#Ghost/Reader | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

alnilaem · 9 months ago

Text

you buy a second-hand laptop from a dodgy craigslist user only to make a carnal discovery hidden between the files.

cw for anal sex, face fucking, pet play, choking, masturbation, noncon filmed sex, overall dubcon, reader is fujoing out

ghoap (x reader)

You saw it in a flitting advertisement. Used Acer Aspire V5, female buyers only, and didn’t hesitate to contact the poster.

Ghost was his screen name. Macabre, but not something to dwell on because he’s selling the only affordable hand-me-down you can find. He insisted on meeting at a hole-in-the-wall pub, beneath a metal sheet awning. There’s a cigarette pinched between his lips as you approach, an overripe mask rolled over his broken nose.

“You’re our bird?” He asks in a Manchester hint, exhaling a plume of off-white smoke.

You stifle over that operative word—our—but push through it and meekly nod, preening at his feet.

Beneath the predatory glint of his eyes, you realize you’ve gravely miscalculated the calibre of this situation. Meeting a complete stranger in a gritty alleyway and waiting to pick up his scrap-metal laptop, all because it satisfies your budget.

“Yeah…” you mumble. Try to make yourself invisible even though it’s redundant—he already towers over you, his shadow eclipsing your body, his heat drinking you in.

“‘ere it is,” he grunts. “You’ve got our cash?”

You hand him the crumpled wad of paper, squirming as he passes his thumb over his tongue and folds through the money, counting it with a mean curl of his lips.

“That’s– is everything alright?”

He stuffs the money into his jacket and expells a deep prusten sound, like an idle predator. “Fine. Pleasure doin’ business with you, bird.”

Ghost turns on his mud-clogged boot and strays off, letting the shadows swallow him whole. You hold the bulky laptop to your chest and wield it like a weapon on your way home, finally settling into bed, ready to examine your new purchase.

The hinges creak as you pull it open. A grimace splits your cheeks at the dust crusted in the margins, the rings of juice gummed to the mousepad.

A few letters from the keyboard are missing, and a few strips of tape look dog-eared, peeling from the corners, exposing the laptop’s internal wiring. Gossamer-like, spiderweb cracks work across the edges. The screen is a blotchy eyesore, striated with horizontal lines.

You have to beat your knuckles on the laptop to keep it from jamming. You navigate the desktop with simmering irritation, invaded by the inkling that you’ve been utterly scammed. Nothing matches the photos advertised on Ghost’s account, and just as your annoyance is about to ripen into white-hot anger, something catches your eye.

It’s nestled into a nook on the desktop. It’s an unnamed folder that stares back at you, unassuming, the icon already half-opened and waiting to be examined.

You double click it, more like triple click, actually, since the mousepad decides to cramp, and squirm as the folder flares over the screen. It’s a collection of videos, their thumbnails all spotty and dark, eclipsed by the thumb of whoever’s holding the camera.

Their titles are as cryptic as their photos.

wet.avi; tail_plug.avi; no_prep.avi; with_price.avi.

You find yourself scrolling lower, your fingers working against the mousepad like a rapidly unfurling spool of thread. You decide to investigate one of the videos, one with a foggy, filmy thumbnail, and carefully heed the title before poising your finger above the open function.

johnny_leash.avi

The video is grainy, as if it was imported from a camcorder rather than a phone. The first few seconds are a blurry with grey-scale strobes running across the screen, radiating an aura of seediness that makes a hint of discomfort sink like sediment in your stomach, adhering to your viscera. A deep, damp squelching sound peals out, tempered with the sticky noise of something being broken in, hollowed out.

The camera ebbs, settles, then focuses all at once. You think you’re going to faint.

It’s someone’s puffy ass getting stretched out on a fat cock. It puckers and tightens with each piston-paced thrust, red.

A large hand belonging to the person recording enters the frame. Their hand tattoos stretch as they split their palm across the hind of their spine, the cameraman’s fingers digging sickle-shaped scratches into their back, clawing them down on their battering ram of a cock.

“Quit whinin’, Johnny,” the voice behind the camera loudly grunts.

The one getting split open, Johnny, snivels into the pillow. His spine is curved into the mattress, his ass pert and sticking in the air, rippling with the force of the cameraman’s hips.

A plume of dust travels over the screen, fleetingly concealing the image. When the soot thins into the air and bares the salacious material of the video, you gasp.

There’s a glint caught on something silver from the feeble lightning. It’s a chrome-plated chain, you see, connecting to Johnny’s throat. A leather collar cutting into his ruddy skin. The leash is wrapped around the cameraman’s hand like a reel, and each time he tugs, pulling his hand back as if winding up for an attack, Johnny gets peeled off the bed, his back arching so deep you’re sure it’s close to snapping.

“Shit, Simon—!” He squeals. “Can ye… slow down?”

The aforementioned Simon grunts. Animalistic, like a rabid predator. The camera whirls, the unromantic colours of the room they’re in bleeding into each other, and when it focuses, you see Simon’s large palm splayed against the back of Johnny’s half-shaven skull, gripping his hair, pushing him into the bed.

The man flails like a fish out of water, struggling under his hand. It prompts an emergency response out of you—the way he’s being fucked into the mattress, no doubt pressing a Johnny-shaped chalk outline like the ones at crime scenes into the bedding. Alarm seizes you, and the thought of submitting this to the authorities trumpets like strobe lights in your mind.

The video is written with inept non-professionalism, reeking with the sentiment of a found-footage horror film that it’s not the authenticity that rattles your bones like a wind chime, but the morality.

You tell yourself to stop the video, but as the thought squeezes itself between your ears, Johnny’s hoisting his neck back and peering into the camera, his striking-blue eyes flaring in all-encompassing horror. His lips pop open and wrap around a soundless scream, warbling.

“Yer recordin’ me?”

“Smile for the camera, Johnny,” Simon pants. “Who knows who might see this, right?”

Simon shoots his hand up and bullies his fingers past Johnny’s lips. He sinks his nails into the round of his mouth, stretching his cheek back into a repugnant curl. It’s paradoxial—how Johnny’s mouth is pulled into a smile, but his eyes are wide and wet, wordlessly begging.

Your body betrays your moral plight.

Your rapt ocular vein, the signals rushing to your mind, your nipples stiffening in your shirt. You feel as though you’re made of livewire, not matter, as you watch Johnny’s ass get spread open on Simon’s cock, his eyes rolling like unruly billiard balls to the back of his head.

His ass is red and patchy, burning up. Simon’s hand swats through the air and makes the sound of a whistle, flaring into a booming crack of thunder whenever he brings it down on Johnny’s ass. It makes you jump. Makes you feel as if your ass is being abused by proxy just by sitting, and watching raptly.

Instead of inching your hand towards the button that exits the video, your hand dips below your waistband and moves to cup your cunt.

The gusset of your panties is already hot, clinging to your dewy core. It sticks to your pussy, baring your puffy lips and swollen clit. You give it a few slaps and rub your fingers languidly, pace quickening.

But the video abruptly ends before the ascent to your pleasure is able to materialize. You yank your hand from your pussy, smearing your arousal on the mousepad as you search for another video.

You don’t heed the title—face_fuck.avi—before clicking it and readily spreading your legs, flushing at the sound of your lips parting.

The video starts, and you swear it feels like you’ve been hit with a brick.

Simon—or Ghost, you now recognize—is a behemoth. Huge would be an understatement for him. The camera is set up this time, somewhere across the room, but Simon still just barely fits within the margins. He’s folded over Johnny who sits on his knees with his back against the wall, his neck hoisted up at him.

Simon’s cock is fat and heavy. He’s hard—this, you’re sure of because of how red his balls are—yet still, his cock droops with weight, the bulbous tip scarcely teasing Johnny’s lips.

“You want your snack, boy?”

Johnny nods. He darts his tongue out and tries kitten licking the slit, but Simon isn’t having that. He grips the base of his dick and swats it against Johnny’s cheek, slapping him, the noise so thick and resounding it sounds like a palm that breaks his skin, not a cock.

“Greedy bitch,” Ghost snarls—you decide that name is more seemly for him—“Can’t wait when it comes to dick, huh?”

Johnny’s lips part, a response poised behind his chattering teeth. However, his reply gets snuffed out and shoved to the back of his throat as Ghost feeds him his cock, slamming into him with one, slick motion.

Johnny’s head hits the wall, his face puckering as pain blooms behind his skull. The action makes his jaw clench, clamping down on Simon’s cock, but Simon is quickly gripping his hair and puppeting his head back, sliding his cock deeper, until the tuft of steel-wool hair on his pelvis brushes Johnny’s nose.

“How many times do I have to tell you?” Ghost grunts. “No teeth.”

The only mercy Johnny is afforded is when he sinks his nails into the sinews of Ghost’s thighs, scratching him striated, trying to offset the burn in his jowls. The back of his head thumps dumbly against the wall with each of Ghost’s jackhammering thrusts, his smaller cock springing up and slapping against his navel.

You keen. Rub your clit a little faster, tease your forefinger around your winking hole as spit and precome sticks to Johnny’s chin the same way your juices strings your fingers together. Johnny goes lax and the video abruptly ends, and you almost feel yourself going crazy, hastily exiting the video because you miss the phantom sensation around your cunt getting stretched. You click on another video that has your heart jumping to your throat.

It’s dated from just yesterday, two days after you placed the order with Ghost.

breeding_my_boy.avi

Your panties are completely soaked through at this point. The image of Johnny folded like origami under Ghost, eclipsed by his body, makes you gush. His knees are pressed against his ears and his ass is in the air while Ghost tugs his cock, towering over him and pressing his tip against his hole, slowly sinking into him.

Simultaneously, you hook two of your fingers up your cunt. Your arousal seeps out and pools into the divots between your knuckles, hot and wet, making a sucking sound as you draw your fingers out and thrust them back in, pawing your walls.

Ghost pulls his cock to the tip before driving himself back inside. He’s deeply-seated, knocking the air out of Johnny’s lungs with each stroke. Ghost draws his thighs close for leverage and sinks his fists into the bed, on either side of Johnny before snapping his hips, feeding him his whole cock.

You sink your other hand below your pants and blindly sweep at your clit, watching with keen eyes as Johnny gets pounded into the mattress, his legs thrashing dumbly with the force, his hands twisting into the moth-eaten sheets because he doesn’t know what else to do with his hands and according to Ghost, he’s “not allowed to touch his cock.”

You can barely see Ghost’s sweat in the coarse-grained, gritty video filter. It comes out as glistening dew, dribbling down his neck and onto Johnny’s cheek, to which he swiftly laps up.

It’s the same thing for Johnny’s tears—sparkling in the soft smoulder of light, smearing like spread as Ghost works his rough tongue against his cheek, licking up his brine.

Johnny’s whimpers and the crack of flesh against flesh emanate out of the janky laptop as tinny, thin. However as Ghost lowers his head, grumbling against the hull of Johnny’s ear, whispering, the thin sound travels out of the speakers and punctures your stomach.

“Wish I could breed you, pup…”

Pleasure gyrates in your belly, frothy. You curl your toes into your mattress and buck into your fingers, feeling your orgasm beginning to crest. You pinch your clit the same way Ghost snakes his hand low, trapping the tip of Johnny’s cock between his fingers to squeeze.

“Smile a’ the camera, dog,” he mutters. Takes him by the jaw and dimples his cheeks as he makes Johnny look into the lens, his eyes glossed over.

“Y’reckon she’s touching herself?” Ghost growls. “Watching you turn a mess?”

Your orgasm is on the edge now. Ghost looks at the camera, his eyes glowing like predators do on trail cams, a swill of molten rushing through you. He looks like he did beneath the awning—animalistic, as he seems to stare directly at you, snapping into Johnny’s ass.

“m gonnae come…” Johnny whimpers.

Ghost chokes his hand around Johnny’s cock, sliding his hand up and down to the pace of his thrusts. And with what happens next, your body girdles, throwing itself into the throes of your panoramic orgasm.

It’s Johnny. Bending his back off the bed and squeezing his thighs. He moans your name—your screen name—the one used to purchase the laptop. He treats it like something to bite on to defer the pain of his orgasm, trembling.

Thick ropes of come shoot from his cock just as an off-white liquid escapes you, splattering over the screen. You’re quivering as Ghost fills Johnny, watching as his balls tighten and breathe like a pulse as he comes inside.

The three of you are miraculously synchronized. Your laboured breaths simmer, thinning into nothing, as the two of them turn to look at the camera.

You undertake the decision to keep the laptop.

And a week later while browsing Craigslist’s homepage, you stumble across a familiar username.

Posted by Ghost 32 minutes ago.

Looking for a flatmate in Manchester. Two roommates. Three bedroom. Females only. Serious inquiries only.

A second doesn’t pass before you’re writing up your application.

5K notes · View notes

knightjpg · 6 months ago

Text

Brick by Brick

You have his favourite tea on hand. You ask him what he'd like for dinner this weekend. One time you opened the door for him within seconds of buzzing, like you'd been as eager for his visit as he was. And maybe most devastating of all: you routinely start making too much food for even Simon to finish.

tags: 🔞construction worker simon/neighbour reader, unprotected piv, oral (f receiving), size kink, brief mention of simon's childhood abuse

part 1 | part 2

After that things shift, just a little. You still sit with Simon while he works, handing him tools he teaches you the names of; still try to convince him to get pay for his work around the house.

But you have his favourite tea on hand. You ask him what he'd like for dinner this weekend. One time you opened the door for him within seconds of buzzing, like you'd been as eager for his visit as he was.

And maybe most devastating of all: you routinely start making too much food for even Simon to finish.

“Thought you might want some leftovers for lunch,” you tell him, holding out two tupperware boxes. “If you're working those long hours you have to eat right, you know?”

When Simon opens them at home, just before tucking them away in his work bag for tomorrow, his chest clenches. It's not just leftovers. There's dried beef jerky, a pack of crackers that go well with coffee, and a fist-sized chunk of banana bread. And—

A little note.

His heart hammers against his chest when he unfolds it. It's nearly dark out, crickets chirping soft and low somewhere beneath the window. The only sound in his kitchen is the ticking of a clock.

Good luck today! Don't work too hard :)

“Christ,” he mumbles, fingers tracing over the ink. Pretty. Like you. Like every fucking thing you do.

Summer is nearing its end, and Simon is running out of excuses. Part of him feels proud to see the house shape up to the best it can be, but over the months the boxes have nearly all disappeared. He knows—has helped you unpack God knows how many books. Helped you put together a new bookcase, even.

But if he's no longer useful, what's keeping you from closing your door on him? Dread rises sharp and fast in Simon's throat when he thinks about a dark, cold home waiting for him as his only company. He passes your door on the way home, more often than not sees your silhouette against the warm light of your window. Illuminating the hard dirty edges of him.

You've started feeding him, this big mean watchdog, and he might choke on his leash if you stop now.

“Hello, what is that?”

Simon sharply yanks his lunch away from Johnny's grabby paws.

“None f’your business.”

“Is that bloody banana bread? You've got to be fuckin’ me.”

“That's homemade,” Kyle says unhelpfully from just behind Simon's shoulder.

“Piss off,” Simon grumbles.

Johnny does not, of course, piss off. Instead he grins, cheeky and wide. “Didn't know y’had a bird, Simon.”

“Fuck,” Kyle groans. “Is that roast beef? That smells so good. Where'd you get this?”

Johnny snorts. “More like who's he blackmailin'.”

Simon glowers at Johnny, then says through a mouthful, “My girl.”

If there'd been any hope of them dropping it, it's gone now. Simon realises his mistake as soon the words leave his mouth and Kyle and Johnny light up.

They're incessant. Dog him at every opportunity—who is she? What's her name? What's she look like? Show us a photo, Simon, dinnae be so selfish.

Simon suffers it for a week until he slams his gloves on Price's table and threatens someone's going to end up in the cement mixer by the end of the day if he doesn't do something about it.

They quiet down after that, though they can't help but ask after you every now and then—even Price, who despite his congratulatory shoulder clap admits he wishes he had a sweet thing of his own.

And the lunches keep going. As do the notes, every one of which Simon keeps carefully tucked away in a box at home. He didn't find one last night, and he suppresses the wave of disappointment. Maybe you forgot. Maybe you were just tired, and maybe he's grown too comfortable with your casual affection.

So when a little piece of paper that was stuck to the bottom of the lid flutters onto the ground the next day Simon is unprepared. The two seconds of surprise cost him—Johnny dives after it like a hawk and scoops it before it's barely touched the concrete.

“You little shit—”

Simon's at him immediately, and Johnny, delighted by what he thinks is a funny fucking little game, twists and dodges while fumbling the note open with one hand.

“Looking forward to dinner tonight. Be safe today,” Johnny reads before Simon snatches it from him with a hard shove to his head. “Aww, Simon, you lucky shite. C’mon, give us one o’ those cookies, aye? If you're goin’ home to a candle lit dinner.”

“Get your own cookies,” Simon huffs, and curls one arm around his tupperware protectively while he eats.

Looking forward.

So is he.

“Simon!”

Simon whips his head around and catches you stepping out of your car with a wave. You've arrived home just after him today, and his breath catches in his throat when he sees your dress flutter prettily around your legs.

You're dressed up all nice today—must've been at university, then. Simon doesn't know which he likes better: the shorts you wear at home or the glimpse of cleavage he gets when you wear a nice work blouse.

His dick throbs when he holds his own hand up in greeting, hanging back just to get those few extra seconds with you.

He's not sure why today is especially bad. Probably doesn't help that every time he jacks off in the shower you're the one he thinks of, imaging your pretty lips wrapped around his cock. It's hard to resist the indulgence after a long hard day of sweating and laying brick, then coming home and only getting to look, not touch. He doesn't want to stain you with his filth, but what's he supposed to do? He wants you.

And his desire has sat festering in the confines of his rib cage for months. It curls his hands in tight fists so he doesn't reach for you by accident the way he does in his dreams, keeps him from leaning in to taste your lips to see if they're as sweet as your cobbler pies.

“Alright?” he asks when you get closer. You feel off, distant, and when you nod it feels like it's more for his sake than for the truth of it.

“Yeah. Um.” You adjust the strap of the bag on your shoulder, shifting on your feet. “I wanted to let you know I can't do dinner tomorrow. I'm, um, I have a date, so...”

The spin of the world stutters for a second.

Simon sucks in a quiet breath. “That so.”

“Yeah.” You look up at him with a sad little smile. Not the kind of face you'd expect from someone who just scored a date, but Simon is too wrapped up in his misery to notice. “How was your day?”

Normal. Unsuspecting. Good, even, until you told him some twat is taking you out to dinner.

“Fine,” he hears himself say. Adds, “Watchin’ a match tonight.”

An excuse—an out for both of you. You won't have to feel obligated to ask him if he'd like to come ‘round for a meal, and he won't have to pretend he doesn't feel like throwing up.

“Go Manchester,” you reply with a smile.

Just like Simon, they don't score.

He waits up for you. It's pathetic, really—that of all things this is what gets him to dig around for a pack of smokes. Been mostly clean ever since you moved in next to him, his half-hearted attempts to quit finally mounting up to something with real resolve.

He doesn't want to taste nicotine when he eats your meals.

Even threw out his lighter. Which means when he finds a crushed, dust-caked pack with only one cigarette in it behind his couch he has to light it with a match and shaky hands.

It tastes awful. But it's familiar, and sometimes he craves the burn even when he sees his dad putting out his own cigs on Simon's legs behind his eyelids.

The evening grows colder around him, late summer skies tinted with dark purples and blues. It's quiet in the neighbourhood. He's the only one out this late—everyone else has retreated to the comfort of their homes, ready to turn in for the night.

It should feel peaceful, but all Simon feels is anxious and on edge. Not even the smoke calms his nerves.

Should he back off, leave you to the happiness you deserve? Throw everything away in one last shot, ask to take you out like he's wanted to forever?

Words are no good, but he's tried so desperately to show you that he'd do just about anything if you asked. To let you know that underneath his gruff silences he doesn't bite the hand that feeds him and that he'd rip anyone else to shreds for raising a finger against you.

Simon's head lifts when his ears pick up the rumbling of a car. Is it...?

It is.

Lamplight flashes over the cobbled street, and then the rumble of the engine turns off with a click.

You're alone—thank God. Simon doesn't know what he would've done if you'd taken your date home.

You look worn out, and not the happy kind after a successful lay. Just tired—to the point where you almost don't notice him and jump when you do. You take a startled step back from his hulking silhouette leaning against the stone little fence curling around all the houses along the street you share, before pausing and asking in a soft voice:

“Simon?”

And because he's a masochist he asks, “Y’have fun?”

He expects a yes. At best a non-committal shrug—at worst an enthusiastic smile. But you look down at your shoes, chew your lip, and say, “No.” A breath. “No. It was awful. He was a twat, and he tried to feel me up under the table, and he's been hounding me at university for months, and I got so sick of it I just said yes but now I'm going to have to email HR and ugh—!”

Your voice breaks on the last sentence and you sniffle, turning your face away from Simon so you can give it a quick wipe with the back of your hand.

He's up on his feet in an instant, trying to take slow breaths so he doesn't act on the overwhelming urge to hunt down the wankstain and crush his fingers so he can never fucking touch you again. Your dog bites without warning or remorse, and everything in him wants to show your sad excuse of a date just how sharp his teeth are.

But he can't. You're hurting, and that's more important than breaking some bloke's nose.

And so Simon tries for softness as much as he's capable of it, large scarred hand hesitantly landing on your shoulder. It's all the coaxing you need to lean into his touch, and when Simon shifts a little closer your head falls on his shoulder. He burns with a different kind of fire.

“Sorry,” you sniffle. “I'm okay, I really am, it was just such a—such a—”

“S’alright,” Simon rasps. He pets your hair and strokes your back with a clumsy touch, unsure of how far he should, can, is allowed to go. “Y’should've called me. Would've come t’pick you up, maybe sock him a new one.”

He'd do more than that if you'd let him. He'd take you home and made sure the only time you cried was when he worked his fat cock inside you.

Christ, he's going to hell.

“I didn't want to bother you,” you say in a small voice.

“Sweetheart. You're never botherin’ me.” You let out a shaky sigh, and Simon tucks your head under his chin a little more securely. “Woulda made sure y’got home safe.”

It's quiet, then, save for the sound of a car driving away somewhere down the road. Simon doesn't say anything else. He doesn't want to break the spell that you're under. You feel so soft in his arms, his sweet bird, finally come home to where you belong.

“I kept wishing it was you.” Your voice is so soft he almost doesn't catch it, but before he can process it you pull yourself out of his embrace, cursing under your breath. “Sorry. Sorry—forget I said that. I'm... I'm gonna go home.”

Simon's hand shoots out and grabs your wrist. You stare at him with big wet eyes that has the pit of his stomach swoop low.

“Y’wish it was me?”

His voice is low and rough, strained with want.

Your cheeks burn and you avert your eyes, though you don't pull your hand away. “Sorry. Ignore me, I'm just...”

“I'll take you,” Simon says a little too quickly. “Anywhere you wanna go. Dinner. Movies.” He pauses, trying to remember what people do for fun. “The library.”

There. You hiccup a little laugh, finally, and the beginnings of a smile tug at your mouth.

“The library?”

Simon smiles a little, too. “Anywhere you want,” he repeats. Even the fucking library.

Your gaze drops to your hands, and you carefully turn your palm against his. “I think I'd like that.”

Simon swallows and lets his fingers intertwine with yours. “Yeah?”

“I don't really care where we go, though. If it's with you.”

Jesus bloody Christ.

“Okay,” Simon says, voice tight. “Alright. We'll—we'll figure it out. We'll go somewhere.” A breeze hits you as he says it, and you shiver. “...Right now let's just get you home.”

You nod, the fatigue overtaking your features again. Simon walks you all the way to your door, squints against the night sensor he installed himself.

You hover in the doorway before opening your mouth, closing it, then take a small step forward to rise on your toes. Simon's heartbeat kicks up under your hand where you steady yourself on his chest, and then he feels your lips press against his cheek. It's his bad one, the one with the nasty scar from a bar fight long ago.

