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auliasbookcorner · 2 years ago

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Review: The Winners (Beartown #3) by Fredrik Backman

Book 18 of 2022

Start Reading Time: 16 November 2022

Finish reading Time: 26 November 2022

Page Count: 671 Pages

TRIGGER WARNINGS: RAPE, VIOLENCE, GUN VIOLENCE, MURDER, GRIEF, SUICIDE

This is the spoiler-free part of the review. I will put up a spoiler alert before going into the review that contains spoilers.

HERE WE GO AGAIN WITH THE WORST BOOK HANGOVER IN A WHILE.

This hurts too much to touch with words, indeed. (It should be a fucking warning on the book cover) And that's another quote that has the power to instantly destroy me mentally.

I haven't been this devastated because of a book since A Little Life and The Hero of Ages, so naturally, this book automatically gets a five stars from me. I needed 5 days to recover from this book, where I do nothing but sleep and cry while listening to The Winner Takes It All by ABBA, and think about Benji.

I am so emotionally drained. Remember how I said I felt like a shell of myself after I finished reading The Hero of Ages? Well, I didn't expect to experience it again this soon. But I guess, it's just an indication of a good book series, that the ending has such a powerful effect on you after you first finish reading it.

First of all, before we go into the review, I'd like to thank Backman for dedicating this book to me. I mean, he's kind of describes me perfectly (and it feels a little like a read too) when he wrote:

"To you who talk too much and sing too loud and cry too often and love something in life more than you should."

When I first read it, I was like 😱😱😱 OMG this dedication is for meeee!!! IT'S ME, HI, I'M THE ONE THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO, IT'S MEEEE.

I mean, If that's not me, I don't know what I am. So, thank you, Backman, I felt so seen and you just made my year with that book dedication because this is one of my favorite book trilogy of all time, and this book is my favorite read this year.

Now, here's the non-spoilery review: To say that Backman stick the landing with this book is an understatement, I honestly think with every book in this series, the story becomes bigger and better, and what a great first trilogy for him, I'm so excited for his next book series. I am aware that I have more criticisms in my review of Us Against You (Book 2) than Beartown (Book 1), but I also still love it very much, as it explores so much more about the town and the characters that I have come to love and care about very, very much. Yes, Beartown can be read as a standalone, and it would be a great standalone read all by itself, but I personally think that Us Against You and The Winners have added so much more to the story and make it so much richer, especially for the fans of Backman's works like myself, and I am so grateful that he made it into a trilogy like it is now, because imagine if there's book 2 and three for his other awesome books like Britt-Marie Was Here or Anxious People. I would lose my freaking mind.

I know I'm very much in the minority with this opinion, as I have found that a lot of the criticisms of this book by other people is that it was too long and that there are parts that should be cut from the book, but I honestly feel that one of the best things about this book (and there are a lot, as I will explain later in this review) is that it's THICC and much longer than Backman's previous books. Well, I disagree with those people. I personally don't think that there's any part that should be cut from the book, in fact, I think there are some things that should be added and included in the book, and if that makes this book even thicc-er, the so be it, I don't care if I'm the only soul in the whole world who thinks this. I have always been a lover of big thicc books, and I always will be. The thicc-er the book, the better for me.

I mean, did Backman wreck me with this book? Yes. Yes, he most certainly did. But, oh boy, am I beyond happy that this is so much longer than all of his other books so far. I pray that Backman will make his books longer from now on, and may all his books have no less than 1000 pages, AMEN. But I'll still read his books even if they're short though. Listen, I'll take what I can get.

Awesome authors like Backman, Sanderson, RF Kuang, Hanya Yanagihara, and Khaled Hosseini should only write long books, IMO. It should be a crime for great stories and books to be read so briefly.

Having said that, I feel like Backman kinda cheated because even though there are more pages in this book, the chapters are way shorter than the previous books. I mean, there are so many short chapters in this book, and many of them are scary foreshadowing of the events that are about to happen, and they make my anxiety goes 📈📈📈. Especially that first chapter about Benji. It was fucking brutal, if anybody wants to hurt me mentally, just show me that chapter, and I will be hyperventilating and sobbing in a second.

However, this book has exceeded all of my expectations. Yes, it did wreck me mentally, but there's also still so much joy and happiness in it, which makes it all the more harder to move on from this book. Because if you're gonna shatter me, at least give me a few moments of happiness first.

The cast of characters also grew bigger in this book, which stumped me at first, because it's not as if the first two books don't already have a large cast of characters in them. But I'll just go ahead and get attached to even more characters, I guess. Whatever you wanna do, Fredrik. But it paid off, I think, because the new characters added new and much needed perspectives to the story. Now, we won't only care about the people of Beartown, but also the people of Hed.

There is so much light and darkness in this book that I think Backman fairly focused on the contrasting hues of the two vastly different sides of some of the things that are being mentioned in this book. There's happiness, but there's also heartbreak. There are deaths, but also newborns. There are losers, and there are winners. For every ending, there's a new beginning. And sometimes, the same thing happened to two different people, and the outcome of that same thing ended up being completely different. As Ramona said in the book, “Two of everything, one we see and one we don’t, an upside and a downside,” Sometimes we get one thing and other times we get the other, and it's all just a part of life. Reading about it in this book makes me want to appreciate both the upside and the downside in life, which is just the outcome that's expected from reading the Philosopher King's book.

I don't think I need to mention this, as it has already been well known how much I love Backman's style of writing, but I just need to mention how I think Backman just becomes better and better with every book he releases. To this day I don't think there's anyone who writes about human emotions and human connection as good as Backman. And I think that the initial title of this book, which is "Those Who Run Towards Fire" fits this book so much better, now after knowing the content of the book, but I get that The Winners is a catchier title, and I don't have any problem with that. But now just hearing or reading those words gives me the chills and the feels, man. (Also, it reminds me of my boy Spook/Lestibournes in The Hero of Ages of Mistborn trilogy, The Survivor of The Flames himself, because he literally run inside a burning building to save a town from burning down)

WARNING: SOME SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Speaking of people who run towards fire, let's talk about Benji. I did know that Benji's going to die in this book, since Backman has given it away since Beartown and Us Against You, and it feels like he has been preparing us for it since Beartown. So, I think we all BEEN KNEW about Benji's death in this book. But, guess what, I was STILL DEVASTATED when IT happened. I swear to God, when I got to THAT scene, I was legit like:

It was pure pain and devastation. "This hurts too much to touch with words" is accurate because it REALLY is. I could babble on and on for hours about how painful it was, but no words could adequately represent how shattered I was when I was reading it. But I understand why Backman has to kill him off, though I was afraid at first as it seems to be feeding off of the Bury Your Gays trope, but it's really not, and you have to understand Benji's character to know how he had to die the way he did in this book. It was so fucking hard, but I accepted it and hope that now he can be in peace, somewhere in heavens with Ramona, Vidar, Ann-Katrin and maybe even his dad. And it is so right that this trilogy is ending after his death, because he really is at the heart of it.

Overall, this book is gorgeous, it made me cry and laugh and sob and reflect. It's gut-wrenching, but it's also a beautiful ending to this much beloved trilogy. Now that all three books are released, and I have finished all three of them, I can safely say that this trilogy is solid and definitely one of my favorite of all time. It's bittersweet to say goodbye to not only this trilogy, but also one of my comfort characters. As much as I want this book series to last forever, I know I need to let it go for now. Nothing gold can stay, Frost says. But I can always visit Beartown again in the future. Now, how do I get out of this book hangover?

BOOK SUMMARY:

It's two years after that tragic night, where the violence between Beartown and Hed reached its peak, and took one incredible young man's life. Beartown and Hed had been in truce since then, and no violence occurred between the two towns. Benji has left Beartown to travel abroad and find out who he could be without hockey, in many new places where he doesn't know a soul. Maya left Beartown to study music in the big city that made her realize just how small and remote her town actually is, in comparison. She's still fighting her demons that she got ever since that night Kevin took away her youth and her chances of living a carefree life in which she can drink at a friend's party without having to worry if she's getting too drunk that someone might rape her while she was intoxicated. She still calls Ana from time to time, but their friendship is not as it used to be.

Meanwhile, back in Beartown, The Beartown Hockey team keeps winning game after game, thanks to Amat, who is now the star player of the team, and Hed seem to be losing game after game. Along with Beartown Hockey Team's success, comes the sponsorship, and investors who are going to bring development and business to the town, while there are rumors that the Hed hockey club is going to be closed down. It's the exact opposite of what happened two years ago. However, there are rumors going around that Amat is faking his injuries, he was absent from many hockey games and cost the club the championship, because he kept getting drunk. He was doing amazing at the beginning that he was able to carry the team to finals for the first time in a long while for Beartown hockey club. However, suddenly Amat started missing games, the team soon started losing and in the end they lost the championship. Amat also went to the US for the NHL draft, but he did not get drafted and he'd been staying in his house all day since then.

Ana is recovering from a knee injury that she got after she kicked a guy who said that girls can't kick properly. Bobo is now working as an assistant coach to Zackell. Peter is still working for Kira at her hugely successful law firm, but it did not mend their strained marriage like Peter hoped it would, two years ago. Things may not be as good as we wanted it to be, but the people of Beartown are known to be strong and resilient. And that's a good thing, because a storm is happening and it's bringing chaos and changes with it.

Two remarkable things happened during the storm, someone we love passed away in their sleep, and a pregnant woman was about to give birth to a baby, but she was stuck in the car with her husband on their way to the hospital, because of the storm. Someone from Hed would have to work together with someone from Beartown to help the woman deliver her baby.

Another remarkable thing that happened during the storm is that the hockey rink in Hed collapsed due to the storm. Some business man from Beartown will take advantage of this, which will cause the rivalry between the two towns to reach new highs that will cost them dearly.

The funeral would bring Maya and Benji home, and the old gang's back together once again in Beartown. We would later hope they didn't.

The people of Beartown mourn the passing of someone we love, but they will do it again so unexpectedly soon, and the death would make them evaluate their collective failure as a community that led to said loss. Can the people of Beartown and Hed weather the storm?

🚨 SPOILER ALERT 🚨

From this point forward in the review, I will mention spoilers, plot twist and the ending. So, if you don’t wish to be spoiled, you can skip the rest of the review and come back to this review once you’ve finished reading this book.

So... let's talk about it…

THE CONTRASTING THEME: LIFE-DEATH, AND TWO VASTLY DIFFERENT SIDES OF THE SAME COIN. I sensed a really strong theme of the contrasting of two different things in this book. First is about life and death. When Ramona died during the storm, Vidar (the baby that Ana and Hannah helped deliver) was born. When Benji and Matteo died, a set of twin babies were born into the world in a hospital in Hed.

Sidenote, and this is not in the theme, but notice how all three of the tragic deaths, Ruth's, Matteo's and Benji's, all described the same way: they died before they hit the floor.

Both Maya and Ruth were raped, one happened not long after the other, one happened in Beartown and the other in Hed, but the outcome of these two cases are so vastly different. Ruth died after abusing drugs and alcohol, while Maya survived, though she's still battling the PTSD from that night, but she's thriving in the big city, she's enrolled in a music school, and she'll go on living and become a successful and famous singer. The difference between these two girls is the support from their own family, friends and community. Maya was blessed with a family and friends who believed her, and fought for her justice, while Ruth's family didn't. Amazing how much difference a good support system can make on a person's well being.

Matteo and Leo also had such contrasting endings, even though they're so similar in so many ways. They're the same age, they both love video games, they both felt the rage for what happened to their sisters, they both felt helpless, not knowing what to do with all of their rage, but they both felt the need to act on it. We know how in Us Against You, Leo joined The Pack, but then his family stopped him from being involved in the violence and danger, while Matteo had no one to protect him from doing the stupid things he did in this book, as his parents are both mentally checked out from reality, and no one stepped up to care for him, thus he felt invisible in his town. I feel like guys like Teemu, Vidar and a lot of guys from the pack were able to grow up to be somewhat "decent" guys (debatable, I know, but at least they protect the weak and each other, and they never hurt anyone who doesn't deserve it) because at least they had a parental figure in Ramona, or each other, who would later be their support system. Who knows how they would have turned out to be if they never had Ramona or each other. Again, what difference a good support system can make.

I really like this theme and I applaud Backman for including this theme in the book, because as he stated in the book, most rape survivors don't have it as good of an outcome as Maya, and there are so many people with stories like Ruth's out there in the world. And same thing for Leo and Matteo's case. I think the message is clear, that every one, especially if they're still children, need good familial support system, and how we need to step up for our community and be kind to each other, check up on one another, so no one would have felt invisible, or not heard, or not believed.

IT'S ABOUT REDEMPTION. I know that this is the final installment to the trilogy, so Backman might want to end it with everyone having character development and growth, but I feel like everyone got a redemption arc in this book, except for Ruth's rapist. Tails got a redemption arc with him helping Peter with "The Cathedral", Lev got a redemption arc when he helped Ana staged an alibi for his father, Richard Theo helped Kira bury the story on Bearton Hockey's corruption, even Ruth and Matteo's parents got a redemption arc with all of their charity works.

I think the theme of redemption is very easily felt in the book, especially in the last part of the book, with the whole "Cathedral" thing that Peter, Tails and Kira are doing with the new ice rink in The Hollows, Kira's new law firm, and everything Lev and Matteo's parents did. I feel this quote accurately represents that theme in the book:

"It’s that sort of town, where everything can change and the people can be transformed. Where we find the strength to play even though our lungs are screaming. Possibly because we’re used to withstanding the darkness, both inside and outside. Possibly because we live close to wilderness. But perhaps most of all because, just like everyone else in every other place: If we don’t have tomorrow, what’s the alternative?"

This theme reminds me of this Backman quote from Anxious People about forgiveness and redemption:

“They say that a person’s personality is the sum of their experiences. But that isn’t true, at least not entirely, because if our past was all that defined us, we’d never be able to put up with ourselves. We need to be allowed to convince ourselves that we’re more than the mistakes we made yesterday. That we are all of our next choices, too, all of our tomorrows.”

Maybe that's the main moral message that Backman is trying to tell the readers with this trilogy, that people fuck up all the time, whether it was done with intent or not, as long as we're alive, we still have a chance to make up and repent for our mistakes. That's why sports, or more specifically in this trilogy, hockey, is the main theme of the trilogy, because as Backman wrote in the final chapter of this book:

"It’s easy to love hockey then, because hockey isn’t the past, it isn’t yesterday, it’s always next. The next change of line, the next game, the next season, the next generation, the next magical moment when something we didn’t think was possible becomes a miracle. The next chance to fly up from your seat and yell with joy. Next."

And from that quote, I took it to mean that for all of us, the most important step is the next step, no matter how you fuck up in the past, it's all about how you make up for it in the present. Your next action is the most important one.

THE HOCKEY CORRUPTION STORY. I feel iffy that the story on corruption in Beartown is buried, even though I absolutely love Peter, and I hate the way it all happened, but most of all because it involves Richard Theo, I just hate how it's being buried. My conscience is screaming at me that it's so wrong, just because I love Peter and don't want him to go to jail because he was just being used by Tails, doesn't mean that the truth should not be exposed, and they can deal with the outcome in court maybe.

Also, the sentiment about moral and ethical standards, being expressed in the book via Kira's law business partner, that when it involves our own family and the people we love, all of our moral and ethical standards go out the window, I think it's kind of hypocritical.

"“Do you think I’m doing the wrong thing? In purely moral terms? Defending Peter like this?”

“You know, Kira, all my thoughts about morals and ethics boil down to one single thing: not if it concerns your family. You can have a thousand principles, but not if it concerns your family. That’s what you protect first and foremost, above morals, even above the law. Family first. You’re loads of things, but you’re a mother first. A wife first.”"

I know, it's easier said than done, but I'd like to think that I would hold the same moral and ethical standards I have towards other people with my own family too. Because I trust other people to do the same towards their own family too. I don't know, I think there's debates to be had about it, and maybe when tested in real life, I would share the same sentiment as Kira's colleague, but theoretically and ideally speaking, the sentiment is hypocritical.

Also, even though the journalist is publishing the expose on the council members' corruption may bring the citizens of Hed and Beartown together, I think the two towns would still have the rivalry for years to come.

TAILS. Boy oh boy, do I hate him. He was okay in Beartown (book 1), and irritating at worst in book 2, but in this book you just can't help but hate him, and if you disagree we can't be friends.

I mean, the AUDACITY of this guy, he had A LOT of nerve making the tragedy that is the storm to benefit him, his politics, Beartown and its hockey club. How is this guy not the villain here? And I can't believe it's taken us three books to find out how rotten he really is.

He's just the the absolute dumb-ass for making Peter responsible for his corrupt hockey politics, even though he may not had the sinister intent of making Peter the scapegoat for his corruptions. And I don't like that in the end he gets to redeem himself by helping Peter build the Ice Rink or "The Cathedral" in The Hollows, but whatever. Maybe it's just my petty ass, but if I were Peter I would probably cut him out of my life for good.

HANNAH AND JOHNNY BEING KIRA AND PETER 2.0, OR HED VERSION OF KIRA AND PETER. I guess they're sweet and couple goals too, and I think that Johnny is funnier than Peter, but I'm already too invested with the Anderssons. Another family like them being introduced to the story this late in the trilogy just can't compare to the OG one. I like their family, don't get me wrong, I like Hannah and Johnny as well as all of the children, I found each and everyone of them to be very interesting characters, but unfortunately we just have not spend that much time with them to care about them that much. But I appreciate that they represent the Hed's perspective, though.

The best things about this book for me are...

BENJAMIN OVICH. The official guardian angel of Beartown. The heart and soul of this trilogy. He IS, and always will be my comfort character. All I wanted for him in this book is to be happy, and to finally read about him being happy in this book is truly everything, it's definitely worth the wait, and what a joy it was to read. It's so so good to read about Benji being happy, that I want to inject it into my veins. And as much as I hate that he's killed off at the end, in a way I'm also glad because in this book he seemed to be the most contented we've ever known him. Also, he died the way he lived: protecting other people. We all know how in Beartown (Book 1) he had protected Kevin in and out of the ice all throughout their friendship until the rape, then in Us Against You (Book 2) he protected Leo, and in this book he died protecting Alicia. Because that's just the kind of person he had always been: a protector, someone who runs towards a burning building to save other people. How can your heart not break for him?

I know I said in the review of Us Against You:

Well, I’m not rioting because now, I have peace with his tragic ending. As much as I hoped that he didn't die and wished for him to find someone he can be happy with, and spend the rest of his life with, and for them to live together happily ever after, I can appreciate Backman's choice to kill him off in this book. His death is a powerful lesson for the whole town of Beartown, and I can't even be mad at Matteo, for pulling the trigger and shot the bullet that killed Benji. It's the failure of the entire town that drove him to this point, and now they have to pay dearly. Benji had lived such a tremendous life in such a short time that the whole town mourned his passing, and he had such a big heart that everyone in that town loved him. It's not everyday that a character in a book gets me to be this emotional about them passing, while simultaneously accepting it and have peace with it. He's in the Elite Characters Heaven now, with Rin (TPW), Kelsier, Vin and Elend (Mistborn) and others. They're guardian angels now.

Now, what I wish we get in this book that I didn't get is the stories about Benji's travels. I do think that Benji's been transformed, even if just a little because he's still his awesome self, but he's been transformed by his travels nonetheless, and the little glimpses of it that we get in this book is waayyy too small. I understand that Backman already had too many stories to fit into this book, and there are new characters that we need to get to know too, but I just need more Benji.

One of the saddest things about Benji in this book is the way that he's still haunted by Kevin, even after two years and thousands of miles away from home, but still he blames himself and can't seem to mentally let go of Kevin. Knowing that Kevin was his first love, best friend, and the love of his life, it hurts too much to touch with words. And the way that Benji still blames himself for Kevin raping Maya. As if it was his responsibility to keep Kevin behaving appropriately towards women. There are so many times I just want to yell at him "IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT, BABE!!!" like Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting, lol.

I mean, my guy needed to see a therapist, like, yesterday. He needed it so freaking bad. How I hope he had at least seen a therapist, how different his life would have been like. Oh, if only...

Benji and Alicia's unlikely friendship is something that I didn't know I needed in my life. I mean, inject it straight into my veins. Every time these two are having a cute interaction I just have the biggest smile on my face, like an idiot. Their friendship takes the prize in this book, beating Maya and Ana's and even Amat and Bobo's, and that's saying a lot, if you've read my review of Beartown and Us Against You. My favourite moment of theirs is a tie between that scene where they lay down on the ice together and Benji taught Alicia to not be scared, and that scene where they just said "Hi bestieee" to each other. I mean, just look at the material:

"Adri drives through the forest and stops on the slope above the campervan. She has Alicia with her, the girl rushes down through the trees and throws herself into Benji’s arms.

“Hi best friend,” Benji whispers.

“Hi best friend,” she giggles back."

It's pure serotonin for me. Every time I get sad, I'll just read that and I'll be happy again.

And Alicia's not the only lucky soul to have Benji as her friend, Maya and Ana are also so lucky to have been besties with him in this book. But especially Maya, I feel like she and Benji have an even tighter bond in this book, since in the last two books we didn't get a lot of interactions between them. So, I was a little taken aback when I read about how Maya ran and hugged him the first time she saw him at Ramona's funeral, because it feels like a long time friendship's reunion. Did they keep in touch and get closer since they last saw each other in Beartown? I wish we knew. Nonetheless, their friendship tugged at my heartstrings, and I adore them together. The kind of friendship where you just wish for a happy ending for each other is so wholesome and precious that I think people who truly have that are the luckiest ones among us. I strive to be one of them too.

It's also great to know that Benji and Ana are great friends now, that Benji has forgiven her and Ana has learned her lesson and is now a better person. Their friendship hits different for me, because to Ana, Benji was a crush, then he's a boy who broke her heart, then he's her victim because she outed him against his wills, and now, he's one of her best friends. And for Benji too, Ana was someone he sympathized with because of her drunk father, then she was the one that outed him, and now she's one of his best friends too. Their friendship taught me a lot about forgiveness, specifically to forgive people's mistakes and believe that people can really change and be better if they're given the chance to.

Benji's friendship with Amat and Bobo too. They have my whole heart, these boys. They keep on cheering and motivate each other on, and even though they were separated for two years but when they see each other again it was like they've never been apart, and their chemistry's still as strong as ever, even though all three of them have changed and grown a lot since they last see each other. That scene where Benji and Amat were helping Bobo courting Tess by playing with her brothers, and that scene when Benji were "hyping" Amat up to come back to practice for Beartown Hockey team, and that scene in the forest when they were camping and Benji were accompanying Amat and the Bobo pee on a tree, these are the moments that keep me going these last few days. I cherish those moments so much.

Now, Benji's friendship with Aleksander/Big City is one that made my heart flutter a little. I do sense a kind of a "vibe" between these two, and I get the feeling that Benji might actually have a crush on him, but it sucks that the guy's straight, lol. But I did enjoy it so much, how their friendship blossomed in such a short time. I love how Benji was the first real friend for Big City, because of course he is, someone with such a big wild heart and the most beautiful smile like Benji's could be anyone's friend.

I've said in my review of Us Against You that my ultimate ship in this trilogy is Benji and Happiness, and in Ch. 69 - Leaders, Ch. 70 - Players & Ch. 72 - Campers, my ship is SAILING. I even cried out of pure happiness for Benji. I knew that after those chapters, everything was gonna go downhill for him, Backman was being too generous, all of the characters that I love are happy and well, so something horrible must be waiting to happen to them soon. But I appreciate those happy moments so much. I hope we can all pretend that those three chapters last forever, or the book ends right there with everyone being happy. But you can't have happiness if you don't know suffering, I guess.

AMAT. My sweet baby boy who's not so much a baby anymore in this book. He's a grown man now, and although he's no stranger to adversities (literally, the guy's an immigrant POC who's trying to make it in the predominantly white sport, in a predominantly white town), he's about to face them at the next level in this book, and oh boy was it hard to read. I think he's got the reverse of a glow up in this book, he got a character regression, and it's heartbreaking to read. What I expected to read about him in this book is him being happy, being the best hockey player, playing in the NHL, making his mom proud, happy and able to retire from cleaning the rink, and just living their best life together. Pretty much the exact opposite of what we actually get of him in the beginning to middle of this book.

Amat got "hustled" by Lev and didn't get drafted into the NHL because of him, he became a drunk and was depressed after he got back home, the people of Beartown blamed him for faking his injuries and making the team lose the championship. I feel like, yes, we did get significantly more of Amat in this book, which is great and just what I wanted since the first two previous books, BUT NOT LIKE THIS. My guy's really struggling here and it's hard to read through the tears. It's as if Backman said, "Okay, I hear ya, here's more Amat, BUT HE'S GONNA SUFFER MUAHAHAHAHHA"

Suffice it to say, I cried while reading about him in the beginning, A LOT, and my heart was shattered.

JK, I still love you, Backman.

What's really bugging me about Amat's character regression is that it seems like, other than his own mother, and sometimes Peter, he doesn't really have a support system. Which is why I'm so mad that Lifa and Zacharias disappeared in this book, because they were such an amazing support system for Amat in Us Against You, they gave him a freaking army when he lost his hockey team, they pushed him to keep training and not give up on his dream. WHERE THE HELL ARE LIFA AND ZACHARIAS, BACKMAN? Are they being kept hostage in a basement somewhere?!!! I need to know, not only for Amat's sake, but I genuinely care about them both, and I was hoping to get more of them in this book. Okay, I'll save this rant for the criticism part of the review. Anyway, I feel like everyone, other than his mom and Peter, had failed him. Zackell, Bobo, Mumble, his team, even other people in Beartown like Tails, and Sune failed Amat, but I feel like the person to blame the most is Zackell.

