so sexy, don't you know?”

There's no immediate snappy retort to that which has me looking across at her curiously. There's the slightest hint of a blush across vaguely guilty features. My brain crashes for a moment half of it singing “She lurrrrvs me” and the other half going “since when?”

The, “Since when?” wins out and therefore comes out of my mouth.

Her whole body warms against me as the blush deepens her body red, “When I didn't know I was helping you get off heroin. Told you: you didn't steal my heart, I slipped it into a hiding spot on the Cape when you weren't looking,” she pokes me in the nose.

I touch our foreheads together, “You did say that and you would have had ample opportunity back then. My tiny savior,” and kiss her nose, “That's...” oh, holy fuck. How much did I ramble back then while I was delirious? I never really put much thought until now about things I might have said about, not so much emotions but things I did, “I was a mess.”

“Yes, you were. But you let me help you. I would have worked on the Cape free for a month to be able to take care of you like that, to hold you while you cried. Trust like that is very sexy.'

I wonder how much extra credit the penis flash added to that free work, but the humor is hit and miss given I still feel strange over all because of everything that has been downloaded into my brain, I guess that's the best way to put this alternate universe Trouble and it's memories, “Julia...I think I said the other day how much it meant to me that you stuck around...but I'm gonna say it again anyway, because with other Duke's memories I...it just really brings home...”

She wraps her arms tightly around me and nestles into the crook of my arm, “If I'd come back to town and you'd been shooting up for years while I was gone? The only thing that would have changed is that I would have helped you get off it again if you wanted me to be there with you.”

“Julia, I--” I can't form a sentence. There have been so many things I've dabbled with that I haven't really cared about but the heroin has always been a source of shame because it could have caused her harm given stupid actions and then because of all the times I lied to her because of it.

“You think I didn't know at least some of the things you were doing back then? Trust me, I had no illusions you were a wholesome and upstanding citizen.”

“One of the many reasons I tried to keep you out of the loop on things. I just...” I shrug, “and I know it's you and you've been around and done things, but I think it's still in me to keep that shit away from you, and there's still parts of me that are afraid that you'll disappear...”

“You needed me,” she puts a hand on my arm, “You don't need to be ashamed, not to me. If any of that was going to drive me away, it would have done so by now. I wanted to be someone you could trust. The more I learned, the harder I worked towards it.”

I'm overwhelmed then with gratitude because of all the other people who decided they'd rather run away when they found out the slightest thing about me and I kiss her trying to project that thanks into the kiss that I give her then. She kisses back, hands tangling in my hair. It's a mark that things aren't quite right that I'm not fully able to perform again just yet.

She kisses me on the nose, “I am sorry that we lost touch for so long. I was avoiding Haven, and my mother, and it meant that...”

“It's okay,” I tell her, “Eleanor was...Eleanor was a cunt. We had some interesting run ins when I would blow through town throughout the years.” It was at least fun to realize she actually didn't have any idea where Julia was either and work out it was most likely Eleanor's fault that Julia was gone, but...

“I...” Julia toys with part of my shirt that's hanging from behind my back, “I was kind of afraid that if I actually came back before the Troubles did that I'd not be able to get out again.”

“That's the peril of clingy family,” I brush her hair behind her ear. It's still short, but it's cute and the ends curl around my finger as I move it, “I suppose that's one of the benefits of the townsfolk actively trying to keep me away. I was guaranteed to not get stuck.”

She sighs, “Yeah, but I lost out on time with you because I was avoiding them. I did disappear on you. After everything I did to be something you could trust, I left you hanging. I'm sorry, Duke.”

I take her chin gently and turn her face towards mine, “I seem to recall someone saying something about doing what you have to too survive. Right?” I cock my head to the side and make a magnanimous gesture with my other hand and make my tone lighter, “Not to say I will not in my benevolence accept your apology because I did miss you, but things happened...that would not have otherwise,” then I move her head to make sure I can kiss her nose, “and you never lost my trust.”

She wrinkles her nose and then buries her face in my neck, hugging me tightly and rubbing her face back and forth. I wrap my arms around her tightly and kiss her on the cheek when it's exposed and on the top of her head, and then just hold her until she's ready to say something again.

“So,” she says, eventually, “...the things that happened that would not have otherwise...do I need to apologize for not having been there to knock Evi off the boat sooner?”

