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Attempting to ‘casually’ wear the strap is a decision that Vodka doesn’t really think through.
She’s known, and been majorly confident with, her identity for a very long time, basically since birth. From begging and pleading with her parents to let her cut her hair short the very second it started growing out, to having… unique… childhood crushes that make her hang her head in shame when she now thinks about how she attends the same training academy as them (looking at you, Symboli Rudolf), it’s been obvious. Dear god, those muscles. Seeing them in person still gets her a little flustered now.
It’s no secret to anyone. The kids at middle school knew it, because her favourite colour was yellow instead of pink, and that was enough. When she first came to Tracen, the first words anybody spoke to her were a whispered ‘slay, king’ from one of the quieter girls at the back of the room when she entered class for the first time.
And nobody fucking says that; that is, unless they’re a queer person identifying and talking to another A-class, certified, undeniable queer person.
It’s not like lesbian’s a dirty word. Vodka really doesn’t care that people can ‘clock her tea’, and she’s never put much thought into her sexuality at all. It’s just an honest fact of the world that she loves women.
She can’t understand why anybody wouldn’t, but that’s besides the point.
What she does care about, however, is the way in which she presents herself to the world. Because, really, who is she if not cool? What even is cool, and how does she become the embodiment of it, like a fucking sponge of cool, a guiding light in the darkness for fellow cool connoisseurs?
It’s different for everybody, of course, which is one of the core principles she’s discovered on her vast, cool pilgrimage. Cool is a concept that cannot be defined by words, actions, or even intentions – cool shifts and morphs and can be whatever you please. Her dad is cool, and he’s a biker. Gimlet, who is basically her second dad at this point, is also cool. She doesn’t have a bike. So it’s different.
Vodka just does what makes her feel cool. It’s one of the Cool Commandments.
Yes, maybe that means wearing a six-inch silicone cock under baggy jeans around her dorm room when Scarlet isn’t home. It’s not even meant to be sexual, at first. She genuinely just likes the way the leather harness feels around her hips, along with the weight it carries, and it’s barely noticeable anyway.
The fact that it’s Scarlet’s strap also kind of helps, but you’d never hear her say that part out loud. It’s not like she’ll be mad about it if she finds out.
She might laugh a little.
She might—
Vodka slaps herself in the face. She’s staring into the full-length mirror, and sure enough, nothing looks like it’s changed at all. The loosely-fitting jeans are doing what they’re meant to as… well, loosely-fitting jeans… fitting loosely and riding down her hips a little as a result. A small portion of the harness is exposed.
No matter. Belts exist for a reason: she heads to her chest of drawers to grab one, black leather and a copper buckle like the ones she wears on her racing outfit.
Once she’s back in front of the mirror, she slides it through the loops. She fastens it as tight as it’ll go.
Then she has a bulge.
It does feel slightly liberating, in a way that Vodka isn’t too keen on trying to investigate, but the small amount of common sense remaining in her brain catches up to her and tells her that might be a tad too far. She takes the belt off, and the jeans slip down again, just the right amount.
Blue denim, with a tasteful sample of sleek brown leather peeking over the top of them.
It’s perfect. Fantastic. Nothing could compare.
She goes about her day with it hanging low – luckily, Scarlet had the foresight to buy one that could bend slightly, so it rests pretty comfortably between her legs. Her roommate (and not-really-friend-kind-of- sworn-enemy-but-also-somehow-friend-with-benefits-don’t-question-it-it’s-weird) is out today on some extended training program, which gives Vodka the time and space to do whatever the hell she wants.
She didn’t even know strap-ons could bend, but some of them can, apparently, and now she’s reaping the benefits. It fits well in the space she has to work with. It isn’t too obvious.
Making herself a flask of tea feels the same as before, but it’s better, because now she has a dick. Groundbreaking. Sensational. The experience makes her far happier than it reasonably should, and the tea is the best she’s ever brewed, too, sweetening the deal even more.
Feeling slightly crazy later on, she undresses, and takes a shower whilst still wearing it. Only after the warm water starts running down her skin does she realise that the leather probably isn’t waterproof, but things still feel great. Maybe she swings it around like a helicopter. Maybe she doesn’t. There’s no proof.
Once she’s had her fun, Vodka dries herself (and her new best friend) off and puts her clothes back on. She struts around the dorm a few times, and it feels like she owns the whole building. Sometimes, people carry weapons to feel stronger. Her dick is her weapon.