I think the blame should be on Zackell for Amat getting burned out like he was in the beginning of the book because she should have looked out for him. Zackell was able to detect Filip's shoulder pain in Us Against You, but her own player, nay, not just any player, but her own STAR PLAYER she didn't know had a badly injured wrist?! Is that an exaggerated overlook or what? And she should have cared for Amat more, visited his home, and had a talk with him. There's just so much she could have done to help Amat, it's so frustrating. I get that she lacks social cues and is very awkward but we get to see her care about Benji, and about Bobo, but Amat she didn't care enough to visit and talk things through? To this day, I can't bring myself to like her.

Hard as it was though, in the end I'm happy with Amat's character arc in this book, because I feel that there's an element of a realistic depiction of the immigrant struggle in Amat's story in the beginning of the book. I know that a lot of immigrants every where in the world are pushing themselves so hard to be the "model minority", trying their hardest to not cause any problems, and to always be grateful for the new life in the new country. And they try to excel and contribute something great for their new community because they feel indebted to their community, just like how Fatima is always grateful no matter how hard she and Amat have it in Beartown, and so she taught Amat to also always be grateful too. I can imagine it being very taxing on a person. And for Amat, to be pressured by everyone to win every game, like he owes it to them to bring victory home, and be blamed for the losses, as if he's responsible for how his teammates play in the games too. No wonder his love for hockey slowly turns to hate, I would hate it too if I were him.

I did not appreciate that scare where Backman was insinuating that Fatima is going to die. I was already devastated and I was screaming, crying, kicking, and throwing up, but then Backman did what he does best, and said, "SYKE!!!" 😂🤪🤡🤭 And I was like 😭😭😭 PLEASE SIR, SOME OF US HAVE CRIPPLING ANXIETY, HAVE MERCY. However, I'd be Backman's lawyer for a moment and say that maybe Backman just wanted us to feel what Amat felt when he was looking for his Mom in the middle of a storm and found her in a ditch, so we understand his dread, because it took him out of his slump.

I love that despite everything he's been through, Amat still got back up, and then he got to thank and acknowledge Peter for all his help, and even though we didn't get to know or get to read much of it (which is criminal), he gets to become an NHL player, just like he had always dreamed of being.

MAYA. Let's check in with my No. 1 girl now. Well, Maya is doing great. Well, as great as she can be anyway, as she's still dealing with the PTSD from the rape. But other than that, Maya is moving up in the world, she's striving in her music school, she's living her best life in the big city, away from her family, and childhood friends, but also the people who only knew her as the rape victim. Maya finally get her chance to live her life freely, without people defining her only by the horrible thing that happened to her. Now, I have to be honest and say that there's not much to Maya's story in this book, unlike in Beartown and Us Against You. Although I do think that Maya has grown stronger and wiser in this book, she's less of a main character in this book compared to the previous two. The most exciting part of Maya's story in this book is when she was being secretly interrogated by an undercover reporter for the exposé of the corruption of the Beartown Hockey Club and its district council. And then later at the very end of the book when she took Alicia out of the rink, away from Benji's lifeless body.

However, I have to point out that I did enjoy so much reading about how much Maya has matured into such an amazing young woman in this book, she even helped her mom and dad with their issues. And even though there's not much Leo, nor Maya and Leo bonding moments in this book, that little scene where Maya busted him smoking cigarettes but then she herself asks for two cigarettes to keep quiet from their parents, it's so sweet and just shows how much both of them have grown up.

Her songs still slap so hard, and I love them so freaking much, but especially that song about that last game Benji played, that song took the wind right out of me when I reread it after I finished reading the book. I wish Backman had commissioned a musician to make it into a real song, it would be one hell of a soul crushing banger, for sure. But, for now I just have to make do with songs that have the most similar vibes to her songs, I guess. It's Spring Day by BTS and Who Knows by P!nk on repeat for me, I guess.

In the end, when Maya took Alicia away from Benji's lifeless body and held her outside of the rink, it's one of the most powerful things I've ever read. What a way to tie it all together in the end, because I think that one of the most prominent theme of the whole trilogy is female empowerment, and that one of the strongest message of the trilogy is that the biggest downfall of hockey is the misogyny and how toxic the winning culture is, not only to the athletes, but also to the people around them and their community. Maya was the first KNOWN victim of the toxic winning culture that was nurtured into the young athletes in Beartown, and Alicia lost her best friend due to the violence that was resulted from the victim-blaming and victim-silencing culture that the town had. The main moral message is, when we discriminate against one gender over the other, we ALL lose, we all pay the price. Also, when we don't say or do anything after we witness or know something that's morally wrong, we indirectly endorse it. That's why we need more people like Amat, who stood up for Maya, and people like Benji who supported Maya and condemned Kevin's actions, even though he's the love of his life, same as Kevin's mom who apologized directly to Maya. And so, that scene with all of those women holding Maya and Alicia is so powerful, it's like they're saying, no more, we will not let any more of our friends, sisters, and daughters fall victim, as we will protect and save each other from harm. I love that so much.

ANA. My fighter queen. I had such a great time reading about her in this book. I think she's more of a main character than Maya in this book, for the first time. I mean, this book really is about people who run towards fire, and that's why Ana shines so bright in this book, because that's what she is. When she drove Hannah through the forest in the middle of a storm to help someone deliver a baby, I thought, of course that is something she would do. It seems very fitting and in character for her, because we know ever since she was a child she had always been that kind of person. That's how she met Maya, she rescued her from drowning and being froze to death. However, I legit thought that she was going to die when she was helping Hannah get to that couple and then when she was driving them to the hospital, that's how severe my trust issue with Backman is. Thank God nobody died in that scene. Anyway, the fact that the couple named their newborn son Vidar in honor of Ana's Vidar is just...

I'm just a sucker for tragic love stories, and Ana and Vidar's never fail to wreck me emotionally no matter how many times I read about them in Us Against You, so to read about the baby being named Vidar, I literally had to take a break because it just hit me in the guts.

But back to Ana now, I think she just becomes more awesome in this book. She didn't get a glow up, nor did she go to a school in the big city like Maya, but I still feel that she just becomes more badass and awesome in this book. I think that it's criminal that we didn't get much of her martial arts career in this book, but I'm grateful for what we have of her in this book.

In the end part of the book, in that scene where Ana and Lev took her father home, and created an alibi for her father so he won't be criminally charged for Matteo's murder, and Ana was crying as she get drunk for the last time, it's so fucking heartbreaking. (Here we'll have to talk about having the same moral and ethical standard towards our family and loved ones as we do towards other people, but in this case I personally think that what Ana's dad did was justified since Matteo was shooting up the locker room and took Benji's life, which is an innocent's life, so I think Ana's dad shooting Matteo down can be seen as defense, but I'm not familiar with the law in Sweden, maybe what he did can be criminally charged, so I don't have any qualms about Ana and Lev protecting him, even though they're lying to the police, but that's just my opinion) Ana's dad saved other people in that locker room from being shot by Matteo, and he gave Matteo a quick death too, and Ana just lost one of her best friend and she must also be so fucking scared that her dad will be held in prison for the rest of his life for what he did. I really feel for her in that scene, I just want to give her the biggest hug and tell her that everything's gonna be okay.

I love Ana's relationship with Hannah, I love how awkward they both are towards each other but also how much they care about and love each other. Also, her wanting to be an ambulance helicopter pilot came out of left field, but also so in character for her. In the end, I love her character's arc and her story, she's such a free spirited and badass character that she'll fit perfectly with a group of my other fave badass and strong protagonists: Toph Beifong (ATLA), Fang Runin (TPW), Vin (Mistborn), Lift (The Stormlight Archive). I also love how her dad is finally sober again, and hopefully he'll be able to keep being sober for the rest of their lives.

PETER AND KIRA. Everyone's favorite couple is STILL having a hard time in this book. I thought by the end of Us Against You, their problems had been resolved but NOPE. It's as existent as ever and they even avoid each other now, even though they work at the same office, a few feet from each other. As a child of a broken home, this was NOT fun to read.

Reading about Peter feeling not needed in the office and in his own home is heartbreaking, but him baking bread all the time is SO FREAKING CUTE. I found him to be so charming when I found out that he likes to bake and share his baked goods with others, it's so freaking wholesome. I liked him when he was the Beartown Hockey Team's GM, but why do I like him more when he bakes and just being a wholesome person. I feel sorry for him, but there's no shame in being a stay at home dad and husband who loves baking, though. I just hope that he and Kira could have communicated better so things wouldn't have to be that bad.

I love when he tried to help Amat with the whole NHL draft situation and when he felt happy that he could help in any way with Beartown hockey club, so he helped Zackell in recruiting Big City. It's kinda sad, I know, especially with Tails, his supposed best friend secretly abused his naiveté and trust that Peter could have been criminally charged and be kept in prison, and him feeling not wanted anywhere, so he really cherished what little joy he could get from hockey. But I think all of that just builds up his character even more, and although he doesn't really have a character arc as he was a consistently good character all throughout the trilogy, he kept having to overcome all of these adversities and I believe he's an even better and stronger man now because of them.

As for Kira, I'm so proud of her for going to therapy, that means she's willing and actively seeking out help to work things out with her husband. She did have her moments of being hard headed and too proud to start talking things out with Peter, or rather she didn't know how to, but in the end she came around because of the love they have for each other is too strong. She is truly goals, because not only she's girl boss, but what makes her even greater is that though she made mistakes, she worked hard to learn and make up for those mistakes. I love that about her. She's honestly such a remarkable woman, wife and mother.

Reading about her feeling guilty all the time because she blamed herself for her marital issues and not being a good enough mother is heartbreaking, because that just shows how much she actually cares and wants to be better, even though she's an already amazing mom and wife. Every time she thinks about Isak, I just start crying because that pain is so real and Backman is just a master of writing emotions like these.

I also love it so much when she finally decided to close her successful business law firm and open new one non profit law firm to advocate for rape survivors. And her friendship with her work partner is just friendship goals. And her wanting to help and mentor Tess because she saw her young self in her is just beautiful. I love all of these women so much.

BOBO. The one with the best character arc of this whole trilogy. Just when I thought this boy couldn't be any better, Backman proves me wrong. He's the ultimate boyfriend goals in this book, and he is just so freaking endearing and cute with Tess. His and Tess's love story is the cutest, I just wanna burst when I read about these two.

I know I said that he failed Amat earlier, but let's also acknowledge how Amat also brushed him aside constantly but Bobo was never one to hold grudges, which is so admirable of him. So when they made up, their friendship is still as heartwarming as ever, and that Lupines scene is so wholesome. These two are still my fave friendship in this trilogy, well, maybe after Alicia and Benji's friendship.

RAMONA. Trust her to still be iconic even from beyond the grave. Can you believe that she made Peter and Teemu brothers even after she died? The influence this woman has, I swear.

THAT FUNERAL SCENE AND PETER'S EULOGY... DRINK MY TEARS

I don't even care about QEII's death, but this Queen's death right here, we truly need 100 days in mourning for her passing, because how could we cope without her??!!!

Peter, Teemu, Vidar, and Benji were Ramona's sons, no one can tell me otherwise.

TEEMU. Did I become his stan because of this book? Yes. Yes, I did. How could I not? Like I said about The Pack in the previous review, he might be a psycho, but he's OUR psycho. No, he's actually the antihero. Also, he just lost Ramona in the beginning of this book, who had been a parental figure for him, and he tragically lost his only brother two years ago, the man deserves a big warm hug.

I am sad that he didn't end up with Adri, Benji's sister, because I shipped them, but I'm happy for him nevertheless when it was revealed in the end that he has a son who likes soccer.

He has been such an interesting morally grey character in this trilogy and you know I love my morally grey characters, and I'm adding him to my list of fave antihero characters.

Also, The Pack are still as violent as ever when they attacked Hed when they mocked Bang the dog's death at that hockey game, but I just can't help but love them. What other group of men would go absolutely feral like that to defend deceased dog? They're the type of guys who love something or someone so strongly and unconditionally, that it made them lethal, and I think that is so sweet.

I also love when The Pack gave Peter a bouquet of flowers to give to Kira because she was helping the club legally. They're all as sweet as cinnamon rolls at heart.

RUTH. When I think back how mad and devastated I was reading about Maya in Beartown (Book 1), it makes me so much more mad now because Ruth's story makes me realize how good Maya actually had it, that there are so many others who had it so much worse, like Ruth, and I'm heartbroken for all of them. It's not a competition, no one has monopoly on trauma, it's fucking awful that these women went through something so horrible, I just wish there was someone who could have supported Ruth, and others like her, and help them go through all of the process like how Maya had Ana and her family. Ruth's story is so painful and heart-shattering to read, but sadly it's accurate to a LOT of real life rape cases.

If anything, Ruth's story highlighted the importance of having a support system, loving and supportive family, friends and allies who care, speak up and stand up for the rape victims.

MATTEO. I desperately want to hate him, for what he did, but I can't. How can I when I know he's hurting too, and I understand a little too much about how hurt people hurt other people. I still remember so much about how Leo was doing self harm and looking to get into trouble in Us Against You, because he felt so much rage and pain for all of the fucked up shits his sister had to go through and how every one around them seem to fail her. And I think, if you've ever loved someone, you will be able to understand his pain and frustrations. Also, keep in mind that he's only 14 years old, and he has no one to talk to, no friends, and his parents are mentally checked out from reality, and other people never seem to notice him in Beartown. Knowing all of that, it's very hard to blame and hate him, instead I just feel so sorry for him.

Even Backman pointed out how things would have turned out to be if only one person had noticed Matteo:

"Then Matteo gets back on the moped and drives home to Beartown. It breaks down halfway. He stands at the side of the road waving at passing cars for help, but those who see him don’t stop, and those who might have stopped don’t see him. One of the vehicles that drives past in the other direction is a police car. How differently this story might have ended if it hadn’t just driven past on its way, because the police were hurrying to get to a reported gunfire incident at a parking lot in town. Then Rodri would have been the only person who died."

It reminded me of this story from a great Youtube video, where a psychotherapist is interviewing someone who was going to shoot people at their school, the person said that what had stopped him from realizing his intention of shooting up his school is a girl who was adamant on being his friend, because she had noticed that he was being bullied, so that one act of kindness from the girl (along with the things the person learned from his studies and the internet that open up his mind more about the world) was able to put a stop to his deadly and extremely destructive plan to shoot up his school, and I just marvel at how amazing and inspiring that is. Imagine if Matteo had that too, there would never have been a shooting at the rink, and nobody would have died.

Matteo really didn't have to kill Bang the dog, though.

MUMBLE. My initial reaction when I learned the truth about him and how he didn't stand up for Ruth was shocked, nay, FLABBERGASTED. And the, RAGE. I mean, I liked him, I was rooting for him.

I WAS FUCKING ROOTING FOR YOU, but all this time you were a coward who didn't stand up and speak up for Ruth?!!! I was beyond disappointed.

HOWEVER!! I quickly realize Backman was right when he wrote a lot of us are cowards, and a lot of us probably would have done the same thing as Mumble, and that Amat was an anomaly for being so brave and stood up and spoke up for Maya, so who am I to judge Mumble when I maybe would have done the same thing? Of course we all like to think that we would have been brave enough to speak up in defense of those who need it, and I truly hope we are, but until we are tested ourselves, who are we to judge Mumble?

Also, this is every introverts' worst nightmare, Mumble was in the wrong place at the wrong place (at the night of the rape), which is why he couldn't speak up to defend Ruth, on top of the threats from Ruth's rapist, and he had chosen a wrong company to keep. Yeah, I think that's his biggest mistake, that he kept being friends with that trash. I know Ruth's rapist wasn't a bad person when Mumble first met him, but how I wish that Mumble had dropped him completely when he turned bad and toxic, since Mumble couldn't do anything to save him from his toxicity, nor was it his job to. It reminds me of the importance of keeping the right companies, and not being scared of cutting out toxic people out of my life. Although, I understand that mumble really had a problem with expressing himself and he had almost zero personal agency, which is probably why he kept being friends with Ruth's rapist and couldn't get away from him, which is so fucking horrible, and if that's actually the case then Mumble's completely not to blame. I don't know, he was just in such a horrible situation, he was trapped, and some would even argue that he's also a victim of Ruth's rapist, and I feel so bad for him.

In the end, I'm heartbroken that he had to "go into the forest and never come out".

SUNE. My sweet wise old man. Truthfully, I'm sad that there's so little of him here, but glad to know that he's still around. It's sad though, that he's mostly here for the Bang being killed storyline. Well at least he wasn't at the two games where the violence happened, so he didn't get hurt.

It's also great that Sune's still Alicia's guardian, at least she still has him and Benji's sisters and Mom.

As much as I love this book, I do have some criticisms…

While I do think that adding new characters to the story is a great move as they add a fresh and new perspective, I do feel sad that old characters from the first two books are being excluded in this book. Characters like Lifa, Zacharias, Jeannette, William, David, and Filip, that I think should be present in the story in this book. Like I feel like Lifa and Zacharias would never let Amat get to his lowest point as he was in the earlier part of this book, since we know in Us Against You that they gave him an army so he won't give up on his dream and hockey. And what happened to Jeannette? Is she still coaching Ana? And we know that David cared a lot about Benji, how did he react when he knew about what happened to Benji? And didn't he and William and Filip leave Beartown hockey club to play for Hed? Why aren't they present in this book, since Hed's hockey played a pretty big role in the conflict? Maybe they have moved on to coach and play at bigger hockey clubs (it might be mentioned in the book, but I couldn't remember it and I didn't make note of it) which is why they didn't appear in this book, but still. I get that there may be too many characters in this book, and the new characters are important and necessary to the story, but to completely write these old characters off feels very weird to me. Not to mention that I was excited and expecting to get more of Lifa and Zacharias in this book, so this is a big let down for me. Is losing all of these characters worth having the new characters? I don't know. I love most of the new characters, but not getting any Lifa and Zacharias blows so hard.

I wish there were more Hockey games, the two actual games we get in this book, the violence got in the way of it actually being played. I miss the hockey games like the ones in Beartown (Book 1). But at least we get that practice game scene with Amat, Big City, Mumble, Bobo, Benji and Peter playing, and it was one of the best scenes in this book.

So many short chapters in this book. I think Backman could have added more to them and made this book even thicc-er, which would make this book even better, IMO. Like, don't be shy Fredrik, make it 1000 pages, please.

My favourite moments from the book:

When Ana bonded with Hannah after she delivered the baby during that storm

When Amat and Bobo run together again for the first time in a while, where Bobo told him that he's like Lupines because he's so strong and unbreakable, and Amat apologized to Bobo, and Amat hoped that Bobo will be a father in the future because he has such a big heart and a short memory which are the two best qualities for a father

When Peter and Teemu bonded like brothers after Ramona's death

The Gang's reunion at Ramona's funeral (Benji, Maya, Ana, Bobo, Amat, Mumble)

All of Benji and Alicia scenes, where they're being the best besties ever

When Bobo, Amat, Mumble and Benji went to Tess's house, Bobo and Tess made dinner, and Amat, Mumble and Benji played and bonded with Tobias, Ted and Ture

That fun after practice game with Amat, Big City, Mumble, Bobo, Benji and Peter playing, and Maya, Ana, Sune, the caretaker and Fatima were watching and all of them were super happy and full of life and laughter

That camping night where Benji and Maya were being the cutest besties, with Big City, Maya, Ana, Bobo, Amat and Mumble

When Bobo told Johnny that it's not up to him whom Tess dates and he knows he doesn't deserve Tess and he would never hold her back from achieving and realizing her dreams and aspirations

When Kira told her colleague and Maya that she wants to give up their current firm and open up a new non-profit one to help rape survivors like Maya, and so Tess could one day work there too, and her colleague told her that she's gonna join and help with with that

When Kira and Peter finally talked honestly and openly for the first time in a while and seem to be working on their marriage and their family.

My favorite quotes from the book:

"Naive dreams are love’s last line of defense, so somehow we always convince ourselves that no terrible tragedies will ever afflict those we love, and that our people will succeed in escaping fate. For their sakes we dream of eternal life, we wish for superpowers and try to build time machines. We hope. Dear God, how we hope."

"Do you want to understand people? Really understand them? Then you need to know all the best that we are capable of."

"It took chaos to set him free, loneliness to stop him being alone."

"People say that age brings wisdom, but for most of us that really isn’t true, when we get old we’ve just accumulated more experiences, good and bad. The result is more likely to be cynicism than wisdom. When we’re young we know nothing about all the very worst that can hit us, which is just as well, because otherwise we’d never leave the house.

And we would definitely never let go of those we love."

"“You know a lot about men for someone so young.”

“They just think we want them to protect us the whole goddamn time, as if we need their fucking protection,” Ana snorts."

"Every now and then their dad gently puts one hand on his sons’ and daughter’s backs, one at a time, to make sure they’re still breathing. There’s no good reason to suspect that they aren’t, but there’s nothing reasonable about being a parent. The only thing everyone said when he was about to become a father was: “Don’t worry.” What a meaningless thing to say. There’s an immensity of love that bursts from your chest the first time you hear your child cry, every emotion you’ve ever felt is amplified to the point of absurdity, children open floodgates inside us, upward as well as down. You’ve never felt so happy, and never felt so scared. Don’t say “don’t worry” to someone in that position. You can’t love someone like this without worrying about everything, forever. It hurts your chest at times, a real, physical pain that makes Johnny bend over and gasp for breath. His skeleton creaks, his body aches, love never has enough space. He should have known better than to have four children, he should have thought about it, but everyone said “don’t worry,” and he’s always been an easily persuaded idiot. Thank goodness. We fool ourselves that we can protect the people we love, because if we accepted the truth we’d never let them out of our sight."

"“Home.”

There really ought to be several different words for that, one for the place and one for the people, because after enough years a person’s relationship to their town becomes more and more like a marriage. Both are held together by stories of what we have in common, the little things no one else knows about, the private jokes that only we think are funny, and that very particular laugh that you only laugh for me. Falling in love with a place and falling in love with a person are related adventures. At first we run around street corners giggling and explore every inch of each other’s skin, over the years we get to know every cobblestone and strand of hair and snore, and the waters of time soften our passion into unfailing love, and in the end the eyes we wake up next to and the horizon outside our window are the same thing: home.

So there ought to be two words for that, one for the home which can carry you through your darkest moments, and one for the home which binds you. Because sometimes we stay in towns and marriages simply because we would otherwise have no story. We have too much in common. We think no one else would be able to under-stand us."

"“That’s because you don’t get it. We’re your mothers. We loved you first. Maybe everyone else loves you now, but we loved you first.”

“Doesn’t feeling like that make you a good mother?”

“It just makes me a mother.”

The psychologist chuckled.

“Well, you’re right about that, of course. I’m almost sixty and my mom still worries that I’m not eating properly.”

Kira raised her chin but lowered her voice.

“We’re your mothers. You can’t stop us.”"

"Most people don’t know when their childhood ends, but this girl will always know exactly.

Maya remembers the hospital, after the rape, when her own mom wanted to murder the whole town and her dad whispered: “What can I do?” and all Maya could manage to say was: “Love me.” It’s a terrible moment for all kids when we realize that our parents can’t protect us. That we won’t be able to protect our own. That the whole world can come and take us whenever it likes."

"So instead she calls the only person she’s got, the only person she’s always had, because that’s the question a crisis asks us: Who’s your person? She calls Ana."

"“You get success by having extremely high integrity but absolutely zero prestige. Because integrity is about who you are, whereas prestige is only about what other people think of you.” The man often thinks that this might be true in sports, but when you’re talking about the survival of a town the opposite is true: prestige is everything."

"Everything that happens in childhood is a postcard that parents send to themselves. Things are never quite the way we remember them."

"Maya chewed the rest of her chocolate ball slowly for a long time before she dared ask: “Do you miss Isak every day?” Peter kissed her hair. “Yes, all the time,” he admitted. “I want to miss him too, but I don’t really even remember him,” Maya replied unhappily. “I think you can miss him just as much anyway,” her dad assured her. “How does it feel?” she asked. “Like having blisters in your heart,” he said."

"Our children never warn us that they’re thinking of growing up, one day they’re just too big to want to hold our hand, it’s just as well we never know when the last time is going to be or we’d never let go. They drive you mad when they’re little, yelling every time you leave the room, because you don’t realize at the time that whenever someone yells “Daddy!” that means you’re important. It’s hard to get used to not being important."

"“Home.” There really ought to be more words for that. One to cover the people we have there, another with room for those we have lost."

"One of the first things she learned was that up to forty percent of all young bears die during their first year of life, and that the most common cause of death was being killed by an adult male bear that wasn’t their father. That was when Fatima realized that one day she would have to be a bear as well, when someone threatened her offspring. So she fought for his right to be a carefree bear, naive and untroubled, like all the others. For him to be able to play and have fun. Because, to be honest, not even she believed that Amat would become as good as he did, that he would make it “all the way,” she just loved the fact that he didn’t have to think on the ice. He had no pain there, he was free, that was enough."

"People can bury so many of their loved ones during a lifetime and still get up the morning after, but something inside gets a bit heavier each time. She’s had more than a few mornings when she’s woken up and wondered if she can be bothered to get up once more."

"The end of life is as unstoppable as its beginning, we can’t stop the first and last breaths we take any more than we can stop the wind."

"The most unbearable thing about death is that the world just goes on. Time doesn’t care. "

"He takes a cigarette from the packet on the bedside table and smokes with her one last time. He suddenly starts laughing, because she looks so angry, even when she’s dead. If she’s in any sort of Heaven now, Vidar is also there, and his little brother will be getting one hell of a telling-off for daring to die before her, he thinks. Then he gently closes the old woman’s eyes and pats her on the cheek, and whispers:

“Say hi to the little shit. And Holger.”"

"People talk about “coming out” as if it’s something you only do once, but obviously you never run out of new people, so you keep having to come out and come out until you snap."

"When they were little they did everything together, Benji never left Kevin’s side. When some boys find their first best friend it’s the first real love of their lives, they just don’t know what falling in love is yet, so that’s how they learn what love is: it feels like climbing trees, it feels like jumping in puddles, it feels like having one single person in your life who you don’t even want to play hide-and-seek with because you can’t bear being without him for a single minute. For most boys this infatuation obviously fades as the years pass, but for some it never does. Benji traveled right across the world but never found a single place where he could stop hating himself for still loving Kevin."

