#ive hurt my own feelings

[bunnyreaper]

speak now

pairing - john price x f!reader

wc - 2k

warnings - weddings, possibly unrequited love, exes, post-break up, jealousy, swearing, wee bit of angst

notes - more price because i am falling hard for this man and no one and nothing can stop me? taylor swift inspired as always!

read pt2 here! have a request? drop it on me! or read this fic on ao3!

John Price is well-versed in holding himself back. As an army man and trained operator, he usually has an unbreakably tight grip on his own self-discipline. 

Those traits were things John would hold dear about himself, hold to be true and unwavering—until recently, just under a year ago now.

That's when everything started to crumble.

The task force's recent mission had gone surprisingly well, and John had found his cigar intake was less than usual and his lungs were happier for it—fortune was smiling down on him, until he got that news . 

You'd shown up after your leave, an unmistakable brightness in your step... and a rock on your finger. 

John remembers the way his jaw clenched as he bit his tongue and forced a half smile onto his face. 

"Congratulations, love." He whispers, pulling you in for a hug—he allows himself that much at least, even if this only serves to test his resolve even further. 

The way you feel in his arms, the way you clutch at his neck, the familiar smell of your perfume—it almost pushes him to the edge, almost pushes him to tell you that you're making a mistake. Why won't you just come back to me?

Your bodies fit together so perfectly, like they always did, just for the briefest of moments.

"Thanks, John." You say as you pull away, your voice wavering as you desperately search his eyes for his approval. 

He knows what you're looking for, and with all his aforementioned discipline, he forces his eyes to soften, forces himself into the shape of exactly what you seek as he speaks. "I hope he makes you very happy." 

A truth and a lie. A double-edged sword. 

"Yeah." The way your posture shifts suggests to John you were expecting another response, it doesn't go unnoticed by him as you continue. "Me too." 

The silence stretches on, and John's skin starts to itch, the words start to bubble up and tickle his tongue—they're right there.

He can't say them, shouldn't say them, won't say them.

"Better go tell the boys then." He adds, clapping your arm in a friendly gesture and dismissing you, because he knows you're at least kind enough to give him the courtesy of letting him know first. 

And he urges you to leave because he needs you gone, he needs to process.

"Yeah, gotta ask Johnny to be my maid of honour." You laugh, and the melody only makes his chest ache more. 

***

You'd given him more outs, more opportunities to speak up time and time again, yet he hadn't taken any of them. 

You asked him directly if he would be there long before sending the invites, to which he'd stupidly replied of course before you could even finish your worried thoughts. 

Not only that, but you double-checked his invitation response to make sure he wasn't bringing a plus one, almost as if you wanted him to have someone there. He had no one he wanted to bring. 

You'd gone out of your way to not discuss wedding planning in front of him, and had diverted conversations away from the topic if you knew he was in earshot. You were trying to make this as painless as possible for both of you, and he could tell. 

Why couldn't he just move on? Why couldn't he just be your friend? Better yet, why couldn't he just be honest about how he felt?

"Is this... weird for you?" You ask one day as the two of you sit together in silence as you scribble away inside a planner.

He knew you were working on arrangements for the wedding, but had sat beside you anyway, and had asked questions he didn't really want the answers to just because he knew you wanted him to care, to be okay with it. 

"No, darling." He lies, the words coming out in an instant, the pet name a relic of the past he can't let go of. "Is it weird for you?" 

Suddenly, you can't meet his eyes and your fingers still, no longer writing whatever it was you were. "I don't know. I know it shouldn't be." 

It's weird because it's wrong, John notes in his head. It's weird because it should be us planning our wedding together.

His eyes are fixed on you, waiting for you to look up and hoping you'll finally see the way he still looks at you. Hoping you'll take one look at his sorry state and realise this whole thing was a terrible mistake. 

"What yer talking about?" Soap swings a leg over the chair beside John, severing the moment in two, dashing any hope he had.

You feel the snap too—the awkwardness, the forbidden in where the moment was heading, as you rush to divert Soap from the truth. "Wondering if I can convince you to wear a dress." You smirk.

"Want me to steal yer thunder, bonnie?" He chuckles and winks.

Your eyes roll back, yet a smile pushes through, and whatever you were thinking about is pushed from your mind. "You can certainly try, Johnny boy." 

John excused himself after that, having to take a moment to remember how to breathe. This had all gone too far, and yet he can't bring himself to do anything about it. It wouldn't be right, it would be selfish, and that was the one thing he'd tried not to be.

That's why he'd ended it with you in the first place. 

He'd told you back then that you deserved better, and yet now he wishes more than anything he could have swallowed those words.

Now he's choking on them.

