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crying-fantasies · 8 months

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Grain offerings

Once, you tried to work near home, no one really wanted to and you were part of that group, everyone knows what kind of things are in a now abandoned house way too near, you didn't saw them but every other person apparently did with every detail or they are simply lying to get everyone in a paranoia nervousness that sits thick even in the market.

You didn't live during the havock of the war but humans still got their reservations about cybertronians, you have seen people escape from them even when all they do is ask for directions, you have seen videos of them playing volleyball with humanson the next town by a video, even a couple of different species out in a date like it was totally not frowned upon, different from where you live, you get it, really do, most people in town have been scarred to some level by the war and you've seen a few cybertronians that are a pain in the ass, but time and hostility may have made them act in such a way especially to the adults when you were younger, some could describe you as strange by not acting the same way your parents or everyone else did, maybe it was because you weren't alive during the war or the cybertronian temporary occupation that bordered in constant danger, or maybe it was the almost faded memory of a decepticon that lived near scaring away bullies that were making fun of your group of friends when blood was finally spilled by a cruel joke that involved rocks impacting with your head.

"Can't even put a leash on their spawns, I swear", no one believed any of you, no one would, but you would forever remember that once a decepticon called Needlenose helped you that cloudy day before everyone believed he was the one that caused the damage, ending in him getting out of town with his brother.

That would explain why the number of cybertronian residents is minimal if not non-existent on your town, and why the idea of interacting with one was so tempting, so interesting, but that is only a mere desire that would never come, it was time to go back to reality, forget about friendly cybertronians or how cool it would be to have a friend that could carry you back home in a jet.

So, with business almost beyond salvation and a whole batch of rice bags full of insects and almost rotten you try to dispose of it in order to prevent the lost of more bags, only to see the next day that the bag was gone even before the trash truck passed by, there is no leftovers, only markings on the ground that go back to where no one should go.

The place many said a cybertronian made it's home.

It wasn't as bad as it sounded, the main worry was that some of the most hateful human citizens in town went there to say a piece of their mind to the supposed new neighbor, only to come back crying out loud for mercy or swearing they would have their head on a plate even when they were near to drop dead on a puddle on their own urine, no real physical damage was done so police wasn't involved and since no cybertronian was in the best terms with anyone it wasn't an option to ask them for help.

Imagine your surprise when you noticed a big insect, consuming almost in a crazed trance all the rice that falls from a tearing in the big bag, it jumps backwards at the sight of you, you have never seen something like that, no cybertronian like that, the fear is instantaneous, but no by the mechanical insect, far from it, it comes back once in a while, especially when you get the rotten rice out, he seems to get what is left back to wherever he comes from.

You decide to call it a him, since he called you: "flesh bag" with a quite interesting voice that could even be perceived as playful, like he was making fun of you, almost deciding if he can get near you before looking back, full his mandibles at full capacity before dragging the whole bag back to who knows where, it may take time but he still comes, even when you don't get the spoiled rice out, he looks at the remaining things inside the shop and it doesn't take long to consider that, as strange as it can be, he really eats rice, and he may want to eat the fruit that is not in the dumpster but the one inside, his hunger makes you feel bad, he has damaged legs and one of his eyes blinks in and out of function, and something that looks like drool escapes his mandibles, it's sad, because you know a cybertronian only comes to live here if they can't go anywhere else, sometimes even enduring to be damaged by someone, laws don't protect cybertronians the same way they protect humans and it's unfair, but you could never say a word of C. Yeager's pro transformers speech in this town without becoming an outcast yourself in the eyes of your own family.

But what they don't know or hear doesn't hurt them, so you get money out of your wallet and put it in the counter, put a bag full of red apples in front of the injured cybertronian in front of you, his movements are so fast that he makes you fall, taking the whole bag back from where he comes every few days, and come back he does, one day dragging with him a new transformers that looks like him to some degree, and then another that literally has no head attached to the rest of his body, all of them expect something and you can't deny it even when the money you're saving from this very same work are expended in buying rice and wheat that fall from your hands to their waiting mandibles or flour in the case of the one without head, feeling bad for them and asking to yourself who could've been so vicious to do such a thing while something similar to a tongue laps at your hand which helps him to consume water at the lack of mouth, no giving a second thought in the way their glossa smeared in between your fingers that almost made you think of inadequate things at the moment.

Maybe you should've know better, not all people are good ones, the same applied for cybertronians, the same applied to decepticons, especially decepticons that are very well know to be disgusted by organics.

But, far from it, your new friends (you choose to call them like that to yourself) have no problem while interacting with you, in touching you, maybe a little zap of electricity when touching them without warning but that fades away fast as they push against your open palm to receive more food or pats on the head or on the body in Bombshell's case, the fact they finally told you their names, which are as curious as any other cybertronian name you have heard so far, there is happiness in how things go, no longer looking with logging or envy videos of people around the globe, the moment Sharpnel let's you rest against his body makes you giddy, silly chuckles escaping you while Kickback cleans your hand of every remaining oil of the hamburgers you got for them and that didn't last more than a few seconds, his mandibles catch at your skin, before your blood drops to the ground of their nest Sharpnel has already hissed against the youngest while Bombshell pushed him far away by the mere movement of one of his legs, it is also the first time they listen to you after asking them to stop, they are damaged enough as it is already.

The changes are little but the biggest of all is how they seem to be healing, to be regenerating, and is undeniable when you see Bombshell's face for the first time one day when he is the one to get you back to their nest after work, it doesn't stop him from asking for flour or to be feed by hand, despite Kickback's protests and how it's "no fair!" in how you're playing favorites.

It keeps changing, slowly but surely, and everything you learned from mister Yeager's speech about human and cybertronian peaceful cohabitation has already been overstepped in all possible ways when Sharpnel connects his mouth to yours, only a few seconds ago you were showing him that very same speech on your cellphone, yes, you're indeed close, but you can only put your hands on both sides of his faceplate while you keep hearing: "there is more than one reason we clashed with one another", trying to get near him as much as you can, his big body looming above you, the video keeps on, you hear people cheering on the background, agreeing with every word, "and I'm asking you, what do you think being human means?", having almost forgotten of the others you feel the sensation of different servos on your hips, Bombshell's helm rubbing on your shoulder, purring above your clothes, Kickback is looking at you from afar, his pleads at Sharpnel to "please let me touch, I want some too" get mixed with the "that's what we do, we make mistakes" and it's almost like an alarm, a warning, for you to run way from Sharpnel that has started to rub his hips against your belly, from Bombshell that is now sneaking his servos under your pants, from Kickback that is now licking the skin now reveled by the movement of the others.

