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pineapple-downside-up-cake · 11 days ago

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Humvee

Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Reader

Crossposted on AO3.

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Word count: 6.8k (damn)

Summary: You do your best to heal, while Simon follows his own path—until life, in its strange way, brings you back together, with Simon stepping right back in.

18+

CW: fluff, banter, smut (fingering, p in v, car sex). you go on a bad date and simon saves you from it. he's a bit of a cunt but like in a good way.

I said I'd update on Sunday but you're getting it on Saturday!!! Though it's Sunday on this part of the globe, so...

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"If they ever give ya any grief, you know who to call."

Simon's words have never echoed so fiercely in your head as they do now.

The dress is uncomfortable. The shoes are uncomfortable. The air… is uncomfortable.

The dinner isn’t even that great. Or—well, it is. The restaurant has its perks: the wine is a deep red Shiraz, dry and with that slight bitter aftertaste that just enough balances the salt of your fillet mignon. Rare. Side baked potatoes with a crisp crust that still sizzles with warm olive oil.

It looks great.

Would taste great too, you reckon. Thing is, you’ve been playing with your food ever since the waiter brought it to the table.

You don’t think you’ve spoken a single word, if not your name, ever since you sat down. Mouth latched onto that crystal wine glass that could never be too full.

Fuck dating.

He looked oh, so nice leaning against the bar counter last week.

Leather jacket and a tight-fitting black t-shirt underneath, a softer tummy of a man who likes to train and eat. Big arms, broad shoulders. Thighs looked awfully soft in those blue jeans.

Mediterranean features. A strong nose, high cheekbones. Perhaps Italian origins, you thought, or maybe Spain? Greece?

Olive skin and thick brown curls, messy in that calculated way that only pretends to be tousled. You call it the sex hair. But it’s fake, so it would be like—the fake sex hair.

You love the fake sex hair. Or maybe you don’t. But on him, it looks unbelievably nice.

His eyes have this hazelnut hue, mottled with gold and green speckles. Long, thick lashes, dark like his hair.

Fuck, he looks like a Greek god.

And when he winked at you from the other side of the pub, lifting his glass of whatever he was drinking your way, you thought yourself so very fortunate.

Small blessings.

If only you’d known where those plump lips and feline brown eyes would lead you.

The entrée was accompanied by his favourite way to clean the leather of his sofa. Then he switched the topic to hair gel, because somehow the same company that makes the polish for his stupid couch also makes his stupid hair gel.

And now he’s telling you how much he benches. You should’ve known, to be honest, that somehow the chat would’ve swerved to his herculean strength and raw masculinity.

He oozes testosterone from every pore, reeks of pheromones, and—judging by his character—you wouldn’t rule out the possibility that he’s splurged on one of those dodgy "scientific" perfumes supposedly designed to make women swoon at his feet.

He’s saying how you’d never have to fear a thing if he was in the house, since you’d have him by your side. The urge to roll your eyes is incommensurable: you hide behind your wine glass, taking a generous gulp of Shiraz that’s drying out your tongue.

He’s eating with his mouth open. Chewing loudly. Loud enough to give you PTSD. Fucking hell, why do the handsome ones always have to act like they never set foot outside the house?

He has a pittie, he says.

Your ears perk.

Okay, pitties are nice. Lovely dogs with their big, smiling mouths always drooling for cuddles. You find their awkward stance tenderly charming—wide front legs and wagging tail. Plus, him having a dog means he can take care of fragile things, that he can be sweet and nice and reliable.

It’s a boy.

You smile.

He says he’s trained him to fight. Defend the household and whatnot.

It falters.

Says you could take him for a run if you fancy it. That he would give you (and he makes those awful hand quotations with his fingers) “scary dog privileges.”

You drink.

Scary dog privileges. You’re fighting a scoff so loud the sous chef would hear it from the kitchens.

You have SAS training privileges.

You have gun privileges.

You have scary dog privileges. You are the scary dog.

One glance at his neck, another at the table, and you've already calculated ten different ways to end his life in under a minute—one of which involves a thumbtack pinning the fake flowers to the polyester cube in the centrepiece vase.

You imperceptibly shiver. Shake your thoughts away.

He’s still rambling about his dog and his gym sessions and how he goes for runs every morning, every night, every moment of the bleeding day. Does he work? Have hobbies that don’t include a pissing contest with other men at the gym? Fuck’s sake, that thumbtack is starting to look incredibly inviting—

“So what do you do?” You blurt out.

It comes out so awkwardly that you can only fix it with a nervous laugh. One of those that make you look cute and shy, not weird and spacey.

He seems startled by it. Follows up with an awkward laugh of his own. Ugh. Okay, it’s okay. Maybe he’s nervous too. That can be cute.

“I’m military.”

You blink.

Oh.

Unexpected.

You hadn’t considered that. Granted, he has the stance, the body. He keeps his neck taut and straight, which is something you recognise you do yourself: hard to shake off habits from early training in Pirbright.

Truthfully, you had excluded partners from your same field of work. Didn’t go particularly smoothly last time you tried.

You’d like to come home to normalcy and averageness and homecooked meals and that dog he’s going on and on about, not to more military-related drama and paperwork scattered on the kitchen table.

But this can be nice, you muse.

Maybe straying from the plan you’ve laid out for your date could lead to some unexpected surprises. Maybe you could find a common ground, some shared experiences to discuss.

Anything to divert the topic from how he removes stains from his carpeted floors.

You straighten your spine, smoothing down the creases of your dress even if they’re hidden under the tablecloth.

With your elbow resting on the table, you subtly press your arms together, accentuating your neckline. You tilt your head slightly, chin nestled in your palm and lashes fluttering away.

He sports a smug smile, perhaps recognising the reaction his job must have sparked in many more women before you.

You let it slide.

“What branch?” You ask, trying to sound as naïve as you can.

Men in the military often have great success when it comes to dating. Women in the military, not so much—something about them being stronger than their male counterparts in a relationship seems to unsettle their egos, unchub their cocks.

Which is why you’re pretending you know shite about the topic—you’re just there to look pretty, for now.

“Oh, well,” his voice drops down an octave, and he leans a little closer to the table. The front of his crisp white shirt dips into the sauce covering his pasta.

You try not to stare at the oil stain too much.

He reaches out with his hand, toying with a ring on your finger. Looks around like he’s making sure no one else is listening, and then he smiles at you knowingly.

“It’s classified.”

Oh for fuck’s sake.

Alright, this date is botched. Tits up. Fuck him and his beautiful eyes and perfect bone structure. He could have been the love of your life. You would’ve made perfectly beautiful babies with beautiful Mediterranean genes.

You feign surprise. You feign interest.

The least you can do is have fun.

“Oh really?” You open your mouth in a shocked oval. “And—and what is it that you do?”

He leans back in his chair, self-assured. Charming smile. Know-it-all attitude.

“You know,” he shrugs, like it’s something so common and nonchalant. “Missions, deployments. All secret, though. Can’t share, unfortunately.”

He gives you a wink.

“Not even with a pretty girl like you.”

Yuck. Ew. Ugh.

You giggle, crystalline and shy, fingers to your mouth and all.

“Are you like—” You bite your lip, “—like James Bond?”

His chuckle is low, like he wants to show how much of that testosterone is actually brewing in his balls.

“Of sorts.”

“Wow.” You say breathily. “It must be dangerous.”

“It is,” he replies, cocking a confident brow. “Not a thing for girls like you.”

Dickhead.

You smile. Taut. Someone else would’ve noticed how strained it is. Not him though, no. Too self-absorbed to catch onto it. Wouldn’t see how obvious he’s being if it slapped him in the face.

“Hear me out,” he says after a while. “One minute bathroom break, and then I’ll tell you what you want to know, yeah?”

Which is nothing, but you nod anyway.

“Or, well—” he adds, standing up and setting the napkin on the table. “—What I can tell you.”

With a wink, he leaves for the loo.

You deflate. Rub your fingers on your forehead because that man just gave you a migraine.

You pluck your phone from your handbag and thumb through the screen to contact backup.

You think of Johnny, but you two bicker too much, and the possibility of him shooting back with one of your misfortunes is impossibly high. You’d like to keep your failing dates as quiet as possible.

Kyle would be the perfect choice, but he’s not nearby—a trip to somewhere warmer with his partner now that he’s on leave.

Price is not even an option. Who would call their boss to give them a lift out of a bad date?

Which leaves Simon. You know you have to call Simon, as much as you don’t want him to witness the absolute devastation that is your current love life. Granted, you know he would help without a peep—but still, there’s that bit of pride left untouched by the ruin that’s been your "relationship" that you’d like to keep intact.

But grief’s been given. Plenty of it. And, as he said, you know who to call.

With a surrendering sigh, you stuff your pride in a pocket and zip it shut.

As soon as your text goes through, you can’t even blink that three dots are already dancing at his corner of the screen.

Your eyes roll so far back you take a peek at your brain.

The sarcasm is so tangible you almost taste it on your tongue.

Hopefully your reply will manage to convey the urgency of your tone. The absolute sizzling hatred in your eyes.

And then you wait for Mr. Classified to come back from the loo while eating a baked potato or two, even if now they’re awfully cold. Still crunchy and wonderful, though. The restaurant is stellar; it's a shame to have wasted the opportunity with such a painfully obnoxious sod.

When he comes back, he sits all grand at the table. He fixed his hair, you notice. Tried to clean the oil stain on his shirt and only managed to enlarge it—you can tell even if he’s buttoned up his dress jacket.

He tells you he’s a captain.

Yeah. Sure. Go big or go home, mh?

Recounts very generic war stories, one of which really does sound like the plot of a videogame you played with Kyle.

Your back’s to the door, so when he stumbles on his words and his eyes go wide out of the blue, you have no clue what’s got him so rattled.

That is, until you turn and look over your shoulder.

The biggest bloke’s standing at the entrance, seemingly instructing one of the waiters, who looks like he’s lost a few years off his life from how pale he’s gone.

Man dressed in black, helmet with night goggles on.

Show off.

The full shebang: tac vest layered above the bulletproof one, M4 hanging low on his front with clasps, a gun holstered on his hip. The radio pokes from one of the front pockets on his chest.

He has the goddamn skull mask on, for fuck’s sake.

Your eyes widen briefly, and then you fight tooth and nail to stifle a laugh. You wonder what Mr. “I’m military but it’s classified” thinks about “people actually in the classified part of the military”.

You turn to him. Man is shell-shocked.

You snort.

Simon points at you, and the waiter nods vigorously before scurrying over to your table.

He leans down to your level, cheeks so red they look purple, sweat on his forehead, huffing and puffing like he’s run a marathon.

“Ma’am, I’m sorry to interrupt, but—” A heaving breath through his stutter. “Your presence seems to be required at-at-at the Hereford SAS headquarters.”

He lowers his voice, then. “Something about the p-passing of an officer, uhm—your husband.”

You choke. Slam a hand on your chest. Mr. Classified seems concerned and has his hands hovering your way but never touching you in the slightest.

Helpful.

“The what?” You hiss, looking behind you at Simon with straight-up murder in your eyes.

The mask hides it, but you know he’s got the biggest smirk plastered on his face.

“You’re married?” Mr. Classified asks. Fuck him too.

“No.” You bark but then realise that it’s not his fault if your lieutenant is a bastard. Gingerly, you clear your throat and add more softly. “Not… anymore.”

