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madstronaut · 3 months ago

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my IRL moots and I are currently bingewatching olympic coverage so if I have been absent it’s because I have temporarily replaced fanfic as my comfort/stress reliever with footage of simone biles and sunisa lee and leo marchand and katie ledecky and tom daley absolutely fucking SLAYING (and knitting) over in the city of lights

but anyway WHO DOESn’T LOVE A GOOD COMEBACK STORY AND TEH FUCKING STANDING OVATION (so wat if it was in my PJs and a facemask I had a long week okay) I GAVE WHEN I SAW WRENNY RETURNED WITH A FUCKING BANGER OF A CHAPTER TO CONTINUE SKIN DEEP THAT WAS OLYMPIC-WORTHY IF I SAY SO 🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇 (surgeon general warning: this is purely fucking subjective)

I was gonna use an olympic cheering gif but I saw this bajirao mastani gif and deemed it even better and also I saw a post saying gifmakers are notified whenever their gif is tagged in a post and I want to apologize in advance dear artist for using it in my fanfic rant lol

anyway diving right into it (if yall knew the absolutely herculean effort I am making not to sprinkle this whole fucking thing with olympic puns…) does anyone else get sympathy phantom pains when they read about a character you’re emotionally invested in get hurt? cos I definitely grabbed and patted my own tit in sympathy when I read about reader’s piercing snagging on a sweater

also I FUCKIN LOVE THE MATCHING PIERCINGS!!!! <33333 something so special about sharing something secret and intimate between just you and your beloved <3 (which makes johnny’s matchy eyebrow piercing reveal later all the more interestin 👀)

if cleanliness were a love language, it would likely be Simon’s.

this tracks for how I HC simon honestly, where all my fellow traumatized PTSD-coping control freaks at!!!! just me???!!?!!

Not that he had told you he loved you—nor had you told him. You had promised yourself that you would wait until he said it first (the only sure-fire way to avoid coming across as overeager and scaring him off). Still, there were a thousand ways in a day that Simon made you feel as if he loved you: the way he would go out to start your car in the wintery mornings when your remote start stopped working; the way he always offered you the first bite of his food if you weren’t sharing a meal; the way he’d crack open your drinks before handing them to you. Was it wrong of you to try to read between the lines?

how does that saying go, “actions speak louder than words”? 👀👀👀 also couldn’t help but be reminded of me and my fellow POC IRLs sharing about how our parentals/families never said ILY growing up but later learned to understand they showed not told (my current philosophy tho is y not both? y not both indeed)

His thumbs stroke beneath your breasts along the sternum tattoo he gave you—a favorite part of you for him to touch-

🥰🥰🥰

“I want you,” he mutters. “Say yes.” “Yes, God, yes.”

👏sexy consenting, we luv to see it 👏

Something about him so unashamedly enjoying himself makes it easier for you to enjoy yourself too.

yes, we love a win-win situation 💛💛💛

also i loved all the goofy little moments during their sexytime with the knocking over his pencils, “don’t insult me” (I would be gigglin my ass off at this), their banter <3, LAUGHING WHILE COMING!!! cannot even describe the feeling but yes if you’ve done the same it is *quite* the feeling - GOOFY SEX SUPREMACY BLOG OVER HERE, ANTIS CAN GO FUCK CLOWNS TYVM (it’s me, I’m the clown, wooin you in this 10k word essay I will-)

as always simon seems to be so adept and confident at reading reader but hOOOW CURIOUS THAT HE DOUBTS HIMSELF/CUTS HIMSELF OFF FROM SPECULATING WHEN IT COMES TO JOHNNY? hMMMMMMM

and UGH i so feel the reader in wanting to befriend your beloved’s beloveds and the stress in that struggle -currently experiencing a different iteration of this with my IRL moots in trying to balance putting aside your pride to attempt to get along with someone you just don’t jive with but who is beloved by your beloved (uhh does this make me johnny in this scenario but wthout the sexual tension/ghoapiness of it all UGH) anyway READER I FEEL YA

“When Soap and I are in a room together with women, I’m like a ghost. 🥺🥺🥺 “Were you jealous?” He makes an ambiguous sound.

i notice direct, straightforward simon consistently struggles to be so when it comes to our soapy boi 👀👀 *putting my tin foil hat back on* though another part of me wonders if simon has noticed how frosty reader and johnny are and is secretly not too bothered by it by the aforementioned love triangle/soap “stealing the spotlight” probs

I am dying to know what went down in the fight between simon & johnny at the flooded shop!!! wrenny SPILL TEH TEA WOMAN (if you please per your time/desire)

after re-reading this multiple times I pulled up my conspiracy theories from pt 1 and HOLY FUCK THE FEELING OF CHECKING OFF A FEW TO BE CONFIRMED IS PROBABLY HOW THOSE PPL WHO RAIDED AREA 51 VIA THAT PUBLIC FB EVENT INVITE FELT WHEN THEY GOT TO NARUTO-RUN ON LIVE TV

I did the phoenix ace attorney finger point (i know nothing bout this show cept thru this meme) while yelling I FUCKING KNEW THEY FUCKED at the top of my lungs at my laptop (sorry to my IRL neighbors)

“The day after we—y’know. Fucked. I told him it was a one time thing. Maybe it’s in my head,” says Simon, frowning. “Maybe I’m crazy. But sometimes he looks at me or says something to me and it makes me think it’s not over. Not for him.” “Is it really over,” you ask, “for you?” Simon looks at you, quiet. He says: “I want you.” And you are so relieved by the obvious honesty in his answer that it never crosses your mind to think that’s not what you asked.