You are surrounded, and far from it to create discomfort it makes you move along with them while catching Sharpnel's lips against yours again, kissing messily in ways you have never kissed anyone and hoping he doesn't get freaked out, he doesn't, imitating you and doing his own part, maybe you aren't the only one new with this, and it's evident in how he makes himself smaller to cup your ass with both servos, rocking you harder against his modesty panel, moving away his other companions with a hissing sound coming from his vox, pushing you down at the bed of blankets they built a week after you started to see them, placing himself above you while the others watch expectantly, "I'm going to crown you, you" he growled, almost like a menacing promise, and if he was trying to drive you away he gets the contrary to what he desires when you legs lock him close to you, and they seem happy, because they start to chitter in the same way they always do when you appear with food, if only they seem more excited.

"Sometimes out of those mistakes come the most amazing things" your cellphone is long forgotten, maybe one of them steeped on it along the way and stopped the video, you don't mind, you don't care anymore, you only cling to that chance when Sharpnel finally reaches inside of you, his voice promising endlessly to keep you warm, feed and everything in between what your little organic heart so desires as his servo holds firm your hand, the other keeping your head near, your lips on him, as Bombshell grips you close and Kickback puts his digits where Sharpnel is claiming you.

There is no turning back, not that you would want so in the first place.

#reader insert #x reader #tf mtmte #transformers x reader #transformers #transformers idw #transformers x human reader #tf sharpnel #tf kickback #tf bombshell #terraformer au!#insecticons x reader #insecticons

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jonesyjonesyjonesy · 2 years

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The First Breath You Take After You Give Up

a john paul jones x oc oneshot

summary: Actions always have consequences. She’s got away unscathed for too long. And now, she has to pay for it. Dearly.

part of the ’dead end friends’ universe

masterlist | ko-fi

notes: old!jonesy, nsfw, discussion of pregnancy and abortion, breeding, angst

a/n: I've had this written for awhile and I have been too scared to share it. So here we are. An installment in the DEF universe. Due to the content, I have changed it to third person, although she is still unnamed. I hope you enjoy.

"I’ll want you forever, even if I can only have you in LA.” “You know that will change.” "No, it won't."

Annual pap smears always have a hint of trauma, but when her gynecologist looks up from between her legs and casually asks if she’d be willing to give a urine sample, she knows something is wrong.

“Your cervix is a little soft and discolored. Perfectly normal. Have you been trying to get pregnant?”

Everything goes cloudy in an intense overwhelm. “No, I haven’t.”

The gynecologist observes her, eyes narrowing and quickly adds, “I just want to check. It’d still be early if you are. And the earlier you know, the better.”

She nods slowly. Normally, her doctor’s definitive and curt tone bothers her. But now, she craves it when she can barely make heads or tails of what’s happening. The gynecologist rattles through a list of symptoms if any of them sound familiar, but none of them do. She’s felt fine, save a loss of appetite, which she’s attributed to stress of the studio, to the music, to not hearing from him.

Then, she’s off to pee in a cup. It takes an inordinate amount of focus to make it happen, what with her thoughts tangled together. Each thought begins and is cut short by another swelling terror and this cycle continues right up until the doctor returns with results.

Positive. “Let’s do a blood test to confirm and we’ll know how far along you are, alright?”

She realizes what a mistake it was to take an appointment before she had to go into work when she has to returns to the studio and massage out a scheduling mishap. She can barely think straight. Even Rex notices: “God, you alright? You look like you’re going to break.”

She feels like she could break, like her hipbones could snap from their sockets.

In the late afternoon during a staff meeting, she gets the phone call. She excuses herself to the hall and presses up against the wall as the receptionist sunnily congratulates her on her pregnancy. The color drains from her face and her heart lodges itself in her throat.

“Hello?” the receptionist’s saccharine voice drips through the phone.

She cups her hand around her mouth and the receiver and whisper, “Is it – how early is it?”

“Seven weeks. Really early. You can start on those prenatals pronto, get that folic acid.”

She starts winding the clock back to the last time she saw him, which was five weeks ago. Two weeks before that was –

“How about we get you in this Friday for a sonogram? I have an appointment bright and early at nine and we can get some images of your –”

“That won’t be necessary,” she says quickly. Gut reaction. The only option, she thinks.

“Oh,” the receptionist replies as if she’s the one who has been hurt. “Okay then, well –“

She hangs up the phone before she can hear anymore.

Seven weeks ago: the lost weekend in Malibu with the torrential downpour and power outage that lasted through the night. She was forbidden to leave the bed for most of it. Consequences such as a pregnancy were the farthest thing from her mind; she was too preoccupied with more immediate crimes and punishments.

They both had acted the entire time under the assumption, the gross assumption, that he was barren in his age. She wonders if perhaps that willful ignorance was actually just part of the thrill for them both.

She doesn’t return to the meeting, opting instead to lock herself in the office to figure out her next moves. She was clear on the phone to both the receptionist and herself: the sonogram won’t be necessary because she’s not getting attached. An unplanned pregnancy is one thing. An unplanned pregnancy under these circumstances, another. It would be foolish to say the affair is purely physical, but it is certainly an intimacy limited to LA. With John no longer in LA and his return at this point unclear, there’s no reason to bother him with this development or her decision about it. She can’t even imagine how he would react, nor does she really want to know.

She makes an appointment for the end of the week to get the situation taken care of, to put it mildly. If she puts too many words to it, she starts getting a lump in your throat that she refuses to contend with right now. If it dons on her while brushing her teeth or while wiping down the counter of the studio kitchen, she renames it – a tape worm, a cyst, a sinking feeling in her stomach.

She’s never believed in the give and take of the universe, but she starts to when she receives an unprompted phone call from John the next morning. She doesn’t pick up and waits to listen to his message until her lunch break.

