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icyblogs · 4 months ago

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bunny ears and devil horns

summary: Since being discharged, your life has been mundane. Safe. Boring. One night in a church with your best-friend-with-benefits Johnny changes that, dragging you into a horror story that leaves the both of you spiraling out of control.

wc: 5.9k

cw: nothing too big yet - light violence, possession, ouija boards, overall ooky spooky vibes

read on ao3 - see the pinterest board

chapter one, chapter two, chapter three

The world is going soft at the edges, the taste of smoke staining your mouth as you squint to read the tiny text on the back of the bottle of Oxiclean in your hands. You’re not eager to create some sort of mustard gas in this old, filth-caked toilet, but you’re also not sure you care much about digging around for other products.

Eventually you decide that you’d rather risk it than spend any more time in the cramped, damp room and pour a good amount of neon goo around the bowl of the toilet, telling yourself that you’ll check the time so you remember to go back in ten minutes and knowing it’s a lie.

You’d never imagined yourself as a glorified janitor, of all things. When you’d been a child you’d wanted to join the military like your mothers both had, and never once through boot-camp or the decade of tours following did you ever think this is where life would take you. Scrubbing years old shit off toilets in an abandoned church and gritting your teeth against the seemingly never ending pain in your body, just counting down the hours until you could take another pill.

It’s miserable. But it’s work, and if your time in a post-military life has taught you anything, it’s that you need work. You need a reason to get off your ass and do something, even if that something is hours of dusting and scrubbing.

Johnny’s wired the same way. It’s what has made you such good partners – professionally and personally – your ability to know what the other was thinking instinctually. You’d never had to guess what Johnny was planning and he always had this seemingly innate way of knowing where you were, even if no one had given him any hints.

It made you some of the best sergeants in the military.

It got you both so fucked up that they kicked you out.

Whatever suit was high enough in rank that even Price hardly tried to hold onto you two had seemingly dusted his hands off and turned his back. No one wants a demolitions expert with a fucked leg and shaky hands or a K-9 officer with a shiny new metal spine regrowing half her damn skin.

You were kicked to the curb, just like that. Your entire adult life gone in a snap.

Even now if you think about it too long the anger starts to build. It rests in your chest, always ready to be called up when you need it, which unfortunately isn’t often these days.

You’d give anything for the feeling of a rifle in your hands, a dog at your side, and miles of dusty nothingness around you. A target, an order, a team.

Instead, you get cheap sponges and thin rubber gloves that rip when you pull them on. The unfairness of it all leaves you wanting to bare your teeth and snarl, but there’s no one to blame.

(Uusally, you blame John Price anyway. You blame him for not killing Makarov when he had the chance, for not letting you kill Makarov, for letting Johnny back into the field before he was ready just because he’d bitched a few too many times about the sick bay, for letting the two of you go like you meant nothing. Like you hadn’t followed his every order for fucking years. He didn’t even fight for you.

You haven’t seen your ex-captain since you left base in a medvac. Johnny always tries to goad you into going with him to his meet-ups with the man, but you shoot him down. You think you couldn’t resist throttling Price if he even hinted at his new team, the sergeants he’s surely replaced you with by now.

Instead you stay home and drink yourself into a coma, usually ending up swearing at the walls and stumbling to the bathroom so you don’t make a further mess of the carpet. Johnny hasn’t stopped asking, no matter how much you bitch at him for going to see John in the first place.)

The Oxiclean is making your nose hairs burn, and you curl your lip as you look unsurely down at the toilet bowl. The filth is dripping with the cleaning product now, creating a somehow even more disgusting sight than before you’d done anything.

“Bonnie?” Johnny calls, voice bored and echoing through the building. “Ye done in there yet? I wanna get home before it starts pourin’.”

You go to rub a hand over your face before remembering that it’s caked in what’s probably considered a biohazard, and instead pull the gloves off and abandon them on the floor to deal with tomorrow, shoving out of the rusty bathroom stall.

You go to run your hands under hopefully-clean water at the sink when you’re stopped at the sight of a box blocking the bowl, the faucet dripping onto its lid. Your brows furrow for a moment, sure it wasn’t there when you first came into the room. You must be higher than you realized if you didn’t even bother glancing around before getting to work.

You can’t help but laugh a bit when you realize what it is, grinning as you imagine the way Johnny’s face will scrunch up in disgust. You grab the box and tuck it under one arm, not bothering with washing your hands, and turning to head to the nave where Johnny waits for you. The box heavier than you expected, but you don’t bother to peek inside.

Johnny’s smoking a blunt in the front pew of the small cathedral, toying with the heavy crucifix around his neck between puffs. He stares up at the matching rood hanging above the altar, the moon casting an eerie shadow through the stained glass high above it and leaving the main aisle dark. You can’t help but smile when he jumps at a loud boom of thunder outside, endeared.

“Check this out,” you say, scuffing your feet on the floor as you head towards him. That’s one thing you don’t miss from your missions in the service – the constant need to make yourself totally silent. These days you step heavily and drag your feet, luxuriating in the sound. “Found a game for us.”

You hold the box up proudly and give it a shake, endeared when Johnny squints to try and get a better look through the smoke.

“Oh no,” he says when he reads the cover, shaking his head firmly. “Ye ken I dinnae fuck around with tha’ shite.”

“Oh, come on,” you tease, sliding into the pew beside him and holding your fingers out for the joint. “You’re all grown up now, your ma isn’t here to catch you.”

He narrows his eyes into a glare, but dutifully passes you the weed. “Ye get switched enough times as a lad and ye learn no’ to mess around with tha’ kind of stuff.”

“What kind?” You take a long drag from the blunt, leaning forward to blow the air into his face, smirking when he takes a deep breath despite his annoyance. “Demonic? You think we’ll see a devil, Johnny?”

“Aye, dinnae joke,” he chides, shooting a look at the hanging savior above the altar like he’s about to climb down and smite the two of you for your impudence. Johnny would probably throttle you outside the pearly gates before you could even meet Peter. That’s if the both of you weren’t thrown down to the pit before you could even get to the gates.

“Bud, come on,” you goad, passing back the joint and pressing it between his slightly trembling fingers. “We both know it’s just a game, what’s the harm?” There’s another rumble of thunder, and you quietly hope that the rain holds off until the morning, when you’re safe in your bed and not stuck in the downpour.

He sniffs, glaring down at the box where it rests between you two. The word Ouija is faded and stained, dust coating it in a thick layer except for the small points where your fingers pressed. He eyes it like it reads How To Summon Satan In 3 Easy Steps and the look on his face is enough to make you glad you didn’t leave the box where you found it.

“Why do ye even want to mess around with it if it’s just a game?” He pitches his voice insultingly high to mock you with the last three words, pursing his lips and making a face. “Cannae find any other way to get your adrenaline goin’?”

You level him with an unimpressed look. “What’re you so afraid of, Johnny? You think the girl from The Ring is gonna crawl out of the box and eat your face? Worried you’ll catch a ghost and start singing Harry Belafonte?”

Johnny’s lip curls and he crushes the joint against the back of the pew instead of passing it to you when you hold your fingers out. “If ye dinnae think anythin’s gonnae happen, wha’s the point in even botherin’?”

“I like to watch you squirm,” you say, smirking. And it’s the honest truth, nothing more to it – Johnny’s always had a hair-trigger temper, but it’s hard to get him genuinely unnerved. Getting under his skin has always been one of your favorite past-times, even more so now that there’s no Captain looming over your shoulders to chide your unprofessionalism.

“Fine,” he huffs after a moment, lip curling up at the corner when you don’t bother hiding your excitement. “But if somethin’ comes crawling out of the shadows, I’m lettin’ it take you and runnin’ to the car.”

“Deal,” you laugh, already reaching to shake the box open. You resent the fact that it keeps you from pressing against Johnny’s side, thigh-to-thigh like the two of you usually sit, but figure it’s worth it to see the way he shifts uncomfortably as you set the board up between yourselves.

The Ouija board isn’t flimsy cardboard like you’d expected, but instead real wood, thin but solid. The letters of the alphabet are all indented across the board, stained dark like they were pressed in with a brand.

The filigree twisted around the edges of the board must have been painstakingly carved by hand, though it’s gone neglected long enough that bits of the border are filled with dust. The numbers at the bottom of the board are all slightly uneven, the 3 flipped backwards. For some reason that detail strikes you as funny, and as you giggle you suspect maybe Johnny’s blunt was stronger than you��d realized.

“Seems easy enough.” You hold the planchette up to your eye and peer at him through it. Unlike the board itself, this is made of plastic and warped from age. The place where you assume glass once rested is empty now, letting you see Johnny clearly. “Wonder who’ll pick up the phone.”

“No one.” He shifts to fold one leg on the pew and face towards you fully. “Don’ tell me ye actually believe in this shite.” He knocks on the board with the back of his hand, and you can tell he’s as surprised as you to find it's not cheaply made.

“You were the one who was scared to play,” you say, setting the planchette at the top of the board and reaching for Johnny’s hands. “C’mon.”

“Wait.” He tugs his hands away from yours, pulling one of the necklaces from around his neck over his head, wrapping half the length of the rosary beads around his fingers. “Here.”

You somewhat reluctantly let him twist your fingers around his with the beads until you’re practically tied to each other, the wood already warmed from his skin. Your fingers, calloused and crooked as they are, look downright dainty next to Johnny’s.

The beads are thick and unforgiving, uncomfortably pressed against the swollen joints in your fingers, but you let Johnny shift you as he wants until he’s satisfied. In the end, the crucifix rests pressed between your palms, and neither of you can fully extend your fingers.

