I'll Be Better in the Morning
Johnny 'Soap' MacTavish x F! Reader
(Read Here on AO3)
Rating: General Audiences
Word Count: 2.3k
Tags: Comfort fic, Hurt/Comfort, Body Dysmorphia, Fluff, Established Relationship, Soft Soap, Oneshot
Warnings: TW for body image issues
A/N: This is horrifically self indulgent don't look at me
Summary:
Johnny kisses you in the same way a mourning dove sings the dawn. Slow, poignant, tender and somehow remorseful. The feather light sensation of it spills across your tongue in hazy, dusky colors, wraps you within a warm, intimate embrace. You want to drown in it, fall asleep in its comfort, imbue the gentle touch of it into the worn, weary cracks of your soul.
"You are the most beautiful thing I have ever lain eyes on in my entire life, you know that?" He asks, and there's emotion in his voice now, threatening to crack his words.
You feel your lip tremble, eyes stinging with tears as you try to blink them away. Johnny raises a hand, links it over yours placed on his chest, fingers intertwining as he raises it up, places a kiss across your knuckles. Somehow, you know he loves that part of you too.
There's a weight settled across your shoulders.
Aching, groaning, gnawing at your thoughts. It settles across you like a shroud, blanketing your senses in hazy, muted colors and dimming the world around you. Heavy, it threatens to buckle your nerves, chafes at your restrained composure. The mere reminder of the day's events clogs the back of your throat, draws your arms a little tighter into your sides, stiffens your stance.
You're tired.
It's a hurt that's hard to quell, one that lingers even as you try vainly to ignore it. Summoned by a flash of memory, a glance into the reflection of a storefront, the bags under your eyes as you wash your face, try to regain yourself in front of your coworkers. Most days the weight is lessened, you can carry it in a pocket. Today, however, it lays low across your spine, slouches you forward as you drag it behind you, feel its gravity threaten to immerse you into sorrow.
It harmonizes with the creak of your front door as you at last arrive at home, head drooping, eyes lowered to the floor. You kick off your shoes just inside the door, frowning when they don't automatically tuck themselves neatly away. Just another thing to manage when you don't have the energy to bother.
You want to just curl in bed, forego dinner and curl under the sheets, wish away the worries of the world and hope that, come morning, all will be well again.
"Babe?"
You blink, and it's Johnny's voice that manages to penetrate the dark, chalky grey fog of your mind.
"Babe, that you?"
He's calling from the living room, and you follow the trail of his sing-song voice like finding a lantern in the smog.
"Yeah, it's me." You reply, voice heavy, not bothering to hide the weight there. "I'm home. "
You peek into the living room, taking note of the flashing advertisements on the muted TV. Yet then you arch an eyebrow when you see Johnny...on the floor? Yet then he raises himself up and you realize he's doing pushups as the commercials roll. It's a habit that tugs at your tender heart strings, summons a weary, affectionate smile to your lips as you lean on the door frame.
Johnny manages a single "Hoof-!" as he at least straightens himself, rising to a stand and rolling his shoulders. You trace them as he does, watching appreciatively as the coil of muscles rolls under his shirt before he turns to you.
Your Johnny, bright and beautiful like the sun. He grins at the mere sight of you, eyes melting with adoration. Yet he pauses when he takes stock of your form, slouched against the door frame, eyes tired.
"Bonnie?" He asks then, voice softer, more hesitant. He speaks like a child witnessing something unknown for the first time. Curious, perhaps almost afraid. "What's wrong?"
That does it. Despite your valiant effort you're helpless against that look, his brow furrowing, eyes softening in concern, lips parting with his query. Hot wet tears pool across your gaze, and the hiccup you thought you swallowed comes rising back up again in a choked sob.
You hate this.
You straighten enough to bury your face in your hands, shoulders shuddering and face warming in embarrassment. Johnny's footsteps pace towards you, his voice a soothing balm against your cracked composure.
"Hey, hey, hey." He murmurs, and his calloused hands come and settle across your shoulders. You're tipped forward, into him, cradled against his chest like you're something fragile to the touch, held with such care it only threatens to crack you further. "Shh, it's alright, gorgeous. Just breathe. I got you."
