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yeyinde · 3 months

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

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

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

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

DEAD DOVE. SMUT. 18+

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Ghost never really understood was the box.

Shove it into a box.

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

“Up here."

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

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

The implication is stark. Heavy.

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

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

His problem, specifically.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And he's not wrong.

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

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

The rumour mill in the barracks is insatiable.

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

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

Or, whatever's left of it, anyway.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wants.

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

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

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

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

Cold-hearted, sure—

But he likes sweet things.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He must think Ghost is some sort of psychopath—)

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

Then comes you.

And the forfeiture of his self-control.

You're trouble of a different kind.

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

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

But oh, do you pack a punch—

At first, you think he's homeless.

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

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

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

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

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

Well. Shit.

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

His teeth ache (so, so bad—).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He wonders if you can, too.

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

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

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

nah. bury him out back—)

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

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

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

And then—

You fluster. “Sorry, I just thought—”

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

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

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

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

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

Well—

That's new.

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

Him.

Ah.

Sweet, sweet girl.

(So naïve.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A reward, huh?

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

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

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

The window brightens. Room number two.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Silly bird.

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

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

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

And ah—

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

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

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

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

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

“Thank you—”

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

“Simon. Simon Riley.”

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

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

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

You must think him quite the gentleman. So trusting.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A bludgeon to his self-control—

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

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

But he’s a good mutt. Good—

Until the text.

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

His sweet girl.

(you fuckin’ mutt—)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Odd considering he's dead—

“Sounds like you will be.”

“It's not like that—”

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

“I don’t—I wouldn't—”

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

“It is.”

“Oh? How's tha’?”

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

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

But that's later, and right now—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And you relent.

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

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

Friend. Friends.

He'll have to do something about that.

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

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

Because the thing is—

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

It isn't just fantasy, either.

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

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

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

Same thing.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Simon loves it when you cry.

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

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

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

“Thank you, Simon—”

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

He thinks it's cute.

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

“Anytime, pet.”

And you're perfect, too.

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

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

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

It's said fondly. Full of love—

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

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

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

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

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

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

He clings to it.

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

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

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

Stupid fuckin’ mutt.

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

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

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

Hide it. Put it away.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Like Tommy.

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

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

(he did, too—)

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

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

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

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

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

Communion.

Ghost cocks his head in consideration.

(your bird is too big for a cage—

—but maybe a collar would do.)

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

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

Not anymore.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But not if he eats you first.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(sick, sick sick, wrong—)

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

Damnation built by his own hands.

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

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

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

And you—

An outlier.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sad, but—

Not enough to stop himself.

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

And then he spits on your bare cunt.

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

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

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

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

You never are.

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

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

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

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

Yet—

come to Durham.

i’ll think about it.

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

Ah, well—

Lesson learned.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Made for him, and—

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

—“A perfect fit.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Everything narrows into a needlepoint.

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

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

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

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

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

“Simon—”

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

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

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

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

“So’ry, Simon—”

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

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

Not anymore. Not ever again.

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

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

It's for your own good.

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

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

The only purchase he finds is in your demise.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He wants, wants—

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

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

Pity it’s not an option.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Simon, Simon—”

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

(belly full of dirt:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More.

And he gives it to you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

You want this. His spoiled rotten bird.

So, he gives it to you.

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

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

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

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

(please)

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

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

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

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

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

Both, maybe. Everything. All of it.

Always—

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

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

Nirvana exists between your thighs.

Home, too.

(well—

not yet.)

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

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

(Bone nausea.

A death sentence.)

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

He wants it: this dream so tantalisingly close.

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

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

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

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

(mine, mine, mine—)

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

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

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

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

It’s his apotheosis. His end.

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

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

(silly girl—

His pretty little perigee.)

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

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

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

“Fuckin’ hell—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Las’ night.”

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

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

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

He almost purrs.

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

“Bit rowdy.”

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

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

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

“Did you use a—?”

He dips his chin. “I might ‘ave.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But—

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

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

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

Case in point:

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

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

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

You don't even notice.

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

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

(stupid fuckin’ mutt—)

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

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

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

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

And it’s all so sweet.

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

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

But only just.

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

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

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

(Too much, maybe? Or too soon—?

if only you knew—)

He finds it charming, really.

Still—

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

Fuckin' Christ—

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

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

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

Maybe not in the way you'd want.

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

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

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

So—

Home it is.

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

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

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

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

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

But Simon is nothing if not devoted, and so.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This little glass jar domicile.

A billet in the mountains.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

His budding rose.

He coos. “You alright?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But oh. How you try—

His sweet, sweet girl.

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

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

So close he catch the embers in his hand.��

“Simon… We should—talk. I, uh—”

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

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

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

but:

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

“Yes, Simon—”

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

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

He leans down, and whispers in your crown—

“Good girl—”

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

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

Click.

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

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

#simon riley x reader #simon riley x you #ghost x reader #goddd this is foul #and was supposed to be up hours agooo but Nahanni closed at 5 today oops #cod #call of duty #simon ghost riley x reader #cod smut #simon riley smut #simon riley cod #ghost call of duty x reader #ghost cod x reader #in many ways this is a psa on the symptoms of rabies

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going-to-ikea-for-the-fries · 8 days

Text

Temporary Fix! || skirt chaser!Johnny

Rating: E Words: 4.1K~ CW: smut smut smut, a bit of BAD dirty talking, oral sex (m!receiving), protected piv sex, breath play (if you squint), praise kink (lots of 'that's it' + 1 'good girl'). Tags: afab!reader, fat/chubby!reader, you/your pronouns, one-night stand but more like one-week stand. Summary: Johnny's a dog who can't keep it in his pants. a/n: this is for my chubby gals and also for my @crashtestbunny because I wanted her to be able to read this and not have the previous cheating plot in place.

The thing about soldiers… Is that they tend to have lovers. As in, for as long as they stay deployed in a country, they’re bound to get themselves a toy they can have a shag with. Sometimes it’s prostitutes. Sometimes it’s regular women.

This is a lot more common for enlisted soldiers in the Army. The types that get deployed for 9 to 18 months at a time when they're very young, fighting in a war that keeps them far away from home for so long that they “can’t help” but seek affection from local women.

But that’s not to mean Special Forces soldiers, especially those kept on ‘stand by’, always ready for a quick deployment that, at most, lasts a month or two, don’t do it. They do.

John Alistair MacTavish is a grown man, not one of those young lads of 18, recently out basic, who need a whole to bury their cock in or else they'll die. But you wouldn’t think that, seeing as he's constantly seeking out action on the side.

He goes on and on about how childish those stupid recruits are, about some of his old mates who'd shag anything that walks... Only to then leave base with his team to end up at some bar or club in civvy clothes, find a nice bird or bloke (he’s not picky) and go home with them.

A hypocrite, any normal person would call him, a womanizer, a skirt chaser, a player... He’s not above calling himself that. But sometimes he just needs to decompress! That's his excuse anyway. Decompressing. Letting out pent-up aggression. Orgasms are great stress-relievers...

And as useful as his fist is, he’s not a sixteen-year-old anymore, rubbing one out in his bathroom during a quick shower. That just doesn’t cut it anymore. If he has the option to shag someone, why wouldn’t he?

Now that he’s in the 141, the philandering just gets much worse. Whenever they have downtime on a foreign location somewhere, a night free before they return to England, or a night before they get the go-ahead to go on a mission, what have you… He’s out getting himself a shag.

And, worse of all, he brings Gaz along.

Gaz doesn’t have the same issue, unlike Johnny, he can actually contain himself. Maybe that makes Gaz a bit bad too, because he knows that Soap has a tendency to chase like they owe him money... And he still enables him. He still goes out with his mate and they both get wasted and laid without a care.

Maybe Gaz doesn’t think it’s his place to intervene, or maybe he just doesn’t care enough to.

Camaraderie and all.

That’s how they ended up in a club downtown, flashing lights all around them, loud reggaeton playing through the speakers, men and women around them with more skin on display than they had covered rubbing their bodies, sipping drinks, spilling them over each other… Oh, the wonders of a Colombian night club.

They saw you before you saw them. Kyle tapping at Johnny’s shoulder as their eyes perused the space individually, then, he drew the Scot’s eyes to you, standing with your friends, laughing, drinking, softly swaying to the music.

Soft curves in a copper-colored dress that left little to the imagination, clinging tight to a round ass and a thick belly, the hem constantly pulled down by your hands, as it insisted on rolling up, up, up, exposing more of your smooth thighs than you wanted it to.

It didn’t stop you from still rolling your hips to the music, however, turning the fixing of your dress a near impossible task, repetitive, useless, and maddening, Sisyphus-and-his-stone.

Turning to each other, the two sergeants hands shot to the middle of their bodies, a quick rock-paper-scissors ensuing… which Johnny won.

And that’s how you ended up turning around to the sight of a foreigner with the broadest shoulders, thickest arms and pecs, and bluest eyes you’ve ever seen… As well as a mohawk, something you didn’t often see on… anyone, really.

He was a soldier, you could tell, even out of uniform. Not your first time seeing one, this being a city with a military base attached, and certainly not your last time being approached by one.

Oh, how soldiers seem to love fat women. You’ve experienced your fair few, many of them assuming your weight would equal desperation for love and affection, which would result in you accepting a rushed wedding for the sole purpose of getting him out of the barracks.

But you’re not desperate. Other than for a good lay, maybe.

“Erm… Hola.” The soldier in front of you says, blue eyes locked on your face for a surprisingly respectful amount of time considering the sinful cleavage that this dress and your bra give you.

His Spanish has the thickest accent you’ve ever heard, meaning he’s not American… But his pronunciation is off, so he’s clearly an English speaker. Though he’s not English either, you can tell.

“I speak English. Hi.” You told him, watching as he let out a little sigh of relief. Then, the corner of his mouth popped up in a dirty little smirk.

“Well, tha’ makes it easier. Hi.” He replied. “I saw ye from over there… Was wonderin’ if I can buy ye a drink?” He offered. Only then did he allow his blue eyes to slither down, down, down, trailing every inch of your exposed skin down to the black ankle booties you’re wearing, thick, square heels to prevent your hamstrings from feeling the pain of stilettos the next morning.

“Why?” You decided to ask him with a cocked brow, forcing his eyes to shoot upward to meet your face again, locking onto yours with a surprised expression.

“Why, what, pretty thing?” He replied, his own brows, thick, straight, rising up to meet his hairline. He’s confused, his eyes blinking a bit. His intentions had been clear as day. Obvious enough for you to pick up on, but you’re playing dumb, or maybe hard to get.

“Why do you wanna buy me a drink?” You asked him as you dipped your head to the side, your eyes slowly trailing over every inch of his handsome face. Those blue eyes of his are locked on you, pupils slightly dilated, hands hanging off his hips, fingers looped onto the belt loops of his jeans.

“Because you’re proper beautiful.” He replied. Your cocked brow and unimpressed glances up and down, cause him to continue. “And I’d love to take you home, find out what you’ve got on under that dress, and make sure your neighbors hate you from today onward.”

His words are crude, his voice loud and crass, disregarding the public space you’re in, the fact that there are others around, not just your friends, but complete strangers too. Maybe he’s hoping they won’t understand English. But they do. Hell, your girlfriends look at you and exchange coy looks with you, before them, and you, break into a fit of giggles.

