show & tell (SMG x reader).
part of the love's an uncharted path universe ★.
SUMMARY:
You have known Mingi since you both were fourteen. You’ve been by his side through thick and thin and you would do anything for him, really, considering he’s your other half. When he has an unfortunate bed experience and asks for your help and you say yes, he starts considering that, maybe, you’re just the best friend a guy like him can have.
PAIRING: best friend!mingi x afab reader.
GENRE: childhood best friends to ?
WORD COUNT: 8k.
WARNINGS: SMUT ☽ (MINORS DNI) attempt !!! at comedy, wooyoung being a little shit, hwa being the voice of reason, sex talk, pet names (love and also dude and bro but in a sweet way), mingi scaring the sense out of you, descriptions of female anatomy, kissing, dirty talk (sort of), teasing, a little bit of voyeurism, fingering, squirting, almost getting caught, unresolved feelings.
NOTES: had to do a lot of research for this one, so i figured nothing better to post as my first fic here! this is 100% self indulgent, as all fics should be, and i think i've re-read it so many times that if you find a typo or something that just doesn't make sense, you can blame it on english not being my first language i guess lmao. i hope you enjoy it and if you do feel free to send to my askbox/reblog/type in any feedback or thoughts! <3
POSTED: july 18th 2024.
masterlist. / part two.
“Delete her number right now!”
“She's such a bitch for saying that to you…”
“And over text too? Wow.”
“Yeah, no, I didn't like her from the start.”
Wooyoung’s living room comes to life once again that morning, voices echoing and insults flying out, all towards the girl Mingi’s seeing.
Was seeing. You're sure she's out of his usual rotation with the lovely shit show she just caused.
You stay silent, your eyes fixed on your best friend's expression, on his red cheeks and apologetic eyes because everyone told him that girl was bad news.
He should've listened to you when you told him you liked her friend better. She was a sweet girl, clearly had a thing for Mingi.
Unfortunately, Mingi has a type. And that type always ends up breaking his spirit one way or another.
But you stay silent, letting your friends have their little rants about how much of a bitch she is for hurting Mingi's ego like that, until he covers up his face with his hands and lets out a frustrated whine.
“That's enough, everyone. I think he got it.” You smile a little and everyone turns to you, Yunho’s chest heaving and everything but Seonghwa (who also kept his mouth shut all this time) interferes before anyone else has the chance to start again.
“You know you shouldn't feel ashamed for that, right?” he asks Mingi, who slowly lowers his hands to his lap and looks at you for a brief second. You nod, confirming what Hwa says “No one is born knowing everything and she shouldn't expect you to know how to make a girl squirt.”
“Jesus Christ,” Mingi whines again, closing his eyes “Don't say it like that.”
“How else should I say it?” Seonghwa is confused but he laughs a little bit and turns to you.
Being the only girl in the room, you think everyone it's expecting you to pick your friend up and join them in their insults but you can't (for Mingi’s sake). Instead, you let out a sigh “I mean, it's hard to even make it happen on your own without any help, Mingi. I don't know what the fuck she's on but…” shrugging, you extend your arm to pat him in the shoulder two times “Hwa’s right.”
“So you do know?”
“Woo—” Hongjoong reprimands right away and you turn to Wooyoung, confused.
“Huh?”
“You said that it's hard making it happen,” he explains, smiling because he just found a new target for the next few days “So you must know.”
Talking about sex with them was never difficult, it didn't make you uncomfortable whatsoever but you know what Woo is doing.
You look down at Mingi before answering though and his eyes are glued to the carpet, begging for the topic of his unfortunate encounter with that bitch to die on everyone's tongue.
So you take mercy on him.
“Oh. I mean… Yeah.” You shrug once again, leaning back against the cushions on the couch while Wooyoung claps like he just heard the most hilarious joke ever.
“You truly are amazing.”
Rolling your eyes, you get up from your comfy seat “Sure. But it took a lot of practice and the whole ordeal was frustrating for me, so, again, I don't know what the fuck she was on,” you say again, smiling down at Mingi before taking a few steps towards the door “It's noon already, by the way.”
“Shit.” Woo gets up quickly from his spot on the floor and everyone else follows suit.
“Alright, everyone out! We have a midterm to cheat on.” San calls out and everyone takes it as their sign to actually leave (not just hang around the apartment) and continue with their days.
This reunion was a little impromptu, just because Wooyoung texted everyone begging to come over and hang out with him and San before their online philosophy midterm.
“And by that he means that you need to stay,” Wooyoung hugs Seonghwa hard, almost begging him with his eyes “We didn't study… Don't look at me like that! Please?”
“I'm not doing your fucking midterm for you!”
You chuckle, leaning on the door and waiting for your ride home to get his shoes on. When you look down at him again, Mingi mouths a thank you and you blow him a kiss.
When you get downstairs, you swear you still hear Wooyoung begging his senior to take the test for him.
Everyone is quiet in the car. You can tell they're tired from exams and life in general, so you don't press them with questions and just let the music play in the background while you look out the passenger window and, eventually, at Mingi.
His grip on the steering wheel lets you know he's a little more affected than he let on back there. But, again, you say nothing.
You know better than to pressure him into telling you his feelings.
Mingi and you have been friends forever. He lived a few houses down from yours, becoming your first friend when you moved to the city. You both were fourteen when it happened, so you've known him long enough to know what happens when he gets his heart broken.
Not that Mingi loved that girl or anything, but he never really took embarrassment well. He didn't when the first girl he liked rejected him in front of the whole ninth grade class and he didn't when his pants ripped in the middle of the stage while performing a routine with his dance team on senior year.
You stood by his side every single time and every single time he waited to sit down and let everything out, collect his feelings and talk to you through his frustrations. You really loved that about him, because he never said anything he regretted just because he was upset at the moment.
Maybe that's why you two have been friends for so long. Opposites attract, or whatever your mother told you one time.
In reality, you think it's because you two complement each other well.
He knows when to speak his mind and you're kind of impulsive, heart on your sleeve and sharp tongue ready to defend your and your loved ones honor if needed.
That's why it takes a lot of strength for you to not pull up that girl's number from his phone and give her a piece of your mind.
One by one, you drop your friends off in different parts of the city and when it's time to go into your own house, you circle the car and Mingi rolls his window down.
He reads the look you give him a little too well, so he opens his mouth to stop you but you shake your head.
“Call me, come over or just let me know if you need anything,” you start before he says anything “If you need me to beat her up, I can do that too.”
He huffs out a laugh “You don't even know how to fight, love.”
You sigh at the nickname, he's been using it since the time you told him you had a crush on his friend, way bsck in highschool, and that you were positive you were going to get together and he would csll you love because that's what good boyfriend's do.
Turns out, you weren't exactly his friends type. Neither were the other girls in your school.
“I don't give a shit, I'll do it,” You two smile to each other fondly for a few seconds and then you tap the top of the car “Thanks for the ride, dude.”
“You’re welcome, bro.” He rolls his eyes, annoyed because he hates when you call him that, but waits for you to get inside either way.
And in the solitude of your room, you wait.
You distract yourself with papers that are due in a few days, you start studying for your finals even though they're months away and you even go downstairs to say goodbye to your parents when they leave for a fancy dinner with their colleagues before you hear your phone ring.
Mingi's FaceTime comes right on time, because you were getting really anxious from the radio silence on his end.
“I have a small query for you.” He puts on an accent that makes you grimace immediately and he laughs at you.
“Ew. Never do that ever again,” you beg, going back upstairs to your room “Go ahead.”
“How do you do it?”
“Excuse me?”
“How the fuck do you make yourself squirt, love?”
Oh.
Definitely not the conversation you were hoping to have with him.
It caughts off guard and you stammer your response “Um… You— I mean, it's not really a thing I can explain.”
“You have such a way with words, though.”
You stare at him through the screen, annoyed, and he just laughs again “Don't make me come over and beat you up.”
“Alright, alright,” his giggling dies out and you distract yourself from the heat you feel creeping over your cheeks while putting away your statistics prep for the quiz you have next week. There's a bit of silence and then you hear him sigh “I do really want to know, though.”
“If you're asking me this to then go over to her house and prove her wrong, I'm not telling you shit.”
“No! No, that's not it at all,” he defends himself quickly when you turn your head to the camera, scowl in your face “When she asked me to do it, I really did try to make her, you know…”
“You said squirt so freely a minute ago, Mingi,” you tease, smiling, but at his expression, you give in “What exactly did you do?”
“I tried to, you know, do it like they do it in the movies,” he demonstrates his point with his free hand, his middle and ring finger down on his sheets, pressing and moving side to side “And she was enjoying it and she came, but nothing really… came out.”
“Wow, first of all: you make her come and she has the nerve to give you shit over text? I hate her,” you shake your head, disappointment written all over your face “and second of all, that was a terrible mistake.”
“What? Going like this?” He does it again and you roll your eyes, laughing a second later.
“No, dude, trying to porno your way into making her squirt.”
“Oh.” His movements on the sheets slow down and you grimace again.
“Please stop doing that,” you beg and he snaps out of his thoughts to look at you through the screen. You take your phone and move to the bed, resting your head against the pillows with a huff.
You ponder for a moment. You're sure telling him what he wants to hear it's not really a threat to your friendship, but it's also something that's very personal and intimate. You can talk about sex with Mingi and the other guys, sure, what doesn't mean you tell them about your sex life.
Maybe that's why Wooyoung was so excited earlier today, because you spilled something that involves you directly and not something vague and general like you usually do.
“Would it give you peace of mind if I explained it to you?” You ask, your voice barely a whisper as you sit straight on the bed.
Your best friend takes what feels like a lifetime to respond and, when does, it's in a hushed tone as well “Please.”
You groan and you comply either way, trying to find the right words to even start “Okay, I'm going to be very technical about this.”
“I wouldn't expect anything else from you.”
His teasing tone makes you glare at him for a few seconds before dismissing it with a click of your tongue “The very first thing you need to make sure happens, is that you wash your hands—”
“Yes, Y/N, I'm not a virgin,” he huffs this time, annoyed “I know all of that, just skip to the part where I make her squirt.”
“Jesus, fine! I also want to clarify that this works on me and I'm not really sure if it'll work on anyone else, alright?” he nods and you look away from the screen because you're not sure how to look him in the eyes “The first thing that I do— The first thing that you need to do,” you correct yourself quickly “Is make sure she's comfortable. And I mean, the space. Towels, water bottles… She needs to hydrate a lot.”
“Hydrate… a… lot…” You turn your head to the screen and your jaw goes slack at what you see.
“Are you writing this down?!”
“I’m making sure I don't forget anything!”
“You're unbelievable…” You let out under your breath and take a deep one before resuming the, apparently, class “Squirting can be confused as peeing and—”
“Shit, hold on.” He interrupts and you hear his mom’s voice at the door, asking him something you can't really catch through the shitty airpod audio “It's just Y/N… I'm not really saying anything so I don't understand how I'm being too loud for— Yes ma'am.”
You try not to laugh because he's literally being scolded right in front of you.
Old habits die hard, and Mingi's mom loves to put him on the spot.
Your laugh dies hard as well, because the next words, for some reason, make your heart drop to your ass.
“She's telling me to either cut it out or go to your house, so… I'm coming over.”
“Oh, I— Hello?” Your lockscreen mocks you because the call literally ended before you could tell him to go and fuck himself “Shit.”
You don't know why you panic, but you do. You tidy up the room, you change your pijamas into something more presentable and you try to remember what were you telling him before he pulls open your bedroom door.
“Mingi! Fuck, you scared the shit out of me “ you're panting, hand over your chest.
He’s also panting, like he runned to get to your house, but he looks dumbfounded by your reaction “Your mom literally gave me the spare keys in your presence.”
When he steps closer, you notice he's wearing cologne and that his hair it's a little wet, still, so you figure he took a shower before calling you tonight.
Which means he probably wanted to sleep everything off, like he usually does, but whatever this is made him call you.
“Yeah! But I thought you— Nevermind.” He shrugs and gives your hair a kiss before he moves to sit at your desk, the same way he usually does when he steals your laptop and notes to complete his assignments for the few classes you share.
God. Somehow, you wish he was doing just that so it brings back some sense of normalcy. Maybe then, your heart can calm down enough for you to understand why this specific situation has your senses going insane.
You sit back down on your bed and try to get your heart back to its place in the meantime.
“They're not home, right? I didn't see your dad’s car.”
“Company dinner.”
“Ah.” He nods and you both fall in uncomfortable silence. It shouldn't be awkward, but it kind of is, even if you laugh when he pulls out the notebook he was writing on from underneath his oversized shirt and steals a pen from your pencil case, it's still a little weird.
You gulp.
“So, squirting can be confused as peeing.” He recalls the last thing you said with a smile and then he turns to look at you for a second “Go on.”
You're grateful he's taking notes all of the sudden. He's turned to you, so you have a clear view of his back and you can freely take a grounding breath before continuing “It can make you feel very uncomfortable if you think you're going to pee yourself and that's really why most women don't squirt in the first place.”
“You sound like you're reading a text book.” He confesses with a laugh.
“I told you, I'm being very technical about this— Besides, I did my research when I was trying to…” you gulp again “You know.”
“You said squirt so freely a minute ago.” Mingi teases you the same way you teased him earlier and you squint your eyes in return.
“Very funny. Anyways… Yeah, when you feel that, you usually tense up. You need to relax before even making it happen,” he nods, writing it down quickly “I also read that, depending on the person, you can confuse the liquid with, like, usual… arousal? Yeah, arousal” you sound more confident the second time you say it, unsure on how to call it because you never really explained anything related to your vagina to anyone else.
He turns to you, confused “So… If she doesn't squirt a lot, how can I tell if she did it?”
“I guess you'll notice it in her reaction?” You shrug and then cough a little to try and get rid of the sudden lump on your throat “I mean, it's not my case, so I wouldn't… I wouldn't know that.”
Mingi, because -you guess- hates you, just raises a brow and looks you over one time before turning back to his notes.
“A-anyways,” you cough again “It's all in her g-spot. It happens because it gets stimulated and that g-spot it's like…” you, once again, try to find the ideal words to explain “It's like the upper wall of the vagina? No, no, that's not right,” you see him draw a line over what he clearly wrote down on the paper and you laugh, apologetic “It's more like the, uh… Like the front wall of it.”
