OMG i just saw your !MafiaGhost on how they met but can you do how !MafiaJohnPrice met with the reader? (if you haven't already and have the time of course. 😊💕.)
mafia!John Price x fem!Reader
John Price has always walked a different path in life than people like you. And yet, despite your status, he learns that the two of you are more alike than he thought. Or maybe it's just wishful thinking.
mafia!141 masterlist
warnings: vague mentions of death and violence, infidelity, crude language, hurt/comfort, unhealthy relationship dynamics
wc: 4.3k
an: sorry this took me a bit to answer! as you can see i got carried away. also, as we're headed into the new year, i'd just like to take a moment to say thank you to everyone who's been supporting my works! i recently hit 1k followers, and i cannot thank you guys enough for your lovely comments <3 i hope you all enjoy :)
“You see that girl right there? You stay away from her. She’s nothing but trouble.”
Those were the first words John’s father ever said about you. He used one long, crooked finger to point you out in the crowd of other students who mingled about the room with their parents. Everyone had gathered in the school gymnasium for the science fair where all Year 8 students had projects and posters set up on rickety fold tables. Voices echoed endlessly off of the hard floor and walls that it was almost overwhelming.
Really, he didn’t agree with his father about you being trouble. You were plenty kind, and well liked by students and teachers alike due to your kindness and intellect. A proper student, one that everyone else in the school strived to be. There were times where your words bit harder than most would have liked, but John just saw that as you telling things the way they were. He liked that about you. Admired you, even. But then he saw the real reason why his father said those words.
The man who accompanied you oozed authority and power, both in his stance and the way he walked. People regarded him like he was the King of England himself both in how they spoke to him and stepped around him like he could part a crowd with just a single glance. Most importantly, this man was your father, and he donned a uniform fit for only the chief of police himself. His father never liked police officers very much. They always made things difficult when it came to running the family business.
It wasn’t until Year 11 that he actually talked to you. Or, more like you talked to him. By some terrible twist of fate, his maths teacher sat the two of you together in the small, double seated desks that laid in perfect lines around the entirety of the room. He learned that you liked to doodle in the corner of your paper during lectures, and had a tendency to tap your pencil against the desk while taking exams. He liked the way your eyebrows knitted together in concentration, and how soft your voice was when whispering answers to the table next to you.
He didn’t have time to think about you often, not that he should have. John Price was unfortunate enough to come from a family that had a long line of brutal patriarchs that often conditioned equally as cruel heirs. Once he turned sixteen he was forced to go along with his father during his work escapades where he very quickly learned how to clean up bodies without dirtying himself. He often showed up at school with various cuts and bruises, and with heavy bags under his eyes. Balancing the life of a killer and a student was tiring work.
“Red color corrector will hide the bruise on your eye.”
It took John a moment to realize you were talking to him, and even then he still didn’t fully believe it until he looked over and saw you staring at him. You were leaned forward over your desk with your hand lazily propping up your head while you waited for him to answer. His pencil halted in its dance across his work as he brought his full attention your way.
“Color corrector?” he repeated.
“Yeah, you know. Green hides red marks from acne, orange hides dark circles, red for… very dark circles,” you said, tilting your head at him. “I’ve got some in my bag, if you’d like. Though, you’d have to find your own shade of foundation.”
Your bluntness and slight humor towards the shiner on his eye had him chuckling, which only made the smile on your face grow into a smirk.
“You sound like an expert,” he noticed.
“I am,” you quipped before grinning. Carefully, you reached a hand up to the collar of your uniform and pulled down, exposing the side of your neck and some of your collar bone. There were several, small and faint hickies that he probably wouldn’t have noticed if it wasn’t for you pointing them out. “A girl’s gotta have her fun.”
John liked your humor. And maybe there was something a little comforting knowing that someone like you was getting into trouble, too. Albeit, significantly less violent trouble than him, but that was for the best anyway. Maybe it gave him hope that someone like you and someone like him could actually have something in common. That he could resemble something that was normal.
A few years passed, and John began to drift from you bit by bit. You ended up graduating at the top of the class which earned you several offers from the most prestigious schools across the country, and it was all anyone talked about. Great things awaited you with opportunities to see distant lands, meet new people, and live a good and honest life.
