Walk Softly and Lie Flagrantly
- Location
- 'Murica
Hiro Adachi was running late. The thought jolted him from what had been a very comfortable haze lingering between the depths of sleep and full consciousness. He'd been aware that his alarm was ringing, but his bed was just so warm and comfortable that it hadn't registered until just now. Normally it wasn't that warm, not this late in the year. But something was different. He almost felt like he was being cuddled by a space heater.
But before he could dwell on that thought, the urgent chime of his alarm thrust its way back into his mind. Right, late. Very very late. He threw the covers off and bolted down the stairs. If he got some toast going now, he should have just enough time to catch a quick shower. If he timed it right the toast would just be popping up when he ran down to catch the bus. It'd be tight, but he could do it.
When he reached the kitchen, he discovered a slight problem with his plan. Someone had eaten all the bread. And most of the peanut butter. And what looked like half a carton of eggs. And he did mean half a carton. There were ragged bite marks left on the chewed-up half of cardboard that remained. That was… weird. But he was running too far behind schedule to worry about it right now.
Scrambling frantically, he found an unopened bag of cereal sitting in the chewed-up remnants of the box it came in. He tore open the plastic and dumped a helping into a bowl with just enough milk to let him wolf it down like a starving… well… wolf. He glanced at the clock hanging over the sink. He should have just enough time to shower if he rushed.
Tearing off his shirt as he ran, Hiro bolted back up the stairs. He shouldered through the door, hopping on one leg as he tried to get his pants off. And that's when he realized something odd. The room was filled with steam and the sound of water pattering against hard tile and soft flesh.
"What?" he muttered, tilting his head as his sleep-addled mind slowly caught up to what was going on.
Draped over the towel rack was a dark gray racing swimsuit with lighter colored accent panels and a wicked-looking gash over the hip. Inside the shower cubicle was the swimsuit's likely owner, a girl with spiky blond hair naked as the day she was born.
Her belly had a noticeable bulge to it, she had to be the one who'd gorged herself on seemingly everything in his pantry. But the rest of her… her body was lithe and sinewy, but visibly underfed. Her skin was scarred with salt, and she was so skinny he could see every one of her ribs. When she turned to wash, he saw a horrible looking bruise right over the bone of her hip.
"Hey," she said, pointing tiny, beady eyes at him like she was sizing him up. If she was at all mad that he'd stared at her—out of surprise, not lust, he'd like it known—she wasn't showing it.
"Y-you!" Hiro pointed at her stomach and tried not to think about her very exposed figure. Underfed or not, the girl was as shapely as she was naked, and her subdued bustline was a welcome change of pace from the overwhelming thickness that'd infested the media recently.
"Me!" Echoed the girl. She shut the water off with one hand and slid the glass door open with the other.
"You! You ate all my food!"
The girl bit her lip and nodded. "Yeah," she said without an ounce of shame.
"What are you—" before Hiro could finish his sentence, the girl stepped out of the shower, grabbed his jaw with both hands, and planted the longest, deepest kiss Hiro'd ever experienced squarely on his lips. She pushed him back against the wall, her naked body pressing into him like a vice. He didn't know what to do, he'd never seen a girl naked who wasn't two-dimentional.
"There," she pulled away with a self-satisfied smile. "Nobody will ever believe you." Without another word the girl slipped her swimsuit off the rack and padded out of the bathroom, still sopping wet and naked as the sun.
About an hour later when Hiro's mind finally caught up to what'd happened, he realized that while he still had his pants half-on, his shirt and boxers were missing.
"So," battleship Musashi pulled up alongside her quiet flattopped sister. "You excited to meet her?"
Shinano didn't say a word. Her head slowly swayed with the breeze, and on further inspection Musashi noticed her sister's eyes had the milky unfocused gaze of a carrier managing her planes. She hummed a tune to herself, something Musashi vaguely remembered from that one gay romance movie Jersey made her watch a while ago.
"Shina?" Musashi coughed, hoping to get her sister's attention without breaking her concentration too harshly.
Shinano held up a gloved finger. Musashi folded her arms, waiting as patiently as it was possible for the tanned Yamato to wait until Shinano was finished with whatever carrier-related things she was doing.
"Sorry," said the littlest Yamato, her eyes snapping back to their usual dark hazel. "What?"
Musashi coughed and brought her thoughts back into order. "I was asking if you're excited to meet your sister."
"Oh," said Shinano quietly. She opened her mouth, closed it again, then looked straight ahead.
"Shinano?" Musashi inclined her head.
