jamneuromain

[jamneuromain]

omgomgomg

my favorite 12 and her thread of life ❤️❤️❤️

its just so good to see someone lend her a hand when she was about to lose her life😭😭

Dawn

Steve Rogers x OFC

Summary: No, this pain…It was carved into him, ingrained into his very being, haunted him like a shadow. And no one saw it.

Warning: Angst

Characters: OC, Steve Rogers, John Walker, and Avengers.

Also: This is the almost last chapter of the series! Thanks in advance for repost or any feedback ❤️ Let me know if you want to be included in the taglist (DM, comment, repost and tag, whatever works)❤️

1: Insomnia | 2: Lucid | 3: Reverie | 4: Nightmare | 5: Awakening | 6: Dusk | 7: Hypnagogia | 8: Lull | 9: Vigil | 10: Eclipse | 11: Veil | 12: Labyrinth

There it was… this tree.

A giant, opulent, beautifully majestic oak.

You knew every branch, every root. You knew how the sunlight glistened through at dawn, golden beams cascading like falling rain through the shifting shadows of its leaves.

You knew how it breathed among the fog, whispering in an ancient language only time could understand.

You knew how it slept beneath the moonlight, how it awoke in spring, how its roots stretched so deep into the earth that – when you were underground in that hideous lab, strapped to the surgical table with things plugged into you – you could see it.

Golden threads of its life. Shining. Glowing. Bright as starlight, intertwined like an infinite spider web, nested in the ceiling, moving, circulating, breathing. Living.

When those Hydra white coats numbed you with electrifying pain, this magnificent view of these ancient roots was your tether to sanity. They curled into your mind, winding through the agony, singing a symphony only you could hear and understand.

And after whatever they had done to you and your siblings, you would go there. You could see through the layers, so its branches were like an open stairway for you to climb with ease. Your brothers and sisters never understood how you did it, how you ascended higher and higher until you were lost within the greenery of its leaves.

“Twelve!” They used to shout out to you—usually, it was Four or Seven who followed you to play deep in the forest. “What do you see?”

And each time, your answer was different.

“A bridge crossing the mountains… there’s, um… a red train with smoke! It’s so shiny! And it’s heading east… I wonder what’s in the east?”

“Oh, look! It’s that train again. It turned on the lights! Whoa, it looks so warm inside, and cozy too… They have yellow lights, that’s so nice…”

“Birds! I can see birds! Wow, they are so white, they look like flying little clouds… They are flying together… Now, how does the first one know there are so many others following? They are not leaving anyone behind… I wish we could do that too someday.”

“The village under the mountain has its lights lit! I think there’s a celebration. They have lights in red, green… violet? Is that the right color? I’ve never seen violet lights before… How do they do that?”

You would shout that to your siblings, and then they would tell the rest when you were together, sometimes during the rare occasion of having dinner, or after the guards went off their shift, in your separate cells where you could hear each other.

They would press you for more details, wide-eyed and eager, clutching onto glimpses of a world beyond their own. And they asked the rarest, weirdest, and most fantastic questions that turned a cold winter night into a conversation full of laughter and imaginary dreams.

Everyone would participate, except for Eleven, your twin.

She could read your mind, she never needed it to ask.

So she sat beside you at dinner, silent as she passed the bread and salt. Or curled against the wall of her cell, in the exact place you were on the other side, the corners of her mouth turning into the faintest of smiles.

Because she knew.

There was nothing.

Only miles and miles of barren mountains, infinite snow, jagged rocks, and trees stripped by the wind. The scenery was gray, deep green, and white.

Cold.

Unyielding.

Vast.

And hollow.

No bridges to the east, no trains with warm cozy lights, and no colorful lantern-lit villages.

Only a wilderness so vast and empty that the silence itself had weight.

And still, Eleven never said a word.

But sometimes, just sometimes, when she handed you the bread, her fingers would linger for half a second too long as if she wanted to say something. And you could hear her heartbeat, or see her life thread shining in the dark on the other side of your cell wall. It was shining more than usual when you told those stories.

But she never said anything.

And neither did you.

Or your siblings that went outside and saw the world.

They all knew. Just as you knew.

There was nothing outside.

Not for you.

Not for them.

But the tree still stood, after all.

And so did the stories.

So here you were, again. How many years has it been? You looked around. You were on a tall branch, a few feet from the ground. The air was cold, and the ground was lightly dusted with snow. Is it… winter?

You frown. Confused. You are in your usual position, these branches were so strong and wide, that you used to nap here in spring. But now… you couldn’t fit into it.

How… how long has it been since you were last here? Hours? Days? Years?

You looked around, and then you heard the voices.

Someone’s talking.

“It’s gonna work.” A female voice said, in a soft, gentle, but unwavering tone.

“How…?”A male voice responded. “We’re failing. My wounds aren’t healing. I’m not even close to passing the tests. Not like before. And Three… Three isn’t progressing either. She’s too slow. She’s—”

He faltered. “She was supposed to be better than us. And yet, when we were her age, we were so much stronger, faster…” His voice is desperate: “And I don’t even want her to be that, but they won’t let her live…if she continues like this.”

You peered through the leaves, your breath catching in your throat.

You could barely remember them, it had been so long, but yes, of course, you see it now. You look so much like them, but yeah, they were so gorgeous. Look at One. Oh my god, she looks like a Greek goddess.

“It’s going to work.” One murmurs: “This project, our mission, our purpose, it’s going to work.” She says softly but with the certainty of someone who had seen beyond time itself.

Two scoffs, crossing his arms. “Well fine, GREAT, that’s what they want. So what…what do you see? Do they just find some miracle cure? Some magic serum? Or do we just keep surviving their tortures because we’re so perfect?”

“No.” One shakes her head. “Not in the way they think. Not in the way we think.” Her fingers brushed the bark of the tree. 

“The experiment succeeds because of something else. Someone else.”

“What? Who?” Two raises his eyebrows. “‘Jesus’?”

One doesn’t answer right away. She tilts her head slightly like she’s listening to something beyond the wind, beyond the forest. A future too distant to touch, yet already written.

Finally, she whispers, “Someone will survive. One of us. Eventually. And they’ll be the last. The last, but the most important. The only one that matters.”

She smiles faintly, as if she were seeing something beautiful, something never seen before, some dream so far away but yet so stunning that she doesn’t even have the words to describe it.

“Someone strong, warm, kind, gentle, who will carry this cross. Someone that looks like…redemption and…mercy.”

“So…” Two nods sarcastically: “Jesus.”

One chuckled, brushing a fallen leaf from his hair. “No…well, probably. You know, the one who will end the fight and bring the peace we never saw. And we will never see.” 

Two stiffens. He doesn’t need to ask what that means. He leans on the tree looking up, and narrows his eyes as some sunlight pinches through the leaves, casting directly into his eyes. 

“How long do we have?” He asks softly, he pauses. “Wait, since when you’ve known this? Since when you’ve seen it? Did you know? We would start to fail? We would…eventually…die?”

“I think I’ve always known… but we were always…brainwashed and…put into sleep so I just thought it was a dream, but now, when Three was created and she started to fail…it just became more and more clear.” 

One sits on the ground, and she leans back and looks up at the tree above them too. And for a moment, you thought she saw you, but she didn’t. She looked at the sky, some blank space between the trees and beyond, but that was the only sky she’d seen. Or remembered.

“We are meant to fail. Two.” She looked at her partner.

“We are meant to fail and die. So eventually, one of us will make it. We are the trials, the suffering, the experiments, the test results, we are the stepping stones to something greater. Something that’s…worthy.”

“Wait…” Two looked at her as he listened. He knew her so well, as their souls were written with the same ink and pen. 

“Is this why Three is failing? She carries yours, no, she carries our DNA, is this why she is letting go? Because…she is accepting it? As we are accepting it? Because…you accepted it. So we all did. And so…all that comes after us, all our siblings, eventually…will too.” 

You pressed a hand over your mouth as you sat frozen in the tree, disbelief sinking into your bones.

So this was it.

This was the reason.

This was why all your siblings had died before you. Even those who survived to the experiments.

They were never meant to survive.

They were only meant to pave the way.

And they knew. Just as they knew you were inventing stories but never said a word, never shattered the fragile illusion that you weren’t trapped, caged—that your existence wasn’t just a highly sophisticated experiment, a perfected kind of lab mouse.

They accepted One’s vision, imprinted in her soul since she had witnessed it, and it was passed down to Two, to Three, to Four, to all of you. And so, one by one, they let go.

So the final prototype, the perfect and ultimate version of you could…

No.

Your eyes widened. 

Something pulled at the edges of your consciousness. A thought, a truth—one so absolute, you knew it. You knew it all this time but it was so deeply woven and buried into history that you didn’t grasp it at the beginning. 

It was like One said: The experiment had worked. Just not in the way Hydra intended.

“Not in the way they think. Not in the way we think.”

It had succeeded.

Not in them.

And not in you.

But in someone else.

The final outcome. 

The one who carried it all. 

Not just the experiments, not just the test, or the science, but the very heart of what One had seen. 

Strength, warmth, kindness, mercy.

Your breath hitched.

It was never you.

It was him.

It had always been him.

Steve.

All of you, you were never meant to be the final answer. You were the foundation. The formula. The failed trials. The pain, the suffering, the endless experiments—all of it, all of you, existed so that, one day, the right person would receive the right answers. 

Not the strongest. Not the fastest. Not the most enhanced.

But the one who didn’t need it to be great, not at those things, at least. A good man. A good heart. A soul so bright, so just, that his life thread was shining like concentrated sunshine.

Because Steve Rogers had been Steve Rogers long before he ever took the serum.

And that was what made him different.

That was what made him the success.

That was what made him worthy.

You felt the cold sting against your cheeks and wiped at the tears, but they kept falling. 

You could see it now. All of it. Every unspoken answer to the questions that had haunted you, every muted sacrifice, every quiet acceptance. 

One had seen it back then, and she embraced it. 

She had let go, and so had your siblings, the refined, enhanced echoes of her. And now, so would you.

Right?

So would you.

The tree opened.

Its golden life threads glowed like the first light of dawn, unraveling and twisting like infinite veins of pure light. They pulsed, beckoning, calling you home.

And in the distance, you saw them: your siblings. Standing together beneath the branches, waiting.

Four and Seven, side by side, just as they always were. Eleven with that quiet smile, she was carrying Eight, the one who passed so early, too young to remember the pain, too innocent to understand what she had been made for.

They were waiting.

White birds pure as cotton, moving like little clouds. They don’t leave anyone behind. They took flight. No one was going to be alone.

And for a moment, you wanted to go.

But. 

“No…” You muttered.

Someone was being left behind.

You could see it. 

You could see him.

His back was hunched, his hands gripping the edges of a sink, white-knuckled. His reflection in the mirror hollow, exhausted, tired. Dark circles under his eyes. He had been up all night, again.

You saw him sitting at a desk, untouched food growing cold beside him. His shoulders tensed as he forced himself to keep reading report after report, even as his vision blurred.

You saw him in the gym, fists slamming into the punching bag, again and again and again, sweat dripping from his skin. The bag snapped off its chain. He grabbed another. Kept going. Never stopping.

You saw him staring at his hands. The scars were healing by itself. But did the pain go way too? Just because it was cured fast, does it mean that it didn't hurt?

You saw his sleepless nights, wandering around the compound, just checking what he could do better, faster, so the seconds and the minutes passed quicker and it was another day, more challenges, more missions, more hurt, more scars. More.

You saw.

Pain.

Not the battle wounds or broken ribs, bleeding fists or a bullet on his shoulder or another scar on his back.

No, this pain…It was carved into him, ingrained into his very being, haunted him like a shadow. And no one saw it.

Because he was Captain America.

And Captain America didn’t falter.

Captain America didn’t get to fall apart.

Captain America didn’t get to suffer.

But Steve—

Steve did.

Steve was suffering.

“No.” You said again.

You promised.

You promised you would come back to him.

You promised to fetch every star so your soldier could sleep, that you would go to the furthest sky and come back.

You promised. 

And yet, the tree was pulling you in. The light wrapped around your wrists, your ankles, your chest. 

“No.” 

Your siblings were walking to the light, and so were you. 

You were meant to go with them. You were designed to let go.

It was in your very DNA.

Does promises weight more than nature? Than fate?

“BP is plummeting—40 over 20!” The quinjet’s med bay was a storm of flashing lights and frantic movement. Biometric monitors lining the walls flickered with erratic data streams, pulse oximeters screaming alarms. 

“I need 2 milligrams of epinephrine, NOW!! Move! Charge the paddles to 200!”

Someone shoved an IV line deeper into your arm, saline, blood expanders, anything to stabilize your failing system. The ventilator hissed, forcing oxygen into your lungs, your ribs barely rising under the straps securing you to the gurney.

“Come on, come on, stabilize…Push! Another dose!” The doctor that was rescuing you, fighting against Death, was frenetic: “Come on Dr. Lancaster…Come on!”

“Dammit, I need a crash cart ready now!” He was screaming to the nurses as the other medic was already prepping the defibrillator, hands steady despite the terror in his eyes.

“Push another round of epinephrine, now! We need to get her back …” His orders went above the sounds of quinjet’s machinery, above the blinding lights or the deafening wail of machines. 

“She’s fading!”

“Heart rate dropping—she’s crashing—get me the stabilizer, NOW!”

Steve wanted to say something, his lips moved. But he could barely make a sound, he was just there, John’s arms were around him, holding him down as the medics worked. 

The walls of the quinjet blurred, distant, irrelevant, the machine’s beeping slowed. The medics worked and the nurses run, but Steve didn’t see them. He saw you. Pale. Still. Slipping.

He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.

No.

NO.

He thinks he made some sound. But it was so strange the voice that came out from his throat, it was pure agony, a desperate, animalistic sound.

“Please…” He heard himself saying.

“FIGHT!” His voice cracked, splintered, shattering against the walls of the jet. “You hear me?! Stay with me!”

“Come back to me.” His voice broke. “You promised, you PROMISED.”

But you weren’t moving.

“DAMN IT, PLEASE!” His voice ripped from his throat, raw, shaking, pleading. He was begging. He didn’t care. He’d fall to his knees if it meant getting you back. “DON’T DO THIS. DON’T GO. FIGHT.”

But then, the ECG monitor displayed jagged, chaotic spikes before—

Flatline.

Steve froze. 

And his entire world just broke down to nothingness. 

You looked up, and your fingers faltered. 

The strings of the tree’s life thread were so strong, pulling you so hard that they took away your strength. 

You could see it: Your own life thread was being absorbed by the tree. 

You think you are screaming, kicking, and fighting, but your siblings just keep walking. Your sounds were muted, echoed into silence and absorbed by the wind.

Please, no. 

You inhaled deeply. 

You need to go back, you don’t… you can’t leave him. You promised you’d never leave him, he was not alone anymore.

Please…

Your fingers trembled as you reached for something, anything.

You weren’t going to give up, not like this, not here, not without giving the fight of your life.

He is waiting, so you have to go back. You have to go back because he will be hurt, and you won’t let anything hurt him. Not anymore.

“No…” You clenched your teeth as you struggled with all your strength. But you were loosing, because this is engraved in you, it is written in your DNA, your soul, and your existence. You are destined to let go, just like your siblings did. 

No. You tried. Harder. And harder. And you prayed and begged. You called for his name. You were trying to hold on, to all the wonderful things you had when you were finally free, to friendship, to love, to life. 

Please. You could hear his voice, or was it yours?

Tears in your eyes, and you could hear how his heart was breaking, how his soul was crashing, so you fought, but the threads were so strong, and the tree was taking you further and further away.

Suddenly, Something caught you.

A hand. 

Rough, firm, unwavering. 

Grasped your wrist and pulled.

You gasped, head snapping up, and for a moment, this world of light and glow blurred.

And then you saw him.

Your breath caught.

Your eyes met his. And for some reason, it all made perfect sense.

You would have expected Steve to be here with you, and when you finally saw him, you just knew.

Of course.

Of course, he’s here to save you.

Of course, he has been here all along.

You didn’t really meet him. You never had.

Yet somehow, it felt like you had known him all this time.

And you had been waiting to meet him, right now, in this moment.

Bucky.

“I knew there was a reason why I was coming to this damn tree every time I was put to sleep…” Bucky chuckled once you were standing safe and sound before him.

“I knew it! Damn, and I was wondering, like, where the hell have I seen this tree before?” He smiled at you, not the Winter Soldiers’ smile, you could see it so clearly: this is James. The James that Steve knew.

“Well, it makes sense now…” He shrugged, chuckling to see you still in wtf mode. “So what are you…like asleep? Or are you like…dying? What are you doing in this…limbo?” 

“I…” You came back from your shock, and you wiped your tears and sniffed a little: “I think I was dying…WAIT! where…where are my siblings?!” You turned around, looking for them, but nothing you’d seen was there anymore. 

The tree is still in this quiet, silent forest on an orange and golden afternoon. 

“It hasn’t been no one around for a while…” Bucky shrugged: “I think I’ve seen some birds just flying by, but um…sometimes I see Steve passing around, walking and wandering, but he is always gone fast…which makes sense, I mean, the guy is always recovering in the blink of an eye, so…he doesn’t stay long.”

“So um…” You were still confused: “You…you were here? Always?”

Bucky exhaled and smiled to you.

 

“So, yeah. I’ve been here before. A lot, actually.” 

He glanced around, eyes scanning the golden threads shimmering in the tree’s endless embrace. “At first, I thought it was just my mind playing tricks on me. A side effect of you know…used. Being put under, frozen, wiped, rebooted, whatever shitty thing they did to me.” 

His metal fingers flexed slightly, glinting in the soft glow of the light around you both. “But now… now I kinda get it.”

You swallowed, you knew, but you asked anyway: “Get what?”

Bucky’s gaze met yours, steady, knowing. “This place… it’s not just in your head, or mine. It’s something else. An anchor, a tether, maybe even a crossroads. And I kept ending up here because—” He hesitated, then chuckled under his breath.

“You know, there’s something we share in our DNA. But also I think it’s because I was waiting.”

Your heart clenched.

Bucky ran a hand through his hair, glancing away as if embarrassed by his own realization. “I didn’t know what for, not until now.”

His voice softened, quieter than before, but there was no hesitation in it. “Maybe… I was waiting for this to happen.”

You opened your mouth, but no words came.

“I was waiting for you.”

He turned back to you, his eyes more serious than you’d ever seen them. “And so is he.”

Something twisted in your chest.

Bucky exhaled sharply, the corner of his mouth twitching up in the faintest hint of a smirk. The James kind of smirk. 

“So, you should go back.”

A sharp, suffocating stillness swallowed the Quinjet whole, everyone was in a deadly silence that filled the cabin, as the flatline in the monitor was progressively moving with a deaf sound, stretching on, as an endless, hollow wail, louder than any explosion, more deafening than any battle. 

No one spoke. No one moved. The nurses and the agents looked away, unable to meet the sight of Captain America, kneeling on the floor, eyes unfocused, soulless. 

John’s grip loosened, and he felt a lump in his throat. The only thing he could do was to put his hand on Steve’s shoulder. His lips moved, but there was no sound. 

There was nothing left to say.

No one could provide any words of consolation.

And then. 

You gasped. 

A sharp, sudden inhale, like you had been drowning and just breached the surface. It was like a horror movie slash miracle. You breathed. And you sat. 

A unified, staggered gasp filled the cabin. Eyes widened. 

And then—

A single, steady beep.

The monitor flickered, its display shifting. A heartbeat. Your heartbeat.

Steve was still frozen, still staring at you, his face unreadable. 

Until you turned around, disorientated, and met his gaze.

It took just a look, for his eyes to see the light in yours, again. And his body finally allows him to feel the devastation he was holding back.

And just like that, his tears finally fell.