Gotta fake it if you want to get out of here.

You sigh.

The waiter stands there awkwardly as you apologise to your date for not telling him about your non-existent dead husband. You stand up from the table, pretending heartache, while the waiter hovers around you and right in your business.

When you feel him too much into your space, you blink at him, plastering on a polite smile.

“Yes?”

He’s sweating profusely. The Ghost effect.

“The-the soldier, there—" he gives a subtle nod to where Simon stands. “—said I have to escort you b-because you’re a suspect.”

The appalled look on your face must be a sight to swear by.

You glare at Simon.

He shifts his weight on his other foot, arms crossed in front of his chest. Smug, like he’s having the time of his life.

“Yes.” You reply with a sigh, “Please, escort me.”

You don’t bother turning around to face Mr. Classified. He must be wearing the same shock the waiter is sporting. After all, in his eyes, hasn’t he just shared a dinner with a murder suspect?

What a tale to share.

“Thank you, sir.” Simon tells the waiter when you both reach him, deep baritone heavy yet gentle.

He grabs you by the crook of your elbow.

“Gonna bring this one to justice.” He adds theatrically.

The waiter nods like his head might crack in half if he doesn’t.

“Thank you, sir.” He parrots, “Thank you for your service.”

At the statement, used and abused without any regard for its meaning, you scoff in his face.

Simon tugs you by your arm, and your heels scrape against the floor.

Finally, you find your footing and follow him out.

Simon came to pick you up in a fucking Humvee.

He said it was in case the restaurant had those big windows that look out on the streets, so he could make an even bigger scene. All because you interrupted him while he watched the man u match even if they were painfully losing, he said.

When you asked him where the fuck did he get it since he should’ve been home on R&R and not at base, he told you that he had an IOU to cash in with one of the higher-ranking officers.

Baffling, to say the least, that he’s used it to embarrass you.

Yet not something you would put past him.

Still, though, as soon as you enter the car and he starts shedding layers of tac gear, mask included, the first thing he asks isif you’re alright.

You nod with a soft smile.

“McDonald’s?” He asks, then.

You cock a brow.

“I just had dinner.”

The engine rumbles as he turns the key in the ignition.

“No ya haven’t.”

He drags the shift stick back and puts the car in reverse. His hand comes to grasp the back of your seat as he looks to the rear window.

It takes a whole lot of resolve to not gawk at the way the tendons in his forearm tighten and bulge. You manage.

Thank fuck he can’t check if you’re salivating, because you are.

Because this car smells of him. It shouldn’t, because it isn’t his car. It’s a military vehicle, a big fat Hummer with enough space to host a task force, and from what you know someone else might have been using it all day before he got the keys.

And still, his scent invades it, dominates it, and you realize how much you’ve missed it. Missed waking up to it, missed having it stain your clothes, sometimes your uniform too. Memories flood, and something in your chest clenches.

Control yourself, for fuck's sake.

You turn your eyes away from him.

“How d’you know?”

He shifts into first as he finally leaves the car park. He shoots you a brief side glance, before returning his eyes on the road.

“Clocked your plate full even from afar,” he says plainly. “Bloke talked that much, uh?”

“You got no idea.” You sigh, exhausted. “Told me he’s military and then pulled the classified card.”

His lips twitch, and then his chest rumbles in a low, low chuckle you haven’t heard in a while.

You laugh with him.

Simon takes you to a drive-through. He orders what he knows you like, because this definitely isn’t the first time you two sneak out in the middle of the night only to eat something that isn’t the slob from the mess hall.

He drives a little further to find that nice parking spot next to the motorway. Once again, not the first time you’ve been here.

Sometimes with Johnny in the back and Kyle smoking a ciggie by the car window—couldn’t have the Humvee smell of nicotine and stale cigarettes when you’d return it (not so) surreptitiously later on.

Sometimes just the two of you, when new soldiers moved in the neighbouring barracks and Simon wanted you to scream without the pressure of being found out.

You punch the straw in your Coke and bring it to your lips. The carton box of chips is precariously balanced on your bare thighs.

Simon’s already munching on his burger.

“Thank you, by the way,” you break the comfortable silence first.

He shrugs.

“He was a right pain,” you go on. “Kept going on about—”

“—His dog, how much he benches, his hair care routine.”

You choke on your coke and then your head swivels to him.

“Okay—were you spying on me?”

He levels you with a deadpan look.

“Bloke like that’s only got one type o’ chat,” he explains, “And it’s all ‘bout him. You should’ve known, eh?”

He flicks your temple. You splutter.

“What?” He nods in your direction, swallowing a mouthful. “Went on leave an’ lost all those brains?”

You swat his hand away.

“Shut up.” You grumble, feeling your cheeks heat up.

He mercifully lets it go and returns his attention to his meal.

Even a burger that big looks awfully small in Simon’s hands. You used to look small in Simon’s hands, somehow—skin pliant and soft. Dimpling under his fingertips, folding easily with just the press of his big palm in his desired direction.

Same hands that used to hold you still by the waist, hands that handled you until you’d turn into putty on the mattress. Fingers long and skilled when they curled around your neck, cutting your airways just enough to make your head spin. Fingers that you’ve had all over: in your hair, on your stomach, down your throat, in your cunt.

Fuck.

Some ketchup spills out of his burger and onto his thumb. He brings it to his lips and purses them on his pad to suck it off.

Fuckfuckfuck.

You turn away and stuff your mouth with chips.

“How’d you find him anyway?” He asks after a while. “Apps?”

You balance your cup on the large center console as you shake your head in negative. Your response comes muffled by a mouthful of food.

“Pub down the road,” you tell him, gesturing vaguely at the windshield. “The one close to HQ.”

“The Bell?”

You swallow. Nod your head. “Mhmh.”

“Should’ve known.” He muses, and you hear him scrunching up the paper that once held his burger. “Proper dive, that. Full o’ fucked up blokes.”

You roll your eyes.

“You’re an avid frequenter,” you say, mouth full and eyes averted to your cardboard of chips.

He doesn’t snort, nor does he laugh it off. Instead, you can only hear the rapid tap of fingernails on the leather of the wheel filling the suddenly heavy silence that settled.

“No’ anymore.” He replies after a beat.

The tone doesn’t match the flippant vibe heard in the Humvee until now. He’s serious and levelled, like he’s stating some important matter he needs to unhook from his chest.

You swallow your chips like they’re cement.

“And why’s that?” You venture.

Simon shifts uncomfortably in the driver’s seat. The leather squeaks, his jeans rustle where his thighs rub together.

“Don’t fit with the crowd is all.” He says quietly.

“What crowd?”

“The fucked up one.”

When you turn his way, you still.

Simon’s eyes are already on you.

His gaze is tangible. Sticks to you like damp fabric. You can almost feel his fingers draw mindless circles there, where your skin is heating up under the heaviness of his eyes.

Whatever reply you had ready for him dies choked in your throat.

Your shoulders are stiff, your body’s too warm. Tongue like sandpaper stuck to your palate.

It’s been so long since Simon looked at you like he truly wanted you—like nothing else in the world mattered more.

For months, his eyes have wandered everywhere but to you, and until now, you thought that was a blessing. Because if he didn’t look at you this way, maybe letting him go would’ve been easier.

But now, as his eyes hold yours, you can’t fathom how you’ve managed to go so long without it.

You match his intensity, as the air in the Humvee grows heavy and thick. Cement is poured into your chest until you’re not sure how to breathe right anymore.

“Not fucked anymore, you think?” Your voice is raspy and feeble, like there’s something tying your vocal cords in a perfect knot.

You know he can’t affirm anything in that regard. Lord knows he’s fucked, and you can’t even add your two cents about it because you’d act like the pot calling the kettle black.

And yet, he replies softly. “Not as fucked, I reckon, no.”

Your brows pinch. Eyes big and languid, searching his—rich, hooded, sincere.

“And you?” He rumbles, hesitant for the first time.

You blink.

“Me?” You mouth with your lips, voice stuck somewhere in your chest.

He nods your way. “Still an avid frequenter o’ the fucked-up crowd?”

You blink. A laugh breathes out of you without you even considering it first.

Almost naturally, you reply with a whispered, “No. Not as avid, I think.”

Simon’s lips twitch upward, and then his hand lifts your way, though never reaches out enough to touch you. He lets it hover in the space in between, fingers soft and curled inwards.

It trembles. Terrible characteristic for a sniper. In fact, you don’t think you’ve ever seen it happen to him. Always steady, always sure.

Your eyes fall on it. On the scars crisscrossing his knuckles, on the callouses of his pads and the raw spot on his thumb.

When you look up again, Simon’s eyes are a pool, open wide and waiting for you to just dive in it.

He says your name. Not your rank, callsign, bullshit loves, and pets, and the pretty ensemble. He says it low, heavy, like his tongue is a cinderblock and it’s so, so hard for him to speak it.

It’s almost a warning, you think. Your brain ponders it: the tone, the lilt, the volume. All of it, and you conclude that you are, in fact, wrong.

It’s no warning, no threat. It’s a plea.

Your eyes fall instinctively down the curve of his nose, to his lips. Lips you’ve kissed, lips that travelled every inch of your skin. Drank every sound you’ve ever spilled. Worshipped it, made it his. Coveted it carefully, in secret, until you noticed how those same breaths, those same noises, never left your mouth again, not after him.

Lost in his features, you don’t see how his eyes are focused on your lips as well.

And when you look up, he does too.

Something’s exchanged between you. Something written in the line between his brows as he frowns in concentration, in the tremble of your lips as they struggle to form words, requests, the barrage of questions you want to ask.

The mutual, soft, and barely veiled Please, please kiss me again.

His jaw shifts.

"Just say the word."

You gulp—fruitless. Your throat is dry, your lips unresponsive. Cursing yourself for not being ready now that you need it. Struggling to express the absolute beast that's scratching something violent in your chest.

You barely manage to break through it.

"Kiss me."

You blink and Simon’s lips are on yours.

Your stomach drops. You don’t think you can breathe.

He takes the lead when you go motionless, cupping the back of your head with both hands to pull you in. Your fingers grasp his forearms, flexing around them to make sure he’s real.

Only when your mouth opens and the kiss deepens do you unravel.

You melt in his hold, closing your eyes all the way and breathing heavily from your nose, because you’re not parting from him ever again.

Simon might think the same, because the passion with which you kiss him is thoroughly matched. His arms wrap around your waist, and you don’t spare a moment to turn on the passenger seat until you’re on your knees.

Chips spill everywhere on the floor. None of you care.

He helps you across the centre console until you’re straddling his thighs. Your knee knocks over the cup and coke spills everywhere.

And fuck, none of you care.

Humvees are big but never big enough for this. Granted, it’s not the purpose for which they were created. You hunch down when your head hits the padded roof, holding him by the sides of his face until he tips it back.

You taste his breath as it puffs on your mouth while he kisses you fiercely.

Simon pulls back. Cradles your face in his hands and his fingers dig into your scalp at the back.

“Fuckin’ hell,” he growls. Low, and breathy, and with that hint of disbelief that matches the one in your eyes. He brushes your cheeks with his thumbs, and you do the same.

He lunges forward, then. Captures your mouth briefly before travelling downwards, where open kisses make goosebumps rise on your arms. Big hands envelop your hips as he pulls you down, grinding you against the hard tent of his jeans.

