#cod:mw2 au

[bitchin-beskar]

the taste of scotch and cigars - chapter one

Rating: M

Pairing: Captain John Price x Fem!Reader

Warnings: fake dating trope, propositioning a stranger in a bar, drinking/mentions of being tipsy (minor), intense makeout in public, hints of exhibition kink, hints of voice kink, absolutely fucking douchebag of an ex, mentions of cheating, I think that's it for this chapter? Most of these will be expanded the further into the story we get, and more warnings will come hehe.

Word Count: 3.7k

A/N: this is one of the au ideas I've ranted to @catsnkooks about (there are many) and I wanted to schedule the first chapter drop during my vacay because it's been sitting in my wip folder and I wanna get opinions to see if people like this idea/wanna see more. (I mean, I'm gonna post it regardless but I still wanna see if people are into the idea). anyways, enjoy this fun spin on a fake dating trope :)

The burn of cheap vodka as it slid down your throat did little to soothe the ache in your chest. Coming here was a mistake. You should’ve let sleeping dogs lie, let your past stay where it belongs. Instead, you’re submerged in old memories and familiar hurts, the waters of time washing over your head and threatening to drown you in melancholy and diffidence.

The noise of the packed pub pressed in from all sides, buffeting you and keeping you off balance, loud enough that you were barely able to hear yourself think. You’d managed to avoid interactions thus far, but the likelyhood of that dwindled with every second you lingered, waiting for…

Well.

God only knows what you were waiting for.

Draining the last dregs of your drink, the thunk of your empty glass on the wooden bar as you sat it down made you frown and debate waving over the bartender for another refill. You thought for a long moment, before you decided otherwise. If you were going to be interacting with others tonight, you’d prefer to have at least some of your wits about you, and the vodka you’d consumed was enough to take the edge of your sorrow off. Any more though, and you couldn’t be held responsible for what might happen.

You turned around in your seat, scanning the crowd. In the back corner of the pub, you saw them for the first time that night since you’d walked in. The group seemed to be concentrated in the back, thankfully. You’d done a perfunctory greeting with the hosts of this little reunion, and then beelined for the bar and had been sat there since. Honestly, you’re not entirely sure why you even came.

Unfortunately, right as you were looking over at the group, you made eye contact with Christian, the one person you’d been hoping to avoid. He’d been looking in your direction, and when he saw you, he smirked and stood up, beginning to try and make his way through the crowd.

“Fuck,” you muttered as you spun around again on your stool, regretting not having ordered another drink. “God fucking dammit.”

Squeezing your eyes shut, you began to wonder if it was possible for you to make a quick escape in the crowd, when your panic was interrupted by a deep and deceptively smooth British-accented voice to your right.

“Everythin’ alright, love?”

Turning your head, you made eye contact with the older man sitting next to you at the bar, and immediately your mouth went dry. How had you not noticed him yet?

He was absolutely gorgeous, with clear, intelligent blue eyes and thick dark brown hair that you wanted to run your fingers through. His cheeks and upper lip were covered in that same dark brown hair, shaved into mutton chops with stubble on his lower lip and chin. He was dressed in a light blue henley that clung to his torso, a hint of a ball chain disappering into the vee of the neckline, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and showing off his forearms. One hand was wrapped around a glass of scotch, and dangling from the fingers of his other hand was a lit Maduro cigar. He had on dark, well worn blue jeans that were moulded to his thighs, and black, slightly scuffed up combat boots.

He looked like the kind of man you’d spent many a shameful night fantasizing about back in high school, fingers ducking below the waistband of your sleep shorts as you clasped a hand over your mouth lest you wake your parents sleeping down the hall.

Those bright blue eyes were focused on yours, and you felt your cheeks heat under his surprisingly intense yet soft gaze. Something deep inside of you, fueled by the vodka, whispered that this was the kind of man you could trust, the kind of man who maybe, possibly would be willing to help a perfect stranger out of nothing but the kindness of his heart.

Maybe it was the alcohol, and you were drunker than you thought. Maybe it was the way he was looking at you, this gorgeous, dangerous man who managed to pierce you with such soft, kind eyes. Whatever it was, you lost control over your brain-to-mouth filter, and words began to spill forth.

“My ex is here, he just saw me and is coming this way, and it’s been years since I last saw him, and… god, I don’t have the strength to deal with him tonight, he never fucking takes no for an answer, would you be willing– I mean if it’s not too much trouble, and I could pay you back, but could I ask you–”

You managed to reboot your brain, but not quite fast enough to stop the spew of words from escaping you, and physically biting your own tongue was the only way to prevent you from making an even bigger fool of yourself. Immediately you averted your eyes, tearing yourself away from his piercing gaze as you shrunk in your seat, dread and shame roiling in the pit of your stomach and mixing with the alcohol to make you feel sick.

Jesus H. Christ, what the fuck were you thinking? He just asked if you were alright, he didn’t ask to have your entire life story dumped on him at the drop of a hat. He had to be at least ten years older than you, if not more, you were likely barely more than a silly little girl in his eyes. Shit, he’s probably got a stunning wife and gorgeous kids at home, and here you are, practically propositioning the poor man. Your mama always said you were a no-good, simple-minded child, and here you are, not even ten years outta her house and proving her right once again.

So lost in your self ruminations, you don’t notice the pensive look on the handsome stranger’s face, until suddenly there’s an arm wrapped securely around your waist and you’re being tugged off your barstool and onto a thickly muscled thigh, leaning against against the warm length of a heavily muscled torso. You somehow manage to not leap out of your skin in surprise, even when you feel the brush of his lips against the outer shell of your ear, his voice a low growl, gravel grinding against pavement.

“I’m more’n willing to help a pretty lil’ girl like you, love. No debt necessary. ‘Sides, a man who doesn’ understand the word no? Princess, that ain’t a man at all.”

Dreaming. You’ve gotta be stuck in some kind of alcohol intoxication induced fever dream, because there’s no fucking way that this is your life right now. Shit like this doesn’t happen outside of cheesy romcoms and trashy dime store novels. Let alone at random pubs in fucking Liverpool.

You’re not given the time to delve more into the ramifications of dreams induced by too much imbibed alcohol because your ears are abruptly assaulted by a reedy, nasally voice that you wished you could forget, but was burned into so many of your adolescent memories.

“Sweetcheeks! Goodness, it’s been awhile! You know, I wasn’t sure I’d see you here, we were all pretty surprised you showed up.”

The stanger-who’s lap you were perched-on turned at the interruption, his hand sliding from your hip across your belly, palm hot through the thin fabric of your shirt. He hooked his finger in your belt loop, fingers pressing reassuringly into the meat of your hip as his forearm felt like a bar of iron against your abdomen. The positioning was oddly possessive, like it meant more than him making sure you didn’t tip off his thigh and onto the dingy floor of the pub. His glass of scotch was abandoned on the bar, the arm not holding you streched out on the wood, cigar dangling from his fingers. You turned your head to look at the last person in the world you wanted to see, although you were distracted slightly from your ire by the slow drag of lips along the length of your jaw, the bristles on your stranger’s beard tickling the sensitive skin. It was an act that was surprisingly soothing as it was intimate.

Schooling your features, you looked at the face of the man who’d held your entire heart in his hands and shattered it on the ground without a second thought. Half a decade hadn’t dulled the pain, although you did a remarkable job at covering it up.

“Christian. Wish I could say it’s a pleasure.”

He pouted, an altogether unattractive look, although years ago it had been one to tug at your heartstrings. “Awe, don’t tell me you haven’t missed me, at least a little bit?”

You fixed him with a glare, even as fury began to burn low in your belly. “Why exactly would I be missing you, Christian?”

He rolled his eyes, as though the answer was exceedingly obvious, and he thought you dumb for even having to ask. “Awe, babes, you’re not still hung up about that little incident, are you? Even your momma thinks you’re overreacting, sweetcheeks.”

You cocked an eyebrow, even as you subconsciously sank further into your stranger’s embrace, his hold on you soothing and helping to keep you grounded. The admission that he still talked to your momma stung more than it should have, but then, she’d been heartbroken when you divorced who, in her eyes, was the most perfect embodiement of a son-in-law to ever grace God’s green earth. Figures she’d refuse to cut contact with him, even though you had.

“Hung up? Little incident? I came home to find you fucking Paisleigh, my best friend, in our fucking bed. And then I find out it wasn’t just the once, but practically every single week of our relationship, with about three dozen different girls over the years. I would say I have every right to still be pissed at you, Christian.”

“Well, that’s hardly my fault, is it? Men have needs, babes. I was just doing what I needed to, since you certainly weren’t fullfilling ‘em. You hardly needed to move halfway across the world cause you got a lil’ upset about it.”

It took every shred of self control you had to refrain from launching yourself off of your stranger’s lap–and dear sweet god, you’re just now realizing you don’t actually know his fucking name–and strangling the idiot in front of you. Honestly though, it was probably less about your self control and more about the way his arm tightened around you, his fingers hooking tighter around your belt loop. He brought his other hand up to take a slow drag off his cigar, the richly sweet smoke curling around your body as he exhaled, his chest pressed comfortingly against your back. He let his hand drop, resting it on top of your thigh, fingers carefully keeping the cigar away from the fabric of your pants.

You felt the movement of his head as he gave Christian a look, glancing up and down before scoffing darkly, the sound sending shivers down your spine. He only held you tighter, even as he opened his mouth, and the rich smoke of his voice filled your ears, deep and dripping honey, sending sparks straight to the fire in your gut.

“You’re no man. You’re barely more ‘n a immature little boy, a waste o’ space n’ air. If you’re not willin’ to stay faithful, then ya shouldn’t be in a relationship. If you weren’t satisfied, it certainly wasn’t somethin’ she was doin’ wrong.” He punctuated his words with a kiss to your temple, and dammit if it didn’t make you wanna melt into a puddle on the floor.

Christian puffed up, looking extremely offended, albeit ridiculous considering he was skinnier than a stick. “Do you have any idea who I am, old man?”

You’re trying very hard not to panic, because you didn’t have time to tell your stranger anything before this conversation, but you shouldn’t have worried, because he simply replied with a shrug of his shoulders, and a short, clipped, “Nah, should I?”

Dammit, you thought, trying to hold back a laugh. You didn’t know he was funny too.

If anything, that only pissed Christian off more. “Sweetcheeks, you didn’t tell your little friend here about your husband?”

“Ex-husband,” you hissed, eyes narrowing and body tensing at the way Christian spoke, all amusement draining from you at the sound of him acting so damn dismissive, it made you wanna claw his eyes out.

“Shh, is alrigh’, love,” your stranger whispered in your ear, and to your surprise, the tension bled back out of your limbs, the low timbre of his growl soothing the fury boiling inside you. Unfortunately, Christian rudely interrupted.

“And just who are you supposed to be?”

Your stranger chuckled, the vibrations rumbling pleasantly against your back. “Nah, I’m nobody special. Jus’ the one who took advantage of your colossal fuck up and married the sweet thing you let get away, ain’t tha’ right, love?”

It took every ounce of control you had to stop the surprise from showing on your face at his declaration. This was so far beyond anything you could’ve ever hoped for, you didn’t quite know how to handle it. There’d been no hesitation on his part, no awkward pauses or stuttering. Just a steady declaration that he was apparently your (fake, fake you reminded your brain) husband.

Christian’s cheeks were turning a ruddy color, nearly incandescent with rage. You should’ve realized that this little charade was gonna push him too far, especially when he bared his teeth and snarled.

“I pity you, sweetcheeks, you’re such an obvious charity case I should’ve known. No way is another man willing to settle down with you, especially considering the fact that you’re used, broken goods. Did’ja tell him that, before you trapped him, babes?” He growled, spittle flying. “Quieter than a doormouse in bed, she doesn’t even know how to properly pleasure a man, else I wouldn’ta needed to find someone else, isn’t that right?”

Ok, that was it. You were going to deck Christian here and now. You were done letting him have all the power, letting him walk all over you like he had for the entirety of your relationship. Just as you placed your hands on the forearm around your waist to push it off you so you could fight your fucking ex, a firm hand on your jaw distracted you, turning your face to the side and tilting it up, then slightly chapped lips were covering yours.

Oh.

Your eyes fluttered shut as calloused fingers smoothed over your jaw, cupping your face as your gorgeous, dangerous-looking stranger slowly pried your lips open and plunged his tongue into your mouth, stroking the length of it alongside your own tongue. You followed his lead, opening up beautifully beneath him, letting him kiss you deeper as he plundered your mouth, growing more heated, more passionate with every brush of his lips against yours. His beard scratched gently at the sensitive skin around your mouth, but beard-burn was quite literally the last thing on your mind. The entire world faded away, until it was just you and your stranger, and the deep, possessive way he kissed you.

He claimed you with his mouth, there was no better way to describe it. He drew back slightly, only so he could bite at your lower lip, teeth pulling at the darkened skin and making you let out a surprised moan before he dove back in, open mouthed and messy. He sucked on your tongue, making you whimper softly, which only spurned him on even more. His fingers tightned on your jaw, keeping you steady against his onslaught, stealing kiss after kiss. He stole the very breath from your lungs, every time you pulled back to gasp for breath he simply chased you, greedily depriving you of precious oxygen.

He tasted like scotch and cigars, the smooth burn and sharp bite of sweet smoke mixing to create something so uniquely him that you honestly couldn’t imagine him tasting like anything else. You wondered if he tasted the vodka on your tongue, or the coconut of the lip balm on your lips. Whatever your taste, he couldn’t seem to get enough.

A loud cough broke the bubble you’d found yourself enveloped in as he kissed you, but even still, he didn’t let you jerk away, pressing one, two, three kisses in quick succession against your swollen and tender lips, glossy and slick with spit.

Your eyes slowly opened, finding him already staring at you, his pupils blown wide, inky black surrounded by a pale, thin ring of blue. His fingers stroked the skin of your cheek, almost reverent as his gaze flickered between your own wide eyes and your ravaged mouth.

Incoherrent sputtering drew your attention away from the man who’d just kissed you–a fucking stranger–like you were the only two people to exisit in the world and not just at a pub in the middle of Liverpool, and you slowly slid your eyes from his to look at Christian.

You had to fight the urge not to laugh. Christian somehow managed to look equal parts dumbfounded and embarrassed as hell. Considering the way you’d just been kissed felt like it had to break some kind of public indecency law, you weren’t too surprised at the mix of emotions on his face, although they were quickly giving way to anger once again.

He didn’t get to interject, however, as your stranger spoke, his voice barely more than a growl. “If you’d been any good in bed, then maybe you’d have some kinda idea about all the pretty sounds my wife can make, but somethin’ tells me you weren’ ever enough to earn those, and like hell am I ‘bout to let you learn how she sounds when she makes ‘em now.”

Abruptly, he stood, easily hoisting you off his lap to stand on the ground, although his arm stayed secure around you and not letting you take even one step away from him.

“Hol’ this for me, love?”

