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halcyone-of-the-sea · 1 year

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Cheating Heart

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.

—

“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

hogwartsfirebolt · 2 months

Text

the game’s the game

“What was going through your mind when you spotted the Snitch?”

Two camera shutters go off like lighting, but Draco doesn’t blink. It’s almost the end of the season, and he’s done a press conference every week. He’s used to them.

“Fucking finally,” he answers, and the journalists all laugh. They think he’s joking, and he can already imagine the articles they’ll publish tomorrow pronouncing him cheeky and funny, but he means it wholeheartedly. Six hours in the sky, drenched all the way through his pants in rainwater, and facing the very best player in the league? He had half a mind to jump off his broom if only to have the game end somehow.

“This is the second time you face PU and well, Harry Potter, this season,” says another reporter, a young, pretty woman with her hair pinned up and a reverent tone when she speaks Potter’s name. Like everyone. “Are you expecting to encounter him at this year’s Cup? And if so, how does that make you feel?”

Draco breathes out hard through his nose. Across the room from him, sitting at his own table against the wall opposite, Potter’s doing his own press conference. He’s wearing a hat backwards, the light blue of his team hoodie contrasting with his golden-warm skin tone. He has a hand to his chin, rubbing his short beard in thought at some question he’s being asked. Probably about just how sweet it had been to snatch that Snitch right from under Draco’s nose. He’s earnest and so gorgeous Draco can’t stand the sight of him.

“The game is the game,” Harry’s voice carries, clear and chesty, deeply masculine as he says his favorite little quote that means absolutely nothing and that fans have been yelling and tattooing on their bodies the whole season. “We don’t take any victory for granted. Coach has been running us to the ground, she won’t stop until we have that trophy in Puddlemere, and we’re doing our best to make her proud.”

“Oh, I’m certain we’ll face them at the Cup,” is what Draco answers at last. “Honestly? I think no other team comes even close. We’ll face them, and then we’ll bring the Cup home to Appleby. As Potter himself likes to say, the game is the game.”

All the cameras around him go off, the sound of Quick-Quills scrabbling and the reporters’ scandalized gasps at his use of Potter’s quote. He grins, puts his olive green Arrows cap on and stands to leave. He needs a fucking shower.

Later on, he’s sprawled on his hotel room couch, drying his hair with a towel and watching a replay of the game on the enormous television, making mental notes about his own flying, his mistakes, the times he dove too soon or hovered too low. When the screen follows the blue jersey with POTTER 7 emblazoned across the back, he looks closely, trying to spot mistakes but knowing he won’t find any. Potter’s probably the best flier of the century, and Draco loves Quidditch too much to lie to himself about that.

He’s admiring one of Potter’s physics-defying feints when there’s a knock on his door. Immediately, his heart takes up a gallop, and he has to press a hand to the center of his chest with a frown.

“Calm the fuck down, Malfoy,” he mutters. It’s a disproportionate reaction and he’s irritated with himself for it. It’s not as though it’s the first time. Or the tenth.

He pauses the game with a flick of his wand and makes his way to the door, through the archway that separates the TV room from the kitchenette. A quick look at the archway across the suite to make sure the bedroom is as he left it, and he’s at the door, taking a deep breath.

Potter’s grin is huge when Draco opens. He’s foregone all his team outwear, and is now in a familiar, worn leather jacket and a black sweater. His hair is wet, as though he rushed after his shower so he could get here quicker. Draco opens his mouth to say something, but before he figures out what, Harry pushes inside, turns around and presses him against the door, big hands gentle on Draco’s waist. Draco’s heart hasn’t gotten the “this isn’t the first or tenth time this happens,” memo, and is still running a marathon inside his chest, so he says nothing.

There’s a plastic bag in Potter’s hands. Dinner, probably, he usually brings dinner when they meet after a game. His wide smile reveals white teeth, a crooked canine that Draco knows is a baby tooth that never loosened. Round, stylish glasses cover the most intoxicating green eyes Draco has ever seen, and they’re shining with tonight’s victory. And Draco might be — definitely is — the world’s sorest loser, but he’s also the world’s biggest slut for Quidditch excellence, and he has it right here, holding him against his hotel room door.

“The game is the game?” Harry asks, amused, already leaning in, the hand on Draco’s waist moving to wrap the whole way around him and pull him close.

