#faster boot-ups

[omarvektrapc12]

Improve your existing system’s performance with the Lexar® NS100 2.5” SATA III (6Gb/s) solid-state drive (SSD). This easy upgrade gives you faster boot-ups, application load times, and data transfers turning your old computer from dinosaur to dynamo with read speeds of up to 550MB/s*. It is also cooler, quieter, and uses less battery life than a traditional hard disk drive.

[sinister-things]

iwtv where everything is the same but instead of daniel it's this diva interviewing those vampires

[llitchilitchi]

alexander can get quite clingy at times

teaser page from a 9 page comic I'm working on

[musubiki]

i wanna give the m-34th some kind of flight function. i feel like they would need a flight function to combat the witches broomstick thing

[driftingballoons]

the treacherous grinding session I went through in BW2 suddenly starts to make a little more sense :)

[disastersteps]

been (re)playing sdv (this time i got to add QoL mods, and personal fav texture mods) and you know what.

i really should design that farmer au for neets at some point............. a city person who left F.A.R.M Corp. to a small town (idk if it should be Los Diablos or maybe a smaller version of that in this AU? idk.)

and falling for a rancher and the town's doctor- Ortega owns a ranch (just as the canon counterpart) so farm animals and horses, a lot of horses, really. And because im a sucker for siblings AU within AUs, Jules and Ric runs it together to help their mom.

Mortum is not just the town's doctor, she and her brother owns a lab close by. Usually manned by her brother, while she herself owns a clinic. She often is at the lab a few times there.

Mortum is also a kind of vet for farm animals, but that's mostly bc she is familiar with them... and with Julia.

(idk if i want mortumcharge to be exes that doesn't admit they still like each other and are acting kinda rivals, or friends with a friendly rivalry going on, that just have clearly intimate tension but doesn't want to face that they might like each other until a certain guyloser stumble into their life or what.)

[quietwingsinthesky]

al mualim calling altaïr son, saying he’s a child again, “like when you first joined our order” (interesting choice of words about something that was definitely Not up to altaïr, far as i can tell). im going to lay on the floor about it.

[chipped-chimera]

Really beginning to wish I was born 10 years later than I was. Or maybe 5. 30 is such a weird age to be stuck on your own, rebuilding an entire life from scratch 😞

[razzle-zazzle]

853 Words; i,,,, i really don't know???

TW for death & death mention

The mantis bears down on him, and Yutaka freezes. It raises its scythe-like arms with a screech, and Yutaka has only a moment to realize that he's going to die as the blade comes down—

The mantis is slammed against a wall by a massive axe, dissolving into nothing around the blade embedded into the concrete. Yutaka flinches back, then falls backwards entirely when the owner of the axe leaps forward to grab it.

The new monster towers over him, a massive hand grabbing the handle of the axe and pulling it out of the wall. Another equally massive axe is clutched in its other hand, glinting dangerously in the sunlight. The beast turns toward him, cold brown eyes focusing on Yutaka.

This is it, Yutaka thinks, this is where I die. It's like staring into a blizzard, into a white wall of endless snow knowing that danger could come from anywhere.

The beast huffs, exhaling icy mist from its brown muzzle. It leans forwards, light glinting off its horns and the sharp ends of its dreads like sunlight off of snow. Its shaggy white fur almost seems to glisten.

Yutaka is staring death in the face. It's the only thought he can have, in front of a monster so cold and imposing.

"Ar—" The beast coughs, and were Yutaka not frozen on the spot in terror he might have found something about its squeak familiar, "Are you okay?" Its voice comes out gravelly, rough, like glaciers grinding against each other.

(Yutaka gets the odd sense that the monster is pitching its voice down. But that makes no sense.)

Yutaka sits there in slack-jawed silence, any attempts to move or speak failing him. His brain finally processes the words that were spoken to him, and he manages a strained, "yeah."

The beast stares at him, then nods. "Good." It grunts, "Let's get—"

The monster is cut off as a small figure appears beside it, suddenly seeming to manifest.

No, Yutaka realizes, staring at softly-buzzing wings, it flew into place so fast as to seem to teleport.

“We could use your help a few blocks over, Blizzarmon.” The smaller creature speaks. It looks almost human, if humans had waists so tightly cinched as to look insectoid, if humans had legs more than half as long as their bodies, if humans had bright gossamer wings buzzing softly behind them, if humans had long purple hair whipping around like a streamer.

Yutaka can’t get a read on it—not through the visor over its eyes. But as it speaks, he can’t help but lock onto a mouth full of sharp teeth. This being is dangerous, Yutaka’s instincts scream. This being could kill him effortlessly.

It’s like looking out into a storm from the eye, knowing that just beyond the walls lie utter destruction.

The beast nods, kneeling down in a position not unlike prayer. Seemingly satisfied, the fairy turns its attention to Yutaka.

“You look familiar,” it comments, its voice breezy, carefree lightness underscored with malice. It hovers closer. “Are you—” It cuts off, clasping gloved hands together. “You are! You’re Yutaka!” It flits around him in excitement.

Yutaka’s mouth opens—to say what, he doesn’t know. He barely manages to exhale before the beast’s eyes snap open, the massive monster bursting into motion and flash-stepping away. The fairy gives Yutaka one last look before flying off after it, with a “Nice to meet you! Stay safe!” thrown behind it.

Yutaka stands on shaky legs, and turns to go home.

+=+=+=+=+

Tomoki's playing a game on the TV when Yutaka finally returns home, the last dregs of adrenaline fading from his system. His little brother perks up at his arrival, throwing Yutaka a greeting without quite looking away from the screen.

Yutaka switches to indoor shoes, walks over to the couch and sits down hard. Even at 20 years old, he's still shaken up by the altercation at the mall. He'd gone out looking for a particular book, and got caught up in that whole mess.

Yutaka hadn't thought much of the monsters that had been appearing as of late, writing the news off as a hoax or over exaggeration. He almost wants to turn on the news now, to see if the attack on the mall was recorded in any particular detail, but he equally wants to ignore the whole event. It's fine, everything's fine, he didn't stare death in the face at all today, and even if he did he made it out alive so everything's fine—

"—glad you made it home safe," Tomoki's saying, his voice breaking Yutaka out of his spiral, "Those Snimon looked really scary!"

"Yeah," Yutaka responds, for lack of anything else to say. Tomoki must have seen the attack on the news or something. Good thing he didn’t get caught up in that; for all that Yutaka’s brother had inexplicably matured in the past year, he was still a child.

(It isn't until he's settling down for bed that night, all of his study materials put away, that Yutaka realizes that Tomoki called the mantis by a name nobody else had mentioned.)

[keenawatchesagt]

It's agt champion league semifinals liveblogging time

[the-palelady]

You were a nurse at what could barely be called a clinic, simply a little office inside the just as meager town hall. However, you still took your job seriously, tending to your patient’s one by one, never allowing any of them to step outside of the clinic until they were glowing like the afternoon sun sitting high in the sky when it was right at its peak.

You didn’t hear the trudge of his boots, and the jingle of his spurs when he first stepped inside your corner of the building. Your focus was settled on the woman before you, one palm resting idly on her swollen belly whilst you went about the regular check of her vitals.

“How are you doing besides all this?” you asked her with a smile, grabbing your notes, and tapping them on the table beside you.

“Everythin s’alright. Just can’t wait for this little stinker to hurry on out.” You and the young woman giggle together at her statement, your hand pressing against the hand sitting on her belly.

“Any day now and they’ll be with us. Just take it easy, and leave the heavy lifting to that husband of yours, hm?” Joining hands, you help her stand while she lets out another laugh. The two of you exchange a few more words before she bids you goodbye.

The office was now silent save for the tap of your pen meeting paper as you wrapped up the rest of your notes, and your hushed murmuring.

But when you turned to face the rest of the office, the dark figure sitting on a chair in the corner of the room hardly registers to you.

First you do a double take, then you squeal. The book that housed your notes clambers to the floor, bouncing once and then lying open on the wood floors.

"How...How long have you-"

"Not long, ma'am."

Ghost he called himself. Fitting since that is how he showed up in town; metastasizing from nothing, joining the daily squabble of the little town you called home as if he had lived there his entire life.

Now here he sat in your office, handkerchief wrapped around the palm of his hand, the tanned fabric fading into a dark shade of red.

You barely paid any mind to his words, your brain solely fixating on the wound that he had lazily wrapped. Your feet moved with a mind of their own, leading you to the sterile needles and thread that sat on the doctor's surgical tray.

Blood was no stranger to you. This was the west. People came and went with wounds of different calibers every week, so a simple gash to the palm of someone's hand was nothing.

You go into autopilot, paying no mind to the curious look Ghost gives you when you pull up a chair in front of him, grabbing his wrist with a delicacy you gave all of your patient's bleeding or not.

The wound itself was still bleeding, however not as much as it clearly had been before. It was a nasty, deep cut that made even you wince at the sight.

"I'm going to clean this up as best as I can. Just be still. It might sting a bit." You peeked up from under your lashes, not expecting him to already be staring at you, his dark gaze forcing your skin to heat up a few degrees.

"Do what ya need to do, doc."

A breathy laugh left you, "Hardly a doctor. I'm just a nurse. The doctor's out doing house calls at the moment."

He hums in response, and observes you silently while you go about tending to the gash. You've done this long enough that it doesn't take much time for you to get the wound cleaned up and sutured, wrapping gauze around the width of his hand.

"Work just s'well as a doctor. Maybe faster."

His words pull you from your haze, a deep rumble that has your grip on his warm hand loosening.

"O-Oh...I've just done this a lot." You bite the inside of your cheek at the sound of your stuttering.

The silence that follows isn't uncomfortable, but it's unwelcome. You can hear the blood flowing in your ears, your brain working overtime to get you to speak up. You're painfully aware of his hand that is still resting in the palm of yours.

"Thanks for the patch up," Ghost stands, and that's when the words finally find you.

"No need to thank me," your movements match his, coming to your full height, "just make sure to keep it cleaned. Try to avoid doing anything that'll open the sutures. If it does open and starts bleeding again cover it with these."

You press some gauze into his unwounded hand, and he gives you a simple nod.

Taking a step back your able to fully see him, his amber colored eyes that were once so easy to see now hidden by the shadow of the hat that rested on top of his head. The rest of his face was obscured by a black bandana, the fabric dirtied from a long day of work.

"Well then," you start, "if you need anything else feel free to come back in. I'm sure the doctor would be more than happy to help you."

He considers your words for a moment, arms crossing over his chest as he looks down at you.

"And what if it's not the doctor I want help from?"

[ceilidho]

BIRD DOG | Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Reader

MOODBOARD · AO3

A few times a year, Simon goes home to an empty apartment in a shithole city and counts down the days until he can leave. This time, there's someone waiting for him when he comes home.

Convenient. He was already planning on ordering takeaway.

Or: the live-in masseuse au

tags: Size Difference, Size Kink, Explicit Sexual Content, AFAB reader - Freeform, Masseuse Reader, Forced Cohabitation, Strangers to Roommates to Lovers, Porn with Feelings

The mangled hand of fate lets him go but seldomly. 

He does, though, get a few weeks off a year. Bids farewell to his captain (the barest hint of a nod after leaving each other on the runway, chopper blades spinning faster and faster, the other man headed back out, his duties never finished; the world can never let them both rest at the same time) and then he’s gone, bags long packed and truck loaded the night before last. He drives a long, circuitous route after leaving the military base, the mask only shed when the paranoid prickle in his head finally abates. 

It never quite goes away though.

And then comes the drive back, the road long and the drudgery endless. One hand on the wheel, the other hanging out of the side of the truck, a cigarette pinched between two knuckles. Occasionally, he takes a drag. 

This is the part he always hates. The drive back. Roads winding through quiet towns and over hills, blue disappearing into black, streetlights piercing the darkness and demarcating the beginning and end of civilization. Manchester is a long drive north. He stops once for a piss by the side of the road and then carries on. 

It’s a wonder they let him go at all. He is violence forthright; setting him free does no one any good. It’s hardly even a reward for him, more of just a pretense of normalcy. A week to stretch his legs, so to speak. If he were anything other than human, maybe they’d force him to stay on base indefinitely, secured and contained behind barbed wire fences and reinforced concrete walls.

But a few times a year, they play this game and send him off into the world.

There’s an apartment in Manchester that he’s rented for as long as he can remember. A shithole flat in a shithole borough, and though Simon’s squirreled away enough money to buy a place of his own, the thought of owning anything makes his skin crawl. It’s not in his blood, he thinks. He’d sooner live in a shack in the woods, no fixed address or way to find him. Even his flat in Manchester is rented under a different name, and he pays his landlord in cash for the year. 

It’s dark when he reaches the city, the sky soot black and patchy with clouds. Moon nowhere in sight. Nothing beautiful ever visits Manchester. 

But there’s a light on in the window when he pulls up in front of his place.

Odd.

Would’ve remembered if he left the light on the last time he was in town months ago; filament would’ve blown out in at least that time as well. Still, there’s a light on in the living room window and a new curtain pulled across to keep anyone from looking in.

Simon stares at the light while he leans outside against the truck and finishes his cigarette. Stubs it out under his boot when it’s down to the filter and locks the car door behind him. Violence already itches under his skin, knuckles tingling like they know what’s coming if he opens that door and finds some junkie living in his flat. It’ll be worse if he finds out that his scumbag landlord moved someone else in after picking up on him being gone nearly half the year.

His key still works though. Fancy that. 

He finds you like that, sitting up from a nap on his couch, sweater slouched down a shoulder and groggily blinking open big doe eyes that widen when you notice him in the doorway, fear making you freeze up. 

You’re a pretty little thing; a pleasant surprise to find something like you sitting on his couch. It quells the violence simmering in his belly because it awakens another appetite instead. Like a meal delivered right to his door. He was already planning on ordering takeaway. 

He drops the duffel bag by his feet, propping the door open with it. “You lost, bird?”

Terror leaves you mute. He can only imagine; he must seem like something straight from a horror movie—defenceless girl waking up to the dead-eyed stare of a giant dressed in all black watching her sleep and blocking her only way out. That’s not completely true; there’s a backdoor through the kitchen that leads into a laneway behind the house, but the door sticks in the winter, not easy to open in a hurry. 

He has as much right to ask as you do to run at the sight of him though, considering it is his fuckin’ flat. 

You can’t seem to choke out a single word. Scared stiff, likely, heart slamming against your chest while the worst scenarios possible play out in your mind. Simon nearly rolls his eyes. 

“Fuckin’ ‘ell,” he grumbles, finally kicking his bag out of the way so the door can shut behind him. “Cat got your tongue or somethin’?”