Here he stands, in the front row of the ceremony room, feeling entirely helpless and consigned to his grim fate.

Your future husband is standing just a few feet away, looking fucking smug. John's skin crawls looking at him, just as it always has. 

Was it a legitimate feeling about the man, or just the fact he was dating you? Marrying you?

Regardless, right now all John wants to do is give in to the itch in his fists, lunge across the aisle, and tell him to just let you fucking go, let you come back where you belong. 

Really, he knows he's only got himself to blame—he was the one who let you go, practically pushed you away. Always self-sacrificing, John Price, even to his own detriment, even when it means letting the love of his life walk away into the arms of another man.

An undeserving man at that.  

As John is practically staring daggers into your fiancé's brain, the man stares back, the smug smile now directed at John—because he knows that John is seething. He knows he beat him, got the girl, got the life John wanted. 

John's not entirely beaten. He's still here, after all.

The fiancé's little plan to get John uninvited almost ended the entire wedding. God damn the power of love and compromise, as now John has a front-row seat to his worst nightmare. John hates that he wishes that argument had been the end of it all.

He's braved the battlefield, stared death in the face, and yet this, this feels like the gravest end, the death of something more meaningful than just his mortal life.

The two men's standoff is broken by the sound of doors opening, and the harpist in the corner strumming her instrument to life and filling the room with an angelic melody. It's still not enough to cut through John's mood and spare him from his festering regret. 

The processional goes by without a hitch—the groomsmen, the bridesmaids, Johnny, all making their way down the aisle with fond, celebratory smiles on their faces. John isn't blind to the waver in Johnny's smile when he meets his subordinate's eyes.

And then everyone turns. 

His eyes land on you, his breath vacating his body, his heart lurching, his spirits soaring—you're just so breathtakingly beautiful .

Everything he ever envisioned, when he dreamed of being the one waiting for you at the end of the aisle. 

He prickles, knowing the dress isn't what you wanted, but your fiancé's mother's dream instead. He hates knowing under the ivory gown you're walking on uncomfortable heels at someone else's insistence, with a man by your side partaking in traditions you hate. 

It's your wedding day in name only.

He's transfixed as you move closer and closer, lost in memorising your face as a blissful smile overtakes your features. He wants you to be happy, in many ways, yet maybe his heart is fighting so hard because he knows you'd be happier with him .

Your eyes meet John's as you near the end of the aisle. Your feet stall, your expression drops. Tears streak down John's cheeks, tracking their way to the pained smile on his lips—the sight of which burns right through you. 

He watches as your fiancé's father urges you on, and you take your final few steps to the front, standing before your husband-to-be as you look over each other. Dry eyes, John notes to himself bitterly as everyone in the room takes their seats.

The officiant begins to speak, but the words are beyond John's comprehension, all he can focus on is you—the soft rise of your chest in the lace bodice, the blue pearl earrings dangling from your lobes that were a gift from Johnny. He remembers helping the man pick them out, unbeknownst to you.

What strikes him most is the look in your eyes, yet he doesn't trust himself to accurately assess what lurks behind them—maybe he's just seeing what he wants to see—dullness, pain.

It's nothing like the looks you gave each other when you were still together, not filled with nearly as much love, or reverence, or joy. 

Your eyes aren't filled with tears like he expected, as he recalls one day the two of you laid in bed together, whispering sweet nothings. You'd commiserated in the fact that you both knew you'd be blubbering messes on your hypothetical future wedding day. 

It wasn't meant to be that boy up there, holding your hands and waiting to slip a ring on your finger—it was meant to be him, John.

The world around him comes back into focus as the words ring around him.

"As they say, speak now, or forever hold your peace." 

There's a silence, every thought and impulse in John's mind wages war on itself as he forces himself to his feet and all eyes turn to him. 

He doesn't notice the horrified looks, the concerned shock from the 141 boys, or the way Simon's hand tugs at his sleeve. 

All he's looking at is you, the spark that ignites within your eyes. 

He has to force himself to speak, his voice coming out gruffer, more emotional than anyone who knows the man has ever heard, as the words tumble from his lips. 

"Y/N, don't do it." 

