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#Let me sit in my rocking chair and tell you what it was like Back In My Day
sugume · 3 months
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LESSONS IN CORRUPTION w/Gojo Satoru
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IN WHICH: Your teacher finally has his way with you at the end of senior year
( TW ): fem!Reader, dark & explicit content, mean and manipulative teacher!Gojo, Porn w/ no plot, corruption kink, power dynamics, virgin!reader, unprotected sex, cream pie, size difference, breeding kink, blood, fingering, age gap (reader is 19, Gojo late 20's), Gojo secretly records, half edited
Word count - › 1.6K
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“You know I love you right?” Satoru asks, cupping your face. 
“I love you too.” You smile up at him as he fingers your pussy. 
“Loved you ever since I laid eyes on you—ever since you walked in my class with that short skirt and those white knee-high socks. My innocent schoolgirl.” He leans down to kiss you on the rose-covered hotel bed.  
It was your graduation party last week, but he said couldn’t make it to your party at your parent’s house, said he had an important meeting, and RSVP no to your parents’ invitation but when you asked them, they looked at you incredulously and asked why they’d send invitations to your teachers. When you went to school for your last week and told this to Gojo he said he did get an invitation and your parents told you that so you wouldn’t get upset that he couldn’t make it. 
“Gotta surprise for you though.” Gojo smiles up at you from his chair. You’re sitting on his desk, feet resting on the armrest of your teacher’s chair. Gojo can see your panty-clad pussy from his position under you, but he doesn’t say anything. He knows you’d be embarrassed if you knew he could see your Hello Kitty panties.  
“Really? What is it is!” You set your salad down so he could have your full attention, you know he doesn’t like it when you focus on anything else--even if it’s something as simple as food. You think it’s romantic how much he needs your full attention. 
“Well since I couldn’t come to your party, I figured I should throw you another party, this time just us. It could be our special party.” 
“Oh my god, really?” You throw yourself in his lap, wrapping your arms around his neck. His cologne engulfs you. 
“Mhm, and guess what? It’s gonna be a sleepover party at that new fancy hotel that just opened downtown. You excited Princess?” Gojo wraps his arms around your waist, discreetly rubbing his semi on your pussy. 
“Super-duper excited! When is it? Please say soon!” You cheer, innocently bouncing in his lap. Your pussy clenching when you feel his cock rub down the length of your damped cunt. You hope he doesn’t notice. 
“This weekend schoolgirl, your parents approved n’ everything.” He informs you, holding you down on his now rock-solid cock.  
He couldn’t wait for this weekend.  
“Really?” 
“Really, but they told me they want you to tell them you’re staying at your best friend’s house,” you open your mouth to question why but his grip on your waist tightens and he looks down at you angrily. “Don’t question us y/n, you know your parents and I know what we’re doing. Were the adults, you’re just a child, understand?” 
“Yes, Sir.” You nod, not wanting to upset him when he’s always so good to you.  
“Good girl, now finish your lunch sweetheart—no stay on my lap I make sure you eat it right.” 
Gojo glances at the nightstand, ensuring his phone is set up before he looks back at you. Rose petals underneath, nipples puckered, and eyes crossed you look like an angel. His angel. 
“Sir! I-it feels weird down there—I think I gotta pee.” Your pussy clenches around his fingers. 
“Just let it happen, princess,” He curls his fingers into your g-spot, his other hand going to rub your clit. Your legs start to shake, and you try to clamp them shut but Satoru’s thighs keep them in place. “Don't—That’s it, let go, let it happen.” 
You never knew what it was like to orgasm, Satoru has only told you what it would be like, but this—this—you could get used to the way your pussy contracts on your teacher’s fingers and your mind goes blank. 
Your hands fly down to his wrists once it’s over, suddenly overwhelmed. 
“S’too much ‘Toru, please no more!” You cry out, another mini orgasm washing over you.  
“Gotta prep you—get you wet enough for my cock sweet girl,” he takes his fingers out of your cunt, and your juices following in suit. “Think you’re ready?” 
“Mhm.” You look up at him like he hung the moon and stars. Right now, if he told you he did—you’d believe him. 
He brings his wet fingers to your mouth, and instinctively you open your mouth. He shoves them in. 
“Can’t wait to see this small pussy take a dick too big, too old for ‘er.” He groans at the thought, pulling his now clean fingers out of your mouth to pull his boxers off.  
You gasp when you see it jump out. It’s huge, the tip is an angry shade of red, and his balls look ready to explode any second. You don’t think with all the prep in the world you could take it. 
“It’s too big, Sir.” you whimper, shyly backing away from him.  
“Don’t run away from me y/n, how many lessons does it take for you to get ‘Don’t question your elders’ through that little brain of yours,” he pulls you back, slapping your pussy. “C’mon now, didn’t you say you loved me?” He pouts, looking down at you with puppy eyes. Your heart clenches. 
“Course I love you—I can take it. I promise.” You grab his face, the one you’ve spent the last semester admiring from afar, and kiss him the way he taught you. 
“Yea?” 
“Mhm.” You lay back down and wrap your legs around his hips. 
He grabs his cock, the head soaked with your juices, and slowly pushes it in. You gasp from the sudden intrusion. His fingers did nothing to prepare you for his girthy cock. He pulls out again before pushing in, this time a few more inches. He repeats this movement until you're filled to the brim. He looks down and chuckles. Only two-thirds of his cock is in your too-small pussy. Blood trickles out the side of your pussy. 
“Hurts.” You cry. He looks up to see thick tears flowing down your cheeks. 
He thinks about comforting you, but he can’t get his mind off your tight pussy. He’s too worried about not cumming prematurely than comforting you.  
“Shh, it’ll feel better soon honey, just lay there and take it.” He starts to move in and out of your cunt. Using your blood as extra lube. 
You claw at his back from the overwhelming feeling of your pussy being stretched. Satoru grunts above you, sucking hickeys all over your breast. After the ninth thrust, you start to moan, the pain quickly turning into pleasure. 
“Sir! Feels s’good.” You moan.  
“Your cunt feels surreal princess, never felt anything like this, think I might need to fuck my students more.” He says into your neck, speeding up when his balls start to clench and ache with the need to release. 
Suddenly, you’re overcome with a surge of jealousy, the thought of him fucking the other girls when you leave for college, teaching them how to kiss, and letting them sit on his lap and eat lunch every day makes you want to cry and scream and the same time. He’s yours! He doesn’t get to fuck anyone else, nobody else should be bleeding on his cock and cumming on his fingers.  
“S’not fair! You’re mine, only mine!” You wrap your legs around his hips, pulling him impossibly closer to you, in you. 
“Then prove it little girl, show me that I belong to you.” He shoves his lips on your pouting ones. 
You throw your arms around his neck and buck into his hips, determined to show him that he only needs you. That you’re enough to satisfy all his needs. 
“Fuck, ‘m gonna cum deep in this cunny. Gonna fill you up—watch you get full with my baby and have to drop out of college before you even finish the first semester!” His thrusts turn sloppy, bruising your swollen cunt. 
“Yes, give me your baby Sir, please!” You moan, suddenly thinking about a life with him and a baby you two 've created. You’ve never felt so empty. 
“Please, please, need ‘ur baby s’bad!” You slur, legs tightening around his waist. 
“‘M cummin’ schoolgirl, ‘m fucking my baby into your too-small cunt.” Satoru groans, his balls contracting as he shoots his load into your womb. 
The sensation of being filled causes you to orgasm again, the world going blank for a few seconds.  
“Shit!” Satoru lays over top of you, the weight of him making you wheeze. You lay there silently for a few minutes, unable to form a coherent thought. 
“W-was that good?” you question when your mind clears, thinking back to what he said about fucking other girls. 
“Of course it was princess, best I’ve ever had.” He reassures all the while his mind is racing, thinking ‘bout the new girl that just transferred to your school. He kisses you as he places a bet with himself ‘How long would it take to get her breed full of his child too.’ 
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deadsetobsessions · 3 months
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It takes a lot to break a ghost. After all, even death didn’t keep them down for long, not in any way that mattered.
There is, however, a sure fire way to utterly crush a ghost’s core without even touching it.
Find their grave, and defile it.
It is the height of cruelty. It is the ultimate act of disrespect. It is violation, of the deepest kind, an act that can never, ever be allowed to go unpunished.
As Danny stared at the remains of the toppled over rock tower that Tucker and Sam had made for him all those years ago, to honor his death, he wasn’t sure if he could survive this.
——
Please.
Zatanna looked around. The magician knew better than to write off the sound as a trick of her mind.
You have to help him. Please. He’s just a child.
“Who? What’s wrong?” Zatanna asked, heart aching for the grieving whispers of the young voice.
My brother. His grave. It’s been destroyed. Please.
Zatanna’s hair stood on ends. “What’s his name? Where is it?”
Amity Park. His name is Phantom. Please. Hurry.
Her heart skipped a beat. Phantom. The name of the Infinite Realm’s Champion, the future king.
“Shit. I’m on my way. Can you lead me there?”
I can’t. I won’t be here for much longer. Tell him Jazz sent you. Please. Help him. Help him.
“I will.”
When Zatanna portals out of her dressing room, she catches a flash of red hair.
——
“CONSTANTINE!”
“Gah! Zatanna?” John Constantine fell out of his chair, legs slipping from their place propped onto the table.
“Emergency! Infinite Realms level. Someone destroyed Phantom’s grave.”
Constantine scrambled upwards, pulling on his coat as his mind all but bleated like a highland goat at the sound of “Infinite Realms” and “Phantom’s grave.” Destroying a ghost’s grave might destroy the ghost, but if they survive the initial splintering, right before their final death, they’ll explode in a ball of fury. Normally, it would be slightly less of a problem. Normally, it wouldn’t be the most powerful ghost in the Infinite Realms. Normally, this wouldn’t happen. Normally, even if it did, it wouldn’t risk a war none of the universes would win. The Infinite Realms loves prince Phantom. Their grief over this… even if he survives, the consequences would be unimaginable.
“You contact the League. I have to go fix this, right now.”
John doesn’t bother going for his hottle, because he unfortunately needed to do this sober.
“Go, go!”
——
Danny doesn’t turn even as he hears the crunch of grass blades. He sits, staring blankly at what used to be his grave marker.
“Hi, there,” it’s a woman. She sounds sad. Danny understands, because all he feels is a whistling hole where his heart used to be. “Are you Phantom?”
Danny sighs, ice crackling at his lungs. He knows, when this is over, he’ll find it in himself to rage. If he doesn’t shatter from this, he knows he’ll take Amity out. Perhaps he’d spare this one. It’s been a long time since anyone bothered visiting or even knew about his grave.
“Your highness…your sister sent me. Jazz?”
That got Danny’s attention. Glowing green eyes peeked from the curled ball of ghost to stare Zatanna down.
She swallowed.
“She… had red hair?”
“Why are you here?” Why did she send you? He doesn’t say. Zatanna seems to understand anyways.
“To help. Please, will you let me help?”
Danny looks down at the ice freezing her feet to the ground and thinks of the kind set of her eyes, the steel backing her spine, the carefully nonthreatening posture. Yes, Jazz would send this kind of person to help him.
The ice melts.
“Thank you.”
Danny watches as she approaches his destroyed grave. She glances back for his permission. He shrugs. It’s destroyed. Nothing would ever bring it back.
And then, he was proven wrong.
Zatanna’s eyes glow, and the stones began melding itself back together- no, it was reversing the damage and zooming back to its proper place.
“Oh.”
The damage to his core was still there. But… he won’t kill this one at all.
Or her friends, who stand at the edge of the clearing with the soul-torn one standing at the helm.
“Is this… alright, your highness?”
Danny stares at Zatanna. His voice is hoarse but… but it’s not on the verge of insanity anymore.
“Do you always come to graves without an offering?”
He knows he’s being rude. He’s past the point of caring. Zatanna’s response is to pull a bouquet of lilies from behind her back.
——
Phantom’s face is so young, and it’s even younger when he smiles.
“Not always,” Zatanna replies, rolling her eyes. But when she settles the flowers down, they’re gently placed.
“Can you magic clovers around it?” Phantom asks, that note of painful hope cracking her own heart. She wonders how old he was when he died.
“Of course.”
A field of clovers surrounds the rock tower, and Zatanna adds four layers of heavy wards around the area when she grows them. Phantom notices, and looks up at her with… trust.
“I am Zatanna. Your sister, Jazz, sent me.”
“Okay. You can call me Phantom.”
——
“I want their heads.” Danny says.
“We don’t kill.”
“Then hand them over to us, for they have hurt the Great One. They will answer for their crimes.” Frostbite settles a hand on Danny’s shoulder.
“Alright.”
“Constantine.”
Constantine somehow manages to drag Batman away to hiss in his ears.
“Shit in a hole, Batsy, I’m not fucking with the Infinite Realms. My demons won’t fuck with the Infinite Realms. Destroying a ghost’s grave is an act of war, and an act of complete violation, and we’re lucky Phantom liked Zee enough not to completely bring ruin to our universe. So shut up, and get the bastards that did this.”
“Hm.”
——
Zatanna sits in the visitors chair, Batman’s and Constantine’s disgruntled selves standing behind her.
“How old are you, Phantom?”
“Hm?” The future King looks exhausted, understandably. “Oh, sixteen.”
“You’re… sixteen? That’s how old you look, right?”
She’s hoping that he’s older, that he’s a millennia and a half years old. Because if he wasn’t, whoever broke Phantom’s grave, broke the grave of a child.
“No, I’m sixteen. My body looks fourteen. I died when I was fourteen.”
Constantine swears.
Batman straightens and walks out, fists clenched.
Zatanna eases the hum of hunting magic at her finger tips and smiles at Phantom until he sleeps.
Then, she gets up, and hunts.
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halcyone-of-the-sea · 5 months
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Choke On The Sun
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PAIRING: John Price x F!Reader
SYNOPSIS: You'd known John ever since the Academy, and even after losing touch, the love you had for one another was never gone. Like a snake, it had stayed hidden in unseen places. But it was always there.
WORDCOUNT: 13.8k
WARNINGS: Blood, intense gore, torture, detailed descriptions of torture i.e. electrocution, loss of a finger, gunshot wounds, knife wounds, discussion of torture, canon-typical violence, death, near-death experiences, guns, weapons, abductions, betrayals, intended for mature audiences, happy ending, etc.
*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*
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You remember a story you’d been told when you were a rookie—fresh off the cut and eager-eyed with far fewer scars. A more of a glass-half-full type of outlook on life, unknowing of what you’d experience during your years with the SAS: what choices you would have to make.
It went something like this. 
There was a herd of deer that had jumped over the side of a bridge. On either end of that bridge, there were two trucks with their high beams on—not moving but sitting there; the deer got pressured. Spooked. One by one they just…hopped over and died on the rocks below—no noise above the breaking of bone and the clatter of antlers shattering to pieces. 
You have to wonder if it was the fault of the first one who had jumped over for leading the rest to a quick end, or the drivers of the cars just trying to get where they needed to go; ignorant of the way they’d been ogling to see the panic in wide, black eyes. Either way, a whole herd of ten met their fate and left their bodies to feed the larvae and the birds. 
The story had been told over drinks at a pub, at the time you’d taken an interest in it with no more than a slow comment of ‘poor things’ before you’d brought your glass to your lips. You don't know why you’re thinking about it now. 
The timing could have been more opportune.
You send a bullet into the man’s kneecap, hearing the bone disintegrate and the flesh open like a flower. His scream follows, loud and hoarse—sobbing trapped behind a bitten tongue that drips blood down his chin. 
Hand snapping up, you grasp the lower half of his face with a grunt, head shoving itself forward until you lock onto fluttering eyes and get consumed by a whining sob.
“I asked you a question,” you lick your lips, tasting sweat as it slithers down your skin. Your voice is slow and even, grip tight. With a shove, you push back the man’s face, wrist limp with the Basilisk as you wipe at your nose with it, unblinking, when you get to your full height. 
The room wasn’t anything different from a million other black sites you’d been to. A single chair where your mark sits tied up, a desk that had been pushed to the wall, and a single door placed into the cracking foundations of a concrete wall. No windows. No vents. 
Hotter than hell, too, and that place was something you were acutely in tune with. 
“Anthony,” you say, waving your free hand as the scent of blood gets stronger, pools of it already on the hard floor. “I’m gonna call you Tony, alright?” 
Tony yells, wrenching his arms against the zip-ties and screaming until his voice is hoarse. 
“Damn you! I told you I don’t know anything!” He sobs. “My leg—I can’t feel my leg, oh, God it hurts.”
You frown, glancing at the door. 
“Stop lying to me,” you look back, eyes unblinking in the low light. “You still have one left—tell me where your buyer is and I let you keep the ability to walk upright with a cane.” 
“I don’t know his name—!”
“I don’t need a name, Tony,” you growl, irritated. “I need a location.”
“Copenhagen!” He wails, body spasming and hair dancing atop his head. “The warehouse is in Copenhagen, please, that’s all I know!”
You blink. 
“Denmark?” You mutter, brows furrowing. 
“Fuck!” Tony screams long, his skull tilting forward as he releases his guts to the floor through quick gasps. Backing up a step to stay out of the spray, you watch him silently; thinking. The flood of the man’s crimson fluids ripples. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” 
“Denmark,” grumbling to yourself once more, you shake your head and sigh aggressively. “Of course.” 
Without another glance, you turn and exit the room, pushing your Basilisk into its holster as the gear on your chest clinks lightly like the sound of rain hitting a metal roof. The door closes behind you, voice calling to one of the guards as he looks up quickly. His face is pale. Tony’s wails still echo out; water filling a bucket. 
“Get a medic,” is what you settle with—slipping past on a fleet foot and new intel to pass on to Laswell. She’ll be intrigued, no doubt. 
One step closer, your mind hisses to you. Just a little bit longer.
It’s too late to gain a conscious now.
Emmett Kinsman had been dodging you for years—dodging the Task Force—but with one of his suppliers giving away a location you’d been unable to pin, there was hope for a swift resolution to this mess. 
The radio on your chest sizzles to life.
“Hart, sit-rep. How’s it lookin’ on the black site.” Kate’s American accent leaks into the earpiece attached to you, the cord looping the back of your neck and inserted into the shell; a device of black metal and plastic. 
“I have a location for Kinsman. Copenhagen,” you ease out, moving a finger to the earpiece and pressing. Glancing at the rows and rows of doors in this endless hallway of dark smoke and obsidian mirrors—you’re eager to get your boots to the ground. Your other hand snatches at the rag swinging from your belt, taking it out and rubbing at your face with it until the stain of oil and flecks of blood smear like frosting on a cake. “Where are the boys? I need to be wheels-up to meet them ASAP.”
“Coming to you.”  
“They’re here?” Your face twists as the words settle in, confused. “Why? Thought they were tracking another lead in Romania.” 
Kate’s voice is smooth in your ear, moving like water as you turn a corner, stuffing your rag back into your belt. 
“Are you surprised?” The woman jokes in a monotone; you’d only taken it as such because you knew her dry state of humor. “Really, Hart, you know he can’t stop until you’re back at his side. I was going to tell you sooner, but you were…occupied.” 
Your feet pause for a moment at the beginning of her sentence, instinctual heat moving the length of your neck until you clench your jaw and continue onward at a slightly slower pace—eyes narrowed on the floor ahead of you. 
“It isn’t like that, Kate,” you mutter. A low hum echoes the line and you fight a scowl as a group of soldiers walk past. Itching at your forearm, you shake your head. “John just likes having everyone together on missions like these. If it had been different, I’m sure he would have told me to fly back to them regardless of the intel. We’re tight on time.” 
“I’ve known you both for more years than I can remember,” Laswell sighs. “Don’t try that with me, Captain.” You frown, clicking your tongue. “They’ll be arriving on the tarmac—get ready for a quick exit. We need Kinsman by month’s end.” 
“Copy,” you utter, removing your hand from the earpiece and glaring ahead of you. A still-air silence envelopes the hallway, the only sound of your boots to the concrete and the reverberation that booms after. 
It was so quiet here. 
John Price—Captain Price—and yourself had a… complicated history. You’d joined up together; gotten through SAS selection neck-and-neck until time and its grubby fingers had forced your lives in different directions. Like two vines of reaching ivy, it had only been three years ago that you’d seen the other again, though you’d heard stories as you’re sure he had about you. 
Hart: not the kind that beats but the kind that bleats, you had to explain to most—you weren’t unknown to the darker side of the job and the people that specialized in it. Your file was stretched with so much black ink that when you’d gotten the call on your phone, an unknown number, you’d recognized the gruff voice behind it and the first question you’d asked was how the hell he’d gotten clearance to track you down. 
“No hello, then, Hart?”
“Not one for pleasantries, John. Explain. Quickly.”
“Business as always.” He’s wasted no time, voice going to a low grumble over the line that day. “Laswell took in a favor. You’ve been busy, Love…Room for one more joint-Op?”
It hadn’t panned out to only ‘one more joint-Op’. 
After the mission was over, it had been raining on base. The sky had shed tears from clouds deeper than the gray shades of your gear, splattering packed dirt and concrete. Above your head, the thin overhang off of the armory door had spared you some of it, but when the wind had shifted your clothes absorbed specks of water like spots on a fawn. Your eyes had been looking out—expression open. 
When the man exited the building and came up beside you, you both didn’t speak for a long time. You had been aware of his form, devoid of vest and gear, while yours was still layered with it to the utmost degree. You’d expected to leave that night—a good old-fashioned Irish Goodbye with a C-17 already waiting for you to board. To carry you off to another hellish deed done with ravaging cruelty for the sake of people who would never even know you existed.
The storm had stopped you…or, maybe something else had.
“Good to see you again, Hart,” John had stated, still not looking over at you as his arms had crossed, feet situating themselves. “Been too long.”
You had stayed silent—watching. The drain across the street was flooded. Sticks and leaves stuck at the drain as a whirlpool formed; only dangerous to bugs and the bits of garbage blown in by the wind. 
Only after the wind shifts again did you speak.
“And what has John Price been up to in that time?” Your eyes had slid to stare, piercing in the low illumination of the armory’s outside light. 
A huff of a chuckle, the one you’d remembered in the days of selection—coated in mud from crawling through man-made trenches and a sharp smirk of a snap when the barbed wire had grazed his back. 
There were too many stories here. Too many. So many it became impossible to wonder what could have been and what couldn’t—all that existed were the little moments of fondness.
The two of you were nothing else but souls long past redemption; stuck on that knife’s edge and waiting for the hand to shake and send you through it. 
You are made of memories. 
“That’s a story told over bourbon,” John’s lips had flickered, and you’d blinked slowly, head tilting. “Not anything worth reliving, yeah?” 
“Everything is relivable, Captain. You just need to find a reason as to why.” 
The man had nodded his head your way, conceding with his blank eyes ahead to the rain. A rumble of distant thunder had flown out, making your ears twitch. You couldn’t stop watching him now that you had the chance—the brunette strands; the fatigues, and that accent. The muscle you don’t remember him having in that specific place all those years ago. The wrinkles on his forehead from age and stress are shown in yours as a mirror. 
Tall; formidable. 
There was a tension in the air that you chose not to dwell on—the same that had been brewing for as long as you’d known him. 
“I want you to join up with me,” the sudden comment had made your body tense, eyes snapping away. In your pockets, your fingers twitch with surprise. 
“Join?”
“Thought I’d catch you before you disappeared again, yeah?” A sheen of slight embarrassment is over your skin. John chuckles again. “Extend a formal offer—Laswell was the one who suggested it.”
“Well,” you’d huffed, licking your lips. “Now I’m surely not accepting.” 
“Let me fuckin’ finish, Love,” John’s lips were pulled in a slight smirk—beard shifting. A pause as the wind whips again, shaking the trees before he grunts. “One-Four-One. My Task Force. Been thinking I’d need someone like you, but I knew you’d never agree to it.”
“Oh?” Your brow raises. 
“Not bloody stupid.” He sighs. “Thought I’d ask anyway. Give you a proper goodbye if you weren’t so keen on handing it out.”
“I don’t like goodbyes,” you mutter, hearing John’s feet shift—his boots scraping. 
“I know.” It’s low and even—not a prod or a dig. An observation. 
A hand is moved out to you, hovering. 
There isn’t any need for words when you glance down at it, and then up at him; staring into those blue eyes that so perfectly illustrate the hues of a roaring river, hidden away in the confines of a verdant forest.
A slow smile pulls at your lips, and you see the corner of the man’s eyes soften.
“Knew I’d get one out of you again,” he mutters as you slip your hand into his, a firm and all-encompassing heat of flesh and care. 
“Don’t get used to it, John.” Shaking his hand, you smirk, legs shifting. 
“Never,” he chuffs, squeezing your limb. 
You don’t know why you stayed under that overhang with him that night. You don’t think you’ll ever be able to explain it as you had looked up and seen the C-17 fly off without you in its cargo hold, hands resting on your vest collar and blue eyes watching you, slightly narrowed. 
You never even verbally told him you were sticking around…it had happened like a stray cat under the porch of your childhood home; taken in and cared for. Just the same, John never mentioned it beyond paperwork. 
Shaking your head, you blink back to the black site, turning that last corner and making it to one of the exits. Pushing the metal-reinforced door open, you shift outside and move a hand to cover the glare of the setting sun from your eyes, grunting. 