The sound of the door slamming shut must finally snap you out of it because you scramble off the couch, nearly tripping over the arm when you run for the back. Screaming too, just to piss him off extra. His back already aches something fierce from the long drive—he wasn’t expecting a headache on top of everything else. 

“Heeeeeeeeelp! Heeeeelp!” 

Your screams are borderline deafening, almost more aggravating than finding someone living in his flat in the first place. 

You scramble down the hall, so terrified that you go for the first open door, slamming it shut behind you. His eyes follow the shape of your bare legs and the way the muscles in your ass move as you run. 

“I��m c-calling the police!” you yell from behind the bathroom door. 

When Simon looks back down the hall, he notices your phone on the floor, bright side up. Must have dropped out of your pocket when you bolted like a scared cat.

“No, you’re not,” he says blandly, staring at the door. There’s a pause on the other side like you just noticed your missing phone, then a bleat of panic. “Don’t try going out the window either—thing’s been sealed shut since the nineties.”

On the other side of the door, the window rattles in its frame for a good few seconds before you give up on trying to escape that way. There’s a pause while you consider your options. Simon waits patiently on the other side of the door, his temper slowly but surely getting the better of him the longer he goes without a shower and a beer, locked out of his own bathroom. 

What a bloody headache. 

He pounds a fist against the door, bracing his feet in case you try to open it and scurry out around him before he’s had a chance to have a chat. “Gonna come out now?”

“Get out of my house!” you shriek instead of being polite. 

Figures. He should’ve known his landlord would pull some shit like this. “How long’ve you been living here, bird?” 

“I have a knife!”

Pretty thing that likes to lie. There’s not a shot you have anything better than a hair dryer or nail clippers in there. 

“Better get away from the door ‘cause I’m kickin’ it in,” he announces, taking a step back to give himself some distance and waiting a few seconds for you to realize that he’s dead serious before you start screaming at the top of your lungs again. 

Got quite a set on you. That doesn’t matter much to him though. The door caves in after only a few good kicks, the frame splitting right up through the lock when it finally gives, and the two halves—the door itself nearly snapped in half—banging against the wall when it ricochets open. 

You’re trembling between the toilet and the wall when Simon walks in, knees practically knocking together. The crotch of your shorts are wet and there’s a small puddle under you; must’ve pissed yourself in fear, and he’d almost pity you if you weren’t squatting in his flat. 

The closer he gets to you, the harder you wail. Full on bawling now, snot and drool dribbling down your face, and Christ, he sure picked a bad time to grow a heart. He’s not immune to a pretty girl in distress, much as he wishes he could be. 

He kneels in front of you, purposefully blocking your only way out, before knocking his knuckles under your chin, huffing out a breath when you flinch. “Ain’t gonna hurt you, bird. You’re just in my flat, is all.”

“Your flat?” you repeat in disbelief. “This is my flat. I pay rent!”

“Got a lease then?” he asks, and though your eyes are still bloodshot and your nose is still leaking, you nod. 

“Yes.”

“Show me then,” he orders. 

And you do when he steps back to give you some space, scampering shamefully to your—his—bedroom to rifle through the dresser until you pull out a handful of papers that look suspiciously like a lease. He skims it with a growing tick in his eye. It looks like one because it is one.

“See?” you mumble. He ignores the attitude in favour of reading until the end, where he finds his landlord’s name, the blotchy signature underneath it unmistakable. 

“Bullshit,” he grunts through his teeth.

“It’s not. You can call him and ask! Where’s yours?” 

His copy of the lease is tucked away in a drawer in the kitchen, buried under loose rubber bands, old batteries, and takeout menus from restaurants that went under years ago. When he returns with it and holds it up to your nose, you frown.

“Oh. I guess that explains some things.”

“Explains some things, huh? The clothes didn’t tip you off?” Simon asks, referring to the sweatpants and shirts still lining the dresser shelves. Your lips tighten. 

“I thought the previous tenant skipped town and left his clothes. I was gonna throw them out eventually.”

“Good thing you didn’t.” His voice is thick with sardonicism. 

It’s an interesting standoff to say the least. You, standing there in your soiled sleep shorts with tear-streaked cheeks, and him still decked out in his military gear and boots tracking dirt across the flat. You sway on your feet, the adrenaline crash likely intense. He catches you when you sway too close to him and you flinch when his hand clamps down over your shoulder, a new wave of adrenaline coursing through you. 

“I’m fine,” you snap, taking a step away.

For fuck’s sake. His mood darkens at the continued hostility. It’s not like you’re the one who came home to a strange man squatting in your flat—if anyone has a right to be hostile, it’s him. 

Skittering back into the bedroom, you shut the door behind you, likely to change into another pair of shorts. Simon’s mood festers the longer he waits for you to come out. The last string of his patience nearly snaps when you finally creep back out into the living room, the sour expression on your face pissing him off even more.

“I’m gonna call Tom,” you mutter, picking your phone off the coffee table.

“Go ahead.” He doesn’t bring up that it won’t change a thing. Not his problem if you’re so green behind the ears that you think your landlord will drop everything to answer a call, especially after dinner. 

No one answers when you ring, just as he thought. He plops down on the couch and rests a foot on the coffee table, ignoring the way you pace back and forth waiting for your landlord to pick up.

“No answer?” Simon asks rhetorically. 

“Aren’t you gonna try?” you ask.

“Yeah. Tomorrow. When ‘e’ll actually pick up.”

“Well, what are we supposed to do then? I’m not getting a hotel room for the night.”

“Me neither, birdie.”

He meets your stare with one of his own. It doesn’t take long for you to give in. 

There’s a pullout bed in the couch that you offer to take and he lets you because he is, at the end of the day, a selfish prick who won’t give up a week of decent sleep for anybody. Not when his back and neck have been acting up for the past month and keeping him from getting more than three hours at a time. 

The ache behind his eyebrow throbs as Simon sits on the edge of the bed. A slow exhale. 

Tomorrow can’t come quick enough.

In the morning, Simon rings his landlord and listens silently as the fuckhead blubbers on the other end of the phone about late payments and eviction notices.

“This ain’t a charity, y’know,” the other man sniffs. “I gotta pay my bills too.”

He lets the man make excuse after excuse and accuse him of this and that until he finally goes silent when he notices Simon hasn’t said a word in minutes. At which point, Simon icily reminds him of what he does for a living and the fact that he paid him for the year in full just a few months back. 

Not much to be done after that. There’s silence on the other end before his landlord tries to hem and haw his way out of it. He offers Simon one of his other properties currently sitting vacant on the other side of town, but that’s not the answer that Simon is looking for. 

“If anyone’s moving out, it ain’t me,” Simon growls into the phone. 

The wounded look that you shoot at him rubs him the wrong way.

His landlord’s still rambling on about moving costs and lawyer fees when Simon hangs up, no longer in the mood to try and talk things out. 

He doesn’t really understand the legalities here, but he knows he can’t just toss you out on your ass when you’ve also got a lease, same as him.  

“I have every right to be here,” you start up the second he hangs up the phone, not letting him get a word in edgewise, shoulders rolled back like you’re trying to be assertive. “I’ll take it to court if I have to.”

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ.” Simon scrubs a hand down his face. 

“I’m serious. Rent is expensive and this is the only place close enough to where I work that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg—and I don’t have the money to hire a lawyer to get my money back—”

“I’m not gonna kick you out,” he finally snaps, fed up with your caterwauling. 

You pause, hope warring with disbelief. “You’re not?”

He gives a curt shake of his head. “Too much of a headache. I’m only…in town for a week anyway.”

“Oh. ‘Til when?”

“‘Til whenever I’m back.” Purposefully cryptic. He gives you a flat look when you open your mouth to pry some more. 

You reconsider, chewing your bottom lip until a better question occurs to you. “Are you in town a lot? Because I’m not sure how else we could make this work. I could sleep at my cousin’s until you leave?”

“Your cousin live around here?”

You hesitate. “No.”

“Then that ain’t gonna work, is it?”

“At least I’m trying,” you hiss, and Simon has to tamp down the amusement that swirls in his chest at the sight of your shoulders puffing up. “I’m not ripping up my lease and if you’re not either, then we have to figure out something unless you feel like taking this to court.”

While Simon wouldn’t usually take kindly to being threatened, his annoyance never quite develops into anything more substantial. 

“Just keep outta my way and I’ll keep outta yours,” he says. 

“Fine.”

The agreement you come to is that when he’s in town—seldom and erratic—he’ll take the bedroom and you’ll sleep on the couch, a fair compromise since you have the flat to yourself the rest of the year. 

He doesn’t explain himself, of course. Doesn’t explain why he’s allowing this instead of dragging you to court kicking and screaming. It’s no one’s business but his why he chooses not to go down that road.

He tells himself that it’s easier this way; that it’s easier just to run your lease out and spare himself the legal mess. It’s not like he’ll even be around most of the time anyway. 

What he carefully side steps, even in his own mind, is the sharp displeasure that accompanies the thought of forcing you out of his flat and onto the streets.   

Cohabitation is—

Easy wouldn’t be the right word. He certainly doesn’t make it easy on you, leaving his dirty dishes in the sink and his half-empty beer cans in the shower caddy, his cum drying on the wall over the tub spout. You try to do the same by leaving your dirty laundry on the communal furniture, but it doesn’t have the same effect. 

It’s interesting, at least. It’s not as though he’s never lived with anyone before—his memories of his early years in the service are littered with bunkmates packed into every corner of the room, and learning to sleep everywhere from moving caravans to while standing in formation, always surrounded by other people—but he’s paid his dues. Barring deployment, he thought he’d earned the luxury of his privacy. 

But it’s not all bad; it’s been years since he had fun like this. 

You try your best to annoy him in return, but you don’t realize that you’re playing chicken with a man who’s been buried alive. There isn’t much someone like you could do to break him. 

Living with another person doesn’t soften him up one bit. There’s a time for change and it’s not off the back of a four-month covert operation, his nerves still razor sharp and ability to sleep practically nonexistent. He gets precious few weeks to himself and he isn’t going to waste them trying to get in the habit of smoking on the porch instead of in his own living room. 

“I’m a masseuse.”

“Oh yeah?” Simon grunts, barely listening. There’s a match on the telly and a beer in his other hand—a perfect afternoon, if only you’d just stop yapping in his ear for five fuckin’ minutes. 

“Yes, and I can’t show up to work reeking like a chimney,” you explain, scooching closer to him on the couch while being careful to leave some distance between the two of you. For all your posturing, you’re still timid around him, like a kitten hissing and spitting around a much bigger cat. 

“What’s that got to do with me?” he asks rhetorically, not in the slightest interested in how it pertains to him. He takes another drag from the cigarette dangling between his index and middle finger, ashing it over the side of the couch. 

“It means I’d prefer if you didn’t smoke in the flat,” you say, hissing the last few words. 

He takes another drag, turning to look at you before exhaling right in your face. “That’s a shame.”

You cough and squawk, and he fights down a grin. 

For the most part, he leaves you to your own devices, intent only on enjoying his time off. He fixes the bathroom door at least, which you begrudgingly thank him for. 

A week and a bit, Simon reminds himself when you come in through the front door chirping into your phone, your voice effectively drowning out the TV on in the background. When you spot him staring at you from the couch, you go quiet as a mouse and slink off to the bathroom, locking the (newly installed) door behind you. He supposes it’s the only place where you feel any semblance of privacy since his bedroom is off limits until he leaves. It does leave him without a bathroom though. 

Pissing in the alleyway behind the flat half an hour later, he scowls into the darkness and reminds himself that he has no one to blame but himself for this mess.  

When his leave comes to an end, Simon doesn’t bother to give you a heads up. You’ll realize it in a couple of days when you notice his absence around the flat, the siege finally lifted. He supposes you’ll be grateful for his departure and grateful not to make you feign politeness.  

Duffel bag packed away in the car, he leaves with the bed still unmade. Knows that’ll ruffle your feathers later on when you come home, but it’s his parting gift. His reminder to you to enjoy the couple months reprieve his job allows you. 

And then the road slips away under him and he’s gone. 

The months away are just complex rearrangements of the same thing. Each time it drives his soul deeper into the gully, buffeted by katabatic winds. 

His daily life on base is split into brackets of time. Wake up, go to the gym, work, clock out, see the captain for a drink. Wash, rinse, repeat. Each day blending into the next. Back where he belongs, under the thumb of a system that he’s long sold his body and freedom to, and sent out God knows where to do God knows what. 

Then, again the rooster crows at first light and he lifts himself out of bed.

When he’s deployed, everything changes while everything stays the same. He doesn’t have the same freedom of movement as he does on base, but in truth very little changes from one deployment to the next if you zoom out enough. Limited time to sleep on the chopper before it touches down, body tensed for what’s to come, and then he’s off, his objectives clear. 

Driving a knife into a neck to the hilt and pulling it out one inch at a time. It’s the one he knows how to do, and he does it well. He doesn’t have to like what he does; he doesn’t even have to think about it so long as it gets done. 

Ghost exhales and slips the mask back on.

In [redacted city] in [redacted country], he sets his scope up in the window of a building across from one where his target is slated to be in twelve hours and then he waits. Flexes his fingers when they go numb and ignores the thirst clawing up his throat. Four hours later, his elbows ache something fierce from digging into the ground for hours on end, a sharp pain shooting up his arms, but Ghost pays it no mind. Mind over matter. 

Amidst the hours of laying there and waiting for his target to come into frame, his mind doesn’t wander. That’s a luxury for a different time—when the job is done and his target is executed. 

At the very edges of his consciousness though, something flickers. The skin around his eyes pinches as he pushes the half-formed thought away. 

Then his target walks into the room and everything else disappears.

You’re still there when he returns months later on another government ordered leave. Same petulant frown and wobbly lower lip when he walks in through the front door, dripping wet from the rain outside. When he tosses his duffel bag onto the couch, you scowl, nudging the bag onto the floor with your foot. 

“You could’ve rang,” you mumble, pulling the throw from the back of the couch over your lap to hide your bare legs. Pity to be deprived of a nice view, but Simon doesn’t take it to heart. 

“Didn’t think you’d still be ‘ere,” he grunts instead, shrugging out of his jacket and shaking it dry, suppressing a smirk when you start squawking about getting water all over the floor. 

That’s partly a lie, though not one he’ll ever admit to. Simon figured there might be a chance you’d be gone, but in the time since he last saw you, he’s done enough digging around online to know that you weren’t kidding about the lack of affordable flats in the area. There’s hardly a unit nearby that isn’t going for double what he pays, some even more. 

“Well, guess I’m sleeping out here tonight,” you grumble. You’re on your tiptoes in the doorway to the living room now, the throw wrapped around you like a security blanket. 