“Front wall?”
“Y-yeah?” you offer, nervous and unsure “I mean… Ugh, let me explain again. Something that you need to take into account is that you can only find it if she's really, really turned on.”
“O… kay.”
“Sort of like when you get hard we, uh, also get hard. Just differently,” you notice he's no longer taking notes when you turn to him again and the room is suddenly very hot.
The AC’s on, right?
Fuck.
“And apparently it only really shows up when you're really aroused. The g-spot, I mean,” Quickly, you're up from your bed and walking around it, fetching your water bottle and taking a big gulp of it with your eyes closed.
Mingi clears his throat a second later.
“So it feels hard to the touch or…”
“Not really, um… It kinda feels like a berry.”
He laughs “What?”
“Yeah, it's kind of soft but it has a texture to it too. And we, uh… have this gland that fills up with the liquid— Kind of like a prostate gland! Yeah, that's what that article said,” putting even more distance within Mingi and you, you sit back on the bed, just on the other side “If you try to do it before it fills up, you end up with nothing. That's what frustrated me the whole time I was learning how to do it.”
“You didn't drink enough water?”
“No, no— It fills up when you get really turned on. And when I was trying, I was trying way too hard and didn't, uh… I didn't do a lot of foreplay before trying, s-so.” You nod, finishing the explanation in a softer voice.
Your cheeks feel hot and you swear your upper lip is sweating a bit. Why would you even say that?
“Y-you didn't touch yourself enough or…?”
“Exactly, I didn't, I just… Tried t-to stimulate it. Wasn't even wet enough so I used, uh, lube.”
“Oh… Lube. Sure, okay.” He nods again, and then moves his hand over his face, looking away for a second “And then?”
“I'm not really sure how to… Give me a second.”
What were you even telling him before exposing yourself like that? Before the tension in the room skyrocketed in a suffocating way? You're not sure.
Oh, foreplay. Okay, what's next?
“Fingering,” you say out loud when you remember and at the sudden word Mingi turns to you, eyes wide and you stumble over your words yet again “Y-you need to finger her to stimulate the g-spot, duh.”
“Don't duh me, Y/N, I'm learning!”
“Sorry!”
“Okay! Now what do I do when… fingering.”
That makes you frown. You're not really sure what to tell him next. So you look straight ahead and, unintentionally, move your ring and middle finger the way you do when you're touching yourself.
In the silence of the room, you audibly hear Mingi’s breath hitching and that draws you back to reality.
When you look at him, his eyes are solely focused on your fingers.
“I don't really know how to explain this next part.” You sound apologetic, your lips tensing into a straight line.
A bit passes.
And then another one and another one where Mingi looks at you with a weird, foreign expression on his face.
So you open your mouth to apologize to him, but he beats you to it.
“Then show me.”
You swear you never even heard him sound like that before. Or maybe you have, the tone of voice similar to when he just wakes up, low, grouchy, as if his throat might be dry.
It just never affected you this way.
“W-what?” you blink hard, a few times, trying to focus on whatever the hell is going on.
“Show me how you do it… I-if you want to.”
“Mingi!”
“I just— Look, you don't have to,” he says right away “If you don't want to, you can forget I ever asked but I'm so… curious”, he says, getting up from your desk chair and planting his knee into the bed “And I'm also really butthurt over what happened. I want to learn but I don't really have anyone else to ask.”
“What about, uh… Minseo! Yeah, what about her?” you offer quickly, also getting up.
“San's ex?!”
“I don't know any other woman that you also know, Mingi!”
He gulps and breathes heavily, gathering his words, his thoughts, just like he always does and you remember: This is Mingi. Your Mingi. The Mingi you've known for years and care about more than anything.
“I'm asking you because I trust you,” he says, looking you over once again “And because if I fail, you're not… going to make fun of me for it.”
There it is.
You soften at that and he seems to relax at your reaction. His demeanor lets you know he's not just saying that because he wants to see you touch yourself, he's being honest.
So you decide to be honest, as well. In a whisper, because your voice will tremble and give away how strongly you feel about his request.
“I've never done it in front of anyone before.”
“So no one has ever make you—”
“No,” you confirm before he even gets it out and you sigh “I never ask for it and I haven't really… I've only slept with—”
“Hangyeol.” He nods and scrunches his nose in disgust at the memory of your highschool boyfriend. They never really got along and it was a shame, because Han was a great guy, he just wasn't the one for you.
“Mingi,” you walk over to him and he straightens up his spine “This could really… I mean, there's no getting rid of me on this lifetime, buddy,” reminding him makes him smile and you do as well, nervous, your body on high alert “But this could mess us up.” You finish in a whisper.
“I'm not letting that happen.” He says back, eyes scanning your face before zeroing on your eyes “There's no getting rid of me either, love.”
That nickname is going to be the death of you, you're sure. It makes you suck in air you very much need at this moment.
Fuck it.
“I'll… get the towels, then.” You smile a little even though your cheeks are burning and you feel a little dizzy while holding his gaze, but you don't back down.
Before you move, though, he stops you with his hand holding your waist “I know where they are. Stay here.”
You could literally melt right now. And you know it's a short trip to the downstairs hallway closet from your room, so you make sure you strip your duvet before things get messy.
You should go to the bathroom, too, to clean yourself up a bit before Mingi finds out what you find out when you sit on your bed.
You're so wet.
And it's so fucking embarrassing, because you're not supposed to feel this way for him, for this.
Because, if anything, this is clearly just an educational experience.
And if Mingi’s excited look when he re-enters your bedroom tells you otherwise, you're choosing to ignore it for the clearly educational experience’s sake.
“These will do?”
You take the two mismatched towels and place them on the bed right away, not even looking at him.
“Yep.”
You think he nods but you're not sure, you just caught a glimpse of him moving towards your desk while you pretend to fix the towels in the bed to perfection.
“Okay, so… You need to, uh, be comfy and shit. Drink water, you just did that a few minutes ago…” when you turn to him, he's reading his notes like he's actually about to conduct an experiment and you chuckle before shaking your head “The… The foreplay part should be next, right?”
“Right…” you drag out, biting the inside of your cheek before he looks back at you.
“You look really tense, Y/N,” he deadpans, looking down at his notes again “You need to relax so it can happen, right?”
“You're about to see me touch myself and you think I can relax?”
“Oh,” he frowns, immediately and then blinks a few times to refocus, you think “I'm not the one doing it?”
“Uh… Yes? Later? I thought you wanted to see me first, y-you… You asked me to show you…”
You can feel him think, the gears on his brain twisting and you think he's going to backpedal at any second because he's not really saying anything. Then you see it, the moment the image crosses his mind.
And the next second you have him in front of you, towering over your form and then he's not.
Getting on his knees, he tentatively places a hand on your knee and parts your legs so you can make room for him to touch the end of the mattress with his chest and raise his chin just enough to make you think he's asking you to kiss him.
Oh God, you want to kiss him.
His voice is a sweet murmur when he speaks again “Show me how to get you there, love,” he sounds like he's pleading, like he's begging you to instruct him and your breath catches when he moves his hand up your thigh “What do you like?”
Your mouth moves before you can even think “Kiss me.”
You don't even notice you're leaning forward until his breath fans against your chin and he tilts his head even more so that your noses touch.
“How do you like being kissed?”
You breathe out a laugh, a little annoyed by his constant questioning “Figure it out, Mingi.” And then the last thing you see is his smirk before his mouth presses against yours.
It's not what you expect. If anything, you expected him to take the lead. Han used to do so, all the guys you've ever kissed did it as well. You don't really know why his patience surprises you, but it does and if your heart could race even more, it would.
Because he waits for your guidance, waits for you to grab his shirt and jank him closer, waits for you to sigh against him and then returns the gesture when he feels your fingers move upwards and tangle in his dark hair.
His mouth is complying to yours, his tongue is exploring it and wetting your lips in the process and you've never felt this good with anyone before.
That's something you'll need to unpack later, but your brain disconnects when your best friend lets out a noise the second his hands touch your waist under your shirt and you forget, for a split second, that the point of this is to have you on your back pleasing yourself for him to learn.
Because you want nothing more than to hear him make that noise again.
The kisses grow needy and so do you when he trails a path with his wet lips from your chin to your neck and the next thing you know is that your back is against the towels you laid down before and his mouth is kissing the valley of your breasts over the cotton of your shirt.
You look down and it takes a second for him to feel you staring before he looks up at you “Should we take this off?”
Your voice gives away how gone you are when you reply a simple yes and your shirt is on the floor the next instant.
Now, you're sure this is not the first time Mingi has seen you in your underwear. You both have gone swimming before and he has walked into your room a million times while you're getting ready. You're even sure he's seen you walk out from your bathroom in this specific bra before… But he's staring at you like it's the first time he's been able to trace the way your breasts spill a little bit over the fabric of this old bra you decided to wear today, like it's the first time he's allowed himself to enjoy it.
Like it's the first time he's allowing himself to feel any sort of attraction for you.
“Fuck,” you whisper, shallow breath hitting his cheek when he returns his mouth to your jaw “Let me… Come here.”
You scoot up until your head rests against your pillows and he follows, resting his body weight on his side and chasing your mouth when you turn your face to him.
You should speed this up. There's no way you're not going to feel like shit if tomorrow you wake up and remember you're letting yourself enjoy this more than you should.
There’s no reason for you to lose your breath when his fingertips trace softly the skin under your breasts or for your legs to grant him access so quickly when they reach your belly and bypass every other part of your body before going straight in between them.
And he notices it too.
“I don't know why I asked you so many questions before,” he starts, turning his hand so that he back of it and his nails start caressing the inside of your thighs through your sweatpants “I know what you like. I pay attention to you whenever we're talking about sex with the guys.”
You frown, about to remind him that you never speak directly about your own experiences but he continues his ministrations, giving your other thigh attention “I usually watch you closely in case any of it makes you uncomfortable, but I notice your reactions when they speak about something that you like.”
Oh. Heart on your sleeve, your biggest flaw.
“Like that one time Woo was going on and on about marking and you couldn't stop fidgeting on your seat…” his nose traces your jaw softly before his teeth take the skin underneath it and you gasp just enough to prove him right “Or that time Yunho said he hated teasing because he's an impatient little shit” he chuckles, his index finding the spot next to your mound and going down slowly until his knuckle graces the crevice where your leg and your hip connect “and you defended it until we had to stop you guys from yelling each other over it…”
Your breath shakes and your eyes close at the sensation “Mingi…”
“Am I wrong?”
You shake your head no and you can all but hear him smile when he speaks again.
“Of course I'm not.”
You open your eyes and expect him to look at you the way he does when you're unable to defend yourself against his quips, but he's not. His eyes are following his own actions and his bottom lip is pulled by his teeth when he takes the fabric of your sweatpants and pulls it up, enough to give you some friction where you need it the most.
“Can I take this off?”
“Fuck, y-yes.”
Joining your shirt on the ground, you're left only in your underwear while Mingi is fully clothed and it bothers you out of nowhere.
“You're so wet already…” he observes and you blush, puffing some air and covering your eyes with you hand. He just laughs “That's a good thing, it means that I'm doing okay.”
He's doing more than okay. Damn all the experience he has and the way he reads you so well.
But his sweet tone gives you some clarity and you support your weight on your hand to fix your position on the bed.
“Alright, let's… resume the lesson before my parents get home.”
“They probably won't for now. The company dinners last until like… two in the morning, usually, right?”
“That's when they decide to go out for drinks.”
“Your mom always wants to go out for drinks.”
“Let's not talk about my mom right now!” you beg and he laughs again, making you chuckle alongside him and you're glad he's talking all of this -the kissing, the teasing, the sweet-talk and the wet patch on your underwear- so well.
The awkwardness from before dissipated the moment he got on his knees in front of you and all that followed was this lovely tension you're dying to keep between the two of you forever even though you shouldn't.
“Show me, love,” he pleads and you sigh, his mouth finding your cheek for a quick second, encouraging you “And then you can show me how to make you feel good, too.”
You stare at him for a few seconds “Damn, you're good,” he shakes his head and you smile, getting rid of your underwear and pushing the quick moment of embarrassment being bare with him in the room gives you “Remember that this is what works for me, okay?”
He nods and then props himself up so he can see it better.
You take a second before your fingers dive into your wet folds and, when you do, you gasp at the feeling.
You've never been more wet just for kissing and teasing before. What the fuck.
You do what you usually do when you're alone for a while and try to contain yourself from moaning because Mingi's eyes keep moving from your fingers to your face. Then, you remember you should be talking him through it, as well.
“You see how I'm building it up?” you start, chest heaving and he hums as his reply “I'm not trying to make myself come but I'm kinda just… edging myself a little bit.”
“Edging,” he repeats and then hisses when he sees your thumb pressing into your clit just how you like it, making you sigh heavily “I know all about that, that's good.”
“Y-you do?”
“You'll be surprised,” he smiles, proud of himself.
“Okay,” you continue, taking a deep breath “Then you know about prepping, too,” he nods “So, a finger first…” you say, swallowing hard when your index makes its way into your cavity without much effort.
Dragging back and forth for a minute or so, you're incapable of containing yourself any longer. Air leaves your mouth in pants and your eyes close when you drag the pad of your finger upwards, locating your g-spot with ease because you're used to it.
“And then, two fingers.”
“Mhm.”
“Look at the position of my hand. I read that these two fingers work the best because they're longer than the rest, although…” you look at Mingi's hand over your belly. You didn't even noticed before this that he was touching you, but he is and his thumb is tracing a pattern that both relaxes you and sends shivers down your spine “I'm sure that it won't be a problem for you, huh?”
He sends a cocky smirk your way and you would've smacked him if you weren't so… preoccupied.
Pressing your precious spot and then dragging back and forward, you stop the movements altogether. It felt too good, way more than good and it's a different sensation of what you're used to.
And it's all because of him.
You look at his side profile, his eager eyes commiting to memory what you're doing to yourself, probably taking mental notes now that his notebook is long forgotten over at your desk and…
He deserves this. He deserves to be the one to have this, just tonight.
You hate to leave what feels like it's about to be your best orgasm in the hands of someone who's just learning, yet alone a man.
But Mingi is not just any man.
