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yeyinde · 1 year ago

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dangle on the leash | Simon "Ghost" Riley x F!Reader

The flimsy sarcophagus housing all his wants, his desires, cracks open when Price announces that his missus is pregnant. Ghost cocks his head in consideration. Intentionally knocking you up is amoral. Probably illegal. Somehow, even more dastardly when the reason for it is simply selfishness. Want. Greed. Hunger. But he's a rabid dog burning with the urge to bite. No one should really be surprised when he finally decides to sink his teeth into you. Unfortunately, that hail mary Price sent into the aether never reached you.

(your bird is too big for a cage— —but maybe a collar would do.)

this is a babytrapping fic lmao but please read the tags carefully. a companion piece to this (Price + babytrapping).

DEAD DOVE. SMUT. 18+

HARD WARNINGS—coercion. dependency. intentional alienation. unsafe, unprotected sex. this very much toes the line of noncon (that is still very dubcon even when consent is given) in many ways, notably: somnophilia, and condom/contraceptive tampering. intrusive, violent thoughts. mentions of violence. manipulation; slight gaslighting. implied kidnapping. references to past abuse (Ghost), brief mention of drugging/threats of drugging (ambiguous as to if it was ever followed through on or not, mostly just Ghost's internal monologue unfiltered). ADDITIONAL TAGS—smut. rough sex. unsafe sex. dom!Ghost. mean, obsessive, unhinged!Ghost. spit kink. dacryphilia.

he's feral, but he's yours. too bad for you, no one is really sure if that's a good thing or not.

One of the things Price often tells new recruits is to shove their old life into a box.

“There's home,” he huffs, fingers twitching as if he's subconsciously flexing around the hilt of a lit cigar. “And then there's work. Whatever box you decide to put this, or your family, your personal life, into is your choice. But for fuck’s sake. Keep them separate.”

Most of the new recruits are fresh off selection, shaded sickly chartreuse, and take his words as a literal gospel. Work, this; home, them. They don't start to unravel the second part of his gruff speech until much later. Until they can't wash the blood from their hands, and the scent of their mum’s eucalyptus hand soap is nauseating. Unfamiliar. When being in civvies feels like wearing skin that doesn't fit, and everyone around you is alien, foreign. They don't know. They'll never know.

It's only when they find themselves gazing at the clock on the wall of their family home, counting down the minutes until their mandatory leave is over do they realise that home is the barracks.

That's something Ghost has always understood. Maybe it was because his home life was already in ruins, tatters. Beer soaking into the knock-off Persian rug a cousin nicked from a flea market when he was nine. No fine china in the cupboards because it'll end up in shards on the floor. Plastic plates and forks and cups. Always. Howling in his head. Screaming from down the hall in his mum's room. His bedroom door creaking open at night. The anger, the curdling fear (shameful—be a man; punch him back, hit him before he hits you, you useless prick—), of not knowing whether or not it was his dad, high as hell and itching for a fight after busting their mum’s lip wide open, or Tommy sneaking into his bed at night because his is soaked in piss and he can’t sleep when they scream at each other like this.

(Funny that, he always found; neither of them could ever sleep when it was silent, either.)

Blood on the linoleum. Trying to eat burnt toast and overcooked beans with a busted lip and a twinge in his jaw—

(Fractured, they'll say later, years later, during his mandatory medical checkup when he's first recruited. Healed all wrong. Son, didn't anyone take you to hospital?)

He understands the separation between home and work—even if the former lost all relevancy nearly a decade ago. Back when he buried them all. Was buried himself—

What Ghost never really understood was the box.

Shove it into a box.

When he asks over cheap whisky somewhere in Siberia, Price tightens his fingers around his glass before bringing it up to his head. His index finger juts out. He knocks the tip of that bruised, scabbed knuckle against his temple. Once, thrice. Levels Simon with a pointed look he both can’t understand and somehow knows all too well.

“Up here."

“Paid nearly fifty quid for that,” he grouses, shaking his head. “Think I've been ripped-off, Price.”

Price scoffs, places the glass down with a hollow thud. “Don't be a fuckin’ muppet, Simon—” his real name makes his shoulders tense. Around the barracks, they know him only as the Ghost. “You put it away somewhere. Hide it. I don't fuckin’ know. But if it keeps you goin’, keeps you sane, and doesn't become a mess I gotta clean up, well—”

The implication is stark. Heavy.

Price was always good at chiselling through layers of accumulated indifference to get to the madness within, but considering Ghost’s past and his mile-long rap sheet, the warning digging into his words like a dull blade isn't unwarranted.

Old dogs, he'd called the pair of them when they first met. There was a sharp keenness in his eye when he lifted his hand, waved his cigar toward the tangled mess of scar tissue crisscrossing his face (made with a dull, rusted knife, one that gouged out deep pocks of skin, ugly fuck, looks like the badlands, don't he? like a postcard from the Grand Canyon, sweetheart. not so cute anymore, are ya, pretty boy—), and said, “well, you're fuckin’ rabid, ain't you? Better put a muzzle on that before it becomes a problem, mm.”

His problem, specifically.

And Ghost gets it. Thinks Price might understand that particular brand of madness—despite growing up on literal opposite sides of the track, his Manchester to the others Liverpool; poverty and prestige—if only just. Because Price seems to be able to curb those baser impulses in a way Ghost hadn't yet mastered (and won't for quite some time yet). He's put together. Sort of. Respected. Normal.

The men in the barracks don't look at him and flinch.

But he sees the way the man's eyes linger in the crowd, shrewd and careless, before falling on the pretty bartender in the back. The one with roses in her eyes and a smile full of dandelions. Soft, like butterscotch. It's here when they darken. When he reaches, almost angrily, for his whisky. Pats his chest with a heavy fist searching for his cigar.

She's a sweet thing, he reckons. All pretty and trusting. Birds like her make his head itch—

“Don't even think about it, Simon,” Price grumbles, and it feels like territorial posturing, a challenge he almost raises to meet with his chin, if only to make Price fluster, but it's hollow. Empty. He denies himself, too. The prick.

“How'd you do it?” He asks, and doesn't specify. Doesn't think he needs to.

When Price swallows, it looks like a grimace. “Years of practice.”

He considers the weight of it, his eyes straying back to the woman behind the bar. She's tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, wrist delicate like bone china, the kind they could never afford, and for a moment, the intrusive thoughts, the ones he gets sometimes about wanting to tear things to bloody pieces, rears—

It's stamped down in a swig of flat lager You stupid fuckin’ mutt, Price would say tomorrow morning, shaking his head. You always think with your prick?

Simon cranks his head sharply to the side instead. The resounding crack seems to echo through the empty pub.

Price just shakes his head. “Christ. No one ever house break you, yet?”

“Yeah, they did,” he rasps, staring at the bartender who gazes back at him now. Skittish, unsure. Not so sweet after all. She looks away, cowed. Her hands tremble. He leans back, and hums. “And now I piss outside, like a good ‘ol boy.” “Ain't nothin’ good about you, Simon. Fuckin' Christ—”

And he's not wrong.

The Ghost has a reputation of being a cold-hearted bastard. A Frankensteinian beast cobbled together with spare parts robbed from a jailhouse graveyard. Worst of the worst. An arm from a mass murder. The leg from a spree killer. Heart a patchwork mess of ichor and sulphur. Sutured together with barbed wire.

It's all sort of macabre. Rather trite, too.

The rumour mill in the barracks is insatiable.

But sometimes, he wakes up and he's still buried. Still dead. Dirt in his throat, lodged in his nose. He breathes in and feels pebbles scraping his lungs. Feels worms in his ears. Maggots in his head.

They crawl through his grey matter. Leeches burrowing into his thoughts, sucking the good in him dry.

Or, whatever's left of it, anyway.

He thinks with his teeth because it's easier that way. Cold, calculative instinct. Just barely boxed into a neat package slapped on the desk of Price's higher-ups.

A good man, they say, and turn him loose on the streets. One of the best we have, as he breaks jaws, and tears through jugulars. A force to be reckoned with.

They hand him a gun, a rifle, when the bloodied footprints leading back to camp become too much of a hassle to clean. Shoot from a distance. He takes to it like the bulk of metal was made for his scarred hands. Scythe to a Reaper.

It feels like bloodletting. Draining him of his anger, his fury, until a cold, gnarled indifference curls in the basin left behind. Icy, frigid. Down to the bone.

Sometimes, he doesn't remember what it felt like to be warm, even buried under a thick balaclava and layers of military fatigues.

Frankenstein’s monster. Patched together from the rotten remains of horrible men.

And as he stares in the mirror at the patchwork ruins of his face, his body, he wonders if there's some truth to it, after all. He's pretty sure if someone cracked his skull open—again—they’d find rot. Tumulus. Infested with maggots and worms. Cobwebs behind his eyes. In his nose. His brain perfectly preserved: a zombified tombstone. And oh, how it hungers.

Wants.

But in a box it goes. One shaped like a coffin. Placed pretty in the back of his broken head.

He stares in the mirror and thinks he sees something moving under his eye. Wriggling around. The temptation to claw it out rears, but the shredded tissue on his thighs reminds him of what happens when he listens to that insidious hiss in the back of his head (some amalgamation of his old man, and that bastard—) and goes searching for gold in bone marrow.

He huffs. Fingers curling around the porcelain. His head is rotten. Putrefied. He can feel the decomposing sludge press against his temples. It grows teeth sharp like a razor blade and hacks away at jaundiced bone. Ghost lifts his hand, digs his fingers into his temple. Down boy—

(Simon doesn't even want to consider what his heart must look like, then.)

Cold-hearted, sure—

But he likes sweet things.

The kind that will undoubtedly give him cavities. A spillover, perhaps, when candy bars were too expensive, and the only dessert he was given was a toffee by the neighbour when she wasn't moaning to his old man about all the shit he and Tommy got up to.

(Bruises came afterwards, the colour of liquorice. Sour cherries.)

Unfortunately for him, sweet things don't like him much—a shame, really. Simon has always had a sweet tooth.

His rough edges are too sharp for their liking, and Simon's—

Intense. Like a dog with a bone, he doesn't know when to let go. When to unhinge his jaw from the morsel between his teeth. He bites hard. Shakes his head. Tears into the things he wants until it's bloodied meat pinched in his incisors.

And so, they keep their distance. Like they can smell the rot on him. The funeral dirt. The stench of an unearthed sarcophagi.

Sometimes, though, the wiley ones will inch closer, looking to get messed up badly by a bad man, and it makes something inside his head howl when he turns them down. Following Price’s creed. Can't give in to the pretty ones, he'd said. Nothin’ but trouble.

Trouble, like a pair of shackles. A noose. Trouble, like gentle, clean hands and fragile bones. Fine china. Fine powder. The marshmallow soft kind of trouble that will melt in the acid that leaks from his pores. Aqua regia. Attacking anything that gets close.

(Breakable, is what Price means. Pretty chew toys that are beyond repair once he's finished with them.

He must think Ghost is some sort of psychopath—)

But still. He stays away. It's easier on base, in safe houses, too far out from the general public to have to worry about doe eyes and soft touches. He doesn't need it, anyway—

Then comes you.

And the forfeiture of his self-control.

You're trouble of a different kind.

Trouble, like the end of a sledgehammer. Trouble, like the grill of a car. The barrel of a gun.

In the shape of a battering ram, one strong enough to dislodge the madness in the back of his head. Where the corrosive acid should ruin you, eat you alive, it doesn't. Not with your tantalum skin.

But oh, do you pack a punch—

At first, you think he's homeless.

Some scruffed-up man sleeping on a park bench outside of your apartment.

In another life, he might have been. He isn't a stranger to bad habits, and had the military not been his only choice in life for some semblance of good (laughable, considering what he does for a living), he could see the threads of his life leading him here. Drugs. Manchester is good for it, this he knows all too well. Especially the shithole neighbourhood he's from.

He doesn't clue into this, though, until you glance at him, warily, and then shuffle into the cafè he’s holed outside of, the place where his current target gorges himself on steeped tea and crumpets.

(Price's dry text sits, open, on his burner phone: and don't fuck this up—)

It feels a bit like an omen. Made worse when you meet his gaze through the glass, and—

Well. Shit.

The impact is a collision. Hitting a pole at top speed. Metal bent around concrete.

His teeth ache (so, so bad—).

You emerge from the small building a few minutes later—the faded eggshell with chocolate trim is nauseatingly sweet against your pastel yellow raincoat—holding a takeaway bag, and balancing a tray of coffees in your hand.

He tenses. It's instinctual. There's nothing about you that's an immediate threat to his person—unless you plan on adding to his scars with the tip of your umbrella, the scalding coffee in your hand—but it's odd, isn’t it? No one approaches him. Not unless they have a reason to.

And no one, in his experience, ever has a good one.

“Hi,” you chirp, disarmingly sweet, as you come to stand in front of him. His jaw aches. Even sprawled across a bench, you're barely looking down at him. Sticky, cold fingers tap a strange rhythm down his spine. “I, um, hope this isn't weird, but I saw you sitting here, and—well. I got this—”

You wiggle the bag. He smells something greasy. A breakfast sandwich, he's sure.

It's an unusual assassination attempt. Price will be livid.

“What for?” He rumbles, sitting up in the seat. The shift of his bulk seems to make you nervous. You take a step back, and he fights the urge to follow. To back you into a corner. No escape.

You regain your footing, even if the smile on your face wobbles. Weakens under his flat stare. Some people can smell the rot on him.

He wonders if you can, too.

(Pity that. You're a pretty bird, ain't you?)

And the way you take him in lacks a distinct thrum of hesitation, fear that’s normally there. It occurs to him, then, that you see him as just another man. Just another person.

(“deader than a doorknob, this one. such a goddamn waste, boss. he was a fun one, wasn’t he? should we burn ‘em?”

nah. bury him out back—)

It's laughable, really. A joke. He has the urge to crack one—sick and awful enough to make that little smile on your face wilt. Wither away. Almost does, too, but it get tangled in his throat when he feels the weight of your stare on him.

The easy sweep of your eyes is barely discrete, but it's clinical. Pitying. But the softened edges of that empathy dissolve as your pretty head adds up all the numbers on him, coming to a standstill. Your eyes linger on his wrist. The gold of his wristwatch peeks out beneath the black sleeve of his hoodie. An intricate web of complex timekeeping that only he's privy to. A little luxury he picked up in Italy when the cash he'd been given was getting too tiresome to carry around.

Dead men, after all, don't need bank accounts.

And then—

You fluster. “Sorry, I just thought—”

It clicks, then. The pity. The soft words. The goddamn coffee—

His gums itch. He has the sudden urge to be mean about it. Pick you apart in this street until nothing but embarrassment and humiliation remains.

“That I was homeless? ‘nd you brought me, what? A coffee? ‘ow sweet of you. Some breakfast, too. Well, aren't you a lovely girl?”

You are embarrassed. It blisters across your expression. Has your hands trembling around the cardboard tray, spilling droplets of coffee down the side. Your head is bowed, cowed in shame. It reminds him of that bartender some years prior. Pulling away when the bad dog growls—

But there's a thin sheen of intrigue in your eyes, burrowing holes into the shoes in front of you; a tangled knot of want coiling in the heat of your embarrassment over this blunder. Over offending him.

Well—

That's new.

Some get off on it. On humiliation. Specifically, of the public variety. He didn't take you as the type. The way you twist, squirming in place, is odd, though. It doesn't fit as well as he originally thought. No. It's not the public shame, but—

Him.

Ah.

Sweet, sweet girl.

(So naïve.)

He reckons he could get you to do just about anything to make it up to him. You would, too. You're soft enough to be submissive, to bow your head in contrition, but there's a flicker of defiance in the jut of your chin when you lift your head.

This is a blunder and you're sweetly embarrassed, sure, but it isn't enough to break you.

And now Simon just wants to ruin you. Teach you a lesson about bad, vile men—

(Something you'd welcome with open arms, wouldn't you?)

“Didn’t know Manchester was so charitable,” he rasps. His throat is dry. Parched. He reaches for the coffee—black, with extra creamer and sugar on the side, tucked neatly in a little bag; fuckin’ hell. Ain't you just adorable—and places it on the spot beside him. “I’ll be takin’ this. Will need it for later.”