Laswell’s voice peaks back in as you jog toward the far-off body of a whirling plane, three figures just managing to walk down the ramp. 
“Hart? It’s Laswell.”
“Copy,” you say, knees taking the brunt of the heavy items you carry in pouches and have strapped to your form. “What is it?” 
“The Task Force is a go for Denmark—when you get there, I need everyone searching; we can’t lose him again.”
“Affirm. I’m on it, Kate.” You breathe. “John and I’ll get him. It’s personal for us, you know that.”
“That I do. Make sure to keep your heads on with this, Hart. Out.”
You lick your lips, nodding even if she can’t see you. 
Slowing as you near the plane, friendly smiles spark up from the two Sergeants. Gaz comes over, grasping at your shoulder and speaking above the engine behind him. 
“Ma’am! Good to have you back.” Soap chuckles, tilting his head your way as you grasp Kyle’s forearm—squeezing in greeting with a twinkle in your eye.
“Surprised to see us?” The Scot calls. 
You scoff. “Laswell gave you up.”
“Damn,” Kyle moves back, fixing the cap atop his head and glancing back at his fellow Sergeant. Simon nods from behind the two to which you respond in like. “She bloody betrayed us.” 
“Not as much as Kinsman,” the mood sours; lips thinning as you speak firmly. “Where’s John?” 
“Right here,” the man in question comes down the ramp, blue eyes meet yours. A second of inspection passes, eyes from both parties flickering up and down forms for any mistreatment—any ailments. “Kate already told me. We’re leaving now that we have you.”
Bumping Simon’s fist with yours as you pass him, you ascend the ramp, Soap muttering under his breath about the flight time from behind. 
Standing beside John, you pause like a bird, eyes half narrowed. “You didn’t have to pick me up, you know? I could have gotten another plane.”
The man the same rank as you hums, making sure the men are all inside and taking one last look out to the black site, eyes missing nothing down to the concrete structure to the lights that will soon illuminate the pure nothingness of the fields of this area.
“Wait time would have put us back.” Tiny eyes blink, a hand coming up to rest on his collar as his face shifts to you. “You good?”
“Always,” you mutter without hesitation. “Nothing from Romania, then?”
He grumbles, clenching his jaw and taking in your words. “Negative.”
A silence settles in which you quirk your brow—a small flicker of a smirk makes him turn away and stalk back into the hull, grunting in annoyance. You follow on silent feet. 
“That’s it? It must have been horrible, then. Care to explain?” 
“Get in your seat, Captain.” 
You hold back a low chuckle, walking beside him until you both come to the back of the plane—easing back into the hard plastic, you huff as you clip in your seatbelt. 
It’s all relative silence until the large metal beast is in the air; everyone's bodies shifting as the floor evens out. John and you take long breaths and, feeling the occasional jostle of the plane, you occupy yourself by picking at the dried blood all over your hands as the flight begins—Tony’s blood. 
Blue eyes blink down at you, watching from the side.
“He know anything important?” You stifle a yawn on your lips, one hand coming up to cover the open-jawed expression of tiredness. 
Glancing, you shrug with a slow response of, “Only a location. Even then I don’t know if it’ll pan out like we want it to, John.”
Everyone had been hoping for more, but they also knew that you were the best at interrogations and information retrieval. If you had called it that the man only knew a city and nothing else, John wasn’t one to question you. He knew better. 
A large hand shifts to grasp your right bloody one, picking it up and bringing it to his lap. You let him do it without protest, shoulders loosening at the roughness of his calluses moving across yours until the familiar ritual begins to take part like a black mass. 
Fingers twitching, you hear a hum as John takes out a rag from his pocket, opening it with a flick of his wrist. Moments later, the water bottle on the seat next to him is taken and the droplets that are left are scattered like rain over the fabric until they absorb. 
“All dirty, Love,” he grumbles as your eyes soften, watching him trace the lines of your palm with the wet rag—dabbing away the beads of red. Watching, you listen as he continues. “We’ll figure it out, eh?”
Blue locks with you, holding your gaze until the permanent set of his brows slowly loosens. “We will,” he reaffirms firmly.
“...I should have shot him when I had the chance,” you whisper to John, words low and tone nothing more than a mouse’s murmur; a small pebble hitting the ground. “Don’t lie and say it wasn’t my fault.”
“You’re going to fucking ruin yourself with that, Hart.” He advises, his cleaning of blood coming to a slow halt. “You did what you thought was best,” John leans in closer, not blinking as you try to move your head away with a half-hidden scoff. A damp hand grabs lightly at your chin, shifting it back as you blink in mild shock into John’s face. He doesn’t falter. “It’s all any of us can do, yeah?” 
As if it were nothing, he lets you go and shifts his focus back to cleaning your hand. You watch for a long moment, oblivious to the elbows hitting sides from farther down the hull, quick glances tossed between Sergeants and a Lieutenant who quirks a brow under his mask, huffing a sound in his throat.
“If I had,” you force back the stutter in your voice. “More people would still be alive.”
“Maybe,” John tilts his head, the rag brushing the length of your fingers. “Maybe not. We don’t know that, do we? No use wasting our breath talking about it then. What matters, Hart, is how we fix this.”
You sigh, repressing a shiver as his thumb brushes scars and blemishes, moving like moss over stone. 
“And we don’t leave our bloody problems for the next poor bastard, do we?” You puff air from your nose, shaking your head at the smirked comment. You watch John’s beard move with it—taking in the crinkling of his eyes and the way his knee hits yours. 
“Wonderful pep-talk, Captain.” You lean your head back against the netted sides of the aircraft, letting your eyes flutter shut; oblivious to the way he watches you. “The service is lost on you—therapist is right up your alley.”
“Fuck’s sake,” John scoffs. “I’d sooner go back to the academy than that.” 
“The food was utter shite, wasn’t it?” You agree.
“No need to bring it up,” John comments lowly, amusement thick in his words. 
You don’t know when you fell asleep, but you do know that the pressure around your limb stayed there for a long while—the rag moving over every sliver of skin until only the base was left behind; like a painter creating an ocean scene, shrouded in mist, every bit of red was gone. 
Your dreams are plagued by Emmett Kinsman. His sharp face; his sly eyes and his knack for being undetected.
He’d been a part of your and John’s class in the Royal Military Academy—when all was done, he’d graduated and begun to serve in the 22nd SAS Regiment just as the both of you had. There was never much interaction there, beyond shared drinks and a few good words, a single operation, but the bonds of brotherhood run deep. If given the chance over any deployment or service, John or yourself would have given your lives for him—for the boy you’d bled and persevered with to a point of utter loyalty akin to beasts; unrestrained by any threat of violence, sharp attitude, or past faults.
And in the end, he’d thrown that all away to get into bed with terrorists. 
Location: London, England
Time: 1718
Operation: ‘Purple Cloth’
Your eyes rest behind the glass of the bookstore, gazing out over the street from the second floor with a level of new-found skill and a surety in yourself. Fresh off the cut, you aren’t overly eager for this, but you’re assured in your abilities. 
There can be no failure.
Emmett is down below, sitting at a café and sipping tea as John is stationed at a building farther down the street; waiting. Another man, directly relaying information to Emmett, is at the café as well, sitting in the corner reading a newspaper and facing the individual you’re supposed to follow. Only the four of you for this, and you’re not overly familiar with half of them. John was your only shining grace. 
“Target’s getting the bill,” you shift your head into the collar of your shirt, muttering. “He’ll move soon.”
“He carrying?” John’s voice slithers in, a soft murmur. 
You stare, expression lax at the large body that shifts and stands with a tight shirt on, waving off the barista when she tells him to have a good day. “If I had to guess? Negative. Nothing big—no bulge at his spine. At the very opposite end, I’d say an X13 could be concealed and accessed via a slit in the pant’s pocket and in a holster at his thigh. They’re baggy enough for it, but the draw time’ll be longer. Drug runners are sloppy.”
John grunts, and you address Emmett. “How are we doing, Mate?” 
A smooth, suave, tone moves into your ear. “Not too bad, Sweet Thing. Else, I'd be better if you were sharing a drink with me before I disappear.”
“Only in your imagination, Kinsman,” John interrupts, unimpressed drawl taking your attention. “Keep on it.” 
“I swear I rank the same as you, Price. Where do you get off ordering me around like your dog?” The comment is so easily dismissed as a joke between comrades that there’s no hostility there.
“Since I was given oversight,” the amusement is easily taken in John’s voice. “I’m the one keeping your arse alive, eh?” 
The other addition to your team speaks up, a voice that in the future you’ve already long forgotten. He says to cut the chatter, and you have to agree. 
Emmett and the target are nearing an alley. 
“I’m heading down,” you utter, already turning and heading to the stairs, swiftly moving down them and exiting the building. 
“Copy,” John’s voice fizzles the line. “I’ll head them off.”
“Emmett,” you move to link up with the fourth member of the team as he joins at your side, both of you sharking a glance and a jerk of your heads. “Keep him away from civilians. We can’t deal with casualties in this populated of an area.”
“He won’t have a chance to shoot them,” the comment makes your brows furrow, the tone not a cocky gloat but rather...quiet. A moment of silence wafts out. “What in the bloody hell is that supposed to mean, Kinsman?” You frown tightly, your gut swirling with something unidentifiable. The X12 in the back of your baggy sweatshirt is heavy—suddenly ten times more so. 
In the corner of your eye, you see John far across the way shift, leaning before on a trash can, now standing upright. You swear you lock eyes with him, both gifted in all sense when it comes to war. Perhaps it was ingrained into both of your DNA—a knowledge of all things deadly; of threats unseen. Some primal and horrible understanding spanning back to when man had first raised a fist to another. 
“Oi,” your voice pushes. “What does that mean?” Feet pivoting, you move closer to the alley where the light shade of hair disappears. 
The line is silent. 
Silent before a loud gunshot rings.
Birds scatter, and you instinctively duck down, hand snapping to your service weapon as your eyes go wide. Head snapping about, you dash to the alley opening above the screaming; pushing past fleeing people.
“Hart!” 
“He’s in the alley!” 
“Do not engage until I get there, do you hear me?!” You’re already at the entrance, X12 ahead of you, and the safety flicked off with a heavy finger. “Hart!”
The body of your mark is on the ground—a bullet in the back of his skull. 
“Fuck!” You shout, feet slapping the concrete as you zoom past. “Price—target’s down, Emmett shot him in the damn head, on his tail now.”
“Fucking hell.” The man is growling out at you, voice heated.
Your eyes snap this way and that, weapon at the ready as you take a sharp turn. At the very end of the opening, you see him. 
Kinsman slips his service weapon back into the base of his spine, pulling at his shirt to cover the grip as a mass of the crowd is just behind him. He rushes quickly on long legs. 
“Emmett!” Your voice makes him freeze. There’s a long pause before anything is spoken; you have your sights trained—a perfect line-up to the roundness of his skull. 
“I had hoped to be fast enough,” the man tells you, head tilting to the side, “but I should have known you’d move head-long into danger without backup.”
“Hart,” John’s voice nearly startles you from the line. “Sitrep, now!”
“Why would you do that, Emmett?”
“There’s more to this than being pawns, Hart,” Kinsman growls at you. “I play my game right, I always come on top. I needed to earn their trust; our target had a price on his head and no one else could get as close as me. Well,” he pauses, “us.”
“I’m taking you in,” you grit your teeth, hands tight on the gun. You don’t even want to think about what he means by ‘their’ or his ‘game’. It was always word puzzles with this man—one second you had the right piece, and the next the entire picture had changed like sand in the waves of a tide.
“Are you really that torn up about a drug runner?” A scoff makes you hold back a snarl, but your resolve is shaking. This was a man you had trusted—now fast can something that was forged with steel break?
“He was just some filthy nobody, Hart.” Emmett starts walking into the crowd ahead of him, and in your mind you know if you take that shot you run the risk of shooting an innocent civilian. “I’ll be more than a nobody. Or a grunt soldier. People are going to know me.” 
Bodies flee quickly—screams. Mothers, children, husbands.
Kinsman smirks, and as your finger tightens on the trigger, he’s already swallowed by the hoard. 
“I’ll be seeing you.”
John and you sit in the safehouse, for a moment, surrounded by quiet and the smell of hot tea. One week in Denmark, and you have no leads. The other three are away, sleeping in the rooms down the hallway. 
“You’re still thinking about him,” John speaks up, eyes on you. It’s blunt, but that was just how he was. 
You peek your eyes open slowly, your body slouching in the chair and feet outstretched under the table. Your boot lightly touches John’s own. A long sigh exits your nose, grumbling on your tired lips. 
“John,” you level, drawing the name out like the years of your life. A thin warning. 
The man clenches his jaw slightly, bringing up his cup and taking a slow slip. You see the flesh of his throat bob with the liquid as it goes down, the overhead light of the kitchen only a single bulb of warm glow. 
“Been chasing him for years, Hart,” he says when the item is back to the woodgrain. Voice a deep murmur—a scrape of vocal chords. “We both have.”
“He knows too much,” you reply. “I can’t let him get away again. Strategies, operators, everything.” Your eyes shift as your head raises, blinking away the sleep in your glinting orbs. “For years he’s been under our nose, getting away with who knows what—”
“Hart,” your rant is interrupted, and you stop with a snap of your teeth. Blue eyes lock a concerned sheen to them. “Breathe.” 
Your face moves away, arms loosely crossed over your chest tensing. 
John’s body shifts to you, leaning forward until his elbows are resting on his knees. He stares, brows a line on his flesh. You send a swift glance, lips pulling. 
“...Stop that,” your voice murmurs, echoing off the walls of the kitchen. John blinks, not speaking as you move in your seat. The man tilts his head, a slow something making his lips go back slightly. Gradually, your face goes hotter, blinking at him a few times; sucked in like a fox to a trap. “John, quit it.”
“M’not doing anything, Love.” 
“Bullshit,” you try and glare at the looseness of his expression, his smirk that makes your gut tighten. Goosebumps move up your arms. “You’re a horror.”
A low chuckle wafts out, John shrugging casually before he leans back. 
He takes up his cup again and takes down the last of the remnants. “Go to sleep,” hits your ears as your pounding heart takes a breather. It’s a grumble on the air—not as much an order as it is a suggestion. “It’s late.” 
You decide to sip at your own drink as well, eyes drooping at the steam that wafts around your face, nose twitching to the scents. 
“You?” John hums, looking you up and down; seeing the fatigue you carry. You’d been relentless for the week you’d all been here, holding the few strings of the lead you had to your chest—five-fingered grasping with a desperate prayer to all things unholy.  
“I’ll be here.” You tilt your head his way, eyes still half-closed in your seat. Your answer is easy, pushed out in a slow sentence. 
“Then so will I.”
John sighs under his breath. It’s a moment before an exasperated chuckle moves through your earbuds. You smile, eyes slipping closed fully. 
Yet, they startle back open as the cup is taken from your hands, your chair moved back firmly. 
“Up you get, then,” John grunts, and his arms snake around you. Blinking quickly, your jaw is slack as you get taken up into a tight carry; John’s chest firm and your nose brushing the side of his chin. 
Air getting sucked into your lungs, you stifle a hitch in your breath. 
It’s only after he starts walking forward, hiking you farther up into him, and his fingers gliding over your clothes, that you start to relax. His heat seeps like a warm fire.
Head sagging to the side, you grumble into his neck as you miss his eyes looking down at you, eyes soft in a way only you would have been able to see. “Can walk, y’know.”
He hums, head shifting back to the hallway as he carries you to the last door on the right, bumping into the wood with his shoulder and shifting to walk in sideways so you don’t let your legs on the frame. 
“Remember Preu? 05’?” John asks you, moving over to the bed and setting you down slowly, a tiny huff exiting his mouth. Your body sinks into the mattress, head to the pillow as your hand comes up to rub at your eyes. The man moves to grab the blanket at the end of the bed—knowing your trained habit of sleeping atop the comforter on operations; not tangled up in sheets just in case. He slips off your boots. “Carried you two miles.”
“I recall it,” you grunt, a tired flicker coming to your lips. “Bleeding out and all.”
“Well,” John hums, quirking a brow. “Wasn’t about to let my Hart die on me. Blood was the least of my worries.” 
Your pulse flutters at the title, even if it’s just your codename and not the beating muscular organ inside of your breast. 
My Heart.
But it’s never that simple. 
A hand moves up your cheek, a kiss pressed to your forehead. 
The both of you already know you love each other. It wasn’t a secret. You were smart; eyes sharper than a blade—you caught the way he watched you, saw the softness of his expression, and felt the drag of his hand. Just as he caught the way you stayed beside him, an ever-present pair of eyes watching his six. The content nature that only you showed him. 
With feet so eager to leave at any moment, it said much that you chose to exist near him simply because you wanted to. 
You loved each other. 
Boil it down, and you’d both known even back in the Academy that it would be the two of you at the end of all things. The rivers said your name. The valleys rustled with the breeze of your breath. You saw John in the bits of water that sloshed the rocks and in the earth beneath your palms. 
Over the years you’d been apart, the yearning hadn’t been any less sharp—any less potent. In every birdsong, the echoes of the other's voice flew and disappeared on wingbeats. In everything that existed, there was a fraction of what should be. 
What should be. 
“John,” your voice is a whisper, nothing more than a rustle of a cloth. He keeps his lips to your forehead, resting there for a moment against all sense and responsibility. John’s eyes droop down, lashes resting on the swell of his cheeks. “You know I love you.”
He takes a breath. Rain is in the air—the movement of a storm’s wind. A leaving C-17. 
It’s a low mutter into your flesh.
“I know.” 
You grasp at his wrist, pulling lightly. Without a noise, John slips in beside you, kicking off his boots with a single clop of the soles to the wood and the movement of your blanket. He grunts, pushing his nose into your scalp, arms going around your middle. Your head slots under his chin, lips to his Adam’s apple.
The house is silent beyond the murmur of the pipes—the buzz of awaiting electricity. 
So many memories. So many lost dreams. It was akin to two skeletons lying in a grave of their own making, forever holding the bones of the other. Duty and honor are etched into the fractures. 
But he still holds you, he still murmurs into your ear, “Sleep, Love.”
“And you?” You ask, mirroring the conversation in the kitchen.
John’s lips move along your flesh, moving into a soft smile as he glances down at you. His beard scrapes you delicately.
“I’ll be here.”
Then it is here you’ll stay, dreaming of deer and the way nothing could compare to how he held you in his arms.
“I have eyes on,” your head snaps up, blankly staring ahead as your fingers hover over the hanging beads of a wind chime. You stand outside of a restaurant in the heart of Copenhagen. 
Laswell had sent in more eyes for the Task Force to use—local soldiers that knew the layout of the city better and where would be a good place to look. For days you’d been moving through the streets; far-off storage units and hidden buildings providing fruitless harvests. Anthony had said a warehouse, but that was panning out as nothing as well.
False information? Possibly, but unlikely. The man had been genuine in his pain and pleading, and it only served to confuse you more.
You had Gaz with you and five others, taking over as the leader of this fireteam while John headed the other with Johnny and Ghost. They were on the opposite side of the city, and you can’t help but compare this to the moment Emmett had become an enemy. 
But divide and conquer was the only option in times like these.
Emmett had become someone, just as he said he would. The man was in charge of supplying arms to terrorist organizations all over the world, and with his knowledge of how the SAS operates as well as any number of special forces, he’d utterly disappeared off the radar.
A wraith of lies and murder.
He had locations all over the globe with his goods, shipped out for money and power. 
And now you have a positive ID.
“Where are you,” your voice is hard and stiff, the body already moving back from the chime and leaving its little bits and bobs swinging. 
“Café down the street,” feet nearly locking together, you continue down the street to where you know Gaz’s last position was. “He’s just…sitting there.” A pause. “You want to know what it’s called in English, Ma’am?”
“The café?” your brows furrow, jogging across the street. 
“‘The Warehouse.’” Growling under your breath, you shake your head and send a curse into the air after a pause.
“I think the man thought he was clever,” Kyle’s voice is smooth and teasing. 
“Should have shot his other leg,” you grunt. “You told Laswell? John?”
“Negative, I’ll get on it—”
“I’ll do it,” you interrupt. “Tell the others to group up at your position and spread out to create a choke point; we can’t let him get away.”
“Rog. Will do.” 
You patch into John’s frequency.
“We have him,” you instantly breathe out. “Down Holbergsgade—café called ‘The Warehouse’.”
It’s swiftly that an answer hits you. “Get him surrounded, we’re coming.” 
Your heart is moving rapidly, fast in your chest as you pass people and business quickly. You didn’t like this—didn’t like the similarities, the…nostalgic dread that builds. A café of all places? Sitting down? Waiting?
It was so ironic it made alarm bells go off.
“John,” you lick your lips, glancing at faces as they pass. “I think he knows we’re here.”
“Explain.”
“A café?” John’s low grunt lets you know he understands. “Just sitting there? He knows—he’s not dumb enough to throw away all of his secrecy just as we so happen to get here and begin looking for him.”
“How sure are you?” The man takes your words into account, and you hear his breath puffing as he runs to your location. 
“Ninety,” you breathe. 
“Then I’m callin’ it off.” Your eyes widen, feet skidding as you come to a stop. 
You have no clue as to how far John will go to keep you safe—even if it means potentially letting one of the SAS’s highest HVTs go. There wasn’t anything that could compare to the thought of you getting in harm's way. Not you. 
John had spent his whole life watching soldiers die in the worst ways possible; they haunted his dreams and he knew they’d follow him to his grave—men he’d led down paths that they never should have been on. 
Not you. 
Losing you would break what little was left of him, the remnants held on by tape and sheer stubbornness. One of the last old faces he could still look at anymore; could draw comfort from in the thin hours. To hold and to love. 
You both knew you wouldn’t stand for it.
“No,” your voice cuts across, monotone. “I’m not allowing that.”
“Bloody hell, Hart, listen to me—do not,” John growls, making your spine tingle, “go after him. If he knows we’re fuckin’ here, we need to pull back and close off the area.”
You’re walking forward, that same pressure of a gun at the back of your spine. It was almost poetic. 
A thought sparks. Years of knowledge and understanding lighting up. 
Emmett was a snake. 
A snake that liked to play games and prove points; greed stuck into his brain for reasons you can’t quite say for certain. Even if you did catch him, he would never tell the locations of his goods or the buyers.
But there was one way to find out. One way this might turn.
“There’s a tracker in my arm,” you speak, growing more sure of your actions with every fast movement of your body. The café is just up the street, and a head of blonde hair is a knife to your vision. “I asked Laswell to insert and monitor it years back when I had to infiltrate a cell before I joined up with you again. Cautionary procedure since I had to forgo my rig and gear.”
A sharp bark. He knew what you were insinuating. “Hart!” You were going to get yourself taken hostage.
“Get Kate to watch it, John.” You move off his frequency before he can comment again, half of a roaring refusal cut off. Speaking to Gaz with a restricted throat, you say, “Kyle?”
“Right here, Ma’am.”
“Good. Don’t engage—I’m moving in.”
A stiff breath is taken in. “W…what was that?”
You don’t reply, only saying, “Whatever happens, I order you and the others to stay back, yeah?”
Your hand pulls the earpiece out and shoves it into your pocket right as you slip into the chair directly across from Emmett Kinsman. 
“Emmett,” you say in greeting, moving up a few fingers to a barista with a low call of your order. The individual nods and moves off before you lock on green eyes; they nearly make you flinch. 
You can only imagine what Gaz is telling John right now. 
Kinsman blinks at you, but he isn’t surprised. You were right.
“Hart,” the man smiles. His voice is still the same, though he looks older. “Pleasure seeing you again. Enjoying the sights of the city?”
“Not particularly,” you stare at him.
He chuckles, tilting his head before he brings his drink to his lips. He swallows and continues. 
“You always were serious. No fun.” You take the insult without any emotion, blinking at him slowly. What was his play?
“Why?”
“You already know why,” he shrugs, dressed in a nice suit. “I’ve made a name for myself—my name will be remembered for ages.” A twinkle in his eye. “SAS soldier turned weapon supplier; isn’t it exciting.”
“It’s a disgrace,” you lean forward, only stopping your voice from rising as a cup is placed down in front of you by the barista. 
Your face plasters a fake smile and you nod, moving it in front of you. Emmett watches with a smirk.
“I call it a change of heart.” He sighs, smirk simmering to a casual smile. “But I am glad to see you, you’ve been creating a big mess of things and I took it upon myself to have a meeting between us as old friends.”
“I’m not your friend,” you growl. “You’ve killed innocent people for no more than a fucking paycheck.”
“Well,” he snorts. “I don’t kill anyone. I’m the middle man—there’s a difference.”
Rage makes your eyes go to slits.
“And innocents, Sweet Thing?” Emmett leans in closer, face so smug and open you want to pull your weapon on him and worry about the consequences later. “What do I call what you do then?”
“A necessary evil,” you huff. “One I carry on my shoulders just like every other soldier does. One that was far better than supplying terrorists.”
Kinsman shrugs, moving back and picking up his drink, swirling it. “If you say so.” He hums. “You have to try the pastries here, you know. They’re very good.”
“I know you’re here because you expected us to find you, what I can’t figure out is why you broke your cover in the open instead of turning yourself in.” You look around at the faces in the outdoor seating, studying them trying to pinpoint if they’re civilians or in league with Kinsman. “Tell me before I decide to shoot you right here and now and end this regardless of hidden goods.”
