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🌃 Mercurial

ghoap x male reader

Chapter Five:Hunger Pains

"Hunger hurts but I want him so bad oh it kills."

~Fiona Apple, Paper Bag

Johnny's hungry.

His stomach churning with acid, threatening to eat away at his calm demeanor, the car ride is silent Simon keeps a broad hand on his knee to keep him calm as they drive back home from the hangar.

On the way he imagines home, it's barely morning so you might be in bed, nestled between blankets, freshly shaven and bare safe for you boxers. He wants to rub his stubble against your smooth cheeks press himself against you from chest to thigh and stay there untill he's warm again, he can almost feel you barely awake sour breath brushing against his lips as you pat around fro Simon with your free hand ,your soft sleepy murmuring as they press you between them, his hand on the small of Simon's meaty back, the three of you half asleep yet aware, how right it feels like the twilight zone after a surgery.

Or maybe you'll be up restless and oversimulated from some late night project busying yourself with cooking them an extra early breakfast and he'll get to nudge you away into Simon's waiting arms and take over flipping the pan or watching the soup, you'll all go to bed with full bellies and warm hearts just as you're supposed to. He refuses to think about the possibility of you being distant, cold, unsafe. He doesn't want to confront the things he's had to do to keep his home together, he doesn't want to process the amount of personal and legal boundaries he has completely ignored, how much he's hurt you in retaliation when he swore he'd be better than that.

"Nearly there."

He looks out the car window and sees the quiet, sleepy home, the curtains shut, not a peek of light, you must be in bed then, he's desperate for a bed warm with the scents of his lovers, his steps are slow as he climbs up the stairs, hands firm on the railings ;his bad knee acting up and his stomach knotted tight, eating away at itself. He hopes you've saved him an ice pack like you used to, he hopes you'll rub it better, he hopes you'll allow them the quiet and comfort they need to shake away Soap and Ghost; take off the second skin and and press the raw, fresh one under that against yours.

He stops when he sees Simon standing frozen still on the threshold, his shoulders stiff, he keeps clenching and unclenhiching his fists.

The apartment is dark, quiet, he tastes something rotten on his tongue.

"Something wrong, Si?"

Simon Riley knows hungry houses, he grew up in one. Houses hungry for calm, for warmth, for content residents and calm, quiet night. He knows how they get desolate and rabid when left fasting, waiting for too long, how the bedrooms become mouths full of sharp jagged teeth, how the basement fills with orange acid, how the whole house grows cold and reeks. How everything is crumbling before you can see it.

He had hoped his home, the one he had built up from scraps with you and Johnny would never starve. It had been hungry, he knows that and it had been repaired, fed; after you snapped and struggled fighting against something he knows you need, it had been foreseen, half prepared for.

He stand stock still in the threshold of a house famished, he feels it before he knows it. İt feels liminal somehow, empty the darkened throat of the hallway beckoning him in like a cliff edge. He throws his bag on the floor and takes off his boots flicks on the lights, yells out your name as John barges in, sensing the drastic shift in his mood. The two of them; muscles connected to the same nerve, glued to the same bone.

No answer, he grits his teeth.

"He's not in bed."

Johnny calls from inside the house as Simon looks around, disoriented, terrified and that's when he spots it, your card placed neatly on the kitchen island, next to it; a note.

Something lashes in him like a hissing snake, rattling his ribs and pulling his muscles taut, pulling Ghost with his sure hands and calculating, focused mind back out of the fog.

He wants to vomit.

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T

Chapter One: You get baptized.

Captain Price x male reader

(T.W: forcemasc fetish, kidnapping, forced headshave, reader is currently girlmoding, implied stalking, implied cheating)

The road to your new home is long and wet John is stiff in his seat as the cold lights of the bumfuck, misreable town you called home for years bleed across the dark car he wonder if you can see them if you're still awake, rain splashes against his front window.

Wrongness gnaws at something burried deep in his chest even though it's been hours since your struggle has died down; your desperate pleas and pathetic threats muffled by an old rag and held in place by duct tape, all the frantic energy in your soft body weighed down by exhaustion, he feels bad for you so confused and lost but he knows he's doing what's right like his old man always told him.

"No one finds their true love, son."

He'd tell him sitting on his old throne shallow, warm glass of whiskey in hand.

"You make it, wives like your mother are for husbands like me. I didn't find her on the side of the road as she is today, made her i did."

The contradiction is that Senior Price was more shaped by his wife than his wife by him John's mother with her dishwasher white knuckles and red stained lips, an ex whore, a cols blooded creature in a warm home trying to make her claws into wings.

The contradiction is that John never wanted a woman like his mother, never wanted a woman at all.

On the edge of town he stops the truck, turns the engine off and steps outside walks through the murky mud puddles to the trunk pops it and beholds you, curled into yourself with eyes like a desperate dog you thin wrists held together by zip ties, knobby knees knocking against eachother.

He kneels infornt of you on one knee like a crude mockery.

"I know you're confused."

He tells you rubbing across your ribs,

"But in due time you'll get it luv, I'll be so good for ya, never gonna want for nothing y'hear?"

He gives you his best smile but you don't respond he shushes the sniffles with a heavy hand grabbing you by your scruff and dragging you out, you don't struggle at all and he gently rips the tape off it leaves red lines across your pretty, soft cheeks and pink lips glossy with spit.

"Please, please I won't tell anyone I need to go home please please-"

He stands there as you kneel on the ground big paw rubbing at your sore jaw as you work yourself into tears and sobs begging for things you don't want, he sees your eyes stuck where the sun is setting on the other side of the road desire peeking out like teeth.

"Shhh, shhh it's alright now, it's alright"

He tells you as he rubs his hands across your beautiful locks, such a shame

"I'm not gonna hurt ya luv, no, no not at all. But you need to trust me, alright?"

He looks down at you and clicks his tounge in dissapointment but of course, men are proud animals they play best when they think they'll win, they grasp at any chance to prove their loving masters wrong.

"Looky here, let's make a deal, yeah?"

He takes a deep breath and plays a gamble, rolls the dice knowing he holds every card.

"A year, ya stay with me a year, listen, and be good and if by the end of that year ya still wanna go back home, I'll let ya. Hell I'll even drive ya, drop ya off at the door. But untill than you play by my rules, yeah luv?"