*currently ripping off my tin foil hat, shredding it in my jaws and screaming IRL at all the cues and tells here*

I also sus that this is why reader is hesitant to say ILY so far whether she knows it or not but again thats just my tin foil talkin

oooh FUCKING LOVE the reader coming up to observe johnny unnoticed!!! all up in simon’s space looking at his sketches 👀👀

and then HIS BODY LANGUAGE!!!! the open grimace, putting physical space in between them, deflecting with the “incriminating” comment accusations + bringing up simon.. I devoured the entire convo of just reader + johnny here; just fuckin fascinated by reader acting as a social bridge between simon and johnny here...maybe in more ways than one? (DO NOT MAKE AN EIFFEL TOWER JOKE DO NOT FUCKING-)

anyway my current conclusion based on this convo is that the torch johnny has been carrying for simon is fucking OLYMPIC-SIZED (last joke I swear I’m SORRY) and he deflects with casual/shallow flirting etc. to hide the weight/grief of it anyway brb dabbing away some tears so I can see clearly to read the rest of this-

also ALSO SUS impending loss of johnny as partner (and more) is what triggers simon’s nightmares; i usually dont recall/consider simon’s canon backstory when i picture him in fics I read unless explicitly stated/included but I think we can all agree across the board that generally speakin That Man Has Seen Sum Shit™️

You can’t imagine the stress that he is under, and you’d do anything to be able to shoulder a fraction of it for him.

mood, reader, moooooood! also please if it is not obvi already despite the emotional beating she is taking/giving herself over not being able to befriend her bf's bff - reader is SUCH a great friend and gf to simon, i also want to give her a giant hug and peptalk and also kick johnny in the balls for how mean he is to her, no excuses, laddie

“That was mine!” Johnny shouts, elbowing the man next to him. “Did you see that? That was my work!”

👀👀 whats that phrase IN VINO VERITAS once again PHRASING, MACTAVISH, PHRASING GOD D A M N

I am looking down the road and brother, all roads lead to ghoaple i mean, rome as they say (trying to put ghost soap throuple in one word)

“Simon?” Johnny let’s go of the guy’s shirt, his bad mood evaporating as quickly as it had manifested.

hMMMMM

He says something back, some Scottish phrase, his accent so thick you couldn’t understand the words even if you knew them.

hi PSA i need a favor pls someone please run over to the bar, get their security vid and lipread or transcribe what he said so I can look it up on google translate i will reward you with monopoly monies or some hot goss from the legacy media companies I’ve worked with, your choice

also do I sus not only wariness but also attraction from johnny to reader here?! but is it cos reader reminds him of simon 👀👀👀

“Oh, did I offend you?” he breathes, clutching one hand at his breast. “Not falling down at your feet? Not worshippin’ the ground you walk on?”

johnny do I smell some jalousie, as the french like to say hon hon hon

also btw I have been in a car with a crying driver and lemme tell you ALWAYS. PULL. OVER. that shit will drastically lower your life expectancy and raise your blood pressure simultaneously (obligatory FUCK YOU ELIJAH YOU POS FOR BREAKING UP WITH MY FRIEND OVER THE FUCKING PHONE WHILE SHE WAS DRIVING IF I EVER SEE YOUR PATHETIC BITCH ASS AGAIN IT IS ON SIGHT)

“I don’t understand,” you mutter. “He wants us to be friends.” “He doesn’t know what he wants,'' Johnny says.

oh and you do, do you now, johnny? RAGGGHHHH my anthropological brainworm is absolutely feasting at the drama/dynamics rn

also fucking dead at picturing drunk af johnny flipping the twin birds, then slipping and falling on his side

Johnny warns you sleepily: “Ghost is right there.”

WRENNY YOU ABSOLUTE FUCKER (affectionate) THE FUCKNG JUMPSCARE THIS GAVE ME AT 2AM WHEN I FIRST READ THIS I SCREAMED OUT LOUD

ok now that I’ve fucking blacked out and typed a fucking marathon of an essay here i wiil just end with this lovelyass post by @/dwarvenales I read earlier -

not to get tooo fuckin sappy but wrenny I recall seeing a bit of the obstacles you overcame to continue writing this and just wanted to say for you and really for any other fic writer out there who struggle with your fics that you are very much seen and loved and your brainbabies are awaited with open arms by many more lovers than haters, mes amis! mwahmwahmwahmwah bisous bisous bisous for you all 😘👌😘👌😘👌😘👌😘👌😘👌😘👌

A Complete Set (Whatever That Means) || 2

A continuation of Skin Deep. Part one of this sequel is here.

About this: previous warnings apply, oral sex (f receiving), alcohol, gross imperfections, not a single nipple unfortunately, an eyebrow though. For @/moody-alcoholic, I hope this manages to quench even the tiniest portion of your thirst. 1 more part left. 7k

“Simon?”

“Hm.”

“Are you seeing anybody else?”

Simon looks up at you. His hair is getting long, falling over his forehead and looking nearly brunet in the dim lighting. You don’t think he’s cut it since the two of you have started dating.

He’s been drawing for half the night, hunched over with the sketchpad in his lap, doing terrible things to his own posture and blocking his own lighting all at once. When he answers you, it’s in that dry tone that lets you know he thinks you’ve said something funny or clever: “No.”