“Mingi,” you call and his curious eyes leave your heat a second later “your turn.”
“Did you… Did it happen? I didn't see anythi—”
“No,” you interrupt him, your fingers leaving you and you turn to him, your clean hand finding his face “show me what you learned.”
His mouth parts, but you have a newfound confidence and a glint in your eyes that is new, so nothing comes out.
“Prove that bitch wrong.”
That seems to do it.
His eyes go from being confused to spark with determination and want and electricity runs through you again because he seems so relieved he gets to touch you sooner than expected.
Shyness and nervousness buried six feet under, you both smile to each other before you feel him.
His fingers gathering your wetness, his thumb finding your clit with ease and expertise.
“Wettest pussy I've ever touched.” You can tell he's a little lost in the heat of the moment but it's okay. So are you.
Fuck.
It's been way too long since someone else touched you this way, so you all but melt at the circles he draws on your clit. He paid close attention before, because he's touching you just the way you like it.
“That feels so good…”
“Yeah?” he asks, dark eyes finding yours before a particular stroke forces you to close them. And then he gathers enough slick to insert his ring finger inside and you can't help the moan that slips past your lips.
You lift your hand to cover your mouth, but Mingi clicks his tongue in feign disappointment “I want to hear if I'm making you feel good, love. Don't hold back on me just because this is unconventional.”
The worries die altogether with that.
And now that you have free reign to stop containing yourself, you don't know how to stop.
It's not long before his index joins his other finger but he doesn't go for it right away. He fucks you slowly, allowing you to get used to the unfamiliar stretch of his way longer, way thicker digits until they slide in and out with little effort.
His pace picks up after what feels like ages and your hand fists his shirt for the second time tonight, nodding and moaning in encouragement.
“Deeper,” you instruct “curl them upwards and go deeper, you'll feel it then.”
He obeys immediately, his chest heaving and his mouth parting in delight when he finds it. The pad of his finger presses down on it tentatively and your grasp on his shirt hardens.
“Is that it?” you nod and he does it again, which earns another moan “What do I do now?”
Before you completely get lost in the feeling, you decide to drop the step by step bullshit aside and give him the full instruction in hopes that he'll remember it all without fucking up: “What works for me is pressing… Fuck, yeah, just like that a-and then…” you take deep breath “Just a little harder… Yeah, then rub it in a circular motion while maintaining that same pressure… Fuck, Mingi!”
He's a little too good at following instructions, because he touches you like he's been doing this forever and soon you feel the familiar swell, the usual buildup of it all and he's taking you over the age like it's nothing.
You forget how to speak, you forget how to tell him what he needs to do next and so, when you finally explode, you take his wrist and place his two fingers over your clit.
When you move them side by side, he lets out a fascinated giggle but knows exactly what to do.
A second later, your release is coating your thighs and the towels underneath you and you don't register anything else because your ears are ringing.
Did you lose consciousness for a second? It feels like you did.
That was the best fucking orgasm you've ever felt in your entire life.
And when you come back down, you only register the sound of your breathing and plump lips kissing your face, his fingers stopping their pace once he realizes you're done with it.
Opening your eyes, you stare at your popcorn ceiling for a second. Then, you look at Mingi who's already staring at you with a what the fuck just happened expression.
It makes you laugh. Softly at the beginning, post-orgasm bliss takes over but then Mingi laughs too and your whole chest swells with inexplicable pride.
You don't think twice before kissing him again. When you realize you did it, you pull back and blink at him like he didn't make you see stars three seconds ago.
“That was…” his eyes do the thing he usually does. You never notice it until now, but he scans your face so frequently you've grown used to it, but now… It feels different. His teeth nip his bottom lip and he shakes his head before speaking “Come here, love.”
And then he's kissing you again, slow, intimate, beyond the stupid lesson you just taught him.
But you don't mind it one bit.
You sit up, getting on your knees on the bed and basically forcing him to do the same. Ignoring the gross sensation of the wet towel underneath you, you pull him further into you until his chest presses against yours, until his hands roam your body and settle on your waist, securing the embrace.
This time, when you pull away, there's this whole unspoken new thing between you.
“That was…?” you press, smiling a bit, pulling both you and him back to reality.
Right now, with you half naked and his hard-on pressing on your belly, it's not the time to discuss your feelings.
“Possibly the coolest thing I've seen,” he starts, giggling when you roll your eyes “and the hottest thing I've seen, too,” you shrug, dismissing his stare because it's making you feel hot all over your body, again “and I'm really, really grateful you said yes, love.”
The soft tone he uses to say the last bit relaxes you and you nod, deciding it's not the time to tell him you never even came like that on your own.
Instead, you decide to grasp this intimate moment and extend it as much as you can. You can see Mingi is not expecting it when you reach his sweatpants and let your shaky thumb trace the outline of his cock.
Closing his eyes, he lets out a pleased sigh before he grabs you by the back of your neck and rests his forehead against yours.
“This is supposed to be purely educational, Y/N”
“Is that what you want it to be?” you softly ask, pulling your hand away but then his hips buck and chase after your touch, making you smile despite the emotions swelling in your chest “Let me help you… Please…”
“Fuck, don't beg me, love.”
“Don't make me beg, then.”
What the fuck are you even doing?
“Y/N, I—” he stops suddenly and you're too lost in the moment to notice why.
But then the sound of keys and a door closing downstairs scares the fuck out of you and you push Mingi away without thinking it through.
He lands with a thud on your bedroom floor, next to your discarded clothes.
“What the fuck, Y/N?” he whispers-shouts, both shocked and offended, but you're getting off your bed and picking up your clothes and the soaked towels so you don't really care about his feelings right now.
“Bathroom. Now.”
You're so blessed for having your bedroom right next to the upstairs bathroom. And so blessed that it is your bathroom and you don't have to share it. You’ll get on your knees and thank your gods afterwards, but right now you can only think one thing.
Don't get caught.
Lord knows you'll never hear the end of it if Mingi walks out of here with a hard-on. Your dad will kill him, your mom will cheer because she loves the idea of you and Mingi together and you'll probably pack your bags and move away if it happens.
When you lock the door behind you and make a quick show of putting your underwear and pants back on, you hear Mingi chuckle.
“We can always tell them we're having a sleepover, Y/N, you didn't have to karate kick me off the damn bed!”
“Hush!” But he just keeps giggling at your very obvious flustered state.
You're about to rip him a new one when he takes two strides, backs you against the bathroom sink, and catches your lips in a quick, sweet kiss and all your worries dissolve just like that.
“Guess they didn't go for drinks after all..”
“You think?” cocking your head to side, the smile on your lips can't be fought at this point.
He returns it and leans in for another kiss, longer this time and you sigh against his mouth before pulling away because you really, really shouldn't be doing this right now.
You hear your mother calling your name and then footsteps up the stairs. A murmured she must be sleeping and a hum from your father before they pass the bathroom door. You truly only relax when you hear their door closing at the end of the hallway.
“Okay, we're safe now.”
“When were we ever not safe?”
“When I was half naked on my bed, Mingi!”
He shakes his head with a smile and takes a step back.
You clear your throat.
“I really did want to help you out but—”
“Raincheck?” he asks and at you hesitation to say yes, he continues “If you want to. If you don't, it's okay. We… We'll figure it out, okay?”
“Okay.”
He smiles again “Good, uh…”
Mingi seems unsure on what to do next. Feeling the same, you decide the best thing to do is to get him out of here.
Opening the bathroom door, you carefully peek into the hallway, taking his hand in yours and beckoning him to follow you down the stairs, trying to make as little noise as possible.
“Shit, your shoes…” you whisper.
“I don't think they noticed if they didn't barge into the bedroom to check on us like they usually do, love.” He returns, in the same tone.
That does nothing to ease your mind, but he makes sure to put them on quickly and then grabs your shoulders, shaking you in a teasing manner.
“Quit worrying, Y/N. I can feel you thinking.”
Of course he does. There's no one, in this world, that knows you better than him.
It makes your heart flutter and it shouldn't. But you're getting on your tippy toes and stealing a parting kiss before you think about it too much.
It's irresponsible for you to do so, but Mingi grabs your waist and extends the duration of the kiss and suddenly you don't give a fuck about your parents or anyone else finding out about this… shift in your dynamic.
“See you tomorrow?” he asks against your lips and you nod.
“See you tomorrow.”
And with that, he leaves.
You lock the door and practically run to your room after.
What the fuck have you done?
If you read all the way down here: THANK YOU SO MUCH. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated and since it’s an open ending (sort of), let me know if you want a second part!
© jensthwa, 2024.
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dangle on the leash | Simon "Ghost" Riley x F!Reader
The flimsy sarcophagus housing all his wants, his desires, cracks open when Price announces that his missus is pregnant.
Ghost cocks his head in consideration.
Intentionally knocking you up is amoral. Probably illegal. Somehow, even more dastardly when the reason for it is simply selfishness. Want. Greed. Hunger. But he's a rabid dog burning with the urge to bite.
No one should really be surprised when he finally decides to sink his teeth into you.
Unfortunately, that hail mary Price sent into the aether never reached you.
(your bird is too big for a cage—
—but maybe a collar would do.)
this is a babytrapping fic lmao but please read the tags carefully. a companion piece to this (Price + babytrapping).
DEAD DOVE. SMUT. 18+
HARD WARNINGS—coercion. dependency. intentional alienation. unsafe, unprotected sex. this very much toes the line of noncon (that is still very dubcon even when consent is given) in many ways, notably: somnophilia, and condom/contraceptive tampering. intrusive, violent thoughts. mentions of violence. manipulation; slight gaslighting. implied kidnapping. references to past abuse (Ghost), brief mention of drugging/threats of drugging (ambiguous as to if it was ever followed through on or not, mostly just Ghost's internal monologue unfiltered).
ADDITIONAL TAGS—smut. rough sex. unsafe sex. dom!Ghost. mean, obsessive, unhinged!Ghost. spit kink. dacryphilia.
he's feral, but he's yours. too bad for you, no one is really sure if that's a good thing or not.
One of the things Price often tells new recruits is to shove their old life into a box.
“There's home,” he huffs, fingers twitching as if he's subconsciously flexing around the hilt of a lit cigar. “And then there's work. Whatever box you decide to put this, or your family, your personal life, into is your choice. But for fuck’s sake. Keep them separate.”
Most of the new recruits are fresh off selection, shaded sickly chartreuse, and take his words as a literal gospel. Work, this; home, them. They don't start to unravel the second part of his gruff speech until much later. Until they can't wash the blood from their hands, and the scent of their mum’s eucalyptus hand soap is nauseating. Unfamiliar. When being in civvies feels like wearing skin that doesn't fit, and everyone around you is alien, foreign. They don't know. They'll never know.
It's only when they find themselves gazing at the clock on the wall of their family home, counting down the minutes until their mandatory leave is over do they realise that home is the barracks.
That's something Ghost has always understood. Maybe it was because his home life was already in ruins, tatters. Beer soaking into the knock-off Persian rug a cousin nicked from a flea market when he was nine. No fine china in the cupboards because it'll end up in shards on the floor. Plastic plates and forks and cups. Always. Howling in his head. Screaming from down the hall in his mum's room. His bedroom door creaking open at night. The anger, the curdling fear (shameful—be a man; punch him back, hit him before he hits you, you useless prick—), of not knowing whether or not it was his dad, high as hell and itching for a fight after busting their mum’s lip wide open, or Tommy sneaking into his bed at night because his is soaked in piss and he can’t sleep when they scream at each other like this.
(Funny that, he always found; neither of them could ever sleep when it was silent, either.)
Blood on the linoleum. Trying to eat burnt toast and overcooked beans with a busted lip and a twinge in his jaw—
(Fractured, they'll say later, years later, during his mandatory medical checkup when he's first recruited. Healed all wrong. Son, didn't anyone take you to hospital?)
He understands the separation between home and work—even if the former lost all relevancy nearly a decade ago. Back when he buried them all. Was buried himself—
What Ghost never really understood was the box.
Shove it into a box.
When he asks over cheap whisky somewhere in Siberia, Price tightens his fingers around his glass before bringing it up to his head. His index finger juts out. He knocks the tip of that bruised, scabbed knuckle against his temple. Once, thrice. Levels Simon with a pointed look he both can’t understand and somehow knows all too well.
“Up here."
“Paid nearly fifty quid for that,” he grouses, shaking his head. “Think I've been ripped-off, Price.”
Price scoffs, places the glass down with a hollow thud. “Don't be a fuckin’ muppet, Simon—” his real name makes his shoulders tense. Around the barracks, they know him only as the Ghost. “You put it away somewhere. Hide it. I don't fuckin’ know. But if it keeps you goin’, keeps you sane, and doesn't become a mess I gotta clean up, well—”
The implication is stark. Heavy.
Price was always good at chiselling through layers of accumulated indifference to get to the madness within, but considering Ghost’s past and his mile-long rap sheet, the warning digging into his words like a dull blade isn't unwarranted.
Old dogs, he'd called the pair of them when they first met. There was a sharp keenness in his eye when he lifted his hand, waved his cigar toward the tangled mess of scar tissue crisscrossing his face (made with a dull, rusted knife, one that gouged out deep pocks of skin, ugly fuck, looks like the badlands, don't he? like a postcard from the Grand Canyon, sweetheart. not so cute anymore, are ya, pretty boy—), and said, “well, you're fuckin’ rabid, ain't you? Better put a muzzle on that before it becomes a problem, mm.”
His problem, specifically.
And Ghost gets it. Thinks Price might understand that particular brand of madness—despite growing up on literal opposite sides of the track, his Manchester to the others Liverpool; poverty and prestige—if only just. Because Price seems to be able to curb those baser impulses in a way Ghost hadn't yet mastered (and won't for quite some time yet). He's put together. Sort of. Respected. Normal.
The men in the barracks don't look at him and flinch.
But he sees the way the man's eyes linger in the crowd, shrewd and careless, before falling on the pretty bartender in the back. The one with roses in her eyes and a smile full of dandelions. Soft, like butterscotch. It's here when they darken. When he reaches, almost angrily, for his whisky. Pats his chest with a heavy fist searching for his cigar.
