Work Text:
***
“Thou art nothing more than an oversized cat, my dear.”
“Bah,” says Scharnhorst, before she downs her milk. “I appreciate the fact that you only drink blood and water, but perhaps you could just leave me alone.”
“I was not referring to thy predilection for bovine liquids.”
“Wirklich?”
Duke of York smiles, showing her canines. She reaches across, patting the battlecruiser on her lavender head.
“Thou art lithe, strong, and cunning. Just like the tiger stalks its prey, or the lion rules the plains, thou art a queen upon the water. To be feline is a blessing, trust me.”
“Oh…”
***
“Bloody torpedoes!”
Standing on her bridge, Repulse frowns as she examines her hull.
“I told Wales I’d be careful. Here I am getting hit by two in one battle… what would Captain Tennant say?”
Her earpiece beeps, a signal coming from the light carrier to starboard.
“How bad?”
Repulse sighs. “Weapons are unimpaired but flooding’s worse than expected. Sorry, Perseus, I tried my best-”
“Stop apologising and let me do my work,” mutters Perseus. “Unless you want me to mess up because of your chattering.”
“Fine.”
Repulse smiles indulgently, despite her wound. Perseus being her blunt self means all’s well.
***
“I hit it!”
“No, I hit it!”
Scharnhorst growls. “You want to test your shooting against me on the field of battle?”
Repulse winks playfully, pointing a finger. “I’d just vaporise you into ash.”
“Gott verdammt, I can’t keep up with your energy.” Scharnhorst sets her rifle down, watching as her companion skips away and returns with her prize. “It’s huge.”
“I know, right?” Repulse hugs the giant teddy bear, eyes gleaming with happiness. “What should I call him?”
“It’s a girl. Call her Dora.”
“To match Anton, Bruno and Caesar?”
“Insightful.”
Repulse giggles. “Hood taught me, just for you.”
***
Perseus draws the zipper of her racing suit down a few inches. How cool the air feels! Panting, she accepts her water bottle.
Before spitting the liquid out.
“Bleugh! What is this?”
“Optimised fluid, little owl.” Duke of York looks a fetching race queen, lounging by her car while her crew switch out her tyres, but her expression is positively impish.
“Dork, give me normal water next time. I’m a medic – I know this isn’t normal.”
“Only if this race ends in victory for thee, my amaranth angel.”
Perseus huffs, but downs the bottle, and makes sure she comes first.
***
“You wield a halberd. Aren’t you supposed to have upper body strength?”
“Yes… but… this is… heavy,” gasps Perseus, almost squashed flat on the bench press.
Scharnhorst shrugs. “Girl, I don’t know what’s wrong with you. That’s half my usual load.”
“Have you… considered… the fact that you’re… a…” With an almighty effort Perseus saves herself from being crushed, and her words tumble out in one mighty breath. “A battlecruiser twice my displacement and four times my horsepower?”
The German blinks her one eye. “Wow. You memorised those figures?”
Perseus flushes, looking away. “Well, uh, it’s part of the job.”
***
“Is it to thy taste?”
Repulse doesn’t reply. Instead she twirls before the mirror.
“I didn’t expect black to suit me,” she whispers.
Behind her, she sees Duke of York rise and glide over through the candlelit gloom. The battleship is dressed for the party, looking utterly ravishing.
Slowly, York runs her hand down Repulse’s chin. Her skin is cold. Yet Repulse does not shiver. She knows the touch well by now. It has, after all, just dressed her up in this frilled gothic outfit.
The vampire whispers something into her ear, and that is what makes her legs weak.
***
“Starting in three, two…” Perseus says, absent-mindedly, “one.”
The table shakes. The floor shudders. The rotation of the earth grinds to a halt as a titanic contest begins, worth of the gods.
With a primal howl, Scharnhorst tenses her arm muscles, staring at her hand, clasped with Repulse’s, trying to drive it into the wood.
Repulse’s teeth are clenched, just like her free fist behind her back, as she focuses her will into the contest.
Wolf against lion, Ironblood against Royal Navy, it’s in the balance-
While Perseus scrolls through her phone, not giving a damn.
Arm wrestling’s pointless anyway.
***
Scharnhorst is leaving the hospital when she sees a pink-haired figure in a hospital gown.
“Hey, Percy!”
The figure catches her eye, flinches, and tries to hide.
“I’m locked on, Percy.” In three strides Scharnhorst is upon her. “Sag mir, what happened?”
Perseus groans, averting her gaze. “Dork drank a bit too much of my blood yesterday. It’s alright, I’ll be discharged tomorrow…”
Her voice trails off when she turns her head back around.
“Scharnie?”
“I’m just… damn. I missed out.”
“You should have been there. It was nice until she sucked up too much.”
Somewhere, Duke of York sneezes.
***
“What did you want?” asks Repulse. Then she stops, mouth dropping open.
Sprawled out on the couch, Duke of York beckons languidly to her. “Join us, dearest. See how comfortable Perseus is!”
And indeed, Perseus – with fanged mouth, revealing red robes, and bat wings, acquired God knows how – is curled up within the vampire lady’s embrace.
Her innocence so altered is intoxicating.
Repulse swallows, heart thumping as all manner of heated thoughts race through her head. “Is she… like you?”
“Indeed.” York nods graciously. “Just for this night. T’would be a shame if thou walked out, no?”
Hesitantly, Repulse nods.
***
“Target that Rook!”
Eleven, fourteen and fifteen inch guns roar in symphony. Shells bracket the Siren. Moments later its three killers are upon it – Duke of York dancing to starboard, Repulse vaulting over the remains, Scharnhorst smashing her way through.
Then they are together again. York casts a glance to either side. Straight sword held upright by a strong, slender arm, lips drawn back in a war cry; shark-like jaws champing on metal and barrels smoking, knuckles cracking for another kill.
How beautiful, to taste the enemy’s ichor with these two.
“Salvo fire! All ye, weep at your own demise!”
***
“Girls.”
“Yes?”
“Yeah?”
“Ja?”
The covers are light on Repulse’s bare form. The three women with her, on the other hand, only make her feel warmer.
“I need to use the loo. Can I get out?”
“Oh.” Next to her Perseus shifts. “Hey, Scharnie, can you scootch?”
“I would,” complains the German battlecruiser, yawning, “but this infernal daemonette has me pinned.”
“I am no servant of hell.”
“You fuck like one though,” says Scharnhorst blandly.
That makes Duke of York laugh. Even Perseus snorts.
Repulse makes a face. “Christ’s sake, Scharnhorst.”
“It’s true though, isn’t it?” Scharnhorst turns on her side. Patchless, her scarred features are shown in all their glory, yet Repulse’s eyes are drawn to the perfect lines of her nose and jaw.
“Yes… but I feel you took up most of her attention last night.”
“Hey.” Perseus bumps her on the elbow. “Was I not enough?”
“No, no!” Repulse remembers the soft, caring touches with a blush. She’d not known the healer had such a side to her. “It’s just, all four of us did this together. We need to figure out how to share.”
“Sharing is caring,” says Perseus, deadpan, eliciting more laughter.
“You are all fools,” growls Duke of York, majestically taking up the centre of the bed with her divine body. It is a happy, satisfied growl.
In the end Repulse does get to use the loo, and they decide to do it again sometime. It’s too nice waking up together in the morning.