mintfullyyours - Tumblr blog

mintfullyyours · 10 hours ago

Text

This whole series fed me. I’m changed

fig. 4. blood in eyes (wipe it off for me) | Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Reader

MASTERLIST · AO3

There’s someone in the building that messes with his head in a way that it shouldn’t be messed with.

or: the forced mating omegaverse au

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

Too late for it to be of any use to him, Simon learns patience.

Patience in accepting things for what they are instead of resisting fate’s chokehold; in walking with the current instead of swimming against it.

It doesn’t come easy. He remembers being a milktooth child, quiet and sullen before puberty swallowed him up and spat him back out; his demeanour just off-putting enough to keep him from ever making close friends. Father a constant and dreaded figure in his life, a malignant growth ever close to metastasizing. Flesh like a bruised peach, busted lip telling a story that no one seemed capable of acknowledging or reading.

There was no such thing as patience back in those days. Just a constant rushing forward, grappling at the threads of adulthood like they might become a rope strong enough to pull him out. When they didn’t, he learned to tie them himself to strengthen the length of rope—learned every knot in the book, in fact, bowling, clove hitch, carrick bend, hangman’s—anything of use.

That was a long time ago though.

These days, he is something different. Something old-boned and asperous. Every morning, he again becomes a man like a poor choice of words. Darkness greets him when Simon opens his eyes, the sky outside of his window already pitch black, the sun long sunk beneath the horizon.

It’s not happenstance—it’s routine.

As spring inches into summer and the days grow longer, he gets a glimpse of the sun that he’s been avoiding all this time. It bleeds into his dinners with Gaz slowly but surely, the evening sky going ochre and then blood red in the twilight hours. He can’t say that he’s missed over the long winter months. There was a kind of relief in becoming nocturnal. Now, he has to face the day again.

The vestiges of all past incidents collide here somewhat mercilessly.

His life since leaving the service has been essentially meaningless, a direct continuation from the life he led before retiring. No aspirations or short-term ambitions. Staring down the barrel of his fourth decade and wondering whether he’ll make it. Whether it’s even worth it to try when the shit keeps piling up and the years keep slipping away and it’s getting harder rather than getting easier with time.

(too many people he’s seen die; too much that he himself has endured)

The shrink he’s forced to see (read: blackmailed into seeing) says things like PTSD and complicated grief. Simon scowls at the mention. He’s not disputing the nature of those things so much as their relation to him. What does it say about him besides that he was born? That he went through something terrible and now it’s over?

Some things are harder for him to deny. Sciatica and nerve pain; the low, constant buzzing of tinnitus in both ears. Muscle tension and migraines that come so suddenly that they nearly incapacitate him when they hit. Insomnia. Sleeping pills do the trick most of the time, but it takes a harrowing amount of effort to get any sleep without them.

He gets a job as a night security guard-cum-parking lot attendant of a big office building downtown and that simplifies things a bit. Gives him a steady paycheck and a reason to get up every day. It’s also a sterile, quiet environment for the most part—he waits in his booth as the workers come down one-by-one and slouch into their cars, squeezing past each other on the way out.

It’s not much, but it’s a living. More than that, it gives him a reason to get up in the morning, as mundane a job as it is.

But—

there’s someone in the building that messes with his head in a way that it shouldn’t be messed with.

In the three months that Simon has worked in the building, he hasn’t gone more than a day without smelling that telltale scent of fresh, ripe omega. The same one too, all the time. Fresh and clean, like peppermint; it makes him suck his teeth as if to get the sugar off when it wafts under his nose.

The first time he smells your scent, when the elevator doors open up and you step out into the carpark, it takes everything in him not to go after you. Head disconnected from his body, on a swivel; spine ramrod straight, steel-plated. Following your bouncy gait with his eyes as you traipse across the lot to your car sitting pretty in the corner of the carpark like that wouldn’t be the perfect place to accost you, all the security cameras pointed away.

He very nearly quits. Nearly rips off the badge hanging from the clip fixed to his belt loop and leaves the parking lot unattended.

The only reason he doesn’t is because, well—

Simon’s used to torture.

Pain is an inflexible, living thing that he has long since invited into his body to take up residence. It lives and breathes with him, synchronous movements in his chest. It flutters under the surface like a swimmer just barely keeping from breaching the water.

And breach it does. Over and over and over again.

So he doesn’t quit. Sticks it out instead. Ignores the internal recalibration happening inside of him because when has that ever mattered?

He knows who you are, after all.

Busy bee that you are, you often work until late at night, driving home only when it’s dark out and there’s hardly anyone else on the road. It makes him antsy to think of you out there after dark, your only company on the road the long-haul truckers and drunk drivers.

You’ve only ever spoken to him once—one time when you forgot your employee pass upstairs in your office and asked him so sweetly to let you back onto the elevator. Standing outside of his booth with your hands clasped together and your eyebrows delicately furrowed and his jaw growing heavier and heavier and—

Only a single, flimsy pane of plexiglas between the two of you. He could shatter it without much effort. Stuff you into the trunk of your car and use your keys to drive himself home. You eye him almost dubiously, like you can hear the thoughts writhing around in his head like snakes in a pit, and for a second your foot angles outward like you might even back away from the booth altogether.

Simon holds himself back though. Only just.

It’s not as rare these days for an omega to work such a high pressure job, but it’s certainly not common; you’re probably one of the few in the whole building. Certainly the only to have ever caught his attention.

He knows what it means too. Your scent. What it means that, after four decades of relative anosmia, someone suddenly comes along smelling like everything good in the world. The knowledge sits heavy in his stomach.

It wasn’t supposed to be in the cards for him. A mate. It was supposed to be enough for him to have this half life. He has a history all cramped up in his chest, too much to burden anyone else with. Even his team—men that have bled and killed and nearly died with him—only know what could amount to an approximation.

He was supposed to be fine with this arrangement, grateful that the universe has deigned to give him anything at all.

So why then—

(why can he not get you out of his head?)

Simon thinks about it all the time, your scent still lingering in the carpark even hours after you’ve clocked in. Makes him think about sitting on his couch in his dingy flat, nursing a beer while you keep his cock warm in your mouth, dragging his thumb lazily over your scarred gland, a match on in the background. His perfect little family.

For weeks now he’s been on edge, pissed off because you keep flaunting your scent right under his nose like he’s supposed to be some bastion of self-control, somehow keeping himself from sinking his teeth into the delicate skin of your neck. It’s indecent. Unfair.

This is the point in his earlier years when his alpha would have twisted around in the back of his head and whispered something sinister into his ear, but those days are long gone. His alpha is not a distinct thing that he can feel or sense in any tangible way; it’s indistinguishable from him, no difference between its wants and his. Everything is just amplified, his hunger doubled. Refracted.

Lots of things have built him into the man that inhabits his body today. Torture and torment and trauma. Reckoning with his own mortality one too many times; coming close enough to naming it. The man who is buried alive is not the same man who digs himself out.

That, more than anything, is why he keeps his distance despite knowing what you are to him.

From across the lot, on your way out for the day, you glance up and happen to meet his eyes. You smile politely and nod his way.

The grey walls surrounding the booth press into him from all sides, squeezing around him until he can hear the blood pounding in his ears.

Every Friday night, Price and him have a standing date at the local pub where they order drinks and make minimal conversation. Just the way Simon likes it.

It’s always crowded and always thundering with noise, old timers smoking out front where cigarette butts are strewn all over the sidewalk. The men at the bar roar and clamour as they stare at the television screen hanging behind the bartender, banging their fists on the bartop and making the whole room shake whenever their team scores.

It’s rowdy as all hell and it feels like being home.

Simon knows that their weekly drink is just a way for Price to make sure that he hasn’t offed himself yet. He’s not a bad man, for all his faults. His dictatorial qualities are offset by his caring disposition, the temperament of a man willing to keep tabs on his soldiers well after they’ve left the service.

It’s excessive, but it doesn’t go unnoticed.

“You got plans for the weekend?” Price asks like he always does a few minutes into their first drink.

Simon shrugs and takes a drink. “Got a few.”

His unwillingness to part with a sliver of personal information for even his closest companion must wear on the nerves, but he’s been going strong for thirty-something years. It speaks to his character and the longevity of their relationship that Price doesn’t seem to mind, content with whatever Simon deigns to let slip.

“Got a few myself,” Price reveals, happy to part with his privacy for the sake of conversation. “Taking the missus up to Shropshire for a little honeymoon.”

“Just as well. She doing alright?”

Price shrugs. “Hasn’t taken apart the kitchen this week.”

That’s the extent of their conversation. The rest devolves into gentle ribbing about the match up on the telly (Manchester United vs. West Ham—ending in such a spectacular defeat for Man United that Simon nearly gets into it with a guy on the other end of the bar crowing too loud) before parting ways at the end of the night, Price going one way and Simon the other.

The streets are empty on his walk to the tube, the roads slick with puddle water from the earlier rainfall and the alleys illuminated by the red dots of cigarette butts, their custodians puffing away dutifully, their bodies ensconced in the shadows. A driver leans on their horn when he cuts across the street without checking for any oncoming traffic, and though the sound makes his upper lip curl, he ignores it.

Sometimes, he hopes that someone will take him out to pasture like an old warhorse. Do it while he’s not looking. Let him catch one final sunset before putting him down.

It would save everyone else a lot of grief.

The only reason he doesn’t do it himself is because he couldn’t do that to Johnny. Can’t even stomach the thought of what it would do to him; can’t even trick himself into thinking that it wouldn’t bulldoze a hole right through his boy’s life.

If someone else were to kill him, Johnny would at least have the possibility of closure. Maybe he ought to just pay someone to do it someday. Simon discards that thought as soon as it flits through his head though—there’s not a chance that Johnny wouldn’t scour the Earth to find the man that killed him.

Simon’s as sure of that as he is of anything because he’d do the same for him.

Though he has two hundred thousand in an offshore account and thirty grand stuffed into his mattress, Simon takes the tube and walks every day on principle alone. His truck stays parked on the street unless he needs to move it to the other side for street sweeper to pass by.

This train is for—

Next stop is—when leaving the train, please remember to take all of your belongings with you.

Cool in the early morning hours. When Simon gets off the train at his stop, the breeze slips into every open crevice of his jacket, crawling up his sleeves and down his collar.

It’s early enough that the only people at the station with him are the early commuters, everyone going in the opposite direction from him, on their way downtown instead of on their way home. The sun peeking over the horizon is spoiled by a grey, dismal sky, saturating everything in a pallid, dreary light.

There’s a bus that takes him nearly all the way home, though he has to walk the last ten minutes. He sits at the back with his hood drawn over his head, dead eyeing anyone stupid enough to glance his way too many times. When he gets off at his stop, it hurtles away from the curb as if it couldn’t get away fast enough.

His flat is the kind that not even squatters would deign to claim. Borderline squalid. Borderline hazardous to human habitation. The mold spores and asbestos is probably digging him an early grave, everything short of an infestation. On his better days, Simon contemplates tidying up the place before a wave of apathy and scorn bludgeons him over the head. Why bother when he has no one to bring round?

“Ye could try cleanin’ it up fer me,” Johnny gripes on one of the rare occasions when he spends the night. It doesn’t happen often, but it’s too late and Johnny’s a bit too squiffy from the pub to get home on his own.

He walks barefoot into the kitchen where Simon is rustling up something to eat (mac and cheese that he’ll eat straight from the pot when it’s ready), towel-drying his hair and swaying on his feet from sheer exhaustion. Nearly stumbles right into the wall before catching himself.

“What’s the problem?” Simon asks, drawling the question.

“There’s a ring o’ grime aroond the tub. Did ye hose off a dog in there?”

He shrugs. “You wanna clean it so bad, you can do it. There’s Pine-Sol under the sink.”

“Ah honestly think we’re gonna need a power washer fer it. The fuckin’ state of this place, Simon…”

“Get in the fuckin’ bed and quit runnin’ your mouth before I decide you’d sleep better on the porch.”

Johnny makes a face and waddles off, murmuring epithets under his breath before launching himself stomach first onto Simon’s bed and snoring before he’s even hit the mattress, his shins half hanging off the end. It can’t be comfortable, but they’ve certainly slept in worse places.

Simon will readjust him when he joins his boy later, but for now he focuses on taking the pot off the hob and fetching a fork from the cutlery drawer, scooping up a generous first bite. Flares his nostrils when he notices old food still flaked on the fork that he just pulled from the drawer.

Maybe the mutt has a point.

The thing is—

He’d like to say something to you. He’d like for things to go his way for a change.

But his appetite for violence won’t allow good things to come to him naturally. Always a struggle for survival, conditions worsening until there’s nowhere else to go but up (scrambling up the side of a self-dug hole). He hears it coming like an air raid siren off in the distance. Self-sabotage at its finest.

He feels little shame for the state of his existence, but it’s hard not to feel some sense of perceived inferiority. His military accolades aside (of which he can’t speak to, given that most were awarded post mortem for obvious reasons), Simon’s working class roots are indivisible from him as a person. When he looks at you, he sees someone who wouldn’t even touch the dirt he was sown and germinated in.

What could he offer a woman? What could he offer anyone at all?

His body carries the weight of his life in scar tissue, torn cartilage, and bones that have been welded back into place too many times to count. Theseus’ ship of a man. Simon is aware, distantly, of the things that make him appealing to women, but they’re stacked against the things that make him thoroughly undesirable. His body draws the eyes that his face repels, muscles less enticing when they get a proper look at his ugly mug. Good enough for a fuck but not more than that.

For a long time now, living has been an exercise in humility. Wanting but never receiving. Senseless violence that never seems to stop, always someone around to perpetuate it.

Often that person is him.

On Monday, Simon watches you walk to your car in slacks that cling to your legs, the fabric tightening across your ass when you lower yourself into your car.

On Tuesday, on a whim or possibly because of brain damage, he calls a professional cleaning service to give him a quote for a detailed deep cleaning.

The owner charges him double the usual amount, which nearly pisses him off enough to cancel the service altogether, but he lets it go when Johnny begs him to let him pay half (after calling him six times in a row after Simon made the mistake of texting him about it).

It doesn’t change the overall state of the place, but Simon does feel a flicker of pleasant surprise when he comes home to a house that doesn’t smell faintly of mildew. Walls a shade lighter, like years worth of soot has been scrapped off of them. Even the grates on the stove have been scrubbed and cleaned, the inside of the oven also free of grit and grease for once in probably a decade.

He christens the clean up with a smoke in the bathroom with the window propped open, the early morning noises keeping him company. Ashes his cigarette on the window ledge for once instead of the bathroom floor, the sound of the traffic in the distance keeping him company.

“Ah cannae wait tae see it,” Johnny enthuses over the phone when Simon finally picks up after three missed calls in a row. “When ah’m back in the city, ah’m comin’ over ASAP.”

Simon’s lips twitch into a slight smirk. “Dunno about that. Might change the locks too.”

Sometimes he says shit just to rile Johnny up. Just to hear the sound of him squawking on the other end of the phone, feathers ruffled. He gets a kick out of taking all that frenetic energy and compressing it, making himself the focal point of Johnny’s restlessness, the recipient of his undivided attention.

He’s always been selfish with his toys.

His body is red hot when he finally lays down in bed, cock thickening up and pulsing between his legs. All he can think of is getting you into his bed and pounding you until you come a few times around his knot, until the base of his shaft is a mess of cream and cum, and his chest is scratched up and bloody from your nails.

The sheets under him are rumpled and hot with his sweat when he takes his cock in hand, tugging himself off until he spills all over his hand and up his chest. Simon stares up at the fan rotating above his head as the cum cools on his stomach, cool air wafting down on him, allowing himself, if only for a moment, to imagine what it would be like to actually have you.

He doesn’t think he’s going to do it.

His whims are hard to predict though. Quicksilver and fluid; volatile and inconsistent. Worse though are his morals, which fluctuate with his mood like the tides with the moon, pulled back only to rush forward at a moment’s notice.

Despite the way his chest sometimes burns with the need to follow you home after your shift and force his way in while you’re out for the day, Simon doesn’t let his urges cloud his judgment. Master of self-discipline; jack of all other trades.

It’s part of what made him such an indispensable operative: his ability to suppress all instincts and wants in service to a higher purpose.

He’s got rope in a drawer in the booth though. That’s where it gets tricky. Myriad uses for it and none of them good. God must have a bad sense of humour.

Then one day, you come in a bit too close to your heat.

Even before you come stumbling out of the elevator, swaying on your feet and barely able to keep yourself upright, your scent is pungent in the garage. When Simon opens the door from the back office to the lot, he stills, every cell in his body briefly freezing. He can’t pinpoint it to any one car in the lot at first, but his instincts and nose point him to yours.

You must’ve mistimed your heat and thought you had more time before it would hit. It’s the only reason you’d show up to your office on the cusp of it, to a building packed with alphas all foaming at the mouth to knot a heat-addled omega. There’s nothing they’d like more than to get their hands on you in this state.

It’s a mistake you won’t make again.

He oscillates between anger and hunger, pissed at you for showing up to the office at such a delicate time while his teeth ache something fierce in his mouth. Alpha nature rearing its ugly head again. If you were his, it wouldn’t even be a question—you’d have been home days ago, sequestered away in his place and readying the nest for your heat.

The elevator dings when it opens, alerting him and drawing his eyes over. Such a small sound for such a momentous occasion.

Even from a distance, you look a right mess. Eyes heavy lidded and bloodshot. Sweat beading at your hairline. Lips swollen from excessive chewing or blood flow. It doesn’t matter to him. You look good a little messed up anyway, like someone took you apart and forgot to put you back together again. Makes Simon wish it was him that did it.

Then the full, unadulterated scent of your heat slams into him tenfold and every coherent thought comes screeching to a halt.

Every wistful thought of taking it slow or approaching you first evaporates in a heartbeat. In an instant, he becomes an animal. Eyes tracking your every move. Breath lengthening and deepening to keep you from hearing him coming.

He doesn’t think he’s going to do it until the booth door opens.

Simon shuts the door soundlessly behind him, laser focused on the sway of your ass as you pop open the backseat door to toss your bag and belongings in. He moves towards you quickly, covering the distance between the two of you in just a few long strides, practiced at the initial advance.

This is what he was built for after all—hunting and capturing. Moving silently through the shadows, stalking his target through the thick and waiting for them to move into just the right position.

Right when you reach your car and open the backseat door—

Throwing your work bag onto the floor, none the wiser that there’s a man at your back moving closer and closer, eyes locked on the jut of your shoulder blades and the arch of your back and—

You don’t put up much of a fight when he forces you into the car and splays you over the backseat, likely too confused and disoriented to vocalize your surprise. He’s stronger than you anyway. When the fight finally snaps into you, it’s too late—you’re splayed across the backseat at an awkward angle and pinned in place by his hand, only a little force needed to keep you down.

The little dress you’re wearing gets rucked up around your waist and your panties pulled to the side. He unfastens his jeans with one hand and pulls his cock out before wrenching you towards him with one hand on your waist, the friction lifting your dress up the rest of the way until he can nearly see the full line of your back.

“What—”

You only catch on when his fingers graze your pussy lips and your whole body shudders violently. A thumb splits the seam of your lips, stroking you from slit to asshole, spreading your slick over both holes.

“Relax,” Simon grumbles when you start to fuss, things slipping out of your mouth like no, wait, stop, who are you?—a bunch of silly prattle. “I’ve got ya, pet.”

“Get off—” you hiss, spitting like an angry cat with its fur all bunched up, and he’d laugh if he wasn’t pushing his thumb into your wet little hole and watching it seize up around the digit. The rest of your tirade comes out in a choked gasp, indignant horror rendering you mute.

You try to push yourself up onto your elbows and he shoves you back down, making the breath rush out of you. A steady drip of slick wets the seat under you, making the dark fabric glisten, but Simon doesn’t spend too much time focusing on that.

“You’re not gonna fight after wagging this around,” he growls.

“I haven’t, I haven’t, I haven’t.”

Liar. He’ll make an honest girl out of you yet.

He pulls his fingers away from your cunt long enough to fist his cock and lift from where it droops between his legs. His cock throbs in his hand as he notches it against your opening, grits his teeth too when the heat of your cunt burns the tip of his cock.

“Fuck,” Simon grits out, then edges forward again.

Hot as a fucking branding iron. He pulls you back instead of thrusting forward, impaling you on his length like a toy in his hands. In, in, in until suddenly he can’t anymore, at the limits of what your body will allow.

“C’mon, bird, deep breath in,” Simon murmurs when you hiss, hoping you’ll listen.

As clenched up as you are, it’s almost impossible to fuck you properly. He can barely cram in a few inches before finding you too tight to push the rest of the way in. It’s enough to make do though. Enough to draw his hips back and thrust in again, fucking you with just the first few inches of his cock, your toes curling and flexing with every thrust.

“You’re—you’re inside me?” you gasp.

The laugh comes from his chest unbidden, disbelief plucking it out of him. “Yeah, pet. I am.”

Your groan is torn from your throat. “Oh god.”

He nearly spirals watching your cunt stretch around the width of his cock. Fits him like a fucking glove, and though it’s been awhile, Simon doesn’t remember it ever feeling like this. Intense. A thick blanket of heat weighing down on him, the inside of your car humid, the combination of your and his breath making the windows fog up, the car itself shaking with every thrust.

It registers at the periphery of his consciousness that he didn’t even bother to put on a condom. There might be one buried at the back of his wallet or in a drawer somewhere back home, but even if Simon were to look down and see one on the floorboard of the car, it wouldn’t sway him one iota. He knows he’s clean, and whether you are or not doesn’t matter because—

He wants it this way with a fervor that borders on irrational.

His hips drive forward in quick, short strokes, barely sinking in halfway before pulling back out, thoughts of shucking you open like an oyster and leaving a pearl behind stirring at the back of his mind. His wants are as ugly as everything about him.

Simon doesn’t think about whether it’s a bad idea or not. Impulsive as always, he lets the thing that has become him over countless years guide his hand, staring as it wraps around the front of your throat and lifts you up, your hands scrambling under you for purchase.

Lean down. His mouth is salivating. What he wants isn’t right but—

God, he wants it.

His wants outpace his self-control for once though. The devil on his shoulder (in his soul, in his blood, that which was curled up with him since birth, a remnant of the father, a seed waiting to germinate in bloodsoaked soil) guides his head down into the crook of your neck where your mating gland sits, your blood pumping frantically right beneath it.

Your throat pulses when his canine nicks your gland and when you swallow, he can feel it against his teeth.

So easy, like slicing through butter—

(whatwhatwhatwhatwhatwhat—oh my God, no)

Your voice in his ear, fluttering like a hummingbird.

And then, blood—a taste so familiar that he doesn’t even notice it at first. Only when it washes down his throat does Simon realize what he’s done.

He comes back to himself with his teeth buried in your shoulder, blood in his mouth and a buzzing sound in his head. Cock still only half-sheathed in your pussy, squeezing around him like a vice, your voice a dull roar in his ear.

A phantom presence undulates in the back of his mind, the first presence apart from himself in well over fifteen years. It twists and turns like a fish out of water, flopping around on its belly. It’s never been here before. It’s never been out of itself before and it’s terrified. It’s scared of what that means.

The flesh squelches when he pulls his teeth out, your ensuing gasp wet and watery like the blood dripping from his mouth onto your back. Little droplets colouring your dress red where they land.

“Fuck,” he murmurs to himself, staring down at the bite mark on your shoulder.

His imagined future suddenly switches course, a whole new world being terraformed before his eyes. Everything different even while everything stays the same.

At the base of his cock, his knot plumps up, filling with blood. When his cock glides back in, it presses fruitlessly against your opening, too big to slip in. You whimper when you feel it nudging at your entrance.

He has a really big knot, even soft; too big for you to take comfortably, if at all. Hard though, it’s another beast altogether.

Simon doesn’t need all that though. Not now, at least. Plans are already forming piecemeal in his head, colliding against each other as he huffs through short, shallow thrusts, mindlessly seeking his release. The sound of your squelching pussy echoes through the underground lot, unmistakable to anyone else that might still be milling around at this time of night.

What’s done is done. There’s no reason to bank regrets to cash in some day in the future because the future is already here. It’s here happening right in front of him and Simon has never looked back before.

Your pleasure flickers in the back of his head, like picking up a radio frequency previously undetected. Suddenly there. It’s almost his too; settles into the base of his spine along with his own need to come. Thin like a will-o-wisp.

What he wouldn’t give to sink to the root, feel that wet grip all around him, squeezing his shaft extra tight.

You keen and beg him through gasped breaths when Simon tries to force a hand under your belly to play with your clit. “Wait, wait, wait—too much—”

It’s tempting to just ignore you and keep rubbing your swollen clit, but he huffs and backs off instead, massaging his hands up the sides of your waist again. “Alright, alright.”

His thumbs press into the divots of your back almost punishingly hard, sure to leave a bruise there. Squeezes your waist extra hard when he nears his end, his vision tunneling on the sight of his cock splitting you in half, soaked with your combined juices.

He catches your eye when you twist your head to look over your shoulder at him and that’s what sets him off. That desperate, helpless look in your glazed over eyes. Desire so vivid that for a second he can almost trick himself into thinking that this is what you want—

Thick ropes of cum paint the inside of your pussy. His knot butts against your entrance with every offbeat thrust, the base of it frothy white with cum, yours and his mixing together. It’s almost painful to have nothing wrapped around it, but it’s a pain he’s grown used to, never having knotted anything better than his own hand.

This should be enough for him, most of the fat length of his cock snug in your pussy and his knot wet with your juices. He shouldn’t want more than this. It should be enough for him to slide his hand over your belly and feel the slightest bulge.

His gums itch when he licks his lips.

It’s not enough though.

When Simon pulls out, you shudder one last time, a string of stuttered curses slipping from your mouth. Foul-mouthed little thing.

“Holy shit,” you wheeze. “What the fuck?”

Just that nearly makes his lips twitch.

He drags you back out of the car just enough so that your feet touch the floor, giving him enough room to right your underwear and readjust your dress. Dazed and confused, you sway on your feet before he catches you by the waist, his dick still out and spent against his thigh.

“You need a breather before we leave?” Simon asks.

You don’t seem to absorb his words right away, too lost in your own head. The wound on your shoulder is still raw and livid. There’s gauze in the first aid kit in the booth that might help, but that requires more cooperation from you than he thinks you’ll be willing to give once you find your bearings.

“Leave?” you repeat.

He nods, smoothing your dress down. “Can’t be ‘ere too long. Already too close to your ‘eat.”

That brings you crashing back down to reality, the comedown so hard that Simon has to hold you upright when your knees buckle.

“My heat,” you repeat, confused at first before it dawns on you.

“S’right, bird. Did ya forget?”

Obviously not, but he gets his laughs out of the little things.

You flinch when your hand comes up to touch your shoulder. “Oh my God. Oh my God, what did you do?”

Your panic draws over him like a cloak. He can feel it somehow viscerally real but distinct from his own emotions. If he were a weaker man, it might trigger his own panic, but he hasn’t been that kind of man in a long, long time. Too much has happened since he was that boy—Roba, Mexico, Makarov, the Channel Tunnel. He’s lived a hundred lives in that time.

So when your bloodstained hand moves to his chest and you start to struggle again, Simon knows how to handle it.

The cherry blossoms have been in bloom for quite some time now. Petals freckle the road bordering the park on the drive home, but they vanish in a flurry as he travels farther away from the city centre, creeping into the outskirts of London.

Moonlight like a runlet of white satin moths light the way home. It reminds him a lot of his childhood home. Spongy, mossy bogs where white moths feed on sallow and poplar, and the water barely announces its presence. Old remnants of cocoons spun into the reeds. A bosky landscape that, as a child, Simon spent hours trudging through to escape the turmoil of his home life, coming home in the evenings barefoot with his wet sneakers held in both hands.

The memory fades when he takes a necessary turn leading him home and passes a squad car with its lights off going the other way. He’s careful not to make eye contact, taking another unnecessary turn in order to get out of their visual field.

He’s aware of the predicament he’s in with you tied up in the backseat of your own car.

Lucky for Simon though, it’s Friday. Meaning that unless you had plans scheduled for the weekend, no one will expect to see your face until Monday, giving him plenty of time to figure out what to do with you. And given that you’re on the brink of your heat—your scent absolutely saturating the inside of the car, too strong for him to risk cracking open a window—he likely has even longer than that.

In the backseat of the car, you squirm around and howl through duct taped lips. Another reason for him to keep the windows up.

He cranks up the volume on the radio to drown out the sound of your whines. Bit of a pity, since it’s not like Simon has a problem with them. There are still cars around though, and for a little thing you’ve sure got a set of lungs on you. He’d be almost impressed if it weren’t inconvenient.

Densely populated boroughs give way to sparser and sparser neighbourhoods. Neatly manicured trees swapped for dense, overgrown bushes and trees, branches leaning over street lights and half-obscuring stop signs. He navigates the streets by muscle memory alone, not paying attention to the street signs or addresses.

Simon lives in a see-nothing-say-nothing neighbourhood. No one on either side of his house, both vacant for longer than he’s resided here. He knows even this place won’t escape gentrification one day, but for now prices are low and privacy is absolute. None of his neighbours want to know his business any more than he wants to know theirs.

There’s no one else on the street when he parks in front of his house. Not unusual, but he welcomes the privacy nevertheless.

The scent of your heat comes billowing out of the car when Simon opens the backseat door. Thick, rich, and musky.

His hackles go up instantly, territorial instincts lifting from the silt of his being. The street is deserted, but that doesn’t stop the influx of paranoia and suspicion. Anyone could be lurking around any corner. His paranoia comes from a place of truth, but it’s displaced from its original context—this is his home, not foreign territory.

Still, he’d be happier with you inside as quickly as possible. Too many open windows and alphas that might be stupid enough to challenge him, mate bond or not.

He lifts you into his arms from the backseat and tosses you over his shoulder, lips twitching when your breath comes out in a whoosh. The car beeps behind him when he locks it with the keys he snatched from your work bag and it’s a quick walk into his house, his chest only settling when the door is shut and locked behind him.

In the house, he deposits you on the couch and kneels in front of you, the breadth of his body splitting your knees when he situates himself between them. Hard not to take liberties with you considering what you are to him now. It doesn’t even occur to him until your brow furrows and you try to pull your knees into your chest, forcing him to plant both hands on your upper thighs to pull them back down.

“You gonna be good if I take it off?” Simon asks, referring to the tape on your mouth.

You nod vigorously, so eager to get the tape off that you’ll agree to just about anything, even if you have no intention of keeping your word. He can feel that duplicitous instinct at the back of his mind.

He wonders if you’ve begun to feel him in your head yet.

The tape pulls your skin up with it as Simon peels it out, a few hairs coming with it. You grimace and wince through the pain, eyes flitting around the living room, scanning every inch and looking for any way out. Look all you want. It won’t matter in a couple of hours.

The first thing you do is scream at the top of your lungs for help, erupting into a coughing fit when your vocal chords are pushed to their limits.

“Heeeeeeeeeelllllppppppp!” you screech, hoping that someone in one of the adjacent houses will hear your scream and come to your aid. “Someone help me pleaaaaseeeee!”

It’s disappointing but not surprising. Still, though his upper lip curls at the sudden burst of noise, he doesn’t so much as flinch, still as stone in front of you as you scream your head off.

When you pause to take a breath, panting from the effort, he raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. “You done?”

Flummoxed by his nonchalance, you almost don’t know how to respond, stunned into silence for a moment. Then you start up again, louder than the first time, shrieking like a trapped bird looking for help.

Despite the relative privacy that this neighbourhood affords him, Simon doesn’t feel like pushing his luck. His hand snaps out viper-quick to cover your mouth, trapping the rest of your screams in his palm and making your eyes bulge with shock.

“Quit screaming or I put the tape back on,” he says, blunt as ever. No sympathy for the fact that he kidnapped you and brought you to a second location. Of course you’d be scared; of course you’d be panicked.

It’s not that Simon doesn’t understand your reaction, he just doesn’t want to deal with it. His reservoirs of patience have been all used up in holding himself back these past few weeks.

He waits until you nod before pulling his hand away.

For a minute, all you can do is stare at him, eyes tracing over his face and lingering on all the ugly bits. The scar from his cleft lip, the burns around his temple pulling back his hairline, the crooked lump of his nose (put back in place one too many times), the slope of his brow over his eyes, almost Neanderthalic.

“Who are you?” Though it’s not the first thing you’ve ever said to him, it’s the first time you’ve ever spoken directly to him, face to face, no screen in between you to dampen your scent.

Your voice rushes over him like a wave, taking him under when it curls over the other side and kisses the water. Fills his lungs with salt water. Even hoarse from screaming, it’s still the loveliest sound he’s ever heard.

“We’ve met,” he says curtly. Annoyed that you haven’t felt the same fixation with him. You look terrified to disagree with him though he can see it in your eyes. “I work in the building.”

Recognition flickers across your face. “…You’re the parking attendant. You helped me get back into the building that one time.”

So he hasn’t completely escaped your attention.

Simon grunts instead of answering.

You glance around the room again. “…Where am I?”

“My house,” he answers.

His ease in answering your questions must throw you for a loop. You hadn’t expected him to be so forthcoming, but what would he gain in lying to you?

The gravity of the situation isn’t lost on you though. On your own, miles from home, fucked and mated by a man who must have been watching you for weeks, if not months. Simon doubts you remember how long he’s worked in the parking lot.

Worse yet, you’re on the brink of your heat, maybe a few hours away from it breaking. It’s a wonder you left your house at all today. You would’ve been smarter just to call out, stay holed up in your flat until it hit and you slipped comfortably into your heat.

But you made your bed. Now you have to lie in it.

“You’ve ruined everything…” you whimper, trembling fingers feeling around the bite mark on your shoulder.

That pisses him off. Stings his pride. As if he were such a piece of shit that you couldn’t fathom being tied to him.

“Had a boyfriend or something?” he grunts dismissively.

Whatever you had before doesn’t phase him. Boyfriend, girlfriend, husband. None of it matters with that mark on your shoulder, the thing tying you indelibly to him. Still, he asks knowing that it’ll piss him off if you answer in the affirmative, though he can’t smell anyone else’s scent on you.

Your upper lip curls at the question. “No.”

“Good.”

“I just didn’t want to be—” You can hardly bring yourself to say it. You pause, biting your lip. “I don’t—I don’t even know who you are.”

“Name’s Simon.”

You look at him like asking for his name never even occurred to you. Less than impressed.

“Do you even know what you did?” you ask, tone slipping from disbelief to disdain.

The cheap shot at his intelligence barely gets on his nerves though. He’s used to people using words when they look at him and realize that physical violence won’t get them anywhere.

“Nah, bird,” Simon drawls, looking at you through half-lidded eyes. “What’d I do?”

You balk at that, clearly assuming that he wouldn’t call your bluff, that he’d have some excuse for biting you and tying you to him.

The amusement in his eyes must be obvious though because you scowl when you catch it. “So you messed up our lives on purpose?”

“Wasn’t planning on it. You’re the one that showed up to work right before a heat.”

The humiliation is plain on your face. “I had—I had a deadline. I didn’t think anyone would even notice.”

He shrugs. “I noticed.”

An understatement if there ever was one. It’s been months since he’s had a thought that didn’t somehow circle back to you.

You scowl. “It’s not the twentieth century anymore. Omegas don’t have to be housebound for the month of their heat.”

All Simon can do is stare at you. There’s a sweat building at your hairline and he can see the pulse in your neck, your impending heat evident in the way you hold yourself—so close to the cusp that a gust of wind would send you right over. It wouldn’t take much.

It could be as easy as grabbing himself through his pants and watching your eyes glaze over. He doesn’t have to be pretty to turn you on. He knows now from first hand experience that you’ll get wet for a big dick.

“Lot of omegas go to work without being slags about it.”

Shock ripples across your face, followed closely by a rage that makes his balls tighten. “You’re a piece of shit.”

Piece of shit is putting it lightly. He’s the bird picking the flesh off the carcass with the sun-bleached bones.

“Make your nest,” Simon grunts instead, leaving you to your own devices.

“I’m not making my nest here. I have one at home.” You sound outraged at the very thought of making a nest in his house.

“Don’t got much of a choice, bird. It’s here or nowhere because you ain’t leavin’.”

It’s not a joke or a threat either. This far from home, you won’t make it back before your heat breaks, and Simon sees the moment that realization washes over you, your fate set in stone.

You don’t much appreciate being made to use the meagre belongings in his house for your nest. It’s a bit of a shame. He should’ve taken you back to your place instead where you likely already had a nest that you’d spent the last week labouring over, but he couldn’t trust you not to get your neighbor's attention.

There’s not much in the way of materials for you to use either. Old coats of his and musty blankets stored in the chest at the foot of his bed. You don’t even touch the mattress. He watches you sniff a sweater of his and grimace, tossing it into another corner of the room far away from your makeshift nest.

He hovers nearby while you build your nest even though he can feel your annoyance as real as if it were his own. That’s not his problem though. You have your instincts to follow and he has his.

He inspects the meagre items in his fridge and pantry while you fuss around in the other room—hardly enough to see just him through the weekend, never mind an omega about to go into heat—and scowls, pissed at the thought of being found lacking as an alpha. If he’d been smarter, he would’ve seen this coming a mile away, but instead he let himself believe that he could keep his greed under lock and key and failed to prepare for the inevitable.

In the other room, you whimper, your scent suddenly gone sour.

He pauses. Lifts his head and sniffs the air.

“Nothing to do with you, pet,” Simon says, raising his voice loud enough to carry to the other room.

You don’t say anything in response to his words, but the tension lifts from his shoulders when your scent goes back to normal.

The weight of responsibility sits heavy on his shoulders. He’s learning in real time that taking sharp corners means skirting sharp edges. That an abrupt change can’t just happen seamlessly.

Choices have consequences.

Even scared and on edge, your presence fills the house with a kind of levity that Simon hasn’t enjoyed in decades, if ever, omega sweet scent clouding the air. It’s disorienting. Like barreling down a dark tunnel without knowing what could possibly be on the other side.

Simon’s blood pressure spikes when your scent changes, a new peppery note that makes him salivate.

You don’t come crawling to him though and that ticks him off. Already fucked and mated you and you still won’t cooperate; still giving him a hard time despite the work he’s put in. He stalks through the house and finds you huddled under a blanket in your nest, shivering and sweating, gaze desperate when you turn to find him haunting the doorway.

He tilts his head to one side to get a better look at you. “What’re ya doing on your own in there, bird?”

You pull the blanket tighter around you, the whole thing wrapped around your head and body and only exposing a sliver of your face.

“H-hot,” you mumble. “Leave me alone.”

“Gotta take the blanket off if you’re ‘ot, love.”

He feels like he’s approaching a skittish animal, one that might lope off into the woods at any moment. Only there’s nowhere for you to run. There’s nowhere for you to go, and even if you could figure out a way to duck around him, you wouldn’t have the energy for a chase, weighed down by the exhaustion and mindlessness of heat.

A few steps until he’s close enough and Simon drops to his knees, reaching out to cup the ankle sticking out of your blanket cocoon. You flinch when his hands touch your skin, colder than your scorching, sweaty flesh.

The little fuss you put up as he pulls the blanket off you doesn’t deter him in the slightest. He’s single minded in his goal of getting you naked, tossing the blanket off the mattress even when you whine and lean over the mattress to retrieve it, and going for the straps of your dress in his haste to pull you back to him.

It doesn’t do much. The dress gets trapped around at your biceps instead of coming down, too tight around the chest and arms to come off that way. Simon realizes his mistake when you start scowling and bitching—a bunch of lip that goes in one ear and out the other because he doesn’t have the patience to deal with it.

“Fuck, you’re burning up, pet,” Simon mutters instead of responding to your grumbling.

There is real concern there, though it’s buried under an avalanche of desire so thick that it nearly suffocates him. He’s even been with an omega in heat before. Never been close enough to an omega to be given that right.

And now, by his own hand, he has one to call his own. His to take care of and see through their heat.

You bat his hand away when it gets too close to your stomach. “You’re cold.”

Simon scowls, irked. “‘Course I am—you’re runnin’ a fever, bird.”

“Don’t wanna be touched,” you gripe.

When he tries to crawl his hand up your shirt for a second time, you smack him again and his temper finally snaps.

“That does it,” he snarls and snatches you by the waist.

Wrestling you to the ground is a kind of tauromachy, only he’s the one huffing through his nose like a bull when he splays you out on your back and then turns you over, forcing your arms over your head and pinning your wrists together with one hand.

“Get—off of me—”

Pinned to the ground on your belly, you flail wildly and scream his ear off while he yanks up your dress again and works your knickers down your legs, nearly getting a foot to the face for his trouble.

“Should be thanking me for getting your ass off the street,” Simon spits out, increasingly annoyed by the way you won’t just let him between your thighs all nice and sweet. “Not even making you do any of the work.”

He’s so magnanimous that he doesn’t even bring up the fact that you’ve been his from the start. So forgiving despite the fact that you should’ve recognized his scent at the very start of it all and approached him before giving him no choice but to go down this road.

His arm is a bar across the small of your back that lays heavy as he plants his face between your thighs and eats you from behind, the bridge of his nose wedged against your perineum and wet with slick. He could cover the whole thing with his mouth if he wanted to.

For as many birds as he’s fucked in his past, this isn’t something he usually does. Gets little out of it, like kissing in that way. For some reason though, he wants it with you; wants it with an ache that makes his stomach cramp, shoulders pulled up to his ears and traps all bunched up around his neck.

He moves on from your pussy, worming his tongue into your clenched up asshole.

“No, don’t do that!” you gasp, reaching behind you as if you grab his hair and yank him away, only for your fingernails to scratch at his scorn scalp in vain.

You make the mistake of trying to push his head away and Simon snarls, the sound so low and guttural that you freeze when you hear it, the vibrations against your skin making your toes curl.

“Move your hand,” he growls.

You grab the blanket underneath you instead, curling your hands into fists and doing anything to avoid reaching back and pushing his face away again.

Much better. He likes how embarrassed and ashamed you get when he runs his tongue over your tight little hole, not used to having someone touch you there. It makes him feel powerful, dominant over you. Like taking your walls down brick by brick and then building you back up with him on the inside.

Though you don’t try to push him away anymore, you’re still a bit too petulant for his tastes. When you whine about it too much, he yanks your hips up and smacks your pussy with the meat of his hand to get you to shut up, your whole body flinching with the impact.

“Ow!” you yelp, a high, reedy sound that splits him down the center.

“You’re givin’ me a hard fuckin’ time, pet,” Simon grumbles. “Stay still.”

“You’re a—fucking asshole!” you holler.

Many people have called him worse, and none of them had his tongue on their asshole. He supposes he can give you a little leeway there.

It quivers under his tongue when he flicks it over the wrinkled skin again, clenching up tight as if to pull away from him. Shy little thing.