“Sorry to bother you while you’re at the studio. I’ll be back in town this weekend for some press obligations. Stop by when you can. I’d love to see you.”

She doesn’t call him back. The last time they spoke was five weeks ago when he left her in his bed in the early morning hours to go catch his flight. It was a short and simple conversation, but she hasn’t forgotten the rasp of his voice in her hair: “See you soon.”

“When?” she had asked.

“Soon.”

Until yesterday, that ‘soon’ had been her lifeblood. Now, it feels full of doom.

His keys with the blue tag he had tempted her with, drawn her in like a spider to a web, have had a ceremonious place on her bedside table ever since. But when she gets home that night, she shoves them into the drawer.

The days come and they go. She keeps the news to herself. The only person she could probably tell would be Rex but that would be a rife conversation and she doesn’t want to talk him down from a ledge when she hasn’t yet climbed down from hers.

Two calls from John go unanswered on Wednesday. He doesn’t leave messages.

An appointment on Thursday at the clinic, several hours of waiting, the problem done away with, relief mixed with a sudden immense guilt.

Another call Friday. This one she doesn’t even let ring, sending it straight to voicemail with the click of a button.

She spends Friday and Saturday in bed. The physical pain is bearable; it’s her mind that feels like hell. She numbs herself with reality TV in the background and crap food which she can barely touch without feeling nauseous.

Saturday night, John calls. She stares at the phone as it illuminates your darkened room like an angler fish in an oceanic trench. Lets it ring then returns to an email drafted on her laptop. Another call 5 minutes later. Ignored. And not a minute later, he calls again.

John is patient and, in most scenarios, a man of few words. He observes space in all things. A slurry of calls is not in his nature.

She sits up and takes a deep breath before answering the phone. “Hello?”

“Oh, you’re alive.” There’s an edge in his voice.

“I am,” she says quietly. Barely.

“I was starting to worry.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to – “

“Did you get my calls?” he asks, intent to get an answer. John won’t let her bullshit.

“Um, yeah. I did.”

“I guess things have been busy, then, hm?” He’s not just perturbed. He’s upset. She can’t blame him. To go from having her around his finger at every moment to not even getting a response would be unsettling.

She bites her lip and feels her cheeks blaze red. There are several ways to go about this, she’s just not sure where to start.

“Are you avoiding me?” John asks, a genuine wonder in his voice. “Did I do something?”

Perhaps it’s what he didn’t do. That she was left in the wake of the intense affair with the expectation to move on until it suited him to show up again. She resents that she had to be reminded of him with her entire body and that she was left to make the choice to rid herself of him in such a literal way.

“I’m sorry, I…I’ve had a very strange week,” she begins. She lets out a small, uncomfortable laugh. He remains silent. “Um, it’s funny actually I – well, I went to see my gynecologist, you know, just for my annual, um, and – I had no idea, actually, but – ” She just has to say it. “Long story short, I found out I was pregnant.”

A small pause.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Another pause.

“Mine?”

Her mouth breaks into a small smile and although she knows the definitive answer, she says, “Probably.”

“I see.”

“But I’m not – I got rid of it. Thursday,” she says and immediately regrets the way the words come out of her mouth. It feels so crude to say it that way, but she never let herself get beyond the idea that a bundle of nerves was manifesting in her uterus. It was always an it.

She can hear him breathing on the line, not knowing what to say next.

“So, I’m not pregnant anymore.”

“Right,” John replies quickly, noticing he’s been silent too long. “Are you feeling alright?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

“Good, that’s good.”

She doesn’t reply, doesn’t feel the need to. The energy it took to reveal the truth to him has left her spent.

“Well, thank you for keeping me from going the way of McCartney, then,” John says, a light playfulness infusing his voice.

“Oh my god,” she laughs, putting a hand over her face. “You’re welcome, I guess.”

“I’m sorry if I was harsh, I…well, I wasn’t sure if I had done something to make you not want to see me,” he says. Then, he adds softly, “I suppose I did, in a way.”

“No, no, you didn’t know.” She finds a loose thread on her comforter and starts to pull on it. “I should have picked up.”

John sighs, “I can understand why you wouldn’t want to.” A moment. “Could I come see you?”

She hesitates.

“It’s alright if not,” he starts to backtrack.

“No, no, I’d like that.”

The smile over the phone. The one she’s learned to hear. “I’ll head over now.”

After she hangs up, she leaps out of bed and rushes to the shower. She’s been laying around in her pajamas all day and hasn’t been picking up after herself since the beginning of the week. She spends the next forty minutes in a frenzy to make herself and the apartment look semi-decent.

When the doorbell rings, she freezes in her tracks and has the fleeting thought of just burying herself back in bed and pretending like he isn’t there. As she goes for the doorknob, she catches herself in the front hall mirror. She thinks she looks like an old sweater that’s gone too many times through the wash. The color is faded from her face, her hair is limp, and she practically hangs off her own skeleton. She swears under her breath and fluffs her hair manically before opening the door.

She’s never been able to plan for how it feels to see a lover after time apart. Like a candle that’s been almost entirely drained of its oxygen, she can never be sure if the wick will burst into flame again or if it has been snuffed entirely.

In the glow of the patio light, John stands there, holding a bottle of liquor in a brown paper bag. His eyes find her and an unassuming smile creep across his lips. “Hi.”

The candle sets alight.

“Hi.”

John clears his throat and gestures toward the bag. “Wasn’t sure if you could use a drink. In celebration or…sorrow or –“

“General apathy?”

“That’s a new one, but I like it.”

She grins, “Come on in.”

John gives her a nod and walks into the apartment. She can’t help but peruse him from head to toe. He looks clean-pressed: a navy button down, dark washed jeans, and a pair of oxfords that plod sharply against the wooden floor. “Sorry, it’s a bit messy,” she says, closing the door behind him.

“It looks fine. Lovely,” he says, turning back to her.

She’d like to tell him how nice he looks. She knows he’d get red in the face and change the subject. “I can pour us a drink, if you like,” she says. It feels like that first day all over again, nervousness twitching all the way to her fingertips. John hands over the bag and quickly tucks his hands into his pockets as she makes her way into the kitchen. The place he was holding the bag is ragged from his sweaty grip. “Sit anywhere,” she calls through the pass-through window and sets to pouring the drinks.