“Good thinking,” you drawl. “I’m sure this’ll protect us from the demons hiding inside a hunk of wood.”

He scowls, tongue pinched between his teeth as he glares. “Dinnae joke about that shite with me ma’s rosary in yer hands.”

You raise your eyebrows and tilt your chin down, acquiescing even though you want to roll your eyes. Johnny’s always gotten tetchy when someone brings up his mother or his half-dozen sisters. He’d gotten into more than a handful of fights in the service about it, especially after one of his sisters came to visit the base and the boys got a good look at her.

“Ready?” You ask, pulling your intertwined hands towards the board. He follows easily enough, scooching closer to you on the bench, his jean-clad knee covering the hand-painted sun on the corner of the board. His fingers tremble the smallest bit, like they always do, but it’s not enough to knock the planchette aside.

“Nothing’s gonna happen.”

“Then you shouldn’t be worried,” you chirp, rubbing the tip of your pointer finger against his palm. “Now: are there any spirits in the room with us?”

The church is dead, the only sound the wind brushing tree-branches against the stained glass lining the walls. The planchette rests still on the board between you.

“If there are any spirits, feel free to come say hi,” you try, biting your lip to keep a straight face. You can tell Johnny is trying to look unamused and annoyed, but there’s just enough tension in his shoulders to tell you he’s not as unbothered as he’d have you think. “Johnny here would love to talk to you.”

He scowls, jerking his hands forward and forcing the planchette over the NO on your side of the board. “Yer no’ funny.”

You don’t bother stifling your giggle this time, moving your hands to hover over the YES instead. It moves smoothly across the board despite the indented letters and numbers, making it nice and easy to move the tool where you want it.

“C’mon,” you call out, raising your voice. “Nobody wants to come talk to us? I promise we’ll be real nice.”

To be quite honest, the dead silence feels more awkward than anything. Of course you don’t believe in ghosts, and it’s not like Johnny thinks you really buy into this shit, but there’s no real way for you to talk to nothing without feeling like at least a bit of a fool. Still, you don’t suggest quitting.

“Maybe they’ll only answer questions,” you say, glancing over at Johnny only to be met with a raised eyebrow.

“Dinnae look at me,” he says, tugging his hands so the planchette rests in the center of the board again. “This is yer game, no’ mine.”

“Killjoy,” you tease. “Let’s see… if there is a spirit here with us, will you let us know?”

There’s a flash of lightning that lights the room suddenly, then a crack of thunder hardly five seconds later. You keep from flinching through force of will alone, sharing a quick smile with Johnny.

“Alright… how about something simple, give us your name.”

You feel a bit embarrassed as you stare at the board, Johnny huffing in impatience when nothing happens. There’s enough of a chill in the room that you shiver, having left your jacket in the van to keep it away from all the dust inside the church, a decision you’re only just starting to regret.

A loud crash tears you from your thoughts, making you jump and your heart leap to your throat. You and Johnny both jerk apart at once, but the rosary doesn’t let you get more than a few centimeters of space.

“Fuck,” Johnny swears, both of you staring wide eyed at the altar.

The sanctuary lamp, previously unlit and caked with the same dust covering every other surface on the altar, now lies in at least a dozen pieces scattered across the tile. The red glass shines in the moonlight, the larger pieces quivering in place on the ground.

“Jesus,” you breathe, unable to look away from the glass. It’s still moving, the edges making a soft noise as they shiver in place.

“Watch it,” Johnny scolds, but his heart isn’t in it. He follows your lead when you tug his hands a bit, turning to face you fully, but shoots another look over to the still tinkling glass. “No’ here, yeah?”

“What, you don’t like me saying Jesus?”

He scowls, twisting a finger around yours. “Don’ be a brat. ‘S no’ funny.”

You roll your eyes, scoffing. “Whatever, choir boy.”

“I’m no’-”

“Quiet,” you hush. “I wanna ask another question.”

“Yer not bored of this yet?” He’s trying to sound annoyed, but you know Johnny well enough to tell when something’s got him spooked.

“Not when it’s getting you all scared.”

“I’m no’ fuckin’ scared!”

“Then you shouldn’t care if I want to keep going!”

“Fine!” The planchette jerks towards you pointedly and Johnny glares. “Get it over with then.”

“There’s no need to get so pissy,” you mutter, shifting your fingers to press against the plastic more firmly. “Alright, ghostie – was that you who broke the glass? You got us pretty good.”

The planchette shifts over to rest firmly on YES and it’s your turn to glare at Johnny. “Don’t fuck with this just because you’re all riled up.”

“I’m no’,” he growls. “Yer the one jerkin’ it around.”

You huff, using a nail to harshly scratch at one of his cuticles. “What’s the fun in moving it yourself? Leave it be.”

“I’m–”

“So, ghost, got any stories for us? Any omens to make us think the world is ending?”

The planchette shudders slightly between your fingers, and you figure Johnny’s got to be more upset than you realized if his trembling has gotten this bad. As fun as messing with him is, you resolve to give up the game in just a few more minutes.

“Alright, then,” you mutter, running your tongue over your teeth. “Well, I guess it’s time for us to go if you’re not gonna do anything else interesting.”

You’re guiding the planchette to hover over the large GOODBYE at the bottom of the board, Johnny moving with you, when your fingers jerk to a sudden stop.

You look up at Johnny, confused as the tool starts moving towards him. “What’re you doing? You’re the one who wanted to leave.”

He looks as confused as you do, blue eyes shining in the low light of the church. “I’m no’ doin’ anythin’.”

The planchette slides firmly over the NO, still shaking in place. You can feel the tremors in Johnny’s hands, skin rough against your own. There’s a soft pattering of rain beginning against the roof, echoing through the church.

“Whatever,” you roll your eyes, not sure why Johnny’s bothering to mess with you when he’d been the one rushing you out of the building earlier. “Let’s just get home, yeah?”

“Tha’s what I’ve been sayin’,” he mutters, but the planchette stays in place.

You frown, trying to tug your fingers away from his. Johnny’s fingertips stay glued to the plastic instead, and the rosary is looped tight enough to keep you from pulling very far.

It feels like the temperature is dropping by the minute, the hair on your arms standing on end as you shiver. You’re sure it’s the rain, and curse yourself for having left your umbrella in your apartment. “Johnny, come on, bud. It’s cold, I wanna get home.”

Johnny doesn’t respond, his head lolling forward and his eyes trained on your hands. He doesn’t speak, and you feel his fingers go still next to yours. Slowly, he moves the planchette towards the center of the board again.

You lean closer to him, head ducked to try and get a look at his expression. The only time Johnny’s hands don’t tremor is when he’s asleep, and even then he’ll twitch or jerk depending on the dream. You have a brief thought that he somehow fell asleep right there across from you, unrealistic as it seems. “Johnny? You alright?”

It’s cold enough now to make you shiver, and you glance around nervously. Your old instincts from the military are flaring, something deep in your brain that you’d thought you’d lost saying run. It’s not easy to shake the instinct off, but you do. You know there’s nothing but thunder and rain to run from out here.

“Keep going,” Johnny suddenly says, voice quiet but rough.

“What?” You ask, jerking your fingers again and starting to try and untangle them. “What’s wrong with you? Let’s just go.”

“No,” he says, voice firmer now, something in his tone that you don’t recognize. “Ask another question.”

“Seriously?” You scoff, annoyed. “It’s just a stupid game, Johnny. I’m done.”

“I’m not,” he hisses, and there’s something off about his voice now, an almost doubled quality that makes you question your own hearing. When he glares up at you, shoulders hitching high around his ears, the shadows make him look nothing like your Johnny.

“Bud…” You try, realizing that this might just be one of Johnny’s mood swings. They’re usually more noticeable – when he goes from laughing at a joke to launching himself towards someone else, fists cocked and teeth bared, or when he shifts from nearly catatonic to bouncing around like he’s done a line – but you can’t think of any other reason for the sudden clenching of his jaw.

Johnny’s fingers feel icy against yours but you stop trying to pull away, letting your hands go limp and heavy against the board. “Fine,” you huff. “Ghost, do you think Johnny’s being an asshole and should just let us leave?”

The plastic tool jerks so quickly to the NO that your fingers pop, your arms following and leaving you nearly headbutting Johnny.

“What the hell?” You spit, frustrated. “What’s your problem?”

“‘S no’ me,” Johnny insists, accent thick, but he keeps his eyes glued to the board and refuses to look at you.

“Of course it’s you,” you grit, thoroughly unamused. “Who the hell else would it be?”

You all but scream when there’s a sudden boom of sound, a horrible screech of glass shattering and crashing to the floor. It’s only luck that keeps you from knocking the Ouija board over as you jolt towards Johnny, nearly pressed chest to chest.

“What the fuck,” you breathe, staring wide eyed at the now gaping hole in the wall of the church. The massive stained glass window, easily as tall as you, lays in what must be hundreds of pieces scattered across the floor. The night sky makes it look like there’s nothing outside the window, just a wall of black with rain now blowing in and splattering across the floor. The wind is violent enough that it makes a horrible howling sound, gusting in through the window and leaving you even colder. “What the fuck.”

Johnny’s silent, but his trembling has picked back up – just not in his hands. Instead it’s his shoulders that quiver, his body curving in on itself and nearly pressing against yours as he shakes.

“Johnny, please,” you lower yourself to begging, your own shoulders hunching. “I get it, alright? I won’t bring this stuff up again, fine, can we go now?”

He’s shaking his head before you even finish your sentence. “No, we can’t leave.”

“Why not?”

