#johnny mactavish x reader | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

bitterrfruit · 1 day ago

Text

clingfilm [1]

serial killer / detective ghoap x forensic pathologist reader cw: dubcon. free use. graphic depiction of a corpse. smut. 18+ only [masterlist]

The first body was discovered on the eighth of September, propped up at a bus stop in the outer suburbs of Whitfell. Found by a drunken teenager on his way home from the pub.

You got the phone call from the detective inspector in the ultra-black hours of the morning. The time of night where not even the waxing moon hung in the sky, its habits as sibylline as any nightcrawler lurking red-eyed at that hour. Yourself included.

Not alone, though. You had found yourself a lurker, one that would arrive unannounced in the pitch black and disappear before the sun broke over the low-rise city skyline. Exactly what you needed. If he were any more of a fixture in your life, you would have grown to loathe him. You were like that with everybody; you could handle people in doses — fixed, controlled, prescribed doses — and beyond that their very presence became as abrasive as sandpaper. Fork-on-plate grating enough to make your ears bleed.

It was a defense mechanism. That’s what all the pseudo-analytical armchair psychologists would tell you, anyway. Something you could work to overcome, like it was a problem in the first place. That you just needed to become one with yourself, and the right person would slot into your life like a jigsaw piece.

Tommy slotted in just fine, for now.

A little wonky, one of those unsolvable pieces that you had to squish in, in itself an indication that it didn’t belong where you had put it — but it would suffice. Having the hole filled was satisfying enough. Looked more complete when you took a step back.

He was uncanny, not quite all there. Offbeat in a way you were drawn to.

There wasn’t much to him. He simply offered his cock to you when you wanted it, and he didn’t burden you with the social obligations of a well-adjusted man. No wine and dining, no meeting the parents, no cooking breakfast. He told you very little, and you liked that about him.

You knew his name was Tommy, that he was from Manchester, and that he was a lorry driver for some packing or logistics company — you learned that when you first met him at the petrol station checkout. Knew that he’d be gone for weeks at a time driving up and down the island, only visiting Leeds for a quick fuck and a cigarette, and he’d be gone again. You knew he served in the special forces in his twenties and was discharged due to injury, and you only discovered that because you mindlessly asked him about a scar on his back. You knew his tattoos apparently didn’t mean anything and he got them to piss off his dad when he was eighteen.

He arrived at your flat just after three in the morning.

You had been growing roots into the sunken cushion of your sofa when he knocked on your door, television playing a box set of Grey’s Anatomy with the volume two notches above mute. You knew it was him, he always knocked the same way — two hard knocks with the back of his knuckles, a third too much effort. Loud enough to startle you. Ever impatient.

You opened your door with a twist of the handle (rarely bolted it, a careless habit). Greeted him in your oversized t-shirt, with no underwear on and your legs unshaven. You weren’t expecting him, but you knew he paid no mind. He’d sink his cock in showered or otherwise. Simple man.

He stood cladded in his rough canvas work jacket, day-old sweat embedded in his stubbled cheeks, cropped wheaten hair scruffed up and pointy. Greasepaint creased in the wrinkles of his sockets, once said it prevented sun blindness during his long hours on the road. Pinched a lambent cigarette between his scarred lips, amber glow catching a glint in his brown eyes.

Took up the whole doorframe, fucking behemoth that he was. The jacket made his goliath shoulders even bulkier, such a thing somehow possible.

“You smell good,” is all he said, as he pushed forward into your flat and swung the door shut behind him. Voice as hoarse as ever, the growl of an old dog, cords shrivelled by cigarettes and dragged raw over gravel.

“You don’t,” you answered frankly, turning to sit back on the sofa. You had unfinished business with a rum and diet coke that you left dripping on the coffee table. “Smell like petrol.”

He huffed, vaguely amused, hasn’t stopped you before remaining unspoken. He shucked off his jacket and dumped it on your cluttered kitchen counter, a grimy wifebeater the only layer underneath it. Came to sit next to you on the couch and landed in it with a grunt. The old springs sank deep under the weight of him and his sheer gravity pulled you in his direction.

You got down one sip of your drink before he scooped you up — with two dinner-plate hands on either divot of your waist you were swiftly lodged in his lap, ass nestled against him as though you were made to fit. He had your legs hooked over his, thighs wedged open, and you got a little splash of spiked coke down your front in the motion. You leaned forward to set the drink down on the coffee table, before he reeled you back in.

He was a taker, Tommy. Liked to pick you up and plonk you down as he wished, and didn’t like a fuss. He wasn’t rough about it, at least. He was a utilitarian, simply preferred convenience.

Fine by you. You were a pedant in most facets of your life — needed a tight grip of everything, always, or else you’d implode like a dying star. Some might have called you a control freak, under their breath and behind the cover of your inattention.

Not with sex, though. Sex was the only act wherein you could willingly relinquish all control. It was liberating, in a way — the ability to shut your brain off, cantankerous as it was, and for once let another person pull your bullied strings.

Tommy never checked, never asked. Sometimes he’d fuck you and leave without a word exchanged.

A wide hand bunched up the bottom of your t-shirt, pulling it up to your belly, and the other bent up and over your shoulder — he hucked up a lump of saliva into his salty fingers, and smeared it against your spread pussy with little fanfare. He was generous with his fingers, sometimes, at least well practiced — began by pushing a thick middle finger inside you, hooking and raking it against your outward wall, kneading into the gummy flesh below your bladder because you told him once that it felt good that way.

The rough heel of his palm grinded against your clitoris as his fingers coaxed your cunt to drool for him, a little harsher than would be most comfortable, but you would never say so. Telling him to do anything would defeat the purpose.

Once he got you warmed up, it didn’t matter. When your clit blushed under his attention, pink and alert, he’d redirect his focus. Would drag his finger out of you, coated in your watery slick, and paint stripes with it over your pulsing bead. Up, down, up, down. Nothing fancy, but you liked consistency — he’d expose your clit from under its hood with every upward stroke, the calloused pad of his finger directly touching the raw nerves would make you twitch. His fingertip would travel back downward every odd moment, scooping up more of your syrup before returning to its job.

Before long you were panting, sweat beading on the nape of your neck, and your head rocked back over his shoulder. The television was rendered nothing more than a lightshow in the dark sitting room, bouncing blue and white off the walls and ceiling. His iron-hard length pressed into your lower back, straining against the fly of his jeans, and he bucked his hips to make certain you could feel it. You could.

You enjoyed it when he dragged it out. When he had nowhere to be, so took his time. It wasn’t uncommon for him to rush, to fuck you hard and hurried and leave before your pussy was even warm. Whenever he was gone for a long while, though, he’d savour every minute. The longer he was gone, the more you looked forward to his double-knock on your door.

With the way he was indulging tonight, you’d have thought he had been gone for two months.

You saw him last week.

When you came on his fingers with a breathless whine, your thighs strained desperately to clamp shut around his hand, but he kept them jammed open — even readjusting his own legs to open you wider. Selfish. He candidly relished in the pained sobs you would let out when he persisted in vexing your sated clit, once the nerves in its peak were cloyed and inflamed. Sometimes he’d press it like a button, or pinch it tight between his fingers, just to hear you yelp in the shock. You felt his grin when he did it.

His turn, then. With a forearm hooked around your waist, cutting into your belly, he lifted you — reached underneath your bottom with a wet hand and tore down his fly, tugging out his cock and holding it upright like a sword, fist around the hilt.

He gracelessly impaled you on him without warning, yanking you downward onto his lap and making you squeal like a cat with its tail stepped on. Far from the first time you had been speared on him, but you never grew accustomed to the size of it — it stretched you open and burrowed itself among your organs, taking up so much space you could hardly breathe around it, became an organ of your own. Even with your doctorate you failed to imagine how your bowels could rearrange themselves to fit him.

With arms like boa constrictors coiled around your belly, fingers boring into the flesh of your waist, he raised you up and tugged you down again — it was as though you weighed nothing to him, he could lift you up and down like a doll without toil. Fucked you like he was jerking himself off with your body.

“Only good cunt,” he grunted deeply into the back of your neck, where his teeth grazed your skin. So low that you felt it rattle in your chest, as though he thought you could not hear it. “No wonder.”

The shit he said was always gibberish. Uttered as low as a secret, always referring to something he never made you privy to. You never bothered asking. You just liked the sound of his voice.

“Wan’ another one?” He asked roughly, as a pair of fingers creeped over your mound and resituated themselves at the crux of your pussy. Almost gibberish, but you understood quite clearly this time.

“Yes please,” you softly purred, a little breath.

Hearing your obsequiousness aloud was always painfully shrill. Such a needy little sycophant the moment a cock was inside you. Embarrassment would settle heavy and thick later, once you were alone, and the thrumming heat twisted up in your core had unwinded.

He touched you differently with his right hand — left-handed, you supposed — would smear circles over your clit with the palps of his fingers, lazy and imprecise. Used the rutting of his pelvis to guide his motion, as he hammered into your cervix with the thick head of his cock. You’d be sore later.

As he sped himself up, blindly chasing the acme of his own pleasure like a dog after bone, and you chewed on your lip like meat—

Your phone rang.

Glowed bright white from where it sat on the couch beside you, the piercingly loud marimba of the ringtone as jarring as a smack to the cheek. You blinked over your shoulder to look at it.

D.I. MacTavish.

You never saved his contact, but you knew the number by heart. Could determine the caller the moment you saw the incoming call on your screen. Very rarely came with good news.

Expecting that Tommy would snap at you for being distracted by it, you shut your eyes again and turned away, focused on his busy fingers and the cock in your guts — but, to your shock, he slowed.

“Better get that,” he grumbled.

You groaned childishly, the back of your head knocking against his collarbone as you slumped back into him. “I don’t want to.”

“Pick it up,” he said rigidly.

Short-fused man that he was. Request better be followed by action in the first instance, or he’d ignite quicker than a match in petrol. Never got physical with you, at least. He’d just grit his teeth and leave in a huff.

You all but mumbled fine as you leaned over to grab the phone from the cushion next to you, but with a tug he kept your hips riveted to his lap, and his cock skewered in you to the root.

There was something deeply depraved about picking up the phone to speak to the detective while being fucked by another man, but you didn’t think too much of it in your come-drunk haze. You wanted to avoid the inevitable fit of rage that would erupt if you made a fuss. Hoped for a short conversation.

“Hello?”

You weren’t very good at phone calls. Not well versed in the formalities. You silently waited for him to elucidate the reason for his bothering you at such a ludicrous hour — but, given the shared nature of your professions, you could hazard a guess. Doubly inappropriate that you had a dick inside you, in that case.

“Did I wake ye?”

Been a while since you heard that voice. A month, at least. It made your chest a little warm to hear it, lilted and deep as it was, even through the tinny phone speaker.

“No, I—” You hiccuped as Tommy moved his hips, and his cock raked pointedly against your constricting walls. You felt his hot breathing against the nape of your neck and tried to ignore it. “—I’m just watching telly. Something happen?”

“A body’s been found in south Whitfell,” he said bluntly.

Not a friendly call. You reached back and patted Tommy on the shoulder, implicitly telling him to stop moving as though you couldn’t feel him. You could keep it together if he stayed still and let you breathe steadily.

“Do - do you need me there tonight?” You asked, voice stiff, struggling to sound at ease while you were stuffed full.

“I’d love a visit,” he said, and you couldn’t tell whether any humour was webbed in his tone. “Need ye to take a look in situ.”

As you opened your mouth to speak, Tommy brusquely bucked his hips, and his stone-hard cock pummelled into the plug of your womb brutally enough to force a piercing squeak from your throat.

That was enough to make you angry. It flared hot in your belly and made your jaw clench up, and you twisted your spine to spitefully jab him below his collarbone, holding your breath when his cock mashed against your organs.

He was smirking vindictively, pupils blown wide, ravenous as a shark. You hadn’t taken him for an exhibitionist, but with the context of the phone call painfully clear, you weren’t going to let him use this as the opportunity to explore it.

You unhooked a leg to get yourself off of him, and his grin dropped from his face so abruptly it was as though you had flipped a switch.

Cold dread needled down the back of your neck.

His huge hands kept you bolted to his lap, cock grinding into you as if to spite you.

It dawned on you then the precedent you had set — allowing him unfettered ingress to your body and not once disputing mid-act. He had the size and strength to keep you pinned to him for as long as he wished to; a fact that would normally excite you, that now only frightened you.

Only when you scowled at him with enough ire to turn him to stone, smacked him on the chest and again attempted to get off, did he finally and reluctantly acquiesce. His glower was gelid, venomous, and his disdainful fingers clawed over your thighs as you stood yourself up. His slick cock tugged out of you and landed against his hirsute stomach, leaving a wet patch on the white cotton of his wife-beater. In any other situation you’d mourn the emptiness.

You brought the phone back to your ear with a clear of your throat, as you timidly wandered away from the couch towards your bedroom.

“Must get excited when a cadaver shows up, MacTavish,” you said coyly, flustered, wiping an errant hair from your forehead. “Gives you an excuse to see me.”

A beleaguered sigh grumbled through the phone. “That’s no’ funny.”

Johnny’s gallows humour was a quirk of his you enjoyed, even though he routinely used it to get a rise out of you while you did the work they paid you for. So, his uncharacteristic severity made clear that there would be no such persiflage this time. You didn’t know how to act toward him when he was serious. It made your skin itch.

“Sorry,” you said awkwardly into the phone, through teeth. Well rehearsed. He left a silence harsher than nails on a chalkboard before you brought yourself to speak again. “S’it look like a homicide?”

“Body was sitting at a bus stop. Young lad spotted it,” he replied stiffly. It didn’t sound like him. “It’s — it’s wrapped in clingfilm.”

“Oh,” you hummed. That was new. “Kid didn’t see anyone?”

“Nobody,” he answered. “He hasn’t been much use, though. Lad was steamin’. ”

You rummaged around in your chest-of-drawers as he spoke, phone wedged between your shoulder and cheek. Shoved your bare legs into your jeans once you found them, and stuffed some changes of clothes into your Nike gym bag. Homicides always necessitated an overnight stay.

“Any decomp?” You asked clinically, “might have been dead a while. Soft tissue intact?”

“Dunno, Bones. I didnae look that close. That’s your job.”

You always cringed a little when he called you that. He decided it was your nickname upon first meeting you, and persisted even after you told him that television’s beloved Bones was a forensic anthropologist and not a forensic pathologist. The difference was lost on him. Expressing any displeasure only made the name stick.