You look like you want to protest. Fight back. His hackles rise, ready for it—eager. Something anticipatory, dark, bleeds through the moulted mess of his head. Sickly. Terrible. He thinks about what you'd look like sprawled under him, shaking and begging for more, for him to stop—

Fuck. Birds usually make his head itch, but you make his fucking skin crawl.

In the end, you just huff. Roll your eyes. He wants to chew them out of your head. Pop them between his teeth. He bet you'd taste divine.

You walk away from him before he can. You don't look back once.

Pity, he thinks. Someone's gonna snatch you clean off the streets like that—

Hours later, he sends Price a text message with the coordinates for where to pick up the package Ghost left.

He considers it a blessing when the man sends him back, good job, now get a pint from me as a little reward. Can't say I don't treat my team well.

A reward, huh?

Well. With your stature in comparison to his own, Ghost easily can see you being considered a pint.

So, he follows you home, and tallies this one as being on Price.

It's easy. Too easy. He slips deftly behind you, tucked away from view, and masks his footsteps under the echo of yours until he's standing in the shadows outside of your house. This, too, feels like a blessing. It's a duplex. He waits for one of the lights to flicker on, and—

The window brightens. Room number two.

He hums, and palms his pockets for the pack of smokes he nicked off the man. Needing something to take the edge off. To quell the urge to bite.

It's even easier to engineer meetings. Random run-ins. All blamed on happenstance, chance. Of course. This towering mountain of a man with his thick manc twang—the sort of gallows humour that can only be found in the blue-collar streets of Salford from the nasty old men squatting on the corners—must have better things to do than stalk you. Surely. You're not special enough to be hunted, right?

Still. You're a touch wary of him. Distrustful. You keep your distance—six inches for Jesus Christ, aren’t you a peach?—and try to skirt the line between neutrally polite to the strange man loitering outside of the shops you frequent (your schedule burned to his memory, naturally) and that fascinating skittish intrigue from before. All simmering heat. Blunt want. The kind wrapped up in silk threads.

It's interesting to watch it play out when he steps closer and all those long-forgotten instincts in the back of your head flare up. The shaky step you take back. The inward frown of confusion when you're not sure why your body craves space, acting almost on its own. And then the sweet defiance that breaks over you. The intentional step closer. The feigned warmth in your tone as you talk to him.

It's easy to pocket the uglier aspects of his personality. The coldness. The indifference. The flat, droll insincerity that leaks into his tone. All of it shelved, locked away, and he's not sure if Price would be happy that he listened to what he said, followed his example, or furious that he's bastardising it to lure this pretty fish in.

)The latter, undoubtedly. But Simon gets a sick kick from it all.)

Especially when it brings you closer to him. Thaws you as you rationalise his reaction during the first meeting, gears spinning. Kicking up excuses.

Anyone would be angry, offended. It's natural. He's alright now—

It makes you look at him differently as you forcefully fight the urge to flee.

Silly bird.

Wary eyes rake over his massive bulk. Brows furrow at the series of black medical masks he wears in public. Always. That, in addition to the heavy black of his wardrobe—black jacket, black hoodie, black leather gloves—sometimes makes you glance at him with a touch of worry. Fear. Probably wondering if you brought home a delinquent.

But it changes when he rolls up his sleeves one day after you've been moaning about your broken beach cruiser (the, I don't know, chain—or something—keeps catching—), and crouches down to fix it.

There's a hitch in your breath. A distinct swallow. A guilty tinge of something shy, deliciously so, shading your eyes ruby-red when you look down at him.

And ah—

Sweet little treat snagged on the line. Ain't he a lucky lad?

It's all the better when you do the work for him. Reeling yourself in, practically throwing yourself in his cooler when you ask about his tattoos, carefully—considerately—nudging the topic away from his ugly scars.

He guts you clean as he tells you he's in the military. Top secret, pet. Don't ask because I'd hate to ‘ave to hurt a pretty face like yours—

You preen under it. Pet. Pretty. You don't even notice when he slides his knife over your scales, dices you up on his chopping board.

You're the picture of sweetness when he unkinks the chain in your bike, and sets it straight. All happiness. Smiles. Appreciative glances. You flutter your pretty eyes at him as you say—

“Thank you—”

You're waiting for a name. His belly rumbles. He could eat, he thinks, and licks his teeth.

“Simon. Simon Riley.”

The risk-reward ratio is balanced when you breathe it out between plump lips, chasing the end of it with your tongue. He wants to eat it out of your mouth. Swallow it down.

You touch his arm, hand warm, soft. “If there's anything I can do to pay you back—”

He takes you out for a kebab later on. Nudges you out of the way when you open your wallet to pay. Draft girl. Naïve, too, because he can feel the heat in your cheeks from where he stands, reaching over to snatch the bag from the man with a grunt.

You must think him quite the gentleman. So trusting.

Doesn't matter. He lets it take root. Especially when you shyly invite him back to yours to eat.

He makes a feast of it, and fucks you on your mint green chaisse after he's finished.

(Not on birth control, you say, and hand him a box of condoms, suddenly shy. It's unopened. He hums, and burns that to memory.)

He keeps his distance—an easy feat when he's halfway around the world, and you're stuck in the gloom of Manchester.

It's purposeful, of course. He made a promise to Price not to give him a reason to worry, but fuck—

You're proving hard to quit. He's never had anyone cuff him upside the head on his bullshit. Not anymore, anyway. Not as the Ghost. He likes the thrill of it, of this chase.

You don't let him steamroll you when he's in a mood to fight. You punch back, hitting him right in the mess of his guts, and fuck. Fuck. He's a little bit obsessed with it. With you. This wily little fish that acts so shy when he's got three fingers buried in your cunt, but rides him after like you're starving for it. Clawing at his chest. Scratching his arms. It's raw. Primal. He wants to break you—this fiery little kitten that bites his fingers until they bleed, and then purrs in his lap as he drives a pickaxe through your head, shredding logic into pieces. Rummaging around until he nicks the optic nerve that lets you see red.

You’re everywhere. In everything. In the back of his head, under the howling that hadn't stopped since you trailed your finger down the jagged topography of his bare chest, digging your nail into the crude x across his heart, and whispered, soft and sweet: you're all kinds of fucked up, aren't you?

A bludgeon to his self-control—

He resists. Has to. Is mean about it, too. Doesn't tell you where he's going (it's need to know), or what he's doing (would ‘ave to bash your pretty ‘ead in if I told you), but keeps you strung on the line (keep thinkin’ about that pretty cunt of yours; can't wait to come ‘ome and ‘ave you sit on my ugly mug—).

It's dangerous, this game of his. Thrilling for all the wrong reasons.

But he’s a good mutt. Good—

Until the text.

The one you send to him when you're out with friends. A picture. You're in a pub somewhere in Moss Side, a drink in hand. A gaggle of nobodies crowded around you. It makes sense, he supposes. There's that old idiom—you’ll trap more flies with honey—and he doesn't know anyone nearly as sweet as you.

His sweet girl.

(you fuckin’ mutt—)

Ghost stares at you for a moment, teeth aching. The little ensemble—a crop top and jeans—is a vision, he reckons. But it's spoiled when he catches more eyes on you than pointed at the camera. Practically spilling out of your top, aren't you?

He breathes heavily through his nose. Tastes guncotton in his throat.

Ghost commits every face to memory, and then calls you.

You're drunk. Too drunk to remember it tomorrow. Stuck in a pub on what's supposedly a bad part of town. Chatting away about going to your friend’s house. He gets the address, and something sour twits in his stomach. Shit council houses.

“That safe?” He asks, leaning back in his chair. He's already chubbed up in his slacks at the slur in your voice. “And dressed like that? Didn't take you for a slag—”

It makes you sputter on the line. “I'm—I’m not—”

You're so quick to placate him. So hasty to make him happy. Please don't be angry with me, Simon. I'm just having some fun—

The claws and fangs are tucked away when you're drunk. He shoves the information in the cache, eyes burning. Head aching. He's feverish. Hot under the collar.

Odd considering he's dead—

“Sounds like you will be.”

“It's not like that—”

“‘ow would you know? Might meet a nice fellow. Might take him home.”

“I don’t—I wouldn't—”

The sniffle makes him throb. Fuck. “Yeah? Well, ain't none of my business, I reckon—”

“It is.”

“Oh? How's tha’?”

“I—I like you, Simon—” he can taste your embarrassment through the phone. He didn't even need to bring you flowers and you're already boxing him into monogamy, confessing to him. So sweet. So tender. If he were a better man, he might have told you to sober up. To talk about this tomorrow.

Too bad for you, he isn't. And what’s worse is that he’s a loyal bastard, too.

But that's later, and right now—

He's halfway across the world, and you're vulnerable. In the den of hungry mutts.

It’s charr in his throat. Anger in his veins. “You like me? An’ you go out dressed like that?”

“There's nothing wrong with how I'm dressed—”

He sucks his teeth. “Dunno ‘bout tha’, pet. You look like you're achin’ to get fucked.”

You take a shuddering breath. “I just want you—”

“Yeah?” It's a growl. His cock spits prespend in his trousers. “Then be my good girl. Go home and wait for me.”

It's quiet on the line. He catches the hitch in your throat, the sharp exhale, like you can't really be sure if he's serious or not. He says nothing. Waits.

Where there would have been a fight—fists and teeth and snarling words—you quieten in the silence. Docile. Submissive. It's in you, he knows. He saw the glimpses back when you first met, when he'd bent down and fixed the bike he broke. All it needs is a little—

“Jus’ worried about my sweet girl, is all.”

And you relent.

Corrosive oil spills out of the necrosed holes in his head. It curls over his thoughts, liquid sin. He takes himself in his hand, blood pulsing in his veins, white-hot, damning, and bares his teeth at the urge to come to you, to push you down on the floor, and mount you like a snarling beast—

“Good girl,” he growls when you tell him you'll call a taxi, that you'll go home and have some wine with your friend instead.

Friend. Friends.

He'll have to do something about that.

(The thing about deprivation is that it bleeds into a vicious sense of possession when it's finally obtained. Greed. His wants have wants, have wants—

A perfect ouroboros. One you feed into almost destructively.)

Because the thing is—

Simon wants to tie you to his bed. Keep you locked up in the safe house he has in Manchester. Chained, shackled. A prisoner with him as your iron guard.

It isn't just fantasy, either.

The flies that congregate around you are an annoying, incessant buzzing in his ears. Remora clinging to the biggest fish.

But they're easy to scatter when he waves his hand.

(Waves off. Threatens with bodily harm, with physical aggression—

Same thing.)

The sting in his knuckles and the blood on his shoes are worth it in the end when your tantalum skin cracks. An aggregate of beautiful lines, pretty in their fragility, their brokenness. He wedges his fingers between the splints, widening the chasm to pet at the sticky-soft centre hiding beneath all that rough rock. Sweet girl. Hard candy enclosing taffy-softness.

His coos melt you to the consistency of mercury. Liquid silver pebbles along your lash line, spilling over in a dizzying display of raw vulnerability.

It makes every predatory instinct inside of him bristle. Locking onto the sweet lines of crystalline sadness that run down your cheeks. It has his heart racing. Eager, anticipatory. The thrill of the chase, of running you down into the ground until you're fine powder under him.

And it’s there, it's in his arms—the maw of a beast—where you seek comfort, lamenting the loss of your friends, your coworkers. No one wants to hang out with you anymore. They don't return your calls or answer your texts.

What did I do? You sniffle, throat bared. Belly turned up.

Flooded with tears. The lachrymal face that peers up at him makes his teeth ache. He rolls his head back, feels himself thicken in his pants.

Simon loves it when you cry.

“Fuck ‘em,” he rasps, words sticking to his dry throat. “If they can't see what a catch you are, then they don't even deserve to breathe the same air as you.”

It makes you cry harder, makes you mumble into his chest about how lucky you are to have someone like him. Someone who cares.

His breath hitches. Warm floods his veins, fever-hot.

“Thank you, Simon—”

And then you, smooth silver and wickedly sweet, cradle him in your palms as if you could hold all the broken pieces of him together.

He thinks it's cute.

Doesn't really have the heart to tell you it's a lost cause.

“Anytime, pet.”

And you're perfect, too.

You take this mangy mutt into your house, and let it eat your food, sleep in your bed. You let him fuck you stupid, and listen so prettily when he convinces you to let him spoil you. Let him pay your rent, your bills. Let Simon dote on you the only way he knows how—mercilessly possessive, and a touch cruel, mean—but you roll over, showing your belly. Submissive and sweet.

It's even better when you try to lash out at him with a collar in the shape of his teeth branding your neck, spitting and hissing like a feral cat who doesn't know yet that's claws have been clipped. Only to then curl up in his lap, purring as he strokes your fur, and carves out a place for himself in your life.

He wants to sink his teeth into you, and you think he's a big dog. Undomesticated. One who comes and goes as he pleases. A stray. A mutt.

It's said fondly. Full of love—

His mouth is full of cavities. His teeth ache. His gums bleed.

(do you know he's rabid? that the faded name on his dog tags once read cujo—)

Everything about you makes that sludge flood behind his eyes, pounding rotten fists against his temple. take, take, take; mine, mine—

The howling doesn't stop. It tells him to press you into the mattress and fuck you stupid. Tie you to the bedposts and never let you go—

He throws fists in the dark, trying to hit the madness in his head. Ends up with bloody knuckles and laughter in his ears.

(a voice of reason says, your bird is too big for a cage—)

He clings to it.

You're warm beside him. Burning hot. He syphons it from your veins when you're asleep, pulling you close just to feel something on his skin other than dirt. Other than blood.

It's easy to pretend he's fine with these little nips. Leaving teeth marks in your neck. Bloody rings snaking up your thighs.

He wraps one hand around both of your wrists, holds them high above your head, and tells himself it's enough. Shackled by him, under him, as he takes you apart, pulling at your sense of independence like the gnarled fingers of winter bringing defoliation to summer's bloom, but even with this, all of it, he still aches. Still wants. Needs—

Stupid fuckin’ mutt.

Then you bring his hands up to your throat, letting him wrap his bearish paws around your delicate neck, and he knows these little bites will never satiate the hunger in his guts.

He wakes up the next morning feeling warm. Full. Edges softened, if only just, by the sticky sweetness of your breath ghosting over his chest.

Simon curls his arm around you, holding tight. He won't let go. Won't—

Hide it. Put it away.

Ghost does neither of those things. He buries it, instead.

But in doing so, you find cracks in the foundation. Ones that are just big enough for your willfulness to slip through. To hand him back the cash he gave with a scoff, and a, i work, too, you know? i don't need your money, Simon. that's not why i’m with you—

(All he hears is, I don't need you.)

And then you send him a text. I'm going out with friends from work tonight. We're going drinking. I'll talk to you tomorrow!

In the zombified remains of his head, a new howling starts. The hisses tell him you're pulling away, running from him—

It's a big world out there. It'll eat you whole—

Like Tommy.

The thing about want is that sometimes it grows teeth, hands. Claws. Without a body of its own, it tends to mould itself after its maker because that's all it knows how to do: devour, consume. Yearn.

He shouldn't be too surprised to find that this need of his has dug itself out of the grave he buried it in.

(he did, too—)

The flimsy sarcophagus cracks open when Price announces that his missus is pregnant.

The howling in the back of his head stops abruptly. The pulsing ache in his temple abates. It's heavy, this weight. This absolute, utter emptiness—

No. It's not hollow. The chasm isn't drained, it's—

(In the silence, something growls. Feral. Possessed.)

—full. Perfect equilibrium. All of the patchwork parts of himself, the ones that don't quite fit, suddenly find synergy.

Communion.

Ghost cocks his head in consideration.

(your bird is too big for a cage—

—but maybe a collar would do.)

—after all, could you ever leave him with his name etched into your womb—

In leaving the key under the mat for him to come and go as he pleases, you've left yourself vulnerable. But—

Not anymore.

He has a safehouse he'll take you to. You'll let him, too, because it'll be the best choice for you. The three of you.