TBC

HASDHAHUSDAISHASDIUDAHISUADSIUHAU Aaaaaaah! 🔥

I'm back! I'm so sorry I haven't post in a while. Oh god this chapter got me so emotional writing it, and it was just like 😭

So, from the beginning of the story, I knew that Bucky was surely sleeping, but I just KNEW he had a key part to play; the original plot, though, was REALLY DARK. And Bucky and John and Sharon, are the ones that actually save Twelve. (It was too much of an angst and I couldn't write it cause I was so down in my depression 🥺, but someday...) But still, here, I wanted him to be there. I knew he would be there.

So one more last chapter to go, and I'll be continue with the Burning Sun Series and probably some one shots 💖

Thank you so much for being with me all alone, and I'm sorry again for taking so long to complete this.

I'll see you in the big finale 💓

Love., Moon.࣪ ִֶָ☾.

Tag list: @vioplay19 / @jamneuromain / @steviebbboi / @heletsmelovehim / @otterlycanadian / hisredheadedgoddess28

[jamneuromain]

Expectations Masterlist

Roommate!Simon "Ghost" Riley x Original Female Character

Word Count: ~1.5k

Warning: Canon-ish!Simon, Specifically mentioned Asian (Chinese) Female Character, Roommates to lovers, Age Gap, Simon in his mid 30s, OC in her early 20s, Hurt/Comfort, mutual pining, slooooooow burn. Tags to be added.

Summary: When Celeste moved into her new apartment in the beginning of September, all she wished for was this year going smoothly as imagined. She had high hopes for Manchester, and a higher hope for herself. Then, a man crashed into her apartment, and her life as well.

A/N: Huge thanks to @ceilidho and her inspiration in this post. Meanwhile, it would be lovely if you can also check out her fic Bird Dog because it is absolutely amazing <3.

Prologue

Chapter 1

[jamneuromain]

Expectations Prologue

Roommate!Simon "Ghost" Riley x Original Female Character

Word Count: ~1.5k

Warning: Canon-ish!Simon, Specifically mentioned Asian (Chinese) Female Character, Roommates to lovers, Age Gap, Simon in his mid 30s, OC in her early 20s, Hurt/Comfort, mutual pining, slooooooow burn. Tags to be added.

Summary: When Celeste moved into her new apartment in the beginning of September, all she wished for was this year going smoothly as imagined. She had high hopes for Manchester, and a higher hope for herself. Then, a man crashed into her apartment, and her life as well.

A/N: Huge thanks to @ceilidho and her inspiration in this post. Meanwhile, it would be lovely if you can also check out her fic Bird Dog because it is absolutely amazing <3.

Expectations M. List | > Next

19/09/2022

For most of England, it was always difficult to distinguish the end of summer from the beginning of autumn. More often, the red column of the thermometer paused randomly between the lines of ten to nineteen degrees Celsius, baffling foreign travelers whether to put on a coat or a simple hoodie.

Tate, a native Englander, grumbled his complaint under his voice as he felt the gush of cold wind on his face when he stepped out of the train. He flipped the collar up and shrunk his wrinkled neck and chin beneath the thin piece of fabric of his one-hundred-and-seventy-four-pound-ninety-nine trench coat from Harrods. It had been hung under the forty percent off signage in the store, and when he had landed his eyes on them, he decided within a split second that he was not leaving London with the coat.

He cursed when the wind hit him again. Sometimes, he felt that Manchester was inhabitable for mankind – teenagers and college students were categorized under “different species” – with the huge wind that tried to pry his bones open and rare sunlight that seemed to develop some sort of hatred towards this city. Although most of England was gloomy all year long, Tate believed that Manchester must be the gloomiest place of the whole country, hell, the whole kingdom.

Turning a corner, then another, then the smell of bitterness and nausea came to him with a full-on blast.

Teenagers and college brats and their weed.

Tate coughed and walked on faster. He hated the idea that he had to rent one of his apartments to college students, but it was difficult to find a non-student tenant in August. The tenant, though, he had hand-picked. A young Asian grad student who was staying for only one year for her studies and spoke fluent English with an indistinguishable accent. He was surprised to find that she had never lived in Great Britain before, and more pleasant to know that she was unlike the party-type he had seen over the years. It was her first day in Manchester, and she would like to check the apartment out asap. If there were no other problems, the whole renting exchange would be over within two hours, and he would be taking the train back to Sussex by eleven.

As he approached the red-brick building, he evened his breath. It used to be his parents’ place. The little one-bedroom apartment had taken him and his younger sisters under its roof. It was crammed with toy trains and dolls, later, pills, tablets, bills, and leaflets of nursery homes for his sick father. A few years after he got a job as a railway operator, the old building was taken down, and a new one was built. Even so, this apartment has a history of over thirty years – one of the reasons that the rent was squished below a pathetic 180pw or less on Zoopla.

He bought a new house when he married his lovely wife, Freda, then his sisters gradually moved out from the apartment as well after their father passed away. The siblings agreed that they had too much attachment to this place, and rather rent it out than sell it. Since Tate lived the closest to Manchester, he agreed to take care of the apartment and split the rent three ways. The last tenant was great, never bothered Tate with any issues. Tate vaguely recalled that the last tenant fixed the dripping hose by himself - didn’t call or mention anything when the guy delivered the rent. By check.

He tried calling the man around July as the deadline for rent was closing in. No reply. Tate went over and checked: No one in the house. And clearly had been so for a while. The pieces of furniture were in good shape, so Tate exited the apartment and put the renting ad on Zoopla. As for the previous tenant’s belongings, he left them for the next one to come and clean up.

An Asian girl in a magenta tracksuit waved at him.

He pronounced her Asian name with difficulty. The girl’s face stretched into a big smile, “Mr. Tate, right? Really pleased to meet you.”

“Morning.” He nodded to her, extending the chivalry that he had almost forgotten for a decade, merely being an agreeable landlord, “May I help you with your suitcase?”

The Asian girl scrambled to secure her backpack and laptop bag over her shoulders, before handing over her scarlet suitcase. He immediately regretted asking the moment he tried to pull. The suitcase felt as if a grown cow had been stuffed in it. Luckily, the apartment building had a lift.

They exchanged pleasantries along the way. Always good to start with the weather, then about her flight here, and finally, the recent death of Queen Elizabeth.

The Asian girl, who insisted him calling her Celeste, though it had nothing to do with her original name, shared the same sympathy for Her Majesty’s passing as Tate when they walked through the corridor. The flat was on the second door to the left, and the lock took a moment to open since Tate gradually had lost control of his trembling hand five years ago. Once inside, the bedroom on the far west corner, the squeaky-clean kitchen on the other end, and the small cubicle that Tate named “bathroom” were more or less ideal for the girl. She checked the plumbing, the hot water tap, the electric stove, the Wi-Fi, etc, everything inside this house.

Tate pursed his lips as she checked everything and asked a million questions.

“They are in quite a good shape, Mr. Tate.” She smiled at him, wiping the dust off her fingers after opening and closing the window with a paper towel, “Before we get started on the paperwork, would you mind showing me the …” she paused, searching for the right word, “the meter? For the electricity and water?”

Tate grumbled a “yes”, and inevitably began to reminisce about the last tenant who was silent like a mountain. Built like a mountain too, with that thick neck and broad shoulders, and ever hiding his face under a baseball cap.

“One last question, though,” Celeste, the Asian girl filled out her information on both contracts, after carefully examining them, but paused just before signing his name, “About the last tenant’s stuff?”

Tate shrugged, he hoped more than anything to put the belongings into her hands without having to deal with them himself, “Eh, I don’t suppose he’d be coming back. Doesn’t seem like there’s any prized possessions and all that.” He knew. He checked. He was half-relieved and half-disappointed when he couldn’t find a golden ring or a diamond necklace or anything similar. But he should also know better since that bloke decided to rent a house here, with a weekly rent of one hundred and thirty-five pounds, bills not included, which was way below the average on the market. “I’ll tell you what, you can put his stuff in a box if you’d like, in case he comes and gets it. Though I doubt so.” He muttered the last sentence under his breath. No news whatsoever for two … three months now? That guy probably bailed this place and fled to Barcelona or died in a car crash.

He pulled out two other keys from his pockets with his trembling fingers and laid them out in front of her, along with his own, “They’re the extras. Now you have three. Careful not to lock yourself out though.”

The girl – Celeste signed her name in a swift motion, transferring her annual rent (or the rest of it, anyway) to his account too, where she had already deposited a few hundred before she set foot on this land.

Tate bid her goodbye and left her to unpack. He pointed out a few supermarkets and delis on Google Maps in haste when she asked, but did not bother to show her further. She would figure it out, he thought, when I was twenty-one, I had been working for five years; she could handle herself.

And after all, he still had a train to catch.

He cursed again when he was hit by a strong gust of wind that came out of nowhere on the streets, but he found himself lucky that his old go-to pub had an “Open” sign in cursive just a few steps away. Not all stores and restaurants would open on a Bank holiday, especially on a day when Queen Elizabeth’s funeral would be broadcast on television. He looked at his watch. It was half past ten. He could use a quick drink before going back to Sussex.

In the dim light of the pub, Tate was too busy smoothing a few gray hairs on his nearly bald head to the attractive pub waitress to notice his phone screen lighting up on and off, ending up with two missed calls and a text from a contact with the name of:

Simon MCR Tenant

[jamneuromain]

oh my ... this is... weirdly up to fratAri in my imagination!!

I love the way the frat party and Beks just... mess up everything (so does their shitty communication skills but eh-)

in short, it's just soooooo satisfying to see frat ari and his chaotic college life :3 can't wait for more!!

Toxic (2/2)

frat boy!Ari Levinson x reader (see previous or AL Masterlist)

Summary: You and Ari want each other for all the wrong reasons.

Warnings (regarding both parts of the story) for drinking and partying, language, shitty behavior from...yeah everyone is a bit of a mess in this ngl (it's college), vaguely taboo mutual pining, and not-really cheating/implied cheating (applies to multiple people). This is an angsty weird fluffy sorta romance with an ambiguous ending--SHOCKER, an argument!--because no one can communicate to save their f**king lives...BUT HEY! KISSES. MINORS DNI. There's plenty for younger readers on my Light Masterlist, but not here! WC 3k

A/N: This second half is entirely from Ari's perspective.

College was supposed to be predictable.

He played football and partied. Ari enjoyed that, he excelled at that, and then, ten days before the start of his junior year, he tore his ACL. Everything changed.

He couldn’t play. He couldn’t party. He couldn’t think too long or too hard about any of it because then dread started to sweep him toward a dark place he physically and mentally couldn’t crawl back from.

What if he never healed right?

What if he couldn’t stay on the team?

What if he got injured again?

What if he had to rely on his grades to complete school???

It was horrible, and even with the vague safeties of taking an extra year and keeping his scholarship, Ari was impatient to move on. He wished the future were predictable, but instead, healing was slow and painful. He could end up with nothing.

He went through the motions as best he could. He attended practices and whatever parties he could maneuver his crutches into. He sat. He sat a lot. He moved very little. It wasn’t the same.

Everyone asked him when he’d be back on the field. Guys thought Ari hung out doing nothing while benched, but that wasn’t true, not with physical therapy every single day, twice some days, so he could relearn normal movements as well as sport-specific ones. Girls gushed about how good he was (“are,” they’d stress immediately, “how good you are”), but Ari didn’t want to hear that. Sure, he’d draft decently. However, football was not all Ari wanted in life.

Though Ari…had no idea what he wanted anymore. He had no idea what he was allowed to want.

He sat through class after class, lost, struggling, his mind drifting, untethered to a purpose, reminded with every conversation that unless he returned to his old self, he was no one without football, without the ability to play football.

He couldn’t even grasp Women’s Studies, for fuck’s sake.

He started the semester on heavy duty painkillers in order to not miss days. They didn’t help. The meds made him foggy, but without the meds, he was worse.

Even though he knew how important his grades were, his mind would wander. He’d skirt the edge of that dark space and go blank instead of face reality.

Women’s Studies was a blur with one bright spot.

You. The only thing Ari knew about you was that you were nice, and that was plenty.

You never questioned when he’d get back on the field, or asked him to move his leg—which couldn’t bend for several weeks anyway,—or mocked him as a dunce.

When he zoned out, his gaze often shifted to you, specifically your hands for whatever reason. He was fascinated by your hands. Unfortunately, because he zoned out, he never knew if any questions he had were already answered. He felt stupid enough; he didn’t need public humiliation on top of that.

You were the only nice thing in those days, and your perfect status solidified when you saved him.

Toward the end of the semester, to push his mobility, Ari’s physical therapy got more aggressive, and he left the gym exhausted for class, where he promptly fell asleep to escape the searing agony in his knee. He missed the whole lecture.

He’d resigned himself to failing. He knew he deserved to fail.

Then you handed him meticulous notes, explanations and little insights to concepts he’d been muddling though for months.

You smiled.

You smiled and saved him. It was just so fucking nice.

He could have kissed you. He would have if not for still moving slowly.

Ari didn’t fail Women’s Studies. He got a C-, sure, but it was a start. He spent a lot more time trying in his classes than he did on the field—the only place his innate talent let him succeed—and he got better.

He changed his future, he changed himself, and he credits you.

Everything changed, and then for a year and a half, he’d never seen you again.

Ari is semi-drunk, listening to music as the pacing warps in translation from his ears to his brain, blinking slowly in response to conversation.

He’s talking to his younger (by three years) cousin, Rebekah, who still enjoys these fucking parties, so he always invites her instead of a date. His cousin, however, is a bit of a tramp—which she’s allowed to be—and loves to play mind games with his dumbass frat brothers. She’s always welcome instead of a date, too. Ari warned them; they didn’t listen. He can’t be blamed for Jay’s shit right now. 

Jay is just gonna have to reap what he sowed, or rather, who he sowed. 

“Can you believe he went back to Erin? Of all people? That bitch? Really?”

Beks has been throwing back vodka seltzers like a thirsty fish…or like Ari did his freshman year. She hasn’t shut up about her ex being here—in Jay’s own house, where she 100% knew he would be—since she arrived, and her eyes constantly scan for the senior girl he hooked up with again.

It’s unclear to Ari—partly due to inebriation, partly due to Jay being an unrelenting manwhore—whether Jay and Erin are even together. Beks could have just heard a rumor to make her think that, assumed the worst, and now plots revenge for no reason.

Ari chugs the last of his cup while Rebekah repeats how Jay was the first guy she’d let in her ass and—holy shit, does Ari need to be more drunk than this.

He laughs so he won’t throw up, the noise stopping his cousin cold, receiving a slap in the chest for not listening, and…

Did he just see who he thought he saw?

It’s been so long. The packed house isn’t bright enough on purpose, dimming the shame of shenanigans gotten up to at night, but he’d swear it was you.

Beks sees a look she’s not witnessed on him before, certainly not in the two years she’s been at this university, but Ari says nothing because the next time he clocks your face is when some guy he does not recognize hands you a drink.

Suddenly, Ari’s throat is bone dry. His arms are lead. You wade through the crowd and disappear.

“Say the word and I can get rid of him for ya,” Rebekah jokes. Ari’s eyes go wide before he squints in question, so she clarifies. “It’s not like it matters who I hook up with, as long as Jay gets a taste of his own fucking medicine.” 

“What?” he shouts back. The loud, rushing music drowns out her meaning. “Yeah, Jay’s an asshole. Fuck ‘em!”

That should cover his bases. She mostly talks to hear her own voice anyway.

Beks whips her blond hair back and forth in excitement, clinking her cup to his empty one.

“Yeah, Cuz,” she shrieks. “FUCK HIM!”

“Been empty forever—” it’s been four whole minutes since he took his last sip “—I’m getting another.”

He leaves her dancing on the stairs, starting a small cheering of ‘fuck him’ amongst the dozen or so nearest people. None of them know who they’re chanting about.

At the kitchen counter covered in fifths, handles, and two-liters, Ari makes his Jack and Coke, chugs most of it and then fills it with more soda. He’s just thirsty at this point, head on a swivel, scoping out how everyone else’s night shapes up, desperately trying to ignore the nagging question of where you are in the back of his head.

He says ‘hey’ to a handful of guys meandering in and out of the room, one of which has a cigarette tucked behind his ear, and Ari is just susceptible enough at this point that the craving will not relent.

He’s making his way outside to have a smoke (he only does if he’s drinking; Ari’s never even had to purchase a pack for himself before) when he sees you staring at passers-by in the hall.

Body warm and mind floating in booze, he doesn’t remember much of what he says. He also…forgets which number of drink he’s on, but then he’s got two cups in his hands and they’re sticky. 

It must be okay though. You seem happy. You laugh with him, and he feels like a comedy king. You’re draped over his shoulder by the time he sees that hesitance in your gaze, that bite of your lip telling him you’re nervous about something, and Ari just wants you to be comfortable and relaxed again. He felt best when you were excited to be near him, not when you were asking about Beige Billy.

He doesn’t want you to go. He doesn’t want to let you go, so he holds your hand for as long as he can, leading you around, (taking some fucking breaths because the air is so stale in here), lacing your fingers together once a second person infers that Ari and you should, in fact, be dating.

No sign of Billy.

And then it hits him: what the fuck did Beks say? Did she mean?? Shit. What if Beks did it? 

Once yet another person mentions checking upstairs, Ari’s convinced his cousin has tried seducing whatever poor bastard she thought would be doubly useful to piss off Jay, but he can’t let on to his panic. Ari doesn’t want to upset you.

Maybe Beige Billy wouldn’t. Maybe Billy is smart enough he didn’t take the bait.

Ari can feel in his gut that shit is about to go down, especially knowing Beks’ ex is a jealous douchebag who thinks it’s fine for guys to stray but not girls.

Ari cannot wait to be out of here, to ditch the heinously distracting music and feel a fresh breeze on his face. It’s too hot and he’s definitely straddling drunk.

His fingers resettle in yours for reassurance, weaving the pair of you back into the foyer.

The soothing is temporary.

Like lightning focusing Ari’s senses, he sees Jay turn the corner from the ‘dining�� room, opposite where you two are coming from, and go up to the top floor, shouting behind him that “it’s in my room, bro. One sec.”

Fuck.

Ari’s blood pumps louder than anything else as he barrels up the stairs, unceremoniously ripping his hand from yours, but his buzzy brain only notices by the time he’s on the landing. He really doesn’t want you to see anything, at very least. Low-and-behold, Tim Newland’s recently vacated room has a shut—not locked—door which Jay has already walked past to get to his.

Beige Billy is not a fraternity brother. Neither is Rebekah obviously, so they’d need an open room.

Ari’s body weight makes a terrible thunderclap of regret against the door, and it gives way.

Billy’s on top of Rebekah with his ass out. Even if Beks is fine with it, frankly, Ari doesn’t care. He just heaves the guy who should be caring for you and keeping you safe and making you happy back by the collar of his stupid beige shirt and hurls him toward the desk in the corner like Ari kinda wishes he could do to the contents of his stomach right now.

All hell breaks loose. Everyone sees. Everyone screams. Everyone’s mad.

The next image his eyes focus on is you tipping into yourself, face scrunching in fear. Ari swears you call out his name, not Billy’s, so he just rushes. He sweeps you out of there as fast as he can, tucks you into the safety of his room, and cages you against the door before locking it.

Since it’s dark, this is how he ‘sees’ you, being this close, practically wrapped around your shaking, silent frame.

“Please,” Ari breathes before the roars of Billy slice through the cracks around the frame. “Leave him, smartie. Don’t do it.”

Let me save you, he thinks. I’m returning the favor.

The noise of the hall compels Ari to curl into you, to cover you with his body. His healed knee sneaks between your thighs and braces the wall in case Billy tries to pound his way in. Ari’s hair falls in his face, wafting the scent of your skin, of your neck, up like a hit of nicotine at the perfect instant.

He lets his hands ghost over your shoulders, and you let out the smallest, sexiest gasp Ari’s ever heard. It makes him groan from somewhere deep in his chest, somewhere equally dark where he buried this fantasy.