Still, it was evident something had gotten under the detective’s skin. It made you viscerally uneasy, and he wasn’t even in the room with you to give you that toothy look of heavy-browed discomfort.

The human mind was an enigma to you. A labyrinth of dark hallways and trapdoors. You always found yourself turning the wrong corner and hitting a dead end, or losing your footing and tumbling into a spike pit. Your own mind no exception.

Bodies were much easier. You knew what there was to be found and exactly where to look for it. Skin, flesh, organs, bones, teeth. No constituent variance between one person and another, no discrepancies to account for.

Saying the right thing was a more difficult undertaking than autopsying a corpse.

“Everything alright, detective?” You felt obliged to ask, when the silence stretched too long, and your ears began to ring.

A long sigh. His muteness only endured, but he finally spoke after a pruritic pause. “Sorry. I’m — just — s’good to hear yer voice.”

You bit down on nothing as you marched out of your room and towards the door to your flat, only to find it ajar and the sitting room utterly empty. Glancing around for a moment, you checked for Tommy — not in your bathroom, not in the kitchen — just gone. Must have stormed out in a temper. For the best.

“Didn’t answer my question,” you said edgily, as you grabbed your keys from the table by the door.

“I’m fine, bonnie,” he grunted. “When’re ye getting here?”

You stuffed your feet into your boots, yanked your long black coat from the rack by the front door.

“I’m on the way,” you said.

The drive to Whitfell would normally have taken around two hours, but you drove a steady five miles an hour over the limit, and got there ten minutes sooner. Cumbria Constabulary could just as well find a pathologist in their own region — you were sure there would be at least one — but they had an affinity for calling on you at wild hours, likely because you never refused. Not to mention the hardly vocational reasons their detective inspector had for liking you.

The roads were dead empty that early in the morning, just after four. The asphalt was glossy with autumn dew and reflected the odd streetlight in stripes. Mostly empty motorway and rural hills between there and Leeds, but the pseudo-city you headed to had a decent population that was only expanding, and the sprawl of freshly built flat-pack condos proliferated beyond its borders every year.

By the time you arrived at the scene it had been cordoned off with tape, the suburban street blocked by four flashing patrol vehicles, a CID van, and the mobile morgue. A few night-robed slipper-wearing bystanders hovered around the barricade, too sleepy to be a bother but curiosity compelling them to get out of bed and poke their noses around at the drama outside their houses.

A plethora of crime scene investigators pottered about, taking photos and lifting prints and swabbing surfaces, the odd constable there to oversee it and write their aimless notes. Screens of grey canvas had been propped up around the scene, shielding the cadaver from your sight and that of the bystanders, but the floodlights within projected the shadows of every CI working behind it like a puppet show.

The detective spotted your car as you pulled in to park, immediately sauntering towards you and squinting in the glow of your headlights. Thick mohawk cresting his skull as scruffy and unprofessional as ever, he stood dead still with his hands in the pockets of his black duffle coat as you killed the engine. He wore his authority like a nice jacket, standing tall and brandishing it proudly, a fact you always found amusingly juxtaposed to his boyishly crude character.

You flashed your warrant card at an approaching officer as you got out of the car, and they left you be without a word.

“Got ‘ere quick,” he called to greet you, and you shoved your card back into your pocket as you walked over to him.

“Sounded serious,” you answered bluntly, perplexed by his surprise.

He nodded, lips in a line. “Sorry if I was a wee bit blunt,” he said grimly, wintry grey eyes as piercing as you remember, even under the dim orange glow of the streetlight above him. “Bit shaken up, I s’pose.”

“Doesn’t sound like you, Johnny,” you teased, quirk in your brow as you leaned slightly to the side to see past him.

“I’m no’ made o’ stone,” he gibed, finally baring his pointed teeth with a grin, silver-capped canine glinting in the light of the street lamp. “It’s no’ nice to look at, I’ll tell ye that.”

“I’m sure,” you said.

“Get on yer gear,” he told you. “Come take a look. Need yer noggin on this one.”

You gave him a nod and hurried around your car, popping open the boot and digging around the rubbish for the PPE kit that was a permanent fixture among your belongings. Climbed into disposable white coveralls and smoothed down the velcro-close front, tugged a pair of fresh teal latex gloves from their cardboard box and bullied your hands into the floppy rubber, plucking the band around your wrist to ensure a good seal. Three-ply mask, shoe covers, palm-sized notebook in tow.

Returning to the detective, he flicked his head towards the scene, and you followed him at the heel like a duckling. Your heart fluttered high in your chest, buzzing a keen anticipation that always swelled inside you whenever a homicide was in question. Likely inappropriate. Not a secret you’d share.

“There she is,” he grumbled, far more sombre now that the cadaver was in his immediate line of sight. He sniffed, held the back of his hand under his nose as if to stifle a retch.

She indeed. A woman, quite clearly, sitting upright on the bench under the bus shelter, across the road from a quaint little play park. A double layer of clingfilm wrapped snugly around the body from head to toe — meticulously done, each limb individually swathed, the plastic corset-tight around the waist. Dark nipples were visible through the glossy film, breasts squished flat by the tautness of the plastic. The head was less visible, face only determinable up close — bandaged up by multiple layers of film, turned greenish in the thickness, nose and eyes smushed up underneath it.

“Jesus,” you muttered, and for the moment that was all you could muster.

Johnny nodded. “Aye,” he agreed morosely. “No’ somethin’ ye see everyday.”

“Have any of the CIs touched the plastic?” You asked resolutely, focus already needle-pointed and honed in. “Taken any off, moved it at all?”

“No’ that I know of,” he said.

You grunted irefully. “Well, they better not have. You need to keep a better eye on them, detective. If they pissed around with—”

“They’re well trained, doc.” He said, more pointedly, and you sensed that he was gently chiding you for assuming their idiocy. The subsequent chagrin made you shrivel up like a prune.

“How long since it was discovered?” You asked dispassionately, changing the subject.

“‘Bout two hours,” he answered. “Lad said he called triple one straight away once he found it.”

“Mh,” you considered aloud, crouching down beside the bench. Clicked your pen and flipped open your notebook.

Your eyes scoured every inch of the corpse — legs, knees, feet, genitals, stomach, ribs, arms, hands — anything that was visible without having to touch or shift it from its position, you made a note of.

Contusions visible on: right hip, right shoulder, left side of neck, left clavicle. Blood (?) present on the inside of the clingfilm, around stomach and throat areas. Partial lividity (?) on outer left thigh and arm. Pocking/marbling (?) visible on: both thighs, lower stomach, chest, both arms, left foot.

Positioning — sat upright, neutral positioning. Hands flat on thighs above knees. Head leaning slightly to the left, otherwise neck neutral. Legs spread at ~30°, feet flat on ground. No shoes. Evidently nude beneath clingfilm. Hair apparently intact, tied up. Eyes open.

“You’ll have to get your team to analyse the clingfilm,” you muttered flatly, more a spoken thought than a directed statement.

“Huh?” Johnny queried, right behind you. He liked to watch you while you worked. Surveyed like a hawk every anomaly you pointed at, every note you made in your book. Always overly curious about your movements.

“The plastic,” you repeated, glancing up at him over your shoulder. “Get your team to look at it. The brand, or something — it just, it doesn’t look like the stuff you’d get from Tesco, does it?”

“Don’t it?”

“No, it’s — it’s thicker, see? It looks sturdier. Here, look.”

Johnny pursed his lips. “Dinnae need to get any closer, hen.”

A knit pulled in your brow. “You’re being weird,” you said, the irony of your comment not lost on you. “It’s just a body. You’ve probably seen more of them than I have.”

“Callin’ me old?” He chided, an uneasy smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth, dimpling his cheek.

“No, I mean—” You quickly corrected yourself, panicked that you had insulted him. “From, you know. Being a soldier, or whatever.”

“Ah,” he nodded. “I ken. This is hardly like that, though, eh? Dinnae see anything as fucken’ horrific as this out there. This is — ah. S’like a horror movie. I don’ like horror movies.”

You smiled at that. “Little wuss,” you murmured impishly.

“What d’ye think, then?” He asked.

“Of horror movies?”

“Of the fucken’ body, Bones, Jesus.”

You nodded tightly. “Oh, uh—” you looked back at your notebook, “hard to say without taking off the wrapping. But it looks like it was taken from somewhere else and put here recently. Tonight.”

“Mh,” he warily hummed. “How can ye tell?”

“Um—” You bite your words, wrangling them into a comprehensible sentence opposed to unintelligible medical jargon. “There’s blood pooling, on the left side, which suggests it was initially on its side post-mortem. But it’s, it’s not fully settled. I’ll have to look more closely in the lab.”

“Anythin’ else?”

Your eyes raked over the cadaver in front of you, new notes buzzing in the air around you like insects. “It’s pretty intact. Hardly any decomposition. Doesn’t really smell, does it?”

“Cannae say I’ve sniffed it.”

You snorted. “Well, there’s — oh.”

“What?”

Stare hitched on something you hadn’t noticed while you were focusing on the flesh beneath the plastic — water.

Little puddles underneath where the cadaver sat, pooled around its feet. Then you observed droplets, mostly evaporated but what was left trickled in rills down the thighs and chest, atop the plastic.

“It’s wet.”

Johnny chuffed, disquieted. “S’it leaking?”

“No—” You leaned closer, squinting, and laid the back of your gloved hand against the body’s belly. Frigid cold. “I think it’s freshly thawed.”

“Shite,” he grunted, visibly perturbed. He was sharp, the detective, and the realisation of renewed urgency was quick to settle. “Alright, let’s rush ‘er to the fridge then.”

You’d have liked more time to assess the body in situ, but MacTavish wasn’t wrong to want it in storage as soon as possible. The more quickly the body was able to thaw, the more posthumous changes might disturb the secrets it retained from its murder. You stepped back from the bench as the detective whistled over some hazmat-clad drones to bag and tag the cadaver and haul it into the mobile morgue.

You began your shed — pulled off your mask, plucked off your gloves, took down the hood of your PPE suit and let it puddle around your neck. Let out a breath of relief once the most abrasive layers were peeled from you.

“Y’want me to do the post tonight?” You asked impassively, when Johnny returned his attention to you.

His eyes were solemn, overcast, and he stiffly shook his head. “Nae, hen. Save it for the morn, eh?’”

“You sure?” You puzzled, frowning, “I should do it now. Now that it’s not frozen, it might—”

“Och, stop,” he dismissed. “Not havin’ ye look over a body like that if you’re knackered. Yer notes will all be gibberish.”

A curl twisted in your lips. “I’ll be fine. I’ll just have a RedBull.”

“No,” he said. “Tha’ one’s an order.”

“You can’t order me to do anything, detective,” you jeered. “I’m not a cop.”

He let loose a wide grin. “I can do what I damn well please.”

You snickered, rubbing the heel of your palm into an eye — only after he mentioned it did your exhaustion make itself known. It pulled on you like sinking stones, made your legs heavy as lead. The sun was probably not far from rising, and you hadn’t yet slept a wink. Had been far from a relaxing night, in fact.

“Fine,” you grumbled. “I’ll be at the lab in the morning. Or, y’know, in a couple hours.”

He nodded, the buck of his head a salute.

“Will ye crash at ma bit?” He asked, kept his hoarse voice low, as if a secret.

Would be far from the first time you’d have stayed at his flat. He invited you every time you were forced to stay the night near the lab, though the first few offers you had modestly declined.

When you finally capitulated it innocently started with you on his couch, but that only lasted a night. It was only a formality, really, to even pretend that you would sleep in his sitting room — by the next night he had skulked down the stairs and approached you in the dark, allowing you just enough time to squeak his name in shock, before he pulled you by the ankle and buried his mouth in your pussy through the loose leg of your little sleep shorts.

For a while, it was something of a tradition. You’d park in his driveway, put on your pyjamas out of courtesy, dither about whether it was improper, before he inevitably had his cock in you and you were knocked out in his bed. Forced to comb it all out and appear unfrazzled when you arrived at the lab the following morning.

In recent months, though, your visits became fewer and further between — MacTavish’s department had proved somehow too effective, and homicides had become atypically scarce. You could acknowledge the senselessness of bemoaning that the detective was too good at his job, but in some petulant way you held it against him. It meant your paths only crossed once a month, if that, when you were called in.

You had been withholding yourself from him, for the last few visits. Motivation eluded even yourself. Perhaps out of spite, or shame, or an inexplicably renewed concern about the appropriateness of the trysts while you were ostensibly in the city to investigate a murder. Maybe you just couldn’t get past the notion that you had been busy fucking another man, saddled with the certainty that he would not be pleased if you were to tell him, even if you couldn’t sympathise with the jealousy.

“Not tonight,” you answered, and he looked like you had just kicked a puppy.

“Why not?” He all but moaned, reaching his burly hand toward you and brushing your jaw with his thumb. You suddenly felt like people were watching. “We don’t have t’do anythin’, bonnie. We can just sleep.”

You almost snickered at that, because you knew how vastly unlikely that would be. Instead you gave him a pleasant smile and a noncommittal shrug, hoping he’d leave it at that.

He didn’t. “Are ye mad at me?”

His hand was on your shoulder, then, at the crook of your neck. Johnny was like you, in that way — had to have his hands on you, craved the tangible like a carnivore craves meat, ever-chasing the succor of touch.

“No, Johnny, I’m not mad at you,” you said mildly, through a placid smile.

“Y’sure?” He asked. “Y’been prickly, lately. Have I done somethin’ tae upset ye?”

“I’m always prickly,” you muttered, now defensive, broke your eyes away from his interrogative glare to look at the asphalt of the footpath beneath you.

“Aye, ‘n ye ken I like yer prickles,” he said with a smirk.

“I’m sorry,” you huffed. “I’m just gonna get a room at the Travelodge.”

“You’re avoidin’ me,” he said edgily, hooking his hands onto his hips.

Possessive brute he was. Yet another reason you’d avoid revealing your escapades to him, even though he had absolutely no right to claim you as his own nor to bemoan your sexual habits.

“I’m not,” you said. “It’s not my fault we’re hardly ever in the same city.”

“Got another fella, do ye?”

Your brows pulled tight. “No. I don’t.”

It wasn’t in your nature to lie, and you weren’t good at it. It didn’t help that the detective’s entire being was built to hunt for the truth, he could scent a lie like a bloodhound could a fugitive. His brows were low and hard and cast a shadow over his eyes, dimples deep in his carved cheeks as he chewed on your fib.

“He do it for you?” He asked derisively, jealousy thick as tar lacquered every word.