A knot in your chest loosens. It’s hard to believe you worried over such a question for so long just to receive such a simple, earnest answer. He goes back to sketching.

You content yourself with this and stretch your legs out until your toes touch his thigh at the other end of the sofa. His mouth twitches, but he keeps working.

Six months pass, and how do you celebrate? You climb topless onto Simon’s lap, eager and anxious in equal measure. Your nipple piercing had stopped hurting months ago (save for the time you had snagged it on a cable knit sweater and nearly seen Jesus), but you had read online that piercings heal from the outside inward, and as such you had made every attempt possible to leave the thing alone even when all you wanted to do was play with it.

In his own way of celebrating, Simon had bought you your first new barbell: a black one with black gemmed studs at each end. You couldn’t help but notice that it looked similar to his, only with a more delicate, feminine touch.

“Will you change it for me?” you ask him. Your hands are shaking.

“Alright. Let me wash my hands.” He shifts you off of his lap and disappears into the bathroom where you hear the faucet turn on. You cross your arms over your breasts, feeling silly being half naked without Simon in the room. Your foot bounces impatiently, but you know that if cleanliness were a love language, it would likely be Simon’s.

Simon comes back and tugs you onto his lap again. His hands look huge compared to the jewelry through your breast as he dexterously works the ball free from the barbell. He has the hands of a surgeon: steady and calm. You close your eyes in anticipation of pain, but there is none; it just feels alien, sensitive whenever his calloused fingers brush over your pebbled nipple, even as he removes the barbell itself.

Taking the sanitized jewelry, he carefully puts it in and screws the stud in place.

“That didn’t hurt at all,” you say, reaching down to tug softly on the barbell. Still, no pain.

“Great,” he says, eyes on your breasts. He grips your hips. “Up, now. C’mon, up.”

He tugs you up onto your knees so that you’re the perfect height for him to take your nipple into his burning mouth. You shiver, one hand gripping his shoulder and the other burying itself in his hair, gripping softly to keep his mouth in place. If you had worried that getting the piercing would make you less sensitive, you were wrong. He tugs on the jewelry gently with his fucking teeth and God, holy shit, fucking hell, definitely not less sensitive.

“Been waiting to do this,” he says, nuzzling the skin between your breasts as he gives you a moment to catch your breath. “Six months of hell.”

“Yeah?” You pant lamely, chest heaving.

He hums. His thumbs stroke beneath your breasts along the sternum tattoo he gave you—a favorite part of you for him to touch—as his lips find your nipple again, lashing softly with his tongue. His hands have begun to tremble where they slide down the curves of your sides and to your hips, touch soft and worshipful as he brings you down to rest your weight against the hard line of his cock still confined in his jeans. The shaking says more than a thousand of his words ever could.

“I want you,” he mutters. “Say yes.”

“Yes, God, yes.”

Simon guides you off of his lap, kneeling down into the space between the couch and the coffee table. He pushes the table backwards with a little more force than is necessary when there isn’t enough room for his long legs and accidentally sends a cup full of charcoal pencils tipping over onto the carpet. You snort with laughter. He peels your leggings and panties off and drags you to the edge of the couch, pressing your thighs open wide.

Getting head from partners in the past had been a fraught, mostly unenjoyable experience. Even your first few times with Simon had been tense, with him quickly moving on to something else after noticing your inability to relax. A less eager man might have counted his blessings and moved on, but Simon’s gentle persistence had gone a long way toward reassuring you that he truly wanted to please you this way. It had gone a long way toward reassuring you that you could let him.

He spreads you apart, thumbs slipping against your slick folds, heated gaze pinpointed on your most intimate parts before he leans in and licks a broad stripe over your entrance and up to your clit. You shut your eyes (and cover your face for good measure). His warm breath fans against your pussy as he laughs. He could be mean and pull your hands away, but he lets you hide this way and you are grateful for it.

Simon takes his time mapping each part of you with his mouth, nose brushing your clit whenever he doesn’t have his lips sealed over it. Your thighs shake, toes curled, as he pulls whines and choked gasps from your throat.

You peek through your fingers when you feel him shifting beneath you to find that he’s worked his cock from his jeans and is jerking off, only noticeable by the tell-tale rhythmic motion of his arm against your calf.

“Jesus, Simon,” you whine.

He makes a little sound of acknowledgement in the back of his throat, shifting on his knees to change the angle of his mouth against you. Something about him so unashamedly enjoying himself makes it easier for you to enjoy yourself too, to let your hands come away from your face and thread them through his hair.

“Can we fuck?” you breathe, aching inside deep where his tongue can’t reach.

He nods against you and kneels up to kiss you. You still aren’t used to the taste of yourself in his mouth, but it’s growing less foreign—and nothing could ever make you turn away from one of Simon’s kisses.

He pulls you off the couch onto your knees, his legs spread to either side of your own. You arch your back, feeling his cock brush against the back of your thighs. Two of his thick fingers slip inside you, testing your give and your wetness. He twists them; turns to hook them against that soft, vulnerable spot inside you that makes your legs shake. Simon works a third finger into you, a stretch that your body struggled to take before but which it accepts eagerly now, the sting welcome and familiar.

“Fuck. I need a condom,” he rasps.

“Just pull out,” you say.

You can sense him rolling his eyes. Your fondness for the (dangerous) pull-out method had been formally noted by him and thus far rejected at every turn.

