lazarus-writes-nonsense

[lazarus-writes-nonsense]

Margaritaville

For days now, you’ve been seeing the same broad-shouldered man lounging around the resort. Or: the knocked up on vacation au Part 3 masterlist

-

A shower and thorough scrub after the fact washes away most of the more damning evidence, but paranoia still buzzes under your skin when you rejoin your friends downstairs. They’re sitting beside each other in a row of lounge chairs by the edge of the pool when you reappear, beach bag in hand, waving at you from across the way. You hurry over to join them.

“What—did you fall asleep up there?” one of them asks you, and it takes a second for you to recall the excuse you gave them about going upstairs to look for a book to read. 

“Yeah,” you lie. “I wasn’t feeling too good, so I lied down for a bit.”

“Oh no,” one of them says with a frown, sitting up on her elbows to get a better look at you. “You feeling better now? We can go back to the hotel room if you want.”

“Nah, I’m alright now. I had a shower too, so I’m feeling much better.”

You might’ve been better off pretending that you just fell asleep upstairs rather than lying about feeling sick. 

Though still hours from sundown, the sun isn’t anywhere near as thick in the sky anymore; a cloudless expanse of blue as far as the eye can see, stretching from zenith to offing. Despite the slight breeze and the UV index starting to inch back down, you still slather on a fresh layer of sunscreen. 

“So what’d you get?”

You look up from your legs and a glob of sunscreen slips down your calf and onto the chair. “Huh?” 

“Your book,” she repeats, looking at you like it should be obvious. “What book did you go get?”

Your hands freeze over your bag, a cold sweat leaking through you. All that just for you to forget to bring back a fucking book. 

“Oh, I, uh,” you stammer, looking in your bag helplessly like a book might suddenly appear out of nowhere. “I must’ve left it back upstairs. Damn.”

Lucky for you, no one has the energy to care or look past the obvious stutter in your voice, accepting your words as gospel. Your friend closest to you rolls her eyes and pushes her sunglasses back up her nose. “It’s alright—here, I’ve got another in my bag. It would be such a waste of time to go all the way back upstairs.”

“Yeah,” you say, swallowing when you think about heading back into the resort and taking the elevator to the next floor up from your room, following the long hallway back to John’s room, where he’d be waiting for you with a wry smile and open arms, towel still cinched around his waist. “That would suck. Thanks.”

For one singular day, you actually make a concerted effort to steer clear of John. 

That means: no surreptitious glances or orchestrating accidental run-ins. You keep close to your friends the whole day, never more than a couple feet away. 

And for the most part, it works. You’re mostly successful that first day. For a while after your little hookup, you don’t see hide nor hair of him anywhere around the resort. Where before John was seemingly everywhere, now he’s nowhere to be found. 

It’s almost infuriating. Had he been this elusive in the days since you arrived at the resort, you might not have felt as tempted by his constant presence. It was the proximity and blatant invitation that gradually wore away at your resolve. 

You keep deferring responsibility for your actions. That belongs to a future, stronger you, whether or not she’ll ever come to fruition.

“Looking for someone?” your friend asks when you glance around the poolside for the umpteenth time. Her words are laced with a subtle kind of humour, some inside joke that you haven’t caught on to just yet.  

You shake your head. “Nope. Just people watching.”

“Right,” she drawls, only burying her nose in her book again after sending you a sceptical glance.

When her attention is back on her book, you peek around again, searching for any sign of someone in pin-stripped swim trunks. Disappointed when you find nothing. 

The girls insist on going down to the beach and renting jetskis in the afternoon, guaranteeing that you won’t see John for the rest of the day, but at least it gets you out of your head for a while. Air whips by your ears and you scream in delight, your arms cinching around your friend’s waist as she guns the engine.

Afternoon melts into evening, which melts into night. At supper, someone mentions taking a dip in the hot tub and you pounce on the thought, the four of you giggling and tumbling down the stairs on your way back to the pool area. 

The hot tub lights oscillate between purple, pink, and blue at a timed interval, keeping the water bathed in a cool, dark colour as night falls. Dusk ushers in a changed world. Large snails leave slimy trails as they creep out of the potted plants and slither across the furniture. Spiders and moths emerge from dark corners as well, the nocturnal world coming to life around you. 

The three of them get out of the hot tub around nine, someone complaining about still being hungry. As tempted as you are to join the girls for a late bite to eat at the restaurant, the hot water and jets are doing wonders for your sore muscles, especially after the previous day. You can’t exactly explain that to the others though, so when they try to cajole you out of the water, you brush them off and promise that you’ll join them in a few minutes. 

Besides, you’re overdue for some alone time. The more you have, the less likely you’ll be to start fights over nothing, cabin fever finding no foothold in a person aware that it hovers on the periphery. 

Around the complex, the pools glow cyan like bioluminescent glowworms, the floodlights on to keep drunk tourists from falling in on their way back to their rooms. Some angelic-voiced eighties singer croons over the speaker, music still playing around the pool area until it abruptly cuts out and silence rushes in like a wave to fill the emptiness. The silence doesn’t worry you though; it’s almost serene sitting alone in the dark and gazing across the way at the buildings still brightly lit from the inside. 

You don’t realize that you aren’t actually alone until someone joins you in the water. 

The loud splash of his feet entering the water is what alerts you to his presence, the sudden noise causing your heart to jump up into your throat, head snapping to the side when a large body sits down beside you, displacing the volume of the water in the hot tub. 

“Oh shit,” you gasp, heartbeat going wild for a second. You scoot away instinctively and hit the low wall to your left. 

“Didn’t mean to scare you, honey,” John apologizes, settling in beside you. “You seemed lonely all by yourself, so I thought I’d join you.” 

His body inadvertently crowds you up against the pool wall. Or at least, it feels inadvertent, like he just sat wherever happened to be free, notwithstanding the fact that by doing so, he had trapped you at the edge of the bench. 

John rests an arm behind you, almost tucking you into his side when he slides over a bit more, thigh pressed against yours under the water. Spreading his arms out along the edge of the pool forces his chest to stick out and his shoulders to broaden. 

“Where’d you come from?” you ask, glancing around behind you. 

“Around.” He cocks a thick, dark eyebrow, studying you. “Were you looking for me?” 

“No,” you deny, almost vehemently. More to yourself than to him. “You just caught me off guard. I thought I was alone.”

“Noticed that. Why aren’t you with your friends?”

“I am,” you object. “…I just wanted to be on my own for a bit.”

“Needed some time apart? They give you a hard time for what we did earlier?”

Heat rushes to your cheeks at that. “No,” you hiss, teeth clenched, pitching your voice lower to keep anyone from overhearing. “I didn’t…tell anyone. And we aren’t fighting. They’re getting something to eat and I wasn’t hungry.”

“Seems like I’m always catching you on your own.”

“I like being by myself.”

Your breathing is a little quicker than usual. His presence now is different than the times before, back when he was nothing more than a pretty face to you. You know what his mouth tastes like now, what the bristles of his beard feel like on the delicate flesh of your inner thighs and how deep his fingers can curl inside of you. He isn’t just a stranger across the pool anymore, but a man that knows you intimately. Biblically.

You wrap your arms around yourself to shield your breasts from his eyes. That’s what you tell yourself anyway. Maybe you cross them to make sure that you keep your hands to yourself.

“Why come with them at all then?” John asks, breaking the silence. 

“…I’ve never travelled on my own.”

He nods approvingly. “Good. Smart girl.”

That pisses you off for some reason. Probably the insinuation that there’d be something wrong with you travelling by yourself. Like you couldn’t take care of yourself. “I could if I wanted to.” 

“Didn’t say you couldn’t, but it’s smarter that you don’t. Safety in numbers.”

If he wasn’t so handsome, you’d probably be mildly off-put by the condescension in his voice. It’s part and parcel of him though, that slight arrogance that clings to his skin like the smell of smoke, like dirt wedged into the grooves of his fingers. Old and lived in. 

“Maybe I’ll just ask my husband to come with me the next time I feel like going somewhere,” you say snarkily. 

He doesn’t respond right away. When the weight of his stare gets a bit too heavy, you glance up at him to find his pupils blown wide. 

“Maybe you should,” John rasps. 

The sound of his voice, rough as tire over gravel roads, makes your nipples bead in your damp swimsuit.

For a moment, it feels like there’s nothing else in the world except for the two of you. All of the chatter and music from the nearby buildings drop to a hush. If you shut off your mind, you could almost trick yourself that it’d always been this way. 

Damp, calloused fingers pinch your chin and hold you in place, rooting you in that moment like his hold is the only thing tethering you to the world. 

“I should get back to my friends,” you say. Even though you practically whisper the words, they pierce through the silence, a little nearby lizard scuttling across the damp concrete floor towards a tree, where it disappears into the darkness. 

“They can wait a little longer,” he murmurs, leaning forward until your lips slot with his and your sigh makes your whole body tremble, lips parting when his tongue slips in and he slides a hand in between your thighs under the water. 

It’s torturous to see him around the resort and not be allowed to touch. 

Another day in the scorching heat and you’re on the verge of defeat. You sweat and you sweat until the only thing left to give is your will. It bends like straw, chaff breaking off the closer it comes to snapping. 

At a certain point, you have to accept responsibility for your own actions. You’re a big girl after all. Old enough to understand the weight that each of your choices bear and the consequences they’ll inevitably bring about. Disappoint your friends or disappoint yourself. Simple a choice as has ever been put in front of you. 

And, selfish as you’ve been this entire trip, the choice is easy enough to make in the end. 

In the early morning before the rest of your friends have woken up, you quietly slip out of bed and take the elevator up to John’s floor, knocking twice before he opens the door and pulls you inside with a growl. 

“John—John, fuck, please—”

“I know, honey, I know,” he murmurs into your neck, exhaling heavily when he drops you back down onto his cock, juices running from the base of his shaft to his balls. “I’ve got you, I’ve got you.”

Your thighs burn with the effort to bounce on his dick, John having to do most of the work once your muscles begin to give out. 

Not even the pretense of a condom this time. You didn’t say anything when he didn’t make a move to take one out and now it feels a bit too late to bring it up. It’s not the end of the world though; you’ll just tell him to pull out when he’s close to coming. 

“Fuck, honey, Jesus Christ—”

“Sorry,” you whimper, inner muscles suddenly clenched so tight that you nearly come right then and there. Just the thought of him coming in you raw sends a sharp spike of pleasure through your body. 

All you can think of is sticky, messy cum leaking out of you. Thick strands ribboning between your fingers when you pull them apart. It’s a dangerous thought; you’re playing fast and loose with the most dire of consequences. 

“Ohmygodohmygod—” you whimper, tears building on your waterline and spilling over. “Oh f-fuck, I’m gonna—come, John—” 

“Yeah, you are,” he grunts, brow furrowing in concentration, the vein in his forehead more pronounced than ever. “C’mon, honey, give it to me—give me it—”

It rushes over you all at once, inner walls tensing and squeezing around his shaft. Eyes rolling back in your head when you feel him come inside you, a rush of heat flooding against your womb. 

He doesn’t make you wait long after pulling out, immediately ducking his head down to burrow his face between your thighs, running his tongue up the seam of your sex and huffing out in pleasure. Hot breath blows over your clit, and your whole body jolts at the sensation. Your clit is too sensitive, puffy and engorged. Your walls squeeze around his fingers when John shoves a couple in and busies himself with laving his tongue over your clit and sucking it into his mouth. 

“Wait, wait—” you squeal, threading your fingers into his hair and trying to pull him off. “I can’t—I can’t—”

His own cum trickles out down his fingers as he plunges them in and out of your hole, feeling the mess he left inside of you. Heat floods to your cheeks at the lurid squelch of your hole when he presses his fingers back in.

“You can,” John says unsympathetically, the fingers pistoning in and out of your hole punctuating his words. 

And, true to his words, you do. 

