Wings and Hammers

2. A Beautiful Afternoon

"Did you get it done?" Aura asked her lover, holding his hand. Her face was beamed up with all the glow she picked up ever since she was reappointed to the Scouts. She looked up at him through her eyelashes, unable and unwilling to stop blushing.

"I may have," he answered, as they walked the Orvud streets, hand in hand. If he was to be completely honest, he had not stopped blushing either. Ever since he saw her. "I just couldn't stand being away from you anymore, I guess," he shrugged and put his arm around her. "This is good," she sounded peaceful as they walked into a bar, similar to the ones they visited often when they were younger.

As Aura was about to sit at the bar, Erwin pulled her away. "Let's take a cabin today," he said, in a voice that was calm and arousing at the same time. She only smiled, twirling a loose lock shyly.

"Commander!" the bar manager greeted him as he crossed to an assumably pre-booked cabin. "Send in a single malt, will you?" Erwin nodded at him. "Sure, Sir."
"What's so special today, Commander Cinnamon Roll?" Aura flopped herself on the cabin bed, "why do we have a cabin? I thought the bar was cooler."

He cocked his head on one side, looking at her. "I've missed you so much, baby," he said, walking up to her and took her face in his hand. He looked deep into her eyes, as if his whole existence held meaning only at such moments. And, in the blink of an eye, he captured her soft lips with his slightly chapped ones. Aura wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back with all her might. As he held her by the small of her neck, she moaned softly into his mouth. Her fingers ran through his previously neatly parted hair.

A knock on the door forced them to part for a few minutes. A young boy came in with a bottle of whiskey, two glasses and an ice tub and left them on the bedstand. "Are you sure you don't want bourbon?" Aura asked Erwin, "I don't mind bourbon."

"I don't mind whiskey," he replied with a chaste smile on his face as he struggled with the cork of the bottle. "I don't mind anything when I'm with you. Hmm.. looks like you have to make all the drinks." His smile slowly disappeared as he realized he couldn't do something as simple as opening a bottle with one hand.

"Come here," Aura implored, tapping the bed in front of her. He brought her the bottle and she put it away. "You come here," she implored again, opening up her arms. As he sunk in, she held his huge face in between her small hands and kissed his forehead. He looked into her eyes again and said, "I wish I had both my arms to hold you with."

"You know you don't have to be like that," she told him as he kissed her forehead.
"Like what?" he asked, kissing the tops of her eyes.

"This self-abhorrent! You don't have to hate yourself after you've given up so much for the sake of everyone else. You are the..."

Her speech was interrupted by Erwin's incessant kissing. However, as the adamant self that she was, she continued speaking into his mouth, "mmm... aaa.. thh... grrr.. mmm.. commmm.." As she continued, he broke out laughing, "what? What did you say?"

As she stared at him blankly, he continued laughing. He hadn't felt like this in months. He hadn't laughed like this for as long as he could remember. He spread himself out on the bed and clutched at his stomach with his left hand. She poured whiskey in the two glasses and handed one to him.

"So what were you saying?" Erwin asked, trying too hard to sound cocky.
"I was just telling you how amazing you are. And, how I'm not saying this only because I'm head over heels in love with you," Aura replied.

To this, he raised one of his magnificent eyebrows and questioned, "you are?"
"What? Head over heels in love with you? Brave of you to assume I have enough patience to be fooling around with you for the last 10 years."
"So you're saying.."