The door opens at around 5pm, and Scarlet is home. She seems frustrated, wiping the sweat from her forehead – seeing Vodka idly lounging around doesn’t help, as if just looking at her makes her blood boil.
“You didn’t spontaneously explode while I was gone,” Scarlet sulks. “This is the worst day ever.”
Vodka smirks, shifting slightly on her bed, feeling the silicone rub up reassuringly against her thigh. “Your loss. Hey, since you’re up, can you head back out and get me some snacks? I’m feeling carrots, but if there’s anything that you’d rather—”
“I’d rather peel my skin off in thin strips.”
“Strange snack choice,” Vodka shrugs.
“Shut up ,” Scarlet responds with a glare, walking over to her own bed at a pace too brisk for her to have intentions of staying there. “Have you got everything together for summer camp? It’s time to go.”
Vodka blinks.
Oh.
Oh, dear fucking Goddesses.
She sits up immediately, and it’s then that she notices the suitcase and backpack prepared at the foot of her closet. They’re filled with clothes, training equipment, and various other commodities for two months by the beach.
There’s no space in them for a strap-on. Which is for very good reason, by the way, because who in their right mind brings a strap-on to summer camp? Why would you bring a strap-on to summer camp? FOR WHAT PURPOSE?!?
She has to take it off. Vodka stands up at once, rushing towards the bathroom, but Scarlet reaches an arm out to block her.
“I told you to get ready before I left this morning. We need to go now, Vodka. Everyone’s already in the minivan.”
Vodka pales. “...Really?”
“Yes, really! Get your stuff, and get out of here!”
Scarlet stands there with her arms crossed, like she knows Vodka will waste her time if she doesn’t. She’s completely unaware of the hydrogen bomb Vodka has hidden up her ass. She’s completely unaware that this is a life-or-death situation, and has it boiled down to her roommate once again being nothing more than a nuisance.
This is terrible. No longer is Vodka’s temporary possession of a dick a silly joke, or a cool and gender-affirming side quest on her road to greatness.
Sometimes, people carry around weapons to feel stronger, but this suddenly feels like she is carrying a weapon, and she’s being told to go through the metal detector at an airport whilst it’s concealed in her pants.
Vodka is irrefutably, undeniably, beyond a shadow of a doubt, doomed .
So she gives up. She knows that Scarlet won’t budge no matter what she says, and she doesn’t even bother trying. With silicone swinging down her right leg like it’s hanging its head in shame, she picks up her bags and leaves the room. Surely, once she reaches their cabin, she’ll be able to hide it somewhere. Her trainer is probably going to force her to room with Scarlet anyway.
It’ll be really fucking awkward if she’s rooming with anyone who isn’t Scarlet, but that’s a problem to fearfully obsess over another time.
Vodka trudges out of Ritto Dormitory, decidedly less confident than she was earlier.
Scarlet stays inside their room a little longer, glancing in her closet for one last thing to put in her bag. She doesn’t end up finding it, which is weird, but she can’t waste time searching and follows shortly after.
-
And that’s the story of how hit Umamusume and renowned Japanese Derby winner Vodka ends up on a two-hour road trip with a strap-on uncomfortably shoved between her thighs. Her jeans had been able to hide it earlier, but it turns out that having them pulled back slightly by the seats of her trainer’s van make her dick far more obvious than she’d like it to be.
Scarlet is on her right, wistfully gazing out of the open window as she mourns being able to sit next to anybody else. As the last people in the vehicle, they’d had the last pick on seats – not that Vodka would have been allowed to pick duct taping herself to the underside of the van anyway, but it’s the thought that counts. Her rival refuses to speak a word to her, too caught up in looking at the grass, grass and more grass that the Japanese countryside contains.
Possibly even worse is the fact that Gold Ship is sat to her left. They’re usually really good friends, but she keeps throwing herself around in the seatbelt, yelling and proclaiming that the speed they’re travelling doesn’t compute with her internal random-access memory. Vodka doesn’t know what that means. What she does know is that it’ll only take one wrong move for Gold Ship to brush up against her, ruining her perfect positioning and possibly exposing her secret to the entire team. She can only pray that McQueen succeeds in begging her to sit still.
It’s a horrifically long journey. Spe, Suzuka and Teio are playing Uno on the four-seat table towards the front of the van, and Vodka wishes she was there with them so that it’d at least hide her crotch.
Stupid thoughts for stupid situations.
She hates herself for being curious. She hates herself for even having the idea in the first place, because it was ridiculous, and dumb, and as much as she really liked it, it definitely didn’t make her any cooler. This isn’t cool.