He handed you his cigar, before digging in his back pocket to pull out a wad of cash, throwing it on the bar and making a quick gesture at the bartender to indicate that he was closing your tabs.

He turned back towards your ex, making eye contact even as he wrapped his fingers around your wrist and brought your hand up to his mouth so he could take a drag from his cigar still gripped between your fingers, breathing in deeply before exhaling, chuckling at the disgusted look on Christian’s face.

“My wife ‘n I are leavin now, cause I’ve been deployed too damn long and I don’ feel like wastin’ another second with bloody pricks who mattered so little in her life that she doesn’ even mention you.”

With that, and a gentle nudge, your stranger began to steer you out of the pub, sliding his arm from where it was still wrapped around you, instead slipping his hand into the back pocket on your jeans, cupping your ass and giving your ex a little show, and causing your heartbeat to race. The cool air hitting your face as you stepped out onto the streets of Liverpool felt like being reborn, as you felt the tension that had been gathering all of the last few weekes in preparation for today just… fade away.

The two of you walked a bit away from the door to the pub before your stranger slid his hand out from your back pocket, leaving you immediately missing the security and warmth he’d provided, even with just that little touch. You turned to look at him, silently offering his cigar back, which he took, but just let it dangle from his fingers. His expression was sheepish, and he rubbed at the back of his neck with his free hand. It was endearing, and you found yourself having to violently squash the part of you that said to just go for it and kiss him again, just to see if he’d still react the same way without an audience.

“I do apologize, ma’am,” he offered, and you blinked, thrown a bit. Why on earth was he apologizing to you? Shouldn’t you be the one apologizing, for even asking a total stranger a favor like that in the first place?

“I might’a taken things a bit far back there, but no one should be talkin’ to ya like that, love. It don’ matter who they were or what they used’ta mean to ya.”

To your horror, you felt your eyes begin to burn with unshed tears. You were so used to being the one blamed for the failure of your relationship, being the one told that you must’ve done something wrong to force a man like Christian to seek someone outside of your marriage, that to have someone tell you that it wasn’t ok for you to be treated that way was like a balm on an old wound you didn’t realize had ripped back open.

You had no idea how to respond to what he’d said, and at a complete loss for words, you blurted out the first thing to come to your mind.

“I don’t even know your name?”

His laugh was deep and warm, and you desperately wanted to take it inside you and hold it’s comfort there for the rest of your life. He smiled at you, eyes twinkling, and held his free hand out.

“Captain John Price, British SAS, at your service, love.”

You took a deep breath even as you placed your hand in his, trying not to show how the sound of his title falling from his lips sent a heady rush of arousal through you. You’d thought he might’ve been military, and the confirmation was doing unspeakable things to you.

“I-, uh, sir-” you started, only to be cut off as he brought your fingers up to his lips, brushing them across the backs of your knuckles and making your knees go weak with the look he leveled you with.

“Love, not to be crass, but I’ve had my tongue down your throat and my hand on your arse. I think you can call me John.”

[eowynstwin]

a wake-up call / neighbors

previous

On a cold winter's day in the early morning hours, you knock on your neighbor Captain John Price's door to make a noise complaint. - “Did you mean any of it?” he asks, voice low and deep in his chest. - ao3

Three knocks on your front door wake you up.

The sound feels at first like the thump of your own throbbing brain against the inside of your skull. Awareness comes back to you slowly, in gradiated shades of stiff joints and greasy skin. You shift, and find you’re still on your couch, still in your clothes from last night. Your eyes are filmy, sticky with dehydration—you blink several times to clear them, to little effect.

The knocking, a three-beat staccato, comes again.

“One second,” you croak irritably, cupping your forehead with your hand. Your skull might come apart, you think, if you move too much.

Your entire body feels like it is suspended from loose, tangled marionette strings as you struggle to sit up on the couch, and you wobble to that effect as you stand. Somehow, your flat has tilted at thirty degree angle, likely sometime in your sleep. You make it to the door at an oblique, having to lean on the jamb as you open it, and to add insult to injury John is standing on your doorstep like a clean, shining beacon of sobriety.

He’s in a dark shirt and jeans. His hair is casually neat, as if he’d styled it with his fingers. He looks fresh-faced, as if he’s been awake for hours already.

“That’s not fair,” you groan. 

His brows draw together over cool blue eyes. “Jesus, love,” he says, looking you up and down.

You think you should say something back. But your head is too full of ache and interrupted sleep—and the bright shock of his presence—to produce anything intelligent.

“John,” is all you say, and you sound absolutely pathetic.

“Was gonna accuse you of standing me up,” he says ruefully, “but I see that’s not the case.”

“No,” you say dumbly. The fact that he’s come to seek you out gets tangled up in the strings. “Um.”

It is so far out of the ordinary as to be dreamlike. John’s knocking belongs on the other side of your wall, not your door. His boots belong on his own doorstep, making room for your house slippers at the time of your choosing, not his.

“Am I still drunk?” you wonder aloud.

John gives that little huff-laugh of his. “I doubt it.”

You rub your face. “Have I overslept?”

“Just a bit,” he replies. “I’ll admit, when I didn’t hear you move around this morning, I got worried.”

“I fell asleep on the couch,” you confess. You put a hand to your forehead as your brain throbs again. “Oh, I shouldn’t have drank that much.”

“Love,” says John, gentle and soft, “why don’t you let me in, and I’ll make you some breakfast?”

You blink, and you’re sure now that you’re still drunk. 

John. In your flat. Cooking?

“I’m not fancy in the kitchen, but I manage alright,” he suggests further. His gaze is warm on yours, brows lifted encouragingly.

“…Sure,” you say, and shuffle to the side to let him in. If this morning is determined to be strange, you might as well not get in its way.

He gives you a small smile and crosses the threshold. 

Your flat shifts again; as he enters your living room, it seems to shrink, or maybe it’s just that John fills your home in a way no one ever has. His body, his presence, casts new light on the interior that throws its existence into unfamiliar repose. Details—the softness of your furniture, the cozy clutter of books and knickknacks spread across every available flat surface—offer unmeasured insight into who you are, more than you might ever have intended to reveal to John.

It’s only when he’s halfway to your kitchen that you realize one detail—the bright fucking pink of your vibrator, still on your coffee table—is glowing like a neon sign.

And your previous night’s activities come flooding back. 

Your body, draped over his. The scrape of his beard on your hand, your face. 

The furious grind of your mons against that toy as you pictured him taking you, drenched in hot shower water and pressed bare to the tile wall.

You are fully, painfully awake now. You stare, frozen in shocked terror, waiting for him to catch sight of it, but his head does not turn in its direction. He passes by it with no indication that he even noticed.

You dart over and snatch it behind his back, shoving it deep into your dress pocket, and grab up the empty water glass for an excuse. Then you have to put a hand to your head as your vision swims from the sudden movement.

“Have eggs?” John asks over his shoulder. He enters your kitchen. “I can make ‘em any way you like. Fried, over easy, sunny side…”

“Um,” you say, squeezing your eyes shut, “scrambled.”

You follow after him, and lean against the wall to watch as he opens your fridge. His hand engulfs more of its handle than yours ever has; the musculature of his powerful body visibly shifts beneath his clothes as he has to bend down to root around the shelves.

He is broad in your kitchen. As broad as he’d been between your legs, in memory and in fantasy.

You don’t realize you’re staring until he straightens and puts the eggs, butter, and milk on the counter. Your breath hangs suspended in the shallows of your lungs when he catches your gaze.

His brows crease again. “You look like you’re about to fall over.” 

“Um,” you say, again, because it’s the only sound your brain will reliably supply.

To your horror, he comes to you, and—oh, god—takes your face in both hands.

“You’re warm,” he says. “Do you feel sick, love?”

Your brain supplies nothing now. It is so unfair, how good he looks the morning after drinking nearly half a bottle of scotch. His features are velvet-soft, so easy and wonderful to look at that you stop feeling your headache entirely.

“I really think I might still be drunk,” you admit, sounding pathetic.

His thumbs rub into your temples as he smiles at you. “Hell of a hangover, then.”

The pressure of his fingers is an incredible relief, and you close your eyes as you give into it. You feel, if your knees suddenly gave out, that he would easily be able to hold you up like this, as if you weighed nothing. His hands are a little cool from rooting around in your fridge, and the rest of him is warm, standing close enough that his body heat reaches out to you with the freshness of a recent shower. You want to fall into that warmth, bury your face in his chest…

Your eyes fly open. You hear your own voice again—I wanted to touch you, and I wanted you to hold me. You feel, again, the echo of his body between your thighs. Your heart starts beating wildly in your chest as embarrassment, hot and acidic, pumps through you.

“I think I need to sit down,” you whisper.

He strokes your temples, and surveys your face with a gentle gaze. “Sure, love. Go ahead.”

And then he releases you, and you try to remember how to walk as you return to your living room. There is no relief to be found as you sit down on your couch, which is indented by the dissatisfied night.

“How’d you sleep?” John asks from the counter. You hear him crack a few eggs into a bowl. This is the first time cooking has happened in your kitchen with you outside of it, and the cognitive dissonance of it does not help to steady you.

“Like the dead,” you say, rubbing your sore neck. Then, you decide to lie to him. “I—I think I passed out before the door even closed last night.”

John looks over his shoulder at you, and he smiles. The vibrator sits cold in your pocket. Are you imagining that glimmer in his eyes? “Wouldn’t be surprised. You were pretty out of it.”

“I didn’t end up drinking the whole bottle, did I?”

A chuckle. “Not quite.”

“Didn’t you drink as much as me?” You try to recall, and think you can remember him matching you glass for glass. “Why aren’t you out of commission?”

“The army never cares if you’re hungover, I’ve found,” says John. “Guess I learned to stop caring too.”

You hear the sizzle of whisked eggs spreading over a hot pan, and for a while there’s only the sound of John moving a spatula around.

You watch him in your kitchen, his back to you as he stands at the stove. His long-sleeved shirt clings to the breadth of his shoulders, planes of shifting muscle underneath casting shadows through the soft cotton. The collar hangs a little low down his neck, leaving enough room for the dark hair at his nape to curl as it dries.

It makes something in your stomach twist, twinning your nervous hunger with unstable desire. It’s something that wants to walk back into the kitchen and wrap your arms around his trim waist, press your cheek between his shoulder blades.

“Want anything else?” John asks. “Could make some toast.”

“Eggs are fine!” you say too quickly.

The spatula scrapes softly against the pan again. As he turns to open your fridge, you swear you see him grinning. 

Heat blooms across your face. SAS. Of course he could feel you looking at him.

It does not take him very long to finish cooking. Space bends once again as he leaves your kitchen, as he comes to you with a plate balanced on one hand and a glass of orange juice in the other. You feel smaller than you ever have as he approaches, and sets the meal in front of you on the coffee table. 

“Hope it tastes alright,” he says, sitting down beside you. He sinks into your couch cushions, far more dense than you are, and looks quite comfortable doing so. “I made ‘em how I like ‘em, but no guarantee you’ll feel the same.”

You look from him to the eggs, which are golden yellow and steaming pleasantly. “You didn’t make yourself anything?”

There is a softness in his eyes when you look back to him. You’ve seen it before—it’s there every time you hand him a new book. “Don’t worry ‘bout me. Just eat.”

You can’t protest when he’s looking at you like that, so you obey, suddenly ravenous once a forkful is between your teeth. The eggs are whipped to a wonderfully soft fluff, salted perfectly, and you think you can taste the barest hint of butter. You can’t help shutting your eyes to savor the taste.

“Good?” John asks. “I’ll admit, I’m not much of a cook, but I think I’m all right at eggs.”

Usually you like to add things when you make the same dish—potato chips, broken up into little crumbs, or a dollop of sour cream and salsa. For once though, right now you’d be disappointed by all that. 

They wouldn’t be the eggs John made for you.

The thought makes your stomach twist again. “Delicious,” you say. “Thank you.”

He watches you eat, and you try not to feel self-conscious. He seems almost—satisfied by this, by feeding you, more than you would expect him to be. But then, this has always been the case with John. You have never understood why the smallest of things you do have such an impact on him, but they do nonetheless.

“John,” you say. “About last night…I wanted to apologize.”

Dark brows crease as you set the empty plate down. “What for?”

“I got so drunk,” you say. You won’t look at him, face heating, strangling your own fingers in your lap. “You—you had to carry me home, and I’m so embarrassed by the things I said, I was so inconsiderate.”

“That’s not—”

“You must have felt so uncomfortable,” you continue, “you were so nice to take me out, and there I was acting like a lush with no self-control—”

“Darling, it’s fine—”

“And then after, the way I—I pawed at you—”

He says your name—fully and clearly, firmly—and it catches you so off guard that your words halt in your throat. You finally meet his gaze.

John’s eyes have always been windows. Portals into the truth of him, freely offered, without hesitance or fear. You think John knows himself in ways few men do—knows every corner, every crack and crevice, and refuses to hide any of it from himself or anyone else. As if he is not afraid of being seen for what and who he is; as if he has seen it all already, and cannot be daunted by it.

What you see now is undisguised. Untempered. John Price wants you. And he has no fear that you can see it.

“Did you mean any of it?” he asks, voice low and deep in his chest.

The question catches you off guard, throwing you with its directness. The only thing keeping you upright is his gaze, the steady certainty of its own intention. Strong even under the weight of suspense. 

You swallow, and take a shaky breath. “John,” you say, “I was so drunk...”

His eyes flash. John moves, leans forward, and you are speared, held in place much the same way you had been at dinner, by his presence alone. “I know. But did you mean it?”

The breath trapped in your lungs calcifies, solidifies into hard, pressing nodules of catalyzed fear and desire that trap the seeds of any response in your chest. You tear your gaze away from him, finally, stare at the empty plate on your table. He does not touch you, but you feel the phantom weight of his hand on your knee. The warmth of his body against yours.

“We hardly know each other,” you whisper shakily. It is a flimsy scrap of an excuse, even to you. “We—we barely know each other at all.”

“Love,” John says, low and soft. You turn to look at him again. His lips part—

Your phone rings.

You exhale hard, strings suddenly cut. John closes his eyes, breathes out, and then leans back again.

You retrieve your phone from where you’d flung your purse last night, off the couch and to the opposite wall where it lays on the floor. When you see the caller ID, you want to throw the phone back across the room, but you take a deep breath and answer anyway.

“Ben,” you sigh, and to your furious embarrassment it comes out as a croak.

“Hey, sweets, Liv is—wait. You sound awful,” comes your coworker—and ex-boyfriend’s—voice through the earpiece.

“Rough night,” you say, closing your eyes against sweets. You then look at John. His gaze is fixed on you.

“Oh, sorry,” Ben says. “Anything I can do?”

He could have not called. “Tell me about Liv,” you prompt him.

“Right! She’s out. Flu.”

“Oh.” You blink, and watch John retrieve your plate and glass. He takes them to the kitchen and runs the faucet low, so the sound won’t interfere with your call. 

You’re not sure how you know that that’s his intention, but you do. 