The pure disbelief makes his adrenaline-soaked buzz fight for dominance of his mind, his head flopping back. He almost loses his balance until you yank him forward by the collar and stick your tongue down his throat. He would never have predicted this.

It’s not a nice kiss, and it’s certainly not enough.

Ari settles his hands on either side of your face, for stability, for control, for more, and you so willingly oblige.

“You’re okay,” he soothes between crushing locks of your lips. “I got you, sweet thing.”

That earns him a whimper, and since you are so responsive to his touch, Ari lowers, nudging your hips forward on his thigh, more of your weight straddling him, a gentle rocking beginning your search for friction.

“That’s it, baby. Take what you need,” he growls in approval.

You hands rest on his chest as you break, whining, “I don’t know you.”

“Want to?”

Ari deliberately grinds against you. There’s no way you can’t feel his interest.

“You don’t know me.” It’s a pathetic plea with no power.

He can’t control his excitement. Ari’s been out of the game because it was too hard to connect after his injury, but it was also too hard to not have a connection. He couldn’t win until this moment.

“Want to.” He hisses as he snakes his hands up your shirt, fingertips brushing the band of your bra. “I really fucking want to.”

You sigh like it was the exact right thing for him to say. “You’re so stupid.”

Ari thinks you jab playful rather than derogatory. Even though you repeat it, he still only gets ‘keep going’ signals from your body language.

He has no idea when Billy stopped yelling and finally pissed off, but Ari can hear Jay and Beks duking it out for a while. Who cares?! He’s got more important things to pay attention to, like your grip in his hair and the way your hurried breaths press you against him so rhythmically.

He’s drunk on the possibilities—the inevitabilities—now that he has you. Judging by the way you struggle on your tip toes and claw at his back, you’re a needy one, and he’s all in.

He cups your ass to shift you, pinning you to the door with a rattling thud, spreading your legs around his waist, but you tuck your chin to shake your head just as Ari starts to hump you unabashedly.

“Sorry.”

It’s so soft in the midst of heavy breathing and loud music.

“Sorry about your date,” you mutter. “I’m sure you expected…but I’m--I don’t think I can… I know you’d prefer the blond.”

Ari chuckles, catching his breath and swimming slightly from too much and too little all at once.

“Who? Beks? She’s not my date.” His runs his fingers through his hair and pulls to ground himself. The alcohol is hitting him harder without the high of doing. “Though I’m sure she found someoneto fuck. She’ll sleep with just about anyone.”

“And you know that from experience?”

“Ew,” Ari gags, sticking out his sweet-as-syrup tongue. “Gross. She’s family. Rebekah is my cousin.”

To his surprise that doesn’t calm you. Instead, you tsk, push him away, and snap, “you let your cousin behave like that?“

“What?!”

But you don’t relent. “You let guys treat her that way?!” 

“Whoa, WOAH.” Ari’s voice accidentally rises by two factors of ten. Transitioning between horny and furious can’t happen in a human brain this fast.

He can hear you flinch by the rustle of his jacket, so he bites his lip to be quieter.

“Me? I—I don’t…Beks doesn’t let anyone do shit. She tells ‘em what to do. She’s a big girl.” He straightens by taking a step back.

“You should be protecting your cousin. She’s go—“

“I do plenty for her, okay? If she wants to—“

“Quit being dumb, Ari. You’re both just slutty.“

“Stop saying that!” He’s pissed and so confused. “Where’s my nice girl gone…”

“You’re nice girl?” you drip sarcastically.

“Yeah,” Ari sighs, taking a beat, “the cute, kind one from class who leant me her notes.”

You have more venom built up than he realized.

“Oh, you mean the same one you spilled your drink on without apologizing?”

He would remember doing that. He would. His hand pets down the front of your shirt to check because he is, in fact, drunk. “I never—“

“Yes, you did. Nearly four years ago.” You slap his arms away.

“Well…I don’t remember that.”

“That’s great,” you grit out like broken glass, a mirthless laugh stuck at the end. “That’s just perfect. Can’t even make an impression on an idiot!”

Ari’s defenses have kicked in full force. “What the fuck? When did you become so judgmental? That’s rich coming from someone in here, humping my leg, while her boyfriend—”

“This was a mistake. I’m leaving.”

“Good. Go.”

It’s not until the wave of light and sound hit him that Ari thinks through his words. “Shit. No, hang on, smartie. I only meant—fuck.” 

But he’s too late.

The door slams in his face, leaving Ari alone with emotional whiplash and a raging headache.

At least in this moment, he feels fucking stupid, and college, if nothing else, is predictable that way.

[Main Masterlist; Ari Levinson Masterlist; Ko-Fi]

@supraveng @1950schick @patzammit @whiskeytangofoxtrot555 @yiiiikesmish @ashesofblackroses @jaqui-has-a-conspiracy-theory @brandycranby @buckysprettybaby @ellethespaceunicorn @late-to-the-party-81 @bigtreefest @mistressmkay @astheskycries @veryprairieberry @mdpplgtz03 @misscherry-26 @jamneuromain @littlebitb

[jamneuromain]

I NEED TO KNOW WHO PUT THE SNICKERS THERE THAT'S VERY IMPORTANT TO ME

and lmao did price react because he was out of the loop

Imagine Ghost accidentally conditioning the 141...

Ghost is busy. Always. Too much paperwork, too many reports, too many logistics to handle before training. It’s 1400 before he realizes he’s skipped lunch. Again.

Not a big deal. Not the first time. Won’t be the last.

But he is hungry.

His eyes land on the bright pink bag of Valentine’s Day mini Snickers that’s been sitting, untouched, on his desk for a week. They were part of a bulk shipment to the base; some gift or something.

Not exactly lunch. But it’ll do.

He grabs the bag and heads for the training field. He’s two minutes late, not that it matters much because Soap and Gaz already have the unit ready.

"Where’s Price?" he asks, tearing open the bag as he walks up.

"Got pulled away. You’ve got this one, Sir," Gaz replies, raising a brow as Ghost lifts his mask just enough to pop a Snickers into his mouth.

Ghost doesn’t react, just grunts.

Today’s drill is a simple infiltration exercise. Hell, it's something Ghost or Price hardly have to be here for. Their presence would be more of a formality. Gaz leads the attackers. Soap leads the defenders. The teams get ten minutes to plan, to prep.

And then Ghost sounds the time up, and the groups move.

Ghost watches, leaning against a crate, chewing another Snickers, barely paying attention to one of the new guys—until the kid steps right into a trap. Ghost sees it before he does.

Blue powder erupts into his face.

Soap’s defenders descend, but the kid doesn’t go down easily. Blind, but still fighting back, holding his own until his team pulls him out.

Soap's team wins. Barely.

When it’s over, the teams regroup. Ghost is still eating Snickers.

He turns to the recruit, still dusted blue.

"What 'appened?"

"Didn’t see the wire." The kid shifts uncomfortably.

Ghost turns to the unit. "Who set it?"

One of the defenders raises a hand. Ghost considers him for a moment before reaching into the bag.

He tosses a mini-Snickers at the soldier.

The guy catches it. Looks at it. Looks at Ghost. Eats it.

Ghost turns back to the newbie. "Held your own. Tha' matters. Surprises happen. Don’t let ‘em get you again."

And that’s it. Training’s dismissed. Ghost pockets the rest of the Snickers and moves on.

...

The next day, Price is still gone. Ghost doesn’t skip lunch this time, but he still brings the Snickers bag.

They run the same drill.

Same recruit. Same route. But this time, he checks everything. Quick. Efficient. Finds the wire. Disarms it.

No blue powder today.

Gaz’s team wins.

Ghost eyes the recruit and flicks a Snickers at him. The kid catches it mid-air.

...

By the end of the week, Price is still gone. Ghost keeps the pink bag of Snickers on him during training. Like it's just another part of his kit.

One or two mini snickers get handed out every session. And nobody really notices at first. But the team starts moving differently.

They work harder. Smarter. More ruthless. More efficient. No one wants to be the guy who doesn’t get a Snickers.

Even the veterans sharpen their tactics. Gaz and Soap notice. But no one says a damn thing. If Ghost is going to give them snickers, then shut the gel up and let him give them snickers.

...

They're sent on a mission. High stakes.

They don't lose a single man. Not a single injury.

At the end of it, back on their transport home, Ghost pulls the pink danm bag from some unassuming pocket and hands out the snickers.

The men take them without question. They earned it.

But Ghost is running low. The bag nearly empty.

...

At the next training, Ghost doesn't hand out a single snickers. Not on purpose, but the bag is empty, so there's nothing left to do.

But the others notice. Gaz squints. Soap looks like a confused dog. Head tilt and all. The newbies glance at each other, shifting.

...

Two days later, Ghost swings his door open at 0600 sharp—and pauses.

Sitting just outside his door, neat as you please, is a bag of mini Snickers. Not the Valentine’s ones anymore. Just regular.

Ghost blinks. Hums. Pleasantly surprised, he picks up the bag, inspecting it briefly before stuffing it into his tac vest like it’s just another piece of gear.

He doesn’t think much of it. It’s a good snack.

At training, he does as he always does. Watches. Observes. Evaluates.

And then, without thinking, he tosses a Snickers at a recruit who clears a building faster than expected.

He snaps to attention as he catches it, eyes shining. Ghost does not question it.

The pattern continues.

And when he starts running low, Ghost finds a fresh bag of Snickers waiting for him.

Somebody—somewhere—has decided that the Snickers will not run out.

...

At training, at drills, in the field, there is a silent expectation. A new, unspoken rule. Do something exceptional? Get a Snickers.

The machine of the 141—the deadliest operators in the world—now snaps to attention at the crinkle of plastic.

They move with a ruthless kind of precision, bodies coiled, eyes sharp—waiting, anticipating.

Even Gaz and Soap are part of it now—though everyone refuses to acknowledge it outright.

But the moment Ghost hands one of his men a Snickers, he takes it.

Silently. Gratefully. Like a goddamn reward.

Ghost does not acknowledge this. Not out loud. But he keeps handing them out.

And they keep earning them.

They'd quite literally kill for a Snickers. (imagine what they'd do for an expensive piece of chocolate)

...

And then Price comes back three weeks later. He walks into the training area and pauses.

Something is off.

The unit is too sharp. Too focused. The newbies stand stock still in their group, as if waiting for something.

Gaz and Soap exchange a look. Soap refuses to meet Price’s eyes.

But he doesn't acknowledge it, until he begins unwrapping a plastic sleeve holding a new pen. The plastic is thick and loud. And half of their fucking head snaps his way. The hungry eyes of three dozen of soldiers latching on him.

Ghost, standing at the edge of the group, tears open a fresh bag of Snickers.

And now the entire fucking unit reacts. Subtle shifts in stance. Focused attention. Expectant silence.

Price squints. Frowns.

Ghost flicks a Snickers at a recruit. He earned it today.

The recruit catches it like it’s a holy offering and eats it immediately.

Price’s frown deepens. Slowly, carefully, he turns to Ghost. “The fuck did I miss?”

[jamneuromain]

oh my gawd I'll never stop loving a dorky jake

especially with dinosaurs, sjksjksjk that just made him even more adorable <33

Jurassic Dork

This is a submission for the 20's Challenge

Jake Jensen + "What time do you call this?" + Meetcute/5 + 1 Things

Pairing: Jake Jensen x f!reader

Tags/warnings: FLUFF, meet cute of sorts, 5 + 1 things also kinda (5 times you meet at the movies and the one time you go together), both reader and Jake are dorks xoxo

Not beta'd and I don't give permission for my work to be reposted, translated, copied or put through AI!

Summary: You meet a cute guy at the re-releases of the Jurassic Park movies, in anticipation for the latest release.

Word count: n/a on mobile x

A/N: This is my own self-indulgent submission. I've had the idea in the works for a while but couldn't quite get it right... then I re-watched Jurassic World this morning at 6am 💀 I'm a huge lover of all things dinosaur (especially Jurassic Park - the OG because Jeff Goldblum 😩) and I just thought this would be so sweet. Can you tell I'm excited for the new movie? 💕

Navigation | 20's Challenge Masterlist | Jake Jensen Collection

Dividers by: @/thecutestgrotto

Your excitement for Jurassic World: Rebirth was nothing short of bordering on insufferable.

In the lead up to the release, not only had you re-read both novels, you had also planned to go to every re-release of every Jurassic Park-Jurassic World movie.

Between the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World Movies, only a handful of people went to see the other two movies. Which was only fair; they weren't amazing by any means, but as a super dork with a love of dinosaurs they had a special place in your heart.

Just before the second movie (Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World) you noticed someone you'd spotted at the re-release of the first movie. A tall guy, well-built, with spiked blonde hair, round glasses, and a graphic tee sporting the OG Jurassic Park logo.

He was cute. Real cute.

Maybe it was the glasses, or the goatee, that made you 100% sure that he was just as much of a dork about the famed dinosaur franchise as you were and not some dude-bro bored on a Wednesday afternoon but you were certain you had found yourself a Jurassic Dork.

When his eyes met yours as you collected the tickets from the cashier, you gave him the brightest smile you could before heading off to find your seat. Not two minutes later, the cutie followed suit taking his seat only one row in front of you.

You try to focus on settling into your seat and prepping your snacks but you can feel the sensation of being watched crawl over your skin. You peek down and see your Jurassic Dork looking up at you.

He raises his hand in a small wave and you mimic it with another smile. He grins and settles into his seat.

You try not to let your heart flutter and not to let your eyes stray during arguably the worst film of the original trilogy. However your eyes still drift down to him on occasion, trying to map out the width of his shoulders in the dark theatre.

There is a mortifying moment when your eyes meet; you accidentally drop an M&M, which alerts your beau in front of you just as Jeff Goldblum says something incredibly underwhelming on screen in all his ripped-shirt-glistening-abs glory, making you both splutter a laugh.

You miss him coming out of the theatre at the end of the movie. While you don't want to seem weird waiting around for a complete stranger, you do feel a twinge of regret as you make your way to your car, wondering if you'll see him for the next movie.

Lo and behold, two days later, you see him again.

This time, for the screening of Jurassic Park 3, your seats are reversed; with you one row in front and one seat across and him one row back and one across. Like you'd both pre-emptively booked seats next to each other (albeit in the wrong row).

You cover your mouth to stifle an ungodly snort as you peek at him in the dark of the theatre to take your seat. When he spots you he's almost jumping up to greet you, only to realise you're sitting in front of him, and slumps in his seat.

With him behind you, it's even more difficult to focus on the film. You can feel his gaze on you every time you move and it makes your skin prickle with warmth.

This time you're determined to nab him somehow as you exit. Surely, he's feeling that same restless urge you are? The one that makes your stomach flip when you catch him looking over at you.

However, as you wait, and attendant flags you down about your recent ticket order and you don't see your mystery man walk by. Sighing once your tickets are all in order, you head back out to your car. You'll get him next time.

For the Jurassic World showing, there was almost a full theatre. You knew there would be, which was why you'd bought your tickets in advance.

Spotting your Jurassic Cutie was a lot more difficult in a theatre of almost 50 people and kids and you resigned yourself to slumping in your seat dismally. You don't know why you were so grumpy about not seeing him but maybe he couldn't make this showing.

The opening credits begin to roll and you see two figures darting in for seats near the front. One was a young girl, clearly excited about the movie, and if it weren't for the glint of his glasses you may have not recognised your theatre buddy. You grin to yourself, happy he'd made it but now you were questioning about whether you should approach him at all.

Was that his daughter? If so, was he married or seeing someone? Single dad maybe? Maybe he was an older brother with a large age gap?

Third time was supposedly meant to be the charm but you also didn't want to approach him if he was with his daughter. That would be more mortifying than getting caught eyeing him up.

You settled back and watched Chris Pratt do his hand thing with the raptors, slightly miffed that no limbs were eaten in the process like in the original three movies. If the rumours were true, you couldn't wait to see the horror that would be inflicted by some wild dinosaurs in the newest movie; secretly hoping that following the books would lead to some good sci-fi horror.

You followed the crowd out of the theatre, splitting off by the doors to get some fresh, non-stale-popcorn flavoured air when you heard a conversation of a young girl and her guardian from behind you.

"That was a good movie Uncle Jake." She sighs. "Lotsa action and plenty of dinosaurs."

"They're not as good as the originals." A male voice argues back.

"Eh," the little girl shrugs. "The originals aren't that good."

There's a gasp, a tut and another gasp. "Jurassic Park is a masterpiece. Everything in this movie was directly linked to that first movie!"

"So why'd they remake it if it's so good?"

The guardian clearly struggles to find an answer, so you decide to answer for him.

"The original cast were too old and the franchise needed a new face or two." You turn to face the girl only to be surprised by seeing the face of your beau of the big screen. "And with the improvements to CGI... why not have better, cooler looking dinosaurs?"

The girl nods in understanding and shrugs, her guardian - who you now know is Jake - is standing sheepishly next to her looking at you.

"But your unlce is right; the originals are so much better." You add with a grin before crossing the parking lot to your car and give the both of them a short wave. "Have a good night!"

"Uncle Jake," the girl tugs her uncle's hand. "Let's go to the arcade."

"Uh - yeah. Sure."

You actively contemplate if seeing Fallen Kingdom is worth your hard-earned money when the opening theme begins. Jurassic World was a cheese-fest; plenty of easter eggs to keep original fans (like yourself) happy and content with plenty of action-packed scenes and familiar faces to keep younger kids engaged.

Picking at your M&Ms as the opening scene plays, movement at the end of your row catches your eye. With a giant popcorn in her lap, you recognise the young girl from the Jurassic World screening which meant-

"'Scuse me."

You jump to your feet and mumble an apology before realising you're face to face with Jake. You both stand for a few seconds unsure of what to do before a well-timed cough from another theatre-goer snaps you both from your thoughts.

"I'm with -" Jake points helplessly at his niece, who's making come on gestures at him. "Sorry."

You hold up your hands as he passes by. "It's alright. Maybe next time."

You weren't looking forward to Jurassic World: Dominion but for the sake of continuity, completetionist and the possibility of bumping into Jake again you were willing to sacrifice 146-minutes of your day to the final movie in the second trilogy.

You were late to the showing, you'd missed the first ten minutes, not that you were particularly upset by that fact. But you were startled by a voice as you tugged your drink from your bag.

"Thought you wouldn't make it."

You look to your right and see a pair of glasses reflecting the flickering of the movie. You try to suppress a grin but fail miserably.

The only issue is that Jake's niece is in the seat between you.

"And miss this?" You whisper sarcastically, catching his grin. "Never in 65 million years."

Jake snorts and his niece smacks his arm, shushing him as he tries not to giggle at your terrible joke. The movie is made ten times better with stolen glances and smiles, especially when Jake's niece gets really into a fight between the dinosaurs and cheers them on quietly from her seat.

The end of the movie has all three of you walking out around the same time, Jake's niece excitedly replaying her favourite parts of the movie to you both, as if you were always a part of their duo.

Whilst she babbles, adding explosion and dinosaur noises to her explanations, Jake leans a little closer to you.

"Are you going to see Rebirth next week?"

"Of course," You chuckle. "Bought my tickets a while ago."

Jake deflates with a short groan. "Damn. I'm so jealous. Heard it was gonna be good."

"You're not going?" You can't keep the disappointment out of your voice. You'd both managed to see every Jurassic movie together so far (even it was accidental) so it seemed a shame to break that cycle.

"Nah. Tickets sold out pretty quick." He shrugs. "I shoulda known."

You can feel the blush race along your skin as you piece together what you've been wanting to ask him two movies ago.

"Well," you begin, exiting the theatre into the humid afternoon air. "I have a spare ticket."

Jake stops in his tracks, almost walking into the door.

"You do?"

You nod. You didn't want to admit you'd bought two tickets when the pre-order went live, in the hope you'd secure a date by the time the movie release rolled around, but as a Jurassic Dork like you, you knew he'd appreciate it more than just any date.