“You already tried that, Hart,” Emmett laughs. “Pointing a gun at me didn’t work last time.”
“I’m not going to use a gun,” you ease out. “I’m going to take the butter knife on the table and slit your throat.”
“Uncivilized,” Emmet grumbles, frowning at the silver object near your hands. “It isn’t even sharp.”
“Good.” Green eyes narrow, unimpressed. He sighs, fingers moving in an outward gesture of exasperation. 
“If you must know before the main finale, I wanted to bring you here to say that I’m thoroughly impressed with your drive.” You try to stave off the shock in your stomach at the words coming out like a charmer’s flute. Raising a slow brow, you’re caught off guard. Emmett chuckles. “You nearly caught me at several instances throughout our game of cat and mouse. Many times I forget who the assigned roles were even given to; I’m telling you that I had fun.”
You stare, face tight. 
Emmett hums and his eyes go to slits. 
“But every game has to come to an end. I’m growing tired of it.”
The building across the street erupts into a great ball of fire.
John hears the explosion in the air, the shockwave that leaves his body halting to look into the sky in time to see black smoke.
“Fuck,” he says under his breath. “Fuck!” 
He rushes into the panicked crowd, memories stuck in his head and a bone-deep fear he’d been feeling since you cut the connection in your earpiece. Gaz had been relaying to him what was going on action for action—a football game, only the difference was that your life was on the line. 
“Kate,” John shouts. “Get the authorities down here now! We have an explosion on Holbergsgade.”
“Explosion?” The woman’s voice is sharp and disbelieving. “What’s going on—”
“Hart’s in the bloody crossfire, there’s no time!” John’s face is tight, wind whipping past his ears as screams fly on the wind; crying. “The fool is trying to get herself taken fucking hostage for intel!”
Whatever else was said was lost to the wind—Gaz comes over the line, calling to him in a panic as Johnny and Simon join in. 
“The entire building just went up in—”
“Fucking Christ—”
“Price, what is this?”
“All of you get down here!” John sprints past people on the ground, ripping his gun out of the back of his waistband. There’s no arguing. 
When the Captain turns the last corner, carnage greets him. 
The building across from the café was reduced to nothing but rubble and a still-burning flame. Eyes wide, John only looks at it for a few moments, too preoccupied with you.
Where were you? 
His jaw clenches, eyes burning with rage. Such a perfect soldier yet such a flawed sense of teamwork, he had a feeling you’d try something like this—had left Gaz with you for that very reason. Fuck he should have been at your side. He should have known. 
A low grumble moves through his lips, head snapping all around. There are bodies on the ground. Blood pooling under thick building material—fabric in the breeze. 
“Hart!” John yells, running to the café and seeing the remnants of a fast fight. 
The Captain’s heart drops to his feet, face burning with hellfire so much that a sheen comes to his cheek. His hand moves out to touch the handle of a butter knife that had been slammed into the table now half-fallen over, eyes stuck on only one thing on the ground under it.
Through the wails and the call of sirens, the man stares at the two long fingers sitting in the dust.
Never in his life had he felt a fear like this.
“I wanted to be kind about this,” Emmett fiddles with the wrappings of his bandaged left hand, only three fingers remaining. “I was going to make it quick.”
You’re locked in a cell-like room, head to the side and blood leaking out of a cut face. Burns travel up your arm, the sticky puss leaking out only serving to make you shiver. You don’t know where you are—don’t know what happened after you severed Kinsman’s fingers with that knife.
But you know the pain isn’t something that you haven’t already gone through before. 
Your voice is hoarse but firm as it leaks out of you, vision spotty. You’d been thrown in here after a ride in the trunk of a car. The ground is concrete. 
“...Don’t make me laugh.”
Emmett growls, eyes wide with hatred. 
“Pathetic!” He barks eyes looking you over with disgust. “Look at what you did to my hand!”
His other hand connects with the bars of the cage, producing a metal ringing sound as you push yourself up with one arm, eyelids flinching in pain. Sitting up, your body falls back to the wall behind it, and you grunt when the air in your lungs is expelled. You lick at your dust-coated lips, your head ringing and your focus failing. Concussion. 
“Least of your worries,” you roll your jaw, a wave of pain making your body seize up and your hands tense with quivering shakes. Your mouth opens with sharp pants. Bile pools in the base of your throat. 
It’s nothing. 
John will come soon. The tracker. If Laswell can get it working again, you’d be out of here and you would have whatever this location turns out to be and the intel that it can offer you—computer databases would be a one-and-done game. You would get names, coordinates, and buyers. It could all be over. 
Your clothes are melted into your skin, and when you move, they peel away with the remnant of your epidermis. The flesh of your left thigh and arm had taken the worst of it—and the cut from flying debris over your left cheek hasn’t stopped bleeding. 
Blood drips from it, and a loud ache makes your head pound all the worse. 
You’ve gone through worse.
“I don’t know why I bother,” Emmett snarls, the crimson bandages thick over his hand. “But it isn’t a problem,” he says, moving his other hand to slick back his hair. “It isn’t a problem,” the man utters again. “You’re going to help me. Yes…I’ve made up my mind. I need you to understand why I do the things I do.” 
Your brows furrow, but above this burning in your head, it’s hard to understand what’s being said to you. Shadows move and Emmett orders one of his men to open the cell door.
You fight the black dots at the sides of your vision, leaking until you’ve accepted the reality of yourself going unconscious. As your body slouches to the side, hands ruthlessly grasp under your arms and drag you to your feet. 
“Everyone has a breaking point.”
“What do you mean,” John glares at Laswell, his arms crossed over his chest; hands tightly grasping at his biceps. “You can’t find her?”
“The tracker was old, John,” the woman tries to explain, furiously typing at her computer that rests on the table in front of her—her spine bent over as the rest of the One-Four-One stay in a limbo of anxious looks. “To get it working again, it would need something to restart it. I don’t know if you can see,” Kate’s eyes are hard as they lock with his, “but I can’t do anything if she’s not here first.”
“Well of course she’d not bloody here Laswell, fucking Kinsman has her!” He shouts, hands moving out in a display of aggression. 
“Captain,” Kate rises to the challenge, hand moving flat to the table and glaring with the heat of a thousand missiles. “Do not take that tone with me.” 
John snarls and jerks his head away, feet on the ground trading weight. 
The man was borderline feral—all snapping teeth and sharp glances. Gaz had seen him like this only a handful of times, MacTavish even fewer. Ghost, of course, knew, but even his brown eyes wouldn’t leave his Captain, absorbed in the way he was unable to stay still for even a moment. He was in full gear, too. Had put it on directly after returning to a local base. 
John was ready to go to war, down to the rifle that swung from a strap at his side, the ammunition stuffed to his chest—sidearm at his thigh. A rabid dog with intelligence and the knowledge of where teeth needed to be applied to a neck for a clean kill. Simon doubted he wanted it to be clean.
John was ready to rip people to pieces. 
“Give me something,” the Captain says in a low growl, beard shifting. “Give me what I need.”
Kate splays her hands. “All we have is surveillance of a car leaving the area—the smoke covers all chances of the drone we had flying picking up a clear picture. John,” Laswell eases, standing up, “there’s only so much we can do. We need to wait—”
“We can’t bloody wait,” Gaz speaks up, “What’ll he do to her in the meantime?”
“Garrick’s right, we need to be on the ground with this.” Johnny nods, mohawk bobbing. “That’s one of our own—we’re not sitting around with our thumbs up our arses, Laswell. Not with Hart.”
Simon blinks, humming. Laswell’s eyes shift to him, near pleading for one to be on her side with this and see sense. Ghost shrugs. “I’m with them. Hart’s one of our own; we’ll do what needs to be done.”
John’s chest swells with pride while his eyes get stuck on your file on the table, your printed picture, and your black ink—he’d never loved an image more, but nothing could beat the real thing. He needed you back. He’d gone through hell with you for his entire life; you’d suffered with him and only locked your hands together and held on tighter. 
That was love—that was duty.
John Price wasn’t against skewing his morals for the sake of your safety. You would always be his most important mission. The man didn’t want to think about what might happen if he found you too late.
“Give me the video of the vehicle,” he grunts, jaw tight and his eyes beady. His body slightly leans forward to Kate, love going lower. “Or I’m going out there myself.” 
Laswell frowns tightly at him. 
“I just sent it into forensics—they’re trying to get a match. Go out if you want, but I won’t be able to stop the firestorm that comes out of it.”
She closes her laptop and moves past him, sending one last comment into the stone man as he towers ever taller.
“She’s strong, John. If you’re smart, you’ll keep yourself out of the crossfire until we have a definitive hit.” 
Her voice echoes from behind him as his hands slowly move to clench into knuckle-whitening fists.
“If Kinsman gets a tip we’re still onto him—you’ll never see Hart again.”
Day Three:
Your days start blending. One moment you hear the snapping of your bones, and then the next you’re wasting away in this cell—ears ringing and eyes buggy. So much blood. Blood on the walls—blood on the chair they strap you into in the other room; even stuck in the groves of your flesh. 
You don’t think you can stop closing your eyes and seeing a deer at the bottom of a bridge drop-off. It’s stuck in your head like a virus; those car lights in the back of your mind just waiting for you. 
There’s no sense as to what they do to you—all its purpose is, is to prove a point to Emmett. A sort of broken retribution for your interference and his fingers. 
Vain man, really. You’d told him as much when he was watching you get your own finger torn off my pliers; spit it at him as the blood from your bitten tongue stayed his suit. You remember the feeling of the knuckle popping first, and then the burning heat of the flesh being twisted to the side. Two firm yanks and the flesh had sprung like elastic, fissuring, the tendon snapping. 
You think you blacked out after that, but you can’t be sure. All you remember doing is screaming. 
You woke up with your left pinkie finger completely gone, resting outside in the hallway to mock you from past the bars. Your eyes could see the bone sticking out of it, and all that was left on you was a badly cauterized stump. 
When Emmett had come to gloat, you started slurring out laughter. 
“I’m going to rip you apart.” Your broken body had jerked back and forth like a marionette doll, only succeeding in spreading more red over the floors as green eyes widened and went dumbfounded. 
It sounded like a choking fish.
All he’d done was left, quickly passing the pinkie left limp on the ground.
Day five:
You can’t move your body as they dump you back into the chair—the drain below you flooded over with crimson and bits of hair; vomit and torn-off fingernails. You’re unable to open your eyelids fully. 
A hand grasps at your face, yanking it up into the overhead light until a bucket of water is dumped directly over your head. Your body jerks, coughing and darting forward until you’re shoved to the back of the chair and the rope is tied around the front of your shoulders, the second at your wrists.
Trying to suck down air, you shiver with the strength of an earthquake. Whoever said that they would never be afraid while being tortured was a liar; whoever thinks that they would be able to push through it—a fraud. Emmett was right, everyone had a breaking point.
But you admitted yours would only come after your death.
Your legs are seized, bent up as you hiss as well as you’re able, teeth snapping. 
They’re dumped back down into a bucket of ice-cold water as droplets drip from your nose—wet skin for the moment only holding streaks of gore. Even with your scattered mind, you know what this means. 
Heart tight and eyes widening, you try to push back in the chair; try to fight the rope and the way your body won’t respond. 
A battery is rolled up beside you on a metal cart. Jumper cables. 
There’s a low chuckle at the way your face goes fearful. 
John shoves open the door to Laswell’s temporary office, already talking before it hits the far wall. 
“Do we have her?” His hands move beside him, brushing the grip of his sidearm. He hadn’t been out of his full gear for more than five minutes in days. Waiting day and night for any word; sleeping in it, eating in it. The forensics team had been stumped, unable to get more than a model out of the picture. 
But this might finally give him something to act on. 
Kate is moving, grabbing documents and her laptop, speeding past him and out of the door. 
“Kate!” John shouts, following after. “Hey,” he calls, grabbing at her arm to stop her. 
The woman only halts to say, quickly, “We have a hit. Follow me.”
John’s heart is rampaging, pulse wild under his skin as his gloved hands twitch. Finally. He can only smoke so many cigars—only think of so many scenarios until he feels he needs to vomit. You’d been gone for too long. Every moment had been like trying to walk with a cloth over his head; lost. 
He’d grown stiff. Stiffer than normal. Everyone had seen it.
“Where is it, then?” John asks as Laswell pushes open the door to the meeting room, the other three already inside.
“A property outside of Copenhagen—bought through a proxy on a fund that was linked to blood money in South America; it all went directly back to Kinsman. It was found only ten minutes ago.” A pause. Electricity in the air. “But that’s not how we found it.”
“How,” Simon asks, moving closer. 
John gives the woman his full undivided attention, hands moving to rest at his collar in a soothing gesture. 
“Her tracker came back on.” Eyes go wide, all sharing rapid glances as Kate opens her laptop and opens a man, turning the device for them to see. “Same location.”
Johnny blinks, his eyes narrowing. “And what does that mean?”
“That can’t have just done that by itself,” Gaz mutters, brown eyes sliding over to John who’s stiller than a wolf. The Sergeant pauses. 
His eyes are dead set on that screen. His thighs were so tense it was nearly like the Captain was about to sprint out of the room. Kyle’s face goes blank at that, never quite seeing the extent that your disappearance had on the man. His superior had bags under his eyes; far more pale than usual. His apparel was ruffled, too. Even in the more serious of situations, the Sergeant had never seen John so…out of it. He was always the one with the even head, even if he had a short fuse with certain things. Nothing was ever done without thought, he should say. 
But this is something else. 
“Torture,” Simon gives his two cents and John’s cheek twitches at the word. “Electrocution. They jump-started it and didn’t even know.” 
“Bloody Jesus,” John breathes. Everyone had already had a hunch, but no one had wanted to name it. 
It’s a low rumble that makes the rest of them freeze, though. It was so dead in tone that it even made Kyle’s spine lock up; Johnny’s eyes went a smidgen upward. Simon, although his face was covered, felt his lips twitch.
John looks at nothing but that dot on the computer screen.
“Am I green, Laswell?”
Kate looks at John. It’s like setting a hellhound loose. 
“You’re green, Captain.”
You’re tossed into the cell and your body rolls along the floor, bouncing and flinching until your back slams into the wall. Air is forced from your lungs, coming out in a loud grunt before you land on your stomach in a heap. Staying there, your nerves are fried. 
Every moment you think the twitching of your fingers will stop—the dance of your muscles responding to the aftereffects of electrocution, it only starts back up again. Your eyes blink rapidly; your clothes have the scent of smoke to them. 
Gasping for breath, you feel like you’re drowning and being set on fire all at once. 
Yet the question in your head was a simple one, one you’d been asking for days.
Where was John?
Emmett enters the cell, clicking his tongue as the metal hinges squeak. 
“I’m not surprised it’s taking this long,” he explains. “But I am surprised you’re still alive, admittingly.” 
A boot comes out and places itself atop your shoulder, pressing down slowly until its full weight is on top of you. Your mouth opens in a shuddering sound of a dying animal, blood dripping from your ears and nose. 
“I know you’ve taken torture before—even taken a part of it,” Kinsman sighs. “But, shit Hart, you really do scare me when I know you’re strong enough to get through th—”
Your body jolts up, grappling Emmet’s leg and twisting it to the side. Regardless of pain—of agony—there’s such primal rage inside of you that what little adrenaline you can bring forth is all that more addictive. 
The man collapses in a heap, gasping, but you’re already on top of him, wrestling your hand to his neck, missing finger and all. Blood moves, staining his precious suit and dripping from your mouth into his hairline. You bare down your weight on him, teeth clenched and eyes wild—one orb holding nothing but red from burst veins and the other full of a vicious gleam of ferality. 
Hands snap up to your wrists, mouth opening in flapping panic. 
But Emmett has grown weak; he’s out of practice. All of those years out of the SAS, giving up on the training of the body to match the mind. The idiot wasn’t even carrying a gun when he walked into the cell of a charging stag, its antlers dripping gore, sharper than any knife. 
When the flaps of his eyes fall there’s no gloating speech—there’s no snort of a tall and proper victor. All you do is take the front of his face, grasp it, and start sending his skull back into the concrete floors. 
Crack.
…Crack.
….Crack.
Only when the sound of his head breaking open meets your ringing ears, do you force your wheezing lungs to take a large breath. 
Emmet Kinsman died as he lived. 
A fucking piece of shit.
“Fuck you,” you spit on his corpse, saliva bloody; his jaw is loose as you release the man’s face, eyes bulging. Falling to the side, you groan in pain, your body curling into itself until you resemble a sleeping fawn. You’re shaking more and more with every second, coughing with the force of an earthquake until your shredded vocal chores force you to stop. 
But the brain is a funny thing. 
In times of danger, survival is the only thing that takes priority. It was why, in a long shove of your hand to the floor, with your bones creaking and your vomit meeting the ground, you’re able to stand. It isn’t enough to help you heal the snapped bone of your right leg, however, and in a steadily failing stupor, you drag it behind you. In this state, nothing else matters to you besides a simple command: get out.
Your shoulder slaps the metal of the cell as you stumble out of it, careening into the far wall and letting out a loud shout. 
Eyes fluttering, you connect your temple to the cool concrete, trying to breathe. 
It hurts too much, your mind says. God, I can’t feel my limbs. 
A long trail of blood follows you down the hallway as you slide along the wall, using it as a brace. 
You want to see John, you whisper inside of your head. You want to be held by him—be taken into his chest; cared for away from all of this fighting. 
A trip back to Herefordshire with him, to go deep into the country together; rest in the green grass where no one can find you for just a few good hours. It didn’t have to be forever, you would say. Just a few hours. A few hours of sky and earth wrapped in a time loop of just your own. 
You want to kiss him there. In the open, out in the wild. You want to stay by his side, your mind thinks as you stumble over the three dead bodies in the left corridor, bullet wounds in their heads. You want to be by his side forever, no more gaps in years, not more longing. It’s so close you can nearly reach out and grasp it—
Your name is yelled on a heavy breath, and hands capture your shoulders as you fall straight into them with no more strength.
Blue eyes lock with yours as you’re hurriedly settled to the ground, body limp and eyes trying to stay open. 
Blue eyes on a grassy hill.
“Hart, fucking hell.” Hands move your body, pressing and sliding—finding every opening and spreading blood like water. “Fucking hell! Hey!”
You’re yelled at, and the ripping of pouches and the familiar sound of bandages being wrapped come to the back of your brain. A hand shakes your head, locked under your chin as you take slow, broken, breaths. 
“Please, fuck sake, please,” it’s a desperate growl, so familiar and yet a world away. Your body is moved and manipulated as every leaking wound is packed with so much gauze it hangs out of you like you’re a mummy. The burns along your flesh are crust and infected, open skin peeling back. 
But the pain is lesser now. Easier to manage. 
There’s such a ruckus that it’s hard to focus on John—the man on the hill. In the grass and the wind. Brown hair moves in the breeze as white clouds roll past. On the air, there’s the scent of rain, and in the far distance, you can see a group of ten deer grazing, ears twitching.
Maybe you’ll ask them if they blame their leader, or the two trucks on the end of a bridge.
“Keep your eyes on me!” You blink into John’s tiny blues, that mist rolling back. You stare for a moment as he frantically screams into his radio; night vision rig on his head and all-black gear covering him from you. His face is pale, his eyes glossy. “Look at me, hey,” he blinks as he notices you watching, surging forward. “Hey, keep 'em open, yeah? You keep them fucking open, Love.” 
Your chest is heavy. 
“John,” you push out a flicker coming to your lips as your vision slightly unblurs itself to the sight of a flood of blood on the man’s body—an unimaginable amount.
“I’m ‘ere,” his accent grows deeper with emotion, one hand holding your cheek and the other at your shoulder, keeping you still to stop any additional damage. “I’ve got you, you understand me? I’m not letting you go, so don’t you think that I will.” 
It’s a double-edged sword.
A smile peels back your chapped lips, red running from the corner of your mouth. You glance at his stained gear again. The abyss swirls at the corners of your eyes.
“Is that your blood, or mine, John Price?” 
You hear him scream for a medic, and then it all goes numb.
You dream of deer on a hill, but every time you search for John, he isn’t there. You go past rivers—
“She’s dropping!”
“Get me the defibrillator!”
—past copses. Your voice goes high and low, but all the while you look, there’s nothing but a nagging feeling in the back of your head that you shouldn’t be here.
“Again!”
It’s a strange nagging, truly. Like falling asleep in the middle of the day and waking up in the night without any remembrance of what had happened prior. A displacement of the mind. 
“We’ve got a pulse, Doctor, do we stop and—”
“No, I need to finish off the internal bleeding or else she won’t make it another day. Get me the cauterizer, now.”
You blink and grip your chest, a sudden pain sharp in your heart as the grass moves about your ankles. Coughing, you bend over, your eyes fluttering rapidly. In the deepest part of your eardrum, you hear a murmur of a voice you can’t place.
“The man came back, again. He’s been out there for days. He just…sits there, waiting until someone tells him something. He can’t come in, and I’m sorry about that. I’m sure hearing his voice would help more than mine, but you’re in too much of an unstable condition for that. If you get another infection, you won’t…hm, I shouldn’t talk about that. Everyone in school said only to talk positively to patients when they’re like this. I…I’m sure he’ll be able to come in soon. I think everyone calls him John if that rings a bell?”
“John?” Your eyes flutter open, sharp light above you making you snap them back closed. No one answers. 
It’s a long moment before you find the strength to breathe in the oxygen from the mask over your face, taking a long and deep inhale before a slight cough makes your abdomen tight. You flinch at the pull of stitches, all coming from so many places, that it’s unwise to move too much. 
Gradually, you open back up your eyes, pushing past the sting. Inside of your throat, the skin is so dried out you can feel it cracking at every articulation of your words. 
“Where's…John?” When you shift your head to the side, no one’s there. No one’s even in the room, either.
Blinking through the haze, your lips twitch on your face, skin tight. With a slap of your weak hand, you grasp the oxygen mask and pull it down to your neck, grunting in mild annoyance at the medicated numbness of your form. 
Your leg is in a cast—and your left side is tightly bound by wrappings to hide away the burns where skin grafts most likely live. With a glance, you see the missing pinky and the bandages that cover the strange remnants. 
The facial wound will scar, you know, but right now it’s patched over and healing. That’s all you can ask for. 
Sighing long, you blink slowly at the ceiling, licking your lips. You need water.
Outside, the murmurs are missed to you as your unmarred hand reaches for the nightstand table, where a half-drunk bottle of water sits next to a tray of food. Even if your stomach rumbles, water takes precedence. Your throat was like the Sahara desert.
“Forget something, John?”
“Bloody fork. The bastard gave me the slip. Dropped mine, needed to go back and grab another.”
“Oh, that’s alright—you could have asked one of us to get one for you. We’d hate for you to miss any time for visiting hours.”
“It’s fine; gets me moving, eh?”
“Just grab us if you need anything else!”
A low grunt is accented by the opening of the door; immediately you tense and pause, neck fighting itself to shift forward once more.
Wide blues lock with your own, and it’s like every pain fades away. 
John’s jaw is slack hidden under the layers of his beard bristles, brows going atop his head in an instant. The sound of a dropping metal utensil echoes through the room. 
You both stare at one another for a long time, and the murmur of nurses accumulates to some peaking through the crack; their expressions also going to shock. A few scurry off, probably to get a doctor. 
“What?” Your hoarse voice asks, unnerved by this. 
At the sound of your voice, John flinches forward on his boots. The nurses get shut out with beaming faces as the barrier closes with a small click of metal.
Walking to the side of your bed, John clears his throat, eyes looking you up and down in two glances. A million things are hidden in them. After an opening and closing of his mouth, which you watch closely while squinting, he speaks.
“How are we feeling, then?” You breathe slowly and in tiny puffs. John looks at the oxygen mask as if telling you to put it back on, but you refuse for a moment. 
“Like shit,” you utter, voice cracking.
With a huff, John pushes away your reaching hand and gets the water himself, unscrewing it. Bringing it to your lips, you take it down as he speaks.
“Easy, Love.” 
When you’d had your fill and the ache settled, you brought a hand to your head and rubbed at your injured cheek before John sighed and grabbed at it, intertwining his fingers with yours and lowering the limb back to your chest.
You stare at him, and he stares at you. 
“I don’t know what to ask,” you confess. 
“You don’t have to ask anything,” John mutters, and his face is tight with worry. “You’ve been in a coma for three weeks, all you need to do is ease back into it.”
Your eyes snap back.
“Tell me if it hurts,” He speaks slowly, moving on one word at a time so the realization doesn’t dwell in your brain. “I can get someone to come in, yeah?”
Your hand in his burns, and John pulls at the chair by the nightstand until he’s able to sit down in it fully with a tiny grunt.
“No,” you say, “no, it’s…I’m fine.”
Better now that you’re here, but your body is tense. Three weeks?
“Just need to take it easy,” the man states, thumb running up and down your knuckles. “You’ll be better soon.”
A dry look is sent his way, and he hides a soft quirk on his lips. “You’ll be better, Love.”
You hum, head moving back more heavily into the pillow. 
“When do I get to go back?”
“When you’re healed,” he grunts. “Not a fuckin’ moment sooner.”