"I…" Shinano shrugged and hung her head. "I should be…"
"But you're not?"
Shinano shook her head. "I mean… it'd be nice I guess, but…"
"But she's our sister!" said Musashi. She would be the first to admit that Yamato was… maybe a little too prim and proper for her own good. But they were sisters. Born from the same plans, knitted from the same steel.
"I guess," said Shinano with a noncommittal shrug.
"You guess?"
Shinano nodded. "She's… she's not really my sister. Not like she's yours. You two are…" she waved at Musashi's world-leading rifles. "And I'm…" she waved to her own flat-decked construction. "I never really knew her, you know."
Musashi shook her head, her snowy tufts shivering in the brisk ocean wind. "She knew you. I think she read every report we ever got on you."
"Until she sortied," said Shinano.
"Well… yeah."
"She died to a carrier you know," said the littlest Yamato.
"A gaijin carrier."
Shinano shrugged. "I just… I don't know. I should be excited to meet her. But I'm just… not."
"Well…" Musashi planted her hands on her hips. "I'm sure she's excited to see you."
"Mmm," Shinano smiled. "You think so?"
"I know so."
Shinano nodded. "Mmm. Okay." She thought for a second and dug around in her pocket. "Do you think she likes ramune?
"If it's coming from you, I don't think she'd like anything more."
Cameron Young was aware that dating a warship had its perks. For one, wherever she went she ate on the navy's dime—when the restaurant owner's weren't comping her food out of gratitude that is. For another, and there was really no good way to say this, she was incredibly hot and would remain so for the foreseeable future. It was the complete package. One giant cherry atop her the adorable Eskimo pie he was privileged to call his girlfriend.
That said, he'd still been surprised when a Navy captain showed up at the California hotel he was staying at, explained that his girlfriend had been deployed to Japan for a while, and offered him a flight to see her.
At the time, he thought he was being offered a seat on a cargo jet, like the bouncy, noisy affair that'd ferried him and 'Laska to California in the first place. Not that he cared, of course. He'd have happily strapped himself under the wing of an F-18 if that's what it took.
That was before he learned that the Navy had Gulfstreams.
His friends hadn't actually been that jealous, but he suspected that was because they'd all run out of jealousy after 'Laska stopped by campus one day to bring him sandwiches and a kiss. He could hardly blame them, of course. Compared to a girl like 'Laska, a ride in a GIV didn't even register.
Still though…
A GIV.
The pilot let him sit up front for a while, and even take the stick for a bit while they were still inside US airspace. After that, he'd sprawled out in the back to get some sleep. He'd never slept in an airplane before, let alone one so nice. It was… interesting. An experience to check off his bucket list, but it was really just something to pass the time until he landed in Japan.
A pair of Japanese jets escorted them into Nagasaki airport, and a quick train ride escorted by a skinny girl munching on a box of goldfish nearly as big as she was brought him to the naval base. The girl produced an ID from somewhere in her tight-fitting swimsuit to get them through the gate, but moments later she vanished like smoke.
Given everyone else's non-reaction, that was to be expected around here. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Battleship Mutsu stood on the end of the pier, fingers knitted under her swollen belly to help support the immense weight of her increasingly precocious twins. John had tried to talk her out of it. He didn't like her spending so much time out on her feet, especially in the cold, especially this close to her due date. If she was just his expecting wife, maybe he'd have a point. A wife and mother should be at home, taking it easy and preparing for the arrival of the newest additions to the family.
But Mutsu wasn't just her Admiral's wife. She was a battleship. One of the big seven, one of the heaviest hitters John had at his disposal, second only to the super-heavy iron of Yamato herself. And for the time being, she was useless in that capacity.
A fleet was bearing down on her position, and she was too pregnant to even keep up with Arizona anymore. She couldn't even keep a steady course in anything more than glassy-smooth seas, and that was assuming she could even get up to flank before the overwhelming urge to eat something hijacked any orders she tried to issue to her body.
For the moment at least, she was useless as a warship. The rest of the fleet was picking up the slack she'd left. The absolute least she could do was offer a friendly face when they steamed back into port.
"They'll be here soon," she cooed, gently rubbing her stomach and trying to sooth her twins' demand that she find the nearest deep-fried toaster establishment and consume something in the four-slotted chrome range. They might have a different mother, but Mary and Mirai were certainly Jane's sisters. "Just a little longer."
"Uh, ma'am?" a voice sounded from somewhere behind her. Rough and distinctly American, but not one she recognized.