“Thanks,” you say softly.

“Yeah,” he manages, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. “’Course.”

The door closes with a soft click.

When you mention wanting to hike out on a trail nearby Simon, true to his word, makes it happen. It's not so bloody hot anymore and it's nice, hearing the birds chirp overhead. Nice to exist in a world where everything is washed in shades of mottled green, hearing the dirt crunch under his feet.

It relaxes him. Makes his muscles untense. You promised him a picnic at the end of the trail, and to Simon's delight he succeeds in coaxing you to feed him bites of your homemade sandwiches in the midst of tall grass and meadow flowers.

When you get home, sweat and sun lingering on your skin, Simon has full intentions of dropping you off at your doorstep and wishing you a good night. Maybe get another kiss if he's lucky.

And he does—but you linger, soft lips hovering over his cheek. His fingers curl and uncurl against his sides, waiting and wondering.

“Please kiss me?” you breathe on his skin, and that's all it takes.

He surprises himself with the intensity of it, but fucking hell, he's wanted you for so long. His shoulders hunch, neck bent low, and he slots his mouth over yours. Your little fingers grab at his shirt for balance, and he pushes you against your doorframe. Every time he pulls away you make a small noise of protest and chase his lips, and though Simon hasn't had a drop of alcohol today he feels well on his way to hammered.

“Do you want to—please come inside—?”

Simon groans and rests his forehead against yours. Fuck. “I want to—want t’do this right,” he rasps.

You exhale with a shaky breath. Your cheeks are flushed, eyes glittering like stars. Simon's stomach lurches at seeing you want him. “Right, um. Of course. I just—I've thought about... about you. For a—a really long timmf—”

Simon groans into your mouth. He cups your cheeks, one hand sliding to hold you at the back of your neck. A sweat breaks out along his spine when he imagines you at night, in your bedroom, fucking yourself with your little fingers. Whimpering his name...

“Yeah? Y’want me to take you to bed, sweetheart?” he murmurs, and you shiver.

The two of you barely make it past the door until Simon is stealing the breath from your lungs again. He's wanted this for so long it's a little hard to stop, even if it's to break apart for air. Miraculously you seem to want it as much as he does, seem as desperate for his touch as he is for yours.

When has anyone wanted him this bad? When has he ever felt like he'd die on the spot if he didn't get inside you right the fuck now?

He doesn't need to ask you where the bedroom is. This place has felt his touch almost as much as yours, has shaped up into a cosy little home that is part of him, too. Like he wants to be part of you.

Simon simply scoops you up and carries you straight to bed, forgetting to be gentle when he deposits on the mattress. His head is buzzing, his heart is thundering, and he needs you now.

Fortunately you don't seem to mind much. Your hands immediately fly to his belt, tug at the metal impatiently, then fumble with his zipper with trembling hands. Simon pulls your top over your head, throws it somewhere on the floor without a care followed by his own.

��Lie back,” he husks, and makes quick work of your trousers. Pauses just for a second to take in the growing wet patch of your panties.

“Simon,” you whine softly.

He drops to his knees and slides his large hands over your thighs, transfixed. He smooths over the goosebumps on your legs, presses a kiss to your knee.

“Want me t’take these off?” he rasps, snapping the band of your panties. You lift your hips in silent assent. Simon helps you shimmy off your underwear and suppresses a moan when a string of sticky arousal clings to the fabric—then follows it right to the source.

You gasp when he kisses your folds before gently spreading them with big warm fingers. “Sweet little cunt,” Simon mutters, and then he goes to town.

He starts with slow, wet licks, feeling out what you like and what's too much. He keeps it light for a while just to feel you squirm and to hear your breathing turn ragged, then backs off just when your knees start trembling. He smiles when you whimper his name with a desperate little “please".

“Such good manners.” His breath washes over your clit, and your hips try to twitch away from him. “Proper sweetheart, yeah?”

It's great fun, playing with you, but his cock is throbbing painfully and he's leaking everywhere, and he very much intends for you to end the night feeling so blissed out you let him sleep next to you.

So Simon hoists you closer, hooks your thighs over his shoulder, and sucks on your clit until you're sobbing his name. He holds your hips down by splaying one big hand over your stomach because you're a sensitive little thing, bucking away from him when he's not nearly done with you yet.

It's cute, seeing you lose yourself to the pleasure. It's also really fucking hot. Simon slowly pushes one finger in you and groans when you clench around him.

“Simon,” you whimper. “Oh, please, please—”

Such a good girl, begging without him telling you to. Simon crooks his finger, and your next breath is a stutter of moans before your whole body tenses and you cum on his tongue.

Simon hums approvingly, keeping his motions slow and steady so you ride it out all the way. When you whine and wriggle away from him he lets up, wiping at your slick covering his chin.

Best meal you've cooked him by far.

“Oh,” you sigh. “That was... Give me—give me a minute...”

Simon chuckles and rises from his knees to crawl over you and steal a kiss. “Feelin’ good, princess?”

“Princess—” you let out a breathless laugh, but even in the low light of your nightstand lamp Simon sees the colour rise in your cheeks. Liked that, did you? You blink up at him, a sweet satisfied smile on your lips. “Mhm. So good. Come here?”

Your hands trail over his sides, stroke over the light hair trailing down his stomach. Simon shudders when your knuckles brush over his cock and he shucks off his trousers further to give you better access.

When you wrap your hand around him he drops his head into the crook of your shoulder and moans. The twitch of his hips is involuntary, too desperate to chase his pleasure to stay put.

“Next time,” you whisper while pulling him forward, spreading your legs wider to fit around his hips, “I want to feel you in my mouth.”

“Jesus,” he groans. It takes everything in him to not just slide in. “We need a condom?”

“I'm clean,” you murmur against his jaw. “On birth control. If you want we can—”

“Fuck yeah I do,” Simon says, and you laugh. Soft eyes when your hands slide over his shoulders, brush through the short hair on his neck. Simon watches your face while he lines himself up without blinking, and he's rewarded with the flutter of your eyelashes, the parting of your soft lips.

Your brows scrunch together at the first few inches, and he kisses you sweetly to make you relax. Simon knows he's not small, and he groans when you clench around him.

“Good girl,” he whispers against your hair. “Good girl. Just like that, yeah? Takin’ it real well. Just like that.”

He slides in a little deeper. You shiver and mewl and beg him for more, and he gives it to you. Anything you want.

“Simon,” you whimper. “Feels so—oh, you feel so good. More, please, please—?”

Simon brushes the hair from your forehead, keeping his thrusts long and slow and making sure to kiss your cervix each time, just because your breath stutters so prettily every time he does.

“Fuck,” he groans. “Fuck, you're so—such a tight little cunt. Couldn't wait any longer, could you? Jus’ had to have me?”

You nod immediately and empathically, eyes glassy with arousal. You try to answer him, but the only thing you manage are airy moans that sound like his name.

That's alright. Don't need to talk. He knows what you want to say; he feels the same. Simon catches you in a messy kiss while lacing his fingers with yours. Yours. Mine.

He shoves his free hand between your two bodies and finds your clit, circling it until he's found the right rhythm that has tears gathering in your eyes. He could live on that for the rest of his life, of hearing you mindlessly stuttering his name while your body tenses up and your head drops back and those pretty lips part in a choked moan—

“Christ,” Simon grits through his teeth, sweat dampening his brow. Your cunt flutters around him, soft little flower in full bloom that, with another thrust or two, has him falling apart as well.

Both of you moan at the feeling of his cum spurting hot and thick in your waiting womb. Simon rocks against you slowly to make sure you get every last drop—birth control or not.

He kisses you on the comedown. You melt into his touch, butter and honey, running your fingers through his hair until Simon shifts you around so you're curled up against him.

In another minute he'll get up and get you a washcloth before tucking you in and kissing your bare shoulders. He'll wrap himself around you before sleep takes you, make sure that he's the last thing you see and hear and touch.

For now he lets himself bask in the present. In having a sweet little bird clinging to him for comfort and giving him more than he could ever ask for in return.

Simon doesn't think you quite realise what you've gotten yourself into, in giving this big ugly watchdog your affection. He's not a king or a prince; not even a knight, not like the ones you read so much about. Simon wouldn't exactly call himself chivalrous or genteel.

But he's just as devoted and twice as vicious. He'll belong to you, and you to him, and from the moment he saw you he was oath-bound.

He'll have to steal a ring or two to measure which size is right. It'll take some work to knock down the walls between your two houses, but he'll ask the lads for help. Simon knows you'll win them over right away if you cook dinner or bake them something sweet.

And maybe in time he'll have to try his own hand at baking. He always did want to put a bun in the oven, and Simon just knows that if you're the one to do it with him—

It'll come out perfect.

#cod mw2 #cod x reader #ghost cod #simon ghost riley #ghost mw2 #simon riley #ghost x reader #ghost/reader #simon ghost riley x reader #x reader #this should've been a 20+ chap slowburn but I'm just not patient enough for that

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nastybuckybarnes · 2 months ago

Text

Rat in the Mouse Cage

Pairing: Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Reader

Summary: There's a rat on base, and all evidence seems to be pointing to you.

Warnings: lowkey mean!soap, angst, language, angst, ptsd, angry!ghost, more of mouse's backstory??,

Word Count: 5.5K

A/n: here it is, the angsty one. I had SO much fun writing this and I reaaalllly hope you guys enjoy! The next few parts are in progress but you should see them soon!

~*~

Soap opens the door to the boardroom, a room you've never been in before, and you follow him when he motions you into the room.

Captain Price is seated at the table, his eyes focused on a file in his hands.

The air is tense, and you're immediately on edge.

"Have a seat," Soap says, his voice hard.

You comply, sitting across from Price anxiously.

"Is... everything okay?" You finally ask, looking between the two men.

Price sighs and sets his paper down, finally lifting his gaze to yours.

"No. Everything's not okay."

You feel dizzy with how quickly the blood leaves your face.

"Ghost... is okay?" You ask after a long moment, squeezing your hands together as you prepare yourself for the worst.

"Yes, Ghost is fine."

You frown, glancing around.

"Where is he?"

Price and Soap exchange glances, the latter standing at the closed door with his arms crossed tightly over his chest.

You've never seen him look so... angry before.

"Listen, I'm gonna give you this one chance to come clean. Don't make this any harder for yourself than it already is," Price warns softly.

"Who do you work for?"

The question catches you off guard, and you cock your head to the side.

"I... I don't work."

Price scrubs a hand over his face, the language barrier only adding to his anger.

He glances over at Soap, and the Sergeant takes that as his cue to clarify.

"We know you've been sellin' information. We need to know exactly who it is you work for. Who your buyer is."

Your mouth drops open in shock at the accusation, but he's speaking again before you have a chance to defend yourself.

"We've already caught you, so don' bother tryna lie your way outta this."

You shake your head so hard you make yourself dizzy.

"No, no! Not me! I-I don't talk to anyone! I don't give any information, I have no money I don't sell anything! Where is Ghost?" If Ghost is here, he'll listen. He can help you. He'll trust you.

You just need Simon.

"He's not here," Soap says coldly.

"I want Ghost, please!" You all but cry.

"Well he doesn't want you!" Soap shouts, slamming his hands on the table. "No one wants a filthy rat!"

The words are spat with enough malice to cut you deeper than a knife ever has.

"Ghost already knows the truth. Had to keep him away or he'd kill ya before we get answers."

The two men watch as Soap's words have the desired effect, your shoulders slumping forward and tears welling up in your eyes.

It hurts them to have to do this, to have to hurt you. You seemed so sweet, so innocent. But if it's what protects the team, so be it.

"I'm gonna ask you one more time," Price says, "Who do you work for?"

You bring your teary eyes to his and shake your head once again.

"I don't work. I don't sell anything and I am not rat."

You're innocent, and this is a hill you'll die on if you have to.

Price heaves out a heavy sigh then nods at Soap.

He walks around the table to you, ignoring the way you shake your head and try to rise up out of your seat to get away from him.

You raise your hands in surrender when he reaches you, not fighting him as he zip-ties your wrists together in front of you.

"Please, I just want Ghost, please," you beg tearfully, trying your hardest to hold back sobs as he marches you out of the room.

Soap says nothing, only leads you down a hallway that you've never seen before.

"Wh-where do you take me?"

He stops outside of an elevator, hand firmly holding your bicep as he waits for it to arrive.

"Holding cells. A cage fit for a rat like you."

Cage. Another cage.

You can feel yourself start to hyperventilate.

You can't go back in a cage. You won't.

The elevator doors open and he pushes you inside, following after and quickly pressing the button marked 'B'.

You stare at the back of his head as the doors close.

"I didn't do it," you whisper once again, your voice soft and full of tears.

Soap swallows his feelings, the regret carving a hole in his heart.

He truly thought you were good, that he knew you, could trust you.

He can only imagine how angry Ghost will be when he finds out who he's been sharing his bed with.

"You may have Ghost fooled, but I can't deny the facts, and they all point to you," he says stiffly.

Your heart hammers painfully in your chest as the elevator walls begin to close in on you.

You can't go back in a cage. You can't. It took you forever to break out of the first one, the one you called home. Now, you've found something good. A real home, a family.

Only for them to turn on you.

Before you're fully aware of what you're doing, you sweep Soap's feet out from under him. You then straddle his waist and knock your fist against his head, wincing when his head rocks back against the ground with a dull 'thud'.

It hurts you to hurt him, but you don't have time to dwell on that.

Instead, you rise to your feet and hit the STOP button, then grab his knife from his belt and slice your wrists free.

Tears cloud your vision as anxiety eats you, and you scrub your hands over your hair. You throw your head back as you struggle to breathe, only for your escape route to hit you right in the face.

Glancing between Soap's unconscious body and the roof opanels, you cringe internally at what you're about to do.

It takes a lot more effort than you thought it would to hunch him over where you need him to be, and then you're stepping carefully on his back and pushing the ceiling tiles aside.

You climb up and out, crouching on top of the elevator for a long moment as you try to figure out your next steps.

~*~

"Simon, a word," Captain Price says, intercepting the man as he returns to base.

Ghost tenses slightly, but falls into a step beside his superior.

"I wanted you to hear it from me first. We've taken your little mouse into custody for now. Soap brought her downstairs for detainment while we investigate further. All our intel shows that she's our rat."

His head snaps to his Captain and he stops walking.

"What are you talking about?"

Price sighs and extends a file for Ghost to read, but the man only stares down at it.

"I know how heavily you're... involved with her, which is why I wanted to be the one to tell you."

"Let me talk to her."

Price doesn't get to give him an answer, he's already marching toward the elevator.

"Simon, this isn't up for debate. She's guilty, and she'll be punished for what she's done. That's the way of the world, son. I hate that you got your feelings wrapped up in this, but-"

"We need to explore all other options before we continue with this. How could she be the rat? She never leaves my quarters unless she's accompanied by Soap or Gaz."

"That you're aware of," Price corrects, coming to a halt beside the man as he waits for the elevator.

"You can't be on this, Simon. You wanna talk to her, you can this once, but after that this is out of your hands. You're too involved."

Simon grinds his teeth together but remains silent.

He just needs to talk to you, that's all. Somehow, he'll prove you're innocent, and this will all be dealt with.

After what feels like an eternity, the elevator doors open, and Simon's heart drops into his feet.

"Soap!"

Price is at the man's side in an instant, helping him into a seated position and checking his pulse.

His hard gaze turns to the Lieutenant.

No words are spoken. They don’t need to be. Simon knows exactly what’s going through the man’s head.

If you’re innocent, why run?

While Price checks on Soap, Simon steps into the elevator, looking up to where the tiles have been moved.

Your escape route, no doubt.

Through there, he's sure you've found a way out through the vents or into the ceiling, but either way he knows you're probably long gone. Lost now somewhere in the hidden areas of the base.

Rather than dwell on that, he's quick to help his Captain bring Soap to the medical wing, silent the entire time.

He knows you're not the rat. Deep in every fibre of his being, he knows. He can feel it in his bones. But his gut feelings aren't enough to sway his Captain.

"I want her found and I want it done quick. We keep this under wraps, no one is to know she's on the loose. The last thing we need is anyone in a panic."

"Let me just talk to her. She'll listen," he tries.

Price shakes his head, "what part of 'you can't be on this' do you not understand? You're dismissed, and if I catch you trying to involve yourself, I'm gonna hafta take it above my head," he threatens.

Ghost says nothing, only grinds his teeth together, turns on his heel, and marches out of the medical wing.

He's not sure where to go, spends a good amount of time pacing angrily through the halls as he tries to figure this out, folder from Price held tightly in his hands.

He hasn't read it yet, he can't.

Though he knows it's not you, he can't shake the fear, the ill feeling gripping his spine at the idea of you being capable of something like that.

Eventually, he discards the file on the desk in his office then heads up to the roof to smoke a pack or two.

He doesn't feel your presence until his third cigarette.

Trying to stay nonchalant, he takes another drag.

"I know you're here," he finally says, blowing out the smoke and looking down at the ground.

His mask is pushed up around his nose, and he doesn't bother adjusting it.

"I'm not going to tell them where you are or... bring you to them. I just... I just want to make sure you're okay. Please."

You stand in the shadows, eyes on his back as you weigh his words carefully before slowly stepping forward.

He turns to you, his heart breaking when he sees your puffy tear-stained face.

"Why do you want me to be okay? Why see me?" You ask, your voice hoarse from all the crying.

His brows pull together and he longs to reach for you.

"Why wouldn't I? All I've ever wanted is for you to be okay."

Your bottom lip wobbles and you shake your head, crossing your arms over your chest as he steps toward you.

"Soap told me... what you really think," you begin, "that you... you don't want to see me. You-you think I'm rat, too."

"He's lying." He says the words immediately, without a moment of hesitation or a shred of doubt.

You glare up at him, taking a half-step back when he reaches for you.

"I'm not going in cage."

"I know." He takes another step forward.

"I didn't do it." You take another step back.

"I know."

"I didn't do it and they-they don't believe me. I save Soap's life! I do everything I can to help! To be good, and they don't believe me! Why don't they believe me?!" Your eyes blur with unshed tears and you suck in a hiccuping breath.

"I don't know," Ghost whispers.

His heart aches for you and he feels anger simmer deep within him at the lies spewed in a pathetic attempt at drawing a confession from you.

"They tell me you will kill me," you whisper, shaking your head as tears slip down your cheeks.

"I could never, Mouse." He takes another step forward, and he's almost close enough to touch you.

"If I don't go with them... they don't trust me. But if I do go with them... they still don't trust me. I am in cage... or they kill me."

Finally, he reaches forward, tilting your chin up and forcing you to look at him.

"I won't let that happen," his voice is harder now. "I won't let any of them touch you."

Your breathing gets quick again and he holds your hand, squeezing tightly.

"Breathe with me," he whispers.

You obey, following his breaths and successfully calming yourself down.

He nods, satisfied, then gently takes hold of your wrists, inspecting the angry red marks left by the zip-tie.

His eyes lift back up to yours and it's like you're seeing him for the first time that night.

"I didn't do it, Simon. Please, I didn't."

His eyes soften and he nods, cupping your cheek softly.

"I know, love. I believe you."

You finally nod, exhaling heavily as if a weight is lifted off of your chest.

He believes you. You knew he would. You knew you could trust him.

"But someone else did, and now they're trying to frame you for it."

It takes a minute for his words to process in your brain, but when they do you're frowning up at him.

"Why me? Who... who would do that?" What kind of horrible monster would do something like this?

"I don't know, little one. But I'll fix this. I just need you to trust me."

You blink your wet eyes a few times at him.

"How will you fix?"

"Just trust me." That's easy enough. You've been doing it since the moment you met him, and you have no intention of stopping anytime soon.

"What do I do?"

He pushes your hair away from your face and presses a sweet kiss to your forehead, then pulls you into a tight hug.

You relax instantly, melting into his arms and snuggling your head against his chest.

He rests his chin atop your head and sighs heavily.

"Just give me time, Mouse, I promise. I won't let them touch you."

Your hands ball his shirt into your fists.

"Where do I go?"

He sighs one more time and closes his eyes, trying to figure that out as well.

Eventually, he settles on telling you the truth.

"I don't know."

~*~

His fist is knocking on Price's office door later that evening.

"Come in."

He's inside the office before the words are fully out of his Captain's mouth.

"I know you said not to get involved," he begins, holding back an eye-roll when Price sighs.

"Simon," he warns.

"And if you tell me one more time then fine, I won't get involved on your side of this," he continues as if Price hasn't said a word, "but there's a rat here, and you need all the help you can get if you wanna flush them out."

Price rubs his forehead and squeezes his eyes shut.

"We already know who the rat is."

"No, you think you know who the rat is," Simon argues.

"All the evidence points to your mouse. Are we supposed to deny the facts because she warms your bed at night?" He snaps, growing tired of this.

"The facts are that you didn't even properly talk to her. You cornered her, ambushed her, threw vile accusations and lies at her to try and get some fake confession from her, and you're surprised that she ran. Those are the facts."

Price leans back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest.

"So, you've talked to her."

Simon places his hands on the desk, leaning forward.

"Let me help."

Price shakes his head, "nothing comes between me and my team."

"Then let me help and nothing will."

Price's thick brows raise.

"Are you threatening me, Lieutenant?"

Silence hangs long and heavy between the two of them and neither man makes an effort to break it for a good few minutes.

Finally, Price speaks.

"The safety of my team comes first before anything else."

Simon nods slowly and straightens back up.

"If that's the case, then it's in the best interests of everyone involved if you let me find the rat. The real rat. Because I'm not lettin' a single one of you touch a hair on her fuckin' head."

It's quiet again for a few minutes, but this time Simon is the one who speaks.

"Three days," he says quietly. "That's all I need."

Price looks at him warily for a long while before huffing out a sigh and shaking his head.

"If you don't have the rat in front of me in three days, regardless of who it is, I'm gonna gas the building with your Mouse hiding in it. Best way to flush out a rat."

Simon grinds his teeth together but nods his understanding, turning on his heel and marching out of the office.

He doesn't go far, only down the hall to his own office where the folder lies.

He plops down in his chair and flips it open, ready to pour over every word until he finds something to work with.

He's only reading for about half an hour before he hears it, soft creaking coming from the ceiling above him.

He knows it's you, but before he can say anything, theres a knock on his office door.

"Come," he barks, tossing he file back on his desk as Soap pushes the door open.

Simon's eyes narrow at the man, the lies he spewed still tumbling around in his brain.

"Heard you visited Price... and you've met with yer Mouse," the mohawked man says, his eyes scanning the room.

"She's not in here."

Soap's eyes snap to Ghost's, the latter leaning back in his chair.

"How's your head?"

Soap nods, looking down for a moment.

"M'not concussed, wasn't her hit that got me, it was the bounce against the floor."

Ghost only shrugs, "can't say you didn't deserve it."

Sighing, Soap leans against the doorframe.

"Are we really gonna do this, Lt?"

"You're the one standing in my office, Sergeant," he counters, crossing his arms over his chest.

They're quiet for a moment, and he knows Soap is going to speak his mind.

"Everything points to her. S'only reasonable."

"And that's reason enough to lie? To spew nothin' but bullshit through your teeth? To scare her? You were tryna get her to confess to something she didn't do to make things easier for you."

Soap steps into the office, his own anger rising.

"That's not true. I tried to do my job. You find out there's a rat, you see the pile of evidence, and any rational person would follow the trail. S'not my fault you're shaggin' the broad 'n now you can' think for your bloody self."

Ghost is on his feet before the man is finished speaking, stalking toward him.

"That's enough, MacTavish," He growls, glaring down at the man.

"You're dismissed. Get outta my office."

Clenching his jaw, Soap turns and leaves without another word.

Sighing, Ghost sits back down and puts his face in his hands.

He knew his teammates had their doubts, but he never realized how deep that distrust went.

After a moment, Simon glances up at the vent in his office where he knows you sat listening to the entire exchange.

"I'll fix this, Mouse. I promise," he whispers.

Flipping the folder open again, he pours himself back into it, reading over everything. Every name, every date, every location, and every piece of information that got leaked.