“Just some stupid phrase I’ve heard from a dickhead,” Draco answers, but the words hold the shape of a smile and are uttered right into a kiss there at the end.

It’s always a race at the start. They're both high from the game, still in that mindset, and it’s a competition to see who can undress quicker, who can make the other harder, who can earn the first moan and coax the first orgasm of the night. But after that first one, after Draco’s jaw aches dully and Potter is softening between his legs, everything slows down a little. Potter helps him up and they share the tacos Potter brought, watching the last minutes of the game they played earlier with Draco’s legs up on Potter’s lap, where he’s massaging his knees, his quads, making sure he’s not achy from kneeling for him.

“I really fucked that one up,” Potter comments. His tiny self on the screen just pulled out of an impossible dive at what looks like a 90 degree angle. He sounds earnest, which is the only reason Draco isn’t kicking him right in his beautiful face.

“I hate you so much. Only you would call that a fuck up.”

Potter hums, his massaging hands moving from Draco’s calf to his heel, his thumb pressing into his sole. On the screen, tiny Draco swerves a Bludger aimed to his head, and his teammate Owen is flying to him to make sure he’s alright.

“That guy is so into you,” Potter points out.

“I know. We fucked all through rookie year.”

Potter turns to look at him so fast it must hurt his neck. Draco raises an eyebrow, confused at the strong reaction.

“What?”

“I — I don’t know,” Potter says, suddenly sheepish. His hands haven’t stopped moving over Draco’s foot. Potter’s skin is dark, but Draco can still make out the blush spreading across his cheekbones. “Isn’t it weird? He’s a teammate.”

There’s something he’s not saying. It’s evident in the way he bites his bottom lip, in the way he obviously wants to look away but is too ridiculously brave to actually do it. Draco’s heart thumps inside his chest, so hard he’s sure it must be audible to Harry too.

They’ve never named this thing between them. The first time they did it, after the quarter finals one year before, with Potter’s ill advised kiss that ended with them fucking in the showers of the stadium after Potter had wiped the damn dust with Draco on the pitch, they agreed to keep it quiet, and that was the last they discussed of it. It’s going on fourteen months since then, and they’ve done it at least once a month, when the league brings them to nearby towns, and sometimes when it doesn’t and they take a quick midnight Portkey to each other to blow off some steam.

Draco had never in his life been as well-fucked as he’s been this past year, and he definitely doesn’t want to lose it. Potter’s always been honest and open with him, vocal in bed about how much he wants him, filthy in his occasional text messages when they’re apart, but he’s never given any indication that he wants anything other than exactly what they have.

“It’s not weird,” Draco says slowly, unsure of what to think of this exchange. “We stopped a while ago. I was clear that I didn’t want — that I’d rather we stayed friends and teammates, without any complications.”

“Right,” Potter says. He sounds relieved, and Draco feels like he’s three steps behind the conversation they’re having. He’s about to ask, but Potter’s fingers on his calf smooth over an old knot and he groans instead, letting his head fall back onto the couch cushion.

“That feels great,” he says, and Potter repeats the motion.

“Yeah. I think you pulled it when you made that X turn.”

The turn he made to try to beat him to the Snitch, he doesn’t say. How he had enough awareness to know Draco attempted it while diving for the Snitch himself is beyond comprehension, but Draco has long accepted that Potter is simply insane about the game. He notices everything, considers everything, takes every risk. If he weren’t a player himself, Draco knows he would be following Puddlemere and Harry wherever they played for the entire season, wearing a pale blue jersey with the number 7 on it.

“Probably,” Draco says, closing his eyes and groaning again when Harry keeps pressing the same point. After a moment, he feels something softer brushing his calf, and opens his eyes to find Harry bent over his leg, kissing a path up towards his knee. He can’t help the embarrassing little sound he makes, and Harry’s laugh is a puff against his skin as he keeps moving up, breath warm on the wet trail of his kisses up Draco’s thigh. In the background, the presenters are going crazy over a feint Harry pulled, the sound of the audience carrying all through the stadium and out of the TV speakers.

Harry has made his way high up and is kissing Draco’s birthmark, a brown, apple-sized beauty mark an inch below his groin when he lifts his head to ask, “Why didn’t you want to?”

Draco can’t believe he’s using his mouth to speak at that moment. He licks his lips, trying to make sense of the question.

