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#captain john price x you
An idea I have that’s itching my brain. Ex-husband!price, second chance trope? Strangely into this recently
Ex-husband!price who can’t help but call you every time he gets back from a mission and you who can’t help but pick up.
You’ve been divorced for a little over a year now. It wasn’t necessarily on bad terms but the relationship just couldn’t work anymore; with him constantly gone it felt as though he was more of a roommate, a stranger, than the man you loved.
You couldn’t take the loneliness and Price only ever wanted to make you happy, so he agreed to the divorce with the same amount of courage he had going into a mission.
“John?” You asked, answering the call after the third to make it seem like you weren’t waiting for him.
“Hey,” Price smiled immediately when he heard your voice. “I made it home.”
“Good. You’re not hurt are you?”
Price could feel the ache and throb on his body from the mission, especially on his side where he had hit the ground hard because of an explosion. A large bruise had already formed but he ignored it like every problem he had concerning himself.
Just like he had ignored you.
“I’m alright.” He sucked in his lips and cleared his throat. “Tell me what you’ve been doing.”
You really shouldn’t. It’s not like you ended on bad terms necessarily, but you had never known someone to stay friends with their ex-husband before. You knew that these kind of talks might send the wrong message.
It might make one of you believe that there was hope for reconciliation.
“Oh…nothing much.” You kept it vague to deter further conversation and you hoped he didn’t take it the wrong way.
Price didn’t, at least that’s what he told himself even though he felt a pang in his chest while his throat tightened.
He shouldn’t call you anymore even if he missed your voice. Every call was like he was torturing himself, making himself remember what he lost because he couldn’t get his own head out of his ass.
He would’ve stopped after the first call if you hadn’t picked up.
“I just wanted to let you I was home.” He mumbled and you felt incredibly grateful that he wanted to do that.
You may be divorced but you still feared the day one of his men would come to tell you he was no longer alive.
“Thank you.”
“Of course, love.”
It slipped out but neither of you said anything. You both sat in silence, drinking up the presence of each other from the other side of the phone, across cities.
There were so many mixed feelings, all of which neither of you had the words to describe them.
“Goodbye, John.”
“Goodbye.”
When you were gone Price sat in the edge of his bed in the dark. The bed he once shared with you often went untouched, even by him as he couldn’t stand to lay in it alone, even if the mattress was better for his body.
His fingers played with the golden band chained around his neck subconsciously since he was unable to get rid of it.
A/n: take whatever this is lol won’t be a series but might have like a couple other little pieces
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the-oracles-maw · 3 days
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she's alright!
you trust your husband more than anything, so perhaps this is something you could explore with him. So, you surprise him with a cute outfit... under your outfit.
husband! captain John price x reader
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Not at all could you complain about married life with your husband. Aside from how you saw yourself, of course.
Your husband, John, a big, strong tank of a military man, and here you were, his shy, demure little spouse. You loved to care for him when he returned home. He greeted you with a scratchy forehead kiss whenever he walked through the front door, ready to vent and rant about the privates' rookie mistakes and his team.
You loved when he talked about his strike team. it was like they were his own sons. And he was their big, protective papa bear. However, you counted yourself quite lucky: the big, protective papa bear was also a teddy bear. This leaves one last question: If you were entirely satisfied, how was the bedroom situation? Great! But... John was your first... well, everything. You never mad many opportunities to date in your youth, nor were you very interested. John just... happened. And it was right. And it was wonderful. In short. You never had the opportunity to explore... that side of you.
You pondered that for a while. Especially when John one day gave you the news that he was given a few mandatory days off. Your eyes widen as you read the email on the laptop's screen. "Are... are you sure?" You ask John. "You're reading the thing aren't you?" John replies, chuckling, ruffling your hair. "Come on, you've got a brain, use it." "John!" John laughed, ruffling your hair playfully, giving you another kiss on your forehead. "I'm playing with you, babe. Just playing with you." "But yeah..." A long sigh and a stretch from John, allowing you a teasing glance of your husband's build: fluffy, but powerful. Not too muscular, but very, very firm. All so tragically hidden by his casual flannel. "Got the house to ourselves... The hell are we gonna do?"
Unbeknownst to your husband, you've... done some preparations.
You shuffle uncomfortably in your pajamas, the leather harness is tight but holds onto you like a hug. You were surprised of how comfortable it actually was. John had just returned from the base, and was filling out some last minute emails before he begun his extended time off. The cool evening throbbed outside. It was a warm day so you'd sought to open the windows in your little house. The draft entered from outside, forcing a shudder throughout your body, and nipples to stand erect. You raise your arms slightly to awkwardly cover them, as your harness accentuated your pectorals/breasts. You raised a fist to knock on the open door, as John's back was turned as he worked. Knowing him, he had quite the sixth sense for you.
"Oh! There y' are, luv! Need something? I'm just finishing up." John gave you a bright smile. He x'ed out of the email window to fully turn around and focus his full attention on you. His face fell, seeing your expression and posture. "Something wrong? What's with this face?" He reached out to brush a strand of hair from your face.
"Nothing at all! Actually... um... there's... something I want to talk to you about."
"Oh boy, serious face." John chuckled. "About nothing bad! I promise." You give him a smile. 'But... can we... um... go to the bedroom to talk, first?" "Oh..." John draws out, sending a wave of fire through your stomach, chest. He seemed to catch on the implication right away. And he was eating it up. God, he was like a little kid sometimes. "You treat me right, luvie. You treat me right." Oh, you were going to treat him right, alright, the inner bad bitch in you whispered in your ear. Causing you to immediately shake them right off. Shifting, you sit on the bed, motioning for John to sit next to you. The leather harness was still tight, but still a comforting hug. At the same time, it reminded you that there was no going back now... "Well, John..." You begin. "I... I love you."
"Aww, I love you, (name.)" He grinned, and leaned in to give you a firm peck on the lips.
"And..." You continue, wringing your hands, scrunching all up, causing John's expression to shift again. "Come on," his voice is calm, a hand rests on your shoulder, somehow missing your leather harness. "Lay it on me, babe..."
"I've been... um..." You trail off, taking a deep breath, your cheeks completely flushed. Now or never you think. Might as well rip off the bandaid. "Can I show you something?"
John nods with a smile. "Sure. What's up?"
His smile fades, and jaw drops. He certainly was not expecting you to take off your shirt.
His eyes completely rake over you, you could swear his mouth is watering. His eyes linger specifically over the leather as it criss crosses over your chest. Tracing over the straps that went under your breast/pecs, pushing them up, your nipples rising to meet him. Eyes going lower, they widened again on the hint of lacy undergarments under your pajama bottoms.
"My my... why, (name,) what have we here...?" His hands roved to your pajama bottoms, to pull them off and reveal more of your panties, not before looking up at your flushed expression. "(name)? What's wrong? You okay..."
"Yes..." you say, just barely above a whisper. "I... I love you, and... you know you're my first... in... well... everything..." You both chuckled at that. "And... I want to... explore... um..."
"Mm?" John's smirk grew wrapping his arms around you night and tight, pressing another kiss on your forehead. "Oh wow, you feel almost feverish! Mm... you wanna experience more firsts with me?"
You nod. "I do... Do you like it?"
"Like it? By god, (name)..." John trailed off, feeling you up with rough, calloused hands. "You're joking, right?"
"Now then..." John's voice grows husky, smoldering, sending an excited, nervous pit into your loins. "I'm off for a few days now... Does my sexy little thing wanna do some celebrating? This what this is all about?"
"mm... maybe..."
John kisses your lips. "I see." He all but strips off his shirt. He reaches for your hands, taking them in his own, and living them kisses, before tying them together with his discarded shirt. "Lay down, babes, and don't stop looking at me..."
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Darling, please.
Pairing: Husband!John Price x Wife!Reader Summary: You should know better, better than to let him back into your home. You should know better, but once again, you dash yourself against the rocks for John Price. Warnings: Grief, PTSD(Implied), Trauma(Implied), Mention of character death (IYKYK), MW2/3 Spoilers, Broken Marriage Dynamics, Angst, No happy ending, Self-Destructive Behaviours (Price and Reader), Blood, Violence, Gore(soft), smut, Unprotected PiV (wrap it up folks), Crying, Regret, Dubcon (it’s not extreme but it’s worth mentioning that neither are really in a place to consent (high emotions etc.)), A little Coercion(again not egregious but it’s there).
Let me know if I missed anything!
A/N: My first Price fic, and totally inspired by the below scene. Thank you @pinkypromisepascal for beta-ing this for me! ILU for indulging my CoD delusions. W/C - 1,450
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CoD Masterlist | AO3
You straddle his thighs, sleep shorts and loose t-shirt already stained with another man’s blood as you dab the wet flannel over his bruised body. The side of the bath creaks behind him as he shifts his weight. 
He won’t tell you what happened. He’s barely said a word since stumbling through your front door an hour ago.  
There’s so much blood. 
“John,” you plead, “Please, just tell me if you’re hurt. I won’t take you to A&E, I just need to know if you’re ok.” 
“M’fine, not my blood,” he growls, eyes fixed somewhere over your shoulder as he refuses to look at you. 
You sigh, throwing down the flannel on the floor as you try to rise to your feet. A large hand wraps around your right ankle, anchoring you in place as you glower down at the broken man. The heat that explodes from the point of contact has your breath catching in your throat. 
You’ve missed him. Really missed him. 
“Please, don’t go,” it’s his turn to beg as he finally meets your gaze. The whites of his eyes are stained pink, raw from crying. His dark blue irises are chasms of despair as he sucks you back in. 
“John, I can’t keep doing this,” you say softly as you slump back onto his lap, eyes downturned as it’s your turn to avoid those baleful eyes of his, “I can’t stand by and watch as you slowly kill yourself.” 
“I’m sorry,” he mumbles as he skims his fingertips up your sides, under the fabric of your t-shirt, “So sorry,” he repeats, and you let out a shuddering breath as he drags the rough pads of his calloused fingertips over your ribs. 
“S’not enough John,” you say, your voice trembling as his thumbs swipe over your nipples, pulling a soft mewl from your lips as he brings them to stiff peaks under his touch. 
“It was my fault,” he breathes, voice thick with emotion as you look up into his eyes, tears flowing freely now as he finally breaks, “He’s dead because of me, might as well’ve pulled the trigger myself.” 
“Oh John,” you sob as tears prick at the corners of your eyes, “Come here,” you insist, throwing your arms around his neck, pulling him against you as he slides his hands around to your back, pinning you to him as he begins to cry. 
You run your fingers through his too-long hair, lips pressed to his temple as he buries his face in the crook of your neck. His beard tickles at your skin as the wet evidence of his grief collects on the collar of your t-shirt. His hands roam your back, blunt nails scraping down your spine as his sobs begin to abate. Through the ferrous tang of blood, you can smell him. His caffeine shampoo, notes of pepper and sandalwood. His sweat, fresh and raw, conjuring memories of being pinned beneath his wide frame. Flashes of the way his skin tastes when you bite into his flesh to stymy your own screams. 
It seems he’s losing himself to your body too. His fingers press possessively into the small of your back as you feel his arousal pressing through the fabric of his jeans, nudging at your clothed core. 
“Need you darling,” he mumbles against the slope of your neck, “Please.” 
You want to say no, you can’t let him in again, he’ll drag you down with him. It’s why you told him to leave, why it’s been six months of no-contact. But you know what today is. You know why he’s so strung out. 
It’s been a year since Johnny died. A year since you lost your husband to grief, rage, and despair. 
“Darling,” he urges again, a darkness to his tone as his nose presses into that spot behind your ear that makes your cunt clench around nothing, “Please.” 
His teeth nip at the shell of your ear as his thick, hot tongue laves over the sting to soothe you. You want to say no, but you can’t. 
“Ok,” you whisper, trembling hands cupping his bearded cheeks as you pull him away from your neck, only to crash your lips into his. His eyes go wide – as if he expected you to go through with your rejection – before they flutter closed. 
He growls against your lips as he tugs your shorts down, leaving them stretched and tangled around your knees as you fumble with his belt buckle. He lifts his hips so you can pull his boxer briefs and jeans down in one. His thick length slaps wetly against his blood-stained stomach. You moan into his mouth as his tongue slips past your lips, claiming it for his own as he grips your hips. 
You whine as he pulls you down onto his cock, you wince at the stretch, you’re not as wet as you’d like. But you soon forget the discomfort as he seats himself fully inside you. You break the kiss with a cry as your head lolls back. You’re so full.
“There’s my pretty girl,” he rasps as he sucks hard against your pulse point, rocking you up and down on his cock, his grip near-bruising on your thighs, “Missed you so much.” 
“Missed you too John,” you weep in tainted bliss as you aid his efforts to impale you on his dick. You move in tandem with his thrusts, bouncing on his cock as you dig your nails into his pectorals. Blood and grime forcing themselves into your nail beds. 
“I love you,” he breathes your name as he slams you down harder, your ass cheeks slapping obscenely against his muscular thighs. 
“I love you too John,” you pant into his open mouth as you press your forehead to his, “Never stopped loving you, never will.” 
His tongue slips into your mouth as he plants his feet on the floor, elevating you as he starts to pound up into your slick hole. You clench around him, drawing desperate gasps from him as you tug on his hair. Your other hand drops to your clit as you roll the sensitive bud with desperation as you feel your orgasm building. 
“You like that, Captain?” You snarl as you yank his head back, drawing a yelp from him as he slams you down on his cock, “Yeah, you do,” you purr as you shudder and clench around him harder this time. 
“Let me come inside,” he begs, and you moan as you feel the heat build in your navel as you increase the pressure on your clit, “Please.” 
“Do you deserve to come inside me, Captain?” You goad and he groans louder at the repeated use of his rank. 
“No,” he chokes out as he sobs, still thrusting up into you, making you cry out in rapturous desire, “Don’t deserve you darling, but I need you.” 
There’s an unspoken plea in his voice and you relent. You push aside the agony you know you will feel tomorrow. Both physically and emotionally, this will ruin you. But as always, you throw yourself at the feet of Captain John Price. 
“Come for me John, come inside me,” you whine as you come hard. Your pussy is like a vice, choking John’s cock as you cry his name again and again in a pleasure-ridden dirge. 
John roars, his head thrown back as he ruts up into you again and again, splitting you in two as he chases his release. You’re putty above him, face buried in his damp, bloodstained hair as your pleasure bleeds into him. 
“Love you,” he whispers your name as he comes, and you grind down onto his cock as he buries himself deep inside you. 
“Love you too John, always.” 
You stay there for some time, knees scuffed and sore, thighs ablaze with exertion. John mutters sweet nothings, promising to get his shit together. You humour him as you bury your face in the crook of his neck. The blood and sweat that clings to his skin disguise the way your tears flow in rivulets down his chest. 
You know he wants to mean it; you know he loves you. You want to believe him, you want to love him back, the way he thinks he loves you.  
But you know that it’s a fantasy. You know he’s going to slip the moment he wakes up tomorrow with the same cavernous hole in his chest. He’ll leave without a word, any remnant of your love for him eaten away with shame. And the cycle will start again. 
But for now, you can pretend. 
For the next few hours you have your husband back. 
And for now, that’s enough. 
CoD Masterlist
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konigs-whore · 2 days
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Familiar contact- A John price fic.
Random inspo I had, but hopefully people enjoy it. I stayed up till 7am writing it lol. Might make something out of this but I idk yet.
I have attention span issues so if it veer off, please don’t come at me for it. I’ve skimmed over it, but there’s probably some things I missed and grammatical mistakes. Thank you❤️
Word count: 3k+
MDNI- mature themes, language, choking, supernatural beings, dark themes.
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I told myself to be home by midnight, before the hunting hour started. To lock myself safely in my home, surrounded by wards.
Sigils adorned the doors and windows, passed down from generation to generation by witches determined to protect their dwellings.
The eerie stillness of the night was broken by distant howls and screams, while sinister whispers lured unsuspecting victims into their grasp. These cunning creatures preyed upon human greed, offering promises of fulfilling desires before revealing their true, malevolent nature through blood-red eyes hidden within the shadows.
"I'll give you everything you desire"
" You will desire nothing else, if you come closer"
I pay no heed to their twisted tongues, for I know the moment I look their way, or so much as utter a word, I'll be trapped in their soulless hell. Become a mindless creature like them, existing only to feed on souls until the earth turns to dust.
And I refuse to become one.
I pull my coat tighter around me, trying to shield myself from the biting chill. But it seems to seep through every layer, penetrating deep into my bones. Come to us.
The gusts seem to have a life of their own, swirling and dancing around me, almost taunting me with their strength. As I trudge through the forest, trees now look twisted and tortured under the relentless assault of the wind. Nothing on this earth is truly safe from their wicked powers.
Their branches whip back and forth, creaking as if in pain. Some of them have already succumbed, their broken limbs littering the ground like casualties of war. Despite the fierce resistance of the trees, the wind shows no signs of letting up. It blows with such force that I struggle to keep my balance, stumbling over rocks and roots that are hidden beneath a carpet of leaves. My hair is wild and tangled, whipped into a frenzy by the wind's powerful grasp. 
As I stand in the midst of this chaotic scene, I can feel the energy of the whispers pulsating through the air. They seem to be growing more desperate by the second, their voices becoming more urgent and insistent. These phantom entities, longing for control over my soul, reach out towards me with ethereal hands that pass right through my body.
But I refuse to acknowledge them, refusing to give them the power they so desperately crave. Meanwhile, the trees around me struggle against the relentless force of the wind. Some bend and sway gracefully, while others are unable to withstand the intense pressure and break, crashing to the ground with a loud thunderous sound. My heart aches at the sight of these ancient trees, some of them hundreds of years old. Despite surviving in such a harsh environment, they stood tall and thrived, only to be struck down by the dark forces of hell.  Life is truly, cruel.
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My small home, tucked away in the dense forest, comes into view. Smoke curls out of the chimney and warm light spills through the windows, creating a comforting glow. Thick moss clings to the weathered stone walls, leading up to the old black roof. A protective barrier of sturdy stone surrounds my home, making it feel like a fortress. My pace quickens as I approach, eager to escape the eerie whispers and relentless winds that seem to follow me. But as I near my house, all sounds of nature cease and an ominous silence settles over the land. My steps falter as my eyes narrow, scanning for any signs of danger.
Suddenly, a swirling mist materializes to my right, coalescing into the form of a tall, muscular man. Curled horns protrude from his head and his bright red eyes lock onto mine with malicious intent. My heart races as I realize he is a demon - not just any demon, but one of great power and influence. I recognize him from my extensive research on the seven gates of hell - standing before me is none other than John Price himself, ruler and master of all seven gates.
In a deep, smooth voice with a British accent, he sneers at me with a wicked grin. "Well hello there, little witch," he says mockingly as he takes slow steps towards me. Fear courses through my body like ice water. Why does his voice sound so familiar? That nickname….
“ John” I say, somehow holding my voice steady despite the tremble in my body. my hands twitch at my sides, ready to defend myself. “ what do you want?” I hiss. but he just smiles even wider, tilting his head at me. 
“ Can’t I visit a lonely little witch? whom lives by herself in the forest”. He steps closer. 
“ no, you cannot. I have no business with you, demon” 
A sharp gasp escapes my lips as he materializes in front of me. He leans down, bringing us eye-to-eye, his intense gaze locking with mine. The scent of smoke and fresh pine fills my nostrils, mingling together in an intoxicating combination. His long fingers, slender yet strong, grasp my chin firmly yet gently, his thumb lightly caressing my cheek. His touch, it feels familiar too. But why?
“ Been watching you, darling. A nasty little witch you are” His breath fans my face, our close proximity jolting my senses back into place. 
I grit my teeth, taking another cautious step back as his hands fall from my face. His amusement is evident in the glittering mischief in his eyes and the sly curve of his lips. I feel a surge of electricity tingling at my fingertips, slowly spreading up my arm until bolts of raw energy flicker and dance beneath my skin. With a few whispered chants, I channel the power and unleash a dazzling bolt of lightning towards him. The air crackles with anticipation as the bright beam strikes the earth where he stands, sending up a cloud of dust in its wake. The ground trembles beneath me, humming with residual energy. 
my eyes narrow as the dust fades away, and there he stands. a cloud of mist surrounding him in a protective barrier.  This grimy little bitch.
“ Now darling, that wasn’t very nice”
“ Oh really? thought i’d give you a proper welcome” I sneer, my fingers twitching again. my mind reeling for a plan.  My grandmother never said anything about defending myself against the king of hell. What the hell am I supposed to do.
The mist around him disappears into the earth. He crosses his arms.
" Well you could do me" he retorts and I frown. Get out of my head!
I send another bolt his way, and he deflects it with a flick of his wrist. John's laughter echoes through the forest, sending shivers down my spine.
" What do you want John. I haven't broken any laws, nor did I summon you".
His eyes gleam with amusement as he takes a leisurely stroll around me, his steps echoing in the unnatural silence that surrounds us.
"I do love a feisty one," he muses, his voice smooth like silk yet carrying an underlying edge of danger. "But I'm not here for your misdeeds, dear witch. No, I am here for something far more intriguing."
My heart pounds in my chest as I try to maintain a façade of calmness, even as his presence threatens to overwhelm me. "Then what is it that you seek from me, demon?" I demand, my voice steady despite the fear gnawing at the edges of my mind.