“Don’t insult me,” he mutters. He grabs your hand and guides it between your own legs. “Be good and keep yourself warm. I’ll be right back.”

He’s barely gone long enough for you to stroke your fingers through your folds, but when he returns (flashing the intact condom package at you like he always does), he watches you for an endless, lingering moment.

“I like that,” he says at last, taking his spot behind you again, condom in place.

“Like what?”

“Watching you touch yourself.” The head of his cock nudges your entrance. He finds the right angle and slips inside you, stretching your walls to make room for himself. You groan, your fingers digging into the couch cushion. It stings a little, right towards the end, but he just softly saws himself in and out of your pussy, soothing the ache with pleasure. His words go completely over your head.

He reaches so deep inside you, like with his every thrust his cock bullies the air out of your lungs. The slick sounds are lewd, keeping time with your moans and sighs as his fingertips dig into the flesh of your hips, manhandling you further onto the couch to the perfect height for him to fuck into you, your knees barely skimming the carpet.

Your hand ends up crushed between your pelvis and the couch. You let your fingers find your clit and the touch reminds your body of how close it is, that coil deep in your belly stretched tight and ready to release. Your fingers trail down to where his cock pistons in and out of you, and at your touch he groans, slows to a smooth drag, his length slippery with your own arousal.

“Touch yourself, not me,” he chides, his voice rough. “I’m close enough.”

“I’m close enough,” you say.

He flops against your back, nearly crushing you with his weight to hook his chin over your shoulder and ask: “Then what the fuck are we waiting for?”

You can barely draw in the breath to laugh, and it’s only worse when you cum. You bury your face into the couch cushions, giggling, fingers rubbing a gentle, hectic rhythm against your clit as your pussy spasms around him. He snorts at your laughter, a soft quiet exhale against the back of your neck. Then he cums, his thrusts sloppy and hard, turning his head at the last moment to bite your shoulder lazily.

“Sex makes you so weird,” you pant. Your face hurts from smiling.

“You like it?”

“Yeah. I do.”

He ties off the condom and throws it away. The two of you sit naked on the couch together, curled up. It’s a little alien to be this open about your body with someone and to have them be so open about their body in return, but it’s a good strangeness. So much about loving Simon is.

“I need to get the other one pierced now,” you mention, toying with his unpierced nipple. “Have to complete the set.”

“I never did.”

“You’re incomplete. Don’t you know?”

He snorts. “I feel quite fulfilled, thanks.”

“Please Simon?” you ask. “I want to.”

“Don’t ever say please. I’ll text Soap in the morning,” Simon says, trailing his fingers up and down the length of your arm, making goosebumps appear.

You hesitate. Should you tell him what you’d been thinking about for the last several months? Would it offend him to know that you didn’t want to go to Johnny for any more piercings?

Whether it offended him or not, your pride couldn’t rest easily going back to the tiny room behind the curtain in Skin Deep. While there had been only a few other tense interactions between you and Johnny since Simon’s birthday (and usually he seemed to favor outright ignoring your existence), the situation had not improved.

“Simon—I think I’d rather go somewhere else for my other nipple. To someone other than Johnny, I mean.”

Simon frowns. “What’d Johnny do.”

He phrases it like that—more of a statement and less of a question, immediately assuming that Johnny is at fault.

“It’s just—it’s like I said on your birthday. He doesn’t like me much.”

Simon turns to look you in the eye. When your gaze tries to skirt away, he lets out an irritated breath through his nose—but doesn’t fight you. Simon always lets you run. Maybe because he knows his legs are long enough to catch you. “You really feel like that?”

“You’ve never noticed?”

“Thought it was in my head,” he mutters. Then he says the most dreaded words he possibly could: “I’ll talk to him.”

“No!” you nearly shout. You struggle to lower your voice to something more appropriate for indoors, your heart tap-dancing to an anxious beat inside your chest. Just trying to picture Johnny’s irritated expression at any of Simon’s potential efforts to talk to him made your stomach turn over. “I mean—don’t. Really. It’s fine.”

“It’s not. I need you two to get along. You and Johnny—you’re the most important people in my life,” he says baldly. His honesty does something to your lungs—empties them, crushes them. You only just realize the position that you’re putting Simon in, and it makes you feel about two inches tall. How could you let your petty problems with Johnny potentially get in the way of their longtime friendship? Their brotherhood?

“I’m begging you, Simon,” you plead. “Promise me you won’t talk to him. Just, give me more time to get to know him or something.”

“Can't promise that.” He stands up and stretches, joints popping as you stare at him, your stomach tearing itself to pieces at this knowledge. This is not how this conversation was meant to end. But he disappears into the bedroom before you can gather your wits enough to say another word.

There is nothing like sleeping beside Simon, his arm beneath your head, your body turned and cradled against his side, a leg thrown over his thighs. His heart is as slow and steady as his breaths, his calloused thumb tracing a line back and forth on your naked side, a line which grows slower and slower as he drifts closer to sleep.

You ruin it like this: “Simon?”

“Hm.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“If you got’a.”

“On your birthday, you said that women meant for you sometimes ended up being Johnny’s. What did you mean?”

He’s quiet for so long that you mistake him for falling asleep. You’ve resigned yourself to asking him another night when he speaks, his speech is slow and thoughtful, like it is hard to put it into words.