“Psssht,” I tell her, waving a hand, “I'm going to look at that two-fold. I learned important things about my temper that will be useful i-when we get custody of Jean,” I notice her giving me an approving look when I catch myself and change “if” to “when”, “and I can appreciate a wonderful woman in my life all the more having been around a shitty poisonous one on and off for...three? Years. Plus she was back long enough to thoroughly burn away any lingering affection,” I allow myself a slight shudder.

She brushes my neck with her lips, not quite kissing me, “So, is there anything I should apologize for leaving you to face by yourself?”

I shake my head, remembering things which happened with the skinflayer Trouble, “Anything I faced by myself was my own stupid at not talking about it.”

“That sounds like you're talking about things that happened after I got back,” she says, tracing her fingers over the tattoo on my wrist, “and not anything else.”

I nod.

“Well, if you want to talk about things now I'm here to listen, or if you,” the mischievous grin returns, “want to be punished for not talking we could do that instead.”

Punishment is tempting, of course, very tempting, “Perhaps we can schedule punishment for after I've recuperated a bit more?”

“Good point,” she says, “I don't want to break you more. We just got you out of the hospital.”

“Exactly,” I inhale and exhale slowly, “but talking, that would be—that would be good, to finally...”

She kisses me gently on the lips and then leans against my shoulder.

“So, the stupid that I was thinking about in particular was something that messed me up but in order to talk about it...there was so much else that I already hadn't gotten in to because it dealt with the heroin and lead back to New Orleans...” I shake my head, “It...that night at The Gull before the Porn Wife helped us out,” I should probably clarify that more.

“Not when Evi?”

“No, that fucked up Trouble. There were things...I don't know if the Uncles ever told you anything? Or?”

She shakes her head, “and I never asked. It was bad enough that Nathan was worried for you; I figured if there were going to be nightmares, it would be better if one of us didn't get them and could comfort the other.”

“This is why you're the smart one,” I manage a smile, “There were,” deep breath, “children involved. Dead...dead children.”

She runs her hand through my hair, stroking tangles out.

“and—and the second day I found out how they were dying was like a thing that—that I encountered in New Orleans, that I'd convinced myself I just remembered because it was something I hallucinated while detoxing because the Troubles weren't happening in the 90s.”

Julia is very somber when she says, “Only in Haven. The rest of the world doesn't have that protection.”

“Yeah,” I nod, “I realize that now. I just still...convinced myself that thing didn't really exist. I didn't want it to exist. It—it rips your skin off...”

She freezes still for a moment, eyes wide, before hugging me tightly. When I move to wrap my arms around her I realize my hands are shaking.

“I don't blame you for not even wanting to think about that,” she whispers into my chest.

I pull back a little, needing to finish the words. I really want to have alcohol with me, but I also don't want to move, and with this I'm afraid if I stop to get something or even just to ask her to get something I'll stop altogether, just crawl back in a hole and bury things, go some place else, besides she's right here and she's not going anywhere, “and—and it had this shriek,” There's no way to put it into words and I'm not going to try and imitate it. I can still remember the piercing, not human, not animal but so much pain, “...at least when we were in New Orleans it did,” I never heard it here, “I can't descr—it broke up the job I was working,” killing half the people involved will do it.

She gives a shaky laugh, “I think something like that could break up anything.”

“Yeah...probably; but, that's why I was...not in a good place; and then I got angry with myself because I was craving heroin desperately for the first time in ten—more than ten years.” I can feel it in my chest now.

“Because it helped you deal with the horror the first time,” she says, softly, kissing my shoulder and then my chest.

I nod, “It stopped the nightmares.”

She reaches up to kiss my forehead before cuddling back against me, shifting to pull my head down against her breast as best she can.

“Yeah, we went to this get together after we got out of the swamp: Jody, Gavin and me. We'd planned to celebrate my freedom from debt anyway, after we got done with that job, but it turned into a crazier thing because we were fucking alive and you can get all sorts of things in New Orleans,” I shake my head, sarcastically, letting out a bitter laugh, “So, then I wound up back working for those same people because I could take a cut of the stuff I was transporting, sometimes anyway, or well, get it other ways.”

She brushes a hand through my hair and kisses my forehead again. I move my head so I can take her mouth with mine and kiss her there instead. Relief and thanks that the tiny point of doubt that still niggled despite me knowing that she wouldn't go anywhere was proven wrong and she didn't go anywhere. She understands and accepts. She will always be here.

The kiss continues and she rearranges herself in my lap, so that she's more kneeling on my knees than sitting. She leans in to kiss me more deeply, burying her hands in my hair which drives me to lean my head back and her to pull up so that her face is above mine. My hands run up her back and find their way to her breasts squeezing one breast and find the nipple of the other and I can feel myself rising to the occasion which brings with it much relief that the penis is not broken.