"It's the 8p.m. showing." You shrug nonchalantly. "I could... meet you here? At like, 7:45 so we don't miss trailers? If you want?"

You give him a sheepish smile but Jake looks ecstatic.

"I want." He blurts and clears his throat before correcting himself. "I, yeah, would like to do that."

"Alright." You grin at him as his niece summons him to his car. "It's a date."

7:45p.m. rolls around and Jake is nowhere to be seen. You know the movie won't start until at least 8:30 but you worry that you may have been stood up.

Stepping inside at 8pm to avoid the chill of the night air, you make your way to the kiosk, mulling over whether you want sweet or salted popcorn when you hear the call of your name.

"What time do you call this?" You tease as he approaches.

Jake is tripping over his feet to get to you, apologising about being late (his niece would not let up about him seeing the movie without her despite her being too young).

"It's alright, we still have time." You chuckle. "Sweet or salted?"

"Both?" Jake suggests and when you look at him with a questioning smirk he holds up his hands defensively. "Hey now, best of both worlds."

"I don't disagree." You say airily as the attendant behind the kiosk fills a popcorn bucket to the brim.

"I'll get the drinks." Jake insists. "You got everything else. ICEE okay?"

You find your seats, the perfect centre seats, quite easily with your slushes in hand. Coincidentally, you'd gotten the same flavours as well as getting a brain freeze the same time from drinking too quick because of your nerves. Settling into your seats, this time beside eachother, was nerve-wracking and exciting all at once.

You both hum and haw at the trailers, eating your way through the top layer of popcorn until your hands touch between the warm kernels and you both share sheepish smiles and continue to eat.

The movie begins at a slog, setting up for the dino-packed plot. About twenty minutes in, you're already frowning at some plot holes and move closer to Jake to point them out. At the same time Jake moves to tell you a movie factoid, and you both gently bump heads, immediately trying to contain embarassed giggles.

At the hour mark, you're enraptured by the scene currently on the big screen and, in typical Hollywood fashion, a jumpscare happens complete with loud dinosaur noises. It startles you completely and your hand flies to Jake's forearm. You huff out through your nose as your heart gradually settles but before you can move your hand, Jake's other hand encompasses it with a reassuring squeeze.

"Don't worry - I'll protect you from those scary dinos." He whispers, smiling at you so sweetly you think you might melt into your seat.

You slip your hand down his forearm and lace your fingers over his when he removes his other hand and you don't let go until well-after the movie is finished; both of you weighing up pros, cons, timeline and plot inaccuracies and just general blathering about the franchise.

When you reach his car and begrudgingly released his hand, you put your number in his phone and ask when he's free.

"Whenever," Jake replied eagerly, raking a hand through his hair. "Although, I think we've run out of movies to watch."

You chuckle and hum thoughtfully. "I'm sure we could find something else to watch. It doesn't have to be dinosaurs."

Jake blushes and laughs nervously. "Yeah. Or, we could, I don't know read books or something?"

A laugh bubbles out of your mouth before you can stop it. He was such a dork and it made your heart patter with excitement.

"I mean, the Jurassic Park novels are great too."

"They were books?" Jake asks in surprise.

You blink at him. "Yeah. Focused more on the horror and sci-fi aspect of it. There's only two novels but if you want to borrow them-"

"Could I read them with you?" Jake asks before you can finish. "Like a book date?"

"A book date?" You grin.

"Yeah," Jake says with a smile, gaining confidence. "You bring the books, I bring the coffee and we... you know, have a date."

You shake your head softly with a smile as bright as the stars. "It's a date."

End

A/N: Jake would get married to the Jurassic Park theme js. Also Tom Cardy's Jurassic Park 12 is very accurate.

Taglist

Add yourself here

@stargazingfangirl18 | @awkwardgiraffe726 | @irishhappiness | @looking1016

[jamneuromain]

Woo hoooooo

yep the pent-up frustration is long due... but i'm glad they worked it off (I'm totally talking about games. AHEM, games. Yes.

Also:

“Barnes just needs to fuck her.”

Good job Nat (whispers)

Perfectionists

Characters/Pairings: Bucky x Female!Reader Word Count: 2.2k Summary: SHIELD Games is behind one of the best MMORPGs on the market. SHIELD stays on top because of the super employees they have across the board from the tech innovation department, to the story writers, to their game engineers - including one Bucky Barnes. It's his perfection that has pushed him into this position at an elite place in the industry, period. But one game tester always seems to find the most frustrating things to send back to him.

Content/Concept Warnings: Gamer AU; strong language; explicit smut: oral - male receiving, mild dacryphilia, vaginal fingering, vaginal sex, voyerism, masturbation

Notes: TRIPLE THREAT SUBMISSION for @buckybarnesevents WEEK THREE of Hot Bucky Summer: "Where do you want me?", my fifth square of @buckybarnesbingo B5: "Playing Games," and my third square for Connect4 Alternate June-iverse: C1 "Gamer."

Gamer divider graphic by @sgt-seabass!

Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

Bucky looked up as he heard Steve’s telltale footsteps – not the normal ones – the trepidatious ones.

“No,” he said, tone stone cold.

Steve stopped a few steps away and sighed, putting his hands on his hips.

“How long is the list?”

“Buck.”

Bucky shook his head and pushed away from his desk. “You know what? No. I don’t even want to see it.”

He stormed out of the engineering and design lab, and Steve dropped his head back to look at the ceiling.

Sam chuckled. “I told you, man, you should wait until he’s out of the room to bring in new lists of purgatory for perfection.”

“He never takes a break. None of you take breaks,” Steve said.

“'Attitude reflects leadership, Captain.'"

"Don't quote Remember the Titans at me."

“Barnes just needs to fuck her.”

Steve’s head snapped over to Nat. “You know what, Romanoff?”

“She’s right,” Joaquin added without looking up from his screen, but a smirk on his face none the less. “His blood has been boiling for her for months, it’s about time he stops ignoring that.”

“Shit, Barnes!” you yelped, clutching your heart with one hand and an energy drink in the other. “Anyone ever tell you not to lurk in the dark?”

“I’m not lurking,” he groused.

“What else do you call lying in wait to confront someone? Especially in the dark? Alone? Leaning up against the wall, no less.”

You knew you were far from the only person in the building, but this late at night, you were the only tester still around and usually had this wing of the offices to yourself. This was a side gig for you, you only did it because you loved the game and loved getting to preview things before it was even sent to the beta test group of users, but that meant you usually only crossed paths with the handful of other official tester employees for SHIELD Games like ships passing in the night who basically clocked normal business hours.

“I don’t see you turning on any lights,” he said as you returned to your preferred spot on the couch.

“I prefer to play by glow of television,” you responded with a dramatic tone.

If Bucky rolled his eyes, you didn’t see it. “It’s how I’d be playing at home, keeps me focused so I can help you do your job.”

Which is why he was here confronting you, as you had so aptly noted. “I’m damn good at what I do.”

“And the only reason you hate my lists is because you’re already a god damn perfectionist so you can’t stand when I point out the flaws you missed or suggestions to make your work even better. But that’s why Maria hired me. Your community manager knew the user feedback I was giving when you launched the game was excellent.”

Bucky scoffed and shook his head, crossing his arms.

“Your game is only perfect after they put it in front of my face, Barnes.”

“Shut up.”

It was your turn to scoff. “Make me,” you said and took a swig of your energy drink.

Bucky pushed off the wall and in three swift, silent steps was in front of you. With your head tilted back as you drank, you only saw him when he leaned forward, looming over you. You spluttered a little, and he smirked.

“You won’t be able to talk with this in front of your face,” he said, opened the front of his jeans, and pushed the denim and his boxers down his thighs in one go.

You would have roasted him for saying something so cliché in any other circumstance. But your brain was short-circuiting, and you were trying to rapidly re-establish the connections.

His right hand took the can out of your grasp and set it on the side table next to the couch, and his left hand cradled your chin, his thumb pressing on your bottom lip.

You looked up at him. Your heart was racing, and your pussy was thrumming. You were not certain this was real. He’d been the quiet one, a bit surly, but you had been surprised enough he’d come to confront you about the feedback in the first place and never would have put a penny on the odds of something like this happening with the gorgeous game designer you’d harbored a bit of a crush on but decided after the first week wouldn’t come to anything.

This was an unexpected side quest.

You nodded.

He pushed the tip to the edge of your lips, your tongue slipped out to circle the head. In one swift motion he gripped the back of your head and thrust his cock into your mouth, hitting the back of your throat, and your hands flew up to hold onto his hips.

He used your mouth with abandon, and the hold of your hands on his hips was firm, encouraging. When you choked on his thick member, he slowed for a moment, then you squeezed his hip, and he speed up to his brutal pace again. This happened twice more, you having taken him deeper in your throat each time. Tears streamed down your face now, and he groaned when he looked down at you.

“You look so god damn beautiful,” he couldn’t help saying.

You whimpered, and he swept a thumb over your cheek, wiping away the tears, then brought them to his mouth.

He could feel the build of his climax at the root of him, and pulled out of your mouth abruptly, knowing he was too close to finishing and not ready for this to come to an end yet.

You fell forward, but he was instantly kneeling in front of you, ready to catch your lips with his. The kiss was hungry, and your mouth full of the taste of him made him groan again. Your hands tangled in his hair, slotting in despite being pulled back in a low bun. His hands had returned to hold your head as commandingly as they had when he was fucking your throat – one in your hair, one along your jaw.

When you were absolutely breathless, you finally pulled away.

Foreheads planted against each other, breaths still mingling, you licked your lips.

“Why don’t I show you what these hands can do?” he asked, one hand falling to your hip, rubbing his thumb down the crease of your thigh toward your core.

“Don’t tease.”

“Oh, no,” he agreed. Then with both hands, he pulled your hips to the edge of the cushion, hooked his fingers into the top of your pants, and peeled them down along with your panties. You pushed up to raise your hips so he could remove them completely, but your efforts were hardly needed as he used one hand to push you up, and the small show of unexpected strength made your insides squirm. He was built – you had seen it – but you hadn’t experienced the reality of it.

Bucky didn’t leave you a second to think about it any further as his fingers slid up and down your wet slit, he spread your outer folds and stroked your soft inner folds, and you moaned. Your eyes slipped shut, but you felt him watching your face. He was watching for how you reacted to each of his ministrations. He pinched your clit, and you yelped.

Your eyes flew open, and you saw his were filled with a mischievous glint. “Just testing all the possibilities,” he said.

You hit his shoulder. “I said no teasing!”

“You always want the experience to have more unexpected elements for the user to play with.”

“Bucky!” You did not want to hear one of your recent lines of feedback recited back to taunt you.

Except you did.

He was playing this game so well.

He slipped two fingers from that large, warm hand of his inside your cunt and began to pump. Your eyes melted closed again, and seemingly satisfied with his study, you felt Bucky claim your lips for more kisses while he pulled you closer and closer to an orgasm. It built steadily, his thumb at your clit, fingers in your channel, but when he curled those fingers and found the spongy spot against your pubic bone, it hit you instantly, and you cried out his name. He pulled your head into the crook of his neck while his other hand slowed in your cunt but helped prolong riding out the waves of your pleasure.

“Satisfactory experience?” he asked once your breathing started to return to normal.

You laughed against his shoulder, then pulled back to look at him. You pressed a kiss to his jaw, and he smiled.

“You know, I wasn’t afraid to poke the bear because you’re brilliant, I knew you could take it. You want to be the best, and I help give you that.” You reached down and took his still hard, leaking cock in your soft hands, and Bucky’s breath hitched. “Now, do you want to let me take you? I’m aching for you to fill me up.”

He groaned. “You can’t say shit like that.”

You nipped at his bottom lip and smirked. “Yes, I can. This company values my direct and honest feedback.”

He huffed a laugh.

“Where do you want me?”

Bucky quickly shoved his jeans all the way down his legs and settled down next to you on the couch, legs spreading wide. “In my lap.”

“Sounds just about right,” you said, straddling him.

His eager hands pulled your slick cunt flush against his groin, and you both moaned. You planted your hands on his broad shoulders, and rocked your hips just a little bit. Even that short back and forth of friction, his cock stroking your engorged clit, had your head falling back. Bucky pressed his lips to the column of your throat, not wasting an opportunity so inviting in the moment. You sighed and held his head to your neck where he continued to explore and mark you with slow, hot kisses, finding the places that made you shiver.

While you were lost in those sensations, Bucky reached down and lined his cock up with your slit, but that brought you back to the thrumming need to be filled by him, and you sunk down while he thrust up into you. He was thick, and he filled you more than you were used to, but not to a point of pain -far, far from it.

“Feel so good inside me,” you keened.

“No feedback?”

“Just fuck me until I can’t breathe, Buck.”

“With pleasure,” he growled.

After passing through two intense first levels of play, climbing to the final peak did not take long. One of his hands remained anchored at your hip to control the punishing but desired pace of thrusts, but his other steadily slid underneath your shirt and up your spine in a delicate way in contrast to everything else happening in the moment, including your lips returning to his in another kiss designed to devour.

Bucky felt you hit that crest of the climax, your muscles seizing in a moment of bliss, your pussy clenching hard around his cock. As you came down, he maneuvered you both to lay your back on the couch while he did just as you asked and continued to thrust into you hard, you boneless but in a blissful haze, unconcerned with trivial things like breathing, while he pursued his own pleasure. Then all at once he groaned and began to spill his hot seed inside of you, pausing for a second with the first ropes of cum, but then continued with deep, slow thrusts until he was completely spent.

It was a snug shuffling, but the two of you managed to get so you were both laying on your sides on the couch, your back up against the cushioned backboard, Bucky’s back to the glow of the giant television screen so all his muscled angles were sillhouted for you to admire in the afterglow. His legs were bunched up – possibly uncomfortably – and you tangled yours with his. You pushed some hair that had escaped from its knot at the back of his head off of his face, and he grabbed your hand and pressed a kiss to your palm.

“I think we’ll need to continue testing this,” you whispered against his lips.

You felt them curve into a smile before he said, “Thorough testing, absolutely. Need to explore all potential scenarios.”

“I’m glad you’ll be more amenable now to my feedback.”

“Oh, I never said that.”

You poked him in the ribs.

“Come on, you love the complex storylines. You don’t want me easily conquered.” And before you could protest, and claimed your lips again, this time in a long, slow kiss, no intention of leaving any time soon.

Too caught up with each other, neither of you heard the approaching footsteps, the gasp on discovering you, the moans they bit back when they gave over to touching themselves there in the dark, watching you, or their nearly silent retreat.

READ THEIR FOLLOW UP IN TEST PLAY

↠ Main Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

I do not do tag lists, but FOLLOW @buckets-and-stories and TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS to be updated any time I publish a new work!

[jamneuromain]

HELP this is too hot i cant breathe

Ghoul… I’m having thoughts (especially ghost or price) where they only give you anal as some sort of punishment and give you faux sympathy and taunts when you ask for them to move to your pussy…, “don’t think you deserve it” or something of the sort from them

there is something so so delicious about anal as a threat or punishment, especially when you enjoy anal. oh noooo anything but anal please have mercy >:) You really think you've got it made acting out after Ghost told you he'd be fucking that tight little ass of yours if you didn't stop being a brat. You think you've got it in the bag, getting exactly what you want from this man. You're the smarted raccoon you know.

Except you didn't stop to think maybe Ghost knew what you were doing. And you don't realize it until he's holding you down against the bed and fucking your ass like it's his job. Making your legs jerk with each hard thrust, the buzzing ring he's got around the base of his cock teasing the stretched, spit slick rim of your ass, heat shooting up your spine and pooling like magma in the pit of your stomach. Each time you try to gasp for air he forces your face into the blankets, lets you scream your pleasure into the pillows while he laughs and asks if he's being too rough. Aw he's so sorry love, he wouldn't be so rough if you weren't being so naughty earlier. No, no, don't try to get up and- hey, keep those hands to yourself while your man is working. No sense trying to push him off when he's so much stronger than you. Just shut up and take it.

You sound so sweet begging him to come, to give you a break, but that's what the cock ring is for love. Neither of you are getting out of your punishment until Ghost is satisfied that you won't make this mistake again. Even if it means the bed is soaked with sweat and lube, and that cute squirt you keep letting out when he pinches your clit like the bastard he is.

[jamneuromain]

thank you babes! it lights up my heart when you say this uwu. Ditd felt like a lifetime ago and I was so happy that you love this fanfic through and through <3

Dancing in the Daydream

Andy Barber x You (Reader), no use of Y/N

Alternate Universe - College AU

Summary: Andy Barber is the lecturer for your class Creative Writing.

Warning: Smut, 18+

A/N: ideas sponsored by me and @rogerswifesblog, who comes up with many amazing plots and conversations used in this series😘😘😘❤️❤️❤️

Fluff: 💕 Angst: 🥀 Smut: 🔥 Dark: 🌑

In Time Order:

Creative Writing: You're a renowned author who's still going to school. Annoyingly, your English teacher is reading way too deeply into your books. 🥀💕

Straight-A Student: You argue with Andy, during your ninth date. 🔥💕

Wishful Thinking: A new semester. A new task. A new boyfriend, your previous professor, Andy Barber. Everything seems to be going on the right track. So why didn't it? 🥀🌑🔥💕 (newly updated

Water Bottle, Straw, and Lip Gloss: Andy thought of ways of enforcing his rule of "drinking water" to you... would you be glad to accept it? 💕

Evaluating Your Work: You return home with Andy reading your... stuff. 💕🔥

Being Mutuals: Andy is so curious about the detective AU that he just has to ask… 💕

All That's Inspiring: What would Andy do if he finds out that you break your promise with him. 🔥💕

No Use Running: What are you going to do when Andy is mad at you? 🥀🌑🔥

Brat Taming: You need to be put down. 🔥💕

Deja vu: A student plagiarised your work for her assignment. 💕

Taking a Bear by the Tooth: You are facetiming with Andy when you realized... 💕

Gamer? Cheater! Drabble: You have decided to settle the argument by playing Mario Cart. 💕

[jamneuromain]

this is canon

Simon being all big and tough and mean and noncommittal…

But if you ride him good enough?

You’ll catch this motherfucker moaning louder than a siren, saying all kinds of whack shit like, “I love you,” “you’re perfect,” “fuck, you’re all I need”

Make him blow his load good enough, and you might even get this wild card.

“Marry me,” he says, still panting on the mattress. Meanwhile, you’ve got semen dripping down your leg, your panties halfway up your thighs. Your hair is a rats’ nest in the back, and you trip over the leg hole of your underwear when you hear what he says.

“What?” You stutter out.

“I want you to marry me,” he states in the calmest, most bored voice you’ve ever heard. Hell, he’s still wiping cum off of his stomach, staring down at his wet hands like it’s just a normal Tuesday.

Simon’s weird. He’s abrasive, inconsistent, and generally not romantic at all.

But when a car’s headlights shine through the blinds…you can see it.

His face, bright pink. Fingers twitching against his naked chest. And it’s then that you realize it.

Holy shit.

Simon is being romantic. Like, actually, genuinely, beautifully romantic.

When you start crying, he complains about having to comfort you. Yet, the water gathering around his lash line says otherwise.

Long story short, you’ve got a nice little ring on your finger by the end of the week…

That, and Simon manages to ask you out to dinner. For the first time ever. Since, y’know, you’re his fianceé now.

(He’s already thinking about what your baby’s name will be.)

[jamneuromain]

EEEEEEEEEEEK

gimme this price i need this price arrrrggghhhhh （and also this price because he knows your body better than the back of his hand

No one else

Summary: You see Price again for the first time after he went on mission…and after you slept with him months ago

Content Warning: mentions of smut, angst, age gap

Pairing: John Price x reader (NO GENDER/LOOKS SPECIFIED)

A/N: short, sweet and angsty, folks! this has been in my drafts for a looooong time, enjoy <3

Word Count: 1100+

“I…I haven’t...been...with anyone else, you know?”

