Until Morning
Pairing: Soldier Boy/Ben x Female Reader
Summary: A quiet moment between you, Ben, and your newborn daughter.
AN: Welcome back to the BMD verse, lovelies! I know I promised a longer “family dynamics” one-shot after Strong as Blood, but let’s start with this.
**This can be read as standalone, but you can also find the chronological reading order of this series collection on the Break Me Down Masterlist.
Word Count: 650
Tags/Warnings: Fluff and comfort, new parent feels.
When Ben woke in the dark, your side of the bed was empty.
His eyes quickly adjusted, taking in the digital red numbers of the clock on his nightstand. It was a fucking ridiculous hour of the morning, but he soon realized what woke him up.
He heard the dulcet tones of your voice drifting from down the hall. Letting out a deep breath through his nose, he debated if it was worth getting out of bed.
But he heard his daughter make a sound of distress, followed by your gentle shushing.
Ben peeled back the warm comforter and got up.
He didn’t bother with a shirt and just padded out to the nursery down the hall in his sweatpants. He found you dressed in one of his old shirts and nothing else, a messy bun atop your head.
You were slowly pacing back and forth across the room with the baby cradled in your arms.
“If I didn’t care,” you sang, “more than words can say… If I didn’t care, would I feel this way?”
Ben crossed his arms and leaned against the open doorway. He watched you in silent contemplation; his sleep had once again been interrupted, but this felt right.
And once again, his entire world was in this room.
You glanced over and shot him a tired smile, but you kept singing until the infant fell asleep in your arms.
“Would my every prayer begin and end with just your name?” you continued. “And would I be sure that this is love beyond compare… Would all this be true, if I didn’t care for you?”
Your last notes fell softly on Delilah’s head, where you laid a gentle kiss. In your exhaustion, you didn’t realize that your husband was behind you until you felt his hand on the small of your back.
“She’s knocked out,” he said, keeping his voice low. “You can set her down.”
You glanced at him over your shoulder. You bit your lip, as you had tears brimming, threatening to trickle over and fall.
“I don’t want to,” you said. Emotion was clogged in your throat, in your shining, tired eyes.
Ben’s thumb soothed against your back.
“She’s all right," he said. "She's asleep. You need to do the same.”
You probably hadn't slept a full night since before getting home from the hospital weeks ago.
You sniffed, trying not to succumb to the sheer feeling of overwhelming in your chest. You knew Lila would be fine if you put her back down, but you also couldn’t help the need you felt to hold her close and know that she was safe with you.
More than anything, you didn’t want to mess this up. You didn’t want to miss a moment where she might need you.
With a short sigh, Ben grasped your shoulder and guided you back with him. Not to the bedroom, but to the plush rocking chair in the corner of the nursery.
He sat down first, then guided you into his lap. His arm wrapped around your waist and tucked you in close. His free hand went to brush over Lila’s downy hair, which was already as brown as his. And he cradled her as well, supporting your hold.
You allowed yourself to relax against his warm chest with a sigh. He rocked the chair back and forth until you too fell asleep, along with your daughter.
Ben brushed back your messy hair away from your forehead, where his lips lingered. He ended up dozing off a little, but mostly he stayed awake.
He made sure you and Lila both slept until morning.
AN: 🥹 Do you guys like the name Delilah "Lila" for short? I did a lot of deliberating and that was the name I settled on.
BMD Fun Facts:
Lila is the heroine's name in the OC version of this story on Ao3.
There's a nice little callback to "If I Didn't Care" by the Ink Spots.
And with the title, there's a sort of callback to BMD Part 7 - "Until Midnight." 😆
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@this-is-me19 @waynes-multiverse @mrsjenniferwinchester @samanddeaninatrenchcoat @spalady26 @spnwoman @syrma-sensei @wirdbeimaufhebengebunden @muhahaha303 @123passwort
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Talk to Me
Pairing: Soldier Boy x Reader
Summary: Ben had a vivid nightmare last night. You know how he is about his “man feelings.” But you try to get him to open up anyway, before you both lose your tempers.
AN: This was requested by my lovely friend @deans-spinster-witch. It's set in the Break Me Down-verse and is a sequel to the SB imagine below:
See this imagine for context: Ben loses you.
Word Count: 1,600
Tags/Warnings: Angst, hurt/comfort, fluff
Imagine: You confront Ben about his fears.
“What the fuck is wrong with this cocksucking coffee maker?” Ben snarked.
He bumped the top of it with his hand, so hard you thought he was going to break it.
Your brows furrowed as you shot him a look. It was too early for all that.
“Nothing?” you said. “Worked just fine for me.”