He doesn’t answer that. No point getting your hopes up when he has no intention of giving up the bed. 

In another life, he might be enough of a gentleman to let you sleep in the bedroom while he takes the couch, but in this one, his back is ravaged by sciatica and his dominant hand and wrist twinge with the beginning of carpal tunnel syndrome. Most nights, it’s a miracle if he can get five uninterrupted hours. 

So no, he won’t be giving up the bed.

But Simon toys with the thought of dragging you in with him. It’s been awhile since he had a woman, so long that the memory is fuzzy when he dredges it up, and though his hand does the job when the itch grows severe, he’s no monk. He could pull you in with little effort, sweet talk you until your knickers are around your ankles and your legs are in the air, hot cunt steaming when your legs part and he sinks his cock in deep. Wouldn’t take more than a half dozen thrusts before he busted, pretty pussy painted with his cum.

In the doorway, you eye him dubiously, scrunched nose expressing your discontent. 

It’s an idea, at least.

He still leaves his dishes in the sink and wakes to you pounding on the bedroom door, whining about having to scrub his plates with a pot scraper, but time and distance have mellowed any hostility in you. You treat him less like a stranger intruding on your space and more like a roommate you’ve grown to tolerate despite his many faults. 

The oddest thing is opening the fridge up to more than just a six-pack, a stick of butter, and three half-empty bottles of mustard. Fresh produce and meat spill from the shelves now, leftovers packed in tupperware and neatly labelled. He eats like a king now, takeout relegated to the days when you don’t feel like cooking. On those days, Simon heads down to the chippie a few streets away and gets enough for the both of you before heading back to eat on the couch with you. 

He still gets a kick out of leaving his cigarette butts in cups strewn around the flat for you to find. 

“So what do you do anyway?” you ask out of the blue.

“What’s it matter?” Simon grunts from beside you. He has to slow his usual gait to keep pace with you—which is irritating as all fuck—but you didn’t leave him much choice when you insisted on going to the store well after dark.

“I’m just making conversation. You always get so squirrely when I ask—what are you, some kind of secret agent?” 

He’d roll his eyes if he had any less self-control.

“No way. No way. You are?” you gasp, suddenly glued to his side, hands scrambling for purchase on his bicep and shoulder. 

Simon stares down at your hands clutching his arm, unconsciously tucking his bicep between your tits. “Best to not ask questions, bird.”

You pout. He ignores the impulse to lean down and sink his canines into that plump bottom lip.

His nose itches because the world is changing. 

He used to catalogue his time off base in much the same way. Wake up, workout, tinker with the junk pilfered from estate sales and scrap yards he’s frequented over the years, then head to the pub for a drink. Wash, rinse, repeat. 

That’s changed since you came into his life. Aside from when you’re out working, you unbalance his schedule. Upset his routines. The structure propping up his entire existence gets taken down in an instant when you open your mouth and ask him to the market with you, giving him no choice but to slam the door shut behind him and drive you there.

Each day comes with its new flavour, a new bite to it. 

“You’re not eating takeout again?” you ask him, aghast when you come home from work to find takeout containers all over the coffee table

“Always a fuckin’ lecture with you, huh?” Simon grumbles into his curry. Shovels another forkful into his mouth. 

Just as he expected though, you don’t let it go. He was a fool to think you would. It’s not so bad at first when all you do is cook for him—with the life he’s lived, he’s never been one to turn down a home cooked meal, so he accepts the proffered food happily—but it’s another thing entirely when you rope him into it.

He’s already pissed off when you wrangle him into the kitchen under the guise of needing his help—absurd after your subterfuge from the day before, his expectation being that you were happy to do all the cooking yourself, not force him to debase himself by chopping up all the vegetables and meat while being ordered around like a line cook. 

What really ticks him off though is that—

he grumbles to himself as he chops the mushrooms into thin slices

—you keep getting away with it.

The worst is when you catch the tremor in his hand at the breakfast table, quick eyes picking up on the subtle quiver instantly.

“Something wrong with your wrist?” you ask. Always prying into his business. 

Simon closes his hand into a fist. “It’s nothing.”

You frown. “Doesn’t look like ‘nothing’.”

“Well, it is.”

“Can you relax your grip? I just want to see that again.”

How he lets you talk him into massaging his wrist is beyond him. Then you press your thumbs into the meat of his palm and rub in smooth, circular motions, and his brain goes offline for half a second. The relief hits him like a cudgel to the head; knocks him upside. 

“Jesus fuck, bird,” Simon groans. His knee bangs against the leg of the table. 

“Feels a bit better, huh?” you ask, the corner of your mouth quirking up in a crooked, teasing smile.

And fuck if it doesn’t feel a thousand times better by the time you’re done. He snaps when your thumbs dig in too deep at his wrist and pain radiates up his arm, but all you do is laugh it off, smiling to yourself when you press down on a tender point on his wrist and his jaw goes slack.

Sometimes, he wishes he could study you like a bug. Pin your arms and legs down to get a closer look. Kneel over you and pin your shins down with his to keep you from squirming away, then tuck his fingers into the inside of your cheeks to pull them open. 

But he keeps his hands to himself. Just barely. 

He doesn’t stay long this time, called back from his katabasis before the week’s even up, Price’s voice urgent over the phone. His duffel bag is packed before the call is even over, boots laced up and mask folded neatly in his pocket for when he leaves the city limits. 

“You’re leaving?” you ask when you notice, and if Simon were less of a realist, he might think you sounded upset. 

“Need me to take out the trash?” he asks, his answer implicit. Yes, he’s leaving. Even if it weren’t for his job, he’s not the staying type; those kinds of decisions are out of his hands anyway, and even if it were up to him, he’d be long gone by now. Adrift; across the pond or somewhere down in the Balkans, far enough away that you couldn’t find him even if you wanted to. 

That’s what he tells himself. Whether he believes it anymore is another question.

You’re quiet for a second. “Sure. Thank you.”

Simon nods. Nothing more to say. The ache in his gut could be anything else. 

He lifts a hand on his way out, ruffles your hair once before he’s gone.

Rain soaks him down to his britches but still he stands in it without complaint, watching some of the privates unload a delivery truck parked outside of the commissary. Even the mundane parts of his job are his to attend to and he does so with little complaint.

When they finish around eighteen-hundred hours, he signs out for the day and heads to Price’s office for a drink. It’s so routine it’s practically part of his DNA. 

Price already has both glasses poured when Ghost arrives, two fingers each, and it goes down smooth when he rolls the mask up over his nose to take a sip. 

“Got out the pricey stuff just for me?” Ghost asks. He can tell by the taste and from the bottle sitting on the shelf behind Price, label facing outward. 

“What else am I saving it for?” Price asks rhetorically. “I’m not letting the good stuff go to waste.”

Ghost hums. It’s still raining buckets outside. He watches as it hits the windowpane behind Price’s desk, almost transfixed.

“Got time for a drink before you’re out on Friday?” 

He shakes his head. “No time. Gotta be out by six.”

“Six?” Price repeats, a mite surprised. “Why? Something waiting for you back home?”

Ghost doesn’t answer. 

Price lifts an eyebrow. “Well, spit it out.”

He shrugs. “Nothing to tell.”

“So there’s no one back in Manchester?”

“Didn’t say that.”

Price’s lips twitch into a grin under his mustache, eyes faintly amused. “Heard.”

Truth be told, he has started to think of you as someone waiting back home. Maybe not for him, but waiting all the same. Why else would you be back in his flat in Manchester in his bed if not to wait for him to come back?

It almost makes him itchy to leave. He can tamp down the urge when the situation calls for it, but it sits right under his skin most days. If he thinks about it for too long, his focus goes razor sharp and the edges of his vision go blurry. 

In the present moment, he brings the glass to his lips and tips his head back, letting it pour down his throat. 

He has some nascent idea of where this is going.

As always, you’re curled up on the couch watching TV when he walks through the front door, on the verge of sleep. When your eyes land on him, you blink away the sleep and smile so brightly that his chest aches. “Simon!”

In nearly forty years, no one has ever said his name like that. Brimming with brightness and warmth. Like for once someone has longed for him in his absence. 

All he can do is stare at you for a time. It should make his skin crawl, and it does, to an extent. He should be out the door already—lease broken, all his shit in the back of his truck, ties cut, and so many kilometers between you and him that he has no choice but to forget your face. 

Instead, he kicks the door shut behind him and ruffles your hair when he passes on his way to the bathroom to piss and scrub a towel over his face. 

It must be a form of self-punishment. That’s the only explanation for why he comes back every single time when he has more than enough money to fuck off down south for a week instead—he could be spending his leave in Costa Brava or sipping rakija in Kotor, but he chooses to come back to this hovel with its bleak weather and seedy underbelly every single time. What other urge would drive him to abuse himself like this other than masochism? 

Any attempt to answer that is swiftly dismissed. 

One day. One day is all he manages after promising to keep himself in check this time around. He manages to get through that first day largely because of the physical distance he puts between the two of you, playing chess with a couple old men in the park, rock doves pecking at the birdseed scattered under the wrought iron tables and benches. 

His restraint breaks when he catches you dozing off in front of the television, socked feet tucked under your thighs and head balanced precariously on your fist, elbow resting on the arm of the couch. 

He sits down beside you and his lip twitches when your head bobs, slumber briefly breached when the cushion under you dips with his weight. 

“C’mere, girl,” Simon grunts, pulling you onto his lap. 

You go somewhat willingly, only putting up a little bit of a fuss. Grumbling to keep up appearances. But that melts away the second he tucks your head into the crook of his neck, body going lax and fingers burrowing into the fabric of his shirt at his belly, gathering it together in your fist. 

Christ, Simon thinks, dropping his head back on the couch. What am I doing?

Even he doesn’t know these days, but his chest aches in a way it never has before. He makes a mental note to see a doctor when he’s back on base. 

His back aches too, but you pick up on that rather quickly, hounding him when you recognize the stiffness in his back for what it is. It takes you days to wear him down enough to agree to a massage, but eventually you do. He regrets it the second the words leave his mouth, leery at the thought of putting himself in such a vulnerable position.  

You lock him out of the bedroom while you set up your table and do all the little things that you need to do in order to set the mood. His nose wrinkles when the smell of incense hits him. 

“You can strip down to your comfort level,” you explain after letting him back into the room, patting the bed as if he doesn’t know where to lie down. “Then get under the blanket and let me know when you’re ready.”

He cocks a brow. “You trying to get me naked, bird?”

“Simon,” you sigh, a touch exasperated, hands on your hips to emphasize your weariness. 

His belt clinks as he unlatches it. “Don’t worry, birdie, just gimme a second to get these off.”

A frustrated growl and then the door slams shut behind you when you bolt out of the room. 

He spares you the indignity of having to repeat yourself, sliding under the towel and barking at you to come back in when he’s stripped bare and covered. You slip back in quietly and flit over to the dresser to press play on your music.

The first touch of your hands against his bare back almost makes him flinch. All his regret comes rushing back and he very nearly calls it off, and then you press the heels of your palms into the meat of his shoulders and the bottom falls out from under him. Then you drag them down the length of his back and he very nearly bites his tongue clean off. 

Simon doesn’t bother muffling his noises when you dig your hands into his back to work out the plethora of knots, huffing and groaning like he’s balls deep. When you get to his shoulders though, he has to fight to stay put, 

“Oh, your back is really messed up,” you note, a bit breathlessly. 

He doesn’t acknowledge your words, too intent on not vocalizing his pain. Not even a grunt passes his lips. 

You work years of hard labour and soreness out of his muscles, leaving behind a new man. The oil coating your palms makes your hands glide across his back. 

He must fall asleep at some point because he wakes to the sound of television in the other room. Groggy at first, cotton mouthed and sleep drunk, and when Simon stumbles into the living room, you’re sitting on the couch with your knees drawn into your chest. 

“Oh hi,” you say when you notice him standing there. “Sleep well?” 

Speech still beyond him, all he can do is nod and plant himself on the couch beside you. Shirtless still. Simon only notices it himself when he tips his head to look over at you and finds that you won’t meet his eyes, gaze steadfast on the TV. 

“Shoulda ‘ad you do that when you moved in,” he says. 

“I could give you another one before you leave,” you reply, still not looking over at him. He bets that if he brushed his knuckles over your cheeks, they’d be hot to the touch. “Just tell me when.”

Maybe he will. What use is there in depriving himself of life’s little pleasures when his soul bears all of life’s bruises? 

He reaches over to pinch your cheek, grinning when you yowl. Just as warm as he thought.

One thing Simon doesn’t take for granted anymore are his scarce moments of privacy. No stranger to a little exhibitionism (barracks walls and tent flaps hardly muffle sound, and he’s learned over the years that men will tolerate anything if it means they can rub one out in peace), he still appreciates the time he gets to himself to take care of things. 

He’s only just finished tugging one out, his jeans buttoned back up and his hand still wet with his spend, when you walk in the front door.

You start up the second the door slams shut behind you, steam practically billowing out of your ears. “Well, thanks a lot—one of my regulars just gave me shit because she said I smelt like an ashtray and she couldn’t ‘properly relax’ for the whole hour—” 

Afterglow proper scotched, Simon sits there and lets you cuss him out until the pounding behind his eyebrow becomes unbearable. 

You go quiet when he rises to his feet, unused to him actually reacting to your whinging. Sometimes you don’t realize how accustomed to him you’ve become—how ingrained he’s become in your everyday life. What continues to elude you for no good reason is that you live with a stranger, and a strange man at that. It would piss him off if it were anyone other than him. 

Practically chest to chest now, you nearly go cross eyed staring up at him. Jaw unhinged and mouth dangling loose, just the slightest gap between your lips like you forgot to close them. He lets you size him up for a second before lifting his hand to your mouth and slowly but firmly shoving his cum-covered fingers into your mouth.

Dumbstruck, all you can do is stare up at him with his cum-slicked fingers in your mouth, holding them there for a few more seconds and whimpering when he drags them out and then feeds them slowly back in. You even go a little glassy-eyed.

When he finally pulls his fingers out and lets his arm drop to his side, you sway on your feet a little, at a loss for words. There’s a creamy sheen on your bottom lip that disappears when you suck it into your mouth on instinct, eyes going wide when you recognize the taste on your tongue. 

“Thanks for cleaning that up, birdie.” And then he reaches down to zip his fly up, smug when your eyes flit down to his crotch. 

The stakes are different now than what they were all those months ago. It can’t be a carefree cohabitation when he’s playing for keeps. Whatever that means. 

But his time is cut short again, the world catching up to him and yanking him back. And when Simon goes this time, he can’t help but drag his feet on his way out.