She's a sweet thing, he reckons. All pretty and trusting. Birds like her make his head itch—
“Don't even think about it, Simon,” Price grumbles, and it feels like territorial posturing, a challenge he almost raises to meet with his chin, if only to make Price fluster, but it's hollow. Empty. He denies himself, too. The prick.
“How'd you do it?” He asks, and doesn't specify. Doesn't think he needs to.
When Price swallows, it looks like a grimace. “Years of practice.”
He considers the weight of it, his eyes straying back to the woman behind the bar. She's tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, wrist delicate like bone china, the kind they could never afford, and for a moment, the intrusive thoughts, the ones he gets sometimes about wanting to tear things to bloody pieces, rears—
It's stamped down in a swig of flat lager You stupid fuckin’ mutt, Price would say tomorrow morning, shaking his head. You always think with your prick?
Simon cranks his head sharply to the side instead. The resounding crack seems to echo through the empty pub.
Price just shakes his head. “Christ. No one ever house break you, yet?”
“Yeah, they did,” he rasps, staring at the bartender who gazes back at him now. Skittish, unsure. Not so sweet after all. She looks away, cowed. Her hands tremble. He leans back, and hums. “And now I piss outside, like a good ‘ol boy.”
“Ain't nothin’ good about you, Simon. Fuckin' Christ—”
And he's not wrong.
The Ghost has a reputation of being a cold-hearted bastard. A Frankensteinian beast cobbled together with spare parts robbed from a jailhouse graveyard. Worst of the worst. An arm from a mass murder. The leg from a spree killer. Heart a patchwork mess of ichor and sulphur. Sutured together with barbed wire.
It's all sort of macabre. Rather trite, too.
The rumour mill in the barracks is insatiable.
But sometimes, he wakes up and he's still buried. Still dead. Dirt in his throat, lodged in his nose. He breathes in and feels pebbles scraping his lungs. Feels worms in his ears. Maggots in his head.
They crawl through his grey matter. Leeches burrowing into his thoughts, sucking the good in him dry.
Or, whatever's left of it, anyway.
He thinks with his teeth because it's easier that way. Cold, calculative instinct. Just barely boxed into a neat package slapped on the desk of Price's higher-ups.
A good man, they say, and turn him loose on the streets. One of the best we have, as he breaks jaws, and tears through jugulars. A force to be reckoned with.
They hand him a gun, a rifle, when the bloodied footprints leading back to camp become too much of a hassle to clean. Shoot from a distance. He takes to it like the bulk of metal was made for his scarred hands. Scythe to a Reaper.
It feels like bloodletting. Draining him of his anger, his fury, until a cold, gnarled indifference curls in the basin left behind. Icy, frigid. Down to the bone.
Sometimes, he doesn't remember what it felt like to be warm, even buried under a thick balaclava and layers of military fatigues.
Frankenstein’s monster. Patched together from the rotten remains of horrible men.
And as he stares in the mirror at the patchwork ruins of his face, his body, he wonders if there's some truth to it, after all. He's pretty sure if someone cracked his skull open—again—they’d find rot. Tumulus. Infested with maggots and worms. Cobwebs behind his eyes. In his nose. His brain perfectly preserved: a zombified tombstone. And oh, how it hungers.
Wants.
But in a box it goes. One shaped like a coffin. Placed pretty in the back of his broken head.
He stares in the mirror and thinks he sees something moving under his eye. Wriggling around. The temptation to claw it out rears, but the shredded tissue on his thighs reminds him of what happens when he listens to that insidious hiss in the back of his head (some amalgamation of his old man, and that bastard—) and goes searching for gold in bone marrow.
He huffs. Fingers curling around the porcelain. His head is rotten. Putrefied. He can feel the decomposing sludge press against his temples. It grows teeth sharp like a razor blade and hacks away at jaundiced bone. Ghost lifts his hand, digs his fingers into his temple. Down boy—
(Simon doesn't even want to consider what his heart must look like, then.)
Cold-hearted, sure—
But he likes sweet things.
The kind that will undoubtedly give him cavities. A spillover, perhaps, when candy bars were too expensive, and the only dessert he was given was a toffee by the neighbour when she wasn't moaning to his old man about all the shit he and Tommy got up to.
(Bruises came afterwards, the colour of liquorice. Sour cherries.)
Unfortunately for him, sweet things don't like him much—a shame, really. Simon has always had a sweet tooth.
His rough edges are too sharp for their liking, and Simon's—
Intense. Like a dog with a bone, he doesn't know when to let go. When to unhinge his jaw from the morsel between his teeth. He bites hard. Shakes his head. Tears into the things he wants until it's bloodied meat pinched in his incisors.
And so, they keep their distance. Like they can smell the rot on him. The funeral dirt. The stench of an unearthed sarcophagi.
Sometimes, though, the wiley ones will inch closer, looking to get messed up badly by a bad man, and it makes something inside his head howl when he turns them down. Following Price’s creed. Can't give in to the pretty ones, he'd said. Nothin’ but trouble.
Trouble, like a pair of shackles. A noose. Trouble, like gentle, clean hands and fragile bones. Fine china. Fine powder. The marshmallow soft kind of trouble that will melt in the acid that leaks from his pores. Aqua regia. Attacking anything that gets close.
(Breakable, is what Price means. Pretty chew toys that are beyond repair once he's finished with them.
He must think Ghost is some sort of psychopath—)
But still. He stays away. It's easier on base, in safe houses, too far out from the general public to have to worry about doe eyes and soft touches. He doesn't need it, anyway—
Then comes you.
And the forfeiture of his self-control.
You're trouble of a different kind.
Trouble, like the end of a sledgehammer. Trouble, like the grill of a car. The barrel of a gun.
In the shape of a battering ram, one strong enough to dislodge the madness in the back of his head. Where the corrosive acid should ruin you, eat you alive, it doesn't. Not with your tantalum skin.
But oh, do you pack a punch—
At first, you think he's homeless.
Some scruffed-up man sleeping on a park bench outside of your apartment.
In another life, he might have been. He isn't a stranger to bad habits, and had the military not been his only choice in life for some semblance of good (laughable, considering what he does for a living), he could see the threads of his life leading him here. Drugs. Manchester is good for it, this he knows all too well. Especially the shithole neighbourhood he's from.
He doesn't clue into this, though, until you glance at him, warily, and then shuffle into the cafè he’s holed outside of, the place where his current target gorges himself on steeped tea and crumpets.
(Price's dry text sits, open, on his burner phone: and don't fuck this up—)
It feels a bit like an omen. Made worse when you meet his gaze through the glass, and—
Well. Shit.
The impact is a collision. Hitting a pole at top speed. Metal bent around concrete.
His teeth ache (so, so bad—).
You emerge from the small building a few minutes later—the faded eggshell with chocolate trim is nauseatingly sweet against your pastel yellow raincoat—holding a takeaway bag, and balancing a tray of coffees in your hand.
He tenses. It's instinctual. There's nothing about you that's an immediate threat to his person—unless you plan on adding to his scars with the tip of your umbrella, the scalding coffee in your hand—but it's odd, isn’t it? No one approaches him. Not unless they have a reason to.
And no one, in his experience, ever has a good one.
“Hi,” you chirp, disarmingly sweet, as you come to stand in front of him. His jaw aches. Even sprawled across a bench, you're barely looking down at him. Sticky, cold fingers tap a strange rhythm down his spine. “I, um, hope this isn't weird, but I saw you sitting here, and—well. I got this—”
You wiggle the bag. He smells something greasy. A breakfast sandwich, he's sure.
It's an unusual assassination attempt. Price will be livid.
“What for?” He rumbles, sitting up in the seat. The shift of his bulk seems to make you nervous. You take a step back, and he fights the urge to follow. To back you into a corner. No escape.
You regain your footing, even if the smile on your face wobbles. Weakens under his flat stare. Some people can smell the rot on him.
He wonders if you can, too.
(Pity that. You're a pretty bird, ain't you?)
And the way you take him in lacks a distinct thrum of hesitation, fear that’s normally there. It occurs to him, then, that you see him as just another man. Just another person.
(“deader than a doorknob, this one. such a goddamn waste, boss. he was a fun one, wasn’t he? should we burn ‘em?”
nah. bury him out back—)
It's laughable, really. A joke. He has the urge to crack one—sick and awful enough to make that little smile on your face wilt. Wither away. Almost does, too, but it get tangled in his throat when he feels the weight of your stare on him.
The easy sweep of your eyes is barely discrete, but it's clinical. Pitying. But the softened edges of that empathy dissolve as your pretty head adds up all the numbers on him, coming to a standstill. Your eyes linger on his wrist. The gold of his wristwatch peeks out beneath the black sleeve of his hoodie. An intricate web of complex timekeeping that only he's privy to. A little luxury he picked up in Italy when the cash he'd been given was getting too tiresome to carry around.
Dead men, after all, don't need bank accounts.
And then—
You fluster. “Sorry, I just thought—”
It clicks, then. The pity. The soft words. The goddamn coffee—
His gums itch. He has the sudden urge to be mean about it. Pick you apart in this street until nothing but embarrassment and humiliation remains.
“That I was homeless? ‘nd you brought me, what? A coffee? ‘ow sweet of you. Some breakfast, too. Well, aren't you a lovely girl?”
You are embarrassed. It blisters across your expression. Has your hands trembling around the cardboard tray, spilling droplets of coffee down the side. Your head is bowed, cowed in shame. It reminds him of that bartender some years prior. Pulling away when the bad dog growls—
But there's a thin sheen of intrigue in your eyes, burrowing holes into the shoes in front of you; a tangled knot of want coiling in the heat of your embarrassment over this blunder. Over offending him.
Well—
That's new.
Some get off on it. On humiliation. Specifically, of the public variety. He didn't take you as the type. The way you twist, squirming in place, is odd, though. It doesn't fit as well as he originally thought. No. It's not the public shame, but—
Him.
Ah.
Sweet, sweet girl.
(So naïve.)
He reckons he could get you to do just about anything to make it up to him. You would, too. You're soft enough to be submissive, to bow your head in contrition, but there's a flicker of defiance in the jut of your chin when you lift your head.
This is a blunder and you're sweetly embarrassed, sure, but it isn't enough to break you.
And now Simon just wants to ruin you. Teach you a lesson about bad, vile men—
(Something you'd welcome with open arms, wouldn't you?)
“Didn’t know Manchester was so charitable,” he rasps. His throat is dry. Parched. He reaches for the coffee—black, with extra creamer and sugar on the side, tucked neatly in a little bag; fuckin’ hell. Ain't you just adorable—and places it on the spot beside him. “I’ll be takin’ this. Will need it for later.”
You look like you want to protest. Fight back. His hackles rise, ready for it—eager. Something anticipatory, dark, bleeds through the moulted mess of his head. Sickly. Terrible. He thinks about what you'd look like sprawled under him, shaking and begging for more, for him to stop—
Fuck. Birds usually make his head itch, but you make his fucking skin crawl.
In the end, you just huff. Roll your eyes. He wants to chew them out of your head. Pop them between his teeth. He bet you'd taste divine.
You walk away from him before he can. You don't look back once.
Pity, he thinks. Someone's gonna snatch you clean off the streets like that—
Hours later, he sends Price a text message with the coordinates for where to pick up the package Ghost left.
He considers it a blessing when the man sends him back, good job, now get a pint from me as a little reward. Can't say I don't treat my team well.
A reward, huh?
Well. With your stature in comparison to his own, Ghost easily can see you being considered a pint.
So, he follows you home, and tallies this one as being on Price.
It's easy. Too easy. He slips deftly behind you, tucked away from view, and masks his footsteps under the echo of yours until he's standing in the shadows outside of your house. This, too, feels like a blessing. It's a duplex. He waits for one of the lights to flicker on, and—
The window brightens. Room number two.
He hums, and palms his pockets for the pack of smokes he nicked off the man. Needing something to take the edge off. To quell the urge to bite.
It's even easier to engineer meetings. Random run-ins. All blamed on happenstance, chance. Of course. This towering mountain of a man with his thick manc twang—the sort of gallows humour that can only be found in the blue-collar streets of Salford from the nasty old men squatting on the corners—must have better things to do than stalk you. Surely. You're not special enough to be hunted, right?
Still. You're a touch wary of him. Distrustful. You keep your distance—six inches for Jesus Christ, aren’t you a peach?—and try to skirt the line between neutrally polite to the strange man loitering outside of the shops you frequent (your schedule burned to his memory, naturally) and that fascinating skittish intrigue from before. All simmering heat. Blunt want. The kind wrapped up in silk threads.
It's interesting to watch it play out when he steps closer and all those long-forgotten instincts in the back of your head flare up. The shaky step you take back. The inward frown of confusion when you're not sure why your body craves space, acting almost on its own. And then the sweet defiance that breaks over you. The intentional step closer. The feigned warmth in your tone as you talk to him.
It's easy to pocket the uglier aspects of his personality. The coldness. The indifference. The flat, droll insincerity that leaks into his tone. All of it shelved, locked away, and he's not sure if Price would be happy that he listened to what he said, followed his example, or furious that he's bastardising it to lure this pretty fish in.
)The latter, undoubtedly. But Simon gets a sick kick from it all.)
Especially when it brings you closer to him. Thaws you as you rationalise his reaction during the first meeting, gears spinning. Kicking up excuses.
Anyone would be angry, offended. It's natural. He's alright now—
It makes you look at him differently as you forcefully fight the urge to flee.
Silly bird.
Wary eyes rake over his massive bulk. Brows furrow at the series of black medical masks he wears in public. Always. That, in addition to the heavy black of his wardrobe—black jacket, black hoodie, black leather gloves—sometimes makes you glance at him with a touch of worry. Fear. Probably wondering if you brought home a delinquent.
But it changes when he rolls up his sleeves one day after you've been moaning about your broken beach cruiser (the, I don't know, chain—or something—keeps catching—), and crouches down to fix it.
There's a hitch in your breath. A distinct swallow. A guilty tinge of something shy, deliciously so, shading your eyes ruby-red when you look down at him.
And ah—
Sweet little treat snagged on the line. Ain't he a lucky lad?
It's all the better when you do the work for him. Reeling yourself in, practically throwing yourself in his cooler when you ask about his tattoos, carefully—considerately—nudging the topic away from his ugly scars.