When you limp back down to your room an hour later, you turn the knob extra carefully lest someone wake up to you doing the walk of shame. 

You were stupid to ever think this could be a one time thing. That you could have him once and then move on like it never happened, like it scratched that itch of yours permanently instead of waking it up from its slumber. 

Now it buzzes under your skin morning, noon, and night. Insatiable—libido ramped up by a factor of ten and no matter how many times he fucks you senseless, you’re always desperate for more. When you see him from across the pool, it’s all you can do not to swim across and crawl into his lap, wedging his thigh between your legs and grinding down until the pressure tips you over the edge.

From the looks of it, your friends don’t suspect a thing. How could they after all? You leave the hotel room at the crack of dawn and come back before they’ve even turned over in bed. 

John is as subtle in public as ever. A thousand times more discrete than you. He’s so good at ignoring you around the resort that it’s almost infuriating.  It’s your own fault, seeing as how you begged him to keep a low profile. You have no one to blame but yourself for his inattention.

In the privacy of his hotel room, it’s a whole different story. 

Sometimes he says weird shit when you fuck. The pet names you can excuse because they get you all hot and bothered, but it’s harder to ignore the way he laces your fingers and looks deep into your eyes while rocking into you, patting your cheek roughly when you try to close your eyes. It’s too intense. Too intimate. Not the kind of thing you do with a vacation fling.

You’re speaking from limited experience though. A small sample size, if you can even call your love life that. Maybe this is something people do with their flings, the rules of intimacy eschewed with an established understanding of finitude. You are going home at the end of this, after all. Whatever you do in between then and now doesn’t matter. 

You could say or do anything and it wouldn’t matter. It’s not like you’ll ever see him again. 

On the pet name front though, you do test him on the off chance that he actually just forgot your name entirely. It catches you off guard when he remembers not just your first name but your last name as well, murmuring it back to you like he’s memorized it when you ask.

“Oh,” you reply, unsure of what else to say. “…Sorry. I thought…”

His thumb brushes over your cheekbone when he cups your face in one hand. “I know what you thought, honey. Never had anyone pay enough attention to you, have you?”

You don’t know what to say in response to that. He pops his thumb into your mouth when you gape at him for too long, letting it rest on your tongue. The weight of it holding your tongue down is almost soothing and the thoughts in your head fizzle and pop like stars when you close your mouth around it and suck. 

Sometimes though, you’re the one that makes things weird.

“I wish I came here with you,” you admit in a hushed whisper when you’ve been backed into his bed.

“Would’ve been me if I’d found you first,” John grunts, gripping you by your calves and yanking you towards the edge of the bed. 

Big hands scoop up under your ass and lift you into the air to get the angle right. He impales you on his dick inch by inch, the stretch familiar now even though it still takes your breath away. 

“Yeah?” you breathe. 

John doesn’t answer at first, eyes going blank as he draws you off his dick and then plunges back into you. His stare is blank and yet it doesn’t waver. Locked on your face even though he almost stares right through you. 

“Yeah,” he rumbles, snapping his hips forward. “Could’ve made a baby here instead of sneaking around like teenagers.”

Oh—

(fuck)

You know it’s just dirty talk, but you get all tight and tingly anyway, licking the sweat off your upper lip when you repeat, “A baby?” 

His eyes go darker when he hears you say it. Animalistic; mindless. And suddenly all you can think about is the fact that you’ve foregone protection again to let an older, virile man hit it raw. Dirty talk trembling over the edge of make believe and staring down into the abyss because he could

really knock you up right here and now. 

His lip curls up almost into a snarl. “Came enough times in you by now. ‘Be a miracle if you weren’t.”

You lick at the sweat beading on your upper lip. “You want that?”

Dumb question. You know there isn’t a shot that a man his age on vacation is looking to knock up the first girl he comes across, but it gets you so hot that you forget about common sense for a second. It’s irresponsible. Selfish. Stupid. 

He hikes a knee onto the bed to get some leverage before folding his whole body over yours. All however many pounds, enough to take your breath away and make your heart beat faster. A heavy, suffocating presence punctuated by the way he fucks into you even harder, huffing as he chases after it.

“Would’ve used a fuckin’ condom if I didn’t,” John snarls right in your face, and the pleasure that evokes hits you so hard that you nearly pass out when you come. 

Sooner or later, you were bound to slip up. 

Your friend catches you on your way out the door one morning on your way to see John, your hand barely brushing the doorknob when her voice suddenly comes out of nowhere. “Going to get breakfast?”

You flinch at the sound of her voice, head whipping to the left. In your hurry to meet up with John, you hadn’t noticed her standing in the bathroom with the door wide open. Arms crossed and already dressed, staring at you like catching you almost out the door isn’t surprising. 

“Uh, yeah. What’re you doing up?”

She shrugs. “I slept long enough; been up for a while actually. Mind if I come with? I’m starving.”

You do in fact mind, but short of telling her why you’d prefer she didn’t, you have no excuse for why she shouldn’t join you for breakfast. You acquiesce instead, forcing a smile and nodding before following her out the door and in the opposite direction of the elevators. 

Breakfast is awkward, to say the least. The conversation comes strained and stilted, like it’s the first time you’ve ever met the girl sitting opposite you instead of a friend of several years. You can tell that she suspects something, but since she doesn’t bother bringing it up, you don’t either. 

All you can focus on is the fact that somewhere upstairs, John is still in his room waiting for you, and that as more time passes with you downstairs at breakfast, the less time you’ll have with him when you finally make it upstairs to his room. 

“Hey? Are you listening to me?”

Your head snaps up. “Hm?” 

The look she levels you with is thoroughly unimpressed. “I asked if you’d finished your book yet.”

“Oh, yeah. I finished it the other day at the beach. Did you want to borrow it?”

“Yeah, that’s why I asked.” She sounds annoyed, and with good reason. You’ve been flighty and inattentive at best; downright neglectful at worst. 

You eat quickly, downing half your plate before a server comes by with coffee, which you very nearly refuse until you catch the way your friend squints across the table at you. Too obvious. Her hackles are already up, suspicions hissing like snakes in her hair. 

The terse conversation that follows only further illustrates that. If she hasn’t already figured it out, she’s at least begun to suspect your frequent absences and the perpetual smell of sex on you. She’s just nice enough to not come right out of the gate and say it. 

A busser comes by as soon as they spot your empty plate, gathering everything up and piling the cutlery on top before hurrying away to bus another table. When the server comes by again to top up your cup, you politely refuse, finishing the rest in a single swallow. 

“What’s the rush?” your friend asks, cocking an eyebrow. “Somewhere else to be?”

“No, I just—” You freeze, half out of your seat, the sound of the chair scraping against the tile underneath abruptly cutting out. Excuses assemble on your tongue but refuse to leap off, choked back by the fact that you just don’t know what to say. “I just…I’m done eating.”

“Right,” she drawls, arms folded on the table, nearly full plate still in front of her. “I guess my conversation was staler than the food.”

“No, look, it’s not—”

“It’s fine,” she sighs, waving you away. “I’ll tell the others you went down to the pool when they wake up. Just be there in an hour.”

You didn’t expect the reprieve. You barely deserve it, as a matter of fact. But her dismissal rings loud and you aren’t about to pass up the opportunity to go up to John, despite the guilt curdling in your belly. 

“Yeah, okay,” you promise. “I’ll be there.”

And you really, truly think you’re in the clear until you turn to walk away and she says her parting words. “Give him my best, by the way.”

Full body cringe. You don’t turn back around though, shame finally catching up to you, and the sound of your flip-flops squeaking against the tile on your way towards the elevators mocks you the whole way up to John’s room.

[lazarus-writes-nonsense]

Margaritaville

For days now, you’ve been seeing the same broad-shouldered man lounging around the resort. Or: the knocked up on vacation au Part 2 masterlist

-

For all your zoning out, you still know how to make the most of your vacation. 

Grains of white sand scratch the skin between your toes on the walk back from the beach, sun-fatigued and pruny-fingered. Synapses firing slower than usual. You nearly doze off on the shuttle ride back to the hotel until someone jostles you awake, the embarrassing snort you let out entirely unintentional.

It’s not your fault. Several hours in the sun and sea will do that to a person.

You can’t put John entirely out of your head though. The intent in his gaze still sizzles under your skin like a bad burn. It takes everything in you not to tell your friends that you’ll see them around and take the shuttle right back to the hotel to meet up with him. Knowing him, you’d probably find him in one of his usual haunts—lounging around poolside or still seated at the swim-up bar—pleased as punch to see you come crawling back.

You pinch your arm to snap yourself out of it. You’re better than that. You can take your mind off John long enough to focus on spending time with your friends and making the most of your vacation. It’s not like there aren’t plenty of activities going on around the resort to help take your mind off him. 

The silent disco is held on a small patch of sand in the atrium of the hotel, surrounded by couches and corridors leading to the other wings on all sides. There’s a DJ booth off to the side that’s mostly for show since the only music playing is what’s blaring from your headphones. 

Three hours spent dancing and drinking and you’ve practically sweated out all the alcohol in your system, which you’re more than happy to replace with another drink. You stumble over to the bar twice for a top up on your margarita before your head begins to spin something fierce and the sand somehow poses more of a risk than the ground given that it keeps slipping out from under you. 

You slip the earphones off your ears and turn to your friends, two of them still dancing together. The other is sitting on one of the couches nearby, hands folded over her belly and eyes pinched shut like she might throw up. 

One of your friends dances a bit too close to you and you reach out to tap her shoulder.

“D’you guys mind if I go upstairs?” you ask, slurring your words only a little. 

“Yeah,” one yells, only one headphone pushed to the side. 

You point over to where your other friend is still sitting on the couch. “Are you guys gonna—”

“Yeah, we’ll take her up, don’t worry. I only had one drink.”

Reassured, you say your goodbyes and dust the sand off your feet before putting your sandals back on. 

You barely make it a couple yards from the atrium dance floor when the exhaustion finally starts to catch up to you. Your feet catch on the grout line of the tile floor when you can’t seem to muster up the energy to fully lift your feet with each step, making you stumble forward a couple steps.

A hand catches you under your elbow when you nearly stumble right into a wall, reeling you in firmly.

“Hey, hey, hey—think you might’ve had a bit too much,” a gruff voice says, lightly scolding you, and you blame the way you instantly go liquid at the sound of his voice on the alcohol still clouding your head. 

“I’m gettin’ water,” you insist and he snorts, less amused than indignant. 

“You damn sure are.”

He herds you over to a couch and makes you sit down, growling at you when you try to get back up, insisting that you wait until he comes back. Alcohol might make you more petulant than usual, but the warning note in his voice doesn’t escape you, so you sit there with your hands in your lap, head spinning, until he returns a few minutes later, sitting down beside you and handing you an unopened bottle of water. 

It says something about the state of your fixation that you recognize exactly who came to your rescue by voice alone, despite having only spoken to each other the one time. It registers in the lizard part of your brain that makes you go almost servile, letting him put you exactly where he wants you and take what’s given to you.  

“Drink up—there we go,” John instructs when you take a long drink, nudging your chin up with his knuckle and nearly making you choke. “That’s a good girl.”

You drink your water with gusto, the plastic bottle crinkling under your fingers, condensation making the plastic label slide all over the place with your thumb. A bead of water dribbles down your chin and drips onto the floor. Your face burns from his touch and his words. 

It’s not the first time that you’ve seen him in something other than his swim trunks—that wouldn’t be appropriate to wear at the breakfast buffet—but the patterned Hawaiian shirt and board shorts combo is doing something unholy to your libido. His shirt is mostly unbuttoned save for the two in the middle, hiding his midsection but exposing his pecs at the top and the treasure trail of dark hair leading down into his shorts.

“Where’d you come from?” you ask dumbly. 