“Keep askin’ your questions.”

“What? Jesus, Johnny, what’s going on–”

“Don’t,” he spits, twisting to glare at you. It leaves him at an unnatural angle, hunched enough that he has to tilt his head to the side and up to make eye contact. It leaves the scarred side of his head washed in moonlight, the pale skin textured enough to cast slight shadows across the rest of his scalp. “Don’t say that.”

“Fucking hell, Johnny, get over it,” you snarl, pulling away. His fingers have started to shake again, and you hate that the familiarity of something he despises makes you feel more comfortable. “The damn windows are shattering and you’re worried about my language?”

“Maybe they’re breaking because of yer language.”

You can’t help but laugh at that, shocked. “Tell me you’re not being serious. Johnny.”

He only cocks a brow, eyes darting over your shoulder again. “Ye think it’s a coincidence?”

“What else would it be?”

Johnny looks back to you, then seems to crumple a bit. “Yeah,” he nods, glancing down at your hands. “Yeah, I don’ know.”

The wind feels like it’s being funneled right towards you and you shudder in place, glancing over your shoulder nervously. You could swear the rain is splashing against your back, your tank-top leaving you with plenty of skin vulnerable to the cold. “Can you get the rosary untangled?”

Johnny bites his lip, one of the cuts dotting them splitting open easily, the blood welling quickly. You can’t tear your eyes away from the way the red drips down his chin, slow but rich. “Yeah, we’re tied up good, aren’t we?”

“Yeah,” you agree, looking at him closely. The dark red streak down his chin looks nearly black in the light. You go to reach up and wipe the blood away, but your hands feel too heavy, like cement blocks attached to your wrists.

The blood slips quickly from his chin, dropping to the board silently. He doesn’t even seem to notice.

A great crack of thunder shakes the building, and you can’t help but jump. Johnny is still across from you, staring down at the board.

The rain grows louder, and now you know you can feel water splashing against your back. You inch away from the wreckage behind you, nearly kneeling on the board now.

“You gotta help me out here, bud,” you mutter, trying to slither your fingers away from his. Johnny is still, though, almost eerily so. “Johnny, come on. What’s going on with you?”

He lifts his face slowly, head rolling to the side and then back, like it’s too much effort to lift straight up. He looks down his nose at you, eyes-half lidded. The usually striking blue is dark in the dim church, but it’s his pupils that take your focus. They’ve shrunken down to nearly nothing, though it’s hard to notice at first. The dark of the pupil almost blends with the dark of his iris.

Your only thought is that it must be the light, or maybe the shadows. You know Johnny has blue eyes – pretty blue eyes that used to help him get any girl off-base he wanted, you know because you’ve watched him use them to his advantage, nearly fallen victim to them yourself – but they’re a deep brown now, peering at you from behind thick lashes.

It doesn’t make sense.

There’s a tension in your shoulders that wasn’t there a minute ago, goosebumps covering what must be every inch of your body, a screaming sound at the back of your mind that’s getting harder and harder to ignore.

But nothing has changed. It’s still just you and Johnny, alone in the church. You know that.

“Bud?” You ask, unable to fight the hesitance in your voice.

He blinks and pulls his chin down so he’s looking at you straight on. He sits up more fully, easily pulling your hands away from the board and with his. Your fingers are limp, still feeling weighed down.

He makes a grunting noise that’s just barely audible over the sound of the rain, now a downpour. He tugs his hands and makes another sound when he doesn’t get any distance, still tied to you.

“Hold on–” You say, but before you can try to carefully work at undoing the loops, Johnny rips his hands to each side, tearing the rosary and sending beads flying everywhere.

“Johnny!” You exclaim, flinching away to avoid being pelted in the face. You gape as you watch the little wooden beads roll all different directions across the tile floor, Johnny shaking his hands out and cracking his knuckles. “What the hell did you do that for?”

He looks at you again, chin angled just high enough that he’s looking down his nose at you. “Thought you didn’t want to be all tied up.”

Your face feels almost gummy from the expression you're making, brows pressed together and mouth pulled down and open, baffled by Johnny’s behavior.

He’s had those rosary beads since he was born. A gift from his mother to her first-born son – misogynistic, but traditional. He’d kept them on him since the day you met him. Through deserts and tundras, falling from helicopters and burying himself in swamps for days on end, you’ve never known Johnny to not keep those beads tucked around his neck.

You tried to steal them once, for a prank. It’s the only time to date that he’s attacked you outside of sparring.

To see him destroy them so callously, so easily…

It’s analogous to everything you know about Johnny. One simple movement, and you feel like you hardly recognize the man in front of you at all.

He plants both hands on his knees, heaving himself up like he’s about a hundred pounds heavier than he actually is. There’s a loud groan and you think it’s the beams high above you shifting, before realizing it’s just him.

The Ouija board is left abandoned on the pew as Johnny takes a few steps forward and you twist towards him, watching his back.

He looks around like he’s got no idea where he is, the moonlight streaming through the stained glass window casting him in a pale light. He looks like something plucked out of a black and white movie, all the color seeped from him.

You stand and begin to move away from the pew, though you linger several feet away from him. You curve around his side, standing to his right and watching as he looks up into the light, face stark.

“What are you doing, doll?” He asks, and his voice is gruff like he hasn’t spoken all day. You know that’s not true, though; he nearly talked your ear off on the hour-long drive out to the church.

“Getting ready to go,” you say, watching him closely. You come to a stop at the small, waist-high fence surrounding the altar. You’re nowhere near your bag. “That okay with you?”

It’s said sarcastically, but he nods like he’s actually giving you permission. You’d step forward and smack his arm if you weren’t so spooked by your own instincts.

Johnny turns back around, once again putting his back to you, and moves towards the pew. He reaches down towards the Ouija board, then snorts. Again moving slowly, he reaches up and knocks the board to the ground.

“Figures,” you hear him mutter. “You still tiptoeing around back there?”

His voice has lost its Scottish brogue, syllables still rough but his tone completely different. He sounds closer to British now – he still sounds distinctly northern, granted, but not Scottish. You can pick that out even from the few words he’s spoken.

“Not tiptoeing,” you say, sneaking backward slowly. You wrap your fingers around one of the heavy candlesticks sitting atop the altar, the candle long since lost. You hold it behind your back, parallel with your spine, and inch forward again. “Your hearing messing with you again, Johnny?”

He tilts his head to the side, keeping his back to you. You can see the way his shadow seems to stretch endlessly along the center aisle, a long, straight column of black. You inch forward slowly, making a liar of yourself and keeping careful to step with your toes first.

“Might be,” he rumbles, tone unconvincing. He turns towards you when you’ve just inched within arms reach, expression unimpressed. “What’ve you got th–”

You don’t let him finish.

The room is lit up by a vicious bolt of lightning as you swing the candlestick towards his head, his eyes widening for a split second before the silver slams into the scar covering his temple. You can all but feel the crack in his skull, blood pouring from the wound instantly.

He stumbles toward you, hand reaching up for your throat, then collapses. His whole weight falls onto you, sending you stumbling backward. Unable to keep your balance, you both go crashing to the ground. You can’t help but yelp in pain, your shoulders bashing painfully into the tile step before the altar.

You hold your breath as you stare at the ceiling, dazed. Another horrible crash of thunder shakes you out of your reverie, chest heaving on a gasp. Your body seems to suddenly realize that it can hardly breathe beneath Johnny’s bulk, and you shove at him desperately until he slides off.

You scramble to your feet, candlestick still grasped in your damp palm. You can hardly believe what you just did.

You acted on instinct alone. The old, predator part of you whispered protect yourself and it’s like the rest of your sane, rational mind completely disappeared. Never mind that you’ve never once needed to protect yourself from Johnny, or that he would have absolutely no motive to hurt you.

The animal part of you felt threatened, and you acted.

Still, it’s been a long while since you’ve had to do anything even resembling violent. Your months out of the military have left you skittish, apparently, because it’s your hands that tremble now instead of Johnny’s.

He’s as still as a corpse on the ground before you, the only sign of life the soft rise and fall of his chest, and even that is almost imperceptible under all the layers he’s wearing.

You’re struck, suddenly, with the memory of another time he looked exactly like this – the side of his face blown to shreds, bone visible if you could see past the endless blood, his eyes open but dazed and unseeing.

You squeeze your eyes shut, telling yourself this is nothing like then. It’s hard to believe when you look again and see blood drenching the same side of his face.

Taking a few long, deep breaths, you try your best to center yourself.

You stumble back a few steps, quickly falling to your knees and looking for the rosary beads. You’re frantic enough that you’re sure to miss a few, but you scoop up as many as you can and stuff them in your pockets. Once you find the hand-carved cross, you stand and rush to the door.

You leave the cleaning products behind. Those can be Johnny’s responsibility, whenever he wakes up. That, and finding a way home. The truck’s keys are in your pocket.

The rain soaks you to the bone the second you step out of the church, and it’s nearly impossible to see through it. You fumble your way to the car, feeling almost like there’s a force at your back shoving you away from the old building.

It takes ten minutes for the rain to slow enough that you feel comfortable driving, the windshield wipers finally able to do their job.

You look back at the church just once before pulling out of the parking lot. Lightning strikes in the long-forgotten graveyard to the side of the building, lighting the world up and making you flinch.

As you peel out of the parking lot, you’d swear the lightning lets you see a shadowy frame through a stained glass window.