As my erection brushes against her leg she lets out a little gasp and breaks off the kiss for a moment to glance down. She winks at me then and adjusts so that she's straddling me and leans down to take my penis with her hand and guide it inside her. The moment of connection is always a spike of bliss and I let out a gasp of my own and strive for her mouth with my own as she wriggles into a secure sitting position pushing me further inside her. I scoot myself ever so slightly down in the chair and she lets out a satisfied moan as our connection goes that little bit further and then she begins to move up and down, slowly.

I move my hands from her breasts down to her buttocks and squeeze them as she moves and she knots one hand into my hair and grips one onto my shoulder grinding against me faster and faster as I push against her. It gets to the point rhythmically where I almost feel as though we might manage to take off from the chair and then I'm letting that final moan out into her mouth and we're falling against each other back into the seat as she pants into my shoulder and I kiss her sweaty cheek, wrapping my arm around her back and absorbing her closeness, her heat, her breath even as it feels that she might be stealing my own.

She kisses my temple above my left eye and then above my right, curling my hair behind my right ear before bringing the same hand under my chin, “There's some plot on that pirate face of yours.”

“I object to the implication.”

She laughs.

“Though it's completely accurate. I still object. I would like to take you into the bedroom, wench, but unfortunately you'll have to take yourself because I don't think I can spirit you off in my arms or over my shoulder.”

“My poor peg-legged pirate,” she teases, climbing off me with a kiss on my nose, “I'll go get your crutches.”

“They do so ruin the mood,” I point out as she hands them to me, though there's a nice view the way she leans over and presents them. I brace myself out of the chair and follow her wiggling butt into the bedroom.

“Oh, please, Boss,” she jokes, “It didn't keep you down for long, and it is very piratey. We can get you an eye patch.”

“A headscarf too?” I ask, sitting down on my side of the bed. She takes the crutches and props them against the side table, “Parrots are very noisy and obnoxious after a while, just so you know. I'd rather go straight for the doubloons and the booty.” I reach for hers but she dances out of the way and around to the bottom of the bed, but then climbs up and around behind me and puts her hands on my shoulders beginning to massage, working deftly with her fingers. I lean back and kiss her. She kisses me back but breaks the kiss fairly quickly, by her expression something is clearly on her mind.

“What's wrong?”

“I've been thinking about why you remember the dead wish time line.”

“Ah,” I say, “That's pretty heavy.”

“Yeah. When I first saw the Pearson Trouble had been absorbed, the bubble it was in was...blue instead of red. I put it down to it having been the other version of you that absorbed it, and that's why you remembered that time line, but the blue was coating the bubble and it...sort of slid off. It's like the part of you that lived those years is still there, kind of, merging but not dissolving. So those memories might be...more active than memories usually are.”

“Like nightmares, you mean?”

She sighs, “Maybe. I don't know. If there's a manual for the Carver Trouble, Uncle Vince doesn't have it and, well, this is the first time a time line Trouble's been absorbed, right?”

“I...think so,” same problem really, “I don't exactly have the Crocker book memorized.”

“I don't know what it means, or if it's anything out of the ordinary, but it's going on in you so you deserve to know.”

I turn my head around so I can give her another kiss, “I appreciate it. I know you keep an eye on my idiot self.”

“That's what you pay my bonus for!” she jokes, “Just let me know if anything is different, okay? You said you were craving heroin after what happened to those kids, and you've got a bunch of memories of your other self who never got off it, so...if there's anything you need me to do, let me know and I'll do it. Okay?”

“Yeah...” I nod, “I don't need to be back on that horse.”

She giggles then, cute and bubbly, “I could stand to be back on your horse, Boss.”

I return the giggle with a mischievous grin given the plot which prompted me to bring us in here in the first place, “I'd had some other ideas, actually, but...I'm not quite sure how to arrange things given I would like to,” I lower my gaze towards her mound, “have some words of thanks...”

She wraps her arms around me tightly and lays her head on my shoulder, “You don't have to push yourself, Duke. You're still injured. We can wait until you feel better.”

“The mouth does most of the work,” I point out, “and I think we can agree that's not injured. It's just a matter of positioning.”

She ponders this for a moment, rubbing her head against my neck, and then says softly, “Will you let me thank you for thanking me? Just a little? I don't want to take without giving something back; it feels too much like using you.”

“Julia--” the you could never dies on my lips as she hugs me more tightly.