John Price's smile widens, revealing a row of perfectly straight and gleaming white teeth that seem to glint in the dim light. As he approaches me, his footsteps fall with an air of confidence and authority. He stops in front of me, tilting his head to reveal the sharp angles of his jawline beneath his beard, and the way the moonlight catches in his dark hair.
"I have come to claim you, little witch," he purrs, his voice low and smooth like velvet. I can feel his warm breath on my skin as he speaks.
"Claim me? What the fuck are you talking about?" I snap back, my anger boiling over at his bold words.
"Your coven, centuries ago, promised me a bride if I granted them power," he explains, his eyes never leaving mine. "Twenty generations from then, a woman will be born with powers stronger than any witches before her. And only she will be worthy of becoming my bride." A knowing smirk tugs at the corners of his mouth as he finishes his declaration.
And if I could've sent every last bit of my powers away, I would have on spot. Simply bag them and ship them off to the next person.
The earth trembles beneath my feet, my anger coursing through me like molten lava. My eyes blaze with a fiery red intensity as I bring my hand up to meet his chest. The wind responds to my rage and strengthens, pushing him back with a forceful gust. He stumbles several feet before landing gracefully on his feet, a smug smirk plastered across his face. I grit my teeth, wishing desperately to wipe that lecherous expression off of his creepy features. "My, my," he purrs, "those eyes are like untamed flames."
He watches me with a mixture of amusement and fascination as I confront him with a strength that surprises even myself. The air crackles with tension as we stand facing each other, a silent battle of wills raging between us. I can feel the power coursing through my veins, a primal energy that demands release.
With a fierce determination, I raise my hands towards the sky, calling upon the elements to aid me in this dire moment. The wind howls in response, whipping my hair around my face like a dark shroud. The trees sway in a wild dance, their leaves rustling in a chorus of support.
John Price's eyes widen with recognition as he senses the ancient magic surging around me. In a swift motion, he raises his own hands, summoning shadows that twist and coil at his command. Darkness engulfs him as he prepares to strike back with his formidable powers. No, he’d never hurt me. But how do I know that?
Emotions wage a war inside me.
But I am ready for him. With a primal scream that echoes through the forest.
With a fierce cry, I unleash a bolt of lightning so powerful that it reverberates through the earth, leaving my body trembling with its force. The smell of ozone fills the air as electricity crackles around us, sending shockwaves into the ground and trees. And then suddenly, I am flying backwards, my back slamming against a rough bark of a tree. The impact knocks all the air from my lungs and I land on all fours, gasping for breath.
Through the haze of pain and confusion, I see John lying on the ground, his body smoking from the electric blast. Despite my own discomfort, anger surges within me. I grit my teeth as I struggle to stand, my muscles protesting from the jarring impact. God that hurts like a bitch.
But even as I rise, determined to keep fighting, I hear him chuckling. It is a sinister sound that sends shivers down my spine. My eyes narrow as I face him, ready to take him down. As if I could, I know I’m not strong enough.
"That's what I need," he groans as he stands, brushing off his clothes with an air of nonchalance. His red eyes have returned to their normal state, but they seem even darker now - like staring into a void.
"You want more?" I growl, raising my hands to strike again. But he raises his own in a mocking surrender. "I don't wish to fight you, little witch," he says with a sly smile. "A man should never harm a woman."
His words are like a slap in the face to me. This man is supposed to be the king of Hell, yet he claims to be against hitting women? I scoff in disbelief.
"Oh please," I retort. "Don't expect me to believe that for a second."
He shrugs as if it doesn't matter to him one way or another. And then suddenly, mist begins to form around my feet and up over my body. It spreads like a thick fog, rendering me immobile. Panic sets in as I struggle to break free.
"Let me go!" I shout, squeezing my eyes shut as I try to force myself out of the misty grip. But it seems to have a will of its own, keeping me firmly in place.
" I can't do that, love". He appears behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist. I hiss at the contact, his touch sending jolts through my skin.
“Now sleep, my love” He whispers. and I curse myself, as my eyes start to grow heavy. “w-what”. 
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I am jolted into consciousness, my body drenched in a cold sweat. My mind pulsates with a throbbing ache, as if being relentlessly pounded by a massive block of stone. With wide eyes, I frantically scan my unfamiliar surroundings.
It is then that I notice John seated in the corner of the room, engrossed in a book. His calm demeanor reveals no trace of concern or surprise, almost as if abducting people is just another routine task for him.
The audacity of this man! I want to strangle him.
"Where the hell have you taken me?" I shout at him, but he simply ignores me. Fine, if we're playing games now.
I curl my index finger and softly whisper a few words. Suddenly, his chair bursts into flames, scorching his backside. He springs up from his seat, dropping his book and grabbing his now charred rear end. As he curses and flails about, I smirk at him.
"Are you going to keep ignoring me?" I mock with a smug tone.
The fiery gaze of John meets my own as he casually pats his still-smoking ass. My questioning eyes shift to the discarded book on the ground, my raised eyebrow expressing confusion. "A cook book? Is that truly your book of choice?" I prod. He responds with an eye roll, snatching the book from the floor in annoyance.
Maybe I'm unhinged for being so casual at the moment, but my head hurts too much to really care. I'll unpack this after ibuprofen.
“You insufferable woman, you ruined my favorite armchair,” John seethes, pointing to the charred remains. I roll my eyes, unimpressed by his dramatics. You just kidnapped a witch and you're over here fretting over a chair.
“Take me back home,” I demand, standing my ground.
“No,” he replies firmly, a hint of anger in his voice. What is wrong with this man?
“Yes, I refuse to be your unwilling wife,” I argue, climbing out of bed and trailing after him as he storms into his closet. He pulls out a pair of unburned pants.
“You don’t have a say in this matter,” he declares. I cross my arms in defiance, scoffing at his arrogance.
“Because forcefully taking a wife against her will always make for a happy marriage,” I retort sarcastically.
My cheeks flush with embarrassment when he casually removes his burnt pants, standing only in his undergarments. "Jesus!" I exclaim, quickly turning around to face the wall. He chuckles behind me, clearly amused by my discomfort. " Jesus is not here, darling"
oh fuck right off.
I hear the sound of a zipper, followed by his footsteps approaching. I turn around, bumping my nose into his chest. not expecting him to stand so close. “ the hell” I mumble, rubbing my nose.
“ let me see this contract my coven signed. there’s got to be a loophole. I mean, why me? there’s other witches out there”.
I follow him out of the closet. He spins around, pushing me against the wall. I narrow my eyes, lifting a finger to zap his ass when he slowly pushes my finger down. as if I just showed him an ugly photo.
he then places both his hands on either side of my head. “ be a good girl and hush, yeah?”.
his low husky voice sends a shiver down my spine. fuck me, what’s wrong with me.
“ You be a good boy and release me, yeah?” I mock, smiling.
his hand slithers up to my throat, grabbing it tightly. he growls, I feel the rumble in his chest against mine. 
"You wouldn't dare," I gasp, struggling to breathe as his grip tightens around my neck. The fear in my eyes is unmistakable, a raw and primal emotion that courses through my veins like poisoned venom.
"Try me," he snarls, his voice low and dangerous. I can see the darkness within him, the deep-seated hatred and anger that has been simmering inside him for centuries. So much for not harming women, huh? bipolar asshole.
And then, without warning, he lets go of my throat. There's a strange mixture of relief and disappointment that washes over me as he steps back. He crosses his arms over his chest, his eyes firmly fixed on me.
" All I want is for you to accept your fate and become my wife. I want no one else but you" His voice is calm, almost soothing, but there's an underlying edge to it.
His words prick at something in my brain, erupting pain through my skull.
I glare fiercely at him, mustering all my hate into my eyes. As if that alone could poof him into dust. " Fuck you, you crazy bipolar demon"
He shakes his head, walking away from me. leaving me standing against the wall, mind reeling and grasping for any ration response.
I mean, not even ten hours ago I was freely walking through the forest on my own, collecting herbs. And now, I'm stuck god knows where with a demon who claims I'm his bride.
But why does it feel like I know him?
My head pounds, sharp pain piercing my temples. I cry out, grabbing the sides of my head as I crouch down. Whispers ringing in my ears, the voices of my mother and grandmother.
As fragmented images race through my thoughts, I am transported back in time. Current reality intertwines with hazy flashbacks, creating a tumultuous whirlwind of emotions. In one vivid recollection, I am young and standing in my mother's bedroom. Her screams echo off the walls as she fiercely argues with my grandmother.
Tears stream down her cheeks, "I will take her away, far from his reach." With a forceful shove, she pushes my grandmother out of the way and storms into the closet. Mom, why are you crying.
Overwhelmed by the intense scene before me, I tremble and cry silently. Despite my limited understanding at the time, I know that something is gravely amiss, and it involves me. "There's not a place in heaven or hell where he won't find her, Eylean. Our ancestors made the deal, and there's nothing we can do to stop it" My grandmother argues, chasing after my mother.
Come outside, sweetheart. A voice whispers in my head, gentle and comforting. Come to me.
I do as the voice says, running out of my mothers room. My little legs struggling to keep up with the fast pace, threatening to misstep. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest as I ran, adrenaline driving me forward. The sound of the back door slamming echoed in my ears, a reminder of the argument that had just taken place, the booming voices inside. Tears blurred my vision as I stumbled towards the stone fence, desperate to get away from the chaos inside.
Why, why me?
With trembling hands, I gripped onto the rough edges of the stones and pulled myself up and over the fence. My clothes snagged against the sharp edges, leaving small tears and scrapes on my skin. But I don't care. All I want is to reach my safe haven. As I reached the other side, my feet hit the soft grass and I took off running again. The cool air brushed against my tear-stained cheeks as I made my way towards the massive red oak tree. It stood tall and proud, its branches reaching towards the sky as if welcoming me with open arms. With shaky breaths, I collapsed against the trunk of the tree. The vines that twisted around it provided a sense of comfort, almost like they were hugging me. I wrapped my arms around my knees and buried my face in my legs, letting out loud sobs as I tried to calm my racing thoughts and emotions.
The wind started to howl, the force of it whipping through my hair and stinging my cheeks. I could feel tears sliding down my face as I tried to make sense of what was happening. The wind calmed, replaced by the sudden cold chill in my bones. Raising my head slowly, I glanced around through my blurry vision. Through the mist that had settled in front of me, I saw a figure emerge. It was a man, his large build crouching down in front of me. As he placed a comforting hand on my knee, I caught a glimpse of his bright blue eyes. They were like pools of clear water, sparkling and drawing me in.
Despite my fear and confusion, I couldn't help but gaze into them, feeling strangely captivated. A small smile tugged at the corners of the man's mouth, as if he were trying his best to offer comfort. His voice, deep and soothing, was one that I recognized from earlier. The sound of his accent brought a slight sense of familiarity. He spoke softly, reassuring me, "It's okay sweetheart. You're safe here." But I couldn't stop the sobs that wracked my body, my mind still reeling from the events that had just unfolded. "But they're fighting," I hiccupped, shaking my head. "Mommy says a bad man is going to get me." My words came out barely audible through my tears, but the man seemed to understand.
He moves to sit down beside me, our body’s brushing against each other.
“ I’m already here, little witch”
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floralpascal · 4 months
Text
NSFW, 18+
John Price always convinces himself that he means it. He’s not the kind of man who breaks his promises.
“Just the tip, love,” he groans, positioning himself at your entrance. Your desperate nod and pleas for him only spur him on.
He swears that he’ll restrain himself, that he’ll keep his promise. He just wants to feel you bare, if only a little. He’s a man of iron resolve — he should be able to control himself without a problem…
But he never was good at keeping this promise when it came to you.
Instead, he finds himself balls deep in your heat, fucking you furiously. The way you’re screaming his name in ecstasy would make him break any promise if only to give you more pleasure. When his cum has painted your walls and you’re both coming down from your highs, he can’t even find the decency to feel sorry for it.
“Fuck…” you groan, pulling him down to kiss you before begging, “Just… just do it again. Please.”
John smiles. With a low, seductive voice, he teases, “Just the tip, yeah?”
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arthurmorgansballsack · 4 months
Note
Request for platonic gn reader x task force 141 (they see the reader like an annoying but sweet little sibling or something)
Basically the boys' reactions to them telling them how they got their callsign "Zombie" (they bit someone's throat off 💀)
Callsign Zombie - Task Force 141 x Gender Neutral Reader
Warnings: Platonic, mentions of violence/death, use of Y/N
(Authors note: You be very creative Anon. Is Zombie an oc of yours? If so tell me more teehee)
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Y/N was youngest out of the bunch, and probably the nicest but a bit much at times. Even though they were the newest, they proved their worth and wouldn’t be called Rookie anymore. Soap and Gaz brainstormed on nickname ideas, looking back on past missions and their behavior back on base. Ghost and Price just stood nearby, not really participating in the conversation.
Y/N walked by heading to the messhall for a late night snack. Soap dragged them and sat them on the couch next to him. “Y/N, what do you think of your nickname being your middle name? I think it’s cool.” Gaz asked. “No that’s borin’ as hell. What about Sunshine. Imagine being shot and stabbed by a solider named Sunshine.” Soap and Price chuckled. Ghost nodded his head, he thought it was a bit funny.
“Why don’t I just go by my callsign?” Y/N tilted their head. “You sure?” Price asked while lighting a cigar and smoking it. “You have one?” Soap and Gaz gave curious looks. “Yeah, from my old team. I was called Zombie because I bit a guys throat out. I didn’t have any weapons so I had to improvise.”
Price
He already knew the Callsign and the story behind it by reading the file on Y/N. John didn’t tell anyone about it, he preferred having Y/N tell whoever they wanted when they were ready to do so. He was weary for anyone to found out not on Y/N’s terms as it could create a hostile work environment which wouldn’t be good on the team. But John knew how good of a person they were, the incident was just done out of pure survival.
Ghost
Simon was impressed, he’d heard of stories of a person called Zombie. A story of pure survival instinct who managed to survive with their bare hands, teeth and then later on a knife they stole off an enemy corpse. Simon always thought the story could have been faked or even warped overtime, but he has a newfound respect for you. He’d still watch over you incase you need protection on a mission though, even if he fully knows you can handle yourself.
Soap
Johnny thought the same as Gaz at first. Like his world was shattered, how could his little sibling like best friend be so badass and like crazy?! All of his thoughts got ignored with his giddy smile as he unloaded a ton of questions and would keep pestering you about it, even though you were the one who always did the pestering. “Did you taste any of his throat? What did it taste like? Could you taste his voice?”
Gaz
Kyle was shocked as hell. To be honest when he first heard Zombie as Y/N’s nickname, he genuinely thought you were just like a Walking Dead superfan or something. The way Kyle’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped when he heard you bit a guy’s jugular off. He’d still see you as the sweet little sibling type but he’s never stealing your food from the fridge or cabinets ever again.
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syoddeye · 1 month
Text
Lightly edited. 600 words. CW: alcohol, possessive behavior, implied stalking
You stopped sharing location with John Price.
He's a busy man. Too busy for you lately, it seems. The usual tricks, the old reliables, no longer seem to capture his attention anymore. You wonder if there's someone else.
You do it after he texts you yet another short, unapologetic message. He's working late tonight. Don't wait up.
You won't.
It's been ages since you indulged in a favorite pastime: reading at the bar. A habit of yours since school. You dress up for your own enjoyment, pluck the book that's sat on top of your to-read pile for months, and find a spot at the bar of your old haunt. Cocktail in hand, you lose yourself in the story.
Three drinks later, a hand settles on the counter beside your glass, connected to a thick arm testing the thickness of a denim jacket. A voice made rough with smoke curls in your ear and sends a shiver down your spine.
Should've checked here first. You were just sayin' you missed this place.
Heat you want to believe that's only from the liquor creeps up your chest and claws at your throat.
Woulda been easier to find you if you hadn't, you know.
You're embarrassed when you think back to when John first convinced you to enable the feature. You didn't share that information with anyone, and the idea of someone watching you felt gross. It took quite a bit of cajoling for him to persuade you, going on and on about how he only wants what is best for you, to keep you safe. Knowing where you are at all times is part and parcel of a relationship with him.
He's smiling. There's warmth in his features, the upturned corner of his mouth, and the slight scrunch of his nose, but his eyes are matte. Dull even in the dim light of the bar. He's fuming.
John sits beside you and drapes an arm over the back of your seat. He waves down the barkeep with the other. You finally find your words, humiliated that the first thing you think to say is an apology, and that you two can go back to yours. He shushes you. 
No, love, go ahead. Finish your chapter. Mind if I borrow your phone? Used up the battery on mine, you see.
You've never seen his phone below 60%, but you fork it over anyway, and he gestures for you to return to your book. You re-read the same paragraph a dozen times before giving up. He sips his drink, unhurried, catching your eye and giving a wink before he slides the device back to you.
There. All better.
There's a new icon on your home screen. It's unfamiliar, and when you reflexively tap it, it asks for a passcode. Your mouth dries.
Can't have you making more impulsive decisions like that, eh? 
The arm slung over the stool migrates to your shoulders, and his hand gently clamps over the nape of your neck, thumb swiping over the skin.
I haven't been giving you the attention you deserve lately, have I. S'pose that's why you pulled a little stunt like this. Wanted me to come hunt you down, find you sitting pretty at a bar, hm?
He laughs when you stutter and try to defend your decision but glowers when you quietly comment you were worried someone else was keeping his attention.
If you're finished reading, think we'll spend the night at mine, sweetheart. Show you you're the only one for me.
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captainfern · 8 days
Text
You Know You're Right
Captain John Price x fem!reader
["You Know You're Right" by Nirvana]
[18+]
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• summary - an argument with your bodyguard ends a lot differently than you anticipated lol. • rating - 18+ • wordcount - 6.6k • warnings - fem!reader, thick girl friendly ofc, bodyguard!price, protective/jealous!price, oral [f!receiving], angry!sex but not really, he calls you a slag once i'm so sorry but he doesn't mean it i swear, unprotected (obviously) piv, reader has a breeding kink but price is like babe chill, but he also has one, so uh yeah breeding kink (obviously), reader is on contraceptives tho x, dirty talk, praise, degradation, strong language, 99% porn 1% plot • also to note: reader is a wealthy woman in the english countryside. sorry to all my american cuties but you can be a sexy british heiress for a while x
and the uniform stays on 🙏
my contribution to @glitterypirateduck price writing challenge for this month. sorry for the lack of work recently. uni's a bitch. and sorry for any mistakes lol anyway enjoy x
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You don't know how long John Price had been your bodyguard for. You honestly couldn't recall the amount of days, weeks, months, years it had been since you had first met him.
Of course, you remember the day itself, the events, the moment you first met him. A crisp, autumnal morning with the trees around you alit with oranges and reds, and you stood on the front steps of your grand country estate as a couple of military-grade hummers pulled up in front of you.
You remember a few armed men spilling out onto your driveway, clutching M16's or AR15's or whatever the fuck they were because you weren't paying attention to them. You were paying attention to the man that followed behind them.
A man who, as the armed soldiers-of-sorts fanned out and scanned their surroundings, approached you with a warm smile that melted the early-morning chill from the air. With deep eyes that heated you more than the fuzzy housecoat you had bundled around you.
He offered his hand, and you shook it. His hand was warm too.
And the way he spoke– oh fuck, his voice. Flint striking steel and fire crackling from it's spark. A smoker. A man who, all so suddenly, sounded much too experienced to be the bodyguard of a wealthy woman in the English countryside.
"John Price," he had introduced. "S'a pleasure, miss."
You then smiled politely in return and introduced with your name. He chuckled lightly, commenting something along the lines of oh, I know who you are, miss which made your body grow even warmer.
You had looked up, ignoring the fact he was still holding your hand gently in his, and gestured to the three young men who were pacing around the front of your house, weapons drawn. "Will these gentlemen be staying with you for the entirety of your stay?"
He shook his head ruefully. "No, miss. They'll be gone within the hour. Just ensuring they know their way 'round in case they need to get here in a hurry."
You looked back down at him, arching a brow and finally removing your hand from his. He dropped his arm with a clearing of his throat, bringing his hands up to clutch the top of his vest.
"Will they need to get here in a hurry?" You challenged, almost jokingly, but John saw no joke. A joke about your safety is no joke he'd dear indulge in.
"No," he said sternly and quite quickly, you remember. "But it's just precautions. No, don't you worry, sweetheart. You're in safe hands. I assure you that."
Sweetheart.
Perhaps you remember the first meeting with John Price because it was the very first time he referred to you in such a way. Sweetheart. Now, a little over a year later, he still refers to you as such, but also–
"Morning, love. Sleep well?" He'd ask when you emerge from your bedroom in the morning.
Or,
"There she is. Rough night, pet?" He'd quip when you finally decide to show yourself about late-afternoon after a night out with your friends.
Or even,
"Need a hand with that, darling?" He'd offer when you found yourself struggling to carry the many shopping bags through the door.
Oftentimes, the way he spoke to you, the way he referred to you, was like you two had been married for years. And it wasn't only the way he spoke to you that had you going to bed giggling and kicking your feet like a girl with a crush.
Lingering touches and long hugs and kisses to the top of your head. John was always so warm and welcoming. His presence crackled like a fire in winter, lulling you to sleep or to a state of comfortability. If it was any other man, you wondered if you'd be weirded out by the closeness of him– but because it was John, everything just felt... right.
