#You don't touch what belongs to John Price

[dmitriene]

john price didn't intend to be someone's sugar daddy, not knowing that well what it means, and not even planning to join a relationship — yet, that's till he meet you on a dating app his lads almost begged him to install.

or they even installed it themselves, taking his phone while they were off in some country pub, and it wouldn't hurt to open it at least once, price thought.

indeed, it wouldn't, because that's how he found you — the sweetest, soft thing his eyes ever fell upon and seen, reminiscent so much of all the images and scenarios he often dreamed about, but always pushed further away.

john thought you looked like a proper sunshine itself, well mannered darling with toothy smiles and small, yet so sweet description of yourself, and this is the first situation in his life in which he did not think twice, before deciding to write to you straight away.

he's an old man, price is a captain inside and out, with warm heart and sincere smiles, yet bloody hands and fucked up head — he's seen everything, experienced everything, which made him the jonathan price he is right now, and still, it didn't pushed you away a tad bit.

all the time you were such a sweetheart, from the text's in the app and down the road to the first meeting, and if john didn't experience falling in love before — that was it.

it started by itself, after the first meeting there was another, with each of them you became closer and closer not only mentally, but also physically, and against the background of falling in love with you, there's responsibility that began to shallow.

john wanted to pamper you — pay for your lunches together at every meeting, then for your grocery's delivery, then it moved to fixing some little financial issues you had or even buying you something you couldn't afford right now, all of this was just for you, and you hadn't to do anything to receive it.

he had a good amount of money, the one he didn't exactly know where to spend, but there's you — you help john relax on hard days, take care of his health, comfort him when things don't go as they should, and wait for every new message from him while he's away on another mission.

shouldn't he repay to you for being his little pocket sunshine?

his, he always thinks and says, yet you don't exactly belong to him, you never talked about what exactly are you two — friends, lovers, or something else, because price never voiced his feelings and never crossed any possible boundaries, until you did it first.

a little kiss on the stubbled cheek to thank him for buying you some silly things you wanted so much recently, a warm hug against his bulky body, an innocent act of holding hands.

before it turns into messy tongue kisses, squeezing grasps of calloused palms, itchy mustache rubbing against soft flesh of your neck, sucking blooming marks to form a patch down your shoulders and to your cleavage, kissing, biting, moving away unnecessary clothing that gets into john's way.

you became his entirely, body and soul, with buzzing warmth inside your stomach and pleasurable soreness between your doughy thighs, with red marks both from price's fingers and beard, while waking up huddled under his heavy arm and under cool, silky sheets of his spacious bed.

john price fell in love with you completely and irrevocably, just as you in him — welcoming him home each time with soft touches and featherlight kisses, freshly cooked meal and tidy environment, light giggles and sincere words of love and adoration.

a dream come true, a place for him to return to, with light walls that hold only precious memories, with your gasping mewls that reverberate here at night.

from his grounding touches, soft roll of his broad hips when he nestles against your back at nights and curl his hands over the curve of your waist, hoisting your leg to probe against your sopping warmth, burrowing inside your gummy walls softly as john nuzzles his face against your shoulder blades.

price adores you, without planning it all in the first place, but now he is sure that he would not have refused to meet you in any of the circumstances.

✎ 𝘮𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘮𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵. 𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴. 𝘢𝘰3.

[prettybean]

TOXIC BEHAVIOR (COD +18)

* just for fun, don’t take it too seriously 🍌

I DO NOT SUPPORT THIS KIND OF RELATIONSHIP, if you find yourself in these situations, ask for help

If these topics make you uncomfortable, please avoid reading further.

ENGLISH IS NOT MY FIRST LANGUAGE

Ghost

He just can't accept the fact that you ended things with him. It's been three months since the breakup, but Simon has completely lost it, especially when he found out that you're engaged again.

He keeps calling you persistently, and out of habit, you always answer. You hear him say the same old phrases: "I'm better than him" or "Come back to me, you know you can't be happy without me."

Despite the breakup, you've agreed to have sex with him several times. The way he pleases you makes your heart race faster and faster. Deep down, you know it's not fair to your new boyfriend, but when Simon touches you, you forget about everything else.

After years of being together, he knows your body inside out. He knows exactly how to make you moan, and he's not afraid to remind you of that. "I bet you don't scream like that with him." And as he says it, he fucks you like only he can.

"Do I have to kill him to win you back? You know I would." And as he says those words, he takes you to new heights of pleasure.

Soap

He has an unhealthy fixation on exerting control over you. John wants to demonstrate to others just how much you are under his command and how obediently you follow his every instruction.

"I've got something special for you," he informed you, as he fasten a collar around your neck, tightening it to the point where it became difficult to breathe. He didn't care about your discomfort; the tighter the collar, the more possession he felt over you.

"Do you like it, sweetie?" he asked, gazing at his name engraved on the collar, emphasizing how much he had invested in you. "If you ever remove it, it would truly break my heart."

You had no choice but to comply; it was the only option available to you. You kept the collar on, and he took advantage of it more and more, forcing you to go out in public with fewer and fewer clothes, showcasing you as his prized possession.

"No panties today, baby," he forcefully rip them off, leaving you to walk around without them. You belonged solely to him, and you had to face the consequences by fulfilling his every desire.

Price

His protectiveness quickly transformed into possessiveness. He never bothers to inquire about your dating life, your activities, or your whereabouts. Your outings are solely determined by his decisions.

If he doesn't suit your preferences, he might even tie you up to acknowledge his authority.

"Darling, it's all about your safety. I don't want anyone to harm you."

He accompanies you everywhere, and you must remain by his side. When you walk, he clings possessively to your arm. "Stay close to me, sweetheart."

If you attempt to engage in conversation with someone else, he tightens his grip on your waist, glaring at you. "What did I tell you?" he growls before promptly escorting you home.

Nevertheless, you adore his way of expressing love. You have always obeyed his commands because, after all, he is your boyfriend.

Gaz

You never truly loved him and he couldn't accept that fact. For months, he persistently tried to flirt with you, but you rejected him in every possible way. However, he refused to give up.

You couldn't help but notice his strange attempts to manipulate you. Strangely enough, you found yourself enjoying the attention and the way he tried to make you fall for him.

Every day, he would tell you, "You're the reason I'm so miserable, don't you see? It's all because of you." With a disappointed expression, he would repeat this over and over, gazing into your eyes.

He started writing you letters, each one becoming more explicit, expressing how he would pleasure you if only you would accept his love. He even went as far as to say he would eliminate any competition just to have you.

Slowly, you found yourself giving in to the temptation and his relentless manipulations. In the end, he succeeded in making you fall in love with him.

Graves

He's consumed by jealousy, and he doesn't even try to hide it. He repeatedly tells you how jealous he is and how wrong you are in your relationship. "If you could just stop thinking about other people, then maybe we wouldn't fight so much."

He wants to have complete control over your every move, to the point where he even took your phone to read all your messages, from the very first to the very last. If he finds anything he doesn't like, he doesn't hesitate to delete the contact of the person involved. "I'm sick of you and your damn friends."

You want to tell him that he's a psychopath and that he needs to respect your privacy, but you simply can't. He keeps blaming you, saying, "It's because of you that I'm like this."

There have been multiple instances where he's punched walls out of anger or broken your phone to cut off your contact with others.

But in the end, he always comes back to you with open arms, apologizing. And every time, you forgive him.

König

He's been tailing you nonstop. It's been ages since you two called it quits, yet every time you step out, you can't shake off the feeling of being watched.

He's always there, meticulously tracking your every move, whether you're alone or with your friends.

König watches you from a distance, careful not to get too close and blow his cover. He even went as far as snapping some pictures of you, which he proudly displayed on his wall, among others.

He used to keep you company during those long nights, lurking in your backyard, peering through your window just to catch you changing or totally naked.

You were well aware of it, and to make things easier for him, you purposely left the curtains open. König was undeniably creepy, but deep down, you still harbored a hint of affection for him.

Keegan

He’s in love with you. Keegan expresses his love through the most unexpected gestures, but only when you're alone together. When there are other people around, he transforms into the perfect gentleman - kind and flawless. Your friends have even praised you for choosing such a great guy.

But when you return home, everything changes. It's happened multiple times that he's embraced you from behind, gently caressing your hips and leaving a trail of wet kisses along your neck. You tilt your head back, giving him more space, only to feel something cold against your skin.

"The only way I can make you do what I want is by holding a knife to your throat?" he says, his words making you flinch. Every time he threatens you like this, it feels as if it's the first time.

"I know you enjoy provoking me, otherwise you wouldn't do it so often," he claims. You haven't done anything wrong, he just likes making you believe that. He enjoys seeing the fear in your eyes as he grabs your wrists and forces you to your knees.

You beg him to continue, knowing that he doesn't appreciate it when you oppose him. You have no reason to resist. He controls you, able to do whatever he pleases with you, especially when he lets the knife glide across your body.

"Tell me you'd die for me”.

[bunnyreaper]

does your husband know?

pairing - john price x f!reader wc - 1k warnings - implied cheating, established relationship, hotel sex, dom/sub undertones, sex against a window, dirty talk, kink exploration, 18+ notes - a little price ficlet as a treat to myself, read on ao3!!

"Fuck, love. How long has it been?"

His hands enclose yours on the glass pane, his fingers weaving between yours as your wedding ring gleams in the moonlight. Hard, clothed hips are pressed against your bare skin, pinning and exposing you to anyone who might look up into the hotel window.

John's breath is hot in your ear, sending shivers down your spine before he chases them with kisses.

"I don't, I don't know, too long—" You babble, already out of your mind with the feelings your lover is pulling out of you, unraveling you as he always does.

"What kind of husband leaves his wife so fucking desperate?" He smiles devilishly, recalling the desperate look you'd given him across the hotel bar, how easy it had been for him to charm you. "You were practically begging for me. Gagging for it, weren't you?"

One of his hands releases, trailing its way to your neck—not choking, but just holding you, as his lips attach to the weak spot behind your ear and you cry out.

John undoes you with ease, each touch electrifying. Even if it hadn't been so long, you'd still be crying out for him with every cell in your body.

You whimper and whine as he pulls away momentarily, though your arousal flares as you hear the clink of his belt buckle and the rustle of his clothes.

He's so close. So close to being inside you.

"I need—" You squirm, pushing your hips back as your body begs for him, you couldn't hide your need for him if you tried, not that you'd ever want to.

"I know what you need." He purrs, his voice making you shake. He guides his swollen cock through your wet folds, taunting you with his thickness as he coats himself.

What you need is right there, brushing over your hole, nudging at your clit. John already moves expertly, one of his hands falling to your hip to hold you perfectly in place, to hold you exactly where he needs you. "Need a man who can take care of you. Don't worry, I'm right here."

Without any more teasing or taunting, he pushes his thick cock inside you in one swift movement, filling you to the brim and making your back arch. It burns, and then his dick is kissing the tip of your cervix, and you're lost in the pain and the pleasure of it all—the stretch, the push. John is exactly where he belongs, and you flutter around him helplessly as you welcome him home.

"God, you're so fucking tight." He works himself deeper, molds you once more to his size, gets you used to him all over again. "Gonna stretch you out so good, sweetheart."

You're already a whimpering mess, pleasure coursing through you as your conscious thoughts slip away. The second John touches you, it gets hard to think, hard to even breathe.

But his next words have you gasping at the air, desperately trying to retain your grip on reality as it all becomes too much.

"I'll fuck you 'till you forget your husband's name." He punctuates his words by beginning with a relentless pace, already fucking all thoughts of that pretty little head of yours.

"Please…" You plead, your voice sounding so unlike your usual self, so desperate—but you're always desperate for him.

His hand snakes round to your front, two calloused fingers working in circles around your slick clit. The only reason you're still standing is John's body slamming you into the glass, his hand around your neck holding you upright. "This married cunt is mine, isn't that right, love?"

"Yes, John, yes. It's yours. I'm yours." Your words are a mindless chant, a mantra of worship to this man that fucks like a god and takes you to a higher plane.

His groans join yours in filling the room, each gruff vocalisation making you shiver further. The feel of his hot breath against your skin, his fingers working in your wetness, the sound of his pleasure-wracked voice—it's almost too much, and yet he doesn't stop talking you through it.

"Missed you while I was away. Couldn't stop thinking about filling you up, hearing you moan my name." He growls, his thrusts becoming faster, harder, deeper. He's desperate, too, lost in you in the same way you're lost in him.

"Been too long, not gonna last, love. Gonna make you shake again first, though." His fingers work faster, urging you closer and closer to the edge he promises.

Slick sounds echo around, the sound of skin against skin, those groans again. Your eyes are focused on your reflections, seeing John's brow furrow in pleasure and watching as he grits his teeth, mutters out a strangled fuck. His hand tightens around your neck as he bounces you off his length with reckless abandon.

He's perfect, and in this moment, he's everything you've been missing

"I'm close." You pant, breath fogging up the glass.

His eyes meet yours in the reflection—a hard, intent, possessive stare. "Cum for me. Cum on my cock."

Your eyes screw shut, pleasure snapping through you as you're fucked relentlessly through your peak—John's groans escalate as he finishes inside you, pumping you full of his cum as you shake in his hold.

His forehead comes to rest against your shoulder as the two of you breathe in sync, coming down from your high together as one.

His arms wrap around you as he maneuvers you to the bed, softly laying you atop the sheets as he stares down at you lovingly, his cum dripping down your thighs.

"Missed you." You sigh contentedly, a fiercely radiant smile on your face, only for him.

"Missed you too, love." He presses a kiss to your forehead before starting to strip off his clothes. The shirt, trousers, and boots are tossed aside, leaving him in his underwear—his dog tags hanging over his furry chest, his ring shining brightly beside the dulled silver.

He climbs onto the bed next to you, stroking your face with a serene tenderness. "That neglectful husband of yours, huh." He says with a smirk.

"At least he's here now." You pull him closer, pressing your lips to his, relishing his taste after so long without it. Everything is duller when John's away, but with him back, he paints the world back into colour with every brush of his fingers across your cheek. "Hotel was a nice touch, really added to the fantasy."

His grin is cheeky, devilish. The scenario was his idea—tempting you away from your absent husband, giving him everything that man can't. It couldn't be further from the truth. As you lay here next to John, his attention solely on you, you could live forever on the high it brings.

His fingers entwine with yours one more time, as he fiddles with the ring he put on your finger just over a year ago. "Nothing but the best for my wife."

[katz-chow]

Task Force 141's Love Languages

John Price is a careful man. He loves to plan and take his time on small to extravagant dates so he loves his quality time with his partner. Dates can range from small movie nights to a fly-in dinner at the Ritz with a good ol' fashion lover boy. John is an old soul (and an older man) and not to mention his constant ups and downs when he's on duty, so he likes to slow down to savor every moment with you. Everything about you makes him want to cherish you and breathe in every moment. The way he'll call up multiple reservations just so he can find the perfect time and perfect restaurant for you to spend your night at. Or just lounging around his cabin by the lake watching old movies or staring out the window into the beautiful lake. You two don't even have to talk, y'all can just sit next to each other and give each other a smile every once in a while just to know that everything's okay. He loves physical touch on your end. Having your hand in his, walking through the small town right near his cabin. Grabbing his bicep whenever you're walking down some steps so that you won't fall. Or having his hand on your thigh whenever you're out sitting next to him. It doesn't have to be a big gesture such as cuddling on the couch or your arms wrapped around his waist as he cooks dinner. It can just be you two bumping into each other on base when he isn't so fond of PDA. Although, you actually did slap his ass once. He stared you down when Soap and Gaz started snickering, but he of course let it slide. You're his darling. Just give him a little skin on skin to remind him that you're real and you're okay. He wants to know that you're still with him and not just a ghost from his past haunting his present.

