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#and have another ask that they got permission to send
moonsaver · 2 days
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Yandere!Alhaitham, stalking(implied), yandere.
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Ahaitham was a stranger to you.
One that was getting overly familiar.
He was just one of your roommates' friend; they often brought him with another blonde man named Kaveh. You admit – you were slightly jealous at how gorgeous they both were. But it wasn't soon before their visits became routine and your curiosity became indifference. A few short words and conversations took place between you four from time to time, and nothing else happened. The resounding laughter of your roommate and Kaveh usually didn't make past your closed door.
Alhaitham's curiosity, however, reared it's head for its own investigation.
Perhaps you want to blame your roommate. They couldn't just not resist bringing them over for one day, especially when the chatty blond was busy and couldn't make it. Conversation between them and Alhaitham proved to be more on the blander side. Alhaitham, at that point, simply tags along to see you.
You, who manages to spark up a conversation in the dead silence over the dining table. Monotone, casual voice engaging in a dialogue with him, as your roommate awkwardly leaves, feeling discluded. You don't think much of it; you end the conversation quietly (to his dismay), and take your leave.
It's not often his mind teeters to a person outside of those who he actively reaches out to. Sightings of you are strange – they make him glance up from his chosen reading from time to time, often trailing your actions as you shuffle around the kitchen, or the living room before leaving quietly through the front door or returning to your own room.
Nowadays, Alhaitham can't help it. Visits become so frequent it's as though the duo have their own copies of keys to your shared space. Verbalizing your grievance regarding this to your roommate proves ineffective – they're stubborn, or really, couldn't care less. Alhaitham however, makes use of this. Asking for permission slowly faded into quiet agreement, as your roommate and Kaveh got closer, Alhaitham simply familiarized himself more with the living room, the kitchen, and the more personal areas of your shared space.
It was uncomfortable when you stumbled upon him sitting alone here and there, in your living room or at the dining tabls, especially staying for long hours; you don't know if your roommate's going to be back – should you send him away? Perhaps they'll return and throw a fit if they find out you've been an unwelcoming host? Or even if you went ahead regardless, would he leave? What would you do if he insists?
Most of the time, your train of thought was interrupted by Alhaitham welcoming himself deeper into the space, often coming face to face with you. He shamelessly seeks you out, chattering on about a topic of a research you once offhandedly complained about to your roomie. He follows you everywhere.
At some point, he starts following you outside of your home.
You stay quiet. Is it too awkward to address? He's probably also just technically headed in the same direction. You leave the house and suddenly he has somewhere to be. The walk to the bus or the metro station is quiet. You try and avoid looking anywhere near his way – eye contact with him is fatal. You see him in the grocery stores you never thought he'd be in, malls or any public spaces where you'd constantly catch glimpses of grey tufts; you were paranoid. And you were unsure.
And perhaps Alhaitham is well aware of this. And perhaps he monopolized it. You don't know your roommate's out on dates with his, and welcoming himself into your space with the key they so generously provided him with is proving to be of much help.
Of course.. you can ignore the part where it was only one copy, that belonged to Kaveh. Making another wasn't out of the question.
And it's not soon before you're dreadful enough to push, push, push against that teetering line of uncertainty, a hesitant and familiar voice finally resounding in the kitchen again as you ask him; don't you have somewhere else to be?
He smiles. So, he closes the book with a soft snap, you finally ask.
He intends on stretching out the following conversation for a while, stealing a glance at the clock – 8:27 PM, he notes. Your roommate's on the other side of town. Kaveh's with them. You're here alone. There's only 2 copies of the key between you two that opens the front door. And as for your luck – your roommate has it.
It's late. Why don't we shift this conversation somewhere else? His gaze is unfeeling. You can't tell how fatally it's probed you.
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bitterchocoo · 4 hours
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My first time requesting but I need a part 2 of Kilmer where aventurine adopts the reader (somehow) or gets the reader away from that awful man 🤕 angst with comfort and a bit of fluff in the end if its possible, Thank you!! :) (P.S. I love your works!!)
Shama
Aventurine | Child M. Reader (Platonic)
Part One | Part Two (You're here)
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"It's an all-or-nothing surrender!"
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No matter how many days, weeks, months have passed. The sight of that serial number on the neck of a young child has sear itself into Aventurine's mind. Images of his own past flashes before his eyes. Those times, those things he went through.. the thought of someone else going through the same thing at such a young age. Sends a chill down his spine.
Every time he ever met the man for business, his gaze would linger on the child much longer than the man he was having business with. That blank expression, those expensive and luxurious clothing on him. Like a little trophy. Just for show. A way for his caretaker--no.. owner to say "Hey! Look at this shiny new toy I got! Isn't he pretty?" Put in a glass box, a collection, a doll being stored on a shelf.
Every time he has to meet up with the man, Aventurine makes sure that he brings gifts. He doesn't mind buying gifts for clients. It's nothing really. Anything to make [Name]'s life more bearable... but his main concern, his main target is the trophy, the doll, the child, [Name]. And evert time he gave [Name] a gift, it's always met by complete silence and subtle glances directed to his owner. As if asking permission to take it.
"See this? This is a limited type of confectionery that everyone in the galaxy simply adores. There are only sixteen slices sold every day. Here, why don't you have a taste?" Aventurine says, his hand gestures towards a plate of slice cake. A very popular, very delicious dessert. One that he hopes the child would take it. [Name] glances over to his master, as if he's silently asking if he could, which earned him a firm nod. "Go ahead, it's rude to not accept gifts."
After contemplating over it, [Name] took a seat next to Aventurine, his hand reaching out towards the dessert plate, with his other hand the child use the utensil to eat his dessert. It was simply divine. It's no wonder this cake is a favorite of the people in the galaxy. [Name] had never tried anything this wonderful before.
The subtle light in the child's dull eyes make Aventurine smile widens.
Anything to make [Name]'s life more bearable.
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But even so, these gifts could only do so much.. he needs a plan. A permanent one. But it seems... he doesn't need to think of that anymore...
The "lifeless doll" had taken care of it.
Aventurine merely stare with widen eyes as the boy stood there in front of all of them with handcuffs on his wrist, the usually clean and tidy suit he wore is now messy with wrinkles and splashes of fresh blood, his neat hair now in shambles as he look at them through his hair strands with dull eyes.
As if what he had done didn't face him one bit.
It was a banquet, a normal banquet, nothing special, another day, another business. The waiters and waitresses handing drinks and foods to every patron. A normal business event.
And yet..
It had end in a massacre.
The trial went on and on. the trial took way too long for comfort, for every evidence and every alibi... the child is proven innocent. It took what felt like an eternity to finally gathered enough proof for him to be proven guilty. And yet..
The IPC showed him mercy. Finding it to be such a shame to lose such an asset. The length this boy went through, not breaking character as he slowly make his plan come into fruition.
This "lifeless doll" isn't as lifeless as he make himself to be.
For someone as young as him.. to be able to make elaborate plans and following it through till the end.. and creating evidence and alibies to prove himself innocent, whether if it's fabricated or not...
He's a mastermind.
And the IPC can't simply let such a valuable asset to simply.. cease to exist.
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.
.
But that smile soon disappears once he heard the sound of someone entering the room, a man that he's well familiar with. There's no mistaken those eyes. He then approached [Name] before kneeling down in front of him.
At a vacant room, [Name] sat on the edge of the bed looking blankly at the wall in front of him, his gaze sometimes shifted between the wall and his still blood stained hands, along with the handcuffs on his wrists. The sight of it could make anyone feel uneasy and squeamish. But to him.. it brought a sense of satisfaction as a ghost of a smile made it's way onto his face. For his plan had come to fruition.
Giving him a sense of comfort he never thought he could ever feel.
"The IPC has pardon your crimes, but of course that still didn't erase the fact you had slaughtered a whole banquet of people... I'm afraid you have to work hard in order to clear your name.."
A soft and warm smile adorn on his expression as he stretch out a hand towards the younger. "In the meantime, you'll be under my care.."
"...Malachite."
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pit-and-the-pen · 19 hours
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Got it Bad- Nessian x Reader
I just reread Silver Flame and I… Listen. My bisexsual ass does not know who I love more.
Summary:  Smut (18+), Threesome (M x F xF), p in v sex, face sitting, oral (m/f receiving), spit, shy reader and slight dom! Nesta and Cassian, slight cum play, porn no plot. 
Pairing: Nessian x mated! reader
This is my first threesome that I’ve written 
Another one I wrote on my phone so only slightly edited. 
WC: 2.8k
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It truly wasn’t fair sometimes, having not one but two insanely beautiful mates. The heat that had lingered over your whole body seemed to flaring up full force as you watched the two of them training. It was your turn to sit and watch, and watch you certainly did. Beads of sweat were rolling down Cassian's toned abs and Nesta’s face was deliciously flushed as she blocked every one of Cassian’s moves with expert skill. The noises coming from both of them were enough to make your face heat up, shifting slightly in your spot on the ground. The longest you watched them, the more your mind drifted.  How Cassian’s sweat would taste as you kissed your way down his stomach, the sweet noises you would draw out of Nesta. It was driving you wild. 
There was absolutely no reason for you to be wanting them this much. Cassian had already wrung two orgasms from you before you had even gotten out of bed this morning. 
“You okay, sweetheart, you look a little warm?” He said as he crouched down to get a better look at your face. He brings up a gentle hand to rest on your cheek and the gentle touch has you biting back a whine. Recognition flashes across his face, the small shift sending the scent of your arousal straight to him. “Does seeing us train turn you on, sweet girl?” He teases and it takes every ounce of your willpower to not jump him right there at the tone in his voice. That sweet voice with a slight bite in it turns your knees to jelly every single time. You find it in yourself to nod and he turns his head back to Nesta. She raised an eyebrow at him and he leaned back in to whisper into your ear. “Why don’t you show our mate how much you like it?” You blushed and caught Nesta’s eyes before sending all of the need down the bond. You're rewarded with her intake of breath and that pretty pink creeping up her high cheekbones.  She stalks over to Cassian and I and offers me a hand. Nearly stumble over myself trying to grab it, the action causing Nesta to give a small laugh. Your blush intensifies as Nesta hauls me to my feet. Your mouth dries out when you notice how close her face is to yours. When you try to angle your head to join your lips, she wraps a hand into your hair, holding you still. She runs her nose over your jaw line and down your neck. The touch pulling a pitiful whine from your lips. 
“She does feel a little warm Cas.” She pulls away from you, leaving you cold as a shiver runs down your spine. “Maybe we should bring her inside.” Your stomach flips at the suggestive tone of her voice and Cassian’s wings flare out slightly as he catches onto her meaning. He’s practically pulling you back to the house, Nesta and you laughing together at his urgency. 
Nesta’s lips are on yours the second the door is closed, my back pressed against the hall. You suck down her strawberry and mint taste until you're panting against her. Your hands wind into her braid and she nips at my bottom lip, asking for permission. You don’t hesitate to let her tongue lick into my mouth, moaning at the contact and she bites your lips again for good measure. When she goes to pull away, you use your grip in her hair to pull her face back to yours. Cassian clears his throat from the other side of the room, “Nes' ' was all he said and Nesta was unwinding your hands from her hair and walking over to him, leaving you breathless against the door. He pulled her onto his lap and brought his lips to hers. The kiss heated up and you saw Cassian's grip move down to her hip and started rocking Nesta against his thigh. You moaned almost at the same time she did and the pair broke apart. Nesta gave you a wicked smile and hopped off Cassian's lap only to start pulling off her training clothes. Inch by inch her gorgeous skin was revealed to you and all you could do was remain stuck to that stupid door, legs refusing to move. 
“Come here bunny.” Cassian cooed at you and it was like he put you under a spell, feet finally moving you in the direction you wanted. Nesta came up behind you and you stood in front of Cassian and teased at the hem of your shirt, asking permission to take it off. You nodded, whimpering out a small “please”. 
“Arms up” she said and you obliged, the material feeling too rough as it trailed up your heated skin. Cassian’a eyes darkened as he realized you weren’t wearing a bra and your breasts were on full display. Nesta made a soft ticking noise before her hands were wrapping around your front, hands going to teasingly play with your hardened nipples. It was only her contact at your back that stopped you from melting to the floor. Her mouth trailing open kisses along your shoulder and deft fingers tweaking your nipples. Your head leaned back onto her shoulder as you cried out. You could vaguely hear Cassian shuffling out of his own clothes, the various buckles of his leathers clanking as he threw them somewhere in the room. He gently pulled you out of Nestas hold, the female behind you making a displeased noise. 
Cassian laid you on your back and started to pull your pants along with your panties off in one swift motion. You gasped softly as the cold air of the room hit your soaked core. Cassian and Nesta smirked at each other when they saw the slight shine of your arousal on your thighs. “We barely touched you and you’re already soaked.” Nesta teased but the words were lost because at the same time Cassian had swiped a large finger up your folds. He pulled away, fingers glistening and you felt your face heat up. He brought his fingers up to your mouth and you gladly took them between your lips. The make above you groaning as you swirl your tongue along the digits. You sucked hard and he pulled his fingers out with a popping sound, a long string of spit coming off his fingers. Nesta pulls Cassian in for another kiss, you can’t look away from the heated moment and Cassian goes to wrap his arm around Nesta before she pulls away. She climbs into you hips, thighs straddling yours and squeezes your cheeks. You instantly open your mouth and she spits on your tongue. You can taste her and Cassian, mixed with the linger taste of your own arousal and your core clenches. She closes your mouth gently and watches with a primal look in her eyes as you swallow, sticking your tongue out to show her. She pats your cheek gently, “good girl.” She praises and you smile dumbly at her. 
The groan you hear from besides you has your eyes moving over to Cassian. His hand wrapped around his hardened length. 
You tap Nestas legs and she climbs off of you. Sliding off the bed, you take the few steps it takes to stand in front of Cassian. He leans back onto his arms, stopping the motion of his hand, as you sink to your knees. His hands are sweeping your hair off your shoulder before he’s even in your mouth. Giving a light pull so your chin is tilted up. You’re eye level with his throbbing cock and you let out a whine at not being able to have him in your mouth. “Want it that bad?” Cassian growls out, you nod as best as you can with his grip on your hair. He lets out a heavy breath and flexes his hips, letting you know you can get started. And that you do. 
You instantly take him half way down your throat, the sudden contact making him yelp which turns into a throaty moan. What you can’t take in your mouth, your hands are stroking. Following behind your mouth as you take him deeper each time. Head bobbing up and down at the fast pace he likes. “Look at my sweet little Bunny, you look so good with my cock in your mouth.” He says between grunts. You hum at the praise and are rewarded with the buck of his hips. Hands still in your hair, he uses it to pull you off of him, the question in his eyes. All you do is take him in your mouth again, letting him rest on your tongue. That’s all it takes for him to start thrusting into your mouth. Harsh thrust that pulls pretty gags from your throat. Your nose touches those toned abs and he holds you there just long enough for tears to prick in the corners of your eyes before he pulls you all the way off. You’re panting and going to lean back to him but he stops you. “I think we’ve left out our other mate. Why don’t you go make it up to her?” 
You look over to Nesta and are met with the sight of her rubbing slow circles on her clit. Her eyes lock on yours and that’s all it takes for you to raise off your knees and join her again on the bed. Crawling over to her, you lightly swat away her hand and replace it with your own. Copying her slow pace. She squirms under your touch and moans softly. You speed up your movements. “Need… need more” she moaned. You’re rewarded with her pretty scream as you sink two fingers into her, fingers already brushing that sweet spot inside of her. You’re so distracted by her pretty noises that you don’t realize Cassian coming up behind you. It takes every bit of concentration not to stop your fingers as Cassian lifts you up and crawls under you, placing your dripping core over his face. You give Nesta a particularly hard thrust as Cassian licks a long stripe up your cunt. Arching into his face, he wraps his hands around your thighs and licks lazily up and down. 
Nesta’s and your moans fill the room as you slip another finger inside of her, moving faster still. Her hips buck to meet your hand and you know she’s close. Smirking to yourself at her blissed out face. You pull your fingers out and resume the tight circles on her clit. She hisses slightly at the sudden change, eyes fluttering open. Her mouth hangs open as she moans a garbled version of your name. Small shakes rack through her as she grips onto your wrist. Her orgasm barreling through her and your hands don’t stop as you work her through it. She falls back against the mattress with a content smile on her face. 
Cassian really starts on you once he realizes Nestas finished. He pulls you even tighter against his face and thrusts his tongue inside of you. Your back arches and your hands shoot out into the sheets to steady yourself. Nesta still laid back on the mattress, eyes now watching you ride Cassian's face. Your moans raise in pitch and she pulls herself off the mattress. Kneeling in front of you, she pulls you in for a searing kiss. Capturing every moan Cassian pulls from you, she greedily swallows them down. Her hands land on your breasts again and start to kneed at the soft flesh. Cassian scrapes his teeth lightly over your clit and that’s all it takes for your own orgasm to rip through you. Hips bucking against his face as Nesta sinks her teeth into your lip, muffling the scream that tears out of your throat. You sag against her and Cassian slips out from under you. Once your breathing has settled slightly, you look back at Cassian. His face and chin coated with your release. “Nes, you go first.” You offer and she’s smirking as she crawls over to Cassian. 
A rough hand on his shoulder pushes him to his back and she’s already sinking down onto him. He roars once she’s fully seated against him and when he goes to grab her hips, she playfully swats his hands away. Instead she places her hands on his chest and uses the leverage to grind against him. His hands knot into the sheets and you can only watch the place where they’re connected. Cassian's thick length slipping into and out of her, that creamy ring at the base from Nesta’s previous release. It’s enough to make you moan. The sound only makes Nesta’s hips speed up. She finally lets him grip her hips and he starts to meet her thrusts. High pitched whines leave Nesta’s mouth as a string of curses falls from Cassian’s. You can’t stop the hand that trails down your stomach, skin itching with need. You don’t even bother to pause as you thrust a finger into yourself. Biting your lip to stop the loud cry the action pulls from your mouth. 
The pair looking over at you, eyes hazy with lust. Nesta gives Cassian a few more long strokes, slowly raising and lowering herself before she pulls off of him. “We can’t leave our needy girl out of this,” She winks at you, “As much as she does love watching me fuck you silly.” You whimper at her words. Both of them turn their attention back to you. Cassian pulls your hand away from your aching hole, ignoring your whine. He’s pushing you down to your back and Nesta is already climbing up to your head. Your hands find her thighs and help her get situated as she lowers herself onto your waiting tongue. You groan at the taste of her. Your hand gliding up to her clit as you fuck her with your tongue. 
Cassian’s fingers slip into you and the moan you release into Nesta has her cursing above you. Grinding harder onto your face. Once Cassian has stretched you out enough, he withdrawals his fingers and you feel his thighs brush against yours. You part your legs wider, silently begging him to fill you. He pushes in achingly slow, inch by inch to let you adjust. His hands wrap under your knees to push them up to your chest. 
You can do nothing but cry out as Cassian starts to plow into you. Hips digging deliciously into your thighs and you feel tears start to roll down your face. Mind already numb to anything but your mates over you. Blood is drumming against your ears, you would be surprised if the others couldn’t hear your frantic heartbeat as the three of you work to get each other off. Nesta finishes first but you pull her back down, holding her hips to your face, your tongue not stopping. She twitches against you, head thrown back in a silent moan. Her hands twist themselves into your hair and the painful sting on your scalp as she pulls only spurs you on. She moans out, “Please, don’t stop.” So you don’t. 
Cassian’s harsh thrusts are sending you over the edge before you can even process it. His own cries are muffled by Nesta’s thighs. His thrusts get deeper, pulling out less and less until he’s bucking his hips against yours. Grinding deep into you. Nesta and you come for a second time together. When she rides out her bliss, she’s tapping on your shoulder, signaling you to let her up. You can finally hear Cassian’s moans. He’s loud enough to shake the paintings on the walls. Grunting and panting, followed by strings of curses. “Such a perfect little cunt. You take me so well, take both your mates so well…Fuck. I love you. Both of you.” His hips stutter a little and you can tell he’s close. You see Nesta’s hands go to stroke that tender spot on his wings and that’s all it takes for him to fill you up. He pulls out, his seed leaking onto your thigh. You have to push Nesta away from your leaking hole as she swipes her tongue through your folds. Too worn out to have her mouth on you. 
The three of you lay panting on the bed. Limbs tangled around each other as you all bask in your post-orgasmic bliss. Cassian eventually pulls away from the bed to run a bath for all of you. Your tub almost has its own room to be able to fit all three of you, including Cassian’s wings. Both you and Nesta are wrapped in a tender kiss and Cassian joins you back on the bed, he tucks both of you onto his chest. The three of you drift off to sleep wrapped in each other. Bath completely forgotten.
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ask-wasteland-labs · 1 year
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JenniChu: Not sure... Could be cuter I guess As she speaks, she gently rolls the infant around the blanket in a playful manner BabyRue: EEEEEEEEEEEE!! The child continues to squeak happily as Jenni suddenly swoops them up into their arms JenniChu: Pretty mid lil baby. A bit stinky as well. Not sure... I’m debating on if I should just eat her or not. BabyRue: EEE! JenniChu holds Rue up to her face, making a playful teeth knashing “eating” face JenniChu: I might just eat her RIGHT NOW! JenniChu gives the infant a raspberry on their stomach and playfully pretends to “eat” her ears BabyRue giggles and squeaks happily, kicking her feet rapidly  - - - - - - -  [ Anon ]
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Cheating Heart
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Pairing: John Price x F!Reader
Synopsis: Your feeling for John were wrong -- horribly wrong -- but when you see your current boyfriend in bed with another woman, what's to hold you back anymore? (18+)
Word Count: 20.8k
Warnings: Cheating, toxic relationship, angst, fluff, depictions of violence and gore in flashbacks, unhealthy coping mechanisms, smut, breeding kink, praise kink, Protective!Price, vulgar language, porn with an incredible amount of plot
A/N: Literally just supposed to be smut practice and I turned it into a novel lmfao. I should be getting back to requests after this.
