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[pineapple-downside-up-cake]

Interlude to a stressful day at work so here's a short blurb:

When Soap is on leave, John MacTavish becomes a house husband.

It's not that he doesn't get to indulge in the prescribed 2-3 days of decompression loafing. It's just that after, he enjoys throwing himself into housework.

He's no fool. He knows there are things you could have fixed while he was away, knows that you leave little projects out for him to finish, even if they're just things you couldn't be bothered with - like living with a little standing water in the shower, because snaking the drain is just one step too far.

Some men would be annoyed at coming home to fix-it tasks, or a drain full of hair, but for Johnny, it makes him feel like he gets to contribute, despite being away so often.

It works out well for both of you. Johnny gets time to himself, something the SAS keeps in short supply, and you get a break from the tedium of keeping yourself clothed and fed.

Most importantly, though, he enjoys you coming home to him.

When you walk through the door and kick off your work boots, he can smell your feet across the room, but you're there and he's there, and it doesn't really matter when you slip up behind him with a "hey good lookin', what's cookin'" that never gets old and a quick smooch.

He loves cleaning up with you after dinner, feeling like a person and not a soldier when you end up chasing each other around the house. Loves settling in on the couch with you after, when you're both winding down and you slide your feet under his butt to keep them warm.

They're freaking cold, but he's learned that it's the little things that make him feel like he has a home, and most of them come from you.

John MacTavish might be a house husband, but you're his home, and he wouldn't have it any other way.

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there's nothing more freeing for Ghost than knowing he might never have sex with you. holding your face between his hands and kissing you without an agenda, without a reason for it, sometimes soft and gentle, sometimes hard and desperate. he likes picking you out of his teeth, likes the popcorn kernels of affection that rot down to the root leaving cavities he won't find until he's deployed and they start to ache.

he could put a ring on your finger without ever feeling your cunt wrap around him, and it isnt something so respectable as the religious fanaticism that soap has, its more akin to a whale fall. the soft critters sucking pollution out of the dead tissue, the saltwater purging contamination from the blood, food and homes found in his ribs, bones repurposed into something bigger than him.

"biblically" thats how he'd heard it described once, knowing someone biblically. but what does he need a book for? he knows the whorl of your fingerprints, the veins of your eyes, the bpm of your heart —his fingers pressed tight against your wrist counting softly in the dark, one, two, three— so what could be closer, deeper? he doesn’t want it to just be sex, he doesn’t want to end the dance, he doesn’t want to be human with you, because he has erred so much, so deeply, he is so deeply human

and he doesn’t want to have sex,

and you don't make him,

and he doesn't have to wonder why.

it's because you love him too

[pineapple-downside-up-cake]

Sharing my self-indulgent bedtime story it's not great but fuck it [clocked myself in the head today and ended up with a gnarly new ear piercing. I would like a man cushion to comfort me for a hot second.]

Soap x reader

A special quirk of ex-military men is that they are stellar under pressure. Compared to the realities of war, the trials and tribulations of every day life are child's play.

Compartmentalizing is the first lesson taught by the field.

It's usually not the last, but it sticks the hardest. Those who live learn to don survival glasses, where everything is reduced to rote problem solving.

They assess the situation, determine the requisite actions based on the current pattern, and continue until the situation resolves.

Logical. Rational. Reliable.

Sometimes it breaks something, deep inside. Life is about containing the box. Inside the box is everything that could never come out, could never handle the knowing, even after the fact.

Pandora's box is full of unshed tears and sleepless nights, and deeply, deeply emotionally stunted men.

But Johnny McTavish is and has been a prodigy amongst men. A man who can put his game face on long enough to evaluate that you are not suffering significant injury, and can take it off to recognize the emotional pain needs treatment, too.

Which is to say:

He doesn't hover while you clean the crusted blood off the side of your head.

The bleeding had stopped, but like all head wounds, there had been a lot of it. It had dried to a crusted drip, and you grimaced when you had to peel off your earring where it was stuck.

When it was done, when you looked less like you'd been in a dirty boxing match and Johnny had finished moving everything back in the garage, he was there.

Hot cuppa. Cushy lap for feet. Shitty reality tv.

Sense of humor.

"Bet 'ah could get a matching earring for ye', hen. Ye always did like the look of elf ears..."

You don't even have to throw the pillow across the room. He's got a valid point - you'd be even hotter as an elf.

He does accidentally forget about it when he rolls over to wake you up for morning sex the next day, ends up breaking open a scab.

He's an idiot sometimes, but he's still the best idiot around.

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Oh, to be Hunted

Warnings: 18+, mirror sex, some dissociation

It's not the sort of thing you want to air to your therapist.

She probably already knows.

You may not be freaky with a capital 'F', like Johnny and Lisa, but Simon still wants you. That's workable.

You just need a plan.

It's a skimpy, slippery little piece of satin. You practice wearing it at home to build confidence - less clothing than you've ever worn out in public before, barring a swimsuit, and it feels so much more...exposed.

The fabric, to its credit, is soft. The halter drapes just so to keep your unruly nipples from stealing the limelight, and a delicate (flimsy, you might consider, but today you are Confident) chain holds the front together, the gate that keeps the girls in when you bend over.

You might be able to sink the eight ball without flashing anyone at all.

You test it, though. To be safe.

In the sexiest top you now own, in the least sexy way possible, you take your tits for a test drive. It feels absurd, hopping and shimmying around the house in braless glory, but after a few days you're satisfied that gravity will not be what undresses you.

It's hard not to imagine Simon's reaction - which you do, frequently, in the days leading up to his return. Usually with the lights off and a hand shoved between your legs.

The open back - he could slide his hands in and they would just...be there. On your breasts. Skin to skin. That thought alone gives you several nights of material.

You can't wait to see how Simon feels about it, but the truth is, you already know:

You're going to blow his mind first and his dick second.

Simon doesn't touch. He looks, ravenously. Like a bird of prey. All. Evening.

You took your jacket off at the table, draped it over the chair, and it took every ounce of military training to save his jaw from the floor.

You winked at him.

No idea where that came from, but apparently your practice worked wonders - you are confident tonight. A downright minx.

It's heady.

There are other men at the bar, and in another life you'd be crawling back home with your tail between your legs by now. Being prey didn't suit you.

It was not a good feeling, the leering.

Knowing every interaction had ulterior motive, and none of them were ever going to be interested in you as a person.

Just a body.

But tonight, it doesn't matter. Simon will have your back if you need him.

You feel sexy and safe. And you don't really care about any of these men besides Simon, anyway.

You win three games of pool, and knock down a victory plate of chips before Simon passes his cue to the next team and bows out - as entertaining as it was to watch, he was ready for home.

You wait long enough for Simon to slip his shoes off before you cage him against the door.

He has no complaints with the kiss he gets for his trouble.

When you slip your arms around his neck, he keeps his hands firmly in your belt loops, uses them to pull you snug against him.

"What's going on, love?" Simon has a lovely growl. It's supposed to be a growl, anyway, but the sound comes out a bit hoarse, from deep in his throat.

You've promised yourself not to mention Lisa tonight. Or therapy.

Confident. Hunter, not hunted. A lure.

"I think, and I could be wrong, that you're about to take me upstairs and ravish me." You back away with a gentle push, and he lets you go.

Tracking you.

"Unless you don't want to."

In the bedroom, he opens the closet door and angles it towards the bed. Sits you on his lap in front of it, both of you in full view, legs open across his wide thighs and hooked over his knees.

You're wet and he hasn't even touched you yet.

He palms you over the shirt. Slow, deliberate paws graze stiff nipples and you bite back a gasp. "Been thinking about this all night, love. Y' look so good." He meets your gaze in the mirror and you freeze, unable to look away, even as he grips both nipples and rolls.

The you in the mirror bites her lip.

"I wore it for you." It's a fight to get the words out - Simon hasn't stopped his bloody hands and he's still looking at you like he wants to eat you alive and why the fuck do you have pants on?

Should have been bold enough for the skirt.

"Maybe a little bit for me - I wanted to seduce you. I think it worked." The cheeky smile is good - more you than the cowed thing you were last time.

The woman in the mirror is flushed red everywhere, and she covers her eyes where her head lays on Simon's shoulders.

He kisses his way down your jaw, lets you have your quiet moment to breathe.

He knows. He waits.

"Pants?" You whisper, when you can meet his gaze again. You smile crookedly as you scoot off his lap to shuck your jeans.

"As the lady likes."

It doesn't take Simon much time to discover how worked up you are. Gentle caresses as you resettle, a helping hand pulling hair out of the way.

You start to look down, to watch his hand trail down your body, but he nudges you with his nose, until you look him in the eyes again in the mirror.

"Just watch. Want you to see what I see."

The woman in the mirror shifts. She listens better than you do.

Simon's fingers slip between your legs and he huffs, a breathy amusement that catches on your ear and titillates your nerves.

It's damp. Really damp.

The voice in your head chides you, tries to drown the arousal in a flood of embarassment.

You try not to think about it, watching the mirror instead.

You stare, transfixed as he spreads her, the mirror-lady. He slides his finger inside, one, and then two, and she shudders around him, and heat rushes through you.

Simon's fingers feel amazing. It looks like it, anyway.