“When Soap and I are in a room together with women, I’m like a ghost. He’s a fucking human being. Flesh and blood. Alive. People want to talk to him, to know him, to laugh with him, to have a drink with him. I’m not like that. I haven’t ever been like that. More than once Johnny would try to get me together with a woman who would end up falling for him instead. Eventually I convinced him to stop trying.”

“Were you jealous?”

He makes an ambiguous sound. “It’s hard to be jealous of Soap.”

“Not impossible, though.”

He rolls you over onto your back, coming to rest over you, your legs a tangled mess beneath the sheets. The darkness lengthens the shadows of his eyes, but you can still feel his gaze, tangible as any touch. He braces himself on his elbows over you and lets his forehead rest against your own. “I just wanted someone who was mine,” he says.

It’s on the tip of your tongue, those words that are building inside of you and growing harder to withhold by the day. But you say it like this and hope he can translate: “I’m yours.”

He ducks his head and kisses you.

In the morning, Simon has slipped a piece of paper just beneath the edge of your mug of tea. When you look at it, written in charcoal pencil is DARCELINA: Dream City Tattoos and Piercings XXX-XXXX.

It’s one for the record books: the rain. Thick pregnant clouds carry more than eight inches of rain to your city in the course of a day. The last time it rained so much was apparently during the Civil War era. The city floods, including the basement of your apartment building, which leads to a building-wide power outage.

Simon has you pack a suitcase, junk the majority of your refrigerator and freezer, and come stay with him. You’re giddy, feeling like it’s a semi-permanent sleepover when he gets the call that Skin Deep has flooded as well.

Then things take a turn for the worse. Simon is gone for nearly 36 hours straight making endless calls to attempt to clear the water and begin repairs, and sometime in the midst of that, the fight with Johnny happens.

It’s an ugly one.

Simon comes home in the foulest mood you’ve ever seen him in. It turns him positively stony as he moves around the apartment making himself a hasty meal, avoiding your eyes every chance he gets. After he eats, he sits heavily on the sofa, pulls out his sketchpad, and trashes no fewer than six entire pages before you get the nerve to ask him what’s wrong.

“Soap,” he mutters, crumpling a paper in one strong, dextrous hand. He throws it toward the small garbage can beside the telly and misses. “He’s looking for other locations to pierce at.”

“Is the building that bad?” you ask. “You guys will have to find a new place?”

“Soap is looking for a new place. One without me.”

You gape, the shock of this news reaching all the way to the core of your being.

“You don’t think it’s because of—?” Me. You can’t even finish the sentence, the thought upsets you so much. You tuck your legs beneath you on the couch, curling up, seeking to become small and harmless as grief and horror wash over you in wave after wave.

“This is my fault. I tried to talk to him but he’s so fucking—he gets under my goddamn skin like he was born to do it.” Simon pauses heavily, before adding: “I need to tell you something about the night Soap pierced me.”

Story time. Alright. You uncurl your legs, choosing to sit with them criss-crossed, your body turned toward him, giving Simon your entire attention. It’s been months since you found out that Johnny had been the one to pierce Simon, but you had been no closer to getting the story from either of them. Your curiosity was a dangerous, corrosive thing, eating away at your insides.

“I’m listening,” you say, hoping you don’t look as eager as you feel.

Simon looks to be at a loss for words, running his tongue along the sharp edge of his teeth. When he speaks, it’s hardly the lengthy story you had been anticipating: “We fucked.”

You blink. “You and—Johnny?”

Simon sighs and shrugs a shoulder.

“I didn’t know you were…” Simon stares, waiting for you to finish your sentence. “…interested in men.”

“You are. Why can’t I be?”

You feel a chilly pang of horror, like someone has slipped a dagger between your ribs. You rush to assure him: “You can! You—“

Simon’s mouth twitches as he rubs at the crease of one eye, and your panic fades. He mumbles: “I’m just fucking with you.”

“So you’re bisexual.”

“I’m… I don’t fucking know. I’m attracted to who I’m attracted to. I never named it.”

“Okay,” you say gently. “We don’t have to. But what does that have to do with now?”

“Is it really over,” you ask, “for you?”

Simon looks at you, quiet. He says: “I want you.”

And you are so relieved by the obvious honesty in his answer that it never crosses your mind to think that’s not what you asked.

Simon is uptown at a café holding consultations while Johnny directs cleanup efforts at the shop, and you think that now’s the perfect chance.

Your hands shake against the steering wheel the whole drive there, nerves less like butterflies and more like great winged moths in your belly. A part of you says that this is a mistake, you should turn back and let Simon and Johnny work it out on their own. But another part of you feels personally responsible—even if Simon says you aren’t. All your life you have taken things too personally, shouldered burdens which were not your own, bent over backwards to solve problems that weren’t yours to solve. If there was any chance that you could resolve this, you would put your pride on the line to do it.

You park alongside the street and are thrilled to find the front door unlocked. The entire place smells musty, like a basement. The wooden floors have warped a little under your tentative steps, announcing your presence sooner than you’d like.

Johnny sits in the chair where Simon tattoos clients. Sunlight streams in through the blinds and lights him up like some kind of punk-rock angel, his mohawk freshly clipped, dark finger nail polish chipping. Sometime between now and the last time you’ve seen him, he’s pierced his eyebrow: a black barbell with studs that reminds you a little too much of the one through your nipple (and Simon’s. Was that intentional? Did Johnny pick jewelry to match Simon’s? To match yours? For some reason just the thought makes your nipples tighten). In his hands is one of Simon’s sketchpads, and he’s flipping through it leisurely.