Finally, after what feels like hours, he finds a comonality other than you.

"Mouse? You still with me? Knock once for yes, twice for no."

He listens patiently, and eventually, you knock once on the vent.

"Perfect. Now, I want you to follow the sound of my feet, okay? We're leaving my office."

Again, one knock greets him.

He rises from his desk and leaves his office, walking slowly and making just enough noise for you to be able to follow him from your place in the ceiling.

He leads you this way and that, finally coming to a halt in a utility closet.

Pushing the ceiling tiles out of the way, he climbs up on a few boxes and sticks his head into the ceiling, his heart easing when he catches sight of you again.

"You okay?"

You nod, crawling toward him.

"Come down here."

You obey, slowly climbing out of the hole in the ceiling and gasping when his strong arms wrap around you.

He holds you in an embrace far longer than he normally does, then tilts your chin up and presses a firm kiss to your lips.

"I think I've figured it out, little one. But I need something from you in order to prove it."

You nod eagerly, desperate to clear your name.

He sighs and nods once, then opens the door to the utility closet, looking both ways to make sure no one's around before motioning for you to follow him.

You do, staying only a half-step behind him as he leads you through a door and into a stairwell.

"This way."

You follow closely behind him as he leads you down a flight of stairs, looking around as much as you can as you try to figure out what his plan is, where he's taking you.

Finally, he leads you down another hallway and stops just outside of a door.

He looks at you, his eyes suddenly serious, far more serious than you've ever seen them, and you can't help the nervousness that chews at you.

You pick at the skin around your nails absentmindedly as he places a hand on your cheek, cupping it gently.

"'M'gonna ask you to do somethin'... somethin' that I know you're not gonna wanna do. But I just... I need you to trust me on this, okay?"

Your brows pull together at his words.

"Okay..."

"Do you trust me?" He asks his free hand on the door handle.

He doesn't open it. He needs you to confirm out loud to him and to yourself before he opens the door.

You nod, looking between him and the door anxiously.

He grips your chin more firmly and forces your eyes to stay on his.

"I need you to look at me when you say it. Do you trust me?"

Your stomach flips and you need to wet your lips before speaking. Your skin crawls at this, at the intensity of his gaze, the unknown behind the door.

"I do. I trust you," you finally confirm.

He lets out an audible breath of relief, and then he's pushing open the door and your heart is falling into your stomach.

Immediately, you shake your head and take a step back, only for him to catch you and halt you in your tracks.

"No."

Simons sighs, tugging you forward gently. "Mouse, please."

You shake your head more firmly this time.

"No," you repeat, "I-I can't. I won't. No more cage."

Simon looks over to the holding cells with a heavy heart, then pulls his eyes back to yours.

"I know. But this... this is the only way. You need to trust me."

You yank free from his grip and take a step away from him as tears cloud your vision.

"I-I didn't do it. Why do you bring me here?"

You look at the cells then back to his eyes and shake your head once more. You thought you could trust him. You thought he trusted you.

"Please, Simon..."

He reaches for you, tries to pull you into an embrace, only for you to step away once more.

Where you'll go, you have no idea. You just know that you can't... you won't go back in a cage.

"Mouse, I promise you. Three days is all I need. And then I'll come let you out and you'll never have to look at this place again. I swear it."

"No."

He sighs, rubbing a hand over his forehead. He doesn't want to do this to you. If he could prove your innocence without this, he would. But he knows his team, his captain. He knows what it'll take to get the truth out.

"If we don't do this, they're gonna gas the building with you inside, and you'll die."

Your fiery gaze finally returns to his and for a moment he wishes it didn't.

"I'd rather die than go back in cage."

His heart cracks in his chest.

"Please, Mouse. For me. Please. Trust me, just this once."

Your bottom lip quivers as you stare at the cell, eyes getting distant as horrible memories of a past you long to forget creep up on you.

Finally, you suck in a sharp breath and turn to look at him again.

"Three days?"

He nods immediately, his shoulders relaxing while his eyes soften.

"Yes. Three days at most, I promise. I swear, on the memory of my nephew, three days."

Reluctantly, you walk forward, looking at every cell before stepping into the one in the corner. The largest and the darkest.

Your shoulders are tight by your ears as you look around.

It has a thin mattress on the ground and a toilet in the corner. Over half the cell is shrouded in darkness, and the other half is in direct view of the door.

It's bigger than the cage you grew up in, but the sick feeling doesn't leave your stomach as your freedom is brutally ripped from you once again.

Simon squeezes his eyes shut as he closes the door behind you, his heart hurting.

Knowing what he does about you, about your past, this feels like the ultimate betrayal. Arguably one of the worst things he could put you through.

But he needs to.

You flinch at the sound of the lock clicking, not turning to face him even as tears start to trickle down your cheeks.

"Mouse..."

You shake your head, wrapping your arms around yourself in a pathetic attempt at comfort.

"Go," you whisper.

You don't want him here, watching you like some caged dog.

His hands wrap around the bars of your cell as he tries to get you to understand.

"It's not permanent, I swear."

"Go!" You snarl, a hiccuped sob following your words.

And just like that, the floodgates open.

You press your hand to your mouth to muffle the sound, but you can't hide the shake of your shoulders, the way you curl in on yourself.

It breaks his heart.

Silently, he takes a step back, then another, and another, pausing when he reaches the door.

"I'll be back for you. I promise."

~*~

Somewhere, somehow, between blinks, you fall asleep.

One moment you're closing your eyes to blink, the next you're waking up groggy and stiff.

Ghost stands at the door to your cell, a tray of food and a bottle of water in hand.

He needs to swallow the lump in his throat before he speaks, his heart breaking seeing you like this.

"I brought you food... thought you could use some company."

You're curled up in a ball in the corner of the cell, eyes teary and red as you glare at him.

He put you here.

It kills what's left of his soul to see you like this.

"Things are coming together, won't be much longer now, I promise."

You say nothing, only keep your icy cold glare focused on him as he sets the food down and slides it through the opening at the base of your cell.

The sound of your sniffles plagues him, and he wishes none of this happened in the first place.

He watches you for a moment longer, his eyes sad, before turning and leaving you alone once again.

When he finds out who's framing you, he's going to have his fun with them.

You're alone for only a few moments before the panic sets in once more.

Your chest rises and falls rapidly as you struggle to suck in short gasps of oxygen, nails scratching at your neck as you search desperately for your necklace, for the one item that's ever made you feel safe.

Tears run like rivers down your cheeks and you moan out your sorrows.

What would your mother think if she saw you?

She sacrificed everything, everything, for you to leave one cage only for you to willingly walk into another.

You shake your head at yourself, at your foolishness.

This was probably their plan all along. They probably know your father, they've probably gone to get him.

Scrambling to the tray of food, you grab the knife and desperately try to pry at the lock of your cell. When that proves fruitless, you jam the blade into the hinges, sobbing hopelessly.

The knife slides against the metal and finds its way to your thigh, slicing you nice and deep.

You hiss at the pain and drop the blade, stumbling backward then sliding down the wall.

It's useless. There's no escaping.

You start to feel dizzy as your thoughts overwhelm you, and before you know it you're whispering soft apologies and prayers in your mother tongue. Begging for peace, for freedom.

As you whisper the words, something dawns on you.

From the moment of your birth, you were promised nothing but pain. And life was only too eager to oblige; bestowing upon you torment after torment, loss after brutal loss.

Until finally, you broke free. You found your salvation, your Ghost, only for him to be another painful reminder that freedom is not something you were ever meant to taste.

~*~

Price meets Ghost in the boardroom at a ripe 0500hrs the following day, a steaming cup of coffee in a paper cup held tightly in his grasp.

Soap follows shortly after, on high alert.

Gaz trickles in last, the least tense of the three and possibly the most innocent in Ghost's eyes.

"So?" Price asks, looking around the empty room.

"Where's my rat?"

As if on cue, there's a firm knock on the door.

Ghost slaps the tablet he was holding against Price's chest and makes his way to the furthest corner of the room, content to spectate.

"Come in," Price says gruffly, eyes dropping down to the tablet in his hands.

His brows draw together, and then he's looking up at the newcomer.

"Corporal Matthews."

The young man salutes his superiors, then steps into the room, looking around curiously.

"What's going on?"

Price has already pieced it together, giving a short nod to the masked man in the corner.

"Why don't you tell me?"

Gaz and Soap exchange glances, the former shutting the door and leaning against it, blocking any form of escape.

The Corporal chuckles nervously and looks between the three men before swallowing hard when Price steps forward.

"So... you think it's funny what you've been doing? Care to explain to me what exactly you find so fucking funny about this?"

Soap clenches his jaw, dread bubbling in his stomach.

A sick part of him hopes Ghost is wrong, that Matthews isn't the rat, if only to absolve him of the guilt he's sure will eat him alive after all he did to you. All he said.

"What are you talking about?"

"Enough with that, son. We know it was you. Don't make this more difficult than it already is," Price whispers. In his eyes is none of the anger that was there when he spoke to you. No, instead there's nothing but disappointment.

Simon's anger will be enough to cover the whole team, and then some.

"Well, what about the Lieutenant's whore? Huh?" Matthews defends, glaring at the men. They bristle at the words, eyes darting to the hulking man hiding in the shadows in the corner.

"Funny how you knew exactly what we were talkin' about," Soap says, stepping forward and squaring up with the man.

So it's true. He was wrong about you. And he has no idea what he's going to do to fix it.

Price hands the tablet to Matthews and watches as realization dawns on him slowly.

On the screen is live video footage of the holding cells where a familiar mouse is curled up in a ball, rocking back and forth.

"She's been in there for days. This latest leak? Happened last night. Couldn't've been her. We set you up, and you took the bloody bait."

"Well it's her fault anyway!" Matthews suddenly explodes, tossing the tablet onto the table angrily.

"If she wasn't fuckin' the Lieutenant then Jacobs would still be alive! If he didn't have his face in her snatch every night, he'd see that she's a fuckin problem!"

Silence hangs heavily in the room for a long moment as Ghost rises to his feet and slowly approaches the other man.

"You wanna tell 'im that?" Price asks, nodding over the Corporal's shoulder.

He glances back then does a double take, spinning around and backing up only to run right into Soap.

Ghost stops right in front of him, glaring down at the man.

Corporal Matthews tries to hold his ground, to not be intimidated by the huge man in front of him, but he's seen firsthand what this man -this beast- is capable of.

"Didn't get to have my fun with Jacobs, prick died quick. But you can bet 'm'gonna take my time with you."

#simon ghost riley x reader #simon x reader #simon riley #simon #simon ghost riley #ghost and mouse #ghost/reader #ghost x reader #simon riley x reader angst #ghost x reader angst #mouse and ghost

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inkbybambi · 1 year ago

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bodyguard!simon riley who takes a bullet for you —

words: 2.9k rating: e warnings: nightmares, guns/shooting, gunshot wound, hospitals, smut, creampie, cunnilingus, mentions of threats against reader, threat against reader, lowercase writing — please let me know if i missed any! notes: 18+ content, minors dni. warnings have been provided.

He's been assigned to you for two-ish years now. You weren't thrilled at first, and neither was he — but he didn't make it as obvious as you did.

"I don't need a babysitter," you had damn-near hissed when he was introduced.

"I wasn't hired to be one," he counters coolly, which only serves to irritate you further.

Actively ignoring his presence — as much as you could when your company moved him into your apartment — even though you begrudgingly made room in the counters and fridge for his things, even going as far as investing into a better kettle so he could make his tea and clearing out an entire cabinet for all his tea, sugar, and steeper.

He trails you quietly as he was hired to; keeping close enough to always have you in his sights but far enough away that people wouldn't be able to clock his association to you — or so he thought.

Six months into his contract with you — an unknown amount of time left, as Price never answered and soon he stopped asking — he wakes in the middle of the night from a scream he never thought would come from you.

He rushes to your bedroom, gun in hand with his finger resting on the side — not the trigger. The front door is locked as he had left it, windows unbroken. He almost thinks he might've associated it with one of his own nightmares, until he sees you.

Curled in on yourself, face tucked into your knees, fingers threaded at the nape of your neck as you struggle to breathe properly, hiccups and sobs breaking between your stuttered breaths.

He knocks gently on your door, not wanting to startle you. You jump a little, regardless, but lift your head to look at him.

"'m sorry," you mumble, voice rough, "I didn't mean to wake you."

And you hadn't. You thought you were done with these awful nightmares, the ones gnawing at the edges of your mind during the day.

"'S'alright," he replies, tucking the gun into the waistband of his sleep shorts, walking carefully towards your bed. "You okay?"

The look he receives damn near breaks his heart.

He learns, that night, that an attempt had been made on your life before. More than once.

They never got close enough to do any harm, you say, but then swallow thickly and clutch your bicep where Simon sees a scar that he never took notice of previously. They didn't get close enough to do anything worse, you amend, chancing a look at him.

"I had security then, too," you explain, wiping your tears with your hand, playing with the blanket. "It didn't change anything."

Something shifts after that.

He starts cooking for you — with you, when there's time — and you bring him a cup of tea each morning. The bookshelf in the living room, previously only half-filled, collects Simon's books. You give him the login to all your streaming services, and ignore the pointed look he gives you when he sees some trashy reality tv show in your continue to watch queue.

He doesn't complain much when he stands behind you during an episode, arms crossed, asking a question here and there. You sigh, exasperated at having to explain everything, telling him to sit down as you start the series from the beginning.

Nine months into his contract, your nightmares become more frequent, and worse. You don't understand why. You were getting better, you cry in Simon's arms after a particularly rough night.

"Sometimes these things happen," he tells you softly, gently petting your hair, tucking you under his chin.

"Make them stop, please," you beg, even though you know he can't. he wishes he could.

He starts sleeping in your bed.

He's so warm, your cheek pressed into his chest, feeling more secure than you have in months when the weight of his thick, tattooed arm slings around your waist. He presses a kiss to your forehead at night, and you burrow into his side.

He starts taking the balaclava off at night.

A morning where you blessedly don't have to be up early, grey clouds hang in the sky, the promise of a storm later.

"G'mornin'," he says, voice rough with sleep, feeling him flex and stretch beneath you, groaning as his body relaxes. A flash of heat snaps through you.

"Morning," you reply, only half-awake, tilting your head up to drag your lips across his jaw, prickling with stubble.

He cradles the back of your head, fingers thick and comforting, tilting you back until his mouth slants over yours. He holds you so carefully, like glass, as his tongue slips into your mouth, hot and heavy.

The sheets rustle as he moves to lay over you, free arm resting by your head as your legs hook on his hips, trying to draw him closer to you.

He nips at your bottom lip as he rolls his hips, the heat of his cock through his boxers frazzling your brain. You mewl, his tongue back in your mouth, moving his hand to grip your waist and drag you up against him, moaning low in his throat when he feels the wetness seeping through your panties.

"Fuck," you breathe out as his mouth moves over your cheek, down your jaw, kissing the sensitive skin behind your ear.

"Say please," he rumbles.

"Simon, please," you whine, fingers curling at the base of his skull and scratching, and he snarls against your skin, sinking his teeth into the side of your neck as he tears your panties off, pushing his boxers down enough to free his cock.

You're so wet for him, slick coating your thighs as he drags his cock through your folds.

He usually takes his time — using his fingers and tongue to open them up first, wanting to feel the wet heat of their cunt and the spurt of their release to know they're relaxed and ready for him. He eats pussy like he'll die if he doesn't, will happily spend hours between your legs if you let him.

But with you? He feels feral with need.

"It's big, sweet thing," he rasps into your skin, lips hovering over that sensitive spot on your neck that he sunk his teeth into earlier, notching the head of his cock at your entrance. He's not trying to brag, it's just a fact.

You claw at him, the sting of open scratches burning his skin so pleasantly.

"It's okay, don't care," you pant, gripping him hard enough to leave deep crescent marks in his skin, angling your hips up to draw him into your cunt yourself.

He grips your hips with both hands, slowly pushing his thick length into you, nails digging even deeper the more he pushes in.

"Feels so fucking good," he says, tongue laving over your throat to collect the thin sheen of sweat that coats your skin. "Could fuck you forever," he groans, your breath hitching.

You make a strangled noise low in your throat. It's been awhile since you've fucked anyone, and you've never fucked anyone as big as him before.

The stretch feels so good, though. Your cunt clenches around him as he sinks in deeper, mind glazing over as you focus only on him.

"Fuck," he whines when he finally seats himself fully into you, nuzzling into your neck, overwhelmed by the heat and slick, "good fucking girl, taking me so well."

He swallows thickly, waiting a couple heartbeats to enjoy this — it's been awhile for him, too.

"Think you can take it, love?" and his fucking voice. You would agree to do anything as long as you could hear that rough accent along your throat, teeth skimming your skin.

"Yes," you breathe out harshly, moving to wrap your arms around his shoulders, needing him close, close, closer.

For a man of few words, Simon has a filthy mouth as he fucks into you, accompanied by groans and growls into your collar.

"Never had a cunt this perfect." "Fuckin' made for me." "Can't wait to get my tongue in you, feel you cum on my face." "No one else can have you." "You're mine."

And you, normally far more verbal than him, are reduced to nothing more than mewls and pleas and moans for more.

You mouth and nip at his jaw when you can, wanting to mark him, wanting to stake your claim. You'll be his forever if he lets you, but you'll be damned if anyone else gets to have him either.

"Simon — " is the only warning you give before you cum on his cock, head thrown back as you moan through the waves of pleasure, release coating his length and thighs.

"That's it, baby, good girl, give it to me," he says, blunt nails digging into your waist as he grinds himself deep into you. You feel so warm and pliant, the pleasure numbing your mind as he rocks himself into you.

"Wanna feel you give me one more, angel," he bites at your throat on the other side, his need to sink his teeth into every inch of your skin overwhelming. He hooks your legs over his shoulders, fucking into you deeper, hitting that spot inside you that has you seeing stars and your toes curling.

You grip at him again, clawing as he fucks into you, the sound of your wet cunt taking each thrust creating a symphony with his groans and your cries. He feels so fucking good, splitting you open and making you whole, desperate for him to cum inside.

The way your nails dig into his shoulder is the sign that you're getting close, and he thrusts just a little harder, a little meaner, your cute whines growing more desperate as you walk the precipice of another orgasm.

No one's ever made you cum more than once — sometimes, not even once — and you've never been able to do it yourself either.

Simon? Fucks a second orgasm out of you like it's his life mission, ankles tightening around his neck as pleasure lines your veins, shaking as he continues to hit that spot inside you as you cum, prolonging it as much as he can.

"Baby — " he chokes out, sharp teeth on your shoulder, thrusts getting sloppy. The slick of your two releases sounds so loud in your bedroom, feeling the desperation as he thrusts, deeper, harder.

"Cum inside," you mumble against his cheek, nails scratching at the base of his skull as he thrusts once, twice, three times — the warmth of his release flooding your cunt.

He fists the sheets in one hand, nails dragging down your thigh as he pumps deep into you, your slick and his release seeping out of your hole, dripping down his balls and your asshole.

You stay like that, lips brushing, breathing in each other's air as you slowly come down from the high.

Simon gently — so gently — lowers your legs, carefully watching your face for any signs of discomfort, settling them on his hips, hands moving up and down your thighs. "Y'alright?" he asks. You swallow thickly and nod, both hands now at the base of his skull, affectionately scratching at the nape of his neck.

He slowly pulls out, and you miss the stretch and the warmth immediately. You push up on your elbows, watching as the mixture of your pleasure leaks out of you, biting you lip.

"Fuckin' beautiful," he says almost reverently, mesmerized.

He spends the next hour cleaning you up, and you think your nails create permanent marks on his shoulders.

Time bleeds together.

His contract renews on the twelfth month.

He heard rumors that Price might switch him out for another guard.

You're at the meeting — it's your bodyguard, after all, they figure you should get some input. Price has two separate folders prepared. A sharp look from Simon is all Price needed to know about how he feels. The tongue lashing you give your higher ups has Price raising his eyebrows, and Simon sits forward a little more should he need to haul you out over his shoulder.

He wouldn't mind that too much, he thinks, but he'd rather not.

Ten minutes later and you're angrily signing his renewal papers, a blotch of ink at the start of your name as you didn't even read the contract before signing, lungs burning from your rant about personal safety and what the fuck are you thinking and I didn't just buy an entirely new tea set for nothing.

You grip his wrist as soon as he signs himself, dragging him to the nearest bathroom.

His hand covers your mouth as he fucks you deep and slow.

"Don't worry, darling, 'm not going anywhere."

Eighteen months into his contract, and he's never felt so little control before in his life.

He's meticulous, prepared, tactile.

There's a gun in his holster for distance threats and a knife in his sheath for those who dare get too close.

He makes sure to memorize the exists before you even get to the venue, now making no effort to conceal himself.

He's like a shadow, or a guard dog.

You've never felt more secure, more protected.

Until —

He doesn't know how it slipped past him.

He let his eyes linger a little too long on the curve of your neck, where a new diamond pendant lay with his initial engraved on the back. He admires the dip of the dress you wear, open-back that shows the enticing expanse of your back, the dress covering you above the curve of your ass. You look back at him briefly while whomever you're with speaks, eyes sparkling in the bright light of the room, a smile reserved just for him.

He hears the cock of a hammer and his eyes snap to a gentleman who brandishes a gun like he's never held one before in his life. His eyes, though. His eyes are like fire, black with rage, staring at you with such hatred.

You look one second too late.

Simon is on you right after the click of the trigger, pushing you to the floor and caging you with his body.

"Stay down and don't fucking move," he growls as he reaches for his own weapon, up in a flash.

You can't hear anything except white noise and screams that sound muffled, heart pounding and making it hard to breathe. Two shots ring out, in tandem, and there's the telltale sign of a body hitting the floor.

Simon is by your side, eyes scanning, frantic, looking for any signs of harm.

"You okay?" he asks, carefully outstretching his hands to let you stop him from touching you should you want. you don't.

"Fine," your voice cracks, and you can't stop shaking.

"You're okay, you're okay," he says, cradling your cheeks, thumbs wiping under your eyes. "I'm so fucking sorry," he adds, guilt heavy in his chest.

You grab his wrists lightly, tears streaming down your cheeks as you look him over. You gasp, unable to catch a real breath, unable to look away from his stomach.

"Simon — " you say, horror laced in your voice.

He looks down, seeing the red seep through his shirt.

Fuck.

At least it wasn't you, he tells himself.

Nineteen months into his contract, and he isn't dead.

While he's been shot before — a fact he tells you, assuming it would comfort you, but only got him a venomous glare in return — it's been awhile.

The hospital, the stitches, the gauze and needles. He hated it then and he hates it now.

Price comes to you in the hospital — they're keeping Simon for a little, to make sure there's no complications with his healing — offering another guard in the interim while he recovers.

You've never shot down a proposal so quickly in your life. The nerve.

Twenty-two months into his contract, and the last of the moving boxes are taped shut and labeled. Some of them in your writing, the others in his. The keys to your new house are tucked into his pocket, alongside a black velvet box.

"Why do we have so much shit," you whine when packing, only two boxes deep and so many rooms left to go. You're too busy stuffing a manatee shaped steeper into a box — mana-tea, you giggled when he opened it, him rolling his eyes fondly in reply — and don't see him pause, looking at you softer, never hearing "we" before like that. Never dreaming he could hear it like that.

A lot of stalling on your part and encouragement on his, and the last box is packed and placed in the back of the truck.

He laces your fingers together as you drive to the new house, a bottle of champagne already chilled.

Twenty four months into his contract, and you come home with something hidden behind your back.

You smile like you have a secret, which would be a first.

It's awkward to bring around from your back, but there's a large German Shepard puppy wiggling in your grip, tail wagging furiously.

He feels his heart stop for a moment, unable to take his eyes off the puppy, and then the band that's sitting around your finger. He touches his own subconsciously.

You set the ball of fur down, who immediately launches at Simon, whining and wiggling and trying to give him kisses.

There's a collar and tag already there, and you watch with your heart beating faster than ever, unable to stop the smile on your lips, as he wrangles the pup enough to read it.

Riley.

