#Learning to coparent with Ghoap

[lostintransist]

Secrets Are For Grown Ups | Part 10

Part 1 can be found here | AO3 | @/bernardsbendystraws for the dividers

A/N: there are so many POV changes this chapter. They happened. We’re gonna roll with it.

The play date timing was scheduled through John. He put you in the thread because when he left, you would need to start handling this. The thought of leaving tore at his heart. It snapped the threads that kept the useless organ in his chest. Every morning, he rose and found you glaring at everything because you had yet to put your contacts in. It layered more unrealistic dreams into his head. When you started making him hot water for tea, when you began your coffee, he knew if you gave him the go-ahead, he would drag you to a judge. He had to leave, or soon he wouldn’t be able to pull his roots free.

Your mother had pulled him into a conversation recently at a family dinner hosted at your home. He had been on the back porch watching you play boccie as well as one could with two seven-year-olds.

“Are you planning on dating my daughter?” The shrewd woman, with sharp eyes, watched him choke on his beer.

John coughed into his elbow, brows pulled down as he glared at your mother. Larsen’s mother, seeming to have super hearing, stepped out of the house to watch him flail like a fish on a hook.

“Ma’am,” John coughed into his shoulder once more.

“Peggy,” she supplied.

“Peggy, I don’t think that is any of your business. And even if it were, I’m too old for her.”

She narrowed her eyes at John and then shifted to bring Larsen’s mother into the conversation.

“Sarah, this young man can’t be more than forty. Do you think he is too old for my daughter?”

John felt more and more like a fish caught and examined. He gasped for air as he decided whether he could leap from the boat and back to the safety of the water.

Sarah let her eyes drift from the gray hairs sprinkled through his sideburns and beard, his hat covered most of them on his head, to his dirty boots on his feet.

“I think eight years ago, when she was in the UK, you would have been too old for her. But now? The distance between thirty and forty isn’t as far as between twenty and thirty.” Sarah sipped her beer, “But she did mention John’s divorced, so could be he’s gun-shy, Peggy.”

The problem with talking to older women, John has discovered, is their profound ability to place wounds at the most painful points.

“Ladies, I am going to excuse myself from this conversation.” John stomped down the steps.

You looked up at him as he drew closer, offering a smile as you put the pieces together.

“They started poking their noses in your business?”

John shook his head as he explained, “I’ve been in interrogation rooms that were less uncomfortable than that conversation.”

The laughter that fills the backyard dribbles honey into his cup, sweetening his tea before he leaves you all alone again. John Price isn’t a man who could stand ruining you with his touch.

Jace chimed in, “Grandmas are so nosy. They are always asking me if I have a girlfriend at school.”

“You don’t, you have a boyfriend,” Mac added as if this information were common knowledge.

Anxiety wasn’t the word Johnny would apply to the way he felt currently. Even when he could see the seconds of his life tick away as he disabled bombs, he didn’t want to divorce his soul from his body. Simon’s fingers, twined with his, color leeching from both sets of knuckles, kept him present and upright.

The men, who faced death without flinching, twitched when the sound of the deadbolt moving reached them. You greeted them with a neutral smile. Johnny had seen his mum use that one when the solicitors found their door.

“Come on in, Jace and Mac are at the table with John,” you stepped back, a wide berth left for them to pass.

Johnny led them forward, steps hollow as the wood of the gallows creaks. Stepping past the sitting room where he had experienced vivisection of his sins, he finds his captain and his sons. John has his arms trapped to the table by two boys who continued to build Legos up and over him.

“Jace,” the one who must be Noah, Mac, as his mom said he wanted to be called, pointed to a bright blue two-by-one piece. “I need that one.”

They don’t notice. You skirted around the statues of men, and clearing your throat brought every set of eyes to you.

“Boys, I would like you to meet the men who helped make you.” Your fingers are trapped in the rigid grip of your other hand. Every line of your body screams of discomfort. “Jace, this is Simon Riley, and Mac, this is John MacTavish. Nana MacTavish is his mom.”

The pairs looked the other over, Mac offered the hand first.

“Wanna play Legos with us?”

Johnny let out a watery laugh. A child who looked like he would blend into his sisters’ families would offer the invitation first. You had raised kind boys.

“Yeah, we would love to play. What are you building?”

Slipping into the kitchen, you find Isla humming as she kneads dough.

“How are they doing?” She didn’t look up from her task as she asked.

“I think they are doing good? The boys knew that Larsen didn’t help make them, and I’ve been prepping them for meeting Johnny and Simon since they confirmed they wanted to meet the boys. Noah invited them to play, and I can’t think of a better introduction for them. John is keeping the peace so I can come and go as I need.” You lift yourself onto the counter, drumming your feet against the cabinets.

“And how are you doing?” She glances up from her dough, eyes kind as they assess.

“I am…” The landscape of your emotions stretched out before you, a battlefield of the dead left to rot. “Torn. I didn’t think I would be so conflicted about this.”

“Others filling the space for them doesn’t sit quite as well as the idea, dearie. Give yourself some grace. You are handling this much better than anyone has a right to expect.” Isla, pleased with the texture of her creation, transferred it to an oiled bowl and set about cleaning the counter as she continued. “Now, forgive my meddling, but what are you going to do about John Price?”