He asks and rubs his calloused hand over your cheek watches the war raging behind those eyes.

"O-okay."

You croak out and your trembling seizes as you steel your shoulders.

"Okay, y-you've got a deal, just please don't hurt me."

He pats your head and takes the clippers out, drags you to the gutter, walk you on your knees deep into the filthy water, stains your pretty, modest white skirt not that you'll have much use of it anymore.

You start screaming again struggling like a feral dog, he thinks of what name to give you, dogs get new names after all to know what they should answer to your old one never fit you anyways.

"What are you doing-? What are you-"

He starts it up and runs it across your scalp, your soft hair falling into the water and your sweat stained blouse as be buzzes it all off, there will be better cuts in the feature; neat crew cuts like his in barber shops before your wedding and once every month, routine trims and beard oil.

"Oh don't pretend you don't know luv, look at you! Even with ya short height everybody can tell, ya make such an unconvincing girl, sweets but that's alright. Everybody strays sometimes, not ya fault ya never had anyone to guide ya right, ya just trust me, alright? Ya just trust me."

He burries your face in his crotch to muffle your noises as he shaves your head feels you go limp with shame.

He pities you, he doesn't know what it's like to be seen after a life spent hiding, to be in the light after two decades of chasing it.He strips you off your skirt and blouse there, pockets your jewelry and wedding band takes out your I.D and taps your picture there.

"Ya recognize her?"

Your lips twitch, mishapen face scrunched up in shame.

"No, ya don't, ya never did..."

He thinks for a second, what to name you, who to make you, how to love you.

"Tommy, Tom Price, ya recognize that?"

You nod and he brushes the hair off your scalp as he leads you back to the car, lays you in the back seat to stew, throws his uniform jacket over you.

"Wait-"

He looks down, at you half hidden under the jacket, pulls it further, tucks you in to hide a body that's of the past.

"Yes luv?"

"What's you name?"

He smiles and huffs out a laugh that's been brewing for weeks, weeks and weeks of watching you, feeling your yearning eyes burn kisses on his skin.

"Jonathan, Jonathan Price, ya can call me sir."

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🌃Mercurial

ghoap x male reader

Chapter Five: Restless

"It can't be unlearned I've known the warmth of your doorways"

-Hozier, It Will Comeback

Running brings about a sick kind of fun.

It's like the allure of sticking forks into power sockets, like the charm of placing thumb and index finger on each side of a wound, gently pulling to see how deep it goes, how much it will hurt.

it's late at night when Johnny shakes you by the shoulders, ripping the blanket off of you. You're awake laying in the bed by yourself face stinging in the places you picked at your brows and skin you're cold and worse, you're guilty. 

"He's 'ere!"

His sounds relieved like the world has tilted on it's axis and sat just right.

Johnny looks at you again and again, runs his rough hands over your body, presses on your ribs and feels your pulse before you can even speak.

"Wha's goin on?"

You ask trying to feign being sleep drunk. Simon's comes into the room and drops the keys you had left on the coffee table on your bare chest.

"Windows wide open! Front door unlocked! What the fuck were ya thinking?!"

He rips his mask off and tosses it somewhere in the room, his face is sunken ,a butterfly stitch on his cheekbone, eyes like the dead pinning you to the still-cold bed.

"Ya could've been robbed! Kidnapped! Have you lost your damn mind?!"

He growls and it finnaly clicks that they're both swinging, drifting between who they had to be just a few short hours ago and who they can be here, now. It feeds a certain part of you that takes pride in being yelled at, being scrutinized because it means you're noticed, it means you enrage. But you understand that the tension in the room doesn't come from a place of hate or judgement but rather concern, care. It makes you feel awful for neglecting something that had been so important to them since before you were even a thing; your safety. On the other hand it's nice to get a taste of Soap and Ghost every once in a while.

You live on the run, money drains quickly and health declines quicker but it keeps you almost guilt-free and always on edge. Razor sharp, summer coat shedded and winter coat thicker than ever.

Just now do you realize how comfortable you were when you lived with Simon and Johnny because you seek out fear like your life depends on it, you get up and check the door everytime there's a noise, you go through your belongings every time you come back from work to see if they've been messed with. You know full well you're not worth chasing for this long, it's been a weeks, your burner phone doesn't have a calender but you have a vauge understanding that it's been that long, they should be home by now, you hope they're well.

You make a point of not thinking about their reactions when they came home and you were nowhere to be found, phone dead and all your belongings in place, you don't want to imagine the recycled heartbreak in Johnny's face, you don't want to think of Simon seeing what your not-so-recent well behaved behaviour for what it truly was a ploy, an act.

Which feels false when you know you enjoyed those months of peace much more than any period in your relationship, when they got you back from the cabin and slowly got you settled back home, restrictions erased the more trust-worthy you were, bounderies thought over and re-establised. İt granted you ample space to be you in the realtionship, to be demanding, aware, equal.  The pain of hurting them eased by them hurting than healing you. The temporary peace period where you let yourself have the comfort, the warmth of their love in bulk for you'd be without it, for years to come if you were successful.

You don't deserve warmth, and you foolishly though you could just take a peek through the door.

You wonder if they think you've been kidnapped, you wonder if they finnaly accepted that's it better for them if they cut ties with you, you wonder if your belongings ended up in the trash or the local goodwill or if Johnny's wearing your old band tee to bed, you wonder if Simon's gotten himself a new mechanic to maintain his car, you hope he has.

Sometimes you think about settling ,about finnaly accepting that you're not worth the work it takes to hunt for this long, sometimes you want to relax and stay for a bit longer and sometimes -shamefully- you dream of being found again, brought back home; because that's what it is and that's what it will always be. It's easy to convince yourself that the road is your home when you're living like this, untethered and nihilistic but you can't help the longing you have for the music Simon would put on before bed, the framed happy pictures on the walls, Johnny's cooking after a hard long day at work, you know the orange light spilling out of the windows now through the crack between patterned curtains, of the warmth when the three of you lay together.

It's nothing but longing you remind yourself , you don't have a place there anymore, you never did.

You hop from town to town not thinking, not feeling, not hurting or at least you try to and you press salt on the fresh wound by conjuring up images and phantoms of them when there is none.