“What?”, He looked down at you, your head resting on his sticky chest, listening to his heartbeat.

“Since you left…I uhm….I haven’t slept with anyone else.”

It had been months since you last saw him.

You and John had been friends for years. Sure, he was a little older than you, but you never cared. He was handsome and smart and kind and he always knew what to do.

He was the one you called when your car broke down on the side of the road. The one who took you for a drink after a long day at work.

And last summer, he suddenly became the one who made you cum so many times you forgot your own name.

It was a one-time thing. A moment of heated passion between two friends. The fact that you'd had a crush on him for over a year played no part in the matter.

Besides, you didn't have much time to dwell, because the next morning when he got called into work, he was told that he was needed for another mission.

Well it turns out, that did actually leave you lots of time to dwell. Six months of it.

It had gone by incredibly fast and agonizingly slow at the same time, but there he was, back home, taking sips of his beer on your couch while you cooked him his first decent meal in half a year.

You'd been eyeing each other all night. Small talk paired with small touches. After dessert, when there were no more dishes to be washed, no more stupid questions to be asked, nowhere left to hide, he kissed you.

And that left you here, in your bedroom. Tangled in the forest green sheets, sweaty and satisfied. His rough hands drew gentle shapes on your shoulder until you opened your stupid mouth.

“I havent been with anyone else…”

Price was quiet, with an expression on his face that gave little away.

The silence grew thicker by the second. An uncomfortable feeling settled in your stomach and you started to regret even saying anything.

You were about to mumble out an excuse, apologize, tell him never mind, and that it was silly. Your mouth opened but before the first sound could fly out of your throat, he broke the silence.

“Neither have I.”, he stated dryly.

“You haven’t?”, you sat up a little, getting a better look at his face.

“You thought I had?” He raised his brow a little, you could tell it was a reflex. He almost looked…annoyed.

"Yeah, I mean...no....I don't know", you babbled.

"Well, I didn't."

"You could have."

"I didn't want to." he replied with just a twinge of irritation, “Did you want me to?”

“No I just…I wouldn’t have been mad…if you had.”

His brows twisted in what can only be described as a dumbfounded frown.

“What the…” he grumbled, sitting up fully too. “So if I would have fucked some other lass, you would’a been totally fine with that?”

Your eyes darted around nervously as you tried to figure out how to answer that question.

“I just…you can do what you want. You don’t have any responsibilities towards me. I would have understood if you had…if…if you’d…”

The thought of him with another woman made you sick to your stomach, but you knew you couldn't have expected that of him. That he'd stayed loyal to someone he'd slept with once.

Well...twice now.

"Alright then, good to know how you feel," he said as he got out of bed, quickly grabbing his boxers off the floor and pulling them on.

"W-, Price, where are you going?"

"I clearly got this all wrong, that's on me."

"No wait, please! I...I'm sorry I just...I..." you babbled. Your chest felt tight, that familiar feeling of panic settled in the pit of your stomach as you watched him grab his stuff off the floor.

“Can you please just hold on a minute? Please?”, you pleaded, “John!”

That got his attention. His eyes locked with yours as he stood there brooding like an angry bear.

“I thought…” he started, you could tell he was trying to keep himself composed, “I thought we had something. I thought we were something. A thing. The pair of us.”

You sat there on the bed, with your thin sheet wrapped flimsily around yourself, staring up at him.

“John…I”

“I know we didn’t exactly have a conversation about it…but after what happened I just sort of assumed…and I shouldn’t have.”

“No! God, I’m such an idiot…I'm just expressing myself all wrong…", you tried explaining, “I wanted you to know I hadn’t been with anyone else…because I don’t want anyone else…but I also know we didn’t talk about it so I would have no right to be mad if you…if you had…”

“Screwed someone else?”, he damn near barked.

“Yeah…", you visibly flinched at the thought this time. "Can you please sit back down? Please?"

He obliged. The mattress dipped a little as he sat down on the edge of the bed, his back toward you. The room was quiet again. You didn't really know what to say or do...you had missed him so much...all you wanted was to be close to him, that was all you had wanted for months.

You were staring at the freckles on his back and you couldn't help but lean closer, your lips carefully brushing against the skin and pressing a loving kiss there. You felt him tense up, yet he remained quiet.

"The thought alone makes me sick..." you started, hoping he would get what you were referring to, "but I would have understood, you were gone for a long time and you didn’t make any promises to me”

You felt him tense up again when you said that last part.

“M'not angry at you sweetheart, I'm just angry at myself ", he turned around, his sweet, brown eyes gazing at you with nothing but love and affection.

"I promised my heart to you a long time ago, I was just too dense to tell you about it..."

"Oh, John..", was all you could muster, you reached out and gently put your hand against his bearded cheek. He leaned into your touch, placing his own hand over yours.

"I should have at least made it clear how I felt, sweetheart, instead of leaving you wondering if I was fucking someone else for six months. Because I wasn’t. All I wanted was to be with you. There’s no one else I want, love.”

You were at a loss for words, so you settled for a kiss. Not that he was complaining, because he immediately maneuvered you onto his lap, mumbling praises and apologies.

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[jamneuromain]

daniel sloss and his jigsaw show

I'll always come back to this show

My good people, I give you: Amatonormativity.

[jamneuromain]

麻鸭被甜晕了

Just a silly merfolk AU

Somewhat of a continuation of this piece

[jamneuromain]

screaming crying throwing up

PROSTHETIC ARM SIMON

sfw + nsfw. overstimulation (simon). his metal arm has a vibrator function. unprotected sex.

mr. riley is a new regular.

hulking, broad-shouldered, always hunched like he's trying to fold himself into something smaller. dirty blonde hair, hoodies that swallow his frame, gloves that never come off— not in winter, not when the air conditioning is broken, not when it’s so hot outside that the pavement wavers under the sun. you see him come in once during a heatwave, sweat beading at his temples, looking like he just came from hell itself. but the gloves stay.

always.

he’s quiet. doesn’t talk much unless he has to. keeps his answers clipped, never makes small talk, never lingers longe,ur than it takes to grab his order and leave. you might’ve found him intimidating if it weren’t for the fact that his dog, riley, was the exact opposite.

big, fluffy, and absurdly well-behaved. the kind that made strangers stop and coo when they passed by, all soft ears and wagging tail. an instant favorite among customers. an absolute menace to simon.

because the dog likes attention. loves it, actually. practically demands it. and, more specifically— he likes you.

so the moment simon steps up to the counter, riley is already perking up at your voice. tail wagging, eyes locked on you, waiting expectantly like he thinks you’re about to drop an entire steak into his mouth.

"oh! mr. riley! the usual today?"

simon grunts. closest thing to a yes you ever get.

"and a pup cup for little riley, i take it?"

the man sighs. “he’s gonna get fat.”

but he still swipes his card. no hesitation.

riley whines at the accusation, staring at him with something close to betrayal.

you slide simon’s order across the counter after a moment, the movements routine by now.

he reaches out. his right hand hovers over the cup. fingers stretching, hovering, like he’s trying to will it into his grasp.

nothing happens. his fingers twitch, but they won’t close.

you see it— the way his jaw tightens, the sharp curl of his lip like he’s biting down a curse. the tension in his shoulders. the exhale through his nose.

“mr. riley?” you ask carefully.

his scowl deepens. he tries again— too hard, too fast— his grip locks up, crushing the cup before he can stop himself. the lid pops off. coffee splatters over his hand, dripping onto the counter.

you yelp, stepping back on instinct. he doesn’t.

he just stares down at his hand. impassive. like he hasn't been baptized by scalding liquid.

“shit- hang on-” you scramble around the counter, heat rising up your throat, words spilling out in a rush. “jesus, are you- your hand-”

“s’fine,” he grunts.

his flesh hand flexes at his side, but the other— the one that had crushed the cup— stays frozen, unmoving.

you don’t believe him for a second. ignoring his protests, you reach for his wrist, peeling off the soaked glove before he can stop you.

you freeze.

metal. not sleek, new, high-tech metal. not the kind you see in sci-fi movies, gleaming and futuristic.

no. this is old. dull, scratched, worn— something that’s clearly been through hell and barely made it out. the joints look stiff, the plates dented in places, the wiring almost exposed near the wrist.

your mouth opens. closes. opens again. “… huh.”

his brow lifts slightly. “that all you got?”

you blink, tilting your head. “kinda thought there’d be… more wires. sparks. terminator shit.”

a beat. then, maybe, the smallest twitch at the corner of his lips.

“disappointed?”

“a little.”

you keep staring, the sight settling in your brain, cataloging every detail. not military-grade. not some brand-new prosthetic straight from a lab. something about it makes your chest tighten.

“has it… uh, been this iffy for a while?” you ask, glancing up.

simon shrugs with his good shoulder, the movement almost dismissive. “yeah. thing’s temperamental.”

“like you,” you mutter before you can stop yourself.

his brow arches slightly, but he doesn’t deny it.

you glance around the café, nerves twisting in your stomach. no customers. the clock ticks lazily, the smell of coffee and vanilla in the air. you bite your lip, thinking.

“so, uh- i’m an engineering student,” you start, fingers fidgeting with the hem of your apron. “and… i mean, if you wanted- i could take a look? maybe tweak it a bit?”

his gaze snaps to you. it makes your stomach flip, and you wonder if you’ve just crossed a line you hadn’t realized was there.

“… you want to mess with my arm?”

“not mess! i mean- help. like… it’s kind of what i do. circuits, mechanics- prosthetics aren’t that different. probably.” you wince. “unless you’re, like, secretly part robot with classified tech and i’m about to get black-bagged or something-”

“you talk a lot,” he deadpans.

“nerves,” you shoot back, cheeks warming. “so… yes? no? totally fine if it’s weird.”

he exhales through his nose, staring at you like he’s trying to figure you out. the silence stretches. then—

“… got tools?”

your face lights up. “back in my car!”

“figured.” he sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. “fine. but if you break it worse-”

“i won’t,” you grin, already grabbing your keys. “trust me.”

“don’t say that,” he calls after you. “famous last words.”

…

simon would rather take a bullet than admit it, but you turn out to be a problem in his life.

because after that first fix— crammed into your car that rattled like it was held together with duct tape and prayer— he walks away with a hand that actually works for the first time in months.

no stiffness. no lag. no bullshit. he clenches his fist and releases, watching the fingers curl and straighten without a hint of resistance.

it feels foreign. unnatural. smooth in a way that it should be but hasn’t been for a long, long time.

so when he asks how much he owes, expecting a number, you just tilt your head and grin.

"tell me your full name. i don’t wanna keep calling you mr. riley."

simon stares at you like he’s weighing whether he can get away with walking out without answering. then, like it pains him— "simon."

you laugh. “you look like a simon.”

…

he doesn’t try to make it a habit, coming to you.

really. he doesn’t.

but prosthetic specialists are expensive, and he’s not exactly drowning in engineering contacts. the local mechanics won’t touch prosthetics (liability reasons, mate, can’t help ya), and he sure as hell isn’t stepping into a clinic unless he wants some lab rat poking and prodding at him like he’s a cutting-edge science project.

so when his arm starts acting up again, he does what he always does.

he ignores it. it’ll be fine. he can live with it.

it starts with a bit of stiffness. a missed grip here and there. nothing major.

then his fingers start locking up at random, the servos stalling, the whole limb feeling like it’s dragging behind the rest of him.

not ideal. not something he can use. three weeks in, and it’s a fucking liability.

he caves.

simon times it carefully. dead hour. mid-afternoon. when the café is empty and you’ll have a second to spare.

he walks in, orders a pup cup for riley, and waits. he doesn’t wait long.

the moment your eyes flicker to his gloved hand— how his fingers can't even curl anymore— your expression drops.

your shoulders tighten, brows knit together, mouth parting slightly like you’re about to scold him before you even know what’s wrong.

"simon," you say, voice sharp like he just admitted to a felony.

before he can so much as blink, you’re untying your apron.

"break," you toss over your shoulder.

your coworker barely looks up. just shrugs.

simon exhales through his nose. he should’ve just ripped the damn thing off himself.

your car is just as a mess as it was last time. empty water bottles on the floor. a crumpled hoodie in the backseat. textbooks piled in the passenger footwell, some open, some stuffed with loose papers. it smells faintly like vanilla air freshener and stress.

riley jumps in first, hopping into the backseat like he owns the place, and promptly curls up across the mess of loose papers and crumpled receipts.

simon says nothing. just lets himself into the passenger seat, shifts slightly to get comfortable in the too-small space, and watches as you slam the driver’s side door with a little more force than necessary.

you’re fuming.

he can feel it radiating off you like an overheating engine as you shove his sleeve up and strip the glove away.

he glances down. yeah. even he has to admit— it looks rough. the plates are slightly misaligned. the servos are dragging. the tension in the fingers is off, the whole mechanism resisting movement like it’s gummed up with sand and bad decisions.

"oh my god, how long has this been going on?"

his eyes flicking to the side. "three weeks."

you go still. "THREE WEEKS?!"

riley lifts his head from where he’s sprawled out in the backseat and whines at the sharpness of your voice. simon rubs at his temple with his good hand, sighing.

"three- jesus, simon, if your arm has a problem, you come to me right away!"

"didn’t wanna bother you."

you make a strangled sound, something between disbelief and frustration, already yanking open your toolkit with more force than necessary. "bother- oh my god, you idiot," you snap, flipping through your tools at lightning speed. "this is- unusable. how were you even functioning like this?"

"managed."

"you shouldn’t have to ‘manage.’ that’s the point of a prosthetic!"

simon huffs, shifting his arm slightly as you mutter curses under your breath and start unscrewing the external plating.

riley rests his chin on the back of simon’s seat, watching the whole thing unfold with his big brown eyes, tail thumping softly against the pile of forgotten assignments.

"can feel your judgment," simon mutters, breaking the silence.

"good. let it sink in."

riley lets out a low whine, nudging the back of simon’s neck with his nose.

simon sighs. "yeah, yeah. i know."

the dog lets out a single huff, like he agrees with you.

you pause long enough to glance at riley, expression unimpressed. "at least he gets it."

"gettin’ ganged up on," simon mutters.

riley whines. you don’t even look up.

"good.

his mouth twitches. he tells himself it’s a muscle spasm.

you don’t look at him when you actually get to work. simon notices.

he’s sitting there, arm bared, cables exposed, and you’re bent over the mess of wiring like he’s not even in the room. like he’s just another machine in need of fixing. your hands move with quick precision, fingers deft as you pluck out worn components and replace them with fresh ones. you mutter to yourself, little noises of satisfaction or frustration depending on what you find.

it’s unsettling. not you— no, you’re fine. better than fine. competent. but it’s been a long time since someone’s handled his arm without hesitation, without the kind of quiet reverence people get when they realize how much damage a man has to take before he needs one of these.

to you, it’s just broken. something that needs tuning.

he flexes his fingers the second you flip the switch.

his hand moves fast. smooth. no delay between thought and motion. he rolls his wrist. it hasn’t felt this natural in weeks.

"good?" you ask, still gathering your tools.

he moves his fingers again. watches them articulate, watches the precise shift of metal joints. "yeah," he mutters.

you nod, already packing up, already moving on.

he watches you.

then you say it, casual, like an afterthought. “don’t worry about it.”

simon doesn’t blink. he knew you were going to say that because apparently you're the next coming of the good fucking samaritan. it still pisses him off.

he glances at you. at the torn-up upholstery of your car, the loose wires under the dash, the check engine light that’s been on this entire time, the faint but definite smell of something burning.

he drums his fingers against his knee. “i’ll fix your car.”

you argue about it, of course. insist it’s fine, like you don’t hear the death rattle when you start the engine. simon doesn’t argue back. doesn’t need to. just asks— when’s the last time you had it looked at?— and watches you press your lips together.

thought so.

“two days, at least,” he tells you.

your horror is almost funny. “two days?”

“maybe three.”

you stare at him like he just told you your dog died.

he pats the dashboard. “i’ll do what i can to keep it alive.”

it takes one day. he calls while you’re still half-asleep. “your car’s a lost cause.”

you meet up later so he can walk you through the damage in person.

you listen. don’t talk much, don’t get defensive. just nod as he points things out, as he explains the alternator’s failing, the battery’s shot, the brake pads are gone— and yeah, he’s still pissed about that one. your transmission is a liability. the engine’s practically running on fumes.

you sigh, dragging a hand over your face.

“i need my car,” you grumble. “i have plates to pass. blueprints that cannot get wet, or my professor will deduct major points. and-”

“i’ll drive you.”

you stop. blink. “what?”

“i’ll drive you,” he repeats, like it’s obvious.

you look at him, wary. “don’t you have work?”

“on break.”

“friends?”

he shakes his head. “not really.”

“family?”

he actually laughs. there's no real humor in it.

something shifts in your face. simon sees it before you do, the flicker of discomfort, the way you adjust your stance like there’s something you want to say but don’t know how.

simon doesn’t let you say it.

“tell me your schedule.” he shuts the hood like the matter’s settled. “text me when you need a ride. i’ll be there.”

you cross your arms. “so i get a chauffeur for fixing one prosthetic?”

he flexes his fingers. “you underestimate how much these cost.”

you roll your eyes. “you act like i replaced the whole thing.”

“you might as well have,” he mutters. “damn thing actually works now.”

you sigh, shifting on your feet. “you really don’t have plans?”

“if you count drinking beer alone, then yeah, i have plenty.

so he starts picking you up.

at first, it’s straightforward. you text him when you need a ride, and he shows up, no questions asked. no complaints, either— just grunts a greeting, waits for you to get in, and drives. sometimes he has the radio on. other times, it’s just quiet, the steady hum of the engine and the occasional flick of a turn signal.

simon doesn’t mind detours. when you run late and beg him to swing by a drive-thru, he just sighs and pulls into the next available one. doesn’t even say anything when you apologize through a mouthful of food, just takes a sip of his own coffee and keeps driving.

but, one morning, when you rush out of your apartment, tripping over your own feet, already bracing for the inevitable “can we stop by-”

simon just reaches into the passenger seat, grabs a bag, and tosses it into your lap.

you blink down at it. warm, heavy. smells good.

“…what’s this?”

he puts the truck into drive. “breakfast.”

“thanks,” you mumble, glancing at riley whose got his head wedged between the two of you, tongue lolling out, eyes bright as he watches you unwrap your sandwich.

“does he want some?”

simon doesn’t even look. “he always wants some.”

you tear off a piece anyway, holding it out. riley inhales it like it personally offended him

simon snorts. “you’re gonna spoil him.”

“he’s cute. he deserves it.”

“he’s a liability.”

“you’re just jealous ‘cause i don’t feed you by hand.”

you look up, realizing what you just said.

simon’s looking back at you. slow blink. unreadable.

heat licks at your neck. “i- i didn’t mean-”

riley whines, nosing at your hand for more food, and you’ve never been more grateful for a dog’s terrible sense of timing.

he hums, turning back to the road. “thought so.”

…

this keeps going for months. a pattern. a rhythm. the two of you slot into each other’s lives like you’ve always been there.

you stop thanking him when he brings you food. he stops questioning it when you drag him to your workshop to tinker with his arm.

and then, one day. he picks you up, just like always.

but this time—

you slide into the passenger seat and don’t say anything.

no greeting. no complaints. no requests for coffee. just sit back, staring straight ahead, like you’re still processing something.

simon frowns. “…what?”

“…my project is on prosthetic arms.”

his head snaps toward you. he doesn’t say anything. doesn’t ask if it’s because of him. because that— that feels too dangerous.

your hands grip your sleeves. “can i design you a new prosthetic arm?”

he doesn’t answer right away. doesn’t move. his fingers flex against the wheel.

you don’t look at him, and he doesn’t look at you, and it’s the first time in a long time he really feels like he’s made of metal and wire and things that aren’t his own.

you exhale. glance at him out of the corner of your eye.

he looks down. his palm, cold and impersonal. not really his, not entirely.

and— “…yeah,” he mutters, tapping his fingers against his thigh.

a beat.