As for John, his father died when he was twenty-three. Murdered, to be exact, and in a manner eerily similar to the way his mother had been. Cold, calculated, and ruthless, his fathers existence had been snuffed out by a single bullet where his blood stained the pillow that covered his face.
The torch had been passed down, and its handle was still bloody.
Over the years he grew rigid and battle hardened in the business of violence. He earned plenty of scars, and built upon his fathers empire until it was twice as big and infinitely more dangerous. It was the only thing his father had ever managed to teach him; how to be dangerous. Everyone who once thought the Price’s were people to fuck with learned very quickly that the new Don had nothing to lose but his own life; one that he didn’t care all too much about.
The only thing he held close to him was the ghosts of his past, which was why he found himself standing in line at the florist’s shop. Even while running a quick errand, his phone vibrated in his pocket non-stop from merciless amounts of emails flooding his inbox. Mostly updates about certain events within the family that he attempted to lazily check as the woman in front of him spoke sweetly to the shopkeeper. Her voice was so soft, so comforting, so… familiar?
He didn’t realize it was you in front of him until you turned to leave with a small bouquet of flowers in your hands. Even after all those years he could recognize the features of your face like it was second nature. The shopkeeper spoke to him and asked him what she could do to help him, but her words didn’t even register in his mind. His feet moved on their own accord, and your name slipped out of his lips before he could do anything to stop it.
Once you turned around to face him he found that the air had been knocked completely out of his lungs. It had been years since he had seen you, and you had changed so much; grown into your features, and turned into a beautiful woman that left him speechless. However, you didn’t regard him with the same dreamy gaze; instead, you stood there and stared at him as you awkwardly adjusted the flowers in your arms.
“Yes?” you asked tensely.
You didn’t recognize him. Of course, it made sense. He had grown significantly taller, his facial hair was full and thick, and for once he wasn’t sporting a shiner. His clothes were also significantly nicer, as he seemed to have grown fond of business casual as of late. If anything, your confusion was more humorous than anything else because he should have seen it coming.
“John, John Price,” he said as if he was introducing himself for the first time.
There was something about the way your eyes lit up at his name that had him feeling warmer than he had in a long while. A precious grin broke out on your lips as you took a step closer to him and laughed in the way someone does when they’ve figured out the answer to a riddle, and it was too contagious for John to not chuckle with you.
“I didn’t recognize you!” you exclaimed, still giggling. “God, it’s been years! Staying out of trouble, I hope?”
“Getting in just enough to keep things interesting,” he countered.
It was like no time had passed at all. You were still that star pupil that you were all those years ago, and he could still hear your pencil tapping on your desk clear as day. It felt unreal.
“What’s the occasion?” he then asked, gesturing to the flowers you held.
“Oh,” you said, as if surprised. “Well, it’s, uhm, the anniversary of my dad’s passing.”
The chief of police? Your father? That man who always held himself so powerfully had been shoved into the cold, unforgiving earth? When he was a kid that man had always seemed indestructible. Then again, so did every other adult when you’re at that age.
“I’m sorry to hear that, I hadn’t heard,” he quickly apologized.
Despite the terrible awkwardness of the conversation, you still smiled. “It’s alright. Was a while ago now, anyway. But, uh, what about you?” you asked, gesturing towards him and his empty arms.
“Mum’s birthday,” he answered simply.
His response made you smile something small and bittersweet. “How sweet of you. I bet she’ll love them.”
“Yes, they’ll make for good decoration.”
Something settled between the two of you; something that had never been there before. Not while you were children; not when you grew up together. Whatever it was, it was unfamiliar, and much too suffocating, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to welcome it or not.
“Well, I ought to get going,” you excused politely. “Got a few more errands to run. But it was really good seeing you again, John.”
This was the part where he should have said goodbye. Wished you farewell just for you to vanish and most likely never see him again. If he was a smart man, John would have done just that, and instead he found his hand diving into his pocket before he could stop it. He grabbed a pen and stole one of the shop's business cards off of the counter where he quickly scribbled down something in the negative space before holding it out for you to take.