"Benji was Kevin’s best friend, and Kevin was the love of Benji’s life."

"We all have a hundred fake personalities depending upon who we’re with. We pretend and dissemble and stifle ourselves just to fit in. The very last words Benji said to Kevin the last time they saw each other were: “I hope you find him: the Kevin you’re looking for.” He doesn’t know if Kevin ever did. Benji has been looking for a Kevin he can put up with, but hasn’t succeeded yet."

"A common misconception about dangerous people is that they lack emotions. That they aren’t sentimental. That’s almost never true, often the most sentimental and sensitive people are the most dangerous, because they’re not only capable of abuse, but can also justify it. Sensitive people never feel that they’re doing the wrong thing because their feelings always convince them that they’re on the right side."

"Over the past few years he’s heard so much about what a “talent” he is, but the people who use that word know nothing about hockey. They say “talent” as if it comes for free. As if Amat hadn’t been the first person at the ice rink every morning and last to leave ever since he started junior high school, as if he hadn’t trained harder than everyone else year after year, covering thousands of miles on his skates, running until he threw up, dribbling empty cans at home in the apartment until his hands were blistered and the neighbors furious. As if hockey hadn’t cost him precisely what it costs everyone who wants to be any good: everything.

The one thing he has learned about talent is that the only sort of talent that’s worth anything is to submit totally to training. To tough it out."

"Hannah can’t go home until the road is cleared, but Johnny can’t go home because he’s the one clearing the road. That pretty much sums up their relationship, both to each other and to their community. Hannah once heard a marriage guidance counselor on television say that “the important thing in a marriage is to have shared goals and to keep facing the same direction,” but she often thinks that the problem with that is that if you’re both facing the same direction, you never see each other."

"He drank away the whole of her childhood, yet she still wanted to do the same job as him. Never underestimate a dad who’s trying to be forgiven, he’s capable of anything."

"Where you are born and who you become is a cruel lottery. He wonders exactly what it was that divided him and his sister from happiness, and if it is even possible to measure all the “if only”s and “if that hadn’t”s, because when it comes down to it, that’s really all life is."

"Parents who lose a child never trust the universe again."

"Tales of boys and their fathers are the same in every age, in every place. We love each other, hate each other, miss each other, hold each other back, but we can never live unaffected by each other. We try to be men and never really know how. The tales about us who live here are the same sort of tales that are told about everyone, everywhere, we think we’re in charge of the way they unfold but of course that happens unbearably seldom. They just carry us wherever they want to go. Some of them will have happy endings, and some of them will end exactly the way we were always afraid they would."

"One simple, painful truth for all teenagers is that their lives are rarely defined by what they do, what really matters is what they almost do."

"They roar with laughter. Roar and roar. Two minutes, and everything is normal. The same jibes, the same laughter, the same tattoos on their arms: guitars and rifles. The musician and the hunter. Never have two girls with so little in common been so inseparable. They talk at the same time, sisterhood’s capacity for simultaneity, neither of them ever has to shut up to hear what the other is saying."

"“I love you, you stupid donkey! You’re the only person I know who apologizes for being here while you’re here! Seriously? You can hardly be more here than HERE, can you?”

Maya holds her best friend so tightly that her lungs hurt.

“I miss you so damn much.”

“You’re actually HOLDING me, you donkey!”

“Shut up!”

How do other people bear it, Maya wonders, how do they live without an Ana? How the hell do people cope?"

"“Peter used to get beaten at home if he so much as spilled his milk. Benji didn’t dare tell anyone he was gay. Amat is the cleaner’s son in the rich kids’ sport. All the best players have a darkness inside them, that’s why they end up the best, they think the darkness will disappear if they can just win enough times…”"

"He’s fourteen now, and his sister always told him that this age was the worst, that people were at their worst then, she said he just had to survive these years. But of course she was the one who didn’t do that. She said he could be anything he wanted to be, but he can’t now. Because he wants to be happy."

"He stops like a rat trapped in a corner, turns around, ready for anything. The men in black jackets have left the gate and are walking straight toward him. He has been loved by them but he’s also been hated, the way only someone who has been loved can be, when they found out about all his secrets. Once he symbolized everything they wanted Beartown to be: everyone feared him and he feared no one. He was just a boy then, but he was their man on the ice. Their warrior. Theirs. The roar that can rise up from a stand full of men in black jackets when you’re full of adrenaline and throwing yourself at the Plexiglas is something Benji has never felt anywhere else, because it doesn’t exist anywhere else. How many times has he wished that he could have stayed there? That the truth had never come out? Warriors are supposed to love other men, not fall in love with them."

"But there’s incalculable loss in his eyes, in all the men’s eyes. The skin of their faces is swollen with alcohol, drowned inside to stop them drowning in tears outside. They belonged to Ramona, she belonged to them, most of them were closer to the old bag than their own parents. So even humor isn’t a defense now, it’s an act of defiance, you’re not getting us, bastard grief."

"“Marriage.”

There ought to be a different word for it once you’ve been married for enough years. When you’ve long since passed the point where it stopped feeling like a choice. I no longer choose you every morning, that was a beautiful thing we said on our wedding day, I just can’t imagine life without you now. We aren’t freshly blooming flowers, we’re two trees with intertwined roots, you’ve grown old within me.

When you’re young you believe that love is infatuation, but infatuation is simple, any child can become infatuated, fall in love. But real love? Love is a job for an adult. Love demands a whole person, all the best of you, all the worst. It has nothing to do with romance, because the hard part of a marriage isn’t that I have to live seeing all your faults, but that you have to live with me seeing them. That I know everything about you now. Most people aren’t brave enough to live without secrets. Everyone dreams about being invisible sometimes, no one dreams of being transparent."

"Marriage? There ought to be a different word for it after a while. Because there’s no such thing as “eternal infatuation,” only love lasts that long, and it’s never simple. It requires a whole person, everything you have. The whole lot."

"Her fingers find him and she buttons his jacket to pretend that they’re not just looking for intimacy. He stops, almost dizzy, and they look past each other because if they look each other in the eye right now they would probably both crumble. It’s been so long since they touched each other that her fingertips are enough, they’re like electric shocks to him, she dares not rest the palms of her hands on his chest. Dear Lord, how close you have to be to giving up each other to remember to fight for each other."

"There really ought to be a different word for “marriage,” but perhaps also a different word for “divorce.” One for when you’re only almost there. When you want to whisper that I don’t know what I want, I just don’t want it to be like this. A word for simply saying that I can’t bear it. I can’t bear it if all we’re going to do with each other is just bear it."

"“I love you too.”

It’s been so long since they said that, but now it’s very recent. Above all the other words for love, there ought to be one for this: one that says how many times we’ve come close to losing each other but turn back and start again. One for the very smallest things, the inches, when we brush past each other in the kitchen instead of only almost doing it. Something that says I can’t bear it. I can’t bear it if you can’t bear me. I can’t bear it without you."

"The two young women trample over the memories and two invisible little girls pad after them. Because they’re always walking behind us: the children we were before the worst that has happened happened."

"She once said she hated the world because it forced children like him to become hard simply to survive, but then she saw that he got scared and ruffled his hair and said it was probably good to be soft, because then you didn’t break when you fell. Like flower petals. Perhaps that’s what happened to her, she grew hard, the way a rose that freezes to ice can be shattered with a hammer."

"Then she detects the smell of cigarette smoke that’s just settled on a jacket nearby, then something warm in her hand. Maya’s fingers, closing around hers.

“I’ve missed you, Mom.”

Dear God. Kira almost walks back to the car and sits there instead. Our children have no idea what they do to us."

"He pulls himself together and folds the sheet of paper up and presses it into his pocket, because he’s shaking so much that he realizes it’s becoming a joke. He doesn’t know if it’s the audience in the church or the one in Heaven that’s worse, but he just does what he used to do in the locker room: bites his lip so hard that the pain and the taste of blood force his mind to focus:

“A few moments, I said to her, that’s all this sport gives us. And then Ramona poured a large shot of whiskey and laughed at me and said: ‘So what the hell is life, then, Peter? More than moments?’ ”

Teemu is sitting in the front row, his face motionless but with his fists quivering on his knees. Benji is standing alone right at the back of the church, as close to the door as possible, his tears dripping softly onto the stone floor. Peter tries to steady his voice. Three boys without dads. If you want to know who Ramona was and what she really meant to this part of the world, you only have to look at the desolation in their faces."

"Things always happen quickly when everything goes to hell."

"Bobo pulls a large wicker picnic basket out of the back of the ramshackle campervan, then can’t get the door to close. This doesn’t appear to bother him. Tess comes out of the house as if she’s having to force her feet not to leave the ground and fly off with her. They do try their hardest, their very hardest, not to wrap themselves around each other’s necks in front of his friends and her brothers. She invites him into the kitchen and he immediately starts asking thousands of questions, about her and the house and the family. She isn’t used to that, she’s used to boys only wanting one thing, so in the end she asks what he’s got in the basket. He shows her. Pasta and meat and vegetables and stock and cream. She laughs and thinks that she was right after all, boys really do only want one thing.

They want to make dinner."

"Tobias thinks for a long, long time before he looks down and answers:

“She can probably see that he’s friendly.”

“Is that good?” Benji asks honestly.

Breathing through his nose, Tobias pokes around his shoelaces with the stick.

“She doesn’t want a remarkable life, just a… normal one. Our dad’s a fireman, our mom’s a midwife, we’ve spent our whole childhoods getting told we’re being raised by heroes. The sort of people who run toward fire. But Bobo isn’t a hero, and my sister can probably see that. He wouldn’t run toward fire, he’d run toward her.”"

"Ted fires a puck. Leans on his stick.

“My dad says pressure is a privilege. If you don’t feel pressure, that’s just because you’ve never done anything valuable enough for people to have expectations of you.”"

"Mothers and daughters know how to wound each other in totally unique ways, possibly because daughters often carry the guilt of their mothers’ consciences, until they end up arguing about sins that they haven’t even committed."

"There’s no life like youth, no love like first love, no friends like teammates."

"“It’s nothing personal, Bobo. I’m sure you’re a good guy. But I don’t want you to hold her back. If I’m honest, I think her mom is hoping deep down that she’s going to stay and have an ordinary life, because Hannah can’t live without Tess, but… damn it, Bobo. She can be anything she wants. She could be something big, our daughter. Do you understand? She isn’t like…”

Bobo nods with his back bent. He blinks too hard too many times for it not to show how badly he’s falling apart.

“Don’t you think I know Tess is too good for me? That she’s special and I’m just ordinary? I’m not so smart, but I’m not THAT un-smart! I don’t know anything except cars and a bit about hockey, I know I can’t GIVE her anything, but I will never… never… try to hold her back, I… I’ll never act badly toward her. And maybe I can’t study at university like her, but I’m pretty good at fixing things and I’m fairly strong and my friends like me and Tess likes me. I try to be a good man and I think I could be a pretty good dad one day. And I WON’T hold her back. If she wants to move away from here, then I’ll go with her. I can live anywhere if I can live with her. There are bad cars to fix everywhere. And if you want to try to get her to stop liking me, go ahead, but I’m not going to give up… I can’t…”"

"This is how a community’s corruption is measured. It isn’t cheating if you don’t get caught, and it isn’t a scandal if it never gets revealed. Until then, there are just secrets. All forests are full of them."

"Bobo stumbles euphorically down the stands but Zackell doesn’t go back to the office. She stands and watches as Benji chases Amat across the ice and Amat bounces away and laughs and Bobo pulls on a pair of skates and throws himself into the fray and one of the very best things of all happens: almost-adults forgetting that they’re adults."

"Amat will remember this evening as the start of something. Bobo as the end of something. For Peter it feels like belonging to something again, for Mumble it feels like belonging to something for the very first time. For Big City it’s like getting a second chance to be a little kid and fall head-over-heels in love with hockey again. How it feels for Benji nobody knows, this is the last time they see him play."

"All children are victims of their parents’ childhoods, because all adults try to give their kids what they themselves enjoyed or lacked. In the end everything is either a revolt against the adults we encountered or an attempt to copy them. That’s why someone who hated their own childhood often has greater empathy than someone who loved theirs. Because someone who had a hard time dreamed of other realities, but someone who had it easy can hardly imagine that things could be any different. We take happiness so easily for granted if we’ve had it from the start."

"The very finest thing you can give a child is somewhere to belong. The biggest thing you can have is being part of something."

"Churchyards are meant to be final destinations, but for many of us all the gravestones are question marks. Why? Why you? Why so early? Where are you now? Who could you have been if everything had been different? Or if just something very small had been? If you had had different parents, a different name, if you had lived somewhere else?"

"That damn animal. Unmanageable and impossible, wild and crazy, never gives him a moment’s peace, and there’s nothing Sune is more grateful for than that. He was never really prepared for the love he would feel for his dog. That’s what he says, my dog, even though the entire basis for what he feels when it looks at him is the exact opposite: that he belongs to it. That he is its human. It trusts him so much that it sometimes becomes too much for him, because he doesn’t know if he can handle the responsibility. He doesn’t know if he can cope with being so needed. So loved. No matter how many mornings he gets woken by those eager paws on the edge of the bed, that rough tongue on his face, he is still taken aback by its acceptance of him. Dogs are like hockey, a fresh chance every morning, everything is constantly beginning again."

"“Then I would lie here and look up at the roof and think, ‘Now I’m alone in the world.’ I sort of memorized the silence. Because I’ve never been scared when I’m alone, only among other people.”

“Me too.”

Benji hates the fact that the child knows exactly how that feels. She’s too young for that. But he tells it like it is:

“No one can hurt you when you’re alone.”

Her fingers clutch his a little tighter now, the bear beneath them, eternity above them. "

"Matteo doesn’t feel powerful, he just wants to stop feeling powerless, just for a single moment. He thinks about the green jacket Mumble was wearing in the churchyard, Sune has one just like it, he’d like to take something from them so that they know how it feels. Because he’s sure they’d mourn the dog more than they ever mourned Ruth. In the town of bears, girls are worth less than animals."

"They’re sad that Sune is sad, of course, but they don’t really understand his loss. Because of course it was only a dog. It’s so hard to explain that it’s more than an animal when you’re that animal’s human. Perhaps it takes more empathy than most people are capable of. Or more imagination."

"But if anyone can understand the unbridled, unreasonable love you can feel for an animal, it’s probably men who have been told all their lives that they love something more than they should: “But it’s only hockey.”

The Pack feels precisely everything, precisely all the time. They know that the extent of grief isn’t measured by what you’ve lost but by who you are. They have imagination. So much imagination, in fact, that the very thought of losing something they can’t live without makes them lethal."

"“I wouldn’t be where I am without you.”

“Stop that, you have a God-given talent, you had—” Peter protests, but Amat interrupts him quietly but firmly:

“Talent isn’t enough. Or at least it wouldn’t have been enough for me. You need someone who believes in you too. Not just me… you’ve done the same for Benji and Bobo, and now you’re doing it for Aleksandr as well… we aren’t your kids, but you’ve always made us feel like we are. You’ve always believed in us more than we did ourselves.”"

"Mothers have no armor to get them through life because they give every last bit to their children, by the end of their teenage years there isn’t even any skin left, so every feeling of loss cuts right into her flesh now."

"“What are you even doing HERE, you crazy kid?” he yelled.

“I wanted to watch the game but Sune didn’t want to, so I came ON MY OWN!” Alicia snapped back, trying to sound angry even though she was actually terrified.

Benji reached down and lifted her out of the chaos, and is now carrying her as if she was his little girl. She has her arms wrapped around him like she’s always been his, clinging on like seaweed to a body that’s just stepped out of the sea."

"Like all parents, he just dreams of his children having things a bit better than him, a bit easier, but there’s no way to protect them against the world. We can’t even protect them from themselves. So he closes his eyes and thinks that if Hannah is right, if the boy in this bed really is going to turn out like his dad, then there’s only one thing for Johnny to do.

To become better."

"Benji thinks of something Ramona once said: “Men are scared of telescopes, you can’t look at the stars without shitting your pants because you can’t think about how big the universe is without seeing how small you are in comparison. Nothing scares a man more than the thought that everything he does might lack all meaning.”"

"“Just stick around this time, promise?” Bobo repeats.

Benji shakes his head.

“No, no, I’m not going to do that. But I’ll try not to forget to come back home.”

“I fucking love you,” Bobo whispers, and the best thing about him is that he makes no attempt at all to laugh it off with a “but not like that.” He’s more than capable of just loving someone, the gentle giant.

Benji smiles.

“I love you too. But not like that, so don’t go getting any ideas.”"

"Because one of the very worst things we will ever do in this forest is to try to tell our daughters that girls like Ruth are the exception. That isn’t true, of course. It’s Maya who is the exception. That’s why those who do that, those who get the slightest bit of retribution or an ounce of justice, call themselves “survivors.” Because they know the truth about all the girls like Ruth."

"Ruth left the country exactly two and a half years ago, just after what happened with Maya and Kevin became public knowledge. Maya had gone to the police and the whole town had turned against her. Everything was going to change in time, but no one knew that then. Ruth didn’t stay to find out what happened. She had been through all that herself a few months earlier, she knew what this forest did to girls like her and Maya.

Shoot. Dig. Silence."

"You never get the same kind of friends again like you have when you’re a teenager. Not even if you keep them your whole life. It will never be the same as it was then."

"For her the rape went on forever but for him it never even started. For the rest of his life he could never understand that he was a rapist. He thought he was a hero."

"In her diary Ruth wrote:

When girls start primary school and the boys hit us and pull our hair during breaks and we go to an adult and ask for help, the adults say: The boys are only doing that because they like you!! That’s how you teach boys that they have rights over us. Then we get bigger and then they rape us but we’re just stupid little whores because we don’t take it as a COMPLIMENT? They beat us and kill us but it’s only because they like us. Why don’t we understand that?

On the next page it says:

didn’t even fuck that other guy in Hed but he told everyone I did and that meant I was already a whore. And whores can’t get raped."

"On one of the last pages she wrote:

I’ve got no chance if even my own parents don’t believe me. Why would the police believe me then? Why would anyone? You aren’t going to believe me until Rodri kills me."

"On the very last page, in shaky handwriting, she wrote:

Parents always think they have to talk to their daughters about guys. We shouldn’t wear short skirts and shouldn’t go out alone and shouldn’t get drunk and shouldn’t let guys like us too much. But you don’t have to talk to us about guys because we already know all that, for fuck’s sake, because we’re the ones they rape!! Talk to your damn sons instead!!! Teach them to talk to one another and teach them to stop one another. Raise just one fucking boy somewhere who can become a head teacher who understands that when boys pull girls by the hair, it’s the fucking boys there’s something wrong with. Tell your sons that if they have to THINK about whether or not they’ve had sex with a girl who didn’t want it, then they HAVE!!! If you can’t understand if the girl you’re having sex with wants it or not, then you’ve never had fucking sex with a girl who wants it. Stop telling your daughters. We already know it all."

"Ruth never went back to the police. The young man at the station waited. Perhaps he hated himself afterward for not doing more. Perhaps he managed to suppress it. Everyone like him is just trying to do their job. They all say they’re just following the law. It’s just that laws aren’t written for girls like Ruth. They’re written against her."

"“Don’t worry.”

“I’m your mother, you can’t stop me!”

Maya smiles in such a way that it’s impossible to know if she’s about to make a joke or start crying.

“I’m sorry that what Kevin did to me almost broke you and Dad.”

Now it’s Kira’s turn to look like she’s about to cry.

“Darling, it didn’t do…”

Maya nods, so grown-up and so strong, so honest and vulnerable.

“Yes, Mom. It did. Your love was like organ donation. You and Dad and Leo gave me pieces of your hearts and lungs and skeletons so I could put myself back together again. And now you hardly have the strength to stand up and keep breathing yourselves. I think about that so often, and I think about all the girls who don’t have you. I feel like I only just managed to survive this. How the hell does everyone who doesn’t have you as their mom even stand a chance?”

Good luck having a daughter and not going to pieces when you hear that."

"Something about the bright, unadorned enthusiasm on his face makes Amat curious. The former general manager leads him away from the apartment blocks, toward the forest at the edge of the old quarry, and doesn’t stop until they reach a large, open space where there was once talk of building a supermarket. Then they said it might be a medical center. At one point someone even dreamed of a small business center. None of it ever came to be, of course, because this isn’t the part of Beartown where things get built. The town may be getting bigger, but nothing grows in the Hollow.

“There!” Peter says, pointing at absolutely nothing.

“I… I don’t understand…,” Amat says, seeing nothing but snow and gravel.

Peter sees something else. He sees redemption."

"Amat looks so tall, suddenly, as if he’s grown taller than Peter overnight. Peter laughs. Everything is only a dream so far. He doesn’t know if he dares actually believe he can get this done. But Beartown is a special place. What a fucking town. There are so many places and things here that have strange names whose origins everyone has forgotten.

In a few years hardly anyone will remember why the ice rink beyond the apartment blocks and gravel pit in the poorest part of town is always called “the Cathedral.” But the man who dreamed it up knows, and the boy who one day scores his first goal in the NHL knows. He’ll be interviewed on television afterward:

“Do you want to say something to everyone watching in your hometown? How do you pronounce it? You’re from Beartown, aren’t you?” the reporter on the other side of the Atlantic will ask.

Amat will look directly into the camera and say: “No. I’m from the Hollow.”"

"“What am I supposed to do? Stay here and get rich? I don’t even like expensive wine. I’m going with you. Wherever you go.”

Maya sits there and watches the two middle-aged women hug, and thinks that when she gets old, really, really, really old, she hopes she’s just as crazy as they are."

"Kira locks the office. In a few months’ time she will surrender those keys and hand the whole business over to some of the employees, and she will sell her expensive car. The new law firm’s first office will be her kitchen. One day women throughout the country will know who they are. That too is a sort of cathedral."

"The game is about to start, but it will never be played. Instead, now everything that we will never stop regretting starts. Every single person in the ice rink will go over and over these minutes for the rest of their lives, asking silently: “Could I have done anything different? Something small, something microscopic, anything at all? Could I have stopped him?”

We’re on our way into a night when we question everything we have ever done, all that we are, and the entire society that we’ve built. Because what is it? The whole lot of it? Only the sum of all our choices. Only the result of us. Can we cope with the way it turned out?"

"This hockey game will never be played, and for many of us it will feel as if we never really emerge from the ice rink. We will be stuck in the nightmare forever. We are a people who tell stories, who try to use stories to put what we have experienced into some sort of context, to explain what we have been fighting about in the hope that it will excuse what we have done. But stories reveal both the very best of us and the very worst, and can one ever outweigh the other? Are our triumphs greater than our mistakes? What are we responsible for? What are we guilty of? Can we look ourselves in the mirror tomorrow? Can we look each other in the eye?"

"Lev never had children of his own, almost his entire family died in a war the rest of the world didn’t even call a war. He has seen good people capable of great evil, but also terrible people capable of great goodness. It’s the same everywhere: almost everyone loves too much, hates too easily, forgives too little. But most people want the same as him: to live in peace, to let your heart beat a little more slowly when night comes, to earn a bit of money to support the ones you love."

"It’s like a cruel joke, as if God wants to point out that He can do what He likes with us. Unless this is the opposite: His penance.

As two cherished lives end over in the ice rink, the twins’ hearts start to beat in Hannah’s arms. Two childhoods begin. Beep-bo. Tickles and helpless giggling. Climbing trees. Puddles and boots that are too big. Ice on the lake. A million ice creams. Whisper-shouts from parents on the phone when you’re playing with a ball indoors. Swings. Best friends. First love."

"Matteo is dead before his body hits the floor.

But so is Benji."

"Everyone who knew Benjamin Ovich, particularly those of us who knew him well enough to call him Benji, would have wished him a really long story. A secure life. A happy ending. We hoped, oh, how we hoped, but deep down we probably knew that he wasn’t the sort who would get that. Because he was always the sort of person who stood in the way, the sort who protected, the sort who ran. He always thought he was the bad guy in all stories, the real heroes always do, that’s why stories about boys like him never end with them growing old. Stories about boys like him only end with us no longer dreaming of time machines, because if one was ever invented in the distant future, it would already have been used to travel back here by someone who loved him.

There are so many of us.”

"We can’t fight against evil. That’s the most unbearable thing about the world we have built. Evil can’t be eradicated, can’t be locked up, the more violence we use against it, the stronger it becomes when it seeps out under doors and through keyholes. It can never disappear because it grows inside us, sometimes even in the best of us, sometimes even in fourteen-year-olds. We have no weapons against it. We have only been given love as a gift in order to cope with it."

"Maya wishes she could stop shaking, she wishes she could hold the girl tighter, that she could hug away all the shock and despair and all the terrible darkness that will never leave either of them now. But she doesn’t know how, she isn’t big enough, isn’t strong enough. She can’t breathe, she’s gasping for air, trying to think away the blood and death on the floor in there and she needs to be strong for the child’s sake. But how do you do that? Where do you find the strength? She doesn’t have it. She’s certain she’s going to collapse on the ground in the snow when she feels two arms around her own shoulders. It’s her mother. Kira didn’t run toward the fire, she ran after the children. Behind her comes Tess and soon other women will come, from all directions, in red and green jackets, some even in black. They wrap their arms around each other, in circles, ring after ring, forming a wall around Alicia.

Nothing that happens to the girl in the rest of her life will ever be worse than this. But in the very worst moment, in the midst of the greatest terror, mothers and big sisters from the whole forest ran here to protect her.

No one can fight against evil. But if it wants to take Alicia, it’s going to have to go through every last one of them first."

"We have gotten used to so many types of violence, but we could never foresee this one. This one we will never understand. This one we will never get over. Adri picks up her brother and he feels so small in her arms. She carries him out of the ice rink and the whole town stops breathing. A hole in every heart.

How will the sun rise tomorrow? How can daylight still exist? What is the point?"

"Good people can be capable of great evil, and evil people can be capable of great good."