The other woman is biting her lip, and her eyes are starting to glaze, and you spare a thought for Simon - she's gripping his thighs, straining against him to move her hips with his hand - there's somehow less air in the room.

You feel good, though.

Your legs tighten around Simon, but he doesn't budge.

Watching the woman in the mirror makes her move more urgently. It's hard to focus on her, white heat spiraling behind your knavel threatening to close your lids, but you can feel the shame just outside your awareness.

Waiting for a weak spot.

You force your eyes open.

You watch Simon watching her, watching you, the need in his eyes to see you unravel. It's intense - his gaze sears something inside, like he can see all the way through.

You almost want to hide, but there's nowhere to go except back against the warm wall of his chest, and you clutch his legs and squirm against his erection when he slides his wet fingers out, leaves a trail as he circles around the most sensitive part of you, and the other hand slides inside your shirt.

Skin to skin, and you can feel his callouses.

Just like you imagined.

It brings you back to yourself in a hard crash, bordering on too much - that's you. Real you, not mirror you.

That's you, and Simon, and Simon's wonderfully clever hands plucking and rolling and that - that other thing he does that sparks fireworks in your brain.

You toss your head and gasp for air, clenching around nothing and mourning the width of him with every flutter, completely unaware of the mirror - Simon plays your body like an instrument, full of passion, leaves you rigid and quivering in his arms, and it's your body that's straining for something just out of reach, not hers, and you're so fucking close, when he takes the lobe of your ear into an impossibly hot mouth and everything shatters.

The bottom drops out and you keen, arching against him. Suddenly you're weightless, gooey limbed as he coaxes you through the after shocks, pressing his lips to the shell of your ear. "'Atta girl."

He seems to know when to stop, when to leave you to reassess your body. He flops back onto the bed, taking you with him in a bear hug, sheltering your body with his as goosebumps erupt on your skin.

He's patient. You love that he's patient, that he sits with you and will exist with you in the moment.

It takes several of those moments until the shivers stop.

When they do, you breath out a laugh, trying to find words..."I'm not sure I can move, Simon. That was - wow."

All you get back is a hum.

It's one of the pleased ones, and only Simon can sound that self satisfied without any words at all, and it's enough that you already know the boyish grin you're going to get when you roll over to kiss him.

Playful kisses turn earnest, and Simon still has ideas - requests, really, that he moans out between deft strokes of your hand, and Simon is nothing if not full of brilliant ideas.

It's always easier when it's his pleasure, too.

Simon rails you from behind over the side of the bed, still in that absurdly drapey shirt where he can see your boobs sway and they're just ever so out of sight, cool fabric teasing your nipples and Simon's sanity.

He's beautiful when he comes, and you drop to your elbows, the last of your strength used to keep you standing.

In bed together after, head on his chest, you smile up at him. "I felt bad for being so vanilla." You won't mention Lisa, you won't, you won't. "You spend a lot of time away from home...enrichment is important for your development."

"...which part of me are you planning on developing? Going to eat me like Hansel and Gretel?" You look like you're giving the thought some consideration, and he pushes forward before you can distract him - you did that thing you do, being open and then trying to bury it.

"That wasn't exactly vanilla, love. But I want whatever you're comfortable with. Vanilla or otherwise. I've got more'n my fair share of burdens - you're entitled to yours."

He can't let it slide, not on this.

Look at that, two in one week. That's a record!

It takes time, but Simon eventually succeeds in convincing you that your pleasure is his pleasure.

The top stays.

Read something about people who set timers for oral because they're uncomfortable receiving and wanted to take it for a spin. Thanks for reading!

[pineapple-downside-up-cake]

I have crippling performance anxiety over PlushieGhost. And drabbles, so here's some Single Dad Gaz:

Single Dad Gaz.

He's tired now. Tired and retired. His wife hasn't been in the picture for years, but he adores his daughter.

She's probably nearing puberty, now.

He mostly keeps to himself. He's taken up woodworking as a way to keep busy, but you served together, once upon a time, and you live in the neighborhood.

It's been nice to see a friendly face every now and again.

That's how he always saw it. Until one day he runs into you during his morning workout - you just swapped gyms and it's serendipitous - he suddenly recognizes that he's overwhelmed and he needs to talk to someone. You're the closest female he knows, and you won't make it weird, unlike Soap's wife.

All those years of military dependability and having his back, and he should have known sooner that you'd be there if he asked.

It doesn't take long after that day before he's in your kitchen, crumpled over the table - he's trying to do things right, but being a single parent is so hard.

You talk him through it, soldier to soldier - a full sitrep. In the end, you have to ram it into his head that he's actually doing a stellar job parenting. He's done all the research, read the right books.

He's patient and kind and his daughter is a preteen - no amount of perfection will ever be perfect, and kids need space to rebel.

They come over for a barbeque that weekend. His daughter is ecstatic - loves the way you don't sugarcoat anything, the mischief and sarcasm. She looks at you like you're a superhero.

And Kyle - Kyle looks at you like he's just remembered you're not soldiers anymore. He still sees the warrior, but now there's something else.

Something warm. Human. It's not seeing you with his daughter - he's not auditioning new moms - it's seeing you outside the gym. Away from the battlefield and the you you were in the SAS.

You're...different than he remembers. More you.

He starts to wonder if you'd let him be Kyle again. Not Gaz the SAS soldier, or Kyle the single dad down the street - just Kyle, a man who's suddenly got a crush on a woman who can hold her own.

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Are we just gonna go over the fact that Simon has a really high chance of just breaking out legs to bits lmao. Grown ass man well over six feet landing on our laps is like a plane crashing. Debris everywhere personally I’m falling off the couch no I’m flipping forwards off the couch and taking him down w me

Women don't sweat, and hot naked men don't weigh anything - life's little mysteries.

Of course, if you DO happen to end up on the floor, you're more likely to land in his lap, so do with that what you will.

[pineapple-downside-up-cake]

I am historically quite bad at longfic. But for the one person who requested this: we're giving it a go! Expansion of this

Ghostxfem reader. No warnings this chapter.

PROLOGUE:

Ella the Enchantress had nails like ambergris and a cunt like a steel trap, with a personality to match.

Feared for her tempestuous nature and reviled for a demonstrable lack of empathy, enlisting the assistance of this witch-cum-altruist was an exercise in self-flagellation.

Ella enjoyed attention.

Her preferences varied with the weather, but speculation had it that her skills as a seductress far outstripped her talent with magic. A modern medusa, the wrong look could chain a petitioner to her, life and limb, for as long as she so pleased.

The right look was frequently difficult to come by - Ella wasn't always naked, but she was never far away.

Not that they'd regret looking, necessarily. She was certainly skilled. But she left marks, had a way of destroying livelihoods and relationships.

Her real name was Sally, and she was technically a sorceress.

A relationship with her would be akin to juggling a live grenade, and that would be stupid.

Ghost isn't stupid.

He just likes living on the edge. And sex.

For all her failings as a member of civilized society, Ella was hot. The aforementioned cunt didn't hurt, either.

Bit of a vindictive bitch, though.

"Y'know where the door is. Y'can let yourself out."

Ghost is brave for a man with all his softest bits hanging out.

Then again, the soft bits were always her favorite part of him - it certainly wasn't his personality or emotional fluency.

At least he knows what to do with his dick.

Sally storms through the apartment in a manner more literal than metaphorical, fuming with hot embarassment and anger, as she stomps her legs into the suggestion of a dress she was wearing when she'd seduced him.

Ghost doesn't notice. He's already dismissed her, rolled back over to her side of the bed and buried his face in the pillow instead of her lap.

That rat bastard. How dare he!

She's Sally Le Fucking Fay, great-great-great-great-great...great step-granddaughter of Morgen le Fay, and she cannot believe she made the mistake of handing her self-worth to a man.

No - that she can believe.

What she can't believe is that Ghost of all people would so callously reject her charm. He was an unlovable bastard, with no family and no prospects, and she had lowered herself to take him into her willing bosom.

And he had still turned her away.

She seethes the whole way home, ignoring the way her anger makes her magic flare around her. The scum of the night scramble out of her way, keen to avoid a gale that rips lids from trash cans and sends them careening into the nearest stationary object.

Sally has care to spare for one thing and one thing only. Usually it's herself. But tonight, it's going to be retribution.

Big hard man. Ha.

She'll show him.

Ghost peeks out from under his arm when he finally feels the front door shake the foundation - he's not entirely convinced she won't come back, and he's not as fearless as he'd like to pretend.

His room is a mess. Even more-so than after a normal night of athletics. Ella had imposed herself upon him for a week, and he'd tried every trick in the book to get her to leave.

He'd even turned down sex. Twice.

He'd seen it on the horizon, but he'd really thought the sorceress would take it better. It was part of the agreement - no feelings, blah blah blah, not ready for anything else.

She didn't want a man to cramp her witchy vibes, and he didn't want someone asking more of him than he was ready to give.

And then she'd decided they were "the perfect match" and they were "fated for each other", like characters in some cutesy Disney tale, and not who they really were -

A morally grey sorceress with reality debt, and an emotionally constipated weapon of destruction.

He'd had to pull out the big guns: alas, "it's over" didn't go over too well.

She'd nearly destroyed his room - it had rained, and if she wasn't so mad he'd have been worried about her flooding the basement. As it was, she'd steamed him like a shellfish.