“Here. I’m certain you get this a lot, but if you need anything, anything at all, I’ll be there,” he assured you.
To his surprise, you took the card without hesitation where your eyes quickly scanned his rushed handwriting while you thanked him. As you held the card in front of you, something caught John’s attention. There was a metallic glint on your finger, one so bright that it nearly blinded him, and he realized you wore a large, gaudy ring. It was something given to you in poor taste, surely. Something that attempted to steal the spotlight of your beauty rather than compliment it.
“Did you get married?” he asked in what he told himself was curiosity.
You paused for a moment as you glanced at the ring on your finger. With such a large and obnoxious gem on a thin band, he was surprised it hadn’t snapped off.
“Oh, not yet. Just engaged,” you said in an odd tone. As if you couldn’t stand to look at the ring any longer, you shoved the card into your pocket before smiling at him. “Thank you, again.”
He tried to forget about you after that. Tried to forget about that ring on your finger and the way your voice changed when you mentioned your engagement. But it was so easy to worry about you; to care about you. Even after all those years you were still just as sweet and well spoken, but he was still John Price. Now the Don of the most lethal mafia in the country, he shouldn’t have been around anyone like you. You were the chief of police’s daughter, the girl who graduated top of his class in school and went to university; trouble. Nothing but trouble.
So he kept to his own work. Ran his club on the south end of the city, washed the blood out of his shirt, and spent his nights sipping brandy that was too expensive and well crafted for a man like him. But then he thought about the dress that you’d wear, how you would do your hair, what song you’d want to have your first dance to… it was moments like that when he was glad that he had given you his number rather than the other way around. He was even more glad that you hadn’t made an effort to reach out to him. It was better that way.
“You alright, boss?”
Those three words tore John right out of his thoughts and slammed him right back down to earth. Back to the thundering bass that shook the walls around him in the nightclub, back to real life and the man who sat at the desk in front of him, typing away on the computer.
“Tired,” John replied simply.
“You’re always tired,” the man countered. He paused his typing at the computer and ran a hand over his hair, which he had styled into a slightly grown out mohawk. “Even then you never space out this bad.”
Whatever Soap, his electronics specialist, was trying to get at, John certainly wasn’t in the mood for it. Sighing, he leaned back further in his seat while he stared at the man with a tense expression. “Do you have the intel or not?”
A small chuckle came from the corner of the office where another man sat, seemingly bored as he typed away on his phone. “Way to piss the man off.”
“Aye, I’ll turn that phone of yours into a fancy brick if you don’t watch your tone, Garrick.”
The two men chuckled at each other’s teasing just in time for John’s own phone to go off. Not expecting a call, John ripped the device out of his pocket and stared at the unrecognized caller ID with his thumb hovering over the decline button. But he hesitated. It had been months since he had given you his number, and yet a small part of him worried you might have been on the other line.
When he stood from his chair, it caught the other two men in the room off guard, but they stayed silent as they watched John accept the call and raise the phone to his ear.
“Hello?” he answered.
All he got in response was a sob.
By the time John had found you, all of your tears had run dry and a brutal fury filled the empty space. It wasn’t terribly late at night, but it was plenty dark enough that the park you had run off to looked eerie and uninviting in the dim halogen lights. Knees bouncing with anxiety, you sat on a park bench and bit into your bottom lip as you watched John approach from the street.
For as much effort as he put into looking calm on the outside, it did absolutely nothing to settle the nerves fraying within him. Hearing you cry, hearing you beg for him to come get you scared him more than he cared to admit. Really, he was rather proud of himself for keeping as level headed as he did, even after he saw the tear stains on your cheeks.
It didn’t take long to coax what happened out of you, in fact, it nearly erupted out of you. That fiance of yours had proved to be less honest than he liked to paint himself as, and as the two of you sat on that park bench in the middle of the night you gave him every excruciating detail. How he had been acting strange for a few months, how he used to show you off and then suddenly wanted to keep you locked away. A part of you knew what was really happening, and yet you told yourself you were crazy until you had walked in on your fiance fucking his mistress in your shared bed.