He's never entertained any ideas of family, not when the closest approximation he has is drenched in gun oil and smells of smoke from artillery fire, but the howling in his head quietens at the idea of it. He can't shackle you to the bed—stupid fucking mutt—but he can tie you down all the same. Make you his. Wholly. Always.

And the thing is—despite a pickaxe making figure-eights out of his grey matter; lead poisoning and rust giving him these sour, awful thoughts about locking you up in his house, leaving you a needy mess, dependent only on him—Simon supposes he knows right from wrong.

Intentionally knocking you up is amoral. Probably illegal. Somehow, even more dastardly when the reason for it is simply selfishness. Want. Greed. Hunger.

But in carving himself a place in your life, he failed to realise that the walls behind him closed in. No way out. And so, his only option is to go forward. To keep moving.

He'll be crucified for this, but that's fine.

He doesn't intend for you to find out, anyway. It'll be an accident. He came home early, and found you drunk. Drank with you. Your drunken idiocy merged, creating a terrible, noxious cocktail of awful, bad choices. Permanent ones. Irreversible.

(You're so sweet, so docile when you're drunk—)

It'll be easy to convince you. To play the part of a stoic man suddenly in turmoil. You'll offer to get rid of it, a suggestion that he'll flinch at—a cornered dog, a hand raising in the air. You'll whimper. Shake in his arms as you tentatively smooth over the wrinkles in his brow, murmuring out your options in a stilted breath.

You'll be a Riley before the end of your term. It's only proper, he'll mutter, stiff and uncomfortable, and you'll melt. Liquid tantalum in his palm. The fruits of his labour laid bare, seeping from the corners of his mouth. Tucked tight between his teeth. Mercury he can swallow down, keep in the bracket of his rotten ribs. Safekeeping from this world that just takes. Devours.

But not if he eats you first.

The mere notion alone serves as an anchor, locking him to the seafloor. The tumult in his head calmed at the promise of owning. Biting to claim. To have. Greedy for it. For you, and the strange sense of quiet your proximity brings him. The warmth, too.

He's a rabid dog. This he knows—has known—for quite some time. Indisputable. It pools in his mouth. Liquid sin. Makes him ache for just a sip. Unquenchable, though, because he's wary of water. Hydrophobia, but only for how it washes his efforts away. Cleanses.

The urge inside of him to bite, to infect, quietens when he gets closer to you.

(a rabid mutt licking at the window you're on the opposite side of, dreaming of just a taste—)

A byproduct of that maddening virus in his veins, the one he must have picked up six feet in the ground. Bite, bitebite—

—and give you a collar in the shape of his teeth.

He finds you in bed. A bottle of wine on the end table beside you, courtesy of your friend. The one lingering remora he couldn't snap at—one who sends you messages about how you are being manipulated. Taken advantage of. Fuck that loser, the latest one says when he picks up your phone, scrolling through the dwindling conversations housed within. Just him now, and them.

It preaches about empowerment. About how you shouldn't let a man pay your bills (textbook manipulation. he's putting you in a position of dependency. making you feel obligated to stay. it's all on Google, babes. like, fucking get a clue!!!!), or how it's moving so quickly (maybe you should come stay with me in Durham for a bit, hun. get away for a weekend. i worry about ya, is all). He hums, thumbing through the old chats.

You told her to fuck off about the manipulation, but it came after a lot of, oh, yeah. well, he's just. you know. he's different, and you haven't declined the invitation. i’ll think about it, is what you write.

It simmers under his skin. That independence he plans on stomping out under his heel. With his kin.

(sick, sick sick, wrong—)

It's desperation, this. Clawing at the walls—the dirt—until his nails are torn off his fingers. Until his skin splits, peels. Broken under rock and rubble. That animalistic need for air. To breathe. Basic training tells him not to save the person drowning unless he's sure they won't kill him in their struggle to live. But what's he supposed to do when that person is his rotting body, sinking down to unfathomable depths? When all he has is you to cling to—

Damnation built by his own hands.

You'll die together, he reckons, and tosses your phone on the hamper in the corner of the room.

Ghost can't remember the last time someone made him feel anything at all other than impartiality. Indifference. Casual apathy.

Price is the exception to this on the grounds of being consanguineous to him.

And you—

An outlier.

One he intends on sinking as deep as he can with. Anchored, maybe, by this little plan that beats and pulses in the back of his head. That clogs his throat with a want so thick, he can already taste the brine from the ocean. Water in his nose. Down his esophagus—

Better than dirt, he supposes. And it spurns him forward.

You're malleable like this. Tensile. He bends you easily with just a touch until you're flat on your back, a pillow shoved beneath your tailbone, and stripped. The loose shirt you wear to sleep is hiked up under your neck. Panties are pulled off until your sweet, bare cunt is revealed to him. All pretty and soft, and his. Untouched, he notes, and gives an appreciative stroke over your clit with his thumb.

It was something you were whining about the other day, panting in his ear as if he wasn't a continent away. Pleading with him on the phone to please, please let you come.

Simon likes the way you cling to him when it's been a while since something has wrecked you as thoroughly as his cock. When your spoiled pussy was neglected for a few days, weeks, and starved for attention. You were so sweet to him then, cooing in his ear how good you've been, how much you want him and only him, need him. Begging so prettily for it.

He's almost sad to spoil himself in your cunt when you can't weep for it. Can't bully him closer. Try to claw his eyes out. That delicious push-pull where you hiss at him for pulling away, but whine when he gets too close.

Sad, but—

Not enough to stop himself.

You're not wet enough for him to slide inside unprepared—his cock too big, something that makes his bones tremble—and he rectifies it by leaning down, letting saliva pool between his teeth and lips. He holds it there for a moment as he spreads your folds apart with his thumb and forefinger.

And then he spits on your bare cunt.

It hits your clit, the thick glob siding down your slit. He reaches between your thighs, pawing at you. Slides his fingers through the slick mess he made, teases around your tight rim.

Simon usually likes to take his time with you. Lapping at your pussy for hours until you're a weeping, snot-nosed mess whining in the sheets. Spoiled rotten. Begging him to fuck you already, Simon, you can't take it anymore—

He's mean. Cruel. Edges you for hours until your legs shake, trembling around his ears. He never lets you reach that peak—doesn’t let you come until he's buried inside of you.

Coming on his tongue, his fingers, is rarely a privilege you ever earn. Too much of a spitfire, a spiteful little kitten, to give in and do what he demands. So he keeps you on the precipice until he's ready to fuck you, ignoring your bribes, your bargains. Simon doesn't give in even when you beg, when you relent and tell him you'll finally be good.

You never are.

Spoiled, he always huffs. Down to the fuckin’ bone.

Like now. Pulling away from him. Him, the only person in your life who stuck around. A little bullying (bones breaking, splintering under his fists; the wet, hot smear of blood on his hands, skulls smacking against the pavement—an’ if you tell anyone, he cracks his battered fists and it sounds like a snarl, a gunshot, your parents will be cryin’ over an empty grave—) shooed the gnats away. He took a more clandestine approach to others. Birds that kept circling you tight. Protective, shrill. They made his head ache, but—

(don't want to start nothin’, but i don't want to be alone wit’ ‘er. tried to kiss me, is all. ain't like that, pet—)

It was a test. And they all failed. All but him.

Yet—

come to Durham.

i’ll think about it.

Ungrateful. It's his fault, though. Simon doted on you too much, cosseted by his affection, when he should have clipped your wings from the beginning.

Ah, well—

Lesson learned.

You're wet enough now. He pushes in two fingers, scissoring them apart. You'd be yowling at him, kicking up a fuss if you'd been awake. But you're not. It thrums through him. Thick, heady. He likes you like this—probably more than he should. The heat simmering in his veins bubbles. Pops. Sap on charring wood. It clogs his throat with his smoke until it burns, a dry forest fire.

He needs you. Needs to be in you. He's tired of waiting. Impatience burrows into him like a maelstrom.

Simon adjusts his hold on your leg, fingers curling behind your kneecap. Steadying himself. His fingers slip out of your cunt with a sloppy squelch that ghosts across his spine. Anticipatory. A touch anxious. He wants you. Wants you bad—

He takes himself in his hand, and slides the weeping tip over your slit. Taps it once, thrice on your clit. And then guides it to your centre. Your warmth bleeds into him. Eager, he shuffles forward. Feeds you his cock. Eyes drilling into the place where his head slips in, swallowed by your sloppy, wet hole. The glands make you stretch around him. Rim pulled taut.

The sight alone must have been crafted by some Luciferian dream, dangled before him in the shade of nirvana.

take a bite, it urges. and then take more—

Like this, passed out with your legs hitched over his shoulders, drooling into the pillow unawares, you're just a doll.

Made for him, and—

“Fuckin’ hell—” He presses into you—cock splitting tight, warm heat—and tries not to lose himself to the sensation of being bare, raw, inside of you.

—“A perfect fit.”

It's always been condoms. You're not on birth control. Ink blots in his eyes. He goes a little feral with it. Instincts unleashed. Unfettered.

Simon bullies his fat cock into you until his hips tap the back of your thighs, buried as deep as he can go. It's molten heat cocooning him—a warm embrace. For the first time, ever, he thinks he understands the meaning of home. Sliding home, in particular.

(Welcome home. Home. Home. He'll make a house out of your body. Sleep inside the brackets of your thighs, head pillowed on your chest—)

As good as you feel around him—slick, wet, and tight—and as much as he wants to saviour the sight of you, passed out on the pillow, cunt split by his cock, he has a goal, a mission, to see through.

His hand falls, slick and tacky, to your lower belly. Palm pressing against the subtle bulge in your abdomen, the outline of his cock. You always whine and hiss that he's too big for you. That you can't take him to the root.

Hurts, you complain, hand against your naval. Fingers knotting over the place that aches.

He presses his fingers there instead, feeling himself under your skin. Changing your anatomy to make room for him to fit—

It lights him in fire. Spurns him on. He bucks into you, pace sloppy, clumsy. Selfish. He's unrelenting as he splits you apart, drilling the full length of himself into your supine body, supple flesh relaxed under him, practically melting into the sheets.

The thread keeping his resolve, his self-control, sprung up tight begins to quiver. Each piston into you has delicate fingers drumming across the strings of a harpsichord. It reverberates through him, echoing in the stifling, suffocating, silence of the bedroom, overtaking it. Clouding it with the musk of his desire, his devotion to you, to this dream blooming in the prison of his mind.

Everything narrows into a needlepoint.

There's just your burning flesh beneath him, softer than it's ever been; pillowy. Welcoming. And the sounds of him fucking into you—lewd squelches, slick and wet; the sound of his cock finding home in the basin of your spread thighs; his heavy breaths, his groans and growls that seem to rattle the bed. The noise breaks, an incomplete requiem of sin in his head, and he loses himself in the lulling notes, dragged under in the bestial beat of taking what his—

A sudden noise shatters through the room. Beneath him, you stir, gasping wetly. The sound mangled in your throat.

There's confusion in your sleepy, hazy gaze when you peer up at him, lashes clumping together. You moan, whimpering, as you struggle to latch on to the threads of cognisance that he's content to fuck out of you. Your hand lifts, falls to his wrist still pressed against your lower belly. The grip is lax, loose. You’re not pushing him away, but clinging to him. Centring yourself.

It makes his blood thicken. Has him burning red-hot.

“Wha’s a’matter, pet?” He taunts, grinding his cock into you hard enough to make your dazed eyes water. Your hand tightens around him, holding steady. “Don't like it? Not fuckin’ you hard enough?”

“Simon—”

His name tapers off into a keen when he angles hips, and starts pistoning into you with a mean, merciless fury. The desperate noises that spill, unhindered, from your slack mouth is the perfect accompaniment to the lewd sound of him fucking your sopping cunt; the piece he was missing when this started. His requiem, complete.

It's a serrated blade to his self-control, already frayed and threadbare as it is. The pressure makes it snap.

“C'mon, sweet thing. Thought you wanted this?”

There's a place in hell just for him. It's sealed when you blink your tired, sleepy eyes up at him, mind a slurry of lingering somnolence and the heady alcohol on your breath, and offer a shuddering whimper. Always so soft for him, so agreeable when you’re drunk.

“So��ry, Simon—”

You can barely string words together. Poor, pitiful you—vulnerable under him. Breakable. Malleable. Anyone else could have tricked you into this same position when he was away. Got you beneath them like this, compliant and unawares, and took what belongs to him.

(The only thing in this destitute existence he claims for himself—)

Not anymore. Not ever again.

It's almost callous when he grinds into you. Hateful. Brutish. Furious. And dazed as you are, you barely even flinch at the snarls that spill, unfettered, from the back of his throat. The low groans of him making promises with devils unknown; constructing shackles from brass, iron.

Entrenching his future in motion, cupped protectively between the parentheses your thighs make around his hips. It's almost a vicious sort of poetry, one laid bare in the odious ruins of that broken thing he calls a heart. Etched into his rotten pericardium. Necrosed devotion. He'll see it through—however noxious, and putrid, you might find the miasmal stench of it spun tight in his web.

It's for your own good.

And as if you agree, you answer him in perfect euphony, moaning sweetly as you tilt your hips up for more.

Ghost groans low in his throat, bestial and spinning rapidly out of his control. He feels everything spinning, slipping; the trudge to the finish line narrows into a pinprink. He needs something to cling to, to hold on to with broken hands—

The only purchase he finds is in your demise.

His hand lifts, shaking yours loose. He reaches up, fingers dig into your chin, forcing your pouty mouth open. You blink at him, sluggish, but he catches the thin gossamer of awareness spooling thin cobwebs over darkened crevasses, covering the canyons in your eyes with cognisance. It makes him leer.

“Stick your tongue out, pretty girl,” he rasps, words sticking together, muffled under the mask. Crushed aggregate stone under the weight of his own desire. “Tha’s it. Open up nice and wide—”

He lets spit gather again, pooling on his tongue. It's degrading, you always say. Gross. But you swallow it down like a good girl, anyway. Always. You come at him with fangs and claws, but somehow, you always merge in a perfectly dizzying polyphony.

Ghost spits on your tongue. Lets it land right in the middle of fleshy pink. A sick, twisted pleasure thrums in his veins at the sight.

There's checking the boxes of an established kink, and this. Horrifically proprietary. Ownership that ignites a fire in his marrow, setting him alight from the inside out. Turns bone into blackened char, cinder. He can almost taste it on his tongue.

It's made worse, turned frenzied, when you—sweet, perfect, you—bracket it protectively in the curve of your tongue. Completely dazed, head filled with a heady slurry of somnolence and alcohol, but still aware enough to know, even if only through muscle memory, what you're meant to do when he spits in your mouth.

If anything, you're more obedient like this. Little doll. Coddling it lovingly, this little piece of him that he gives you.

And it might be the madness speaking—these fraying thoughts take on a vitriolic edge, corrosive aqua regia pooling in his throat—but Christ. He's been stabbed in the guts, repeatedly, and it somehow packed less of a punch than this.

He wants, wants—

Family never crossed his mind, was never even on the table or something to be considered, but with you it brims. Blooms in rot. Roots in tenebrous.

He has this insatiable urge to devour you whole so you'll always be with him. The waves of his desire are monstrous. The waters below are rapacious. A gaping maw eager to eat you up—

Pity it’s not an option.

But he’ll make do. Buy a ring tomorrow. Something pretty that matches your eyes. The curve of your smile. Sanctioned ownership. A collar in gemstones and gold, glimmering and shining bright enough that should any light fade from your gaze, it’ll illuminate in the gloom; twilight made in sorrow. The prettiest blues—

Said eyes water. Ghost’s hold on your face relaxes when you give a muffled keen, cheeks bubbling up against the pressure. Tongue still stuck out even as he takes his pleasure from your supine flesh. Suspended in motion, stasis. Such a good girl for him—

He swallows. Tastes poison, rot, on his tongue. “Swallow.”

You're a little sluggish, a little slow, but you follow his command all the same. He knows, then, that it could only ever be you.

No one gets under his skin like this. No one makes him itch, want, crave, as much as you do—

You make a face, twisted up in some amalgamation of pleasure and confusion. It nudges the ruins of his chest and feels almost like a heartbeat when it pulses in his flesh.