“Stop it, Johnny,” you sternly implored, shrinking into yourself like a snail. “I’m just here to do my job.”

“Mh,” he mumbled, contempt in his throat. “Prefer the company of dead bodies, do ye?”

You pouted unwittingly. “Don’t be mean.”

He let out a huff of potent disappointment, wiped down his cheeks with a wide, stiff hand.

“Sorry. I’m sorry,” he said gingerly, hand returning to you with a brush of your cheek, a sweep of your hair behind your ear. You never begrudged his touchiness, it made your skin tingly. “I just miss ye, s’all.”

You bristled when he said that, irrationally. He missed your cunt, that was what he meant. He missed you warming his bed. More likely, he didn’t miss you at all. He’d call you in more frequently if he did, wouldn’t he?

“I know,” you said, hands in your pockets. “I’ll see you tomorrow, though.”

“Alright, hen,” he said with a nod, hand retreating. “See y’in the morn.”

The snippy receptionist at the Travelodge managed to check you into a room on the first floor of the three-storey building, built in the eighties with those hideous chocolate-square bricks. The room itself was without frills, a double bed with teal and brown sheets, a little bench with a kettle on it and one wrinkly teabag remaining in the rack. The bathroom fixtures were all yellow-faded with specs of green mould stuck under the caulking at the edges. A nice view of the parking lot out your window, when you peeled back the sheer polyester curtains to have a look.

It was a precarious decision to have a bath as sleepy as you were, but you were all sticky after a half-fuck and the excitement of a fresh homicide. You lay in the water for half an hour, made use of the little bottles of budget soap that sat in the shower caddy.

Once you were done you dried yourself off with the provided towel and left it scrunched up over the rail, and you climbed into the crisply-made bed stark naked — you forsook pyjamas when you could, because they twisted up tight when you tossed and turned and you found it maddeningly overstimulating. Checked your phone before you went to sleep, and you had a text from Tommy; another number you hadn’t saved, but you hadn’t memorised that one yet. Only realised it was him when you opened the messages and saw the older one before it.

23/08 02:21: Need some cunt.

08/09 05:03: You gone?

You didn’t reply.

The sun had risen just before eight, and you woke up with it. A short and spasmodic sleep, more of a nap than a true slumber. You came awake on a gulp of air with sweat on your nape and your arm dead asleep. It was limp and heavy when you pulled yourself out of bed and got yourself ready for a day at the lab.

You poured yourself a black coffee from the instant machine once you got there — a subterranean wing of Whitfell General Hospital, inconveniently situated a ten-minute drive from the police headquarters. Everything in there was rubbery, wrapped in linoleum and vinyl, crisp white or speckled teal. Far less flash than the crime labs you were used to in Leeds. Block fluorescents lined every corridor and the hum always made you twitchy, despite your years of experience underneath them. You always had earplugs in while you were working to escape it.

The reek of rubbing alcohol and hospital-grade hand soap permeated every surface of the wing, and it made your nostrils flare. The smell of challenge. One that always had your heart fluttering with an admittedly twisted exhilaration — especially today, knowing how many secrets were wrapped up in that body, you were itching to read whatever stories it had to tell.

You greeted Jenny, the lab assistant, as you elbowed through the swing door into the mortuary, and she waited for you by the unmanned reception. Wiry wee girl that she was, riddled with neuroses that even you found unreasonable.

“Sleep in this morning, doctor?” She asked with a thin smile, and you wondered how long she had been waiting there for you. Her lime-green coffee mug was just about empty.

“Yep,” you grunted, sweeping the lanyard she had left for you off the reception counter and hanging it around your neck. “You made a start?”

She shook her head as she gestured for you to follow her. “No, ‘course not. Not allowed to start without you.”

“Mh.” You took a pacifying sip of coffee from your foam cup.

“I have prepared everything, though,” she said curtly, marching ahead of you, scrubs billowing with her haste. “The tools are all laid out and I have the chiller on extra cold. I also requested some scissors specifically for the clingfilm.”

“Fabulous,” you said wryly.

The first door into the lab was something of an airlock, a vestibule with a window into the autopsy room, providing room to cover yourself in PPE from head to toe and take a deep breath before you made your way in. You wore casual clothes under the crunchy blue tyvek suit — same pair of jeans as yesterday, and a woolly sweater to keep yourself warm under the blisteringly cold aircon in the sealed laboratory. Layers on layers — two pairs of cloves on each hand, shoe covers, sleeved plastic apron atop the coveralls, N95 respirator, face shield, a cap to cover your hair. You were fastidious about it; every inch covered, protected, sealed up.

You swallowed a breath as you entered the lab, anticipating the familiar stench of death and formaldehyde — hit instead with only bleach and the faint smell of raw meat.

The plastic mummy lay flat on the steel dissection table in the centre of the room, gleaming under the blinding overhead lamps above it.

Surreal to look at.

You had seen and cut up many corpses in your profession and studies prior — never one presented like this, awaiting being opened like a gift at Christmas. It looked like a practice doll until you approached it, and the human parts became plainly visible through the shiny film.

You had Jenny assist you in carefully slicing through the plastic wrap, peeling it back as gingerly as possible, exceedingly careful not to nick the skin. The plastic stuck firm to the epidermis, moist underneath, and it made a foul gooey noise as you peeled it away. Even once the seal was broken, the odour of decomposition was not nearly as fetid as you were used to; almost as if it were a fresh death, but your gut told you that it was far from.

Unwrapping the head was a morbid ordeal. The face was milk pale, the bulb of its nose coal-black with frostbite, the skin both stodgy wet and shrivelled in texture. From her features you’d have guessed the woman was in her forties.

What your eyes pinned to, though, was the perfectly round hole in the centre of the forehead. You could look through it and see straight down to the shiny steel underneath. Precise but not clean, skin and flesh feathered out from the orifice.

Gunshot. FIred cleanly from the back of the head, you guessed, but you’d need to roll the body over to confirm.

Once the plastic was finally removed entirely — which took almost two hours — the rest of the autopsy was fairly routine. With all of her quirks, one thing Jenny was exceptionally good at was taking note of everything you uttered aloud. You could say a single word and she could translate it into a meaningful report. You dictated everything as you found it.

Interrupted lividity on left side. Cadaver was left on left side for <1 hours prior to freezing. More recent posterior lividity, consistent with storage positioning post-thawing.

Severe cell damage from crystallisation, major damage (pocking, marbling on epidermis) consistent with being frozen >2 weeks. Digestive tract empty, suggestive of a lack of food intake for 24-48 hours prior to death.

Major contusions on: ribs (left - blunt force damage to ribs 4, 5, 6, consistent with tip of shoe - possible kick to ribs), medial back (blunt force - crushing injury? Possible stomping, consistent with shoe sole size 12.5-13).

Ligature marks on neck and throat, and both wrists (wide restraint - possibly tape/duct tape). Petechiae present around eyes, cheeks, mouth. Consistent with asphyxiation, non-lethal.

No evidence of sexual activity or genital trauma ante-mortem. No evidence of defensive wounds.

Gunshot wound centre cranium, external bevelling anterior. Significant internal bevelling posterior, consistent with weapon fired against back of head, suggestive of execution — “Yes, Jenny, write that down.” — bullet wound ~1cm in diameter, consistent 9mm semi-automatic pistol. GSR present in neural tissue, no bullet present. Clean entry/exit.

Toxicology results pending. DNA analysis pending.

Estimated PMI: <1 hours prior to freezing, 3 or more weeks since death.

Cause of death: Gunshot wound to the head.

Manner of death: Homicide.

Jenny obsequiously aided you in suturing up the large Y-shaped incision you had made to open up the chest cavity, punctilious as she was. It was always a little disappointing to return a body to the fridge unidentified and with no next-of-kin. Nobody to relay the details to, no curiosity to assuage.

You liked to do a final comb-over once the assistant had left the room to make copies of the preliminary autopsy report — Jane Doe, case number: 0187 — if only to quell the writhing inquisitiveness that permanently riddled you.

You checked the hands, checked every crease and line, noted the colour of nail polish: berry-red, chipped at the free edge. The soles of the feet: clean, hardly calloused, no running through mud. No tattoos, only the earlobes pierced, no earrings. Teeth square-straight — braces as a teenager, no doubt — freshly cleaned aside from the discolouration of decay, likely a recent appointment at the dental hygienist before death.

Only as you peered into the open mouth, squinting in focus, did you spot something abnormal — a scratch mark, on the inside of a molar, previously hidden by a fat grey tongue. The powdery ivory enamel was stark white where it had been carved into, clearly inscribed post-mortem. Maybe even moments before the body was dumped at the bus stop.

You frantically scoured the lab for a mirror, anything reflective; came up short with a small steel tray, but it was smooth enough to see a blurry reflection. Furiously tore out your notebook, and immediately scribbled down what you saw when you tucked the tray behind the teeth and tilted it to the right angle.

Mandibular teeth: #20 - R, #17 - O, #19 - U Maxillary teeth: #13 - S

The killer had left a message.

Who for?

It took D.I. MacTavish less than seven minutes to get to the lab. You imagined he screamed through the traffic on his siren-bedecked motorbike many miles per hour over the limit. He came thundering down the corridor and you heard his approach before you saw it – you were disrobing in the antechamber, dumping all of your disposable PPE into the biohazard bins, washing your ungloved hands with antiseptic soap in the large steel sink.

He bulldozed in through the push-door, panting like a dog, clad in a sweaty grey button-up with his black holsters around his shoulders, secured with a strap across his chest. Carried unease in his eyes and his blazer in a fist.

“Show me,” was all he said, ragged and impolite.

It was poor practice to re-enter the autopsy room without your PPE on — you made the detective put on some latex gloves and a respirator, at least, as you allowed him inside to look more closely at the body. He stuck an imprudent thumb behind the teeth on the lower jaw, hooking it open to widen the mouth as he peered within.

“What the fuck,” he muttered, under breath, evidently disturbed by what he saw — you wanted to say told you so, but held your tongue. “R, U… what is that, O?”

“There are four,” you explained impersonally, “R, O, and U on the bottom, and S on the top.”

“What,” he said, stopping to think. “Sour?”

“Yeah, could be.”

“Y’don’t think so.”

“No,” you gritted, “can you get your finger out of there now?”

He nodded, pulling his hand from the mouth and standing straight, gesturing for the two of you to leave the room. Lucky that Jenny wasn’t there to reprimand the both of you. You waited with your arms crossed, leaning against the double-glazed window into the lab, watching as Johnny plucked off his gloves and dumped them in the rubbish along with his mask. He raked up his sleeves with a grunt and began washing his hands in the sink.

“We got more comin’, don’t we,” he said grimly, back to you.

“More letters?”

“Bodies, hen,” he clarified.

You swallowed a shaky breath, the air suddenly harsher on your throat. “Yes,” you uttered cautiously. “I think so.”

A mutter, “Christ.”

“Yep,” you said. “I’ll grab you a copy of the report.”

“Gimme the spark notes, please,” he grunted, already exasperated — he turned to face you, leaning on the sink, and he wore that worn-out look he always did at the end of a long day (eyes heavy, jaw tight), despite the fact it was only half-three in the afternoon. “I’ll read the lot with the team later.”

You let out a tight breath as you considered which details to give him.

“Well, the victim was a middle-aged woman,” you started, “I’d say late forties. Wealthy, too.”

He nodded. “Cause and manner?”

“Definitely a homicide, but that wasn’t really in question,” you started. “She was shot in the back of the head, I reckon with a nine-millimetre. It — it seems like it was an execution. Like the killer had the victim face down and pressed the barrel against the skull before firing.”

“Clean freak?”

“Maybe,” you shrugged. “Certainly would lend an explanation to the clingfilm and the freezing.”

“Mh,” he thought aloud. “So he has ‘em in cold storage. Why’s he only dumpin’ them now?”

“He?” You asked, a quirk in your brow, and he suddenly looked agitated.

“Not a rogue assumption,” he argued. “S’always a man, with this shite.”

A smirk tugged at your lips. “S’pose so,” you admitted. “I’m guessing they — he — has something to say, right? Leaving messages in the teeth — that’s zodiac shit.”

“Sour,” he repeated, lost in thought. “What else.”

“The victim was asphyxiated, but the ligatures around the throat are pretty minor compared to the airway damage. My guess is suffocation with plastic, given our guy’s affinity for it. Victim was alive when she was shot, though — maybe he suffocated her to subdue her.”

He was in front of you, now, hands hooked on his hips, tip of his thumb anxiously rubbing his brow.

“Fuckin’ animal,” he huffed.

“We’ve swabbed all over for DNA,” you said, some clinical effort to comfort him. “He’ll have left something behind.”

“He better ‘ave,” he said, looking briefly at his shoes, and his unease radiated from him, made your mouth taste like metal.

“You alright?” You asked, less gently than you had intended.

“I’m fine,” he said, vaguely defensive.

He eyed you for a moment, sharp silver rings with their pin-prick pupils inspecting your face as though analysing the minutia of your features. You shuffled uncomfortably, looking at your fingernails to evade them.

“What’re ye doin’ for dinner?” He asked, more warmly, and the whiplash made you cock your head back in disbelief.

“What?”

“Y’heard me,” he said.

“I’m—” you stammered, bewildered. “I haven’t thought about it yet.”

“Grab a bite with me,” he said with the sternness of an order. “We can sit down somewhere. Have a real chat.”

“Johnny, that—” you groaned, “that doesn’t seem like a good idea.”

“For fuck’s sake, bonnie,” he barked, and you flinched at his sudden intensity. Not quite aggression but certainly encroaching on it.

“What?” You growled, recoiling, back pressed against the window behind you.

“I’m sick of it. Y’been fucken’ cold to me, and I haven’t done nothin’ to deserve it.”

“I’m not — I’ve not been cold.”

“No?” He snapped, “y’wont even look me in the eye for more than a damn second! Last time y’didn’t even say good-bye when ye left.”

Riled annoyance flushed high on your cheeks, thrummed in your temples as you curled your tongue in search of a retaliation.

“We’re not — there’s nothing here, Johnny. I don’t owe you anything. You can’t — you can’t expect me to worship you.”

“Worship me?” He asked incredulously, “I don’t need ye tae worship me, hen, Christ — yer just so fucken’ icy I can’t focus on anythin’ at all when yer here. Like i’m walkin’ on eggshells everywhere I go.”

“If I’m that distracting then you should find another pathologist,” you spat. You didn’t have a bone of de-escalation in your body; made entirely of kindle that took far more energy to snuff out than to ignite.