#i have re-read this 3 separate times #gnawing on this like a dog with a bone #its SO good #atmospheric horror is crazy and unsettling literally meah #dark fic #ghoap x reader #RAHHH so good 100/10

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icyblogs · 7 months ago

Text

fig. 1. hand in dog mouth | Johnny 'Soap' MacTavish x Reader

MASTERLIST · AO3

The first time he smells her from inside the woman's locker room, it brings him to a halt. The human voice in his head grows dimmer and dimmer until it ceases to make a sound.

or: the forced mating omegaverse au

tags: Size Difference, Size Kink, Omegaverse, Explicit Sexual Content, AFAB Reader, Stalking, Kidnapping, Heavy Noncon/Dubcon Elements

“Fuckin’ gym isnae giei’ me a free month even though ah have tae drive tae practically the other side o’ the country tae get a decent pump in.”

“Mate, I can’t understand you when you get all worked up,” Gaz sighs on the other end of the phone, probably pinching the bridge of his nose. A lot of their conversations end up that way, one of them quickly losing patience with the other until the call abruptly ends.

Johnny drops his gym bag in the back and slams the car door shut, rounding to the other side to get in on the driver’s side.

“Ah said, they aren’y refunding me fer the month even though the other location is on the other side o’ town. That’s a half hour back ‘n forth,” he gripes. The call switches to bluetooth a couple seconds after starting the car, Gaz’s exasperated voice coming from the speaker instead of his cell.

“Don’t you already get a discount?”

“That’s jus’ fer bein’ a vet. This is completely different. It’s gonna be closed fer a month fer renovations. Ah cannae do this fer a whole month.”

“Hey, I know where you live. Aren’t there other gyms around that you could go to instead?”

“Are ye out o’ yer fuckin’ mind, Gaz? Ah’m no’ payin’ ten quid fer a fuckin’ day pass when ah already pay out the nose fer a membership.”

“No need to get mad at me, mate, I’m just giving you suggestions.”

“Well, keep them tae yerself if they’re all that bad.”

“Okay, this has been a great chat. I hope you blow a tire on the way there and try calling me for help so I can ignore it.”

The call ends with a loud beep and Johnny barks out a laugh as he reverses out of his spot, looping out of the lot and onto the main road.

He takes the highway because most of the slush and snow has long been cleaned off, though his wipers pump back and forth furiously to keep the snow flurries from sticking to the windshield. That already sets the tone for his evening. He nearly gets in an accident twice on the way there, everyone losing their ability to drive the second the weather is even slightly bad.

He should just be lucky his gym even has another branch. They could’ve left him high and dry for the month, forced him to go to one the other gyms in his neighborhood that don’t offer the same range of weights and veteran’s discount.

Worse, he could’ve been left with no choice but to use Gaz’s guest pass to his exorbitantly overpriced luxury gym downtown. Even the thought makes Johnny shudder. It could always be worse.

It’s so much more than just the drive that he hates about the other location. Like the first time he came here months ago when an appointment on the other side of town made him think it would be more convenient to pop in rather than heading back home for his workout, the parking lot is packed when he arrives, and he has to circle the lot twice before a spot frees up.

The gym is similarly packed when Johnny walks in, and his mood darkens as he scans the weight section for a free bench. None in sight. Just meathead after meathead lining the far wall, huffing and puffing with each rep, dumbbells scattered around.

Headphones slipped on and music loud enough to make his ears ring, he heads to the treadmills instead. Better to just start his workout like usual and hope for the best.

The air stinks of sweat and hormones, alpha pheromones wafting through the gym and leaving not a corner untouched. It’s one of the reasons he prefers the location closer to his place—convenience aside, his location is mainly frequented by betas and omegas, the odd alpha not having much of an impact on the overall vibe.

It’s not that he doesn’t have plenty of alpha friends (Gaz being just one of them), it’s just that sometimes he likes being the biggest, meanest thing in the room. Keeps him in line. Keeps him from being the stupid shit he is ninety-nine percent of the time, as Gaz would say. He likes to be the only one posturing.

So he doesn’t relish being forced to work out with a million carbon copies of himself. It’s nothing Johnny isn’t used to at least—a decade in the military and a lifetime of contact sport before that had been enough of an education in coexisting with other alphas—but it leaves him on edge, muscles bunching up until his shoulders are nearly up to his ears.

Running loosens him up. Distracts him from the urge to sink his teeth into something tender and shake until it bleeds.

A brisk walk to a light jog to a full on sprint. Tongue suctioned to the roof of his mouth, sharpened canines throbbing. The most natural state in the world—legs pumping under him faster and faster, the faint memory of bare feet on a cold forest floor turning over loose soil with every stride. The steady pound of his feet against the ground rumbling through him.

It’s a pale imitation of the real deal, but the taste of salt and rust on the back of his tongue keep him grounded. The beast in his chest rumbles its approval.

When a bench finally frees up, Johnny has to dash across the gym when he sees another alpha nearby eyeing his spot. He reaches the bench a few seconds before the other man though, slinging his sweat-drenched towel across the seat to claim it as his. The alpha hovers for a tense second, face screwed up in anger and nostrils flared like he might put up a fight for it.

Do it, Johnny almost growls, teeth itching. Try it and see what happens.

Lucky for both of them that the other alpha knows when to cut his losses. He shoulder checks another alpha as he stomps back to the leg press machine and nearly starts a whole other fight, but that’s none of Johnny’s business.

He cringes when he finally looks down at the bench only to find someone’s back outlined in sweat. Entitled shitheads at this gym can’t even be bothered to clean up after themselves.

The noxious miasma of alpha stench would make his eyes water if he weren’t so used to it. Pungent and sharp, like gargling brine.

A month can’t go by quick enough.

He leaves feeling worse than when he came in. Shoulders tight with tension and irritation crackling through him. Doesn’t even bother throwing a halfhearted see you later to the front desk workers on his way out. The height of rudeness. Not even rude so much as just not him; Johnny likes to talk, he likes to be friendly with the staff. It speaks to the anger riding high in his blood that he can’t even pretend.

To make it worse, his car is covered in snow when he makes it back, forcing him to spend an extra five minutes cleaning the shit off before he can finally leave.

It’s untenable. He can mind his ego for a paycheck, but on his own time his patience curls up into a ball in his chest and goes to sleep. It’s not a question of if he’ll lose his temper but when. Inevitable. His pugnacity has always been his downfall; his Achilles’ heel. Always cutting himself down on a sharp tooth.

The rosary beads dangling from the rearview window sway with the car when he takes a tight turn.

“Ah ken,” Johnny mumbles to himself, silver cross glinting under the stoplight. “Ah can do a month. Ah can keep it together.”

The next couple of times are just as bad. It’s always crowded during his preferred usual time and it always stinks, like the staff know they’re fighting a losing battle trying to keep the place clean so they don’t even try.

The sorry fuckin’ state of this place, Johnny thinks in revulsion, sneering down at yet another machine damp with sweat from the guy before him. It takes him a minute to wrestle down the impulse to chase after the other alpha and drag him back by his hair before shoving him face down into the puddle of sweat on the seat he left for someone else to clean up.

Only the threat of being permanently banned keeps his temper in check. That can only last for so long though.

It’s gotten to the point where he seriously considers taking Gaz up on his offer to come with him to the gym downtown. He’s a danger to himself and others here; a walking time bomb rapidly ticking down. Each day, something new tests the limits of his patience, like when he comes in one crowded afternoon only to find all of the lockers taken, the locker room stuffed to the brim with alphas and a few straggler betas.

He sits in his car with the heat on for an hour until the gym clears out, steaming enough to fog up the windows. Nearly turns right back around when he enters the locker room to find it absolutely demolished—damp towels strewn about, shower water all over the floor, and stinking to high heavens of sweat, body odour, and piss.

There’s still a dent in one of the lockers from the brief loss of his temper. He doesn’t cop to it, but he makes a point to only use the lockers on the other side of the room from then on.

He’s desperate enough to join Gaz at his fancy downtown gym all of one time, but the facilities there are so serene and sterile that his skin crawls the moment he walks in. Soothing spa music echoes through the three-story gym (no, wellness centre, the staff correct him at the check-in desk, and Gaz has to kick his bad knee to keep Johnny from howling) and verdant green plants grow from pots placed around the facility.

Like working out in the jungle, he thinks sardonically.

“How can ye even concentrate here?” he asks, aghast, staring at the group of limber, flexible bodies stretching and straining in a group yoga class behind a nearby glass wall. He licks his lips.

Gaz rolls his eyes. “It’s not that bad.”

“Ah’m no’ gonna get kicked out for breathing too loud, am ah?”

“If anything, you’re gonna get kicked out for public indecency,” Gaz sneers, looking down pointedly at Johnny’s open hand inching towards his crotch. “Can you chill out, mate?”

“It’s no’ my fault! They’re arching their backs ‘n pushing their tits out. Ah shouldnae have to look at that when ah’m tryin’ tae work out.”

“Would it kill you to not run your mouth off for five fucking minutes?”

Johnny mimes zipping his lips and then follows Gaz downstairs to the locker room, where the wall-length granite sink and infrared sauna make his eyes nearly bug out of his head.

To no one’s surprise, he doesn’t go back. Gaz doesn’t ask him again either.

An appointment one day pushes his schedule back a couple hours and he shows up later than usual, his teeth clenched tight the whole drive over because he expects the worst. Double the occupants, double the meatheads.

But when he pulls into a near empty lot, the knot of tension in his chest loosens. Only a handful of cars, and most of them are parked near the take-out place at the other end of the complex.

It’s practically a wasteland when Johnny walks in. A few people here and there, but otherwise deserted. Only a single person posted near the free weights.