The taste of your skin is as good as your scent—a little saltier, but decadent. He laves his tongue over it again and again, eating your ass out until your pussy leaks like a loose spigot, the scent of it so enticing that he nearly gives in and swipes his tongue over your swollen lips.

That’s not what you need though.

Still a little gaped from taking his cock earlier, you take two fingers with ease, stretching beautifully around the widest part of his knuckle. It’s up there with the seven wonders of the world; Simon would choose this over Rome any day.

“You’re gonna take my knot this time, alright?” he murmurs into the underside of your ass, sinking his teeth in when you garble something contradictory at first. “Say yes, bird.”

“Fuck—” you choke out, recanting your previous words, wound up like a clockwork motor. “Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes—”

He skips straight to four fingers when your hips start to wriggle, amused by the way your thighs tense and your breath goes ragged, sweat dripping down your back. Your hips wiggle and his fingers sink in deeper until he’s practically cupping your pussy in his palm.

“Little bit more—c’mon, birdie, almost there,” Simon coaxes, fingers plunging in and out of the pretty quince between your legs, speeding up when he notices your thighs begin to shake.

You gush all over his fingers when you come, your upper body slumping over, settling deeper into lordosis. Fingers slick with cum when he pulls them out, the fluid webbing between his fingers when he pulls them apart to look at the mess you made.

He finally gives you his cock after he’s gotten you so wet and pliant that he could fist you if he was so inclined. His cock throbs at the thought; that’s a thought for a later day though, when he can afford to take his time with you.

This time when Simon settles behind you, he doesn’t wait for you to relax before pressing all the way in, trusting his own instincts over your frantic pleading. It’s a smooth glide in, wet channel stretching around his shaft with the memory of his size from earlier, easier this time even though you still swear through clenched teeth and shake when he nearly bottoms out.

“Shit…there we go,” he grits out through clenched teeth, forehead veins straining.

In all his life, he’s never had the same pussy twice. Never cared enough about someone to go back for seconds. And now he has one that’ll last him the rest of his life.

It’s rougher this time than in the backseat of your car. Messy and brutal. He fucks you fast and deep, nearly bottoming out with every thrust, panting like he’s been running with the bulls in Pamplona, blond tufts of hair on his chest matted with sweat. Your little grunted pants only spur him on.

He regrets not getting his mouth on your cunt before feeding you his cock. It’s so wet that it squelches every time his hips shuttle forward, slick leaking down the sides of his cock and pooling under you in a wet puddle on the mattress. His fault for not putting down a towel.

When he glances down, he sees your back hole still shiny with his spit and, in a moment of inspiration, wedges a thumb into it to keep it nice and spread. Better to just train you now while your body is so receptive, given that he intends on fucking every hole of yours before the week’s over.

“Coulda just asked for a fuck instead of doin’ all this,” Simon grunts through each thrust. “Wouldn’t’ve turned ya down.”

“I didn’t—I didn’t—”

He snaps his hips forward. “Yeah, you did. Filthy fuckin’ bird.” The sound of laboured breaths and wet, squelching pussy fills the room. “Been wantin’ this, ‘aven’t ya? Wantin’ me? That why you came waggin’ this wet cunt around?”

He’s desperate enough to trick his mind into believing that. The faintest flickering chance that it wasn’t just him sitting behind a booth and pining for what he couldn’t have. That maybe you’d been hoping and waiting for him to come to you instead, all coy and shy about it.

“No, no, I swear,” you gasp, turning your head to the side and looking up at him with your big, watery eyes.

“Yeah, ya did, birdie.”

He has to squeeze a finger in beside his cock to help stretch you enough to take his knot, and it’s a miracle that he eventually works it in. It takes some effort; time. Your back is slick with sweat, tense as a steel pole when he finally works it in, walls febrile and thin around the swollen mass of his knot, a single continuous wail ripping from your throat.

“Big, innit?” he asks rhetorically when he’s got you on the end of it and struggling to form words through soundless gasps for air.

The way you gulp in your breath says it all. Eyes probably wide and bulging if only he had a mirror to watch your expressions in. He’ll have to remember that for later.

It’s still good like this though. Draped over you, the pudge of his lower belly pressed against the small of your back, one hand on the mattress beside you and one clutching your hip to hold you in place.

When he drops his hand between your thighs to jiggle your clit, your inner walls squeeze around his knot and his brain nearly leaks out of his ears. His cockhead nudges against the firm, spongy opening of your cervix, and you mewl like all kittenlike and sweet.

“Gonna come, pet?” Simon rasps.

“I think I’m—think I’m gonna pass out,” you admit, practically slurring your words and Simon barely keeps from collapsing on top of you and fucking your brains out, smothering you under his weight until your words become reality.

It wouldn’t be enough to make him stop; would probably egg him on more than anything to have a soft, pliant body under him taking his cock without trying to squirm away. His knot throbs at the thought and he lets himself slip into the daydream, imagining you prone and unmoving under him.

One day he’ll have you like that. Middle of the night, moonlight streaming in through the window in silver ribbons, your legs akimbo on the bed and his body between them, monstrously large over your slumbering form. An ugly brute with no business plunging his big, filthy cock into such a pretty, perfect fairy doll.

He leans down, pressing a kiss into the back of your head, almost tender for what he’s doing to your pussy. “S’alright if you have to; I’ll take care of ya.”

A few more strums of his fingers over your slippery wet clit and you go tight and taut, coming almost violently, head lolling forward with the force of it, practically burying the crown of your head into the pillow. Maybe you do pass out for a minute or two.

Just the thought of that sends him freefalling over the edge, emptying his balls into the warm clench of your cunt, swollen knot throbbing with each spurt. His knot barely keeps it all plugged in, so much cum flooding your womb from weeks of pent up lust.

Indescribable pleasure crawls up his spine and winds around to the front through his ribcage. Too good for him to waste his time thinking about what he’ll do if his knot does what it’s meant to do and it takes. His cock pulses again at the thought, another wave of pleasure rushing through him. Jesus fuck.

He’s hunched over you for a while before it starts to slough off, thighs tensed on either side of yours. Balls drawn up tight and then slowly relaxing. Finally aware of the sweat pouring down his back and dripping from his chest. Muscles relaxing one after another. There’s an ache in his low back that likely won’t come out until he’s stretched it out, but it’s worth the pain to feel the way your back presses into him with every laboured inhale as you catch your breath.

Simon shushes you when you whine something about being full. “You can take it; you’re alright.”

“It hurts,” you whine, a touch dramatic for his tastes.

“Supposed to hurt, bird.”

Got no choice, is what he wants to say. It’s always going to hurt with him.

He keeps one hand on your belly to ensure you stay pressed up against him when he rolls onto his side, wary of you trying to pull yourself off his cock and hurting yourself in the process. The skin at your entrance is stretched taut around his knot, and though he’s never been a particularly gentle fuck, the idea of something ripping where you’re most delicate sets his teeth on edge.

Your forehead is still hot to the touch when Simon checks. And it will be for a while, your heat coming and going like the sun hidden briefly behind clouds before reappearing again. He’ll have to savour these moments of tranquility when they come.

The moment of stillness is broken when you open your mouth to say, “You know, you could’ve just…talked to me.”

He’s not used to being scolded. It’s been a long time since anyone had that kind of authority over him or reason to talk to him that way, longer still since he’s taken anyone’s words to heart.

“Talkin’ to you now, ain’t I?” Simon asks rhetorically. You huff and he can feel the movement of your back against his chest and it tickles something in him that’s still somehow alive, even after all these years. Even after everything.

“Not the same thing,” you mumble, cheek pressed against the pillow under your head.

‘Course it’s not the same thing, he wants to say, but compromise is essential for survival. You can’t tell a rock not to be a rock. Or a junkyard dog not to bite.

“Tell you what,” he rasps. He drags the hand moulded to your belly up your chest until it’s nestled between your breasts, cupping a tit. Not meaning anything particularly sexual by it. There’ll be a time for that later when your heat crests again and your eyes go filmy, any chance at a coherent conversation swept away. “When we’re done ‘ere…we can ‘ave a go at it. Pretend I asked you out first. Make a game out of it.”

He can feel your incertitude in the stillness of your body. “…What would be the point of that?”

Simon very nearly chuckles. Very nearly says that you alone are the purpose in anything. That everything else in his life has been an aimless meandering for some kind of meaning, all of which has been in vain. All of which has left him scarred and bloody and beaten and battered, and now, for the first time in his life, someone has come along and shown him how pointless all of what came before was.

But that seems like too many words for now.

“No point, bird. Jus’ to make you feel better about it.”

A fine layer of dust on the windowsill reminds Simon that he needs to call the cleaners again.

It’s been at least a day since he brought you home, maybe longer. The sky outside is lighter now than when he brought you in, creamy with light filtered through the clouds, the sun somewhere in pieces behind them.

His heart has always sat deep in the valley where the cold sinks. Sangfroid. Cold-blooded. He’s been called many things in his life, but never deserving. Maybe he still isn’t deserving of anything good. All he knows is how to take and how to spoil.

Today though, his heart isn’t as heavy as it’s always been, and a faint voice breathes softly at the back of his head.

You haven’t been asleep for more than a half hour when Simon goes into the living room to make a call.

Price answers on the second ring. “Lieutenant?”

He sighs. “Can’t keep calling me that.”

“Force of habit.” Simon isn’t thick. Price uses language like he’s casting bait; like if he says the magic word enough times, Simon will give up this bid for freedom and come crawling back with his tail tucked between his legs, ready to sign away his life again. He knows that Price would love to have him back under his command. “What’s the matter? You never call this late.”

“Gonna need a raincheck on our drink tomorrow.” His eyes shift to the bedroom door, darkness spilling from the crack where he left it open. “Something came up.”

There’s silence on the other end of the line and then a rough chuckle. “Oh, did it?”

His skin around his eyes crinkles as he stares into the darkness just beyond the bedroom door. If he quiets his breathing, he can almost hear the faint, soft sounds of your snores from the other room.

“Yeah. It did.”

#love love love #gosh #I can’t even describe it #the wanting #the needing #I loved it so much #ghost #ficrecs

1K notes · View notes

mintfullyyours · 5 days ago

Text

still obsessed with the sweet rancher down the way who tips his hat and offers to bring in your groceries turning into the biggest foul mouth werewolf

#giving me #price #vibes #idkkk

6K notes · View notes

mintfullyyours · 6 days ago

Text

polarity | ghost x f!reader

maybe we're not so different after all.

type: one-shot (8.3k), AO3

cw: this piece is actually super dark proceed with caution, dark!ghost, dark!simon, sunshine!reader, mature language and content, suggestive language and content, graphic depictions of violence + gore, smut, unprotected piv, cumplay, oral, simon is not a good or nice person (except to reader), reader also maybe isn't a good person who knows, reader has hair long enough to hold, curvy/plus-sized!reader, meet-cute until it's not, background breeding kink, size difference, size kink, military inaccuracies, references to simon's past canon trauma, 18+

Ghost does not believe in love at first sight.

The concept is for children; even when he was a child, he doesn’t think he would’ve believed it then, either. There was no love where he went, even to the places where it was owed to him. In his own house, he feared what love felt like. The kind he knew was pain and misery and the terrifying reality of what it meant to always be looking over his own shoulder.

Love at first sight chewed Simon Riley up—and what it spat out was terrible, big, and caged-off from the rest of the world.

Ghost is built of many layers. Not like an onion, no—onions are easy to manipulate. With the tip of a knife, you can cut right through its skin and tear it apart, but Ghost is not built the same way. He laid concrete out in front of himself a long time ago. The things around him are rotten, curled in on itself, and it would take too long to unbury him for anyone at all to want to spend the time and try. He prefers it this way. He likes it this way. Being alone means there are no surprises, and there is no one waiting for you. There is no one to disappoint, and there is no one to prove right or wrong. There is only today and tomorrow, because yesterday has already passed, and he doesn’t care to think about what already was.

It’s Johnny that’s brought him here. In a pub too loud, with watered-down drinks that cost a quid too much. He didn’t have an excuse today to turn him down. Johnny’s got a sister he needs to see, and his sister has got a friend—someone from her uni, taking the same chemistry courses, or something like that. He can’t really remember, he wasn’t paying attention too closely, but Johnny offered to pay if his lieutenant just gave him company in the long drive into the city.

The booth is too small. His bourbon tastes off. All he wants to do is smoke a cigarette, but he’s been staring daggers at the “No Smoking” sign that’s posted behind the bar. There’s a ringing in his ears that’s been following him since they got off their last op just a few days ago, and it feels strongest here in this room, with too many unknowns in too many dark corners.

“Johnny!”

A soft voice squeals. Simon’s eye twitches, and he looks over Johnny’s shoulder to see a pretty brunette with bright, blue eyes smiling wide as she hurries towards them. Johnny slips out of his seat to cradle the woman to his chest, rocking back and forth as he hugs her. His baby Emily, he hears Johnny mutter. She’s got that same square jaw and strong brows, and Ghost imagines that if Johnny were to grow out his hair, it’d grow in the same matching, bouncy curls that Emily has. She sounds so happy to see him, and Ghost swirls a gloved finger around the rim of his glass as he watches.

It tastes sour, looking at something that he used to have. He wishes that he didn’t want it as much as he thinks he does at this very moment.

“Oh! Sorry, forgot for a wee second there. This is who I told you about—”

Emily steps aside, and there you stand.

Glossy, pink-tinted lips. A cardigan that hugs your frame with a knit, sunflower pattern. Light wash jeans, baby blue boots. Your fingertips are painted glittery and pink, and your baby blue purse matches your shoes.

Emily says your name, and you hold out your hand for Johnny to shake. It’s then that your eyes move to the shadow behind him, and Ghost licks over his teeth, satisfied, when you visibly swallow and your eyes widen a little.

“Ach, don’t mind ‘im. Tha’ scary bastard is just my lieutenant, Simon,” Johnny nods his head over his shoulder. “Simon, would ye introduce yerself, fer fuck’s sake? Stop brooding over there.”

Naturally, Emily sits next to her brother, already squeezing his shoulders and excitedly telling him about some fellowship opportunity she was up for. You slip your purse off your shoulder, shuffling towards the space next to Simon. You grip the edge of the booth to hoist yourself up onto the high seat, and you smile a little when Simon holds out his hand for you.

You take it, smooth palm in his gloved one, and it takes no effort at all for him to tug gently and get you up to sit. He sniffs, looking up when he finds himself staring a little too long at the curve of your jeans, but it’s hard not to when both of you take up the entirety of the booth. Just to fit, Simon has to lean back, and you adjust your cardigan over your shoulder when Simon stretches one big arm out behind you.

“So, uh…” You clear your throat. “What are you drinking, Lieutenant?”

“Piss water,” Simon says lowly. He cringes a little at the bite of his tone—he never means to be curt, but it always comes out that way. You purse your lips, tapping your nails on the wood, and you look at him over your shoulder.

“Hmm,” you make a face, “so Johnny made it?”

It takes a few moments for Simon to realize you’re telling a joke. The silence must mortify you, because you’re looking down and tearing a piece of yarn out of your sweater, and Simon realizes he’s wearing his mask, and you can’t see his face, and she’s trying to break the fucking ice—

“Nah,” Simon shrugs, shaking his head. “His tastes more like right shit.”

Your eyes flicker up, and you stare at him for just a few moments under your lashes before your hand goes up to cover your mouth. You giggle, cheeks warm, and he blinks at you slowly as your entire body relaxes. Your thigh touches his, and his fingers flex on the hand that’s thrown behind you, twitching as he thinks about letting them graze the skin peeking out from under your sweater.

When he gets the urge to touch you under your chin, he nearly curses out loud because fuck—

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Simon knows it as soon as he lays his eyes on you again. Staring right into yours, hand fidgeting behind you as it wants so desperately to cup the back of your neck and tangle into the strands of your hair—fuck, fuck, fuck—he’s so fucked.

He knows it, too, when you’re in his bed. Sunflower sweater draped across his floor, boots in the hallway, glittered nail-polish piercing his biceps as he tilts your head back, bares your throat, sinks his teeth into the delicate flesh there. You giggle, and it’s the rainbow after a storm. The drink of water after days in the desert, the stitch that holds the seams together, the pins that will take his broken bones and put them all back together again—

He’s feeling his cum dripping between your thighs when you ask him about his scars. He adjusts the edge of his mask as soon as you ask, sniffing under it as you smooth a finger over a puckered scar on his chest left behind by the ricochet of a stray bullet, one of many. You squeeze your thighs together when his long fingers move in squelching circles over your cunt, and your back arches when he slips them inside of you. You take his jaw between a few fingers and grip it tight, pressing your lips against his mask as you whine and kick your feet in overstimulation.

He doesn’t want you to ask questions. He doesn’t want to burst this bubble of warmth and goodness and intimacy that he’s created, because then this will be something else. Right now, he’s the mysterious, black ops military man you’ve spent an incredible night with, and if you start talking, you’ll learn. You’ll understand. You’ll find out why he doesn’t want to talk much. You’ll discover what he is under the skin he wears, and he already knows he’ll terrify you. There is nothing good about what someone uncovers under the lid he keeps over his head.

“Where did you get this one?” You point to a particular nasty white gash on the side of his ribs. He rubs a thick hand down your bare back, cupping your ass and squeezing gently.

“Op in Baghdad,” Simon murmurs. “Hand to hand.”

You touch a small circular scar on his arm.

“And this one?”

“Cigarette.”

You push the blankets down a little and bring your knee up. Simon grips the side of your thigh, and you hike your leg up to give him a better look at the puffed scar across your kneecap.

“Look at this,” you giggle. “I fell off my bike when I was little.”

“Tha’ right, swee’eart?”

“Mhm. Just like you.”

“Just like me.”

You’re still there in the morning. Cheek smushed against his chest, leg tangled between his, arm curled around his middle. There’s a little drool drying on the side of your mouth, and Simon thumbs along your jaw as he watches you sleep. The glittery eyeshadow you were wearing last night has smeared across your cheek a little, and you’re glowing. A good shag and a good night’s sleep, and you look like a right angel in the early hours.

You look like one on his couch, too. You look like one in his shirt that barely fits over your tits, watching his telly, eating the shit plate of eggs he made you since he’s never bothered to learn how to cook. You look beautiful getting your clothes back on and smelling just like him as he drives you back to your flat.

You look like his when he crowds you against the door of your place, masked mouth against your open lips as you fumble for the doorknob and yank him inside to get his pants off.

Your flat blinds him. There’s different colors scattered across the place. A fluffy pink carpet in the living room. String lights hung everywhere, in different colors, twinkling gently. There’s plants of all shapes and sizes hanging from the ceiling and overflowing from their brightly colored pots. No plate or cup is the same shape or color or even matches one another, and there’s lamps in the shapes of mushrooms and fish sitting on your mismatched coffee and side tables. You collect everything—movie posters of all kinds on the walls, an entire wall of funny clocks, another wall of arts and crafts that must be homemade, framed and hung up.

Your home is what you are. Fun and colorful and happy and bright, and Simon hikes his mask up so he can bite and lick and nearly eat you as he tries to absorb all of it. There is nothing inside of this place that doesn’t incite joy, and he feeds on it like a leech. He must have it, because he never has before, and whenever he lets go, he feels it less, and that cannot happen, he won’t let it go.

If it isn’t your smile keeping him close, your pussy is the next best thing. You look incredible on your knees—perched on your elbows, ass up, pushing back against him as he fucks into you lazily. You’re so beautiful, in every position, but there’s something about getting to push your thighs apart a little and watch you take his cock that makes his belly clench as he watches you suck him in again and again and again. There’s a ring of slick gathering at the base, making it nice and easy for him to kiss your cervix, and you sound so pretty—soft whines of his name, little mewls that make his jaw tick.

“Simon—Simon, please—”

He doesn’t like to hear you beg. You deserve whatever you ask for, whatever you want. Those big eyes should never desire anything. He never wants to see you pout or blubber—he wants you relaxed and pleasured and incoherent from how fed you are in every aspect, and he’s going to fuck you right into this mattress until he gets you right where you’re meant to be.

You tell him he looks funny in your bed, surrounded by the squishmallows and fluffy teddy bears, but he doesn’t mind. He didn’t realize what a proper bed could do for his back, because yours has springs and memory foam, and his body just sinks into it just right.

He gets woken up in the middle of the night by his phone. Wheels up at 0500, and now he’s dreading getting into his truck. There’s something warm on his chest, and for a moment he thinks it’s you, but then he blinks into focus when the thing on his chest moves and stretches, staring down at him with curious green eyes. It’s a chunky tuxedo cat, and it’s wearing a black bedazzled collar.

“‘ello,” Simon mutters, scratching under its chin. The big thing just nuzzles against his hand before moving to the end of the bed to curl up between your feet.

Simon tries not to think about you on the drive back, and he tries not to think about you as he puts his gear on; but there’s a bouquet of fake sunflowers on a secretary’s desk mocking him, and when he goes to put his gloves on, there’s still glitter on his fingertips.

You are everywhere. You are in the warmth of the sand that gets under the fabric of his mask. You are in the water that sustains him on hour fifteen of sitting on a rooftop. He sees you in the bright red that trickles from the hole in his target’s forehead, matching the red of the strawberry plushie that you were holding the morning he left.

He notices himself more. How much space he takes up. How loud his voice is. He compares the way his cock looks in his hand now to the way it looked in yours, and he has to swallow the groan that threatens to break when he thinks about the way you thumbed at the tip and cooed about how pretty he was. Delicate, pretty hands, not at all like his own—not at all like the roughness of his palms, the scars along the backs of his hands, the blood against his raw knuckles from beating a hostile into the ground just to feel something.

Just to feel anything.

Standing next to you, it is all too clear what kind of man Simon Riley is. He’s not a man at all—he’s nothing more than an extension to his rifle, and when the trigger isn’t getting pulled, he’s just not that fucking useful.

Johnny is in a mood. Scowling like a brat. Glaring at the back of his head. Hitting him with his shoulder whenever they pass by each other. Simon is indifferent, and Simon pretends not to care, so he takes it in stride, but it makes his teeth ache with how annoyed he is.

“What the fuck is wrong with ye?”

He doesn’t like being scolded, especially not by his sergeant; but he sits there, and he takes it, because what Johnny is telling him isn’t a lie. There’s a girl that woke up in an empty bed—a sweet one, with glassy eyes, and she thinks he’s a two-faced asshole that slipped out when she wasn’t looking. A girl that can do casual, but not a girl that can tell him about the dreams she’s too scared to write down and lets him rest his head on the same pillow where she rests her own. Too intimate, too many words, too many times he came inside of her and told her that’s where it’s supposed to be—in y’r pretty pussy, baby, right there—

He’s never done this before. He doesn’t apologize. He doesn’t stick around where he knows he doesn’t belong, and he never thinks he’s done anything wrong enough to warrant some kind of apology. With Simon, you get what you get, and he doesn’t think he advertises himself as someone warm, empathetic, considerate; but he’s sitting here, his truck still running, and there’s a decaying plastic-encased bouquet of yellow tulips resting haphazard in the passenger seat.

He’s been waiting on your doorstep for more than five minutes. He sees you peeking through the window in your kitchen, and his eyes find yours through the blinds. He narrows his eyes at you, squeezing the bouquet until the plastic crinkles under his fists. It takes a couple more moments before you open the door, and Simon sniffs under the mask when he sees your eyes again. They’re big and wet and sad.

He never wants to see them like this again.

You’re sweet, so you take the flowers from him. You purse your lips as you stand there, trying to keep your lip from wobbling, but it’s very clear you’re trying not to cry. You hug the flowers close to your chest, and Simon brings his hand up, tucking his gloved fingers under your chin and tipping it up.

“‘ello, swee’eart,” he murmurs. “Were y’lookin’ for me?”

“N-No.”

“Y’r a bad liar, baby.”

It takes a few minutes to get you settled. Sitting on your couch, batting at your tears with the sleeve of your sweater as Simon turns the kettle on in your kitchen. The cat weaves between his legs as he steeps the tea bags, and when he comes back into your living room, you’re staring at the droopy tulips, rubbing a thumb over the petals.

“‘ere,” Simon murmurs, setting down a mug in front of you.

“I…” You wipe under your nose. “I-I don’t need your pity, Simon.”

“Not here for tha’.”

“I know Johnny said something to you, and I really don’t want to talk about it—a-and if that’s why you’re here, I really don’t want to talk about it.”

You pick up one of the stuffed animals that sits on your couch. It’s a goldfish, fat with stuffing around the middle, with a comical smile and rainbow-colored scales. You hug it, resting your cheek on it, staring at Simon through wet eyelashes as he stiffens uncomfortably. Crying, emotions, talking—he doesn’t do any of these things. This complicates things. Relationships make things more difficult, and connections mean he has obligations, and he’s already seeing now what this kind of thing will be between you.

It’s too much.

It’s not enough.

“He did say somethin’,” Simon mutters. He sniffs, looking down at his gloved hands. His fingers curl into fists as they rest on his thighs, and he lets out the breath he’s holding harshly, shaking his head. He doesn’t understand what he’s doing here, but the thought of getting up and leaving seems worse. “Didn’t sit right wit’ me.”

You tuck your legs underneath you, and he watches as you absentmindedly knead the stuffed fish. You hum lowly, sheepish, and then you open and close your mouth as you try to find the words to say.

“I know we…” You flinch a little. “It was just…I know it was just a day. A night.” You rub your nose. “I feel so stupid. I don’t want you to feel bad. I don’t want you to feel��like you h-have to come here and…explain, I…” You close your eyes. “I-I just…I really like you, Simon.”

I really like you, Simon.

He leans his head back against the back of your couch. Something in his chest squeezes tight, and he swallows hard as he listens to you say it again and again in his head.

I really like you, Simon. I really like you, Simon. Don’t you like me?

“Oh, love,” Simon breathes. He turns his head to look at you, and you’re already looking at him. You have the fish to your chest, hugging it tighter, and he reaches over and touches under your chin gently. “Y’don’t want this. Y’don’t want me. I know y’think y’do, and ‘s sweet, but y’don’t want this.”

“Tell me why,” you say softly. “Convince me, then.”

“Do you…do you even know wot we do?” He asks. “The kinds of things they ask us to do? Wot I’ve done t’get here?”

You shake your head, and when his hand opens up, your cheek finds his palm, resting there, nuzzling.

“We’re murderers with fuckin’ passes,” he whispers. “There isn’t a line we don’t cross. No boundary we don’t ignore. They killed my whole fuckin’ family, and then I came back for more, because tha’s the kind of life I live, and tha’s the kind of work I do. When I come home, I have someone else’s blood on my clothes, do y’understand tha’?” He leans closer, touching his nose to yours. “We go places tha’ no one comes back from. Even now—” He pinches your chin between two fingers, “—I strangled someone with these very hands, love, tha’s the kind of man I am. Look at me—”

You flutter your lashes, meeting his eyes, and he shakes his head.

“Tha’s wot I do, love,” Simon grunts. “And the worst part of it is tha’ I fuckin’ like it.”

You lift a hand up and wrap it around his wrist. There is no resistance as you draw his hand off your face and hold it instead, intertwining your fingers and resting them in your lap. His hand dwarfs yours—long, deft fingers and spread palm that covers your own completely. You scoot a little closer, getting up onto your knees, and Simon’s eyes follow you as you abandon the stuffed fish to put one hand on his shoulder and the other cupping his masked cheek.

“You didn’t say no.”

“Wot?”

“You won’t say no,” you whisper, sliding the hand on his shoulder up to caress the back of his neck. “To me. To this.”

“Because I can’t,” Simon groans. “Need you t’do it.”

“But I…” You lean down and press your forehead to his. “I-I do want it. I want you. You’re…” You kiss him through the mask, a soft press of your lips against his. You feel him kiss back, and you pull away slowly. “Please. Please, Simon?” You kiss down his cheek, thumbing under his eye, and he lets out a shaky breath as you fall into his lap, knees on either side of him. His hands come up easily, cupping under your thighs, and you whine as he drags your hips forward, a slow grind that makes you shake. “Won’t you try? For me?”

Getting Simon into your bed is too easy. He looks nice here, underneath you. You press down onto his chest for leverage, using it to help throw your hips back against his. He’s deep, pulsing inside of your cunt—your rhythm stutters every time he touches your cervix, but his tight grip on your ass keeps you moving.

You’re so wet. You’ve never been wetter with another man. Sweat, tears, slick—every part of you leaks when you’re with Simon. You dig your nails into his chest, and he grunts, when you start to feel your orgasm creeping up on you, you arch your back to get friction onto your clit and squeal when Simon gets the hint; he lifts you up and plants his feet against the bed to fuck up into you and force your eyes into the back of your head.

He tastes like you after awhile. After spending days in your flat, his kisses start to taste as sweet as the pastries you make, and he starts to smell like the citrus soaps you keep in your bathroom. You get a whiff of lavender from his clothes after using your laundry detergent, and he sleeps like the dead after round two inside of you. Cum cooling between your thighs, mouth fixed to your throat, fingers stuffed inside of you to keep warm as he breathes in a sigh of relief until he’s deep asleep. He still doesn’t take his mask off, but he gives you his mouth, and you fix yourself there, mouth against his, kissing him feverishly whenever he exposes his lips just for you.

“Will you miss me?” You ask. He’s standing at the door, pulling his jacket on. He flips the hood up over his head, clicking his tongue as he fits a hand into the back pocket of your jeans and squeezes, pulling you towards him and into his chest.

“Mhm,” he mutters. You giggle, cupping his cheeks, and when he puts his thumb between your lips, you let him open your mouth, tilting your head as he spits onto your tongue before kissing you wetly. You wrap your arms around his neck, charmed bracelets jingling as you try to climb up to him. He bends, gripping you under your thighs before he hoists you up and against the wall. You moan, scratching along his back.

“Do you really have to go?” You whisper between kisses, and he hisses in response.

“Got to,” Simon sighs, but you smile wide when you hear the sound of his belt buckle. “But I can be late.”

Like you, Simon feels like he’s seeing the world for the very first time—all in color. Food has taste. Views have beauty. His gun feels heavy, and his cot is cold to the touch. Time finally has duration—it hangs and drags now, minutes and seconds taking too long as he sits in a dark room and listens to his captain explain an op he could care less about. His leg bounces impatiently, fingers twitching as he watches the screen and tries to pay attention.

Complicated. Difficult. Not enough and too much.

You are so beautiful. Your name lights up his phone, several pink and yellow emojis beside your name that you entered yourself.

we miss u! xoxo

There’s a picture of you and your cat. You’re seated on your couch, a pink blanket in your lap, a selfie of you holding up your cat in one arm. Simon clenches his jaw when he sees that you’re practically naked—in just a yellow lace bra, blanket covering your lower half. You send another picture after a few seconds, and Simon licks over his teeth. Another selfie of you, cleavage on display, and he can see the little rhinestones that are sewn into your bra. He can also see the little butterfly clips you have in your hair and the darling smile you wear.

He comes in his fist later, selfie on display in one hand, his mind on the sound of your voice. It’s never happened so fast—just a few languid tugs, and he’s spilling over his thighs like a teenager.

It’s all he thinks about. The blood runs warmer, easier. His gun fires quicker. He’s got tunnel-vision now, eyes on his prize—the sooner he finishes, the quicker he gets home, so he sinks his blade into throats and keeps his feet moving. He keeps quiet, keeps steady, and as soon as he’s got his target in his sights, he pulls the trigger without a second thought.

“Got somethin’ on yer mind, LT?”

Simon narrows his eyes. Johnny looks smug—a ghost of a smirk on his face, face red from sweat and his own cheekiness. Simon just leans his head back against the side of the helicopter, looking outside as the ground gets farther and farther away.

“Never pegged ye fer the type.”

Simon’s hands dig into his rifle.

“Always liked tha’ one,” Johnny continues. “Got a sweet face. Always wondered why she never liked me. Guess she likes ‘em big ‘n scary.”

“Careful, Johnny,” Simon warns, glaring at him.

“I just—”

“No, listen ‘ere,” Simon snaps. “We don’t talk about ‘er. We don’t mention ‘er. She is off limits, to you or anyone else. As far as y’r concerned, she doesn’t exist, yeah? Repeat it back t’me.”

“Don’t know who yer talkin’ about, LT,” Johnny says after a few moments. Simon looks away, shaking his head.

“Good boy.”

He doesn’t go back to his flat. There isn’t anything there that he wants; everything he needs leads straight to you. You’re cooing when he comes through the door, murmuring lowly as he drops his duffel bag and shoves his masked face into the crook of your neck. He crowds you against the door when you shut it, and you giggle as he takes deep breaths of your perfume. His hands grab at your waist, sliding down the backs of your thighs, feeling over the soft skin and biting at your throat even through the mask.

“What happened, teddy bear?” You mumble, scratching the back of his neck. “What did they do to you, huh?”

Dog, mutt, devour. He’s been away for too long, been starving ever since he left, and you take it with a smile. Simon is never too much for you. Simon is never too rough or too loud, and he is never too far into your space or too attached. You drink it so lovingly, and you never push him away.

He watches you carefully as you help him take his gear off. You start with the weapons. You slip the gun out of its holster on his chest, emptying the chamber and taking the magazine out. His grip on your waist tightens at the sight of you handling it with such ease, and you just shrug as you set it aside.

“I’ve been practicing.”

You unload all of his throwing knives, from his thigh holster and from inside of his boot. You find another small pistol attached to his boot, and you sigh as you unload it the same. Your hands find the buckles of his thigh holsters, and when you slide it off of him, you settle on your knees and tip your head back to look up at him.

He caresses the back of your head, and you swear you hear him purr. You lean forward, pressing your cheek to where his belt is. You kiss there, right against his zipper, and his fingers tangle into your hair just enough for you to feel a little pressure. He’s still gentle, still kind, but his eyes are so dark. You wonder if the way he looks at you now is the way he looks at his targets. Is this hunger the same—the same for you as it is to get the job done? They say love and hate are so alike, so intertwined; is that why he keeps coming back? Does he chase this feeling all the time?

What is it that you are?

An addiction? Or a necessity?

You take his dirty clothes from him as he undresses in the bathroom. Shirt, jacket, belt, pants, socks, boxers—you eye him with a smile, biting your lip, and Simon winks at you from under the mask as he slides a big hand down his middle.

“Wot?” He asks. “Like wot y’see, love?”

It would be impossible not to. Thick arms, tattoos on display. Unforgiving muscle and fat. His hands ungloved, you can see the split of his knuckles and the bruising from where he must’ve hit something—someone. Then your eyes skim over the curls just over his cock, which hangs heavy and red between his thighs. Simon has no shame—his nakedness is not something he cares to hide, especially not to you. You stand on your toes and gives his cheek a kiss before taking his clothes to the laundry room.

You’re at the sink when he’s freshly showered. There’s a bottle of peroxide next to you, and you’re wearing gloves, and he watches as you have his pants half in the sink as you work on scrubbing at the fabric.

“Wot ‘appened?” Simon asks. You hum, shrugging, ringing out a bit of the fabric.

“Just some blood. I’ll get it out. What do you want to eat for dinner, baby?”

Simon thinks that’s the moment he knew he was in love with you. Hair pinned back, baby pink matching lounge outfit with the tiniest shorts he’s ever fucking seen, scrubbing out the blood from his clothes as you talk about supper.

He knows he was fucked from the moment he met you—but it’s now that he knows he’ll never leave.

He’s reminded again of that feeling when you call him angrily from your flat. He’s pushing a trolly in the store, eyes sweeping over the selection of chocolate in the baking section. You were baking chocolate scones and would be making some ganache tomorrow, and he’s squinting at the paper you gave him with your list when his phone starts ringing.

“‘ello, love?”

“Simon, are you serious?!”

“Wot happened?”

“There’s—Simon! There’s a grenade in…in the jar!”

“Wot’s tha’?”

“The jar with my powdered sugar. I found a grenade in there!”

“Oh. Mmm. Right. Leave it there.”

“Simon! And are you taping ninja stars under my tables? I found two already!”

“Dunno. But sounds like someone ‘ad a good idea, wanted t’be prepared, y’should leave them there.”

“Simon, you are—” There’s a pause, and then he smiles under the mask when you laugh. “Just get my chocolate and get back here, please.”

You have no idea what Simon was talking about. You don’t understand what it is that he was running from. There’s so much of himself that he was meant to show to someone else. He’s been hiding for so long, and not just underneath the mask he wears—but there’s a man under it all, and you love when he comes out to meet you.

Maybe he is a little terrible. Maybe he really is just the thing you don’t need. You think about that a little too long when the water in the sink runs red again, his shirt an entirely different color from whatever it is that he had done before he got home. Maybe he really is wrong for you—it crosses your mind when you’re dusting the shelves and find a loaded pistol in the vase that used to hold your apology tulips.

He lives an entirely different life than you. He drags colors into your home that you tried so hard not to embrace, all the black and blue and grey that you’ve always felt could swallow your entire self—but you don’t know what the alternative is. There is no one else in the world that looks at you the way that he does. There isn’t anyone’s hand that feels the way his does when it’s against the side of your face or tangled between the strands of your hair or warm between your thighs.

You don’t think anyone else would mean it if they saw you crying and threatened to kill whoever had made you so sad; because he does mean it, doesn’t he? He would do it if you asked, wouldn’t he?

That’s love; you’re convinced it is. Love is the boundaries you say you won’t cross that you step right over without thinking. Love is the places you say you could never go that are already behind you. Love—real love—is the doorway that Simon keeps passing through even though he promises you that this is the last time whenever he leaves.

“Look at me—ha, Simon!—look here.” You fit the headband onto over his head, fitting the cat ears on top of his head. He grunts a little, sighing through his nose, and you warm up the makeup remover between your hands. Delicately, you start to rub it into his face. He closes his eyes, and you carefully work your fingers against his skin as the eye-black begins to run easily. “Almost done.”

You use a warm cloth to wipe his face. The eye-black comes off, but the scars remain, and when he opens his eyes, you know that you haven’t really taken anything away from him. There’s still something that weighs heavy on his shoulders, and you lean forward to get closer to him, keeping your voice quiet.

“What was it this time?” You ask, putting both hands on his face and keeping his eyes on yours. He blinks, and he goes somewhere else. He’s thinking about it. There’s something he’s looking at, somewhere far away, over your shoulder.

“He begged me not to,” Simon murmurs. “Told me their names.”

Moms. Dads. Partner. Children. They always have names at the end—as if attaching themselves to another will make their deaths harder. Men are singular beings. Rarely are they life support for another.

“It’s okay,” you tell Simon. You close your eyes as you rest your cheek against his.

“It is?”

“Uh huh.” It’s so warm here, arms around him, face tucked against his. “I forgive you.”

It’s okay. I forgive you. Everything is just as it should be.

“Y’don’t know wot I did,” Simon counters. “Wot I…got outta him.”

“It doesn’t matter,” you say softly. You squeeze the towel out, wetting it again with warm water before passing it over his face again. You hold him under his chin, catching the droplets of water, and you smile as you kiss his nose gently. “It never does. Never will.”

“But—”

“I made your favorite,” you interrupt, plucking the cat ears off of him and tossing everything into the laundry basket. “There’s brownies in the kitchen. I want you to try.”

Is Simon really committing heinous war crimes when his reward is chocolate decadence and wet pussy?

You look so cute. You’re wearing a flowery pajama set, tiny shorts and cropped shirt, something that leaves nothing to the imagination as he pulls the gusset of your panties to the side and sinks into you easily. You brace yourself against the back of the couch, sitting up in his lap. Simon groans when your tits are right in his face, pebbled nipples poking through your shirt fabric, and he reaches up to pinch them between greedy fingers as you sit right down on his dick and take him to the tilt.

“Fuuuuuuuuck—” Simon breathes. The wet squelch is making his head spin. His wet girl, his pretty girl, his sweet girl. He sharpens his teeth when he leaves, and you dull them when he comes home, letting him sink his teeth into you and eat. You keep him in balance; the push and pull that he always felt he struggled with is nonexistent now that you’re here. When Ghost used to get put back into his duffel, Simon felt like what was left behind was almost too much to take. The nightmares, the torture, the disregard for what was moral in favor of what got the job done—it is gone with you. Your absolution resolves him of this debt.

How can he feel he’s done anything wrong when you’re calling him teddy bear and taking his cock like this?

You drag the hem of your shirt up slowly, and when your tits are bouncing, bare and sweaty in front of his face, Simon loses his train of thought. His mouth falls open, tongue hanging out, and you cup the back of his neck to draw him close until his lips wrap around your nipple and suck. You whimper, keeping him there, slowing your hips to watch him let go for just long enough to spit on your chest and lick it right back up.

“Feels so good, teddy bear,” you whine. “You’re so big…” You wiggle your hips until just the tip of him is inside you, and then you sit back down, drawing out a long moan from the both of you. His hands fall to cup under your thighs, and you feel like you’re melting as his tip prods against a squishy spot inside of you and makes you see double. You grab onto his shoulders, digging your nails in, crying. “Oh—right t-there, baby—right there—”

“Right there, swee’eart?”

“Mhm! M-More…”

“My sweet girl,” he mumbles, and you squeak when he grips the fabric of your shorts, grunting as he tears the fabric apart. His fingers cup both sides of your ass, spreading them, using the new leverage he has on you to start picking you up and bouncing you with nothing but sheer strength. You’re thick everywhere that he needs you to be—hips, stomach, thighs, all the perfect places he hopes any girl he’s with will be. They never quite had it the way you do; when his fingers dig and feel nothing but softness, he hisses because it feels so good to grab onto you. It makes his mouth water. It makes him so fucking hungry. It makes his cock ache and his balls heavy, and he’s going to come if he keeps seeing your breasts sway like that as you take his cock so well. “Fuck—” He shakes his head. “Fuck!”

You lick into his mouth just as he loses control. Fingers under his chin, tongue around his teeth as he holds you down on his lap and fills you nice and warm. Your hips stutter, and he lets you lean back just enough so you can touch your clit and squeeze around him. You look down between your bodies, touching tenderly where you’re connected, like you’re fascinated by how much of him fits inside of you.

You settle after a few minutes. You rest your palms on his chest, squishy muscle supporting you as you lift your hips and let him out. You lean over him, whining when you feel fluid slipping down your thighs and gathering underneath you.

“You’re thinking too much,” you whisper as you slip your shirt back on. Simon hums as he holds you in his lap, cock twitching as he watches you move your hair out of your eyes and lick your own fingers.

“Got a lot on my mind,” is all Simon gives you. You let your knee fall open, and you use your fingers to swirl between your folds before you guide them up and into Simon’s mouth. He chuckles, taking them, and you lean forward to kiss his cheek just as you pull your fingers back out.

“You’re not supposed to think about things,” you murmur. “How many times do I have to tell you, Simon?” You cup one side of his face, making him look at you. “You could never do something wrong. Everything is okay.” You smile. “You believe me, don’t you, teddy bear?”