“That’s awful.”

“And inconvenient. We need another instructor for the trip.”

Can John hear what Ben is saying? He looks up from the sink, lifts one brow when you meet his eyes. There’s humor there, a kind of rueful empathy for dealing with the nonsense of coworkers.

You want to hang up. You want to answer his question right then and there. 

“When?” you ask.

“Two hours. I know! I know it’s short notice,” he says, animatedly contrite. “Sorry. But we’d love to have you, it’ll be fun! I can even pick you up, if you like.”

“No, that’s alright,” you sigh. “But okay, I’ll start packing. Just send me the details, yeah?”

“Sure, sweets,” Ben replies, “can’t wait to see you! I’ve missed hanging out, you know? Even after…everything.”

The gravitational force of John’s presence—the shift and bend of your flat around him—snaps in half. Reality asserts itself like a recurring headache. 

Suddenly you’re in your flat, phone to your ear, unshowered from last night and coated in a layer of grease. The vibrator is a useless weight in your pocket. You are a useless girl hungover in day-old clothes.

“I’ll see you soon,” you say noncommittally, and hang up.

John gazes at you expectantly from over the sink.

“Work trip,” you say, and you wonder if you sound as dazed as you feel. “Last minute, I…I need to get ready.”

John blinks, and then grins, amused. Crow’s feet gather in the corners of his eyes. “You know, I’m usually the one in that situation.”

Suddenly he is too much to look at. You tear your gaze away, look at your phone in your hands. You feel very exposed, ashamed somehow. “I’m sorry,” you say.

You hear the easy drum of John’s boots out of your kitchen, across the room, and then he’s in front of you. His hands are in his pockets, arms slung loose at his sides. “What for?”

“For…”

He steps closer to you. Your heart leaps in your chest, and you have to look up at him, unable to resist the pull he has on you.

The line of his mouth is gentle, and you stare too long at the divot of his Cupid’s bow. Beneath the soft lines of his brows, his gaze is soft, fond. More so than you deserve.

“I don’t really know.”

The long muscle in his neck shifts as he tilts his head. You swallow, unconsciously mirroring the gesture.

“John…I…”

His gaze drops—rests on your lips, and returns to yours.

“Love,” he murmurs, low and humming. “Did you mean it?”

His voice slides across you like physical touch, and every hair feels like it’s standing on end.

Yes. Yes, of course you meant it, every word. It feels so obvious to you, so blatant, and the shame of it holds you by the throat. You are not important enough to inflict upon John Price. You are trembling, meek, afraid of stepping outside your own door sometimes. What is that in comparison to him? Him, who comes home shaking off the dust of places you’ve only ever heard of. Him, who you’ve learned can swear in six different languages. Him, who has stuffed more life than you thought possible into only a handful more years of living than yours.

Of course you want him. Moths are always drawn toward flame. How could you not?

“John,” you say in your smallest voice. You hate the way it sounds—like an admission of guilt. “What if I did?”

He doesn’t move, but you see the shift in him anyway. A coiling, almost,  energy banking as he studies you, searches your face. His hands remain in his pockets. He watches you for a long moment, and you can’t possibly imagine what he might like in what he sees.

“Ball’s in your court, then,” he finally says, soft and low in his chest. “Whatever you want from me, love, you can have.”

You want too much. You can’t give enough back.

“I don’t want to ruin this,” you say on a shallow breath. “Our—us. What we already have.”

He steps closer to you. Close enough that his shirt brushes the front of your dress. Close enough that his clean, soft warmth near-envelops you, the exact same way you’d been wishing for earlier. He does not reach out, like he did when he thought you were sick. You cannot decide if this disappoints you or not. You feel shaky without his hands on you, feverish and embarrassed, and you fear desperately that he can see that as he holds your gaze, that you are completely open to him in a way that leaves no space for the truth to hide. 

“You won’t,” he says, steady and solid.  

You take a trembling breath, swallow to clear your throat. “I…”

He withdraws one hand from his pocket, slowly, and brings it upward. Feather-light, he curls his index finger under your chin, caressing his thumb so terribly gently beneath your bottom lip. You cannot help flinching, anticipatory want recoiling from the very thing it was aching for in surprise, and for a split second you are newly scared that he’ll take his touch away.

But he doesn’t. The windows of John’s eyes stay open, and there is nothing but intent behind them. You realize he knows. He knows that you’re reluctant, that you’re unsure, that you are pulled to him like a falling star to earth and also terrified of burning up in the process. 

He understands.

“I’m a patient man, love,” he purrs, and you realize too that he is excited by this, by you. “I can wait. As long as you need.”

next

[celenawrites]

After Hours: CH1 — Another Work Day

Pairing - Simon 'Ghost' Riley x F!Reader, previous! Phillip Graves x F!Reader

Warnings - Office AU, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Eventual Smut, Slow Burn, Misunderstandings, Sexting, Praise Kink, Dry Humor, etc.

Summary -

Life has been out to get you ever since you found your ex cheating on you. To add salt to your wounds, your beloved pet dog goes missing while you try to recover from your nasty breakup and your company has been overloading you with piles and piles of paperwork you can never seem to finish; along with a bunch of babbling interns who can never take a hint when it comes to shutting the fuck up, along with a scary, firm-handed supervisor who seems oddly interested in getting to know you better, despite your reluctance. 

Chapter Summary -

Just another day at work with your unique team.

Read on AO3? | Masterlist | Navigation

As you put up the final poster of your missing dog near a park, you ruefully recall how this wretched week had begun. 

You were two months clean of your no-good, chauvinist manwhore of an ex when you decided to leave your beloved golden retriever behind at your empty one-room apartment as you set off for a long commute to work. Granted, your life has become lonelier than usual with the remnants of your estranged partner scattered around the space - like his red toothbrush in the bathroom stand, the ukulele still hung up on your cream walls, or the crystal ashtray he used whenever he decided to smoke a cigar and set off the smoke alarms in the small (you prefer to call it ‘cozy’, despite his many protests) living room, forcing you to open up the windows and air out your room, hoping that the neighbors don’t lodge a complaint against you in the RWA.

But you have set up a routine, which is not perfect by any means - yet you make do with it. It also helps that your dog Butters is just an absolute ray of sunshine, always up for a walk and playing fetch to cheer you up whenever you get off work. After a long day of work, playing with him was all you had been looking forward to - until you noticed your ajar door and felt your world come to a standstill. Fearing the worst, you burst inside and frantically check around for any stolen valuables you may have to report to the police. So much for a chill night after work. 

Luckily, it had seemed no one had broken in and you had just forgotten to lock your doors in your hurry to catch the morning train. But the silence and the lack of your furry friends sets off alarm bells in your head. You quickly call out his name, hoping to catch a glimpse of that golden fur, but to no avail. Frantic, you rush out of your apartment as you yell for your companion. When you fail to locate him anywhere in your block, you resort to asking your neighbors in case any one of them had spotted him throughout the day. Some of them are peeved at you disturbing them, but they’re quick to pity your dejected figure, tears welling up in your eyes as the day catches up to your weary body. 

With aching legs, you make your way to the park you often frequented with Butters and in the plethora of crowd of people and pets alike, you attempt to search for your dear doggo and it is all in vain. With defeat weighing you down, you quickly dial for the police and lodge a report for your missing friend. Noting down your case number and the names of the staff in-charge, you sluggishly go back home and prepare a half-hearted dinner of heated frozen pizza, which you eat with virtually no appetite to satiate and go to sleep on the hard couch with swollen eyes and a migraine blooming between your temples as the empty bedroom still haunted you with not-so-fond memories. 

A week has passed since then, with no plausible leads to Butter’s whereabouts. The cops have even suggested you give up and get a replacement for him, which just made you all the more angrier at their blatant apathy. With each passing day, you lose your hopes of ever reuniting with your beloved fur baby; but you hope for Butters to be alright, wherever he is. 

Whoever has him, please take care of my baby, you silently wish as you stare at the blank screensaver on your desktop, activated due to your prolonged inactivity. Snapping out of your thoughts, you quickly press on the spacebar thrice until the Excel spreadsheets are visible again. Sighing at the banal tasks assigned to you, you quickly check your phone for any texts. Family and friends and classmates you occasionally stay in touch with;they all have texted you something or the other - a greeting, a link, a meme. And then there’s your ex, who has left you ‘on seen’ after you texted him to come and grab his box of belongings two weeks after your breakup. Whether it is because he is in denial over you growing a spine and breaking up with him when you caught him cheating, or because he believes that you would come crawling back to him and beg him to grace your life with his presence(which is a tempting thought that you frequently entertain, especially during lonely nights when you crave rough hands to caress you into a lull), you do not know and you don’t have enough fucks in order to find out either. 

“How’s my bonnie doin’?” a familiar Scottish voice asks, and you whip up your head to find Mactavish standing in front of your desk, all sunshines and smiles and mohawks as he greets you. 

“Hey Johnny, I’ve been better”, you rub the sleep from your eyes as you look at him with a slow smile of yours. John ‘Soap’ Mactavish was the first coworker you had befriended when you decided to join the tech security company One-Four-One. Director Laswell had asked him to give you a tour of the place and help you set up your work devices and he had taken on that responsibility with a toothy grin and a loud pat on your back, promising to show all there is to be seen and help you out whenever you find yourself stuck. With his easy going attitude and helping nature, it didn’t take you long until you found yourself looking forward to attending office, if only to spend some time with your coworker-slash-friend. 

“Worried about Butters, huh?” he somberly asks you, gently rubbing your upper arm in sympathy. 

“Yeah, I am just worried about him. I hope he’s okay”, your nose prickles with the fresh onset of unshed tears in your eyes and you bury your face in your hands as you try to take deep breaths and calm yourself down. Crying at the workplace never really ends well for you. 

“I know, lass. But I also know that Butters is a smart boy, he’d take care of himself just fine till he comes back home, yeah? So don’t you worry”, he consoles you, picking up your empty mug as he leaves you to collect yourself. 

“I’ll get you a new brew, and we can talk for a bit, okay? Be right back.” 

And then he leaves the common floor, hopefully going to the break room to get some new coffee brewing for the morning.

Seeing your distraught state, Kyle Garrick, the temp hire, gets up from his desk and drops off some raisin cookies at your desk to go along with your cup of oncoming java. When you protest, he winks at you and asks you to save the treat for yourself - all the more exasperated with Johnny and his grubby hands that are always eager to snatch away his snacks. That makes you laugh a little, and he smiles at you as he makes a beeline for the bathroom. 

Feeling a little lighter, you decide to work on the neglected spreadsheets just a tad bit longer till Johnny comes back, each hand holding a cup of coffee and a grin on his face that tells you he has some much needed gossip to keep your mind off from your constant worries. 

It is an hour before lunch break when Joseph, the new intern, approaches you at your desk. 

“Hello-”

“No.”

“I didn’t even say anything!”, he whines out, and you are reminded once again that he’s still a college student, despite his monstrous height and unusually deep voice. 

“You don’t have to”, you reply, your eyes barely leaving the screen as you typed away and responded to him, “I can tell you have come here to bribe me into doing your work again, and my answer is no. I am too busy to deal with you.”

“You don’t have to do anything, I swear! I already did the work!” he claims, and you turn to face him with an arched eyebrow and a speculative expression on your face that gives away that you’re having a hard time believing him. 

Joseph is a nice enough guy - he always greets you and is kind enough to use his height to pull down things for you that are kept on the too-high cabinets, and he is intelligent enough to keep up with almost all the technical jargon being passed around by some of your haughty teammates during daily meetings and project discussions, as well as suggest some truly out-of-the-box innovative ideas that has transformed how the team worked for the better. But he’s a terrible procrastinator, often finding himself finishing tasks at the eleventh hour; while prolonging tasks until the last minute does lead to him coming up with amusing and original ideas, it leaves room for him to commit quite a few silly mistakes and errors that one might overlook on an initial run, unless a senior staff member is asked to review it. 

And ever since Laswell went on leave and appointed Price as the acting Director in her stead, you have been swamped with towers of paperwork and meetings while also managing meetings, work sprints and other team issues - basically acting as Price’s right hand as he tries his best to manage the team without letting it implode on itself. Add in your messy personal life and you are already tired enough to sleep at your desk by the time the day is over and hope to never move. (Price has at times found you slumped up against your keyboard, softly snoring with dark eyebags as he noted how you probably needed a much-needed break from it all, despite knowing very well that your absence in the office for more than a day would probably cause unending chaos he won’t be able to manage on his own.)

“I have finished the report. I just need you to go over it once to make sure I haven’t messed up anywhere, else Simon would tear me a new one!”, he pleads with you, and you recall that his uncle, Simon Riley, is one of the founding members and is responsible for overlooking the interns they had hired and tracking their progress. You also remember how the behemoth of a man had almost made you pee your pants when Johnny first introduced him to you, all in his brooding glory. 

You have half a mind to reject his request on that basis alone, afraid to attract his attention onto you. But then Jo looks at you with his puppy brown eyes(a complete opposite from his uncle’s brilliant blue eyes) and furrowed brows, his lips downturned as he looks at you with pure hope and you find yourself sighing as you finally acquiesce, “Fine, just mail it to me before you leave for lunch, and I will send you the finished file before the deadline.”

He fistbumps the air and promises to you, “I will pay for your coffee! And a snack too! For a week! You’re the best!”, before he leaves you to your own devices. 

You sigh out in exasperation, leaning back into your ergonomic chair and feeling your back stretch in discomfort. You swear Joseph might give you a few gray hairs by the time his training period is done for good.  

You check your drawers for spare snacks, well aware that you’d have to skip lunch if you want to complete your pending work and help Joseph out with his report. 

Skipping lunch proves counter intuitive when you find yourself in the common break room and groan at the empty coffee jug, half-heartedly making a fresh batch for yourself and for your forgetful colleagues as well. While you wait for the java to slowly percolate and drip down into the empty pot through the freshly-changed filters, you look inside the freezer in hopes of finding some frozen food you can microwave, or at least find a spare ice cream for you to munch on. 

Unsuccessful in your search, you instead nibble away at the granola bar you found stuffed inside one of the spare drawers, when one of your coworkers decides to join you in the break room. You pause as you see Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley, the cyber sec guy, enter the room and stand a few feet away from you as he eyes the whirring coffee machine with interest. You find it hard to even exist in his larger than life presence, as his giant stature almost compels you to hunch your shoulders and curl in on yourself - a poor attempt to hide away from his intimidating figure, like a doe-eyed prey trying to shy away from an apex predator, and futilely hoping for it to forget about you if you try your best to blend into your bland, uninteresting surroundings. 

You always feel odd whenever you interact with Riley. Mostly, you do not know what to feel about him. He’s silent and deadly, and the horror stories you have heard from the fresh batch of interns about his anger and his need for perfection has cemented his image as a strong and fearsome, unapproachable figure into your mind just fine. Standing at 6’2 with broad shoulders and veiny arms visible thanks to his summer tees and thick thighs that bulge whenever he wears those tight black jeans that only makes you all the more curious-

The ‘mindless’ rambling aside, his appearance is enough to put the fear of God into you. Add his rough and not-so-friendly demeanor along with his deep voice, and you have got one very attractive asshole who you can never approach no matter how much you’re compelled to make a move on him. You almost thank him for it, because mixing pleasure with business will only ever land you in trouble, if you’re being honest with yourself. 