He sported an even grumpier face as the coffee finally poured into his mug.
Something’s wrong, you thought.
Ben was usually quiet in the morning. Relaxed and slow until he’d had his coffee and started his routine, with his newspaper at his favorite lounge chair, then breakfast in the kitchen with you.
You were making pancakes on a griddle, but you were also watching your boyfriend. He wasn’t just quiet. He was downright grouchy and taciturn.
What crawled up his ass? you thought. Though you had your suspicions...
“Breakfast is done,” you called to him.
He eventually joined you, sitting down at the breakfast bar. You served him a mildly enormous stack, and just two pancakes for yourself. In most respects, Ben was still a bottomless pit.
However, after eating the first couple of pancakes in silence, he pushed away from his plate and leaned back in his seat. You held your coffee mug between both hands and eyed him.
“You okay, baby?” you asked, repeating the very words you’d asked him last night.
He glanced at you through surly brows. “Yeah. You can stop asking me that.”
Right, you thought. He’d been twitching in his sleep, muttering, making sounds that had worried you enough to wake him with a gentle hand on his dewy arm. His response had worried you too—that haze of disoriented shock, followed by relief when he recognized your face.
You’d comforted him the best you could after his nightmare, but he hadn’t wanted to talk about it. You knew he wouldn’t now, either. That didn’t stop you from trying.
You set down your mug and soothed a hand up his arm, until your fingers disappeared under his shirt sleeve.
“What’s got you all sunshine and rainbows then, Mr. Grouch?” you lightly teased. “I even made you pancakes. Still waiting on my thank you.”
Ben didn’t want to answer, though he briefly glanced at you. He slurped at his coffee.
You sighed. A tick of annoyance at your brow.
“Okay," you said. "Well, since we had breakfast here, I figured we could go out for lunch later when we get to the city. There’s this amazing deli I could take you to—”
“We’re not going,” Ben said.
You blinked in surprise. Your hand fell away from his shoulder. “What?”
“I’ve got things to do,” he said. And without looking at you, he grabbed his half-full plate and got up to bring it over by the sink. He speared a few pancakes back onto the plate you’d served them up in before dumping his plate into the sink.
At least he was learning something about living with you. Now, if he really wanted to impress you, he'd wash that damn dish.
But for now, you wanted answers more than you wanted clean plates. You slowly got up out of your chair and went to him. You tried your best not to be accusatory when you asked your next questions.
“What do you mean? What do you have to do?”
He didn’t seem to want to answer you. Or maybe, he didn’t have a good answer, because he was fucking lying.
You laid a hand on his arm. “Ben. I need you to talk to me right now, because this is our first day off together in weeks. You know this was supposed to be our day. So you’d better have a damn good reason.”
He frowned angrily down at you. “We’re not going because I fucking said so. That’s all you need to know.”
You glared back at him, standing your ground.
You raised a brow. “That’s not good enough with me, and you know it. But if that’s how you’re going to be about it, I’ll call Annie and make it a girls’ day.”
You turned on your heel to walk away, but an iron hand grabbed your wrist. Holding back a wince, you frowned at Ben over your shoulder. His face was tight with irritation.
“You’re not going any-damn-where,” he snapped.
“You better let me go, right now,” your temper snapped right back.
This man was protective, but he had never been this bad. Not even after you got out of the hospital after Vought Tower collapsed. Granted, you’d been fully healed. He’d never outright tried to forbid you from leaving the house though.
“What the hell is your problem?” you said.
He didn’t want to let you go, but after a beat, he released you. His frown deepened when you had to rub the ache out of your wrist.
He hadn’t meant to grip you that hard. Part of him relented…but then it firmed back up, when he remembered last night. The images were still filtering through his mind on a loop.
The alley, the blood slipping through his fingers, your pale, cold cheek, and lifeless eyes staring up at him.
“There’s something we need to discuss,” he said gruffly.
You tilted your head at him. Your face was tight and angry now, but you still followed him into the living room. You sat down together on the couch, and with crossed arms, you waited for him to speak.
His elbow rested on his knee while his hand swept over his mouth and beard. Then his gaze slid over to yours.
“You need to take Compound V,” he said.
To say that shocked you was an understatement. Your eyes widened, and your body went rigid.
“Excuse me?” you said lowly.
“There’s no way around it,” he said. Grit was laced in his voice, but you didn’t care.
“I’ve made myself very clear—”
“And you also said we’d revisit this little chat, so here we are,” Ben retorted. “You need to live in fucking reality. I can’t be with you 24/7. I don’t trust those CIA fucks to wipe their own ass, let alone keep an eye on you. Especially when I’m in the field.”