“…all right.”

…

simon steps inside your apartment, and the first thing he notices is that it smells like you. not perfume, not some scent in a bottle— just you. a mix of coffee, paper, and something warm and lived-in. his boots make the floor creak slightly as he shifts, taking it all in.

riley, in comparison,immediately takes off, nose to the ground, sniffing every single thing he can get to. he pushes his head into the couch cushions, sticks his snout into your laundry pile, and stands on his hind legs to peek at the half-eaten bag of chips on the coffee table.

simon watches you rush to pull snacks away before riley gets his paws on them, muttering something about “you’d think i don’t feed you.” riley wags his tail in betrayal.

the space is cluttered but cozy. the kind of messy that isn’t disorganized, just... busy. like your life is so packed with things to do that it spills over into your home. there are loose papers on the coffee table, your drafting table is buried under textbooks and sketches, and there’s a laundry basket in the corner that’s almost full but not quite.

and the lamps. so many damn lamps. simon counts sixteen before he even makes it past the entrance.

you explain your thesis, and simon listens. really listens. you talk with your hands, explaining concepts in bursts of energy, excitement bright in your eyes. you tell him about rare alloys, cutting-edge designs, how the neural link would function with smoother input signals.

his stomach twists a little when you say it—

“i want to make you a new arm with all of that.”

simon doesn’t answer immediately. just exhales through his nose. he know he should say no. tell you it’s unnecessary. that his arm is fine. that he’s fine.

but then you pull out the blueprints, show him the design, and it’s... it’s good.

it’s really fucking good.

and he knows how much this tech costs. he remembers sitting in a sterile office, watching a man in a lab coat list out the prices of different prosthetic models. he remembers running his fingers over a brochure, seeing the way the most advanced models— the ones that felt like real limbs— were laughably out of reach.

“it’s expensive,” he says, voice flat. It’s not a question.

you hesitate. shift your weight. “…the university gave me a budget.”

he watches you. waits. “…and is it enough to cover the costs?”

you don’t answer.

he sighs and pulls out his phone.

you blink. “what are you doing?”

“making a call.”

simon doesn’t ask for favors. he doesn’t like owing people. doesn’t like being in someone’s debt. But this— this isn’t only for him.

it’s for you too.

he doesn’t hesitate when he dials price’s number. the line barely rings twice before it picks up. “this better be good, ghost.”

it's the price standard. no greeting, no pleasantries.

“it is,” he says. “need a favor.”

a pause. not because price is surprised— simon doesn’t ask for favors often, but when he does, it’s never something small. It’s never something for him.

“go on.”

simon glances at you. you’re watching him, curiosity and just a little bit of suspicion. the old leather of his gloves creaking as he crosses his arms. “need a sponsor.”

another pause. then, dry as hell— “what, you starting a football team?”

he rolls his eyes. “no.”

“boxing, then?”

“price.”

the humor fades. a quiet sigh. “who’s it for?”

he hesitates. just for a second. not because he doesn’t know what to say— because he doesn’t know why he’s saying it. “she’s building a prosthetic,” he says finally. “one I need.”

one i want, he doesn't say.

“your arm acting up?”

“yeah.”

“so get it fixed.”

“this is better.”

price doesn’t say anything for a while and simon knows the old man is thinking, turning things over, considering.

then: “she good?”

siimon glances at you again. you’re shifting through your notes now. he exhales. “yeah.”

he hums, considering. “you trust her?”

that’s what it comes down to. trust.

simon has trusted exactly three people in his life:

1. his mother. until she was gone.

2. price. who never asked for it, never demanded it, but earned it anyway.

3. johnny. who trusts him back without question.

and now, there’s you. he wouldn’t be making this call if he didn’t. “…yeah,” he says.

and that’s all price needs to hear.

you protest the second simon shoves the phone into your hands. try to give it back, eyes wide like he just handed you a live grenade.

but he just crosses his arms, leans against the drafting table, and nods at the phone. “explain.”

you hesitate for way too long before reluctantly pressing it to your ear. “alright, kid. sell me on it.”

you freeze.

“oh my god, i hate you,” you whisper at simon before launching into a shaky but passionate explanation of your thesis to whoever the hell is on the other end of this call.

price listens. makes the occasional noise of interest. asks a few questions. and then— “alright. send me the details. i’ll see what i can do.”

you blink. “wait- so-?”

“i’ll sponsor the damn thing. might even endorse it a little.”

you stare at the phone like it's just grown legs.

“just make sure it works, yeah?”

you nod like he can see you, mumbling out a “thank you so much, sir,” before fumbling to hand the phone back to simon.

simon takes it, tucks it back into his pocket, and proceeds to act like this wasn’t a big deal at all.

you gape at him. “who even was that guy?”

“someone you don’t want to owe a favor.”

your eyes narrow. “and you do?”

simon shrugs. “already owed him one.”

and that’s true. priice has done more for simon than he can count. gave him a job when he didn’t deserve one, gave him a reason to live when he thought he’d run out.

if sponsoring you means putting another tally on that tab, then so be it.

…

you learn more about simon throughout the months.

he doesn’t like cucumbers. you find that out when he picks them out of his sandwich with the kind of silent disgust that makes it clear this is a habit, a ritual, a deeply ingrained practice that will not change no matter how many times you tell him he’s being dramatic.

he doesn’t sleep much. that’s another thing. you catch it in the way he moves, the way his eyes flick around a room too quickly, too sharp for someone who’s gotten a full night’s rest. sometimes, when he’s sitting at your table and riley is curled up by his feet, he just stares off like he’s somewhere else, mind miles away. you don’t ask where.

he doesn’t like sitting with his back to the door. ever. it doesn’t matter where you are— your apartment, a coffee shop, some hole-in-the-wall diner— he always angles himself so he can see the entrance. you test it once, sitting at a booth before he gets there, taking the seat facing the door. when he arrives, he stares at you for all of two seconds before just sighing and sliding in next to you instead of across. you don’t do it again.

he fixes things when he’s anxious. your loose cabinet hinge, the flickering kitchen light, the leaky faucet. he doesn’t say anything. just gets up, pulls out a tool, and starts working like it’s the most natural thing in the world. you find out that the calluses on his fingers aren’t just from weapons—he knows how to take things apart and put them back together, knows how to get grease under his nails, how to run his hands over a surface and understand exactly how it works.

he doesn’t like closed doors. doesn’t like feeling boxed in. when he’s at your place, he always leaves the door cracked, just a little. at first, you think it’s just a habit, but one night you’re in the kitchen and you see the way his shoulders ease when he glances up and sees the open space. you don’t say anything. you just stop closing the door all the way when he’s around.

one day, you’re working on fitting the prosthetic to his stump. it’s finally starting to look like an arm.

simon sits across from you, his forearm resting on the table as you carefully adjust the fit. he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t shift, doesn’t do anything except watch as you secure the straps and check the connection points.

“any discomfort?” you ask, frowning as you examine the joints.

he flexes his fingers, rolling his wrist. “no.”

you glance up. “are you sure?”

he snorts, a short breath of amusement. “you want me to make somethin’ up?”

“no, i want you to tell me if it hurts.”

his lips twitch, but he doesn’t argue. just shifts slightly, testing the range of motion. “feels good,” he says finally.

you nod, make a note. “good.”

rain starts somewhere in the background. a soft patter at first, then heavier, filling the quiet of your apartment. you barely notice at first, too focused on your work, but then you glance up and realize how late it’s gotten.

simon leans back slightly, rolling his shoulders. the room is dim now, the warm glow of your lamps casting long shadows across the walls. riley is curled up on the couch, one ear flicking at the sound of the rain.

you hesitate.

simon notices. lifts a brow.

“what?”

you swallow, shifting in your seat. “would you like to stay over?”

there’s a beat of silence.

simon blinks, slow. looks at you, then out the window, where the rain is coming down in thick, steady sheets.

“…you sure?”

you nod, maybe a little too fast. “yeah. it’s late. roads are bad.” you clear your throat. “and- i mean. it’s not like you sleep much anyway, right?”

he huffs out something that could be a laugh. drags a hand down his face. when he looks back at you, his expression is unreadable, something wry and considering.

“alright,” he says finally. “but i’m takin’ the couch.”

you roll your eyes. “obviously.”

he smirks. you get up to grab blankets. riley stretches on the couch, taking up as much space as possible, and simon mutters something about “bloody dog” but doesn’t move him.

the rain keeps falling. the room is warm.

simon stays.

…

months of refining, testing, and sleepless nights have led to this— the almost-final version of the prototype. the culmination of your work, a piece of engineering so advanced it almost breathes beneath your fingertips. simon sits before you, broad shoulders hunched slightly forward, his flesh-and-blood hand resting on his knee while the new prosthetic gleams under the workshop lights.

it’s a work of art, even if he’d never call it that. matte black plating, smooth but lined with faint ridges where the internal components shift and adjust to mimic the movement of muscle. beneath the casing, synthetic tendons coil and flex like real ones, powered by the delicate balance of neural signals and finely tuned actuators. when he moves his fingers, the transition is seamless, each digit reacting in perfect sync with his intent, no longer the slight delay of older models.

he watches as you adjust the final connection points, the alignment of the servos. the heat of his gaze is palpable, but he stays silent, letting you work.

then— a flicker in the system.

it's subtle at first, a low hum beneath the surface of the plating. then it builds. a vibration rolls through the arm, an erratic tremor that makes the fingers twitch. simon lifts it slightly, inspecting it with mild curiosity, flexing his hand.

“huh,” he muses, tone is as dry as ever. “well. could be a vibrator.”

your brain short-circuits. “what-” your fingers slip, almost dropping the tool in your hand. heat floods your face. “that’s- no. absolutely not.”

he tilts his head, studying you like he’s just found something interesting. “was this meant-”

“no!” you blurt, too quick, too loud.

simon is skeptical. “be honest.”

your throat tightens. you look at the circuitry, the faint whir of the servos, anywhere but his face. “…i just- i thought it’d be good-”

his brow arches. “good for what?”

“you look like someone who gets a lot of girls, alright?”

there’s a beat of silence.

simon leans back slightly, tapping his fingers against the metal plating. the low buzz of the malfunctioning motor is the only sound in the room. “is that so?”

before you can even think of a way to explain yourself, he moves.

his grip is swift, fingers curling around your wrist. there’s no real force behind it, no intention to hurt. just a casual show of strength, a reminder of just how easy it is for him to manhandle you. you barely have time to react before he pulls, tipping you off balance.

you land on his lap, breath stuttering out of you in a quiet gasp.

he settles you there like you belong, his flesh-and-blood hand pressing into the small of your back. you feel the heat of him beneath you, the solid mass of his thighs, the way his breath stays even while yours quickens.

the prosthetic hums again.

before your brain can catch up, he moves his arm, pressing the vibrating palm against the seam of your jeans, right between your thighs.

your spine straightens, legs twitching against the instinct to squeeze shut, but his knee is right there, keeping you open.

simon makes a considering noise, watching your reaction. his voice drops, low and lazy.

“since you built it,” he muses, letting the vibration roll against you, “might as well test its full range of function, yeah?”

his head tilts, gaze flicking down to your parted lips. you’re already shaking, already aching, slick and soaked through before he’s even put his hands on you properly.

his weight shifts, thighs bracketing yours, hands adjusting. the grip he has on you firms, fingers pressing deep into soft flesh, making sure you don’t slip away.

not that you would. not that you could.

his breath ghosts over your cheek and your head tips back automatically, a slow surrender, baring your throat. simon makes a low sound of approval, and then his fingers tighten, curling into the denim at your hips.

"si-"

"oh, sweetheart.” he slowly tugging your pants down. "you in a rush? thought you liked when i took my time."

simon's hand drags over your thigh, metal knuckles gliding over your skin. the pressure he uses is just enough to make you feel it, to make your breath hitch, thighs twitching as something hot sparks low in your belly.

"shakin’, love. that bad, huh?"

his fingers stroke over your panties, pressing into the slick beneath.

"fuck," simon laughs, dragging his palm over your thigh, fingers spreading, squeezing. "you're dripping. what, just from me takin’ off your jeans? christ, love, that’s pathetic. you really need it that bad?"

your hips jolt, desperate, chasing friction. instinct drives you— no thought, no shame, just the raw ache of needing him.

simon tsks, shaking his head like it’s funny, like he isn’t already rolling his hips against your leg, cock hard and twitching beneath denim. his fingers press against the soaked cotton between your thighs, rubbing slow circles over your clit.

"built this thing for me," he mutters, mostly to himself, watching his own fingers move, the thick, cool metal pressed flush against heat-swollen flesh. "and look at you. already makin’ a fuckin’ mess all over it."

his mouth twitches. not quite a smirk. something meaner, hungrier.

his gaze drags up, pinning you in place. sharp. knowing. "bet you thought about it, though," he says. "at least once. didn’t you?"

heat spikes through you, curling in your gut. shame prickles at the edges, but it doesn’t matter. not when he’s right. you had thought about it. had imagined this. had pictured his prosthetic between your legs, pressing down, making you beg, the hard edges of metal digging into soft, soaked flesh, the slow hum vibrating against your clit until you couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but come apart on him.

your fingers clutch at his shoulders, grasping for something solid, but he doesn’t move. doesn’t acknowledge how you tremble beneath him. just watches. tracks.

you stare up at him, panting, barely able to focus, and— god, his face.

the sharp lines of his jaw, the slope of his cheekbones, the scar that cuts jagged through the scruff along his chin. his stubble is coarse, speckled with hints of gray, a little uneven along his jaw. coarse shadows frame his mouth, dust over his upper lip, the cut of his jaw. his nose has been broken before, maybe more than once, slightly crooked where it was never set right. the thin pink ridge of an old scar cuts through his left eyebrow, splitting it clean in half, a deeper line stretching down the side of his face, the tail end disappearing into the rough stubble at his jaw.

you don’t get long to stare.

his mouth crashes against yours, rough and urgent, teeth knocking against teeth, lips parting just enough to let him shove his tongue deep, curling against yours, licking into your mouth, taking, claiming.

his teeth sink into your bottom lip, sharp, hard enough to sting. you whimper, legs shaking, and he groans like he feels it everywhere, like he wants to eat you alive.

then— a hum. low. steady. vibrating against your cunt.

your whole body jolts, spine arching, hands flying to his arms, fingers twisting into the thick, corded muscle of his biceps.

you gasp into his mouth, try to pull back, try to breathe, but he doesn’t let you.

simon’s arm locks around your waist, dragging you closer, pressing you down against the hard, pulsing vibration between your legs.

"fuckin’ christ," he groans, fingers slipping beneath soaked fabric, spreading you open. his breath stutters, mouth barely moving as he stares down at his own hand, at the thick, slick mess coating his fingers. "you’re soaked."

his cock throbs against your thigh, thick and heavy where it presses into the denim of his jeans, pulsing hot through the fabric.

his fingers stroke through slick, teasing, pressing against your clit, and the vibration amps up.

you cry out, body jolting, hips stuttering, but he catches them in both hands, grips them tight, holds you still.

"jumped like a scared little rabbit.” Simon's breath is warm against your jaw, lips dragging over your pulse.

his hand stills.

his fingers rest against your clit, pressing just enough to make you squirm, to keep you teetering, but he doesn’t move. doesn’t push you over. "should turn it up, yeah?"

your breath hitches, hips jolt, but his grip plants you right where he wants you.

"no runnin’," he breathes against your mouth. "you take what i fuckin’ give you."

pressure builds. tightens. burns through you a f through it all his eyes stay locked on yours.

the vibration shifts— harder, deeper. his fingers push inside, stretching, filling, pressing against every aching, sensitive spot.

your moan rips from your throat, raw and wrecked, nails sinking into the hard planes of his back. your legs twitch, thighs trembling where they clamp around his sides, but he doesn’t let up. doesn’t ease up.

simon grins, sharp and smug, lips curling against your temple. “atta girl,” he breathes, pushing you down, keeping you still.

his fingers press firm against the swollen bud beneath, dragging slow, torturous circles that make you jerk.

"swollen, love," his knuckles brush over your clit just enough to make your whole body twitch. "look at you-" his tongue drags over his bottom lip. "all fucked-out already, and i haven’t even started.”

a whimper spills from your throat. you twist beneath him, trying to get away— but there’s nowhere to go. simon is everywhere all at once.

simon’s head dips, breath warm as it ghosts over slick, swollen flesh. you’re open for him, spread wide, cunt glistening— slick dripping down the crease of your thigh, pooling beneath you.

he noses at you, the rough drag of his stubble scraping over sensitive skin, pressing lazy, open-mouthed kisses along the inside of your thigh.

"tastes sweet," he mutters, lips barely brushing where you need him. "dripping all over yourself, love. makin’ a fuckin’ mess just for me."

his tongue flicks out— soft, fleeting— not enough.

you cry out, hands flying to his hair, fingers twisting, trying to pull him in, trying to keep him there.

he smirks against your skin. "shh." another lick, just to watch you tremble. "poor thing. so sensitive."

you twitch, hips chasing his mouth, aching for more, needing him to stop teasing, needing him to eat you alive. but then—

he pulls away.

your eyes snap open, bleary, wild.

you barely register him moving, barely track the way he rises up, broad and so fucking smug.

you're about to ask where he's going when you you hear it.

the clink of his belt.

your breath hitches.

he drags it out, making you watch as his fingers work the buckle, making you listen to the quiet rasp of the zipper, the rustle of denim as he shoves his jeans down just enough—

his cock is flushed dark at the tip. pre-cum beads at the slit, smearing as he wraps his fingers around the base, giving it a slow, teasing stroke. the sheer girth of it stretches his grip wide, the veins running down the shaft prominent, pulsing, standing out beneath the taut skin. he’s obscenely long, thick enough that your thighs instinctively press together, anticipation twisting tight in your gut.

simon strokes himself again, dragging his fist up the thick length, thumb circling the swollen tip. his cock twitches in his grip, another bead of precum welling at the slit, spilling over, tracing a slick path down the ridges of a pulsing vein.

his fingers flex around the base, squeezing, drawing another lazy stroke up before dragging his thumb along the sensitive underside. a quiet exhale leaves him, sharp through his nose, body tensing at his own touch.

he taps the swollen head against your clit, watches the way you shudder, thighs trying to squeeze together even as they stay spread for him.

a whimper breaks from your throat.

simon smiles. "need it that bad, huh?"

you nod frantically, thighs trembling, nails biting into his skin.

he exhales through his nose, head shaking like he can’t believe you.

"fuckin’ insatiable," he mutters, pressing the head against your cunt. "guess i’ll just have to fuck it all out of you."

you sob beneath him, legs hooked around his waist, nails clawing at his shoulders.

"so tight," he grits out. "fuck- look at you, baby. takin’ me so good."

simon sinks an inch, just enough for the head to pop inside and his breath catches, body locking up, heat surging through his spine.

your cunt swallows him whole, warm and wet and too fucking tight, and instinct takes over—

his hips snap forward, bottoming out in one sharp stroke.

a broken noise rips from his throat, something between a groan and a whine, his body shuddering, his hands gripping your hips too tight as his cock jerks inside you, pulsing, spilling hot and thick before he can stop it.

his forehead drops to your shoulder, his whole body trembling, breath coming ragged, desperate.

"fuck-" his voice breaks. "oh, fuck."

your cunt throbs around him, squeezing, milking him even though he hasn’t even moved, and the overstimulation makes his body jolt, makes his jaw lock tight.

"oh my god.” your fingers claw at his back. "simon-!"

he groans into your skin, cock still twitching inside you.