After half an hour, Gold Ship (thankfully) falls silent, and Vodka looks over to discover that she’s fast asleep. Everyone else is far away enough to justify her shifting a bit in her seat. She carefully readjusts, and upon further inspection, nothing looks out of place aside from the leather poking out over the top of the jeans.
But that can’t be helped. And the belt probably would have made things worse, so this is as comfortable as things are going to get.
What isn’t comfortable is the silence – Scarlet is uncharacteristically quiet, with her eyes still fixated on the very little happening outside as they drive. Her head rests on top of her balled fist, and she leans on the window like she’s deep in thought. Something has to be up.
So Vodka asks her about it in the most passive-aggressive way possible, slightly concerned but mostly having nothing better to do. “You’ve been weirdly nice to me today.”
“How?” Scarlet mumbles. She’s not in the mood to talk.
“I mean, we’re usually trying to kill each other in the back of the van. And you didn’t shout at me for putting your seatbelt into the wrong hole when you asked me to help with it.”
“Wrong hole—?” Scarlet glances down, and sure enough, her seatbelt is stretched across what’s basically the entire back seat. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
“I couldn’t see. Gold Ship was in the way.”
“She’s on the complete other side of you, you idiot!”
“Well, that’s not the point!” Vodka shouts back, far too loud. The other people in the van have learned not to take any notice of them fighting by now, and Gold Ship stays comatose to her left. “I just… stop being so silent. You’re seriously freaking me out.”
“It’s been a long day, okay?” Scarlet tells her, less vulnerable and more trying to get Vodka off of her back.
“Yeah, well, same here,” Vodka replies, glancing as inconspicuously as she can down at her crotch.
Without even knowing what’s wrong with her rival, Vodka can infer from the situation that they’re upset for two very different reasons. Unless Scarlet magically grew a dick overnight, that is, and had the exact same problem as Vodka with her immature actions becoming her undoing.
But the chances of that are miniscule. Unheard of. A mathematical impossibility. Nobody does that. Nobody suddenly sprouts a penis when they go to sleep at night and then dedicates their time to cultivating it like a small succulent house plant until it grows big and strong.
Given that fact, it’s absolutely shameful that the moment the thought enters her head, Vodka has to stop herself from thinking about it by taking a leaf out of Gold Ship’s book and knocking herself clean out. She figures that if she’s unconscious, her nose won’t bleed, and she’ll stop worrying about her… phallic problem.
Before she starts attempting to go to sleep, she thinks she sees Scarlet staring at her from the corner of her eye. She’s still fully turned toward the window, like she’s scared of making herself apparent, but her gaze is definitely settled on Vodka.
She’s looking down at her hips.
Terrified to accept the alternative, Vodka puts it down to fear-induced hallucination, and slams herself against the car seat headrest until she feels woozy.
-
The van grinds to a halt, quite literally. It’s common knowledge amongst Team Spica that their trainer is unbelievably broke, and it’s hard to imagine him spending money on something as trivial as double-checking his vehicle is road legal.
Vodka wakes up with a start to the worryingly familiar sound of the engine failing. Everyone is already unbuckling their seatbelts and standing up, with the exception of the three team members on the final row – Scarlet can’t reach across to where Vodka had mistakenly fastened her in, and Gold Ship is… well, to be honest, Vodka is unsure if Gold Ship is even alive. She stretches out, having fallen asleep in a tangle of limbs to hide as much of her thighs as she could, and gently shakes her friend.
“Golshi,” she groans. “Hey, Golshi, we’re here.”
There’s no response, aside from a snore so loud, the girls getting out of the van turn around to check that she’s okay. It alerts their trainer in the driver’s seat, too, who gestures for the rest of his team to keep walking as he makes his way over to the troublesome trio.
“Everything good back here?” he asks, giving the three of them a reasonably concerned look. “We need to get settled in the hotel. Check-in closes in thirty, I may have slightly misjudged when to set off—“
“We’ll deal with her,” Scarlet suddenly interrupts from Vodka’s other side. She’s evidently given up on getting out of the window seat.
“Are you sure? She’s… you know what she’s like.”
“Yeah, I don’t know about this, Scarlet,” Vodka says, shaking Gold Ship again. “I mean, she just snored, so she’s gotta be alive, but still…”
“I said that we’ll deal with her,” Scarlet insists. She gives Vodka her trademark shut the fuck up, you don’t know what you’re talking about glare, then turns politely to their trainer like it’s nothing. Like she’s two different people. “You should all go on ahead if we don’t have much time. We’ll catch up later.”