He laughs softly and your stomach flips at the sound. “The bar over there.” He points someways off and you squint until you can make out the shape of the bartender moving back and forth between the people sitting in front of him, submerged in cindery darkness. “You know, I’m on vacation too.”

“Oh. Yeah. I know.”

It’s healthy that you remember that every once in a while—that a whole world exists outside of your experience of it. John isn’t here as a manifestation of your libido, but as a real person on vacation too, one that just so happens to make your heart beat twice as fast when you see him. 

But a better time for introspection might be when you’re upstairs in your bed and not drunk off your feet. 

“You need any help getting back up to your room?” John asks.

You grunt, shaking your head and regretting that action almost immediately when the room starts to spin all the more violently and your stomach lurches. 

“That’s a yes then,” he says, shushing you when you start to protest. “Don’t argue. Drink your water.”

Exhaustion leaves you boneless, no fight left in you to object to his words. Besides, he’s not wrong. With the way your head is spinning, you’ll be flat on your ass tomorrow if you don’t drink water now. 

You guzzle the rest down with both hands until there’s nothing left, blindly handing the empty bottle back to the man sitting beside you who leaves for not more than a second to toss it. He comes back to find you slumped over, your elbows braced on your thighs and your breath coming out short and shaky. 

“You gonna be sick, hun?” John asks, kneeling beside you and holding a new, ice cold water bottle to your cheek, an instant balm to your suffering.

“…No,” you sigh, suppressing the urge to shake your head. “Just need to lie down.”

He nods. “Okay. Wanna give me your key and we’ll get you up to your room?”

Your eyes crack open a hair to stare suspiciously at him. “…You’re not coming to my room with me.”

John shakes his head. “Didn’t mean it like that, honey. Just not sure you can make it up on your own right now.”

Though he isn’t exactly off in his judgement, you’re still not sure how you feel about a strange man walking you back to your hotel room in this state. You’re tempted to go back to your friends instead, and maybe he sees that in your gaze because he reaches into his back pocket to pull out his wallet and then hands you his driver’s license. 

“Take a picture and send it to your friends—anything happens to you and they can hold me responsible.”

You don’t know why that statement of all things nearly leaves you breathless. You listen though, snapping a quick picture of his license before sending it to one of your friends with a quick little message to keep her from worrying. 

“Good?” John asks, lifting an eyebrow. You nod, mouth still dry from drinking too much.

The ease with which he hoists you up onto your feet briefly renders you speechless. Wide-bodied man that he is, he seems twice as large stood beside you, the arm linked with yours one big slab of muscle. He keeps you braced to his side as he starts towards the elevators. 

True to his word, after the long journey back upstairs with your arm hooked through his to keep you on the straight and narrow, John lets you go at the door, though not before handing you the unopened bottle of water still in his other hand. 

“For tomorrow morning,” he says.

“Oh,” you reply, all raspy and unsure. “Thank you.”

For a second, you almost think he’s going to follow you in. You’re not sure what you’d do or how you’d feel about it. There’s not much you’d be able to do if he really wanted to force his way in—even sober, you’d have a hard time putting up much of a fight. 

So when he takes a step forward into the room, your heart skips a beat and your stomach drops, only for John to grab the handle and pull the door shut behind him, leaving you in the empty room alone. 

The girls are piled together on the other bed when you wake up the next day, still out for the count despite the alarm going off on one of their phones. They must have gotten in not long after you, but they look twice as knackered, makeup smeared around their eyes and still in their clothes from the night before. No one must have bothered to sit them down and forced them to drink a bottle of water before passing out for the night. 

Your head buzzes at the thought. Instead of focusing on it, you turn your head to look down at your bedside table where the extra water bottle and Advil are waiting. Heat flickers briefly into your cheeks when you remember who was responsible for making sure you’d be alright in the morning. 

The day slows to a crawl when you’re by yourself. It’s quieter somehow, late enough that most of the families have already left for the beach or the more kid-friendly pool on the other side of the resort. The girls only crack open their jaws and yawn good morning around noon, long after you already went downstairs for coffee and breakfast, enjoying the morning to yourself for once. 

“I think my head’s going to explode,” one complains, collapsing into a chair. 

Despite your own mild hangover, you’re not void of sympathy. “Want me to get you guys some food?” you ask. 

All three look over at you with big, pleading eyes. You take that as a yes. 

The breakfast service from earlier in the morning has already been swapped for the lunch service. Too late to grab something from the omelette station or a full English breakfast. From the state of your friends, you don’t think they’d turn down anything carb-heavy though, so you head to the pasta station with a tray big enough for two or three plates. 

Head in the clouds, you don’t see him coming until he’s suddenly there. All it takes is the slightest tilt of your head to catch him from the corner of your eye, John all the way at the front of the line, big and imposing as ever. Even more so in the light of day. 

When he feels your stare on him, he looks over, winking when he meets your eyes. 

There’s nothing to bury your face in and hide what wink does to you. All you can do is smile at him awkwardly and turn to the cook when she hands you back three plates, which you pile on your tray one by one. 

Your friends are in various states of collapse when you return to their table, heads resting on folded arms. There’s a round of drinks in front of them from a passing server, though only one of them has the wherewithal to pop the straw into the corner of her mouth and drink.

“Hot guy’s over there,” one of your friends grumbles, pointing as discretely as possible. You follow her finger to find John at a nearby table, minding his own business. If he feels your stare on him, he doesn’t acknowledge it this time.

“Yeah…I saw him in line,” you admit.

“He’s good eye candy…” another muses. “But…we should make some kind of pact.”

“What kind?”

“No one tries to fuck him. We’re supposed to be on vacation together—it won’t be any fun if one of us leaves the group to shack up with the only hot guy on the resort when we’re supposed to be spending the rest of the week together.”

Not a chance in hell, you almost blurt out, swallowing your words at the last second. You’re more offended at the thought that any of them would try than at the idea of you not being allowed. 

Another one of your friends snorts. “He’s not the only hot guy around.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Seriously—there’s a group of frat bros that checked in the other day. I saw them at dinner the other night.”

“I saw them too and please be so fucking for real. They were nowhere near as hot as the other guy.”

A medley of snorts breaks the slight tension. “Okay, whatever, it doesn’t matter. Are we all in agreement?”

“Why bother making a pact?” you ask, annoyance flickering in you like a lizard scuttling up the wall. 

The one who brought it up turns to you, unimpressed. “You texted me his ID last night, dude.”

You cringe, just now remembering that you did in fact send her the picture of his ID the night before. “Oh, that’s just—he walked me back up to our hotel room last night after I left. He didn’t, uh…come in or anything.”

“Yeah, sure,” she says, not buying a word of it. 

“He made me do it actually. Just to be safe.”

“Well, that was nice of him,” another snorts, fork clinking against the plate as she starts digging into her food. “Guess that means he only wants to fuck one of us.”

“Oh my god, stop,” you beg, hands covering your face so you don’t have to look at any of them. You do take some pleasure in her saying that though, however guilty that pleasure may be. 

The only thing that brings you back to Earth is glancing over at John’s table again to find him still oblivious to your staring, too preoccupied with his breakfast to pay you any attention. That stings a bit. It’s as good a reminder as any that despite him wanting to fuck you or not, he won’t be sitting beside you on the plane at the end of the trip. It’s your friends that you’ll have to face back home if you sideline them on your group trip.

You turn back to them, pinky finger out for them to take. “Okay. Promise.” 

And you almost believe it when you say it. 

But promises made in peacetime aren’t easily kept in times of strife. Days of unbuttoned Hawaiian shirts and sunglasses sitting low on the bridge of John’s nose prove that to you. 

Your resolve wavers like a bear shaking fruit from a tree—standing up on its hind legs with both paws braced against the tree trunk and giving it a few powerful shakes before checking around to see what came loose. 

His complexion deepens as the days go on, tan setting in and sunburn fading away. When you see him through the glass walls of the fitness centre on the way to the pool in the early morning, it’s all you can do to keep walking. 

Now that you’ve broken the ice, John isn’t shy to track you down around the resort. Not that he ever was. Maybe before he was just biding his time, waiting to see if his advances would be reciprocated, and now that you’ve given him the greenlight, so to speak, his reservations have vanished into thin air. 

The attention feeds your ego to the point of critical mass. You can’t stop imagining yourself from an outside perspective, obsessed with the thought of what you might look like to John from afar, in the throes of a perpetual out of body experience. 

It’s just addicting to think about a man like John being interested in little old you. Makes you look at yourself in a whole new way. In the morning, you put on your sunscreen in front of the bathroom mirror and take an extra few minutes to appreciate all of your features, turning this way and that to admire your form, insecurities plucked out one by one, his desire refracted in the prism of your chest and reflected back out.

The frustrating part is that you know you’re doing the wrong thing by indulging him when you shouldn’t be even entertaining his flirtatious overtures. You came all this way to spend time with your friends, not follow a hot man back to his hotel room. If it were any of your friends and not you toying with the idea, your anger would come swift and righteous. It’s hypocritical to not think they’d ask the same of you.

But—you chew your lip when he makes eye contact with you from across the restaurant at dinner—like everyone else, you have a breaking point. You’re only human at the end of the day.

“Ah, ah, ah, there we go,” John rumbles right in your ear, hot breath panting down the side of your neck. 

You don’t know how you wind up back in his hotel room hours later with your knees draped over his shoulders and his voice low in your ear telling you to count to ten while he pushes in, gasping every time his hips punch forward, cockhead nearly nudging your cervix and filling you all the way up, close to overspilling.

Too much, too big; even though he stretched you out on two thick fingers for what felt like hours, it still forces all the oxygen out of your lungs when he bottoms out. 

“Gonna have to pry you open, huh,” he chuckles in your ear. You don't get what's so funny about that, but in fairness you can barely wrangle enough sense together to form a thought. 

One big hand effortlessly pins your wrists over your head. His grip isn't even that tight and you can't wriggle out of it. Your heart quickens when you realize that. 

He worships your breasts like a man that prefers tits over ass and he tells you that too: got a lovely set on you, honey, and then sucks a nipple into his mouth. 

You shouldn’t be here. Your friends are all down by the pool soaking up the sun and getting their feet wet while you’re in John’s room on the other end of the hotel getting railed within an inch of your life. You should’ve known that it would end up here. You should’ve known that you were always going to end up in his bed. 

Nothing but experiencing his broad body suspended over yours and rutting between your thighs could’ve prepared you for the reality of it. Smothering, oppressive; tacky skin sliding against yours, friction making your skin burn, the hair on his pecs and belly all sweat-slicked and dragging against your chest. Broader and heavier than you could’ve imagined. 

One time, you tell yourself. One time and then never again, just to know what it would be like. Just to know what fucking a man like John would do to you. One time and then you can go back to your friends and act like it never happened, like a man didn’t just fold you in half and drive his dick to the root into your pussy.

The hand holding your wrists together disappears and reappears at your waist. Both of them this time, snug on either side of you, scooping under your low back and lifting it up to get more leverage before driving his hips down, plunging his shaft deeper into your hole, the tip of his cock nudging against something that makes your leg spasm and your breathing go choppy. 

“Oh—f—fuck,” you grit out, squeezing your eyes tight. 

It’s deeper now. Deep enough in you that his cock might well be butting up against your cervix. You’ll have to waddle back to your friends after this or ice your pussy until it stops aching from having too many inches of dick shoved inside it.

“There we go,” John says. “That feel good?”

He asks that like he doesn’t see your eyes rolling back into your head, like there isn’t a line of drool leaking down your cheek. 

There's a condom wrapper on the bedside table that you don't remember him putting on. He must have though, you think blearily and then he repositions his knees and drives forward hard enough to make your teeth clack together and whoops, there goes any chance at forming a coherent thought again. He must have because what man would forego a condom before turning you over onto your belly and slipping a hand under you to palm the flesh there, hips flexing forward and groaning when you squeeze him a bit too tight. What man would run the risk?