You’re looking good. A comment made in passing, Price’s face barely twitching through it, but Ghost catches it and he lets it sit for a moment before responding.

“Yeah?” he grunts, looking away. The recruits round the part of the track closest to where they stand, panting through their seventh lap. 

“Put on a bit of weight since you left,” Price notes. 

“Calling me fat, sir?”

He rolls his eyes, huffing out an exasperated breath. “Give it a rest, you fuckin’ muppet. I said you look good.”

Price isn’t wrong though. He both looks and feels different. With increasing regularity, he watches the clock and counts the days down until he’s released from his duties again. His want has him circling like a bird of prey. 

All his life, he’s had to live in the moment, concerned only with the immediate, tangible present because that’s all that life let him have. And though it’s been decades since he’s needed to be in survival mode, those instincts have never quite left him. 

The shock to his system has left him forward-thinking for once. A girl in his house and food in his fridge; his body feeling better than it has in years—he’s still lucky if he gets more than five uninterrupted hours of sleep, but his expectations are different when he’s not at home. Even the concept of home is foreign, like a language he’s just starting to learn. 

The future isn’t some nebulous concept out of his reach but a real place that he gets to walk into. 

Desire tips him like a scale. There may not be any coming back from this.

Love shows him no mercy, so he doesn’t show you any either. 

Months pass before Simon’s leave comes around again, and when it finally does, he’s already packed and signed out before his last day on base is even up. He says his goodbyes to Price on his way out and the other man visibly suppresses a smile, eyeing the bag clutched tight in his hand. 

“Give her my best,” is all he says before getting back to the paperwork in front of him. Simon leaves without another word. 

Then the long drive back. A skein of birds in flight follow him for part of the journey. A train running parallel to the throughway follows him for the rest. Tree boughs bend under the weight of the last snowfall.

Then he blinks and when his eyes open, he’s home.

You’re still sitting on that blasted couch when Simon opens the front door, pretty as a peach in August, and his name rings like a bell off your tongue when you say it, summoning him to you. It’s not his fault that his urges prevail, that he has no choice but to throw his bag down onto the carpeted floor and stomp over to you, lifting you up by the collar of your housecoat and dragging you into a scorching hot kiss. 

“Mmf,” you squeak against his lips, eyes flying open. 

It’s messy and frenzied, spit dripping down your chin and his tongue halfway down your throat. No finesse or skill to speak of, only an incessant buzzing at the back of his head that only quiets when you give a helpless little moan, an instant balm to his suffering. 

Simon pulls back for a moment to let you breathe. “That’s my welcome ‘ome?” he murmurs. His lips brush against yours when he speaks. 

“W-welcome home?” you repeat, flustered, your lip catching against his. He sucks it between his when it does, cock throbbing in his pants when you gasp, hot breath billowing into his mouth and making his head spin. 

This is nothing like being high on pain meds or three sheets to the win. It pulses through him and makes his cock chub up, forcing him to shove a hand down between his legs to readjust himself. That gets you good when you notice. 

He kisses hungry and mean, ever greedy for your mouth, fitting his hand over the back of your head and angling you how he likes. Holding the delicate cradle of your skull in his palm and knowing that he could crack it if he squeezed his fingers hard enough. The thought sends a rush right through him, his violent underbelly scratched in just the right way. 

“W-where’s this coming from?” you gasp when Simon pulls back. You look thoroughly flustered, but he ignores you to hook a finger in your mouth and wrench it open. 

“Open,” he grunts, giving your inner cheek a sharp tug. 

You go cross-eyed when he spits in your mouth, the glob of spit landing right on your tongue, and your affronted little gasp hits him like an arrow shot straight through his heart. He’s considerate enough to seal it in with a kiss, making sure not to let you waste a drop. Tongue pushing in right after to lick it up, growling at you to suck it when you only nervously kiss back.

His patience isn’t infinite though and kissing barely wets his appetite. It’s not enough to plumb the depths of his hunger when there’s something uglier down there waiting with its jaws wide open.

He twists you around and bends you over the back of the couch, rucking your housecoat up to your waist. Your knickers get ripped clean off, tearing at the seams, and your ensuing shriek nourishes the hunger simmering low in his belly. Appetite never satiated, belly never full. 

He likes that you didn’t expect him back so soon. Fuzzy, unshaved legs and holey socks; pimple patches on your face and nothing under your robe. The lazy domesticity appeals to him in a way he never would’ve expected. 

Then his fingers split the seam of your pussy and the runoff of his appreciation cascades down the slopes of his shoulders and his back. Slick drips from your winking hole, gathering together into a tight bulb before a single drop drips onto the couch beneath you. 

“Fuck—now there’s somethin’ to come ‘ome to,” Simon grunts, and then drags his tongue between your dew-slicked lips.

His enjoyment was a foregone conclusion when he imagined this back in his quarters in the barracks, cock in hand, but the reality of having his mouth on your pussy exceeds his expectations a thousandfold. It’s all soft, pillowy skin and sweet nectar. He gorges himself on it, an almost pathological need to be tongue-deep in your cunt.  

“Wet little gash just sucks ‘em right in…” he murmurs, plunging two fingers into your hole slowly. The soft flesh of your hole bulges around his fingers when they sink in all the way to the knuckle. 

“Fuck—don’t call it that,” you bleat, so pathetic that he’s smitten. 

“Shouldn’ta wagged it at me if ya didn’t want me to touch it,” Simon teases, then crooks his fingers just so and your leg spasms. 

He keeps you stuffed full until your legs shake, on the verge of coming, and then he rips them out. 

You practically scream in frustration, twisting to look at him from over your shoulder. “What’s wrong with you?” 

“Somethin’ wrong, birdie?” He smirks when you arch your back, pushing your ass back in his face. 

“I want to come, Simon,” you whine, wagging your ass in his face again. Just his luck that a little slut like you dropped into his life.

“Alright,” he sighs, mock aggrieved. “Lemme see if I can ‘elp with that.”

Ungrateful little thing, he thinks when he turns you over onto your back and heaves you up into the air. 

“Simon—”  you keen his name when he has you pinned up against the wall, his arms scooped under your thighs to hold you in place. 

He plunges into that warm little honeypot between your legs in slow, measured strokes at first, savouring each punctured whimper and hiccup that drops from your lips. Each flex of his hips brings him that much closer to heaven and that much closer to hell.

“Didn’t think you could just barge in without consequences, did ya?” Simon asks rhetorically, voice gone brassy and tiger-stripped, thick in his chest. “Been sleeping in my bed for nearly a year, ‘aven’t ya? Ain’t I owed this?”

He means it too. 

“You’re—so full of it,” you retort, hiccuping through your words.  

Your arms hang limp around his neck, fingers twined at his nape and nails scratching at his hairline. The low ache in his back is barely a deterrent—he’d hold you up all night if it took that long to make you come. A distant voice at the back of his head reminds him that he’ll suffer for it in the morning, but he shakes that thought away. 

He chases the beads of sweat snaking down your chest and tits with his tongue, straightening back up only when that nearly makes you lose your grip around his neck and topple out of his arms. 

“Hey,” you pout when Simon chuckles, digging your nails into his back in retribution for laughing at you. It has the opposite effect though, the pain stoking his pleasure and sending a shiver down his back, his next thrust so rough that you bounce in his arms.

Your skin smells like sweat and musk this close, so heady that his head spins. It registers dimly at the back of his mind that he’s still dressed while you’re fully nude, housecoat and knickers in a pile on the floor in front of the couch, but he can’t pull away now, not with the need to come pressing into him on all sides, dick hard enough to split diamonds. 

He stares down between your legs where his cock splits you again and again, a ring of white cream at the base. He could paint that little snatch white with his cum or stuff it deep inside, both options appealing to his baser instincts. It’ll be a coin flip in the end.

When the ache in his back grows too significant to ignore, he lifts you up off the wall and drops you down on his cock, burying himself to the hilt before carrying you to the open door to the bedroom. 

“Sorry, pet,” Simon murmurs when he feels you clench around the thickest part of his cock, whispering a little oh fuck to yourself under your breath. He kicks the door shut behind him with his heel. “Back’s shit. Mind taking over for me?” 

The mattress squeaks under his weight when he sits down on the end. You blink up at him. “You want me on top?” 

He nods and hums his assent, digging his fingers into the muscle and flesh of your ass and kneading. “Yeah, bird. Still wanna see all the pretty bits though.”

The pretty bits being the globes of your ass facing him while you ride his dick, his hands pulling apart your cheeks to watch you take it inch by inch, thighs quivering with the strain.  

Your thighs are stretched out on either side of him, pretty calves resting perpendicular to his chest and toes curled into the mattress. He eyes those with some interest before your pussy distracts him again. There’s no angle that isn’t nice to look at, but this has got to be his favourite so far, tight bud between your cheeks clenching every time you drop down onto his dick. It’s easy to ignore the ache in his shoulder with a view this nice. 

“Fuck, birdie,” Simon murmurs, dragging his hand over your ass and then swatting it, grunting when that makes you clench up around him, inner walls squeezing his length and nearly milking him dry. “Coulda been doing this the whole time.”

You laugh a bit breathlessly. “No—you were way too annoying.”

Smack. You yelp when he backhands your ass and your shoulders go stiff, spine a taut line with your impending orgasm. Simon can feel it like a knot in his throat, pussy so hot that it nearly burns him alive. 

“Shit,” you gasp, hands on his legs the only thing keeping you upright. You nearly rip out the hair on his thighs when you curl them into fists.

His hands glide up and down your sides, touching wherever he wants. It’s his God given right after housing you for so long, and though Simon clings belligerently to that belief, like the foundation of his existence is built on quid pro quo, on doing nothing for others unless there’s something in it for him, there’s something else that burrows underneath that maxim. Something far truer and more terrifying, and if he were to look it dead on, it would bring him to his knees. 

Simon grunts, lungs pummelled when you squeeze around his length, tight as a vice.

Good thing you’ve got him on his back instead.

In the end, it’s not up to him whether he comes in you or not. When his cockhead bumps against your cervix and he feels teardrops land on his thighs, your shoulders shaking with the force of your sobs, the spigot loosens and his stomach aches with how hard he comes. His heels dig into the mattress, hips lifting up, trying to cram more and more of his cock into your cunt, tendons straining against his neck. 

“Take it, bird,” Simon snarls, teeth grinding together, his voice sounding wrecked even to him. “Take it nice ‘n deep, fuck—wanna see it leak from your hole when I pull ya off—”

Your nails sink into his thighs, cutting him off. 

He does too, when you flop down beside him onto the bed and he tucks you under his arm, spreading your legs so he can push his cum back into your cunt, fingers pearly white with your mixed juices. 

“Oh God,” you whisper, squeezing your thighs together around his hand until he’s forced to wrench them open again, hovering over you this time, the cudgel dangling between his legs already thickening up again. 

And that’s how he spends his week, in a suspended state of euphoria, no sense of time passing. It doesn’t matter where it goes as long as you crawl into bed with him at the end of the day, eyes sparkling with delight. 

The leaving is tougher than it’s ever been, claws scoring right through his chest when Simon tips your chin up and leans down to slot his lips over yours. He’s not made for this sentimental bullshit, but it finds him either way. 

His chest burns on the drive back to base, acid reflux a bitch as always. 

The next time his landlord calls, he comes bearing good news.

“I’ll cut you a deal on the first month to make up for the…mix up,” he starts begrudgingly. “But don’t worry—the girl’ll be out of your hair by the end of the month. Gonna tell her today that I can’t renew her lease.”

Simon hangs up without saying a word, swathed in anger. Nearly crushes the phone in his grip when his landlord calls back a second later. He ignores that call too.

If he were a different man, if this was a different world—

No one ever knows when their world is about to change until it does. 

But even if his walls have grown barbed wires in the years that he’s been alone, there’s always a way to dig out from under. 

The return home is different this time around, the wind under his sails all but lifting him into the air. 

A year to the date almost. Another month and time will wrap back around on itself, the seasons changing the same way they have for all thirty-seven years of his life. When fate lets him go this time, Simon heads over to Price’s office before taking off for the week, carving out time for one last drink before he hits the road. Over a whiskey and kretek, he tells Price his plan and only just keeps from rolling his eyes when Price barks a laugh, clapping his hands together.

“Never thought I’d see the day,” he chuckles, shaking his head. 

“Shut up.”

“It’s a big step, Simon. I’m proud of you.”

Simon rolls his eyes, pleased despite himself. “Stuff it, old man.”

And then he’s gone again, following the same winding road back, with one stop along the way this time. He stays overnight at a local inn after signing the paperwork, too exhausted to keep driving. Too much on his mind anyway. 

It means nothing to him that people do this sort of thing all the time. He has survived the locust years of his life and come out the other side. That should be enough to give himself some grace when he tosses and turns all night, back pain flaring up and immobilizing him for an hour. Only when the first rays of dawn pierce through the threadbare curtains does it finally abate, and he heads out after his morning piss, ignoring the cramp in his belly on the drive over.

You greet him at the door when you hear his car pull up, standing under the door frame while he gets out and rounds the car, bare toes curling at the cold air. And any effort to tamp it down now is in vain, his chest filling with something unspeakable and unsaid. 

“Put your shoes on,” Simon instructs, coming over just to pull you in for a kiss before nudging you back into the flat, shutting the door behind him. 

“Why?” you ask, lifting a brow. “Wanna go for coffee or something like that?”

“Something like that. Why aren’t you putting your shoes on?” 

Herded into the truck after getting dressed, you badger him with question after question the whole drive over while Simon keeps his mouth shut, focusing on the road in front of him. It’s not a long drive at least, but your incessant questions make it last an eternity. 

Until he pulls up in front of a house with a short gravel walkway and a garden in desperate need of attention, milkvetch growing near the front step. The outdoor sconces are new though, and though Simon already has a few things in mind to fix up around the house, it’s got good bones. Leagues nicer than the place you just left.

“Are we picking someone up?” you ask when he puts the car in park, confused. You stare at the door as if waiting for it to open. 

Simon doesn’t respond.

You look over at him and he takes one of your hands, holding it palm-side up and covering it with his own ugly mitt. You feel something cold drop from his hand into yours and he curls your fingers into a fist to hold it.

“No.” 

When his hand moves away, you uncurl your fingers to find a key. It means so little and so much all at once. If he could say it with words, it wouldn’t be the same so there’s no point in trying. 

“It’s ours?” you ask.

“Yeah.”

There’s a watery sheen over your eyes when you look up, and your lip wobbles. And in a way different than ever before, his chest grows tight, the ache in his heart a fresh and welcome pain.

[nymphoheretic]

Synopsis: You infiltrated the Farspace Fleet only to be captured by the Colonel. He looks vaguely familiar...It couldn't be! Could it be...Caleb!