Gorgeous.
You truly sob then, and the way his tongue rolls the endearment without any effort at all, so sincere and genuine you can't help but believe him. He echoes it with no hesitation, absolute adoration of you tucked into him, his arms wrapping around you and keeping you there, safe from everything but the chaos of your own mind.
Shoulders shuddering, you let your arms fall and then wrap around his back, fingers gripping at his shirt as if that alone can ground you.
"I'm sorry." You croak. "I-I don't mean to be such a mess."
"You've nothing to apologize for." He murmurs, and you're taken even further into him, your face raised up by a hand on your nape, guiding you into the crook of his shoulder as he bends over you, forces you up on your toes to meet him.
You cry there too. It's everything about him. Safe, warm, Johnny's touch around you is pure comfort, an indulgence that leeches the sorrow away from you, clears the muddy waters of your heart. Like sunlight spilling through rain clouds, Johnny's voice hushes away the weariness, the grief and the hurt of your tired soul. Here, in his embrace, Johnny feels like home.
There's a hand in your hair as Johnny shifts on his feet. He's backpedaling, bringing you with him, and it isn't long until you're both sitting on the couch. Still pressed into his shoulder, you lean into him, one hand gripping at his shirt and the other curled around his waist.
He pulls you away from him then, hands cupping your face and uplifting him to his beloved, tender gaze.
"Can you tell me what's wrong?" He asks, and you sigh into the inside of his palm, feeling like you've just dipped your bare toes into a cool, babbling brook.
"It's nothing." You murmur there, but Johnny only clucks at you.
"No, no. None of that, hen." He tells you, turning your face again to look at him. His eyes are serious for a moment, a frown tugging at the corner of his lips. Yet then his beautiful eyes soften with affectionate worry, and you feel them pluck at the strings of your heart as he speaks once more.
"Don't shut me out. I'm here for you, so tell me what's gotten you in such a state, aye?"
You nod at him, a slow gentle gesture that summons a pleased smile to the tight draw of his face.
"C'mere." He mumbles, and again you're pressed into him, close enough so your cheek rests on his broad chest and you're left hearing the strong, reassuring drum of his heart there.
"I just...had a bad day." You start, sniffling and swallowing a sob. "I was just getting dressed this morning, after you'd already left for the base, decided to try and wear a dress to work."
"The red one?" He asks softly, and you nod.
"I tried it on, it felt comfortable and all, b-but..." You trail off, force down the lump in your throat at the memory of you standing in front of the mirror, watching your face fall. "I just...I hated it Johnny. Couldn't stand the sight."
"Of the dress?" He asks, and there's a note of perplexity in his voice as he tries to understand.
"No." You reply, voice quieter now. Weary, broken. "Of...of me."
Like a dam broken, you shudder long and hard, tears welling once more across your gaze before you hiccup, feel your sobs run over. The weight of it all presses down onto your shoulders, slouching you forward and dragging you down, downwards into the murky waters of sadness.
"Oh hen." Johnny murmurs, and he sounds heartbroken, upset and raw at your confession. That only makes you cry harder, voice cracking in your throat as you cling to him like a mast amidst a gale. "Sweetheart."
"I can't- can't do it, Johnny." You cry, voice trembling. "I try so hard not to let it bother me but I can't stand it, I hate the way I look. I can barely look at myself in the mirror without it hurting."
Johnny holds you as you ramble between your hiccups, his hand stroking steady, smooth circles into your back. He's silent, and with your cheek pressed into his chest you can't see his expression. You try to imagine it's woeful, sad, somehow not as disappointed as your thoughts tell you.
He draws you back then, hands lifting you, and you blink as suddenly you're shifted onto his lap, his hands coming to land on your waist. You pause, swallowing your next sob as you lift your eyes, look into his face.
There's an anguish there you don't recognize, one that threatens to fracture at your already wounded heart. Face pinched, Johnny's green eyes look at you with a sadness you feel reflected back into yourself, an endless prism of grief into each other.
He leans up, and you allow the motion automatically, able to discern his movements like the tides of the ocean against your bare legs. His lips graze over yours just once, and you feel his sigh there before he descends again, a hand cupping your nape, guiding you to him.