He looks at them, noticing they caught what he said, even through the loud music, but then looks at you again. “So? What do you say?” His brogue is getting easier and easier to listen to with every word he says.

Rolling your head to the side, your squint your eyes at him and then shrug. “Do you have to buy me a drink for that?” You challenge him, your eyes snapping back and forth between his own, almost taunting him with your inquiry.

“Not if you don’t want to.” He tells you, eyes lit ablaze and a smirk on his lips.

So, you simply grab him by the arm, bid farewell to your friends, with a wave, and grab your clutch from the table, before dragging him out of the club.

Johnny was expecting a flat, a home, maybe even a university dorm room considering your age. What a surprise it came to him to find you taking him up to a hotel. Not that he’d complain when he noticed the large king-sized bed and the large view, providing a beautiful view of the illuminated city of Cartagena.

His hands were on your broad hips before you even got to closing the door, his mouth clashing onto yours as he pushed you against the wall by the door, calloused hands already sliding over the slinky fabric of your silky dress, tugging it up, so they could slip underneath.

His tongue pushed into your mouth, wet and drooling, saliva traded between your mouths as his strong fingers caught hold of a greedy handful of your ass, digging into the supple flesh and groaning in delight at just the feeling of you at his fingertips.

Your own hands already slid up and around his torso, feeling him up through the fabric of his t-shirt, before sliding down to pull the navy blue fabric out of its tuck into his jeans, rolling it up to expose a strong, bulky body covered in a generous amount of body hair.

Your lips broke apart for a moment, only long enough for you to take off his shirt, tossing it onto an armchair in the corner, and for him to unzip the side-zipper of your dress, taking it off you too.

Then, he grabbed you around the thighs, causing you to shriek, as he bounded for the bed, dropping you so hard onto it you almost swore you’d bounce off. Still wearing his jeans, he slotted himself between your parted thighs, his body bending over yours.

His stubble scratched your neck as he kissed you all over, licking stripes of your skin as his hands pulled off your boots, unfastened your bra… They were surprisingly nimble for such a hulking man. “Fuck, you’re beautiful.” Johnny cooed as he let his eyes run down your body.

He dragged his mouth down from your neck, across you clavicle, over one of your breasts, and caught your nipple between his teeth, beginning to suck on it, noticing how you hissed a bit, leaning back on your elbows as he did so.

One of his hands caught your other breast, grabbing and carefully kneading it between his fingers, as his eyes shot up to your face, blue irises beneath a pair of dark eyelashes, fluttering slowly as his pupils blew out from how horny he was. His other hand found your black panties and pulled them aside, (more so ripped them with how aggressive he pulled on them), the rough and calloused pads of his fingers catching your lips immediately and beginning to slide up and down, running over your slit.

The moment his cracked fingertips grazed your clit, you whined, your legs spreading apart even more, your body jumping a bit. “Fuck…” You grumbled under your breath, your eyes locked on his face and the way he eagerly played with your nipple.

“Relax.” Johnny told you once he let go of your nipple. Then, he rolled his tongue around in his mouth, collecting some saliva, before letting it drip onto your slit, his fingers catching it and spreading it quickly as he resumed playing with your clit, hand craning in order to push a finger inside.

“Oh fuck…” You moaned softly, hips bucking up against his hand, following his ministrations as he pushed a second finger inside of you and hooked them up to graze your g-spot, pumping them in and out, the rugged feel of his cracked fingertips drawing a surprisingly pleasant sensation of pleasure from the depths of your soul.

His other hand moved away from your breasts in order to undo his belt, leaving it to hang around his waist as he also undid his jeans, sliding them and his boxer briefs down one-handed, in order to allow his cock to spring free.

Your eyes lock onto it as he continues fingering you, a bit sloppy and rough, his palm pressed to your clit and his fingers constantly drawing a ‘come hither’ motion inside your wet walls.

His cock is stubby, shorter than some of the men you’ve been with, but so thick you can’t help but wonder just how he’ll make it fit inside of you, and how straining the stretch of it will be. It’s heavy too, uncut, hanging down even while already full-mast, too heavy to spring back against his belly button. His balls are heavy too, full, round and strained as he continues to play with you, watching your reactions to his touch.

“You like what you see, huh?” He asks you, noticing the way your eyes don’t slip far from his cock before returning to it, watching it lay against one of your smooth thighs, the ruddy color and constant twitching only bringing more attention it as it rubs against your skin, dripping pre-cum over your stretch marks.

“Mhm…” You reply softly as your hand reaches down to tug at it, carefully wrapping around it and drawing it up and down over his length, only letting go to cup his taut balls and fondle them a few times.

“Tha’s it…” He murmurs and hisses under his breath as he looks you right in the eyes. “Wanna be good f’r me?” He coos at you, and you nod in reply as you bite your lip. “How about you get on your knees and let me see how you suck me off, hm?”

Nodding, you untangle yourself from around him, his fingers slipping out of you, as you took your spot on the floor, the soldier having been caring enough to toss a pillow from the bed onto the floor to cushion your knees.

He sits on the edge of the bed, strong, muscular thighs spread open, as you sunk your mouth onto him, without so much as a second’s worth of hesitation. The stretch as you tried to swallow as much of him as you can tugged at the corners of your mouth, making them feel a bit sore, your jaw already protesting at the size of him. But that doesn’t stop you.

You start lapping at the underside of his cock eagerly, wetting him as much as possible to make sure you could continue taking him down your throat. The sounds he was making were sinful, low groans and grunts, hissing through his teeth, one hand carefully fisting the bed covers.

He carefully gathered your hair away from your face, gripping it one handed. “Tha’s it… Greedy thign you are, wanna take all of my fat cock in your mouth, hm?” He goaded a bit as he looked down at you between his legs.

Any other time, any other place, any other man, you’d already be pulling off him, getting dressed, telling him to fuck off… But something in this soldier’s voice, in his accent, the growl behind his voice, the spark in his eyes…

Maybe you are just desperate for a good lay with the thickest cock you’ve ever seen… But you don’t complain. You simply nod at him and bobbed your head even more enthusiastically, lips struggling to glide up and down his length, spread open sinfully to accommodate his size.

“Tha’s a good girl…” He praises, his free hand coming to grip you at the back of your neck, tugging you slowly, forward, to make you swallow more of him down into your throat, making you gag and sputter on his length, sloppily drooling around the size of him, saliva drooling down your chin and onto the carpeted floor of your hotel room.

“Pretty fucking thing… Gonna make that make-up run, hm?” He offers as he pulled you off and back onto his cock, moving your head for you. “Show some attention to that pretty pussy of yours, go on.” He demands, causing you to nod.

One of your hands found your wet slit between your legs, sliding two fingers inside, which felt like not nearly enough after having had his own, and considering the fat cock that would soon replace them, but you’d make do.

“Both hands, don’t be coy now.” He added. Your eyes widen, already anticipating the loss of balance that’d come from the lack of support from your free hand holding you up on the bed. But you do as you’re told, trying your best to keep a perch on your knees as your other hand starts slowly padding at your clit, rolling circles with it.

When you inevitably lose balance, as you knew you would, the soldier simply pulls you forward against him, making you bury your nose against his pelvis, swallowing his cock in its entiry, causing you to choke and gag, trying to catch a breath through your nose. He, in turn, lets out a loud groan of delight, eyes rolling back, as he feels the warm wetness of your throat.

“Keep your hands where they are.” He demands of you, preventing you from trying to pull away and find balance again with your hands on the bed or the floor or his thighs. You can barely do much more than nod against his hip.

He hooks a leg over your shoulder, pinning you close to him, while his hips begin to rock into your mouth, blindly and sloppily, making you gag more and more, more saliva slipping down from your parted lips, making a mess of him and yourself. “Tha’s it… yeah… just what I fuckin’ needed… Such a good girl f’r me…” He grunts as his hand swipes your hair out of your face as it slips from his grip.

“You like this?” He asks you as he abuses your mouth and your throat, while you sputter and try to fruitlessly breathe between each thrust of his into your throat. Nodding pathetically, mouth to full to speak, you whimper against him, making him shiver and shudder. “Of course you do… greedy fuckin’ mouth…”

He only pulls you off him after another couple of minutes, which felt like an eternity, allowing you to catch your breath only for long enough for him to pull you onto the bed, bending you over at the hips, presenting your round ass to him.

“Mmmmm, look at you…” He grunts out as he ruts his cock between your ass cheeks while tugging your head back at the scalp, causing your back to arch ever so slightly, your tits still pressed against the bed covers. “Round fuckin’ arse… Gonna love see it jiggle f’r me…”

He lets go of you again for a moment only to paw at your ass cheeks with one hand, while the other blindly looks for his wallet in his jeans. “Find me a condom, will ye?” He asks as he tosses the leather wallet next to your head, while he steps out of his jeans, underwear and boots, finally.

While looking for the little clip pocket containing them, you spot his military identification very briefly. It makes you realize you didn’t even ask him his name… Nor did he ask for yours. A green and white striped card titled ‘British Army’, with the name ‘John MacTavish’ and some extra info you don’t really pay attention to. John. That’s his name…

Once you pass him one of the silver wrappers, Johnny rips it open and puts on the slick condom quickly, barely waiting a moment before slipping himself inside of you, down to the hilt in one swift motion. You find yourself squirming against the bed covers with a whine, while he groans loudly behind you.

Although the stretch was still wildly bigger than any other man you’ve been with before, it didn’t feel as uncomfortable as you expected it too… probably because you were wetter and more eager than you expected.

He starts rutting inside of you immediately, huffing through clenched teeth as his big hands grip your ass cheeks and keep you spread open. His fingers dig deeply onto your extra fat, squeezing and kneading it, his blue eyes glued to the way your puffy lips part and stretch to swallow him whole. “Beautiful fuckin’ sight…”

“Fuck… Just like that… Don’t stop…” You beg him and whine loudly, fisting the white bed covers and digging your nails into them, your face resting on them sideways, sliding back and forth with each thrust of his.

You’re sure the hotel staff is going to have a field day washing the duvet, your make-up already staining the white fluffy fabric, sliding down with the sweat, and dragging across with each motion of your head.

You can barely speak or think, moaning in turn with him, each thrust of his causing you to croon and whimper in delight, his fat cock hitting you at every possible angle and rubbing every inch of your walls, the veins dragging against your g-spot, the condom barely there.

“Yeah… ye like tha’? Huh? Ye like it?” He coos at you, already slightly out of breath, hips barelling against your plump ass, making it jiggle as he bounces himself off them.

“Oh, fuck yes…!” You whine loudly. His hands slide up to find your hip, pushing you down against the mattress so he can shift more of his weight onto you, pumping at a downward angle, causing you to shriek desperately.

“Oh yeah…” Johnny grunts and starts huffing atop you, leaning all his weight atop of you as he pounds his hips against yours, his breath ragged against your shoulder and hair. “Fuck… Yer cunts feels so fuckin’ good…” He murmurs in your ear, his thick accent becoming.