“Can’t believe this is the first time I’ve visited you at home,” John muses. She’s been grateful for that. There aren’t any corners where memories linger that she has to avoid. Just the keys now tucked away in her nightstand.

“Your place is much nicer,” she says, dropping two ice cubes into his glass as he likes. “And no prying eyes.”

“You have nosy neighbors who give two shits about an old Englishman?”

She turns back and finds he hasn’t sat; he’s still standing in the middle of the room and letting his eyes linger on the personal touches she has that lazily adorn her space. From the books sorted by color on the shelf, to the framed picture of her friends from high school with the cracked glass on the wall, to the small water stain on the coffee table, and on and on.

She goes back out into the living room and, with a gentle ounce of courage, says, “You look nice, John.”

John looks at her, taken off-guard by her words. His blue eyes glint. “It’s a funny story, actually,” he begins.

“Is it?” she smiles and hands over the glass to him. She’s glad he’s still predictable.

“Thank you.” He wraps his fingers gingerly around the lowball glass, his wedding ring clinking against it. She holds her breath. “We were just doing an interview for the album, like a sort of cinematic teaser. I don’t know, I don’t pretend to. So, I actually showed up in a different shirt, a dark red one, you know.”

She makes her way to sit on the couch and John follows you as he speaks, finding a comfortable seat at the opposite end, “They told me to bring options, so I wore red and I brought blue. And they have me change into the blue one immediately. Alright, whatever. I thought I looked rather nice in the red, but – “

“I’m sure you did,” you say, drawing your legs up under you.

John eyes brighten, “Well, that’s the thing, we start filming but then they cut me off, have me go back to red, then we do a whole take in red. They talk. Put me back in blue. And then after all is said and done, they tell me they’re going to be cutting it together in black and white.”

She laughs, “Oh no. You must have been livid.”

“I was. Of course, I was. All that time, wasted.” John hates wasting time. He wants to be in complete control of his time. It’s why the affair worked so well. She has no problem letting him have that control.

“I bet you really ripped them apart then.”

“Oh, you know me. A prima donna,” he smirks and his eyes land on the rim of his glass. “No, I was pleasant as ever.” There’s a weariness to him. It’s been a long day. He’s probably jet-lagged too. She wonders if he ever gets worn down by being pleasant.

She holds up her glass toward him in a silent toast. He nods and holds his glass up toward hers. “What was it you said? To apathy.”

“Something like that.”

Their eyes meet. The glasses clink. They both drink. The whisky feels like smoke in her throat, as if she’s taken a puff of a cigar.

“You know,” John leans back a bit and raises his eyebrows. “I really didn’t know I had it in me.”

She frowns, but his glance down at her middle is enough to clarify. She looks away with a small smile, “Well, you did.”

The conversation has been opened, there’s no going back now.

“It’s not…” she takes in a deep breath. “I was only 7 weeks along.”

John’s brown knits together. “7 weeks ago would have been…”

“Malibu.”

John hums knowingly and leans forward, his elbows on his knees, “Malibu…”

“Spent plenty of time on my back,” she says under her breath.

He nods, “I recall. Very well.” His eyes meet hers and she gets a taste of that memory of the two of them entwined together on the California king bed. “A lovely weekend, really.” What a tempered way to describe the height of depravity. He takes another drink, the whisky going down in a thick gulp. “We’ve never been very careful, have we?”

“Never,” she affirms. The two of them are smart people, but when it comes to one another, they share a single, horny brain cell.

“I must admit, I have not felt that level of uh…dread as I did on the phone in a long, long time,” John says. She can tell he’s a bit embarrassed to even say it. A man of his age and experience being reduced to the fear of a 15-year-old.

She stares into her glass.

“I just thought maybe you were seeing someone and were trying to get rid of me.”

“No, no…” she says.

“Which would have been fine, you know, that would have been – “ he stops short. It wouldn’t have been fine, not entirely. Perhaps preferable. But not fine.

“If it hadn’t been for, um…I would have picked up right when you called. On the first ring.” She cringes at how desperate she sounds.

John is quiet at first; his lips curl up into a smile he probably doesn’t think he should have. “Of course, I can’t imagine it was very easy.”

It hasn’t been. She has tried to act as if this whole incident is normal and handleable. But it’s not.

“I sort of…” he pauses, his jaw falling slightly. “I sort of wish you had told me.”

That’s a punch to the gut.

John notices her sharp intake of breath and how she turns her body away and continues, “I don’t say that to make you feel bad.”

Conversation with John has almost always been easy and clear. Rarely has it ever been complicated. That’s what makes this so hard. “Well, it does.”

John’s gone red and his jaw tightens. “I’m sorry, then,” he says.

“What good would that have done?” she asks, her eyes firmly on her knees. Her blue jeans that she grabbed from the hamper are nearly worn through at the knees.

“Well, I – I don’t know. None, perhaps,” John stutters.

An aching begins at the back of her skull. “What would you have even said?”

“I don’t know.”

“Would you have wanted me to keep it?”

“I never said that.”

That’s not a yes. But it’s also not a no. Suddenly, all the images she has been suppressing burst into her mind. She had avoided picturing herself swollen, in such obvious and open creation, avoided the idea of sleeplessly staring into a crib in the middle of the night with unfettered adoration, avoided the notion of having to logically and emotionally negotiate with John in that scenario. Now, she’s struck with the grief that she didn’t let her mind wander before she had made her decision. Even if the result would have been the same, at least possibility existed.

It no longer does.

“All I said is that I wish you would have let me know when you found out.”

She nods, “To be honest with you, I didn’t think you deserved to know.”

John’s narrows his eye, “Now, hold on – “

She doesn’t. “We haven’t spoken in over a month.”

“I know.”

“Then you can understand why I didn’t feel like calling you up to tell you, right?”

John sits up and takes a deep breath. “I didn’t mean to upset you by bringing it up.”

“Don’t do that,” she replies exasperatedly.

“Do what?”

“That. The unaware, nice thing. That if you’re just polite enough you can get away with saying just about anything. It’s gotten old.”