He slips out of bed and sneaks over to the door, an intruder in his own home, afraid to summon her by accident. He'd kill for a good night's sleep, without hands crawling down his pants, but the climate in his room is unbearable.

The couch is good enough.

If he makes it through the week without hellfire raining down on him - literally - he's going to take a break from women.

He should have listened to Soap.

[pineapple-downside-up-cake]

I wrote this while having a staredown with a Hwayugi plush and trying to convince myself to get out of bed and now it's the most well-received thing I've ever written. (??? Thank you? 😭)

Anyway I felt compelled to share the thousand yard stare that inspired it:

*not actually what it looks like please excuse my bad finger painting

Ghost vibes, right?

Ghost who breaks things off with his sorceress FWB when she starts to catch feelings. She's vindicative but sworn to do no harm, and in a rage she curses him into a stuffed toy of himself.

True love, as always, will break the curse, and she's satisfied that Ghost will be miserable for a very, very long time.

Enter you.

The skeleton plush you find at the second hand shop is cute. A little dusty, like it had sat for a while, but soft and stuffed full still, and nothing you can't clean up.

It's an impulse buy.

Ghost wants to stew in his anger, but how can he, when a pretty soft thing like you sleeps with him every night?

When you slip between the sheets in your pink pajamas and crush his polyester face to your bare breasts on a bad day?

He thinks there are worse punishments to bear. He just wishes he could fuck you happy, take the nipple shoving into his face between his teeth until you writhe and beg him to touch you, troubles forgotten.

Watching you cry is the worst, when he can't move, and he can see that you're lonely and need someone to lean on.

He wants to wrap his arms around you and shelter you from the storm.

He stops thinking quite so much about how good sex with you would be, and starts thinking about how he'd like to take care of you.

He'll never be loved like this, not the way the sorceress meant when she'd cast the curse, and it's not fair, but he slowly falls for you anyway, spends his days while you're away fantasizing about how he could make you happy, the life you two could have.

Jokes on him, though, and his ex. There's no purer love than that between a girl and her comfort plush.

Your end of the bargain was sealed months ago.

When he finally crosses that last hurdle one night, he's sitting propped between your legs listening to you sniffle over a romcom. He admits at last to himself he's fallen for you, and the curse snaps.

And suddenly there's a full grown man in your lap.

This is going to take some explaining.

[pineapple-downside-up-cake]

Ghost who breaks things off with his sorceress FWB when she starts to catch feelings. She's vindicative but sworn to do no harm, and in a rage she curses him into a stuffed toy of himself.

True love, as always, will break the curse, and she's satisfied that Ghost will be miserable for a very, very long time.

Enter you.

The skeleton plush you find at the second hand shop is cute. A little dusty, like it had sat for a while, but soft and stuffed full still, and nothing you can't clean up.

It's an impulse buy.

Ghost wants to stew in his anger, but how can he, when a pretty soft thing like you sleeps with him every night?

When you slip between the sheets in your pink pajamas and crush his polyester face to your bare breasts on a bad day?

He thinks there are worse punishments to bear. He just wishes he could fuck you happy, take the nipple shoving into his face between his teeth until you writhe and beg him to touch you, troubles forgotten.

Watching you cry is the worst, when he can't move, and he can see that you're lonely and need someone to lean on.

He wants to wrap his arms around you and shelter you from the storm.

He stops thinking quite so much about how good sex with you would be, and starts thinking about how he'd like to take care of you.

He'll never be loved like this, not the way the sorceress meant when she'd cast the curse, and it's not fair, but he slowly falls for you anyway, spends his days while you're away fantasizing about how he could make you happy, the life you two could have.

Jokes on him, though, and his ex. There's no purer love than that between a girl and her comfort plush.

Your end of the bargain was sealed months ago.

When he finally crosses that last hurdle one night, he's sitting propped between your legs listening to you sniffle over a romcom. He admits at last to himself he's fallen for you, and the curse snaps.

And suddenly there's a full grown man in your lap.

This is going to take some explaining.

We're dreaming big - prologue here

[pineapple-downside-up-cake]

Having a wretched day and decided to take it out on Ghost. I lost steam towards the end for which I am sorry. Smut coming next week as a consolation prize.

Olfactory memory? Yes? Yes.

Cw: PTSD, PTSD induced domestic violence, angst not quite comfort but we're trending positive

Ex-military Ghost with civilian reader.

You are sunshine. Heroin. The drug that's made him feel like he's swimming, not drowning, for the first time in decades.

There are things he can't tell you, but there are also things he won't. He may have, at one point of time. He had readied himself for it, waiting for a vulnerable moment, but he likes being just Simon to you.

Ghost is a relic of war, a hero buried in a box in his crawlspace.

It feels too late now.

He doesn't want to see the horror in your eyes, when he tells you about Roba. Things you should probably know, things that would help inform your interactions.

He's such a piece of dirt.

You deserve better, but for some fucking reason you seem to want him, and he has every intention of doing his best to be a good partner for you.

He helps around the house. He takes turns cooking.

He doesn't yell or snipe, even when you drive him crazy, leaving your dirty clothes on the bathroom floor.

He does his best to be there for you, and hopes that it's enough.

And it is. Before Scotland.

Look.

Look.

You've seen the Princess Bride. You know men in masks are not to be trusted.

You also know the man on your hands is more Wesley and less Dread Pirate Roberts, even if he looks like the brute squad.

You promised yourself, somewhat naïvely, that you wouldn't be a beacon for anyone ever again - you weren't strong enough to hold two heads above water, not forever, but damned if Simon doesn't make you want to try.

He'd crept under your skin with his dessicating wit and genuine interest in you, and maybe your daddy issues were showing, but there's a level of reliability in Simon you never thought you'd see in a man.

You found yourself going to drastic measures - you're embarrassed to say you haven't put in that much work for a guy since high school, but you like Simon.

A lot.

You haven't dealt with military personally, but you know there can be scars. Wounds that are harder to talk about than more common place traumas.

Simon still talks with his old squad, has an annual Guy Fawkes day cookout with them. Means he has people who know, who can understand without having to be told, what might go on in his head on darker days.

You are not to be left out, however. You have the whole internet at your disposal, and you research military traumas and coping strategies until you feel like you're preparing for your first puppy:

How to domesticate your vet.

God, Simon would be so irked if he knew.

You've prepared for just about anything, have coached yourself to respond calmly and be aware of potential triggers.

He'd almost laughed the first time you asked him if he wanted to leave before the fireworks started, but it wasn't mean - you'd caught him by surprise.

As he eases into civilian life, he starts taking you up on it - he didn't realize how tense he was, suddenly on, not until he starts healing.

Some of that is time. Some you, some the therapy.

He stops wearing a mask when he goes out, a security blanket he doesn't need anymore, although it's less conspicious in post-pandemic times.

Neither of you realized the mask was an unintentional coping mechanism for other things, not just a way of hiding his face in a world where he wasn't supposed to exist.

There were no winners in the 141 marriage pool. Not when MacTavish is the first to ring someone up.

You've resolved to keep commentary to yourself on the subject - what you and Simon have is good, and Johnny's mum swayed the odds in his favor.

The grounds they rent out are massive - understandable, since it's a clan wedding, but you really hadn't expected to have a whole croft to yourself.

Johnny's doing, to give you both a quiet place to retreat to, away from the periceremonial chaos.

Simon waits patiently for you to oogle.

The thatched roof building is charming, rose bushes coralled into neat rows against the foundation. You can imagine hens picking on the lawn and laundry hanging from the line.

The door sticks, takes a solid shove to open, and you find that while the outside is postcard-perfect, someone has put a lot of effort into modernizing the internals. What was once one room has been sectioned off into a cozy one bed, one bath.

A queen sized bed fills most the living space, with a pair of matched floral arm chairs at the foot.

It smells a bit...off, but you chalk it up to the exposed cobble. Much like brick, it isn't always easy to seal properly - and Scotland is not known for its arid clime.

You don't see it, but that's when it starts.

Simon twitches. His skin itches and crawls in a way he's not used to.

He figures he's just antsy from the trip.

He unpacks while you shower, stalks the perimeter, feeling restless. It clears while he's outside, when you head over for happy hour, and he forgets anything was wrong.

When you come back, buzzed and content from your merry-making, it's easy for you to fall asleep. You knock out like a light, one foot hooked around Simon's.

You can tune it out, adjust to the smell, but Simon can't.

He can't block it out. Doesn't even know what it is.

He tosses and turns for what feels like eternity, breaking out in sweat even though the night is cool.

He tries to scroll on his phone, use the internet to distract him, but the service is shit and the light hurts his eyes.

The itch is back, and he needs to get out. He needs to get out now, but the door is stuck and suddenly he's buried again, wet earth clinging to his nose, choking him on every inhale and he's clawing at the door like an animal locked in a cage.

You aren't that light a sleeper, and he doesn't respond when you call out to him. Your only excuse for the automatic touch is you've been lulled to false security - you've hardly needed any of the tactics you'd read about, and it's late and you were tired.

It's too much. You're a threat.

You realize it a second too late, when Simon whips around and grabs you by the front of your sleepshirt - his shirt - and slams the first two knuckles of his left hand into your solar plexus.

You drop like a rock.

