Work Text:
Today was the Commander’s last day off of the month.
He had kept the day all to himself; mostly avoiding outside contact by ordering food online, playing video games, working out, and watching all sorts of television. It was great, he thought. Enjoying a day of slothful nothingness was the best remedy to a man of high value in an active global conflict.
The day wasn’t particularly great either. It was too sunny for him. He hated it with all he could ever, as the thought of being blinded by the Sun constantly wasn’t attractive at all. Maybe he could be a little mischievous and watch a few of his friends enjoy it in more revealing clothes? But then he’d had to suffer, and the view of his subordinates in tank tops and bikinis wasn’t worth the sweat of climbing up the small crests around the terrain of his walkways.
He hadn’t paid attention to much of the passive radio communications in his personal handheld, and neither had he been paying any attention to his cellphone either-
*buzz*
His phone had vibrated, the lack of density the wooden table it sat on only helped resonate the sound despite it being muted.
*buzz*
It repeated itself, its volume unchanged.
*buzz*
Then again.
*buzz*
Again.
But before he could be bothered with another ring, his fingers hurriedly grabbed it off of the table. Maybe it was an important work call? But then his radio would be blowing up with familiar voices.
The Commander found his thumbs swiftly typing the passcode of his phone after his fingerprint sensor had failed him thrice, a subtle hint of annoyance littered his face all because of it.
And upon being greeted by his home screen, he had found the source of the vibrations: FleetChat.
He gently tapped on its icon…
“how did that fine italian pussy feel, commander?”
His heart sank and his eyes blinded by the absolute flashbang his Port's group chat gave him, pacing around the house in a tense manner as he continued to watch the messages pool in.
His thumbs developed numerous beads of sweat, making the process of swiping through the chat logs harder.
“Stop talking about my sister that way, idiot!!” A message from Giuseppe Garibaldi followed after, seemingly responding the same way to the countless other texts that referenced that ‘fine Italian.’
Another text rolled by, but the sheer number of incoming texts turned it into a backlog that barely caught the glimpse of his eyes. “I’m sure our Commander can tell us all that it was more than just ‘fine.”
“Stupid pervert’s probably rubbing one out to it.” Hipper’s inflammatory text came in, sparking more confusion in the Commander’s conscience.
Hornet's message popped up in response. "That robot arm of hers probably tore it off the moment he got a little too excited."
“akagi would probably lap that shit up like a good girl lmfaoo.” A follow-up message that seemed completely out of topic came up with Shoukaku’s name on the top left side, with her immediately following her message up with a GIF of a fat man in the ocean drinking all of Earth’s water.
Akagi’s response came in an instant. “This doesn't even have anything to do with me!”
“exactly. you wish xdddd”
He had chosen to try and enter the absolute trench warfare that made up the group chat but the thousands of words that tried to make up a sentence just couldn't stick right. After all, where does one even start in this scenario?
Marblehead’s text rolled in, hers lucky enough to stay as the rest probably stopped to read it. “ts so unfair xruh, i litch have a bajillion selfies with him but he’s never posted us like that </3”
And another, this time from Bremerton. “Right? I have an entire album of us too. Hella unfair.”
The texts seemed to be an everlasting effort. He couldn’t find the words to fill in what he wanted to say, and the constant flurry of playful insults, teasing, and disapproving messages only clouded his mind more and more, leaving his thumbs hovering across the keyboard.
“Hey Commander, we see you typing.” Jean Bart’s text came in, an eye emoji reaction came after to compliment it.
He finally found the opportunity to respond, using Jean Bart’s message to introduce himself. The sweat his thumbs produced made it harder, and the constant misspellings of easy words only irritated him further, prompting to use the autocorrect feature instead.
“Hey guys…” He texted, unsure of what to say therefore keeping it simple.
Thousands of texts began coming in, his recently sent message immediately part of deep chat history as he watched the messages roll by; his eyes unable to process every one of them coming from the 600 or so active users in the chat.
A text from Prinz Heinrich showed up. “Did you two actually do it?!”
“Do what?” The Commander finally mustered up the courage to seek answers, his confused state of mind immediately shifting into an interrogative one. “What’s going on? Why are you girls flooding my texts?”
A more serious response came about as Kaga’s name and profile showed up, brandishing the message: “Stop playing coy. No shame in telling us directly, Commander.”
His fingers went east to west across the keyboard in breakneck speed in hopes of crafting responses, making sure that his confusion was to be dealt with.
“Seriously, girls.” He messaged, following his own words with numerous eyebrow raise emojis. “Don’t know what y’all are talking about.”
Suddenly, his words were met with multiple responses, but he scrolled back up to read the first one.
“YOUR JUUSTAGRAM STORY, DUMBASS.” Hammann’s message made his heart drop, the insult prompting him to think something went terribly wrong.
He rapidly left the chat group and jumped into his Juustagram, the red icons of hearts and private messages popping up instantly as it booted up,
Normally, he’d post stupid memes or videos, and on a good day he’d post selfies of himself in various locations or just regular news and announcements that were made for everyone in the Port to read.