“We get anything on the other locations of the—”
“Hart,” you’re interrupted. Blue eyes stare at you heavily, digging past every shield you’d put up and every fear. What happened was still heavy in your mind; it pained you to imagine it, even the way John had found you—even if it was all glimpses. “Slow down. That’s not an order coming from a soldier, it’s a caution from an old friend.” John says, squeezing your flesh. His other hand comes to your shoulder, sitting there heavily. 
“Breathe,” he orders, face gruff. “We always figure it out.” 
You close your eyes and sigh, frowning. 
A low chuckle moves along the air a second later. 
“Never sit down, do you?” A flicker dances over your lips like a butterfly. “Impossible, you are.”
“You’re one to talk,” you huff, eyes shifting back to him. 
He’s smiling at you, and you can’t help but mirror it right back at the sight. Your facial injury pulls and tightens, but you would welcome an ache like that for as long as it stayed. A scar born of the stretch of lips is one well-earned. Only John could ever make it a reality.
The man stares at your lips, his wide build eager to stay over you in this state. He can’t stop himself from caressing your skin; to feel you alive and breathing. Talking.
“Scared me,” John admits under his breath. 
You blink, your smile fading slowly until it was like it was never there. Your body builds with guilt; also something only he could bring. “I’m sorry, John.” 
A small thinning of his lips is what you get, accented by a hum. 
“Hart,” he grunts. “I…”
John’s eyes closed for a moment before opening back up—spearing you with their gaze. Your tired eyes crinkle in confusion.
“What is it?” Over the tingle of your flesh from where he touches you, it isn’t hard to forget the world is around you when he’s here like this. You’re nearly trapped by his eyes, yet you welcome it eagerly. His voice moves out, accent and natural gravel, all. 
“I love you.” 
Your nose lets a chuff exit. Was that all?
“I love you, too, John—”
“No, Hart,” he pushes slightly harder, moving closer and licking his lips as he glances away. “No,” John looks you dead in the eye as you lay here battered and broken within an inch of your life—a risk that you took willingly as if it had meant nothing. The both of you weren’t new to this; you both knew that on any day you or he would do it over and over again until it resulted in death. That was the way of this game; this trial. 
You had both always been content with that, but when had it changed? 
Why was the thought of losing you more fear-invoking than anything else he’d ever encountered?
You watch him as his lips utter the words, lips close to yours and your eyes locked. 
“I love you.” 
Your voice is caught in your throat, stuck in the throws of a quick gasp. Not blinking, the man waits for you—waits for an answer to the earth-shattering confession. But it all came far easier than you would ever admit to anybody besides him. It was already known, after all. 
All that remained was the pesky words.
“I love you, too.” You beam, words low with intimacy. “I think I always have.”
John chuckles, a large smile pushing at his reddening cheeks. “Good,” he nods, clearing his throat. “Good,” he says again. “Well, I—”
You softly connect your lips with his, and you feel him pause, breathing you down for a moment as hearts beat at the same tempo. He sighs, one hand coming up to capture your cheek, holding it there for you as you sag into it and live in this everlasting moment. 
It’s there you had a revelation.
It was never Hart to him. John had never been calling you that. 
He’d always just been saying Heart.
You breathe out a laugh, when you separate, beaming in a happiness you thought was long gone from you—stolen in the dark nights and sold through even darker deeds. Neither of you was worthy of this, of the love that breeds in broken things. Yet, here it is regardless. Here, among blood and the blue eyes of a man you’d known since knowing anything became important. You had always known it was John. And finally, finally, finally.
“I would marry you in an instant, John Price,” you breathe when you separate, not weak enough to stop the words from exiting from the deepest part of your soul.
His crinkled eyes watch, reverently gazing at every blemish and mark; everything he could learn new again. John’s eyes are as soft as you ever imagined them to be, and he gives them over freely to you.
He kisses you again and leaves the taste of his heavy, happy, chuckle tingling across your lips.
“Seems I’d better get on that, then.”
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A/N: This fic is strangely nostalgic for me even if I just wrote it - I remember the first ever fic I posted on here was a rescue fic, as well as a John Price fic; it's amazing to see how far I've come in regards to overall content/story building and how my understanding of the character has evolved. This might not be the best work I've posted on my blog, but I'm glad to say I'm proud of myself and how far I've come. It's so wonderful that I can have this feeling for such a big moment and still feel so drawn back to the past at the same time. Totally not tearing up at the thought rn.
Thank you all very much for your support.
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woso-dreamzzz · 1 month
Text
Injured VII
Alexia Putellas x Child!Reader
Jenni Hermoso x Child!Reader
Summary: Alexia tries to get her act together
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For as long as she will ever live, Alexia will never forget her mother's face that day at Alba's door.
She will never forget the genuine horror on her mother's face even as she took control of the situation. She will never forget that night when Alba slammed her against the wall after the final of the Copa de la Reina. She will never forget the way you hid behind Jenni's legs after your ballet lesson.
It's all she thinks about even as she sits in the rocking chair with a sleeping Jaume in her arms.
"Ale?" Olga says sleepily," It's three in the morning. Come back to bed."
Alexia doesn't want to. She doesn't want to let Jaume go but she doesn't want to look at him either.
He was so perfect. His birth had been quick and easy unlike yours. Alexia had felt an instant connection to him, unlike when she suffered a bought of post-partum depression with you. He was so soft and so perfect and yet...
Alexia couldn't believe that she has pushed you away in favour of him.
She had a beautiful son and daughter. Two children, not one.
She thought having a sibling would be the best thing for you. She wanted to build a family with Olga. She never considered that she hadn't actually included you in that family.
"Alexia," Olga says, a bit more awake now," Come on. He's due for a feed soon. I'd like some sleep before that."
Mechanically, Alexia places her son back in his crib, wiping away some of the drool on his face as she allows Olga to lead her back to bed.
A sense of numbness follows her now and it's clear to everyone.
Word has spread amongst the team now about what has happened. They know the bare minimum, only that Alba took Bambi and that Jenni has dropped everything to fly across the world for you.
No one knows why, officially. It's clear that Mapi and Ingrid have informed a few team members. Paredes, in particular, cannot look Alexia in the eye anymore and some of the younger players are wary seeing that.
Her life is falling apart. She had no idea you were the linchpin holding it all together.
Olga lays next to her, head pillowed on Alexia's chest.
"You're so tense," She says," Relax. Everything's going to be fine."
Alexia scoffs. "Is it?"
Her question hangs in the air for several minutes. Neither of them speak. Neither of them move.
"Yes," Olga says eventually," You need to stay positive, Alexia. If not for yourself then for your daughter-"
"Your daughter?" Alexia echoes Olga's words perfectly," My daughter? Is she not ours?"
The silence is telling and Olga rolls over and away.
"Is she? Jaume is ours. y/n is yours."
Alexia sits up in bed, reaching over to flick a lamp on. This wasn't a conversation she could have in the dark.
"We have a son together. We're going to get married. In what world is Bambi just mine?!"
"In every world!" Olga sits up too. "She has always been yours, Alexia! I am just the woman her Mami is marrying! Nothing more, nothing less!"
"How can you say that?! We're making a family together! Bambi is included in that family!"
"Of course she is but when have I ever taken that role in her life?! You took her to football! You take her to ballet!"
"She stays home with you all day!" Alexia bites back, standing now until they're both yelling at each other over the bed. "You make her lunch! You keep her occupied!"
"And you do her baths and her bedtime routine! You do her morning routine too! God, Alexia, I am essentially her glorified babysitter! You have never once let me take over those things!"
"You didn't ask?! Olga, if you wanted to do that stuff just ask me!"
"And be rejected? No! You've never given any indication that I was even allowed to try!"
"Because I thought you didn't want to! Bambi has always been mine! Forgive me for not knowing how much to put on your plate. I was trying to make this transition easy!"
"An easy transition?! Alexia, I was pregnant! I was already thrown in the deep end! Adding a self-sufficient kid wouldn't have been much worse!"
They're both screaming at each other now and Jaume clearly hears the noise because he cries from down the hall.
Alexia takes a deep breath, eyes shutting briefly as she counts to ten to calm herself.
Olga goes to get Jaume, moving out the door.
"If we're going to get Bambi back," Alexia calls after her," Then we have to both want her!"
The forms about your ballet class lay on the kitchen table when Alexia gets up the next day. Things were frosty last night when Olga came back to bed with Jaume but they seemed to be looking up when Olga said that they would have a mature conversation about the Bambi situation when Alexia got home.
Alexia picks it up as she eats her breakfast, skimming through it. It's for an extra class on Thursday nights (five until seven) on top of your usual ones. Apparently, it's for those little kids that have real potential. As in, the potential to be great.
Alexia had been one of those kids but for football instead of ballet. She had excelled. She was one of the greatest in the world now all because her father saw the potential in her and signed her up for a team.
She had tried to do the same with you. She took you to the under-fives Barcelona team but it hadn't turned out how she want it to. The other children had left you in the dust. Alexia had hoped that it would be a one time thing, that the first session was a fluke.
You were already so different to her and even back then, she knew that when Jaume arrived things would be different.
She'd tried to get you into football so you would have something to bond over together, at least until Jaume was big enough to play with you.
But it wasn't meant to be and her Mama had insisted in signing you up for something else.
Originally, Alexia had planned on it being another team sport, desperate to have something at least similar to football that she could cling to.
Instead, her Mama had reminded her of last Christmas when the family went to go see the Nutcracker and how enamoured you had been.
Ale's Mama had pushed and pushed for ballet and Alexia was glad that she had.
The forms sat signed on the kitchen table as Alexia washed up her bowl and dialled a number on her phone.
"Hola, Mama," She says," It's about Bambi..."
It's after training that Alexia goes to see her Mama and sister. They meet up at Eli's house and all crowd around the kitchen table.
Jenni is there too and when Alexia asks who is looking after you, she's told that Mapi and Ingrid have taken you for ice cream.
"I don't like this," Alba mutters from where she's leaning against the wall. She's the only one not sat, arms crossed over her chest. "How do we know that she's not going to take Bambi home and neglect her again, huh?"
It's the hardest words Alexia has ever had to say but she pushes them out of her mouth. "I don't want you to give me Bambi back, not now at least."
"What do you mean, Alexia?" Her Mama asks.
"I...I have a lot of making up to do," Alexia admits," I broke her trust and that is not an easy thing to get back. If I want Bambi to come home then she has to want it to. I don't want her to be unhappy again."
"What are you saying?"
"Let me visit her, please. Let me earn back her trust, please."
Everyone knows Eli is in charge here. She is the head of the family and everyone defers to her on big decisions like this. This is a family matter. This is about her granddaughter's happiness and her daughter's peace of mind.
"Bambi is very fragile right now," Eli says quietly but the house is so silent everyone can hear her clearly," This is a serious matter, Alexia and if it was anyone else's daughter, child services will have already been called."
Alexia looks down at the table, the same table she would be scolded at when she was young.
"Your father would be ashamed of you." Eli's words are hard and biting and it's exactly what Alexia wants, even if it causes a sharp pain in her chest. "This is not how we raised you. That little girl is so beloved by everyone and what you have done...I love you, Ale, but it is unacceptable."
"I know, Mama. Please, let me make this right."
"Bambi coming home is her choice. It is not a when...it is an if. If I decide that you are doing more harm than good then there will be other actions we can take."
She looks at Jenni, who up until this point has been silent and Alexia's eyes dart to her too.
"Mama, what are you talking about?"
"Eli," Jenni says," She is trying. We don't need to-"
"Jenni still has adoption papers," Alba says from her corner of the room," All they're missing is your signature. Mama is saying that if this cannot be resolved and Bambi doesn't want to come home..."
She lets the idea hang in the air. She doesn't need to say it out loud. They all know what she means.
"It won't get that far," Jenni says, looking at Alexia for the first time since all of this became real," Bambi loves you."
Alexia pushes through the lump in her throat and the tears pricking in her eyes. "If I cannot make this better then she will have the best chance with you."
Jenni looks away first. "She has ballet on Saturday until one. We can do a visit then."
"Thank you."
Olga is sitting with Jaume when Alexia gets home. It's an almost perfect image. All it's missing is you at Olga's feet, playing with your trains.
She can imagine it, your trainsets spread all over the floor and your ballet bag left abandoned on a chair. You will smile when you see her and Alexia will litter your face with kisses before doing the same to Olga and Jaume.
It will be perfect, Alexia promises herself.
"Hey, little man," She coos to her son, hefting him up into her arms and pressing a kiss to his forehead.
Jaume giggles at the affection, lips smacking together as his hand whips out to grab at Alexia's nose curiously. He's been a little fussy recently and extremely sensitive to changes in light but he seems a little happier now.
"That's my nose," Alexia says. She wiggles it. "Is it really funny? Huh? Is my nose funny?"
"Jaume seems to think so." Olga rises from the sofa and pecks Alexia's lips. "How was your mother?"
"Helpful."
"And Alba?"
"She was...Alba."
"And Jenni?"
"How did you-?"
"I am not blind or deaf, Ale. Your team gossips. Jenni has comes back to Spain for y/n."
"Amor-"
"I'm not threatened," Olga laughs," You broke up for a reason but even I know that a meeting of y/n would involve her. How was it? What did they say?"
Alexia manages a smile. "I can see her on Saturday, after ballet. There's a place where you can paint pottery nearby. I think I'll take her there."
"That's nice," Olga says.
"I..." Alexia's been floating in a happy bubble ever since she started to drive home. She doesn't want to ruin it but she has to know. "Did you have a think about what we talked about?"
Olga sighs. "I love Jaume," She says after several beats of quiet," Because he is mine, yes, but mostly because he is yours as well. And I love you so much."
Alexia doesn't like where this is going. "And Bambi?"
"I'm sorry, Ale, but I do not love y/n but...I think I could learn to because she is so much like you and I love you. I do not know y/n like I know you and Jaume. I want to though. I want her home with us so I can love her like I love Jaume. I am sorry if it is not what you want to hear but it is my truth and I hope that is enough."
Tears fall down Alexia's cheeks.
"It's enough. It's enough, amor."
Alexia spends all week waiting for Saturday. There are matches to prepare for and media commitments to do but you're all she can think about.
She wonders if she should bring you a new train to mark the occasion but the model train store has finally shut down and Alexia cannot get one for you in time.
Next time though, she promises herself that she'll got you a new train for your collection. Her palms are sweaty and she's nervous when she spots you and Jenni walking down the street hand-in-hand.
You're still in your ballet clothes but you've got one of Jennie's jackets on and it's dragging on the ground behind you because it's too big. Your hair is still done up in a bun and a few wisps fall down to frame your face.
"Bambi," Alexia says, suddenly breathless when you look up at her.
"Hola, Mami," You reply, ducking a little bit behind Jenni as you greet her.
"Your Mami and you are going to paint some pottery," Jenni says," And I'll be right here to pick you up when you're done."
"You won't be late?"
"Of course I won't be! You're my most favourite little girl in the whole wide world! I'd never be late to pick you up!"
You smile and giggle when Jenni peppers kisses all over your face before gently moving you towards Alexia.
"Hola, Mami," You say again.
Alexia smiles and takes your hand. "Hola, Bambi."
You look very nervous and your hand is unusually warm in Alexia's, though she puts that down to you coming straight from ballet.
There's a big wall where you can choose what to make. Alexia gets a mug and, unsurprisingly, you want the train. It's at the very top of the shelf and you can't reach and you don't want Mami to get upset at you for asking when you could easily get something that's closer to your height.
But Alexia notices.
She's making sure to pay a lot of attention to you now. To the way that your ballet pumps are wearing a bit at the soles and the way you play with the sleeves of Jenni's jacket.
"Do you want the train, Bambi?" She asks," Do you want me to pick you up so you can grab it? Can I touch you?"
You nervously nod and Alexia pretends to not notice the way that you don't breath until you're safely back on the ground.
The little shop is quaint and fairly quiet and Alexia lets you choose the table at the very back.
Very gently, she telegraphs her every move to you as she rolls up the sleeves of Jenni's jacket so you don't get paint on it.
You're both quiet as you paint.
Your little tongue is stuck out in concentration as you dip your paintbrush into the paint and move it to cover your train.
"You moved up in ballet," Alexia says eventually," How was that?"
"Was good," Is the response from your tiny voice," It is harder now but still fun." You blink a few times as the overhead light buzzes and you scratch at you neck. It's been a little itchy since you last saw Mami and you don't like.
You haven't told anyone because you're scared they're going to get angry at you. You're a big girl now. Big girl don't complain about something as silly as itchy skin.
"I'm very proud of you," Alexia says," And I'm glad that you're enjoying ballet so much."
Your watery little smile back makes Alexia nearly cry herself. "Really, Mami?"
"Of course. I am so proud of my Bambi. You make me proud everyday."
"Are you sure, Mami?"
"Yes. I am very proud of you."
You sniffle a little and duck your head back down to continue painting. It hurts to move your head though. It's all stiff and tight so you have to hold it at an odd angle so you don't cry - though you're not sure if it's because of the pain or the fact that Mami is acting like this is the Before.
The Mami from the Before never got angry when you asked silly questions. The Mama from the Now got angry at you once when you asked a silly questions when Jaume was crying.
You hope that this Mami won't be mad because you ask a silly question.
"Mami," You ask softly, the memory plaguing you ever since your Jenni returned to you," Jenni says she wanted me when I was little. Did you want me?"
Whatever bubble Alexia was in before pops and it's like icy cold water has been dumped on her.
"What do you mean, Bambi?"
"You and Miss Olga wanted Jaume," You say," And my Jenni says she wanted me. Did you want me too?"
"Bambi..." Alexia doesn't want to think about those first few months of having you. The post-partum depression had hit hard and Alexia could do little but deal with yours and hers basic needs.
She had loved you and resented you all at the same time and the guilt had weighed on her for months.
"I always want you."
You shake your head before wincing and returning your head back to its awkward resting position. "But did you want me then? When I was little like Baby Jaume and when I was in your belly?"
Alexia moves from her chair to kneel in front of you. Her hand comes up to cradle you. Either her hands are big or your face is tiny because they cover your entire cheek.
"I love you," Alexia says," You're my Bambi and I've always loved you."
"But did you want me?"
"Bambi..."
"Mami...Mami, I..."
Alexia doesn't want to lie but she also doesn't want to tell you either. There were moments, that first week she found out she was pregnant when she didn't want you. She hadn't been overjoyed at the prospective of you. She hadn't wanted her career to be derailed by something as silly as a child.
She doesn't want to tell you the truth because she knows that it will be damaging to you. You're not old enough to be told things like this. You're not mature enough to be told this kind of information and not have it linger and fester within you for years.
But Alexia's always valued honesty. She doesn't like lying but she had lied to you all your life. She doesn't want to lie again now even if it's about something like this. Adults cannot fault other adults for telling their truth but you are neither an adult nor can you understand what this means for you.
"I want you now," Alexia says instead," I want you when I go to bed every night. I want you when I wake up every morning. I want you when I score a goal and when I win trophies. I want you, Bambi."
You sniffle and scratch more insistently at your skin, your wrists this time.
"I miss you sometimes, Mami," You say," But coming back to your house is scary."
"Thank you for being honest, Bambi. You don't have to come home if you don't want to." Alexia forces down tears. "When I next see you, we should go and see Abuela and we'll explain things to you, okay?"
"Okay, Mami."
"Is your train done?"
Your train actually is done so Mami gives it and her mug to the lady who works there to finish off and you both walk outside.
"They should be done in a few days," Mami tells you," And then when I next see you, I'll give you your new train."
"Okay, Mami." Her hand is in yours and you think that is enough for today, pulling your hand away as Jenni turns the corner and lets you run to her.
"Hey," She laughs, swinging you up into her arms," How did it go? Was it fun?"
You don't answer, burying your face into Jenni's neck.
"I..." Alexia says," I think next time when should go to my Mama's...Conversations are...difficult sometimes."
Jenni nods. "I see," She says," Next week, maybe?"
The words are complete autopilot. Alexia hates what she's said the moment they're out of her mouth but they're completely out of habit and she doesn't even think before she speaks.
"We'll see," She says," I'll have to check my schedule." She clamps her mouth shut the moment she says them. "I mean- No, I meant-"
You look resigned, like you are so used to this that it barely effects you but Jenni looks furious. She hefts you up higher in her arms.
"Say goodbye to your Mami, Bambi."
"Bye, Mami."
"Hey...Wait, no, Jenni. I didn't mean-"
"Bambi needs to have a nap," Jenni says," She takes one right after ballet. We changed her schedule for painting today. I should get her home."
Alexia wilts, slouching her shoulders and curling in on herself. "Adios, Bambi. I love you!"
Jenni is already walking around and you don't offer your own I love you in return.
Jenni's steady steps feel nice as she walks you back to Tia Alba's. Your itchiness increases and you scratch more harshly at your neck.
"Ma-Jenni?"
"Yes, Bambi?"
"Can we have cuddles tonight?"
"Of course we can. I love cuddles with my favourite little girl. Are we having them on the sofa after bathtime or in bed together?"
Before Ma-Jenni came home, you slept with your Tia Alba. Now you sleep in the same bed as Ma-Jenni. She's big and strong and she holds you just right. She doesn't let you go the whole night. You go to sleep in her arms and you wake up in her arms.
"Bed cuddles please."
"I love bed cuddles."
You grin. "I love bed cuddles too!"
You scratch at your neck again and Jenni gently pulls your hand away. She frowns, swiping at your skin with her thumb a few times.
"You've got a bit of a rash there, Bambi," She says," We'll have to keep an eye on that."
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augustinewrites · 6 months
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“you’re an idiot.”
“really, doc? you’re gonna insult me after i came all this way to see you?”
you pause what you’re doing to stare down at wriothesley with a wholly unimpressed look. “you were wheeled in on a stretcher.”
(he’d even come in shirtless, one hand resting behind his head all laid out like a fontanian model in a clothing campaign.)
he dismisses the fact with a wave of his good hand, tsking. “only because sigewinne threatened to tranq me if i didn’t get on!”
you know for a fact that the head nurse is still stationed outside the infirmary in case his grace tries to leave without staying for overnight observation.
“she should have done it anyway,” you hum, taking his wrist and using it to carefully position his arm at his side. you nod at the nurse across from you holding the band to keep him steady. “deep breath now, your grace.”
wriothesley draws a breath and releases it quickly, grinning up at you. “so, what are you— fuck!”
“get him a sling,” you instruct, stifling a laugh as you let go of his arm and step back. “i’ll get him an ice pack.”
the two of you move around the infirmary, quickly gathering supplies as the duke lets loose a string of expletives that would make sigewinne faint.
it’s quite entertaining to see the duke pout, holding a heart-patterned ice pack to his shoulder. “i think i deserve a kiss for that.”
“a kiss is going to help with shoulder pain?”
“duh.”
this time, you don’t stifle your laughter as he closes his eyes and puckers his lips.
you pull a sticker from your pocket, pressing it to his waiting lips. “you were a very brave boy.”
his pucker turns into a pout as he uses his good hand to take the sticker off, sticking it to his discarded gauntlets. he looks more like a puppy than a wolf in this state.
with the worst of it out of the way, you begin tending to any scrapes or bruises.
it should be simple, but wriothesley doesn’t make it easy. he flexes playfully whenever your fingertips brush his biceps. insists on holding your hand when the antiseptic touches his wounds.
“okay, you’re all done,” you tell him, peeling off your gloves and tossing them into the bin. “but you will have to stay overnight so we can monitor you for any concussion symptoms.”
his brows raise as he clicks his tongue, smirking. “oh? are you asking me on a date?”
“no,” you say, tucking your clipboard under your arm. “i’m doing my due diligence as your physician.”
“but it’ll just be me and you and this very romantic lighting…”
“it’s dim light because someone keeps forgetting to put in the order for new ones.”
“they’re dim? hm, i didn’t notice. how could i when your smile lights up the room?”
you roll your eyes when he winks, but can’t help the heat you feel spreading across your face. “if you keep this up, i’ll have sigewinne and her tranquilizer gun stay overnight with you instead.”
“if i stop and you stay, will you at least have tea with me?” he asks, a hopeful glimmer in his eye.
“fine, i’ll stay. but only if i get to pick the tea,” you tell him, pulling a chair to the side of his bed and shedding your lab coat to get comfortable. “you’re especially insufferable when you’re injured, aren’t you?”
he reaches out and pulls the chair closer, so you’re sitting between his knees. “and yet, you’re finally succumbing to the temptation of my rock hard abs and winning personality.”
“no,” you deny, but you’d be lying if you said being this close to his spectacularly toned torso wasn’t doing…things to you. “it’s because you have liyue imported tea.”
“yeah,” he says, flashing you a charming, sinful smile that makes the fine hairs on the back of your neck raise, threatening to shatter your resolve. “if you say so.”
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Note
Hello, bestie, your writing is fucking amazing, i adore you so much, lovie 💕❤️😍
Could i ask a request for 141, LV and Konig, where THEY send reader a nude photo as a tease, pretty smutty too, please? 👀😍 Thank you, sweetie ❤️
141 + König Sending Reader A Nude Photo
Warnings: smut, p in v sex, afab! Reader, oral f! Receiving
Note: I’ll be doing a second version with Alejandro, Nikolai, Rodolfo and Grave☺️❤️
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Simon Ghost Riley-
Simon felt ridiculous. He'd never sent a nude photo in his life, and thought the idea was frankly a bit silly. But Johnny had told him that this was something that people just “did” in relationships, especially when one of the partners was away for an extended period of time.