The immediate, excrutiating regret of your epiphany flees as you curl in on yourself, gasping for breath like a fish on dry land. Tears well up at the corner of your eyes, shock and pain and an utter lack of air keeping you from shedding them.

You hear more than you see the door finally spring open. Ghost is out and gone before you can pull yourself together.

Even when your breath comes easier, you stay on the floor so you can kick yourself while you're down.

Page number one. Bullet number one. You'd successfully broken the primary advice of every single page you'd saved on loving someone with PTSD. Too complacent.

You're an idiot.

He stopped being Ghost and started being Simon again somewhere around the three mile mark. It was more than he was used to running, especially barefoot and in his boxers, but the heath was soft and had spared his feet too much damage.

The pain had helped bring him to his senses.

It hurt more to think that he'd hurt you, something he'd sworn he'd never do, not after watching how his mother suffered.

It takes another two miles to come to terms with what had happened, this time at a slow walk. He's not sure if this is something he can fix, but either way he needs a plan.

Needs to figure things out, tonight. Set the mold for his future.

He has to tell you and risk maybe losing you, that you'll decide it's too much for you, or not tell you and definitely lose you.

But between you and the shrink, he's been brainwashed to believe he deserves a shot at happiness.

You're sitting on the step to the croft, head in hands, when he comes back around dawn.

He can tell you've been crying, and something in his heart breaks. He'd made his decision hours ago, but he wanted you to give you time. Space to leave, to run to the safety of the main house if that's what you needed.

You get up without a word and open the door for him. You give him a wide berth, careful to avoid physical contact, but once inside you stall out. Standing in the middle of the room, looking lost and small and wondering just how much of what you had is broken now.

The silence that spans the next few minutes is the most stressful silence of his entire life. He guides you to a chair, tucks in a blanket around you like he would have even if he hadn't tried to break your ribs with his fist three hours ago.

Makes two cups of tea, and then retreats to the other side of the small space and sinks to the floor, leaving room for the history that's about to fill it.

"I need to tell you a story."

[pineapple-downside-up-cake]

Was thinking about that would you love me if I were a worm concept but also a shifter AU where you actually can turn into an earthworm.

You keep it a secret when you join the military because you went through enough childhood trauma from being the worm kid. There isn't any tactical advantage that your commanding officer could capitalize on by knowing about it anyway. What are they going to have you do, turn into a worm and over the course of a week, slowly inch your way underground to the enemy base only to get stepped on or eaten by a bird?

It successfully goes under the radar, and you work your way up the ranks, somehow get on Task Force 141, etc., all while hiding your true nature. That is, until there's a new person in charge of the administration office, and someone uncovers the discrepancy between your personnel file and an old medical record. The new admin, wanting to establish their authority in this new position, kicks up a fuss about it.

So now you've been outed as a liar and a little wiggly worm.

You're temporarily suspended from the task force, and you expect the worst like a dishonorable discharge or court martial for, you know, lying to the army, but it never comes. Price had marched down to the admin's office and told them—pointedly, repeatedly, in the only way the captain of the 141 can—that it was a clerical error. The dust settles on the official paperwork side of things and you're no longer relieved of duty, so now you have to face the team.

The guys find it amusing, but they aren't mean about it. They don't shove your face in the ground and make you literally eat dirt or anything. Not that you really thought they would, but it's happened to you before, so it's not easy to ignore the irrational fear burrowed in the back of your mind.

You're not used to being referred to as "worm (affectionate)," but that's how it is with them. Even though you still consider it the most useless shifter form ever to be conceived, for the first time, you're starting to feel like it's not something to be ashamed of.

It's things like how Johnny offers to carry you around in his pocket, and he's being totally sincere about it. Kyle hears about that and tells you he'll put together some kind of earthworm carrying container with proper ventilation so that Johnny doesn't crush you by accident. And when you start to feel more comfortable being openly wormy, Price notices you snacking on the leaves of your used tea bags, so he saves a few of his own for you.

As for Simon, it's late one night, and you're alone with him. He's looking at you but not looking at you when he says that your ability would be helpful if you're ever buried alive.

[pineapple-downside-up-cake]

Thinking about reverse bodyguard au! Ghost and reader.

I have no context for why Simon Riley needs a bodyguard half his size when Ghost is a guy who could 'break man's head like sparrow egg between thighs,' but he hires you anyway.

It's not that you don't know your stuff - you do, and you take your work seriously, but Simon probably finds the whole thing equal parts adorable and attractive.

Like he clocked in on the guy with a knife when you walked into the party, but he's trying to keep up pretense and he does know you're competent. He watches you take the guy out with casual violence and spends the whole time imagining you putting that energy to work under on him.

Keeps getting into Situations because he likes when you get all feisty over his health. It's foreplay for him.

He's going to have so much fun when you finally realize he can handle himself. And you.

He can definitely handle you. please handle me

[pineapple-downside-up-cake]

Thank you so much for the part 2 of the shapeshifter AU! 🙏 The atmosphere is so singularly spooky and sultry. Keep up the great work!

on it boss!!

70 / 1.6k / part 3 of shapeshifter familiars!141 tormenting witch!reader

...

You wait until the early evening. It's the earliest you can run. Your so-called familiars won't come out while the sky is still bright. Even so, the moon’s faint sliver stands faintly visible against the sky. You pack your things and fetch your traveling cloak. Vital components. Your dagger. Scrying parchment. You've survived on less.

Something catches your eye as you open the door. The setting sun gleams off the little glass vial on your hearth. You grab it. It's the thing Soap left—what he was teasing you about; the "little treat" he brought back. You see now what it is: black henbane. Your heart beats faster. Out of anger or anticipation—you're not sure which wins out. You'll certainly make use of this. But it will be despite your demons. Not because of them.

As you set off to leave, though, you find yourself face-to-face with a different threat altogether: townsfolk with torches and pitchforks.

The mob's torches flicker, casting jagged shadows across their grim faces. Their leader, a broad-shouldered blacksmith with soot-stained hands, steps forward. The pitchfork trembles in his harsh grip. "Off to consort with devils, witch?"

Behind him, a farmer's wife spits at your feet. "My boy hasn't slept since your cursed raven perched on our roof! You sent those monsters to torment us!"

A ripple of agreement surges through the crowd. You catch the glint of silver amulets around their throats—crude charms of rowan berries and iron nails. Your designs.

"I don't want any trouble," you tell them. You already intend to leave this place forever; all you need to do is convince them to let you go in peace. "I swear it. I condemn the demons that plague the village just as you do."

The blacksmith's shout cracks like a whip. "Liar!" He thrusts his pitchfork toward your cottage and the crow feathers littering the threshold. "Found your nest o' nightmares. Bones under the floorboards. Charms written in your hand guidin' those beasts!"

A teenage boy hurls a rock. It grazes your temple with a thump that rings in your skull. "She fed my sister to the black dog! Saw its yellow eyes in her window the night she vanished!"

Then a torch arcs through the dusk. It crashes against your doorframe, tallow and embers cascading onto dry thatch. The farmer's wife screams, "Burn the hellspawn out!"

Other voices roar in agreement. The mob surges forward as one. Their amulets glow faintly as they near your wards, rowan countering rowan.

You slam the door shut, scattering glowing red hay, and bolt for the back door instead. You flee toward the forest. Warm blood slides down your face and trickles into your collar. You crash through the tree line. Brambles tear your cloak. Torchlight dances between birches behind you. They’re gaining.

"Kill her before she calls the beasts!" one voice shrieks.

Another voice, a child’s, cries, “There! By the elder tree!”

Your boot catches on its massive roots. You hit the forest floor hard. Pine needles stick to your bleeding palms as you scramble up—and freeze.

Yellow eyes blink open in the shadows ahead. A wolf.

The blacksmith’s heavy gait clatters to a halt. “Christ preserve us.”

The hound steps into the fading daylight, scars rippling across its muscular flank. Ghost. He bares teeth longer than your fingers.

You back away only for another shadow to fall from the trees above and land next to you soundlessly. The shape is feline—Gaz—but he's no longer the size of a housecat. He's as massive as a tiger. A growl thunders through him. He levels his gaze past you. At the villagers. They don't stand a chance.

You whirl back on the villagers with wild eyes. "Get out of here!" you cry at the mob.

The blacksmith shoves a trembling boy behind him. "Back! Back to the—"

Ghost lunges. Not at the villagers. At you.

His jaws snap inches from your thigh, herding you backward into Gaz's flank. Gaz pins you with one paw on your chest. He keeps his claws sheathed, but the pressure is enough to bruise. His rumbling purr vibrates through your ribs as he licks blood from your temple wound.

"Demons!" A villager hurls a torch. It bounces off Ghost's shoulder. Embers catch in his fur. He doesn't flinch.

Soap's cawing laughter rings from the treetops. He drops down as a raven, shifting mid-fall into human form. He lands in a crouch. "Och, look at these brave lads! Come to play with the big bad devils."

The blacksmith thrusts the pitchfork at him. "Back!"

 Soap catches the shaft and yanks the smith forward. "Careful now. You'll poke someone's—" He drives the smith’s own weapon through his boot, impaling foot to soil. "—eyes out."

Screams erupt. The mob fractures. Some flee. Others stand frozen.

"No, don't hurt them!" you gasp out. You try to push out from under Gaz's paw, but it does you no good. "Leave them alone!"