It’s so easy to believe you when you look at him like that. You’re so pretty—you always are. There is nothing terrible about your mind. Your brain isn’t rotten between the flesh as his must be. There is no blood forever under your fingernails, and you don’t sleep thinking about the graveyards you fill with your heavy hand. You don’t know what it feels like to have a gun burn in your palm, and you’ve never heard the screaming of someone who only has one limb left to spare. You don’t know how long it takes before a father will give up his children, and you’ve never seen your tombstone so clearly that the callous of your hands feel like the rock it’s made of.

Whatever you say must be true. Whatever you forgive him of must be good enough. There is nothing you cannot give, and there is nothing you can say that won’t be absolute reality. He feels like he poisons you every time he touches you, but when he takes his hands away, the skin underneath looks the same, and your smile never fades. You don’t bruise like other people do when he puts a hand on them. You don’t flinch when he raises his arm. You don’t scream when he comes close to you.

He hears your laughter wherever he goes. He’s kneeling now, bone digging into the ground as he lifts up his arm that holds a blade high. The bullet would be quicker, but this feels better. It pierces the neck, flesh giving away to its sharpness like a hot knife through butter, and Ghost licks over his teeth as he watches something sacred leave their eyes. For a moment, he feels bad about what he’s done. He closes his eyes, squeezing them shut, looking for his alternate reality.

I am no good. There is nothing good in me. I am not made of it.

There you are. Sitting on your knees between his thighs, cheek nuzzled against his jeans, sparkly, glossy lips curled into a wicked smile as you fist his cock and coo up at him. When you kiss his tip, you leave it shining, and then your tongue comes out of your mouth, and it’s over for him. There is a heaven inside of you. When you suck, his mind blurs, and his jaw aches with how hard he clenches it as you dip your head and take him deep. You whine because you like it. No one’s ever liked Ghost the way you like him. No one’s ever seen the mask and giggled the way you do. There’s no one that looked at the layers he’s made of and thought to use their fingers to lift them up to tuck themselves inside. His shell is not a barrier, it’s merely an illusion, and there you are—blinking up at him, bouncing in that sunflower sweater, wet eyes like diamonds. He feels warmth in his hands, and he thinks it’s from how hard he’s just come, but when he opens his eyes, it’s merely blood soaking into the fabric of his gloves.

The house is dark when he comes home. The cat is staring at him from her spot by the window, blinking slowly as he toes off his boots and passes by her with a soft scratch under her chin. He finds you in your bed, face against your silk pillow, wearing fuzzy purple pajamas and hugging a well-loved stuffed bear. Your nightlight is on, casting soft shadows of a moon and her stars, and Ghost finds himself watching you for more than just a moment. He stays there in the doorway, rooted to the spot, watching the gentle rise and fall of your chest as you snooze.

You wake up when the bed dips from his weight. Groggily, your hand moves, searching for him, and when you find the fabric of his hoodie, you close your fist around it and pull him until he’s nearly on top of you.

You taste sweet. When you kiss, Ghost chases the sugar sweet that still lingers on your lips, and you seek the ash from the cigarette he smoked outside. Your knees fall open, and Ghost settles between them. Too big, but he forces himself there anyways, one big arm wrapping around you and under your back before he yanks it into an arch and bites against the side of your neck. Where he saw blood earlier, all he sees is the give of your skin under his teeth. Instead of begging, instead of screaming, he hears your soft whine, a breathy call of his name that makes his cock so hard, he has to yank down the zipper of his jeans before he cuts himself on it.

Where he saw death in their eyes, he finds nothing like it in your own. When he is inside of you again, he tells himself he’ll never leave. His body has new purpose, and this is it.

You’re sleepy all over again once you come. Draped over his chest, palm rubbing against his solid middle, legs tangled between his. You smile at him as he turns his head to look at you, and he slips his hand under the hem of your shirt to caress you at the base of your spine.

“Good day at work?” You mumble, snuggling into his side. Simon tightens his grip on your middle. When he feels the flesh squish under his hand, he breathes nice and easy. Just what he expected. Exactly as he prefers.

“Good day, love.”

“You got all the bad guys, teddy bear?”

Simon licks his lips. He thinks about who had the unfortunate opportunity of being at the end of his scope today, and he thinks about who it’ll be tomorrow. He likes this routine. It satiates something nasty in him, but he’s never been quiet about the way it makes him feel. It’s what drew you to him, wasn’t it? He told you about all the horrible things that exist in his head, and you’re still here, you’re still in his bed—it wasn’t enough to push you away, so there’s no need to hide this dark truth from you. If anything, you might want to go again.

His cock twitches at the thought.

“No,” Simon tells you, and you shrug, closing your eyes.

“That’s okay. There’s still tomorrow.”

Simon feels something ache under his ribs when you say it—like taking the words straight out of his mouth. You are so in tune, it would scare him if he wasn’t already convinced that you were meant for him.

But even if you weren’t, I’d chain you to this bed. Never let you go.

He wonders what color your blood runs. He doesn’t think it would be red—you’re too pretty to have blood be such a color. Maybe it’s pink. Purple. Maybe it’s yellow. Maybe it glitters just like the sparkles you love to wear.

Maybe it runs black. Maybe, underneath it all, you and Simon are one and the same. Maybe you are rotten inside. Maybe you’re an illusion, too, maybe what he sees is just a mirror-view, and the real you hides and plays your limbs with puppet strings and masks the horrible, terrible, evil things that live inside of you—

You pat his chest a little, pouting, an annoyed breath leaving you as you close your eyes.

“Go to sleep, Simon. It’s late.”

It is late. You’re right. Always right, his smart girl, always telling him how he needs to hear it so his mind settles and his body relaxes.

It’s okay.

Isn’t it?

I forgive you.

He can never do anything wrong.

Everything is just as it should be.

#ghost #achhhhhh I love this #the writing #the sunshine:grumpy trope feeds me

2K notes · View notes

mintfullyyours · 16 days ago

Text

Just perfect — the characterization of Simon is wonderful.

BIRD DOG | Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Reader

MOODBOARD · AO3

A few times a year, Simon goes home to an empty apartment in a shithole city and counts down the days until he can leave. This time, there's someone waiting for him when he comes home.

Convenient. He was already planning on ordering takeaway.

Or: the live-in masseuse au

tags: Size Difference, Size Kink, Explicit Sexual Content, AFAB reader - Freeform, Masseuse Reader, Forced Cohabitation, Strangers to Roommates to Lovers, Porn with Feelings

The mangled hand of fate lets him go but seldomly.

He does, though, get a few weeks off a year. Bids farewell to his captain (the barest hint of a nod after leaving each other on the runway, chopper blades spinning faster and faster, the other man headed back out, his duties never finished; the world can never let them both rest at the same time) and then he’s gone, bags long packed and truck loaded the night before last. He drives a long, circuitous route after leaving the military base, the mask only shed when the paranoid prickle in his head finally abates.

It never quite goes away though.

And then comes the drive back, the road long and the drudgery endless. One hand on the wheel, the other hanging out of the side of the truck, a cigarette pinched between two knuckles. Occasionally, he takes a drag.

This is the part he always hates. The drive back. Roads winding through quiet towns and over hills, blue disappearing into black, streetlights piercing the darkness and demarcating the beginning and end of civilization. Manchester is a long drive north. He stops once for a piss by the side of the road and then carries on.

It’s a wonder they let him go at all. He is violence forthright; setting him free does no one any good. It’s hardly even a reward for him, more of just a pretense of normalcy. A week to stretch his legs, so to speak. If he were anything other than human, maybe they’d force him to stay on base indefinitely, secured and contained behind barbed wire fences and reinforced concrete walls.

But a few times a year, they play this game and send him off into the world.

There’s an apartment in Manchester that he’s rented for as long as he can remember. A shithole flat in a shithole borough, and though Simon’s squirreled away enough money to buy a place of his own, the thought of owning anything makes his skin crawl. It’s not in his blood, he thinks. He’d sooner live in a shack in the woods, no fixed address or way to find him. Even his flat in Manchester is rented under a different name, and he pays his landlord in cash for the year.

It’s dark when he reaches the city, the sky soot black and patchy with clouds. Moon nowhere in sight. Nothing beautiful ever visits Manchester.

But there’s a light on in the window when he pulls up in front of his place.

Odd.

Would’ve remembered if he left the light on the last time he was in town months ago; filament would’ve blown out in at least that time as well. Still, there’s a light on in the living room window and a new curtain pulled across to keep anyone from looking in.

Simon stares at the light while he leans outside against the truck and finishes his cigarette. Stubs it out under his boot when it’s down to the filter and locks the car door behind him. Violence already itches under his skin, knuckles tingling like they know what’s coming if he opens that door and finds some junkie living in his flat. It’ll be worse if he finds out that his scumbag landlord moved someone else in after picking up on him being gone nearly half the year.

His key still works though. Fancy that.

He finds you like that, sitting up from a nap on his couch, sweater slouched down a shoulder and groggily blinking open big doe eyes that widen when you notice him in the doorway, fear making you freeze up.

You’re a pretty little thing; a pleasant surprise to find something like you sitting on his couch. It quells the violence simmering in his belly because it awakens another appetite instead. Like a meal delivered right to his door. He was already planning on ordering takeaway.

He drops the duffel bag by his feet, propping the door open with it. “You lost, bird?”

Terror leaves you mute. He can only imagine; he must seem like something straight from a horror movie—defenceless girl waking up to the dead-eyed stare of a giant dressed in all black watching her sleep and blocking her only way out. That’s not completely true; there’s a backdoor through the kitchen that leads into a laneway behind the house, but the door sticks in the winter, not easy to open in a hurry.

He has as much right to ask as you do to run at the sight of him though, considering it is his fuckin’ flat.

You can’t seem to choke out a single word. Scared stiff, likely, heart slamming against your chest while the worst scenarios possible play out in your mind. Simon nearly rolls his eyes.

“Fuckin’ ‘ell,” he grumbles, finally kicking his bag out of the way so the door can shut behind him. “Cat got your tongue or somethin’?”

The sound of the door slamming shut must finally snap you out of it because you scramble off the couch, nearly tripping over the arm when you run for the back. Screaming too, just to piss him off extra. His back already aches something fierce from the long drive—he wasn’t expecting a headache on top of everything else.

“Heeeeeeeeelp! Heeeeelp!”

Your screams are borderline deafening, almost more aggravating than finding someone living in his flat in the first place.

You scramble down the hall, so terrified that you go for the first open door, slamming it shut behind you. His eyes follow the shape of your bare legs and the way the muscles in your ass move as you run.

“I’m c-calling the police!” you yell from behind the bathroom door.

When Simon looks back down the hall, he notices your phone on the floor, bright side up. Must have dropped out of your pocket when you bolted like a scared cat.

“No, you’re not,” he says blandly, staring at the door. There’s a pause on the other side like you just noticed your missing phone, then a bleat of panic. “Don’t try going out the window either—thing’s been sealed shut since the nineties.”

On the other side of the door, the window rattles in its frame for a good few seconds before you give up on trying to escape that way. There’s a pause while you consider your options. Simon waits patiently on the other side of the door, his temper slowly but surely getting the better of him the longer he goes without a shower and a beer, locked out of his own bathroom.

What a bloody headache.

He pounds a fist against the door, bracing his feet in case you try to open it and scurry out around him before he’s had a chance to have a chat. “Gonna come out now?”

“Get out of my house!” you shriek instead of being polite.

Figures. He should’ve known his landlord would pull some shit like this. “How long’ve you been living here, bird?”

“I have a knife!”

Pretty thing that likes to lie. There’s not a shot you have anything better than a hair dryer or nail clippers in there.

“Better get away from the door ‘cause I’m kickin’ it in,” he announces, taking a step back to give himself some distance and waiting a few seconds for you to realize that he’s dead serious before you start screaming at the top of your lungs again.

Got quite a set on you. That doesn’t matter much to him though. The door caves in after only a few good kicks, the frame splitting right up through the lock when it finally gives, and the two halves—the door itself nearly snapped in half—banging against the wall when it ricochets open.

You’re trembling between the toilet and the wall when Simon walks in, knees practically knocking together. The crotch of your shorts are wet and there’s a small puddle under you; must’ve pissed yourself in fear, and he’d almost pity you if you weren’t squatting in his flat.

The closer he gets to you, the harder you wail. Full on bawling now, snot and drool dribbling down your face, and Christ, he sure picked a bad time to grow a heart. He’s not immune to a pretty girl in distress, much as he wishes he could be.

He kneels in front of you, purposefully blocking your only way out, before knocking his knuckles under your chin, huffing out a breath when you flinch. “Ain’t gonna hurt you, bird. You’re just in my flat, is all.”

“Your flat?” you repeat in disbelief. “This is my flat. I pay rent!”

“Got a lease then?” he asks, and though your eyes are still bloodshot and your nose is still leaking, you nod.

“Yes.”

“Show me then,” he orders.

And you do when he steps back to give you some space, scampering shamefully to your—his—bedroom to rifle through the dresser until you pull out a handful of papers that look suspiciously like a lease. He skims it with a growing tick in his eye. It looks like one because it is one.

“See?” you mumble. He ignores the attitude in favour of reading until the end, where he finds his landlord’s name, the blotchy signature underneath it unmistakable.

“Bullshit,” he grunts through his teeth.

“It’s not. You can call him and ask! Where’s yours?”

His copy of the lease is tucked away in a drawer in the kitchen, buried under loose rubber bands, old batteries, and takeout menus from restaurants that went under years ago. When he returns with it and holds it up to your nose, you frown.

“Oh. I guess that explains some things.”

“Explains some things, huh? The clothes didn’t tip you off?” Simon asks, referring to the sweatpants and shirts still lining the dresser shelves. Your lips tighten.

“I thought the previous tenant skipped town and left his clothes. I was gonna throw them out eventually.”

“Good thing you didn’t.” His voice is thick with sardonicism.

It’s an interesting standoff to say the least. You, standing there in your soiled sleep shorts with tear-streaked cheeks, and him still decked out in his military gear and boots tracking dirt across the flat. You sway on your feet, the adrenaline crash likely intense. He catches you when you sway too close to him and you flinch when his hand clamps down over your shoulder, a new wave of adrenaline coursing through you.

“I’m fine,” you snap, taking a step away.

For fuck’s sake. His mood darkens at the continued hostility. It’s not like you’re the one who came home to a strange man squatting in your flat—if anyone has a right to be hostile, it’s him.

Skittering back into the bedroom, you shut the door behind you, likely to change into another pair of shorts. Simon’s mood festers the longer he waits for you to come out. The last string of his patience nearly snaps when you finally creep back out into the living room, the sour expression on your face pissing him off even more.

“I’m gonna call Tom,” you mutter, picking your phone off the coffee table.

“Go ahead.” He doesn’t bring up that it won’t change a thing. Not his problem if you’re so green behind the ears that you think your landlord will drop everything to answer a call, especially after dinner.

No one answers when you ring, just as he thought. He plops down on the couch and rests a foot on the coffee table, ignoring the way you pace back and forth waiting for your landlord to pick up.

“No answer?” Simon asks rhetorically.

“Aren’t you gonna try?” you ask.

“Yeah. Tomorrow. When ‘e’ll actually pick up.”

“Well, what are we supposed to do then? I’m not getting a hotel room for the night.”

“Me neither, birdie.”

He meets your stare with one of his own. It doesn’t take long for you to give in.

There’s a pullout bed in the couch that you offer to take and he lets you because he is, at the end of the day, a selfish prick who won’t give up a week of decent sleep for anybody. Not when his back and neck have been acting up for the past month and keeping him from getting more than three hours at a time.

The ache behind his eyebrow throbs as Simon sits on the edge of the bed. A slow exhale.

Tomorrow can’t come quick enough.

In the morning, Simon rings his landlord and listens silently as the fuckhead blubbers on the other end of the phone about late payments and eviction notices.

“This ain’t a charity, y’know,” the other man sniffs. “I gotta pay my bills too.”

He lets the man make excuse after excuse and accuse him of this and that until he finally goes silent when he notices Simon hasn’t said a word in minutes. At which point, Simon icily reminds him of what he does for a living and the fact that he paid him for the year in full just a few months back.

Not much to be done after that. There’s silence on the other end before his landlord tries to hem and haw his way out of it. He offers Simon one of his other properties currently sitting vacant on the other side of town, but that’s not the answer that Simon is looking for.

“If anyone’s moving out, it ain’t me,” Simon growls into the phone.

The wounded look that you shoot at him rubs him the wrong way.

His landlord’s still rambling on about moving costs and lawyer fees when Simon hangs up, no longer in the mood to try and talk things out.

He doesn’t really understand the legalities here, but he knows he can’t just toss you out on your ass when you’ve also got a lease, same as him.

“I have every right to be here,” you start up the second he hangs up the phone, not letting him get a word in edgewise, shoulders rolled back like you’re trying to be assertive. “I’ll take it to court if I have to.”

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ.” Simon scrubs a hand down his face.

“I’m serious. Rent is expensive and this is the only place close enough to where I work that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg—and I don’t have the money to hire a lawyer to get my money back—”

“I’m not gonna kick you out,” he finally snaps, fed up with your caterwauling.

You pause, hope warring with disbelief. “You’re not?”

He gives a curt shake of his head. “Too much of a headache. I’m only…in town for a week anyway.”

“Oh. ‘Til when?”

“‘Til whenever I’m back.” Purposefully cryptic. He gives you a flat look when you open your mouth to pry some more.

You reconsider, chewing your bottom lip until a better question occurs to you. “Are you in town a lot? Because I’m not sure how else we could make this work. I could sleep at my cousin’s until you leave?”

“Your cousin live around here?”

You hesitate. “No.”

“Then that ain’t gonna work, is it?”

“At least I’m trying,” you hiss, and Simon has to tamp down the amusement that swirls in his chest at the sight of your shoulders puffing up. “I’m not ripping up my lease and if you’re not either, then we have to figure out something unless you feel like taking this to court.”

While Simon wouldn’t usually take kindly to being threatened, his annoyance never quite develops into anything more substantial.

“Just keep outta my way and I’ll keep outta yours,” he says.

“Fine.”

The agreement you come to is that when he’s in town—seldom and erratic—he’ll take the bedroom and you’ll sleep on the couch, a fair compromise since you have the flat to yourself the rest of the year.

He doesn’t explain himself, of course. Doesn’t explain why he’s allowing this instead of dragging you to court kicking and screaming. It’s no one’s business but his why he chooses not to go down that road.

He tells himself that it’s easier this way; that it’s easier just to run your lease out and spare himself the legal mess. It’s not like he’ll even be around most of the time anyway.

What he carefully side steps, even in his own mind, is the sharp displeasure that accompanies the thought of forcing you out of his flat and onto the streets.

Cohabitation is—

Easy wouldn’t be the right word. He certainly doesn’t make it easy on you, leaving his dirty dishes in the sink and his half-empty beer cans in the shower caddy, his cum drying on the wall over the tub spout. You try to do the same by leaving your dirty laundry on the communal furniture, but it doesn’t have the same effect.

It’s interesting, at least. It’s not as though he’s never lived with anyone before—his memories of his early years in the service are littered with bunkmates packed into every corner of the room, and learning to sleep everywhere from moving caravans to while standing in formation, always surrounded by other people—but he’s paid his dues. Barring deployment, he thought he’d earned the luxury of his privacy.

But it’s not all bad; it’s been years since he had fun like this.

You try your best to annoy him in return, but you don’t realize that you’re playing chicken with a man who’s been buried alive. There isn’t much someone like you could do to break him.

Living with another person doesn’t soften him up one bit. There’s a time for change and it’s not off the back of a four-month covert operation, his nerves still razor sharp and ability to sleep practically nonexistent. He gets precious few weeks to himself and he isn’t going to waste them trying to get in the habit of smoking on the porch instead of in his own living room.

“I’m a masseuse.”

“Oh yeah?” Simon grunts, barely listening. There’s a match on the telly and a beer in his other hand—a perfect afternoon, if only you’d just stop yapping in his ear for five fuckin’ minutes.

“Yes, and I can’t show up to work reeking like a chimney,” you explain, scooching closer to him on the couch while being careful to leave some distance between the two of you. For all your posturing, you’re still timid around him, like a kitten hissing and spitting around a much bigger cat.

“What’s that got to do with me?” he asks rhetorically, not in the slightest interested in how it pertains to him. He takes another drag from the cigarette dangling between his index and middle finger, ashing it over the side of the couch.

“It means I’d prefer if you didn’t smoke in the flat,” you say, hissing the last few words.

He takes another drag, turning to look at you before exhaling right in your face. “That’s a shame.”

You cough and squawk, and he fights down a grin.

For the most part, he leaves you to your own devices, intent only on enjoying his time off. He fixes the bathroom door at least, which you begrudgingly thank him for.

A week and a bit, Simon reminds himself when you come in through the front door chirping into your phone, your voice effectively drowning out the TV on in the background. When you spot him staring at you from the couch, you go quiet as a mouse and slink off to the bathroom, locking the (newly installed) door behind you. He supposes it’s the only place where you feel any semblance of privacy since his bedroom is off limits until he leaves. It does leave him without a bathroom though.

Pissing in the alleyway behind the flat half an hour later, he scowls into the darkness and reminds himself that he has no one to blame but himself for this mess.

When his leave comes to an end, Simon doesn’t bother to give you a heads up. You’ll realize it in a couple of days when you notice his absence around the flat, the siege finally lifted. He supposes you’ll be grateful for his departure and grateful not to make you feign politeness.

Duffel bag packed away in the car, he leaves with the bed still unmade. Knows that’ll ruffle your feathers later on when you come home, but it’s his parting gift. His reminder to you to enjoy the couple months reprieve his job allows you.

And then the road slips away under him and he’s gone.

The months away are just complex rearrangements of the same thing. Each time it drives his soul deeper into the gully, buffeted by katabatic winds.

His daily life on base is split into brackets of time. Wake up, go to the gym, work, clock out, see the captain for a drink. Wash, rinse, repeat. Each day blending into the next. Back where he belongs, under the thumb of a system that he’s long sold his body and freedom to, and sent out God knows where to do God knows what.

Then, again the rooster crows at first light and he lifts himself out of bed.

When he’s deployed, everything changes while everything stays the same. He doesn’t have the same freedom of movement as he does on base, but in truth very little changes from one deployment to the next if you zoom out enough. Limited time to sleep on the chopper before it touches down, body tensed for what’s to come, and then he’s off, his objectives clear.

Driving a knife into a neck to the hilt and pulling it out one inch at a time. It’s the one he knows how to do, and he does it well. He doesn’t have to like what he does; he doesn’t even have to think about it so long as it gets done.

Ghost exhales and slips the mask back on.

In [redacted city] in [redacted country], he sets his scope up in the window of a building across from one where his target is slated to be in twelve hours and then he waits. Flexes his fingers when they go numb and ignores the thirst clawing up his throat. Four hours later, his elbows ache something fierce from digging into the ground for hours on end, a sharp pain shooting up his arms, but Ghost pays it no mind. Mind over matter.

Amidst the hours of laying there and waiting for his target to come into frame, his mind doesn’t wander. That’s a luxury for a different time—when the job is done and his target is executed.

At the very edges of his consciousness though, something flickers. The skin around his eyes pinches as he pushes the half-formed thought away.

Then his target walks into the room and everything else disappears.

You’re still there when he returns months later on another government ordered leave. Same petulant frown and wobbly lower lip when he walks in through the front door, dripping wet from the rain outside. When he tosses his duffel bag onto the couch, you scowl, nudging the bag onto the floor with your foot.

“You could’ve rang,” you mumble, pulling the throw from the back of the couch over your lap to hide your bare legs. Pity to be deprived of a nice view, but Simon doesn’t take it to heart.

“Didn’t think you’d still be ‘ere,” he grunts instead, shrugging out of his jacket and shaking it dry, suppressing a smirk when you start squawking about getting water all over the floor.

That’s partly a lie, though not one he’ll ever admit to. Simon figured there might be a chance you’d be gone, but in the time since he last saw you, he’s done enough digging around online to know that you weren’t kidding about the lack of affordable flats in the area. There’s hardly a unit nearby that isn’t going for double what he pays, some even more.

“Well, guess I’m sleeping out here tonight,” you grumble. You’re on your tiptoes in the doorway to the living room now, the throw wrapped around you like a security blanket.

He doesn’t answer that. No point getting your hopes up when he has no intention of giving up the bed.

In another life, he might be enough of a gentleman to let you sleep in the bedroom while he takes the couch, but in this one, his back is ravaged by sciatica and his dominant hand and wrist twinge with the beginning of carpal tunnel syndrome. Most nights, it’s a miracle if he can get five uninterrupted hours.

So no, he won’t be giving up the bed.

But Simon toys with the thought of dragging you in with him. It’s been awhile since he had a woman, so long that the memory is fuzzy when he dredges it up, and though his hand does the job when the itch grows severe, he’s no monk. He could pull you in with little effort, sweet talk you until your knickers are around your ankles and your legs are in the air, hot cunt steaming when your legs part and he sinks his cock in deep. Wouldn’t take more than a half dozen thrusts before he busted, pretty pussy painted with his cum.

In the doorway, you eye him dubiously, scrunched nose expressing your discontent.

It’s an idea, at least.

He still leaves his dishes in the sink and wakes to you pounding on the bedroom door, whining about having to scrub his plates with a pot scraper, but time and distance have mellowed any hostility in you. You treat him less like a stranger intruding on your space and more like a roommate you’ve grown to tolerate despite his many faults.

The oddest thing is opening the fridge up to more than just a six-pack, a stick of butter, and three half-empty bottles of mustard. Fresh produce and meat spill from the shelves now, leftovers packed in tupperware and neatly labelled. He eats like a king now, takeout relegated to the days when you don’t feel like cooking. On those days, Simon heads down to the chippie a few streets away and gets enough for the both of you before heading back to eat on the couch with you.

He still gets a kick out of leaving his cigarette butts in cups strewn around the flat for you to find.

“So what do you do anyway?” you ask out of the blue.

“What’s it matter?” Simon grunts from beside you. He has to slow his usual gait to keep pace with you—which is irritating as all fuck—but you didn’t leave him much choice when you insisted on going to the store well after dark.

“I’m just making conversation. You always get so squirrely when I ask—what are you, some kind of secret agent?”

He’d roll his eyes if he had any less self-control.

“No way. No way. You are?” you gasp, suddenly glued to his side, hands scrambling for purchase on his bicep and shoulder.

Simon stares down at your hands clutching his arm, unconsciously tucking his bicep between your tits. “Best to not ask questions, bird.”

You pout. He ignores the impulse to lean down and sink his canines into that plump bottom lip.

His nose itches because the world is changing.

He used to catalogue his time off base in much the same way. Wake up, workout, tinker with the junk pilfered from estate sales and scrap yards he’s frequented over the years, then head to the pub for a drink. Wash, rinse, repeat.

That’s changed since you came into his life. Aside from when you’re out working, you unbalance his schedule. Upset his routines. The structure propping up his entire existence gets taken down in an instant when you open your mouth and ask him to the market with you, giving him no choice but to slam the door shut behind him and drive you there.

Each day comes with its new flavour, a new bite to it.

“You’re not eating takeout again?” you ask him, aghast when you come home from work to find takeout containers all over the coffee table

“Always a fuckin’ lecture with you, huh?” Simon grumbles into his curry. Shovels another forkful into his mouth.

Just as he expected though, you don’t let it go. He was a fool to think you would. It’s not so bad at first when all you do is cook for him—with the life he’s lived, he’s never been one to turn down a home cooked meal, so he accepts the proffered food happily—but it’s another thing entirely when you rope him into it.

He’s already pissed off when you wrangle him into the kitchen under the guise of needing his help—absurd after your subterfuge from the day before, his expectation being that you were happy to do all the cooking yourself, not force him to debase himself by chopping up all the vegetables and meat while being ordered around like a line cook.

What really ticks him off though is that—

he grumbles to himself as he chops the mushrooms into thin slices

—you keep getting away with it.

The worst is when you catch the tremor in his hand at the breakfast table, quick eyes picking up on the subtle quiver instantly.

“Something wrong with your wrist?” you ask. Always prying into his business.

Simon closes his hand into a fist. “It’s nothing.”

You frown. “Doesn’t look like ‘nothing’.”

“Well, it is.”

“Can you relax your grip? I just want to see that again.”

How he lets you talk him into massaging his wrist is beyond him. Then you press your thumbs into the meat of his palm and rub in smooth, circular motions, and his brain goes offline for half a second. The relief hits him like a cudgel to the head; knocks him upside.

“Jesus fuck, bird,” Simon groans. His knee bangs against the leg of the table.

“Feels a bit better, huh?” you ask, the corner of your mouth quirking up in a crooked, teasing smile.

And fuck if it doesn’t feel a thousand times better by the time you’re done. He snaps when your thumbs dig in too deep at his wrist and pain radiates up his arm, but all you do is laugh it off, smiling to yourself when you press down on a tender point on his wrist and his jaw goes slack.

Sometimes, he wishes he could study you like a bug. Pin your arms and legs down to get a closer look. Kneel over you and pin your shins down with his to keep you from squirming away, then tuck his fingers into the inside of your cheeks to pull them open.

But he keeps his hands to himself. Just barely.

He doesn’t stay long this time, called back from his katabasis before the week’s even up, Price’s voice urgent over the phone. His duffel bag is packed before the call is even over, boots laced up and mask folded neatly in his pocket for when he leaves the city limits.

“You’re leaving?” you ask when you notice, and if Simon were less of a realist, he might think you sounded upset.

“Need me to take out the trash?” he asks, his answer implicit. Yes, he’s leaving. Even if it weren’t for his job, he’s not the staying type; those kinds of decisions are out of his hands anyway, and even if it were up to him, he’d be long gone by now. Adrift; across the pond or somewhere down in the Balkans, far enough away that you couldn’t find him even if you wanted to.

That’s what he tells himself. Whether he believes it anymore is another question.

You’re quiet for a second. “Sure. Thank you.”

Simon nods. Nothing more to say. The ache in his gut could be anything else.

He lifts a hand on his way out, ruffles your hair once before he’s gone.

Rain soaks him down to his britches but still he stands in it without complaint, watching some of the privates unload a delivery truck parked outside of the commissary. Even the mundane parts of his job are his to attend to and he does so with little complaint.

When they finish around eighteen-hundred hours, he signs out for the day and heads to Price’s office for a drink. It’s so routine it’s practically part of his DNA.

Price already has both glasses poured when Ghost arrives, two fingers each, and it goes down smooth when he rolls the mask up over his nose to take a sip.

“Got out the pricey stuff just for me?” Ghost asks. He can tell by the taste and from the bottle sitting on the shelf behind Price, label facing outward.

“What else am I saving it for?” Price asks rhetorically. “I’m not letting the good stuff go to waste.”

Ghost hums. It’s still raining buckets outside. He watches as it hits the windowpane behind Price’s desk, almost transfixed.

“Got time for a drink before you’re out on Friday?”

He shakes his head. “No time. Gotta be out by six.”

“Six?” Price repeats, a mite surprised. “Why? Something waiting for you back home?”

Ghost doesn’t answer.

Price lifts an eyebrow. “Well, spit it out.”

He shrugs. “Nothing to tell.”

“So there’s no one back in Manchester?”

“Didn’t say that.”

Price’s lips twitch into a grin under his mustache, eyes faintly amused. “Heard.”

Truth be told, he has started to think of you as someone waiting back home. Maybe not for him, but waiting all the same. Why else would you be back in his flat in Manchester in his bed if not to wait for him to come back?

It almost makes him itchy to leave. He can tamp down the urge when the situation calls for it, but it sits right under his skin most days. If he thinks about it for too long, his focus goes razor sharp and the edges of his vision go blurry.

In the present moment, he brings the glass to his lips and tips his head back, letting it pour down his throat.

He has some nascent idea of where this is going.

As always, you’re curled up on the couch watching TV when he walks through the front door, on the verge of sleep. When your eyes land on him, you blink away the sleep and smile so brightly that his chest aches. “Simon!”

In nearly forty years, no one has ever said his name like that. Brimming with brightness and warmth. Like for once someone has longed for him in his absence.

All he can do is stare at you for a time. It should make his skin crawl, and it does, to an extent. He should be out the door already—lease broken, all his shit in the back of his truck, ties cut, and so many kilometers between you and him that he has no choice but to forget your face.

Instead, he kicks the door shut behind him and ruffles your hair when he passes on his way to the bathroom to piss and scrub a towel over his face.

It must be a form of self-punishment. That’s the only explanation for why he comes back every single time when he has more than enough money to fuck off down south for a week instead—he could be spending his leave in Costa Brava or sipping rakija in Kotor, but he chooses to come back to this hovel with its bleak weather and seedy underbelly every single time. What other urge would drive him to abuse himself like this other than masochism?

Any attempt to answer that is swiftly dismissed.

One day. One day is all he manages after promising to keep himself in check this time around. He manages to get through that first day largely because of the physical distance he puts between the two of you, playing chess with a couple old men in the park, rock doves pecking at the birdseed scattered under the wrought iron tables and benches.

His restraint breaks when he catches you dozing off in front of the television, socked feet tucked under your thighs and head balanced precariously on your fist, elbow resting on the arm of the couch.

He sits down beside you and his lip twitches when your head bobs, slumber briefly breached when the cushion under you dips with his weight.

“C’mere, girl,” Simon grunts, pulling you onto his lap.

You go somewhat willingly, only putting up a little bit of a fuss. Grumbling to keep up appearances. But that melts away the second he tucks your head into the crook of his neck, body going lax and fingers burrowing into the fabric of his shirt at his belly, gathering it together in your fist.

Christ, Simon thinks, dropping his head back on the couch. What am I doing?

Even he doesn’t know these days, but his chest aches in a way it never has before. He makes a mental note to see a doctor when he’s back on base.

His back aches too, but you pick up on that rather quickly, hounding him when you recognize the stiffness in his back for what it is. It takes you days to wear him down enough to agree to a massage, but eventually you do. He regrets it the second the words leave his mouth, leery at the thought of putting himself in such a vulnerable position.

You lock him out of the bedroom while you set up your table and do all the little things that you need to do in order to set the mood. His nose wrinkles when the smell of incense hits him.

“You can strip down to your comfort level,” you explain after letting him back into the room, patting the bed as if he doesn’t know where to lie down. “Then get under the blanket and let me know when you’re ready.”

He cocks a brow. “You trying to get me naked, bird?”

“Simon,” you sigh, a touch exasperated, hands on your hips to emphasize your weariness.

His belt clinks as he unlatches it. “Don’t worry, birdie, just gimme a second to get these off.”

A frustrated growl and then the door slams shut behind you when you bolt out of the room.

He spares you the indignity of having to repeat yourself, sliding under the towel and barking at you to come back in when he’s stripped bare and covered. You slip back in quietly and flit over to the dresser to press play on your music.

The first touch of your hands against his bare back almost makes him flinch. All his regret comes rushing back and he very nearly calls it off, and then you press the heels of your palms into the meat of his shoulders and the bottom falls out from under him. Then you drag them down the length of his back and he very nearly bites his tongue clean off.

Simon doesn’t bother muffling his noises when you dig your hands into his back to work out the plethora of knots, huffing and groaning like he’s balls deep. When you get to his shoulders though, he has to fight to stay put,

“Oh, your back is really messed up,” you note, a bit breathlessly.

He doesn’t acknowledge your words, too intent on not vocalizing his pain. Not even a grunt passes his lips.

You work years of hard labour and soreness out of his muscles, leaving behind a new man. The oil coating your palms makes your hands glide across his back.

He must fall asleep at some point because he wakes to the sound of television in the other room. Groggy at first, cotton mouthed and sleep drunk, and when Simon stumbles into the living room, you’re sitting on the couch with your knees drawn into your chest.

“Oh hi,” you say when you notice him standing there. “Sleep well?”

Speech still beyond him, all he can do is nod and plant himself on the couch beside you. Shirtless still. Simon only notices it himself when he tips his head to look over at you and finds that you won’t meet his eyes, gaze steadfast on the TV.

“Shoulda ‘ad you do that when you moved in,” he says.

“I could give you another one before you leave,” you reply, still not looking over at him. He bets that if he brushed his knuckles over your cheeks, they’d be hot to the touch. “Just tell me when.”

Maybe he will. What use is there in depriving himself of life’s little pleasures when his soul bears all of life’s bruises?

He reaches over to pinch your cheek, grinning when you yowl. Just as warm as he thought.

One thing Simon doesn’t take for granted anymore are his scarce moments of privacy. No stranger to a little exhibitionism (barracks walls and tent flaps hardly muffle sound, and he’s learned over the years that men will tolerate anything if it means they can rub one out in peace), he still appreciates the time he gets to himself to take care of things.

He’s only just finished tugging one out, his jeans buttoned back up and his hand still wet with his spend, when you walk in the front door.

You start up the second the door slams shut behind you, steam practically billowing out of your ears. “Well, thanks a lot—one of my regulars just gave me shit because she said I smelt like an ashtray and she couldn’t ‘properly relax’ for the whole hour—”

Afterglow proper scotched, Simon sits there and lets you cuss him out until the pounding behind his eyebrow becomes unbearable.

You go quiet when he rises to his feet, unused to him actually reacting to your whinging. Sometimes you don’t realize how accustomed to him you’ve become—how ingrained he’s become in your everyday life. What continues to elude you for no good reason is that you live with a stranger, and a strange man at that. It would piss him off if it were anyone other than him.

Practically chest to chest now, you nearly go cross eyed staring up at him. Jaw unhinged and mouth dangling loose, just the slightest gap between your lips like you forgot to close them. He lets you size him up for a second before lifting his hand to your mouth and slowly but firmly shoving his cum-covered fingers into your mouth.

Dumbstruck, all you can do is stare up at him with his cum-slicked fingers in your mouth, holding them there for a few more seconds and whimpering when he drags them out and then feeds them slowly back in. You even go a little glassy-eyed.

When he finally pulls his fingers out and lets his arm drop to his side, you sway on your feet a little, at a loss for words. There’s a creamy sheen on your bottom lip that disappears when you suck it into your mouth on instinct, eyes going wide when you recognize the taste on your tongue.

“Thanks for cleaning that up, birdie.” And then he reaches down to zip his fly up, smug when your eyes flit down to his crotch.

The stakes are different now than what they were all those months ago. It can’t be a carefree cohabitation when he’s playing for keeps. Whatever that means.

But his time is cut short again, the world catching up to him and yanking him back. And when Simon goes this time, he can’t help but drag his feet on his way out.

You’re looking good. A comment made in passing, Price’s face barely twitching through it, but Ghost catches it and he lets it sit for a moment before responding.

“Yeah?” he grunts, looking away. The recruits round the part of the track closest to where they stand, panting through their seventh lap.

“Put on a bit of weight since you left,” Price notes.

“Calling me fat, sir?”

He rolls his eyes, huffing out an exasperated breath. “Give it a rest, you fuckin’ muppet. I said you look good.”

Price isn’t wrong though. He both looks and feels different. With increasing regularity, he watches the clock and counts the days down until he’s released from his duties again. His want has him circling like a bird of prey.

All his life, he’s had to live in the moment, concerned only with the immediate, tangible present because that’s all that life let him have. And though it’s been decades since he’s needed to be in survival mode, those instincts have never quite left him.

The shock to his system has left him forward-thinking for once. A girl in his house and food in his fridge; his body feeling better than it has in years—he’s still lucky if he gets more than five uninterrupted hours of sleep, but his expectations are different when he’s not at home. Even the concept of home is foreign, like a language he’s just starting to learn.

The future isn’t some nebulous concept out of his reach but a real place that he gets to walk into.

Desire tips him like a scale. There may not be any coming back from this.

Love shows him no mercy, so he doesn’t show you any either.

Months pass before Simon’s leave comes around again, and when it finally does, he’s already packed and signed out before his last day on base is even up. He says his goodbyes to Price on his way out and the other man visibly suppresses a smile, eyeing the bag clutched tight in his hand.

“Give her my best,” is all he says before getting back to the paperwork in front of him. Simon leaves without another word.

Then the long drive back. A skein of birds in flight follow him for part of the journey. A train running parallel to the throughway follows him for the rest. Tree boughs bend under the weight of the last snowfall.

Then he blinks and when his eyes open, he’s home.

You’re still sitting on that blasted couch when Simon opens the front door, pretty as a peach in August, and his name rings like a bell off your tongue when you say it, summoning him to you. It’s not his fault that his urges prevail, that he has no choice but to throw his bag down onto the carpeted floor and stomp over to you, lifting you up by the collar of your housecoat and dragging you into a scorching hot kiss.

“Mmf,” you squeak against his lips, eyes flying open.

It’s messy and frenzied, spit dripping down your chin and his tongue halfway down your throat. No finesse or skill to speak of, only an incessant buzzing at the back of his head that only quiets when you give a helpless little moan, an instant balm to his suffering.

Simon pulls back for a moment to let you breathe. “That’s my welcome ‘ome?” he murmurs. His lips brush against yours when he speaks.

“W-welcome home?” you repeat, flustered, your lip catching against his. He sucks it between his when it does, cock throbbing in his pants when you gasp, hot breath billowing into his mouth and making his head spin.

This is nothing like being high on pain meds or three sheets to the win. It pulses through him and makes his cock chub up, forcing him to shove a hand down between his legs to readjust himself. That gets you good when you notice.

He kisses hungry and mean, ever greedy for your mouth, fitting his hand over the back of your head and angling you how he likes. Holding the delicate cradle of your skull in his palm and knowing that he could crack it if he squeezed his fingers hard enough. The thought sends a rush right through him, his violent underbelly scratched in just the right way.

“W-where’s this coming from?” you gasp when Simon pulls back. You look thoroughly flustered, but he ignores you to hook a finger in your mouth and wrench it open.

“Open,” he grunts, giving your inner cheek a sharp tug.

You go cross-eyed when he spits in your mouth, the glob of spit landing right on your tongue, and your affronted little gasp hits him like an arrow shot straight through his heart. He’s considerate enough to seal it in with a kiss, making sure not to let you waste a drop. Tongue pushing in right after to lick it up, growling at you to suck it when you only nervously kiss back.

His patience isn’t infinite though and kissing barely wets his appetite. It’s not enough to plumb the depths of his hunger when there’s something uglier down there waiting with its jaws wide open.

He twists you around and bends you over the back of the couch, rucking your housecoat up to your waist. Your knickers get ripped clean off, tearing at the seams, and your ensuing shriek nourishes the hunger simmering low in his belly. Appetite never satiated, belly never full.

He likes that you didn’t expect him back so soon. Fuzzy, unshaved legs and holey socks; pimple patches on your face and nothing under your robe. The lazy domesticity appeals to him in a way he never would’ve expected.

Then his fingers split the seam of your pussy and the runoff of his appreciation cascades down the slopes of his shoulders and his back. Slick drips from your winking hole, gathering together into a tight bulb before a single drop drips onto the couch beneath you.

