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gomzreblogfr · 14 days ago

Text

*wAILS*

consequence / knife

price x f!reader | 2k words series directory | ao3 tags: anxiety, near meltdown, hard conversations, ouch! a/n: john takes a call. reader receives some news. this is the second to last chapter, fyi. ☕

john kisses cupid before he rolls out of bed and grins at the wiggle it produces.

as he traipses out of the bedroom, he pats his chest to alleviate the itch from the scabs formed over his tattoo. cece greets him, getting better with the fact she’s shut out most nights now, weaving between his ankles. she tells him about her night knocking over a plant as he scoops dirt from the floor.

he bypasses the glass coffee maker and opts for tea instead. the first time he used it, the paper filter broke, and he dumped the grounds into the brewed pot. he’s avoided it since then.

you went too fast, john, his barista said, rubbing his arm as he grumbled. too much pressure. that’s why you go slow.

lesson learned. tea’s better, anyway.

once it’s done and to her liking, sweetened beyond recognition, he ferries their cups back to the bedroom. cece’s stolen his spot.

“morning.”

“g’morn,” she yawns, sitting up and scooping her cat under an arm. “thank you.”

john sits at the foot of the bed. they discuss the day, his work, and her schedule, but it’s all overture. she keeps glancing at her phone facedown on the side table.

“have you checked?”

her eyes crease in a nervous grimace like she’s embarrassed to have been caught not hanging on his every word. it eases when he rubs her foot through the bedding.

“no…”

“well, then.”

she promises to be quick. it’s been two weeks since her video chat, which he missed out on, and not due to work for once, but banishment. she sent him to the pub. said she couldn’t focus if he was there.

“nothing.”

“nothing yet.”

two weeks since the chat. ten days since she mailed samples of her work. all after a month of back-and-forth and her initial vetting at the local studio. she was due answers, and so was he.

answers to his questions.

would she be able to afford it?

what about her job?

and, most important of all, what about them?

he’s not used to this, the worry. before, he’d come home and let the days blur together—sleeping in stretches, catching up on football, maybe making the odd trip to visit of the lads. he never thought about it much. nothing seemed important enough to carry around, not when compared to lying in a jungle with jaguars moving somewhere in the dark or freezing his nose off in some remote tundra.

after they share a shower, she examines his tattoo. it’s healing well. probably helps that he hasn’t been out in the field much. she pats it dry, smooths lotion over it, then slips off to dress. he stays there, watching his reflection for a moment longer.

he must be getting old, he thinks, because his thoughts lean embarrassingly sentimental.

from a dent in his car to a tattoo over his heart.

~~~~

you don’t tell john about the other emails in your inbox.

the trickle turned flood. ex-classmates reaching out, forwarding the same article, resharing the same post. ben’s big triumph. his press, his write-ups, his checks, because, of course, he sold them. as if exploiting your heartbreak wasn’t enough, he had to profit off it too. not that he needs the cash or the attention, not mr. up-and-coming. a pang of pity strikes when you read the caption under a photograph of him with his arm draped around hannah: the artist and his muse. it leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. hannah betrayed you, hurt you. but even she doesn’t deserve that.

a meaner part of you, clinging to the scraps of pride he hadn’t entirely eviscerated, insists it would’ve been you if not her. bullet dodged.

still, you can’t help but feel like utter shit. it seeps into your day.

it’s all a hectic, horrible blur. you burn shot after shot of espresso. delete twelve orders at once with a careless swipe. you touch the steam wand without thinking. break a mug. it’s almost comical, until you drop an entire carton of milk. it bounces off the edge of the counter, then your knee as you lunge to catch it, finally hitting the floor and exploding in a spectacular, humiliating spray.

after cleaning up, you retreat to the back and try not to cry over literal spilled milk.

throat tight, you blot out the milk as best you can, and take a moment to breathe. realistically, you can’t hide forever. out front, the machine hisses, your coworkers call out orders, and the bell above the door rings and rings. the world stops for no one, no matter how annoyed or stressed they are. you check your phone anyway.

and drop it.

nearly.

this time, you make the catch.

~~~~

“rookie mistake, john.”

needles dig through his shirt and into the meat of his shoulder. he pries them out one by one, listening to kate chuckle at his expense through the speaker. with an annoyed huff, he finally frees himself of the annoyance.

he holds the cat at arm’s length off-screen, leveling her with a glare. cece blinks, tail swishing menacingly in the air, and meows pathetically when he drops her to the ground.

all that effort of hauling the dining table across the floor and removing frames to stage his location, only to be exposed by a cat.

“don’t lie and tell me that lovely creature is yours. you hate cats.”

“change of heart.”

“mhm. so who’s the girl?”

john meets kate’s smug-as-shit face on the screen, and his shoulders sag with a defeated sigh. he’s been meaning to tell someone about his barista, anyway. kate’s better off being the first to know.

he gives her the broad strokes, carefully trimmed down around the circumstances of their meeting. how they’ve gone from strangers to something closer over the past few months. boyfriend. girlfriend. it’s juvenile rolling off his tongue, but it fits. his poker face is the best it’s ever been, knowing kate is likely dissecting every shift in tone or flicker of hesitation. no matter how he frames it, she’ll dig deeper. that’s just how kate operates.