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This this this forever we love our over-formal queen give her some respect

me genuinely tweaking when i read fics where farah speaks english informally and uses contractions instead of how she actually speaks in the game (will not instead of won’t, i am instead of i’m, etc)

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🌅Sea Salt

A quick, tipsy charecter study on The Plague.

"God entered my body like a body my same size."

-???

(tw: literally the bubonic plague, mention of murder and self harm, religious mania, martry complex)

Adiris can feel the sea in her body, churning in her muscles, salting her wounds, rushing in her veins and lungs. Foaming out of her pores in gruesome ways, granting her growth, granting her transcendence.

Her face rots with sacred fever riding her left eye of seeing evil and making her think twice about preaching falsehoods, her skin blooms unable to accommodate god's blessing untill it deflates and settles, painted in gods flourishing green and mesmerising purple.

She has long been more than that faithful little girl, praying at cliffsides for The Sea Goat to hear the voices of their courages and sacred marttries, she grew bigger with the love of her tutor ,then the faith of her god, filling her censer with wood and letting her will be as swift and powerful as the waves that crash on shores, wearing down ancient rocks, letting her tears be as soothing and pourposefyl as they spotted her father's broken, charred face.

By the blood of her severed toe and by the whispers of the beyond she is the high priestesses, her shadow stretching, contorting to accommodate all of her beautiful people His subjects and children that he has elected her to, her voice amplified and granted by the Sea Goat.

So when the sickness spreads and bubbles up from her skin like water from the ground, like blood from a heart she knows that her suffering is not without meaning, she knows this is growth in the most sacred way, for it is with the blessing and guidance of her god who has blessed her with the sea; in her bones, in her movement, in her service to him and all of his subjects.

She kneels in a cave knees planted in a pool of her own vomit surrounded by her children, granted by him, surrounded by his hands, his breath, stands at the alter with her hands raised preaching his words that he delivers in whispers and shimmery golden fog, she kneels by his remains dressed by his word and pruified by it, she stands washing blood off her hands as the sea splits open on her back, she stands before the elders granted a privilege most honored.

She is pure, she is good this she had always been certain of; so when her vision becomes dotted and her hands clasped in prayer freeze, when her soaked, putried cloak merges with her melting skin, when her followers call out to her, in pained cries and illegible screams she knows there is The Beyond waiting for them; clean and golden.

She sends one last prayer up to him from torn, burning lips barely curling around the words, from a swollen tounge that tastes of salt and acid, from her most obedient, lovin daugter.

"Let our voices reach the beyond-"

She whispers her rings digging into her flesh, the colour of filthy rubies and emralds, fool's gold.

"Us, your sacred children, us your most devoted, us at your feet my great father. Grant whatever wrong doing and sin they have unto me and let me suffer in their place, I will honour you so, this I promise you. Deliver us to your mouth, let our voices reach the beyond."

And as the gentle embrace of her god surrounds her, she takes one last, shuddering breath her followers' voices drowned out in the feverish whispering and the sound of waves against her rotted skull.

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🌇Push/Pull

gn! reader x Kyle 'Gaz' Garrick

"The kindness of strangers and the strangeness of everyone I know has just fucked with my heart."

-Flower Face, Honey and Milk

(tw:co-depandancey, unhealthy relationship)

Kyle is watching you get ready. He's watching you put on his favourite shirt, the one that sticks to the shape of your waist, he watches as you sling on the belt that he likes to hook his finger between when his hands get sweaty from holding your waist, he watches you put on the sunscreen, the Chapstick he bought you, the same brand as his ex but different flavour, the flavour he revealed in licking off his lips in the afterglow of your quick, chaste kisses.

And he's seething.

"So Fiona introduced me to some folks and we're meeting at the park today-"

Well maybe seething isn't the right word, maybe off-put describes his feelings better, maybe saying he feels left out or underappreciateed is much more appropriate.

"-and she asked me again why you can't come and I told her-"

"I can't come because I'm still injured from the last misson love, how many times do I have to tell you?"

"Right, that's what I told her and-"

It's not that he doesn't like you going out, he does! He likes to strut around his pretty baby, he glows whenever he gets to show you off to the friends and colleagues that he goes on and on to you about. Whenever they say as long as he's happy he smiles, leans down to kiss your cheek, he's happy he's so happy.

Happier than ever.

Or at least he used to be.

"-and she said we could just sit at a café and talk or do something else but I said-"

"You said I fucking hate coffee right? And that I don't want to be around your group of brain-dead, usless-"

He stops himself takes a deep breath that stings his ribs, forces his disdain down.

"-friends?"

You freeze hands on hold as their buttoning up your pants and he gets to drink in every little shift on your face, once upon a time he had an abundant source of them now he gets scraps.

He knows it's unfair, since most of them are his friends or people from his circle but he'd do anything to get some more of you.

"Something along those lines."

"That's my pretty baby."

Kyle met you in a small, underfunded museum.

As a British patriot he likes to stroll around, check out new art exhibits, museums, statues. He likes to keep his pointer finger on the pulse of things and luckily for him he found you there, tucked behind a birch desk eyes wet and reddened nose pinkish from cold like a little rabbit, shaking ,frozen fingers constantly tucking in your scarf that kept coming undone.

"So we're going to the park to see the new flowers set up-"

By then you were still fairly new to London, to it's frigid, charecteristic weather. 

Just a bleak foreign student trying to work and study but you were the most inept, socially incapable thing he'd ever seen.

Try as he might he could never picture you raising your hand in class, asking for notes or showing anyone but him around the displays he couldn't picture you anywhere else either, it was like they had placed you here then built the decaying museum around you.

"-then we're gonna go to that bookshop Mark's been going on and on about-"

You were stuttery, overly apologetic, the only attendant in a cramped museum where half the displays were badly kept and the rest were moldy due to the leaking roof but Kyle liked you, he liked the way you talked the way you gushed on and on about the exhibits in that fast paced, high pitched voice of yours like you were desperate for anyone to listen to you, like any attention shown to you, like you were desperate for anyone's light to stay on you long enough to warm your clammy skin.

He liked that. Like feeling important, big, sought after.

"-then we'll probably visit the mall where you first introduced me to them, since its the anniversary of our friendship and all!"

He cringes at the over-emotional sentiment.