He closed himself in his office, locking the door behind him before sitting down in one of the chairs.
“Better be right about this, Johnny.” Simon huffed, moving to unbutton his pants. Now, Simon would be lying if the thought wasn’t intriguing, his mind filling with possibilities of just how you’d react to getting such a provocative picture of him.
He pulled his semi hard cock out, fisting it a few times before taking out his phone. If he thought the idea was ridiculous before, it was nothing compared to how he was feeling now. He struggled with getting the right angle, frankly feeling quite awkward as he snapped a photo and sent it off to you.
He debated getting back up, and going back to his bunk before his phone chimed a few minutes later. He looked down, to find a picture of you, your body donning the black lingerie set he bought you before his deployment, and your bottom lip tucked in between your teeth.
“Bloody fuckin’ hell.” Simon cursed under his breath, his cock now rock hard in his pants. He palmed at himself through his pants lazily, his eyes glued to your figure on his phone. “Gonna be the death of me.”
He quickly dialed your number, pressing his phone to his ear as his hand moved back toward his fully hard member. “Lovie- you look good in that set.”
“Thought you’d like that. That picture was quite the surprise, Si.” You gave a breathy chuckle, and Simon could’ve sworn he heard the faint buzzing of your vibrator in the background.
“You touching yourself, babe?” Simon asked, his cock twitching at the thought. “You touching yourself to the picture of my cock?”
You gave a breathy moan in reply, causing Simon’s eyes to squeeze shut as he pulled himself back out, and began to pump himself at a steady pace.
“Let me see, kitten.” He ordered, and who were you to deny his request?
Your picture came a moment later, your favorite vibrator shoved firmly inside of you, and Simon could clearly tell from the picture that you were soaked.
“Good fucking girl. That’s my girl. Go on and make yourself cum on the phone with me, I want to hear it.”
Your moans filled his ears, as Simon struggled to keep the phone steady in his hands, his eyes glued to your recent picture. His right hand was pumping at his cock furiously, your soft mewls driving him closer to the edge.
“Just you wait, princess. When I get home I’m gonna make you cum in every room of that fuckin’ house.” Simon groaned, his orgasm nearing quickly. “Can’t wait to feel that pretty little pussy cum all around my cock.
His vulgar words drove you to your edge, a loud squeak emitting from your lips as your release racked your body- causing you to scream out your lovers name.
Simon fell over the edge, his cock pulsing as thick ropes of cum flew onto his abdomen. “Fuck. My name sounds so good like that. Such a good girl for me.”
“You better have meant what you said Simon.” You teased, your voice breathless as you regained your composure. “As much as I loved the picture, nothing compares to the real thing.”
Simon cleared his through, a dark chuckle resounding from his chest. Of course he fucking meant it- after all, Simon’s a man of his word.
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Johnny Soap MacTavish-
Johnny was dying. He'd been without sex for months, and he was dying for any sort of release. He wouldn’t be home to you, his pretty little pet in at least another few weeks, and he was nearly about to burst from the pent up sexual frustration.
The saved pictures of you in his phone had done little to satiate his needs, and he decided to take a different approach this time.
He closed himself in one of the private bathrooms on base, and wasted no time in yanking off his pants. His cock was already semi hard, as crude thoughts of you had been swirling in his mind all day.
He gave his member a few pumps, before snapping a picture of himself in the full sized mirror in front of him, and sending it to you without any accompanying message. Now all he had to do was wait for your reply.
He smiled as not more than a minute after he sent the photo, he got a notification on his phone that you were face timing him.
“Bonnie.” He answered, making sure only his face was visible when he answered the video call. “Is everything alright?”
“You’re a fucking tease, you know that right?” You groaned, settling yourself on yours and Johnnys shared bed. “An absolute tease.”
“It’s only fair lass. How many times have you sent me pictures of yourself, knowing damn well I couldn’t do anything about it.” Johnny argued, getting himself more comfortable on the lid of the toilet. “Go on, show me what that picture did to you.”
He watched intently as you held your phones camera away from you, and began to slowly strip away at your clothes. Johnny licked his lips eagerly as you removed your panties, leaving yourself completely bare to his awaiting eyes.
He turned his camera to face his fully hard cock, and began to pump himself, his eyes never leaving the phone in his other hand.
“Let me see how wet you are, baby.” Johnny cooed, his eyes glued to the screen as you brought your phone closer to your pussy. He nearly came right there as he watched you drag a finger up your soaked cunt, the wet noises clearly audible through the phone. “Oh fuck me.”
You gave a delectable whimper, causing Johnny to fist at his cock faster than before. “Miss you Johnny.”
“I know, lass. Be a good girl for me and show me just how much that pussy misses me. I want to watch you come undone with your fingers.”
You spread your legs further for him, giving him the perfect view of your glistening cunt, and began to play with yourself, as soft moans began to emit from your lips.
“That’s it, keep going. I want to see everything.”
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John Price-
John was simply too old for this. He’d heard the men on base talking about sending nudes to their significant others, as a way to keep their sex lives spiced up away from home- but John never once had partaken in such a thing before. Would you even like it?
The alcohol swirling in his system told him that you would, and before he could second guess his decision, he made his way to his office, making sure to lock the door behind him.
He sat himself comfortably in his chair, before pulling his length out of his pants, stroking it lazily as he pulled up his messages with you.
He knew you’d be home, probably in bed right now- otherwise he’d never have entertained the thought of doing this. He could very well just go home, but he knew if he did the stack of paperwork would never get done, but gods could he use the distraction.
He held his cock firmly in his hand, feeling a bit silly as he snapped a picture, and sent it over to you without second thought.
To say you were surprised to see the picture that popped up on your phone would be an understatement. You loved John dearly, but never would you have thought he’d send you a picture like this. Not that you were complaining.
Biting your lip, you snapped a picture of yourself- Your cleavage pouring out from the top of one of John’s white dress shirts.
John felt his cock twitch in his palm as he opened up the photo message, and instantly typed out a reply.
Get in your car, and drive over to my office, NOW.
~~~~~
You barely made it through the door of his office before he had you bent over his desk, your leggings ripped down exposing your bare bottom half to him.
“Gods I am a lucky fucking man.” John groaned, his fingers immediately going to toy with your already soaked folds. “Does my sending you pictures of my cock make you this wet?”
All you could do was moan in reply, as his thick fingers plunged inside of you, pumping in and out of you at a vigorous pace. He paused his movements, clearly unsatisfied by your lack of verbal reply.
A harsh slap came down on your ass, causing you to cry out. John only chuckled at your mewls. “I asked you a question, I expect an answer.”
“Yes. Fuck yes John.” You cried out. Seemingly satisfied by your answer, John pulled his fingers out of your core, before landing a playful slap to your cunt.
“Then he daddy’s good girl and cum around his cock, yeah? Show me just how much you enjoyed it.” He cooed in your ear, before plunging his length inside you without warning.
Needless to say, this won’t be the last time you receive a photo from John.
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König-
Sorry, you wanted him to what? Surely he didn’t read your message correctly. König looked back down at his phone, his eyes scanning over your most recent message about a half dozen times. You wanted… a picture of his cock?
König looked around the room shyly, somehow thinking the men 10 feet across from him knew what was being asked of him.
He gulped audibly as you sent through another text, this time a picture of you, in one of your more revealing sets of pajamas. König could feel himself grow hard and his pants, and practically sprinted to one of the private bathrooms on base.
Once locked inside, he wasted no time in ripping down his pants, breathing a sigh of relief as his painfully hard cock sprung free from its confinements.
Though he knew he was alone, König couldn’t help but look around the small bathroom, his cheeks burning crimson red as he snapped a picture of himself, before sending it off to you.
He honestly planned on getting up and walking out of the bathroom, never to think of this moment again, before his phone went off again.
A video came through, causing König’s brain to malfunction completley. You were playing with yourself, as soft moans of König’s name left your lips.
Königs legs acted on their own, prompting him to walk back over to the toilet and sit down on it, his cock making its way to his hand once more as he began to stroke it.
He had to bite his lip, hard enough to draw blood to prevent his cries of pleasure from escaping his lips. He felt so dirty. He knew men were right outside the bathroom, but in that moment all he could focus on was how good your pussy looked in that video- and how much he wanted it to be his fingers playing with it instead of yours.
Another ping of his phone came- another video from you. König eagerly watched as you came undone, cumming around your fingers as his name continued to spill from your lips.
Königs other hand was shaking, his orgasm rapidly approaching as his eyes remained glued to the video stuck in a loop on his phone. He held the phone, camera facing his cock as he pressed the record button. If you were going to treat him with videos, the least he could do we repay the favor.
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Kyle Gaz Garrick-
You were a tease, through and through. It was one of the many things Kyle loved about you. But you’d been a devious little brat lately. You’d developed this habit this week, of sending him scandalous pictures of yourself, at various points of the day.
It was sending Kyle to a frenzy. Anytime he received the pictures it took everything in him not to run to the bathroom to bust a nut- but the timing was never convenient.
Now, now it was his turn to return the favor. Knowing he was being put on leave earlier than usual (unbeknownst to you) he decided to have a little fun of his own.
Before leaving the base, he stopped in one of the bathrooms, taking a quick picture of his semi hard cock, before tucking it back in his pants with a smile. Without second thought he hit the send button, before hopping in his car for the two hour drive home.
~~~~
You blew up his phone at least a dozen times on his drive. Kyle was never one to spontaneously send pictures like that, and it had a heat pooling between your legs.
The worst part was, he was blatantly ignoring your texts. He knew damn well what he was doing. Frustrated beyond belief, you took matters into your own hands.
~~
Kyle arrived home later that afternoon, the shit eating smirk from earlier never once leaving his lips.
He raced up the stairs, being as quiet as he could, and carefully opened the door to your shared bedroom. The sight he was met with had Kyle nearly creaming his pants right there.
You were splayed out on the bed, fully naked, your freshly painted nails stuffed firmly inside your core, desperately trying to find your release.
“Need some help?” Kyle called, a dark chuckle escaping his lips as he leaned against the door frame.
You jolted up, your eyes as wide as saucers as you pulled your fingers from your pussy. “Kyle!”
“Oh do continue, I’m quite enjoying the show.” He replied, licking his lips as his eyes remained glued to your sopping core.
“You’re a tease. I didn’t know you were coming home.” You huffed in frustration, your momentum from earlier long gone.
He grabbed your legs, firmly pulling you to the edge of the bed, and chuckled at the squeal that escaped your lips. “How’s it feel to be on the receiving end?”
Before you could reply, Kyle’s tongue found its way to your soaked folds, swirling and flicking rapidly at your sensitive bud.
“Now be a good girl and take exactly what I’m willing to give you.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A/N: ahhhh sorry this didn’t come together as well as I’d liked!
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onlyhuis · 5 months
Text
like a chair
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member | jeonghan x f reader genre | smut word count | 1.4k synopsis | when jeonghan tells you to sit, you sit. smut warnings | descriptions of female anatomy, face sitting, oral (reader receiving), hair pulling (jh receiving), overstimulation (both receiving), pet names (princess, baby), jeonghan is a dirty little masochist and he cums in his pants notes | jeonghan pussy eater agenda everyone say amen. tagging @duhnova because they'd be mad at me if i didn't
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there’s a muffled noise between your legs and you lift your hips up, wincing at the sudden feeling of cold air.
“why’d you move?” jeonghan asks below you, clearly out of breath but pretending not to be. he’s wearing nothing except for his sweatpants, his bare arms wrapped securely around your thighs as he lays against the bed.
you look down at him, unconsciously squeezing your legs around his head when you see the mess around his mouth. his cheeks are a deep shade of pink and his lips are swollen and sticky, glistening with spit and slick. “you were trying to say something?”
“just talking to myself about how good you taste.” he smirks and tugs at your thighs to pull you back down onto his mouth, flicking his tongue upwards through your folds when you try to resist.
you frown and cross your arms, ignoring the tingling in your stomach as you watch his nails dig into your skin, his fingers turning pale at the tightness of his grip. “well, don’t do that. it makes me think i’m suffocating you.”
“princess, i appreciate your concern, but when i say sit on my face, i mean sit. like a chair. don’t think about me.”
“hannie—”
but before you can say anything he yanks you down hard, catching you off guard as you fall against his waiting mouth. you whimper as his lips immediately wrap around your clit, one hand shooting out to grip the headboard to stabilize yourself.
you look down between your legs where you can just barely see the top half of jeonghan’s face, his tangled hair sprawled across the pillow. his eyes are the only part of him that’s visible, hungrily staring straight up at you, as if he’s daring you to sit up again and see what happens.
you throw your head back with a breathy groan. the sloppy sounds coming from beneath you go straight to your core, the knot in your stomach tightening too fast for you to keep up with.
you try your hardest to resist the urge to grind against his mouth, but he knows you too well and knows you’re holding back, which is not what he wants, despite how you worry about him. his hands slide behind your ass and you look down again, finding an almost disappointed look in his eyes as he starts to rock your hips back and forth.
your other hand falls to his hair, weaving your fingers through it and tugging as you give in, dragging your pussy across his tongue with a whine. you can feel him smile against you when you grip his hair tighter, pushing your hips into his eager mouth. 
if there’s one thing jeonghan loves more than anything in the world, it’s when you use him for your pleasure. he usually has to coax you into it at first, not wanting to hurt him, but once your orgasm starts to close in something changes and suddenly you’re more frantic with your movements, more desperate to get off, the only thought occupying your mind is how good the feeling of his mouth, or his fingers or his cock or whatever’s inside you, is.
he lets your hand in his hair guide him, pushing and pulling his head around exactly where you want him. he can tell you’ve stopped thinking, focused only on the feeling of your walls throbbing around his tongue and his nose pressed against your clit. 
he can feel his cock straining against his pants, aching from not being touched, but the wait is well worth it when he finally gets to feel you cum on his mouth. he groans at the thought and you pull his hair harder, moaning out his name as you grind down on his mouth. his grip on your ass tightens, and he can feel his own spit mixed with your wetness dripping down his chin.
“fuck, hannie, right— right there! please,” you gasp out, your thighs squeezing the sides of his head so hard it makes him dizzy.
if his mouth wasn’t currently occupied he would make you beg him for permission before you cum, but he’s feeling generous tonight, as he usually does when you let him eat you out like this.
he purses his lips around your clit, sucking as hard as he can, and he can feel your legs tense up as you finally break, a flood of wetness seeping onto his tongue. your fingers clench and unclench in his hair, almost in rhythm with the way your cunt clenches above his mouth. 
he never lets up, continuing to drag your hips as you ride his face through your orgasm. you try to lift yourself up a little, flinching away from him, but his grip on you is firm. he holds you down against his mouth as he laps at your pussy, determined to clean up every last drop that spills out of you despite your whines and pleas.
he keeps going even when you call his name, the words stuck in your throat as you struggle to breathe through the overstimulation. you tug on his hair one more time to get his attention, but instead it just pushes him over the edge before he can even see it coming.
he nearly blacks out for a second, eyes squeezed shut as he releases a guttural moan into your pussy. his fingers loosen and you finally manage to break away from him, pushing your hips away from his face and falling to the side as your legs tremble with the aftershocks of your orgasm.
without your cunt smothering his face jeonghan finally gasps for air, his mouth hanging open and his chest heaving with shallow, hurried inhales. the dark stain on his sweatpants continues to grow as he lets out soft groans, his cock jerking as warmth floods his abdomen. 
you roll onto your back and look over at him, still panting as you start to catch your breath. watching the distant look in his eyes makes you grin, and you lean over to kiss a dry spot on his cheek. his hand falls to your shoulder as he pulls you closer to kiss you properly, and you whimper at the wetness on his warm lips.
the kiss doesn’t last very long, though, and he pulls back with a long sigh, still trying to even out his breathing. you rest your head on his chest and look up at him, captivated with how fucked out he looks as you wait for him to return to you.
after a moment he looks down at you, meeting your eyes with a mischievous smile. “see? didn’t suffocate,” he says, almost proudly.
you roll your eyes in response, swiping your thumb across his nose to wipe away some of the wetness, though it doesn’t make much of a difference. he sighs again and relaxes into the bed, but you move your fingers to his neck and he tenses up again, grinning when he sees you’re not quite done for the night.
your hand slides down his bare chest, drifting over his defined abs and pausing at the waistband of his sweats before resting on top of the wet spot, adding just a little bit of pressure. he moans and pushes his hips into your hand, shivering as his own overstimulation begins to set in at your touch.
“baby—mmh, too much,” he whimpers, his smile instantly falling. his hand moves on top of yours but his grip is light, his body telling a different story than his words.
you lean over his face and drag your tongue across his chin, keeping your eyes locked with his as you clean up the mess you’d left behind. “can’t believe you came untouched, just from letting me ride your face,” you whisper with a mischievous smile of your own. “you like it, don’t you? it gets you off, when you make me cum all over your tongue.”
“fuck,” he curses, arching his hips off the bed as he pushes his ruined sweats off onto the floor. “i can go again, just wait, please.”
you press another kiss to his puffy lips, deciding to be generous to him, too. “eat me out until you’re hard again and then i’ll suck you off, okay?”
suddenly with newfound energy he flips you onto your back, grinning as he shimmies down the bed and pries your shaky legs apart. “deal.”
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norrisleclercf1 · 17 days
Note
omg, love your writing!
Could I ask about mafia lando where someone kidnaps reader who is pregnant? 🙏🏻
A/N: Of course darling
Warning: This is somewhat dark, if you don't like that, don't read it!
Lando and you couldn't wait to meet your little baby boy, it was something you two talked about all the time. Lando had upped security like crazy, as he was worried what people could do to you two. It was kept within his inner circle that you were pregnant, but you also didn't try to hide it when you went out.
So in the end, there was no telling who knew about your pregnancy.
"Lan, I'm going out, to pick up some last minute baby stuff." You smiled, leaning against his office door frame. His curls bounce as he looks up and smiles, feeling his pride swell seeing his ring resting on your pregnant belly. "Make sure to take your guards, baby." He didn't want to keep you locked up in the house.
No matter how much the others told him it was safer to keep you locked up, away from harm. He refused to not let you live your life, besides you hard your guards with you, nothing could go wrong.
"I love you," You whisper and Lando smiles, leaning back in his chair, soaking you in. "And I love you, so fucking much, both of you." He whispers the last part and you smile blowing him a kiss as you walk out of the office.
-----------------
"Please, they're just right there," You whine to your bodyguard, pointing at the french fry stand, down the street. "Ma'am, I can't leave you alone, Mr. Norris would kill me." You huff and sit down on the bench outside the store. "But, my feet hurt, and the baby is craving french fries." You whine, pulling your best pout.
Your guard groans and looks between you and the stand and sighs, "You have to scream if a stranger comes near you, understand?" He asks, and you squeal and nod your head quickly and he smiles and goes to stand in line, back to you.
"Excuse me, could you help me?" You look up and see a sweet girl who smiles brightly, noticing the thick german accent. "Of course, what's wrong?" You smile, not at all feeling threatened at all at the small slightly older lady. Standing you place a hand on your very obvious pregnant belly. "Move and make any sounds to alert the guard and I'll rip that monster out of you," Your blood runs cold feeling something sharp poke right where your little boy's head was.
"Don't, don't. If you kill me, make sure they find me quick please, he's able to live without me, just please." You beg softly, making sure you don't startle anyone. "Shut your fat fucking mouth, move." The woman hisses and pushes your forward as you toddle to the darkened out SUV looking back to see your body guard ordering your french fries.
"Just, make sure they find me quick okay, for my baby." The woman growls and swings her hand back, knocking you in the head, your body going limp as the darkness swallows you gently.
----------------
"Sorry it took so long Mrs. Norris, I know you like your fries cripsy but not so much they crunch and jus," Your body guard Oscar freezes seeing you no where around. "Fuck," He scans the crowds not seeing you. There wasn't any restrooms or baby stores near by, stepping forward his foot makes a cracking sound and looks down and dread settles deep in his stomach.
It was your locket that had the tracker in it, a little picture of you and Lando and on the other side the sonogram. "Oh, Lando is going to fucking kill me."
------------------------
It's the dull throb that has you whimpering, but also the reality that you might never get to hold your baby boy in your arms, that Lando would have to raise him alone. It terrifies you. "Please, don't hurt my baby." You whimper, head rocking into a hard floor as it was so heavy.
"Will you shut her the fuck up," Someone growls. "Gladly," You shake hearing that womans voice again, "Touch my fucking wife and you'll meet a slow death." Your muscles relax as you let out a soft sob, shaking hearing that accent again.
"Y/n, I'm here, you're okay." You breakdown further hearing Oscar's voice as he moves ripping his jacket off and folding it, placing it under your head. "Shhhh, you're okay, shhh." Oscar moves blocking your view as he covers your ears, the piercing screams Lando was pulling out of the woman who had harmed you.
"My baby, the baby," You blubber, Oscar smiles and pulls you into his arms. "They're okay, they didn't hurt the baby." He soothes, but he knows that's probably not the truth. "Oscar," Oscar tenses and looks up seeing Lando, face splattered with blood. "Here," Oscar whispers and hands his friend something to clean himself up. "My baby," You sob, Lando's face pinches as he moves scooping you up.
"Love, I've got you, the baby is going to be okay, you're okay. Hearing Lando say those words, soothe you in a way you can't explain. "You and our boy are just fine, just fine." He repeats, almost like he was trying to soothe himself. Climbing into the car Lando's grip remains secure as he let's you curl around him. He doesn't know when, but the long drive back you fall asleep.
"Oscar," Lando almost smirks seeing the way the boy tenses and slowly looks back as Lando stares at him. "Thank you for getting her fries," Oscar blinks as Lando looks down and touches your belly, feeling a strong kick and chuckles. "Next time, just make sure she's beside you when you get them, or else I'll cut your head off." Oscar swallows and nods his head. "Yes, sir."
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ghosthunterbuck · 14 days
Text
beer & apologies
(buddie) (722 words) (7x04 coda)
It’s late, later than any reasonable person would show up on a friend’s doorstep, but Buck’s got this bright, warm feeling in his chest and all he wants to do is apologize so he can share it. For a split second he thinks about knocking, but that feels a little too much like going backwards. Instead, he lets himself in and hangs his key on the hook.
“Eddie,” he calls quietly into the still house.
“Kitchen.” The reply is soft, easy, like Eddie was expecting him.
Buck steps into the room and holds up the beer he brought.
Eddie looks up at him and grins, soft and warm in the glow of the lamplight. “What’s that for?”
“This is ‘sorry for acting like a teenager and spraining your ankle’ beer,” Buck says, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “Seriously, I’m sorry.”
Eddie sighs and pushes an empty chair back from the table with his foot, gesturing for Buck to sit. “I’m sorry too,” he says.
“No, no, you don’t—" Buck starts.
“Yeah, I do,” Eddie interrupts with a wry grin. “You should definitely be sorry-er, though, so I’ll take the beer.”
Buck snorts and sits, setting the six pack on the table between them.
“We didn’t—well, I didn’t…”
“I know,” Buck says. “I was just—”
“I know,” Eddie says softly.
A few, quiet moments pass, and it’s comfortable, exactly what Buck was missing the last couple of days.
“Hey,” Eddie says suddenly, sitting up a little straighter, “at least now I know why you always said no to basketball.” He smiles, loose and just a tiny bit mischievous.
Buck splutters. “What? No! I wasn’t that bad,” he protests.
Eddie lifts his injured ankle and raises an eyebrow.
“Okay, well maybe, but—”
“Uh-uh,” Eddie says, “no buts. You haven many talents, Buck, but basketball isn’t one of them.”
Buck ducks his head and grins. “Maybe I’ll get Tommy to teach me, then I can beat you without playing dirty.” Saying Tommy’s name out loud gives birth to a few giddy butterflies in his stomach.
“You two make up?” Eddie asks.
“Yeah,” Buck says. “He uh—texted me.” The butterflies turn to little rocks.
“Good,” Eddie says, “that’s good.” He grabs a beer and twists the top off. “I really think you guys will get along, if you give him a chance.”
“We, um. Yeah. We probably will.” Buck grabs a beer of his own and stares at the label.
He doesn’t—he didn’t mean to lie. It just kind of… came out. Which, it’s Eddie. Buck knows he could tell him exactly what happened, right now, and it’d be fine. It’d be completely fine because it’s Eddie and he knows Eddie would be cool about it, probably even happy for him! But when he goes to open his mouth it just. Doesn’t.
“How’s—uh. How’s Marisol?” he asks instead, tripping over his words.
Eddie shrugs. “She’s fine, same as always. Apparently Christopher got her to play Fortnite, which, according to him, was a disaster.”
Buck laughs, shaking his head. “That kid,” he says softly.
“That kid,” Eddie agrees. He takes another swig of beer and sits back.
“Hey, wait,” Buck says suddenly. He lurches forward and snags the bottle out of Eddie’s hand. “You can’t have this, you’re on pain killers.”
“It’s my apology beer!” Eddie protests.
“Nope, two sips is plenty. I can’t hurt your ankle and your liver on the same day.”
“It’s after midnight, it’s tomorrow,” Eddie pouts. “Give it.” He makes a halfhearted attempt to grab it back, but Buck holds the beer aloft.
“Nuh-uh, absolutely not,” Buck says. “You can drink your apology beer this weekend.”
“My apology beer is going to be flat and stale,” Eddie replies, unimpressed.