He guts you clean as he tells you he's in the military. Top secret, pet. Don't ask because I'd hate to ‘ave to hurt a pretty face like yours—
You preen under it. Pet. Pretty. You don't even notice when he slides his knife over your scales, dices you up on his chopping board.
You're the picture of sweetness when he unkinks the chain in your bike, and sets it straight. All happiness. Smiles. Appreciative glances. You flutter your pretty eyes at him as you say—
“Thank you—”
You're waiting for a name. His belly rumbles. He could eat, he thinks, and licks his teeth.
“Simon. Simon Riley.”
The risk-reward ratio is balanced when you breathe it out between plump lips, chasing the end of it with your tongue. He wants to eat it out of your mouth. Swallow it down.
You touch his arm, hand warm, soft. “If there's anything I can do to pay you back—”
He takes you out for a kebab later on. Nudges you out of the way when you open your wallet to pay. Draft girl. Naïve, too, because he can feel the heat in your cheeks from where he stands, reaching over to snatch the bag from the man with a grunt.
You must think him quite the gentleman. So trusting.
Doesn't matter. He lets it take root. Especially when you shyly invite him back to yours to eat.
He makes a feast of it, and fucks you on your mint green chaisse after he's finished.
(Not on birth control, you say, and hand him a box of condoms, suddenly shy. It's unopened. He hums, and burns that to memory.)
He keeps his distance—an easy feat when he's halfway around the world, and you're stuck in the gloom of Manchester.
It's purposeful, of course. He made a promise to Price not to give him a reason to worry, but fuck—
You're proving hard to quit. He's never had anyone cuff him upside the head on his bullshit. Not anymore, anyway. Not as the Ghost. He likes the thrill of it, of this chase.
You don't let him steamroll you when he's in a mood to fight. You punch back, hitting him right in the mess of his guts, and fuck. Fuck. He's a little bit obsessed with it. With you. This wily little fish that acts so shy when he's got three fingers buried in your cunt, but rides him after like you're starving for it. Clawing at his chest. Scratching his arms. It's raw. Primal. He wants to break you—this fiery little kitten that bites his fingers until they bleed, and then purrs in his lap as he drives a pickaxe through your head, shredding logic into pieces. Rummaging around until he nicks the optic nerve that lets you see red.
You’re everywhere. In everything. In the back of his head, under the howling that hadn't stopped since you trailed your finger down the jagged topography of his bare chest, digging your nail into the crude x across his heart, and whispered, soft and sweet: you're all kinds of fucked up, aren't you?
A bludgeon to his self-control—
He resists. Has to. Is mean about it, too. Doesn't tell you where he's going (it's need to know), or what he's doing (would ‘ave to bash your pretty ‘ead in if I told you), but keeps you strung on the line (keep thinkin’ about that pretty cunt of yours; can't wait to come ‘ome and ‘ave you sit on my ugly mug—).
It's dangerous, this game of his. Thrilling for all the wrong reasons.
But he’s a good mutt. Good—
Until the text.
The one you send to him when you're out with friends. A picture. You're in a pub somewhere in Moss Side, a drink in hand. A gaggle of nobodies crowded around you. It makes sense, he supposes. There's that old idiom—you’ll trap more flies with honey—and he doesn't know anyone nearly as sweet as you.
His sweet girl.
(you fuckin’ mutt—)
Ghost stares at you for a moment, teeth aching. The little ensemble—a crop top and jeans—is a vision, he reckons. But it's spoiled when he catches more eyes on you than pointed at the camera. Practically spilling out of your top, aren't you?
He breathes heavily through his nose. Tastes guncotton in his throat.
Ghost commits every face to memory, and then calls you.
You're drunk. Too drunk to remember it tomorrow. Stuck in a pub on what's supposedly a bad part of town. Chatting away about going to your friend’s house. He gets the address, and something sour twits in his stomach. Shit council houses.
“That safe?” He asks, leaning back in his chair. He's already chubbed up in his slacks at the slur in your voice. “And dressed like that? Didn't take you for a slag—”
It makes you sputter on the line. “I'm—I’m not—”
You're so quick to placate him. So hasty to make him happy. Please don't be angry with me, Simon. I'm just having some fun—
The claws and fangs are tucked away when you're drunk. He shoves the information in the cache, eyes burning. Head aching. He's feverish. Hot under the collar.
Odd considering he's dead—
“Sounds like you will be.”
“It's not like that—”
“‘ow would you know? Might meet a nice fellow. Might take him home.”
“I don’t—I wouldn't—”
The sniffle makes him throb. Fuck. “Yeah? Well, ain't none of my business, I reckon—”
“It is.”
“Oh? How's tha’?”
“I—I like you, Simon—” he can taste your embarrassment through the phone. He didn't even need to bring you flowers and you're already boxing him into monogamy, confessing to him. So sweet. So tender. If he were a better man, he might have told you to sober up. To talk about this tomorrow.
Too bad for you, he isn't. And what’s worse is that he’s a loyal bastard, too.
But that's later, and right now—
He's halfway across the world, and you're vulnerable. In the den of hungry mutts.
It’s charr in his throat. Anger in his veins. “You like me? An’ you go out dressed like that?”
“There's nothing wrong with how I'm dressed—”
He sucks his teeth. “Dunno ‘bout tha’, pet. You look like you're achin’ to get fucked.”
You take a shuddering breath. “I just want you—”
“Yeah?” It's a growl. His cock spits prespend in his trousers. “Then be my good girl. Go home and wait for me.”
It's quiet on the line. He catches the hitch in your throat, the sharp exhale, like you can't really be sure if he's serious or not. He says nothing. Waits.
Where there would have been a fight—fists and teeth and snarling words—you quieten in the silence. Docile. Submissive. It's in you, he knows. He saw the glimpses back when you first met, when he'd bent down and fixed the bike he broke. All it needs is a little—
“Jus’ worried about my sweet girl, is all.”
And you relent.
Corrosive oil spills out of the necrosed holes in his head. It curls over his thoughts, liquid sin. He takes himself in his hand, blood pulsing in his veins, white-hot, damning, and bares his teeth at the urge to come to you, to push you down on the floor, and mount you like a snarling beast—
“Good girl,” he growls when you tell him you'll call a taxi, that you'll go home and have some wine with your friend instead.
Friend. Friends.
He'll have to do something about that.
(The thing about deprivation is that it bleeds into a vicious sense of possession when it's finally obtained. Greed. His wants have wants, have wants—
A perfect ouroboros. One you feed into almost destructively.)
Because the thing is—
Simon wants to tie you to his bed. Keep you locked up in the safe house he has in Manchester. Chained, shackled. A prisoner with him as your iron guard.
It isn't just fantasy, either.
The flies that congregate around you are an annoying, incessant buzzing in his ears. Remora clinging to the biggest fish.
But they're easy to scatter when he waves his hand.
(Waves off. Threatens with bodily harm, with physical aggression—
Same thing.)
The sting in his knuckles and the blood on his shoes are worth it in the end when your tantalum skin cracks. An aggregate of beautiful lines, pretty in their fragility, their brokenness. He wedges his fingers between the splints, widening the chasm to pet at the sticky-soft centre hiding beneath all that rough rock. Sweet girl. Hard candy enclosing taffy-softness.
His coos melt you to the consistency of mercury. Liquid silver pebbles along your lash line, spilling over in a dizzying display of raw vulnerability.
It makes every predatory instinct inside of him bristle. Locking onto the sweet lines of crystalline sadness that run down your cheeks. It has his heart racing. Eager, anticipatory. The thrill of the chase, of running you down into the ground until you're fine powder under him.
And it’s there, it's in his arms—the maw of a beast—where you seek comfort, lamenting the loss of your friends, your coworkers. No one wants to hang out with you anymore. They don't return your calls or answer your texts.
What did I do? You sniffle, throat bared. Belly turned up.
Flooded with tears. The lachrymal face that peers up at him makes his teeth ache. He rolls his head back, feels himself thicken in his pants.
Simon loves it when you cry.
“Fuck ‘em,” he rasps, words sticking to his dry throat. “If they can't see what a catch you are, then they don't even deserve to breathe the same air as you.”
It makes you cry harder, makes you mumble into his chest about how lucky you are to have someone like him. Someone who cares.
His breath hitches. Warm floods his veins, fever-hot.
“Thank you, Simon—”
And then you, smooth silver and wickedly sweet, cradle him in your palms as if you could hold all the broken pieces of him together.
He thinks it's cute.
Doesn't really have the heart to tell you it's a lost cause.
“Anytime, pet.”
And you're perfect, too.
You take this mangy mutt into your house, and let it eat your food, sleep in your bed. You let him fuck you stupid, and listen so prettily when he convinces you to let him spoil you. Let him pay your rent, your bills. Let Simon dote on you the only way he knows how—mercilessly possessive, and a touch cruel, mean—but you roll over, showing your belly. Submissive and sweet.
It's even better when you try to lash out at him with a collar in the shape of his teeth branding your neck, spitting and hissing like a feral cat who doesn't know yet that's claws have been clipped. Only to then curl up in his lap, purring as he strokes your fur, and carves out a place for himself in your life.
He wants to sink his teeth into you, and you think he's a big dog. Undomesticated. One who comes and goes as he pleases. A stray. A mutt.
It's said fondly. Full of love—
His mouth is full of cavities. His teeth ache. His gums bleed.
(do you know he's rabid? that the faded name on his dog tags once read cujo—)
Everything about you makes that sludge flood behind his eyes, pounding rotten fists against his temple. take, take, take; mine, mine—
The howling doesn't stop. It tells him to press you into the mattress and fuck you stupid. Tie you to the bedposts and never let you go—
He throws fists in the dark, trying to hit the madness in his head. Ends up with bloody knuckles and laughter in his ears.
(a voice of reason says, your bird is too big for a cage—)
He clings to it.
You're warm beside him. Burning hot. He syphons it from your veins when you're asleep, pulling you close just to feel something on his skin other than dirt. Other than blood.
It's easy to pretend he's fine with these little nips. Leaving teeth marks in your neck. Bloody rings snaking up your thighs.
He wraps one hand around both of your wrists, holds them high above your head, and tells himself it's enough. Shackled by him, under him, as he takes you apart, pulling at your sense of independence like the gnarled fingers of winter bringing defoliation to summer's bloom, but even with this, all of it, he still aches. Still wants. Needs—
Stupid fuckin’ mutt.
Then you bring his hands up to your throat, letting him wrap his bearish paws around your delicate neck, and he knows these little bites will never satiate the hunger in his guts.
He wakes up the next morning feeling warm. Full. Edges softened, if only just, by the sticky sweetness of your breath ghosting over his chest.
Simon curls his arm around you, holding tight.
He won't let go. Won't—
Hide it. Put it away.
Ghost does neither of those things. He buries it, instead.
But in doing so, you find cracks in the foundation. Ones that are just big enough for your willfulness to slip through. To hand him back the cash he gave with a scoff, and a, i work, too, you know? i don't need your money, Simon. that's not why i’m with you—
(All he hears is, I don't need you.)
And then you send him a text. I'm going out with friends from work tonight. We're going drinking. I'll talk to you tomorrow!
In the zombified remains of his head, a new howling starts. The hisses tell him you're pulling away, running from him—
It's a big world out there. It'll eat you whole—
Like Tommy.
The thing about want is that sometimes it grows teeth, hands. Claws. Without a body of its own, it tends to mould itself after its maker because that's all it knows how to do: devour, consume. Yearn.
He shouldn't be too surprised to find that this need of his has dug itself out of the grave he buried it in.
(he did, too—)
The flimsy sarcophagus cracks open when Price announces that his missus is pregnant.
The howling in the back of his head stops abruptly. The pulsing ache in his temple abates. It's heavy, this weight. This absolute, utter emptiness—
No. It's not hollow. The chasm isn't drained, it's—
(In the silence, something growls. Feral. Possessed.)
—full. Perfect equilibrium. All of the patchwork parts of himself, the ones that don't quite fit, suddenly find synergy.
Communion.
Ghost cocks his head in consideration.
(your bird is too big for a cage—
—but maybe a collar would do.)
—after all, could you ever leave him with his name etched into your womb—
In leaving the key under the mat for him to come and go as he pleases, you've left yourself vulnerable. But—
Not anymore.
He has a safehouse he'll take you to. You'll let him, too, because it'll be the best choice for you. The three of you.
He's never entertained any ideas of family, not when the closest approximation he has is drenched in gun oil and smells of smoke from artillery fire, but the howling in his head quietens at the idea of it. He can't shackle you to the bed—stupid fucking mutt—but he can tie you down all the same. Make you his. Wholly. Always.
And the thing is—despite a pickaxe making figure-eights out of his grey matter; lead poisoning and rust giving him these sour, awful thoughts about locking you up in his house, leaving you a needy mess, dependent only on him—Simon supposes he knows right from wrong.
Intentionally knocking you up is amoral. Probably illegal. Somehow, even more dastardly when the reason for it is simply selfishness. Want. Greed. Hunger.
But in carving himself a place in your life, he failed to realise that the walls behind him closed in. No way out. And so, his only option is to go forward. To keep moving.
He'll be crucified for this, but that's fine.
He doesn't intend for you to find out, anyway. It'll be an accident. He came home early, and found you drunk. Drank with you. Your drunken idiocy merged, creating a terrible, noxious cocktail of awful, bad choices. Permanent ones. Irreversible.
(You're so sweet, so docile when you're drunk—)
It'll be easy to convince you. To play the part of a stoic man suddenly in turmoil. You'll offer to get rid of it, a suggestion that he'll flinch at—a cornered dog, a hand raising in the air. You'll whimper. Shake in his arms as you tentatively smooth over the wrinkles in his brow, murmuring out your options in a stilted breath.
You'll be a Riley before the end of your term. It's only proper, he'll mutter, stiff and uncomfortable, and you'll melt. Liquid tantalum in his palm. The fruits of his labour laid bare, seeping from the corners of his mouth. Tucked tight between his teeth. Mercury he can swallow down, keep in the bracket of his rotten ribs. Safekeeping from this world that just takes. Devours.
But not if he eats you first.
The mere notion alone serves as an anchor, locking him to the seafloor. The tumult in his head calmed at the promise of owning. Biting to claim. To have. Greedy for it. For you, and the strange sense of quiet your proximity brings him. The warmth, too.
