"A'right, git." [PG-13]

[Marked PG-13 for some mild sexual content, you're welcome Verdus ;)]

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Pretty sailors with broad, tall bodies and easy smiles are a dime a dozen at port. Robert is also young, straight out of Westfall. She would put money on it. Farm boys with a way of speaking plain and hardly a chest hair have no business being out in the heart of the Cartel's dealings, but they run off to do it anyway, thirsty for more adventure than they can find behind a plow. In this case, he hasn't even had time to experience his first shore leave. She is doing him a favor, taking him away from his scurvy-ridden mates and sparing him the inevitability of a bored pay-fuck for one more weekend.

He's inexperienced, and it shows. He fumbles more than once, but she helps, and he's eager. No doubt she's teaching him skills for the future free of charge, and she's okay with that. She doesn't expect much else from him, and when she crawls out of bed in the morning she is profoundly unsurprised to find him still beside her, arms curled around her naked body as he sleeps. The washroom is cold, so she cleans up quickly in the grey early morning light.

Coffee perked, she pours a cup and cracks a few eggs into a bowl. Barefoot, she scrambles them over the stove, spatula in one hand and cigarette in the other, dressed in a pair of sturdy, hip-hugging canvas pants and a warm sweater. When he slips his warm hands around her waist, she's not caught off-guard; nor does she flinch when he kisses the side of her neck. She cuts the eggs in two with the spatula and sets the bigger portion on a plate. "Toast's on the hearth," she says, nodding toward the grate. He kisses her again, hands sliding up over the flat plane of her belly under the soft knit of her shirt. She resigns herself to the prospect of a cold breakfast, takes the skillet off the heat, and grabs his wrist, dragging him past the fireplace (she simply moves the toast-trap to one side of the hearth; it'll warm later).

She lies quietly with him for some time, watching the dawn turn the walls of her tiny bedroom red, then gold, pale arms folded behind her head while he sleeps sprawled over her. He's warm, and his weight is comforting, but it's wearing thin fast. She nudges him, shifting her body and looking down into his groggy and handsome--if boyish--face.

"A'right, git."

"What?" Blue eyes flecked with hazel and awash with bewilderment greeted her. "But..."

"Y'got yours, didn't ya? Go on. Breakfast's portable, an' I've got shite ta do." She wiggled out from under him, easily dodging his attempts to pull her back into bed, hauling her faded pants up over her narrow hips and fastening the buttons one after another. She tossed his shirt and pants at the bed and they smacked into him, a loose sleeve blocking his view of her bare breasts for an instant before he pulled it off of his face and gaped at her, confusion giving way to hurt.

"Can I see you again?"

"Wouldn't count on it, sugar." She pulled on her boots, tucked her pants into them and buckled the straps, fastening them snugly at her ankles and up her calves. Then her dark eyes were on him. "Better get dressed, darlin', or ye'll be vacatin' in yer skivvies."

She pulled her sweater over her head and stalked off to the kitchen, returning the toast to the coals and sucking down cold coffee with a grimace. Her sailor appeared just as she was stacking cold eggs on warm bread, cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth. She pressed the sandwich into his hands without a word, buckled his belt for him, and tucked his wallet back into his pocket. "Wouldn't want t'forget this, eh." The poor boy looked shell-shocked, sandwich grasped in one large hand, forgotten. She herded him out of the apartment, shrugging her long jacket on over the belt with holstered knives she wore low and snug on her hips.

"But..."

Skulley swiftly reached up and put a hand on the back of his neck, pulling him down to stop his protest with her mouth before it could properly begin. A long moment later, she released him and locked her door, clearing her throat as she did so. "S'enough a' that, never leave th'house at this rate."

She patted his backside as she passed and headed down the common stairwell, calling up over her shoulder at the dazed young man. "Ye've got a fine arse, Bobby. Never let anyone say different."