Even the locker room is more palatable. Freshly cleaned and stocked with new towels. All of the showers have been scrubbed down and dried, the curtains tucked behind the holdbacks and waiting for someone to use them. It’s like walking into a brand new gym.

“Yeah, this is kind of the sweet spot,” a staff member tells him when he rocks up to the desk to ask about it. “We get a lot of alphas that come here right after five, so when it empties out around nine, we have the cleaning staff come in to sanitize everything.”

“Well shit,” he laughs, pushing back from the desk and lacing his hands behind his head. “Guess yer gonna see me more often.”

True to his word, he starts showing up later and later, the streetlights plump and gold when he swerves into the parking lot and parks in the middle of two spots purely because he can. There’s a new bounce to his gait, a pep in his step.

It fucks up Johnny’s schedule for a bit, but it’s well worth getting home well after midnight if it means that he gets the gym to himself. No one to complain when he groans and pants through each rep, sweat dripping from his face and body onto the floor, weights slammed against the mat with a loud thud every time he finishes a set.

(In truth, he’s no better than the alphas that plague the gym during the evening hours, but he’s long made peace with being a hypocrite.)

For a moment, it seems like life will at least be bearable until the month is over and he can go back to training at his regular gym. All he has to do is wait it out.

When it first catches his nose, he splinters down the middle.

It happens when Johnny’s on his way out for the night, muscles warm and only slightly sore, the kind of soreness that’ll dissipate by the time he flops into bed. It’s later than usual—closer to one than twelve, and he’ll feel it in the morning when he’s forced to get up at his usual hour—but there’s hardly anyone else in the gym and for that, it’s worth it.

The strap of his gym bag digs into his shoulder as he tosses a hand up on his way, saying goodbye to the beta manning the front desk on his own. A shame that he’s stuck on his own all night. It would drive Johnny crazy to be stuck at work with no one to talk to—it’s one of the reasons that he followed Gaz into private security when they both got out of the service.

He turns around, about to step out of the gym, when a peculiar smell tries to sneak past him. A slippery thing, silverfish quick and just as conspicuous.

He catches it though. Hunting dog with a purebred snout, he sniffs it the second it wafts under his nose and goes ramrod straight, egress forgotten.

The door to the women's locker room is closed, but he can smell the faint traces of the omega’s scent clinging to it. She must have touched it on her way out. Must have placed her palm against the door and shoved. The alpha beneath his skin that wears his face stills as well, everything vanishing into the singular nature of the scent emanating from the locker room door.

In twenty-nine years, he’s never felt so—

(unmoored, untethered

sinking into it like a stone, not coming apart but unraveling altogether—)

He breathes in again and it’s fainter now, but he can still smell it. Candy pink frosting, so sweet that his teeth hurt and his dick throbs. Juicy like a ripe peach waiting for his teeth. It wafts from the women’s locker room, so subtle that it’s clear that whoever it belonged to is long gone. He must have just missed her, an hour separating them at most.

It’s like nothing he’s ever smelt before. No omega in heat has ever made his head spin like this, every inch of him attuned to a single scent. Even slick on his tongue has never made him feel like this, rut thundering through his bones and snapping him into a new shape.

The hunger shifts from his throat to his stomach, settling in deep. And the beast under his skin that wears his face opens its maw, ropey strands of spittle stringing between its teeth.

“Hey man, you good?”

Johnny blinks, looking over his shoulder to find the guy at the front desk frowning at him. It snaps him out of whatever spell he’d been under. His alpha recedes beneath his skin again, hungering but quieter.

“Uh…” he clears his throat, pulling the strap of his bag back up onto his shoulder from where it slipped down. Gives the guy a thumbs up. “Yeah. Sorry—lost my train o’ thought.”

The employee stares at him for a beat before mumbling, “Okay…” under his breath and looking back down at the computer.

Johnny stares at the door for another few seconds before finally leaving.

He sweats all the way home. Worries, wonder, and woes. Blinks and suddenly his exit is next, another car behind him honking when he changes lanes abruptly without signalling. Haud yer wheesht, he thinks and flips the other driver off for good measure.

At home, he paces the length of his house thinking about that omega’s scent until it’s time for bed. Then he tosses and turns until his sleep grows profound and swallows him whole like Jonah. Into the belly of the beast. Nothing to do but let it spit him back out like a peachstone.

Then morning comes and his jaw clicks when he yawns and his bad knee hurts.

But worse than the snow pelting his windshield on the drive to work and worse than the cold stinging his face when he parks and stops for his morning coffee is the memory of that smell.

It’s not as if he doesn’t have any experience with omegas. Despite growing up under the thumb of four alpha sisters, Johnny’s been popular with omegas his whole life. His history with them is an assortment of sordid trysts and quick flings, good enough to scratch an itch but not enough to make him want to bite and keep.

Sticky, messy, syrupy ruts spent buried between an omega’s soft thighs, gorging himself on slick and pussy; nudging his cock against pillowy lips and then thrusting down their throat, hand palming the base of their skull to hold them in place.

It’s always been like that though. One and done; a couple days at most to work through the worst of his rut and then out the door, a messy kiss for the road before whistling his way home. Johnny’s good for that. A romp in the hay, a roll in the sack. Generous with his fingers and mouth and cock.

He’s never craved an omega like this though, never fevered like he fevers now. Itched like his skin was turned inside out in his sleep.

Waking up in the middle of the night panting, the covers under him drenched with sweat and his knot throbbing in his hand, already swollen and aching. Fisting his cock until he has no choice but to roll over and bury his teeth into his pillow, humping the mattress frantically until he comes, eyes watering with the force of his orgasm.

No tonic for this ailment. It simmers in his blood, infatuation decocting into full blown obsession.

Brontide as leitmotif and it rumbles in his ears.

Wandering through the city punch-drunk, always waiting for it to catch his nose somewhere else. In line at a salad bar, always a head taller than everyone else (which he’s still getting used to, which is still a strange new fact of civilian life); at a local venue with Gaz for a concert, scenting the air for any sign of them; seated at the back of the coffee shop across the street from the gym, eyes trained on the door.

Waiting. Always waiting.

And, hungering like a starved dog.

Saliva pooling in his mouth when he thinks of what it’ll be like when he finally has them under him, desperate and cloying and wet.

Other omegas smell sickly to him now, off somehow. A facsimile of what he knows is out there waiting for him. He’s not down for a quick fuck anymore. A hand on his chest and doe eyes blinking up at him makes him shudder now, grimacing down at the omega trying to compete for his attention when out there there’s—

His omega.

Just for him. Made to take his knot and clench around it and squeal when he pumps them full—

Hishishishishishis.

So he shrugs her hand off and sends her on her way.

Johnny spends weeks trying to line up their schedules—his and that elusive omega’s whose scent still permeates the gym even though he never actually sees them in the flesh—to no avail. Even though he’s there waiting at the gym nearly every day, they must stagger their visits. Worse, they seem to come at irregular hours; some days, Johnny shows up and though he can smell the omega’s scent, it’s flat, stale. Like they’ve been gone for hours, ages. Only the oil from their hands still embedded in the dumbbells on the rack.

He doesn’t even care if anyone’s watching when he brings one up to his nose and breathes in.

Then abruptly, the scent disappears, and with it, his soundness of mind.

A week gasping for air, flopping belly up. Breathing in nothing, not even the old, stale scent of his omega because they’re gone suddenly without warning. The first couple of days are manageable only because he doesn’t notice it at first, used to his omega taking a couple days off at a time to rest and recover, but then two days stretch into three. And then into four.

Johnny’s long thought of himself as wild and self-reliant, not accountable to anyone or anything apart from himself. It takes four days to obliterate that notion.

On the fourth day, he wakes up and his agony crawls out of his mouth on spindly legs.

It follows him to work and back, an ache between his shoulder blades and a gnawing, wretched hunger for something he can’t have because it’s beyond his grasp. Smoke now, lost in the ether. He drives across town before and after work, hoping that they’ll suddenly reappear and set his mind at ease, but the gym only smells of alpha funk and his own souring mood.

Too long without it. He’s nothing but a shell of himself in its absence, without the scent of his omega to calm him down, and it makes Johnny realize that he wasn’t doing well on his own before but just barely surviving. Barely keeping his head above water.

Ghost hauls him out of a bar by the scruff of his neck on Saturday night when he almost starts a fight, and only sinking his canines into the other alpha’s forearm calms him down. He slumps forward in the bigger man’s hold and whines when Ghost strokes a hand down his back and murmurs something vaguely soothing in his ear, his words muffled by the mask. He even lets Ghost drag him back home and curls up on his couch until a balled sock hits his head and he slinks into Ghost’s bedroom, dragging his feet the whole way.

His longing is excruciating. Pathetic. Like a dog with its own empty bowl in its mouth begging for scraps.

Gaz still calls every day because they’ve been joined at the hip since they first met almost a decade ago and it’s not long before he picks up on the shaky note in Johnny’s voice, stilted conversations becoming wholly incomprehensible. Even Price calls him towards the end of the week to ask if he’s doing alright. No, sir. Yes, sir. Ah’m fine, sir.

“Was it Gaz who snitched?” Johnny gripes, cutting a side-eyed glare at the alpha on the bench next to him curling sixty pound weights and groaning like he’s getting sucked off at the same time. Still no sign of his omega.

“Well, it wasn’t Simon.”

That makes him snort. Last time he tells that traitor a goddamn thing about his life.

Absence does not make the heart grow fonder. It makes the world seem fetid and bland, and he looks out at it through dull eyes, anger kindling inside. Makes his stomach cramp like there’s nothing in it. It takes the sheen out of an oil spill, leaving only the mess and rot behind.