“Oh, God…” You whimper, shuddering beneath him, feeling the familiar knot tightening in your stomach, each of his strong thrusts rattling every fiber of your being. “John…”

“Oh… tha’s it… Moan my name…” He orders as one of his hands suddenly shoots up and grips you by the back of the neck. “Moan my name…” He insists as he throws his hips down onto yours.

“John!” You call out, doing as you’re told, panting for air as he pushes your face harder into the mattress, slowing his thrusts down and bottoming out inside you each time at a slower pace.

Good thing he did too… Because the knot in your stomach only tightens more and more and more, and then snaps, making you cry out loudly with a choked moan that gets half-caught in your throat as your walls suddenly clamp down around him, tightening the grip on his fat shaft.

“Oh fuck…” Johnny grunts and picks up the pace again, grasp your hip as hard as his hands can, a bruising grip that’ll definitely leave a mark, as he pounds into your weeping cunt again and again and again…

He finally comes, losing his balance and landing on his elbows and forearms on either side of your body, his chest against your back, out of breath, as much as you, even though you feel like you barely did anything other than take him.

“Fuck… I needed that…” He grumbles under his breath as he speaks against your shoulder blade, before leaning up and biting at your earlobe. “That feel good f’r ye?” He whispers in your ear, an earnest question, receiving a little nod from you. “Good…”

Slowly, he pulled himself up, slipping his softening cock from you and rolling the condom off. “So… how long are ye and yer friends stayin’ here?” He asks you nonchalantly while tying off the condom.

“Are you trying to make small talk…?” You ask him, surprised that you can even find a voice or string together a coherent sentence in the aftermath of that. You try your best to drag yourself up and over onto the bed, and once you succeed, you look at him languidly.

“No. I have a reason to ask.” He assures you as he tosses the condom into the paper bin under the desk in the corner, before shuffling back over to you on the bed, lying lazily next to you, an arm behind his head, the other on his stomach.

“Four more days.” You tell him, and he nods at the reveal of information. You roll your head to the side to look at him, both of your bodies sweaty and sticky, your make-up undoubtedly a mess, not that he shows it in the way he looks at you… And even if he did, he’d likely only show pride at making you look like that.

“Well… I’m comin’ to pay ye a visit every night until then.” He tells you, before wrapping his free arm around you, pulling you close. “I plan on gettin’ that tight cunny wrapped around my cock fer as long as I can.”

yes, this is a repost of the original "Temporary Fix." but without the cheating :)

#ikea writes 💚#cod x reader #cod fanfic #masterlist #call of duty #cod fandom #john soap mactavish #johnny mactavish #soap mactavish #soap x reader #soap cod #cod smut #smut #johnny mactavish smut #johnny mactavish is a mutt

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scribbledghost · 7 months

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Ok I want your most controversial Ghost headcanons bc I'm curious 👀

Oh boy. Uh. Well, alright, here we go (and truthfully idek if these are really "controversial" so much as "me going against the fandom grain" here):

He's not some mean hard vicious Dom type in bed. Sorry. Don't see it. He's not gonna beat his partner. He's not gonna choke them out. Not gonna degrade them. One night he accidentally leaves some bruises on their hips from grabbing so hard and he doesn't touch them for a week. (He will give hickies, but thats it).

He doesn't show his face to anyone unless he explicitly trusts them. He won't wear the full skull balaclava if he's in civvie dress, but he will wear a hood and a standard mask that covers his nose and mouth.

Scary Dog Privileges but hear me out: he wants his partner to lean into it too. Treat him like a former fighting dog that you're trying to domesticate. He'll live for that shit.

Anyone else other than his military superiors tries to order him around and they'll get decked. But his partner? They could snap their fingers and tell him to jump and he'd ask how high.

A caregiver if I ever did see one. Need food? He's on it. Water? He's got it. Cold but didn't bring a jacket after he told you to? He'll moan and complain but somehow he winds up bare-chested in the dead of winter while you're wearing his shirt and his jacket AND his coat. (He's still got his mask on tho)

Make him laugh and he's putty in your hands. This can mostly be achieved by telling shitty jokes that rival his. (Protip: his favorite is "what part of your body dies last? Your pupils. Cause they die-late.")

He can be cold, quiet, and calculated, sure. But this is mostly reserved for field work. In everyday scenarios, he's still quiet, but he's not as harsh and jagged.

Does not do crowds. You will not catch this man in a bar of his own volition, and if you do, he's been dragged there by the rest of the 141 and he's got his back to a corner somewhere.

Deep down, deeper than he's probably willing to admit, he needs someone to need him. Like, truly need him. Let him be a tool to use, a pillar to lean on, a soft place to land. Something, anything, as long as he's needed. He doesn't know any other way to exist.

He likes to say he's got a cold heart, but truthfully it's just very well-guarded. If someone were to weasel their way past his carefully-built defenses, they'd find out damn quick that his heart is definitely not cold. In fact, its open and bleeding. Terrified and waiting for someone to treat it with even an ounce of love and gentleness.

#simon ghost riley x reader #simon ghost riley #simon riley x reader #ghost x reader #ghost scribbles

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kil-g · 9 months

Text

surprise

a/n: i got too sad after writing that last thing and needed to do something silly

summary: there's a new member of the household and you have to convince simon to like them.

g!n reader; civvy!reader

word count: 1.6k

warnings: simon being mean to a dog :(

---

“Hey, I’m…uh—I’m on my way home.”

“Oh!” You say.

There’s a certain exasperation to your voice that makes him think that you’re somewhere that isn’t the house. He puts his phone down in the cupholder and places both of his hands on the wheel of the car.

“In an hour.”

“An hour?”

“An hour.”

“Could you fuck off somewhere and maybe make it, like an hour and a half?”

“I’d like to go home.”

“I know, yes. I know. It’s just that I have this whole thing planned and I need an extra thirty minutes. You’d be doing me a pretty big solid if you fucked off for a little bit longer.”

“I’m tired and I’m hungry. I’m not gonna fuck off.”

“What, are we making this a race?”

“You can race. I’m going home.”

“Okay, we’re gonna race.” You say, halfway through laughter.

“What are you doing?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“I don’t like surprises.” He says.

“Well, I love you and I need you to suck it up because it’s a pretty cool surprise.”

Simon blinks, keeping his eyes on the road. Then, he sighs and says, “I’ll see you at home.”

“Not if I see you first!” You reply, this time a little out of breath.

“I’m not racing you.”

“Scared you’re gonna lose?”

“Goodbye.”

“Love you!”

The line dies out.

Part of him wants to be annoyed. Surprises weren’t exactly his favorite thing in the world. He especially did not like such a surprise that would keep him from coming home after a very long month of trying not to die in a violent, fiery explosion. And, he deeply, desperately wanted to lie down in a bed with an actual mattress, real pillows, and clean blankets.

But, for the life of him, he could not think of anything more unbearable than the thought of letting you down.

It was almost laughable. Simon is first and foremost a soldier. And, when you’re a soldier first before anything else, like a friend, companion, romantic partner, let downs were par for the course. A birthday, an anniversary. Celebrating a promotion or any other achievement of the like. Those didn’t even come secondary or even tertiary on the line of things that needed to be cared about.

And, the worst part, is that you tolerated it. Sure, there was a certain disappointment to a missed call or text. Despite that, you loved him with a stability that he couldn’t possibly be more grateful for. It made him feel almost normal. Normalcy was a luxury someone like him couldn’t typically afford.

So, before he pulls his car into the driveway, Simon mentally prepares himself to be open-minded. Whatever the surprise was, he would do his best to actually try and enjoy it. That is until he unlocked the front door to the house and stepped in, only to be greeted with the sight of a dog sitting up, barking at him from within a metal crate.

She was clearly still a pup. Her paws are far too big for the size that she currently was. And, the more clear it is that Simon was no threat to her, the more she cries to be let out. Though, Simon makes no move to do any such thing. Instead, he sits on the couch and looks back at her until eventually, she stops making noise all together and resolves herself to sit quietly. Each time Simon accidentally catches her eye, her tail wags, bumping against the floor of her crate softly.

This goes on for about twenty more minutes before a key turns in the door knob once again. You step through, carrying bags of groceries.

“Sweetheart.”

“Can you help me with these?” You say.

Simon gets up, takes bags out of your hands and walks them into the kitchen. “Why is there a dog in the house?”

You lean down to lift the latch off of the door and the dog comes barreling out. “You couldn’t have opened her crate up for her? Why were you just staring at her like a weirdo? It’s a dog.”

“Why is there a dog in the house?”

“It’s our dog.” From one of the bags you were still holding, you pull out a bag of dog treats and throw it at Simon. “Give her one of these so she knows you’re not a complete hardass.”

“I’m not giving it anything.”

“Simon.”

He looks back at you. And, from the way you stare back at him, it becomes more and more clear that this dog is one of the very very few things that you simply won’t back down on.

In fact, there were toys all over the ground. He’s not sure how he didn’t notice them earlier. And, with an attentiveness that only slightly put him off, the dog fell into step beside you following you very closely while also looking up at you for any sign of praise or reward.

Simon inhales, then exhales. He grumbles under his breath, then rips the bag of treats open and kneels down with one of them in his hand. When the dog notices, she clumsily stumbles her way over to him and gratefully takes the treat from out of his fingers.

You appear at his side and kneel down next to him, pressing a kiss against his cheek. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“Whose dog is this?”

“Ours.”

“I don’t want a dog.”

“You’ll learn to want a dog.” You say, jokingly. Your hands wrap around his arm and shake him gently.

“I’m serious.”

“Well, you aren’t exactly home very often. I think the decision is mine.” You say, firmly. “And, as sad as it is to admit, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t lonely, sometimes.”

He can feel the weight of your head on his shoulder. He doubts that your intent is to guilt him–but if it is, it’s certainly working.

The dog nudges her wet nose into the palm of his hand. No doubt looking for more treats Her head is smaller than his hand. As gently as possible, he brushes his knuckles over her head.

“Does the dog… make you feel less lonely?”

“Yes. Most of the time.”

He rests his palm over her head now, brushing his thumb back and forth over the space between her eyes.

“What’s it’s name then?”

“Goose.”

“Stupid fucking name.” He says, softly.

“Fuck you.” You laugh. “You love it. Asshole.”

Goose walks in a circle in her spot, then sits with her back turned to him. She leans her weight against his knee.

“Not much of a guard dog.” He murmurs, and you reach a hand to scratch behind her ear. “Hardly did anything when I came in.”

“Because she’s a good girl.” You say.

He can feel her tail hit his foot at the sudden excitement at being praised for being anything. “If she’s gonna stay in this house, she’s gonna have to protect it.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

Simon takes another treat out of the bag. Goose does absolutely nothing to hide her excitement. “And, how did this happen?”

“She got dumped outside of my work. No one wanted to take her so I took her.” You say. Simon looks at you and you look back at him. “No chip, no collar. She was wandering around our parking lot for hours, I think. Probably waiting for whoever dumped her. Vet said she can’t be any older than five months.”

“When was this?”

“About a month and a half ago.” You rub your thumb against his arm and press your mouth against his shoulder. “I’m glad you’re home.”

“Yeah.”

“So, what do you think?”

Slowly, Goose sinks down closer to the ground and settles her chin over her far-too-big paws. She looks at Simon, blinking at him with big eyes before they slowly settle into a nap.