He nods at you and you are forced to acknowledge him with a calm greeting, as your fingers silently drum against the marble island of the kitchen. 

“Didn’t have lunch?” he asked you with his gravelly voice, and you wonder how many girls have swooned (and possibly gotten their panties wet) when he addressed them so casually. You’re pretty sure he can read a grocery list and make a girl wetter than the Atlantic just fine. 

You shake your head, “Had some catchin’ up to do, sir.”

His eyes appear darker than usual, despite being his softest feature yet, “Skipping meals won’t do you any good, you know. Better to eat a proper meal than whatever you’re having right now.”

“I know”, you tell him, well aware that whatever excuse you use here would just land you in hot waters with the weirdly overprotective man anyway. You’d rather not get lectured by the man today. 

Whether it is because he might make you cry, or turn you on - you do not know and are not eager to find out either. 

The ceasing of the brew trickling into the glass pot allows you to divert your attention to the caffeine concoction you have just created. Pouring some of the hot liquid into your cup, you see someone push their mug beside it. Looking up, you see Simon standing beside you with an amused look on his face. You blink at him in confusion, and he gently shakes his glass, begging for some much-needed coffee. 

He explains himself, “Had some of the early morning brew, tasted like dogshit.”

You laugh at his sudden crassness, finding it too funny to clarify that the morning brew was made by his beloved friend, Johnny. Mactavish would’ve chewed him out for that if he was there, but he’s having one of those few days wherein his meetings made it hard for his schedule to sync up with Simon’s. 

Taking a slow sip out of white mug, he replies with a wry smile, “Yours always tasted better anyway.”

And then, he exits the scene and leaves you in a puddle of pure confusion, with one question looping in your mind - When has he ever tasted your coffee?

You’re thankful Simon has already left and cannot witness your flustered state at his sudden remark. 

Author's Note -

Happy breaking out of writer's block to me!

Finally able to write and post something after a month of inactivity and contemplating about abandoning this blog all together. Glad I persevered through it though.

I came up with this after reading a dozen or so fanfics throughout the week while worrying about landing a job where I am interning. Very original, I know. I also think this would be a relatively shorter series, given how it is more lighter than some of my other works and WIP materials.

Also, I am hoping to stick to a schedule in order to hold myself more accountable and write more consistently. So expect new updates every 2nd and 4th Sunday/Monday :>

Until then, have a great week ahead. I have to sleep if I want to wake up on time and start work. ;-;

[cherry-cristal]

@amazeingartist a present for you

[nevesmose]

The chamber was a holding cell poorly disguised as a bedroom, split down the middle by a thick transparent barrier. The inner half was dark, depthless and black as the void.

"And which of my brothers are you?" Konrad Curze asked from somewhere within that darkness.

"Ferrus Manus," his visitor said plainly. "Primarch of the Tenth."

[floatingvampire]

Soooo, I've not posted anything in a long while, so I decided to share these sketches I have of an au that's just a meeting of my two current brainrots: Ghostsoap and Bloodborne.

In this au, Simon is a hunter, specifically one of the crow hunters, but instead of wearing a crow mask he wears the skull of the first hunter he killed who had subcombed to the beast plague. His cloak and clothes are inspired heavily by Elieen the Crow because I really liked the outfit for him; not pictured here but Ghost also uses the Blades of Mercy.

Soap is a beast, specifically a blood starved beast of old Yharnam. I also took some design aspects from the cleric beast for Soap here, hence why that torso shot has him standing more upright than a blood starved beast would. I tried to carry over Soap's facial features into his beast form here, I don’t know how well I did but I am proud of how he came out, he looks just a gaunt and generally starved as I imagined for him. I really want to hug him though, he looks so exhausted and sad.

I am obsessing a bit with this au so I'll likely ramble some more when I refine these sketches and slap on some color. Feel free to ask me questions though!

[roseofdarkness0]

Soap: exists

Fandom: Hmm yes, perfect

Soap: ?

Fandom: dumps 4 masked dudes on top of soap

Soap: !

Fandom: Here you go boyfriends <3

This is call out post for me specifically but also just at this point Soap is going to get all the masked boyfriends and I for one am not complaining

[meraus]

Ghost has DID au

Takes place after events of cod:mw2(2022). Ghost knows he’s an alter and Simon doesn’t know he has an alter. Soap is at ghost’s place for reasons when he agitates ghost enough to pull off his mask and reveal Simon, who’s immediately hostile to this stranger that’s standing in his living room acting like they’re familiar. Soap thinks ghost is pulling his leg, but when he gets Simon to put the mask on and ghost comes back, he finds out just how real it is. Soap realizes ghost can’t possibly be cleared for duty, and ghost confirms soap is the first and only one to know.

Not a full fic, more a complete outline- lord know that will take so many more words and I’m not up for writing all of them. Written entirely in my notes app which doesn't recognize soap and ghost as names lol.

Ghost can suppress Simon for short amounts of time without the mask, but only if he’s prepared. So when one day they’re in the field facing hostiles and the mask comes off by accident, soap has to get to a severely freaked out Simon, in his experience a civilian dropped in an active war zone, before anyone notices. Or at least before Simon gets himself killed or ghost’s absence fucks the mission.

Where ghost grows fonder of soap, Simon starts seeing him as a bad omen. When Simon sees soap, shit has usually hit the fence and will only get worse, considering the quickest way to get ghost back seems to be to intimidate Simon into relinquishing control. This development of Simon wanting to avoid soap makes it significantly harder to bring ghost back in critical moments. Soap also struggles with the morality of letting it go on like this, enabling this set up ghost has created.

When he brings it up, suggesting ghost gets treatment, ghost immediately shoots it down. Simon also doesn’t want to hear it, he doesn’t even want to speak with soap. Trying to tell Simon what’s going on builds his anxiety and triggers ghost to take over. Enough repetition of soap forcing ghost back in causes him to become another trigger for Simon.

Soap doesn’t see Simon anymore, and doesn’t think he ever will again. Ghost doesn’t mind. He doesn’t want Simon there with soap, maybe doesn’t want Simon at all. He gets on fine, better even, when it’s just him. He likes what he’s got set up for himself and Simon compromises that. If the army ever finds out about Simon, everything he has will go away. And what does Simon even have for himself? He doesn’t have family, doesn’t have friends, doesn’t have a job or way to provide for himself. Hell, he doesn’t even know who he is or what he’s capable of. All Simon has is fear and memories of things best left forgotten.

So it works, right up until it stops working. Because the thing about soap is that he’s safe. He’s trustworthy, reliable, on his way to become a better man than ghost’s ever been or can hope to be. If soap is there, if the environment allows it- ghost can drop his guard. He thought it just meant being able to sleep on transport and the like, but soon finds out that sometimes what feels like sleep to him is just Simon being shoved back to the forefront.

The first time, they’re in a car with two other people. Soap hears ghost mutter an expletive, sounding taken aback. It puts the others on high alert immediately, and himself as well, but for a different reason. There’s nothing out of the ordinary, no imminent danger, ghost doesn’t sound like this usually, and when he snaps his head around to look at ghost, he can see the switch clear as day. Simon is occupying the body even with the mask on. Soap covers for Simon’s slip up and silently warns him to keep his mouth shut until they can figure this out.

Through these moments of unplanned control, Simon slowly starts learning about his other side. Ghost and Simon don’t blend together, it’s more like both of them are breaking each other down. It’s messy and more importantly, dangerous. Ghost decides he needs to cut soap off, for his own well-being. Simon decides he needs to keep soap close, to guide him through the unknown and fill in the blanks.

It’s a losing battle for ghost. He can’t very well cut clean ties with soap- they’re on the same team, always in the same places, always having to share information. And besides that, soap is… he’s soap. He’s who ghost would consider his closest friend and ally. He doesn’t want to cut soap off, even if he needs to. And considering soap isn’t planning on going anywhere, cutting him off would mean uprooting the life he’s built so far. The best course of action, ghost decides, would be to somehow kill Simon off forever.

Simon, however, isn’t eager to go. Not at all. Maybe once, when he had nothing and not a clue about the world he was living in, he was easy to keep down. Now, though, he feels he has a place in the world. People who admire and respect him, even if it’s not really him they’re looking up to. And maybe even if he doesn’t know entirely how to keep that, earn it for himself, it’s alright. He’s comforted by knowing he’s got a good friend in soap, helping him to find out.

Soap doesn’t want to help him there, though. He can’t risk it. Simon can’t do the things ghost can, even if he has the muscle memory, he doesn’t have the instinct or training. Simon is a liability in the field, and through him, so is ghost. Soap is more pressured than ever to tell their captain what’s going on and in doing so betray the trust of his best friend- both of him. Ghost switches to Simon during a mission and it gets people killed.

Soap comes to a breaking point and he confronts ghost. They have what would be a shouting match, if there wasn’t a need for discretion. Punches are thrown and threats are made. Ghost does things he wouldn’t normally do to preserve who he is, fully seeing the irony in it but not knowing another way to achieve his goal. Soap and ghost break apart, much to the dismay of Simon. Soap is avoiding him now, regardless of which him he is. He’ll only do what’s mission critical and leave it at that. Simon finds it’s much harder to be in ghost’s shoes when he’s not told where and how to walk. The only upside is that what’s wrong with ghost gets blamed on whatever’s going on between him and soap.

When it’s Simon’s turn to confront soap, he gets told if he can’t handle it, then do them all a favor and stop trying to be ghost. The stakes of his fight for dominance with ghost get laid out for him. Simon already knew, but he never truly realized, as he does what he’s always done when it becomes too much; he makes ghost deal with whatever is too difficult for him. Simon doesn’t want to do that anymore. He realizes if he wants to live, he needs help. He needs to destroy ghost. The prospect is frightening and thinking about it allows ghost easy access to slip back in, overhearing soap’s words meant for Simon. He realizes he’s done for if Simon gets control again, so he clings to consciousness, digging his nails in until they break.

Ghost is reckless. He’s purposely putting himself in danger, going out of his way to scare Simon into obedience. If it’s too much, he won’t come out. Maybe if he finds the absolute limit of what his psyche can handle, paralyzes his other with fear, Simon will never want to return. He’s aware that he has no way out. If he slips up, he dies. It’s just a question of where and how.

Soap can’t do it anymore. He curses ghost for letting him find out, putting this responsibility on him, putting him between a rock and a hard place. He informs the captain of ghost’s condition, even knowing he will also face consequences for keeping it hidden. When asked how long he knew, he answers ‘a while’. When Ghost gets dismissed, he is also asked how long soap knew. He says soap only just found out.

Life for ex-military personnel with a dismissal on grounds of a pre-existing condition is rough. Even more so when the years of combat are marking your skin like a neon sign reading ‘danger’. Ghost gets a few weeks of psychological help and no benefits. Price can’t do much for him there, it’s bureaucratic bullshit- a one size fits all solution that lets the army wash its hands clean of him and his problems. He’s saved up a nice sum, but not enough that it’ll let him go into early retirement. Not that he’s the type for retirement, anyway. He doesn’t know what to do with himself out here. Going home- if you can call it that- between mission is fine. He doesn’t have to stick it out long. It’s different now that he actually has to settle. He considers letting Simon figure it out.

Simon who got them into this fucking mess, never actually considering what his actions will do to them because he’s never had to deal with the consequences of them before. Simon, who’ll probably get so overwhelmed by it that he might finally decide it’s best to put ghost in charge, after all. Active war zones couldn’t cut it, but the realization that beyond that the only thing awaiting them is the monthly psychiatrist bill and endless jobs applications without response might do the trick. Even if the thought amuses him, even if he starts considering dying might be best after all, he still clings to control. It’s his own fault anyway, for showing soap, for not being able to keep it under control afterwards. Soap, he thinks, who he’s never going to see again.

But he’s wrong. There’s months of radio silence between them, and then suddenly soap is on his doorstep. He hadn’t texted or called, despite having ghost’s number, just shown up. Soap takes one good look at him and knows which him he is. Ghost looks back and for the first time in months he feels his control slipping. He’s about to tell him to get lost and slam the door in soap’s face, but before his mouth can form the words, soap asks him why ghost covered for him. Why didn’t he face consequences for helping ghost cover up his medical status?

Really, there’s only one answer. The same answer that has ghost step aside to let soap in. It’s because he’s not done right by soap, and soap didn’t deserve to get any shit for or from ghost.

They catch up. If it were an interrogation, ghost would be in the hot seat. He’s got more to tell and the majority of what soap’s been through can’t be told. In that afternoon they find a new foundation. It’s brittle and shaky, careful not to touch on the important pieces, the things that need to be said, because saying them wrong could have the whole thing collapse, but it’s something. Soap sticks around, coming back every time between deployments, and they have something.

Ghost finds a life again. It’s not satisfying, it’s not something he thinks he’ll ever gets used to, but it’s his and it’ll do. He picks up some dangerous jobs to keep Simon at bay, but it’s not enough. He’s comfortable, he’s got it figured out, and he’s terrified. He’s the alter. If Simon comes out again and settles in this cushy life, he loses it all again. He can’t let Simon take this from him. He actively works against his treatment, stopped going at all in the last few weeks. There’s things that are his that he’s desperate to keep. There’s soap on his doorstep every few months, smiling at him wide and calling his name.

And that’s the most pressing issue. He keeps slipping around soap. The time he wants to be in his body the most is the time he feels the least solid in it. He thinks Simon wants soap, too. Not like ghost does, though. He doesn’t crave him with an edge of desperation, ghost knows, because he hasn’t lost yet. If Simon wanted it bad enough, he could win the struggle.

He takes up sparring with soap. If his adrenaline is high and his body goes into combat mode, it’s easier to keep Simon down. He puts on his face mask and takes soap down to the gym he frequents. The employees greet him by his name, what they think is his nickname, just as everyone else does.

He knows soap will press the issue, yet he’s still not prepared for it when it happens. Soap asks him if he’s just going to continue like this, if he’s planning to never let Simon out again. Ghost is honest with him, to a degree. He tells soap he doesn’t want to give up what he has and that Simon will erase him and take it for himself. He says Simon doesn’t deserve it.

Soap reminds him he’s in the best place he’ll be to figure himself out. Maybe he won’t be erased, maybe he’ll be merged. There’s no way, he says, that ghost can just cease to exist. Soap doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Ghost knows he doesn’t, because he’s spend hours researching it. There’s too many unknowns, too many likely to happen worst-case scenarios. There’s a dread that seeps in when he thinks about not having his life for himself.

What then, soap asks, is so important that it can’t be shared? Ghost hesitates to answer. This is the part of their foundation that can’t be touched, for fear it’ll break. It’s the part they’re always stepping over, have been for years, even when all was right with them and soap didn’t know Simon.