But this one was a tad different.
It was a selfie of a man and Duca degli Abruzzi on what seemed to be a couch. They were closely bound together shoulder by shoulder, her face radiant with a grin that accentuated her oddly pink cheeks and the slight shine on her facial features from the dim lamp right beside them. An empty bottle of wine stood beside her, and odd marks on her neck and collarbones highlighted themselves as bruises, visible only because of the fact that she wore what seemed like a loose dress
What gave him the moment of realization was the man beside him. The man had a seemingly smug smile, but his thoughts and memories knew exactly that the man only looked like that because of the drowsiness and alcohol that gave him that expression. He wasn’t giving an expression of “I’m getting laid.’ It was more of an “I’m ready to go to bed.”
Of course he knew who this man was. He groaned in realization because he remembered who he was. He remembered all so clearly how that man got there.
It was him, after all.
He had checked to see the likes. They were unsurprisingly mostly from his friends from the Sardegna Empire, with Littorio’s heart reaction coming with an appropriate party streamer emoji and a few other unread messages. Some reacted with GIFS, and others, more messages. He didn’t bother to read them until later, as he knew that he had FleetChat to attend to, but one thing’s for certain, and that was that everyone in the Port had viewed it.
He had rushed back to the home page to find Duca’s profile, and unsurprisingly he found an available story icon for him to read.
It was an image of him resting his head on her shoulder, half of her face cut off by the phone’s camera angle seemingly focused on his head. On the lower part near his nose sat a shrunken text that held a red heart emoji with bossa nova filling in the story’s background music.
He gulped. His sweaty fingers began to inspire his armpits to act similarly and drench him in nervous reckoning, realizing that he had possibly pissed off, and surprised, hundreds of women at the same time. Women who’d break doors and shred planes just to see him.
He had begun remembering the night before, the cloudiness of being drunk slipping away ever so slightly. They were intimate after a dinner invite from Vittorio Veneto and a few others, one which he immediately found to be a showcase of Sardegnan home cooking.
He couldn’t piece together the rest of the details, but one drink led to another and he had found himself strolling down the Sardegnan private dormitory halls, arms locked with a woman whose beauty kept growing within him the more he thought about it.
He could barely even remember the way they kissed, yet he still knew how those lips felt when they came in contact with hers.
A sudden surge of curiosity came through as he decided to check if she had sent him any messages; the back of his mind eager to see if there were any more photos she had taken of them both.
Sure enough, her profile was there. Albeit sandwiched by an expected flurry of other shipgirls’ concerns.
“Good afternoon, Commander.” Her message hit differently now, her formalities seemed more like gentle whispers instead for a reason he couldn't exactly pinpoint. “Or rather I say… sweetheart? How does that sound to you? Hehe, anyways, I do hope you enjoy your last day off… let any others take care of those bothersome roles you fill in.”
He scrolled down, his tense figure relaxing into an opposite reaction as he plopped down a seat near him, reading and scrolling through her new messages.
“Sadly, I’m back to doing financial reports on the Sardegna Empire today, so I don't think that we will have the chance to gather for today.”
Something inside him sparked a high, one which had him entranced by the messages he was reading right at the moment. That lady who he knew as a secretary was suddenly way more valuable than anything he could ever think of, and her words began to feel like blessings to his message inbox.
“But worry not. I’ll be back when you are. I’ll even prepare that tea you seem to can’t get enough of.”
His smile maintained itself as his eyes kept on the screen, rereading certain portions of her messages while blocking out the growingly annoying FleetChat notifications, as he found most of them to be blatant attempts to cuss him out.
“I know you have enjoyed your time with me.” Abruzzi’s words teased him, even though its intentions were ambiguous. “I don’t mind causing much more of a riot, Commander. Ahaha.”
He couldn't let himself rush to a response, especially when he knew his words wouldn't form a grandiose set of sentences just like the ones she had sent him.
He was groggy, his head was foggy, he hadn’t taken a shower yet, he still had underlying aggression over the online video game he had gotten into in the morning.
All he could do was appreciate her.
“Just know that each day you’re with me, the tension in my shoulders melt to nothingness."
His posture grew to relax, much like how he did it when he was with her.
The Commander realized very well that she had some sort of spell cast on him, one which had him loose and eager to listen to more and more of her thoughts and expressions.
He didn’t even complain. He knew very well that he loved it.
“Don’t get too comfortable now. Especially not with me.”
He knew very well that he loved her.
It was almost like she predicted him.
Her dangerously sweet words came to an end with another red heart, sealing off his confusion and blocking himself from the utter catastrophe that still seemingly went on in FleetChat the recent notifications rolling in asking him of his whereabouts and why he had ghosted everyone.
All of it were to be ignored as his thumbs slowly traced the edges of his phone upwards, only to swiftly strike on the power button, shutting it off and setting it aside.
“...fuck yeah.” He whispered, aggressively pumping his fist in front of him.
For once in his life, he wanted this day off to end as soon as possible.