"jesus christ..” he drags in a shaky breath, pulling back just enough to see your face— tear-streaked and glassy-eyed. "m'sorry- fuck, baby, i’m sorry, it’s been-" he chokes on his words, shaking his head, voice breaking. "god, it's been so long-"

he drags in another breath, body screaming, cock still throbbing with the aftershocks of his orgasm, but you’re still crying, still trembling beneath him, still so fucking needy.

and fuck, you deserve better than that.

he shakes his head, tries to will himself to stop, to apologize, to pull out— let you laugh at him if you want.

but your cunt is still squeezing him, soft and warm and perfect, and he can’t.

his hands slide down, gripping your thighs, spreading you open wider.

"fuck- i got you, baby," he pants, hips pulling back before snapping forward again. "fuckin’ hell.” his whole body shakes. "gonna make it up to you, promise. gonna give it to you like you need, yeah? gonna fuck you so good, baby, you’ll feel me for days."

you wail beneath him, thrashing, tears streaking hot down your cheeks, mouth open on a sob as he fucks into you, fast and hard, ignoring the way his cock aches, the way his whole body protests, pushing through it because you need this.

"simon- simon, please- oh my god- fuck!"

"shh, shh," he coos, a little breathless. "i know, baby, i know. takin’ it so good- fuck, squeezin’ me so tight."

you sob harder, clinging to him, and he groans, burying his face in your neck, pressing messy, open-mouthed kisses to your throat, sucking little bruises into your skin.

"fuck- oh fuck," his hips stutter, his own release rising again, too soon, too intense, but he doesn’t care, doesn’t give a fuck if it hurts.

"c’mon, love," he pants, "give me one more, yeah? cry all you want, baby, i love when you cry."

and when you finally do, when your body locks up around him and your walls squeeze tight, he groans loud and desperate, hips stuttering as he fucks you through it.

"there it is, fuck, there it is-"

he’s so proud, pressing wet, messy kisses to your cheeks, licking away the salt of your tears, whispering, "such a good girl, takin’ me so well, so fuckin’ perfect-"

"gonna cum again," simon tells you, almost pleading, "need to, sweetheart- need to cum deep in this perfect fucking cunt again-"

you wail, nodding, sobbing his name as your own orgasm crashes over you, squeezing down around him so tight it nearly knocks the air from his lungs.

simon groans, pressing his forehead to yours, gasping, desperate, hips snapping forward in rough, short little thrusts.

"good girl," he chokes out, "good fuckin’ girl-"

and then he's spilling into you again, sobbing into your skin, wrecked and shaking and completely fucking gone.

[jamneuromain]

The raw of John was otherworldly for sure

hnnnnnnng this just triggered my breeding kink

Jumping The Gun

or: the one where John Price fucks the idea of marriage into you.

cw: 5.9k words (gawd DAMN), 18+ MDNI, klutz in love!Price, kinda toxic!Price, smut with plot, no use of y/n, dumbification, squirting, p in v, protected & unprotected sex, dubcon, dumbification, creampie, breeding kink, marathon!, water show, cum eating, engagement, reader!has tattoos, reader!is in denial of Egypt, Daddy said a couple times idk, john visuals, reader visuals,

a/n: My Whole Life by Alina Baraz *chefs kiss*

Everyone in the 141 was shocked when John Price came back after taking a month an a half off for leave with a golden ring on his ring finger, a new picture frame to place on his desk, and practically jumping off the roof to fill out more paperwork for a special someone. Again.

You were his third marriage.

John was good at making quick decisions, making up his mind at the exact right time when it was do or die. But the old man was a complete klutz when it came to love.

The first marriage, admittedly, was never gonna last long. He was fresh out of highschool, still in the infantry and married his highschool sweetheart. His parents were sceptical but supportive. It wasn’t uncommon to marry early, hell, his parents did so why couldn’t he?

It just wasn’t in the cards.

The distance and the worry was just too much. The divorce was clean cut since they didn’t have any kids and we’re still young. Him and his ex-wife, Cara, were still fairly close. He’d get a call from the woman and her husband (surprisingly) to come over for dinner every once in a while. No bad blood.

But that second marriage? John was a goddamn idiot.

Was it his fault he married with his eyes and not with his brain? Yes. A man is still a man at the end of the day. You see a woman with an amazing set of knockers on her, pretty blue eyes, skinny waist and blonde hair— you’d fall for it too!

She was obnoxious, loud, and always, always, always needed new clothes, shoes, hair and nails done. Now John had no problem spending on his woman, he’d bring down Jupiter if had to. The problem was she complained and whined. Complained about the clothes not being ‘high quality enough,’ the house not being big enough, the brand new convertible not pink enough. Whined when she went over the already pricey budget the man set for her, that she couldn’t spend his life savings on her, that John was too hairy, ran too warm, too tall—no fucking sense.

He got out of the marriage by the scrape of his teeth, lucky that his siblings convinced him to get a prenup. She left with no pounds to her name, shoving all her belongings in that hot pink convertible and crying that no money went to her when the captain had sold the house.

But you? Oh you. His honey, sweet girl, little wanderer— you were the real deal.

John was walking with a couple friends heading to some bar a few hours after being back in the UK. You were walking the opposite direction, bags from different stores after a day of shopping in your hand. You looked like a model, long black trench coat on, a fitted baby blue crop top, black leather shorts that showed off the tattoos that went down your legs, slouched heeled boots that went mid calf. Curls blowing in the wind, you thankfully hadn’t noticed the hairy fellow till you bumped into him.

“You alright?”

Your brown eyes met his blue ones as he steadied you upright. You were awe struck, as if you were meeting a famous person on the street but you had just ran into a good looking older, muscular, brunette with a few stray grey hairs. You slowly started nodding, laughing aloud at yourself at how dumb you probably looked. “ ‘M just fine.” You said breathlessly.

You started to hear the passing cars, bustle of the streets and the murmur from your phone as your friend on the line was calling out to you. “Shit, I-I gotta go.”

And your feet was guiding you away without another word but your eyes were still glued to the man as you walked away. Looking back as he watched you walk away. You chuckles as you got back on the phone with your friend, disappearing into the croud.

The second time he saw you he was heading for a tea, as he walked past ‘Walker Travel Agency.’ John glanced inside and there a woman sat— no— you, sat turning in your chair towards the computer as you spoke to someone through your Bluetooth. You were dressed in an oversized white button up, black slacks, hair now pin straight in a low ponytail, pinned back by a few purple clips with very a light blush on your cheeks.

Even dressed casually, you were a sight for sore eyes. He tried his best not to look like a creep as he finally went to go get his tea but his eyes were glued to you as he walked past the office again. He figured it was fine just this once. Twice, three times— okay, maybe a forth that was completely out of the way of the military base and his own home but this was fine.

He was just getting tea after all.

But the forth time you stood by the water cooler sipping water, you caught those blue eyes. A small smile formed on your face as he tripped a bit once he saw you finally looking back at him. You gave him a small, shy wave with your fingers before he completely passed the building. Your angelic smile growing wider as he passed the building again to get to his car.

And that continued for another week, waves and smiles and stupid blushes that made his heart jump outs until he finally got the courage to pop his head in. He’d just say hello, this was a silly crush. Nothing more, nothing less.

The doorbell chimed once the door opened and you immediately sat straight in your chair, as you were trained to do when a potential customer came in.

“I was thinking of a trip?”

No he wasn’t. He knew that, you knew that by the way he was completely dressed in military attire and kept staring at you instead of the posters of different vacation spots on the wall. But you nodded your head, gesturing for him to take a seat in front of your desk.

“Where would you like to go sir?”

You two hit it off after that. John would pop his head in, leaving thirty minutes before his lunch break even started just to get his little dose of you, before running off to get a tea. You even started making tea so he didn’t have to go to the coffee shop.

Right, it was his lunch break?

You’d made sure to start packing lunch for two and arranging meetings so your lunch break was suddenly at the same time as his. You didn’t know why you did it for your new friend, it just felt right. You made that forty something year old man feel like a teenager again, he couldn’t just sit on this crush forever. He wouldn’t.

*Care to join me for a pint after work?*

A simple text that he’d debated on for two days had him flushed.

*new message*

Don’t usually drink beer :(

Two days down the drain. Maybe he should’ve asked for dinner instead? Or a movie? A walk? Too fucking causal—

*new message*

but if you’re the one asking, how can I say no?

text me where baby :))

Gaz had to make sure he wasn’t sick before he left work that day because he was as red as a cherry tomato.

You laid it out clean to John that you weren’t ready for a relationship.

“ ‘M too flighty ya see.”

“How so?” You two had already been in the crowded pub at a booth, you’d been chatting for 3 hours already senselessly. One pint for each of you, you weren’t good with beer while John just didn’t wanna make a drunken mistake.

“I told you I’ve just been here for a year, right?”

He hummed, nodding for you to continue.

“Well I was in Brazil before that, Osaka for a couple months before that. DR, LA and France before all that.”

“Oh, you’re a real traveler I see.”

“More than you.” You smirked and John laughed, “Think you can beat me sweetheart? Been all over the world ‘nd back. Thrice over.”

You teased, “I can beat’cha soon enough, just wait on it.” You sighed, picking up your half empty glass to take a sip, “But really, a relationship right now is a no-can-do for me. I’d hate to waste yer time after you’ve been so kind t’me honey.”

“Not a single moment with you has been a waste’ve time, believe me [+].” It was gentle but stern, your fingers brushed over the table which made your heart race faster.

John was too sweet, sinkingly so. It made you question how his marriages didn’t work sometimes but you kept your mouth shut about it. You gave him a smile, “I wouldn’t mind bein fuck buddies though.”

His thick eyebrows furrowed together, “Oh John come on now, you ain’t that old!”

Friends who fucked, he knew what it was. But with you? Someone that he’d grown to care for? This was a line he preferred not to cross.

But damn, those brown eyes under the dim light, the mid length blow out that went just below your shoulders, your long sleeve flared blouse that showed off your cleavage just right, wasn’t helping. He hadn’t even realized he’d given you a ‘sounds good to me’ before you gave him an okay and went on to another topic as if you two hadn’t just agreeded to be sex partners.

The night came to a close around 10:50, John didn’t want you at the station by yourself late at night since you were a woman so he took you home.

“I’m a grown woman, John.” You insisted for the thousandth time.

“Yer a grown woman that ‘m drivin home. Exactly. Yer right.” John nodded along with you nonchalantly and you groaned into a giggling fit, no longer being able to fight with him over this.

You pulled up to your apartment and pointed out a parking spot, John followed suit. Thinking you’d probably rather get out of a parked car than hold up traffic on a Friday night.

You got out the car, looking between your apartment building and the older man.

“You wanna come up?”

John fucking Price was a god damn problem.

The first time you two fucked, was just to dip your toes in. See if the older man could handle you, keep up with what you were up to.

The second time was for good measure. You had to make sure it wasn’t an illusion! Get your bearings in order.

The third time— looking back you should’ve known that’s when he caught you. And I mean really had you for good because you’d be damned if he was fucking some other girl the way he was fucking you.

You had to have a cordial briefing with your friend group, explaining to them how you were now a born again Christian because John didn’t just have you seeing stars. No— you saw Jesus resurrecting from the tomb, legs shaking as they were wrapped around his hips. Chest to chest, as John knelt on the bed, fucking up into you through your orgasm. You’d pushed yourself away from him but he snatched you up just before you passed out.

“Stay with me lovie, can’t have you passin out on me can I?” His pink lips connected with your neck again. Your entire body was trembling. This fool, this barbarian, loooved making you a dummy on his dick. You’d learned that the second time. But this time, fuck, it was strange.

“Strange, baby, it feels- mmph s-strange.” You mumbled through a moan, you were limp as he held onto your waist with one arm, bouncing you just the way he needed you to. He was practically using you as a sex toy and you hadn’t minded. You were drooling on his shoulder and down your own face and that freak kept lapping it up. Opening your mouth so he could spit it back in you and suck on your tongue.

“Your tight little cunt squeezing me so good. You love when I suck your tongue, don’t you pretty?”

Your eyes were rolling into each other again, “loooove it sooooo much Daddy.”

“Come on, kiss me while I give it to you.” He didn’t have to tell you twice to get your lips to latch onto his. John kissed so romantic like, slow, desperate— like he was trying to mold the two of you together and you loved it. John’s thrusts got fast, barley pulling out with every swing of his hips up into your tight walls. But he kept hitting your g-spot, clit rubbing right at the bottom of his hairy abdomen. It felt amazing— too amazing—

You yankied yourself away from him again, “wait! ‘M serious- J- fuuuck- John! It’s too weird! I’m- shit- ‘m gonna pee!”

“ ‘S not pee, let it go.” He gruffed, groaning at how good you felt around his swelling cock.

“It isssss!” You whined out, slapping at his arms but he wouldn’t let up.

“Come on sweet girl, squirt all over me. Wanna be covered in you.”

And the crash came, water works flying every which way and your eyes. John came right after you, babbling about how good you were, how amazing you felt around him. But you were crying real tears now, you swore you just peed all over this older man’s thighs even though you told him it was weird. It was humiliating.

“I told you I was gonna pee, ‘nd you didn’t listen!” You hiccuped, covering your face as John laid you back on the bed. He’s eyebrow lifted as he slipped out of you, removing the filled condom and examining the situation that was now on his pudgy stomach, his thighs, your legs and the bed.

“Sweetie,” he started chuckling at how cute were being, you shoved one of your wobbly legs at his chest. It didn’t do any damage. “Have you never squirted before?”

“No,” you sniffled, “ ‘s just pee!”

“ ‘S not the same thing lovie.”

“Yes it issss!” You retorted, going to kick him again but your own leg giving up on you.

John rubbing your thighs as he got inbetween them. Your pussy was glistening in the rooms light, too mesmerized, he let the pads of two fingers take a swipe of all the juices that sat on your vulva and putting it in his mouth. He moaned at the taste.

You gasped, “John!” You hadn’t meant to see the sight through your fingers but shit, it was making you even more wet. The older saw you squirm, shaking his head, he needed a front row seat this time. He lifted your thighs over his shoulders so his mouth was right in front of your cunt.

“Gotta feel it on my tongue baby, won’t you? Please?”

You two went on like that, calling each other whenever you needed. You were always the first to know when the Captain got home, before his own family, because he’d have his fat cock in you by the time you could finish saying ‘welcome back.’

John couldn’t lie and say it was inconvenient getting to let off steam other than exercising or taking a swing of bourbon. It didn’t help that you were actually such a sweet girl, he loved being around. You two would hang out when you had the chance, going out and about or just watching a movie at home. When you were out, all dolled up in a mid thigh, navy blue sun dress and white heels showed off those gorgeous legs, curls in a high ponytail— you two looked like a sugar daddy and a sugar baby. But you never cared about the looks people gave you, you’d grab his larger hand in yours that was freshly manicured with long soft yellow nails and swing your hands back and forth. Even taking the time to introduce the man properly when you ran into your friends on the street.

“He’s a real carin, smart and just all around incredible guy I swear,” Your eyes would beam at him, so longingly then back to your friends and back to John because you always found yourself getting lost in his pretty ocean blue eyes. “I’m real thankful to have met a man like him.”

How could he have not fallin for you?

It was when you and John accidentally ran into his parents while casually hanging out in his home town he knew he just had to marry you.

You were as charismatic as ever, your southern charm easily pulling them in. John thought for sure they’d be more careful since you were younger than the past two women that John brought to meet them. But despite how eccentric you looked in your shorts that hung off your hips, waist beads around your stomach, crop top and the tattoos that his parents generation definitely weren’t used to, layered necklaces and bracelets— they easily fell for you just like he did.

“You sure ‘bout takin them out for lunch, [+]? You don’t have to.”

You rolled your eyes, pulling out of the parking spot and onto the road.

“It’s only right to treat the folks who raised you John. They’ve done well with you, ‘nd ‘m sure your siblings ‘re just as kind. Plus I kinda wanna see more of your smile through your mom. It’s sooo fuckin cute.”

Yup.

That was right there confirmed, he was gonna put a ring on that fuckin finger. He could’ve blurted it out while at that quaint little lunch you had. His parents adored you, even got your number down to give you a call if you needed anything while you were still in the UK.

The man was gonna get you to stay in the UK.

The first time he’d asked, it was too fucking casual. Again, the man was always too eager. Tripping and falling through love was a bad habit of his. You’d laughed in his face.

“John, baby, please be serious.” You threw your braids up in a ponytail, tip toeing around the room to get your clothes. John did that on purpose, the old man always wanted a little more time with you, to see the sunrise kissing your skin perfectly as that after glow of sex looked gorgeous on you.

He’d pout under that thick beard, fuckin precious bear, “ ‘M bein serious. Want us t’get married, be happy.”

“Don’t you leave next week John?”

“So?”

You deadpanned, “John.”

Okay, he was too eager that time. He should’ve thought it though. Right, you deserved proper proposal planning. Not some random after sex question. You made your way over to that big guy, he was still naked, sitting on the bed with his feet on the floor. You bent over, that same gleam in your brown eyes that shown every time you looked at him. He could’ve fuckin melted right then and there as you placed your hands on his knees, leaving a long a gentle kiss on the corner of his lips.

“You call me if ya need anything John. I mean it, even if it’s those fuckin cookies-“

“—Biscuits—“

“—Whateverrr~” you giggled, lightly touching his beard as John took your waist in his hands. Shit, he’d miss you. Miss your kindness, your willingness to drop everything for him, those long lashes that fluttered when you woke up. “I’ll send ‘em yer way, letter ‘f course too. Whatever ya need, John, you let me know.”

With the softest kiss on the lips, you were on your merry way just as you usually were.

The second time John proposed, he did it right.

He had a proper ring. Simple, because you loved simple. The box was in his pants pocket the entire night, itching to get out. You went to a nice fancy dinner to a place you swore you’d only told him once about, took you for a nice stroll, your curls in a half up, half down, dress hugging you just right and John was in a dressy casual. Ultra simple, classic. He was sure he’d get a yes this time.

He hadn’t even gotten the chance to get on he knee before you’d grab his hands. Your bottom lip trembling.

“Sweetheart…”

“Need you tuh listen t’me baby, please.” You pleaded, tears already threatening to burst out like a dam.

“Now I care ‘boutcha so much John. So much that I hate myself fer puttin you in a situation like this.” You sniffled, squeezing his hand to reassure him.

“But ya can’t marry me.” John lamented.

“John—“

“—what is it then? Is it the age gap? I thought you’d gotten over it.”

“John-“ “-clothes? I’ll give it to you. Want me to shave? Done. Love? I’ve got multitudes. If it’s money- it’s yours.” He was racking his brain for something, anything that could’ve draw you to keep him near. 

“I don’t want your money John.” You cursed.

“Then what do you want?! Why can’t I give it to you?!”

“I want your happiness above all else John! But I can’t-“ your voice croaked. You let go of his hands, “I can’t give that back to ya. I know I can’t.”

“Tha’s a fuckin lie—“

“—I’m sorry John. Truly.”

Without another word, you’d ran off. Your heals clicking against the pavement, cries heard through the silent park.

You’d known John for a year but technically only about 5 months since he was away for the other seven. But you knew so much about him, he’d send letters whenever he could, call, text and be right with you when he was back because it ‘felt like the place he needed to be’. It wasn’t a shock that John had grown to love you, it was a shock that you’d grown to love him too.

It scared the living shit out of you.

So you did what you always did.

Move.

It never took you long, you always had a storage unit ready, a few cardboard boxes in the back of your closet, a new job to hire you in another country because you always knew a little bit of the language. But this time you didn’t move far enough, you didn’t have to heart to. If John were to call you right now, you would’ve dropped what you were doing and ran to him.

Which is why you blocked him on everything (even though he didn’t use social media that often).

You moved yourself to the countryside, in a much smaller apartment but in a much quieter town by the sea. You were working the front of a fish market, did you know about fish? No. Did they hire you because you were pretty and your endless list of credentials at other random places on your resume? Yes. You didn’t have a problem with blending right in, building peoples trust with ease.

It was a good and bad habit.