Simon Riley is a man with a few words, so he opts to gravitate towards acts of service to make sure you know he's got your six. Whether it be actually having your back on constant walks such as holding your bags and walking behind you like a lost puppy whenever you are both out shopping, or just making you a simple dinner (that he probably watched a youtube video on). Whenever it's a chore day that you normally have every Sunday, it doesn't really apply to you as he's already up early making breakfast for you while the laundry's already in the washer. You just have to wake up and clean your desk, because he doesn't want to mess with your paperwork and belongings...especially when he doesn't know where everything goes. It doesn't really matter if it's inconvenient for him, as long as he's there to help you, he's even willing to put up with having to clean the damn toilet. He doesn't ask for much in return, really he doesn't ask for anything at all. Although... he's a sucker for quality time. Just having you there with him makes him sure of himself. Sure that you're safe, sure that you're under his watchful eye, and sure that you're not going anywhere. Of course he understands if you need time to yourself and with your friends, he'll let you go, but he wants your location shared with him indefinitely. He's paranoid-scared even. So whenever you ask "Simon, what do you want to do today?", he always answers by giving you a kiss and cuddling you. His favorite date night is when you guys order take out and turn on a movie, or watch you game for hours on end. Just anything that has to do with staying at home, and getting to see your gorgeous smile.

Johnny MacTavish is a silly man in which he loves physical touch. Gosh is he intoxicated with you. He cannot stop feeling the warmth of your skin against his cold hands or even when you're freezing him with your ice cold feet on his back. He doesn't care, if he's warming you up, then he'll be your personal heater. Whenever you two are out and about, he'll always make sure his hands are on you, especially when you're in big crowds. His hand? In yours, or behind the nape of your neck, or around your waist...or on your ass. What can he say? He's an ass kinda guy. Johnny loves PDA too. He'll surprise you with kisses whether on your forehead, your cheek, or straight up just a kiss on your lips, it doesn't matter. One time, when he went in for a kiss on your head, you turned around really quickly and basically headbutted his face. It hurt a lot. He loves making sure that you and your body know that it's loved. This man is like a crow, give him a gift and he will cherish it for all his life, even if it's just a pretty pebble. So, yes he's into gift giving! His apartment is basically a thrift store or a grandparent's house at this point with the amounts of clutter and knickknacks he has displayed on his shelves and cabinets. Honestly, there's things in his laundry machine too since you'll pick him tiny flowers or pick up shiny coins, or give him little origami animals that he'll just praise you and stick it into his pocket without thinking anything of it. He'll just hear weird tumbling from the laundry machine and after he finds a shiny rock. Christmas and birthdays are an ease for you two because he will use and wear anything you give him. There's just something about knowing that every gift he receives from you has the same thought behind it: "Oh! Johnny would love this!". It just makes him feel so, so appreciated.

Kyle Garrick is a simple romantic and he grew up in a pretty quaint household and only joined because he wanted to. He also spent a lot of time abroad so I'd say his love language is gift giving. But this is a lot more thoughtful and extravagant, different from how Soap is with his. Honestly it has a lot to do with the fact that he doesn't want you to think that he can't take care of you. So his gift giving is a lot more like paying your bills, buying you a new fridge if it breaks down, and buying you expensive clothes. He loves spoiling you and taking care of your financial needs since he knows he can't always be there for you. With this, he's able to make sure you're comfy and situated from your home and just spend your days doing whatever makes you happy. He's a simple man, his bank account is your bank account. A happy wife is a happy life, right? In return, he LOVES words of affection. Kyle, I feel like, would love reading poetry and just soaks up every word until it's imprinted like pearls in his chest. Oh and when you say anything as simple as just a small praise, "You're the bestest, Kyle!", he will melt in your arms. Honestly, this might be the biggest incentive for him to spoil you, just seeing you thank him into oblivion and proudly exclaim how he's yours, it just makes him so full of pride. His favorites are when you text him when he's at work either locally or somewhere with service. He lives for those spontaneous texts of just, "I miss you :(( hurry and come home." Good God, if he wasn't working to pay off that car he just bought you, he would just quit right then and there to come home to your precious sweet nothings and praises. But he doesn't want you to work, because then he won't be able to hear your angelic voice.

[soggyriceee]

of course !!! literally been re-reading your stuff all night- !! it’s just so good 🫶🏾🫶🏾

your request are open so can i request jealous price ? (completely fine if not)

~🐰 (< that’s me)

His Princess | Price NSFW

<omg thank you bunny (I hope your okay with the name)! ofc I loved writing this and I hope you enjoyed it just as much <33 >

summary: some new intern at your job seemed to take a liking to you. John however, didnt find that too amusing and shows you, and him, who you belong to

warnings: unprotected p in v, dirty talk, jealous Price, established relationship, implied age gap, female!reader overstimulation, porn

・❥・

Price never got jealous. what was there to be jealous of? he treated you like a princess, cooked for you, wrote you poems no matter how cringe they may be. he was there for every important moment in your adult life and supported you at your lowest. but aside from the romantic and gentle factor, he fucked you really, really well.

and he knew it. he knew how good he made you feel and wasn't worried about not making you feel good. no, he never worried about it. but what he did worry about, was this new guy. Chris. he was young, like you. tall, fit, smart. oh and of course, wasn't a war criminal. it got to him. seeing him walk you out, or text you asking questions he was "too dumb to figure out" during your guys' intimate moments. it made him wanna take your phone and smash it every time his initials popped up on your phone.

but he knew you didnt see this Chris guy that way. you were in love with him, and only him.

but tonight, tonight he couldn't hold keep his jealousy secret.

he picked you up at the usual spot, just outside your office. he waited patiently for you to walk out, already expecting to see Chris following behind you. so when you both came out together he paid little mind. that was until he saw Chris's arm slip around your waist, pulling you in for a hug.

almost immediately he felt his ears and neck turn red with anger, biting his inner cheek with so much force it hurt. but it was all numbed by the jealousy he felt. who was he to touch whats his? his princess?

what made it worse was that you didnt deny the hug. you hugged him back. around the waist, but it didnt matter. it was a form of affection, a form of affection only John thought he got from you. a form of affection he believed only he was able to get.

so when you slid into his passenger side, kissing his cheeks and hugging his neck, he pulled away. "John? why are you acting like that?" you asked, placing your purse in the back seat and kicking off your heels off. he said nothing, pulling out of the driveway while watching Chris get in his own car, keeping mental notice of his black Nissan Altima.

the car ride was silent. you could tell something was wrong by the veins popping from the side of Johns neck, but also his new silence. he was never silent. not unless he was mad. really mad. and it made you nervous because John was a very vocal man. if he was upset at you for something he told you exactly what it was and why. he didnt believe in silent treatment and wills scold you if you give it to him.

so his newfound silence worried you. deeply.

as he pulled into the apartment garage you timidly grabbed your things, scared to even look at him. you didnt want to know what was on his mind, you were terrified. "when we get inside, go straight to the room. im not asking im telling." he said calmly, grabbing the keys from the ignition. you didnt reply, but simply turned to open the door, stepping out.

you followed him like a lost puppy, scared of disobeying anything he had to say. opening the door, John stood to the side, allowing you in first. once you were in, you turned to John, attempting to talk. to say something. "I don't wanna hear it. do as you're told and nothing less." he said, kicking his military boots off, continuing the no eye contact.

with your head hanging low you made your way to the room. was it something you said? maybe he was just having a bad day. but.. why take it out on you? as you made it to the room John followed not to far behind and was quick to slam the door. you jumped, turning to him. his face was still red with anger, his eyes not the same kind, gentle ones he always gave you. no, no these were dark, angry eyes. eyes that told you he wasn't going to show any mercy on you.

"undress. now." he said, his eyes never leaving your frightened ones. you complied, moving your hands to unbutton your shirt, dragging your skirt down not too long after. so there you stood, almost naked in front of this man. "bed." he said, nodding his head towards it. again you complied, sitting on the edge of the bed. you couldn't lie, as much as you were scared, you were also turned on. his dominance always had you going bonkers and he knew that. but this time it seemed like he was genuinely angry with you, and his dominance was not for your own satisfaction.

he walked to the dresser, pulling out a few things. one of those being your dildo you used while he was away. a bright red rushed to your cheeks as he threw it on the bed beside you. "lay back, on the pillow. now." he said, unzipping his sweater he had on and tossing it to the side, exposing the white tank top he had on under. he watched you, scramble to the pillow and lay on your back, looking over to him with those big round eyes. he loved it. it almost made him break. but he couldn't shake the image of that mans arm around your waist, pulling you into him.

he crawled onto of you, spreading your legs. he grunted at the wet spot that was on your panties, looking up at you. "you find this amusing? making me angry?" he asked, hooking his finger under your panties and pulling them from your pussy. you sighed at the cool air hitting your wet pussy, shaking your head. "looks like it." he said, taking his thumb to your clit, applying a generous amount of pressure. you whimpered at his touch, squeezing your eyes shut.

he was right. angry John was hot. it turned you on. made a puddle in your panties. he rubbed his thumb in slow, slow circles, watching your hips jerk up, begging for more. "stop fucking moving." he growled, gripping your hip and pinning it to the bed. again, he goes in small, slow circles.

you couldn't take this. you both knew it. but he was angry. livid. he didnt want to reward you for being a slut, now would he? " he's handsome, isn't he?" John finally asked, watching your pussy clench and unclench. you peeled your eyes open, looking up at him. "w-what?" "you heard me." he growled, shifting his gaze to you. "c-chris? he's just a friend John I-" your breath was cut short when he slid two fingers into you, a gasp sliding out from you. he tilted his head, feeling your pussy grip onto his fingers. "just a friend who wants to fuck you." price retaliated, sliding his fingers out slowly, looking at all your wetness on his fingers.

you couldn't say two words before his fingers slammed back into you, a cry of both pain and pleasure coming from you. "j-john~" you cried out, gripping his forearms. moving his fingers faster, he leaned down, sucking the skin of your neck, leaving dark and big marks. a symbol that you were his and his only. from his lips on your neck to his fingers slamming in and out of your dripping cunt, you felt your eyes roll to the back of your head. "John~ it f-feels so good." you whimpered, back arching from off the bed.

"yea? im so glad baby.." he said, but something in his tone made you second guess if it was genuine or not. he raised himself from off you, grazing his free thumb over the markings, pressing onto the ones that were darkest. "so fucking glad.." he whispered, trailing his eyes up to you.

his fingers moved faster, hitting your g spot exactly each time. the knot you felt in your stomach quickly became undone, your cum coating his fingers and dripping don to his wrists. he smiles for a moment at the mess you made, but it quickly falls. you feel his fingers move again, a gasp slipping from you. "j-john hold on p-please." you cry out, trying to move back and off his fingers. but he growls and holds you down, halting any movements that you make. "this is what sluts get. you wanna go and flirt with other guys, im gonna make sure you never do so much as breathe around him by the end of tonight." he growled, slipping a third finger in.

you groaned at the feeling of you being stretched, a slight pain hitting you every time he moved his fingers back in. "take it. I know you can." he said, watching at tears brimmed your eyes. your mind was fuzzy and coherent sentences was the last thing you could form. quickly you felt the knot return in your stomach, trying your hardest to move back. but his grip was too strong, he had you exactly where he wanted you.

your legs shook and toes curled as your second orgasm happened, your body jerking forwards from the pleasure. "thats it.. thats my good girl.. my princess." he whispered, moving his fingers slowly and enjoying the noises your pussy made for him.

breathlessly, you tried to speak but he shushed you. "don't speak." he said. as he slid his fingers out he reached for his next assault weapon. your dildo. he slapped it on your thighs, sighing. "if only he didnt have to hug you. I could be treating you like the good girl I know you are love." he said, a fake frown upon his lips. you looked up at him, hooded eyes and parted, wet lips, hoping he'd show any mercy. but he wouldn't. not any time soon.

grabbing one of your legs he pulled it up into your chest, aligning the dildo tip at your entrance. "j-john please-" before you could say a work he slammed it into you, a cry coming out from you. your leaned forward, gripping his biceps to try and help the pain. but it didn't. especially since he immediately went to slamming it in and out of you.

he loved this angle because he knew it hit the deepest part of you. the part he always made sure to hit repeatedly if he wanted you a blubbering mess. "its good huh? I bet your imagining it being his cock huh?" he said, gripping your face and forcing you to look up at him. "tell me. you're thinking about him fucking you right now, aren't you?" he asked again, gripping your face harder.

but you shook your head frantically, tears brimming your eyes. the toy kissed your cervix ever so slightly, broken whimpers and cries leaving you. but he loved it. he loved seeing you so broken and disheveled. he loved knowing that he was doing that to you, not some coworker of yours. he looked down, watching the thick toy slide in and out of you with ease, bubbles of your slick popping up every now and then.

"oh you love this dont you. look how wet this pussy is love.. your fucking enjoying it." he whispered, licking his lips. he slowed the movements down, wanting to take in just hot wet you really were. it made the hard on in his pants hurt more, taking his free hand and unbuckling his pants to relieve some of the pressure. he moaned at the slight feeling of freeness, shifting his attention back down to you.

" you think you deserved to get fucked baby? tell me, honestly." he said, sliding the dildo out slightly before sliding it right back in. despite your efforts to reply to him, you couldn't form words. your head was fuzzy and your words came out incoherent. "whats that princess?" he chuckled, halting the dildo. opening your eyes and looking up at his mischievous ones, you mumbled, "yes.. p-please.."

he slid the soaked dildo out, a string of slick coming from you. he moaned at the sight, palming himself through his pants. "fuck lovie... imma fuck you so badly. fill you up with this cum." he growled, quickly sliding his pants down, pulling his hard on through the hole in his boxers. the tip dripped with pre cum, his tip red. you whimpered at the sight, bucking your hips up. he smiled at the sight, shaking his head. "needy slut."

pulling your knees to your chest, he aligns the tip to your hole, looking down at it. the mix of your slick and his pre cum almost made the tip slide right in. but e was quick with it, pulling away. "fuck your wet.. does he make you this wet baby? tell me. tell me he makes you this wet." as much as you wanted to say the truth, you felt like lying would make him fuck you even harder.

"y-yes.. he does." you said meekly, not looking directly into his eyes. but you felt his eyes on you. you felt the anger radiating off of him. " say it again. with your chest this time." he whispers, fingers digging into the sides of your thighs. so, looking up at him from between your thighs, you repeated yourself. "he made me this wet.. " you said.

the look on his face went from angry to something more than angry. something you couldn't even describe. "where's your phone. give it to me now." he said, letting your thighs go. you hesitated but leaned over the bed, grabbing your fallen phone. you handed it to him and he snatched it, shoving you back to where you once were.

"wanna act like a no good slut, imma fuck you like one." he said, facing the phone down to your cunt. you tried to retaliate but he slammed his dick into you, a yelp leaving you. he hissed, gripping your thigh, nail marks following behind. immediately he went in with a fast pace, bending you so your knees now rested beside your head.

never had John gotten jealous. not that he's shown you. and he's never recorded you guys fucking. he thought it was a personal thing between you both. he also didnt want others seeing your perfect body. " you like this, huh? you like getting fucked on camera?" he asked, holding the phone down to record his dick sliding in and out. the room filled with both your noises, skin slapping and the wet sounds of your pussy and his dick making contact.

