#cod keegan russ

[halcyone-of-the-sea]

Ahhhh I've been waiting for your requests to open, I've been following you since your first Price fic and never had an idea to request until like 2 weeks ago 😫 so, I've been thinking, what about being in a relationship with Keegan but getting separated when ODIN hits the earth and not meeting again until about 5 years later? 👀 Love your writing, hope you have a great day 🩵 :)

For The Weak And Weary

PAIRING: Keegan P. Russ x F!Reader

SYNOPSIS: When ODIN struck you had thought he had died, sky alight with fire. It had taken years to accept it, much less live with it. But after Dallas falls, would you get a glimpse of your Lover's phantom again?

WORDCOUNT: 6.2k

WARNINGS: Angst, depressive thoughts, PTSD insinuations, gore, wounds, blood, death, canon-typical violence, (1) suggestive joke, alcohol, hallucinations, fluffy reunion, tears, verbal arguments, etc.

A/N: Just because I'm a sucker for sticking to the game timeline I made it ten years, lol. Enjoy, Anon! Very fun prompt.

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

You could never make sense of what Keegan went through in 2005 during Operation Sand Viper. It would be pointless to try and wrap your head around it from what little you knew. All that mattered was that when he came back on leave, something in his eyes was…damaged. Hell, he’d only been sixteen—the both of you had known each other since you were kids, you knew when something was wrong.

And this was entirely new to you.

He smiled less and snapped more; got spooked when you dropped something in his family's kitchen like a grenade had gone off. Maybe, you reasoned, he thought one actually had. 

But through it all, you could still see how much he cared about you. When you were old enough you’d both moved into a nice place in the suburbs and started a relationship—a life shared between the two of you. 

You knew he loved you from the way he’d grip you close at night and breathe into your scalp. How when you were sick from the take-out dinner he’d brought home, Keegan would hold back your hair and rub circles into your spine as you threw up. He never shied away from telling you how beautiful you were; prided himself on it. Keegan loved to show you off.

But there were times back then when you wondered if the same Keegan that had been so fulfilled to join Ghosts had died, and, in fact, a phantom was instead puppeting his skin. He was so quiet now.

If you’d known that the world was going to end on July 10th, 2017, you’d have never let him walk out that door angry. You would have grabbed his hand and pressed your lips to his, whispered affirmations into his flesh and sobbed at the cruelty of it all.

“I can’t keep pretending that you’re okay!” You yell, tears in your eyes, at the man standing tense in the kitchen doorway. Blank blue eyes stare lifelessly. “Keegan—this is killing you.” 

It was early morning by then, and the neighborhood was quiet. The house that the both of you had moved into years ago was littered with the remnants of a happy home. Pictures on the walls, dishes in the sink, and freshly baked bread on the counter. All you’d tried to do was give Keegan a hug, slipping your hands around his waist when you’d entered. 

He’d balked back, jerking to the side and nearly elbowed you in the gut before he saw your wide eyes and stopped himself. The way he’d looked at you…how could eyes be so dead?

“You need to talk to someone,” you put your foot down, shaking your head. “I-I don’t know a therapist or…or someone who can get you proper help because I can’t keep acting like I can live like this.” 

Every mission, every time he went away, it always got worse. 

Keegan’s eyes get sharp, hands at his sides clenching. He speaks in a low growl. “I don’t need to talk to a shrink, alright? I’m fine, you just startled me.”

“Bullshit,” your mouth hisses, glaring. “You thought you were back in ‘05.”

The man points at you, strong jaw clenching, “Don’t.”

“Keegan,” you plead, “please, I love you! I don’t care about this, I just want you to be alright. To be able to live your life—”

“What you want is to try and change me!” The black-haired man barks. Your eyes blink in shock. Keegan rarely yelled. “I already told you I was fine, why don’t you get off my back all the time?” His eyes flash, pupils going to slits as his hands shake at his sides. Why did he look scared? Your breath stills, lips slightly open, with tears dripping to the tile. “Fuck, it’s like I can’t come home without you pesterin’ me ‘bout something!” 

A stiff silence falls.

“Kee—” He snaps a hand to his mouth and rubs at his stubble, suddenly unable to look at you.

“...Forget it.” It’s low and shaky how he says it, eyes wide, before he darts into the foyer and slips into his boots. You listen to the sounds of panicked shuffling before the man wrenches open the front door and slams it shut behind him. One of the picture frames falls and hits the ground with a shattering of glass.

You flinch and tense, taking down a terse breath and sniffling tightly. Trying to get your lungs to work properly, your feet take you over to the picture as they feel weak and uneven; a stuttering mess of steps before you bend down. Your fingers bleed as they shift the glass away, taking out the image of you and Keegan on your hike through the mountains. 

Smiling faces mock you, and you break at the bright and open affection Keegan wears as he looks down at you—eyebrows curved up and smirk like a knife to the chest. 

You loved him so much it hurt to breathe when he was away. 

He had needed time, you knew, but what you didn’t know was that time wouldn’t be available. Around noon the world had opened into a ball of fire and death. 27 million dead. Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Houston, and Miami…all gone…at least, that was what everyone in Dallas was telling you. 

When Keegan had been away taking a walk to calm himself, you’d been home alone. The earth caved, the ground shook; houses burst like balloons. By the time you’d crawled from the rubble of your home, all you had was the picture and the clothes on your back. People were screaming—you were screaming. But you knew that you couldn’t stay here if you wanted to survive. 

And then you’d made it to Dallas by sheer luck and the few tricks Keegan had taught you; had thought that he had died in that first strike by the Federation. You carried that guilt and self-hatred for not holding your tongue for a few more hours. 

So much could have been different in these ten years. Better. You never got over him for even a second. 

But the reality was that you couldn’t think about all of that now, because if you didn’t focus on holding your breath you would be dead in the next three seconds. 

Your hand is anchored to the body of your sniper rifle, finger hovering over the trigger as you hide behind the outcropping of rubble in the decimated cityscape; the air is hot and humid despite the weight of the night. It sticks to your skin in a sheen of violent sweat. Yet it’s still not as potent as the blood. 

Teeth gritted, you hold back whimpers as Federation soldiers stalk the grounds, scores of them—legions. An entire army that had breached the walls and executed everyone insight, soldiers, civilians, if it once moved it didn’t anymore. The burning in your shoulder was agonizing, head smashing itself back to the rubble in an attempt to stifle your own ragged need to scream into the night as layers had peeled back to allow a bullet to pass through. 

In the ten years you’d been here, you’d taken up the mantle of quite the sharpshooter; pulling on Keegan’s lessons when he was on leave and wanted to bring you to the firing range. You had even picked a rifle similar to the one back in your destroyed home—held in a plastic case and treated like royalty by your long-deceased lover. It wasn’t the same, but the jet-black Lynx made you steady like the picture in your breast pocket did. 

A reminder of what was lost and why you had picked the knock-off up in the first place.

Footsteps get closer as the sweep of a flashlight cards above your skull, if possible you go even more still, lips pulled in and heart rampaging. There were barked orders and yelling, but no more screaming. 

How long had you been unconscious after taking that shot to the shoulder? Fear was breeding with horror—was…was everyone dead?

Spanish is loudly called not five feet away, and the flashlight leaves as your breath does. You let off a quiet gasp and suck down air greedily. Eyes flashing from one shadow to another, you look for any opportunity to slip away from the city. In the wind, you could smell fire, and taste it on your tongue as you licked your lips. 

All around you can see the limp shadows of bodies and the apartments, large skyscrapers were on fire deep in their frames. The city was entirely lost.

How the federation got into the walls you would never know, though there was concern about the enemy soldiers rounding up civilians outside the walls and executing them. Maybe one cracked before the bullet entered their skull.

You bite hard into your lip to force back your pain. Trying to shoot a rifle would be useless at this point, you might as well have lost the limb. Slinging the gun’s strap over your head, you look back and forth along your visible perimeter, checking for hostiles as you unsheathe your combat knife and cradle your limp arm to your chest. 

If only Keegan could see you now.

Rounds of gunfire make the air burn with urgency, and you take the time to peek out behind as sweat makes a trail down your dirty face, dripping off of your chin as you breathe like a wheezing dog. Your wound needed tending, and you had the med pack on your vest with the supplies, but you can’t do it here.

Where’s safe? If Dallas has fallen…is there anywhere that’s still standing? A location hits your brain as your gaze darts from one abandoned street to another. You take a deep breath and whine as you force your legs to stand and move quickly, feet shifting as quietly as you’re able to make them. 

“Fort Santa Monica.” Now a stronghold, you’d heard US soldiers here talking about the large presence of military power out in California—numbers so great they rivaled those that had lived in Dallas. 

You stumble over a spasming body and slam your uninjured shoulder into the bulk of the building’s wall, groaning loudly like a wounded boar. 

“Fuck!” If you made it out of the city, that would be where you would have to go; to warn them of what was coming. The Federation had found a way inside the Dallas wall, and that meant if they had enough tenacity, they could do it to them too. 

Everything would be done if another city fell.  

Holding your knife tighter, you push off the wall and grit your teeth harder, mind running on that edge of hysteria and forced calm. It’s in these moments where you have to pull on old memories to keep you going—even if they end up hurting more than the open wounds you carry. 

Keegan had his bad moments, but you always got through them together. Years and years of knowing each other inside and out; memorizing bodies and thoughts like they were second nature. He would want you to keep fighting, tell you to get your ass in gear and go…and you would never let him down. 

You owed him that much even if some days you wanted more than anything to join him. 

Blade in hand, you hear muttered speech from up the alleyway and pause, feet splayed but still swaying as you come to a slow stop. Your ears ring at garbled sentences, foreign words spilling into one another. 

Panting, you listen closely, limbs vibrating. More gunfire echoes over the air, screams and death that get ingrained into your head like a brand into sizzling flesh. Skyscrapers burned and buildings fell with great earthquake booms. Everything is under a sheen of distance.

Get out of the city. Get to Fort Santa Monica.

“Kill who I have to,” you slur out, itching at your neck as you leave a trail of blood behind you. A single pair of footsteps walk quickly forward near your corner and you hold your breath, bringing up your knife as pain pounds in your arm. 

Deep blue eyes sit in the back of your mind, counting you down as they always did.

Keep your arm steady for me, Doll, a phantom tells you. Breathe...

When the first shadow of a Fed soldier graces your eyes, you strike. 

—

It’s roughly nineteen days from Dallas to Santa Monica, and that was if you kept up at a steady walking pace. If the crude sling you’d fashioned from bandages found in your med pack was any indicator, it would be double that. 

On the first day, you had hiked half-dead over the destroyed landscape of what remained of the USA, licking your wounds and counting your losses. You’d had your pick of abandoned houses, taking a red brick one just because it looked nice and you were about to pass out from blood loss. The only reason you’d made it this far was that the bullet had thankfully passed right through you, making sure that if you moved too suddenly no more damage was being done internally. You packed it with a sterile rag.

Sitting in the home, pictures gathering dust on the fireplace mantle, you tipped back a bottle of whisky you’d found in one of the bedrooms, grimacing at the sting. It was better to be drunk for what you were about to do. 

Heating up your combat knife in the fire you had started in the hearth, you watched the metal grow an eye-flinching white as you stared off into nothingness. 

“You remember when you showed me that scar, Keegan?” You always talked to him. Others had given you shit for it, but they knew the purpose. If you didn’t talk to someone, even a ghost, you would give up. 

The guilt was eating you alive, and it would overtake you eventually. Hadn’t in ten years, but it would…you knew it, everyone did. 

Keegan was everything, and nothing looked the same when you lost him.

“The one on your thigh?” Pulling the knife back, you turn to the leaking flesh of your shoulder, gushing blood as black desecrates the sides of your eyes. You’d taken off your vest and shirt. If you tried hard enough you could imagine Keegan standing in the corner, watching. Always watching. “You said you had to dig a bullet out and cauterize the wound—when I asked you said you barely felt it over all the adrenaline.”

The ghost tilts its head, eyes sad and lips pulling taunt. Your lungs take in a shaky inhale and your hand quivers; only you feel how your eyes burn with unshed tears. 

“I never thought about it before,” right as you growl and shove the knife into your skin, you bark out in fear, “But I think you were fucking lying!” 

On day two, you knew you had to avoid the remains of Fort Worth, so you decided to increase your distance and cut that landmark out entirely—too many remnants of Federation. They were everywhere now, and you needed to keep low; get out of Texas. You scavenged properties and took stock. 

Four magazines for your Lynx, a pouch with five protein bars, one bottle of water attached to your belt, and your knife. Normally you’d have a pistol at your thigh, but you’d used it up in the firefight back home. When you’d woken back up, it had been gone.

And, of course, you had the picture. You kissed Keegan’s face and placed it back in your breast pocket, caressing the material softly before clearing your throat and addressing the obvious. 

With what you had getting to California was a pipe dream. 

You’d been on the radio all day, clicking through channels and pleading for anyone alive to reach out. Nothing. Static. 

I’m the only one left. The thought was intoxicating, pounding in your skull like your hangover. Everyone is dead. 

While you had become somewhat of a loner in the last ten years, especially with the few months you’d been by yourself in the beginning, Dallas had given you a chance to build bonds again. Ten years, and in an instant it was all wiped out. 

It rang a devastating bell.

Somehow, you had cheated death where so many others had failed—not only in Texas, but back with ODIN too. You had survived, but somehow Keegan hadn’t. 

Keegan, the one who never spoke about ‘05 and jerked awake from nightmares years later because of it. Keegan, who wanted nothing more than to stay at your side when he was home and keep you on his chest when watching movies. Keegan, the love of your life.

The only love of your life. 

“I really wish you were here,” you mutter, grimacing as your arm gets jostled as you stumble over a piece of rusted metal in the empty street. “Who gave you the right to go away before me, huh? We were supposed to grow old together, Russ. You promised me that.” 

Garbage gets blown over the road when a hot breeze shifts the air, bringing the scent of dirt and the noise of rustling trees. Nature has reclaimed the towns and suburbs—great patches of ivy and long grass that rise to your hips. But the silence was a curse.

The only thing keeping you going is the thought of delivering your warning to Santa Monica, from there…

Your lips thinned. What even was there left? How many times could you go from one place to another, starting over with stories of your past and having to brush the pitying looks off as you fake a smile? 

Shaking your head, you recall memories from the better days as the light gets low in the sky. 

“You’re doin’ too much, Sweet Thing,” Keegan mutters, and you turn from the stove top with a bright smile to face him. 

He had just gotten out of the shower, towel ruffling through his dark hair as he stands in the kitchen entrance and watches you cook for him. The shirt hangs off of his wide shoulders, and gray sweatpants are loose over his formed hips—his strong brow line raises in a casual expression. 

“Oh, don’t act like you don’t like it,” you tease, hearing his low chuckles as you turn back to your pan. “You look good, y’know.” 

“Oh, yeah?” Keegan grunts, smirking, and his feet pad over to you, tossing the towel to the counter as his presence looms over your back. Large hands grab onto your hips and a nose burrows into your hair; inhaling deeply before gradually melting to the curve of your spine. 

You smile and hum, pushing back so you can rest on his chest. A chin sets itself on your head, deep massaging fingers making you pur as they bunch your sleep shorts.

It was late—nearly two in the morning. Keegan had only gotten home a short while ago, but sleep wasn’t going to stop you from spoiling him. A wine bottle was on the island counter, two glasses, and the food was nearly done from what you could scrounge up on short notice.

“...Good to be back,” the man grumbles into you, kissing your head and slowly sweeping his arms around your waist as you sighed softly at the contact. 

Your face gains heat. 

“Well, I’d sure hope so, or else this would be awkward.” You huff to hide the bright smile in your voice. But like a moth to flame, you hear, as well as feel, Keegan chuckle against your spine. His grip squeezes you for a moment. 

“How was it when I was away?” He asks as you move around the contents in the pan, nose brushing your neck as his lips travel to kiss behind your ear. He breathes against the flesh as his low rasp makes you shiver. “Any trouble?”

“Negative, Sergeant,” you raise a brow and smirk over your shoulder at him, seeing his blues spark as he gazes hard into your eyes. A faint twitch to his lips is what you get before his hand captures your cheek; anchoring your face as he descends to connect his mouth to yours.

He sighs into it, arm still around your waist—tight as if you were a pillow. 

“Keep talkin’ like that and we won’t have to wait long for dessert, will we?” 

Days three through seven were uneventful beyond the constant agony of your arm and tired legs, but on day eight amid a waterless walk in the sweltering heat was when the hallucinations began. 

Keegan walks beside you, his footsteps mirroring your own as sweat pools down your forehead and drips off your nose. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t look at you—he just walks, looking exactly like he did the day he died. 

At first, you’d flinched back and blinked wildly at the sight, panting, but then he’d disappeared and your heart had shattered. It worried you with what you were seeing, but it was also a strange comfort to be able to ramble to…something, even if it wasn’t real. Hungry and with a dry tongue, you were on the verge of calling it quits.

So on day eleven, without a wild animal in sight to give you a proper food source and all the water having to be purified, you started talking to him while licking the inside wrapper of your last protein bar. 

“But I never understood why you hated sleeping in shirts,” you licked your lips to get the remnants of granola off of your flesh, pushing away the greasy sheen from your cheeks. Your arm was burning up—every heartbeat was felt as it moved the skin around red and infected flesh up and down. Puss was leaking out from the crude stitches you had made of embroidery thread from that first house you’d found. 

“And you always kept the room freezing.” Continuing, you drop the wrapper to the ground and then take the meat of your fingers and get what little flavor you can off of them, grunting through realization. “That was a ploy to have me use you for heat, wasn’t it? Jesus.” 

The man in the corner of your vision smirks, tilting his head and chuckling from where he leans against a tree trunk. 

“Yeah, that’s right. Knew it.” Glaring at nothing, you stand from your overturned stump and nearly fall right back over, stomach yelling at you as your vision swirls. 

You dig a hand into your hair and grip at the strands, pulling and groaning. “...God.” 

Keegan comes over and stands above you, your eyes staring down at his feet as you get light-headed. You focus on his shoelaces, counting the Xs and taking down shaky breaths. When you blink like a cat with dirt on its face, the shoes are gone entirely and you stand back up to your full height.

“...Keegan?” You ask after a moment, the words disappearing into the trees, but no one’s around. 

Your sight goes to your wound and your jaw tightens, moments of clarity slipping in as a knife would into your consciousness before the curtain settles once more. 

You bend over and vomit what little nutrients you had, spending day twelve sleeping through a fit of nightmares and fever-induced delirium.

Nothing about the remainder of the time you can recall to memory—bits and pieces always flash through on long nights, but they’re only walking montages. Dragging feet, looking at your hand as if it was a foreign object as you turned it back and forth; everything in a sheen of sickness. Days and days and days. Little food. Less water. 

More than one-thousand miles.