“Simon, Simon—”

His name is all you can say, and he's not sure if you're begging for mercy, or muttering it out into the scant air between your heaving breaths like an obsecration, an orison, but he eats it all the same. Bites down on your pleas, your cries, your prayers, and chews them up between fangled teeth. Takes them down into the swirling pits of his belly where they're eaten alive by what grows in the decay.

(belly full of dirt:

he heaves, and heaves, but nothing comes out even though he can taste humus in his throat, feel worms using his organs like a playground—)

“Somethin’ you want, pet?” He taunts, and shifts his hips back just enough to drag a few inches of his cock out of your drenched cunt. A tease—cruel and mean. He’d get lobbed upside the head for this had you been in your right mind. A tap to his temple, shaking the cobwebs loose. He would have bent down, and sunk broken teeth into your jugular. Merging violence with love until bloody knuckles feel like a kiss. “All you ‘ave to do is ask. Use your words, pretty thing—”

You whine, low and drawn out. A lazy whimper in the back of your throat. “Pl’se—”

You can barely speak. Tongue too thick. Sleep too heavy in your veins. Alcohol, too. A lesson, perhaps, for his willful little pet come the morning when you struggle to measure just how deep into his gullet you’ve let yourself fall.

He can’t help rubbing salt into the shallow cuts, if only because he likes the way you pout.

“C’mon, sweetheart. You can do better’n that.”

And damn him—damn you—you do. Your hand curls over his wrist, pulling it close to your mouth where you place a kiss against his palm. Tender. Chaste. Midnight blooms in your eyes, casts shadows under pale moonlight. His breath stutters in his chest when you lean your head back, letting his hand fall to your bared neck.

Your heavy, lidded eyes gaze back at him, cutting through the shade of night that sews the air like satin. Etched in the file silk is threads of trust in stark white. The kind that bleeds for him; hungers. One that aches, always tender like a bruise. The throb of it echoes between mouldering ribs. Booms between his ears.

Ghost doesn’t fall into pieces. Doesn’t shatter. No. Something in the splintered remains shifts. Settles. He wraps his fingers around the thick of your throat, thumb notched tight against your pulse, and he feels complete. Whole. Remade from the ruins.

Your breath hitches. The sound is a gunshot in his ears. He squeezes down, a gentle press. Just enough to make the air spill out of your lungs, to let your eyes water. Lachrymose, eager. It does something to him when you cry. He feels tipped upside down, torn inside out. Left all askew, asunder. He wants to drown in the pebbling river growing against your lashline. Wants to drink it down until it quenches his neverending thirst. Wants, wants—

He feels his name spill from your lips. Brassy and broken, trembling against his palm. A plea—

More.

And he gives it to you.

Simon hitches your ankle on his shoulder. Adjusts the grip he has on your throat. He settles over your body, blanketing you under his bulk. Stygian beast devouring the maiden whole. The thought amuses him even as it knocks the air from his lungs.

He anchors himself into the mattress with his knees, steadying himself, curls his other hand around the iron ring of the headboard. All the while, you look up at him—glossy eyes burning coals in the dark, in the gloom. Wanting, hungry. Mouth held open as if you’re waiting for his scraps—

And then he bucks into you, the leverage giving his thrust a savage edge.

The whines are snuffed out under his palm. Your eyes widen, tears now spilling down your temple, soaking the pillow below your head.

He groans, head rolling back. “Fuckin’ hell—ain’t you a pretty sight?”

Tucked under him, throat swallowed by his palm. Split on his cock, slick and wet. The tears streaming down your face makes him feel wicked, foul; but the spit running down your slackened jaw quells any doubt. The hand on his wrist holds him tight, tighter still, to your flesh.

You want this. His spoiled rotten bird.

So, he gives it to you.

Simon’s almost ruthless when he snaps his hips into yours, cooing viciously into your ear about how you feel, how you look, how you sound—so pretty wrapped around him, under him; his little doll—

“S’where you belong, pet—” guttural words spill, flintlike and savage, from his mangled throat. Reinforced with the hateful way he blugeons his cock into you. Times it perfectly with the firm squeezes against your jugular, never letting you catch your breath. Your eyes roll back, legs trembling. Shaking. But you don’t move, don’t struggle. The hand on his wrist is a shackle, and it makes him smirk, scars pulling up in a gnarled mess of mirth; ugly and mean. “Right where you belong. Ain’t tha’ right?”

He leans down, babbles nonsense into your temple. Promises you the heads of gods, the ichor they bleed. Swears he’ll build a shrine for you in Durham.

But for as mocking as these words he murmurs into your ear are, they’re tremulous. Raw. A current roars beneath; a steady stream, a plea, all full of need: stay, stay staystay—

(please)

He buries his nose into your hairline to stem the ravening ache in his guts, breathes in the heady scent of you—of sex, and wine, and sweat. Drags it into his lungs in harsh, angry gasps to stain his skin with the smell of you. Of him.

It goes right to his head in a heavy rush until he’s dizzy, almost sick, with the swell of it flooding in. An animal, he thinks, drunk on merging pheromones that make him mindless. Unfettered.

It’s as if he’s driven on instinct alone; his frenzied pace ebbs, grows sloppy. The air around him feels thick. Syrupy. Stifling. The balmy breath in his chest is nearly as unbearable as it is addicting. Sickeningly sweet. Still—

His chest expands, taking as much of the potent miasma into his lungs as he can, filling them up, up, until he feels the edges threaten to brust. It’s only then, when ink moults across his vision, that he lifts his head just enough to shove his mouth against yours, a broken snarl ripping free from his throat as he forces the infectious air into your mouth, down to your lungs. Polluting you with the same sickness. The same rot.

Little hiccups tumble past your lips as you swallow it down, taking everything he gives you, and he catches them on his tongue. Plays with them between his teeth, basking in the salty tang of you—brine, loam; peatsalt. Ashes, guncotton. Molasses. He’s not sure if he wants to drown you in him, or crawl into the warm, wet cavern of your mouth that pulses around his tongue like a heartbeat.

Both, maybe. Everything. All of it.

Always—

But he’s chasing pleasure on fumes. Trying to run with broken legs. There’s nothing refined about this. About the way he cudgels the head of his cock into the places that make your mouth twist away from his greedy lips in a silent scream. His weight is crushing you, he’s sure, but you cling to him harder, holding him tighter. Almost afraid to let go. And fuck—the notion alone is a kick to the chest, harsh and heavy. He nearly gags on the litany of broken moans spiling out of his mouth, landing on your tongue.

Driven mad, maybe (or pussy-drunk, and high off of his own poison); but in that madness, he discovers this:

Nirvana exists between your thighs.

Home, too.

(well—

not yet.)

Pleasure fissions down his spine. The paroxysm taking him deeper into the battle-worn depths of his demise until the walls narrow, closing in. Crushing. No escape. But—

He won’t climb out of his hole he dug. Not until he makes a bed from your flesh; shelter out of your bones. He wants to ingrain himself as deep within you as he can, arsenic subsumed down to your marrow. Poisoned with the fill of him, too sick to let go.

(Bone nausea.

A death sentence.)

It metastasises inside of him, filling the barren spaces up until it leaks from his pores.

He wants it: this dream so tantalisingly close.

Simon lifts his hand from your throat, and reaches out, grasps at it with a shaking paw—

All it takes is a few crass, careless swipes of his calloused thumb across your clit, cock angled toward that spot that makes you rake your broken nails down his back, yowling in his ear for more, there, please, Simon, please—

You clench like a vice around him. A pretty bow tied up at the base of his cock. He bows over you, grunts spilling from his chest as he sinks his teeth into your nape, splitting skin btween his teeth. The warm, ozonous tang of your blood flooding his tongue is euphoric, eclipsing his mind in a haze of pleasure that crackles and burns at the base of his spine, spitting smoke up his body and into his skull.

The harsh whine you let out—all prey, all animal; wounded, stuck under his muzzle—has some part of him, basal and inborn, rearing up. Roaring in his ears, ripping talons across the jagged remains of his head.

(mine, mine, mine—)

He answers your scream with a growl, one caught in the smoke clogging his throat. It sounds inhuman when its wrenched out of his mouth—more animal than man: the devastating howl of a forest on fire—but the feel of it vibrating between his teeth is connatural. Innate. It belongs between his incisors; fits like a puzzle piece in his broken muzzle. Unleashed now. Finally free from this ill-fitting cage he housed it, this goddamn box—

Cobbled together from palm ash and brimstone, ichor and salt. Sewed up with copper sutures in the shape of a man for a perfect fit.

Every cell in his body screams that he was made for this. To be over you, in you. Maw filled with your blood. Pussy stuffed full of his cock.

He might not have clawed out of the dirt for you, but this mossy, gnarled lump in his chest beats now only for you. Apodictic. Ironclad. His teeth in your jugular, your life pulsing wetly on his tongue.

It’s his apotheosis. His end.

His hips stutter. White noise in his head. It drowns out the shrill screams, the hisses. Everything is just—static. Pleasure of a silent kind, humming, buzzing, and molten. Ghost buries himself inside of you as deep as he can, until his cock is fit snug against the plug of your womb, and lays his claim by branding it with the potency of his name.

Tidally locked, you’re dragged down the summit with him, tumbling to your demise. Too dazed, too wound tight in his arms, his embrace, to see the jagged rock at the bottom of the hungry chasm thirsting for your blood, you just cling to him. Refusing to let go.

(silly girl—

His pretty little perigee.)

His body aches in ways that cruelly remind him of his age. Joints stiff, stomach quivering. His knuckles sting when he unfurls it from the headboard, skin pink and raw from the tight hold he had around the metal.

It’s made worse when he heaves a harsh breath, and pulls away from you with a long, drawn out groan. He settles back on his haunches, eyes searing into the space between your thighs. Messy with his spend. It dribbles down your slit, your ass, pools on the sheets below.

Your chest shudders, legs splayed out how he left you. He thinks, viciously, of gazelles, and wonders if the blood he feels drying on his mouth looks anything like the muddied mane of a lion after eating its fill.

“Fuckin’ hell—”

He should clean you up, hide his crime, but he burns the image of you into his head (another tattoo over scar tissue), and drops to a heap beside you. The moment his back hits the mattress and all thoughts of moving are erased in silk, in smoke and clover.

Chest heaving, slick with sweat, he feels the thrum of his victory in his veins. The high of the chase abates, and he nearly purrs with contentment. Hangs his pride on a pedestal, and doesn’t think about the absence of any guilt. Doesn’t even entertain the thought, not when victory dries between your thighs. When you roll over with a huff, reaching out for him.

It's as if you're trying to bury yourself inside of him, crawl into the safety of his ribs.

Ghost grunts, feels his sensitive, spent cock give a feeble twitch on his sticky thigh. The idea of you, blissfully unaware, seeking comfort from the man who writ your body with his virile spend, irrevocably changing your life and entwining it so deeply and so messily with his own that to severe either of you from each other is nearly impossible, floods him with satisfaction so deep, euphorically heady, that his chest seems to shudder. Resounding with some amalgamation of a purr, a grow, so utterly primal, that he sounds more beast than man.

His roots run deep within you, now, and every misaligned piece of his patchwork body seems to sag and shiver in an almost perfect parallelism. Congruence ascertained with the cupping of you between its mismatched maw. Shackled in a baleen prison. Nestled, safe and sound, between white teeth.

Ghost pulls you close, holding tight, and hums. As you drool on his shoulder, dripping with his spend, he knows he'll keep you there forever, until you're nothing but bones.

There's a cloud of confusion hanging over you the next morning, a twinge of uncertainty gnarling across the gaps in your memory. The pieces of a puzzle that belong to a different set. He watches you scramble through them, filling in blanks. Oscillating so deliciously between wariness and discontent.

“‘morning,” he greets, as if his spend hasn’t dried on your thigh last night. Tucked up nice and tight against your fertile, unprotected womb. As if he couldn't taste brimstone in the back of his throat when you wince as you walk, achy and battle-worn from the weight of his desire crushing you all night.

“Morning,” it's a sticky rasp in your throat. He wonders if you taste him on your tongue. “When did you get in?”

“Las’ night.”

You nod, but it's absent. Flickering through the timeline of events that aren’t drenched in black, shaded over like a heavy bruise. Your expression is fractured. Raw. Pensive. Something untouchable, unchartable, and yet he reads you as plainly as the tea leaves at the bottom of his cup.

You don’t remember. Don’t know what to make of this chasm, this fissure, that looms, icy and deep, before you. There’s no anger, though. You don’t demand recompense for what he stole, what he took. The lashings he deserves are tucked quietly between your teeth. Hidden under layers of normalcy to prevent yourself from seeing him as is: a beast.

“Well, um. Some homecoming, huh?” You joke, but it's hollow. Flat. Fragile like fine glass. You're digging for more. Rooting around to connect these vague, absent dots that linger, lost in the vacancy of your memory.

He almost purrs.

He wants to chew you up. Spit you in the palm of his hand. Maybe tuck you in his breast pocket, nestled against the lump in his chest—the one those silly enough to dream might call a heart. Keep you there forever. Hidden in the barrel of his loaded gun.

“Bit rowdy.”

It’s horrifically vague, but you cling to the prevacation he proffers to you; a lifeline in the turbulent sea, letting it overwrite the absence, the itching in your skull that must be clanging on the walls, begging for you to run.

“Sorry,” it's sheepish. He knows the ferality in which you sometimes come at him when he's buried deep inside you is something that makes you twinge with embarrassment. Little kitten clawing at the old dog trying to get it to play. Rolling over immediately when it growls. Docile, sickeningly sweet.

But even naive kittens know to watch out for the frothing, foaming maw.

“Did you use a—?”

He dips his chin. “I might ‘ave.”

And you take it as gospel. As truth. Why would Simon have any reason to lie to you about this?

Relief shudders over your shoulders. You relax, inching toward the seat across from him. Gazelle making a home for itself in the lion’s den.

The spell of unease is broken, now, and you quickly fill the chasm with chatter about your day. Your plans. Asking him how he’s been.

You shove at the warning signs until they’re hidden away, and ignore the bones of your brethren scattered around you. All because you trust him.

He aches with the urge to crush it between his teeth.

And he will one day soon, he’s sure, because it’s just as easy to enact his plan as it was to get you to open the door.

It starts with him convincing you to drink with him after dinner. Jus’ a glass. Got this fancy bottle. Reckon we should ‘ave some.

But—

Can’t drink forever—no matter what his dogshit dad thought.

So, he pokes holes in the condoms you hide in the bedside table, a little wary now. A touch fretful about your contraceptives in a way that makes him preen. You have good instincts, but rarely do you listen to them. Your head must be filled with sirens, but it's futile, he supposes. He's already stuffed cotton into your ears.

It only feeds into that gaping chasm that bellows up from the depths that this world is not good for you. That it will tear you into pieces, into shreds. You need him. Need the Ghost to protect you.

Case in point:

You’re needy beneath him, panting and mewling into the sheets as he teases your clit with his thumb. So wet, it almost feels like hot oil on his skin. Syrupy thick.

In your desperation, you cling to him, throat bared. Fragile fine china. Belly up. Vulnerable.

You barely notice when he pulls off the condom, crumpling it up into a ball and shoving it in the pocket of his slacks.. Don’t even react when he shoves his bare, raw cock into you.

You don't even notice.

(or when he slurs in your ear about how badly he wants to knock you up—breed his pretty girl until she’s stuffed full of him, making life with what he offers. salvation in the form of creation. ain’ tha’ a thought? he huffs into your ear, humid mirth curling over your skin. a stain. and the way it unfetters you—tightening around him, gushing slick—he finds his answer, one reinforced in the rolling of your eyes as your common sense, independence, trickle out of your ears and down your slackened jaw—)

And when that fails, he just slips you a sleeping pill. There's always an easier way to the finish line, he finds.

(stupid fuckin’ mutt—)

Nothing bleeds from the cracks he wrought, or slinks from the shadows cast by his machinations until weeks later.

Life just goes back to what it once was—Simon coming and going, letting himself into your home with the door you leave unlocked. You go to work, and chatter aimlessly about this vision you have about a home in the countryside, near the ocean. Saving up—uselessly—for sheep and goats, and the sought-after Highland cows. Chickens and ducks first, you say, and barely notice when his gaze drops, drilling holes into your stomach. Watchful. Leering.