Riding horses in the springtime, and he'd assist you into the saddle with big hands running down your sides and legs, settling you onto your sturdy steed with a squeeze to your knee. He'd ride on a seperate horse if you wanted to canter through the forest; or he'd walk alongside yours if you were only taking a lazy stroll across the pastures.
Swimming in the summertime, and he'd smooth oils across your exposed skin. You'd revel in the way his large palms moved against you, such a strong man being so incredibly gentle. He'd watch you swim, his eyes occasionally darting up and around, before settling back on you again. He always declined to join you, angling that silly little boonie hat of his over his eyes to shield the sun's rays.
Keeping you warm in the wintertime, letting you snuggle up beneath furs and blankets on your couch while he chopped firewood outside, bringing the axe down again and again until he had enough kindling to keep the fire running for days to come. You'd watch him work up a sweat, muscles stretching and contracting beneath his shirt. Your entire body would flush with warmth.
But sometimes... sometimes the two of you didn't get along so well. And it wasn't your fault, you didn't think. You honestly found Captain John Price so confusing at times, especially now that the two of you had known each other for quite some time.
Partying with your friends, and you'd attract the attention of some poor man who didn't know what he was getting himself into. He'd smile at you, offer you drinks or a smoke or whatever you wanted, his hands beginning to wander as the music seemed to grow louder and louder and the colours around you blurred together. You'd laugh and dance and sing with your friends, this man actively engaging with you and–
It never lasted.
Price would swoop in. Sometimes before the stranger could offer you a drink, sometimes after. Sometimes the man never got the chance to even speak to you, with your bodyguard planting himself firmly in front of you and blocking your would-be pursuer.
You were never one to complain. After all, it was his job to protect you. But you didn't like when, after getting home in the early hours of the morning, he would roughly escort you to your room, ensure you wouldn't be sick, then leave without another word.
He'd be better by the morning.
And this became a cycle. A cycle of trying to combat the winds of a hurricane. Impossible, really. You just had to brace yourself.
But you were sick of bracing yourself. You were sick of getting fucking cock-blocked by your ex-military bodyguard. You were an absolutely gorgeous, rich woman living on her own in the countryside, and you fucking deserved to find someone. You, frankly, deserved to get fucked.
"I'm going out tonight," you told Price as you emerged from your bedroom. You were already dressed, looking impeccable as always.
Price lounged in one of the chaises positioned in the hallway outside your bedroom. He glanced up from his phone, glanced back down, and then did a double take. His eyes shot up again and he immediately pocketed his phone as he got to his feet, knees cracking with the speed of it all.
"I– you said you were just going out for a few drinks with friends?" He countered, eyes skimming up and down your frame. But not for any longer than a second, you don't think. Forever the gentleman, his eyes honed in on your face, his gaze already beginning to melt the icy facade you'd put in place.
But you steeled your nerves.
"I am," you said with a smile.
"You're going into the city? I'll have to organise a driver–" Price began, but you cut him off with a shake of your head. You didn't live too far from the main city, but it was still a significant drive for simply a few drinks.
"No, no, we're just popping into town," you said, referring to the small, quaint town less than five down the road. "Having a few drinks at the pub. Nothing big."
You and your friends were regulars at the pub. And John frowned. He knew that the other regulars– a group of men you'd become familiar with– would also be there.
You clocked his frown and your smile grew. "What's the matter, John? Am... Am I not allowed to go?"
He huffed. "No, you can go, but just let me–"
"Oh, no need," you said with a batter of your eyelashes. You told him you'd organise your own driver. "And you don't need to come. I'll only be a couple of hours."
John's jaw tensed, and you could see the muscles moving beneath his facial hair.
"No," he said firmly. "I'm coming."
Your smile faltered. "No, you're not. I'm fine, John. Have a break. If it makes you feel any better, I'll be back before midnight–"
"That doesn't make me feel better," John growled. "I... I have no problem with you going out, but I need to come with you. I– I am coming with you, end of story."
Your smile had disappeared completely now. You then looked him up and down. He was dressed how he usually did, even around the house. A suit complete with the trousers and white dress-shirt. But he wore his kevlar vest over top, and with a belt stocked with a couple of sidearms and ammunition, he didn't exactly look inconspicuous. At least he wasn't wearing his boonie hat.
"Price..." You began. "Please, just... I'll be fine, okay? Can you just let me do something on my own–?"
"No."
You frowned. "John–"
"It's my job to protect you, is it not?" He cocked his head, daring you to challenge him. "You hired me to protect you. You pay me to keep an eye on you since there are a couple of real fuckwits out there that would want to hurt you, right? So why the fuck would I let you leave here alone?"
He took a step forward, opening his arms in a gesture of so?
Your frown deepened. "I deserve some privacy, you know. I appreciate that you look out for me, but I want to be able to enjoy myself in public without..."
John waited, but urged a mocking, "Without...?"
You scoffed. "Without you hovering over me. I just want to... enjoy myself, okay? I want to meet people–"
"Oh," John suddenly said, and his tone was less of realisation, more of discovery. "I see."
You scowled. "What?"
"You want to get fucked, is that it?"
Your mouth dropped open. "I–"
"No, no, it's okay, sweetheart. It's okay," he tutted, shaking his head as you stood there, embarrassment suddenly festering in the pit of your stomach, as he appraised you like you were a whole new person. He sighed. "You want me gone so I don't stop the lads from flocking to you. Is that it? You want me to let you go out on your own so you can get one of those boys to fuck you?"
The shame in your stomach, pulling and pushing at your conscious, fizzled out and was instead replaced by a new flame of self-determination. You took a step closer to your bodyguard and jabbed a finger into the taut material of his tac vest.
"You have no right to tell me who I can and cannot fuck, got it? I can do what the fuck I want. I'm a grown woman, Price," you seethed. "Secondly, yeah, I might just get one of the guys at the pub to fuck me. I bet they would, you know. I bet he'd bend me over his knee and–"
"Stop talking," John rolled his eyes, and the gesture made you a whole lot angrier. But he continued before you could say anything else. "You're not going. You can throw a fit if that's what you want, but you're not going."
Throw a fit. You wanted to slap him for that. But you didn't. Even though you were growing angrier and angrier at the man before you, there was something inside your brain that prevented you from going that far. Maybe it was the fact that... seeing him so protective of you... made you feel...
You shook your head to send the thoughts away. You're meant to be angry at him, babe.
"Fuck you," you spat, since those were the only words that managed to come to the forefront of your mind.
He grunted. "Yeah, I bet you'd like that, wouldn't you? Just a needy fuckin' slag looking for a quick fuck–"
You raised your hand to slap him. You wanted to strike your palm across his handsome face. A slag? Who the fuck does he think he is–
Price grabbed hold of your wrist before you got within inches of his cheek. And, quickly, you realised you'd made a huge mistake.
In seconds, he had your soft body pinned against the wall beside your bedroom door. He pinned you there with his body, hard and firm against yours, one large hand holding your wrist and nailing it to the wall, while the other grabbed your other wrist and held it by your side.
His face was close to yours. You could smell him. Rich oud, the warmth of some sort of spice note, expensive tobacco–
Your core fluttered.
Oh, fuck off–
Price shoved a knee between your legs, parting them and forcing a yelp from your throat at the way he dragged himself impossibly closer. The taut muscle of his thigh beneath you made you scream within your head, silently begging that the warmth of your clothed cunt didn't give anything away because-
You were fucked.
Fucked off, yes. Angry at him, yes.
But he was also turning you on in a way that no man has ever done before.
"D'you want'a try that again?" He whispered, the words ghosting across the heated skin of your face.
When you didn't respond right away, he pushed his knee up higher, shifting his hips closer to yours, humming out an impatient, "Hm?"
You shook your head.
"Didn't think so."
You frowned. "You're such an arsehole."
"I know," he said, words hushed. "But you fucking love it, don't you?"
The both of you paused. Breathing jaggedly, you looked at each other for what felt like an eternity, a storm passing between the two of you, complete with the crackling of thunder. You could feel him breathing against you, and you willed yourself not to look down at where your bodies were flushed together. Instead, you remained calm.
You watched the way his eyes darted across your face. How they lingered on the curves of your cheeks, or the part between your lips. His eyes scanned over your nose, your eyes, your everything. You could almost hear his brain trying to keep up.
You could feel your core growing warmer and warmer, arousal pooling and no doubt tangible. Without a doubt he could feel it against the material of his trousers, soaking through to his thigh. It was already drenching your underwear, and probably ruining his suit.
God, you loved him in a suit.
"What are you waiting for?" You whispered your challenge, suddenly overwhelmed by the heat between you.
Price groaned and he released his hold on your wrists. Instead, he grabbed the fat just above your hip in one hand and wrapped the other around your jaw, before he was pushing forward and slamming his mouth to yours.
•º•º•
John Price didn't know how long it had been since he fell in love with you. He honestly couldn't recall the number of days, weeks, months, years it had been since the moment he first saw you.
But of course he remembers what the day was like– how beautiful and welcoming and soft you looked, bundled in your expensive housecoat with a sliver of your leg exposed to the chilly autumn breeze. He remembers the bright smile, tired but bright, you had offered him as he walked up to you and extended his hand. He remembers the way your hand felt within his, and how he didn't want to let go.
He remembers how his heart lurched in his chest when you introduced yourself, and he recalls feeling nothing but sincerity for the fact a pretty woman like you needed to be protected by someone like him. Oh, but how gorgeous you looked when you thanked him for his service. The almost-guiltiness didn't last for long.
You were always so sweet to him. Even when he put you in your place, told you what you could and couldn't do for your own safety. You were constantly being kind to him. Respectful and polite and understanding.
You were such a good girl.
And as the days passed, as they blurred into weeks and months and finally a year-ish together, you got all the more sweeter. But–
But you now knew him. You knew what made him tick. You knew exactly what to do to get your way. Saunter through your home with a pretty, coy smile and a soft hand on his bicep and of course, sweetheart, we can go into the city today. Or a well-cooked meal of his favourite food, paired with a pint if you really wanted to get into his good books, and okay then, love, I'll call your driver to take us.
You knew how to deal with him. And he let you, of course.
But as the months went by, Price couldn't help but grow resentful. His pretty girl, being chatted up by some absolute mingers in a big-city nightclub. Or maybe even the village idiots down at the local pub. How dare they?
He found himself growing more annoyed that they approached you, instead of worried that they could cause you harm. Sure, they were still a threat, and Price was doing his job. But also, also, they were encroaching on what was his. What belonged to him.
His good girl.
And he supposed he should have seen this coming– an argument bubbling up and over about it all. About how he was always there when you just wanted to socialise and have a good time. How he was always turning guys away from you. It wasn't fear, and John understood that. But he was firm in his thinking– you were his.
Oh fuck, you even looked gorgeous when you were angry at him. When you were spitting and hissing like a feral cat, and even with your claws unsheathed and swinging right towards his face, he found you to be the most ethereal being on the planet.
His pretty girl.
He didn't mean to call you a slag. Of course he didn't mean it. His anger conjuring into stupid fucking words that he couldn't keep hidden in his head. And even then his anger wasn't to you, but to the local fuckwits who haunted the village pub in the hopes of spending time with you.
Delusional cunts.
When John caught your wrist and pinned you to the wall outside your bedroom, he didn't mean to escalate things. He was angry at himself, angry for saying such filth to you. But then–
But then he felt it. His heart hammering wildly against his ribcage and your chest rising and falling rapidly. He felt the way you squirmed against him, how you arched off the wall and how your barely clothed pussy seemed to throb against the muscle of his thigh. He could feel your warmth through his trousers, feel your need.
His needy girl.
And he was more than happy to indulge you. Hell, he was more than happy to indulge himself.
•º•º•
John's mouth on yours was hot. Liquid heat passing between you, sparks flying as he pulled you closer by the hand on your jaw. He split your lips with his tongue, pushing inside with just as much strength as you anticipated. His lips against yours smeared your gloss, sticky and sweet, mixing with the spit that threatened to drip as he licked into your mouth again and again, chasing the taste of you.
You moaned into it, eyes shut and hands wrapping around his neck. Fingers delved into his hair, tugging and pulling and angling his head to get yourself closer. He groaned in response, pushing his pelvis closer to yours, and you could feel him growing in his suit trousers.
Then, you began to move. You followed him blindly, your eyes still closed as you attempted to keep up with the languid rhythm of his tongue. He licked at your teeth, your tongue, your lips, committing your taste to memory.
You'd never been kissed like this before.
You were walking backwards, guided by Price's large hands. He had two hands on your waist now, holding you flush to him as he slowly edged you back, back, back until the backs of your legs bumped into something. Your bed.
You broke the kiss, surprised, and turned your head to the side to see that yeah, he'd navigated you both back into the warm, lovely-smelling oasis of your bedroom. As you looked to the side, your bodyguard continued his mission, dragging his lips along your jaw and then latching his mouth onto your neck.
He groaned, tasting more of you. He'd imagined what you'd taste like, imagined the saltiness of your skin his lips. He now knew what your mouth tasted like. All was left now was–
John forced himself away, grumbling to himself and gently pushing you back onto the bed and into a sitting position. You smiled up at him, and he shifted to stand between your parted legs, cupping your face in two hands. He bent down to place one last kiss to your lips, before slowly– with cracking knees and a shallow grunt of effort– he lowered himself to his knees.
His hands dragged down your body. They rolled over your shoulders and arms, skimming lightly over the curves of your breasts and stomach, running over the fat of your hips and thighs. When his knees hit the, thankfully carpeted, floor, he gripped your knees and gave you a couple of comforting squeezes.
"Alright, sweetheart?" He asked, voice husky and full of yen– desire and longing mirrored in his eyes.
His eyes on you, his hands dragged back up your thighs and to where your skirt sat bunched a few inches below your hips. He pinched the fabric, toying with it while waiting for your response.
You nodded at him. "M'alright."
"Can..." He dropped his eyes for just a second to look at your skirt, before raising them again. "Can I take this off, please?"
You nodded again, followed by a whispered yes, please. You then raised your hips for him to pull the fabric down and away from you, shuffling back to rip it down your legs and fling it across the room. You giggled at his enthusiasm as he returned to his original position.
Price groaned low in his throat and leaned forward, holding your thighs apart. Your underwear still on, he pressed his face against you, his beard tickling the softest part of your inner thighs. His nose pressed onto your clit, his lips placing a kiss to your clothed core. This forced a moan from your throat, and you gripped your duvet for some kind of stability.
He kissed at the patch of arousal that had bled through during your altercation in the hallway, his nose nudging against your clit as he decided to swipe his tongue against you. He groaned and you keened, a high pitched mewl, your legs twitching either side of his head.
"Pretty girl..." He whispered, the rumble hitting your clit and making you mewl out again.
He kissed at your clothed cunt again, tongue smoothing along the thin cotton fabric until the entire area was wet with his spit and your arousal. Your legs twitched beside him, pleasure sitting fuzzy in the base of your tummy, and you wondered– no, you knew that he could probably make you come in your fucking underwear.
But he didn't. Whether you were thankful for that or not, you weren't entirely sure. But he eventually, and rather torturously, pulled away for long enough to pull your underwear down your legs. He let it fling from your ankles, not caring where it landed, before he was pushing back between your legs once more.
This time, he licked a fat stripe up your cunt before latching his mouth to your clit and sucking. You cried out, a hand shooting down to grab hold of his hair, fisting it tightly as he laved his tongue over you. His mouth was hot, burning at your core, but your body had now been set alight– the flame of pleasure coursing through your veins, heating your body. Your legs trembled now, thighs flexing either side of his head, his facial hair scratching and tickling you all at once.
John's movements were quick. Quicker than you expected. He seemed desperate for it as he licked back down your cunt and stuffed his tongue into your hole– in and out, in and out– before curling and repeating the process. You moaned at his well-timed movements, never leaving you dissatisfied or overstimulated in the slightest. Price was amazing.
He kneaded the fat of your thighs as he ate you out, enjoying the softness of you around his head. His cock was hard and leaking in his trousers, and one of the reasons he wanted you to quickly come on his tongue was so that he didn't bust a fat load in his fucking briefs. He couldn't handle that today. Not when he'd been waiting so long to have you.
"John," you moaned, stretching the syllables. Your hips bucked, his nose catching your puffy clit. You ground against him, moans bubbling from your throat as you tossed your head back. You rode his face, locking your ankles together at his back and anchoring yourself with one hand on the bed and the other in his hair.
He moaned in response, eyes on the way your body writhed above him. He loved the way you bucked up, wriggling in search of your coming high. Fuck, you looked gorgeous.
John screwed his eyes shut and focused on curling his tongue in and out of your sopping hole. He felt his cock twitch. If he looked at you again, he was sure he'd come.
You moaned sweetly above him, orgasm building tight in the base of your tummy. You continued rocking your hips, the mattress creaking quietly beneath you. But the sounds from your mouth, coupled with the wetness of Price's mouth on your pussy, was all that rang true in your ears.
"John, fuck– oh fuck, please–" You mewled, edging on a whine. Desperation was creeping in. You hurtled towards your high.
Then, you felt deep vibrations rock through your core (unbeknownst to you, John had mumbled a that's it, come for me, baby against your hole). The band of pleasure inside you snapped, and with one last push of your cunt into his face, you came.
You moaned John's name, head still tossed back as pleasure fizzled through you. Your thighs clamped down on either side of his head, your chest rising and falling rapidly as you came on his tongue. John happily buried himself deeper into your heat, tongue licking you slowly through your orgasm.
He had looked up, chanced it, and watched you come. He managed to hold on and not come in his briefs, but he could feel the front of them growing tacky with his precum.
A few moments later, ensuring your orgasm had been well wrung from your beautiful body, John withdrew from your cunt. He unbound himself from your legs and got to his feet as you blinked up at him, dazed and fuzzy.
"Feeling good, sweetheart?" John asked, gently and carefully guiding you further up the bed. You crawled with him until your head hit the pillows at the top of the bed and John knelt between your legs, his hands rubbing circles over your bare thighs.
"Yeah... good..." You replied lazily, eyes dropping down to where you could see John's cock straining in his trousers. The sight made you moan, and you attempted to sat up, but Price stopped you.
"Hold on, sweetheart..." He murmured, placing a kiss to the top of your head before helping you out of your top. In companionable silence, he discarded the garment and went to work unclipping your bra, letting your breasts spill out as he discarded that too.
He groaned, happily to himself, reaching forward to roll one of your pebbling nipples between his fingers, his other hand groping the opposite breast.
"Fuckin' beautiful..." He muttered, and then leaned forward to kiss you.
You tasted yourself on him as he guided you back down. A soft tang, a subtle sweetness in his saliva. You moaned, fingers once again moving to card through his hair and stroke the back of his neck, just above his shirt collar.
While you kissed, Price slipped one hand between you and unbuckled his belt. He let the belt hang open while he deftly unbuttoned his trousers and peeled them open just enough for him to reach into his briefs and pull his cock out. He hissed into the kiss, his hand on his own achingly hard cock causing pre to dribble down his shaft.
"Fuck..." He muttered into your mouth, and you pulled back, shifting to look between you. The image of your bodyguard still dressed in his uniform, but with his thick cock hanging out, was a sight to behold. You moaned, hips bucking involuntarily, the heat of your cunt coming within centimetres of the head of his cock.
Price moaned loudly, immediately dropping his hand to fist the base of himself while positioning his hips against yours. He ran the leaking tip, ruddy and flushed red from his arousal, through your soaked folds. At the same time, you both moaned.
"Oh my god," you breathed, still looking down. Price, eyes on your cunt, continued to smear pre along your slit, running his cockhead up and down, revelling in the way your arousal leaked around him.
"S'alright, pretty girl..." He uttered, not looking up from where he circled his tip around your hole. "S'alright... I'll make you feel good. I'll make you feel good." Then, he finally looked up, eyes boring into yours. You felt your stomach flip as he smiled warmly. "That's what you need, isn't it, sweetheart?"
His words dripped mirth. You whined, knowing where he was going with this.
"Just so desperate for some cock, s'that it? S'that what's got you all riled up?" John poked fun at you, referencing your argument beforehand.
You gave in and nodded, shifting your hips and catching the tip of his cock against your entrance. It made both you and Price release sounds of pleasure, but he held strong, gripping himself at the base and pulling his cock away an inch.
"Use your words," he instructed, voice husky, ash-laced. "Use your fucking words, love. Tell me how desperate you are for my cock. How much of a fucking whore you are for it."
The unexpected degradation punched a moan from your lungs. You babbled, "Y-yeah, fuck– need your cock so bad, John, please."
"Yeah?" Price teased, running the head of his cock up and down your folds again. "You need this cock?"
He pushed the head of his cock into your hole, and you moaned, arching your back. But he stopped there, the flared tip of him laying dormant inside. Your cunt fluttered around him, arousal leaking down the curve of your arse. You whimpered, attempting to push your lips down onto him, but a firm swat to your thigh had you pausing in place.
"S'this the cock you need?" Price asked, voice dark. "Or 're you wanting t'get fucked by some stranger? Want one of the lads down at the pub to fuck this tight cunt? Eh, sweetheart? That's right, isn't it? Actin' like a fuckin' slut lookin' for a quick fuck–"
"No, no, no, please–" You said quickly, trying not to get distracted by the way Price's accent was strengthening as your cunt fluttered around his cockhead. "S'only you! Need you, John, please. Only need you 'n– fuck, only need your cock."