He wiped down his face with white-knuckled hands, eyes rolling into the back of his head in pure frustration. Sometimes you simply enjoyed riling him up, but this time you only sought to get him to leave you alone.

“Yer bein’ cruel,” he grumbled, and you could hear the swelling anger roiling in his throat.

“I don’t know what you want from me,” you hissed. “If you need to let off some steam so badly go stick your dick in someone else.”

His eyes turned dark, you watched his pupils distend right before you.

“Don’t want someone else,” he murmured coarsely.

You gritted your teeth. “That’s too b—”

Cut off by a gasp as his body suddenly rammed against you, he used his weight to smother your disputes as a needy hand grasped at the button of your jeans, tugging and wriggling it vigorously to break it loose.

“Johnny—” You belted, throat plugging up in the shock.

You swung back a hand and threw it viciously into his cheek with a bullet-loud slap — but aside from the white-hot handprint you left on his face, he was utterly unperturbed. He deftly seized your assailing hand by the wrist and grappled it tightly, wrangled the other one while you were distracted and pinned it to your chest with a fist.

You balked as he yanked your right hand towards him, planting his mouth in your palm; his breath was blistering hot, made your hand all clammy as he pressed his slovenly lips into the hollow.

“Miss ye,” he grumbled into your skin, wetting your palm with his tongue, no doubt it tasted like latex and soap. Didn’t seem to faze him, as he slid the tip of his tongue between the valley of two fingers, before taking your pinky finger in his mouth. Wet, and warm, enveloped it hole — the rough texture of his taste buds on the pad of your finger made your hairs stand on end, needle-sharp tingles down trickled your spine.

“God’s sake, Johnny,” you breathed, dyspneic; tried to wriggle free the hand he had riveted to your sternum, but he only secured his grip of you. “This is — n-not here.”

“Don’ care,” he muttered, after releasing your finger from his maw; dragged his mouth hastily down your wrist, then your forearm, catching in the knit of your sweater. Found purchase once it reached skin again, took your febrile neck between his teeth and suckled there, basely relishing in the saltiness of your sweat.

“John — please,” you chirped, when he bit your thickest tendon, and you felt your scruples begin to melt like butter. “I’ll go to d-dinner with you, just — this is so—”

His messy lips were on your jaw, then, but he never made his way to kiss you; as if kissing you on the mouth was too intimate, too severe a violation to commit, more so than anywhere else on your body he could have planted his mouth.

“After,” he mumbled into your cheek, and his hands sunk to the button of your jeans, undoing it with a pop. Kept you wedged against the window into the autopsy room with his hips against you, gargantuan mass nearly squeezing the air from your lungs in an effort to keep you still.

“Made me wait too long, bonnie,” he slurred, mouth on your collarbone, most of your exposed skin now wet with the marks of his saliva — hardly kisses, tastes instead. “Look what y’done to me.”

“I wasn’t…” you faltered, breathless, as he dropped to his knees hard enough that you winced at the thought of his kneecaps hitting the solid floor.

The sound of your fly being torn down was harsh, ear-piercing; you squeaked in panic when he took the undone waistband of your jeans in his fists and yanked gracelessly them down your hips, dexterously taking your underwear with them.

Hadn’t even shimmied them to your thighs before he keeled forward and took your cunt in his mouth, lapping at the seam of you like a dog on water, planting mushy kisses at the top of your slit as though greeting a lost lover.

Your protests turned to liquor on your tongue, inebriating — your head spun with it, ceding every modicum of agency to his charge, the responsibility now his to orchestrate you, the onus on him to steer you. He knew you well, the detective, could read you like the pages of a book. Knew how rarely you’d give, only hoping he’d take.

And take he did, fucking glutton that he was — ate you like an animal, hardly even trying to prevent his sharp teeth from grazing your labia as he sucked your clitoris into his mouth, laving it with the voraciousness of a hound starved — suckling down your slick and letting it run down his chin, smear over his mouth and cheeks, eager to drown himself in you — you could only sputter and mewl in surrender, skull donging against the hollow glass of the window behind you as your head rocked back from your shoulders.

“Johnny—” You hiccupped, aimless, hurling his name into the overcrowded air of the stuffy vestibule as though hoping it would stick to something. Your hands clawed at the veneered sill of the interior window, scraping off the polyurethane, you could feel the shards under your fingernails.

Your clit burned under his tongue, pebbled and swollen and throbbing like a heartbeat — slithering rapture coiled up tight in the base of you, made your vision blurry and your mouth wet — on a cry you came, it ricocheted out from your perfervid clit in shockwaves that turned your vision white, and you did your best to stifle your cloying noises with a fleshy palm between your teeth.

Legs went weak with it, nearly buckling if not for the hands that held you up by the hips, and he finished his meal with a gentle swipe of your anguished clit, flat tongue.

Not like Tommy, he didn’t mock you for your orgasm, didn’t chortle and torment you with pokes or pinches just to make you squeal. Johnny was grateful for it, reverent, took his time to breathe in the heat of your rapture directly from its source, exhaling cool air on your glowing pussy as if to comfort it.

“Ah, fucken’ needed that,” he vented, panting, forehead on your belly. “Ma perfect kitty, mh, couldn’t wait any longer, bonnie.”

You thought he might bring himself to stand, pull up your trousers for you, perhaps apologise for the incursion in a place as depravedly inappropriate as this — but, he didn’t. He instead tore your jeans down your thighs with unhampered haste, past your knees, hoisting up your ankle to yank the pant leg from your foot.

That was all he needed, evidently, once your legs were no longer tethered by your trousers; he stood up and had you by the thighs in an effortless ascent, adroitly hooking your legs around his waist and wedging you against the window. His fist tore at his belt, and it clinkled as he unbuckled it — followed the flick of a button, the zip of a fly.

“You’re a degenerate, Johnny,” you puffed, with a whine, and he all but chuckled at you.

“M’just a man,” he grunted, cock unsheathed in a blink, you felt it smear against your sodden pussy and saturate his shaft with your needy syrup. “Y’won’t let me take y’out, won’t let me call ye, won’t let me—”

Bitten off by a groan as he nestled the blunt head between your folds, broke through your entrance without pause — sunk deep as he fell against you, and you bleated as he split you open — he was thicker than Tommy, the girth a painful shock every time you let him in, and you didn’t believe your cunt could ever be inured to the stretch, it could only rip itself to fit him.

“—Fuck ye,” he groused, low voice breaking as he sealed his lips to your neck. “Christ, bonnie—”

You only whimpered, turned stupid, as you hung your arms over his shoulders and clawed at his back, nails catching in the stiff straps of the holster that cladded his scapulae. Herculean shoulders worked facilely to hold you up, thick and straining against the thin cotton of his shirt. His thrusts were steady, hard, bounced you up and down against the glass — your sweater rode up with every rut, until your bare back smeared against the cold window, you felt it grow damp with the condensation of your sweat.

“Feel tha’, hen?” He growled, the resonance of his ragged voice wracking through you like a quake. “Fucken’ made for me, eh? Perfect fit—”

So greedy, insatiable, he fucked you with a simmering rage, one that had been bubbling under the surface and whose temperature had only risen with every visit you turned him down — one, two, three months since you last let him inside, figuratively and literally — and he let you know of his spite, fucked you with the ferocity of a man boiled over, you worried that he’d push you through the window and the shards would cut you to pieces.

You bit down on little cries with each rut, the upward curve in his cock had his rigid head battering your bladder from inside you to the point of ache, and it turned you pudding soft — all defiance siphoned from you, pooling around the base of his cock until it went foamy in his bed of trimmed dark hair.

He groaned, feverish and needy, and you knew what that sound portended.

“Agh — fuck, can I—”

Come inside you went swallowed, because he was too close, and he wouldn’t have had time to pull out if you were to say no.

His teeth chewed reverently at your shoulder and he moaned into your skin, bucking in, to the hilt, ruts turning erratic and volatile. His cock jolted hard within your constricting walls when he finally reached his climax — spurting scalding hot come into the depths of your cunt until you were glutted with it, filling you up to the fornices, and you could almost taste its brine on your tongue.

A slow whimper leaked out from behind your teeth, perhaps a moan of relief, now that he was hopefully surfeited — he slumped into you with a puff of air, kissed your shoulder where he had bitten you, chased a final thrust to squeeze out every drop.

“Been too long,” he purred, winded, humid with sweat. “Dinnae make me wait like that again, eh?”

“M’sorry,” you slurred, fucked drunk, brain knocked against your skull one too many times in the last twenty-four hours for it to make much sense of what had happened.

You felt stuffy, filled up to the ears with come and confusion, and you wanted nothing more than to climb out of the corpse-ridden basement he had just fucked you in and take a breath of real air.

He slipped his cock out of you once it had marginally softened, and a glub of come oozed out of your cunt and dribbled down your thigh. You groaned as you bent down to put your jeans back on — but to your surprise, he helped you. Took your foot (sneaker still on) and fed it through the leg of your underwear, then your trousers, pulled them up both your legs with a shimmy, fixed them over your hips.

Even did your button back up for you, pulled up your zip fly as if he was undoing the damage he had done.

“There, hen,” he said gently, petting your cheek as if to praise you. “All better.”

In your stupor you could only be grateful. “Thank you.”

“Will y’come get a bite with me, now?”

You were dizzy. You needed to put Jane Doe back in the fridge. You needed to give him a copy of your pathology report. You needed to send the toxicology samples to the forensics lab.

Maybe you could leave it all for Jenny.

“Okay,” you said.

#dd:dne #simon riley x reader #johnny mactavish x reader #soap x reader #ghoap x reader #dark fic #cod fanfic #cod smut #ghost x reader #bitterfruit fics

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sai-int · 3 days ago

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LOW COUNTRY | SPLIT RAIL

johnny mactavish x reader

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18+ | am i making you feel sick?

Neither of you speaks a word about what happened.

The air between you is thick with it—heavy, like something unspoken but undeniable. It hangs there like the warm aftershocks of a lightning strike—soft crackles that continue to illuminate the sky. Neither of you needs to say anything to feel it. The space between you, once too wide and too stiff, has shifted somehow. That awkward distance, the quiet tension that used to feel like a constant hum in the back of your mind, has melted away. It’s replaced by something softer, something so effortlessly natural that it’s almost jarring.

After the storm, everything changes between you and Johnny. Not in some dramatic, earth-shattering way, but in a quieter, more intimate manner. It’s like the two of you were holding your breath for too long, and once that storm passed, you could finally exhale.

Johnny’s hands are everywhere now. At first, it’s subtle, almost imperceptible if you didn’t know him and all of his quirks as well as you do. The first time you really feel the change, it’s the same evening as the kiss. You're standing by the counter in the kitchen, reaching for a cup in the cabinet. As you straighten up, his hand gently lands on your hip, steadying you. It’s the kind of touch that could have been casual, that could have been accidental, considering he’s always in the kitchen with you. But the way his fingers linger just a moment too long tells you it’s not. You glance at him, and there’s something there, something that wasn’t there before. His eyes don’t leave you like he’s waiting for you to catch him, like he wants you to notice. And you do.

Then, the next day, you're walking past him in the barn as he grooms Scout, carrying a bucket of grain for the horses. You stumble over a stupid crack in the floor that you could’ve sworn you fixed. You almost eat concrete when Johnny’s hands find your waist—just a brief, gentle pressure there, holding you up without so much as a second thought. His instincts are shocking, but you don’t say anything, and he doesn’t either. Still, the action speaks volumes. His touch is always close now—hand on the back of your chair when you sit down to eat—your thigh if he’s feeling rather libertine. Fingers gently massaging the back of your neck or shoulders after a long day. Little things, but they feel monumental.

You start to notice how often he’s in your space; how often he’s just… there now.

After a long day of tilling and rooting in preparation for the colder weather, you decide to haul up in the crop barn. The tractor, rusty and dilapidated, has been sitting there for what feels like half your life. It’s a relic, and you’ve always meant to get it working again. But truth be told, it’s always been a little too much to tackle on your own. Still, you figure it’s about time to get it running so you and Johnny won’t have to keep fighting over the one good tractor you share.

You know enough about maintenance to get by, but that doesn’t make it any easier. The thing is heavy—every wrench you turn feels like a battle. Hours pass, and nothing much changes. It’s frustrating as hell, and the sweat dripping from your forehead feels like a reminder of just how hard you’ve been working. You take a step back, wiping your hands on your jeans, and look over the mess of metal and parts.

And that’s when you hear it—a slight creak in the barn door, barely audible over the hum of the evening air. Before you can turn around, you feel it: a pair of arms sliding around your waist, pulling you into the warmth of his chest. Johnny’s chin rests on your shoulder as he breathes you in, his lips pressing a soft, chaste kiss to your neck.

You let out a breathy laugh, shifting slightly. “I smell. Like really bad. Like oil-and-diesel bad,” your voice light, but tired.

He chuckles softly, his grip tightening just a little as he presses another kiss to the nape of your neck. “I love it,” he hums, his tone low and warm, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. You roll your eyes at his reply but can’t help the small smile that tugs at your lips.

Johnny pulls back, finally letting you go, and you turn to face him. He rounds to the front of you, slipping his arms around you with ease. You rest your head on his chest, your arms wrapping around his torso, holding him close. You close your eyes for a moment, feeling the beat of his heart beneath your palm.

“How was your day? The animals?” you ask, voice soft, as you feel the steady rhythm of his breathing against you.

“All fine, lass,” Johnny murmurs, his hand coming up to rub your back in a gentle, comforting motion. “But I’ve been missing ye, won’t lie.”

You feel warmth spread through your cheeks at the simple confession; the way his voice always seems to carry that quiet need for you. You laugh softly and look up at him, “You’re always missing me, Johnny,” you tease, the words feeling almost like a reflex.

Johnny pulls back just enough to meet your eyes, “Yeah? Well there’s a lot worth missing,” he tilts his head with that signature smirk. “Ye missing me too, pretty?”

Your heart stutters in your chest, the way he looks at you like you hung the moon and the stars—it makes you melt.

“Day and night, hun,” you murmur as you slip your arms around his shoulders, tugging him down to your level, pressing your lips to his.

The kiss is slow at first, the chastest kiss you’ve probably shared to date. But in Johnny™ fashion, it deepens infinitely, his hand skating its way to the scruff of your neck, pulling you closer, and suddenly the tractor, the oil-streaked mess of metal, the dull ache in your muscles from hours of work—becomes second place in your mind. Johnny has a way of making everything come second. Becoming your number one.

His other hand slithers down your back, pulling you flush against him, and you don’t think twice about it. Every inch of space between you disappears. And in that moment, nothing else matters—not the tractor, not the work, not the world outside.