Warnings: Hatefucking, psuedo-cest, CNC (Caleb uses reader's conflicting feelings against her),OOC Caleb(probably cause he's a little mean), gun kink, glove kink, misuse of Caleb's evol, fingering, electrostimulation via his bionic arm, squirting, light degrading, teasing, edging, choking, oral sex (m!receiving and f!recieiving) impact play (clit slaps, spanking, light face slapping), praise, manipulation, breeding, orgasm control, overstim, use of "gege", use of "mei mei" (lemme know if I missed anything!)

Pairing: Caleb x F!Reader/MC

Word Count: 8.5k

A/N: Caleb has been rotting a brain ever since his trailer dropped and he was all yandere-ish vibes and mean and evil and....I swear I'm a Zayne girlie

AO3

Network: @eveningatthemoviesnetwork

You were visibly shaking with anger as you glare at the man walking around in front of you. How could he dare show his face to you again after being declared dead for a year?! How did he survive the explosion? How did he escape? And the more important question that burns in the back of your mind: if he did make it out, where was Granny Jospehine? Did he just leave her to die?

Your eyes follow him as he steps slowly around the room, an apple in his grip as he stares at it thoughtfully. There was a neutral look on his face as the methodical soft creaks of his boots echoing out as he circles you. You clench your fists tightly as your teeth bites down on the plush of your lip as you raise your chin he finally sits down, his purplish eyes easily locking with yours.

“Gege…”

The pitterpatter of the storm outside strikes against the widow as Caleb regards you with a cool look as he squeezes the apple lightly in his fist. He sits directly in front of you, his knees brushing against yours from the movement. A small, short scoff leaves his lips as he looks down at the apple in his grip. “Have you ever taken a moment to consider…” His eyes shift back towards yours as his lips quirk up into a sinister smile. “…that I was never your brother?” Caleb lifts the apple to his lips slowly and takes a bite, the sound of his teeth breaking the bright red flesh echoing through your ears.

Before you could stop yourself, you rose to your feet, hand held high and smacked it across his cheek. The apple flying from his hand and smashing against the window before sliding down and smearing the glass with its juices. Your chest heaves as you glare at him through narrowed eyes as the force of your slap causes his head to turn to the side, his cheek visibly red. “Bastard.” you growl, voice filled with hatred, yet it still trembles with conflict as the memories of the sweet Caleb you grew up with surfaces.

Caleb slices his eye back over to you, subtly flicking his index finger up and watching as the gravity around you grows dense from his manipulation as you drop to your knees. Lightning flashes, making his eyes glow sinisterly as he rises back to his feet. His hand stretches out and pets your hair as his smile turns back soft. “You’re acting like you don’t remember me, Little one.”

That nickname. It stirs something within you and the image of Caleb - your Caleb - overlaps the man in front of you. His eyes turn playful and it makes your heart beat faster in your chest. “No!” You yell out and when his hand moves to caress your cheek, you lash out and bite him. Your teeth sink in deep as you clamp your jaws down on to the fleshy part between his wrist and pinky.

He lets out a grunt as he grabs your jaw in his other hand and squeezes your cheeks until you release his hand. His tongue pokes out and licks at the indents your teeth left behind on his hand. “Do you remember when we were little and you brought home an injured cat?” He reaches out and grabs your wrist, placing a thin black device around the width as he releases his control over the intense gravity around you. “I put a collar with a bell on it so it couldn’t escape without being noisy.” His hand trails down your leg as he increases the gravity around it to hold you in place on the couch.

You gasp and open your mouth to say something, probably to curse him again when the cold gloved finger of his other hand presses against your lips, silencing you. His eyes harden once more as he rises back to his feet. “Do as you’re told and don’t cause any trouble. You won’t get hurt then.” When your jaw snaps shut his facial expression softens as he reaches for your hand and places it on his cheek, curling your fingers to make you cup his face. “It’s me. I’m back.”

Those words make your heart quiver as you nearly give into his sweet voice. Everything about him screamed your gege - your Caleb, but there was something darker about him that was holding you back. A bit of darkness in his eyes that you could easily spot. You grit your teeth as you could still feel the effects of his evol holding you down. “Gege…If you’re back, then let me go!”

Caleb’s eyes darken when you call him that and he moves his face away from you. His fists clenched tightly, his gloved hand making a creasing sound as his eyes squeezed shut. When he opens them again, he looks into yours. The hatred that burns in them was shallow. He could easily break you if he chose to. “Princess…you didn't pass.” His voice was cool as he reached out his hand.

You gasp as pressure constricts around your throat as the gravity around it moves inward, pressing down on those precious arteries and veins that deliver oxygen rich blood to your brain. Your eyes widen as you claw at the air around your neck to no avail. You try to squirm around, but the pressure on your leg holds you down. Tears begin to form in your eyes as you look at Caleb pleadingly. “Please…ge…Caleb…” you manage to breathe out.

Finally.

The pressure around your throat stops and your hands immediately fly to cup your tender neck as your chest heaves, your breath coming out in pants as blood seeps back into your brain. Your shoulder gives a short flinch when Caleb wraps his long fingers around your delicate wrist and pulls you into his chest. His sweet voice surrounds you as it rumbles from his chest. Your hand curls up on his pectorals as your face heats up, coloring down to your chest. “Caleb?”

“You can't convince yourself to hate me with every fiber of your being.” His finger slips under the small opening at your waist, slowly tracing the skin there in a slow caress that makes shivers roll down your spine. “Wouldn't you agree, Little one?” He practically purrs that name in your ear as his gloved hand presses you deeper into his embrace, a coldness seeping into your flesh through the materials of your clothing.

You meet his lilac gaze and could see the way they soften for you - because of you. It made your heart squeeze painfully in your chest. He was right. You couldn’t bring yourself to hate him completely but that did not stop the rage that was boiling within you. You try to remove yourself from his hold but still that heavy pressure on your legs keeps you close to him. You open your mouth once more to curse at him, when he slips his fingers into your mouth and presses down on your tongue.

“Ah ah ah…You still haven’t passed your test, princess.” He kicks your feet apart, his manipulation over the gravity that holds you down releasing its grip but now he has one on your jaw as saliva pools on the center of your tongue until it leaks down the corners of your lips. Caleb’s lips turn upwards into a smile, his face morphing into the one of your sweet gege. You blink once, twice, three times to try to clean your mind. This Caleb was not your gege. This was the Farspace Fleet’s Colonel Caleb. And you? You were his prisoner.

Caleb stares into your eyes, lilac orbs darkening with something akin to desire and need. All those pent up feelings he’s had for you are flooding back so intensely. His fingers slide deeper into your mouth, saliva spilling down the corners of your mouth before he pulls them out completely. He spreads his digits and watches how the translucent strings of spittle slides down them. His knee slots between your thighs as his hands quickly cup your cheeks, “Bite me again and I’ll crush your throat,” he warns before his tongue slips into your warm mouth.

A surprised squeak vibrates in your chest as you try to beat down that feeling of greedy want and desire that you had once held for Caleb before he was lost to you. You had to remind yourself that he was now the enemy, but…why were his lips so soft, tongue so gentle as it strokes over yours, trying to coax a reaction out of yours. Your first instinct was to bite down until his threat replays in your head. You could feel a sheer difference in the temps of his palms as he cups your face under your jaw.

His tongue licks over every part of your mouth, leaving nothing untouched. He strokes over your teeth, the roof of your mouth before finally coming in contact with your own. He swirls it with his pink muscle, teasing and coaxing it out to play with his. He grips your jaw a little tighter with his left hand, cold, hard fingers digging into your skin as a growl vibrates in his chest. He pulls away briefly, tongue flicking out over your lips. “C’mon. You’ve kissed me before, little one. Don’t tell me you actually hate me?”

Your eyes narrow once more as you try to pull your jaw out his grip, wincing a bit when he squeezes it tightly. A hiss vibrates on your tongue before you draw in a slow breath at his taunting words. Heartbeat racing as blood whooshes in your ears as you remember all the sweet shared kisses with Caleb. How his gentle tongue tastes on yours, how his soft lips felt against yours. Before you could stop yourself, your eyes soften as they flicker down to his mouth, his lips looking very inviting.

Slowly you lean in, breath mingling with his as you near his lips with yours. Lips clash in a soft kiss as a moan dares to slip past when his tongue reaches out to play with yours. Feelings that you tried so desperately to keep hidden away, to keep them locked away resurfaces before you could snuff them out. Your arms come up to lock behind his head, fingers digging into his soft dark hair and pulling him in closer. The sweet, familiar taste of apples explodes over your taste buds as you curl your tongue around his in a slow, seductive way. Your eyelids tip close as you begin to lose yourself.

A voice in the back of your head screams at you loudly, shocking you and making you break away as his hands begin to slide down your back. “No!” You say as you push him away, your breath coming out in hot pants as a string of saliva cools as it snaps back against your neck. Gasping when he suddenly slides his knee further between your thighs, pressing it up against the seat of your pants as his hand tips your face back up to meet his purple eyes. “Caleb…what are you…”

He says nothing as he digs his knee in deeper against your core, eliciting another gasp from you. “You don't really hate me. I'm back. I'm your Caleb, remember?” He takes your hand and presses it against the left side of his chest over his beating heart. “See? I'm alive.” His cool, even tone also sounds sad to your ears and you have to look away from his eyes. He was trying to pull you back under his spell. You couldn’t let him. Hold on to the fact that he lied! That he… Caleb trails your hand down lower until it rests on his belt. “Do you still hate this, princess? I’m aching for you.”

“C-Caleb!” You squeak as you try to pull your hand back, but his grip holds tight as he slides your hand lower until you cup his hardening cock. You could feel it rising to full attention, tenting the black slacks he had on and straining against the zipper. “Y-you…” Glaring up at him, faux disgust written all over your face, but your body was betraying you as your thighs hug together around his knee. You could feel yourself growing damp as your fingers curl around his length. “N-no…” You whimper out. Caleb takes your face in his hand gently, squeezing your cheeks until your lips part. Slipping his tongue out, he lets a long, hot dollop of saliva drip down to pool in your mouth. With a subtle flick of his finger, gravity shifts around your throat and before you could even think spit slides down your throat as he easily reverses your positions. The manipulation of the gravity around your leg strengthens and forces you to kneel in front of him, you place your hands on his thighs to prevent your face from being smushed in his lap.

A smile tilts at his lips as his finger comes up to tip your chin back up to look into his darkening gaze. “You remember what to do, right.” He coos softly as his other hand tugs down the zipper to his pants, popping the button open. Caleb shucks them down over his hips until his long, thick cock pops out, the tip leaking pre down the pale shaft, the tip flushed a bright pink. “Come on, little one.” His voice is still that same soft tone from before - the one that makes your heart quiver as you look up into his soft, puppy eyes.

Your tongue peeks out to wet your bottom lip as you are slow to realize what he wants from you. It wasn’t until his cock springs out and nearly smacks your cheek did your eyes widen. “I…No. I won’t do it.” You flinch when his hand raises, but peek one open when his fingers simply brush over your hair as he gives you another soft smile.

“Oh, pretty, I wasn’t asking.” His eyes darken as he lifts his chin, the gravity around you shifting and forcing your lips on his cock. Caleb lets out a groan as your warm cavern engulfs his length, his head falling backward to rest against the back of the couch. His hands ball into fists as he decreases and increases the pressure of the gravity to make you bob your head up and down. He could feel the familiar way your tongue curls around his dick. His lips curl into a smirk, “That’s it. Such a good girl. Keep sucking, just like that. Your mouth feels as good as I remember.”

His praise sent shivers rolling down your spine as a tingle started to throb between your legs. You squeeze your thighs together as you feel slick beginning to pool into the seat of your panties. How and why were you enjoying this? Caleb was the enemy now! He was no longer your sweet gege - no longer your sweet Caleb. This was…Your thought process was interrupted as Caleb shifts, thrusting his hips upward and the thick tip of him brushes against the back of your throat and making you let out a choked moan. You should hate this, but his familiar taste on your tongue made it almost impossible as the hatred in your eyes softened as you tried to glare up at him.

Caleb slowly eases up on his manipulation of the gravity around you until you were sucking him off willingly. He reaches down and presses his hand against the back of your head as your saliva drips down to wet his balls, your soft tongue caressing the large vein running on the underside of his cock. “Such a nasty little cockhungry slut. Wish you could see how you look, sucking my cock like it's your favorite treat.” His voice trails off in another low growl as his hips buck up, heavy balls slapping against your chin as they begin to draw up as his cock twitches on your tongue. “You want me to cum down that greedy throat of yours? Paint your mouth in my color, yeah.”

You didn’t realize that his hold over the gravity around you had stopped as you continued to work your mouth and tongue over his thickness. A moan vibrates in the muscles of your throat and chest as you bob your head deeper down on his cock, nose brushing against the light dusting of brown hair at the base of his pelvis. Thick strings of spittle clings and runs down his shaft as your tongue curls around his tip, tasting the precum that was oozing out the slit. He tastes just like you remembered, sweet with an underlying hint of salty. His degrading words reach your ears and your face burns with embarrassment as you try to remind yourself that he was using his evol to make you do this.

Before you could look back up at him with faux anger, his cock twitches on your tongue, swelling in your mouth as the movements of his hips grow sporadic. You let out a surprised squeak when his hands cup your face as he thrusts deeply, his tip hitting the back of your throat as his seed suddenly spills over. It fills your mouth at such a rate that you have no choice but to swallow or choke on it.

Caleb’s hips thrusts in sporadic jerks as his balls empty his cum down your sinfully tight throat. Oh how he could stay in this perfect little mouth forever. But he was dying for a taste of you. He missed you and your touch so much over the past year, he was gone. “You enjoyed tasting me, yeah? Got you wet between your thighs, little one?” His eyes watch the way your chest heaves as he slips his cock out your mouth and sees the way your thighs pressed together. He tsk’ed when you shake your head “no”. Still denying the fact that you didn’t hate him. That you didn’t hate what he was doing. That you didn’t hate that he was reclaiming what was his long ago.

A ‘scwhick’ sounded in the silence followed by the ripping of leather as a blade slices through the material of his glove. Your eyes widened at the sight of his bionic hand as a knife shoots out of the wrist. Caleb balls the hand into a fist and raises the blade down to your eye level, a grin spreading over his lips as he waves the blade in your face. “You’re wearing too many clothes, baby girl.” With those words, he slides the tip of the sharp knife down your neck, being mindful to not pierce your flesh until he makes it to your hunter’s uniform. He easily slices through the white collar of your top before dragging the blade down towards the red corset top.