Price growled, pleased, having itched that jealous spot inside him. That's right, that's what he wanted to hear.
His good girl.
"That's fuckin' right, baby. Good girl–" John pulled out and then pushed back in, slowly parting your walls for the girth of his cock. You moaned and he leaned forward to kiss you, being as gentle as he could while splitting you open. He murmured against your lips, "That's a good girl. Yeah, that's it, sweetheart. Doin' so well..."
The buckle of his belt clinked as John picked up his thrusts, stretching you apart on his cock. You could feel the bunched fabric of his trousers and briefs against you with each of his thrusts, and when he curled over you to kiss you, the feeling of his dress shirt and tac vest against your bare chest had a shiver rippling through you.
He kissed you hard, just as he had done in the hallway. This time, a bit of saliva did escape your mouth, rolling from the corner as you parted your mouth to moan, Price's tongue licking over your lower lip as the head of his cock punched up against the base of your cervix.
Just like everything else about him, the sex was hot. Price radiated warmth. The space between your bodies was heating up, and you could feel the light sheen of sweat covering your skin. Beneath his beard, Price's cheeks began to burn read, a bead of sweat trickling from his hairline. His hips moved quickly, but with precision, shunting you deeper and deeper into the mattress, making it squeak and groan.
His cock hit all the right places, too. Your walls hugged him, tight and hot and wet as he plunged up against your womb. John could feel you squeezing him. Feel the sheer hold you had on him, physically and otherwise. He grunted and groaned to himself, his balls already beginning to tighten, his lower back starting to strain from the effort.
"John..." You whined, second orgasm already fast approaching. You felt yourself beginning to tighten up again, your muscles pulling taut as the band of pleasure in the base of your abdomen began to expand. The drive of Price's cock was pulling it further and further. You were so close.
And when you were this close, John always seemed to know what to say and do to push you off the precipice.
Expertly, your bodyguard moved his arm downwards to press a couple of fingers to your puffy clit, rolling it beneath with a gentle stroke. He drew gentle circles that made you spasm beneath him, a panting moan filtering from your parted, spit-covered lips.
He continued the drive of his hips, cock hitting the best spot inside you. Bursts of light, of pleasure, appeared behind your fluttering eyelids, the intensity of it all making it hard for you to keep your eyes open. But you did– you forced your eyes open, lids drooping. You locked eyes with Price, and he smiled down at you in a way that was probably meant to be comforting, but it only turned you on more.
"My sweet girl, just look at you," Price cooed, still slamming into you. "So gorgeous. Such a pretty girl, an' you look even prettier getting stuffed with my cock, don't you?"
You nodded, delirious now. You wanted nothing more than for him to come inside you and–
The thought made you moan loudly.
He chuckled. "S'that right?"
"John, fuck–" you moaned out. "Fuck, please–"
Come inside me, you wanted to beg him, but the tip of his cock at the plug of your womb and his fingers on your clit had your vision whiting out as the band in your stomach snapped again.
You came hard. Legs locked around his waist, the fat of your thighs and stomach rippling with his strong movements, you came. Arousal gushed out around his cock, the sensation forcing an unexpected whimper from you. The slick walls of your cunt clutched the girth of him, squeezing with each fluttering pulse of your erratic heartbeat. Fuzzy pleasure washed over you and, just like with his mouth, he stroked your clit through your orgasm and stopped right at the brink of overstimulation.
But you gained no mercy after coming.
John redoubled his efforts. With two strong arms either side of you, he rutted into you with renewed energy, now chasing his own high. His balls, almost painful at this point, smacked against the plush curve of your arse, with the head of his cock leaking inside you.
Oh fuck, he wasn't wearing a condom.
He knew you were on contraceptives. Of course. He knew almost everything about you now. But the thought–
"John–!" You all but sobbed, wriggling beneath him, becoming impatient. Not because you wanted it to end, but because you wanted him to end inside you. "John, please come inside me."
"Fucking hell," he grit out between clenched teeth, teetering on the edge of collapse.
Stuffing you full of him. Coming right up against your cervix, flooding your womb. Filling you out, watching you grow fat with his kid. Laying claim to you, how you were truly his. His pretty girl. His good girl.
Not today.
But the thought alone had Price coming.
"F-fuck, take it, sweetheart, jus'– fuckin good girl, take my cum, baby–" Price muttered, pumping his hips as he came. He filled you with the same kind of warmth he radiated. Comfort and security, maybe.
You moaned quietly once Price'd emptied himself inside of you, and you relaxed your legs so he could flop to the side. Cock still inside you, softening just a bit, Price curled you into him, his face resting in the crook of your neck, your legs entangled.
The two of you caught your breaths, breathing in each other's scent and the pungency of sex. Your eyes opened and closed lazily, the heat of Price's body lulling you to sleep. But you forced your eyes open when Price pulled back– only to change positions. His suit rustled as he pulled you in against him, and you wished you could run your fingers through the hair on his toned chest.
After a little while, you felt Price kiss the top of your head.
"Feeling alright, love?" He asked, and the sincerity in his voice had butterflies fluttering in your stomach.
"Yeah," you replied. "More than alright. I... thank you."
"Thank you," Price said, nuzzling into the top of your head.
•º•º•
The two of you basked in each others company for what seemed like hours before a buzzing broke the haze of whatever dream you were living. Peeling yourself away from Price for a moment, you reached over to your discarded purse and fished your phone out, finding it alight with missed calls and messages from your friends.
You almost felt guiltly.
"Cancel," John grumbled below you, seemingly already knowing what you were looking at. "You're not going out tonight, are you?"
"No, 'm not feeling up to it," you said, smiling.
John, burying himself into the crook of your neck once more, arms wrapped securely around you, smiled too.
•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•
this was the first long-ish fic i've written in a while so forgive me if it wasn't my usual best lolol. anyway thank you for reading and make sure to go check out the other @glitterypirateduck submissions for this writing challenge
lots of luv <3
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eilidh-eternal · 3 months
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Captain Price smut? Yeahhhh, Captain Price smut.
Real estate agent reader who’s showing John Price flats in London, but the only thing he cares about are all the surfaces he can fuck you on.
18+ MDNI | f!reader | d/s dynamics | praise kink | oral f-receiving | unprotected P i V | creampie |
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“This unit is just under 100 square meters, but it has the open floor plan you requested, and the kitchen has recently been remodeled; all new cabinetry, appliances and gorgeous Calcutta marble countertops. It’s an entertainers dream.”
John won’t be doing much entertaining but he thinks you’re an exquisite show spread out on those countertops you love so much, skirt hiked up around your hips and lacy thong between his teeth as he nips and teases the sensitive juncture of your hip and thigh. The scrape of his beard against your thighs only causes you to spread them wider for him, already burning, and before you can protest—complain that you’d just bought those—he’s tearing the flimsy lace from your body and growling at the sight of your glistening cunt.
“Christ sweetheart, just look at ya. Been drippin’ since we walked through the door.”
The first card of his tongue through your folds is long and languid, and the way he moans at the first taste of you is something purely primal, born of raw desire and burning need. Hands made rough by years of hard work snake beneath your thighs, seeking purchase at your hips to knead at their plush and soft skin. He pins them to the counter when he dips into your entrance and you clench around him, a moan of his own echoing yours, vibrating against the throbbing bundle of nerves pressed against his nose.
You clap a hand over your mouth to muffle what would have been a scream when he takes your puffy clit between his teeth, flicks the tip of his tongue over it until your thighs are quivering against him. You could scream when he pulls away from you, leaves you dangling from that razor thin edge to pull himself up, to brace his arms on either side of your head and pull your hand away from your face.
“No more of that, doll. Need t’ hear ya. Gotta know how thin these walls are. Don’t want any neighbors reporting us for violating the noise ordinance.” With his orders given he returns to his position between your thighs, not wasting a moment as he hooks his arms under you and drags you to the very edge of the counter to throw your legs over his shoulders and continue with his meal.
You grip the edge of the counter with such force you worry it might crack, that it might crumble in your hands just as you are in his. Every searing pass of his tongue, nip of his teeth and bristle of his beard coaxes you back towards that ledge, and every moan and gasp you give him is rewarded with a growl that reverberates from his chest and straight to your clit, sending hot sparks of pleasure licking on your arching spine.
Watching you unravel before him is John’s second favorite part of the tour, tasting your spilled essence as you writhe and clamp your thighs around his head when you cum on his tongue. Second only to the way you feel wrapped around him, the way your brows slope upwards and your mouth makes that perfect little ‘o’ when he sheathes himself to the hilt inside you.
“F-fuck, ‘s too much… I can’t-”
“You can,” he grunts with a pointed thrust, and you whine at the fullness, the stretch of his thick cock and the press of the flared tip against your cervix. “You can take it, honey. Just keep those pretty eyes on me yeah?” You focus on his face, concentrate on the lines between his brows. “Good girl.”
He sets a steady pace, one hand pressing your knee up beside your face and with the other he braces himself on the counter, bent over you to watch your eyes flutter with every drag of his cock in and out of you.
“Fuck sweetheart… ya feel fuckin’ perfect. ‘S like you were made for my cock.” It’s too much, too intense staring up into the swirling depths of ocean blue eyes when he says things like that, and you look away before you drown in them and all of his pretty words.
But John is like a rip tide; calm and collected on the surface, but swift and brutal below. He halts his movements abruptly, grips your face, thumb and forefinger pressing into your cheeks, and forces your gaze back to his. “Did I say you could look away?” A beat of silence and he cocks an impatient brow.
“No…” you squeak.
“What were my instructions?”
“Eyes on you.” It’s less whiny but it still comes out small and breathy.
“That’s right, eyes on me. Gotta be able to see ya so I can take care of ya. Gotta know it feels good, that I’m not hurtin’ ya. Understand?” You nod weakly, but his brows remain furrowed, mouth set in a hard line, and he doesn’t move.
“Y-yes sir.”
“Good girl,” he hums in approval and removes his hand from your face, drags it down the length of your body as his hips begin to roll forward again, following the valley of your breasts down to your navel, your messily bunched up skirt, and presses his thumb to your clit, tracing slow circles around it. It doesn’t take long for him to find his rhythm again, faster this time, each stroke pushing him further and further towards that simmering pool of pleasure as your silken walls begin to flutter around him.
You can feel your own orgasm building, the velvety head of his cock brushing against pleasure centers deep inside of you and his thumb working your clit to fan the flames of your lust and desire into a blazing inferno. Hot tendrils of pleasure lick up your spine, arching you into him and rocking your hips against his as you mewl and whine, desperate for your release and to ease the growing heat within your veins.
“Close… fuck, I’m close-” you can barely manage, and he shushes you sweetly.
“I know sweetheart, can feel ya- fuck… clenching around me,” he says between panting breaths. “Wanna feel ya… milkin’ me. Be a good girl… and cum for me.”
He’s relentless in his mission to see you, to feel you, cumming on his cock, hips slamming into yours at a brutal pace, the sound of skin slapping against skin mingling with each of your breathy moans in the sweetest symphony he’s ever heard. And it’s hard, so, so hard to keep your eyes open, to keep them trained on him when he’s fucking you like a man utterly consumed by the desire to see you shatter beneath him.
You don’t hold back, don’t bother trying to quiet the scream that rips from your throat when he sends you careening over that edge, falling, falling, falling into a warm, blissful oblivion. Every muscle in your abdomen pulls taught, pussy clamping down on him as your orgasm tears through you like a wildfire through a parched forest, and he chases his own release with the same rabid intensity, grunting and panting above you with wild thrusts of his hips. A raging storm of intensity that finally breaks when his balls tighten and he spills inside of you, hips stuttering with a guttural moan that rumbles like thunder in his chest.
You stay like that for a long moment, your arms limp beside you, legs quivering against cool marble with his face tucked into the side of your neck and breathing raggedly. When he finally withdraws you whimper at the loss of him, the absence of his warmth and the fullness he gave now leaves you empty and leaking your combined essence, dripping down your thighs onto the obscenely expensive counter. You open your mouth to say something, try to move back to your feet before you make a further mess, but he silences you with his tongue, lapping at your entrance to taste both of you, and the only sound that comes out is an overstimulated whine.
“I know, I know…” he murmurs into your dripping cunt. “But we’ve gotta get ya cleaned up.”
You. Not the counters—you.
When he finally deems you ‘clean’ enough, he helps you down from the counter, makes sure you’re steady on your feet before you even try putting those ridiculous heels back on. And when you leave he tucks the ruined lace of your underwear into his pocket and guides you out of the flat with a firm hand on the small of your back, all the way to your car, and insists on opening the door for you.
Before you can seat yourself he tightens his hold on you and drops down to place a kiss on your cheek, lips brushing against the shell of your ear as he whispers, “I’ll see you next week for that showing, sweetheart. Be good for me until then.”
©️Eilidh-Eternal.2024 ~ The intellectual property of Eilidh-Eternal is not permitted for reposting, transcription, translation or use with AI technologies.
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halcyone-of-the-sea · 2 months
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FROM FAR DISTANT WATERS
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PAIRING: Merman!John Price x F!Artist!Reader
SYNOPSIS: There’s something in the water - you're going to figure out what it is, and why it chose to save you.
WORDCOUNT: 16.8k
WARNINGS: Blood, murder, death/near death, assault, injury, gore, mystery, mentions of suicide, angst, protective!John, pining, sickness, etc.
*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*
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The little boat rocks as it slips through the expansive water, a thin hanging of mist in the air. The curtain-like film it leaves makes it nearly impossible to see the dark rocks of the shore a far distance away, and the dip and push of the oars through the chilled waves leaves splashing droplets connecting to your cheeks. You touch the flesh delicately, brushing away the spray as your eyes slide over dark, lapping water—deeper than anything. 
In your lap, sitting below the high waist of your skirt, was your sketchbook; the tweed material was all the rage these days, though you never focused much on that. The thick item kept out the chill of the, very, early morning, and that was all you cared about, though, it seemed you lacked the foresight to pack a proper coat. A large woolen shawl sat over your shoulders, hiding the plain white blouse but not its cuffs; not the slight poof of the bottom part of the sleeves. 
Your numb fingers fiddle with the pencil in your hands, your open sketchbook filled with page after page of images ranging from the common sea-bird to great ships and shorelines. 
“I still have to ask why you feel the need to tag along,” is the voice that breaks the silence, and you blink away from the cloud of condensation from your exhalation. Your ear twitches, but only a small flick of a smile pulls your lips at the older man’s garbled words. “So cold my damn hands are going to fall off. Why am I always the one bloody working the oars?”
Otto Whitworth was a man far into his later years—one who entertained your fascination with the raging waters and the need to immortalize them on paper; that draw to the sights and sounds. Graying, covered now in a large coat and his boots, with the long fishing rod knocking around by your feet, he grumbles more than he speaks sentences, content with only the pipe in his breast pocket and the promise of fresh fish for breakfast. 
“Oh, it’s not so bad,” you chuckle, glancing over at his wrinkled face—the glare of dark eyes set into a deep browline that’s more for show of annoyance than genuine emotion. “Gets the blood pumping harder, Mr. Whitworth.” Your vision slides to the shadows of the black rocks, and your pencil finds your palm before the sound of it meeting parchment echoes over the nothingness. “Isn’t it lovely? Listen to the Gannets.”
“Don’t need my blood pumpin’ harder,” the old man grinds out, scoffing. “Gonna make my fuckin’ heart stop, Girl…” Otto sighs, shaking his head as you chuckle. He growls under his breath. “And, no, I’m not listening to the birds—they’ll be trying to steal my fish soon enough. Greedy bastards.”
Your eyes roll in their sockets, pencil shading in the rough shapes of misty rocks, your face cold but still eager for something. There was a type of magic to this place—to Southern England and the small coast town you had settled in nearly a year ago: Redthorpe. 
It seemed your talent for the arts was appreciated here, you had a shop to your name and friendly compliments from the locals every time the door was pulled open. People here liked the attention to detail in a place where they had most likely lived for a good ninety percent of their lives.
You tilt your head at the paper as Otto lets the oars drop back into the water, grasping for his fishing rod that you kindly move closer with your foot. 
The man takes up the item and sets the line, whipping back the pole and snapping it forward with a wizz and a grunt—a cracking of old bones. 
“Now hush,” Otto sighs, settling back. 
You send a silent look upward, and at the same time as he does, you say out loud in a soft voice.
“You’ll scare away the fish with all that blabber.”
A heavy glare is leveled at you, but you raise a hand innocently and laugh under your breath. 
“I’m as silent as the fish, Mr. Whitworth.”
“Cheeky Bird,” Otto sighs loudly, shifting in his seat until he faces the water, eyes glinting. “You’re too wild for this place, then, eh?”
“For most places,” you breathe, smiling as you study the rocks again before going back to your work. It’s only after there were the wiggling bodies of three fish set into a fisher’s basket that the oars are taken back up and the silent water is again forced back by ripples. 
Pencil finding the middle of the spine, you close your sketchbook, the routine is as simple as it always is. Otto will complain about having you at his dock, he’ll begrudgingly invite you in and cook three fish: one for him, the second for his cat, Harriet—older than England itself and missing most teeth; as blind as a bat—and then, finally, you. After that you’re back in your shop finishing up your piece of the misty shoreline, working until the candle burns through both ends and the oil paints are swirling colors as your eyes bug. Bed, and finally, repeat. 
A splash of water makes you blink quickly, your head jerking over at the slide of movement from the corner of your vision. Eyes wide, you swear a fin had cut the surface of the water like a knife through butter. 
Your body moves closer to the side of the boat immediately, leaning over eagerly. 
“Hey!” Otto barks, steadying himself as the vessel shakes back and forth. Your eyes shimmer, a smile overtaking your lips. “Watch yourself—you’ll send me overboard!”
“Did you see that?” Your eyes dart over the water. “I think I saw a fin.” 
“You got excited over a fish?” The older man’s voice is unimpressed, hissing in the crackling of age. “Hell, I got three in the basket if you’re that bloody impressed.”
“Shh,” you wave one of your hands, unblinking. “It was bigger than a fish, Otto!” 
Your ears twitch to his scoff, his hands grasping the oars harder before he shoves the boat forward. Body looming, the intense pull of adventure dims the longer nothing happens, and after a minute or two of dead mist and water, you hum under your breath like a fool and sit back.
“Lost it,” your numb lips murmur, breath puffing out softly. “Damn.” You shake your head as the wooden dock gets closer, more boats tied and shifting with the waves. “It was strange,” you admit. “Like a deep navy color—with specs of silver along the spine.”
Otto pauses, his hands tight over the oars. He blinks over at you, face for the first time showing an emotion other than annoyance. You barely notice before the sheen of crafted blankness is back. 
You smile down the length of the boat, curiosity plain to see. “Do you know of any animal like that around here?”
“No,” Otto grunts out quickly, and your excitement dims sharply, blinking through shock. 
Your brows furrow after the silence falls stiffly—the boat had never been uncomfortable to you, the atmosphere quiet, of course, but always easy to charter. Now the air was…muddy. Something had changed as fast as a fish being yanked out of water. 
Fingers twitching, you sit back slowly onto the plank, pulling your sketchbook the tiniest bit closer to your abdomen. Face open, Otto continues to row and the entire ride is silent until the boat is docked and tied to the pole by calloused hands. Your digits grasp your shawl and wrap the fabric harder, shifting down to hide your chin into the wool as you shiver. 
“...Need help?” You ask, eyes still shifting back to the water like always. 
There’s something now that makes your attention drift like the waves themselves—and it wasn’t only the shadows of the rise and fall, it was Otto’s strange behavior. The man wasn’t one to just say one word and nothing more. He could bounce off you like it was a game; you often thought he enjoyed your company just so he could insult someone. Jokingly, of course. It was the companionship he craved, it was why he always let you on his boat in the mornings. 
Otto lived alone. You never asked about it. 
“Don’t need any help,” he grumbles out, tying off the last knot to the pole and stepping back with a smirk of satisfaction. “M’not in the grave yet, Girl. Been working the boats since I was out my mum’s womb.”
“Feel sorry for her.” Your mutter meets the air as light streaks through the mist. Breathing hot air into your free hand, you rub it over your arm repeatedly and sigh, fingers of the other limb tightening over your book. Absentmindedly, your head turns back to the open water one last time, for one last glimpse of anything you want to commit to memory while you paint—
The fin is back. 
“Otto!” Feet swiftly dart to the end of the dock, you stop only an inch away as your skirt whips over. “It’s back! Look!” 
A hand grasps your wrist and yanks you away. 
Gasping sharply, you stumble until the harsh bark of, “Get back!” echoes across the dock just as it does through your ears. 
“Whoa!” You’re quickly let go of, a shadow shielding you from the view of the water as you scramble to make sure your sketchbook won’t slip from your hold. Head jerking to stare in shock at the middle of Otto’s curved spine, your heart stutters in confusion and a bit of hesitation befitting one who was just manhandled. Standing up straight again, your tight face pulls in, the pound of your heart telling you something is wrong. 
Glancing past a still frozen Otto, the water is utterly devoid of life again—only ripples to show there had ever really been something there at all. 