“Careful,” John laughs into your hair. You don't understand. “Gonna take a little souvenir home with you if you keep that up, sweetheart.”

Your stomach swoops at that. His meaning, as always, comes clear as day, but this time the shock of it ripples through you like an electric current, mind wiped clean of anything apart from the sound of his voice.  

He pumps into you with a single-minded intensity, not giving you an inch to breathe. Smooth, measured strokes, an intent to his fuck instead of a mindless, frantic search for his end. It’s a treat to be with someone who knows what he’s doing—and fuck, does John know what he’s doing.  

“John—hgn, ah—fuck—” you gasp, so close to the edge that your voice almost gives out altogether. Taut as a tightrope. Charged as a live wire. “Wait, wait, wait—”

He thrusts one last time to the hilt before stilling, petting a hand down your spine to reassure you of his attention. “You alright, love?” 

“You—ah, um—c-condom?” 

It must come out too soft, too breathy, because he doesn’t catch your words at first, ducking his head to hear you better. “What’s that?”

“D’you have a condom on?” 

It’s the wrong time to ask the question, far too late for it to matter, but you ask it anyway. You should’ve confirmed it earlier when he didn’t have you flat on your belly with your hips canted up, pussy soaking wet and throbbing, so desperate to cum that you’d accept any answer so long as it meant he wouldn’t stop fucking you.

His fingers dig into the flesh of your belly. “Saw me take one out, didn’t ya?” 

“Uh huh,” you slur. When you turn your head, you see the foil wrapper on the bedside table, ripped only halfway open. Maybe just enough to stick a finger inside and fish the condom out. 

Your cunt clenches around his dick involuntarily and you swear you can feel the thin rubber against your walls. You swear you can. 

“Then quit askin’ stupid questions,” John growls into the crown of your head and drives his hips forward again.

Cold air from the AC wafts over your sweaty body as you lay stretched out on the mattress, cum drying between your thighs and chest still heaving with every breath. Goosebumps ripple across your flesh like tall grass swaying with a gentle breeze. 

John’s somewhere else in the hotel room. Probably in the bathroom from the faucet you can hear running in the background. He’ll probably gently coax you out in a few minutes. Give you just enough time to come back to yourself before helping you get dressed and seeing you to the door. It’s the kind of dalliance that you’d expect from a man like him—a good fuck, a solid effort to make you come, and then a gentle but firm hand on your back leading you to the door. You won’t be surprised when it comes. 

That’s good though. Now that you’ve gotten it out of your system, he won’t be as much of a distraction anymore. You’ll finally be able to leave behind any guilt that you felt before and devote yourself and your attention entirely to your friends, your little tryst a careful secret shared just between you and him.  

Catching your breath, you slowly lift yourself up, throwing your legs over the side of the bed and drawing your body to the edge. Allow yourself one last glance around, intrigued by the sight of his suitcase tucked away in the corner of the room, open face on the luggage rack. It says something about him, but you’re not sure what. Like he’s always ready to leave at a moment’s notice. 

“In a hurry, sweetheart?” John asks from the doorway, startling you. A glass of water dangles precariously from between his fingers. 

You figured he might come out in a robe or towel, but he’s as naked as when he left the bed, flaccid cock resting against his thigh and the dark thatch of hair at the base of his shaft still damp with your cum. He leans against the doorframe like he’s got nowhere to be and no one to answer to, all lazy confidence and assumed authority.

“Well, I figured…” You gesture towards the door with your thumb, lip caught between your teeth. 

“Figured what?” John asks, prompting you to keep going. 

He takes a step forward, heavy cock swaying with the movement of his hips. It’s big, even soft, flushed and spent against his thigh. The dull ache between your legs reminds you of where that shaft was buried not too long ago. It looks almost brutish in the light of day, heavy like a hammer and marbled with veins. 

“Figured that you’d—” Your voice trembles into nonexistence the closer he gets. “Figured that you’d maybe…want me out of your hair…”

The thunk that the glass makes when he sets it down on the bedside table makes your pulse jump. Muscled thighs covered in a thick dusting of hair fill your vision, his cock unavoidable this close to your face. 

A big hand wraps around his cock while the other braces itself on the back of your head, drawing you in. “You at least gonna clean up your mess before you leave?”

There’s no point in pretending like you don’t understand what he means, not when the evidence is right in front of your face, so close that you nearly go cross-eyed staring at it. Wrapping one hand around his shaft, he guides the soft, blunt head of his cock to your lips and pries your lips apart with his thumb, hips guiding it the rest of the way in. 

“There we go,” John sighs, eyes dark and heavy-lidded. His breath comes out heavy. “Y’can leave after. Won’t be more than—ah—a minute.”

Throat stuffed with his cock, your moan comes out muffled, eyes already watering from the strain. Your thoughts go soft and fuzzy when he drags his thumb over the bulge of your cheek, stroking the skin there tenderly. Almost affectionately. 

One time, you tell yourself as he draws his hips back and thrusts forward again. One more time and then never again.

[lazarus-writes-nonsense]

Margaritaville

For days now, you’ve been seeing the same broad-shouldered man lounging around the resort. Or: the knocked up on vacation au Part 1 masterlist

-

A familiar voice rouses you from a daydream that was just getting good. “Are you going to spend our entire vacation by the pool?”

“…Isn’t that what we’re supposed to be doing?”

You lift your sunglasses to meet your friend’s eyes, no need to squint against the sun because the way she’d stood in front of you blocks it from blinding you with your sunglasses off, inadvertently blocking the one thing you’d been hoping to keep your eyes on. 

Irritation prickles at the base of your spine, but you resist the urge to snap no matter how tempting it is. You’ve been getting away with murder these past couple days and throwing a fit won’t get you anywhere but in more hot water. 

“You’re supposed to be spending time with your friends,” she says, emphasizing the last word to communicate that you’ve been slipping in your duties. 

“Oh, sorry,” you apologize begrudgingly, leaning up on your elbows. “Were you, um…do we have plans that I’m forgetting about?”

“We’re taking the shuttle down to the beach,” she says, gesturing over her shoulder to where the rest of your friends are waiting with their flip flops and tote bags by the archway leading into the resort, the shuttle just through the double doors at the other end of the main building. “Are you coming?”

If you give yourself any time to deliberate, you’re worried that you’ll end up saying no, so instead you sigh, pushing yourself up from your elbows onto your hands. “Alright, give me a sec. I’ll catch up in a minute.”

She nods, appeased, heading back to the rest of the group with a thumbs up. 

Leaning over the side of the chair, you gather up your belongings, stuffing everything into your tote apart from the greasy, half-finished bottle of sunscreen that you keep in your hand, conscious of how it keeps leaking from where the lid broke the other day. 

It takes you a second to muster up the willpower to stand up and join them, your id screaming at you to turn around and plant yourself back in that pool chair to keep admiring the view. You have to be strong though. No breaking now after you just gave her your word that you’d come. 

One last surreptitious glance over your shoulder is all you allow yourself, biting your lower lip when you catch him stretching his arms over his head to grab the back of his pool chair, hairy pits on full display and lats stretching with the movement of his arms. 

Fuck, you nearly whimper, teeth pressing deeper into your lip. He slings one leg over the edge of the chair so his foot is planted on the floor, making his shorts pull tight across the thick bulge of his crotch.  

Fuck. 

For days now, you’ve been seeing the same broad-shouldered man lounging around the resort in various states of undress, your stomach a mess of both butterflies and knots every time you see him on the treadmill when you pass by the fitness centre or getting breakfast at the buffet in the morning.

Typically though, you can find him lounging on one of the poolside canopy beds with his boonie hat pulled down over his eyes, hands folded just under his pecs, clearly using his vacation to actually relax instead of running all over the resort like you and your friends. It affords you ample opportunity to stare unabashedly, eyelids going heavy the longer you stare at his strong chest and legs, thigh muscles making his swim trunks seem almost a size too small. 

Your friend wasn’t wrong to call you out for being less than attentive. You’ve been a lost cause since you first laid eyes on him, your thoughts a thick slurry of pent up horniness, tongue all but swollen in your mouth from how little you’ve been using it this trip. 

(if only you could pull down those shorts of his and use your tongue on him instead—)

In your defence, you haven’t been making an active effort to pick him up because you know that you're supposed to be enjoying your vacation with your friends. You’re well aware of how shitty it would be of you to try and hook up with another guest when you’re supposed to be spending time with them. 

But you also can’t help but linger when you realize that the same man (the one that has to be a decade your senior—the one that's built like a man, hirsute and tall, always a head above anyone else in the room) is nearby. It’s like he has some kind of magnetic pull on you.

You’re not proud of it, but at least part of your attention has gone towards figuring out whether he’s on vacation alone or with someone. No ring on his finger could mean anything. Lots of people commit without the ring; he could have a girlfriend and two kids back in his hotel room and you’d be none the wiser.

Then two days become three and you’re almost positive that he hasn’t come with anyone else. He eats alone and poolsides alone and you’ve never seen him so much as smile at someone who wasn’t wearing a resort uniform. The false hope that thought imbues you with is downright delusional. 

Your daydreams become increasingly oriented around following him back to his hotel room and slipping inside after him. You’ve never had a vacation fling before, but you think he’d make it good. Something about the way he walks like it’s heavy between his legs makes you think that he’d treat you right. 

You sit up and wipe the corner of your mouth, catching yourself drooling again. 

There are plenty of other things to do besides ogling the hot guy trying to enjoy his vacation alone though, so you force yourself to do things with your friends before one of them finally lays into you for zoning out the whole trip. Beach excursions and karaoke after dinner; you spend two hours dancing with two of your friends at the silent disco while your other friend goes upstairs for a shower and nap. Anything to show up and be present with your friends instead of languishingly in daydreamsville. 

Despite your best efforts though, you’re clearly not as subtle as you’d tricked yourself into believing. 

Rain is coming down in buckets outside. The four of you play Uno in the hotel room to wait it out when one of your friends asks if you’d be down to go on a snorkeling tour with the rest of them when the weather clears up. 

You open your mouth, about to respond, when your other friend cuts you off. “No, she’ll be busy making moon eyes at that guy with the weird hat.”

Your other friends cackle. Your cheeks flood with heat, so caught off guard that you can barely defend yourself, sputtering out something that only confirms her words. 

One of the others shrugs, putting a +2 down. “I get it. He’s really hot.”

“He’s like forty.”

“So what?” you sputter.

“You two want to fuck an old man?”

The friend that supported you rolls her eyes. “Oh my god, grow up. Forty’s not that old. Also I only said that he’s hot. No one’s getting married to him.”

The four of you share a laugh at that. If your laughter happens to come out strained, borderline forced, no one calls you out on it. 

The ribbing gets under your skin more than you’d like to admit, but instead of throwing a fit, you tap your nails impatiently against the back of your cards and roll your eyes, stacking the +2 with one of your own. “I can’t wait to get rid of you bitches and get home to the package that I’m waiting on.”

“I know what package you’d like to wait on,” someone mumbles.

“Shut up!” you shriek, mortified, snatching a pillow from the couch behind you to launch at her head and sending the others into hysterics. 

The problem is that he’s just always there. 

It’s a small resort—of course you’d cross paths with him every now and then, but somehow it feels like no matter where you go, he’s somehow nearby, either already there before you arrived or not long after. You’ve come to almost expect him because of that, meaning that on the rare occasion where an hour goes by without him pulling up a chair across the pool from you, your thoughts start to spiral and your mood goes sour. 

Glancing around the pool for the umpteenth time elicits no new sign of him though, much to your frustration. Not that you’ve made a habit of keeping tabs on his movements or knowing where he might be at any hour of the day (your conscience whispers staaaaalker under her breath and looks pointedly away), but it’s unusual not to see him sleeping in one of the free cabanas or sitting in the pool with both arms braced behind him on the coping. 