Ghost is in love with soap. He doesn’t want to say it. He doesn’t want to risk it. What they have is enough, it’s a lifeline he can’t afford to cut. Still, with the pressure on him, with soap in his face and trying so hard to do what he thinks is best for ghost, with the thought of ‘what if’ plaguing his mind, he confesses.

Soap physically, noticeably, backs down. He’d known, on some level, that ghost felt this way about him. He was different to ghost, special, it was obvious in how they interacted with each other. He’d caught ghost looking at him, not in an indecipherable way, but clear as day in a way he told himself must be his wishful thinking. Soap can pretend it’s not there, even when he looks at ghost that same way, even when ghost’s undivided attention makes his whole body tingle with excitement, a moment where he thinks if he reaches out then ghost will meet him halfway.

Even so, soap can’t reach out. He feels if he tries, ghost will live up to his name and soap’s fingers will go right through. Ghost isn’t a person, so much as a personality. How am I supposed to love you back, he asks ghost, when you’re like this? There’s no security- ghost can disappear at any time. It would be a constant state of dread, a form of torture where he thinks he’d much rather gets his teeth pulled. Soap wants to say yes so bad, he’s a risk-taker anyway, in his line of work he could die at any time, so why wouldn’t he just dive in head-first? But if he did, it’d be unfair to ghost- to Simon- either of them. Both of them. Ghost can’t progress if soap holds him back. Figure yourself out, he tells ghost, and then tell me again.

Soap deploys again. Ghost, like before, is unsure if he’ll see him again. He curses Simon, breaks the mirrors in his house, hates the face they reflect back at him. Ghost is at his lowest point, and Simon takes over.

Simon has no clue where he is, ghost had moved to a new place, more suitable for full time occupancy. He snoops around and discovers what ghost has been up to. He makes a new appointment at the psychiatrist.

The woman who greets him wears a friendly smile and says she’s glad to see ghost back. When Simon tells her she might have to wait a bit longer on that, actually, her smile turns from friendly to beaming.

I don’t actually know shit about dissociative identity disorder and the treatment so I’m not dipping my whole toe in for this part, consider everything I say on the topic to be absolute trash for realism BUT Simon makes progress. A fair amount, really. He does his best to settle into the life ghost set up, confronts the trauma that created ghost in the first place, and discovers trauma he wasn’t responsible for acquiring. He has memories now that don’t feel like his own. He flips back and forth between himself and ghost and the lines get blurred. The more he learns, the more he feels sorry for ghost. As well as a strange type of guilt. He viewed ghost as his adversary when he learned of him, but really he was a scapegoat. A crutch Simon has depended on for so long that even he feels it’s unfair to call himself the host. He still has trouble seeing ghost as a part of himself, but the more he dips into his psyche, the more familiar he becomes.

Ghost is a whole person, Simon realizes. That’s why it’s so difficult to work with him. He’s complex and intricate and it’s not just a detached caricature of what Simon as a child thought a tough guy should be. Every time he connects with things that are distinctly ghost, it’s overwhelming.

Ghost doesn’t fight him when he goes looking, Simon feels like he’s almost showing off. But that’s not entirely right, if there’s one thing that defines ghost it’s his need to remain unknown. Simon doesn’t know why ghost is letting him access all of it without push back, until he digs too deep. He touches on a memory that seems recent, it’s in his new place and soap is there. The words sound like gibberish and it’s not a clear picture. When he tries to focus on it, suddenly he’s shoved out. It’s not the easy pull he’s become used to, the feeling like reality shifts and everything becomes hazy. It’s like getting pushed off a cliff and landing on a rock.

The psychiatrist asks ghost what happened there. He’s not ready for that, ghost tells her, he’s missing the pieces that make it come together; he needs to earn it first. And ghost, surprisingly, helps him. Sometimes, it’s like he’s being fed pieces, things he didn’t go looking for just appear before him. Every time he gets that feeling, he sees soap. Simon realizes that’s the thing ghost really wants him to understand; why soap is important.

He’s noticed before that ghost has many memories he doesn’t really care for, victories and milestone anyone else would hold dear. What he's careful with is his memories of people. Simon has to be delicate when he encounters a person whose name he knows but never learned, but even then soap is a special case. Memories of gaz and price come flowing in seemingly randomly order, but almost everything soap-related is chronological. Like ghost is telling him it’s important to get this one exactly right, really understand.

They work at it for a year and some months, and Simon understands ghost now. He still can’t fully see ghost as himself, but he’s not a separate entity either. It’s like they’re opposite sides of the same coin; different on the surface level, but ultimate the same. They’re through with almost everything ghost deems important, and that means he can’t stretch for time any more. Simon has a good feeling he knows what this final memory of soap is, the one he touched on too soon and hasn’t been allowed near since.

He feels the hesitancy in his own mind to dig it up. He feels exactly what ghost is feeling when he recalls it. It hurts. It’s elation turning to horror turning to grief and a cocktail of other emotions swirling around in him. And it’s the missing piece of the puzzle. It’s why ghost wanted him to understand after fighting him for so long. It’s the turning point that allowed Simon control. They’ve been doing all of this because if they live, they want a future, and he’s in love with soap. Ghost, Simon, either and both, just him. He’s in love with soap. He wants a future with soap in it.

It’s been too long for him not to realize soap must've come back from deployment without going to see him. He’ll have to take the initiative. He opens his contact information and goes into the text window. He knows he can’t text this, but he’s afraid to call. Besides, who knows if soap can even call, or what time zone he’s in. Their last message exchanged was over two years ago. The anxiety is eating away at him. What if soap’s given up on him? What if he took too long? What if he’s not adequately recovered, and soap rejects him again?

It takes him another few days to send a message. A curt and demanding ‘let’s talk’. He send another text, this one reading ‘please’. He drops his head in his free hand and groans. He should’ve waited another few days and come up with something good.

Soap texts him back hours later, waking him up by the distinct ping of a new message. Blending with ghost unfortunately also meant taking over his annoying, paranoid, militant habits, like any unexpected noise stirring you awake. Soap texted him ‘now?’. Simon replies ‘what works for you’. His phone rings right after he sends it.

The conversation lasts over an hour. Simon bites through the anxiety of sharing his personal life when he doesn’t know where he stands with soap and tells him how the treatment has been, how it’s going, what life is like, everything he deems important for soap to know. What might convince soap to come around again. Soap seems unsure of how to talk to him, too. But soap is good with people, he’s a natural conversationalist and he’s got his charm to fall back on. It’s not as bad as Simon feared it might go. Soap says he’ll stop by next time, though he doesn’t say when next time is.

Simon thought next time would be when he talks to soap again, but turns out that comes a lot sooner. Soap texts him the next day. A few days after that, they’re on a call again. Soap laughs more freely and becomes less guarded with every exchange and soon he’s saying stuff like how nostalgic it is to have ghost in his ear. Asks Simon to say some military shit, anything really. He laughs loud and long when Simon says, ‘how do two oceans greet each other?’. He hadn’t even said the punchline.

Soap also tells him how gaz and price are fairing, as well as sparse updates on Alejandro and rodolfo, who he’s still in contact with. Simon’s glad to hear about them. When ghost still had control, he’d been in contact, though always short messages and nothing meaningful. When Simon took over, he didn’t know how to talk to them. He barely knew them, didn’t really know anything about them. He’s come to know them through the memories and it’s a bittersweet feeling to know he has had these people in reach and kept them at distance. Though, now that soap opened the gate way, he starts receiving more wake up texts.

Then one day his phone stays silent. He slept through the entire night. It immediately sets him on high alert. He texts soap, and thankfully rather quickly receives a response. ‘Busy. In a bit.’ It reads.

In a bit turns out to be five hours, when there’s a knock at his door and there stands soap, smiling at him, saying ‘my schedule’s all cleared up now, so if you’re not-‘.

Simon interrupts him to say what he’s been wanting to say all this time, what he hopes soap has been waiting to hear. ‘I love you.’

And soap says, ‘I love you, too.’

[bitchin-beskar]

I have not been able to get the thot of an au with venom!Ghost x Soap out of my fuckin head the brainrot is real with this one 🥵

[eowynstwin]

disquiet comfort / neighbors

previous

On a cold winter's day in the early morning hours, you knock on your neighbor Captain John Price's door to make a noise complaint. - You give a sudden, high-pitched cry, one that abruptly cuts off. - ao3

John hears the creak of your bed springs the next morning.

He’s not surprised by it—you’re not the first neighbor he’s had, only the first he’s met. He knows how thin the walls are now, and has long passed the point of finding it annoying. He listens as the sound of your taps coming on filters through drywall and insulation at a low hum, thinks he can hear the buzz of an electric toothbrush. He wonders if you can hear his razor going as he trims his mustache.

It feels nice to have this odd company, he thinks. The two of you, going through the same motions. It strikes an old, abandoned chord—he hasn’t woken up with anyone in a long, long time.

He puts his razor down and squashes the thought flat. His neighbor—his kind, pretty neighbor—does not need him to think like that. Even if your eyes had traveled the length and breadth of his body before making it to his face.

He meets his own eyes in the mirror, giving himself a flat look. He isn’t used to civilian life. Answering the door shirtless had probably been some sort of faux pas. If you’d been looking, you’d probably been more disconcerted than anything else. That’s the long and short of it, he tells himself, because there’s no room for anything else.

John is never very good at being home. The things that keep him alive out there—hyperawareness, sharply defined mission parameters, strict operational regimens—are, at home, needs that go unmet. Liverpool is not a popular terrorist hotbed he needs to pay attention to. He isn’t going to die if he forgets to buy milk. And he can only go to the gym so often.

But he needs something to do, or he’s going to go crazy.

So today he does on leave what he dreams of in the field: he has his first of two showers for the day, makes himself breakfast in his own kitchen, and turns on the telly for the noise. It’s some dumb morning show, with too-clean hosts shilling for weird kitchen tools. Easy to ignore.

Inevitably, he thinks about Mexico. About Shepherd. About Chicago, and Hassan, and Laswell telling him he needs to get some goddamn rest before he kills himself trying to stop a war that isn’t even happening.

“Yet,” he’d ground out.

She’d just stared at him with dagger-sharp eyes and told him to go home.

John bites into his toast harder than a grown man told to take a fucking vacation should, and turns up the volume.

Three soft, polite taps sound on the wall.

John blinks. Remembers the previous morning, what he’d said to you. The remote is in his hand before he thinks about it, the mute button depressed beneath a quick thumb.

The quiet is like the end of a gunfight. Unsteady.

He waits. He doesn’t know what for. The silence stretches. He notices a shaft of sunlight coming through his window, little motes of dust dancing in the air, as he looks around his own flat for some reason. It’s habit—surveying a battlefield after it’s been passed over by violence.

He looks back to the space above the TV. Rises carefully from his seat. Goes over to the wall.

Raps his knuckles twice against it. All good?

Immediately there are two taps in response. Yes, thanks! And the break of the still silence is like a soap bubble popping. John breathes, and then realizes he hadn’t been.

There are no further knocks. It disappoints him, but he does not expect them. It’s just a friendly interaction between neighbors.

It doesn’t matter. It feels like something has unknotted in his chest.

He feels almost like a voyeur as the day goes on. He hears when you work in your kitchen, notes the muffled clang of a pan on the stove. He hears your dishwasher run later, and briefly wonders at the utility of using it for so few dishes.

You’re on the phone at one point, but he can’t make out the conversation. He only half-tries to, but the even the indistinct, low sound of your voice is comforting. It reminds him of late nights in the barracks, listening to bunk mates talk while trying not bother anyone else. The closest to domestic comfort John has really ever had.

You turn music on at one point, something soulful and a little moody. John thinks it might be Marvin Gaye, but he’s not sure. The urge to knock on your door and ask is a strong one, but he doesn’t think you need a lonely old soldier bothering you in the middle of your day. At least, not any more than he already has. And before he can figure it out for himself, he hears you exclaim “Oh, shit!” and the volume immediately drops.

He has to smile at that. It’s a rare luxury for him to experience these days, that kind of consideration.

Something in his chest gives a little jump when he hears two knocks on his wall again. Sorry, he thinks you’re saying.

He knocks twice back. All good.

He should not feel so invigorated by this exchange.

You leave the house a little after noon—he hears your door open and close, and the jingle of keys followed by footsteps quickly retreating. Then, your noise is gone.

John and silence do not go well together. Too quickly, the quiet closes in, and John thinks if he stays in his own home a minute longer he’ll suffocate from it—so he takes your cue, and leaves. He isn’t really sure what to do, but he has to do it anywhere else.

He gets home after you do, sore from the weight racks and full on pub food and a few pints. The sky is dark and the sidewalks are illuminated in yellow lamplight, and the air hums with the wind of cars driving in the distance. He sees your window lit up bright and warm, and the relief it fills him with is disproportionate to how anyone should feel knowing that their neighbor is home.

Where did you go during the day, he finds himself wondering? What are you making for dinner? What will you do once you’ve eaten?

John realizes he’s standing there staring at your window, and scowls at himself. He’s a fucking creep, that’s what he is. A pretty neighbor talks to him once, fucking welcomes him home like any nice person would, and suddenly he’s pining like a stupid little schoolboy.

He goes inside. Hears you in your kitchen again and convinces himself he’s ignoring it. Tries to find something to stay awake with. Has one cigar more than he’d planned for the day, and thinks at least he’ll get to go out and get more sooner—something to do with the wealth of time he didn’t ask to receive.

He’s already in bed, second shower finished, when he hears activity on the other side of the wall. He hadn’t really been falling asleep, but he’s wide awake now, and feeling like a pervert as he listens to your bath come on.

He hasn’t gone to bed with anyone in a long time, either.

John lays there in the dark, eyes open, and tries to ignore how easy it is to breathe as the water runs muffled only a few feet away. He doesn’t acknowledge the fact that he can hear again the tiny buzz of a toothbrush a little after the flow shuts off. He listens to the creak of your bed and does not think about how warm your skin must be, how softly the sheets must fall around your body.

He closes his eyes. He tries to sleep. He isn’t thinking about listening to your breathing beside him. He isn’t drifting off imagining the smell of your hair on his pillow…

He hears a tiny buzz again. Brushing your teeth a second time? No, it’s closer now…

Oh. OH.

John’s eyes fly open. Your bed creaks again. He is rigid under the covers, every muscle tensed. He breathes consciously, testing the limits of his diaphragm, counting to three between each inhale and exhale. He is desperate that his pulse remain even, that his blood refrain from rushing through his ears and other parts.

A small sound. Breathy. Low.

John slaps his hand against his thigh before it can move any further inward. He curls his fingers around the hem of his briefs, grips the fabric as if it’s going to save his damn life. Clenches his other hand into a fist, digs his nails into his palm.

What expression is on your face? What is the scent of your toothpaste on your breath?

What angle are you holding that vibrator at?

You give a low moan again.