Then you moved in with him, Kyle was used to living with someone he often boosted about his independencey but he had first moved out with his childhood sweetheart who he was sure he'd marry and then there had always been someone to keep the house alive when he was away working and you had easily filled that role.

"It's so nice being able to go out in public without feeling like I'm gonna heel over and die y'know?"

"Tell me about it."

You stayed inside most of the time but you did your best to contribute to rent and keep the house in order, you often cooked for him too and Kyle realized the whole bit about soldiers and the way to their hearts wasn't that far off. 

He doesn't remember when the two of you started dating it wasn't a big deal it was the natural conclusion of things, you moved from the floor mattress to the couch to his bed.

And he restocked his diwindling supply of condoms.

"Are you...mad? Kyle ,you know I can stay in if you don't wanna be alone or if this is bad day or-"

"Did I say that?"

You quickly went from being the tiniest, most pathetic thing he'd seen to being a inconsequential thing with benefits then before he knew it you were the thing that pulled him out of bed every morning, the thing that gave him purpose, kept him warm and full of hope like light crawling out from under a doorway. He associates you with warm bedsheets, the last candle during a power shortage, breakfast for dinner, home; he doesn't dare wonder what you associate him with.

Then your first panic attack happened.

"Did I say one bloody thing that even mildly implied that lovely?"

"Well no but-"

It had been a regular morning till he saw you curled into yourself in bed breathing heavily, eyes unfocussed.

 He hadn't even needed to ask what was wrong, he just wrapped his arms around you and pressed his nose to the side of your hair, breathes in the smell of your anxious sweat, listened to your sharp quick breaths.

He remembers feeling this intense sense of gratitude, of privilege. He was the only one that got to see these, got to see you. He was trusted, entitled. 

He was loved and loving.

"Then don't pull shit out your ass."

It was addictive, you were addictive.

Never before had he a lover so colorful, so twitchy and moist, you made life fun and he was cold when he met you.

He desperately wishes now that he had kept you to himself, that he hadn't introduced you to his friends ,his colleagues he hadn't wanted you to go on searching for new horizons he had just wanted to show off his perfect lover, his one in a thousand that followed him home.

"I-I know Kyle I'm sorry, I really am."

"I know you are, you always are, go hang out with your dumb mates, remember to pick up groceries on the way back, yeah? Miss your cooking."

"Oh already did yesterday, with Burns! Pasta dinner tonight?"

And now you're leaving him, leaving him sprawled and injured on the bed as you go on and expose his precious to other people, he tries to be happy for you and he is.

 He's happy that you're better , that you're back in the cycle of life, back in the crowd like any other civilian but what about him?

You bend down placing a hand on his chest as you press firm, sweet kisses all over his face starting from his brow and ending on his lips, no one reaches for him like you do, no one makes him as warm ad you, he's aware he only has a small pocket of light left before his vanity wears off.

He lays there soaking it in, you pull back too quick.

"I'll pick up our meds and some pesto for you while I'm out okay?"

He nods as he watches you leave but when he licks his lips it's not the familiar taste of artificiall cherry that he'd grown accustomed to, it's apple.

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🌃 Mercurial Masterlist 🌃

About: Ghoap x male reader

Reader: Male, very vauge descriptions

T.W List: Unhealthy relationship, kidnapping, obsessive behaviour, unreliable narrator, self-hatred, (always check chapter tags please)

Status: Ongoing

Inspiration: @peachesofteal (Dead Disco<3)

Old game, new rules

Chapter One: Abstain

Chapter Two: Hunger

Chapter Three: Devour

Chapter Four: Nasuea

Chapter Five: Restless

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🌃 Mercurial

ghoap x male reader

Chapter Four: Nausea

"I will poison all your happy times, I will love you like the ashes in my cigarette box."

-The Crane Wives, Tounges and Teeth

(money insecurity, unhealthy relationship, implied homelessness, anxiety)

The on the road life is better suited for you, you feel more secure with the peeling, old wallpapers of whichever hotel you end up in than the walls you had painted with Johnny the beds reeking of mildew feel more familiar than the wide warm one you used to share with them.

Faces forgotten before you can commit them to memory, places gone with nothing to mourn them by, nightly vigels to the best thing that ever happened to you spent anxiously looking out foggy windows for any silhoutte resembling theirs, listening for uniform footsteps louder than an earthquacke and as familiar as the little compartment you've sewn in your backpack, containing a new ID, fake passoport ,ever-changing burner phones and your unstable money supply.

You're in your element when no one knows you, when people don't commit your face to memory, when they're ingenuine and changing. it's familiar and homey when you know every escape route and every card in the deck, it's not so familiar too with the ever present threat of being found breathing down your neck, you know too well how attached they are and how many strings they have to pull, you've seen it firsthand.

Even then you can't blame them, they fell for someone they thought was good and from this distance it's easier then ever to paint yourself as the villan, the one who stirred the water when all was well, pushed buttons he knew he shouldn't have pushed, tested boundaries that had been set in stone when they were finnaly comfortable, when all was finnaly well.

It started out small, just a way to relieve your tension, just a way to adjust and get some breathing room;

It was the small ritualistic details you started neglecting at first, not stocking the pantry, keeping the house messy before they came home from deployments, not kissing them goodnight or goodbye. They didn't get mad, they didn't even notice, John stepped up readily when you neglected the house and Simon happily went out for groceries whenever you 'forgot', and that set you off worst. The little things you'd built your life, your place in the relationship around where unimportant to them, just something someone else could do without much fuss.

Then it was keeping the door unlocked on the night you knew they'd be coming home, sleeping on the couch by yourself with the excuse of 'feeling smothered', going out and not telling them whene you were going or when you'd be back knowing you were leaving then anxious and frazzled worried for your safety and nothing else, they were good, too good for somone like you. So good that Simon sat you down and explained that he understood you needed some space and that them being gone one day and then then being so present and loud could be hard to get used to.

"Me 'n Johnny just want ya safe angel."

Simon and that understanding smile on his face, always considerate and understanding to the people he loved like a wise parent lecturing a misbehaving yet well meaning child. You spat in the face of that.

"You both are overreacting Si, I know y'all got this skewed view of the world because the military n shit but I'm an adult, I don't need bodyguards."

His face fell, John turned around momentarily to check on the conversation.