John stares at her, at a loss for words. The anger that is bubbling inside her is not all his fault, but he’s certainly not helping matters. She knocks back the rest of her whisky (after all, she can) and immediately goes back to the kitchen to retrieve the bottle. It’s a long silence as she walks back, unscrews the cap, and pours herself another drink with abandon.

He watches her closely. “I didn’t realize my kindness was so inflammatory to you.”

He’s trying to endear himself to her. She won’t have it. “This,” she gestures between the two of them. “It has a clear premise. Unspoken rules, right?”

“I suppose,” John replies, unsure where she’s going with this.

“Sex. When you’re in town. That’s it.”

John resists scoffing. “Is that how you’d describe it? Just ‘sex when I’m in town’? That feels a bit disingenuous don’t you think?”

“Fine,” she concedes. “Add whatever minutiae you want to it. But me calling you out of the blue to tell you that kind of thing seems expressly out of your nuanced premise. Doesn’t it?”

John shakes his head. “You’re looking at this all wrong.”

“Oh, forgive me,” she says snidely. “I, who bore the brunt of any sort of literal impact, am looking at this all wrong?”

“It’s not something we could have planned for. Not really,” he says, not totally sure if that’s the truth. “You could have called me.” John is trying with everything in him to stay calm. She can see the slight gaps in him where steam is starting to slip out. She wants him to feel something. She wants to see the frustration make him do something stupid.

“Please, John –”

He doesn’t back down, determined but not forceful. “You could have. You’re the one who made the decision to do it entirely on your own, you know.”

She laughs scornfully, “What would I have said? ‘Hi, it’s me, sorry to bother you at home with your wife. Just want to give you a little update that we’ve hit a snag and it seems all the fucking we were doing has led to an unwanted pregnancy. But don’t worry, I’m gonna terminate it, so enjoy your afternoon tea.’”

John shifts in his seat. “Would you sit back down?”

“Would that have been satisfactory?”

“Don’t be flippant about this.”

“I’ll be however I like.”

John’s turn to finish his whisky. He stands and continues, approaching her like a stalking predator, “Are you sure apathy was the right thing to toast to? Because to me it seems like you care an awful lot.”

“Of course, I care a lot. Of course! I was –” She doesn’t want to say the word, she really doesn’t. It feels wrong to say because even though it was seven weeks, she only knew she was for a matter of days before it was over. “You should thank me.”

He looks at her, nearly repulsed. He thought he knew how to handle her. “For what?”

“I spared you.”

“Spared me?”

She doesn’t reply, shifting from foot to foot as she attempts to avoid him closing in on her.

John lets out a dark laugh, “You don’t need to spare me, I’m a grown fucking man.”

“You said yourself, it scared the shit out of you.”

“Yes, of course. It scared the shit out of you too, obviously.”

She feels cornered, between the hallway and the rest of the room. “Don’t tell me about how I felt. Don’t.”

“I’m not telling you anything that isn’t obvious. Would be terrifying for anyone, so –“

“Look, can we drop it? Can we just have a drink and not talk about it, John, please?” she turns to begging, something she knows he loves, although not in matters such of these, and presses a hand to his lower ribs. Touching him melts away all her anger. “You’re here and I’m here and let’s forget about it,” she tries to take hold of the trembling tone in the room and shove into a corner so that she can enjoy him.

“Christ, you’re acting like a child.”

She can’t even believe his choice of words. John’s never been condescending; she can’t believe this is the moment he’s decided to start. “Fuck off.” It just comes out.

John is rendered silent.

She drops her hand from him. She’s bleary-eyed and she hopes he doesn’t notice. “Just…fuck you.” She pushes past him, back into the room, still not knowing where to go or what to do.

He sighs and closes his eyes, “I’m sorry. It was a poor choice of words.” In all senses, it was probably the worst thing he could have said.

“You should probably go,” she says. The muscles in her neck are so tense that every word feels like retching. “I thought it’d be – I thought it’d be good to see you, but…”

John is usually very observant of her boundaries and wishes, which is why she’s surprised when he says, “No.”

“John –“

“I’m not going to leave you right now.”

She tries to speak but all that comes out is a strained groan. She covers her eyes before the hot tears spill into her hands. “I didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t supposed to happen,” she cries. Suddenly, she feels John’s arms wrap around her. The tension melts all at once. After all this time, his touch still manages to soften her from the inside. She leans into him, barely able to breathe as the sobs blubber forth onto the breast pocket of his shirt. All the thoughts disappear from her brain as she thinks about his hands. One pressed against her lower back, wide, as if to catch her from falling through his fingers. The other cupping her head tenderly to him. Perverse adoration floods through her; he holds her like a father would his child and even though she has just cursed him out for calling her one, she’s grateful to be held like this. She thinks she made the right choice when she still feels like such a baby herself.

“Let’s lie down.”

He guides her down the hall to her bedroom. It’s not a big place, not hard to find. There are no more words exchanged before she falls asleep with her head in his lap and his fingers tracing her hairline around her scalp.

She awakens hours later in the bruised early morning hours.

“John?”

“Hm?”

“You’re awake.”

“On and off. My sleep’s all a wreck this go around.”

She pulls at his shirt. “Lay down.”

“No, no, I’m alright,” John shrugs her off. He slides his hand down her side to her hip and back. “I’m alright.”

She can’t help but feel his resistance is because of his frustration, anger even at being left out until the bitter end. She grabs at the hem of his shirt and turns her face into his thighs, his jeans scraping up against her cheeks. She scrunches her eyes together and takes in a deep breath of day worn denim. “I should have told you.”

John pauses. “I understand why you didn’t.”

She smiles sadly and turns onto her back to look at him. “It’s just not…it wasn’t supposed to happen. I’m just your LA girl.”

“Now, don’t put it like that,” he grumbles.

She reaches for his hand and lets her fingers hang between his. “Right, right, I’m sorry, LA woman.”

“Thank you for that correction,” he replies sarcastically.

A moment hangs between them, deceptively soft and safe for talking about something so rife. She sighs and rests their clasped hands on her chest. “I don’t mind. I’ll want you forever, even if I can only have you in LA.”

John lets out a chuckle, “You know that will change.”

“No, it won’t.”

“Yes, it will. Because you’ll find someone else. Who isn’t so old.”

“And married, while we’re at it.”