He's a rabid dog. This he knows—has known—for quite some time. Indisputable. It pools in his mouth. Liquid sin. Makes him ache for just a sip. Unquenchable, though, because he's wary of water. Hydrophobia, but only for how it washes his efforts away. Cleanses.
The urge inside of him to bite, to infect, quietens when he gets closer to you.
(a rabid mutt licking at the window you're on the opposite side of, dreaming of just a taste—)
A byproduct of that maddening virus in his veins, the one he must have picked up six feet in the ground. Bite, bitebite—
—and give you a collar in the shape of his teeth.
He finds you in bed. A bottle of wine on the end table beside you, courtesy of your friend. The one lingering remora he couldn't snap at—one who sends you messages about how you are being manipulated. Taken advantage of. Fuck that loser, the latest one says when he picks up your phone, scrolling through the dwindling conversations housed within. Just him now, and them.
It preaches about empowerment. About how you shouldn't let a man pay your bills (textbook manipulation. he's putting you in a position of dependency. making you feel obligated to stay. it's all on Google, babes. like, fucking get a clue!!!!), or how it's moving so quickly (maybe you should come stay with me in Durham for a bit, hun. get away for a weekend. i worry about ya, is all). He hums, thumbing through the old chats.
You told her to fuck off about the manipulation, but it came after a lot of, oh, yeah. well, he's just. you know. he's different, and you haven't declined the invitation. i’ll think about it, is what you write.
It simmers under his skin. That independence he plans on stomping out under his heel. With his kin.
(sick, sick sick, wrong—)
It's desperation, this. Clawing at the walls—the dirt—until his nails are torn off his fingers. Until his skin splits, peels. Broken under rock and rubble. That animalistic need for air. To breathe. Basic training tells him not to save the person drowning unless he's sure they won't kill him in their struggle to live. But what's he supposed to do when that person is his rotting body, sinking down to unfathomable depths? When all he has is you to cling to—
Damnation built by his own hands.
You'll die together, he reckons, and tosses your phone on the hamper in the corner of the room.
Ghost can't remember the last time someone made him feel anything at all other than impartiality. Indifference. Casual apathy.
Price is the exception to this on the grounds of being consanguineous to him.
And you—
An outlier.
One he intends on sinking as deep as he can with. Anchored, maybe, by this little plan that beats and pulses in the back of his head. That clogs his throat with a want so thick, he can already taste the brine from the ocean. Water in his nose. Down his esophagus—
Better than dirt, he supposes. And it spurns him forward.
You're malleable like this. Tensile. He bends you easily with just a touch until you're flat on your back, a pillow shoved beneath your tailbone, and stripped. The loose shirt you wear to sleep is hiked up under your neck. Panties are pulled off until your sweet, bare cunt is revealed to him. All pretty and soft, and his. Untouched, he notes, and gives an appreciative stroke over your clit with his thumb.
It was something you were whining about the other day, panting in his ear as if he wasn't a continent away. Pleading with him on the phone to please, please let you come.
Simon likes the way you cling to him when it's been a while since something has wrecked you as thoroughly as his cock. When your spoiled pussy was neglected for a few days, weeks, and starved for attention. You were so sweet to him then, cooing in his ear how good you've been, how much you want him and only him, need him. Begging so prettily for it.
He's almost sad to spoil himself in your cunt when you can't weep for it. Can't bully him closer. Try to claw his eyes out. That delicious push-pull where you hiss at him for pulling away, but whine when he gets too close.
Sad, but—
Not enough to stop himself.
You're not wet enough for him to slide inside unprepared—his cock too big, something that makes his bones tremble—and he rectifies it by leaning down, letting saliva pool between his teeth and lips. He holds it there for a moment as he spreads your folds apart with his thumb and forefinger.
And then he spits on your bare cunt.
It hits your clit, the thick glob siding down your slit. He reaches between your thighs, pawing at you. Slides his fingers through the slick mess he made, teases around your tight rim.
Simon usually likes to take his time with you. Lapping at your pussy for hours until you're a weeping, snot-nosed mess whining in the sheets. Spoiled rotten. Begging him to fuck you already, Simon, you can't take it anymore—
He's mean. Cruel. Edges you for hours until your legs shake, trembling around his ears. He never lets you reach that peak—doesn’t let you come until he's buried inside of you.
Coming on his tongue, his fingers, is rarely a privilege you ever earn. Too much of a spitfire, a spiteful little kitten, to give in and do what he demands. So he keeps you on the precipice until he's ready to fuck you, ignoring your bribes, your bargains. Simon doesn't give in even when you beg, when you relent and tell him you'll finally be good.
You never are.
Spoiled, he always huffs. Down to the fuckin’ bone.
Like now. Pulling away from him. Him, the only person in your life who stuck around. A little bullying (bones breaking, splintering under his fists; the wet, hot smear of blood on his hands, skulls smacking against the pavement—an’ if you tell anyone, he cracks his battered fists and it sounds like a snarl, a gunshot, your parents will be cryin’ over an empty grave—) shooed the gnats away. He took a more clandestine approach to others. Birds that kept circling you tight. Protective, shrill. They made his head ache, but—
(don't want to start nothin’, but i don't want to be alone wit’ ‘er. tried to kiss me, is all. ain't like that, pet—)
It was a test. And they all failed. All but him.
Yet—
come to Durham.
i’ll think about it.
Ungrateful. It's his fault, though. Simon doted on you too much, cosseted by his affection, when he should have clipped your wings from the beginning.
Ah, well—
Lesson learned.
You're wet enough now. He pushes in two fingers, scissoring them apart. You'd be yowling at him, kicking up a fuss if you'd been awake. But you're not. It thrums through him. Thick, heady. He likes you like this—probably more than he should. The heat simmering in his veins bubbles. Pops. Sap on charring wood. It clogs his throat with his smoke until it burns, a dry forest fire.
He needs you. Needs to be in you. He's tired of waiting. Impatience burrows into him like a maelstrom.
Simon adjusts his hold on your leg, fingers curling behind your kneecap. Steadying himself. His fingers slip out of your cunt with a sloppy squelch that ghosts across his spine. Anticipatory. A touch anxious. He wants you. Wants you bad—
He takes himself in his hand, and slides the weeping tip over your slit. Taps it once, thrice on your clit. And then guides it to your centre. Your warmth bleeds into him. Eager, he shuffles forward. Feeds you his cock. Eyes drilling into the place where his head slips in, swallowed by your sloppy, wet hole. The glands make you stretch around him. Rim pulled taut.
The sight alone must have been crafted by some Luciferian dream, dangled before him in the shade of nirvana.
take a bite, it urges. and then take more—
Like this, passed out with your legs hitched over his shoulders, drooling into the pillow unawares, you're just a doll.
Made for him, and—
“Fuckin’ hell—” He presses into you—cock splitting tight, warm heat—and tries not to lose himself to the sensation of being bare, raw, inside of you.
—“A perfect fit.”
It's always been condoms. You're not on birth control. Ink blots in his eyes. He goes a little feral with it. Instincts unleashed. Unfettered.
Simon bullies his fat cock into you until his hips tap the back of your thighs, buried as deep as he can go. It's molten heat cocooning him—a warm embrace. For the first time, ever, he thinks he understands the meaning of home. Sliding home, in particular.
(Welcome home. Home. Home. He'll make a house out of your body. Sleep inside the brackets of your thighs, head pillowed on your chest—)
As good as you feel around him—slick, wet, and tight—and as much as he wants to saviour the sight of you, passed out on the pillow, cunt split by his cock, he has a goal, a mission, to see through.
His hand falls, slick and tacky, to your lower belly. Palm pressing against the subtle bulge in your abdomen, the outline of his cock. You always whine and hiss that he's too big for you. That you can't take him to the root.
Hurts, you complain, hand against your naval. Fingers knotting over the place that aches.
He presses his fingers there instead, feeling himself under your skin. Changing your anatomy to make room for him to fit—
It lights him in fire. Spurns him on. He bucks into you, pace sloppy, clumsy. Selfish. He's unrelenting as he splits you apart, drilling the full length of himself into your supine body, supple flesh relaxed under him, practically melting into the sheets.
The thread keeping his resolve, his self-control, sprung up tight begins to quiver. Each piston into you has delicate fingers drumming across the strings of a harpsichord. It reverberates through him, echoing in the stifling, suffocating, silence of the bedroom, overtaking it. Clouding it with the musk of his desire, his devotion to you, to this dream blooming in the prison of his mind.
Everything narrows into a needlepoint.
There's just your burning flesh beneath him, softer than it's ever been; pillowy. Welcoming. And the sounds of him fucking into you—lewd squelches, slick and wet; the sound of his cock finding home in the basin of your spread thighs; his heavy breaths, his groans and growls that seem to rattle the bed. The noise breaks, an incomplete requiem of sin in his head, and he loses himself in the lulling notes, dragged under in the bestial beat of taking what his—
A sudden noise shatters through the room. Beneath him, you stir, gasping wetly. The sound mangled in your throat.
There's confusion in your sleepy, hazy gaze when you peer up at him, lashes clumping together. You moan, whimpering, as you struggle to latch on to the threads of cognisance that he's content to fuck out of you. Your hand lifts, falls to his wrist still pressed against your lower belly. The grip is lax, loose. You’re not pushing him away, but clinging to him. Centring yourself.
It makes his blood thicken. Has him burning red-hot.
“Wha’s a’matter, pet?” He taunts, grinding his cock into you hard enough to make your dazed eyes water. Your hand tightens around him, holding steady. “Don't like it? Not fuckin’ you hard enough?”
“Simon—”
His name tapers off into a keen when he angles hips, and starts pistoning into you with a mean, merciless fury. The desperate noises that spill, unhindered, from your slack mouth is the perfect accompaniment to the lewd sound of him fucking your sopping cunt; the piece he was missing when this started. His requiem, complete.
It's a serrated blade to his self-control, already frayed and threadbare as it is. The pressure makes it snap.
“C'mon, sweet thing. Thought you wanted this?”
There's a place in hell just for him. It's sealed when you blink your tired, sleepy eyes up at him, mind a slurry of lingering somnolence and the heady alcohol on your breath, and offer a shuddering whimper. Always so soft for him, so agreeable when you’re drunk.
“So’ry, Simon—”
You can barely string words together. Poor, pitiful you—vulnerable under him. Breakable. Malleable. Anyone else could have tricked you into this same position when he was away. Got you beneath them like this, compliant and unawares, and took what belongs to him.
(The only thing in this destitute existence he claims for himself—)
Not anymore. Not ever again.
It's almost callous when he grinds into you. Hateful. Brutish. Furious. And dazed as you are, you barely even flinch at the snarls that spill, unfettered, from the back of his throat. The low groans of him making promises with devils unknown; constructing shackles from brass, iron.
Entrenching his future in motion, cupped protectively between the parentheses your thighs make around his hips. It's almost a vicious sort of poetry, one laid bare in the odious ruins of that broken thing he calls a heart. Etched into his rotten pericardium. Necrosed devotion. He'll see it through—however noxious, and putrid, you might find the miasmal stench of it spun tight in his web.
It's for your own good.
And as if you agree, you answer him in perfect euphony, moaning sweetly as you tilt your hips up for more.
Ghost groans low in his throat, bestial and spinning rapidly out of his control. He feels everything spinning, slipping; the trudge to the finish line narrows into a pinprink. He needs something to cling to, to hold on to with broken hands—
The only purchase he finds is in your demise.
His hand lifts, shaking yours loose. He reaches up, fingers dig into your chin, forcing your pouty mouth open. You blink at him, sluggish, but he catches the thin gossamer of awareness spooling thin cobwebs over darkened crevasses, covering the canyons in your eyes with cognisance. It makes him leer.
“Stick your tongue out, pretty girl,” he rasps, words sticking together, muffled under the mask. Crushed aggregate stone under the weight of his own desire. “Tha’s it. Open up nice and wide—”
He lets spit gather again, pooling on his tongue. It's degrading, you always say. Gross. But you swallow it down like a good girl, anyway. Always. You come at him with fangs and claws, but somehow, you always merge in a perfectly dizzying polyphony.
Ghost spits on your tongue. Lets it land right in the middle of fleshy pink. A sick, twisted pleasure thrums in his veins at the sight.
There's checking the boxes of an established kink, and this. Horrifically proprietary. Ownership that ignites a fire in his marrow, setting him alight from the inside out. Turns bone into blackened char, cinder. He can almost taste it on his tongue.
It's made worse, turned frenzied, when you—sweet, perfect, you—bracket it protectively in the curve of your tongue. Completely dazed, head filled with a heady slurry of somnolence and alcohol, but still aware enough to know, even if only through muscle memory, what you're meant to do when he spits in your mouth.
If anything, you're more obedient like this. Little doll. Coddling it lovingly, this little piece of him that he gives you.
And it might be the madness speaking—these fraying thoughts take on a vitriolic edge, corrosive aqua regia pooling in his throat—but Christ. He's been stabbed in the guts, repeatedly, and it somehow packed less of a punch than this.
He wants, wants—
Family never crossed his mind, was never even on the table or something to be considered, but with you it brims. Blooms in rot. Roots in tenebrous.
He has this insatiable urge to devour you whole so you'll always be with him. The waves of his desire are monstrous. The waters below are rapacious. A gaping maw eager to eat you up—
Pity it’s not an option.
But he’ll make do. Buy a ring tomorrow. Something pretty that matches your eyes. The curve of your smile. Sanctioned ownership. A collar in gemstones and gold, glimmering and shining bright enough that should any light fade from your gaze, it’ll illuminate in the gloom; twilight made in sorrow. The prettiest blues—
Said eyes water. Ghost’s hold on your face relaxes when you give a muffled keen, cheeks bubbling up against the pressure. Tongue still stuck out even as he takes his pleasure from your supine flesh. Suspended in motion, stasis. Such a good girl for him—
He swallows. Tastes poison, rot, on his tongue. “Swallow.”
You're a little sluggish, a little slow, but you follow his command all the same. He knows, then, that it could only ever be you.
No one gets under his skin like this. No one makes him itch, want, crave, as much as you do—
You make a face, twisted up in some amalgamation of pleasure and confusion. It nudges the ruins of his chest and feels almost like a heartbeat when it pulses in his flesh.