Gaz's purr deepens into a predatory rumble as he drags his rough tongue up the side of your neck to taste your sweat. His hot breath stirs your hair when he growls, "Too late for mercy, love. Smell the fear on 'em? Ripe as summer fruit."

Soap wrenches the pitchfork free from the smith’s screaming form, flicking gore off the tines. "Aye, let's make it a proper feast! Been ages since we had fresh meat that fought back."

"Enough."

Price's voice cracks through the woods like thunder. He stands under the pines’ shadow as if waiting for the last motes of sunset to vanish before he ventures out.

"You lot should've heeded the warnings. Salt your thresholds. Avoid the woods after dark." His gazes pauses over a young child frozen in fear, no parents in sight. He tuts. "But you meddled. Stole from my witch. Harmed her."

The blacksmith finds his voice. "W-We didn't—"

Price steps forward. His boot crushes the smith’s bloodied foot into the ground. Bones pop. "See, that's the trouble with mortals." He crouches to stare into the terrified villager’s face. "You don’t admit you’re wrong."

"Price, please, just take me instead," you plead. "I'm what you came for, aren't I?"

Price's gaze snaps to you. He rises slowly. The flicker of your burning cottage on the horizon behind you reflects in his eyes and makes them glow. His expression tells you how little choice you have in that particular matter. Where you go, they go.

Then he looks past you. “Gaz."

Gaz’s hand slides up your inner thigh. "Already on it."

"No. Save the foreplay. We've got a village to raze." He grabs the bloodied collar of your cloak and hauls you to your feet. "You'll watch. Then we'll discuss your ungrateful actions." His gaze flicks away. "Ghost. Gaz. Clean up."

You can only watch Ghost and Gaz bound into the screaming mob. Your body feels lighter than the air. Then you remember the weight of the henbane in your cloak pocket. The next moment, it's in your hand. You crush the glass, ignoring the stab of pain. You send it sailing through the air, and it lands right on its mark—the roaring torch discarded in the leaf litter.

The henbane catches and wafts up into the air as smoke. It curls upward in thick, narcotic tendrils. The smell is heady, its effect potent and immediate. Soap snarls as the first plume hits his nostrils. He staggers back and clutches his head. Gaz convulses mid-pounce, collapsing into ferns as his tiger-like form shrinks to housecat size. Ghost whines low in his throat and shakes his massive skull like a dog with water in its ears.

Chaos erupts. Villagers seize the chance to bolt. The blacksmith drags his wailing son toward the tree line.

Price grips your arm hard enough to leave talon marks. His other hand clamps over his nose, veins bulging in his temple. You cough into your sleeve. Your vision swims. Henbane's poison works both ways, after all. It’s powerful for those who know how to use it for their own ends. Black henbane is what you used to summon your familiars and what bound them to you. But its hallucinatory effects are more pronounced on those who have surrendered the greater part of their souls to magic—or for those whose bodies are already flush with it. Price, Gaz, Ghost, and Soap don’t stand a chance. Even your soul is so considerably marked by witchcraft that you quickly fold to its effects. But you, at least, can twist it and warp it to weave a spell that might protect you.

Cloaked in smoke, you transform.

The shift hits you like a lightning strike—bones crackling, muscles twisting, vision narrowing into a something wide and preylike. The forest tilts, and suddenly Price's grip is gone. He holds your sleeve, but not you. You slip away, tumble through your limp clothes, and hit the forest floor on four paws. The world sharpens into smells of damp moss and wolf musk. Your rabbit heart hammers against ribs as thin as wishbones.

You dart left--straight into Gaz's waiting claws. The tomcat pins you with a paw, purring as his claws prick your scruff. Then he sneezes, henbane pollen glinting in his whiskers. You writhe free.

You race deeper into the forest with the wind at your back. The woods close in, but thorns no longer claw your clothes; roots no longer trip you. You are no longer an intruder. The forest itself turns toward you, opens to you. Thorns tug pleasurably against your fur as you bound past. Old magic stirs beneath your rabbit feet.

"Clever girl. Find her." Price's voice slithers through the trees far behind you, syllables slurred but venom intact. "And keep her whole enough to scream."

...

← part 2 / [part 3] / part 4 ➡

more Price / more Ghost / more Soap / more Gaz / masterlist

[pineapple-downside-up-cake]

peristalsis - vi

selkie!soap x reader. depression. strangers to "lovers." somnophila. dubcon. smut. manipulative soap. unreliable narrator. terrible food. social isolation. suicidal ideation. suicidal resolve. . Running away from life to the Scottish Hebrides, you meet a man who won't leave you alone. . Masterlist. Ao3.

previous

A hand pets between your legs sometime in the early morning, fingers searching for tender flesh. The other slips up the front of your naked body, cradling one breast, thumb flicking gently across the nipple.

The covers over you are warm with yours and Johnny’s shared body heat, the both of you having gone to sleep naked. His body curves around you, the hair of his chest and thighs tickling your bare skin. Water laps at the outer hull in quiet breaths.

You’d dreamed. You don’t remember exactly what of. Only impressions are left behind—the rocking of the trawler following you into sleep. Darkness. A sense of displacement. Your throat closing and opening.

When you crack open your eyes you feel it in the pit of your stomach. A storm to match the one that blew across the night.

If you give into it—it will hurt. You recognize it in your bones.

Johnny groans behind you when his callused fingers find your cunt warm and soft for him. His cock is a column of heat against your low back, morning-stiff. He circles your clit, mouthing the back of your neck and nudging his knee between yours, hooking your leg over his thigh to spread you open.

Fresh arousal wells up to coat his fingers. You hear him huff behind you, amused; he reaches down between the two of you to palm himself, cupping his shaft up between your folds and thrusting shallowly between them. Catching the flow along the length of his cock.

You don’t move, other than to breathe.

He toys with the breast in his hand as he tracks humid kisses up behind your ear. When he angles the head at your entrance, he slides in with minimal resistance—seats himself to the root.

You release the airy moan it draws from you. Snug—he’s snug inside you, cockhead sitting against your cervix. When he rolls his hips, he barely pulls out, just far enough that you feel where his cock begins to widen, thickest in the middle, before pushing back in again.

He rocks against you, playing with your clit. His other hand moves to your leg, drawing it outward a little farther. You stay limp in his hold, eyes closed.

He can do what he wants with you. Anything. If it keeps what’s happening in your belly contained—anything.

It doesn’t take long—you’re not awake enough to brace against it. He winds you higher and higher until your spine goes-arrow straight, your climax spilling through you, drawing you tight around him, and Johnny pistons into you with a few rapid thrusts before groaning, long and satisfied, as liquid heat fills you once again.

“Mm,’” he murmurs, “mornin,’ bonnie.” Angling himself to kiss the corner of your mouth. “Gonna get us goin,’ hm?”

You’re not entirely sure what he means until he pulls away from you. He stands up from the bed and tugs the sheets back up over your naked shoulders, humming some tune you don’t recognize—it sounds vaguely like a hymn—as he dresses and disappears up the stairs.

You feel the trawler rock and shift as he takes it away from the pier, back into the open water. Gray morning light shafts in through the small window triptych above the head of the bed.

You turn onto your back. Johnny’s spend seeps out of you slowly as you shuffle into the heat his body left behind on the sheets. You look inward.

It’s still there. Quelled—for now. If you think too hard about it, you might summon it up.

But Johnny is just upstairs, and the last thing you want is for him to hear you, to hear the poor, crazed animal you can become. There is only so much of you that you are willing to inflict upon him. There is only so much you would ask him to tolerate.

Although it strikes you, as you stretch under the covers, that you don’t believe he would resent you for it.

Probably, he would just wrap his arms around you, and coo at you in that smarmy way of his. No big deal. You can have a breakdown, bonnie, and he’ll make you something for breakfast after. And do you want him to eat your pussy again? Bet you’ll feel better after that.

You almost give in then and there just thinking about it. Wind shear pressing against the inside of your tear ducts.

That would make it worse—if he were to comfort you. You don’t think you would make it out to the other side.

So you swallow hard. Swim your legs through the tangled sheets and find the floor with your bare feet. Your carry-on still sits up in the bridge, so you drag a blanket around your shoulders and climb the stairs to retrieve it.

“There she is!” Johnny exclaims as you surface. He looks over his shoulder at you, one hand on the wheel, the other holding a cup of coffee. He grins at you. “Hell’s bells, don’ you look beautiful.”

You sneer at him, knowing your hair is a rat’s nest and the bags beneath your eyes have had no chance to deflate. Another drop of his cum falls down your thigh; you grab up your bag and retreat back into the bedroom.

When you return to the bridge dressed and brushed, face washed and moisturized, Johnny brings you a second steaming mug, white ceramic, with “Hers” in black cursive printed on the side.

“Stupid,” you say, when you see it.

Johnny kisses the side of your head. “I’ll make eggs.”

“Shouldn’t you be driving?” you ask, as he sets a pan down on the stove. You eye the trawler wheel nervously, waiting for it to spin.

“Is no’ a car, bonnie,” Johnny snorts. “Dinnae have to watch for traffic.”

You eat the breakfast he makes you in disgruntled silence. Overhead, clouds pass, intermittent gaps allowing yellow sunlight to peek through, though never for more than a moment. You might’ve expected the day to be clear again, after the storm.