*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*
You slap a hand onto Soap’s bicep as you slide past the Scot, laughing loudly. The C-17 was still whirring behind you, the engines rumbling and shaking the air over your heads like great waves. Soap had asked you to go out with everyone for drinks at a local bar here in your city, not a moment prior. He was being quite persistent about it.
“Ah, c’mon, Little Lady,” The mohawked man grumbles, jogging to catch up to your fast form. Shit, you really needed a shower – your pores were packed with blood and dirt, “It’s just a few minutes from Base! We’ll all get steamin’ in no time.”
 “Hell,” Your body aches, but there’s a promise of hot water and clean clothes in your Barracks, making your feet move over the tarmac faster. Showering after a tough deployment was better than sex, “I’d love to, man, but you know that Leon makes me homemade meals when I get back home. Sorry, but I hope I make up for it by saying I’d take a bar burger and a drink over his lasagna any day. That thing could kill a horse.” 
Soap chuckles, eyes sparkling, and you send him an inquiring glance, “Price’ll be out with us.”
Your lips thin, the M13 strapped over your back suddenly ten times heavier and digging into your shoulder blades. Inside your chest, your heart sparks to life.
“MacTavish…” You warn, eyes narrowing at the stocky male, “Careful where your words go – I have a boyfriend. Plus, idiot, whatever it is your implying is insanely against workplace policy.”
“Yeah, but that boyfriend of yours treats you like shite.”
“Hey!” Yelling, your eyebrows turn in with a glare, finger pointing at his chest, “That was uncalled for, Asshat.”
Frowning, you watch Soap’s hand go scratch at the back of his head as his optics dart away, grumbling, “I don’t think it was if I’m being honest. Not exactly a prime choice in a partner you’ve got there.” 
The two of you make it to the front doors of the Barracks building, and you huff in annoyance. You were quickly deciding that not even a shower would make you feel better if this conversation continued. It was bordering on too much for your tired brain, sinking needles into your heart and dripping poison. 
Soap wasn’t lying, of course, your boyfriend was a piece of work and everyone knew it. Not only did Leon get pissed when you had to go on deployments – which you didn’t have control over – but he had also made a habit of being a bitch when you came back lately. There was never a chance to relax anymore, and what was worse was that it hadn’t always been like that. Part of you had tried to empathize with him because it was probably hard for someone's significant other to be away most of the time.
Like that gives him an excuse, You think, face heating with resentment as you remember the last argument Leon had dragged you into.
It was the day before your current deployment began nearly four months ago. Leon had gotten angry that you weren’t able to tell him where you were being shipped off to, and, like usual, had made the last day you saw him pure hell. 
“Oh, so It’s my fault that I’m concerned?!” He was screaming at the top of his lungs, his voice bouncing off the ceiling, “I get it – I’m the problem for wanting you home and safe.”
“My job is important, Leon!” Attempting to keep your cool, you take deep breaths. Teeth nash against your bottom lip and rip it to pieces as you use the pain to call away from the tears stuck in the ducts of your eyes, “You’re acting like what I do doesn’t affect the world. I need to go, otherwise, bad people are–”
“Is that what you tell yourself? Fuck me, how goddamn stupid could you be?!”
Leon growls, sending you scathing glances as he begins to pace the living room.
“Now you’re just being rude,” You whisper, whipping at your cheeks and gathering teardrops on your sleeves, “You know I can’t control when John sends me out with him and 141! They’re my team!”
Mentioning your Captain was a mistake and you knew it just as John’s name came out of your mouth. Leon pauses – his body going very still.
“John,” He whispers, eyes lit with burning fire, “Since when have you started calling him by his first name?”
“Leon–” You tried to salvage the situation but it was already too late. Your boyfriend snarls out accusation after accusation.
“I knew it! You’re cheating on me–”
“No, I’m not!” Pleading with someone to listen can only get you so far, “We’re close because we're always together – just like with the rest of the boys!” Leon shakes his head, hands clenched at his sides and vibrating with rage. Loyalty meant so much to you, trying to imagine a world where you would physically go out and cheat on your boyfriend was like seeing a unicorn out on the street. Your feet take you closer to Leon as the tensions rise, “You’re not listening! Listen to me!”
“Why the hell should I listen to a fucking whore!?”
The memory leaves you tense, remembering for a moment the sound of a tossed lamp and the shattering that followed soon after as it hit the floor. It was silly, but that lamp that Leon had thrown in anger was a family heirloom; something immeasurably precious to you. It was the last object you had left from your Grandma. Now, the remains were probably stuffed in a garbage bag somewhere, but you wouldn’t know because you had left with your duffel bag and slept at Base. At the very least you could hope your Leon cut his fingers picking up the pieces of glass.  
You had thought that everyone hadn’t noticed anything wrong, but had been catching concerned glances when you went into the cafeteria with thick bags under your eyes the next day; hair tangled and matted from your fingers.
Price had brought you outside, only pausing slightly before laying a heavy hand on your arm and squeezing. The man had bent slightly to look you in the eyes, head tilting so his hat blocked the sun from your eyes. 
“Love?” His eyes had been warm, creased with concern around the edges – an emotion you never received from Leon. When you just stared at your Captain, he hummed in the back of his throat, “You alright down there?”
Before you could do anything you might regret, you shook off his grip and disappeared back into the cafeteria. You didn’t eat that day and the next you were off on deployment.
“--soon?”
You blink, noticing Soap had begun walking ahead of you, his gear clinking.
“What?” You ask dumbly, “Sorry, I spaced out.”
Soap smirks, looking at you strangely, “I said I’ll see ya soon…hopefully out with the rest of us tonight?” He raises an eyebrow expectantly with a grin and you force out a half-assed huff. Trying to mask the unease in your blood. 
You had been gone four months instead of the intended three with Soap out in Russia on a Black Op, fighting back in a war that no one would ever hear of. Distinctly, you wondered if John was mad at you for how you acted toward him before you left.
“No promises, Suds,” Striding down the hallway you take the turn on the right leading to the women’s barracks, your back turned as Soap continues to subtly plead to you. 
If you took the time to look into it, you would have realized that the man was concerned for you; his thought process was to keep you away from Leon for as long as he could so you might come to your senses.
“I’ll see you at 0900, then! Don’t keep everyone waiting, yeah? Been too long since you’ve been out with the rest of us!” 
His voice falls away as you open the door to the joint female changing room and showers. Only when the hum of the air conditioning overhead blocks out everything else do you speak.
“You’re nothing if not persistent, MacTavish,” Putting your palms into your eyes, you press until you see stars and take a deep breath. 
Filling your lungs you hold the air trapped and begin to count to five, letting the tension in your shoulders leave as you breathe out. The room was empty of anyone else, white-walled, and tiled floors with rows of metal lockers you needed a key to get into. Digging into your vest pocket, you produce the one you would need to enter yours.
It was the one in the middle of the room, with access to the emergency door in the back and a clear view of the front door as well. Some traits stick with you when you join one of the best forces on the planet.
Since you lived around here, everything you would need was already in the locker, including a gray shirt, baggy sweats, fresh undergarments – thank God – and spare boots. Your duffel bag of belongings was still on the C-17 and set to go through inspection before you could get it back.
Groaning and deading the inevitable stack of reports you would have to go through, plus the thoughts of what to do tonight, you sit on the rickety wooden bench and begin to take off strap after strap of your uniform. 
“This is gonna be one hell of a problem, Isn’t it?” You mutter, body slouching with more and more fatigue as the seconds draw on. 
Maybe I should just stay here, You wonder to yourself, Say the hell with it to both of them and have a girl's night in. Watching a sad movie and crying over a bucket of fucking ice cream sounds better than fighting with Leon or trying to ignore John.
Chucking off your combat vest, you clench your jaw in agitation. Why couldn’t things be simple? Why couldn’t you just break it off with your boyfriend and be done? It was obvious the love that was there before was gone…but you had known Leon since high school. You bite your lip. There were so many good memories. 
John, as he usually does, weasels his way into your mind from the gaps. 
You unlock your locker and slam the door open so that the hinges rattle back in anguish. Shucking off your M13 your shaking hands all but toss the attached strap on the hook inside as you try to force the brown-haired Brit from your consciousness. You can’t call it love or lust, but somewhere in the spaces between missions and spent bullets you had grown fond of him in a way you couldn’t describe. John. Your Captain. 
As your knives and pistol are placed in the above cubie you run over hand over your face once more, pausing to breathe deeply before regaining motion. Putting your head on the locker’s cool metal corner, your eyes close tightly. 
The Black Op with Soap had been hard. You had been trying to strangle every emotion down like the ball in your throat when the Scot brought up Price or Leon during muttered conversations. 
“That’s why the Captain likes you so much, then!”
“The boy of yours is a pure dafty – why the hell would he say that to you?!”
“Price’ll have my head if you take another shot for me.”
“The two of you would make a fine looken’ couple, y’know. No missin’ the way he looks at you…Hey, now! I meant it as a compliment! Stop hitten’ me woman!”
You shouldn’t be feeling like this. Why were you feeling like this? Leon was a dick sure, but you both had fond memories together – you’d known him for more than half of your life! When you thought of someone you wanted to spend the rest of your life with it was always…
Your eyes harden as reality sets in. 
John. 
“Fuck!” Reeling backward, you curl your left fist and send it right into the locker beside your own. 
Immediately a sparking of pain ripples down your limb like lighting, firing off nerves and heating the skin as blood rushes to the affected area. Hunching your shoulder’s in, you bite your tongue and tip your head down. 
Your heart is hammering so hard you hear it echo through the room, bouncing off the tall ceiling – Knock-knock. 
Blinking, you look up, staring in confusion into the depths of your locker before you realize that wasn’t your heart at all. 
A distinctly male voice calls your name from behind the barrier, and suddenly you know why they weren’t coming in. Closing your eyes and sighing, you back up and stare at the door silently. The man calls your name again, accent muffled as knuckles rasp.
Someone’s knocking on the door…? Why would they do that? You wondered, It’s unlocked.
“I know you’re in there – the Sergeant told me where I could find you,” You could imagine the person you had just been thinking about nodding as he always does during conversations; dark eyebrows animated, “ We need to have a word before you clean up, yeah?”
“Price?” You ask, face tightening as you recognize the speech pattern before he even finishes talking. Could you really not get a moment's peace around here? Shaking out your hand, which was bleeding by the knuckles and leaves droplets on the floor, you stutter out, “W-what are you doing in the girl’s barracks?”
Your heart was already running faster than it had a moment ago. You didn’t want to talk to him right now.
The Captain sighs behind the door, and under the crack you see a shadow shuffle from one foot to the other. His voice lowers, losing that formal tone for a second. Your body reacts even as you tell it not to, and your breath gets shallow and your pupils are blown wide. “Would you open the door so I can talk to you, please, Love? I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important.”
Sucking down a breath your large muscle palpitates heavily behind your ribcage. Did you really have a choice?
John, separated from you but still sensing your hesitation, feels his eyes narrow. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about your last interaction before you left; the way your eyes were red-rimmed and dull. It had weighed on him more than he liked to admit for those few months, and it wasn’t like he could call to check-in. 
Black Ops meant no contact, and your safety was always his priority before anything else. He waited. So when Soap had knocked on John’s office door, the two of you back at Base unannounced, and had looked at him with creased eyes he had known immediately something was wrong. 
For a moment, his heart had stopped, thinking you were injured. But Johnny’s next words stopped him. 
“The girl’s been acting strange, Price. I can’t find any sense behind it – been that way damn near ever since we shipped out. Little Lady’s worrying me. She’s not right and I don’t know how to fix it.”
Maybe this was a mistake, John thinks, eyes narrowing as he itches at his beard, forcing the heated image in his mind away like it burned him. He didn’t know what he felt about you, but the knowledge that you had a boyfriend didn’t sway his sense of loyalty. Even if being around you made his chest tighten and his thoughts run.
If you were in the right headspace the door would have already been open. But then again you were in the locker room. The Captain’s head jerks back, trying not to imagine you naked just behind a thin barrier as his chest sucks in a sharp breath. 
It wasn’t his place to think of such things. To imagine you beautifully naked, laying under him and gasping out his name was…it was immoral. You deserve better than that. But damn it if the thought didn’t make his pants tighten.
A shadow moves under the door and Price straightens his spine, taking a step back before bringing his attention back to the present. Taking a deep breath, he lets it out slowly. 
Your hand lays on the door knob stiffly, shirt already untucked and boots unlaced. You probably looked a mess, you thought to yourself, sticking your tongue out of the side of your mouth with nerves. Freezing, your heart skips a beat.
Why did you care?
Growling under your breath, you swing the door open and plaster a smile over your bitten-to-hell lips that wouldn’t convince a blind man. 
“Sir,” You say, body coiled as your eyes trail your Captain’s figure.
John Price was the same man you remembered. Tall and fit, wearing an army green long-sleeved athletic shirt and cargo pants tucked into boots mirroring your own. Watching his muscles writhe, he crosses his arms over his chest and tilts his head – where the old bucket hat sits covering his shorter brown locks. 
The hallway lights were doing wonders for his complexion. 
“Do…you need something, Price?” Maybe if you didn’t look at him your head wouldn’t get fuzzy? 
Your eyes shifted up and down the hallways as if you were doing something illegal, listening to his breath and the rattle of his throat as he made a sound. 
If people saw the two of you rumors would start; you could almost hear them now.
“Did you see her talking to Captain Price outside the locker room?!”
“Lord, doesn’t she have a boyfriend here in the city? I feel bad for him...She’ll start one hell of an internal investigation.”
“No loyalty at all. I bet she likes sneaking around. Hey, do you think she’s sleeping with him?! Holy fuck I bet she is!”
“--Love? Hey, hey, Love, look at me, would you?” You blink back to reality, clearing your throat and tensing as a hand levels on your shoulder. 
Staring at John’s chest, you shake your head.
“Sorry, Sir, just tired,” You attempt a chuckle but it sounds like a balloon deflating, “Long mission, you know?”
Your eyes are boring holes in John’s chest, not willing to move anywhere else as your face begins to burn. His hand was so firm, warm, how would it feel when it was digging into the flesh of your thighs? Your waist? Would he be rough like the calluses on his hands would imply? Or would he handle you delicately like his guns, flicking over the safety and caressing the cool metal?
Shut the fuck up!
A moment passes before you notice your Captain hadn’t responded to you. Frowning, you throw him a quick glance and see him intently looking at your clenched, shaking, left hand. His blue eyes are dark, lips frozen in a thin line that has your lungs shriveling and a shiver running down your spine. You try not to follow the tensing of his lower abdominal muscles or the shifting of his large hips as his feet move.
Stop it, You plead with yourself, Please just stop. This isn’t right. What’s wrong with me?
That was the moment you noticed the blood dripping down your fingers, flooding from split knuckles and dotting the floor in red. Widening your eyes, you snap the hand behind your back in panic, clothes rustling.
“Uh,” You fumble, pulse so loud you can hear it in your ear as sweat slicks the back of your neck. Stuttering, you can’t find the words to continue before John speaks.
“Tell me,” He orders, voice so baritone and raspy you feel it rattle in your stomach; at that moment it’s not John you’re speaking to – it’s your Captain. You move out of his hold but he takes a step forward anyways, “Now.”
Freezing, you gape like a fish, mouth moving but no words come out to grace the man’s ears. John’s heart is pounding, snapping from the hidden hand to your eyes that lack the spark they usually had. He hadn’t seen that bit of light in your eyes for a long time and ached to find out why. What had happened? Why were you avoiding him? You usually went straight to his office after you got back from being separated from him – even if you were full of blood and dirt with bags lining your eyes. 
John’s hands clench, jaw following suit. 
You sigh shakily, swallow down saliva, and try not to throw up. 
“I-I…” Moving your head, your fingers shake. How could you explain your situation? Tell your Captain – who you have complicated feelings for – that you wanted to end things with Leon because of him? Fuck, do you tell him how shitty your boyfriend’s been? That wasn’t his business and certainly not his problem. It was better if you held your tongue and suffered, a part of you knew, because the infection of misplaced guilt was wrapped around your heart like thorns.
John would think less of you for staying with Leon for this long; probably put you on leave to figure it out yourself. 
No, You try to tell yourself, He wouldn’t do that – this is John we’re talking about. He’s kind to me and, if anything, he’d be just as pissed as I am about it. 
That you knew was true. John would go to war to make sure you were alright; he had.
The man was silently standing, patient with you even as the telltale sign of concern and muted irritation were painted on his face. John had always been a gentleman – holding doors open for you, letting you sleep in when the nightmares got to you and left you huddled in a corner for hours. He had found your favorite candy on an Op in Italy and bought you some for fucks sake!
But nothing made sense anymore and everything felt like it was at a breaking point. You liked Price – and hated Leon – and that fact nearly sent you spiraling into hysterics. You had been with your boyfriend for so long; he had been everything to you. 
Leon had helped you get through deaths in your family, and before the fighting started, ordered you flowers when you came back from deployments; Leon cooked and cleaned without you having to ask. He knew your life story possibly better than you did, and you knew his.
Your entire life was spent with him. Who were you if all of it suddenly ended? Years of your life thrown away for nothing.
If there was one thing that everyone on Base knew besides that your boyfriend was a bitch, it was that you hated change more than anything. Ironic, considering the profession you were in. 
You just needed silence – space to breathe without getting suffocated. But maybe what you really wanted was for John to fucking hug you. To feel his bear arms wrap around you and squeeze the stubborn tears out of your eyes as you sob. When was the last time you actually cried, anyways? John would make it better; hold you like he cared about you. Like how he had in Madagascar when a bullet got lodged in your side. You swore you saw him cry that day, beautiful blues shiny as your blood pooled out of his heavy, adrenaline-shaking, fingers. The body of the man who jumped you both lay dead and filled with more metal than a construction zone not a few feet away, gurgling. 
That man was supposed to be the target – Hubert Antonin – and you were both supposed to bring him in alive; you never got execute authority. 
But Price had unloaded the clip on him right as you cried out in pain.
“Stay with me, Princess, c’mon. Keep your eyes open for me…Look at me, Love. Hey, I promised I’d get ya’ back safe. Don’t make me lie, now, yeah?”
A weak, velvety, chuckle meets the humid air. It was startling, watching him lose his composure like that.
“It b-burns, John. I…I can’t–”
“I know, Sweetheart, I know. I’ll get you fixed up and good to go soon, Copy? Just like new,” His wild eyes snapped back and forth as your eyesight gets blurry, lids flickering like a candle’s flame, “Where the fucken’ hell is Evac?!... No, no, no…What did I just tell you – Keep those eyes open, Muppet!”
When you were stable in the Med Ward of the local Base, the man had brought you to his chest, letting you feel the rampaging of his heart and the uneven breaths on the top of your head. His hands tightened over you, fingers brushing up and down over your arms. Like he was worshiping you just for living. For being there.
“Attagirl. Just let me hold you for a minute, yeah?” 
As you recovered, he never let you out of his sight. 
If you thought about it too hard, that was perhaps the first instance when you knew something was very wrong with you for liking the feeling of his skin touching yours. His body heat melting into you in such a tight embrace it left you crying into his chest in thankfulness. You had never felt that when hugging Leon – Leon hated hugs to the point you had to beg him to hold you. 
But thinking about that was just another pipedream. Nothing about John Price and yourself would ever come to light as being anything more than partners on the Task Force. 
He was your Captain. You were working under him. 
You had a boyfriend. John had a valuable asset. 
But you really wanted him to be yours. And, never mind how Price felt about you and if it was the same twisted form of disloyalty or lust, you still hated yourself for it. For feeling so deeply.
“No,” You respond blankly to John’s request for an explanation of…everything, but can’t look into his eyes to see the shock that sparks. 
John's shoulders tense, jaw going slack. He gains his senses, but it’s already too late. 
Jerking back into the locker room, you slam it shut behind you and snap the lock in place, feeling the quivering of your lips as the first sob builds. 
Your skin was dirty and layered with grime, hair matted, and gear in need of deep cleaning. But that feeling you carried didn’t change even as you took a shower, wiping away everything down a drain with red-tinged water as a shadow hesitated for a long moment before confidently moving away from the front door.
You still felt disgusting. 
Nothing you did made sense to him. 
John was walking away from the locker room with measured steps, head pounding. People passed by and gave him strange looks, but his eyes were dead ahead, glaring at everything and nothing at the same time. This wasn’t like you at all. 
She’s been acting strange for months, why haven’t I bloody checked in sooner? Your actions reminded him of a ghost – walking around the halls at night and steadily dimming. The whole team had seen it; how there was a weight eating at you. Price and the others had tried to get you to talk to no avail. 
I need to do something about this, He tells himself as a thought worms its way into his brain.
Could she be angry at me? Now that he thought about it, every time he was near you trying to engage in a conversation you froze and made some excuse to not speak. And with how you looked at him before you slammed the door in his face…John had stayed shell-shocked behind the barrier with half a mind to rush in and demand you tell him what was wrong. 
But he knew that would only make it worse.  
“She needs time to cool off,” He mutters under his breath, rubbing at his forehead with his fingers and holding his head for a moment, “Get her head on straight.”
But what if you never chose to seek him out after the fact? Could he handle that? 
Why do I want her to come to me when she’s hurting? He wonders with a clenched jaw.
Taking a corner and leaving the Women’s Barracks, John sighs as he walks on. His feelings were getting in the way again – his feelings about you that he had tried to choke down like whisky. Ironic, that it left the same burning sensation in his neck. There was only so much he could do about them, truth be told, because everything about you made the Captain want to disregard every order he’s given. 
It wasn’t right, it was the definition of wrong in both of your lines of work, but this was the one situation he didn’t know how to fix. So he kept silent. 