"Yes?" Mutsu pivoted on her heel. She certainly didn't recognize owner of the voice. He was young, and he didn't look like a sailor. He did, however, have the look of comfortable bewilderment that anyone who spend time around Kanmusume picked up sooner or later. "You must be Cameron."
He nodded. "Yes ma'am. You're… Mutsu, right?"
Mutsu patted her belly. "What gave it away?"
Cameron laughed a little nervously. "Um… Jintsuu said you'd be here. Do you um… it's not a private thing, is it?"
"What?" Mutsu shrugged. "Oh, no. Not at all. You're welcome to join me."
"Thank you, ma'am."
"Mmm," Mutsu smiled. So respectful! Any ship would be lucky to have a boyfriend like that.
"Um, ma'am?" Cameron glanced over, his gaze lingering on the battleship's miniskirt and crop-top just long enough to make his observations known. "It's… you're not chilly?"
Mutsu shook her head. "Scarf," she said, pointing to the cloth knotted around her neck.
"Ah," said Cameron. That didn't seem to phase him in the slightest.
"Ah, Cameron?"
"Yes, ma'am?"
Mutsu cradled her belly with gloved hands. "Are you… this might not be a safe place for you."
"Pardon?"
"A ship in my condition," said Mutsu. "Tends to give others… ideas."
Cameron just laughed.
Mutsu shrugged. "Your baby shower."
Before either one could say anything more, dots of gray crawled over the horizon. Cameron squinted, but Mutsu's battleship-grade optics resolved the shapes almost immediately. Jersey was leading the formation, and steaming alongside her were…
Mother of fuck, there were three of them now.
"Holy shit, Muu!" Jersey's rough voice echoed over the waves. "You're fuckin' massive!"
"I—"
"I'm putting on speed," said another Iowa. "Gravity! Too! Strong!"
"That's—"
"No, seriously," said yet another of the twice-dammed American fast battleships. "You realize that when people say 'eating for three' two of those are lil' babies, right? Not full-grown battleships?"
"What I—"
"I don't think she does," said the third Iowa.
"Yeah, there's no way she does," said Jersey.
"Hey!" called the second Iowa. "We can come ashore, right? You won't try and eat us?"
Beside Mutsu, Cameron was trying and failing to stifle his giggles. "Are you quite done?" yelled Mutsu.
"Oh no" said Jersey.
"Not even close," said the second Iowa.
"We've had a week to work on this material," said the third.
"I've got sixty goddamn pages on death-star themed puns alone," said Jersey.
The Japanese battlewagon hung her head. Was this what everyone else felt like?
But before he could dwell on that thought, the urgent chime of his alarm thrust its way back into his mind. Right, late. Very very late. He threw the covers off and bolted down the stairs. If he got some toast going now, he should have just enough time to catch a quick shower. If he timed it right the toast would just be popping up when he ran down to catch the bus. It'd be tight, but he could do it.
When he reached the kitchen, he discovered a slight problem with his plan. Someone had eaten all the bread. And most of the peanut butter. And what looked like half a carton of eggs. And he did mean half a carton. There were ragged bite marks left on the chewed-up half of cardboard that remained. That was… weird. But he was running too far behind schedule to worry about it right now.
Scrambling frantically, he found an unopened bag of cereal sitting in the chewed-up remnants of the box it came in. He tore open the plastic and dumped a helping into a bowl with just enough milk to let him wolf it down like a starving… well… wolf. He glanced at the clock hanging over the sink. He should have just enough time to shower if he rushed.
Tearing off his shirt as he ran, Hiro bolted back up the stairs. He shouldered through the door, hopping on one leg as he tried to get his pants off. And that's when he realized something odd. The room was filled with steam and the sound of water pattering against hard tile and soft flesh.
"What?" he muttered, tilting his head as his sleep-addled mind slowly caught up to what was going on.
Draped over the towel rack was a dark gray racing swimsuit with lighter colored accent panels and a wicked-looking gash over the hip. Inside the shower cubicle was the swimsuit's likely owner, a girl with spiky blond hair naked as the day she was born.
Her belly had a noticeable bulge to it, she had to be the one who'd gorged herself on seemingly everything in his pantry. But the rest of her… her body was lithe and sinewy, but visibly underfed. Her skin was scarred with salt, and she was so skinny he could see every one of her ribs. When she turned to wash, he saw a horrible looking bruise right over the bone of her hip.
"Hey," she said, pointing tiny, beady eyes at him like she was sizing him up. If she was at all mad that he'd stared at her—out of surprise, not lust, he'd like it known—she wasn't showing it.