He glances up toward the sound of your footsteps.

“If you’re here about the water—“ his words die out on his pierced tongue as he stares at you, gobsmacked by your appearance.

“Hey,” you say lamely.

“Where’s Simon?” he asks, eyes flickering toward the protective spot where Simon usually hovers just over your shoulder. “He said he wouldn’t be in today.”

“He’s not. It’s just me. I thought maybe we could talk.”

Johnny openly grimaces. He shuts Simon’s sketchpad and sets it down (hopefully where he found it). Standing from the chair, he takes a few casual steps away from you, clearly heading towards the curtain that leads to the back of the shop. “Really cannot think of anything we have to talk about.”

You square your shoulders, fighting down that instinctive urge to make yourself smaller, to give in and be manageable. “I think we do.”

“You should go.”

“Not until we work this out.”

“There isn’t any this, alright, just—does Simon even know you’re here?” Something guilty must splash across your face because Johnny gives a mirthless laugh, reaching up to palm at his eyes. “Tha’s great. Just great. Could you be more incriminating?”

“Incriminating—? Look, Simon told me about the night you pierced him.”

“Oh he did, did he?” Johnny says flippantly.

“About how you two slept together.”

Now that stops Johnny in his tracks. It’s clear that he didn’t expect Simon to really tell you about that night all those years ago. He looks at you with a fresh caution, waiting to see how exactly you’ve taken this news—what you plan to do with it. “Aye, then. I guess he did.”

“I’m not trying to take him away from you.”

Johnny makes a derisive sound. His words are well-rehearsed, like he has said them to himself a hundred-hundred times: “Cannot take what isn’t mine.”

“He was your friend first,” you say, aiming for conciliatory and gentle the same way you might approach a feral animal. Johnny stares at you with flat, suspicious eyes. They’re so fucking blue—so different from Simon’s own dark ochre ones. “He told me that you’re one of the most important people in his life.”

Johnny’s face softens. He says: “You shouldn’t tell me that. He wouldn’t.”

“He’s not always good with words. Please don’t leave the shop, Johnny. I think it would break Simon’s heart.”

“I didn’t know he had a heart to break,” Johnny mutters. He leans against the wall beside the curtain and sighs, lips pressed into a thin line. “I’ll think about it. Now out. You shouldn’t be breathin’ in this air.”

Johnny ushers you to the door, hand hovering just above your back, careful not to touch you. Once you’re out on the street, he shuts the door and locks it audibly. Then he leans in and huffs a heated breath beneath the “NO WALK INS” sign. In the fog, he adds: “No GFs!”

You flip him off.

He flips you off.

On the way back to your car, you find yourself smiling. You force yourself to scowl. It’s a more appropriate expression. Giving one last glance back toward Skin Deep, you find him still standing there, watching.

Likely just to make sure you’re really leaving.

Not long after you are moved back into your apartment, you find that Simon stops sleeping.

You’re ashamed to say that it takes you a while to notice; nothing changes on your end of things. Anytime you are sleeping over, he lays down with you, tugs you up against his chest, and holds you for ages, his body still and breathing even. But one night you wake to a cool, empty bed. And later in the week, it happens again. Until more often than not you realize that any moment when you expect Simon to be sleeping, he isn’t.

Usually you find him sketching, shadows like charcoal smudged beneath his eyes. He doesn’t meet your gaze and tells you to go back to bed, that he’ll be there soon. Sometimes he even does come to lay back down beside you—but only long enough for you to convince him that you have fallen asleep again. Then he is shifting away from you, disappearing into the other room, shutting the bedroom with the quietest click behind him.

You know that he’s busy. His schedule has been booked—and with deposits nonrefundable, people more often than not kept their appointments. He’s been working with a client on mock ups for a sleeve, and the various pieces and the way they all come together around the contours of the person’s body are very delicate. Johnny’s threat to find a new job doesn’t help, either. Have they talked and resolved things yet? Simon never says so.

You can’t imagine the stress that he is under, and you’d do anything to be able to shoulder a fraction of it for him.

That’s how you end up with drunk Johnny in your car.

It starts with Simon falling asleep before you—for once. You can tell he is well and truly asleep by the sheer weight of his arm over you, the soft snores that he gives out against the nape of your neck. After so many nights of sleeplessness, his body has finally given in. You’re about to slip off to sleep yourself when the buzzing of a phone startles you back into wakefulness.

Not your phone—Simon’s phone. And it goes off again. And again. And again. Who the hell could be sending so many messages at midnight?

You know you should leave it alone—if it was urgent, they would likely call—but curiosity gets the better of you. Carefully you slip out from under Simon’s arm. It’s a testament to his sheer exhaustion that he doesn’t wake as you jostle him. In sleep, he looks painfully young and relaxed, and it makes you long to reach out and brush back his hair that has fallen onto his forehead. But not at the risk of waking him.

Sure that all you are planning to do is shut Simon’s phone off so that he can get some restful sleep, you are surprised to see that Simon has his text notifications visible on the homescreen, so all it takes is a simple tap to open them up.

Johnny. All Johnny.

Ghost.

Ghost

Are you uo?

Up* fuck my fingers

I need a ride home

Simon

I’m at that bar on… The text is cut off. To see more, you would have to open his phone. So Johnny is stuck at some bar, drunk more than likely. Well good riddance, you think to yourself, the hurtful way he treated you still very much fresh in your brain. But then you remember your talk at Skin Deep, and your traitorous heart softens. Could you really just put the phone back now and pretend you hadn’t seen the messages?