“I think that a dog is a perfect waste of space.”

“Okay, what do you really think?” You chuckle.

He sighs. A moment passes of complete silence. You’re hanging onto his arm, kneeling beside him as you both look down at this dog who can only get bigger and dirtier and stupider. This dog, who is also very soft and sweet. And, while (in his own opinion) he might be something of a monster, Simon couldn’t allow himself to be completely heartless. He couldn’t be the thing that takes away the bits of happiness that you can find for yourself.

“If it makes you happy, then I can hardly say no.”

You smile at him, give his arm a squeeze, and press another kiss on his cheek. You stand, “Do you wanna help me with dinner?”

“I’m gonna get cleaned up first.”

You hum in response but before you can fully turn away, he takes your hand and places a kiss on your cheek just below your eye, then another on your mouth. And in the moment that either of you are looking away from Goose, she gets up and begins chewing on his shoelaces.

“She likes you.”

“If I’m lucky it’ll pass.”

“Unfortunately, I can’t say that it will.”

Another moment passes where it’s nearly completely silent, save for the sound of Goose’s mouth gnawing the little strings attached to Simon’s feet. Then, slowly, you wrap your arms around his neck and give him a squeeze.

Then, you pull away, picking up Goose with a labored groan. You walk her over to the back door, open it, and place her down at the threshold. She all but stumbles down the steps into the backyard.

“Well, go get cleaned up if you really wanna help me with dinner.”

Simon watches you empty out grocery bags, then sighs. You listen to his footsteps walk farther into the house. And, through the window, you watch Goose twist up and roll into a splotch of mud.

#simon ghost riley x reader #simon riley reader insert #simon riley x reader #ghost x reader #ghost reader insert #mw2 x reader

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clockwayswrites · 1 year

Note

Clock, I need you to know that I dreamt about that fic you aren't writing.

Clock, I don't dream. And on the very rare instances that I do, it's 99% disjointed nonsense that slips out of my head within 10 minutes of waking up. Literally, in my 24 years of life I've only had like 3 or 4 dreams that actually stuck.

But that fic you aren't writing has apparently sunk itself so deep into my brain that I had a once in a blue moon memorable dream about it.

It was still a bit disjointed, but I distinctly recall a dinner party? potluck? IDK, there was food; at Danny and Jason's apartment complex. Like, the while building. Some of Red Hood's crew was there. And Jason was in civvies. Dick was there too. And Danny was conspiring with everyone (not Jason) to be a mischievous little shit. So there weren't enough chairs. I'm sure you can see where this is going.

Oh my gods that is amazing. Also I'm sorry(?) for making you dream? Or you're welcome?

As a gift, to feed your poor brain... let's write a little bit of this. Hum, when would this happen for max amusement... Let's say this is after Danny has asked Hood if he wanted to share, but before the Goon scene.

“What the fuck,” Dick murmured to himself.

“They’re hiding chairs,” the stranger, who Dick hadn’t noticed leaning against the kitchen counter till then, explained.

Dick tilted his head in thought and took another sip of the battery acid they were calling punch at this potluck. The potency of the drink might explain what he was watching happen.

The chair on top of the tenuous stack wobbled dangerous.

One of the men— Marco? —who were trying to shove the stack of three chairs into the closet shushed the chair. He pointed at it like one would a misbehaving dog and that the threat alone would get it to stay.

Definitely the punch.

“Why?”

“Because if there aren’t enough chairs, someone is going to have to sit in someone else’s lap and they’re plotting to make that happen,” the stranger said.

Dick took a moment to glance away from the game of closet Jenga to look over the other person. They were a slight thing, but slight in the way that spoke of lean muscles and a hidden strength. It reminded Dick of how Wally was built. The bright aqua eyes were almost unnerving in how bold the color was. The way they were grinning, widely, as they continued to watch the struggle didn’t exactly make them any less unsettling.

They took a large bite out of the cookie they had in hand.

A cookie sounded like a good idea. Dick snagged one from the platter, recognizing Jason’s baking.

Cinnamon and spice bloomed across his tongue. “Huh. Okay. Does Jason know?”

The stranger laughed, shaking their head. “No, that would defeat the whole purpose. He’s the intended chair.”

“Huh.” Well that was interesting. “Who’s the intended seater. Sitter? Sittie?”

“That would be me,” the stranger said, sticking their hand not holding the cookie out. Dick set his war crime known as punch down to shake it. “Hi, I’m Danny. I’m your brother’s accidental sugar baby.”

Dick choked on thin air.

Just how potent was that punch?

#blathers and bits #ailithnight #askme answeryou #the fic that i'm not writing #dp x dc #dead on main #to achy to tag #will tag if it becomes a 'real' part later

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starzshopoflove · 8 months

Text

Simon "ghost" Riley x Reader

Notes: fem reader! i hc ghost doesn't wear a mask when he's off duty, this is just whatever rot my mouse brain creates, age gap but not to crazy, sfw mostly ,size kink if you squint, literally just me projecting onto reader sorry

no thoughts just ghost meeting cute little civvie reader in a shop when he's just trying to get his shopping done after coming back from a mission just wanting to fill his fridge with enough beer and groceries that vaguely resemble food

Simon watching you struggle to reach the flour from a set high shelf in the aisle, grumbling to yourself about "who fucking needs flour anyway" still trying to reach it and he just pluck it off the shelf and drops it in your cart before making his way to another aisle and your just left looking stupid watching this giant trudge away with a little blue tesco basket in tow

Simon who notices you at the same book shop he frequents, but your perched behind the counter doing god knows what ( vaguely resembles inventory but hey do what you will) calculator in hand as he peeks from behind a bookshelf trying to remember where he's seen you before.

Civvie reader who passes her days working quietly in a book shop and living in a simple one room flat indulging her romantic needs in fiction too nervous to actually talk to men, fictional ones satisfying her needs better. That is until you see some books on the counter sliding over to scan them.

"Your total's 23.55" you mumble looking at the screen "Cash or Card?" you add before lifting your head to meet the brick wall of a muscle man. Oh OH, no thoughts as you just stare at his pecs in your line of sight thanking whatever god you believe in for the sight before you, better then anything your little brain could muster up even with the detailed descriptions authors would spit out onto the pages you read

You violently peel your eyes away from the most beautiful pair of man tits you've ever seen to see what man was the owner, and by god do you wish you werent so bad around men. I mean the wind practically got knocked out of your lungs as you let out a barely audible squeak watching this man fish in his pockets for his wallet

Messy blonde hair that was in that weird phase of curly but not really, a nose that looks like its seen a good fight, deep set brown eyes, and a few healed scars settled on the skin. Aged but like wine, a really really fine wine

"Right, cash" His hands fiddling through the wallet to pull out the bank notes, while you prayed you didnt look like a hunger dog staring at his hands as they placed the cash on the counter.

Simon who watches the little bookshop employee look like she just got punched in the gut and was trying not groan as she quickly rang him up, Do i smell? he thinks to himself

Simon who watches your smaller hands shuffle the cash into the register, noting how they're free of calluses, nailed neat and slightly grown, soft.

Simon who leaves the bookstore thinking of a excuse to go again tomorrow, not to see the bookshop girl or anything, he has his reasons!! he just hasn't thought of it yet!!

You start looking up from your notes for your class when the shop bell jingles hoping to see the mystery man whos built exactly like your favorite webcomic character but with the gruff and mature aura of that mc from the game your friend made you play that you cant quite remember. Only disappointed when its just another customer , until later in the day the man returns again.

But its much later in the day and you've switched on the shops warm lights, turning off the ac letting the place warm up as you hear the door jingle again, mystery man making his way to the counter your eyes following his every step, meaty thighs

You who perks up when his forearms settle at the counter suddenly eyes locking onto yours and suddenly very glad you tidied up a bit today, tinted chapstick, perfume, cleaner turtle neck, lashes, lipgloss, earrings ahm

"Tesco" he grumbles out unmoving

"what" well thats not what you were expecting to hear

"You were the girl , couldnt reach the flour yeah?" oh that was him

"Oh, that was you? thank you?" oh what the fuck were you supposed to say?? oh thank you freakishly tall man who watched me struggle?? let me take your whole cock in my mouth while you call me a good pet feeding your meaty length down my throat??

"Yeah" Simon didnt think to much on what to do now, gaze getting awkward now that hes got his confirmation

"Did you need anything" you finally broke the silence, god its fuckin tense in here and hes so close, you wanna just get a sniff but thats hardly workplace behavior doesn't matter if its your dads shop or not.

"Mhm, ye got any cook books?"

"yeah, section 12, shelf 9" whos he cooking for? his wife? i dont see a ring? maybe a long time girlfriend?? who wouldnt snatch up this actual beefcake

"Thanks, tryna cook something new for myself. Flats been quiet" He mumbled like speaking too much would give him a headache

SImon purchased his books same stare at the girls hand like last time as she took his money. God do something you look like a creep staring at this poor girls hands.

"Got a notepad luv?" again that same punched face returned, is she alright? he thought to himself

Oh he just called me luv oh fuck dont wheeze dont wheeze just hand him the pen and paper like a good employee, come on. Oh god dont stare at his arms, are those tattoos oh my god

Sliding back the notepad simon made pace of grabbing his cook book a slipping out the shop just as quick as he went in

You who looked at the notepad almost slipping back out of your chair

"Simon 44 xxx xxx xxx"

Children were singing, the angels sang their songs, the trees regrew in that parking lot down the street, healthcare in america was just made free, and you just got the phone number of a man built like a double door fridge that you have every intention of climbing

#cod mw2 #simon riley x reader #simon riley #cod mw x reader #simon ghost riley #simon ghost riley x reader #ghost cod #ghost x reader #mw2022 #ghost call of duty #sorry i just love civilian reader x ghost #reader def has a tumblr acc #reader most likely survived middle school with a undertale phase #reader is literally just as fictional man hungry as us

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erensonly · 2 months

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You know how ghost always has his mask on, what would be reader reaction seeing ghosts face for the first time but in a way she doesn't know its him and she goes like "who the fuck is that??? 🤨🤨🤨🤨"

🍒anon

butcher shop buddies (simon riley x reader)

i dont know why i laughed so hard at this. thanks for the ask!! oh can i call you cherry-berry anon?

warnings: fluff, ooc ghost, not proofread sorry, use of 'pretty' and 'cute', no use of pronouns but i may use them in future parts, dad joke, probably incorrect butcher information, i was hungry writing this.

please feel free to message me and let me know if i missed any warnings

----

maybe reader is a civvie and she frequents this one particular butcher shop so you can get meat packages for cheap. this is the first time you see ghost. he's standing in front of the case of meats trying to determine which cut of steak he wanted, while you were there seeing if the people on tiktok were serious about meat packages being cheap. groceries are getting too expensive and you wanted to try your hand at birria tacos.

while taking a look around, you didn't notice the larger man inching closer to you. "d'ya know which cut you're looking for?" naturally, you flinch an take a step back. what is this mammoth of a man doing bending down to your level to help you look for meat? but his accent is silly but pleasing to listen to, so you give him a vague answer. "kinda," you say with a shrug.