And you comply, humping your sex—impossibly wet—to the seam covering the zipper.

He grunts in your neck each time your cunt drags across his. The sound makes you vibrate, a strange sort of power in the knowledge that he’s making it because of you, and you only.

The world moves slowly around you, like it wants the night to last hours and hours more. A small favour in exchange for what you do for it, keeping it clean and all the rubbish you’re told so you can live peacefully with your actions.

Perhaps tonight you believe them all.

You don’t think you’ve ever been this vocal with him, and it’s not even theatrics.

You just love it.

It’s overwhelming to have him hold you again, touch you, eat at your skin with the same intense desperation you’re gripping his hair with. Pressing his face into your neck as he sucks at the spot where it meets your shoulder, thundering heartbeat under his tongue. Darker spots blossom shameless in his wake, drawing a perfect mosaic of colours you’ll trace with your fingers come morning.

When Simon feels your hips do the work by themselves, he busies his hands with your dress. Rides it up your thighs until it bunches at your waist. Kneads the fat of your ass, landing a slap that makes you jolt.

Makes you moan.

And Simon drinks it just in time, swallowing it with a kiss that takes your breath away. Then, he rapidly travels down your throat, following the line of love bites all the way to your chest.

His teeth sink into the softer flesh there. Long fingers pull down the neckline of your dress until your tits spill out. He mouths a path to your nipple, sucking until it pebbles on his tongue. His teeth graze around it and you hiss at the perfect balance of pain and pleasure it creates.

And when his free hand comes to pinch at your other nipple, he pulls a little too hard.

You clench a fist in his hair and look down at him, hips falling still.

“Oi.” You frown.

His chest heaves. Yours matches the pants that leave your lips.

He wrinkles his nose, in that how dare you stop me way. But this time there’s something impish in there, like he knows what he’s doing and just likes to pull your chain. Lighthearted in a way you never dared to associate with Simon Riley.

How beautiful he looks with this new light bathing his eyes.

“What.”

You scoff. Your heart goes through several different stages of frustration, exasperation, anger, tenderness and love. Familiarity. Settling on the latter, until you recognize the glint in his eyes, the same one he had all those months back, when he was on his knees.

Lust, care, love, regret.

“Gentle.” You tell him as your chest softens, your voice still mockingly altered. “You’re not tuning the bloody radio.”

“Ha!” His lips twitch upward. “Coulda fooled me.”

Simon pinches your nipple in retaliation, but it makes you chuckle this time. When he’s sure you’re okay, he pulls your lips down in a kiss that’s starting to taste of you, and you like how the salt of your skin seems to belong so naturally on his tongue.

You kiss him through your smile as the air turns hot again. The windows slowly grow misty and opaque, creating a space around you that’s soft and insulated and safe.

Simon splays his palm on your stomach. Turns it so his fingers face downward. He inches closer to your sex, grazing the lace of your underwear, until the pad of his middle finger presses to the wet spot formed on the gusset.

There, he stops. Waits for you.

No need for words. You don’t want his lips to leave yours and you don’t fancy taking the risk of pulling away.

In fact, there’s little hesitation when your hand journeys down his shoulder to his forearm, tracing the hair growing over it and the odd bump of a scar here and there. You travel until your palm cups his knuckles, your middle finger over his, pressing it down to the swollen knot of your clit.

Simon draws a few experimental rolls, ones you encourage with the movement of your hips, with the puffs of breath all but pushed out of you and into the kiss.

A kiss he reciprocates, open and hot.

Moving your panties aside, Simon only brushes your entrance at first, finding it sodden already. And when you more than enthusiastically respond to his touch, he plunges his finger inside.

Your breath itches, eyes fluttering shut, mouth open against his own.

Simon drags his finger slowly, in and out, not teasingly but to let you adjust, to allow you to mould around his shape. And he does so until he feels you positively drip on his palm, softer around him yet clenching at the welcomed intrusion.

He adds a second finger. The stretch is delicious, fulfilling. Scratches an itch you couldn’t quite reach on your own, nor could the scattered toys you’ve bought and abandoned.

It’s a touch you’re comfortable with, one you know and can predict but not in a way that makes it boring. You just know he’ll feed the starvation, satisfy the drought.

He buries his fingers to the knuckle, until his palm is flat to your sex, heel pressing to your clit. Simon rolls it a few times and then lets you take the lead, keeping his hand still.

You ride his fingers by canting your hips in the way you like, stimulating both your g-spot and your clit. Simon keeps your mouth on his with a hand of steel glued to the back of your neck—unnecessary, because you have no intention of pulling away.

The first orgasm makes your head spin—you haven’t had a good one like this in quite some time. It coils around your stomach until it's knotted so tight you have no other option but to groan in his mouth to release the tension it built.

Simon’s fingers flex both at your nape and inside of you, pulling you impossibly closer, noses slotting next to each other. He breathes just as heavily as you do, as if your orgasm has somehow rattled him as well.

There are no formalities in the way he moves, in the way he leaves your still clenching cunt empty—wet fingers reaching for his belt, unbuckling in haste.

The sound of clinking metal manages to pass through the cotton barrier in your ears. It wakes you, prickles your skin that’s already burning hot.

You help him. Yours and his fingers try to work together but somehow make it harder to achieve the same goal. You chuckle when you both reach for the zipper and he playfully swats your hand away, taking the lead instead.

You feel him twitch a smile against your kiss.

He untucks himself from his briefs. The urge to look down is impossible to resist and so you do, catching the glint on the head of his cock as it leaks with precum, wetter than you’ve ever seen him be.

Your stomach tightens. Now that's a mouthwatering sight that never ceases to amaze you.

Simon pats your ass as an invite to scoot forward. He languidly drags the tip along your slit to collect some of your wetness. You jolt each time he catches your swollen clit.

When he lines himself with your entrance, you start sinking on him—nails digging into the cotton of his sweatshirt on his shoulders.

Simon stretches you wonderfully. He would slide in easily considering the way you’re dripping—it’s you who wants to take it slow in order to catch each muted reaction with ears and eyes, lips brushing his own.

And then you envelop him fully, taking his cock to the hilt.

“Fuck.” He croaks, and falls still.

The hand on your hip grips it painfully tight. The one on your nape locks your forehead to his. His breath comes out in heavy puffs, eyes wrenched closed.

Simon looks very vulnerable now. Much at your mercy. He doesn’t want you to move, clearly, and has full trust you won’t. For him. Maybe for you too, otherwise this will end much sooner than you both want it to.

But still, you brush the tip of your nose with his. He opens his eyes, iris swallowed whole.

“Alright?” You ask quietly.

He brushes his nose back with yours.

“Alrigh’,” he rumbles. “Been a while is all.”

You purse your lips in a wry smile.

“Has it now.”

He hums, narrowing his eyes. “Didn’t fancy goin’ ‘round breakin’ any more hearts.”

“How considerate, lieutenant.”

“Aye, that’s me.”

“Not quite.”

He pinches the fat on your hip.

“Cheeky,” he says, watching your eyes smile.

You scrunch your nose, shaking your head from side to side.

“Eh, you love it.”

And he takes you off guard.

“I do," he says firmly, like that's some fundamental truth.

His hand moves to your cheek, thumb right under your eye brushing softly where the skin is thinner.

You like having him like this, with his face to yours, his lips within reach. It’s a strange thing, not having to turn your head around to reach for a sliver of skin to press a kiss to. Not having to find cotton instead of warm flesh, instead of soft lips.

You feel like you can, now—take the chance without finding a door being shut in your face.

In fact, your lips find his naturally, and he responds like it’s easy, like it’s something you do every time.

He kisses you slowly as his hand descends down your back to grab your hip. Then, he guides you, initiating the movements, and you follow through.

It begins gently, with your breaths in sync, lips just close enough for either of you to share a kiss if the moment feels right. Your hands cradle the slopes of his neck, his own fit in the crease between your hips and thighs.

It’s very quiet, you think, unlike the grunts and groans of the previous times. Now there's only Simon’s pants, your own efforts to keep your voice low, breathy moans occasionally interrupted by the smacking of lips.

And then he fits his palms under the round fat of your rear, lifting you up and then guiding you down at once. Your voice cracks, shattered into broken moans that Simon matches with his own.

Suddenly, you both want more. You feel it in the grip he has on your ass, in the hungry shadows of his eyes. You feel it in yourself, the heat pooling lower and lower, starving hands clutching the hair at his nape.

You prop yourself on your knees, as comfortably as you can, and start riding Simon even if your hamstrings are aching, thighs clenched and hard to the touch.

You go on and on, one hand perched on the padded roof and the other flat on the car window, mist disappearing in the shape of dragged fingers and scratching nails.

Warm pleasure collects in your belly. So hot it drips all the way to your toes, curling in your black heels clasped around your ankles. Your pace starts getting frantic, almost clumsy in the desperation to reach that high again, expecting it to be much better than the previous one since now Simon is fully sheathed inside of you.

You hold his eyes as the air catches in your chest and you fall silent. Breaths clipped and choked, like moans that you can’t articulate. Throat tight, tight, and tighter.

Simon seems to notice the signs, attentive as ever, and he dips three fingers in his mouth before bringing them to your clit. He swipes side to side with the same urgency of your hips, clit pebbled and raw soothed by the warm smoothness of his spit.

You cum hard. It’s a wave that almost crushes you against him, so hot you feel like suffocating. Your body collapses on him, as you pant loud and shrill into the curve of his neck. Simon’s cock is buried all the way in, while your tired hips twitch helplessly to both prolong your high and escape it.

And so, Simon takes it upon himself. Lifts you up and drops you down until you’re whimpering in his shoulder, teeth sinking in the taut muscles of his traps and nails digging into his back.

By then, Simon’s hanging on by thread and you know it even in your fucked-out state.

When the overstimulation hits and a rough string of curses leaves your lips right into his ear, Simon snaps.

With a grunt that rattles your chest, he pulls you down until he’s flush with you, and you swear you can feel him in your throat. His hips hump upwards as if that might somehow drive him deeper, and then he fills you with warmth, hot and liquid. Inevitably, it spills out, dripping thick down his thighs and onto the car seats.

Simon holds you like that, catching his breath as you catch yours.

He peppers your shoulder with kisses. Big hands clutch the back of your dress as it dampens with your sweat until his arms finally wrap you whole—so tight your breath leaves you in a gasp.

“Missed you,” he says, breathing your name reverently.

And why on earth should you not believe him, this time—with his face in your neck, his heart on his sleeve.

You lift your head to kiss his cheek. The cracks in your lips sting as they unexpectedly meet fine tracks of salt water.

Your heart skips a beat.

“Missed you too, Si."

#omg they have to return the car 🙈#but v. hot #bad date offering scary dog privileges while fantasizes about murder was delightful

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pineapple-downside-up-cake · 11 days ago

Text

It's sexy and muddy and mysterious - I love it

peristalsis - iv

selkie!soap x reader. depression. suicidal ideation. strangers to "lovers." social isolation. self loathing. hint of neurodivergent reader. manipulative soap. . Running away from life to the Scottish Hebrides, you meet a man who won't leave you alone. . Masterlist. Ao3.

The other side of the bed is empty the next morning, when you wake up.