But somehow, the Wall peels out in front of you as you crash through the foliage, your body giving out and collapsing down a large decline. Bouncing and getting jostled by rocks, you come to a stop without the strength to get back up, staring blankly ahead as your head connects with concrete. Your mouth is open in broken inhales, pain not even registering. 

Shouts echo, the pound of rapid feet. 

Green eyes meet yours, a youthful face with a beanie and stubble. He’s saying something to you, glancing over your gear and your obvious near-death situation—his hand jostles the side of your face. But your eyes shift behind him gradually, attention falling to someone more important. 

Before you finally let yourself rest, you stare at the smiling face of your steadfast phantom.

—

The doctors and nurses at Fort Santa Monica were nice, if a bit secretive about the entire operation. Seeing as you weren’t an official soldier, no dog tags or patches—no name in the database—everyone was a bit hesitant to tell you anything. 

Until you said you were from Dallas, of course. 

But no one was eager to rush you in your state, even if the information was dire. You had been hooked up to an IV and bedridden for a week straight; talking to nothing on account of the dehydration and electrolyte imbalances. Some days you spend unconscious. 

But what really pissed you off when you got back into it, was the fact that they had taken your Lynx and your gear—your picture.

You’d almost grappled onto the first nurse you’d seen when you’d woken without it. It was a beacon, your prized possession of damaged corners and taped tears. Water damage that may or may not have been from sobbing fits in the first five years. 

In fact, that was the entire reason you had snuck out so late in the first place. 

Stalking down the hallway in the white shirt and camo pants that had been given to you on the fifth morning you had woken up here, you pad along with no shoes, only plain gray socks. You limp with bandaged flesh all along your healing shoulder and your feet. 

The doctor had explained that you’d entirely skinned the bottoms and your heels were a mess of blisters and open wounds. 

“Take my property,” you grumble under your breath, shuffling along and rubbing at the back of your neck. “What gives them the right?” 

You weren’t going to stop until you found it. 

Reading the name tags on the walls, you silently wonder where they would have taken your stuff as you slip out of the medical ward, listening to the buzzing of the lights and frowning. As you’re limping along the next hallway, a man suddenly turns the corner on nearly silent feet. 

“Woah!” You halt immediately, heart jumping in your chest. A hand catches your shoulder before you run headlong into him. 

Green eyes lock with your own, wide and blinking quickly. Brows furrow and you’re quickly looked over before a slow, teasing remark enters the air, you listen with a growing heat on your neck.

“Y’know, I could have sworn you were supposed to be in bed, Ma’am. I miss something here?” The man who had found you. 

“Wouldn’t know,” you say blandly, blinking up at him and taking a careful step back. This brunette had a casual air to him—still in his gear despite the time. He folds his arms and tilts his head at you, smirking. “If you’ll excuse me.” 

You begin to walk forward, slipping past him and hoping you won’t get snitched on. Except it seems you’ll be having a shadow, as not a few seconds later a smooth chuckle meets your ears and the man walks beside you. 

“I think I’ll be taggin’ along if you don’t mind. Security and all.” He turns to face you, sticking out his opposite hand. “Hesh.”

“That supposed to be some kind of nickname, Kid?” You raise a stiff brow but participate in the handshake nonetheless. His grip is firm but not hard. 

Hesh blinks at you, eyes swimming with amusement before he shrugs in a boyish way and shakes his head with a laugh. “Hell, you remind me of someone, Ma’am.” A moment passes in silence as you study the area. The man huffs, “Where exactly are we off to?” 

“Wonderland,” your lips grumble, tired and wanting to sleep but not until you find your picture. Hesh sighs but you can still hear the hilarity inside of it. 

“Alright then…don’t know if you’re going to be finding a shrinking potion anytime soon, though. We’re in low stock.”

“Very funny,” your eyes send a dry look, but you relent when he prods you with his eyes, taking a corner. “I’m looking for my vest.” Hesh blinks at you in curiosity, letting you elaborate as you motion to your upper shoulder. “My pouch has some of my personal belongings. I don’t like being away from it.” 

“Oh,” the brunette nods a few times, his beanie jerking along. “Yeah, that’s no problem.” A hand is waved and you stare in confusion as he pivots. “C’mon, I’ll get you there.” 

Your eyes burn into his back before you immediately speed after. 

“Why so eager to help?” Hesh smirks at your question. 

“As I see it, if you went over nineteen days of hard hiking just to get to us, you should at least be able to keep your stuff on you, Ma’am.” Your lips flicker in a smile. 

“You’d be the first.” You tell him your name and miss the slight emotion it provokes in his eyes, head lightly pulling to the side but ultimately saying nothing. Hesh shrugs with a grunt, leading you to a meeting room on the opposite side of the building. 

Yelling is on the other side.

“Elias, how long has this been kept from me?!” The voice makes your head perk, evoking something inside of your chest. Hesh seems taken aback too, holding up a hand to you for momentary silence—not that you had to be told. 

“Keegan, I can’t have that happen. She needs to recover and you being there could jeopardize that. We need what she knows about Dallas.” Your body stills to a near-frozen state, and it’s comedic how your entire face falls to a blank slate. Wait a second.

…Keegan?

“She belongs with me—I thought she fucking died and she’s been here for who knows how long?! Why wasn’t I informed?” Rampaging feet suddenly sound off, going to the door at break-neck speed.

“Son, that’s not a good idea. This is what I was worried would happen if you found out.”

“I didn’t exactly ask, did I? As far as I’m concerned, nothing else matters besides getting back to my Girl,” the bark is ferocious and violent, more of an animal’s than a man’s. “Now where the hell did you put her before I tear this damn fort apart and—” You shove at the door before Hesh can grab you, throwing it open and letting it hit the opposite wall with a great boom of wood. 

Your wild eyes instantaneously lock into sharp blues, pulse pounding in your ears. It’s like all the air is taken from your lungs in a great punch. 

Oh, he’s so similar to how you remembered him to be ten years ago. 

Keegan stands only a few feet away, turned in your direction with his eyes so wide and small you might faint. There’s black face paint in his sockets, making the cerulean all the more bright and shocking to the senses. He’s still tall, still built, if only a bit more rugged than when ODIN struck—there are lines on his forehead and his scars are more faded. Small differences in the way he holds himself like the difference between a rabbit and a hare. Keegan’s black locks are shorter now, but still…his.

Lips part in silent shock, an entire halt of your nervous system. 

The entire universe holds its tongue as you two stare at each other; walls and rooms blur into a mess of matter and reality—this couldn’t be real. 

Keegan’s feet shift for a moment as if to steady himself as his fingers twitch. In his hand, he holds your picture, his body covered in gear and weapons. He blinks as you tell yourself he’s a phantom, simply that same ghost come back to haunt you as tears sting the backs of your eyes. But then he speaks, and it’s the same voice you had slowly lost the ability to remember in year three. 

“...Sweetheart?”

His ghost never spoke. His ghost could not imitate the phonics of his speech or the rhythm of his throat. His ghost could not make you recall the memories you’d long since boxed up.

You jerk forward just as he does, bodies colliding into a feral grip of flesh and fabric, hands latching and faces burying. Sobs rip from you as Keegan’s shaky breath echoes right next to your ear—his chest hitching and arms snatching your waist and lifting you up as easily as he always had. He holds you up without any thought of putting you down, legging your legs dangle as Elias slowly exits the room and corrals a highly confused Hesh with him.

The door shuts, but neither of you notices. 

“Keegan—” Your voice is high with emotion, hardly believing what you're seeing—what you’re touching. “Oh, my God.” 

He had been alive all this time? Ten whole years and you’d thought he was dead. But by the way he was barely letting you breathe from in his iron clutch, you imagined Keegan had thought the same about you. It was…incomprehensible. 

“Shh,” he whispers, his shushes cracking and flinching between broken gasps of your name. “Shh.” He sets you down on the floor only to have his firm hands travel to your cheeks, turning your head to each side in a desperate need to understand if you were really there.

Keegan’s eyes are wet, but no tears let themselves fall quite yet. 

“I’m so sorry!” You hiccup and the man kisses your cheeks—your browline and nose. Every piece of you he can as you both stay so intimate you might melt into one another. “I thought you were gone, I-I should have stayed and looked for you, I didn’t—”

“You’re alive?” Keegan’s hands rub across your body, gripping and tugging you closer and closer. “My Girl’s alive?” 

His tears drip to your face as he hovers above you, and you both shake with the weight of years. 

“Me?” Your chuckle through sobs—you want to scream and wail at the same time. Blue eyes flutter and ragged breaths puff on your forehead. “What about you, you asshole?” 

Keegan shakes his head, and you stare deeply into him, hands coming up to cup his cheeks as he sags forward. He had stubble now, spreading out to grate your flesh. 

The man forces a weak huff. 

“Christ,” is all he mutters before he presses his lips to yours in a kiss so unyielding you expect to have your air stolen. Ten years to feel him kissing you again—to feel his warm flesh under your hands and his heart rampage into you. 

You’d do it all over if it still amounted to this.

Your body shivers and you reciprocate with just as much fervor; this emotion of relief is so overwhelming and all-consuming that it makes your head light. You suck down quick breaths between the sensation of your lips meeting, Keegan doing the same. 

Unconsciousness was better than letting him leave again, your lover sharing that sentiment as chests slid against one another. Soft hair slips through your fingers as you grip Keegan’s hair, cascading through locks as he groans into your lips and tries to hide his tears from you. 

He pulls away and immensely shoves his head into your neck. 

“You’re here,” he whispers quickly. A hand quivers at the back of your head as your tears wet his gear. “You’re right here. You came back to me, didn’t you, Doll?” 

You cry, “I’m here, Keegan.” The man sobs when he hears you say his name, his knees giving out as you both fall to the floor and not letting the other move beyond the caress of skin and lips.

“I missed you,” Keegan gasps, “so much. Don’t you understand? I was nothing without you. You took it all from me, everything. Every damn thing.” 

You press kisses to his neck and racing pulse, healing him inside and out without even realizing it; it was only fair, he was doing the same back to you. 

The picture lays long forgotten on the floor.

“Never let me go,” your voice forces out, as he rocks you back and forth like a child. “Never again, Keegan. Please, I love you too much to go through that again.”

“Never,” he immediately promises, pulling back and kissing your lips again—neither can stop themselves from this. Blues eyes blink quickly, cataloging your face and every little blemish he’d have to relearn and study; to find the story behind. Keegan had never been happier. He felt like he might break from it. “Over my dead body, I’m never lettin’ you out of my sight. You’re stuck with me.”

You laugh genuinely for the first time in ten years and say you’d like nothing better as he pulls you back in and plants his mouth to yours in reverent worship. His arms trapping you to him as yours do just the same.

Not to leave again anytime soon. 

TAGS:

@luuvbuzz, @emerald-valkyrie, @anna-banana27, @blueoorchid, @cryingnotcrying, @writeforfandoms, @homicidal-slvt, @jade-jax, @frazie99, @elmoees, @littlemisstrouble, @alpineswinter, @phoenixhalliwell, @idocarealot, @lavalleon, @facelessmemories, @h-leigh, @20forty9, @glitter-anon-asks, @emily-who-killed-a-man, @neelehksttr, @aeneanc, @escapefromrealitysm, @i-d-1-0-t, @pparcxysm, @hawkscanendme, @caramlizedtomatos, @konigsleftkidney, @sanfransolomitatm, @maelstrom007, @jemandderkeinenusernamenfindet, @pheobees, @glitterypirateduck, @uselsshuman, @fan-of-encouragement, @halfmoth-halfman, @ghostlythunderbird, @I-inkage, @pukbadger, @kopatych11, @0nceinabluem00n, @cocrorapop, @knightofsexyness, @abnormalgeil, @smallseastone, @jacegons, @330bpm-whiplash, @simon-rileys-housewife, @4-atsu, @tiredmetalenthusiast

[mykneeshurt]

Sorry

Keegan Russ x F!reader

Warnings - minors DNI, 18+, explicit smut, angst

———

‘Are you FUCKING joking?’ You screamed as you threw your very expensive vase at the wall. Keegan ducked, his cat like reflexes once again barely managing to save him. ‘You’re such a fucking liar! Fuck you!’ You stormed over to him, pushing him in his broad chest. Pure unfiltered rage pumped through your veins as you stared at the man before you.

The man who told you he loved you.

The man who made you feel safe.

The man who you allowed yourself to love.

‘I’m sorry’ he whispered, eyes glazed, the steel blue of his irises contrasted with the blood shot white of his eyes. ‘You’re sorry?! You’re fucking sorry?! Keegan you lied to me for six months. I fucking fell for you and this whole time you were using me to spy on my father. I don’t think sorry quite cuts it. Do you?’ Your voice was venomous.

‘I didn’t mean for this to happen.’ You pushed him again. ‘What? Letting it get this far? Or falling for me in the first place?’ Every limb, every fibre of you was shaking. Your mouth was dry, your eyes hurt from crying, your heart shattered into jagged shards of glass.

‘I … uh’ he stuttered.

‘I … I …’ you mocked ‘fuck you Keegan. Get out.’ As you turned to walk away he grabbed your wrist, instantly you spun round, the palm of your hand making perfect contact with his cheek. ‘Don’t touch me. We’re done.’

‘No’ he muttered as he stood defiantly in your living room. ‘Fuck you mean no? Keegan, I don’t want to see you ever again. I never ever thought you’d hurt me. But here we are.’ Your voice was low, almost a whisper. Turning again he gripped your wrist, ‘please don’t make me go.’

Tears pricked your eyes, your tired swollen eyes. You sighed, still allowing him to keep a hold of you. Your lungs felt so tight, they strained to breathe. Your bottom lip quivered as you sighed into the empty living room. The living room where you had your first kiss, where you would play fight, where he held you when your father had a fall.

Yet it was all a lie.

‘Keegan … I can’t … please let me go’ murmured, voice straining from the emotion. ‘I can’t. I can’t let you go. You’re all I think about. You’re all I want. I’ve tasted you and I don’t want anyone else. I want this. I want you. I want us.’ There was a soft thud behind you. Turning round you saw him on his knees, brows furrowed, lips pressed together.

‘Get up Keegan’ you sighed, pinching the bridge of your nose. ‘I’ll beg if you want me to’ he said, eyes never faltering from yours.

‘I don’t want that. I want you to go.’ He slowly rose to his feet, still holding your wrist. He closed in on you, the warmth from his body permeated your tired bones. Even feeling so angry at him his presence still soothed you, still offered you safety. You hated your body for betraying you.

Looking up at him through tear stained lashes your heart ached, your stomach twisted and turned. An unwavering abyss of emotion coursed through your body. His face was contorted, twisted with pain. He raised a hand to your cheek, using his thumb to wipe away your tears. You leant into his touch, these hands had killed people, but to you they were your sanctuary.

‘Keegan’ you whispered, your rage now confusion. He lowered his lips to yours, hovering above them, ‘I’m sorry.’ Your lip quivered at his words, you believed him, reluctantly, but it didn’t absolve him from his lies. He gently pressed his lips to yours, now cradling your face with both hands. You sank into the kiss, your mind and heart fighting against one another.

Your hands found his waist, pulling him closer. Your mind screamed at you to stop, that you would regret it. But your heart told you to keep going, that you loved each other, that you needed to feel something other than rage.

That you need him.

Lifting his shirt slightly you grazed your hands along his skin, his soft, scar littered skin. He deepened the kiss, his tongue slowly worked with yours causing you to moan softly. Butterflies swarmed in your stomach, your head fuzzy.

Wrapping his arms around your waist he picked you up, walking you slowly to the sofa. His footsteps seemed to echo in the now silent apartment. Sitting down he kept you straddling his hips, his hands rubbing your back under your t-shirt. You placed your hands on his shoulders, his broad firm shoulders. Instinctively you rolled your hips, feeling his hard cock beneath his jeans.

He groaned into your lips, using his hands he pushed your hips down urging you to grind on him. Breaking the kiss you threw your head back as he kissed and nipped at your neck, ‘fuck I need you’ he whispered.

‘I fucking hate you’ you retorted, still grinding on him, your panties now soaking with arousal.

‘Liar. You want me.’

‘No, I wanna fuckin punch you.’

‘Stop lying’ he moaned as he pulled off your t-shirt and bra. He gently kissed your collar bone before holding your chin, forcing you to look at him. The silence between you was deafening, both trying to read each others faces.

Reigniting the kiss you pulled at his shirt, removing it he threw it behind him as he placed you on your back. He made fast work of your jeans before sliding a finger against your core. ‘Oh fuck’ he whimpered as he bit his lip. ‘Take em off’ you ordered arching your back.

Pulling them off he then made fast work of his own. You pulled him back into a kiss, this time it was desperate, sloppy. Lining himself up he pushed into you, ‘fuck’ you moaned breathlessly. As he began to move you wrapped your legs around him holding him against you. He buried his face in your neck, ‘feels so good baby’ he whispered.

Staining your skin with kisses your bodies moved together, each thrust of his cock filled you as his tip grazed that spot. You could feel his muscles tense with each movement, how each one rippled beneath his skin as he fucked you. Sweat began to gather between your bodies, your arousal dripping from your stretched out cunt.

‘Harder’ you panted, ‘harder … fuck.’ He upped his pace, slamming his cock into you, his pubic bone hitting your clit. He leant back onto his knees, holding you in place by your thighs. His fingers gripping onto you with a bruising force. You watched as he jaw fell slack, biting his lips as he hissed at the sight before him. You dropped a hand to your clit, your orgasm not coming fast enough.

‘That’s it’ he praised ‘look so good sweetheart, fuck.’ Burying your face in your arm you whimpered and moaned. ‘Don’t stop Keegan, oh god!’ Placing his forearms next to your head he dropped down, kissing your neck. ‘So fuckin beautiful’ he muttered, ‘you look so beautiful taking my cock.’ Eyes shut you smiled as you licked your lips, he always knew how to praise you.

‘M close’ you managed to say in between your moans. ‘Keep goin baby, lemme feel you.’ He cupped your jaw as he caressed his thumb over your bottom lip, urging you to lose your self. With one final strum against your clit you lost yourself. Your body seized as your cunt pulsated around him, his eyes glistened as he watched you. An expression of awe written over his features.

‘Eyes on me’ he ordered, doing as you were told you focused on him. Gripping your hips he upped his rhythm, chasing his own release. ‘Gonna fill you, gonna fill this pussy, fuuuck’ he moaned. Biting your lip you played with your breasts, tweaking your nipples, teasing him.

With a final thrust he threw his head back, releasing inside you. Hot ropes of cum lined your walls, his cock pulsated inside you as he rode out his high. He still slowly moved inside you, pushing and pulling, overstimulating you both. Torturing your aching bodies.

He placed a soft kiss on your forehead, ‘can I stay?’ His voice hopeful. Cupping his face you kissed him deeply. ‘Yes. We’ll talk properly tomorrow.’

