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hansoulo · 5 days ago

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1. dogs and children — hounds of love

Pairing: John Price/F!Reader Warnings: single father!john, original child character, pet ownership Word Count: 3k A/N: further parts will most likely only be posted to my ao3! do you know what I really need?

It’s the hottest Saturday in August. The city buzzes with agitation, an acrid and implacable energy as the sun bakes the sidewalks, scorches the roads. Parents with children flock to the ice cream parlor next to the park. Old men sit on the steps outside the YMCA and smoke cigarettes, mopping the sweat from their undershirts. The birds that haunt downtown are especially aggressive, squawking as they fight for scraps of burger wrappers and bread crumbs that litter the grass. This close to the Long Island Sound, seagulls mix with pigeons.

It’s the hottest Saturday in August, and you are at the beach. Because your air conditioner is broken. And your landlord sucks.

It’s classic New England, really. Six foot-long radiators for the winter, and a boxed window unit for cooling the triple digit summers that you have to haul up from the basement every year as it leaks old, brown water. You’d racked up $100 more than usual last month in utility costs with how high you’d cranked the AC, sitting in front of the tepid blasts of air with your shirt off and sweat pooling on your back. Now, it seems, you were reaping what you sowed. The old clanker finally gave up the ghost last Tuesday, and your landlord had yet to respond to your increasingly desperate emails. You’d ordered a box fan online as a stopgap measure and opened every single window, but today was oppressive. Unbearable.

At least at the beach, the water was cold. You could forget about the burn inevitably baking your shoulders with your toes in the frigid sea, digging for seashells alongside your dog. Finny was a big, bouncy thing. A mutt with some German Shepherd and some Retriever and a little bit of everything else. The animal shelter employee said that they’d found her shivering under a bridge, trying to nurse a litter of dead puppies. You had no choice but to take her in immediately, the soft-hearted fool that you are. It was inevitable. Dogs and children. Your weakest links.

The beach is crowded, but not overwhelmingly so. Most of the people here are families. They come armed with rolling coolers and volleyballs and sliced watermelon. You came with your keys in your pocket and the dog’s leash clipped to your shorts. No swimming for you today, but Finny was happy as a clam to paddle in the water, snorting and swiping at sand crabs with her paws. You once saw a video of a dog that was trained to harvest oysters. Yours was probably not that smart.

Where you stand now is not really at the ocean, at least from this side of the coast. The outer edge of Long Island blocks the Atlantic. Here, the waves are gentle and slow. They roll shells onto the bank and mush clumps of seaweed underneath your feet. The horizon line is one mass expanse of blue, undulating with a single buoy tied off in the distance. It’s nice. So nice, in fact, that you don’t notice someone’s behind you until you get pulled from your reverie with a loud bark. Suddenly, Finny is pulling, panting, lunging at something that you haven’t even had the chance to see. When you finally untangle yourself from the leash snaked around your ankles and get a grip, you’re met with a man.

He is, without exaggeration or hyperbole, the most handsome man you have ever seen. And you mean man in the truest sense of the word, like something out of a Clint Eastwood film or 80s softcore porn or your own primordial, cavewoman fantasies. He clears six feet, easy. Dark hair and even darker eyes, thick with muscle and a light sheen of sunburn. He has no shirt on. God. Aren’t there public indecency laws to prevent this sort of thing?

Of course he doesn’t have a shirt on, your intellect screams at your libido. You’re at the fucking beach.

This does not bode well for you.

It’s not until you drag your eyes away from the thickness of his beard—the slightest bit of silver is coming in at his chin—that you notice a child clinging to his legs, a little girl wearing a bright yellow swimsuit and carrying a plastic shovel. Fuck. Dogs and children.

“Sorry,” you smile sheepishly, squirming to grab Finny’s collar. She hops up on her hind legs, angling towards the small, inflatable beach ball the man holds. The cause of this whole scene, you’re sure. You have a similar one in her toy box at home. You can almost hear the cogs in her head turning. This man has a ball. He will throw the ball? He must throw the ball. I will run after it. It will be great fun. You sigh and scratch behind her ears. “She’s excessively friendly.”

“S’alright,” the man grunts. He keeps the little girl tucked behind him, one large hand curled into her hair. Protective. Sizing you up. You wonder what he sees. Some girl with a poorly-trained dog, no doubt. He probably wants to make sure Finny won’t attack or bite or do anything stupid. It’s warranted, you suppose, given the circumstances.

He eyes you with something bordering on suspicion. Does he notice your grown-out pedicure, the woven friendship bracelets stacked on your ankle, the way your stomach sits against your shorts? You silently wish you’d done a better job shaving your legs in the shower. Maybe then you’d feel more prepared for the scrutiny of his gaze. “What’s her name?”

It takes you a second to register his question, still distracted by the way his arms flex as he moves and the rough vowels of his British accent. Foreign around these parts. You swallow, tasting sand. “Oh, um. Finny. Short for Fiona.”