#ink by bambi #simon riley/reader #simon riley x reader #ghost/reader #ghost x reader #simon riley/you #simon riley x you #modern warfare imagine #modern warfare fanfic #simon riley imagine #simon riley smut #mondern warfare smut

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granddaughterogg · 11 months ago

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Simon Ghost Riley crying

Yes, we'd all love to know Simon "Ghost" Riley in a biblical sense.

But may I also offer you:

Simon kneeling down and pressing his masked face firmly into your chest, those huge arms enclosing you in a desperate, ironclad embrace. You two stay this way until that hulky body of his actually remembers how to motherfuckin' cry. And longer still, until he gets it all out. Until your T-shirt gets all soaked with tears and snot. How very Romantic.

Once he starts, he can't stop. It's pouring from him like from a broken faucet, wide shoulders heaving and low, raspy sobs constricting his throat. He shudders and gasps as if he's regurgitating broken glass, one jagged shard after another. That's what it probably feels like anyway.

You'll never talk about this after. Yet unbeknownst to you, some key has been turned in the obscure lock that is Simon Riley's tortured mind, and for him there is no going back.

I can dissolve into a fuckin' puddle right in front of her and she still won't reject me.

I am safe.

#ghost call of duty #simon ghost riley #simon riley x reader #modern warfare #ghost headcanons #simon riley #cod ghost #simon riley/reader #ghost/reader

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rejectedbytheempty · 8 months ago

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be honest, wouldn’t firefighter!ghost hit? like reader first meets him when she’s caught in a house fire and he saves her, gathering her in a bridal carry. reader is so grateful that every week she brings food to the firehouse. ofc price, soap, and gaz all take notice of this girl and how she looks at simon. simon is ofc oblivious to this, and one night admits that he likes reader and the whole team is like ??? are you stupid?? she likes you too dumbass

live ghost reaction:

#hehe imagine #simon riley x y/n #simon ghost riley x reader #simon riley #simon riley x you #simon riley x reader #ghost/reader #ghost x you #ghost x reader #ghost x y/n

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wildechildwrites · 10 months ago

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Attitude Adjustment

Simon "Ghost" Riley/Reader

Word Count: 1.5k

Warnings: Light angst, violence

No use of Y/N

Summary: Ghost beats the shit out of you no I will not elaborate

A:N: Ghost's hands are rated E for everyone

AO3 Link: Attitude Adjustment

You're sitting in furious silence during the mission debrief, Gaz and Soap shooting you sympathetic glances that you pointedly ignore, Price's anger filling the room like natural gas, smothering you. Ghost leans against a wall, shadowed and silent.

Price finally dismisses everyone else with a bark, and you’re left alone with your fuming captain and his silent lieutenant, haunting your peripheral.

“You ignored a direct order.” Price’s voice is gruff, leaving no room for argument. You know you should apologize, but you can’t stomach it. Not when you saved his goddamn life.

“You think I was just going to let them kill you?” You ask, indignant. Price glares at you.

“I think, corporal, that you ignored a direct order from your commanding officer.” Price’s tone is sharp and dismissive.

"You put yourself and the rest of your team in danger. You could've been killed. You almost were."

“But sir–” You object, still trying to justify yourself. If he would just listen– Price shoots up from his desk, stabbing a finger towards the door.

“Don't fucking argue with me," He growls, chest heaving. "Get out."

You stand, stunned, feeling your traitorous tear ducts begin to sting. Ghost has offered nothing, and you catch his cold gaze before spinning around and storming out, slamming the door behind you.

You knew you were out of line, had vaulted out of order the moment you ignored Price, the moment you ignored every instinct the military had beaten into you, but it wasn't fair. He would’ve pulled the same stupid bullshit if the situation was reversed. You scrub angrily at your eyes, potent rage bubbling in your chest. He was singling you out on purpose, angry at you for something he would’ve excused had it been anyone else. You turn a corner, stomping down the hallway.

Soap is lingering near your room, acting far too interested in the leaky ceiling tiles. He spins around to face you when he hears your footsteps, opening his mouth to say something, but you cut him off before he can speak.

"Just don’t Johnny.” You snarl, aiming for a biting tone. It comes out as a plea, and the Scotsman gives you a pitying look that just stokes the rage curling in your chest. He steps in front of you, trying to slow your momentum, and you purposefully slam your shoulder into him, ignoring him as he calls after you.

You make a beeline for the gym, heading for a punching bag. Your fingers are numb, and you can’t stop shaking, so you throw yourself at the bag, hurling punch after punch.

“Price ripped into you good.” Ghost calls out from behind you. You jump, throwing him a sour look over your shoulder in response. You hadn’t heard him come in, unsure of how long he’s been standing there.

“You ripped into him right back.” He observes. His gaze is cold, prickling along your spine. You bite your tongue, landing a hard kick on the bag.

“Heard you also barked at Johnny.” He adds, as if an afterthought, his tone deceptively casual. You know then that you’re in real trouble. You’d been a bitch to Mactavish, and now Ghost was here to defend his honor. You roll your eyes, giving yourself that small amount of defiance before turning to face him.

He’s wrapping his hands, standing on the sparring mat closest to you. He cocks his head, eyes flat and expressionless, but the challenge is clear. You're angry enough to take the bait, abandoning your punching bag.

Ghost wordlessly gets into a fighting stance. You mirror him, waiting for the lecture, and the first blow almost knocks you on your ass.

You’ve sparred with Ghost before, but you don't think he's ever hit you that hard. It's staggering, and you double over slightly. Simon doesn’t give you a second to recuperate, throwing another punch. You barely dodge it, sliding under his arm, aiming for his ribs. You’re sloppy, and he blocks you, adding a shove to throw you off balance. It’s a dirty move, one that pisses you off even more, and you’re back on the defensive, protecting yourself as Simon throws another punch, harder than the first. You block it with more success, then move closer, aiming low. He blocks you again.

You’re panting, already exhausted from the mission, heat in your cheeks, anger building. Ghost has the advantage, twice your size and fucking mean, and you’re just trying to defend yourself. That’s all you’ve been doing all fucking day, defending yourself from your own goddamn team.

You kick him hard in the stomach. Ghost seems unaffected, those cold eyes unreadable. You throw another punch, putting all your weight into it, and he grabs your arm, using your momentum against you, flipping you over his shoulder. You slam onto your back on the mat.

“What the fuck Si-” you snap, and he kicks you in the ribs. You scramble backwards, trying to regain your footing as he advances on you.

“Price is too relieved that you’re still alive to give you a proper punishment for insubordination.” He says. "I have no such scruples."

Ghost’s blank expression doesn’t change, not even when he slams his boot into your shoulder, sending you tumbling onto your back again. You glare up at him, your chest heaving.

“Fuck you.” You spit.

“You need to remember who your superiors are,” Ghost continues evenly, ignoring you.

You go to stand, and he knocks you over once again. You practically snarl at him, shooting out and grabbing his leg. Using his body weight against him, you bring him crashing down onto the floor next to you, then slam your knee into his stomach, knocking the air out of him. Your victory is cut short when Ghost grabs you and flips the two of you over, pinning you to the floor with his body weight.

“You scared all of us,” he says. His eyes are still flat and cold. “Pull something like that again, I’ll pop your shoulder out of socket.”

You grapple against him, cursing, but he just tightens his grip, pinning your arms. It hurts, your shoulders and ribs screaming, the air being crushed out of your lungs by the weight of the giant man on top of you, but you keep fighting him.

“Get off,” you rasp. Ghost leans down, his face inches from yours.

“Are you done being a brat?” He asks lowly. You manage to twist one of your hands enough to dig your fingernails into his stomach. In response, Ghost grabs your wrist, pulling your arm behind you with enough force to wrench your shoulder. You’re completely immobilized.

It’s all too much. The exhaustion and pain, the anxiety of the mission, the humiliation of being reprimanded, the indignant rage that’s been bubbling inside of you. Everything comes crashing down, tears you’ve been fighting all day suddenly pouring out. You let out an involuntary sob, and Simon lets up, just enough to allow you to breathe, keeping you pinned beneath him as your tears build up steam.

“There’s our girl,” he says, his gravelly voice uncharacteristically soft, almost frayed. It only makes you cry harder, keening wails muffled by the large man on top of you.You're confused at the sudden switch, overwhelmed and disoriented. He rubs comforting circles into your wrist, and you’re falling apart, coming unspooled.

You sob until you run out of tears, your cries trailing off into sniffling, and only then does Ghost let you up. The anxiety and anger is gone, leaving tender exhaustion, the soreness from the fight a tangible sensation, grounding you.

“I think a hot shower is in order, corporal” Ghost says gently, helping you to your feet. You’re wobbly, trailing after him on unsteady legs as he leads you to the locker room.

He leaves you to it, disappearing back into the gym, and you strip, letting the warm water wash off the rest of the day, standing under the stream until your eyes are drooping.

To your surprise, Ghost is waiting for you when you get out, eyes closed, head resting against the wall. He looks tired, his dark circles a bruised shade of purple, showing through the half smeared off black paint. He opens his eyes, expression unreadable, and you sit down next to him.

“Apologize to Soap, will ya? He’s gutted. Sensitive, that one,” Ghost grumbles, rolling his eyes, but there’s real warmth behind the gruff, dismissive tone of voice. “And the next time you want a lashing, come straight to me instead of stomping about.”

Heat rises unexpectedly to your face, and you open your mouth to protest.

Simon holds up a finger, silencing you before you can say anything.

“Don’t fight me on it, we both know that’s what you needed. Price would've gladly taken you over his knee, but I figured you’d bite our heads clean off at the suggestion."

Your brain short circuits, your mouth opening and closing wordlessly as you stare at Ghost. He holds your gaze unflinchingly.

“I should, um,” you stutter, stumbling to your feet, “I should go find Soap.”

You practically run to the doors, and you swear as you step into the hallway you hear quiet laughter, echoing behind you.

#if I say this is a vent fic are yall gonna be weird #looney tunes pt 3 coming soon promise #ghost #ghost mw2 #simon ghost riley #ghost cod #ghost x reader #cod x reader #cod mw2 #reader insert #ghost/reader #simon riley x reader

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theres-a-body-here · 11 months ago

Text

Try and tame me, I'll ruin you

Simon "Ghost" Riley x Male!reader

TW: Cigarette burns, Degradation, Bondage, Homophobic slurs

Simon's jaw clenched at the feeling of rough rope biting into his wrists as he tugged half-heartedly against his restraints. A shiver ran down his spine as the cool air kissed his bare skin, but he refused to make any sign of discomfort other than a slight twitch of his eyebrow from under his mask.

Simon's gaze followed the smoke curling up from the end of your cigarette, watching it rise lazily toward the ceiling. He took another deep breath, wincing slightly at the tugging sensation coming from his bound wrists. When you leaned closer, his muscles tightened protectively around himself, but he didn't move away. Instead, he just stared back at you, unblinking, daring you to make the first move.

You slowly bring your fingers to your cigarette, staring at his eyes through the holes of his mask as you take a drag. After a few seconds of tense silence, you blow smoke into his face.

The smoky scent invaded his nostrils as the puff of white clouds floated between them. Simon tried to hold his breath, turning his head away to avoid the worst of it, but it still made his eyes water. Irritation flashed across his features momentarily when he caught sight of your amused expression through the haze.

Involuntarily, his hips bucked upward as his cock twitched - a reaction he tried to suppress immediately after realizing what happened.

Once the smoke cleared, leaving the smell of burnt tobacco lingering in the air, his shoulders stiffened momentarily before relaxing again, a low growl rumbling from within his chest.

You're the first to break the silence. "Do you remember the safe word?"

Your gentle tone seemed almost surreal, contrasting sharply with the thick tension currently ramping up. It felt like a trap waiting to snap shut any second. Still, he found himself answering honestly, albeit gruffly, "Yeah."

As if reminding himself, he added, "England."

You nod, bringing the cigarette up to your lips for another drag.

Following your soft exhale, you reached out with your free hand to wrap your fingers around his shaft. Simon watched your every movement carefully, observing how your fingertips traced the veins running along its length. He fought the urge to push further into your grip, instead letting out a shaky sigh as you started stroking him gently.

His hips jerked forward involuntarily, pressing deeper into your grasp, even though he knew better than to expect anything more than this teasing gesture.

Your hand continued moving rhythmically up and down his shaft as you brought the lit end of your cigarette close to his face. The heat radiating off the cherry made him aware of its presence before you blew a cloud of smoke directly into his mouth and nose.

Choking on the acrid fumes mixed with the thrill coursing through him caused Simon to become light-headed, and the sensation intensified as you continued to stroke his cock firmly. Each pull sent sparks flying behind his eyelids, making him dizzy.

You couldn't help but notice the twitching of his cock and the way his face contorted under his mask. "You're a sick fuck for enjoying this, you know," you mocked, disgust lacing your voice as your face twisted into a snarl.

He replied nothing at first, simply glaring back at you defiantly. But after some thinking, he spoke. "I know," he replied dryly, unable to deny your accusation. Even if he wanted to.

Twisting your wrist, you applied pressure to the sensitive underside of his throbbing tip, eliciting a strangled moan from deep within his throat. In response, your fingers tightened their grip on his cockhead, swirling in slow circles, causing visible shivers down his spine.

"Fucking fag," you spat out venomously, punctuating each word with extra force as you suddenly ground the lit end of your cigarette onto his thigh.

Pain shot through him, causing his muscles to tense in response. Instinctively, he tried to pull away from the source of pain, forgetting about the ropes cutting into his flesh until blood began trickling down his forearms.

Gritting his teeth together, he held back a yell, knowing that giving you the satisfaction of hearing him scream would be far worse than enduring the pain ripping through his leg. The agony spread rapidly through his system as the searing heat sank deep into his thigh.

The smell of burning flesh wafted through the air from where the burning ember left its mark, yet he remained silent, save for shallow gasps escaping through clenched teeth.

Despite the foul aroma in the air, you appeared unfazed by his display of pain. If anything, it seemed to irritate you more than anything else. Picking up the nearby lighter, you flicked it open and relit your cigarette. Taking a long drag, you released another plume of smoke in front of him.

Leaning in closer towards his throbbing cock, you placed both hands on his muscular thighs, carefully avoiding the tender spot where your cigarette burned him seconds earlier. Slowly, you stuck out your tongue to drag it along the underside of his erection, savoring the taste of saltiness coating your taste buds as you collected drops of pre-cum dripping from his tip.

At first, there was only silence, but soon enough, a guttural groan escaped Simon's lips. Hearing his own ragged breathing echoed back at him stirred something primal within him. He swallowed hard, willing himself not to react too much as your moist tongue lapped at his cock. The heat from your freshly lit cigarette tickled his inner thigh as it hanged loosely in your fingers.

You opened your mouth wide, swallowing his length whole without warning. Choking sounds came from the back of your throat as you tried adjusting to his girthy cock.

Feeling the back of your throat constrict around him sent shockwaves down his body, forcing him to bite his lower lip in an attempt to remain quiet.

The warmth enveloping him felt like pure ecstasy compared to the chill creeping up his spine. However, he managed to maintain a blank stare, barely acknowledging your efforts as he focused on regaining control over his racing heartbeat. Simon was determined to hide how much you were affecting him.

Slowly but surely, you forced yourself to relax your throat, allowing him to slide deeper inside until your nose nuzzled against his pubic hairs. Choking sounds escaped your throat as you struggled to accommodate him entirely, but determination etched itself onto your features.

Determined to break him, you began gulping down on him hungrily, causing your nose to dig deeper into his dark curls. Finally, you saw him react - a low moan vibrated through him as it slipped past his lips, resonating throughout the room. He arched his back ever so slightly, exposing himself more vulnerably to you before catching himself.

But it was too late.

A burning pain shot through him once more as you harshly pressed the end of your cigarette against his thigh once again, seemingly punishing him for reacting.

"FUCK!" Simon yelled out loud, a strangled sound erupting from deep within his chest as pain ripped through him like fire racing up his leg. Writhing wildly against the restraints binding him, his cock jerked erratically inside your mouth, slamming repeatedly against the back of your throat

Gritting his teeth together, he squeezed his eyes shut tighter under his mask, trying to focus on the pleasure rather than the burning sensation spreading quickly through his leg.

Slowly pulling back, you revealed his gleaming wet cock, now fully exposed to the cool air. A small string of saliva connected your bottom lip to his head before breaking free and landing on his stomach with a soft splat.

Glancing up briefly, you met his gaze hiding behind the mask, watching closely for any hint of emotion. Instead, all you found was a cold, defiant gaze staring back.

Huffing, your fingers wrapped firmly around his saliva-covered shaft, stroking him gently at first. Simon's hips involuntarily bucked forward, silently urging you to continue.

Noticing that you hadn't relit your cigarette, Simon allowed himself to relax just a little, focusing solely on the sensations flooding through him instead of anticipating the next wave of pain. Soft whimpers began escaping from his throat as he gave in to the sensations caused by your movements. Each tug brought forth louder noises, gradually becoming uncontrollable as you increased speed and intensity.

Barely recognizable words fell from his mouth in sync with every stroke. Every inch of him trembled as waves of pleasure washed over him. "Fuck…yeah…right there…"

As your hand continued moving up and down his length, you casually pressed the ashy end of your unlit cigarette against his ball sack, leaving a faint gray stain on the surface.

Following suit, you drew a crude heart shape on his sack using the leftover residue. The sight alone made him shiver visibly even as you maintained your fast pace.

His cries became increasingly desperate as he felt knots in his stomach and his body tense.

Moments later, he warned you, his voice desperate and rough "I'm gonna cum."

Without missing a beat, you switched positions, grabbing hold of his cock with both hands and stroking vigorously, using one to rotate on the shaft.

Simon's orgasm hit him hard, making him throw his head back with a loud yell as jets of cum shot from his tip.

Thrusting helplessly into your grasp, he shot thick ropes of semen across your face, painting streaks of white on your cheeks and forehead. Afterwards, droplets slid lazily down your face and onto your shirt, pooling in various spots near your collar.

A sigh of exhaustion escaped his lungs as he collapsed backwards onto the mattress, closing his eyes behind the mask.

Disgusted, you stood up abruptly, wiping your face with the back of your hand. Cum smeared across your cheekbones and chin as you turned away from him. Striding confidently towards the nightstand beside the bed. Opening it, you rummage through its contents.

Finding what you were looking for, you picked up a hand towel cloth and wiped your face as you glanced back at Simon. A strange sense of satisfaction settled inside you as you watched him lay there panting heavily, spent and vulnerable.

After cleaning off the remaining remnants of semen from your face, you returned to the nightstand drawer and searched through its depths again. This time, your fingers brushed against metal instead of fabric.

Withdrawing a folding knife, you flicked it open smoothly before leaning over him. Carefully, you reached over and placed a hand on his shoulder, rolling him onto his stomach.

Simon seemed too blissed-out to resist as you started working on the knots binding his wrists together. They fell loose eventually, releasing him from his bondage completely.

Watching him lying motionless on the bed, you noticed the peaceful expression painted on his face. His eyelids fluttered open occasionally, revealing a serene look underneath the mask.

For once, he looked almost content—completely different from the usual brooding exterior he presented most days.

You leaned in closer, softly patting his head. "You want me to run you a bath?"

"Mhm," came a low murmur from his limp form to your question, his breathing slow and steady as his face was planted into the soft blankets.

"Ill take that as a yes."

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pricetagged · 4 months ago

Text

that death is a very stable job

Poor little Dormouse, with her cruel father and labourer's hands. You find an unexpected guard dog in one of the passing knights.

Enjoy 4.8k words of half inaccurate-medieval, half poorly-built-fantasy AU. Inspired by a few existing historical AUs (like @bi-writes 1600s au, 391780's 'the rus') and a scene from 'The Serpent Queen'. Also, I stan 'old grizzled dog with a heart Ghost' so here you go.

Warnings/content: implied domestic abuse/sex work (not Ghost), very mild suicidal ideation, violence, power imbalance (social hierarchy ew), kissing & intimacy (no smut. yet.). Reader is described as a young woman, generally body-neutral (one reference to being 'plump').

-----------------

What makes betrayal so potent is that, by its very nature, it can only come from someone you trust. Of course, as a child you knew little of the abstracts and intricacies of trust. You knew the warmth of your mother's bosom. You knew the sharp, lingering smell of lye that clung to her chapped hands. You knew that you were not hungry or hurt for those blissful early years, at least.

You did not know that you had a father.

He spent those blissful, early years of yours fighting for a King and cause that meant far less to him than the pocketful of coins he earned and promptly spent on pleasures. But a soldier cannot earn coin in times of peace, not if he weren't a member of the standing army, so with treaties signed he shipped back to neglected wife and babe.

You did not know that fathers could be cruel.

Your mother protected you as best as she could, but slippery riverbanks and lixivium fumes were hardly safe for a little girl. So you learned to scurry about, eyes wide and feet soft as a dormouse. When your mother's whimpers and father's shouts split the silence of dusk you crouched and covered your mouth lest his attention switched to you. On the rare times your father called for you, you remembered your mother's hushed advice - be quiet, be meek, be sweet - and bobbed along to the waves of his fickle moods. When your stomach growled and gnawed you stifled it with a look at your mother's wan face, her fingers worked to the bone for mere pennies that were no longer spent on peat and produce. You lived in a cold house, an empty house. A strained house.

'Look at the size o'her, running wild, eating me out of house and home!' Lies. Your father hunched over your mother's shaking form, three meager brass farthings spilled across the crooked kitchen bench. 'You put her to work, or I will.'

The lye stung your skin. Sometimes you imagined yourself floating off, down in the frigid waters, your funeral clothes being salvinia and your shroud made of pennywort. Those thoughts rose like lily pads, big and blooming and plentiful, the autumn your mother passed.

'You've really got to work now, girl,' your Father sneered. 'Got to earn your keep now that your mother can't cry on your behalf.'

The glint in his eye pricked at your neck, made your spine stiffen and eyes shift away. Be quiet, be meek, be sweet. You wondered if your mother's advice would save you from his basest assertions, or encourage them. You would soon find out.

----------------

Ordinarily the Mid-Autumn festival was a slight reprieve, allowing a few days for your aching, numb fingers to warm and stretch as you enjoyed the city turned to colour. Ordinarily.

This year, you found yourself hauled down to the drinking district, your Father's blunt, filthy fingers digging into the soft meat of your upper arm. It was still daylight, thankfully, but you already felt exposed as he had you linger in the square near the public houses. You could already hear the hoots and laughter of raucous men enlivened by drink and company. The smell of stale ale and piss was not enough to cover the scent of fresh baking and roasted game drifting on the breeze. You shivered, your burned, you hungered.

Meek little dormouse, scurrying around the greasy ferret who held her tail under his claws.

Your Father's chance came as the sun was setting, candlelight just now visible through the slats and windows of taverns. Far from cozy, it reminded you of the lidded eyes of some lazy predator about to watch your ruination.

'I don't care if you are crusader to the gods themselves! Knight of the Realm or not, you can't come into my pub and throw furniture around like you're at the Solstice games!'

The snarling Madame looked comically small next to the absolute beast of a man currently ducking under the doorframe. Watching her chuck the splintered leg of a chair after him you thought her lucky that he didn't want more of a fuss. You had never seen a man so big, so broad, seeming bigger whilst dressed still in his mail and wearing the colours of the King. He merely grunted as he made his way to the tethering post, letting her threats and screeches fizzle into the cool, twilight air. Leather-gloved hands worked at the harness of the dappled stallion you had been admiring earlier, easily more than 18 hands tall and capable of carrying this brute. You had imagined earlier slicing that very harness and riding hard across the cobblestones away from your father. Away anywhere.

'Good sir, are you in need of lodgings?' The words dripped from your Father's lips like ichor. You could smell the sickly underlying rot.

The Knight's hands stilled, head still lowered. His voice rumbled out, deep and rough as gravel.

'You offerin', then? 'ow much will that cost me?'