Buck rolls his eyes. “I’ll buy you a new apology beer, alright?”
“Promises, promises.”
“I will!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Eddie laughs. “You better. Want to bring it over on Saturday? We can watch the game.”
Buck’s grin falters a little bit, even as that warm feeling bubbles up in his chest all over again. “I uh- can’t, sorry.”
“What, you got a hot date or something?” Eddie asks with a laugh.
Buck takes a long swallow from the beer he stole from Eddie. “Yeah, something,” he says with a hollow laugh.
He feels like a liar.
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y13evie · 8 months
Text
lust for life
professor john price x student reader
tags: teacher x student, very obvious age gap, i’m in love with older men like genuinely i have an issue, yearning a little bit, smut ofc
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you knew it was wrong. your friends scolded you for feeling that way towards your, much older professor. but the heart wants what it wants, right? he’d praise your work, calling you “such a smart girl”, it drove you crazy. but of course he wouldn’t feel the same way back. it’s unprofessional and downright wrong. but the way he was grabbing your hips and forcing you back down onto his cock, praises falling from his lips as he reaches his high. it was too much, the way he called your name out like a chant.
“any questions before i let you all go?”
you snapped out of your very lucid daydream. looking around to see your classmates slowly exiting the lecture. you looked down at your notes to see that the only thing you’ve written down is a few lousy notes. sighing, you scold yourself for not paying attention. you’re gonna have to stay after class again, but you weren’t complaining. you made your way over to your professors desk as the last student shut the door.
“i’m really sorry mr. price. h-honestly i wasn’t really paying attention today. you might have to go over a few topics with me again. i apologize.” this wasn’t usually like you. you had the highest grade in your class and was always doing superb in all of your assignments.
“hey, it’s alright. you’re a very good girl. i know you didn’t have any bad intentions today”. he stood up from his chair, allowing him to slightly tower over you. he walks to where your back is nearly touching his chest, “here. give me this, let’s see what you have down”. you became self aware of every breath you took, praying to anyone out there that he couldn’t see you almost trembling.
to break the tension, you step forward and turn towards him. the way you looked up at him, batting your eyelashes. god, it made him melt. the way you yearn for his praise. he knows how you feel about him. he’d be lying if he said he didn’t notice the way your gaze lingered just a little longer than everyone else’s, biting the tip of your pen to try and get rid of all those disgusting thoughts.
price walks back over to his desk and takes a seat back on his chair, letting a gruff groan as he sits back fully.
“so, what’s been on your brain that’s got you all distracted?”. he tilted his head, waiting to see what lie you’ll conjure up.
“i mean- it’s really nothing. just school being busy. got plenty of work to get done, the usual.”. you failed to make eye contact. noted.
“you only have two classes. i know you don’t have that much work.” his voice is stern now. and your stomach is turning at the fact he’s caught you in your lie. “so look at me, and tell me what’s on your mind”.
you swallow hard. cringing at the fact that he may know exactly where your mind wonders each class. you decide to give in, kind of.
“it’s silly. i have a boy on my mind.” hoping that he’ll believe your lie. he scoffs and beckons you to come closer, patting his lap once you’re close enough. you look at him, confused. spending too much time thinking about the secret meaning of his actions, you’re caught off guard by the fact he snatched your hips and sits you onto his lap. you weakly try to wiggle your way out of his strong grasp, but it’s no use.
“maybe you aren’t such a smart girl. lying to your professor like that as if i don’t know.” his grip on your hips is suffocating. your body starts to subconsciously grind on his body due to the overwhelming heat forming between your legs. you know it’s wrong but god it feels so right.
price grabs your chin and begins kissing you. what was soft, gentle kisses grew to become an intense make out session. the sounds of your sloppy kisses to the feeling of your clit rubbing against his bulge every time you rock forward again, it was all becoming too much. you were babbling nonsense and pleading for more.
“becoming all fucked out just by grinding on me a little? that’s pathetic, honey.”. although his words are harsh, he picks you up and flips you onto his desk. your face is pushed into a bunch of useless paperwork as he slides down your pants, using a thumb to tease your puffy clit as he takes off your panties next. he uses the pad of the same thumb to collect the slick from your pussy, using it to wet his throbbing cock.
you cry out as he pushes his full length in without a warning. your hand flies to your mouth to prevent any more sounds from spilling out.
“thaaattts it baby, shut your pretty mouth up. y’know how much trouble we’d get in. if they saw me fuckin a pretty little girl like you.”. you clenched around him at the thought of it. getting caught face down ass up with your professor who’s slightly older than your father.
his hips smacked against yours faster now, bruising your walls so bad you don’t know if you’ll be able to walk out of the room. you feel yourself slipping away into ecstasy, barely able to keep your head up. you know price is getting close by the way he’s growling so deeply into your ear. his thrusts become animalistic as he urges you to reach your high with him. both of your cum getting mixed together as he sloppily grinds against you a few more times to ride out his orgasm.
you pant heavily as he pulls out. leaving a soft kiss on your shoulder before redressing himself. you do the same, pulling up your underwear and pants. your mind is racing, wondering what the hell just happened. his scent floods your senses as he helps you steady yourself back onto your feet.
but for some odd reason, you’re still incredibly worried about missing out on notes. hesitantly, you ask “do you think i could stay afterwards tomorrow too, sir? i really need those notes”. he smiles softly at the fact that you’re still academically driven even after your daydreams just came true.
“of course. you know where to find me, sweetheart.”
2K notes · View notes
togrowoldinv · 16 days
Text
Each Other
Natasha Romanoff x Female Reader
You always know what Natasha needs
Note: it’s just some soft stuff. Enjoy!
Natasha Masterlist 1, Natasha Masterlist 2, Natasha Masterlist 3, Main Masterlist
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“Hey baby,” you say as you lean on the doorframe of Natasha’s home office.
She spins around in her chair and smiles up at you. You never tire of seeing that beautiful grin.
“Are you saying hi to me or the actual baby?” She jokes.
“Both of you.”
You walk further into the room and make grabby hands for your six month old daughter. Nat hands her to you, knowing she’s hungry and wants to see her other mom.
You kiss her forehead and hold her against your shoulder. She presses her head against your neck and whines softly.
“I know, sweetheart,” you coo, trying to soothe her a bit. “Are you coming, Mama?”
“Soon,” Nat replies. “I need to finish up a few things.”
“Don’t take too long please.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
You share another smile with your wife and leave to go feed your baby girl. The process takes a while, but the bonding is very much worth it. She is ready to burp by the time Natasha makes it to her nursery.
“Let me do it,” she says. “You’re still work clothes and we both know this girl will spit up all over you.”
“Thank you, honey,” you reply. She usually makes fun of the pet names but today she doesn’t say anything.
She helps the little girl burp and does in fact get covered in spit up in the process of doing so.
“You okay?” You ask her.
“Oh yeah, I love being covered in this,” Nat says dryly, but not seriously.
You take Ali back and feed her more. Nat sits on the arm of the rocking chair you’re sitting in.
“No, I mean are you okay?” You ask, placing a hand on her thigh. “You haven’t teased me about the pet names since I’ve been home today.”
“I know,” she says. “I think I’m too exhausted. I’m sorry.”
Her voice sounds distant and worse for wear. You hate seeing her like this.
“Hey, come on baby tell me what’s going on,” you say. “It’s just me.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Natasha,” you warn. She knows she needs to just be honest. You already can tell something is off with her.
“The team needs me to go on a mission,” Nat admits.
“Oh.”
“And I know we discussed me having a whole year of desk work once Ali was born,” Nat continues. “But this one is just out of my control. I’ve been working overtime to try and figure a way to get the intel I need without going.”
“But it’s not working,” you finish for her.
“No it’s not,” she agrees. “I’m so frustrated.”
“Natasha, you can’t always fix everything.”
“But I want to,” she says unreasonably.
“I know, baby. It’s going to be okay.”
You lean your head against her arm. It’s the best you can do for now as you juggle an eating baby in your arms.
Ali finishes and Nat takes her back into her arms. You go to the living room to sit together. Nat puts Ali in her play chair.
You two sit together and watch her giggle and play.
“Call Steve and the team,” you say after a few minutes. “Tell them you’ll go on the mission.”
“But-“
“No buts,” you interrupt her. “I can handle baby girl. And you won’t rest until you’ve figured this out.”
“You know I love you, right?” Nat asks.
“And you know I love you, right?” You counter.
“It’s one of the few things I’m sure of these days,” Nat says.
“Come here, Natasha,” you say, holding out your arms for her to fully snuggle into.
You kiss her lips softly before she snuggles into your chest. You hold her tight for as long as she wants.
Everything will be okay as long as you have each other.
564 notes · View notes
softlyspector · 7 months
Text
clouds
Summary: Joel comes home to find you telling your daughter a bedtime story.
Pairing: Joel Miller x Reader
Word count: ~1.6k
Warnings: Joel and the reader have a daughter together, certified girl dad Joel Miller, allusions to events in tlou part 2, Joel is a sad old guy, Joel and Ellie are not on good terms, completely unedited
A/N: Hello. I saw a compilation of all the times Joel called Ellie kiddo and this is what spilled forth from that emotional turmoil. Also, it was a nice lil challenge to write something short. I would love to hear your thoughts💕
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Joel is still kicking off his boots by the front door when he hears giggling. 
The sound is like a shot of poison, like new love and cotton candy dreams, all in one. It’s something that never fails to take him back some twenty odd years. 
Yellow lamplight, purple and pink sheets, soccer trophies, pictures stuck to the walls. Texas heat and the muted hum of overhead fans. Laughter and storybooks.
He shakes the memory of that time, of that little girl away. Snow is splattered in little puddles around the front door’s mat now, and Joel isn’t sure how long he’s been standing there, lost in another time. 
Joel hangs up his coat and listens for it again, the tinkling bells of it. The little laughs that fill him with worrisome dread and the buoyancy of ten thousand balloons, with inadequacy and the roundness of champagne bubbles. 
Even though he’s hungry, even though he wants nothing more than to lie down on the couch and rest for just a goddamn second, he goes slowly up the stairs, avoiding all the little places he knows creak and crack. 
The landing and the hall are bled through with the glow of golden light. It streams in from the bathroom, where you must have forgotten to turn off the light, and one of the bedrooms. The smell of lavender soap leaches out into the hall, fragrant and thick but not cloying. It smells like sleep and safety, like his family, like babies. 
“Did you know that the clouds used to be ruled by monsters?” Your voice slips out into the hall from the other door, a pocket of light cracking the floorboards open.
Joel steps carefully closer, until he can see you and a tiny girl that looks everything like you, and nothing like him. 
“Monsters? Really?” The girl you’re tucking into bed raises a skeptical brow at you. He hears, but doesn’t see, Ellie snort from somewhere within, the gentle creak of the rocking chair she must be sitting in following. 
It stops his heart for a moment, freezes his body where he stands.
Ellie hasn’t been inside this house since…
When he…
He knows she’s been there. Because she still cares about you, about that girl that’s half his, that she thinks of as a sister, that is her sister. And he’s glad she has the two of you, even if he’ll never have her again. 
Ellie is never there when he’s there, never. 
Not anymore. 
You cock your head to the side, the movement birdlike. “Oh, neither of you believe me, huh? It’s true.” You tug the comforter higher around your daughter’s shoulders before brushing your fingers along her temple. “A long time ago they lived there. It’s why the sky turns stormy sometimes.” 
“Why? If they used to live there?” 
“Good catch,” you nod knowingly, curling your fingers around hers when she reaches for your hand. 
“And it still storms,” Ellie points out. Joel knows she’s rolling her eyes. 
You hum, brushing slow fingers against your daughter’s forehead with your free hand. “Well, aren’t you two my smart girls?” 
Ellie scoffs again, while another giggle from his baby reshapes his heart, floats long on the air, bubbly and bright. 
He pushes open the door before you can continue, forgetting for a moment, that things aren’t like before. “Ain’t you a little old to be arguin’ about bedtime stories?” 
The smile on Ellie’s face drops away when he steps into the room, and he tries not to let that bed down in his soul. Her expression goes steely and closed off. 
The room, decked out in warm swatches of green and yellow, goes a little tense. There’s a little stuffed giraffe from Ellie at the foot of her bed, but everything else is covered in whatever you and he can find with bats on it. 
He hadn’t expected this phase, but you find it funny. Spooky, you said of it, and cute. 
“Daddy,” Evie’s voice, squeaky and tinny. She reaches for him, chubby little fingers clenching and releasing. 
“Hi, baby,” he coos, reaches down so she can touch his hand. 
He’s too old to have a kid this little, one that can wrap her hand around his finger in lieu of his whole hand, who’s tiny hand was a little starfish against his palm. 
Still, he wouldn’t change it for the world. 
You stand from where you were perched on the edge of the little bed Joel built with his own hands. You lean down and tuck the blanket higher around her shoulders for a second time. A kiss is planted against her forehead. “Goodnight, baby.” 
“‘Night, mama.” 
“I’m gonna let daddy say goodnight now, okay? He never gets to put you to bed.” 
“Okay.” 
“Ask him to tell you a story,” you whisper, secretive about it. “He knows a lot of good ones.”
She giggles again. “Okay.”  
You pull back and straighten. The glowing eyes of your child follow the movement, then shift to him, big and full of life and all you. 
Ellie stands, clearly intending to follow you, her eyes focused on the ceiling, then the floor. She fidgets with two fingers and resolutely does not look at Joel. 
You lean into his side as you pass, your chest pressed against his arm when you kiss his cheek, before you make to leave. “Hold on now,” he hooks a hand in the crook of your elbow and keeps you close, acutely aware of how long it's been since all four of you have been in a room together. “Ain’t you gonna tell us why monsters ruled the clouds?” 
You smile softly at him, indulging him. “Well, don’t you know they were as afraid of us as we were of them?” 
“No, I didn’t,” he admits like this is something he’s heard of or thought on before, loosening his hold on your arm. You turn and Ellie glances up, meets your eyes but not his. She looks uncomfortable, like diving out the window might be preferable to standing in the same room as him. 
“They were,” you concede. “They were scared of us. And then it turned out that neither were as scary as the other thought. And the storms are just little reminders, of all the things that wouldn’t have been possible, had they stayed in the clouds forever.” 
Joel’s stomach goes sour, but Eva says, “Where are they now, mama?” 
“Right here with us,” you smile. “Because we were the same all along.” 
You lean in and kiss Joel’s cheek. 
Then you’re gone, and the door is shut before either he or Ellie can move. 
She’s still fidgeting, rolling her knuckles against her opposite hand, the skin pinching white. 
“So stupid,” she mutters. “Stupid story.” 
Joel just watches her for a minute before he fills in the place you’d vacated next to his daughter. Tiny fingers seek out his. She’s the littlest thing in the world, that he’s sure of. 
“Wasn’t too bad.” He glances up from Eva to Ellie. “You doin’ all right, kiddo?” 
Her face goes blank and then righteous with anger, hot and burning bright. But her eyes shift to the little girl looking so innocently up at both of them, wide eyes siding between them. 
Some of that fury recedes, just a little. “I should go,” she says roughly instead. 
It sinks part of his heart, sends it out to drift on an icy sea. But he just nods. “Okay,” he agrees softly. “We’ll see y’around.” 
She opens her mouth, like she wants to say something else. But she looks at Eva again, and doesn’t. “Yeah. Maybe.” 
It’s a lie, one she’ll keep if she can help it, and they both know it. “Okay. Be safe.” 
She doesn’t answer, but says goodbye to Eva in a gentle voice and then leaves. 
Joel’s chest hurts. Sometimes he can’t tell if it’s the old anxiety, vestiges of a previous life, a heart attack, or his heart breaking all over again. Maybe it’s some combination of all three. 
“Daddy?” 
“Hi, baby girl,” he murmurs again. “Did you have a nice day?” 
She nods, intelligent eyes clocking him, filing the look on his face away for later examination and rumination. She gets that from you, how smart and perceptive she is. “Mama said you should tell me a story,” she reminds him. 
Joel considers his limited catalog of child appropriate stories. He used to read to Sarah, brightly colored little books for kids about princesses and dogs that could talk. 
But Eva isn’t Sarah. 
The soft pads of her little fingers dig into his wrist. He leans down and presses a kiss to her hair. She still smells like a baby sometimes, sweet like milk, like bread. Now is one of those times, combined with the calming floral scent of the lavender soap you must have bathed her with. 
“Okay,” he says when he pulls back. She liked stories about animals, about monsters, about bats and wolves. She’d probably requested one right before he got home. “I know one. You wanna hear a story about another monster?”
Bright little eyes go sparkly with excitement. 
She nods, wiggles closer to his hip, half her face disappearing beneath the blanket so her eyes are all he can see. 
“Okay,” he agrees, soft about it. “Once there was a mean old monster. He didn’t care about no one or nothin’. And then he met a little girl.”
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💞 Thank you for reading! Comments and feedback are so appreciated. 💞
1K notes · View notes
bau-muffin · 11 days
Text
“Live Mas”
Word count: 6343
Pairing: Aaron Hotchner/Reader, dbf!Hotch if you squint
Content warning: oral sex, fingering, p in v sex
Summary: you had a bad week at work, and Aaron suggests you go on a cabin trip. What could possibly happen?
Author’s Note: this is for my friend’s (@rivnxm) birthday! Happy birthday darling, and I hope you have a WONDERFUL day <3 xoxo
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“Oh my god, thank you for letting me crash here,” you said, half gratefully, half apologetically, with a bottle of wine in your hand. Aaron raised an eyebrow at you with a half smile from where he was sitting in an oversized armchair, beckoning with his hand for you to set your things down.
“You’re lucky you caught me on a day where I actually got to go home at a decent hour. Jack’s at Jessica’s until Sunday night, and this house sounded a little hollow.”
You sat your bag on the floor unceremoniously beside the couch, the wine on the coffee table, and yourself on the couch, flopping a bit.
He eyed you, and you almost rolled your eyes as you felt him “profile” you.
“Rough day?” Aaron asked.
“Rough week. JD is giving me issues and I can’t stand him! He said my article was frivolous. Frivolous! Can you believe the gall?”
“Isn’t this the same guy who said your use of the word “persnickety” in an editorial was entirely too casual?”
“The one and only bastard.”
“If only he was the only bastard. It would make my job easier.”
You rolled your eyes, “you know what I meant.”
He reached for the wine bottle and pulled out a bottle opener and popped it open, a smirk on his face. “Yeah, I do.”
Of course, your friendship with Aaron Hotchner was probably a bit strange. He was in his 40s, a father, and a widower who had been through a divorce, and you were… well, quite a bit younger and not as jaded or cynical.
You were acquainted with him through your father, whose expertise was consulted for a case as a favor to Aaron, and somehow you two clicked and became better friends than he was with your father. You’d met him after your father invited him to a barbecue, and you realized you’d never met a more stoic man, nor one who could wear the hell out of a quarter zip shirt like he did. Did you form a small crush on him? Yes. Did you dare utter it aloud? Hell no. You suppressed the snot out of it.
“You know what I need? I need a vacation. Just… to relax. Maybe become one with nature, let the moss grow on me like a rock.”
Aaron got up to get wine glasses from his wet bar, and came back, sitting down in his chair as he poured the wine in the glasses. “What would your ideal vacation be?”
“Gosh… I love the mountains,” you said dreamily, your chin propped up on your knuckle, “I haven’t stayed in a cabin since… I don’t know, since I lived with my parents.”
He handed you a glass of wine. “I see.”
“You sound awfully pensive, what’s ticking in that head of yours?”
“I was thinking… maybe, we could take a vacation. Just you and me and a cabin in the mountains. A retreat, if you will. Jack’s at Jessica’s, and I have an overstock of days off.”
You took a sip of wine and leaned forward. “Where were you thinking?”
“West Virginia. I’ve rented a cabin before that was about four or five hours drive from here- easily doable for a weekend getaway. We could leave tomorrow after work, Friday, and come back Sunday evening.”
“Why would you come?”
He shrugged. “Keep an eye out on you. Plus, I need a break too.”
You rolled your eyes. “Do you not believe I can take care of myself at all?”
“I don’t doubt that you can,” Aaron insisted, “I just… I don’t know, I don’t want to risk anything.”
You were aware of his overprotective tendencies, partially because of the horrors he saw at his job, and also because of what happened to his wife. Your eyes and lips softened a little at the layer of concern in his voice. “Well… I guess it’s always more fun with friends.”
The corner of his lip quirked. “You could bring some board games.”
“Are you telling me Super Special Agent Aaron Hotchner is fond of board games?”
“That is not what SSA stands for, and you know it,” he said with a laugh.
And so, that’s how you found yourself in the passenger seat of Aaron’s SUV after work the next day. He had loaded up your bags, snacks, and cooler of drinks into the trunk without much complaint, which surprised you. You were sure he would make the typical sarcastic “traveling light?” comment that most guys did, but it was nothing from him.
“I guess I’m the passenger princess,” you said with a laugh before you popped a gummy worm in your mouth from the bag between your legs.
His eyebrows raised in bewilderment as he looked over at you. “I- if you mean exactly what the term sounds like, yes, I guess you are.” Aaron looked at the road before looking back at you. “Gummy worm, please?”
“I’m surprised Penelope hasn’t taught you more internet slang,” you said as you handed him a red and green gummy worm.
“She taught me what “rizz” and… um… “slay” means. That was too much for me.” He popped the worm into his mouth. You studied the side of his face for a second before he glanced over at you. “What?”
“I wouldn’t have taken you for a gummy man.”
“I love gummies. If Ronald Reagan ate jellybellies to concentrate on ruining our country, then I eat gummies to help save it. It’s not so great for my physique, though.”
“I like your physique,” you blurted.
He raised his eyebrows in surprise, but he didn’t say anything as he turned his attention to the road, though even your view of the side of his face didn’t hide the small smirk.
“You’re smug,” you said, teasingly accusatory.
“I don’t get many compliments on my physique nowadays- give me a minute or two to stew in it.”
“It- it kind of reminds me of Atticus Finch. You know- from To Kill a Mockingbird?” You said ramblingly.
“Are you saying I’m Gregory Peck?” You didn’t have to look at him to know he had that damn smirk on his face.
“I-“ you paused for a moment before lifting the bag of gummy worms comically, inspecting the back of it. “What level of alcohol content is in this anyways?”
“Hopefully none, considering I’m driving us, and you gave me one.”
“You’re a lightweight if all it takes is a gummy worm to get you tipsy- but there is none, you are very astute, Aaron.”
By the time you guys drove up the winding lane to the cabin, you were exhausted. You planned on taking a nap as soon as you hauled your luggage in, and you had told Aaron as much about fifteen minutes before the estimated arrival time. It was nightfall anyhow.
“I’m the one who drove, and you’re exhausted,” he mused with a smile as he carefully set some luggage on the porch.
“You’re more than welcome to take a nap too, if you’d like,” you said with a soft scoff as you waited by the door for him to open the cabin, “I’m sure there’s more than enough space for you to lay your weary head.”
“I’m sure there is,” Aaron said with a small smile as he opened the door to the cabin, with the instructions that the owner had given. When you lugged the cooler and snacks in, the smell of wood met your nose.
“This makes me so nostalgic,” you said breathily, carrying your load to the kitchen.
It was a medium sized cabin, so the living room, which featured a nice fireplace, and the kitchen were all in one open space. You didn’t study it much further as you began loading your drinks and food onto the counters and into the fridge, and Aaron began pulling in suitcases and toiletry bags.
“I’ll check the layout, and you can decide which bedroom you want to stay in,” he explained.
“Be quick about it, I need to get my blanket and pillow,” you said lightheartedly.
“Yes ma’am,” he said sarcastically before venturing further.
You cleared your throat when you realized the formal address made you feel something low in your stomach, but you tried to ignore it. You continued putting things away, then you turned and Aaron was standing there, his brows creased.
You rolled your eyes as your hand landed on your chest by instinct. “God, you scared me.”
He ignored you. “We have a problem.”
“What is it? It’s not a leak, is it?”
“If only. I could fix that. No, it turns out I booked a cabin with only one bed.”
“Oh-“
“However, I can probably sleep on the couch. If it makes you feel better, we can take turns.”
“Aaron, no, take the bed. Not to make you feel old, but your back-“
“My back is fine,” he said gruffly, “I sleep on my couch at home all of the time.”
“Aaron…”
“Don’t ‘Aaron’ me,” he said with a tiny smile, “I insist. Besides, you’re tired, and it’s almost time to go to sleep for the night anyway.”
“You damn smooth lawyer fbi agent,” you muttered as you moved to carry your stuff to the adjacent bedroom, “you make a good argument.”
“I know I do. Now, go get some rest. We can start planning the itinerary tomorrow morning.”
“What makes you think I won’t just sleep in until lunch time?” you asked sassily.
“Then I suppose that’s your prerogative.”
You moved to give him a hug, setting your bags down. “We’ll see. Good night.”
“Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite.”
“I hope they do,” you muttered.
“What was that?”
“Nothing. Good night.”
You thought you heard an amused hum behind you as you tote everything to the bedroom. It was cute- a queen sized bed with a nice quilt on it that had an adorable design featuring bears, a large dresser that looked hand carved, and side tables with rustic lamps that had antlers for shades.
The bathroom was a decent size, and you found that the shower looked like a dream. But when you looked out of the sliding door where there was evidently a deck… you were surprised to see a hot tub. A hot tub, but not two bedrooms, you mused.