You feel it as the dregs of sleep slough off—an absence of weight. The heavy drape of the bedsheets around you. The lone sound of your own breathing, and nothing more—

It shouldn’t punch a hole in your chest. You shouldn’t be surprised in the slightest. What is for other people is not for you.

But you are. It does.

The little speck of hope that has survived every attempt of yours to exterminate it had flared a little brighter, fed by Johnny’s attention. A distant star in a clouded sky, finally reaching earth with its light. Stupid. You know better by now, and it should too. You’ve done this before, a hundred different times, a hundred different ways. The outcome is always the same.

You sweep your hand over the empty spot—

It’s still warm.

Your eyes snap open. At the same moment, you hear movement from somewhere else in the cottage, and then, through the open bedroom door, the warm aroma of coffee and cooking food wafts in.

You sit up. Pull the sheets up with you, clutched to your chest.

“Johnny?” you call. Tentative. Unsure.

“Aye!” a cheerful brogue responds from the kitchen. “Don’ move a muscle, I’ll be right there.”

Something sharp and hot pushes through your veins; the corners of your vision darken with it.

You realize you’ve stopped breathing, and inhale. Your need to be contrary subsumes completely underneath your shock. You sit completely still, suspended in place, as something sizzles in the kitchen.

He traipses into the room in nothing but an apron, carrying a tray with two plates of food and two mugs of coffee, which he sets on the end of the bed before he slides into the empty spot beside you.

You stare as if at a wild animal—if he notices your surprise, he doesn’t take it into account as he curls an arm around your neck.

“Mornin,’” he says, dragging you in for a kiss.

A long kiss—his mouth parts yours to permit his tongue, which he slides against yours as his fingers press upward into the soft underside of your chin. He inhales deeply before his lips leave yours, and you reel, listing toward him, as he pulls away.

“Sleep well?” he asks, hand dropping to your sternum to drag his fingertips between your breasts.

You blink several times. “Uh. Yes.”

“Bet you did,” he says with a grin. Then, he taps your neck—ink-blotting soreness with ungentle fingertips. “Sorry about this. Got too into it.”

He does not sound sorry in the slightest.

“It’s fine,” you say anyway, still blinking in whiplash.

He leans away to pull the breakfast tray up into both of your laps. “Made a classic English breakfast this time, but you eat what you like, bonnie.”

A classic English breakfast turns out to be eggs, sausage, bacon, beans, seared cherry tomatoes, and toast, which Johnny digs into with the gusto of the starving. You select a crunchier-looking strip of bacon and break it between your teeth, but you don’t pay much attention to the taste.

Johnny. His mohawk is mussed from the night’s sleep, and other than the apron, he really does appear to be completely naked. It seems like the first thing he did, when woke up, was not shower or dress, but head to the kitchen to start cooking.

For you. Again.

“Why?” you ask aloud.

He turns to you, one cheek rounded with food, dark brows lifted over bright eyes. “Hm?”

“Why did you make breakfast? You could’ve just left.”

Surprise on his face, freezing his expression. Then, consternation, dragging it down. “I wouldnae do that to you, bonnie.”

He says it so gravely—as if even the notion that he would make an early getaway amounts to betrayal on the deepest level.

“It’s,” you say, “it’s fine. It’s not like this…like…”

Like this meant anything. But didn’t it? You meant to punish yourself, with him as your scourge. A necessary reminder—a bitter pill you must swallow, over and over again.

Who better to deliver it than Johnny, because, hopes aside, he with his rockstar grin and wandering hands had not given off the slightest indication that he would stay the morning after a one-night stand. Let alone get up before you to make breakfast.

You had relied on that.

“I wouldnae do that,” he repeats.

Instead—here he is. Warm, bare shoulder against yours. Lashes dark over an insistent gaze.

You break eye contact, looking at your plate. “Whatever,” you say, for lack of any other response.

You pick at your food—it’s good, same as the meal he made you last night. Not pretentious, like he’s trying to impress you, but genuine and hearty. Tasty, the way breakfast in bed should be.

Puzzle pieces forced to fit together, despite belonging to different areas of the composition. A round peg the perfect diameter for a square hole. Incongruous. Confusing. Untrustworthy.

You continue to study him out of the suspicious corner of your eye as he goes back to eating, though it isn’t exactly any hardship. It seems to be a rare sunny day on the island, with warm, buttery light streaming in from the window. It catches the dark hair on his forearms, casts the sculpted expanse of his freckled shoulders in stronger repose.

You see it again—the wound on the side of his head. Nearly hidden by the dark stubble of shaved hair, but not invisible.

“What happened?” you ask.

He looks at you with a question on his face, and then sees the direction of your gaze. He nods to himself, as if he’s been expecting you to ask this whole time.

“Told you I served,” he said, setting down his fork. Then he notices you aren’t eating much. “Ach, bonnie, don’ let it get cold. You eat, and I’ll talk, aye?”

Begrudgingly, you spear some egg and clamp it between your teeth. He smiles indulgently, and continues.

“So you met Price. Was on an operation with him in London. Chasin’ this real bad fucker in the subway tunnels. He was tryin’ to set off a bomb, but we got to him first. Well, we chased him off the payload, anyways, n’ I’m demo, so I’m the one can defuse it.”

He looks at you. You bite down on a corner of toast.

“Guess he figured that part out, ‘cause not long after I get to the wires he comes back. Nearly takes Price out, so I get after him. Stupid mistake. Price can take care of himself, an’ we had backup. Fucker ended up shooting me in the head.”

Halfway swallowing that same bite of toast, you choke. “You—you got shot in the head?”

He nods. “Aye.”

You look again at the scar near his temple. A starburst, in a whorl of dark hair. Dead center in the silhouette of his profile, as if a paper target at a shooting range.

“Johnny—how the fuck are you still alive?”

He leans back against the headboard, folding one arm behind his head, exposing a thatch of curly dark hair in his pit. He runs his hand through the back of his mohawk, mouth canted at an angle.

“Got no fuckin’ idea, bonnie,” he says.

The expression on his face is, perhaps, the most human you’ve ever seen it. Consternation, maybe. Confusion. Aggravation. You’re not sure what you would call it, but just looking at him, you understand that that exact question is one he’s been asking himself since it happened.

Asking, without finding an answer.

“I’m,” you stammer, “I’m sorry. That’s a stupid thing to—I’m sorry.”

He turns to you and smiles. Chagrined, but forgiving. “It’s all right, bonnie. Have some coffee for me, why don’t you?”

You lift a mug and sip. He’s added cream and sugar to it, the way you’d made it yesterday morning.

“So, I survived it,” he goes on. “Woke up in the hospital a few days later. One in a million chance, they said, but I still had to learn to walk again, an’ I was out. Out, out. Medical discharge, thank you for your service, enjoy the rest of your life. The boys went off to kill the guy in Kastovia or Russia or somethin.’”

Quick as the bullet in his brain. Matter-of-fact. The story ending without him, with no hand reaching out to pull him back in.

Well, not quite—

“And then John Price came here with you,” you say.

He gives you a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes; strained, much like the only smiles you have to offer these days. “Nah. Came out by myself. He came after I’d been here awhile. Told me he was ‘worried about me.’”

The way this conversation is supposed to go, this would be the part where you would say of course he was worried.

“But he didn’t get it,” you say instead, seeing it etched into the grooves of his expression.

Johnny, in exile, alive when he shouldn’t be. Reckoning with the fact that everything he cared about did not care nearly as much about him. Figuring out how to live without anyone else.

Breakfast turns inert on the plate when you look down at it.

“No,” Johnny says, private and intimate, thick as molasses. “He didnae.”

“You seem okay now,” you say, diaphragm pushing the words up your trachea like debris on an incoming tide.

The Johnny you know—the smug, satisfied prick able to laugh at anything and everything—slides back into place.

“Yeah, can’t hide that from you, can I, bonnie?”

He looks at where you’re still holding the sheet to your chest, to the imprint of his teeth on your neck, and then back into your eyes. You know exactly what he’s about to suggest, and you intercept as he opens his mouth to suggest it.

“I’m still eating breakfast,” you say, forcing a whole cherry tomato into your mouth. It pops and squirts between your teeth.

He grins—too knowing. “Ah, that’s alright. M’ takin’ you to Callanish today, and I’ve got a’catch your supper first,” he says.

With that, he slides the tray fully onto your lap and rises, stretching his arms above his head with his back to you, tensing and releasing the muscles as if for your benefit.

“Callanish?” you ask, swallowing.

“Aye, on Lewis.” Then he turns around and, beating a forkful of eggs halfway up, kisses you on the mouth. “Why don’t you take a walk? Pretty today. I’ll be back ‘round noontime.”

Something hard in your chest, held tight between your lungs. Pressure bending the lid upwards.

“I didn’t say I was going,” you reply, but Soap just laughs at you.

He disappears from the bedroom, and you hear him retrieving his clothes from wherever he’d thrown them the night before. You start to shake with the effort of holding in, listening with straining ears as he dresses.

“Left some lunch in the fridge for you!” he calls, and in a stroke of bright luck you hear the front door open and shut before there’s any chance for you to respond.

Wind strokes its fingers through the thatches of the roof. Stillness retakes the vacated space.

You eventually bring the dishes to the sink, tray held in front of you like a shield, as if wary of some predator hiding just around the counter. You approach the fridge and crack it open carefully, imagining a wire you don’t want to snap. There’s a sandwich on the middle shelf, sitting on a plate, wrapped in cellophane.

It breaks open.

Finally, you are alone.

You take the walk.

The sky is nearly cloudless, and the sunlight has transformed the island’s greys into a storm of jewel greens, with what is likely the last warm breeze of the year dancing across fronds of tall grasses. Clouds tower in the sky as if composed and painted there. You lock up the cottage behind you and find a walking trail to put your feet on.

Johnny.

It’s as quiet on the island as you’d hoped. No road noise. No humming power lines, or distant radio on someone else’s balcony. You can hear tiny insects singing together in the sedge, sea birds calling to each other. The voices of colliding winds arguing like old friends in the wide sky above you.

No other walkers on the path. It’s out of season for tourists, the nice weather a rare gift for the people who belong here and them alone.

Johnny.

You’ve tried to be happy. You have.

All you know is that when things start going well, it doesn’t last long.

You don’t know when it began—years ago, maybe, when you first noticed it. The pattern. Something you think of as a chill; rapid cooling, thermal shock cracking the facade.

It happens like this: you find out about group chats you aren’t a part of. Dinners you weren’t invited to. Conversations you might’ve enjoyed, that happened without you.

A problem. A serious one. But you were solution-minded.

For a long time, you puzzled it out. Acknowledged that the common denominator was you, in every circumstance—and so you looked at yourself. Found your flaws. Stared open-eyed into the mirror and confronted your own lack, internalized that no one owed you what you wanted from them just because you wanted it.

Love is action, isn’t it?

So you tried. You really did. You wrote down people’s birthdays. You invited them out for coffee. You commented on their Instagram posts. You messaged first, every time you’ve thought of them, memorized details about their lives, gave them plenty of space to talk about themselves—

After all, no one wants a friend absorbed in themself. People like to be remembered. Thought of. Considered.

You read books others recommended. You watched their favorite movies. Spent evenings catching up on shows they liked so that you could always have something to talk about with them, because that’s how it happens, right Mychorrizae for the roots between trees. Fertilized ground.