———

Taglist (y’all showed interest on my Keegan post) - @horsdutemps @lundenloves @sarcanti @averythang @tiredmetalenthusiast @kosmokenny

[ink-n-shadow]

Still having bodyguard!Simon thoughts so just HEAR ME OUT-

Rockstar!reader has a song debuting with a popular male artist, so she has to do press with him. Interviews, red carpet appearances, a live performance, etc. It’s driving Simon crazy to see another man with his arm around her waist, holding her close, being face-to-face with her on stage - but he has to remain professional. Simon won’t crack, no matter how bad reader wants him to. Until one day, rockstar!reader is doing a slightly-spicy promo photoshoot with her male artist counterpart for the cover of their new single, and Simon’s self-control finally snaps.

It’s giving sexy, tense, angsty, flirty, juicy, dramatic L O L

I LOVE THE THOUGHTS YOU HAVE so lemme indulge in them more. what if i made it fellow rockstar!keegan o_O

ANYTHING BUT ROUTINE

𝜗𝜚 the one where bodyguard!ghost finally snaps...because of rockstar!keegan

𝜗𝜚 pairing: bodyguard!Simon "Ghost" Riley x rockstar!fem!reader, brief rockstar!keegan x rockstar!fem!reader (link to all works in this au) 𝜗𝜚 cw: mean!ghost, jealous/possessive!ghost, fighting with ghost, unedited (i'm sorry)

It was supposed to be a routine pick-up. Ghost was going to walk in, wait for you to pack up from the meeting you'd just been in with your producer about an upcoming single, and take you back to your apartment. That was supposed to be it.

But as soon as he walked in, seeing you on the leather couch of your producer's office with some burly guy's arm around your shoulders, he knew it was going to be anything but routine.

"Hey Ghost." You chirped as soon as you noticed him walking through the door, crossing your leg over your knee and sinking a bit deeper into the leather couch. "I didn't think you'd here until—"

Ghost's eyes narrowed, lingering on the way the guy looked so comfortable with you against his body. Too comfortable. He couldn't help the way his teeth ground down as his jaw tensed. "You said 2:30, dove. It's 2:30 now, yeah?"

Your eyes flitted down to the watch strapped to your wrist, letting out a grumbled curse and you nodded. "Guess it is, huh?" You giggled as you glanced over at the guy, pushing your hand against his chest as you sat up straight. "Sorry, this is Ghost by the way. He's my—"

The guy met Ghost's steeled gaze, his lips turning upward in an almost challenge smirk as he spoke. "Your infamous bodyguard, huh? Gotta say, the mask looks much more intimidating in person." The guy reached his hand out for a formal handshake. "Keegan, by the way."

Ghost didn't move to shake Keegan's hand, instead offering him the barest nod he could muster before moving his eyes back to you. "We've gotta go. You're on a tight schedule."

"Oh c'mon, Ghost. Not like I haven't been late before." You groaned as you leaned back against the leather couch, sulking a bit under his hard gaze. "You don't even wanna hear the first demo track?"

Oh, this was the artist you were collaborating with. Ghost remembered you rambling on about Keegan, talking about how big of a deal it was that a star of his caliber was wanting to collaborate with a lesser-known artist like you. It was a dream come true for you—but for Ghost, it was his worst fucking nightmare.

Instead of indulging in your offer, Ghost moved wordlessly to scoop your purse up from the floor, holding the straps in a vice grip in his palm as he strode back toward the door. "Now, dove."

Keegan snorted a bit as he watched you get up, an apologetic smile on your face as you went to pick up your phone from the coffee table. "He always this cold? Don't know how you put up with it. If my bodyguard talked to me like that, I'd have 'em on the street before they could finish talking."

"Trust me—this is Ghost being nice." You leaned down to give Keegan a quick hug, arms looping around his neck and one of his falling around your waist. "Thanks for handling the mixing and stuff—let me know when you get the demo done?" The hair on the back of your neck prickled, knowing that Ghost was probably staring daggers at you.

"Course, babe. Shouldn't take me and my team that long, so keep your phone on you, yeah?" Keegan pulled away and gave your waist a gentle pat, gesturing to the door. "Better go before he drags you outta here."

You smiled apologetically once more, giving Keegan one last nod before you turned towards the door. The scowl on your face was heavy, eyes flitting angrily to meet Ghost's as you brushed past him and out of the door he was holding open for you.

You were storming halfway down the hallway when Ghost caught up with you easily. "What's got you steamin', dove? The fuck did I do?"

Spinning around on the heel of your sneaker, you turned to face Ghost, hands pushing against his chest rather weakly as you let out an annoyed scoff. "Are you kidding me, Ghost? You just completely embarrassed me in there—in front of Keegan for fuck's sake! You gotta be an asshole to every fucking guy I interact with?"

Ghost took the weak shove and barely moved, lips twitching under the fabric of his mask before he swallowed down the smirk that itched to be on his lips. He liked when you were angry.

"Don't know what you're talkin' about. You seemed pretty cozy with 'em when I got there—surely he won't hold it against you." Ghost's words sounded bitter, like they left a bad taste in his mouth and he was desperate to spit them off of his tongue. "It's not my fault you have an interview in an hour—blame your fuckin' manager for scheduling things when you'd rather be foolin' around with some rockstar."

You stood there, mouth agape and eyes narrowed as your fists balled angrily at your sides. "Is that what this is about? You're fucking jealous of Keegan or something? This is a new low—even for you, Ghost." You rolled your eyes as you continued storming down the hall, giving Ghost no choice but to follow behind you.

There was a tense silence as you made your way to the car waiting outside. You didn't even let Ghost open the back passenger door for you as you normally would, instead opting to throw it open yourself and crawl inside to the seat farthest away. Ghost didn't speak until the car began moving, the privacy partition raised up and leaving you two practically alone.

"It's not jealousy. My job is to protect you, and if that means from some guy ogling you with his arm around you, then so fuckin' be it." Ghost stated matter-of-factly, his voice cold and bitter as he stared out of the window next to him.

You snorted out an angry laugh, shaking your head as you glowered over at him from across the backseat. "Right—'cuz Keegan is so dangerous that I need you to come rescue me. Seriously, Ghost. Just fuck off 'till you figure your shit out, alright?"

The topic didn't come up between you two again for a week or two—but it was still palpable. You two hardly spoke to one another, hardly wanted to breathe the same air as the other. But he was your bodyguard, and you were his charge. You had to be around one another.

It only came up when Ghost and you were once again in the backseat of your car, heading to a photoshoot to shoot the cover of your upcoming single with Keegan. You were still sitting on opposite ends of the backseat, your elbow perched on the door's armrest and your chin digging into the palm of your hand.

"He's gonna be there." You said coldly, flicking your gaze over to Ghost sitting silently beside you. "So don't embarrass me again."

He didn't breathe a word, just giving you a bitter scoff before nodding curtly.

Ghost didn't even look at you until you made it to the photoshoot location, watching from the shadows behind the camera as you came out from the dressing room with Keegan. You two were laughing about something together, and Ghost immediately clocked the hand you rested on Keegan's forearm as you walked.

You were dressed in a flowing white gown, hair done up and pinned in ringlet curls around your face. Your usual dark sultry makeup was replaced by something softer, the apples of your cheeks a rosy pink and your usual red lipstick replaced by a peachy gloss. You looked ethereal, and Ghost couldn't help the way his eyes ravished your look.

Keegan was the opposite, dressed in an all-black three piece suit with cold silver jewelry and chains adorning his skin. His dark brown hair was slick with pomade and pushed up away from his icy eyes, the usual stud punched through his lip replaced by a sleek silver ring.

"You know how much I hate these photoshoots?" Keegan told you as he let the photographer put him in the position they needed, knees spread and back straight as he sat on an all-black throne.

You laughed softly as you nodded in agreement, following the photographer's instructions and settling yourself on one of Keegan's strong thighs. "You and me both. At least you look cool—I look like a fuckin' church girl right now."

Your eyes flicked up to meet Ghost's in the very back of the room, cheeks tinging even more pink as you noticed the way he was looking at you. It wasn't angry like it had been for a week now—it was hungry, like you were the prey and him the predator. It made knots tie themselves in your gut.

The feeling of Keegan's hand splaying across your stomach brought you back into the moment, letting out a shuddering breath as you shifted yourself into place. "You alright, kid? Spacing off even before the camera starts clicking."

"Sorry—just...got in my own head a bit." It wasn't a complete lie, but Keegan didn't have to know what had pushed you inside of yourself, didn't have to know that the way Ghost was staring at you like a man starved was the reason you were spacing out.

The photoshoot went on smoothly, the photographer snapping a few photos and maneuvering the pose ever so slightly. With each click of the camera, the photographer placed Keegan's hand higher and higher with each shot, the final pose eventually becoming Keegan's tattooed fingers splayed out on my throat.

Keegan was ever the gentleman he was, making sure you were comfortable and okay with the way things were going. All the while, Ghost remained a haunting figure both in the back of the room and the back of your head. No matter where you looked, your eyes always seemed to magnetize back to him.

You didn’t see Ghost again until you were back in the dressing room of the photography studio, makeup wipe in hand and scrubbing off the pretty makeup. You heard the door open and close behind you, but you didn’t turn around. “If you’re in here to say something snarky about today, save it, Ghost.” You mumbled softly, focusing on wiping the remaining gloss from your lips.

Ghost remained silent, his boots clacking against the linoleum floors as he stalked towards you. His arm stretched out, taking the makeup wipe from your hand and discarding it as he turned you to face him. This time, however, your eyes locked on the way his balaclava was pushed up under his nose to reveal only his lips, pink and puffed out as his tongue ran over them. You could see a glint of metal punched into the muscle of his tongue.

���Y’wanna know somethin’, dove?” Ghost’s voice was a gravelly whisper, rumbling deep inside of his chest as he held your body between his and the vanity you were standing in front of. “You were right. Maybe I was a little jealous—hell, still am, if m'being honest.”

You were breathless, eyes wide and lashes fluttering as your brain scrambled to catch up to the words coming from his mouth. You were too busy staring directly at his mouth, the closet you’ve gotten to ever seeing Ghost’s real appearance, your heart thundering in your chest as the sound of blood rushing filled your ears. “Why?” Your question was almost inaudible, the heavy breathing coming from both of your nostrils almost drowning it out entirely.

Ghost hummed softly, leaning down ever so slowly and making the bunched up fabric under his nose brush against yours. “Maybe I don’t like seein’ you with another guy. Y’know how much I wanted to fucking drag you off of that asshole’s lap today? To pull his hand off of your stomach, your chest, your throat? To rip him to fuckin’ pieces?”

Your chest heaved with ragged breaths, body fighting to keep itself from melting into a puddle on the floor below. You couldn’t help but grip onto the collar of Ghost’s shirt, eyes fluttering closed as his words washed over you like a tidal wave. “Ghost…”

“Tell me to stop.” Ghost hissed in your ear, his gloved hands moving from your shoulders and down your arms before finally landing with an almost bruising grip on your waist. The white fabric of your flowing gown bunched between his fingers. “You know how wrong this is? How much trouble I would be in for this? You’re my client. I shouldn’t want you this fuckin’ badly, dove.”

Your body squirmed in Ghost’s grasp, skin eager to feel him pressed up against you and snarling words into your ear. It was maddening in the best way possible. You couldn’t stop yourself. “Don’t stop, Ghost.” It was breathy and needy as it fell from your lips, but the groan it pulled from Ghost’s chest made it that much more powerful.

“Fuckin’ hell—you’re going to be the death of me, dove.”

©️ ink-n-shadow 2024

do not copy, plagiarize, steal, borrow, or repost any of my work without my expressed permission

[nevadancitizen]

-> CH. 2: SPY RINGS AND MOLEHILLS

synopsis: you find a mole, and are all-too-happy to show off your skills to keegan and kick.

word count: 1.9k

ships: Keegan Russ/Reader, Ghosts team & Reader

notes: sorry for long gap between chapters (>A<) also warning for canon-typical violence this chapter

WHY DOES EVIL WEAR A FACE SO FAMILIAR? MASTERLIST

You and Logan stand, side-by-side, behind Rorke as he paces, his hands clasped behind his back as he looks at the ground. 

Before him is Fuerza de Asalto Resol – Strike Force Resol. (Resol doesn’t have a direct translation into English, but it more or less describes the glare of the sun off a reflective surface. And that’s what you and Logan and the rest of this strike force are – reflections of Ghosts. Twisted and sick reflections that hate what they’re reflecting, but reflections nonetheless.)

And it’s all of Fuerza de Asalto Resol. All the way from the top lieutenant to the most inconsequential info jockey.

“I have been made aware of a threat,” Rorke starts, still pacing. “Someone in here has been forking over information to America.”

Your eyes rake over the people that are supposed to be on your side. Everyone has a tell – whether it’s that they’re nervous, lying, or anything else. Body language tells you what the lips don’t.

You reach out and brush your finger against Logan’s glove. His hand twitches, then he moves the back of his hand against yours with more purpose to let you know he’s listening. You grab his hand and extend his forefinger, using it to point at a no-name corporal whose eyes are flitting across Rorke’s face. He doesn’t portray any nervousness otherwise, but you can tell. You’ve been trained to tell. 

Logan takes his hand away from yours and knocks his knuckles against yours lightly in acknowledgement. He’s seeing things from your eyes, and he understands it completely. 

You continue to stand side-by-side with Logan for the remainder of Rorke’s spiel, more like intimidating guard dogs than terriers you are – the ones that hunt down mole burrows. Though you both could still be mastiffs. It was just a matter of context and urgency. 

When Rorke eventually finishes, Fuerza de Asalto Resol starts to file out of the room. You wait by the doorframe and catch the corporal’s wrist just as he’s about to leave.

“We need to talk,” you say.

He swallows, his eyes flitting between you and Logan. Another tell of nervousness. He nods.

What a weak excuse for a dog.

Keegan rocks in his wheely chair, picking at his nails and flicking out the muck from underneath them. The room is quiet aside from the whiny squeak of the chair and the taps of Kick’s fingers against his keyboard. 

There’s nothing to do. Keegan had pushed for an expedition out to The Divide when the Ghosts had gotten wind of you and Logan going out there, but was shut down many times over. Alas – he’s just a sergeant. And as much as he had insisted, he was still just a sergeant.

So Keegan’s stuck here with Kick, in some out-of-the-way briefing room, playing with his hands –

There’s a sudden sound, and Kick jolts and hits the underside of his desk with his knee. Keegan’s head snaps up.

The screen of Kick’s laptop flickers, and an image slowly fades in. It’s… a live feed of some sort. 

Firstly, you look… different from when Keegan saw you last. Obviously he had seen you after you had become a victim of proselytization, but never this close, not with this amount of detail. You’re dicking around with the camera, trying to get it to focus or something like that. Keegan can’t rightly bring himself to care at this moment.

All he really cares about is how you’ve changed. How a scar carves into your hairline, leaving a thick line of raised skin in its wake. How your lower lip is permanently split at one of the corners, dragging one side of your mouth into a fake frown. How one of your eyelids droops lower than the other because of some physical trauma Keegan probably can’t even bring himself to imagine being inflicted upon you. 

(And how Keegan wishes, more than anything, that he was there to kiss the scars away. No, he couldn’t kiss away the mental trauma or the physical reminders that it occurred, but he… Can you forgive him for just wanting – needing – an excuse to kiss a lover? His lover? (Ex-lover.))

Keegan’s line of thought is broken when you suddenly smile, wide and crooked. It’s not the soft, loving smile he’s used to: it’s something crazed and twisted. 

You prop up the camera on something that provides a wide-shot view of the room you’re in – a table or chair, maybe. You adjust the camera, still with that smile, and step back. 

A man, in an undershirt and compression shorts, is tied to a chair, his arms bound behind him and his legs tied to the legs of the chair. His eyes are wide with fear and his breath is labored.

“We found your friend, Kick,” you say. You take the back of the chair and shake it, jerking the man around. “Rats tend to turn up when you lay out glue traps.”

���What the fuck?” Kick snaps. 

But it doesn’t really seem like you can hear Kick, nor do you really care to. You circle behind the man and prop your chin on his shoulder. 

“That’s the thing with us Americans, isn’t it?” Your eyes flick to the camera lens, then away. “We take. We take and take and you’ve seduced a man of the Federation with your appetite.”

You inhale deeply, slowly, and dig your fingernails into the bound man’s arms, causing him to grunt and grit his teeth. You continue, your eyes flitting about the room. “There’s this story from the Bible. Something… something about Christ finding one of his temples polluted by money-changers and beasts. But… did he ask them to leave? Did he cry? Did he just walk away?” 

Your eyes find the camera again. “No. He drove them out. He…” You exhale heavily and tighten your grip on the man’s arms. “He found them. And he made his temple peaceful again.”

Keegan can only watch as the man groans and small trickles of blood start to run down his arms. The screen makes it seem so far away, but he can swear he can smell the sweat that beads your brow, almost taste the blood you’re spilling.

“Are you watching?” You spit. “I want you to watch as we cut your communications. We found your rat in San Jose de las Lajas… just south of Havana. He was so close to home. So close to America. I wonder how many others are out there? Or just in Cuba alone.”

Your hand flies to the man’s throat, your bloody fingernails digging into his skin. You grit out, “I said, “I wonder how many others are out there?””

“No sé!” The man says. “I don’t know!”

“I find that hard to believe,” you hiss into his ear. “A spy ring doesn’t just consist of one spy. At least do your country one last service and tell us where they are – who they are.”

“But I don’t know!” The man insists. His face twists as he tries to strain and get his neck out of your talon-like grip. “I really don’t.”

You sigh, exaggerated and condescending. “Tell me, corporal. Do you enjoy killing?”

The man shakes his head the best he can with your hand almost crushing his throat. 

“Do you think I enjoy killing?”

Again, the same.

“You’re right,” you say. “But, when done with a purpose, killing is a chore, just like any other. Don’t you agree?”

“S-sí,” the man stutters out. “A chore, yes.”

“So you wouldn’t mind if I just…” The hand that was still on his arm drops to his belly. You drag your fingernails over his shirt, surely digging into the skin underneath. Your nails leave a smear of blood in their wake. “Because it’s just a chore. Right?”

“But I’m not!” The man insists. “I’m not a spy! I swear, on my mother, on my daughter.”

“Those are some fairly innocent women to swear your loyalty on,” you say. Your eyes find the camera.

Don’t do it, Keegan thinks to himself, as if trying to project his thoughts to you. (You used to be able to read him so well.) Don’t fucking do it.

You bring out a small mobile phone and walk off screen. The man’s eyes follow you, his breathing still sort-of quick and panicked. 

Keegan and Kick exchange a glance. Neither can bring themselves to speak – to tell the other what they think you’re going to do. 

You come back a few minutes later, the phone cradled to your ear. (Keegan exhales heavily when he sees that you don’t have the actual child.) You mumble Spanish into the receiver, then hold the phone to the man’s ear. “Josefina wants to talk to her papí.”

