gyllenona - Tumblr blog

gyllenona · 1 day ago

Text

I've been blessed with reading this masterpiece IM GONNA COMBUST

tonight, tonight - anthony swofford (smut)

sum. you help anthony feel a little bit more like himself after he comes home. hurt/comfort, ptsd(?), fluff, porn with lots of plot lmao, smut, edging, crying, special thanks to iatemyleftlegg and damsnackbar03 for beta reading!! req. for anon!

wc. 3.1k playlist masterlist

When Anthony came back from war, you knew he’d be different, somehow. Altered irrevocably down to the strands of DNA lacing his very soul together.

You knew little of war or the all-consuming grief it instilled. You didn’t know the half of what Marines were forced to do.

Didn’t know they had to rip out their own still-beating hearts; pulmonary arteries now grenade fuses. Didn’t know that in the place of one’s heart, only an aching black hole was left. One that yearned for everything that once was, could have been, and would never be again.

But you knew it changed men. You knew it would change Anthony.

You were right.

When you opened the door to your apartment to see Anthony standing before you, he wore the same shell. The same exoskeleton as when you held his face, breathing in his aftershave and promising him you’d wait for him. The bone structure of his mask was the same as it had always been.

But you could see it in the way he grinned, that nervous energy, like a dog stuck in a kennel. You could see it in the stiff square of his shoulders that he was different. Damaged. Broken.

Nevertheless, there he stood. Breathing, for you. Alive, for you. That was enough.

The first week was something. You could see Anthony struggle, trying to fit into the same old nesting doll when he no longer fit.

You would catch him staring out the window, eyes distant and far, far away. He never talked about it, and you didn’t pry.

You hoped that your gentle affection would be enough for Anthony to call back the guards and lower the drawbridge to his heart. Maybe he’d let you cross over the moat of horrors he’d witnessed and let you inside.

—--

The morning was still sticky with sleep as you leaned against the mahogany counters, watching the coffeemaker do its magic.

You heard the soft slap of Anthony’s feet on the tile before his big arms wrapped around your waist, his face nuzzling into the back of your shoulder.

“Hey, big guy,” you whispered, setting your hands on top of his, cradling your midsection. Your thumbs brushed against his calloused knuckles. It felt like leaning against a radiator; he was so warm.

Anthony leaned around, supple lips pecking your temple, your cheek, the corner of your mouth.

“Mmm—”

“—I brushed ‘em,” Anthony murmured sleepily. He knew you were weird about morning breath. It was the little things; how he’d floss twice, rinse with antibacterial mouthwash so that he could kiss you as early as he wanted. That’s what you loved so much about him.

You hummed out a thank-you, melting into his mouth.

Another thing you noticed was that Anthony kissed differently now, too. Like he was planting flowers under your tongue, hyacinth seeds behind your teeth, just in case you needed something to remember him by come spring. Like it was all about to be ripped away at the stem, leaving nothing but bloody roots.

Your hand came up to cradle his face, your eyes searching his. For what? You didn’t know. They were cracked open, only slightly.

“You hungry?” you mumbled into his lips, turning your body around so that your chests pressed together.

“I’ll fix somethin’ later.”

“Let me. Please?”

Anthony’s shoulders loosened—only slightly, but still—and you felt him smile that lazy grin into your mouth.

“...Yeah, alright.”

—--

You quickly came to the realization that Anthony liked being taken care of. He’d never admit it himself, but you knew.

So you started to experiment.

Every morning, you’d have Anthony’s coffee ready by the time he stepped out of the shower, skin still dewy with condensation. Just the way he liked it: two sugars, no creamer, unless it was the Twix edition.

Anthony would slip into the kitchen—towel tied low on his hips, yawn waiting to break free—and see you standing with two coffee mugs in your hands. The steam would form a halo around your face, and he’d realize heaven smelt like espresso and clean laundry.

You’d grin up at him, handing him the USMC mug he brought with him when you moved in together. He’d notice the crack in the handle had been sealed up, and Anthony would just melt.