"J-John~ please" you whimpered, gripping the sheets below you. his tip hit your cervix directly, tears forming in your eyes. "please what? you think you deserve shit right now? huh?" he grabbed your face, forcing you to look up at the camera. "say hi Chris." he said, picking up the pace slowly. you whined, clenching around him despite the embarrassment you felt taking over you. " say hi. dont be rude." he smiled above you, shaking your head side to side gently. "h-hi.. hi Chris." you whimpered, looking up at the camera.

John grunted, moving the camera back to your cunt. he watched you from the camera, moving his hands from his face to your clit, rubbing circles. " you gonna cum again love? I know you want to." he said, shifting his gaze to your twisted face.

he moved one of your legs to lay straight, the other still pressed onto the mattress. he almost came at the sight of his bulge in your lower stomach. "fuck~ J-john im gonna c-cum" you cried, already feeling the wobbliness of your legs coming back. "cum baby. show Chris who makes you cum. show him.. I know he wants to see." he said. moving deeper inside you, slowing down a bit.

your body was on fire, your slick dripping from your pussy despite his dick filling you up. your mind was hazy and you tried your best to focus on John, but you couldn't stop your eyes from rolling back. couldn't stop the drool coming from your mouth. it made a whimper slip from John's lips, the look on your face making his dick twitch. "im close baby.. im so close." he whispered. he held the phone at your connecting sexes, wanting to record the cum pouring from your cunt.

"come on baby. cum. cum for me I know you can do it. be my good little princess and cum all over.. fuck" he watched the cum spurt out of you, some getting onto the camera lens, most of it getting onto his abdomen. tears flowed out your eyes, broken cries coming from your plump lips. he gasped, feeling his own cum shooting out of him at the sight, no matter how hard he tried to hold it back. it was too much for him.

his hips jerked forward, the phone dropping to the bed, his hands pressing on the wall for support. his hips moved back into yours, riding out both your high and his. whimpers left his lips along with heavy pants. "f-fuck" he growled, his body slowly dropping to your. slowly he leaned for the phone, stopping the video. you heard 'sent' ding coming from your phone, realizing he was recording the whole time. "John you cant send that.. its sexual-" "ill kill him if he gets you fired for this." he said, looking down at you.

you knew he was serious. it made you clench around him. he chuckled, kissing your cheek and slowly pulling out before sliding back in, forcing his cum into you. " keep it in there." he whispered, looking up at you with hooded eyes. you smiled, nodding slowly. "I will." you smiled, hugging his neck. he sighed, wrapping his arms around your waist.

"im sorry princess. im got carried away." he said after a moment of silence. you shook your head, kissing the top of his head. " dont apologize. im sorry I let him hug me. I dont think that'll happen anymore." you chuckled. he smiled and nodded, kissing the top of your covered breasts. " I love you princess. so much." he whispered, resting his chin on your chest, looking up at you. you back, running your fingers through his slightly messy beard. "I love you more."

[blingblong55]

Flawless -Simon 'Ghost' Riley, John 'Soap' MacTavish, Alejandro Vargas NSFW

Based on a request:

Hi! I Hope you are ok and if I may ask for a request? Someting with ghost maybe or soap or Alejandro how they slowly losing it bc of the teasing 😈 that reader gives them? ❤️🙏 Thank you 🙏 ____ F!Reader, smut, MDNI, 18+, teasing, established!relationship ____

A/N: Its an HC this time and it's not much smut as you'd expect...sorry...

Ghost:

It started as banter. "Little muppet can barely pick a gun up." He nudges you. "At least I dont look like I belong in some shit rock band." His eyes squint at your comment. The entire evening, you and him kept it this way, until you sat on the sofa, he glared at you and then he smirked when he saw you staring at his arms. He man spreads and sighs. "Little thing like you could never take it~" he mentions so casually. "Hm?" your cheeks flushed. He moves his hips slightly, barely noticeable. "In a fight, you could never take the fact my arms are stronger and bigger than yours," he plays his last comment off.

For minutes he kept this up, until you leaned back, stretched and made sure to arch your back. "That was a nice one," your hands on your thighs now. "Oh don't you start," he comments and you chuckle. "Start what?" you play innocent. Your hair now in a pony tail, "It's so hot in here, no?" you so cruelly take your jacket off, the tight shirt showing off your figure. "Don't start something you can't end R/N," his hands over his bulge.

Minutes pass and he watches you, your cleavage on display, he gulps. You sigh and look at him, "It's a shame you have to wake up early to train, isn't it?" You fix the locket that hangs from your neck. "It's also a shame you have to sleep early," your hands on your thighs. He looks at you, devilish smirk on him. "Darling, stop that." he groans. His hands on his bulge as he watches you. "I want you, I need you right here, right now. I need you now, right here. Your lips, touch, everything you offer." he becomes frustrated. He gets on his knees and crawls to you.

"Baby, please~" his unzipped jeans letting his bulge fall out. Your heel on his chest, "Oh no, this is what you get for last night," you smirk. He whines, "but baby-" Your hand to his lips, "shhh, go to bed."

Soap:

"Flowers as cute as you, petal," his arms wrapped around you. "That dog as silly as you," you nod to the guard dog spinning in circles. "I always try and be cute with yer and all I get is this?" he pouts. "What, you can me to get on my knees and ask for forgiveness?" He smirks at this. "Maybe I would, maybe I want my pretty petal to do just that," he leans in. "oh yeah?" you lean in as well but before your lips meet, you walk away. "Hey, no fair," he walks over to you. "No can do, busy," you begin to write reports.

Hours pass and he sits in your office, waiting for you to give him attention. "R/N, let's do something," he begs. "Fine, go to your job, Price needed you in that room thirty minutes ago." You point to the door and he groans. "Gaz took my place, I just need to be with you!" he pouts just a bit. You lean back on your chair and open up buttons, your bra slowly being revealed. "C'mon, petal don't do this to me." You grin as you pass your pen over your tits, "do what?" He licks his lips, "darling, please~" he reaches for your hand but you place it on your other tit.

Nipples hard as you rub them, soft moans escape your lips. "Let me touch you, my love." His voice so soft but filled with desperation. "Oh you see, I can't, you know we can't display that when we wear our uniform." You continue to play with your breasts as he looks at you with need. "Don't do this to me, please, please my love," pre-cum already staining his jeans. "Don't be like this, I love you," he tried to play his emotions to let you touch him.

"Petal, please~" he whines. "Go to that meeting Johnny, it's important-" you reach for his hands. "No, I can't, not when I need to fuck that pretty pussy of yours," he leans over the desk. "Darling please?" His blue eyes begging for one touch. "Go, Johnny." you whisper against his lips.

A/N: I couldn't write for Ale like I did for the others, I just let my horniness write this time...

Alejandro:

"Tease you?" he asks again. "Tease me, Ale." you repeat. "Why?" he crosses his arms. "The guys think you are bad at it, so..tease me." He smirks. "Do you like being teased, pretty girl?" You nod, just trying to go with it. "Good," his hands move to your hips, bringing you to him. "For a pretty girl like you, you sure are so easy to tease then." Smug look on him. His face moves a bit closer to yours. "Am I making you nervous~?" his voice now a whisper, warm breath on your neck. "No," you lie. "No? such a terrible liar you are, chula," his thumb under your chin. "How would you know?" your hands still on your sides. He puts his finger on your lips, gently silencing you. "It's just making you more nervous, chula. I should stop," he says in a teasing tone, not taking his finger off your mouth.

The men giving you a thumbs up from the other side, you ignore them. "Stop? Why?" your gaze on his. "Who know, I might take advantage of this," Alejandro leans his face closer to yours, his lips slightly touching yours. "Maybe I like making you nervous." he whispers. "C'mon, lick my fingers," he commands gently and opens your mouth. Your tongue swirling around as you watch him, he smirks and nods. "Such an obedient thing," he praises. In a sensual way, he takes his fingers off your lips, licking the saliva on his fingers. "Thats what you wanted, verdad chula?" He brings his face closer to yours. "Or maybe you wanted to taste yourself on my lips?" he whispers.

"I...I do," a bold choice to make. "Then you will," he grabs your chin and kisses you, slowly and with passion as he held you in place. His lips soft as they moved against yours. His tongue pushed against yours, but soon he pulls away. "Is my little girl shy now?" He cups your face, "Aren't you a little toy," he kisses you again but it was momentary.

A/N: this man gets me horny too fast its not nice of him...

Tags: @liyanahelena @anonymuslydumb @madamemelacholysstuff @annoyinglysweetobject @warningofeve @radiantblog @kit-kats06 @lizardfellow1234 @vivii-annx @katybaby00 @cooliofango

[lvlyghost]

Maybe Someday

PAIRINGS: John Price x F!Reader

SUMMARY: She never expected to see him again, but months after their breakup they find each other.

WORD COUNT: 1.2k

TW: suggestive themes, angst, hurt/little comfort. heartbreak. lovers to(? 3rd pov. think that's it.

A/N: just something that came to my mind today whilst in the middle of a storm. enjoy!

Masterlist✨

The soft pitter-patter of rain above her dampens her hair.

The Big Ben marks the hour.

Six o'clock.

A gentle breeze that blows her strands in different directions; she shouldn't have come, shouldn't have agreed to this meeting. God knows it'd be painful. But she came, she showed up, and maybe bringing an umbrella would've been a good idea, not that she cares. She hasn't felt a thing for months now, stuck in a permanent state of numbness, the sky's dark and people around her run away from the rain. But not her. She waits as the cool air hits the uncovered flesh of her legs, resulting in goosebumps and a shiver that travels through her body.

And then the rain's gone, her sight partially blocked out. A warm body behind radiating enough heat; she remembers it. It's familiar. Eyes threatened to close and take in the well known sense of belonging. She knows him like the back of her hand.

"Eager to catch a cold, aren't you?" heart beating fast at the sound of his voice, deep and raspy. Breathing deeply she spun around facing a big broad chest, strong shoulders and a beard. Her eyes drift all the way up until she finds his face, those baby blues she was enamored with. "Rain's coming down hard, yeah?" The corners of his lips quirk up in a faint smile. 'Was he just as nervous as her?' Was he remembering all the things both had gone through? The nostalgia in his orbs glowing.

"John." She greets him at last.

Her voice is music to his ears. The same tone, the same softness and quietness. Something he loved. Soothing his nightmares away.

His bad days.

When he saw her standing alone, arms crossed over her waist, staring up at the sky in that bloody outfit. He almost wanted to scold her for her poor choice of clothing. The dark green jacket did little to nothing to protect her from the weather. Her bottom barely covered her legs.

"Love." He whispered back, leaning over her ever so slightly, something that has her sucking down a sharp breath. The black attire he wears only serves to make his eyes even more blue. Like the blue of the sea in Mykonos. John hesitates for a second but eventually offers his much better dark coat to her to which she refuses. He sighs, closing his eyes and opening them back again. "I believe you've got something for me."

From a black purse she takes out a manila envelope, trying not to think about how close he's standing, feet almost touching.

"Kate apologizes for not delivering it herself. But she's quite busy right now." She explains as John examines the envelope with curious eyes. "Said she'll reach out to you as soon as she's able."

Stuffing her hands in her pockets she chewed down on her lower lip, something that doesn't go unnoticed by John.

"You alright, love?" she freezes. Eyes boring into hers. She knows what he's truly asking. What he so desperately wants to know. The things that were left unsaid...

Give me a sign. Just one.

"Apparently the CIA wants nothing to do with this. So they're passing it on to someone who may get the job done...-"

He interrupts her, her name leaves his lips in a hushed voice that reminds her of shared late nights at his loft.

"Please... you know you can tell me. It don't matter what happened to us."

-

Sweet moans bounce around the place. The headboard that slams against the wall with every thrust of his hips. His fingers intertwined with hers. John's lips kissing down her neck. The sound of skin against skin. Hands that leave marks on his back, that he would proudly wear tomorrow morning as the everything that could have been.

Another blink of her eyes and she lays on her side, facing him as tears roll down her flushed cheeks. The same he gently wipes away with a broken heart and a deep frown on his lips. John's holding back his own emotions. It won't help anyone. She doesn't have to know how utterly broken he is by this.

"Hey..." he calls her in the quiet night. "Talk to me."

She shakes her head, she won't say a thing. He wanted answers and maybe he should've fought more. Fight to keep her close. But he always gave her what she wanted. What she asked for.

His bare legs tangled up with hers. This is it, she thinks. The last time they'll be together and it's ripping her apart at the seams. She cries silently, and John can only watch swallowing down the lump in his throat.

"Maybe someday we get that ending you imagined for us." From one moment to another he's pulling her close to his arms, laying a kiss on her forehead. More salty tears trailing down, hitting his exposed chest and she swears there'd be no one after Johnatan Price. "Just not today. Not in this lifetime. Not in this universe."

-

He waits patiently, glaring over her shoulder every now and then. He was sure no one had followed him but he couldn't risk it. One could never be too sure. If only she said the words he'd take her home. Back to where she belonged. In his arms, next to him. The small golden ring that was tucked away for months was still waiting for her to come back. It felt heavy whenever he held it in his hands.

"I guess...-" she trails off trying to find her voice. "It's hard to see you again."

John sighs feet shifting and jaw tightening.

"Not a day goes by where I don't think if... we-" his mouth snapped shut.

A loud rumble echoed through the sky above that startles her.

"Storm's coming in." She observed. Taking a step back from him, out of his reach.

John can't find it in himself to let her go just yet. Just a little longer. Please.

Please.

"Let's take cover... there's a café down the street." he points out the opposite direction.

"I don't think that's a good idea." She reasons but doesn't decline his invitation either. Taking a deep breath she fiddles with her hands. "You and I together are never a good idea." He snorts. Despite the situation. Despite the months apart, he hasn't stopped thinking about her. He hasn't stopped loving her and looking out for her even if she didn't know. What he'd do to have one more night with the girl. "But you know I can't deny that I'd kill for a latte and a chocolate cake."

Smiling fondly he gestures for her to hold the umbrella for him, she obliges. John is quick to unbutton his coat and wrapping it around her small figure. His hands rest on her shoulders and gives them a gentle squeeze.

"Now don't tell me you don't feel much better now." He takes the umbrella back and starts walking with her following down the street, arms brushing with every motion.

"You always knew how to treat a girl."

His lips twitch when he hears the words out of her mouth and she blushes aggressively. Her brain seemed to stop working when he was around.

The short trip is silent, two souls that were drawn to each other yet not meant to be together. All both could ever hope for is that another universe would soon come for them.

Or pray that something changed in this one.

[yandere-sins]

im in my captain price phase😣 do you have any headcannons for him? i loveee your work !! 🩵⭐

Y'all are not alone in this it seems, lol! Thanks for requesting ^-^

»»———————— ♡ ————————««

♡ John never hesitates to simply relocate you where he wants you to be. You're trying to sulk in a corner? He takes out the big soldier muscles to grip you by the waistband of your trousers or belt, and picks you up to drag you to where he needs to go. Price might not have the height advantage of other members, but you'd be best advised not to underestimate him. He will throw you over his shoulder or put his hands between your legs, cupping your crotch and spin you around or out of the way if needed. Shameless, efficient, and oftentimes amused by your squeals and complaints. He'll make sure you can't get away from him for too long, and if he says it's bedtime/sit-on-his-lap-time/dinner/time to go over the plan for the next mission and you have to stand between him and the table, his body pressed up to yours to the point the table hurts you, then there's no wiggling or arguing out of it. Try to defy him when this man has a plan of where he needs to be, and you need to be with him at all times. Try him.