“Simon, Simon—”
His name is all you can say, and he's not sure if you're begging for mercy, or muttering it out into the scant air between your heaving breaths like an obsecration, an orison, but he eats it all the same. Bites down on your pleas, your cries, your prayers, and chews them up between fangled teeth. Takes them down into the swirling pits of his belly where they're eaten alive by what grows in the decay.
(belly full of dirt:
he heaves, and heaves, but nothing comes out even though he can taste humus in his throat, feel worms using his organs like a playground—)
“Somethin’ you want, pet?” He taunts, and shifts his hips back just enough to drag a few inches of his cock out of your drenched cunt. A tease—cruel and mean. He’d get lobbed upside the head for this had you been in your right mind. A tap to his temple, shaking the cobwebs loose. He would have bent down, and sunk broken teeth into your jugular. Merging violence with love until bloody knuckles feel like a kiss. “All you ‘ave to do is ask. Use your words, pretty thing—”
You whine, low and drawn out. A lazy whimper in the back of your throat. “Pl’se—”
You can barely speak. Tongue too thick. Sleep too heavy in your veins. Alcohol, too. A lesson, perhaps, for his willful little pet come the morning when you struggle to measure just how deep into his gullet you’ve let yourself fall.
He can’t help rubbing salt into the shallow cuts, if only because he likes the way you pout.
“C’mon, sweetheart. You can do better’n that.”
And damn him—damn you—you do. Your hand curls over his wrist, pulling it close to your mouth where you place a kiss against his palm. Tender. Chaste. Midnight blooms in your eyes, casts shadows under pale moonlight. His breath stutters in his chest when you lean your head back, letting his hand fall to your bared neck.
Your heavy, lidded eyes gaze back at him, cutting through the shade of night that sews the air like satin. Etched in the file silk is threads of trust in stark white. The kind that bleeds for him; hungers. One that aches, always tender like a bruise. The throb of it echoes between mouldering ribs. Booms between his ears.
Ghost doesn’t fall into pieces. Doesn’t shatter. No. Something in the splintered remains shifts. Settles. He wraps his fingers around the thick of your throat, thumb notched tight against your pulse, and he feels complete. Whole. Remade from the ruins.
Your breath hitches. The sound is a gunshot in his ears. He squeezes down, a gentle press. Just enough to make the air spill out of your lungs, to let your eyes water. Lachrymose, eager. It does something to him when you cry. He feels tipped upside down, torn inside out. Left all askew, asunder. He wants to drown in the pebbling river growing against your lashline. Wants to drink it down until it quenches his neverending thirst. Wants, wants—
He feels his name spill from your lips. Brassy and broken, trembling against his palm. A plea—
More.
And he gives it to you.
Simon hitches your ankle on his shoulder. Adjusts the grip he has on your throat. He settles over your body, blanketing you under his bulk. Stygian beast devouring the maiden whole. The thought amuses him even as it knocks the air from his lungs.
He anchors himself into the mattress with his knees, steadying himself, curls his other hand around the iron ring of the headboard. All the while, you look up at him—glossy eyes burning coals in the dark, in the gloom. Wanting, hungry. Mouth held open as if you’re waiting for his scraps—
And then he bucks into you, the leverage giving his thrust a savage edge.
The whines are snuffed out under his palm. Your eyes widen, tears now spilling down your temple, soaking the pillow below your head.
He groans, head rolling back. “Fuckin’ hell—ain’t you a pretty sight?”
Tucked under him, throat swallowed by his palm. Split on his cock, slick and wet. The tears streaming down your face makes him feel wicked, foul; but the spit running down your slackened jaw quells any doubt. The hand on his wrist holds him tight, tighter still, to your flesh.
You want this. His spoiled rotten bird.
So, he gives it to you.
Simon’s almost ruthless when he snaps his hips into yours, cooing viciously into your ear about how you feel, how you look, how you sound—so pretty wrapped around him, under him; his little doll—
“S’where you belong, pet—” guttural words spill, flintlike and savage, from his mangled throat. Reinforced with the hateful way he blugeons his cock into you. Times it perfectly with the firm squeezes against your jugular, never letting you catch your breath. Your eyes roll back, legs trembling. Shaking. But you don’t move, don’t struggle. The hand on his wrist is a shackle, and it makes him smirk, scars pulling up in a gnarled mess of mirth; ugly and mean. “Right where you belong. Ain’t tha’ right?”
He leans down, babbles nonsense into your temple. Promises you the heads of gods, the ichor they bleed. Swears he’ll build a shrine for you in Durham.
But for as mocking as these words he murmurs into your ear are, they’re tremulous. Raw. A current roars beneath; a steady stream, a plea, all full of need: stay, stay staystay—
(please)
He buries his nose into your hairline to stem the ravening ache in his guts, breathes in the heady scent of you—of sex, and wine, and sweat. Drags it into his lungs in harsh, angry gasps to stain his skin with the smell of you. Of him.
It goes right to his head in a heavy rush until he’s dizzy, almost sick, with the swell of it flooding in. An animal, he thinks, drunk on merging pheromones that make him mindless. Unfettered.
It’s as if he’s driven on instinct alone; his frenzied pace ebbs, grows sloppy. The air around him feels thick. Syrupy. Stifling. The balmy breath in his chest is nearly as unbearable as it is addicting. Sickeningly sweet. Still—
His chest expands, taking as much of the potent miasma into his lungs as he can, filling them up, up, until he feels the edges threaten to brust. It’s only then, when ink moults across his vision, that he lifts his head just enough to shove his mouth against yours, a broken snarl ripping free from his throat as he forces the infectious air into your mouth, down to your lungs. Polluting you with the same sickness. The same rot.
Little hiccups tumble past your lips as you swallow it down, taking everything he gives you, and he catches them on his tongue. Plays with them between his teeth, basking in the salty tang of you—brine, loam; peatsalt. Ashes, guncotton. Molasses. He’s not sure if he wants to drown you in him, or crawl into the warm, wet cavern of your mouth that pulses around his tongue like a heartbeat.
Both, maybe. Everything. All of it.
Always—
But he’s chasing pleasure on fumes. Trying to run with broken legs. There’s nothing refined about this. About the way he cudgels the head of his cock into the places that make your mouth twist away from his greedy lips in a silent scream. His weight is crushing you, he’s sure, but you cling to him harder, holding him tighter. Almost afraid to let go. And fuck—the notion alone is a kick to the chest, harsh and heavy. He nearly gags on the litany of broken moans spiling out of his mouth, landing on your tongue.
Driven mad, maybe (or pussy-drunk, and high off of his own poison); but in that madness, he discovers this:
Nirvana exists between your thighs.
Home, too.
(well—
not yet.)
Pleasure fissions down his spine. The paroxysm taking him deeper into the battle-worn depths of his demise until the walls narrow, closing in. Crushing. No escape. But—
He won’t climb out of his hole he dug. Not until he makes a bed from your flesh; shelter out of your bones. He wants to ingrain himself as deep within you as he can, arsenic subsumed down to your marrow. Poisoned with the fill of him, too sick to let go.
(Bone nausea.
A death sentence.)
It metastasises inside of him, filling the barren spaces up until it leaks from his pores.
He wants it: this dream so tantalisingly close.
Simon lifts his hand from your throat, and reaches out, grasps at it with a shaking paw—
All it takes is a few crass, careless swipes of his calloused thumb across your clit, cock angled toward that spot that makes you rake your broken nails down his back, yowling in his ear for more, there, please, Simon, please—
You clench like a vice around him. A pretty bow tied up at the base of his cock. He bows over you, grunts spilling from his chest as he sinks his teeth into your nape, splitting skin btween his teeth. The warm, ozonous tang of your blood flooding his tongue is euphoric, eclipsing his mind in a haze of pleasure that crackles and burns at the base of his spine, spitting smoke up his body and into his skull.
The harsh whine you let out—all prey, all animal; wounded, stuck under his muzzle—has some part of him, basal and inborn, rearing up. Roaring in his ears, ripping talons across the jagged remains of his head.
(mine, mine, mine—)
He answers your scream with a growl, one caught in the smoke clogging his throat. It sounds inhuman when its wrenched out of his mouth—more animal than man: the devastating howl of a forest on fire—but the feel of it vibrating between his teeth is connatural. Innate. It belongs between his incisors; fits like a puzzle piece in his broken muzzle. Unleashed now. Finally free from this ill-fitting cage he housed it, this goddamn box—
Cobbled together from palm ash and brimstone, ichor and salt. Sewed up with copper sutures in the shape of a man for a perfect fit.
Every cell in his body screams that he was made for this. To be over you, in you. Maw filled with your blood. Pussy stuffed full of his cock.
He might not have clawed out of the dirt for you, but this mossy, gnarled lump in his chest beats now only for you. Apodictic. Ironclad. His teeth in your jugular, your life pulsing wetly on his tongue.
It’s his apotheosis. His end.
His hips stutter. White noise in his head. It drowns out the shrill screams, the hisses. Everything is just—static. Pleasure of a silent kind, humming, buzzing, and molten. Ghost buries himself inside of you as deep as he can, until his cock is fit snug against the plug of your womb, and lays his claim by branding it with the potency of his name.
Tidally locked, you’re dragged down the summit with him, tumbling to your demise. Too dazed, too wound tight in his arms, his embrace, to see the jagged rock at the bottom of the hungry chasm thirsting for your blood, you just cling to him. Refusing to let go.
(silly girl—
His pretty little perigee.)
His body aches in ways that cruelly remind him of his age. Joints stiff, stomach quivering. His knuckles sting when he unfurls it from the headboard, skin pink and raw from the tight hold he had around the metal.
It’s made worse when he heaves a harsh breath, and pulls away from you with a long, drawn out groan. He settles back on his haunches, eyes searing into the space between your thighs. Messy with his spend. It dribbles down your slit, your ass, pools on the sheets below.
Your chest shudders, legs splayed out how he left you. He thinks, viciously, of gazelles, and wonders if the blood he feels drying on his mouth looks anything like the muddied mane of a lion after eating its fill.
“Fuckin’ hell—”
He should clean you up, hide his crime, but he burns the image of you into his head (another tattoo over scar tissue), and drops to a heap beside you. The moment his back hits the mattress and all thoughts of moving are erased in silk, in smoke and clover.
Chest heaving, slick with sweat, he feels the thrum of his victory in his veins. The high of the chase abates, and he nearly purrs with contentment. Hangs his pride on a pedestal, and doesn’t think about the absence of any guilt. Doesn’t even entertain the thought, not when victory dries between your thighs. When you roll over with a huff, reaching out for him.
It's as if you're trying to bury yourself inside of him, crawl into the safety of his ribs.
Ghost grunts, feels his sensitive, spent cock give a feeble twitch on his sticky thigh. The idea of you, blissfully unaware, seeking comfort from the man who writ your body with his virile spend, irrevocably changing your life and entwining it so deeply and so messily with his own that to severe either of you from each other is nearly impossible, floods him with satisfaction so deep, euphorically heady, that his chest seems to shudder. Resounding with some amalgamation of a purr, a grow, so utterly primal, that he sounds more beast than man.
His roots run deep within you, now, and every misaligned piece of his patchwork body seems to sag and shiver in an almost perfect parallelism. Congruence ascertained with the cupping of you between its mismatched maw. Shackled in a baleen prison. Nestled, safe and sound, between white teeth.
Ghost pulls you close, holding tight, and hums. As you drool on his shoulder, dripping with his spend, he knows he'll keep you there forever, until you're nothing but bones.
There's a cloud of confusion hanging over you the next morning, a twinge of uncertainty gnarling across the gaps in your memory. The pieces of a puzzle that belong to a different set. He watches you scramble through them, filling in blanks. Oscillating so deliciously between wariness and discontent.
“‘morning,” he greets, as if his spend hasn’t dried on your thigh last night. Tucked up nice and tight against your fertile, unprotected womb. As if he couldn't taste brimstone in the back of his throat when you wince as you walk, achy and battle-worn from the weight of his desire crushing you all night.
“Morning,” it's a sticky rasp in your throat. He wonders if you taste him on your tongue. “When did you get in?”
“Las’ night.”
You nod, but it's absent. Flickering through the timeline of events that aren’t drenched in black, shaded over like a heavy bruise. Your expression is fractured. Raw. Pensive. Something untouchable, unchartable, and yet he reads you as plainly as the tea leaves at the bottom of his cup.
You don’t remember. Don’t know what to make of this chasm, this fissure, that looms, icy and deep, before you. There’s no anger, though. You don’t demand recompense for what he stole, what he took. The lashings he deserves are tucked quietly between your teeth. Hidden under layers of normalcy to prevent yourself from seeing him as is: a beast.
“Well, um. Some homecoming, huh?” You joke, but it's hollow. Flat. Fragile like fine glass. You're digging for more. Rooting around to connect these vague, absent dots that linger, lost in the vacancy of your memory.
He almost purrs.
He wants to chew you up. Spit you in the palm of his hand. Maybe tuck you in his breast pocket, nestled against the lump in his chest—the one those silly enough to dream might call a heart. Keep you there forever. Hidden in the barrel of his loaded gun.
“Bit rowdy.”
It’s horrifically vague, but you cling to the prevacation he proffers to you; a lifeline in the turbulent sea, letting it overwrite the absence, the itching in your skull that must be clanging on the walls, begging for you to run.
“Sorry,” it's sheepish. He knows the ferality in which you sometimes come at him when he's buried deep inside you is something that makes you twinge with embarrassment. Little kitten clawing at the old dog trying to get it to play. Rolling over immediately when it growls. Docile, sickeningly sweet.
But even naive kittens know to watch out for the frothing, foaming maw.
“Did you use a—?”
He dips his chin. “I might ‘ave.”
And you take it as gospel. As truth. Why would Simon have any reason to lie to you about this?
Relief shudders over your shoulders. You relax, inching toward the seat across from him. Gazelle making a home for itself in the lion’s den.
The spell of unease is broken, now, and you quickly fill the chasm with chatter about your day. Your plans. Asking him how he’s been.
You shove at the warning signs until they’re hidden away, and ignore the bones of your brethren scattered around you. All because you trust him.
He aches with the urge to crush it between his teeth.
And he will one day soon, he’s sure, because it’s just as easy to enact his plan as it was to get you to open the door.