It worked, for a while. And you nurtured the hope that, perhaps, there would be space for you, that something wonderful might eventually germinate.

Maybe conversations would loop back to you. Maybe all you’d done would be returned in kind.

Exhaustion bared a preliminary truth: it would not.

Puzzling more. The next solution presented itself—people don’t stand in front of mirrors all day. If all you do is echo them, what interest will they have in you? You provide nothing new, nothing more than what they already have.

Human beings love novelty, after all. Something new and shiny to turn in the light at different angles. You needed to gleam so brightly that what you’d been seeking all along could see you well enough to find you.

So you worked on yourself.

You took classes you’d been swearing to take for years. Joined a gym looking for endorphins. Dove into crafts, walking groups, trivia nights at the bar. Wrote out a cleaning schedule for your small apartment and kept to it. You spritzed your pillows with lavender, and ate more fruit.

Joined forums for things you liked. Got certifications for work and then chased down the raises they entitled you to. Went to interesting restaurants, found tiny little card shops or foreign grocery stores to explore. Learned to make Pad Thai from scratch.

Rounded yourself out. That’s what you did—you took the raw block of yourself and chiseled down into it, to set free whatever you found inside.

For another while, it was enough. Endorphins make people happy, and all that. And it seemed to be enough, becoming to attract; drops of water usually obey the laws of cohesion.

Only, in the middle of it, you observed the exact same phenomena as before.

Mirrors of yourself in others. People making the same efforts—which bore a richer harvest than you ever had available to reap. Bounties so plentiful they could barely hold it in their arms.

And you, close beside them, trying, and trying, and trying.

Hairline cracks forming.

In the end, still alone.

The teeth of the preliminary truth fit into the lock holding all the rest, and turned open the latch. They flooded your stomach in a rush, expanding, shattering their container, so abundant that they left no room for anything else. And they all connected, ligaments spiderwebbing inward to an undeniable nucleus—

There is something deeply, deeply wrong with you.

Invisible to you, but obvious to everyone else. A thing you cannot fix. A thing you cannot medicate. A thing you cannot self-care away. Unobservable when you look at it; happening just outside your perception.

Something you manage to hide, even unaware of its existence, only for a short while, before it spills out of you and makes a mess for all to see, entirely without you knowing it.

You do not know what it is. You’ve looked and looked and looked for it, and have not found it. You’ve sanded all the edges of yourself, hoping you might unknowingly catch it—but whatever it is must grow back, like a lizard’s tail or the arm of a starfish.

It must be ugly. It must be so shocking that when it rears its head, people feel so sorry for you for bearing it that they’d feel guilty rejecting you outright, and so they recede from you slowly. Masking pity with compassion, and hoping you won’t notice.

There is nothing good enough about you to accommodate for whatever it is. No matter what you do, you cannot make up for it.

So here you are, on a dying island in the North Atlantic. Far away from temptation—from what you can only, inevitably, ruin.

Hounded by a man who it would be madness to think cannot see that.

You watch one foot swing in front of the other, barely leaving any prints in the hard, packed soil exposed by every walker who’s come before you. You hadn’t brought sunglasses with you, assuming that you wouldn’t need them, and the late morning light is too blinding to look too far ahead of you.

Johnny.

It isn’t about you, whatever his interest is. You see that very clearly now.

You picture him—a special forces grunt, riding high on his own masculinity, suddenly cut down. Ripped away from everything that made him him. Cut off from anyone who might be halfway capable of understanding how that might feel.

And you—a lone woman, marginally fuckable. Obviously flawed goods. An empty well of self-esteem waiting to be filled.

Someone he can impress with a wink and a flex, and make himself feel better taking care of.

He’s enjoying getting to play suitor—that’s all. You don’t think you’ve seen many women your age on the island, so for him, this must be a rare opportunity. You can’t, you suppose, blame him too much. You understand what he’s doing, and why.

You’ve done it yourself. Chosen a likely candidate and thrown all your feelings at them until you’ve felt better.

That’s how people are, in the end—that’s how you are. People look to others to get what they want out of them, and in Johnny’s case, he’s getting it. Not even two days, and you spread your legs for him. You let him come inside of you with barely even a token fuss, because he felt you up and smiled the whole time doing it.

He’s using you. The same way you’re using him.

It’s a shitty thing to do. You are a shitty person for doing it.

And so is he.

Maybe that’s why you’re letting him.

When you return to the cottage, you find the door unlocked, and Johnny on the couch with a romance paperback open in one hand. He turns to grin at you when you walk in, and tosses the book on the coffee table without marking his place when he rises. Today, he’s wearing a dark sweater over yet another kilt, but this time—

“Your—fur, thing, is missing,” you say, in lieu of greeting.

He looks down at his hips, patting his thighs with his hands. “My pelt? Ah, yeah.” He grins. “Threw it off in a hurry, can you blame me? Couldnae find it. I’m no’ worried, it’ll turn up. You ready to go?”

You frown. “I guess.”

“Good! I packed your bag for ya already, but you migh’ wan’ to check if I missed anything.”

Your frown harder. “You—what? You packed my bag? Why would I need that?”

You swear his eyes twinkle at you. “Is a six hour boat ride up to Lewis, hen, an’ six hours back, no’ counting how long y’wanna stay at Callanish. Probably dock overnight.”

“I never said I wanted to go!” you snap, marching past him toward the bedroom.

“A’thought we were past that!” he calls after you.

You find your carry-on open on the bed, and furiously upturn it, dumping everything out—it disgorges its contents like intestines spilling from a slit belly. Three romance novels. Toiletry bag, phone charger, jewelry bag, a shirt mismatched to a pair of pants it’s crumpled up with. One pair of socks. No bra, no panties—and you think Johnny might have a shred of decency after all, but when you go to your suitcase, you find your carefully folded rows of underwear haphazardly unfolded, thoroughly pawed through anyway.

Johnny comes into the room as you stand up with appropriate undergarments in your hands, ire shoving smog from your lungs.

“You’re no’ gonna need those, bonnie,” he says with, the ever-present smirk.

“Fuck you,” you snap. You have never wanted to slap someone so much in your life, but somehow, you know he would catch your wrist in the attempt, and just use his grip to pull you in.

And you’d let him.

“Yeah, that’s why.”

You scoff, and go to repack your bag, folding your clothes and tetrising everything together so it will stand on its own when put down, ignoring Johnny’s leering until you turn around. You make no effort to hide how much you’re grumbling about fucking assholes with fucking boats thinking they’re going to get laid again just because they got their dick wet once.

You sling the carry-on over your shoulder once it’s packed and zipped—fully intending to complain the whole way, even as you go along with his nonsense.

It doesn’t feel good, exactly, but you don’t quite feel your stomach up in knots. You feel clear, at least. You know what’s going on. You know the limits of this dynamic. You can deal with it.

“Oh, one thing,” Johnny says, then sticks one hand into a pocket in his kilt.

He withdraws your phone.

Whole again, back together with a gleaming new screen. Nested back in its protective case.

“Saw you dropped it, so I took it to Castlebay to get it fixed,” he says, holding it out to you like a dog proud of the task it’s completed. “No’ a lot of signal ‘round here, but wanna make sure you can get to me if you need to.”

The words enter your hearing like cotton swaps, blurring the deeper they penetrate. You take it from him without a word. You tap the screen—there almost certainly had been signal in town, and repair places usually charge phones for free.

Nothing.

Just the time, and the stock background you never changed.

Stone lungs in your chest. In—one, two three. Hold. Out—three, two, one.

“Thank you,” you say, the words dropping like pebbles from your tongue.

“You’re welcome,” he says cheerily. “An’ I didnae know wha’ y’liked to read so I picked my favorites.” He quirks his brows. “Thought we migh’ get some ideas.”

“Okay,” you say. “Let’s go.”

He makes you brush past him on your way out of the bedroom, and follows on your heels close behind, enough that you can smell him, axe and diesel and salt spray and all.

Too close—because, when you catch sight of something odd, you stop in your tracks, and he runs into you, having to catch you before he knocks you over over. Hands wrap warm around your upper arms, big enough to shackle.

There—wedged in the lintel, above the front door. Barely visible from this angle. A sliver of white spattered with grey. You’re not sure what you’re seeing, until—

“Johnny, is that your—pelt?” you say, frowning.

You point toward it; Johnny’s chin rests on top of your head, hands squeezing. Chest hot at your back.

“Look at that,” he murmurs. “How did that end up there?”

It looks well-packed into the angle of the thatch roof meeting the wall; nothing tossed away in a hurry, the way you imagine Johnny undressed the previous night, could have ended up where the pelt is now.

It was obviously shoved there.

Moonlit eyes dance in your dreaming memory.

You turn around to look at him. You open your mouth to speak, but there are no words waiting to leave it—and he beats you before you can come up with any.

“Why don’ you head down to the beach, an’ I’ll lock up here?” he says, looking down at you with pleased, half-lidded eyes.

A killer whale will toy gleefully with its prey. For hours, flinging it back and forth, punting it through the air with powerful flips of its tail. Whatever animal unlucky enough to have encountered it has no escape—it spends its last moments thrown skyward, soaring through the only habitat it could never understand, before spinning back down to sea, pulled back home by gravity’s ignorant love.

Too stunned on impact to be able to swim away. Still breathing—the body unaware that its life has already ended. Until the teeth closing around its neck is the only mercy it will beg for.

“Okay,” you gasp out, stepping back away from him. He watches as you escape, smiling slightly. In no rush.

Out the cottage door and down the path on shaking legs—you retreat to the kayak waiting on the sand, heart pounding against your sternum again, bolting from something that isn’t chasing you. Your nerves feel raw beneath your skin, unclosed circuits buzzing.

The short burst of warm weather is rapidly cooling; a passing breeze carries the chill of a cold night oncoming. You realize you left Johnny’s jacket in the cottage, but—you’re not going back for it. You don’t want to see whatever you left behind there.

Then you hear Johnny’s footsteps approaching. You jolt, tense—readying to flee. Turning, all you see is him holding the plated sandwich as he crosses the beach, jacket draped over the bend of his elbow.

“Forgot some things after all,’” he says, grinning—teeth clean and sharp.

“Oh,” you say, trying to keep the tremble from your voice, “yeah.”

You take it from him, and see that your hands are shaking. If he notices, he doesn’t comment.

If he notices, he’s probably enjoying it.

“Let’s get goin’ then!” he enthuses, taking your bag and setting it in the kayak.

There is no pelt around his hips.

next chapter early access

a/n: I won't lie, this was a rough one to write. Part of the prose of this chapter is inspired by september is a weary month by Yasmin Belkhyr. Not sure if this is the proper attribution but it's all I can find.

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pineapple-downside-up-cake · 11 days ago

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All Seeing, All Loving, All Knowing

Warning: Typical British drinking (alcoholism lite)

Summary: Drunk night out with your girlie! And also Ghost!

Notes: It is too amusing to me to constantly cocktease our readers I apologise for nothing

Word Count: 2,756

ao3 link

It didn’t matter how many times you heard that trainers were in at the clubs; you still couldn’t wrap your head around it. Trainers were for walks, painful heels were for clubbing, alongside bandage dresses that did their best to suffocate you.