“Fuck—now there’s somethin’ to come ‘ome to,” Simon grunts, and then drags his tongue between your dew-slicked lips.

His enjoyment was a foregone conclusion when he imagined this back in his quarters in the barracks, cock in hand, but the reality of having his mouth on your pussy exceeds his expectations a thousandfold. It’s all soft, pillowy skin and sweet nectar. He gorges himself on it, an almost pathological need to be tongue-deep in your cunt.

“Wet little gash just sucks ‘em right in…” he murmurs, plunging two fingers into your hole slowly. The soft flesh of your hole bulges around his fingers when they sink in all the way to the knuckle.

“Fuck—don’t call it that,” you bleat, so pathetic that he’s smitten.

“Shouldn’ta wagged it at me if ya didn’t want me to touch it,” Simon teases, then crooks his fingers just so and your leg spasms.

He keeps you stuffed full until your legs shake, on the verge of coming, and then he rips them out.

You practically scream in frustration, twisting to look at him from over your shoulder. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Somethin’ wrong, birdie?” He smirks when you arch your back, pushing your ass back in his face.

“I want to come, Simon,” you whine, wagging your ass in his face again. Just his luck that a little slut like you dropped into his life.

“Alright,” he sighs, mock aggrieved. “Lemme see if I can ‘elp with that.”

Ungrateful little thing, he thinks when he turns you over onto your back and heaves you up into the air.

“Simon—” you keen his name when he has you pinned up against the wall, his arms scooped under your thighs to hold you in place.

He plunges into that warm little honeypot between your legs in slow, measured strokes at first, savouring each punctured whimper and hiccup that drops from your lips. Each flex of his hips brings him that much closer to heaven and that much closer to hell.

“Didn’t think you could just barge in without consequences, did ya?” Simon asks rhetorically, voice gone brassy and tiger-stripped, thick in his chest. “Been sleeping in my bed for nearly a year, ‘aven’t ya? Ain’t I owed this?”

He means it too.

“You’re—so full of it,” you retort, hiccuping through your words.

Your arms hang limp around his neck, fingers twined at his nape and nails scratching at his hairline. The low ache in his back is barely a deterrent—he’d hold you up all night if it took that long to make you come. A distant voice at the back of his head reminds him that he’ll suffer for it in the morning, but he shakes that thought away.

He chases the beads of sweat snaking down your chest and tits with his tongue, straightening back up only when that nearly makes you lose your grip around his neck and topple out of his arms.

“Hey,” you pout when Simon chuckles, digging your nails into his back in retribution for laughing at you. It has the opposite effect though, the pain stoking his pleasure and sending a shiver down his back, his next thrust so rough that you bounce in his arms.

Your skin smells like sweat and musk this close, so heady that his head spins. It registers dimly at the back of his mind that he’s still dressed while you’re fully nude, housecoat and knickers in a pile on the floor in front of the couch, but he can’t pull away now, not with the need to come pressing into him on all sides, dick hard enough to split diamonds.

He stares down between your legs where his cock splits you again and again, a ring of white cream at the base. He could paint that little snatch white with his cum or stuff it deep inside, both options appealing to his baser instincts. It’ll be a coin flip in the end.

When the ache in his back grows too significant to ignore, he lifts you up off the wall and drops you down on his cock, burying himself to the hilt before carrying you to the open door to the bedroom.

“Sorry, pet,” Simon murmurs when he feels you clench around the thickest part of his cock, whispering a little oh fuck to yourself under your breath. He kicks the door shut behind him with his heel. “Back’s shit. Mind taking over for me?”

The mattress squeaks under his weight when he sits down on the end. You blink up at him. “You want me on top?”

He nods and hums his assent, digging his fingers into the muscle and flesh of your ass and kneading. “Yeah, bird. Still wanna see all the pretty bits though.”

The pretty bits being the globes of your ass facing him while you ride his dick, his hands pulling apart your cheeks to watch you take it inch by inch, thighs quivering with the strain.

Your thighs are stretched out on either side of him, pretty calves resting perpendicular to his chest and toes curled into the mattress. He eyes those with some interest before your pussy distracts him again. There’s no angle that isn’t nice to look at, but this has got to be his favourite so far, tight bud between your cheeks clenching every time you drop down onto his dick. It’s easy to ignore the ache in his shoulder with a view this nice.

“Fuck, birdie,” Simon murmurs, dragging his hand over your ass and then swatting it, grunting when that makes you clench up around him, inner walls squeezing his length and nearly milking him dry. “Coulda been doing this the whole time.”

You laugh a bit breathlessly. “No—you were way too annoying.”

Smack. You yelp when he backhands your ass and your shoulders go stiff, spine a taut line with your impending orgasm. Simon can feel it like a knot in his throat, pussy so hot that it nearly burns him alive.

“Shit,” you gasp, hands on his legs the only thing keeping you upright. You nearly rip out the hair on his thighs when you curl them into fists.

His hands glide up and down your sides, touching wherever he wants. It’s his God given right after housing you for so long, and though Simon clings belligerently to that belief, like the foundation of his existence is built on quid pro quo, on doing nothing for others unless there’s something in it for him, there’s something else that burrows underneath that maxim. Something far truer and more terrifying, and if he were to look it dead on, it would bring him to his knees.

Simon grunts, lungs pummelled when you squeeze around his length, tight as a vice.

Good thing you’ve got him on his back instead.

In the end, it’s not up to him whether he comes in you or not. When his cockhead bumps against your cervix and he feels teardrops land on his thighs, your shoulders shaking with the force of your sobs, the spigot loosens and his stomach aches with how hard he comes. His heels dig into the mattress, hips lifting up, trying to cram more and more of his cock into your cunt, tendons straining against his neck.

“Take it, bird,” Simon snarls, teeth grinding together, his voice sounding wrecked even to him. “Take it nice ‘n deep, fuck—wanna see it leak from your hole when I pull ya off—”

Your nails sink into his thighs, cutting him off.

He does too, when you flop down beside him onto the bed and he tucks you under his arm, spreading your legs so he can push his cum back into your cunt, fingers pearly white with your mixed juices.

“Oh God,” you whisper, squeezing your thighs together around his hand until he’s forced to wrench them open again, hovering over you this time, the cudgel dangling between his legs already thickening up again.

And that’s how he spends his week, in a suspended state of euphoria, no sense of time passing. It doesn’t matter where it goes as long as you crawl into bed with him at the end of the day, eyes sparkling with delight.

The leaving is tougher than it’s ever been, claws scoring right through his chest when Simon tips your chin up and leans down to slot his lips over yours. He’s not made for this sentimental bullshit, but it finds him either way.

His chest burns on the drive back to base, acid reflux a bitch as always.

The next time his landlord calls, he comes bearing good news.

“I’ll cut you a deal on the first month to make up for the…mix up,” he starts begrudgingly. “But don’t worry—the girl’ll be out of your hair by the end of the month. Gonna tell her today that I can’t renew her lease.”

Simon hangs up without saying a word, swathed in anger. Nearly crushes the phone in his grip when his landlord calls back a second later. He ignores that call too.

If he were a different man, if this was a different world—

No one ever knows when their world is about to change until it does.

But even if his walls have grown barbed wires in the years that he’s been alone, there’s always a way to dig out from under.

The return home is different this time around, the wind under his sails all but lifting him into the air.

A year to the date almost. Another month and time will wrap back around on itself, the seasons changing the same way they have for all thirty-seven years of his life. When fate lets him go this time, Simon heads over to Price’s office before taking off for the week, carving out time for one last drink before he hits the road. Over a whiskey and kretek, he tells Price his plan and only just keeps from rolling his eyes when Price barks a laugh, clapping his hands together.

“Never thought I’d see the day,” he chuckles, shaking his head.

“Shut up.”

“It’s a big step, Simon. I’m proud of you.”

Simon rolls his eyes, pleased despite himself. “Stuff it, old man.”

And then he’s gone again, following the same winding road back, with one stop along the way this time. He stays overnight at a local inn after signing the paperwork, too exhausted to keep driving. Too much on his mind anyway.

It means nothing to him that people do this sort of thing all the time. He has survived the locust years of his life and come out the other side. That should be enough to give himself some grace when he tosses and turns all night, back pain flaring up and immobilizing him for an hour. Only when the first rays of dawn pierce through the threadbare curtains does it finally abate, and he heads out after his morning piss, ignoring the cramp in his belly on the drive over.

You greet him at the door when you hear his car pull up, standing under the door frame while he gets out and rounds the car, bare toes curling at the cold air. And any effort to tamp it down now is in vain, his chest filling with something unspeakable and unsaid.

“Put your shoes on,” Simon instructs, coming over just to pull you in for a kiss before nudging you back into the flat, shutting the door behind him.

“Why?” you ask, lifting a brow. “Wanna go for coffee or something like that?”

“Something like that. Why aren’t you putting your shoes on?”

Herded into the truck after getting dressed, you badger him with question after question the whole drive over while Simon keeps his mouth shut, focusing on the road in front of him. It’s not a long drive at least, but your incessant questions make it last an eternity.

Until he pulls up in front of a house with a short gravel walkway and a garden in desperate need of attention, milkvetch growing near the front step. The outdoor sconces are new though, and though Simon already has a few things in mind to fix up around the house, it’s got good bones. Leagues nicer than the place you just left.

“Are we picking someone up?” you ask when he puts the car in park, confused. You stare at the door as if waiting for it to open.

Simon doesn’t respond.

You look over at him and he takes one of your hands, holding it palm-side up and covering it with his own ugly mitt. You feel something cold drop from his hand into yours and he curls your fingers into a fist to hold it.

“No.”

When his hand moves away, you uncurl your fingers to find a key. It means so little and so much all at once. If he could say it with words, it wouldn’t be the same so there’s no point in trying.

“It’s ours?” you ask.

“Yeah.”

There’s a watery sheen over your eyes when you look up, and your lip wobbles. And in a way different than ever before, his chest grows tight, the ache in his heart a fresh and welcome pain.

#oh lawd #want him #so badly #ghost

6K notes · View notes

mintfullyyours · 17 days ago

Text

Just give him to me. Like this.

Something about ex husband!Price, got my brain worms moaning and groaning.

He’s still so sweet, calling you to check how you’re doing.

“Ah that furnace is still giving you trouble? I’ll be over in ten.”

Drops off groceries because “They were on sale, don’t worry about it, lovie.”

Stops by to give you a gift his mother got for you.

“She adores you, bird. Keeps asking when we’ll visit.”

Your eyes narrow as your irritation quickly grows.

“You need to tell her we are separated, John.”

He stares down at you for a few quiet moments, raising a brow.

“No reason to.” He says matter-of-factly. “This weekend sounds good, yeah?”

You are flabbergasted, almost frozen in your tracks as you start to sputter.

“What the fuck. You’re not even listening-“

He cuts you off as he leans down, his large hand cradling your jaw as he pulls you up for a kiss. You feel like you’re suffocating in his scent, his touch as he licks into your month, beard scratching against your skin.

He pulls away with a satisfied sigh, giving you that warm smile as he pats your cheek.

“I’ll pick you up after work on Friday.”

#price

689 notes · View notes

mintfullyyours · 18 days ago

Text

Actually though I need this injected into my veins right now

WALK THE PLANK | Part 1

Happy Mermay! 𓂃𓂁𓂃 ོ

— mershark!Simon Riley × fem!Reader — 18+ | Pirates of the Caribbean AU; magic; strangers to lovers; slowburn-ish; monsterfucking; possessive/territorial! Simon; breeding kink; time skips; loss of virginity; canon-typical violence; smut; fluff; dub-con (to be safe)

You have been drawn to the sea since your mother gave birth on a pirate ship.

Even though your father warned you to stay away from the Gems Cove many a times while growing up, told you to stop swimming there, stop feeding the fish, stop praying to Calypso, stop serenading the bloody sea at dusk when the last golden rays of sunlight disappear behind the horizon, because you cannot even comprehend what lingers in the depths of the reef, sweet lassie, you never listened, and when your father left one last time to follow after his Captain’s orders one last time, there was no one left to tell you to stop going there.

And with your dear father’s disappearance, your feet only carried you towards the cove with more purpose—and a lot more spite.

Raised and fed by kind townspeople who took pity on your situation, you continued to spend your teenhood at Gems Cove, glaring at the horizon and quietly cursing ever ship that sailed by and didn’t magically take you away.

A warm breeze sweeps through your hair, swirls around your bare legs as you stand there in your flowy white undergarments, dress and boots discarded in a haphazard heap in the shade of a rock, salt curling the strands and sticking to your dewy skin, sunrays dancing on the crystal-clear water, sparkling like a million gemstones.

“Perhaps I’ll become a bloody pirate like you, eh? How does that fucking sound, father?” you sneer again, angrily flicking another broken seashell over the glittering surface as you stand on the rotten boards of the old jetty, gentle waves lapping against the jagged rocks and wooden pillars supporting the planks.

It’s what you’ve been doing for the past decade, whenever you realize once again how incredibly meaningless and mundane your life has turned out to be, like a ruffled feather blowing in the wind—working as a hierling on fishing boats to get by, helping out as a seamstress and barmaid, selling self-made jewellery to drunken travellers, and avoiding the local brothel at all costs like Davy Jones avoids dry land.

Your father had always promised to take you with him—“when you’re old enough, sweet lassie”—though it was too late when you realized that he was simply staving you off. You would have never been old enough, always his little lassie, too soft for the ocean—a pebble with no edges, smoothed by the current.

“Perhaps... Perhaps I’ll have a child only to abandon it, too, huh? Or even better, I bloody snuff it givin’ birth to it like mother did!” You scoff, and the sound ricochets around the enclosing cliffs sharply, like the shot of a well-maintained pistol.

A murder of crows and a few scattered seagulls feeding on a large mutt’s cadaver at the beach nearby, are startled by the sound and take off flight; distracting you momentarily as you glance over your shoulder, squinting against the slowly setting sunlight.

You barely register the gentle sloshing of waves behind you. The mass that heaves itself out of the water to peek up at the jetty, and the quiet, steady dribble of fat drops dripping off sleek skin, back into the ocean.

When you turn around again, you let out a surprised yelp and nearly jump backwards at the sudden sight that greets you, stumbling on bare feet, almost slipping on slick algae.

He’s huge, and it’s barely half his torso that’s sticking out of the water.

Black, beady eyes—marbles containing the depths of the sea—staring at you, with a rather curious twinkle, from behind a mask crafted out of what you assume must be a cracked human skull, secured around his head with a frayed string of hemp rope, its upper row of teeth twinkling with a gold tooth. It exposes a crown of short brown hair sticking to his skull, the sharp curve of jawline and a plump, rosy bottom lip.

His skin is pale, with a silvery shimmer and faint grey stripes along his upper arms and ribs, depending how the light catches it. Paler than the white sand on the beach, like it has never been kissed by the afternoon sun.

Blessed with wide shoulders, a bulky chest, chiselled abs, and large arms with bulging muscles and protruding blue veins running along the inside of his forearms. Half a brown leather harness is secured around his upper torso, a short and tattered sheath attached to it, the blade’s ivory handle seemingly carved from some great fishbone.

You’ve never seen a man quite this large, not even on your father’s crew, but once you spot the row of gills on each side of his neck, you know that you’re not faced with a man, but a beast—and suddenly, all doubts you once held vanish.

As it turns out, your father didn’t lie in his bedtime stories, didn’t exaggerate when he warned you all those years ago: “There are things–beings–lingerin’ below the surface that might not make sense to us, but it don’t mean they’re not real. Aye? If ye feel like ye’re bein’ stalked by the water, chances are bloody high tha’ ye are, lassie.”

“Who–Who are you?” You shake your head, rubbing your eyes on wobbly legs to make sure you’re not dreaming again.

He doesn’t answer at first, only regards you with those dark, soulless eyes, head tilted like a puppy experiencing something new while his chest rises and falls with shallow breaths, until you find your footing again, slowly backing away from the edge of the jetty, holding your breath despite the salty air scratching in your lungs.

“Wait!” He calls out firmly with a voice like gravel coated in oil, barking like a captain yet pleading like a lost boy. You freeze, exhaling a shuddering breath while your sweaty skin pebbles with goosebumps.

The water parts as he glides through it with ease, closing distance while your eyes flicker to observe the large silhouette of his lower half moving below the surface, causing your eyes to widen in fear and disbelief—and curiosity as it begins to tickle you in the back of your mind.

You should grab your clothes and run far away, but you stay where you are, mesmerized by the creature who is now pulling himself out of the water, bracing his forearms on the edge of the first planks while they creak under his added weight.

For a moment, you’re distracted by his body and the sheer power emanating from him; his hands so brawny and veined, he looks like he could crack a coconut without any effort.

“My name,” he takes a deep breath as if it strains him to speak, “is Simon.”

“Simon,” you repeat, and something splashes sharply behind him, breaking the surface like he’s excited to hear you utter his name, and you wonder if your eyes have deceived you—or if you’ve truly just seen a shark tail.

There is a brief yet tense pause, then he speaks your name, loud and clear, and your heart throbs inside your chest. “Why are ya so angry again?” he asks casually, as if he’s talking to an old friend.

Simon belongs to the mythical merfolk.

Different than the mermaids and men you’ve heard of through legends and lore, and the heresy fishermen and pirates alike love to spread, the creatures who call the territory around Whitecap Bay and Isla Sirena their home, he’s a maverick, a lone sea ghoul.

Unlike them, he doesn’t belong to any pod. He’s been on his own for most of his life.

Mershark, they call themselves. “Aye, stronger than those pretty fish,” he tells you one day two, chortling when he adds, “smarter, too.”

He does look like a ruthless tiger shark, his lower half nearly twice as long as a human body, with tough skin, criss-crossed with battle and other scars. And when he catches how your gaze lingers on his unique body, a rare smirk tugs at the corner of his lips, nearly preening under your attention.

Simon lets you inspect and learn as you please, answers your questions about his tail, and why it doesn’t look like any of the merfolk drawings you’ve seen in books—his large caudal fin like a shark’s, undulating from side to side rather than up and down whenever he swims.

And you start spending more time at the cove and less at your hometown, ignoring your lack of money and possibilities in favour of being with him—your scarily handsome sea beast.

After five days, you bring what is necessary, along with a tattered pillow and thin blanket as you stay more nights at the beach, reading aloud old books to him as he can neither read nor write, and sleeping in the sand while Simon prowls his territory underwater, hunting at night.

You’ve never had a friend quite like him, if any at all, but neither ever did he, from what you can tell.

He gets terribly restless when you do end up leaving the cove a couple of hours a day, pacing while the big trademark fin of a shark swims circles in the bay until you return, and Simon ends up bringing you fish to cook over an open bonfire and fresh clams to slurp with lemon juice to keep you from having to leave him again; always making sure you’re fed while he lingers; sometimes sitting awkwardly in the shallows with you, when the tide is lowest, and the temperature burns too hot.

It’s peaceful, being with him.

“Everyone always told me to stay away from Gems Cove. Said it’s too dangerous and cursed,” you remark, kissing your teeth in snide as you gaze out on the calm water. “Nothin’ ever happened, and they stopped pestering me eventually, though.”

There is a pause after you tell him, and you wonder if he’s even listening to you, but then he opens his mouth to speak, and you realize that he’d been hesitating.

“I’ve watched over you whenever ya swam here. Nothin’ would’ve ever happened to you, because I never allowed it,” he admits sheepishly after barely ten days of knowing each other, as the late afternoon sun inches towards the horizon. He points a finger at the span of the cove. “F’all these years, y’know?”

Simon looks straight ahead as you gaze up at him, his skull mask resting in your lap after taking it off for him, and you use the moment to admire how the sunlight makes his dark blonde hair shine, the unruly strands now close-cropped, thanks to you, exposing the three deep claw marks at the side of his skull from a fight with a merman.

Then his jaw clenches and his cheek ticks as if he regrets telling you now, but your heart skips a beat at his admission, utterly touched by it.

“Why?” you croak, and your eyes sting with salty sea spray.

His head tips down at your hand now resting where his hip should be and where his body turns twisted, abnormal. Still, your thumb rubs soothing circles on his sleek looking yet rough skin, sharp like sand and fine glass shards.

Reaching out, he takes your right hand, turns it over to look at your palm, tracing the jagged scar in the middle of it, and huffing through his nose at the memories flooding his mind, before he speaks: “Because you saved me and almost bloody died doin’ it.”

You don’t remember it, but Simon recounts that you’d lost consciousness back then. He could never forget it—stuck and tangled up in a net, thin ropes biting into his skin while a fat hook was piercing his dorsal fin, his own blood attracting more sharks.

You’d jumped into the dark water without hesitation, the full moon the only light illuminating the restless waves, and you cut him free with a rusty pocketknife before pulling out the hook. And Simon remembers your sharp cry of pain, the one that made his heart drop heavy in his chest, then the sweet and copper scent of your blood as it dripped onto him and into the sea, when the hook went through your palm.

Barely a decade old the both of you, when he had to watch from afar how loud men hauled you out of the angry water, pressing down on your still flat chest with force until you sputtered and coughed gallons of salty water while death kept clinging to your complexion.

Simon still wishes he could’ve kissed you back then, protect you from drowning like that, but he was still a silly pup—oblivious to his own powers, because nobody close to him was still alive to teach him.

His shoulders slouch, dry skin pulling taut over his muscles after spending too much time out of the water.

“I never even got to say ‘thank you’ back then.”

The sourness of lemons from supper is still sticking to your lips as you lick them, the taste of seafood lingering in the back of your throat as you listen and watch, barely breathing while Simon paints a vivid picture in your head; lifting the fog of a sad, lonely childhood for a smidge to teach you how you got that nasty scar on your hand.

“You don’t have to thank me,” you reply, not moving your hand as he keeps cradling it in his. “I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

Then, your father’s words come to your mind: “Whenever the sea calls out to ye, ye walk the plank and take a jump, lassie.” He’d always laugh fondly. “One fearless minx, ye are. Every pirate cap’n would fear the lass who’d cheated Calypso of another innocent soul.”

It makes more sense now, but before you can think about it, Simon turns to you, his eyes dark pools of nothingness, swallowing up all the molten golden brown in his irises.

“That’s what I’m afraid of, love. Bloody reckless y'are.” There is no malice in his baritone voice, just a hint of exasperation and fatigue, as if he’s done with your bollocks after years of playing guardian angel and keeping himself hidden in a desperate attempt not to scare you away, but then there’s a faint smile lifting the scarred corner of his lip—a gnarly scar caused by another fisherman's hook, he’d told you.

A genuine smile graces your lips when you entwine your fingers with his, feeling the smooth, translucent webbing between his fingers, while his body tenses, nostrils flaring with a sharp inhale of breath.

“Wouldn’t have met ya if I was some prudent, Si.”

It’s still a foreign feeling for him to feel air burn in his lungs for so long, but Simon can’t help the way his breath stutters and hitches whenever you’re close to him—whenever you touch him so effortlessly, just as confidently as when you’d jumped into the water to save him from a cruel death.

And Simon is almost sure you don’t know, not yet anyway, but you’re doing things to him he’s never experienced before.

The naturally fearless mershark continues to crumble under your gaze, your voice, your every touch, like a delicate sandcastle blown over by the breeze. He’d endure the burn of air in his lungs, of sunrays on his sensitive skin, a thousand times over if it means he can spend another moment in your bright presence.

“Aye.” He returns your smile, squeezing your hand lightly as you hold his gaze. “Guess ye’r right.”

For the first time in his pathetic life, Simon doesn’t feel that cold and crippling kind of loneliness, and unbeknownst to him, you feel very much the same.

After two weeks, when the Caribbean sun burns too hot at noon, Simon steals you away from the Gems Cover, has he listened to you hiss and moan about your townspeople and the desire to leave the island one too many times in this short amount of time.

“Bring water,” he keeps calling out to you like a mother hen, bracing his arms on the jetty as he watches you fussing about in your makeshift camp at the beach. “Can’t have ya faintin’ on me,” he adds with a teasing lilt, and you roll your eyes, stuffing your flask into your old leather rucksack.

When you sit down at the edge of the jetty, bare legs swinging while the hem of your yellowed tunic flutters around your thighs, Simon feels a different kind of warmth stirring in his chest that spreads down to the tip of his tail, pooling and pulsating low in his gut.

His hands twitch below the surface, clenching into fists to keep himself from reaching out to feel your supple flesh give under his brawny hands, nose twitching as he gets a whiff of your scent—luscious sweat and salt coating your skin, a trace of coconut water on your hair, a whiff of your heavenly womanhood when you squirm on the rotten planks and your knees spread apart.

His mouth fills with saliva and the urge to shove his face between your thighs becomes unbearable as something wild claws and thrashes behind his ribs, razor sharp teeth tearing him apart from the inside while he tries to tame his instincts.

Simon exhales slowly through his nose, dark eyes flickering up to observe your gorgeous face from behind his skull mask as you secure your rucksack on your back, so unaware of this predator—lusting, wanting, adoring you so openly.

Sometimes he wonders if you know that you’re his salvation, and he hates himself for not bracing that surface sooner, for not taking that leap and show himself to you.

“Now c’mon, little legs.” He clears his throat and water splashes as he lifts his arms up, waiting for you to make the final jump. “I’m takin’ ya for a swim.”

Your pearly teeth flash with a grin and then you slip off the edge, right into his embrace before he cradles you close to his buff chest while a pleased rumble bubbles up in his throat at the weight of you finally in his arms, legs wrapping around his midriff where man meets shark.

“Fuckin’ hell, ye’r squishy,” Simon mutters under his breath, earning a glare as he snorts in amusement and slight embarrassment, pale cheeks flushing under the bone of his mask. “I–I mean... soft. In a–a good way.” He adjusts his grip on you, cupping the back of your thighs, squeezing involuntarily.

You squirm against his body, lashes fluttering against the spray and breeze whipping around your body, while your heart beats rapidly against your ribcage, overwhelmed by the closeness to him, not having expected nor ever experienced this effect from a anyone.

“Hold on tight now, aye?”

Adjusting your grip around his neck, you nod, and Simon eases himself into the water, floating on his back while he has you lay on his broad body, keeping you secured to his chest while he starts moving his tail underwater, gliding through the waves as he manoeuvres you both out of the familiar cove, past the colourful reef where the sheltered bay opens up into the vast ocean.

“Haven’t been out in open water in so long,” you start shakily, eyes darting around, but the sun’s reflection on the surface blinds you too badly. “What if someone sees us out here?”

Simon shrugs. “Don’t ya worry ‘bout that. I know these waters better than anyone,” he assures you, sounding proud while his chest puffs out.

“Sounds like you expect a pat on your head for that,” you quip as you play with the hair at his nape underwater, and there is a brief pause before his tail breaches to splash a cold wave of water on you.

You squeal and Simon smirks triumphantly at the sound you make, and he can’t stop his hands from roaming over the curve of your back, the thin fabric of your drenched tunic now clinging to your body like a second skin. His fingers twitch to rip it clean off and shed the barrier between you both, but again he pushes the urge far away into the darkest depths of his mind.

The secret he’s so determined to show you turns out to be a cave halfway around the island; unreachable from land, its entrance hidden behind large lumps of boulders covered in moss, seaweed and barnacles. An old smugglers hideout he had discovered in his years of calling this island his territory, though no one has returned here since the Royal Navy has been patrolling close to the island occasionally.

As Simon takes you farther inside, the pool of turquoise water ends in a U-shaped landmass of dark glimmering stone, surrounded by a solid rocky wall with large cracks at the ceiling where daylight spills inside and illuminates the cave. It smells sweet and clean, like a source of fresh water is nearby.

When he sets you down on a dryer spot of stone, you push yourself up slowly, your gaze wandering around the cave in awe, head tilted back, while Simon watches, eyes crinkling deep in the corners with a pleased smile at your reaction.

“You like it?” You nod eagerly, a breathless laugh erupting from your lungs. “Yes! This place is beautiful, Si!”

The water ripples around Simon’s midriff while his tail swishes below the surface, like a mongrel wagging its tail.

A few hours later, Simon is lounging on his back on a larger, flat rock in the middle of the pool while listens to the gentle padding of your bare feet echoing around the cave, enjoying the shade and warm, damp air, while you continue to explore each nook and corner curiously, letting him know whenever you find something worth mentioning. The sound so soothing to him, he nearly dozes off with one arm propped up behind his head.

You’ve found the pile of driftwood that he’d brought to the cave a few days ago, when he’d shoved them into place where the sun shines the brightest through the cracks in the ceiling to let them dry, and you’ve been trying to build and start a fire for a while before you call out his name suddenly.

Simon cracks one eye open, waiting. “Is this your home? Uhm, I mean... Is this where you stay when you’re not at the cove with me?” He lifts his head up and catches you standing at the edge of the pool, dipping your toes into the water tentatively.

“No,” he answers eventually, his tone curt. “I don’t have a home.” You are his home, but he can’t possibly tell you that now.

“So,” you start again, and Simon props himself up on his elbows as he notices how you suddenly avoid his eyes. “Why did you never,” you shrug, pulling your toes from the water, “y’know... try to find a–” You make a vague hand gesture in the air, and his stomach twists into a thousand tight knots.

Simon utters your name, though it comes out as a growl. “A what?”

Your pretty eyes snap up to meet his and you look so innocent, he can barely endure the sight. His chest heaves and his tail slashes briefly before he speaks: “A pod? A family? Come on, say it.”

You lick your dry lips as your cheek warm up. “A mate, Simon.”

His tail swishes, stirring the water. A muscle in his jaw ticks as he clenches his teeth tightly. This question alone nearly offends him, especially coming from you, and he doesn’t quite know what to say while the truth is already trying to claw itself through his gills and up his throat, burning in the back of his tongue as if he ate something rancid and rotten.

Then he huffs. “Why don’t you have one?” He doesn’t even want to know the answer, and fear clogs up his veins when he briefly imagines that you already have one, that you’re simply spending time with a lonely bastard like him out of pity and kindness.

You kick a tiny seashell into the water as you shrug, looking like a child that doesn’t know how to explain itself.

“Never liked anyone in my town. The men are all just–” You sigh, shrugging again, unaware that Simon is already seething at the mere mention that you’ve looked at males in the past.

But the truth is mundane—you feared you’d end up like your mother, with a man who loved his freedom and a life of piracy more than her, only to die scared, giving birth to her child during a storm on a pirate ship.

“Not bloody good enough for you.” He finishes your sentence with a frown on his face. They’re not the words you would’ve used, but deep down, you agree with him.

A dreary smile tugs at your lips as you finally look at him, regarding him lolling about in the rock, muscles stretching and flexing in a way that twists and turns your insides warm and your smile more bashful.

“Perhaps, aye,” you agree, and Simon perks up at that, heart fluttering with hope. “Perhaps that’s it.”

Yes, I planned this as a oneshot, but things got out of hand and I'm having way too much fun in this universe. 🙃 I hope you've enjoyed the first part! If so, I'd always appreaciate your feedback, likes & reblogs. Thank you so much! 🧜🏼‍♂️🩵

#love love love #ghost

1K notes · View notes

mintfullyyours · 18 days ago

Text

This was so goooddd

ALL OVER ME: ONE SHOT

pairing: roommate!VA!johnny x roommate!fem!reader

summary: finding out that your flatmate johnny is a porn voice actor wasn’t exactly surprising. what astonished you was the amount of nasty ass content he had on his reddit.

"[...] "'m too fuckin' horny today and my flatmate didnae want tae help my situation..." there's a small pause and a long, whispered curse with some fabric rustling in the background. then, the distant sound of sticky squelching, slow and steady – teasing, tempting. "she– uh... she's a fuckin' wee tease," he starts, some small gasps making their appearance in between his words."

genre: smut (MDNI), non-military au, fluff | wc: 10.060

warnings: johnny is a reddit va, crosses and catholicism mentions, 'friends-to-lovers', not slow burn but they yearn a bit, drinking, explicit sexual content: p in v, dirty talk, praise kink, voyeurism and exhibitionism mentions

a/n: main masterlist.

You’ve known Johnny for long enough so that you can make out the spectrum that is his persona – or, better, make out his personas.

When he moved in with you it was supposed to be temporary, only a few months before he found a place for himself, but that extended to a year and now you’re reaching almost two years living with him. He was a total stranger, you met him one Wednesday night while you hung out with a few friends that ended up grouping with his friends at one of their houses and that’s how he got into your life.

He was kind and polite from day one, a bit overwhelming at times but you soon grew used to his overcaring demeanor. You soon learned that he actually wasn’t nice to everyone, which made you feel a bit special and definitely more open to receive his loving gestures. He was so easy to have around, despite you sharing a home – which can be challenging – he was always understanding and tried his best to find a way in between your wishes and his like a true well educated, respectful man – you thought his future wife was a lucky woman.

You always assumed that Johnny’s politeness and well-behaviour must be products of a rigid, catholic education, both at home and at school. It wasn’t hard to guess, he whispered small prayers before eating, he had a cross chain he didn’t take off for nothing and he’d, from time to time, bless you and your day – a small greeting just to make sure his fondness is known. His personality was a big mix of random things, his playlist itself was all over the place – from uk rock to american pop girlies – and, when you realized he had a lot of different facets, you thought maybe it’d be hard to take him in.

But it wasn’t, you got used to it – the flirtiness and the “don’t fuck with me” vibes, all of it. He has always been so polite with you and so kind, sharing an apartment with him never proved to be a bothersome experience – quite the opposite, actually – and you managed to settle in a quiet, nice coexistence right at the first month or so since he moved in.

You usually talked about all sorts of things, though not that personal, you still talked about your childhoods, college times and your current works – and that’s when you learned that he actually has two jobs. You did the grocery shopping together when there were things lacking around the house, you cleaned the house together every Sunday morning, sometimes you even went to the gym together. Despite you never acknowledging it – at least not out loud –, you like to think you’re friends and that you can count on each other, that you were close enough to have a stable, housemate friendship.

Oh, how wrong you’ve been.

After some nights with his friends over and some overanalyzing their internal jokes, you came to terms with the fact that Johnny has porn voice acting as a side hustle. He never vocalized it but he didn’t have to and, honestly, it wasn’t exactly surprising – considering Only Fans is very common nowadays and, well, he has a very attractive voice. What astonished you, however, was the amount of nasty ass content – "roommate" related too, it's important to emphasize – he had on his reddit. You only searched for his content after days and days of wondering what his works were like, until then you could imagine him doing BFE and scripts filled with L-Bombs – or even some vanilla type of content that conservative christians labeled as freaky – but you did not expect the amount of spitting, bondage and power play you’ve found in the tags of his pinned posts.

Well, you should've known better.

Because, the fact that he's sharing audio porn on the internet is already a big flag of his character. There's no way he didn't have at least an exhibitionism kink. Which was the worst thought to ever cross your mind, since you yourself was a very, very devoted voyeur. Watching him around the flat now made you feel like a researcher watching the object of study in the wild. His whole demeanor was different for you, every little thing he did and said got your head racing with what’s he like in bed? He seems smoother when he talks – seems to be doing it with a lot more self-assurance too. Suddenly he's all flirty with others, his Scottish accent rolling thicker on his tongue and his body language way too inviting and you wonder if he knows that you know.

He most certainly gets off on the praise and the pleas. The thirst of anonymous people all over the world. You've never really heard any of his works but you've allowed yourself to read through the comments over and over again – and his answers too. You thought it was manageable, that the plaguing memories of unknown people lusting over him as well as his own filthy behaviour were the worse it could get.

But then you heard it.

For the first time since you started living together, you hear it low and soft, sneaking like a creep in the night through the thin walls of your shared flat. The unmistakable evidence of pleasure, relief and bliss entirely enveloped around it. He was jerking off right there, behind the closed door of his room beside yours, role playing in some sex filled script like some pervert for hundreds of people to hear – and, fuck, if you didn’t want to hear more of it. Yet, as you tried to seek sense in the mumbles and moans with an ear pressed to the wall, you were simply met with muffled little sounds.

To add up even more to your situation – like his newfound carelessness in doing his activities weren't enough –, the sounds of his pleasure started to haunt you. Not only in your home, but in your dreams too. And, then, in your friend's house as well.

It got you confused at first, how she insisted on your acknowledgement of the audio. You wondered why she wanted to share it so bad. It was uncommon for you to engage in sexually related conversations – other than the one moment where you whined to her about how your roommate was the closest you’d ever get to meeting a pornstar –, but she told you time and time again that "you have to listen to this one" and, after a lot of convincing from her, you did. And there it was:

r/gonewildaudio SoapTheBrawVA [M4F] cannae take it anymore [RambleFap] [MDom] [Slight edging] [Begging] [Exhibitionism] in the forms of [Wanting to be caught in the act] mentions of [Doggystyle] [Overstim] [Praising] [Begging] [7:32]

Your friend side-eyed you as you plugged the earphones on, knowing every single word of it by now. She heard it out of curiosity after you’ve talked to her about him posting not safe for work content and immediately decided she had to share it with you. You were flustered even before pressing play, the idea of him even so much as imagining that you're about to hear one of his audios had you hot with embarrassment. A pang of jealousy cut through your chest at the notion that she heard him in such an intimate moment, but it was his job anyways – she was not the only one.

“Wee pervs, hi.” Comes his voice a few seconds in, he gasps as soon as he finishes the greeting phrase and that's how you know he's already at it. You cross your legs, bracing yourself for what’s to come. “‘M too fuckin' horny today and my flatmate didnae want tae help my situation…” There's a small pause and a long, whispered curse with some fabric rustling in the background. Then, the distant sound of sticky squelching, slow and steady – teasing, tempting. "She– uh... She's a fuckin' wee tease,” he starts, a few small gasps making their appearance in between his words.

Even though his reddit post was tagged as "MDom", he’s so whiny about everything. It goes without saying that it became very clear to you what he was talking about – or rather, who he was talking about – with the way he'd describe your clothes and routine. He talks about how much you seem to try and piss him off on purpose, how he hates what you wear around the place. “Makes me wan’ t-tae have a wank on the sofa.” He grows needier as he speaks, letting out a small breath as he slightly picks up the rate on his hand.

“Would— Fuckin’ Jesus–” He moans, the sound so loud and so slutty it has you soaking your underwear. He’s trying hard not to stutter when he speaks again, his tone almost pained: “Would love tae have ye walk in on m-me… ” He groans, voice hoarse and restless, you wonder if he’s close – you don’t dare to look at the screen to know how long of it you’ve already heard.

He keeps talking about how he’d ravage you if he had the chance, describing it in detail. He asks for the listeners to imagine themselves in your place, to finally put an end to his misery and let him fuck you already. “Wan’ t’bend ye over the sofa back, take– Fuck, fuck—” He’s cut off by his moan. There’s a small moment of silence before he laughs at the pause, his hand movement no longer being heard and for a second you think he came. Although, the squelches start again.

“Mhm…” He hums long and low, saying “almost busted then,” with a giggle. “Tha’ what happens when… Ah– when I think of taking ye f-from behind.” Another moan echoes on your earphones and you have to fight the urge to stick a hand inside your pants – what you wouldn’t give to be able to watch him cum. “It wouldnae matter, jus’ wan’ ye all over me, bon.”

He sounds determined even though his breaths are shallow, like they barely reach his lungs. The squelching got louder and wetter, making you think that he must be leaking so much precum because not once you heard a lube bottle being open. “Jus’ wan’ ye tae tell me I did good, bloody hell–” His hand is stroking his cock faster, you can tell. His breath – long uneven – is too shallow now, his sounds desperate, needier. “After I’ve made ye cum again and a-again– Shit– Until ye can o-only thank me.” His voice is rushed and trembling, so it’s no surprise when he announces: “I’m gonnae cum, fuck—” He curses and moans, loud and clear.

There’s some whispering, he repeats that he’s close saying “cumming, I’m cumming, ah– Please, please, p-please,” and you’re not sure what he’s begging for, he probably doesn’t know either but it’s so hot, he sounds so wrecked only by a quick wank it makes you think about how much he’d lose himself if you two fucked. You wonder what he's thinking about when he whispers a curse one last time before his hand starts to slow its movements all the way until there’s no squelching anymore.

“Came so fuckin’ much, made such a mess.” He chuckles, tone light and airy, clearly basking in his post-orgasm bliss. “Christ– Aye… Thank ye for listening and see ye next audio.”

Even after the audio ends you stay still, not taking the earphones off nor touching the phone in your lap. Your friend takes the latter in her hands and closes the app, unplugging the earphones and looking at you as you stare at a random point of her living room. “Well… How’d you like it?”

You blink up at her, biting your lips to try and hide the evident smile that was forming on your lips but failing miserably. You two start laughing, you lean on her and gasp in between your short breaths. “I hate you, y’know?” It’s a boneless insult and she knows it, which only makes her laugh harder.

Needless to say, you couldn’t forget about it. Lucky for you she never mentioned it again and you could live in peace in that regard, but it did nothing to calm your heart – and your cunt. Every time you got close to him as you did your chores together or when he laid on the couch with you, it made you want to jump right into his arms, bask in the lust he nurtured over you and ask: “Do you really want me all over you?”

Naturally, considering the stage of your so-called friendship and the very fact that you live together, you didn’t do as you wished. Instead, you try and keep as normal as you can, brushing him off when he gets too flirty and changing subjects whenever one of his friends mention his side job. Still, Johnny was a smart man and very experienced when it came to people. Living with you for almost two years has taught him a lot of skills, the main one being that he could read you like a book – and, opposite from you, he didn’t avoid doing so.

The Scottish man was convinced he fell for you right when his eyes first laid on your being, the only confirmation needed for him to act accordingly was when he talked to you and you replied so politely and so sweetly he felt like asking you to marry him right there. With that thought in mind, he opted for a more friendly approach and decided to ask you, out of all people, to shelter him for a little while when things got complicated in his old apartment. Different from what he expected, your kindness allowed you to accept him in no time, even helping him move his things as you could.

Around the first few months, he got really comfortable living with you. So much so he didn’t want to leave and his feelings started to get out of hand. He'd catch himself lingering around too long, overly indulged in your conversations and quality time. He’d make himself present as much as he could, leaving little voice notes for you everyday just so you’d remember him at some point of your day. He got so into you that it started to feel like it was too much, especially since you seemed so reserved about it – even with your gentleness and your amiable relationship.

Unfortunately, Johnny was a very sexual man – maybe that’s why he felt so comfortable with being a porn VA – and his only way to release the pent-up tension that weighed his shoulders was sexually. Yet, loyal and committed man that he was, he couldn’t possible fuck someone else without thinking of you, so he did what was viable: he made jerking off more exciting, more arousing. He started doing it with an ajar door, doing it more loudly too, all to have you catch a hint, but you never did. He wondered if, maybe, you didn’t feel what he did. That sharing a home and a routine – a life, as he liked to think – did nothing to you, that you thought about him like you did when you first met.