♡ You don't even realize the service Price is doing you by making you his darling. You're so careless, especially when you're eating, you don't see the hungry eyes of the soldiers that would love to have a taste of what isn't theirs. Price is single-handedly keeping everyone in check by forcing you on his lap despite your protests, having his arm around you and the other hand on his gun while he demands asks you to feed him. You're very vulnerable when walking to the showers, so he stalks after you like a guard dog, always keeping his smile on his lips but death threats in his eyes. You may hate on him for keeping you in his room, locked and occasionally chained, but it's for your own well-being. Because if he let you out of the safety of his room, you'd be mauled for sure. If he keeps you close and forces his touches and demands on you, John can be sure you'll be okay and unharmed. He's protecting you—at least, that's what he thinks he's doing—regardless of your opinion. The only time he'll be 'careless' is when he's punishing you—and even then, he's standing in the shadows, watching over you, smoking, and making sure no one puts their hands on what belongs to him while also teaching you the valuable lesson that you really do need his protection, other soldiers ready to pounce at such a delicious treat.

♡ Before making you his darling officially, he's definitely not ashamed to use his authority. As I mentioned before, he uses it to steal touches and keep you close to him, but he also likes to police your life as much as he can. What do you mean your company-issued shirts don't fit and are smelly? Price went out of his way to share his clothes with you; you better wear them before he orders you to. Not liking having to share tents with your Captain on missions? Tough luck, Rookie. Who are you going to complain to? You think Price is overstepping by checking on you countless times a day and calling you to him for no apparent reason, just to keep him company? That's normal, you're overreacting. Don't be rude to your Captain, alright? You think you caught him caressing you at night while you sleep? Damn, your imagination has no bounds. All John is doing is non-negotiable. He's just doing his job.

♡ As much as he hates having others' attention on you, he loves, loves, loves how cute you are when you feel embarrassed by him in front of others. You just hate having no autonomy, and Price loves it. He loves giving your rear a good smack when you try to argue with him, cutting you off and embarrassing you in front of anyone you tried to talk to. You hate his lap, and he loves forcing your hips to grind against him as you squirm until you gasp and force yourself to still. He'll lick food off the corner of your mouth in front of everyone else and grin even when you yell at him to stop. Sometimes he makes you wear his shirts improperly so his nametag is showing on the outside for everyone to read. It's his way of marking you, by showing everyone else what they'll never have. His hickies are legendary, and he has ruined some of the shirts he gave you by ripping off the collars or cutting off the arms so he could present his bruises and bites to everyone, letting them know how brutally sweetly you made love to each other last night. No worries, though! John actively shows off his scratches and bites that he got from you even though no one is asking, giving way too much information to everyone.

[emperor-palpaminty]

Tender

look there is a stunning lack of Price content and i am here for that and I am trying to procrastinate. so have some price snacks. not NSFW but also, kinda suggestive? some kissy? smoochie?? implying??? idk?

Price x female lawyer reader, because for some reason Price and a lawyer would go well together in my head. leave me alone. Also my inbox is open. Enjoy the trainwreck

also @a-small-writer-in-a-big-world-come and get ya juice

"Go on." Price held out the long, velvety box. "Open it."

She blinked. Her expression shifted from one of surprise into suspicion, lips pursing. "Why?"

A chuckle left his lips. "You gotta ask questions for everything?" Price shook the box slightly, raising his eyebrows in a tantalizing manner. "You could just open it, find out what's inside."

"But," A cheeky grin flickered to that smart and witty mouth. "I like asking you questions."

"You're a lawyer, not a detective." Price annunciated with the box. "One of two options here, oh, esteemed prosecutor of the court: Either I open it, or you do." She hummed in response as Price ran a thumb over the soft and plush surface of the lid, his voice softening in the way that only this woman could bring out. "What'll it be?"

Her eyes flickered from the box to his face. The dark glint of intrigue laid dormant in her eyes, stirring at the mystery. Slowly, her fingers reached out and took the box from him. "It's heavy."

"Nothing you don't deserve." Price leaned on the cool marble countertop, watching her face as she opened the lid. His lips quirked sightly into a smile.

Her mouth opened in disbelief, and she sucked in a breath. "Oh! John." She glanced up at him and ran her fingers over the white pearls of the necklace. "John. You shouldn't have." Her fingers twitched, and a nervous laugh left her throat. "Oh, my god. You really shouldn't have- It'll break if I touch it."

"No, no." Price grinned and stood up fully, walking behind her. "Let's get it on you."

A soft giggle left the woman in front of him as she took her hair and pulled it off her shoulders, away from her neck. "You really didn't have to." Her cheeks were curved into a wide smile, and her hands held her hair away.

Price reached down around her and picked up the necklace, eyes skimming her neck. She was a beautiful, classy, bold woman, and she deserved all he could buy her and more. "I did have to, love." Price pulled the string of pearls gently around her neck- they sat like they belonged there. The clasp held tight, and his fingers smoothed over the side of her neck, admiring the gentle slope of it. She tilted her head to the side with an inviting hum. Price leaned down, his hands trailing down her arms, fingers running over the silky fabric of her blouse. "Because," He started, even though she hadn't asked. "Every time someone looks at you, or someone thinks that you're a hot lawyer, or wants to ask you out-" He tugged on the necklace as he kissed the smooth skin of her neck. She sighed, hands pressing on the counter. "You have something that shows everyone that you have someone at home waiting for ya."

His kisses were sweet, slow, and gentle. "My girl." Price hummed against her jaw. He was a military captain- tough, coarse, had been covered in blood and valor. And yet here he was, any sense of his self unraveling at her- damn lawyers, probably, doing what they did best, getting at his last nerve. Only she did it in a much better way.

She laughed, turning and reaching up to hold his face. The necklace looked good on her- the creamy luster from each pearl shone in how she turned her head. Her lips were parted, breathless, as she pulled him in, kissing him.

Price was never one to argue with her. His hands ran up her back, fingers tangling in the material. She still tasted like the glass of white wine, the perfume from her day at work still wafting off her. Price broke the kiss, only briefly, to turn his head and cover her mouth once again with his own. She sighed into him, fingers grasping his shirt.

Price bent down and picked her up by her knees, promptly lowering her on the counter. "My girl," He repeated again, the words reverberating against her laugh as his fingers worked at the buttons on her shirt.

She laughed, reaching up and grasping his jaw, pulling him back in for more. "Your girl."

[runwayrunway]

No. 54 - Ryanair

You are watching a video on a popular video sharing service. It is a full episode of a popular and long-running show, generously uploaded for free. It is narrated by a calm man with a BBC accent of the sort which belongs exclusively in documentaries.

The narrator names a date between 1903 and the current year. It is accompanied by a location - an airport. An airplane is on approach. It has a certain number of people on board, and it flies for some airline. There are pilots, most likely two of them. They make some sort of mistake, and maybe there's an issue with the weather, or the ILS is down, or the instruments are giving misleading information, or some other thing has gone tailcone over teakettle in an alarmingly short timespan and now their approach is tremendously unstable. They aren't on the glideslope. They're too fast or too slow. They really need to declare a missed approach, but for whatever reason they don't.

The plane lands, or 'lands' - finds itself on the ground, regardless - either on or short of the runway. It bounces, or flips over, or just pancakes into the ground. The fuselage cracks, or splits, or peels open, or horribly catches fire. There is an evacuation. It's all very stressful at minimum, and an unmitigated tragedy at worst.

You scroll down to the comments for some reason. "Average Ryanair landing," says one near the top.

Ryanair (not to be confused with Ryan Air, a real but unrelated airline) is Europe's largest air carrier. It has over 550 airplanes and serves over 200 destinations. It is difficult to imagine an airline with a worse reputation - their CEO is a literal troll, their customer service is legendarily poor, and their ultra-low-cost model is one in which you inevitably get what you pay for. They are memetically despised, and their rough landings are the stuff of legend.

And yet their livery is understated, with a certain head-held-high gravitas. It is difficult to describe the legitimate cognitive dissonance which arises from Ryanair's aerosartorial choices, an effect that seems to touch more people than just me. On another airline, I wouldn't find this livery particularly thought-provoking. Enough substance to write a post about, but not something which lurks in my mind and draws my attention. But on Ryanair, it's downright fascinating.

I've said what I've said, but I'm actually a defender of Ryanair. Look, it's like getting a ticket on a bus or the metro. It's cheap (at least in theory - they seem to be getting pricier lately) and it gets you where you need to go and it's probably not going to be that long of a flight anyway so, I mean, whatever. I've flown some pretty long flights before in-flight entertainment was standard, Ryanair is fine. I never even noticed the hard landings until I saw people talking about them, and to be perfectly honest I didn't notice them afterward either. Maybe I'm just not bothered by hard landings, the same way I'm not bothered by turbulence. Who really knows? My point is that I'm something of a Ryanair apologist. I live in the US, where you just don't get dirt cheap flights like that and getting anywhere outside of your home metropolitan area by train (and even sometimes bus) costs even more than flying. Ryanair could make me board the plane by abseiling up it myself to save money on airstairs and I'd be fine with it if the price was right. I'm not a millionaire. I haven't got the money to go jetsetting around Europe on a real airline. So I mean this when I say it: thank goodness for Ryanair.

I mean, I'm not saying this because Ryanair is good, don't get me wrong. They are the Big Bill Hell's of airlines. They are the closest thing we have to John Mulaney's version of Delta. Ryanair is not just no-frills, it's hot-glued fabric scraps in the vague shape of a garment. They are legitimately comical in their commitment to service so Kafkaesquely bad that you almost wish you'd travelled by trebuchet instead! And all this for the low, low price of...well, I mean, they do get pretty low.

When I released my first questionnaire I added a question about Ryanair specifically because of its reputation and my own feelings about the airline. Multiple people did agree with me - well, it's definitely not comfortable at all, you won't enjoy yourself, but it's so obscenely cheap that this isn't really objectionable. You are getting exactly what you pay for. And, well, if you do want some semblance of the full-service experience you can pay an extra fee. Or a lot of extra fees. That's how they get you. The ULCC model relies on stripping out everything possible and then charging you extra for it. That does mean that if you need things like printed boarding passes or the ability to pay by credit card that come standard with literally any other airline you could end up paying a decent amount for your miserable cramped flight, but if you truly want the bare minimum they will charge you appropriately, and that is so important to me, because I have too little money to insist on being comfortable.

I do feel...particularly sorry for one respondent.

It isn't bad press they are legitimately a nightmare. A attendant once lied to me and told me that type of plane just didn't have toilets (it did. There was a working toilet on board) then proceeded to lecture me about 'not planning ahead and going in the airport'

This is kind of hilarious in a sad way and I'm very sorry that this happened to you. Ryanair is infamous for its bad customer service but it's rare you'll hear about cabin crew behaving this poorly at any airline. While this particular incident was a one-off, you probably will have a pretty miserable time if you need to call the airline about literally anything.

One person just answered 'bitches'.

Well, that answers the question "what is Ryanair", but why is Ryanair?

The world is full of low-cost carriers. Wizz Air, EasyJet, airasia, Allegiant, Jetstar, FlySafair, Volaris, T'Way, Azul, Nok Air, Frontier, Lion Air, jetBlue, and SpiceJet are just some of the dozens which fill the skies. They are often colourful, frequently grumbled about, and essential.

Low-cost carriers, and especially ULCCs, are a relatively recent phenomenon. They only sprung into being after aviation stopped being by necessity a luxury product. It's generally agreed that PSA (Pacific Southwest Airlines), an intrastate carrier from California colloquially known as the Poor Sailor's Airline, was the first low-cost carrier. While the large interstate carriers of the time had a sort of detached gravitas to both their services and their prices, and were often prevented from lowering said prices anyway due to federal taxes that didn't apply to intrastate carriers like PSA, a ticket on "The World's Friendliest Airline" was cheap and the service was casual and personable. The low-cost model is built on being an option for a normal person. If you don't have the money to fly TWA, you can fly on an airline which is made for normal people and charges you accordingly.

The model didn't really catch on immediately, though. I couldn't exactly say why - it might have to do with the lack of demand for air travel that wasn't either commuter flights or long-haul. There was some activity in the market, with Loftleiðir (a precursor to Icelandair) offering cheap-as-dirt transatlantic flights in the 60s and Laker Airways having a three-year tenure in the late 70s serving a similar market from a Western European base. Even today the long-haul low-cost market they served is notoriously difficult to make anything work in.

What is generally thought to be the next major player in low-cost airlines, Southwest, emerged in 1971. David Neeleman further refined the model, first with innovations in cost-cutting at Morris Air and later by raising the bar for customer experience at jetBlue. David Neeleman, though, was active right at the turn of the millennium. Low-cost carriers only really began to emerge in real numbers in the 80s and 90s, with examples that are long-gone, like the infamous ValuJet, existing alongside ones US residents have probably seen at their local airport, like Spirit.

Spirit is different from jetBlue and Southwest. Spirit Airlines is not just a low-cost carrier but an ultra low-cost carrier. As the name suggests, the difference is one of scale. A low-cost carrier provides less comprehensive and less ritzy service than a full-service airline, but they do so in the tradition of PSA, trying to provide a comfortable experience that makes people want to choose their airline. The ULCC model, on the other hand, guts out literally every possible feature and then dangles it in front of you on a string, telling you to pay extra if you want it. These airlines do not provide a good experience. There will be no baggage allowances, no extra legroom, and no priority boarding. The base fare, however, is almost absurdly low relative to even low-cost carriers, and as air travel becomes a fact of life more and more the humble ULCC becomes a necessary part of the ecosystem as the only way many people can afford to travel.

Ryanair is technically 38 years old, but it's only been a low-cost carrier since 1990. This pivot is the brainchild of then-CFO, now CEO (and ouster of the eponymous Ryan) Michael O'Leary, one of the wealthiest and most unpleasant men in Ireland.

image: Associated Press Yes, this is actually a real image of the CEO of Ryanair. I imagine this may clear up a thing or two.

Why is Ryanair? Because Michael O'Leary, is the simple answer. Michael O'Leary is - and there is genuinely no better way to describe the man - a troll. If you take David Neeleman's image during his tenure at jetBlue, a sweet everyman trying to improve the experience by sitting in on flights and giving up his salary to employee medical funds, Michael O'Leary is the literal exact opposite of him on every point. A self-described "gobshite" and "obnoxious little bollocks" who has admitted to "not liking" aeroplanes, Michael O'Leary is a cruel, selfish, belligerent, publicity-seeking freakazoid on a mission to piss off everyone in Europe which has so far been largely successful.

I don't want anything I say about the man to come off as positive. Michael O'Leary is a wealthy ghoul (and, yes, he was born wealthy, no rags in his tale) who publicly berates, mistreats, and underpays his staff. He has expressed prejudice against racial and religious minorities, fat and disabled passengers, women, and just about anyone who expects to be treated with some measure of dignity. He has committed legitimate crimes, like impersonating journalists. He denies climate change and has accumulated his massive wealth by abusing the pilots and cabin crew who keep Ryanair adequate. In 2010 Ryanair was named one of the least ethical companies in the world. The fact that he is so absurd as to be hilarious isn't an endorsement or a defense of him.

That said, here is a short, curated list of Michael O'Leary's, and Ryanair's broadly (as their public image is really an extension of his and vice versa) most Ryanair shenanigans:

O'Leary installed a taxicab license plate on his luxury car and driving it in the bus lane to avoid traffic.