You gasp as your breasts bounce free when your top was cut down the center and with Caleb’s manipulation over the gravity around you made it impossible for you to raise your hands to cover them. Your mouth parts in a whimper as the cool touch of the blade crawls over the soft, warm skin of your breasts as you feel Caleb’s eyes locking in on them as he traces his knife over them. “Cale-” Your words are cut off as he snaps his gaze back towards yours and you feel the shift in the gravity pulling you back up to your feet.

Caleb said nothing as he shifted his manipulation to make you rise back up, his bionic hand making quick work of the black pants you wore. His eyes zero in on the red lace of the panties you were wearing and a grin spreads over his lips. “Were you expecting this? You’re such a naughty mei mei of mine.” He says the term like it was a curse, like it was venom on his tongue before his eyes land on the dark, wet spot forming in the seat of your panties. “What’s this? Lying to me about not liking having me down your slutty throat.”

“I…I didn’t! I…I don’t want you, Caleb!” Your words sounded false even to you. You advert your eyes away from his and lift your chin in defiance to his question. “It’s a natural reaction! That doesn’t mean anything, gege.” You’ve learned that he hates being called that now and when you peek down at him out of the corner of your eye, you could see the dark cloud that covered his face. You let out a squeal when his fingers suddenly dig into your hips, hooking into your panties and pulling them down. You watch in mild shock at the long string of slick that connects your labia to the wet cotton patch before it breaks.

Caleb arches his brow up at you, a smirk curling at his lips. “A natural reaction for getting this soaked for me. Your “brother”? He leans in and presses his lips against your mound, nosing at it and listening to your soft gasps as your hands fly to his hair. “You’re a terrible liar, princess. Just admit it.”

You could feel yourself getting weak in the knees as Caleb trails kisses down the innermost corners of your thighs, inches away from your dripping heat. You feel a moan threatening to escape and you quickly bite your lip. Hard. To try to prevent it from slipping out. “I…I don’t know what you’re talking about, gege.” Your mouth parts in a scream when a shock courses through your body coming from between your thighs. You yank Caleb’s head back to see his bionic arm’s finger pressing against your clit, a stream of light violet energy surging through it.

“Caleb.” He growls, another surge of electricity running from the tip of his mechanical finger to your precious little pearl. Your voice calls out to him as his tongue reaches out to soothe the sting and his chin is immediately drenched with your juices. His metal fingers slide from your clit to prod at your opening as his other hand wraps around your thigh to pull it to drape over his shoulder. The pointed tip of his tongue circles your nub before his lips close over it and he suckles it into his mouth.

Your legs buckle as your slick bubbles and pops at your hole as his fingers slowly push inside. Fuck. Your heart was pounding beneath your rib cage as your fingers curled into his dark hair and you didn’t know if you wanted to push him away or pull him closer to your needy cunt. His name was on the tip of your tongue but you swallow it back down. You couldn’t give him the satisfaction that he’s broken you down. Made you submit to him and his…Fuck. Your head falls to your chest as his tongue does wicked things to you, slipping between your folds and curling in deep as his nose nudges and bumps against your clit.

Fingers dive deeper into his hair as you could no longer hold in your voice as Caleb pushes his metal fingers in deeper and lets a wave of electricity course through your walls in a pleasurable tingle. “Oh fuck!” The screams of your ecstasy reach his ears, sounding like the gods and goddess were singing to him. His tongue became relentless as his lips suck and slurp at your sensitive little clit, drinking down every drop your slick hole produces.

If it wasn’t for his hold on your legs and the strength of the gravity holding you up, you’d have fallen as your knees buckle when he slurps at your juices as they run down his chin, trickling down his neck as he shakes his head like a ravenous beast. You were close, you could feel your heartbeat throbbing in tune with the pulses of your clit as his fingers dug you out, juices gushed out with every thrust that his greedy tongue eagerly laps up. “Ge-Cal-”

Then suddenly it all stops as Caleb pulls away, ruining your orgasm. Lilac eyes flash mischievously as he peers up at you, his bionic arms dripping with your juices as he brings the fingers to his lips and licks them clean. “Did you want to cum? Come on, little one. Admit it. Admit that you want me. Admit that you never saw me as your brother. Admit that you can’t hate me.” His hand closes around your thigh as he turns his head and presses his damp lips against the plush flesh. “Admit it and I’ll make you cum so hard you see stars.”

Caleb watches you with his lips quirked up into a smile as you whine and try to undulate your hips; seeking his tongue and fingers back into your aching and dripping snatch. But his hand wraps around your waist and holds you down as the gravity around your body places opposite pressures, causing you to stand still. His eyes narrow when you still try to struggle against his hold over his evol and a “tsk” leaves his throat. “I said. Admit. It. Little. One. Stop. Being. Stubborn.” He enunciated each word with a sharp slap to your clit with the flat of his fingers.

You let out a pained whine as each strike was also followed by a small zap of electricity that thumbs over your engorged button as blood makes it swell even more. You bite your lips to stop the plea that almost spills over. Your eyes are burning with tears as you shake your head. You would not admit that you were enjoying the painful pleasurable torture he was putting your body through. You couldn’t. You wouldn’t. You- “Ca-Caleb…” Your bottom lip quivers as tears threaten to spill down your cheeks. “Please…I admit it. Can I please cum now?”

Your subconscious was screaming at you as your lips betray you and uttered those words, but before you could even think to take them back, to redact your statement, a cool smile spreads over Caleb’s lips as his fingers slide over your soaked slit, smearing your juices over you labia. You bend at the waist, hands flying back into his hair as his control over his evol weakens a bit and a moan escapes your lips. “I…I didn’t…mmph…” Your words are stolen as Caleb shoves his fingers into your mouth, your taste still clinging to the leather of the glove he still wore as he attacks your slit again with ravenous licks.

Caleb feasts on you like a starving man, juices trickling down the side of his face and neck as he ate your pretty cunt so messily. Lewd slurping sounds echoed throughout his room as he drank down every bit of your slick pussy juices that he could. The pointed tip of his tongue flicks and lashes out at your sensitive nub as his lips suck on your labia. As his gloved fingers still thrust into your mouth, the fingers of his bionic hand find their way back inside your slick cavern twisting and turning as he digs for that sweet spot that will have you cumming on his tongue.

You could feel the way your walls were clenching tightly around his fingers as he pressed deeper and deeper, searching for that gooey spot deep within your body. It all felt so foreign to you. This wasn’t the sweet Caleb that you had shared tender kisses with. Wasn’t the sweet boy you gave your virginity to years ago before his “death”, Nor was this your sweet gege that always vowed to protect you. Your voice is muffled by his fingers as you feel your pussy squeeze around his metal fingers as you feel your clit twitch and your juices flood out of you, hot and runny and drenching down his wrist. “Gege!”

The second your juices flow down his tongue, filling his mouth as he greedily drinks and slurps it all down. But the moment that name leaves your lips, he stops; pulling away from your addictive little pussy, a line of slick clinging to his bottom lip as he cuts his lilac eyes up to meet your dazed gaze, his voice was hard and even. “What did you call me?” He watches as your mouth parts in a gasp as he rises to his feet, cock bobbing as he stands, but he ignores the pre that dribbles from the tip to splatter on the floor. Lifting his chin, he snaps his head towards the couch and his evol sends you flying down into the cushion; face down ass up and your back arched so pretty for him. “Would your precious “gege” do this?”

He pulls out his gun from the holster, his legs coming to lock yours between his feet as he leans over you. The cold muzzles of the pistol caresses the hot skin of your spine, starting at the base of your skull and trailing down to the center of your back and over the curve of your ass. His other hand came crashing down on the globe of flesh until the skin was heated and a faint print of his hand was left behind as the skin wiggled. “I shouldn’t have let you cum. If I had known you’d be such a brat.” But despite his words, he was happy to taste you on his tongue, to taste your sweet juices.

You turn your head to look back at Caleb, feeling the cold tip of the gun tracing down the length of your back. You cry out when his hand smacks the flesh of your ass over and over again until the skin was heated and you were damn near in tears. You bite your lip as you feel him nudging the gun against your right ass cheek to stop the whimpers from coming out. Your pussy clenches in anticipation of what he was going to do, body betraying you as it grows slicker with every passing second. Despite your mind telling, yelling, that you should hate this, hate what he was doing to do, your body craved it. Craved more of his mean touches. More of his harsh treatment.

Caleb’s hand fists his cock as he slides the gun down, the cold tip gliding down the line of your ass. “Hmm? Should I punish you for being a brat. Delaying your orgasms again and again as I fuck you? Or maybe this slutty pussy is greedy for something else? You want my cock, little one or…?” He traces the muzzle down the line until it brushes against your glistening slit. His eyes watch as you jolt from the contact and try to pull away as his hand glides faster over his length, squeezing the swollen tip with every upward drag. “Answer quickly before I make the decision myself, princess.”

You try to pull away from the gun, but your hips rock back against it, your labia spreading to encompass the tip briefly. How could he try to make you choose? You…didn’t want either, right? Your pussy clenches at the thought of him fucking you with his gun, but was drooling over the chance to finally have his cock nudging up against your most sacred parts. Just as you were about to open your lips to tell him your answer, the cold steel of the gun sinks into your gooey walls, slick bubbling and popping around the black metal.

“Ca-Caleb?” Your voice was a mixture of shock and pleasure as he worked the gun a little deeper as you slowly rocked your hips backwards to help him. As his knuckle nudges at your clit, you let out a mewl and throw your head back. “F-fuck!” The curse leaves your throat before you could even think to swallow it down. You push back further, walls stretching to accommodate the thickness of the gun’s muzzle. You were so depraved for enjoying this, but you would never tell him. You still hated him. Right? Right?

“Shhh….” his hand wraps in your hair gently, pulling it back until your neck is exposed as he sinks his gun in deeper, the wet gushy sounds of your sloppy pussy making his dick grow impossibly harder. As your juices gush out, drenching his gloved fingers and sliding down the handle of the gun, his eyes watch as your naughty hips couldn’t stop moving backwards to fuck yourself deeper on the barrel. “Lemme listen to these slutty sounds she’s making for me.” Without warning, he pulls his gun out, the sticky sounds of your pussy trying to desperately suck it back echoing around the room as nasty strings of your cum drips down the length. “Just look at how you’ve dirtied my gun?”

He pulls on your hair, arching your back so far back your spine pops almost uncomfortably as he waves his slick covered gun in your face. “I should have you clean it, no?” He presses the gun against your cheek, smearing the creamy cum down your skin for a moment as his bionic hand lets go of your hair, still coated in your juices from earlier and wraps carefully around his cock and smears your slick down the length of it. His eyes zero in on your quivering little hole as you tremble under him and his self-control was beginning to waiver. He wanted to keep teasing and edging you until you were screaming his name and only thinking of him and his cock.

Moving the gun away from your face and bringing it to his lips as he notches the bulbous tip of his cock against your drooling hole. He shifts his bionic hand from his cock to grip your hip tightly, his mechanical fingers digging into the plush flesh tightly. As his tongue slips out to lick up the length of his gun, he pushes past those first tight rings of muscles, your pussy immediately stretching to accommodate his girth. Your taste explodes over his taste buds and he moans softly as he was greedy for more, but the wet velvety feeling of your silken walls engulfing his cockhead was starting to make him dizzy with how fast the blood was leaving his head to his engorged cock.

Your head drops to your chest as your arms threaten to give out from under you as Caleb sinks deeper into your warm, gooey walls, the delicious stretch of him filling you was damn near maddening. His name was on the tip of your tongue as you clench down tightly around him, sucking his cock in until the thick mushroomed tip was pressing snuggly against your cervix. A low moan vibrates in your chest as you pant and your hips rock back against his, the slow sticky clasp of skin meeting skin ringing out in the room.

Caleb’s eyes were trained on the sight of your tight little hole as it swallowed up his length. You were perfect for him. Your walls hug him just right, the right amount of pressure that makes him never want to leave your depths. “Fuck.” The curse leaves him in a growl as he places his gun down on the edge of the couch, both hands coming to wrap around your waist to pull you back deeper and faster on his cock. His leg hikes up, foot planting into the soft cushion of the couch as he thrust fast and hard into your tender cunt, pounding into you at such a pace that it was near demonic.

You bite your lip to stop the scream that was building up in your throat, chest burning from holding in your voice as your pussy squelches with every brutal and harsh thrust. The lewd sound of his pelvis meeting your ass vibrates and echoes in the room. His fingers grip your waist tightly, the cold fingers of his bionic arms branding your skin with his marks as his grunts fill the room as well. Sweat forms on your brow as you pant for air, rolling down the side of your face. “Ca-” You quickly snap your jaw just as you stop yourself from calling out his name.

Another low “tsk” leaves his throat as his eyes narrow. His left hand moves to grip the back of your neck and pushes your face down into the cushions as his foot slides up higher, caging your much smaller body under his. “Come on…let me hear you.” He urged as he made sure that with every thrust, he pressed his pelvis against the curve of your ass, grinding a bit to make sure you felt every inch of him. “Say my name. You know you want to scream it for the whole Fleet to hear, hmm?” He punctured each of the next words with a sharp snap of his hips. “Fucking. Scream. My. Name. Brat.”

The dam within you broke and your pent up emotions came flowing like the river of slick that gushes out of you as you cum hard against him, the force of it pushing his cock out as you finally grace his ears with the melodic sounds of your salacious screaming. “Ca-Caleb!”

Finally.

Finally after he’s edged your body to the best orgasm of your fucking life, did you say his name in the most prettiest of cries. He sits back on the couch, hands grabbing you around your waist, using his evol to shift the gravity of your body to make you weightless as he straddles you over his lap. “Such a dirty girl. Cumming so violently like that. I’m not through with you yet.” He flicks his finger down after his right hand notches the bulbous tip against your leaking hole and the gravity shifts downward, forcing your pussy onto his length.

Another lewd scream leaves your tender throat as Caleb makes you ride his cock, bouncing you up and down on his thickness. You had just come and your body was still trembling from the aftershocks of the one he just gave you. Your arms come up to wrap around his neck as his hands grip your thighs as he thrusts up into your cunt. “Caleb! Please! Slow down!” Tears sparkle on your lashes as drool begins to leak down the corner of your mouth.

He grabs the back of your neck and pulls your lips to his, tongue sliding out to delve into your mouth and curls over yours. Caleb then sucks your pink muscle between his teeth. You moan and he swallows the sound down as his hand shifts to grab at the meat of your ass to bounce you up and down on his cock, the tip kissing your cervix with each upward snap of his hips. Caleb felt the way your walls were fluttering, gripping his thickness tightly and he knew that you were going to cum again soon.