Until one particular Friday after dinner.

He came home later than expected – he didn’t, you just had the day off, so you had nothing to do except wait for him to come back, which meant no time was soon enough – and asked if you wanted to do something different for supper. From then on, the two of you had spent almost the entire evening together, you said it’d be fun to try the new recipe you’ve written down in your little cooking book – mind you, one recipe that his mum had dictated to you over a voice call – and he agreed instantly, wanting to be in your good graces. You baked together, making the dough and your chosen toppings. Johnny tried to make you smile every five seconds, even going so far as making a heart-shaped pizza just to get in your nerves and, although he thought you’d get flustered or brush him off, you made your own heart-shaped dough to bake.

It seemed like you were in a good mood because, as you ate together, the both of you talked like you never did. He quickly realized he was never allowed to be so emotionally close to you, or anyone for that matter, and it made him so fucking happy to know that you were allowing it to happen – and enjoying it too. His poor in love heart, not knowing better, banged in his chest just from this small moment, from sharing a meaningful evening with his bonnie lass. You shared a bottle of wine, did the dishes together and, as it got too late for anything other than sleep, you settled in your beloved, L-shaped sofa.

He’s tipsy and happy, his whole body buzzing with joy as he watches you put one of your favorite vinyls on his record-player – a ‘cigarettes after sex’ one –, the soft melody of a romantic and melancholic song being heard all around the room. The usual soft, grainy sound is welcomed by his ears and he hums in delight, not having anticipated such a nice set of events this day – he loved the song, but he enjoyed it better knowing you were having fun.

He still remembers how you freaked out when you saw his record player, dusty and underused. He had it for a while but never went so far as buying multiple vinyls – he only had one or two, only his absolute favorite albums. You, on the other hand, started buying one after another from all types of genres, whenever his friends or yours were over you’d play the most calm and ambient melodies. He could see how much you loved it, he even went so far as offering you to keep it when he left, which you refused, saying that it was more practical if he just stayed altogether – you two got along so well, so why not, right?

Johnny’s eyes don’t leave your frame as you start to sway gently to the music’s instrumental, his head tilting to the side, broad frame lazily resting on the cushions as he watches you in the middle of the room. He waits for the first line to be sung before getting up, starting to dance along with you. He startles you a bit in your slight hazy state, but not enough for you to pull away. He is gentle as he moves his right hand to circle around your waist in a firm grip, pulling your body to press on his chest as his left finds your own. Your shared movements are unhurried, the melody enveloping the two of you and you can’t help but rest your head on him as you two slowly dance your thoughts away.

You barely notice the change in songs, the atmosphere too calm and too entrancing for you to think about something other than him. Johnny is beaming in your arms. You love to have him whisper the lyrics with his lips pressed to your ear. The gentle brush of his thumb on your waist makes your heart skip a beat, the heat of it radiating through your shirt and into your skin. You’ve spent the whole day missing him, even though he had simply left for work, and when he came home you wanted nothing other than to have him around you for a bit – or a lot, as it turned out.

He asks you about it – your willingness in letting him linger around like that – after three songs played and you only shrug. He gives you an inquiring look, wanting you to elaborate, so you can’t help but answer. “Jus’ missed you, aye?” Regretting as soon as you see the look on his face – you don’t.

“Aw, ye missed me, bon?” He coos, voice teasing but with an amused edge to it, like he couldn’t believe it at the same time he wanted it to be true.

“Mhm,” You hum and nod in agreement, not wanting to feed his ego but wishing he could know just how much. “That’s what happens when I don’t have better things to do.” You joke instead, letting out a shriek when his hand that was on your waist still squeezes around your skin, wanting to tickle you. “Alright, it wasn’t that. I just missed you, that’s all.”

He laughs at your frantic attempts of making him stop his assault, doing it only to settle both hands on your hips and hold you like that – face to face, his chest brushing against the swell of your breasts. “Why ye didnae text, hen?” He questions with a tilt of his head and it’s clear that he does it for more than just curiosity, it’s an accusation of sorts.

For starters, you didn’t have to do anything. You don’t like that you’re so caught up in his words but you’re not stupid, you know you wanted to and you neglected it. You’ve been having conflicted feelings about him for quite some time now and you didn’t want to give it more meaning than it should have. Regardless of your intentions, that’s exactly what you ended up doing, refraining from sending a simple text just because he could interpret it like you were showing interest – which you would be.

Besides, the motive that crosses your mind has a lot more to do with him than yourself. It makes you flustered, knowing you’re thinking about him in such a way with him so serious in front of you whilst holding your hips so tenderly. You pretend that you’re a couple having a disagreement and, for the shortest time, it just feels right.

“Sorry.” You mumble, like you were guilty of something even if you know you aren’t. Before he could further question you, you add: “I didn’t want to bother you…”

He furrows his brows then, utterly bewildered by your words. In what world would you ever bother him? He can’t think of an answer. Sensing that there was more to it than you’re letting on, he says: “Why would ye bother me, luv?”

“Uhm, y’know…” You make a vague gesture with your head like it’s obvious, your hands finding his forearms and Johnny could swear he has never been so close to losing control at the intimacy of your holds around each other – his mind drifting between wanting to talk to you and wanting to slam his lips in yours. When he makes no move on acknowledging what you mean, you give up. “You… I thought you were busy today. You didn’t send a voice note.”

Johnny stalls entirely and that’s when you realize he had been brushing his hands up and down your sides. He blinks slowly with a frown on his brow before he speaks again. “Are ye sure I didnae send it?”

You giggle at it, not expecting him to be so normal about it. “I’m sure you didn’t,” I would’ve remembered, goes unsaid. Before he can apologize or anything like that, you quickly whisper: “But it’s okay, we had a nice Friday date night to make up for it.”

God, you feel so silly, but it is true. You've been dying to give in to your desires, tired of being so closed off whilst being afraid of jumping with everything you had. So it was a good thing you are acting in the middle of both today.

Johnny, who could never lose the opportunity to tease you a bit and who’s always so attentive of things when it comes to you, quickly catches up on it – the little hint of how you feel. He lets out a sigh, his shoulders relaxing as he realizes what you mean by it. He could feel the butterflies flying all over his insides and coiling in his lower belly. The soft stir of his cock throbbing to life in his pants unbearably embarrassing from just the thought of having you like that.

“Friday date night, huh? Tha’ it, hen?” He says with a smirk, delivering the sentence with enough confidence so you don’t notice the red beginning to blush his cheeks. You simply hum with a sheepish smile in agreement, brushing him off with a whispered “friends’ date, okay?” and Johnny smiles wider at the response, his heartbeat wild in his chest as he restarts the sway of your bodies again, urging you to slow dance with him even though the record was, most likely, in its last couple of songs.

On the days that follow, the two of you never quite escape the unspoken tension – feelings – that came to light that night. Eventually, every Friday night was date night and Johnny would take you out on the days that you didn’t come up with different date ideas – because you always had Friday off work, so you had the time –, even though you two never confessed your feelings.

He started jokingly calling you his girlfriend to his friends and they all ate it up, not even questioning because duh, of course you were. You, on the other hand, would turn into an absolute mess when your friend called Johnny your boyfriend. Still, you never corrected her. Things fell into harmony quite fast and, before you noticed, you were celebrating two years living together – yes, Johnny threw a party. The event was just for you and your closest friends and it was more of an excuse to have them all over than anything else.

It was a Thursday night, the rain outside adding up to the cozy atmosphere, the soft sound of it hitting the glass of your bedroom window doing nothing to distract you from the sight in front of you. You got dressed whilst Johnny was showering, being almost entirely ready when he knocked on your door. You open it without thinking and there it is: Johnny in nothing but white boxer briefs, body still carrying hints of water from his shower as he lifts one shirt in each hand, asking you: “Which one should I wear, bon?”

You stutter out a gasp, turning around to pretend being busy making your bed, desperately trying to avoid jumping his bones. After cleaning your throat and recomposing, you point out: “Depends, what you chose for bottoms?”

He makes a sound of realization, a small “ah”. Then, he leaves your door for a few seconds before he’s back, wearing dark, baggy jeans with an undone brown belt hanging on the loops of it. “I’ll wear these.” He answers, taking in the contemplative pout on your lips and the tilt of your head as you ogle at his lower half. He takes the moment to make his own inspection of your outfit, which helps nothing his state of mind – you look good enough to eat.

“I like those.” You eventually state, eyeing the options on his hands before making a decision. “Wear the white shirt… I think it’d look better than the black one.”

He just nods like a kid being instructed, tossing the black fabric in your bed in order to pull the white one over his head and onto his body. He checks himself out in the mirror, a hand brushing over his mohawk before he follows you out of the room. You walk until you reach your shared bathroom, looking over your shoulder to see Johnny hot on your tail. You don’t even question, already knowing he’s there to do the same as you, so when you open the small, wooden cabinet to take your toothbrush you take his as well, handing it over to him in a practiced motion.

It’s quiet between you as you brush your teeth in unison, his usual insistent presence comfortable to have around whilst you share silly activities. You take notice of his still undone belt, not thinking twice before reaching both your hands to do it for him. His breath hitches at the slight tug you give to the leather, caught off guard as your hands skillfully work to do it. He doesn’t stop his repetitive movements with his toothbrush, a mental reminder that he can’t kiss you with a mouth full of toothpaste, body leaning back only slightly to watch your movements. His heart flutters in his chest as he watches you, but it’s not long before you’re done with your task, hand resuming the motions with your toothbrush and Johnny has to recompose himself as he rinses his mouth clean and dries it on the small towel that rests on the space beside the cabinet.

“Thanks, bon.” He voices out once he’s done, hand resting on your shoulder in an affectionate gesture. His body leaning in to whisper in your ear, the action making goosebumps raise all over your skin. “Would love ye to undo it for me, too.”

He leaves the bathroom with a wink, a smirk playing on his lips. You halt for a second, hesitating on what to do before you start rushing to finish brushing your teeth. Once you’re done you pace towards his room, looking for him. You’re determined, you’ll make him kiss you right now no matter what it costs – who were you fooling, you might have to beg him to stop before your guests arrive. You find him sitting by the edge of his bed, putting on his brown, leather boots. You stop in front of him, realizing he’s still smiling as he looks up at you. God, he looks so good, blues eyes glinting with mischief as his hands tie the laces before he straightens up to hear what you have to say.

At your lack of words, he speaks first. “Got something in yer mind, hen?” He voices it so smugly it’s almost unfitting for him. But then again, he does have many facets to his personality.

“Would you kiss me?” You ask, being direct for the very first time and you can see it takes him by surprise. His hands reach for the back of your knees pulling you closer to his body, all the way until you’re sitting on his thighs – that’s a first too, and it makes heat settle in your core.

“Aye, I bloody would.” He states unceremoniously and you brace your hands on his chest as you get comfortable in his lap. “Why? Ye want some kisses, bonnie lass? Huh?”

The way he talks – honeyed, low voice – gets you flustered as you immediately remember his side job, you can only nod with the amount of thoughts running through your head – and the blood rushing down to your cunt. Johnny groans at your small answer, hands groping your waist as he quickly gets lost in the opportunity.

“No– No, luv. Use yer words for me, please…” It’s almost desperate the way he says it and it makes you buckle your hips automatically. His hands move to where your thighs meet your hips to urge you down on his swelling cock inside his pants once more. “Need t-to hear ye, hen…”

“Uh–” You close your eyes briefly and tilt your head to your shoulder, trying to seek the words wherever they’ve been thrown in your mind, wanting to be good for him. The moment builds up faster than you expected. “Please, Johnny… Wan’ you t’kiss me.”

That’s all it takes for him to urge you to grind on him again, harder this time. “Fuck, tha’s it, bon.”

Unfortunately, as he brushes your lips together to initiate what would’ve definitely been a searing, passionate kiss, the bells ring. You’re both startled by the sound, and you jump slightly in his arms. You’re getting up way too soon for the Scot’s liking, and he tries to pull you back but you shush his pleas. “We can’t leave them waiting, my love.” Using the pet name to try and soothe his frustration for not being able to kiss you.

You ask him to open the door in your place because you’re yet to put your shoes on and he complies, mumbling a curse under his breath whilst adjusting his cock inside his jeans – he tells himself you’ve only convinced him because you used a pet name, but he knew he was down bad for you. As he opens the door for his friends and invites them in, he realizes he fears his immediate future. He wonders if you’ll keep him at some reasonable distance in front of all the guests or if you’ll keep the intimate dynamic that has transpired between you two.

Suddenly he’s cursing every cell in his body, regretting the fact that he chose to throw a small party. That notion that he he could’ve been fucking you right now only the smallest detail in the book, what was banging in his head was the fact that you opened yourself even more then. He’s distracted as he seats himself with his friends at the sofa, nodding along their words even though he’s not paying them full attention

Johnny’s mind wanders far, far away from your shared house. Instead, he’s thinking about all the times he has taken you out or the times you’ve arranged small, homey dates for the two of you. He knows it isn’t going to help his situation, but he can’t stop the rushing thoughts that take over his mind, he feels overwhelmed by you and all the times he had you even if not physically. Knowing you were ready to take this step and further deepen your relationship had his hard cock leaking in his pants – love does weird things to a man, he figures.

When the bells ring again he doesn’t have time to get up from the couch, you come from the hallway pacing towards the door with your shoes on. You wave shortly at his friends before opening the door at the hall and he recognizes a feminine voice greeting you and making small conversation. Once you’re back, you finally greet his friend properly, telling them to make themselves at home as usual and offering a seat to your friend. Johnny expects you to take the seat beside her like you normally did, so imagine his surprise when he feels the added weight on the cushion by his side, the heat of your body embracing him as you snuggle to him.

He smiles at you, arm moving to rest on the cushions behind you as you all fall into a conversation as a group. Both your friend and his seem very happy at your proximity, not making any comments when Johnny would whisper something to your ear or how you’d take his hand on yours from time to time. That is, until someone brings up the famous, overly spoken subject: Johnny’s voice acting career.

You could hide yourself in a hole on the ground, the small mention of it making you flustered to your core – oh, and not because of him, but because of you. Because your friend is quickly adding up to the conversation. “Even though she refused to for so long, I made her hear one of his audios.”

Johnny snaps his head in your direction, expecting you to deny it. But you don't, how could you? You’re not one to lie like that, so you just kept silent with a hand covering the lower half of your face to try and hide your bashful smile. He doesn’t miss the opportunity. “Ye been hearing my audios, lass? Hm?” He whispers to you, leaning over your body just to spite you. Would you have said it to him on your own? He doesn’t think so.

“Oi! It was one audio, aye?” You say, all bark and no bite at all as you try to avoid the subject.

His friends laugh at your statement. “Aw, ya’ve been ‘round Johnny so much ya started talking like ‘im.” It’s a keen observation, one that has you laughing along with the others. You try to use the moment to change the subject.

“You’re right…” You trail off, head turning to look at Johnny. “Should I start calling you ‘hen’, then?”

It’s a poor attempt at making them pay attention to something else but it works, sparking a whole new conversation between them, the notion that you’ve listened to his audio quickly forgotten.

Time flies and, when you realize, they’re all going home soon. Goodbyes are said and hugs are shared. You walk every last one of them to the exit while Johnny stays busy tidying up the kitchen and living room. Once you’re back you can sense the shift in the atmosphere, something in the back of your head screaming for you to avoid pushing Johnny’s buttons, not knowing what to expect from now on. This was new territory because, even though you've gone on a lot of dates, neither of you have made any movement to turn things sexual.

Contrary to what you thought, Johnny doesn’t mention it as you approach him to see if he needed any help. Neither does he say something about it for the rest of the night. In fact, he’s awfully quiet as you turn the lights off and walk to your respective rooms, saying even less as you brush your teeth together. He still gives you a forehead kiss and wishes a goodnight but that’s it. You try to not overthink it as you close your bedroom door, eyes easily finding the black shirt he tossed on your bed when he was getting dressed earlier in the evening. You sigh, picking it up and pulling it over your head after having stripped off your clothes. You lay under the blankets with his scent all over you, mind drifting to when you were on top of him, grinding on his cock over your clothes. It makes a shiver run through you, but you refuse to touch yourself – if you did he’d know and that’s the last thing you want. So you just take a deep breath, air filled with his perfume and mind overtaken by thoughts of Johnny until you fall asleep.

It’s no surprise when you wake up drenched and horny. Your dreams had taken you to a perverted fantasy where your roommate had taken you to heaven and hell with his fingers, with his tongue and with his cock. It’s frustrating to even remember how good you felt and you try not to think about it as you pick your phone from your bedside table, unlocking it to see if there’s any notifications. A random e-mail from a site you shouldn’t have signed up in the first place – way too many unnecessary notices –, the weather for the day and, just a little bit lower in your notification bar, there it is, Johnny’s daily voice message.

You’re quick to open it, sinking back comfortably in your sheets as you prepare yourself to listen to it – it’s always an event, the best part of your day.

Johnnyboy<3 Voice message (0:17)

“Hi… G’mornin’, bon.” Comes his honeyed voice, the usual rasp from just waking up still clinging to his low timbre, probably recording the audio early in the morning. You check the time, finding the small, glowing numbers indicating what time he sent it: five twenty-three in the morning. “I already left for work, wan’ tae try and come back earlier today…” He usually leaves for work when the clock is marking past six thirty, so it’s nice to know he’s telling you why. “See if we can do somethin’ nice today, y’know?” You frown, checking the date.

Oh, it’s Friday.

“Hope you slept okay, hen. Text me when ye wake up.”

You groan, humming from the sleepiness in your body but not fighting the smile that takes over your features. He makes you so happy with such simple things, it’s kind of embarrassing and, matched with the state you woke up in, it makes you clench your thighs together. You move in the sheets just so they won’t be covering the microphone nor muffling your voice as you start to record your own voice message.

Johnny accesses his chat app as soon as he sees your message’s notification on his phone, already smiling even though he has no idea what you’re going to say. He checks the time, the clock marking six forty-two. You’re up early for a day off, he notices. He rushes to press play, excited to hear your voice – it’s the first time you respond to his voice message with one of your own.

Bonnie wifey Voice message (0:11)

“Hi, Johnny…” He presses pause right after he hears his name on your sleep-drunk voice. “Fuck… Okay.” He sighs and restarts the audio, listening to it all the way to the end, trying to ignore your adorable little hums that make his stomach twist with butterflies and his pants to grow tighter. “Hi, Johnny… G’morning. I just woke up… Have no idea what we should do today, but ‘m glad you’re getting back earlier. Have a good day, ‘kay?”

He’s sure he’s not in his right mind as he moves to record yet another voice note, but he doesn’t really care, he needs to get it off his chest. “Aw, hi, cute lass. Dinnae ye sound so sweet when you wake up… Mhm, wish I could hear it more often. Maybe even give ye some kisses for it, aye?” Love on ye proper goes unsaid, but his tongue is itching to say it. He pockets his phone after sending it, trying to focus on his work instead of your sweet voice.

It takes you some time to see his reply, having had breakfast, cleaned the kitchen and brushed your teeth. You smile at the mention of your shared moment from last night – the kiss thing –, replying with a simple text message to avoid any more commotion from his end.

You: Why does it sound like you’re getting off? Pervert

Despite his effort in staying focused, Johnny can’t help but answer you as soon as he feels the buzz of his phone in his pocket.

Bonnie wifey: Why does it sound like you’re getting off? Pervert You: Cause I am;))) I’m a pervert for you<33

He doesn’t have time to put his phone away, because you reply right away.

Bonnie wifey: That’s not cute Johnny Bonnie wifey: Seek help

He snorts, clicking his tongue before typing again and sending the messages without rereading them.

Johhnyboy<3: Aye I would Johnnyboy<3: But ye nae here tae help are ye?

Your movements stop entirely as you stare at your phone screen. Did he mean what you think he meant? Only way to find out.

You: What type of help would you get from me?

Johnny laughs at your answer, were you really that naive? He types his answers but thinks better of it, erasing most of what he wrote to reformulate. When your phone buzzes in your hand you're fast to see if it was him. You’ve opened and closed the app more than once, waiting for his message.

Johnnyboy<3: I think ye can get a hint, cannae ye? Johnnyboy<3: Or do ye want me tae say it?

You roll your eyes at his answer – he’s so predictable.

You: Nevermind You: Shouldn’t you be working?

It’s like he’s been waiting for you to ask, the sentence ready on the tip of his fingers.

Johnnyboy<3: Aye I am Johnnyboy<3: But I can make some time for my bonnie lass

You giggle at his cheeky reply, trying to keep the mood as you type your next message.

You: Okay pretty boy, I’ll let you do your thing You: I’ll be waiting for you to get back early

Johnny couldn’t be happier at your words. The way you said it so cutely made him want to drown on you – in between your thighs, most definitely. He loved to share a domestic routine with you, sometimes he’d even pretend you were a recently married couple – which always made him way too happy for just an imagination. He rushed to get his work done so he could be home with you as soon as he could, making good on his promise.

You try to spend your day quite unceremoniously, doing silly things throughout most of it but not quite shaking the remnant of your morning arousal. You get some amount of distraction while picking what you’ll do with Johnny for the night – pasta for dinner and then you’ll watch a movie –, however, your mind keeps drifting to him, to his voice notes and his audios on reddit. You curse that they are so easy to access, especially as you sit in your bed, your laptop sitting comfortably in your thighs and a tab with his audio links open. That’s when you see a very, very recent post. A ramblefap, posted yesterday.

r/gonewildaudio SoapTheBrawVA [M4F] i came in my pants [RambleFap] [Needy] [Dry humping] [Hand job over the clothes] [Sleepy] mentions of [Somnophilia] and [Cunnilingus] [4:32]

You wonder how he even had time to record and post yesterday, but maybe he didn’t. Maybe it was a random ramblefap he recorded a while ago and decided to post yesterday, right? Wrong. Because as you plug your earphones to your laptop and contemplate if you should press play or not, you realize you fell asleep too quickly the night before, you wouldn’t have heard if he did anything. You decide that the only way you’ll find out is listening to it, there’s no reason not to.

Nothing could have prepared you for it.

“Wee p-pervs, hi–” The moan that leaves his mouth catches you off guard, he sounds so wrecked and you don’t even know what’s happening yet, his whispery voice doesn’t fail to make you want to grind down on your sheets. “Guess who m-made me so horny… Aye, shit— My flatmate. A-again.”

There’s no major fabric rustling in the background except for what seems like a light brushing – he’s probably running a hand up and down his clothed thighs, or his clothed cock. He’s half whispering but he’s definitely talking really close to the microphone. “She’s probably asleep right now. I‘ve tae be quiet…” He slurs, sounding lost. His mind is probably struggling to form coherent sentences. “Wish I could s-slide under her covers– Ah— A-and… Wake h-her up t’my mouth on her fuckin’ cunt, fuck—”

The wetness you managed to accumulate throughout the day starts to seep from your panties and wets the cotton of your sleeping shorts, you think that even after a shower you couldn’t find the peace of mind you crave. It’s unsettling, how sure you are that he’s about to cum, sitting now crossed legged on the mattress, your body leaning expectantly to the computer even though there’s nothing to actually see.

“Hi, lass!” The voice echoes in your head and you hit the space bar of your laptop to pause the audio. Your head turns mechanically to the door, your eyes locking with Johnny’s. It’s involuntary the way you check the clock before looking at him again.

“Johnny! You really did get home soon…” Your heart rate has spiked up to the roof, you don’t know what else to say because everything feels like he’ll catch you red-handed.

He squinted his eyes at you, and you swear he’s opening his mouth to accuse you of hearing one of his audios. “Is tha’… one of my shirts, lass?”

You look down at the black fabric still adorning your body. “Yeah…? You left it in my bed yesterday…” You nod, glad that there’s at least some nonchalance in your tone.

“So, ye jus’ decided tae wear it tae bed?” He’s approaching your bed, knees brushing over the edge of your mattress. He’s still wearing his work clothes – black slacks and white plain t-shirt – his cock twitching in his underwear at the sight of you on something that belongs to him – you couldn’t look more his.

“How’d you know I wore it for bed?” You talk back, no hesitation in your sentence. It never fails to amuse Johnny how much of a brat you can be.

“Didnae ye?”

You roll your eyes, clicking your tongue. “I did. Does it bother you?”

He shrugs, shaking his head like it’s obvious. There’s still something glinting in his eyes, the way he’s looking at you makes you want to get on your knees and reveal all your secrets. You should’ve known better, you should have kicked him out of your already. “What’re ye doing, bon?”

“Uh… Jus’ some work stuff.” You nod along your words, pressing your lips together out of habit.

“On yer day off?” He questions with a chuckle. He can smell the nervousness in you, but he presses further. He drops by your side in the bed, body hovering over yours ever-so-slightly to look at your laptop screen, trying to keep himself from palming his growing erection. “Aww, would ye look at tha’.” You try to protest but he’s already taking the computer from you and bringing it to his streched legs. “Were ye enjoying yerself, hen?”

His tone is infuriating and you’d definitely be angry at the teasing if you weren’t absolutely embarrassed to your core. “Shut up, Johnny.”

“Oh, dinnae be like tha’, luv.” He closes your laptop and puts it on the floor, body turning to face you. “Ye haven’t finished hearing it. Wan’ me tae tell ye what happened?”

“No…?” Your voice is growing weaker in your throat, all snarky comments dying in your tongue. He laughs at your answer, moving the blankets so he can find your hips and pull you to him. You don’t show any resistance, moving to lay down on your side so you can face Johnny as well.

“Was tha’ a question?” He’s smiling, the tip of his fingers traveling from your cheeks to your arm and then your waist. “Could dae something else, if ye’d like.”

“Yeah?” You’re both whispering now, and maybe that’s what’s making the moment so intimate. Or maybe it was the overflowing tension and your obviously unspoken feelings, who knows? “Like what?”

“Aye. Like finally kissing tha’ bonnie lips ye have.” He’s moving to put a leg between yours, his lips already brushing yours as he moves to hover over you. His nose bumps into your own and he giggles in sync with you.

“Johnny?” You’re sure your heart is about to jump out of your mouth. Your hands find his biceps where you leave a light squeeze before moving them to his shoulders.

“Hm?” He hums, his eyes trailing over your face.

“I love you.” And you say it so calmly he thinks he heard you wrong.

“What…?”

“I love you, Johnny.” You repeat, voice trembling a bit at the force of your emotions. You couldn’t be more sure of your feelings for him, it just felt right to say it.

“Fuck– Dae ye mean it, bon?” He closes his eyes, voice not increasing a single pitch as he whispers it to your lips.

You close your own eyes. “‘Course I mean it, love.”

There’s no answer, at least not a verbal one. He sighs in what you think is relief before he’s pressing your lips together. He kisses you slowly, lips moving in yours almost in reverence, hands sneaking inside your shirt and you pant at the contact of them on your skin. Your hand runs through the short strands of his mohawk and he pulls away for the shortest second, changing his head’s angle before he’s kissing you again, until you’re both out of breath.

Despite the wholesome exchange, his cock is still hard in his pants, throbbing at the thought of what comes next. When he leaves your lips, his eyes are hooded and he has a dopey smile on his face. He noses your cheek, then your jaw and your neck. You can feel his smile as he brushes his lips to the spot underneath your earlobe sending tingles down your spine. You gasp, goosebumps erupting in your skin and he lets out a breath as you squeeze his shoulders.

“Love ye too, hen.” He mumbles to your skin, and that fact that he’s not looking you in the eyes shows just how vulnerable he feels at the confession. “I love ye.” He kisses your neck, then. Trails soft, wet kisses all over it and down to the collar of his shirt that’s wrapping loosely around your body. “Fuckin’ love seeing ye in my shirt…” He tugs at the hem. “But I guess it has tae go now, mhm?”

He helps you out of the shirt, your naked torso coming to his view which earns a groan from him, his legs adjusting themselves so he has both his legs between yours, his hands urging your thighs to close around his waist before he’s settling them in your waist again. “Screamin’ Jesus–” He gives you a short look and you nod, mouthing “it’s okay” and he wastes no time, cupping your chest in his palms. He thumbs at your nipples and you squirm a bit, legs pulling at his hips so he’ll grind down on you. “Fuck, bon, yer makin’ me crazy.”

Your hands find the hem of his shirt, untucking it from inside his slacks slowly. He squeezes your tits again, too lost in the sight of you. You help him take his shirt off as well, but before you can touch his chest and stomach he moves away from you and stands by the side of your bed.

“Aw, dinnae need tae pout like tha’, hen,” he coos. “‘M jus’ takin’ this off fer ye.” He moves to unbuckle his belt, but he pauses. “Actually… Ye should dae it, hen.” And he stands there, almost offering his hips to you like he’s some toy, so you sit up on the bed, hands reaching up to unbuckle his belt for him. He watches you with burning lust in his eyes, the bulge of his cock way too close to your face and you’re aware that your sleeping shorts are most likely soaked now.

Once you’re done with undoing his belt you pop the button of his pants and pull the zipper open, the action making the fabric graze his cock. He buckles his hips almost imperceptibly, his hands moving to pull yours away as he strips off of his slacks, and he wishes he could take a picture of your glinting eyes as you openly ogle at his boxers. He climbs on the bed again, laying down flat on his back and he pulls you by your hand so you’ll be sitting on top of him, the pressure of your soaked cunt making his eyes flutter shut with a sigh. “Fuck, bon…”

You moan, too worked up to even bother that you’ve barely done anything. He gropes your hips, his own bucking up into you to try and get some relief, and pleasure spikes through you. You grind down on him harder, the fabric of your shorts bothering you because they block the actual touch too much. You’re growing frustratingly needier, so you take your shorts off along with your panties, Johnny doing the same with his underwear. The two of you moan in unison when you grind your naked, wet pussy to his leaking cock, Johnny feels like an animal humping in you like that but it’s too good – you feel too good – it’s almost impossible to stop. The pressure of his hard length dragging along your folds makes your head spin, but you need more.

Johnny must be thinking the same thing because he’s urging you to get up a bit, one hand closing around the base of his cock to guide it to your hole. “S-shit– Johnny–” You gasp at the intrusion, his cock girthier than you thought it would be. The stretch burns a bit too good as you sink down on him, your eyes rolling back in your eyelids when you press your hips flush to his, your hands bracing on his chest for balance.

“Fuckin’ hell– Bon—” He moans, right hand giving your thigh a harsh squeeze before he helps you move up. He bites his lips at the first thrust, your breasts bouncing as you move on top of him and he can’t help but put one of them in his mouth. It unbalances you a bit but you keep moving, right hand closing around his pretty cross chain as you arch your back, his tongue brushing on your nipple before giving it a small bite.

“Ah– Johnny, f-feels so good.” You whine and he smiles, leaving you tit to move to the other, repeating his movements. Your hips stutter and he chuckles at your movements. He pulls back to look at you, moaning at the sight because you’re just so gorgeous.

“My bonnie lass, mine–” He grunts and doesn’t think before he rolls you two on the bed, changing your position. You yelp as your back hits the mattress but Johnny doesn’t give you time to recompose, snapping his hips to yours. “Fuckin’ m-mine, hen. Love ye s-so much…”

His thrusts find a faster, steadier pace than yours. His face finds your neck where he starts to suck and leave bites, trying to mark your skin. You brace your hands on his back, scratching down on it to match his rhythm. He’s too lost in the pleasure and so are you, he can feel you clenching tighter around him. “Are y-ye close, hen? Gonnae– Shit— C-cum fer me?” He whispers to your ear.

You hum in agreement, nodding as your mouth opens in a moan. He pulls back, kneeling on the mattress as he pushes your thighs so they press in your chest and your head falls back. “Johnny– Oh, God—” The change in the angle makes him reach deeper in your cunt and you're cumming before you know it.

“Oh, Christ, hen. Cunt f-feels like– Fuck– Fuckin’ heaven.” He moans, his movements turning sloppy, the squelching of your pussy being heard over your moans. Your wet walls clamp down on his shaft enticing a grunt from him and he leans down to smash your lips together. He whines as you kiss, feeling like he might cry as he cums inside you, his warm load filling you up so nicely you whimper at the feeling of it.

Your body starts to twitch from the oversensitivity because Johnny is still fucking into you, riding both your highs. His movements eventually slow to a stop and he hugs you with his cock still inside you. “Best Friday date night ever, bon.”

You laugh, arms hugging his shoulders as you pull him closer to you, the motion making him move inside you and you both let out a sound because of it – you wincing and Johnny moaning. “We should shower… We still have to eat something.”

He smiles at you, turning to press a passionate kiss to your lips. “Aye, we should…” He trails off, and you exchange a charged look before he brushes his nose to yours. “I love ye, hen.”

“I love you too, pretty boy.”

You shower together, more exchanging kisses and affectionate touches than actually concentrating in getting cleaned. When you finally move to the kitchen so you can cook dinner you’re both starving, but it does nothing to disturb the loving atmosphere between you. The two of you eat while watching a random movie you both have seen more than once and you barely pay attention to it after you’ve eaten – making out messily on the couch with the dishes sitting at the coffee table.

As you brush your teeth together that night, you realize you’ve never felt like you belonged to something so much. Already in his room, the both of you cuddling under the covers, you’re sure Johnny feels the same at the hum of delight that leaves his lips. He hugs you from behind, broad body caging yours as he slurs sleepy: “Yer my girlfriend now, aye, bonnie?”

You laugh, heart filled with love knowing you’ll wake up by his side. The notion makes you snuggle closer to him, chasing his warmth. “Yeah, ‘m your girlfriend now, love.”

a/n: hope you guys liked it, i wrote it in like 10 days whilst studying for my last exam lol. i hope the texting part wasn't too confusing, let me know what you think.

#me wishing Johnny boy was on GWA #soap

2K notes · View notes

mintfullyyours · 18 days ago

Text

Spectacular. Gimme 14.

You know that thing some married couples do where the husband takes a bite of cake and mouth-feeds the chewed part to his wife? Simon definitely does that at your wedding and some of 141 collectively lose their minds.

⸻

The cake was good—light, sweet, touched with something rich like espresso—but you barely tasted it.

Because Simon took the first bite. Not with a fork, not like a gentleman. Just lifted it with his fingers, slow and sure, eyes on yours as he bit into it.

Crumbs clung to his lips. Frosting kissed the corner of his mouth. He chewed slowly, jaw tense. That wolfish calm he always wore—under control, but always on the edge of something primal.

From the table nearby, Soap called out, “Oi, better be a clean split or there’s gonna be blood!”

Laughter. Glasses clinking. Someone whistled.

But Simon? Didn’t blink. He kept chewing, and locked eyes with you.

You leaned in slightly. Narrowed your gaze.

“Was that the last one?”

He didn’t look sorry. Just kept chewing. Shrugged, eyes glinting.

“You said you were full,” he said around the bite, voice low, half amused, half taunting.

You huffed, eyes flicking to the now-empty plate. “That was before I saw you licking the damn fork like it was divine intervention.”

That made his lips twitch.

Then—because he was ridiculous, and feral, and somehow the softest monster you’d ever loved—he leaned forward, chewed a little slower, and pulled you in by the chin with two fingers.

Mouth to mouth, he pressed the rest of the bite to your lips. Chocolate and salt and heat. Your breath caught.

You let out a startled laugh against his mouth. “You’re disgusting.”

“You wanted some,” he murmured, smug. “Open.”

You did. Because you were a little disgusting too. And because the way he was looking at you? Like the reception, the cake, the crowd—none of it existed. Just you, and his hand on your cheek, thumb brushing the corner of your mouth like you were his favorite thing he’d ever tasted.

From the 141 table, a violent cough.

Soap, choking. “Jesus Christ—”

Gaz: “I think I just got pregnant.”

Price didn’t say anything, but you could feel the weight of his stare. The kind that said this is still a public function, son, even if his mouth twitched like he was holding in a smirk.

You swallowed.

Simon pulled back just an inch. His thumb wiped a smudge of icing from your bottom lip and, without looking away, he brought it to his own mouth. Licked it clean.

“Good?” he asked, low, rough.

You nodded, dazed.

“Thought so.”

Soap leaned into Gaz, muttering loud enough to carry: “They’re gonna shag on the damn cake table.”

You turned slightly, still breathless. “You’re just mad no one’s feeding you.”

“I’m mad I can’t unsee that,” he said.

Gaz: “You’re lying. You’ve replayed it twice.”

Price finally chimed in, cool and dry: “You feed anyone like that on my birthday, Riley, I’m pulling your funding.”

Simon didn’t even glance at them. Just pressed his palm to the small of your back, ring flashing, and leaned in until his lips were brushing your ear.

“Still hungry?” he asked, just for you.

God help you. You were.

And they all knew it.

#ghost #ugh

5K notes · View notes

mintfullyyours · 18 days ago

Text

*Inhales fic*

I need this man biblically

Date Needed For Easter Reunion. Desperate.

Rating: E Words: 23.6k Tags: Soap x f!reader, Dead Dove Do Not Eat, unreliable narrator, unstable!reader, self-inflicted brainwashing, gaslighting, manipulation, strangers -> ???, non/dub con, cnc, wrestling, Erectile Dysfunction, Catholicism, biting, marking, non-consensual kissing, non-consensual marriage, religious delusion, oral sex (f and m receiving), piv sex, craigslist meet-cute, dirty talk, implied stalking, mild kidnapping, implied past abuse, on the run!reader, Johnny has a traumatic brain injury, breeding kink, unsafe bdsm dynamics, non-consensual sub training, fingering, cockwarming, hand jobs

Summary: You need an escape plan and respond to an ad online looking for a date. John Mactavish doesn't exactly offer you freedom in exchange.

<-Date needed for Easter reunion. Desperate.

[casual encounters]

“I'm a recently discharged, disabled veteran(medical: TBI) who never had time to date but has a very nosey (very catholic) family that asks a lot of questions. My mam just wants to know someone is taking care of me (can take care of myself) so I may have lied to her and told her I was dating someone. Which is where you come in.

You are:

-single

-willing to lie

-looking for a holiday in Scotland

-able to sit through mass

I will pay you in:

-my mam's cooking (it's good)

-free trip to the highlands

-whatever you want to steal from my sister's closet

Date is needed for my family reunion on Holy Saturday so I can reassure people I’m not going to accidentally die alone in my flat.

You stare at the man across the table from you and try to catalogue his features. If you don’t break him down piecemeal then the weight of his good looks might cause you to buckle. Two eyes, electric blue. Staring at them too long forces your gaze to wander away from them to other parts of his face. Two lips, pink and quirked into a crooked smile, showing off slightly discolored teeth. Coffee, you think, glancing down at his steaming cup. Your eyes drift up to his again, and again you find them drifting away. One bold pink scar at his temple, star shaped and cutting through his closely shaved hair in a single jagged slice. Your eyes linger on it until he reaches, almost sheepishly, to touch the thing.

“Aye, let’s get that out of the way first.” John agrees with your silent staring. You shake your head and focus on his eyes again, on the slight crease between his brow that speaks of unease.

“Oh, no it’s-” you hesitate on the words, “You don’t have to explain anything if you don’t want to, we can just ignore it.” He stares at you and you tack on, “I’m sorry for staring.”

“Nae the first person to stare, willnae be the last.” He hums. It feels like a reminder of sorts. For him you’re sure, but the familiarity of his tone makes you feel oddly… included.

“Does your-” You stop yourself from asking if his family stares, that feels a little too personal in a way that you can’t be with a stranger, “-Does your family already think you have a girlfriend?” You ask instead. John laughs and it’s so deep and throaty that it catches your breath in your chest.

“Aye, been tellin’ them I had you for a while now.” He nods, “Been dyin’ tae meet ya, but I kept putting it off.”

It’s your turn to nod. You understand that. It’s easier to keep a lie going than have a new one to tie together.

“Y’are a bonnie thing,” John mumbles, his lips catching against each other, his tongue weighted and his brows drawn low, he swallows before enunciating, “so sweet Ah cannae believe someone else hasnae sunk their teeth intae ya.”

You’ve held his gaze too long, the violent blue shivers and shakes, with the strain of staring back at you. You feel your left eye twitch and jerkingly look down at your folded hands on the table. The color of your knuckles looks thinner, strained by the clench of your fingers against the wood. Anything to keep the anxious shaking at bay. Impatient to get away from the public eye, but grateful for the chance to meet a stranger with so many witnesses.

Your brain tries to latch onto John’s… compliment, and you brush it off. The doctor had said traumatic brain injuries make people impulsive, make it harder for them to police what they’re saying and doing. You can’t hold it against him if his inside thoughts roll off his tongue into the outside.

Actually, you feel sort of bad for taking advantage of the guy. You need him more than he needs you. The quick escape he offers isn’t one you take lightly, and this ruse is more reliable than anything else. It’s just… he seems nice. The way he fusses with his jumper reminds you of a puppy trying to walk with shoes on for the first time. He’s big and uncoordinated in a way that you should find endearing. His hands shake, his fingers plucking at the hem of one of his sleeves as a way to divert the energy. He squeezes his fingers into a tight fist when he notices you staring.

“Another gift from the bullet that had me discharged.” He huffs, “Makes mah mam worry seein’ me shake, made mah captain worry too.” The words are bitter in his mouth and you meet his gaze against your better judgement. “S’why they tossed me, cannae have a trigger finger this itchy.”

“Your mum must love you a lot.” You offer, the words feel hollow in your mouth. What’s that like, you wonder, having a parent that cares enough about you to worry over something like the tremor in your hands?

John smiles, turns his gaze down to his fist and spreads his fingers out onto the table. It’s warm. The sort of expression that people with normal families have.

“Ah ken,” He shakes his head, “but she’s getting older, cannae have her running down to London for every doctor’s appointment.”

“Oh,” you frown, “that would be annoying.” Though you can’t say you aren’t envious. Had your family ever done the same for you? It was always a fight just to stay home from school, you know wouldn’t drop a thing for a doctor’s appointment much less driven across the country.

“Ahm a grown man, dinnae need mah mam fer mah PT.” John insists. “Mah sisters are bad enough with all their badgerin’ me.” He sighs. “They mean well, Ah s’ppose, shouldnae fault them tha’.”

“Well,” you falter. It’s more than just taking advantage of one guy, you’re conning an entire family just to get yourself out of a situation of your own making. He should find someone else, someone better suited for dealing with a family that so clearly cares about him. But he’s not going to, you need this. You plaster on a smile and tell him, “It’s good you’ve got me, we’ll convince them you’re doing better than ever.”

John’s eyes flick to yours and you get the distinct impression of someone looking through rather than at you. It sends a shiver down your spine and you scramble to explain yourself before John can call your bluff. “I’ll make sure to tell her how capable you are, I mean.” You supply. John nods, his smile cut by his teeth in a way that feigns sincerity better than your mother ever could.

“Gonna have to convince more than just mah mam and sisters,” he reminds you, “Plenty of kin for ya tae meet.” You must make a face because his smile grows to a size you’re sure must hurt his cheeks. “Got more than 50 people comin’ tae the reunion, more than that cannae take the time off for travel.”