You just managed to lasso in your temper when you finally realized where this was coming from. You inhaled a couple of calming breaths. Your fingers tapped your knees. You sat up straighter before you turned to him more fully.
Your hand reached out to cover his on his thigh.
“Ben,” you started. Soft and even. “What did you dream last night?”
His face tightened further, his lips pressed into a line. It took him a moment, but eventually he answered.
“Nothing. Doesn’t fucking matter.”
“We both know that it does,” you chided.
When he just maintained his stoic façade, you slid closer to him on the couch. You curled a hand around his bicep and pressed a kiss to his shoulder.
You looked up at him.
He didn’t want to break.
You just waited until the green of his eyes met yours.
“Hey. It’s just me,” you said softly. “Talk to me.”
His brows knit together, slightly. His jaw clenched and twitched under his skin.
“I lost you,” he said.
Admitting to that was like admitting that his uniform was a lie; that he had no fear. That he was invulnerable. That he was a god in human form.
But you had become the last human part of him. To lose that would be to lose everything again, worse than 1984.
Somehow, you’d become his reason…for most things. He didn’t think you realized it, nor would he allow himself to tell you.
His eyes closed when you leaned up and pressed a kiss to his cheek. You let your fingers sift through his hair, brushing it back and away from his forehead.
“Do you know why I want to stay normal?” you asked. "Albeit fragile and breakable."
He didn’t answer, but his eyes silently asked for one.
“Because I want to stay myself,” you said. “Power corrupts, and there’s a big chance I wouldn’t be the woman you loved anymore if I injected that shit into my veins.”
Ben frowned. He hadn’t considered that…but he still felt it was a price worth paying.
You moved off the couch and into his lap. He welcomed you with an arm curling around your waist and another moving up your thigh.
Your arms twined around his neck, and you kissed him properly, nice and slow. He tasted like coffee and maple syrup. His hair was soft between your curling fingers.
You parted from him after a while, just to press another comforting kiss to his temple.
“I know what I’m asking of you, and I’m sorry,” you whispered against his skin. “But we’ll figure something else out.”
“How?” he scoffed, his brows furrowing again. “In a few decades—”
“I thought you didn’t mind a few wrinkles,” you teased.
A smirk flickered across his lips. “You know what the fuck I mean.”
“I know,” you nodded. “But we have time. I promise, we’ll figure this out.”
Ben didn’t totally believe you. There was going to come a time where you were going to have to make a choice: between him and your principles.
It wasn’t fair, but that was the reality. Life wasn’t fucking fair.
Until then, maybe he could make one concession.
“If you want…” he said. You leaned back enough to see his face.
He met your gaze. “We can go to dinner later. In the city.”
A slow smile spread across your face.
“But we’re getting a private room,” he warned, squeezing your hips. “And we’re driving there and back. That’s it.”
Your smile warmed further, and kissed the corner of his mouth. You were sure you could convince him to go a Broadway show afterwards, if you plied him in a few key ways...
“I like the idea of a private room,” you said.
His fingers crept up your pajama pants, drifting down between your thighs. His thumb started to stroke warmth through your panties. It had you smiling, sighing, subtly pressing into his hand.
His smirk deepened.
“You do, don’t you?” he said.
You let out a breathy laugh at the change in him. It didn’t take much to get him worked up. So you hugged him close and spoke into his ear all the things you had planned for him tonight.
Before, and after dinner.
AN: Lol I love writing this lovable asshole. 💚 Especially in the BMD-verse.
I have more Dean imagines coming soon! Including a requested sequel to "You are Dean's one exception," in which Sam "crosses the line"... 🫣
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BMD Tag List (Part 1):
@this-is-me19 @waynes-multiverse @mrsjenniferwinchester @samanddeaninatrenchcoat @spalady26 @spnwoman @syrma-sensei @wirdbeimaufhebengebunden @muhahaha303 @123passwort
@xoxovienna @katherineann814 @lollag0w0 @globetrotter28 @nancymcl @ashbatz @secretdreamlandmentality @kristophalis @wonderland2022 @emily-winchester @shelh93 @sl33pylilbunny @spoonmynoodle @chernayawidow
@buckybarnes-1917 @asgardprincess97 @sometimes-i-sing @itsyellow @karnellius @kimberleymjw @is-this-a-febreze-commercial @iamsapphine @sanscas @se-fucking-hun @lassie-bird @jessjad @yepimthatperson @fromcaintodean @stoneyggirl2
@spnfamily-j2 @im-a-slut-for-fluff @lacilou @venicesem @mimaria420 @vanillawhiskeyflavoredkisses @tearsfortheyouth @agalliasi @chriszgirl92 @kazsrm67
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