'Well, it's busy in the Festival. The guest houses are full but my home is open to weary travelers-'

A barked laugh cut him off. The Knight raised his head, pinning your father in place like a moth in a hobbybook. You quickly looked away, pretending to busy yourself with a nearby fruit cart. His face was covered, a dark black slash across his lower face like an empty maw. But his eyes. You could have drowned in those eyes, dark as they were. They pulled you in more than the call of the river on your bad days. If you stared too long you'd never wade out.

'Ain't you charitable,' you couldn’t see his mouth but you were sure that he sneered.

'Well, a former soldier should be willing to support the Crown. Although, with a mouth to feed a few coins wouldn't go amiss..' his hand swept back and you tried not to cringe away.

'Former solider, eh?' Your Father clearly had the Knight's attention now. As did you. Though you continued to look away you felt his gaze like you felt touch. Like he was grasping you, keeping you still. Your head felt heavy as you raised it towards them, now a part of this bargain whether you wanted to be or not.

'I know what it's like to seek the comfort of a warm hearth and soft bed. I would not see you ride off into the cold night.'

The Knight huffed; you could almost mistake it for a laugh. Though quiet, the voices and laughter of the nearby inns seemed quieter, like all sound and light was absorbed by this armoured beast. Once, just after your mother died, you headed to the riverbank as always for work. It was barley daybreak, some of the older more experienced women already beginning their washing, but you walked on. And on. Until the river led you to its mouth, rushing and rocky and dangerous. You wanted to jump in. You felt the same now, gazing at this man.

'How much for the girl, then?' He looked right at you as he said it, catching your wide, staring eyes. You didn't blink, couldn't look away.

'She is my daughter! Sir, I-' that same rot, spewing out of his mouth.

'I didn't ask who she is, I asked 'ow much?'

Your Father took a step towards him, faltering under the weight of his gaze. He leaned, then, trying to seem ashamed. Trying to seem like a father should.

'Sir, she is my daughter. I can do nothing but take offence at what you are suggesting.'

The Knight pulled out a small velvet purse, heavy and distended with coins. They clinked as they smacked into the cobbles at your Father's feet. All pretenses dropped, then, as he scrambled to pick it up with greedily shaking fingers. Prize in hand, he found his courage as he sidled closer to him, thick neck open and exposed as he leaned in to whisper his betrayal. His filicide.

'She's a bit older, yes, but unused to the ways of men, mind. With a firm hand I'm sure she cou-' a gloved fist at his throat turned perfidy to gasps. You watched red bloom instantly under those fingers, and marveled at the strength. The violence.

'Your own daughter,' he sneered. 'What kind of man, soldier at that, would sell his daughter to a man like me?'

Your Father was bigger than you, yes, but looked like a poppet in the hands of this beast, so easily dragged towards him ready to be shaken in his maw.

'I'd love to think that she isn't yours, that she's some whore you peddle out to drunken leches in the alley. But you're slimier than an eel in birdshit, aren't ya?'

You didn't move, didn't speak as you saw his fingernails scrabbling uselessly against the unforgiving strength. You, for a small moment, felt the claw release your tail. Run, you thought. A look at this behemoth and his horse had you thinking again. Run where?

Be quiet, be meek, be sweet.

'Please!' The plea bubbled up your throat like acid.

He said nothing, did not loosen his grasp, as he tilted his head like a dog.

'It is as he says. He is my father,' you continued.

A scoff stilled your words.

'Some father, look at the state of ya.'

You looked down at your chapped, scarred hands. Your patched, slightly-too-short skirts. You felt the throb of the bruises on your upper arms, the beginnings of hollowness eating away at your usually plump cheeks.

'You mistake me, Sir,' You could barely hear your voice over the blood rushing in your ears. 'I am not asking for his life. I am asking you to take me with you. Please.'

Silence. His eyes flickered over you anew, contemplating. Your hummingbird heart fluttered in your chest.

'Close y'r eyes, girl. Until I say.' Your shocked hesitance made him growl. 'Now!'

The imprints of tavern candlelight burned behind your lids. You let the corners of your mouth flick up.

----------------

Your Knight's name was Simon. The Ghost, it was rumoured. You weren't seasoned on the field so you knew not of his reputation, but the reaction of those you encountered gave it away. Even without the blood staining his hands he was imposing. Tall, broad, intense. You still hadn't seen under the kerchief he kept around his face, but you spent many nights imagining. Was his nose crooked, or was it a trick of the light on fabric? Did he have stubble across his jaw that matched the fine, blond strands that decorated the top of his head? Did he smile? Scowl? Was he handsome?

He was gruff, certainly. You spent the first few days obeying your mantra - be quiet, be meek, be sweet -but it didn't provoke anything in him at all. Neither praise nor censure. It seemed, rather, that he was determined that your presence would be nothing more than a fact of circumstance. Not worth much fuss.

'She needs winter clothes. A nice dress. A travelling cloak. And some boots.'

That was how you found yourself perfectly still, getting prodded and pinned in the parlour of a tailor shop in the city's mid-tier. The seamstress' cheeks burned red as she turned her disapproving eyes between her task and the Knight who refused to leave the dressing area. He dwarfed the chaise, leather and chains indenting delicate brocade. After a grunted 'She's my Charge. If you want my coin, then 'm not leavin'' he sat silent. Just kept his eyes on your face. As always.

You couldn't find it in you to feel embarrassed. He'd done no more than see you in your petticoats, even at the guesthouses where you lodged for the night. An altogether better set up that you could've envisioned for yourself. You had thought your Father like a sly weasel, thought any future husband like a carrion crow ready to pick over whatever your Father left. But you thought Simon like a grizzled old guard dog. A dormouse held no interest when bigger prey was to be had. When you didn't pose a threat.

He clothed you. Fed you. Ordered hot bathwater for your room - a luxury you had never experienced - and otherwise left you alone. All he touched you with was his gaze, steady and unashamed. Strange how you now saw your silence -quiet, meek- as a barrier.

'Where are we going?' You worked up the courage to ask as you rode behind him up to the next tier of the city, seeing wooden roofs change to tile.

'The Palace.'

'The Palace? What, but what about me?'

'You asked me to take you wiv me, didn' ya?' you felt the rumble of his words all the way from his chest to your arms.

'Yes, but.. What, what will I do there? How will you explain this?'

You realised now your lack of foresight. You foolishly assumed that someone high-ranking wouldn't be starting brawls in lower-tier taverns. Or magistrating over scoundrels due to the sale of their daughters. You thought, perhaps, of an impoverished country knight who came to the city only for the festivities. You could bargain your way (or slip away) if he turned out to be just as bad as your progenitor, and make a living in one of the towns or hamlets that stretched along the woodlands of the Kingdom. Foolish girl.

'No one will ask questions. No one will bother ya,' You believed him, felt the threat in his words.

'But they'll think. They'll wonder.' I wonder, you thought to yourself.

'Can't stop that,' He snorted. 'Why don't you ask me what you really want to ask?' He pulled sharply on the reigns, causing you to clutch hard around his waist and whisper your words pressed into his back.

'What are you going to do with me?'

------------------

"Ho, Simon! Hard to drag ye from yer hermitage in Northmire,' you stared as a smiling Isleman slapped your Knight hard on the back, hooking his arm and dragging him down into the booth. 'And ye've brought a wee Bonnie thing with y-'

'That'll do, Johnny,' Simon growled. Still, he let himself be handled onto the bench. He looked at you, standing still, staring at the other side of the table. 'Well? You sitting down or wot?'

You scrambled down beside him, too timid to sit next to the laughing stranger. Too wary to put your back to the rest of the tavern. Past Simon's profile, you snuck a peek at the man - Johnny - and found him looking back at you. He looked friendly, sure, but you were reminded of the harriers that plucked young hens from the woods. His eyes were too sharp, too bright. His smile was a little wicked, too. Too intense to be without danger.

'Well, the King'll be happy. He'll finally have a real reason to say naw to all the harpy mothers pecking at him about their single daughters. Cannae say I expected it, but congratulations,' You blinked. 'Cannae believe you beat Garrick to it an' all, thought fer sure he'd be the dutiful one. Well, first that is.'

Simon ignored him as he flagged down the serving girl. He ordered for you, as always.

'Bit bold of ye, though, plastering her in your colours. Scared o' a challenge to her? Like anyone would chance their arm seeing her wi' you, Your Grace,' Johnny laughed again, blue eyes shining as he watched Simon's jaw tick under the scarf. 'Go oan then, introduce us.'

'Dormouse, meet Johnny.'

'Aw, come oan!' Johnny leaned over, then. 'He's forgotten his manners all the way oot in Northmire. I'm John MacTavish, of the Northern Isles. I've known this one fer a while, but never knew him tae settle.'

You squeaked out your own name in return, quickly taking a sip of the weak ale Simon pushed in front of you. Gave yourself more time to take stock. He too had the King's colours in a sash across his chest. Unlike Simon, he wasn't wearing full mail or a face covering. A heavy shirt of forest green, a red tartan kilt, and thick knitted socks were his attire of choice. Blue warpaint swirled from his temples down to his jaw, and he'd shaved his hair only on the sides. Not commonly seen in the Tiered City, but you knew the islanders to the North of the mountain wore similar garb. You let your eyes catch the glint of a dagger in his socks, as well as the hefty broadsword hooked by the table. The warpaint on his face was not just for decoration.

You stayed quiet, munching on thick slices of bread dipped in broth as they talked, Low, rumbling voices and warmth from the hearth lulled you to a wakeful sleep, eyes still open but mind calm. MacTavish had called Simon 'Your Grace'. You were wearing his colours. You were going to the Palace. Something about that niggled at you, deep at the base of your skull.

You woke to Simon gently sliding you along the bench. Big hands and stained fingers so soft, like you were an overripe damson he wanted to preserve.

'Time for bed. C'mon, mouse.'

'Why do you call me that?' You murmured, still feeling his arm around you as he led you to your rooms. 'I never told you that was my Mother's nickname for me. Dormouse.'

You felt him huff out a laugh, pressed close against you.

'Didn't need ya to. It's obvious.' he answered after a pause. He leaned down, bracing you against the room door. Only his scarf separated you from his flesh, close as you were. Wide eyes meeting dark. You shared the same breath.

'You're quiet like one. Seem sweet. But I saw you'd be willing to chew y'r own leg off to escape a trap,' he whispered that horrible truth so tenderly. His blunt, calloused fingers left firetrails on your cheek. 'My mouse. My survivor.'

His thick forearm braced your back as he opened the door, stopping your from tumbling into the emptiness behind. He needn't have bothered; you'd already fallen into him.

-------------------------

'How many more days' to the Palace?'

'Two, if we don't loiter. Johnny'll meet us at the gates to the Citadel.'

You looked up, seeing the Palace fortress taller and more intimidating than it had ever seemed down at the city's lowest levels. You were awed by the mason and marble buildings up here, the clean streets and cleaner people. Everything seemed to gleam this high-up. This close to the sun. Close to the Palace. Your skin had started to heal, after a week or so without labour and with good meals and rest, but you could see the discolouration that would never fade. It made you pick at your sleeves. Dormice didn't gleam. They hid.

You looked at the wide streets and their sun-bleached stones. Nowhere to hide here.

'And when we get there? What will happen?'

'We'll greet the Court. I have news for the King. They'll be a Ball f' the Festival. And you,' Simon stilled your steps, 'You will be good. You'll do as I tell ya. Not everyone is a friend. And I won't always be wiv ya.'

Perhaps you imagined it but you swore you could see something soft - warm - in those dark eyes of his as you nodded. You had years of experience avoiding the attentions of predators; you could do the same for Simon.

When you reached the Citadel Gates Johnny was waiting as foretold, chatting with a guardsman by the pulleys. He perked up as he spotted Simon's horse, all dappled grey with black skull harness. A proud danse macabre, carrying The Ghost.

'Here they are, the Duke and Duchess of Northmire! Let them pass, go oan. Here, raise his banner.'

It was a good thing that your blood turned to ice in your veins; it prevented you from letting go of Simon's waist. You watched as a square banneret in the same colours as your new travelling cloak - and dresses, and overskirts, and, and - rose to flutter slightly below the banner of the King. The wind lured the heavy fabric to thwack against the sky, echoing the drumbeats of your tambour heart. What were you marching towards?

Johnny had mounted his own stead, canting a light pace next to you and Simon.

'Ye should hae seen the ponces and pricks - sorry, My Lady - who came riding up here in their carriages this mornin'. I ken they think they were showing off but the guards and I were havin' a barry laugh watching the wheels get stuck in the cobbles and streets from the mid-tier all the way up-'

'Y'r point, Johnny?'

'Alright, cool yer blood. The point is, we've got tae change our travel plans. Be at the Palace tomorrow, nae a day later.' He sent Simon a significant look that you weren't so stunned as to miss. 'We've got a night hosted by Garrick's sister, then we'll be off in the morning.'

'Garrick's sister' was a comely, slender woman with sharp eyes and a kind smile. She, or rather the Garrick family, kept a townhouse in the top tier close to the Citadel as well as their estate at Thamesbury. As a close peers and allies of her brother, her doors and hospitality were open to you all. You didn't want to seem like the uncultured urchin you were, but even the entry hall surpassed any luxury you'd seen thus far. You had to suppress an instinctual flinch as her manservant stepped behind you to reach for your cloak. Or perhaps the lessons from the streets were written all over your wide eyes. You saw Johnny chew on a smile as Simon glared down at the man, massive arms crossing across his great oak chest.

'That'll do,' he growled. 'There are saddlebags to be seen to.'

The poor man scarpered with a stuttered, 'Of course, Your Grace.'

You stared after your Knight as he stomped up the stairs, heavy footfalls disturbing the frames of the Garrick ancestors across the walls. He looked back, silhouetted with a hand outstretched.

'C'mon then.'

His rough, warm hand enclosed yours and you followed him to exegesis.

Ensconced in your chambers - shared chambers, marriage chambers - you found your tongue.

'Should I be calling you 'Your Grace'?' Be meek, be sweet.

He snorted, inelegant against the filigree and flowers that bore witness to your unsettled feelings.

Be meek, be sweet. Be meek, be sweet. Be meek-

'I do not speak in jest, Simon. Sorry, 'Your Grace',' Your mouth twisted, trembling with the force of holding back. 'I asked you to take me with you, yes, and I have tried not to inconvenience you beyond…beyond the circumstances of our meeting. But I must demand, now. Tell me what is going on.'

He merely tilted his head, old grizzled dog on a velvet chaise. You could see his lips - what did they look like, what did they feel like? - move under the black of his kerchief.

'We're in a guest room, talkin'. Listenin' to you ask stupid questions.'

'If the question seems stupid it is because you have made it so!' You felt your stubby nails bite into your calloused palms. The feeling made you shake, brought tears to your eyes. Shame and fear turned saliva to acid. You flung your hands towards him. 'Look! You see these. These are not the hands of a girl addressed as 'Duchess'. If this is a joke, I ask you to stop it now. I am grateful to you, I will remain so always, but playing in this manner is lower than whatever my Father had-'

"Do not. Compare me. To that man.' His growl cut you from cutaneous to cartilage, exposing your raw, soft innards. You hoped he'd be kind. Even if he chewed on your heart, popping gristle between sharp canines, perhaps you'd be a part of him, dripping down his throat with an intimacy you longed to initiate.

Viper-quick, your hands were in his. Your lap was in his too. Too warm, too bulky, too close.

'Quit y'r squirmin'. Look at me, no. Look!' Your jaw was turned more gently than you expected from hands made for violence. You couldn't meet his eyes, but that mattered not as he brought your hand and his up to your sight. 'Look. My hands aren't delicate neither.'

You took a deep breath, feeling him pant underneath you, and reached to cup his hand in yours. Butterfly-soft, you turned it, watching candlelight catch on silver scars and pockmarks. Deep gouges and veins raised valleys between knuckles and wrist. One finger seemed slightly too short, like the top joint had been lost in some gruesome accident. When you looked at the palm, it was calloused. You had already felt its roughness, deep imprints from years of work. Of war. He flexed, closing his fingers around yours.

'I'm not 'of the blood'. I'm good at spillin' it, but the stuff inside me isn't worth much. Was a Squire. Then a Knight. Caught some eyes on the battlefield and was sent to defend the borders. Became a Margrave for it an' all. Now I'm a Duke. The titles don't mean much t'me, except I've got more coin and can tell nobles to fuck off without spending a day in the stocks.'

You're not sure whether your sigh was a laugh.

'Then, what? Please, Simon. What are we doing here?'

With your face this close to him you were reminded of the night in the tavern where you first met Johnny. You felt that you were sharing the same breath then. Now, here on his lap, you felt more. The warmth of his body that leeched through your skirts. The hard press of tough leather plackart. The pounding of his heartbeat - or was it yours - as you clutched his hand with trembling strength. That same trembling strength had you meeting his eyes at last, your position allowing you to be equal in height. His pupils dilated under scarred eyebrows, deep brown melting into pitch black.

'I took you wiv' me. It was sealed in blood. You're mine.'

You cupped his jaw, feeling stubble peek through his scarf. The sensation grounded you, kept you from flying off as his words used all the world's gravity.

'Bit of a terrible dowry, blood.' You whispered, a whisker away from his lips.

'I'm not made for anything else.'

Wrong, you thought as you pressed your parted lips to his covered ones. You were made for me.

His hand trailed up your arm as yours trailed across his jaw, two bodies with one mind. With deft, strong fingers you removed the last barrier between you. Black fluttered to the floor, still flesh-warm, and your lips met again. His lips were a little thin, but hungry. He groaned, supplicant to your taste, as you sought to press him closer. You could feel stubble tickling your chin, and the firm outline of another scar close to his cupid's bow. Lightning struck across the back of your neck, making you shudder against him. All you could taste, all you could smell, all you could feel was Simon.

And he all was yours.

After his face mask fell, so too did all barriers. You feel asleep together, entwined on the same bed. You awoke to his face made soft in the morning light. Sunbeams danced in the crevices of his scars, pale and rugged like the mountain you'd looked up at as a child. You watched, sentry, as you mapped the features of his face. Golden hair, golden stubble. A crooked nose that had been broken and set several times. Tributaries of scars running down to a strong jaw. And dark, unwavering eyes that creased a little as you met his gaze.

'G'mornin'.'

'Good morning,' You murmured, still sleep-soft. You traced along his lips, laughing as he nipped softly. 'Why do you cover this up?'

'To preserve my modesty,' he smirked as his tongue flicked out to soothe your nipped fingertips.

'Simon!'

'I'll tell ya. One day. When we get back 'ome. I don't trust everyone in this city.'

'You can trust me,' you whispered as you pressed your tingling digits into his mouth, catching on blunt teeth.

You felt the heat of his gaze bring blood to your cheeks. His eyes didn't leave yours as he pressed his teeth down softly. You knew the dog wouldn't bite.

'I know, Simon. I trust you too,' You leaned your forehead against his. 'Just, wherever you go, take me with you.'

-------------

Got a part ii drafted (palace intrigue, meet John and Gaz, Ghost and his mouse finally enjoy marital rites *wink*, conflict, etc., eventual HEA) but I'm not sure if there's an audience for it. And this is the first writing I've published in y e a r s since my cringe forays into dark videogame smut as a 19 y/o, so I'm not really confident. This is unedited/not proofread. Here ya go~

#wipes rust off hands #anyway yeah lol simon is v much of the 'i found her i keep her' mindset and i love him for it #i am very shy and nervous #can u tell i like alliteration and metaphors and commas?#????????#how do people talk and write dialogue #simon riley/reader #simon ghost riley/reader #ghost/reader #Medieval AU #Knight SImon Riley #cod fanfic #my writing #báirseach writes

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ceilidho · 4 days ago

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Ghost having a cigarette after clearing another zombie infested building with his unit only to spot a terrified little thing hiding in a supply closet. Coaxes her out like a scared little kitten and takes her back to base with him because he’s not used to having sweet teary things around, but he knows that, for some reason, he likes it.

#zombie au my beloved #ceil writing #ghost/reader #ghost x reader

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peaches-creek · 1 year ago

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“Put it back.” He says.

“No. Look at this face,” you coo, “I can’t put her back.”

“Oh, yes you can put that fleabag back.”

“Her name is Cake.”

“I don’t care if her name is fuckin prime rib, we aren’t gettin’ her.”

If Simon thought this conversation was going in his favor he was terribly wrong. He thought back to everything he said in this previous conversation that made you think he was going to break, which he did, he was currently picking out a collar for Cake.

“No spikes, Simon she’s a princess.”

“Why not the spikes? T’scare off intruders.”

“Yes because she looks so ferocious.” you say, sarcastically.

“You got to pick the damn cat, I get to pick the collar.” He says.

“Fine.” You say, maybe when he’s gone on a mission you can say it broke. Easy peasy.

“We’ll get two, in case one breaks.” He says. Of fucking course.

#cod x reader #simon riley hcs #simon riley headcanons #simon riley fluff #simon riley #simon ghost x reader #simon riley x you #simon riley x reader #simon ghost riley #ghost/reader #ghost x reader #ghost cod

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alnilaem · 8 months ago

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bury me beneath the basswood tree

pairing: ghost/soap/reader [12k]

rating: 18+ only. minors don’t interact.

tags: non-con sex, kidnapping, stockholm syndrome, size kink, forced fellatio, forced cunnilingus, impact play, brief watersports, double penetration in two holes, forced breeding, implied hybrid/shifter au

Needing time away from her humdrum life at home, she ventures into the woodland for respite. Little does she know, straying into that cabin in the woods will be the worst—or best—decision she’ll ever make. Depending on who you ask.

all my thanks to @/ohbo-ohno! thank you for being the best beta reader and sitting through my abhorrent typos <3

AO3 MIRROR

The mountain’s breadth of trees and foliage are written with prose.

It’s repetitive. Mind-numbing. She’s already passed this necrosed tree stump five times before. On the sixth circle, she treks through the undergrowth like it’s curdled milk, the tiny scythes of branches whispering against her arms and slicing her open the same way thumbs tear into oranges.

Dehydration crystallises like sediment in her mouth. It makes her bones heavy, bending against her flesh as if they’re groceries about to tear through a plastic bag. The balls of her feet are calcified, her thighs chafed. They rub against her threadbare jeans the same way a match reacts with red phosphorus to produce a flame. It burns, and so do her muscles. They feel moth-eaten and spent. Hung out to dry.

The stench of damp soil and sugar maple impairs her like an opiate. The peal of idle birdsongs grate against her ears. She’s sick of it—she’s been here for three days—and already, she’s sick of it.

She tries her phone again. It’s unresponsive, no signal. She unfurls her map but it’s mottled with rainwater and mud. Her lungs feel dry, pruney, as the dew drops slipping off fern plants seem to replicate the tears thawing in her eyes.

Evening mist hangs over the ground, and the sky turns red-bottomed as it progresses into nightfall. It’s as if the mountain is sentient. Nocturnal. Stirring from a torpor once the sun sets and awakening all that lives within it.

A sob wracks her ribs. It has the same effect of a bullet, ricocheting. She keeps moving even though she doesn’t know where she’s going. She believes that should she continue walking, nothing will be able to catch her. Not the spindly tree branches that take the shape of arms or serpentine shrubbery. She won’t give the mountain any time to fossilise her, if only she keeps moving.

Her movements are clumsy though. Her eyesight is hindered by panicked tears, turning everything shapeless and blurry. She keeps tripping and skinning her knees like the hide of a pomegranate, her flesh peeling back to show the red pulp of her innards.

It was a rashly undertaken lapse of judgement that brought her here. To a conscious mountain that lives and breathes and feels her fear. It was her heart, empty, carved out and replaced by brutal loneliness. Her friends back home are heedless and her parents are never satisfied with what she does. She figured that if none of them would listen, the woodlands would.

And listen, they did.

When she cries out, the wind howls. When she changes her direction, pivoting on her heel, the soil rumbles. She sees things—a shadow spotting her vision, not composed of matter—peeking from behind a tree trunk before quickly slipping away. She witlessly calls out, asking if anyone’s there, and is met with the forest's silent presentiment. She feels the stark pressure of piercing eyes sprawling down her dewy neck, sweeping over her body.

The longer she spends lost, the more she sinks into Appalachia.