“Four fucking years, John,” you said, trying not to grit your teeth too hard that they cracked. “Four years of being with this man just for him to do that? He moved me into his flat, wanted me to quit my job because he said he wanted to take care of me. I have nothing. I don’t have my own place, I hardly have my own money, I was an idiot and gave up everything because he asked me to and I was stupid enough to believe him.”
By that point in your rant your knees were bouncing so fast your entire body vibrated. Terrified you’d disintegrate in front of him, John reached a careful hand out and brushed it against your shoulder. Though you didn’t say anything about it, or even look at him differently, your muscles seemed to relax some.
“I could’ve been great,” you continued as your voice began to break. “I was able to go to any school in this country, I got my degree, I could’ve kept at work and been… something. And I didn’t need to. Not really. There was never anything I was trying to prove to anyone. I could’ve had a few kids with that white picket fence and stayed home to care for them. I would’ve been completely happy living that trophy wife life if it meant I was loved. But I wasn’t. I’m not, and that fucking hurts because I know I’m worth so much more than this.”
More tears fell from your eyes after that, and it didn’t take much prompting from John before you crumbled against his side. When was the last time someone had held you like that? Wrapped their arms around you and held you close? When was the last time someone comforted you and actually meant it and not just in some sort of twisted expectation of devotion? Something in you told you that you should have felt shame for blatantly sobbing on a man in such a public space at an hour like that. Another part of you didn’t really care.
It took a lot of convincing to get you to stay at his place. Eyes refusing to look at him when you gave him excuse after excuse, it was obvious that you didn’t want to burden him anymore than you already had. So you told him you could stay with your mom, or even get a hotel if that wouldn’t work, but John simply wouldn’t hear it.
Eventually you were in the living room of his house. An actual house. Not an apartment or flat in the city, but something kind and quaint in the higher end of town. He had a real lawn and backyard that was perfectly manicured, and everything on the inside of the house was much too perfect and clean. It was something straight out of the catalogs you’d see in magazines or on HGTV.
First order of business was a shower, and though it felt strange changing into John’s clothes, you would have done anything to wipe the stench of your cheating fiance off of you. And maybe it was because of the spite that boiled inside of you, but you found that you liked the way John’s clothes smelled significantly more than you ever liked your ex’s. Second was getting you food, and though you had told John you weren’t hungry, the scent of his buffalo chicken was too good to pass up.
It was near midnight by the time you went to bed, and John had made sure everything was set up for you in the guest room before he meandered back down to the kitchen to clean up. There was still plenty of work that needed to be finished that night back with the boys. He took comfort in knowing that you’d be safe in his house, at least, and well out of reach of that terrible excuse of a man.
When John finished cleaning things up in the kitchen, it took him a moment to notice the incessant buzzing sound that plagued the room. Like rattling glass, it made his ears quiver just listening to it, and he quickly scavenged the countertops until he found your phone resting on the island in the center of the room. Flashing lights illuminated the screen as your ex’s caller ID and photo popped up. He caught the tail end of the call, and the screen faded back to your lock screen where it claimed to have received 27 missed calls, as well as 84 unread text messages.
Where the fuck are you?
Answer your fucking phone.
Baby please.
Answer me.
Stop being a fucking bitch.
Goddamn skank.
Come on, honey it means nothing.
Are you seriously making this a big deal?
Come home before I drag you home.
I’m not fucking around.
You’re pissing me off.
Before leaving the house to head back to the nightclub, John swiped up your phone and hid it in his pocket, along with that god awful ring you didn’t care to wear anymore.
In the morning you woke up in a bed that wasn’t yours with clothes that didn’t fit you, yet you had never felt so comfortable in your entire life. It had been a long while since you last felt like you belonged; since you felt comfortable in your own skin. Still, you couldn’t stay there forever and you forced yourself up off of the mattress as you snuck your way to the living room. You were greeted by several large boxes that sat stacked neatly in the furthest corner of the room, and once again John was in the kitchen making food. He still wore the same clothes he had the night before, and they looked terribly disheveled, yet he still continued on anyway.
“Mornin’,” he greeted as he looked up from his pan where several eggs sizzled away. “Sleep alright?”