Breaking away, a thin string of saliva still connecting your tongue until it broke away to lay coolly against your chin, his lilac eyes capture your fucked out gaze. “Gonna cum again, little one?” His breath came out in harsh pants as your pussy squelches loudly as your juices gush out and wet up the material of his pants still hanging around his hips. “Ffuucckk, you’re squeezing me so tightly.” His head falls to rest against yours as he pecks at your lips sweetly, a vast difference in his powerful thrusts.

Your body was trembling as you rock your hips into his, not caring if his evol was making you bounce on him or not anymore as the pleasure consumes you. The only thing that matters in that moment was the approaching climax he was about to give you. Your nails dig into the material of his black uniform, damn near ripping into it as you claw at his back. “Fuck! Caleb! ‘M’gunna cum!” Once. Twice. Three ti- “Wh-what?” Your voice was a warbled cry when his hands grip your hips, stilling you over his cock.

His lips curl up into a soft, yet sadistic smile as he holds you in place, his evol working against you and keeping you pinned down. “Did I give you permission to cum yet, little one?” He plants his feet down firmly on the floor before utilizing his strength to stand up, his hands wrapping around your thighs and locking your legs around his thick, muscular waist. He moves his left hand away from your body and hooks his finger between your teeth. “Bite only my glove, pretty girl.”

You do as he says, biting down on the tip of his glove and watch with hazy eyes as he pulls his hand free. And finally. Finally. His skin meets with yours as he glides his fingertips down the valley of your breasts to your belly, his eyes widen when he feels the smallest protrusion and his lips crack into a smile. “Look at that. I’m so big and you're so small compared to me, I’m bulging out. Such a tiny, tight pussy you have mei mei.” He teases as he lays his palm flat over the small bulge and presses down on it to hear you squeal out his name as he uses his bionic arm to slam you up and down on his cock.

His knees bend slightly to stabalize himself as his hips move in tune with yours as he fucks you fast and hard. Caleb grips your ass hard, hard enough to leave the imprint of his fingers behind as he bucks up into you, jostling you on his dick as your arms come to wrap around his neck as your fingers dig into his scalp, grazing it with your nails. His eyes shift towards the large bed in the center of the room and his lips curl into another smile as he turns. His cock never leaves your soft, warm, wet walls as he walks over to where the bed was; your salacious moans making him impossibly harder as he grits his teeth.

“Fuck…just listen to her talking to me.” His hands grip your ass tighter as he lifts you up, your cuntsquealching and gushing around his girth as he pushes you back down on him. Caleb stops at the edge of the bed, your slick juices dripping down his shaft and creating a creamy ring at the base of his dick as he lays you down on the plush mattress. You immediately sink down into the softness as he pushes your legs to your chest, ankles damnnear by your ears as he folds you up.

Your breath is stolen from you as your thighs are compressed against your chest as he pistons his dick in and out of your clenching pussy. You grab at his shirt, twisting the material until the buttons pop open. Your eyes widen when the familiar silver dog tag with a small apple charm dangles in front of your eyes. The chain sways to and fro before you and your heart pounds beneath your rib cage as you feel a rush of slick gushing out of your snatch. The necklace you had given him. He kept it. You hook your finger into the chain and pull.

A surprised grunt leaves him when you tug down on his dog tag, making him lean down to meet your lips in a hungry kiss as his hips pause in their brutal snapping. He moans softly when your tongue seeks out his, curling and tasting his mouth. Caleb pulls away, his eyes shining with adoration, desire, and affection for you. “Naughty girl…look what you did to my shirt?” His left hand trails down your body, caressing your soft skin and relishing in the feel of you under his rough fingertips. “Punishment by pleasure. You’re not allowed to cum until I say so.”

His feverish words are whispered hotly against your lips as he pulls his hips back, thick shaft rubbing against your walls as his cockhead bumps against your over sensitive clit. It twitches under his touch as he saws his length through your soaked lips until you damn near were in tears. “Beg. Beg for it. Beg for my cock like the slutty girl you are for me, princess.” He coos softly.

Your teeth worry your bottom lip as tears fill your eyes at his teasing. Your body was beyond sensitive and stuck on the edge between pleasure and pain as the need to cum grows more and more intense. A part of you still wanted to deny him, to not give into his demands, but the bigger, louder part wants to submit to the pleasure. “Pul-please…Caleb…I need you…”

“Hmm?” He leans down, teasing your clit with featherlight touches as he nudges the tip of his dick at your slick hole, sinking the tip in and thrusting shallowly before pulling out. “Need me to what? C’mon. Use those big girl words.”

“Caleb!” You whine out as you try to grab at his necklace again, but he’s quicker than you and takes both your wrists in his bionic hand and pins them to the bed. “I need you to fuck me! Please make me cum again! I need it!”

A feral smirk spreads over his lips as his left hand moves to spread your labia apart, translucent strings of your slick slipping over your drooling hole as he lines up the bulbous tip of his dick. “Since you asked so nicely.” With those words, he slowly sinks back in, making sure you felt every single thick inch of him. Feeling his balls tingling, he set a slow, steady pace, hips smacking into yours with every deep thrust that makes your breast bounce. Your hands twist and nails dig into the meat of your palm as you buck your hips upward and wrap your legs around his middle, your heels fitting perfectly in the dips of his back.

He keeps up that same slow, sensual pace, his hips swirling in slow undulated thrusts as he takes his time. His pubic bone grinds into your clit with every stroke as he slips his fingers inbetween the two of you. Caleb swirls his ring and middle fingers over your clit slowly, pressing into the swollen flesh as he watches your face scrunch up and you writhe with pleasure under him. “Y’like that. Like it as I slowly make you mad with pleasure. Is that something your precious “gege” would do? No, sweetheart, I was never your brother and you knew that. The kisses we shared, the times I held you closer during thunderstorms. The many times have we done this?” Caleb’s thrusting picks up in speed as his emotions hit a new high.

You shake your head as you desperately try to cling onto what little semblance of sanity you had left. But the steady wet smacks of his pelvis against your as his dick makes your pussy gush around him makes that almost impossible. “Caleb. Caleb. Caleb.” His name leaves your lips like a mantra as tears of pleasure fall from your eyes and down the side of your face into your hairline. “You were never my brother, Caleb! You’re my lover!”

Caleb’s hips stutter as his balls tingle and he cums a little at your words. You said it. The one thing he’s been dying to hear. The one thing he was determined to make you say. “That’s fucking right. You never really hated me. You just needed me to fuck the brat out of you, huh?” His hips pick up in speed until he is thrusting in and out of you at such a speed that it makes drool bubble up in your mouth and your tears to fall faster. He captures one of your bouncing breasts between his teeth and sucks the hardened nipple into his mouth, lathing it with his tongue and circling the areola as he works the fingers of his left hand over your pretty little clit.

His balls smack against the curve of your ass as he feels the telltale signs of his release nearing. He quickly moves your legs from around his waist, placing them on his shoulders as he cages you with his body, his thrusting becomes sporadic. Caleb’s hand returns to rest above your mound and spreads, thumb still resting on that tender button as he presses down on the protrusion of his cock in your lower belly. You let out a squeal as the pressure stimulates you from the inside and your legs lock around his neck. The thick tip of his was constantly knocking against your cervix and the fine dark hairs of his pubes rub so tantalizing against your clit as his thumb rubs fast circles.

“Cum. Cum for me, baby girl. Cum so hard for me.” As if by his command, your juices squirt out of your pussy, drenching his pelvis and dripping down his shaft and balls. “Good girl. You want me to cum? Deep inside you and fill you up so full?” His fingers still work over your sensitive clit until you were screaming and begging for reprieve. “Yeah, you do.” He snaps his hips heavily. Once. Twice. Three more times before stilling, his cock twitches within your depths before his seed floods out the tip.

His cum is hot and sticky as it fills your womb, his hips resuming their slow, gentle thrusts to fuck it deeper and deeper still even as the sheer amount overflows your pussy and gushes out with every slow, deep thrust. His forehead drops against yours, the cooling sweat that beads there making your skin sticky as he pecks at your lips in sweet kisses. Caleb slowly lets your legs down from around his shoulders, his left hand massaging your hips in case there was any lingering soreness.

“You okay, little one? I shouldn’t have been so rough…” His eyes widen when your hand slips from his grip and cups his face. Your eyes were soft as you gave him a smile.

“It was perfect, Caleb. I needed this. I missed you.” Your fingers rub his cheek gently as you lean up and press your lips to his forehead softly. You wiggle your hips, feeling his cum slosh around inside you and blinking in confusion. “Uh…Caleb…”

“Hmm?” He hums as he drops his head to the junction of your neck and shoulder, skimming his lips over the soft skin. “Yes, princess?”

You fidget under him, whimpering a bit when he slowly drags his hips out, cock still hard inside you. “How are you still..”

Lilac eyes peer down into yours as a boyish smile spreads over his lips and a chuckle vibrates in his chest. “You didn’t actually think I was done with you, yet? Nope, we have all night. Round Two? Start.”

2022-25 nymphoheretic - I do not give permission to copy, edit, alter, or distribute my work. Do not adverse on tiktok. Do not repost on any other platform.

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[gravitysrainbow]

The attitude toward protest in the USA is uniquely self-defeating, docile, and submissive to authoritarianism. the very same people with DON’T TREAD ON ME bumper stickers will sneer at anyone doing even the smallest actions to support something they believe in, and gleefully direct disproportionate amounts of weirdly sublimated vitriol at them. This seething hatred for ground-level political engagement feels so deeply culturally ingrained. I remember when I worked in a different country at a middle school, and the kids had strikes all the time. One day, a lot of the kids were out for an environmental strike, and I asked an older teacher if they were going to get in trouble for skipping school. She looked at me incredulously and said, “Well they have their rights, don’t they?” It was a culture shock for me.

[thetreetzar]

hate when computers are rarely shut down so they are super slow

[mercvry-glow]

Stop making this hurt

parings. jack abbot x doctor!reader

summary. jack knew he didn’t want to go to pitt fest, instead suggesting you take a few of your girl friends on your day off. little does he know that decision leads to you experiencing the worst day of your life without him.

warnings. pitt fest incident, guns/shootings, hospital setting, blood and gore, reader gets hurt, death (not reader), medical inaccuracies and not show accurate but i tried my best, jack and robby are stressed af, let me know if there's anything else!

notes. finally my first pitt fest fic, hopefully this is angsty enough for ya'll and pleases all of my anons who asked for this! I love all of you, thank you for almost 300 followers and as always any and all feedback is appreciated!

wc. 3600+

You knew it was a long shot trying to convince Jack to come with you to Pitt-Fest.

Crowds were never his thing, not even before his time as an Army medic. Too loud, too many moving parts, too unpredictable. Add a decade of trauma medicine on top of that, and the thought of shoulder-to-shoulder festival traffic was enough to make him visibly tense. You didn’t blame him — not even a little.

And as much as you loved your husband, you weren’t going to fight him on this one.

“Go have fun,” he’d told you that morning, standing in the doorway in his usual worn t-shirt and sweats, a coffee mug in one hand and the other wrapped around your waist. “Text me when you get there. And text me again when you leave. And maybe don’t lose your phone this time?”

You’d rolled your eyes, kissed him once, then twice — and promised to behave.

Truly, it was better for him to spend his one of his days off actually resting, not galavanting around the venue with you and your friends, half-drunk on overpriced cider and yelling about pierogi trucks.

So you let yourself enjoy it. The chaos, the music, the warm breeze coming off the river. You danced with your friends in the middle of the concert to some college band playing covers too fast. You tasted six different kinds of barbecue and took a picture with a guy dressed like a giant bottle of Heinz ketchup. And every couple hours, your phone buzzed with a little check-in from Jack — usually short, always a little dry since he wasn’t a big texter.

JACKY [1:14 PM] You hydrated today or just vibes?

JACKY [3:06 PM] Hope the pierogi truck is worth the foot traffic.

JACKY [4:11 PM] Home if you need me. 

You were smiling at that last one about to respond around 5pm, standing in line for boozy lemon slushies with Emma and a few others, when it happened.

At first, it was just a sound — one that didn’t register immediately. A sharp crack in the distance. Then another. Then screaming.

The crowd surged before your brain caught up. Someone dropped their drink. Someone else shoved you sideways. Your phone slipped out of your hand and hit the pavement.

“Is that—” Emma started to say, eyes wide.

You grabbed her wrist and pulled. “Run.”

You didn’t know where the shots had come from. You didn’t stop to look. You just moved — through the panicked chaos, toward the edge of the crowd, ducking behind a food truck with a group of strangers just as another round cracked the air like lightning.

Your chest was tight. Ears ringing. People were yelling. Crying. Calling for help. And your phone—your phone was still on the street.

Jack.

You couldn’t call him.

But he’d know. You didn’t know how, you just knew.

And however a mile away, as police scanners lit up and trauma alerts pinged on hospital radios, Jack was already on his feet — keys in hand, work boots half tied—and heart racing faster than he’d felt since he returned to US soil.

He didn’t wait for a callback. Didn’t care that he wasn’t on the schedule. He grabbed his badge and his trauma bag and was in the truck before the next dispatcher finished her second sentence.

Because something had happened at Pitt-Fest.

And you were there.

It really sounded like a firecracker at first — maybe someone messing around near the alley that ran behind the Pitt-Fest booths. But then came the second, then the third. Screaming followed.

You turned your head just in time to see another wave of people running. And then—

“EMMA!!”

She was beside you one second, and the next, she was down.

You didn’t think. You couldn’t think. You just dropped to your knees, catching her head before it hit the pavement, your mind going a mile a minute.

“Hey, hey—Em—look at me,” you said, your voice louder than you realized. “Where were you hit?”

Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. Her hands were pressed to her stomach, blood already soaking through her shirt and fingers.

“Fuck,” you hissed. “Okay. Okay, pressure. Emmy, stay with me. You’re gonna be okay.”

You barely noticed the searing pain until your legs buckled and you were on your side. A sharp, ripping sensation tore through your ribs like glass.

Shot. 

You had been shot too.

Someone was shouting. A vendor nearby had flipped a table and was screaming for people to duck. A stranger—a kid, maybe barely twenty not much younger than you—ran toward you both through the chaos, eyes wide.

“Are you hurt? I have a truck—”

“Help us—please!” you said, trying to sit up, trying not to black out. “I’m a doctor—ER. Trauma. She needs a hospital now.”

He nodded, panicked, glancing at the blood now pooling on the concrete. “We’re like five blocks from PTMC—I’ll drive!”

You helped haul Emma up with shaking arms, biting back a cry when your chest screamed in protest. She groaned as you dragged her toward the curb, her weight nearly toppling you.

The kid had his pickup pulled up half on the sidewalk within seconds.