It pulls her down like molasses. Like she’s an innocent fly trapped in glue. Soon, she knows there’s no hope. She knows her scent is written into the bark of trees—supple, sugary. A treat for whichever predator finds her first.

A brown bear, swinging its claws at her until her entrails are threadbare and striated. A snake, injecting venom in her blood. A bobcat if she’s lucky. It would be a quick death—sinking its loose jowls into either side of her neck until it snaps and she goes slack.

She’s apt to let go. She’s keen to yield to the alluring call of the woodland to let go, to fall to the forest floor and sit there until she rots. Until the roots worm into her breathing wounds and branches start growing out of her mouth. The urge to stop moving and become one with the mountain is suddenly cogent, leaves no margin of doubt. It comes with the promise of eternal respite and divine mercy. She’s about to find a cliff to jump off of, but before she can, something catches her attention.

A plume of smoke curling in the air.

Whorls of slate-grey soot thinning and disappearing into the sky. She looks for the source and follows it blindly, shouldering past pine needles and hawthorn and all but sobbing as a cabin comes into view. It’s made of wood and the tufts of wildflower that sprout from its thin fissures. It looks neglected and eaten by the elements. Its vaulted roof is stained by the off-white assault of bird droppings, discoloured by acid rain. Some of the windows look covered with dewy newspaper, but still, she knows it can’t be vacant. The smoke undulating from the chimney tells her that.

She staggers onto the porch. Her fist rasps against the door, clippings of wood burying itself into her skinned knuckles as she wildly knocks. Silence. Not even the leaves flutter against each other. Fleetingly, a stint of panic seizes her. What if nobody’s home? But she’s twisting the knob and pushing herself inside anyway, dropping her bag to the floor with a thump, stepping inside.

The cabin makes for a liminal space, smelling of sawdust and pine. There’s a layer of dust on every surface, making the air thick. All the furniture is carved from wood and a couple taxidermied deers are mantled above the stone fireplace, looking more like warnings than decoration. The pelt of a black bear is unfurled across the floor, and a few trinkets are strewn around—a bookshelf of spine-cracked novels, dead plants hanging from the ceiling beams. A mountain of used cigarettes, but strangely, no ashtray.

There’s everything but picture frames. Nothing she can use to humanise the cabin nor the people supposedly living in it.

She guides herself to the kitchen by feeling the walls. There’s a piped stove in the corner and cast iron tools hanging above the counter. Her stomach bubbles, and immediately, she starts scouring for food.

There’s three barrels by the door, and upon popping them open, the stench of brine sprays her in the face. It’s fish with a crust of salt, preserved. In the other barrel is meat buried in shelled corn, and fermented poultry in the last barrel.

It’s all raw and bloody. She steps back, gagging, turning her attention to the shelves that line the faraway wall. Jars of pickled cucumber and carrots. Garlic braids hanging from the edge. Rusty milk churns nestled in the corner.

There’s a galvanised tub full of ice on the floor. She digs through it and almost moans at the jars of jam. She untwists one, sticks her fingers in it, and wipes it clean with her tongue and teeth. It’s tart and tangy but it’s food, sticking to the walls of her stomach, satiating her. And once she starts she can’t stop. She goes back to the wall and finds a stained jar, fishing out a handful of fermented cabbage, stuffing it in her mouth, her face tightly puckering at the sharp sourness.

The juice of the food goes spilling past her lips, sluicing down her chest. It sticks to the chasm between her tits and mixes with sweat, making her shirt cling to her skin, revealing the barest outline of her nipples. She’s so engrossed in keeling over the counter and stuffing her face that she doesn’t even notice the pointed shift in atmosphere. The deer outside stopping their rutting, the trill of birds ceasing. The leaves stilling, as if holding their breaths to hide. Thick, silvery clouds nestling together and eclipsing the sun, casting a thin overcast over the woodland, darkening the already-dim surroundings.

She’s too preoccupied to recognise the tell-tale croak of the door swinging open. It’s tinny, but bullied by the sound of her smacking on marinated cabbage. She doesn’t notice the dull, throbbing footfalls. Pays no heed to the stench of blood invading her senses because she believes it’s coming from her dry, leathery lips that split open as she widens her mouth to fit the cabbage inside.

It’s only when the room darkens, a box-shaped shadow sweeping over her vision, does her blood run cold. She freezes with a handful of vegetable raised halfway to her lips, the brine rolling off a cabbage leaf like it’s an awning, dropping to the floor—drip, drip, drip—the rapid succession of shedding liquid hitting the floor sounds similar to the beating of her heart against her fickle, feeble ribs.

The saline spray in her mouth gets soaked up by her tongue, making it puffy, too big for her mouth. She turns around clemently—treating the shadow like a wild animal—no sudden movements. She goes rigid.

It can’t be human.

It’s huge. Bigger than anything she’s ever seen before. Sweeping shoulders, broad thighs. Its neck is bent uncannily because it’s too big to fit in the doorway. Its chest rises heavily like a bull.

She tries to find a face, and when she does, the blood is drained from her.

It just makes her feel… uncomfortable. Its face is the poor imitation of a human, as if someone tried drawing one from memory but scarcely failed. Failed to capture the humanity, the animation, leaving it looking like a half-convincing resemblance. Its tapetum lucidum glows yellow, burning in the thin mist of moonlight that penetrates the newspaper sticking to the windows.

It stares blankly at her. The hair on her arms stick up, a bead of sweat slices down her neck.

“I’m sorry…”

The creature raises an arm and pulls on a hanging bead-chain, tugging on the light, which is simply a naked bulb in the middle of the kitchen. The kindle is weak but does more than the delicate moonlight. Just barely illuminates its face. His face.

She tries not to let her fear show. Tries not to preen under his depthless eyes, the mean twine of his lips. His hair that seems to have been shaved too closely to his scalp, if the nicks and small cuts on the shells of his ears are anything to go by.

He grumbles an idle prusten. He rolls his elbows back—his shoulder blades unfurling like folded wings—and twists his thick neck.

“What’re you doin’ in my home?”

“I’m so sorry,” she repeats, her words stifled around a wad of cabbage. “I– I’ve been lost for three days. I came up for a hike but lost my way and I saw your cabin and I’m sorry, but I’m just so hungry and–”

A deep, guttural voice peals from the living room.

“Simon!” It says. “Where should I chuck the deer? It’s too big for the livin’ room.”

The aforementioned Simon, she presumes, doesn’t answer the unobserved voice. He keeps his eyes on her, face twisted into a puckered, mean mug.

A string of footsteps precede the face that appears behind Simon’s shoulder. A rounder, ruddier face. A salt-and-pepper stubble and eyes so blue they glow like bioluminescence.

Johnny acts surprised as if Simon hadn’t smelled her from miles away. Her honeyed scent roiling off of her, curling into the air and thinning between the trees. Her sweat pooling in the gusset of her panties, raw and pungent.

He’s purposely coy. It’s written into the furrow of his brows and the caper of his cupid lips but the girl is too disoriented to catch on. She looks at him and beseeches, but almost faints at the deer hanging limply over his shoulder. He holds it like it weighs nothing—a sack of sprouting potatoes.

He coos. “Who’s this?”

“Lost bird,” Simon grunts. “Found her diggin’ through our food.”

“Oh, poor lassie,” Johnny hums. More so to Simon than the girl, which makes her squirm. “She didnae mean any harm, Simon. She’s just hungry… tha’ right, lass? Are ye hurt?”

She stutters out a nod, gesturing to how her jeans cling to her knees, sun-bleached and darkened with blood. She rolls her shirt over her ribcage, showing them her wounded torso. How her skin sticks to her bones.

Johnny bristles.

“The lass needs a place to stay, Simon,” he whispers. “And she’s hurt. Bleeding.”

They talk of her as if she’s advertised merchandise in a magazine catalogue. She squirms.

Simon turns to look at her. The depression in her cheeks due to her hunger and the split skin of her mouth. The pert curve of her breasts. The desperate look in her eyes.

He grumbles, looks over his shoulder at Johnny. “I’ll start the fire. You take the deer out back and drain it ‘fore it hardens.”

“Aye,” Johnny says. He thumps away in clunky boots and a thin t-shirt and jeans. The deer sways with his gait and disappears behind the screen door when he steps outside.

She redirects her attention to Simon, who’s already looking at her. More specifically, at her pulsing neck. His jowls are slightly unfastened, his pupils blown out and eclipsing his irises.

Presentiment settles in her stomach. She blanches.

Suddenly, Simon is grunting and gripping her arm, heedless towards her whimper of fear and fleeting stint of resistance. His nails are sharp, digging sickle-shaped impressions into her arm. He drags her down the hallway and into another room—a bathroom—and tugs the flickering light on. It lacks sheen, barely illuminates the room from its moss-covered nooks to the tiled floor caked with crusted dirt.

(The lightbulb is so dull. It doesn’t reach the farthest corner of the bathroom where the radiator is placed. The radiator bathed in black, hidden beneath the lip of shadows, so she isn’t able to see the forgotten handcuff hanging limply from one of the pipes.)

Simon works his heavy body around the bathroom. He leans over the clawfoot tub—which he dwarfs—and twists open the spigot, watching as brown-coloured water slowly ripens into something clear, gushing out of the faucet. He stuffs a plastic plug into the rust-ringed drain.

He straightens back into his full height. All-encompassing, panoramic. Simon is so impossibly large that it’s a wonder he has so much muscle packed under his skin. Rustic, hard thighs. A shirt that bends against his arms, about to snap.

“Take a bath,” he commands. “Get y’rself cleaned up.”

Simon shoulders past her and ducks to exit the bathroom. There’s no door separating it from the rest of the house, but a multitude of beads hanging above the threshold to imitate one. She keeps her eyes trailed on it while she strips—peeling off her jeans, pulling her shirt over her head. Rolling down her panties and consciously hiding them beneath her other clothes.

She clutches the lip of the bathtub for leverage and dips her toes into the water. Immediately, she melts. The hot water swallows her foot and travels like a spool of thread to the rest of her, weaving itself into her wounds, licking her open like the first thaw of spring.

She submerges herself fully, bringing her knees to her chest. Her neck hoists backward and into the water, soaking all the grit and dirt knotted into her hair. It’s like plying through syrup as she lifts an arm, retrieving a homespun bar of soap, clutching it to test her grip. There’s coily hair knotted into it and sticking to the dried bubbles. She brings it up to her nose, sniffing. Hesitates before rubbing it into her skin and around her throbbing wounds.

The water idly sloshes as she cleans herself. It’s a hollow sound, amplified by the echoey room. She trails her hand below her waist, slipping her sudsy fingers between her lips and stroking, rubbing herself clean.

Beneath the tinny sounds of water surrounding her like a petticoat, something else peals out. Something like a whine. Her fingers cramp above her warm cunt and she goes taut. She turns her head to the threshold of the bathroom and nearly screams but her throat puckers before she can, blocking it, her mouth hanging open in a soundless screech instead.

It’s Johnny. He stands in the middle of the hallway, peering into the bathroom and staring at her, half-obscured by the bead curtains. He looks like a sit-and-wait predator like this—silent and unassuming, if not for his blindingly-white smile shining through the curtain like strobes of sunlight breaking past trees. He steps inside now that he’s been spotted, and that causes ice to lick her organs—she sinks her breasts below the water’s surface, squeezing her thighs together. She bristles as Johnny strides impossibly close, the lip of the tub cutting into his thighs.

He stinks of sweat and iron and wood. His t-shirt clings to his skin, darkened with deer blood, outlining the barest hint of his bulky chest.

He grins. “Brought ye some clean clothes.”

“Oh. I… thank you,” she mumbles. “You can leave it on the toilet if you don’t mind?”

Johnny sets it down. A folded flannel and a pair of sweatpants. He idles a little longer, still smiling, before leaving the bathroom. She counts the minutes in her head and tries to find the right time to leave the tub, outstretching her hand for the towel once it comes to her. But the towel is just scarcely out of reach. The terrycloth grazes her fingertips, teasing her. It’s like it was methodically placed there. Bait at the end of a fish hook to ply her out of the water and stick her ass in the air, reaching over to grip the cloth and tug it over her breasts, stepping out of the tub.

Her eyes stay locked on the crude door while she changes. She buttons the flannel up to her neck and takes heed of the pointed absence of any undergarments, slipping her legs into the gauzy sweatpants, tying them at her waist.

Johnny bursts in as if on cue. He’s still slick with blood, his mohawk odd-angled, spun-thread and matted to his head with sweat. His cheeks bulge around another grin.

“Too big for ye, is it?” He pants. “Might as well take it off. Might trip and hurt yerself again. Wouldn’t want that happenin’, right honey?”

Johnny shortens the space between them in one stride. His fingers, thick and jaded, are already fumbling around the knot she tied, pulling it out of its bow and letting the sweatpants fall, pooling into a crimp around her ankles.

The flannel is big enough to reach her thighs. Still, she clenches her fingers around the hem and tugs it lower, preening under Johnny’s smouldering gaze. It’s almost paradoxical how it works—his eyes are icy blue, yet they have the same effect as basaltic molten. Burning hot. He’s fixated on her skinned knees, gnawing on his bottom lip.

“Simon’s got the fire goin’,” he says. “Let’s go get yer wounds cleaned too, aye?”

Johnny’s walking out before she can blink. She follows after him, flustered, stumbling into the living room lit by a dulcet fire. Simon’s kneeled beside it, sticking his hand in to adjust a lopsided stock of wood, unaffected by the flames that eat away his arm hair. Johnny takes the girl by the scruff of her neck, guiding her to a hand-crafted chair placed conscientiously in front of the fireplace. He presses on her—the sensitive divot between her shoulder and her neck—and pushes her into the seat, unzipping a first-aid kit.

Johnny takes her feet and pulls them into his lap. The angle makes her flannel hitch up, exposing her bare cunt to the hot embers of the fireplace, and the equally hot embers of Simon’s prying eyes. She squeaks and covers herself, averting her gaze as Simon’s stare darkens into the colour of midnight splash hanging over the sky.

“You’ll feel a wee sting,” Johnny warns. He rips the corner off a rag and drenches it in vodka, poising it over her flayed knees. “Should probably give my hand a squeeze or somethin’, ye ken? To lessen the burn, o’ course.”

She hesitates but slips her hand around Johnny’s all-encompassing one, her fingers barely meeting whilst wrapped around his palm. She winces when the ethanol meets her wound, shooting through her veins, and tries recoiling into herself.

But the amplitude of her pain swells, and her muscles girdle.

It’s Simon’s massive hand splitting itself across her thigh that keeps her pinned to the chair. His fingers bite rivets into her skin, the pinch overriding the sting of her tissue soaking up the alcohol.

“Stay still when he tells you to,” he grumbles. “Otherwise it’ll hurt.”

She wriggles uncomfortably. Tries not to flinch when the rag meets her knees again and burns her wound. Simon’s hand doesn’t leave her thigh until he’s throwing another block of wood into the fireplace.

Johnny hums. “So, what’re you doin’ up here? Religious retreat? Mental health?”

She smacks her lips, unsure if she should answer that. She chances a glance towards Simon and bristles because for some reason, she just knows that if she lies, somehow, he’d tell.

“Um. Just stepping away from home, I suppose,” she mumbles. “Friends. Family.”

“Oh. They dinnae care about you?”

She flinches. Not because of the vodka against her skin, but Johnny’s implications.

“No,” she says. Her words are so fickle, so distorted by misery that not even she believes it. “They do care about me. I just needed space.”

He nods. Slowly, his eyebrows press together. “I don’t remember much of my family. It’s a wee bit odd. Can’t say if they liked me or not…”

Simon squeezes the back of his neck. “Enough of tha’. Pay attention.”

Johnny makes a sound like he’s humiliated. It’s only when he unrolls a spool of gauze, wrapping it around her kneecaps, is he afforded mercy when Simon changes the topic.

“Where’s the bird gonna sleep?”

“We’ve still got a cot in the root cellar, aye?” Johnny replies. “For hurricanes and tha’. Figured she wouldn’t mind it there. Wouldn’t ye, lass?”

Clemently, she shakes her head.

Simon grunts. He stands up, towering over them both. “The deer’s there, Johnny. What kind of hosts would tha’ make us? Puttin’ her up with a corpse?”

Johnny blushes as if he’s been scolded. His bottom lip curls out, petulant, a waspish colour flooding his cheeks.

“Aye…” he grumbles. “Tha’s right. The livin’ room, then?”

The girl is sitting, her head oscillating between the two men like a pendulum as they talk.

“No,” Simon says. “We’ll move the cot to our room.”

Johnny nods. He scratches his stubble, pretending to think. “It’s important we keep an eye on her wounds, too.”

“Exactly,” Simon says, petting Johnny’s head. “Smart boy.”

He clicks his tongue and Johnny shoots up, scurrying out of the living room to retrieve the aforementioned cot. Muffled sounds peal out from the root cellar below them. Johnny comes stumbling back up in mere minutes with a rickety cot fitted under his armpit and disappears into a dark room.

“Best get to sleep before it’s too late,” Simon splays his hand over the small of her back. “Y’must be tired.”

She submits to Simon’s touch, letting him guide her through the cabin and into the darkest room lit only by a lone oil lamp.

Johnny is finishing up the cot when Simon releases her. He drapes a cable-knit blanket over the surface, fluffing up a pillow. She doesn’t point out how close it is to their bed, the lip of her cot almost touching their rickety mattress.

“Fair warnin’ lass,” Johnny begins, peeling off his shirt, kittening into bed. “Simon snores quite a bit. Dinnae be feart to smack his gob if he gets too loud, aye?”

She stiffly nods. She climbs into the cot and bunches the blanket around her, making a conscious effort to hide her bare legs. Simon crawls between them, the mattress sinking with his weight, and throws their whisper-thin blanket over his legs.

Darkness penetrates the room when he blows the lamp out. The only smoulder is the silvery glow of moonlight invading the curtains and the reflective light in Simon’s eyes.

He sits up impossibly straight, staring at her like a cryptid caught on a trail cam. It causes discomfort to congeal under her flesh, but slowly, the longer she looks, a bristle of sleepiness lays hold of her. She closes her eyes and falls into limbo. Her breaths thinning into a short, even pattern.

———

She’s between the threshold of awake and sleep when she hears it.

She can’t tell if it’s a dream or the amplified sounds of Appalachia. She feels as if she’s underwater or stuck in syrup, able to hear the rushing brook of her blood against her ears but unable to distinguish the sounds around her.

There’s a grunt. And a moan. The wail of the bed next to her snapping then creasing. Heavy breathing. Sprinting hearts.

Her head is so muddled she can’t register anything. Her mind tells her that the violent slapping of skin against skin is the crack of thunder. That the strangled whimpers are the call of a cottontail.

“Right there, Johnny?” A voice asks. “Takin’ my big cock so fuckin’ well. Greedy lil’ bitch, you are.”

A long, drawn-out whine chases after it. A choked-out scream as if something hurts, succeeded by a wet squelch.

“Look at ‘er,” that voice jeers. “Think she’d take it? Better than you? Think she’d bleed all over it like– fuck… how I smelt it on her?”

The other voice—broken in, wispy—chokes on a response. It sounds a little stifled, as if speaking through something shoved in its mouth.

“No… nae better than me,” it mumbles. “Nae better than me…”

It’s like she’s drowning in purgatory. She can’t move, can’t speak. She’s caught in a phantasmagorical limbo between reality and fantasy. She can feel the serpentine hands of something with no material existence wrap around her and stain her slick with sweat, sweeping over the space between her legs, licking a wetness up her pussy.

A dewy sound peals out. It’s a predator loosening its jowls, stringy and frothy, flaying its lips to bare its teeth. A rumbling roar rips out of its throat, animalistic. She can hear the popping of teeth sinking into flesh. The dull sound of skin breaking.

“Ah!” A squeal. “Simon, tha’– it hurts.”

She feels a vortex in her belly, an ache in her clit.

It’s like she resurfaces the water. All at once, she hears clearly. It’s a lone word whispered in a guttural cadence so close that she swears it’s mumbled against the hot hull of her ear.

“Good.”

———

She wakes the next morning with her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth and a damp heat between her legs.

Sunlight filters through the gauzy curtains, hitting the bed next to her. The bed is starkly empty she notes, as she crawls out of her cot and pops the stiff muscles in her back, stretching.

She pokes her head out of the bedroom and tiptoes around the cabin as if avoiding a barrage of landmines. There’s a downward force in her bladder that tells her she’s been in torpor for the better half of the morning, and a heavy crust in her eyes that shifts when she blinks. She finds her way to the bathroom and shucks the flannel over her hips, lowering herself on the toilet seat, emptying herself.

It’s the only stint of respite. The closest thing she can get to calm since losing her way in the mountain three days ago. She relishes in the idle birdsongs outside and the sound of overnight frost melting into the dew that slips off tree leaves, pitter-pattering to the ground. Listens to the stream of her pee peter out, and the ruffle of folding fabric as she tosses the flannel back over her thighs. She listens to the–

“How’d ye sleep, pretty girl?”

She flinches at the gruff voice. It’s written with sleep, barely lucid under a Scottish lilt. Her hands freeze under the running water of the tap as she watches Johnny waltz inside the bathroom, shucking his pants to his thighs and pulling out his cock, pissing in the toilet.

She’s stiff. Fixed to the cold clay tiles of the floor, unable to be bent. She tries not to let her eyes wander, tries to block out the chubby mass of muscle swinging between his legs.

“Oh…” her words are stifled by shock. “F-fine. I slept fine. Thank you again for opening your house to me.” She thinks back to last night—the whimpering, the croaking—and rashly decides to tack on, “But I did hear some weird noises. I could have been dreaming though.”

Johnny chuckles. “...Aye, it’s almost matin’ season ‘round these parts. I think you’ll be hearin’ more of that. It’s best to ignore it.”

Her body girdles when he sways his cock, shaking away the liquid on the tip. He stuffs himself back into his pants and pulls the flush, grinning.

“Bet you’re still hungry. Simon’s wrappin’ up breakfast. Let’s go.”

He pats her bum and makes her squeak. He grips the hem of her flannel and reels it around his knuckles like a leash, tugging her into the dining area—which is more of a nook nestled into the living room—and pulls out a seat.

“Hope ye fancy porridge,” Johnny chuckles. He splits his palm across the top of her head, pushing her into the chair.

She huffs and hoists her neck up, grimacing at the acrid scent of animal hide burning against the base of a cast iron pan. It takes a conscious effort to not crinkle her nose in disgust.

Simon ducks as he emerges from the kitchen threshold. He wields two bowls of food. One for her and the other for Johnny. She takes heed of how—despite his stature—Simon doesn’t have anything to eat.

However it’s a cursory thought, because she’s quickly pulling her lips into a weak smile and examining the bowl in front of her. Food is a generous word, since it looks more like coagulated milk than porridge and smells sour. Simon places a chipped plate of bacon alongside it. It’s curled because it’s overcooked, crusted with charcoal.

She swallows as Simon takes a seat next to her. Johnny, on the other side of her.

“Looks delicious,” she hums. She turns to Simon, “Are you… not eating?”

He picks an off-white tendon from his canine tooth, flicking it away.

He answers in a rigid tenor. “Don’t hurt your head over me. You eat your food.”

She marginally shrinks into herself, embarrassment licking up her spine. She feels like a chided puppy, but perhaps that’s the sentiment.

When she opens her lips and raises the spoon to her mouth, her flannel curls like a wisp of hair off her shoulder, baring her bruised albeit supple skin. She hastily pulls the sleeve back up.

She speaks around the stale porridge and her rising apprehension. “Uh, do you have my clothes from yesterday?” She asks, squirming as her sweat glues the back of her thighs to the chair, sticky. “It’s just, uh, they fit me better.”

“Oh,” Johnny blinks, “o’ course.”

She watches him stand up and slip through the backdoor. He walks towards a clothesline hitched between two trees and retrieves her clothes, returning with them tucked under his arm.

“Here ye go sweetheart,” he grins, setting them on her lap. Petting her head.