The man stiffens and leans into the phone’s speaker. “No… no. Por favor, Josefina… por favor, cálmate. Estoy bien. Papí está bien. No escuches a la persona mala. Josefina, por favor…”

Keegan can just barely hear a voice on the other end of the line. It’s high-pitched and quick and very obviously panicked. He can pick up snippets – “Papí,” “por favor,” and sniffling sobs.

“Fucking child.” You swipe the phone away from the man’s ear and shout Spanish down the line before hanging up and throwing it onto whatever’s propping the camera up.

When you turn back to the man, it’s with a backhand across his face. He reels, his face screwed up in pain and his teeth gritted. He doesn’t give much of a reaction besides that.

And it’s like that sets off a switch within you. You grunt and bring your hand across his face again, forehand this time. People fall when pushed by your hand – so why isn’t he falling?

At least, that’s what Keegan thinks you’re thinking as you beat the shit out of this man. Your hand is made into a fist and your fist is made into a weapon. And that weapon was quickly turning bloody and bruised. The only sound is you and the man grunting and the sound your fist makes on impact.

After a few minutes, you pull away, cradling your hand, huffing and panting. The man is infinitely worse. His nose is broken in several places, there’s a gash beneath his eye, and his bottom lip is swollen and bleeding.

You circle behind the man and prop your chin on his shoulder again. That twisted smile returns to your face. “Your rat is resilient, Kick. I’ll give him that.”

Your hands go down to his arms and rub over the crescent-shaped scabs forming there. The man winces. 

“You don’t know who you’re dealing with,” you say, your voice a hissing whisper. “I will find your trained dogs. And I will kill them.”

You round the man and pick up the camera, quickly cutting the connection. Kick’s screen goes static, then his laptop crashes and restarts. 

He turns to Keegan. “What the fuck was that?”

Keegan’s still staring at the screen. You were so close. It’s like he could’ve reached out and touched you if he tried hard enough. 

But that’s not you. That’s just someone who looks like you – someone wearing your skin and speaking with your voice. He has to tell himself over and over that you’re not you. You’re not you. You’re not you. You’re not –

Kick grabs Keegan’s arm. His head snaps to look at Kick. “You okay?”

Keegan inhales sharply and nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Just… shaken up, is all.”

But he’s not fine. That much is fucking obvious. You’re not you.

[coqvttes]

Hiiii! Congratulations!!! For the picnic event could I request Fairy Cakes for Keegan Russ and either reading together or people watching, which ever one you like!!! Thank you!!!! 🩵🥰🫶🏻

𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐓 hey, thank you for ur rq! yess, ofc u can, darlin! time for some fluffy keegannnn i hope u like it! :) xx

sfw : gn!reader, fluff.

"keegan! you're not paying attention!" his gaze snaps back down on you upon hearing your complaint, and a cheeky smile adorns his features.

you look up at him from your place as you lay on his lap, legs lying flat on the grass as the sun peeks through the leaves of the big oak tree that keegan leans against.

"sorry, babe, i'm listening," he says, tucking the strand of hair that was bothering you behind your ear. you roll your eyes and continue reading the passage from the novel in your hands.

after a few minutes, you look up at keegan again; his attention is focused entirely on something else.

"keegan! you're doing it again, why won't you pay attention to me?" you swat his shoulder playfully, and he chuckles, leaning down to kiss your forehead as if to apologize.

"what were you looking at?" 

he points to a young couple about ten meters away from you, sitting on a picnic blanket, laughing and enjoying the summer breeze just as you two are.

"first date? or you think they're a couple?"

"hmm... i think it's their first date, he wouldn't be dressed so nicely if they're already a thing." he chuckles, and his grip on your hand tightens when he sees the smile on your face as you observe the people around you.

"what about...them?" 

he looks over to where you point, and he grins fondly upon seeing an old couple sharing some wine and a sandwich as they sit on an old wooden bench by the pond.

"that's us in 40 years," a rosy blush spreads across your cheeks as you giggle at his words. your hands, letting go of the book to cup his cheek above you.

"i love that!"

 keegan smiles as he gazes down at you, and he realizes that he lives for moments like this.

moments when he can let his guard down. moments when he can laugh and smile with you. moments when he can feel nothing but love. love for you.

[aoioozora]

Keegan: [putting on trousers] Logan: [bursts through the door] Keegan Package Russ! Keegan:

[bxdbvnni]

Can i request a smut with Keegan talking dirty to the reader? 💚💚

Thank you for the request. :3

Pairings: Keegan P. Russ x GN reader

Tags: Smut, NSFW, cussing, edging, semi-public sex, pinning, aftercare, dirty talk

Do not repost my story elsewhere, thank you!

!! Minors DNI !!

Keegan had you pinned on your stomach on top of his desk. Both of your clothes were laying forgotten somewhere while he relentlessly pounded into you from behind. Your moans could probably be heard across the hallway for anyone that passed by, but Keegan couldn't care less.

You cover your mouth in an attempt to mute yourself from further embarrassment. "Don't." Keegan pulls your arm behind your back as he slams into your sweet spot, making you moan even louder.

"That's right, scream my name." he pants. "Fuck."

You hit your forehead down on the desk while groaning and mewling his name. "Please..." you beg for everything and nothing at the same time.

Keegan speeds up his pounding and you can feel your nerves tighten in a delicious coil and your breathing speed up aswell. Just when you're about to reach your climax, Keegan pulls out which makes you whine in protest. "No! Please-"

Keegan didn't normally talk that much during duty, but whenever you two were alone, you were truly blessed with hearing his gorgeous fucking voice as he spoke to you.

He grabs you and turns you around so that you lay on your back while he wraps your legs around his hips. "Fuck. Look at you, sweetheart. You're so flushed and gorgeous for me. Just for me. Yeah?" Keegan says as he teases your hole with the tip of his cock.

"Mmm! Yes, yes, yes... Just for you." you bite your lower lip.

"You want this? Want my rock-hard dick in your tight lil hole?" he stare at you with a sultry gaze as he slaps his dick on your hole.

You nod rapidly and grab at his arm and attempt to move yourself closer to his dick.

Keegan chuckles lowly. "What's that? Can't hear you, love. I need you to use your pretty lil mouth."

"Tell me exactly what you want from me." he purrs.

You look up at Keegan with a doe look. "Please, Keegan. Fuck me, now."

Keegan chuckles amused. "Direct to the point." he slowly slips the tip of his cock inside you. "Mm... I'll give just what you want, sweet lil thing." he murmurs softly.

"Brace yourself, love." he slams into you which earns you a loud moan. Keegan licks his lower lip and grabs your hands to keep them above your head while he fucks you earnestly now.

"Fuckfuckfuck-" you whisper almost as a prayer. "Please don't stop-"

"Don't plan on it... Gonna fuck you 'til you cream on my dick-" he gives your neck a few pecks before continuing, "And then I'll cum and fill you up inside."

"What'dya say to that, sweetheart?" he grunts as he slams into you. you only nod as your brain has turned into mush at hearing his beautiful voice and promise. "Fucking say it, love." he almost growls.

"Yes-" you pant. "Yes, yes-" you say as you are about to cum on him. "Keegan!" you shout while your greedy walls clench all around Keegan's cock.

"Cum on me." Keegan grunts.

"Fucking." SLAM. "CUM" SLAM. "ON" SLAM. "ME." SLAM. he growls.

Your voice almost turns hoarse as you moan out loud while tightening your legs around Keegan's hips as you cum around him. Keegan releases inside of you soon after with a sensitive and small giggle almost. "Fuck... You're incredible." he pants and leans down to kiss your lips tenderly.

Your mind was completely gone as you lay there with Keegan on top of you for a moment while you both catch your breaths.

"You alright, kid?" he releases your wrists and strokes your cheek gently.

"I'm..." you pant. "Great. Very good." you say as you give Keegan a completely fuck-faced smile which earns you a chuckle from him.

"I'm glad.. Let me help." he kisses your cheek and cleans you up with his shirt and then helps you put your clothes on. He takes the liberty to carry you back to his quarters.

[eulalized]

washing the dishes with keegan always proves to you how annoying he can get—however you look at it and try to deny it, you like it. “you have to stop doing that.”

taking the washed plate from your offering hands, he says, “stop doing what?” there are a few squeaks as he wipes down the droplets of water on the ceramic with a clean cloth.

“that.” you grasp a plate from the rickety pile of soapy dishes, the bubbles running down the sink and into the drain as you wash off the dish soap. passing it to him, you glance at him from the corner of your eye as he takes it after a beat. “looking at me.”

he lets out a quick, sharp exhale that comes across as a snort, out of wry disbelief or pure ludicrousness—or just something he’d find funny, that usually is the case with keegan. “am i not allowed to look at you?” he says with a smile beneath his mask that you can tell from his eyes is snarky enough that you want to hose it away. you convince yourself not to while grabbing a bowl from the pile of soapy dishes and run it over water.

“no.” your answer sounds incomplete. with how your hands stop moving to swipe the bubbles away—letting the water flow down your hands and the bowl, thinking as you still try to find the right words, you murmur, “i mean…”

“come on,” he says, setting the current plate in his hands down gently atop the counter and reaching for the bowl in yours. “tell me,” he urges you.

you blink, waking up from the train of thought while watching him take the ceramic from your palms. you turn your head to watch him wipe down the washed bowl, the rag warbling softly. he catches a brief glimpse of your face—soon before looking back down to focus on drying the residual droplets of water. “you look at me, and you smile.”

he takes a moment, drying and shining the surface of the already clean bowl. the kitchen remains silent, aside from the hushed running water and the rag squeaking here and there. you blink, looking at him and studying his eyes, the ones focused on the ceramic. keegan looks at you from the top of his eyelashes, his neck craned downwards faintly, and you see they’re genuine. he sets down the dish on the countertop, without missing another second to add a small smile—you like to remember it and memorize the look in his eyes sometimes—he says:

“i like looking at you.”

you watch him for a second, wondering to yourself if he means what he says, you stifle a smile as you turn your head back to the sink. holding a handful of utensils and running it over water, you watch the bubbles calmly flow down the drain. he adds, the mischief clear in his voice, “even when you coerce me to help you put away the dishes.”

this time you don’t fight the smile. “it’s not coercion,” you retort, the smile wanting to grow bigger into a grin or a laugh, or something keegan would soon notice. “i didn’t coerce you, you wanted to help.” you glance at him for a split second before giving the utensils to him. “you’re so lame,” you mutter under your breath, wryly smiling to prevent yourself from bursting into laughter.

“you‘re calling me lame for helping you? wow, immature.”

“whatever…” you turn off the tap water with a smile, peering over your shoulder to watch him finish up on drying the last of the utensils, the last of the dishes.

he eyes you while smiling beneath his mask, impervious to your ‘words of flattery,’ he’d call it. “i’ll still help do the dishes with you, you know. always.” his words are comforting, soothing to hear—keegan always seems to know what to say to get you to smile.

[fleepkeep]

[spectrefyt]

Worshipper!AU? God!AU? Not sure what to call it, but the boys simp once again. Just to a more extreme degree this time around

Also, I present a shitpost doodle since there's never enough of them on this profile

[yeyinde]

after dark

Keegan P. Russ x f!Reader

⟶ WARNINGS: 18+ SMUT; P-in-V sex; female reader, female gendered anatomy; gratuitous use of kid; slight body worship; established history/relationship; canon-compliant, takes place after Sin City; minor game spoilers; mentions of death (canon-compliant); war; fluff - this is honestly just gratuitous smut and my awful attempt at fluff ⟶ WORD COUNT: 9,7k ⟶ SUMMARY: you want to see him break. ⟶ NOTES: my first foray into Keegan! this took a bit of time since i wanted to include so much, and it ended up growing a little out of hand. i might expand on this/make it into a series potentially (just small drabbles). Keegan was so fun to write for!

Keegan looks good like this. Laid out, bare; skin stained with the bites of your nails, the nips of your teeth, nestled evenly amid the smattering of battle wounds and blemishes that colour him in a rich history wrought with gunfire and calamity. (You often tell him that the two of you are kismet. He says Momus just has a sick sense of humour.)

The milky white expanse of his torso is littered with scars, and you map them with your greedy eyes, drinking each bloom of imperfection that stains his ivory skin. Finding new ones that weren't there before. 

Blades, bullets, burns, pockmarks—many from weapons you can't even begin to name, to know—all etched into sinew. Into bone. 

They mar him in a brutal smear of varicoloured hurt. A mosaic of near–death laid out like Orion, curved like the tail of Sagittarius. It's spooled, knotted, in a way that makes you think of Lyra. Of the stars you can see so clearly now without any light pollution around to smog the indigo sky above. 

The scars are healed in uneven patches; some darker, uglier than others. Raised welts, bumps. Deep indents in his skin, cutting through muscle and tissue. 

There is no sense of structure in the gashes that line his body—silver, to red, to purple, to black—and you know they were collected over time. Over years, decades, before you ever met him. Knew him. 

(The only one that looks familiar is the jagged hole on his shoulder where he stepped, stupidly, in front of a bullet for you. 

Stupid, because no one, especially him, should risk themselves for you.)

They sit, carved in flesh, as a testament to his nomadic lifestyle, one drenched in danger, death, and calamity. Shadows moulded into man. Into ruined skin and jagged bone. Deadly forces of nature hidden in the craters where the earth split into twos, threes. Triplicated ravines clogged with the rubble of was once life. Peace. Home, maybe. 

A tenuous fallacy, now. 

But they risk everything—even themselves—for it, and the proof of their commitment, the dedication to the cause, is smattered across his torso for you to see. 

The exploratory tips of your fingers, dripping reverence and featherlight, ghost over his flesh, over the blemishes that decorate his body, taking them in, feeling them. 

Some are baby–hair soft, silky sateen; they sit in thick, raised welts of scar tissue clotted over each other. Others are rougher than sandpaper, gritty like stripped lath. They feel like tree bark under your fingers. Scabs. Fresh, new. 

You wonder if he remembers each one of them—how they happened, where, by who; which ones hurt the most, and which ones took longer to heal. He might, you think. 

(It's him, after all.)

Catalogued pain organised and filed away. Locked in a safe box inside the enigma of his head, and kept there for safekeeping. 

But it's not gone, not put away. 

(It's always within reach.)

Phantoms congeal in the corners of his eyes sometimes when you happen to touch one, to reach out and grab him by the arm, or the hand, the wrist, and you see the brief flash of recognition in cut slate. A distant fog simmers up from the depths; veiled blue. A past you're barred from touching, knowing. 

It's not pretty, kid, is what he told you when you asked. Not like you. No sense ruining something like you with all that ugly. 

It was the end of the conversation. Locked away for good, and brassbound with a warning sign, rusted and aged, that read: do not enter.

So, you don't. 

But sometimes, like now, you like to take them in. To see the contrast between your blemishless skin in comparison to his. Worlds apart. A cosmic chasm of experience and life needles between you, and yet—

You brush your fingers against the marks, and have never felt closer to him, despite everything inside that tells you you're wrong. 

You place your hand flat over a cut over his breastplate, right where his heart thuds against your palm, and wonder what near–miss he escaped from that caused this. The other slides to his stomach, his muscles flexing, rippling, under your touch, and you brush your thumb over a circular hole under his solar plexus. 

You think, then, of the years you spent underground, running through the barren safehouses that dotted the landscape, only to come away with minor cuts, abrasions. The worst of them all is a small scar near your wrist where you burned your skin with cooking oil. 

You've never met the end of the blade—not until him.  

"What are you thinking about, kid?" 

His hand lifts—skin littered with small knicks and cuts, a burn on the back of his hand that almost matches yours except his was caused by a Molotov cocktail and not youthful ignorance (a world of difference, a chasm)—fingers sliding over the curve of your cheek. His slate–blue gaze is fixed, unmoving, on you. 

It was those eyes—cenote blue—that drew you to him in the first place. Teal in tenebrous. They haunted you for months. Wordlessly following your every move, drinking in the expressions that flitted over your face. Taking stock of you. Measuring you. Your accomplishments. Your worth. Assets.

Survivability.

("Pretty low," Merrick says, plain and brutal, and the rawness of it rumbled through the hollow crevasse you found yourself in. Low. Lower than low. So low it was almost a miracle you survived as long as you had.)

Keegan said nothing at the time. He stood back, hand gripping the butt of the rifle, eyes fixed on you, unwavering. Unforgiving. 

It was easy to take his silence as cold. Distant. Bundled up in thick layers of muskeg, in icy separation. 

You did—at first. 

An active war zone was not a place for a civilian. Merrick told you as much when he found you, taking refuge in a dilapidated home split in two, and welding only a metal bat you'd grabbed on your travels. Your only protection against an enemy that has no qualms in murdering innocents. That uses guns and heavy artillery to decimate the soldiers, the allies who jumped oceans to fight alongside the troops. 

You lit a lantern one night after settling down in a broken home, and woke up to the barrel of a gun pressed to your temple. 

It was Ajax who saved you. 

"Hey, uh. You're American, right? What are you doing in a place like this?" 

You didn't trust them. 

Didn't trust anyone. 

You'd spent too long cutting through the thickets of the surrounding overgrowth, hopping from one ramshackle house to another to lay low, to hide from the people who wandered past, looking for survivors, hostages, to give into that part of yourself that longed for people. For normalcy. The road jaded you a little. Isolated you. 

It was safer. 

The people you stumbled across either tried to pick you bare, taking the meagre belongings you scrounged together until there was nothing left but the thin skin covering your body, and your will to live. 

Or they tried to kill you. To use you. 

Hostages. Civilians used against the threadbare resistance. Their safe return in exchange for more land, for surrender. 

So, you hid. Got good at it, too. 

("Too fuckin' good," Merrick hissed, shaking his head. 

The only one who was ever able to spot you was Riley. Keegan, sometimes, through the lens of his rifle.)

When they found you, you tried to run, to fight. Enemies. All of them. 

It was Ajax who stopped you, who talked you off the ledge. 

"Come on, we're not gonna hurt you."

"Heard those words before."

"How long you been out here for, anyway?"

"When did ODIN destroy New York?"

"Jesus, kid."

"Stupid," Merrick said. "That's what you are, Cali. Stupid as hell." 

And Keegan—

Said nothing. Nothing. 

He doesn't like you, was your first thought when it all added up, stacked together. The avoidance, the distance. He wasn't cold, but he didn't try to get close to you, to get to know you. He just—

Watched. Waiting, you thought, a touch bitter, for you to die. Like they all expected you to when you said you weren't going to the safe zone. That you were staying, and you were looking for them—your brother, your father. 

Then—

Stay behind me, always, kid. You got that? 

If you can't see my back, you wandered too far. 

Eat. You need it more than I do. 

Watch your step. You'll fall into a crevasse if you're not careful, kid. 

The second: he likes you too much. 