Advertisements have taken open and somewhat sneering shots at other major European airlines, like Lufthansa ('bye by Late-hansa'), British Airways ('expensive BAstards'), and the now-defunct Sabena (using a reference to the famous Manneken Pis statue). These have not been simple comparisons but outright name-calling.

One time they advertised sales to 'sunny' vacation destinations, like Norway.

Generally, their advertisements push so many boundaries that they were once found to have committed seven violations of advertising law in just two years, and I'm shocked they didn't begin an ad campaign centring around this dubious achievement.

They frequently misbrand airports way outside of major cities as being in that major city, with the most insane example being "Vienna Bratislava" - yes, Bratislava, the one in Slovakia.

Pilots are forced to pay for simulator checks while cabin crew are forced to pay for uniforms and training. Employees are even forbidden from charging their phones from office sockets, apparently.

Sometimes passengers are forced to carry their own luggage to the planes! Not carryons, luggage.

O'Leary, in a bold move, outright denied that the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull had created a massive cloud of volcanic ash hazardous to airplanes (it very obviously had).

He also said he would like for there to be a recession, since it would let Ryanair keep costs low. He said this in 2008.

One time he said travel agents ("fuckers") should be shot .

O'Leary claimed that Ryanair would begin offering business class, featuring "beds and blowjobs". I'm personally not sure I would want a Ryanair blowjob. That sounds really horrible.

Also, bold coming from an airline with no seatback pockets.

Apparently they tried to get planes delivered with no window shades (though they weren't able to because of regulations).

They've floated the idea of standing seats. I don't believe this will or indeed could ever happen but it definitely is truly dystopian.

Ryanair keeps trying to buy Aer Lingus. They keep failing, and they keep trying. Obviously, everyone in Ireland has a vested interest in making sure this does not happen.

Fundamentally, Ryanair doesn't care. They can and will essentially throw tantrums to get airports to charge them lower operating fees and if they can't get an airport to do this they just won't operate there. It's like negotiating with a seven-year-old. Except that seven-year-old is Europe's largest airline.

They wanted to buy the C919. This isn't, like, a bad thing, it's just really strange for a hardcore Boeing loyalist airline and I can't imagine how it would save them money.

image: Robot8A This is the interior of a Ryanair plane. Note the safety cards attached to the seatbacks due to the lack of pockets, plus additional adverts on the seatbacks and overhead bins like this is a sports match in a massive stadium. It's also just quite ugly.

Fundamentally, Ryanair is just perpetually doing Ryanair things. Why is Ryanair? Because Ryanair is one giant publicity stunt. A couple of people answered my question by referencing the CEO saying he'd like to charge people to use the toilet, and that's sort of true in the sense that he's said he'd like to do this, but he's always been pretty clear that it's a publicity stunt:

Short of committing murder, negative publicity sells more seats than positive publicity.

Like, it's a bit. He's doing a bit. He's 100% in on the joke. For every one of the more particularly insane claims, like charging to use the toilets, he's outright denied it. Even some claims that are pretty borderline are ones he's contradicted at other points. He's a legitimate bigot who's created one of the most nightmarish work environments out there and just wants to suck money out of people by any means necessary, and he's indefensible, but that's not really what people talk about when they talk about Ryanair. They talk about charging for toilets.

Charging for toilets continues to be the number one story that resurfaces in the press and it’s the gift that keeps on giving. We’ve never done it, but it keeps coming up on social networks every three or four months, the media picks up on it and then someone writes a story on it.

Which I think is misplaced effort when he's also, for instance, a climate change denier who forces disabled passengers to pay for wheelchairs. And I don't believe for a second his climate change denial is based on legitimate convictions - he just doesn't want to have to spend more money. He would absolutely knowingly feed the world into an incinerator if it lowered costs.

Anyway, here is a picture of him having his face violently introduced to a pie.

image: Olivier Hoslet

All of this said, there's no such thing as an ethical airline - he's just playing it up to the extreme for essentially business clickbait.

I feel like the best example of Ryanair's general...Ryanairness is their Twitter account, which I have a sneaking suspicion Michael O'Leary runs himself to save money. It's mostly composed of firing back at complaining customers, Formula 1 opinions, and jabs at everyone from Boris Johnson to the British Museum. (Heartbreaking: the worst person you know just made a great point.) Their description, 'we sell seats, not windows', references the frequent complaints about seat 11A, which does not have a window. (To be fair, their website does warn you about this.) Their weird window situation actually generated my all-time favourite Ryanair tweet.

Here are some other winners.

No, seriously, I think Michael O'Leary might be writing these. I also really don't know how to feel about the fact that it appears someone at the airline - potentially O'Leary himself - has made an edit of a yassified Ryanair plane.

But at the end of the day, it's Ryanair. O'Leary himself has described aeroplanes as "a bus with wings on". As one individual tweeted,

THANK YOU to [Ryanair], for letting me see Europe for Feck All

and that's why I do think I genuinely have primarily positive feelings about Ryanair as a product rather than a company - you truly do see Europe for Feck All. (O'Leary has claimed both that he would introduce $10 transatlantic tickets to the US, and that he would make tickets literally free and make all profits from ancillary fees - while neither has yet happened, it takes one hell of an airline to claim that it's on the table.)

Ryanair isn't affordable, it's dime store. It's an airline you bought from Wish.com. It's the free pen you stole from a cup of identical pens at the bank which stops working within days. You're not just in steerage, you're on a tramp steamer. You get exactly the misery you pay for, and you go from one place to a different place.

And it's worth noting that Ryanair has at least one positive feature - safety.

When I ran my first questionnaire I asked respondents what type of airline they thought was most dangerous. Other than what's shown there was also an option for mainline full service carriers; unsurprisingly, nobody chose this. There were 50 respondents but 5 declined to answer this particular question, so the sample size isn't really significant enough to draw any conclusions from, but it's what I have. (I kind of wish I could stop to re-run this with my current follower count, but this post is actually a request. No, not for my wonderful beloved followers - for my dentist. Not joking. Thank you for making my teeth not have holes in them.)

20% of respondents indicated that low-cost or ultra-low-cost airlines probably had the worst safety records and practices. It's completely understandable why someone would think this, but without going into the actual statistics of plane crashes this simply isn't true, and in fact they're the safest category on here. While it obviously depends on the specific airline, low-cost carriers as a category are no less safe than mainline carriers. This is despite the fact that they tend to fly shorter flights and thus they operate more takeoffs and landings, which are the points in a flight where the majority of crashes occur.

How does that make sense? Well, part of it is that the airline industry has gotten very close to eliminating accidental crashes via innovations in technology and an incredible safety culture built on years of hard lessons. The world has paid in blood for crew resource management and GPWS, but it has paid, and now the sorts of crashes that would have been unremarkable just 20 years ago are completely unthinkable. Actually, in the 2010s it's quite possible more people were killed by planes brought down deliberately than accidents. But beyond that, the costs low-cost airlines cut tend to be ones that aren't safety-critical. They tend to operate shiny new fleets (better fuel efficiency, purchased in bulk) with large maintenance teams (shorter turnaround and less planes grounded for long periods of time) at less congested airports (lower operating fees) and indeed when I think about famous accidents that involve massive cutting of corners it's nearly always full-service airlines, save for egregious examples of low-cost industry pariahs out of business within a few years. Focusing on eliminating operating costs by making the passenger experience cramped and miserable allows for pouring all your budget into running a smooth and well-oiled operation.

The axiom "if you think safety is expensive, try a crash" is often attributed to EasyJet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou. And it's true. Beyond the cost of writing off a plane, of financial compensation to survivors and families, of lawyers and PR, of having to update your operation to make sure it never happens again...as O'Leary himself said, all press is good press...short of murder. A heinous, clearly negligent crash, on the other hand, can kill an airline as easily as it can kill people. It has done in the past and that threat will never stop being there. Airlines go out of business all the time for any number of mundane financial reasons. In many cases margins simply do not allow for something like a crash. Crashes have even ended the lives of deeply historic, beloved, well-established nationalized flag carriers, so this particular sword of Damocles could cut Ryanair's control cables just as easily. And they've managed to avoid this fate, with zero passenger fatalities and only one written-off airplane - the 2008 crash of flight 4102, caused by a birdstrike during landing.

And I'll be honest, "miserable and safe but a tenth the price of a train ticket from Boston to New York" (I am unfortunately not exaggerating) is a pretty appealing package to my non-millionaire self.

...so why do their planes look like this? I'm dead serious, it vexes me. I don't know what to make of this. Hey, did you remember I'm an airline livery review blog? Look, I can't help myself. Low-cost carriers as a topic, and how they're viewed, is probably the most interesting facet of the aviation industry to me. I feel like if I had infinite time and resources I might genuinely sit down, hit the databases and archives, run a few studies, and write a book about it - it's fascinating, and low-cost carriers are something that only economists and businesspeople seem to want to talk about. I think it's about time someone approached them through a lens of history and social psychology. There's not really academic value to what I do here, on Runway Runway, my tumblr blog where I call Lufthansa planes ugly, but if something doesn't exist I will create it even if my sample size is 50.

So how about how they're literally viewed - like, what their planes look like? Well, here are some low cost carriers I've reviewed. Notice something? They're bright and eye-catching. They don't take themselves too seriously. They're fun. The original low-cost carrier literally painted big smiles on their bright pink and orange planes.

Okay, yes, they don't all look like this. WestJet and IndiGo, for example, are fairly normal-looking. And there are full-service carriers like TAP Air Portugal (and condor. Absolutely condor.) that I would say have a pretty low-costy look to them. There is nothing wrong with that. Low-cost liveries are frequently colourful and exciting, with much more thought put into distinctiveness and charm instead of a passionless appeal to dignity. Indeed a lot of my most highly esteemed liveries, including all the ones pictured above, are low-cost airlines. GOL, for example, is a snappy, eye-catchy design in bright colours that's clearly not meant to look expensive. The same goes for Breeze Airways. There's even more examples out there I've yet to touch on, like EasyJet; ValuJet; Scoot; Spirit Airlines; Frontier Airlines; PLAY (and the late WOW air); Volotea; airasia, so on - to be dignified or clean is not the goal here. Even the names of low-cost carriers frequently are very hastily stapled together and generic, like EasyJet or Super Air Jet or Wings Air; JetSmart; SkyUp; Smartwings; FastJet; Sky Airline (just one!); MYAirlines; the classic ValuJet; flyadeal; and the legendary jet2.com, making no attempt at all to seem as if they have a legacy to fall back on. And there's even more out-there specimens, like Mango or even Nok Air. Many of them have specific themes, like Batik Air, Tigerair, or Buzz, which isn't something you see on full-service carriers, which brand themselves on national identity and the promise of luxury and good service - which is boring. Low-cost airlines, if they want to succeed, have to do something to make people remember they exist.

This is the fundamental shape taken by the low-cost product, which operates with few laurels to rest on and a mission of getting people to remember their website at any cost. Much like a can of Arizona iced "tea" guaranteed to cost ninety-nine cents, literally cheaper than a bottle of water, the package it comes in makes no attempt to look classy. And I am a heavy tea drinker who considers myself fairly discerning, whose favourite type of tea is gyokuro yamashiro (which is absurdly expensive), but you literally can't beat Arizona! It's potable and it's ninety-nine cents and it sort of resembles tea if you don't think too much about it and Massachusetts summers are surprisingly hot and the can is pretty and colourful. Sure, I'd rather have Ito En, but that costs normal money and Arizona costs 99 cents, and sometimes that's all I really have, and it gets the job done even if my teeth aren't enjoying the experience. A Wizz Air plane is a can of Arizona iced tea. It is ninety-nine cents and potable.

This isn't Arizona, this is a box of Darjeeling from Harrods. Ryanair outfits their fleet in handsome navy blue and gold. Their logo, an outline of a woman with harp-like wings taking flight, is simple yet elegant, and that feels so very wrong. I actually asked in my questionnaire what the colours of the Ryanair livery were, because I had seen people expressing casually that they weren't sure they could recognize so much as a Ryanair logo, and the results aren't worth showing in a chart because they're basically as good as random. I do want to specifically appreciate the person who answered "I don't remember but it must be whatever the cheapest colour of airplane paint is", though.

But the truth is that they have such a rich palette, and I do mean that in the sense of 'wealthy'. A deep royal blue paired with a saturated gold used as a sparing trim, these are the colours of an overstuffed plush armchair, not a budget airline. Aside from the name on the winglets and the giant billboard wordmark there is nothing, and I mean nothing, that is typical for a low-cost airline. This is not garish advertising, this is stately.

The layout itself is what I call "Deltalike". Delta certainly did not invent this style of livery but they are the carrier I associate most with it, likely due to the fact that I live right by one of their hubs. The Deltalike is a white plane with a painted tail unconnected to the main fuselage body, painted winglets, painted engines, and a painted underbelly large enough still be visible when viewed directly from the side. While a 'true' Deltalike uses a consistent palette for the engines, tail, and underbelly, there is significant variation. The detached tail is, in my opinion, the harbinger of the Deltalike, and I call liveries with an incomplete presentation of Deltalike features Deltalites.

This scheme is not as common as the Lufthansa Line variants but it is still very common, with its popularity probably peaking in the 2010s. Some examples of the true Deltalike include Air Canada, 2006 Icelandair, Azul, the old GOL livery, and jetBlue. Some colour-varied Deltalikes are the old Flair livery, the SAS red engine livery, and British Airways. An example Deltalite is the old Croatia Airlines scheme, which has a painted tail and belly and engines that are sort of painted. Sure, the engines are just grey and a bit of the tail extends onto the body, but it's got the colour concentrated in the right place and it has the painted belly, it's a Deltalite. A lot of liveries have painted engines and detached tails but no painted bellies, and I do consider these to be on the far end of the Deltalike spectrum, but they aren't what I mean when I refer to a Deltalike. They're what brown dwarves are to actual stars - related but not really the same.

Ryanair is a true Deltalike, but I would even call it an elevated Deltalike. The gold trim, like the cord adorning the hems a of a thick brocade smoking jacket, has an effortlessly shallow curve as it trims the rich blue underbelly, larger than that of a typical Deltalike and with a very deliberate shape to it which at the rearmost point covers half the fuselage by height but fades away to a sort of goatee at the front. This is not a plane which sat in a puddle of blue but an intentional cloak impeccably positioned, visible not just from the side but from the front. The engines, instead of being plain or just one colour with a website printed on, large and garish, are the same white and blue with yellow trim, the last traces of the setting sun melting into a glassy deep blue ocean below a stark white sky with which it inexplicably coexists. Sure, the detached tail still looks bad, it always does, but you can ignore it at most angles.

From below the dark blue creates that distinct cetacean effect, a certain brightness-inverted countershading effect, similar to what you see on airlines like KLM and other blue-side-up liveries. The underside doesn't have a huge, legible logo, visible even from the ground on final approach. One of the defining features of the low-cost livery, in my mind, is a large, prominent website. It's tacky and a little pointless (I mean, surely they can Google your airline's name if your wordmark is large enough) but it is downright ubiquitous. Even full-service carriers frequently heavily feature their website, but it's nowhere on a Ryanair plane. That's so, so incredibly weird.