She slowly peels through her clothes. Her fingertips drag against her threadbare jeans, her overripe shirt, but never touch the sweat-imbued gauze of something more… intimate. Her maw tenses around the hot porridge.

“Where are my… um…” she lowers her voice even though it’s redundant—Johnny is leaned in close, practically huffing against her ear, sniffing her neck. “... Undergarments?”

Johnny tilts his head, puckering his lips in confusion. He’s written with the innocence of a puppy—whether it’s real or fabricated, she can’t tell. The words have begun bleeding together, blotchy and unintelligible.

“Panties, ye mean?” He laughs. “Ye never had any of those.”

She swallows thickly.

“No, I… I did. I wouldn’t go hiking without–”

“Ye must be goin’ crazy, lass,” Johnny says. “This was all you gave me. Nae panties.”

He stares at her with large, intercosmic, unassuming eyes. His gaze flickers towards Simon. It’s so fleeting that she almost misses it. The sweep of his blue irises widening, eclipsed by his pupils. She tenses. Omniscience hits her like a brick.

Her tongue goes heavy in her mouth, melting her words. The porridge turns frothy in her gut, nausea sticking to her organs and presentiment curdling in the air. She tightens her throat around a gag.

“... When can you drive me into town?”

Johnny reaches over and grips her thigh. He digs divots into her flesh like a fish hook caught in a flayed gill.

“You’re welcome to stay as long as ye want, pretty. There’s nae rush.”

She feels bile crawl up her throat.

“Oh, well, I just don’t want to overstay my welc–”

“He’s excited to play host,” Simon growls. His words are marked by firm determination, leaving no room for objection. He leans over the table, his wifebeater clinging to his muscle, his wiry chest hair pressing against the soft cotton. “We rarely get visitors ‘round here and he’ll be upset if you leave. Y’wanna make him upset?”

Finally, warnings blare like strobe lights in her mind. She fidgets in her seat, sweating, shooting a cursory glance to the backdoor. Calculating her chances of survival should she break through the mesh and make a run for it.

“O-of course not. Not after everything you’ve done for me,” she stutters, feeling a bead of sweat travel down her neck. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for asking.”

Simon settles back in his seat. Johnny, too, frowning around his porridge.

“Good,” Simon grunts meanly. “Now shut your gob an’ eat.”

She clemently chews away at her breakfast, preening under their smouldering gazes. Throughout her polishing off her bowl, she’s reminded Simon doesn’t have one. It’s unseemly for a man so sturdy to not be eating, but as Simon’s lips peel back, sated while he watches her take her final bite, she spots a spray of red liquid washing the spire of his fang tooth, glistening in the sunlight.

“How’d you like tha’, pretty?” Johnny asks. He collapses whatever thoughts—whatever inklings—begin to seize her about Simon as he smiles and their bowls, disappearing into the kitchen.

Right away, Simon is hooking his foot behind a leg of her chair, using it to pull her closer.

He’s centimetres away from her face when he says, “How ‘bout you start pullin’ your weight?”

Her eyes flicker up to see Simon hovering over her. He’s dewy with sweat, big and burly and drifting above her like the closet-dwelling monster from everyone’s childhood.

“You’ve caused enough trouble in my home,” he continues. “Ate a lot of our produce. It’s time you make up for tha’.”

She resists the urge to snarl. She doesn’t even want to be here yet Simon is insisting she fill her role—whatever that role may be.

But as she hoists her neck up at him, she gets skittish and looks away, her tongue knotting. She knows it isn’t smart to upset Simon again. He’s a beefy man with sharp canines and vertical pupils, with more hair sprouting from his forearms than what’s considered normal. A man who expels deep tonal flutters instead of regular breaths. Who—despite his size—can’t ever be heard approaching.

So she smiles instead, asking, “What is it you need help with?”

“Floors need scrubbin’.”

He shoves a rag in her hand and holds out a bucket of sudsy water she hadn’t noticed before.

“Kitchen, livin’ room… just get to work.”

The water sloshes over the lip of the bucket when he sets it down. Simon stands to his full height and stalks out of the room, leaving her alone with her multitude of thoughts.

Slowly, she stands up. She hauls the water bucket to the middle of the living room and is starkly reminded of her strength—or lack thereof. Simon had picked the bucket up so naturally, but with the weak tendons lacing her arms, she struggles. It doesn’t help that her vision is still spotty.

She lowers to her knees, wincing at the chord of pain beneath her bandages. She awkwardly drenches the rag in the water and wrings it dry, poising herself above the floor, working the rag into the floorboards.

She tenses when Johnny walks back in. He’s behind her. Unlike with Simon, she can feel him creeping up. She can feel his eyes on the lips of her pussy where her flannel hitches up while she’s bent over, scrubbing the floors.

Her cheeks burn. She blindly reaches behind her to tug the hem down, covering her warm cunt.

Johnny chuckles. “This is wha’ Simon has you doin’ out here?”

She looks over her shoulder, her skin prickling when she sees an axe in his hand.

“We’re goin’ to the yard to chop some wood,” he says, “but I see you’re already busy bein’ our bonnie housewife.”

She stutters. That operative word, housewife, burns a hole in the snail-shaped cochlea of her ear. “No, Simon j-just asked me to. He asked me to.”

“I know, sweetie,” Johnny replies. He squats next to her and rubs her back in slow circles, trying to hike up her flannel again. “Simon’s just takin’ the piss. He’s a meanie like tha’.”

She tries shouldering him away but Johnny only holds her tighter. Simon reappears in the doorway, watching with his arms crossed.

Johnny clears his throat. “Thought we’d spend time in the yard today. Doesn’t tha’ sound sweet?”

She looks at Simon who’s already looking at her through hooded, brutish eyes. She realizes that her autonomy is divested—that she has no choice but to follow what they say because something is very, very wrong here.

Perhaps this is what the mountain had warned her of. In all of its howling and breathing, the branches gripping her and the delirium written into her psyche, maybe, it was all a warning.

She hangs her head. “Mhm… sounds great.”

She has no time to process what’s happening before he’s folding his hand into the cavity of her armpit and dragging her up and out of the door, into the backyard.

It’s more of a cleared grove than a yard. Dead tree stumps litter the small expanse, grass the colour of ripe lemons because it’s been seared down. There’s a block of wood sitting on a stump, split down the middle. Sun-bleached clothes hanging over the clothesline.

“Y’can watch here,” Johnny says, gesturing to one of the tree stumps. “We’ve got to chop wood for dinner tonight.”

He pulls her down on the makeshift seat, finally letting her go. And just as Johnny pivots, slamming the spire of the axe into the block of wood, she sees him scrunch his nose as he sniffs his hand, drinking in the sweat from her armpit. It goes up his nose and through his nasal cavity, making him quiver as if her sweat is an opiate. Disgust slams into her, sinking in her stomach and settling there like sediment. She doesn’t even notice Simon walking out of the cabin and reaching for the axe, raising it over his head, until the resounding sound of wood snapping peals out, and she’s jumping in her skin.

“No need to be feart,” Johnny laughs. “Just his usual routine.”

She watches Simon work. He looks like a beast on its hind legs like this—impossibly large and splayed out with his arms over his head, growling whenever he brings the axe down on the tree stump, splitting it in two. Sweat burns through his wifebeater and turns the fabric translucent, revealing the barest outline of his chest. His chest hairs are matted with sweat, his sinews straining with each chop of wood. His face is curled meanly into itself, his trimmed hair nicked in different places from at-home shaving and washed with sweat.

Every time he brings the axe down on the wood, expelling a guttural groan, something stirs in her. He does it with such force, such strength, it makes her wary. He fractures the wood along the grain without so much of a blink, without any stifling in his muscle.

All those horror films she watches alone—when her friends say they’re too busy to join, when they lead her on after planning a get-together that doesn’t come to fruition—finally catch up to her, sowing the thought in her head that if she stays, she’ll become the tree stump. Impotent beneath Simon’s hacking and eclipsed by his behemoth-like body.

Her missing panties. Johnny’s sticky hands. Simon’s less-than-human behaviour. It all slams into her like whiplash.

Her fear rears its head as a rashly undertaken announcement tumbling out of her mouth.

“I have to pee.”

She ignores the way Johnny perks up, as if that activated something in his brain. His ocular vein goes large, rapt, his pupils blowing out as he looks at her and then her navel where her bladder sits, suddenly grinning.

“I can come with–”

“I’ll go in the woods,” she says. “Behind a bush or something, okay?”

Simon grunts. It’s a deep prusten sound as he splits another block of wood. Johnny pouts but lets her go, watching with those imploring eyes as she disappears behind some foliage.

It’s now or never, she decides.

She makes sure she’s concealed by the flowering of a tree before speeding up her walk. She moves like an unoiled machine, rusty, as her walk ripens into a run.

She doesn’t know where she’s running. She doesn’t know how far the nearest town is or how to find the trail she lost herself on, but she knows she needs to get far away from here.

The woodland is labyrinthine. Everything looks the same. She hopes she isn’t sprinting deeper into the heart of Appalachia and straight into her new grave, but still, she doesn’t stop running. Not until her lungs wilt into themselves and turn pruney, not until her heartbeat plateaus.

It’s as if she’s working against a rip current. She feels as if a part of herself is already woven into the woodland soil, feels herself written into the rotting, wet trees. It’s like she’s treading water instead of sprinting. And it’s like a supernova has erupted in her ankle as it gets caught under a root, sending her face first into the dirt.

She reorients as quickly as she can. She raises to her feet but winces at the flaring nerves in her foot, and looks around for a stick she can use as a crutch.

But something else catches her attention.

A dog-eared paper taped to a Basswood tree. It’s been eaten by the elements, mottled, barely hanging on. She steps closer and reads the blocky letters across the front, her blood running cold in her engorged vessels.

MISSING PERSON

Fleetingly, hope seizes her, but she soon remembers nobody back home is heedful enough to report her missing, let alone realize she’s missing in the first place. Additionally, the year suggests that the flyer is three years old. Her eyes slink down, trailing over what’s still intact.

LAST SEEN: CLIFF TRAIL

$3,000 REWARD FOR INFORMATION

Foreboding clings to her flesh. She quivers, her knees weakening.

FIRST NAME: J-

The tail-end of it is smeared, the ink bleeding and thinning into the paper. It’s unintelligible, so she trails her gaze lower, heeding the victim’s last name instead.

MACTAVISH.

“Sweetie!” Peals out from behind her before she can read any more. “What’re you doin’ all the way here? Had me and Simon thinkin’ ye ran away or something. Hah.”

Johnny hurries close and swallows her flinch with a tight hug. He frowns at the flyer.

“Why’re you readin’ this silly stuff?” He asks. He tears it off the tree and crumples it up, tossing it away. “That shite gives y’nightmares.”

“Johnny, I–”

“You went pee?” Johnny asks. Nearly makes her screech when he dips his hand low and cups her cunt, feeling around for any dregs of liquid. He buries his fingers unnecessarily deep between her puffy lips, blindly massaging.

“No…” he clicks his tongue. “No. You didn’t. Did ye lie to us? It dinnae matter, sweetie. Here. Do it here, pretty. I’ll wait.”

She musters whatever pluck she has left to shake her head.

However her spine is fickle. All it takes is Johnny glowering, his eyes darkening, his pout upending and curling into something meaner, to force her back into submission.

“Simon’s already angry ye pulled this stunt, sweetie,” he says. “I’m helpin’ you out.”

A tear escapes her. It rolls down her gaunt cheek like the dew that dribbles down trees. She’s quickly crying, expelling howls that burn her energy. She trembles as she squats to the forest floor and pushes pee out of her. She sniffles as she stands back up and lets the liquid sluice down her thighs.

“Good girl,” Johnny hums. “You’re so much sweeter when ye listen, ye ken?”

She sobs into her palms, her ribs so brittle they rattle together. Johnny coos vacantly at her, rubbing her all over the same way one rubs stone fruit to test their ripeness, and croons at her swelling ankle.

“See what happens when you’re naughty?” He asks, picking her up, carrying her close to his chest. “Let’s get you home, honey. These woods are no place for a bird like you.”

She hates how she curls into him. It’s her repressed underbelly fighting its way to the surface because the accumulation of neglectful family and friends has soured her, carving a chasm in her heart that forces her body to respond to Johnny’s affections. He’s a warm body for her, a pair of listening ears. It’s scraps, but it’s more than she’s ever gotten.

They make it back to the cabin in what feels like minutes. Simon’s waiting next to the door with his arms tightly crossed, his face meanly pinched. He growls like a provoked animal. He hovers like an executioner. He’s the living antonym of light at the end of the tunnel, huffing like a bull as Johnny carries her inside.

“How about you rest?” Johnny asks. He sets her down on her cot and pulls the blanket to her quivering chin, tucking her in. “Want some tea? What kind do you fancy?”

She purses her lips, trembling. Johnny sentimentally hums as if he’s sorry. As if he isn’t a part of her plight. Her piercing fear and deep-seated fatigue.

“Garden mint…” he says to himself. “I’ll be right back, bonnie.”

He disappears and returns a few minutes later with a cup dwarfed in his hand. Steam curls over the rim, thinning into the barren bedroom. He tilts it into her mouth, nursing her.

With every sip she feels herself slip more and more back into the familiar territory of limbo. Her eyelids become heavy, her cognizance slackening.

She peels her tongue off her gums to muster a whisper. It’s so weak. Barely audible.

“I wanna go… home…”

Johnny croons. He cups her cheek. “Honey, those people dinnae care about you. Not how me and Simon do. This can be your home.”

He raises the cup to her mouth again, stifling any protests on her tongue.

She hiccups around the drink, her eyes warm and wet.

That’s how she falls asleep.

With hypnotic tea invading her bloodstream, turning her eyelids heavy. Turning her helpless.

———

She wakes with a start.

It’s a crack of thunder that had stirred her, she realizes, instead of the enigmatic sounds of bed springs snapping.

The bedroom is dark and bathed in midnight light. She can barely see anything, save for the barest outline of Johnny in the bed next to her. When lightning strikes, illuminating the sky with a blinding impact crack, she’s able to see the swell of his body beneath his sheets and the shadow of his spun-thread hair. His chest rising and falling steadily.

She’s caked with sweat. Her perspiration soaks her flannel and makes it cling to her flesh, which is flared up as if she rolled in a pile of poison ivy. Her mind is so cluttered she almost folds over as she stands up, testing the grip of her toes on the wooden floor, testing her ability to balance herself.

She’s in limbo. A border space between heaven and hell, awaiting her execution. That’s how it feels as she tiptoes her way out of the room, reaching for an oil lamp, holding it out in front of her.

It’s almost worse like this. A weak flame that barely illuminates her peripheral. She fears that should she turn too fast, an aberration will materialize from the margins of her view and tear her to ribbons.

At this point, she supposes that’s a kinder fate.

She slips into a pair of large boots because she can’t find her hiking shoes anywhere. She opens the door and pokes her head out, immediately met with the spray of rainwater on her face, the wind running through her ropes of neglected hair.

Sheets of heavy rain fall from the awning, creating another divide that keeps her trapped inside the cabin. She steps onto the porch, listening for any incongruous noises. Even if there were any, they would be bullied under the assault of rainfall. She can’t hear her own thoughts like this, can’t formulate a plan to get away from here once and for all.

So of course she doesn’t hear the floorboards settle behind her. Of course, she doesn’t hear the heavy drumming of feet closing in on her.

She doesn’t heed the body behind her until Johnny is sniffing up her neck and snuffing out the oil lamp, laying hold of her in a grudging grip.

“You just dinnae listen, do you?”

He takes her by the scruff of her neck and pulls her back into the cabin, knocking the lamp out of her grip. It falls to the floor and flares into a crash, louder than the rain. Almost louder than her sprinting heart and the blood rushing to her ears.

She wrestles against his grip. “Fuck you both—you sick fucks!”

She almost vomits when her insults make Johnny moan, his cock fattening against her back in a crude Pavlovian response. Each time she struggles against him, his grip tightens. It reminds her of the mountain itself. The more she tries escaping its soporific arms, the deeper it drags her down. It’s fruitless for her to fight it—the whistle of the branches, the tight sinews of Johnny’s grip.

He swings his arm around her neck, pinning her against his chest in a headlock. Her lungs stutter and her eyes turn dewy, her deep-seated fear ripening into paralyzing terror.

A web of lightning shatters the sky, and she almost dies right there.

It’s Simon but worse. A mutation gone wrong. A changeling, perhaps. He’s squeezed inside the threshold, breathing wildly. His wifebeater is torn in different places across his body, split around tufts of fur. Fur that is matted with thick ichor, wiry and sprouting from the spot behind his ears.

Another flash of lightning ignites the cabin, revealing the shaggy coat of hair on his chest. The sheet of fat over his stomach that flutters when he puffs, growling under his breath. He clenches his jaw because he can’t clench his hands, because his thick fingers have turned into claws, sharp spires covered in gore.

Simon snarls. Blood and spit drip from his bloodied teeth as if he’s a rabid animal with a limp maw. He rolls his shoulders and cracks the cartilage in his neck, the sound pealing out so loudly, it’s more like the popping of bubble wrap in rapid succession.

She can barely see him through her tear-filled eyes. It’s the epilogue to her life as he strides in close, biting his talons into her hips and drawing out blood. A snarl of satisfaction escapes him when he smells it—her blood, sweet, albeit stale due to her dehydration.

“Anyone ever told you you’re an ungrateful mutt?” He growls. “I give you food to eat an’ clothes on your back but here you are, tryin’ to sod off.”

Her cheeks dimple when he grabs her jaw. She opens her mouth to protest, but her grievances get smothered beneath Simon’s claws. He stuffs his fingers down her mouth, stunting her complaints. She gags and coughs around the taste of metal and mire crusted under his claws, bile shooting up her throat.

“Dogs don’t talk,” he tuts.

He hoists his arm back and she puckers, preparing for an attack. However, instead of her cheek, Simon’s hand slices against her shirt. He tears her flannel into ribbons, making the fabric slide off her like water from a milk bath.

She stands naked, her skin pocked with fear. She shivers despite being pressed between Simon’s furry chest and Johnny’s warm arms.

“‘Bout time someone taught you some manners,” Simon mumbles. “I was in the middle of my dinner you know? Fuckin’ rude to interrupt.”

She blanches when she sees a limp coyote behind him, splayed out on the porch. She recognizes it as the orpiment-coloured fur to the hair flossed between Simon’s teeth.

She screams as he wrestles her from Johnny’s grip, pulling her towards the bedroom. Simon throws her onto the stiff mattress, her spine shuddering from the impact. She tries covering herself, tries wrapping her arms around her body, but Simon is having none of that.

He pounces, taking her hips and pinning them to the bed. He hovers over her, rainwater dripping from his broken nose, impossibly large as he makes up her whole world. Simon swallows her entire view, leaving her with no chances of escape.

Her gaze flutters down to the chub outlined by his sweatpants and decides she’s left with no chances of survival, either.

She flails her legs as Simon slithers low, flattening his nose against her cunt. She lets out a protracted cry as he hitches his lungs and inhales, breathing in the musk of her bare cunt. The sweat stuck between her fuzzy hair, the sticky arousal that spreads as he forces her legs open.

Simon hisses. It rides the ruck of his throat, expelled from his nose. It’s not in any capacity a human sound. It seems more like a bear flaring its nostrils, poised for attack.

Johnny notices the confusion between her eyebrows because he’s leaning in and murmuring against the shell of her ear, licking it.

“Remember wha’ I said about matin’ season, kitty?”

Johnny leans away, leaving it at that. Equivocal and cryptic and calcified into the furrows of her brain. She isn’t allowed to wade in her confusion though because Simon’s tongue is lolling out, sweeping a fat stripe over her pussy.

It’s like the first thaw of spring. Simon licks her open, spreads her out on his tongue. She can’t help the immediate warmth that courses through her, swathing her in silk.

She cries out. Her back bends off the mattress when Simon pulls her lips into his mouth to suck.

She looks to Johnny for help. She twists herself and tries reaching out, tries crawling off the mattress, but Simon is gripping her ankle and popping the gauze of her bandage with his claws, pulling her back down, wrapping his lips around her engorged clit.

Johnny’s face doesn’t show contrition, but is pinched in jealousy. He watches with a fat mass growing in his sweatpants.

She splits her hand over Simon’s shaved head, using the cauliflowered shell of his ear to try pulling him off of her. That only makes him growl, the vibrations quavering up her spine, his claws digging into her flesh.

She folds her arms over her face, sobbing. Simon’s tongue is wet and hot against her pussy, lapping between her soft folds, slurping her juices. She flushes at how wet she is. At how pleasure leaks through the cracks in her resolve and spreads all over her, reducing her to a panting mess.

Simon releases her clit with a pop. He raises to his knees, towering over her, and now she’s unsure if his glistening chin is because of the rainwater outside or her arousal.

“Hold her down, Johnny.”

Her heart drums against her chest. Johnny crawls onto the bed and kneels behind her head. He pins her wrists down with his kneecaps, keeping her from squirming.

“Will ye let me put my cock in ‘er mouth?” Johnny asks. “Simon, will you–”

“Shut it,” Simon snaps. He shoves down his sweatpants, his cock springing out. All of her nerves bristle like rope, her heart sputtering to a stop.

Simon’s cock is fat and heavy. It droops between his thighs, drooling with precum. It’s stiff but hangs because he’s so large, the engorged tip angling downward, his balls plump, ruddy.

He chokes his hand around it, tugging it. Her throat closes in on itself but her legs instinctively peel apart. Her puffy lips spread open and she flushes at the sticky sound, hoisting her neck back to look at Johnny.

He has his cock out too, pumping it. He grins when they lock eyes and smacks his dick against her cheek. Johnny presses his cockhead into the corner of her mouth, using it to tilt her lips into a repugnant curl. It’s reminiscent of a smile, but it isn’t one.

She wails.

They both make up her beginning and end. They trap her between themselves, leaving her with no escape. Simon at her feet, Johnny at her head. Each of the men are more intimidating than the other, both inspiring fear in her feeble heart. Both inspiring unwanted arousal between her legs.

Simon slaps his flaring tip against her clit. She mewls and hates herself for bucking her hips into him. She’s dew-skinned as Simon pushes her knees to her ears, thumbing her clit.

He deeply inhales.

His chest expands, tugging at the steel-wool hair felted against his big chest. He quivers as he expels his breath, his mating call, and finally feeds her his cock, pushing past her first ring of muscle.

Her body tries curling in on itself like a Venus flytrap, but Johnny is quicker. He bites his fingers into her wrists and pins her to the mattress, keeping her still while Simon stuffs himself deeper. Johnny kisses her tears away while he does it. It’s oxymoronic and it’s betrayal—a Judas kiss—while he wraps his lips around sweet encouragement against her cheeks.

“Got so much fight in ye, sweetie,” he whispers. “Just stop strugglin’ and it’ll feel good.”

Simon leans over her, his cock slipping deeper into her warm cunt. The blood and saliva from his maw drips onto her chest, the blood is so fresh there’s still steam, hitting her like scythes.

Johnny’s getting restless. He watches raptly as Simon starts slamming his hips into her. Johnny ruts against the chafe of her brittle hair and hopes it will give him satisfaction by proxy, but it does little to offset the ache in his balls. His lip warbles.

“Simon, please,” a voice crack, “can I put my cock in ‘er mouth?”

“Fine,” Simon growls. His hips are piston-paced against the girl’s skin, unrelenting and uncaring to how her nails scratch striated lines down his chest in her struggle. “Just stop interruptin’ us.”

Her jaw cramps when Johnny cups her chin. He puppets it open and forces his fingers down. They’re caked with dirt as he swirls them over her tongue, coaxing up the warm spit from the furrow of her throat to be used as a natural lube.

The only mercy she gets is the stint of time between Johnny pulling his fingers out and gripping his dick, laying it on her tongue. He forces her lips apart with the tip of his cock, smearing himself all over her.

“So pretty like this sweetheart,” he hums. “Simon smelt it on ye. Hundreds of klicks away. How sweet y’are.”

She doesn’t have the energy to decipher that. Most of it is being wrung on trying to fight the two men off, but it’s fruitless. Johnny is already slipping into her mouth, and her cunt is already stretched around Simon’s plump cock.