He can almost scent the change on you. Nose pressed to your skin; bloodhound sniffing the ground.

Ghost keeps time in the slow, susurrus drawl of your voice sifting through the cotton in his ears, waiting for those precious decibels to catch on, to tilt up at the end as your eyes skim the calendar he keeps scratching x’s across in red, almost delicate, innocent even though it's from his sanguinary hand. A countdown to something you haven’t yet caught on to.

And it’s all so sweet.

—the waiting game, the subtle changes, the desperate way you cling to normalcy—

Sweet, like the way you carve this life out for yourself, filled with stuffed animals full of idealism. So much so, that it's almost bitter. Acrid. He watches the light glow in your eyes as your plans take shape, moulding putty between your hands, and like a pit viper, he coils in on himself. Frenzied. Fearful—

But only just.

The excitation has run its course. He’s drifting, languid, into his scheme. Content. The notion of you slipping from his fingers is a thought that rarely crosses his mind these days, especially when that house on the prairie grows from an occupant of one to two—

“And, you know… when you're not out saving the world—” your eye roll and air quotes make his lips twitch, tugging at the scar tissue, the acid burns, splashed across his mouth. An ugly fucking Pollock. “—maybe you can come visit.”

“Never fancied myself a rancher,” he drawls, just to watch you squirm. Brow furrowing into a deep ravine as you struggle to make your intentions known without actually giving them sound. Skirting around the issue of wanting him there, of planning a home with him.

(Too much, maybe? Or too soon—?

if only you knew—)

He finds it charming, really.

Still—

“It's just a thought,” you mutter, downcast. He wants to choke on your misery. Your sadness. Drown himself in your anger. Float in your happiness.

Fuckin' Christ—

All this playing daddy in his head has thrown him off his rocker. Made him soft. Sentimental. It's probably why he yields to you. Offers a lazy shrug and another smarmy twitch of his lips.

“Sounds like a plan,” and the way you brighten is a dagger to his chest.

And the thing is. It does. It sounds like a dream, a perfect vision. Just—

Maybe not in the way you'd want.

He's been looking into places unmarred by human hands. Ghost towns, uncharted territories. His home here isn't perfect for it, not like the vast geography of Mexico. The uninhabited wilderness of Canada, places so remote that it's almost untethered to modern civilisation. Islands of forest, mountains, all on their own.

Vast corners and crevasses where someone can disappear and never be found.

But those won't work in tandem with his flighty lifestyle. While he plans on keeping you barefoot and pregnant (common sense in the back of his head screams that he's foul, vile, monstrous—), he will continue to work. Has to, really, to avoid suspicion.

So—

Home it is.

But he gets inspiration from the Highland cows you coo on about and purchases a plot of land in the Western Isles. Gives this whim of his—yours, really—a concrete foundation made of the abstract. The filament provided by his newly christened Sergeant—an overeager mutt that bleeds warning signs from his pores.

(don’t get close, reactive dog. will bite—

the little mutt is a great pyrenees, ain’t he?)

But bless Johnny’s bleedin’ heart, he thought as the man prattled on about this cabin he owns. A place of solitude. Could fire a gun and no one would even peek out the curtains. Beautiful, the way all of Scotland is. The highlands, he breathes in that shade of catholic madness only the dutiful soldiers of god's right-handed wrath can be, is where he keeps his home. A place chiselled from stone, surrounded by wilderness that eats tourists alive.

(he didn’t ask at the time why Johnny was so keen on finding these places scattered around Scotland, ones with little traffic and a nearly negligible amount of souls within the vicinity, but he finds its best not to get too close to mutts crossbred with wolves.)

But Simon is nothing if not devoted, and so.

You’ll get your fantasy ranch in the middle of nowhere. Your highland cows, your billy goats, your chicken, sheep, and ducks. A baby in your arms, too. One that shows its hand the next morning, dashing all your carefully laid plans. These paths of independence of yours run parallel to his whims but never converge. There’s the potential in this for these fraying threads to split, and diverge. Separate.

(But it’s all put to rest at the sound of you heaving in the adjoining washroom. His path eats yours until it’s overtaken. Consumed.

The evasive, unfettered little bird trammelled, caught. Wing-clipped, and all his.)

Any misgivings the part of his gyri not buried under the frothing mess of his polluted grey matter might have is vitiated by the unwavering certitude that, despite his own gains in this, it really is in your best interest.

And maybe it's something that should have come earlier in your relationship—however threadbare that word is in conjunction with the unhinged desire blooming in the pit of his chest; madness masquerading as love or some obsessive, desperate facsimile of it. Maybe a proper man, a better one, might have dug down and fully laid out the reality of intertwining your life with the living dead. That the idea of danger, death, and revenge are all everpresent threats scratching at the walls of this sickeningly sweet fantasy you wrap around yourself.

He’s a dangerous man. A creature of devastation—manmade, bent into, or congenital is yet to be unearthed—which, in itself, brings about a certain lifestyle. One with fewer people around, and always shrouded in secrecy. Friends, family—none of that matters when death curdles gnarled fingers around his jugular.

You’ll get used to it. Eventually. The only other choice is to let you, his now flightless bird, go. Released back into the wild vulnerable and reeking of his stench.

You’ll be devoured before daylight, ripped into pieces—only if they’re feeling generous, that is.

Simon has his own twisted remora. Ones with claws and fangs and a hunger that runs deep. Insatiable. Any scraps that fall from his mouth are devoured before they can touch the sea floor. They’ll crush you in their maw and dangle your mangled body from the gaps between their teeth.

You’re not made for the wild. Not anymore. You’re meant to be protected. You—this fragile, delicate thing. He’ll hold you close, keep you secure and safe in a mausoleum of your own making.

This little glass jar domicile.

A billet in the mountains.

He’ll fill it with the finest things—silk linens, fine china; mahogany and teak, pink ivory; a bed of soft, downy feathers, sherpa, Egyptian cotton; (sticks and stones and grass and moss). Buy you whatever you need. Chickens and ducks. Sheep and goats.

They’ll keep you company when he’s away.

(and if that fails, he can always plan playdates for you with whatever dirty secret Johnny’s been keeping tucked away in the woods.)

He draws an x in the empty, white box of the calendar, the tip of his red marker gliding silkily across the glossy surface. Something unfurls in his guts. Blossoms in his bones. There’s an almost indescribable sense of satisfaction—primal and animalistic—that grows from the upturned dirt in his head. Life composted from rot.

Ghost hums to himself when he turns, the sound nearly a purr—bestial as it is, suffocated under sulphur. It reverberates through his chest, trembling across the brackets of his ribs that expand with his deep, heavy inhale—breathing in the sight that greets him like a lover’s kiss

The kebab he ordered lays untouched on the table across from the television—some trashy reality show playing in the background while you tried to eat; a dating show, you’d said when he merely shrugged, having other things on his mind over what to watch while you ate. It all seems to be preserved in time. Frozen in on the exact moment when you’d sniffed the döner kebab he got for you—the same thing you order each time—and then promptly wrenched yourself back, gagging. The sandwich was flung back in the takeaway box before you slapped your hand over your mouth, rushing into the washroom.

If his phone wasn’t in the other room, he might have taken a picture. A little memento to remember this moment. Framed it in iron and perched it on the desk they gave him back in Hereford, the one just down the hall from Price.

(ah, speaking of—he’ll have to send that caustic bastard a fruit basket, or something, won’t he? maybe some pretty flowers for his lady.)

His reverie is shaken when the door to the washroom creaks open slowly, and you emerge through the gap with sweat on your brow, knots across your forehead, and a shaking hand resting over your churning stomach.

Shame, he thinks. He really should have brought his phone—

You lean against the wall, taking in deep, shuddering breaths to steady yourself, confusion and worry knitting over you like a thundercloud. It tastes of ozone when he inhales. An approaching storm. In the blue gloom of the living room, illuminated only by the light flooding out from the washroom behind you and the static glow of the television, you look etiolated. A wilting flower.

His budding rose.

He coos. “You alright?”

You glance sideways at the kebab on the table, mouth pinching into a grimace as if to stem the nausea still rippling through you. You stare at it for a long moment, seemingly trying to make sense of the reality sitting in front of you on scratched, old pine; confusion runs laps over the dawn cresting in your eyes. This puzzle is too unfathomable for you to piece together; the keys and slots all askew.

The air around him grows still. Silent. Anticipatory. A tiger crouched low in the tussock. A little fawn roaming too close.

There’s a heaviness in your eyes when they flicker back to the wall where he stands, drilling holes into the x. Something implacable frissons over your threadbare expression, fracturing across sallow cheeks.

The air is electric. It pulses across his bare flesh, irritating scar tissue, acid burns, and scorch marks. His skin prickles at its whisper.

“Feelin’ sick, pet?” He ponders, playing pretend. He’s viciously, deeply amused at the desperate denial splashing across your cheeks. The thin shade of askance that unfurls like the leaves of a flytrap when you look at him. “Mus’t’a been the kebab. Bad meat, I reckon?”

You offer a weak nod in response, pinching your lips tight together. The matter seemingly concluded, brushed aside. Pocketed for later.

And you say nothing else for the rest of the night—gaze unseeing, turned inward; pensive—but he purrs in contentment as if everything was alright, sprawled across the couch with his head pillowed against your churning stomach as if he could hear the whisper of another heartbeat from within.

In the saturated blue light, he catches your eyes listing toward the calendar every so often. Wary. Nervous. He thinks you might say something, might ask, but you don’t. It’s caught on a stilted breath. A harsh swallow.

All you do is bring your hand to his shorn head, and raze the stumps of your clipped claws against his scalp. It’s almost as if you’re trying to soothe the madness from within. Scratching that itch deep inside until it goes away. Gentle hands play pretend and dress up as a panacea. Affection to scrape the illness away.

He thinks you should know better than that, even as he leans into it with a soft exhale, more relaxed than he'd ever been his entire life. Content. Unassailable in his conquest.

Simon has always been more scar tissue than man, and no place is damaged more than the upturned tumulus inside his head.

But oh. How you try—

His sweet, sweet girl.

The look you give him the next evening is, in parts, brumous.

A polynya of dread, worry, guilt, fear that frissons across the deep valleys in your eyes, shaded in plumes of darkness, filled in deliciously with the weight of your beleaguered uncertainty. It yawns out before him, this heavy gloom.

So close he catch the embers in his hand.

“Simon… We should—talk. I, uh—”

You hold up a little rectangle, dismay, misery, etched in the blue tinge spreading across your face. It seems to steal the words from your throat, turn them into ash. What else are you meant to say, he supposes, when you look out at the world now from the gape in his maw?

But there’s a veil of wonderment that hides below the tidal wave; this precious, deadly, undercurrent that rents the air, splits his chest in two.

The happiness, however meagre, thin, it is right now (just a sunken boat on the seafloor), is there. Ripe for salvage, and he sees that it’s handled with care. Cupped between his palms, nurtured by his own conviction to do what’s right, an’—fuck, pet—know this ain’t what we planned, but—

but:

The howling quiets, turns to a low growl, and then a susurrus hum, when you shakily utter the words he was waiting for.

“Yes, Simon—”

You shudder when his fist closes over your wrist, pulling you into his purring chest. Shaking like a prey animal in the jowls of a beast, bested and ensnared. It has a profound, almost predatory, sense of satisfaction curling over his bones. He knows this was the right choice, and is sure, in time, you'll come to realise that, too. You’re in the early stages, he knows. Prodromal. You need to be handled with care to curb the lacrimation, the hyperesthesia.

And there’s no one better than him to guide you through the throes of it. To lead you to the unequivocal end.

He leans down, and whispers in your crown—

“Good girl—”

—and the sound of his voice is gravel encased in sticky, sweet honey. Dark, smokey molasses. The very same cadence as a key sliding inside of a lock; metal grazing metal. Turning—

“If it’s a boy, we’ll name him Tommy.”

Click.

(he gives you that ring he promised when he takes you to the mountains. you smile wide, and tell him it fits like a gyve.)

Simon stops shovelling his want under the cold dirt and starts burying it inside you instead. Makes a domicile from your flesh; a place where he can rest his aching head every night until the howling scraping down fractured bone stops— (paralytic)

#simon riley x reader #simon riley x you #ghost x reader #goddd this is foul #cod #call of duty #simon ghost riley x reader #cod smut #simon riley smut #simon riley cod #ghost call of duty x reader #ghost cod x reader #in many ways this is a psa on the symptoms of rabies #ghostfics

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spockiguess · 4 months ago

Note

Same anon as before, with the fic idea

This feels like a younger doctor thing (so John Carter) to me, but it could work for Robby too

Rubber gloves. The rubber gloves that medical staff put on before touching patients? Those. John/Robby just teasing/fingering you over and over again while wearing those

Thoughts?

The Gloved Beast

Summary: While helping a patient, you and John get into some workplace flirting. You don't exactly realize just how much your seemingly innocent comments would set the new doctor off.

Pairing: Dr. John Carter x FEM!Reader

Warnings: Smut, Overstimulation, Mentions of Injuries/Gore

A/N: So, literally like fifteen minutes after I received this request, I got to work on this fic. I wrote the first 1,500~ words last night, got too tired to continue, then wrote the other 1,300~ words this morning. This request was so effing good, it got me so effing excited, I was like, "Holy shit!!!!! I need to do this right effing meow!!" Thank you so much Anon for this request, and please, if anyone else has a request for any Noah Wyle characters, send it!!!!! I'm so excited!!!! Also, sorry for the stupid title, I'm going back to my roots.

It–your current situation, that is–started with a simple, clean conversation. Nothing more. The conversation would have originally been classified as wholesome, even. What happened, though, was that Dr. John Carter, your boyfriend of about a month, had sustained a gratefully shallow cut while helping an overwhelmed father who found himself pushed through a window’s toy display just a week out from Christmas. The father was desperately searching for the season’s newest Super Soaker, a bright neon orange and chartreuse, just as the rest of Chicago was that evening. Apparently, no one had thought to check the store’s displays until the father snuck past a disgruntled worker and set off a whole tragic event that actually landed a couple of other parents in Cook County General Hospital, as well.

What happened then, to credit the father’s recollection, is blurry. All he can remember from then on is ending up on an ambulance’s gurney with a thousand or so pieces of glass sticking out of his puckered skin, give or take. Once he arrived at Cook County, it was your job as one of the hospital’s essential nurses to painstakingly pick out every little shard. Dr. Carter had come in and out of Exam Room One through the entire process, checking in on your progress, and not so subtly trying to spend as much time with you as he could. Since your relationship was so new and shiny, you acted like lovestruck teenagers around each other.

Eventually, it was time to stitch up the dedicated father, him and his thousand cuts. Luckily for you, Dr. Carter had just finished up with a hectic shootout in Trauma One and Two, so he was able to graciously extend his hand, literally, and patch the parent up. Carter had gone so far as to lay said hands over-top yours, in an equally unsubtle attempt to coach you through the procedure. You were somewhat ashamed to admit that the maneuver actually worked on you, forcing an embarrassing giggle out of you.

John asked what got you so giggly, rich coming from him in the awkward position John took up just to be near you, but even then, you quietly admitted, “Well, you’ve got nice hands, John.”

The confession took the newfound doctor off guard, which earned you a slightly higher-pitched, “Well, thank you,” before he continued with a choked-off cough, “Is that–is that a thing?”

You snorted, handling the needle with ease despite John’s stubbornness to keep his hands on yours, “What do you mean ‘is that a thing?’”

John shrugged, “I’ve heard it from the other nurses. That women like hands, or something.” Then, John muttered out a lame excuse for a teaching moment with the particular stitch you just pulled.

“Ah, the cat’s out of the bag, I guess,” donning a vaguely wizard-like voice, you continued, “Our greatest secret revealed! Curses!”

Carter snorted, too, before his voice suddenly deepened and he leaned in closer, his lips just a few inches away from your ear, “So, you like my hands?” Just to be a problem, Carter flexed the muscles in his hands, showing off the various veins through the thin layer of his crisp, latex gloves. This is when the conversation veered off of the nearest cliff into the dangerous waters of workplace flirting.