“Aha, yes, not to be forgotten,” he says with a grimace before returning to his point with a worn-out shake of his head. “It’s inevitable. And that’s alright. That’s the way it should be.”

She sighs, tapping her fingers on the back of his hand, feeling the protruding veins. “You’re clearly not old enough to be shooting blanks.”

John laughs, “Apparently.”

“No man is safe, not even the old ones.”

“Well, what, you’re not on anything?”

“No.”

They’re both quiet. It’s funny to her, to both of them, that they’ve shared so many intimacies, of the body and of the brain, that this fact slipped through the cracks. He assumed. Probably always did, even back when being a philanderer was a part of his job description. John’s hand tightens around her waist. “You want me to go?”

“No,” she says. She traces a finger down his cheek. “Do you want to go?”

He only chuckles in return. His eyes flutter shut, the leftover smile still on his face. Her finger trails down to his neck to the top button of his shirt. Her wonderment that felt so innocent and remarkable twists inexorably. She pulls on the button. He says her name; she pulls again.

“I’m asleep.”

She pushes herself up to sitting. Her hand splays against his chest and she brings her face close to his. “Don’t you want to?”

John’s eyes don’t open, but the corners of his lips betray him, perking up.

Her lips touch his tentatively, like space between leaves, unable to tell if they’re entwined or if it’s the canopy above. “Is that a yes?”

“You know I hate when you play dumb.”

“You love when I play dumb,” she murmurs, a buzz against his lips. She closes that tiny amount of space fully in a kiss that was bound to happen from the moment he said he was coming to see her. Five weeks since she’s seen him. And she doesn’t want to waste the moment they meet again. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a kiss is worth about the same, but the sentences are bent and broken and you’re left to put the words back together to make something that can’t be recreated. When she breaks away from him, she adds, “You hate that you love when I play dumb.”

John sighs, “I hate that I love when –“

It’s too late; her lips are on his again. They’re both languid in their motion, aching in a three am sort of way, and yet there is so much fire here from this reignited candle. John’s hands go to her waist, and hesitant to hold her the way he has before. Because she is fragile and vulnerable now in a way he had never considered. In fact, they both are, but he probably can’t put words to that.

Their lips break and a soft whimper falls from her lips. She straddles him and looks down into his now alert eyes. Her hips undulate deliberately against his. John gasps and then bites his lip. Between their shuttering eyes, they are shadows to one another, blue specters both terrifying and wondrous. She continues until he’s throbbing through his jeans, like in the good old days in the back of her high school boyfriend’s car.

“Are you sure?” John whispers suddenly.

She nods, her mouth hanging open.

“Are you –“

“Yes,” she answers firmly. “Yes, yes. We just…we have to be careful.”

John swallows.

“I have…” She leans over and opens the drawer of her bedside table, wading past the keys to a stack of condom. She pulls out the accordion of gold-foiled packets, longer than she expected. “They…shit maybe they’re expired,” she says breathlessly, squinting her eyes to see the faded black date stamp on the back.

John takes the other end of the accordion and looks too, even though it’s a lost cause. “Been that long, hm?”

“Since I’ve used a condom, yes.” She leans toward the window where a streetlight lets in a sliver of light. “But not long enough for these to be expired, so.” She splits one off down the perforation and hands it to him, dropping the stack back in the drawer.

They’re both quiet. John stares at the small gold packet. He seems almost intimidated by the thought. Or perhaps it’s just the meaning behind using one that puts him on edge. Pinched between his fingers, it looks like a newfound specimen, a distant, strange sort of thing. She touches his wrist. “You don’t have to – not right away.”

“Whatever you want me to do,” John says and then purses his lips.

“How the tables have turned…” she says with a cheeky shrug of her shoulders.

John smiles and lets out a sigh of arousal. “You know what I mean.”

She leans into him again, lets her words crawl down his face: “I want to feel you.”

No more words from him. No more objections. He wants to feel her too.

“Let me feel you.”

It’s wrong. It’s headstrong. She knows this. And perhaps that’s how his belt comes off and his pants are undone in record time. John’s cock stands ready for her and, once her pants are off, she positions herself over him as she has so many times before. Tonight, she invites him inside her despite everything. Her head falls back. His hands tighten on the roundness of her hips. Their breath syncs. But once he is inside her, neither of them starts the inevitable thrusting, the primal quick pulse accompanied by slow-wittedness.

To be full of him. Brings words to her mind she would never say out loud. There is a love here, but it is not the love of tearful confessions. It is not the love of impossible romance. It is not the love of the star-crossed. It is just the love of another person showing up as who they are, always and entirely. And there is something tragic about it too.

He says her name worriedly, a hand to her face. But she shakes her head. “I’m fine.” There are tears in her eyes.

“You’re crying.”

“I’m not – no it’s not like that, really,” she murmurs. “I’m fine.” She turns her face into his hand and kisses his palm. “You just feel…I feel so good.”

A tear runs down the back of his hand. John doesn’t mind when she cries. But it is so rarely out this deep, heartful place. Usually pleasure and pain cultivate salty tears. When it is her heart, he still thinks she is divine. He still wants her.

John is the one to initiate again, his hips unable to hold out any longer against the pleasure of being inside her. She follows suit. The rocking, the breathing, the gripping. He groans, eyes fluttering shut until their pinched together and he frustratedly sighs, “We have to be careful.”

“We have to be careful,” she repeats.

They continue at it together, but their blisses are separate. Her nerve-endings are on fire. His head is swimming. No flourishes, nothing special, but they’re both building quickly to an end.

“We have to be…careful,” John echoes again and reaches for the condom. It glints between his fingers. But before he can split the package open, she snatches it away and tosses it aside.

“Don’t.”

John’s eyes widen. “But –“

“I don’t care,” she whines. Her thighs tighten around him. And she’s shaking. Trembling.

“Darling,” John says breathlessly.

“I need to feel you, John, I need to feel all of you.”

He is used to her body and knows that she is close and if she is close then he is not far behind. He calls out her name with an erotic terror, knowing their impending doom.

She leans back and grabs onto his shins. “Come inside me.”

He doesn’t need to be told twice. John hooks his hands around his hips, tight. Tighter than tight. And as he drives harder, he pulls her into him as if they are the same body now. There is no space. There is no question.

This will end the same way it always has.