“she seems good for you, especially if she’s willing to stick around for you after radio silence.”

“i’m always on my best behavior at home.”

“uh-huh. well, things must be pretty serious if you’re taking calls from her place.”

“they are,” he says, a mite quickly. “i like her. she’s…something wonderful. she makes me like being back here.”

kate grins. “from what kyle tells me, getting you off base is a chore. i’ll have to send her my thanks, sometime.”

“next time you’re here, i’ll arrange dinner. you can thank her in person.”

“i’d like that.”

after the call, john orders dinner and returns everything to its rightful place. his head buzzes from his conversation with kate, what she said about it being serious. it is serious.

ever since the first shopping trip. john tried to tell himself it was a passing interest or a distraction from the tedium of free time, but it simply wasn’t. he mused over that hole in his life, the thing he was missing, and now it’s in front of him. sharing a bed and meals.

the door handle turns as he sets out the delivery, slamming shut as he looks up to greet his girl.

she leans heavily against the door, looking like she flew home on a whirlwind. she sucks down a few breaths, chest heaving under her coat.

“i got it. they want me.”

a grin splits john’s face. “i knew it. i knew they would.”

instead of the wide-eyed excitement he expects, however, she shakes her head.

“they want me in berlin.”

~~~~

the takeaway is half-eaten, cooled. john leans back in his chair, arms crossed, watching her pace the kitchen. they’d tried to eat, to talk about anything else, skirting around the real conversation. she pressed for every mundane detail of his day—phone calls, forms, reports—and when he finally asked about her news, she abruptly stood, and then it all spilled out. the email. the offer. the self-proclaimed ‘milquetoast middle-of-the-road, i-need-to-think-about-it’ response she wrote. her voice rises, falls, and breaks as she storms through it.

he tries to throw her a lifeline. “it’s a good city–”

“i’ve never even visited, what am i thinking–”

“people move to places they’ve never been, all the time–”

“not me!”

john stands. “you moved here for ben, sight unseen, didn’t you?”

that stops her dead in her tracks. her shoulders are drawn up and tight, and she turns, fists clenching at her sides. “that was different.”

“it was.” he steps closer, his head tilting, chin dipping toward his chest. “this is too, but it’s better, yeah? it’s a good thing. it’s for you, sweetheart.” his hands move from her shoulders to her elbows, then down to hold hers.

“do you want it or not?”

“...i don’t know.”

~~~~

john, bless him, doesn’t so much as raise an eyebrow at your whining or the edge in your voice. he’s a rock, weathering your kinetic way of processing.

“what’s changed?”

you don’t know. you’d’ve jumped at the chance weeks ago. you poured so much effort into the application, worked on your account, and hung around the studio absorbing what you could, anything to earn their recommendation—but you didn’t plan to succeed.

“it just–it just feels like i’m running away again. i quit school, then i chased ben, and we know how that turned out. and i feel like, i don’t know, i’m running away from this, because i like you so much.”

your face burns, tongue threatening mutiny with how it twists, tripping you up, but the rotten truth escapes. “it scares me how badly i want to stay. how i’m willing to put down roots in a place where ben’s work is everywhere, where i’ll get stuck making coffee forever, and spend my time waiting for you to come home. and i think i’ve known that for a while, but i’ve had my head in the sand, because i don’t want it to be true.”

and it’s out there.

you can’t stay, and you won’t ask him to come with you. even if he could. even if it wasn’t completely ridiculous.

john draws your chin up with a knuckle. “i don’t think your head is in the sand. i think your head is down, pressed to the grindstone, but that’s focus. not avoidance. you’re working toward something. that’s not running, that’s pursuing.”

he catches the first tear on the pad of his thumb.

“y’know, you’re free to mourn the life you thought you’d have, but you can’t let it stop you from goin’ after what you want.”

there’s something about his expression. equal parts knowing and sad. your chest is tight, like you’ve held your breath too long. you blink hard, eyes suddenly stinging.

neither of you speak. the silence stretches. heavy. unbearable. you don’t dare break it, afraid of what you might say, and he doesn’t push. you’re sure, based on what he does for a living, he could sit like this forever, perfectly still, perfectly patient. but the air between you is filled with the unspoken, something he already understands.

you’re already mourning the life you thought you’d have. the one that included him.

you try to throw him a lifeline.

“i mean…it’s impossible for me to get my shit together in time, anyway.”

he doesn’t take it.

“i know some people.”

~~~~

she’s finally asleep. cried her eyes out. it hollowed him out to see her like that.

he pulls his shirt off over his head, letting it fall carelessly to the floor. he sighs, gaze leveling at the tattoo. the skin is smoother now, the hair only starting to grow back. he traces a finger along the hilt, slowly and carefully, before ruefully smiling.

it’s funny in a way. twice now, she’s managed to put a knife through his heart.