Greedy. You’ve grown so used to him always being around that it’s made you spoiled. 

“I’m gonna go get a drink,” you announce to the group, already toying off your flip flops and getting ready to slip into the pool. “Anyone wanna come?”

A couple of them let you know that they’ve heard you, but no one offers to join. Makes sense; it’s somewhere between two and three in the afternoon and the sun is at its highest, the air so hot that it’s an effort to not doze off in your chair, the heat making you lethargic. Your skin reminds you when to reapply sunscreen, the last layer sloughing off with the sweat constantly dripping down your body, ever in need of replenishment. You smooth a little more into your legs and arms before throwing the bottle back onto the floor next to your sandals, skin nice and sheeny again. 

The only swim-up bar is on the other side of the pool, so you float over slowly, wading through deeper and deeper waters until you almost have to cling to the side of the pool. It’s slow going, giving you ample opportunity to scan the poolside for your mystery man’s telltale red pinstripe swim trunks.

No dice. Just chairs and cabanas filled with people that you swear you’ve never seen in your life (not like you’ve been paying attention to any of the other guests). 

At the bar, you order a margarita and sit on the stool welded into the bottom of your pool with your elbows planted on the damp counter, your lower half still submerged. Frustration ebbs only for a dejected mopishness to flow back in.  

It might’ve been easier to push your disappointment down if any of your friends had bothered to join you for a drink, but you can’t blame them for taking advantage of the beautiful weather. 

The resort is nothing short of heaven. Thick palm fronds dangle over the pool chairs and sway back and forth with the gentle breeze. Light chatter from the people on the other end of the swim-up bar is just barely discernable over the sound of the music playing from the speaker overhead. 

The clientele at this resort is a mixed bag: some small groups of folks roughly your age and a multitude of families, the buffet practically a warzone with kids chasing each other around tables and through the halls, excited screeches following you all over the resort. There’s another pool a short shuttle ride away more geared towards kids though, thankfully, so this pool is relatively quiet apart from the music blaring from speakers placed strategically throughout the property, a mix of acoustic covers and lounge beats in the morning, and upbeat pop in the mid-afternoon to liven things up.  

It’s nice. Definitely worth the fifteen hundred dollars and definitely worth coming back next year if your friends don’t boot you from the group chat the second you touch down back home. 

That’s what you’re thinking about when you casually glance around the pool again and feel your heart nearly jump out of your chest when you spot him. 

He appears from around a palm tree like the red sea parting, so sudden that all you can do is stare wide-eyed, discretion the last thing on your mind. It’s not that you don’t care if he sees you staring unabashedly, it’s just that you physically can’t look away from him. 

He must have set down his stuff on one of the pool chairs nearby because he walks over barefoot, slipping into the water almost gracefully for a man his size, biceps bulging when he lowers himself from the edge into the pool. You spend so long staring at the faint pink sunburn on his shoulders and the undulating muscles of his chest that it takes a second for your eyes to meet his, a jolt going through your body when you find him staring right back at you, his gaze even heavier.

You go stock-still when he wades over to the swim-up bar where you're waiting on your drink and takes the seat directly beside you. The seats are arranged close together to fit as many as possible in front of the bar, so it’s not totally his fault that his thigh presses against yours. 

But you also can’t help but notice the three empty stools beside him. All that space, free for the taking, and yet he sits so close to you that anyone swimming by would naturally assume you were here together.

The smell of his skin is like sun and salt; if you inhale too deeply, you know it'll just make you dizzy. This close, you can make out every mind-numbing detail: the dense brush of hair on his forearms, the old school anchor tattoo on his shoulder, the thick band of a watch on his right wrist. The drawstrings of his trunks floating in the water, aglet the most buoyant. 

Your hands shake in your lap when he turns to the bartender and orders a drink too, the sound of his voice rolling over you, gruff in a way that almost makes you melt. 

A voice that makes you look up at him all doe-eyed and dumb when he finally looks down and says something to you for the first time.

“Haven’t I seen you around?” 

The shudder you manage to suppress, but the way your skin goes tight with goosebumps is out of your control. In all of your daydreams, he’d been more of the silent, grunting type—the type to huff and puff through every thrust, no appetite for sweet, sugary words. You never thought to imagine a voice to go along with his face. 

He’s handsome in the way that some men are—almost effortlessly. Sea blue eyes and strong nose; thick neck and bristly jaw. He wears his age well. 

And then his question registers, the gears in your brain slow to start chugging along again, overwhelmed by his proximity and attention, neither of which you ever expected to be on the receiving end. 

“Um…” you start, tripping over your words and swallowing them back up. “Maybe. Have you?”

His lips stretch into a fond, crooked grin, cheeks dimpling with his smile. “Yeah. Pretty sure I have.”

“Probably. I mean, I’m, um—I’m staying here. At the resort, I mean.”

“Here alone?” he asks. 

“No, I’m with them—” You turn and point over your shoulder towards your group still lounging in the cabana. “My friends. We got here a few days ago.”

“Right,” he says, not bothering to look over to where you’re pointing, eyes not shifting from your face. “Liking it so far?”

You’ll have to check later for burns because your face feels like it's on fire. The shock of the cold glass in your hand when the bartender passes you your drink helps to ground you at least. 

“It’s been nice,” you croak, smile feeble when you finally coax your slack lips into working again. “…How about you?”

You wish your conversation would come out less stilted. Hard to play it cool in a hundred degree heat.

“Getting better every day,” he replies, as smooth a line as you’ve ever heard. 

You take a sip of your drink, hoping the alcohol helps settle your nerves. You’re conscious of the way his eyes follow your tongue as you lick the salt off the rim of your glass. Someone off in the distance shrieks and there’s a splash from the other side of the pool, but it barely registers as background noise, all of your attention focused on the blue of his eyes.

“That any good?” he asks, voice gruff. 

“You want some?” you ask, instantly mortified when you hear what just came out of your mouth.

“Kind of you, love, but I can’t take what doesn’t belong to me.”

You don’t know what he means by that until the bartender puts a beer down in front of him, a lime garnishing the rim. The man thanks him, big hand wrapping around the bottle and fingers easily overlapping. The mental image of that goes straight into your spank bank for later. 

The lime gets dropped somewhere on the countertop and he takes a long pull from the neck, eyes locked on you the whole time. 

You’re not so naive as to not know what this is, but—

Someone calls your name from the other end of the pool and you turn instinctively at the sound, grasping onto the edge of the countertop and leaning back until you see one of your friends standing at the edge of the pool, waving you towards her. 

“Friends want you back?” he asks, sounding vaguely disappointed. You’re not sure if that’s just in your head or not. 

“Uh…I’m not sure—” you answer uncertainly. 

The same friend calls your name again, louder this time, garnering the attention of some of the other people sitting around the pool, and a surge of annoyance rushes up your chest. Weren’t they dozing off just a few minutes ago? Now all three stand at attention, sandals on and tote bags slung over their shoulders, the brims of their hats shading them from the sun as they gesture for you to join them. You nearly groan out loud. Of all times to call you back. 

You made a promise though, at least to yourself. The possibility of good dick, while tempting, is not enough to get you to switch your allegiances. 

(just yet, something in you whispers)

(give it enough time)

The smile you give him is rueful, almost apologetic. “I’m sorry—I should get going. They probably planned something at the beach. It was nice to meet you though…” There’s room at the end of your sentence for him to wedge his name in, a little dangling participle of pleasantry. 

A chuckle flows out of him like the chuff of a bear. “John.” He gives his name like a gift, offers his hand the same. 

You think it’s an offer anyway, until John just takes your hand, his damp, warm palm practically swallowing yours. Doesn’t wait for you to give him what he wants—just takes it like he’s owed it. The thought makes your head spin. Coarse, callused fingers wrap around the underside of your hand, long enough to nearly engulf your wrist as well. The hair on his knuckles is as dark as the pelt on his chest, and you wonder what it would feel like for him to drag a knuckle down the line of your jaw. 

Your throat pulls with a swallow, breath shaky on the way out. 

“Nice to meet you, John,” you say, all raspy-voiced, giving him your name as well like he pulled that from you too. 

It takes him a beat to let go of your hand, the intent in his hold so clear that he might as well say it right to your face. You have to leave before your resolve crumbles like papier-maché. 

“Since you’re not sticking around,” John says, finally letting go of your hand, “think I will have a taste.”

A taste. The word makes you clench up but you don’t register what he means until he curls his fingers around your margarita and brings it to his mouth, taking a sip from where you last had your lips. 

Oh god. You’re smart enough to get it. You’re smart enough to see that gesture for what it is. 

You send him one last thin, watery smile before beating a hasty retreat, his invitation still at the swim-up bar with him. Water sloughs off your body as you take the stairs out of the pool instead of swimming back to your friends, swimsuit damp in more ways than one, and you swear you can feel the heat of his gaze on your back as you walk over to where your friends stand. 

One of your friends peeks over your shoulder while handing you your stuff, eyes going wide when she notices him sitting where you just left. “Oh, did you see the hot guy was sitting at the bar too?”

“Yeah,” you reply, shaky hands slipping your sunglasses on. “I noticed.”

[lazarus-writes-nonsense]

everyone knows that soap, ghost, and even john can be absolutely disgusting during sex, thought it kyle gaz garrick who is the biggest freak of them all.

he's blowing a load on your face and then licking it off. dragging his soaked tongue and mashing it against yours. he's fucking your face until his dick is covered in spit, then uses it as lube to slip inside you. cooing as you gasp at the stretch of him and slipping his thumb into your mouth to quiet your whines. he fucks you deep and hard, knocking you until you're at the edge of the bed and your head is hanging off.

you squeal around his finger, sending an upside down stare right towards the three men sitting across from the bed–all of them with stiff cocks and rough breathing as the watch gaz rail you silly.

"bleedin' jesus," johnny breathes out at the two of you, a wet stain on the pants he's already accidentally come in. squirming in a silent itch to get a little closer.

to his left sits john, who's flicking his darkened gaze between you and gaz, hand squeezing at his bulge every time you sob out a cock-drunk mumble of curses.

and to johnny right is simon. teeth clenched and eyes unblinking, his entire body pulses as he can't decide which one of you or gaz does he wish to switch places with...

© 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐡𝐨𝐞𝐯𝐚

[lazarus-writes-nonsense]

still thinking about marine biologist!reader. come home the kids miss you 🥹

Orca Mer!ghost and marine biologist!reader who runs a mer sanctuary???? Yeah.

Ghost was a new rescue, youve been told. He was found off the coast of a popular tourist spot, and had suffered a broken arm from a boat getting too close. As one of the few on-call staff members with medical experience, you get called in to fix him.

Its...bad. when you first see the mer, thats all you can think. Bad. His arm is limp and cradled to his chest, you only catch glimpses through the tight anxious circles he swims. On his eighth turn you spot two notches and a tag on his dorsal fin. He was one of robas, that bastard.

Protocol states that he should be sedated for the procedure. It also states that you should never even stand close to a tank with an agitated mer. Soap, one of your three permanent patients, had once told you that seeing figures looming over the surface of the water was much more threatening than someone dipping their legs in. when your feet are in water, soap always had the best speech, growing up alongside humans we can see you are human stepping into our territory. We could easily drown you. It is like...submission? I dont know the English word for it.

So, you don a wetsuit and place all the needed supplies by the edge of the pool. The second your feet breach the water surface, ghosts hand is wrapping around your ankle and yanking you into the water. He had crossed the tank in seconds, and you were about ready to accept this would be how you die.

Except, you never feel your back hit concrete, or water filling your lungs. No, ghost just drags you into the centre of the pool then...leaves you there. You tread water as he circles you slowly, silently grateful for all those days spent in prices tank. Just as you begin to think ghost is waiting for exhaustion to overtake you, he pauses his circling and stops directly in front of you. "You..." his voice is scratchy and wavering, clearly unused to english "you...water...why?"