Just...think about it. Their entire identity is outrage marketing. They are the xQc of airlines - bigoted, constantly in the news, and obnoxious. And nobody remembers what their livery looks like because it doesn't look obnoxious. This is like if MrBeast's thumbnails were lovingly curated aesthetically pleasing shots of scenery that could pass for screenshots from an actual film. It's not tacky and cheap and it's not generic and cheap, it's elegant and cheap. And of all airlines to look like this...Ryanair? Seriously? Ryanair?

image: Associated Press

The CEO.

The airplanes.

Do you see what I mean? Do you see why I find this deeply strange? This is not a clickbait plane. This plane is downright unclickable. It has never been clicked. I bet if I covered the name up and showed it to people (again, I wish I'd had the time to do this) I could fool people into thinking this is like United. Hell, I've learned from my other survey that the average person clearly knows less about liveries than I, the Joker of liveries, do, and can't identify basically any from memory. I could probably fool at least one or two people into thinking this is Singapore Airlines. I may try this on a few co-workers and then get back to you.

How did we get here? I have no clue. While Ryanair did start out as a charter carrier rather than a low-cost airline, and they always had blue and yellow as their colours, their very early liveries were just white planes with wordmarks.

This livery seems to have appeared very early in the history of low-cost Ryanair. Unfortunately, I can't date it precisely - the only thing I can say is that the earliest photograph I could find in this livery was from 1994. Based on the fact that their planes were photographed in different liveries right up to then, including this very brief TAM-like BAC 1-11 livery, I think 1994 is most likely the point they committed to it.

Oh, Adam Rowden, what a different world you lived in.

Even for 1994 this is a pretty conservative livery. Sure, this was before the real boom of bright and venomous flying billboards, but it's still strange. And Ryanair is no stranger to literal flying billboards in the form of logojets for such companies as Vodafone and Hertz, often sort of hideous ones, though I imagine these days nobody would ever want to associate with them like that.

And they never changed it, except that they did - to the modern, softer curve. This I can pinpoint with much more accuracy. It was changed in mid-2003 as new aircraft were delivered, while the older livery was phased out together with the secondhand airframes which wore it. I do not understand this at all. If any airline were to just make the decision to go full circus tent and be as garish as possible it should be Ryanair, right? Ryanair is a brand incapable of cowardly behavior. But they look far more sober than even the average modern flag carrier livery. I guess they don't think they need an eye-catching livery, but I just don't buy that as a full explanation. Imagine the news they'd make for introducing something truly heinous. I think their genuine best move would just be to put a huge picture of Michael O'Leary's face, blown up massively and poorly aligned with visible JPEG artefacts, all over their fuselages. All of Europe would be furious. So why? Why is this the situation?

So what's the verdict? This may be the hardest decision I've made so far. The options here range widely. I'll lay them out.

If I were rating this based on pure visual appeal, I would give it a B-. I am dead serious - this is a visually pleasing, well-balanced livery, simple yet elegant. The detached tail is my only major complaint. But I think Saudia's planes are quite pretty and I graded them low because I think they fail at representing their airline or having a distinct identity, so this cannot be my sole criterion.

I almost want to give them an F because of just how un-Ryanair they are, like how Copa's livery is literally not the Copa livery, but that feels wrong because that's still the Ryanair livery, it's not just a refusal to design a livery at all.

Do I marry these two into a tepid union destined for either divorce or a dramatic act of arson after a seeming eternity of languishing in mutual dysfunction in Tallahassee? I really don't want to do that, because attempting to balance these factors betrays the fact of their contradiction, the mental strain I've been afflicted with over this simple, pointless choice with zero consequences except maybe one of my followers disagreeing with me, which is fine. Unlike certain individuals I will not call you swear words and say you're an idiot.

The final option is maybe my least favourite of them all, because it's capitulation. It's admitting Ryanair is special, just the most annoying golf-ball-sized hailstone in the blizzard of absurd and comical frustrations which is the airline industry. But I just don't know what to make of this miserable little pest, this plague on the patience and knees of the traveling public.

Z. FUCK YOU IT'S RYANAIR.

It defies categories by being good, but being Ryanair. I hate that. I hate it, I hate their beastly little CEO, and I dislike that their planes are sleek, elegant, and could easily pass for an airline that doesn't instruct stewardesses to kick their passengers' shins as they walk down the aisles. If I am buying a ten-euro plane ticket I do not think the plane should look like this, teleologically speaking. At the end of the day I just have no better way to quantify my feelings.

Prick.

[luminousbeings-crudematter]

Hear me out. Hear me OUTTTT, professor Price. Grading your papers then seeing you weren't studying good enough for his exam, but for other one? Then, he gives you a lesson about it:)

okay look, full disclosure: I can't do Prof Price justice. @/guyfieri has done THE definitive Prof Price and there's no way I can even try to do it better. But, I do have one dark (??) thot.

(Written for the follower milestone!)

Predictably, his usual haunt is a bar that you know the faculty visits a lot. So you go there, hoping to find him, hoping to catch his attention.

Now that term's over and you know for a fact that he's not teaching you next term, he's free real estate, right? Not going to be teaching you, so what's stopping you from shooting your shot?

You do end up finding him there, nursing a drink at the bar, mercifully by himself. So, you make yourself at home on the empty barstool next to him, and you fuck around. You flirt with him shamelessly, teasing little touches on his arm, and then as you grow bolder, your fingertips trail over the hair on his exposed forearm, gently caress his thigh.

You roll your eyes when the conversation moves to the class he teaches.

He brings up your shitty grade, and you taunt him about how you only go for one reason and it's not his lesson plans. You're a model student attending his every single lecture, but only for him.

You couldn't care less about the content of the class. You couldn't care less about your grade.

The air between you sizzles, the impropriety of it all manifesting as the achy feeling between your legs, and he asks you, very politely, if you're planning on being a disrespectful brat to your other professors too.

No, you answer coyly. "That's special, John. Only for you." You miss the predatory darkening of his eyes, how his fingers tighten around the glass of his drink.

Your fingers trail suggestively up to the zipper on his crotch, before his hand grasps your wrist firmly, stopping your exploration. "Some other time, then," you murmur, and pull away from him, practically legging it to the ladies' room to get away from him.

Your face feels warm, you're beyond embarrassed, and even the spritz of cold water you spray on your face and neck does nothing to cool you down. He'd flirted with you like he was interested, you'd felt like you'd had chemistry. You're not entirely sure what had gone wrong.

You make a quick exit, not wanting to linger and run into him again. But when you step out, walking briskly towards your car, he's waiting there for you. Leaning against your car, arms crossed against his broad chest, looking for all the world like he belongs there.

"Hi," you start, but stop abruptly when you see that his eyes are blazing at you, his fury sizzling and churning and roiling, barely kept in check underneath the thin veneer of civility. It's like he's a different man from the one you had a drink with not even 10 minutes ago.

When you're close enough, he grabs you by the elbow and jerks you into him. "Don't you ever run from me again."

[cutiecusp]

Something borrowed, Something blue.

Part two to Something old, something new.

You and John Price have a history, one you miss terribly, will he be able to convince you to leave your groom at the altar for him?

TW. Slight suggestive smut, didn't realise it will be as long as it was, so there will be a part three!!! MDNI, kissing.

You feel the energy crackle around the room as John leant in, you could smell faint cigar smoke and a peppermint he must have eaten on the way in.

Your eyes meet his deep blue ones, and you step back cautiously. This was the secret answer to your prayers, but you couldn't believe this was real.

"John, I.. we can't." You press your hands against his chest, your diamond ring from another man glistening in the light, hoping to push him away. Someone had to take the mature approach and stop it, and you had to ignore the fire in your stomach as you touch him, but all he does is encircle his large hands around yours and pull you back in to him.

"I'm not running this time, love. I want you, and I want you to be mine. Work be damned." He lets out a breath and presses his lips over yours, silencing any doubts you had about his feelings for you.

He tasted like heaven, and you relaxed in his arms, as he took you into his arms and held you tightly, his tongue exploring yours as you both deepen the kiss. After a few heated moments, John pulls away reluctantly. His gaze bore into your soul, and you saw the need and desire in his eyes. There was no doubt in his mind that you belonged to him, and he belonged to you.

"Should have been wearing this dress for me." He says gruffly, gesturing to your white wedding gown. "You look like an angel." He adds. He leads in for another kiss, but you are interrupted by a knock at your door.

"You nearly ready sweetheart? Gotta take you to the church." Your father calls through the door.

Your shocked face looks at John's calm features.

"It's my dad, he will kill you if he found out you were here." You hiss, looking for a hiding place for him.

"C-coming dad!" You yell, unsure if you should even ready to face him. You push John out of the view of the door, and open it, your face flushed and your flowers long forgotten.

"You look beautiful, dove." Your father says, holding an arm out for you. You reluctantly take it, leaning on his frame for support. He looks at you, and you are reminded of how much your father knows about you.

"Now, as your dad, I have to ask... is it too late for you to change your mind.. only I thought I saw John's car, and I know-" he pauses, and looks at his daughters face, all doe eyed and pink cheeks.

"You've seen him already, haven't you." He asks quietly.

You nod, your heart falling to the floor. What were you thinking? Kissing John an hour before you were going to marry your fiance? Shame filled your features as you can't look your dad in the eye. You were a good person, but deep down, you knew you couldn't marry a man you didn't love.

"You still have feelings for John?" Your father asks softly, holding you a little closer, as if he doesn't want anyone hearing your conversation.

"Y-yes. Yes I do." You admit, and you open the door wider to reveal John standing in your hotel room. You unhook your arm from your father's, and stand next to John.

Your dad throws you his car keys.

"Borrow my car. Drive her someplace safe for the night, and I'll take your car to my house. Thankfully you wanted a small wedding, so there's only a few people that need to know today." Your dad turns to John.

"Keep her heart safe. She deserves a good man. I trust that's you. I always liked you, don't fuck this up." He warns in a mock serious manner.

John shakes your father's hand, and pulls you in close.

"I promise, Sir. Thank you."

Pocketing the car keys, John urges you to pack a bag, and hand in hand, you run to the car.

John opens the door for you, as you scramble to get in, your dress hindering your body as you squeeze in the seat.

"First thing I plan on doing is taking that dress off, love." John says with a grin.

"How do you fancy playing Mrs. Price for the night? Honeymoon included?" He winks at you as he peals out of the car park.

Wind in your hair, John's hand in yours, you never felt more alive.

"Lead the way, Mr. Price" you laugh as you drive off in search of a honeymoon suite.

"I'm already dressed for the occasion!"

.................................................................

A/N I totally planned on there being smut, but thought this was a cool way to pause it.

@xoxunhinged @dustycrusty09

[empressaraceli1992]

Inspired by @valadarts on Twitter

Four Little Words

Soap never felt like he belonged anywhere. Sooner or later people would always tire of him and his antics. Whether they were family or friends, eventually everyone got tired of the energy ball that was John MacTavish.

After being thoroughly beaten, and banished from his home in Glasgow after his father caught him kissing a boy: Soap attempted to join the military. His first few attempts were unsuccessful, but eventually he managed to get in. Unfortunately, even trained as a demolitions expert Soap still had too much energy. After irritating his third bunk mate in a row Soap learned to tone it down, being only slightly annoying, carefully reserved. Until he got comfortable.

That's how it always started if he was being honest. Unfortunately, Soap had always been an honest person. He knew why he had been removed from his last team—he was too annoying. He had gotten too comfortable with them. Too close. All of his previous teammates told him so:

John talks too much. John's too clingy. John is so annoying. John should just shut up. Don't invite John, he's too excitable. John isn't worth it.

Soap had taken the first beating in the military with ill grace, going straight to his superior to report it only to be chewed out for annoying his teammates into doing it to him. The second time, when they held him down with his sheets, and bludgeoned him with soap bars in their pillow cases Soap bit his lip so hard it bled. He didn’t bother telling his CO the next morning. He didn’t bother tending to the many black and blue bruises that littered his body. Soap had doubted then that the nurses in medical would give him or his injuries a second glance. So when his CO told him he was no longer a good fit for their team Soap accepted it quietly.

When Price snatched him up immediately after Soap took it as his second chance. Accepting the position eagerly, Soap met the first of his new teammates: Ghost. Ghost was a mysterious man. Stoic to say the best, cold at worst, but Soap was pleased as punch to meet him. Greeting the Lieutenant with a soft punch to the shoulder Soap eagerly offered to save him a seat. Ghost didn’t seem particularly keen on his new Sergeant, but Soap didn’t take it personally.

Instead he worked slowly to open the older man up. Ghost reciprocated slowly with his awful dad jokes—then there was Las Almas. Soap thought his CO had finally started warming up to him after Ghost helped remove the bullet from his arm.

The fact followed him like a living shadow made Soap feel like the man actually cared. Ghost had even taken to calling him ‘Johnny’---something Soap never allowed anyone else to do. Soap had to admit his crush on the lieutenant was a little pathetic, but he kept himself in check. Most of the time.

Every so often Ghost would cross an invisible line and brush his bare hand against Soap’s. Or would leave a hand resting on Soap just a tad longer than necessary. Soap adored these touches, these small embraces. He felt comfortable in them.

That’s where Soap messed up. He got comfortable. He felt safe. He felt wanted.

—-----------------------------------------

They were out at the local pub after a successful mission. Soap sat next to Ghost at the bar enjoying the older man's company, and chatting away amicably. Ghost's eyes gleamed in the low bar light. He looked bemused. Happy for once.

Then Soap screwed it all up: he opened his mouth.

"Hey, I've been thinking about us." Soap said with one hand around his drink and the other laying, he hoped, casually on the bar.

"Us?" Ghost hummed, swirling his bourbon in one hand. He turned to look at Soap over his shoulder. "What about us? You've been a great teammate if that's what you mean."

"Common Si, you know what I'm talking abo–"

"NO." Ghost growled. "I don't think I do."

"W-what do you mean?" Soap asked quietly, his heart thumping painfully in his chest.

"Exactly what I said." Ghost snapped. He kept his eyes down, examining the now half empty glass.

"Si…you can't be serious." Soap gave a nervous chuckle. "Think about us–"

"THERE IS NO US MACTAVISH." Ghost snarled, getting to his feet. Soap could feel the pain in his chest as his heart broke. "I'm heading home now; it's late." Soap could feel the silent tears slipping down his face. "Get home safe, Sergeant." Ghost's voice softened, only slightly, and then he was gone.

Soap didn't acknowledge Ghost's statement. How could he? 'Get home safe.' Sounded like a cruel joke to Soap as he sat there the last of his scotch watering down considerably the longer he sat. He couldn't bring himself to lift the glass to his lips. To drink the burning liquid, and chase away his pain.

Instead Soap sat there until the bar closed. The bartender gently showed him out. She apologized, and said she hoped he made it home okay. Soap didn't acknowledge her statement either. He was too numb. The night air was cool against his skin. Ignoring the well meant suggestions of getting a ride, Soap started back to the base on foot. It would take at least an hour.

Not that anyone would notice. No one would care that annoying John 'Soap' MacTavish was late. Or missing…not even Ghost. Especially not Ghost. Soap felt the tears begin anew. He sniffled as he angrily wiped the tears away. No one would care, he cried. They didn't want to know. He wouldn't let them know.

An eternity later Soap collapsed into his bunk freezing. Curling beneath the thin blanket he fell into a fitful sleep.

—-----------------------------------------------------

He snuck around the offices with his hand gun at the ready. Hissan would not escape him this time. He had stopped the missile, now he would stop the man. A sudden crack, a blinding pain in his temple, and the world went black.

He could feel himself being dragged. Jagged pieces of glass cut into his hands and bare arms as he fought the grip on his vest. In the distance he could hear gunshots. Fighting against the hand that held him, Soap jerked as the large window loomed nearby—the glass long since shattered.

