Chapter Text
Dexter Grif couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
There they were, huddled around Carolina’s makeshift workbench. The Reds and Grey were a solid arm’s length away, true, but they were all staring at the laser rifle. His laser rifle. And Carolina had tools, and yeah, she actually planned on taking it apart. And they were going to let her.
Fuck that shit.
“Hey!” he said, as he stalked up to the workbench and grabbed for the gun. “You’re not taking it apart!”
“Grif, what are you- Hey!” Carolina exclaimed, turning to face him as she tried to slide it behind her on the bench. Not deterred, the big man made a grab around her, pinning her back against the edge, and one arm between them. “Get off me!”
“What the hell, Gr-- Oomf!” Simmons said, trying to pull him off her, and receiving an elbow in the gut for his trouble. Sarge and Lopez jumped in as well, grabbing at the orange soldier. Both men ended up on the ground, Grif pushing Sarge off his feet, and Lopez slipping while tugging on him. Somewhere in the background, he could hear Tucker laughing his ass off. The entire time, he continued to try to reach around her, not backing up an inch.
“Get. Off. Me!” Carolina commanded, trying to catch her breath as he pushed her harder into the table, driving the edge right into her kidneys. Moving her arm was impossible; he weighed more than she expected. In fact, he was down right solid. She tried moving the fingers on the hand caught between them, and found that she could. Not enough to hurt, but he seemed to be ignoring pain, so maybe she would get lucky and find a ticklish spot, get him to move enough to get the advantage.
Grif wiggled slightly and his breath caught as the fingers began moving on his thigh, like she was trying to tickle him. It wasn’t a ticklish spot, it was so much worse. So, so, much worse. His boner went from zero to hard almost instantly, pushing his codpiece out painfully. He made another aggressive try for the rifle, trying to get it before she noticed just what she’d done.
The move backfired spectacularly when it gave her room to twist and drop her hip between his legs for leverage. He felt her go suddenly still, and her breath hissed out. He took advantage to grab the rifle and get out of reach of the now furious Freelancer. Realizing the others had regained their feet, he raised the gun, making sure he could see them all. "All of you, get back!" he ordered.
“Give me back the rifle, or I will take it,” Carolina said, her voice getting very low. She took a step toward him.
“BACK OFF LADY, OR I WILL PUT YOU IN THE GROUND!” Grif shouted.
“Grif… Put down the gun,” Carolina growled.
“No way. You were about to take it apart!”
“What did you think ‘dismantle’ meant?”
"I know what it means. I didn’t think you were actually going to do it!” Grif said.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Wash and Caboose appear. Fuck. “Grif, for the last time, put the laser-” Carolina ducked as Grif’s nerves got the better of him, and he fired.
“Uh, okay, that was an accident,” he said, lowering the weapon.
“I am going to break your fingers now,” she said. Grif made a very scared noise and took a few more steps back, bringing the weapon back up. He didn't take his eyes off her, though.
Grey interrupted, talking about alien weaponry. Talk of taking the laser apart was replaced with jabs at Grif intelligence when he brought up the connection between the gun and the teleportation cubes. Carolina absorbed it all, but a little part of her was impressed Grif had been the one to make the connection. And she had to admit, it took balls to stand up to her for as long as he had. Maybe there was more to the ‘lardass’ than she thought.