You’d considered the trainers several times that night, but you couldn’t quite bring yourself to wear them out, so you’d gone with ankle boots instead. They were a good compromise, you thought; they provided ankle support, and with laces, you could tie them tight enough so they wouldn’t rub and give you blisters, but they still had a sky-high heel, so you didn’t feel like you’d given up completely. That, and the skimpy bandage dress that was doing a great job of trying to suffocate you with your own boobs, which you’d hoisted up in a push-up bra. Helen was dressed similarly, though, with her bright pink hair, she was far more eye-catching. Not necessarily a good thing either, considering how many of her exes seemed to be out tonight, making her a beacon for lesbian dramatics. You’d already had to sneakily exit one club to avoid a particular ex of hers who had a penchant for throwing drinks, so you were hobbling across the cobblestones to a different club, praying that whatever drama would surely arise in that one wouldn’t involve a vodka lemonade to the face.

You were only halfway across the street, having had to pause to tie your laces back up, when you heard men shouting from down the road, shouting your name. Damn Helen and her hair! You had exes to avoid too! If it was Matt, you were running for it, untied shoes be damned. You abandoned your shoelace to look over at the group of rowdy men, only to find a familiar face at the centre of them.

Ghost.

It was weird to see him in such a pedestrian environment; you only ever really saw him solo in the middle of the night; to see him surrounded by lads in a busy club street was bizarre. He was dressed the same way he always dressed, blue jeans, black jumper, dark trainers, though he’d eschewed the mask. His face was still in the healing process, though the bruises had faded more, a strange green tinted purple on his skin. You could see that he’d had his hair trimmed too, practically a military buzzcut, a tragedy, right as it had been getting a little fluffy. The men around him were unfamiliar to you, but they looked military, big and beefy, all jostling one another with that typical smug arrogance that came with being in the army. Already, they didn’t feel like your type of men, but Ghost had separated from them and was making a beeline toward you.

Helen had been so distracted by a beautiful woman smoking outside that she didn’t seem to notice the group of lads until Ghost was mere metres away. The look on her face could have made a toddler cry, and she looked at you suspiciously, “Isn’t that that lad from the pub that time?”

“No?”

“Is he the sneaky link you’ve been hiding from us?”

“What sneaky link?”

Helen snorted, “You think we don’t notice? Please. You’ve had a little soldier on the side. That’s why you don’t host girls nights anymore.”

Well, she had you there. There was no time to bicker anymore; Ghost was standing right in front of you, his eyes flicking from you to Helen and then back to you. Helen regarded him haughtily, as she did with all men, “You gonna introduce yourself then? Or are you only a ‘two in the morning u up’ type?”

Yeesh. She really did like to embody the ‘man-hating lesbian’ vibe. It was a great vibe though.

Ghost wasn’t put off and instead offered Helen his hand, “Not my style at all. Name’s Simon.” She looked at him, then at you, and you widened your eyes a touch at her, silently begging her to be nice. She narrowed her beautifully lined eyes as though wishing she could stab her stiletto nails through his fingers, but she took his hand and briskly shook it, and you knew she was doing her best to crush his fingers, “Helen.”

Well, that was about as friendly as Helen got. You laughed awkwardly, trying to diffuse the tension radiating from Helen, “Simon! Hi! Hey! What are you doing here?”

He tilted his head at you as though he was trying to understand how you wanted him to act around your friends. “Just out with the lads. Some of ‘em only got back tonight so ‘m taking them out for a couple drinks. What about you, love?”

“Oh, you know, drinks and dancing.”

Ghost looked down at your heels and then at your face, one brow raised, “You planning on snapping an ankle?” He didn’t wait for a response, dropping down into a crouch, gently pulling your foot forward and redoing your laces tightly, forcing you to place a hand on his shoulder for balance. With one done, he tapped on your other shoe, and you shifted your weight so you could hold that boot out for him to relace, the leather snug around your foot. His fingers trailed over the back of your calf as he straightened back up, “That should keep you all night.”

It took you a good second to bring your brain back into gear; the sight of Ghost practically kneeling down before you, looking up at you with those eyes had filled your head with all sorts of images, wondering if the soldier in him was good at following orders. You needed to find out. You needed to have him on his knees in between your legs.

“You alright, love?”

He was looking down at you as though he was concerned, but you could see the smugness in his eyes, that faux innocence, like he didn’t know exactly what you were thinking about. You blinked away the images in your head, storing them away for later. Helen’s patience was beginning to thin; you could tell by the tapping of her fingers on her arm; after all, it was a girl's night, not a girl's plus Ghost, so you decided to draw a quick end to the conversation, a little emboldened by the shots you’d already had tonight. You leant up as far as you could get, resting both hands on Ghost’s chest so you could press a kiss to his cheek, leaving a little red lipstick mark there, “I’ll text you later, yeah?”

Now it was Ghost’s turn to look taken aback, but only for a second, his face quickly breaking into a wide smile, revealing the scars on his cheeks as the tissue pulled tight. He put one of his hands over yours on his chest, “You need anything you let me know, yeah?” You nodded, and he reached out to gently brush a thumb across your cheek, a tender gesture that made your heart skip and your insides tingle. He leaned in to press a kiss to your head, “Have a nice night.”

With that, he left you to return to his group, the berating from which you could hear even from so far away, though Ghost took no shame in his actions, looking immensely proud. Helen snorted and rolled her eyes at you, though there was no real bite in her tone, “My God, why don’t the pair of you just fuck in the middle of the street? Like a pair of teenagers, you are. Or unfixed cats. It’s nauseating.”

You dragged your eyes away from Ghost and back to Helen, wrinkling your nose at her, “Bite me. Not like you don’t eye-fuck every girl that looks at you.”

She grinned at that and linked her arm through yours, pulling you towards another club, “What can I say?”

A fair few hours later, your feet ached, your calves felt like they were going to cramp any second, and you’d danced so much that you were sure you’d worked off the empty calories of the many shots of alcohol coursing through your system. Helen had given up on her heels and was now walking barefoot next to you, emphatically explaining why it wasn’t her fault that taken women seemed to gravitate toward her. Neither of you noticed that there was still a wedge of lemon in her hair from where the lemonade had been thrown over her. At least you’d managed to miss most of it this time.

Walking in this state felt impossible, especially considering Ghost had tied your shoes so tightly you couldn’t figure out how to undo the knot, trapping you in your heels. You had no choice though so you soldiered on, practically dragging Helen to where the lines of taxis were.

“Little love!”

The shout was practically deafening, several heads turning to the sound, yours included. There he was, still with his mates, but he barged through them to get to you, a waft of smoke trailing behind him. Helen had found a lamp post to cling to instead of you, and Ghost took the opportunity to sweep you up into his arms, squeezing you in a tight hug, his face nuzzling into your neck. Clearly, he’d had about as much alcohol as you. But you weren’t about to complain, still buzzing, and you wrapped your arms around his neck, enjoying the scent of him mixed in with cigarette smoke and alcohol. He picked you up off the ground, and you had just enough time to grab Helen’s arm as Ghost carried you over to where his mates were leaning against the brickwork.

Without a word from you, he dropped you back on the pavement, his arms encircling your waist as he presented you to his mates,

“Wanted you to meet the lads, love.” He named them in quick succession, and you immediately forgot all of their names, mostly focused on trying to stand upright. Although, what did stick out in your mind was when one of the lads, Baz, you think his name was, mentioned how whipped Ghost was.

“Barely shut up about you tonight. You’d think other women didn’t exist.”

Ghost practically purred in your ear, “They don’t. Not to me.”

“Did you know he carries photos of you with him? Sure we caught him wanking in the barracks to one-“

Whatever Baz had to say was cut off by Ghost reaching over to smack him around the head, but it was too late. You’d already heard that delightful little piece of information, and there was no putting that back in the box. Ghost grumbled and hugged you tighter, and you thought one of his friends fake retched at the affection until you realised it was real retching; Helen was puking in the gutter. You wriggled out of Ghost’s arms to stumble over to Helen, rubbing her back as she emptied her stomach into the street, a disgusting rainbow of glitter amongst the chunder. Ghost sniggered behind you, but he reached out to pick up a few strands of Helen’s hair, holding them out of the way until she’d finished.

“Give us a bottle of water lads.”

From the group of men, a bottle of water was produced, and Ghost handed it to you so you could help Helen clear the spatter off her arm and swill the water to get the taste out of her mouth. She groaned, and you sighed, too drunk to be a caretaker but without choice. “I need to get her back home.”

“Where does she live?”

“‘Round Salford way.”

Ghost nodded, and he pointed out a taxi, “Let’s get her in one.”

It was quite cosy with five of you bundled in the back of the taxi, with Helen closest to the door, you on Ghost’s lap, and then two of Ghost’s mates on the other side. The three soldiers were engaged in some army nonsense, but you found it easy enough to tune out, your head resting against Ghost’s chest as his fingers stroked up and down your arm, your hand resting on Helen’s back. When you finally reached her house, he helped you carry her to the front doorstep, where her eternally patient sister awaited her, dragging her into the house. With your charge taken care of, it was back into the taxi with Ghost.

After the lads were dropped off, you were finally on the way back to yours, curled up in the back seat with Ghost, his arm draped around your shoulders as you laid with your arm wrapped around his stomach, half asleep. The idea of having to walk up to your flat sounded like sheer torture, and you were quite tempted to see if you could fall asleep in the taxi, but Ghost wouldn’t allow it.

“Come on, darlin’.”

You grumbled about your shoes, so he simply reached into the taxi and pulled you into his arms, carrying you like a princess. He paid the driver, then whisked you up to your apartment, surprisingly steady considering how much he’d been drinking. There was some fumbling with the locks as he tried to juggle both you and the keys, but he managed, carrying you over the threshold and shutting the door behind the two of you.

Roach and Soap knew better than to come and see you after a night out, knowing that you were likely to try and cuddle with them, so the apartment was quiet as Ghost walked you into your bedroom and laid you down on the bed, moving back to deftly undo your laces, releasing your feet from the prison that was your heels, tossing them back into the living room. You were too drunk to care about propriety, just irritated by the tightness of your dress as you pulled at the zip, trying to get out of the bandage cage. Ghost’s fingers came up to assist, gently tugging the zip down until your body practically busted out of the damn thing. It was too tight, too irritating, so you had no problem letting Ghost gently tug the dress up over your head, leaving you just in your underwear and tights.

When you opened your eyes, having apparently closed them at some point, you saw Ghost crouched at the side of the bed, his hand resting on your thigh.

“You really are gorgeous, you know that?”

You looked down, seeing your own half-naked body, and then back at Ghost, a little bit of sobriety coming back into you. He tugged his jumper off over his head, then immediately pushed it over your head, not giving you much of a choice in being covered up again. You didn’t mind; the jumper was soft, and it smelled like him, and it was warm. It would have been easy to fall asleep like that, but you had other plans. You rolled onto your side so you could look at him, taking into account his bruised and battered face, the harsh features of his face a perfect contrast with the soft, loving way he was looking at you. He really was gorgeous, even if his face was a bit fucked up.

Your hand moved down to his, and you played with his fingers, “You coming to bed?”

“You inviting me?”

“Yes.”

There was a moment of silence, and you could see Ghost grappling with something. He brushed a strand of hair out of your face, his fingers stroking across your cheek and gently touching your lower lip before he backed up, getting to his feet. You frowned at him, “Where you going?”

Ghost answered you frankly.

“I’m going to have a wank in your bathroom.”