You had been trained on how to speak with mers that had limited speech. They weren't stupid, but you couldn't ramble at them like you could soap. Slowly, you gesture to your forearm, then point at ghost "broken. I'll fix it."

Ghost makes a displeased rumble that you know means danger. "No."

You nod, no need to anger him. "I promise, ill fix it. Can I show you what I want to use? Just so you can see?"

When ghost doesnt say anything, you slowly drift towards the edge of the pool again. He watches silently, and you think youll make progress, only for him to growl when you reach over the sill. "Hey, hey." You put your hands up so he can see them "its just stuff to fix you, okay? Do...do you want to come look? You can touch and ill tell you what it does."

Water sloshes against the sill as ghosts large form swims close. The bandage looks comically small in hid hands. "Those," you explain, careful not to grab at them, "are waterproof bandages. Its to help hold your arm in place when I fix you."

Ghost nods, picks and pulls at the stretchy fabric for a bit before moving on to the next item. You spend the next hour like that, going over each item and what it does again and again. You would spend the whole day here if thats what it took for ghost to feel safe.

You seriously think this will be all the progress for today, content with it even if youd prefer ghost be fixed sooner than later. Youre so caught up in whether his arm could handle another day that you dont register the presence drifting closer to you until a large hand circles your waist.

With a yelp, you're dragged backwards to lie on ghosts chest as he floats belly-up. He just rumbles at you when you squirm, hand nearly as big as your abdomen resting over your stomach. He holds his broken arm in fron of you, "fix it."

...well, you would never say no to helping a mer. So you work with what ghost gives you. Laid back as items are passed to you. He doesnt react when you pull at the bones until they set properly. The hand on your stomach may have been playful were this gaz, but you know its nothing more than a warning. Ghost could gut you if you upset him.

Its slow work, but as the sky is beginning to shift into warm hues, ghosts arm is bandaged and properly set. He startles you against by picking you up with one hand and sitting you on the sill. The second he lets go, ghost is darting to the farthest, deepest end of the pool.

Mildly, you note that he isnt swimming tight circles anymore.

[lazarus-writes-nonsense]

I keep thinking about the hybrid au (wolf!Gaz and pure bred dog!reader) and how wolves will lick into each other's mouths as a greeting/submissive gesture and Gaz being the manipulative bastard that he is absolutely takes advantage of your instinct to lick to get you frenching him before he even starts grooming you for romance.

it started with him pressing his fingers against your lips, letting you hesitantly lick them before he assured you "both canids love, don't mind if you don't." and it was nice having another dog around, so you let yourself indulge the embarrassing instinct. except that it escalated. his finger hooked into your mouth, dragging you back when you skipped past him, reeling you in to lick your cheek before sucking the wet fingers into his mouth. his hand grabbing your chin to lick over your lips. prying your jaw open to trace his tongue over your teeth. startling and humiliating with each new progression until it was natural.

until you held your tongue out each time Gaz passed you by and eventually leaned in yourself to great him with sloppy licks and your tongue tracing over sharp canines.

it tickles some baser instinct in the back of your skull, scratches an itch that makes your tail sway. pack mentality bred into you with each generation until you're glued to Gaz's side, ears perking each time you hear his footsteps and tongue eagerly working its way into his mouth. Dogs, gaz thinks, are a particularly stupid breed.

[lazarus-writes-nonsense]

Wolf!Gaz with purebread great Pyrenees dog! Reader who instead of Gaz eating her sheep eats her pussy instead.... purely transactional... totally... totally doesn't share her meals with him because he may be a wild wolf but has killer puppy eyes...

cw dubcon

forcing your legs apart while you whimper and whine because your heat popped up a few days before your scheduled leave and you nearly threw yourself at a canid that wasn't him.

clearly you haven't learned who you belong to yet, but it's ok, he'll teach you. you'll get a front row seat to Gaz's flat tongue lapping at your cunt, dragging the red ambrosia of your heat into his mouth with devout care, until your folds are clean and sparkling with spit. purely transactional, of course, he can't let a pack member suffer, but you need to remember that you're in his pack not anyone else's, his. so you come to him and you shake that fat fucking ass of yours, and you whine just for him.

you can do that, yeah?

because otherwise he'll have to show everyone that you're more than just another little pack member, dig his teeth into that pretty neck and mount you over the mess hall table for everyone to see. parading around like you aren't dripping with heat scent, he should've made a den for you ages ago, filed leave to plug you full of pups and keep you out of base until he could get a ring on your finger. he'll take a grand display over that though, might be fun letting other people watch you scream and beg for his cock.

[lazarus-writes-nonsense]

old price sketch

[lazarus-writes-nonsense]

M’s Masterlist

Tags/Warnings

☁️ Fluff

🌙 Mature / suggestive

🌕 Adults only (18+ MDNI)

⭐️ Fan favourites

Call of Duty

Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley

Series:

‘Wife at First Sight’ (Complete series) ☁️ 🌙 🌕 ⭐️

‘Bird Watching’ (38k words so far) ☁️ 🌙 🌕⭐️

‘Declined’ (part 1, part 2) (10k words) ☁️🌙 🌕 ⭐️

‘A Stranger is a Friend You Haven’t Met Yet…’ (part 1, part 2, part 3) (12k words so far) ☁️🌙 🌕

‘Comatose Confessions’ (part 1, part 2) (6k words) ☁️

‘And They Were Roommates’ (drabble mini series) ☁️ 🌙

One Shots:

‘Routines’ (1.4k words) ☁️ 🌙

‘Love is a Verb’ (3k words) ☁️ 🌙 ⭐️

‘Showing Off’ (1k words) ☁️ 🌙

‘Home’ (1.6k words) ☁️

‘Yours, Mine, Ours’ (1.5k words) ☁️

Drabbles:

‘Oatmeal’ ☁️ ⭐️

‘Tests’ ☁️

‘Patience’ ☁️ 🌙

‘Acts of Service’ ☁️

‘Silent as a Ghost’ ☁️ ⭐️

‘Sick’ ☁️ 🌕

‘Suspicions’ ☁️ 🌙

‘Jealous’ ☁️ ⭐️

‘Necessary’ ☁️

‘Midnight Kiss’ ☁️

Random drabbles I (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11) ☁️

Random drabbles II (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12) ☁️ 🌙

Random drabbles III (1, 2) 🌕

Halloween Fics 🎃 (1, 2, 3, 4) ☁️ 🌙

Valentines Day Fics💘 (1) ☁️

Captain John Price

Series:

‘Right With You’ (part 1, part 2, part 3) (12k total words) ☁️🌙 🌕

One Shots:

‘Handsome’ (1.4k words) ☁️ 🌙

‘Promises’ (1.2k words) ☁️

‘Wish’ (1k words) ☁️

‘On the Nice List’ 🎄(holiday one shot, 1.5k words) ☁️ 🌙

Drabbles:

Random drabbles (1) ☁️

Credits to @thecutestgrotto for the beautiful Starry Night dividers!!

If you’ve ever taken the time to read, like, comment, or reblog anything I’ve ever written, thank you so much!

You can find me on Ao3 under the same name, ReadWriteAllDayAllNight

Please do not steal any of my works, I’m already mentally ill enough I don’t need to deal with that too 😙

I do not use AI nor do I condone my works being used to train AI

- M 🫶🏻

[lazarus-writes-nonsense]

never done a hybrid au or anything but I keep thinking about hare!Ghost and rabbit!reader

he's so big, limbs and ears stretched too long, scent eerily similar to something you could almost call familiar, his shape is uncanny, cousin to your own but corded with different muscles. his nose twitches differently, his ears stand too tall, his penchant for open spaces felt quirky at first but now you watch him lay out in an open field and the way he disappears against the ground sends a chill down your spine. he is so much like you and yet every inch of you knows he's different.

but no one else seems to care. they pair you up like alarm bells don't ring each time you stand next to him. they joke about leaving rabbits together and you swallow the need to scream that he's not like you, that it isn't natural, it doesn't work, that when his eyes slink towards you they read as foreign as a predator. it's like staring down a funhouse mirror of your species, some convergent evolution gone wrong, shifted for a harsher environment, your families separated enough that you never should have been faced with someone like him.

you thump your foot at him when he gets too close and your entire body heats in embarrassment. it's an empty threat, you're hardly fit for fighting without the guns and knives that soldiers carry but ghost- ghost studies you like an insect, like he can't quite figure out why you're so soft and round where he isn't. he stares at you in every room his existence corners you into. he tugs at one of your ears when you pass him in the hall, he gropes at the fat of your hips when you stand in line at mess, he grips your tail so hard you have to stop yourself from yelping. so you thump at him, because you're tired of whatever measurements he's taking, whatever comparisons he's drawing between the two of you, silent observer to your fear of him, using it to keep you quiet against the persistent harassment; his nose twitches.

he's faster than you, you already knew that, you shouldn't be surprised when he lunges at you the way he does. you still scramble to get away, launch yourself into movement, some hind-brain instinct propelling you forward, searching for somewhere small and dark to hide yourself. Even though you know he'll catch you, that his big hands will grip you hard and then, well, you don't have to think too hard about what he wants.

you'd seen the way his hard cock strained against his fatigues at every mention of fucking like rabbits.

[lazarus-writes-nonsense]

afab!reader, gn!reader, intoxicated sex (keegan drank a lil hehe), loud!keegan, lots of moaning, creampie, lovesick keegan, pussydrunk keegan

Keegan who, on a normal day, would never let you hear him let loose with his moans. Its not that he's self-conscious or anything but he prefers to be able to hear you whining and whimpering.

But maybe he gets a few drinks in him, unwinds and grows complacent. His lips get loose the second he gets his cock stuffed into the tight, hot clutch of your precious cunt. 

He’s got you creaming around the base of him and he just…can’t shut up. He starts whimpering, moaning, and sighing – it’s music to your ears, actually. 

“So good,” he pants, fingers minutely trembling where he holds your hips down so he can pump his length into you with ease, “It’s so good. You’re so wet, fuck, do you know what you do to me? You drive me crazy…”

You whine his name, eyes lidded and staring up at him with that dazed, cockdrunk look on your face that you always seem to wear when he’s got you pinned underneath him – how could you not? He fucks you so, so well and he knows it.

“That’s it, baby,” he coos, voice cracking at the end when you suddenly squeeze down around him, “Keep sayin’ my name. Love hearin’ it – keep tellin’ me who it is that’s making you feel this good, hm?”

His name falls from your lips like a heavenly plea, your eyes rolling back in your head when he moans, loud and unabashed. He tosses his head back, adams apple bobbing as he struggles to swallow around the lump in his throat. 

It’s never felt this good before, he swears. Usually alcohol makes it harder for him to get off – sometimes even makes it hard for him to get hard. But something different tonight, he’s so sensitive and he can feel how full his balls are and all he can think about is pumping a dozen loads into you until they’re completely empty. 

He needs it. He needs you.

“Love you so much,” he pants, body collapsing onto yours, chest to chest as his hips pitifully rabbit into you, barely even pulling out before he’s humping the length back into you, “Love you, fuck, I love you.”

You cry his name, nails scraping down his back as your entire body twitches. You can’t escape the stimulation with his weight pressed down on you the way it is. You can’t push him away for a break, you can’t get respite from the overwhelming stimulation of his cock pumping into you or his pelvic bone grinding against your clit. 

It sends you hurdling over the edge terrifyingly fast. Your feet kick uselessly against the back of his thighs as your eyes roll back in your head. 

Keegan moans, panting and gasping into your neck where he hides his face as he feels you cum around him. It pulls his own orgasm forth and he’s spilling into you in 3 quick pumps of his hips. 

Even as his orgasm crests and fades, he doesn’t stop – keeps humping your sensitive cunt until you’re cumming again. And again. And again. 