“I like your dog,” the girl chirps, with the same English spark as her father. She’s a little shy, still hiding behind her father’s knees and chewing on the strings of her pink bucket hat. Can’t be more than four or five years old. “She’s got big ears."

You smile wide and lean down on your haunches, petting at the scruff of Finny’s coat. “The biggest! It’s so she can hear when kids are getting into trouble.” The girl laughs and you preen, happy to have diffused some of the tension.

Children are fun. You can interact with children.

Their parents, on the other hand…

The man remains rooted to the ground, as immovable and solid as a tree trunk. Even as his daughter ventures forward, taking a few steps towards you after his nod of permission, he stands with his arms crossed, dark hair dusting the curl of his knuckles.

You try not to let your nervousness show as you beckon the girl forward. “D’you want to pet her? She likes belly rubs.”

She nods and puts a hand on Fiona’s coat, stroking up and down the wiry fur. Up close, you can see the sunscreen that paints her round cheeks, the frizz that escapes her two crooked pigtails. Fiona twists immediately onto her back to present herself for the aforementioned belly rubs, tail thumping against the sand as she pants happily. The beach ball is all but forgotten. Attention whore, you think with contempt. Maybe she got it from her mother.

“Why’s her name Fiona?” the girl asks, laughing as Finny licks a broad stripe up her chubby fingers. You do your best to ignore her father, who is still standing directly in front of you, blocking out the sun with his ridiculously broad shoulders and ridiculous boonie hat and ridiculously large arms. Let no one say you’re a coward, even if you could feel the gusset of your underwear dampening with every flick of his eyes. You will be polite. You will let this child pet your dog, who will not bark or lunge or slobber. You will make pleasant conversation with all involved parties.

You will not be ruled by your libido, even if the person standing in front of you was, again, the most handsome man you’d ever seen. You will be normal, damnit.

“The movie Shrek,” you answered. A snort sounded from above your head, a masculine grunt of amusement. Yes, I can be funny, your ego preened, please laugh. Please approve of my choices for naming my dog. I can be everything you want me to be. I can quote the entire movie front to back. Should I start right now?

You beat your subconscious back with a stick.

“My name is Jessie, short for Jessica.” The girl flops down onto the sand beside Fiona, content to keep stroking her fur. The little traitor is happy to stay still—of course now is the time she chooses to be well-behaved. “I’m four, but I’m almost five. I start school in the fall.” She points to the man watching you both. “This is my dad! He works as an army person, but I think it’s secret so he doesn’t tell me much.”

You laugh at how straightforward she is. Secret army man. Well, you could’ve guessed that by the sheer size of him. Tall and broad, with a healthy roll of fat around his blue swim trunks. He’s got a collection of scars littering his midsection—what look like stabs and slashes, maybe bullet wounds. Long healed over, but you wince all the same. You never did well with injuries.

“If it’s secret, he probably doesn’t want you to tell me,” you muse, glancing up at him. Instead of waiting for a response, you share your name. It’s only fair, after all. Introductions are the polite thing to do.

The man returns that his name is John and he works as a private contractor. Whatever that means. You apologize again, very profusely, for your dog, and he says it’s fine. John’s worked with K-9 units before. He knows how to handle excitable creatures. “You’re a good girl,” he grunts, scratching under Fiona’s chin and next to her collar in a way that has her panting with happiness, her pink tongue lolling out. “Aren’t you?”

Your entire body pulses with something horrible. Like the drone of an incoming helicopter. A wind tunnel of deafening static, sneaking from your stomach all the way to the spit gathering in your mouth. Every muscle tenses in anticipation of release from a great, unplaceable need. You move your shoulders back down from your ears and try to breathe, to smile. Like a normal person.

John is surprisingly easy to talk to once you ignore how attractive he is. Forgiven from his earlier suspicion, you trade light conversation as you watch your respective charges run up and down the shoreline, Finny’s happy barks follow Jessie’s squeals of delight when they fall into the water. Best of friends already.

The man and his daughter are here from London, which explains the accents. John’s work had to take him “across the pond.” He is vague and brusque when you ask about what exactly that work is, so you don’t ask any more questions. Instead, you tell him that you work in the neighboring city and live in an apartment. By yourself. You don’t really know why that last part was necessary. John says he just bought a house in one of the coastal suburbs. It’s only about 20 minutes from you. Something in the air tastes like fate. Vague and inevitable happenings.

“Is it just the two of you?” you ask, trying to skirt around the topic. You’re almost shoulder-to-shoulder. Tact has never been your strong suit, but you know better than to just blurt it out. Where is her mother? Are you unattached, like me? Floating? A possibility?

“Yeah, just us,” he says. Simple. A past scar smoothed over with one sentence. “Her mum’s not in the picture.”

You have no idea how to respond. Should you be sympathetic? Contrite? Shrug your shoulders and clap him on the back, like “Aw, it happens. Sorry, bud!” Offer yourself up to be a replacement model, like how someone trades in a Maytag washing machine? A sick part of you is celebrating his answer. Like you won the lottery and aren’t just making small talk with some random guy. Man. Person. Specimen.