If you had been sober, you might have had more of a response to that, but you were drunk and tired, so you didn’t give it much thought, rolling over in the bed as he walked off, taking your bra off underneath the jumper and tossing it on the floor, then squirming under the covers.

Ghost returned a few minutes later, and you could hear the sound of him undressing, followed by the bed dipping as he got in beside you. His thighs were warm against the back of yours, his arm snaking around your waist to pull you close to his chest, his fingers tangling with yours as he cuddled into your back, pressing several soft kisses to your neck before he let his head fall on the pillow beside yours, joining you in peaceful slumber.

#very cute #love simon prepping for bed

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pineapple-downside-up-cake · 12 days ago

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Fanfic valentine's, y'all.

Go leave your fav writers a nice little comment or review and let 'em know they're appreciated.

Especially if you don't normally leave reviews, now is the perfect time!

#valentines day #writer appreciation #fanfic

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pineapple-downside-up-cake · 13 days ago

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Ghost getting badly injured during a mission that they have to call his next of kin.

Next of kin?? What do you mean next of kin.

Mrs Riley?! He doesn’t wear a wedding band to protect you. Not even at home, worried there’ll be a mark to show he sometimes wears one.

It’s then that the TF 141 find out he’s married to you. They’re all wondering what you’re like, convinced you must be in the same line of work.

You’ve been married for six years, only to be called if it’s serious like now.

Soap’s jaw is on the floor as you walk into the infirmary, you don’t even glance their way as you rush to Simon’s bedside. Your hand on his chest as you lean down to kiss his forehead and brush back his hair.

You’re well put together, a lightweight robe layered over jeans and a simple vest. Pops of colour on your olive thick framed glasses and golden wedged heels. Hair pinned back with a pencil, leather bag overpacked with a book, filofax, purse and little cosmetic bag.

Price introduces himself, shaking your hand. A dainty diamond ring sparkling on your finger. Your silver bangles jingle as you greet each man, repeating their names and they know Ghost has not told you anything about them.

All he told you is that he likes working alone, but sometimes works with others.

You stay at the base for a while till he’s well enough to travel home. Eating with him and the guys in the canteen, they’re still staring at Simon like he’s grown another head. Watching you two squabble about little things.

“Do not put that shit on my plate,” Simon grumbled.

“It’s broccoli not a bomb.” You can’t help but roll your eyes, shoulder bumping into his arm as you try to move him along in the line.

The art director job you have takes you all around the world, sometimes you get to meet up with your husband. Simon treating it like a mission in itself, you playing along as you talk to him over the phone as you walk the cobbled streets to see him. “Target engaged, moving in,” you whisper as you spot him standing outside a coffee shop.

FaceTiming him whilst he’s at base so you can show him the little trinket you found in an antique store. He’s laying down in his bed, headphones on so no one hears.

“Nearly the same age as you luv.” Anything to see that little poutie face and brows furrowed. He loves teasing you that you are older than him, but it backfires whenever he complains at his body aching. “You’re supposed to be young and spry.”

Being a couple years older than Simon, you’ve got your shit together. Which drew Simon to you. Both no nonsense, say what you feel and work it out. No games, no silent treatment.

“Watch your tone Si, you’re not in the army here. You’re home so don’t give me that shit.”

“Watch my tone, luv. You just flooded the bathroom!”

“You distracted me!”

“Why don’t I get some towels and we both sort it out.”

Once Simon’s fully recovered, you invite his team to stay at your shared home together for the weekend.

A cottage in the countryside, there’s an eclectic mix of vintage furniture and textiles. That one rug Simon shipped back from Morocco in the living room. Paintings, pottery and sculptures scattered around the rooms. Rocky, a German Shepard trailing after you as you give them a tour of the place.

You make friends with Price’s wife who’s around the same age as you. Even try to set Gaz up with a client you think he’d get on with. Bond with Soap telling him you lived in Scotland as a late teen where you had your first art assistant job there.

Price’s wife scheduling a double date in five months time. Simon side eying John. She’s also invited you to come stay for a girls weekend at the Price house.

[masterlist] & [Price’s wife]

#this is delightful #i like him having a whole side life #imagining the getting-so-injured-they-call is bad enough but now they KNOW each other #ugh

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pineapple-downside-up-cake · 15 days ago

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TF!141 when reader has a migraine:

Soap is loud. He knows he's loud, you know he's loud, and even when he's trying to be quiet, this smoking ball of energy makes waves in the house. Normally it's not a problem, but every now and again, well...

You love him, but if you thought you could punch him without vomiting right now, you probably would. He's affable, doesn't take too much offense when you cut him off mid-rant. He hits you with one of those sympathetic "ach, hen"s after, the ones that usually make you all bubbly, but the best you can give him is a smile that comes out more like a cringe.

You go lay down and eventually you fall asleep - Soap must have disappeared because the house is quiet. Four hours later you wake up and it's dark, Soap poking his head in the room - he's brought you curry from your favorite Indian place down the road.

Gaz isn't going to hold your hand, because he knows you don't like it. He gets wanting to be left to wallow in your pain until it's over, and he doesn't need you to reassure him that you aren't going to die on his watch.

It was, however, your turn to cook and do dishes. But he's not going to hold it against you - he makes soup and leaves some in the fridge for when you're ready, takes out the trash, and folds the laundry (which didn't need doing until tomorrow, but Gaz loves you in practical ways.)

Even the bathroom is spotless when you've at last respawned, and when you're ready to be human again, it's almost like you didn't lose a whole day at all. Gaz is never phased, never brings it up later to tally the scores. Just calmly accepts that it's part and parcel of being with you.

Ghost is watching telly when you come in, feeling half-dead, and he greets you with a wave and a 'hey'. He's probably got a plate full of snacks next to him and a book he was going to read before the game started that he hasn't opened yet.

When you tell him you're having a shit day and it feels like your brains are melting, he lets you kick off your shoes and faceplant into his lap. This man doesn't. make. a dick joke. Not a single one, just lets you close your eyes and bury your face in his stomach, where you fall asleep.

He turns the volume down on the match, and you wake up to him passed out on the couch. He hasn't moved an inch, didn't want to wake you... but he saved you a biscuit.

Price is ON it. He's got a whole ass go bag for you and your unpredictable medical situations. They say the best way to combat uncertainty is by being prepared, and he's ready for anything from anaphylactic shock to childbirth. (You aren't expecting, but it's sweet anyway.)

He was planning to work on a project in the garage, but you're looking so sad even after he's given you migraine meds, he changes his mind. He shuts off the lights and crawls into bed next to you to cuddle because it sounds like a better deal for him, anyway.

When you're feeling up to moving again, this secure ass man draws you a bubble bath. He sits behind you so you don't accidentally drown in the too big tub and shampoos your hair while he's at it, a nice gentle headmassage he definitely didn't pick up in the military.

#i project your honor #call of duty #cod x reader #simon ghost riley #john price x reader #kyle garrick x reader #johnny mactavish x reader

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pineapple-downside-up-cake · 16 days ago

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I've gone a bit feral over the inexperienced Simon agenda. I'm also a little obsessed with the 'size kink but in the not-feeling oversized' post.

It was supposed to be short and dirty... Before I knew it there were 3k words. I don't even know if it's still smut or if it's just a sex scene, but it's being released into the wild, anyway. Enjoy!

18+, MDNI

CW: use of sex toy; inexperienced Simon Riley, mentions of weight insecurity

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There are no waifs in your family line.

Peasants, farmers, horses... a dwarf or nine? Quite possibly.

It's not that you're fat, per se.

You're just solid. A bulwark of a woman in a world that venerates the narrow-boned, slim sculpted beauty that was never in your cards.

You’ve had lovers in the past, not all of them terrible. A few with enough reciprocity even to prioritize your pleasure, and it’s not entirely their fault if you’ve deliberately put brains over brawns – your friends might point out that your type skews heavily towards ‘spindly legged nerds’.

It’s not so much preference as happenstance. These are the people you are around, the kind of men you can talk to long enough to form a basis for intercourse. And, you remind them as you remind yourself, intelligence and personality are supposed to be desirable qualities, as well. Things that matter more to a relationship than appearances.

But you’ve always been aware of the physical imbalances, always careful to balance your weight, to curb your strength and pleasure to avoid breaking your twiggy lovers. It wasn’t bad. Just…measured.

Restrained.

Restraint you wish you could cast unto the last guy you dated, who went all in that first night on the couch in his apartment, a night that has haunted your psyche since.

You’d lost your balance, landed a little too heavily – and the man had fucking laughed, letting out an uninhibited “crush me, mommy” that sent you running for the hills, feeling the least sexy you've felt since your last high school dance.

It put you off men for months, because how the hell does someone recover from that?

But when Simon - gorgeous, intelligent, you-are-the-brute-squad Simon fucking Riley - asks you out?

Well.

You say yes. Obviously.

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It was supposed to just be a kiss at the door.

A goodbye kiss - a good goodbye kiss, because a man with honey eyes like that deserved a little tongue in his farewell - but then you were eye to eye with him on the top step and his shoulders were just there like the only shelter you'd ever need, and of course you wrapped your arms around his neck, and suddenly your goodbye kiss at the door moved inside the door, then behind the door, and then against the door.

And you don't find yourself regretting it at all.

Kissing Simon is every bit as wonderful as you had imagined. His mouth is warm and wet and you love a man who knows how to use his tongue - not bullying, but teasing, and when he scrapes his teeth across your lip something explodes in your brain.

Kissing Simon is better than you imagined.

Your fingers curl in the back of his hair and you push yourself against his erection, suddenly wishing you were a lace and skirt kind of girl, that you didn't have two layers of denim between you, because you aren't sure you've ever been this turned on, and how good would it feel to have his warmth pressed all the way against you?

There's no way you could possibly get either pair of pants off, not without stopping, and that's not an option you're ready to consider, so instead you grip him tighter with your thighs and let the ache between your legs grow, fluttering around nothing and getting wetter by the second, arousal seeping out.

It's a kiss that last eternity, but not long enough, because soon Simon is pulling away when he should stay glued against you forever, and you reluctantly lower your legs from their new favorite spot wrapped around his waist. He rests a forearm on the wall next to you like he needs grounding or he'll fall apart without it, and you melt just a little, grateful that your legs still seem work. He drops his forehead to your shoulder, both of you quiet and gulping as you reacquaint yourselves with the taste of air.

"Fucking hell, you are..." He lifts his head to search your face like he's not quite sure it's real. That you're real. "You are all woman, aren't you?" His voice is hoarse, and you don't know if it's supposed to be a question because you were the last time you checked - granted it has been a while - but honestly what does that even mean?

His lips are plump and thoroughly kissed, glistening - by you, you did that - and you have to rip your eyes away to form a sentence.

"Do you want to stay the night?"

Simon had held you against the wall like you weighed nothing, like he didn't even have to think twice about your thighs in his hands, about strength and leverage and slotting himself perfectly between your legs, and you are so, so weak - if he decides not to stay the night, you have absolutely no shame in getting yourself off to the memory of this alone later.

You can see it in the way he forcibly pulls himself back, tension warring with responsibility, that he wants to stay. Instead you watch him coil his desire like he has to weigh anchor to get away from you.

"I've got to work in the morning. I - I should go."

And you let him go, because you can be disappointed but respectful at the same time, but you give him a hug - not another kiss, no starting that, neither of you fully yourselves again - and a smile.