You had a boyfriend, and that was enough to stay his tongue and keep him watching from a distance.
John made it back to his office quickly and quietly, but would soon find that trying to get reports done was impossible. When his pen would hit the paper his mind would blank, and many times he would have to re-read the contents over and over to retain anything. 
“Fuck,” He breathes out, baring his teeth and leaning back in his chair. 
The most he could do was sit there and wait until tonight; hoping that the bar that Soap was bringing the Task Force to had good Whisky. 
Try as he might, he knows getting drunk would only make him think of you more.
The car ride to your house was spent in silence, a sheen of rain making the sky dark. Under you, the fake leather seats are cold, leaving you shivering even as you were wrapped in a thick sweatshirt and your spare cargo pants. Gripping the wheel tighter as the quiet road went on and on ahead of you, the street lamps shine on the old sidewalks corralling you in. 
You had made the tough decision to surprise Leon when you got home. 
Lips thinning, all you can hope is that the stewing anger that had been left behind had calmed and not worsened. But Leon held grudges, and, unfortunately, so did you. Your Grandma’s lamp still made your heart ache if you thought about it too much; left bitter tears and a bare esophagus behind.
He had stepped over a big line – one you weren’t sure you could forgive him for. Sighing and shaking your head, you watch the dark road as the chilled cloud of condensation is expelled from your mouth. It seems you had forgotten to turn the heat on too. 
Taking a turn, you pull the vehicle to a slow stop as its brakes squeal. Months of sitting in the Base’s underground garage would do that to you, but you still grimace at the noise that makes your face tense. Maybe Ghost would fix up your car like last time so you wouldn’t have to fork over a fortune at the dealership downtown. 
You can’t hide the small smile that comes at the idea. Simon pretended to be such a grump all the time, but he had his moments.
Coming to a full stop, you turn the car to park and look outside through the deluge. 
“At least that hasn’t changed,” You utter, breath fogging the window as lashes of rainwater race down the glass, “It still looks as perfect as ever.” 
The house was brightly lit, painted white, and had a large Oak door in the center. In the front, there was a black iron fence with a small gate and a latch. Looking, a prickly sensation enters your body and your fingers twitch over the wheel inexplicably. Your eyes run from one window to the other, all with warm light streaming out from behind the curtains, and furrow. With one hand you go to itch at your nose.
Why were all the lights on anyways? It’s like ten at night…Not the point, I’m stalling.
“Just go and speak to him,” You mutter to yourself, nodding firmly. But your lungs contracted in your ribcage in blatant retaliation. 
You wished playing therapist with yourself was easier.
Turning off the car and stuffing the keys in your pants pocket, you unclipped your seatbelt and turned to grab your small carry bag. Since the Base was so close there was really no need to bring your duffel bag. You’d be back there tomorrow for de-briefings with Price anyways; writing out papers and sighing confidentiality documents until your eyes bled. Would John bring you tea this time to help you stay awake? Or would he give you that look that meant – ‘Go to sleep right now, or do I have to order you to your bed?’
John would give in occasionally, and sit with you as you worked. He would read, or, you would take a break and play trivia with him; sometimes you asked him to tell stories. You really liked his stories. 
On even rarer cases, when the contents of the report brought up bad memories that left your face blank, he would tell you one of his tales unprompted. Usually, after that warm and selfless event, you would wake up back in your bed without the knowledge of ever falling asleep at all. But there would always be a note. Handwritten on your nightstand. 
John Price hand wrote you notes on crappy lined paper with his chicken scratch lettering. You remembered blushing every time you got one and had your favorite memorized word for word. It had meant so much to get one, Leon never wrote letters. 
“Guess my stories are more boring than I knew, Love, you passed out nearly immediately into the first one. Do me a favor, yeah, and sleep in today? Don’t worry about morning drills. I’ve already dismissed you. Sleep tight. 
– John”
Clenching your jaw, you shake your head and close your eyes. Thinking about seeing him tomorrow makes you sick.  
More opportunities to make a fool of myself and cause him to hate me. God, I fucking slammed a door in his face because I couldn’t get a grip. What’s wrong with me? He doesn’t deserve that.
You can’t keep living like this anymore, you try to tell yourself as you dig through your bag. Grabbing your phone, you’re about to shove it in your pocket beside the keys when it lights up, showcasing the wallpaper of you and the boys on a past Op from years ago. 
Everyone had their full gear on, weapons around fronts, and armed to the teeth. Full of blood and other substances. 
It was your favorite picture and you even had it printed out on your nightstand at Base.
John had his arm over your shoulder, staring at you softly with his head covered by his hat – which had burn marks on it – as you pointed a finger into Gaz’s smug, smile-split, face. Soap’s laughing and holding his stomach as Ghost at his side has a hand to his masked face in exasperation. 
You blink in surprise at the text message from your Sergeant as it pops up.
“Soap’s texting me?” Your mind wonders, and you roll your eyes, “I already said I wasn’t going out.” Not looking and turning your phone off, you shove it in your pocket but can’t hide the small sense of annoyance, “I spent four months with the guy in Russia, sorry, but I need a break from him before my brain explodes.”
Opening the car door, you flinch as rain batters your head and stains your clothes, but you just swing your bag over your shoulder and slam it shut behind you. Locking it with the fob, you make your way quickly to the front door, slipping past the metal gate without mishap and jogging over the lawn to the two front steps. Scaling them, you stand under the portico and look behind you, gazing up and down the street. You watch for a moment the family who lives across the street – they were watching a movie in the living room, huddled on the couch. 
Jerking your head back, you take out your house key and insert it into the lock with a grim face. Twisting, your skin shivers once more as a bout of wind shakes your baggy clothes just as you hear the familiar click of the front door unlocking. 
But that damn lamp. Grandma’s lamp. And John’s blue eyes filled with concern for you. His hands. 
When had this place stopped being home for you?
“Just speak to him,” You repeat a second time, gripping the doorknob, “Get it over with like an adult and forgive each other…” 
You clench your jaw and wrench the door open, shaking your head to dispel the water weighing the locks down like a wet dog. Stepping inside with heavy feet, you close the door quietly behind you and lock it. 
“Leon…?” You wonder out loud, slipping your gaze from the empty couch to the blaring TV as you slip off your boots. Muttering under your breath you add, “Where are you?”
“--And in more local news, the grand opening of the downtown café “Four Horseman” has wracked in a whopping profit of–”
Your fingers flicked off the news, the woman’s voice suddenly halting from the speakers. Frowning, your ears twitch. 
What’s that noise?
“Oh, Leon!” Freezing, your legs tense, hands at your sides gradually tightening into fists. Blinking in surprise, your heart begins to pump adrenaline through your veins with the efficiency of a racehorse. You don’t know that voice, “Just like that!”
But you weren’t stupid.
A certain type of dread infects your brain that leaves your mouth opening in shock; eyebrows peeling back to travel up your forehead. Before you tell yourself that it was better just to leave the house now, while your mind is unbroken, you can’t stop your already moving feet. 
You barrel down the hallway to get to the master bedroom, where you shove on the already partially open barrier with a heavy slam. Rage burns in your gut, spreading like a disease into the thin tissue and bleeding out; proliferating with relentless reach.  
Leon was over a random girl in your bed, half-naked and pants already being dragged down his hips by feminine legs. The woman was already bare, perfect skin glowing in the low light of red candles. 
Your rage freezes with a layer of thin ice, and your heart hammers. Sweat gathers in your clenched palms as the stranger’s scream enters the room. Both were already watching you in horror. Leon halts his actions of being knuckle-deep in the girl – the woman had seen you and snapped her hands to the ruined sheets of your bed to try and cover herself with a desperate scream.
“Leon?!” She yells out, face becoming bright as the scent of expensive perfume makes your nose twitch, “Who the fuck is that?!” 
Blankly, you turn your head to look at your boyfriend – former boyfriend. 
“Yeah, Leon,” You’re surprised by the firmness of your voice, the dead tone hurled out with no remorse. It betrays how you really feel. Tears burn the backs of your eyes, and your lungs hurt when you suck in quiet breaths to help your composure, “Do you wanna explain who I am? Or just how you’re fucking another woman on our bed.”
Leon’s eyes are comically wide, mouth agape and fluttering. Cruel satisfaction brews in your heart as your lips flicker into a dark smirk; anger was better than tears, you decided. 
“Our bed?! You said you were single!” The woman gasps, snapping her head to the man still above her, “Get the hell off me!” 
Shoving Leon, you watch the girl scramble to grab her clothes all over the floor as she apologizes to you. 
“I-I’m so sorry, I didn’t know that he had–”
“Just get out, please,” You mutter under your breath, and the lady zips past with her shirt only half on and her bra hooked between her fingers. 
“Baby,” Leon looks like he’s about to cry, getting to his knees on the mattress and you catch a glimpse of his boxers with cows printed on them. 
Before you had found those enduring – maybe even cute in a dorkish sort of way – but now you realized it was just pathetic. He was pathetic.
“Baby, I swear this isn’t what it looks like!” His fingers are glistening, and his pants are stained. 
You blankly stare at the stranger who inhabits your ex’s body and say nothing back; watching as Leon scrambles for an explanation that changes nothing. There was an absence of anything you loved in this house. 
“Hope it was worth it,” Blankly speaking, you turn around and leave, feet slamming into the floor as Leon calls to you pleadingly. 
“Please! I didn’t–” His voice cuts out as a thump echoes over the home, like someone falling out of a bed before a yelp takes its place. Not slowing, you slip your boots on and unlock the front door. 
Just as fast footsteps rush to the foyer you slam the door behind your back and descend the steps, no longer caring about the rain as you walk in a trance-like state. It hadn’t really hit you yet what had happened, but it was starting too. 
Your breath was getting thinner, hands shaking as your shoulders hunched and waterfalls down your face and neck. The bag over your shoulder is now ten times heavier than it was before.
The door slams open just as you exit the black-iron gate and unlock your car.
“Babe, come back inside, let's talk about this!” Leon screams, and his bare feet seem to slap over the drowned lawn, “You just need to sit down and I’ll speak and explain why I’ve been sleeping with Maxine!”
Your hand freezes on the car handle, slick metal stuck under your grip. 
You whirl around with fire in your eyes, lips snarling.
“Sleeping!?” With your face contouring, your loud voice carries over the storm as Leon – who had gotten quite close by now – reels back a step, “As in this has happened before, you goddamn prick?! How long have you been cheating on me while I’ve been risking my fucking life to get back home to you?!”
Leon’s face twists as you look him in the eyes, nose scrunching.
“Oh, don’t stay on your high horse,” He growls, hands animating his words as you try and keep your cool, “We both know you’ve been cheating far longer than I have.”
“Do we?!” It’s past the point of sense now, and the other lights from the once-dark houses begin flickering their outside lights on from all the noise, “I’ve never fucked anyone while I was out, Leon. You can’t say that, can you?!” 
“You don’t need someone to stick their dick in you to cheat. You’re just as bad as me – John Price must be one helluva guy to ruin a relationship that started when we were teenagers.”
Your breath stutters, and after a moment of shocked silence you shake your head in disbelief, “You’re a bastard, Leon…I wish I’d never met you. Wish I’d never wasted my time with a pathetic man like you. Maybe John is one helluva guy, hm? Maybe I’ll have to tell him that myself.”
Leon’s eyes were red, and his lips, just like yours, quivered as he tried to come up with an answer. You turn around before you can sob and reach for the door once more. 
A heavy weight settled on your arm, your Ex’s fingers suddenly squeezing your skin so hard your lips let loose a muted gasp. Trying to rip your arm away, you tilt your head to look back at Leon.
“Let go of me,” You say the words slowly, feeling rainwater travel down the bridge of your nose and splash to your shoulder, “Now.”
Leon’s hand only tightens, and you hiss, feeling blood vessels pop under the pressure.
“You’re coming back inside and you’re going to listen to what I tell you,” Leon leans closer, eyes dark, “I’m not taking ‘no’ for an–”
Your fist connects with his cheek, and a second later you’re nursing your sensitive knuckles, shaking out your hand and grimacing. Whining reminiscent of a wounded duck rips over the night, and, gripping at his face, Leon lays on the ground half-naked and less of a man than he’d ever been – which was an achievement, to say the least. 
You should have broken up with him years ago. John would never treat you like this.
Getting into your car, you sit down and lock the doors behind you as you insert the key, twisting and feeling it jerking to life. With morbid curiosity, you turn to the opposite window and look at the house across the street.
The family was at the window, no longer enraptured by their TV, and the mother had a hand over her mouth. She was in the process of turning her children away from the scene as the other parent stood watching, slack-jawed. 
Blinking, you don’t know if it’s tears or rain that you’re forcing away from your eyes, but the burning tells you which option you should put your money on. Wiping at your face and sucking down shuddering breaths, you press on the pedal and peel away from the white house with a large Oak door. Taking a peak at the mirror, you spy a man trying to get back to his feet but stumbles, falling once more and slamming into a puddle. 
Driving, you only make it to the next street before you park on the side of the road, your whole body shaking and gasping for breath. With the adrenaline dying down, the pain in your arm becomes prominent, making pain spark as you shift it. The area would most likely bruise. 
Your lips twist and a small whimper leaves your mouth. You smack your forehead to the wheel, hands falling like lead to your lap as a sniffle weasels its way out; tears begin to smack your thighs, gradually increasing until you were concerned your car would flood. 
Crying was never your thing. With all the sights you’d seen, tears felt so small compared to every other horror – they meant nothing in the grand scheme of events taking place. All they were good at was making your nose run and your skin get hot. 
John’s seen me cry before, Your thoughts are running so fast it’s a strange circumstance that they stop when your Captain’s name is filtered through. 
Price had found you in the bathroom, covered in dried blood and shaking just as you were in the present. There had been an accident on the recent Op – a kid had gotten caught in the crossfire and had taken a bullet to the stomach. You had held him as he died; seen the light in his eyes leave in one fell swoop as you drowned in his blood trying to stop the bleeding.
That was what led up to you rushing off the Helo, finding the first bathroom on Base, and rushing inside to throw your guts up. John, of course, had followed close at your heels with fast feet.
“Love,” He said from outside the door slowly, “I’m coming in.” 
Shell-shocked, your hands were strained as you gripped the sides of the toilet, not even picking up on the concern leaking from his tone. Wide-eyed, you stare blankly at the vile contents inside the bowl – throat burning with acid as the image of that dying kid plays on repeat. 
The door opens hesitantly as if any major noise would break you, the hinges squeaking. A pair of feet carefully pad over the tile towards your hunched figure. When his hand slides over your back, his shadow comes to encompass you, shrouding you in its comforting darkness. He made it better.
John’s grip slides back and forth over the gear and other objects along your figure. You hadn’t bothered to take anything off, in fact, your gun was still strapped around your chest and weighing you down. It hit against the toilet with a ‘clink’ every time you moved.
“Sweetheart?” John mutters, body curling around yours.
“He wasn’t supposed to be there,” You say the words numbly as you glance at the blood on your hands with muted horror, “I…I…He should have been with the other civilians. He wasn’t…”
“I know,” Price whispers, grunting, watching you as your mind breaks to try and think through this, “I know, Love.”
When he knows your stomach has settled, you feel him carefully grab your shoulders and lean you back against the opposite wall. It was like a ramshackle hug, but the feeling of his body pressing into yours made you fall limp. You were safe here. Protected. His fingers go to your weapon, taking it off of you and setting it on the ground as he knees at your side. Soon after goes the combat vest, John pulling at the velcro with confidence. Your body jerks as he peels it off. 
“Lift your arms for me, yeah?” Doing as he says, the article is set by your gun and pushed aside, “Attagirl, just like that.”
The man keeps a hand on your arm, rubbing his thumb back and forth. He was closer than he needed to be, but that was alright. 
Looking down, your thousand-yard stare locks to the blood staining your skin, getting stuck in the grooves and the beds of your nails. Would water even wash it off? You had wondered in silent panic. What if it never came off? John’s other hand gravitates to your cheek and the increased sound of your breath is accented by a sharp inhale.
Blinking to push back the nothingness of your gaze, tears dribble from your tear ducts as your eyes lock with his. 
John looked so sad. 
His expression was pained, lips downturned and eyes painfully narrowed on your form; his eyebrows were pressed in on his forehead, curing in the center and creating creases over his flesh. The beard – still filled with dirt and grime – moved as his lips did.
“Focus on me, alright?” You nod, shakily, and watch his optics flick from one part of your face to another, “That wasn’t your fault.” 
“John,” You whimper, the dam breaking every moment his fingers move and caress your skin. His grip travels to the back of your neck and brings your face to his shoulder, letting you sag into him on a dirty bathroom floor. 
“It’s okay,” He mutters into your hair, lips moving as your hands snap to dig into his vest. His hat was pressing into your scalp – grounding you in the present just as his heartbeat was. The muscle was strong in his chest, pounding, “It’s all gonna be alright, Kid. I need you to know it wasn’t your fault,” John sighs, trying to draw you closer, “You did the best you could. I’m proud of you.”
“He wasn’t supposed to be there,” You sob, and repeat the sentence once more, like, if you did, whatever God out there would bring the boy back to life. Your lips pull back in pain, wails exiting. 
“I know,” John responded, voice so low your sounds of anguish almost covered it up. His grip tightens, and he lays a kiss on the top of your head. 
You knew, then, that John would give anything to take away your pain. But what he didn’t know was that you would replay his words in your mind to stave off the nightmares – use the image of his face to bring you stability when you woke up mid panic attack. 
It was the only time you didn’t hate crying, because John’s warmth had made it better. Had made it mean something. 
You both spend a long time on that bathroom floor.
When you had spent at least an hour collecting your thoughts in that frigid car, you finally checked your phone. 
Fifty-seven missed calls and thirty-five texts from Leon. Chuckling humorlessly and shaking your head in disbelief, you block him with a quick tap; it was over. You’re about to chuck the phone and go back to Base, but then you pause, eyes locking on a single text notification left on the screen.
Soap: If ya change your mind….’Bottom’s Up Bar’… ;)
He lists the address just below, and your eyes bore into it.
“Fuck it,” Your hoarse voice echoes out in the cool car air, “I need a drink anyways.”
Price sits on the bar stool in a black woolen trench coat and a dark beanie, nursing a glass of whisky in his hands that rests against the counter. 
“What’s with the long face, Captain,” Gaz sits at his side, the stools under them uncomfortable and threatening to give out from under them if one happens to take too deep a breath. Soap and Ghost are over playing pool, and the TV behind the counter was showing reruns of some hockey game that was absent of watchers. No one else was there beside them, “Whisky not up to par?” 
“It tastes like piss water,” John mutters but still brings the glass to his lips, taking a slow sip, “But I’ve had worse, Sergeant. You?” 
Gaz smirks, “I’ve had worse…Just tell Soap that I’m never letting him pick the bar ever again. Man’s bloody taste buds must be burned off if he calls this quality.” 
John grunts, tilting his head to the side in an affirmative nod. 
The area lapses into silence, the sound of billiard balls connecting to a cue stick loud as the smell of tobacco and cheap beer perforated the air. There weren’t any civvies left in the old-style building, and outside the rainstorm pounded against the front windows deterring anyone from venturing outside. The group probably should have stayed on Base, but Johnny had been insistent to the point everyone just gave in to the Scot’s demands.
After all, what harm could one drink do? They were all tired.
“Do you think she’ll show?” Gaz asks as the TV erupts with cheers; someone had scored, apparently. The Captain was never one for hockey – Liverpool was his go-to for football teams, and that was about it. In fact, he had a game to catch up on later if he could get the hell out of here in a timely fashion.
Gaz’s question makes the man lightly startle, sliding his gaze to his Sergeant with a sharply raised brow. He brings the glass to his lips once more and takes a swig, missing out on the burn that was found in his own Whisky stash back at his flat in London. It’s not hard to tell who Gaz is talking about. 
“Unlikely,” John speaks through a sigh, going back to mindlessly watching the television as the bartender filters past to clean a table in the far corner. Soap cheers from the pool table, “Her…boyfriend’s making her dinner. Always does when she gets back.”
“Hm,” Gaz chuffs, “Lucky sod,” The Sergeant pauses, and John takes a deep breath at the mischievous tone the man beside him earns. It was too late at night for this bullshit, “I bet you wouldn’t mind having the girl in your home while you make her supper, eh, Cap?”
“Garrick,” Price says the last name slowly, fingers tightening over the cup on the table, “You want to be on sanitation duty for a month – two?”
“...Sir?” Letting out a nervous chuckle, Gaz sends a quick glance to Soap whose ears had quirked at the conversation a few feet away.
“Then I suggest you stop acting like a Muppet and mind your damn business. The girl is her own woman and deserves her privacy,” John sends a narrowed glance with a quirked eyebrow and a warning in his suddenly darker eyes, “Copy?”
“Copy, Sir…Apologies.”
“Don’t let it happen again,” John levels, twirling his glass in his large fingers before tossing back the last remnants inside. Swallowing, he stands and fixes the position of his beanie, feeling his bones creak with fatigue. 
To everyone at the bar, Price looked annoyed that you had been brought up, but those who knew him best could tell that much more was going on. The man had kept the side of his eye on the front door the entire time 141 had been at the bar, shoe tapping against the dark wood floors as hours passed. Even more telling, Gaz had noticed that John had only had one glass of Whisky tonight – even if it tasted horrible the Captain was bound to drink at least three when they all went out. 
It was tradition; everyone knew it. Captain Price of the 141 always had three glasses. Always. You would attest to that, considering that when you tagged along you made fun of him for it. 
“You always have three glasses – I’ve never, for the life of me, figured out why it's always three! Do you never think ‘Oh, gee golly, maybe I’ll bloody have another lad, be a merry good Muppet and pour me another, yeah?’’
Your horrendously exaggerated British accent led to a few snickers that night, and Gaz had seen his Captain’s full body laugh for the first time; watching John sputtering as he coughed down the drink he had been sipping from. 
