The end of the week on Hala brings what you'd usually expect at the end of the week on any other planet. It was the one day of the week Starforce were allowed any kind of downtime. Not like it was a temporary achievement, more of an obligatory meet and greet to show Hala the faces of their saviours. Show the population even the great and mighty Starforce are just people too.
Vers, being Vers usually puts the extra effort in, loving the atmosphere. Bathes herself in it. The dark. The neon lights. The music. The people. Genders and races and blue skin and pink. Minn-erva, on the other hand, was not exactly excited for a night out but Vers knows she's too much of a team player to turn them down for a night on the town. She wears lots of leather. Always black and cut in ways that begs for attention but tempts any wandering fingers ending up being severed and bloody. Vers can't ever remember ever seeing her drunk either, instead uses her drink as an accessory, orders the most expensive thing on the menu without it being obvious. Something bright green and glowing. Something to do with the Kree digestive system apparently.
Not unlike Korath. Too serious to hang with and his bedside is downright freaking weird and she wasn't fond of the idea of dancing next to someone who couldn't even raise a smile let alone a beer. she finds him hanging out with Bronn-char. Some sort of brothers in arms code she wouldn't even think to dare crossing.
Yon-Rogg, though. Now there was her wild card, tending to go for the smart casual-look and happy to be the subject of attention even if he doesn't go out of his way to seek it. Although she's pretty sure that's what he wants her to think in most cases. More often than not.
"Vers." He'll purr and order in a round regardless of who's drinking or not. Usually saying it loud enough for the other patrons to hear. She'll say not a damn thing about it but will roll her eyes when out of sight. Either he lacks the ability to get drunk like Minn-erva, which was unlikely, what with his mixed ancestry and all. Not that he'd tell her. Or he simply likes to enjoy himself.
"Oh, c'mon, just the one. Please. Please. I've been good. All week, you said it yourself." She pesters. Nudging his shoulder with her hip at every interval. Bottle of beer in her hand, foreign. An offshoot of something Terran from one of the border planets. But not like she cared. It tasted good and felt good and that's all that mattered.
"Vers…" he warns. He looks up at her in a way that would send most new recruits running to the horizons. But she knew him better than that.
She smirks and turns her back to him, saunters, beer in hand, to the dance floor where Kree and pink skins all dance alike. All enjoying being alive all determined on enjoying themselves. It had been 114 days since the last Skrull attack and they were sure as hell gonna party. Vers tips her head back to drink her beer. Bottle to her lips. Something warm and firm nudges her right shoulder. Her hair is brushed back from her face by unseen hands. It could be anyone. But they're warm and large. Pink.
"Just the one." Says a voice behind her, nosing into her hair and she leans back somewhat in a way that could be misguided as a dance move without the right context as he skims his hands down her bare arms and wrists. Stopping at her hands and fingering the inch of exposed skin between the waistband of her pants and top. A black belly top with spaghetti straps.
Tempting Yon to dance was always fun.
Vers stops breathing when she feels his fingers on the notches of her spine moving upward. Suddenly the bottle in her hand is too wet and too difficult to hold on to. The label, beginning to peel when she wets her lips with her tongue, finding them drier than before. When did that happen? "You know, I'm not one to dance." He says, out of sight. Faraway, like a dream.
Vers pushes her weight back into his hands urging him to shift one of his, until he slips them around the front of her instead. "Is that right?" She says to basically nothing. She'd love to know the expression on his face in that very moment, yellow eyes hard with cunning need or maybe darkened and a little playful? His hand hovers near her belly button without any real aim. Like, second base was right there if he wanted it. But Vers rolls her eyes and rounds on him to better his movements.
"There's nothing to it really." she slings one arm round his shoulder, with not much of a difficulty as she drains the last of the beer in her other hand before following suit. She keeps him close and starts a gentle sway.
"How many of those have you had?" He asks tiredly.
"Not enough." She teases. "Where's Att-lass?" Ah, the last comrade to their little team. She had wondered where he was but forgot all about asking about him. How long has she been at the bar for exactly? And how many of those had she actually had?
"He wanted an early night after a well earned few days. Not a bad idea really, all considering." He says low and rough and tilts his head down to look at Vers and she pouts with defiance.
"As long as you come back with me." Vers thins her lips with a waggle of her eyebrows that would turn most men putty in her hands. But not Yon Rogg, no.
"Vers." He bristles, stiffened with utter disbelief. Yellow eyes cold and unyielding. Vers moves her weight a hip width apart, putting a foot on either side of one of his. With a shift of her pelvis she aligns herself perfectly with his thigh at a delicious angle and half gasps despite herself.
"What?" she smiles slyly, almost innocently. As innocent as one can be with his knee somewhere it shouldn't be.
"We can't." He bites.
"We're not doing anything. So Supreme Intelligence can suck it."
Unfazed, he scoffs at that.
"Can't or won't?" Vers says and she's a little scared by the raw honesty in her voice.
Yon closes his eyes as he closes the distance between them without another word, hefts an arm around her waist. Keeping it somewhere far away from bare skin and temptation lest the Supreme Intelligence decides to cut it off.
"Hey… you know what's funny?" Vers blatantly changes the subject, practically hangs a flashing sign on it.
"Mm?" He leans his forehead against hers. Subtle victories.
She sways a little, gathering momentum. "Sometimes… in the dream I have. Between all the fire and the smoke and wreckage. When I see the skrull and he sees me. Sometimes I think he's a little Terran looking… sometimes I think he looks like you." her face is far away at that, haunted, in a place unseen to him, somewhere twisted and beyond. Warped with false memories and lies of a time he knew all too well.
