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You come ambling into town with trophies dangling off the back of your saddle and your wallet heavy with gold, ready to drink and fuck your way through as much of your reward money as you can manage. You tie up Black Widow at the hitching post outside the Dead Barkbeast Saloon and toss a coin to the little dirtblood who looks after the riding beasts. "She bites," you tell him with a leer, just to watch him make nervous faces before you saunter inside.
Some nights you do get the eerie-silence-falls routine when you walk in a place. Last night, for instance, when you caught up with your bounty in a town a few miles further down the trail. But the regulars at the Dead Barkbeast know you. The bartender plunks a bottle of bourbon down on the counter, the pianoman transitions from his jaunty little tune into something more nautical, and you preen a bit as you get a seat on your regular barstool.
One of the dancing girls gets up like she's going to come over to talk to you. She must be new—yep, one of the older girls is getting her by the elbow and telling her what's going on. You grin at the way her expression changes, showing off all your sharp teeth and watching her blush green.
"Where's the princess?" you ask as you reach for your bottle.
"Busy," the bartender lisps with a little shrug. "Think he's pissed at you."
"What the hell?" you demand. You take a nice long pull on your bottle, letting the bourbon scorch the trail dust right out of your protein chute. "What's he got to be pissed at me for?"
The door at the top of the stairs bangs open. "I do wonder, Miss Serket," Eridan says. He always has known how to make an entrance, and you wouldn't be surprised if he was just waiting for you to give him a cue he could work with. You lean back and watch him come mincing down the stairs, because he also knows how to work that ruffly skirt and those punishing heels and it'd be a waste to not pay attention. "We could really have used you here last night."
You raise an eyebrow as he leans against the bar beside you. "Did I miss some fun?"
His painted lips purse like he's trying to stay mad at you. You nudge the bottle toward him helpfully. "You know they shut down the mine," he says. You nod. "We had a crew in here last night drinking the last of their pay and then getting rowdy. I had to take care of them all by myself."
"Wish I had been here, even just to watch you," you say—partly just because you want to get laid tonight and buttering him up is always a good first step there, and partly because it's true. He's a crack shot with that old Winchester of his, and not too bad in a brawl, either. "Nothing makes you pretty like bloodlust."
His fins go purple. "Layin' on the sweet talk awful thick tonight, Vris," he says, and takes the bottle. "Might make a fellow think you want somethin'." You watch his throat work as he swallows bourbon, and he hands the bottle back to you.
You tongue the traces of his lipstick off the bottle as you meet his eyes. "Might be I do," you agree. "I caught up with those train robbers last night, so I've got bounty money to burn." You smile at him before he can get all offended at the implications. "You got a room free for the day?"
"Might be I do," Eridan echoes back to you. He shifts his weight and you can hear the creak of his stays, the rustle of his skirts as he moves. "You going to want company?"
You're feeling lucky. You lay a hand on his stockinged thigh, just below where his rucked-up skirts stop. "Only if it's you offering."
He looks away, playing coy and chewing on his lip, and his poker face is just as crappy as always. He's trying so hard not to smile. "You do know what to say to a boy," he says. He doesn't push your hand away.
You stroke the band at the top of his stocking. "Know what to do for a boy, too," you say. "So come on, let's go."
He finally swats your hand away then but you don't think he means anything by it. He stands up, shoulders stiff and proud, and says, "Hurry up, then."
"Oh, like now you're the one rushing," you say, but you snag your bourbon bottle and get up, following him up the stairs to the collection of creaky little bedrooms that he and his girls use with customers. The back of his skirt falls almost to ankle level, gathered layers of shimmery purple stuff, and the bodice is cut so that it leaves a lot of his upper back bare. You watch the subtle shift and slide of his shoulderblades, the faintly liquid rustle of his skirt, and you probably could have had a good time with the new girl except that you know what you want already and he's it.
He pulls out a key on a long violet ribbon and unlocks the door to his own room, and you preen. You press up close behind him before he can turn the knob, leaning in so that he'll feel your breath on his bare shoulder. "Wish I'd gotten to see you raise hell last night," you say.
Eridan chuckles. "You'll get more chances. You know least as well as I do, Vris, trouble's never far off out here." He opens the door and takes a step inside, his hand pressed flat over the hand you've got on his waist, so you'll come right along with.
"Hah! It's true," you agree. That's a big part of why you came west in the first place—life is so much less boring out here. He turns around and you kick the door shut behind you as he leans in for a kiss. His mouth tastes of sharp warm bourbon just for a second, and when that fades he's all stinging salt, a reminder of the sea you've both had to leave behind.
No, fuck that, being melancholy is his bullshit thing. You don't care where you are, because you're the biggest badass in town no matter what. You're fine with these dry dusty towns and craggy parched hills. You bite Eridan's tongue and he slips his hands under your coat so he can dig his nails into your back. Little jolts of not-quite-pain go tingling through your nerves, making you prickle all over with a sweet echo of the thrill of the chase.
You shrug out of your long leather coat and let it drop with a dusty thud to the floor. When he reaches for the laces of his bodice, you catch his hand. "Leave that stuff on," you say. "You went to all that trouble to look fancy, didn't you?"
He bats his eyelashes and you're a little tempted to laugh, but more tempted to pin him to the bed. "I don't know, these are nice satins, Vris," he says. "What if you play rough with 'em?"
You leer. "I always play rough, princess," you say, and his eyes light up. You let the coins in your pocket jingle. "I'll buy you a new dress to make up for this one."