"It's not like that, 'n you should know by now. We love you, we want you safe, you're the one with the skewed view and if you keep this bullshit up there's gonna be reprucussions-"

"Simon."

John cut in walking over to the kitchen table and giving him a look, Simon deflated running a hand over his face and you felt the familiar pain of being a disappointment, of misguiding and upsetting. It was wose when you know you love them and do it anyway knowing the things they'd been through.

"Sorry.."

You mumble, his dark eyes soft as they met yours. His bare hands clasped on his lap, he's rubbing his own knuckles.

"Jus' - jus' be safe yeah? Take care o' yourself when we can't, keep our heads clear? For us, angel."

You nodded knowing full well that despite your guilt you had found a nerve and you weren't the good person you had cruelly convinced them you were. You revealed in uncertainties and tension, you hadn't been anywhere this long since your teenage years when you got kicked out. You weren't deserving of this care, this love so you were doing the right thing driving them away or perhaps you just liked being cared for in such avident and raw way either way you were dead weight at best and a parasite at worst.

The tension rose when you kept doing it, John was the first to snap when you introduced them as your friends to some work acquaintances. He broke down, screamed raw and bloody, punched a wall and pulled out his hair as Simon desperately tried to play mediator.

"How could ye?! How fucking could ye, you ungrateful, lying cunt!"

John screamed as you stood leaning against the wall his knuckles were still kissed white and bleeding from the hole they had left in the drywall. His aquamarine eyes squinted and wet, his breaths quick and shallow like a wounded bird.

"We live together! We sleep in the same god damn bed, that's my sweater on ye back, 'n ye sit there and call us your mates?! Yer buddies?! I swear to fucking god ye better have brain damage or I wi-"

Simon grabbed him by the shoulders before he could go on any further. You understood why he was mad, he had opened his heart out to someone he had trusted for so long not knowing he was a snake in the grass, he wanted his love, his safe space, his importance in your life validated especially after all the anxiety you had put them both through with your planned recklessness.

And you broke, in retrospect it could have been so much better if you hadn't, maybe then you'd have some resentfull exs instead of this manhunt with every card stacked against you.

You sobbed, apologized over and over again, promised you'd be better, promised you'd behave, you loved them, you really loved them, the pain in Johnny's voice was unlike anything you'd seen and you meant it too. You didn't wanna be stranded and drifting again, by yourself in the world.

"Ye know we won't ever let ye go angel, promise."

You broke your promises time and time again, they snapped and you broke, but guilt wasn't enough to scratch this constant itch under your skin. Waiting, salivating for when they finnaly got fed up with you like everyone else, it enraged you when they didn't.

Shit hit the fan when you spent two nights at a friend's house and kept your phone on silent, came home with her perfume spritzed on your neck, then you ended up in the cabin and realized some bonds had to be severed phisicaly.

So here you are now, in the roadie lifestyle you're used to, overgrown beard and bloodshot eyes, feet bloody and swollen in your shoes, always cold, always tired, never quite clean. Walking home with a measly paycheck in your pocket and TV dinner in a shopping bag, you're always tense, always on edge knowing full well they've most likely moved on, hopefully.

Life on the road isn't as secure as it used to be, not when their love made you soft and comfortable.

You miss warm beds, you miss a stable job and your warm clean home but most importantly you miss them, you miss them like an amputated limb, like you can reach out and feel the muscles hanging loose, the veins burst and drooling where you hacked them off; it's easier to deal with when you remind yourself people like you don't deserve things like that.

You're just outside your hotel rooms door when some primal, animal instinct straightens your spine, something isn't right.

You look inside from the windows check inside, your measly possessions are all where they ought to be, just when you're about to close to door you see them.

Footsteps, on the snow, big, bigger than yours and deep, pure snow filthied by mud somone tried to cover them up but they're still there.

You can't tell if they're combat boots that John favoured or the hiking shoes Simon sweared by but it sets you off anyways, primal fear and anxiety, restlessness churning in your gut as you pack all of your belongings.

Same game, new rules.

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🌃 Mercurial

ghoap x male reader

Chapter Three: Devour

"I can be good, I can be true

You know I don't love anyone, but I love you"

-Nicole Dollanganger, Chapel

(tw: poverty, dishonest reader)

You don't like it, you don't like it a damn bit.

You don't like the bandage on your bottom lip, you don't like the smiley face doodle next to their supposed names, you don't like that your front door is locked with the only key of the shitty, rental sitting safely on the cracked tile floor.

It makes you feel small, it makes you feel pathetic; like a small thing desperate for help the feeling claws away at you twitching your fingers as you punch their numbers in and thank them, lashes out your throat when the same snobby kid comes into the shop with the same posh car he's brought in four times this month.

It makes you restless, it makes you damn near resentfull to these two men who in no way deserve it, they just helped some poor bloke get home after a night out, they probably never thought about it again or maybe they did; maybe they still do maybe they think about how needy you are as you three text back and fourth.

You feel as like you owe them and it kills you inside, so you decide to repay them.

'hey off work this Sunday wanna hangout? :)'

And then it began, looking back now, from this distance, you can see the way you'd twisted the narrative, convinced them they could love you, that you were good.

It was awkward at first, then it was friendship, then you were sitting cross-legged on the bed getting invited into their relationship. At the time it had seemed too erratic, too fast, no time to sit and think, no time to second guess but from this distance you can see how you wiggled your way into a place meant for them, carved a space out in hearts desperate for stability and already occupied, for someone like you, somone who didn't know how stay.

It was always transactional on your part, or at least it was supposed to be.

You would help them out for the grace they had shown you that night and you would prove to them that the help they gave you that night was justified you would lead them into thinking you were a person deserving of good things. You had no ill intension despite the driving force behind these actions being festering, putrid emotions. And then you'd leave once the cards were even, your feathers smooth. You'd skip town like so many times before and leave them behind with good, happy memories.

But you stayed.

You showed up on time to planned hangouts, you cleaned up after yourself when you stayed over and cleaned up the flat they shared with the spare key Ghost had given you half a year into knowing you and stocked the pantry with foods you knew they liked, listed on a little notepad while they were on what you used to know as business trips.

You were overstepping boundaries, you were too much, you were restless. You were appriciated.