“Eh, I guess it makes sense. You two are rooming together, anyway.”
Called it, Vodka thinks to herself, deeply grateful to the Three Goddesses for sparing her from whatever biblical embarrassment she may have had to suffer if things had been any other way. Then she frowns, because being told that she’s sharing a room with Scarlet means she has to share a room with Scarlet.
“Let Golshi know she’s sharing with McQueen when she wakes up,” their trainer continues. “I’m gonna go to the bar.”
“You are hopeless,” Scarlet deadpans.
“I’m also not a racer, so I can drink as much as I want,” he grins, and after tossing the keys to Vodka he makes his way out of the sliding door of the van. “Once you retire, you’ll understand,” he calls back to them before leaving.
Trainer doesn’t close the door behind him, which is extremely optimistic, considering it could take millennia until Gold Ship regains consciousness.
Vodka is the first to attempt to wake the sleeping lion, or rather the sleeping Umamusume. She stands up from her seat to get a better angle and continues to vigorously shake her friend until she hears an indignant throat-clear from the window seat.
Scarlet is still stuck. It’s almost comical how she’s laid out across basically the entire bench, and yet, can’t reach where her seatbelt is plugged in.
“Give me one good reason to let you outta there,” Vodka smirks.
Her face turns red, like the sun coming up over the horizon on a beautiful morning. “Are you— Vodka, I’ll kill you if you don’t, I swear.“
“Loud incorrect buzzer,” and yes, Vodka actually says that out loud. “That doesn’t count. You threaten to kill me all the time. You’ve gotta start thinking of more creative ones.”
“Okay, fine ! We’re playing that game? I’ll tell everyone at camp that you’re wearing that thing.”
And as if confirming every single one of Vodka’s worst fears, Scarlet’s finger points directly where she’s been trying to avoid for the entire duration of the trip. After standing up, the strap has slipped from its precarious position between her buttcheeks; her jeans are now tenting in a way that is not flattering in the slightest.
Vodka’s face also turns red, but it’s not like the sun coming up over the horizon on a beautiful morning. It’s more like a meteorite is rapidly hurtling towards the Earth, and as it gets closer, the sky is starting to burn, and everything is going to die.
Her brain starts forming thoughts it shouldn’t. Her nose is getting a little itchy.
She wordlessly shuffles over to where Scarlet is laid, expression sullen as she releases the lock on the seatbelt.
“Why, thank you,” Scarlet grins, knowing she’s won. “You know, I have no idea why you thought this was a good idea. You really wanted me that badly? I didn’t know you were this shameless.”
“Shut up,” Vodka mumbles. She’s blushing profusely, and she knows it, and she hates it. She also hates how it looks like she has a boner.
Which she doesn’t, because she doesn’t even have a dick in the first place, and why would she ever get a boner thinking about Scarlet ? They aren’t dating. Vodka doesn’t feel a single shred of attraction to her – their relationship is a thing of technicality. Neither of them had really meant any of it. They were just bored after the Oka Sho, and all that tension had to go somewhere. She was just bored.
It’s nothing to do with the way Scarlet acts like she holds so much power over her, the way she takes every small victory and makes sure Vodka knows that she’s better than her at every given opportunity. It’s not her admittedly far bigger chest, and it seriously can’t be her muscles, because there aren’t even any there.
There aren’t. She… yes, okay, maybe her thighs are pretty well defined, and there’s abs in there somewhere. That’s not even something she’d be into, though. Why would you believe any differently?
It means absolutely nothing that looking at her rival kind of feels like how she felt when she was a kid seeing all the pretty horsegirls on TV.
But she’s distracted from the task at hand, and that is getting Gold Ship off of her ass and into the cheap two-star hotel their trainer had likely taken out a loan to afford. Scarlet seems to have completely forgotten their last interaction (which is fantastic news) and is now yelling at Gold Ship, throwing her limp body around, doing everything she can in a futile attempt to wake her up.
“Hey, wait,” Vodka says, tapping Scarlet on the shoulder with one hand whilst wiping away the blood on her upper lip with the other. “I have an idea. What does Golshi like?”
“Uhh… McQueen. Being a nuisance.”
Gold Ship moves around a little, but she doesn’t open her eyes, letting out a bellowing yawn that seems to shake the very foundations of the van.
“Dig deeper,” Vodka urges Scarlet. “I think we might be getting somewhere.”