You sit back in your chair with a rush of breath. Fifty? Fifty people. Fifty strangers you have to lie to for a whole day. Fifty names you’ll have to pretend to remember. Jesus.

“Jesus.” You mumble.

“Aye,” John hums, “it’s His doin’ that Mactavishes are a fertile brood.” The way he purrs it makes your stomach clench. You’re missing the context that haunts his voice, and you shake off the feeling in favor of changing the topic.

“So how long is the reunion?” It’s inelegant but it gets the job done. If John notices he doesn’t show it, immediately humming and bobbing his head like he’s trying to think. He crosses his arms over his chest and you’re struck by how big this guy is. Not uncoordinated then. John’s biceps strain against the bulk of his jumper, his broad chest squeezed between the trunks of his arms in a way that makes him look bulky. His shoulders roll back to a broad, square set that makes his neck seem thicker. You should get the impression that he’s putting on a show for you, but there’s no flex to his musculature, just the unquestionable presence of strength.

Strength that always seemed to haunt the silent wishes of every other man in your life, now personified and stripped of the authority to use it.

You swallow down the interest that slides to settle warm between your legs.

“I can drive up Friday night, then the reunion is Saturday, and Mass on Sunday.” He counts off eyes roaming around the shop. He-

Well, you don’t know how to describe it. John’s mood seems to change as quickly as the wind, his bright bubbling air turning teasing then wistful or purring and now this serious tone. Business-like where you would have sworn he was flirting with you. You glance at the scar on his temple, the pink seam of it seeming more obvious with each symptom that adds itself to the list. You wonder if he’s also forgetful, impulsive, if he’s prone to short tempers. You wonder how his vision is, and the thought of him driving suddenly makes you very nervous.

“I can drive.” You tell him quickly. He blinks at you and you find the air changed again, his expressions more open than you’ve seen even in children --perhaps that’s it, perhaps it’s not his mood changing so much as it is an openness that you’re not used to, you tell yourself he wears his heart on his sleeve, and find the thought somewhat relaxes you-- a gentle parting of his lips and soft raise of his brow that says you’ve caught him off guard.

“Ya wouldnae prefer flyin’?” He asks, and you cringe. You had mentioned in your emails that you were looking at flights, and he’d generously offered to compensate you. At the time you’d been eager to snatch up the opportunity, but now? Now the thought of leaving this man alone, with his shaking hands and poor vision, to drive for hours up to Glasgow felt wrong. You were already taking advantage of his need for a body to get yourself out of trouble, you couldn’t let him die in a road accident too.

“No, I-” You search for an inoffensive answer, something that doesn’t make you sound like the terrible person you are, “I think it would be better if we arrived together, right? Happy and in love?”

John studies you for a moment before pouting his lips briefly and nodding, he hadn’t considered that you suppose.

“Aye,” He says slowly before he tips his head ever so slightly, “an’ we are happy an’ in love people, aren’t we, hen?”

“Oh definitely,” You agree. There’s something nervous and fluttery in your chest at his tone. Something that squeezes tight and fawns before you can chase the feeling down. It makes him smile, and the wide toothy grin he fixes you with crooks your stomach as quickly as it crooks his lips.

“Then we’ll drive up together.” He agrees.

Despite the short notice you manage to get a hotel booked for Easter. It makes you feel a little slimy, squirms in your stomach oddly, but you plan on dipping out right after mass and leaving John with his family. If they’re as doting as he makes them out to be then he’ll have no trouble finding his way home. Besides, he already offered his car for the drive, so it’s not like he’s totally stranded. You made your peace with the sort of person you are long ago, you shouldn’t feel so bad leaving some disabled veteran in better hands.

It’ll be a nice little vacation in a beautiful place, you’ll do something touristy, and then start figuring out your new life. You don’t deserve the vacation, but you don’t deserve a lot of things. John does though, for all you’re sure he’s been through, so you make yourself happy to play house with him. At least he’s not bad to look at. You could do worse, and you have.

You’re almost surprised by how short the bus ride to his flat is. He’s so close-by but you’ve never run into him. You recognize one of the patisseries you pass and hesitate to continue the rest of your walk at the prospect of getting a slice of cake. You check your time and decide to stop in for a road trip snack. You can give John this kindness at least. You hope he likes sweets.

Of course your detour leaves knocking on John’s door feeling like a herculean task. You raise your fist and hold it there for what feels like ages, your mind running a million miles a minute trying to spin out all the worst case scenarios.

This is insane. Actually insane. You’re running off to Scotland with a man you don’t know to meet a family that might not even exist --though you did spend a good few hours googling the Mactavish clan and what do you know John’s face is front and center, along with his discharge notice (ouch)-- just to get away from- well, you know what you’re running from. No sense dwelling on it when you’re so close to your new life. You learned your lesson with the Austrian, you’ll get away from John as soon as you’re able to and disappear into the highlands. Maybe you’ll herd sheep.

You knock on the door with your confidence renewed and John pulls it open immediately, his eyes wild, his hair disheveled and his shirt on inside out. His breathing is haggard and you watch him quickly end a call with someone marked only by a skull emoji, the tinny voice on the other end sounds rough and unhappy before it’s cut off. John offers you an apologetic smile and scratches the back of his neck.

“I thought you weren’t coming.” He says by way of explanation.

“I, um-” you hold up the bag of biscuits, “I stopped for a snack, for the road.” You check your phone. “I’m only a few minutes late.”

“Right.” John shakes his head, blinking his eyes as his brows draw down, like he’s trying to clear it, “Sorry, that- of course you’re not late, why would you be late?” He trails off, muttering to himself as he turns and stalks back into his flat. He seems to remember you and turns back to the door. “Come in, Ahm just finishin’ packin’ up.”

“It’s just the weekend.” You tell him, shuffling into his flat. You keep close to the wall and try not to look like you’re looking around. It’s sparsely decorated. Honestly it reminds you of those “male living space” memes that float around occasionally. The guy has a folding chair set up at a card table and not much else. You try to tip your head to get a glance at the bedroom and catch the corner of a mattress set on the floor. You grimace at the thought.

You hear him muttering to himself and do your best not to eavesdrop too much. You’re sure he’s stressed about going to see his family, and you’re even more sure that living like this isn’t helping. Maybe his mum is right and he really does need the help. You feel that ever present pang of guilt start to gnaw at you at the thought. Fuck.

You’d read up a bit more on traumatic brain injuries --always eager to go the extra mile for someone else where you couldn’t for yourself-- and the idea that John had been living with virtually no support, his family a hundred miles away and his house barely fit for habitation, makes you really fucking sad. This guy probably lost everything he’d been working towards in the army, and now he’s living in this shitty flat with nobody around to care about him. And you’re taking advantage of his desperation to prove he isn’t the incapable man his mum is worried about in order to get a free trip and a new life. You’re really despicable.

Looking around though it’s pretty clear he isn’t taking care of himself. You don’t see any PT equipment or pictures, there’s not even a second chair or dishes in the sink. It’s like no one lives here. Even you had keepsakes tucked away in your “weekend” bag. John’s got a whole lot of nothing.

“Sorry,” John sighs, hefting a packed duffle bag over his shoulder, his entrance jolts you out of your thoughts and you nearly crush your biscuits in surprise, “movin’ y’ken?”

“Sorry?” you blink, “Moving?”

“Aye.” John nods, dropping his bag to rifle through it, he tugs a pillbox free and opens the Friday morning tab, shaking the couple tablets into his waiting palm. He takes the pills dry before zipping the bag. “Back up tae Glasgow, be closer to mah mam an’ all that.”

“Oh.” You feel heat burn your cheeks, that explains the empty apartment. Guilt pokes at you again, you’d put him in the same category as his mum, incapable of taking care of himself. God. Are you a bad person? You are. You know you are, but are you this sort of bad? The “tbi automatically means this guy is dysfunctional” kind of bad?

You didn’t think you were before all of this.

“That’s nice.” You cover. John hums as he stands.

“Isnae nice, means Ah’ll ‘ave ‘er breathin’ doon mah neck, taggin’ along tae the doctor like she’s ne’er seen mah heid on straight.” There’s no anger in his voice, just a gentle exasperation that reminds you of a pouting puppy. You cover your mouth to hide the smile it inspires. John flashes you a grin and you know you’ve been caught.

“Dunna be blate, laugh if ya want tae.” You let out a short giggle and cover it with a cough.

“Are you going to get less intelligible the closer we get to scotland?” You tease. Another smile, and a roll of John’s eyes.

“Aye ya ken mah mam’s gonna love ya, now yer actin’ out.” John grabs you and pulls you against his chest. The action is so familiar and affectionate that it makes you stiffen. Your stomach drops and you go rigid. Something shifts behind John’s eyes and you have to tighten more to keep tremors from running through you. Those bright blues feel electric, a flash of lightning before thunder, an unstoppable natural force that bears down on you with no warning but that quick burst of light. He doesn’t release you, and you can feel the pop of his shoulders as he rolls them, tipping his head to the side just enough to properly look down on you. He clicks his tongue and a shiver rushes down your spine.

“Relax hen,” it’s an unkind suggestion coated in false charm, “it’ll never fit if you’re wound this tight.”

“What- what?” You stutter, fingers shaking to find the right place to push to get him to let you go.

“Ah thought we were a happy loving couple,” John reminds you, “Cannae flinch like this.”

“Right.” You settle your hands against his chest and push. It’s like trying to move a brick wall. He barely budges, in fact you think his arms might tighten their hold on your waist.

“Got plenty of time tae get ya used tae me, yeah?” He hums, and leans closer. You duck your head to avoid meeting his gaze, or anything else, and feel his nose against your hair. He takes a long inhale and you squeeze your fingers into fists.

Impulsive, you remind yourself, he has a brain injury that makes him unable to control his impulses. That’s all it is. That’s all it can be.

“Do ah scare ya hen?” John’s voice rumbles so low in his chest that you feel it under your fingers. The question startles you enough to jolt you back to his gaze.

You’re free of his grasp as soon as you look up. John’s bent to grab his duffle off the floor and you have just enough room to catch your breath.

“Of course not.” You lie. You’ve dealt with far worse than an overly touchy man with a brain injury. Overly touchy men giving out brain injuries, for one.

“Good,” John nods, tugging his bag up over his shoulder, “We’ve got a long drive ahead, no sense gettin’ scared now.”

Right, the drive. You’d almost forgotten about it. At least you can rest easier knowing John’s probably not stupid enough to let his impulses take over if you’re driving.

John’s hand is on your thigh as soon as you get out of his garage. He barely moves it when you complain about not having room to shift gears. It’s big and warm and entirely too high on your leg to not be distracting. Your traitorous body reacts to it immediately, your pulse quickening as your cunt throbs. It’s been a while, but you still remember what it feels like to have a man touch you, and it feels an awful lot like the wide spread of John’s fingers across your thigh.

“So um,” You try to think of anything to talk about while John’s thumb rubs hot against your thigh, “we should probably get our story straight.”

“Told everyone the story already.” John says, and you struggle to find what that might mean. Is his hand moving higher on your thigh? You can’t keep your thoughts straight when he’s touching you like this. “Dating for six months, met in a coffee shop, you’ve been wanting to meet mah folks but time’s never been right.”

“Right.” You mumble, “John, um-”

“Johnny.” He cuts you off, “You call me Johnny.”

“Johnny,” You restart, “could you, uh, could you move your hand?” He gives your thigh a squeeze so tight it almost hurts, and slides his fingers up your thigh to rest just at the junction of your hip.

“Already know your lines,” he jokes, you think it’s a joke, God you hope it’s a joke, “Just gotta ask me if ya want somethin’, hen. Ahm a doting boyfriend after all.”

“Right.” You repeat, your knuckles creak with how tightly you grip the steering wheel.

His hand leaves you and your body reacts to the loss almost as violently as it had the initial touch. A chill crowds the space Johnny’s hand used to be, and threatens to wrack through your spine. You squeeze your thighs together quietly. It’s fine, you’re fine. He said he’d start getting you used to being touched, that’s all it is.

“So what are you into?” You change the topic.

Johnny is silent for a while, so long that you chance a glance over at him. It makes you nervous taking your eyes off the road, but you lose a moment tracing the strong line of his nose as you watch his profile. He glances at you and you lock your eyes on the road again.

“Art.” He says finally. You nod. Art is good, you like art.

“What sort of art?” You prompt. You can’t fault him a stilted conversation you suppose, you did change the subject rather abruptly.

“Sketching,” he tells you, before thinking better of it, “pencils and charcoals. Never got into painting, too hard to take into the field.”

That must be it, it’s a reminder of his time in the military. You’re bringing up bad memories with such a simple question. You must have a talent for sticking your foot in your mouth if it’s this easy for you to stumble upon touchy subjects.

“That makes sense.” You nod and attempt to end the conversation, “You’ll have to show me some of your sketches sometime.”

The shift in the air is immediate. Even in your periphery you can tell Johnny’s perked up at the idea.

“Really? You’d want tae see ‘em?”

“Of course,” You shrug, keeping your eyes forward, “I like art.”

“Maybe ya could pose fer me sometime,” Johnny grins. “Ah’d make sure ya looked as bonnie as ya dae now.”

You laugh at the compliment, a weak attempt at covering your discomfort. You don’t need any buttering up, the false affection of it rings so hollow in your ears that it’s almost painful. It’s an unwanted politeness, an engagement in the conversation that makes you sick at the thought of engaging with. You don’t need to see yourself in graphite, it’s bad enough seeing yourself in the mirror.

“Or maybe ah’d draw ya nude,” Johnny muses and you shut your mouth hard enough to hear your teeth click. “That’d be braw.” He hums, looking out the window, “Could have ya spread those bonnie legs and show me yer cunt. Ah’d make sure tae get real close and get a good look, talk tae ‘er real nice ‘til she’s drippin fer me, no fun drawing’ ‘er dry.”

Your eyes flick to him, your chest tight. He’s looking out the window, his chin cradled in his hand, as if he hadn’t said anything at all. You could almost believe you imagined it, but there were too many words, too detailed, to delude yourself into thinking you’d misheard the rumble of the engine.

You press your thighs together, fix your eyes on the road, try to ignore the man in the seat beside you. What are you supposed to say? Do you say anything? Is he hoping you’ll pull over and open your legs, pull his head between them and let him make good on his desire to talk to your pussy?

The thought sends a shiver through you. You can’t say if it’s good or bad but it certainly catches Johnny’s attention to see you shudder. His teeth flash in the sun, and you know you’ve been caught.

“Aw hen, ya like when Ah talk like that?” His hand finds your thigh again, too high for you to mistake it as anything but what it is, a promise, “Ya want me tae tell ya how good ah am with mah tongue? Or are ya wet just thinkin’ about it?” He’s leaned closer, his hand squeezing your thigh so tightly it hurts, his shadow taking up too much of your periphery. “Fuck ah can smell it on ya-” His hand jumps to cup your cunt, and you freeze, “-warm, wet, little cunt. Stupid little girl. Should’ve worn a skirt so Ah could stick mah fingers in that pussy of yers and have a taste.”

Your heart is beating out of your chest, your face burning as hot as the rest of your skin. He’s right, fuck he’s right. You’re aching, barely holding back from shifting in your seat and rocking against his searching fingers, all from a little dirty talk. You can’t open your mouth, can’t turn, can’t even move from the rigid position you’ve found yourself in, too scared that the barest twitch will make Johnny pounce,

And make the car crash.

You can’t be responsible for another death.

Johnny’s mouth opens, his body leaned far over the center console of the car (too far to survive a crash) and you feel his teeth scrape your neck.

Your body moves on its own, your shoulder jerks and you loosen your hand from the steering wheel to push him away. He goes willingly, laughing as he falls back into his seat and his hands leave you.

“Are you trying to kill us?” You demand, you can barely catch your breath, barely hold onto the boiling heat in the pit of your stomach.

“Ach, just havin’ some fun with ya hen,” He placates, “won’t it be easier holdin’ mah hand now that we’ve got that over with?”

You glare at the road and tamp down the heated humiliation that threatens to rise over you. No, you don’t think it will be. Especially not when you catch Johnny palming himself, and just know that’s the hand he’ll grab you with.

You can read the full fic here

#soap #ficrecs

1K notes · View notes

mintfullyyours · 1 month ago

Text

Meet Me Halfway

Summary : Bucky has to recruit the love of his life to save New York from the void. He doesn't know if she wants to ever see him again, though.

Pairing : Bucky Barnes x reader (she/her)

Warnings/tags : Thunderbolts* spoilers below the cut!!!!!!! Exes to friends to lovers. Fluff, angst, reader is a tracker with enhanced senses. Cursing, Trauma. Implied sex. Alcohol consumption. Death(Please let me know if I miss anything!!!)

Requested by : anon

Word count : 15k whoops

Note : This story touches on the events of Civil War, IW, Endgame, FATWS, BP Wakanda Forever, and Thunderbolts*! I used google translate for the Xhosa, so please let me know if it needs to be corrected. If you’d like to be on the taglist, message me! It gets lost in the comments sometimes. Enjoy!

You were a tracker.

Your body was a weapon, biologically improved by enhanced senses. You could smell a carcass from ten miles away. You could hear a pin drop on the other side of town. Your eyes could track body heat through a crowd of thousands— and it meant you were a hunter in a world full of invisible prey. Some people hunted with tools. You were the tool.

So, of course Steve Rogers found you when he needed to find a ghost. Steve found you when the world turned on James Buchanan Barnes.

After the UN bombing in Vienna, when Bucky was framed and every intelligence agency on Earth wanted him in chains or dead, Steve came to you— he heard of you through old SHIELD files— with desperation and a duffel bag full of cash.

“I need you to find him,” he said. “Before they do.”

You didn’t even hesitate before taking the job. Because even then, before you met Bucky you believed Steve. And more than that, you believed in redemption.

You tracked Bucky down with your senses—following the scent of gunpowder and cold metal, the subtle trail of heat left in his wake, the ragged sound of breath through the cities of Bucharest.

You found him before the world did and pointed Steve and Sam in the right direction.

—

By the time the Avengers disbanded, you were a fugitive—hunted by that least half of the world’s government. Helping Steve Rogers had branded you a traitor in their eyes, but you didn’t regret it. Not then. Not now.

When T’Challa offered sanctuary to Bucky, he extended the same offer to you. Wakanda didn’t just take you in; it gave you purpose. In exchange for refuge, you worked for the royal family— tracking those who dared to steal vibranium from the borders and ensuring justice found them before they slipped through the cracks.

Your home was a modest apartment tucked into the east wing of the palace. It was secluded, perfect for someone like you.

—

When Bucky finally woke from the ice and the trigger words were gone, he didn’t know who to trust. The world had changed too much. He had changed too much.

He trusted Queen Ramonda, who always made sure there was room for both of you at the palace table. He trusted Shuri and the Dora Milaje, because they helped him heal his mind. He trusted both you and T’challa, simply because… Steve trusted you.

He didn’t expect to fall for you, though.

—

At first, Bucky barely spoke. He moved like a shadow through the palace when he even left his little hut at all.

He was healing, but not whole. Not yet. The arm was gone—torn from him in Siberia, left behind with the rest of Hydra’s wreckage.

Bucky hadn’t gotten his new arm yet. Shuri insisted they take their time, that his body and mind needed rest before they complicated him with upgrades. It was the right call. But it left him vulnerable in ways he hated.

For a man who’d lost so much already, it felt like one more cruel subtraction. You noticed how he avoided using his left side. How he winced at imbalance. How he hated needing help.

You didn’t pity him. You just made space for him to breathe. You shared meals together in the palace garden, never pushing for a conversation he wasn’t ready for.

Sometimes, you’d sit and sharpen your blades while he watched the sky. Other days, you’d bring him small things—a worn paperback with dog-eared pages, a piece of fruit from an outreach mission, or a knife he could train with using only one hand.

“You're not trying to fix me,” he said once, more surprised than grateful.

You shrugged. “You’re not broken.”

You started getting really close because of jars. Peanut butter, mostly. Occasionally pickles. Once, a stubborn jar of papaya jam.

You noticed how he hesitated at cabinets, how he didn’t ask for help even when he clearly needed it— especially because he didn’t know how to use just one hand.

If he needed a jar opened, you’d walk by, say nothing, and twist the lid off. Then you’d leave it on the counter and move on. No questions. No pity.

Over time, it turned into more than jars.

He started joining you on your patrols—not in an official capacity, just to walk, perhaps to feel the beauty of the world again without being chased. You’d track down potential threats to Wakandan borders—smugglers, black market mercs—and Bucky would wait for you to get back before having his meal.

He eventually told you about Bucharest in fragments. About Hydra in pieces. In return, you told him about the experiment. Not all of it—just enough for him to understand that you, too, had been shaped into something you didn’t ask to be.

Days passed like water through your fingers.

You trained with him in the early mornings — barefoot in the dirt, palms open, bodies moving like you were learning each other through motion. You’d fight, laugh, fall, rise again.

At night, you sat together under the stars, sharing stories in fragments — half-finished memories neither of you were strong enough to say out loud in full. You learned he liked fruit, that he slept on his side, that he sometimes talked in Russian in his dreams and didn’t realise it.

One night, you asked, “Do you remember who you were, before all of it?”

He hesitated, then shook his head. “I think… I remember who I loved. My sister. Steve. The Howling Commandos. But who I was a long time ago? He’s long gone.”

“He’s not,” you whispered. “You’re him. Just… in pieces.”

He looked at you like you were a miracle.

And one of those days, you fell in love with him.

You didn’t fall in love all at once. It happened slowly, quietly—like stepping into warm water without realising how deep it’s gotten until you’re already submerged.

You tried not to make too much of it. Tried to keep it buried. But your heart had a mind of its own.

So one afternoon, you found yourself pacing in the royal garden while Nakia and Okoye pruned herbs, and blurted it out before you could stop yourself.

“I think I’m in trouble.”

Okoye raised an eyebrow, “Did you get injured?”

“No,” you said, “but I—“

Nakia interrupted you, a knowing smile curling at the edges of her mouth. “Is this the kind of trouble with blue eyes and long hair?”

“Well, yes, I—“ You groaned, pressing a hand to your face. “—I think I like him.”

Okoye tutted, not unkindly. “You think? I’ve seen the way you look at him like he’s a sunrise after a long night.”

Nakia laughed.

“I’m serious!” you said, trying to sound firm and absolutely failing. “He looks at me like I’m not broken.”

“What is wrong with that?” Okoye asked.

“Because I might believe him.”

Nakia finally stopped laughing. Her voice softened. “Sounds like someone sees you the way you’ve always deserved to be seen.”

You didn’t answer her.

—

Meanwhile, Bucky sat on a sun-warmed bench beside T’Challa, overlooking the city below. After a long silence, Bucky confessed, “I think I’m in trouble.”

T’Challa turned to look at him and raised a brow. “The kind with bullets or feelings?”

“Feelings,” Bucky muttered under his breath.

“Ah. More dangerous,” T’Challa smiled slightly. “The tracker?”

Bucky blinked. “How the hell does everyone know?”

“You are not subtle, my friend,” T’Challa said, patting him on the shoulder.

“Yeah,” Bucky chuckled cynically, “Well…”

There was another pause, and then T’Challa spoke softly, “When I was hung up on Nakia, my baba used to tell me Uthando aluyomdlalo; ngumlambo ongenamkhawulo.”

Bucky stared at him for a while, translating in his head. Love is not a game. It is a river with no end.

“You cannot control where it takes you,” T’challa explained, “Only whether you choose to step in.”

Bucky sighed. “I think I already have.”

—

Later, by the lake, the air was still. The moonlight danced on the surface of the water, casting silver over the little hut Bucky called home.

You stood at his door, hands in clenched fists at your sides, heart racing in a way you hadn’t felt since you first got your powers. You knocked, and it was softer than intended— like a question more than a demand.

He opened the door like he’d been expecting you. You didn’t wait. You didn’t explain. You just looked at him and said, “I think I’m in trouble.”

He stepped aside without a word and let you in without a word. “Me too,” he whispered.

Inside the hut, the world seemed a bit quieter.

Bucky stood a few steps away, uncertain. You didn’t move at first. Neither did he.

Then he reached out, slowly, like approaching a wounded animal. His fingers brushed yours. You curled into his touch without thinking. “I— I think,” you choked out the words. “Fuck— I don’t know how to say it or where to begin…”

“Shhh, I know,” he whispered reassuringly, “because I do, too.”

You nodded, throat tight. “I know.”

You had known for a while now. Your senses allowed you to smell the oxytocin in the air when he was around you, to hear his heartbeat quicken when you spent time together,

He didn’t ask. He didn’t need to. He just stepped closer, forehead resting against yours like it was the only place he belonged. Your fingers traced the curve of his jaw, then slid to the scar marring his shoulder—a mark where his Hydra arm used to bed.

“I’m scared,” he confessed, voice low.

“Me too,” you whispered, your lips trembling.

But then you leaned in, and kissed him.

At first, it was tentative—testing. Then, almost immediately, it turned urgent, like you needed to carve this moment into memory, like you were oxygen to him.

He kissed you back with desperation, like he was terrified you might vanish if he let go. His hand gripped your waist, pulling you closer until there was no space left, no more hiding. When you finally broke apart, gasping, foreheads pressed, fingers still clinging to each other like anchors, you said it again, softer this time. “I know.”

“Yeah,” he smiled, “I know.”

The next few months unfolded in pieces.

You were his lover, though neither of you used the word much. Labels felt too fragile, too small for what you were building. You sparred in the mornings, slept tangled together some nights. Sometimes you held him through dreams he didn’t remember. Sometimes he held you through memories you couldn’t say out loud.

Neither of you said “I love you.”

You didn’t need to. You showed it in the broken ways people like you do. He cleaned your knives after missions. You kissed the scars on his body without asking where they came from. But in each other, you found peace.

But you did, though you didn’t say it until a year later, When Thanos’ army broke through Wakanda’s barriers.

You stood on the battlefield, shoulder to shoulder with the Dora Milaje. He was beside you, new arm gleaming.

You both knew you might die here.

So just before the charge Bucky turned to you and reached for your hand, calloused fingers threading with yours.

“I love you,” he said.

You looked at him, heart pounding. And in that final moment—when the world outside this little bubble burned and the force field opened—you said it back. “I love you too.”

And then you let go and ran into the fire together.

—

The battle was chaos.

Together, you carved a path through the madness, never far from each other’s side. Each glance was a tether. But when Thanos snapped—

You felt it first. A strange pull in your chest. Like gravity forgot you.

Bucky turned just in time to see you stumble.

“Doll?” He breathed out, voice catching in his throat.

You looked down at your hand— and your fingers were dissolving.

“Hey…” you said softly, like you didn’t want to scare him.

And then— you were gone, carried by the wind.

Bucky’s knees gave out next.

His vision blurred as your hands started to vanish. The world felt far away as he turned to Steve next and said his best friend’s name.

There was no time to be afraid. He just had one last thought— I’m coming with you.

And then— nothing.

—

Five Years Later.

You came back gasping.

One moment there was nothing—and the next, the battlefield roared around you again. Portals opened. War cried out for soldiers. You ran through it, only searching for one person. You searched the air for his scent, tracked body heat through the crowds looking for Bucky.

When you found him, he grabbed you and pulled you into his arms, and held you so tightly it hurt. But you didn’t care. You buried your face in his shoulder and let yourself feel everything all at once.

You fought side by side again that day, but even after Thanos was defeated, even after the dust finally settled, the weight on Bucky's shoulders hadn’t lifted.

That night, you and him laid down on a half-collapsed med tent. You were bruised, your leg cut, his knuckles torn open—but you both refused to be separated.

“Bucky,” you said gently as you took his shaking hands. “I’m here.”

He didn’t answer, he just stared blankly at you like you might disappear again.

“Talk to me,” you whispered.

And then— he broke.

His hands grabbed your face and kissed you like he had to prove you were real. Like if he didn’t, the universe might take you away again. His breath was uneven, voice hoarse as he finally spoke, “You turned to dust in front of me.”

You pulled him in, forehead to forehead, hearts thundering between bruised ribs. “We came back.”

“I watched it happen,” he choked. “You looked right at me—and then you were just gone. I—“

“I came back,” you repeated, firmer now. “I am here.”

He didn’t ask. He didn’t explain. He just pushed his forehead into your collarbone and let his walls fall.

And in that surrender, you undressed in a desperate attempt to feel something, anything at all.

It wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t perfect. His hands shook against your bare skin, yours ached. You kissed the scar at his shoulder where metal met flesh, and he kissed the bruise on your cheekbones as if he could heal it.

And when you moved together, it was achingly intimate— two ghosts trying to remember how to be alive.

After, he stayed wrapped around you, hand on your stomach, breath finally steady. You ran your fingers through his hair and kissed his temple.

—

You soon learned that you were different people to who you were five years ago.

You were still yourself—but edged. The senses they’d carved into you had only grown keener in the dust. You could smell grief in the air. Taste the metallic echo of time. You threw yourself into your work because it was the only way you could process anything. You have given more time to your job and less to everyone else in your life because it was the only way to block your demons out.

And Bucky—God, Bucky.

Maybe it was watching you vanish into nothing. Maybe it was watching Steve choose a life he didn’t get to have. Maybe it was both. Whatever it was, it left him wound tight, walking through the world like it might crumble beneath his feet at any second. He became suffocatingly protective.

Now, he was always checking exits. Watching windows. Reading strangers’ faces. Looking for ghosts with Hydra insignias or familiar flags. Always ready to run.

You soon realised that while you both have survived death, surviving life was harder.

Some nights, he woke drenched in sweat, eyes wide and terrified. Sometimes he dragged you with him—out of bed, into the hall, whispering about danger that wasn’t there. About people who might take you from him again. You held him anyway.

You wrapped your arms around his trembling body.. You whispered to him that he was safe, that you were real. And some nights, he even believed you.

And on the quietest nights, when your pulse thudded steady beneath his hand, you’d say the only promise that mattered, “If we vanish again—we vanish together.”

He would nod against your chest and weep.

And while your words helped him in the moment, things only got worse.

He was still obsessed with not losing you again.

He watched you like a man teetering on the edge of a cliff. Always scanning, always planning, always afraid. He checked your comms before you left on a mission. He memorised your schedule like a battle plan. He begged for access to your Kimoyo beads so he could track your movements like a tactician studying the terrain.

It wasn’t protective anymore. It was paranoia.

He wouldn’t sleep if you were out past dark. Would sit by the window, waiting for footsteps or the sound of your key in the lock.

You tried to reason with him—gently, at first. You reminded him who you were, what you could do.

None of it mattered.

To Bucky, you were breakable simply because you were his.

When he got pardoned, the first thing he said was, “Come with me. Brooklyn. I have to… make amends.”

“Bucky, the Wakandan royal family is extending my contract,” You sighed, kissing the crease between his eyebrows. “They trust me. I’m not leaving that behind.”

He didn’t argue. Not really. He just clenched his teeth and nodded. But you could feel the storm brewing, so you compromised. You would spend three months in Brooklyn with him, then three in Wakanda for work. A split life.

But even in that compromise, the obsession bled through. Every time you left, he’d call. Text. Ping your locator chip on your kimoyo beads. Just checking, he’d say. Just making sure you’re okay.

It stopped feeling sweet. It started to feel like surveillance.

Sometimes you’d be halfway through a mission—deep in a jungle or in the middle of a compromised crowds—and his name would light up your screen five, six, ten times. His worry grew into desperation.

You knew he didn’t mean to be cruel. But it didn’t make it easier.

And then one day— it was too much.

You’d just gotten back from a run along the Wakandan border. You were bruised but fine as you walked into your apartment and found your phone flashing with fourteen missed calls and a message that said, “If you don’t answer in five minutes, I’m calling Shuri. I’ll track your signal myself if I have to.”

When you called him, he picked up instantly. “Are you okay? I thought—God, I thought something happened—”

“Bucky,” you snapped. “Stop.”

You were pacing now, your heart hammering harder than it had in the field. “You have got to stop doing this. I am not going to disappear every time I step outside!”

“I just—” he started, but his voice cracked. “I can’t lose you again. I can’t—”

“I’m not yours to lose,” you said, quieter this time.

“I love you,” he whispered.

“I love you too,” you said, softer now. “But this—this isn’t love. This is fear in disguise. You’re watching me like I’m one wrong step away from disappearing, and it’s like you’re still stuck in that moment five years ago.”

“I am,” he said, unbearably honest. “You turned to dust. We can't just pretend that's not real.”

“We turned to dust, Bucky,” you corrected, your voice shaking now. “And we came back. We both did.”

There was a long pause. He just exhaled like the air had been punched from his lungs.

“I don’t want to lose you,” he said again, but this time, it sounded like a prayer.

You wiped a tear from your cheek and whispered, “Then let me live.”

That night, he promised he’d do better.

He swore he would be on time to his therapy sessions. That he’d let you breathe. That he’d learn how to love you without gripping so tight it left bruises.

And for a while, he did.

But healing isn't linear, and Bucky Barnes fell back into the spiral like it was a black hole.

Two months later, the calls started again. The check-ins. You’d wake to a dozen voicemails. You’d tell him your mission schedule, but he’d still show up unannounced in Wakanda under some flimsy excuse, saying he just needed to see you, to make sure.

Then the court notices started coming. Missed sessions. Warnings from the state department. Red letters in bold ink.

He wasn’t going to therapy anymore. He was tracking you instead.

When you returned from your latest mission along the southern border, there he was— waiting in your apartment in Wakanda, hands shaking.

“Bucky?” you asked, dropping your gear. “What are you doing here?”

He didn’t answer at first. Just stepped toward you, breathing hard like he’d run the whole way from Brooklyn.

“I tried calling,” he said. “You didn’t answer. You were late reporting in. You weren’t supposed to be gone that long—”

“I was on a stealth mission, James!” you shouted, incredulous. “Do you hear yourself?”

He winced when you used his first name. “I thought you were in trouble.”

“You thought I was in trouble so you hopped a plane, skipped two international borders, and missed court-mandated therapy to come stalk me?!”

“I wasn’t stalking—” he started, but you cut him off, voice shaking.

“Bucky, go to fucking therapy! You are missing mandated sessions to follow me around like I’m going to vanish into smoke again. You’re not okay.”

His eyes flashed with tears building up in the corners. “I’m not okay because the one person who makes me feel safe disappears for weeks at a time without warning!”

“What kind of pressure is that? I am not your fucking safety net!” you finally screamed, though you did not mean to. “I am your girlfriend, not your property.”

He flinched.

“You don’t trust me,” you said, your voice cracking at the seams. “You trust your fear more than me. You trust your obsession more than you trust my skills, my choices, my life.”

“I do trust you—”

“No, you don’t!” you snapped. “If you did, you wouldn’t be here. You’d be in therapy. Not sitting on my damn bed, panicking because I missed a check-in by three hours.”

He looked down. “I just wanted to make sure—”

“I know,” you said softly, bitterly. “I know. And I love you. God, I love you.”

Your voice cracked again, but your words were firm. “But this isn’t love anymore, Bucky. This is control. This is not good for you. Being here? With me? It's hurting both of us.”

Finally, Bucky nodded. Just once.

“Do you think we’ll ever be okay again?” he asked, voice barely audible.

You swallowed the lump in your throat and sat next to him, squeezing his human hand. You didn’t want to do this like this. But the moment you looked at him you knew you couldn’t keep pretending everything was fine and dandy.

You took a breath.

“This…” you started gently, like saying it softer might hurt less. “This isn’t working.”

He blinked. “What?”

“This,” you said, motioning between you with a shaking hand. “Us. The way it is right now. It’s not working.”

He jerked his hand back, standing up in shock like you’d slapped him. “Wait—what the hell are you saying?”

“I’m saying you left Brooklyn without clearance. Again. You broke parole—again. You’ve got people looking for you.”

“I don’t care about any of that,” he snapped, eyes dark. “You weren’t answering. You were off the grid. What was I supposed to do? Just sit around and wait?”

“Yes,” was all you said. You didn’t need to remind him that he needed to trust you. That he needed to trust your skills.

His voice was shaking now. “What happened to ‘if we vanish again, we vanish together’?”

You closed your eyes at the words. You’d meant it.

But promises can rot when fed with obsession.

Your voice cracked. “I said that when you could breathe without having to know where I was every second of every day, Bucky.”

He looked down, jaw, hands balled into fists. “I can’t lose you again.”

“And I can’t live like this,” you said, voice strained as you wiped your tears away. “I’m not your leash, and I’m not your cure. You can’t chain yourself to me because you don’t know how to be with yourself.”

His eyes filled with watery tears, and he didn’t speak.

So you did.

“Please,” you said, “leave by morning. Go home. Check in with Dr. Raynor when you land. If you don’t, they’ll arrest you.”

He opened his mouth, but you shook your head. You couldn’t do another round of argument.

“Don’t,” you whispered. “Don’t make this harder.”

He took a breath, chest heaving like he’d run a marathon just to make it this far. “So that’s it?”

You didn’t answer.

Just stepped up and pressed your hand gently against his chest—where his heart still beat too fast and your enhanced hearing was picking it up too well—and whispered, “Goodbye, Bucky.”

He turned without another word, because anything he said might break you both.

And when the door shut behind him, the silence that followed felt like a funeral.

—

Bucky didn't know where to go, so he wandered and wandered until he sat down on the palace steps, hands shaking, heart swirling like a thunderstorm in his chest.

He didn’t notice T’Challa approach until the king sat beside him, arms resting on his knees.

For a long while, neither of them spoke. “She told you to leave,” T’Challa said simply. Not unkind, but not sparing.

Bucky’s teeth clenched. “Yeah.”

“She’s right, you know.”

“I don’t want to hear that right now.”

“I know,” T’Challa said. “But I am saying it anyway, my friend.”

Bucky said nothing, fists digging into the vibranium infused staircase step beneath him. T’Challa went on, “You love her. I know. She loves you too. But love twisted by fear is dangerous. You were not protecting her. You were holding her hostage in your panic.”

“I wasn’t—”

“You were,” T’Challa interrupted gently. “And she forgave you for longer than most would. But she cannot carry both her past and yours. You nearly became what you once fought against: control.”

Bucky turned his head away, chest tight. “I didn’t mean to. I just— I couldn’t lose her again.”

“It’s not just you,” T’Challa said softly, “she… she needs space. She’s throwing herself into work, and perhaps that’s how she copes, but she’s becoming… distant. From you. From all of us.”

Bucky’s breath hitched.

“You know I know what it feels like firsthand to come back from being turned to dust.” T’Challa said, “and when we came back, we all changed. I believe you might need time away from each other to first understand how you both have changed.”

Bucky finally looked at him, eyes rimmed with red. “So what, I just pretend none of this happened?”

“No,” T’Challa said. “You leave. You go to therapy. And you become someone who deserves a second chance—not from her. From yourself.”

Then T’Challa stood, brushing nonexistent dust from his robes. He looked down at the man once known as the Winter Soldier— now just a man.

“I will have a jet ready within the hour,” he said. “You will not say goodbye. That would only cause more pain.”

Bucky could only nod. Deep down, T’challa was his friend as much as he was yours. He was looking out for him as much as he was looking out for you.

—

Bucky didn’t go straight to the jet in the landing pad.

He walked around first—through the gardens he used to kiss you in, down the quiet stone paths lined with flowering trees. And then, when he couldn’t stall any longer, he found Shuri.

She was in her lab, sleeves rolled up, a smudge of grease on her cheek, working on a new upgrade for the Kimoyo bead system. She didn’t look surprised when she saw him.

He stood just inside the door for a while, fidgeting with the strap of the bag slung over his shoulder.

“I’m leaving,” he said finally, voice hoarse.

Shuri nodded with a sad smile. “I heard.”

He hesitated. “Can you keep tabs on her for me?” He asked. As soon as the words came out of his mouth, he realised how bad it must’ve sounded. “I’m not asking you to spy on her. I swear.”

That made her pause. She turned to him, brows raised in wary curiosity. “Sounds like you are.”

“I’m not,” he said again, hands up in surrender. “But I need—I just need to know if she’s hurt. That’s all. If she’s injured. If something happens in the field. Not every move, not every detail, just... if she’s okay.”

Shuri’s eyes softened. “She wants you to move on. You know that, right?”

“I know,” Bucky said quickly. “And I won’t reach out. I won’t interfere. But if something serious happens—if she’s in the med bay or worse—I need to know. I can’t breathe not knowing that.”

Shuri crossed her arms. Studied him.

“You still think it’s love, don’t you?” she asked quietly.

He flinched. “I don’t know what it is anymore. But I know that it’s not trust. Not peace. That’s why I’m leaving.”

She held his eyes for a long time. Then she nodded once. “If she’s ever in danger, you’ll hear from me. That’s all I’ll promise.”

He nodded, relieved. “Thank you.”

Shuri stepped closer, pressing a new set of Kimoyo beads into his palm. “These won’t track her. But they will let you receive encrypted pings if I send one. No contact. Just information.”

Bucky curled his fingers around the beads like they were a lifeline.

“I’ll earn my second chance,” he whispered, almost to himself. “Even if it’s just for me.”

Shuri nodded. And with that, she turned back to her work.

Bucky walked out of the lab with the bracelet tucked into his pocket and boarded the jet alone.

Not with closure. But with a choice to begin again.

—

Six Months Later

You hadn’t meant to watch the news. It was just playing in the corner of the lab, the volume low was meant to be background noise.

But there he was.

Bucky, onn screen, his hair shorter now, beard shaved. He was standing next to Sam, both of them looking like they’d just walked through hell and come out victorious.

“Barnes and Wilson led the operation to contain a Flag Smasher attack—”

The footage cut to shaky video: Bucky saving hostages from a burning truck. Sam dropped from above, wings that Shuri gave him expanding in the night sky

You stopped breathing for a second.

Not because he looked good— though he did— but because he looked... different. Lighter. Still sharp around the edges, still Bucky, but not strung so tight he might snap. His shoulders weren’t so hunched. His eyes didn’t carry that haunted glaze you'd come to know too well.

You looked down at your phone, thumb hovering over the screen. Muscle memory had already opened your messages. The text thread was still there.

You started to type.

Saw you on TV today. You looked—

You paused and backspaced.

Took down some Flag Smashers, huh? Didn’t even trip once. I’m impressed.

Delete.

You looked okay.

No.

You stared at the screen. You wanted to say something small, something kind. Something to let him know you’d seen him, that you still cared.

And then—

“Nope,” Okoye said from behind you.

You jumped, flipping your phone face-down like a teenager caught texting a crush.

Okoye raised an eyebrow, arms crossed in full general-mode. “I know that look. You are thinking about him.”

You sighed, rubbing your forehead. “He looked... better.”

“Good. That is what healing is supposed to look like,” she said, tilting her head. “But do not dishonour that progress by dragging each other back into the fire so soon.”