“What? What are you even — ?” He tries to sit up a little, but Harry moves over him instead so they’re eye-level without Draco having to move at all.

“With Caddell. Why didn’t you want to keep seeing him?”

“Owen? Why the fuck are we talking about —,” Draco lets his head drop down onto the cushions again, a sigh punched out of him. Harry takes pity and leans forward to kiss him, lips soft over Draco’s, knowing exactly how to coax his kisses out of him the way he likes best.

“I just want to know,” Harry whispers against his lips. He’s breathless just from touching Draco, from rubbing his legs, from kissing him. Fuck, this is insane.

“I like him, but it wasn’t very exciting.” Draco says. He closes his eyes as Harry begins to kiss down his neck, and tries to really think about it, because he’s not even sure himself. “I wasn’t willing to risk our teamwork when what we had wasn’t even that … electric. I don’t know. This sounds insane.”

Harry shakes his head, his beard rubbing against Draco’s collarbone. “It doesn’t. I get it.” He bites on the delicate skin connecting neck and shoulder, licks a path down his chest. “I get electric.”

“Fuck yes you do,” Draco says, nonsensical, but he feels he can’t be blamed when Harry is brushing his lips over his nipples, broad hands moving around Draco’s body to secure a grip over his ass.

“Is this?” Harry asks, mouth nearing the V of Draco’s hips, the edge of the trail of hair leading to his crotch. “Electric?”

Draco swears, fingers running through Harry’s hair and finding a grip, hard. “If you don’t put your mouth on me right now I swear I — yes.”

He spreads his thighs to accommodate Harry between them, one hand gripping Harry’s hair and the other curled around the cushion over his head. It is electric, the way Harry knows exactly which buttons to push, sliding a finger inside him while keeping him on his tongue. He’s a prodigy in this too, the star player who knows every move in the playbook that is Draco’s body.

It feels like no time at all, no effort at all before Harry is pulling back, dragging Draco closer by the waist and working himself inside. The feel of it, the sound of them together, the look into Harry’s open gaze, his sweat dripping onto Draco’s chest and his hands underneath Draco’s back, holding him, pulling him onto him, have Draco nearing release almost too fast for his liking, but the night is young and it’s been so long that he lets himself go, a cord snapping in his core, eyes open as he watches Harry watch him come apart.

“Come on,” he says once he’s come down, lifting his hips, shifting his weight onto his shoulders. “Show me what you got, Potter.”

Harry groans and leans forward, kisses Draco’s jaw and his neck, and drives his hips faster. Draco wraps his arms around Harry’s back, moves with him as much as he can in the tight embrace, and remains close as Harry meets his own peak and tumbles down the edge.

They lie together for a couple minutes afterwards, panting into each other’s skins, basking in the afterglow.

“Some pro-athletes. We have the stamina of two eighteen year old virgins,” Draco mutters into Harry’s hair after a while, and feels Harry’s chest rumble with his laughter. The room is cast in the warm glow of the foot-lamp that stands beside the sofa they just fucked in, exactly like two eighteen year old virgins having the chance to touch for the first time in their lives.

Harry always goes boneless and slow after a good lay, so Draco eases him off his body with tenderness, a gentle hand to Harry’s chest, followed by a kiss.

“Let's go to bed, yeah?” He whispers.

Harry groans. “I don’t want to move.”

“That’s too bad, because I’m exhausted and I’m going to bed. Some idiot drove me to the ground on the pitch today.”

He stands up and shakes out his legs, testing the soreness of his muscles. There’ll be an ache tomorrow, but nothing he can’t handle.

Despite his complaint, Harry is already standing up too, coming up behind Draco, a hand finding its way to the flat of his belly, his forehead on Draco’s shoulder as though he can’t bear not to touch him for even a second.

“Bed it is,” he declares against the skin of Draco’s shoulder, sounding halfway asleep already. Draco huffs a laugh and pulls him towards the bedroom, pausing at the kitchenette to grab two glasses of water that he watches Harry drink in three gulps, a couple drops sliding down the sides of his mouth, into his beard and down his neck, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

“What?” He asks when he catches Draco watching him, and Draco shakes his head and pulls him to bed. He’s so handsome it’s genuinely upsetting sometimes. Draco thinks he’d throw a tantrum about it daily if it weren’t for the fact that he gets to touch him.