"Maya will remember how incomprehensible it was that the sun even rose on the day after Benji’s death. That she was still alive. That she kept going. But she understands her parents, for the first time, really understands them. How they learned to cry inwardly when Isak died. Silently, silently they cried for years so that Maya and Leo wouldn’t hear. How the very air must have hurt their skin. How they must have wanted to lie down with their cheeks to the ground and whisper into the grass to the child beneath it. How they must have hated themselves for not being able to die with him.

How many of all the things they have done since then have been their attempts to achieve something important, something grand, something worth getting to Heaven late for? Almost everything.

It’s unbearable that the sun rises again, that Maya is here and not Benji, for the rest of her life she will stop almost daily and think: “Would he be proud of me? Have I lived a worthy life? Been a good enough person?” Because of course that’s all she is, all everyone she grew up with in Beartown is: hopelessly simple but horribly complicated. Ordinary, unusual people. Unusually ordinary people. We try to just live our lives, live with each other, live with ourselves. Accepting joy when we find it, bearing grief when it finds us, and being amazed at our children’s happiness without falling apart when we think that we can never really protect them."

"She will say that we’re just trying to live, damn it. Live in spite of each other. Live for each other.

Live on."

"Soon millions of people will know Maya’s name, but every night she will only be singing for Benji. Not all her songs will be about him, but they will all be his, somehow, even the ones that are Ana’s. One evening, several years from now, Maya will be so famous that she’ll be performing in one of the biggest arenas in the whole country. It will be sold out. The first time she steps out into it she will realize what it is used for when concerts aren’t being held there. It’s an ice rink. It’s the biggest moment in her career, and she cries her way through every song."

"When Benji is buried, it isn’t in a church with open doors but under the bare sky. Two entire towns turn up. The notification in the newspaper is superfluous, everyone knows the time and the place already, even the factory closes, but beneath Benji’s name is printed what everyone is feeling:

This hurts too much to touch with words."

"Their brother is laid to rest beside their father, not far from Ramona and Vidar. Around here we usually say that we bury our children under our most beautiful trees, but not even the best among us can find a tree beautiful enough to watch over Benjamin Ovich. So we grow new ones, all around the stone bearing his name, we let Alicia and other children plant them in the soil so that they grow up around him. Until he is no longer sleeping in a churchyard, but where he was always safest and happiest. In a forest."

"Are you scared? Someone who loves you wanted to know.

I said: Oh no—he’s in a different form though

Because the grave’s only a place for memory

The earth around his coffin isn’t where he’ll be.

Where you are now I cannot say

You’re not here, you’ve gone away.

There’s a folding chair by the water and there

I think you sit and laugh and feel a love so rare.

There’s ice around your island, you’ve got your skates,

There goes a boy whose beauty never fades.

You’re playing a game, don’t even feel cold,

There plays a boy who’ll never grow old.

You’re everything you wanted to be

You’re safe and happy, wild and free.

I don’t know where you are now my friend

But in a hundred years we’ll meet again."

"There are many types of leadership, the sort Big City, Amat, and Bobo demonstrate this year isn’t the sort that goes forward, but rather goes backward. Back to everything we are. Sometimes the greatest leadership is knowing the way home."

"Elisabeth Zackell becomes a famous coach. She wins hundreds of games. She wins leagues, titles, and trophies. The only thing she never really wins back is that first, uncomplicated joy. Hockey never really becomes a game for her again. But one day in many years’ time she will coach a national team, the one Alicia plays on, and then Zackell will make an exception to her strictest rule.

She lets someone play with the number 16 again. For one single game.

Alicia gets up from the bench in the locker room and leads her team out and storms the ice, and Zackell watches her and for a single moment forgets that it isn’t him."

"“I’m proud of you,” she whispers to her brother.

“I’m proud of you too,” he whispers back.

Leo will do great things in life, he will go far and give her every reason to really be proud of him. She’s just being proud in advance. That’s the job of big sisters."

"What is life, other than moments? What is laughter, other than a small victory over sorrow? A single moment, just one, when everything inside us isn’t broken."

"Maya sings for thousands of people in hundreds of arenas over the years when she’s grown up, but mostly she sings for herself and the best friends she had as a child. One day Ana takes her up in the helicopter, rising straight up into the sky. They take the girls with them, the girls they used to be, two laughing kids they wish they could go back in time and protect. They pick them up off the ground in the forest and hide them inside their jackets and the rotor blades spin and they fly far above the earth. High and free."

"She doesn’t forgive, doesn’t forget, but she doesn’t use violence just because she can. She doesn’t destroy Kevin’s life even though he deserves it. She spares him.

But Kevin’s wife will ask him who that woman was. Kevin takes a series of terror-filled breaths, but eventually he is too weighed down to carry the lies, so he whispers the truth. Everything. The whole of the reality he has constructed since that night in Beartown collapses around him inside that car. He loses everything.

Can he be forgiven? Can he be spared? Allowed to have a life?"

"Spring comes, and summer. It’s almost unbearable. But then autumn arrives, as brief as the blink of an eye, before winter finally hits us again. Life doesn’t go on, it starts again, everything is possible once more. Anything can happen, all the best and all the most beautiful and all the biggest adventures in the world."

"Early, early in the morning the caretaker opens the door to the ice rink and turns the lights on. Alicia looks so lonely and small as she skates out onto the ice, but she isn’t, she’s bigger than everyone and never alone again. She lies down in the center circle and looks up at the roof. When she closes her eyes and reaches out her fingers she hurts in so many places inside, but there and then she doesn’t feel anything, because Benji is lying beside her and soon a new hockey season will begin and everything can still be okay. Throughout the whole of her long career, in every ice rink and in every national game, she will do the same thing every time she gets scared or nervous: look up at the roof, reach out her hand, feel that he is there. Because Benjamin Ovich isn’t in a grave. Benjamin Ovich is at the game with his best friend."

"Her hundred years will be our very best, most loved, most told story. And that says a hell of a lot, because we’re a hockey town. We have nothing but stories here. But all our stories have really only been about one thing: ever since the very first, about a boy who made it all the way from here to the NHL and came back with his family, about his daughter who found the best friend in the world, about a terrible crime and love that was like organ donation. About tears and struggle, about hugs and laughter, about a stage and a guitar and thousands of people in the audience. About a boy who was born in a place that had never seen ice but who one day could move faster on skates than anyone else, about other children who became the best in other ways, about the boy who became a coach and the ones who became parents and the girl who flies a helicopter to save the whole world. About a young man who could never see himself as a hero but who died like one, who ran toward fire to save a child. About families and friends. About climbing trees and adventures. About a vast forest and two small towns and all the people here who are just trying to live their lives. Sit in a boat. Tell lies. Catch zero fish."

At the end of this book... Was Backman hinting that there will be another trilogy about Alicia? God, how I hope it's true. Give me more Beartown stories please, and how Amat gets into the NHL and how he's doing in NHL, how Maya gets into her stardom, how Ana goes after her aspiration of being an ambulance helicopter pilot, how Bobo becomes a dad, and about everyone else too.

It took me almost a full month's time to make this review, and I think it's because I was trying so hard to properly say goodbye to this book series. It's ridiculous how much love I have for this book series, but as Backman wrote in the book:

And it's exactly how I feel about saying goodbye to this trilogy.

But here we are now, this trilogy is finally completed and, like it or not, I have to say goodbye to Beartown. It's bittersweet, because I love this trilogy so much, but now the wait is finally over and there's no more nights staying up late wondering about what's gonna happen to my favorite characters. I just have to let those wonderful characters go and rest now.

I'm reminded of these quotes from the brilliant TV Show, The Good Place, about letting go and moving on, and it helped me tremendously:

Eleanor Shellstrop: "Working out the terms of moral justification is an unending task." That's what I was thinking about. That sentence.

...

Eleanor Shellstrop: The whole book is about how we should try to find rules other people can't reasonably reject, and then he ends it by saying, "The search for how to find these rules will go on forever." I proposed a rule that Chidis shouldn't be allowed to leave because it would make Eleanors sad. And I could do this forever, zip you around the universe showing you cool stuff... and I'd still never find the justification for getting you to stay. Because it's a selfish rule. I owe it to you to let you go.

Chidi Anagonye: Picture a wave in the ocean. You can see it, measure it - its height, the way the sunlight refracts as it passes through - and it's there, you can see it, and you know what it is, it's a wave. And then it crashes on the shore and it's gone. But the water is still there. The wave was just... a different way for the water to be for a little while. That's one conception of death for a Buddhist: the wave returns to the ocean, where it came from and where it's meant to be.

Janet: What do you think happens when people walk through the door? It's the only thing in the universe I don't know.

Eleanor Shellstrop: I don't know either. The wave returns to the ocean. What the ocean does with the water after that is anyone's guess. But as a very wise not-robot once told me, the true joy's in the mystery.

This trilogy truly has given me so many wonderful gifts apart from the story and the characters themselves, it made me learn Swedish, and it introduced me to Ice Hockey, which I am now obsessed with. It's very hard for me to say goodbye to this trilogy and all of my favorite characters in this trilogy, but I know I'll always be reminded of them whenever I study Swedish and watch Hockey, I'll always be looking for Benji, Amat, Maya, Ana and Bobo in my studies and every hockey games I watch.

I do hope that there will be a TV show adaptation of the full trilogy, one that is more faithful to the books, because I think they are perfect just the way they are.

Thank you so much for such an amazing ride with this trilogy, Backman.

PLOT - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

WRITING STYLE - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

ENTERTAINMENT LEVEL PAIN LEVEL- 💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔

BOOK COVER DESIGN - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

OVERALL BOOK RATING - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

#Beartown trilogy #the winners #book review

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tojisun · 1 year ago

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MAK!!?<“_#)!#) THE GOOFY ASS GULP I DID WHEN I SAW U POSTED A GHOST FIC, N THEN WHEN I SAW THE TAGS????? HELP MEEEE

okok this is gon be a loooong comment im sorry omg but its just???? this is so fucking good. it’s so fucking perfect. exceptional. life-changing, even!!!! mak my love u are one of the best writers i know — the emotion, the build up, the characterization that you put into your works??? how can i not be in awe every damn time!!!!! how can i not adore you?????????

first: THE PETNAMES??? its probably a conglomerate of my issues but i fuckin swooned when i saw ghost call her “kid” JHAHDHF HAD ME HOWLING

ALSO I HAD TO PUT MY PHONE DOWN WHEN HE WALKED INTO HER MASTURBATING. I WAS CRYING LAUGHING IN EMBARRASSMENT BUT GOD IK THINGS ARE ABOUT TO GO DOWN AND I WAS SHAKING, ALL EXCITABLE

“Cute little thing.” He comments, tilting his head to look at the dildo hanging between his thick fingers.

i choked so hard when he said this. why was it so hot?? why is it a reminder of his bulk. his size??? i was biting the drawstrings of my hoodie, giggling n everything mgjwrokf it was badddd

“Let me try.” He says, the words falling out to sharp and harsh as though they’ve burst out of his mouth before he can stop them. It’s not like Ghost to speak without thinking it through, perfectly calculated, and your breath catches a little at the offer.

I AM SUCH A SUCKER FOR THOSE TROPES WHERE YOU’RE BLATANTLY SEEING HOW READER AFFECTS GHOST!!! LIKE I GET SO WEEPY AND MUSHY, AND THIS ONE!! THE WAY HIS DESIRES ARE MUCH GREATER THAN HIS USUAL COHERENCE???? IM GONNA EAT MY FIST. EATING MY FIST!!!

But this, right now, kissing with Ghost, makes you feel as though you’ve been doing nothing but fumbling your way through all of those encounters, like you’ve been kissing wrong all this time.

It’s slow and deep, at first. All-consuming. It lights a fire in your gut, which expands and spreads throughout your body until you find your fingers grasping desperately at the short cotton sleeves of Ghost’s t-shirt where it’s stretched over his thickly muscled arm.

i felt breathless myself when reading these paragraphs because this is exactly how i think ghost kisses like hhhfhfh!!!! but more than that, this is exactly how i envision the way ghost reduces you to. THE WAY!!! HE OVERWRITES HER PAST EXPERIENCES WITH ALL OF HIM — OVERWHELMING BUT IN A WAY THAT BURNS. MAK!! I AM SO UNWELL

“I’m gonna ruin you,” Ghost whispers, and it sounds like a promise. He drags his lips up your throat, then talks against the corner of your mouth. “You won’t be able to touch yourself again without wishing it was me.”

im nOT EVEN LYING I HAD TO THROW MY PHONE AWAY TO MUFFLE MY SCREAM. HES GONNA RUIN HER. RUIN HER NOT JUST SO HER NEXT PARTNERS WILL FALL SHORT, BUT SO THAT SHE WONT EVEN TOUCH HERSELF WITHOUT NEEDING HIM?!!>!!@/!!!1 the possessiveness and the carnality of this statement. this promise. god i need him

“I know,” He murmurs, almost mockingly soft with you. “I know, you want it. Gotta give it to you slowly.”

CROONING AND MEAN GHOST MY BELOVED. GRINDING MY TEETH SO HARD MY BRACES SNAP

“All that messin’ around with those plastic cocks, but you’re still this tight for me,” He says, his voice so deep that you feel it reverberate into your bones. “Deep breath.”

LIVES WERE CHANGED. ALTERED. I PHYSICALLY CLAWED AT MY PANTS FROM HOW MUCH THIS MADE ME CHOKE. FELT MY HEART LODGE INTO MY DAMN THROAT. and hhhhhgfhhghghhghghs “deep breath”????? the way!!!! the way ive always envisioned him to talk you through it and this!!! this made me a wreck for reallll

“Ghost-!” / “Shh.” He grunts. “Call me Simon when I fuck you.”

i swooned. i honest to god swooned. i love love when fics do this thing w his names. when HHHHH when he acknowledges the difference and makes his partner break the barrier. when he himself craves that shift in intimacy. my god mak im spiralling

“Never seen you look like this,” he grunts. “All fucked-out and perfect.” / “Gorgeous girl,” He grits out, jaw clenched. “Squeezin’ so tight. Fuck. Gonna make you cream.”

the praises. the dirty praises. im gonna hurl with how big the ball of need is thats sitting in the pit of my stomach

“God, that’s a sight. All for me, yeah?”

THE POSSESSIVENESS MY GOD. HES SO INSATIABLE LIKE HES NOT EVEN DONE FUCKIN HER, NOT EVEN DONE CLAIMING HER, AND HES ALREADY CLAIMING HER AGAIN AHHHHHHHHHH

finally: THE AFTERCARE??? WHEN SHE SAID SHE THOUGHT SHE LEFT AND HE SAID “NO.” ‘SIMPLY’. LIKE THERE IS NO OTHER QUESTION, NO ROOM FOR DOUBTS. HE WONT LEAVE HER. HE WONT JUST WALK AWAY. NOT NOW OR EVER- (and their cute banter at the end PLEASE ITS SO FUCKING CUTE)

MAK. MY BELOVED MAK. YOU DELIVERED, SERVED, ATE, DEVOURED ONCE AGAIN. thank you so so much for this beautiful fic. kissing u and ur beautiful mind because what the fuck. i am obsessed

ミi hear you like magic? i've got a wand and a rabbit!

🍓 pairing: simon "ghost" riley x fem reader

🍓 tags: nsfw, size kink, virgin!reader, oral sex, vaginal sex, rough(?) sex, some mild second-hand embarrassment perhaps, sex toys, edging, failed masturbation attempts, ghost takes your virginity and also maybe ruins you for literally anybody else ever again

masterlist

reblogs are always enormously appreciated!

The ceiling over your head is drab grey and water-stained, the old paint peeling away in strips. It’s an ugly sight, but you barely see it; you’re too busy trying to catch your breath.

The sheets beneath you are uncomfortably damp with your sweat, but you don’t have the energy to roll over just yet. You feel hot and itchy with frustration, and you scowl up at the ceiling above you as your fingers curl into fists. But even though you feel like laying in your now grubby-bedding for the rest of the evening, you can’t let yourself wallow. There’s going to be a knock on your door any minute, and this is not a position you want to be found in.

With an irritable groan, you haul yourself off the bed and to your feet. Your muscles ache and you feel too warm, but you reach for your clothes anyway. The worn cotton of your shirt feels scratchy against your skin, but maybe that’s just because you’re still over-sensitive and irritable.

You can never quite bear to look at the aftermath of what you’d been doing, so you avert your eyes as you gather up the bright silicone and plastic devices littering your mattress. It’s embarrassing now that the adrenaline has worn off and disappointment is beginning to set in, so you end up gathering them all up more roughly than necessary.

The term ‘toy’ seems incongruous to you. It sounds too childish, too immature. It makes you sound like a stupid kid, as though you aren’t a young adult past twenty fumbling your way through sexual self-exploration. It’s embarrassing, and much more frustrating than you ever would have predicted – despite all of your clumsy, desperate attempts at pleasuring yourself, you’ve never quite managed to reach that peak of pleasure you’ve heard other people talking about.

You grumble quietly to yourself as you try to wipe away the sticky lube that’s still coating your thighs. Your muscles are a little achy from all the tensing you’d been doing trying to come with that stupid vibrator, not even accompanied by the satisfaction you had been hoping for.

It’s not as though you’ve never gotten the opportunity to experiment with others; you’re not unforgivably ugly, you don’t think you have a bad personality, and for the past few years you’ve been surrounded by military men that certainly aren’t known for being picky. And it certainly isn’t like you haven’t received your fair share of offers.

It just never seemed right. You’re not overly concerned about ‘saving’ your virginity or anything like that; it’s just that putting yourself into such a vulnerable position is scary. You’re aware of the irony, of course, that you’d trust many of these people with saving your ass from catching a bullet in the field, but allowing someone to see you so intimately feels like a step too far.

You’re still sweaty and flustered and naked when a knock sounds from your door, and you freeze. The doorknob turns, but doesn’t open; in that moment, you’re deliriously grateful that you had turned the lock – it’s something that you’ve forgotten to do on far too many occasions.

“Lass, you in there?” Oh god, it’s Soap.

Cursing quietly to yourself, you jolt into action. Your pants are crumpled at the bottom of your bed where you had shed them, and you hurriedly gather them up and struggle your way back into them.

“Gimme a minute!” You yell, praying he doesn’t notice the somewhat frantic edge to your voice.

You stagger slightly as you worm your way into your pants, and then lunge to grab the stupid dildo you’d just been trying to use. You feel your skin prickle with humiliation as you try to force the stupidly large silicone cock into your already full underwear drawer, jamming it shut roughly to hide it from sight. You don’t want to even imagine what Soap might have to say if he were to see what you had been doing; you think you might have to go full deserter mode and abscond into the wilderness.

“Did ye forget about drinks?” Soap’s drawl carries through the thickness of the door. He doesn’t sound even slightly put out – if anything, he sounds a little amused.

You pause, close your eyes, sigh. Fuck. You had not, in fact, forgotten about drinks, you just thought you had more time.

“No, I– just a minute!” You yell back, shoving your shoes on and trying to fix your hair.

You had completely lost track of time, and now you don’t even have time to rinse your sweat-damp skin off – you’re going to have to sit through drinks with the squad all grimy, like a physical reminder of what you had been up to for the last two hours.

When you finally unlock the door and wrench it open, Soap is standing on the other side tapping a staccato rhythm on his thighs with his open palms. He’s dressed casually in just blue jeans and a black muscle shirt, and he gives you a look of semi-disbelief.

“What the hell were you—”

“Gym.” You interrupt, landing on the only explanation you can think of for your sweaty skin and messy hair.

Soap blinks, but apparently decides it’s not worth the effort to continue that line of conversation. He just shrugs, then turns and starts making his way down the hall, slowing his pace for you to catch up.

You exhale; Soap can be like a bloodhound when he suspects there’s gossip to be had, and you’re relieved to have dodged a round of his relentless questioning. You suppose he can be surprisingly tactful sometimes, and he knows you well enough not to press you. Or, perhaps it’s because you come across as such a non-sexual being that it doesn’t even occur to him that there may be another explanation.

There’s an unofficial tradition that when the squad is on base, everyone gathers in the sparsely decorated recreation room for drinks and card games on Thursday evenings. It usually makes for an enjoyable night; Gaz and Soap can always be trusted to supply whatever bottles of alcohol they’ve managed to get their grubby little hands on, and it’s always amusing to watch Captain Price get increasingly more irate as Soap pretends not to understand the rules of whatever card game they’re playing. The whole illicitness of having contraband on base only makes the whole thing more exciting; the CO’s on base often turn a blind eye to the activity, so long as it’s kept under control.

But tonight, you’re distracted.

The others had offered a bit of good-natured ribbing when you and Soap had turned up late, but before long you’re all settled in a loose circle on the poorly-stuffed couches in the corner of the room. Gaz has already unstoppered a bottle of bourbon, and is attempting to convince a visibly unimpressed Price to play a game of Kings with them. You curl up on one of the worn-out couches opposite them, watching with a small if slightly stiff smile.

The atmosphere is relaxed and pleasant, almost enough to make you forget about the irritating buzz of unfulfilled arousal under your skin. You shift, trying to keep your movements small, subtle, to avoid the notice of your team. Your denim jeans are nowhere near as comfortable as usual, and you wonder briefly if you should have simply worn your cargo pants just to avoid the harsh friction of the denim.

You sit there feeling… unmoored. You fidget, drink your smooth bourbon in sips in an attempt to avoid wincing, and try not to look as obviously out of place as you feel. It’s been like this, recently. Joining the task force has been an accomplishment for you, a source of immense pride – you’re the youngest member (just narrowly beating Gaz for the title) and a woman to boot, and though the squad has never treated you any differently it’s hard to kick the belief that you have something to prove.

You engage in conversations the best you can, but you’re distracted and you know it must be obvious. Your preoccupation gets you a couple of furrowed brows and glances, but there seems to be an unspoken agreement to give you some space.

You don’t even realise the extent of your distraction until a big body settles down on the loveseat next to you, and you jolt. True to his name, Ghost had appeared near silently, escaping your notice until he lowers himself down to sit next to you.

And damn, you forget how big he is sometimes. It’s an average sized loveseat, but the lieutenant takes up over half of it. He’s obviously being mindful not to consciously crush you, but he’s not being overly cautious when it comes to avoiding touching you. He’s dressed unusually casually, and his thick, muscled thigh is wrapped in blue denim as it presses carelessly against yours.

“You alright?” He asks, his voice low and smooth as he nudges your knee with one of his big knuckles.

You haven’t been a member of the task force for long, but you would know Simon Riley by his hands alone, by the earthy salt-spice in your nose as he leans a little closer to peer at your face. You tilt your head up, unable to stop the small reflexive smile that breaks over your face at the sight of him.

“Yeah.” You breathe, hurriedly straightening up where you’re sitting. “Yeah, sorry. Just thinking.”

His sudden proximity isn’t doing your current state any favours, and you take a quick sip of your drink in an effort to collect yourself. It’s taking a herculean effort not to stare at the way his biceps are bulging against the straining material of his black cotton t-shirt.

“What’re you thinking about?” Ghost asks as he stretches out his legs with a tired groan. The sound is gruff and gravelly, and you feel blood rush uncomfortably to your cheeks.

“Nothing.” You say quickly.

He doesn’t believe you, that much is obvious, but Ghost never pushes and he rarely speaks more than he has to. He just gives you a glance, brief and knowing and far more penetrating than it should be, before turning his head back so he can watch the boys playing their card game. He’s holding a crystal tumbler filled with dark amber liquid, but he hasn’t yet pulled his mask up to drink from it.

Your eyes drop to the thick, pale scars that mar the backs of his hands. You trace the path of the scar tissue, eyes lingering around the thick knuckles and broad palms, the way that he holds the glass so casually confidently. He’s got nice hands, probably made all the more attractive by the fact that you hardly ever get to see them. Seeing Ghost without his usual long sleeves and gloves makes you feel like a Victorian pervert snatching stolen glances at a passing lady’s ankles.

A quiet snicker causes your eyes to dart back to his face, and you’re mortified to find that he’s caught you staring.

“What’s got you in such a mood?” He asks. Even through the mask you can tell that he’s smirking, though it doesn’t feel as though he’s making fun of you.

“Just one of those days, I guess.” You say without meeting his eyes.

It’s an evasion at best, but Ghost nods ponderously as though he’s giving this great thought. His stare is penetrating, those big brown eyes watching you as though he can see right through you. Maybe he can. You try not to get too caught up staring at his pale eyelashes, darkened by smears of eyeblack.

“Did something happen?” He asks. The question is casual enough, asked as he lazily swirls his whiskey around in his glass, but his gaze is sharp and assessing.

“No.” You sigh, finally looking properly at him.

It’s a little frustrating, but the squad has been like this with you from the start – protective. Your whole military career has consisted of you veritably clawing your way up through the ranks, and you’ve been surrounded by coarse, gruff men that have underestimated you all your life. 141 is different – they don’t baby you, but the way they treat you is unmistakably softer than how they typically treat each other. The concern can be touching, if a little tiring sometimes.

And maybe it’s because he’s your lieutenant, but Ghost’s attention has always been just this side of overwhelming. It feels like you’re pinned beneath his dark eyes, his gaze somehow sharpened as he watches you from beneath his more casual balaclava, the skull pattern printed on his jaw adding another layer of intimidation. But his shoulders are relaxed as he sits next to you on the small couch, settling the weight of his attention over you like a blanket.

You’ve always respected him, admired him. How could you not? He’s practically a living legend, his reputation larger than life, and he’s scary as fuck. But he’s also softer than you had expected, gentle when he needs to be. He still rides you hard in training, pushing you to your limits and taking no quarter, but you can’t begrudge that. Not when you know he’s working to keep you alive. Perhaps that’s how the attraction had first bloomed; once it started, it was hard to stifle.

Ghost hooks one finger into his balaclava and pulls it up just high enough to expose his mouth, and he presses his glass to his lips to take a sip of his drink. You struggle not to stare like a moron, but he makes it so difficult. His lips are full and pink, and there’s a rugged scar bisecting his top lip. His stubble is dark blond and short, and it doesn’t hide the various scars and marks that decorate his strong jawline.