"Y-you!" Hiro pointed at her stomach and tried not to think about her very exposed figure. Underfed or not, the girl was as shapely as she was naked, and her subdued bustline was a welcome change of pace from the overwhelming thickness that'd infested the media recently.
"Me!" Echoed the girl. She shut the water off with one hand and slid the glass door open with the other.
"You! You ate all my food!"
The girl bit her lip and nodded. "Yeah," she said without an ounce of shame.
"What are you—" before Hiro could finish his sentence, the girl stepped out of the shower, grabbed his jaw with both hands, and planted the longest, deepest kiss Hiro'd ever experienced squarely on his lips. She pushed him back against the wall, her naked body pressing into him like a vice. He didn't know what to do, he'd never seen a girl naked who wasn't two-dimentional.
"There," she pulled away with a self-satisfied smile. "Nobody will ever believe you." Without another word the girl slipped her swimsuit off the rack and padded out of the bathroom, still sopping wet and naked as the sun.
About an hour later when Hiro's mind finally caught up to what'd happened, he realized that while he still had his pants half-on, his shirt and boxers were missing.
—|—|—
"So," battleship Musashi pulled up alongside her quiet flattopped sister. "You excited to meet her?"
Shinano didn't say a word. Her head slowly swayed with the breeze, and on further inspection Musashi noticed her sister's eyes had the milky unfocused gaze of a carrier managing her planes. She hummed a tune to herself, something Musashi vaguely remembered from that one gay romance movie Jersey made her watch a while ago.
"Shina?" Musashi coughed, hoping to get her sister's attention without breaking her concentration too harshly.
Shinano held up a gloved finger. Musashi folded her arms, waiting as patiently as it was possible for the tanned Yamato to wait until Shinano was finished with whatever carrier-related things she was doing.
"Sorry," said the littlest Yamato, her eyes snapping back to their usual dark hazel. "What?"
Musashi coughed and brought her thoughts back into order. "I was asking if you're excited to meet your sister."
"Oh," said Shinano quietly. She opened her mouth, closed it again, then looked straight ahead.
"Shinano?" Musashi inclined her head.
"I…" Shinano shrugged and hung her head. "I should be…"
"But you're not?"
Shinano shook her head. "I mean… it'd be nice I guess, but…"
"But she's our sister!" said Musashi. She would be the first to admit that Yamato was… maybe a little too prim and proper for her own good. But they were sisters. Born from the same plans, knitted from the same steel.
"I guess," said Shinano with a noncommittal shrug.
"You guess?"
Shinano nodded. "She's… she's not really my sister. Not like she's yours. You two are…" she waved at Musashi's world-leading rifles. "And I'm…" she waved to her own flat-decked construction. "I never really knew her, you know."
Musashi shook her head, her snowy tufts shivering in the brisk ocean wind. "She knew you. I think she read every report we ever got on you."
"Until she sortied," said Shinano.
"Well… yeah."
"She died to a carrier you know," said the littlest Yamato.
"A gaijin carrier."
Shinano shrugged. "I just… I don't know. I should be excited to meet her. But I'm just… not."
"Well…" Musashi planted her hands on her hips. "I'm sure she's excited to see you."
"Mmm," Shinano smiled. "You think so?"
"I know so."
Shinano nodded. "Mmm. Okay." She thought for a second and dug around in her pocket. "Do you think she likes ramune?
"If it's coming from you, I don't think she'd like anything more."
—|—|—
Cameron Young was aware that dating a warship had its perks. For one, wherever she went she ate on the navy's dime—when the restaurant owner's weren't comping her food out of gratitude that is. For another, and there was really no good way to say this, she was incredibly hot and would remain so for the foreseeable future. It was the complete package. One giant cherry atop her the adorable Eskimo pie he was privileged to call his girlfriend.
That said, he'd still been surprised when a Navy captain showed up at the California hotel he was staying at, explained that his girlfriend had been deployed to Japan for a while, and offered him a flight to see her.
At the time, he thought he was being offered a seat on a cargo jet, like the bouncy, noisy affair that'd ferried him and 'Laska to California in the first place. Not that he cared, of course. He'd have happily strapped himself under the wing of an F-18 if that's what it took.
That was before he learned that the Navy had Gulfstreams.
His friends hadn't actually been that jealous, but he suspected that was because they'd all run out of jealousy after 'Laska stopped by campus one day to bring him sandwiches and a kiss. He could hardly blame them, of course. Compared to a girl like 'Laska, a ride in a GIV didn't even register.
Still though…
A GIV.