Simon doesn’t even have a password; that’s how much he trusts you. Would he still trust you after this, if he knew that you had gone through his phone, even if it was for a good cause?

Making a spur of the moment decision, you could only hope so. Your conscience wouldn’t let you wake Simon, and as much as you disliked him, it couldn’t let you leave Johnny stranded at some bar either.

You open his phone as quickly as you can, swiping so that it goes straight to Johnny’s texts and nowhere else. The name of the bar is right there, and you scramble for your own phone to type it down in Google Maps. He’s not far. Probably would be within walking distance, if he weren’t drunk. You could be there and back before Simon ever knew you were gone—you hoped.

As Simon, you send back to Johnny a simple OMW.

There is no hint of spring in the frigid March air as you slip outside into your car. The parking lot is dim and quiet, and traffic is minimal as you follow the GPS on your phone to Johnny’s location. The pub nightlife spills out onto the pavement and you struggle to find a place to park, grimacing at the knowledge that you will have to get out of the car and go inside to find Johnny, considering you see him nowhere on the street. Leaving the warmth of your car is the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do, especially in just a thin tank-top and a pair of leggings. Gathering your coat more tightly around yourself, you rush out of the car and through the people on the sidewalk and into the warmth of the pub.

You keep your eyes peeled for Johnny, but can’t spot his silly haircut anywhere. What if he’s gotten a ride home from someone else? What if he’s decided to walk, or found someone to go home with? You shift up onto your toes, looking over everyone in the bar when you spot him in the corner at a table with a few other men.

Johnny doesn’t even recognize you at first—either a testament to how unexpected your sudden appearance is or how drunk he is based on how difficult it is for his eyes to focus on you. When he realizes who you are, his mouth drops. He points.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, accent so thick and slurred that you can barely understand him.

“Picking you up. You said you needed a ride.”

“Aye but not from—oh, Jesus make me still. Yer not wearing a bra, are you?”

All the men at the table turn to gape. You snatch the sides of your jacket closed where they had loosely fallen open, your face flushing with warmth. The table roars with laughter, but Johnny in his drunkenness doesn’t seem to notice your embarrassment.

“That was mine!” Johnny shouts, elbowing the man next to him. “Did you see that? That was my work!”

“We get it, bruv,” the guy says with a roll of his eyes. “She’s no ten.”

“What’d you fuckin’ say?”

The table laughs.

Johnny grabs a fistful of the guy’s shirt and drags him nearly clean out of his seat. “I said, What’d you fucking say about her?”

The table stops laughing. Johnny cuts an impressive figure even when drunk; he’s easily the largest guy of the group. Your stomach drops and lands somewhere between your shoes. This is not going to plan at all. Reaching out, you try to insert yourself physically between the two of them but can only wrap your fingers around Johnny’s wrist, feeling the strength poised in the tendons.

“Johnny,” you say, loudly to be heard over the sounds of the pub. “Come on. Let’s go, yeah? Simon…Simon’s out in the car.”

“Simon?” Johnny let’s go of the guy’s shirt, his bad mood evaporating as quickly as it had manifested. He nudges his way out from behind the table, all politeness. Once free, he stumbles into a woman in a slinky dress who gives him a look that could melt glass.

“I’m so sorry,” you apologize to her, wrapping an arm around Johnny’s waist and doing your best to keep him steady. “He’s an idiot, and he’s drunk. You look amazing by the way—“

“Control your boyfriend,” she snaps.

“I will,” you promise, guiding Johnny away from her and into the crowd.

His nose brushes the shell of your ear, breath fanning across your neck as he says with a laugh in his voice: “I’m not yer boyfriend.”

You flush. “Thanks for letting me know, Johnny. I had no clue.”

He says something back, some Scottish phrase, his accent so thick you couldn’t understand the words even if you knew them.

“English, please,” you mutter.

“Je-sus,” he groans, dragging the words out into multiple syllables. He takes your chin in his hand and squeezes your cheeks a little. “You’re just like him. ‘English, MacTavish’. Ha!”

You bat his hand away.

“He’s been rubbing off on you,” Johnny mutters, laughing a little. Beneath his breath (though far more loudly than he likely intends), he adds: “In more ways than one, I imagine.”

Your face goes hot. “Johnny, stop talking.”

The two of you exit the pub out into the cool night air. It seems to sober Johnny some, as he takes in deep, gulping breaths. He walks a little steadier as the two of you cross the street, and by the time you’ve made it to your car, he has shrugged you off altogether (even if he is still a little unstable on his feet). He stands outside the car for a moment before opening one of the rear doors.

“What are you doing?”

“Rather sit back here.”

“I’m not your cabbie.”

“Strange manner of dress if you were,” he says snidely, slipping into the backseat.

In the driver’s seat, you let yourself have a small breakdown. You grip the wheel tightly, taking a few deep breaths of your own, searching for inner peace. You thought that you and Johnny had a tentative truce after that day at Skin Deep, but clearly he is still holding some grudge. Your search for peace turns up empty.

“Sorry I lied about Simon being here. I just really needed you to leave the pub,” you explain politely.

“Knew you were lying,” Johnny says from the darkness of the backseat. He sounds remarkably like Simon: brooding and irritable. “He’s got no idea you’re here, does he? He’d never let you come alone.”

You frown. “No. He doesn’t. He’s sleeping and I didn’t want to wake him.”