“Love,” The man had stared at you with a deep smile, eyes crinkling, “Whatever just came out of your mouth, yeah? Never do that in my presence again. Accent’s shaken’ more than your hands when you have to stitch me up.” 
“My stitches aren’t that bad, Asshat! You just move too fucken’ much!”
John scratches his forehead in the present and brushes off his jacket. 
“Alright, Muppets…I think that’s it for the–” 
The bell at the front door jingles. 
Snapping his head over, Price freezes just as he sticks his hands in his jeans pockets, the grumbled words dying on his parted lips. 
A figure was standing at the entrance, soaked to the bone and shivering like a sphinx cat in a snowstorm; water dripped from her nose to the rug. John’s jaw slightly slackens, eyes wide and snapping back and forth. 
You were standing there, eyes gravitating from Soap and Ghost’s pool game – which had halted immediately at your sudden presence – until you blink a raindrop from your eyelashes and lock eyes with John. 
“Sorry I’m late,” Your voice sounds like gravel, Price notes, head slowly tilting to try and understand why His legs had to tense to stop him from rushing over, his training alerting him to the redness of your eyes. You had been crying, why? “Storm’s coming down pretty hard, huh?” Attempting a chuckle, it seems to fall flat.
“Holy shit, Love,” Gaz mutters, snatching a rag from behind the counter of the bar and ignoring the complaints from the worker. He rushes past John, who continues to stare at you and fight his own subconscious, “Did you walk here?”
The Sergeant blinks at you in concern, eyes filtering up and down your body as he stands close and holds aloft the fabric.
“Nah,” Price watched you snatch the towel, going to pat it on your face and neck – running it over your hair and gripping, “Was outside for a little bit, but I came in the car…Oh, speaking of that, Simon,” You turn to the large man who bores his eyes into your face, “The brakes are acting up again – you think you could fix it up back on Base in your free time?”
Ghost taps the cue stick against the ground, lips behind his balaclava shifting as he speaks, “You goin’ to make me fix it up every time you get back? What do I look like, Bird? A mechanic?”
A weak smirk flickers over your lips, but John notices a particular bleakness in your eyes. Soap, who thus far had been strangely quiet, looks at him with flat lips and a small shake of his mohawked head.
Enough is enough, Price decides with a stubble tilt of his forehead, I’ve given her the space she needs – she’s telling me everything. Tonight.
His jaw clenches, and he pulls his hands out of his pockets just to cross them over his chest when you respond to Simon.
“I’ll clean your clothes for a month.” 
“...Two.”
“Deal,” Nodding, you smile at Gaz in thanks and splay the towel over the banister beside you to help it dry, “Thanks, Gaz.”
“What happened to dinner with the Stoter?” Soap finally speaks as you make your way farther into the building. You send him a quick glance as you walk closer to John at the booth. The Scot levels you with a heavy stare, feet shoulder-length apart and jaw clicking, “He do something?” 
A tense silence falls, and all the men send each other looks as you slink to the bar, jumping up on a stool and clearing your throat. You itch at the side of your bicep as you lick your lips in hesitation. 
Why were you not saying anything?
John buries his fingernails into the meat of his arms, taking your lack of answer like a knife to the chest. It was like a switch had flipped as he saw your expression drop for a millisecond, layers cracking like you were barely held together. The veins in the Captain’s arms were flooded with blood, and his hands showed white knuckles. 
There was a terrible reality settling behind his eyelids, and the man wasn’t in his job position because he was anything less than an observer. He was angry, that much was obvious by his tight jaw and dangerous eyes on the side of your face. 
But there was something more important than revenge, and she was sitting right in front of him.
Your clothes are still dripping with water, and without hesitating when he spies you shiver, John shakes off his jacket and spreads it softly over your shoulders. When you jerk back in surprise he feels a part of him break, but steadies you with a thin quirk of his lips and pulls the front of the woolen material farther over your form.
What’s that fucken’ prat done to her? He growls internally, Mark my words…
The Captain’s eyes carefully narrow, orbs sliding over your face. His thumb goes to swipe a tear of water from your hairline and breathes out a sigh when your eyelids flutter.
Looking at your Captain with vulnerable eyes, you answer Soap’s question with a muttered, defeated, tone. It was like you were talking to your superior and not the man at the pool table.
“We...uh, I, broke up with him,” A moment of silence. Two. 
John feels like he’s frozen in time, his body stiff, and his lungs shell-shocked. But in the farthest, most forced-down bits of his consciousness, he thinks there’s a part of him that’s…Christ, is he happy?
He nearly has to turn and leave to take a breather – gain his composure at his own disgusting thoughts – but your eyes hold him captive, unblinking despite the revelation.
You had…broken up with Leon. Your boyfriend.
John’s eyes slowly widen. 
Oh. 
Oh. 
“Well, It’s about damn time,” Soap interjects into the moment, gleeful, and you feel your eyes slip away from the cerulean blues of John’s widened sockets, in favor of the table-top, “Erm, no offense, of course, but that’s great news!”
“Shut up!” Gaz hisses, going over to slap at MacTavish’s arm, “Can’t you see she’s bloody gutted about it – idiot!” 
“Hey, now. That excuse for a man was in no way worthy of being with a beauty like her–”
“Johnny,” Ghost utters lowly, the only one able to see your quickly deteriorating state besides the Captain who tries to comfort you, “Shut your trap.”
“C’mon L.t, you had to have seen how he…” Soap stops, finally looking at you, and the chuckle that had been building in his throat dissolved. 
A hand settles on your shoulder, and you blink out of your trance, slowly turning your head to look out of the corner of your eye. John squeezes, and you find that his grip over his gifted jacket is warmer than anything you remember. But you don’t look at his face, instead, you tilt your head down and fold your arms on the counter, slotting your skull in the middle of them. 
John’s hand gravitates to your back and rubs small circles, and above you, he mutters, “Talk to me, Love.”
“He…” You interrupt, hands tightening into fists. Your eyes burned something fierce, but you can just blame the shaking of your body on the wet clothes, “I was going to surprise him. He didn’t know that I was back in town yet, anyways. But, uh, he’s been cheating on me, I guess…Found ‘em in bed.”
Price’s hand stutters over its coarse, but he clears his throat and continues as your stomach tightens, 
“Son of a fucken’ bastard,” Simon’s the first one to speak – which would have surprised you if you’d been paying attention, “That prick did what?” 
Gaz murmurs, “Shit..,” off to the side, but your hidden gaze doesn’t bother to move as Soap lets off a string of curses and insults on Leon’s name. 
The hand over your back is intoxicating, and you feel drunk as you focus on it. John’s fingers dig into his jacket, but just enough for you to feel his nails create a light stimulation through the layers. There was a sense to his actions, you know. He was trying to ground you; he wanted you to focus on his caress. 
You didn’t want to admit how well it was working.
But it was a good thing he did because you have a feeling if he wasn’t there you’d be replaying the events of tonight in your mind one after the other like a fucked up movie.
Leon really did that, You suck in a shaky breath that leaves John moving closer, and you hear muttered conversations from above you, All of those years…Did I really miss something as obvious as him cheating on me? 
It couldn’t be helped.
When you came back from deployments your mind let go of the hyper-focus that was ingrained into you – that Price had ingrained into you – and settled into a haze of sanctity. Home meant food, sleep, and a place of comfort. But when the fighting started you suppose a part of that focus came back to you, blocking out everything that didn’t matter. 
Missing pictures, clothes stuffed where they shouldn’t be, your hair products hidden. They were pointless in the grand scheme of things because you were at battle in your own house. It was small compared to your breaking relationship. 
Maybe that’s when I stopped loving him, You reason, and it’s the first time you admit you didn’t care about Leon in that way anymore, When the fighting started. Did I unconsciously know what he’d done?
You had been more irritable when you were back at the house, some fights even instigated by you.
“But how did I miss it…?” You can’t help but whisper, strained, into the woodgrain of the counter in your cocoon. 
“None of that,” John suddenly says, voice low, and his hand over you halts, “That’s a good way to mess your head up, that is, Love. Just stay here.” 
Shivering, you sniffle, lungs stuttering and with a hot face stained with embarrassment, you whimper out, “I’m such an idiot.” 
The stool beside you screeches as it’s pulled out. 
“You say that again I’m leaving you on desk rotation for a week,” John grunts, and from your hiding place your head shifts, one eye peeking out from over your arm. You find the man glaring at you so heatedly you pause as tears start to leak down your cheeks once more, “I mean it. None of that bullshit – you are not at fault – that,” He pauses, and you see his chest sputter as he tries to collect himself. Price’s eyes flash with rage before it’s gone in an instant, “That’s the bloody bastard’s cross to carry, Love. Understand me?”
You stare at him; at his boiling blue eyes as the sound of a hockey game plays in the background of this shitty bar. The warm lights overhead gather in them to flicker like stars when he blinks, creating constellations for you to memorize when his eyelids once more pull back.
“Don’t make me repeat myself,” He levels, head with that black beanie tilting closer, “Copy?”
“Copy,” You croak out, blinking to clear the fuzziness of your eyes. Reaching one of your hands, you pull the jacket closer around your neck. It smells like John, and whether you notice it or not, the tension in your muscles leaks when you inhale smoke, pine trees, and gunpowder. 
Patting you on the back, the man stares into you, optics stuck on the image of your tear-stained cheeks and dripping hair. His trench coat was most likely going to be soaked, but he found he didn’t care. If it brought you comfort, the outrageous price he paid for it would be made back tenfold. Maybe he’d even let you keep it; didn’t matter if it was his favorite, he would give you the shirt off his back if you asked for it. 
Not able to stop the words coming out of his mouth when you meet his gaze with fluttering eyelashes, John speaks once more as he feels the gazes of his teammates around him. But the words came easily.
“You didn’t deserve to come home to that. That boy doesn’t know what he’s just lost, alright?” When he sees your cheeks move in a small, barely-there smile, and the way your eyes lit with embers at his teasing tone, the Captain let a smirk of his own fall. But he still refused to speak Leon’s name aloud – his own anger was held on a thin string that was fraying by the moment. You? Getting cheated on? Who in their right mind would do that?! The Muppet didn’t deserve to have your perfect ears twitch at his name ever again, “At least tell me you ripped him a new pair, Love? If not, I’ll have to review your training exercises. Maybe add in a bracket for hand-to-hand.”
“...I might have sucker-punched him.”
John’s chuckle is velvet as it slips through your eardrums. 
“Attagirl, I’d have paid to see that, I wager. Everyone knows you throw a heavy hand,” Your giggle makes his heart soar; beat violently in his breast.
He’d give everything to hear you make that noise again. 
“Did it down him?” Your head slowly peaks up farther, perfect chin now visible. Your short-lived tears had stopped.
“Twirled like a dancer on a string.”
“Bloody brilliant, my girl. Bloody fucken’ brilliant.” Nodding, John smiles, beard pulling back to show pearl-white teeth, and claps your shoulder.
You love the way he makes you feel, like everything you do is well-thought-out and not just spur of the moment. Creasing your eyelids, you rub at your cheeks to try and wipe away the heat of them, knowing that wouldn’t work but still trying. John made your brain pump with dopamine, giddiness striking you in the chest like a bullet with a simple smile and his hand on your back. 
…Why was his hand still on your back? 
“This place got any good drinks?” You ask, trying not to look so entranced by the man in front of you. 
John’s grip slips away and you hate that you want to snatch at it; feel the calluses burn your skin and dig into sensitive flesh. Breaking up with Leon had given you an adrenaline spike, one that lasted so long you were still riding it – only just now was the raging of your heart beginning to still.
It was a bad thought, you told yourself, a horrible thought to have right now…but damn it if John didn’t look like the solution to all of your problems, that yearning urge to feel good.
Leon was gone.
“Hm,” Your Captain murmurs, and your trailing eyes snap from his tight athletic shirt to his face. John turns himself to the front, grunting and setting his elbows on the counter, he lifts one finger up into the air to the frowning bartender and sends you a glace, “Unfortunately, MacTavish picked a place before I could verify,” The bartender thumps over and the Captain confidently says, “One Old Fashioned for the lady, and a refill for me, yeah?”
The bartender's eyebrows furrow, “Old Fashioned? What the hell is that?”
John’s body stills, and his face blanks as if he’s been personally offended. Laughing, you move back from the counter, hopping off the stool and going to stand near your Captain. Resting a hand on his shoulder, you tilt your head when his full attention whips to you. 
His eyes glance at your hand before they settle; softening around the cold edges as the pupils widen. You nearly lose your breath at the sight…It made you want to snatch that hat off his head and make him chase you down for it; hold you to his chest and squeeze.
Stop it.
“I think I’m gonna head back to Base,” You say aloud, “Hang out in the Rec room and go to bed early. Maybe get a headstart on reports for tomorrow,” Looking back at the boys, you begin taking off Price’s trench coat, small hesitations in your nerves showing how much you wanted to keep it around you. But you needed to leave – clear your head without John’s scent making you hazy, “Don’t stay out too long, boys, I’m not coming to drag you back.” 
“Yes, Ma’am,” Simon utters, knocking a billiard ball and watching the ricochets. He sends you a guarded look, numb eyes running over you, “Drive safe. Weathers looken’ like it's letting up, but don’t trust it.”
“Right,” You nod. You know what he really means.
Gaz is watching you and sending quick glances to Soap with his dark eyes, and you see the Scot clenching his stick with a white-knuckled grip – blue eyes glaring at the table with a clenched jaw and tensing biceps. Like he was itching to lay someone on the ground and wale on them.
Your lips twitch. Soap had been by your side for four months; watching your back just as you had his. That creates a bond of brotherhood that can’t be overlooked. The stocky man was perhaps more upset about this ordeal than you were, now that you thought about it. The Task Force didn’t even know the extent of your fights with Leon – they’d kill him if they did. 
If you even mentioned your Grandma’s lamp, the boys would rip your Ex apart. 
“Suds,” Calling out, you fold John’s jacket over your arm. Soap whips his head to you, blinking back to focus.
“Yeah, Little Lady. You need something?”
“I need you to stop strangling the Cue Stick. You’re gonna break it before Simon can beat you, and that would just be embarrassing,” Soap stares at you, mouth slightly open, before he snaps to his iron grip and unclenches his hand. 
“R-right,” The Scot’s eyes crease, and he itches at his mohawk with his free hand. A pause, “Are you…alright?”
You hesitate, looking to the floor as your feet shuffle before your right yourself, “I will be.” 
Turning to John, you hold out your arm and feel heat on the tips of your ears when he’s already meeting your line of sight.
“Sorry about the water,” Trying not to let out a weak chuckle, you fail, “It looked pretty expensive just to be ruined by me. I’ll pay you for the dry cleaning bill.”
Price grunts, already shaking his head and lightly gripping you by the arm to push the jacket back to you. He stands up and you suck in a quick breath, nose nearly brushing his peck from how close you both were.
“You’ll need it,” Your eyebrows crease, not understanding, as he smirks at you, “What kind of Captain would I be if I let you drive back alone after all this?” John grumbles, shaking his head and pulling out his wallet, “I’m driven’ that’s an order.” 
He tosses a fifty on the table for the bill and nods to the boys over your head, an authoritative tone leaking out. You don’t move away from him, letting his body heat leave you shivering and taking in shallow breaths. Try as you might, your mouth denies to refuse him.
“Be back on Base by 0100 and up for drills at 0500. It’s your fault if you Muppets only get five hours of sleep,” John lays a hand behind your shoulder blades and you let him guide you to the door, “Soap – you’re due for debriefs at 0800 in my office. I expect you to be punctual.”
A quiet grunt carries over the space.
You slip on the jacket, clearly seeing that John wouldn’t let up on this. Maybe…maybe you wouldn’t mind the company of the large-bodied Captain. Already the pain of being cheated on was dull when he was around. But would you be able to focus if he was right by you like this? You doubted it.
Slapping Gaz on the shoulder as you pass him, he sends you a soft look and utters, “Get some sleep, Love, alright? It’ll all be better in the morning. I’ll make sure the boys are back at Base soon so you don’t have to worry about ‘em.”
“Thanks, Garrick. Means a lot. I’ll see you tomorrow?” 
“You bet.”
“Behave, Sergeant,” John makes it to the door, opening it for you and feeling the draft enter, “Ghost,” The manchester man tilts his covered head from where he stands bent over the pool table, “watch these two, yeah?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Hey–!” 
“What in the–!” 
Price lets the door slam shut and whispers past your smile-split face, watching through the window as Soap and Gaz level offended gazes out at the Captain through the racing raindrops on the glass. Simon stands a bit straighter and once again scores on Johnny. 
“They’re going to hold a grudge for weeks, John. Putting Ghost in charge of them when they’re on leave? Really? He’s never going to let the two live it down,” You say above the rain as you lead him to where your car is parked on the street, cheekiness littering your words.
“Let ‘em,” Price scoffs, and you feel his hands go to the jacket, puffing the collar up for you. Blinking away the rain, you smile shyly at the action, “not goin’ to change that they still have to get up tomorrow. After a twenty-mile run, I’m sure they’ll be too knackered to care, eh?”
“Hm,” You affirm, envisioning the future in your head with sadistic pleasure, and reach into your pocket. Tossing your keys into the air, John catches them effortlessly with a fast fist, only a small clink of the metal connecting heard.  
You feel his eyes on you as you walk down the street, steadying you with a hand on your back even if he knew you were capable of walking by yourself. Above all, John was a gentleman – whenever you were with him, he always walked near the road, kept a hand in the small of your back, and watched the street with roaming eyes.
This was the first time you’d felt his gaze completely set on you. Had he always done that? No, you knew, but recalled something from the back of your mind as you side-stepped a puddle, moving closer to John unconsciously. His hand’s weight becomes more prominent, angling you into his hold. 
After Madagascar was when he had started looking at you more often...you had thought it was because of the injury, but was it?
Shaking away the thought, you quickly make it to your car and leave Price’s steady side, hand resting on the handle. The familiar sound of the lock clicking open has you rushing inside to escape the pitter-patter of rain on your skull. Snapping the door shut, John in the driver’s seat does the same.
You both look at each other, and can’t help the chuckles at the disheveled looks you both share.
“Wind-swept hair would look dashing on you, Captain,” You tease, nose crinkling as you shake your head. The beanie on the man’s head was weighed down and John grimaces at the feeling, glaring up at it before peeling it off his head. 
His free hand goes to his hair, ruffling it to dispel some of the water. 
“Bloody rain,” He mutters, sparing you a look only to find you’re watching intently with a smirk and a raised eyebrow.
A tension grows, and for the first time, you don’t push the feeling away. Your smirk slowly slips, going slack as you watch water drip from John’s nose. The world outside the car seems to blur, and nothing but the pair of you exist in this state of perpetual stillness. John’s eyes are such a shade of blue you have to wonder if you could ever look at the ocean again and not think of him, or even smell smoke on the street and not search him out. 
You shouldn’t be feeling like this about him, but how could you not?
“You’re staring, Love,” John mutters, and you blink, shocked, but the man makes no move to stop looking right back at you in turn. His beard shifts as his jaw moves, bristles accented by the light of the street lamps.
“Well, so are you,” Teasing, you send a nervous smile before shifting away to clip your seatbelt in place. 
His hand stops you halfway, covering your own with a large grip as his fingers glide over your skin leaving white-hot sparks. Freezing you watch as Price’s hand squeezes yours and helps you lock the seatbelt into the clip. The man’s hand stays there a moment longer as you, wide-eyed, feel your fingers twitch under his; memorizing the feel of them.
“Thank you, John,” You breathe, and your grip moves, turning to capture his own and curl his fingers into yours. He flinches, before loosening and he studies your face, cerulean blue jumping from one spot on your visage to another, “For everything.” 
The man’s body stills and he blinks down at you. His breath is shallow, rattling in his chest. Something was in his eyes you couldn’t name.
“...Anytime, Dear.”
Price’s hand falls from your hold and leaves to gravitate toward the keys in the ignition. He twists them, and immediately the shaking of the car tells you it’ll survive one more day. Settling farther into John’s jacket you nuzzle your head into the fabric, curling your arms around your middle and resting your eyes. You try to calm your raging heart as the car peels out into the road, breathing through the stuffy air that smells so much like the two of you.
The ride to Base is quiet, but not at all like the kind of silence that had suffocated you on the journey back to Leon’s home – this was a comforting silence. Once you might not have understood what that meant. After all, how could a lack of sound leave your eyelids heavy and a floating feeling in your head? 
When the parking garage gate opened, you had blinked awake. 
Did I fall asleep? Rubbing at your eyes, the crick in the back of your neck told you all you needed to know. Groaning, a small chuckle to your side leaves you turning to face John, who carefully drives down the ramp as you swallow down the dryness of your throat. 
“Sleep well?” He raises an eyebrow, observing out ahead of him.
You scoff in retaliation and don’t answer as John picks a free spot and parks.
“Let’s get you to bed, then,” Your ears twitch at his low tone and the rumble like a lullaby in his chest. Was he trying to put you back to sleep?
He gets out of the car and goes to your side as you continue to wake up, opening the door and unclipping your seatbelt. 
“Steady,” John whispers, taking your hand and helping you out as your yawn, “I’ll give your keys back tomorrow afternoon, eh? You’ll lose ‘em like last time if I hand ‘em over to ya’ now.”
“Will not,” You retaliate, stumbling over nothing and causing your face to heat when John smiles, eyes crinkling in a tease.
“Will…You’ll get them back tomorrow. That’s that,” Grumbling, you huff but stay by his side as you both go to the main entrance, sliding past the door and nodding to the guard posted for watch duty. 
“Captain, Ma’am,” The guard greets and a second later you’re both striding down the dimmed hallways with John sending you glances every so often.
“What is it, Captain?” Asking after it becomes too prominent to ignore, you send him a small smile, “I know I look like shit but I can’t be that bad to the point you have to ogle me.” 