“Please,” she draws it out.

I wind up biting my lip, and in tones that infer just how badly done to I am that a beautiful woman is volunteering to suck my cock I say, “Okay.”

“Okay,” she agrees, taking a deep breath, “Let's get you onto the bed and on your side where I can get at you and you can get at me.”

We arrange ourselves cross ways on the bed. I have to curl slightly because of our height difference and do so carefully because of the bruising, and she maneuvers my injured foot around with one hand and teases my penis briefly with her hand before she lays herself down next to me and scoots around so that I have access to her as well, nestling my head between her legs and carefully moving her lower lips apart with my fingers, massaging her clit with my fingers as tease gently with the tip of my tongue. She gasps for a moment, and then puts her own tongue around the head of my penis and licks around making me moan slightly myself and release my tongue from it's dabbling for a moment before probing further, moving my face slightly deeper into her.

I can feel the long slow up and down motion of her on my shaft, lapping around here and there, teasing the hole, massaging my balls with one hand.

I fondle that button between finger and thumb, tracing shapes inside with my tongue and working from side to side, moving up to take the clit with my tongue and tease gently with my teeth before sucking on it and returning to work inside with my tongue. I said I would say thanks and I spell that out, tracing inside.

Julia has stopped work on my penis, moaning as she is, and has her hands knotted tightly in my hair keeping me in position but after I've worked a little longer I need to come up for air and tap her hands to tell her so.

She disentangles her hands and moves around so she's facing me, “Hmm,” she remarks, pushing my cheek with her right hand, while her left resumes work on my penis, “wicked pirate, perhaps I'll keep you.”

“I hope so,” I tell her, “I don't know that anyone else would have me with your brand on my arm and all.” I lean out, stretching which puts me on my back rather than side, “it makes me damaged goods.”

“You were already damaged goods,” she says, but in a teasing tone.

“You wound me, wench.”

“You're already wounded too,” she moves across the bed though, and saddles herself in my lap, sliding onto my penis in such a fluid motion I almost don't feel it until she lands in place, “Maybe,” she shifts to one side, “I should,” and the other, “just,” and back to the other, “dismount,” and again, “if you're,” and again, “so concerned,” and again, “about injury.”

It takes me a moment to focus to form any sort of words even those of one syllable, “No, no, no. You can keep going. I'll live.”

“Are you sure?” she asks, with that wicked grin, moving from side to side again, and then up and down.

I reach up to take her hands and pull her down towards me so I can kiss her deeply, “I'm sure,” I assure her, “Very, very sure.”

“Alright then,” she grins, knotting her fingers more tightly in mine as she pulls back into a sitting position again and digs her heels into the mattress. I can buck my hips if I'm careful and not pain my foot and it does push me deeper and she gets that awesome expression of satisfaction, rolling her head back slightly and the gasping moan. She grinds down and I'm already close with the work from the blow job and her teasing right after climbing on board, so it doesn't take much more before I'm down the other side and she's dismounting, kissing me and resting her head against my shoulder, one arm draped over me carefully.

“Thank you,” she says, tweaking my nose with finger and thumb, “or should I not say that in case we get stuck in a thank you loop.”

“Perhaps not. I don't know that I can go again.”

“Really?” she teases.

“Yes, really. Apparently having a house dropped on me affects my performance. Who would have thought?”

She laughs, “Well, I already said that's not allowed to happen again. So, we don't have to worry about it in the future.”

“This is true,” I lean down and kiss her.

“Come on then, Boss,” she pats my shoulder, “Let's get righted and get some rest. You're home now and I might have to put you to 'work' in the morning. Sex is the best medicine after all.”

“Oh, no,” I answer, moving carefully into a sitting position, so I can lay the correct way against the pillows, “Whatever shall I do?”

She pulls a stern expression, “You'll lay there and take it is what you'll do, and you'll like it.”

“Only like it?” I raise an eyebrow, “Will you not be bringing your 'A' game? This is going to severely affect your performance review.”

“Duke Crocker--” she starts, raising one of the pillows, threateningly at me and then reluctantly lowering it, “--I am going to remember that for later when you don't have bruised ribs, damn you!” and she lays down next to me, pulling up the sheets and nestles down for the night.

The comfort of the Cape rocking gently from side to side, Julia breathing evenly next to me in a bed that isn't squashing us together with metal bars, and that my feet aren't slightly hanging off the end of means that sleep comes quickly and soundly. For now there are no more crises and no more nightmares or even dreams, just rest and relaxation and healing and that is all.