"No, no, not again." Soap whined. Where was his rifle? His body hurt so bad. There was a hand wrapped around his vest dragging him forward. Black gloves with white accents covered the fingers….no that wasn’t right. Hissan wasn’t wearing gloves when he— Soap's eyes snapped up. A dark skull-plate mask stared down at him. Ghost lifted him to the window. Soap could feel the void behind him yawning wide to accept him. Accept his death. Soap struggled clawing at Ghost's forearm.

"Ghost?!" Soap panicked. "Ghost please, don't!"

Ghost glared at him through the sockets of his mask.

“Ghost please!” Soap wept. “I’m sorry, please, please, don’t—”

Ghost threw Soap out onto the pavement below.

Soap screamed.

—-------------------------------------------------

Soap shot up out of bed, a scream lodged in his throat. Acid churned in his stomach clawing its way up his throat. Soap rolled quickly to the side he grabbed the small bed by his end table and threw up noisily into it. Soap's throat was raw - he must have been screaming - his heart hammered painfully in his chest. Gasping, Soap pulled back onto the bed just far enough to bury his face in the crook of his arm.

What the hell? He hadn't dreamed of Chicago in months. He attempted to swallow, but found his throat was too sore, and his skin felt too sensitive. As though there was a thin layer of electricity keeping his nerves on a razor's edge. Soap felt a shiver wrack his body.

He was damp, covered in a cold sweat. Despite the heat of the base, Soap shivered. Rubbing a calloused hand through his mohawk, Soap tried to ground himself. The clock on his bedside table told him it was only a few minutes after two in the morning. Feeling the tackiness of his own sweat, Soap knew he wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep easily.

So instead he grabbed his shower bag, rolled up his sheets, and made his way to the basement laundry. Chucking his sheets into the wash with some detergent Soap left his sheets to wash, and made his way to the communal showers. No one in their right mind would be up this early. Soap was fairly certain he would have the showers, and the hot water to himself for at least another two hours. Not that he intended to shower that long, but he needed to get out of his head.

—---------------------------------------------------

Scrubbed raw head to toe, and neatly dressed in his fatigues, Soap was the first to arrive in the mess. A first for him. Usually Ghost was the first to arrive. The giant of a lieutenant would sit in the comfortable silence at their table, carefully selected in the back of the room where he could see both entrances, a hot tea in hand. It used to be a comforting thought.

Making a fresh pot of coffee, Soap prepared himself a mug, and sat down at their usual table. However, instead of taking his normal seat- which would have been to the right of Ghost - he took Gaz's usual seat across from the lieutenant and right next to where Price would sit.

When his fellow sergeant entered, Soap eagerly waved him over.

“Gaz! Have breakfast with me?”

“Of course mate.” Gaz gave him a concerned look. “But Jesus did you even sleep?”

“Yea…” Soap gave a weak laugh. “I kinda over did it with the drinks.”

Sitting down together with their trays in hand Soap only half listened as Gaz went on about the most recent rugby game. Pushing his food around on his plate, Soap had only taken a bit or two. He could feel his stomach roll. Soap knew he was hungry, but his body wasn’t willing to eat just yet.

“Hey…” Soap’s head snapped up. Gaz’s tone had changed. “Are you sure you’re okay? You’ve been getting distracted.”

“Yea…” Soap caught movement over Gaz’s shoulder. Ghost had entered the mess. Soap watched him through bleary eyes as the lieutenant got his food, and made his way to their table, pausing just behind Gaz.

“Good morning, Sergeants.” Ghost’s baritone greeted them. Gaz gave Soap a knowing look, which Soap quickly dismissed.

“Morning, L.T.” Soap said, proud of himself. His voice barely wavered.

“Yeah…” Gaz crossed his arms. “Good morning Lieutenant.”

Soap knew that look. Gaz had been his best friend since day one of their time together. He could tell something was bothering Soap, even if he didn’t say it out right. He probably wouldn’t say it outright, and instead interrogate Ghost. Soap couldn’t allow that. Not this time. Standing quickly, he scooped up his tray.

“Here L.T. you can take my seat.”

“Ah, that’s not—” Ghost’s voice was quiet, meant only for Soap. Soap ignored him. Instead turning to lay a hand on Gaz’s shoulder. “Gaz, you up for some sparring later?”

“Sure, but…” Gaz glanced at Ghost, who had remained standing. “I thought Ghost was your sparring buddy?”

“Yea, but it’s no fun if you don’t shake it up. Aye?” Soap gave what he hoped was a convincing smile and made his way out of the mess. Ghost didn’t stop him. Gaz didn’t ask. None of the recruits noticed.

No, no one knew that John 'Soap' MacTavish was breaking.

—--------------------------------------------------

The rest of the day was a blur. Soap went through his normal workout routine, and even sparred with Gaz while studiously ignoring the shadow of Ghost as he stood just outside the sparring ring. Soap was for all intentions and purposes treating the lieutenant like his callsign: a ghost. Unseen, and unheard floating about the base.

Soap no longer sought Ghost out during his down time. He didn't eat lunch with any of the 141 anymore, choosing instead to return to his room. He even changed his workout schedule to avoid Ghost’s - as they had been workout buddies before. The only time Soap saw Ghost now was in his dreams, as the same nightmare played over and over again every night. This pattern continued for a little over a week before Price became fed up and dragged Soap into his office.

Much to Soap's chargen Ghost was already inside. The lieutenant stood against the far wall, arms crossed, head down. Soap ignored Price's gesture to take the seat in front of his desk. Instead opting to remain standing as far away from Ghost as possible. Price groused under his mustache taking his own seat behind the desk so he could glare at the two like a disappointed father.

"I don't know what the issue is between you two, but it stops now." Price growled. "You two were my best team, and now you can't stand being in the same room! What the hell is going on? Soap?"

Soap felt his stomach plummet. Price was blaming him. Of course he was blaming him. It was Soap’s fault after all. He was stupid enough to get comfortable. Stupid enough to believe that he was cared for. That he was wanted. Soap felt himself begin to tremble.

"I'll transfer in the morning." Soap rasped, gripping his own wrist behind his back to keep the others from noticing.

"The hell you will." Price snapped. Soap flinched, shoulders shaking. He was too keyed up, too anxious. "I don't care what you two do in your personal lives, but you were friends. I expect you to be teammates even if you can't be friends. I expect you to be cordial and work together. Do you understand?"

Teammates…isn't that what Ghost had said? He was his teammate, nothing more. Soap felt the acid churn in his stomach again.

"Yes sir." Soap turned, without waiting to be dismissed he flung the door open and bolted. He made outside, only just, and threw up noisily into the bushes. Wiping his mouth with the back of his head, Soap leaned back against the cold brick wall behind him. Or he would've if he didn't find himself flush against a pillowed surface.

Strong hands wrapped around his shoulders from behind.

"Easy Johnny." Ghost's voice rumbled in his ear.

"Dinnae call me that." Soap winced at how rough his voice sounded. He tried to shake off Ghost's hands, but the lieutenant's grip was unforgiving. "Lemme go." Soap complained as Ghost spun him around and led him forcefully back inside. Soap tried to shove the taller man off, but Ghost simply rearranged his hold and forced Soap to keep pace with him as he turned down the familiar hallways.

Ghost paused outside of a door, releasing Soap with one hand to fish for his keys while the other held tight to the back of Soap's neck. Soap twisted free of Ghost's hold and stomped back down the hallway they had come from. He got about two feet away before he was rudely slammed into the wall next to him. His breath left his lungs in a whoosh. Ghost glared down at him, a thick forearm pressed against his clavicle.

"You listen, and you listen well." Ghost snarled. "We are going in that office, and we are going to talk."

"Got nothing you want to hear." Soap half-gasped trying to snarl back. Ghost applied more pressure. "You made that clear, sir." Soap spat the honorific out through gritted teeth twisting to look pointedly at the floor. He didn't want to see Ghost's eyes. Didn't want to remember the warmth of Simon behind that mask. Ghost didn't care what he had to say, not really.

"Just because you couldn't get your dick wet–" Ghost grunted as Soap's fist made contact with his face. He took one step back, but no more, whipping his head back around to glare at the Sergeant. Soap met Ghost's withering look without flinching his blue eyes blazing.

"You don't know a damn thing about me." Soap hissed. "I can get shagged whenever I want. It didn't have a damn thing to do with sex and you know it. You're just too selfish to understand that other people have feelings for you." Wrenching Ghost's arm away from him, Soap shoved his superior hard. Soap paused as he turned to leave, glancing over his shoulder. Ghost stood there, unmoving, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.

—---------------------------------------------------

The next few days were better in many ways and worse in others. Ghost and Soap communicated only when necessary and with short clipped tones. Soap quit avoiding Ghost, but still did not actively seek his lieutenant out unless directed to by Price. Ghost remained as stoic as ever.

Since he hadn't been dragged into Price's office to explain why he struck his CO, Soap assumed Ghost was either too ashamed or too proud to admit he - the great Ghost - had been struck by his Sergeant. Soap suspected the latter since the man never bothered to talk to him about the night at the bar.

Soap's nightmares continued despite every effort he made to abate them. His sketchbook was becoming a homage of Ghost flinging Soap from a skyscraper against an inky blackness. Soap woke up violently ill every time to the point he stopped eating dinner so he could just dry heave in the morning before breakfast.

It wasn't a perfect fix, but it was working. The rest of the 141 was none the wiser. If they noticed Soap losing a little weight they never said anything. Perhaps they believed his pride in his body was the reason. No one noticed. No one cared. Until…

Soap was running the recruits through the obstacle course—which started with the basic crawling under the wire and ended in an underground pool the recruits had to swim through at the end. The deepest part of the pool was ten feet. The goal for today was for the recruits to complete the course with full gear on. Soap would be observing, along with another sergeant, to make sure no one got hurt. The recruits were to enter the pool at the deep end, tread water, and make it to the shallow end, and out within the time given.

The first group of five completed the course no problem. The second group, however, had an issue. One of the youngest recruits, Parker, was having trouble treading water. Soap gave him a second, seeing if any of the others would aid him, when they did not Soap ran to the side of the pool.

“Come on Parker!” Soap shouted. “You got this.”

Parker was pale, spluttering. The kid was panicking.

“Shit.” Soap jumped into the pool grabbing Parker by the vest and attempted to steer him towards the side of the pool. Panicked Parker swung his elbow back clocking Soap in the face, and splitting his lip.

"Oi, ye shit." Soap growled cursing under his breath Soap struggled, fighting with Parker to get him to safety. Where the hell was the other sergeant? As they neared the edge of the pool Parker flung himself towards the edge inadvertently slamming Soap’s head into the concrete side.

Dazed, Soap let go of Parker’s vest, inhaling sharply in pain. Unfortunately for Soap that meant inhaling a mouth full of water. In his panic to get out Parker used Soap as a ladder and stepped on his head forcing him beneath the water. Soap felt what little air he had escaped as he began to sink. Soap swam for the surface, only to be kicked in the sternum by a flailing boot. All of the remaining air escaped him in a whoosh of bubbles as Soap slowly began to sink.

He was drowning. He was fucking drowning like a damn greenie on their first day. Strangely, he couldn’t find it in himself to care. The damn pool was only ten feet deep, and yet…Soap felt like he was sinking to the bottom of the ocean. He was so tired. Two weeks of barely eating, hardly sleeping, and working out as though nothing was wrong left him irrevocably weakened. Soap would have laughed at that if he had any air. He felt his lips turn up in a rueful smile as the edges of his vision darkened. Through half lidded eyes he watched the water shift in the sunlight above him. It was strangely peaceful considering his current predicament. He wondered if they would notice if he was gone…

“Don’t you die on me you Irish bastard!" Gaz shouted in his ear. Soap was forcibly rolled to his side while a large hand thumped on his back. Soap felt the water burn its way back up--rolling he threw up. The chlorine burned his nose and lungs as he gulped in fresh air. "Oh thank God!" Gaz leaned over Soap easing the Scot onto his back.

"'M fookin Scottish ye smarmy cunt." Soap wheezed. Black spots danced across his vision making it hard for him to focus. Groaning Soap closed his eyes, turning his head to the side he focused on taking scorching breaths through his nose. There was rustling all around him, Gaz was busy fussing over him as a low murmur he couldn't quite place, surrounded them both. Soap let himself slip back into the ether.

"Go get a medic now." Gaz snapped at someone unseen. Soap barely stirred, he still felt like he was floating. How strange. A recruit yelped an affirmative and scurried off. The murmurs grew - the recruits were whispering Soap realized. Somewhere off to the side, a door slammed open, and heavy boots slammed into the ground towards them.

"Easy Ghost!" Gaz shouted. "It was an accident!"

Ghost? Soap thought sluggishly. No…Ghost shouldn't be here...

Then he felt large hands wrap around his face, turning him up as something soft skimmed his nose.

That tickles. Soap sighed.

"Why haven't you moved him to medical?" Ghost demanded, the soft thing moving away from Soap's nose.

"'M fine." Soap coughed. Why was it so hard to talk? "Just let me sleep…"

"No Johnny." A gloved hand tapped Soap's face. "Don't go to sleep. Not yet."

"Pffff. What d'ye care…" Soap sighed, his chest felt so heavy. Ignoring his screaming body, Soap rolled to his side. Bracing his arms beneath him he carefully pushed himself up to his knees, then to his feet. Black spots filled his vision again. "Fucking hell." Soap groaned.

"Johnny?" Ghost didn't sound right. He sounded worried. "Johnny, hang on."

Soap felt Ghost's hand on his shoulder.

"I dinnae need–" The world tilted on its axis. The ground rushed up to meet him - then he felt his body being lifted - weightless he really did float. He could still hear Ghost calling his name distantly. He really wished Ghost wouldn't worry so much. He just needed to sleep…

[imeternallylove]

Every step of the way - Cpt. Price

Cpt. John Price x Reader ( pt.1 )

genre: angst but end with fluff

warning: i think none

word: 441

(gif belongs to me)

main mastetlist | request | prompts

The dead of the night, you keep twisting the hem of your gown in your lap. The beeping is deafeningly loud in your ears, but your breathing is even more audible.

Quiet as you could hear the pin drop, you've been in the treatment room since after midnight for hours. You worked hard to get Gaz, Soap and everyone to leave you alone. It's silent here, which is exactly what you need.

You want to flee.

You want to yell.

You wish to vanish.

Most importantly, go back in time is your wishful thinking.

Perhaps if you had been more cautious, you could have avoided the fainting spell you encountered at the meeting.

John might not have had to rush you here if you had been more careful.

Perhaps-

The camp door swings open, and your gaze is drawn to it in alarm. You were not prepared for this. You don't believe you'll ever be prepared for this.

Your fiancé stands there, a look in his eyes sight that push you want to escape. You made that expression. It's entirely your responsibility.

He walks towards you, and you can’t help but think of all the things he’s going to say. The blame he will place on you, and the eventual breaking off of your engagement to him. 

You are still recovering from the mission of posing as a kidnapper with him in Russia. Each slingshot they forced you to digging in, every tears you shed was there, still over your head. You're not sure why, but you despise being so frail like this much.

It’s reminding you of Price's proposal, it was the way he was, he was afraid of losing you; it was simple but planned with the squad, they are the only family left after your parents passed away; no goodbye like a river of no return while vacationing in Beirut, the explosion.