“Love you,” he’d murmur, leaning down to press a kiss to the crown of your head. The fact that you’d do something he could just-as-easily do himself, just for the fact of doing it for him…

It made the part of him, the part of himself that was still buried under a thousand pounds of burning sand and bones, ache with something that made him want to cry.

—--

Two weeks later, Anthony finally began to thaw.

He laid on his side, legs tangled up in silken sheets as he hummed a song you hadn’t heard before. The lamp on the cluttered bedside draped his jaw in gold ichor.

Your nails raked up and down his back, the weight of his world exhaling beneath your touch. He looked so raw, curled up beside you, glowing holy in the dim light.

Hum, hum, hum… Anthony could murmur hymns that made the angels dance all the way up in heaven.

The first time you’d ever caught him humming, he was so red he nearly caught fire. But now, you could feel him almost singing into your fingers.

Just as sleep was finally starting to weigh your eyelids back down to soil, your fingernails caught on something.

Fluttering back to life, you felt Anthony tense up, the hard muscles in his back jumping in alarm. The pads of your fingers brushed over a thick line of scar tissue.

“…Tony?”

“Yeah?”

“Does it still hurt?”

You felt Anthony sigh, felt him wilt with memories he never spoke about.

“Not… All the time.” His voice was sticky, clinging to the back of his throat, tongue trying to keep the words inside.

Your nails traced constellations down his back, circling his shoulder blades down to the dimples above his tailbone. I’m here, you tried to say. You can talk to me.

Anthony sucked in a shaky breath. You couldn’t see his face, but the tension coiling tight in his shoulders said enough.

“It was just a piece of shrapnel. Got sent out to get some batteries,” he tried to say coolly, like it was the most simple thing in the world. He didn’t mention the fact that they were dead, the fact he could still cough up the gunpowder exploding in his face as he palmed the sweaty heart of death for nothing.

“You,” the words came slowly from your lips. “You know you’re here, right?”

“Of course I know that. I’m not…” Crazy.

“But do you believe it?”

Anthony didn't speak for a long time, the thin sheet of ice keeping him suspended melting too fast for him to keep up. He tried to will the tears from his eyes, the shaking away from his fists.

Your hands found his shoulders, turning him over to lay flat. You crawled on top of him, your palms cool against his cheeks.

“Tony, breathe.” His chest was trembling, holding in giant bubbles of air to keep perfectly still, to try and make everything stop. “With me. In on four, out on eight. Can you do that for me?”

His eyes, the color of icicles melting in the sun, stared blankly up at you.

He was stuck in the desert. Stuck in those endless days and nights like splinters lodged too-deep in his skin.

“I—I’m still there.” He could feel the rifle tucked under his chin. Fire, fire, fire.

“Anthony. Look at me,” you said, harsher now. “Anthony!”

He gasped, releasing the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. His eyes unfogged, looking up at you with a mix of fear and need.

“Hey, hey, there you are. You’re safe. You’re okay.” You breathed slowly, exaggeratedly, hoping Anthony’d catch on.

When he finally did, you pressed soft kisses against the line of his jaw, hands on either side of his head.

“Where are you, Tony?”

Anthony drew in a slow breath, his big hands slowly finding your waist. His thumbs brushed under the hem of your shirt, making sure you were real.

“I’m… I’m with you.”

“You’re with me,” you sighed, kissing the mole above his top lip, his sorrow trusting you enough to let you in. To let himself be fragile with you.

You traced the lines of his abs where ribs met skin. You didn’t try to fill the silence, as long as Anthony was there. As long as he was breathing, slow and deep against you.

“Sorry,” Anthony murmured, one of his hands coming up to hold the back of your nape. His thumb brushed against the soft space between your jaw and your neck.

The heady mix of fear, shame, and need all shining through his eyes said more than his tongue would ever be able to.

“You got nothin’ to apologize for,” you hummed, lips brushing the dip of his collarbone, sucking into the skin and moving your way up, lathing against the smell of his body wash.

Anthony memorized the feeling of your lips on his skin like scripture, like if reciting it in times of need would save him. Maybe it already had.