Then you saw the mountains, lit faintly by moonlight, and you gasped, awe filling you as you studied the range, your eyes tracing every pinnacle.
But after you put on your cotton pajamas and brushed your teeth and showered, you slid under the covers, the weight of the quilt settling nicely on you, and you realized- you can hear every damn scampering and skittering creature in the woods. The crickets that once seemed to be a comforting constant now sounded more ominous, and the frogs that were croaking innocently seemed to take on an edge.
You scrolled on your phone for a while, all of the lamps turned off and your face illuminated by the screen. But your brain was not winding down, and you were not sleepy. You set your phone on the side table, and turned from the window, your face towards the door, and closed your eyes.
No bueno. Those critters and the chirping and the croaking and various skittering wouldn’t let you sleep.
It took about two hours before your resolve melted and you got up out of bed.
As quietly as you could, you padded to the kitchen- you had not made it to the fridge well before you heard Aaron’s groggy voice saying your name and then, “are you okay?”
You could barely see his head peeking over the back of the couch, pointed away from the kitchen.
“I couldn’t sleep and thought I’d get some water. Go back to sleep, I’m fine.”
“Why can’t you sleep?”
You paused, wondering if you should admit the embarrassing truth. “The noises outside.”
“Someone’s not accustomed to the great outdoors and being away from highways and interstates,” he said a tad bit teasingly.
“I’m not,” you admitted as you filled a cup with water.
“C’mere.”
You sipped the water. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to try to help you go to sleep.”
You set your cup on the counter. “And your method would be…?”
“Stop asking so many questions and just c’mere,” he said, a tad bit exasperated.
“Okay dad,” you said sarcastically as you ventured towards the couch.
Aaron was half laying on the couch, his elbow propping himself up. His legs were covered by a thin blanket, but he was wearing a slightly tight green t-shirt with the Schweppes logo on it that made you bite your lip. You could clearly see an outline of his chest and the small chub of his belly even only lit by the moonlight through the window, and it was… well, he was an attractive man and you’d never felt a greater impulse to bury your head into someone’s chest before. You ignored your baser instincts.
“I’m here,” you say, almost sounding annoyed, your hands on your waist. You didn’t miss the way his eyes flitted over your pajamas.
“Sit on the couch with me. Maybe we can watch something until you fall asleep.” He sat up and patted the seat next to him.
“Were you not asleep when I came in?” You sat down beside him, and he threw part of his blanket over your lap.
“I’m a light sleeper because I’m constantly listening out for Jack. Or my phone, for the bureau.” He put his arm behind your head on the back of the couch. “You can lean into me, if you want, you know.”
Your head instinctively laid on his shoulder. “Aaron, I’m still befuddled why you would ask me to go to a cabin with you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean… our friendship is so unlikely anyways. You’re… frankly, middle aged. We’re in totally different areas of life. You have more… experience.” You cleared your throat nervously. “In life I mean.”
His eyebrows raised but he said nothing as he turned the TV on. Of course it was George Lopez.
“You make my life feel a little lighter,” Aaron said finally. “I love having you around and…” he studied his lap for a moment. “I would probably consider you my best friend. I’ve told you things I… I hadn’t told my team for… for a while. Maybe ever.” He looked up at you with a small smile. “You drag it out of me without saying a word.”
You stiffened a little at being called best friend, but you felt his eyes studying you keenly.
“And what do you want me to say? Call you my father figure?” You said teasingly.
“God, no,” he said almost a little too emphatically, cringing, “We’re definitely two adults. I don’t want that sort of… dynamic. Besides, I am way too young to be your dad.”
You grinned a little, but your eyes started to droop closed.
Aaron shifted so that you could lay more comfortably, but soon, despite the canned laughs from the TV, he too drifted off to sleep.
When you woke up, you did not expect your pillow to feel so warm or firm. Your hand patted around, and you felt a moment of panic course through you.
You opened one eye to realize that your pillow was none other than the chest of Aaron Hotchner. Your face was buried into his chest and your cheeks flushed at the thought of it. You patted one more time to make sure you weren’t dreaming. Somewhere in the night, you guys had laid down, and your legs were tangled with his, your back against the back of the couch and Aaron facing you, kind of… pinning you.
“Having fun there?” His voice said softly, though a smile was evident in his tone.
“I’m sorry-“ you scrambled to sit up but he shushed you gently.
“Don’t worry about it, we were asleep. It’s not like you could have helped that.”
“Still-“
“I am not going to tolerate you blaming yourself for something so innocent and harmless,” Aaron said sternly, his voice deepened by the morning grogginess. It was too early in the morning for you to need to clutch your legs together. Your resolve or the lack thereof was embarrassing, really.
“Is this how you talk to your agents?” You asked teasingly.
“Yes,” he admits, “I have had to remind my agents that sometimes things don’t go as planned on missions, and it’s not always their fault. Some of them take it hard.”
You leaned your head back against his chest, and his hand moved to the small of your back.
“Do you think…” you started but then hesitated.
“Do I think what?”
“Do you think it would be inappropriate if we flipped so that I’m… you know, on your chest?”
No words were spoken; you felt his strong arms move you, and you were laying on his chest.
“I take that as a no,” you murmured. His chuckle rumbled within his chest underneath you.
“We’re friends, we can take it, right?” Aaron said, almost cryptically.
You attempted to sit up, but when you realized how… intimate that felt, you laid back down. “I really don’t think you’ve been telling me the whole truth,” you said daringly. You looked up at him and you could see his arched eyebrows.
“Oh?”
“We have some sort of tension, and I need to know if you feel it too.”
“Tension?”
“Don’t play dumb, Aaron.”
He said your name, and it was followed by a second of hesitance.
“Aaron. We’re both adults here,” you said pleadingly.
He looked down at you, his eyes meeting yours. You couldn’t explain what you saw in those dark eyes of his, a vulnerable yet guarded fortress that you could occasionally peer into like a dollhouse. He looked so… conflicted. Like he wanted something that was well within reach, but fear or uncertainty was holding him back.
Aaron easily could have leaned down and kissed you. He knew that.
But instead he said, “do you want coffee? I brought the coffee beans you said you liked and a grinder.”
You could have pushed further but you didn’t. “I do, yeah. I probably need to change for the day anyway.”
After you awkwardly scrambled away from him, you sat in the bedroom on the bed for a couple of minutes after undressing down to your underwear to stew on what could have happened. Why didn’t he kiss you? You could have sworn he was going to but stopped himself. Why was he forbidding himself from something he wanted, that he could have enthusiastically?
When you did finally reemerge (dressed of course), you smelled the coffee perking in the coffee pot provided by the cabin owners.
“Did you sterilize that thing?” You asked him worriedly, sending a look to where he was leaning against the counter, texting on his phone.
“I did, don’t worry,” Aaron reassured you, looking up at you from his phone with a smile, “I know how you are about sterilizing kitchen items.”
“I am not risking a brain eating amoeba even for you, Hotchner.” You sat down at the kitchen bar with a sigh.
Stealthily, you scanned his outfit- a brown and orange plaid flannel shirt, rolled up to the forearms, and khaki pants. God forbid he wears jeans even away from the office, you smiled to yourself.
“Apparently everyone at the office is making bets about why I went on leave.” Aaron slid his phone into his pocket as he began pouring coffee into a mug.
“What are the reasons given by them?”
“Morgan is saying that I sprained an ankle and didn’t want to risk mandatory leave. Rossi says I’m finally gaining my wits and letting loose for a weekend and getting ‘shitfaced.’ Garcia is saying I’ve eloped and went to Paris. Emily and JJ have decided not to bet but are keeping up with the money.” He placed the mug in front of you on the bar. “Prepared just the way you like it.”
You sipped it, holding the mug with both hands. “This is perfect.”
“As many times as I’ve picked up your order from the cafe, I ought to know it by heart.” He picked up his own mug and sipped on it, his strong hand wrapped around it as though he could crush it, and you felt something filter through you. The curvature of his hands, the strength evident in the veins and his fingers- but the way they were holding the fragile mug, carefully and cautiously picking it up and placing it down again.
The way his lips rested on the rim, his throat gulping slightly with every drink- there was something so vulnerable and intimate about watching him drink, even though you’ve seen each other drink a million other times. And yet, you began feeling a little green.
Aaron lowered his mug to look at you.
“You look like you’re a million miles away. Not to mention you’re staring.”
“Mm? No, um… I’m okay.”
“Are you sure about that?”
He was a profiler. Why bother hiding anything from him.
“I’m jealous,” you blurted.
His eyebrows raised until his forehead wrinkled. “Jealous?” he asked.
It was like a floodgate opened.
“I’m jealous of the coffee mug because you willingly put your lips on and take tender sips from it. I’m jealous because you wrap your hands around it protectively. I’m just… downright envious of the way you hold it, Aaron. Because I know you refuse yourself me.”
After you had said it, you covered your face with your hands. This cabin was way too small for such a confession.
And yet, you felt his hands, still warm from holding the coffee mug, tug your hands away from your face.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” Aaron said softly, “you’re… right that I refuse myself.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re young. I’m so much older than you, I would be holding you back. I have a lot of baggage, for crying out loud, I don’t want to haul that into your life just for you to…” his voice trailed off. It struck you.
“You’re afraid of me leaving you.”
“I know you’re ambitious,” he admitted, “and you should be with someone equally as ambitious. I’m in the phase where I could retire from the FBI to be home with Jack. I’m in my career because it’s… it’s my passion.”
“You’re still thinking about Haley,” you said softly.
“Yes,” Aaron admitted, “I won’t lie and say that what all happened with Haley doesn’t affect how I go forward with relationships.”
“I’m not so ambitious that I can’t appreciate a good man, Aaron. That’s not to say I would quit my job or my pursuits for you, but I don’t think you’d want me to either.”
He took your hands in his. “I wouldn’t. I like you just as you are. You and your work drama, the way you’re so finicky about certain things but carefree in others- driving you to the mountains may have been the highlight of the trip because as soon as ranges came into view, your nose was stuck to the window, and I’m almost certain you’d still see your nose print on the glass. The way you adore people and the little things in life… I’ve never been able to master that, but it comes so effortlessly to you.”
The revelation hit you like a nerf bullet to the forehead out of nowhere. “You notice those things?”
“I do.”
“You know… the drive up doesn’t have to be the highlight,” you said a little teasingly.
“And what are you suggesting?” A small smile tugged at his lips.
“I’m suggesting we either get this out of our systems and forget it ever happened, or we start something that we can’t finish without one of us breaking our heart.”
“Are you sure?” Aaron said quietly.
You didn’t have to think before you pulled him closer by his unbuttoned flannel, and your lips wavered half an inch away from his. His eyes flitted down to look at your lips before gazing into your own eyes.
“I’m so sure,” you said breathlessly.
That was the only cue he needed before he closed the distance between you, his lips landing on yours softly before they sought your lips like he was scouring for water in a desert. His arms pulled you out of the bar stool and onto your feet, his hands settling on your back on and around your waist. The old man had it in him, anyone would have to admit it.
Not too old for surprises, apparently, as he gripped you and hoisted you onto the counter. You squealed a little, and you could hear him chuckling. Your hands went to his shoulders, and your legs hooked around his waist.
His hands held your face on either side and pulled you in closer. If he could inject himself into your skin, you know he would.
You playfully nipped, pulling his lip between your teeth and sucking on it, eliciting a groan from Aaron that made you grin as you continued kissing him.
Your tongues waltzed together in intricate circles, and you felt his hands ease to your bottom as they splayed out to support you.
“What do you think you’re doing,” you murmured. He grinned like a cat who got the milk.
“I’m about to take you to the bedroom, and we’re about to make love. How does that sound, sweetheart?”
“Carry on,” you said lightly, your lips against his neck as he toted you to the bedroom.
It wasn’t long before your back hit the mattress as he laid you down carefully.
“You’re stronger than I gave you credit for,” you quipped with a smirk as you looked up at him. Aaron chuckled as he tugged off his flannel and threw it to the side.
“I have to be at least a little fit to be in the FBI. Besides, I’m not that old. Now, Rossi…”
“You are not about to mention Rossi before an intimate moment,” you interjected, half incredulous and half amused.
“Sorry, sorry. But point being, I’m not exactly ancient, and my muscles haven’t completely disintegrated.” His T-shirt was soon discarded, and flung it to who knows where.
Your eyes roved over his muscles, and the sight of them made you want to salivate. He wasn’t what most would consider “ripped,” but his muscles were defined while also having a little bit of a tummy. You wouldn’t change a thing about him.
“They haven’t disintegrated,” you agreed with a small smile.
Aaron leaned down over you. “Do you mind if I relieve you of your clothes?” He asked teasingly.
“Be my guest,” you murmured lazily.
He took his time, pulling your sweatpants down and disposed of it, tugging off your baby tee shirt next. You could see him visibly gulp as he studied your bra and panties.
“Now, before we go forward…” his finger was hooked on the waistband of your panties, playing with it, “are you sure you want this? Absolutely sure?”
“I’m absolutely sure, Aaron, I swear.”
“At any time, if you want to stop, please tell me,” he said earnestly, “it’s absolutely necessary for you to know that we can stop if you don’t want to go any further. I don’t care how far into it we’ve gone, if it’s any less than enthusiastic then we timeout.”
“You’re precious, you know that?”
Aaron almost looked horrified. “You better tell me this isn’t the first time you’ve heard this from a partner.”
You nibbled on your lip. “You’re just very thorough about it. Usually a simple “uh huh” suffices.”
“Sweetheart, like I said, I want nothing less than enthusiastic consensual sex. It’s just important to me.”
“Then you’ve got it,” you smiled up at him.
His hand fished under your back to unhook your bra, and when he pulled it away from your chest, you swore he was in awe like some people are of a sunset.
“Fuck… you’re beautiful, baby,” he said breathlessly.
You felt yourself flush and it traveled well into your chest area, and he chuckled, amused, as he kissed the nipple of your left breast, feeling the heat against his lips.
“You’re adorable when you blush like that,” Aaron said warmly.
He hooked his fingers in the waistband of your panties and freed you of them. The cold air hit you and you squirmed, but he surged into action, taking your nipple into his mouth and sucking on it. The noises he made, almost sounds of desperation, turned you on almost as much as his mouth on your breast.
His hand began kneading your other breast, and you breathed heavily.
“Fuck,” you muttered, a shot of lightning down your back, “you’re so good at this.”
Aaron moved away from your nipple and smirked at you. “Oh, do you mean that I’m… experienced?”
“Shut up and suck a tit,” you groaned, your hand going to your face in embarrassment as he chuckled.
“Did you really think I missed that earlier?”
“Not really, I was just hoping.”
“Sorry, sweetheart.”
Your hand went to your clit, and you began rubbing it in soft circles with your index and middle fingers, and Aaron resumed sucking your breast, transitioning to the other one. Of course you’ve masturbated before, but the combined sensation of him on your nipples and your own fingers was sending you over the edge as you lifted your hips to ride them, moaning in his ear.
When you felt that sweet release, your head tilted back, and you relaxed. Honestly, you could have slept, but Aaron clearly had different ideas.
“My turn, pumpkin.”
“Pumpkin?” You asked in surprise.
“Listen, I was trying something,” he said a little defensively, “but the point being that I want to make you feel good. You’re already so wet.”
He took your hand, pulling it away from you, and he sucked the cum off your fingers, his larger hand engulfing around your hand. He finally pulled your fingers out with a loud “pop.”
“Sweet- just like you, actually,” Aaron said smugly.
“And I’m sure you’ve got a sweet tooth in your head somewhere,” you replied as you watched his head approach between your thighs.
If only you could tell the version of you that had seen Aaron at the barbeque and thought he was handsome “for a man his age” that eventually his black hair would be seen bobbing between your legs with his tongue delving into your pussy. That version of him that had been wearing his brown quarter zip, looking down at you while your dad introduced you two. Who would have thought?
And fuck, that man was talented with his tongue. Was tying cherry stems with your tongue mandatory in the FBI? If it wasn’t, it should be. But otherwise- that G-Man knew his way around the G-Spot.
He made your insides feel like they had been melted down, sitting low in your stomach as the coil tightened. If this was just his tongue…
Aaron lapped at your depths, making those same desperate noises he had been making earlier. You moaned, your hands searching for something to grasp, and they found his shoulders. Your hold was so strong, it left red marks behind on his pale skin.
Your own guttural noises, some you hadn’t been sure you ever made before, melded with the sound of the wet noise of him eating you out, and you were suddenly so glad that you were in a cabin on a winding road.
“Aaron,” you said breathlessly, your chest heaving beautifully, “I’m ready, I think I’m ready for… for you.”
He lifted his head up at you. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, although… um… I didn’t bring lube.”
“Mhm… What about protection?”
“I’m on the pill.”
“Well… to put your mind at ease, I’m clean, I just got tested a few months ago as part of a physical, and it was after I broke up with Beth. I haven’t… had sex since we broke up.”
“I’m clean too.”
Aaron kissed the inside of your thigh. “Good.”
“Is it… do you think I could…”
He kissed from your belly button up to between your breasts. “Say it with your words, darling.”
“Can I ride you? Please?”
“Far be it from me to withhold pleasure from a princess,” he said smugly. You flushed.
“I’m not a princess,” you protested weakly, not even sounding convinced of your own statement.
“You absolutely are. You’re my princess, at least.”
“Then do the princess a favor and remove your bottoms,” you said coyly.
With a laugh, he stood up from the bed and began unbuckling his belt, and slipped off his pants. You hadn’t taken him for a boxer guy, but you supposed you shouldn’t have been surprised. The outline of his dick was visible through his boxers, obviously hard, but when he slipped them off, your mouth gaped a small bit.
You saw the size of his shoes and his nose, you knew what the chances were of him being well endowed. But you didn’t ever really think you’d get to see for yourself. He didn’t look like he was too big, but he certainly wasn’t too small- not terribly long, but certainly girthy.
Absent-mindedly he stroked it, smearing the precum on the head. “Are you ready, sweetheart?”
“Aaron, if you put this off one second longer-“
“Patience,” he stifled a laugh as he laid down on the bed beside her, his hands patting his thighs in a beckoning motion.
You moved to straddle his thighs, and carefully, you lined his dick up with your entrance, and sunk yourself onto it, inch by inch, taking deep breaths as he stretched you. When you fully sheathed him, he groaned as he held your hips, his hands splayed to support you, and your hands on his chest with small soft splatters of hair under your palms.
“Baby, you take me so well,” Aaron breathed. You clenched around him and he groaned again, his head tilted back.
Every time you moved your hips, every time he felt your ass bounce even slightly, he felt he had to fight from finishing right then and there. He truly wasn’t as young as he was, but… you had exceeded his expectations.
“Oh my god,” he moaned, his hold on your hips tightening as you rutted against him.
Your face held sheer determination, but Aaron could see when you were hitting a sweet spot by the look on your face- your eyes would glaze over slightly, and your lips would fall agape. He wished he could capture your likeness and hang it up beside the Mona Lisa- it was art, a wonder of the world.
“Baby, make some noises for me,” he urged, “I need to hear you.”
Your breasts heaved, and you whimpered as you moved up and down on his dick. His hips bucked, and you squeaked at the sudden shift.
“I’m almost there,” Aaron warned you apologetically.
“That’s okay,” you said in between panting.
True to his word, he painted your walls with his cum, and you felt like you were so soaked.
At one point, you stopped bouncing and thrusting, and panted, looking down at him and him looking up at you for what seemed an eternity, his dick still inside of you.
You slipped off of him, and rolled over to lay beside him. He pulled you against his chest, spooning you from behind.
“We really need to clean up,” he murmured against your neck, “but… I could lay here with you for so long, darling. You feel so right in my arms.”
“Ditto,” you said lazily.
Despite the urge to not get up, you both cleaned up and did the usual post sex hygienic stuff. You guys dressed again, and you sat in his lap on the couch, his arm circled around your waist.
“Mm… pretty good for an old man, wasn’t it?” Aaron teased you.
“Shut up, cradle robber,” you muttered, though a wide grin was on your face.
He pinched your thigh as he chuckled.
You both fell silent, the only sound coming from the AC unit whirring on. But there was a tension of a different kind between you two now, a silent undertone of questions.
“Aaron…”
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said slowly.
“If we could DoorDash Taco Bell?”
Aaron’s face visibly fell and you chuckled as you kissed his cheek. “It is getting close to lunch, but I’m joking. What do you think I’m thinking, hm?”
“The… the ‘what are we’ question.”
“Maybe I was thinking of asking if you would be my sugar daddy,” you said with a straight face. He rolled his eyes, clearly caught on to your sense of humor now.
“It…” he paused. “I know there’s a large age gap between us. But you are… I can’t imagine not being intrigued by your mind. You’re intelligent, and beautiful, and…” Aaron’s eye somehow meandered to your lips, “one of the sweetest women I know. And I would be honored if you would consider being my girlfriend.”
“There’s no consideration needed. Of course I’ll be your girlfriend.”
“And my job… my job doesn’t bother you?”
“Not at all. Obviously this is a relationship we would have to take one step at the time,” you reminded him, “but I understand your job takes you away sometimes. I understand that your situation is unconventional in a way.”
Aaron kissed your forehead. “Did I ever tell you you are so sweet? When you’re not being a snark, that is.”
You blushed, remembering him calling you sweet earlier, after tasting you. “Perhaps once or twice?”
“And Taco Bell?”
“Live Mas, baby.”
“I don’t remember the terminator ever saying that.”
You didn’t have the heart to tell him that DoorDash would probably take forty minutes to an hour to deliver to you- you had checked this morning. But… What could you guys possibly do to pass the time?
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sickeninglyshoujo · 2 months
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a/n: continually obsessed w/ cod dads, here's price
part 1: simon here
part 3: soap here
part 4: gaz here
masterlist here
warnings: pregnancy
word count: 1.7k
buy me a ko-fi
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Price was afraid to have babies with you because of the age difference and you rolled your eyes every time he talked about being an old man and how a pretty young thing like you shouldn’t be dating him much less trying to get knocked up by someone his age. As if he’d let you even entertain the thought of leaving him for a young buck who couldn’t spoil you like you deserved.
Throughout your pregnancy he treated you like fine China, afraid he’d say the wrong thing and make you cry. He’s heard about women’s hormones during pregnancy even as you remained rock solid, rolling your eyes when he’d ‘yes dear’ you.
You tried to kick him out of the bathroom when morning sickness hit and he refused. Instead sitting on the tub next to you, petting your back as you leaned into the toilet and tried to soothe you, telling you how strong you were and how beautiful you were carrying his baby even with sick bubbling up your throat at the slightest movement “I thought morning sickness was only supposed to be in the morning,” you moaned with your forehead pressed against the cool floor tile. “It’’s a misnomer, love,” John said, removing himself from his perch on the tub to wet a cool washcloth and wipe down your face.
He wishes this phase was over, hates seeing you in pain like this.
That changes once the baby’s born then he’s ready to do it all over again. He didn’t know how attached he’s gotten to helping you do the things you couldn’t because of your belly  like putting on your shoes (looking up at your belly reverently the entire time before planting a kiss on it) for you and helping you pick things off the floor that your clumsy fingers dropped. He grew a particular affection for helping you rub shea butter and vitamin E oil over your rapidly appearing stretch marks.
Price insists on building the nursery furniture without reading the directions, “Know what I’m doin’ woman,” and to your chagrin he was right. Managed everything without a set of directions perched on his knee and instead chucked them to the side with the box.
The first thing he built was the fancy rocking chair he bought for you, insisting you don’t help him with anything “At least let me hold the screws John, I feel stupid just sitting here!”
To him, peace is this. This is what so many long nights holed up in some shithole on a mission have led to. Him sitting on the floor at your feet, building a life together while oldies play on the record player in the next room. He’s so overwhelmed in the moment he can’t help but pull your hand to his lips and kiss it and laughs at you when you ask him what’s wrong
“It’s all right, is the thing, love.”
When you get the first ultrasound, he stops at the store on the way home and purchased a picture frame (insisting you stay in the car and not overexert yourself, he’ll just be a moment, love). The next day he’s on base it now proudly sits facing him next to the photo of him and you vacationing in London with your faces squeezed together in the frame, selfie-style.
Tells anyone who enters his office about you and how far along you are, whether they ask or not, comparing the baby to different sized fruits, which parts were developing that week.
“She’s the size of a lime now, tiny little thing.”
“Can you imagine that she’s growing fingernails in my bird’s belly!”
Absolutely rubbed your swollen ankles in the evenings when he got home from work, peppering gentle kisses on them when he switched feet
Loved your pregnancy brain fog and would kiss your nose any time he got to remind you about something. He became the keeper of your calendar, scheduling your appointments and taking you to them.
When you go into labor, he’s on base in a meeting with some high-brass in a meeting on a highly classified matter. He’s not even allowed to bring his phone into the room. Instead having to turn it off and lock it in a safe prior to entering even with a baby on the way. He was aware this might happen and had instructed you on the line of succession.
“If you can’t get ahold of me, leave me a message lovie, then go down the line. Simon’s second-in–command-”
“Then Kyle, then Johnny, I know, John, you’ve drilled it into my head,” You soothe him, petting the creases he’s worn between his eyebrows, “It’ll be just fine, women have been doing it for thousands of years.”