John’s face snaps forward and he clears his throat, hands going to slide into his pockets. You pull his jacket closer, eyes turning to silk. 
He’s cute when he’s flustered.
“...Just makin’ sure you’re not going to pass out before you get back to your Barracks,” He blinks, and a blush hidden under his beard makes his ears turn red. You notice with a start that he had left his soggy hat in your car and that his messy hair made him look like he had gotten into a catfight. It was…an attractive look on him, to say the least, “...and you don’t look like shite, Sweetheart. You’re a beauty no matter what happens. Don’t say that about yourself.”
Your breath catches, and in that moment of struggling to breathe, you can only let out a tiny, “Oh, o-okay,” and try to walk straight as butterflies litter your stomach. 
Did…did he call me beautiful? John called me beautiful.
A true, giddy, smile flickers over your lips even as you try to force it down; and just as simple as that, any hurt that Leon had left behind disappears. Everything is replaced by John’s large frame, blue eyes, and grunted words.  
You get to your room and open the door, standing in the opening with dizzy thoughts. Turning around with a content expression, you’re forced to take a deep breath when your nose almost connects with a firm chest. Standing straighter, you snap your head up to find John towering above you, body heat melting into you and causing a reactionary shiver.
“John…?” You ask, head straining to stare at his down-turned face. Something lies hidden behind his eyes, flashing every so often as his gaze narrows. It was the same look as the one in the car, “What are you…?” His lips are thin, and something swirls in your gut when you see how his muscles tense. He’s holding something back.
If you moved any closer your breasts would brush against him, and under your water-heavy sweatshirt, your nipples harden at the idea.
Stop it, You warn yourself, but when he’s looking at you like that – bathed in the hallway light with wrecked hair and widened pupils – you can’t help the way your body reacts to his. Not anymore. 
Leon was gone.
“You mind if I come in, Darling?” Your Captain’s raspy voice sings to your heart, pulse skipping a beat, “Wouldn’t want you to be alone right now, understand me?” 
Taking a shallow breath, your hands at your sides start shaking, subtle actions making it all the more apparent of the growing fire. 
You should say no. Tell him it wasn’t appropriate. But…there was no hiding the attraction you had for Price, not when your boyfriend was out of the picture. You should be mourning the lost relationship of your high school sweetheart, not just hopping into another confusing situation with your fucking superior! 
Frowning, your shoulders hunch. If you said yes – which you really wanted to – that was the final signature on your self-respect and dignity. It would mean a whole stack of paperwork and many late nights. You could lose your job, get John kicked off the Task Force and demoted, the list was endless. 
“Your thoughts are too loud,” Price comments, and he smiles down at you as your eyes widen, tension leaking away as you focus on his words like law, “It’ll be alright. You can say no if you want. You know that. It won’t hurt me.”
But it would, wouldn’t it, because it would hurt you too.
It was more than what was on the surface – the tension in the car that had festered ever since Madagascar told you already what would happen if you let him in. This had been the result of a number of years of pinning building one day after another into a mountain of need and lust. But there had always been a barrier in the way. Leon.
But Leon was gone now; where did that leave you with this stone in your stomach and a want to be with a man you now knew wanted you back?
And John was still giving you an out if you wanted it. A layered warning that this wasn’t the smartest decision for either of you. 
“John,” You breathe, “I shouldn’t.”
“No, you shouldn’t. Neither should I.” 
So that was ultimately why you grabbed his shirt, dragged him into your room, and finally smashed your lips to his. 
John’s arms immediately wrap around your body and peel back his jacket from your form, kicking the door behind him closed so hard the wall rattles. You help, letting him grab the cuff and rip it off as your lips dance in needy kisses that leave your teeth clacking together and air falling from fast breaths. 
His tongue runs over your lip and you open your mouth readily, not caring about how the floor’s going to form a puddle from the soaked jacket or the other water-clogged clothes when they inevitably hit the floor as well. John’s kiss was so intoxicating that when you first felt his hands steady you around your waist you pulled back in surprise, a trail of saliva leaving the two of you connected before it broke. 
“John, we shouldn’t,” You say, breathless as air is sucked back into your red, shiny, lips. It was useless trying to convince yourself that this wasn’t what you wanted since you met him. Maybe Leon was right. Maybe you had been cheating this entire time. A traitorous, cheating, heart.
“No, we shouldn’t,” John growls out, accent far more prominent at that moment than ever before as his eyes darken; boring into your tissue to peel back the layers of your mind until all that remains is him. His lips were so red and shiny you wanted to bite them, “But I couldn’t bloody give a damn.” 
His face once more slammed into yours, and one hand travels to the back of your head, firm. But, if you wished for it, it would leave in a millisecond and you could pull away without a word. All of this could end in a second and John or yourself would never bring it up again; forgetting the unprofessionalism and the way your body reacted to the swipe of his tongue over yours. The sounds you two were making were enough to make you cum right there – the panting, wet kissing. It was improper, dirty, but, beyond all of that…utterly addicting. How high he made you feel needed to be studied, you reasoned, no one could be like this. 
Your hands snapped to his chest and you dig your nails into his shirt, dragging down and feeling his body jolt and squirm. John’s hand on your head tightened as you devoured each other, weaving into your hair as your fingers fall to latch onto his side, feeling the muscle tense and the man groan into your gasping mouth. His pelvis thrusts involuntarily, hitting your thigh.
The way he shutters against you leaves your legs rubbing firmly together as a pounding echoes in your navel. John drags you closer to him.
It seemed you made your decision, but you had a funny feeling you won’t regret it.
Heaving like a wounded animal, John peels back to twist you around, back connecting with the wall as his lips immediately hook onto your neck, saliva dripping down your pulse point in a long, slick, path. A wanton whimper leaves when you feel his beard scrape over your sensitive skin, leaving sparks in its wake that travel directly to your lower body. Using his right foot, the man shoves your legs apart, where you had them previously clenched together and pooling in hot, contained, desire.
“Don’t worry, Love,” He whispers, biting at your ear as your eyes flutter when he slides his thigh in between your splayed legs. You can’t help the loud moan you make when he snaps the thick portion of him up into your core and even through your pants you feel the instinctual, animalistic, urge to roll your pelvis. Fuck, you wanted to ride his thigh, come undone while he watched with those unwavering blues of his, “I’ll take care of you. Make you forget all about that poor bastard. Bloody prick doesn’t even know what he’s lost, but I nearly should thank him for it, yeah?”
“John,” You don’t know what you want, mind a hazy mess as one of your hands snaps to his head just like how he held yours and pulled at the strands tightly. Are you drunk? You feel drunk?
His hand on your thigh forces you to press down into his knee as he grunts in approval of your deteriorating state when you writhe with pleasure at the sensation.
“That idiot just gave me the best damn woman he ever could. Fucken’ fool, he is,” He’s muttering into your ear, head pressed into the wall, as your self-respect flies out the window at his next words, “I’ll fuck you better than he did, Love. C’mon, use me like I’ve wanted you to,” Your hips rut over the substitute for his dick with desperation to stimulate your needy clit, head rocking to the side in a heavy trace of puffing breaths. 
Already the room was heating up, beginning to lose the scent of cinnamon from your old candle and reeking of sweat and carnal urgency.
“Just like that,” John whispers, words slow as the sensation of his tongue licking a stripe over your skin makes you pant and keen. Small jolts of pleasure run from the hard bud hidden behind wet layers, “Steady…Keep your head still.”
He goes back to leaving hickeys on your neck, and through your haze, you know he’s not thinking about how you’ll have to try and hide them tomorrow. John wants people to see the love bites, how they bruise purple and blue all over your throat and under your ear. He lays one on the junction of your shoulder and neck, and your eyes roll at the caress of a hot tongue and immediate sharp teeth digging into flesh a moment later; shuttering.
You hope he leaves some beard burn behind.
That's when you rip his head away by gripping his hair like a vise and then slam it into yours, shoving your tongue so far down his throat you listen to his chest rattle with shock at the action. 
His knee jerks up, and you gasp with nerves that sizzle with lighting and a pool of slick in your core that leaks like a river before a strained plea is said into John’s maw, “Do that again.”
Your Captain doesn’t say anything, but his body shakes with need before doing what you ask. You could feel how hard he was through his pants as the weight digs into your stomach. The knowledge that you would get to feel him inside of you, stretching you open, served to confirm the fact that you would have to throw these panties away tomorrow. 
God, he felt huge, thick, and firm.
John begins to jump his knee up and down, jolting your body as he pulls back to watch with awe at your body’s reaction; setting his forehead against yours. Whining, your back arches, and your shoes brush against the ground every other motion. Every movement sends your nerves alight. It was almost too much – oversensitivity threatening to pull you under with every perfectly angled jumping of your Captain’s knee. 
You slick was staining his pants, completely soaking all layers. 
“Fuck, look at you work, Love,” John was entranced as you got off on him, “Can’t believe that Bastard was getting this when you came back. See how soaked you’ve made me? Shit. Bloody temptress, you are.”
“Need you,” Your lips gasp out, legs shaking violently, “F-fingers. Inside. A-anything! Been wanting you for so long, John.” It was difficult to speak and focus on the pleasure at the same time, but you think he got the point. 
Your pants were too tight, clothes grating to feel on your flesh. You want John’s hands on you. Now. 
“Hm, what’s that?” Price grunts, still watching you move your clothed cunt against him with added fever. 
Annoyance swirls.
“John,” Your mouth snarls, and his face shifts to look back up at you, noses squished together as you breathly sigh at another well-angled jump. Price’s chest rumbles with satisfaction, “Fuck me like how you stroke your cock to the thought of me.”
A moment of shocked silence at your vulgar language.
“Copy.” At once his knee is gone, and you’re squeaking as he grabs you by the waist and the world spins and dances around you. 
John tosses you over his shoulder and the tension in your lower abdomen that had been building turns from a boil to a simmer. You’re about to complain before fingers begin working your shoe laces, tossing the boots off as the man strides to the bed in the corner. 
He lays a heavy slap to your ass that makes you yelp out and hit his back in return. The sparks left behind make your legs clench and your stomach tighten; your hands tear into his back. John chuckles, smoothing over the spot before his grip travels, grabbing onto the waistband of your cargo’s. Ripping them down to your ankles, you moan at the sudden cool air on your cunt and shutter. Anticipation pools to produce a second pulse inside of you, getting louder and more ruthless by the second.
You were so horny it physically hurt to have his grip on you and not inside of you. 
John tosses you to the bed and watches your tits as you bounce on the mattress, looking up at him with black-consumed eyes and a euphoric expression. He wastes no time – the man shucks off his boots and grips his belt with a veiny hand, ripping it from his pants and tossing it to the side. You had the best view of the large tent in his pants, violently straining the fabric in a way your hand can’t stop itself from clenching into the bed sheets. 
“Touch yourself for me, Love, let me see you work that cunt of yours before I eat you out, yeah?” 
Licking your lips, you moan, “Yes, Sir.” 
“Ah, look at my good girl, listens so well to her Captain,” Your fingers aren’t as long or as thick as his are, so they can't do much as you slip them under your underwear and play with your weeping slit as you clench at the comment.
Your fourth and fifth fingers enter you, and your thumb presses into your stiff clit, moving in a tight circle as you stare into John’s eyes. Involuntarily, your lower body rocks in a steady motion as your eyes drink in the man and his heaving lungs... 
You want him naked. 
“Bloody Fucken’ hell,” Price throws off his shirt, and palms at his erection through his pants as his dog tags hit against his scarred and formed chest. 
The sharp ‘V’ of his lower abdomen immediately draws your eyes downwards over the impressive physique, a trail of small dark hairs going lower and lower just to be shielded by the rough material of his pants. John’s skin glistens with sweat, and you want to lick it off of him. If possible, you get even wetter.
You smirk, hips jerking as you send a heavier motion on your nerve bundle; head rolling to the side and mouth opening as you feel yourself tighten around your fingers. That knot was returning, forming as you curl your digits in your slick heat, making your eyelids flutter.  
When you open them again and force them to stay still, you find a heavenly sight beside you. Your eyes widen, and your slit tightens so violently your movements stutter and struggle like a noose had been tightened around your neck. The lungs inside of you gasp.
John’s pants and boxers were gone, leaving nothing on him besides his tags that clink and clatter as he jerks himself off at the sight of you. His sizable dick was red at the tip, lit with fire as precum dribbled out and splatted to the mattress right by your free hand – which clenches the sheets so hard you faintly hear a tear as your ears twitch. But your eyes don’t leave the magnificent sight in front of you watching like a hawk as John’s abdominal muscles tighten with every twisted motion of his hand. 
He was so violent with himself, the exact opposite of how you were playing with your own body. That wasn’t to say the image was anything but fuel to the fire, though.
You whimper and writhe, wrist burning and palm completely soaked with natural lube. 
“Ruining the show, Dear,” The tendon in Price’s neck flares, and a bead of sweat falls down his peck. Inside your sweatshirt, your breasts ache to be squeezed and abused.
Not processing his words for a moment, you pause your fast breaths to let out a high-pitched sound of confusion.
John doesn’t answer, because he moves his free hand and grips your panties, which stretch over your ministrations. He tears them down your thighs, and his touch is like a drug. 
“There we go, Princess. Now I can see that pretty cunt of yours.” Keening at the praise, your back lightly arches from the bed, watching John continue to work himself and matching his pace, imagining him inside of you instead of your fingers, “You like that, yeah? You like when I speak to you like that, dirty girl?”
You bite into your lip, knot so tight you want to grab a pair of scissors and cut it before it tears you up. Fuck, you were so close, the erotic sounds of the both of you fucking yourselves are so wet it increases the pleasure spiking your veins.
A wet hand snaps to your wrist stopping you just seconds away from a release. 
Gasping out in shocked desperation, your mouth releases a strangled plea of, “No, John, please.”
“Answer me when I speak to you,” You stare at your Captain’s bearded face as his hand keeps a heavy weight on your skin. He tears your fingers out of you and keeps them away from your core as you try and ferally move them back. John’s jaw is clenched – he holds you with the hand he was touching himself with not a second before, and you tense at the thought, “I asked you a question, Princess. I expect an answer if you want to cum.”
Tears of desperation form in your ducts. You were so close, but now the sensation was leaving again. 
“Yes!” You yell, voice high, “Yes, John I like it when you tell me how good I am! It gets me wet for you… m-my cunt fucking needs you in it, please! I need you to fucking ruin me, Captain! I want your dick stretching me open like–”
His lips silence your rant, shoving the back of your head into the pillow and moving his body to shadow above yours. The action leaves you moaning so loud at the sensation of his athletic body you forgot the walls were thin and that you were sounding like you were in a pornographic film. 
John smirks above you and replaces your fingers with his own, making your legs shake and twitch at the sensation of his callouses against your walls and his large digits burning as they enter you. He thrusts quickly, sopping wetness quickly making it easy, and the pleasure increases.
“Just had to say yes, Love,” His cock jumps and you feel it brush your lower abdomen, so painfully close but not quite. The man’s dog tags connect right above your face, swinging back and forth as he moves.
You gasp when his fingers curl, squelching echoes over the breathy chants of his name that you release. 
“Look at how fucken’ wet you are,” John praises you, and your walls flutter, as he watches his fingers move in and out of you, “Gotta’ get a taste of that, Love…Take off your top for me so I can see those pretty tits bounce.” 
Fuck you were on fire.
Your shaking limbs don't hesitate, hands snapping to throw the sweatshirt and your bra from you without a coherent thought in your brain. Completely bare before him, John’s expression darkens and swirls with lust. His fingers leave you and he moves down the mattress, leaving back on his knees and grabbing your thighs. Your chest heaves with adrenaline and bare need. This was better than any gunbattle – more thrilling than a training session, and far better than anything Leon had done to you. 
John was focused on you. Entirely. The man was forsaking his own painfully erect cock just to go down on you; to taste your wetness like it was nectar. 
Price hooks one of your legs over his shoulder, and your ankle digs into his back to bring him closer to your cunt. 
“Easy there, Princess. I’ll give you what you need,” His breath spreads over your slit, and your hips jerk before his hand splays over your navel, thumb just brushing your throbbing clit. You try to buck again, whining, “Steady.”
He stares at your face as his tongue goes down to kitten licks your pussy, beard bristles poking your skin and leaving the flesh lit like a glowing ember.
“John!” You moan, and one of your hands snaps to your breast, squeezing as John explores your body, groaning deeply as he collects your slick on his tongue. 
The man’s thumb goes to run circles around your nerve bundle, stimulating you as your body tries to move under his tight grip. But he has you under a tight rope, and the pleasure of it was nearly like being electrocuted over and over again. Your leg over his shoulder traps him there – eating you out like a man starved as his own hips begin to careen into the mattress. The pleasure of seeing you reduced to a blubbering mess that can only chant his name did primitive things to John’s mind. 
And the way you were playing with your breasts…? Fuck, he was addicted to you; the way your body was perfect enough to devour.
John moans into your cunt, the vibrations biting every corner as the tension begins to shatter inside of you when his fingers go to assist his tongue. Your back arches as the muscle and digits work in tandem, pace increasing as the Captain curls over that perfect, spongy, spot that leaves tears falling down the side of your face.
“Fuck, just like that!” You wail, fingers flickering over your hardened nipple, “J-John just like that!”
The words were slurred, coming off as drunk as his beard leaves skin red and scraped on the inside of your thighs. Your cunt tightens, walls closing in around John’s tireless lapping and fingering. His thumb on your clit moves faster, and he lets your hips careen into his face over and over again as his large nose bumps against that same spot. 
Tension builds and builds like an infection, and your free hand snaps to grip your Captain's hair, jerking his face farther into you and ruthlessly twisting the locks.
John whimpers into your slit, cock stuttering in its harsh rutting into the mattress, and your eyes erupt into stars, white light blowing up as your release makes time stand still. 
Gutturally moaning into the hot air, you pant as you come down just to feel a tongue cleaning up your thighs, slurping up cum, and playing around with your sensitive flesh. Fingers still pump inside of you, helping you ride out anything that’s left.
You can’t speak beyond small whimpers and gasps at the movement, but when you look down you’re met with John’s ruined face.
His entire beard was stained, dripping cum down onto your navel as he licks at your clit once. Your hips jerk and you cry in protest at the oversensitivity of the abused area, eyes fluttering.
“Just as I thought,” John’s voice is velvet, dripping just like his beard and nose do as he licks his lips with a demented sucking noise “Boody perfect, doll. Could eat that cunt for hours, just to see you squirm when I’m fucken’ you with my tongue. Better than Whisky.” 
You swallow as his hands caress your thighs, the grip traveling as his body slides up yours. His cock is heavy and leaking as it slides over your drenched slit. Thrusting up into it, the both of you gasp out. John lays drenched kisses all over your sweat-drowned body, leaving a trail of saliva and cum behind him as his own slots over you perfectly. 
“Speak to me,” He groans, and your fingers still in his locks lightly pull as he pushes your still hand over your breast away with his nose. His hot mouth latches onto your nipple and sucks before laying a deep bite around it. 
Writhing, he continues his expiration as a bead of sweat falls down your neck to pool at your bitten collarbone. John licks it up and continues like it’s nothing.
“F-feels good,” Is all you can say, not used to this type of treatment, “R-really good, Captain.”
“Yeah?” He sounds cheeky as his head pulls up to be above yours, hands pressing into the pillow beside your head, “Hm, think my Bird can take a cock? Want me opening that lovely cunt of yours up?”
Your heart pounds, hairs standing on end. The words were so vulgar, but you feel your arousal increase. 
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Y-yes, Captain.”
John lays a gentle kiss on your bruised lips, and you taste your own release as he sighs into your mouth; connecting your foreheads together when he pulls away. 
“I want your eyes on me the whole time, yeah?” He grunts, one hand going to grab at himself as he shivers above you. Chest bursting with anticipation, your free hand goes to intertwine its fingers with John’s beside your head – the other still gripping his hair, “I wanna see the way you lose yourself on me.”
You can’t answer before he’s filling you up.
Your eyes widen at the stretch, embers of pain bordering on the ledge of pleasure as the man pauses at your expression, going to play with your clit. On your face, your nose scrunches, hesitance floating in your orbs as you let out tight breaths even as his finger does wonders.
“S’alright,” John whispers to you, squeezing your hand and feeling the mewls your lips let out at the sensation of deep callouses, “I’ll be careful, Love. You can take me. Breathe.” Muttering paise as his cerulean blues bore into you, he resumes moving. 
How could you even fit him all inside of you? The tip already burned to take so far into your womb.
But you were plenty wet, the squelching sound resumed, and John tilted his head down to see the way he disappeared inside your cunt like magic. Your thighs have to move farther up his own to help, one locking around his waist as a ring of milky liquid forms over the joining.
The man’s eyes widen when he spies the bulge forming in your lower body, the indent popping out like a hole that’s been repacked with too much dirt. For the final last push, the man forces himself to look away and back up at you – he wants to see how you react. But at the last seconds, John’s eyes roll back into his head when he finally hits the base, a throaty groan mixing with your high-pitched moan as he bottoms out. Your chest flutters against his, and both of your hearts are going so fast they can be seen through your flesh.
You were so full, stretching around him so wide it was a miracle you hadn’t torn something. Both of your stay there for a moment, feeling your walls spasm around him and panting. Sweat falls from Price’s chin, splashing to your skin as your eyelids threaten to close at the stranger inhabiting your most sensitive area. It felt so good.
Your mind completely blanks, eyes glazing over with rapture at the feeling of John’s cock curving so far into you that you know he’ll push into your cervix when he moves. Every minute movement – even the deep breath John takes to steady himself – leaves you needing stimulation as the veins of his dick press into your soft walls.
“M-move, please,” Your numb lips flutter, and John’s eyes open from above you, jaw clenched and one orb more squinted than the other. 
“Yes, Ma’am,” He whispers, expression soft as your hand in his hair tightens to ground yourself. 