Johnny kisses you in the same way a mourning dove sings the dawn. Slow, poignant, tender and somehow remorseful. The feather light sensation of it spills across your tongue in hazy, dusky colors, wraps you within a warm, intimate embrace. You want to drown in it, fall asleep in its comfort, imbue the gentle touch of it into the worn, weary cracks of your soul.
"Gorgeous." He murmurs against the corner of your mouth, and it takes strength to not let your cries echo onto his lips.
"Johnny..." You try, voice heavy. "I-"
"Darling." He speaks then, pulling back so you can see his face, the way seriousness overrides the sadness and concern there. "Listen to me."
You do, pausing for a moment to let your eyes flicker down to your lap and then back up again.
"You are beautiful." He tells you, and his voice is sincere as his thumb strokes against your hip. "I wake up every day next to you and thank heaven I get to be the first one to see your smiling face."
He pauses, and you watch his throat bob as he tries to find the words.
"You are the most beautiful thing I have ever lain eyes on in my entire life, you know that?" He asks, and there's emotion in his voice now, threatening to crack his words.
"Your hair..." He begins, fingers skimming the edges of your scalp above your nape.
"Your shoulders." The hand drifts downwards, tracing across the rise of them.
"Your back." Downwards further still, you shivers as his fingers ghost across the small of your spine.
"Your hips." His palms settle on either side of you, squeezing gently for a moment before unclenching.
"Your thighs, your legs, your stomach, your chest..." He rambles on, taking a moment with each to let his hands feel over the feature, grounding you with his touch, admiring every inch of you. Then he raises himself up, lets his lips skim across yours.
"Those beautiful lips." He murmurs, and when he pulls back he's smiling.
"And there, those gorgeous, gorgeous eyes."
You feel your lip tremble, eyes stinging with tears as you try to blink them away. Johnny raises a hand, links it over yours placed on his chest, fingers intertwining as he raises it up, places a kiss across your knuckles. Somehow, you know he loves that part of you too.
"I love all of them." He tells you, and there's a radiance in his smile that bleeds into you, washes away the dirt and grime and leaves you refreshed, clean and gentle in his touch.
"I love them because you're beautiful, and because I love you." He finishes at last, and when he blinks you see his own eyes are glassy with an affection that threatens to brim them with wet warmth. "I wish I could spend every day just looking at you, hen. I'm so fucking crazy about you I can hardly stand it."
You don't know what to say, lips parted and eyes wide. So, you do the only thing you think of. You lean into him, wraps your arms around his neck and press your shuddering sigh to his lips, feel him drink it down and kiss you the way you need him to. The way you deserve.
"I love you too, Johnny." You whisper, voice fragile and devoted. "I think I love you more than I can ever love myself."
He makes a sound against you, and it hums against the roof of your mouth as he draws back, braces his forehead against yours.
"That will change." He tells you softly, earnestly. "Someday you'll be able to see what I see. I promise, gorgeous."
Then he pulls back, smiles wide up at you, and that shroud of yours lifts away from your shoulders with a sigh, escapes as no more than a dissipating mist in the dawn of him.
"Let's have ourselves an evening, yeah?" He asks, tone returning to his usual affectionate playfulness. "Takeout, your choice. Settle down and watch a movie."
His hand raises to your cheek, and you can't help but smile at him, at your Johnny, the most beautiful and precious gift you've ever received.
"Will you take me to bed after, soldier?" You ask trying to sound cheeky, and when Johnny laughs it sounds like church bells on a sky blue Sunday morning.
"Hen, if I had it my way, you'd never leave my bed." He tells you, voice dipping lower, husky and dragging in his chest. You shiver a little, and it only serves to make him grin wider, bigger up at you.
His face shifts again, and the smile lowers a bit into something more concerned, but containing all the wealth of love he has to offer to you.
"We're going to figure this out, aye?" He murmurs expectantly at you, and when you give him a shy, hesitant nod the grin returns.
"That's my girl." He rumbles, dragging you down once more into his lips.
"My beautiful, beautiful, gorgeous girl."
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