You’re just as bad as he is when it comes to the touching— the way you can’t seem to peel yourself off him. The first time you really notice it, it hits you like a damn freight train. You’d always stared at him before, but always bashfully and never longer than a few moments. But now, you’re sitting on the back porch, the brisk humidity hanging thick in the air, watching Johnny work with the horses out in the pasture. The man’s a goddamn sight—sweat beading down his back, broad shoulders and back muscles rippling with every movement.

You tell yourself you’re just admiring his work, like you usually do, but deep down you know that’s a load of bullshit. You’re not even pretending to be subtle anymore. Your eyes follow his every movement, drawn to the curve of his biceps as they shift, the way his shirt pulls tight across his chest. Your breath catches in your throat, and your fingers twitch, wanting nothing more than to touch him.

Heat spreads across your cheeks, creeping up your neck, and you fucking hate how much you want him—how it’s impossible to ignore it now. The urge is burning, primal, and you’re trying to fight it, but you know it’s a losing battle. Every second you watch him, the harder it gets to resist.

Johnny’s presence is a constant now, a part of every step of your daily routine. It’s quite sickening, actually.

You fall into a quiet rhythm together, your lives tangling in ways that feel both effortless and inevitable. Mornings start the same—brushing your teeth side by side at the sink, nudging each other with sleepy elbows, and sharing the mirror as you get spiffed up for the day. You pass him a clean shirt while he buttons his jeans, and he smooths a hand over your hair when you grumble about it being tangled. It’s domestic, almost too easy, but you don’t question it.

Chores are no longer a solitary effort. You help him with the animals, trading the milking pail back and forth, while he lends a hand in the berry fields, listening as you rattle off the different types you grow. He takes it seriously, too, nodding along and repeating their names under his breath like he’s committing them to memory.

“I ever tell ye ‘bout the time I ate the wrong berries?” he asks one afternoon, crouching down beside you as you inspect the bushes.

You glance at him. “Oh no.”

“Oh yes.” He grins, plucking a berry between his fingers. “Accidentally ate somethin’ poisonous, hallucinated my way through an entire mission. Thought my team was speakin’ in riddles the whole time.”

You laugh. “Did they know?”

“Oh, they knew. Had tae carry me out before I walked straight into enemy territory.” He shakes his head, tossing the berry back into the dirt. “Simon never let me live it down.”

Evenings are spent in the kitchen, where you’ve taken it upon yourself to teach him how to cook. Properly. Pa was a lost cause after Ma passed—barely knew how to do more than fry an egg—but you refuse to let Johnny suffer the same fate.

“Alright,” you say, standing behind him, guiding his hands as he kneads dough for bread… He’s doing less kneading and more—stabbing. “Loosen up a bit, you’re strangling it.”

He huffs. “Feels like I’m doin’ surgery.”

“Well, it’s not that serious,” you tease, resting your chin on his shoulder. “But you’re getting better.”

In exchange for cooking lessons, Johnny gives you glimpses into the life he left behind. Some things you already knew or would have guessed—his military background, the dangerous things he’s done. But other things take you by surprise.

Apparently, he was a big deal in his line of work, the kind of soldier that people whispered about. He knows a hell of a lot about bombs, casually dropping knowledge about explosives while you’re stirring stew, like it’s the most normal thing in the world, all while you stare at him like he has a third head.

And then there’s his family.

“They’re still back in Scotland?” you ask one night, sitting cuddled up on the porch with him, a cool breeze rolling through.

Johnny hums, staring out into the distance. “Aye. Not that they’d care if I was here or there.”

You frown. “What do you mean?”

He shifts, rubbing at his jaw. “Unofficially disowned me after I left to support Iraq in the war.” His voice is quieter like it’s something he doesn’t talk about often.

You see the way his shoulders go tight, the flicker of something pained in his eyes. Instead, you just reach for his hand, lacing your fingers through his.

“I’m sorry,” you murmur.

He squeezes your hand, offers a small, tired smile. “Nothin’ tae be sorry for, lass. Just how it is.”

You asked him how he got here—not because you weren’t curious, but because his lips quivered and pressed into a firm line at the mention of his family, and you didn’t want to push him into something that hurt.

It works, though. His expression shifts, the tension easing as he huffs a small laugh. “Here-America? Or here-here?”

“Both.”

“I just couldn’t see anythin’ else for myself back there,” he admits, rolling a toothpick between his fingers as he stares out at the horizon. “Back home, it was all I knew—army, war, the next mission, the next fight. There wasn’t any out for me; not really.”

You watch him, the way his jaw tightens, his gaze distant.

“So you left,” you say softly.

“Aye. Medically discharged—nothin’ physical, just… head wasn’t right anymore.” He exhales, running a hand through his hair. “Knew if I stayed, I’d end up goin’ right back, findin’ some other way to keep doin’ what I was doin’. I needed distance. Needed tae be somewhere new, somewhere quiet.”

You picture it—Johnny boarding a plane with nothing but a duffel, fifty bucks, and the weight of his past pressing down on his shoulders. The kind of loneliness that must’ve followed him across the ocean, the uncertainty of it all.

“But you made it work,” you say, nudging his knee with yours.

He glances at you, the ghost of a smile tugging at his lips. “Aye, I did.”

You tilt your head, giving him a knowing look. “And you found your way here.”

His smile softens. “Aye.” He brushes a loose strand of hair from your cheek. “Found my way here. Tae ye.”

Your chest tightens, warmth spreading through you.

“I’m glad you did,” you murmur.

“So am I,” he says, gently stroking his thumb over your thumb.

You don’t need to say anything else. Instead, you nuzzle into his shoulder, letting the night settle around you, the crickets filling the silence where words aren’t needed.

It’s the dead middle of October. The nights are cooler now, around 50 degrees, if you’re lucky.

It’s late, much later than you realized, and after a long day of work, everyone’s finally winding down. Pa’s already long gone to bed, the old geezer always hitting the hay right after dinner, his heavy snores echoing from his room across the house. You’re in bed, the cotton t-shirt you threw on barely covering your body, just enough to keep you decent as you sit cross-legged, scribbling out a grocery list for Johnny to pick up from town tomorrow. The soft hum of ‘Can’t Stop The Thing We Started’ by Bryan Adams plays faintly in the background, coming from the cassette player in the corner of your room.

You glance at your little analog clock on the nightstand, ‘10:24 PM’ glowing softly in the lamp light. It’s getting late, and you know it’s time to call it a night. You stand, stretch your arms above your head, and make your way to the door, deciding to brush your teeth before bed.

You open the door and across the hall to the bathroom. You put your hand on the doorknob, but as you move to turn it, the door flings open.

Right there in front of you stands Johnny, fresh out of the shower, a towel wrapped low around his hips. His skin glistens in the low light, drops of water still trailing down his chest, and all you can think about is how the hell you’re not supposed to give him a reason to take another shower.

For a second, neither of you speaks. He’s just standing there, water dripping from his hair, looking like he belongs on the cover of a magazine, while you’re standing in your underwear, caught between the shock of the moment and the overwhelming urge to just... devour him.

“Shit, sorry,” Johnny mutters, voice rough as he adjusts the towel. Droplets of water slide down his chest, catching on the faint trail of hair at his navel leading… south.

“No, no, it’s fine,” you say, but your voice betrays you—too breathy for your own good. Your pulse hammers against your ribs as your eyes rake over him, drawn in like a moth to an open flame. You should look away. You don’t.

He shifts his stance, and the towel dips just enough to make your breath hitch. Heat licks down your spine, a slow, creeping thing, pooling low in your stomach. Johnny notices, because of course he does. The ghost of a smirk tugs at his lips, and when he cocks his head, water-darkened strands falling into his eyes. It’s almost like he’s daring you to keep looking.

You step back a little to give him room to move, but he just follows you, stepping into the hallway.

He’s dripping all over the hardwood, but neither of you care. His chest rises and falls, slow and steady, and you can’t stop your eyes from following every drop of water that glides through the valley of his abs. But when your gaze flickers back up, his eyes are shamelessly locked onto your underwear—like a schoolboy catching his first glimpse of a shoulder and forgetting how to blink—memorizing the way it hugs your hips, and the softness of your thighs all on display for his famished eyes.

His tongue darts out, swiping over his bottom lip like he’s suddenly parched.

“What’s the plan, then?” Johnny drawls, eyes still audaciously drinking you in. “Ye gonna stand there all night, or were ye hopin’ I’d make it worth yer while?”

You swallow hard, your throat suddenly arid. “I— I was just gonna brush my teeth…”

He knits his eyebrows, twitching with a feigned frown like he feels bad for you. “That so?” He leans in just a fraction, voice dropping to something dangerous. “Looks tae me like ye want somethin’ else in yer mouth.”

That does it. You grab him by his obnoxiously large shoulders and pull him toward you, lips crashing together as he smirks like he was banking on this happening. He places one hand on your waist, pulling you closer, his body warm against yours. His free hand cups your neck, thumb brushing your pulse, making it hard to think straight.

You pull him by his towel, your fingers gripping the soft fabric as you lead him back toward your room. His kiss deepens once he realizes what you’re doing, the pressure of his lips insistent, demanding. You move with him, hands running over his chest, feeling every muscle tense beneath your touch, his body now fully pressed into yours. The sound of your breath mingles with the music playing in your room as you enter.

You tug at his hair, pulling him closer as if you could get any closer than you already are—noses smushed so close it nearly hurts the both of you. But it feels like you could just keep pulling, keep kissing, keep getting lost in him forever. Johnny’s hands move down to your waist, gripping tight, fingers digging into your skin as if to make sure you’re real.

And when he pulls back, just enough for your lips to part, he looks at you like he’s finally found what he’s been searching for. His eyes are darker, filled with something deeper, something more than just hunger. When he sees that you want it just as bad as you do, everything else disappears.

Johnny’s hands are on your waist, gripping tight, and then he picks you up. A surprised gasp slips from your lips, but he doesn’t give you time to react before he’s striding straight into your room, quietly shutting your door, and tossing you onto the bed like one of those hay bales he throws around all day.

The mattress dips beneath you as he follows, caging you in, his body warm and solid above yours. His hands roam, tracing over the soft fabric of your shirt, pushing it up just ghost the calloused tips of his fingers over your soft tummy. His lips find yours again, ardent as ever. You can feel the heat rolling off him, the want, the frustration of waiting.

But then, just as his hands start slipping lower, your breath hitching at the way his fingers graze your hip, you pull back slightly.

“Wait—” you whisper against his lips, and he stills immediately, blue eyes flicking up to meet yours.

You swallow, trying to steady your voice. “Do you have a condom?”

The way his face drops is hilarious. He exhales sharply, pressing his forehead against yours, shoulders sagging like you just told him Christmas was canceled.

“No,” he mutters, voice thick with frustration. He sighs, rubbing a hand down his face before flopping onto his back beside you, arm thrown dramatically over his eyes.

You can’t help but giggle at how defeated he looks.

He peeks at you from under his arm. “D’ye think if I run tae town right now, the shop’ll be open?”

You snort. And you thought you had it bad. “Johnny, it’s nearly midnight.”

He groans, falling back against your pillows, but when you curl into him, resting your head on his chest, his whole body seems to relax. His arm comes around you, pulling you in tighter, his fingers running slow, lazy circles over your back. You can’t help but silently gawk at the massive tent in his towel, your mouth suddenly salivating.

You do have it bad.

You look up at him, “... What if you pull out?”

He chuckles, his lips brushing against your forehead in a soft kiss, “‘S been… A while, love. Not gonna trust my game.”

You let out a small laugh, the tension between you easing just a little. It’s been a while for you too, longer than you'd care to admit, but you don’t press the matter further.

“Yeah,” you murmur, your voice soft, almost like you’re thinking out loud.

The conversation fizzles out, but the air remains comfortable. His body presses into yours, warm and firm, and you can't help but let yourself settle deeper into him. He holds you with such ease, as if this is exactly where he’s supposed to be.

Your fingers trail idly along his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart beneath your touch. His hand slides down your back, fingers brushing the curve of your spine, grounding you further in the shared quiet. The comfort of it all is enough to make you close your eyes for a moment, just breathing him in, feeling the weight of his presence settle around you like a blanket.

Neither of you says anything for a while. There’s no rush—just warmth, just him. His heartbeat is steady beneath your ear, the soft, rhythmic thump-thump-thump lulling you into something dangerously close to sleep.

Johnny shifts slightly, exhaling a long, tired sigh as his grip on you loosens just a fraction—not because he wants to let go, but because sleep is creeping in, pulling you both under. His body is warm, radiating heat like a living furnace, and between that and the slow drag of his fingertips, your muscles start to go slack.

You shift just enough to press your face into the crook of his neck, breathing him in. His scent is familiar, safe—soap and fresh air, a lingering trace of something woodsy from whatever he washed his hair with.

“Mmm,” Johnny hums, the sound low and drowsy, vibrating against your temple. “Could get used tae this.”

You smile sleepily, pressing a lazy kiss to his collarbone. “Yeah?”

“Mmhm.” His voice is rough around the edges, thick with exhaustion. He shifts a little, pulling you in closer until your legs tangle together, until there’s not a single inch of space left between you.

You barely manage a response before sleep drags you both under, wrapped up in each other, warm and safe in the quiet hush of the late-night air. Right before you slip under, you make a mental note to add condoms to his grocery list in the morning

You don’t remember the last time you went a whole day without feeling the warmth of his hand on you. Every glance he gives you feels like it’s full of pure adoration. You’d even go as far as to say love, but it’s a scary thought. Genuine, unadulterated love.

But you want him more with each passing day, and he clearly feels the same.

The hours you spend together feel like they’ve been written in the stars, as if this was always meant to happen. And yet, it’s so new, so raw, that you feel like you’re just learning what it means to be together. It’s a sensation unlike any you’ve ever known. Love.

Johnny ran out to town for you semi-often—maybe once a week when the house needed something, or when someone got a craving for something special for dinner. He’d take Pa’s old pickup, rattling down the long stretch of road that led into town, about thirty minutes out.

Usually, you’d have handled it yourself, but he loved doing it for you. Loved the open road, the way the wind poured in through the cracked window, cooling the warmth of the sun beating down on his arm as it hung lazily out the window. His other hand sat at twelve o’clock on the wheel, the radio humming some old country tune he didn’t know the words to but listened to anyway. The road stretched ahead, straight as an arrow, past golden pastures and sleepy fields where horses flicked their tails and cows grazed, unbothered by the world.