Then you let them in after they got kicked out from their flat because John got into a fight with the nosy landlord. You took notice of their likes, dislikes, the things that set them on edge wrote themn down and acted accordingly.

You gave the neighbours fake names and vague answers whenever they asked about them, you kept scotch in the kitchen closet and sleeping pills behind the cracked bathroom mirror, you kept the door barricaded with a chair at night and didn't even think of unlocking it untill you confirmed it was them.

In turn they opened up to you about their profession, their pasts, their relationship, their insecurities their desires.

You were ingenuine, you were too obedient, you were smothering.

You were becoming irreplaceable.

You were sitting by the window sill with John ,Simon out on an errand, when he said.

"Ye ken, we uhh- we appreciate you a lot hare. Wit' what we do 'n how we can be I ken we ain't the easiest folks to be around."

You snorted into your morning tea shaking your head as you knocked your shoulder against his.

"And I'm just the dew on morning grass ain't I? It's lovely to have y'all around, needed me some reliable mates for a while now anyways. And don't I owe you?"

John turned to you recently plucked eyebrows raised.

"Owe us? Fer what?"

"Y'know, that night by the pub, I'd have probably become a headline that night without you two."

It's his turn to shake his head in disbelief, giving you that lovely smile you're slowly becoming accustomed to.

"Don't ye think that score's been settled a few dozen times by now?"

And before you knew it the three of you were saving up money for a new flat (you should have said no, you shoul have told them you always kept your suitcase packed for when you were finnaly sick of things too familiar, too comforting, too yours).

The scotch and the pills are replaced with fresh strawberries from the farmers market and melanin gummies in the new fridge Simon cleaned every Sunday, days of biting your tounge against customers were now full of work at a different shop with encouraged and nurtured patience and a customer service smile half genuine with the thought of going home to them. Nights out at pubs were slowly becoming dates, vauge answers and calculating looks were confessions and and eyes soft in the light spilling through the tall window of your new apartment.

Someone smoothes their hand down the expanse of your back as you're putting up curtains, it's early but you want it done before you head off to work so all three of you sleep better in the privacy and shade it provides, so the new apertment feels more like home.

Simon's smiling at you, his face is bare and his hands warm, they just got home yesterday, none of you sleep well in new environments, you're glad the new bed has enough room for them to toss and turn.

His cheeks are flushed from sleep.

"Bit short for the job angel, let me help?"

You step down from the stool and hand him the end of the thick curtain, marine blue with patterns swirled on it like puffs of smoke.

"Always nice havin' tall lads at my disposal."

You joke watching his muscles flex and his hands work as they slide the rings on. You lean your head onto his thigh.

"It's warmer here, don't ya think? Real airy too, lots of room for us."

You nod, you haven't lived in a place so nice in years.

"Better when it's with you two."

Ghost and John became Simon and Johnny then Simon, you and Johnny.

You had dug yourself into a hole you did not deserve, built yourself a place not meant for people like you, filled it with the care and concern that had once been so calculated and planned before it became effortless, natural.

Your home, your safe heaven, your boyfriends; with your old suitcase rotting in a landfill somewhere.

Before you knew it you were restless once again.

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📋Compartment Syndrome

gn! reader x Captain Price

"...I had to kill it to keep it, framed it afterwards, above my bed so I could see it each morning."

-???

(tw: unhealthy relationship, phisical violence, mentions of drugs, minor mention of reader 'being the other woman')

You served John divorce paper today.

He's sat at the kitchen table blunt nails drumming against mahagoney as he look at you, then the documents, less surprised or heartbroken more expectant.

And it baffles you how a man so big can look so small, how a man that fills up doorways and commands the air around him like second nature can slump his shoulders, hide his tears with coughs.

İt was a few years in the making and even then you feel bad, this is the man you love, loved; you used to stay up at night waiting for his footsteps on the front lawn. You have to remind yourself that was over five years ago, back when he actually bothered with you and the home, the love he had vowed to build with you, left high and dry like an abonded building spiderwebs in the corners and illegible graffiti on the walls, suffocating dust clouds merging with ominous shadows.

You used to hotbox in buildings like that, you and what few friends you had back in the days he wouldn't even look your way.

"And-"

He lifts the first paper pretends to take a look at the one below that and pushes them away from him, a muscle feathers in his jaw.

"-your reasoning for this? I'd like to think you wouldn't ruin us over something petty luv."

He knows and you know that he knows, you've argued about it often, you wanted him to be home more, you wanted him to be safe, you wanted him to at least bother interacting with you beyond sex, dinner and whenever he couldn't find the remote.

It wasn't even about his job at this point the day you had married that bright eyed, headstrong young man you knew you'd always be the other woman to his job you just desperately want his shadow out of your home at this point.

You clear your voice ,eyes on your weathered house slippers.

"Look I don't want to offend you, I don't even wanna cut you off completely! I just think-"

"Straight to the point, sweetheart."

He emphasis the word sweetheart, today of all days, knowing how it makes you feel.

"Neglect."

You answer, his eyes widden ,nose flaring.

"Neglect? Oh please we've been over this honey, I don't neglect you I'm not home kissing your feet all the damn time because I have a fucking job to do! I'm the one who keeps a roof over your head and defends this country while you sit at home and twiddle your thumbs! God you're fuckin infuriating, this is why you can't find a damn job, you braindead homebody-"

"I started working at the new school, the one that opened last year, you didn't get my messages?"

He falters, runs a hand over his overgrown beard.

"You did? That's- luv that's amazing! How's the pay? Are your colleagues-"

"Let's- let's just stay on subject, please."

You tell him doing your best to keep your voice even and cold.

He deflates, leaning back in his chair as he sighs. He looks awfull, unshaven, hair greasy, shirt dotted with blood and one of his arms in a sling you'd said that it was important that you couldn't wait for him to change or shower, less you chikcen out like the first five times it used to feel impossible to leave him once, he was bigger than life with each little bastardized segment leading up to him in some capacity.

"Luv, listen I know you're frazzled I've been gone for a month and I was barely home for a week before that, I understand ya wanna pick at me and get ya anger out but I've had a long ass month, okay? I just want a shower, your cooking then I want to cuddle up to the love of my life, yeah? Give an old man a break and for fucks sake get rid of these."