Six hours is six hours. You return to the novel you began yesterday, perched on the booth couch, though every time the hour changes your stomach draws tighter, as if winched.

At the end of the trip awaits more of the solitude you’ve been seeking. Johnny will deposit you onto the cove, and traipse off to his boy’s night. Possibly his old squad mates—team members—whatever they are, will be staying for more than one day.

You know. You know how it goes.

It’s better this way, you remind yourself. It’s what you wanted.

You pass the crags you saw on yesterday’s journey, and today they are vacant of their pinniped occupants. The island wildlife overall seems to be absent, perhaps hidden away in whatever sanctuary they found during the storm. A few seabirds circle above the dune grass, or trail after the trawler, but other than that, sky, sea, and land are vacant.

You reach the naval battle, and discover what the author spent the most time researching. She describes in exhausting detail how long it takes to load cannons, the role of current and wind speed in the maneuvering of ships, the bailing-out process of a breached hull.

It’s dull, and completely incongruous with the romantic melodrama of the previous chapter. You can see exactly why a former soldier would enjoy it.

You do not tell Johnny you’ve reached it.

Finally, sometime after noon, the cove comes into view. Johnny brings the trawler as close to shore as he can get it, and then drops anchor.

You sling your bag over one shoulder as you stand, lungs shaking in your chest.

“Well,” you say, “have a good time with your friends.”

He pauses, and then looks at you. The expression on his face is completely nonplussed, lips pursed, brows raised.

“What?”

“Your guys’ night.”

“What about it?”

You frown. “Aren’t you taking me to shore?”

“Why would I do that?”

Apprehension trickles down into your belly.

No. Oh, no.

“So you could go meet them?” you say, with growing trepidation.

Realization opens up his expression. Brows lift over blue eyes blooming. “Aw, bonnie, s’that why you’ve been cranky? You think I’m gonna abandon you?”

No—oh, no.

He comes over to you and gently nudges the strap of your bag off your shoulder, smiling.

“Course you’re invited, hen, what kind of bastard would I be if I left you all alone?”

Something breaks.

“No,” you say.

“Yeah,” he croons, bringing his hand to your jaw. Caressing the curve of it with his thumb. “Want you to meet my mates—”

You slap his hand away.

Panic, fully formed, climbs up your trachea.

It’s one thing to be left behind for better friends. It’s quite another to be subjected to them.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” you snap. Fury boiling. “What the actual fuck is wrong with you?”

Johnny blinks. You wrench yourself away from him, shoving against the pull of his gravity—smacking him in the chest with both of your hands.

“Was it getting shot?” you snarl, pickaxing your temple with two fingers. “Was it drowning? Because something made you fucking delusional, and I don’t know what it was, but I’m fucking sick of it. I don’t fucking like you.”

Johnny’s expression flattens. The gleam dulls in his eyes as he gazes at you.

“I don’t give a shit about you,” you tremble on. “You’re nothing to me. You’re a hookup. You’re good dick and that’s it. You don’t mean anything to me. Nothing.”

He takes a step toward you. You step back.

“And you don’t give a shit about me either! You’re such a fucking asshole, you know that? You don’t have to act like this is anything but you do anyway, and you make fun of me the whole time, because you know I’m easy, because I’ll still let you fuck me, because I don’t have—because I’m just convenient pussy to you.”

He advances. You retreat. The cocky, confident Johnny that has been your unwelcome companion these past three days now is gone, as if a mask tossed away.

The line of his mouth is sharp and straight. His nostrils flare. A severe crease cracks the space between his drawn-together brows.

You’re not seeing the thing you saw on the beach, that first day. You’re not seeing the carefree bar cook or the island enthusiast.

You’re seeing the special forces soldier. Advancing on a target.

And you can’t stop yourself, even as terror runs a live wire up your spine.

“Like what do you think this was, Soap? I don’t care about you. I don’t care about your friends. I don’t care about your life. You’re wasting your fucking time. I don’t give a shit about you, and I never have, and I never will, and you’re too fucking stupid to notice—”

You run out of room to retreat. The backs of your knees run into the booth seat, but Johnny keeps coming. He invades every inch of your personal space, getting right up into your face, staring down at you with a hard jaw and sharp, spear point eyes.

“Stop it,” you flounder, “just stop it, just leave me alone, just—”

He closes thumb and forefinger around your chin and presses his warm mouth against yours.

You fight him. You clench your fists and beat their heels against his chest, but he wraps his other hand around the back of your head and sweeps his tongue between your lips. You screech into his mouth, but he hums back, the subvocal tones of calming an animal before it hurts itself. You sink your teeth into his bottom lip, seeking to draw blood, but it only eggs him on, makes him slant his head to kiss you deeper.

Even as you wear yourself out against him, his grip doesn’t loosen. He holds you in place as you struggle. Frighteningly strong—utterly indomitable; he overwhelms you with seemingly no effort on his part at all.

There’s bitter, black coffee on his tongue. Acidic. He presses it into yours, circling inward, making space for himself where you would give him none—

Insisting on it.

You gasp hard. Whimper futilely against his mouth. A few sharp tears escape the clench of your eyes, cutting down your cheeks.

Your fists land on him one final time, and then remain where they are. Your entire body slackens, submitting. Your lips find the curves in his where they fit the closest, and stay there. Bokeh spots dance across your closed eyes as your alveoli demand oxygen.

When you pull your mouth away from his to breathe, he lets you. Johnny rests his forehead against yours, hands coming around to cup your cheeks.

“Feel better?” he murmurs lowly, caressing the corners of your mouth with his thumbs. “Now that you got that all out?”

You take a shuddering breath. “You’re an asshole,” you repeat miserably.

Johnny kisses you softly again, first on the mouth, then the tip of your nose, then between your brows.

“Don’ be scared,” he says, mouth still on your forehead. “It’s gonna be alright.”

You sniff. “I hate you.”

He huffs—a small laugh, one that lacks his usual good humor. His hands slide down your shoulders to wrap his arms around you, and he tucks you beneath his chin, against his body. Even after so little time, the bulk of his frame is familiar, aligning with the shape of your body.

You don’t hug him back. You let your arms hang at your sides. If you nuzzle your face in between the soft slopes of his pectorals—you will take the truth of it to your grave.

John Price shows up in a motorboat, bringing along with him several grocery bags and a young man close to Johnny in age.

The two grin at each other and embrace, slapping backs in the masculine fashion and making loud, friendly noises as Price sidesteps them to bring his goods to the kitchen, where you’re hiding.

When he catches sight of you, his step falters.

“I don’t know why I’m here either,” you say, preempting him. You’re cloistered on the booth couch.

His mustache tilts at an angle. As with every other expression you’ve seen him make, you have no idea what it means, and it makes your stomach clutch.

Price is saved from having to respond as Johnny drags the other young man in behind him, beefy arm around his neck in a headlock. They’re laughing together, smiles wide as Price sets his bags on the counter.

The three of them populate the tiny space with the ease of years spent sharing little room between them, and you’d be shrinking back into the couch if Johnny’s friend hadn’t already caught sight of you. The surprise on his face is evident, even as he greets you with a polite, “Oh, hey!”

You make yourself stand up, pasting on a smile that feels more like a grimace. “Hi,” you say.

Johnny gestures at you with a proud, open hand, saying your name as fondly as if he’d just had it in a chokehold. “Stayin’ at the croft, the one I told you about? Just got back from Lewis today, we did, showed her the stones and everythin.’”

He winks at you. You fight not to scowl at him.

“Nice to meet you,” the young man says, disentangling himself from Johnny and extending a hand. “I’m Kyle, but everyone calls me Gaz.”

You shake. “Sorry to interrupt your, uh, your reunion.”

You can’t tell how sincere the smile is that Gaz gives you. Are the corners of his mouth too tight? The polite look in his eyes too saccharine? “The more the merrier, aye?”

“That’s what m’saying!” Johnny enthuses.

“Soap been behaving?” Gaz asks.

“Uh,” you say.

“Soap, you got a griddle on this dinghy?” Price calls, setting out packages of meat and buns. He bends down to root around in the under-cabinet, stored cookware clanging as he digs.

“Cap, tell me you didn’t get the patties,” Johnny complains, picking one up. Ground beef pre-molded into burger pucks, shrink-wrapped in their own thin red juice.

“What’s wrong with patties?” Price asks, still half-submerged. “Easy, innit?”

“For kids’ birthday parties, maybe,” Johnny protests.

“When’d you get so fussed about food?” asks Gaz, sipping from his can. “Not like this is London, mate, you get what you get.”

“Some of us have time to eat like human beings,” Johnny snipes. “You might have to choke on MREs, not like the rest of have to as well.”

“Soap,” Price says, “griddle.”

“Oh, nowhere near there.”

“You fucking muppet…”

Gaz and Johnny cackle. Price straightens, frowning gruffly, in a way that suggests he has regularly endured this hazing from the two younger men and no longer has the patience even to scold them for it.

Walking paths made together, now retread. Old stone, formed when the earth was young.

You step backward. Find the edge of the couch with your calves. None of the three men look at you as you settle back down into your seat. Your book lays half-open on bent pages.

“No Simon still?” asks Johnny as he cracks a beer off the pack.

“Still no word,” says Price. “Said he’d try, last we chatted, but wasn’t sure.”