He treasures she can't see his face in that one moment. Fears she'd peel away all the guilt and denial and bore out the truth from him.
"Yes, funny." He grits and shuts his eyes, blinds himself to the truth, the torrent of it. Fearing the dam would otherwise break.
...
Minn ducks out of the club without anyone noticing. a shadow against the blackness of night.
The neon lights outside illuminate barely anything aside from the patrons waiting to go in. A shape at the corner of her eye has her switching to attack mode, feels the hairs down her back stand on end as if a chill were to run down it. Out of sight a hand grabs her own and she gasps without really meaning. Ready to strike, baring her teeth she clenches her hand into a fist at her side.
"Not many people can sneak up on me." she hisses with an incline of her chin.
Att-lass, inconspicuous aside from his eyes and mouth uncovered from whatever darkened clothing he was wearing smirks in a way that reaches his eyes. "That's because not many people know you the way that I do." He presses.
Minn smirks at that. Not many people would talk to her the way he does, too. Minn pulls down her hood, cut like a shroud. Raises her head to kiss him. He was warm and soft and tall enough she could get a good handful before she pulls away.
"Get me out of this shall we? The rain does terrible things to my hair." She rolls her eyes with flare.
"Sure you don't want to stay?" He looks down at her outfit. Straps of leather criss crossing over any intimate areas leaving any other skin open and exposed.
"Please." She sighs. "Goldilocks is in there having the time of her life. I'd rather not be around to see that. Makes me feel sick just thinking about it." Her features pull into a sneer and Att-lass has to refrain from laughing.
Minn wasn't one to mince her words. "As long as you're sure." He touches her bottom lip and pulls the hood over her hair again. "I'm sure there's somewhere else we could go."
"Yeah, there is." Minn smiles with a glint to her dark brown eyes.
…...
Yon has to practically hold up Vers as they eventually exit Starlins Bar. The neon pink signs reflect in the puddles of rain, turning the darkness of night bright and almost cheery. Yon sighs and hefts Vers into the crook of one of his arms, she giggles and plays with the hem of his shirt, mumbling something about how he's wearing blue and it's apparently funny.
"Hey, like maybe we should go, get something to eat...maybe." she slurs.
Yon Rogg sighs, hard. "No. In your state you'll end up throwing it all up over and I'll have to pay them extra to clean it up."
Vers sulks and rubs a hand over her face. "You're no fun." She smacks his arm lightly.
Yon sighs again. And props her up with one arm, twists his upper body to eye a taxi a distant azure blue jewel soon gains momentum from the furthest depths of the horizon than zooms towards them both, Yon Rogg puts his finger and thumb in his mouth to whistle it over. It slows to a halt, the doors open out and upward like the wings of a crow, Vers had since gotten handsy with the from of his shirt. Slight arms wrapped around his torso, her skin warm from alcohol and drug like adrenaline. It's a surprise
In the dark of the night and blue of the neon, her skin practically glows, she looks gorgeous in the bathe of the lights. She hums content, and he wishes in that microsecond that he could leave her there and sheild her from the ugliness of the universe. She didn't need to see it. Didn't need to know it was there.
"Hey, wake up." She'll only dream again.
She presses her lips to his and pulls away with a wet sound. "Mmm. Come back with me." Her mouth is slack and it barely works around the words.
Yon fits his hand around her jaw, beautiful and gentle and she smiles against his palm. "I would love to." The one thing that wasn't a complete lie. He brushes his hand upwards and strokes hair from her face. "and I'd lose my job." Another dishonoured Kree with a dishonoured life. Where would he live? Xandar? Knowhere? "Go home, for both our sakes."
He helps Vers down the curb and into the automatic taxi, the inside white and sterile with a vein of blue light around the perimeter of the interior.
He watches her from the sidewalk, bids her goodbye with a wave and she returns it with a drunk smile. There's just enough time for him to see her rest her elbows on the back of the driver's seat with no doubt to regale him with a tale of stars and moons.
...
Yon Rogg phases in with the Supreme Intelligence technology as seamless as always, a flicker of static here, a distant glow of ambient light there. A ripple of coalescence and a manipulation of matrixes.
Yon sucks in a deep breath, takes a few steps forward, and comes face to face with a reflection of himself.
A few years older perhaps, more confident, lacking any of the weakness he tells himself he doesn't have. Silver hair and bright green eyes that bore into that apparently pathetic soul of his, no doubt checking over his posture for any submissive nature. Yon Rogg stands proud, his back straight, a complete contradiction, a facade, to his inside. To himself. To her. He gulps, hard. "Intelligence."
"I could snap your neck and no one would even know you'd died. Unless I told them." It says.
"I'm sorry?" The SI advances in him so his skin prickles from the close proximity.
"Vers. You and your feelings. Again." SI sneers at the word like it made it feel sick.
"You've been enjoying her again. Haven't you?" The Supreme intelligence runs a gloved hand down his chest and stomach reaching the buldge in his pants.
Yon Rogg sweats. "I have been trying to deny her." And he was doing a marvellous job at that, he wonders, distantly as SI rubs him sinfully.
"To deny her is to deny yourself. " SI snaps his head to look at him confidently.
Yon Rogg huffs and puffs on his air, refusing to give in. "Forfill our wishes and we will give her to you. In time. Restrain yourself. And you will get what is yours." The SI removes its hand and looks over it's shoulder, away from yon rogg not even bothering to bless him with the contact or any other further attention.
Yon Rogg nods rapidly. "I will, intelligence, I will."