His breath shallows out. John considers giving the wall a tap but dismisses the option immediately and ruthlessly. He will take his secret audience to the fucking grave. And he’d shoot himself before denying you this—and, he thinks shamefully, denying himself this, too.

He should get up. He should go into his living room and give you privacy. Your bed creaks again. He remembers his own mattress tends to the same disruption. He can’t move, because it would effect the same outcome as a knock—you’d know exactly how thin the walls are, know that he’s right there and that he’s only leaving after he’s already gotten an earful.

Another sound, higher. John isn’t sure he’s breathing anymore. What did your skin feel like? Would his fingers fit you better than that toy? Would his cock?

He thinks he feels a nail break skin. He tries to think of anything other than the throb of blood and heat between his legs, between your legs.

You give a sudden, high-pitched cry, one that abruptly cuts off.

John knows you’ve buried your face in your pillow to quiet yourself. His entire body twinges with the disappointment of it. He breathes so lowly as to be silent, to give space to your noise, and waits.

But the buzzing stops. Your bed shifts again, and then all is silent.

Wait. What?

Was that it?

The silence stretches. John does not move. That was it.

John does not think about how much longer he could’ve made that last. He does not think about teasing you with his hands, his lips, his tongue. Does not picture your legs hung up high on his hips.

His cock aches. He ignores it.

The gym tomorrow. And then a run. Maybe a drive to the coast, and a dip in the cold ocean.

It wouldn’t be enough, but it had to be something. John isn’t going to get a minute of sleep, and he’s going to be hearing that cut-off moan for a long, long time.

next

[celenawrites]

₊˚ෆ soulmate au, wherein you get to see the world through your soulmate's eyes and experience what they're feeling at that moment

awful editing(no beta), a lot of pov shifts, loads of grammar mistakes, description of violence, smut below the cut. 

just an idea i have been marinating in my drafts this month. 

MDNI.

the first time Simon Riley realizes he has a soulmate, he's 24 and well on his way to becoming a lieutenant. it's an early winter morning, filled with white fog and chilly breeze that seeps through the balaclava he wears while off duty. he's in the cold, congested room that has been assigned as his office and he's trying to catch up on the stack of paperwork that had accumulated while he was risking his lives on the front-line just to feel something.

the scene shifts with a few gradual blinks and he realizes he's not in his office anymore.

he's she's standing in the kitchen, brewing up a cup of tea while humming an old melody. he's awfully out of place here, and he almost thinks his mind is tricking him with a sudden daydream and then she pours out the tea into a green mug, and exits the kitchen - finally sitting down in what he assumes to be a living room.

she turns on the tv to watch some melodrama he doesn't know, as she carefully blows onto the mug to cool down the steaming liquid before carefully taking a sip. he feels the green tea trickle down his throat, warming him from inside. he can feel the cushion behind her back and the glasses that rest on the bridge of her nose. he can feel the tag on her shirt scratch the nape of his nick uncomfortably so.

the scene is serene and unfamiliar and he feels out of place - it is homely and clean and pure, not tainted with blood, violence and avarice. it is uncomfortable for him to watch her be good and domestic and kind, almost feels like he doesn’t deserve it after the life he’s led. and yet, with time, seeing the world through her eyes is warmly welcomed after a dud of a day doing what he's best known for - being a ghost.

and he almost feels sorry for her, whoever she is. he’s sorry for the man he is, for the soldier he is. he’s sorry that she gets a one-way front ticket to seeing him kill people without remorse. 

most of all, he’s sorry she had to end up with him. 

for you, seeing the world through your soulmate's eyes has been nothing short of a grim nightmare. every time you'd shift, you'd almost pray to God and cross your fingers to avoid seeing any of the gruesome scenes that he encountered almost on the daily. you cannot see his face, but you can feel how heavy the protective gear is against his body, how taut his shoulders are and you can feel the synthetic fabric of the gun strap dig into his shoulders and chest. you feel his hands touch the steel barrel of the weapon and your blood runs cold. it’s not long before he’s aiming the said gun at a man before shooting him dead without hesitating. the first time you witnessed him doing something this abhorrent, you ended up having a panic attack - still able to feel the weight of the gun in your hands, convinced that you’re the culprit who shot someone in cold blood. 

it’s not long before the scenes you witness through your soulmate’s eyes follow you even in your sleep. you’re taking melatonin, chamomile tea, antidepressants - anything to help you cope with the fact that having a soulmate like him means being haunted by gruesome visions for the rest of your life. it’s not long before your co-workers comment on your baggy eyes and frail health - even uniting together to urge you that taking a break would probably do you some good, but you turn them all down with a gentle shake of your head. 

and then, you meet Soap through him. scottish, demolition expert, part of the military. wild mohawk, likes to draw, always the victim of your soulmate’s dry jokes. Gaz - british, a sergeant, youngest of the lot, always willing to help, but has enough snark to keep up with Soap about the most ridiculous of things. and Price - captain of his team, with impressive mutton chops and loud sneezes. 

you see them relax around each other, see them drink tea, see Soap and Gaz banter and compete with each other at the training grounds - and this change of pace is far more welcomed than seeing people die on the battlefield. 

and then there’s him, a pariah. everyone he comes across calls him ‘Ghost’, which just sounds ridiculous. no one knows anything about him, but there are moments when you are where he is and you see Price’s eyes twinkle with something - but your lack of physical presence always hinders your curiosity about the subject. no one has really seen his face, and you fear that you’d never get to know the man who’s destined to compliment you in all aspects of life. 

there are moments though, when sharing vision and emotions with you, gets awfully overwhelming for him. it takes a lot to get a man of his stature to waver in his step, but you do that job perfectly. he sees you one day, in your bed with soft satin sheets failing to cover your body. he sees your hands trail down your body and his breath hitched when he feels you play with your cotton panties - before sliding them to the side and rubbing soft circles on your clit. he swears under his breath, trying to hold onto his sanity as it slowly slips away from him when you use your other hand to tease your nipples with skittish touches. it’s not long before Simon has locked himself up in the bathroom stall, using his hands to relieve the tension he has all because of you - matching his rhythm so that he comes at the same time as you. 

he wonders if your hands would feel softer. if you’d kiss him before begging him with those doe eyes to make you feel good. if you’d tell him that you love him. if you’d love him enough so that he can be anew  - without his past dragging him through the mud. 

if you’d lose yourself to him and let him piece you back together with the adoration he carries for you. you’re practically a stranger, and yet you’re the only person who can get to him. 

divider by @/cafekitsune

[cherry-cristal]

Love Ghost and Simon dinamic in @amazeingartist Venom!Ghoap AU

[vampire-matcha]

Blood in the Wine-3

Chapter Three: Nightcap

A/N: It's finally here! Thank yall, for being patient, I appreciate all the support of the last two chapters. Shoutout to @asterionex for being a baller. As always, ask box is open xoxo

Reader x Vampire!141

Word count: 2.9k (a little shorter, sorry)

Warnings: blood, biting, suggestive elements, vampirism, mild dubcon but nothing explicit. Soap being a jackass.

Songs for this chapter: West Coast Smoker by Fall Out Boy, actually pretty much the whole Folie a Deux album. Feel free to send song recs or let me know if yall'd want a playlist.

MASTERLIST, CH1, CH2, CH4, CH5, CH6, CH7

---

You flinched as Soap strutted towards you, closing your eyes and mentally preparing for the sensation of his teeth sinking into you. But then… his footsteps kept going. He walked right past you and you opened your eyes to see him sitting down at the end of your bed.

"C'mere," he said, patting the spot next to him. "Let me take a look at your bites, see how you're healing up." You hesitated, still wary of a trap. "Listen, bonnie, I'm no' gonna bite you 'til I have your permission. Now come here and let me see." He seemed genuine enough. But then again, so had Kyle. You were skeptical, but you figured you didn't have much else to lose. So you walked over and sat next to him rigidly. He held a hand out. "Give me your arm." You reached across, slowly, cautiously to present your arm to him.

He took it ever so gently into his hands, fingers barely grazing over the marks that had faded even more since you'd woken up. He studied it with raised eyebrows.

"Wow, you're healing faster than most. Fucking miracle, that is." He lifted the arm up to his mouth and you jerked away, but he caught your wrist in a vice-like grip. "I already said I'm not gonna bite. Just gonna work some magic," he said with a wink and leaned down to close the gap. You watched as he lapped at your healing wound, slow and sensual, and pulled away with a kiss. "There, that's better."

You couldn't believe your eyes. The bite had healed completely. Maybe he really was magic. He leaned closer while you looked at your arm, baffled. He swept your hair away from your neck and looked at you, silently waiting for approval. You looked into his eyes- those beautiful ocean eyes- and nodded almost imperceptibly.

He grinned as he licked and kissed your neck, painting healing wet strokes across your skin. You were breathing heavily now. You couldn't deny the way his mouth felt against your skin.

"Heartrate's pickin' up," he whispered against your skin. He chuckled under his breath, the sound of it rippling down your spine. "Turn around, let me see your shoulder." His hands made their way to your waist to guide you to face him fully, and you molded to his movements like putty. He pulled the sleeve of your shirt up to see the mark Ghost had left on you, a shocked expression replacing the one of relaxation that had been there a moment before.

"Jesus Christ, Ghost really did a number on ya, eh? Look at that!" He was laughing. His hands brushed over the bruise in an almost fascinated way. You were rudely awakened to the fact that you were in the arms of a man who had tried to kill you only a few days before. You shot off the bed and out of his grasp, hands moving to cover yourself. You felt naked under his eyes even though you were fully clothed.

"Ah come on, lass, I was only joking. Sit back down." You didn't budge. "You wanna keep that big purple spot on your shoulder or not?" You hesitated. "Please, just sit back down. I don't want to have to make you, but I will if I have to," he threatened with a regretful look in his eye. The last thing you needed was to be lost in the fog of compulsion. You couldn't stand to lose control like that again. So, step by wobbly step, you sat down with Soap once more, presenting your discolored shoulder to him.

"There's my girl," he said grinning, once again wrapping his arms around your middle to pull you close to him.

"I'm not your girl," you protested. He scoffed.

"Then what, exactly, do you think you agreed to tonight? Hmm?" He stared deep into your eyes, and you swear you could feel them piercing into your soul. "You think we're just 'roommates' or something?" He kissed your cheek. "Friends who get to chow down on you from time to time?" He kissed your neck. "No, dearie." He kissed your collarbone. "You're ours." He lapped at your sore shoulder, all open-mouthed kisses and lithe tongue smoothing over your soft, abused flesh.

You choked back a moan at the feeling. It was so wrong to be enjoying this- the feeling of your captor's mouth on your body. But it was oh so soothing. You could already feel the soreness dissipating. He pulled back, admiring his handiwork with a grin of satisfaction. "It's not perfect, but then again, Ghost did getcha pretty good. It'll take time to heal properly." He surveyed the other bites. "The rest of you is perfect, though, I must say," he said with a wink, letting his eyes wander...

"Where was he tonight, anyway?" You asked. You still had yet to meet, or even catch a glimpse of the man who had basically mauled you.

"You didn't see him?" Soap responded. Your blood ran cold.

"What do you mean…?"

"He was there tonight, standin' in the corner like a bleedin' creep," he laughed at his own joke. You didn't laugh. "He's a spooky lad, ain't he?" He noticed how tense you were and wrapped a massive arm around you. "Ah, don't worry too much about it, you'll meet him eventually."

"That's what I'm afraid of…" you muttered. He paused, and you could practically hear the gears turning in his head.

"Tell you what," he started. "You tell me whatever you want fer your room, and tomorrow I'll go out and get it. I'll go back to your flat and get whatever you need. I'll even get paint fer the walls if you like." His hand wandered, gently stroking your arm and coaxing you closer into him. "Just let me have a wee taste of that pretty little neck and we'll call it a night, aye?" He was so close now, his lips brushing against your ear as he spoke, hot breath sending goosebumps across your body in waves. Wait.

"You went in my apartment?" You asked. He tensed up next to you but didn't move.

"Maybe."

"You went through my underwear drawer," you mentioned lightly. You let out a breath that was almost a laugh. You turned to look at his face, so close you were sharing oxygen. The ghost of a smile crept up on you when you saw his guilty expression. Like a deer in headlights. His eyes were wide, a sheepish smile making its way across his lips.

You laughed. For the first time in days you laughed. Soap looked like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Then he laughed with you. And for the first time since this whole thing started, you felt at ease.

"You pervert!" You joked.

"Oi, I was just trying ta get you something to wear! Figured you didn't want to be wearing the same clothes forever." His arm tightened around you and he shook you gently. You slapped a hand against his chest and he caught it with his own.

The laughter between you two tampered out and you sat comfortably in his arms, his hand holding yours against his muscular chest. You stared up into his eyes and once again you felt like you could drown in them. A part of you wanted to. He looked at you like you were art in a museum. It was different from the way he looked at you the other night. The hunger was still there, yes, but there was an admiration in them now that wasn't there before.

"Christ, you are a beauty, aren't you," he murmured. He brought up his hand to stroke against your cheek. Your hand remained pressed to his chest. "Like a bloody angel sent from heaven just for us…" His lips were so close to yours now. "Please…" His nose nudged yours. You were taken back to that night. It seemed so familiar and yet so different. There was no malice. Soap was tender with you. You found yourself nodding your head on your own this time.

The arm he'd had wrapped around you pulled onto his lap, your calves on either side of his enormous thighs. His mouth was now pressing feathery kisses along your neck. You sighed at the feeling and relaxed into his hold. There was something about his mouth that just made your head spin. His mouth reached your collarbone and he stopped. What was he waiting for?

"Gonna bite you now, alright?" He asked. You answered by sliding your fingers into the strip of hair that lined the center of his head. You felt him shudder beneath you, and then his teeth sunk into the hollow point right behind your clavicle. Your eyes rolled back on instinct.

God, it felt so different when you had a clear mind. Your body felt hot, tingling rushing down to your toes, your fingers twitching in his hair and tightening into a fist. He grunted at the feeling. His breathing picked up as the taste of you overwhelmed his senses. You were at his will and mercy in this moment, but if his words tonight were true- and you had no reason so far to believe otherwise- then you knew you could trust him. After all, Soap wasn't the one who had lied to you.

The hand that held your face so gingerly moved downward, fingers pressing into your pulse point. You gathered that he was monitoring your heart rate, making sure he didn't take too much from you.

Just as you were beginning to feel that telltale dizziness, he pulled himself off of you with a wet smack of his lips, closely followed by that magnificent tongue of his. He pulled back to catch his breath, muttering astonished curses under his breath. You could feel his eyes on you.

"You alright hen?" He asked. You didn't respond right away, head a little fuzzy from the feeling he'd given you. "Hey," he shook you. "Are you alright?" He sounded a bit more worried this time. Your eyes fluttered open to meet his staring up at you. You both stared at one another for a moment, both heavy-lidded and comfortable. He brought his forehead to rest on yours.