Trying to retain an air of neutrality, you confirmed John’s suspicions, “Oh, sure. They’re strong, and quite large, too.”

John huffed out a haughty ‘heh,’ your answer only further fueling his undoubtedly enormous ego, but you didn’t mind. No, you were stuck in this fast sinking car, so why not plunge yourself deeper into unprofessionalism?

“The gloves only make them look better, too.” John’s breath caught in his throat, momentarily causing him to choke as his head struggled to reel from your brazen teasing.

Unfortunately, your poor bedside manner was now too much for the poor father you were attempting to help. He groaned, palming his face with a free hand, “I get that you’re kids, but shuddup, for the love of God.” That all but ended the conversation in its tracks, the car now being towed out of the ocean and back onto unforgiving land.

The father’s plea didn’t necessarily end your situation, though. No, it was only the beginning of a cruel test of fate set upon you by the higher beings of this world, because once John Carter found himself struck with a stupid idea, he was determined to see it through.

So, that’s how you ended up locked in a storage closet with one Dr. John Carter, who was eager to find out more about this secret, shared female obsession.

With your back against an entire case of medical supplies, John’s closeness nearly suffocated you in the tight space, but the way he was holding the back of your head while you shared a steamy kiss made you care a little less. His mouth was slow, but aggressive, like you had all the time in the world. The kiss was full of passion and drew your breath from you even more, while Carter’s hands on your hips forced your plain, white panties to be just that more soaked from the sweet friction they provided to your balmy skin. It made you hot, unbearably so.

You had to take a short moment to separate–to gather your breath and yank your similarly plain, baby pink tee over your head while Carter’s hands devoured your body further, a single bead of saliva still keeping the two of your mouths connected. Once his hands made contact with the soft lace of your matching, white bra, your mouths met again.

This time, you allowed yourself to moan into the kiss, now past the point of caring for whoever might hear you outside of these tight walls. Carter met you in tandem, moaning too when your tongue pressed against his. The shared moment was wet and heavy, making the air feel like weighted lead in your chest whenever you dared to steal another breath. It was perfect, this little evening rendezvous, you didn’t think it could get much better.

But then, Carter parted from you and this wicked smile dawned on his face, wholly unlike the usually adorable demeanor he had on most days. You had seen this smile before, though, it only crossed his complexion when he wanted to get into trouble. A very wicked smile, indeed.

“Do you want me to put some gloves on?” John asked with nothing but a whisper. You stalled, undeniably shocked at his words.

Still, the idea excited you greatly, “Really? You’d do that?”

John nodded, already teetering forward to attack a box of gloves just behind your head, ripping the contents out onto the shelf and floor. While John grabbed a pair, you laughed, now aware of the sound you two were producing.

You shushed your boyfriend, trying to urge him to be a little quieter, but he was solely focused on getting the pair of rubbery gloves on his perspiring hands, which proved to be a difficult feat. Carter ripped the first glove attempting to yank the garment on, and he lost the other due to pure excitement coursing through his veins.

It took an extended period of time for him to finally win the battle against another pair of slippery, combative gloves, but it didn’t dull your shared anticipation as you finally got to gawk at his covered hands. The rubber shone under the bright, fluorescent bulb that hung above your heads, and you took the opportunity to grasp one of Carter’s hands in yours, your fingers exploring the material in a new light.

Again, John flexed his hands, obviously preening under the close attention. You didn't mind one bit, you were happy to finally indulge this fantasy with a guy you were totally head over heels for. And John seemed happy to indulge, too, with public sex being a not-so-secret fantasy of his. This was the perfect combination of time and place, something you hadn't seen quite yet with the doctor.

Most of these meetings hadn't even gone past some heavy petting in empty exam rooms, but the deciding forces that be turned your fate to a destination most unknown. It made you a little giddy, to say the least.

Especially when Carter brought his hands to your breasts, again, feeling the mounds of plush flesh through another, added layer. The cold latex stuck against your chest every time his hands moved from one spot to the other, forcing a shiver to run down the base of your spine. Goosebumps prickled on your skin from the touch, which John bravely tamped down with warm kisses, in reality only reigniting the bumps further.

Soon, Dr. Carter worked his way downwards, stoking a great fire with every kiss he planted on your skin. When he found himself kneeling before you, he anchored his fingers in the belt loops of your pants and tugged. Your simple, cerulean blue jeans came down easily, as you decided against a belt that morning. John smacked kisses against the expanse of skin just below your navel while he helped you out of your pants, his hands immediately flying to the swell of your ass when they finally came off.

There, he groped and squeezed, the off-white material of the gloves still cool to the touch and awakening embarrassing reactions out of you. You moaned as John moved his hands from your ass to the front of your midsection, ghosting his palms along the peaks and valleys of your body. Now, you were getting hotter by the minute, and Carter’s reluctance to help quench that flame only stoked the heat more. It was when Carter hooked a finger on either side of your underwear that you became antsy.

You whined when John didn’t move even a single inch from those spots, just keeping his fingers firmly in place while he continued to kiss all over the front of your body. “C’mon, John, we don’t have much time,” you said, out of breath.

Carter removed his face from the enveloping heat of your upper thighs to say, “I’m just trying to commit all of this to memory. You can’t fault me for wanting that.”

When John got in a teasing mood, you knew you’d stay on the precipice of pure pleasure for a long time, your nerves building and building until they couldn’t hold out much longer. “But what if someone tries coming in? This’ll be over before anything actually happens.”

Carter looked up at you, his big, brown eyes reflecting the white light from above while he sports a sly smile, “Are you saying that nothing is happening right now?”

You huff, threading your hands through John’s hair and itching his scalp, a sure-fire way to get the young doctor riled up, “No, of course not, I just…”

“‘You just’ what? Tell me what you need,’ Carter breathed against your lower stomach, massaging your thighs.

Your stomach flip-flopped with arousal, you were too far gone to worry about being honest or not, “I need you, John. I need you to touch me more.”

John continued to press white-hot kisses to your skin, “Where exactly do you need me to touch you? Gotta use your words.”

Again, you whined, the sound high and reedy in your throat, “Aw, John, don’t do that to me.”

“I’m not doing anything, just asking you to be clear with what you want.” John could be a real cocky shit sometimes, but it always got you worked up. Maybe that’s why Carter only acted like this when he was with you in these intimate moments, he knows how much it affects you.

You couldn’t work up the nerve to say what you really wanted, but you could show John. So, you grabbed John’s hands and led them to your clothed cunt, bucking your hips when you finally felt the cool rubber situate itself there. Carter gazed up at you again, awestruck, before finally leaning in and touching along the fabric of your panties.

Carter’s thumb swept along the curves of your cunt, right along the middle of your folds, before pressing against the bud your clit, hidden beneath the fabric. Your hips bucked again, entirely of their own volition, and you tried to keep any wanton noises from escaping you in this particularly vulnerable moment.

John kept this up for a couple of minutes, just teasing you through the layers of fabric and latex, the sensation wholly new to you. Unfortunately, you couldn’t keep the noises down for long when a loud, shrill whine escaped the confines of your throat. John only laughed, now hooking his free hand back under the waistband of your panties while his thumb continued to alternate between pressing against your clit and sweeping along your folds.

You didn’t know if John could feel how wet you were through the gloves, or if he just hadn’t mentioned it yet, but you were beginning to sport a puddle in the gusset of your underwear and you were begging God for John to do something about it.

God had seemingly heard your prayers because Carter began to inch off your panties, carefully sliding them down past the curve of your hips and thighs. Once your panties were fully off, you shuddered at the feel of Carter’s gloved hands swiping at your pubic mound, just above where you needed them to be.

The icy latex stuck to your skin, making a clacking noise every time Carter moved his hands everywhere but where they should be most. You didn’t have to see Carter’s smug smile to know that it was there while your body bucked wildly at his movements. You even began to beg Carter to do more, to help release the growing tension that was building at the base of your gut.

“John, please. I need more. I need you,” you said, your voice a couple octaves higher than where it usually sat in your vocal register.

“Since you asked so nicely, I guess I’ll help you out,” John said, his own voice low and full of want, which utterly betrayed the cool persona he was trying to wear now.

Finally, John gathered a heap of wetness from your core and circled your clit with his gloved fingers, the fevered way he touched you now crumbling your willpower and reducing you to nothing.

You keened, your hips moving in line with John’s ministrations as he applied full pressure to your clit, his other hand snaking its way up your thigh. Once his other hand found your core, two fingers began to prod at your seeping entrance, your cunt wet enough to take them both at once. John still kept up with his movements at your clit, having forgone the teasing for now.

After a couple of moments, Carter finally pushed his two fingers into your cunt, curling them inwards as his thumb sped up at your clit. The material of the gloves was cold and smooth against the warm, spongy walls of your core, providing a contrast that made your toes curl in the confines of your Converse. You could see from this angle that John had a determined look in his eyes that would rival many of the other residents at Cook County.

You nearly screamed with pleasure, the coil in your core winding tighter and tighter with the continued movements from your boyfriend below. Your release was so close now, especially as Carter kept moving his fingers and thumb in tandem.

Eventually, your release came in the form of a rush of wetness from your cunt and a barely hidden scream behind your hand. John was fully satisfied with himself, but he didn’t let up with his movements.

No, John kept fingering you, even well past your release. The sensations began to creep into overstimulating territory, almost painful now. Still, the pleasure you felt was unparalleled, and you bucked into John’s hand again and again.

Tearing away from his work, John looked up at your heaving form with self-satisfied eyes, “You’ve got another one for me, don’t you?”

You nodded yes, feeling another orgasm quickly approaching as Carter pushed past your feelings of overstimulation, the pain finally subsiding.

After a couple of moments of Carter’s gloved hands working your cunt, another orgasm barreled through you, taking you completely by surprise and nearly alerting everyone in the near vicinity to what exactly you and your boyfriend were getting up to.

Another rush of wetness escaped you and completely coated John’s hands, surges of electricity shocking your entire being like you were a live wire. John didn’t seem to mind though, he was thoroughly entranced by your orgasm and couldn’t find it within himself to look away.

Even as you were coming down from this second release, John cocked his head to the side and asked, “You got another one in you?” You didn’t realize earlier just how much your comments would set John off, so you were really in for it.

#er nbc #er 1994 #dr john carter #john carter #dr john carter x reader #john carter x reader #er fanfic #nbc er #er 1994 fanfic #noah wyle

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jazziejax · 1 month ago

Text

★ 𝐇𝐎𝐍𝐄𝐘 ★ 𝐇𝐎𝐍𝐄𝐘 ★

𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 - Terry Richmond x Black!OC

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 - 𝐎𝐡, 𝐡𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲, 𝐡𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲! 𝐈 𝐜𝐚�� 𝐛𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐛𝐨𝐝𝐲𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐝!

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 - Slow burn, one-sided pining (or is it?), blurred lines, emotionally tense bodyguard dynamics, light possessiveness, princess-core x protector energy.

𝐉𝐚𝐳𝐳𝐢𝐞’𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬 - seeing this fine ass man and his fine ass girlfriend got me in the mood to write again 🤷🏽‍♀️. Also, he looks like a bouncer every time he wears all black. Also, also, this is corny as fuck but I wanted to be a bit original so I went, fuck it, Princess! Sorry for any grammar mistakes or spelling errors! I hate reading my own work back!

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 - 3,908+

𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 - ⋆˚𝜗𝜚˚⋆

The screen lit up with the TikTok app’s familiar start-up jingle, followed by a soft gasp from the girl on-screen. She wore a silk bonnet, lip gloss, and an oversized tee, holding her phone like she had just discovered treasure

“Okay. Y’all… I was just trying to figure out who this woman was that literally almost shut down a street in Milan yesterday. Like—shut it DOWN. And I fell into a hole. So, let’s get into it because—why did no one tell me this princess is that girl?”

The screen cut to the now-viral photo of Princess Atarah Mbali, draped in a chartreuse Jacquemus mini dress with a long sculptural train, strappy metallic heels, and a pair of gradient sunglasses that half-covered her face. Her hair was in two sleek, waist-length braids, and her brown skin glowed under the paparazzi’s camera flash. In the background was a blurry figure in all-black — broad, tall, still.

“First of all — yes. This is an actual princess. Like, royalty. Heiress to a fucking throne. Her mom is Queen Samira — which is the one who brought that sapphire headwrap to a UN gala she attended with her husband, and it broke Twitter. Yeah, that’s her mother. So, her bloodline is already fashionable as fuck. Sort of known to be on of the best dressed families in power.”

The video then cut to a mashup, which was actually a vintage Vogue spread from years ago featuring Queen Samira’s wedding to King Kwame Mbali, followed by a slideshow of archival footage showing a much younger Atarah. From boarding school photos, grainy royal family candids, and charity gala appearances and even the occasional one of her as a child, waving to the paps. She was always poised, always beautiful, and was always watched.

“She’s twenty-four now. Went to university in London, dipped in and out of the spotlight for most of her life — and then bam, started popping up in these random clips and videos all over social media. Baby she’s been here.”

The TikTok cuts to a now-infamous video. It shows a bustling crowd outside an afterparty in France. Nothing but chaos and screaming as different security guards yelled in four different languages. The camera shakes wildly until it catches a tall, sharply built man with deep brown skin and a calm, stoic expression emerging through the crowd from the door of the party. It shows as he turned and effortlessly lifts a girl. And there, effortlessly balanced across his shoulders, laughing in a mini dress and stiletto boots, was Atarah Mbali, shades across her face as she blushed at the attention.

“This was her. THIS was her. And that man carrying her like a paper doll? That’s not her boyfriend. That’s her bodyguard. Terry. Richmond. Who has apparently been with her for, like, almost ten years now???”

The voiceover softened, almost dreamily.

“And he is always so there? Like—girl, look at this.”

It then cuts to another video. A jet ski gliding across the turquoise coast of Antigua. Atarah in a red bikini, long braids flying behind her as she’s driving with her sunglasses on and laughing. And behind her, hands gently resting on her waist to make sure the standing girl didn’t fall, face unreadable, sat Terry. Wet shirt clinging to him with his eyes trained on the horizon.

Then it cut again — quick flashes of mirror selfies she’d posted on her now semi-active account throughput the years. Some of them were classic influencer content in a way. Chic bags, nails, jewelry. But if you looked closely, there he was in the background every time — blurred in the mirror, half cropped, standing at the door, boots in the frame.

“So like… she doesn’t post a lot, but when she does? He’s always there, which I know he’s her bodyguard, but he’s fine as fuck.”

The TikTok cuts to one last clip , one low-resolution and shaky.

It was a New York Fashion Week afterparty. There was loud music and flashing lights. Atarah’s hand is in Terry’s as they move through the crowd with her in front. At one point, she stumbles in heels and he catches her by the waist like it’s second nature. She doesn’t even look that surprised by the touch. She just leans back into him for one second longer than necessary with a slightly agape mouth.

“You’re telling me that’s just professionalism? She not fucking his fine ass? Please. I bet that man is in love with his job for…many reasons. Either way, I need this in a book or on a screen near me, immediately.”

The TikTok ends with a picture of her reflection in Capri, Atarah smirking under sunglasses, head slightly tilted toward the large window she was taking the photo in. And Terry was behind her, one hand on the car door, the other on his hip as he watched her.

That was the video Atarah watched on her phone last night, the hum of the private jet subtle. Once it send and automatically started over in her headphones, it was then she felt how much she was smiling. She looked away from the phone illuminating her face, the video still playing in her ears, and her eyes landed on the man across the aisle. There Terry sat in a reclined airplane seat, asleep with a fluffy yellow blanket thrown over him, the one she placed earlier. And as she gazed at him, the end of the video rang in her ears again.

“She not fucking his fine ass? Please. I bet that man is in love with his job for…many reasons. Either way, I need this in a book or on a screen near me, immediately.”

With that, she shut her phone off and took her earphones off her ears. She let out a soft sigh as she placed the items in her carryon bag next to her before snuggling up in under her blanket and going to sleep, the last thing she saw being the sleeping man next to him.

────୨ৎ────

The private jet cut a clean line through the skies above Los Angeles, the soft hum of descent barely noticeable within the luxurious interior. Plush cream seats gleamed under the warm glow of the cabin lights, and through the oval windows, the city stretched like a golden mirage beneath them.