John’s chin juts forward, a ragged moan, eyes narrowed almost in pain. “I’m going to –“

She wilts toward him, head like that of a dying daisy. “Do it.”

John slides his hands up around her, pulling her into his embrace as hard as he can. He gives in, his stomach muscles flinching tightly. Warm, sticky seed up inside of her. And her already imminent orgasm bursts violently. A thrilled, grinning gasp of euphoria. She throbs around him, giving him another wave of intense pleasure. His broad hands spread against her lower back as he shudders.

They are still frenzied, hungry for each other. They kiss, deeply, breathlessly until they have no more. Not one more bit to give one another. John collapses back onto the pillows as if his bones no longer lock together in the right way. He is spent.

Together, they bathe in the warmth, the glow. She can’t point to an encounter between them that has ever been so unbridled in its simplicity. He gives her a lopsided smile and rubs his hands up and down her back. Soft, vulnerable, she presses a trail of kisses up his jaw, nuzzling into him as close as she can be.

“Some might call that entrapment, you know,” John says wryly in her ear, taking a handful of her thigh in his hand.

She draws back suddenly. “That’s not what I –“

“Joke, a joke,” John cuts her off. He runs a hand over the back of her head and through her hair delicately. “A bad joke.”

Her eyes land on the condom that sits on his stomach where she dropped it earlier, still wrapped. She lifts herself off him as he softens, watches how he drips out of her. “Oh my god,” she whispers. What’s wrong with me?

“Thank god you…” John says through labored breaths and reaches for the condom, flicking it up between two of his fingers. “Thank god you had this.”

She puts a hand to her face and starts to laugh. “I’m so…why am I like this?”

“I very much like that you’re ‘like this’ for the most part,” he replies quietly. John puts his hand to her inner thigh and gingerly drags his thumb against her swollen labia, letting his cum slip onto his nail. He does not want to feel the possession that he does over her body, but seeing how he could be a part of her like this puts a thick knot in his stomach. “Me and you. Is a complicated sort of thing.”

She nods, eyes downcast to where his shirt has risen up and revealed the small curve of his belly. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be complicated.”

“No, that’s not what I said,” John tuts. He wraps a hand around her chin and directs her gaze back to him with an encouraging smile. “You’re not complicated.”

“We’re complicated.”

John’s eyes roll to the side and his brows lift in confirmation. She laughs and links her hand around his wrist, twisting her head down to press a kiss to his palm.

And before the silence can settle, just before it becomes the new default, John speaks again.

“Did you want it?” His voice is just as small as a creak in the floorboard, stifled but ever-present. It is the thing he’s wanted to ask all night. It’s the reason he was upset she didn’t call to tell him. It’s the thing he would regret not asking. “Just tell me if you did.”

But she does not know the answer, not entirely. “I don’t know, John. I really don’t know.”

The wrinkle between his eyebrows deepens.

“Not like that. Not like this.”

John nods, does not push further, instead welcoming her into an embrace against his chest, her face in his neck. He will take the answer and allow it to wander around his mind as long as it needs before it settles. But for now, there is still the matter of him dripping out of her which they agree they’ll handle in the morning.

Their disentanglement takes a long time. Tender and full of care. Unsure which movement will make the either break. But as soft as can be. And not long after, they are deeply asleep, twined together.

In the morning, they rise heavily, like gravity has doubled. John insists on going with her to the drug store and she bristles at first. “You don’t trust me to follow through?”

He shakes his head. “Just trying to be a gentleman as best I can given the circumstances.”

She half-laughs. He’d be a bigger gentleman than many of the men she’s slept with, offering her a ride to the drugstore, probably offering to pay for the morning after pill. “What if someone sees?”

John smirks. “Just another day in LA, hm?”

An older man and a younger woman, yes that is just another day in LA. “But what if they recognize you?”

John blinks at her and shakes off her comment. “You’re paranoid.”

“You don’t know what it’s like when you’re getting one of these things,” she says. “The way people look at you.”

“Like you’re a sinner,” he says, swooning at the thought. “Well, if you are, I am and then some. Come on.”

He drives. The rental has black leather seats that already are burning from LA heat. She feels almost sick to her stomach even though he’s a competent driver and doesn’t jerk the car around.

At the drugstore, he insists on going in with her. She doesn’t fight him on it. She’s too tired. This week has been too much and she feels relatively guilty for trying to avoid him. That feeling won’t last forever. When she looks back on this moment, she’ll regret not asking him to stay in the car.

The Plan B is kept behind the counter. God forbid someone steal it because they can’t afford an unwanted pregnancy. Which means she has to go up and ask the pharmacist for it. The pharmacist is a portly fellow with the weak beginnings of a mustache. He seems so young. But rather jolly compared to most other pharmacists she’s interacted with. When she asks for the Plan B, John lingering nearby pretending to be interested in the literature on the back of a box of Band-Aids, the pharmacist doesn’t even bat an eye. He smiles. Not pityingly or condescendingly. “Sure thing,” he chirps and makes the least big deal of it possible. “Bottle of water too?”

For this, she is grateful.

Until it’s time to pay for it and John is suddenly at her elbow, wallet already in his hand.

“Please, don’t,” she says softly.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he replies in his tip-of-the-teeth tone that she’s learned to crave. Pavlovian the way his voice makes her salivate. He hands over his credit card without another word about it.

And that’s when the pharmacist becomes her nemesis. After running the card, he points at John. “I know you.”

Her stomach drops.

“I can’t imagine why,” John says, smiling pleasantly. Lying.

“Yeah, yeah…the accent…you’re in that band.”

She reaches for John’s arm, about to drag him away without even taking the bag with the Plan B off the counter.

“Pink Floyd!” the pharmacist snaps and smiles smugly. Triumphant.

Any amount of terror in John’s expression is replaced with a disdainful relief. “Floyd. Yes. You’ve got me pegged.”

And her nausea transforms into a stifled laughter. She grabs the bag and yanks on his arm. “Come on, Mr. Floyd.”

They hold their reaction back until they’re safely through the automatic doors and back in the sun. Their laughter bursts. A woman walking past them must think they’re lunatics. But they can’t help it. This laughter is everything they needed. Even if it’s not actually that funny.