Biting the inside corner of your cheek to give yourself a second to decide why she was asking. She scraped up the leftover flour and headed to the sink for a rag.

“How do you mean, Isla?”

Folding your arms tight to your chest, you struggle to stand under the thunderstorm now raining down on the dead. You wanted him. If that was obvious to Isla, it must be to John. He knew and didn’t do anything about it hurt like a brand because it showed how unworthy of love you were. He had even questioned if older men would be an option with dating; it had been clear he didn’t think of himself as part of that camp, but —

Isla cuts your spiral off with a sprinkle of water to the face. She lifts a brow when you look at her, aghast. She had flicked the excess off her fingers in your direction.

“He already knows your situation, John Price loves your boys and gets along with their fathers. What I am asking is, do you want him in your bed?”

“Isla!” You shriek as you slide down from the counter.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Hello, son.” Her gaze shifts to the entrance of the kitchen.

Thank god she did. John MacTavish has no reason to hear of your growing feelings for his former captain.

“Mam,” he glanced at you and then back to his mother. “Can I have the room a moment?”

She narrowed her eyes at Johnny and then looked to you. Swallowing hard, you give her permission to leave. Johnny pulls her into a tight hug and drops a kiss on the top of her head as she exits.

You and Johnny stare at each other. This is the first time you have been alone together in nearly a decade. The years float between you, burning barrels of rum, the only remains of the pillaged relationship.

He looks good, despite the trials you know he has gone through; losing a leg is no easy thing to recover from. Johnny’s eyes are still that heartbreaking blue.

“I need to apologize for my wrongs.” The words hit you like stones flung before Christ.

Johnny rushes on, either because he can see you about to speak or the flinch you hadn’t been able to hide.

“I was wrong and in the wrong.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. They disappeared down to his forearms. Chin tucked to his chest, he took a deep breath before pinning you to the floor with the supplication that supplanted the fear in his face. “I knew what I had done to you when Simon’s name came out of my mouth. That’s why I didn’t follow you. I listened as you shattered in my bathroom and then fled the building.”

“Johnny,” your voice cracks. You don’t know what you were going to say, but you couldn’t not say anything, right?

“No. Listen. I did you harm by not asking if you wanted to fall into my bed. I did you more harm by using you. ‘m not asking for forgiveness. I need you to know, I apologize for that evil,” his voice cracks on the last word.

Tears are escaping your eyes, clogging your throat, and your nose. In all the worlds you could imagine where Johnny and Simon found out about your boys, not a single one of them contained the possibility of an apology. Johnny is crying too. Both of you are being crushed by the choices of people you no longer are.

“Thank you,” the whispered words wrenched out of you.

Jace ran into the kitchen, disgust and annoyance painting his young face. His whole body moved with his words.

“You’re sad too! Well, come on then.”

He grabbed Johnny’s arm and tugged. Johnny shot you a confused look as he slid his hand from his pocket and tucked it into Jace’s.

“Come on, Mom!”

Shrugging, you follow them out the back door and into the yard. Close to the fence, where you let the flowers grow wild, sat Simon. His back straight and arms resting on his bent knees, he is covered in snails.

Despite the emotional conversation you had been in the midst of, your mom voice comes out.

“Boys! Why is Simon covered in snails?”

Noah looked up at you as he placed another on Simon’s left arm, joining the six already slinking around. Jace abandoned Johnny to help his brother in covering the most deadly soldier you had ever met in garden snails.

“He’s sad. So we decided to show him our snails.”

The innocence of children will lead to some of the most baffling situations one could ever find themselves in.

“Did you ask Simon if he wants to be covered in snails?” You can’t see him agreeing to this.

The boys ask in stereo, “Do you want to be covered in snails, Simon?”

He shook his head, but made no move to remove them.

“Alright. Let’s get Simon cleaned up and set the snails free, please. Where did John go?” You ask the boys. Simon hadn’t looked at you since you yelled at him a few days ago.

“He and Nana are talking, so we brought Simon outside.” Noah supplied.

“Why do you have a,” you leaned to the side to see, “box of snails in the garden?”

“For fun,” Jace shrugged.

You nod once, even though none of this makes any sense to you at all.

“They call my mum Nana?” Johnny is choking up when you glance at him.

“She asked to be called Nana, and they have a Gigi and a Grams already, so Nana worked well.” You shrug, not understanding why this would bring him to tears.

“Were the snails a secret from your mum?” He questions following a wet cough. You weren’t the only one dealing with the aftershocks of emotions.

“No.” Noah’s brows pull together as he scoots back a small one from falling off Simon’s hand. “Secrets are for grown-ups.”

“Because kids should only have happy surprises,” you finish. It was a rule to help keep your kids safe from sexual predators. It worked by using the real names of body parts and teaching them how to scream fire and who to talk to if they ever met tricky people.

Running a knuckle under your eye to clear the tears, you use the collar of your shirt to swipe away the residue escaping your nose. You didn’t know it then, but this would be a turning point for everyone that made up this weirdly shaped family.

Secrets Masterlist | Masterlist

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