And now—

Your hips flex. A slow, teasing roll against his pelvis, and it's that indelible sight of sky blue eyes shuttering out of view when his lids lower, lashes fluttering, that nearly sets you on fire. 

The press of his cock makes your nails dig into the constellation of scars on his chest, clinging to him as licks of pleasure flicker up your spine. Nerves smouldering at the stretch, the feel of him seated so deeply within you. 

"Thinking about you," you murmur, breathless. Raw. 

You wonder if he remembers the rainy days in San Francisco, the sunrise in Los Angeles, huddled under the waterlogged crater of what once was Pacific Avenue and Venice Boulevard with the same touch of halcyon fondness as you do. 

You think, then, of the fusillade following you in the ruined husks of the streets, enemies on every corner, of the six-day hike between the cities to reconvene with the others, lost somewhere in the decimated coast. 

A little part of you still hopes he does despite the stress, the tension, the danger; the separation, the distance, that cracks between you, louder than a thunderclap. 

That he thinks back on that time when it was just you and him, and no food, no shelter, and feels something more than the gritty reality of everything falling apart around you. 

Of death, and the stench of rot, and decay, and the overgrowth of vegetation that sometimes felt like it was trying to reclaim you along with its land. The vines that curled around your ankles when you idled, or slept—shackles that refused to let go. Gunshots in the night. Predators roaming wild and free in what once was a metropolis. 

Then, softer, you add:

"Always." 

You speak it reverently, as if the word, the sincerity in your voice alone was enough to somehow shade the gossamer of calamity and horror you faced together into something pink, something roseate. Something fond, and wonderful, and good despite all of the ugly and the bad that stacks up, deeper than the hole punched through San Diego.

(Down so deep you sometimes think you can see the eerie glow of molten rock below.)

Keegan says nothing, gives nothing away, but you catch something in his gaze shift, relent.

Another inch off the thick veneer that keeps him from falling into you fully, that keeps him from letting you in. 

It's the slow erosion of his defences, the ones that make him say, yeah, kid, whatever you say when you bring up the smouldering ruins of Death Valley, when you slipped your finger in the cut of his mask, and tugged it down below his chin. Your nail caught on the bridge of his nose, but he didn't flinch at the thin white line you left behind, the sting. He didn't move. Didn't blink. 

Didn't push you away. 

He let you. Let you press your sun-chapped lips to his for the first time with nothing more than an easy, kid—don't start something you can't finish before he gives in. Kissed you against the grainy sand that scorched your skin. 

You used to think he was cold. Unfeeling. 

But now—

Shadows dance over his face when the clouds drift over the milky moon hung in the indigo aether, but you catch the rubicund smear over the bridge of his nose when they part. Pretty pink dusted in soot. An ethereal chiaroscuro etched into his flesh. 

You feel his chest shudder, expanding with his rippling inhale. 

—You know that, sometimes, he just feels too much. 

You hitch your hips again just to watch him flinch beneath you. The breath stutters out of his chest, lips parting on a grunt when you grind over him. The pinched knot between his brow is stained with bliss, and deep like the crevasses ripped through the earth. 

The hand on your cheek jerks, tenses. His fingers curl around the back of your skull as his eyes crack open once more when you settle. Heavy lidded, stained the residuum of soot and grease paint the lukewarm water wasn't able to scour off. 

You meet his cobalt stare, and feel the breath catch in your throat. 

Keegan looks good like this. Laid out, bare; skin stained with the bites of your nails, the nips of your teeth, nestled evenly amid the smattering of battle wounds and blemishes that colour him in a rich history wrought with gunfire and calamity.  

When you whisper this to him, his hips jerk again, flexing, under yours. 

"Fuck, kid. Don't go starting something you can't finish."

His words nudge something inside of you, and the slow simmer of competition roils through your chest. 

"Can't finish, huh?" You murmur, and keep your eyes fixed on his as you lift your hips. The drag of his hardened cock sliding against your walls has pleasure liquifying your core. 

When it's just the tip you clench around, you pause, a small smirk curling over your lips. You'll make him break. Make him eat those words. 

But Keegan can read you like an open book. 

His hand lifts from your hip bone, sliding up the flesh of your torso until his fingers are perched in the gaps between your ribs, holding you steady. 

"Easy now, kid," he whispers the words low, voice breathless, humid. "Don't bite off more than you chew."

In response, you sink down an inch. 

It makes him choke a little. A wet noise spills out from his mouth, teeth flashing when they burrow into the plush give of his full, pink lips. The tendons in his neck strain, pulse throbbing in tandem with your heartbeat. Linked, you think, a little delirious, even like this. 

(You often tell him that the two of you are kismet.

He says Momus just has a sick sense of humour.)

His fingers tighten on your ribs. The other hand falls, palm swallowing your breast, fingers digging into the flesh once before sliding down, pinching your nipple between his calloused thumb and forefinger. It sends shocks of pleasure ricocheting down your spine, and you arch into his grasp, eyes dropping. 

"That feels good—"

"Yeah?" He husks, lips curling into a rare smile, a grin. "Like that, huh, kid?"

The raw timbre of his voice coils over your flesh, and you shudder at the liquor-rich sound, eyes blinking open to drink him in. 

The spark of pleasure that glimmers over his expression, eyes dark, eclipsed, and saturated in bliss, makes something coil low inside of your belly. A molten heat that leaks into your bloodstream until it bubbles, froths. 

Keegan is a slow burn. A steady crescendo of pleasure that builds and builds in evenly spaced increments until your head is molasses-thick from the endorphins that saturate your synapses. 

Keegan is always so giving, so quiet with his affection; picturesque stoicism even when he has you bent over, battering his cock into you as you lose it amid the unrelenting waves of euphoria that bloom inside of you, singing hymns in his name, and only just lucid enough to round the vowels out. He rides you through it all without cracking. Without rupturing from the pleasure that thickens the air between you until it's syrupy and heady with the scent of sex. 

And it's good. Always. 

You love the way he handles you; love the way he splits you apart atom by atom until you're an impending explosion, leaking bliss into the warmth of his mouth when you breathe his name. Raw, exposed. Bare and flayed by his scorching hands, and hungry lips. 

Keegan touches you with the same delicacy as he does the rifles in his arsenal. A finely tuned weapon, honed and perfected in his hands. He drags only the best out of you, and knows where to press, to nip. He knows your body like he knows the inner workings of each gun he carries. 

He's adroit in combat, and it bleeds over into the soft, plush give of your body beneath him. 

It's often thoughtless—done purely on muscle memory, and instinct alone. A primal switch in the back of his head he commands at will, one now grounded and circuited into making you tremble, gasp, and moan his name the way you know he likes best. 

Keegan leeches his own release from the aftershocks of your pleasure, pounding desperately into you as you clench around him, back arched and toes curled. He fucks you through the remnants of your climax until his own takes hold, and spits his bliss into your body, groaning low in your ear. 

But everything—everything—is for you. 

He takes where he can as he fractures you into pieces, into fragments of yourself. Crumbling in ecstasy under his touch. Broken, shattered. Rendered into a trembling mess of pulp beneath the bulk of his body.

He's a lesson in patience, in tenacity. 

Usually.

But now—

You set the pace. Control the motions. 

(And you want to see him break in the same splintered pieces he leaves you in.)

"Just sit back, and let me make you feel good."

He draws a sharp breath, eyes fluttering, widening slightly at your base command. 

Something gnarls over his exposed face, a frisson of affection, and softer than anything you'd ever seen before. 

It's rare you get to see him so bare, so open. 

"You do," he rasps, words sticking between his teeth. "More than you know."

He swallows thick, eyes skirting away from you as if to gather himself together, to calm the racing of his pulse that beats against the pale skin of his throat. 

Comfort is taken in composure, in distance, and you can see him grasp for it, reaching for that same phlegmatic control even now. 

You don't let him find it. Won't. 

You take a quick breath to steady yourself, fingers sliding down his damp chest, nestling in the messy smear of hair that sticks to his skin, grainy and gritty from salt and dirt, and then you drop. 

The blunt head of his cock bludgeons into a fleshy spot behind your navel that has your ears ringing, head tipping back in pleasure. It's good—so, so good—and you can't stop the whine of his name, broken and fraying at the edges, when you sink down to the base, swallowing him whole in the right clutch of your cunt.

White noise, static, flashes behind your eyelids, catching in the pale moonlight. A slurry of soporific pleasure spools inside your head, saturated with bliss, and edging into that indelible equinox of pleasure and pain when his head kisses the seal of your womb. It flexes against your mettle, pushing the limits of what you can reasonably take, but you grit your teeth against the strain, and breathe. 

You won't break first. 

Not when his eyes roll back a little as you shift in his lap, brow furrowed into a deep ruck of pleasure at the feel of you around. 

The overwhelming feel of him buried deep behind your navel notches into too much, and the ache of it pulses like a heartbeat in your sternum, knocking the breath from your lungs, but you hold steady amid the waves that crash over you, that threaten to consume you. To drag you under. 

White-hot pleasure lashes at your spine. Congealing inside the pit of your lower belly. A molten puddle of nirvana that steadily thickens into a coiled knot, gnarling within you. A spool of bliss, slowly unravelling under the stretch of him, the grind of his pelvis against your throbbing clit..

It thrums in your veins, your bones. Madness bleeds in at the edges; blurred lines of so good and too much too full and you find the equilibrium, the perfect zenith, when he groans your moniker, Cali, out between gnashing teeth. 

The brassy rasp of his voice centres you. Grounds you. You inhale the tang of him until your lungs begin to burn, to ache. You feel them pressed taut to your ribs where his fingers sit, nestled between the gaps of your bones. Firm, steady. 

You exhale in slow, measured increments, feeling the way he throbs against your walls, in your throat. You take it all in, all of it. Him. The firm press of his body beneath yours, thighs spread to fit him in the seam, makes you relax, ease into the press of him. The fill. 

Keegan's hands twitch. His hips lift slightly, an unconscious movement. An accidental proxysm. His ironclad resolve, the honed stillness of an expert sniper in perfect control, command, of every limb, every muscle, every movement, and breath, crumbles like papier-mache with the tight clench of your pussy around him. 

It edges into delirium, into that burning sense of conquest when he grunts, and rubs a spot inside of you that feels like heaven itself is nestled behind your belly button. 

(A fissure. A crack.)

The steadying breath he takes draws your attention back to him, to the sheen of sweat drenching his brow, the smear of charcoal he couldn't scrub away. It stains his skin permanently, now. A tattoo of battle grease, war paint, that he can't be rid of. 

(You tell yourself it isn't jealousy that congeals at the base of your throat when you see the blemish on his skin, and wish, so desperately, that you could brand him the same way. Mark him, too. 

To crawl inside the brackets between his ribs, and suffuse your atoms to his until every pump of his heart sends blood roaring through your veins.

It sits there, bitter and acrid, when you try to swallow it down, refusing to budge. 

Stupid. Stupid—)

You take it all in. The racing of his pulse, the slow, deep inhales, and the way he reaches out, struggling to control the impulse, the instinct, the want, to greedily take more and more from you. 

"Keegan," his name falls between your teeth, breaking in the middle when you roll your hips, and catch the flash of gritted teeth. 

The thin strands of sangfroid he managed to snag in his grasp are released when your voice crests over his name, cracked open and wanting, and desperate. 

It tastes of victory when he groans yours in return—not kid, not Cali, but the one you whispered to him that first night he found you in a desolate husk of what was once someone's home—and bucks into you in a stutter. 

You meet him again, pelvis kissing his until it suctions the air from your heaving lungs, and you can feel him pulsing in your sternum. A red-hot blade snug against your jugular.

The thin skin of his eyelids crinkle when he squeezes them shut against the feeling, the overwhelming pleasure, of being buried balls deep inside of you. 

Your ribs ache. His fingers burrow into the flesh that separates each rung, clinging to you, and keeping you perched on his lap as he struggles to catch his breath. 

It rips open something inside of you—something deeper and fuller than sex, than shattering his ironclad resolve—and the sight of him, chest heaving, eyes heavy and black with desire, and the soft way he crumbles in your hands, makes you think of the morning rays of the sun brushing over the broken landscape. The moments of peace in the midst of war. 

You think of him, and the tick in his jaw, the gleam in his eyes, the same shade as crushed bluebonnets, and think of kismet once more as you pant out his name. 

"Ah, fuck—," sweat drips down his brow, and you follow the droplet until it falls, soaking the jaundiced pillow below. "You keep that up, kid, and you'll be tapping out soon enough."

It drags a huff from your chest. "It was once. And you made me run through San Diego for hours before, and—"

"It was fifteen minutes. We ran a block," his hand falls from your breast, palm swallowing the side of your thigh. "You lasted five minutes on top before you begged me fuck you instead. Said you were tired."

"I was," you whine, muscles flexing when you lift off of him again. You feel the ache in your muscles already, the burn of exertion from sitting atop of him like this, knees wrenched apart to accommodate his bulk between them. "But I wanna make you feel good, Keegan."

The sharp sting of his nails catching your flesh makes you gasp. "C'mon, kid. Easy now." 

The low commands roll off of his tongue with practised ease, and you slip a little further into that inky madness that smells of fir boughs, sticky spruce sap, and ripened satsumas. You breathe him in and taste dusty pomander balls, and pinyon in the back of your throat. 

"Keegan—"

His hips lift, pushing into the soft, wet clench of your cunt. "That's it. Nice and steady."

He guides you along—a maestro stroking the keys of a piano as he plays his grand requiem. You struggle to keep up with his pace, the way he pistons into you, notching his cock into that soft, sensitive place inside that makes your eyes brim with unshed tears of bliss. 

Each deep thrust makes the head of his cock kiss the plug of your womb—just a brush, just a tease—but the burning sensation of blistering pleasure and wisps pain, of too much and too full, have you spiralling down the precipice faster than you expected. 

It's a dizzying descent, but you match his tempo as best as you can, determined to ride the torrent of ecstasy that runs down your spine in a thick, dulcified rivulet. 

Still. Still. You can't help but bask in the way he melts in your hand, rendered into malleable polymer with just a twist of your hips, a clench of your cunt. It's electrifying. Addicting.  

The high of it all brims deep in your head, blooming like a sickness that clots along the seam, noxious and heady. 

You can't stop the satisfied curl of your lips from growing, slowly and languid, when you bear down on him, taking him to the root. 

His grunt reverberates through his chest with enough of a punch to rattle your bones. 

Seeing him desperate is intoxicating. 

"What happened to your composure, Keegan?" you mewl, heading rolling back. "My big, quiet soldier is so talkative now—"

Rough palms sear the flesh of your hips when he grabs you tight in his unyielding hold, keeping you fixed on him. 

You try to move, but he tightens his grasp, refusing to let you budge. 

Frustration curls inside of your chest, and you glower down at him through glassy eyes brimming with tears. "Keegan, I wanna—"

Your words dissolve into a low keen when his hips lift again, battering into your cunt in an unrelenting wave of thrusts that force the protests from your lips. 

"Talkative, huh?" He grinds the words out from between clenched molars. "That was your goal, eh, kid? Break me?" 

He punctuates each word with a brutal cant that feels like a battering ram to your skull until the weakened bone splinters, shatters, and he punches through. 

"Kee–ah, ah, fuck—!" 

"That's it," he husks, tone liquid. His fingers spear into your flesh, tight enough to bruise your bone. "Just like that, kid. You wanna see me break? Lose control?" 

Heart in your throat, all you can do is whimper around the pulse in your esophagus, and struggle to find purchase under his unrelenting onslaught. 

His hand lifts, falls to your shoulder when he stills, keeping you locked tight to his pelvis, cock jerking inside of you. His fingers curl over the ledge, gripping bone, and then he tugs, pulls. 

You fold easily in his grasp, lowering your chest until it rests over his, sweat-slicked and warm. The scrape of your sensitive nipples over his coarse, damp chest hair makes you moan, clenching desperately around him at the sparks of pleasure roiling through you. 

When you settle over him, his hand moves, slides to the back of your skull, and wrenches you even closer to him, until your forehead meets his, and the soft bump of your nose catches on the bridge of his, right over the thin line you left on his skin. Healed, now, but you wonder if this is intentional. If it's—

Keegan breathes heavily through his open mouth, breath mixing together with yours, a humid coagulation against your lips where condensation gathers on the dip of your chin. 

He says nothing, just stares. Bare-faced, naked. Still smeared in the residuum of his battle grease, the armour he wears to keep himself hidden from the Federation, from discovery, and the freckles of black on his ivory skin look like an inverted night; the endless yawn of the heavens above. You wonder if you can map a new constellation in the dirt left behind, but the notion is pushed down, dissolved, when your gaze lifts, finding his own. 

He hasn’t looked away from you at all, and the intensity of his gaze makes you dizzy, breathless. Too many emotions ripple through the mercury depths for you to grasp, but they're soft. Tender. Your heart thuds when you see the endless flicker of them hidden inside, tightly sealed under a rusted lock without a key. 

"Keegan—"

He doesn't let you finish. His chin lifts, mouth hooking on yours in a blistering kiss. His tongue slides between the gap of your parted lips, stealing the words that spool behind your teeth. 

Keegan kisses you with a deep, almost methodical precision. It's a contrast you can't keep up with; an ebb and flow. He starts fast, harsh. A demanding press of his mouth to yours, unrelenting and eager. It's all tongue, lips, the clash of teeth until yours are stinging and bruised, and then he pulls away until his are just a brush. A ghost of a touch, a whisper. 

He holds it there, teasing, taunting, until your lips bloom in a soft pout, eyes turning downward. 

"Keegan, please," you whimper into the firm seal of his mouth, so close and yet, so far away. Out of reach. Held there until whatever he wants, whatever he seeks, flashes in the glossy puddles of your eyes. 

And then, he gives. 

Gives, gives. His mouth devours yours with a steady ferocity like the howling winds echoing through the wizened fir boughs in the desolate forest. He holds you close, a hand fisted against your skull while the other plinths your jaw, thumb stroking the bubble of your cheek. 

The pressure of his hold, of his hands, oscillates between firm, unyielding, and keeping you afloat, soothing you. 

You need it, you think, when he kisses you like the sudden approach of an avalanche ripping through the thicket, and barrelling down the vertiginous mountain he keeps you locked on. 

An ebb and flow. 

When your head swims, dizzy with hypoxia that inks across your vision like a Rorschach, he pulls away. Peppers small kisses, nips, over your stringing, swollen flesh, and soothes the ache he left behind. 

"I know," is all he says to you before he starts to move. “I know, kid.”

Keegan keeps you locked to his chest, one hand bracketing your skull, kissing you in tandem with each roll of his hips. His other hand settles against the swell of your ass, holding you steady as he bucks into you, bludgeoning his cock into your cunt. 

Your hands drop to the pillow under his head to stabilise yourself, pushing firmly into the mattress in a futile effort to keep the brunt of your weight from pressing against him, but he notices. 

Always. 