They try their best, but they don’t manage a second round before their eyes fall shut, tucked into each other like two hands cupped under a stream of water, tumbling into a satisfied, exhausted sleep.

Harry wakes him with a kiss before daybreak, the last of the night chilling the room and puckering Draco’s skin.

“Do you have to go already?” Draco asks, one eye still closed and a hand curled possessively around Harry’s bicep, not entirely on purpose.

Harry shakes his head, kisses him again with a gentleness that is meant to go nowhere but extend this kiss, warm and sweet.

“I thought we could talk.”

Draco is nodding before fully grasping the meaning, but even once he does he’s not tempted to back away. Must be the night, still cocooning them, must be Harry’s arms around him that are making him brave, but he’s not nervous anymore, not now that he’s remembered what they’re like, together.

“It is electric,” he says, suspecting that’s what Harry wants to talk about. “It’s always electric with you.”

The smile blooms slowly, lighting up Harry’s face from within, his beautiful eyes, unhidden this early in the morning, his glasses still on the bedside table. Harry sits up a little, clears his throat. It seems like he’s been gearing up for this, he’s squaring his shoulders the way he does before trying a dangerous feint, before performing a play that will have Draco biting dust. This insane, wonder of an athlete. Draco forces himself to shake the last of the sleep away, to focus on him, on what he wants to say.

“I know that … so many of us want you,” Harry starts. “On your team, on mine, the whole league, actually. But I —”

He looks like he’s stating an absolute truth, like he has irrefutable proof, and Draco is taken aback. He knows some of the guys find him attractive, but that’s not the same as being wanted. He shakes his head. “What? Where did you get that?”

“I’ve talked about it with the guys, but that’s not the point,” he adds hurriedly when he sees his eyes widen. Draco hasn’t said a word to anyone, not out of shame, but out of sureness that they were sneaking around, that they were making it a point to hide. Apparently, he was wrong. Harry continues, “What I want to say is … I know we’ve not agreed on anything, that you’re free to want others, be with whoever you want to be with. I thought that you knew where I stood, that if you weren’t saying anything it was because you didn’t want the same thing I did, but it’s been brought to my attention that if I’ve not made an honest offer, I can’t assume you’re saying no.”

Draco’s heart is hammering inside his chest, inside his throat. He doesn’t want to jump to conclusions, but if he’s right, it seems Harry is saying …

“I don’t want this to be a once a month thing. I want to bring you home, I want you to meet my family, and I want the guys to know that I’m saying no to all the people they set me up with because I’m taken and completely uninterested in anyone else. Are you … is that something you want, too? I know you might have better offers, but I – ”

The covers crinkle under Draco’s knees as he sits up, throws a leg over Harry’s body so he can fully sit on his lap and brings him forward by the neck.

“You beautiful idiot. What could be a better offer? Why would I care about any other offers when I have the best one right here?”

They’re kissing, and Harry’s gasping, and Draco’s frenzied heart pounds against his sternum. He nods into the kiss, feels dizzy with how much he wants what’s being offered. Fuck. There’s nothing he wants more.

Harry pulls back a little, whispers: “Does this mean we’re — ?”

“Yes, fuck. It’s — The game’s the game.”

“What — That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Shut up. It’s your quote.”

Then they’re laughing into a new kiss, and it’s not the first, or even the tenth time they’re together like this, but Draco’s heart still goes crazy for this man, for his unlimited talent, his openness, his electric company. Quarter finals are coming up, then semis, then they might meet again on the pitch and Draco might lose and throw a strop and want to tear the hair out of his head over the beautiful Quidditch Harry plays, and then they’ll get to go home and celebrate a victory. No matter who takes the trophy. That’ll be the game.

Read On Ao3

#quidditch rivals but ohh they’re secret lovers bet NOBODY saw that coming #kinda unsure about the tone shift at the end but ITS LATE I’m sorry ok #I just wanted earnest Harry which is MY FAVORITW THING #drarry #drarry fic #Draco Malfoy #Harry Potter #my writing #mywriting

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gyuswhore · 7 months

Text

Hits Different (...'cause it's you) [teaser]

«« I trace the evidence, make it make some sense Why the wound is still bleedin' »»

READ FULL FIC HERE!