"Goodnight, Simon."

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Returning to his graveyard of an apartment is hard. It's far emptier than he remembers it being when left a few hours ago. He hates that he left, but he really does have to get up early for an exercise with the recruits. And if it spared him a little longer, it wasn't such a bad thing.

You had felt right in his arms. Maybe even too right - you'd locked together like a scope to a well oiled rifle, flush and secure and so fucking perfect. He’d nearly come undone right there in your hallway, fully clothed like a teenager, and what an unimpressive end to the night that would have been.

He heads straight for a long, cold, useless shower, and does his damnedest to think about the logistics order. It’s midnight when he finally crawls into bed and sets his alarm for 0600.

Normally, Simon sleeps, if not well, at least on command – a side effect of military life. But he’s still thinking about what could have been fifty-seven minutes later, and he should have known better than to prolong the inevitable.

He's no stranger to an attitude adjusting wank. His palm isn’t particularly special or exciting, but it can usually get the job done well enough. Tonight, as he slides down the elastic of his sweats, he finds his imagination has returned with a vengeance.

He’s hard again and he hasn’t even touched himself.

He’d give anything right now to know what you felt like skin to skin. If your nipples were sensitive – if he could make you come with his mouth alone, or if you preferred top or bottom – is that something he’s supposed to ask about? He wants to find out.

His cock jumps in agreement and he surrenders, gripping himself haphazardly and picturing you.

Not intimidated by him at all. Eyes glazed and full of soft noises. The way your thighs fit into his hands and how you’d felt when he pressed up against you – were you wet? If he had stayed, if he had gotten to touch - would you have wanted him as much as he wanted you?

He thrusts into his hand almost involuntarily at the thought, thinking of you pliant and willing and gasping his name – and suddenly he’s short of air and stifling the mess with the bedsheet.

0100.

Fuck.

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When he comes over on Friday, both of you are a little shy - the afterimage from earlier very much on your minds. Quiet, deliberate, you sit together on the couch in silence, not moving towards each other, making stilted conversation about your day.

Eventually you give in.

"Simon..." It's not going get it out of your system - you can tell sex with Simon isn't a one time affair - but at least it would clear the air. "I have to be honest. The other night? That was basically the hottest thing that's ever happened to me." The confession is quiet, sheepish, and you can see him breathe a sigh of relief, big shoulders slumping back away from his ears - what did he think you were going to say?

"I can't stop thinking about it. I've been dreaming about jumping your bones all week. Do you want to go upstairs?"

Simon has never wanted anything more in his life. Not another magazine, or air support, or Soap to stop speaking in tongues. He chases you up the stairs, heart thumping in his chest like it's his first time.

It's not. He's had sex before - it's been a while (a long while), but he's not a virgin. It wasn't really good - he'd describe it as 'okay' sex, which makes him sound like a snob, but he has one of those inconveniently sized packages that require signature on delivery - too big for comfort for the women who were chasing burly soldiers like him.

Practically, it means your slow makeout session is...not so slow. Simon has your shirt off before you ever hit the bed, painting a path across your neck with his lips, and by the time you're comfortable, your pants have disappeared like you were never wearing any to begin with.

The only time he falters, hesitates at all, is when you finally wrap your hand around the bare length of him, everything exposed at last. He's got this look on his face like he's waiting for you to panic, the corner of his mouth turned up with a ready response.

You like a challenge, and while you won't tell him he exaggerated - he really, really didn't, you let him know you aren't scared off, either.

A cocky smile, and a spark in your eyes, you let him know how much you appreciate it. "I can take it. Or I'll die trying, which wouldn't be so bad, either."

It's amazing, that with all the blood in his engorged cock, that Simon still has enough left over to blush.

It's better, easier, especially this first time, with you on top, where you can control the pace, so you push at his chest (and what a chest it is - a bare hint of blonde fuzz, but mostly pecs you could eat and the cutest little man nipples you've ever seen.)

You have to pay for it with a kiss, but eventually Simon rolls over to his back, laid out for you in his full naked glory.

He’s not some narrow, stick figured man you cling to like a fire pole – wrapping yourself around Simon Riley is like wrestling a refrigerator, every inch of you spread wide to take him in. Your thighs nudge that much further apart and you can’t explain it but it brings a fresh surge of arousal – he’s got you split open and broken in half for him before he’s even in you.

And when he does - when he slots the throbbing head of himself against you, nudges in -

Your eyelashes flutter and you scrabble for purchase, nails biting into his chest as he slowly presses into you, savoring that first glide as he scrambles your brain.

There's no room for anything, any thoughts other than Simon, like he possesses your entire being, filling you with an exquisite stretch that makes you feel like you'll explode.

He’s not even doing anything special – this is sex at its barest, but it’s better than anything you’ve had before – the angle, the depth, knowing he could pick you up and flip you over without breaking a sweat.

"You are so obscenely hot. Do you know how good it feels to sit on you and not worry about breaking you?" You laugh breathlessly, because it's hard to find room for air when you're trying to relax around him.

He slides so easily in your slick, but your muscles fight it as you slowly sink deeper onto him, and you help as you much as you can, clenching and relaxing and adjusting a little at a time until there's nowhere else to go.

He moans, low and deep, clutching at your thighs - to make you stop or to make you keep going, he's not sure - and you can feel him twitch inside you. "Do - do you know how hot it is that you just....you took the whole thing? Taking my dick so well, I can't believe it."

His head drops back against the pillow, eyes shut like he's afraid he's dreaming, that if he opens them it may all end. But you're still there, looking at him like you're enjoying yourself.

You could spend all night here, speared on him, spread wide, filled to completion with his head hot and pulsing inside you, knowing you will be ruined for your stupid spindly men forever.

It takes a second for you even to think about moving, but eventually you inch your way into a slow glide.

Beneath you, Simon finds he can cant his hips just a bit, and your eyes really do roll back into your head which is fascinating so he does it again, and again, and your slow glide gets a little out of control -

You bounce and he thrusts and your rhythms are the perfect level of unaligned to have him slip out of you, catching the thickness of his head between your bodies on a hard downslide and suddenly he's lost, losing himself into the condom with a few jerks of his hips.

Ever a man of few words - a long, drawn out moan is all you get out of him, and you help him finish, as unsatisfying as it might be, with a few more rolls of your hips against where he's trapped, until he stills you with a hand to the thigh, spasming like he's been shocked.

Simon Riley, dethroned king of never p-in-v, has a new complex he'll never recover from. He drags your pillow over his face with both hands, like he would smother himself if he thought it would help.

“'M so sorry,” he mumbles from under the pillow. His chest and neck are flushing the most fascinating shade of red, and it’s so attractive – not to mention flattering – that you can’t imagine how anyone finds it in themselves to be offended.

Reassurance falls on deaf ears. You try, anyway, sliding off his softening cock as he shudders once more. “It doesn't happen all the time for women. I still enjoyed it.”

He hears you, but it’s wrong. It has to be wrong. Simon wants to learn how to make you come every time, possibly all the time, if you can stand it. Wants to see you shivering in ecstasy, mind full of nothing but him and how good he makes you feel.

If he could melt into the mattress and disappear, he would.

"I'll make it up to you," he promises, and you've no doubt about that. He seems like the kind of guy that takes commitment seriously.

Lying next to him, you pull the pillow gently away and nuzzle his neck, sliding a slow hand up his bare chest. He’s spent, limp and boneless. He should be basking in afterglow, and instead he looks miserable. Tormented.

What the hell, you’re a modern woman.

You roll half off the bed to snag something from the night stand and hold it up for his inspection. It’s a garish pink that hurts his eyes, but Simon can't look away. He understands what it is. Never seen one before, though. Definitely never seen it used.

He'd be lying if he said he wasn't a little intimidated.

"Do you think you can hold on to me?" You dangle the vibrator from loose fingertips, and maybe you shouldn't tease him but you also need him to know it really isn't a problem - that A in B isn't the only way to have sex.

He finds it in himself to nod. His throat is tight and he wishes his body would respond to how badly he wants you, but despite his best attempts he remains limp. Dick dead to the world, and to you, and he almost wishes he could take a bullet, instead.

You straddle him again, supported by his knees behind you. It takes a little lift to get the angle right, but when you do the thick end of the vibrator slides in with no resistance. You know what you're missing, now, and it doesn't fill you nearly as well as Simon, but you smile at him because you can tell by the awed look on his face that you’re about to blow his mind.

You would be the first to admit it's not your usual strategy - this is a tactical vibrator, a high efficiency stress reliever that helps you sleep on restless nights. The thing has at least 10 settings and 3 intensity levels. You're only acquainted with two of those, but you know exactly how to make them work for you, and tonight that's what matters.

You guide one of Simon's hands to your hip, and the other to the button on the vibrator, and you hesitate - more bluster than confidence at this point, but he's got a way of making you feel like a sex goddess just by touching you with those hands that span half your ass, and you go straight to your favorite setting.

Convenient, that the slow ramp mimics exactly how you'd like to ride him, if he could last forever. The pulse burns through both of you, rumbling in his chest and sending lighting through your core.

His fingers splay across your hips, digging into the ample flesh, his torso so broad just straddling him takes you to a whole new level of arousal, and he helps you rock on the vibrator where it's pinned to his abs.

He's looking at you like you're the hottest thing he's ever seen, molten heat and promise in those dark brown eyes of his, and you can almost hear all the things he wants to do to you, and so you close your eyes and imagine it instead, imagine it's him you're riding, that you could watch him rut into you as careful, thoughtful Simon fucked you into oblivion.

"So good Simon, so close - " He doesn't understand why it's his name that escapes your lips - he's not doing much, just along for the ride, but somehow it makes him feel wanted and not like a dud.

Like he might still have a shot with you, that he didn't ruin this, and he's speaking before thinking for once in his life - "Give it to me, love, want to see you come."

It's enough. It's more than enough, tension rising in a flood and you need it now. Squeezing his flanks with your thighs, you lose all capacity for words, gasping for air, and you grab his hand and help him push the wand exactly where you need it until the heat rushes up and drowns you, making you shudder violently against him.

You have all of a half second before it becomes too much, and you nudge Simon's hand out of the way as you roll off him and yank out the vibrator in one go, flinging it over the edge of the bed, a problem for tomorrow.

You collapse facedown next to Simon like a ragdoll, gooey satisfaction still spreading through your limbs. It's silent except for the sounds of your breathing, and you sidle over to press up against Simon, to lay with your head on his chest.

He pulls you in tight, wrapping one of those massive biceps around your back, to comfort you or because he's afraid you'll disappear he isn't sure, but then you bite him, sink your teeth into the bare flesh of his pec - not hard, but it gets him out of his head.

"You're wonderful." You mumble, post-coital sleepiness coming in fast.

"You're...incredible," he whispers back. "That was... I don't even have words for that. Hell." He does have words, words like 'you're the best thing that's ever happened to me' and 'I only want to fuck you for the rest of my life', but he knows without being told that it is way too early for that.

Instead, the two of you fall asleep together, your leg tangled with his. When you wake up, he eats you out like he's never had a proper meal in his life, shows you with his mouth what he won't say yet.

You don't really need convincing, but you won't complain.

#simon riley x you #simon ghost riley #simon riley x reader #ghost x reader #ghost smut #cod fanfic

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