[clouvu]

Mother and Father 🫶

[lizzieraindrops]

You know what, I figured out why we're having so many errors in Destiny 2 now. It's because with the addition of Micah-10, we've finally reached a critical mass of women with drop dead gorgeous voices, and the game simply can't handle it anymore. It's like Telesto. Too powerful. If they'd actually put Ikora Rey in a rendered cutscene for more than 5 seconds it would have shut down the servers for good

[possamble]

I'm not allowed to be on social media for more than two seconds today but I just wanted to say that Laios will absolutely have his own reaction to all this as someone who would die for Falin but has also imprinted on Marcille as his Emotional Support Comphet White Girl Not-Girlfriend along the way

[aropride]

something deeply traumatic happens to me every year or two Just to accentuate the complex trauma i guess And it’s been 11 months no Incident and everything feels too calm. ive been hanging out with my friends and going to my art classes and objectively this was the best realistic way my life couldve turned out at this exact point. But it feels like any second now somethings going to happen and set me back to the way i was last august and november 2021 and november 2020 and january 2019 and

[redrobin-detective]

So watching the newest Spy x Family, I see everyone squealing over Uncle Franky (don’t get me wrong I am too) but I also think his outsider’s perspective is kind of sad. When Anya is waiting for Yor and Loid to get home, the line he says there struck me.

“Hey, do you like your mom and dad?”

Like that’s a weird question to ask a young child who, hopefully, should love their parents. But Franky I think is acutely aware that they aren’t Anya’s real parents and the Forger family is fake. Franky has worked with Twilight for years, knows him very well and has presumably seen him make and drop identities like one would an article of clothes. We’ve even had Franky directly accusing Loid of being too clinical, focusing only the mission. I think Franky believes that once Operation Strix is completed, that he’ll leave and Anya and move on to the next assignment.

 I think that idea has colored a lot of Franky’s interactions with Anya. Yes, he’s also a big kid and wants to run around and be silly. But I also believe he’s trying to give this girl a sense of happiness and family presumably before she’s dropped off at the nearest orphanage once her usefulness is outlived. Like we all know Loid is catching feels but he’s a Good Actor and it might not be readily apparent to his coworker. Idk it must be so sad for Franky to watch this little family interact, to sweep up a child so clearly desperate for love and family in a spy operation, only to realize it won’t last.

[pyrosomatic-metamorphosis]

thinking about 4halo again and dying

they just. they used to be so sweet together. and then the election arc managed to genuinely turn them against each other (and bad is still affected by being caged in the museum) and i would NOT have been surprised if a rebellion had started within the next few weeks after their last fight and. they used to be friends and then they almost destroyed each other

and then the eggs went missing

and there are so many parallels between them, but one of the biggest parallels is how they're both protectors. they both protected the eggs (and, when he became president, forever extended that protection to the other islanders) but the eggs went missing and they had to put all of that aside. Forever was quicker to put it down than Bad was (it felt like only a very temporary truce, from Bad's end), but they put their problems on hold, because their eggs. were gone.

and another parallel. the destruction. both of them with their plans to cause ruin because then, maybe, theyll get their kids back. bad caused most of the grieving arc damage directly, and got aypierre and antoine to help him. he dug holes in the ground. he placed mines everywhere and leapt into them. he started the lavacasting process of the fed building (and was interrupted by admins, so he stopped, but philza and fit were still right to laugh at him lmaoo). he drilled a hole through the side of the federation office from a huge distance away. he has chosen to hurt his friends and himself to get the eggs back. whatever the cost.

forever destroyed the island. or he planned to destroy the island. or he was interrupted just before he destroyed the island or or or. I don't know. but it was big, and it was bad. bad enough that the feds had to step in and forcefully drug him, and kickstart the happy pills arc.

and the happy pills arc..... oughghghgh as fucking awful as it was for their characters to experience i genuinely truly think that it saved them from each other. when he was first told about forever being fucked up bad was still in the "i need to kick his butt" mindset, and was all ready for an excuse to kill forever. and then he saw forever. and the first proposal happened. and bad was angry and he was sad and upset and he was careful. forever tried to kill him. bad decided to save him. forever kept trying to marry him. forever kept taking the pills. forever was so scared of his own anger and all of the damage he could and would have caused to his family that he kept taking drugs that kept him so out of his mind he hallucinated his son was just sleeping safely at his house.

and they both tried to kill each other. and they both failed.

and bad showed phil and cellbit (and tubbo) the item scanner that dapper discovered, which could destroy him, because nothing else was working. because they needed to save forever. because bad was reminded by then that forever was a victim of the federation instead of just a mouthpiece for it. and then when forever woke up he saw bad, suffering, and so excited to see him awake.

and now they're here on opposite sides again with forever projecting his protection urges onto the fed worker in bad's basement and bad frustrated that he isn't being believed and his evil plans of giving ron lemons apology brownies is being interrupted and. look at them. soft "i hate you" and the appreciation room and bad's quiet heartbreak when he learned about forever being missing and the "i miss you" book bad got mad at because it asked him not to torture fed workers. does anyone hear me im so ill about them. do you understand they care about each other so much and the happy pills arc reminded them of that. forever realized bad is colourblind and bad assumed forever was poisoning him and then forever helped bad cheat on another colourblindness test and forever was giving bad flowers and bad was accepting them and accepted that he was colourblind despite his previously constant denial and! i don't know if im being comprehensible and i dont really care i will be honest i just need you to know i am frothing at the mouth like a rabid little beast. they are a TRAGEDY of miscommunication and external pressure but they love so so much. platonic or romantic or qpp they CARE and it tears me to shreds

[skunkes]

if life is categorized by Before Loss and After Loss then I exist in the before but with a countdown to the after. and the countdown is always always present and debilitating. the loss will be debilitating too but i cant help myself. i will always suffer twice.