John begins slowly, letting you get used to him and the burning that he brings to your insides when he retracts and re-enters. His thrusts are measured, at first.
“Such a good girl,” He says above you, and your eyes refocus, body loosening as your form gradually adapts. But you were right, he’s hitting every corner of you as easily as he breathes. So thick it's like nothing you've ever felt. Your hips are canting up to meet his shallowly, but John does most of the work. He wants to. He wants to please you like Leon never could, to treat you right, “Taken’ me so well. See you grippin’ me, Dear…t-that’s it,'' Your pussy throbs, and you feel him move a little faster, “You’re gettn’ it down, eh? There’s that pretty little face of yours – all screwed up ‘cause of me. Hm, don’t go cock-drunk on me yet, Lovely.” 
“John,” Is what you chant as he begins to fuck you in earnest, pelvis slamming into you as you feel him brush your cervix, “Oh, John.”
“That’s it,” He pants and angles his thrusts up. The action makes you yowl, head tossing back as Price goes to bite into your neck again, dog tags cold against your skin, “There’s that sweet spot, yeah?”
He hits it every single time, marksmanship training telling him to keep attacking the most important part; tears blur your wide sight, back arching as his hand at your clit goes to hike your leg farther up his waist, the limb uselessly flying out behind his back. The deep press of his blunt nails into the flesh adds to the overstimulation, and you can’t keep up if you tried. Too pleasure drunk, you let him do what he wants, as long as you can feel his veiny cock hitting that spongy spot again. His dick thrusts into you with such devotion, ringing out pleasure like how one does to a rag.
“Fuck…” He muttered into your neck, “Won’t last long with you squeezing me like that. You’re so bloody tight.”
The snake was coiling in your gut, tail rattling as John throbs inside of your heat, moving over your skin like he was water over a rock. Loosening your hand from his hair, your nails go to dig into the fletch of his back, raking down his spine as he growls under you; sending a sharp thrust up that has you seeing sparks in your vision. It was building so quickly you couldn’t properly speak, only moan and wail and wine.
You were sure your nails were biting into his skin, leaving long red scratches behind as some sick form of proof. Maybe they were even drawing blood. A sadistic part of you wanted them too. 
“C-close,” Your gasp enters the thick air as your legs shake. John bites your earlobe, lifting his head from your skin to look at you from the side of his blown eyes. 
“W-where do you want it, Love?” He gasps, his beard scraping your skin until it’s raw. You hoped you had lotion in the bathroom for tomorrow, “C’mon gotta tell me before I lose myself.”
“Inside!” You yell, not even knowing what you’re saying anymore. If you did a part of you would have died from embarrassment. The man’s eyes snap fully to yours, widening; you feel his body shaking above you, hands clenching too tightly around your thigh and embrace as the flesh turns a different shade, “Please, Captain, fill me up. I wanna feel you dripping out of me for days! Please, I need your cum! Please, please…”
Price only sputters for a second before he begins to move like a man possessed. He pistons into you with heated movements and you gasp out in response, not sure how much more you could take but please don’t stop it feels so good. So, so, good when you move like that. Fill me with your seed.
“Made for me, you were,” John growls, ferally kissing you as you try to do the same back as he relentlessly pounds away, “I said it before, bloody fucken’ perfect. Don’t worry, I’ll give you what you need. Make you so full of me you’ll be leaking all over the damned sheets.” 
The coil snaps and you clench around Price’s cock so hard he moans into your mouth as you do the same. 
“Fuck..!” His hips jerk one more time before he spills into you, hot spurts of his seed coating your walls and leaking out of the ring you two had made. 
Shaking, John lets you ride it out as he continues to shakily thrust into you, but it isn’t long before he has to stop and his dick softens inside of you. After a moment of violent deep breaths, he has to shift, exiting from your reddened and leaking hole. Shuttering at the feeling of his ridges once more leaving, the foreign emptiness finally settles into your bones, you feel his cum pooling from you to collect on the mattress; your lower skin feels wet to the touch as the liquid follows the lines of your body and sticks to every part available. 
Lungs desperate for air, your body heaves and shivers; your eyes stay locked onto the ceiling above you, where you wished the metal was the same shade of blue as John’s eyes. You didn’t even notice the man himself had gone into your bathroom to receive a damp rag to clean you up until the rough material was leaving you flinching away from it. 
“Careful now,” John speaks lowly, and you hear his dog tags below you as he swipes at your folds. Your eyelashes flutter, legs tensing, “Need to clean you up.” 
He lays a kiss on your knee and continues for a few minutes, muttering compliments and kind words that you miss as your ears ring; he cleans your combined fluids from your spent cunt delicately, completely different from how he was abusing it a short while ago.
John leaves, and when he returns a second time, he slips into the bed in front of you, taking the wrecked covers and arranging you carefully so you were covered by them.
A moment of hot pressing bodies passes, and your head is pressed into the man’s raging chest, drawn back to consciousness by his heart when he shifts, “...Didn’t hurt you, did I, Love?”
“Hm,” You groan, and moving your legs results in needles digging into the fine tissue, “No. But you’re going to be carrying me tomorrow.” 
Your Captain has the audacity to laugh, his hand going to rest on your ass, rubbing the skin as he draws you closer.
“Wanted to do that for a long time, Y’know,” He whispers, laying kisses to your hair, “Long time.”
“Me too,” You admit, sighing as your eyes flutter shut, “Since Madagascar, I think.” 
John lightly flinches, “Madagascar?” It’s a question, but he already knows the answer, “What about…”
He trails.
“Leon?” You ask and Price grunts, knocking his nose down into your scalp as he draws circles into your skin. He didn’t like you saying that man’s name, “I think I wanted to break up with him…finding him with someone else just gave me an easy out, I guess,” You think over the event. Had you been relieved slightly? Perhaps, but it was easier to tell now than earlier, “It was just…”
Stopping you hum, and turn your head to lay a kiss on a scar on John’s chest in your vicinity.
“Easier.” 
It’s not a question your Captain poses, it's a statement.
“Less complicated, yeah.” He breathes a sigh into your hair and fatigue leaves your lids falling quickly.
“We’ll talk more in the morning,” John mutters, “Copy?”
You don’t answer, because you’ve already fallen to sleep, body bruised and yet feeling far better than you had in years. John wanted to be with you, Leon was out of the picture – it was all turning up. But there was still that part of you that ached with betrayal, that bled when you poked at it with a finger; a wounded heart would do that. It bleeds for a bit.
Though, you knew John would be there with a bandage, to put pressure on the wound and catch the spills. Maybe that was selfish, but maybe you had a right to be for a little while. Your Captain certainly didn’t seem to mind. 
John fell asleep quickly after, content for possibly the first time in years. He gets to hold you in his arms and wake up with you right by his side, even if the paperwork was going to be atrocious.
There was no doubt people had heard them, but it wasn’t like the Captain cared. 
“Little Lady?” The knock wasn’t what woke you, John did. Looking up at him, he holds a finger to his lips and has a pleading look on his face. You raise a brow, about to go back to sleep before Soap’s voice makes you freeze, “I know you’re in there – you wouldn’t happn’ to have a clue where Price is, would you? Man missed the debriefing.” 
Your wide eyes stay locked with Johns, Maybe If I don’t answer he’ll go a–
“That’s it, I'm coming in!” 
“Wait!” 
But the door was already opening – John hadn’t locked it, too caught up in the stupor of finally getting you into his arms and wetting his dick. 
“...Steamn’ bloody Jesus!” Screaming and a quick rustling can be heard echoing out into the hallway, “...Well, well, well, Cap finally got the girl, did he? Bout’ time, I’d say! Tell me, now, how good was he in bed for an old man?” 
“Stop lookn’ at her, you Muppet! I’ll hang you by the fucke–” 
“How can’t I – her fucken’ tits are out and you’re about a bawhair away from her! Where else am I supposed to look, man?” 
“Out!” 
Soap rushes out, smiling wider than anything with gleaming eyes before stumbling and nearly careening into the wall as John Price rushes after, face red and snarling. The Captain had nothing more than a wrinkled, thin, standard white bed sheet around his tapered waist with dog tags fastened around his neck. 
John’s clenched hand connects with the door frame and the rageful man leans out down the hall and yells, “When I find you, MacTavish, It’s your fucken’ neck under a goddamned rope! You hear me, Sergeant?! Your fucken’ neck!”
Vibrating laughter can be heard from the figure already disappearing down the corner of the woman’s Barracks.
“Wait till the boys hear about this!”
The door closes so loudly behind John that the wide-eyed bystanders in the hallway miss the lock being clicked into place with savage fingers. But the loud, chest-tightening, feminine laughter that forms moments later is none the clearer.  
Well, secret’s out. 
12K notes · View notes
roturo · 8 months
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BAD IDEA, RIGHT?
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INUMAKI TOGE X READER
SUMMARY: meeting up with your old friends sounded like a good idea, turns out lying and saying you and your ex ended up as a friends would include him there, so that was a bad idea of yours.
WARNINGS: unprotected sex, subspace, exes!to lovers, use of curse energy for sex, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, squirting, use of sign language, almost caught, after care, dacryphilia.
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Life has been great.
Ever since you broke up with Inumaki things have been just fine. Both of you decided to end up as friends. Which might be awkward between the both of you but when you’re together around other people it wasn’t that bad.
You decided to focus on your training, even though it became a little bit too much to be at the same place with your ex… so you decided to live alone and start a new life. College is a new experience and it has been really fun! Training at home wasn’t as effective and efficient as training with Gojo-sensei and your friends… but, you felt more comfortable this way.
Some days you felt like exorcizing some curse and just walked through the city and found one.
Just for fun.
That’s what Maki told you. ‘Let’s hang out all of us together like the old times! Just for some fun!’
And everything was going great! But you never expected Yuuji to enter next to Inumaki into Maki’s room. You haven’t seen him in like four? six months? It’s been a while…
And to say he looked even more handsome than last time is understandable. Half a year and he grew up. He seemed taller than last time, his shoulders broader, and his hands…
You scold yourself for staring too long at him. His eyes locked with yours and a small awkward silence was in the room. But thankfully, Yuuji couldn’t tolerate silence and proposed to order some pizza and talk about how things have been.
You told them about your new friends at college, how you've been auto-training yourself, and how you felt like a new person.
Inumaki felt nostalgic. Watching you grow up and create a life without him made him sad. Thinking about the old times and how you talked to him for hours about having a family. How you stayed with him even if he couldn’t communicate himself like others, he loved you, and he missed you.
You missed him too, and when Maki asked if you were comfortable right now, even if your ex is literally like less than two meters in front of you, you said, ‘yeah! why not, we didn’t end on bad terms! can’t do people reconnect? I only see him as a friend.’
The biggest lie you ever said.
But the both of you knew those glance you gave each other, you needed the other… So when Maki accompanied Yuuji for the pizza you couldn’t control yourself.
And I mean like you couldn’t control yourself literally, he controlled you. He took his hands off.
‘Follow me.’
Your body was moving without your permission. Following Inumaki to what you assumed was his room. A tingly feeling dressed as nervousness was appearing in the low part of your tummy.
You felt anxious? excited? euphoric?
You missed him so much it was hurting, so when you got inside his room, thinking about if what’s going to occur was correct, you stared at your phone for some second before murmuring to yourself ‘fuck it, it’s fine’ —the first thing you did when you had control back was send a text to Maki.
‘I’m sleeping in another place.’ Maybe she’ll think you didn’t feel comfortable enough and needed to leave.
But maybe that’s not the case. You might sleep on someone else's sheets.
‘Inumaki…’
‘Shh… Undress yourself.’— You wanted to first kiss him, but he seemed eager to have you— and how could you say no? Maybe he wasn’t even controlling you and you were doing it for your own taste.
Feeling vulnerable in front of him— he grabbed you by the waist pulling you closer to his clothes body and started kissing you like a hungry man— You missed his touch and he missed yours.
Coming here wasn’t a bad idea… right?
Wrong.
Your body was sore and twitching of how many times he has made you cum. He’s been eating you out for hours now— with just one word making you cut whenever he felt like it. Making symbols on your pussy of what you suppose it’s his curse marks— Your eyes were full of tears, vision blurry and feeling dizzy.
‘N-no more ‘Inu..’
‘Osaka ‘ Was all he said, keeping a straight face before watching you before continuing eating you out— ‘Squirt.’ Your body shook before your vision turned black and everything felt a thousand times more— his fingers inside of you, slurping your fluids out of you. It was a disgusting mess— but he loved watching you turn into a mess thanks to him. It was his mess.
He never abused so much of his power on you, but this time it was different. He needed you, he wanted you.
Once he felt he got enough of your poor and used pussy, he got up— Watching you trying to keep your eyes open. Makeup ruined, hair tangled and tears coming down your eyes. You felt fucked out— feeling sore on parts of your body you never thought could get sore. Trying to plead for your sanity was met with deaf ears.
He started unbuckling his belt, and turned his middle and ring finger down, making the sign ‘I love you’ before signaling he missed you so much and needed you. Sign language was a common thing between the both of you because of his cursed technique. Just a few words, because it’s like destiny brought the two of you together because in some ways you always knew what the other needed.
He teased your cunt with his dick before inserting it in. You were on missionary, him on top of you while he admired the mess you became. He thrusted inside of you with no warning, your fucked up pussy with no need to make it even more sensitive for you to cum, he just started searching for his release.
When he watched you not even being able to say coherent words, tears just streaming down your face, your eyes almost closed and moans coming out of your mouth was enough for him to cum inside of you. The fucked up image of you— thanks to him— will be forever engraved in his mind. He needs you, he needs to be back together.
He groaned at the feeling of your cunt hugging his cock once he came, his body shaking before laying down beside you. Heavy breathings filling the room, he looked back at you and found you staring at him too. A smile adorned his face, moving his body so he could hug yours— playing with your hair and giving you small pecks he heard a knock on his door. 
He supposed you’re still in a subspace and grabbed his boxers, slightly opening the door so only his face was visible— a confused blushed Yuuji was in front of his door. ‘Inumaki, the pizza is here. We can’t find Y/N though… Do you know where she is?…’
‘Go with Maki.’ Were the words he let out, Yuuji’s body moved without his permission, leaving him alone. 
He looked behind and saw you taking small breaths, your chest going up and down— He smiled to himself, before he grabbed a warm cloth and and started cleaning you up— He searched for some candy he used to have in his room since you were always craving them, he grabbed one water bottle too and repositioned you so your now resting on his pillows. He sat next to you, playing with your hair, waiting till you came back to reality.
Once you opened your eyes, the first thing you saw was Inumaki staring at you— Eyes full of love while he played with your hair. You moved so your body was not sitting on his bed, you noticed you’re wearing one of his t-shirts and your panties— You supposed he put them on, he touched your arm and gave you some water and your favorite candy. You looked back at him— surprised he still had some of them here, you smiled at him and drank some water.
You didn’t notice he grabbed a notebook and was writing something until he gave it to you.
‘Can we get back together? You’re all I need, all I love. I would kill any curse, person, thing who tries to hurt you, everything… just to have you back in my arms.’
2K notes · View notes
zee-rambles · 1 year
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Lets. D0. This.
(Please note: Post will be updated as I find more resources and think of more strategies)
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(Please do not re-use gif without permission…unless it’s to save Rise…)
Mutant May
YOU can watch Season 1 and Season 2 of RISE right HERE!
So I’ve seen a a lot of people still wondering if Rise of the TMNT can be saved.
There’s is a lot of hope, especially with the boom of fans joining the fandom after the movie dropped last year, people making more art on tumblr, twitter, tik tok, and so on. But also a a lot of doubt, especially after JJ Conway’s post on twitter.
BUT…I still think there is a chance…a GOOD chance. WITH ORIGINAL CAST AND CREW! Why?
We live in the internet. Information is more then easy to get out now thanks to social media. There is all kinds of ways to get the word out to people. Let’s abuse it. 😎
Fans have brought back shows before.
We need a MAJOR push through social media, more fans, more art, it’s up to us…and I think we can do it!
Fans convinced Netflix to bring Sense8 back for a finale
Fans convinced fox to bring back “Futurama” after it was cancelled in 1999.
Hey Arnold got the jungle movie thirteen years after the show was cancelled
Animaniacs got a 3 season revival 22 years after it stopped airing.
Brooklyn 99 was cancelled in 2018, and the fans convinced NBC to pick up the series.
Arrested Development was canceled after 3 seasons, but AFTER it was cancelled, it grew an audience and they made it come back!
Fans saved the original Star Trek in the 60s with letters.
They did it. Why can’t we?
So what can we do?
Well…
1. PETITIONS TO SAVE RISE that we can all sign…
PETITION 1 (The strongest one, but the more petitions signed, the better!)
PETITION 2
PETITION 3
PETITION 4 (save the content that was cut/we missed)
PETITION 5! (Make an ROTTMNT season 3)
2. Pester Nickelodeon and Netflix on social media (THE BIG ONE Y’ALL, THIS IS THE MOST DIRECT AND IMPORTANT)
Be polite, be non-toxic (don’t be rude or mean, the boys would not want that, and the Nick/Netflix won’t listen), but be LOUD, PASSIONATE, AND ANNOYING! Ask for DVDs of the show/movie, and then BUY THOSE DVDs!
MAKE SURE TO ASK FOR THE FULL ORIGINAL CAST AND CREW TO COME BACK, INCLUDING ANDY SARIANO AND ANT WARD.
Sample DM/Letter (but try to come up with your own. Too many repeats and they will ignore it)
“Dear Nickelodeon/Netflix/Viacom, I can’t tell you how much Rise means to me, and I really love that you put the show on air. But it was not fair that the show was cancelled before it got the chance to reach the audience it deserved, only because of a few bad reviews and a lack of advertising. The show is great, there’s tons of fans, tons of art, and people, including me, want so much more! Please bring it back! We want the original crew to come, Flying Bark, for the show to get it’s full second season restored, and it’s five season run like it was originally intended. People hated the 2012 TMNT when it came out, but it got it’s chance and now there are people that love it. Why can’t Rise of the TMNT have the same? It’s clear that the creators love their work and there’s a growing fan base for it. Rise just came out at the wrong time, but it deserves it chance to shine.”
The more personal you made the letter, the more you say what Rise means to you, the better.
As for me? I’m sending them a picture of Pizza Pigeon with the #wewantmoreriseoftheTMNT and #saverottmnt
Request movies/seasons on Netflix.
Ask for Rise Season 2, another season, another movie. Just keep asking!
Nickelodeon’s facebook page (Look, I know that facebook is a relic at this point, but the more people go there and PESTER Nickelodeon, the better!)
Rise’s facebook page
Leave good reviews. Share. Leave TONS of comments
Nickelodeon’s instagram
Nickelodeon’s Twitter page (treat carefully, there be Musks out there…only use if you are over 18)
Nickelodeon’s TikTok
Niceklodeon’s letter inbox
Nickelodeon, 1515 Broadway, New York, NY 10036
Rugrats was brought back because fans bombarded Nickelodeon with letters saying they wanted it back. Might as well cover our bases. This one is a BIG DEAL!
Nickelodeon’s Corporate Number
1-212-846-2543 Call them! Annoy them! Ask how we can get their attention! Tell them why you love this show! Why it deserves to come back.
Contact Paramount
Paramounts Request form
Official Fan Page Rise’s Instagram
The more followers the better.
Netflix’s instagram
Netflix’s facebook
Netflix’s Twitter (Treat carefully. There be MUSKs out there…only use if you are over 18)
SPAM NICKELODEON’S EMAILS!
If anyone has any more, any deeper more direct points of contact, or more ideas, please share!
3. Leave good reviews for Rise anywhere and raise awareness everywhere you can!
One of the key reasons Rise did not do too well because it was unfairly review bombed before people could give it a chance…so get out there on tik tok, IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, and ESPECIALLY youtube.
Make reviews! Analysis! JOKES! Support other content creators! When the Rise Reanimated video comes out, share it like no tomorrow!
No one paid attention when How to Train Your Dragon came out, but word of mouth and people saying it was good, made it the success it was. Let’s repeat history!
Anytime there is NEW RISE CONTENT on Nickelodeon’s YouTube channel, watch it, share, spread it.
Share this post on social media, across various sites, use the information here to spread awareness about how people can help and what they can do. Be relentless! (Like Leo in Lair Games)
Ask influencers to review, react, and give RISE a chance without placing judgement.
4. Make. ART!
Draw, Write, TWEET, Make MERCH, Sell MERCH, Make Tik Toks, Videos on YouTube, posts on instagram, discord, what pad, demanding more Rise, spreading the word, and just showing how much you love this show! Not only will it attract attention, but it’s also good for all of us. There will be more Rise content either way.
Make sure to @ nickelodeon on ALL of your art! SPAM THEM! ANNOY THEM! DROWN THEM IN LOVE FOR THIS SHOW! Demand DVD’s and Blue rays of the SHOW AND THE MOVIE! It’s not fair that we can’t have access to it!
PLAY THIS GAME!
If you see official Rise MERCH in the while, buy it if you can! Also support as many rise content creators as you can. If you can’t draw? Write! If you can’t create! Like! Share! Comment! Support each other!
Rise April ART Challenge
Keep in mind…there WILL be pushback.
Companies as big as Nickelodeon and Viacom care about their bottom line: $$$…money. BUT pushback, whether they are taking down your videos on Tik Tok, striking artists on twitter, mean that they’re taking NOTICE. So don’t. Give. UP!
One last thing to remember: DO NOT harass fans for enjoying other versions of TMNT
Even though Rise is the first and only TMNT I have ever loved, I don’t believe in shaming other fans for looking forward to, or enjoying other TMNT series. Gatekeeping like that was what stopped Rise from (heh) Rising as high as it should have. All Rise fans are welcome, and all TMNT fans are welcome. Rise deserves to reach more fans, it deserves another season, and it does not need to knock down other TMNT series to do it. Show them your love and your need for more Rise, without making other TMNT fans feel unwelcome.