"Don't know what the hell you're made of, but you sure are somethin' else," he remarked. You were floating on cloud nine. You felt your world shift as his strong arms lowered you onto your back on the bed. You looked up at him with tired eyes. You weren't about to pass out, not like last time, but you were feeling significantly more lethargic.

Soap laid on his side next to you. He brushed your hair away from your face and threaded his fingers in your hair, just as you had done moments before. His fingers expertly massaged your scalp, lulling you even further towards sleep.

"Now," he started, "why don't you tell me what you need?" Your eyes widened at that. "Oh, no no! Not like that!" He corrected himself quickly. "I meant what we talked about earlier. For your room.

"This is your home now, for better or worse, so it should feel like it. At least a little bit. So tell me whatever you want, we'll get it for you. Television, new sofa, a damned diamond necklace- name it, it's yours."

You pondered his question for a moment. You weren't sure what they could do for you at this point. In this moment you felt safe lying in Soaps protective arms, but you knew as soon as he left you, that creeping feeling would come back again. This wasn't your home. You didn't know how it ever could be.

Soap could sense you retreating into yourself. He jostled your head ever so slightly.

"Hey, you still with me?" he checked.

"Yeah, yeah just… thinking…" you trailed off again. You thought back through the day. What did you need…? Then you thought of something. "A shower head," you offered. "Baths are nice and all, but I'd like to be able to take a shower, too. Just to have the option to." He nodded.

"Done. Anything else?"

"The rest of my clothes would be nice, too. And yeah, maybe a T.V.," you responded, "something with Netflix or something." He made a mental note of your requests.

"I can get you the T.V., but I can't guarantee internet."

"Why not?" You wondered.

"Same reason we can't give your phone back." Oh.

Because you'd call for help.

You were suddenly reminded of the grave situation you were in. You were being held captive here. They weren't just going to let you go that easily. These men were smart, you weren't going to catch them slipping up over something like internet access. If you wanted out you'd have to plan very carefully. But how… Soap's voice pulled you from your thoughts once again.

"If you want, we can get DVDs of whatever movies you want. Twilight, Nosferatu…" he trailed off with a laugh again. You couldn't help but join him. As your laughter settled down again, Soap sighed.

"You should get some sleep, bonnie. You'll need it," he spoke as he withdrew his arms from your body. He stood and tugged the comforter from under the weight of your body with ease and placed it over your body. You passively wondered if it was Soap that had tucked you into this bed the first time around.

"You'll have tomorrow to recover and get your strength back. When you wake up, I'll give you a proper tour of the house, and we'll get you something to eat then." Then he paused for a moment. "Wait, when was the last time you ate…?" He wondered out loud. Then his face went blank in a moment of realization. "Oh, shit! I'll be back!"

And before you could say another word, he was out the door. You heard the sound of the lock turning. How had you only just now realized how hungry you were? You supposed it must've been the anxiety of the day's events that had kept your stomach in knots. You'd been so concerned about becoming a meal that you hadn't even thought of having one for yourself!

But as you waited for Soap to return, presumably with food, you felt your eyelids getting heavier and heavier. And then they were closed. And then you were asleep. And then a gentle hand at your shoulder was waking you up. You opened your eyes to see Soap standing over you, holding a dinner tray in his hands.

“Sit up,” he said. You did as he said, rubbing your eyes. “Sorry, this was all I could find, we’re not used to having human… guests over.” He stumbled over the last part. Both of you knew you weren’t a guest here. Guests had the freedom to leave. He set the tray on your lap for you. On the tray sat a lump of aged cheese and a handful of crackers. You didn't want to know how old they were, but you could tell just from looking that they were stale as rocks.

You brought one of the crackers to your mouth and nearly chipped a tooth. Both of you winced. You dropped it back down on the plate with a clatter and moved to the cheese. Thankfully it was edible. You choked it down and handed the tray back to Soap.

"I'm sorry, it's all we had-"

"It's fine," you snapped. It seemed that eating had only made the pit in your stomach deeper. You were hungry. You were tired. You were scared. And Soap was honestly just pissing you off.

"Well, someone's hangry…" he muttered to himself.

"Just get out," you commanded. Honestly you don't know what had gotten into you earlier. Why were you being so friendly with him? Maybe your head hadn't been as clear as you had thought.

"Excuse me?" Soap interjected. He dropped the tray on the nightstand beside you rather roughly and loomed over you. You were in awe of the size of him, acutely aware of the fact that he could snap you in half without breaking a sweat. He'd been so gentle tonight, you had all but forgotten how terrifying he'd been the night you'd met.

"You should remember who you're talking to, sweetheart," he growled, voice close to animalistic. "I go through the trouble to find human food for you and you just-" He closed his eyes and took a deep breath to calm himself. He opened his eyes to see yours watering.

"No, no, don't do that, pretty girl," he cooed, sitting on the edge of the bed next to you, reaching to dry your tears, but you jerked away. Your wide, teary eyes watched as he didn't back down, instead holding your face with an impossibly strong hand. "Don't cry." You felt the knot in your chest dissipate. His thumbs wiped away your years. "There we go, bonnie. That's it. Smile for me." And so you smiled. "There's a good pet." He chuckled, and you felt your own laughter bubble up again. You couldn't tear your eyes away from his. "Now lie back down," You did. "And go to sleep." And you slept.

---

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Message or comment to be added!

[tavtarnish]

I am this close writing a ghost x soap / CoD:MW2 rugby au

[eowynstwin]

hands, and their uses / neighbors

previous

On a cold winter's day in the early morning hours, you knock on your neighbor Captain John Price's door to make a noise complaint. - He is not tame enough for you, not gentle or warm or soft enough. - ao3

He’s gone. The door is closed. You sit there for some time on your couch, dizzy and lightheaded from alcohol and unsatisfied pheromones. You hear a rumble in the walls—the pipes coming on—and recognize the sign of John having his second shower of the day. You manage to stand as you hear the water running, thinking you ought to get ready for bed yourself.

When you enter your bedroom though, it becomes clear to you that your body is not in concordance with your mind. You kneel, sliding the basket out from under the bed, and retrieve your vibrator from its little silk bag.

You return to the couch. It’s where this needs to happen. Where it might have already been happening, if you hadn’t drank so much, if you hadn’t made him leave, if you had any courage at all…

You roll the little bullet vibe between your hands to warm it up, torn between the insistent throb between your legs and the insistent notion that you’re horrible for even thinking about this. That this kind of indulgence will only be corruptive of the friendship you have built with John.

You feel his hands beneath your knees again, his waist between your legs. You are pierced again, in your memory, by the sharp intent in John’s eyes as he’d watched you drink his scotch.

Friends didn’t hold you the way he had. Friends didn’t look at you like they wanted to devour you whole.

You lift the hem of your dress, slide the vibrator past the elastic waist of your panties. It nestles comfortably between the folds of your sex, and when you switch it on you can’t help the full-body jerk that wracks you.

You can’t stop thinking about his hands. Dappled in brown hair, broad, long-fingered and veiny. In your mind’s eye they hook around your knees again, spread wide and slide up the backs of your thighs, which fall open now in invitation, making space for his phantom.

You know now the fit of him between your legs would be tight. John is a deceptively large man; his silhouette is almost lean, graceful in the way of old Renaissance statuary, function-bound muscle sculpted by utility. Despite his height, he does not intimidate at first glance.

No—it isn’t until you get close, until the heat radiating from his body envelops you, that the magnitude of his presence exerts its power.

You still feel his echoes against your own body, along the insides of your thighs—you circle the tip of the vibrator around your clit, cupping your hand tightly over your mouth—John is stone made flesh, a titan dwarfing your simple mortality.

The weight of his gaze alone is enough to pin you down. What about his body? What about those hands, so big they could cuff your wrists and still overlap at his thumb and finger?

Your cunt throbs. You dip the vibrator lower, tease the flutter of your own entrance, squirm on your couch cushions as pleasure dances up your hips. The low hum of rushing water continues in the background as John runs his shower.

You are too drunk and too aroused not to place your memory of him shirtless within that context, brawny and larger than life under a spray of hot water.

The thought of him half-naked, glistening and soaked, looking at you like he had at dinner, has your breath catching. It is easy now, in fantasy, to acknowledge the truth of what that look in his eyes had meant: invitation. Arousal. An open, unashamed want to meet your skin with his.

You imagine his hands under your spread thighs again, hoisting you up, pressing your back against the tile. How would his mouth feel on your neck? You remember the scratch of his beard against your face, the coarse prickles of it beneath the sweep of your thumb. You’re sure he would leave marks—the ones you so desperately wanted—absolutely everywhere, would leave your skin raw and sensitive even to the touch of his breath.

You take your hand away from your mouth and whine openly at the thought, bearing down hard on the vibrator, trusting that the sound of the shower will mask your voice. The buzz of the toy works you up quickly, has pleasure spreading in an impatient bloom that you cannot keep up with.

You’re not sure how to articulate what you want, even to yourself. You want the fantasy, his hands all over you, massaging pleasure into your flesh. You want him to paint your flesh with the scratch of his beard, want him pressed against you, finally, the way you have steadfastly pretended you never think about. The way he never does.

You want him inside you, and—your hips jerk—you want it to actually feel good enough to enjoy.

Your orgasm takes you as it always does: quickly. Briefly. Too shallow to leave a mark. You curve into it, squeeze your thighs together, desperate to make it last, but it flits across you like a glancing blow and is gone before you can properly enjoy it.

You sigh. All that remains of your efforts are sore thighs and a racing heart. You can’t even get frustrated about it—you’re still drunk, and anyway, you’re used to it. You press the vibrator’s button with your thumb and pull it out of your panties as it switches off. It joins the empty glass on your coffee table.

A vignette of darkness still frames your vision, inebriation half-blinding you. Your head is still spinning—making it back to your bedroom is not conceivable. You lift your legs and drape them across the couch cushions. The pipes are still rumbling, but they’ve never been loud enough to keep you awake.

John intends for the shower to be cold, but when he reaches for the dial he turns it as hot as it can go. At the temperature he is currently running, it feels like a light summer rain.

He stands in the downpour and imagines that the skin will melt from his body, imagines that the steam rising is his own labored breath that he heaves deeply from the bottom of his lungs. His heart beats rapidly in his chest, at a cadence he never even feels in combat.

You’re still swallowing his scotch, eyes closed, expression pleased at the taste.

The tile of the shower stall is barely cool against John’s hands. He props himself up with it, stiff-elbowed, looking down at the water swirling around the drain, at the furious red of his cock as it stands rock-hard and erect against his stomach.

Your soft face is still rubbing against the coarse hair of his cheek, the tender insides of your knees still hooked in the cup of his hands.

His whole body throbs. John takes a hand away from the tile and presses it flat to his stomach, sliding his hand across the tension of his muscles, feeling his diaphragm work as he breathes deeply—as deeply as you had breathed when you’d expressed that you wanted to touch him, wanted him to hold you.

He slides his hand down his abdomen and wraps it around the base of his cock.

“Jesus,” he hisses. It twitches in his hand, a pearl of moisture already dripping down its length.

He’s thrumming with an energy he’d worked all through dinner to contain—an energy that always begins to simmer low each morning you step outside your door. An energy that had flared the moment you’d taken that first drink.

The water isn’t quite enough to make the slide of his palm along his shaft feel comfortable, but John doesn’t want comfort. He needs to work this out, get himself back in fucking check.

He remembers your face, that moment when you opened your eyes and saw him. Remembers the tremble in your voice.

He’d known immediately he’d come on too strong, that he’d revealed too much of his want for you. He had been too intense, too much. He had uncaged the wild thing that lives in his chest, the yawning appetite for flesh and sweat and adrenaline, and you had seen its teeth.

He is not tame enough for you, not gentle or warm or soft enough.

“Maybe I’m okay with that.”

John groans low, squeezing the head of his cock in an iron grip, thighs tensing. He hasn’t been this hard in a long while, especially not with a few glasses of scotch in him. His own hand is molten as he strokes down the shaft, enough that he can almost imagine that it’s what the clutch of your body would feel like around him.

He can still see your eyes, open and unguarded, lingering wistfully on his mouth. He can still feel the warmth of your hand on his face. What would your arms feel like around his shoulders? Your legs around his waist, locked at the ankle?

His ears ring with that moan, cut-off and muffled, that had crossed the boundary of the wall between you and him. He wants that, too, wants to make it even louder. He thinks, more often than you might like, of unwrapping your morning layers, of warming your bare skin with his hands and the weight of his own body.

John rests his forearm along the tile and presses his forehead against it, spits on his cock and strokes himself faster, thinking over and over again of your knees hooked on his hands. Your face pressed to his, almost whining about how good he feels.

What would have happened tonight, if you hadn’t gotten so drunk? Would he still be with you now, head buried between your thighs as you leaned back on your couch?

Tension mounts in his hips, bleeds outward as he clenches his stomach and jerks his cock with an iron grip, pistoning his fist up and down his length. His breath is coming quick and sharp, and—

A high-pitched sound, barely audible over the static of shower water striking tile. A voice raised, unmistakably, in pleasure.

Your voice.

The tension snaps.

“Fuck—fuck!” John snarls, thrusting to the base into his hand, squeezing so hard he thinks it might bruise as his cock throbs with release, cum splattering on the tile floor. He rolls his hips, strokes himself through it until his thighs are shaking, until he is red and raw and too sensitive to take any more.

He swallows hard, breath coming out in rough pants. His spend circles the drain at his feet and disappears down into the void.

You—you’re there, on the other side of the wall, doing the same damn thing he is. Christ, he—he should’ve stayed over there, he shouldn’t have left you, you’re right there and he’ll bet it didn’t last this time for you either, fuck, he could have his hands on you right now—could be licking that moan out of your mouth at this very moment—

John squeezes his eyes shut, grabs his softening shaft as it twitches. He focuses on his breath, on bringing the pace of his beating heart back under control.

You’re drunk. Maybe you would have had him, if he’d asked. But he hadn’t, and you hadn’t either. You’d trusted him to get you home, to see you safe.

That trust is worth far more than some drunken orgasms.

He opens his eyes. Breathes the shower steam in deep, fills his lungs to the brim.

But you do want him.

Maybe not the way he wants you—warm in his sheets, sated, smiling as he brings you your morning coffee—but tonight has proven that something is there. Something that, at least, lives next to his own desire.

Because he’s the only one you want to have dinner with.

next

[eowynstwin]

a break in the narrative / neighbors

previous

On a cold winter's day in the early morning hours, you knock on your neighbor Captain John Price's door to make a noise complaint. - “I hope you don’t mind if I join you this morning?” - ao3

You learn John’s routine, at least as far as it overlaps with yours, fairly quickly.

He showers first thing in the morning, when normally you are still in bed trying to convince yourself out of it. In the limbo of fading sleep, it is a Herculean effort not to imagine it, not to picture steaming hot water flowing across broad shoulders, between and along full, plush pectorals, dripping along chiseled arms and down that narrow waist to…

You shake your head hard, and then wince when the action sends your toothbrush stabbing into the inside of your cheek. You are drowsily and unwillingly awake. The flow of water on the other side of the wall shuts off. You pretend, as you move on through your own routine, that you’re not thinking of long, strong legs, or anything else that lives below his abdomen.