"i heard they do these packages of meats that can last me a while. and i've been craving birria tacos, so i need beef for that as well." he silently just leads you to the other side of the case and starts talking to the man standing there. it's like they've known each other for a while. you tune them out to make sure you have everything else checked off of your mental grocery list. when you tune back in, the butcher is slicing some meats up and the man was still standing there.

"thank you so much for your help." this was directed at both men, but only the butcher responded with a "you're welcome" while the other man just nodded at you, before taking his purchase and leaving the store. what a strange man.

this is how you guys started to see each other at least once a month at the same butcher shop/supermarket. he had introduced himself to you as ghost before telling you that you could call him simon. he was actually a kinda funny guy. easy to misunderstand his jokes if you dwell on it too long, but also easy to laugh at if you share the same sense of dry humor. he didn't have much to say at first, cracking jokes at the wrong times, but other than that, there was nothing else for him to say.

i feel like ghost doesn't stop yapping around people that he's comfortable with. like he talks about everything and nothing at the same time. this is how you came to find out that he was in the military, he has family but they're the men from his task force, he travels for work often, and knows every dad joke to ever exist. he's a simple man.

he thrives on routine and familiarity. he makes it a habit to meet you once or twice a month at the shops, go grab a coffee -tea for him- and have a good conversation before going about his day. you ask for his number so you can communicate with him outside of your mini meet-ups and he agrees. now you send whatever meme made you laugh that day and a picture of what you were doing, and he sends you a joke of the day and picture of what he was doing.

he liked getting your cute selfies showing your outfit of the day, or the puzzle you finally completed after losing a piece a month ago, or his personal favorite pictures of you cuddled up with your cat pawl.

i feel like simon is a dog person outwardly, but he didn't realize how much he actually liked cats because he never had one growing up. so seeing you all cozy and pretty with your cat trying to escape your kiss, simon felt like he finally had something to look forward to. now he wanted you to see him for him.

when you walk into the shop, you're expecting simon to be waiting at the counter like he always did, chatting it up with his butcher friend. but instead, you see a blonde man with a black medical mask on talking to the butcher. maybe he's just late.

you walk to your normal spot to wait when the man turns to you and speaks. "how ya doin' today, love?" it startled you. who is this man and why is his voice familiar and why is he so attractive. "who the hell are you?" you couldn't help the confusion on your face; why is he talking to you. he just laughs and laughs, obviously finding your confusion hilarious.

"what did baby corn say to mama corn?" you were more confused. who's baby and mama corn? "go on," you encourage.

"where's pop corn?" this set you off. laughing louder than you probably should. "simon, how are you, darling?" you both had endearing names for each other even though you were just friends. it just came naturally.

"hungry. wanna stop at this one diner i know? they have amazing burgers."

that's how you find yourself eating a cheeseburger with simon who has taken his mask off by now. he was a very attractive man, not that you doubted it before. sharp square shaped jawline, crooked nose from being broken too many times, beautiful honey brown eyes contrasted by his long blonde lashes. he had a mole on the side of his nose, and scars on his face but they only added to his ruggedness; his attractiveness.. it didn't help that he was 6"4 with big strong arms, nice sized pecs, and on the rare occasion he would send you a mirror selfie without a hoodie on, you could see through his shirt that he had a nice soft belly. (my personal favorite build)

you were glad he was comfortable enough with you to be willingly vulnerable with you. maybe this relationship could escalate so much more.

----

should i make more parts to this? i already have a few ideas.

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bullet-prooflove · 9 months

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My Girl - Jake 'Hangman' Seresin x Reader

Tagging: @words-and-seeds @cosmic-psychickitty @@xoxabs88xox @hardballoonlove @dempy

It’s late when Jake turns up outside your house, far too late for him to be visiting but he can tell you’re up from the light in the hallway. He imagines you running through your usual routine, checking the locks before you head to bed, Cujo, the Belgian Malinois at your heels walking his nightly patrol with his partner. He got back in just over an hour ago and usually he would have spent the night in his quarters, turning up early the next morning with coffee and bagels before your shift but then he’d heard the scuttlebutt.

There’s been a drugs raid while he’s been gone, it had been triggered after a Ensign had O.Ded on Fentanyl last month. He hadn’t realised you were part of the investigation because you hadn’t told him. He gets it, there’s stuff he can’t talk about either. It’s why the relationship works as well as it does, the two of you have a level of understanding you can’t get with a civilian.

When he’d heard that a female Master At Arms from the K9 division had taken a hit during the shut down of the operation he’d felt his heart stop in his chest. There are four K9 officers and the other three are male. He knows that it was you.

“Woman, please just open the door.” He mutters as he raps his knuckles against it for the third time.

He knows the need to be here, to see you is irrational, but he’d called, and your phone was switched off, something you always do when it gets past ten because it helps you destress before bed. He knocks even louder, pausing only when he sees your shadow in glass panelling.

“Jesus Jake,” You utter as you open the front door. “Are you trying to wake up the whole neighbourhood?”

He’s dressed in his civvies, clothes that have hastily been thrown on before he’s headed off base. You can see how tired he is from the slight shadowing underneath his eyes. You realise he must have come straight off the carrier because the scent of the sea still clings to his skin. You’re dressed for bed, in a vest top and leggings, an oversized pair of his socks on your feet because you always get a little cold. His gaze lingers on the black bruise that’s blossomed across your chest; it sits like a starburst just underneath your collarbone spreading across the curve of your left breast. It was close he summarises, damn close. He can see the burn in the centre where the heat from the bullet seared your skin through the Kevlar.

Cujo appears beside of you, his wet nose already probing Jake’s clenched fist for treats. He snuffles at it until Jake exhales and splays his palm, allowing the dog to scent him before Cujo huffs in displeasure, retreating back to your side.

“He’s been a little protective since it happened.” You say as you open the door a little wider and gesture for him to come in.

He steps inside, closing the door behind him before he crouches down to fuss over your canine companion.

“Good boy Cuj,” Jake says as he scratches the space behind Cujo’s ears that makes his tail wag. “Looking after her while I’m away.”

You roll your eyes as Cujo showers him with doggie kisses, because he loves Jake almost as much as he loves you. You think it’s the regiment of treats and play that Jake adheres to whenever he comes over.

“I know you don’t need looking after.” Jake states as he jerks his head away to avoid his face being licked. “But it’s good to know that this one has your back.”

You place your hand on his shoulder, your thumb skirting over the space on the nape of his neck, the one that you know soothes him just a little.

“I’m ok.” You tell him. “A little sore but otherwise I’m good.”

He raises to his feet, his hands coming to rest upon your hips as he lingers in your proximity. Everything else falls away in that moment, you can see the concern in his eyes, the relief. He knows that shit happens while he’s away and he knows that you can handle it, but he hates that he isn’t there for you sometimes. You would never chastise him for that, but he still feels it acutely.

“I just had to see for myself.” He whispers as his forehead comes to rest upon yours. “I just need to be here right now with my girl.”

Love Hangman? Don’t miss any of his stories by joining the taglist here.

Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee

#top gun hangman #jake hangman seresin #jake seresin #hangman x reader #top gun maverick #hangman seresin #jake hangman x reader #jake hangman x you #jake hangman fic #hangman imagine #hangman x you #jake seresin x reader #jake seresin x you

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50cal-fullauto-astarion · 8 months

Text

hot in sarajevo ii

[ part one ]

könig x f!reader operator (no use of “y/n”) / 7.3k words / NSFW

cw: body modifications in the form of könig's split tongue, references to monsterfucking, cunnilingus, vaginal sex, actually pretty sweet all things considered. a.n.: this literally kicked my ass during the two months it took to write it, and i sincerely hope you enjoy! sweet to the first half's sour, with a little surprise at the end if you read between the lines. ETERNAL thanks to @dotcie for beta-ing this for me, it wouldn't have been half as lovely without you, and to @parttimeprophet for helping me with my german so i wasn't making silly mistakes <3

The safehouse is a two-story, narrow shed shoved between two other, significantly older, significantly more robust stone buildings. A shithole that looks like it was made of tinder and afterthoughts, but it’s as glorious as an oasis after ten miles of hiking east over craggy, stony hills under a searing sun-fall.

The fading light cooks your back, and there is an uneasy, but needy tension between you and König in the aftermath of a successful and gruesome assassination. Neither were strangers to such orders handed down by KorTac, but you were both experts in carrying them out with bloodthirsty perfection.

When you’d left the campsite staging area in the center of the forest–where König taken you into his lap and fucked you senseless–he hucked you up on his back and hauled you through the forest without asking.

He was not a difficult man to read, at times; he’d felt bad for making your cunt sore.

The thirteen hours of broiling under the harsh Adriatic sun in full-body ghillie suits didn’t ensure an easy or pleasant slog into the city proper. After the maniacal fuck that König required to jailbreak his emotional regulation, you were lucky you were walking at all.

It seems to your eye that, sometimes, he views the world as an iPhone in the hands of an angry fourteen-year-old, and all his ailments are caused by wanting to watch porn outside of their parents’ childlocks. He could do that, and easily, if only he could aim his destruction at the proper target. Holding that thought, you have to remind yourself that König didn’t have any kind of a phone until he was eighteen.

His parents had been of an older generation and had little interest in advancing technology, and no interest in throwing their scant money toward any of it. They’d continued to stagnate in the past–rotting in a poverty-burdened, filthy hoard house, amongst kennels of well-bred Doberman dogs that were better loved than he–while König had moved into the city and the modern era. But he still enjoys jailbreaking his iPhones, if only because he can.

Maybe because he hates restrictions and authority. Maybe because they are the only concepts he understands, even as he struggles against them–though he always ultimately succumbs.

Well. He hates restrictions and authority that doesn’t make him cum.

You’re both dressed down to hiking civvies, and he’s got a black cotton gaiter pulled up his face. You’re sweating in sheets that cascade down your breasts, stomach, and back. Your thighs soak the legs of your pants, and every stride renews the raw, dull ache of chafing skin. There is not a stitch of clothes on your body that does not cling disgustingly to your overheated skin, making you feel beastly.

By looking at König, and his sweat-blackened shirt and narrowed eyes, you can tell he feels the same. A shower cannot come soon enough.

The exfil vehicle that had been waiting after the hike has done well enough of a job, but the closer you got to the safehouse, the narrower the roads became. Ultimately, it has to be abandoned several streets down. Left in a back alley, you pull yourselves out and pop the back hatch, where he pulls the strap of a surplus rucksack over his shoulder. He also takes yours without asking, and adds it to the weight.

“What the fuck are you doing,” you say, not even allowing the end-pitch of a question.

“You can carry the case,” he replies. What an utter gentleman, allowing you to slug your own equipment, like you hadn’t spent years and years humping full packs across the hottest hellholes on the planet under active fire. You’re too tired, and too close to heatsick to argue it too much. The streets around here are mostly dark, quiet and full of Bosnians that mind their business.

Baščaršija is a beautiful place. The old town is full of ancient mosques and minarets on stone-paved streets, some narrow, some wide. There’s one slim street in particular that you pass down, by far older than the necessity of wide paths for motor traffic, where the shops lining it are all broad, tall windows, the lights from within warm and softening the darkness fading into the city.