He gets up with a groan and pushes the papers towards you it always suprises you, how quickly he can dismiss arguments you've spent hours thinking through, how small he can make you feel.

"Price, look-"

"What the fock did ya just call me?"

"-I know it's painful to think about but this relationship obviously isn't serving either of us anymore, you're too busy for it and I don't think I ca-"

He has you against the wall before you can even react, shoulders and chest crushing you against the smooth, pearly white surface as his humid breath warms your cheek, your arm twisted across your back in the grip of his good hand; pain like coke sparking cruel stars in your visom.

"Shut. The fuck. Up."

He growls in your ear mashing his nose against your cheekbone.

"There is no reason for us to be together, just listen to me for a second-"

You hiss in pain as he twists your arm further, your ring finger -adorned by his mother's heavy, heirloom ring- brushing against your shoulder blade.

"I love you and you love me, that's plenty reason to stay together. Isn't it?"

It's marvellous how much conviction he can put into that excuse when you're pretty sure it's his hundredth time saying it, slightly different context, same words. You almost miss the times you'd jump through hoops for a smile from him when he was indifferent to you because he had no reason to treat you any way else.

"Isn't it?"

You nod, cheek rubbing against the wall as your eyes water.

He relaxes his grip on your arm, presses firm, moist kisses against your face.

"That's my baby, I know you're upset, I know and I'll make it up to you, I promised 'n I always keep my promises don't I?"

Your face is sour with all the promises he broke, all the times he let you down, left you alone as you nod.

"Use your words luv."

You take a deep breath, trying to find your words through the pain of your twisted muscles, your straining elbow, your back straight and stiff as a cutting board that your arm is pinned on.

"Yes, John."

He clicks his tounge, sharp sigh brushing against the side of your face.

"I just got injured ya ought to be a little bit sweeter."

"Yes,-"

You take as deep a breath as his crushing body allows.

"Yes, honey."

He smiles, letting go of you and stepping back allowing you- granting you space to breath, to turn around and rub at your burning arm something too close to guilt for comfort in his eyes. You stay like that for a few moments, feeling his eyes across your skin; slow and heavy like his hands like something you have to work to keep on you.

"One last thing?"

You look up, his eyes are wet. He hands you the divorce papers. Your lawyer will be so disappointed.

"Rip them and think about what you're doing next time, how your actions affect me."

You take them, the pristine paper shaking in your hands as your rip them, barely seeing through your tears you walk over to the bin.

He looms over you, broad shadow blanketing, eclipsing yours, swallowing it. He wraps his good arm around your waist when you're done, presses his barrel chest against you stil-stiff back and flutters kisses from the base of your neck up to your jawline.

"Y'know I love you."

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Neil posted a new instagram story

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🌃Mercurial

ghoap x male reader

Chapter Two: Hunger

"...you had these compelling magnetized eyes you must've lost when you got older."

-The Taxpayers, I Love You Like An Alcoholic

(tw: aftermath of violence, poverty, alcohol, implied past addiction)

It started in an alleyway your aching back against the cold bricks, blood from your nose ruined three times over slowly dripping onto your lap, staining threadbare jeans, headlights occasionally blinding your left eye.

You don't look around, you keep your dry, itchy eyes on the filthy floor wondering if they'll finnaly fire you for missing work tomorrow or showing up looking like a battered street cat, you wonder if you'll be able to keep the lights on with whatever measly savings you've got left, you wonder if mom will clear out the basement for you, you wonder if you'll need the E.R if you can even afford that.

The thought of prescription pain meds brings about that familiar spike of excitement, of desperation you thought you had burried a while ago but it's short lived. Your head is fuzzy, almost cloudy with the rush of the recent bar brawl, if you can even call it that when in reality it was little more than you running your mouth in a place you knew not to when in reality it was you getting battered and thrown out of your fifth pub in this town. This is what happens when you stay in one place for too long, you get restless, you get mean. İt's no excuse, it's just how you are.

You hear footsteps approaching and before you can look up a hand is under your scruffy chin lifting your face up.

The first throughout in your head is 'He's beautiful' and he is. Blue eyes and thick baby cow lashes, a well sculpted face, overgrown stubble, thick shoulders and a surprisingly fitting mohawk.

"Ye alive laddie?"

He asks, thick accent and scotch on his breath but all you can focus on us the scar curled like a snake nestled in the scruffy stubble of his chin then you notice the other man behind him, taller or at least you think he is, you can't tell where he ends and the shadows begin untill a headlight passes over, illuminating a juvenile skull mask, thick shoulders, wide arms straining against the sleeves of his jacket.

He seems like a guardian angel, like the grim reaper himself.

"Yeah, thanks mate,"

You groan throat scratchy and dry as you pull yourself up, no energy to dust yourself off as you pat his shoulder.

"Looks like ye could use some help, we'll drop ye off."

You shake your head instinctively

"Nah, thanks, not my first, 'be fine."

He frowns, it's akin to a pout and you're stuck with the thought that he can get anything he wants when he does that.

"Nah, yer in no state to be walkin' home by yeself, plus we insist, don't we?"

He turns to the man behind him who shifts either nervous or stiff and nods.

"Yeah, we do, c'mon."

His words are clipped, voice gravell not that much of a contrast to the other man's like sniew and heartstrings.

You haven't got much left to lose and help is always appreciated -never really deserved - so against whatever better judgement you've got left you let them hold you up by the shoulders and half march, half drag you home.

They're strong, much stronger than you and they carry you with an ease that embarrasses you, you do your best to not look desperate between them, not look needy.

The first one -John- fills the awkward air with small talk and jokes, the other one watches as if he's thinking you through, writing down the pros and cons and although you slur and stumble through your words and laugh way too much you dare to think a favourable judgement has been passed on you when you wake up to a band aid on your busted bottom lip and a note with two numbers on it signed John and  Ghost.

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🌃Mercurial:

Ghoap x male reader

Chapter One/Prologue: Abstain

"I found you, I found the door."

-Mitski, I Want You

(please mind the tags, I don't know how the UK train system works, English isn't my first language apologies for any mistakes <3)

You kiss them goodbye on the doorway, you make sure their jackets are zipped up, you promise to keep the windows locked and to not go out at night, Simon smiles, his eyes crinkling above the surgical mask.