“Basketball?”
Silence.
“Unspecified forms of violence?”
Nothing happens.
Scarlet groans, throwing her hands up in defeat. “Vodka, I don’t know! We always follow her around, but she’s so weird. I have no idea.”
“How about hot mustard?”
At once, there’s a stir. The ground opens up beneath them, taking with it the frail flooring of their trainer’s van – iridescent beams of red and yellow light shoot up from the deepest depths of the planet, signaling the arrival of a beast with unquantified strength.
…okay, not quite. But Gold Ship rises at the mention of her favourite condiment, arms crossed over her chest like a mummy resurrecting from an Ancient Egyptian tomb. Her eyes shoot open once she’s upright.
“Where?” Gold Ship asks, in perfect English.
Vodka doesn’t really understand her, but it’s easy enough to assume what she’s asking from the serious tone of her voice. “McQueen’s room. She has a whole bunch of it, and she’s eating it without you, dude.”
That’s all it takes. Gold Ship raises a hand to silence her friend, and wordlessly strides out of the van. Each step causes its own tremor in the land.
Scarlet and Vodka, although victorious, are left in a state of utter confusion.
“Uh, what is she going to do when she figures out there isn’t any?” Scarlet asks, looking over at Vodka with an eyebrow raised in concern.
Vodka shrugs. “Not our problem.”
They should be moving to leave. There’s nobody left to worry about in the vehicle apart from themselves, and it should be easy – hop out of the door, slide it shut, lock it with the key she’d been given by their trainer. As trustworthy trainees would.
Vodka half expects Scarlet to grab her wrist and drag her out. It makes sense. She’s an honor student, prides herself on her values, and wouldn't be caught dead being late to anything. The time limit on their check-in is also a pretty motivating factor, because if they don’t go now, they could be locked out of their room for the whole night. They could be sleeping in the back of the van, and having to explain to their teammates in the morning at the breakfast table that yeah, neither of us moved for a whole twenty minutes, and that’s why we were late.
But weirdly enough, that’s what it looks like is going to happen. Scarlet makes no effort to depart the vehicle, despite the gentle breeze flowing in through the open door not even a metre away. She’s staring intently at Vodka, like she’s expecting something.
Vodka doesn’t really know what it is she’s expecting. Again, their relationship is… complicated, but that doesn’t mean they care about each other. Or at least, they shouldn't. Technicality. That’s all it was.
That’s all it was, Vodka tells herself in her mind as she steps towards the door.
Scarlet has other ideas.
“Lock it,” she says quietly, her voice coarse.
“Huh?”
“I said lock it. Lock the door.”
“Why?” Vodka asks, cautiously moving closer to it, the key clutched tightly in her sweaty palm.
“I think you know why,” Scarlet responds. She moves closer as well, and the van is so cramped that it only takes a single step for her to be right next to Vodka. “You seriously piss me off, you know?”
“I don’t—” Vodka’s throat closes up. Her heart is racing. “I didn’t do anything. Apart from like, the seatbelt thing, I guess, but that was an accident—”
“Goddesses, you’re dense.”
It’s at that moment that Scarlet gives in, taking the key from Vodka’s open hand and reaching to slide the door of the van shut herself. It rattles to a close, and Vodka notices her hand shaking slightly as she tries to put the key in the hole, but eventually she turns it and it locks with a vicious crunch.
Then, she’s undeniably looking at Vodka – not even trying to hide it like she was throughout the trip, almost as if she wants to make her attention as obvious as possible. Her eyes are practically brimming with desire, just like they were after the Oka Sho. Her ears are twitching as she somehow gets closer, closing distance Vodka didn’t even realise was there to close.
She puts a hand on Vodka’s stomach and pushes her back onto the back seat. Vodka doesn’t fight it. Scarlet straddles her lap, not kissing her, but hovering just above her lips.
Maybe she does have a boner, actually.
“This is what you want, right? That’s why you’re wearing it.”
Vodka tries to swallow the lump in her throat, but it comes up even thicker. “No… I mean, yes, but— that’s not why I… it’s complicated, okay?”
“But this is what you want,” Scarlet repeats, a question in the air.
It wasn’t her original intention. It was far from her original intention, and this whole mishap was an honest mistake, and the strap doesn’t belong at summer camp when all of her teammates are around and could catch her at any moment, no matter how much gender euphoria it may give.
Inexplicably, however, Vodka nods. She nods so hard that her already light head feels like it’s about to fall off of her neck. She’s sure that blood is streaming down her face, but her vision is too cloudy from arousal to double-check.