“Put her in the bed!” you ordered. “It’ll be faster to lift her in!”

Someone else joined—another panicked bystande —helping you hoist Emma into the truck bed as gently and as quickly as possible. You climbed in after her, teeth gritted, your once cute outfit sticky with blood.

“Go!” you screamed as the tailgate slammed shut behind you.

The engine roared and the truck peeled off, tires screeching. You barely held on, your legs braced against the wheel well, one arm clamped across Emma’s wound, the other pressing against your own side to slow the bleeding.

“You’re okay,” you told her, voice tight, even though you weren’t sure who you were trying to convince. “Emma, you’re gonna make it. You’re not fucking dying at Pitt-Fest! I won’t let you.”

Her eyes fluttered, and you cursed under your breath, checking her pulse. 

Thready. Too fast.

You knew you had minutes. Maybe less.

And somewhere in the back of your mind, you knew Jack was at the Pitt. On shift or not, he was always there when it mattered.

He had no idea you were on your way. Or that you were bleeding out in the back of a stranger’s truck, racing through downtown Pittsburgh.

But if you made it… if you could just hold on a little longer…

You’d see him again.

The truck rattled like it was going to fall apart with every pothole it hit on Carson Street. The shocks weren’t built for this kind of weight or speed, and the stranger behind the wheel didn’t care. He’d barely said a word since he’d skidded to a stop at the edge of the chaos. Now, you could barely hold your head up.

Emma was curled in on herself across from you, clutching the side of the truck bed like it was the only thing keeping her tethered to earth. Her glitter jacket was soaked through—Msot of it hers, some of it not—and her ponytail had come loose, curls hanging limp against her face.

You turned your head toward her, everything in you aching.

“Em,” you rasped.

She didn’t answer.

“Emma, look at me.”

She did, finally. Her lip was split, her eyes glassy. She was holding her side with one hand, the other shaking where it pressed against her stomach. Blood oozed through her fingers.

“Hurts,” she whispered.

“I know.” You reached out, hand slick and trembling. You were starting to feel lightheaded, the pain in your side sharp and spreading, warm and wet and endless. “You’re okay. You’re gonna be okay. We’re almost there.”

She nodded—but then her gaze dropped to your side, and her eyes widened. “Babe… you're—”

“Don’t look at me.” Your voice cracked, barely above a whisper. “Just breathe, Em. You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

You weren’t sure if that was true. The blood loss was getting worse. Your top was drenched. The bullet had torn low, near your hip, and every bump in the road sent fresh agony lancing through your whole body. You tried to apply pressure but your arm wouldn’t stop shaking.

The guy driving honked again, swerving around a city bus. Ahead, PTMC’s trauma bay came into view, the red trauma flags flapping against the gray building. Almost there. Almost safe.

Then Emma made a sound that shattered you.

It was small. Wet. A choking breath followed by nothing.

You lurched forward, dragging yourself toward her with everything you had left. 

“Emma—Emmy. Stay awake. Look at me.”

Her head lolled. Her eyes were still open, just barely. “I’m really cold,” she whispered.

“No, baby. No, you’re not.” You gathered her into your lap, tried to shield her with what strength you had left. “We’re here. You’re okay.”

The truck hit the curb at full speed, rocking the bed. The brakes screamed as it slid sideways, stopping half a second before it would’ve crashed into the wall of the trauma bay. And then hands—at least half a dozen of them—were yanking open the tailgate.

Chaos.

“Two critical GSWs in the back—Jesus, they’re both going out!”

“She’s losing consciousness!”

“Someone help me get her—”

“She’s coding!”

You heard all of it like you were underwater. You were vaguely aware of someone pulling Emma from your limp arms. Someone else catching you as your head dropped back, limp, blood seeping down your spine.

A nurse’s voice rang out as she tried to open your airway.

“Who is she—anyone got a name?!”

No one answered.

Inside the trauma bay, Jack was elbow-deep in yet another chest wound, barking orders, adrenaline humming through his veins. He didn’t hear the commotion at the ambulance bay over the noise of suction and a flatline monitor. Didn’t look up when the bay doors slammed open again.

Didn’t know.

Didn’t know that somewhere down the hall, two trauma rooms were opening side by side—one for your best friend who wouldn’t make it, and one for you, his wife, who just might.

Not yet.

But he would.

He always did.

Now rushing inside to the hub, “Her BP’s eighty systolic and dropping—she’s hemorrhaging fast.”

“Pulse is thready. Pupils sluggish.”

“Get Dr. Robby in here, now!”

The trauma bay was already spinning into motion when Michael stepped through the sliding doors, hand dragging down over his messy brown hair. He was halfway into his  new trauma gown as he crossed the room.

“What’ve we got?”

“GSW to the lower abdomen. Entry left, possible exit—can’t tell through the bleeding. She was brought in non-EMS, unknown downtime.”

Robinavitch’s eyes tracked the chaos instantly, sharp and assessing. He reached the foot of the bed and froze just long enough to squint at your face beneath the mask of blood, dirt, and bruises. Something flickered across his expression.

“…Is that—?”

“Yeah,” one of the nurses whispered. “That’s our second Abbot.”

He didn’t react. Not outwardly. Just snapped his gloves tighter and stepped in, voice calm but commanding.

“Alright. Let’s move. I need two large-bore IVs, type and cross, four units O-neg hanging yesterday, and someone page trauma surgery—now.”

A nurse slid a face shield over his head as he pulled the curtain closed behind him.

“Pressure dressing’s soaked through.”

“She’s crashing, Dr. Robby.”

Michael leaned in over your body, catching the faintest movement of your chest. He knew your voice, your laugh, the way you snapped off one-liners at Jack and him in the hall. And right now, none of that mattered. You were just another patient bleeding out on his table. And he was going to keep you alive.

“Hang another liter. Let’s get a FAST scan going—we need to find that bleed.”

A tech slid gel across your abdomen. The screen flared to life, the grainy black-and-white image revealing what they were dreading.

“She’s bleeding into her abdomen,” someone said.

“No kidding,” Robby muttered. Then louder: “Alright. We don’t have time. Prep her straight for the OR. I want her there five minutes ago.”

He pressed down on the wound with both hands, hard. Princess to his left winced.

“She should seee Jack,” she whispered.

“No,” he said firmly. “Jack needs her to still be breathing when he finds out.”

He looked down at you, your face pale and growing colder beneath his fingers.

“You hang on,” he said under his breath. “You do not die on me. He will never recover.”

You didn’t respond. Your eyes fluttered once, lips barely parted. A sound escaped, too soft to decipher as Mikey leaned closer. 

Not as a doctor now, but as a close friend. 

“What was that?”

Your mouth twitched. “Tell… Jack…”

But then your body jolted under his hands—heart monitor screaming into v-fib.

“Code!” someone shouted.

“Start compressions!” Robinavitch was already moving, calling for paddles. “One of you get Abbot!”

“But he’s still in Pink—”

“I don’t care if he’s in surgery or nott,” he snapped. “Tell him it’s his wife. Tell him she’s coding.”

Across the hospital floor, Jack looked up—something in his chest going cold before he even knew why.

The Pink Zone was chaos, and Red was a shit show. 

Jack had blood smeared to his elbows and the kind of tension in his jaw that only came from running full tilt on no sleep. His short, curls—streaked at the temples with silver—were plastered to his forehead with sweat. His hazel eyes, usually sharp and quick, were laser-focused on the wound in front of him.

“Clamp—now,” he barked, voice low and lethal.

The security guard on the table had been fine for the minute, eventually turning critical. Shrapnel to the chest. He’d already coded once in triage. Jack had cracked him open right there on the gurney, and there was no room in his world for anything else.

Until—

“Dr. Abbot!”

He didn’t look up. “Hold pressure!.”

“Jack!”

That voice. Too familiar.

He finally looked.

One of the new night shift  interns stood just inside the trauma bay doors, Jacob’s own scrubs stained and his expression wrecked. And he never looked wrecked.

Jack straightened, adrenaline still coursing, brow furrowed. “What?”

Jacob’s mouth opened—but nothing came out at first. He took a breath. Another. Then:

“She’s here. Your wife.”

The words didn’t land right at first. Jack blinked, frowning, like he hadn’t heard correctly.

“She what?”

“Gunshot wound to the abdomen. Came in the fourth or fifth wave from Pitt-Fest,” the young man said, voice tight. “They stabilized her. She was hypotensive on arrival. Tachy. Someone named Emma was with her—they were in the back of a civilian truck.”

The name Emma barely registered.

Jack’s pulse went sideways.

“She coded once—Robby sent her to the OR.”

“No,” Jack said, too fast, shaking his head. “No, she wasn’t even—she said she’d text me when—she wasn’t—”

The air felt thick. Too heavy. Too loud. His fingers curled into fists, shaking beneath his gloves.

“Dr. Abbot,” Someone said, stepping closer. “She’s still alive. They got her back. But you can’t leave right now. We need you here.”

Jack didn’t move.

“She asked for you,” Jacobs added quietly.

That broke something open.

Jack’s hazel eyes—usually unreadable—flashed wide. For half a second, pure panic. He turned, looking toward the hall that led to the elevators, toward OR.

But he couldn’t go. He knew it. The man on the table in front of him was dying.

And his wife… his wife was being cut open upstairs.

He squeezed his eyes shut once, breathing like it physically hurt. When he opened them, they were steely again. Grounded by sheer force of will.

“Tell Robinavitch to get me when she’s out,” Jack said. His voice was barely steady. “And tell him if she crashes again—he calls me. Immediately.”

“I will,” Jacob promised.

Jack didn’t answer. He just turned back to his patient like his spine was made of iron. Like his heart wasn’t bleeding under his ribs.

But his hands trembled—just once—before they found the scalpel again.

And he didn’t say another word about it, because what was there to say you could be gone before he even got to see you. 

Eventually the world returned in fragments.

A slow, stuttering beep. The soft rustle of hospital sheets. The sterile hum of fluorescent lighting. Everything hurt—but not sharply. Not like it had. Now it was dull and heavy, like your body was made of stone, barely yours.

You blinked against the overhead light. It took effort. Your limbs felt like they were filled with sand.

A shape moved beside you.

Jack.

He was hunched forward in the chair, elbows braced on his knees, hands clasped tight. His short, silvery curls were flattened on one side, sticking up in the back like he hadn’t moved in hours. His hazel eyes were fixed on the floor, red-rimmed, dark and distant.

Your heart monitor ticked just a little faster. He looked up immediately.

“Hey,” he breathed, already at your side.

You tried to smile, but your lips barely moved. “Hi.”

Jack let out a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob and reached for your hand. His touch was careful, reverent. “You scared the absolute hell out of me.”

“Me too,” you rasped.

He gave you a sip of water, helping steady the cup as you drank. When you pulled back, your throat still felt raw—but the words came anyway.

“Emma?”

Jack’s face changed.

The crack in his expression wasn’t obvious, but you’d seen it before—on the battlefiel, in different red zone code blues, in the quiet moments after a loss. He didn’t answer right away.

You already knew.

“…She didn’t make it,” he said softly. “They couldn’t even try. She was gone in the truck.”

Your breath hitched.

“She was getting married,” you whispered, tears already brimming. “She was twenty-eight, Jack...”

“I know.”

“She was going to try out for th-that promotion. She just bought her wedding dress last week—she wanted to show you, and—and she was finally gonna ask David to move in with—”

Jack didn’t try to stop your rambling grief. He just leaned in closer, resting his forehead against yours.

“I know,” he said again, voice thick. “I’m so sorry.”

You swallowed hard, your throat burning. “She died in my arms...”

His hand tightened around yours.

“I didn’t know it was you,” he murmured, guilt and grief bleeding into his voice. “I was a couple zones over. We were shoulder to shoulder with victims. I didn’t know until after they took you up to surge.”

You blinked fast. “Were you there when I came in?”

“Robby got you stable. Barely. Everyone just said it was bad. Said  one of ours went down.” His voice caught. 

“Jack.”

“I couldn’t go up,” he whispered. “They were still bringing bodies in. And you were already in surgery. I had to keep working.”

Your vision blurred again.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, you’re the one that got shot.” His hazel eyes were fierce now, even through the exhaustion. “You did everything you could. You kept Emma safe as long as you could. And you lived. That’s all that matters right now.”

You didn’t feel like it should be enough. Not with her gone, and the fate of the rest of your friends unknown. But the way Jack looked at you—like the entire world had stopped spinning until your heart started beating again—it made the pain settle differently.

He reached up and brushed your hair back, his touch gentle. “I’ve got you now. You’re safe.”

Since the first shots rang out at Pitt-Fest, you let yourself feel the weight of everything that had happened. 

Your fingers twitched under his, slow and aching, but deliberate. Jack noticed immediately, shifting to cradle your hand in both of his, as if he could anchor you there by touch alone.

“I love you,” you whispered, your voice shaky but sure. “Thank you for staying with me…”

Jack’s eyes closed, lashes trembling. His head bowed as his grip on your hand tightened, pulling it gently to his chest.

“I’d stay a thousand times,” he murmured. “I’d go through hell a thousand times if it meant getting you back.”

Your heart thudded painfully in your chest—because you believed him. There was no part of Jack Abbot that ever did anything halfway, least of all when it came to you.

“I thought I was going to die,” you whispered, barely able to get the words out. “In that truck. I-I knew Emma  was gone and—I couldn’t feel my legs. Everything hurt. I didn’t know if you’d even know…”

Jack leaned forward again, resting his forehead against your hands, breathing you in like he was trying to convince himself you were real. “I know now,” he said, voice rough. “And I’ve got you.”

You could feel the warmth of his breath on your cheek, the way his body trembled just slightly with the force of holding himself together.

“I kept thinking—‘he’s gonna be mad,’” you whispered. “Because I went without you. Because I didn’t duck fast enough. Because I let one of the girls get hit.”

“Stop,” he said, voice firm but thick with emotion. “You don’t need to carry that. Not even for a second.”

You nodded faintly, tears sliding into your hair. “She died, Jack. Emma died. And I couldn’t save her.”

He stayed quiet for a beat, then moved to press a kiss to your forehead, lingering there, like he could pour every unspoken word straight into your skin.

“I know,” he whispered. “And I’ll carry that with you. Every single day.” The monitors continued their slow, steady rhythm. Jack stayed at your bedside like he’d never leave it again.

Outside, the world kept spinning—grief, news headlines, recovery, chaos—but inside that quiet room, wrapped in his presence, you finally let yourself rest. Because you weren’t alone. Not anymore.

And you knew, in the deepest part of yourself, that Jack would keep holding on enough for the both of you—because that’s the type of man he was. 

mercury-glow 2025