“You go back to the ocean,” Otto yells, spittle flying from his mouth, fishing boots stomping against the wood as he moves forward a step, pointing. “Go back to the bloody hole you swam out of! There’s nothing for you here! Nothing!” 
You watch, struck dumb. 
“...Mr. Whitworth?” Your lips mutter out, eyebrows shifting from the waves to the man—utterly confused down to your chilled bones. Who was he talking to?
Perhaps time had caught up to him—was he mistakenly taking the rocks for people? The waves for whispers? All you had seen was a fish’s fin, nothing more, nothing less.
“Otto,” you call again, concerned. You should get the man inside; get him warm and let him cook his breakfast. “Let’s just go.” Your eyes blink lightly, fingers twitching over your book. “Alright…? My eyes must have been playing tricks on me, it’s nothing important.”
His form waddles past you, more in tune to his sea legs than the ones on land, and under his breath, you hear him snarl out a low, “You’ll not take her like you did Eleanor. Mark my words, I’ll be stringing you up by the tail first.” 
Withered hand connecting with your shawl’s edge, you’re dragged back with more force than you’d anticipate Otto still having, but you go with him nonetheless. 
Looking at the water, there’s nothing to see beyond the stretch of nothingness.
You dare to ask when you’re pushing the fish bones over to the side of your plate, slipping some mashed-up scraps to Harriet who lays in your lap purring. The rough scrape of a tongue licks your fingers, and deep gray fur caresses your palm.
“Who were you talking to back there?” Your voice carries over the small hut that Otto calls his own, the sounds of the water meeting the rocks plainly heard seeing as his property was as close to the cliffs as you could get without going over them. “I never took you for someone to believe in spirits.” The joke was a small jab, but even your own amusement was dim in the situation. Your hand puts down the fork and moves to rest along Harriet’s back, lightly petting the old cat as her half-missing tail flicks in satisfaction.
The man’s back over at the sink tightens. 
“You watch yourself near the waters, Girl,” Otto grunts, dark eyes glancing over his shoulder. “By God, you watch yourself. There’s things out there—terrible things.” 
“What kinds of ‘terrible things,’ Otto?” Your head tilts, sketchbook resting still on the table, your gaze flickering to it. Terrible had a nice ring to it. But something else was swirling in your gut now, a hesitation of a special sort that only comes out with the unknown paths of life. 
What could make a man born and bred on the waters so reserved when speaking about them? Your interest had been piqued—your curiosity unsated until you were given a clear answer. You’d only been here a year, that wasn’t enough time to know the secrets of Redthorpe; to be let into those deeper circles. 
Otto licks his cracked lips, the wrinkles of his face leaving behind something akin to a scrunched dog’s visage—worn by time and improper care from the damage of the sun. He’d been at work on his boat for decades, and while you took his advice with a grain of salt usually,  this time he carried himself differently: you wanted to know why. 
He glares with no venom, taking out the scrubbed pan from the soapy water and barking, “What’s it with the younger generation and their bloody pushing? Listen to what I’m telling you and take it as it is, Girl. You don’t go on the water,” he blinks, face grim, “unless I’m the one ferryin’ you through it, eh? That’s the end of it. I’ll say no more.” 
Frowning heavily, you sigh under your breath and shake your head. Letting your eyes slip down to Harriet, you scratch under her chin and stare into her milky eyes as she lets out a little chirp.
“So much for answers,” your lips mutter. 
But a fire had been lit in your breast now—a low simmering pull like a rope had been tied to your wrist, drawing you closer and closer to the rocky shore, to a boat tied on the dock which you knew was steadily rocking to the deep, dark waves of this isolated place. 
To a navy-colored fin in the water, and a shape far larger than any you’d seen before. 
Blinking to look out the window of Otto’s home, your eyes find the ocean, and the longing that you’d always had for it grows ten times larger as your sketchbook begs to be filled.
It was only fate, you guessed, that you had come to Redthorpe—a tiny, unimportant dot on the map—when the way of life you’d chosen had led you astray. This place was a way to start over. Fix yourself. You’d picked the least-known town in all of Europe, and that was exactly what you wanted.
One trait, though, that could never be squashed from your psyche was the lust for the unknown. It was an obsessive lover; a toxic hand on the back of your neck that dragged you back over and over, until there was only yourself to blame for the repetition of disappointment. 
It was the reason you found yourself on the shore two days after you sighted the dark fin that cut the water. 
Your lace-up boots were atop a large boulder, shifting as your body turned from left to right, eyes patiently dragging the expanse of nothing. Waves lap only inches below, spraying up to get absorbed into your skirt, shawl whipping with the wind. The breeze is stuck with the sounds of birds, the very beings darting above your head, playing their games with varying cries that sound like throaty groaning. 
Bending, your arms wrap your waist, lips flickering. You were cold, limb-numbingly so, but even if you saw nothing today, or tomorrow, the push and pull of the ocean was enough—the call of the birds, the hypnotic sway of water. Calling to you, even if it had no lips to do so. 
Taking down a lung-shaking inhale, you chuckle, sketchbook sitting in the small purse around your shoulder. 
“What am I doing?” You ask yourself, shaking your head. “It was just a big fish—that old man was just being paranoid, anyways.” Eyes caressing the line where water meets the sky, your smile pulls your chilled cheeks. “There’s nothing out here worth my time. I need to finish my work.” 
Leaning back, you rub your hands up and down your biceps, nonetheless enjoying your time despite the burning of something in the back of your head. A knowledge that the fin was nothing documented before? A hope of discovery? A need for adventure? Oh, who can really say—what can be known are only three things: 
One, the weather was getting worse, two, the water was getting wilder, and, three, you had forgotten the way the rock you were standing on had shifted when you stepped up to it. Shuffling, your boots connect to the right corner, and your hands extend to keep your balance as you hiss a low breath, purse beginning to slip. 
There’s a gruff call from the water.
“Careful, then.”
Your head snaps up to the sound of a man’s voice, and you startle sharply, gasping as your foot slips. A quick cry is all you get out before you’re suddenly plummeting downwards headfirst into the frigid water. 
The feeling of liquid is all-consuming as it seeps into your nostrils and ears, all sound muffled entirely beyond the roar of it leaving you so stupendously—a flare, and then nothing. Eyes bugging, limbs slashing through the waves, the chill hits you in the chest with the force of a stone, smashing through your ribs to weigh you down with concrete stuck in your lungs. It was entirely a bodily reaction to gasp. 
Through the blue and the bubbles, you start to drown. 
Fingers twitching, you claw at nothing as the darkness settles its hands over your panicked eyes, not for a moment thinking about who had called to you in the first place—or who was poking a head out of the water before you’d gone over. Obviously, it was a trick of your senses; no one could survive being out in water like this.
You certainly weren’t going to. 
Legs slashing, something is darting in the corner of your eye before your vision fails, but the rapid fear in your heart masks the hand gripping at your shirt’s collar. It hides even the feeling of strong arms until the point where you’re yanked upwards with little effort as one curls your waist. It doesn't hide, however, the way you vomit up water as you’re heaved to the rocky shore moments later.
Choking, you hack up salt that burns your esophagus until your lunch quickly follows—all spilled with little care for your hands caught in the crossfire. Spine arching as if a cat, air can’t come sweeter as it is drawn in rapidly; nearly hyperventilating on the ocean-smooth stones as your clothes are utterly ruined. 
Panting, gasping, shivering violently, your head pulls itself weakly upward. It doesn’t take long for your mind to scream at you, and your head snaps behind you in a panic.
But there’s nothing but the raging water and the splash of a large navy-colored tail as big as your entire body disappearing back into the depths. 
Your fear can only stay for so long before the threat of a frigid death becomes more and more probable. In your race back up the cliff face to your shop, your purse is completely forgotten, trapped on the top of that shaky rock where it had fallen from your shoulder before the great plunge. 
Your shawl is seen floating out to the open water before it’s grasped from below and suddenly plucked—vanishing without a single trace.
The fire rages with the inferno of a million suns, and it’s not nearly hot enough. Wrapped in every blanket, sheet, and warm item available, you still can’t stop shivering hours later. A teacup was stuck in your hands, the liquid sloshing over the edges to slip over your quivering fingers and absorb into the cocoon of heat. 
Breathing through your shaky lungs, you keep the rim of the cup to your lips, eyes wide and horrified. In the still moments after you’d stripped and tried to stop the onset of sickness that you could already feel coming, there was a flash of realization from your strange and fantastical ordeal. 
There had been a man. 
The sensation of hands around your waist—the gruff voice that had spooked you so violently. A man. In the water. Every time you blink, you see a shadowed image, a tiny glimpse as you’d turned to the sound of human speech above the shriek of birds. 
Short brown hair and narrowed blue eyes set into sockets of pale skin. A bearded face, mustache…square jaw…
“What in God’s name?” You stutter in question over your tea, shaking your head. “That isn’t possible.” 
Outside your shop, the wind screams, pushing against your exterior shutters as night sets in. A storm was coming; there’d be no other adventures for you. Sipping your drink, you shiver again, curling in tighter to yourself as wood crackles. The light dances over your easels and side tables, piled high with jars of brushes and pallets—bottles of linseed oil and liquin, labeled with little pieces of hanging paper at the necks. 
There are paintings in the tens—in the twenties—hanging on the walls and set to the corners, all blue and gray; misty and clear. The water is a staple in all of them, and the cliffs as well. Perfect imitations of this place, as if you could reach a hand through the canvas and enter a mirrored world. Great ships are in some of them, or little fishing boats, with the birds overhead. Sometimes, it’s only the water itself, and to you, those were perhaps the best of your work. 
There was a beauty in the nothingness. A mystery. Who knows what’s under that thin surface? Well…apparently, it wasn’t human. 
You swallow down saliva and your lips thin. 
The thing in the water wasn’t… unattractive, you had to admit. Beyond the waterlogged hair and dripping beard, a large nose sat—full cheeks with an odd mole over them. The more you thought about the brief flash of a visage, the more you grew to hang onto it, strangely. And that navy tail? It had been incredibly unique. 
Spiney, nearly—four thin bones going down on both sides, branching out from the tail starting with the shortest that was perhaps only as long as your hand until the final was as lengthy as your entire arm. There was webbing between each spine to help the thing through the water quickly, it spread to the end of the barb until it sunk back in a ‘U’ movement, before once more arching out again to connect with the next spine. Small gasps in the caudal fin calling to either battles or a natural state of being—for show in it…his?...species. 
Could you even assign it a human gender? 
You close your eyes tightly in your shop, trying to will the image away from yourself. “What in the hell is going on?” Your voice is scratchy and low. 
Yet, the undeniable truth was that the fish-man had saved you. It couldn’t be overlooked. Not by you, who now can sit in front of this very fire because of it. Like a moth to the flame, the surge of cautious confusion is burning your wings. 
Deep blue eyes like the ocean. A navy tail. A gruff, hard voice.
You open your eyes and glare into the fireplace. 
“What has this place been hiding in the water? And why did it bloody save my life right after it nearly ended it?” 
More importantly…you had to think of a way to get your sketchbook back without getting on its bad side.
With a heavy chest, and more than a little fear in your heart, it was resolved to do something about all of this tomorrow. There was no use leaving the shop now. Glancing at the shaking window, you could hear the ocean rampaging over the cliffs; hear the slam of the rain hitting the roof like pounding feet. 
But that voice played in your ears like a gramophone's bleated chorus. 
You shiver again, not from the cold.
Careful, then. 
There was no question if you’d gotten sick because of your impromptu bath in the ocean—the evidence was in your salt-covered shirt and the stockings that were still drying on the hearth. 
Pressing a handkerchief to your mouth as you cough haggardly. You’re bundled in a nice fur dress coat, walking along the street with a skipping heart, a simple cloche hat over your head to protect you from the elements; dark blue in color.
The irony was not lost this morning when the hue had a striking familiarity to a fish-like tail, but it hadn’t stayed in your hand. A small drizzle slapped the fabric, and you were thankful you had brought the hat and coat along with you on the move from the big city. 
You weakly smile and nod to the locals you consider friends—at the very least acquaintances. But before long, you’re at the place you feel you need to be to gain answers, too nervous to go back to the shore immediately.
The library.
Something Otto had said came back to you last night, in the throws of insomnia. The two sentences he’d called out on the docks that day—You’ll not take her like you did Eleanor. Mark my words, I’ll be stringing you up by the tail first.
Eleanor? Who was that and how did it correlate to the beast in the water that wears a man's face? Maybe, the local records would tell you the answer—there had to be something about this person, ‘Eleanor,’ in them, right?
If not, there was only one option left, and that was going down to the shore and getting the results first hand…you’d rather exhaust all of your resources on solid land first. 
Slipping into the library with a deep breath and a cough in your throat, you sigh and nod slightly. Time to get to work.
“Oh,” the librarian looks up from her desk, standing as you shuffle over. “Hello, Dear,” she breathes through a chuckle, eyebrows pulling in softly. “My, you look a bit under the weather, don’t you? Would you like me to get some tea going…?”
“No, thank you,” you wave an easy hand. “I’m here on a bit of an errand, actually, and I was wondering if you could help me with something? I need to ask about your records.”
“Records?” The woman’s face shifts to confusion, her body slipping out to stand next to yours, you bring back up your handkerchief and sneeze into it, groaning. “What kind were you thinking, then?”
After you can push away the sheen of sickness to your eyes you take a breath and clear your throat of the stuffiness. “Births and work records? Addresses?” You make a small noise in the back of your mouth. “I guess I don’t know…anything that might help me?”
The librarian chuckles a bit, amused. “How about you tell me what it is you’re looking into, and I’ll try and grab any public knowledge that I can find. We’ll work together, then.” 
Weight is loosened from your shoulders and you nod appreciatively. “Deal.”
“Go on then,” she walks over to a shelf on the far side of the room, standing as her fingers run the spines. “Occupation I can start with, Dear?”
“Well…” you pause, shuffling after as your head looks from one sizable book to another. “No, unfortunately. Only a first name.”
“You’re lucky Redthorpe is small,” the woman laughs. “Otherwise I would have told you you’re lacking your senses with only something like that to go off of.” 
“Eleanor,” you comment, licking your lips and staring at a spine labeled ‘1890-1900 financial records - Redthorpe’. “E-L-E-A-N-O-R, or at least that’s the common spelling, I believe.” 
The librarian’s body is stone-still. Comparable to the immovable rocks of the shore as the waves bash against them; the raging of the wind. When you glance over, confused at the silence that infects the building, you’re reduced to a meek hesitation at the blank eyes that dig into your face. 
“...Or…maybe it’s N-O-R-E?” 
“I’m sorry, but I can’t help you,” is the hurried answer, and then the woman moves past with fast feet, heels clicking over the hardwood rapidly. “There hasn’t been an Eleanor in Redthrope. You’re mistaken.” 
“Wait,” you follow, stuttering. “I don’t understand, there has to have been—Otto was talking about her not days ago!”
“You’re mistaken,” is the repeated, firm answer, the librarian’s body swirling to face you again, pointing a finger at you. “Go back to your shop. Mr. Whitworth is old, he sees things that aren’t there. Don’t take what he says to heart—”
“I saw it!” You bark, fed up. Your mind was sick of these games being played, left out of the loop like you hadn’t formed a relationship with the people of this town. 
The woman’s mouth locked shut with a clack of teeth, something darting over her expression…fear?
She backs up slowly. “I…I don’t know what you’re talking about, Dear.”
Your lips twist, a threatening sneeze in the back of your nose. “I’m done with the word games! It dragged me out of the water like a sack of flour and tossed me to shore! It saved me!” Her hands are held in front of her as you stalk closer, trying to brush what you’re telling her aside as she struggles to string words. 
“It…it wouldn’t do that—that’s not how it acts. You’re just imagining things; you’re under the weather!”
“Who’s Eleanor?” You huff, stubborn as you cross your arms in front of you. “And what in the hell is a man with the tail of a fish doing living just below these cliffs?”
Wide eyes meet glaring ones, and the librarian’s lips move up and down in a panic. 
“I…” she begins, feet tapping the floor nervously as the rafters creak above the both of you. “I can’t talk about it. It’s not something to be said out loud—especially so close to the water.” 
You bark incredulously, “There’s a bloody monster that lives down in—!”
A hand is snapped over your mouth and you startle, blinking through the twitch of your body. 
“Shh!” The librarian panics, shaking her head, with flaring eyes. “Stop it or you’ll end up being dragged down to the ocean floor like Eleanor was!” You tense behind the hold, shoulders pulled in. It’s a quick spit of whispered words like a fast breeze. “Do you want your body showing up on the rocks?! Stay away from it!”
Your heart pounds in your chest, vision darting back and forth before she finally lets you go in a quick jerk of her body. The woman backs up, quivering as her eyes go to the window, nearly panting from fear. 
She looks back at you, blinks, and mutters out a quiet, “If you’ve already seen it, it wants you. Don’t go back to the water,” before she rushes into the back room and slams the door shut with the slipping of the lock. 
Left standing in the open library, the shelves sit stationary as if sentinels to your raw distress—this had only left you with more questions and a handful of jumbled answers. 
“Careful, then.”
You shake your head harshly and pivot to leave the library in a stupor, shoving your chin back down into your coat’s collar as the wind slaps your face once more. The call of the ocean is like a knife to the back of your neck.
Call you whatever name in the book, but you wanted your sketchbook back.
No one in town was giving you anything that was of use, and Otto was tighter-lipped than a lockbox. There was only so much you could do—could speculate—before the need for your belongings was too strong to ignore. It took two more days of pacing your shop before it was decided. 
Taking up the heavy cast-iron pan above your fireplace, you slip the thing into your coat, shove on your hat with a defiant grunt, and force the front door open. It’s a ten-minute walk to the shore, and all the way there, dread fills you up like soup until you’re bloated with it by the time your boots hit black rocks. Yet, there’s a point where a woman’s courage outweighs the sense of caution, and today was currently that day. 
Taking a deep breath to steady your nerves, you grab your skirt and hike it up, placing your boot carefully on the first of the larger stones leading out to where you’d been previously. 
“Don’t look at the water,” you mutter quietly as you move, not shuffling forward until you know the rock isn’t going to topple this way or that. “Don’t even think about it.”
But that tail…that face…
With a growl under your breath, you grind your teeth and continue on. 
The weather today was much more agreeable, but cold. It was always chilled in Redthorpe—dreary as if the clouds never left far above. You didn’t mind, and in your coat pocket, the reassuring weight of your pan left you much warmer than you’d like to admit. 
The heat of protection, so to speak.
“Even a fish-man can die, I’d wager,” you utter, grunting as you ascend a larger rock, palm slapping the wet stone before you heavy upwards, slamming your boot to the top much like a schoolboy as your skirt bunches. “If I hit him hard enough in the skull. I wonder though,” you sneeze, shuddering, “if he even bleeds? If I crack his head open…will blood seep out, or salt water?” 
You shiver, and it’s not from the cold. “Fucking hell, you do like making it harder on yourself, don’t you.”
Lightly panting, you brush down your coat on the top of the rock and turn to look at the boulder where you’d fallen previously, blinking. Pausing, your eyes find not only your sketchbook sitting there…but also your shawl. 
Struggling for a moment to try and justify your actions, you swiftly look over the surface of the water, seeing the gentle push and pull of waves. No fin. No tail. 
You aren’t sure if the feeling in your chest is joy or disappointment.
Licking your lips, you take a large breath before your face turns grim.
“Grab it and run,” your voice echoes in your own head, heart pounding with adrenaline the more steps you take to the boulder, water sloshing at the sides. You had thought perhaps that the rain—the storm—would render all of your lost belongings null, but as you bent and snatched your items to you, shawl hanging from your arm, you were pleasantly surprised. It was all dry; impossibly so. 
Amid your shock, your slack jaw, and the weight of your pan in your coat, your shaky fingers open your book with bated breath. 
Everything was in pristine condition, if not only slightly curled at the corners due to…your eyebrows pull in, expression struggling to take on the emotion of anything other than pure awe.
“Fingerprints?” 
Eyes slipping from one page to the next, flipping them only to see the press and pull of a long gone thumb, shiting the paper to gaze at the back, where a forefinger would have been. A hand laced in water had been turning the pages, just as you do now—and, yet, there wasn’t an inch that was damaged; nothing smeared. 
Shoulders loosening from their tensed position, your wide stare is utterly transfixed as your digits rub the material softly, feet shifting. 
Lowering your sketchbook, your small huff of amazed laughter, mind running. 
He’d been going through your drawings—he’d somehow protected these items from the rain and salt. How? Why? But another question wrapped its hands in your skull.
Did he like them?
Shuffling the book into the crook of your arm, you carefully wrap your shawl over the material to further keep it safe, not able to find your purse, though the only thing it ever held was your sketchbook in the first place; it wasn’t too important. 
Rising your head again, you gaze openly outward, lips opening and closing in a small stutter. Was he out there, this strange creature with a strong face and those deep eyes? That navy tail, looking like a beautiful imitation of kelp…was it just under where you now study the waves?
So many questions, so few answers. 
You clear your throat, holding your items tighter. There’s magnetism in your blood, and it sits on your tongue like salt.
“Thank you!” Your voice calls high, joining the chorus of birds far above on the cliffs. Eyes skating the rocks, the shore, the ocean, everything. Call you prideful, but perhaps the best way to gain your favor is to know that someone, whatever bit strange and fantastical, had enjoyed your work to the smallest degree. 