You almost jolt when he pulls the mask back down, hurriedly averting your eyes and forcing yourself to look out across the room. It’s not just the 141 that’s decided to take up in the rec room this evening; there are soldiers from other units littered all around the room, laughing and joking, playing lazy games of pool on the table in the corner and smoking. The smoke alarm has been jimmied off the ceiling and the window is open, and even Price is turning a temporary blind eye to the blatant disregard for regulations in favour of puffing on one of his cigars.

Ghost shifts on the worn-out fabric of the couch, and lays an arm over the back of the headrest behind you. It’s a casual, thoughtless movement, but it ends up pushing his body slightly closer to you in a way that makes you feel as though you’re about to catch fire.

You cross your legs, but the seam of your jeans presses into your pussy in a way that sends a frisson of heat up your spine. You hurriedly uncross your legs, and attempt to school your expression into casual neutrality as you force yourself to tune back into the conversation.

“–ach, c’mon, Captain,” Soap is saying in a wheedling tone that he probably thinks is endearing. “One round of strip poker won’t kill ya–”

“No.” Price says in a voice like thunder, brooking no argument as thick cigar smoke pours from his nose. It gives the impression of an enraged bull.

Soap either is ignorant to the warning, or is choosing to wilfully ignore it. Judging by the sly gleam in his eyes, you can guess which. He turns to you then, and waggles his eyebrows.

“C’mon, lassie, you’ll play, won’t ya?” He asks with a grin that promises trouble. “I guarantee you’ll be a sight better than any o’ these louts.”

“Speak for yourself,” Gaz pipes up, already grinning. “I was looking forward to seeing the Captain in his jocks–”

Price promptly knocks his drink back, before pushing himself up to his feet with a grim groan. “Right. That’s enough of you lot for one night.”

Gaz and Soap break into peals of laughter, settling back into their seats as they watch their captain march away.

“Offer’s still open, love,” Soap says, still snickering when he looks over to you. “Wanna play?”

Ghost shifts, his wide thigh knocking into yours as his arm stretches behind your shoulders. He lets out a short exhale through his nose, but when you glance up at him you find him as stoic and hard to read as always.

You just roll your eyes. It’s not the first time that they’ve tried to rope you into strip poker, and you’re sure it won’t be the last. You can always trust Soap to start stripping his clothes off when he’s three drinks in, whether he’s playing a game or not, so it’s not surprising that he tries to involve other people in his bad decision making.

And it’s not a big deal, really. There’s been countless missions and operations that have ended up with all of you staying in uncomfortably close quarters with each other. You’ve seen them naked countless times, and the same with them for you. It’s never meant anything, and you know that Soap’s teasing is exactly that – you don’t think they’ve ever once looked at you through any sexual lens at all.

But even still, the joke flusters you more than it should.

“Think I’ll be joining Cap in going to bed, actually.” You say, clearing your throat and setting your glass down on the low table in front of the couch.

The playful booing from Soap doesn’t do much to change your mind, and you stick out your tongue at him and Gaz as you push yourself up from the couch. You try to ignore the loss of heat at your side when you move away from Ghost, though you can’t help but glance back at the lieutenant. He’s not looking at you, his gaze directed into his glass. You try not to feel disappointed about that.

You say your goodnights, and retreat from the rec room.

By the time you make it back to your dorm however, you’re already playing the conversation back over in your head and wondering if you had made the wrong decision.

Perhaps you should have just played the damn game. Despite your inexperience with all things sexual, you’re not actually all that shy about your body. On missions, you and the squad are often forced into tight quarters, and they've all seen you in various stages of undress before. It's hard to be self-conscious around a group of people that have seen you at your worst, whether that’s soaked in blood, unshowered, sleep-deprived, or injured.

But you were so keyed up from your earlier failed attempts at masturbation that the thought of being so physically exposed in front of your squad is mortifying. It feels as though your unresolved arousal is still simmering through your veins, turning your thoughts slow and soupy and stupid.

It’s not so surprising. Your preferred method of dealing with stress is coming back to your private bunk and messing around with your vibrator until you’ve forgotten all of your problems. The problem is, you’ve never quite been able to reach that climax you’ve heard so many talk about.

It’s not for lack of trying, and it’s not as though you haven’t come close to that toe-curling finish you crave so much. But it’s like there’s some sort of block, something that always holds you back before you can go plummeting over that edge. Something that makes the buzzing pleasure dissipate before your eyes like smoke, leaving you worked up and so frustrated. It’s probably inevitable that all those ruined finishes have built up like sludge in your veins, leaving you slow and distracted and irritable.

You eye your underwear drawer thoughtfully as you perch on your bed, before reaching inside and drawing out the same dildo you had been using earlier. You wonder if it would be too much to try again tonight – the muscles in your calves still feel a little bit over-worked from training all day, and you have a feeling that straining in an attempt to reach an orgasm you’ll likely never attain will only make it worse.

But the thought of Ghost in that stupid tight cotton shirt stays firmly stuck in your mind, and that really makes the decision for you. Before you can think too much about it, you’re sliding your jeans off and climbing atop your mattress. The sheets are dirty anyway, after all. May as well have some fun before you change them.

You slide your panties off next, then kick them to the side. It’s difficult not to feel a little pathetic, but you push those feelings aside. So what if you have an embarrassing little crush on a superior officer? It’s not like that’s unusual within the military, and you’re quite certain that dealing with all that unresolved attraction like this is the most sensible thing you can do.

You fish out the bottle of lube you had been using earlier, and drizzle it liberally along the dildo’s length before setting it aside on the blanket. While you’ve used your dildo plenty of times, you still struggle to grow accustomed to the stretch of it. It’s a good dildo – a vibrating one in the rabbit style, designed to stimulate your g-spot and clit at the same time. It was damn expensive too, but it’s one luxury you’re willing to indulge in.

You close your eyes, slide it between your legs, and hit the power button. A low bzzz emanates from between your thighs; you jerk at the immediate barrage of pleasure, your abs tightening and your legs twitching apart, creating more room between them.

Your body is quick to react, sweat prickling under your armpits and your heart thudding quickly in your chest. You can feel electric pleasure coursing through you as you press it against your clit, your toes curling into your sheets.

You bring the vibrator lower, your clit throbbing a little at its sudden absence before you press it inside, sighing. It slips inside much too easily – you’re almost embarrassed by the easy slide. You’re so wet, both from your failed attempt at masturbation earlier and from sitting beside Simon fucking Riley all evening. It’s a deeper, subtler pleasure now, and you clench around it with a quiet moan.

You cycle through the vibrator’s different settings, making it buzz at odd intervals or lower intensities in your usual attempt to build up an orgasm. You wish, with sudden and mortifying clarity, that it could be replaced with a person. More specifically, a person with big hands and firm muscles that still have some soft give to them, and a toe-curlingly gravelly voice.

You squirm, shifting your hips to change the angle of the vibrator inside you. Without meaning to, you imagine Ghost. It’s hard not to, considering your close proximity to him all evening. Your cheeks heat as you imagine Ghost actually being here, watching you all still and silent with that penetrating dark-eyed stare of his.

You huff out a breath, arching off your bed. This is always the best part. You have to ensure that you relish the build up, before it all fizzles out from between your fingers. You whimper, soft and quiet, clenching around the stiff silicone as it buzzes away inside of you.

Right as you press the soft little vibrating bunny ears to your clit, there’s a knock on the door. Then, horrifically, like a scene from your fucking nightmares, your door opens.

“Kid, you–”

Ghost is already half-way through the door when he lays eyes on you, and then he goes completely still in your doorway.

“Fuck.” You hiss, scrambling to knock the stupid thing off.

You fumble for it, panicking. The end is slippery and you can barely manage to grip it. When you finally do, it’s difficult to pull out, your body still attempting to hold it inside. It’s another agonising few seconds to turn it off, the vibrator unfortunately featuring one of those awfully thought-out designs that makes you have to cycle through every single one of the settings rather than hit an off-switch.

And then, finally, silence.

Ghost is living up to his name right now; he’s as stock still and silent as a dead man, stiff as a board as he stares unblinkingly at you. You’re not even sure that he’s breathing, but you can see the whites of his eyes as he gapes at you, frozen.

You stare back at him blankly, hoping that your bed comes to life and swallows you whole just to put an end to your mortification.

At last, Ghost blinks, then finishes his sentence. “You left your phone.”

He lifts his arm. In his large, thick fist, is your stupid goddamn phone. You must have left it on the couch when you had gotten up to leave. You might have wondered at the lieutenant voluntarily bringing it to your dorm for you, but you’re hit with a wave of humiliation so strong that it wipes your brain completely blank.

“Ah.” You say, and your voice cracks. “Thanks.”

There’s a moment of mortifying silence, and then Ghost steps into your room. Your heart jolts right up into the base of your throat as he closes your door behind him. The click of the door is as loud as a gunshot in the silence that’s settled over the room.

Ghost still hasn’t blinked. He’s watching you with eyes that look almost black in the dim light of your room, intense as a predator.

“I–” You attempt to speak, and your throat clicks dryly. “I didn’t–”

Far too late, you realise that your legs are still splayed open. You snap them shut, inhaling a choked breath through your nose.

“I thought I locked the door.” You finish lamely.

Ghost apparently decides to simply disregard that, which you’re honestly a little grateful for. Instead he steps towards you – the enormous bulk of him feels as though he’s completely filling every bit of space in the room, sucking out all the damn oxygen.

“...‘S this why you were so distracted this evening, hm?” He says as he approaches the bed. “You were in a mood ‘cause you wanted to get back to playing with yourself?”

It’s not a question, exactly. At least, it’s not phrased like one. Ghost’s tone is knowing, with an undertone of gruff amusement. You’re certain that you’re not imagining the rough, breathless quality to his voice either, though the thought sends nerves fizzing through your bloodstream.

“No.” You deny uselessy; it’s plainly obvious what you were doing, after all. “No, I just–”

He doesn’t wait for you to finish. His eyes are still glued to you, even though your thighs are now pressed together. Before you can stop him, he reaches down and takes a hold of your hot pink vibrator where you had been trying to hide it beneath your thigh.

“Cute little thing.” He comments, tilting his head to look at the dildo hanging between his thick fingers.

Mortification burns through you. A panicked sort of screech escapes you and you yank it back out of Ghost’s stupid big hand, shoving it under the blankets.

Perhaps if it had been anyone else, your humiliation wouldn’t be burning quite so intensely. But this is Ghost – your lieutenant, the gruff man that you’ve looked up to ever since you joined the task force. He’s not a man famed for his patience, nor for his eloquence, which is making this situation all the more unbearable.

“Lt,” You wheeze, scrambling to sit up and cover your pussy with your hands as you squeeze your legs closed. “I swear I didn’t– I’m sorry–”

But Ghost doesn’t seem interested in your apologies. He’s still watching you as though he can see right through the damn blanket, as though he’s measuring you up and trying to come to a decision about something. In that moment, you hate your reaction to him – no matter how humiliating this situation is, you want him to approve of you, even now.

“Didn’t mean to interrupt.” He grunts, and then he sits down on your bed.

You gape at him. It feels as though your brain has stalled; you’re pretty sure you’re not reacting correctly right now. You probably should have screamed when the lieutenant walked right into your room without knocking. That surely would have sent him straight back out again. And even now, you should probably be ordering him out, telling him to leave.

But you don’t.

“I was.. um.. finished anyway.” You manage to croak out. You sound so pathetic that you nearly make yourself cringe.

Ghost doesn’t answer immediately. He just watches you, his eyes as dark as ever beneath the mask. For a moment, you think he’s not going to answer at all.

But then he says, “Didn’t look like you finished to me.”

Blood rushes to your face so quickly that it makes you light-headed as you catch his meaning. Oh, what the fuck. This is just adding salt to the wound now.

“I wasn’t trying to–” You start, then cut yourself off. “That’s not why I was– I was just trying to relax.”

In the ensuing silence, you realise how silly you sound. At the very least, Ghost doesn’t laugh; he just tilts his head to the side, consideringly.

“Let me see.”

You gape at him. “I– sir–”

“Let me see, sergeant.”

It’s not an order. Not quite. Ghost’s voice is effortlessly assertive, but it falls just short of being a command. You have room to refuse. You could tell him to get out of your dorm right now, and he’d do it. Knowing the lieutenant, he’d never bring it up again, either.

You drop your knees apart, spreading your thighs in an unpracticed, self-conscious sort of motion.

Under the lieutenant’s sharp gaze, your skin prickles and your nerves strain. Even sitting down on your bed, he’s a veritable behemoth of broad shoulders and thick corded muscle. His hulking form towers over you even now, and you feel so damn small as you lay there propped up against your pillows in nothing but a t-shirt.

Ghost has seen you naked before, obviously. You can’t afford to be prudish in the military, where you never know when you’ll next have true privacy, and you’ve changed out and showered with the squad countless times. It’s never meant anything, and the men in 141 have never made you feel anything less than comfortable with them.

This, however, is different. This isn’t just a case of catching a quick glimpse of your nude form as you shower in the group shower rooms when you’re out on missions – your whole damn pussy is out on display for him, still glistening wet and sticky from your ministrations and the lube you’d used.

Ghost’s inhale is as loud as a thunderclap. You’ve never felt so exposed, so vulnerable in another person’s presence. You feel a little ridiculous laying like this as he watches you, but another part of you feels so humiliatingly desperate for some kind of approval from your lieutenant.

At first, that approval is nowhere to be found. Ghost is notoriously difficult to read, and you’re beginning to sweat as you lay there waiting for a response – any response.

At last, he makes a noise. It’s part grunt, part hum, and part groan.

“You’re still wet, sergeant.”

Are you imagining it, or is his voice an octave deeper than usual?

Your eyes trace his face, trying to imagine what he looks like beneath the mask. You can see the suggestion of his nose, the square curve of his jaw. His darkened eyes are watching you so carefully that you feel as though you’re physically being pinned in place.

You swallow. “It’s just– I–”

“You didn’t get to finish.” Ghost interrupts, with the air of completing your sentence for you.

You try to speak, but nothing more than a strangled sort of murmur escapes. You swallow hastily, then try again.

“I wasn’t going to. Sir.” You tack on the title at the end as an afterthought, but this whole situation is so far beyond professional that you probably needn’t have bothered. “Finish, I mean. I… I never do.”

You’ve admitted it before you can really think about it, and then you regret it wildly. You can’t help but wonder if you’ve overstepped a boundary, but then again the boundaries are currently so blurred that they’re virtually impossible to discern.

“You never finish.” Ghost repeats it. Slowly, staring right at your face, as though he’s confirming what you’ve just said.

It sounds so much worse in his deep, gravelly voice.

Embarrassment blooms, thick and sickly in your stomach. Your legs start to twitch closed, too embarrassed to be having this conversation with your cunt bared like this, but then Ghost’s big paw of a hand reaches out to settle over your knee, keeping you open and exposed. It’s so rare to see his hands ungloved, and the bare skin of his callous-roughened hand feels almost scorching hot against your inner knee.

“I don’t– I’ve tried,” You say, and you can’t help but feel as though you’re just digging yourself further into a hole, here. “But I don’t– I’m not able to. I mean, I’ve come close, I’m just not able to… you know.”

You trail off lamely, feeling like the biggest fucking loser ever. Why are you telling him this? Why the fuck haven’t you reacted properly, and kicked him the hell out of your room?

Deep down, a shameful little part of you already knows the answer to that. You’re feeling awfully, sickeningly hopeful. Having Lieutenant Riley in your dorm, sitting on your bed and staring so hungrily at the wet, swollen parts between your legs feels like something out of your wildest wet dreams.

His eyes flick towards your pink silicone rabbit dildo, half-hidden under your blanket, and he grunts consideringly before reaching out and taking it into his hands again. It’s standard-size, but it looks small in his big hands.

“You ain’t doin’ it right, then.” He says, so bluntly that you just blink at him. “Show me how you use it.”

For a brief, wild moment, you wonder if you’re experiencing visual and auditory hallucinations right now. Surely you can’t really be experiencing this right now – and yet the lieutenant is still watching you, and you’ve never disobeyed a direct order before.

He hands you the vibrator, then waits expectantly.

And… well. All you ever try to do is impress him.

You shuffle your legs open a little wider, ignoring the flustered heat that scalds your cheeks. You’ve never been all exposed like this in front of another person, and the weight of Ghost’s eyes on you is reminiscent of being under a spotlight.

You swear his eyes darken even further when you press the stiff silicone rabbit dildo to your cunt, if it’s even possible for that gaze to get darker beneath the thick balaclava and eyeblack smeared over the narrow strip of skin that’s visible.

The dildo sinks in so easily that it’s almost embarrassing, and your breath catches both from the stretch and the way Ghost leans in a little closer to see. Far from turning you off, you feel your body throb in response to his proximity, and your cunt flutters pathetically around the plastic toy. You shift, attempting to get a little more comfortable, but you can’t dispel the nerves fizzing in your blood as you attempt to push the dildo a little deeper under Ghost’s sharp gaze.

His big, hulking body is so perfectly still as he watches you that it’s making you a little nervous. The only reaction that you get from him is a small, considering hum, but even then you can’t figure out what it means. Your movements are a little clumsy, so hyper-conscious that he’s watching every single thing you do that you end up fumbling a little. He’s looking at you in the same way he assesses threats, his intense dark eyes examining every movement and reaction you make. It makes you feel small and jittery, especially when you realise that he’s judging you by what you’re doing.

“You gonna turn it on?” He asks, and oh god his voice has definitely dropped lower and huskier. You know you’re not imagining it.

You can’t even bring yourself to respond with words. You just make a strangled sort of sound of agreement, then clumsily hit the on button. The toy buzzes to life once more, and your toes curl absent-mindedly into the sheets as the soft silicone bunny ears pulse against your clit.

It feels nice, but you can’t manage to concentrate on the feeling. Hyper-aware of Ghost’s attention, you let out a quiet moan as you shift the vibrator inside you. It’s a little exaggerated, but you can’t help it – you feel like you should be putting on some kind of a show.

You glance back at Ghost’s face, trying to guess what he’s thinking; even through the mask, you can tell that he’s frowning. You feel your stomach clench anxiously. Have you done something wrong?

“This how you usually do it?” He asks.

You swallow thickly, feeling a bit stupid. “Um.. yeah.”

Ghost grunts. He doesn’t sound impressed.

“No wonder you can’t come.” He says wryly.

You go still, eyes widening. In the silence, the bzzzzt! of your stupid vibrator is louder than ever. A sudden wave of shame washes over you, and you start to close your legs again in an effort to block the sight of the toy stuffed into your pussy.

“Oh,” You snap sourly, your embarrassment making you irritable. “So you’re the pussy expert now?”

That startles a loud bark of a laugh out of the lieutenant, a sound so rare that you find yourself desperately trying to commit it to memory.

“Think I might know a bit more than you, sweetheart.” He says. He’s relaxed now, his wide shoulders rolling back. He’s always so effortlessly confident, always so assured in himself and his abilities in a way that makes you feel like a silly little girl.

Judging by the way the corners of his eyes are just slightly wrinkled beneath the mask, Ghost is smirking at you. He finds this funny.

“What about when you’re with other people, hm?” He asks, and his eyes drop back down to try and get a look at you again. When he realises that your legs are clamped tight together, he reaches out to guide your thighs apart again. “No one’s ever impressed you?”

His hands are big and rough and hot, and your willpower crumbles like wet paper as you allow him to open your legs all over again. The vibrator is still buzzing sadly inside you, mostly forgotten about; the stimulation is nice, but it’s never been enough for you.

You huff a weak laugh. You should have known that this would come up, and now you find yourself floundering a little.

“No one’s ever tried.” The confession comes out like a whisper, like a secret.

You can see the moment Ghost understands; realisation settles heavy over him like a physical weight, and the whites of his eyes flash as they widen just slightly. For a moment, he says nothing at all. He doesn’t move – it doesn’t even look like he breathes.

“No?” He says, except it doesn’t really sound like a question. It sounds rough, and you can feel the almost convulsive motion of his fingers tightening around your knee.

You shake your head wordlessly, beyond embarrassed now.

Ghost’s wispy blond eyelashes flutter softly as his eyes dart down to your pussy, still humiliatingly stuffed with your stupid little vibrator. He takes a moment to stare, then looks back up to your face. He’s so frustratingly confident about everything he does, not an ounce of shame in his posture even as you wilt beneath him.

“Never messed around with anybody?”

“No.” You say, and it comes out on a wheeze. He holds your gaze without faltering, and you realise that he’s expecting you to elaborate. “No, I– it just never happened. I was never… um, I was just always too busy, I guess.”

“Too fussy, more like.” He mutters, quiet enough that it seems like it’s a comment meant just for himself. You don’t know how to take that, so you chew your lip and stay quiet.

His eyes drop down to the vibrating dildo again, and you recognise something that looks like a flash of hunger. It feels like there’s pressure building up beneath your skin, tight and hot, and your thighs fall open a little further. You feel raw and so, so exposed, but you don’t even care when Ghost is looking at you like that.

“Let me try.” He says, the words falling out sharp and harsh as though he they’ve burst out of his mouth before he can stop them. It’s not like Ghost to speak without thinking it through, perfectly calculated, and your breath catches a little at the offer.

How could you ever say no to that? You don’t really think that he’s going to succeed in making you come – at this point you’re pretty sure your body is a little bit broken and you’re just not capable of orgasming at all, and that’s whatever – but the chance to get fucked by Ghost? To lose the lingering vestiges of your viriginity to your ridiculously hot, mysterious, massive lieutenant? It’s like something out of a dream.

“Okay.” You choke out, nodding stupidly. “Yeah.”

You want to be touched. You don’t think you’ve ever actually felt the yearning for physical contact this strongly in your life; you’re practically holding your breath as you wait for Ghost to make a move.

Finally, he reaches out. His first move is to pull the stupid little dildo out of you, still vibrating, and you feel yourself clench convulsively around nothing as he leaves you empty and wanting. He spares it a brief, evaluating glance, and you feel yourself burn as you realise he’s examining how you’ve soaked the toy.

He tosses it to the side, barely even taking the time to switch it off first, then turns his attention back to you. He’s got that same kind of laser-focus he usually only gets out on the field, and you take a moment to feel incredibly grateful that you’re never going to be on the receiving end of that terrifying scrutiny on the battlefield.

It feels like your skin is too tight for your body, every nerve and synapse strained and primed as you wait for him to touch you. But he’s slow about it, as though he just wants to torture you a little bit.

When he finally reaches out to lay his hands on you, he doesn’t touch where you want him to.

His callous-roughened hands land on your hips, and pull you down the bed towards him. In the same move, he half-climbs up on the mattress, his huge form practically dwarfing you. Your head and shoulders are still cushioned by your pillows, but your legs are splayed open around Ghost where he kneels on your bed.

You glance down, unable to help yourself, unable to resist trying to catch a look at the outline of his erection pressing against his trousers, and oh. Fuck. He’s big. You knew he’d be big, of course, he’s big all over, but Jesus Christ, maybe you’re a little out of your own depth here–

His thick fingers tangle in the hem of your t-shirt, stretching the fabric out. “Take this off.”

You scramble to do as he says, grabbing at your top and pulling it up clumsily. You realise a moment too late that you’re not wearing a bra, but you suppose at this point it hardly matters. You drop your shirt to the side, and try not to feel too horrifically self-conscious beneath the burning hot gaze of the lieutenant.

Though you can’t see Ghost’s face, you can hear the soft exhale he blows out through his nose, just faintly muffled by the fabric of his mask. His eyes are trained on your chest, darting between each of your tits as though he can’t decide which one to settle on. After a long moment, he reaches forward and cups your left tit with one of his enormous hands, thumbing absently at one of your nipples.

It’s silly; Ghost has touched you before. Lots of times. A nudge of the elbow accompanied by a conspiratorial eye roll, a clap to the shoulder, rough hands pulling you to your feet after training or applying white-hot painful pressure to injuries. But this – you’ve never been touched like this before, not by Ghost, not by anyone.

The shaky breath you let out as his big, rough thumb rolls over your firm nipple comes out as a strangled sort of moan that honestly startles you a little. The noise catches his attention, and he snorts.

“Can’t be that sensitive.” He mutters, but then he reaches to thumb at your other nipple as though trying to be sure.

It’s because you’ve never been touched like this by another person before, you tell yourself. Truthfully, you’ve never even touched yourself like this before. You’ve never bothered to play with your own tits; you’ve always just gone straight to breaking out your vibrators. Now, with every brush of Ghost’s scarred fingers over the tight bud of your nipples, you think you must have been crazy to skip over this part of yourself. But then again, there’s no way that your own hands on yourself would elicit the same sharp jolt that shoots from your breasts down your spine.

“Sir–” You breathe, struggling not to squirm where you’re laying. You wonder, somewhat deliriously, if it might be rude to demand your lieutenant stuff his thick fingers into your pussy. You can already tell that they’re going to feel so much better than your own.

Ghost glances up at you, his eyes unreadable as he watches you bite at your lip. God, his little wispy eyelashes are so blond—

“What?” He says, his voice deep enough that you swear you can feel it rumbling through your bones. “Say it.”

“Want to try your fingers.” You breathe before you can second-guess yourself.

The laugh that rumbles out of Ghost’s chest is low and smoky. It’s probably impossible to miss the way your eyes have been drawn to his hands all evening, so big and corded with veins and muscle and scar tissue. You’ve witnessed those hands crack bones and snap necks and break down doors, and yet you can’t help but wonder desperately what they’re going to feel like when he starts touching you properly.

He adjusts himself on the bed; he’s a big man, hulking and huge as he kneels on your mattress, his weight causing it to dip. His palms wrap around your ankles with ease, and he hauls you into place with a grim efficiency that goes straight to your pussy.

“Big brute.” You say, a little breathlessly.

He ignores you, using his arms to hold your legs open and wide for him. And all you can do is just lie there as he stares, because goddamn it’s like he’s been carved from steel and you can’t break out of his grip. Not that you want to break out of his grip anyway, but you’d really appreciate it if he actually got moving instead of just staring.