In lieu of responding, you just nod.

Jessie eventually runs back to where you both stand, ankle-deep in the sea. She invites you to come sit on their beach blanket to play “mermaid librarian” with her, which you learn involves collecting various types of seashells and sorting them by size, shape, and color. John drops down in a gray camping chair beside your operation. He’s content to be silent, saying nothing and doing nothing except staring out into the water. You have the sudden urge to smear sunscreen on his nose.

It’s very important that the pink, rounded seashells and the white, scalloped seashells don’t mix. The collection has to be a proper index. Where Jessie learned the word index, you can’t imagine. When you finish sorting your shells and look up, John’s stare is already on you, lingering at your neck. You might’ve imagined it. You’re not sure.

An hour or so passes in this pleasant fugue. Shedding any shyness, Jessie chatters about her friends back in London, the big plane she’d flown in with her dad to come here, how she was sad to leave but thought it was funny that Americans eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and wanted to try one. You’re happy to let her talk. After all, you hadn’t really made any plans for the day beyond escaping the furnace of your apartment. Nowhere else to be. No plans to rush to. Just you and the dog, and now the man and his daughter. Chance encounters.

Eventually, though, you have to go home.

“Gotta get the little one back before bedtime,” John motions over at Jessie, who’s fighting back a yawn as she rests on Finny’s sleeping form. Curled up on the white sand, two peas in a pod.

“I’m not little!” Jessie protests when she overhears, raising her head from her perch on Finny’s stomach. “I’m almost five and I can tie my own shoes!” She stares mulishly out into the water, stabbing at the sand with her plastic spade. “And I’m not even tired.”

You and John trade a knowing look, the kind adults make when children are being stubborn and funny. It’s a strange feeling, being on the other side of it. Being the adult who does the sighing. Ah, kids. Nevermind the fact that John probably has a good fifteen years on you, at least. You try not to think about it.

“Finny’s tired, sweetheart,” you point out with a laugh. “She’s gotta go home, too.”

“I guess so,” Jessie pouts, stroking a small finger down Finny’s tail. Morose, readying herself to say goodbye.

You smile and feign mischief as you lean towards her, even though John can hear every word you say. “Tell you what, maybe you could have a playdate with her later? You gotta ask your dad though, okay? And make sure you go to bed when he says to, so you can have a lot of energy for when you see her again.”

Maybe you should’ve asked John before bringing it up. You don’t want to seem too forward. A small(ish) part of you craves John’s approval, his acquiescence. You’d like to see Jessie again, this smart little girl who made such fast friends with your dog. It’d be cruel to separate them so soon, you reason. And maybe you would also, coincidentally, like to see her father again, too. Or whatever.

Jessie immediately grins, twisting her entire body towards her dad and turning on the charm. “Please can I see Finny again, please please please? I’ll brush my teeth with the spicy toothpaste and I’ll take a long bath without the bubbles that make a mess and I-I-” here she scrunches her eyebrows, trying to think of a new bargaining chip.

John only chuffs, a deep, resonant laugh that shakes his chest. “Sure, love. Can’t keep you away from a new friend.”

A new friend.

John offers you his phone number. For the sole and practical reason of coordinating the aforementioned child-dog playdate, of course. Like you’re two parents at soccer practice. It’s a little embarrassing watching him type his contact information into your phone. It has a purple glitter case and a plush keychain dangling off of it. John’s fingers are so big they dwarf the screen. When he hands it back to you, the glass is warm. John Price, above a number with a local area code; brand new, probably. You wonder how many other people have it.

You help them pack up camp, rolling up towels and brushing the sand out of Jessie's hair. She complains that her dad doesn’t know how to “make it pretty” like you do, even though you only do a single French braid, and is very happy when you sneak a big seashell under the brim of her bucket hat to take home. It’s only fitting, you say with a wink, for the best mermaid librarian.

“See you around,” John says, wiping his hands on his swim trunks before hoisting a bag onto his shoulder. It digs into the muscle of his trapezius and you try not to stare. Dogs and children are easy to talk to. Easy to love, to smother, to run with. You had a lot of experience with them. Men like John? Not so much.

“Sure.” You swallow tightly, forcing yourself to nod with something resembling casualness. The sun winks at you from right above the skyline, its pink haze signalling it’s time to leave. Surrounding families begin to pack up their belongings. The crash of the waves mixes with distant rap music from someone’s speakers. “See you around.”

John walks up the embankment to the parking lot with an Igloo cooler, an umbrella, and two packed bags tucked under his arms like they weigh nothing at all. His daughter skips in front of him swinging her plastic pail. She waves and shouts your name. “Bye! It was nice to meet you! I hope you can be my next babysitter, because the one I had last time was kind of boring!”

God. You were so, totally fucked.

#john price x reader #captain john price x reader #john price fanfiction #call of duty x reader #call of duty #lowk embarrassing to be posting this out of the blue on my main but the pull of his boonie hat was too strong #stay safe everyone!!

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