He’d half expected the truck to smell like Pa— cigarettes he’d sneak when he knew Ma wouldn’t be able to chide him, motor oil, and dirt—but it didn’t. It smelled like you. Like a lingering trace of your shampoo woven into the fabric of the head rest, or the faintest hint of something sweet—maybe vanilla—from the lotion you used. Little things of yours were scattered throughout the truck, remnants of your presence. A hair tie wrapped around the gear shift. A worn flannel you’d left in the passenger, now carrying the sun-warmed scent of you.

It made his heart thump harder in his chest. Even when you weren’t beside him, you were still there. Always with him in some capacity.

So, he goes off to town, picking up the things off the list you wrote for him—your pretty, perfect handwriting making him flush red like a damn teenager. He runs his thumb over the curve of your letters before folding the paper up and shoving it into his back pocket, shaking his head at himself.

Navigating town isn’t hard anymore. It’s small and he’s been here enough times on errands for you to know his way around. Even the locals have taken a liking to him, and he them. He stops by Crazy Al’s first for beef, knowing full well the old man will slide him the best cuts if Johnny humors him with a few words about last night’s baseball game. He doesn’t even have to watch—Al’s already digging into the good stock, nodding along while Johnny throws in a comment or two about the score, despite not giving a single damn about baseball. He didn’t know that Al was also the town butcher, as well as the resident bar/diner/cafe/pawnshop owner. He’d rather not question it.

Next, it’s Miss Patty’s for paprika, thyme, and fresh basil. Predictably, she groans about something breaking—a loose door hinge, a busted chair leg, a lightbulb too high for her to reach. He knows the old woman just likes to watch him work, but he fixes it anyway, rolling his sleeves up as her keen eyes track the muscles in his forearms. He can’t even be mad about it—it reminds him of the way you stare at him when you think he doesn’t notice. But he does. Birds will be birds.

His mind is always on you. Sure, he plays along, humoring the locals, nodding and chuckling, but he’s always thinking of you.

Like when he spots your favorite iced tea in the fridge section of Bill’s Supply & Hardware and grabs a couple without thinking. Why there’s a fridge section in a hardware shop is beyond him. He even debates picking up a bouquet of flowers from the stand by the register—just because—but then thinks better of it.

He also doesn’t know why a hardware shop sells flowers. It’s just the way it is here, he assumes.

Instead, he settles for throwing an extra candy bar onto the checkout counter, the kind you always steal from his stash and think he doesn’t know. It’s the little things, the ones you don’t even realize he notices. The ones that make him feel like he’s got a place here. Like he belongs.

He steps out of Bill’s, grocery bags in hand, and heads back to the truck. The afternoon sun beats down, warm against his back as he loads everything into the passenger seat. Once everything’s settled, he climbs in, the old pickup groaning as he turns the key in the ignition, the engine rumbling to life beneath him.

Settling into the seat, he fishes out the small square of paper from his pocket, smoothing it out against his thigh. With a pen from the glove compartment, he scans the list, ticking things off one by one.

Beef—check.

Spices, basil—check.

Supplies—che-

His eyes land on the last item, and a slow smirk tugs at the corner of his lips.

"Condoms ;)"

He huffs out a chuckle, shaking his head. Smart girl.

Folding the list neatly, he tucks it back into his pocket, puts the truck into first gear, and eases out of the parking spot. There’s a gas station on the way back home—he figures he might as well stop there.

The stop had been quick. He’d grabbed a pack, tossed it on the counter, and endured the knowing grin from the old cashier without a word. Just gave her the cash, took the bag, and left before she could say something cheeky.

Now, as he turns onto the long dirt road home, the truck jolts over the uneven path, spitting dust into the fading light. The farmhouse rises in the distance, steady and familiar. The sight of it—the only place that’s ever felt anything close to home—fills him with warmth, with a quiet kind of peace that settles in his chest, easing something he hadn’t even realized has been wound tight for years.

He pulls through the property gates and rolls to a stop outside the garage. With a slow exhale, he rakes a hand through his hair, then grabs the grocery bags and hops out. The scent of earth and grass greets him immediately, mingling with the faintest traces of something sweet—maybe from the berry fields, maybe just from the thought of you.

Balancing the bags in his arms, he nudges the front door open with his shoulder, stepping into the quiet house. The TV murmurs from the living room, Pa’s shadow stretched across the wall as he settles in his chair. The house is warm, comfortable, but noticeably missing you.

Setting the bags on the kitchen counter, Johnny takes a moment, glancing at the clock—quarter past ten. You’re still out working. He exhales through his nose, rolling his shoulders before getting to work unpacking.

He moves methodically, placing the meats in the fridge, the spices in the cabinet. It’s a mindless routine, one he doesn’t mind. He’s halfway through when footsteps shuffle behind him.

Pa doesn’t say anything as he heads straight for the cupboard, rummaging for those damn cookies you made the other night. It’s a silent understanding between them—no need for words, just the sounds of home filling the space.

Johnny shifts to grab another bag, cradling it in his arms as he steps toward the fridge. And then—

The bag slips.

The paper tears.

Groceries spill across the floor, rolling in every direction—potatoes, the candy bar he bought you, a can of beans, and, front and center, as if the universe itself wanted to play a cruel joke on him—

The condoms.

Of course, the noise catches Pa’s attention. Johnny barely has time to react before the old man turns around, peering over his shoulder. Johnny, still crouched on the floor, huffs out a sharp curse and reaches for the damn box—only to freeze when a heavy, dust-worn boot plants itself right on top of it. Firm. Intentional. Like Pa’s about to line up for a free kick.

Johnny lifts his gaze slowly, following the scuffed leather of Pa’s work boot up to the faded denim of his jeans, then further to the unimpressed furrow of his brows. There’s no real expression on his face, just that signature, unreadable stare. Johnny swallows.

Neither of them say a word. The kitchen clock ticks. The refrigerator hums. The distant sound of the TV drones from the living room. Pa squints down at him, then at the box beneath his boot, then back at Johnny. His mouth pulls tight, expression flat as a plank of wood.

“What in the ever-loving fuck is that?”

Johnny opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. Nothing comes out. His brain just stalls, like an engine choking on bad fuel.

“Uhhhhh—uhhhhhhhhhmmmm,” he manages, voice cracking like a damn teenager.

Pa exhales sharply through his nose. Not quite a sigh, not quite a scoff—somewhere in between, teetering dangerously on the edge of unimpressed. “Boy, you better give me a real good explanation as to why those are in my house and why you got ‘em.”

Johnny stares. His mouth moves, but the only thing leaving his throat is the sound of his impending doom. “Uuuuuuuuuhhh.”

He’s fucked. Properly, royally fucked.

Johnny swallows hard, moving to sit back on his heels like he’s staring down the barrel of a loaded shotgun. His brain is running on fumes, searching for a way out, but all he can do is watch Pa’s boot press down a little firmer on the box like he’s pinning a venomous snake.

“Boy,” Pa says again, slower this time, like he’s speaking to a dumb animal. “I asked you a question.”

Johnny licks his lips, shifting where he kneels on the floor, heart hammering in his chest. He could lie. He should lie. Say they’re not his. Say he picked them up on accident. Say they’re… hell, they’re Pa’s and he was just putting them away for him—

No. That’d get him killed even faster.

His throat bobs. “I, uh—” He clears his throat, forcing his voice not to crack. “They’re mine.”

Pa doesn’t blink. “That so.”

Johnny nods, slow, measured. "Aye." His fingers twitch at his side, itching to snatch the damn things and run. His body screams for action, for movement—muscle memory honed by years of high-stakes missions, of split-second decisions that meant the difference between life and death.

He’s been under pressure before. Bomb defusals with sweat dripping into his eyes. Gunfights where the air was thick with smoke and blood. Enemies so close he could hear their breath, feel the heat of their gun barrels. He’s trained for all of it. Thrived in it.

But this?

This is different. No battlefield, no bullets flying, no countdown to zero—and yet, his pulse hammers. Because nothing, nothing, could have prepared him for dealing with his girl’s angry father..

He’s frozen in place, debating whether or not he’s about to commit grand larceny over a pack of fucking condoms.

Pa’s silent for a long moment, eyes still locked on him. Then, finally, he speaks.

“You got needs I should be knowin’ about, son?”

Johnny damn near chokes. “Jesus, Pa—”

Pa doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t crack a smile. Johnny feels the weight of his gaze as he looks up at him, the way the air shifts between them.

“You think I don’t notice?” Pa’s voice cuts through the stillness, low but cutting, like a blade’s edge. “You think I don’t see the way she looks at you when you’re out there, working the fields? All starry-eyed like she’s a kid and you’re fuckin’ Superman?"

Johnny opens his mouth, but no words come.

Pa crouches over, hands on his knees as he gets in Johnny’s face, his boot still perched on top of the box. “And don’t get me started on the damn footsie. I seen it, Johnny. I saw how she’d brush her feet against yours when you thought no one was lookin’, how you’d smile like a damn fool and let her.” He sneers, shaking his head slowly, like Johnny’s some kind of idiot. “Thought you were slick, huh? You think you can fool me? You ain't as clever as you like to think you are."

Johnny swallows, his chest tight. He wishes he could crawl out of his own skin. Pa doesn't let up.

“And don’t even think I don’t notice the way you touch her. You grab her rear when you’re walkin’ together. Fingers lingerin’ on her when you think she ain’t lookin’. I see you. Both of you.” Pa’s voice grows darker, the words slow, deliberate. “She’s my daughter, Johnny. Not some girl you get to lay up with, not some plaything you get to press your hands all over when you think nobody’s watchin’.”

Johnny’s hands ball themselves into fists, knuckles turning white as they press into the floor. His mind races, trying to find something to say, to just fucking stand up for himself, but the words don’t come. He’s like a deer in headlights.

Pa cocks his head, eyes burning with a fury that Johnny can feel in his skull. “You think you’re somethin’ special? Think just because you managed to get by, to make it through whatever hell you’ve crawled out of, that you can come here and try to get close to my little girl?”

Johnny’s chest caves like a house with its beams ripped out, the weight of it all pressing in until there’s nothing left but splinters. He can’t breathe, can’t think—just wants to sink into the floorboards, let them swallow him whole.

“You ain’t the first to try, boy. But you ain’t the kinda man who’s gonna win my daughter’s heart. You’re just a washed-up, broken-down soldier bankin’ on us for a place to hide. You ain’t nothin’ to her, just a damn distraction. And I’m damn sure not gonna let you drag her down to your level.”

Pa stands up straight again, taking his time, letting the words hang in the air. “You wanna play house with my daughter? You wanna pretend you’re somethin’ more than just another fuckin’ dog with his mitts in places they don’t belong?” He takes his foot off the squished box of condoms, his voice dropping into something colder.

“You better make damn sure you’re ready for what comes after.”

November arrives, creeping in like a thief in the night, its cold breath freezing the space between you and Johnny, thick with the weight of something unnameable, something that neither of you can shake.

The once familiar warmth in the house now feels hollow, the silence between you two almost suffocating. He stopped greeting you when you walk in for lunch, not even a glance, just a slight tilt of his head as if he’s miles away. During dinner, he doesn’t say a word. Not a single one. He moves about the house too quietly for comfort, too distant. You watch him as he sweeps the floor, as he dries the dishes. He still does everything he used to, but his movements are robotic, automatic, every action punctuated with an uncomfortable, palpable space between you.

You constantly try to catch his eye. Nothing. He’s there, but he isn’t. His words are few, if any. When he does speak, it’s nothing more than a hum, a noise that could’ve come from the fridge for all you know, not from Johnny. It’s foreign, and it stings deep in a place you didn’t know could hurt like this.

The days stretch on like this, and it starts as a small, nagging thing. A look not quite met, a hand that’s not quite brushed against yours, the absence of his usual warmth. You tell yourself it’s a phase or something, but as the days fade into one another, it becomes clear that it’s not a phase at all.

Nothing is like before—like the quiet moments you shared on lazy afternoons on the porch, your voices weaving in and out, sharing inside jokes and memories. He isn’t seeking you out, isn’t looking for your company the way he used to. Instead, he spends hours out in the pasture, playing with Dixie like it’s his only tether to the world, only source of enjoyment, his only escape. And you watch him from a distance, unsure if you should intrude, unsure if you can intrude.

After a long, cold, and abnormally quiet day, the stable doors groan as you both enter from opposite sides on horseback, the soft echo of hooves on the dirt floor filling the space between you. It’s one of those moments where everything seems to slow down—your eyes lock with his for a fraction of a second, wide and unsure, before Johnny’s face hardens and he quickly looks away.

It felt like a lifetime ago when the two of you would have greeted each other with a kiss, a hug, maybe a laugh. Now, there was nothing. Just the sound of hooves, the rustle of hay, and the quiet hum of the barn.

You dismount off of Shimmer and open her stall door with a soft creak, your fingers tightening around the handle as you try to shake off the weight of the silence. You take your time getting her tack off, trying to focus on the simple steps, unbuckling the saddle, removing the reins—but every movement feels heavy.

Johnny is across the aisle, doing the same with Scout, but the wall between you doesn’t feel metaphorical anymore.

You glance over at him, his back turned to you as he methodically removes the saddle from Scout’s back, carefully removing his tack. It was the same as always, but not. His movements were stiff as if he wanted to get it over with as soon as possible, as if he can't stand to be in here with you

“Johnny,” you call out meekly as you step out of Shimmer’s stall, facing Scout’s. His shoulders stiffen, his jaw clenches, but he doesn’t respond, not even a glance in your direction.

“Johnny, what’s going on?” you plead, your voice breaking as you walk closer, your boots scraping against the floor with each reluctant step. You don’t want to sound desperate, but the way his back stays turned to you, his focus solely on the stallion. It claws at your throat, a raw, burning pressure that begs to be unleashed—a scream bubbling up, desperate, violent, ready to tear itself free.

He takes a long breath, and then begins brushing Scout’s coat, each stroke slow and methodical. The brush moves in long, fluid motions, but it doesn’t feel like he’s really caring for the horse. It feels more like an excuse. An escape. Something else to do with his hands other than reach out for you.

“Nothing,” he muttered, not even sparing you a glance.

“You’ve been like this for weeks, what’s going on? Did I do something?” You mutter, the frustration leaking into your voice.

He pauses for a moment, the brush hovering in midair. You hold your breath, hoping he’ll say something, anything—but instead, he just resumed brushing Scout. The silence stretched on for a few moments, before he finally spoke, his voice low

“Nothing’s wrong,” he reiterates, but the words feel empty, hollow. You knew it wasn’t true.