The way your eyes spark is still embarrassing, though, but it comes naturally after the heat that simmers over your face. 
“Truly,” you shout to the wind. “You have no idea how much this means! If you’re listening, I’d like to extend my gratitude…” Your face is beaming, and you can convince yourself that all of your fear over this is gone, even if that would just plainly be untrue. “My artwork is everything to me, I do hope you enjoyed it!” 
A creature so easily curious about your skills wouldn’t drag you to the bottom of the ocean…right? 
Hell, he’d already had a chance to do that—a perfect one—and yet, here you are. What the Librarian had said had to be false, it made no sense otherwise.
Seeing nothing, and knowing that you were needed back at your shop, you chuckle under your breath and back up swiftly, walking the distance back to the surrounding rocks and slipping off softly. Grunting under your breath, your boots hit the stone, and you carefully begin back-tracking. 
“You’re good at it,” you halt in a fraction of a second. “The images. Where’d you learn to do that?”
It’s a long moment before you turn with a cautious tilt to your head, and find the very same visage as you had a glimpse of days ago. You fight a fast inhale, but your straightening spine tells all the story it needs to. Like a fool, you lose the words in your mouth, as if trying to catch a bird of prey with a butterfly net.
A strong face is poking out of the water only a mere five feet away.
Your eyes slip to the soaked beard, the peak of bare shoulders—broad, of course—and the prying orbs that you feel will never leave; he wades there, arms under the dark water only a flash of pale skin before they’re gone again. 
“I…” you lick your lips, blinking through the moment of animalistic panic. You were on land, there was nothing to fear. The sight was still something to be remembered, though. “I was self-taught, Sir.” 
Blue eyes blink, serious face only made more so by the twitching of his large nose, which water drips from periodically. Droplets stay stuck to his dark lashes, and you’re near bursting with questions. 
But silence persists long after your sentence filters out to nothing.
“You pulled me from the water,” you state slowly. “And I don’t even know your name.”
The man looks you up and down, not arrogant, no, but in a way that is comparable to how you did the same to him. Studying you as if your body was strange to him. The realization almost made you laugh—perhaps it was strange to him.
You want to see that tail of his again. Your fingers itch to sketch its likeness and commit it to muscle memory. 
“I scared you,” he grumbles, sighing. “It wasn’t my intention to send you over.” Eyes still stay stuck. “My own fault.”
“I won’t deny you there,” you huff, gaze shifting away for a moment before filtering back. A slash of amusement curls in the thing’s eyes, and he hums. “Forgive me,” your breath wafts out over the air, face going what you can assume to be sheepish. It astounds you, though, that the conversation comes easily. “But I haven’t the faintest bloody clue as to what to call you.”
“John,” is the reply. Accent like gravel. He doesn’t waste his breath, seems. 
“John?” You lick your lips, legs shuffling over the stone. The name leaves you holding back a loud laugh. “Well, I suppose I could have guessed that, then. I’ve met more than enough ‘Johns’ so far.”
“Funny, are you?” The response, however dry, is tinged with something you can’t name. 
“I try,” you nod jokingly, motioning with a hand. “Just didn’t expect a man with a fishtail to act so….human. Certainly not be named like one, either.”
“Hm,” John grunts, blinking slowly. A hand slips above the water, and you watch it flex and drag to itch at the back of his neck, hair over the arm slick to the flesh. Your face heats, and your eyes dip to see the small shadow under the water almost graze the surface, rippling the waves intimately, as if tail and liquid were of the same sound mind. 
It wasn’t out of the question to say you longed for a glimpse. 
What would it feel like to touch it?
“You live here?” Your voice is hoarse before you clear it quickly. “Right below the cliffs?” 
“You’re the woman that goes out in the boat,” John firmly interjects, and you blink, taken aback. 
“Yes, that’s me.” You explain, pulling at the lip of your hat to force it down further over your head. “Otto goes fishing in the mornings—I like to sketch the shore. He isn’t the worst company, of course. He’s kind enough to let me along with him.”
But you won’t be kept down. There’s magical curiosity in your chest now.
“Your tail,” you take a step forward, boots being licked by icy water. John’s eyes widen a smidge, not expecting you to actively move closer. His head tilts as if a bird, confusion brimming though he hides it expertly. You imagined he considered you a bit mad. “Forgive me, Sir, but I must know,” your uttered rambles make his hidden lip twitch, a little twist to your expression that shows wonder. “Is it attached to you, or do you slip out of it like a pair of pants? O-or even like wearing a stage costume? Oh, it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”
John can’t find the words for a moment, only able to watch and assess as he always did in times like these. You were…different, he supposed. But he knew that the moment you had shifted your body over the side of that old man’s boat—looking for a glimpse of something unknown. He could see it in your eyes. 
The water calls to you. It lives in your veins already, waiting. More salt and seaweed than earth and grass. Sand, rock, gulls, they all cry in the back of your mind, and your fingers itch to catalog them into immortality in a way that John was fascinated over—the skill of parchment and memorization. Mastery over detail.
He doesn't know why he’s speaking to you, truly. He’d done his penance; saved your life. But he knows he doesn’t dislike it, and that in and of itself needed to be understood. John couldn’t leave his analytical brain lacking an answer to a question as big as that—a woman of all things? A human one? 
Blue eyes can’t seem to slip from yours, as you await a gruff reply.
“No.” You blink, pulling back a smidge when John’s voice is low and graited. “Go back to your home. It’s late.”
“Hey, wait—!”
But he’s already gone under the waves, and you’re left with a waterlogged boot, a cast iron pan, and the two items that had survived because of a grizzly creature's compassion. Your lungs heave, and the cloud of condensation rises into a gray sky.
You stay there far longer than you’d like to admit.
You struggled, slipped, and climbed your way back to that point on the rocks every other day, and yet, there was nothing more to be seen of the man with the tail. You knew he was out there, felt it in your bones, and still…you were left here staring out at far-off boats and half-hopes. Wondering. Waiting. 
In the days that passed, you would explore the shore further, going in nooks and deep bends that extended into the cliffs during low tide, cringing away from the slippery fingers of kelp stuck to the walls. Dead fish, mucus-lined snails—you had made the important decision of leaving your sketchbook at home, the pages already filled with the perfect reflection of a man’s face peeking above the water. 
Taking off your hat, you huff on a similar day to those others, this time slipping inside a cave with a direct connection to the ocean. There wasn’t any wind in here—and you sigh in relief as your breeze-bitten cheeks can finally get a rest. You didn’t know what you expected to find doing all this fruitless searching, but it didn’t erase the fact that you enjoyed it; looking for a glimpse of something out of the ordinary. 
Brushing your hat of sand and other such items, your head swivels softly, a delicate smile on your face as water drips from the rock ceiling, stalactites like broken fingers reaching for the ground. A pool of sorts takes up most of this place, the thing extending to the ocean through a medium-sized opening in the stone.
You turn in a half-circle. 
“Beautiful,” your lips murmur, voice echoing. 
Walking forward, every so often your body stoops to carefully grasp shells and smoothed shards of colored glass, beaten down by waves and reduced to harmless trinkets. Continuing, you care little about your boots or your coat, only for the pull in your chest that tells you to keep going until your legs are weak and weary—shaking from a day long spent in selfish adventure.
When you find the pile of rings, sitting in soft kelp, you nearly walk right past them until the glint of metal takes you by surprise. Pausing, your pulse warms as your eyes slash to the side, getting sucked in as easily as cookies to a child. 
Only hesitating a second, you slowly walk until you’re inches away, seeing different styles and gems like starlight sitting as if unaware of their raw beauty. 
“What are you doing in here…?” You ask yourself, your own voice responding from the walls as it bounces. 
Picking up one of pure gold, you shift the band to stare openly at an emerald nearly the size of your knuckle set into it. Lips parting, it’s as if your breath is stolen by a quiet thief. But the sudden arrival of splashing snaps you out of your stupor quite quickly.
Dropping the ring immediately back into the pile, your hand jerks to your chest as an increasingly common face shows itself once more from the water. 
You clear your throat, face burning as John raises a slow brow, glancing at the stash of rings silently. 
“One day you’re going to make me keel over,” your voice berates, pointedly avoiding his blues. So the items were his. 
“A thief as well as an artist?” John asks after a moment, tilting his skull as his body drifts closer to the rocky side of the pool. The next sentence is no question, only a statement. “You’ve been looking for me.”
You take a long breath, sighing, before you shove your hat into your coat’s pocket, glaring lightly. “You left so abruptly, I never got to ask my questions. Quite rude of you to keep a lady waiting, John.”
As you say his name, he glances over, but not before his sizable hands slap to the side of the rock and he hoists himself up with a single push of his forearms. The man grunts, lips pulling, before you’re left breathless. 
Eyes stuck on the upper half of his body, the water dripping down the hair-layered bulge of visible muscle, your wide vision skates from one point to another, flesh on fire the more you stay mute. But the tail—that was something you could never describe. 
The beginning was all you could see; scales of dark navy and a spread of muddled silver-like dots, nearly impossible to make out except at this distance. They began at the top of where hips should be, the scales, smaller and blending into the skin easily, only becoming larger the more the tail extended down; the appendage was far larger than legs would be, that you can tell easily. You can’t see all of it, as perhaps a little less than half still sits swaying in the water…but even this was enough for now.
This moment would be stuck in your sketchbook for all of eternity. 
It’s only after your jaw is slackened that you realize John has been watching you the entire time.
Forcing it shut with a tiny clack of teeth, you try to regain any composure you can. The being’s beard curls in a smirk, cheek pushing to show the lines near his eyes. 
“If someone’s avoiding you, Sunshine,” he grunts out, voice low. From the corner of his eye, he watches as his hand rises to itch at his beard. “They usually don’t want to have a conversation.”
“I think it’s fair,” you huff. “You can’t just disappear when I have so many unanswered questions.”
John blinks, attention not moving for even a second. Your own is less than firm, fighting to not dart down to openly study every dip and bend of his bones. He was so…stoic. Gruff. But there were moments of amusement—even annoyed interest. 
“I don’t have time to fuckin’ entertain others,” he thins his lips. 
Your arms crossed, face dripping into seriousness. “And what else is so much more important, then?” You raise a brow. “Scaring other women into the water?”
He huffs under his breath. “It was an accident—wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t so jumpy, eh?” 
“It’s not like I expect to see fishmen pop out of the water,” you defend. 
“Mer-man, Love,” he licks his lips, sighing, as his eyes shift to glance at the opening of the cave. Your face bleeds into a slight expression of satisfaction, arms over your chest tightening as your feet rock back on their heels.
“Well,” you chuckle. “Now we’re getting somewhere.” 
An emotionless glare is all you receive. 
It was no surprise that you ended up blurting out inquiry after inquiry—what does having a tail feel like? How do you breathe underwater, or do you only hold your breath like a human? Do you have gills somewhere, or lungs? What other creatures are out there like you?
You have no idea what time it ends up being, and you have no intention of stopping soon. It’s a pleasant surprise, then, that John answers all of your quick words with full answers; giving slow, but not condescending explanations. 
A few times there had been tiny chuckles, and the little conversations amounted to you sitting on a rock right near the water, only feet away from where the tail drifts in the waves; John’s hands keeping his upper half straight as his palms meet slippery stone. 
“And the rings?” You breathlessly wonder, attention darting to the pile. “Do you find them out there? Keep them?”
John tilts his head in an affirmation. “Shipwrecks. There’ll be hundreds of them—I’m not one to keep many belongings, but the bloody things were nicely made.” He sighs. “Seemed a waste to leave them down there.”
You huff a sound of amusement. “I see. Fascinating.”
In the small pause, your eyes once more study the cave, seeing little breaks in the walls where cubby-like indents are. In them, your focus drifts from one glimmering object to another, all previously missed by you when you’d first entered. 
You blink. “You live here?”
“Affirmative,” John stares. His body shifts, tail flickering as your focus snaps back to it, almost lost in the way the ends so nimbly slice the water. Like wispy fabric. Your eyes soften like molten metal. You look back at him and find his eyes already locked to yours. 
Breath caught in your throat, you chuckle meekly to dispel your embarrassment. John’s face minutely relaxes, stern brow loosening.
“And…” you lick your lips, knowing it was time to leave. The sun no longer shines through the crack in the rock. “If I were to come back, would I be able to find you here?” 
There’s a flash of that same indecipherable emotion as before over his bushy face. 
The man was anything but small—everything to the swell of his tail; body hair for, what you assume, is to keep out the constant chill of the water. You’d never imagined that you’d find it all so attractive down to the navy scales that shimmered above the push of his side. That healthy layer of meat was eliciting far more of a physical reaction than you’d care to admit to anyone, let alone a priest of any religion during a confession.
Perhaps that fall into the water really had killed you.
“I’ll be here,” John responds lowly, gravel in his throat.
Swallowing down saliva, you push back the ravenous smile that threatens you.
“...Okay.”
And this affair became such a constant, that most of the people in town had begun asking about you as you snuck to the waters. Otto was largely concerned, but would not say anything more for some unseen fear—nor the Librarian, who avoided your eyes any chance she got. 
Dragged to the ocean floor. Body on the rocks. 
The sheen of discovery could be a powerful vice, and for those first two months, you never asked John about the woman named Eleanor or who she might be—what correlation she had to beasts of the water. Then again, you didn’t have to ask. He managed to get around to it himself. 
Your eyes blankly stare at the page of your sketchbook, the merman’s rough shape chicken-scratched with small lines into the parchment, and your pencil stays still to it, immobile. From across the cave, John’s face tightens as his eyelids narrow. You’d been quiet today, he had noticed. Usually so bright with your words, the walls had barely echoed with the symphony of your speech, and, more importantly, John’s ears hadn’t twitched to it. 
He had become fond of your company, he admitted to himself. A strange human woman with her fur coat and hat, the little sketchbook that held such wonderful imitations of life. John was anything but dull—he knew you drew him, and he entertained the activity. In fact, the thought at one point or another may have made the brute of a man blush a bit. So, when you were as still as the stone you sat on, he had concerns. 
He liked it when you spoke, even if it was only a tease. And the tightness of his chest when you don’t look his way is enough to leave his tail twitching in confusion as it sits in the water.
“You’re quiet today,” he starts, frowning. 
Your fingers jerk, sending a line over your paper as you blink, looking up as your heart skips a beat. Glancing at John’s face, the thoughts inside of your head slip until you can understand what he said. 
“I’m sorry,” you sigh, and the man’s face pulls. “You can speak if you want. I'm just a little distracted.”
“I didn’t mean it like that, Love, yeah?” John grunts, hands shifting over the stone. He looks you up and down, tail sitting still below him. “What happened?”
“Nothing happened,” your lips mumble, and you shake your head. “It’s one of my questions again.” You pause, closing your book. “A difficult one.”
John’s lips flicker. “Well, we’ve been at this for ages. Can’t see how this one is more difficult than the others.” He nods softly, voice a low and somewhat smooth mutter. “Go on.”
“I don’t know if I can,” you huff, standing and placing your sketchbook in the driest part of the cave before walking closer. Bending right in front of John, your face is tight. The man likes it like this—having you closer. He can feel the heat roll off you, and his eyes flutter even when nothing on his face gives away the pull he senses in his chest. 
John hums and swallows stiffly.
“Why not?” His head tilts, and he clears his throat to get rid of the raspy scrape of his vocals. “Something going on up there?”
Up there. 
The Merman had asked about Redthorpe, as well as the rest of the people who lived there. The atmosphere, the way of life. Your meetings were more of an exchange of information and stolen glances than anything else, the other none the wiser to this magnetic attraction. It was a delicate thing, knowing that there was something more and yet unable to fully express the way it makes you feel. Neither of you knows what to call it.
“More so in here,” you smile tinily, pointing at your head as your cheeks grow hot. 
“Then speak to me,” John frowns, trying a low smirk. “Think we both know I’m a good listener then, Love. There’s time,” he glances at the entrance. “Won’t be near dark for a few more hours—don’t want you climbing at night.”
“Awe,” you breathe, beaming suddenly with that glint back in your eyes. John hides the sagging of his shoulders, only offering a hum under his breath as he looks over at you. His kelp-like fins twitch, and he wonders what it would feel like to have you touch them. It was obvious you wanted to.
Not yet. 
“Hurry up, Sunshine,” John grinds out, that accent all the more sandy. 
There’s a small grunt and a shuffle, and, soon, a warm body is plotting itself next to his own, arm touching his, and a pair of bare feet slipping into the pool. Blue eyes widen in surprise, head darting to where your form rests so simply—so near the crook of his shoulder that he could reach over and draw you to him if he so wanted. 
Your feet shift as the hem of your skirt gets soggy with water, and John barks out a firm, “You’re going to get cold.” 
“It’s not as cold here as it is out there,” you shrug to him, smiling with a side-eye. “Besides, I’m right next to you—you’ll keep me warm, won’t you, John?”
“Fucking hell,” he puffs out, shaking his head as he rips it forward once more, clenching his jaw. Your scent seeps into his nose, and when your leg slips along the side of his scales under the water, he all but goes a blank-faced scarlet. 
You hide a chuckle, shivering at the chill but more so at the unimaginably smooth sensation of John’s tail over your flesh. Your legs move through the water to cross at the ankles, your right hand resting to directly touch John’s left. With every pump of your blood, his own mirrors.
Yet, your mood sobers, and the joy leaks. 
“There’s a woman that no one speaks about in Redthrope,” you begin, and John settles to listen, brows furrowing in concentration as your skin sits so well next to his own. “Eleanor.” 
The man pauses abruptly, and you keep talking.
“And for some reason,” you sigh out a low breath, turning to look at John and his still face; emotionless. “Everyone seems to blame you for whatever happened to her. I don’t know if she’s missing, or…”
Your words trail off, insinuation clear.
Not noticing any chance on John’s face, you lightly bump him with your elbow, expression going concerned. “Hey, are you alright?” Your opposite hand raises, moving out between the two of you. “I didn’t mean to insinuate anything, I would just really appreciate anything you might know about it.” Eyes imploring, your heart pours itself. “I don’t think you’d do something like that.”
John blinks slowly, finally opening his mouth. “What makes you say that?”
“If you were some murderous creature,” you shrug, “I don’t think you would have tried to pull me out of the ocean in the first place.” Lashes caressing your cheeks, you smile. “Am I wrong?”
“No,” the man huffs, quirking a brow. “No, you’re not wrong.”
“Knew it,” you whisper, eyes crinkling as you side-eye him.
John chuckles, half rolling his eyes as he leans to your ear as he grumbles. “Gettin’ cheeky, are you?” 
If you were a bird, you’d be preening your feathers, eyelids narrowed. “Perhaps, John.” 
It is a wonder, then, that the two of you don’t lock lips that very instant—long fins curling around legs and shoulders stuck together, pinkies unconsciously sitting atop the others as if pieces of parchment. Blue eyes shift smoothly to your lips, but before you can register that they have, John’s head is already moving back and his spine is straight. 
The man flattens his lips, tilting his skull. 
“I knew of a woman named Eleanor—she would come down with her husband, Noah, and they would walk along the shore. Got close to this place a few times.” Dark brows tighten. “Found her body in the water after a storm about two years ago; brought it back to the rocks so someone could retrieve it.” Your face loosens as the information settles in. John makes a noise in his chest. “Interesting that I’d be roped into it, but it’s understandable. Always someone to blame, eh?” 
“I don’t blame you,” you whisper. “That must have been horrible.”
Blue slips over to you silently, and it’s a long moment before John only hums under his breath, blinking away softly. 
“Scared me when you fell in.” Listening, your heart clenches in your ribs. To think about what must have been going through his head at that instant was sad to you, and even worse so when you know he would have blamed himself if you might have ended up seriously hurt.
“Well,” you lean into him, face on fire, “it was a good thing you were there to drag me out, then. A little water never hurt anyone, so long as a handsome merman is there to take them back to shore.” 
John huffs out a laugh. “Handsome?”
“Oh, very,” you joke. “The tail is a bonus.” Your expression lightens, eyes glinting. “Since when did you know that navy is my favorite color?”
The feeling of the cold water is only a back-drop to the way John’s fins twitch against your bare legs intimately, and you chuckle as the beard can only hide so much red skin. 
“Bugger off,” he grunts. 
You’ve never heard a smile so clearly before in your life.
Your paintings were selling far better than they ever had, and you had to thank the new muse of them for that fact. 
John’s appearance in your work had started small—a glimpse of a fin, the presence of a shadow in the water—and had steadily grown. Now, hidden like a present, there was the image of some fishtailed man somewhere in all of them, a steady injection of magic into the veins of cerulean blue and ivory black. It showed you that fewer people knew about John than you had previously thought. 
Initially, you had imagined that everyone knew and the reason you didn’t was because you were relatively new here, but no. Most had been enamored by your work when they found the ‘strange fish-man’ in one, pointing and chucking to themselves, talking about how adorable it was. No one was shocked, no one sent looks. 
By the end of the week, you had been convinced that it had been narrowed down to Otto and the Librarian—
The bell of your shop dings.
Looking up from your easel, you smile and stand automatically, thinking about closing soon so you can go and see John. Nowadays, even the thought of him makes your blood pump heavy. 
