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“I don’t need your help.”
“Well, it didn’t look that way to me— what was I supposed to do? Let that creep manhandle you?”
“I had it under control— you just didn’t give me enough time to showcase that before you stepped in. You can’t help yourself, can you? You just have to be the hero all the time!”
“And you are incapable of understanding that accepting help doesn’t make you some sort of damsel in distress.”
They’re arguing again. Typical. Because if there’s a universal truth known among the entire in-flight crew of Avonlea Airlines, it’s this: when flight attendant Anne Shirley-Cuthbert and pilot Gilbert Blythe happen to be working the same shift, it’s only a matter of time before they turn into the human embodiments of twin powder kegs about to explode.
He wasn’t even supposed to be on the plane tonight— which, as far as Anne's concerned, is the most infuriating part of all. But once they’d landed in London (their last stop before venturing back to Canada) they'd found themselves with an unexpected passenger in one, Gilbert Blythe, who’d decided to hitch a ride back home after several days of being up in the air.
Anne also hadn’t expected Gilbert to take it upon himself to step in when she'd found herself cornered by a particularly insistent, particularly intoxicated, passenger by the first class bathroom. She’d just been trying to make her exit from the lavatory when the large, burly man had startled her, leering down at her from just outside the door, effectively blocking her only way out. That is, until the bothersome, vexingly chivalrous, and irritatingly noble pilot of her every waking nightmare had decided to step in and take matters into his own hands.
“Is there a problem here, sir?” Gilbert had asked through a stern voice, looking all the more authoritative thanks to the captain's uniform he hadn’t had time to change out of before boarding the red eye back to Canada.
The man shook his head, shrinking under Gilbert’s narrowed eyed gaze.
“Good.” Gilbert continued icily. “In that case, I suggest you return to your seat in business economy— just through those curtains back there, in case you’ve forgotten.”
Anne had waited, watching the passenger’s retreating back from where she stood, still rooted on the spot in the doorway of the bathroom. As soon as the strange man disappeared behind the blue curtains, she turned her focus back on the man who believed himself to be her very own knight in shining armor.
Anne wastes no time when it comes to spitting out a string of charged words about how she didn’t need rescuing— voice seething with fury despite the low decibel she’d forced herself to adopt given that it was late, and the handful of passengers up in first class were already fast asleep.
“You listen here, Gilbert Blythe, and you listen good. I’m not a damsel, I’m not in distress,” she continues angrily. “And even if I were either of those things, I certainly wouldn't need you to slay my dragons for me— I can slay them just fine all by myself!”
“Fine. Noted,” Gilbert says exasperatedly. “Next time, I’ll just—“
He doesn’t get to finish whatever he’d been about to say because all of a sudden, the plane gives a rough jolt as they hit a sizable amount of turbulence— the worst Anne’s ever experienced in her short time of being a flight attendant. The unforgiving jerking motion the aircraft gives as it makes its way through the rough patch of sky sends both Gilbert and Anne stumbling back into the bathroom together.
Instinctively, he pulls Anne against him, one arm wrapping tightly around her waist so he can press her against his body, while Gilbert’s other shoots out to brace against the wall by the sink so he can steady them both.
Anne stares up at him with startled wide eyes, mouth agape, breathing shallow.
“It’s just a bit of turbulence,” he says gently. “Nothing to worry about…”
She keeps waiting for him to let her go, but he doesn’t. And suddenly the look in his eyes is shifting, darkening, as Gilbert’s jaw clenches tightly in a way that makes Anne feel as though the pressurization of the cabin has just gone haywire.
Anne’s hand is still twisted in his crisp white shirt— the only thing she could think of to grab onto when the turbulence had hit and knocked her off balance. The top three buttons are undone, offering up an impressive view of what lies beneath the uniform he wears so annoyingly well. She can't help but stare at the hard planes of his chest, swallowing hard, unsure of whether Gilbert had unbuttoned his shirt himself earlier on in the night in an effort to get comfortable, or if she'd accidentally ripped his shirt open with her tight grip in their stumble.
Suddenly, all of the anger, and frustration, and irritation she’d been bottling up and saving to lob at Gilbert Blythe shifts inside of her, morphing instead into a heated desire that catches Anne off guard. A desire that’s impossible to ignore when Gilbert’s hard body is pressed against hers, and he’s staring at her with a hunger in his eyes that mirrors the blazing fire of desire that’s beginning to stoke deep in her belly.
He doesn’t miss it, any of it.