You want to reach out to him, to hold him like you used to, scratch his nape the way you know gets him melting, but the way he's been shutting you out so consistently, and the coldness that radiates off him now stops you.

You aren’t sure when it happened, when that wall between you became a solid, impenetrable barricade.

“I don’t believe you,” you say incredulously, stepping closer. “You’re not the same. You used to… you used to want to be around me. To want me…”

He sighs heavily like he’s tired of the conversation. “Things change,” his voice is too calm and too painfully detached. “People change.”

The words hit like a hammer to the chest, knocking the air from your lungs. For a moment, it feels like the ground beneath you has split wide open—a pit yawning, waiting to swallow you whole. “People don’t just change,” you whisper, the lump in your throat tightening like a noose. “You’re just—” Your voice splinters like an old oak under the bite of an axe—sharp, sudden, fractured down the middle. The weight of it all cleaves through you, splitting at the core, jagged edges exposed. Your breath stutters, the raw sting of it lodging deep like a shard of wood beneath the skin.

“You’re just being… mean, Johnny.”

He doesn’t answer. He just goes back to brushing the fucking horse, as if he were trying to bury everything with the rhythm of his hand against the horse’s coat. He was throwing it all away. He was throwing away everything that made the two of you—well—you.

Your heart hammers in your chest, the ache sinking deep, heavy like a stone. You want to shake him, take his head in your hands and make him understand just how much this hurts, but all that escapes is a strangled breath. Before you can gather the words, Johnny stands, finally turning away from the horse.

“I’ll finish up later,” he mutters, his voice low, avoiding your gaze, not daring to meet the one tear thats slipped past your lashes, trailing down your cheek. “Got some stuff tae do.”

And just like that, he shuffles past you, his broad shoulder brushing yours with a force that isn’t quite deliberate but still leaves you reeling. You stand there, speechless, a flush creeping up your cheeks—not from fluster, but from the sting of the tears that had finally fallen. The door to Scout’s stall hangs open in his wake, and you’re left alone in the dim light of the barn, the sound of your labored breaths filling the air, broken only by the soft, rhythmic crunch of hay as Scout chews.

What happened to him? The man who once pulled you close, the one who carried the weight of the world on his shoulders with you by his side? Now, he’s a shadow of himself, fading like sand slipping through your fingers.

You feel it in your gut—twisting, burning, a pain you haven’t felt since Ma. He’s fading in the rearview, a blur getting smaller with every passing second. There’s a brick on the gas pedal, the brakes are beyond worn, and you’re still in the driver’s seat, trapped and unable to stop the car, even as everything you know slips further out of reach.

You gently shut Scout’s stall door behind you, the soft click of the latch somehow deafening in the thick silence Johnny left behind. Your hands tremble slightly as you turn and cross the aisle, shutting Shimmer’s stall just the same. It feels like muscle memory at this point—close the door, lock it, move on. But this time, moving on feels impossible.

Dragging yourself out of the stables, you push the large doors shut behind you, the weight of them nothing compared to the heaviness in your chest. Your breaths come slow and uneven as you wipe at the stray tears slipping from your eyes, frustration burning just beneath the surface. You hate crying. Hate that it’s over him. Hate that he still has this hold on you, even when he’s doing everything in his power to push you away.

The sun is sinking lower, bleeding orange and pink across the sky, casting long shadows over the rolling fields. A breeze picks up, tugging at your hair, cooling the tracks of your dried tears as you stand there, watching. Watching him.

Johnny lugs himself down the hill the stables sit on, shoulders squared, head down, like he’s carrying something too heavy to bear. Maybe he is. Maybe it’s the same weight pressing into your chest, making it hard to breathe.

He doesn’t look back. Not once.

And that, more than anything, is what hurts the most

It’s November 17th—a cold, gray day when even the fading light seems unwilling to warm the world. Two long, bitter weeks have passed since that night in the stables, and the distance between you and Johnny has only grown thicker. His once-familiar warmth has evaporated, replaced by silence and avoidance. He barely speaks unless absolutely necessary, and when he does, his words are clipped and distant, as if everything that once sparked between you—every charged moment, every tender touch, every lingering glance—never happened at all.

Tonight, dinner is served. The kitchen is filled with the rich aroma of slow-cooked meat, roasted potatoes, and seasoned vegetables—a meal meant to offer comfort and warmth on a chilly autumn evening. Yet, even as the savory scents mingle with the low hum of the refrigerator and the distant creak of the old house settling, the ice between you and Johnny remains unbroken.

With a practiced hand, you ladle the braised skirt steak onto the plates, carefully portioning the sides.

You’re not cruel; you wouldn’t let Johnny starve.

But you are petty.

And that pettiness finds its mark in the way you deliberately give him the worst cut of steak out of the three available. It’s a piece that’s a bit overcooked and tough around the edges—a silent, spiteful jab meant to sting, even if he never acknowledges it.

Johnny takes his plate without a word or a glance, and he sits at the farthest end of the table he can manage, as if putting distance between himself and you even now. You watch him, feeling the bitterness churn inside you, the loss of what once was tearing at your heart.

Fine.

Let him.

Pa sits at the head of the table, his belly protruding slightly from the bottom of his worn shirt, his eyes twinkling like he hasn’t a care in the world. You sit to his right, your shoulders stiff as you stab at your veggies.

You’re in the thick of it. Each stage of grief hits like a poorly timed joke. You tried to pretend everything was fine, it was just a phase, that’d it all be alright in a few days time. And now? Now you’re deep in anger, like a toddler who’s had their candy snatched, only with more cursing and far less dignity.

Johnny, on the other hand, is a world away, down at the far end of the table with his eyes trained on his plate like it’s the most interesting thing in the room.

The silence is smothering. Even the clink of forks against plates feels louder than it should, like every bite, every scrape of metal, and every exhale of breath between you two is magnified under the weight of the tension. His movements are slow, his gaze fixed downwards, avoiding yours like his life depends on it.

Pa never seems to notice. He’s too busy running his mouth with the biggest grin on his face, saying stupid shit that he thinks passes for entertaining. He talks about the cows, about some local neighbor’s farm he thinks might be in trouble, and, of course, about baseball—always baseball. It’s the same tired routine that’s always been his way of filling the uncomfortable gaps, but tonight, it’s even more grating than usual.

“Did you hear, ‘bout old Bill down the road?” Pa says between bites, his voice brimming with excitement as if it’s the most riveting news. “He’s been workin’ on fixing his barn for weeks, but I reckon it’s still leaning a good two inches. Might need some of Johnny’s handiwork, eh?”

Johnny doesn’t flinch, doesn’t respond. He just keeps eating, focusing entirely on his food, as if he can’t hear Pa’s attempts to get him involved. You can feel the way your muscles tense involuntarily. Pa’s words are like little daggers, each one aimed to prod, but Johnny’s silence remains unbroken. You don’t know if it’s the anger that gnaws at you or the yearning that bubbles below, but your hand grips your fork tighter, the metal pressing into your palm.

Pa goes on. “Hell, I'm sure, you’d have that barn fixed in no time, wouldn’t ya, boy? Reckon you have a lot of spare time on your hands.”

The words hang in the air for a moment, a charged silence. Johnny’s eyes flicker briefly to Pa, but he doesn’t reply. He doesn’t even acknowledge it. He just keeps eating, biting down into the overcooked steak you gave him, barely chewing.

You can feel the weight of Pa’s cheerfulness pressing down on the room, the difference between his carefree attitude and the radio-silence between you and Johnny becoming almost unbearable. As if on cue, Pa finishes his meal, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and stands up, stretching out as if the evening’s work is already done.

“Well, I’m gonna head to bed,” he says, his voice loud and bright, like he’s ready for much more exciting things than hitting the hay. “You two should clean up.”

Johnny nods, but Pa doesn’t even wait for a real response. He walks out, and just like that, the tension crashes back down over the table ten-fold. You’re left with Johnny, his eyes still fixed on his plate like he’s doing everything he can to pretend you aren’t there. His jaw tight as he shovels the last of his food into his mouth like it’s some kind of chore. His eyes are downcast, his shoulders hunched.

You let out a frustrated sigh and take a long sip of your drink before speaking, voice sharp but just a hint of bitterness in it.

“Would’ve been nice if you’d told me you were so good at pretending,” you hum, an air of casualness to your words that doesn’t match the hurt you feel. The silence is thick now, and it lingers even as you drop your fork onto your plate with a soft clink.

Johnny’s eyes flicker toward you for a split second, and for just a moment, there’s that flash of something—anger, frustration, maybe regret—but you don’t wait for it to settle.

“Must be nice. To just… not care,” you lock eyes with him for the first time in a month. “No need to make things messy with words. Easier just to… act like strangers, right?”

You shove your plate aside, the sharp scrape of ceramic against the table only adding to the tension.

Johnny’s nostrils flare, his face hardens like a rock, and he stands up, slamming his chair back with enough force to make the legs screech across the floor, white scratches in the hardwood.

The motion is sharp like a slap to the face

“Shut up,” he spits, his voice low and cold. "Just shut the fuck up.”

You can see the anger in his eyes, the frustration that’s been boiling under the surface for weeks now. He just storms toward the back door, shoulders tense, fists clenched at his sides.

The door slams behind him so harshly that it rattles the house. Your heart pounds in your chest, the sting of his exit burning in the pit of your stomach. The silence returns, but now it’s even heavier. More suffocating. You stare at the door, your pulse racing.

Fuck it.

You stand, the chair scraping back with an angered screech, and without another thought, you storm out the back door, throwing it open with a snap that echoes through the silence. The air is colder than you expected, the chill biting your cheeks as the evening sky dips into twilight, painting everything in shades of pinks and purples. You don’t care. You don’t care about the cold, about the dark creeping in.

You’ve had enough of his angsty-teen bullsit.

Through the blur of your breath, you see him—his broad figure trudging off toward the old abandoned barn, cutting a path through the tall, whispering grass. His boots press heavily into the earth with each step, but still, he doesn't look back.

Your feet move on their own.

The wind kicks up, pulling strands of hair across your face, stinging your arms. But you push forward, faster, until you're almost running. Every step you take feels like a weight lifting off your chest, but it’s not enough to shake the anger that’s built up inside you, festering since he shut you out.

By the time you reach the barn, he's already inside, his figure a dark silhouette against the dimming sky. You push the door open with a force that rattles the wood, the creaking sound slicing through the night. The air in the barn is thick with dust, the old scent of hay and timber, the same as it’s always been. But something is different tonight.

You step inside and slam the door behind you, the noise echoing around the empty space. He’s pacing now, his boots scuffing against the floor, restless, angry—just like you. He doesn't look at you, doesn’t acknowledge you.

You move fast. Your heart's pounding in your chest, fury bubbling up like lava. You don’t care about the consequences, not anymore. You grab him by the shoulder, spinning him with more force than you thought you had, slamming him into the worn wooden beams. His eyes flash, startled for half a second before they harden, but it doesn’t matter.

“Why are you doing this?” you growl, your voice sharp as broken glass, the words spilling out of you in a rush. “You’re so damn good at pretending, huh? Acting like you don’t give a fuck, like I’m nothing to you.”

His jaw tightens, lips pulling into a thin line. But you’re not backing down now. You’re not letting him get away with it.

You keep your grip on his shoulder, but now it’s less about holding him in place and more about keeping yourself from falling apart. His eyes lock with yours, and for a moment, the world feels like it’s standing still, caught between a fragile thread of tension.

“You’re not getting away with this.” The words feel like a challenge, like a promise. “So go ahead. Say something. Or try to keep pretending you suddenly hate me. See how far it gets you.”

You’re a foot apart, the air between you electric, charged with months of silence and frustration. Johnny stands there, jaw clenched, his fists clenched even tighter by his sides, like he’s trying to keep it all together, like he's trying not to explode. He doesn't say a word and it pisses you off more.

“You don’t like me anymore? Is that what this is?” you spit, voice tight with disbelief. The words leave your mouth like they’re poisonous. “You think everything we had was stupid?”

Johnny’s gaze falters for a split second before he hardens, glaring at you. “It was a mistake, Ye were a mistake,” he mutters through gritted teeth. “Ye never meant anything’.”

You scoff, laughing bitterly, “Bullshit,” you sneer, stepping closer, closing the space between you “Don’t you dare tell me that.”

Johnny’s face tightens as if he’s trying to choke back whatever’s welling up in him. But it doesn’t stop you.

“Everything you told me about your parents,” you keep going, your voice rising, ricocheting off the barn walls, “your life in the military, about your unit you lost touch with... Hell, the way you kissed me, touched me—” you pause, shaking your head. “That was all a joke? Was all of that just fake?”

Johnny exhales sharply, “Don’t,” he warns, voice low, strained, like he’s holding something back.

“Don’t act like I don’t know what you wanted,” you growl, your voice sharp with bitterness. “You wanted me and I wanted you, Johnny— I still want you! And now you’re pretending it never fucking mattered?”

He pinches his nose bridge and steps back like he’s trying to distance himself from the truth. But it doesn’t stop the words from spilling out. “I never wanted ye like that,” he says again, this time his voice louder, more defensive. “Didn’t fuckin’ matter in the long run..”

You pause. The barn is deathly silent now, the kind of silence that stretches, swells—pressing in on your ears, filling the space where his voice should be. It’s deafening in the wake of all the shouting, a void where anger once burned hot. The only sounds left are the distant creak of wooden beams, and the shallow, uneven breaths you’re both taking.

You ignore the way your mind races, the way his words still hang in the air, tugging at your heartstrings like a song you never wanted to hear.

“You said, ‘you’ve been it since the first time you saw me,’” you throw at him, your voice quieter now, but still steady, still sharp. “You remember that? Or was that just another fucking lie?”

Johnny freezes, his eyes widening, like he didn’t expect that. But he recovers quickly, giving you a sharp glare. “It was all a lie, okay?” he snaps, his voice rougher now, louder. “Wake the fuck up. None of it was real, just heat-of-the-moment shite.”

“You’re lying, Johnny! Ugh! It’a clear as fucking day—just admit it!” just like that you’re shouting again, though not a question but a statement. Your fists ball at your sides, and your eyes are burning with anger.

Johnny’s face is unreadable, but his chest heaves with every breath, like he’s trying to control the storm raging inside of him. He opens his mouth to speak but you immediately cut him off

“You wanted to fuck me, Johnny,” you press an accusing finger to his chest. “And you know it wasn’t just to get your dick wet. So don’t stand there and act like it was nothing. Don’t stand there and tell me it was just the ‘heat-of-the-moment’.”