"Deal," he says, so fast you wonder if maybe he was playing you for that exact offer. Fuck it, you don't care. "I, on the other hand, ain't hung up on your filthy workin' clothes at all, so I'd count it a favor for you to take that mess off."
"You just want to see me naked," you say. Eridan shrugs with a little your point? smirk and confidence looks good on him, always has. You like him best when he knows he's hot shit. That's when he's closest to keeping up with you.
And he's right, you look damn fine. You strip, and his eyes linger on your scars—the little musketball pockmark on one shoulder, the nasty jagged lines further down where you almost lost an arm. He doesn't give you any pitying simpers or anything stupid like that. He knows better. He's just looking at you and seeing how much you've survived. You turn as you skin out of your jeans so he'll get a look at your back, the lashes from your first nautical adventure still knotted blue across your shoulders. (How he managed to get through his sailing years without getting flogged for being a stubborn, insubordinate troublemaker you'll never understand.)
"You're a fuckin' wreck a hard living," Eridan says, swaying over to you in his heels.
"Jeez, you just told me to get naked," you say as he takes your left arm and kisses his way up the mangling trackwork of your scars. "You don't get to complain."
"Not complainin'," he says. His tongue darts out just long enough to lick a stripe of whole skin between scars. "I think you know it, too."
You shrug. "Maybe." You pull him up close to you so that you can feel the satins he's so pleased with against your bare skin, and kiss him while you slip one hand down to find the hiked-up hem of his skirt. His thighs are cool and smooth under your fingertips, above the stockings' edges, and when you drag your hand up a little further you find a lacy little pair of the most immodestly short pantalettes you've ever encountered. They're probably black and purple to match the dress, knowing him.
The open center seam lets you in quick and easy as picking pockets and his bulge swells into your hand. He moans, claws raking down the uneven surface of your back, the ragged map of alternating sensitive and completely nerveless spots. You're wet, hungry, pulsing empty where you need to be filled.
"Let me see you," you demand, tugging on the lace as you pull back. Eridan preens like you're asking for his benefit, and he sprawls back across his bed with his legs elegantly splayed, teasing up the hem of his skirt so you can see the lace beneath. You were right; it totally does match.
"You like what you see," he says, squirming a little as he works the pantalettes down off his hips.
"You know I do," you say, reaching for them yourself so you can skim them down his sleek stockinged legs. He looks good like this, silk clinging to the curves of his calves, the shoes playing up the arches of his feet and the bones of his ankles. You toss the pantalettes aside. The straps of his garter belt are black, too, thin ribbons down his thighs, framing the soft gray and flushed violet of his bared flesh.
His bulge pulses as you run your fingers back up his legs, and he rocks his hips. "You could look at me like that all night an' I don't think it'd get old," he says.
"Too bad I'd get bored with just looking," you say, and crawl onto the bed with him.
"Yeah, I know, you're not much for refined contemplation," he says with a smirk as you straddle his hips. "Much more a woman a action—nnh," and he's probably playing up his little moan when you sink down on his bulge but it's hot, so you don't give him shit for it.
You sink down on him until you have him as deep in your nook as you can get him, and you purr at how badly you needed that. You rise up and sink down again, filling yourself, using his bulge. The stretch and pressure, the way he's big enough to make you really feel him, the way you can tilt your hips to make him rub up against you in exactly the right spot—you take what you want, shamelessly selfish, and if it happens to be working for him too, well, you're fine with that.
He's noisy when you fuck him, tossing his head and moaning, telling you how good your nook feels, his hands clinging hard to your thighs. "Vris, fuck, Vris, yeah," he chants, "do me hard, fuck," and it sounds like you're totally ruining him. You tend to go quiet in the middle of things, too busy with how it feels to remember to make a production out of it, but you like the ego stroking of his dirty talk.
"More," you growl, clenching down hard around him. "Keep talking."
Eridan keens, his head thrown back. "Fuck me, Vris, take me, don't stop, don't stop," and his back arches right off the bed as he chews his lip raw and you pulse around him, pulling him in deep and squeezing rhythmically until you force the fluid out of him, until the splash of his material makes your seedflap spasm with the kind of hungry, internal climax that you can't manage on your own, and your claws shred his skirt as you curl down into yourself and ride it out.
The room smells like salt brine and the spice of Eridan's perfume as you drape yourself over him and struggle to catch your breath. You feel heavy with mingled fluid, and you squirm until he slips free of your nook. His bulge leaves a sticky smear down your thigh but right now you don't care.
You tuck yourself under his arm and flop an arm across his chest, using his shoulder for a too-bony-but-who-cares pillow. "You better not be passin' out on me," he says, but he sounds drowsy himself.
"Who do you think you're talking to?" you mumble into his chest. "Could out-drink, out-fuck, and out-fight you any night of the week."
Eridan snorts. "Says the girl who's fallin' asleep on me without havin' the decency to get it up me first," he says comfortably.
The complaint does make your bulge stir a little. "Poor thing," you say. "Customers all too selfish to stick it in you, huh?" He shrugs like he doesn't want to talk about it. You stretch up and lick his fin. "Fine, twist my arm, we can switch next round."
"Now you really better not just pass out on me," he says. The way he's playing with your hair isn't helping his case any there. "An' you're still gonna owe me for the dress."
"Mmmn." You nip his collarbone and close your eyes. You just want a minute to relax, and then you're going to wreck him until he's sobbing your name. He'll give you the minute, you'll give him the good time, and you'll both give each other shit for it until you get the itch to go out looking for more trouble. You wouldn't have it any other way.