“I wasn’t going to send it,” you muttered under your breath.

Okoye gave you a really? look.

You smiled sheepishly. “Okay, maybe. But just a little.”

She stepped forward, took your phone, and pocketed. “Let him move on. I will take you on patrol,” she said briskly, already walking toward the hangar. “And after, we have tea. And girl talk.”

“Girl talk?” you chuckled, following.

“Yes. I have opinions on your taste in emotionally volatile men. It is time you heard them.”

You laughed despite yourself.

—

One Year Later.

The palace was quieter now that T’Challa was gone.

And grief didn’t move cleanly through your body like it used to. It crept and lingered and collected behind your eyes, in the back of your throat, in the hollow ache of your chest that wouldn’t quite go away.

You’d expected to feel lost. But not like this.

You stood at the balcony outside your quarters, fingers curled around a steaming cup of tea Ayo had forced into your hands.

You hadn’t slept. Couldn’t eat. Before returning back to your quarters, you stayed with Shuri the entire day today, being present for her and Queen Ramonda.

And then the doorbell chimed.

You opened it to find a small wrapped bundle of flowers on the floor. A delivery slip attached in elegant Wakandan script: With honor and remembrance.

In the bouquet was Snowdrops, winter jasmine, and White hyacinth.

It was a winter bouquet.

Not many people in Wakanda would choose those blooms. Not unless they’d meant something.

It was him. Bucky.

He must’ve contacted his old florist in the city to have it delivered to your wing of the palace.

You sat on the edge of the bed, the flowers still in your hands, too stunned to cry.

And then, before you even realised what you were doing, your phone was in your lap. You opened the message thread with Bucky.

You typed, Shuri said she texted you. Said you could come to the funeral. Why didn’t you?

You stared at it. Then, slowly, you deleted it.

Because what would he even say? That he wanted to give you space? That he didn’t know if you wanted to see him? That he sent flowers because showing up would hurt you more?

Maybe he thought the blooms were enough. But they weren’t.

You needed him— a friend who had known T’Challa like you had. Someone who remembered the man like you did— not just the king.

You wanted Bucky to hold you and reminisce about that time you dared T’challa to arm wrestle him. You wanted to laugh about his horrible jokes during harvest. But all you got were flowers.

And wasn’t this what you asked for?

You had told him to let go. To move on. To live his life. And he had.

You wiped at your eyes with the back of your wrist, too tired to be angry. Too empty to cry. Later, you placed the bouquet beside the small altar in the throne room, next to T’Challa’s photo.

A winter gift for a king.

You whispered, "I miss both of you."

—

You didn’t sleep much the year after that.

You didn’t eat much either. Grief gnawed at your gut like hunger, but nothing ever settled. Not even water. Not even rest.

All you had left was work. You helped Wakanda defend itself from foreign attacks, and when the time came, you helped track Riri Williams for Shuri.

But when Shuri was taken by the Talokan, your sanity was cracked clean in half.

You didn’t feel fear. Or rage. Just focus. Razor-sharp, ice-cold, deadly focus.

You helped Nakia track her— followed her scent through the water, infrared vision scanning jungle heat signatures, nose full of salt and humidity until found her underwater. You got her back.

But then Namor attacked, and Queen Ramonda didn’t make it.

You had to look at one more coffin. One more goodbye to one more person gone who had offered you safety, love, and dignity.

Ramonda had seen both you and Bucky when you came to Wakanda scarred and haunted. She had welcomed you with open arms. And now she was gone too.

At the funeral, you held Shuri up because she was shaking. You held her hand. And when it was over, you took her into your quarters and let her sob into your shoulder for hours

You didn’t cry.

You couldn’t. You had to be strong for her.

That night, your phone buzzed with a message.

Bucky : “You okay?”

That was it.

You stared at it. You read it again. Then again.

Are you okay?

You almost laughed. As if that was a question that could be answered in a text. As if that was something you could possibly explain.

Your queen was dead. Your sister in everything but blood had just buried both her brother and mother within 14 months. The kingdom you had called home for the past decade was under attack. You hadn't slept in four days. Your body was covered in bruises. And Bucky—the man who had once buried his face in your collarbone and sobbed because he couldn’t bear to lose you—sent a text.

A fucking text. Not even a call.

You set your phone down and didn’t respond.

You didn’t throw it. You didn’t curse. You didn’t scream. You just... sat there. Numb.

And that was the first night you drank.

You drank because your hands wouldn’t stop shaking and your mind wouldn’t stop screaming and no mission could numb you enough to silence the memory of T’challa’s last words or Ramonda’s last breath or Shuri’s tears soaking through your shirt.

You didn’t stop after one. You wanted to not feel at all. And when the bottle emptied, you drank again. And the next night. And the one after that.

It didn’t fix anything.

—

A Year Later.

You had buried yourself in fieldwork— back to back missions for Wakanda with little to no rest in between. It dulled the ache of grief, but it never fully faded. You were getting better. Still dying inside, but a little slower now.

You took risks that made even Okoye grit their teeth, but you didn’t care. With Shuri as the new Black Panther and the Midnight Angels at your side, it felt like movement was the only thing keeping you from collapsing.

You didn’t care if the assignments were dangerous. Maybe you even preferred it that way.

Shuri was adjusting your new visor in her lab when she glanced up casually. “You know your ex is running for Congress?”

You tilted your head, “What?”

She flicked her fingers and brought up a holographic newsfeed. There he was—James Buchanan Barnes. Neatly combed hair in a dark blue suit, sporting a nervous half-smile. He was shaking hands somewhere in New York, surrounded by cameras.

You stared. “Bucky… in politics? Are we sure that’s not a skrull?”

Shuri laughed, brightening the room. “Positive. He filed last week. His campaign’s all over the place—veteran advocacy, post-Blip recovery programs.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Making amends.”

“He always said he wanted to,” she said gently.

You nodded, silent for a second too long. “He’ll do well.”

Shuri studied your expression. “You think?”

You didn’t answer right away. Your eyes stayed on the image—on Bucky’s restrained expression, the way he looked down like he was afraid to take up space.

“Yeah,” you said. “Have you seen that smile? He could charm a whole room without opening his mouth.”

Shuri laughed again. You found yourself smiling too, even if it hurt to do so.

For a while, she was as self-destructive as you. But now, you didn’t know how Shuri carried her own losses so gracefully, how she held herself together. Maybe it was the suit or the legacy. Or maybe she was just stronger. Your method was simpler: run into danger and don’t care if you make it out. It wasn’t healthy. But it was efficient.

Still, your senses were stronger than ever. You have noticed how Shuri’s heartbeat always picked up when you mention Bucky. You always assumed it was because she was worried about you— about the old wounds reopening.

What you still didn’t know, what she never told you, was that she and Bucky were in constant contact. And after her mother’s death, her updates to him became more detailed, more frequent. Perhaps, it was because you were the closest thing she had to a sister. Perhaps she wanted to keep you safe— and letting Bucky know of your missions meant that if anything were to go wrong, he would be there to help.

She had already lost T’challa and Ramonda. She was not going to lose you, too.

—

Utah. Thunderbolts* timeline.

The gas station was run-down, lit by flickering fluorescent lights and signs buzzing with static. Inside, the team Yelena had apparently nicknamed the Thunderbolts stood in varying degrees of impatience as Bucky took off the last of their restraints.

Yelena rubbed her wrists and shot Bucky a sidelong glance. “So. How are we going to track Bob?”

Bucky didn’t answer immediately. He was already pulling out his phone, lips pressed in a hard line. “Can’t track Mel’s phone,” he muttered under his breath. “Wherever they are, they must have signal jammers.”

“Great,” John said. “And we’re just supposed to... drive and hope we’re going in the right direction?”

Ava narrowed her eyes. “We don't have time. If Val has Bob, there’s no telling—”

Bucky raised a hand. “I… I might know someone nearby who can track a scent halfway across the world.”

Alexei straightened with a hopeful gleam in his eye. “Ah! We are getting reinforcements?” He cracked his knuckles.

Bucky was already reaching for his phone, hesitation coiling in his chest. His thumb hovered over the screen.

He shouldn't be doing this, right?

Were you ready to see him? After everything? After how you ended things? Did you even want to see him?

He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to shove down the uncertainty clawing at his ribs.

Focus, Barnes.

This wasn’t about closure or guilt or anything personal. Civilians could be in danger. And if Sentry project was as dangerous as they said, then they were way past playing it safe.

Even if it was messy. Even if it hurt.

“Something like that,” Bucky muttered, then hit Call—and walked out into the gas station parking lot.

—

Call to Shuri, Wakandan Secure Channel.

“Bucky,” Shuri answered briskly, “If this is about a replacement arm because the raccoon stole it again—”

“It’s not,” Bucky cut in. “I need hotel information.”

A pause. “For whom?”

“For her.” He didn’t have to say your name. Shuri knew exactly who he meant.

“Why?”

“You told me she was in a joint op with Everett Ross in Salt Lake City. I just need the hotel name, Shuri.”

“That’s classified,” she said, more defensively than she meant. She was willing to give him many things about you, but this might be teetering on a line she wouldn’t cross.

“I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t urgent. We need to track someone before he levels a city,” Bucky explained, “Please.”

Shuri went quiet, because she knew a call from the White Wolf meant things were getting out of hand.

—

You smelled him before he knocked.

He smelled like leather and metal. He had that faint, signature scent — like snowmelt clinging to old wood.

You just finished an intel swap with Everett Ross, and now all you wanted to do was lie down and sleep. That was until you caught a whiff of his scent and you stopped dead in your tracks.

The knock came a second later.

You took a breath, schooled your expression, and opened the door.

And there he was. James Buchanan Barnes. Standing in a Salt Lake City hotel hallway.

His hair was longer than you last saw on TV, a little more silver threading through the temples. A black t-shirt that clung to him in all the ways that weren’t fair, leather jacket over it.

You froze for a moment.

“Wow… I— you…,” he said, as if he couldn’t help himself. “You’re still as beautiful as the last time I saw you.”

You let out a dry laugh before you could stop yourself, folding your arms. “You showing up uninvited in a hallway in Utah wasn’t exactly how I imagined hearing that.”

Bucky gave you a lopsided little smile — the kind that once made your knees weak. “Yeah, well… surprise?”

You rolled your eyes. But it was hard to ignore how your heartbeat had kicked up. “How did you even know I was here?”

He winced. “Okay, so… don’t be mad.”

“Oh no,” you said, flatly. “Great way to start.”

“I, uh… may have asked Shuri.”

Your brows rose. “You what?”

“Just for updates.”

“Bucky.”

“She didn’t tell me much! Just—like—general stuff. Missions. If you were injured. If you’d… eaten.”

“You’ve been asking my best friend to report on my food intake?”

“Okay, that was one time!”

“You don’t get to be worried anymore,” you cut in ever so gently, and the smile dropped from his face.

“I know,” he said.

You stared at him, longing pressing under your ribs.

“You could’ve just called,” you said.

He swallowed. “I didn’t think you’d answer.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I…” He ran a hand through his hair. “I needed your help. For something. But part of me… I- I don’t know. I would be lying if I said I didn't want to see you.”

“Well, congratulations.” You rolled your eyes, “You found me.”

He didn’t respond. Just stood there with that goddamn puppy-dog look on his face — the one you used to wake up to. The one that said he still loved you in ways he probably didn’t know how to stop.

The silence stretched thin.

Finally, you sat down on your bed and said, “You weren’t there.”

Sitting down on the armchair across from you, Bucky’s brows pulled together, and he knew instantly what you meant.

“T’Challa,” you said. “Ramonda. You didn’t come. You sent flowers. A text. That’s all.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” Your voice cracked at the edges. “You don’t get it, Bucky. You were family. They loved you.”

“I loved them, too,” he said. “God, I loved them. T’Challa gave me a second chance. Ramonda treated me like a second son. You think it didn’t kill me not to be there?”

“Then why weren’t you?” you asked, quieter now. “Why didn’t you show up?”

He looked away. “Because I knew I’d see you, too.”

Oh.

He continued, voice rough, eyes fixed on a random point over your shoulder. “I knew I’d see you in white, standing in front of that city that saved both of us. And I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold it together. I couldn’t go to Wakanda to grieve them and be reminded of you. I was already falling apart. I couldn’t break in front of everyone.”

Your breath hitched, just a little.

“You think I didn’t fall apart?” you whispered. “You think I didn’t wake up everyday being reminded of you? That I didn’t carry Shuri when she couldn’t stand even when I missed you?”

He looked back at you, “You are stronger than me.”

“No, Bucky,” You shook your head. “I just showed up.”

He swallowed hard, his chest heaving just slightly.

You stared at each other again — that thick, choking silence drowning you like a wave.

And still… underneath it all, there was love. Frustrated, frayed, unresolved — but alive.

Bucky leaned forward. “I know I messed up. I know I don’t deserve to ask you for anything.”

You didn’t answer. You just watched him, waiting.

“I’ll stop,” he promised. “The updates. Everything. I’ll leave you alone. I just… need you to do one thing.”

Before you could respond, your nose twitched.

You frowned and sniffed the air, eyes narrowing when your ears picked up four new heartbeats in the vicinity.

“Bucky,” you said slowly. “Does this have anything to do with the four jackasses currently pressed up against the hallway wall?”

He blinked. “...No?”

You sighed, walked to the front of the room and opened the door. Yelena, Ava, John, and Alexei all flinched like a bunch of kids caught behind a curtain.

“I told you to wait in the car,” Bucky groaned.

You crossed your arms at the four extremely guilty faces frozen mid-lean.

Ava, arms crossed like she wasn’t just eavesdropping with laser focus. Yelena, who gave a tiny wave. “Hi.” John, trying very hard to act casual. Alexei was grinning wide. “Ah! She is even more terrifying than Mr. Soldier described! I like her.”

You stared at them. Then at Bucky.

He winced. “...So yeah. About that one thing.”

—

They gave you the rundown on Bob and the Sentry Project—chaotic, riddled with questions and coded language that made you realise that Bucky was right— this was a larger-than-life situation.

It was enough to raise every red flag in your head, and by the end of it, you were just dragging a hand down your face like you were wiping off the last shred of peace you had left.

“Fine,” you muttered, already rerouting your mental map like instinct. You stepped in closer, tilting your head just slightly at the three people who had been in close vicinity to Bob.

Yelena, John, and Ava.

You went in close and did a focus inhale through your nose. Your senses lit up. You could smell a thread between them— that must be Bob’s smell.

You could pick apart the sweat and smoke residue. You could smell the iron-spike scent of stress hormones surging through their blood. You could practically taste the adrenaline.

“Got it,” you said, nodding once.

Then you turned, already moving.

Your pupils contracted as you flipped into the edge of your infrared vision, sweeping the environment in layered pulses of heat and light. People lit up like sketches in flames. Your hearing tuned up next, catching radio chatter three blocks out, the thrum of a drone overhead.

You walked out, and they followed you as you followed the scent straight toward Avengers Tower.

—

Void, New York.

The city was being devoured—block by block, building by building—into a yawning chasm of darkness,a negative space eating reality alive. It was as if Bob had carved a hole in the fabric of reality and let nothingness bleed through. The skyline blurred at the edges, buildings sucked into the black like paper into flame.

People were turned into shadows, and what scared you the most was you can’t smell them anymore. You can’t hear them anymore. They… vanished.

You stood on the edge of where Grand Central Station used to be. Bob was in the center of it all—or what was left of him.

You had found him, and it had gone bad. Catastrophically bad.

Yelena didn’t hesitate. She was the first one to go in.

The others had followed—Alexei, John, Ava—one by one, swallowed whole by the nothingness.

Now it was just you and Bucky.

The edge of the Void shimmered like a heat mirage, the floor fracturing under it.

You stared into the nothingness and it looked exactly how you’d felt the day Wakanda lost its king. The day Ramonda breathed her last breath in that throne room. The day you held Shuri’s hand as she lost everything.

And all you could think, selfishly, was how Bucky hadn’t been there.

You swallowed hard, voice barely more than a whisper. “I’m scared.”

Bucky looked at you, eyes softening.

You didn’t know what was on the other side. You didn’t know what you’d see— what the Void would show you, or take from you.

But for the first time in years, the love of your life reached out and took your hand.

“If we vanish again,” he said quietly, “we vanish together.”

Right.

Your fingers curled around his, Your voice barely trembled as you said it again, “Together.”

Then you stepped forward and let the Void take you both.

—

Bucky woke up in the snow.

He recognised this place even before he heard the screaming wind, before he looked down and saw his blood soaking into the white ground.

Bucky was twenty-something again—still Sergeant James Barnes. Still just a soldier, a friend, a smartass.

He was watching himself fall. Watching his arm catch on the railing, and breaking on impact. He watched his body spiral and bounce once before settling.

He tried to look away, but he couldn’t.

He remembered waiting for hours for help. No one came.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky whispered, but the younger version didn’t respond. He blinked once more and then stopped moving altogether.

Then, in an attempt to escape this vision, he buried himself in an avalanche of snow.

He woke up in another room. It was his apartment, familiar and claustrophobic at the same time. The curtains were drawn tight, the air thick with the scent of cheap whiskey

And there he was — himself again. This Bucky was slouched on the floor, back against the wall, surrounded by a graveyard of bottles. Some still full. Most empty. The floor was soaked where he’d dropped one earlier.

He had a bottle pressed to his lips now. He took another long, angry swig. Then another. Then—

Nothing.

No burn. No warmth in his chest. No haze. He roared suddenly, launching the bottle across the room. It shattered against the wall. Glass rained down like glittering snow.

“Why won’t it work?” he shouted, voice hoarse. “Why won’t it fucking work?”

He lurched to his feet, fumbling for another bottle in the kitchen. His hands shook. His breathing was ragged.

“Just let me forget,” he begged, staring at his reflection in the microwave’s glass. “Let me forget. Let me be numb.”

But his body refused. His curse of super soldier metabolism was that he would never let him escape. He would never get drunk ever again.

He threw the next bottle harder. The glass cut his knuckles. He didn’t feel it.

He had only landed from Wakanda twelve hours ago. But this time, he landed with the knowledge that you were not his anymore. And now there was no one to fight with. No one to talk to. No one to hold his hand when the nightmares got bad. No one to anchor him when he spiraled.

He slid down the wall and pressed his forehead to his knees like he could disappear into his own body.

He whispered your name over and over again.

The most devastating part was knowing that he had finally found someone who saw him, and still, somehow, he had driven you away.

He stayed like that for what felt like hours. Days. Maybe he never left that floor at all.

Then — Bucky saw a ripple from a puddle across the room where he had spilled his drink earlier.

He looked into it, and instead of a reflection, he saw you.

You were curled up on a couch in another life, in another room. Fingers wrapped around a half-empty bottle. Your head lolling against the armrest, eyes glazed. Laughter bubbled out of your mouth that didn’t belong there — not the happy kind. This laughter was crooked, the kind you used to hide the sobs building beneath your ribs.

The bottle slipped from your fingers and onto the floor.

You were drunk. Not a buzz. Not a haze. You were gone, and it showed.

You started slurring words to no one and between fits of laughter. The makeup smeared across your cheek wasn’t from a night out — it was from wiping away tears with the back of your hand over and over again.

You were wrecked in a way Bucky couldn’t be.

You had the freedom he envied, the escape he was never allowed. You could bury the grief. He had to live with it. And then— he saw what you were clutching in your lap.

It was a photo of You, Bucky, Shuri, and T’challa, taken by Queen Ramonda by the lake, only a couple of days before Thanos attacked.

You stared at the photo like it might move. Like if you looked hard enough, you could reach through the glossy paper and pull them out.

But they were gone.

T’Challa. Ramonda.

And Bucky.

He hadn’t died, but he wasn’t there either. Not when it mattered.

Your grip on the bottle tightened. And then—suddenly—you screamed. “WHY AREN’T YOU HERE?!”

The words tore out of you like glass, shredding you from the inside out.

You hurled the bottle across the room. It hit a wall, shattered, and splashed liquor across the floor. Your body jolted with it, like you’d thrown a piece of yourself.

And then you just collapsed yourself, rocking back and forth. “My fault,” you whispered over and over again. “My fault. All my fault. My fault.”

Bucky watched from the other side of the reflection, both of you broken in different ways—he, invulnerable and furious that he couldn’t feel the poison work; you, drowning in it.

The grief between you wasn’t just shared.

It was mirrored.

Both of you in your separate corners of the world, drinking like it might erase memory, like it might bring someone back, like it might turn regret into penance.

With a deep breath, he took a leap of faith and stepped into the puddle.

It felt like falling like leaping off a rooftop with no guarantee of landing, but choosing the fall anyway because it might bring him back to you.

And he was right.

He was there, with the real you.

You were in that room, in the corner, watching it all play out like a film you couldn’t pause.

That puddle had been more than a doorway. It had been a choice. And he had chosen you.

Bucky knelt down beside you slowly. He didn’t say anything at first. Just pulled you into him.

And for a moment, you didn’t move.

But then his arms wrapped around you, the walls gave in. Your fingers clutched at the back of his jacket and you buried your face into his shoulder.

You stayed like that for a while.

Then, muffled against him, you said, “I should’ve called.”

He just held you tighter.

You continued. “You gave me flowers. A text. It wasn’t much, but… at least it was something. I didn’t even text back. I didn’t give you anything.”

Bucky pulled back slightly to look at you, his hands still resting gently on your shoulders. “No,” he said. “Don’t apologize. I—” He exhaled slowly, eyes dark and honest. “I was suffocating you. I… I ruined you.”

“You never ruined me, Bucky,” you said. “You broke my heart. But you never ruined me.”

Silence stretched again — for a while.

“I was scared I’d never see you again,” you admitted, quieter now. “That you’d disappear into some mission and I’d never get to tell you I was still… that I still— fuck… I—” Unable to finish your sentences, looked away instead, chewing the inside of your cheek. Then you asked what had been burning in the back of your throat this whole time: “Are we ever going to be okay again?”

His answer was quiet, immediate. “We already are.” He kissed your temple — not possessive or desperate, just… loving.

You blinked up at him. “What?”

He smiled. “You’re here. I’m here. We’re talking. Yelling. Holding each other. That’s more than most people get.”

You chuckled, exhaling a shaky breath, forehead resting against his. “So what now?”

“Now?” he murmured. “We get up.”

Your hand slid down his arm and laced your fingers with his. “And what about the end of the world?”

He gave a half-laugh, half-sigh. “Right. That.”

You both stood, like people learning how to walk for the first time again.

He looked at you, wiping a tear from his cheeks. “C’mon,” he said, nodding toward the door. “Let’s go find Bob.”

And this time, you walked out together.

—

Post-Void. New York, again.

You’d done it. You’d pulled Bob out, helped him control the void inside of him.

And just as the dust started to settle, Val ambushed you all with a press conference. She threw around the word New Avengers like it was already printed across a glossy magazine cover.

Your phone immediately lit up like a Christmas tree.

Everett Ross: Did my EX-WIFE just put you in the New Avengers lineup? Why did you not tell me this?

You winced. Ex-wife. Of course.

Then, Shuri: ??? What is HAPPENING? Should I have not given Bucky your hotel?

And the kicker came from the current king of Wakanda himself.

M’Baku: Weren’t you on a foreign mission on behalf of Wakanda? You are now on AMERICAN NEWS? Call back immediately.

You groaned and thumbed your phone to Do Not Disturb.

The others were watching you now. Bob was still sitting in the sun. Yelena tried ignoring the cameras with practiced disinterest.

Beside you, Bucky was catching his breath, hair tousled, jacket streaked with dust.

“You wanna come back to my place?” he asked, pointing to your phone. “Make the calls from there, if this is too much.”

You blinked. “Don’t you live in D.C. now? Whole Capitol Hill, suit-and-tie Bucky?”

He shrugged, glanced at a hovering drone cam, and flipped it off without changing expression. “Kept my old apartment in Brooklyn. Rent controlled.”

You smirked, though the change in his heartbeat did not go unnoticed. “You’re sentimental.”

“No,” he chuckled. “I’m cheap. But if it helps, the water pressure is still garbage and the radiator still sounds like a haunted typewriter. Just like last time you were there.”

Before you could answer, Alexei called out from behind you. “Can we all come? Team debrief?”

You turned, and shook your head. “Top secret. I’ll find you later.”

Ava lifted a hand lazily. “She’s a tracker. She will.”

She was right. If anyone tried to disappear, you’d have them in an hour.

As you turned away with Bucky at your side, your super-hearing picked up everything. Far behind you, John Walker, never one for subtlety, muttered to someone — probably Yelena, “Twenty bucks says they’re back together by tonight. I mean, do you see how they look at each other?”

You kept walking. Bucky hadn’t heard it — his senses weren’t as sharp as yours, even with the serum.

You debated pretending you hadn’t either.

—

You knew before he even unlocked the door that keeping this place wasn’t about rent control.

When it creaked as you walked, the first thing you could smell was remnants of yourself.

The radiator still coughed in the corner like it was dying. Everything smelled faintly of old wood and clean laundry, and something faintly him — steel and cedar and memory.

Your breath hitched when you saw the shelf to your left still had your copy of Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, the one Bucky swore he never borrowed.

Your old hoodie — the grey one with the thumb holes — was folded on the arm of the couch like you had just worn it yesterday.

The photos in the frames hadn’t changed. There was one of you and him, laughing in the sunset. One of Bucky, Sam, Steve, and T’challa with you and Shuri making faces while photobombing them. Then, a photo of you, him, Shuri, and T’challa— his copy of the one Ramonda had taken.

Oh.

The space was like a museum and a time capsule rolled into one.

You didn’t say anything at first.

You sat down at the kitchen table and pulled out your phone. A stack of voicemails and messages had piled up, still buzzing in the background. The world was catching up to what had just happened — the Void, Val’s PR machine spinning headlines while you were still scrubbing concrete dust out of your hair.

You answered M’Baku first, then Shuri, then Ross. But your eyes kept drifting to the photos, the jacket, the battered mug with the chipped rim that you used to have your coffee in, no matter how much it leaked.

Bucky stayed quiet.

He didn’t hover. Just leaned against the counter with a mug in his hand that had long since gone cold.

When you finally finished the last call, you let out a deep breath. Your fingers tightened around the edge of the table. Then, you looked at him. “Rent control, huh?” you raised an eyebrow.

He blinked, looking down to his feet.

“You’re full of shit,” you added, gentler this time.

And Bucky chuckled his first real laugh since your reunion. He dropped his head for a second, shaking it slowly. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess I am.”

He stepped a little closer, leaning one hand on the table across from you. His other hand hovered, like he wanted to reach out but didn’t want to break whatever fragile platform you were both standing on.

“I kept thinking I’d throw it all out,” he said. “That I’d come back one day and finally… take it all down. Pack the clothes. Box up the books and mail them to you. But I never did.”

You looked down at your hands. You could feel his eyes on you.

“I think,” he said, quieter now, “that part of me thought… if I kept it all exactly the same, maybe you’d come back.”

Your throat tightened.

He ran a hand through his hair, his voice rough around the edges. “I don’t know how to do this. I’m not… good at this. At any of it. But I don’t want to keep pretending I don’t want you in my life .”

Silence stretched for a long moment.

Finally, you said, “Shuri told me something the other day.”

Bucky straightened a little.

“She was trying to explain quantum entanglement to me. That even when particles are separated by galaxies, they still feel each other. React to each other. Like distance doesn’t matter. Not really.” You met his eyes. “That’s us, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Bucky gave you a sad smile, “It’s us.”

You looked around the room again.

“I’m not ready,” you said. “I don’t know how to go back to what we were. I don’t even know if we should.”

“I don’t want what we were,” he said, without hesitation. “I want better.”

You studied him. He looked different than the last time you saw him — older, maybe. Not physically. But his eyes were angry. Less anxious.

You nodded. “Slow,” you said. “We take it slow.”

He looked… relieved.

He didn’t step closer. He didn’t grab you or kiss you or make some grand statement. Instead, he reached out and gently rested two fingers against the back of your hand, just enough to feel you there.

“Okay,” he said.

And somehow, it was enough.

Not everything was fixed, but for the first time in a long time, you had him back in your life. —

You didn’t know what you expected when you landed in Wakanda. Maybe M’Baku would challenge you to one final sparring match and attempt to win the truth out of you with his bare hands. Maybe Shuri would yell. Maybe Okoye would look at you like a traitor.

But no one raised their voice, and that almost made it worse.

The throne room was still. M’Baku stood tall with his arms crossed. As you stepped forward, you tried to square your shoulders, trying to find the version of yourself that had once stood tall here— not as a visitor, not as a liability, but as someone who helped this nation rebuild from the blip, from the loss of their king, from the loss of their queen.

But your throat was dry. Your heartbeat thrummed in your chest. “I came to explain,” you said, voice thinner than you’d hoped.

“You do not need to,” M’Baku replied, his voice grave but not unkind.

You stopped, stunned by how final he sounded.

He descended the steps from the throne, each footfall echoing through the vibranium coated walls. “I regret to inform you that your contract with Wakanda is terminated,” he said. “Effective immediately.”

You opened your mouth to protest, but he lifted a hand before you could speak.

“You are now aligned with the New Avengers,” he said, reciting an uncomfortable truth. “You report to the CIA’s director. Your loyalties have shifted—by necessity, perhaps, but shifted nonetheless. Wakanda cannot afford blurred lines.”

Fuck.

“I didn’t ask for the public announcement,” you said as a last line of defence. “Valentina made that move without consulting anyone.”

“And yet the world knows,” M’Baku answered. “Perception, as you know, is reality. The eyes of the world are on you now. And those eyes inevitably turn toward Wakanda.”

You lowered your gaze, heart dropping in your chest. “I understand.”

“But…” he continued, “I want you to know that you were never just a contract to us.”

When he stepped closer, his stance shifted. He wasn’t Wakanda’s king now. He was M’Baku— your sparring partner, your most stubborn friend, the man who once cracked your rib in training and called it ‘bonding.’

“You were family,” he said quietly. “You annoyed me more than any outsider I’ve ever met, and I will miss that more than you can imagine.”

Before you could speak, he pulled you into his arms and… hugged you.

You held onto him—tighter than you meant to. You didn’t want to let go. Wakanda had been more than a mission or a job. It had been your home. It was the place that gave you purpose when the rest of the world had hunted you. And now, with a few words and a king’s goodbye, it was slipping through your fingers.

“You’ll be alright, sister,” he reassured, voice. “You always land on your feet.” He pulled back just enough to smirk. “Like a very ugly cat with no grace.”

You laughed. Or maybe you cried. You weren’t sure.

—

Outside the throne room, Shuri was waiting.

She stood like she’d been pacing with her eyes trained on the floor— but when you appeared, her head snapped up. Okoye was beside her, and even her usual perfect posture had softened.

“I’m sorry,” Shuri said the moment your eyes met, brittle at the edges. “For giving Bucky your location.”

You let out a deep breath and a sad smile ghosted across your face. “Don’t be.”

“He said there was a threat,” she shook her head, stepping closer. “And he wasn’t wrong. But I didn’t know it would end…. like this. I thought I was helping.” Her voice broke slightly. “I thought I was giving you back something you’d lost.”

You shook your head. “You weren’t wrong.”

She didn’t look at all startled by that— as if she knew whatever hole had been carved into you by the loss of Wakanda had immediately been filled by Bucky coming back into your life, by the rest of the team that you found.

“Every time I hit a wall,” you said, just above a whisper. “I throw myself into work and pretend I don’t need anyone.” Your voice cracked open without permission like a dam that had held too long.

“But maybe…” You glanced down, then up at her. “Maybe it’s time I stop pushing away the people who love me. Maybe it’s time I meet them halfway and let them care for me.” You took her hand, “like you do.”

Shuri stared at you like sunlight through storm clouds— equal parts pride and heartbreak.

“Bucky cares,” she said. “Do not let each other slip away this time.”

You swallowed hard.

Okoye, always watching, always knowing, stepped forward.

“He is better,” she said, almost approvingly. “He has learned how to breathe without you. Perhaps it is precisely the reason you need him again. And he might just remind you that life is not all about survival and contracts— it is meant to be lived.”

You tried to blink away the sudden sting in your eyes. “Okoye…” you managed.

She raised a finger in warning. “Do not make me cry, girl.”

That startled a snorting laugh from Shuri.

You smiled. Just a little.

—

Two days later, Bucky helped you move into Avengers Tower.

He smiled sadly when he spotted your duffel bag on the curb beside a single, battered box.

“That’s it?” he asked, easily lifting the box labeled in your unmistakable handwriting: SENTIMENTAL SHIT.

You raised an eyebrow. “You expected me to have more emotional baggage?”

He let out a small laugh, missing your sense of humour. “I meant literal baggage. But…” he glanced down at the label, the corner of his mouth twitching, “…noted.”

You fell into step beside him, entering the still-mostly-empty tower. The echo of your footsteps followed you down halls that smelled like fresh paint and industrial cleaner. A few rooms were already occupied—Bob’s, Ava’s, and an unnamed office space—but yours was at the far end of the residential floor: a bit secluded, sunlit, and overlooking New York in a way that felt almost too generous.

You dropped your duffel onto the bed with a sigh. He set the box on the desk and stood back, studying in the space like he was mentally filing it away for future reference.

“You alright?” he asked softly.

You shrugged, arms crossing out of reflex. “I guess. Feels… weird.”

“What does?”

“Living out of Wakanda.” You glanced at him. “It’s even weirder being around you like this.”

“Like what?”

“Friends,” you said, with a smile that didn’t quite reach your eyes. “That’s what we are now, right?”

“I guess so.” He gave a gentle laugh, scratching the back of his head. “Friends who know exactly how the other one likes their coffee.”

You smiled for real then. “Friends who have seen each other naked. And cry. And leave.”

His voice was quieter now. “And come back.”

—

Two days later, the tower was silent after midnight.

It didn’t feel like a base yet—more like a draft of a memory— place still deciding what it wanted to be. The lights in the common room were dimmed to an amber gold. Somewhere down the hall, a ventilation unit clicked and sighed like an old house learning how to breathe again.

You couldn’t sleep.

You’d unpacked your bag. Stacked your few books with spines you knew by heart. Hung your jacket on the back of the door and lined up your toiletries with mathematical precision, like symmetry might trick your brain into believing this was home.

But your body didn't buy it yet, So you wandered barefoot down the hallway in an oversized sweatshirt—the same one Bucky had given you all those years ago.

You found him in the common room, curled into one corner of the couch, damp hair curling at the ends from a recent shower and mug of tea cradled between his metal fingers,

He looked up when he saw you. “You too, huh?”

“Sleep is a myth,” you said, plopped onto the cushion beside him.

He handed you the mug. You didn’t hesitate before sipping— he used to share drinks with you all the time. The tea was warm, chamomile and honey, just the way you used to make it for him when he couldn’t sleep.

You let the heat sink into your palms for a few seconds longer than necessary before handing it back.

“This place is too clean,” you said at last.

Bucky nodded. “Won’t be for long. Alexei just moved in. Give it two days before something explodes.”

You snorted. “I give it twelve hours.”

That made him laugh, as he leaned his head back against the couch cushion and looked up, like he could see constellations through the ceiling. You looked at him and, for a second, you imagined you were both back in his hut again, painting stars on the ceiling with glow-in-the-dark stickers and half a bottle of wine.

“Remember that night by the river?” you asked.

His eyes flicked to yours. “The one after T’challa’s birthday dinner?”

You smiled. “Yeah. We dragged the blankets out and tried to sleep under the open sky. You brought out your old army jacket. I stole your pillow.”

He didn’t say anything for a second. Slowly, he reached out, brushing his fingertips across yours.

—

The next few months passed easily.

You and Bucky slipped back into some old habits. Mornings were for training. Afternoons often ended in sparring sessions and conversation. And in the hours in between, you found each other again and again— sometimes late night tea. Sometimes, you'd leave a book by your door. Sometimes, he’d put in your favourite movie after a stressful day. He never made a big deal out of it, and neither did you. It wasn’t discussed. It simply was.

Of course, the team noticed.

Ava, subtle as a brick, started running a betting pool in the group chat on who would initiate getting back together. She never said who the odds favored, but winked at you every time you entered a room with Bucky in tow.

John grumbled about “weird tension” on mission briefings, mostly because he lost his first bet. Even Bob— still learning how to survive in a household of ex-spies, assassins, and super-soldiers—picked up on it. One morning over coffee, he glanced at you, then at Bucky, then said, completely unprompted, “You breathe easier when he’s around.”

You blinked at him, stunned. He just sipped his coffee and went back to his crossword.

But the real kicker came at breakfast, a few weeks later.

You were barely awake, slouched at the long kitchen island in the tower. Bucky sat beside you, reading news with a tablet in hand.

Yelena walked in, grabbed a banana, and without hesitation said, “So. When are you two getting back together?”

You nearly choked on your tea. Bucky froze mid-scroll. You coughed for a solid ten seconds before managing, hoarsely, “I—what?”

Yelena leaned on the counter. “Please. The movie nights? The sparring together all the time? You are basically together.”

Bucky cleared his throat. “We’re… talking. Taking it slow.”

Yelena squinted at him like he was the world’s worst liar. “Slow like friends slow, or slow like ‘you slept in her room after the Prague mission and thought no one noticed’ slow?”

You could feel the heat rising to your cheeks. Bucky stared at the ceiling like he was considering defenestration.

“I—I didn’t—we didn’t—” you stammered.

“She had a nightmare,” Bucky said valiantly. “I stayed in her armchair.”

Yelena raised her eyebrows. “How noble. You’ll be married by June.”

And with that, she bit into her banana and walked out as if she hadn’t just casually set your entire life on fire before 8 a.m.

You stared at the doorway for a long time before turning to Bucky. “We are never living that down.”

He smiled, just a little. “She’s not wrong, though.”

You tilted your head. “About what?”

He shrugged. “About the slow part not really being all that slow anymore.”

That shut you up, but not in a bad way.

—

The day it had finally happened, though, you’d been in the tower’s comms room, backlit by flickering screens, teeth clenched as you watched the mission feed buffer and skip. Bucky and John were on the field on recon and containment. It should be routine. No reason to worry.

You told yourself it was fine. You knew Bucky could handle himself. You’d said it a hundred times.

But then the feed glitched again. Then John mentioned gunfire and Bucky’s comms went dark.

The jet returned fifteen minutes later, skidding onto the landing pad. You were already waiting there when they brought him in.

Bucky.

His combat suit was torn, blood soaking through the thigh, gashes deep in his side. His vibranium arm was scorched, still hissing faintly from an energy blast. And yet… he was awake. Breathing. He gave you a small smile, somehow, even when the poor nurse wheeled him into the med bay. You ran to follow

He could’ve died. And you weren’t there.

That’s when you saw John.

“You were supposed to watch his six!” you shouted at him before you could even register how much you meant them. “Do you even know what a field partner does, or do you just wing it and hope the super soldiers heal fast enough?”

John blinked, surprised. “Jesus, I didn’t—”

“Don’t!” you snapped. “You were with him! He had your back—where the hell were you?”

“He told me to take the high ground!” John barked, his voice rising. “I didn’t know they had long-range fire!”

“It’s literally your job to know!” Your skin felt like they were on fire now. “Do you even remember the brief? You think because he’s got the Hydra serum he can take every shot for you?”

“Hey.”You heard Bucky say from the bed behind you. “Relax.”

Your head snapped toward him. “Relax?”

He half-winced as a doctor pulled a bullet fragment from his thigh. His breathing was shallow, but the corner of his mouth tugged upward in dry amusement

“Yeah. Relax. You’re doing that thing.”

You narrowed your eyes. “What thing?”

“You sound like me back in the day,” he managed to say, letting his head fall back on the pillow. “God. The role reversal’s kinda scary.”

And just like that, you shut up.

He did used to do this. When you were still together. When it was you on the field and him pacing the halls of the palace like a caged wolf. Every bruise you got, he catalogued. Every mission report, he read twice. When you brushed off injuries, he’d pull you aside and look at you like you'd died and no one told him.

And now here you were, standing over him, boiling over like your heart had been under for years.

“It’s different,” you whispered under your breath. “You were obsessed.”

Bucky opened his eyes again, squinting slightly. “What?”

You could hear the beeping of monitors overwhelming you. You could taste the metallic tang of blood and antiseptic. “You were obsessed,” you said, a bit louder, “I’m freaking out over bullets. You used to freak out over a scratch.”

He gave a nod, not flinching. “Yeah. I know.” He shrugged. “Wasn’t healthy. But I cared.” But then his tone shifted. “And you don’t get to talk to John like that.”

You took a step back, caught off-guard. “Are you serious?”

“He’s not perfect,” he said, matter-of-fact.

“Wow,” John interjected under his breath, “Thanks.”

Bucky paid him no mind “But he tried. This wasn’t on him.”

You pressed your fingers into your temple, trying to breathe. “I know, I just—I didn’t know what else to do, Buck.”

You looked at him then, and all the fire in your chest dimmed into ash. He looked… tired. Older. Stronger, too. But there was something in his eyes—some flicker of the man you left behind.

Bucky glanced toward John. “Give us the room when they’re done, yeah?”

John, for once, didn’t argue. He just nodded and backed out, probably relieved.

The door shut with a hiss, and you waited until the doctors had finished stitching him up and giving him the okay to rest before you walked back to his side, a little more tired, a little more human.

You sat on the edge of the bed. Your hand found his immediately, as if it was instinct. His skin was warm and he smelled like bullets and iron, the way it always got when he’d been running on too much adrenaline and too little self-preservation.

“Is this okay?” you asked, voice barely more than a whisper.

He nodded before reaching for you with both hands in that familiar, greedy way he always used to, like he couldn't stand another second without you touching. “C’mere,” he said.

So you climbed carefully onto the too-small mattress beside him, your body curving into his like muscle memory. You avoided the bruised side, settling in close with your head tucked beneath his chin, just where it used to belong. His wrapped his arm around you.

Your palm rested over his chest, right above his heart. It beat steady, and you wondered if it ever really stopped beating for you.

He breathed in your hair. "You always smell like home," he whispered, so quiet you almost missed it.

You watched the little cuts and bruises heal on their own, bit by bit. His lashes fluttered like he was teetering on the edge of sleep — then opened again, just to make sure you were still there.

You stayed tucked beneath his chin for a long while. Eventually, you spoke, your voice muffled into his chest. “I didn’t mean to scream at Walker,” you said with a small laugh. “Or be… so overbearing. Like you used to be.” You peeked up at him with a sideways smile. “Funny, right?”

Bucky chuckled. “I deserved that,” he smiled, rubbing slow circles against your back with his human thumb

You swallowed, then pulled away just enough to look at him properly.

“I just…” You hesitated, choosing your words carefully, like they mattered. Because they did. “For the first time in a long time, work isn’t the most important thing to me.” You reached up and gently brushed your fingers along the edge of the bruise on his cheeks. “You are.”