Johnny starts pumping in and out, his cock embroidering a burn in the hinges of her jaw.

She lies there limply, but as Johnny’s wiry hair meets her nose, she realizes there’s one thing she can do. In her thrashing, she undertakes the lapse of judgement to clamp her teeth together, sinking them into Johnny.

He yells and pulls himself out. Johnny wraps a hand around himself, squeezing, placating the sting. A warm wash of tears twine his eyelashes together, long and babydoll-like. He looks to Simon, preening, imploring.

“She bit me.”

Simon slows his hips, only scarcely so. Only enough for her to fill her lungs halfway before he’s dragging himself out agonizingly slow, burying himself back inside.

His eyes, hungry, flutter down to her. His lips wind back, revealing his sharp fangs. He snickers.

“Now you’ve pissed him off, hm? Dumb girl. This is why puppies need owners.”

He pinches her clit, softly tweaking it between the pads of his fingers. He looks at Johnny and condescendingly smirks.

“C’mere, boy. If she won’t suck you off, why not take a go at her other hole?”

She tenses. Fear washes over her like a rip current, all the way down to her ass that squeezes in protest. Her heart feels too big for her chest suddenly. She can’t even see Johnny’s blinding grin through her cloudy eyes as brine tracks down her cheeks, mixing with her sweat.

She whimpers. “No–“

A palm whistles through the air, exploding into a crack of thunder as it breaks against the skin of her cheek.

She lapses into silence. Little hiccups escape her while she peers up at Simon, sniffling.

“Yes,” he says.

He grips her by her hips and flips her over. This way, Simon’s on his back and she’s on top of him, his cock digging deeper. The position is etched with a degree of intimacy that causes heat to pool in her belly—she can feel his hot breath fanning over her face, she can see his feline-like eyes better.

She almost jumps out of her skin when Johnny presses his fingers into her ass, trying to break her in. He thumbs at the puckered muscle, chuckling when it tries squirming away from him.

“Cute little thing,” he says. “She ever been fucked?”

The way she sobs when Johnny forces his forefinger inside gives him his answer. He almost comes right there. At the sound of her slick lubing her up, at the sound of her being torn open like a stone fruit and her pitiful cries for mercy.

“Stop…”

“Stop?” Johnny repeats, “Sweetie, if I stop it’ll hurt when I fuck you. Ye need prep, silly.”

That only wracks her ribs harder. The patrionizing lilt in his voice, the way he pats her bum like she’s nothing but a dumb puppy. Johnny sinks another finger in, knuckle-deep, and curls himself into the walls of her ass, massaging it.

Simon starts thrusting again. He takes one of her tits in his mouth and tongues at her nipple, snapping his hips into her. It only adds more pressure to her other hole, the one being fingered open by Johnny.

“Y’think she’s ready, sweetie?” Johnny asks. He slaps his cock against her hole, teasing her. “I think she’s fuckin’ hungry. Look at ‘er winkin’ back at me.”

Johnny collects the saliva moulded into his gums and sputters out a wad of spit, wetting her tight asshole. He presses his cockhead against her opening, pushing himself inside.

She buckles, doubling over. Her cheek falls on Simon’s chest, chafing against his coarse hair. She’s never felt so full. Folded between the men and being fed two big cocks, left with no space to breathe. She isn’t given respite. No mercy. No time for her to stretch around their cocks.

Johnny splits his hand across the divot where her spine begins and shoves her into Simon. Her jaw hangs loose, her lips parted dumbly, her drool trickling onto Simon’s chest. She’s limp. Letting them have her way with her. Letting them brand her with their fingers digging sickle-shaped scratches into her skin. Letting them break her open with each of their jackhammering thrusts, letting their pants of encouragement and degradation swirl around her like whistles from the woodland, causing goosebumps to arise and her head to pound.

“Do ye feel it, Simon?” Johnny pants. “Is it comin’ on?”

His words sprawl by like a lazy river in her mind. Desultory, like lukewarm water. They don’t click into the empty chasm of her cognizance until something else happens. Something inhuman. Something that has her choking on the raw bile that scratches her throat and the spit coaxed into the rivets of her tongue by Johnny’s assaulting fingers.

Simon’s ramming gets shaved into stunted thrusts. It isn’t due to a loss of energy, but is due to something else keeping him from slipping out. A balloon pushing against the walls of her pussy, swelling inside her. It isn’t fat but is chubby enough for her to feel it, flutter around it.

The knot snarled into Simon’s cock plugs her up. She can’t pull herself off him because it’s puffed up past her cunt, keeping her stuck on top of him. It doesn’t help that Johnny keeps slamming his hips into her, riling the thin skin that separates her cunt from her ass, bending it to the shape of Simon’s cock.

Johnny gasps. “I’m close– shite, I’m close.”

She doesn’t want to admit it, but she is too. She feels her nerves begin to fray at their edges, her stomach wearing thin. Johnny slips his hand low and blindly sweeps at her clit, nibbling on the husk of her ear.

He only gets three more pumps in until he’s emptying his balls in her ass. He grabs her hair when he comes, puppetting her head back so her mouth falls open and he can spit inside. His thrusts are slow and deep and peter into something calm, his cock softening inside her. Johnny grins.

“Say thank you, kitty.”

It crosses her tongue as an unintelligible mumble. She can’t speak properly with Simon’s cock still in her.

Johnny chuckles at that. He wraps his arms around her and pinches her nipples. Twisting them, pulling them.

Simon’s so big beneath her, lounging like a bear. He fucks into her, his thrusts curtailing into sloppy snaps of his hips.

“He’s close, bonnie,” Johnny says. “Kiss ‘im when he comes. It’s what he likes.”

Finally, Simon’s knot unravels, his thick ropes of come sticking to her walls. He makes sure that the warm come dressing her is so deep, it’ll have no choice but to take.

Her body betrays her when it crests and crashes into her orgasm. She’s flashbanged with blinding light, gushing out an off-white liquid that coats Simon’s thighs. It seizes her so deeply it hurts, the panoramic pleasure. An orgasm that makes her brain melt, makes her feel otherworldly.

Belatedly, she remembers Johnny’s order. She leans down to kiss Simon, her lips leathery against his. She only wants a modest peck—something to sate Johnny—but she can’t pull away because her bottom lip is caught between Simon’s teeth, pinched, and being sapped of its blood.

He laps it up before letting her go.

He slips his softening cock out but keeps his come inside her with two fingers, his claws having retracted.

He huffs like a bull. He presses his heavy paw into her abused cunt, palming it. He reeks with a carnal musk, the aftertaste of his rut heavy in the air.

Suddenly, it all makes sense to her.

Simon is the crux of all cautionary tales. The mountains aren’t sworn off because of rabid raccoons or feral fishers but because of something eldritch, whose reputation and folklore precedes any proof of its existence. Whatever Simon is, it can’t be put into words or into anything material, so he’s condensed into the urban legends that have haunted the woods for centuries. The stories that keep hikers off needle-covered paths and unmarked trees and make them carry crucifixes in lieu of bear spray.

She doesn’t even realize she’s softly sobbing. It feels like that’s all she does these days.

Johnny hugs her as if he hadn’t taken a part of her dignity.

He kisses her, kittening into her so that Simon is able to wrap his arms around them both, hugging them.

The calm that lolls after the storm only bruises her further. They act so normal after they’ve stripped her of everything. Johnny massaging her thighs, Simon igniting a cigarette between his lips.

“Will you ever let me go?” She mumbles against Simon’s chest.

He exhales the smoke. “Go where, love? You came into my house, remember?”

Johnny won’t stop kissing her. He’s a pest that’s attached itself to her dewy flesh, trying to lick her clean. Simon curls his fingers in her and makes sure that’s where his come stays.

Simon takes another drag of his cigarette. “Not like anyone back home would miss you, anyhow.”

———

She watches with a smile on her face as Johnny roasts the flank of a moose on a homemade grill and as Simon chops some more firewood.

She lounges in a chair, swathed in her caribou-hide coat. Winter is at its height, laying a skin of pillowy snow across the mountain.

The cubs wriggle in her lap, pawing at the loose tendrils of her hair and trying to pinch her nose.

“Lookin’ so pretty today, mama,” Johnny hums. She giggles when he kisses her, scratching at the cubs’ bellies.

“Ain’t she bonnie?” Johnny turns around and prompts Simon, “Our wee looker.”

Simon pauses his wood chopping and nods. He grips the hem of his lumberman’s jacket and raises it to his forehead to wipe his sweat away, revealing his chest and his hair that disappears into the waistband of his jeans. The cubs yip when he resumes his chopping, splitting a tree stump in two.

She grins.

She loves her family. Her providers and the offspring of their seed. She loves the cubs’ fine hair rubbing against her cheek when they jump on the bed to wake them up in the mornings, their blunt fangs biting her when they’re hungry, and the tiny chines on their back where their sharp spine will eventually grow in, just like Simon’s.

Briefly, she tries to remember her other family. The one that came before this one. But all that encompasses her mind is a supermassive black hole in place of memories. For some reason she can’t delineate them. The face of her father is blurry and the features of her mother fit together like a crudely sewn patchwork quilt.

She doesn’t remember much of her family. It’s kind of weird. She can’t remember if they liked her or not.

But she knows that doesn’t matter. Not when she has doting men around her and their litter hanging off her hips, another one currently swelling under her belly.

She pays no heed to the missing person posters taped to the fringes of the mountain that look eerily similar to her. Not to the K-9’s that try tracking scents but fail because she’s written with Simon and Johnny’s musk. She ignores the odd helicopter passing through each month, scarcely flying past their ramshackle cabin.

None of it matters because she knows she’s where she needs to be.

#simon riley x reader #ghost x reader #cod x reader #johnny mactavish x reader #soap/reader #soap mactavish x reader #soapghost x reader #ghost/reader #simon ghost riley #simon riley #cod mw2 #simon ghost x reader #soap x reader #ghoap x reader #orion writing #soap writing #ghost writing #ghoap writing

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knightjpg · 7 months ago

Text

Brick by Brick

And like a dog who's learned a new trick Simon rings your bell the next day. Wasn't happy with how he left it, and wasn't that faucet leaking? He's got plenty of spare wood in his shed, don't you worry. What's that about the boiler making a weird noise? He'll take a look at it, might have something for the draft in the hallway too. Pay him? What are you talking about, he does stuff like this for fun. Don't sweat it, love. Just hand him that wrench.

tags: construction worker simon/neighbour reader

part 1 | part 2

Summer is the worst time of year for construction work outside. Up early before the birds are awake to try and beat the heat, arriving on site at six or earlier with bleary eyes and creaky joints from the day before. It means coming home at four or five with lots of day left to get through yet without the will or energy to do anything beside shower, eat, watch some telly, and sleep.

The pay is good and it beats sitting in a cramped office all day, but when Simon gets home with aching knees and the thrum of a headache at the back of his skull it's hard to remember why on Earth he chose the career he's in. He's drenched in sweat, large dark patches adorning his pits and back.

It's one of those days where very little can make him stray from his commute straight to home to collapse into his big falling-apart chair, but today it's not really up to him. A large moving truck blocks his driveway. The faded company logo against dirty white overtakes the entire view of his windshield, though Simon can see the back doors are still swung open. No one to attend to it, though.

Simon noticed the FOR SALE! sign had gone, of course. Remembers feeling vaguely pleased, even, that the home next to his wouldn't be empty anymore, because he of all people knows exactly how quickly places can fall apart without anyone tending to it. But right now all he feels is tired, and hot, and really fucking annoyed. Just when he's clicked his belt loose to get out of the car and see if the dolt belonging to the truck is anywhere to be found, voices carry from the open front door.

“...last. I'm afraid it's a little heavy, though, so maybe we should get the boxes out first?”

And out steps the sweetest little thing he's ever seen. Hair tied up, tight little top, and shorts that give him ample view of your legs.

Maybe summer's not so bad after all.

You're talking to a bloke wearing a uniform that matches the moving truck and who looks flushed in the face from exertion. As soon as you clock Simon's car, though, you stop mid-sentence in surprise, and then quickly walk to him, brows furrowed apologetically.

“Oh, I'm so sorry—you're trying to get past us, aren't you?” Simon gives you a nod, and you turn back to the mover. “Would you mind moving the truck up a little? I don't want it to be in the way.”

There's precious little parking space ahead, so Simon rolls down his window and calls out to you, “Jus’ backing up a few yards s’fine.” He gestures to his driveway so you know that's where he's headed, and you flash him a smile and a thumbs-up in understanding.

The truck is moved, Simon parks his car, and you pull another heavy-looking box from the cube. You never reach your new doorstep with it; Simon steps in and lifts it from your hands. You blink up at him, lashes fluttering sweetly with surprise. “Oh—are you sure? It's heavy...!”

One corner of Simon's mouth tugs up. Tired as he is it weighs next to nothing, and he can't resist holding it with one arm, holding out the other.

“Can take ‘nother if you need.”

You laugh and assure him this is quite enough, then jog back to the truck while Simon pushes past the half-open door to his new neighbour's home.

It's a mess, of course. Piles of boxes, scattered furniture, rolled-up carpets. Simon puts the box down in the living room, then saunters back outside to lift another from your hands. He does the same with the couch; the mover is struggling and Simon doesn't trust him not to let it fall and crash. And you're such a little thing. Just doesn't feel right, watching you rush around and struggle without stepping in.

With Simon's help it's quick work. The mover thanks Simon before driving off, but he's not really listening. There's much more important things to pay attention to.

You're pretty. Cheeks flushed from exertion, breathing hard, flyaway hairs from your ponytail sticking up in odd directions. Simon has to suppress the urge to smooth them away.

"Thanks so much for the help,” you tell him earnestly. “I'm sorry we were in the way—we thought we'd have a little more time before people started coming home from work.”

“S’alright,” Simon says. It's nearing evening, now, the sky above you glowing in pale pink and oranges hues. The little smatter of trees across from you rustles with a gust of summer wind.

You introduce yourself and insist on giving Simon your number “in case there's ever anything you need.” Simon's more concerned about a young woman living all on her own but takes your number all the same, watching your pretty little fingers tap it in on his phone.

“I mostly work from home, but I'm very quiet and boring,” you tell him with a smile. “You don't have to worry about noise.”

For some reason that isn't the selling point it should be. When Simon stands inside his hallway, house empty and dark and quiet, he wishes he still lived in a shitty apartment with thin walls on the bad side of Manchester. Maybe then he'd hear your footsteps, or better yet, your voice. Instead the only thing waiting for him at home is silence. Heavy and thick, where he's ripped away from sweet sunshine and plunged underwater.

Simon is halfway to falling asleep on the couch when the bell rings. He groans, drags a hand over his face, and glances up at the TV. The football match is still going. The camera pans over a cheering crowd, their cries distant and quiet.

He mutes the thing entirely and heaves himself up to open the door. Swear to God, if this is the fucking salesman again...

“Hi there.”

You give Simon a little finger wave, your other hand cradling a round oven dish. When you shift on your feet the protective foil on top rustles noisily.

You look a little more put together than you did yesterday—rested, showered, fed. Just as pretty.

Although, speaking of fed...

“Alright?” Simon asks, eyes on the oven pan. He's only catching a faint whiff of something, but whatever it is smells really fucking good. His stomach reminds him that the only thing in his fridge are a couple cans of beer.

You nod and lift the dish with a shy little grin. “Yeah. Um. I wanted to say thanks again, for yesterday. And I wanted to test out my oven, so...”

You hold the dish out for him to take. Simon's fingers brush yours, large meaty paws easily twice the size of your own. When he peels back the foil you add, “Shepherd's pie. I thought about cookies, but I wasn't sure if you'd like those.”

The scent hits him, then, rich and hearty and buttery smooth. The dish is still a little warm.

Fuck. When was the last time he ate something homemade?

“No, I'll eat anything,” he says, suddenly feeling a little self-conscious. He hasn't showered yet. Must look a nightmare. Does he stink? “Thanks.”

Your whole face lights up, and Simon's neck feels hot. He averts his eyes to avoid your gaze and pretends to inspect the pie instead. Jesus, what is he, twelve? “I'm glad. I'll leave you to it, then.”

D’you want to come in for a drink?

It's on the tip of his tongue, but he can't get the words out quite right and gives you a brusque nod, watching you walk back to your own home before closing his door all the way.

He eats at his kitchen table and finishes the whole thing in one go. Chases bits of flakey crust with his finger, licks up every leftover crumb. The meat is tender and juicy and for a while after the only things he smells is golden-brown potatoes seasoned with rosemary.

He mourns it when it's gone, of course. Has half a mind to go over right now and ask if your cooking is for hire—Simon can't remember the last time he felt satisfied. When he ate not just for the sake of fuel or convenience but because someone wanted him to have something nice, something special. Is it special? Is he special? Are you going around the neighbourhood handing out cookies and pies to just anyone?

Simon's sigh is loud in the silence and sticks to the kitchen walls.

The pre-made frozen meals are fine, of course. Empty plastic containers fill up the rubbish bin. They're easy and cheap and most days Simon's glad just to have something warm in his stomach.

And yet.

The next day Simon stands at your door at six in the evening sharp, holding the clean dish in his hands. You invite him in for a cup of tea, because unlike him you have good manners, and you sheepishly apologise for the stacks of boxes everywhere.

“S’alright,” Simon says, carefully manoeuvring around a large pile of books. “I don't mind.”

And he doesn't, though he does feel like a bull in a china shop. Large and much too coarse for the little tea cup you hand him while the kettle whistles on the stove.

“I'm afraid I don't have much to go with it,” you say with a flutter of your hands. “Do you like ginger snaps? I think I've got a pack somewhere.”

You don't wait for his answer and pry open one of the cupboards. First come the ginger snaps, then the box of Earl Grey, which you hold up to him with a triumphant smile. “Unpacked the important stuff first.”

Simon frowns and jerks his chin to the cupboard. “S’it stuck?”

“Oh—yeah. They all are.” You give the wood a little knock. “It'll take me some time to get to fixing everything. The house went for a good price, but only ‘cause it needs some love.” You give him a rueful smile and get up, wiping your hands on your thighs. “I'm not all that handy, so I'll have to take it bit by bit.”

Simon rises before you finish your sentence. "Let me see.”

“Oh, no, it's okay. It's not a big deal, really—”

Simon crouches down, slowly, to spare his knees, and tests the hinges. The wood is rotten in certain places, the hinges old and rusted. Rather than fixing it up it should be replaced entirely. You really better had gotten this place for good money, because this will take more than a bit of elbow grease to repair. He prods at the hinges, tuts, and looks up at you.

“Ready to fall apart, this one. You said they're all like this?”

You nod, worry creasing your brow. “I—yes. Well, the kitchen is. The bathroom seems alright. Is it worse than I thought?”

“Might be. You have anyone look at this?”

You shake your head. “I'm starting to feel silly about it now, but I was going to look up how to do it myself.”

Simon straightens. “I'll go get my kit.”

It's not as bad as he feared. Two cabinets need tearing down completely, but the others are worth saving. Simon warns you the repair job will fuck the wood, but you tell him it's no problem; you'll paint over it anyway.

You feed him tea and ginger snaps while he works, asking him several times if he wouldn't like a break, hasn't he done a lot already? You feel terrible about having him work on his day off. Didn't he say he worked construction? He must be so tired, poor man. You insist he stay for dinner. “You've been so helpful—it's the least I could do.”

Simon takes a breather to watch you cook. Chicken, pasta, summer salad. The sun sinks lower and hits you straight on from the kitchen window, painting the edges of you a dazed red-gold. An angel's halo.

“You big on reading, then?”

You turn down the heat and put a lid over the pan to join him at the table. Simon's eyeing the many books strewn about on top of boxes that say “pans” and “kitchen supplies”. Le Morte D’Arthur. Histories of the Kings of Britain. Beowulf. There's even one that prompts a vague, long-forgotten memory from his school days— The Canterbury Tales.

“I am. Always have been.” You nod to the books. “I teach at university—medieval literature. But I'm working on my own research on the side.”

Simon lets out a low whistle. His pretty bird is a clever one. Smarter than him, that's for sure. He might be big and strong but he's got bricks for brains.

That's what his dad always used to say, anyway—that he's stupid. Those always were his kinder moments.

“That explains all the books y’got.”

“There sure are a lot of them, aren't there? I swear moving really makes you realise just how much stuff you own...” You shake your head. “I'll have to get a bigger bookcase.”

“Think it's impressive.”

Your eyes crinkle with a smile. “Not as impressive as knowing how to fix my cabinets! I don't know how I would've managed by myself.” You hop up from your seat to check the food, then ask over your shoulder, “Is that something you do a lot for work, too? Carpentry and the like?”

Simon shakes his head. “We do the heavy lifting. Clearing a place out, laying the foundation. Johnny—my coworker, he's mostly on machinery. Kyle does transport and plumbing. I do the heavier handiwork.”

You hum and start plating the food while asking him more questions. Is the pay good? Is his boss fair? Are his coworkers nice?

Price's fairly strict is what he is, Simon answers, and you laugh again. He likes that. Likes that he gets you to do that.

He wolfs down a plate of his pasta and devours the chicken. It's fragrant, roasted with lemon and thyme, bursts between his teeth. He tells you more about Johnny, that he's a cocky bastard who likes playing with electricity way too much, but that he's also a loyal friend. That he's a hard worker—that all of them are.

When his plate is empty and he's eyeing what's left in the pans you push them closer without saying anything, and prompt him to tell you about that time a plumbing line exploded and Kyle got soaked from tip to toe in disgusting gunk. He smelt like sewage water for weeks.

Simon doesn't even realise how much he's talked until his throat starts feeling rougher than usual. You make it easy somehow. If he'd thought you would look down on him because of your own job he needn't have worried. You're not at all like what he imagines when he thinks of professors, none of the stuffy superiority complex he's used to weathering when people find out all he does all day is chafe his fingers on hard cement.

Maybe you're just good at faking it, but he doubts it. The sparkle in your eyes when you listen to him so intently has to be real.

You send him home with a warm thanks and dessert, and Simon feels something in his chest lurch when you peer up at him through your lashes in the doorway, smiling and sweet. Can't remember the last time he went out for dates. Can't remember having the time or energy for it.

Pay him? What are you talking about, he does stuff like this for fun. Don't sweat it, love. Just hand him that wrench.

There are days when it's hard, of course. Simon is only human, and spending days and days on sizzling hard concrete would wring anyone dry. The project is coming along nicely, but at the height of summer there's plenty of times when even the promise of your smile isn't enough to keep him from falling asleep on his couch—often on an empty stomach.

But during the weekends he rings your bell dutifully. Six o’clock becomes something sacred in his mind, sweet relief after praying on his knees for hours smoothing out cement. It gets to the point where he turns down Friday drinks with the guys more than once because he's got something to go home for now, his pretty little bird that's never once mentioned a boyfriend of any kind.

“You really should let me pay you.”

Simon gives you a look before pushing his large shoulders further into the cabinet under the bathroom sink. “Should be the one payin’ you. I know I'm doubling your grocery bill.”

He eats more at your place than his own these days. It gives him incentive to rush through a shower, dress like something resembling a human, then wait at your doorstep to be let in. Wagging tail and everything.

Your cheeks darken and you duck your head. “No, um... It makes me happy. To see you eat my cooking, I mean,” you confess a little shyly. “I feel like I'm the one getting everything out of this. I hope I'm not keeping you from—from spending time at home, or with your family.”

“S’just me, love.” Simon pauses, pretends to inspect the pipes. “Less you don't want me coming ‘round anymore.”

“No, no,” you say hastily. “No, I like—I like the company. Really.” Your voice softens. “And I'm not just saying that because I appreciate the help.”

Simon exhales, shifts a little to accommodate the strain in his boxers, and holds his hand out for the screwdriver.

#cod mw2 #cod x reader #ghost cod #simon ghost riley #ghost mw2 #simon riley #ghost x reader #ghost/reader #simon ghost riley x reader #x reader #if you saw me post this to the wrong blog. no you didnt.

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