And then suddenly it’s back like nothing happened, stopping him in his tracks as he walks into the gym. They must have gone out of town for the week, on vacation or visiting family, something so trivial that he’d laugh if his innards weren’t char and ash. If his alpha weren’t half-feral, blotting out his thoughts for hours at a time, all instinct and anger and teeth taking over until he regains clarity and the sky is dark.

It nearly brings him to his knees when he walks into the gym and the smell of his omega blooms bright and nacreous. The gym staff eye him with growing uncertainty, but he’s hardly the most concerning customer at a big box gym (last week someone locked themselves in one of the bathroom stalls with a knife), so they leave him to his own devices when he’s finally able to move again.

His omega isn’t there, of course. Johnny can tell from a quick glance around the gym and a sniff of the air. But they were, and that’s all that matters.

Their reappearance sharpens his resolve. Runs it against a whetstone, his time of waiting coming to an end. He rolls his shoulders back and puffs his chest out in anticipation. It can’t come soon enough.

Nothing stays silent for long when a wolf is watching from the shadows. Eventually it has to make a sound.

It’s quiet in the gym at two a.m. (a far cry from his usual time, but the hunt demands sacrifice), only the sound of a single treadmill whirring and shoes hitting the belt disturbing the near silence.

Johnny smells you the second he walks in. It punches him right in the chest when he inhales and the ripe, sticky scent of his omega flows into his lungs. Mouth watering on instinct. Rutilant eyed, he tilts his head wolf-like and stares down towards the other side of the gym where a pretty thing fiddles with the settings on the treadmill, settling into a light jog.

He’s buried under an avalanche of want so powerful and so swift that it collapses him down to base instinct. Thoughts disconnected and hazy, blooming like a bruise in his head.

Shouldnae be here, he wants to croon in your ear while he holds you down, almost swaying on his feet at the thought. Should be back in my bed at home takin’ my dick so deep in yer gorgeous cunt that ye can taste my cum on the back of yer tongue—

The employee manning the front desk doesn’t even look up when Johnny scans his pass and pushes through the turnstile, flipping to the next page of the magazine open in front of him.

It’s better that way. Johnny doesn’t know what he’d do if someone tried to stop him or get in his way.

The gym is deserted at this time of night, only the single treadmill in use and someone that passes him on their way out, a gust of wind at Johnny’s back signalling their departure. Everything always works out in his favour. He suffers for it, but God rewards him for his patience.

He takes a seat on the closest available training machine and doesn’t even pretend to use it. Johnny’s never been much of a performer anyway. Instead, he drops his gym bag down on the floor beside the chest press machine and leans forward, elbows resting against his knees.

He’s lucky that you’re too concentrated on your workout to feel the heat of his stare. Your phone rests on its side in front of you, an episode of a show playing to distract you while you run. Earphones in to block out the noise. He knows Ghost would tell him to correct that. Can’t have his omega distracted while alphas lurk nearby waiting to dig their teeth into the supple lump of flesh sitting tantalizing just below the collar of your shirt—

A bead of sweat runs down his temple and his dick twitches in his sweats.

There are cuffs in his gym bag. Tools of the trade. It’s not as innocent as he lets himself think, but they’re there in case things go sideways. Sideways like if you take one look at him and run the other way when you notice the way his half-lidded eyes barely blink as he stares at you.

And he can’t have that. Not now that he’s found you.

His patience is unwavering when the circumstances call for it. It’s a skill he picked up in the service, learning to channel all of the frenetic energy coursing through him into a tight point at the back of his mind, compressing it all down to a singularity that later he’ll allow to expand and burn itself out like a dying star.

Not now though. Now he sits and he watches and he waits.

He stares at your ass while you run, crossfaded on his alpha’s slabbering hunger and his own need to wrench those leggings down your hips. When he has the luxury of time, he’ll tie you to his bed by your wrists and ankles, belly down to make it easier on him, and sink his teeth into the flesh of your ass until it’s tender to the touch, until even ghosting his hand over your ass makes you squirm and weep.

Even the thought has a growl rumbling at the back of his throat.

You’re not a very fast runner, but you’re quick enough. Like a rabbit, Johnny thinks and nearly laughs at his own joke. A distracted one at that, too concerned with what’s in front of you to notice what’s lurking right behind.

No matter. He sits and he waits.

Eventually, the treadmill starts to slow down, and with it, you. Panting to catch your breath. Fingers trembling when you pause the video on your phone and scrub a towel down your face to wipe off the sweat.

And for once the entire gym smells of nothing but a honeyed sweetness. Spun sugar and strawberry Angel Delight. Intoxicating and heady. It permeates the building, dragging him deeper into a drugged haze, dulling his senses, plugging his ears with cotton until the only thing he can hear is the sound of your rabbit-quick heartbeat going bump-bump-bump in your chest.

You must have been finishing your workout with a light jog because when the treadmill comes to a complete stop, you take another second to catch your breath and then step off to the side, draping your towel around the back of your neck and heading for the locker room.

Johnny feels himself rise to his feet but there’s no consciousness behind it. No intent beyond primordial reflex, prey drive kicking in when you try getting away. He forgets about everything else—the employee at the front desk, his gym bag next to him. His knees don’t even crack for once, the movement fluid, and when he follows you towards the locker room, his feet hardly make a sound.

It’s to his advantage that you haven’t noticed him yet, but he’ll deal with that soon enough. The locked room door swings shut behind you and there’s a second where he hesitates, better thoughts creeping past his alpha to whisper in his ear that he doesn’t have to do it this way. He’s never had trouble with an omega before—why use force now?

And then he hears a locker slam shut on the other side and instinct takes over.

You’re half-undressed in the middle of the locker room when he walks in, clad only in your panties and bra, and his world narrows down to that moment. Everything in his life has led him to this. Like a red sea parting; the universe suddenly giving him a sign, beckoning him forth.

The door swings shut behind him and your ears twitch at the noise.

He’s done this before in another life. Three strides and he slips right up behind you, arms winding around your front to pull you into his chest and covering your mouth with his hand. You freeze for a split second before going haywire, flailing in his hold, his hand muffling your screams.

“Shh, it’s just me, doe,” Johnny shushes you, arms constricting around you. Relishing the feeling of your body against his, warmer and softer than he imagined.

You shriek behind his hand, twisting in his hold and trying with all your might to break free. Simple thoughts for simple creatures. Even when you try to bite his hand, Johnny only coos, cock swelling at the feeling of your tongue on his skin. The little kittenish licks just rile him up. He likes it less when you try to headbutt him, narrowly missing his nose when you throw your head back.

When he dips his nose into the crook of your neck, he can’t help the growl that slips out of him.

“Enough o’ tha’,” Johnny growls, words reverberating with his annoyance.

The sound makes you still, prey instincts as sharp as his. Smart girl. You know when not to push your luck. He’s bigger and stronger, and his teeth are precariously close to your mating gland, which sits nestled in the crook of your neck.

He breathes in. Your scent is strongest there, at the base of your neck. A delicate layer of skin and then underneath it, your blood sings. Whispers praises high and sweet to him. A shuddering breath out.

You mumble something behind his hand. Tremble violently, your nails digging into his forearm with a biting sting.

He shushes you again. “No’ here, baby—gotta take ye somewhere more private.”

He pays no mind to the way you resume your screaming behind his hand as drags you deeper into the locker room and away from the door. Hardly needs to use any of his real strength, only a fraction of it. The fight you put up would almost be endearing, would almost make him go thatta girl and nip at the tip of your nose, if not for the way it triggers his instincts, an innate urge to dominate you into submission.

It isn’t hard to wrestle you to the floor in the showers. Like play fighting, all bark and whine and keen, teeth snapping an inch from his nose until he pins you under him, snarling right in your face until you submit. That gets you to stop making a fuss. The last thing he wants is to deal with a front desk employee trying to play the hero by pulling him off you. Not that anyone could. He’d rather this not end in bloodshed.

“Tha’s better,” Johnny growls. “Jus’ be nice, a’right?”

You shiver at his words, eyes wide and petrified, darting all over his face. Even tinged with your fear, how could he not preen under your gaze now that you’re getting a proper look at him? He knows what he looks like—rugged and strong, mohawk recently cleaned up and beard freshly trimmed. Not a behemoth like Ghost, but big for an alpha, broad shouldered and beefy.

Big for an alpha in a couple different ways, he leers.

“Don’t hurt me,” you whimper, and that breaks his heart. How could he ever? How could he ever look at something as perfect as you and want to ruin it? His chest aches at the thought.

“No, baby,” he whines, nuzzling his nose into the side of your face. “Ah would never, baby, never. Dinnae be scared. Ah’m no’ gonna hurt you, doe.”

He drags his nose down the length of your head, running his tongue over the rounded corner of your jaw. Your sweat tastes of wet roses and tart jam. Still intoxicating, but wrong, sour and sodden with fear. It makes his skin itch and his shoulders tense. You shouldn’t be scared of him; his omega should never be scared of him.

“Ye cannae smell it, doe?” he asks, pressing a soft kiss into your neck, lingering there so he can feel your pulse flutter against his lips. “Ah can… Cannae smell a damn thing else when yer around. S’all ah can think about.”

“What are you talking about?” you whisper, so frightened that you can barely squeeze the words out, fear choking you. He can’t stand it. The thought that you might find him dangerous makes his throat burn, agony ripping his chest open and yanking his insides out.

He braces himself up on his forearms and forces his hand under your head, lifting your head up off the tile floor.