His grunt of displeasure is barely heard over the roaring in your ear, the lewd slap of his wet skin on yours, the grind of his cock into your cunt, but you feel it rumble through his chest, reverberating over your lips. 

His hand trails up from the curve of your ass, and over your spine. 

"C'mon, kid," he murmurs, teeth scraping over your stinging bottom lip. "You're not gonna break me."

His sly words make you huff, and you clench your muscles around him in retribution. There is something blisteringly intoxicating in the low groan that leaves his chest, the pinch between his brow, the flutter of his lashes, lids cresting in pleasure. 

It's a small win, a minuscule victory despite losing the war. But it is a double-edged sword that leaves you just as breathless, just as aching, as he is. 

You acquiesce to his insistent prods, and slowly, hesitantly, melt into him. With your full weight settling on top of him, Keegan breathes in deep, and murmurs a quiet, hushed: that's it into your lips. 

His hands are on you, tugging and pulling until you're flush on his body with a muted groan. 

Your arms bend at the elbow, hands moving to cup his jaw in your palms, feeling the scratch of his rough stubble over your life line. 

Kismet, you think, and taste salt on your tongue, a humid breeze on your skin. It reminds you of Los Angeles, of the hole you sunk into with him. When you decided in the ramshackle remnants of what once was that, despite everything, all of it, you would follow him anywhere, everywhere. 

A confession in the shambles of normalcy, where the cracked Macy's sigh hung suspended on wires, and reinforced by nature. Thick webs of wisteria kept the relic from a bygone era arched over the collapsed ruins of the Beverly Centre. A macabre chandelier: a poignant piece of what is now history. Gone. Erased. Decimated by a weapon meant to protect. 

The rest was felled into a deep cavern, karst, destroyed by the beams of inert energy that spliced the world you knew in half. Water leaked in—from the burst pipes, the broken aquifer at the bottom, rainwater, the ocean, and, you think, from when they razed the smouldering husk of the cities on fire with a deluge of water, back when everyone still clung to the belief that everything was going to be okay. It pools at the bottom, a murky abyss of cracked rock, steel beams, and dead wires. 

On the surface, something floated past. A bag, maybe. Waterlogged and aged. You fish it out despite the soft rumble from Keegan to stay away from the cenote. 

"Currents might sweep you under. Not a place you wanna fall in, kid." 

When you dragged it to the linoleum ledge you sat on, the broken logo made you snort. 

"Never could afford designer," you muttered and tossed the Balenciaga bag aside. 

It doesn't matter. Not anymore. Not here. 

You know it doesn't, feel it deep in your polluted bones, and yet—

You stared at the shattered heap of luxury, and couldn't help thinking about those days in the past when you'd wake up after a long trip on the road with your dad, your brother, and the world would feel so massive, so empty. It felt like you were the only ones left. The only survivors. 

It eats at you now. 

You cried that night. Broke for the first time in months, years. Sobbed into the corner of what was once Macy's or Gucci or some other relic you used to scorn in your youth, and the whole time, Keegan said nothing. Nothing at all. 

He just held you when you stumbled into him. Kept you tight to his body as your sobs echoed through the chamber. 

Through it all, it was Keegan who kept you grounded. Who stood in front of you, sniper ready, whenever the bushes around you rustled, or the ground trembled with the aftershocks of the lingering explosion that decimated your home. Your world. He was there, his hand on the small of your back, eyes sharp, wary. Kept you alive, fed. Safe. 

Safe.

You can only sleep when he’s around. Even when they left you in the safe zone you clawed out of, you couldn’t sleep. Nothing quelled the anxious needling in the back of your head but his presence—solid and steady. An unshakeable rock. Your foundation amid a shattered sense of security. 

You turned to him, then, when the moon drifted over the open crater punched through the earth, and whispered the words he refused to return. 

Even now.

But it doesn’t matter. None of it does. 

Not anymore. 

“Thinkin’ too much,” he husks, nails leaving trails of white when he scrapes them over your skin. “What happened to breaking me, kid? Give up already?”

There is no way for him to know you taste algae in the back of your throat from when he pushed you deeper into the cenote as you ran from the Federation soldiers. When they closed the gap, he shoved you into the murky blue of the grotto below, too quick for you to close your mouth, to not panic when you hit the pool with a splash that echoed on the slick, mossy walls. You breathed in the stagnant water filled with bioluminescent algae, and as gunshots bounced off the jagged limestone, and you drifted down below the buried rubble, you wondered if you’d glow so bright he could find you at the bottom of polluted blue. 

(He did. Always.)

Still. You swallow down the tang of salt, and breathe him in, saturating yourself in the loam scent of him—thick musk; burning lignin and scorched evergreen—and let it sit in your throat until all you can taste is him when you swallow. 

“Thinking about you,” you say. 

He says nothing, but you catch the shudder in his chest, the tremble in his hands, when he slides them over your flesh. Reverent. Halting. The fingerprints he leaves on your skin are stained in chiaroscuro. 

He grabs you tight enough to bruise sometimes; holds you so close that you often think he’s trying to absorb you into him. To keep you safe and secure in the bulk of his body where nothing can hurt you, touch you. 

Not even him.

So, he pulls away. It’s not distance that pitches itself in the recess of his piercing gaze, but something close to it. Kin. Fear, maybe.

Of this, of you.

The fear started when Ajax went missing, but it was Keegan who held you together.

("It's gonna be okay, kid. We'll get him back.”

Empty promises. Broken pinky fingers.)

You broke when they brought Ajax home and laid him to rest as best as they could, and the marker that signified his resting place—a coded message only they would ever know—was all that remained of the man he fought beside, the man who made a pinky promise to never leave you in a the empty shell of a Walmart parking lot when you told him about the camping trips.

A scrap of fabric. A blood-drenched mask. 

You held Keegan as he whispered sorry, kid. Sorry. We tried. We— 

Gone. Gone. You think of rubble and the scent of rock dust. The crushing weight of cinder blocks and beams, and what it feels like to stumble when the earth breaks into pieces beneath your feet.

Elias. 

And now—

All he has left is Merrick. Hesh. Riley. 

Logan—

(“Missing,” the radio crackled a few days ago. “Gone.”)

—and you. 

He holds you at arm's length, even now, after coming back to you, after finding you again, because what you offer is different, more dangerous, than theirs. 

And despite what they say, Keegan isn’t a man who feels nothing at all.

No. 

He’s a man who feels too much. 

And he knows this. Knows it like he knows the world is in shambles, knows what the Federation is capable of. 

What you're capable of. 

You wonder if he's thinking of that now, as the shadows leak back in. They flood the corners of his eyes when he gazes through you, lost in those lour thoughts that rush by in quick succession. Too fast for him to cling to any. 

They cut into the crease. The ones that make you think he’s somehow omnipotent, all-knowing. That he can chisel inside of your head, and read the want, the greed, that festers in the rucked divots. 

And he isn't sure how to handle it. What to do with the bold, bare-faced sincerity of what you offer him. What you want from him. 

Before, Keegan would get so lost inside the maze of his mind that you didn't know how to bring him back. He'd speak only when necessary—just short, clipped words, commands (over there, inside, stop, eat)—and the silence would grate at you. Somehow quieter than he usually was; oppressive. 

It lasted for days, sometimes. 

It never sullied his ability to aim, to shoot. Survive. Protect. 

It was just—

An introspective silence. A storm cloud over blue. 

He was thinking too much, and wasn't sure which option to pick, which outcome was best.

You never knew what to say to bring him back. To ground him. All you could do was wait it out until the gyre would fade from his eyes, and he'd turn to you again, clear blue. 

Now—

“—You’re thinking too much,” you murmur, mouth trailing loose kisses over his stubbled jaw. 

“Just waiting for you to come back to me,” he volleys back, eyes cresting. A tendril of that unknowable something snakes through the gloom of blue, and you reach for it with curious, wanting fingers. 

“I’d never leave you.” 

Keegan swallows, and you trace the bob of his Adam's apple. A part of you expects it to retreat, to flee back to the safety of its bivouac where nothing can get too close. Nothing can hurt. 

But it doesn’t.

He huffs, and the soft expel of his breath, the sinking of his chest, feels a little bit like victory. 

“Wouldn’t survive without me.”

It’s as close to a confession as he’ll offer, and you take it with eager, greedy hands, cupping it in the plinth of your palm where it sits, safe from harm, from the world that crumbles around you. 

“Neither would you.” 

It’s a lie, of course. Keegan is dampening his own chances at survival by keeping you close to him instead of doing what everyone said he ought to, what he tried to do: leaving you behind. 

He pushed you away once. You wonder if he thinks of the separation. The distance etched between the two of you. Slowly relearning each other in broken husks that were once homes.  

"Drop Cali off at a safe zone, and then come find us, Keegan."

The intention, you know, was to leave you behind permanently. To keep you locked in the safe confines of a safe zone in Oregon, where they pitched tents in an expansive field, and lived off of pipe dreams. Where they pretended they couldn't fear the gunfire in the distance, or smell artillery smoke in the air. 

Direct orders passed down through the chain of command, from Elias himself, and yet—

He came back.

("Just gonna do whatever you want, kid. We're headed the same way, anyway.")

“That so?”

"It is."

Keegan swallows. Something yields, breaks. 

His palms are balmy on your skin, firebrands. You stare into his eyes, counting the deep ravines of inky black cutting through sapphire blue, and the gyre of those hidden things, locked away and kept at a distance, seem to tremble. Wobble. The edges blur. 

A frisson passes over his face, illuminated only by the milky light spilling in from the tattered curtains, and something cracks. Splinters. The fracture makes him flinch, makes him heave under you, chest expanding with the deep drawl of his breath. 

With another sigh, his hand slides down the heated flesh of your back, spreading over the swell of your ass. Before you can say anything in response, his middle finger dips into the valley between each cheek, brushing over the skin of your perineum before dipping lower, brushing over the wetness gathered there. 

He drags his finger higher, brushing over the soft skin of your ass. The feeling of it, the red-hot heat of his flesh, makes you keen, tightening around him. 

He huffs into your neck, lashes fluttering over the soft skin of your throat when he blinks. "Like that, huh? Want me here, too, kid?"

You gasp when he presses against the rim. "K–Keegan—"

"Not ready yet," he murmurs, and you try to stifle a whimper when he pulls away, heart thudding in your chest at the thought alone. 

He catches it, anyway.

"Fuck, kid—," it's a jagged husk; ripped up and shredded under barbed wire. Raw, wanting, and dark. You'd never heard his voice so low, so gritty. When you peer down at him, all you see is the endless ocean in the blanket of night. Midnight blue. It makes you shiver. 

You feel feverish when he groans again, when he rasps your name in a way that sounds like it was wrenched up from the recesses of his chest. Buried under soot and ash. 

"Gonna take you there," he pants, and you know him. You know Keegan. It's not a suggestion. It's a promise. "Soon."

The thought of it makes something ugly gnarl inside your chest. A possessive thing, out of place in such a moment. Between you and him, and this awful, awful world, greed has no room to grow. To burrow its roots in deep, and yet—

Yet. 

You crave him in ways that are unattainable. That belongs to a world that no longer exists in the land you roam. 

His fingers pull away, and settle on the tight flesh of your raw cunt stretched around the thick of him. His thumb brushes over your chafed, red skin, eyes softening as he coos at you. A gentle tut when he feels how wrecked, swollen you are from the brutal pounding he's giving you. 

You think he might be lenient. Merciful. Might let you pretend you have control again. But when you lift your gaze to his, eyes blurry and lachrymose, all you see is a deep, unrelenting satisfaction cut into deep slate. His pupils ripple. Deep puddles trembling in pleasure. 

"Fuck, kid." 

He punctuates his words with a slow, full roll of his hips. Slick drenches the tips of his fingers as he feeds you the thick of his cock, feeling the way you swallow him down to the base. To the root. 

"Takin' me so good."

His words are slurred, drunk off the spread of you in his lap, taking him into your willing cunt. Eyes flashing with something that prickles across your skin. It should be a warning to you, a siren. You know him enough to tell what those little flickers in his eyes mean, the shadows hidden in the canyons of blue, but he moves before the thought can take root inside the syrupy haze that clots over your thoughts. 

His legs slide up, knees bending, spreading, as he plants his feet firmly into the mattress. 

"Hold on." 

It's all he gives before he pushes up into you, cock sliding in deeper than before. 

You gasp, eyes snapping shut when he cudgels against something inside of you that has pleasure blooming in your lower belly. 

The angle is different, deeper and fuller than anything you'd ever taken before. Even riding him, sitting flush against his hips, it didn't hit that soft bundle of nerves that has fire licking at the base of your spine. 

You moan his name again, low and broken, and Keegan responds with a sloppy snap of his hips that makes your back arch in his hold, toes curling as batters into that place that makes Nirvana bleed over your synapses. 

Keegan's hand settles on your thigh, holding you steady as he bucks into you. His other hand tangles in your hair, cupped on the nape of your neck. He tugs, his nose pressing into yours. 

"You feel so good, kid," he breathes, sliding his hand down to cup your jaw in his palm. "Squeezing me so tight. Missed your pretty pussy—"

"—Feels so good, Keegan, feels so—"

His lips steal over yours in a searing kiss. Biting, blistering. He devours you whole until nothing remains but the taste of him on your tongue, in the back of your throat. It clogs all of your senses—a brutal assault of Keegan: rich, earthy. 

Like this, locked to his chest as he pistons into you, you have very little choice but to take everything he gives you. All of it.

The sounds your bodies make when he's seated in deep, the slap of his pelvis, the wet squelch of your pussy, make you dizzy. Make you keen. Whine. Your mouth drops. Toes curl. Eyes roll into the back of your head. 

The cacophony of him fucking into you over and over again fills the empty space around you, sticking to the walls, and the moss-covered floor. It bounces against the lining of your head until it throbs, pulses, and threatens to split you in two. To halve you down the middle where Keegan presses taut to the seal of your womb. 

All you can do is cling to him, hands sliding to grasp his thick, rippling forearms as he batters into you. It's sloppy, unrefined, and you've never seen him lose it like this before. 

It edges into that precipice of pleasure and pain, both admixing into a heady cocktail of bliss that roils through you. 

He trails kisses across your blistering cheek, down your neck. His breath is warm over your skin. The flash of teeth makes you gasp. 

"You're gonna cum." 

It's not a demand, or a request. It isn't a plea, a bargain. He says the words like he's relaying the time, coordinates, his position. He isn't unaffected—his voice crumbles a little over the vowels, wobbles on the syllables—but this isn't him asking you. He's telling you. 

Keegan knows your body like he knows the intricacies of his rifles, his weapons, and he knows, knows, you're going to cum around his cock soon. Can feel it in the way your nails find purchase in the firm muscles of his shoulders, the way you tighten around him like a vice. The sound of your voice when you get closer to that looming precipice he holds you over. 

He knows. 

You moan his name as liquid pleasure leaks into your marrow, and that vertiginous edge grows closer and closer. You want to warn, to tell him, but Keegan knows. 

He hushes you, mouth moulding to yours, and devouring the whimpers that seep out. His hands tighten, holding you steady as he fucks you through it, slowing his pace to the easy grind of his cock against the seal of your womb, dragging over that soft spot inside of you that makes your head spin, and eyes cloud over with bliss. 

You moan weakly into the kiss when he slides his hand back, fingers pressing once more against the taut flesh stretched around him. It's too much—the added pressure, the feeling of him bucking into you, brushing over the seam where you swallow him down—and you tilt your head back with a whimper of his name. 

"I know, kid," he grunts, teeth catching on your chin. "Gonna cum for me, yeah?" 

You can't speak, can't talk over the rush in your head, the thick spool of pleasure clotting inside your head, behind your eyelids, in your veins. Molten, liquid. You fall into him as the world around you shatters once more, erupting into white noise, static. 

Everything that isn't him—the solid press of his body, unyielding and supine under you; the weight of his hands on your flesh; the painful crescent of his nails sinking into your skin; the stretch of his cock wrenching you open, and filling you deep, deeper than you'd thought possible; the burning heat, white-hot and balmy, that soaks your being from base to empty, empty skull—is sucked out through the broken shell, and into the vacuum of nothingness where it dissolves into embers, ashes. 

All you can think, feel, is Keegan. 

He works you through it, hand still pressed against the rim of your spasming cunt, feeling the way you pulse around him. 

He moans low in his throat, the noise cutting through the gossamer of pleasure liquifying your joints into sticky molasses, and you know he's close, too. 

You push back into him, into the sloppy cants of his hips as he leaches the lingering aftershocks of your climax for his own taking, his own rapture. 

His chest shudders. Fingers tremble when they run along your skin, grasping, clenching. Keeping you tight to his body where you fit like a puzzle, and he, in turn, fills all of the empty, barren cavities inside of you, leaving no crevasse, no fibril, untouched by him. 

You want to give him everything. Everything. 

You buck into his thrusts, meeting him in the middle where he sinks home with a grunt that echoes through the hollow spaces of your ribs, and you tremble with him. Satiate yourself on his scent, his taste, the noises he makes, the feeling of his body on yours. Sweat-slicked and fever hot. You douse the burn heat of his in the inferno of your own; incandescent with the molten press of him everywhere. 

Your head drops, nose pressed to his cheekbone as you breathe in him in greedy gulps that make your lungs quiver. Filled to the brim with him. Gorged on his taste. Saturated in his scent. 

It's good. You're delirious. Mad with it. Drunk on the elixir of his briny skin, and the way he leaks into your pores, into your being.

You push yourself tighter against him until you feel his heartbeat pulsing inside of your ribcage. 

His name is ripped from your throat in needy gasps drenched in the potency of your devotion. Shrill hymns that fans over his skin until it prickles, dampening with the humidity of your breath. Stained, then, with you. 

"God, Keegan, you feel so good inside of me—" 

Slurred words tumble from your sore lips, dipped in euphoria, in bliss, as he batters clumsily into you. 

You'll ache tomorrow—already feel like one massive, liquified contusion. He might have to carry you from Yosemite to Coarsegold where Merrick and Hesh are waiting. 

They'll know, of course, when you can't stand properly without feeling the stretch of him anew. When your knees wobble and your legs shake. 

(But a part of you wants them to.)

"Gonna cum for me, Keegan?" You mewl, nails scratching at his shoulders when he grunts your name like it's salvation. Purpose. "Want you to, baby, want you to—"

His cock jerks, twitching within you, and with a choked, guttural moan, he cums inside of your fluttering pussy. Saturates you in his release that spits, plumes of warmth, against the battered, bruised seal of your womb. 

He rumbles your name again, a shattered husk of vowels, consonants, and the ecstasy that paints his timbre sends you spiralling down into an abyss of endless blue. 

Keegan's stomach flutters. The skin pulling taut as his muscles clench, seize. You feel the drag of his flesh over your quivering belly; the constellation of scars rubbing over your slick skin. Your hand falls to his shoulder, pressing against the bullet wound left behind when he perched himself in front of death for you. For you. 