You pass antique stores, bistros, couples and gaggles of friends crowding around each other, listening to music from their phones, smoking cigarettes, laughing. It’s nothing like home, a completely different animal, but it pulls you in. No one in this city knows that you and the man you walk beside are the cause of four monstrous deaths in the hills.

You are two strangers, finding solace in hands reaching for hands, a moment of exhaled relief when contact is made by the tentative and exploratory brush of fingers. For a brief moment, you let yourself buy into the thought that you are just a backpacker, finding your way to lodgings with your boyfriend, carrying an odd case that could be anything.

König’s grip becomes more insistent, a thick layer of dependence in its tight hold, and he looks dead ahead, head lowered, shoulders bunched. You give him three quick squeezes–I love you–and he answers it back with four–I love you, too. You now turn your attention to getting a read on him.

Normally, he is amped after a successful mission, but he was already needy. His jaw is set hard, and his eyes are flat and flinty. He’s looking, but not seeing. You know that he’s turned against himself.

The pair of you had fallen together in a frenzy. To call your fall for one another an orbital strike would be an understatement. Yours was a crash site made home, and the months of settling under the strange, but welcome and cherished atmosphere of a relationship had begun to peel away the dermis, revealing the sensitive nerves and muscle below.

There lives a hatred in König’s soul that often turns inward. Would that he could rip himself to shreds like a sheet of paper folded and twisted under nervous hands. And he does. You still haven’t found a way to break through those walls–hell, you don’t think he even knows how he erected them, because he would also see them crumbled and turned into utter wreckage.

If you were going to pull logic out of the chaos that’s occupied his body since he was thirteen, you would have to admit to yourself that there isn’t anything you can do. That he’s the one that has to somehow find away to break apart and rebuild the way he thinks, nearly on a molecular level.

With no other help to offer, feeling weak and useless in the face of his battle, you hold his hand, and you walk beside him.

“I’m sorry,” he says after two blocks of walking. Spits it out sudden-like, not meeting your eyes. His posture is fucked, slumping him forward.

“Stop that shit.” No heat, you never use heat with him; the man’s been burned enough. “Wouldn’t I tell you if I didn’t like the way you handled me?”

There is a telling pause, you can feel the lie he’s building on his tongue become too big to swallow or spit. He grinds it down between his molars, and his hand grows tighter around yours in desperation.

“I think you would lie to make me feel better.”

It’s an earnest and brave bit of truth–the man developed a frightening skill with white lies through his life to survive all of the shit hands he was dealt, and his skin crawls under the admission. But your love is dissection, vivisection: it has given you months of slow, thorough study, and an understanding of what patterns his thoughts led him down to land on that conclusion.

It is what he would do to make you feel better.

“Lee,” you say, using the part of his real name that he finds acceptable, and only from you, “you know I give more of a fuck about your security than your comfort when it comes to shit like this.”

The blunt admission makes him stifle a wince, but he holds tight when you slip out of his hand to wrap your arm around his waist, his arm around your shoulders.

The moment you’re through the threshold of the safehouse, the Steyr’s case hits the floor, along with your packs, and out come the sidearms. You and König slide right into formation, clearing the building room by room, call and response in flight like crows.

He takes the lead, and you follow–as much as he might not like the designation dumped in his lap, he is good at it, running hot with his jaw ticking, eyes engaged and unblinking. It was a barb during the fuck, calling him an insertion specialist, but there is not another soul at KorTac that you would trust with your safety on the ground the way you put your life in his hands.

After the building is confirmed clear, it comes time for your speciality. Both of you are experts in urban warfare, but where his skill lies in blunt force, yours burns brightest in paranoia.

Paratrooper by training, guerilla tactics by experience, tearing apart the house in search of bugs or aberrations. Anything wrong, anything out of place. It takes longer than the clearing, König helps, and at the end, the safehouse is as spotless as it can be from a tactical standpoint.

Standing in the attic bedroom, you stretch your back. “I’m radioing in. You hit the shower.”

He shakes his head and makes an argumentative noise. “Nah. Give me your pieces, I’m breaking down and cleaning everything,” he says, holding his hand out expectantly.

He presents his .50 GS–a literal hand cannon, and a fraternal twin to your own–without asking, and holds it out to you by the barrel. You do not like the way your hand feels wrapping around the checkering on the grip. You do not like that it’s aimed at his stomach.

You take it anyway, holding it loose in one hand with your finger on the trigger guard, and pass him your P99 and matching .50 from the holsters under your arms. There is sore white all around his eyes, and he is not blinking.

“Where are you setting up?” he asks, voice tense like a wire-plucked.

Your initial report runs smoothly, getting in contact with Majka on a secure, encrypted line on the tablet usually kept in König’s possession. For this operation, your call signs are Schakals. Jackals. Wild things, unafraid of humanity. Wandering far too close, with teeth too ready to reveal under peeled chops.

König stays close, breaking down your guns a mere cushion away on the couch where you’ve planted your ass, hips aching and thighs tight now that the aftershocks of sex have long, long faded. His head remains bowed, and his gaiter remains in place. Every few minutes, he rolls his shoulders back. Forcing the blades of bone together, trying to release tension that will not let go.

When your report closes out, and you move to sit forward reaching for your cigarettes and lighter, König jerks as he turns to you. “Where’re you going?” His question is brittle, and keyed-up, eyes darting over your body as you settle back a bit.

“Nowhere, calm down,” you tell him, lighting two cigarettes. “Can I pull down your mask so I can give you this?”

He responds in a subtle nod, and you reach for his trappings to tuck the cigarette into the corner of his scarred mouth. König tries to follow your hand when you pull away, a nigh-unconscious tell that gives away his endless desire to be near you, always. It’s a level of wantedness you still grapple to understand–and it’s gut-turning fear mixed with crushing want that makes you pull your hand away instead of cupping his jaw.

You were never told what to do with the parts of yourself that somehow remained soft through the abuse of years. You’re stuck having to teach yourself, and it is not an easy process, though König has helped break an innumerable amount of those barriers.

He looks kicked when you sink back into the armrest of the couch, until you shove your feet under his thigh, flicking your eyes toward the neatly disassembled handguns on the trunk-cum-coffee table before him, a silent nudge of keep going.

Some peace washes over him as he cleans the broken-down guns, heeding your urging.

His eyes don’t ever soften, not that you’ve ever really seen–except for rare moments, when he looks at you, and you wonder what visual information his brain is processing from his retinas. It puts you in a wondering state: curious if he thinks of you in the poetry of weapons engineering, or nuclear physics, or the black shine of blood spilled at night–but his gaze isn’t dagger-edged in concentration.

Neither would you call it contentment. You know König is only content when he’s burned through all of his bad energy, and all the screaming in his head has died down to guttering, airless moans.

“Do you want to go out and get food later?” you pose to him, thinking back on the smell of kebabs roasting over burning coals overwhelming your memory and empty gut, and he nods again. Neither of you speak Bosnian or Serbian, but his Croatian is conversational, and passable enough.

“Saw a couple booths doing Turkish coffee on the way. You’ve ever had that?” he asks half-mumbled, his attention unevenly divided.

“You can do it on a stove, but it’s not the same as…,” he says, drifting, and your mouth twitches toward a smile when you realize he’s moved past the other half of his sentence. A good half inch of ash clings to the end of his cigarette, and it falls on his thigh, utterly unnoticed as he slides the guns back together slow as syrup.

It’s a bit fun to watch as he pours his attention into the flow of his hands. On the field you’ve seen him breakdown and rebuild these same guns in seconds when demanded. There’s some measure of novelty in watching him take his time.

Your guns are handed back to you, cleaned first and checked over for defects. You slide them back into your holsters, just like coming home as you silently observe him moving onto the Steyr.

The god-killing gun falls apart in his hands–pulled piece by piece in diagrammatic sequence from the molded foam from a case twice as expensive as your monthly rent–as if waiting for his attention, spread across the coffee table in a way that seems almost indecent to your eye.

Maybe it’s a situation of projection–identifying with the horrendous and heavy weapon that, just today, took four lives in one of the most brutal ways imaginable. Thinking of yourself in precision machined pieces, willing and eager to disassemble under König’s hands, because you know he will dedicate himself fully to your continued existence and function.

The Steyr’s all spread out before him like you often are, a pile of components unmade at his hands: unscrewed barrel, its bipod assembly, its scope and sights and grips, its magazine and receiver.You feel yourself pulse, clit throbbing in time with your increasing heartbeat.

Maybe you should be more open and honest during your next psych eval, if you’re getting this wet over thinking of yourself as similar in nature to a rifle.

This process takes longer, but when König is finished, handing you the cigarette butt to put out, he puts the pieces back into the appropriate slots in the case. He stretches back, smelling like the slick, oily residue of DW-40 and the metallic odor of the faintly acidic oils on his skin reacting with the weapon’s metal. It clings to and pinches your soft palate like the sting of a sweat bee, something you can feel just under your eyes.

His spine cracks, releasing a hard, meaty sound as the joints give, and he grunts in relief, turning his head toward you. He looks like he’s about to say something, but stops right before the words can gather behind his teeth.

Shit, you must be obvious. Can’t help the pull on your lips as you look up at him, shifting your legs, your thighs pressing together, amplifying the thump of your blood. “Hey.” Stupid thing to say really, but your come-on lines have never been all that stellar. But he’s always excited you, made you feel giddy and frivolously young and unburdened. Like you’re finally able to have all the things were denied as you grew into adulthood, shoved aside in favor of trauma that demanded the attention more.

“Hey,” he says, laughing a bit. He pulls what he can of his scarred lips between his teeth, wetting them, his brow furrowing. “I’m going to wash my hands. I’ll be back in a moment.”

Briefly, there is a twitch in your stomach, watching him go, and the anticipation and giddiness twist for a moment toward sickness. Sometimes, you worry he will leave and not come back. That he’ll have decided that he’s had enough, even with his threshold as high as it is, and he will simply be gone.

But, true to his word, he’s not gone long at all, just gone to the kitchen on the other side of the room, and you are bad off all over again. Watching him bow his head and hunch slightly to fit his hands under the stream of steaming water, soap foaming clear up his wrists, is making your mouth flood and your throat clicking dry. Big bastard, he’s doing it on purpose, hitting all of your buttons.

And the way he maintains eye contact with you all the way back, his hips loose and rocking, his pants already beginning to tent. His deep breathing gives him away, nevermind the fact that he hasn’t pulled his gaiter back up.

He sits back down, turned toward you, and pushes his hands under the hem of your shirt, his palms warm and soft from the wash and scrub. His thumbs knead into your skin, and his lids droop as his fingers tuck into the waistband of your pants. The pressure in his fingertips is possessive, greedy, starved like a street dog. He savors your skin, tracing patterns where he knows your tattoos live beneath your skin, pressing the heels of his hands into your hips.

Your tongue feel like lead. Everytime he touches you like this, it reads loud and clear that he’s holding onto something–someone he considers his. He’s surveying the scope of his lands, his dominion, and, dear god, does he love this country he calls home.

“Bitte, Schatzi,” he mumbles, leaning forward so minimally anyone else in the world would need a micrometer to measure the distance moved, “let me have your cunt. I’m starved, and you look like you’re having fits.” A wicked smirk flickers over the corner of his mouth as his eyes darken, and his hands grip tighter where they’ve slid to your waist. “I’m probably the world’s biggest asshole, but I can’t stand to just watch you suffer because of me.”