“Terry, wake up!”

Atarah’s voice rang out like morning bells, crisp and bright, far too lively for someone who had been curled up asleep moments ago. She sat up quickly, brushing a stray coil of dark hair from her cheek, her smile wide as her eyes danced toward the window. “We’re here!”

Across the aisle, Terry sat upright, dressed in all black, as always—black trousers, black fitted shirt, black earpiece, black watch. His presence alone was intimidating, but unmoved. “I see that. He replied coolly, casting her a sidelong glance, unimpressed but not unamused. “I’m awake.”

“Well get excited!” She grinned, undeterred by his tone. Her international accent—a rich blend of aristocratic English with the softness of African musicality—filled the cabin as effortlessly as the scent of her lavender oil did earlier. No one on board blinked at her enthusiasm. The flight staff were used to her, used to them. Atarah, Princess of the House of Mbali. And Terry…her unflinching shadow.

They began their landing procedures, Atarah adjusting her pale yellow polo sweater over her grey sweats, slipping on her worn-in Uggs. “You’re going to help me carry my bags, right?” She teased as she stuffed her hair into a claw clip and collected her Hermès blanket.

“I already coordinated your luggage, Your Highness.” Terry muttered.

She beamed at that, softly clapping her hands while Terry stared at her.

Fifteen minutes later, the jet touched down, the California sun spilling across the tarmac like honey. The moment Atarah stepped off the jet, she squealed in delight, her laughter light as she slipped her arm through Terry’s. She barely made it down the steps before the sound of shrill voices caught her ear.

“Tarah!”

“Ahh!” The woman squeaked, letting go of Terry immediately to run toward the small group of girls gathered near the base of the jet. They wore matching wide-brim hats and high-cut shorts, their Louis Vuitton crossbodies swinging as they jogged forward to meet her.

The girls collided in a chorus of shrieks and perfume.

“Omg, I haven’t seen you guys in ages!” Atarah said, pulling back just slightly to admire them, her cheeks still flushed from sleep and sun. Behind her, Terry stood like a statue, arms crossed, sunglasses hiding the storm in his eyes.

“That’s because you’ve been MIA.” Said Bailey, her British accent curled like a ribbon. Bailey was slim and surgically preserved, her cheekbones a little too sharp, and her lip filler giving her a constant pout. Classic British babe with an iffy tan but a nice beat face.

Atarah shrugged with a soft laugh. “Because I’ve been busy. You know…princess, eldest daughter things.”

Harper rolled her eyes. “Besides not hearing from you for almost months, yeah, we can tell.” She said in that soft Italian accent, before her eyes racked the princess. “What are you wearing?” She added as she brushed her Bon blonde hair away from her face, her gaze, and the rest of theirs, lingering critically on Atarah’s oversized grey sweats, polo sweater, and Uggs.

Atarah glanced down at herself and blinked. “What?” She said. “I was on a jet.” She stated, defending herself from the scrutiny she felt. Bailey scoffed, but it was Harper’s curled lip that gave it away. Atarah followed their gaze and saw the others already dressed for Coachella, all fringe, mesh, lace, and glitter. “Oh, are you guys heading out now?” She asked.

“Yeah,” Bailey said. “Didn’t think we had to tell you we wanted you to be ready.” Her tone was achingly sweet. And it scratched under Atarah’s her skin. She gave the girl a tight smile. “Well, Lady Gaga doesn’t come on ‘til later, so I’ll catch up with you guys after I get ready.”

“Where are you staying?” Sofia asked then, her soft blue eyes too curious. She was the prettiest of the trio, a nice blonde blowout and a Swedish accent with a supermodel’s height and bone structure to tie it all in.

“Uh, the private villa up north.” She responded. Sofia nodded, but Terry saw it—the subtle glance Harper threw Bailey, the way Bailey blinked hard just before she turned her cheek. He stepped forward without a word, hand landing protectively on the small of Atarah’s back.

Atarah glanced up at him, then back at her friends. “I gotta go get ready. I’ll see you guys later.” She said with a small smile. Terry ushered her toward the line of black SUVs parked nearby. He didn’t have to say a word. She already felt the prickle on the back of her neck. She waved at the girls once more before slipping into the middle car, and Terry followed.

As the door shut behind him, Atarah exhaled, gaze flicking over her stacked LV trunks in the back, just as the sound of Terry shutting the car door sounded. She settled into her seat as her eyes then drifted out of the window. Her friends were already climbing into their own vehicle, laughing again. The engine thrummed and the SUV pulled off into the city, heat shimmering off the asphalt.

There was a silence, thick and unspoken before looked over at the man next to him. “Go ahead and say it.” She muttered. “I know you want to.”

“I don’t like your friends.” Terry said without a pause, looking away from the passing plains and connecting his eyes with her.

Atarah turned her body to face him, legs tucked under her. “And why is that again?”

“It wouldn’t be respectful for me to say.”

She tilted her head back with a small groan, but she couldn’t help the smile on her face. “You know it’s just you and I. You can say anything.” She looked over his face, his ocean-green eyes unreadable, but they always made her comfortable. Terry just started at her and after a brief pause, the girl snapped her head over to the driver. “And you too, Sergio!” She called up to the driver.

“Thank you, Miss.” The man replied evenly, and it was never clear if he even heard what she said or was just responding to the sound of his name. But Atarah nodded before she looked back over at Terry. “Come on.” She urged with a small whine, and since she was twisted in her seat, she poked his thigh with her so foot, since she slipped out of her uggs. There was silence, so Atarah began to repeatedly nudge him with her foot.

And Terry had the patience of a monk. He was military trained since the young age of sixteen and there was little to nothing that could break him. Even the ever spoiled persistence of a princess that he’s known for years now. But Atarah had grew to be a friend, someone he had a soft spot for. So he grabbed her ankle gently, his large hand wrapping around it as his gaze slid over to hers. Her toes wiggled in his lap.

“I think they’re spoiled brats.” He said, voice low.

“That’s not what you wanted to say.” She sing-songed, looking him in the eye. She knew him too well. “You say the same thing about me.”

Terry’s jaw ticked. “I think they’re bitches.”

“There it is!” Atarah squealed, clapping once. “See, I know you so well.” She grinned. She leaned over, pressing her fingertip from her temple to his, her smile all honey and victory. He didn’t flinch and held the most subtle smile as he watched her. Her touch lingered a little too long before she dropped back into her seat, legs still draped across his lap.

She folded her hands in her lap, then gave him a prim look. “Now let’s talk about your choice of words for women.”

He chuckled—just a breath—but it made her heart skip. He rarely laughed, rarely softened around anyone but her. And when he did…it made her feel like she was the only person on earth who could. She watched him quietly, chin resting against the back of her seat. His thumb rubbed a slow, lazy circle into the inside of her ankle, unaware or uncaring of the way her breath hitched and made her heart beat.

Outside the window, the desert sprawled into sun-drenched silence. But inside the car, it was warmer. And there was a tension that hung somewhere between comfort and longing.

Terry finally looked away from her and back over to the passing plains. “They don’t deserve your time.” He said simply.

And for the first time all day, Atarah didn’t have anything to say back.

The ride to the villa stretched across golden stretches of highway, sun slicing through the tinted windows in drowsy beams. Atarah chattered about the things she’d missed of the city. The food trucks on Melrose, late-night runs to Erewhon, how nobody did iced lattes quite like L.A., all while Terry responded with low hums and sparse nods. It wasn’t that he wasn’t listening; he always listened. He was just…more focused on watching. Her.

When they finally pulled up to the secluded villa, tucked high in the Coachella Valley hills and wrapped in flowering bougainvillea, Atarah reached for the door instinctively, ready to burst out like she always did—except Terry’s sharp glance caught her mid-motion.

She froze. And with a dramatic sigh and a roll of her eyes, she folded her arms and waited.

Terry stepped out first, the desert sun casting sharp angles across his sharp cheekbones. His black shirt hugged the contours of his broad chest and arms, a quiet authority in his every movement. His eyes scanned the villa once before flicking back to the SUV. He reached out a hand.

“Come on.” He said.

With her small hand in his, she stepped down from the vehicle, her fingers tightening briefly around his. Terry guided her across the gravel path as Pedro and Nash, two more men from her security detail, did a sweep of the property. When the nods were given, he opened the front door for her, and they stepped into the villa together, hands still clasped like a quiet ritual neither of them ever spoke about. It was second nature to them now. A rhythm of theirs.

He led her through the villa and to her room—an airy, high-ceilinged suite with floor-to-ceiling windows and light pouring in. The rest of her bags were already being delivered in shifts by Sergio, the ever-loyal driver. When Terry finally released her hand, Atarah darted toward the patio doors like a spring uncoiled.

She threw them open, linen curtains flying up as wind surged in, tousling her dark curls. Her body moved to the edge of the balcony, where the view opened into a vast stretch of golden plains. In the distance, she could make out the Coachella stages being lit up for the day. “I’m soglad to be back in the States!” She cried, arms wide open, wind tugging at her baggy sweats and polo. She stood there a moment, basking in the warmth like a cat in sunlight.

When she turned, Terry was there, posted by the door, hands behind his back, as disciplined as a palace guard. Her grin softened as she brushed past him to return to the room, the curtains trailing behind her like silk.

Sergio was just finishing with the bags.

“Thank you.” She said sincerely as she pulled her phone form her pocket and ,add her way over to her bed

“You’re welcome, madame.” He replied with a small bow, and after a nod from Terry, he quietly exited.

She was halfway through connecting her phone to the portable speaker when she noticed Terry turning for the door.

“Where are you going?” She asked, pausing mid-pairing.

“To keep watch.” He answered, never quite turning fully toward her.

“But I need you to help me pick an outfit.” She said quickly, padding barefoot toward him. “My friends aren’t here, and I need someone honest to help me figure out what looks good.” She explained, but his face didn’t change as he looked down at her. She saw the hesitation in the twitch of his brow. She stepped closer, reaching for his hand, wrapping hers around it like it was natural—like it always had been. “Terry,” She said, voice soft. “Just for a little while.” She pleaded.

The fight in him dissolved instantly. He released a long breath through his nose before squeezing her hand once, a gesture so gentle it made her chest flutter.

He turned and pressed a hand to his earpiece. “Keep watch.” He said, eyes scanning the view of the living space elf the villa before closing the doors. “Copy.” Pedro’s voice came through as Terry turned to face her again to see Atarah’s beaming face.

Then she squealed and bolted to her bags like a child on Christmas morning. The speaker kicked on, flooding the room with a blasting beats, songs from R&B to hip hop. Thumping basslines, soft synths, and female vocals that bled into every corner of the suite.

Terry settled into the ottoman at the foot of her bed, sitting with his legs apart, elbows on his knees. His eyes followed her as she disappeared into the bathroom with an armful of options, and the show began.

She stepped out a minute later in a white two-piece, mesh skirt riding low on her hips and a crochet halter top tied around her neck, showing the cursive tattoo she had on her hip that said “made in heaven”. She twirled in front of the mirror, then turned toward him.

“What do you think?” She asked, posing for him with a smile.

Terry tilted his head, assessing her from head to toe.

“Cute. But more so for the beach, not a music festival.” He said.

She let out a small sight before turning away from him, giving herself one more look. “Ugh, okay.” She said before walking back into the bathroom. Next came a butterfly top with flared jeans, but she shook her head before even asking, disappeared again.

Then came sequins—so many sequins. A matching bra and shorts combo that shimmered like fish scales in the light. She struck a few poses and snapped photos in front of the mirror. She glanced back to find Terry watching, his jaw slack just barely, the muscle ticking.

“This one’s hot.” She said, teasing.

“It is.” He agreed. “But what shoes would you wear with that.”

She teasing smirk dropped and disappeared again, this time taking longer. Each time she reappeared, her confidence built. She laughed freely, twirled for him, winked at herself, even bent to see if she would flash anyone when she twerked. The air in the room grew warmer with every outfit. Every look. Every comment from Terry that made her feel seen and admired.

Finally, she emerged wearing the outfit she didn’t want to try at first. A storm-gray hooded mini-dress clung to her curves, cinched with a thick, black belt that sat high on her waist. Beneath the draped neckline peeked the edge of a black lace bra, sultry and deliberate. Stacked silver jewelry shimmered at her collarbone and wrists. Chunky black boots hit just below the knee, elongating her legs.

She didn’t pose this time. She just stood there and watched as Terry sat up straighter and eyed her up and down, her hands brushing down the front of the dress to straighten it

Her lips curved slowly. “Well?” She asked, placing her hands on her hips.

“I think that’s the one.” He said, voice low, rougher than it had been all day.

She didn’t say anything at first, just smiled, almost shy, before walking to the mirror to snap a few photos, her behind facing him.

Terry watched her the whole time, fingers curled on his knees, heart beating louder than usual. The song playing in the background was low and sultry, ‘Naught Girl’ by Beyoncé almost like a whisper meant just for them. When she lowered her phone, her eyes met his in the mirror. “I think I just needed you to remind me who I am.” She nodded, her eyes moving to rake over her figure again, though her voice was soft.

Terry stood slowly, the space between them suddenly much smaller than before. “You never forgot.” He said, approaching her with a quiet kind of reverence. “You just let them convince you to question it.”

Their eyes locked and her breath caught a bit as her eyes moved over his alluring features. In the silence that followed, they didn’t touch. They didn’t need to. But it was clear as the sunlight pouring in through the balcony door—neither of them wanted to walk away. Atarah softly cleared her throat before turning around to face him, looking up at the handsome man, his grey eyes moving down to look into hers. “Now let’s get you dressed.” She smiled, giving his broad chest a pat before moving past him. But her brushing him against him was something that didn’t go unnoticed by either of them, especially with the spark it sent through their bodies.

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𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐨𝐬𝐭 & 𝐅𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 🗑️ 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐞 𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐬 ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

#aaron pierre #terry richmond #terry richmond x black oc #terry richmond x black!reader #terry richmond smut #terry richmond x reader #terranceo’dunicexreader #Terrence Richmond #aaron pieere smut #aaron!pierre #aaron pierre x black!oc #aaron pierre x black reader #aaronpierre #aaron pierre fanfic #aaron pierre fanfiction #aaron pierre x reader #bodyguard!au #bodyguard! terry richmond #bodyguard x Princess

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belovedenzo · 4 months ago

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the kings of hogwarts // slytherin boys headcanons

various headcanons; appearance/style, social stance/relationships , pet peeves, favorite things, fun facts.

characters; Theodore Nott, Mattheo Riddle, Lorenzo Berkshire, Draco Malfoy, Blaise Zambini, Tom Riddle

words; 3.7k

warnings; cussing, sfw other than that? I think? suggestive maybe

notes; these are all my opinions so if they aren't accurate to you that's okay! If you want more various headcanons, comment some ideas and i'll make it happen :). please enjoy! reposts, likes and comments keep me motivated to make more. thank you guys for all the love on my other stories so far!

taglist; just tagging people I like! If u don’t want to be tagged please lmk! @shyamanuensis @riddlesbunny @redeemingvillains @nottsamor @nottsbaby @nottsluvv @nottsangel @riddleswhcre @enzosbabyangel @enzoberkshiresonly-deactivated2 @nottslove @nemesyaaa @obsessedwithceleste @prythiansprincess @anawritez-posts @riddlesrizzler

Theodore Nott

appearance/style;

6ft1

broad with decent muscle tone

light chartreuse eyes

Few scattered freckles. Iconic freckle below left eye

Light brown hair with body

A natural kubrick stare with a twist of gentleness

Sharp incisors

innocent smiles and shy grins (it’s a stick up)

doesn’t wear a lot of jewelry- occasionally a ring on his left hand

Outside of his uniform he sticks to simple colors for his clothes- beige, black, white, tan, navy, dark brown, etc.

Definitely gold over silver

Always wearing the nicest shoes- shoes are his favorite accessory

Watch on the right arm when it’s a fancy event because he’s left handed

Wears a lot of sweaters in the winter

social stance/relationships;

Silent but deadly. He may not cause a fight for the thrill of it like Mattheo will, but he will support and instigate his best friends angsty behavior. His naturally sweet looking face can quickly become mincing- his main tactic of intimidating his enemies and naysayers.