“You know, I was pissed whilst we were driving because I tried to look for it,” Scarlet explains, taking off the blouse she’s wearing whilst Vodka manually keeps her jaw from dropping. “I asked Trainer if we could room together. I thought… I don’t know, it’d be fun.”
“Mhm.” Vodka isn’t really listening.
“We’re nothing more than this, got it? We’re not girlfriends. We’re not even friends .”
“Mhm.”
“And I’m still going to beat you at the autumn Tenno Sho,” Scarlet continues, either unaware that Vodka’s preoccupied staring at her chest or just not caring. “I’ll be the one that wins in the end. You’re not allowed to lose to anyone else until then.”
“Mhm.”
“Good,” she smirks.
Then, before she can give another pathetic noise of acknowledgement, Scarlet kisses her.
No matter how much Vodka tells herself she hates Scarlet more than anything else in the world, or that they’ll never get along because they’re polar opposites, she can’t convince herself that the way her rival crashes their lips together like she owes her money isn’t the most attractive thing she’s ever experienced.
She’s not taking things slowly; whether that’s because of the stopwatch counting down on the time they have to check into the hotel, or simply because she can’t stand waiting for Vodka a second longer, it’s unclear. All she knows is the way she tastes and feels against her skin. Scarlet’s tongue slips into her mouth, practiced and perfect, and Vodka rests her hands on her waist to keep her firmly on her lap. Scarlet’s hands wrestle with the waistband of her jeans, popping the button and pulling them down just far enough to expose the black silicone.
“Someone’s excited,” Scarlet teases as she pulls away.
Vodka slides her hands down her rival’s body slightly, taking off her panties and ditching them on the floor. She’s definitely going to get angry about that later, and when Scarlet sinks to her knees in front of her, she assumes that she’s just picking them up and preparing a furious rant about treating her personal property with respect.
She’s not. Scarlet runs her tongue up the length of Vodka’s strap, still smirking up at her. Vodka’s brain short-circuits, and even though she can’t necessarily feel anything, she lets out an animalistic grunt.
Things escalate further, as they tend to when it comes to them. Scarlet’s hands are parting her thighs for easier access, and Vodka’s clit brushes up against the leather of the harness every so often at an angle that elicits more noise. The pseudo-blowjob is enough to kill her, quite honestly, because Scarlet sucks dick like a perfectionist too – she takes almost its entire length into her mouth every time, making sure it's soaked and ready.
Vodka tries to be worried about her, she really does. But her hand buries itself in Scarlet’s hair, stroking her sensitive ears on its way there, and forces her to take her cock impossibly deeper before she can stop it.
“Fuck, Scarlet,” she croaks out, and she wishes more than anything in the world she could feel herself touching the back of her throat.
Scarlet pulls back, breathing heavily, somehow enjoying this more than Vodka. She stands up and straddles her again. “I’ve not even started yet. You’re seriously struggling to keep up?”
“I can… fuck, I can, I promise—”
“Show me,” Scarlet murmurs. “Show me that you’re good enough to be my rival.”
Vodka nods profusely again. She lines up the strap with her free hand whilst the other roams Scarlet’s smooth chest and abs (to her earlier self’s dismay, there are definitely abs there, and she must have been in denial whilst trying to forget about how much they turned her on).
Her lips meet Scarlet’s again, but this time the kiss is slightly softer, more reassuring than anything else. Neither of them are nervous, and they never have been when this has happened before, because it all feels so right. She’s just making a promise.
I’ll be good. I’ll be good enough for you.
Scarlet sinks down onto her dick, taking all six inches like it was written in the stars. They fit together perfectly. Her face immediately contorts with pleasure, and yet, she’s still the most beautiful person Vodka’s ever had the privilege of laying her eyes upon. She smiles at her as she adjusts her hips. Vodka smiles back.
“Are you—?”
“Yeah,” Scarlet says, breath fogging up the window slightly in the already-stuffy van. She’s holding onto Vodka’s shoulders to support herself. “We don’t have much time. I want it hard.”
For once, Vodka doesn’t have a smartass response about how she’s not sure Scarlet would be able to take it. And that’s because she knows it would be a lie. She knows that if it had to be anybody, Scarlet would be the only person who could ever handle her.
Scarlet is there for her, all the time, persistently alongside her like a fever she just can’t seem to sweat out. She grinds her gears and laughs at her affinity for motorcycles and pretends she’s all prim and proper around figures of authority and sometimes it makes Vodka feel sick with rage.