It was going to be a long night and by now, you could barely even hear yourself over the sound of Keegan’s moaning and babbled praises.<3

do not respost to a third party site, translate, or modify. reblogs OK!

[lazarus-writes-nonsense]

fuck ai I've made this with sweat and a lot of colour palets or whatever is called in english

[lazarus-writes-nonsense]

ik i said post apocalyptic au aint my cuppa but the idea of landing in the hands of the wrong kind of savior is making me see things differently. like ghost doesn't speak much when he drags you from the wreckage— just presses a canteen to your cracked lips, checks your pulse with gloved fingers and hauls you over his shoulder like you're another piece of gear. he wears a cracked ballistic mask and desert goggles, always covered in dust and sweat and the smell of burnt oil.

and then you wake up in his bunker: reinforced steel doors, filtered air and a radio that spews only static, and a wall of weapons you can't name. he tells you that it's not safe out there, that you won't last even an hour without him but the way he looks at you, like he's memorizing the shape of your spine through your jacket, it makes you think you won't survive being in here with him either.

[lazarus-writes-nonsense]

John Oliver gets it, as usual. AI Slop is one of the best episodes of Last Week Tonight I've seen so far. Gen AI is theft. Those who use it are not authors or artists, they're grifters profiting from real creatives.

[lazarus-writes-nonsense]

(Poly 141 x neighbour!reader: the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach! (Or in your case, the way to four men’s heart is through their stomach))

It started with cookies.

You’d been in the middle of baking a double batch- oatmeal chocolate chip, your personal favorite- and realized halfway through scooping them onto the tray that you’d made far too many for one person. It wasn’t unusual. Baking was how you coped with stress, and ever since you’d moved into this apartment building, stress had been in no short supply.

The guy in 3A had blared music all night. Your hot water barely lasted five minutes. And your smoke detector had developed a habit of chirping at odd hours.

But there was one bright spot- your neighbors in 3C.

You’d seen them coming and going. Tall, broad, and always carrying duffel bags that looked far too heavy to be legal. They kept odd hours, too, but never caused trouble. One of them- Johnny, you’d learned later- had even held the door open for you when your arms were full of groceries.

Which was why you’d stood outside their door that evening, balancing a plate of cookies and feeling like an idiot as you knocked.

Not-Johnny had answered first, blinking down at you in surprise, though his smile was warm and he was beautiful. You couldn’t blame him; you had barely spoken to them more than a few short words.

“Uh… hi?”

“Hi.” You forced a smile. “I’m your neighbor from 3B. I, uh… made too many cookies?”

His eyes dropped to the plate immediately, and you swore you saw something primal flicker behind them. Still, you worried.

“I mean, if you don’t want-”

“No! No, we want. Come in- Johnny! Get over here!”

And that was how it started.

The second time had been lasagna.

You’d just finished assembling it when you realized- again- that you’d made too much. So, after psyching yourself up for ten minutes, you’d knocked on their door for the second time in as many weeks.

Price, who had introduced himself along wuth Simon the day you dropped off the cookies, had answered that time, his expression guarded until he saw the foil-covered pan in your hands.

“You’re joking,” he’d said, but when you started to retreat, he’d stopped you with a firm, but gentle hand on your back. He had such a nice, big hand. “Don’t be ridiculous, lovie. Get in here.”

That night, you’d sat at their table, sharing stories and laughter while they cleaned the dish down to the last crumb.

After that, it became routine.

You started “testing recipes,” and they became your eager guinea pigs.

And they never seemed to mind.

And now…

The smell hit first- roasted garlic, browned butter, and something rich simmering low and slow. It snuck out from the slightly cracked kitchen window and spilled into the shared hallway of the apartment building. For men used to MREs and takeout, it was practically siren song.

Gaz was the first to notice, lingering just outside the door labeled 3B- your door- with an almost predatory focus. He wasn’t proud of it, but his stomach growled so loud that Soap- rounding the corner with a gym bag slung over his shoulder- laughed outright.

“You stalking the neighbor again?”

“Shut up. You smell that?”

Soap inhaled deeply. His eyes fluttered shut for a beat before snapping open.

“Jesus wept- what is that?!”

“I don’t know, but I’m this close to knocking.” Kyle held up his fingers, barely an inch apart.

“She already fed us last week, mate. Dinna push it.”

“But what if she’s testing another recipe?”

Gaz wasn’t wrong. You had a habit of showing up at their door with dishes too good to refuse.

They hadn’t stood a chance.

After the cookies and the lasagna, it wasn’t long before other dishes followed: casseroles, soups, pies, and even homemade bread. And the worst part? You bow always prefaced it by saying you needed an opinion- like they were doing you the favor.

It wasn’t until Price called you a “bloody saint” over a pan of enchiladas that Ghost finally put it together.

“You’re using us as taste testers.” He’d said flatly.

You’d grinned- too cute and too smug for your own good. “Is that a problem?”

Not a single one of them had said no, just as stated before.

Which led them here, hovering outside your door and pretending they weren’t waiting for another offering.

“… Fine.” Soap muttered, raising his hand to knock.

But the door swung open before he could, and there you were- apron on, hair pulled back, and flour dusted across your cheek.

“Hi!” You chirped, eyes bright. “Perfect timing!”

Gaz’s grin was pure relief. “Tell me you need opinions. Please, love.”

You laughed, stepping aside to let them in. “I always need opinions. Come in!”

Inside, the kitchen was chaos. Cutting boards and mixing bowls were scattered across the counters. A Dutch oven bubbled on the stove, releasing clouds of savory steam. Plates of food- half-assembled sandwiches, stuffed peppers, and what looked like chocolate tarts- sat waiting.

“I… might’ve gone overboard.” You admitted, and if you hadn’t spent all day in the kitchen, your cheeks would’ve gone warmer.

Soap whistled low, eyes raking over every dish. “Not complainin’.”

Price arrived just then, texted by Kyle, trailed closely by Simon, who took one look at the spread and froze. His eyes swept from the roasted chicken resting under a blanket of fresh herbs to the still-warm biscuits stacked beside a bowl of honey butter.

“What’s the occasion?” John asked, smile amused, but you just waved him off.

“Practicing.”

Gaz was already halfway to the table, trying to decide what to start with, but Simon lingered, watching you carefully. He had his balaclava on, though you haven’t yet dared to ask why he wears it.

“Practicing for what, exactly?”

You hesitated, fiddling with the edge of your apron. “There’s this… thing next week. A community bake-off. And I thought it might be fun to enter.”

Soap arched a brow. “You’re entering this in a bake-off?”

“Well, not all of it. I’m still deciding which dishes to use.”

“You’re winning.” Kyle said immediately, filling his plate.

“Definitely.” Johnny added, already reaching for a sandwich.

Simon, still lingering, crossed his arms and stared down at you. His height will never, ever not make your breath hitch. “You’re testing all of this on us?”

You looked up at him through your lashes, pouting just a little. “You don’t mind, do you, Simon?”

His gaze darkened- not in anger, but something softer, heavier. It made your stomach flip.

“No,” he said simply. “We don’t mind.”

You swallowed and turned quickly to the oven to hide the heat rushing to your cheeks.

The next hour passed in a blur of taste testing, arguments over which dish was best, and repeated assurances that you were going to “blow the competition out of the water.” But beneath the laughter and teasing, you failed to catch the way they looked at you- how Price lingered by the stove just to steal extra bites, or how Johnny kept offering to help, hovering close enough that you brushed elbows more than once.

And Simon? He was the worst of all. He didn’t say much, but his eyes tracked your every move, following the way your hands worked the dough or wiped flour off the counter. He was the last to leave, hanging back as the others helped clear plates.

“You’re serious about this bake-off?” he asked quietly.

You nodded. “Thought it might be fun.”

“You don’t need it.”

“… What?”

He gestured at the now-empty plates. “To prove anything, I mean. You’re already…” He trailed off for a few seconds, and though you were left blinking at him, you didn’t rush him. “Good enough.” he murmured at last.

The compliment hit harder than you expected, and for once, you didn’t have a clever response.

“Thank you, Simon. That… means a lot to me.” you said softly.

And just like that, the others reappeared, breaking the moment. Johnny patted Simon’s shoulder with a knowing smirk, and Kyle slung an arm around your shoulders, while Price merely watched. Your kitchen was now spotless, cleaned by them.

“When’s the next test run?” Gaz asked.

“I don’t know yet.”

“Well, let us know. We’re free anytime.”

“Yeah,” Soap added. “Anytime.”

You laughed but this time, you didn’t miss the way Price was looking at you- thoughtful, like he’d already made up his mind about something.

The door clicked shut behind them after that, leaving your apartment quieter but no less warm. The scent of roasted garlic and herbs still lingered, and you found yourself smiling as you surveyed the spotless kitchen. They’d made quick work of the mess, trading jokes and lighthearted jabs as they wiped down counters and stacked dishes in quite the uniform style.

You didn’t know what you’d done to deserve neighbors like them, but you weren’t about to question it.

You caught yourself humming as you tucked away the last plate, the sound of their laughter still echoing faintly in your ears. It was easy with them- comfortable in a way that felt rare and almost too good to be true.

And maybe it was.

Because what you didn’t know- what you would probably never know, such a sweet and trusting thing- was that your apartment had been wired within days of your first visit to their door.

To them, it had started with a conversation.

“She’s alone,” Price had said after the second time you’d brought them food, leaning back in his chair with a contemplative frown. “No sign of anyone else coming or going.”

“Security’s shite.” Gaz had added, gesturing vaguely toward the shared hallway where your lock barely functioned half the time.

Soap had shrugged, easygoing as ever, but his eyes had been sharp. “Better us keep an eye on her than let some arsehole get the chance.”

And that was that.

Price had ordered the equipment, Ghost had handled the installation, and none of them had lost sleep over it. Not when it meant keeping you safe.

It wasn’t just the cameras, either.

Simon had reinforced your locks under the guise of “fixing” them after you mentioned a struggle with your key. Johnny had talked you into letting him check your windows “just to be sure they latched properly.” Gaz had set up an app on your phone to “monitor deliveries,” though it also let them track your location if needed.

And Price? He always lingered at the door just long enough to ask if you needed anything else- subtle, but enough to make sure you knew they were there.

You never questioned it. Never noticed the way they moved like a unit around you, anticipating problems before they could arise. Never caught the glances they exchanged when you mentioned a repairman or the way Simon hovered near the window any time a car idled too long outside.

You just kept feeding them, trusting them in ways that only made their resolve deepen.

Price was the worst.

He’d leaned against the counter tonight, watching you laugh at Johnny’s jokes and swat at Kyle when he tried to sneak extra bites, and the thought had hit him harder than he expected, while Simon watched on in amusement and was the only to successfully swipe a few more bites.

They could’ve had this already.

If life had gone differently- if timing had been better- you could’ve been his. Theirs. Someone to come home to instead of just someone they visited between deployments.

He hadn’t said anything, of course. None of them had.

But as they left, he’d lingered in the doorway, letting his hand rest lightly against the frame.

“Don’t let ‘em eat it all before the bake-off,” he’d teased, lips curling into a smile. “They’ll start begging if you do.”

You’d laughed, and God, it was dangerous how much he liked the sound.

“I’ll make sure to keep them in line.”

His smile softened. “Good girl.”

You didn’t notice the way Simon shot him a sharp look at that- or the way Johnny and Kyle exchanged knowing grins.

And later, when Price sat down in front of the monitors to check the feeds, he didn’t let himself feel guilty.

Because you were safe.

And as far as they were concerned, that was all that mattered.