“How do ah smell, doe?” Johnny rasps, shoving your face into his neck and holding you there until you have no choice but to inhale. He feels the way you shudder when you do, hands spasming against his chest. “Smells good, doesn’t it? Just breathe it in, doe.”

You do, shakily. Then a deeper inhale, filling your lungs with his scent.

“I—oh god—” you groan, your hands suddenly fisting in Johnny’s shirt and dragging him closer.

“Jesus,” he curses through clenched teeth, dizzy with lust. He goes with it, laying more of his body weight on top of you, hind brain taking over.

A long, deep inhale. Your nose digs into his neck. “What is that?” you whine.

“S’the best thing in the fuckin’ world.” An understatement. Johnny’s eyelids fall shut when your tongue pokes out to lightly graze his neck.

So much pent up emotion and anguish and want only for it suddenly—

stop.

Motion succumbing to instinct, to fate. Everything else is collateral damage when fate gets in the way.

Your hands fisted in his shirt, scent ripening, fear replaced with something else—still sharp, but charged. Hesitant because you shouldn’t want this—it shouldn’t even be a thought in your head to indulge the strange man who wrestled you to the floor and forced you to scent him, but then you get a good whiff of him and that thought shakes like television static, like a mirage, like a glass surface wobbling right before it breaks—

When he pulls back, the world is different.

You’re glassy eyed, so pliant now that he could do anything to you, anything at all. And then his eyes dip lower.

He cups your neck with a clammy hand and strokes a finger over the lovely gland at the crook of your neck. It’s warm to the touch.

“Look a’ this,” he breathes, awed. Your hand flies to his wrist, fingers barely able to wrap around it.

“D-don’t touch it,” you choke out, swallowing harshly. It has to be sensitive. Still, Johnny can’t keep from stroking his finger over it again, soaking up the way his touch makes you shiver. Poor thing, gone so long without your alpha’s touch.

“Ah cannae help it, doe,” Johnny whispers. He switches to his thumb, rubbing the pad of it over your gland until you whine and squirm, eyebrows drawn tight together. “Does it hurt, baby? Do ye need me tae make it better?”

You whine, trying to weakly bat his hand away. “N-no, that’s for my alpha—”

“Aye, tha’s right.” His eyes gleam fulgurite under the fluorescent lights. “Fer yer alpha.”

He digs his thumb in harder until your mouth opens on a silent cry.

His alpha drools a messy puddle beneath his skin, jowls sagging. It stares without blinking.

It’s different than lust or bloodthirst. Darker; deep-seated. He’s never felt this way before, and, if his gut feeling proves true, he never will again. It’s like looking down a vast, dark hall, and seeing only one way out.

A damp shower room floor in a locker room is no place for him to take his omega for the first time, but he couldn’t lift himself off you if he tried. His muscles feel far too heavy, like lead weights dragging him down, the gravity stronger here somehow.

“Let’s get this off,” he murmurs, sitting back on his haunches.

“Wait—wait, not here, alpha, please—”

Your protests fall on deaf ears. He wrenches your bra over your head, mindful not to let the back of your head smack against the tile floor. “Gentle, gentle—there we go. Tha’s a good girl.”

Your panties come next, stripped off and tossed elsewhere. His lips follow the path of his hands, sucking kisses into your hips and thighs until your fingers thread into his hair and yank. He yelps, scalp tingling with pain.

“Do tha’ again, doe,” Johnny purrs, shuddering when you do. Eyes rolling back in his head.

His world tilts on its axis when he forces your legs apart and stares at the perfect slice of heaven between your thighs.

“Doe.” Voice broken, shredded. Running his thumb up the seam of your lips and moaning when your hole clenches at his touch and a drop of slick leaks out. “Oh, doe…she’s so…”

Too awestruck for words. Language is beyond his grasp, too inadequate for the feelings coursing through him. Lacklustre, diaphanous thing. There’s no way to describe the feeling of leaning forward and touching his lips to yours, angling his head to give her a proper kiss, one with tongue and feeling. She kisses him back just as passionately.

The taste of you is incomparable. He can’t believe he ever thought there was a world where he could subsist on just the smell of you. Impossible now that he’s had you on his tongue. He runs it up the seam of your pussy, the flat of his tongue spread wide to catch every honeyed dewdrop clinging to your skin, sucking each fold into his mouth to be extra thorough. The pearl sitting nice and pretty at the top gets a wet kiss for waiting so long for his touch.

He pulls back for a second to catch his breath. “So pretty, baby,” Johnny whines, pulling the hood of your clit up with his thumb and sucking her into his mouth.

“Oh my god—”

He buries his face into your cunt, the bridge of his nose wedged against your clit and making you howl. He doesn’t budge even when you practically wrench his hair out by the roots, too committed to making your pussy squirt all over his face. Not an easy task with the way you keep trying to push him away from your cunt, but Johnny’s always risen to any challenge.

You howl when he wedges his tongue in as deep as it’ll go, thighs clamping around his head. Not a bad way to go, Johnny thinks in a daze, chin wet with your juices and nose nuzzling your sensitive little clit, making your whole body jolt. He can tell you’re close by the way your thighs spasm and your scent goes marzipan sweet, so lush and rich that his swollen cock leaks in his sweatpants.

It’s easy to get lost in your pleasure; Johnny feels it like it’s his own, his low back aching with the force of your impending orgasm. He misses your clit too much to let her get lonely though, so he lets go of your hip to push a couple fingers into your hole instead of his tongue.

“C’mon, doe, lemme see ye come,” he whines into your pussy, thrusting all three fingers into your hole, half-lidded eyes with blown out pupils watching the way your pussy gobbles them up. “Just like tha’—oh, there we go, baby, oh my god, come on, yes—lemme have it, doe—”

Your release is wet on his hand and all over his face. Little pussy still milking his fingers, the prettiest thing he’s ever seen.

A hush falls over the room, the moment almost devotional. He thinks you might be crying, but it’s hard to tell because the blood in his ears is too loud and his hand is wet with your come and he wants nothing more than to do it all over again until you can’t even talk.

He rises to his feet in a daze, a deep red flush high on his cheekbones. His shirt comes off first, pulled over the back of his head and tossed behind him; his sweats are similarly discarded, tugged down and kicked away until you’re staring up at him in all his hairy, naked glory, cock flush with blood and heavy, drooping away from his stomach.

He laughs when he notices where your gaze has dropped. “Like what ye see?”

“I don’t know about this—” you start, but he pays your words no mind.

“C’mere,” he growls, suppressing the urge to wince when he drops to his knees again.

Johnny hooks an arm under your low back, hoisting your hips up until your ass rests against his thighs, making your back arch. It thrusts your tits up towards his face and he nearly goes cross-eyed staring down at your cute little nipples. They look lonely too.

He gets distracted again, forgetting about sinking his cock in your cunt in favour of hunching over to get his mouth on your tits. Sucks one until it's hard and pebbled against his tongue and circles his tongue over the soft areola skin, completely forgetting about your other breast. It’s hard to pull himself off.

You yelp when he bites down, not hard enough to hurt, but deliberate enough to tick you off.

“That’s too rough!” you hiss, grabbing him by the hair again.

“Sorry,” Johnny gasps. He nuzzles between your breasts, practically purring. “Ah’m so sorry, doe, ah couldnae help myself…”

Puppyish, he leans up to bunt his head under your chin, shuddering when your fingers loosen and hesitantly scratch his head.

“…Okay…” you murmur, overwhelmed. He ignores you, too content with nuzzling into your neck while you run your nails over his scalp.

Being this close to you after weeks of nothing is almost enough. The air reeks with your scent. If it weren’t for the ugly, festering ache in his belly, he’d be tempted to skip straight to this. Roll onto his back and pull you onto his chest, press his nose to the crown of your head and breathe in until it lulls him right to sleep. Maybe get a good belly scratch at the same time.

Then he inhales and the scent of your come on his chin makes his spine go stiff. Drool leaks from the corner of his mouth.

It can’t wait anymore. The thing under his skin shakes with hunger, its greed a ravenous, frothing appetite that goes mindless when it waits for its food. Do it. Do it now.

He braces a hand against the tile floor to lift himself up and pets your cheek with his free hand. “Ah’m gonna put it in now, okay, doe?”

And he means it too, stomach cramping with eager anticipation, knot already filling up at the base of his dick—still small enough to pop it into your hole, but not for much longer—because it’s everything he’s dreamt of since he first caught your scent in the air.

That must not be the case for you.

When you twist onto your belly and try to scramble away, he stares dumbly for a second before seeing red. Johnny crawls after you, dragging you back by your ankle when you get a bit too far away and flipping you over again. You hiss when the back of your head smashes against the floor, hands reaching up to cradle it instinctively.

You get it snarled right in your face, his anger erupting out of him like a geyser, like a dense fog rolling down from the mountains and spreading to everything below. “Ye dinnae fuckin’ move.”

“I-I’m sorry,” you breathe.

Even consumed by rage, he can smell your terror. Putrid, not the soft sweetness of your usual scent. There’s pain there too, and it makes his muscles tense like he’s ready to spring. It’s what brings his alpha to the surface, the scorch of anger cooling slowly as you lie there trembling.

It doesn’t feel good, but he can’t—he can’t let you go.

His hands flutter over your face, squeezing your cheeks and leaning down to plant kiss after soft kiss on your lips. “Doe, please, ye cannae do tha’…ah wanna be gentle, but ah cannae control myself if ye—” Johnny can’t bring himself to say it, the image too painful to contemplate. There’s no reason on Earth that his omega should be trying to run away from him.

“O-okay, alpha…I…I’ll be good.”