His eyes slide open slowly, heavy-lidded and bone weary with the shuddering tremors of euphoria that dance between the rucked 

The tip of your nose slides over the bridge of his, and when his skin wrinkles at the featherlight touches, it feels a little bit like the scar over his heart. 

"Fuck, kid," he rasps, eyes misty and lidded. Heavy pools of mercury you could fall into if you tried hard enough. "You have no idea what you do to me."

He grabs your hand, fingers lacing through the empty brackets until every part of you is filled with him. 

Your nail catches the burn mark—a molotov cocktail when the world wasn't in shambles. His thumb brushes over yours—hot oil, perogies, back when your dad took you around America on grand adventures every weekend, and your brother would sneakily eat your fries from the McDonald's bag. 

The other snakes up your spine, tangling in your messy hair, and then his lips are on yours. Messy, wet. He gasps into your open mouth as you rock against him, working him through his undoing, his breaking. 

You hold his shattered pieces in your hands, clutched tight against your sternum, and wonder, once again, if this is what they mean when they talk about kismet. 

"Never gonna leave you again," he rasps, the words clawing up his throat. 

The raw, pulpy mess of them sits heavy between you. A promise. Promises. Broken, flayed. A crumpled heap of everything you once were in shambles. 

You think of the anger you felt before, when the heels of his palms dug into your shoulder, and he pushed. Pushed you out, away. The bitter resentment, the festering rage. 

The agony. The sorrow. 

You missed him. His stupid face. His stupid voice. Stupid hands. Stupid humour—soft, witty, and drier than Death Valley. His stupid touch, his kisses. Him. 

The loneliness carved a hole inside of you, a crater where only he could fit. 

(You sleep better when he's beside you, anyway.)

"I won't let you."

Your lips crook into a small smile, a dawning blitz over a ruined landscape, and you lean down, pressing your lips to his pulse, sliding up until you catch his lobe between the seam. 

"Still broke you," you murmur, skimming your teeth over the downy soft hairs that cover the shell of his ear. "Still won—"

His hand moves, braces against the back of your skull, the base of your spine, and then he flexes his hips beneath you. It's quick. A fluid motion. Keegan bucks you off, and rolls you under the bulk of his body within a blink. You barely have time to choke on your gasp when he's already nestled above you, eyes shining in the milky light spilling in from the moth-eaten curtains. 

"What—?"

His hips jerk into yours, cock sticky, tacky against your skin, but you feel him thicken with each slow roll he makes into you.  

He leans down, bracing his forearm on the flat pillow above your crown, eyes burning embers that spark in the dim light bleeding between the wisps of broken fog that shroud the moon. 

"My turn, kid." 

[mykneeshurt]

Watching law and order and who do I see?!

KEEGAN BABYYYYY. Look at those baby blues.

[konigbabe]

NSFW alphabet with Keegan P. Russ

Pairing: Keegan Russ x fem!reader

Word count: 3.5k

Tags/Warnings: smut/nsfw; canon compliant; explicit language; praise kink; mirror sex; rough sex; p-in-v sex; canon spoilers; light dom/sub undertones; light BDSM; oral sex; aftercare; teasing; sex toys

A/N: This is essentially my own interpretation of what Keegan Russ' NSFW alphabet would look like. | source |

masterlist • faq • AO3 • ko-fi

A = Aftercare (What they’re like after sex)

Aftercare and Keegan go hand in hand; he’s very gentle with you—with the scares of war, roughness of the battlefield, all he craves when around you is just to be present, enjoying the quiet moments you share following the post-orgasmic bliss, his hands caressing your arms, the skin of your hips, the curve of your spine; a content sigh leaving his kiss-bruised lips still glistening with your juices as he rests his head on top of yours. His heartbeat strong and steady, allowing your heart to sync with his and calm down.

Keegan’s also someone who always has a glass of water by his bed for multiple purposes—not only to give it to you to cool your heated body after he’s done absolutely savaging you but to calm down his racing heartbeat from the nightmares he still dreams about, especially after everything that happened with the Walker brothers…

B = Body part (Their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

Your thighs; he’s absolutely addicted to the feel of them on his palms, around his hips with your heels digging into his lower back. Keegan would always swallow your moans, inhaling you in as he grounds himself deeper into you. Harder. One of his hands would rest comfortably on the apex of your thigh, drawing tantalizing circles on your flesh—feeling the muscles underneath tremble as he hits that sweet spot deep inside you, the one that makes you say his name as a prayer, as a plea. A mantra for more.

For you, it’s his eyes; he’s quiet, reserved. Reticent…but his eyes, they speak volumes. It took you some time to understand his silent language. It started off innocent enough—he’d give you a look on a mission, telling you to follow him, to stay behind him, to stay safe. Then as you grew closer, as you conquered the walls around him, you’d see the commanding aura surrounding him. He likes control; he’d let you taciturnly know—his eyes would tell you everything Keegan demanded; to be a good girl for him, to open your legs wider, get on your knees, hands over your head; he wouldn’t have to say a word yet you’d always know and more than happily obliged his desires. His gaze would hold you captive, and you could tell he was savoring the moment and the pleasure he was getting out of it as much as you were.

C = Cum (Anything to do with cum)

Keegan’s a slight clean freak; it comes from his line of work and spills over to the sex as well. Rarely he’d allow himself to cum on your body—even though he always dreams about you, drenched in his own juices, on your knees for him, his seed spilling from your open mouth, piercing eyes drowning in the view of you so compliant. Swallowing him. Savoring the taste of him, sweet and subsaline.

But there’s nothing like cumming inside you. The tight clench of your walls, urging him to finally let go. Your moans symphony to his ears, eyes locked with yours—pupils dilated, the darkness taking over the ocean blue of his irises—hips grounding into you, claiming you for his own. The way you feel wrapped around him, drawing him in with an irresistible force….yeah, there’s no better feeling than the way your body reacts to his seed inside.

D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self-explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

There was one time when you got taken hostage by the Federation soldiers; Keegan still vividly remembers the way he felt, how worried he was, slipping occasionally, focus faltering as he and the rest of the team breached the compound in hopes to find you—well and alive. He wasn’t very keen on the feeling; he did care about you and always will but never would he thought that your kidnapping would mess his head that much.

He’ll never admit it but it was the moment he found you. Killed the guard, Logan and Hesh behind him as he bashed the door open and saw you—sitting on a chair, legs spread and each ankle tied up to a separate chair leg, a rope securing your stomach to the back post with your arms tied behind your back; you were well and alive, Keegan thanked the God, but it was the way that compromising position pushed up your chest, your prominent curves on display…and he liked the view—for a split second before realizing the reality of the whole situation but yes…seeing you all tied up and gagged ignited a spark of arousal within him that he knew he'd explore later on, when both of you were alone.

E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?)

Keegan knows exactly what he's doing. He's never been into flings or one-night stands, preferring to explore his own desires and pleasure with steady partners. That stableness has allowed him to build upon his knowledge and now he's ready to share his expertise with you. His touch is confident, each caress igniting a fire in you that starts as a gentle flicker and builds to a roaring blaze with his lips tantalizing yours, exploring and teasing as you writhe underneath him, on top of him, completely at his mercy.

F = Favourite Position (This goes without saying…)

He likes you underneath him, facing him; and not only in bed. Let it be against the wall, ankles on top of his shoulders, legs against your chest as he sinks deep inside your sensitive walls, the position allowing you to feel the spongy head of his cock kissing your cervix. He likes to watch you, to truly see the bliss on your face, to feel you clench around him, to see you fold so easily in his grasp.

There are also days where he lets you on top—hands squeezing your thighs, fingertips caressing the curve of your ass as you stay on all fours over his lying form, one arm supporting your weight next to his head, the other delicately tracing the contours of his chest, the hard edges of his torso while you sink lazily on his cock, deliberately and leisurely bathing in the bliss of been filled by the man underneath you, eliciting soft moans and groans from him with your nails scratching his breastplate, running over the jagged skin there…

G = Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc)

Keegan doesn’t joke around; not outside the bedroom or inside. He’s more of a sarcastic type of person with those he cares about—but when it comes to pleasure and passion, he’s all about the business. There might be a moment or two where he says something laced with satire, where he teases you, tantalizing you and it’s no secret that you do live for those moments—to see him so relaxed, so endorsed in the intimacy of the two of you that he just lets go of everything.

H = Hair (How well groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc.)

Keegan has always been an unconventional man, and that extends to his grooming habits. He rarely finds the time to devote to meticulous styling, instead preferring to focus his energy elsewhere. But one area he does make sure to attend to is his facial hair. He knows how uncomfortable it can be to wear a mask over the stubble, let alone a full beard, so he takes time to make sure it's well taken care of.

That doesn’t necessarily translate to other areas of his body—he has a nice, thicker happy trail; one that you just love letting your fingertips trail along, even when you’re just lying on his chest, in your shared bed, snuggled together and about to fall asleep. It calms you, a perfect lullaby.

I = Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspect…)

Keegan’s someone who always enjoys the close intimate moments between you two—even if not confirming it verbally, his body language betrays him every time. He’s gentle and loving, worshipping your body with slow and sensuous movements. Kissing and nipping at your skin, at the flesh of your shoulder, extending the gentle assault onto your neck as he slides into you, filling you to the brim; caressing your skin, murmuring sweet nothings and telling you how beautiful you are, how well you’re taking him…

J = Jack Off (Masturbation headcanon)

He’s a grown man with needs, especially when he was still alone, he’d get it over with pretty quickly; finding the whole act to be his own way of relaxation and release of all the built-up tension he'd been holding inside, not really something he’d indulge in. Nowadays, Keegan doesn’t have these needs that often.

K = Kink (One or more of their kinks)

Keegan definitely is way filthier and kinkier than most people have him for;

There’s the praise kink; Keegan’s not someone who talks that much during sex. He can do dirty talk and fuck he does that good—but when he opens his mouth, in those sacred moments, he always makes sure to let you know how good you are, how pretty you look and sound. Also, the sound of your moans, calling out his name and babbling about how good he makes you feel gives him an incomparable rush of pleasure.

He’s certainly fond of fucking you in front of mirrors (as explored in lose composure); having you bend over a drawer, rutting into you with his eyes staring you down in the mirror, gaze fixated on the way your eyes focus on the way his cock sinks into your walls, coated in your juices, glistening and so red and angry as he pounds you into complete submission.

There is a whole side of Keegan to explore and you are adamant about finding out more about his little secrets...

L = Location (Favourite places to do the deed)

Keegan is fine with anywhere you’re game to do it. Of course he prefers the bedroom; it used to be standard for him before ODIN fell—ever since the Federation war and ever since you, he changed his tactics a little, twisted them to your own desires; because when on a mission, there’s no guarantee you’ll return to the comfort of your own bed so when the two of you feel the need to fuck each other’s brains out and are all for it, he really doesn’t mind having you against some old rusty wall in a questionable basement with the rest of the team somewhere in the same building.

M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going)

You. Everything about you; everything you do. But especially when you’re in your game—he’s seen you shoot a guard with his own rifle and it was you, shamelessly showing off before his eyes that turned him on that time. He’ll watch you with passionate admiration and then lead you somewhere private to show you just how much he admires you. The thought that someone so gorgeous and strong-headed as you chose to be with him feels more than appetizing.

N = No (Something they wouldn’t do, turn-offs)

Keegan will never agree to degradation or anything to do with weaponry inside the bedroom; he’s rough, can be very demanding and fierce sometimes (but always tentative to your needs)—pushing your head into the pillows, fingers gripping your hair harshly as he grounds himself inside you, one hand guiding your hips to meet him halfway as you feel the moans getting caught in the soft material of the mattress; he’d growl into your ear to just take it. He lives for when you leave marks on his skin, crescent bruises from your nails digging too deep into his muscles, sometimes even drawing blood, bite marks on his shoulder from trying to keep quiet as he pounds into you right next door to Merrick….but he’ll never be okay with making you bleed.

O = Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

Keegan never says no to a blowjob; he rather relishes in it when you go down on your knees for him, but his real passion lies in giving you the pleasure his mouth and fingers can bring you. Your taste, smell, the way you react—it’s something that shifts him into a state of euphoria. For him, it’s an opportunity to show you just how devoted he can be; it’s also oddly comforting for him, with your legs squeezing his head, locking him in place, he’s content at that time with his own pleasure just secondary to yours…

P = Pace (Are they fast and rough? Slow and sensual? etc.)

More than rough and fast, Keegan likes to take his time. He’ll take every minute he has with you and draw them out, make you come twice before he even lets you get your hands on him. And even then, when you beg him to finally be inside you, he’ll deliberately take it slow. Tantalizing you, punishing you as if you’ve been bad even when that isn’t the truth. It frustrates you, the way he sets a slow, sensual pace and barely pulls out of you, preferring to stay deep inside and rock against you and feel every slight tensing and releasing of your inner muscles. He’ll take advantage of every second you have together.

However, there are days when you both want nothing more than tear each other apart; those days end with him ravishing you wherever you are, taking you against the wall without bothering to take off anything, not even his gloves and mask. And sometimes it’s you who does that to him—goading him into fucking you hard and deep; or you’ll push him down on the ground (or on a chair) and just ride him, use him (until he comes, sometimes too fast because you drive him fucking insane with your wild demeanor).

Q = Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.)

Keegan, as mentioned before, prefers to take his sweet time with you. However, if the options are quickie or nothing, you know he’ll never decline that offer. Sometimes it’s when you feel too needy in the morning as he’s about to leave; you’ll wrap your venomous fingers around his wrist, still naked in his sheets with him fully dressed, mask in his hand, just reaching for his gun on the night table when you stop him—ask him to stay a little longer. Initially, he’d decline so you’d turn to begging, pleading and when that fails (that man is strongwilled sometimes, stubborn even), you just tug at his wrist with all your strength, making him lose stability and fall right on top of you, make him give into you, even if he was already meant to be sitting in the briefing room (but let’s be honest; he’s much happier buried inside your soft slick walls, hearing you moan his name rather than sitting on a chair surrounded by the rest of Ghosts).

R = Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.)

Keegan’s line between experimenting and taking risks is pretty thin; he’s keen on experimentation—even before the fall of ODIN, he lived by the “try everything once” phase and is still game when it comes to your love life. It’s your suggestions that mostly reveal his hidden desires. He wasn’t someone who experimented often but with you and how open you are to try new things; it allows him to find himself as well (and make him fucking fall in love with you even more, not that he might admit it to you anytime soon though).

S = Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…)

He’s someone who may not be able to last more than one, maybe two rounds (especially with how physically tiring his job can get) but this man knows how to make it count. He’ll be tantalizingly slow, leisured thrusts, sometimes just staying seating inside, shifting and grounding his hips without pulling out—drawing multiple orgasms out of you until you’re so spend that even your moans became barely audible, throat painfully dry, muscles relaxed to the point it feels like someone injected you with epidural, yet he won’t stop, drowning in the bliss your body gives him.

T = Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?)

For himself? No.

To use on you? Maybe—it’s kind of an apocalypse after all and people have other things on minds than trying to get their hands on sex toys. But he might have brought you something he found on one of the regular raids; it took some serious deep cleaning to make sure everything was sterile and safe for use. After that? This man is unstoppable with it; after he reaches his own climax, he’s all game to continue working your body to another blissful release with that toy.

U = Unfair (How much they like to tease)

Keegan is undoubtedly a teaser; slowly picking up on the ways to tease you based on the way you tease him (an eye for an eye). You have a knack for knowing exactly how to make him ache: eating fruit in front of him and lick each sweet drop of juice off your fingers; your body brushing against his as you lean in close when you’re in public; you give him glances through your lashes because you know that a certain type of look makes him go hard.

He slowly picks up on what makes you do the same. The first time he put his hand on you in public (and not on a mission) with casual ease, you nearly jumped out of your skin; talking to your superior with the Ghosts around you, his hand resting on the lower of your back, the curve on top of your ass because he knew no one was able to see it, his fingers drew circles on the material of your shirt, making you stumble over your words, drawing looks from the Walkers and Merrick, all way too oblivious to the way Keegan’s fingers slipped into your jeans, just knuckle deep but still touching the naked flesh of your lower back.

V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make)

He’s a moaner; quiet but full of emotion, keeping it contained within himself so that only are able to hear him. Keegan’s not one to be loud which isn’t really surprising, yet he’s vocal in other ways—gentle grunts, suppressed groans and muffled moans. The more he loses the ability to express himself with words, and as his pleasure intensifies, his moans become more impassioned and fervent, until he's completely overwhelmed with pleasure and can only express himself with a deafening cry of bliss.

W = Wild Card (Get a random headcanon for the character of your choice)

Keegan can’t stop thinking about that time he found you bound as a hostage. He doesn’t really want to bring it up because it was after all a traumatizing moment for you; yet his imagination runs wild with the fantasy of seeing you laid out before him, helpless and vulnerable, blindfolded and restrained; laying bare on his bed— not able to move as he devours you like a man-starved beast. The thought of your hands bound above your head, unable to move, only fuels his hunger for you further. He can't help but imagine just how exquisite it would feel to be able to fuck into you in such a vulnerable state.

X = X-Ray (Let’s see what’s going on in those pants)

Keegan’s more on the girth side rather than length; still, he’s big enough to make you feel the stretch when he slides into you. Tantalizingly thick, he always leaves you craving more, filling you up completely, sending waves of electricity through you with each roll of his hips.

Y = Yearning (How high is their sex drive?)

His desire for you is as high as yours, if not higher. Keegan’s someone who not only is more than capable of fucking you before going to sleep but waking up and be ready to do it all over again. His sex drive is a combination of biology and psychology; one part of him completely succumbs to his desire whenever you’re around (or just on his mind) and the other is worry—he worries that this, what you to have going on, is not permanent given the nature of your lives. This fear of his only serves to strengthen his passion, and make him even more eager to please you.

Z = ZZZ (… how quickly they fall asleep afterward)

In accordance with the previous statements, he mostly takes his time; he likes to watch you drift into that blissful slumber, so spent and tired to not even bother to dress up. It lets him savor the moments between you even more. Keegan will sometimes put his shirt on you while you’re already fast asleep—he’ll move slowly and with precision so he won’t wake you up, caressing your body with his fingertips as he slips his shirt over you, taking in the sight of your bare skin against the used fabric. He loves to linger, taking in your beauty and the tranquillity of the night, before finally letting himself drift off in peaceful repose.