[lazarus-writes-nonsense]

thinking about johnny and his religious trauma (possibly guilt), and how he knows, in a way that he cannot verbalize, that somehow his god made you for him and he resents you for it.

how you just slot into what he grew up begging and praying for—the type of person he'd happily bring home with him; the type that would coax such joyful tears from his mother's eyes; the type that would make his sisters laugh and giggle while they clamber to your feet; the type that'd make his father look at him with pride, like johnny's finally done good in his eyes. like johnny's finally fitting in.

you've lived a life that he could never fathom—you never once had to deal with a broken home or feel the blisters on your mother's palms or watch the anger of your father, one that is so great, it eclipsed the light of the lord. you've lived a life that bore no cross for you to carry; no thorns on your temple; no false prophets and false saints to cry to.

you've lived a life so void of anything that johnny, until now, struggles to shake off, and here you are—all starry-eyed and beautiful—and you dare to make him feel—

like a human; like the man who he always wanted to be before the lord.

you make his tragedy feel so negligible, mundane—his suffering in the military unfurling into a distant memory because you bring so much humanity in him.

any greater man would have made a parable out of his desires for you, and johnny hates it. he hates you. still, you breathe into him such a tender promise of a home. such sweet dreams. still, you leave him wanting. hungry.

he cannot walk away. you remind him too well of his greed; that he didn't have to grow into his agony. and johnny hates you for it.

(bloodied hands find your supple ones, tangling the two like a twisted promise—like this, you will be johnny's new light. like this, you will be johnny's new purpose.

like this, johnny will find his way back to his god and then, he will take you as his bride.)

("a flightless bird," his captain breathes out. "i thought i taught you better than this, john—you never clip their wings too early into the chase.")

[lazarus-writes-nonsense]

(anxious reader x roommate Simon Riley)

It’s always been a thing with you: men that are strangers make you nervous. Being around men makes your anxiety ramp up, and you do your best to avoid them if you can. You hated the way your previous roommate would bring random men home without warning, scurrying to the safety of your bedroom when you caught sight of these hookups alone in the kitchen. 

Which makes your current living situation so incredibly difficult. 

It hadn’t been an easy decision, choosing to move in with Simon Riley. A man. A stranger. But money had been tight, and the amount he wanted for rent had been far cheaper than your current situation. Plus he had said he’s out most of the time due to work, and that you’d have the apartment to yourself for weeks on end. 

Which is true. Sometimes it’s just a few weeks. Sometimes it’s for months. It’s blissful and quiet, having the entire apartment to yourself, not a single worry in your mind.

But it’s the weeks that he is home, that he’s physically in the apartment, that make you second guess the choice to put your name on the lease. Just seeing him has your heart dropping to your stomach, blood rushing in your ears until you scramble back to your room, hiding behind a locked door. 

Simon has the right to be in the apartment, of course. It was his before it was yours, but if you’re being honest with yourself, if not for the cheap rent, you would’ve moved out months ago. Hell, you probably would’ve never agreed to move in. 

Of course, none of that matters right now. Simon’s deployed, shipped off half way across the world, and you’ve got the whole apartment to yourself right now. Horror movie on the tv, curled up on the couch with a blanket and a stuffed animal, a coloring book on your lap - you’re having a wonderful time all by yourself. That is, until the front door opens. 

You’re so engrossed in coloring that you don’t hear it. Lost in your own world, until you hear footsteps in the foyer, and a voice, rough but not entirely foreign calls out your name. Your heart stops in your chest as he rounds the corner, eye black still streaked around his hazel eyes, hair grown out since you last saw him. 

“Simon,” you choke his name out like it physically pains you. 

His lips curl upwards in the ghost of a smile, and then he’s moving further into the apartment. Panic grips you for a moment, convinced he’s coming closer to you, before he’s moving down the hallway, disappearing into his room. You hear him exit a few moments later, before moving to the bathroom, and then the shower turns on, water rushing through the pipes in the walls in a sound that should be soothing, but it isn’t. It only serves as a reminder that there is someone else inside your apartment. 

Part of you feels like this shouldn’t be a problem anymore. You’ve lived with Simon for nearly two years now! He’s your roommate! But… he’s almost never around, gone off to some war-torn country, away more than he is home, and he feels more like a stranger than a constant figure in your life. Which makes it hard to feel comfortable around him. 

You’re back in your room by the time he exits the bathroom, much to Simon’s dismay. 

He’d been hoping to talk to you. Not to outright confront your behavior, but to ask if there was anything he could do to make you feel more at ease around him. Because, while he knows it has nothing to outright do with him, it’s killing him to see the way you tense up around him. Reminds him of his childhood, of things he’d much rather forget, and he wants to nip this problem in the bud as soon as possible. 

It’s why he stayed on base, forced himself to sleep in the barracks for a week, despite being home. That time had been needed to decompress, and to try to figure out how to break this nasty habit of yours. 

Maybe he should’ve gone to Price, asked the old man for advice. But that requires too many personal questions, admission to things that Simon’s not ready to face yet. Besides, Price’s been divorced at least twice now, and while Simon looks up to the captain, he’s not sure that he trusts him with this kind of problem. 

Sure, he could’ve asked Gaz. But the sergeant is a horrible gossip, and rumors of the infamous Ghost having trouble with a bird off base is the last thing Simon needs right now. 

And asking Johnny is absolutely out of the question. Not only is he just as bad a gossip as Gaz, he’s also a terrible flirt, and that’s not the kind of approach that Simon needs to take in this. 

As soon as he’s gotten dressed, towel slung over his shoulder, nerves braced like he’s approaching a bomb, he makes his way to your room, knocking gently on the door. A pause, and then he calls softly, “Luvie?”

Debating between knocking again or calling it quits, Simon’s just about to let the latter win, when the door creaks open, revealing you. Staring up at him with wide, nervous eyes, hands fidgeting with the sleeves of your hoodie, intentionally oversized and swallowing you whole. Fuck, you’re so cute, and you seem to have no idea. 

He’s fucked up before he’s even began, watching the way you stiffen up as he says, “We need to talk.” It makes him want to take the words back, rewind time and steal the sentence from his own brain. Instead, he pushes forward, ready for this to be done and over with. 

“You’re… allowed to exist. Here. Don’t have to go running every time I’m home,” he continues, waving a hand in the air. 

You stare up at him, blinking slowly, before lifting your hand to your mouth, nervously chewing on your fingernail. The only reaction he gets, the only thing that tells him that you’ve heard him is a soft, almost inaudible, “Oh.”

“I just…” he shrugs, shoving his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants. This type of thing has never been Simon’s forte. Give him a gun and a target, and he’ll get the job done. But talking about his feelings? Trying to be soft when the world has left him with nothing but jagged edges? Yikes. 

“If I can do anything to… help, I guess, just let me know,” he continues. 

It takes a moment before you respond, smiling shyly at him. Because even if you don’t know Simon all that well, you can tell he’s trying, and the thought puts you a little at ease, even when his general presence makes you clam up. 

“Okay,” you reply softly, before quickly adding, “Thanks.” 

***

It takes two weeks before any shift in behavior seems to actually take place. You’re still flighty around the brickhouse that you call a roommate, and he’s giving you space to sort yourself out. At his core, Simon is a patient man. He has to be in his line of work. Even if it’s killing him to see you so close and yet so far away at the same time. 

He’s in the living room, half paying attention to the movie on the TV as he thinks about… well, as he thinks about you, trying desperately to come up with some kind of plan to help you feel more comfortable around him. Simon’s so lost in thought that he almost doesn’t register you tiptoeing into the living room, blanket wrapped around you like some kind of shield. 

As if he could ever not notice you. 

When you first moved in, you’d bought this chair, this big circle chair that Simon never thought looked all that comfortable. In his opinion, it looked more like a satellite dish than a chair, not that he’d ever tell you that. But now? Seeing the way you curl up inside, letting out a soft sigh of content, Simon decides that it must be the most comfortable chair in existence. 

This is a big move for your relationship with your roommate, and Simon doesn’t comment on it. As far as you can tell, he doesn’t even seem to register your presence in the room. Something that can’t be any farther from the truth. 

Unbeknownst to you, Simon’s acutely aware of your presence, always keeping an eye or ear on you. You remind him of a hurt animal, wary and cautious, and if he comments on you joining him, he knows you’ll leave. And that’s the last thing he wants. So he sits almost inhumanly still, careful not to breathe too loud, for the remainder of the movie, paying more attention to you than to the film; watching the way your body relaxes as you get comfortable, the way you snort through your nose at something funny. His eyes snap to the tv when you turn to glance his way, far less subtle with your staring at him. 

Part of Simon wonders what you see when you look at him. A man? A soldier? Your roommate? Potentially something more? The last thought has been worming its way into his brain for the last few months now, and he’s given up on shaking it off. But you’re not ready for that kind of admission, and Simon’s more than willing to wait for you. 

***

It’s almost painstakingly slow, the progress in your relationship between you and Simon. But it seems to be improving, little by little. You’re willingly spending time in the living room with him, and at least once a week, you have dinner together. And Simon’s ecstatic by the improvement. You still tense up when he first gets home, but it’s the way your shoulders relax when you realize it’s him that feels like a victory.

Honestly, everything feels like a victory, and it’s taking everything that he’s ever learned to stop Simon from scooping you into his arms. For now, he’ll take the shy smiles, the way your eyes light up, the sight of you relaxed on the other end of the couch. But if he could have it his way? 

He’d kiss you senseless. Pull you into his lap during movie night, and let you hide your face against his chest when the movie gets too sad. Carry you to bed when you fall asleep in the living room and keep you tucked against him all night long. But he can’t do any of that. Not right now. 

The next shift in your relationship with Simon happens a few weeks after the first one. Things have been moving along just fine. He’s been home more than usual, giving you plenty of time to get gradually used to his presence. 

“You’ve been home for a while,” you comment, curled up in your chair. There’s a coloring book in your lap, but you haven’t touched it, consumed by the show you’re watching and talking with Simon. 

“Yeah, the last deployment was a nightmare,” he replies cautiously. You’ve gotten a little better at reading Simon, and you can see the tension in his shoulders. What you don’t know is that one of the guys on his team had been injured, and it had been Simon who carried him out. 

“Oh,” you reply quietly, knowing better than to push. You might not know everything about what Simon does, but you know enough to know that it’s not easy and that some of it haunts him afterwards. Afterall, the walls of the apartment are pretty thin and there have been plenty of nights that you’ve been woken up due to one of Simon’s nightmares. Not that you’d ever say something about it. 

“Be out of your hair next week,” he adds nonchalantly, draping an arm over the back of the couch. Your eyes follow the movement, watching the way his muscles flex, following the curves of his tattoo, before his words sink in. 

He’ll be gone again next week. 

A thought that once brought you peace, only fills you with anxiety. You can’t quite place why dread fills your heart, painful in your chest. Maybe it’s because you’ve come to enjoy Simon’s presence, a calm constant over these last few weeks. It feels weird, knowing that come next week, he won’t be here, won’t be in his spot on the couch for movie night, won’t be snorting at your poor attempt at comedy. 

The only thing you can think to respond with is a soft, “Oh.” 

Simon stares at you for a moment, giving you time to continue, but there’s nothing else you can think to say. Not when worry and dread have filled your heart and head. You look away from him, chewing nervously on your bottom lip. And Simon - endlessly patient Simon - doesn’t push you either. 

“Don’t seem so excited,” he jokes, amusement creeping into his voice. 

You huff, looking back over at him with the ghost of a smile on your face. “Don’t be an ass,” you shoot back. 

He grins in response, glad you’re not completely lost in whatever anxious spiral your brain is trying to send you down. “Thought you liked it when I was gone,” he replies. Not an accusation, but more of a casual comment, something you both know used to be true but might not be anymore.  

“I do like being alone,” you agree, and then hesitant - shy, sweetly, absolutely adorably - you admit softly, “But I like your company.” 

Fuck. Simon could die a happy man, right then and there, heart swelling in his chest, and if he wasn’t so in control of himself, he’d be grinning from ear to ear. Instead, he keeps it calm and collected, cool as a cucumber, as he replies, “I like yours too.”