“I… I need you,” he rasped, the words bubbling out too fast to stop. It wasn’t necessary sexual, either. Just an ache for you. I need you to take care of me because I’ve forgotten how to.

“You have me,” you breathed into the shell of Anthony’s ear, “all of me.”

You heard him sigh, his large palms roaming your body, pulling you down against him, your hips rocking together. “Hah… can I?”

You nodded, grasping Anthony’s chin and tilting his gaze up into yours. Your lips brushed as you spoke, breathing in each other’s air. “Just tell me what you need.”

“You,” he whispered. “God, just you.”

You felt your heart kick against your chest, herds of wild horses racing in your bloodstream through fields of exploding stars.

Those words were all you needed to get to work, mapping your fingers over Anthony’s body, not as though he was a soldier crafted from toughened leather and hollow veins where fear was carved out a long time ago.

You drifted your fingers over his skin as though he was an atlas, mapping over the whole world and all of its wonders, all of its pain.

“Where do you want me?”

Anthony’s hips rocked up into you, his eyes fluttering shut, lightning cracking just behind them.

“Everywhere, fuck.”

Your palms ran down his stomach, splaying at the waistband of his navy flannel boxers. His erection tented the fabric, pressed against his v-line. You pressed kisses to the tip, your fingers moving to hold onto the muscles jumping in his thighs.

“Lift up for me,” you said softly, no question to your voice.

Anthony raised his hips, face flushing at the way he knew he’d do anything you told him to, he was so in love.

His boxers slowly slid down, letting his length break free, bobbing heavy against his stomach. You pressed reverent kisses to each patch of revealed skin, licking into the freckles dotting his inner thighs.

“Fuck, stop… stop teasing,” Anthony said desperately.

“Say please,” you hummed, wrapping a hand around the base of his dick, pumping slowly.

“Mmm—get it wet, please. Shit…”

Leaning down, you smiled up at Anthony, making a show of the way you slowly dipped your tongue into his slit, making him hiss.

You spit onto the tip, licking down the vein that made his thighs stutter. The hand pumping his base sped up slightly, twisting around the head, sending seeds of blooming stardust straight to the coiled spring in Anthony’s stomach.

“Mmmfuck… Holy shit,” he gasped, his hands hovering restlessly above your head, hesitant to grab onto you despite how much he wanted to.”Can I to—”

You pulled back from Anthony’s tip, eyebrows furrowing up at him. “Nuh-uh. No touching, hands back.”

You heard him swallow audibly, dry click echoing through the dim bedroom. Slowly, he set his hands down by his sides, licking his lip as he stared down at you. Anticipation burned bright in his chest, aching with how he needed you. “…Okay, okay. Done.”

You hmmed happily, starting to take Anthony’s length into your mouth as a reward.

He watched it disappear behind your lips, groaning breathily as electricity shot straight through him. “God, you’re so fucking… Oh—yeah, shit.”

The longer Anthony was in your mouth, the messier you both became. His head would tip back into the bed, his mouth open as his eyes fluttered shut, breathy groans slipping from his throat. His hands grabbed anxiously at the sheets, trying desperately to stop the buck of his hips into your throat.

You bobbed your head up and down on Anthony’s dick, swallowing around him as saliva dripped down to the base. It was so wet, and the sight of your lips stretching around his girth only made his head spin faster.

You can tell when Anthony’s starting to get close by the way his voice gets all pitchy, something akin to whimpers punching out from his chest. He pulled even harder at the bedsheets, biting down on his bottom lip hard enough to taste copper.

“Ohhh, holy fucking—mmm… Nnngh, gorgeous—fuck—all the way down…!”

You took all of him down your throat, the tip of your nose pressing against his navel. You started to pull back up, your tongue polishing just below the tip where Anthony was the most sensitive.

You had to press your hands down against his hipbones as they tried to rut up into your mouth, needy sounds pouring out of his mouth. “Jesus, shit, fuck—I can’t, baby, I-I’m gonna…”

Just as Anthony’s eyes started to flutter back into his skull, you pulled off of his dick with a wet pop!

He immediately raised his head, looking down at you with dumb eyes, glazed over with desperate confusion.