Not the way both of their bodies seem to be thrumming with want...not her rattled breath, that grows even more shallow the longer they stay in their current position...and certainly not the way her treacherous eyes keep flicking toward his lips. When Gilbert does finally move, it’s only to reach out and lock the door that had shut behind them, before he carefully walks them backward toward the tiny bench just past the toilet.
He sinks down on to it, eyes never leaving hers, dragging her forward, pulling Anne closer by the hips until their legs are touching...until he's slowly parting both of hers with a nudge of his knees.
Anne knows she should put a stop to it. That she should walk away, and put some much needed distance between herself and the handsome young pilot that's been taking up way too much precious real estate inside of her head as of late. She should...but she can't.
How can she, when she finds herself utterly entranced by the warmth of Gilbert's impossibly large hands on her body? Or by the inferno that’s slowly building up in his heated gaze. A gaze that, for all the desire it reflects back her way, seems to be begging her— daring her to make him stop. But Anne’s never been one to back down from much, and she’s already in too deep, drowning in the pools of Gilbert’s dizzying hazel eyes.
She spreads her legs, inching forward until her knees hit the vinyl bench, shifting the hand that had never left Gilbert's shirt until she’s moved it up to rest on his shoulder. Anne uses it for leverage as she lowers herself slowly on to Gilbert's lap until she’s straddling him properly, legs splayed over both of his, skirt wantonly riding up toward her waist, her naked thighs sliding deliciously against the fine material of his slacks whenever she shifts; she doesn’t stop until there’s hardly any more distance between their heaving chests.
Gilbert shudders as he slings his hands low around her hips, fingers flexing, clutching at the stretchy fabric of her uniform in a way that makes the skin on Anne’s arms pebble. She drops her forehead to his, heart pounding, skin tingling over the way the close proximity causes their breaths to meet in the middle and mingle in the feeble few inches that still exist between their faces.
“Is this okay?” Gilbert asks. His voice is a rumble, graveled by desire, and it sends a jolt pleasure straight down her spine.
“Yes...” Anne says, drawing it out like a quiet plea.
Gilbert smiles, and she finds her eyes drawn to the white of his teeth, the perfect dip in his cupid's bow, and a tiny freckle near the slope of his upper lip that’s begging to be kissed.
He smells inviting-- like the cold brew she knows he drinks in droves on late night flights, and she can’t stop herself from telling him so. “Your breath smells like coffee…”
“Sorry,” Gilbert whispers back, turning his mouth away, running his nose down the side of her jaw, leaving a trail of fire in his wake wherever his skin touches hers.
“But I happen to like coffee…so…very…much…”
Her words draw a puff of laughter from his lips, his warm breath ghosting deliciously against her ear in a way that finds Anne dropping her head to the crook of his neck.
He smells strongest there, and different. All soapy, and woodsy, and utterly male. It drives her mad with lust, and Anne can’t help the way she breaths him in. She gives in to the desire to trail her mouth down the side of his neck when he tilts his head back, following the prominent tendon until her lips are resting at the hollow space that exists between his collar bones.
“You smell nice here too…” she says, voice utterly wrecked as she parts her lips against the soft skin of his throat. She sucks an open mouthed kiss there, and Gilbert squeezes both of her thighs in response, blunt finger nails digging into her soft, sensitive flesh.
“Anne…”
Her name tumbles out of him, trailing off into a desperate whine. When she doesn’t raise her head in response, too busy panting hotly against the hollow of his throat, Gilbert takes it upon himself to do it for her, one hand trailing up to slide against her jaw before cupping her cheek.
Gently, he lifts her face until they’re eye to eye, and her breath hitches at the sight of his lust-blown pupils.
"You're going to be the death of me, Anne Shirley-Cuthbert," he growls. "I knew it from the moment I first saw you..."
He’s so close when he says it, she can feel the barely-there brush of his lips against hers, and the sensation makes her ache with need.
She wants to tell him he's got it wrong-- that it's the other way around. That if anyone's going to be ruining lives, it's going to be Gilbert Blythe and his infuriatingly expressive eyebrows, and his eyes that sparkle like two twin topaz stones, and that playful smile that she wants to smack straight off of his face half the time. The same smile he shoots her in the moments that exists between their charged squabbles. The smile that lets Anne know that for as much as she’s managed to get under his skin like a relentless thorn in his side that just won’t go away, Gilbert thoroughly enjoys watching her get wound up at his expense.
She doesn't get the chance-- to say any of it-- before he crashes his mouth onto hers, lips molding searingly against her own as he kisses her in a way that leaves Anne stunned and breathless. She feels him nip at her bottom lip and the sensation sends a shock straight through her, waking her from whatever trance-like state the first press of Gilbert’s mouth against hers had momentarily put her in.