“How can I help you today, Sir?” Your brushes find the side table you had set up, locking eyes with a tall, thin man in his late thirties. He wears a suit, and in his breast pocket, there’s the gleam of a gold chain attached to a pocket watch. 
“I’m here to ask about a detail in your paintings, Miss.” He’s well-spoken as well, and you’re shocked to know you haven't met him yet if he lived in Redthorpe—he doesn’t seem familiar at all.
“Of course,” you nod, perplexed. “I’m sorry, I think I missed your name.”
“Noah Moore,” is the even response. Noah is already walking around, bending to look into some of your work which hangs on the wall. “My neighbor brought home one of your pieces; I found I liked it very much. Had even considered commissioning.”
Noah? You blink slowly, watching. Wasn’t that Eleanor’s husband?
“Thank you,” your lips move, thinning. “That’s very high praise, Mr. Moore.” 
“This creature,” Noah stands, and dark eyes set on you. For some reason, the hair along your arms stands on end. “The man with a fish tail. Have you seen him?”
Your instant reaction is to lie, and that in and of itself is a telltale sign that something is wrong. Noah makes the alarm in the back of your head go off for no reason other than the way he’s trying to pry with that unblinking gaze of his. The rich apparel; the attitude. He isn’t right.
“Seen him?” Chuckles echo off the walls. “Who? The beast? No, Sir, that…thing…is just something I made up.” You wave a hand, but back up a step, trying to create distance. Your hip lightly bumps the side table, and your materials jerk. Gasping under your breath, your head snaps down, catching your brush before it can fall. “Oh my, clumsy me.” you laugh stiffly. “Apologies, Sir, but that’s the truth. I wanted to create something that all of Redthrope might enjoy; a local legend of sorts, see.”
Your eyes had siphoned back with a dread in your heart. The man mutely stares, a deep frown pulling his lips. As if the conversation had never happened, after a long stretch of tension, Noah smiles widely. 
“Ah,” he huffs, “of course. It was silly of me to ask.” Dark eyes are emotionless, and the pull of his eyelids is not there. Spine so tight it could snap in half, and your fingers curl around the brush before you place it down stiffly. “Though,” Mr. Moore clicks his tongue, taking one step closer. 
Your eyes widen, but you say nothing. Your mind flashes to John, and there’s a longing for the ocean so strong, it seems a good idea to you, to rush out the door right now and sprint for it; hurl yourself to the waves, if need be. He’d find you—you know he would.
“Though,” Noah continues, tilting his head. “There is a striking resemblance to a creature I recall seeing from the cliffs, the day my wife’s body was found at the rocks.” 
Backing up another step, your muscles ache with how you hold them like a shield to your organs. 
“As far as I know, only two others were searching at my side that day. And in it I am certain,” he hums, “you weren’t even here.”
Otto and the librarian, you think quickly, mind a mess of information and fear. It’s why they’re so spooked. They think John actually killed Eleanor and left her—they saw him bring her body to shore.
It’s a lack of foresight on your part, that the next bark is more of a reaction to the panic than proper knowledge, cracking under pressure. 
“John would never kill an innocent woman!” 
It’s as if a switch goes off, and, suddenly, there’s a ruthless hand grabbing at your throat. Yelping, you stagger back and snap your fingers to Noah’s wrist, clawing until there’s blood under your nails; air is sucked in with a wheeze. In the back of your head, there’s wild screaming, and you can’t tell if it’s the pounding of your blood or the internal sensation of primal fear. 
Raging eyes shove themselves right in front of yours, faces so close you can feel Noah’s hot breath moving over your burning face. You try to cough but find you can’t as one of your hands struggles to slap to the side table—searching fruitlessly. 
“John?” Noah sneers, holding tighter. “The thing has a name?”
Your easel clatters to the ground, back being shoved right into it. Mouth opening and closing, the cut of oxygen reduces your mind to acting purely off instinct—breaking down like glass to fracture to only one thing: survival.
“It was perfect,” Mr. Moore growls, eyes ablaze. “I had it all planned out, only to be ruined by a freak of nature at the last moment!” 
Your nails gouge the wood, dragging, searching, slapping. Anything—anything at all to help as your boots scrape from under you. You can’t even comprehend the words being said; all of it is a blur as blackness peels the side of your vision. 
Tears splatter down your cheeks.
“Two years, and then you had to come along and fucking speak to it! What did it tell you? Eh? What did it see that night?”
Your hand curls the glass bottle where you store your brushes and without another thought, you slam the side of it to Noah’s head. 
Shouting, the man releases you in an instant, glass leaving long lines of blood splattering out to sprinkle your face as it shatters, collapsing into itself. Connecting to the ground, your hacking can only take place for under two seconds before your boots scramble for purchase, stumbling and flailing at least once; lungs gasping. 
Shoulder connecting with the side of the door frame as you bang it open, an enraged scream follows you into the rainy afternoon, the rumble of deadly thunder far overhead. 
Running, you don’t know how to stop, and it’s even harder to catch your breath by the time you’re down to the rocks, looking over your shoulder as if Noah would be right behind you. He wasn’t—but the fear was enough to keep you going until you were bathed in sweat and barely strong enough to fall into the entrance of John’s cave, fingers cut up and raw from grappling over stone.
There’s a quick call of your name from across the enclosed space, but your ears are ringing too loud to hear—whipping around to stare at the entrance as you struggle back on your hands, legs shaking. 
“Love!”
Your eyes slash to the side, and through the quivering of your lashes, through the blur of tears, you lock onto the desperate slash of grayish-blue that’s a near-perfect reflection of the ocean itself. Painting, the realization comes a moment too late, as pale fingers touch your cheek and you flinch back with a deep pain in your neck. 
Pulsing veins echo along your entire body, but there, at the point of where hands had wrapped your flesh, it burned with a horrible fire that made thin noise escape your lips.
“Hey,” John breathes, having dragged himself at a moment’s notice across the floor of the cave. “Hey,” he repeats slower, eyes slashing you up and down for any sign of injury. 
His hand is outstretched, but he doesn’t try to touch you again seeing how you’d jerked away. The man’s heart had stopped at that—his concern shooting up similar to how he felt when you’d raced through the entrance as if a fire was on your heels. A near panic at the fear on your face, leaving his body on high alert; eyes skating the surrounding quickly.
But the splatters of blood on your face were something to reduce him to an enraged beast.
“What is going on,” he tries to keep the rough anger from his tone, attempting to leave it soft and smooth. There’s only so much he can do, though, as you shake and pant. 
Your body gradually slows itself, attention seeping back to allow you to take control of your limbs. The first thing you see clearly is John’s outstretched hand, and, then, the clench of his jaw—the eyes that follow every teardrop down the flesh of your cheek.
Openly gazing, when John sees you’re back, his blues slip to a softened caress. 
“Love,” he mutters, face tight. 
You shove yourself into his arms and let off a sob that echoes louder than any laughter could. Curling into his chest, water seeps into your shirt, but the all-expansive hand that keeps you close is worth every clothesline you would have to hang. 
“Shh,” John breathes, knowing that he’d get an explanation when he calmed you down, even if his mind was breaking itself to try and understand. “I’m right here, Sunshine. Breathe, then…I’m right here, yeah?” 
His nose pushes itself into your scalp as your head hides away, quivering body curled like a cat around a fish—no air between the two of you, chests running across the others. So little space, and yet this breathlessness was one you could welcome time and time again.
John watches, eyes always open as he glares into your hair, grip tightening the longer you cry; a feeling so potent brimming in his chest, he would be a fool to ignore it.
You were more precious to him than any ring, than any trinket he could stash away and forget about. The way his heart bent to yours was stronger than any storm. 
Breathing down your scent, John sighed, kissed the top of your head, and lightly rocked you back and forth. 
He’d wait as long as it took.
When it became apparent you couldn’t speak beyond broken little coughs and wheezes, John was quick to bring you to the water of the pool.  
Now, perhaps hours later, you sit with the burn and fatigue of crying eyes, sniffling as you shove away the stain of red on your cheeks. 
“Careful,” John lightly comments, grasping your hand and pulling it away. His own replaces it, wet from the water he now wades in to help. “Let me get it, eh?”
Your eyes stay stuck to his nose as fingers push away the crimson of blood easily, firm but still utterly delicate. 
“I’m not glass,” you croak, one hand near your throat. 
Blue eyes blink at you. “Never said you were,” he grunts, frowning, and you see his Adam’s Apple bob. “Don’t like seeing you with blood on your face, Love.”
Like it had never happened, the fingers return, and a moment later, he grumbles out, “And stop talking—you’ll make it worse.” 
You hadn’t explained, not yet, but by the utter rage you see John trying to hide from you, you know he understands how you might have gotten the swelling now present on your neck. His heart had been visibly pumping the entire time you’d been here; you could hear it when he was holding you, a relentless, thump-thump-bump, thump-thump-bump in your ear.
The brunette had been clenching his jaw more as well, grunting as if a boar after every sentence, a nervous habit, perhaps. He was trying to mask it for you, but you weren’t blind. 
John pauses his cleaning, glancing at your throat. 
He studies your face after he hums under his breath, having to dart his gaze away for a moment. 
“...Can I?” You pause, swallowing as the burn persists. 
Nodding after a minute of slow contemplation, cold hands shift to press carefully—not tightening, not holding you there—resting to give relief. You only tense a little, but as the seconds draw, John watches you sag forward with a large sigh through your nose. 
He lets a small sliver of calm enter him.
“Easy,” John whispers, blinking. He keeps the chill of his hands at your neck, fins shifting the water to keep him still. “When you’re ready, explain it to me, eh?” His head tilts, voice a low tease. “Glass or not.” 
Your lips twitch, and the way your eyes melt could only be compared to safety. You open your lips, and John mutters lowly as your fingers brush over his own, “Quietly, now. Can hear just fine—don’t push yourself.” 
Blue flickers to your touch, fingertips trailing his knuckles as the man grunts, attention fluttering back. 
All you say is one name. 
“Noah.” 
There’s a moment of confusion on John’s face, skin wrinkling, before the understanding settles swiftly—he wasn’t a fool. From there, his expression changes ten times over; that rage, then fear for you, confusion, and stubbornness. It’s of little surprise to you that a man so loyal was reduced to a dog. 
A dog with scales, that is.
Your body is still running hot—your heart still pumping, though the adrenaline has left with all of its stimulation. You’re tired, yes, that much is obvious. But you want John to hold you again. 
When you shift your body, the man’s eyes widen, and he blinks quickly in shock as your legs then slip into the waves inch by inch.
A noise exits the back of his throat, and John’s mouth moves in serious question. “What are you doing? Fucking hell, would you just stay still and let me have a look at you—”
Arms grapple around his waist, and a warm head burrows into his neck. 
You rest against him, body suspended in the water of the deep pool, a merman’s tail swishing to shove you the tiniest bit closer unconsciously. John’s chest bounces with every emotion, but all he does is stop you from sinking by holding you. Your eyes close at the dig of his hands, and, letting the water move the both of you, the smooth scales along your legs feel as if the finest silk. A thumb caressing up and down your spine; breath at the top of your head.
You both say nothing, and it’s a long while before either of you takes any action to leave.
When your words could be strung together and not broken every other sentence, you explained all of it, and the hunch you’d strung together in the meantime.
You fiddle with one of John’s rings—the emerald one—as you glance up and speak softly, voice still delicate. The pain still blossomed, but some things needed to be explained.
“I think he killed his wife.” 
By the way John stops massaging the flesh of your neck, letting you rest your head in the crook of where his tail begins and skin ends, you knew he already pieced that together a while ago. Your clothes were still heavy with water, and a puddle had formed around the both of you on the rocks.
“Hm,” is all John says, fixing the position of his lips as he looks away.
He shakes his head, growling out, “You’re not going back up there. Not while he’s still walking the streets.”
You frown, but John glares without any venom. “It wasn’t a question, Love.”
“What will you do,” you whisper, voice hoarse. A brow quirks. “Run after me, John?”
The man stares, not taking it as lightly as you. “If I have to.”
Your breath hitches, hands resting numbly over the ring as John’s fingers once again continue their touching—as if he can rub away the swelling; the damage of the veins. 
“You don’t have legs,” you utter, having to pause in the middle of the sentence to breathe deeply. 
“I’ll crawl,” he grunts.
“The rocks are sharp.”
His face is immobile. “Then I’ll bleed.”
Your mind memorized the stubbornness of his expression—the pull of the crow’s feet beside his eyes. There wasn’t an ounce of a joke in John’s eyes; no lie. Watching him, your face is loose with wonder, and water drips from your temple to connect with those dark navy scales, glinting with the light from the outside sun growing low. 
The ring in your hands is frozen, stopping its turning as your pulse soars.
John licks the corner of his mouth, glancing at the item of gold and green. 
“Keep it,” he mutters, tilting his head to the ring. “More of a use to you.” 
Larger fingers capture yours, and in one deft motion, the elegant item is slipped onto your digit, sitting comfortably as if made just for you. 
John shrugs. “The rest of ‘em, too, if you want the damn things.” His blues card over the view of your hand, and imagines fingers filled with every bit of gold and silver obtainable to him, brought up from the ocean just to sit pretty atop your flesh. Necklaces, bracelets, belts, and accessories; the things he’d seen from far distant waters. 
Oh, but they’d pale in comparison to how you would wear them. 
A muse to a song. A painter to a portrait. 
A women to the water.
He’d seen your latest sketches—you’d brought them down to him here—and when you were exploring this cave, he had taken a peak. Unlike him, yes, but there was a pull to it, that parchment bound by leather. He’d not seen anything like it, and as he had watched you work on occasion, he was entranced as he’d listened to you explain it. You’d told him that you could even manipulate color, and that had left his eyes widening in awe.
You were incredible, and when he saw his own likeness littering page after page, John had been unable to take his eyes off of you. A silent appreciation—a voiceless devotion. He’d never been…captured like this, so to speak. A mirror image. Details he didn’t even know himself, and yet there they were. 
Beauty marks across his cheeks and nose, the scars that littered his flesh that he’d all but forgotten about, the list was endless. 
But he looks at you now, and he can understand why there’s a draw to immortalize the mortal. 
His fingers stay at yours, and they brush skin as they dip along your hand, falling to your wrist. You stare up into his eyes, he stares down into yours. There’s little air to be taken in between the two of you. 
“John,” you utter, blue gaze stuck to your lips. 
He hums, tilting his head, his body looming over yours like a shadow. By the time his face is so near to yours, you don’t want to fight it, you don’t want to think about the strangeness of this predicament you’ve found yourself in—a creature living in the cliffs, handsome and half-inhuman.
When smooth lips brush over yours, and your eyelashes begin to flutter, the shouts from outside break whatever spell had just started weaving itself. 
Head snapping up, John’s body tenses as you push upward quickly. Attention slashing to the cave entrance, it’s not long before you realize what’s going on with a sharp breath and a leap to your pulse. 
The smash of something connecting to rocks echoes like a feral killing song. Yells. Yowls. 
“John,” you say hurriedly, flinching from the pain in your throat. Your eyes dart to his tension-ridden form, his arms wrapping above your body. “You need to run,” you choke out. “Go! Quickly!”
You only get a glance, and the clench of his jaw is as stubborn as it always is. Your brain already knows it’s fruitless. He won’t leave you here alone.
“They’ll kill you!” Your hands push at his chest, finger grasping at the bristle of hair to try and shove at an iron will. 
“Stay under me,” John mutters, voice low and nothing more than a chilled order. Yet, even he knows there’s little that he’d be able to do. His eyes flashed to every trinket and bauble he had collected, the new ones he’d yet to show to you, but there was few in the way of weapons. A dagger or two from a trench, a sword from under a ship—a spearhead. All too far away and rusted for it to even matter. 
There was a sharp feeling in John’s chest. A need. An oath that he gave to himself the moment he’d seen the way your little stick could breathe his image onto a sheet made of fibers. 
He was to watch over you whenever you were in his sights, and that had extended itself to gliding through the water as he watched you climb and grunt your way to his cave; a careful eye that he had no need to tell you about. That was just how he was. 
“John!” You try to bark again, growing desperate. 
Yet, it was already too late, and the merman hadn’t shifted even an inch before Noah, Otto, and the Librarian burst through the entrance like bats from hell.  They hold all manner of weapons, though the more you blink in a panic, the less afraid of them you seem, at the very least, the older man and the woman.
Otto held a cut-up and dented club, nothing more than something you’d keep for a home invasion beside the bed—the Librarian, a heavy book that seemed to contain every bit of information available to the world, so large it strained in her hands. Noah, though, was a different story. 
He had a sharp, long knife and eyes that could cut flesh by themselves. 
Half of Mr. Moore’s face was sliced up, cuts leaking blood to the ground—skin hanging and an eye completely poked with glass; shards in its gentle makeup. 
You swallow saliva and stutter through a shaking breath, and John’s glare could burn cities as he feels it reverberating against him. 
“There!” Noah shouts, balking closer. “See! I knew it was here—seducing the next woman to take to the ocean!” 
Your wide eyes try to take it all in, hands slapping the ground sending droplets of collected water flying. John’s face hones in, digging in like how the glass from your brush container had into Noah’s visage, and, somehow, you think that dead stare can cause more damage. Grasping the merman’s waist, you attempt and silently urge him to go. 
“Girl!” Otto calls quickly, eyes darting from you to John and back. Even if you could yell, you’re not sure you would. You wouldn’t even know what to say. “Get away from it!”
“I’d put that down,” John grunts to Noah, disregarding the old man and the librarian entirely. He clenches his jaw. “‘Fore you end up hurting yourself. Leave.”
“Otto,” you start, glancing at the woman beside your friend who looked like she was about to pass out when John had started to speak. The man in question’s face pulls, wrinkles thinning. “You have to listen to me, please, it’s not how Mr. Moore told you—”
“It speaks!” Noah barks, pointing his knife harder at John. “Freak of nature, it already has its hold on her.”
“Oh my,” the Librarian gasps. “Noah, it’s horrible—look at the tail.”
Your eyes flare with rage as John doesn’t react.
“Hey!” You shout, but instantly slap your free hand to your throat, coughing raggedly until your spine hunches. The merman brings you closer, but you’re already pushing until you’re on your feet, stumbling for a moment as John gives you a sharp look.
“You watch your bloody mouth,” you grid out, glaring, whipping your hands to get rid of the water droplets. Noah licks his lips as John grabs onto the back of your knee, fingers resting firmly. Sending a look down to him, your shoulders loosen at the expression he levels. You can almost hear the words.
 Steady. Keep your head on.
Though, a slash of silent pride made your heart stutter a small bit.
Your eyes glint. “Drop your weapons,” your sentence is crackling but nonetheless sharp. “Leave. John is innocent—he told me all of it.” You turn to Otto. “Mr. Moore attacked me in my shop, I smashed a glass container into his head so he would release me.” Otto tenses, club getting strangled by his fingers. 
“Noah killed Eleanor,” you breathe, John’s grip pulling a bit tighter as if sensing something you have yet to see. Noah shifts quickly, boots squeaking along the rock as he growls. 
“Absurd—!”
“He pushed her over the rocks and blamed John when he saw him bringing back her body,” you interrupt as fast as you can, pain bouncing off your throat. “You all saw it on the shore, the lie was simple enough for a man like him. Saying she drowned to a creature.”
It didn’t surprise you that John was quiet, that he was studying more the stance of men instead of talking or trying to defend himself. While he could be hard-headed and stiff, he was never dull—he never missed ques. So when Noah launched himself at you, Otto and the Librarian more confused and concerned than anything, there was only a heavy push on the back of your knee that left you buckling with a gasp, and then the explosion of water as John sent you both quickly to the water.
Hands whipping to snare around the merman’s shoulders, you’re only able to get a quick breath in before you’re completely enveloped in water, with John’s hand setting itself over your mouth just in case. The sudden rush is comparable to a heavy wind, yet far more cold and nearly like a slap to the back of your spine. 
You both disappear into the deep with a spray, Noah’s muffled yells of terror seen far above near the surface, arms captured by the Librarian and Otto—held at his sides. There’s a flash of those dark eyes, horrible things, and then John’s fins hide the rest as they slash through the water. 
When you both resurface, retreating far back near the watery entrance of the cave, John keeps you firmly behind him, your arms around his waist as you gasp for air. He keeps his head slightly turned to the side—always having you in the corner of his vision. Above the spread of his shoulders, you peek softly, legs suspended below. 
“Lier!” Noah screams, face contorted. “She’s lying!”
You look at Otto and see the grim way he’s already looking back, struggling to keep the younger individual from breaking free. He was sensical, but stubborn in his ways. Otto had a choice just as the librarian did—believe a woman who’d been here a year or someone they’d known nearly their entire lives.
“Noah,” Otto grunts, gritting his teeth. “Breathe, boy! Stop spitting, let her speak—”
The knife in Noah’s hands slashes the air, and suddenly there’s a yell from the librarian and a spray of blood. 
“Otto!” You scream, fingers flinching. 
The old man stumbles, hoarsely crying out as he grasps at his neck. Your eyes widen, mouth ajar as John pushes his hand into your head, shoving it into the back of his hair as he watches blankly, eyes glinting with a deadly hate. 