“Fuck,” He grunts after a moment, with the air of talking to himself. “Been hiding this all this time, huh?”

“Jesus.” You breathe in response, subconsciously letting your legs drop open even more.

He makes a low noise of appreciation, and finally reaches out to touch you properly. One thick thumb swipes through the seam of your cunt, and you feel the way he’s smearing the clear sticky wetness that’s been leaking steadily out of you. With his now slick thumb, he drags up towards your clit and circles it with agonisingly light pressure.

You let out an embarrassing choked whine, your toes curling at the sensation. Somewhat ironically, Ghost is handling you far more gently than you usually touch yourself, and you find yourself flexing your hips in an attempt to get him to touch you with more pressure. He ignores your attempts, keeping his pace implacably steady and slow.

“D’you always get this wet?”

You can’t even tell if he’s asking you mockingly or if he’s being genuinely curious; it feels like every inch of your focus has narrowed down to the feel of his big thumb rolling those tight little circles around your clit, his touch scorching against you.

It’s not exactly surprising that Ghost is good with his hands. You’ve seen the way he handles weaponry, locking and loading and aiming to fire with the kind of swiftness that comes from muscle memory, working with unwavering speed and precision. He’s the same in hand-to-hand combat, moving with aggressive fluidity that overwhelms his opponents. You’ve caught hits from him before in training, and you know from experience that a punch from those big hands feels like getting hit by a cinder block.

But even knowing how deft and skilled his hands are, it knocks the breath out of you when he slides his middle and ring fingers inside of you, still rubbing steadily at the swollen bump of your clit.

When you exhale, it accidentally comes out as a moan. Your cheeks burn, but there’s really no space in your brain right now for embarrassment to sink in. Two of Ghost’s fingers are the equivalent of at least three and a half of yours, and you feel yourself break out into an overwhelmed sweat when they twist and rub against the sensitive squishy spot in the front wall of your cunt.

You’re so damn worked up, your arousal coiled like a knot in your lower belly from your failed attempts to get yourself off all day. Your back curves, humping yourself near mindlessly back up into his hand as he plays you like a goddamn instrument.

You barely even have time to consider how unfair it is that Ghost is so good at playing with you like this when he doesn’t even have a pussy himself, because then he pulls his fingers out of you.

“Oh, no, don’t stop–” You start to protest breathlessly, your chest still heaving, but the quick glance the lieutenant sends you has you falling silent.

Ghost glances down at his fingers. They’re all glossy from fingering you, and he takes a moment to eye up the way they glisten in the dim light of your bunk. You might have felt self-conscious about it, if you couldn’t see the unmistakable gleam of hungry interest in Ghost’s dark brown eyes.

He wipes his hand on the crease of your hip, but you don’t even get the chance to protest before he reaches up to hook his fingers into his mask. You go still, holding your breath in surprise as he pulls the material up until it bunches up around the bridge of his nose.

And that’s– well. You’ve seen his jaw before, and his mouth (Jesus, you had seen it earlier that evening, when he had been sipping on his smooth whiskey of choice), but the sight of his strong jawline and blond stubble and corded scars on his pale skin always manages to knock the breath out of you. And this time, he’s rolled his mask up even further than before, revealing a nose that’s clearly been broken at least once before.

You probably shouldn’t stare so blatantly, especially knowing that Ghost always takes such pains to keep his face covered. You’re not even sure if the other guys on the team have seen his uncovered face, except for Price, and you know that they’ve developed a habit of averting their eyes when he pulls his mask up for whatever reason. It’s a habit that you never quite managed to develop yourself; you’re never able to stop yourself from gaping at him like a moron, drinking in all of the minutest details. He’s never said a thing about your penchant for staring, so you can only hope that he’s chosen to ignore it.

You’re so busy staring that it takes you by surprise when he grips your jaw with one massive hand and pulls you into a rough kiss.

The sound you make is small and startled, but it’s swallowed by Ghost’s demanding mouth. His lips are dry and a little chapped, but they feel scorching hot against yours. You reach up to grab at his arms – mostly just to ground yourself – but you find yourself almost immediately distracted by the firm bulge of his biceps beneath your hands.

Listen, you’ve kissed people before, plenty times. You’re in your early twenties, and just because you’re inexperienced sexually it doesn’t mean that you’re inexperienced full stop. But this, right now, kissing with Ghost, makes you feel as though you’ve been doing nothing but fumbling your way through all of those encounters, like you’ve been kissing wrong all this time.

Ghost doesn’t just kiss with his mouth, either. It’s like a full-body experience with him; he puts his hands, his whole damn body into the kiss. He clutches you to him, holding you close even as the force of his kiss bends you backwards into the pillows beneath you. At the same time, it’s all you can do to concentrate and respond to the kiss itself, your attention stretched and strained by the feeling of Ghost’s hands running over you, stroking you sides and squeezing at your breasts and groping at the soft flesh of your hips and ass.

“Hah,” You gasp out when Ghost’s lips slide sideways to find the corner of your jaw. His mouth is hot against your skin, bruising, and you feel yourself grow embarrassingly wetter, just from a little kissing.

“You good?” Ghost grunts into your throat as he nips at the base of your jaw.

“Uh huh.” You manage to get out, still clutching at his meaty arms like they’re a lifeline. “So good.”

His breath is hot on your throat when he rumbles out a deep chuckle, and then his tongue flicks out against your earlobe. It makes you forget how to breathe for a second, and you’re distracted when Ghost’s hand changes course, easing beneath your legs so he can press his fingers against your clit again.

Then he pauses, and his fingers slide lower, lazily hooking back and inside you. You tremble, horny and humiliated as you realise that your arousal is glistening all over your damn thighs, impossible to miss.

“Fuck,” Ghost mutters. “All this for me, sweetheart?”

“Hnng,” You whimper like an idiot as his fingers return to your clit, now slick and slippery. “I’m just–”

He doesn’t wait for you to explain. Instead, he pulls his fingers out of you again and kisses you hard. The soft breathy noises you make are muffled into his mouth, and you wrap your legs around his waist automatically. He’s built like a damn mountain, your thighs stretched wide to accommodate the bulk of him as he settles against the core of you.

He likes that – he presses in close, and you can feel the hard line of his cock pressing up against you through the roughness of his jeans. You’re so sensitive that the coarseness of the fabric is almost unbearable, but you’re able to ignore it because you’re so distracted by the sensation of his erection because holy fucking shit that can’t really be how big he is.

You gasp, the sound high and breathy, and you try to grind against Ghost, but it’s impossible because he’s so fucking heavy and he’s pinning you down on the mattress beneath him. Instead, all you can do is squeeze your legs and pull Ghost in even tighter, increasing the pressure between the two of you.

The wave of desire that rocks through you almost pulls you under, and you swear you might have actually gotten so horny that you blacked out for a second, because from one second to the next Ghost has somehow managed to muscle his way back down between your thighs so that he’s eye-level with your cunt.

“What are you–” You start to say, but then he loops his forearms under your knees to tug your legs wider, and you realise just how close his face is to your pussy. You swear you’re actually pulsing with arousal, and you wonder a little wildly if he can see that.

“Oh, fuck, yes — please,” You blurt out, before Ghost has even gotten his mouth on you. He chuckles, low and amused. His grin looks predatory, but in this moment you really don’t mind being the prey — not if it means you’ll be devoured by that mouth.

Then Ghost’s mouth is against you, wet and burning hot. You cry out, barely noticing as Ghost throws one of your legs over his shoulders, spreading you open.

It’s just the right side of overwhelming. Ghost’s mouth feels like it’s going to swallow you whole – his tongue is huge and flat and firm as he licks over your clit, making your thighs quake on either side of his head. It’s entirely unlike any of the fumbling masturbatory attempts you’ve ever made – you always enjoy messing around with your various little sex toys, but you’re swiftly beginning to realise that it could never compare to real human contact. Or at least, contact with Ghost.

His hands move from your waist to your asscheeks, his big palms squeezing the plump flesh there before using his grip to pull your body closer so that he can bury his whole face between your legs. The rougher material of his mask presses harshly into the sensitive skin of your inner thighs, but you hardly even notice it.

Your pussy has never been this wet before; it feels like you’ve sprung a goddamn leak. You might have felt embarrassed about it if it weren’t for the way Ghost groans against you, his wide tongue laving flat and rough against the seam of your cunt as he practically gulps down all the sticky arousal you have to give him.

“Oh god– fuck! Sir…” You sigh, spreading your knees farther apart so that Ghost can wedge his head further between your thighs.

Your ears burn as your room is filled with sounds of him tonguing at your cunt, the lewd wet squish of him working you over until you’re keening, your hips twitching clumsily until his hands tighten where he’s gripping the plump flesh of your ass to keep you still. Then all you can do is twitch as he licks over your clit in repetitive lapping motions, working in circles and then dipping down to shove his searingly hot tongue inside you. You can feel his teeth press against your labia even as he sucks at your clit, and the sensation sends hot bolts of pleasure rocketing down your spine.

Though you don’t mean to, you’re pretty sure that you make his job harder. You can’t stop wriggling, tossing your head back against your pillows and squirming on Ghost’s tongue in a wild overstimulated dance, like a fish caught in a net.

Finally, Ghost seems to have enough of your unco-ordinated flailing attempts to grind against his face. He reaches around your thigh with one arm to reach your clit so he can keep it stimulated as he gulps at the sticky sweetness of your cunt like a man possessed – the action also works to keep your hips pinned down and still. You stop your frantic moving, but your spasms and sounds increase tenfold.

You can hardly believe it, but you feel something coming. A sweet, torturous build up starts in your belly, and you sweat and gasp as he licks and suckles at you relentlessly. You’ve never found yourself in this state so quickly before, with your legs trembling and your breathing heavy and shaky.

“Oh.. oh…” You breathe, beginning to arch your back.

You know this feeling – this is where that sweet climax builds and builds, only to dissipate at the last agonisingly close moment. But this time, with Ghost’s big head between your thighs as his mouth moves against you, sucking, tasting, eating up everything you have to offer, the breath-taking pleasure doesn’t show any sign of slipping out of reach. It feels like for once you might actually reach that peak.

But then, right as you’re certain that you’re about to tip over that long-awaited coveted release, the bastard pulls away.

“No!” You practically shriek, attempting to sit up. “No, I was so close–!”

“Lie back.” Ghost orders, his voice like the crack of a whip.

You drop back obediently before you can even register that you’re moving, so conditioned to react instantly to that tone of voice coming from Ghost’s deep rumbling baritone. Your eyes are wide and betrayed as you stare at him, admittedly a little baleful.

God, but it’s hard to stay annoyed when he’s staring up at you from between your legs like that. His eyes are dark and hungry beneath the mask, and since it’s all pushed up and rumpled around his nose you get a toe-curlingly good look at his lower face. His chin is wet and smeared with your slick, and his lips are plump and pink and swollen from all the kissing and suckling he’s done to you. In a moment of near-delirium, you think that you understand now why he covers his face – his mouth is pretty in a way that shocks you, in a way that needs to be hidden for decency’s sake.

“You’re gettin’ greedy,” He grunts, turning his head and sinking his teeth into the crease of your thigh just to make you yelp. “Wait for it, love. It’ll be worth the wait.”

You don’t think you have much of a choice, so all you can do is lay back and hold on for the ride. He presses his mouth to you again, and you whimper softly as he tongues at your clit.

“No one’s ever eaten you out like this?” He asks, the words muffled into the damp curve of your thigh. It’s stupid, because you know he knows the answer to that is a resounding no, but it seems like he just wants to hear you say it out loud.

“No.” You say, your breaths sawing their way out of your chest.

“Hnn.” He makes some kind of grunting sound against you, his tongue flicking out to taste you again. “That’s why you’ve been so tense, huh? So fuckin’ desperate for someone to touch you?”

“That’s not– ‘m not tense,” You manage to get out, your breasts heaving as your thighs tense up where they’re thrown over his shoulders. “Maybe.. Maybe you’re too relaxed.”

Ghost huffs a hot little laugh at your hip because you both know that couldn’t be further from the truth. You doubt anyone has ever accused Ghost of being too relaxed before, but you don’t have time to feel stupid for it – not when Ghost is devoting the full force of his attention on you, deep breaths huffing against the wet skin of your pussy and making you shudder.

“That’s it,” He croons, his voice uncharacteristically soft and lilting. The rumble of it ripples through your limbs like lapping waves, his battle-roughened palm stroking and smoothing down your ass and thigh as he hauls you closer. “Relax, sweetheart. Fuck, such a pretty pussy. Fuckin’ criminal of you to keep this hidden away all to yourself.” And then, quieter, “Fuckin’ Christ, you’re wet.”

You’re not even sure that he’s talking to you. It seems more as though he’s talking to himself, and it just happens to be you he’s talking about. Your cheeks burn as the feeling of vulnerability sets in, but you keep your legs spread wide as he kisses your clit with his swollen pink lips. You want so badly to be good, for him to be pleased with you, that you push past your embarrassment as best you can.

There’s a budding anxiety in your belly that Ghost is wasting his time here. As much as you crave his touch and the build up, you worry that he’s going to get frustrated with you and your inability to actually orgasm.

But Ghost doesn’t seem to be in a rush. He seems perfectly fucking happy between your legs, and even with his mask all clumsily rucked up around his nose he presses his face into your pussy with his eyes heavy-lidded and hazy. Even when you shift a little in an effort to get him to go a little harder or faster, he just pins you still and continues at his own leisurely pace.

When he reintroduces his fingers, pressing inside and stretching you out with a light sting, you hiss and try to lift your hips again. His rough calloused knuckles brush against the inside of your soft inner thighs, making them quiver as he goes three fingers deep.

“Shhh, atta girl.” He mumbles into you, his words coming out wetly muffled since he doesn’t even both pulling his face back. “Fuckin’– shit, so good.”

The praise shoots liquid and molten through you, and you have to bite back a pathetic keen as you pulse around his fingers. You’re sure he must feel it, because he lets out an answering rumble and laps against your clit, then closes his lips and sucks.

“Oh god–”

“Shhh.” Ghost scoots forward so your knee can hoist over his shoulder. Then he angles his chin to kiss the skin on the inside curve of your knee as he pumps into you with slow, slippery fingers and ungodly squelching noises that only sparks you hotter. You can’t even tell if it’s sweat or tears dotting your face anymore.

Though Ghost’s eyes are heavy-lidded and a little fogged over, he hasn’t looked away from you once. The focused intensity of his gaze spears you through, because you’ve never been looked at like that. No one has ever seen you like this, no one has ever put effort into you like this, no one has ever been so determined to please you before. You don’t know how you’re ever going to recover from this; you have a terrifyingly distinct impression that he’s going to live up to his promise to ruin you for anyone else.

It feels as though your blood is boiling beneath your skin, and you nearly sob when Ghost pulls back. You’ve never been so close, and you want to scream when he takes his gorgeous fucking mouth away from your clit.

“Fuck.” You wet your lips, realising you were panting like a dog and your mouth is bone dry. “Fuck, Ghost, just—”

“Quiet, lovie.” His reply is hoarse and firm, his throat working hard to swallow as he peered down between you, his clever thumb delving slick circles over the taut bump of your clit, his other three fingers fucking with easy rhythm and purpose. It’s maddening, it’s infuriating, it makes you feel as though you’re about to break apart.

His fingers are pulled out, and then you feel firm pressure pressing into you yet again. Your head lolls as you attempt to sit up, your eyelids fluttering as you realise that he’s pressing your stupid dildo into you again.

“Oh, you bastard–” You start to complain, but Ghost doesn’t give you the opportunity to speak properly.

The dildo slides into you so easily, your sticky slick mixing with his spit making the slide almost effortless. You sigh, a build-up of pressure making your whole body feel as though you’ve been stretched out and pulled tight.

Now that you’ve been pushed to the edge, you linger by it. Ghost keeps you on that edge for what feels like hours, until your breaths are burning in your chest and the ligaments in your calves are screaming from all the straining you’ve been doing. Every roll of Ghost’s thumb over your clit sends sparks racing through your nerves, and your breathing is harsh and uneven as Ghost starts fucking you with the stupid vibrating dildo. The rhythm he sets is firm and unrelenting, pushing the silicone toy in and out and visibly relishing the wet squish of your cunt as it takes it deep.

Ghost huffs against the wet skin of your inner thigh, making you shudder. It seems like he’s enjoying this as much as you are, judging by the subtle roll of his hips against your mattress as he absorbs himself in fucking you with the dildo.

He experiments with the angle, adjusting the dildo until you cry out, jerking against the bedding, and whining “There!”. You needn’t bother telling him, though; Ghost has a sharp eye, and he’s so goddamn attentive. He’s already repeating the stroke, pushing the dildo in and bumping it against the same sensitive spot he had hit before.

It feels good, but it’s not enough. Now that you’ve felt the firm hot pressure of his fingers spreading you wide and the wet hunger of his mouth devouring you, you don’t think anything else will do.

He shifts, you catch the rolls of his hips against your mattress again, and you feel as though you’ve caught fire. You think of the glimpse you had caught of his hard cock, pressing against his jeans and making the fabric stretch taut, and you find yourself speaking without thinking.

Ghost pushes the dildo in once more, and you reach down to grab at his wrist as you ask breathlessly, “Can I try yours?”

He pauses; goes so still that it’s honestly uncanny, his eyes practically boring holes into you as he stares at your face. You grow flustered, your own eyes widening in response to your own words. Just because he’s deigning to touch you with his fingers and his mouth, doesn’t mean he’s actually planning to fuck you. Jesus, he’s your fucking superior officer. What were you thinking?

“I’m sorry,” You squeak. “That wasn’t appropriate. Fuck, forget I said that–”

Even beneath the mask, you can see the bob of Ghost’s Adam's apple as he swallows thickly.

“You sure?” He interrupts your rambling before you can get started. “I don’t... ‘m not good with virgins.”

There’s… there’s so much you could say in response to that. Namely, he certainly doesn’t seem like he’s bad with virgins, as evidenced by the throb of arousal still pulsing through your soaked cunt. He’s just had you sobbing at the mercy of his fingers and mouth, and all he has to say when you ask for more is that he’s not good with virgins?

Instead, what you say is a rather lame, “I’m not technically a virgin.”

Which is true. Sort of. Based on a technicality – you had bullied your damn vibrator through your stupid hymen years ago, and you’ve always thought the idea of virginity was a stupid one, anyway.

“Plastic cocks don’t count, darlin’.”

Blood rushes to your face so fast you feel light-headed as humiliation burns through you. Jesus, okay. That’s just mortifying.

“Oh, you think your cock is special, then?” You scoff, attempting nonchalance.

Ghost shifts, letting your legs drop from his shoulders, and kneels up on the mattress so that he’s looming over you. Fuck, every time you get a visceral reminder of how big he is, you feel a little faint. It’s like having a veritable wall of muscle caging you into your bed. Your thighs are spread wide to accommodate the size of him, and you find yourself absolutely captivated by the sight of him with his muscles straining against that stupid tight t-shirt, still panting lightly from his greedy gorging on your cunt.

He reaches out and drags a hand slowly from your cunt up over your belly, between your breasts, up over your sternum, to rest over your collarbones. It’s gentle – he doesn’t put an iota of pressure against your throat – but all you can fucking see is the swell of his bicep and the dark ink of his tattoo and the prominent veins running down the chiselled muscle of his forearm.

Good fucking lord.

“You’ll find out.” He says.

And oh. Okay then. Yeah, you sure fucking will.

He reaches down and unbuttons his jeans, and you can’t help but strain to try and watch. He pushes them down carelessly around his thighs, but doesn’t make any move to strip them off any further. You’re suddenly aware of the fact that you’re laying on the bed completely nude and exposed, while Ghost has only pushed his jeans down far enough to pull his cock out, but you don’t have any time to feel self-conscious about it.

His cock curves up against his belly, red and twitching. He’s fucking rock hard, and bigger than you had been expecting, bigger than any of your stupid little toys. Your mouth goes dry, and your eyes widen comically. Fuck. No wonder he’s confident. He’s not lacking in any way.

“D’you’ve a johnny?” He asks, one big paw of a hand taking his cock and stroking lazily at it until a bead of pearly precum oozes from the angry red head.

You’re distracted for a moment, staring at the way he fists his cock, before you blink back to yourself. “What?”

“A condom.” He enunciates slowly, as though speaking to someone he thinks is a bit thick.

“I know what you meant,” You snap, embarrassed. “But– no. Why would I? I’ve never…”

You can see the way his eyes crease and realise that he’s frowning beneath the mask, and you’re hit with a sudden bolt of panic – is he going to change his mind now? You can see the hesitation in the lines of his shoulders, but you think if he changes his mind about fucking you, you might just die.

“It doesn’t matter,” You blurt, “You don’t need one. I’m on the pill. I’m clean.”

Ghost cocks his head, but remains still. It’s almost unnerving, and you feel your toes curl into the bedsheets as you wait for an answer. He looks fucking predatory, hulking over you like a fucking behemoth as he watches you assessingly. You try your best to look confident, but you have a feeling that you just look desperately hungry.

He reaches up and hooks his fingers into the fabric of his mask and pulls it back down to cover his still slick-shiny mouth and jaw, and you’re gripped with sudden overwhelming panic and dismay that he’s changed his mind, that he’s about to leave you here wet and empty and wanting. In that moment, you throw your dignity into the wind.

“Please,” You beg pathetically, wriggling a little bit against your sweat-damp bedding in an effort to grind yourself against him. “Please, please, it’s fine, I swear, you don’t need one–”

“Fuckin’ hell.” Ghost grinds out, his voice rough and a little hoarse. “How can a virgin be such a fuckin’ slut?”

Some part of you wonders if you should be offended by that, but instead a frisson of heat runs down your spine. You know you’re not a slut – you’ve never searched for any sexual attention, and you’ve never even experienced someone else’s touch – but goddamn you want to be a slut for your lieutenant right now.

Despite his harsh words, when Ghost hooks your legs over his hips and aligns himself with you, he’s gentle. He’s acting like you’re something fragile; he’s so big that your legs are spread wide around his waist, his shoulders so broad that he’s blocking out the dim light from your lamp, and yet his touch is light against you as though he’s afraid to break you.

He’s still gripping his cock hard, and he slides the tip of it against your slick heat. You have a brief moment of alarm; even through the haze of arousal, you can recognise that this is going to be a tight fit. You breathe deeply, then begin to wiggle your hips in an effort to take him inside you.

He hisses, then one of his big hands grabs at your hip. “Fuck, stay still.”

“Put it in.” You beg, your voice coming out thick and stupid-sounding. “Fuck, please, c’mon, c’mon–”

“Kid,” Ghost bites out through clenched teeth, his voice low and gritty. “Need you to shut the fuck up for me.”

You manage to bite down on your lip, but you can’t stop yourself from pouting mopily at him with wide, wet eyes. You don’t understand why he’s making you wait – can’t he see how mean he’s being? You’re so fucking wet, so empty as you clench down on nothing, and your clit is so desperate for any kind of stimulation that it’s throbbing needily. The head of his cock catches at your opening, dipping in for a second before resuming its maddening slide up and down.

Ghost is still watching you closely, his brown eyes flickering from where the head of his cock drags through your sodden folds up to your pleading pouting expression. You can only imagine what kind of a sight you make, because his chest growls with a choked sort of groan.

“I know,” He murmurs, almost mockingly soft with you. “I know, you want it. Gotta give it to you slowly.”

You want to tell him that he doesn’t have to give it to you slowly, that he can go as fast and hard as he wants to, but some sense of self-preservation shuts you up. Instead, you nod clumsily as he rubs his cock over the slick folds of your cunt, lubing himself up with your own arousal. The feeling of his cock dragging over you, iron hard and velvety soft, so close to where you want it, is enough to have your head spinning dizzily.

You want to beg again, but you’re still trying to follow his order to be silent. You shift restlessly, biting back a whimper when he taps his cock thoughtfully against your clit.

Finally, he decides to put you out of your misery.

The thick crown of his cock pushes against the tight ring of muscle at the entrance of your cunt, and the gasp you let out is positively punched out of you. He goes slow, just like he promised, but you can still hardly believe it. He goes in and in and in, and yet he’s somehow not even halfway inside.

“Fuck,” You wheeze, punctuated by a strange little yowl. “Oh god, wait–”

You feel stuffed just from the first few inches, drunk already on the quiet little grunts he’s making. The stretch and the sting and the pressure inside you is glorious, so tight that you can barely even flex around him and you can’t even decide if it’s good or if it’s too much. Your eyes are hot and wet as overwhelmed tears begin to overflow, and you find yourself arching in a weak attempt to flex away from him and the devastating stretch.

God, he’s massive. You knew he would be, of course, but his size seems so much more significant when you’re being impaled on the end of his cock. Fuck, you can feel your vision go blurry as your eyes fill with overwhelmed tears. You’re mortified when a sob is ripped from your chest, harsh and thick.

“Shh, shh.” Ghost coos, his deep voice syrupy thick as he leans over you, the enormous bulk of him caging you into the mattress until your whole world consists only of him. “Just a little bit more.”

“Fuck,” You choke out, trying to arch away again but failing because he’s so big that there’s nowhere to go. “It’s not gonna fit!”

“Shh, lovie,” He rumbles, ducking his face down so that the rough cotton of his mask is pressed against the sweaty skin of your neck. “Relax’n let me in.”

“I– ‘m trying–” You whine, clutching at his biceps. “Jesus–”

You blink your eyes open, vision blurry from the tears clumping your lashes together, only to be met with the sight of Ghost’s deep brown eyes staring at you from beneath the black mask. He’s looming above you, his gaze made all the more intense by the fact that it’s the only part of his face you can really see.

“All that messin’ around with those plastic cocks, but you’re still this tight for me,” He says, his voice so deep that you feel it reverberate into your bones. “Deep breath.”

The breath you inhale at his instruction is rough and ragged, and he snorts a low breathless laugh in response.

When he finally drives his cock all the way in with one smooth stroke, all the breath is driven from your lungs. It feels as though his cock has been pressed all the way up into your chest, and the noise you make when you squirm on it is utterly pathetic.