Still groggy, you approached the island where you lazily leaned against it. “Yeah. Looks like you didn’t get any, though.”
John chuckled, something tired yet still hearty at the same time. “Perceptive.”
“Always have been.”
John quickly finished up the eggs and began to dish out the food onto plates. While you waited, your fingers lazily ran over the counter top where they collided with your phone, and it took everything in you to hold back a sigh. Looking down at it, you pressed the home button where the screen lit up, expecting to see several messages from your ex, and yet there was nothing. You stood there perplexed and wondered if the man had really let you just run away from him, until you noticed something else missing.
“Have you seen my ring?” you questioned as John slid a plate of food your way.
“Your ex took it back,” John answered simply. He stood on the other side of the island for a moment before he turned around and started cleaning up the mess of ingredients and dishes that littered the counter. “I also managed to retrieve all your personal items. They’re stacked in the living room when you’re ready to look through them.”
Mouth open in surprise, you glanced back into the living room and eyed the stack of boxes before looking back at John with a raised eyebrow. “How… how’d you manage all that?”
Perhaps he should have hesitated before answering. Thought of something to say other than the truth. Instead, John didn’t miss a beat in answering you as he continued cleaning.
“He sent you a few messages last night and I saw his name pop up on your phone. Didn’t realize you were engaged to the mayor’s son,” he explained. “I have some contacts who were able to get me an audience with him. I figured it would be easier for me to grab your items than you doing it yourself. Save you the trouble, at least. He shouldn’t be bugging you again.”
For the longest time, you didn’t know what to say. There were a few glaringly obvious holes in his explanation, namely why there weren’t any notifications on your phone. If he had only glanced at it, they would have still been there, and yet they had been cleared. Then there was the fact your ex was too self centered to ever have an audience with anyone he didn’t actively seek out. Perhaps even stranger, you weren’t at all surprised. Maybe you were a little taken aback at everything he had done for you, but not at the methods he used to get it done. Because you had known John’s secret from the very beginning. After all, you had been the chief’s daughter.
“John,” you said, voice soft and even.
Drying his hands off on a small towel, he turned around to finally face you where he was surprised to find you smiling. And god, you were stunning, so much so that all he could do was stand there and wait for you to continue.
“I’m glad I ran into you at the flower shop,” you finished. “Thank you. For everything.”
It wasn’t what he expected you to say, and still he mimicked your smile, although it was much more tired than yours had been. Life was strange. Nothing had ever gone as planned in John’s life, and yet there was you. Through all the years and the shit and the struggles, you had found your way back into his life, and for some strange reason, he found himself hoping you’d stick around this time, no matter how much trouble you caused.
“Any time, darling.”
don't let me in with no intention to keep me
jesus christ, don't be kind to me
honey, don't feed me, i will come back
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valentine’s day with zerobaseone
gn reader, established relationship, fluff !! mentions of food, not proofread
jiwoong
- even after having been in a relationship with jiwoong for some time now, you still kick your feet and get all excited when you receive your yearly valentine’s surprise from him
- sends a box of chocolates and a bouquet of blue roses to your workplace in the middle of the day with a love letter in it (probably some cheesy love poem he racked his brain to come up with and feels very proud of)
- it will probably be something like “roses are red. my face is too. that only happens when i’m around you” written with crayons and decorated with silly childish stickers and doodles ,and you had to resist letting out the loudest laugh ever at that since you were still at work
other members under the cut!