“Nightmares?”

“Huh?”

Johnny leans forward. You glance at him in the rear view mirror. “I said, Has he been having more nightmares?”

You didn’t know anything about Simon having nightmares. That sour feeling in your belly was back, the one that made you feel like you would never truly know Simon, not the way his friends did.

“No,” you say, a little defensive. “He’s been working on this sleeve for a client. Staying up way too late to finish it on time.”

“Aye. Nightmares. Anything else is just an excuse he’s telling himself—and you.”

Done with the conversation, you turn the key in the ignition and pull out into the street. “What’s your address?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Why’s that?”

“Left my keys at the bar.”

“Goddamnit.”

You turn towards Simon’s apartment. “Then you’re staying with us—with Simon. You can sleep on his couch and get your keys in the morning; I’m sure he won’t care.”

“Are you staying there?”

“Yes.”

Johnny mutters something under his breath. You consider yourself lucky not to have heard it. For a while, the two of you drive in silence. Then Johnny says:

“You never came for your second nipple.”

“It’s only just been six months.”

“So you’re due for an appointment then, aren’t you?”

You steel yourself, gripping the wheel tightly at ten-and-two. “Actually, I’m going to someone else.”

Johnny’s seatbelt unclicks. He hovers at your shoulder bringing with him burning warmth and the scent of whisky. When he talks, his breath brushes your neck, fury tangible in every syllable. “Who is it? Who the hell is he taking you to? Darcelina? Astrid? Dusty? Whoever it is, consider the appointment canceled. No one is piercing you but me.”

“You don’t get that privilege,” you grit out between your teeth. “Not anymore, not after the way you’ve treated me!”

“Oh, did I offend you?” he breathes, clutching one hand at his breast. “Not falling down at your feet? Not worshippin’ the ground you walk on?”

“Fuck you, Soap! I wanted to be friends.” Your voice cracks embarrassingly. Suddenly the road goes blurry. You blink rapidly, forcing yourself to calm down—you’re driving for fuck’s sake. You swallow past the lump in your throat, the silence interrupted by rustling as Johnny leans forward again in the backseat, trying to get a look at your face in the passing streetlights.

“Fuck,” Johnny groans. “Are you crying?”

“No!”

“You are. Fuckin’—pull over, before you get us killed.”

Keen embarrassment only has your eyes watering more, until you have no choice but to do as he asks, pulling over to hastily parallel park and throw on your hazard lights. You let your elbows rest against the steering wheel, face in your hands. His words echo in your head, said in that stupid Scottish brogue: not falling down at your feet? Not worshippin’ the ground you walk on? Are those really the things he thought you wanted? Is that the sort of impression you gave to Johnny, to Ghost’s other friends?

The backseat door opens and Johnny climbs out. A small part of you hopes that he will walk himself home—and good riddance. But he horrifies you by walking all the way around to the driver’s side of the car and tugging on the door handle until you begrudgingly unlock the doors.

“C’mon,” he says, trying to pull you out of the car with your seatbelt still on.

“What’re you—?”

“Just—wouldya—so stubborn—“ he drunkenly leans over you and mashes his fingers against the button of your seatbelt until it releases. For that brief moment, he is a warm weight across your lap, bringing with him the scent of cologne and whisky. Then he pulls you out of the car—and into his arms. It’s a tight, full hug, chest-to-chest, not bone crushing per se, but all-encompassing.

You don’t realize how badly you need it from him until you’re getting it.

“You’re such a dick,” you groan against his shoulder, sniffling.

“Aye,” he says, swaying a little on his feet, like the two of you are dancing. “But I’m right. We cannot be friends. So you’ve got to let this go, alright? Just breathe out 'n let it go.”

“I don’t understand,” you mutter. “He wants us to be friends.”

“He doesn’t know what he wants,'' Johnny says, one hand rubbing gently at your shoulder blades. “No more crying. It’s out of your hands. Aye?”

You shake your head, hands gripping his shirt.

But your tears slow and eventually stop. Cars pass occasionally. One of them honks at the sight of you both entwined on the side of the road, rolls down their window to let their passenger yell something suggestive, and it makes your face go hot. Johnny pulls away, nearly stumbling out into the road to give the car both middle fingers as it peels away. He slips on the damp asphalt and goes down hard on his side, taking the skin off his elbow and palm.

“Fuck, I’m hammered,” he laughs.

“Clearly,” you say, struggling to help him up and into the backseat.

Once in the driver’s seat again, you feel exhausted, emptied, like a washcloth wrung out and left to dry. The drive back to the apartment is silent, and when you’re in the parking lot, neither of you make a move to get out of the car.

You warn Johnny: “Simon’s asleep, so be quiet inside.”

Johnny warns you sleepily: “Ghost is right there.”

There’s a tap on the glass of your window. It nearly makes you shriek—but it is only Simon, half-smoked cigarette in his fingers, bundled up outside the car door. You roll down the window sheepishly.

“Need a little help?” he asks, taking a drag and turning his head so the smoke doesn’t touch you. His eyes are on Johnny in the backseat.

You hold up your fingers with just a smidge of space between them.

#madstrothought #skin deep #rememberwren #ghoap x reader #ghoaple #yes im trying to make fetch i mean ghoaple happen let me be okay im working long hours #faficowrimo #ok but yall absolutely must watch simone's floor routine and sunisa on the uneven bars and of course katie ledecky fucking slaying in 1500m

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