"Gonna be good for us, hare? Sure hope so."

It's half joking, half threatening and desperately hopeful.You focus on the spot between his eyes as you nod, stomach twisting into knots and hands sweating.

You press your ear to the metal door and listen to their footsteps fading away then you rush to the balcony and watch the black, truck you repainted last month go down the road, through the U turn and disappear, your knuckles white against the railings your forearms stiff, eyes so wide and unlinking untill they water and force you to blink. You're scared that any moment now the other shoe will drop, they'll turn the car around and John will ask you if you really took them for such fools as Simon rumages through drawers and wardrobes laying every bit of your pitifull escape plan on the floor, like a wolf gutting a hare. Then you'll be driven back to the lonely, stuffy shack in the woods in the trunk, hogtied and gagged, feeling every bump on the road.

The trunk opens and you shut your eyes against the onslaught of white hard light, nose stinging from the cold as you curl into yourself out of both fear and well deserved shame, guilt. They're talking above you, familiar voices blurring together and becoming white noise. You feel like an insect pinned down, getting dissected.

Someone places their hand over your eyes, rubbing at your red, runny nose with their calloused thumb.

"Oh lovie."

"Carefull Si, cannea back out now."

There's silence for a second and you know they're exchanging the kind of look that saves their lives out on the field, the kind of look that explains and understands.

"Gotta let him learn his lesson ,hmm?"

"No other choice left."

Simon runs his hand over your face and rubs at your neck, that still smells of someone else. Mature and cold with hints of narcissus.You can see his internal conflict in his darkned eyes and see you can see his attachment, his love, his despration winning out.

You look up at them at Simon's wide set face and his unfocussed eyes dried out from lack of sleep, John bends down and picks you out of the truck setting you down on aching feet, still clad in socks as he flicks his knife out, a flash of fear goes through you, gutted by the same knife you had bought for him on his birthday, how fitting.

"Run 'n I'll break ya legs,."

"Last resort Si, might never heal proper again."

"Wouldn't tha' a good thing by now?"

You hear a sigh, both exasperated and heartbroken.

"Hope not."

Simon holds you in place by the shoulders as John cuts the ropes away, his jaw is set but his sweet blue eyes are wet, tired and you can't help the immense guilt you feel at putting them through this, for pushing them so far, for staying when you knew you'd do this.

Then you lift your face and see it, the cabin it's a box really, no windows and only one heavy door, John had mentioned his father had built one for hunting ,you wonder if it's the same one. You look over the dark wood walls and the door padlocked from the outside, your fear snowballs, all consuming and rattling your ribs. The idea of being trapped in the small, dark space is nauseating, it terrifies you in a way so primal, so reflex you think you'll bolt for a second, you think you'll beg scream, anything, anything. John straightens up and caresses your face.

"Just for a little while hare, just 'till Si n' I are back from this misson, then we'll come 'n get ya, promised we'd never leave eachothe, remember?."

He rips the tape off your mouth and gives you a soft sweet kiss, familiar lips failing to settle you for the first time, well groomed stubble scratchy against your moist skin, Simon presses his cheek against yours.

"It has everything ya need and we'll be back before you know it, just behave yourself and you'll never have to see this place again."

His voices is gravel against your skin, his breath smoke but you can't focus on them pressing against you on either side or the ropes laying undone on the grass.

All you can see is the cabin, the padlock, the wardens, the convict.

You had stayed for a long time in that cabin, long enough for your food to start running out, long enough to grow both lovesick and resentfull, long enough to get yourself together and fix the old, busted hunting camera you had found shoved between the wall and the bed.

You bought two flasdrives a week ago before their deployment and hid them in your tool box, on one you upload images of the cabin, of chains, of bruises, dents in the wall and your room ransacked time and time again.You know it's not a strong case and it's not meant to be. It's supposed to be a reminder for what you did, what you're running from, your sentencing.

On the other flash drive you upload all your happy memories, screenshots of loving wordsand jokes, selfies together, pictures of gifts and vacations, the apartment you saved up for with them. To keep you warm, souvenirs from the last place you settled in, from the last place you let yourself be loved.

You tuck them into the struddiest back pack you own, four changes of clothes, underwear, very basic toiletries, some fancy jewellery you'll have to pawn off later on. The money, fake ID and passport you had hidden in the inner lining of one of the coats John's forgotten about a long time ago, discarded at the back of his closet.

You pack the bag in under ten minutes just the way you practiced, the hard part is the note, you write over and over again palms sweaty and hands shaky eventually you settle on;

'Stay safe, I love you, goodbye.' Flowery language and false promises feel ingenuine when you're leaving everything the three of you have worked for, everything they'd tied their hearts to , it feels cowardly when you're running away. You leave the crumpled up notes on the top of the trash and your shared card on the table. You keep your promise ring in your pocket.

The walk to the train station is torture, every loud step is Simon, every wide shoulder or brown jacket is John, you feel like you're drowning in a pool filled with snippets of them, like driftwood caught in a storm much bigger than he'll ever comprehend. You either dread the day they'll be nothing but memories or salivate for it, you can't decide with the overwhelming panic, the sick excitement.You buy a day pass and a burner phone before you throw away your cell phone.

The bus ride is calmer, when you don't think about the pub you met in, the small flower shop you routinely bought foxgloves and bluebells from, the record shop Johnny loves, the workplace Simon insisted he drove you to whenever he could; the lufe you're betraying, the blessings you're running from.

You sit arms crossed and face hidden under your hood as you watch the city flash by, the further away from home you get the more guilt you feel; guilt for letting them in, guilt for misguiding them, guilt for aggravating them again and again and again untill either one snapped, guilt for leaving when you had just convinced them you wouldn't even think of it.

You swallow it down and watch the city speed away colors blurring like oil paint.

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🌃 Mercurial Masterlist 🌃

About: Ghoap x male reader

Reader: Male, very vauge descriptions

T.W List: Unhealthy relationship, kidnapping, obsessive behaviour, unreliable narrator, self-hatred, (always check chapter tags please)

Status: Ongoing

Inspiration: @peachesofteal (Dead Disco<3)

Old game, new rules

Chapter One: Abstain

Chapter Two: Hunger

Chapter Three: Devour

Chapter Four: Nasuea

Chapter Five: Restless