A Light Touch (Eustass X Reader)

Chapter 14: Attraction

Hip's trying to keep a straight face, and Emma is failing miserably, crumpled into a ball nearby laughing into both of her hands. You move your collar back over the bright bruised kiss Kid had left on the top of your shoulder.

"Your first kiss." Hip manages to say, her features twisting into a grin. "Sorry, (Y/N), we're not laughing at you."

"I didn't figure, I just don't get why it's so funny." You say with a smile. You're almost on the verge of laughing yourself because Emma's laughter is so infectious.

"It's just... The Captain's fighting style..." Hip starts, but she's losing control and nearly laughing before Emma interjects.

"WE CALL HIM A BRUISER!" Emma blurts out before falling into a full fit of laughter.

All three of you end up in a fit of laughter, though for you it was Emma's tear-filled voice, half-dead from laughing so long that pushed you over. You hadn't meant to add fuel to the proverbial roast that Eustass was sure to face from Hip and Emma, but that's how things had ended up.

"Ah, well, let's focus on your legs for today and tomorrow then, and give your shoulder a chance to heal up on it's own." Hip says after a minute, wiping an errant tear from her eye. "I mean, laughin' at the cap'n is good exercise too, but we need to make sure you're light on your feet."

"Sometimes the best defense is to not be there in the first place?"

"Best defense is no be there." Hip corrects. "It's a quote from an old movie, but the idea is that you don't actually need to fight most fights to win. Eventually, you'll get good enough that you will have options, but the longer – and faster – you can run, the better your chances of finding help. Fortunately, we don't have to go old school and run you ragged in laps around the property, we'll start with a treadmill."

"I don't know why, but the idea that there's a really clean, really organized, and really sleek gym in the house just seems weird." You muse, looking around the decently sized work out space. It doesn't look like the entire crew could fit down here all at once, but close to it.

Hip laughs. "It was one of the last things to get added, and most of us use it for rehab and not our usual routines, but we all keep it maintained. Killer uses it the most." She walks over to a leg press machine and points at where the weight is double pinned at 550lbs/250Kg. "That's part of why Killer moves so fast it surprises you."

You wiggle into the seat of the machine after adjusting it forward a bit while Hip and Emma look on with amused smiles. You grunt and growl and push and manage to shift it just enough to make the pins jiggle, but that's it.

"That's some 'I just had so much adrenaline, I threw the car' kind of weight right there."

"You're not wrong, I've seen Kid and Killer lift cars to move 'em around the shop cause it was easier than getting the tow truck." Emma says. "Captain might be the only one who could bench more than Killer."

"I am surrounded by monsters." You muse. "Highly protective, really nice monsters, but holy hells."

Hip ruffled your hair. "Lil' bit. C'mon, let's start making you one of those nice monsters."

Hip and Emma put you through the proverbial ringer. They had you run and jog for so long you thought your lungs were going to pop and your legs were going to cave in, but you didn't die. Two and a half hours later you're released from the torture, and were quickly realizing that what you had thought was 'in shape' and what the crew considered In Shape were two vastly different definitions.

The only bad part was that you were laying on the floor, covered in sweat, your hair matted to your face and you had just barely caught your breath when Kid came into the gym.