“Wha… Mmmn, why’d you stop?” Anthony whined, and the sight of a Marine completely at your feet, pleading up at you, made your heart nearly stop beating.

“Whatt? You can hold it, can’t you, big guy?”

Your hands slowly twisted at the head of his dick, thumbs grinding against his frenulum.

“Fuuckk, please? I—I need it. Need you.”

He wasn’t lying. His thighs were tensed together, every muscle in his body taut with need as he stared down at you with those eyes.

“Five more minutes. Can you do that for me?” you cooed, giving his length a particularly hard squeeze, the palm of your hand grinding against his weeping slit.

“Mmm…fine.”

“Count, then.”

He was fucked.

. . .

The first two minutes weren’t so bad, your hands slowly working him back up to that peak. You spread his pre-cum all down his shaft, one hand pumping his base while the other twisted around the head. Slowly, though. Deliberate.

“Fuck, mmn… Three minutes left,” Anthony choked out, feeling himself start to get close again.

“Doin’ so good, baby. Thank you for giving yourself to me,” you murmured, pressing a wet kiss to his thickest vein.

He nodded, looking down at you with so much love it could only be described as starstruck.

“Anything. Anything for you,” he breathed, letting his head fall slack against the pillows as you pressed worshiping kisses down to his base before licking back up.

“Time?”

“Two minutes, thirty seconds.”

By the look on your face, Anthony almost regretted telling you that.

You took him back down into your throat, both hands twisting around his base now. It was so slippery, so debauched, Anthony couldn't help but roll his hips up into your mouth.

“Oh, fffuuck—holy shit…!” he had to fight to keep that clock ticking in his head, to keep the spring in his stomach from exploding.

He was so close, the fireworks detonating behind his eyes almost overwhelming him completely. His legs jerked, the muscles in his stomach tensing and rippling from the overwhelming onslaught of sensation.

“Please, baby, damn it—two minutes—please, I can’t…”

Anthony was starting to cry, tears welling up in his eyes as his hands reached out for you, breaking the rules. He was too fucked-out to care, too needy for you.

You breathed heavy through your nose, looking up at him as you swallowed him all the way down. He could see himself bulging through your neck, and it was all he could do not to cum on the spot.

“You—You’re so so pretty, so handsome, perfect, everything—mnnn…!”

You felt Anthony throb hard against your tongue, leaking like a faucet into your mouth. You knew he wouldn’t be able to hold it, but at that point you no longer cared.

“Ah—ah, fuckkk.. one minute, holy fuck, goddamnit—” he was practically sobbing now, balanced right on the edge of something earth-shattering. “Please, please, anything—need you, need you so bad..”

He was fucking gorgeous, coming apart beneath you. his face, all flushed and tear-streaked as he whimpered and begged, was the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen. He almost looked pretty, the way his teary eyelashes clumped together to look at you so sweetly.

Pulling off of his dick, you stuck your tongue out, pumping him earnestly.

“Come on, Tony. Let go for me.”

Before the sentence could fully leave your lips, Anthony was arched off the bed, back bowed as a whimper ripped straight out of his lungs. He came all over your face, his chest heaving wildly as he slumped back into the blankets.

“Holy fuck… Oh my God…”

You crawled up to his eye level, pressing salty kisses against his tears, your hands holding his face with a tenderness that made him sigh.

“There’s my good boy,” you hummed, smiling down at him. “Thank you, sweet thing.”

He sniffled, sitting up and bringing you with him. He pressed reverent kisses to your forehead, your cheeks, your nose, murmuring thank-yous. “Let me clean you up,” he whispered, baby-blue eyes staring into you.

“Mmm, only if you let me clean you up,” you grinned, smiling into Anthony’s lips.

“Pfftt.. deal. I love you, y’know that?”

“I love you most,” you countered, slowly slipping away from him and into the bathroom.

“Hey, come back here!” Anthony grinned, barking out a laugh as he chased you all the way into the shower.

You knew war had changed Anthony, but that didn’t mean you loved him any less.

You never would.

45 notes · View notes