Ghost’s hands are like steel clamps when they close around the plump flesh of your thighs, holding them up and pressing them back until they’re pressed against your belly. He looms over you, still almost entirely clothed as sweat beads over his thickly muscled neck. It’s like getting pinned down by a mountain, and you whimper as you’re speared open and prone by the weight of Ghost pressing down upon you.

He hasn’t even started to move yet, but you still feel overfull and raw.

“Too big,” You mumble, struggling to catch your breath. You choke on a sob and feel your eyes burn with unshed tears as your back arches. “Ghost–!”

“Shh.” He grunts. “Call me Simon when I fuck you.”

That… that does something to you. Molten heat rockets up your spine and pools in your belly, and you swear your pussy floods. It’s stupid, how being granted permission to call your lieutenant by his first name is somehow so much hotter than anything else he’s done so far.

“Simon,” You try it out. It comes out a little shaky, your voice little more than a weak whisper, but you swear you can see his eyes sharpen.

Apparently having come to the decision that you’ve adjusted enough, Ghost pulls his hips back only to drive back in.

“Oh!” You yelp, hips jumping, but there’s nowhere to go.

All you can do is lie there as he slides out, out, out, slow and careful and long, and then his hips snap forward and he impales you, pressing all the way into him. He does it again, and again, and you try to bite down on your tongue, try to not sound so pathetically wrecked, but you can’t. It’s like Ghost is puncturing your lungs and every time he fucks into you, you let out the most pathetic little mewling ah ah ah sounds.

You’re not quite prepared for how different this feels; it’s nothing like your stupid plastic dildo. Ghost’s cock is bigger, but it’s also hotter and with more give than you expected, and you’ve never been able to fuck yourself like this. Your plastic toys could never compare to the sensation of being pinned by your giant of a lieutenant as he ruts into you.

Ghost reaches up and roughly pushes his mask up so his mouth is exposed again before he leans in deeper, almost folding you cleanly in half, stretching in to claim your mouth in a kiss that’s not quite a kiss, but rather a fierce mash of lips and tongue as his rhythm picks up, riding you down into the mattress until you realised the screaming noise isn’t coming from either one of you, but the cheap standard issue bed frame.

All you can do is gasp with each deep, raw fuck. There are tears tracking lazily down your cheeks, having overflowed from your burning eyes, and you honestly think your lungs might collapse. You’re bent like a fucking pretzel, in a way that’s making the muscles in your thighs scream, as Ghost pounds into you.

He’s fucking relentless, but also shockingly aware of you beneath him. He doesn’t put too much pressure on you when he holds you, he never goes hard enough to hurt, and he knows just the right amount of weight to pin you down without being too much.

Your pussy is sloppy around him, wet squishing noises getting louder and louder as he finds more rhythm against your tight walls. Your whole world of awareness has been narrowed down to Ghost and Ghost only; his fingers digging into your thighs, your name in his mouth, his sweltering body pressing against yours.

He’s holding back, you can tell by the way his voice is caught in his throat. He’s keeping all his dangerous muscles at bay as he pulls out and presses in again. Rough, fast, but not enough to break you, just enough to make you scream until you bury your face to the side and try to cover your mouth with your arm.

“Yeah, you needed this,” Ghost grunts, his uncovered mouth nipping at the hinge of your jaw. “This’s why you were so fuckin’ distracted earlier, hm? You thinkin’ about how much you needed to cream around a real cock?”

“Uh huh, yeah,” You slur out, not even sure what you’re agreeing with. Your tongue feels too big for your mouth, every nerve in your body raw and sparking. You must sound so pathetic, but Ghost seems to like it.

“Ain’t gonna be distracted anymore, are ya?” He rumbles, laving his tongue over your jaw in a way that feels filthy. “Just needed your little pussy filled, that’s all.”

You cry out for him because you can’t help it, delight bubbling in your throat every time he plunges into you. He keeps his pace for a bit, all rushed and blazing, transfixed on watching you suck him in, leaving slick trails along his shaft. But gradually he gets bolder, more desperate, big hands squeezing from your thighs to your hips.

You get lost in the feeling of him in your belly, searing and harsh, fat tip rolling against the spongy spot inside of you until you feel like you might snap. You feel him in your ears, your head pounding with every snap of his hips. You swear you even feel him in your toes, lightning zaps of pleasure down your nerves.

Then he leans back, lifting his weight off of you so you can breathe properly. He leaves his hand on your collarbones like a placeholder, his palm spread over the base of your throat like a reminder, a way to keep your attention on him.

“Fuck,” He grits out, “That’s it, doll.”

You’re vaguely aware of the fact that Ghost’s gaze has shifted, no longer focused on your face but now instead fixed firmly between your legs as he watches the thick shaft of his cock sink into you. He obviously likes how you feel inside; you can hear him cursing and grunting quietly as his free hand grips your hip for leverage.

With his mask rumpled up around his nose, you’re gifted with an incredible view of the way his teeth are sunk into his lower lip. Each time he sinks his cock into you again, he makes a raspy little groan, eyes fluttering briefly shut. It’s so painfully endearing that your heart quivers in your chest.

Your legs burn from being spread around his thick waist — any attempt for you to lock them around his back is useless, your legs slipping everytime his ass flexes with his thrusts. Every hasty drive of his hips has the ridge of his cock sliding against the spongy spread of your walls, making you feel more stuffed every time he ruts into you. With every sudden movement you feel the entirety of his fat cock; the veins are throbbing, skin heated and silken within you. Part of you marvels how you’re even able to fit him inside you.

“Never seen you look like this,” he grunts. “All fucked-out and perfect.”

Ghost leans in again, grips your legs so he can rearrange them over his shoulders, and you think you might die. The angle is different and somehow, impossibly, Ghost is fucking into you even deeper. You think you might actually be crying. There’s no question as to whether you’re drooling.

Your hands move to his arms, nails sinking into the hard muscles of his triceps as you cling on for dear life. He doesn’t even seem to notice the sting of your nails scratching him; or perhaps it only urges him on, because his movements take on an edge of desperation.

“Gorgeous girl,” He grits out, jaw clenched. “Squeezin’ so tight. Fuck. Gonna make you cream.”

You had forgotten about his promise to make you come, too lost in the hazy pleasure of his cock. But now it seems as though he’s been seized by the compulsion to fuck you to the edge; he reaches a hand down so that his thumb can join the fray, and it startles you into moaning breathlessly aloud.

His thumb is merciless against your clit. You’re vulnerable to his touch, clit spread and on display from the stretch of his thick cock inside of you, and he takes full advantage. His fingers are thick and blistering hot as he rubs at you, and you choke as your toes curl.

“Simon–” You manage to eke out before you lose the weak thread of your thoughts, scattering into nothing as he stimulates the stiff bead of your clit.

He grunts to show that he’s heard you, but he doesn’t seem any more capable of words than you are as he rocks into the cradle of your hips. You’re practically blinded by your wet eyes, blinking frantically to try and clear your vision as you reach out clumsily to throw your arms around Ghost’s blisteringly hot neck.

It feels as though your skin is stretched too tight over your body, hot and prickly and too much. You’re trembling, your breaths coming in shaky gasps as agonising pressure builds in your lower belly.

“Fuck, love.” Ghost says, his voice little more than a snarl. “You gonna come?”

No, You think hazily. No, you never come. But even as you think it, part of you recognises that it’s never felt like this before. Your stomach tightens, toes curling, your lungs burning, your eyes rolling. You hardly even know what’s happening.

You recognise that something is building, but it almost seems secondary to the way that Ghost is rutting into you like a man possessed, hitting that spongey spot in the back of your pussy that you’ve never managed to reach yourself and making your legs spasm every time even as his thick thumb rubs frantic circles around the bump of your clit.

“Fuck, fuck–” You wheeze, bucking your hips against him.

It doesn’t grow and dissipate in the way you’re used to. Rather, it creeps up on you almost without you noticing, until you’re whimpering and clinging to Ghost like he’s a lifeline. Your bottom lip trembles as you sob weakly, practically on the brink of diving into an oncoming tidal wave of desire. Then that coil in your stomach snaps like a rubber band, sudden and sharp as a slap to the face.

Your back arches, your vision whites out, and you cum so hard that the world stops, your ears ring, your body goes limp. Your cunts sucks tight around him, pulsing, feeling every inch of him. It feels so sweet, that white-hot buzzing pleasure rushing over you and wiping your brain completely clean.

You’re a little delirious from being stuffed with such a fat cock; every thrust just prolongs your pleasure, like his penetration keeps you from squeezing your very first orgasm out right away. It’s mindless ecstasy, your nails burrowing into the skin of his biceps as you desperately clutch at him for some kind of leverage. Ghost doesn’t falter, his hips continuing to work into you, wringing your orgasm out until you feel as though your brain is melting.

You sob – an actual, genuine, wet-sounding sob as your chest heaves for air and your eyes burn with overwhelmed, rapturous tears. Your head is spinning even as your climax subsides, leaving you limp-limbed and weak as Ghost continues rocking into you.

“Look so lovely when you come, sweetheart,” Ghost grunts into your ear, his bulky chest weighing you down as you clutch feebly at his shoulders. “God, that’s a sight. All for me, yeah?”

His praise only makes it worse, makes your eyes sting until there’s tears down your cheeks and stars behind your eyelids. He sounds so smug, but you can’t deny that he has reason to be. He’s the first man to ever touch you, first man to ever fuck you, the first person to ever tip you over the edge and wring an orgasm out of you. Fuck, you think your brain might have been reduced to mush permanently; you wonder wildly if you’ll ever be the same after this.

Despite the sting of Ghost’s punishing thrusts into your already oversensitive cunt, your body sings for him. The rhythm of his hips is getting gradually sloppier, as though he doesn’t care as much for precision now that he’s succeeded in making you come. Soft, guttural little grunts fall from his mouth, and his arms wrap around your waist to reposition you so that he can fuck quick and shallow. It’s almost tender, as though he’s aware of your growing sensitivity as you mewl under him.

There’s a profound, instinctual pleasure in seeing Ghost lose himself in your embrace. His dark eyes are heavy-lidded and his mask is still all rucked up, revealing the way his mouth is lolled softly open as he pants. You find yourself wishing feverishly that he had taken off his clothes too, because you think you would give anything to watch the roiling muscles of his chest and shoulders as he ruts into you.

Then just when you think you’re beginning to recover from the shattering, mind-numbing oversensitivity, Ghost comes inside of you.

He stops rutting to ride out his orgasm, his cock throbbing, pulsing, spurting inside you until you feel fuller than you’ve ever felt. And he comes a lot.

You’re stuffed so tightly with his cock that his cum has nowhere to go, and ends up leaking thickly from where your cunt grips around him, messy and hot and spilling over your thighs and his. The sound he makes is breathless, all open-mouth and head lolled back as he groans, blissed out as he finds release in your cunt.

The minutes afterwards are a blur.

You close your eyes for what feels like only a second, but the next time you blink your eyes open you find yourself feeling miserably, uncomfortably empty and sticky as all that oozy cum leaks out of you. You somehow missed Ghost pulling out of you, and your thoughts are muzzy and embarrassingly slow.

For a moment, you think you’re alone. You’re becoming more aware of yourself, and you realise that you’re shivering weakly alone in your sweat-damp sheets. Where did Ghost go? Part of you, still a little hazy, wonders if he had left you alone as soon as he had come, and you feel your lower lip tremble at the thought.

God, you feel pathetic. You shift feebly on the sheets, and suck in a sharp breath when you feel the ache inside you, proof that you’re going to feel the shadow of Ghost’s cock for days. You feel drunk off the afterglow, yet you’re swiftly becoming more and more aware of yourself and all the aches and pains that are coming to the fore now.

It feels like you’re too big for your body, and you’re clumsy when you try to sit up. Pushing yourself up makes a whole new set of aches light up, and you let out a quiet keening grumble.

You’re so caught up with trying to ground yourself that you jolt in surprise when big, paw-like hands land on you, pushing you back down onto the bed. “Shh, hey, lay down.” Ghost says, the rough edges of his accent softened. To your bewilderment, he has a damp cloth in his hand; he went to the bathroom, you realise hazily.

Maybe it’s just because you feel raw after your experience with him, pulsing like an open nerve, but you sniffle and blink and then suddenly there are tears dripping down your face.

“Thought you left.” You mumble, trying not to sound like a needy little idiot.

Ghost glances up at you, unblinkingly. His mask is fixed firmly back in place, and he looks annoyingly put-together; it’s an embarrassingly stark contrast to the way you’re still nude and shivery and teary-eyed.

“No.” He says simply.

The damp cloth is warm when it makes contact with your skin, and you relax as he drags it along your sweaty back and over your legs. He’s a little rough about it, but you don’t think it’s on purpose. Gentleness doesn’t come naturally to Simon Riley, and yet you can feel that he’s trying and that makes a warm glow settle in your stomach, replacing the cold anxiety that had settled in when you thought that he had left you alone.

When the cloth reaches the tender skin of your pussy, you hiss and try to pull away. It all feels too sensitive, and you feel your face crumple up as he wipes away the mess of slick and cum between your thighs. He gentles his touch as much as he can, but you still mewl at the electric zaps of oversensitivity that jolt up your spine.

When Ghost pauses and pulls the cloth away from you, you blink your eyes awake. Your vision is still all wet and blurry from tears, but you can still see the shape of Ghost as he stares down at you. You can imagine you look nothing short of ruined right now, even after having been cleaned up, and Ghost’s stare is burning.

You wonder if he’s about to leave now – you can recognise this whole thing had gotten out of hand, and you just about manage to stifle the panic at the creeping realisation that you’ve just fucked your superior officer. Ghost must have realised at this point that the two of you had just ripped through all those fraternisation rules, though it’s always been difficult to tell what he’s thinking. But you trust him – you have to, in your line of work. You have to trust that he’ll handle things.

Ghost tosses aside the cloth, and his big overbearing body climbs back into bed beside you. It’s a standard-issue bunk, and yet it feels comically tiny when Ghost has been added to the mix. He’s surprisingly agile, even despite his big size, and you barely have time to realise that he’s joining you in bed before he’s wrapped a thick arm around your middle, hauling you closer.

You’d love to act chill and cool about the fact that he’s now essentially cuddling you, but you miss the mark by a long mile. You take a breath, and allow yourself to relax into his big burly chest. He’s still fully clothed, and the rough texture of his jeans against your tender bare skin makes you shiver lightly from oversensitivity.

Your hips are sore from being stretched so wide, your joints weak and watery, and you’re perfectly content to close your eyes and forcibly ignore all your concerns about fraternisation or how you’re going to face Ghost in training. It’s a problem for another time.

“You still alive?” Ghost grunts, and his palm coasts down over your back to settle at your ass, his fingers squeezing absent-mindedly into the soft flesh there.

He sounds amused, which makes you grumble in irritation. He takes up so much space, his big body filling up all the free space on the bed and making you feel so fucking small as he holds you so that your back is pressed against his stomach.

“I dunno,” You mumble, words a little garbled. “Think… think you might have fucked me stupid, Lt.”

Lying like this, with his front pressed against your back, you can feel his laugh rumble into you. He’s touchy too in a way that surprises you; his hands are constantly moving, swiping over your sides and groping at any part of you that’s squishy-soft.

“Think I might have,” He agrees, and you can hear the smirk in his voice even if you can’t see it. “But I think you needed it, sweetheart. You were practically cryin’ out for it all day.”

You feel your face heat at the insinuation that he had noticed the arousal you thought you had hidden so well. But you still feel so fuzzy inside, and you can’t manage to drum up any genuine reaction.

Ghost’s roaming hand slips down between your legs, and you hold your breath as he reaches your swollen, tender pussy. His fingers are so big, but he’s aware of his strength and keeps his touch light, cupping rather than groping, his calloused palm catching on your puffy clit.

“Told you a real cock would be better,” He rumbles, and you feel the soft material of his mask rubbing against the back of your sweaty neck. “You’ve got a fussy little cunt – ‘s only gonna be satisfied by the real thing.”

You’d love to jab back at him, but the feeling of him rough palm against your oversensitive clit has your thoughts fizzing out into nothingness. All you can do is let out a quiet little whimper, and rock your hips into his touch. To your utter bewilderment, you feel your arousal, which you had previously considered entirely sated, pulse back to life.

As if Ghost can feel your cunt throb beneath his hand, he snickers. “Yeah. Fussy and greedy.”

He leans down, and you feel his lips brush against the back of your neck through the cotton of his balaclava. You quiver, and part your legs without conscious thought to give his thick fingers more room to work. Despite your exhaustion, and your soreness, and your sensitivity, you find yourself wanting. You wonder, with an edge of hysteria, if your body has somehow managed to rewire itself to only accept pleasure from your commanding officer’s hand.

“Ghost– Simon–” You breathe, your hips jumping as you grind into his palm.

“Yeah,” He says again, as though he knows exactly what you need and want. “One little orgasm wasn’t enough, was it?”

“No.” You choke out, throwing your head back so that it’s resting against Ghost’s broad chest. “No, ‘t wasn’t.”

You can hardly believe that your body is winding up for more, but Ghost’s touch is searing hot against your tender skin, and you can already taste the pleasure he’s going to bring you. This time, without the edge of urgency, you think you might even enjoy it more.

“Gimme five minutes,” He drawls, his voice low and muffled in your ear. “And I’ll give you your second.”

#mak <3 #HOW DO I EVER MOVE ON FROM THIS #THE TROPE. MAKS WRITING. GHOST BEING A GOD AT FUCKING????? IM UNWELL #simon ghost riley smut #simon ghost riley x reader #ghost x reader #simon riley smut

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thirillia · 4 years ago

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Since I’m currently rewatching SDC in the English dub, here are some bits, with or without context, that made me smirk the second time around with more grasp on the language and that are mostly just ... bizarrely wacky. (Sometimes I’m switching between languages just for... science)

(Here is the DiU version)

• *Dio caressing his naked torso* “JONATHAN JOESTAR’S BODY!”

• “Oh I get it now” *tosses painting into a tree*

• “Soooo... while Jojo is taking off his pants...”

• “No one can just deflect the Emerald Splash!” (A classic)

• “This green, stripy thing looks like a shiny melon.”

• not dialogue, but that one shot of the spoon with the “menacing” dancing around it

• “Non non non non non!”

• “Quit your bitchin’ old man.”

• *about flesh buds* “Now we can all be BUDDIES!”

• “Tell ‘em Avdol!” *thumbs down*

• “Let’s figure out what our strategy will be when Soul Sacrifice [Devo] attacks.” *Polnareff, bleeding all over, clearly coming from a fight* “You’re kidding, right?”

• “You vile little cockroach dick!”

• “Oh yes... I do love coconuts.”

• “Have wu wost wur sense of wumour? :’(((“

• “Wait a minute.... this isn’t Kakyoin!” (It took for the imposters face to melt until he figured that out.)

• “Gaze upon my handsome face with ENVY!”

• “I was sunbathing by the pool.” “With your school uniform?” “Yes, why not?”

• “Is this your kid?” “No.” “Then shut up.”

• “Do you understannnnnnnd?”

• “ORA!” “What do you mean ‘Ora’?”

• “Time to power-up with some crustATIANS!”

• “Licklicklicklicklicklick Hey look Jojo! Flamingos in flight!”

(honestly, the whole Yellow Temperance episode is a train wreck)

• “Oh crap. Somebody has already stolen my wallet.”

• “It better be something amazing. Something gorgeous and sophisticated that suits a frenchman such as moi.” “Which means it doesn’t matter. He’ll eat anything.”

• “That piece of shit’s corpse is two or three thousand meters that way if you wanna take a look.” “OKAY I WILL!”

• “Shit, Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” (A quote by Joseph)

• again, not a quote, but Joseph throwing car keys and them getting stuck in Pol’s hair

• “Not bad Kakyoin. Got a question for ya: You like SUMO?!” *one risky rescue later* “Yeah I like sumo.”

• “Holy SHIT we’ve got ZOmbies!”

• *sigh* “Of course he’s taking a shit.”

• *with enthusiasm* “HE’S SUFFOCATING THAT BITCH!”

• “You were licking what, again?”

• “You can’t touch me. I’m DAN of STEEL.” (Steely Dan’s localised name makes me wheeze)

• “How am I feeling YOUR knuckles cracking in MY PROSTHETIC HAND?”

• “I was about to explain my powers when you hit me!”

• “Are you trying to kill your own grandfather?” “This is Jotaro we’re talking about. He might be.”

• “You’re a rather sturdy bridge, aren’t’cha?”

• “Go ahead and stab me then.” (Ugh. mood.)

• “You’re forbidden from making stupid camel jokes!”

• two identical rocks in the desert

• “It wasn’t a dream about stands. A stand was in my dream!” “That’s what I said. You were having a dream about stands.”

• “Baby...? STAND?!?!”

• “HoLY SHITbricks.”

• “Lali-HOE” (It’s not written that way... but it sounds like that)

• “Now it’s time for your punishment, baby.”

• “I REALLY don’t care that you’re a baby. I’ll snap your neck like a twig.”

• *high pitched* “Ithinkthat’sthecruelestthingyou’veeverdoneto meeee”

• *Joseph having just lost his hand once again* “Can you help me out, Jotaro?” “Do it yourself.”

• “Your underwear is showing.” “YEAH NICE!”

• “That damn tongue agaaaiiin!”

• “It’s been quite the adventure. We’ve gone inside a brain and even inside our dreams. Oh right. You don’t remember that.”

• “It’s a HELICOPTER!” “Thanks for the update, Captain Obvious.”

• “Sorry Polnareff, I’d like to keep my hair.” *hair flip*

• *Iggy, a literal dog, eating gum* “The least he could do is take the wrapping off.”

• “I’mgonnaneedaCHIROPRACTOR!”

• “You can just use your Emerald Splash and call it a day, can’t you?” “Yes, but I don’t want to.”

• “UGH yes. Sleep, while WE fight to surVIVE!”

• “Tiiiiime..TO DIE!”

• “coooooOOOLA?!”

• “Yow. You know, yow. Actually, I was pointing out that there was a ... cyow over there!”

• “Waaait a second... is that a nasty old suckerrr?”

• “That’s the last time I go anywhere with him.”

• “So you wipe your ass... with SAND?!”

• “I think I’ll pull a Polnareff and wait till we get back to the hotel.”

• Avdol being completely and utterly DONE by the time they arrive in Egypt “I don’t deserve this.” You’re right. You don’t. I’m sorry you have to put up with those morons.

• “Polnareff, keep your guard up” “Have you forgotten who you’re talking to?”

(My favourite thing about this one is that Polnareff enunciates this in his favour, as if he has not been the sole target of half of the Stand attacks they face)

• “What do you mean by ‘evil eyes’? My non-evil parents gave me those baby blues!”

• “This hurts like a BIIIIITCH!”

• “Here’s a fun idea: Let’s turn YOU into a fetus!”

• “Hm. Someone falling from a window covered in blood. You don’t see that everyday.”

• “Thing is, I’m something of a GAMbling maaaan!”

• “Do you have any idea what surface tension is, Barbie?”

• “Go aheat, Mr. Jostrrrr.”

• Jotaro’s eyebrow game being so intense that it gives people panic attacks

• “Stick your fingers all the way up Polnareff’s nose and then.. we’ll WIN!”

• *doing exactly that* “HELL YEAH!”

• “LOOK where my tongue is pointing!”

• “Need me to stick my fingers up somethin’? I will!”

• “I’ve gotta HAUL AAAAASSSS!!!”

• *in terror* “My watch is FAST! :’((“

• “What are ya STUPID?!” (Iggy’s English voice gives me life)

• “This creep’s a FUCKING KILLING MACHINE!”

(it kills me that Iggy is the one allowed to say “fuck” in the dub, if I heard it right)

• “First I loose my leg and now some demon bird wants me flattened into frozen dinner!”

• “In other words, we beat the shit out of Dio.”

• “Would you care to... wet your whistle?”

• “You’re about as helpful as a cramp in a relay race!”

• “The hell did you do to his arm?!”

• “Serect yr cur”

• *gasp* “He’s going for a turbo start!”

• “One doesn’t simply get those skills by playing videos games!”

• “I still have more SPEED than YOU D’ARBY!”

• “Why are you sitting down? We should be kicking Geppetto’s ass!”

• “OH! That’s a Baseball!”

• “Da first pitch!”

• “Jotaro! Pitch the BALL!”

• “I am a video game genius. I can’t lose. I am a video game GENIUS. I CAN’T LOSE!”

• “Well of course I did, ma’boy, I can read you like. A. Book.”

• “Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! .... YES!”

• *terrified* “Are you gonna do the ‘Ora Ora’ thing?”

• “Well, I sincerely hope that for your sake, your next victim into the void will be one of the Joestars and not my boudoir.”

• “His name: Billie Jean! His fate: Instant defeat!”

• “Come at me, you demented pinball!”

• “Waddaya know? The answer ended up being option 3: Life’s a bitch!”

• the guy Suzie films on the streets has Bakugou’s English va I cannot mishear that

• “I gotta hand it to him, Dio’s got some pretty nice curtains.”

• Kakyoin: reasonable metaphor for the immense power Dio omits. Joseph: “It felt like somebody shoving an icicle up my ass!”

• “There is no need to kill a helpless senator..?” “WRONG.”

• “He even dodged the concentrated Splash?” (Honey...)

• “Woman. How about you make yourself useful and fetch my leg?”

• “Nervous yet, sweetheart?”

• “I mean he turned my favourite uniform into Swiss cheese....” (he sounds so genuinely sad)

• “You...-bastard.... it’s-not ..over-yet!” *immediately falls unconscious*

• *Dio bleeding from everywhere and flying through the air like a ragdoll* “Once again, my genius has TRIUMPHED over you!”

• you know, they really tried with the “Oras” and the “Mudas” and I respect them for that, but they didn’t dare touch the WRYYYY. It’s just an “AAARRGH” but that’s okay

• “I’M GOING TO ROLL ALL OVER YOU!” doesn’t have the same refine as ROOOAAAD-O-ROLLA DA! but it works...