zhanghao
- sorry but YOU have to ask him to be your valentine, not the other way around and you have to do it fast before anyone else (hanbin) snatches him away from you
- no but seriously he would’ve cleared out his entire schedule for that day just to spend it all with you going out just idk eating at some cute but overpriced café (don’t worry, he pays), shopping and just gossiping over some coffee
- ends the day with a night stroll at a park with your hands intertwined and swinging by your sides maybe feed some ducks you saw while chatting the night away and just giggling to each other about something silly. it was simple but meant so much to the both of you
hanbin
- this is so serious for him like no one takes valentine’s day as serious as him so he makes sure to give you princess treatment throughout the whole day
- you wake up to the sound of a grizzling pan and smelling the aroma of the breakfast he’s preparing for you and damn this man CAN cook. serves you a five course meal at 8 am in the morning with like heart-shaped pancakes and eggs like this man is not real (sorry i just love domestic hanbin)
- after breakfast, you two return to bed since you were still feeling sleepy. he cuddles you to sleep, your head buried in his chest and literally clinging onto him, him with his arms tightly wrapped around you in a comforting embrace, gently patting you to sleep as he leaves small pecks all around your face and he probably has even more stuff planned later in the day
matthew
- matthew biggest green flag. spent so long planning the perfect valentine’s date for you and surprised you with a romantic picnic at the beach. he even sets up a table and chairs for the both of you, made sure all the food was perfect
- i can envision him covering your eyes during the walk from the car to the beach then surprising you. pulls out your chair for you and pushes your hair behind your ear and when you ask why he’ll say, “just wanted to take a better look at your pretty face”
- makes you giggles at his jokes the whole time and at last, gives you a final surprise which was an adorable cake with ‘happy valentine’s day’ written on it with icing that he spent the majority of yesterday making for you (u have no idea how many times he had to redo it)
taerae
- he serenades you. that would be the most taerae thing to do like seriously. he would start planning since christmas, writing a whole love song for you, him writing and composing it for you all by himself
- he would be so nervous when the day arrives. he would take you out to a nice restaurant, surprising you with flowers and all, then when the both of you return home, he sits you down on the couch and takes out his guitar
- starts strumming and you’re like, “i don’t recognise this song?” and realises that he wrote it and it took everything in you to not start crying on the spot. serenades you with his honey-like sweet voice while looking into your eyes like a lovesick man, literally making heart eyes at you and smiling like an idiot
ricky
- sends you a text in the morning which reads, “morning, baby. happy valentine’s day. i reserved a table at xxx restaurant for us at 6 pm. i’ll pick you up at 5:30 pm. i love you.”
- the moment you receive that text you start giggling and kicking your feet while burying your face into your pillow, only ricky can make you feel this way.
- you dress up for him and the moment you see him, he’s leaning against his car in a button up with the first few buttons unbuttoned and a huge bouquet of flowers. holds your hand the whole time, during the ride and dinner, listens intently to all of your rambling during the whole of dinner and also pays !!! (bc he’s young and rich)
gyuvin
- rings your doorbell enthusiastically with flowers and gifts dressed in his best attire, fixing his hair every few seconds to make sure he looks perfect for you. shyly hands you the bouquet he arranged himself when you open the door
- he would drag you to a dog café for your date and he’s most likely even more excited about this than you, just looking at the bright grin on his face and the giggles he lets out while he plays with the puppies makes a smile appear on your face too
- would probably point at every dog and says it looks like you because it’s cute just like you. no but imagine you guys sharing a pasta together and accidentally recreating the lady and tramp scene omg
gunwook
- bowling date with gunwook omg okay his jaw will literally drop the moment he sees you arrive all dressed up like he thinks you’re drop dead gorgeous and won’t stop giggling and blushing every time he glances at you
- pays for everything and takes the chance to show up his skills in bowling. coolest guy ever just the way he confidently strikes the bowling pins with the bowling ball but gets so shy and blush when you cheer for him and compliment him
- and when you’re getting food together at a restaurant, he would not stop staring at you. his head propped up on his hand as he stares at you hopelessly, utterly lost in your eyes and down bad. type to wipe your mouth for you when you have something in the corner of your lips.
yujin
- your first valentine’s day together so he would be so anxious about it and shy. he would make sure everything goes smoothly and plans it all out like buying tickets to that movie you said you wanted to watch in advance and making reservations for a restaurant you mentioned you wanted to visit before (most likely the first time he ever made a reservation by himself in his lifetime)
- takes you to the movies and insists on paying for your popcorn and drinks. probably watching some cheesy romcom together and since it’s valentine’s day, you’re surrounded with couples which just makes him even shyer
- holds your hand and whispers silly comments about the movie in your ear throughout the movie. he couldn’t focus at all because you were right beside him
short little valentine’s headcanons that i rushed to make it on time 😓
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