“Don’t move,” he utters quickly, sternly, to you as your breath breaks, mouth slack to stare at nothing. Scales skate your legs, great kelp-like fins curling your ankle. “Keep still. Focus on my words, Love.” Under his breath is a tight, “Fuck!”
John speaks above the gargling—the spillage of blood to stone. He mutters through the screams of the Librarian as Noah slips trying to run to the entrance, scrambling with bulging eyes. 
“Don’t look,” John says to you lowly, shifting his body as he keeps your face hidden away and let him hold you like a corpse to the earth. The sounds…oh, the sounds were horrible. 
But the man holding you tries very hard to hide them.
Your body quivers violently as the slam of a body hits the ground, the frantic calling of the woman still here with the both of you; the loud calls from the fleeing murder outside the walls.
“That’s it,” John’s fast lips are on the top of your head, muttering and trying to make his voice as even as possible. “That’s it, then. Doing good, don’t move until I say so, alright?”
When you don’t answer, only shoving your visage deeper into his neck, his spine-breaking-hold squeezes once, and his pounding heart bounces opposite yours. You don’t have to say you know him to understand that he’s only holding onto a thread of good manners, and that was certainly only for our own sake.
Otto was dead.
John leads you out, the gold and emerald of your ring glinting in the moonlight as he holds your body to his, the powerful make of his tail doing the work as it shines in the water. He leaves you outside, where the still running form of Noah is visible, yet the only person noticing is John himself. Your hands are so shaky that it would be impossible to hold your sketchbook, let alone a pencil. 
John takes one of them as Mr. Moore gets too close to the shoreline, slipping and getting his foot caught in between two stones. He panics, yelling loudly, as water is lapping up to his knee.
“Hey, hey, you hear me?” John asks, uncaring to the man, as he sets you down softly on a flat rock shelf. Fingers move to sit at your chin, and, through tight sniffles, you make delicate eye contact. He blinks, trying a tight smile—a flash nothing more. “There she is. Good...I need you to listen one last time, yeah? Just like before; don’t look until I say so.” Your face creases lightly, blinking through a haze of senses and horror. Otto was dead. 
The man that brought you out on his boat—the man that cooked you fish and acted as if a guardian to you. His cat, who would take care of her? It seemed a silly thought given the circumstances, but you can’t stop your mind from running. The house, the boat, the cat. The blood. 
“There’s nothing out here that can hurt you,” John grunts, grasping your hands and holding them, letting calluses and scars speak. “So long as I’m here, I won’t let it.” 
He nearly growls out the words. In one movement, he puts your hand to his heart, and your brain latches onto the rhythm as your own rampages in your ears. 
Noah is still screaming, but now it’s for help.
John’s voice lowers as he utters, “Hey,” the man licks his lips, eyes dancing to the side every once and a while. You stare, swallowing down bile. He says as fluidly as possible, keeping constant locked gazes. 
“Stay here. I won’t be long.”
Fingers glide down your neck again, feeling that swelling, and just as you register the kiss that’s leveled to your hand, to that gifted ring, John’s already away; his tail slipping over your flesh, fins gripping, writhing with their film. 
Yet, you have no trouble following his advice. 
The rising screams from Mr. Moore are numb to you, and the following wave of water that swallows him is only accented by the hand that grapples for his neck. 
John always seemed the one for revenge.
With the Librarian's newfound cooperation, the story became simple. 
Mr. Moore, distraught over the death of his wife, had finally lost it all when down on the beach with Otto, yourself, and the local Librarian—attacking and killing the old man in response to being so near to where he and his wife always traveled to. Afterward, he’d walked into the sea and had taken his own life. 
The authorities weren’t going to dispute it. 
You sold Otto's house a week after his death, seeing as he’d named you the sole inheritor of his estate and belongings. There was no need for two properties, and sitting in that small place was akin to torture. After all, he’d been doing what he thought was right, and dying for a lie is nothing short of cruel to those left behind who knew the truth. 
Harriet stays in the shop with you, where she’ll probably live out the rest of her nine lives peacefully. She’s quite fond of the fireplace. 
Most days, people find you near the water, and it’s something that wasn’t going to change even after Noah’s body was found in the rocks—freakishly close to where Eleanor’s had been. Some were calling it poetic and you’d have to agree…but for different reasons.
“You shouldn’t be giving me all of these,” you huff months later, sitting on the rock looking out over the water. A large collection of John’s trinkets is piled high in a wrapping of seaweed, shining bright as you mess with your pencil, leaning to stare at him.
John’s lips flicker into a smirk. He hums, content to watch you, from where he rests not an inch away. You lean into him, sighing, as the innumerable glinting rings on your fingers shimmer. 
“Want to,” he grumbles. 
Rolling your eyes, you look back down to your book, three of four replicas of the man’s scale pattern sitting, shaded and duplicated—lifelike. His tail sways with the water, half of it lost below. 
Your hands reach for them now, the scales closest to you, and you lightly poke and prod as John grunts above you, silent but willing in a way that speaks volumes. He’d let no one else touch him like this for the rest of his life—the softness of your fingers and the care on your face more precious than gold. You revered that tail of his; as if it gave over magic like a wishing well. 
Shivering, John’s breath hitches as your exploring moves, pushing lightly at where the top of his hips would be.
Your talent was fascinating to him, just as you were. If you wanted to ‘paint’ him, he’d allow you to do all the studies needed. Not only to give you a distraction….but because he can’t bear to be away from you anymore. It makes him nervous, and that in itself is an incredible feat.
“Where do you come from, John,” your question moves the air, and the man moves to pull your jacket higher up your body to stave off the chill. You glance at him, smiling, before your attention returns to your drawings. Sketching more, John resets his lips and tries not to stare at your face. It was getting harder to deny that pull. 
That near kiss.
“No answer, Love.” You stare as he quirks a lip, voice lowering. “I won’t be going back to distant waters anytime soon.”
John glances down at your sketchbook, seeing every scratch and bend of care. The both of you were strange creatures, perhaps. Unique—made for one another despite the obvious. 
He nods his head to it softly. The water laps at your boots from below, but you care little before John shifts your feet carefully further up with a push from his tail. You chuckle at him breathily, face heating.
“Getting water on you, Love,” he breathes. “New painting soon?” John asks when the silence settles once more, with you shifting your legs to sit under you. He still isn’t sure what painting entails, but you had told him that you would show him soon, so he knows to be patient. But yearning for anything regarding you is ingrained into his mind now—instinct.
“Mhm,” you smile softly, sending a look at your paper and the images. A huff escapes your mouth. “I think I’ll make this one a portrait.”
John blinks, tilting his head slightly. “Portrait? Why’s that?” 
Your lips find his, moving back up in an instant. 
For a second, the man’s surprised eyes pull back; only lowering as he hums moments later, fingers curling up under your chin as he sags. Lids flutter closed, and his tail twitches lightly.
“I have a subject that’s caught my eye.” You mutter into his flesh when you pull back, face burning as deep blues sear your mind, turning it into mush. Your skin tingles as chilled digits trail your chin, dripping water down your healed throat.
John watches, lips parted, as you continue on. 
“And I’d be a fool if I let him swim off.”
The both of you were going to be perfectly fine.
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TAGS:
@sheviro-blog, @ivebeentrashsince2001, @mrshesh, @berryjuicyy, @romantic-homicide, @kmi-02, @neelehksttr, @littlemisstrouble, @copperchromewriting, @coelhho-brannco, @pumpkinwitchcrusade, @fictional-men-have-my-heart, @sleepyqueerenergy, @cumikering, @everything-was-dark, @marmie-noir, @anna-banana27, @iamcautiouslyoptimistic, @irenelunarsworld, @rvjaa, @sarcanti, @aeneanc, @not-so-closeted-lesbian, @mutuallimbenclosure, @emily-who-killed-a-man, @gildedpoenies, @glitterypirateduck, @writeforfandoms, @kohsk3nico, @peteymcskeet, @caramlizedtomatoes, @yoursweetobsession, @quesowakanda, @chthonian-spectre, @so-no-feint, @ray-rook, @extracrunchymilk, @doggydale, @frazie99, @develised, @1-800-no-users-left, @nuncubus, @aldis-nuts, @clear-your-mind-and-dream, @noonanaz, @cosmicpro, @stinkaton, @waves-against-a-cliff, @idocarealot
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ladywuvly · 1 month
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barry sloane +au. +characters rec list!
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masterlist. socials. recs.
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head canons & imagines |
dbf!price boys your age by @captainfern
dbf!price shotgunning his cigar by @inkbybambi
dbf!price sugardaddy; part.2 by @faith369
bf!price headcanons by @empresskylo
landlord!price moving out by @gatorlovebot
husband!price darling wife by @ghosts-cyphera
honesty by @gatorlovebot - John doesn't like liars.
fixing your bad self-image by @sweetiecutie - You’ve been feeling a bit self-conscious lately, so John decides to fuck some sense into your head.
tummy love by @stoutpancakes
truth or dare? by @soapyghost
don't disobey by @jawabear - A risky move on the field leaves the captain less than happy with you.
steady girl by @jawabear - John loves when you help him trim his facial hair. And he loves what comes after as well.
genesis by @moondirti - It’s the first time you truly see him – this much of him, anyway, and he’s startlingly younger than you would’ve thought. The progression of a spite-fuelled relationship.
eye contact by @kungfubarbie101
two is hardly a crowd by @grippingbeskar 
how to disappear by @fawnpires - After a failed attempt at a date, you unexpectedly find yourself in the hands of comfort of your dorm-mate, also known as your captain.
bartender by @sky-is-the-limit
rings by @glossysoap
what’ve you done this time by @captainfern inspo; @bleuu-moon
just the tip, love by @floralpascal
home is the feeling of you by @maryangelex - You’re Price’s fiancé back home and it’s been months since you’ve seen him. He’s been on deployment and days have been getting lonelier the more days pass. Until you get home one night from work to a more than pleasant surprise.
taking his time by @empresskylo
neighborly advice by @sky-is-the-limit - Your neighbor price takes matters into his own hands to finish what your incompetent ex could never. all in the name of good neighborly solidarity, of course.
cigar smoke and good sex by @lxvvie
helping hands by @deathsimage
break the rules by @bonitanightmxres - Months after breaking up, you and price agree to a “no strings attached” relationship to fill the void in your lives—but it proves to be harder than anticipated when you both start to catch feelings again.
how you deserve by @manmuncher777 Inspo; @sky-is-the-limit
fics |
never let me go 5/5 by @maryangelex - You worked at a coffeehouse, your life is filled with mundanity and you wouldn't change it for anything else. That is, until one crisp autumn morning, you meet the handsome Captain John Price and there’s an immediate, undoubted connection between the two of you.
neighborly 5/5 by @391780 inspo; @hereforthepedrofanfic - You and your neighbor, john price, slowly getting to know each other over the holidays.
the rear window 5/5 by @391780 - spinoff! neighborly!pricepov stalker!price.
soft 9/9 by @391780 - Soap says dumb shit in a bar, Captain Price falls in love with a fat girl.
Songs That Sound Like Sea-Foam 2/2 by @halcyone-of-the-sea - fisherman!price x mermaid!reader.
take me home, country road 5/5 by @ceilidho - 1800s!price. reader flees to his town where Price is the sheriff after a murder in her previous town. only to be mistaken for the mail order bride that Price just sent for ….and he’s not interested in hearing any of her excuses when she tells him that he’s got the wrong girl
callsign: zero 12/12 by @cass-the-mess - 2 years ago you saved John Price from an untimely death, only to disapear without a trace before he could thank you properly for getting him back home safe. You show up again 2 years later to help the task force defeat a new enemy. Tensions rise as you show your true colors and navigate through unresolved issues that puts you and your new team at risk. Are you willing to finally open up or do you keep pushing everyone away to keep yourself "safe".
marigold 7/7 by @captainfern - dadsbestfriend!price (pretty much anything and all things from this masterlist.)
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disclamer! none of these are my works all credit to the authors. I just loved them so much figured I'd give them a shoutout!
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MDNI - NSFW @ cut
When you decide to let John Price hit it raw for the first time, you ask him to get checked out and he agrees.
When you come over to John Price’s apartment to show him your clean bill of health from the clinic, and he opens his in front of you, he gives you a devilish grin.
When John Price lays you on the bed and you hear his buckle rattling in the quiet bedroom, listening to both of your ragged breathing, heavy and full of anticipation.
When you help John Price with his zipper and he makes that growling sighing noise in his throat.
When John Price rubs his cockhead against your clit, knowing how wet it makes you.
When John Price lingers there, playing with you on his cock long enough to have you bucking up into him like his needy little slut.
When John Price slips the head of his fat dick low enough to dip into the wetness of your swollen hole, kissing you with his tip just inside of your pink pussy, and he shudders like he’s going to come too fast.
When John Price finally slides his heavy shaft inside of you without a condom, letting you feel every warm, veiny detail of his dick, pulsing his long muscle so you can feel him throbbing.
When John Price makes the most insane, animal noises because he can feel the searing heat radiating from your core, warming his cock like a pretty little fire.
When John Price empties his load into you, filling you with bursts of his creamy, white come, and you can feel it as it settles in you for the first time.
When John Price presses your legs apart and insists on watching his come drip out of your tight cunt, smearing it all over your folds with his fingers, and telling you what a good girl you are for him.
When John Price wakes you up in the middle of the night and places your hand gently against his still-hard cock, begging you for round two because he’s so hungry for your bare pussy.
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greatstormcat · 3 months
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Knights in Battered Armour
TF141 x omega!f!reader
Based off an ask by @ttsbaby01 so thank you for sending this in!
TW: MDNI 18+, A/B/O dymanics, groping, plus sized reader, implied sexual threat
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For once it was quiet in the MedBay, a rare and beautiful thing to behold. The only beds currently occupied were a young Alpha who had sprained his wrist during drills, and Sargeant MacTavish who had a knife wound. The rest of TF141 were waiting to have their check-up after returning from an op, slightly bruised and battered but seemingly fine apart from Soap’s arm. They were all crowded into a single bay, chatting and blowing off steam while they waited. Price’s little pack had started to gravitate towards you when they needed medical attention, always appreciative of your gentle but skilled hands, and finding comfort in your omega nature. They never overstepped the line, never taking advantage of your designation or caring attitude. 
Price had shooed away the other medic, saying they would rather wait for you while you finished with the sprained wrist a few bays down. You’d chuckled to yourself when you’d been told, your face warming slightly as you walked past them towards the other bay and giving them a little wave. Immediately you felt foolish for doing something so silly.
You enter the treatment bay with the young Alpha and pull the privacy curtain shut behind you.
“Okay, Private let’s see this wrist, shall we?” You smile breezily as you near where he sat on the edge of the gurney. His eyes rake over you, pupils wide from the pain meds he had already been given. You watch from the corner of your eye as he stares, taking in the full curves of your body and lingering on your ample, soft hips and the fullness of your breasts.
“Wow, they sent me a treat didn’t they?” He mumbles with a cocky smirk. You ignore the young Alpha’s words, this happened often enough for you to be able to not let it affect you these days, the pain meds made their tongues looser and their hind brain kick into overdrive without their inhibitions there to control it.  You make no comment, picking up your clipboard hoping he’d get bored and you can continue. 
“Hey, you’re not listening,” he growls, suddenly reaching out and grasping your wrist. Calmly you take hold of his hand and lift it from your arm, placing it on his lap.
“Just let me look at your wrist so I can get it strapped up,” you say with a measured tone, knowing that doing anything to provoke him would be unwise. At that moment he inhales, leaning forward so he is closer to you, and you shudder at his unwanted proximity.
“Omega,” he whispers. “Don’t smell any Alpha on you either.” He smiles, and the openly leering expression makes your skin crawl.
“Enough of that,” you say firmly, hoping to snap him out of whatever spiraling instincts are happening behind his dilated eyes. If he is getting close to a rut this could be a problem for you, suddenly the emptiness of the MedBay isn’t so great as panic flutters in your chest. You try to stay calm, not wanting your scent to give away your nervousness and risk exciting him.
“Come on now, a soft thing like you should be a house omega, keeping someone’s bed warm,” he slurs loudly, the meds really kicking in now but he isn’t settling down. If anything he gets more agitated, his uninjured arm snakes out suddenly grasping at the soft meat of your arse, squeezing roughly and you yelp despite yourself as his fingers dig in.
“You should be keeping my bed warm, love,” he continues. “Yeah, I’ll look after you…” he squeezes your backside painfully.
“I said that’s enough!” You snap defensively and use the clipboard to knock his arm away, but he snarls, knocking the clipboard painfully out of your hands and sending it clattering loudly into a cart of medical supplies, scattering them over the floor. Before you can react he is up on his feet, hands clenched into the fabric of your scrubs and pulling you against him, his injury forgotten in his haze.
“Listen to me,” he commands, forcing his Alpha authority into the words, sending tendrils of control worming into your omega brain to force you to submit to him against your will. You cower instinctively despite wanting to fight, your muscles relaxing as he pulls you into him, crushing your breasts against him.
The dividing curtain is wrenched back so hard it pops off several of its little hooks, the plastic pieces pinging across the bay. The scent of angry Alpha rolls in instantly, overpowering the young man’s scent completely and shaking his hold over you enough that you turn your eyes to see Captain Price standing there.
“What the fuck is going on in here?!” Price barks, distain dripping from every word as his eyes take in the scene before him. Ghost looms behind his shoulder, Gaz and Soap behind him crowding out the narrow space. It was a wall of muscle, the smell of blood from their battle worn clothes mixing with their anger and creating an unavoidable air of threat.
“Get your hands off our medic, pup,” Price growls, teeth bared and fangs sharply displayed, his tone more profound than the young Alpha’s, more experienced with use and rank, and you feel his grip loosen. 
“It’s okay,” you try to explain, hoping to avoid more confrontation. “It’s the meds, he’s not thinking straight.” Ghost steps in, shoving the young man back and putting himself between the two of you. 
“You’d better think more clearly, and quickly,” the Lieutenant says in a low, dangerous tone as he glares at the suddenly stricken Alpha, who sits down on the gurney, eyes downcast.
“S-sorry sir,” he quickly splutters, rubbing a hand over his face, desperately trying to gather himself.
“Better apologise to her, you weren’t mauling us around,” Price says with a raised eyebrow, the threat in the air thins and you straighten your scrubs. Clearing your throat you carefully brush past Ghost, who refuses to budge, and you carry on with strapping the injured Alpha’s wrist under their careful watch.
“Sorry, Doc,” he grumbles, pride hurting more than his sprained arm. After deal with his injury and send him on his way, you herd the Taskforce members back to the other bay and treat Soap’s knife wound.
“If you get any problems like that, you make sure you let us know,” Price tells you firmly, and you feel a wave of gratitude as the sentiment is echoed by the other three.
“I will, thank you sirs.”
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fallenneziah · 4 months
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Overstimulated reader whose cum more times than they can count on their fingers, desperately trying to crawl away and save themselves from any more. Squirming and begging for it to end because of how blissed and fucked out they are.
And he pulls you back, large hands on your thighs, yanking you back over, bending over you to growling in your ear. "Where do you think you're going, sweetheart?"
And he continues to torture your spent organ, making you quiver and moan, shaking as he pulls another orgasm from your body. Telling you how pretty you look like this.
And as you continue to try and squirm, he holds you down in place, keeping you still until you can't fight anymore and give in to everything he has to give you...
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neimlise · 1 year
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Captain Price and his two gremlins of a child teammates.
Gaz: What time is it?
(Y/n): I don’t know; pass me that saxophone and we’ll find out
(Y/n): *Plays sax loudly and extremely out of tune*
Price: WHO THE FUCK IS PLAYING THE SAXOPHONE AT TWO IN THE MORNING
(Y/n), to Gaz: It’s two in the morning
Price: Please bring home PURIFIED water with NO minerals added for taste
(Y/n): We got spring water
Price: NO.
Gaz: with EXTRA minerals
(Y/n): it's like licking a stalagmite
Price: DON'T COME HOME.
Gaz: Mmmmm cave water
Gaz: What if I press the brake and gas at the same time?
(Y/n): The car takes a screenshot.
Price: For the last time, get the fuck out.
Store Worker: Would Mr. Price please come to the front desk?
Price, arriving at the desk: Hello, is there a problem?
*Store Worker points to (Y/n) and Gaz*
Store Worker: I believe they belong to you?
(Y/n) and Gaz, simultaneously: We got lost :(
Price: I didn’t even bring you guys here with me-
(Y/n): Here’s a fun Christmas idea. We hang mistletoe, but instead of kissing, you have to FIGHT whoever else is under it.
Price: (Y/n) no.
Gaz: Mistlefoe.
Price: Please stop encouraging them.
Gaz: Hey Captain,
Price: Yes?
Gaz: Can a person breathe inside a washing machine while it’s on?
Price:
Price, stressing out: Where’s (Y/n)?
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floralpascal · 4 months
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John Price who makes excuses to come see you when everyone knows exactly why he always spends his time with you
John Price who is always taking you to get dinner or drinks “just to catch up, love”
John Price who is always a gentleman, but always stands a little too close when he’s talking to you
John Price who never takes his eyes off of you when you’re in a room with him
John Price who can’t help but trail his gaze up your body every time he sees you
John Price who always notices the way you lean into his touch and shiver when he whispers in your ear
John Price who can’t remember the last time he fell for someone like this
John Price who is determined to make you his
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