[nevadancitizen]

WHY DOES EVIL WEAR A FACE SO FAMILIAR? MASTERLIST

synopsis: You and Logan were captured by the Federation on that godforsaken beach years ago. Under Rorke's guidance, you have grown to hate everyone you used to love -- including Keegan Russ, the man you once called yours. Rorke has finally cleared you and Logan for field work once you both repeatedly expressed clear contempt for America, along with all her citizens and soldiers. And, god willing, you will burn the crumbling ruins of the United States together, hand-in-hand.

ships: Keegan Russ/Reader, Logan Walker & Reader

tags: Action/Adventure, Action & Romance, Slow Burn, Canon-Typical Violence, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Gender-neutral Reader, One-Sided Attraction, Enemies to Lovers, Lovers to enemies to lovers

small note: this fic includes spanish (obviously). i only have limited knowledge of mexican spanish, but i know that there are regional variants all over south america. please be patient and feel free to correct me if something's wrong :)!

note, continued: also, the reader in this fic is gender neutral. please do not refer to them with feminine or masculine pronouns. instead, please address them by they/them pronouns. this fic is all-inclusive and not meant to alienate anyone -- it's meant to be written so that everyone can read, no matter their personal pronouns!

PROLOGUE/TEASER

CH. 1: The Petrichor of Dust-Storms

CH. 2: Spy Rings and Molehills

CH. 3: <currently being written...>

[emperor-palpaminty]

Pages

I downloaded TikTok and saw this one and had to write something for Keegan. Hehe. My inbox is open for COD requests!

There is kissing and cussing in this one so if ya don't like it leave byeeeee. GN readerx keegan. Also it makes more sense that someone in the military would have an e-reader instead of a bunch of heavy books so congrats, you are the proud owner of a book tablet now

When war was not filled with blood or adventures, war dragged. Slow. It was as if Ares himself was lazily strolling with a too-heavy war hammer, yawning.

Not that you minded, necessarily. It gave you time to actually delve into your books. Your e-reader had been an absolute life saver- on long days in the field it would help you take breaks and get some literature in, and it was way lighter than ink-and-paper books. Plus, you didn't have to go into the library to get books that you had on hold.

Unfortunately, some books in the library would all line up to where their holds would finish at the same time and wind up on your e-reader. This usually meant marathon reading sessions at odd times, or at least times where you wouldn't have normally read. Between water breaks while working out, you would speed read through the latest fantasy novel. At the mess, you skimmed the pulp romance your mom had recommended to you. When the computer lab was down, you would examine some half-interesting autobiography or scientific breakdown. And all of it was at the palms of your hands in an instant.

You enjoyed reading.

This love did not go unnoticed- the Ghosts would often chuckle or pester you because you hated being interrupted. Sometimes you would get questions of what you were reading, maybe commenting that their spouses or parents or so-and-so from such-and-such company had mentioned something about that book.

Especially, this did not go unnoticed by Keegan. Not only did he notice it, but it annoyed him. Not the fact you read, or were quiet, or drawn into some fantastical world- he enjoyed that. Watching how your eyes were drawn down on your book, how your fingers would find their way to rest on your mouth or fidget on the table, those were all bonuses. He enjoyed the occasional book himself. However, what annoyed him was....

"Kid."

Nothing. Keegan exhaled, crossing his arms. You were hard to pull out of your little world of books and words. Cute? Yes. Frustrating?

"Hey. Kid."

You gasped and shifted forward, staring at the words, muttering something off towards him. Your lips moved, pressing out a brief oh, wow as you turned the page on your e-reader. They pursed, and they looked soft. Distracted. Kissable.

Absolutely frustrating.

Keegan shoved his gaze from your mouth and reached down, taking your cheeks. "Damn it, kid." He turned your head towards him, leaning down, eye level. "You get sucked in real easy. Cause all kinds of problems that way."

You blinked, hazy as you settled back into reality. The black gloves were rough on your cheeks, almost pressing your lips into a pout, and those blue eyes were close. You sucked in a breath. With it came his smell- musk, wood, something masculine. "Sorry."

Keegan didn't move. Topaz irises skimmed your face, dropping to the lips, watching as you licked them, nervously, your own eyes avoiding him. "Sorry?"

"For getting distracted. I don't get too much time to read, and all my books came off hold at the same time..." Your voice trailed off, and your thumb flicked down, turning off the e-reader. "I wanted to read as much as possible before we went out to the field again." You were vaugely aware that his eyes were still plastered on your face and studying you. Those eyes- they stopped you and haunted you and made you freeze, but kick-started your every nerve.

Behind the mask, Keegan sighed. "I get that. Means a lot to you." His grip loosened on your face but the hand did not drop away. He thumbed over your face, the touch hesitating just at the color of your mouth. Were your eyes playing tricks on you, or did his gaze soften? "Promise." His voice was gentler now. "I'll make it up to you."

Your head tilted, watching what you could see of his face. Heat built up under your skin. It wouldn't have surprised you if he could have felt how warm you were under the leather gloves. "Uh-huh." Was all your very intelligent and very smart brain could muster.

Keegan's free hand grabbed the bottom of his mask and he yanked it up. You barely had time to catch the dark stubble and the surprisingly full lips before he leaned down and pressed his mouth to yours.

His hold on your cheeks were not demanding. It was loose enough to where you could have pulled away, left.

But you didn't. How could you? He huffed, the breath warm from his nose as he turned his head into you, and you swore that you heard a soft groan as you leaned up, your grip on your e-reader loosening and finding its way into his shirt, a fist crumpling against it. A gloved hand moved to the back of your neck, supporting you as you leaned your head back. He pulled back just enough to mutter sweet thing against you before going back in for more. Surprisingly, what stubble he had was soft, you realized as you ran your fingers over his jaw. Your fingers clasped the cotton shirt tighter, his body pressing your back against the corner of the table.

You didn't even hear the door down the hall open. Keegan pressed away, yanking the mask back down and stepping back. You blinked, hands frozen in the air where he had been, eyes locked on his own and looking for answers in them.

"Later," Was all he said, and he turned and left as Ghosts began to enter the mess. You turned back to your reading, quickly, but found that the words weren't as distracting as they were before Keegan had kissed you.

[nothingkillsyoulikeyourmind105]

Goodbye Sunflower

🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻

MasterList

Part 2

Keegan x Fem! Reader

TW-Death, Betrayal, Espionage, Angsty.

Song-On The Nature Of Daylight

Credit for dividers - @animatedglittergraphics-n-more

Credits to creator of the gif name is below.

“No no no no stay with me!”

“Goddamn Kid Stay With Me!”

“Sunflower!!!”

“Wake Up!!”

“I’m so sorry!”

“Sunflower Goddamn It Wake Up!”

“We have plans! I still want them!!!”

“Don’t leave me!!!”

“Keegan Wake Up Brother Wake Up!!!”

The sounds of Keegan panting and hyperventilating as his brothers in arms try to wake him.

Hesh and Logan in their boxers standing beside his bed shaking him awake from his nightmare. This has been happening on and off since she left over two and a half months ago.

Watching Keegan fall apart tore the team apart. She was his everything. But she was gone.

His stifled sobs. He covered his eyes wiping away his tears not wanting to open them. Because in this reality she didn’t exist anymore. She was lost to wind. Deprived of her warm embrace.

The memories came rushing back to him. 🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻

(Y/H/C) -your hair color

The way (y/n) laid in his bed naked under the soft white sheets giggling. Her beautiful (y/h/c) locks spread out on the pillows. The way she smiled to him. The small yelps that escaped her lips when Keegan tickled her.

When she would pull the sheets off the bed to wrap herself up in them leaving Keegan naked on the bed sleeping. Pinching his bare ass she run off to the bathroom to hide when he jump up annoyed with her shenanigans. Whenever Keegan took too long in the shower she find a way to shut off the hot water. Standing outside in the bedroom she laugh her ass off with Hesh and Logan. Just seeing Keegan run out of the shower with a towel on was a sight to see. She loved to pick on him when he lease expected it.

Especially in the mess hall when she would steal his food off his tray and hide it from him. She knew all of his weaknesses and where he was ticklish. The strong stoic face never fazed her. In her mind Keegan Russ was a beautiful soul and a wonderful person even if he didn’t he think he was capable of love or not worthy.

When the seasons changed he always found himself in front of the flower shops looking for sunflowers. They were her favorites.

He always loved buying her the real thing. When they weren’t in season he always go out of his way to find a suitable substitute for her.

The way her smile would light up a room. The way her laugh warmed his cold heart. The sweet kisses she planted on his scars and his aching body. Her kisses were a drug in the beginning but as time went on they became his medicine for his aching body.

Her soft feathery warm touches healed his aching bones. The feeling of her breast in his large calloused hands was all he needed to make him melt. Gripping her ass as he carried her to their bedroom, feeling her legs wrap around him was all he needed in this life. Her warm embrace on him. The soft sweet moans and gasp that escaped her beautiful lips made all his worries disappear.

Keegan always wanted her near him or to be inside her. She was all he needed. Wrapping his arms around her waist when he would return from his deployment. The way she hug him as they laid side by side in bed.

The promises they made to each. That lingered in his mind.

“Sunflower when our contracts are done. I’m gonna take you away from here and marry you. I want to have a life with you. To call you Mrs Keegan Russ.”

“How does that sound Sunflower?”

“To be called Mrs. Keegan Russ hmmm. I love it! I want a small cottage near the mountains and a small garden. With maybe some ducks.”

“Really kid, you want ducks.”

“Yes! Oh stop being mean to me!”

“Sunflower you can have anything you want. But baby look at me. I love you no matter what, I’ll always be here for you when you need me. I will never leave you alone or put you in danger. Ever. Trust me sunflower.”

“Mr. So Serious you’re such a goofball. But I love you and I know you would never put me in harms way. And I know you always be there for me.”

“I trust you with all my heart”

Those words haunted his memories and dreams

His sunflower.

Lost

Two Months Ago

“Keegan he have proof that she’s the mole here. I’m sorry but she’s in our custody. We waited to tell you. She’s been detained and she’s currently being interrogated and her belongs and all her assets have been confiscated. While you were away we had to keep you under surveillance and we did investigate your background and your belongings but we came up empty on your end. But (y/n) she has a lot of incriminating evidence against her. She currently is denying her involvement with the recent attacks and bombings.”

“Can I see her? Can I talk to her please!”

“Negative. You are to be under surveillance and to not leave base until our investigation is finished.”

Keegan slammed his fist into the table. Glaring at his superiors walking away fuming with anger. This didn’t all add up. His sunflower wasn’t a spy. He spent every waking moment with her. She was always with him.

“Russ! Don’t do anything stupid or anything that you’re gonna regret!”

“With all due respect Captain.”

“Fuck You! My Sunflower is innocent! I will prove her innocence myself!”

“I promised I will protect her!”

He opened the door and slammed it behind him. Fuming with anger he passed by all the soldiers and his friends and teammates. They all heard the news. Just seeing Keegan fuming with anger they all steered clear of him.

Walking back to his room. Opening his door their room was tore apart. Clothes and pictures and her small trinkets and ceramic decorations were scattered and broken on the ground. Keegan kneeled down picking up the photo of them. The way she smiled in the photo. His arm wrapped around her waist. They had made love a few hours after that photo was taken. Keegan picked up all their clothes and pictures off the ground. Picking up all the broken pieces of her ceramic birds he placed them in a box to glue together later.

Keegan had a feeling nothing about the evidence they had added all up. They had pictures of her meeting different people in public places. Large amounts of money being stored away and her visiting the hospital. The same hospital that was bombed that killed hundreds of people.

The large transactions and transfers to oversea bank accounts were all suspicious.

They all made her guilty. But his sunflower would never put him or his team in danger. She always said how the guys were her family. She didn’t have family around anymore. Her father and mother died when she was young and she was an only child.

Keegan decided to do his own investigation.

Two weeks had gone by and he was pulling up no evidence linking her to any crimes. All while Keegan was doing his investigation. His sunflower was locked away in a black listed area. She was tortured day in and day out. She cried and screamed for Keegan to come save her. But her pleas went unanswered. She sobbed every night looking up at the skylight hoping that Keegan will burst through the metal door. Taking her away from this hell she was stuck in.

“Who is your contact? Where are the others? Answer me!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about! My n n name is Sergeant (y/l/n)….. i i i I’m part of the ghost team with k k k Keegan Russ he can prove mm m m my innocents.”

She stuttered with pain laced in her voice. Trembling as the masked men who were interrogating her held a blow torch to her legs. Her fingers bleed so much that it went numb. She didn’t feel anymore pain physically but her heart was shattered. Her mind broken. She pleaded to her captors. Begging for Keegan.

“Please!”

Keegan found out why she was constantly going to the hospital. She was with child. His child. His sunflower was pregnant. The mysterious transactions were kept under the wraps because she had recently bought a small cottage near the mountains in Switzerland. She was storing money away and keeping this a secret from him.

After finding this out he approached his superiors office with evidence in hand. When opening the door he saw his Captain and Lieutenant dead with a single gunshot wound to the head.

Running out and sounding the alarm off the real mole had been on the board that arrested his sunflower. His general was responsible for this espionage. The real spy was his General and he was still on base and Keegan had to find him.

Hesh, Logan, Merrick all armed to the teeth on the hunt for the General.

Going on a chase off base they followed their General to an abandoned building. Chasing him they chased him to a abandoned building with a bunker attached to it, they chased him down inside. Keegan and Merrick on their way. Keegan constantly fidgeted his trigger finger. Thinking only about her. He had to find her and the only person who knew was his General.

Upon entering they found their General trying to make a call. But to their surprise they found why he was there. To finish off loose ends.

Logan gasped he choked on his words. Stuttering and pointing to the person tied to the chair.

Hesh and Logan found his sunflower she sat in a abandoned building. Logan detained the general keeping him alive. After having to beat the living shit out of him.

Hesh sighed and with a heavy heart he held back his tears.

“Keegan do you copy?”

“It’s Sunflower”

“I’m on my way”

Hesh looked away rushing to her side he clipped the zip ties off her wrist and ankles. Holding her gently laying her down he held back a stifled sob.

“(Y/N) its Hesh, Keegan is on his way hold on we’re get you help. Hold on.”

Swallowing thickly she opened her swollen eyes with a smile. She couldn’t speak properly her lips busted and swollen she licked her lips. Her breathing started to become more shallow and her lungs wheezed for air. She didn’t feel any pain anymore. Just cold.

Keegan rushed in dropping his gun he rushed to her. Cradling her beaten and broken body in his arms. Her blood seeped through his tactical vest and onto his clothes. Brushing the stray hairs from her swollen face. He pulled his mask off trying to wipe the blood from her face.

“No no no no stay with me!”

“Goddamn Kid Stay With Me!”

“Sunflower!”

“Wake Up”

“I’m so sorry!”

“Sunflower! Goddamn It! Wake Up!”

“We have plans I still want them!!!”

“Don’t leave me!!!”

“Keegan baby is that you?”

“Yes it’s me. I’m so sorry I wasn’t here to protect you. I promised you I would and I failed”

“Don’t be sorry my love. You’re here now”

She swallowed thickly her voice scratchy and low she spoke again. Tears fell from the corners of her swollen eyes.

“I wanted to surprise you but I couldn’t keep our sea monkey. I lost them. I didn’t want to tell you I’m so sorry”

“I bought us a house”

“I wanted to surprise you”

“Baby look at me I’m not mad and we can try again we can try again. We can have as many sea monkeys as you want. I know you always talked about having a family. And I want that too. Stay with me please. I don’t know what to do without you please stay with me.”

“I can’t do this without you”

“I’ll always be here. Looks to the east. I’ll always kiss your face good-morning and look the west I’ll always kiss you goodnight”

“You always have a piece of me in you Mr. So Serious.”

Gasping and crying she tried to laugh. But her laughs were caught in her throat causing her to cough.

“Hesh were is the medics! Goddamn it!”

“Their 5 mins out!”

“She’s dying!”

Keegan held onto her picking her up off the dirty ground he rushed her outside to run towards the medic. Holding her tightly against him. His lungs burned but he ran and ran meeting them half way they took her from him.

“Is she gonna make it!”

“Goddamn it someone answer me!”

Hesh, Logan and Merrick all drove over to where Keegan stood. Hesh ran out to Keegan holding him back as he fought to be beside her. She closed her eyes and she had stopped breathing. They pulled out their defibrillators ripping her shirt open she laid there lifeless. Keegan fought as Hesh held him back.

“Hesh get off me!”

“Goddamn It Hesh!!!”

“Keegan stop it! Let them save her!!”

“Baby!!!”

“Sunflower!!!”

“Wake up don’t leave me!!! Don’t leave me!!”

“I can’t do this without you!”

Keegan kicked and punched Hesh trying to break free from his hold. Logan rushed over wrestling Keegan to the ground while he cried helplessly. Watching his sunflower wilt away. He never felt more helpless in his life. As the sunset his life came crumbling down on him.

He screamed to the sky holding his face.

The sounds of her flatlining echoed all around him.

“No!”

“Sunflower!!!!”

“Sunflower!!!”

“Baby wake up!!”

“Don’t leave me!!!”

Keegan’s face was covered in tears and his nose runny from all the tears. His face covered in dirt. He tried to crawl to her to hold her hand to feel her warmth again.

Keegan sat up in his bed rubbing his tired eyes. Hesh sat beside him patting his back Logan paced back and forth sobbing. Merrick sat in the medical wing on guard duty. He watched over Sunflower. She laid in the ICU hooked up to all the life support machines. The ventilator helping her breath. She went to sleep and never woke up. She’s been in a coma two months and counting. Keegan stayed with her day in and day out watching her. Merrick convinced him to get some sleep and that he would watch over his sunflower.

Keegan wanted her room to have a large window the faced the east and a room across that had a window that could allow the sunset illuminate her room.

Merrick had no more tears to shed. She had broken all of their hearts. Keegan heart was shattered and he was torn apart inside and out.

The Next Morning

“Keegan Russ”

He sat beside her bed holding her hands. Rubbing her knuckles softly. Watching and listening to sounds of the ventilator breathing for her.

“Doctor”

With a clipboard in hand the doctor clicked his pen. And sighed heavily.

“Mr. Russ she has you listed to make her medical decisions and keeping her on life support isn’t helping. The amount of extensive injuries she sustained she isn’t gonna pull through. She did however listed that if she were to ever go into a vegetative state that she didn’t want to be held onto life support. She wants to be taken off.”

“I’m sorry Mr. Russ it’s in her medical will.”

Eyes red and swollen he couldn’t shed anymore tears. Looking at her beautiful face. The stitches and bandages that covered her face the lips that held the most beautiful smile her laugh that made his worries all disappear and her warm touch that healed his aching, broken body. All of this will be gone with a pull of a switch.

“If that’s what she wants then…….I will always love you my Sunflower”

The doctor walked over and sighed and flipped all the switches off and he left Keegan alone. The beeping sounds of her heart monitor kept beeping. Keegan closed his eyes.

Waiting for her the monitor to flatline once again.

“Doctor!”

The sound of the nurse running out of the room. Keegan looked up to see that his Sunflower was breathing on her own and her heart beating strong on its own. But her fingers twitched in his grasp.

“Sunflower baby stay with me. I’m right here. You’re strong pull through for me baby. I’m right here I never left your side.”

🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻

“You’re my wildflower”

“Come back to me”