• “I don’t got any kindness for your sorry, undead ass.”

• “I hear a PULSE?” “My GOD! Brian activity too!”

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sugars-fluffy-escapes · 3 years ago

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I just read the hcs you made with your friend and just gotta say that imagining harry and peter as a ler tag team kills meeee 😭 peter would one thousand percent be the person to hold someone down and do most of the verbal teasing while harry has free range to wreck however he pleases; until peter gets bored and decides to join in too which in that case RIP whoever the lee is they had a good run I’m sure- gwen’s really out here with two full-time jobs and one of them is taming tickle monsters ALSHFSKDL

IT IS 1 AM AND I SHOULD BE SLEEPING BUT IDC BECAUSE OH MY GOD ANONNNNNNN- /pos /lh 💖❤️

THE WAY I COULD TALK ABOUT THIS WHOLE LER TAG TEAM CONCEPT WITH THESE TWO FOR DAYS- (The butterflies in my stomach are in overdrive rn omfg HELP AHSJSJSDJDK)

The moment these two find out that you like being tickled, they're gonna be wrecking you every time you walk into the damn room-

Also just envision that during a late night in the Oscorp tower where it's literally just you four in the building and nobody else, that Gwen, in the midst of trying to do some work, just sees you running down the hall and screeching because Peter and Harry are right behind you and they will absolutely catch you- (bonus if they do the thing where one of them is chasing you and the other is waiting right around the corner to catch you which makes you scream 🤭)

Gwen is 100 percent the type of person who can get work done despite potential distractions, so she'll just be working on a shit ton of science related stuff while you're deadass on the floor a few feet away with two adorably evil jerks absolutely wrecking your shit. She's not even phased by it- The only time she'll pause her work is when you need to be rescued.

"GWEHEHENNNNN! *hic* HEHEHEHELP MEHEHEEEEE!"

"Don't worry, Y/N, I'm coming to save you!"

She takes rescuing you from those two tickle monsters very seriously 🥺🖤 Guaranteed she's thinking "...oh my God my boyfriend and boss are both ridiculous..."

YO- IMAGINE- Peter and Harry having the same ultimate death spot (back of the neck-) but for different reasons. Peter cause of the spider bite, and Harry because he's been majorly touch starved for a good twenty years at least. And Gwen will just effortlessly attack those weak spots and the two of them just fall to the floor and curl up with their shoulders scrunching up.

"Really, boys? This is the fourth time in an hour."

Just imagine Peter giving Harry tips on verbal teasing while they're IN THE MIDDLE OF TICKLING YOU- WHAT THE HELL- Peter effin Parker is giving a whole crash course on the effects of verbal teasing and Harry's genuinely paying attention (of course he is! He's gonna pay full attention to a lesson on making you laugh harder)

Don't ever sit between them on movie nights (or just anywhere EVER because they're gonna trap you and wreck you.

Also, fully expect Peter to quiz Harry on verbal teasing methods mid-tickle attack. These two are absolute little shits /hj /lh I adore them both and I adore Gwen 🥺

THANK YOU ANONNNNN 😭❣️ /gen /pos

#sugar-rambles #sugar-answers #sfw tickle blog #sfw tickling community #tickle hcs #sfw tickle headcanons #tickle headcanons #ler!peter 3 #ler!harry #ticklish!reader #lee!reader #amazing-headcanon-submissions

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spooderboyandtincan · 4 years ago

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The 12(ish) Days of December

A/N: I intended to write a Hanukkah themed chapter, but unfortunately I suffered some burnout and I couldn’t really start it :(((((( I plan and hope to add on to this in the future, I just wanted to get it out here on time! Happy Holidays everyone!!

Read on Ao3

/ST*RKERS DNI/

“Che palle!” May cried as she and Peter stepped out of the elevator. “Tony, what the hell is that?!”

“It’s a giant teddy bear,” Tony called back from the kitchen. “It’s for you, Pete!”

“Me?” Peter gasped, his face lighting up. He charged toward the ten-foot teddy bear and tackled it. The giant brown bear teetered slightly with his weight but didn’t tip over. “He’s so soft!”

Tony came out of the kitchen with a wide grin on his face. He wiped his flour-coated hands on his pants and tried to give Peter a hug without pushing him off the bear,

“He’s so beautiful!” Peter giggled, wrapping his arms around the bear’s neck. “And huge!”

Tony nodded in a proud, self-satisfied sort of way. Besides being delighted that the boy clearly adored his gift, he now had proof that this was obviously how one should react when presented with a ten-foot-tall stuffed animal. He'd have to take a picture and send it to Pepper.

May tossed her purse on the floor and shook her head at Tony. “As long as you can find a place for it, I’m not complaining,” she chuckled.

“I’ll rent a storage unit somewhere,” Tony supplied, taking a sip of coffee from his Iron Man shaped mug. Tony treasured that mug, which had been gifted to him by Peter several months ago. He never brought it in the lab for fear that Dum-E or U would break it, and he kept it in the cabinet next to his “1# IronDad” mug (also a precious gift from his kid).

He looked back to Peter, who had wrapped his arms around the bear, which was tilting dangerously. “Be careful, kiddo,” he said, biting his lip. But the moment the words got out of his mouth, Peter and the gigantic teddy bear started to topple to the ground.

“Shit-!” he began, darting forward, only to be met by Peter’s giggles.

“Nooo. Leave me. ‘M comfy.” He rolled onto the bear’s big belly and sprawled across it. “This’s perfect,” he hummed, closing his eyes.

Tony and May shared a slightly exasperated yet fond glance. Tony flopped down next to Peter, tucking a curl behind his ear. “Now that I think about it, spider-baby,” he mused, “I’ve got something else for ya.”

Peter perked up and opened his eyes. “What?”

Tony gave him a large grin and ran a hand through his curls. “C’mere.” He wrapped an arm around his shoulders and led Peter to his room.

May sighed. “I swear to god, Tony, if you’re giving him an Audi….” she muttered.

“I’m not!” the man insisted. Peter rolled his eyes and sat down on his bead.

Tony put a warm palm over his eyes. “Close your eyes, bud.”

Peter tried to keep his eyes closed as Tony ran to his own room, tearing through what sounded like wrapping paper and knocking boxes over with no absence of cursing.

Moments later, a small, leather 4x4 inch box was placed on his open palm. He opened his eyes and looked first at the box, then at up Tony, who smiled. May shrugged and gestured to open it.

Inside the box rested a thin, slender watch with a smooth black strap. The face of the watch was rectangular, and when Peter pushed the button on the side it lit up, displaying the time above what looked like a mini arc reactor. It resembled the StarkWatch he was wearing that very moment, except it looked more high-tech.

“A new StarkWatch, specially customized for you, by yours truly,” Tony said. “Your old one looked pretty busted, even though they’re supposed to be indestructible.” Peter snickered at Tony’s gentle jab. “And it’s got a few minor upgrades. You can set the lock screen, for one. And it should be trackable from anywhere in the universe, and I mean everywhere. And you can call me, or May, or Ned or Rhodey or whoever from the top of Mount Everest or the bottom of the Mariana Trench.”

“Wow,” Peter whispered, tracing the sides of the watch before strapping it onto his wrist. “Thank you, Mister Stark! I love it! It’s so cool!”

“What happened to ‘Tony?’” he grumbled playfully, giving his spider-baby a kiss on his head. “I’m glad you like it, buddy. It’s basically the same stuff as your old one, just better.”

Then, to both Peter and May’s surprise, Tony bent down and grabbed a colorful red bag covered in golden glitter. Peter laughed.

“Tony, it’s only the ninth!” May snorted, her eyebrows raised past her hairline.

“That’s because we’ll need these before Christmas,” Tony said wisely. He handed Peter a soft package wrapped in green tissue paper and watched him tear the packaging in half.

“It’s so ugly!” he cried, holding up a garish green sweater. There was a plastic red ball attached to the big reindeer's nose and tiny bells were tied onto the reindeer’s harness. Little snowflakes were patterned all over, and Peter couldn’t help but laugh. “I love it, Tony!” Peter pulled the sweater on and was delighted to find that the fabric was incredibly soft, instead of the unbearably itchy sweaters he had owned in the past. “It’s perfect!”

Tony laughed fondly at his already thrilled kid. “If you think it’s good now, wait till you see this. FRI, lights off,” he ordered.

Peter felt Tony fumble with something on his shoulder, and suddenly the sweater lit up. The reindeer’s nose lit up bright red, the snowflakes began to glow, and, as cliché as it might have sounded, the bells gave a merry jingle as Peter laughed.

“I love it!” He tackled Tony with a hug, relaxing slightly in the man’s arms.

“Good,” Tony chuckled, “‘Cause I’ve got about three more for you and your aunt each.”

“Tony, where’re we going?” Peter whined, his breath fogging the window. “Tell meeee!”

“My lips are sealed,” Tony said, pretending to zip his lips shut and throw away the key. “We’re almost there, Rudolph, don’t worry.”

“Rudolph?!” Peter snorted.

Tony reached over the console to ruffle his hair. “I thought you might want a Christmas nickname,” he explained. “Plus, y’know, you already had a nickname available that only required a bit of simple reconstruction, Roo.”

Peter shook his head. “Just tell meeee!”

“No. Never.”

“Pleeease?”

“I physically can’t, buddy.”

“Tell me! Tellmetellmetellme pleeeeeeeeease?”

“Will… to keep secrets… decreasing,” Tony said robotically. “Fine. We’re going ice-skating, Petey-Pie.”

Peter gasped, his big chocolate eyes going wide. “Really?!”

Tony grinned and glanced over to his kid. “Really.” He wished he could stop the car and give his sweet boy a hug.

“But…” Peter bit his lip. “I don’t really know how. I mean, I went ice skating with Ned a few years ago but we mostly fell over and bruised our butts.”

Tony chuckled fondly. “That’s okay kiddie, I’ll show you the arts. Rhodey and I went when we were in college, and man, we had a blast laughing at each other. Oh- we’re here!”

“Tony, I don’t have any skates!” Peter realized as they hopped out of the car.

“I already got you some, Pete, don’t worry,” Tony assured him. He opened the trunk of the car. “And I brought you an extra hat, a coat, a scarf, some better gloves, extra socks and a pair of snow pants.”

“Tony,” Peter began, leaning into the hug the man offered him all the same. He grumbled and rolled his eyes but let Tony wrap a scarf around his neck and trade his thin woolen gloves out for much warmer, thicker ones. Peter had to admit he felt a lot warmer. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Thanks, Pete. M’kay, I’ve got these fancy red and blue skates for you and red and gold for me.”

“And I’m sure the color choices were random?” Peter asked sarcastically. “Wait- these have the Spider-Man logo on them! Mr. Stark, are there Spider-Man ice-skates?!”

Tony bent to kiss his forehead. “There are, Pete. Pretty cool, huh?”

“So cool! I love ‘em, thank you, Tony!” He held up the skates to admire them. “They’re great!”

“No problem, buddy. It was my pleasure.”

Peter flopped down in the snow and pulled on his skates. He looked up to admire the tall oak and pine trees swaying gently with the wind, the last leaves of fall scattering along the icy roads. A pair of snowflakes drifted down to his coat, and Peter felt a sort of peace flow through him.

“Petey? Are you comin’?” Tony called, skating back and forth along the edge of the pond. Peter knotted the laces of his skates tightly and struggled to his feet.

“I’m trying!” he yelled, staggering forward. He leaned over the ice and felt a bit dizzy. It was about a foot down to the actual ice, and Peter knew without a doubt that he would slip if he tried to get down. “I dunno, um….”

“I gotcha, Petey, don’t worry.” Tony held out his arms and gave him a reassuring smile. Hesitantly, Peter lowered stepped onto the frozen pond, grabbing Tony’s arm and clinging to him as he got both feet on the ice.

“Good job, Roo!” the man praised, lifting him up by the armpits so he was standing up a bit straighter. He couldn’t help but compare Peter to a fawn who just stood up for the very first time, and the boy’s big bambi eyes weren’t helping his case. “Getting on the ice is the hardest part. I’ve landed on my ass more times than I can count.” Tony frowned at himself. “Sorry I said ‘ass,’ don’t repeat that.”

Peter snorted. His skates slipped and he felt Tony’s arms tighten around him. “Whoa there, buddy. I gotcha.” He tucked a loose curl behind the teen’s ear and kissed his cheek, wrapping an arm around his shoulder.

“‘M’kay, you ready, Pete?”

“Heck yeah!”

Tony grinned. “Okay, first, you said ‘heck yeah’ instead of ‘hell yeah’ and that’s adorable,” he teased, chuckling at Peter’s eye roll. “Second: let’s wreck this rink!”

Though of course, they ended up making more of a wreck of themselves rather than the rink.

The very second Peter slid his foot forward, he found himself spontaneously falling backwards. Luckily, Tony caught him easily and gently pulled him back up.

“I meant to do that,” he huffed, his small hands scrabbling at Tony’s coat. “It was- completely- intentional.”

“Of course it was, Roo, I know that,” he said with a raise of his eyebrows. “No one has the grace and agility you do.”

“I am graceful, Tony! How dare you?!” Peter grumbled.

Tony might have made a quip about the arms wrapped tightly around his waist for support, but he decided his poor kid had suffered enough. Despite bumping into every table or chair in his path, Peter was surprisingly graceful, especially when he swung with ease through the air on a thin stand of webbing. “You are graceful, buddy, I promise,” he admitted. “You wanna give it another try?”

Peter stuck his tongue out at him, adjusted his hat, and gingerly took a step forward. Tony tensed, ready to lunge forward and catch him if the boy slipped, but found himself letting a quiet cheer. “Nice job, Pete!”

Peter beamed at him, his legs spread far apart and his arms extended for balance. He tipped backwards and Tony started to jump forward, but Peter flailed his arms around and regained his balance.

“I think you’re getting the hang of it, kiddo!” Tony called as Peter made his way to the opposite side of the pond. He winced suddenly, protectiveness flooding through him at his retreating figure. “Be careful! Wait for me!”

He caught up to Peter easily and zipped in front of him, catching him by the shoulders. “You’re doing great, baby!”

“Thanks,” he giggled, looking down at his shoes. He wiped his red nose with the back of his hand and sniffled. “‘S fun!”

Tony smiled and adjusted Peter’s scarf. “Glad to hear it.”

“Tony?” he asked. “Can you do a figure eight?”

The man paused to consider this, clicking his tongue. “Only one way to find out!” he decided.

Peter watched excitedly as he skated out to the middle of the pond, looking practically weightless. Tony took a deep breath, prayed he didn’t break any bones, then pushed off. He zoomed around the pond in a perfect figure eight, only faltering for a brief moment, and traced over it twice before he skidded back to Peter. “Ta-da!”

Peter applauded, clearly very impressed. Tony bowed exaggeratedly and pretended to be embarrassed.

“D’you think I should try?” Peter asked.

Tony smiled fondly. “Only if you want to. I know you’d nail it though.”

And he did. Peter skated carefully to the edge of the pond and performed the figure eight beautifully, spinning in circles and laughing when he got a bit too dizzy.

Tony skated up to him, his eyes huge. “Jesus, Petey, that was fantastic!” He pulled the embarrassed teen to his chest and wished, not for the first time, that Peter wasn’t wearing a hat so he could kiss the top of his head. He settled for Peter’s cheek instead. “Wow, baby, that was amazing! Wait- I gotta sign you up for the Olympics. Where��s my phone- oh, I got it.” He pulled his phone from his coat.

“Tony, nooooo!” Peter protested.

“Tony yes. You’re too talented.”

“It was just a figure eight!” he giggled. “And you did one too so you hafta sign yourself up.” Peter looked up to the gray sky and shivered as the brisk winds tore at his heavy coat and scarf. He leaned even closer to Tony.

“You cold, baby?” Tony rubbed his back gently, hoping to generate some warmth. “Wanna go back home? We can come back here anytime you want.”

Peter sighed a bit sadly, but he had to admit he was freezing. He and Tony skated back to the car quickly. Snowflakes began to fall rapidly down as gusts of wind tried to upset their balance. Tony helped Peter onto the bank and they hurriedly yanked off their ice skates.

They found refuge in the car only when Tony turned the heater up full blast and leaned over the console to pull Peter into his arms. Peter’s shivers that had been worrying him far more than Tony had been willing to say eventually died off and together they watched what was now practically a blizzard raging outside.

“Just in time,” Tony mumbled into Peter’s curls. “Feel any better, baby?”

He grew worried when he received no response and pulled back. Peter’s eyes were shut and his breathing slow, though he made a small whimpering noise in the back of his throat when Tony pulled away. Tony smiled, a tender, loving light in his eyes and pulled Peter back into his arms, cradling his kid against his chest and rubbing his back soothingly. “‘M here. ‘M here, baby, don’t worry,” he cooed, planting a kiss on his forehead.

Peter curls tickled his cheek, his warm breath heating the skin of Tony’s neck. The console between him and his kid was uncomfortable and hard against his side, but he wouldn’t have moved for the world. Tony held Peter tightly and closed his eyes.

Maybe they could stay there a little while as they waited for the blizzard to pass.

III

Tony had been brewing a hot cup of coffee in the kitchen when a disheveled, sniffling, sleepy Peter face-planted into his back.

“Whoa, bud!” Tony spun around and caught the boy under the armpits. “Hey, hey. Are you okay?” He tilted Peter’s chin back and found that his nose was bright red, his eyes were half-lidded, and his bedhead was a lot worse (though still absolutely adorable) than it usually was.

“‘M fine,” Peter sniffled, leaning heavily against his chest. “Missed you.”

“Oh, baby,” Tony murmured, wrapping his arms around the small teen, “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere, okay?” He gave his definitely-not-sick spider-baby a smooch on his temple. “You’re pretty warm,” he noted with a hint of worry in his voice. He pressed the back of his hand to the teen’s forehead. “Do you wanna lie down, kiddo?”

Peter shook his head weakly. “Wan’ you.”

Tony’s heart melted and he turned into a pile of mush. In this tired, sick, achy state Peter was clingier than ever, and all he wanted was him. He wanted Tony. He kissed Peter’s temple. “I’m gonna stay right here, Petey, don’t worry,” he assured his kid. “I promise.”

Tony held Peter with one arm while he rummaged through the kitchen cabinets with the other. “FRI? What’s up with the spider-baby?”

“Peter is exhibiting symptoms of a common cold, such as coughing, sneezing, a runny nose, and a fever,” the AI replied. Tony felt a pang of worry and empathy in his heart.

“Okay. I’ve got your pain meds,” he announced in a whisper. “Do you want water or OJ?”

Peter decided on the latter, not bothering to raise his head but simply mumbling “juice” into the man’s chest. Tony hummed in agreement and attempted to pour a glass for himself one-handedly (most of the juice ended up on the counter, but holding his sick kid was far more important than pouring orange juice).

He led the boy to the couch, a steadying hand around his shoulders. Peter snuggled against him, coughing and sniffling. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and shivered.

Tony placed two white pills into palm. Peter took a hesitant sip of his drink and gulped down the pills. Tony tucked an errant curl behind his ear and placed a kiss one his temple.

With Peter still in his hold, he strained to reach the weighted electric blanket that had fallen behind the couch. With a painful crack from his twisted back, he finally managed to get his fingers around the feather-soft blanket and settled back on the couch with a triumphant grunt.

He wrapped the electric blanket tightly around them both. Peter’s shivering caused a surge of fierce protection to run through his veins, and Tony hugged him to his chest, pressing a kiss to his soft, though slightly sweaty curls. He glared at the dark corners of the room, as if somehow the very cold that was making his child suffer so much would leap from the shadows.

Peter found comfort in the vibrations of Tony’s chest and the beat of his heart. The calloused fingers running through his hair and the occasional kiss against his temple soothed him beyond measure, and without ever realizing it, Peter started to drift off. Compared to when he had woken up, soaked with sweat, wheezing and sniffling and rather nauseous, he felt so much better in his father-figure’s embrace.

Dimly, he noticed that Tony was talking to him. He thought he recognized the words coming out of his mouth, and he realized suddenly that Tony was reading Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree to him. That book had been Peter’s favorite when he was a small toddler, and hearing the familiar words aloud brought a big burst of happiness to his chest.

Peter let his eyes slip shut for a second. The headache that had been pounding in his head was completely gone and in Tony’s arms, he felt incredibly warm and cozy and happy.

When his eyes opened again, he determined that Tony had finished reading the book. If he had had enough energy, he would have asked him to read another. But much to his delight, he realized Tony had already picked up another book.

And just before his eyes fluttered shut, he heard Tony’s gentle voice speaking, full of love. “I love you, Petey.”

I love you too.

“Mmm, Tony, the spaghetti was fantastic!” May exclaimed as she loaded her plate into the dishwasher. “I need that recipe, it’s just too good!”

Tony looked at Peter out of the corner of his eyes. The boy shook his head frantically and drew a finger across his throat. Tony snickered. “Thank you, May, I’m glad to hear that,” he said.

To be completely truthful, he felt like throwing up. During the dinner, Peter had chatted enough to distract him, but now his emotions were left to himself, and Tony had barely been swallowed by them. He stuffed the last plate in the dishwasher and took a few long, deep breaths. He massaged his forehead and blinked, sitting down heavily on the couch.

Tony’s heart was beating out of his chest. He looked up to the boy, who was texting someone- probably Ned, completely oblivious. “Pete?” he began shakily. “Do you think we could talk for a second?” He and May shared a glance. She realized immediately what he was about to do and gave him an encouraging smile and a thumbs up.

“Yeah!” Peter vaulted onto the couch with a laugh. His grin faded when he saw how worried, how scared the man looked. Alarm kindled in his chest. “What’s wrong, Mr. Stark?”

Tony couldn’t bring himself to laugh at the cookie crumbs in the corners of his mouth or the way his hair frizzed everywhere as he pulled his Santa hat off. He swallowed and took a deep breath.

“Um-” Tony had to clear his throat. He reached down and grabbed a briefcase leaning against the couch that Peter hadn’t noticed before. “Uh,” he tried. He pulled two papers out of the briefcase and stared at them for a long while. “Do you think that you could give these a read, kiddo?”

Peter nodded silently and took them. He looked up at Tony, his head tilted in confusion.

He looked to the papers. His eyes widened in disbelief. “W-what? I-” He turned the papers over as if there would be a sticky note saying “IT'S A PRANK!” on the back. “What? W-what? I-I don’t-” Peter shook his head.

He couldn’t stop looking at those cream-colored papers.

Child: Peter Benjamin Parker

Adopting Parent(s): Anthony Edward Stark

The rest of the paper was blank, except for Tony’s signature at the bottom.

“Am I asleep? This-this is a dream, right?” Peter's eyes were filling with tears but he didn’t bother to wipe them away.

“It’s not a dream, sweetheart,” May said gently. “It’s real.” She squeezed his knee, hoping to ground him.

“Really?” He opened his mouth but couldn’t seem to form words. He gaped like a fish, reading the adoption papers over and over again. “You-you wanna adopt me?” he finally managed to squeak out.

Tony finally gathered the courage to look at his kid. “Yeah, baby. But only if you want to, okay? Nothing would change, though. We’d- just be making it official. Everything would be the same except-” He throat closed, and suddenly he couldn’t speak.

Except Peter would be his official son- legally, on paper. And Tony would be his official dad. (There was no way Tony wasn’t already his dad.)

“What are you thinking, baby?” he murmured, instinctively tucking a curl behind Peter’s ear with shaky hands.

Tony’s gentle touch was enough to break the dam of emotions that had been holding back. Peter sniffled, then burst into tears and practically jumped into his dad’s arms.

Tony hugged him tightly, rubbing a hand up and down his back and pressing long kisses to his temple. Peter blubbered into his chest, happy tears soaking Tony’s sweater. May wrapped her arms around the two and squeezed them both tightly.

Tony felt tears prickle in his own eyes and he dropped his forehead to Peter’s curls. “Is that a yes?” he finally managed to say.

Peter giggled wetly and nodded frantically against his chest.

A grin as wide as a dinner plate crossed Tony’s face. He realized suddenly that tears were streaming down his cheeks, but he didn’t wipe them away. He kissed the top of Peter's head and squeezed him tighter.

May pressed a quick kiss on Peter’s cheek and stood up. “I’ll be back in a bit,” she said, sensing that the father and son might want a moment alone.

Tony rocked his kid back and forth, rubbing his back and pressing kiss after kiss to his cheek. “I love you,” he murmured into his chestnut curls. “I love you.” IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou.

“Love you,” Peter babbled. “I love you too. I love you.”

He held Peter at an arm’s length, still grinning. Then he pulled his kid back to him again and kissed his cheek, wiping away his tears with the pad of his thumb. “I love you.”

Peter sniffled, wiping his nose with his sweater. He wrapped his arms around Tony’s neck and curled around him like a koala. He leaned heavily against his dad’s chest, his breathing beginning to even out. Tony’s chest vibrated with every “I love you so much, Petey” and his ceaseless murmurs of love and comfort.

“Love you, Dad,” he said sleepily, his eyelids drooping.

A lump formed in Tony’s throat that he couldn’t seem to swallow past. Tears started to trickle down his cheeks. “Petey-” he murmured, his voice hoarse. “I love you so much. So damn much, okay?” He ran his hand up and down the boy’s back, kissing his temple and trying to blink his happy tears away.

Tony felt himself slowly drifting asleep. He blinked, and then his cheek was resting on his kid’s curls. His eyes closed again, and suddenly May was there, draping a blanket over them. He tried to tell her to get Peter’s special heated blanket, because his poor kid couldn’t thermoregulate and absolutely hated the cold. Then he realized that she had already tucked it around the boy and sighed in relief, finally letting himself relax.

May settled on the opposite side of Peter and wrapped an arm around him. Within minutes she was snoring quietly, but Tony was too tired to notice. A wave of joy and peace and love washed over him, and his eyes slipped shut.

~~~~~

/ST*RKERS DNI/

~~~~~

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