It’s harder to hear the further away you get from your shared wall, but with a little time you’ve learned how to pick out the sounds of him working in his kitchen. There might be the thunk—never a harsh clang—of a pan on his stove, or the soft clicks of his fridge opening and closing. He doesn’t cook for very long, and washes his dishes in the sink rather than the washer.

You find that little detail endearing. From what little you know of him, it just seems appropriate.

There’s usually some quiet after that, and you’re pretty sure it’s because he’s eating. You picture him standing in his kitchen, leaning against the counter, plate balanced in one big hand. He hasn’t struck you yet as someone who would sit down alone to eat.

And he’s always alone. You have not heard anyone else in his flat. Not once.

You wonder at that as your own breakfast heats up. Does he have friends? Family?

A partner?

Your microwave beeps. You scowl at yourself. That’s none of your business. You don’t even know the man.

After he eats, you usually hear him step outside. You’ve peeked through your window, once, and have found him smoking a cigar, standing casually on his front doorstep. He’d been looking out into the street, his gaze moving evenly and methodically across the surrounding neighborhood, calm and attentive to the morning.

SAS. You’d known immediately what he was doing. An unexpected sense of safety had flooded you immediately, and continues to resonate in the here and now as you hear his door open and close.

Today, though, that safety is threaded with a little anxiety. You have to leave early, and it will be the first time you’ve faced him since that morning you’d spent trying to talk to him while ogling his bare chest.

He hadn’t been shirtless when you’d discovered his smoking habit. He probably is not now, either. You cannot decide if it’s a pity or a relief.

You check your hair a little nervously in the mirror hanging by your front door. Breakfast sits warm in a deep jacket pocket, a couple of English muffins wrapped in their plastic and bundled into a tea towel. Lunch is in your work bag, which sits ready and patiently waiting by your feet.

You’re just delaying. Your hair is fine. You breathe a little shakily, pick up your bag, scold yourself for a simpering idiot, and leave your flat.

“Morning, John,” you say as you step out, smiling, trying your best to sound casual.

His gaze comes to you immediately, and your knees feel very weak when those gorgeous blue eyes warm with a smile.

Goodness. Does he smile at everyone like that?

“Mornin’, love,” he replies, and you resolutely ignore how much love—which half your coworkers call you, too, stupid—makes your heart flutter. “Early start?”

“Yeah,” you say, locking your door, feeling your face already heating with a blush. “And a full day, too.”

He turns his head and exhales a puff of bluish smoke. “Wish I could say the same.”

You wrap both hands around the strap of your bag, lean against your door. You can’t help but surreptitiously look him up and down. House slippers, large. Long legs, hugged by worker’s denim, loose at the ankle and snug at the thigh and hip. A tight gray t-shirt providing an easy reminder of what you’d seen in all its glory only a few days ago. And—

“Mutton chops,” you say.

His brows raise. “Sorry?”

You slap a hand over your mouth. “That wasn’t meant to be out loud!”

John gives a laugh that sounds like it isn’t often used. The beard you’d first met him wearing is now trimmed neatly into two even swoops of dark auburn that make his smile look even fuller than before. “I suppose you haven’t seen ‘em, have you?”

You’ve often heard the buzz of his razor going as you’ve dragged yourself out of bed. At that point, of course, his shower is done.

Does he shave shirtless, with a towel around his waist?

You blink hard and shake that traitorous thought out of your head. “Sorry, I—don’t get me wrong, I mean, it suits you!”

The bristles of his mustache sound against the palm of his hand as he rubs his face. “You think so?”

Those gorgeous blue eyes are on you again, soft and appreciative, the same as they had been the morning you’d first met him. It makes your entire body feel a little warmer than it should.

“Anyway,” you say fretfully, scratching at the strap of your work bag, “I wanted to say, I imagine it’s hard to be home sometimes, isn’t it? With nothing to do, I mean.”

He gives a huff, but this time it’s a laugh that’s only trying to be amused. He looks out into the street. “Shouldn’t be, really.”

Most days, you hear him pacing. You think you’re able now to puzzle out his moods according to the tempo he beats against the hardwood floor. Slow, even, steps seem to be days that are better—those are days you don’t have to knock on the wall after he’s turned the TV up. When he blasts some sort of audio, it’s always following a stretch of agitated, arrhythmic circuits that travel the whole length of his flat.

You’ve noticed, though, that when you knock, and after he’s turned it down, the pacing does not resume.

You open your mouth to say something when your phone starts dinging furiously. You huff, dig it out, look at the screen—and roll your eyes.

“And I’ve kept you again, haven’t I?” John says ruefully.

“No!” you exclaim, clearing the notifications and looking up at him. “No, it’s just my coworker losing his bloody mind.” You suck on your cheek. “I should probably get going, though, sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, picking up an ash tray and stubbing out his cigar. The rueful quirk of his brow does not leave his face, and the smile he gives seems perfunctory. “Get there safe, will you?”

“Sure, John,” you reply. You want to say something back, tell him something that will make his day easier, but you don’t know what would help, or even be welcome. So you just say, “Thanks.”

You’ve only walked a little ways away when you look back at him, and see him standing with his hand on his open door, about to go inside.

As if he’s felt you gaze on him, he turns and looks at you. You stop in your tracks.

How are his eyes still so blue even this far away?

You lift one hand up. Wave a little hesitantly.

He waves back, easy and casual as you please.

You duck your head, and hurry away.

Your heart jumps to your throat the next morning as you hear him step outside.

You do not need to leave early today, but you’re at your mirror anyway, tidying up your bed head and frowning at yourself.

This is a terrible idea. You have no business doing what you’re about to do. You’re only opening yourself up to disappointment. He’s no one to you, why are you even thinking of doing this? So what if he’d been fucking disappointed when you’d had to leave? You’re just neighbors. It’s been what, a week since he’d come home? If he’s getting attached, it’s no responsibility of yours to deal with.

And really, had he even been disappointed? It’s not like you know him. Maybe that’s just his face. Maybe it’s just your overactive imagination.

Part of you knows you’re making excuses. You aren’t prone to that kind of stupidity. You’ve heard him pacing. You remember shouldn’t be, really.

You know what it’s like to be lonely.

So you get one big mug of coffee in hand, open your front door, and step outside.

John, as expected, is standing there with a lit cigar between his fingers. “Morning, love,” he says, brows lifted. Of course, he hasn’t expected to see you today.

“Morning,” you reply, smiling.

It’s a little colder today, and he’s in a fleece-lined jacket and dark beanie. This surprises you.

“I didn’t think you could get cold, John,” you say, indicating the gear with your mug. “Unless I really was dreaming the first time we met.”

You want to cringe at yourself immediately. Stupid. You have no intention to flirt. You're just being a good neighbor.

The mutton chops spread in a smile. “Bit different when there’s no heat at your back, isn’t it?”

“I suppose,” you reply. You bite the inside of your cheek. You hope you sound casual. “I hope you don’t mind if I join you this morning?”

The expression he gives is one that is going to live with you for a long, long time. He blinks at you, slowly, and fixes you with a gaze that goes from surprised to pleased. As it was before, it’s an expression that tells you that you have done something more meaningful than you can know.

“Be happy to have you,” he says, his tenor low and soft.

So, you leave your doorstep to stand with him at his own. He steps to the side, giving you space, and though there is a polite distance between you, something is humming in the empty air.

He surprises you by offering his cigar. Your brows shoot up, and you look from it up to him.

“Maduro,” he says. “Don’t worry—wouldn’t offer if it wasn’t good.”

“Oh,” you say, “thank you, but I don’t smoke.”

He shrugs and takes a drag. “Just came outside to stand with me, then?”

You sip your coffee. It’s the same question you’ve been agonizing over all morning. “Maybe I’m tired of my own company.”

He huffs at that. “Think I know how that feels.”

Silence falls between you, and it is surprisingly comfortable. You think it’s because the two of you are used to not actually speaking to each other—your days occur in parallel, intersecting only with knuckles on the wall. Conversation has not been necessary to be the kind of neighbors you are.

So why are you doing this? Why are you out here, if you’re not even going to speak to him? You’ve been content with the degrees of separation that have characterized your acquaintance with John Price.

Haven’t you?

You peek at him through your lashes. He is every bit as handsome in profile as he is straight on. The mutton chops make his face look fuller, incongruously younger, despite the crows’ feet at the corners of his eyes.

“Do you like to read?” you find yourself asking.

He turns back to you, brows raised. Somehow the cool morning has seeped into his eyes, sky blue tinted almost periwinkle, sharp and intense and yet still undeniably warm. “Read?”

You have to avert your gaze. Look at the pavement, a sign on the street. “I have plenty of books I wouldn’t mind loaning, is all. It would be something to do.”

His gaze is still on you. You can feel its weight, like hands on your arms, around your wrists. You bring the rim of your mug to your lips and pretend that nothing inside of you is thrumming with the awareness of it.

“Like what?” he asks.

You sip, insisting to yourself that it’s only the heat of your drink warming your ears. “Different things. A retrospective on the Battle of Actium, a Da Vinci biography, an Iranian professor’s memoirs. Those are nonfiction, but I have plenty of novels, too. Space operas. Westerns.” Romances, too, but you aren’t going to mention those.

“Sounds like you’ve got a big bookshelf,” says John, and you think he’s smiling at you.

“And too many books,” you agree. “Which you’re welcome to, if you like.”

You hear him exhale, see pale smoke bloom in front of you both. The scent is earthy and sweet, and a part of you regrets not taking his earlier offer.

The same part of you wonders if it’s what he tastes like.

You’re saved from having the throttle yourself for the thought when John replies, “Think I’ll read ‘em all.”

You blink, and look at him incredulously. “All of them?”

He grins. “You’ve offered a bored soldier on leave something to do, love. There’s a few men I know who’d propose on the spot for that.”

You go completely blank for a single heartbeat. Your brows are trying to make it into your hair. All of the blood in your body rushes to your face, and finally you sputter in protest, “That’s—I—really, now!”

John only adds fuel to that embarrassed flame when he laughs at your expression. It’s a good laugh, a real one, that comes from deep in his chest.

“That’s ridiculous, John, you’ve having me on!” you grouse, covering your mouth with your mug.

“You don’t know too many military men, then,” he chuckles. “They’d fall all over themselves for a pretty girl like you.”

You think your whole body might be hot enough to start steaming. You look at him petulantly. “It’s not nice to tease.”

He smiles and takes a drag. Paints the air translucent blue with his breath. “Haven’t been.”

It’s too much—you can’t string any sensible thoughts together to bring this conversation back under control. This is not how you’d expected the morning to go, is not what you would ever admit to having hoped for.

“I’ll just get those books, then,” you mutter, trying to ignore the smile he wears as you leave his doorstep.

You have a moment to breathe back inside your flat. You realize, as you search along one shelf, that your heart is pounding in your chest, and the scent of his cigar has trapped itself in your lungs. This not good. You should not be this easy.

John is just a bored soldier on leave. He said it himself. You have no business getting worked up over some flirting that likely, to him, means nothing.

If he was even flirting at all, you remind yourself to consider. He’d certainly been amused at your reaction. You don’t think he’d been making fun, but certainly he could’ve just been pushing your buttons.

Haven’t been rings low and purring in your ears.

You return with the three books you’d mentioned, and John takes them all into the crook of his elbow. The stack is dwarfed in his arm.

“Which one should I start with?” he asks, ashtray and cigar stub balanced in his other hand.

You give a surprised laugh. “Why should I care?”

He tilts his head, pins you with amused eyes. “‘M relyin’ on your expertise, I’m afraid. Been a while since I’ve read anything other than reports. Might not be smart enough for the real deal, anymore.”

SAS. “I doubt that.”

He shrugs, and looks at you expectantly.

“Da Vinci, then?” you suggest.

“He did that painting, didn’t he?” John asks. “Louvre. The woman. Uh…”

“Mona Lisa?” you supply, laughing and scandalized. “You have to be teasing now!”

“Well, maybe I’ll be smart enough to talk to you after I finish the book,” John says, accommodating with self-deprecation. “Da Vinci it is.”

You can’t help yourself. “Should I assign you comprehension questions, too? Name three things you remember and such?”

John smiles. “Be something else to do, anyway.”

Oh, this is dangerous. Every good sense in your head is pounding on the inside of your skull, warning you in one unified voice. Bored soldier, pretty girl, knocking on walls, books lent and borrowed. The story writes itself in your head, saccharine and heady—followed swiftly by ugly, mundane, inevitable denouement.

You are familiar now with the narrative of disappointment. You do not want John to wear its mantle.

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” you say lightly, taking a swallow of your coffee as casually as you can. “I need to get ready for work.”

“Sure,” says John. He looks at you too fondly to stomach. “Appreciated the company.”

“Anytime,” your dumb, traitorous, too-honest mouth gives away.

The next morning begins as the rest do. John’s shower wakes you up. You resolutely don’t think about hot water and hotter skin as you drag yourself out from beneath the covers.

You brush your teeth. His water shuts off. A pan thunks in his kitchen while your first cup of coffee brews.

Silence. You drink. He eats.

You make your second cup. He steps out for his cigar.

A decision hangs on the knob of your front door.

This routine has been comfortable. Safe in its predictability. Measurable in its contributions to your daily life. The previous morning does not have to be anything other than an interesting deviation, a graze up against something more exciting and infinitely more fraught. You can keep the memory of John’s smile, John’s laughter, John’s kind blue eyes sweet and harmless in its ephemerality.

You can ignore the disappointment that stretches hairline cracks across that facade.

Your mug is warm in your hands as you stand in your living room, still and unmoving. From the quiet, the sound of a book falling over on your shelf, lost now of the support of its fellows, captures your attention.

You realize he is going to have to return your books at some point, and relief suddenly floods you. The decision is already made, isn’t it?

He smiles at you when you step out into the morning chill, bundled like you were the first morning into two coats. “There she is! Was hoping you’d join me again.”

Does it show on your face? The warmth that blooms inside of you at that sentiment so openly expressed?

The corner of his eyes crinkle as you stand there, transfixed and unable to hide your pleasure at his words.

“Morning, John,” you finally say. “Finish Da Vinci yet?”

As before, he steps aside, makes room for you on his doorstep. As before, you take the space next to him.

He takes a drag, eyes still on you and creased with amusement. “Not quite,” he says, exhaling. “Always was a poor student. Might take some time.”

You sip from your mug to hide your smile. “At least it’s something to do.”

The smoke from his cigar lingers in the air, mingling with the steam of your coffee.

next

a/n: the books I referenced here are The War That Made the Roman Empire by Barry Strauss, Leonardo Da Vinci by Walter Isaacson, and Reading Lolita in Tehran and Things I’ve Been Silent About by Azar Nafisi. I wholeheartedly recommend every single one.