But she’s there for her. That’s what matters.
Her rivalry with Scarlet makes her so much cooler than she ever could be if she was alone.
She starts thrusting in a steady rhythm, or at least, she tries to, but it’s difficult with her sweaty back pressed into the uncomfortable seat of the van. Scarlet isn’t too heavy but it’s difficult to drive her hips exactly where she remembers she’d want it, so she has to mostly rely on the steady rise and fall of her body.
Thank the Goddesses that their trainer gave her that key, because some of the noises coming from the back seat should never breach containment. Scarlet moans high and pretty, whilst Vodka whimpers lowly underneath her. The routine slapping of their skin against each other resonates throughout the vehicle, and it resonates, alright, because they’re practically fucking in an echo chamber.
Any sounds they make reverberate right back into their sensitive ears. It’s almost too much for Vodka, who can already feel herself getting close; she grinds against the inside of the harness, chasing release, and her tempo gets sloppier as a result.
Scarlet notices, because of course she does. Her orders come out in short breaths: “You’re not coming yet. Hold it.”
“Scarlet, please— ”
“No,” she says firmly. “Be a good boy and wait.”
That does it. That really does it, but Vodka grits her teeth together and keeps pounding the strap into her rival. It takes so much self control, self control that she didn’t even know she had in the first place.
Scarlet is starting to sink down onto her at an uneven pace, too, but Vodka doesn’t mention it out of fear it’ll piss her off enough to stop. Instead, she leans in to kiss the underside of her chin, slowly moving down to her neck and whimpering into the skin there. Yes, it may be an attempt to muffle her embarrassing noises, but Scarlet doesn’t seem to care as long as her attention is solely on her.
She pulls away for just a moment, though, to ask the all-important question: “Are you close?”
“Mhm,” Scarlet pants, roughly grabbing her by the hair and forcing her to kiss her on the lips again. “To say your form is totally off when you run, you’re—” she moans as Vodka brushes up against a particularly sweet spot, “you’re pretty good at this.”
“It isn’t off,” Vodka argues back through laboured breaths, kissing her between words. “Let’s talk about you instead, since you seem to— fuck, Scarlet, right there— you seem to love the attention so damn much.”
“And what if I do? What if I want your eyes on me like this all the time?”
“What if I wanted the same thing?”
“My eyes are on you,” Scarlet confesses, a thin strand of saliva connecting them in the middle. “Goddesses, Vodka, they always are.”
“I think you’re so beautiful,” Vodka groans.
The sun is setting outside the van, and as if to affirm her statement even further, the orange hues reflect in the sweat dripping down Scarlet’s perfect skin. Through the dark, it’s difficult to see her, but Vodka realises she has all of her features memorised. The determined fire in her eyes. Her silky hair, styled into those trademark twintails. The curve of her body and the way it moves under her hands.
She doesn’t want to let go of this moment. She doesn’t care about summer camp, doesn’t care for the interactions with Team Spica that come after they get out of this deathtrap. She doesn’t care about her and Scarlet’s endless back-and-forth, because behind each scathing remark, she’ll remember the way Scarlet whispered her name in that same indignant tone.
“Vodka, I’m gonna come,” Scarlet moans, gripping her shoulders impossibly tighter. Vodka’s stomach feels similarly tight in a different way – she hasn’t even touched herself, and yet…
It’s too much to think about, especially as Scarlet forgets how to say anything that isn’t the word harder under her breath.
She tries to do what she’s asked. She focuses every last drop of strength on driving her hips into Scarlet as rough and as quick as she can, and she gets the response she’s hoping for in the form of another desperate kiss. But just as Scarlet reaches what Vodka assumes is her climax, she pulls the strap out, and replaces it with her fingers.
Vodka grunts, and Scarlet pulls on her hair harder. “I want to feel you. Please.”
“Okay,” she replies, clearly not having the strength to tease her for bending to her will and every command. She’s drenched against Vodka’s fingers, and she’s pumping in and out of her with three before she even realises it. “There. It’s… shit, Vodka, right there, you’re so fucking good—”
Three more seconds. Vodka counts them in her head, and it feels like they could last forever.
Scarlet comes, and she comes hard, throbbing around Vodka’s fingers and crying out in pleasure. Vodka slides her free hand down her own unbuttoned jeans (which are undoubtedly wrecked by now, covered in slick and spit) and past the harness, frantically rubbing at her aching clit as she watches her rival fall apart on top of her. It gets her off almost immediately.