Anne comes alive under the unyielding onslaught, kissing him back, matching his fervor with her own, licking at the seam of his lips until he parts them for her and lets her in. He groans low and deep when her hands find purchase in his hair, fingers twisting and pulling at his dark curls, fingernails scratching at his scalp, desperately scrabbling for something to hold on to as she looses herself in the taste of him.
She pulls away, gasping for breath only when Gilbert’s hands find their way back to her legs. The sensation of his fingers trailing up...up...up under the hem of her skirt wrings a needy whimper from her throat, and it's all suddenly too much-- the feel of his rock hard body against her soft one...the tickle of his fingertips dragging against the sensitive skin of her inner thigh as he pushes the pesky navy blue material covering her legs up toward her waist...
Anne’s never felt this unhinged before. She’s utterly wrecked, falling apart at the seams, feeling as though the only thing keeping her from completely unraveling is the hot brand of Gilbert’s slick mouth against whatever part of her it decides to latch on to.
She moans, hips hitching involuntarily against him when his thumb brushes against the wet heat of her core through the thin cotton of her underwear.
"Gilbert..."
"Tell me what you want, Carrots," he groans, sucking a kiss to the pulse point on her throat. "I want to know what makes you move...I want to know what drives you crazy…”
"You should know the answer to that by now,” Anne bites back as she pulls his head up so she can plant a bruising kiss to his swollen lips. "You've been driving me crazy since the day I met you."
He stills at her response, staring intently into her eyes before he breathes out his next words. "Do you want me to stop?"
"Don't you dare." she replies without skipping a beat before slotting their mouths together again.
His thumb is back, brushing against her with far more deliberate pressure, and the next time Anne rolls her hips against his, it's deliberate. Stars explode behind her closed eyelids when Gilbert rocks back up in to her in turn, the hard length of him dragging against her center, providing the friction she so desperately desires.
She chases her pleasure through his body, spurred on by Gilbert's sure grip, digging into the flesh of her hips, urging her forward with every roll and hitch she makes against his hard length until Anne comes undone above him.
He swallows her moans with a deep kiss as she rides her release, while one of her hands runs leisurely down the toned expanse of Gilbert's chest, slipping between their bodies until she finds her intended target. She palms him through his navy blue slacks, gripping, rubbing, stroking until he unravels underneath her with a final shudder.
There's not enough time to bask in the afterglow, and a harsh reminder of that fact comes slicing through the room by way of the aircraft’s intercom.
"We should get back," Anne says regretfully, after she listens to her co-worker's practiced speech about how flight attendants will be coming around soon to prepare the cabin for landing.
"Just a few more seconds…” he whispers in return, making no move to put any distance between their bodies. “We can stay just like this for a few more seconds..."
Anne sighs, giving in to Gilbert's request, letting herself slump against him as her fingers play with the collar of his shirt. Too soon for either of their liking, Anne reluctantly lifts herself as gracefully as she can manage from his lap.
She chances a glance at Gilbert after smoothing her skirt back down, and her breath catches when she finds him looking up at her from where he’s still sitting. His eyes are tortured, pained, hopeful, and they’re slowly chipping away at the hard resolve around her heart. The same resolve that desperately wants to pretend there's still a possibility that Anne will walk out of this bathroom, and go back to treating Gilbert with the same amount of distain as before.
“Are we going to go back to hating each other now?” Gilbert asks, voice loaded with a preview of whatever disappointment he might endure at Anne’s expense if her answer is yes.
Anne's eyes soften at his unabashed vulnerability, and before her brain has time to kick in and overthink her actions, she finds herself reaching out to run her fingers gently through his hair. She marvels at the way his eyes close under the ministrations of her fingers, and the soft smile that inches across his lips in turn gives her butterflies.
“I don’t think I could hate you even if I wanted to, Gilbert Blythe.” Anne says as she does her best to carefully tame the mess she'd made of his curls.
The smile on his face grows wider at her confession, and he reaches up to capture the hand that’s still in his hair so he can lower it down to his lips and press a gentle kiss to her open palm.
And in that moment, every inch of skin his hands have touched, every inch of flesh his lips have tasted tonight— all of it suddenly feels as though it dulls in comparison to the way that tiny kiss makes Anne's heart skip a beat.
It feels like less of a press of Gilbert’s lips to her palm and more like a bookmark. A placeholder for all of the things they don’t have time to say. A promise of more, and whatever the idea of more might mean for them.
And it makes Anne smile bright and wide as she slips out the door and leaves Gilbert to his own devices— but not before she chances one final glance over her shoulder, just so she can leave him with four parting words:
“See you around, Captain."