You pull your tongue along the bottom edge of your teeth, thinking of how he was in the woods earlier–sharp-edged and demanding, unrelenting, holding you in place over his cock as he rammed into you over and over, until you literally saw stars and couldn’t breathe. Aggression, all claws, borderline unfit for human companionship, all under a soft gold sunset. And, here, you still would not say the man before you is a different man at all. He’s just König. He’s just Leopold Königsbacher, from Schladming, Austria, who juggles kitchen knives to make you laugh.

“You just wanna sink down there til you grow gills or something?” you ask, a bedroom, sliding your leg into his lap, soaking up the look of relief on his face. His hands slide farther down, cradling the swell of your hips, as you undo your belt and zipper, pushing your pants and boxers down.

He helps pull them down as far as either of you can, looking fucking ridiculous as your clothes can’t go farther than your boots. Doesn’t pay to take them off, no matter how long you’re going to be here, you might have to run, and it’s easier to keep everything within pulling distance.

Flicking his eyes over your body, a small, caught-out smirk touches his lips. “Hah. Yeah, jawohl. Would live between your fucking legs, if I could.” His hips roll against nothing, rubbing his hard cock against the strain of his pants. You know there’s an anxiety in him that screams to fuck and to fuck now, and it’s raising its head.

König has the sort of anxiousness where if the things he desires do not happen immediately, they will not happen at all. His mind works in such a way that even small things become so desperately escalated into needs, he can hardly function without answering those demands.

On the best of days, you’re not much for words, and he has no natural talent for them–he can talk at screeching speeds, expelling high levels ideas that are baffling or frightening with ease, but his delivery is lacking, and leaves his listeners shifting uncomfortably or looking for exits. You, on the other hand, are simply not good at them. Too cold, too strange. Too blunt, or removed. But König understands you as you understand him, and he coaxes sweet nothings out of you more than anyone else has ever managed.

Despite the sweetness that spills from your lips being an understood language between you, none of your words are the soft, looping things most would like to hear muttered into their skin. In the bedroom-dark safety of bodies-meeting-bodies, you and König still snap out the sounds of predators, and anyone scenting as prey would fail to find the beauty in your phrases as he does.

And, beyond that, you’re not sure you could even find words. Not with him towering over you between your legs, though he bows lower. Not with the light from the kitchen behind his head hitting the wheat-colored curls escaping from his hair tie, illuminating him like a saint. Lord, he looks like dreams you used to have.

You reach for his neck, and you tug him down, permission passed without even parting your lips, and the relief that relaxes his eyes is colossal. Like he’s walking his way home in the dark on a path he would know blind and numb, he finds his way to your cunt with the ease of muscle memory.

But König is still König, and his anxiety will always outweigh his softness tenfold. He lets out this nervous, pitchy hyena laugh of excitement. Not waiting for permission and not giving a second of preamble, he licks you from asshole to clit in a broad, wet swipe with his long, split tongue.

Electricity shoots straight up your spine. Almost immediately, he buries back in, massaging the halves of his tongue around your clit like he’s painting in brush strokes.

He ropes an arm around your leg and over your pelvis, weighing you down, and fits his free hand into the crease where your thigh meets your hip. Using that as extra leverage, he pulls himself further in, and pushes your legs further back–hobbled as they are by your clothing around your ankles. Your skin burns like an oil derrick in flames every spot you’re touched, and his mouth is volcanic; you only just this moment realizes how badly you needed to thaw.

You were a barracks bunny before König and your mutual, supermassive possessive streaks; always easy to put out, wet on your own command, perpetually bored and looking for fun stolen minutes at a time. You can easily say sex is a sorely jaded topic in your roster.

But, holy fuck, every time he hits his knees to devour you feels new, and alien, and strange.

Not only his tongue—practiced, clever thing it is now that he’s been able to take his natural talent for it to use with you, drawing figure eights and pinching and pulling at you, teasing your hole and your clit at once—but his utter, sustained greed pitched against his plain desire to serve. How he gets more focused and desperate, sucking on your lips, groaning into you, sounds become wetter by the second.

“Pretty, fuck, your pussy’s so pretty,” he mutters, panting, pausing to kiss your seam. Between your cunt and thigh, your perineum, making you squirm and whine. His dogmatic fervor has always been borderline chilling–you’ve never been handled with this level of desire, or needed so fiercely you function akin to air that is needed to live.

No one has ever loved you this way–no one before him. If you could wrap the threads of fate around your forearms like the reins of horses, to exert your horrid and steely control over them, he will never have a successor.

It will always be only him.

You reach down and grab him by the hair at his temples, which you’ve never ceased to be charmed to find is gray before his years. “Fuck me—with your tongue, right now,” you command him, and he complies, only reaching up to hook his thumb in your shirt and bra to ruck them up over your breasts.

The instant stretch makes you dizzy, squeezing your thighs tight around his head. Don’t his cheekbones just cut right into your muscle, and doesn’t he just moan and heave a whole body shudder under you? Greedy fucking man, pushing his tongue deeper, scissoring the halves of it wide in all directions, curling against your walls as he finds an angle for his neck that fits him to thrust in and out of you. Feasting, feasting, feasting.

It’s a fullness you’ve only recently gotten used to with him–too much dexterity, too fluid and swirling, and it reminds you shamefully of all the times you’ve masturbated to the point of wrist-aches with tentacles, and aliens, and monsters on your mind. Fevered, otherworldly, inhuman beasts dying of desire, with the sparkling-sharp sentience to know exactly how to slake their thirst and sate their hunger.

His hands grip tighter, nails digging into your flesh, and you know it’s going to leave bruises, but you don't care. It only gets better when he cracks his eyes, a picture of anguish and ecstasy, moaning deep and rumbling in his chest.

It seems he brings himself under some form of control. His mouth turns pliant, and the way he tastes you turns indulgent, slow. The only man you’ve ever met who could self-soothe by eating pussy. And, shit. Doesn’t that work out perfectly for you.

Your hands soften, brushing over his tied-back hair, playing with loose ringlets. Staring down at him, watching the creases fade from his forehead and from around his scars, he looks satisfied, and at peace. It’s a look you’ve seen only rarely, not even in his sleep.

He sighs and groans, kneading your thighs, when he makes you come on his tongue, sliding it in and out of you as lazy as late, humid afternoons; rumbling deep in his throat when you arch off the cushions, groaning and clenching your thighs to keep them from squeezing around his head again.

“Aw, fuck, Kö—,” you half-whine, making him hum a nasal laugh, pulling out of you agonizingly slow. The lower half of his face is a mess with your slick, shining under the light, and his pupils are dilated to the size of fucking 10-cent pieces.

There’s a proud, giddy cut to his expression, his scarred-crooked mouth pulling into a lopsided grin, chest heaving.

“Did you like that, Schatzi? Did it make you feel good?” he pushes, his hands coming to your knees, fingers pressing firmly into your flesh.

“Yeah,” your voice drags as you speak, laughter raspy. Your racing heartbeat is only just starting to slow, and the whole of your body pulses in time. There is delight in being rocked by ground-shaking tectonics of pleasure. There is divinity in the way he looks down at you–starving, an acolyte wanting to worship. “Have a condom on you?”

A quick nod is your answer, and he starts to pull up your body, dropping your legs. It’s ridiculous and hurried, and the laugh that bursts out of you is huge, taking on a life uniquely its own when he starts climbing in between your legs and your pulled-down pants, “What are you fucking doing?”

“Path of least resistance, even though it looks like the path of most resistance!” he barks in return, laughing too loudly and frenetically, filling the room. He hikes your pants up over his ass and onto back, yanking you further down the couch, and deeper into his lap. As simple as if you were just a jump harness he had to wrestle into. “I’m thinking on that fifth dimension shit right now! You have to catch up, Schatzi,” he says, giving you a maniac, you get it? grin.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” you accuse him, but you’re beaming and cackling all the same, unfastening a chain from around your neck with zero thought, working a fully blind impulse.

“No, you’re fucking an idiot,” he shoots right back, “really, Liebe, you have to at least try to keep up.”

Oh, and what the fuck. This is König–the one that you dream about, the one you go looking for when the world wants to crush you in its titanic fucking grip. Thinks himself so dog-ugly, dog-tired. Distempered, foul, and unworthy of anything but beating.

He’d probably sneer, roll his eyes, and insult you if you compared him to the sun, but the thought remains firmly anchored in your head as your hands slide the thin, cheap chain around his neck twice, fixing the clasp at his nape. König’s too distracted to notice much more than lifting his chin to afford you access, as he pulls out his cock and rolls the rubber down it.

When he lines himself up with your cunt, looking too eager, the two fingers you keep tucked between a strand of the chain and his neck tug, tightening the links around his skin. At once, you’ve got his full attention, his chest heaving as he holds himself above you.

“What’s that?” he asks, licking his lips, beginning to tremble, leaning into the pull of pressure. “What’re you doing?”

“I was thinking about playing with your air a little bit. That okay?” you purr, giving the chain another small tug. “Nothing big. I won’t cut your breathing off completely. But I thought you might like it.”

“Oh, fuck.” He starts up laughing again, but it’s dripping with a rotten core of sudden need. “Bitte–think you have to, now. Can’t just tease me with that shit and not deliver.”

It was in your head to pull him down over you, but your breath catches in your throat looking at him. With half your body bound to him by tangled clothing and your own greedy legs anchoring tight to his sides, each of you flush with laughter and arousal, your heart is a bleeding stone on your tongue. Instead of staining your teeth as the blood rolls out of your mouth, it spills in reverse, and you can hardly drink your fill of it before you begin to choke.

“I love you—” It snaps out of your mouth and dies, the harsh need to hide away your face makes you pull him down, moaning as he slides deeper, and, fuck, it hurts. You’re still so tender, and bruised, and god knows what else from this taking just barely managing to handle the way he’d fucked you that afternoon that anything but slow, sweet, and shallow was going to be an agony endured.

His hips buck and jag, entire throat filling with the moan of your real name. He tries so hard not to fuck into you fully, planting his hands on either side of your arms as if he’ll bar himself from giving into his own body.

“Don’t do that, don’t do that, don’t do that,” he begs and rambles, shuddering, breathing in shallow, clipped laps as if freezing. His hips and legs shift, nearly nervous–a horse spooked and dying to run. “Oh, fuck, don’t do that,” he pleads, hanging his head, trying hard to catch his breath.

The chain is so easy to use, and he listens to the summon of pressure, sucking in a breath to hold it tight. His body sways, buffeted by arousal as if he is a ship on deep-rolling seas, and his head ends up sunken within whispering distance of your lips. So close you can smell the sweat cooling through his curls. So close you can taste the copper-tinged scent of his skin without ever licking him.

“You’re so good, Schatz,” you say, tapping on a name you rarely call him, borrowing his language. “Such a good boy. Such a loving boy.” The pain dulls to a throbbing ache that can be enjoyed, his hips slowing as he rocks into you. Already, he runs ragged, but his rhythm is bursting with devotion and slow-melting sweetness.