[natjennie]

it feels like theres something wrong with meeeee like i dont feel right something is wrong in my brain. it's all coming apart and I don't know why. im getting stupider and it feels like im six years old and I dont understand anything. like im not me. i dont knowwwww

[milkbreadtoast]

v quick christelle doodle... wanted to try drawing her webnovel hair instead of webtoon🥺

[its-no-biggie]

orv spoilers - end of dkos arc (novel ch 188 / webtoon ch 220) + webtoon dkos design

i read the new webtoon chapter and i have not known peace since. this is the second fanart i've drawn of this scene in as many days (objectively not that much but. that's a lot for me) (i haven't posted the other one cause i'm not really happy with it but. i might fiddle with it a little more and see how i feel 🤔)

[mr-stottlemonk]

made a timeline for monk tv for the folks cause it makes no sense sometimes.

[more in the tags]

[update: stottlemeyer's timeline found here]

[possamble]

Thank you for writing the (messy but neccessary) farcille breakdown. You handled it so wonderfully aaaaaaaah!! Like the other anon I was wondering how far "rock bottom" could get (because chapter 4 already felt pretty rock bottom) but. Yeah. That's pretty rock bottom, huh. The tragedy of loving someone but the other person not understanding <- this applies to both of them.

I think it was really neat how you flipped the question on who's reaching out to who with the academy flashback and the final scene with Namari, because... Marcille clinging onto Falin really is just a reversal of their academy days, isn't it? To everyone who met them after they reunited, it was always Marcille chasing after Falin, but to those who were at the magic academy, it was Falin chasing after Marcille. From picking flowers and berries to eat together, inviting Marcille out to see a play, and generally monopolizing her free time... I'm sure any of them would say the same thing as Namari, but in reverse. No wonder everyone thinks Marcille is just another friend to Falin. They weren't there to witness her pining /j. Idk!! I was rereading the chapter and the academy flashback girl was like "why do you hang off of Marcille so much" and I screamed to myself, "hey wait. HEY WAIT."

[b4kuch1n]

haha! bit ill

[cleverclovers]

My older brother only ever used a straight razor to shave, because it got the cleanest shave with the least complications, and brothers in the Jehovah's Witnesses were, at the time, required to be clean shaven.

When he started having his mental health crisis, he stopped shaving, to prevent himself from making what he believed was a selfish decision. It led to him being ostracized at the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses, because the dress code is strict, and mental health isn't considered an excuse.

He took his life in October after more than three years of struggling with his mental health, with not just 'no support' from his religion, but active condemnation. He left behind a wife, two sons, a mother, a sister, three brothers, and a cousin. His birthday was December 15th, he would have been 44.

On that day the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses announced a dress code change. Beards were now allowed. To show it, a member of the Governing Body announced it, personally, on video, to be shown on the weekly broadcast. They said "there is no scriptural evidence that supports the previous ban on beards". The ban was made to set Witnesses apart from the "world", in a time where facial hair was becoming so popular it was the norm

This was not a change made from compassion, rather, a change made arbitrarily, because the elders were tired of shaving, I'm sure. I doubt the GB even knows who my brother was, or how many Kingdom Halls he helped build, that he installed the HVAC systems, and helped with welding and wiring. I have doubt they'd even care. Announcing it on his birthday was a coincidence, plain and simple. There is still no support available for Witnesses struggling with their mental health, or any other life struggle they may be facing. That doesn't stop the people in my family who are still among the witnesses seeing this as compassion for my brother. I can't convince them otherwise.

This dress code change was reiterated at the yearly Kingdom Hall convention this past weekend.

The Jehovah's Witnesses are a cult, not a religion. They have no compassion for their members, and allow the mistreatment of those suffering mental health issues, including children. Avoid them at all costs, and if you have family among them and you're trying to get them to see reason? Good luck to you.

[wormy-worm]

ok u know what maybe if the world isn't ready for sunrazer post that means that the world IS ready for Amoveous siblings post. This is Milo and Enho and theyre my DARLINGS and i love them SO MUCH. i have. SOOOOOOOO many thoughts abt them but after the previous post massacre i do not really feel like typing all of that xoxo love <3