John on the other hand was loosing his mind because he didn’t know where the hell you were. He couldn’t call you, couldn’t text you, and you weren’t replying to his letters. Fuck, the man called his parents and they managed to get an answer but only vague answers.

He’d come to you flat after being away, rushing through (but properly taken care of) a mission because he needed to make sure you were alright. As he rung thr buzzer, he got no answer. He was lucky one of your neighbors came out and told him what had happened.

How could you have moved without telling him, of all people?

It hurt him more than anything to have a mishap like that happen and then not be able to contact you. But to move? With no explanation?

He could play cat and mouse.

He’d play it constantly in the 141, taking down terrorists and the like in less than a couple weeks— you’d be an easy find. He was sure of it.

He’d found you soon enough, a couple days, in that god damn fish market, a wide smile on your face as you talked to the multiple people who crowded the stall where you worked. Why were you working here of all places?

He ignored the growing concerns, joining the line of customers at the stall. Most of the customers having something to say to you and you encouraging more conversation as they made their orders and paid. Then it was his turn. He took a step forward and you looked up at him like you’d seen a ghost. Your heart dropped out of your ass. He looked to the fish that sat on display on ice, then to you and titled his head.

“When do you get off?”

“John-“

“-When.” The older man spoke tightly. It came out more like a statement than a question.

The lady who worked with you, Malissa, chimed in with a knowing smile, “Give ‘er an hour.”

Your eyes widened at the older woman whilst John gave her a pleased look, “I’ll be around.” John left the building and you felt your stomach turn over. You glared at Malissa and she laughed at you, “But it’s love, isn’t it [+]?”

Was it that obvious?

Couldn’t have been. As if the blush showed on your brown cheeks. You gave him the same smile you did everyone else, didn’t you? The same kindness, same glances you snuck, soft touches, and the same brushing of fingers. The way you held onto that man’s arm as you presented him to your friends like a trophy, you did the same to anyone else you admired, right? Right?

No fucking way you did. John was the one, well, situation you fully committed to head first. And you didn’t even know when that happened, you liked the thought of someone romantically caring for you, the kindness and joy that was always a package deal when being in that guys presence. Someone that took you and your hopes and dreams serious for once in your life.

Oh God, you were in deep love with John Price.

You could’ve been thrown across the field by your own heart pounding so loud when you walked out of the market. John sitting on the bench, cigar between his fingers, watching the passersbyers and then at you. He stood, nodding for you to follow him in some direction.

“Let’s take a walk.”

The tension was too damn high. You could feel it through the air as you too walked, the only sound being made was the sound of you feet on pavement, the jingle of keys, the sea in the distance. Your curls were probably a mess now, the cold air blowing every which way.

“How’ve you been?” You tried cutting through the ice, eyes finding anything else to look at.

John paused for a moment, a sigh coming out, “I didn’t think you hated me enough to block me [+].”

You winced, as if it pained you to hear those words alone. “I could never hate you John.”

“Then why-“ another frustrated sigh, “You switched jobs to avoid me!”

You squinted your eyes, “Why would you wanna see me after that John!? There was nothing more to say. I was trying to make your life easier!”

“And why would life be easier without you?” His eyebrows furrowed, hand on his hip. He kept rubbing his face.

You opened your mouth to say something, try to get out of the mess you made but nothing would come out. John wanted to laugh at this but it’s not like it would be genuine. Scoffing, he flicked the end of the cigar to the ground. You were like a Hurricane, create a mess to keep people away but right at the center, there was a serene calm. Only soft winds. You didn’t know what you were doing with yourself. John, saw that.

“I’ll take you home.”

“I can walk from here though.”

John gently took your hand in his, looking down at you with sincerity in his blue eyes. “You know how I feel about you bein alone like this. Let me take you home.”

It didn’t take much convincing, it was just a short 5 minute drive from the hills you stood now to your flat. John opened the door to the car for you, making sure you were safely tucked in before slamming it shut and getting in the drivers side. He drove off, down to the main road but then passed the street you had pointed out.

“Where we going?”

“Home.”

“But my place is-“

“—[+], please.” His jaw was clenched, gripping the wheel and your thigh. “You hate it so much, you yell to the rooftops that ya hate me. Despise every breath I breathe. I’ll stop right now.”

Like you would. You huffed, crossing your arms and looking out the window.

John didn’t get irritated easy. Patience was a vertue, that’s what his parents told him all the time. After two marriages you’d think the man would’ve learned by now.

But the man was starving for you, aching to have you say you were his and he was yours after all this and you still not knowing what you wanted— he’d make the decision for you.

You would be his wife and you two were getting married.

The thought of John being mean hadn’t crossed your mind once.

John Price who was usually so gentle, tapping your thigh so you could move yourself in whatever position he wanted you in, grabbing pillows so it would be easier on you, always checking if you were alright every take you reached you high.

That was not the John you were dealing with right now. He was manhandling however he wanted, both hands on your ass cheeks, legs over his arms, slamming you up and down on his cock and letting you cum over and over. Till he had enough of you in that position and fucked you right on the floor, your back getting carpet burn in front of the bedroom door that you didn’t get the chance to close.

And fuck, you thought it was heavenly before, him raw was otherworldly. You felt every ridge, every vein, every twist of his throbbing manhood, every once of precum that made your walls even wetter than they already were.

“Gonna fill you up-“

“—John- mmm- you can’t-“

He grunted, swatting your hands that tried to push him away.

“Gonna fill ya up like a good husband should,” the man’s nodding at his own words, already pussy drunk. But he was speaking words that he’s held back for months. “gotta getcha ready for when we have a baby.”

You hiccuped, John was talking crazy. A baby? A marriage? With John? And he’s whispering it all in your ear. This was tooooo much— too full—

“John i-it’s too deep! I- shit- gimmie a second—“

He pouted, fucking pouted, as if he didn’t know he was pushing his fat, veiny, cock to the fucking hilt of you. Your ankles somehow at the back of your head, “Can’t ya see it baby? You, waddlin around with our baby inside you-“ John hissed, you just kept clenching around him perfectly everytime he thrusted into his “-In a new house- haaah— after we broken it in ‘f course. Gotta break it in for good- fuckin- measure. Little ones running around, an office for daddy ‘nd a office for mummy— It’ll be perfect.”

You didn’t even realize you were cumming, your ears were just ringing, cunt contracting around Johns dick like you were aching for it.

You’d never in your life had a man cum inside you, but my God. John, this old barbarian, was gonna get you addicted to each and every single shot of cum that came from his leaking tip that reached inside your deepest place.

“Fuck, gotta give you another baby.”

John was determined to fuck you into delerium, you’d pass out after cumming so much and wake up to John sucking his cum out of you. Water breaks? The older man is sipping it and putting it in your mouth. Felt stuffy in the bedroom? No problem, John’s moving you to the bathroom to fuck you there with your leg propped up on the bath tub, the wall in the hallway looked like it was missing your face being pressed into it as John drilled you from behind.

Hungry? John’s feeding you whatever he cooked up the thirty minutes he’d left your bruised pussy alone, and then having you cock warm him in the fucking kitchen. All while kissing all over you, how you were such a pretty wife on his dick.

“We gonna get married John?” You slurred out, sticking your thumb in his mouth then sticking it in yours and moaning at the taste. Sweet.

You were fucked out, if the man said he was gonna max out your cards right now he could’ve. But you were, in fact, his finance. Right then and there, no one could convince you otherwise.

“S-Say that again sweetheart?”

You gripped the back of his neck your your hand, getting him to look at you head on, pecking his lips once. Twice. Three times, “You said you’d make me your wife, you’d really do that John? Make me a wife? Won’t get tired of me?”

“Oh birdie, h-how could I ever get tired of you? I-I’m in love you you.”

“Really? I love- I love yooouu John.” Your hips practically rolled on their own, the captain throwing his head back against the headboard for dear life.

“Fuck mee lovie— whatever you want, whateverrr you fucking want.” His hands found your hips, guiding you just the way you needed to get off. Slow, mean— loving.

“G-god, so amazin, amazin John! Wan’ a chapel wedding -ngghh- You, me, some rings and that fuckin preist,”

“ ‘F course baby, course.” John was stammering out words, he could barley keep up now. Fuck, rings. Those fucking rings— “wait baby, gimmie a second.”

“But John,” you keened, hating the idea of being apart for even a millisecond. Oh you’d be the death of that old man. And he wouldn’t’ve minded dying in your sopping cunt knowing you wanted to marry him.

He’d marry you from hell if he had to.

He reached out to the nightstand, an arm hooked around your waist to keep you close as you sloppily rode him, fumbling to grab the black box he placed there yesterday.

Some how he managed to get that box open, two golden rings sat inside. He grabbed yours, tossing the box to the side and slipping the ring on the proper finger.

“Oh! It’s sooo pretty John!” You moaned, eyes stuck to the ring, heart eyes practically forming in your pupils as you looked at the man who was balls deep inside you.

“Come on wife, you know how to cum for your future husband don’t you?”

“You keep looking at it.”

“ ‘S just so nice John.”

It was a single gold ring that fit your finger perfectly, the matching one that you asked to put on John once woke you up. You two were completely knocked out after two days of going at it like animals. You couldn’t feel your legs and your voice was an inch off from being shot. But you couldn’t keep your mouth shut. You loved being engaged, you loved John, and you loved the thought of a future with him.

“You wanna have a small wedding, don’t you?” John entangled your fingers together, his other hand caressing your thighs. The sunshine was shining through the window of the dim room.

“I’d prefer if it was just you ‘nd me. We can do somethin with your family later. I-I think it’ll be real intimate ‘f it’s just us. Like the movies-“

The older man’s eyes crinkled, “Oh, so you’ve thought about it?”

You scuffed, “I’d be silly not to think about marryin you at least once, John.”

Price opened his mouth, feeling more than shy at his grown age. He stuttered, “No take backs, alright? You gotta marry me now.”

You hooked your ring finger with his John’s matching one, giving it a quick kiss.

“No take backs.”

a/n: it’ll be a miracle if anyone even reads all this. if you did, leave me a message or comment if you liked it or if you hated it pls I wanna hear your thoughts.

[jamneuromain]

Fuck i love it so much.

The cold and indifferent simon at the beginning and then the contrast that he bought them a house at the end.

The way my heart clenched when the landlord doofus called to say that he'd told reader that he could not renew the contract.

beautiful. Beautiful story.

BIRD DOG | Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Reader

MOODBOARD · AO3

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

Convenient. He was already planning on ordering takeaway.

Or: the live-in masseuse au

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

The mangled hand of fate lets him go but seldomly. 

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

It never quite goes away though.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Odd.

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

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

His key still works though. Fancy that. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Heeeeeeeeelp! Heeeeelp!” 

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

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

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

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

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

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

What a bloody headache. 

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

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

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

“I have a knife!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes.”

“Show me then,” he orders. 

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

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

“Bullshit,” he grunts through his teeth.

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

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

“Oh. I guess that explains some things.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No answer?” Simon asks rhetorically. 

“Aren’t you gonna try?” you ask.

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

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

“Me neither, birdie.”

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

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

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

Tomorrow can’t come quick enough.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Oh. ‘Til when?”

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

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

“Your cousin live around here?”

You hesitate. “No.”

“Then that ain’t gonna work, is it?”

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

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

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

“Fine.”

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

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

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

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

Cohabitation is—

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

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

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

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

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

“I’m a masseuse.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ghost exhales and slips the mask back on.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So no, he won’t be giving up the bed.

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

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

It’s an idea, at least.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

His nose itches because the world is changing. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What really ticks him off though is that—

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

—you keep getting away with it.

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

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

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

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

“Well, it is.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

But he keeps his hands to himself. Just barely. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ghost doesn’t answer. 

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

He shrugs. “Nothing to tell.”

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

“Didn’t say that.”

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

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

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

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

He has some nascent idea of where this is going.

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

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

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

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

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

Any attempt to answer that is swiftly dismissed. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Calling me fat, sir?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He means it too. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your nails sink into his thighs, cutting him off. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Shut up.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Simon doesn’t respond.

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

“No.” 

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

“It’s ours?” you ask.

“Yeah.”

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

[jamneuromain]

oh so tense the tension the fwb but subtle ... coaxing omg imma faint

[ pt 1 ] fwb!simon pt 2

--

you blink at him. once, twice, four times over, trying to make sense of the words he just said.

i’m in love with ya.

the words hang heavy in the air, thick enough to choke on.

“oh,” is all you manage at first. then, when the silence stretches too long and he’s still looking at you like that—like he’s waiting for something, hoping for something—you force yourself to shake your head.

“simon, i’m sorry,” you say, voice quiet, careful. “but i don’t feel the same way.”

you think saying it plainly will be best, will make it hurt less. but you watch his face, watch as the flicker of something in his eyes dims, and you realize there’s no easy way to crush a man like him.

he merely shrugs. nods. like you just told him it’s going to rain later.

so you nod, too, because what else can you do? you reach for your shirt, slipping it back over your head, shimmying into your shorts with hands that shake just a little. the silence is unbearable now, a thick, suffocating thing, and it only gets worse when you clear your throat and ask, barely above a whisper—

“do you want me to leave?”

his answer comes immediately. “yeah.”

you freeze for a second, embarrassment creeping up your spine, then you nod again (you’ve seriously got to stop just nodding) and scurry out of his room and to his front door, yanking it open and slipping out into the hallway. your heart is in your throat, your face burning as you rush across the hall to your own apartment, slamming the door shut behind you before pressing your back against it.

fuck.

fuck, that was so embarrassing.

you spend the night drowning in self-pity, staring at the ceiling as everything replays over and over in your head like a bad movie you can’t turn off.

why didn’t you stop it sooner? why didn’t you shut it down the second he started calling you baby instead of slut? why didn’t you flinch when he pressed his forehead to yours, when his hands stopped gripping and Çstarted holding?

you didn’t just let it happen—you basked in it. soaked it up like a sponge, let it fill you—let him fill you—and now you can’t tell if that was just muscle memory, a latent yet insatiable reaction to being wanted, or if it actually meant something.

fuck, if you weren’t already embarrassed, that would do it.

meanwhile, across the hall, simon doesn’t sprial. doesn’t even wallow in the face of rejection.

he pours himself two fingers of his finest bourbon, sits back on his couch, and sparks up a cig. inhales deep, lets the smoke curl through his lungs before exhaling slow.

he's got a plan.

the next evening, your phone buzzes.

simon: come over. door’s open.

you stare at the message for a long minute, heart thudding, stomach twisting itself into knots. this is it. this is where he tells you it’s over, where he curses you out for being a selfish cunt, for leading him on, for taking all he gave without giving anything back.

and you deserve it.

so you brace yourself, tugging on a light sweater, slipping into your shoes. every step across the hall feels heavier than the last, and by the time you’re standing outside his apartment, you have to take a deep breath before pressing your palm to the door.

you push it open.

instead of anger, instead of harsh words or something hauled at your head, you’re met with the warm, rich scent of something cooking.

what the fuck?

your brows pinch together as you step in deeper, looking around cautiously. “simon?”

no answer, but then you see him—standing at the small table in the center of his apartment, just finishing setting it. two plates, two glasses, candles flickering dimly in the low light.

what the actual fuck?

your stomach drops. maybe he poisoned the food. maybe this is how you’ll die.

“what’s going on?” you ask, wary, eyeing the plates like they might explode.

simon pulls out a chair. just looks at you, waiting.

you hesitate, then slowly pad over and sit. your hands fold in your lap, your throat feels tight.

he lowers himself into the chair across from you, elbows on the table, fingers laced together.

he watches you.

you both eat in silence.

the only sounds are the soft clinks of silverware against plates, the occasional scrape of a chair as one of you shifts. you force out a weak, “this is good,” because it is—really, it is—but also because the silence is suffocating.

simon just grunts. keeps eating.

so you do too. fork to plate, bite after bite. the food is great, but you barely taste it past the tight knot in your throat.

when you're both done, he wordlessly stands, gathering the plates and taking them to the sink. you watch him move—watch the way his muscles ripple under his fitted t-shirt, the way his blond hair is perpetually tousled, the way his face, bare of any mask, is set in quiet concentration as he rinses the dishes.

you don't even realize you're staring until—

thwap.

you flinch as he flicks your forehead, his thumb and middle finger snapping against your skin just hard enough to jolt you back to reality. you blink up at him, startled, as he stands in front of you, hand extended.

you hesitate, then slip your fingers into his.

he pulls you up, and before you can register it, he's on you—his hands firm on your waist, his lips swallowing yours entirely

you squeal at first, but his lips are so soft, so sweet and full of something heavy, something deep.

you melt into him.

and that's just stage one of simon's plan, to woo you.

that night he fucks you so good you can’t even think about leaving his bed, let alone moving. He splits you open on his cock, ravishing you to the nines. he takes his time, makes you feel it, makes sure you can feel every ounce of his devotion each time he makes you cum (6 times in one night, a new record)

by the time he's done, you're ruined. wrecked in the best way possible

when morning comes, you're knocked, body heavy and sore, limbs tangled in his sheets. you don’t even stir when he rolls out of bed, grabs your phone from where you dropped it the night before.

he types out a quick message to your boss

you: sorry, got covid. can’t come in for two weeks.

sent—delivered—read—probably fired, too (you won’t be needing a job with him around, silly)

you shift slightly, murmuring something incoherent, but you don’t wake.

simon smirks to himself, tossing your phone onto the nightstand.

(don’t ask how he knows your passcode)

stage two is integration.

the next time beckons you over to his place, you notice something’s… off.

your favorite coffee beans are sitting next to his cheap instant shit. your shampoo, your conditioner, your body wash—all neatly lined up in his shower. there’s a hoodie you thought the building’s dryer must’ve gobbled up weeks ago, just neatly folded on his dresser. The chapstick he’s tasted on your lips countless times now sits atop his bedside table.

you blink at the sight of it all, brows furrowed. you pick up the chapstick, turning to him with a questioning look.

he doesn’t even try to deny it.

“figured you’d be 'round more often,” he says, completely casual, completely simon about it.

like it’s the most natural thing in the world. like you’ve already signed a lease and are moving in next month (you are, you just don’t know it yet, doll).

you should argue. you should tell him ‘no, we’re not doing this’, but you don’t. instead, you swipe the chapstick over your lips, put it back where you found it, and pretend you don’t feel his eyes on you the whole time.

he smirks to himself, taking your silence for what it is. acceptance.

stage three of his plan? move out!

oh, but not him. 

you wake in your bed (for once) to find simon standing in front of your dresser.

your dresser.

he’s holding one of your shirts—some thin, worn-out thing you only sleep in—twisting the fabric between his fingers.

you rub the sleep from your eyes, voice groggy when you ask, “what the hell are you doing?”

he doesn’t even turn around. “doin’ you a favor.”

“a favor,” you repeat, voice flat.

he glances at you over his shoulder. “yeah. consolidating.”

and that’s when you notice—your drawers are open, half-empty, your closet missing key pieces. your things are gone.

panic flares in your chest. you throw the blankets off, stomp over to him, grab the shirt from his hands. "simon. where the fuck is my stuff?"

he shrugs, completely unbothered. "my place."

“your—” you cut yourself off, taking a deep breath, hands clenched into fists.

“figured it’d be easier this way,” he continues, like he’s explaining something obvious. “y'know, since y’spend all your time there anyway.”

you gape at him, dumbfounded. “you stole my shit?”

he tilts his head, considering. “nah,” he says finally. “just moved it.”

“without asking me.”

he steps closer, towering over you, eyes heavy-lidded and knowing.

“would you ‘ave said no?”

you want to say yes. you should say yes.

but the truth is, you don’t know. because when you think about it, when you really think about it—you never liked sleeping alone. never liked waking up to an empty bed.

and simon—your simon—he knows that. knows you better than you know yourself.

so instead of arguing, instead of pushing him away, you let him tip your chin up with two fingers.

“mine. got that, pet?,” he murmurs.

you nod.

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