Most people think he’s meaner than he is. He actually stays mostly in his own lane if it isn’t to back up the rest of the boys or join in on chaos one of them already caused.

They are all players, sure- but Theo is kinda mean about it. Rather heartless with his hookups and doesn’t ever keep the same one for long. Romantic feelings are something he doesn’t really feel or act on.

May be on the more cold side with girls but keeps their personal info to himself. Even to his friends he doesn’t brag or talk about it that often.

People who do get the opportunity of being Theo’s friend say that he is very funny and has a dark sense of humor

Comes off as a lone wolf to the rest of the school- but can also very often be seen with his best friend Mattheo

Will actually stand up for the little guy- especially if on his own. If he thinks something is unfair he will call them out

Thinks that Lorenzo is the funniest in their group but tells Mattheo it’s him to make him feel better

Let’s the boys think he isn’t totally in charge of most of their affairs

Mattheo is his best friend- he thinks he’s the coolest and gets along with him the most out of any of the boys

Him and Enzo butt heads a lot but he does love him very much

Goes to Blaise and Tom when he needs good advice or just to vent to smart people

Finds himself feeling jealous of Draco and his ability to not give a fuck (little does he know…)

pet peeves;

While he does engage in bullying with the rest of the boys he thinks Draco goes way too far sometimes. It gets on his nerves and sometimes does say something

Love and romance in any way. If he feels like any girl is catching feelings he gets the ick and leaves sooner than he would have anyways

Hates it when Mattheo blows cigarette smoke to close to his face even though he smokes too

Thinks Enzo brags too much about himself but has never said anything

Also thinks Enzo can talk too much in general sometimes…

If a girl he likes seems more interested in any of his friends he gets jealous. This happens with Mattheo the most and can cause them to fight

favourite things;

Alone time- as much as he loves his friends he actually does love chill time alone sometimes

He likes parties just as much as the rest of them but for him it’s because he can get super fucked up- he’s there for the muggle weed and alcohol

Potions. Out of all his classes he actually finds making potions kind of fun- his favorite classmate to make potions with is Pansy because she’s actually good at it

More into smoking than drinking- loves muggle weed. He’s always in charge of bringing it to the their smaller get togethers

Crystal Castles- if that band existed he would love it

Spicy food

Painting- even though he thinks he’s terrible at it

Hanging out with Mattheo

Early morning hours

Skirts on girls

fun facts;

Actually speaks Italian and some Spanish

He can out-smoke any of the boys (yes even Mattheo)

Pansy has a huge crush on him

He never remembers his dreams

Has dyslexia

Mattheo Riddle

appearance/style;

5ft10

Lean but prominent muscle tone

Chocolate brown eyes

Long eyelashes

dark brown hair- lightly curly

Dough eyes

Very charming grin- but mischievous

Wears various bracelets and a pinky ring on his left hand constantly

Mostly dark colors. Loves jackets even when not in uniform

Mostly silver, but likes gold

There’s a few rings and bracelets that he wears the most- almost every day. They are subtle but iconic

Watch on his left arm because he’s right handed

Too scared to pierce his ears

Actually likes fashion and thinks about it when he gets ready

social stance/relationships;

Terrible reputation. Known for his rude words and tendency to get into physical fights. This has a lot of people on his enemy list

He and Draco are the worst about how they treat other people in and outside of their house. He has no respect for people that feel less than him

One of the worst players- but has a select roster he mainly goes to. They are wrapped around his pinky

Can and has felt romantic feelings but never acts on it. Hides his desire to actually love someone. Thinks that would make him too vulnerable

While Draco is egotistical- Mattheo is rude for other reasons. He’s pessimistic and does it to get attention

Secretly wants validation but continues to worsen his reputation by acting out

Thinks Theo is the funniest and the coolest. He loves his dark sense of humor. They bounce off of eachother well

Let’s Theo think he’s in charge but it’s so obviously him- right? (right-)

While his best friend is Theo- he is also very close with Enzo

Him and his brother Tom butt heads a lotttt, they get into a lot of disagreements. He secretly loves him a lot

Also quite close to Draco. They can relate in some ways even if they won’t admit it

Goes to Blaise when he needs advice or even when logic needs to be talked into him

All of his friends know that he is secretly super sweet and caring but outsiders don’t and he likes it that way

pet peeves;

Tom’s lack of empathy. And his lack of interest towards getting with girls- he thinks that is odd

When Tom won’t hang out with them because of an academic reason- also thinks that is odd

When a girl stops showing interest in him in any way- or if they’ve replaced him. If it’s one of his friends he’d freak

He hates all of his friends music taste. They don’t listen to good music. He thinks very highly however of his own music taste

Tests of any kind

If any of his friends take Tom’s side during one of their fights he gets super mad and it secretly hurts him a lot

favorite things;

The smiths- he would listen to the smiths a lot and I will die on that hill

The specific brand of cigarettes he smokes daily

Quidditch- Lorenzo is his favorite team mate because he’s quick

Confrontation

Music

Attention, positive or negative

A total night person, especially as it gets colder

Sour candy

Reading tragic romance stories

Horror movies

Hanging out with Theo

fun facts;

Thinks he can out-smoke Theo (he can not)

Has really crazy dreams and a hard time sleeping

Gets seasonal depression really bad

Hates the smell of coffee but still drinks it

Has had multiple secret real gf’s that only Theo knows about

Lorenzo Berkshire

appearance/style;

6ft4 (the tallest)

Long limbs- lean. But shockingly strong, sleeper build

Amber brown eyes

Sharp jawline

A natural Kubrick stare- mean case of resting bitch face

Dark brown hair- kept on the longer side

Shows his emotions on his face through his expressions

Likes necklaces, long ones underneath his clothes. Likes rings and earrings which he wears most of the time

Mostly gold but likes silver as well

Outside of his uniform he wears a lot of pastel colors, purple and green being his favorite. Also really likes dark purple and green. Gem tones

Watch on both arms, mixed with chunky bracelets (for fancy events)

Everyone says he had really beautiful hair and he secretly always makes sure it is (he loves his hair)

Social stance and relationships;

Known as the schools biggest whore. But in a good way?

Even though he can actually be the worst- he has a good reputation. His ability to charm and seem innocent has helped him get away with a lot of things

Generally one of the most liked out of the boys around the whole school. People fear him least and actually really want to be friends with him

Either that or they have a huge crush on him

He comes off as much more sweet than he… can be

He uses girls very disposibley. He really makes them feel like he really likes them though. He’s great at pretending to get what he wants

All of his friends know one of the worst thing about him is his habit of lying

Over the years girls have gotten the gist of what kind of guy he truly is but it still stays rumor around school because of how well liked he is

Treats everyone in the group like they are his best friends- but it’s probably actually Mattheo

He knows that Theo can find him annoying but thinks that’s funny. Even does it on purpose sometimes for entertainment

Draco is his cousin and another close friend of his but secretly envy’s him because he thinks the boys like Draco more than him

Becomes the most mischievous when with Mattheo. They can act like major dicks together

Likes to hit on girls with Blaise

Goes to Tom about school stuff he struggles with. He’s not that great with academics

While he can be cold in some ways to others- with his friends he can be quite emotional

pet peeves;

He hates that he feels the need to be perfect all the time but never can be

It irks him that everyone thinks Mattheo is some hooligan when he’s really not

While he likes smoking cigarettes- he thinks they all smoke too much

He has a lower tolerance and hates that he’s always the first to be super drunk

Waking up in the morning. Always wakes up in a terrible mood until he wakes up

Out of any of the boys he has the most patience overall

favorite things;

Getting drunk and partying. He gets invited to everything

Having people fawn all over him. He likes that so many people like him

Flirting with other guy’s girlfriends to piss them off

Quidditch- loves playing with Mattheo and Draco

Muggle weed. Also has the lowest tolerance with that

Hugging Draco

Fruit. Blueberries are his favorite

Deftones. He’d feel so cool while listening to them

Luna Lovegood. He thinks she’s freaky in a good way

fun facts;

Has the deepest voice out of all the boys

Can run faster than anyone else at Hogwarts

Has really bad OCD

Out of any of the boys he is most susceptible to substance abuse. Terrible addictive personality

He hates his family and only talks about growing up with Draco

Draco Malfoy

appearance/style;

6ft even

White blond hair

Striking, light blue eyes

Long and lanky. The skinniest out of them

Sharp angular features

Also has resting bitch face but on purpose

Loves jewelry- but classy jewelry and not all the time. Mostly necklaces

Silver and silver only

Wears a lot of dark clothing- also likes gem tones. But mostly black white and grey’s

Mostly gets comments on how blonde his hair is and how bright his eyes are. Has soul staring blue eyes

Black is his most iconically worn color fs

Watch on his left because he’s right handed. Actually wears it every day

social stance/relationships;

A total asshole. Just less physically than Mattheo. He may not pick a physical fight but he does bully a lot of people- he’s rude and intitled. Says hurtful things

Known for his high ego and over privileged personality

People don’t understand how him and Lorenzo are even related

Does pull girls but isn’t as good as the others are at it- is filled with too much hate (lol… no actually)

Everyone wonders how he gets good grades because he never pays attention. It’s because he’s actually super smart

Him and Tom get along really well. They actually have a lot in common and hang out a lot

Blaise and Lorenzo are the ones that know more of his vulnerable and emotional side, being there since the beginning

Mattheo and him really feed off one another and are a very feared couple when together (no one is safe). They fuel each others egos

Actually really loves Theo. Has always had an extra soft spot for him and has wished he could be him

He envy’s how cold Tom actually is. Draco hides a lot of his pain in a fake persona

He actually had real gf’s. A few long term ones even

Out of all the boys he trusted Blaise first. Lorenzo introduced them

pet peeves;

Everything? No literally- he has a very short fuse

Speaking of short fuse- his friends like to use that against him and rile him up for fun. He hates that

Being disrespected. He will actually become a Karen if he has to- no body is rude to Draco.. except his friends are rude to him all the time

How much everyone loves his cousin Enzo but hates him. He is jealous of the attention he gets

Any time one of the guys are bragging about girls because he secretly wishes he had that many girls

Mattheo’s fucking cigarette smoke

The fact that Tom’s grades are just a little better than his

The fact that Mattheo and Enzo are better at quidditch than him

Gryffindor. Just the whole houses existence

“Fucking nerds’, as he’d call them

favourite things;

Cussing

Writing (keeps it to himself mostly)

Mattheo’s music taste

Enzo hugs (he will die before Enzo knows this)

The Greengrass sisters (has dated both of them… wants one of them back)

The color black

Getting extremely drunk. Feeling numb and unbothered. That’s when he gets deep and real

Cold weather- hates the heat

Pastries, especially jelly filled ones

fun facts;

Speaks French

Is super rich and will make sure everyone knows that

Has a weakness for cute animals

Got mad when Tom lost his virginity before him

Is secretly bisexual

Probably bpd

Blaise Zambini

appearance/style;

6ft2 (the second tallest)

Broad and muscular but still on the lean side

Deep brown eyes

Full lips, model like features

Great cheekbones

Known as one of the prettiest out of the boys

Likes gold and silver

Never wears his watch- always forgets it and loses it

Does wear earrings like all the time though

Secretly wants a nose piercing

Wears a lot of grey and navy outside of his uniform. Looks really good in it though

Striking eyes but gentle, sweet resting face

social stance/relationships;

A good reputation like Enzo- but a bit more intimidating

A lot of girls want him but he’s actually quite picky and doesn’t give a lot of them a chance

Gets emotional about girls more so than his friends- still doesn’t date them. Like Mattheo- has the ones he goes to the most

Not really mean at all unless he’s joining in on his friends being dicks. Him and Enzo like to tease people together

Sees Draco as his best friend

Knew Enzo first

Wishes he could be as smart as Tom and goes to him a lot for school questions. Is secretly super smart though and could probably get better grades than Tom if he applied himself more

Likes to smoke with Theo the most. They get along well when they smoke together

Thinks Mattheo is the funniest

pet peeves;

How mean Draco and Mattheo can be. He finds it pointless and rude when they go too far

When he gets lumped into some of the boys bad behavior

When Enzo and Draco get too drunk at parties. He tends to drink less because he knows they will go over board and he’ll have to take care of them

How little the boys think about Tom sometimes and leave him behind (Tom would have said no anyways)

How much he can see through Draco’s shit sometimes

Does a lot of damage control for his friends and that can get old

Being late to things

Losing things (loses things all the time)

Watching a friend lower their standards for a girl or guy

favorite things;

Going to quidditch games to see his friends play- always sits with Theo

Colder weather

A comfy sweater

A nicely rolled joint. Thinks Theo roles the best ones

When things are nice and calm. No body is arguing or being stupid and he doesn’t have to be mom

When his grades are good and he doesn’t have to stress about it

Watching Draco get put in his place

Alone time with Draco and Enzo, just like their first year

Rock music. Like classic rock music- listens to it with Tom and Mattheo

Girls that wear nice perfume

fun facts;

He wishes he could play quidditch when he watches his friends play

Can understand a small amount of Draco’s French

Has really bad anxiety but keeps it to himself

Seems like the most put together in the group but really isn’t at all. More insecure than he lets on

Tom Riddle

appearance/style;

5ft11 (One inch that he holds over Mattheo’s head)

Major sleeper build

Green eyes. Odd shade of green that you can’t forget

Hair similar to his brothers just a little less curly

NIce jawline

Evil and mischievous looking grin- it’s just that way naturally

Resting plotting against you face

Tries to have a kubrick stare but has dough eyes like Mattheo

Would wear jewelry but nothing too flashy. A necklace maybe- one ring even

Gold and silver- mostly gold

Wears his watch on his right hand because he’s left handed. Wears it all the time

Isn’t seen in much other than his uniform. But when he is it’s black and green anyways

Doesn’t care for fashion. Thinks piercings and tattoos of any kind are too much

Never goes into public not dressed nice

social stance/relationships;

Social outcast. Not the most social at all really

Extremely focused on his grades and personal writings

Is either feared or ignored by most people around him

Does however have friends and goes out with them sometimes… when they bug him enough

He is known for being very smart though and lots of students want his help on projects

Quite intimidating even though he doesn’t care enough to bully anyone

Isn’t very interested in girls… has had his fun with a few but romance and feelings don’t exist in his world- he has no time or energy for that

Has had a few crushes but would never tell anyone

Doesn’t talk about his feelings with any of his friends

Actually likes his brother Mattheo the most out of any of them but won’t admit that

Is also a huge fan of Theo- he thinks he’s the funniest

Likes being around Blaise a lot too- thinks he is actually super smart

Draco and him hang out often- they have a lot in common and Draco makes the most sense to him out of all the boys

He finds Enzo slightly annoying… he’s just gotten used to him really

All of the boys admire Tom in an odd way and he does know that

pet peeves;

Like Draco- Tom finds everything lame and annoying to be honest. He however is more quiet about his distaste for things unless he really hates it

Enzo’s constant talking about girls. He thinks that guy talks too much in general

Mattheo’s temper. He thinks Mattheo needs to get it together and drop the ego

How little his friends pay attention in school… how stupid some of them can be

Mattheo’s fucking cigarette smoke

How much the school cares about quidditch and how Mattheo is praised about it more than he is with his academic success

Getting super fucked up is dumb to him. Just like the flirting and hooking up- he has better things to do. He will however smoke muggle weed a little bit and does lie cigarettes

Being touched (Enzo trying to hug him)

Athletics of any kind

favorite things;

Writing and reading, he absolutely loves it

Draco’s creative cussing

Getting the best grades out of all his friends

Watching Mattheo get angry at him and squirmy

Chocolate, major bitter sweet tooth

Black coffee

Charms; he is really good at it

Dueling; he is also really good at it and beats all the boys

Classical music

Alone time and his own space

fun facts;

He can play the piano really well. Plays mostly for Mattheo

Practically raised Mattheo even though he’s just a year older

He doesn’t like to sleep too much

He is always the first to wake up and start his day

He is also the first to always leave the table in the great hall

He speaks parseltongue but no body knows

Secretly overthinks a lot

love, spell

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