“Hm,” says Johnny, sipping his beer.

His gaze slips over to you. You feel it like a rasp over your bare skin.

He cracks another can off and brings it over, sitting down to sling a heavy arm over your shoulders. You take the beer and open it, but do not drink.

“Not the same out there without you, mate,” says Gaz, folding his arms comfortably over his chest. “Neither of you, really, Cap.”

“Ah, you’re doin’ just fine, I bet,” replies Johnny. “You and Ghost? Dream team, right there.”

“Never gonna be you, Soap,” says Gaz.

Johnny’s replying smile is—contented. Satisfied. As if he’s hearing news he expected, but is pleased to hear nonetheless.

His arm hangs loosely over your shoulders as it continues like that. Johnny and the other two men punt the conversational shuttle back and forth, voices weaving with the cadence of an old scarf unraveling; the yarn thread frozen by time and tension into a shape that can wrap back around its fellows as easily as it came undone.

Unfamiliarity with their rhythm transforms the bridge—which has been, if not a safe space, at the very least something of a sanctuary to you for the past twenty-four hours. Someplace you could be your worst self without much worry of offending.

But Johnny’s old team members are not Johnny. You can’t speak to them the way you have spoken to him. They do not share his knack for inclusion—

At least, they don’t seem to, until, without you expecting it, the shuttle passes to you.

“What made you come out here?” asks Gaz, startling you.

You look up from the can of beer you have been staring at the whole time, warming between your palms, to find Gaz, Price, and Johnny all looking at you expectantly.

“Um,” you say, flushing with embarrassment. Completely unprepared to be treated like a conversational prospect.

“The quiet, didnae you say?” Johnny supplies, laying his hand along your upper arm, rubbing up and down.

He might as well have shoved that hand down your shirt instead—you catch the other two men seeing it. Noting it. Reevaluating who you are, who you might be, and why you’re intruding on their day together.

And Johnny mustrecognize it too, because he squeezes the soft part above your elbow.

Warmth like a candle flame in your chest.

“Yeah,” you say, lamely. “Just—tired, of the city, I guess…”

“I like the quiet too,” Gaz says diplomatically. “Bet it’s good surfing here too, in the summer.”

“No’ much,” says Johnny. “The wildlife’s the point here, innit, bonnie? Great seal watching, out here.”

You meet his gaze. Edges of sapphire blue are soft in your direction, mouth corners curled.

No obfuscation. No derision.

“Yeah,” you find yourself saying—and meaning. “The seals—the seals are cool.”

“Birds, too,” Price says, unpeeling patties after finally locating the electric griddle.

“How can you tolerate mucking around with two old codgers like this?” Gaz laughs.

Something effervescent infuses your bloodstream. Light and bubbly.

“As if Johnny has let me hang out with anyone but him,” you say, as if it has been a desire of yours in the first place.

You hear Price snort at the griddle. Gaz quirks a brow at Johnny without making any effort to hide it, and then clinks the belly of his can against yours before drinking.

You finally have a sip. It’s nice—hoppy, lightly sweet, fizzing on your tongue. Still cool enough to enjoy.

“Might take ya diving tomorrow,” Soap begins, fingertips twirling up your shoulder—

But then a distant voice cuts through the afternoon.

“Oy! Johnny!”

The three of you look around. Soap pulls away from you, warmth retreating with him, as he goes stick his head out of the door.

And then he dashes toward Price’s motorboat.

The engine revs as you, Gaz, and Price follow him out, watching as he speeds toward the shore. On the beach, a large man in dark colors, half his face covered by a black surgical mask, angles toward him, hands on his hips.

Johnny stops just shy of beaching the boat before he leaps out into the water, wades up the sand, and launches himself at the man.

They embrace like tectonic plates colliding. Even at a distance, you can hear the sound of hands slapping backs, feel the way their bodies meet and sway—so resonant with shared affection that you can feel the shocks of it across the water.

Glacial ice pushes through your veins.

“There he is,” Price says fondly. “Knew he wouldn’t miss this.”

“Ghost’s always gotta make an entrance,” Gaz agrees.

Ghost.

Or, as it must be—Simon.

Simon turns the snugness of four bodies into an overcrowd of five. In the bridge, there is little room to maneuver around him, massive as he is, and he seems disinclined not to claim as much space as there is available.

“Bonnie!” Johnny exclaims. “Want you to meet my old partner, Ghost.”

His eyes are dark, the color of a full whiskey bottle. They gaze at you without interest, even as he proffers his huge hand.

“You’re Johnny’s tourist,” he says, in a flat, brassy tenor. The sound of a metal grate closing.

Johnny.

Johnny.

“Yes,” you say, in a voice as irrelevant as a minnow’s.

He shakes your hand with a perfunctory grip, and says absolutely nothing more to you. He turns, and leans his bulk against the counter in the kitchen—galley, Johnny informs, as he explains the ship, and its story, to Ghost in rapid fire.

Had he been as excited to introduce it to you?

Ghost swigs from his beer, mask hooked under his chin. “What the fuck you even do on this thing, anyway?”

“Fish from it,” Johnny says. He’s standing close to Ghost, second can in one hand as he gestures with the other. “Got crab and lobster traps all over the place, that’s where the money is.”

“Always did like fishin,’” says Ghost, as warm to Johnny as he had been uninterested in you.

You cloister back in your place on the booth couch.

You can’t blame him. You can’t blame either of them. You can’t. You can’t. You are extraneous in this situation and always would have been.

“This isnae really fishin’ though, see?” Johnny goes on. “I mean, I use the dragnet time t’time, but rich tits on the mainland, they can get cod anywhere.”

“Become a real foodie, he has,” Gaz chuckles.

“Knob,” Ghost agrees.

Johnny grins. It’s a soft thing, an expression of sinking into warm bath water in a familiar tub. Ghost grins back at him, more with his eyes than his mouth.

If what’s between Johnny, Gaz, and Price is an unraveled scarf, easily knit back together, then what’s between Johnny and Ghost must be the tight-woven threads of fine, raw silk. It’s visible to the naked eye; if you reach out, you think you could brush against it with your bare fingertips.

Impenetrable. Gleaming.

You, a loose, dropped thread.

Price announces that the burgers are ready, and the men crowd the counter before he snaps at them to back off. You hook one heel around the other, twisting your fingers in your lap. An invisible wall between you and them.

The men bring the food over, setting down plates of sliced onion, limp lettuce, squishy tomato. Everything has been sitting out too long. Price sets down a platter of patties, cookie-cutter uniform, some blanketed with yellow, processed cheese.

Your empty stomach cringes in on itself. You don’t want to eat. Johnny slides in beside you, trapping you in, and his friends drag chairs over. Ghost claims the head of the table. They dig into the food with gusto.

“This is awful, Price,” says Johnny. “Told you, shoulda had seafood.”

“I’m sick of fish,” Price grunts.

Something about fresh oysters is at the tip of your tongue, but it’s trapped behind the bars of your teeth. And anyway, Gaz beats you to speaking.

“So you decided to kill the lot of us?” he asks. “Forgot we never let you cook in the field.”

“Nah, that was Johnny’s job,” Ghost says. “Where’s a meathead Scot learn to cook anyway?”

“Quite disrespectin’ my mum,” says Johnny.

They all chuckle at that. It loops around them, that ripple of laughter, and they go on to bandy stories about their captain’s culinary misdemeanors on deployment.

You shrink.

You look at Johnny. His face is animated; vibrant. The lines at the corners of his eyes have not smoothed once, with how much he’s been smiling. It’s as if sunlight is radiating from his chest, warming the room.

It visibly brightens his friends, sitting around him. Price’s gruff demeanor has softened. Gaz leans inward, elbows on the table, as if magnetically drawn. And Ghost—

You catch them exchanging a look. Speaking without words.

You don’t belong here.

The few bites you’ve managed to take of a burger surge against the walls of your stomach. Your trachea quivers against your spinal column.

“I need to use the bathroom,” you say. “Excuse me.”

It halts the flow of conversation. The four men look at you as if suddenly remembering you’re there, expressions paused in whatever shape they’d been in before your interruption.

No one says anything at all.

And why would they?

Johnny stands to let you out of the booth. You extricate yourself, and hold your gaze on the stairwell, refusing to look twice at them.

The belly of the ship swallows you with a whirlpool’s vacuum; you veer into the bathroom and lock the door behind you. Overhead, the conversation resumes, as if you left no empty space within it to compensate for.

Heat leeching up your face. Heart beating against your sternum, so hard it must be about the split the bone.

You don’t belong here.

You start heaving. Big, hard breaths, truncated, refusing both to be drawn in or released without a fight. You stagger to the sink and grip it with both hands, shaking so hard you can barely stand.

You don’t belong here. You don’t belong with anyone. You don’t deserve—

Your stomach shoves upward. You tip your face over the basin, throat convulsing, but nothing comes up.

Your vision swirls. You feel Johnny’s hand on your back, but it’s only a ghost of his touch. He’s still upstairs, with his friends.

You hear a sunburst of laughter above you, hearty and deep and shared by four voices.

Tears start streaming from your eyes, though you can barely feel them. You vibrate. It builds and builds inside you, a scream, a hurricane, gale forces whipping around and beating the inside of your skin. The quiver of your skull sends a high-pitched squeal up through the canals of your ears.