The pilot let him sit up front for a while, and even take the stick for a bit while they were still inside US airspace. After that, he'd sprawled out in the back to get some sleep. He'd never slept in an airplane before, let alone one so nice. It was… interesting. An experience to check off his bucket list, but it was really just something to pass the time until he landed in Japan.
A pair of Japanese jets escorted them into Nagasaki airport, and a quick train ride escorted by a skinny girl munching on a box of goldfish nearly as big as she was brought him to the naval base. The girl produced an ID from somewhere in her tight-fitting swimsuit to get them through the gate, but moments later she vanished like smoke.
Given everyone else's non-reaction, that was to be expected around here. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
—|—|—
Battleship Mutsu stood on the end of the pier, fingers knitted under her swollen belly to help support the immense weight of her increasingly precocious twins. John had tried to talk her out of it. He didn't like her spending so much time out on her feet, especially in the cold, especially this close to her due date. If she was just his expecting wife, maybe he'd have a point. A wife and mother should be at home, taking it easy and preparing for the arrival of the newest additions to the family.
But Mutsu wasn't just her Admiral's wife. She was a battleship. One of the big seven, one of the heaviest hitters John had at his disposal, second only to the super-heavy iron of Yamato herself. And for the time being, she was useless in that capacity.
A fleet was bearing down on her position, and she was too pregnant to even keep up with Arizona anymore. She couldn't even keep a steady course in anything more than glassy-smooth seas, and that was assuming she could even get up to flank before the overwhelming urge to eat something hijacked any orders she tried to issue to her body.
For the moment at least, she was useless as a warship. The rest of the fleet was picking up the slack she'd left. The absolute least she could do was offer a friendly face when they steamed back into port.
"They'll be here soon," she cooed, gently rubbing her stomach and trying to sooth her twins' demand that she find the nearest deep-fried toaster establishment and consume something in the four-slotted chrome range. They might have a different mother, but Mary and Mirai were certainly Jane's sisters. "Just a little longer."
"Uh, ma'am?" a voice sounded from somewhere behind her. Rough and distinctly American, but not one she recognized.
"Yes?" Mutsu pivoted on her heel. She certainly didn't recognize owner of the voice. He was young, and he didn't look like a sailor. He did, however, have the look of comfortable bewilderment that anyone who spend time around Kanmusume picked up sooner or later. "You must be Cameron."
He nodded. "Yes ma'am. You're… Mutsu, right?"
Mutsu patted her belly. "What gave it away?"
Cameron laughed a little nervously. "Um… Jintsuu said you'd be here. Do you um… it's not a private thing, is it?"
"What?" Mutsu shrugged. "Oh, no. Not at all. You're welcome to join me."
"Thank you, ma'am."
"Mmm," Mutsu smiled. So respectful! Any ship would be lucky to have a boyfriend like that.
"Um, ma'am?" Cameron glanced over, his gaze lingering on the battleship's miniskirt and crop-top just long enough to make his observations known. "It's… you're not chilly?"
Mutsu shook her head. "Scarf," she said, pointing to the cloth knotted around her neck.
"Ah," said Cameron. That didn't seem to phase him in the slightest.
"Ah, Cameron?"
"Yes, ma'am?"
Mutsu cradled her belly with gloved hands. "Are you… this might not be a safe place for you."
"Pardon?"
"A ship in my condition," said Mutsu. "Tends to give others… ideas."
Cameron just laughed.
Mutsu shrugged. "Your baby shower."
Before either one could say anything more, dots of gray crawled over the horizon. Cameron squinted, but Mutsu's battleship-grade optics resolved the shapes almost immediately. Jersey was leading the formation, and steaming alongside her were…
Mother of fuck, there were three of them now.
"Holy shit, Muu!" Jersey's rough voice echoed over the waves. "You're fuckin' massive!"
"I—"
"I'm putting on speed," said another Iowa. "Gravity! Too! Strong!"
"That's—"
"No, seriously," said yet another of the twice-dammed American fast battleships. "You realize that when people say 'eating for three' two of those are lil' babies, right? Not full-grown battleships?"
"What I—"
"I don't think she does," said the third Iowa.
"Yeah, there's no way she does," said Jersey.
"Hey!" called the second Iowa. "We can come ashore, right? You won't try and eat us?"
Beside Mutsu, Cameron was trying and failing to stifle his giggles. "Are you quite done?" yelled Mutsu.
"Oh no" said Jersey.
"Not even close," said the second Iowa.
"We've had a week to work on this material," said the third.
"I've got sixty goddamn pages on death-star themed puns alone," said Jersey.
The Japanese battlewagon hung her head. Was this what everyone else felt like?