They kiss one last time. Vodka knows it’s their last, because Scarlet takes her time – she doesn’t roughly bite down on her lip with her fangs, or spit into her mouth in the way she knows she likes. It’s almost chaste, which is somehow weirder than the fact they’ve just had passionate car sex. Scarlet’s hands slide up across her collarbone to cup her cheeks. Her lips are soft. She tastes like cherries.
Then they lay there, motionless, breathing in tandem. Their orgasms rock through them as they savour the final moment until they have to forget it happened. Vodka’s mind lingers on some of the things Scarlet had said to her.
Show me. Be a good boy and wait. My eyes are on you.
For a fleeting moment, she feels like she could go again. Her hand rests limply on Scarlet’s bare back, pulling her close in a half-hug, half-holding her upright.
“Hey, are you okay?”
Scarlet exhales, shakes her head, then immediately stands up to put her blouse back on. “I’m fine. Get yourself together. We need to go check in.”
“If you need some time, we can always—”
“I said I’m fine , Vodka,” she insists. “If you want to sleep in this stupid thing, be my guest, but personally, I’m not really liking the idea of being stuck in a tin can with wheels.”
Vodka, still splayed out over the back seat of the van, lets out a guttural sigh. She wipes off the strap as well as she can with her already fucked-up jeans and does her best to conceal it again within them.
It’s back to business as usual.
-
After a fair amount of begging at the receptionist’s desk, the owners of the hotel reluctantly let Vodka and Scarlet in five minutes after check-in closes. It’s only because they’re fans of their rivalry – apparently, refusing a celebrity entry isn’t great for business, especially when they complain.
Scarlet threatens them with a bad review at least sixteen times. Vodka stands behind her and stares blankly at the wall, her mind still hazy.
They wordlessly make their way down to the small in-house bar to return the key to their trainer’s van. He seems confused, having heard Gold Ship rushing down the corridors yelling something about hot mustard quite a long time ago, but puts it down to his drunkenness. He asks if they’re okay, if anything happened. Scarlet makes up some intricate lie about the van door getting stuck.
She even manages to blame him for something that didn’t happen, arguing hey, maybe if you actually gave a flying fuck about your vehicle, you’d cough up some money and fix the stupid thing so this doesn’t happen again.
Vodka is still staring blankly at the wall. Her trainer clearly understands, because he slides his glass down the counter and asks the weary-looking bartender for another shot.
Scarlet drags her out of there before she can drink it.
Then they’re in their room. It’s outdated, tacky, and the wallpaper is peeling no matter which wall Vodka chooses to blankly stare at. Generally, it’s one of the nicer hotels they’ve stayed in for summer camp, which is a pretty dire reflection of Team Spica.
“Why are you ignoring me?” Vodka asks across the room once they’re settled in their separate beds. She’s changed her clothes and thrown the strap into the bathtub to worry about in the morning; she prays that Scarlet doesn’t find it first, because she’ll get yelled at for being so messy.
‘Separate beds’ is a stretch, anyway. There’s actually only one, a double. Scarlet has just decided to set up camp on the couch, even after Vodka offered to sleep there instead.
It’s silent for a moment, but she gets her answer eventually.
“I don’t know how to deal with this.”
Vodka’s ears prick up, and she rolls over so that she’s facing the couch. “What do you mean?”
“You said you thought I was beautiful,” Scarlet whispers, and it’s probably not for Vodka to hear.
She does. Her nose is tingling again already, and the Three Goddesses know she hates even hearing about all this romantic crap. It’s a person that she can’t be. As much as she wishes she could, it’s too much to bear.
Sappy feelings aren’t really involved when it comes to her definition of being cool. So for both hers and Scarlet’s sake, she lies through gritted teeth.
“It was just… just something stupid I said, okay?” Vodka mumbles, blushing from embarrassment at the idea she’d said it in the first place. “Don’t think too deeply about it. Think about how I’m gonna kick your ass at the Tenno Sho instead.”
“You won’t, but fine,” Scarlet replies. Her heart isn’t in it, though; there’s no venom in her words, and she rolls over on the couch so that she’s facing the cushions. That’s it. Her decision is final.
They don’t speak for the rest of the week.
And as much as Vodka hates to admit it, it’s no different from every other time they’ve fought.
The strap stays firmly buried in the bottom of her bag until they get back home from summer camp. After that, it’s dumped in the depths of Scarlet’s closet without a second thought.