“I know,” he said, voice rough. “And I… I just wanted you to know I never stop caring — just didn’t know how to care right.”

You both laughed a little at that — sad and sweet, like the punchline to a very old joke.

“Remember that time you hacked into a satellite feed because I missed one check-in?” you teased, smirking.

Bucky groaned, his cheeks turning pink. “Okay, first of all, it was a tactical recon satellite, I didn’t hack it, I borrowed a login.”

“Oh, that makes it better,” you said, eyes sparkling. “You bribed M’Baku with a reservation at a two Michelin Star vegan restaurant just because I didn’t text ‘safe’ fast enough.”

“I was worried,” he shook his head, then, quieter, “You didn’t answer for four hours.”

“I know,” Your brows relaxed again. “I know you were trying to love me. I just… couldn’t let myself be loved like that back then.”

Bucky reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind your ear. “Are you now?”

You smiled, eyes filling up with a puddle of tears.“Well,” you said, voice a little wobbly, “Only if we meet halfway.”

He smiled, and god, it was like the sun rose just for you.

“Okay,” he agreed, leaning in until you could taste the air he breathed.

Just before your lips touched, he stopped. “You sure?” he asked, looking down at your lips.

Your heart was pounding so hard you were sure he could feel it through your chest.

You nodded. “I’m sure.”

He didn’t move yet.

“You sure you’re sure?” he whispered, voice lower now. His fingers had tightened just slightly at your waist, anchoring you there,but he just needed to give you one last chance to run — but you didn’t take it.

“Bucky…” you whispered, and the way you said his name answered everything for him.

“Okay,” he said, more a sigh than a word. “Okay.”

Then he kissed you.

It was heat and hunger that only two people who had been starved of each other, who’d tasted what it was like to be apart and never wanted to go back could feel. His mouth claimed yours like he needed to make sure you were his and you kissed him back just as fiercely, just as desperate to prove that you were.

You curled your fingers into the collar of his tac vest, pulling him closer, and he groaned against your lips. His metal hand slid up your back, and his other hand cupped your cheek and pulled you closer

And he kept saying it between kisses, like a litany, “You’re sure?”

You answered with another kiss. Deeper now, borderline bruising.

“You’re sure?” he asked again

“I’m sure.” Your lips parted on a gasp, and you nodded, forehead pressed to his. “I’m so sure, Buck, I— I never stopped—”

His mouth was on yours again before you could finish, and it didn’t matter. His thumb traced your cheek like he was re-learning you all over again, when he realized he still remembered all the ways you liked to be kissed. When you finally pulled back, breathless, he looked at you like you’ve been to hell and back for him.

“God, I missed this,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “I missed you so bad, doll.”

You smiled, blinking back the tears that weren’t sad at all. “I missed you worse.”

He grinned, all wrecked and completely in love.

You kissed again, gentler this time, remembering how good it felt to be known by each other again.

Which was exactly when the door slid open with a cheerful whoosh.

“—Bucky! I was gonna check on—oh,” came Alexei’s voice, suddenly flat as pancake batter left too long on the griddle.

You froze, lips still an inch from Bucky’s. Your heart leapt straight into your throat, and you turned slowly toward the door, horror across both your faces.

Alexei stood there, blinking once, before giving the slowest nod known to man. His hands were crossed on his chest, looking too smug for his own good.

“Well,” he said, dragging his voice out. “Well. I’m going to tell team it finally happened!”

Bucky let out the deepest, most resigned sigh imaginable and let his head thunk back against the pillow. “Can you please wait until I’m discharged?”

“Nonsense!” Alexei said brightly, already halfway down the hallway. “Ava owes me twenty American dollars. And John will make that face. You know the one.”

You groaned and buried your face in Bucky’s chest, playfully mortified.

“Back then,” he chuckled, lips brushing your hair, “I would've fought him for interrupting.”

You peeked up at him, “And now?”

He smiled. “Now I’m just glad you’re here.”

-end.

#bucky #yes #I just watched thunderbolts

8K notes · View notes

mintfullyyours · 2 months ago

Text

caging a wolfdog

Simon Riley x Babysitter!Reader

18+ | groping. dubcon. infidelity. blue-collar Simon in a loveless marriage finds another way to entertain himself when his wife is too busy fucking her Pilates instructor to come home. victim blaming. future wife grooming. breeding. implied contraceptive tampering. spitting/spit kink. gross/mean Simon.

It's something to mend the gap between paying for college tuition, and surviving on more than air and the stale crackers they give out at the food bank. A job that takes up less space in your calendar than studying for finals or finishing up last-minute projects due before the end of the term.

And, in all honesty, the kid makes it easy.

Tommy doesn't fuss like most his age. He sits on the couch with his iPad perched on his knees, watching grown men scream in front of a camera for hours. Sometimes he stirs, asks for snacks. Something to drink. But mostly, he just scrolls YouTube Shorts, and puffs out peals of childish laughter at whatever he finds amusing.

It's the easiest job you'd ever had, really. He has no complaints about eating chicken nuggets and Kraft dinner on the nights when you stay later and have to cook something for him. Even when you try to make it healthier by chopping up celery with homemade ranch on the side, it barely makes him whine.

He eats. Scrolls. Pouts about his bath. Negotiates bedtime for ten more minutes with his iPad. And then he's sleeping by ten, hugging the device tight to his chest as a man hollers about Minecraft beneath him.

And that's the extent of it.

An easy job. An easy kid.

The problem, really, is his father.

And more specifically, the way he can't seem to stop touching you.

You're not sure why it happens, just that it does. Becomes some strange staple in this arrangement where you never leave his house without having his hands on you at some point.

But maybe the writing was always on the walls because even as he was showing you Tommy's bedroom, he folds himself over you, spine pressed against his chest, and murmurs in your ear about bedtimes and baths and all the things a babysitter is meant to hear—

But not with the hard, firm outline of their employers cock against their ass.

You should have said something then. Put your foot down. Rained hellfire and retribution over this man and his gross, foul perversions.

Should have done a lot of things, probably. But in the end, the span of his hand over your belly, so wide it threatened to swallow you up, kept you quiet. Docile as he shifted his hips—wife down the hall, flatly informing him she has a class tonight and probably won't be home, so don't bother waiting up, Simon—and rubbed his cock against you, grunting in your ear about how pretty you are. Such a sweet girl, too.

So good for his baby boy.

Keeping quiet seems to spur him on. Spreading the thick, heavy length of his body against your spine isn't enough to quench whatever sticky, awful desire brims in his chest. Insatiable now that he's had a little taste, he gorges himself on what he can get away with.

What you let him get away with.

(if you didn't want this, pretty thing, you'd have said so, wouldn't you? big, strong girl like you. you can 'andle yourself. but you ain't because you want this—)

Broad hands cupping your breasts as he leans over your shoulder and pretends to instruct you on how Tommy likes his lunches. Little more, he rasps, calloused fingers slipping under the band of your bra, and pinching your stiffening peaks between a too-big thumb and forefinger. The rough, dry graze of his scarred skin was some awful amalgamation of stinging, abrasive pain and pleasure. Likes his sandwiches cut up jus' like tha'—

Grabs a handful of your asscheek on the way out the door, pinching the flesh so hard, it aches when you sit down. Rutting into you like a beast when he comes home, and Tommy's already in bed. C'mon, he grunts, hefting you up from the couch. Gotta go an' check on 'im. But it's just an excuse to bend you over banister as you peer into Tommy's room, groaning as he shoves his clothed cock against the cleft of your ass.

Husks in your ear about how good you are for him. He and Tommy both. Such a good girl, ain't you?

It's strange. All of it. And maybe that's why you let it carry on. Continue even though you know he's married, and has a child. And—

He's odd. Intense. Weird.

Looms in the corners of the room sometimes, content to just watch you. Eyes dark, endlessly black. Fixed on every move you make. A wolf wearing a man's skin. A monster in faded blue jeans and black steel-toed boots.

Uncanny.

Scary.

Massive in a way that stole your breath the moment you laid eyes on him. A full body bloom of dread at the scale, the size, of him. Like staring at the face of a mountain, mind reeling over the incomprehensible height of it. Vertiginous. Dizzying.

Thinking about him always makes you feel a little bit sick. Lying on your back and staring up at the sky. Cosmic quasiness. Unease that trickles down from your ancestors and fills your pores with the bitter, acrid tang of fear.

But between the noxious, rolling worry—the unmistakable feeling of a starving man staring at you like you're nothing but a scrap of tender, fresh meat—is a heavy, sick sort of heat congealing in your belly.

It was easier, at first, to lie and say you stayed for the money. Broke college student with a sinkhole of debts already growing on the periphery, biding its time before it sucks you into an unfathomable, inescapable chasm. Bled dry. Used up. It'll crush you.

But this—

Simon works around your schedule. He's gone for most of the day—pulls twelve-hour shifts Monday to Saturday at the oilfield—and is fairly lenient when you have a test, sending Tommy to his uncle's instead. Staying the night is an unorthodox arrangement, you're sure, but it works itself out in the end. Being here to take Tommy to school before heading to your morning classes (the rest all available online), and then free to pick him up after and wait for Simon to come home eases the stress of a long commute to your dorm and then here, to the dorm and then back again. A small respite, sure.

And if he pushed, insistent, that you sleepover, well—

You can hide it behind a wall. Pretend he's just looking out for his son even if you have to lock the door in the spare bedroom at night, and wake up sometime to the sound of the knob rattling.

He lets you use his spare truck whenever you need it. There's always a pot of coffee waiting for you in the morning. He keeps a tidy house and a strict schedule, but money is always in your bank account or tucked into an envelope on the counter a day ahead of when you agreed he'd pay you.

But living on top of each other like this is almost unbearable.

You see more of Simon than you do your own family. Friends. Even his wife. A woman made of contradictions, it seems. Dutiful mother, but only when it matters—parent teacher conferences booked in advance, the darling starlet of his birthday party that passed—and you try to keep out of her way. Shame, maybe.

Do you know what Simon does to me when you're in the next room? Do you know what he says when you're bent into downward dog as your Pilates instructor fucks you on the matt?

Or just the knowledge that both of you, in your own way, are adulterers.

But having something in common with the woman who is more of a guest in her own home, her child's life, than you are is a sickening thought. So you squash it. Ignore it.

All of it—

His hands on you, rough and proprietary. The foul, dirty things he whispers in your ear—Tommy's been askin' for a baby brother, 'bout time we gave 'im one, don't you think? Spread your pretty pussy around my cock and keep ya nice an' plugged until it fuckin' takes—when no one is around. How these incidents keep getting progressively closer to his bedroom door, his marital bed, and one day, you think he might drag you in there and not let you out again until those promises he forced from your lips are fulfilled.

You bite your tongue. Taste blood between your teeth hours after he leaves for work, and curl into the couch as the minutes tick by until Simon's supposed to come home. Trying to distract yourself as much as you can, but there's no escape from it. From the way there was something different about him this morning. Something heady. He didn't touch you, but just quietly observed you with those strange, unfathomable eyes of his. Sinkholes wanting to swallow you down.

Hungry.

And when you asked him if he wanted breakfast, he'd just said, oh, I'll eat, birdie. You can bet on that, and then left out the door without another word.

It takes you until noon to unravel the knots in his expression, and what you find makes your heart jump like a trapped rabbit in a snare.

Possessiveness. Want. Hunger.

But most damning of all—

Anticipation.

In the room over, Tommy giggles, high and shrill, at a video. The noise jars you back into reality. A car drives down the lonely street. The timer on the oven dings. Tommy gurgles again, the sound pasted over a loud, pitchy shout that rankles down your spine. Slowly, achingly, you unfurl your body from the tense crouch you collapsed into, head thick. Underwater. In a fog. Thoughts dripping down the sides of your skull in a slow, syrupy crawl.

Your eyes dart to the clock. Three hours.

oh, I'll eat, birdie.

"Come on, Tommy," you warble out, gingerly moving towards the kitchen. Three hours. There's a buzzing inside your head that grows louder, more restless with every step. "The pizzas done."

On the fridge, a neon pink post-it note mocks you. PILATES TONIGHT AND DRINKS WITH THE GIRLS!!!! DON'T WAIT UP!!

Three hours.

You lick the blood off your teeth.

oh, I'll eat, birdie—

He doesn't bother cleaning up before he goes home.

Caked in grime, sweat, dust from the fields, crudeoil glued under his nails—a walking biohazard of filth, but he lumbers into his truck the moment he's finished, cock already thickening, straining against the harsh fabric of his jeans. Sticky on his thigh where it lays, twitching at the thought of his little birdie sucking his dirty fingers clean.

And you'll do it. He knows you will.

You've been so good for him, haven't you? Sweet little thing.

He scrapes the top of his tongue against his teeth, pulling up the taste of stale, bitter coffee. It's acrid, sour in his mouth. Swallowing around it, he grips the wheel tightly and sifts through the multitude of things he wants to do to you as he navigates the familiar path home. Muscle memory, but there's an emptiness in his belly. An itch under his skin. If fizzles, cracks; want and desire thick in his throat.

He's been thinking about this all day. You—laid out on his bed, fingers gripping the sheets tight as he folds you in half, kneecaps to your ears. Feet kicking out behind the heft of his shoulder. Bearing all his weight down on you. Crushing you.

Pumping you so full of his cock, his cum, that you whine afterwards—too empty, Mr Riley—and he has to stuff you full again just to shut you up.

Whiny little thing, he'll coo, nasty and mean as he fucks you again and again and again—

Another scrape. Tongue against teeth pulling over tastebuds. Sourness in the back of his throat. So bitter, so nauseating, he can't wait to make you swallow it down and beg for more as you try not to dry heave all over his dirty boots and onto the clean floor.

More, please, more even as you gag.

He's too hyperaware for the drive to pass in a blur—it's all startling present, each second ticking down in technicolour—but when he finally slows to crawl in front of his house, he has everything he wants to do to you laid out in a neat, concise list. Left you a defiled mess in his head, leaking cum and begging for more.

Anticipation is a maw in his gut that growls and snaps its jaws, too eager to sink inside the pretty thing that's been playing House in his mind. In his home.

He left it unfed for too long.

And now, it's time to eat.

You're not in the living room when he enters.

It's silent. The idling television paints the room in a pale, neon pink.

The clink of his keys, the thud of his boots, are the only sounds popcorning through the dim, quiet room. He casts his gaze towards the stairs to the left, sees light spilling out from Tommy's room down the hall. The nightlight burning away.

He shifts on the balls of his feet, hums something under his breath. A relic from a bygone era when the man Tommy was named after might have pulled him aside and said man, this isn't you.

Simon keeps his boots on as he trudges through the still, winter night of the house, eyes shifting past each corner, every crevasse. More muscle memory he can't shake. All filed away. Catalogued. Meticulously scoured as he shifts through the hall, pausing only to crack Tommy's door open and steal a glance of his son. Knows he won't be able to sleep without it.

He finds him tucked safe and sound in his bed. iPad on the floor connected to the charger. The screen is frozen with the image of some brightly coloured game that'll hold his interest for another day before it becomes yet another thing Simon packs away. More memories on shelves. Something to feel scraped out, hollowed, when he grows another inch and Simon starts to see more of Tommy in him than he can stomach.

The air stings his nostrils when he breathes in. The burn gives him time to shift around the potent ache of fatherly affection he never thought he'd feel back into the guarded lockbox he keeps it in whenever Tommy isn't in view. With it tucked back in, safe and sound, he lets the thrill of the pursuit fill him again.

Another hum. He peels away from the door.

"Hidin' on me, birdie?"

He knows you're here. Your boots are still drying by the front door. The air still clogged with your scent. He follows it like a bloodhound until he reaches his bedroom door where he finds you on the bed. Waiting. Uncertainty clinging to you like a second skin he can't wait to peel off, run his fingers through the bloody mess until you're raw and aching; shiny new toy stripped bare just for him.

Your mouth pops open. The inside a pretty ring of pink. He thinks about it, about sinking inside that soft little hole, making you gag around the thick of him as he feeds you his cock.

Clean it up f'me, birdie

But it's clear from the way you flit nervously on the comforter that he'll have to work you up to that.

Slow and steady. It's not his usual approach—he's in the habit of taking what he wants. Still. He slows. Glacial. Notches his shoulder against the doorframe, staring. Waiting. Waiting—

And finally:

A shift. You tense. "Mr Riley—"

"Take your clothes off."

Your throat shifts when you swallow. "Mr—"

If you didn't want it, he reasons, you wouldn't be in his bed. Waiting for him.

"Now, birdie."

There's that pause he expects. The hesitation as you stare, searchingly (pleadingly), at him, trying to take a measurement of just how serious he is about this. But he knows he gives nothing away. Just stares with streaks of dirt on his brow, washed down by thick trickles of sweat. Eyes lazy, lidded. Mouth flat. Even.

You demure after a moment. Hands falling shakily to the hem of your sweater, curling beneath the fabric. Gaze downcast, staring wide-eyed at the curve of your jean-clad knees. Bemused, maybe, that it got this far. That you let it get this far.

He doesn't give you time to think about it. Cocks his head to the side, puffs out an impatient breath. "Hurry up. Ain't got much time before my wife comes back."

It's a low blow. He feels it skim his knuckles, a sucker-punch.

You suck in a sharp breath. He wonders if you'll make things difficult now. Fight back. This isn't right. What you're doing to me isn't right. We should stop, Mr Riley—

Instead, you peel the sweater off.

It's artless. Clumsy. Each movement wracked with nerves, uncertainty. There's no coyness to the action. It's not even sexy, or coquettish; nothing about it is done to entice, to seduce. This is an action completed twice a day, every day. Routine. It's mundane, perfunctory.

And yet—

"Fuckin' hell, birdie—"

Something about the latent unwillingness of it all chokes the air from his lungs.

Cock thick in his trousers, throbbing like a wound, he steps into the bedroom, making his way towards you in nothing short of a prowl. It's been building up since you first appeared at his doorstep, eyes wide and bright and scooped Tommy up into your arms until he squealed with laughter.

"I got him," you chirped when he reached out reflexively, dancing artlessly out of the way of his snatching claws. "Don't worry. He's fine with me."

This is your fault, of course. For looking the way that you do. For burrowing under his skin like a parasite. A festering itch. Being close to you always felt like a toothache. Dry socket. Something that made his head split.

"On the bed, birdie," he grunts, hands falling to his belt with a urgency he hasn't felt since he was a clumsy, knobby-kneed teenager. "An' spread your legs f'me."

You give a startled gasp that makes his cock throb, and he groans low in his throat at the waxen look in your eye, the slight quiver to your lip. You look queasy—torn between disgust and fear, eyes slipping to the scarred hands that yank hard on his zipper, cup the bulge that splits through the spread seam, dirty fingers gripping himself tight—and he has to roll his head back to keep from snapping at you to roll over.

A noise does spill out—an impatient rumble gnashing between jagged teeth—when you sit there, bared from the waist up, and watch him with wide eyes. Making no move to show him that pretty pussy he cupped in his palm before. That soft, wet heat in his hand that felt too delicate, too sweet, to be touched with his dirty fingers. Something that rankled down his spine, buzzed in the back of his head when he pulled them free—stained, nails blackened with dirt, crude oil, and glistening in the low light of the kitchen.

He wants it again—on his cock this time. Wants to see that soft pussy get him all wet as he ruins it. As he peels back, sitting on his haunches, and takes in the awful mess he left you in. Poor cunt swollen and abused from from being forced to take the full, fat length of him as he bullies it inside over and over again; puffy lips all sticky with his cum. Sore and stretched and used. Raw after such a vicious pounding—

"Pants off, birdie," he bites out, yanking his jeans down beneath his aching balls. "Ain't gonna like what 'appens next if I 'ave to ask again—"

You give a startled gasp at the rough, callous growl hewing his words, and he wonders if anyone has ever spoken to you like this before. So demanding. With an edge of cruelty slithering out. Demeaning—

No. No one but him, he decides, stroking his cock as he watches you clumsily kick out of your pants, demurring in a faux show of bashfulness as your fingers skim the hem of your panties. The picture of coy shyness as you drop your chin to hide the wobble in your lower lip, the glistening wetness in your eyes as you grapple with indecision. Child's play of modesty.

A farce.

Just the mangled growl of your name is all it takes for those trembling fingers to inch into the hem of your panties, tugging them clumsily down your thighs.

He could come, he thinks, to just that. This. The bloom of fear etching across your brow, panties tangled against the knob of your knees. Unwilling to bend down and push them off the rest of the way. Scared to, maybe.

It buzzes in the back of his head. The idea of paralysing you with nothing more than a sharp bark and crook of his finger; your fear as delectable as that little sliver of skin he can see peaking out at him.

"ain't go' all night," he cuts in with only a quarter of the ice he uses on the field, and feels a deep thrum of satisfaction purr through his chest when you squeak, flinching at his rough, brassy tone.

Your panties fall to the floor in a rumpled pile between your feet, toes curling into the carpet as you try to close your knees as tightly together as you can get them to hide yourself from his heavy-lidded gaze. A last play at modesty. Gaze inward, nervous. A skittish little rabbit with nowhere else to run.

The way you stand before him on shaking knees, trembling like a leaf, makes him want to sink his teeth into you and shake. Little virginal offering to a rapacious god. A feast all for himself. He wants to chew you up. Eat you alive.

But he opts, instead, to bite his tongue until he tastes blood, and bark at you to get on the bed as it oozes between his teeth. Feels something animal split open inside his chest when your eyes widen as he steps into the room, a slow pursuit, a prowl, and has to bite down on the urge to give chase when you flinch, backing away from him quickly. Naked and scared. Running from him with a nervous tremor, but he doesn't miss the way you make, quietly, for his bed.

Eager. Obedient. Fleeing from him like a scared little animal unaware of just how enticing you are.

"Good girl, birdie."

It takes three fingers to open you up, but even that doesn't feel like it's enough.

Not when he knocks your knees apart, wedging his too big, too thick body between them (and then stares, and stares, and stares at your bare cunt, slick and sticky from his hand; flesh left swollen from the brutal spear of three thick, dirty fingers shoving inside—less of a stretch and more a carve: he carved you open) and spits.

You weren't expecting it. Nothing could have prepared you for the suddenness of this degrading act—the nasty, demeaning way he spits on your pussy, and huffs, amused, when the foamy mess slides down your swollen clit to pool between your folds. His finger chases it, rubbing it into your skin, pushing it into your hole.

Ain't got lube, he says, words bordering on a strange equinox of bluntly nonchalant and utterly caustic. Should be thankful m'doin' this much.

Thankful.

Your fingers curl into the sheets, and you try not look at his cock again when he grips himself tight in his big, dirty hand.

He's too big. Too fat. It makes you a little nauseous to stare at it, him—his cock. Marbled like a bruise. Thicker at the base. Veiny. The head is swollen. The tip is soaked in a thick, paste-like spill of precum, and for a horrible second, you almost thought he would make you lick it off.

(later fills the empty space in your head, and you try to mould yourself around the idea until you can decide whether or not the feeling that blooms in the pit of your belly is really dread.)

His hands were rough. Scarred. Dirty. Caked in oil. Stained. He didn't even bother to clean up before he lumbered onto the sheets behind you, one hand falling to grip his cock through his dusty pants, the other heavy on your neck, pushing you down into the mattress that reeks of fabric softener and stale cigarette smoke. Old sweat.

He doesn't need to tell you that she doesn't sleep in this bed anymore, but the idea of it prickles in the back of your head as he pushes you against the sheets and undoes his jeans with an ease that's more muscle memory than thought. Practiced.

You don't have the right to be jealous, but it hums through you like a sickness when you think of him doing this to her. His wife, you add, just to make it hurt. A knife in your gut that aches when you breathe—

"keep breathin', birdie," he grunts, spreading his fingers wide apart inside of you. "Don't get all tense on me now, or I'll have to start over."

You're not sure what that means, but you think you know better than to test his tenuous patience anymore than you have, and so you still. Go quiet. Breathe as he spears you deep, deeper still, and carves a space for that monstrous looking cock to fit—

where it belongs, he'd said, hunched over you like a nightmare in the daytime. All shadow and sinew. Stitched from broken daydreams of a brassy voice in your ear murmuring soon, birdie as his wife pretended to pack a lunch in the kitchen and he rubbed your nipple through your shirt before he slipped off to work.

But it's over too soon. His dirty, stained fingers slipping free from your aching, sopping cunt, leaving you empty—bereft—for a moment as he shuffles up the bed, splitting your knees wide apart to make room for the asburd width of him to fit.

An impossibility, really, but as Mr Riley—call me Simon—is wont to do, he makes it so. Wedges his wide thighs beneath yours until your hips tilt up in his lap, opening you wide. Obscenely so. And—

A grunt.

He stared. And stared. And stared.

Just looked at the split of your cunt sitting invitingly in his lap, wet and messy from his fingers, the cruel push of his palm against your clit. Swollen. Aching already—

"Want it, huh, birdie?"

The words I'm not so sure anymore hitch in the back of your throat, rearing up as he reaches between your legs to grip himself tight, too tight, until he turns a sickly shade of purple around the head that looks wider than anything you'd ever had inside of you before. But he doesn't give you a second to think before notching himself against you, giving a little push that forces the swollen head to sink inside of you—

Just the tip, really, and it already hurts. Stings like a papercut as he stretches your cunt around him, sharp and sudden.

"Too big—" you whimper, tossing your head to the side, breathing in the tang of fresh linen and musk as he grunts above you, pushing and pushing—

Something has to give.

It doesn't surprise you much when it ends up being you.

"Tha's it, birdie. Open up f'me."

It's not so much an opening as it is a siege. A conquest. And with him perched above you, heaving like bull and bathed in shadows that glue alone the mismatched asymmetry of his face, making him look less like a man and more like a figment, a statue—this Stygian being that swoops down and presses his palm against your throat, the other digging into the pillow beside your head, grunting—you feel ever bit of the battered receptacle he turns you into.

Forcing himself into you with a rough grunt, a brutal shove that—for one dizzying, awful moment—you swear you can feel inside your throat, taste on the back of your tongue. Choking on it. But then he's sinking in. Splitting you apart with brute force and that little bit of slick that you know must be stained pink—

"Good girl," he's grunting again, shoving another inch into a space much too small for him to fit. Savouring it. Relishing in the whimpers, the hiccups punched out of you with every flex of his hips. Eyes rolling a little, just a touch, when you feel something warm tickling your cheek and realise you're crying. Shush, birdie, he says, a quiet coo, but he looked delighted. Don't cry. Not yet—

another flex. two more inches. it feels like being speared open; flayed alive. it hurts. it hurts so much, you can't even begin to think through the pain, but he's huffing. groaning low in his throat as he adds:

"—'cause m'not even halfway in yet, pup."

The admission shocks you so much, you barely notice him spreading his knees beneath yours, squaring his stance, until it's too late.

"Wait—!"

If it weren't for his hand tightening around your throat before he speared the last several inches into you, you're sure the wail you might have let out would have woken Tommy. A good thing, you think, dazed, still soundlessly howling around the burning ache of him using his absurd weight to drive into you (balls deep, birdie, he grunts, and sounds so ridiculously proud, you nearly preen—), making you take every last inch. Selfishly carving more space for himself inside of you. Hollowing you out until his whole cock is drenched in your pink-stained slick—

"Makin' me all pretty, aren't you?" Huh, birdie? Nice and fuckin' pink.

A sob bubbles up beneath his palm, and he coos when he feels it, shushing you with a groan as he keeps an awful rhythm, flexing into you. Grinding deep. Carving and cutting and hollowing you out—

"Tha's it, pup," he grunts, eyes masting in leonine pleasure as he bucks into you without respite, taking his bliss from the burning stretch of your cunt. And stupidly, you think about preening. Smiling wide and big and lying to yourself about how bad you want this, him, even as the tears dribble down your chin.

Siphoned satisfaction, maybe. Or just the press of his fingers against that little thing inside of you that made you turn your cheek to his touches. Letting a married man shove his hands down your pants while you made breakfast for his kid and his wife called out to him from the next room about not waiting up for her too late.

Giving in.

That's what this feels like. A slow corrosion from the moment you knocked on his door and said you were here to help him with Tommy to now, buried under his bulk as he batters into your aching cunt, splitting you apart.

Sweat drips down his nape, pours off his face, and when it hits your skin, it feels like battery acid against your cheeks. But with his hand still lodged around your neck, there isn't much you can do except take it. Like his cock, his spit, his sweat. Let him ply you with all of it, every inch, until your body becomes accustomed to the ache.

"Fuckin' stranglin' me."

His cock hits something inside of you, and it isn't really pleasure that blooms in the pit of your belly, but something like a panacea. A wound that's soothed through touch.

Like a knife that hurts more coming out than it does stuffed inside.

But it' saws and it splits. Tears flesh. Rearranges your insides until you're wrapped tight around him, throbbing like bruise against the thick of his cock. A tight fuckin' fit, he says, and inches his fingers up to grab your cheeks. Squeezing until your mouth pops open, mewling at the deep, aching pain, and then he spits.

You don't need him to tell you what to do this time. You just close your mouth and swallow what he gives you, whimpering around the sudden ruck of his hips, a harsh jerk that slides his cockhead against the seal of your womb, dredging up a wave of pain that's soothed by the kiss of that fattened tip pressing against the sting once more. Soothed by touch. By the flood of endorphins.

Fitting, you suppose, since it feels a little bit like being eaten alive when he fucks you, grunting and snarling like a beast as he pounds into you, half-mad and starved, and you remember reading somewhere that people rarely experience any pain when they're bitten by a shark.

An oddly serene experience, out of body almost, as they're taken apart by razor-sharp teeth.

That's how you feel looking up at him, feeling the drip, drip, drip of his sweat splat on your cheeks. Warm, milky breath ghosting over your forehead. A barely there kiss when he bends down, growling into your hairline that he's gonna fill you up, pup; that Tommy's been begging for a little brother, 'asn't he? and ain't it time we gave 'im one?

You think no and don't. please don't, please, but your hands stayed curled into the duvet instead of reaching up to push him away. Knees dropping further apart as he bends down with a brassy grunt that you feel in your belly, between your hips, like molten lead. A pulsing flutter—sore muscles gripping tighter and tighter as he grunts again, and tells you to keep opening that pretty cunt up for him, birdie. Let him get even deeper.

The collar of his shirt dips low, unveiling a mass of moulted flesh suffused together in a pink ribbon array of crisscrossing scar tissue and burns. It's an odd time to notice that he hasn't bothered to undress, just shoved his jeans down his thighs and pulled his—monstrous, ugly—cock out, and forced it into you. But you do. And you feel it so acutely in your chest that even without his hand on your throat, you doubt you'd have been able to breathe. It just—

It says something, you think. Means something.

And maybe it hits you like a fist, too. A bludgeon to that little thing in the back of your head that keeps reminding you this isn't okay. That you're not supposed to be in this bed, with this man.

Marital vows, it says, all wrapped up in the scent of stale sweat and detergent. A whisper of Candy Kiss peppering the room when you arrive; a sweet sillage that tickles your nose whenever he leans down, cupping your breast in the palm of his hand. The flash of metal sitting snug on his thick ring finger. Cold and dry against your damp skin.

It crumbles under the sway of his big, thick body sawing away between your hips; turns to dust, dissolving into soot as the growls spilling out his chest tremble through your bones. The ring doesn't matter. It never did.

Not when he's decorating the space he hollowed out inside of you with these dizzying daydreams—weaving a damning tapestry with fingers bleeding from cuts made by the knife of his own artifice. Staining it red.

Pretty pink.

And eventually the ring warms between his hand and your heated skin until you can't tell the difference between metal and flesh.

(but in the smeared residuum of ash and rust, something stirs, asks if you ever really could at all—)

"Gonna make me a dad again, ain't you, pup?" Huh? He growls, rough and mean. Gonna have t'start callin' me daddy soon—

You're not sure when it started building, but the edge is suddenly there. Within reach. And he tells you in rasping groans that he feels it too. Gonna cum, biride, he says, and it sounds like a threat. A warning. It's a razor scraping against your nerves, pooling heat between your hips.

No, you think again, but your hips roll as much as they can with him bearing down above you, cradled between your slick, damp thighs—roughened up, chafed by the repeated scrape of denim. Eager for it. Hungry. Like you're starving.

And what did he say before? Oh, yeah—

Oh, I'll eat, birdie.

You feel that gnawing, gaping emptiness in your belly as he huffs, breath sticky and warm, glueing to your skin as he pants his desire over your flesh, inside your body. Pace stuttering on his next exhale, morphing into a choppy, clumsy grind—just the desperate, furious graze of his cockhead digging into that bruised, tender spot inside of you where pleasure and pain suture themselves together until one is almost indistinguishable from the other. Fear and desire warping around the edges until you're trembling from the urge to flee, but bearing your neck at the vicious spread of teeth gaping open above your caught jugular.

Simon presses his face against the side of yours, smearing sweat and spit over your heated, damp skin from where a cut in his upper lip leaves his teeth in a constant snarl, bared to the world in a vicious, brutal display of aggression, and the nudge of it against the softened, ripe apple of your cheek is what sends you over the edge before you're ready.

It's mean. A nasty, ugly climax that throbs more like a wound than a satisfying end; pulsing and spitting fire as you yowl into the bubble bulging along his ear, clawing at the duvet, and bringing your other hand up to twist into the wet fabric clinging to his broad back. Needing to hold on. To find purchase as he grunts into your skin with each brutal plunge of his hips, and then sinks his teeth into your pulse, drawing blood—

You're still clenching around him, throbbing like an infected wound, when he lifts his pinked up muzzle, bearing his crooked, bloodied teeth, and grunts with his release. Filling you with a burning, stinging heat. Painting the tapestry he hung on chiselled flesh. A home of his own making. The apex of your being is a crevasse for him to sink his desire inside until something grows.

Tommy wants a baby brother, he'd said, and as you knot your hand tighter around his sweaty shirt, you wonder if maybe you should have paid more attention to the pills you shoved into your mouth each morning, making sure they all looked exactly the same—

"Fuck, birdie," he snarls into your neck as he throbs inside of you, cock jerking until it lodges against the battered, bruised seal of your womb—soothing the ache, you think, giving a weak pulse, a little, desperate clench around him—grunting like this is all your fault.

And maybe it is. But he doesn't give you much of a choice when he ruts into you still in rolling, feverish humps that knock your teeth together each time you unhinge your jaw to tell him to stop.

(But you won't, of course—)

His hands are hot against your clammy skin, searing and rough as he pulls you back into his chest with a grunt, mumbling something about a cigarette as you pant into the sweat-slicked nook of his arm, trying to make sense of what happens next.

You should leave. And really—you're a little surprised he hadn't kicked you out already. Shoved you off of him, told you to pack your things. He'll call when he needs you next because with this burning desire of his sated, what else does he need you in bed for?

But he tightens his grip when you try to wiggle away from him with a salt-crusted, sleep-drenched noise of dissent.

He isn't done with you, he mumbles, pawing at the end table for the carton of cigarettes he left there this morning. Blue Zippo still tucked neatly inside.

It's something you'd noticed during the first week when you opened a drawer looking for Tommy's iPad charger and found his hidden stash—along with the rest. Little clues that piled up until the pieces fell, and you realised this was a strange, habitual thing of his where he needs to leave things lying around the house—a carton of cigarettes with a lighter; a duffle bag full of clothes for him and Tommy. Non-perishable food stuffed inside a rucksack. Cash. Knives. All within reach.

Most people live in their homes. Clothes in the drawers. Shoes on a rack or piled by the front food. Food in the cabinets. They carry their smokes with them or keep them in a convenient place for whenever they need them next. But Simon seems keen to uproot himself at a moment's notice. Bags within reach. Necessities all packed by the front door, ready to go. Each room has a satchel hidden somewhere. A carton of smokes. A lighter.

It means something, you're sure. Nestled between the layers of a restless, caged tiger circling its iron-barred domicile for the first chance at escape is a travesty written in spoiled ink. Chiselled into the bars, imprinted there like braille for you to run your fingers over until pockmarks make sense.

Like why Candy Kiss is left on the vanity, sitting atop a drawerful of untouched clothes. The smell of fresh linen. Pilates on a weekly basis. Don't wait up peppering the air; a soft echo cradled in the harsh snap of a door closing. Eyes barely blinking away from the flashing screen.

Or—why your clothes disappear each time you do the laundry. Lace panties and satin bras first—an almost banal perversion that barely made a gurn at. Then tights. Sweaters. Shirts. Jeans. All missing with a nonchalant shrug of a massive shoulder, and a stare that didn't much pin as it skewered. Flayed. A flat, even dunno, birdie. Maybe the ghost knicked it.

Tightly wound artifice you'll never make sense of beyond the bags and the cigarettes. The stares that make the hair on your neck stand on end—

"Fuckin' hell, pup," he grunts suddenly, pinching the cigarette between his thumb and forefinger as the other slides down your curved spine, grabbing a handful of your asscheek in his palm, giving a vicious, painful squeeze. "Can feel your little cunt leakin' all over my leg—"

He slips the filter between his teeth with an appreciative hum when you jerk, a mocking huff spilling out when you try to clamp your legs shut around the thick split of his hip wedged between them. You can feel it, too—the thick, sticky ooze of him leaking out of your sore cunt, smearing pink-tinged cum all over his jeans. He hadn't let you get up after rolling off of you—just barked at you to leave it. Keep it, birdie. Gotta take, don't it?

A barb you hadn't said anything to, opting to ignore that, like everything else he does. Did.

Will do because you can tell, even beneath all those hidden layers, that this isn't a one-time thing. No. This isn't just a man stuck in a bad marriage fucking the nanny because he can. It's deeper. Worse, somehow, than a gross older man with a fetish for younger women he can financially control. Another pervert slaking his lust on whatever artless little thing falls into his web.

No. No—

This is missing clothes stuffed inside bags kept around the house. Pills that leave a strange aftertaste on your tongue of something a shade too sweet—

You think about running. Slipping out of his hands, this bed that reeks of stale sweat and sex, putting on your clothes, and leaving this house. Burying yourself in debt again, schoolwork, and limping (with your tail between your aching thighs) back to your landlord. Never looking twice at an ad for a babysitter in your life.

—and maybe spend your whole life wondering why people mix wolves and dogs to create something that never truly feels at home in the patchwork skin it wears; pieces of ancestors it can't relate to;

But you don't.

(—you never do.)

You lie there and take it. Like the leers he aimed at you when you first showed up on his doorstep, reeking of financial desperation and swallowed down the litany of things he said to you under his breath with a wobbly grin and your eyes fixed on the tile, convincing yourself it would pass. That you were more than just a pretty face he couldn't wait to cover in his cum. A soft ass he wanted to sink his teeth into before getting his cock in there next. Tight little pussy he was so eager to break in. Pantin' like a bitch in heat, ain't you, pup? can hear you gaggin' for it a mile away—

Biting your lip so hard it bled. Blood between your teeth. Your hands curling into the coarse, starchy fabric of his work shirt when he leaned down, permanent snarl on his face from the manmade cleftlip, and reached down to grab a handful of it. Testin' the merchandise, he cooed, low and mean and ugly. Words wrapped up tight in barbed wire. Brassbound. Said nothing as he pinched your nipples through your shirt, or when he shoved his hand beneath the hem and groaned at how soft you were.

Dirty hands leaving stains all over your skin you couldn't see, but felt like a fresh, weeping tattoo. Pulsing with infection.

(Such a needy little thing he trusts with his son while his wife is gettin' railed by 'er Pilates instructor, huh? But that's fine, ain't it? Need another one, anyway. A better influence for Tommy. Someone who'll give him that little brother he's been buggin' for—)

And so, you slacken your jaw when he grunts, barking at you to open up. Say nothing when he drags his hand back up your body to grip your jaw tight in his palm, squeezing your cheeks until they pop open. Let him spit in your mouth, and swallow down the foul, stale tobacco taste of him on your tongue.

Nod, like an obedient little pup, when he says good, ain't it? and let him roll you onto your back again, wrenching your thighs apart so he can see for himself the mess he made. The one you let spill all over his jeans.

Good ones, too, he huffs, eyelids slicing over the jaded edge of obsidian into a derisive pantomime of a contented cat squinting to show affection. Half-mast in pleasure as he says he'll wear them again tomorrow an' let all the boys see what a mess you make of me—

His gaze drills into the wet, slick seam of your puffy, bruised cunt, grip tightening—vicious, possessive—until his blunt nails sink into your skin. Branding. Bruising. His fingers clench down until it almost feels like he'll break through muscle to touch bone, but just when it starts to really hurt, pushing past that strange equinoctial point where pleasure and pain wrap around each other on a razor's edge, he peels back with a grunt. Leans over you to spit in your mouth again, a wet, foamy glob that hits your bottom lip before it oozes into your mouth, tasting of stale smoke and bitter tobacco. A flavour that reeks of permanence, and smells of an incipient wolfpack—all animal musk and wildness brimming up against stale sweat, laundry detergent, cigarette smoke, and sex.

Cruel, almost, like the gurns etched into his face by the missing chunk of flesh on his upper lip. Snarled and deadly. Mocking in a certain light. Like a constant sneer. Derisive and dangerous.

But not nearly as terrifying when he lists forward, dropping down to catch your jaw in his hand, the other planting itself in musty pillow beside your head, caging you in, and says:

"—and now you're makin' me a daddy again, birdie."

There's a taste in the back of your throat that's much too sweet for the dirty, oil-stained fingers he slips between your slack lips, scratching over your tongue. It reminds you of a spoonful of sugar. Grape-flavoured medicine poured over the top. And you wonder how quickly the pills you have been taking would dissolve in water when you sprinkled the white granules down the drain.

Something else you won't mention even as this house he burrowed inside changes shape—clothes in drawers, bags in the closet; the lingering scent of Candy Kiss a spoiled, stale sillage hidden under the smell of newborn and warm milk. Crushed animal crackers and Nicorette. The sound of a gaping, newly formed maw yowling for attention clashing sharply against the exaggerated screams of a grown man howling about a video game on Tommy's iPad.

thanks for hiring me and don't worry, Mr Riley, I can manage him morphing into a new sound, a continual echo of welcome home, and she called again asking about custody, daddy.

Something that throbs like a fresh wound before knitting itself together again into a thin, pink line; skin all shiny and new. Pulsing with the echoes of everything you dipped your chin again, mumbling around the malformed words of please, and don't, and now,

don't stop, please don't stop

What else are you supposed to do, really, other than lettingnhim slake the remnants of his lust between your sore, slick-stained thighs until he grunts, coming inside of you again to the damning symphony of a creaking bed, heels against the floorboards, and the sizzle of a cigarette burning away in an ashtray.

"Wait—" swallowed down by a mangled mouth. A hooked, crooked nose slides along your sweaty cheek as he all but purrs in satisfaction.

All his, he says.

And you don't fight it even as the blood pools between your teeth because you knew that from the start.

#delish #ghost

4K notes · View notes