His self-control is hairstring thin. “Yer just nervous, right? Tha’ why ye tried tae run?”

“I-I’m just nervous, alpha.” It’s a neat trick, repeating his words back to him in order to calm him down. It works.

His chest deflates as he kneels there over you. Johnny stares into your eyes a few seconds longer, a subtle reminder not to fucking move, before he sits up again, rolling his shoulders back and tugging your lower half in again.

This time when he notches the head of his cock against your entrance, you whisper oh god oh god oh god to yourself but you don’t try to run. It must seem inevitable—no way to fight him off or talk him out of it because there’s a film over his eyes that reflects nothing back.

And then he slowly sinks his cock into you, your hole stretching around the mushroomed head. His jaw rolls on a shaky exhale.

Something in him cracks wide open and—

something ugly slithers out.

“Oh fuck,” he moans, voice cracking. His cock sinks in another inch, warm, wet heat sucking him in. “Jesus, doe, ah cannae fuckin’ breathe—”

You flex your hips at his words, ankles digging into the divots above his arse and pulling him in until he suddenly bottoms out, cock stuffed to the root in the warmest, snuggest cunt he’s ever felt. It nearly makes him go mad; he gets so close to it that his face goes numb, the blood pounding in his ears. He curls over you, a string of curses slipping out of his mouth.

You’re there when Johnny opens his eyes again, damp hair haloing you.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, a tear slipping past your waterline and dribbling down your face. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me—”

“It’s okay, doe.” His hands run up and down your sides, soothing you. “S’just instinct. Ye cannae help it any more than ah can.”

Your walls squeeze around his shaft, nerves making you tense up, and Johnny groans, his hand curling into a fist by your head. It takes every iota of his being not to come right then, buried to the hilt in your pussy with your ankles digging into his low back. He nearly does when you whine at him to move.

“Okay, baby,” he breathes.

Johnny tries to be gentle at first. Makes a conscious effort to rock into you with slow, smooth strokes, distracting you with a deep, wet kiss. Lips gliding together, sucking your bottom lip into his mouth only to graze it with his teeth, heat rushing through him when you tremble. Coaxing your tongue into his mouth and then sucking on it.

His control starts to slip when he tries to pull out and your ankles dig into his back, pulling him back in. The force of his next thrust makes your body shift, sliding up the wet floor. Too much. Be gentle. But he can’t—the pressure in his core gets worse the longer he fucks you, an eagerness to reach his end building and building. All he can do is chase it. Bite at its heels.

“Yer so pretty,” he rasps, petting your face with shaky hands and bucking his hips into yours until you can’t hold back your pretty little moans. “Pretty, pretty doe. Ah’ve got ye, love.”

A few more like that, pounding into you until you squeak like a toy and he laughs, breathless and full of mirth. Buoyant. Revelling in the sound of you coming apart under him, all fractured pleas and kiss-swollen lips.

Perfect angel, all sweetness and moans and cream coating his cock, gleaming under the fluorescent lights every time he pulls out.

There’s a white ring at the base of his dick from the mess of your combined fluids. Johnny nearly passes out when he notices.

His bad knee aches from digging into the tile floor. He’ll feel it in the morning when he wakes up with bruises on his elbows and shins, muscles stiff and twinging when he moves, but it’s a price he’ll happily pay to keep his pretty doe on her back with her legs spread.

Any lingering guilt about fucking you on the gross shower room floor evaporates the more you pant and the wetter you get because, he rationalizes, on some level you must want him just as bad. Not with the same fervour, not a bone bright ache that sucks you dry and spits you out like a peach pit, but close enough that you aren’t pushing him away anymore.

He ignores the weak pressure on his shoulders. Pries your hands off so he can pin your wrists together over your head.

“Been lookin’ fer ye fer so long,” Johnny croons. He ruts into you clumsily, losing any semblance of finesse. “Smelt ye weeks ago ‘n knew…knew ah had tae have ye.”

Your eyes fly open, stunned. “Weeks?” you gasp.

“Thought ah’d lose my fuckin’ mind lookin’ fer ye.” His breath comes out ragged. “Couldnae sleep or eat or do anythin’ except jerk my cock raw. Should’ve saved it all up fer ye, but…” his laughter is a deep, brassy thing. “…ye’ll still get a fair share.”

“You’re disgusting,” you moan, and that makes him laugh even more, rutting into you like a beast.

“Christ, doe, keep runnin’ that mouth.”

“You’re a—”

dumb, nasty dog

sick in the head, fucking me with that big, fat dick—

He grunts and his lip pulls back in a mean, crooked grin.

It’s never been like this before. Like someone drilled a hole in the side of his head and filled it up with you. You’re in every crevice of his mind and body, mycorrhizal tendril spreading through him.

“Ah’m gonna ruin yer pretty cunt, doe,” Johnny rasps, neck soaked with sweat and eyes burning hot, pupils blown so wide only a glimmer of blue remains. “Get her nice ‘n soaked with my come.”

“Alpha—” you keen, for lack of anything else to call him and it makes his vision go blank.

That’s the only truth that matters to him. Like a divine calling—his omega begging for him, asking for more more more. It’s as close to love as he’s ever gotten; as close to heaven as he ever will.

Diving headfirst into oblivion. He clamps his hands around your waist to hold you in place and fucks into you with renewed vigour, losing himself in the pleasure. Any coherent thought evaporates, reduced to mindless instinct. His beast and him are indistinguishable; two sides of the same coin; he looms over you Janus-faced, a god of beginnings and endings.

He breathes out heavily through his nose, teeth gritting together and lips pulled into a flat line. So close to it, knot catching more with every thrust, almost too big to pull out.

The smack of his hips against yours fill his ears, drowning out your pleading and keening. Seismic motions churning beneath the tile floor keep a steady pulse. The lewd squelch of your pussy nearly drives him mad—slick running down your thighs, pooling onto the floor beneath you, this place irrevocably changed because of your mating—

If only you’d squirt on his dick too, he could die happy. Scream out alpha, alpha, alpha until you shudder and come.

And you do eventually—milk his dick filthy sweet and cling onto him for dear life, nails scoring red lines into the flesh of his back. His muscles bunching under your touch.

“Fuck, doe,” Johnny chokes, near tears himself. His perfect girl coming all over his cock, eyes rolling back in your head like it’s never been like this for you before. “Tha’s right, tha’s right—such a good fuckin’ girl—oh, baby—”

You need him. No other alpha can take care of you he would. It’s not enough that he fuck you, not enough that he make you come, not enough that he see you through your next heat, he has to—

Take it all for himself, every last fuckin’ inch of you his.

He bears down on you, scooping his arms under your back until there’s no space between you, chests pressed together.

His eyes zero in on it. The nodule of flesh at the crook of your neck. And his teeth itch like they’ve never itched before, too large for his mouth.

“Alpha—” you sob, squirming in his hold. “Alpha—too tight—”

He can’t respond. Mouth full of drool and teeth, fucking you harder than you should be fucked, cockhead trying to kiss your cervix with every thrust. He’d crawl inside of you if he could. His thrusts only slow when his knot finally catches, the pressure making you sob when he tries to pull out and he can’t, stuck inside you. Lazy grinds of his hips now, getting as deep as possible.

It’s a shock to his system so profound that he can’t stop shaking. His first knot—better than a ring, more binding than a marriage contract. The most basic, ancient covenant. Irrevocable.

And—it feels—

Indescribable. His thoughts leak from his ears like tar. Eager, fevered. Eyes fixed on your mating gland, dropping his head to get a better view. Better up close, so close that his teeth graze it every time he pants, so sharp that one wrong move and they’ll slice right through, one twitch and it’s game over—

You mewl and arch your chest, inadvertently thrusting your neck up too, so his canine drags across your gland—

mine mine mine mine mine mine

The beast under his skin has a name and it’s—

mine mine mine mine mine mine

(and his teeth just slipped, he’ll say when you ask)

Ah dinnae mean tae, doe, honest—

But ah’ll take care of ye—

You’ll never understand it, but there’s a beast that lives under his skin and it—

—yearns, craves, hungers, howls like its belly is still empty even after all this time, constantly aching no matter how much it’s fed—

Sometimes Johnny wonders if it’s like this for other alphas. Whether they crave their mates with the same intensity, the same burning need smoldering in their veins. He asks Price once and gets an answer that neither confirms nor denies.

All Johnny knows is that your legs shake when you follow him out of the gym, the employee behind the front desk not meeting his eyes. Better that he not. There’s still blood and come on his chin, his grey sweats stained at the crotch. You’re no better, shirtless under your puffy jacket, hat jammed on a bit too low on your head because he had to be the one to put you back together after taking you apart.

And though he’s sheepish on the drive home—because what’s his is yours now, and what’s yours is his—your car still back in the parking lot until he can get someone to pick it up in the morning, he wears guilt like sheep’s clothing. It doesn’t fit quite right.

“We’ll get ye a nice wedding gift tomorrow,” he placates when you huff, thumbing your swollen bottom lip at the next stoplight. It’s tempting to lean in and suck it into his mouth, even now.

“I’m gonna max out your fucking credit cards,” you mumble, scowling at him. Still, you wrap your lips around his thumb when he slips it into your mouth.

You cup your hand over your punctured mating gland in lieu of a bandage.

Johnny cackles. Man plans and God laughs.

In the distance, thunder rumbles and your head turns towards the sound that only you and he can hear.

#i’m normal about this #soap x reader #cod x reader #john mactavish x reader #holy mackerel its so honking good #10/10 as per usual #the build up??#the like atmosphere ??#RAHHH SO GOODDD

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