You sink to your knees.

“No,” you whimper, in the midnight zone of your voice, so that no one can hear you. “No, no, no, not again, no…”

The bath mat touches your forehead. Your shuddering mouth hangs open. You dig into the soft skin of your forearm with the nails of one hand, seeking blood.

You are a wound in the world that refuses to close. A cyst. Something here that should not be. Wherever you go is a mistake.

Heartbeat like a drum in your ears. Entire body drawing up, higher, tighter, trembling, seams pulling, self receding, bones exposed, so far out you will never make your way back.

You’re going to burst. You’re going to make a mess, right there on the floor, and they’re all going to come down and see it. It’s building in your throat. It’s at the dam of your teeth.

You wrap your arms around yourself, gripping tight.

You don’t belong here. You don’t belong here. You don’t belong here—

You don’t belong anywhere.

Suddenly, you go still.

Flying debris settles. Your airways open.

Stillness. Quiet. The next breath you take is slow and smooth.

You hear the far-away slosh of the ocean moving beneath the hull of the trawler.

Yes, of course.

You clamber upward, using the counter as leverage. As you rise, you catch yourself in the mirror.

Your face glistens. Your eyes are swollen, bags heavy beneath. It does not reflect what’s behind it—

Tranquility.

It isn’t about resolve, after all.

The truth of it settles gently in your chest. Of course. It’s about certainty. It’s about knowing, in your bones, what should and shouldn’t be. What is and what isn’t.

The way things will be, and the way they won’t.

Simple. Natural.

The evolutionary processes of your body simply hadn’t caught up. The genetic predisposition toward persistence, the silly, reactionary aversion to pain, to danger, the biological imperative of a time before now.

Now—

Turning the cold tap, you wet your fingers and dab at the puffy skin. You pull some toilet paper from the roll and pat at your face. You breathe easily through your nose, and on steadied feet, you leave the bathroom.

“You haven’t changed a bit,” you hear Gaz saying as you climb the stairs.

“Aw, gimme some credit,” Johnny protests.

You stop.

“No,” Ghost says, and it’s odd to hear contemplation in the knife’s edge of his voice. “Somethin’s changed.”

“What’s that?” Johnny asks.

“You’re…calmer,” says Ghost. You hear Price hum. “Never seen you sit this still, not long as I’ve known you.”

You hear Johnny huff a little laugh. “Guess this place’ll do that to you.”

“Hey, Johnny?” you say, surfacing.

The conversation pauses again. He looks up at you. Blinks beautiful, blue eyes.

The rueful smile you give him is easy.

“I don’t feel very well. I’m sorry. Can you take me back to shore?”

Some tiny muscle at the edge of his expression shifts.

You don’t know what, exactly, it could mean, but it doesn’t matter.

“Sure, bonnie,” he says slowly, setting down his half-eaten burger.

“It was nice meeting you all,” you say to the three other men.

They echo something back—insincere. Obligatory, you know. They’ll forget about you the moment you leave their view.

That doesn’t matter either. Nothing does.

You don’t think about it at all as Johnny helps you down into the kayak, taking your overnight bag first and then your hand. It’s cloudy overhead, cool without being cold. The wind is gentle.

He stares at you the whole time he rows. You don’t meet his gaze. Out of the corner of your eye, you can see his eyes narrowed, the line of his mouth tight again.

“Thank you,” you say, when the kayak reaches the beach. “Have fun with your friends, Johnny.”

“Sure, bonnie,” he says.

You indulge yourself—you look him up and down.

He really is an attractive man. Beautiful. Like the crash of a wave. You get that sense again—that he’s more real than anything surrounding him. More real than the ground beneath your feet. Than the ocean behind him.

More real than you.

“See you later,” you say, and turn away from him.

You walk the trail back, thinking about the anonymous feet that carved it into the grass. Years, generations walking the same way, down to the beach and back up. People you’ll never know. A part of something you never will be.

When you crest the rise, you see the cobbled siding of the cottage. You’d never looked at the back of it before—never thought to. It was unimportant in the face of everything else, irrelevant.

Maybe that’s why you look now. The finiteness making room for it.

At the cobbled wall’s base is a little mound of piled sand.

You go to your knees in front of it. The soil is cool to the touch, loose. Easily disturbed.

Somehow, you know what you’re going to find, even as you dig. Your fingers brush against it even before you uncover it fully, and it doesn’t surprise you at all.

Folded tightly, in a divot in the ground, is the paint-splash riot of Johnny’s pelt.

next chapter early access

a/n: had to add one more chapter because otherwise this would have been 9k words long lol

forreal this time—two chapters left!!

[pineapple-downside-up-cake]

Phoenix!hybrid Ghost feels too obvious. Too easy.

Ghost doesn't like to talk about his better half. Doesn't, in fact. Talk about it, that is. Truthfully it's embarassing, and it doesn't impede his ability to carry out an op.

Rumor on base has it that he's some sort of rhinoceros hybrid. He could stamp it out, scare the piss out of the worst of them...but it's easier, this way, better than what they'd be saying if they knew.

He chooses to let the whispers take root.

Sure, it makes him stand out in the 141, a hot topic for idle minds - how the hell a rampaging rhino fits in with the rest of the mythical task force makes no sense to anyone who really considers it, no matter how thick skinned and muscular he is.

Brute force isn't really his modus operandi, but hey. It's not anyone else's business, anyway, and not like they'd believe him even if he did say it - he would know. He's done it it for kicks, sometimes, when people are brave enough to ask.

Gives it the same deadpan delivery he does a dad joke.

" 'm a unicorn."

It's in his official file, of course, it has to be so Price knows, and the other two eventually figure it out. Ghost isn't used to people knowing, though.

Sure, he's good at his job - a unicorn is just as elusive as a ghost, and for good reason - he's a protector first and always, for his team and for the people who can't protect themselves.

Lethal. Unrelenting.

But knowing leads to questions.

Awkward, intrusive questions. Ones Ghost has never bothered to consider, because he just is, but somehow this goon squad has become his friends, and they talk about things like their baser natures.

He's not used to it. Has to think about it, for a while, before he can answer.

He explains that it's not sexual purity that takes precedence, it's a sort of...purity of purpose. Ambition, drive, that sort of thing.

He's good at knowing who is dedicated, and who is not.

And when he meets you, well. You're not married to your job, like some people, or particularly driven for a clear cause.

But you love life in a way he hasn't seen in a long, long time.

It's a balm to his jaded heart, a reminder of the good in the world, to see the way you love the balance of positive and negative, the spaces in between -

You certainly end up loving him more than he ever expected to be loved.

He does, eventually, tell you what he is. A sort of good faith conversation, full of yucky emotional crap that he learned from his time in the 141. By then you've known Simon long enough that it doesn't phase you - he's always had a heart of gold under that gruff exterior.

He does, however, turn pink from the bottom of his toes to the roots of his blonde hair when you tilt your head to the side, realization sharp in your eyes - 'that's why you've got so much stamina!'

[pineapple-downside-up-cake]

Trying to figure out Legendary!hybrid TF141.

Price is a dragon.

Instead of having heats they have this compulsion to take a hoard. Could be anything - people, places, things. There's no set time frame - happens when it happens, but it can be...messy when they stake their claim.

Very territorial creatures, dragons.

Obviously Price's hoard is the 141. He's older and wiser and maybe he tells it like he knew when it happened that the bond had slipped into place, but there's a commander on base who will, for the price of a large bottle of whiskey, tell you how the training grounds ended up with such a strange shape.

It's hard to fit in when new people are assigned to the team - Price is many things, but flexible isn't particularly one of them. He sniffs you over, standing rigid in his office, smoke trailing from his nostrils and his cigar, curling around you.

It's hard to stand your ground, to not be threatened into fight or flight, but eventually Captain Price retreats to his desk, settles in the seat of his power.

"You'll do."

You're not even a soldier - you're here primarily as an intelligence and communications officer. You haven't done field duty since your last recertification. But Price had chosen you and despite being half terrified of the man - hard to be all-terrified of a man with a mustache like that - you find yourself striving to make a good impression.

You don't realize what it means, that Price has accepted you as one of His. You thought the regular check-ins were just that - normal business. A superior making sure their underling was performing at their best.

Not until hostiles storm the satellite base while the team is away, when you're locked in your temporary office and struggling to recall the quickest escape route, hands shaking as you close the shutters and hide under the desk.

Price comes back. He comes back for YOU. Alerted by some horrible dragon sense, knowing something of his was in danger.

A storm of red rages behind the blinds and you resist the urge to peek, until everything is quiet again, gunfire ceased, the acrid smell of gunpowder and burning seeping through the cracks.

Just when you think it's safe to leave, worth the risk of poking your head out, the door crashes open.

It's Price - covered in soot and blood that may or may not be his, looking like an avenging god, and in a moment of weakness you fling yourself into his arms.

He came for you.

[pineapple-downside-up-cake]

I'm trying to write more regularly and be less of an overall clown.

Masterlist

Oneshots:

Inexperienced Simon Agenda (18+)

The Treehouse: Intro - Soap - Gaz - Ghost - Price

Valentine's special: Ghost, Price

Musings:

Dancing with Soap

TF141! on migraines

Ghost and marriage

Pinnochi-ghost

Series:

Paranormosocial (Soap) - 1 (18+)