“I’ll be there, I promise lovie,” He kisses your palm
You leave the message on John’s voicemail, a curt, “It’s time John, once I hang-up I’m dialing Simon, just like we practiced.”
Simon answers on the third ring, “Missus?” His rumbly voice cuts across the line.
“It’s time Simon and John’s still in the meeting since his phone is turned off.”
“Copy.”
The line goes dead leaving you blinking at the Call Ended screen.
You decide that Simon is aware of the drastic nature of the matter and instead busy yourself, you lug the baby bag and your purse to the floor next to the door and go through the checklist John had created in the front pocket: Stove off, windows shut and locked, televisions off…It wasn’t until Simon was letting himself into your front door that the list was likely a distraction from your husband to stop you from leaving on your own until Simon arrived.
Simon collects you with the cool confidence of a Lieutenant in the special forces.
No, don’t worry about the bags or the door, he’s got it, just get yourself into the car.
You try John’s number over and over on the way to the hospital, narrating Simon’s driving, “John, I’m going to have words with you when this is over, I cannot believe you let your pregnant wife in a car with what has to be the worst driver in all of Manchester!”
Before you know it, you’re being rushed into the hospital with Ghost snapping at the nurse at the desk for a wheelchair, NOW! He barks out orders in true military fashion leaving your head buried in your hands as you’re being escorted to the maternity ward.
“Now don’t worry, Sir, your wife is in excellent hands,” one of the nurses addresses Simon, all muscle pushing you in the wheelchair, unblinking and matching their pace.
“He’s not-” You try and interject.
“She better be,” Simon cuts you off, “And the labor will be handled with the utmost care or someone will have to answer to me personally.”
The contractions have started coming back to back and you’re pacing the hospital room, sucking on ice chips fed to you by a patient Simon.
Kyle and Johnny have also arrived and join him in his vigil, somehow maneuvering their way through the “Father and family only” policy the hospital has.
“She was adopted,” You later find out Kyle deadpanned at the security trying to stop him from entering the room, “Can’t you see the family resemblance?”
True to his word, John is there.
He’s rushed into the room, frazzled and running his hand over his beard, eyes darting until he finds you, “Hey sweet girl, I’m here, I’m here,” pointedly ignoring the nurse trying to count out the men in the room
(“Who are these men to you again miss?”)
(“I’m the father,” Gaz informs, flipping through a magazine to pass the time between bursts of activity with contractions.)
You moan out John’s name slapping at his chest weekly when he gathers you up into his arms and hugs you, “I’m mad at you John!”
“Don’t be mad, love, I made it just like I promised,” He tries to soothe you, smoothing his hands over your disheveled hair. “Not about being late, about getting me pregnant!” “It’s a bit late for that now, love,” He does his best to hide the smile twitching into place under his mustache. 
The boys remain in the room for the entire labor, John holding one hand and the other men trading off when your grip became too strong (“Dinnae know the lass could break my bones with just one hand,” Johnny moans shaking out his aching appendage.)
When the baby finally arrives, the doctor again looks around at the men in the room, “Would…Dad like to hold her?”
John finally extracts himself from your bruising grip to hold your daughter, eyes twinkling with joy at seeing the bundle covered in blood and viscera. Such a difference from every other time he’d been covered in the blood, these are stains he’ll gladly wear.
#1 baby wearer captain price
“I hardly get to hug you anymore because she’s always strapped to you!”
Price’s eyebrows go up at that, “Are you jealous, love?
 “Not jealous, but I miss my husband's arms around me!” When you say that with a slight pout in your voice, Price is quick to arrange Uncle Soap and Gaz so he can wine and dine you like old times. 
You make sure to wag your finger enough at the boys and remind them they’re there to babysit, not throw a rager and rile up the baby, even though you know your warnings are falling onto deaf ears. You wholeheartedly expect to return home to a cranky and overtired baby and two military men.
“Can’t neglect either of my girls” he’d mutter into your hair after pulling you close after dinner, holding you to his chest tightly in the middle of the sidewalk 
“You never do, John, you’re the best man I could’ve hoped for,” You muttered into his chest, “Never did I think I’d get someone so in love with me and our child.”
Will regularly fall asleep with the baby curled on his chest, boonie hat pulled down over his eyes, with your daughter also lulled to sleep by his steady breaths. You can’t help but take a photo every time it happens, so smitten with how your husband enjoys his quiet days on leave.
You can’t help but send the photo to the boys, having the group chat with them immediately blown up with emojis sent by Soap, laughing at the Captain’s prone form.
As a joke the photo ends up framed on Price’s desk, next to the ultrasound. Price actually enjoys having it to remind him of the peace he has waiting at home and the joke is ruined when the photo remains in it’s place of honor.
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fangirl-dot-com · 2 months
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Chapter 23 - The Dutch Anthem on Repeat
Guys, I think I can finally upload on a regular basis if I can do every Friday and Wednesday? If that's ok? I'm hoping that it will work well for everyone!
This chapter made me laugh, and I remember someone asking for more Grandpa Nando so he makes a good appearance in this one!
Like always, comments, questions, concerns, reblogs and likes are always appreciated! Please enjoy!
Max, along with everyone, was used to hearing the Dutch National Anthem. Sure, everyone joked that it was the Formula 1 outro, but that was life. It wasn’t Max’s fault that he kept winning. Everyone just needed a new and better car to keep up. As he walked into the garage, he knew he was expecting to possibly hear it at the very end of Sunday. 
What he didn’t expect was when his foot hit the concrete, the song started blasting through the speaker. The mechanics were trying to hid giggles behind their hands as they watched the confused driver try to find where the sound was coming from. When it suddenly stopped, he got even more confused. 
He looked at the mechanics. 
“Have you seen the kid anywhere?” 
Henry, one of the men that worked on your car, responded, “She’s been in her room since she got here this morning.” 
Max let out a tight “thanks” before heading that way. He expected you to be hiding something, but you were peacefully taking a nap with your headphones on. The gag gift that he got you, a blanket with his face all over it, was curled up in your hands. His eyes softened as he walked over to gently wake you up. You did promise him lunch for that day. 
He rocked you a bit until you woke up. 
You rubbed your eyes as you sat up. “Hey Max.” 
A yawn escaped your lips. 
“Kid, you don’t have anything to do with the fact that the Dutch anthem played when I walked in?” 
“Huh?” you questioned, still really sleepy. 
Max just let it go. You seemed like you didn’t know what was going on. You quickly got ready, placing your race suit at your hips. 
When Max’s foot hit the concrete again, the anthem started to play. A groan left his lips as you looked around. 
The Dutchman looked down at you. “You had nothing to do with this?” 
You looked up at the older driver. “Nico took my boombox privileges away when I scared him last week.” 
You seemed pretty dejected at the thought of losing your boombox. 
Max just quickly kept walking out of the garage with you on his tail. The two of you conversed as you made your way to hospitality. You knew that Max had the priority for this race. It was his second home and you knew he wanted a win after what happened in Belgium. 
“So I’m thinking of holding a party after Monza at the house. What do you thing?” 
Max thought for a moment. 
“That’s a good idea. You going to take a car to the circuit.” 
You beamed at him. “Thinking of bringing the spaceship. What do you think?” 
Max opened the door to the hospitality, and before he could answer, the Dutch anthem started to play once again. He stopped dead in his tracks, causing you to thud into his back. 
You snorted as you heard the song play, causing Max to whip around. 
His eyebrow arched. “Sure you don’t have anything to do with this?”
You only shook your head before pushing past him, wanting to get lunch as quickly as possible. Max followed, suspiciously glaring at anyone who looked guilty. 
Lando was sitting in the corner, animatedly telling a story to Oscar, who looked dead inside (but was politely listening). 
In the middle, Lewis, Charles, and Carlos were all playing on their phones, empty plates sitting in front of him.
Max’s eyes looked back up to see you talking to Fernando. Your eyes were wide as you talked to the Spaniard. He made his way over to the line and grabbed a tray. With each step he took, he was nervous about setting off something that would start the song. When he walked to the table, he just looked at the chair. 
“Everything all right Max?” Lando asked from the corner, making everyone look at the Dutchman. His cheeks reddened under everyone’s gaze. 
You bit into your sandwich. “Each time he’s walked into or out of a building, the Dutch national anthem plays.” 
“Sure it does,” Charles said, finally looking up from his phone. 
Now annoyed, Max sat down. Surprisingly nothing happened. He let out a content hum before biting into his food. 
However, the moment he took a bite, it stated to play again. Rounds of laughter fell from everyone’s lips as he sat there, looking sad with a bite of food in his mouth. 
Not wanting to sit anymore, he stood up abruptly and walked out with the tray. Yet, the song started over once he opened the door. A loud huff left his lips, which made everyone start laughing again. 
What he failed to notice was a camera set up in the corner of the room. You turned and looked at it, giving it a thumbs up. 
You wiped a tear from your eye. “Aw man, now he’s going to be mad.” You looked at one of the media personelle who was standing in the corner. He took the camera and just gave you a smile. 
“He’ll be mad at us, not at you.” 
You crossed your arms, not convinced in the slightest. Fernando gave you an upside down smile. 
“Come on niña, I’ll take you to Max.” 
He stood from the table, waiting for you to follow. Yet, you shook your head. 
“Nando, he’s going to be mad and all grumpy and I’m going to be at the receiving end of it in the car. He’s taken Charles out too many times.” 
“Hey!” 
Your eyebrows pinched as you looked up at the green-clad driver. Your eyes then looked back down at your food. 
Fernando sighed, knowing you weren’t going to budge. He turned around and walked out, without the Dutch national anthem playing. He stalked toward the Red Bull garage and was able to walk in. 
Every loved Fernando and had great respect for him. 
“Anyone know where I can find Max?” 
Christian spoke up from the corner. “He’s in his room. Is everything ok?” 
Fernando sighed as he rubbed his head. “For a prank, they got someone to play the Dutch National anthem every time Max did something. He got tired of it, so he stormed out. Now the kid thinks that he’s going to be mad at her all weekend. I’m just here to explain because she’s a bit nervous.” 
Christian had a sympathetic look on his face. He was sad that you thought that Max would ever be mad at you for something so trivial. 
The Briton nodded his head in the direction of Max’s driver room. “Second door on the left.” 
Fernando thanked him, before heading that way. He knocked once before the door swung open, sadly causing the anthem to play once again. 
Max deadpanned as he waited for the song to stop. 
“Is everything ok Fernando?” the Dutchman asked, trying to look around to see if you were there as well. His heart sank a bit when you weren’t seen. 
The elder sighed. “So your team thought it’d be a good video to play the anthem every time you did something.” 
Max winced. “Oh I know.” 
Fernando looked at him weirdly. 
“You don’t think I saw the dude with the camera in the corner of the garage or hospitality?” 
The Spaniard nodded. He knew a thing or two for spotting cameras on him. You get used to it after being in the field for so long. 
“Well, the kid thinks you were going to be mad if you knew that she was in on it.” 
Max’s eyebrows rose and his eyes widened. “Oh no no no. Doesn’t she know when I can tell that she’s not sleeping? She’s taken so many naps around me, that I know when she’s actually asleep.” 
Max had known from the beginning, since you never woke up so quickly. It always took a few nudges, not just one. And your headphones were off and you barely flinched when he approached you. He was actually amused that you had gone through all the trouble to seem innocent.
Fernando let out a long sigh. “I told her that you wouldn’t be angry or frustrated.” 
Max had a determined look. “Let’s go find her. She’s probably either in the Ferrari garage or McLaren.” 
“She’s in the Williams garage.” 
Max turned around. “How do you know this?” 
“It was supposed to be a joke, but she put me on her Life360. Said I was getting old and was at a higher risk of crashing outside of work.” 
Max let out a deep laugh at the imagination of you downloading Life360 onto Fernando’s phone. 
The two walked out of the garage (this time the anthem did not play) and toward Williams. The two got to catch up on something before they arrived. 
They saw the Thai driver first. 
“Alex have you see Y/n anywhere?” Max questioned, catching him off guard. 
He said nothing, but subtly tilted his head toward the back where Logan was awkwardly standing behind a box. Max’s eyes lit up at he looked at the American, who had a nervous look on his face. 
Max put a finger to his lips and saw Logan barely nod. He gingerly crossed the room and looked down. Behind said box, you were clinging to Logan’s leg, playing a game. 
He heard you snicker to yourself. “Max will never find me here.” 
“Sure kid.” 
He could have sworn he saw your soul leave your body as you jumped off of Logan’s leg. The American rolled his eyes before lifting you off the ground and placing you in front of the Dutch driver.
“I think this belongs to you.” 
All in the back, Fernando and Alex stood laughing behind their hands. 
You looked back at Logan. “Traitor.”
“Come on kid.” 
Max gently led you back to the Red Bull garage, but not without thanking Fernando for his help. The Spaniard only patted his back before returning to his own garage. Max watched as you begrudgingly walking in front of him. He quickened his steps to be right beside you. 
“I can hear your grumpiness from over here,” he tried to joke, yet stopped when he saw barely there tears in your lash line. 
He cooed as he tried to not let you cry.
“Kid I thought it was funny.” 
“Are you sure? You looked super unhappy after lunch.” You looked down and kicked a stone. 
“Y/n.” 
Oh, he said the name (and not the nickname). 
You sheepishly looked up at him. 
“I’m not mad. And if I was, I’d take it out on the media team and not you.” 
You smiled just a bit. “Promise?” 
“Promise. Now, let’s go kick some ass so we can listen to the Dutch National Anthem on the podium.” 
Race Results: 
Max Verstappen – 25 points 
Y/n L/n – 18 points 
Charles Leclerc – 16 points (fastest lap) 
Lewis Hamilton – 12 points 
Oscar Piastri – 11 points 
Alex Albon – 8 points 
George Russell – 6 points 
Logan Sargeant – 4 points 
Lance Stroll – 2 points 
Lando Norris – 1 point 
Fernando Alonso 
Niko Hulkenberg 
Kevin Magnussen 
Daniel Ricciardo 
Pierre Gasly 
Yuki Tsunoda 
Esteban Ocon
Valtteri Bottas 
Zhou Guanyu 
Carlos Sainz – DNF (engine failure) 
Champions Standings 
Max Verstappen – 309 points 
Charles Leclerc – 268 points 
Lando Norris – 190 points 
Y/n L/n – 181 points 
Carlos Sainz – 130 points 
Oscar Piastri – 118 points 
Lewis Hamilton – 105 points 
Alex Albon – 56 point 
George Russell – 54 points 
Fernando Alonso – 45 points 
Logan Sargeant – 36 points 
Daniel Ricciardo – 23 points 
Lance Stroll – 17 points 
Pierre Gasly - 12 points 
Valtteri Bottas – 13 points 
Yuki Tsunoda – 8 points
Zhou Guanyu – 1 point 
Nico Hulkenberg 
Kevin Magnussen 
Esteban Ocon 
Constructors Championship 
 Red Bull – 490 points 
Ferrari – 398 points 
McLaren – 308 points 
Mercedes – 159 points 
Williams – 92 points 
Aston Martin – 62 points 
Alpha Tauri – 31 points 
Alpha Romeo – 14 points 
Alpine – 12 points 
Haas – 0 points 
The cool wind of the Netherlands brushed up against your face as you stood on the second step. If your math was correct, you were still behind Lando in the championship by only 9 points. You’d make it up as long as you didn’t DNF for the rest of the season. 
You smiled as you heard the Dutch National Anthem for the umpteenth time that day. Your shoulders started to shake as it continued playing, which made Charles look at you and start laughing as well. Max watched with a grin on his face as you couldn’t contain yourself.
To the people down below, it looked like you were crying since you were wiping tears away (which you were, but the tears were from laughing too hard). Their hearts ached as you were on the second step once again, and not the top one. 
But, you were having the time of your life, spraying Max and Charles with loads of champagne. You were on a high right now, and nothing would stop it. You knew that later that night, you’d stay awake going over data and sim times. 
Because that second step was sweet, but the top step would be even sweeter. 
And you needed the win. 
You were starving. 
redbullracing has posted
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redbullracing no broken trophies this year - orange army you were good to us
liked by y/n.nation, dutch4max, orangearmynation, and 390,204 others
maxmaxmax_super DUTCH ANTHEM YASSSSS
maxie&kid best 1-2 honestly
lastlap_lando NOT THE BROKEN TROPHIES COMMENT
landonorris how many times do I have to apologize?
y/n.89 give it a few years, he still hasn't forgiven me for accidentally eating his stroopwaffle maxverstappen1 BECAUSE IT WAS THE LAST ONE y/n.89 YOUR NAME WASN'T ON IT
y/n&co when are RB going to give her a win?? for real???
best_rookie ROOKIE WIN ROOKIE WIN ROOKIE WIN
y/n.nation WE NEED A WIN?? ADMIN? AUTHOR?? author CALL DOWN - LET ME COOK
autodromonazionale_monza a presto! Viaggi sicuri!
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navybrat817 · 3 months
Text
The Dad Diaries: Checkup
Pairing: Dad!Bucky Barnes x Female Reader Summary: Jamie is a little fussy after his doctor appointment and Bucky continues to admire your strength. Word Count: Over 1.8k Warnings: Fluff, reflecting, first time dad, slight feels (it's me), parenthood, tired parent, shots / needles referenced, Bucky Barnes (he's a warning and a dad, okay?). A/N: Next part of The Dad Diaries! Hope you lovelies enjoy. ❤️ Not beta read and written on my phone, so any and all mistakes are my own. Divider by the talented @firefly-graphics. Please follow @navybrat817-sideblog for new fics and notifications. Comments, reblogs, feedback are loved and appreciated!
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Bucky was in the kitchen rinsing off the dishes from dinner when he heard a wailing cry break through the peaceful evening. He dried his hands and told himself not to rush toward the nursery as all other sounds faded into the background, but his feet moved quickly anyway. His body seemed to move on instinct when it came to you and your son since the two of you were his world. And he would do whatever he could to keep you safe and happy.
Another cry rang out as Bucky got to the hall. Somehow, and it must have either been some form of magic or your motherly instinct to comfort your baby, you beat him to the nursery. “It’s okay, Jamie. Mama's here,” you soothed as you carefully picked your son up and cradled him against your chest. “Shh,” you whispered in his ear, your eyes closing as the cries began to get a little softer.
It broke the former sergeant’s heart a bit each time he heard his son cry. He knew you felt the same way. You were empathetic and protective before you had Jamie, but his cries increased your emotions.
A smile touched Bucky's lips as he observed the two of you, his heart warm and full. The longer you held Jamie, the quieter he became. He curled against you like all he needed was the warmth of your loving embrace. In return, you held him like you had the whole world in your hands.
Love would always show up in the ordinary moments because you made them extraordinary.
As touching as the sight was, Bucky sensed how tired you were. He saw it in the slightly strained smile you gave him when you opened your eyes and the way your body sagged as you swayed back and forth to soothe Jaime. You hadn't gotten nearly enough rest today and completely missed your nap after nursing earlier. That wouldn’t do.
Not on his watch.
“Hey,” Bucky said softly enough to not spook Jamie. “Need me to take him?”
“No, it’s okay. I’ve got him,” you replied as your son gripped your shirt with his tiny hand, a silent message to his dad to let him snuggle with his mom a little bit longer. “He’s just a little fussy.”
Bucky nodded as he walked into the room. The doctor warned them to expect some fussiness over the next couple of days thanks to his appointment. “But he isn’t in any pain?” He asked, hurt flooding his blue eyes just from imagining it.
Your gaze softened as you shook your head. “Not that I can tell,” you said. Both of you were observant when it came to Jamie. You picked up on cues and looked for anything out of the ordinary. “I think he’s okay.”
That helped Bucky breathe a bit easier. “And you’re sure I can't take him so you can get some rest?” He asked, not wanting to push, but also a second away from telling you to sit in the rocking chair. You headed toward it and carefully took a seat before he could open his mouth again, as if you sensed what he was about to say.
“I’ll take a nap in a few minutes,” you promised, giving him another small smile. “I just want to hold him a little bit longer.”
Bucky conceded as he put a blue blanket over both of you. Soft and covered in stars, it would keep you both warm. “I still can't believe how big he’s getting,” he said, brushing a finger along his son's soft cheek.
How was it a month already since he blessed your lives?
“Big and strong,” you said, glancing down with a fond smile before looking up again. “Just like his daddy.”
Bucky’s cheeks tinged from the compliment. “He's strong because of his mommy. And beautiful.”
You fought a yawn, but he saw the happiness in your eyes at his words. “He gets that from both of us.”
Jamie scrunched his face before he nuzzled his head against you with a tiny sound, making the brunette chuckle. “Okay, okay. Enjoy your snuggles with your Mama,” he whispered as he bent down and kissed the top of his son’s soft head. He stilled for a moment as he let his soothing scent wash over him. “I’ll be in my office.”
“Okay. I’ll call for you when I’m done,” you said, shutting your eyes when he kissed the top of your head, too.
He dimmed the lights once he crossed the room, but stopped to look back and observe the tender moment between you two a bit longer. It was picture perfect and had his heart swelling again before he went to his office. His journal awaited him at his desk and he got to work with his latest entry.
Hey, Nugget, You’re currently cuddled up with your mom in the nursery and I don’t blame you for soaking up the snuggles. It was a big day for you! Your one month checkup. I still can’t believe it’s been a month since you came into our lives. It seems like yesterday.
Is it too early to say I want time to slow down?
I'm happy to report that you are on track. Your height and weight are on the charts where they should be. You're hitting the usual milestones, which came as no surprise to me. You are my son after all.
A joke. I'm a little more humble than that. I think you're on track because of your Mama, but she’ll argue and say it’s because of both of us. Either way, the pediatrician didn’t look at all surprised that you were doing well. The receptionist and nurses also fawned over how adorable you are.
Again, you got that from your Mama, even if she says again that you got it from both of us.
Bucky stole a glance at the monitor where you continued to rock Jamie in the chair. He had to smile at the sight. You weren’t quite asleep, but were dangerously close. He’d have to finish up his entry quickly so he could get you to bed.
I’ll be honest. I wasn’t sure about the pediatrician at first. I think he directed most of your questions to your mom since I kept glaring at him. I couldn’t help myself. We did a lot of research to make sure you’d get the best care possible. Even though he’s highly recommended and probably one of the nicest men I’ve ever met in my life, you’re my son and it’s hard to hand you over to someone else to care for you.
Except for your Mama. She is always the exception to the rule.
Bucky let out a breath, gripping the pen a bit tighter.
I knew going into the appointment today that you would have to get a couple of shots. Needles don’t exactly scare me and I knew it was for your own good, but I never hated them until today. I must’ve given the nurse a dirty look, too, because she avoided looking at me and asked your mom to hold you still so she could administer the shots. In fact, I know I glared because your mom elbowed my side and whispered, “Stop that. They’re helping our son.”
You’ll learn later in life that your mom is always right.
I still did my best to stay calm and distract you by making a funny face. I didn't want you to sense that I was worried, but I was because I knew you’d be in pain. And even though the pain would only last for a second, I knew I was powerless to stop it.
At that moment, I was helpless.
He swallowed as he recalled the piercing scream Jamie let out when the needle pricked his thigh. It twisted his gut so painfully that he feared he’d get sick and he had to refrain from taking him away from the nurse. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever get used to the shots or cries with any of the upcoming appointments.
It should come as no surprise that your mom continued to be a pillar of calm and strength as the nurse gave you two shots and applied your band aids. Whereas I was like a wave crashing against the shores in my mind, she was the rock that braved the storm and didn’t budge. She told you how big and strong you were, like me, when she picked you up and your cries eventually stopped as she held you against her chest.
I wonder if it was her voice that calmed you down. It could’ve been her smell. She does smell good. Maybe her touch. Her heartbeat. Probably everything.
We both love her so much.
Bucky wondered if the shots bothered you more than let on. Maybe that was why you were so keen to hold him even though you needed sleep. Maybe you needed the comfort as much as your son did.
As I watched her hold you, it took me a moment to breathe again so I could try and provide some sort of comfort to you. As your father, I want to protect you from the pain of the world. But pain is the body’s warning system to protect us from harm and sometimes inevitable. Today reminded me that I won’t always be able to protect you from it and that I can’t let my negative emotions or fear get in the way of helping you after. It’s another reason why I admire your mother.
She validated your pain, but stayed strong for you because you needed that. It’s something that I’m still learning. It doesn’t make me any less of a good dad because of that. There’s no manual for dealing with these emotions. We just have to figure out how to weather the storm.
Because we’re strong apart, but even stronger together.
“Bucky?” You asked, your voice gently ringing out through the monitor. “It’s your turn.”
He smiled before jotting one more thing down.
And if you’re ever hurting or just need a helping hand, I’ll be there.
Until next time, I love you.
Always,
Dad
Bucky didn’t hesitate to go to the nursery once he finished up to take his son from your arms, a look of understanding passing between the two of you. Parenting was an emotional rollercoaster full of ups and downs and twists and turns. Being a father was one of the hardest jobs he’d ever had, but it was also the most rewarding. He still didn’t really know what he was doing, but he was trying and didn’t have to go through it alone.
And as Jamie leaned into him with you resting close by, that was the best reward he could ask for today.
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Bucky is doing a wonderful job. Love and thanks for reading! ❤️
Masterlist ⚓ Bucky Barnes Masterlist ⚓ Ko-Fi
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