“You should have seen your face,” she cackles, wiping tears from her eyes.

“Well, of all the people to get conflated with –”

“Who do you think he thought you were?” she asks. She hooks her hand around his bicep as he leads her too the car. So close to him she can smell his day-old shirt. His sweat.

Pavlovian.

“Oh, come on. Obviously Wright.”

“You don’t think you share some similarities with Roger Waters?”

“Take that back right now.”

In better times, this would be an invitation into bed. The rib that pushes him to the edge. Now, it’s just the way they are with each other.

They drive back to the apartment, laughing and chatting like old times (if she can even call them old times when they only met in January). He parks outside her apartment complex and eyes her in the way only he can. Trying to catch every beat.

“Thank you,” she says quietly, making no motion to the door.

“Of course,” John says and then repeats it under his breath.

She looks askance up to her window. The curtains are still drawn from the day before. “Well, you want me to do it in front of you so you don’t have to worry?”

John’s expression changes. He looks hurt.

“I was kidding. Mostly. I think sometimes people actually do that. Anyway,” she mutters. She doesn’t want to think about the time she and her ex-boyfriend sat on her bed while she took the pill and he watched her swallow as closely as one would observe a deer while hunting. “We should…”

John looks away, to the windshield.

“Disentangle,” she says. It’s the only word that makes sense. This isn’t a breakup. And she doesn’t want him to leave her. But they’ve gotten inexorably close for two people who just can’t.

“I understand,” he replies.

“Because I –” her voice cracks. “I don’t know, John. This has started to hurt.”

Not hurt in the fun way. In the way they’ve known. How does he patch her up this way? When he can’t physically have her or hold her?

“Because whenever you leave me I know…” She doesn’t want to cry. She’s not going to. She clutches the bag from the pharmacy in her lap. “You go home to your life and your work. To your family.” The word family sticks in her throat. It’s strange how it makes her feel. The thought of his wife and his children and grandchildren (dear god) doesn’t make her jealous. She’s envious of him. That he gets to return to that warmth and love, regardless of what is or isn’t broken. What does she have? An apartment and a recording studio and a half-finished album. Maybe it’s time to get a cat. “I know what this is. I’m not trying to kid myself or expecting…” Has she wished for him to be all hers? Yes. In a distant impossible way where no one gets hurt. Distant. Impossible.

John knows he shouldn’t, but touches her anyway, running the tips of his fingers through her hair, guiding her face toward him. “Look at me. Listen to me.”

She will hold the dam. She will not cry.

“If you want that…” He could back track now. He could rescind the idea entirely and it never has to be said. “I’m not going to make you take the pill.”

An entire life that isn’t hers flashes before her eyes. The one she wouldn’t let herself linger on before the abortion. The swollen one. The up all night one. The always worrying one. The insurmountable lifechanging joy one.

“On the probably very slim chance it would take again –“

“John, I couldn’t.”

“I mean, I couldn’t participate, you understand.”

She smiles sadly. “Of course.”

“But I wouldn’t let you suffer. I could support you.”

“John.”

At the sound of his name, he seals his mouth closed. What was an inkling of an idea came out of his mouth like a fully-fledged plan. Embarrassing.

And she knows that though this idea is mostly one of friendship and kindness, it can never be wholly without want. Why else would John offer himself to her like this if not to bring her enough peace to continue on as they have?

“Thank you, but no.”

John takes a sharp inhale and nods. He’s not going to admit to himself he’s the smallest bit heartbroken.

She cracks open the impossible packaging, the gruff plastic nearly slicing her finger open, and pulls out the first of the pills. She sticks it on her tongue and swallows down the water. No changing her mind now. “Done.”

“Yes,” John says quietly. He nurses his rejection quietly. “Disentangling. What does that mean to you?”

“Just…less,” she sighs. “Less purposeful. Less at your disposal. Less of you and me.”

John crosses his arms and blinks, against staring out the windshield. “Alright.”

She touches his shoulder gingerly and he the tension in his body melts. In just a moment, they’re wrapped in each other’s arms tenderly, faces buried. With each passing second, their embrace grows tighter and tighter until there is nowhere more for it to go.

She pulls away first and touches his cheek. The line of his dimple. His lower lip bows downward in such a slight way that it’s obvious he’s holding in everything until she leaves. “I can’t wait for the record.”

He chuckles, trying to push down the despondency. “I can’t wait for yours.”

“Mm. Don’t hold your breath.”

“Do me a favor and whenever you do that, remember me scolding you,” John says with genuineness.

“I will. I will. And I’ll miss you. So much.”

Deep breath. John kisses her cheek. “I’ll see you. Some time.”

It is not a final goodbye. That will not come for a long time. But it is the first. And as soon as she realizes this, she regrets every choice she’s made this morning. She could have kept him. A piece of him. Maybe. “Goodbye, John.”

Bleary-eyed, she gets out of the car and heads for her apartment without looking back. When she gets back inside her apartment she checks the window that looks onto the street. John’s car idles. A moment. Two. And then, he drives off.

Gone. Completely. Except…

The goddamn keys in her dresser drawer. With tears now blooming down her cheeks, she snatches them from the drawer, drops them in the garbage, and takes the bag out to the trash downstairs.

A person should not have to endure so many goodbyes in so few days. But when they do, there are two options to continue.

Stay the same. Or move the fuck on. And the moment she wonders what would be the use of moving on when she is so broken inside, she hears his voice in the back of her head. Scolding her for her self-deprecation.

She laughs to herself. Every piece of John is not gone.

Never will be.

tag list: @jimmys-zeppelin, @kari-12-10, @grxtsch, @edal-weis, @ritacaroline, @kyunisixx, @salixfragilis, @rebel-without-a-zeppelin, @jimmypages, @dollyvandal, @cassiana-on-dark-side, @thepinklovewitch, @babyl222, @faisonsunreve, @sastrugie, @seventieswhore, @raptorcat1960, @t4ngerinedr3am, @mayspringcome, @barrettavenue, @foreverandadaydarling, @glimmerofsanity, @matty-heally, @lzep, @jimmysdragonsuit13 (let me know if you’d like to be added 💋)

#dead end friends #john paul jones #def #old!jonesy #led zeppelin #fanfiction #john paul jones x oc

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