Johnny stares down at you, his jaw grinding so hard you think his teeth might break. “Doesn’t really matter now, does it?” he spits, accent thicker with the frustration. “It was just one fucking night— ye can’t hold onto that—”

“ I’m not holding onto it, you asshole,” you snap, your words venomous.

Johnny glares at you, lips pressed into a thin line. His eyes flash with something close to regret, but he’s not backing down. He’s trying to hold onto his pride, his walls.

You don’t care.

Before he can react, you move swiftly, reaching down, feeling the unmistakably large bulge in his pants. The gasp he lets out is sharp, and he tries to bite back the groan that follows after. He's been caught and he knows it. You just smirk, your hand still firmly cupping him as you look up into his eyes.

“Is this ‘heat-of-the-moment,’ hun?”

Johnny’s breath hitches as you taunt him, your voice dripping with biting sarcasm that cuts through the tension like a knife. He grunts, a strained ‘fuck’ leaving his throat, and you smirk, knowing you’ve struck a nerve. He’s all fired up, and you can feel it.

“Fuck whatever game you’re playing, Johnny.” you sneer, your voice low, sharp.

He stiffens, his jaw tightening, and then it happens. In an instant, he’s on you. His hand shoots out, grabbing your wrist with enough force to make you gasp. His grip tightens and before you can react, he flips you around, slamming your back against the rough wooden beam of the barn. The suddenness knocks the breath out of you, your chest heaving with the shock of it.

You barely have a second to regain yourself when he crowds into you, his body so close you can feel the heat radiating off him. He’s in your face, lips barely inches from yours, breath coming out in short, rapid bursts. There’s fury in his eyes, but something else too—something darker, something dangerous.

“Ye think I’m playing games with you?” he growls, his voice thick with anger, his teeth gritted. “Ye think this is a joke?”

You don’t back down, even though your pulse is racing. The space between you is electric, it crackles with intensity.

“With the way you’ve been acting, I’d say you were the goddamn jester of the cour—”

He doesn’t give you a chance to finish. His hand shoots to the scruff of your neck, pulling you toward him. You feel his lips crash onto yours, hot and desperate, taking control with a raw hunger that sends shockwaves through you. The kiss is frantic, teeth clashing, the intensity almost painful. But it’s exactly what you need.

His hands slide down your body, gripping your thighs, and in one smooth motion, he lifts you off the ground. Your legs instinctively wrap around him as he holds you against him, instinctively grinding against his bulge as he holds you flush. You can feel the heat of his chest, the muscles in his arms flexing as he supports you, his grip tightening.

The malice, the anger—it starts to fade away. The bitterness that was between you two only minutes ago slips away, replaced with something else. Something nostalgic, all the affection you still shared deep down.

But the passion—that doesn't change. It only intensifies. The kiss grows deeper, needier. His hands slide beneath your shirt, his fingertips scorching your skin, and you shudder as he pulls you even closer, if that’s even possible. The heat between you is unbearable, suffocating, and all that matters is him and you.

You smile before grabbing him by the neck and pull him deeper into you, kissing him like you’ve never kissed anyone before. Johnny picks you up, your legs wrapping around his waist, his hands moving down your back, cupping your ass to pull you closer.

The last vestiges of sunlight, strain through the gaps in the barn's planking, illuminating you both. Johnny pulls away to look at you, really look at you. There’s something soft there, the Johnny you once knew. His chest rises and falls with each pant, and you can feel his pulse racing against yours.

His breath, hot and ragged, ghosts across your lips as he whispers, “Tell me what ye want, lass.”

Your own breath hitches, your heart fluttering against your ribs like a trapped bird. The words, raw and unbidden, spill from your lips: “I want you, Johnny. God, I want you.”

The admission was a spark to timber. His hands, calloused and strong, move with a newfound urgency. He lifted the fabric of his shirt to reveal the taut muscles of his torso. His skin, warm and slightly damp, felt electric beneath your fingertips. You traced from his shoulders to his jaw as you kissed him , the rough stubble there a sensual rasp against your skin.

He groans, a low, guttural sound that resonates spreads like honey through your belly. His lips move with yours, a bruising, desperate kiss that spoke of so much longing. His tongue tangles with yours, a reclaiming of lost territory.

His hands move lower, helping you grind against his clothed cock. The hard ridge of him presses against your cunt, a stark reminder of the hunger that gnaws at you both. He shifts, his hand sliding beneath the waistband of your jeans, his fingers tracing the delicate curve of your hip bone.

You shudder, your body arching involuntarily. He pauses, eyes searching yours, silently asking if he can continue. You nod, your gaze unwavering, and he resumes, his touch sending shivers of anticipation down your spine.

He sets you down, the rough denim of your jeans a fleeting friction against your skin as he pushes them, and your panties, down in a single, smooth motion. His gaze, unwavering and intense, holds yours captive, a silent promise hanging in the air. He sheds his own jeans and underwear, the denim pooling around his ankles before he quickly steps out of them.

A wave of heat washes over you, a visceral reaction to the sight. You can’t help but gape, your breath catching in your throat. You knew he was all hard lines and pure physicality, but this, this was something else entirely. His cock, thick and heavy, hangs between his legs. It's not that he’s exceptionally long, but it’s the sheer thickness of it. He’s cut, the ruddy, glistening tip already slick with pre. A low thrum vibrates in your core, a primal urge that makes your mouth water and your body tremble. The thought of him filling you, stretching you out until you feel him in your throat, sends a shiver of anticipation down your spine. You want him, every inch of him.

He seems to be thinking the same thing, as he drinks you in, near drooling as he lifts you once more, his hands firm but tender under the fat of your thighs, as though you're both something fragile and something fierce. His grip on your waist is solid, secure as he guides you to a soft patch of hay. The hay beneath you settles softly as he sets you down, the straw poking gently at your skin, but it’s a comfort against the otherwise cold air that has your nipples pebbling.

He hovers over you, his breath warm against your face, chest rising and falling in steady rhythm. His eyes, full of adoration and pure lust, never leave yours. The distance between your lips is less than a needle, but every second that passes feels like an eternity.

“So beautiful,” he whispers, his voice hoarse with emotion, a low rumble that vibrates against your skin. He leans down, his lips brushing against your neck, feather-light pecks that send a jolt of electricity straight to your core, making you slick. His hand, warm and strong, cups your cheek, tilting your head as he searches your eyes.

“Ye want this? Want me tae make ye mine, love? Stretch you out nice and good?” he rasps, his voice thick with desire, and all you can do is nod vehemently, the anticipation making you quiver, your wetness pooling.

“Yes—” you breathe, the word a desperate plea. “Yes, please—”

“Tell me ye want it, sweetheart,” he growls, his fingers swiping through your folds before slathering his cock with your slick.

“I want you,” you whisper, your voice thick with need. “Want you inside me.”

He groans at your words and he moves then, guiding his blistering cock to your entrance. He pushes into you slowly, near painfully stretching you, filling you completely. You gasp, your body clenching around him, the sensation overwhelming as he nudges against your g-spot, a sharp intake of breath that echoes in the quiet room.

“That’s it, love. Take it,” he murmurs, his voice rough.

“Oh god,” you moan, your hips bucking instinctively. “J-just like that, Johnny—”

He pauses, his body still, giving you time to adjust, his eyes searching yours for any sign of discomfort, a flicker of concern in their depths. His hand moves, thumb finding your clit and rubbing soft circles to get you to loosen up. “Ye alright?” he murmurs, his voice a low, soothing caress.

You nod, biting your lip as your nails dig into his shoulders. Your cunt flutters around him as he plays with your clit. You’re already so close to cumming from just the anticipation.

“Tell me how good it feels, darlin’. Tell me how much ye need it.”

“So fuckin’ good—,” you preen, your body already writhing beneath him. “I need you so bad.” You nod, a soft whimper escapes your lips as he begins to thrust, slowly at first, then with increasing rhythm, each press of his hips a delicious, agonizing stretch. “That’s my good girl,” he breathes, his own rhythm quickening. “Let me hear you, love. Let me hear you beg.”

“P-lease,” you whine, each of his thrusts fucking the air out of your lungs, your voice a slew of broken whispers. “M-More, n-need more—”

He obliges, his slow thrusts giving way to a frenzied rhythm that fills the room with the sounds of your shared pleasure. His hands grip your hips, guiding your movements, ensuring every inch of him fills you with each powerful stroke. A low growl rumbles in his chest as he plants messy kisses anywhere his lips can reach.

Each thrust is deeper, harder, pushing you closer to the edge. The sounds of his skin hitting yours echo and makes everything feel all the more real. “So tight, baby” he rasps, his hands gripping your hips, bouncing your body in tandem with his thrusts. “So wet. So fuckin’ perfect.” He drags against your g-spot again and again, sending waves of pleasure radiating through your body. You cry out, your nails digging into his back as the pleasure builds, becoming almost unbearable.

“So full...so good.” you mindlessly pant, your words fragmented by the way his hips smack against yours.

He leans down, his teeth nipping at your earlobe, sending shivers down your spine. “Let it all go, lass. Cum all over my cock.”

The friction builds, each thrust shoves you closer and closer to your orgasm. Your body trembles underneath him, a wave of heat building deep in your stomach, spreading to your core and your legs. “‘M close,” you moan, your nails digging deeper into his shoulders. “S-so close.”

“Let it happen, love,” he whispers, his voice a low, encouraging rumble. “Let me hear ye scream my name.”

And you do. A cry rips through the air and your cunt clenches impossibly tight around him, spasms of pure ecstasy rippling through you as you cum. He follows soon after, a guttural groan escaping his lips as he spills inside you, his body shuddering with the force of his release. He collapses against you, his breath hot against your neck, his heart pounding in unison with yours.

For a long moment, you lie entwined, the aftershocks still reverberating through your bodies. The silence is broken only by the sound of your ragged breaths.

Finally, he pulls back slightly, his chest still rising and falling with the remnants of the moment, and he turns to his side, his gaze softening as it locks with yours. His eyes search yours, as if he’s trying to read every flicker of emotion there. A soft, almost reluctant smile plays at the edges of his lips, but there’s something more tender about it now, something that says the anger, the frustration, the heat—it’s all been left behind.

He reaches up, his calloused fingers brushing the strands of hair that have stuck to your sweaty forehead. The touch is gentle, careful, and it sends a warmth through you that feels like a homecoming .

You can’t help but smile in return. Your eyes drift to the little gold cross that dangles between his chest, the faint glint of it catching the light. It’s almost a reminder that, despite everything, there's a sense of grounding, something solid about him.

Without thinking, you reach up, taking his hand in yours from where it hovers by your cheek. His fingers are still warm from holding you, and you bring them to your lips, pressing a gentle, reverent kiss to his knuckles. The softest of gestures, but in this moment, it feels like everything—like a promise without words, a bond without explanation. His hand tightens slightly around yours, his thumb brushing over the back of your hand as if he’s holding on to something more than just the present. At this moment, this connection is something he never wants to lose.

He exhales, long and heavy, then pulls you into him, his arms wrapping around you like he’s afraid you’ll slip away if he doesn’t hold on tight enough. You don’t fight it. You melt into him, pressing your cheek against his chest, feeling the steady rise and fall as his heartbeat thrums against your ear. The barn is quiet now, save for the wind rattling against the old wooden beams and the slow, calming sound of your breathing falling in sync.

For a while, neither of you speak. The moment lingers, thick and unspoken. But then, in the smallest, quietest voice, you ask, “Why?”

Johnny tenses for a second. You feel it before you see it—the way his fingers tighten ever so slightly on your back, the way his chest lifts with a deep inhale like he’s bracing for something. His hand moves up, fingers slipping into your hair, as if trying to ground himself in the softness of you before he gives you the truth.

He sighs, and then he says it. “Pa saw.”

You pull back just enough to look up at him, confusion creasing your brows. ‘Saw what?”

He looks down at you, eyes tired, worn down. “Us. Everything.” His voice is quiet, but the weight behind it is unbearable. “He told me if I don’t back off, I’m gone.”

Your stomach drops. You sit up entirely.. Your mouth opens, but no words come out at first. You blink up at him, processing, before you finally manage, “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Johnny just shakes his head. “I tried, I really did. Thought maybe if I pushed ye away, if I made ye hate me, it'd be easier for both o’ us. At least I could still be here for ye.” He lets out a bitter, humorless laugh.

“But it just made me feel like hell. Couldn’t sleep for days after that night in the stables. Kept hearing ye crying all night—” he swallows hard, shaking his head. He takes your hand in his, your eyes meeting. “Never wanted to make ye cry, lass. And I swear to ye, I will never do it again.”

Your heart clenches at the sincerity in his voice, at the way his fingers tighten around you like he’s trying to make up for all the ways he let go before.

You take a slow breath, nodding against him. “It’s okay,” you murmur. And it is, in the sense that he’s here, and he’s telling you the truth. But deep in your chest, you are seething.

Johnny exhales, pressing his forehead against yours, his grip on you unrelenting. “Don’t want tae lose ye.” His voice is rough, barely above a whisper, but the weight of it sinks deep into your chest.

Your fingers slide up into his hair, nails scratching gently the nape of his neck as you shake your head. “You won’t.” The words come easily, because they’re true. No matter what Pa said, no matter the month of silence, he’s here now, holding you like you’re something precious, something worth breaking every rule for.

He studies you for a moment, searching your face for any doubt, any hesitation. When he finds none, he kisses you.

It’s slow at first, nothing like the desperate, angry kisses from earlier. It’s softer, deeper, filled with something neither of you will say out loud just yet. His lips move against yours with a quiet reverence, like he’s memorizing you all over again.

When he finally pulls back, he stays close, his nose brushing against yours, breath fanning across your lips. You swear you feel him smile, just the smallest bit, before he presses another kiss—gentle, lingering—to the corner of your mouth.

As the silence stretches between you, warm and heavy, Johnny shifts, pressing one last kiss to your temple before tucking you back against his chest. His hand drifts up and down your spine, slow and steady, like he’s grounding himself in the feel of you.

Outside, the wind howls against the old barn, rattling the wooden walls, but inside, it’s quiet. Still. Safe.

You should be furious. You are furious—at Pa, at the month of needless distance, at Johnny for ever thinking he could push you away. But right now, with his arms around you, his heartbeat strong beneath your palm, all you feel is the steady, certain weight of him.

“We’ll figure it out,” you murmur, more to yourself than him.

Johnny sighs, his lips brushing against your hair. “Aye, we will.”

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