There is a monster that lives in your chest, cradling, always, the molar-cracking force with which you love König. The beast beneath that calls your ribcage a prison and a home does not know a single way to handle things in half-measures. There are no lengths you would hesitate to go for the man above and inside you, head bent and buried into your shoulder in supplication.

Your pillow-talk starts to spill out, eyes sliding closed, as you revel in the breath making your skin humid, “I couldn’t stand seeing you with anyone else, Schatz. If you ever left me–ever started fucking another person–think I’d kill ‘em. I’d lose my shit, not being the last person you ever took to bed.”

“I wouldn’t–oh, sheiße–Schatzi, I would never,” König vows in a moan, the sound filling the dip above your collarbone like collected sweat or blood pooled from a spilling neck wound.

He loses sense of his rhythm, rutting like an animal in heat. It becomes difficult to ride it out with him, timing his peaks with the pull on the chain, forcing him higher and higher. You’re too sore to cum like this again today, but his mouth had seen to it that you were finished. Now it is a matter of making him match as he rides you, pressing more and more of his weight down.

“Cum. God dammit, König, you need to cum,” you command him, breathless, pulling the chain taut now. It’s been entirely too long now that he’s been keyed up, desperate for your cunt, gripping you to his body like he needs the touch to simply survive. The way he breathes, when you allow him, is the heavy heaving of brittle-dry sobs. His skin burns against yours, sliding with the sheer amount of sweat pouring from his body.

It’s almost enough to make your eyes roll back, listening to him whimper, “I’m trying, I’m trying, bitte, Liebes, I promise,” his voice unraveling into an escalating, hysterical, almost panicked moaning.

“I know–I know you are, honey. Christ–fuck–you’re killing me. Love how you fuck me. Love how hard you get when you kill people. How you act all fucked up, and vile, and need to cut loose,” you gasp, more of the vulgarity breaking out of you as your ragged pants barely manage to pull air into your lungs. “Know this isn’t that. I know you’re–being gentle on purpose. Fucking me like you need me, ‘cause you do. You couldn’t move on from me–there is no one else, is there?”

There is one last ruthless constriction of chains against his throat, holding him tight. This time you really do cut his air, metal biting into your fingers. The last stretch of his desperation draws longer–long enough you wonder if it was a mistake–as every roll of his hips slides him deeper.

A sound chokes in his throat, and he holds himself rigid, his shoulders quaking with suppressed trembling as his wrapped cock kicks inside you. He’s not even breathing, obeying the constriction around his neck, and he rocks the longer it draws out. For a stupid moment, you wonder if he’s somehow blacked the fuck out in his frozen state, until the links holding the chain’s clasp give, the necklace snapping.

He pulls in a huge gust of air and collapses on top of you, forcing your chin to slot over his shoulder as his weight crashes down, pushing the wind out of you.

“Shit–damn, baby, was it that good?” you ask, relieved and shaking in time to match his. You didn’t cum, but you didn’t need nor want to. You find yourself perfectly satisfied, the heady, filthy contact of skin sticking together its own prize.

“Shh,” he admonishes you, taking a huge breath, sloppily kissing your neck.

“We didn’t even shower.”

“Shh,” he now insists, lazily lifting a hand to cup it over your mouth, and he rumbles with contentment as you place your teeth on the web of skin between his thumb and forefinger.

After an indecently thorough shower, you both dress in the small cubby of a bathroom afforded to you. It’s a slow process, König seemingly spending more time kissing you and touching you than actually dressing. The sadness and desperation had gone out of him with the sex–it could even be called lovemaking, but. Well. You’re both on the far side of skittishness when it comes to naming something so gently.

But, in turn, you are softer. Kinder. Thawed. When his hands slide into yours, you massage his palms and the heel of his thumb. You squeeze his fingers, and brush the soft veins of his wrist with your fingertips.

Your love is dissection, vivisection, but there is a reason that flesh is cut and dermis, fascia, and muscle are pulled apart.

It is to learn the body beneath your hands, and you are so acutely learned in König. When you kiss his palms, he breathes in tightly. When you put a hand over his chest, as if to hold his oversized heart, you swear he would let you cradle it to calm the slamming it produces.

“I love you,” you say to him, sliding your eyes up to his, liquid-smooth, flowing. This time it is said with intent. It is not a burst of confession in the midst of blistering heat, where it feels guilty and fraudulent. This is a surety. This is your heart speaking with a projected voice.

He takes your hand off his chest, his face softened with a weak expression and glittering eyes, and he presses his lips to your knuckles. After the kiss, he holds you there, simply nuzzling your skin. “Ich liebe dich, auch, mein Liebe,” he murmurs, lids sitting heavy over that blue you know so well.

Baščaršija had awoken as you two had hidden in one another’s bodies. The sky is dark as pitch, and the light pollution from the bazaar blots out the stars, but the air smells spiced and warm, with a faint tinge of sweat-touched skin leftover on the locals who had spent their days under the sun.

While waiting in line for the coffee König had mentioned as he’d broken down and cleaned your guns, he examines the snapped length of your necklace. “It’d be an easy fix. Might have to wait until we’re home, but–no, yeah–two minutes, tops,” he says, pinching the stretched-out link that had caused the failure below the free edge of his thumb nail.

You lift a shoulder in a shrug, looking down at his hands. “It’s cheap, I’m not worried about it. I have to have a dozen and a half just like that in my junk jewelry box,” you snort. It’s an easy let-go. It’s garbage silver over copper, and it’s not worth the money that made the tag that once hung from it.

“Always with the shitty jewelry,” he sighs, bemused, but it’s not a real jab. He still winds the chain around two of his fingers to make a little bundle, and stuffs it in his pocket. He’s not going to let it remain broken, simply because it’s yours. He’s quiet for a moment, though he hums warmly when you turn around and press your back into his chest, your boots between his boots while you wait in the queue. But he starts, “You know…”

You press back into him, humming, “Hm?” in answer.

“I could buy you jewelry, if you want. Real jewelry,” he begins to venture, tone a completely different animal than you’re used to meeting eyes with. It’s almost hesitant, and isn’t that just so massively strange when it comes to this man. “Or…a diamond.”

The word lands like an anomalous warhead–something gargantuan and frightening, that does not detonate on impact. It’s still a terrifying occurrence, but not an instant death as should be feared. Your back straightens against him, and you fall into a controlled breathing pattern in the same way you’d fall into a plummet when running off the back of a cargo plane. Good god, you hope your chute opens.

“Do you like diamonds?” he queries further, soft and anxious. He begins to shift and fidget. He’d hoped for a faster answer to this question-beneath-a-question.

Reaching behind you, you draw your hand down the length of his arms, until he pulls out of his hoodie pocket. Relaxation floods his body the moment you lace fingers with him, squeezing him tight, three times, I love you, and his four beat answer comes quickly.

“Diamonds are pretty,” you start, slow and careful in navigation of the thoughts ricocheting around your racing heart. Exhilaration? Dread? Hope? You can’t possibly tell, but you know exactly what he’s asking. “I’d want a lab grown one, though. Think we have enough blood on our hands without jumping for something mined,” you further, in small beats. “What about a, uhm. What do you think of a sapphire? Maybe…something heirloom.”

Callused fingers brush your knuckles, and a scarred mouth hidden by a black cotton gaiter lowers to your ear, nuzzling your hair. “I’d love how you look wearing a sapphire,” he murmurs in utter reverence. It makes you scoff a little under your breath–he holds you in higher esteem than he’d ever held any god–but you reach up and offer benediction in the form of your free fingers sliding into his freshly washed curls.

“Maybe that’s something we’ll talk about more coming up, huh?” you ask and assure. It is not a no, you are not putting out his flame completely, but this is something that should not be spoken of while clocking hours with kills. You’d rather not have anything between you and König defined in a setting where blood could shower at any moment. You’d like neither blood diamonds, nor blood proposals. “But, yeah, Schatz. I’d wear your jewelry.”

He presses a kiss to the spot in front of your ear, and quickly pinches your ass, laughing hyena-pitched once again. “Good. You wouldn’t get to take it off, you know. I’m going to put it on you, and a mortician is going to have to remove it.”

You rub the spot he’d pinched, giving him an eye roll over your shoulder. “Ah, I see, so you’re also telling me that you get to die, first,” you deadpan, though you can’t stop the smirk that curls your mouth.

“Of course. Why would I want to hang around any fucking place you’re not?” he throws your way, and in the pit of your heart, you know he means it.

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#konig #könig #call of duty #cod mw2 #mw2 #konig mw2 #konig call of duty #konig x reader #konig smut #my work

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going-to-ikea-for-the-fries · 1 month

Text

Temporary Fix. || cheater!Johnny

Rating: E + TABOO Words: 5K with the bonus (this one got away from me, I'm sorry) CW: cheating (on Johnny's part, Reader doesn't know), smut smut smut, a bit of BAD dirty talking, oral sex (m!receiving), protected piv sex, breath play (if you squint), praise kink (lots of 'that's it' + 1 'good girl'). Tags: afab!reader, fat/chubby!reader, you/your pronouns, one-night stand but more like one-week stand. Summary: Johnny's a dog who cheats on his girlfriend, unbeknowst to reader. a/n: this is for my chubby gals and also for my @/☠️ anon, who motivated this with a DM of hers (spot the DM at the bottom of the post).

Even those who have a family, a wife, a partner of any kind, waiting for them at home do it. It’s an open secret. Your buddy might be cheating on his wife… And you might know your friend’s wife, hell, your wife might be great friends with his wife. But you’ll never tell her. All things considered, she might already know and be turning a blind eye.

This is a lot more common for enlisted soldiers in the Army. The types that get deployed for 9 to 18 months at a time, fighting in a way that keeps them far away from home for so long that they “can’t help” but seek affection on the side.

But that’s not to mean Special Forces soldiers, especially those kept on ‘stand by’, always ready for a quick deployment that, at most, lasts a month or two, don’t do it. They do.

John Alistair MacTavish has a bird at home. He does. He really does. But you wouldn’t think that, seeing as he cheats on her as often as he breathes.

He goes on and on about his bird every chance he gets, has phone and video calls with her whenever he has the time, coos at her as she talks about her day, tells her how much he misses her…

Only to end the call and leave base with his team to end up at some bar or club in civvy clothes, find a nice bird or bloke (he’s not picky) and go home with them.

A dog, any normal person would call him, a womanizer, a skirt chaser, a player, a cheater.

He’s not above calling himself that. He knows it’s wrong. That doesn’t mean he’s stopping. Hell, that doesn’t mean he even feels guilty. He doesn’t.

It’s not that his girl back home is bad in bed, or boring, or that he feels trapped or… It’s simply that he has an itch that he wants scratched…

Now that he’s in the 141, the philandering just gets much worse. Whenever they have downtime on a foreign location somewhere, a night free before they return to England, a night before they get the go-ahead to go on a mission, what have you… He’s out getting himself a shag.

And, worse of all, he brings Gaz along.

Gaz doesn’t have the same issue, he’s not got a partner at home, so he can do all of this with a clear conscience. Maybe that makes Gaz a bit bad too, because he knows that Soap has someone at home, and he still goes out with his mate and they both get wasted and laid without a care.