Share, spread the word, give it your best shot! A village can move MOUNTAINS! SO let’s do it.
So that in the near future…we can MAKE THIS JOKE!
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3K notes · View notes
cheeseceli · 1 month
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Their s/o is a songwriter
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Pairing: idol Ot8!skz × songwriter Gn!reader (individually)
Genre: fluff, headcanon, idol!au
Request: so what if skz finding out their partner is a song writer / composer? bonus points if the skz members also found out that they wrote their favourite song :>
Warnings: reader is implied to write for Kpop most of the time, not proofread.
A/n: as a songwriter, I appreciate this request a whole lot lmao. Thank you for requesting, I hope you like it!
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Bang Chan
Honestly, I think this is something he would find out before dating you
Man knows everyone in the whole entertainment industry
Ofc he knows who you are
If anything, the way you both got to know each other more was through working together to make a stray kids song
Overall, I think he would love to have a partner in the industry
Even if you never get to be on stage
Simply because you understand him more than other people do
You know how music is essential and demanding at the same time
Your job probably makes him feel more connected to you
He likes to joke that you're the newest member of 3Racha
Always sends you songs he made your you to listen
And wants you to do the same
You can send him an audio at 1AM and bro will listen to it right away, ready to give you his opinion and advice (and praise)
Lee Know
Poor stray kids and stay
They will be listening to the songs you worked on nonstop
He just happens to be your biggest supporter 🤷🏻‍♀️
Has a whole 10 hours playlist with all of your work
Knows every lyric even if they aren't Korean
And he also enjoys dancing to it very much
Even if the song doesn't have a choreo, he likes to make up his own by listening to what you did
Probably invented a few trends with your songs because of it lmao
He also listens to it a lot when he's on tour
Even if it's not your voice that he's listening to, it's still you somewhat
He just wants to feel close to you
Asks you to sing or play the songs you produced
Might or might not have a small compilation of audios of you singing when he's way too homesick
(And if you wrote his favourite song, he would definitely have an audio of you singing it)
Changbin
Sees you as a very big inspiration
The amount of times he listened to one of your songs so he could get out of creative block is crazy
If anything, he probably already saw you as a role model before even getting to personally know you
Imagine the seo changbin fan boying you
If you write for other K-pop groups/soloists, he's probably trying to make references of what you wrote in his own rap
Fans always think he's talking about a certain idol or something but he really is just trying to include you in his work😭
And he would beg to have at least one stray kids song cowrote by you
Like literally begging
He needs to have one small Collab with you at least once
And will get a little pouty every time you can't work with skz because you're with another group at the moment
Hyunjin
Loves to have songwriting dates with you
Usually releases the songs you both write (with your permission ofc) as a skz-recorder
Stays are starting to wonder who is that composer/songwriter who is behind every single song Hyunjin is in lmao
I remember he said that one of his goals for 2024 was to produce more
So he will 100% seek your advice and even ask for some particular lessons at times
And he is always a little bit shy when he's about to show you what he's been working on
Because he feels like you are THE songwriter
And you're also his partner so like
Your opinion is a very big deal
And he's also so excited when you let him listen to a preview of your newest work
Is always awestruck
(Any song of yours would be his favourite lmao, and the best part of it is that he means it)
Han
He would LOVE to have a partner in the industry
Or just connected to art somehow, even if it's just a hobbie
I mean, look at his lyrics
Bro inhales and exhales art
The fact that you understand this side of him and even share this interest is so what he needed
He's also very very helpful when you need to write songs
I see late night dates in the studio
Even when any of you is far away for whatever reason
It can be 2am in Korea, he will be on his phone more than willing to listen to you brainstorm
Brainstorming with Han would be very fun overall lmao
It's either going to be the most sentimental thing to ever exist or it's going to be complete nonsense lmao
Oh and he would also make a lot of references to things you wrote
And would be so so so so happy if you ever made a reference to a work of his
Felix
I remember he said once that if he wasn't an idol, he would like to be a professional songwriter
So the fact that YOU are a songwriter/producer
He kinda loves you a little bit too much
One thing he loves is to understand your thought process
If you ever let him see your notes,he will try his best to understand every little thing
Even if it's only words with no correlation all over the page
He loves to know how your mind works
And he wants to know where the inspiration comes from!
(If it's from him he will never shut up about it)
Loves to know the stories behind each one of your works
He feels like he gets to know you a little more every time he listens to something that is yours
Is always covering one of your songs on lives
Seungmin
Literally everything you could've asked for, both in the dating aspects and in professional aspects
He makes sure you never overwork but will never restrain you from your work
Like, he knows that sometimes the inspiration comes at 2AM. He won't shut off your notebook, he'll be up with you and guarantee you don't stress
And he's your most honest critic
If you need help with rhymes, structure, chords or whatever, he is there
(After dating him you rarely browse anything at Google anymore, seungmin always understands the specific vibes you want)
And if you are a songwriter/ composer who doesn't know how to sing (that's me criticising myself) he always volunteers to make the demo for your songs
As I said, everything you could've ever asked for in a partner and coworker
I.N
Now this one
The moment he discovered he was begging to see some of your work
It's crazy how many of your songs were included in the playlist he has of songs that remind him of you😭
Talk about soulmates
I also believe that he would love to help you with songs
Give him one chance and this man is already with a notebook open trying to come up with the best verse ever
But he really likes to hear you brainstorm as well
Just you in your comfort zone really makes him admire you
And he loves how he can feel closer to you
Just reading the lyrics you wrote ou listening to the beat you produced makes him feel like he is meeting you for the first time again
Always having a new impression of you
Will also sing any demos you want him to!
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Masterlist | you'll probably like: if skz wrote a song for you
Reblogs and feedback are always appreciated!
Dividers by @firefly-graphics
Taglist: @yuyubeans
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cameronspecial · 2 months
Text
The Speed Of Light
Pairing: Rafe Cameron x Reader
Warnings: N/A
Pronouns: She/Her
Word Count: 0.7K
Summary: All Y/N wants is to be in Rafe's arms and he is prepared to do that no matter what it takes.
A/N: Inspired by this post.
Masterlist
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Distance from Rafe isn’t something Y/N often struggles with. Sure, she likes to cuddle with him and be in physical contact with him, but she doesn’t need to do it every second of the day. She likes to have her alone time and Rafe respects that need. However, something in her today just craved to be in his hold and unlucky for her, this wasn’t his day off. In fact, he is supposed to stay late to help his dad with paperwork. She knows she shouldn’t ask him to come home, yet all she wants is to be in his arms right now. She takes her phone out and sends him a text: Are you coming home soon? His reply is just as quick. No, Bunny. I’ll probably be home past dinner time, so you can eat without me. 
Oh…
Why oh? Is everything okay?
Everything is fine. I just miss you. That’s all. She quickly follows the text with I won’t bother you anymore. I’ll let you get back to work.
Rafe is already standing at his desk and heading to his dad’s office before she can send the second text. “I know I said I would work late tonight, but Y/N needs me. I’ll finish it tomorrow morning,” he informs his dad, not asking for permission because he doesn’t care if he has it. Ward looks up from the report he is looking at, “Okay, that’s fine. Say hello to Y/N for me.” Rafe nods, going to his car without thought. I’m on my way, Bunny. She can’t hide her massive grin once she sees the message. It’s been around thirty minutes and Rafe isn’t home yet, which is strange because it should only take ten minutes to get here from his workplace. She grows worried that something happened to him, so she calls him. “Hi, Bunny,” he greets through the speakerphone. She sighs in relief, “I thought something bad happened to you. Why aren’t you home yet?” “You are very clingy today aren’t you, Bunny?” he playfully teases. “I’m sorry I scared you and I’m not home yet, but they closed a bunch of roads and there was an accident. Apparently, the Outer Banks can get pretty bad traffic.” 
“Well, can’t you use your boyfriend or Cameron's powers to get you through?” she pleads, kneading at the pillow. He chuckles, “I don’t think they can do anything about the traffic, Bunny. I’m sorry. I will be there at the speed of light though, I promise. Why don’t you go get ready? I’ll take you out to dinner.” “Hmm, I don’t want to go out for dinner. Can you pick up something at the Wreck instead? I want to cuddle,” she explains. He shakes his head with a smile, “Okay, I can do that. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” “Thank you. I love you. See you soon,” she states. His heart swells, “I love you too. Bye.” He hands up the phone. 
———
Ten minutes later, which is way faster than Y/N thought he would be coming, she hears his truck in the driveway. She flings the door open to see him with his arms held open to her. She runs into his arms, giving him a tight squeeze. He presses his kiss to her temple. She takes in the scent of his colognes, “How did you get home so fast?” “I told you I would be home at the speed of light,” he recounts. “Plus, I guess my Cameron powers were better than I thought because I was able sweet talk Shoupe to open up another road and Mike owed me a favour so he got our food out real fast.” She looks up at him with big eyes, “You did all of that for me?” “Of course. I would do anything for you, Bunny. Now, come on. Let’s eat,” he says with his lips against her forehead. He takes her inside and flops on the couch, throwing his arm over the back of the couch so she can settle in beside him. That night is spent cuddled up on the sofa, eating and watching TV. 
Taglist: @winterrrnight @loves0phelia @thelomlisrafecameron @wickedlovely121 @thepatriarchykeychain @drewsmusee @starkowswife @maybankslover @forstarkey @loving-and-dreaming
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noirflms · 1 month
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AGAIN — seishiro nagi
nagi’s hoodies have been disappearing recently and he knows who the culprit is. he is certain, for you have strike away at his precious hoodies - again.
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“you took my hoodie. again.”
seishiro nagi begins, and ends his allegation with a sigh. he has his eyebrows furrowed, eyes looking straight at your figure that is sprawled onto his home couch. this is not the first time he had seen one of his best hoodies be lost again, this is a repetition of many cycles of stealing and getting the hoodie of his back.
“what are you even talking about? what hoodie, if you mind?” you say nonchalantly, eyes fixated on the running to show of yours. you know very well what he is talking about. but if he wants it back, he has to fight for it and you don’t back down from fights revolving around his comfortable and soft, pillow like hoodies ( you wonder how he always gets the good ones. )
“i know you took it back home, babe.” he sighs. nagi has forgotten the number of times he has sighed in the day, since his long search of finding his one great hoodie – it was certainly the only hoodie left after you took almost half of them.
“pffft— as i really do have a use for them.” you chuckle. the sweat form on your forehead when you hear him approach his footsteps echoing through the house, and when he is just right behind you, the 6’3 boy takes gentle hold of your neck and makes you look right at him, eye to eye and he is not surprised with your antiques at all.
“you saying something, princess. i know you’ve got all of them.” he say and you gulp, he feels the lump being swallowed. “just give me two of my hoodies back, love. i’m out of all of them.” he sighs as he let’s go of your neck and pinches your nose making you stop breathing as you smack at his arm.
“hey! now that is rude. you won’t be getting a single hoodie back after this!” you grumble as you punch him right in the arm, but all nagi does is laugh softly at your light hits. god, he has a baby for a girlfriend.
“so, you do have my hoodies.” he says taking his seat right next to you. eyes wide, you freeze in your spot, you look at him owl eyed. you look like a deer caught in red lights. he smirks as he looks at you, the tv show still running in the background. “so, do i get two back or not? or either the whole lot please.”
“but your hoodies are comfortable.” you pout, and the look shakes nagi’s resolve of asking his hoodies back, a bit. he almost gives in, but no, he has to stay strong, he has to get just two, maybe four of his hoodies back.
“and they smell like you, so, i take them with me.” you say softly and he almost – keyword is almost – answers without thinking but he is on a mission. he is strong man, but gosh, but this girl he loves shakes the whatever resolve he has to the core, he just becomes something unlike to what a monster he is on the football ground.
but you begin again, voice one of reason and thought as you tap a finger on your chin.
“but they’ve lost your smell now, so i’ll return them. but! you’ll have to give me another which still has your smell!” and you’ve struck yourself a deal here. your smile has grown a thousand watt more and nagi think, it’s fine for you to take his hoodies, you look good walking around in them and they keep bachira away with his rizz full comments.
“deal.” he softly smiles. and his words send you to cloud nine and you press a chaste peck to his lips, and go back to watching your tv show, as he looks at you sighing softly. god, he’d give you all his hoodies, if it means you’ll be striking deals like this now and then.
and he would now like you to steal his hoodies every now and then. and again.
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RAHHHHHH 🦅🦅 i love nagi and i missed blue lock content on my blog so HERE YA GO MAUH 😋🍒
NOIRFLMS 2024 ! all rights reserved - plagiarism is a crime , do not translate my works without permission.
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bones4thecats · 3 months
Text
What If Their S/O Was A Royal Heir?
Type of Writing: #1 - Poll Result Characters: Riddle Rosehearts, Idia Shroud, Jamil Viper, and Jack Howl Name: What If Their S/O Was A Royal Heir? Original Poll Link: Here
A/N: Alright, so, the basic set-up behind this is in the order of pieces on my upcoming list is going to be the order in which these are released. Also, requests shall NOT be reopened until I finish at least most of the random prompts I have are done, thanks!
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❤️ You were a descendant of the Queen who took up after the Queen of Hearts passed away years ago, and ever since then, your family has ruled the Queendom of Roses without faults
❤️ Because of fears of betrayal and such, your family never really spoke to many others outside of work, but, when you received a letter claiming your advising attendance at Night Raven College, you jumped at the opportunity
❤️ When you arrived, you suffered far less criticism from Riddle than others, and many believed that he feared you because of your ranking, he didn't want to upset his mother
❤️ But, when you guys started to befriend one another and began your relationship, you figured out the true reason he didn't behead you as much as others
❤️ He didn't wish to bring any shame to his family, and when you saw how down he looked about that thought, you admitted to faking so many smiles, just because it was what your ancestor, known as the White Queen did
" I guess we aren't that different after all, huh? "
❤️ Ever since that day, you have recommenced having his parents meet yours, and, despite his constant pleas of you letting it go, you finally relented and asked for him to at least help you send a letter to his mother
❤️ Riddle's mother not-shockingly wasn't fond that her son began to see someone without her permission, but, when she realized how prominent you were in their homeland, she had to relent and allow your relationship to proceed, she didn't need the royal guard on her back
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🎮 How did this guy manage to get your attention? The world may never know
🎮 As a higher-ranked official, specifically a descendant of the man who took the thrown of the King of the Underworld after his demise, you were normally thrown into many different affairs, making you try hiding away constantly
🎮 Thankfully, your prayers of freedom were answered, and you got an offer to join Night Raven College, and your family couldn't hold you back, since you gave the school a solid yes behind their backs
🎮 When you were organized into Ignihyde with Idia, he was very intimidated by you, since you were so popular among students
🎮 Though, funnily enough, you would go running away from the many students who wanted to ask you for things, and you would end up running into a nearby room, one in which Idia was occupying alone
🎮 You guys started speaking about how much you enjoyed a game and you ended up becoming quite close, in which you helped with with building Ortho's mechanical body
🎮 Idia was definitely nervous when you started your relationship, to him, you were the best thing to exist; powerful - yet caring, and quite smart when it comes to strategies, while he was, in his opinion, odd and not-worthy of you
🎮 Most of the time, he pushes your ranking in the Island of Woe, if you could push his issues aside, then he could put everything about you aside as well!
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🐍 Many feared you because of how logical you were, you were rumored to be able to see through any kind of lies or, really, any kind of deceit, no matter the person
🐍 Jamil had heard about you mainly from Kalim and his parents, as you were a far-off relative of the Al-Asim's, specifically, you were a descendant of the Sultana from hundreds of years ago
🐍 You were being forced to heir the thrown, since your older brother had been assassinated a few years prior, and when you came by for a summer to spend time with your younger distant cousins, he would be lying if he said he wasn't fond of you
🐍 Whenever you noticed that Kalim was getting to be too much for Jamil, you would grab the young ball-of-sunshine and ask if he wanted to play with his younger siblings and you
🐍 Due to your far different rankings, you kept your relationship hidden, as you didn't wish for your family's council to end up punishing his family, who had done nothing wrong
🐍 Jamil would normally grab you and him a small cup of tea and relax with you on the balcony of your room, keeping the silence either in progress or cut it out with conversations about your lives and dreams of the future
🐍 And while your relationship may be in forcible secrecy, you shared your dream of living with Jamil by your side, either ruling over your homeland or relinquishing your role to one of your younger siblings to travel with your one and only
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🐺 Jack knew quite a bit about you, as his parents loved to tell stories of the news to him and his younger siblings as they grew older, and they just made the news more recent and a hint more mature as Jack aged
🐺 So, when you arrived at Night Raven College at the same time as him, he was quite excited when you were organixed in the same dorm as him, Savanaclaw
🐺 He noticed how casually you would speak to Leona, and that was when the pieces of his mind actually realized just who you were
🐺 As the second-in-line heir to the Shaftlands, and the offspring of the descendant of the Fairest Queen and a high-ranking raven beastman, you had met the two heirs of Sunset Savannah early on in life, prompting a strong friendship between you and the lion-beastman to emerge
🐺 Jack began to speak with you when he saw how you trained your unique magic to be stronger than it was at the start of the year, and he began to train with you
🐺 One day, his siblings decided to come by for a visit, they stopped and starred at you as your boyfriend chuckled and introduced you, and after hearing your role and name, the young boy and girl began to bombard you with questions on your life as a royal member
🐺 The wolf-beastman smiled and watched as you spoke gently with his siblings as his grandparents and parents asked him how you met and when you began your relationship
🐺 He just smiled and answered them honestly, and he hoped one day his family could meet yours, and the kids you were currently playing with were adults as your own children took their places...
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fluffylino · 4 months
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you show minho and hyunjin that they don't need their husbands.
(literally got this idea while showering.)
(boypussy les go and threesome?)
-contains mature themes
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"you feel hurt, don't you. doesn't my baby deserve so much better"
hyunjin is leaning into your hand thats cradling his face. his eyes are glassy and filled with so much love. he nods slowly.
"you work so hard, take care of channie and do most of the work at home...and what do you get in return" you state.
its obvious. hyunjin's husband is cheating.
"lets forget about him, yeah" your hands are on his hips. making him grind down on you.
"f-feels good" he mumbles, blinking his tears away. hips rolling in circles on your strap.
"i know baby. how long has it been?" you ask, noticing how his breathing was already becoming heavier.
"three years" and you feel your heart break.
three years without any relief. no touching. no pleasing. no source of pleasure. and hyunjin is crying again. shoulders shaking.
you thrust up hard. hitting that spot inside that has him doubling over himself.
"ahhh-hhm" mouth forming an 'o' shape. fingers balling the fabric of your shirt.
"princesses deserves to be fucked like royalty"
you say, bringing your hand up to wipe the tears on his cheeks. moving lower to thumb as his sensitive nubs.
"m'princess?"
its asked so innocently. you're ready to give him the world. more than ready to knock out his husband. the next statement being high pitched whines.
"yeah baby..yeah" your voice cracking at how truly pretty hyunjin was. bouncing on your dick. shoulder length hair moving around. his arms hooked around your neck.
so you slip your hand down. pressing it to his swollen clit. and he keens.
squirming when you rub at him in a way that makes his orgasm speed up.
"please, c-can i? please p-please mmh-" he's begging. holding out till you give him your permission.
what a good boy, you thought. you wanted to make him yours. and he wanted to be yours.
"cream all over doll"
and he's cumming. melting into you. no longer able to hold himself up. you help him ride it out. not pulling out. instead letting him stick close to you.
"w-want you as my...wife" he mumbles, lifting his head up. moaning when you cup his face.
kissing him with an intensity that makes his heart race. 
.
.
"stop being a fucking brat" minho yells harshly. getting up to walk towards the other. hyunjin throws the book on the floor, standing up.
"you probably slept with jisung" he says. poking a finger at minho.
"Never. and you. you kept flirting with seungmin" 
snapping you out of your thoughts. you take off your headphones. realising that if you hadn't at that moment, the two of them would have started to fight physically.
"go fuck yourself!" is what hyunjin shouts back, storming into another room.
maybe it was a bad idea to bring them both here. to your apartment.
"yeah ill fuck you instead" and that sends a sinful thought in your mind.
what if.
just what if. sex was the solution.
to bring them closer. to make them forget about their husbands. instead make them grow closer.
and realise.
"minho please" you ask, straddling him to keep him from running away. he refuses to look you in the eye. "hyunjin is going through a lot right now-"
"so am i. its always hyunjin this hyunjin that. what about me"
"listen to me." your tone is firm. one thing you hate is getting cut off midway while talking. and minho shuts up. because he knows.
"eat him out" in any other situation you'd be laughing at his expression. he looked like one of those bewildered kittens. his immediate response is a no. and there is a couple minutes of silence before.
"w-why?" he asks. but you don't feel like explaining. so you ask him to trust you fully on this.
when you walk into the room. hyunjin is sulking in the pillows. face completely hidden.
.
"aah" minho huffs out, as hyunjin bucks his hips at his teasing. tongue laving into his warm cunt.
filthy lewd sounds filling your ears. you stand behind minho. sliding your fingers into him. taking him by surprise.
"bet your husbands were never this good"
its a casual statement. but the reaction it gives you is enough. the realisation setting in. the compromising positions. the fact that they were doing this.
"the two of you are beautiful. just tainted by this horrible world"
minho whines when you take your digits out. and hyunjin starts tearing up again. 
you're ready to comfort him but minho is quicker. moving away to clamber over him. holding his shaky hand.
"don't cry doll shhh" gently pushing his hair away from his face.
hyunjin is taken aback by the sudden kind gesture.
minho and him were always a bit...awkward. and there was always this lingering tension between them.
And when they found you. it had strengthened. you had made them realise they were loved. they deserved to be loved. they loved you. and you loved them. regardless of everything they were going through.
.
.