His ring was just filled with diamonds with a right fit size. You remember he was joking about that, you will lose one of diamonds soon enough when you carry out your duty. 

You stare at the ring and shed tears for no apparent reason.

As he sits on the edge of your bed, your voice becomes stuck in your throat as you try to speak. You can smell the coffee and ciga on his breath because he's so near.

Price's aquamarine irises sweep over you before landing on your face, he comes closer till both foreheads touching. "I'm sorry, love."

You make a blink. "John? W-What?"

As though he's frightened of losing you, he immediately pulls you into a firm but soft hug. "You're going to take this pain away my darling." His honeyed lips landed on your temples. "You're not frail; you're just healing. I'll be there for you every step of the way, Y/N. I promise we'll beat this."

You begin to cry, tears streaming down your face. Not because he has irritated you or because you are relieved.

But because you trust him.

tag: @thychuvaluswife

@fog-sama

@tapioca-marzipan

[socially-awkward-skeleton]

hiiii, if you're developing the protective prompts, i think 'they'll never understand our connection.' would be amazing for rory & the cap 😌 🖤 (there are more but i'm not gonna spam asdfsa)

Thank you so so much for this Malk, I have been slowly but surely working on this one (and hope to some day be able to add it to one of my full length fics for these two) but here's a bit from post MW3 Rory and Price *spoiler: I do want to have these two get quietly married*. I did edit the prompt a little to make it fit, but anyhoo

warnings for smoking and implied sexual activities at the start (they're newlyweds don't blame them) otherwise mostly shippy conversation stuff with a sprinkling of angst with mentions of the events of MW3.

word count: 1.9 K

Captain Price x Rory Sinclair (OC)

Curled into the weight of him, lying in their matrimonial bed, Lt. Rory Sinclair – John's new bride, and partner for the last eight years – felt like she was home. She had traveled the world, fought in countless fights and yet with John, it didn't matter what nation's borders surrounded her, or which four walls closed them in. She was safe. Protected in a way that she had only ever felt with John. 

Watching him smoke one of those bloody cigars of his, she quietly laughed to herself. Well versed in the addiction to smoking both her and John shared – for him, it was cigars, and for her, cigarettes – it was a nasty habit, and yet, the scent of that rich and heady tobacco that permeated the air and his clothes, that seemed to seep from every one of his pores, was one she couldn't live without now. Better than any cologne when mixed with his sweat and the smell of whiskey on his breath. That was John, cut down to his very essence.

Holding her chin in his hand, his rough fingers pressed into the soft flesh of her cheeks as they gazed hungrily into each other's eyes. The desire for each other was always there, forever lingering even in the background when their thoughts were solely focused on the mission at hand and not on the pursuit of loving one another. His mouth claimed hers, pulling her into a needy kiss after a drag from his cigar, and she found herself lost in the depth of his kiss, feeling the smoke curl and cloud down her throat and inside her lungs. Filled in totality, brimming with him. 

Rory locked eyes with him, returning a flirty smirk before blowing smoke rings towards the ceiling – a practiced art, as much as her ability with a sniper's scope or an interrogation room. Biting her lip as the last streak of smoke trailed from her parted lips, hazel doe eyes looked back with the intensity of a predator staring at its prey through the fog.

His eyes never left hers as smoke rings blew towards the ceiling, a mischievous glint flashing in their blue depths. Chuckling low in his chest, the vibrations caused his collection of body hair to quiver against her skin. "Bloody gorgeous," he murmured, his voice husky. Leaning forward, he breathed in, inhaling deeply the scent of smoke, whiskey, and her. The corners of his mouth curving upward, revealed a hint of amusement. "God, you smell like heaven." But as quickly as the newlywed joy sparked between them played out, his expression turned serious, his eyes burning with an inner fire. Tracing the outline of her lips with a sweep of his thumb, he grazed the sensitive skin with a tender touch. "Think I'll keep you captive," he whispered, his hot breath sending shivers down her spine. Tangling his fingers in the short, choppy strands as he stroked her hair, he pulled her head closer to him and his voice dropped to a whispered promise, "Never gonna let anyone else in. Only me. My girl. Forever."

The words sent a ripple of excitement through her core, followed by a wave of relaxation, knowing she was exactly where she belonged – wrapped around John Price, the man who would stop at nothing to protect and claim her as his own. Her warm eyes radiating the loyalty and devotion she felt for him. That desire to be protected, saved from a life full of loss and pain, was one that John eagerly filled for her. Hell bent on making sure she never had to weather another storm without him, using the same ruthless persistence he had when it came to dealing with a target.

"I'll happily be kept by you, my darling. Won't even try and run," she purred, her voice soft like velvet and as smooth as silk, made thick with the smoke that curled inside her throat. "All yours, John. Always." Her solemn vow as she stared into those piercing blue eyes of his, ones she could sink into, finding comfort in that strikingly cold gaze and the unknowable depths behind them that he allowed her to peer into – one of the few he did – never taking that for granted. This was the man she loved, all rough edges and darkened corners.

There was a flash of triumph in Price's eyes, that same determination that sharpened his gaze in battle igniting in his irises. He grinned, a dangerous curl tugging at the corners of his lips. A primal satisfaction filled him as he nodded, accepting her surrender with a subtle lift of his head. His fingers drifted down to massage her jawline, his voice as rough as his calloused palm, was filled with magnetism and promises, drawing her in further. "That's right, love. No runnin’ away, no escape. You’re Mrs. Price now. We fight together, just us two, against the whole world."

The quiet sentiment remained unspoken between them, but the way he crinkled his brows and narrowed his gaze made the underlying threat clear: mess with her, and he wouldn't hesitate to tear someone apart with his bare hands – an unnecessary warning for her, but comforting nonetheless.

"Two against the world." Her smile curled her full lips and her eyes sparkled with assurance that this was the man she was meant to be with. "Just how it's always been, eh?"

Rory knew exactly what Price was capable of: the violence, the threats, the lies and manipulations – a man willing to do whatever was necessary to succeed. Dangerous. But no matter how terrifying those traits might have been to his enemies, to her he had only ever been good. Gentle when needed, when her nightmares and flashbacks threatened to terrorize her, or strong and unshakable like a mighty fortress when threats came knocking on their door. She saw sides to him no one else was ever allowed to see. They had a trust built up after years of working together and born from a mission where he nearly lost her. An ill-fated op that nearly got her killed under his command became the roots for a love that had grown plentifully over nearly a decade together. They weren't just lovers or partners, they were everything to each other. A connection that no one else would ever understand, and neither of them was willing to try and explain it if someone was foolish enough to ask.

Price's smile widened, the creases around his eyes deepening as he leaned in, his nose brushing against hers. "Always. Wouldn't have it any other way, my girl,” he said, voice dropping to a whisper, the words tinged with emotion.

Pausing, his gaze drifted off, lost in memories of the past and the darker parts of their history that had brought them to this moment all etched into his mind like scars on his skin. Swallowing hard around the lump forming in his throat, he re-focused his attention on the woman in his arms. "Y’know, Rory," he said, his tone low and gravelly, "Never thought I'd find someone like you. Someone who understands me, loves me despite...or maybe because of..." His eyes locked onto hers, searching for any sign of unease and finding none, but shrugging it off not wanting to assume. "Well, despite my many flaws."

The admission was a near impossible rarity from him. For someone like John Price who built his reputation on being unbreakable, it took more than just courage to acknowledge his weaknesses, it took the threat of torture - but for her, for her he was willing ignore his ego and the many guards he'd built up throughout his life.

"Could never ask for anyone better than you, darlin’," he said, pulling her close, his chest rising and falling with each ragged breath. "You’re all I need havin’ to face this never-endin’ fight."

Brushing her fingers through the hair at his temple flecked with gray, she could only imagine the thoughts that currently stirred the cogs inside his head. Through their time together she had come to learn to understand how John thought, why he acted, what motivated him, but even after all this time there were parts that still remained a mystery even to her, parts of himself that he still kept secret - whether for his own safety or hers.

"We all have our flaws, John. Besides,” she said with a scrunch of her nose, “it's not like I'm any better, eh?" Her cheeky smile grew as she tried to add levity to the situation - she had never been very good about dealing with hard conversations. "Though I will say, I do hope one day the crusade might end. Maybe find a little peace together. Grow old and gray and fat. Be happy."

Meeting her gaze, his expression softened at first, then became firm once more when she mentioned the idea of finding peace someday. "It's a nice dream, love." His hand gripped hers, holding it tightly. "But we both know that won't be happenin’ soon. Not while men like Makarov are out there. Not until we've cleaned up this mess once and for all." His brow furrowed, the steel returning to his eyes again. "And when it's done, when we do finally find our peace, I'll spend the rest of my days makin’ sure you're comfortable. For now, let's enjoy these moments when we can.”

Huffing out a sour laugh, Rory knew that as much as (deep down) John may have wanted the same calm, quiet life she did, war was all he really knew. He had been shaped by it. A soldier from the age of sixteen, to him there really was no other life. Duty called, and he had sworn to answer it until the job was complete. If she were really being honest, she knew he likely wouldn't even know what to do with himself if he did find some semblance of peace. Even in serene moments like this, she could see the anxious twitching, the tics of a warrior that knew silence could mean danger was ahead.

Raking her fingers through her hair before resting her head on his chest, she listened to the steady thrum of his heart. "I know, duty calls. Hell, we were lucky we even got to have a bloody honeymoon." She offered him a small grin, but the weight of the threat of Makarov and the death of Soap still hung heavy over them, over everything.

His hand lingered on her back, rubbing gentle circles into her as if trying to erase the years of stress etched into her muscles. His heartbeat thundered against her ear, a reassuring rhythm that soothed and grounded her. "We were lucky, love," he agreed, his voice deepening with nostalgia. "That honeymoon was somethin’ rare during all that bloody chaos."

Fingers tightening slightly, a silent acknowledgment of the weight that still hung over them – the ghost of Soap, the specter of Makarov, the relentless march of duty - it was all an uninvited guest in their lives. Yet, there was acceptance in his voice rather than defeat, a reminder of their strength and resilience. "We'll finish this, my girl. We owe it to ourselves." Falling silent for a moment, he allowed them both to wallow in the comfort of each other's presence until he released a slow, weighty exhale, his arms wrapped firmly around her. "Until then, we'll find peace where we can, eh? Even in the small victories."

[mactavishwritings]

NFWMB - song inspired fic

Soap x Reader

Fluff

tw: mentions of violence

you two are a team. inseparable.

Captain John Price sat across from Kate Laswell, building a special task force. He pulled the file out that belonged to Kyle.

"Sergeant Garrick."

"Kyle?"

They call him Gaz. He never said anything."

Price nodded before grabbing the next two files with a big smile. "John and (Y/N) MacTavish." He smiled fondly at the photos on both files.

"Siblings?" Price shook his head. "No, married. Both SAS, where they met. He's a sniper - demolitions. She's a weapons and hand-to-hand expert. He goes by Soap and She goes by Widow."

Laswell shook her head. "So why both? Won't that cause issues?"

"Not even remotely. She gets the intel, he covers her back. Nothing touches her when he's watching." Price locked eyes with Laswell, who nodded. "Alright deal."

-

You sighed and tilted your head back, hitting the side of the truck. You were in your tactical gear and your helmet. Your husband sat to your right, also in his tactical gear. His arm was resting around your shoulders. You had just gotten word that the two of you were being recruited for a special task force and had just finished a mission.

"What do you think the Lieutenant is going to be?" You turned your head towards Soap, who just shrugged. "Dunno. Maybe a big softie." He joked and you smiled.

Pulling up to the airport, Soap jumped out of the truck and turned, helping you out after. You both turned to see a man in a skull mask. "Must be the L.T." Soap smiled as you heard Sheppard introduced you two to Ghost over the comms. You smiled at him as Soap lightly punched the man's shoulder. "Let's get ourselves a win, yeah, L.T.?"

"Fuckin' hell." You laughed, looking back at Ghost. "Don't worry, it only gets better."

-

Graves blocked the entry way to Alejandro's compound. You stood besides Soap, who hand one hand on his gun and one hand in front of you. You had your hand on your gun and you looked between Ghost and Soap.

Alejandro charged towards Graves and violence broke out. Soap immediately jumped in front of you. You whipped around, going back to back with him. You immediately started shooting, trying to take down some of the shadows. You heard Soap groan loudly in pain and you felt him fall back on you. You gasped and planted your feet, supporting him. "WIDOW! SOAP! RUN!" You heard Ghost shout and you nodded, feeling Soap grab your middle.

He pulled you behind him and he pushed you down a hill and he followed after. You pointed your gun pasted Soap and shot down some of the Shadows that tried to follow after.

You pulled Soap's arm over your shoulder and tried your best to support his weight. "You hit?" He grunted, dragging himself along, trying to move as quick as he could. "No, but you were." You pulled him into an alley, resting him against a wall. "I'll be fine, doll. We gotta find Ghost." You switched through different stations, hoping to find a clear one, mainly finding Shadows talking about you, Soap, and Ghost and needing to find you three.

You felt yourself start to tear up, frustrated. "Now, dolly, please." Soap tried to reach out, but winced. You let your head drop down to rest on his shoulder before finally finding a clear channel. "Ghost? Ghost? This is Bravo-176. Copy?" You tried to speak clearly, but your voice was shaky from the tears.

"C'mon. Let's get moving." Soap kissed your cheek a couple times before you helped him stand again. Soap grunted and you two started moving again. It took a bit but Ghost did get into contact with you two. He told you he was held up at a church in the center of town.

"Meet there. Find a way out of town, copy?" You answered Ghost, who replied with a simple 'copy' and you got moving. "I love you, you know that right?" Soap mumbled, as the two of you moved through a building. You chuckled lowly. "That is why we got married, is it not?"

"Yeah it is. You know that I would never let anythin' touch you, right? I would actually die before that happened." Soap turned his head towards and you slightly paused. "You remind me every mission, darling. Let's keep moving." You pull him along.

You two soon reached the church but it was littered with Shadows. "Ghost! Let's go!" You shouted Ghost ran towards you two. Soap shot at the Shadows as Ghost hopped the fence. You three sprinted towards a truck that Ghost had pointed to. You shoved Soap into the passenger seat before jumping into the bed of the truck. You quickly recovered and started shooting at the remaining Shadows.

"Be careful, doll!" Soap shouted, trying to reach out to you, but Ghost held him back. "I got this, Johnny!" You shouted. Ghost drove the truck through the streets. "Jesus Ghost! My wife is back there!" Soap shouted, turning his body to face you, the back window had been shattered by bullets so he was able to reach you finally. "Johnny, calm down!" Soap grabbed his gun and stabilized it on the back of the truck. "Like hell I will."

He started shooting with you. Soon, all the Shadows became just that. You felt your body collapsed against the back of the truck, feeling the adrenaline finally wear off. You felt a hand on your shoulder and you grabbed it immediately. "You good back there?" You hear your Lieutenant ask and you grunted in response. "In one piece. No hits."

Arriving at Alejandro's safe house, you jumped out of the back and met the other two. After getting inside, you dragged Soap off to patch his wound. It was silent as you worked on the wound, it always ways. You hated when he got hurt and he knew it.

"I know what you're thinking, but I rather it you than me." Soap whispered to you and you shook your head. "You know me." He laughed.

"I know you very well and you know that I don't think having to patch you up, so if you can please not get hurt, I would appreciate it." You leaned down and kissed him gently.

"Sorry doll, but ain't nothing fucks with my baby."

~

this one did not turn out as well as I'd hope but still let me know what you think!