It starts with him convincing you to drink with him after dinner. Jus’ a glass. Got this fancy bottle. Reckon we should ‘ave some.
But—
Can’t drink forever—no matter what his dogshit dad thought.
So, he pokes holes in the condoms you hide in the bedside table, a little wary now. A touch fretful about your contraceptives in a way that makes him preen. You have good instincts, but rarely do you listen to them. Your head must be filled with sirens, but it's futile, he supposes. He's already stuffed cotton into your ears.
It only feeds into that gaping chasm that bellows up from the depths that this world is not good for you. That it will tear you into pieces, into shreds. You need him. Need the Ghost to protect you.
Case in point:
You’re needy beneath him, panting and mewling into the sheets as he teases your clit with his thumb. So wet, it almost feels like hot oil on his skin. Syrupy thick.
In your desperation, you cling to him, throat bared. Fragile fine china. Belly up. Vulnerable.
You barely notice when he pulls off the condom, crumpling it up into a ball and shoving it in the pocket of his slacks.. Don’t even react when he shoves his bare, raw cock into you.
You don't even notice.
(or when he slurs in your ear about how badly he wants to knock you up—breed his pretty girl until she’s stuffed full of him, making life with what he offers. salvation in the form of creation. ain’ tha’ a thought? he huffs into your ear, humid mirth curling over your skin. a stain. and the way it unfetters you—tightening around him, gushing slick—he finds his answer, one reinforced in the rolling of your eyes as your common sense, independence, trickle out of your ears and down your slackened jaw—)
And when that fails, he just slips you a sleeping pill. There's always an easier way to the finish line, he finds.
(stupid fuckin’ mutt—)
Nothing bleeds from the cracks he wrought, or slinks from the shadows cast by his machinations until weeks later.
Life just goes back to what it once was—Simon coming and going, letting himself into your home with the door you leave unlocked. You go to work, and chatter aimlessly about this vision you have about a home in the countryside, near the ocean. Saving up—uselessly—for sheep and goats, and the sought-after Highland cows. Chickens and ducks first, you say, and barely notice when his gaze drops, drilling holes into your stomach. Watchful. Leering.
He can almost scent the change on you. Nose pressed to your skin; bloodhound sniffing the ground.
Ghost keeps time in the slow, susurrus drawl of your voice sifting through the cotton in his ears, waiting for those precious decibels to catch on, to tilt up at the end as your eyes skim the calendar he keeps scratching x’s across in red, almost delicate, innocent even though it's from his sanguinary hand. A countdown to something you haven’t yet caught on to.
And it’s all so sweet.
—the waiting game, the subtle changes, the desperate way you cling to normalcy—
Sweet, like the way you carve this life out for yourself, filled with stuffed animals full of idealism. So much so, that it's almost bitter. Acrid. He watches the light glow in your eyes as your plans take shape, moulding putty between your hands, and like a pit viper, he coils in on himself. Frenzied. Fearful—
But only just.
The excitation has run its course. He’s drifting, languid, into his scheme. Content. The notion of you slipping from his fingers is a thought that rarely crosses his mind these days, especially when that house on the prairie grows from an occupant of one to two—
“And, you know… when you're not out saving the world—” your eye roll and air quotes make his lips twitch, tugging at the scar tissue, the acid burns, splashed across his mouth. An ugly fucking Pollock. “—maybe you can come visit.”
“Never fancied myself a rancher,” he drawls, just to watch you squirm. Brow furrowing into a deep ravine as you struggle to make your intentions known without actually giving them sound. Skirting around the issue of wanting him there, of planning a home with him.
(Too much, maybe? Or too soon—?
if only you knew—)
He finds it charming, really.
Still—
“It's just a thought,” you mutter, downcast. He wants to choke on your misery. Your sadness. Drown himself in your anger. Float in your happiness.
Fuckin' Christ—
All this playing daddy in his head has thrown him off his rocker. Made him soft. Sentimental. It's probably why he yields to you. Offers a lazy shrug and another smarmy twitch of his lips.
“Sounds like a plan,” and the way you brighten is a dagger to his chest.
And the thing is. It does. It sounds like a dream, a perfect vision. Just—
Maybe not in the way you'd want.
He's been looking into places unmarred by human hands. Ghost towns, uncharted territories. His home here isn't perfect for it, not like the vast geography of Mexico. The uninhabited wilderness of Canada, places so remote that it's almost untethered to modern civilisation. Islands of forest, mountains, all on their own.
Vast corners and crevasses where someone can disappear and never be found.
But those won't work in tandem with his flighty lifestyle. While he plans on keeping you barefoot and pregnant (common sense in the back of his head screams that he's foul, vile, monstrous—), he will continue to work. Has to, really, to avoid suspicion.
So—
Home it is.
But he gets inspiration from the Highland cows you coo on about and purchases a plot of land in the Western Isles. Gives this whim of his—yours, really—a concrete foundation made of the abstract. The filament provided by his newly christened Sergeant—an overeager mutt that bleeds warning signs from his pores.
(don’t get close, reactive dog. will bite—
the little mutt is a great pyrenees, ain’t he?)
But bless Johnny’s bleedin’ heart, he thought as the man prattled on about this cabin he owns. A place of solitude. Could fire a gun and no one would even peek out the curtains. Beautiful, the way all of Scotland is. The highlands, he breathes in that shade of catholic madness only the dutiful soldiers of god's right-handed wrath can be, is where he keeps his home. A place chiselled from stone, surrounded by wilderness that eats tourists alive.
(he didn’t ask at the time why Johnny was so keen on finding these places scattered around Scotland, ones with little traffic and a nearly negligible amount of souls within the vicinity, but he finds its best not to get too close to mutts crossbred with wolves.)
But Simon is nothing if not devoted, and so.
You’ll get your fantasy ranch in the middle of nowhere. Your highland cows, your billy goats, your chicken, sheep, and ducks. A baby in your arms, too. One that shows its hand the next morning, dashing all your carefully laid plans. These paths of independence of yours run parallel to his whims but never converge. There’s the potential in this for these fraying threads to split, and diverge. Separate.
(But it’s all put to rest at the sound of you heaving in the adjoining washroom. His path eats yours until it’s overtaken. Consumed.
The evasive, unfettered little bird trammelled, caught. Wing-clipped, and all his.)
Any misgivings the part of his gyri not buried under the frothing mess of his polluted grey matter might have is vitiated by the unwavering certitude that, despite his own gains in this, it really is in your best interest.
And maybe it's something that should have come earlier in your relationship—however threadbare that word is in conjunction with the unhinged desire blooming in the pit of his chest; madness masquerading as love or some obsessive, desperate facsimile of it. Maybe a proper man, a better one, might have dug down and fully laid out the reality of intertwining your life with the living dead. That the idea of danger, death, and revenge are all everpresent threats scratching at the walls of this sickeningly sweet fantasy you wrap around yourself.
He’s a dangerous man. A creature of devastation—manmade, bent into, or congenital is yet to be unearthed—which, in itself, brings about a certain lifestyle. One with fewer people around, and always shrouded in secrecy. Friends, family—none of that matters when death curdles gnarled fingers around his jugular.
You’ll get used to it. Eventually. The only other choice is to let you, his now flightless bird, go. Released back into the wild vulnerable and reeking of his stench.
You’ll be devoured before daylight, ripped into pieces—only if they’re feeling generous, that is.
Simon has his own twisted remora. Ones with claws and fangs and a hunger that runs deep. Insatiable. Any scraps that fall from his mouth are devoured before they can touch the sea floor. They’ll crush you in their maw and dangle your mangled body from the gaps between their teeth.
You’re not made for the wild. Not anymore. You’re meant to be protected. You—this fragile, delicate thing. He’ll hold you close, keep you secure and safe in a mausoleum of your own making.
This little glass jar domicile.
A billet in the mountains.
He’ll fill it with the finest things—silk linens, fine china; mahogany and teak, pink ivory; a bed of soft, downy feathers, sherpa, Egyptian cotton; (sticks and stones and grass and moss). Buy you whatever you need. Chickens and ducks. Sheep and goats.
They’ll keep you company when he’s away.
(and if that fails, he can always plan playdates for you with whatever dirty secret Johnny’s been keeping tucked away in the woods.)
He draws an x in the empty, white box of the calendar, the tip of his red marker gliding silkily across the glossy surface. Something unfurls in his guts. Blossoms in his bones. There’s an almost indescribable sense of satisfaction—primal and animalistic—that grows from the upturned dirt in his head. Life composted from rot.
Ghost hums to himself when he turns, the sound nearly a purr—bestial as it is, suffocated under sulphur. It reverberates through his chest, trembling across the brackets of his ribs that expand with his deep, heavy inhale—breathing in the sight that greets him like a lover’s kiss
The kebab he ordered lays untouched on the table across from the television—some trashy reality show playing in the background while you tried to eat; a dating show, you’d said when he merely shrugged, having other things on his mind over what to watch while you ate. It all seems to be preserved in time. Frozen in on the exact moment when you’d sniffed the döner kebab he got for you—the same thing you order each time—and then promptly wrenched yourself back, gagging. The sandwich was flung back in the takeaway box before you slapped your hand over your mouth, rushing into the washroom.
If his phone wasn’t in the other room, he might have taken a picture. A little memento to remember this moment. Framed it in iron and perched it on the desk they gave him back in Hereford, the one just down the hall from Price.
(ah, speaking of—he’ll have to send that caustic bastard a fruit basket, or something, won’t he? maybe some pretty flowers for his lady.)
His reverie is shaken when the door to the washroom creaks open slowly, and you emerge through the gap with sweat on your brow, knots across your forehead, and a shaking hand resting over your churning stomach.
Shame, he thinks. He really should have brought his phone—
You lean against the wall, taking in deep, shuddering breaths to steady yourself, confusion and worry knitting over you like a thundercloud. It tastes of ozone when he inhales. An approaching storm. In the blue gloom of the living room, illuminated only by the light flooding out from the washroom behind you and the static glow of the television, you look etiolated. A wilting flower.
His budding rose.
He coos. “You alright?”
You glance sideways at the kebab on the table, mouth pinching into a grimace as if to stem the nausea still rippling through you. You stare at it for a long moment, seemingly trying to make sense of the reality sitting in front of you on scratched, old pine; confusion runs laps over the dawn cresting in your eyes. This puzzle is too unfathomable for you to piece together; the keys and slots all askew.
The air around him grows still. Silent. Anticipatory. A tiger crouched low in the tussock. A little fawn roaming too close.
There’s a heaviness in your eyes when they flicker back to the wall where he stands, drilling holes into the x. Something implacable frissons over your threadbare expression, fracturing across sallow cheeks.
The air is electric. It pulses across his bare flesh, irritating scar tissue, acid burns, and scorch marks. His skin prickles at its whisper.
“Feelin’ sick, pet?” He ponders, playing pretend. He’s viciously, deeply amused at the desperate denial splashing across your cheeks. The thin shade of askance that unfurls like the leaves of a flytrap when you look at him. “Mus’t’a been the kebab. Bad meat, I reckon?”
You offer a weak nod in response, pinching your lips tight together. The matter seemingly concluded, brushed aside. Pocketed for later.
And you say nothing else for the rest of the night—gaze unseeing, turned inward; pensive—but he purrs in contentment as if everything was alright, sprawled across the couch with his head pillowed against your churning stomach as if he could hear the whisper of another heartbeat from within.
In the saturated blue light, he catches your eyes listing toward the calendar every so often. Wary. Nervous. He thinks you might say something, might ask, but you don’t. It’s caught on a stilted breath. A harsh swallow.
All you do is bring your hand to his shorn head, and raze the stumps of your clipped claws against his scalp. It’s almost as if you’re trying to soothe the madness from within. Scratching that itch deep inside until it goes away. Gentle hands play pretend and dress up as a panacea. Affection to scrape the illness away.
He thinks you should know better than that, even as he leans into it with a soft exhale, more relaxed than he'd ever been his entire life. Content. Unassailable in his conquest.
Simon has always been more scar tissue than man, and no place is damaged more than the upturned tumulus inside his head.
But oh. How you try—
His sweet, sweet girl.
The look you give him the next evening is, in parts, brumous.
A polynya of dread, worry, guilt, fear that frissons across the deep valleys in your eyes, shaded in plumes of darkness, filled in deliciously with the weight of your beleaguered uncertainty. It yawns out before him, this heavy gloom.
So close he catch the embers in his hand.
“Simon… We should—talk. I, uh—”
You hold up a little rectangle, dismay, misery, etched in the blue tinge spreading across your face. It seems to steal the words from your throat, turn them into ash. What else are you meant to say, he supposes, when you look out at the world now from the gape in his maw?
But there’s a veil of wonderment that hides below the tidal wave; this precious, deadly, undercurrent that rents the air, splits his chest in two.
The happiness, however meagre, thin, it is right now (just a sunken boat on the seafloor), is there. Ripe for salvage, and he sees that it’s handled with care. Cupped between his palms, nurtured by his own conviction to do what’s right, an’—fuck, pet—know this ain’t what we planned, but—
but:
The howling quiets, turns to a low growl, and then a susurrus hum, when you shakily utter the words he was waiting for.
“Yes, Simon—”
You shudder when his fist closes over your wrist, pulling you into his purring chest. Shaking like a prey animal in the jowls of a beast, bested and ensnared. It has a profound, almost predatory, sense of satisfaction curling over his bones. He knows this was the right choice, and is sure, in time, you'll come to realise that, too. You’re in the early stages, he knows. Prodromal. You need to be handled with care to curb the lacrimation, the hyperesthesia.
And there’s no one better than him to guide you through the throes of it. To lead you to the unequivocal end.
He leans down, and whispers in your crown—
“Good girl—”
—and the sound of his voice is gravel encased in sticky, sweet honey. Dark, smokey molasses. The very same cadence as a key sliding inside of a lock; metal grazing metal. Turning—
“If it’s a boy, we’ll name him Tommy.”
Click.
(he gives you that ring he promised when he takes you to the mountains. you smile wide, and tell him it fits like a gyve.)
Simon stops shovelling his want under the cold dirt and starts burying it inside you instead. Makes a domicile from your flesh; a place where he can rest his aching head every night until the howling scraping down fractured bone stops—
(paralytic)
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