.
and maybe you end up fucking hyunjin in doggy style.
overstimulating his tight little pussy while he's gasping and struggling to eat out his beloved minho.
.
.
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halcyone-of-the-sea · 6 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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poisonlove · 5 months
Text
I NEED YOU | j.o
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part 1
This is the second part, I hope you like it
I turn the letter in my hands again, biting my lower lip thoughtfully.
I was sitting on the bleachers of the school gym, watching our basketball team, the Tigers, practice. Despite being physically present, my mind was consumed by the words of that letter, slowly gnawing at me with the agony of curiosity. I'm really trying to stay focused, to cheer for the impressive baskets, step-backs, or three-pointers, but my head feels disconnected from my body.
"Come on!" Isaac shouts after making yet another successful shot. "Did you see that shot?" he asks from a distance, giving me a proud smile. I give him a thumbs up, signaling that I witnessed his shot, and the dark-haired boy smiles broadly, wiping sweat from his forehead.
Isaac turns around, and I catch a glimpse of the number 10 on the back of his jersey.
My eyes return to the letter in my hands, my thumb gliding over the paper.
"My brother is a true idiot," a feminine voice exclaims suddenly. I redirect my attention to the sound of the voice and smile when I see Jenna Ortega standing on the steps near me. Her brown eyes scrutinize me with amusement, a small smile painted on her lips.
I raise an eyebrow in confusion, noticing the two bottles of peach tea she holds.
"Isaac can be an idiot... but he's really good at basketball," I remark, stealing a quick glance at the mentioned boy, smiling as he skillfully dribbles the ball. "I understand," Jenna murmurs calmly, walking over to stand in front of me. "Can I sit?" she asks timidly, seeking unnecessary permission.
"Yes, of course," I murmur quickly, watching with the corner of my eye Jenna's movements.
Jenna raises the corners of her lips in a smile, sitting next to me. The scent of her fragrance wafts into my nostrils, making me sigh at how delightful it is.
"Do you want one?" she asks, offering me a peach tea bottle. "Yes, please," I reply with a polite smile, reaching out to take the refreshing drink. Our fingers brush, and instinctively, I lift my gaze to her eyes, seeing Jenna doing the same. Her doe-like brown eyes intensely lock onto mine through her long lashes, almost sending shivers down my spine with the intensity.
I avert my gaze, clearing my throat.
"I didn't ask if you wanted this because I know you don't like lemon," she innocently murmurs, almost stiffening as she realizes what she said. "How do you know?" I ask with genuine interest, taking a sip of the refreshing beverage.
"When you come to our house, you've said it several times to Isaac," Jenna says, and I look at her with a raised eyebrow, noticing her slight nervous movements.
"Oh, right," I reply, realizing. It doesn't seem too strange that Jenna knows such a thing; after all, I have to remind myself that Isaac's house is hers too. "Anyway, thanks anyway... but what are you doing here? I don't want to kick you out, of course, but you've never come to the practices," I ask curiously, and Jenna looks at me carefully while taking a sip of her tea.
My eyes immediately focus on her lips, seeing how the dimple on her cheeks becomes more pronounced as her lips curl to quench her thirst. Her eyes don't stray from mine, as if she wants to imprint me in her mind.
"Oh, I just promised my brother that if he got a B in math, I would come to see him," she says with an indifferent shrug.
I smile shyly.
"Oh, okay... it's also strange for me that he made it," I say jokingly, and Jenna smiles widely, her eyes sparkling.
"Yeah, I made the bet knowing he wouldn't, but here I am," Jenna says, smiling, directing her gaze to my hands.
She absentmindedly bites her lower lip, almost thoughtfully. "Is that a letter?" she asks with curiosity. I look at the letter in my hands that I had completely forgotten I still had, talking with Jenna distracted me. "Oh, yes, nothing important," I say without thinking too much, putting the letter in my pocket.
"Mmmh... if you say so," she says with a small smile on her lips, sparkling eyes... of I don't really know what. "And tell me... why are you here... because..." Jenna starts innocently, playing with the edges of her red and black checkered shirt. "Because you like my brother?" she timidly concludes, looking attentively at a thread of her ripped jeans, twirling her finger around it.
I almost spit out the tea I was drinking.
"What? No, no," I quickly say, blushing with embarrassment. "Misery, no," I quickly conclude, looking at Jenna with flushed cheeks.
"Mmmh..." she says unconvinced.
"Do you know that I like peach tea, and you don't know that I'm a lesbian?" I ask with a amused tone, and Jenna lightly bites her lower lip with amusement. "I don't know," she says shrugging indifferently, looking at me with a small smile.
This girl is really... unique.
(...)
"Sign! Sign against domestic violence!" I exclaim loudly, vehemently displaying the document I had in my hands, trying to get some female signatures.
After showing the letter to my best friend Sierra three weeks ago, we tried to come up with a plan to gather more clues about who might be the mysterious girl who wrote that letter for me. Besides the neat handwriting, we had noticed that she wrote the letter "E" in a very peculiar way, almost doing it backward.
"No, Sierra, it's not working," I mutter exasperatedly, looking at my best friend. "No one is signing... and as worrisome as it may be, we still get no results," I say, nervously biting my lower lip.
Sierra sighs and also puts the document down, looking at me with eyes sparkling with curiosity.
"I've got an idea," she says, smiling widely, showing all 32 teeth. "Unfortunately, teenagers are too stupid to understand their rights... but there must be something that can grab their attention," she says, smiling broadly. "What is it?" I ask with curiosity.
"Votes for the dance," she says innocently.
Sierra opens her backpack and looks for something. Once found, she pulls out a huge stack of papers. "I had thought of a plan B," she says, waving the papers with pride.
I smile at her relatively brilliant idea. "You're a genius," I say sincerely. "You're truly amazing," I conclude with a huge smile on my face.
"I'll take care of the classes over there," she says, pointing to the left corridor. "I'll handle that," I say, smiling slightly and pointing to the right one.
"Girls, I'm here too!" Melissa intervenes with an offended tone. "Right, you take care of the upper floor," I say to my sister, winking, and she sticks her tongue out at me.
Once the tasks are assigned, we start the plan.
I approach the door of the 3A class with my heart pounding in my chest. Tension builds up as I raise my hand to knock, the sound echoing in the quiet corridor, disrupting the tranquil rhythm of the lesson inside.
The wood responds under my knuckles, a dull noise that captures everyone's attention. Curious glances from students focus on me, and the teacher watches me with an inquisitive look.
"Come in," the teacher says with curiosity, placing the pen on the desk.
"Excuse the disturbance," I say nervously, my eyes scanning the faces of the students, and I notice Jenna Ortega at the back of the classroom. The girl doesn't take her eyes off me.
"On behalf of the principal, I've come to collect signatures for the dance," I say, trying to convey sincerity in my voice.
The teacher blinks with surprise. "Oh, yes, proceed," he says, smiling, sitting down at the desk. The tension dissipates slightly, but I still feel the curious stares of the students as I approach to collect the signatures.
I distribute some sheets carefully, watching the students start signing with a smile on their faces. The initial tension gradually dissolves, replaced by a more relaxed atmosphere as students exchange some light comments about the upcoming dance.
Jenna Ortega, from her corner at the back of the classroom, lifts her gaze from the paper to fixate on me again.
"So, who's going to the dance?" I ask with an encouraging smile, trying to engage the students.
A guy raises his hand. "My girlfriend and I will definitely be there!"
Another voice chimes in, "It's always fun, count us in!"
Jenna, still with her eyes on me, nods, "Count me in too, it'll be interesting."
The class seems to positively embrace the idea, and the teacher, observing the general enthusiasm, smiles satisfactorily. The signature collection proceeds smoothly, and as I retrieve the sheet from Jenna's desk, our eyes meet.
I immediately put the signed sheets into a folder, feeling the weight of responsibility decrease slightly. I walk purposefully towards another room, trying to maintain an air of confidence despite my mind still buzzing with the adrenaline from the situation.
(...)
"So, how did it go?" I ask with curiosity, biting my nail nervously.
I was in Isaac's room, pacing back and forth in the swimsuit and bikini top to cover my chest. He had invited me to a quiet day with friends by the pool.
"Sorry, but I found nothing," Sierra says with disappointment, sighing tiredly. "I read every 'E,' looking for that peculiarity, but really, I didn't find anything that matched it," she says with a discouraged tone.
"Me neither," my sister adds on the phone, disappointed.
"Okay, thanks anyway," I say with a sigh, putting two fingers on the bridge of my nose as a sign of concentration. "I'll take a look now," I bite my lower lip nervously, "before going to the pool," I conclude.
"Okay, let me know," Sierra says with curiosity. "We'll talk later, girls," I say, smiling slightly.
I end the call with a sigh, the phone slipping onto Isaac's bed as I sit down with dismay. I pull out the folder with the signatures from my corridor, my nervous fingers gripping the plastic edge.
Each page is a growing anxiety, each signature bringing me closer to the breaking point. Names slip under my fingers, and the sense of urgency pushes me to search more intensively. I delve even deeper into the search, scrutinizing each sheet with almost obsessive precision. The tension reflects on my hands, flipping through documents, notes, and signatures with an almost manic focus.
The feeling of despair grows as possibilities seem to slip through my fingers. I flip through pages and pages, searching for that unmistakable backward "E." With every seemingly promising signature, my heart races, only to be followed by disappointment when it's not the right one. Doubt creeps in, fearing that the answer might elude me once again.
Then, among the pages, I spot that distinctive signature. A closer look, a comparison with other handwriting samples, and suddenly realization strikes like lightning. Jenna Ortega. A mix of dismay and relief washes over me as I understand that the solution was in front of me all along.
I'm not sure how to take this revelation, whether to be happy for solving the mystery or excited that my friend's sister had such intense thoughts about me. Imagining Jenna moaning my name sends a shiver down my spine, a fire igniting in my lower abdomen.
I had always thought Jenna was sexy, but thinking about what hides behind that innocent face...
I bite my lower lip with mischief.
A knock on the door distracts me from my thoughts.
"Come in," I mutter absentmindedly, my voice strangely hoarse. My eyes watch with curiosity as the door opens slowly, revealing Jenna Ortega behind it. "Isaac asked me to come get you," she says, smiling broadly.
My eyes slowly traverse her body, lingering on her toned legs exposed by the terribly short shorts and the white top she's wearing, with the word Anonymous printed on it in bold letters. I smile widely at the detail I can now catch and get up from Isaac's bed.
Jenna lifts her chin and looks at me curiously as I approach her. Her hair is damp, probably from being in the pool in these hours. "Y-yeah... I'm coming. I was just checking something," I say, smiling slightly, looking at Jenna with intensity.
Jenna's eyes sparkle as she notices my gaze on them, and a smile spreads across her lips. She timidly assesses my state, looking at me from head to toe with inquisitive eyes.
"If only you had told me earlier..." I say with a serious tone, my voice dropping terribly. I bite my lower lip with mischief and lift my hand to place it on Jenna's cheek. "Wh-what?" Jenna asks nervously, stammering.
Jenna closes her eyes at the touch of my hand, leaning into my touch.
"What you wanted," I exclaim absentmindedly, my throat dry from nervousness. I timidly run my thumb along Jenna's jaw, brushing against her lips.
Jenna sighs loudly.
"Did you get it?" she asks curiously, raising her hand to place it on mine.
"You had it written on your shirt... took me a while, but I got it," I say playfully, and Jenna genuinely smiles, her brown eyes piercing my soul.
"How?" she asks with curiosity, intertwining her fingers with mine, guiding them down her body, stopping on her buttocks.
"You write the letter 'E' in a strange way," I say playfully, caressing Jenna timidly.
"Mmmh..." she murmurs, probably not hearing what I said. Jenna wraps her arms around my neck, playing with my hair. "You know..." I start, closing my eyes for her gentle touch.
"What?" Jenna looks at me seriously, eyes hooded with excitement.
I lean in and timidly unite my lips with hers, sighing immediately after the contact. Jenna moans into my mouth, moving her lips against mine, increasing the intensity of the kiss. My hands grip her exposed skin more tightly, making her shiver slightly.
I break the kiss and place my lips on her neck, sinking my teeth into her flesh. Jenna moans even more, and I smile at the enchanting sound. With my tongue, I pass over the skin I just bit, trying to alleviate the pain, and then start running it along the line of her neck until I reach her earlobe.
"If you wanted me to fuck you, you just had to ask," I say hoarsely, squeezing her buttocks, causing her to groan. "The idea crossed my mind when I saw you passing by my house half-naked," I say sincerely.
"I thought you hadn't noticed me," Jenna says in a whisper. "No, I did... just that, not having ever talked to you, I didn't want to ruin things. After all, I only knew you by sight," I admit with a stifled laugh, feeling Jenna's fingers resting on my stomach.
"In a way, you're right," Jenna says breathlessly. "You talk too much," she murmurs with a smile on her lips, leaning in and joining our lips in a quick movement.
It seems the atmosphere has become heated in this room.
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bluerosefox · 1 year
Text
Foreboding Words of Warnings
..... I had another idea that I wanna share. Going to be quick cause I got stuff to do today.
"This, Batman. Is a list of names and ages of people who once were upon the living, who died by the hands of Joker.... they are also the ones that are demanding his death and soul ripped into nothingness so they won't suffer his ghost should he become one...." the young looking King said, his voice hard like unmoving stone, his finger tapping against the open long glowing scroll sitting on top of the table "The very dead are demanding their justice Batman. My people, my subjects, my kind want to finally end that psychopath since they now have a King that is willing to listen to them."
Batman opened his mouth, trying to come up with words to counter argue that killing was wrong, he did his best to ignore the names, the ages (a cluster of children ages ranging from babies to seventeen year olds were together on the list) but was cut off by King Phantom.
"I'm not asking permission Batman, this is merely a formality and a warning for what's to come. Everyone and everything ends and enters my domain eventually, and from there their souls are judged. So before you say I have no right to be doing this, understand that EVERYONE will be mine eventually whether they like it or not.... Although never once has so many ghosts demanded judging on a living soul all at once. I can not ignore this, even my own council agreed to the demands once I brought this matter to them." Phantom said, his glowing green eyes staring him down and everyone in the room shivered (both internally and a tiny bit outwardly) as if they had been dunked in cold ice water. The light from his flaming crown seemed to be messing with the shadows around it in the cave sending a sense of foreboding at them. "You have twenty-four hours to bring Joker to me before I send my knights to find him and drag him into my Realm. I would rather not cause mass panic among the living should they see them however hence why I came here to speak in private with you about this matter before we do."
The room was silent after that, everyone trying to wrap their heads around what was going to happen, permission or not. And trying not to freak out over the existence of ghosts being a thing... and that they had a King in the afterlife.
"Question King Kid. Do you need to be fully dead to sign that thing or can someone whose been dead and got better add their name to it?" Jason finally asked from his spot, fully ready to sign his own name on the damn thing if it meant finally getting rid of the Joker for good in this life. And for the afterlife as well. He refused to let Joker's victims and himself should he join them in the ghostly afterlife suffer seeing that crazed clown again.
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kanmom51 · 14 days
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https://twitter.com/parkjmwins/status/1782358915939774874
Idk whether you will even answer this ask or will block me but this is exactly why JK had similar concept pics like Jimin. Jikookers made it to be romantic while Fandom made it to a joke 'JK always copy Jimin' (ofcourse). I've seen you making multiple posts about Jikook concept pics being match is a proof of them being a couple when in reality Hybe don't even take permission of original artist before using their ideas for another. One hybe label just got into trouble for copying newjeans and according to CEO min heejin it was BANG SHIHYUK who wanted to copy newjeans to create a second version of them through illit. And guess what he made sure illit gets 10x more success than newjeans, a 2 day song was already charting in different charts including hot 100. The same bang shihyuk who ignored every bit of Jimin's success but shamelessly copied his ideas and visions of concept pics for another favorite member. He shamelessly asks staffs to copy original ideas of artists who created them and use them for a cheap version of the said artist, Newjeans and Jimin are just examples.
Was it JK's fault ? Not necessarily but unlike rookie Illit he had power and capability to make his own decisions and use his own visions instead of doing what he was asked to do by the staff (his words) but he didn't and sat comfortably while using another person's hardwork. If you still think those similarities were because they were couple then idk what to say because in that logic Newjeans girls and Illit girls are dating.
Talk about TikTok generation ask.
Linking me to a tweet that has zero actual information and/or proper discussion, just stating a fact that isn't necessarily even a fact. Ignoring the full picture (like y'all do when it comes to Jikook as well, btw).
And I also find it so so funny how you are basically hanging your all on something that a very problematic figure within the Kpop industry is claiming, all to try and deflect from despicable behaviour she's being accused of, including using and revealing private info of Hybe idols obtained in illegal and despicable manors, perhaps including having to do with certain private info leaking of certain BTS members (including the one person that you so vehemently claim to love and stand in defense of).
You think that by sending me this link you are proving something?
You say that you read through my posts. Well, obviously you've missed those many posts I've written explaining how JM and JK being a couple can be deducted not from one action or one behaviour alone, but the combination of many many actions or behaviours. A puzzle built of not 10 or 50 or 100 pieces, but one built of so many many more.
I find it funny how with everything that has been going on with JM and JK you guys are still at this.
We're back to JK copying JM.
Like seriously.
Like even if the whole NJ Illit thing was true there was some kind of a comparison to be made with these two men.
Like JK, who's album concept is 180 degrees different than JM's doesn't have stylists at his beck and call to create a concept that isn't a full on copy of JM's. Right down to the studs and colours and minutiae details of some of the outfits.
Like if he did copy JM, that same scorned poor JM (that's how you guys love to portray him, as a damsel in distress awaiting you to swoop in and save him) CHOSE to fly to NY to be with JK and spend Silver day there with him, travel with him multiple times and spend his entire 18 months in the army with that awful copy cat JK.
Your ask tells me that you have zero understanding in human interactions and relationships. JM saying time and time again, JOKING time and time again, about JK copying him, it's a tease but also something that he LOVES. How he inspires JK, how JK perceives him as his catalyst.
But this here, the photo concepts and the whole of JK's wardrobe while promoting, claiming it's all about copying JM is just bull crap. This was planned. And it was planned by the two of them. It's not a coincidence that JM happens to wear the bottom part of a two piece outfit months before JK wears the top part of the same exact outfit.
And if we are talking about copying, is it the concept he's copying or is he so far gone that he's literally copying down to the smallest of details?
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Like seriously. You think that's about copying JM?
Or because it worked for JM so he thinks it will work for him? Literally same hairstyle rocking as JM had in Face? Cause why not use a concept that works? Seriously? JK's all "I should do this cause it worked for JM so it will work for me"?
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Was that what he was thinking when he rocked a highlight of JM's hair colour over the years? That the colour works for JM so I should have a strand of that colour in my hair as well, copying his success? Is that the theory you're working with?
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Or when JK wore the same jacket as JM on Valentines day, you know, in a clip that JM himself records and uploads, that JK also copying JM?
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Babe, this isn't just about the concept pics either. And it's not just about Face and Seven or Golden. Wearing the actual same black leather or leather-like pants just because he couldn't find any other pants? That level of copying? Or perhaps it wasn't about copying and more about mirroring.
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About "You are me I am you", which they have been screaming at the top of their lungs for years now!!!
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It amazes me how you have zero issue in taking an over decade long complex super close relationship (no matter how you perceive it they are super close) and simplifying it into "JK copied JM's concept because JM's concept worked for him", or to even compare whatever went on with JK and JM and those similarities to a claim made (by a disgruntled and caught red handed employee of Hybe) about one new GG copying concepts and whatever from a GG that's been around for 2 years now. No connection between them. No long term relationships between the groups. One group supposedly copying from another. Yeah, definitely the comparison needed to be made between that and Jikook's behaviours or decision making.
How infantile of you.
Oh and that paragraph of yours at the end. Laughable really.
Like I already said, go compare 2 GGs in two different companies to 2 men that have been close for over 10 years now. And let's also disregard the long history of those two doing the similar and same outfit (during official shoots, performances etc, or during their free time) thing and look at this one single concept.
Probably styled (funny how the styling seems to be similar for years now on many occasions, and just with the two of them)
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Not styled.
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These are just examples of MANY MORE instances.
Oh, and I suggest you go read this post too. Not mine, but recently written and oh so relevant to the conversation.
I can't help but wonder how different your pov would have been if one of those two young men was a female. Just thought I would throw that in here too.
But I gotta give you an A for persistence. You guys, you never give up, do you? No matter what JK and JM will throw at you, you will find a way to twist it around to fit your narratives. I guess you also think that JM was forced into enlistment with JK, ah? And their trips together and the content that will drop, also forced on him? I guess him saying otherwise isn't enough to convince you guys either, right? I love the way how you guys are so intrenched in your belief of victimhood that you don't even listen to what JM himself tells you. You love him so much that basically call him a liar. Good for yous I guess.
So, to clarify my answer to you, just in case it wasn't as clear as day already...
You do you, cause nothing I tell you, or show you, or you know what? Nothing that even JM himself will tell you or show you will satisfy you. Because you are living in a self built fantasy of what and who JM is and what and who those that surround him are, all to fit that narrative of yours in which he needs you guys as his saviours and knights in shining armour to swoop in and save him from the big bad JK.
One more thing.
JM's Face was a masterpiece.
We all agree on that. JK included.
He adores JM, he's his no. 1 fan and he's been showing us this throughout 2023.
JK is not a person that would callously copy a concept used by a bandmate just because it succeeded for his bandmate and might work for him too.
Let alone from JM.
His person.
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Not even if, as you put it, he was told to do so by the powers at be (which yeah, he'd tell to go shove it up their asses if they ever did 'tell' him to do that btw, and they wouldn't do it anyway seeing that they know that would be his exact reaction).
So, no.
That is my answer to you.
Just a whole big fat NOPE.
No to copying. And surprisingly no to blocking you.
Yet.
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