PAIRING: kim mingyu x reader

SYNOPSIS: Kim Mingyu was the first friend your brother had brought home for dinner. Fast forward a couple years, his toothy smile and pierced ears would wedge their way into a permanent place in your heart. Nail to a coffin, never to escape.

or;

in which you get rejected by the only boy you've ever loved; a rejection you can't quite shake off.

GENRES: based off of 'Hits Different' by Taylor Swift, brother's best friend!au, brother!seokmin, fluff, angst, smut (none in teaser) [MINORS DNI], friends(?) to lovers, university!au.

PLAYLIST: right here!

WORD COUNT: est. 25k

WORD COUNT [teaser]: ~820

RELEASE DATE: est. october 2nd 2023

!PLEASE SEND AN ASK TO BE ADDED TO THE TAGLIST (ageless blogs WILL NOT BE ADDED)!

masterlist

WARNINGS [!is subject to change upon publishing of the full fic!]: slowburn, mingyus a bit of an airhead and an ass, reader has a hard time managing her feelings, lots of frustrated tears, one sided pining, user toruro x minghao make an appearance, swearing, there's another woman (gasp,,,,,but shes cool so), Nayeon is a darling, Seungcheol is kinda annoying here but we love him, (smut tags in the full fic)

[A/N]: I worked rlly hard on the banner pls look at it ‼️ enjoy hehe also this is probably gonna be way more than 25k but I supposed its better than overshooting

teaser under the cut!

It’s a black sedan that rolls up next to you, slower than what’s considered a normal speed on an empty street. It honks and you nearly halt, owing to the shake that passes through your knees. It honks again, and you can’t help but look to the side to find a window rolled down.

Mingyu sits on the driver’s seat, leaning over to the empty passenger side to grab your attention.

“The Uber’s free! So is the driver,” he yells out the window. “Hop in.”

“I’m alright. I kinda wanna walk.” You shift your weight between your feet, the distance adding an awkward feel.

“Wasn’t asking. It’s the middle of the night, I’m not letting you walk alone.” As he speaks, another car passes from behind him, slowing down. You note the look the other driver is giving you through the window, and it’s enough to convince you to step into Mingyu’s car.

“I think we’re way past the point of formalities, don’t know why you hesitated.” He chuckles as he motions for you to click on your seatbelt. You fumble with it for a moment, his own fingers coming to the rescue to latch it on. You retract your fingers before they can brush with his own any further.

Settling into your seat, you choose to look forward as he picks up speed. “Uhm, just wanted to walk, it was nice outside.”

“Take someone with you next time, it’s nearly midnight,” he warns.

There’s a twinge of annoyance that emerges in the back of your mind for some reason, despite knowing full well that he was right. You just didn’t want to hear it from him.

It’s silent for a bit as the radio plays an uncharacteristically upbeat tune, prompting you to wonder if it was just you who felt the atmosphere pressing in on your chest.

“Did you not bring your car today?” he asks out of the blue, eyes remaining on the road as you glance up at him. One look at his side profile and you’re turning your gaze away.

“No, it’s at the workshop. I came with Nayeon.”

“Why didn’t you leave with her?”

“I…” You pause. “I told her I was gonna go with Seok.”

“Hm. That didn’t happen.”

“It’s like I said,” you mumble.

He hums again in response, dropping the subject.

“Listen, are you…are you okay?” he starts again and it has you looking back up at him.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” You try to hide the bitterness in your tone but it proves difficult.

“I couldn’t help but overhear but I was sitting right there. Hao was talking to Mika about something she’d said to you, about…” He trails off. “I mean, you looked a little upset, I just wanted to ask if you were okay.”

You bit your tongue. Hard.

He knew you were staring at him, he knew you weren’t over him. He knew you were still standing on the same square confinement from months ago. Never changed.

“I’m fine,” you reply, snappier than you had intended.

“Are you sure? I felt like I should’ve said something but Nayeon was right there so I thought…” He sounds unsure and when you see him look at you, with eyes filled with an emotion that makes you nearly gag, you almost lose it. You did not want him to pity you. Nor care for you; especially when it came from a place that nullifies your feelings. You didn’t want him to care for you for the sole reason that you were his best friend’s sister.

“Mingyu, I think it’s best if you drop it.”

“Of course. But it might help if you wanna, you know, feel your feelings.”

Fuck no, you weren’t crying in front of him. Not when you're sure he’s noticed the tear stains on your makeup.

“Mingyu, I said drop it. I don’t need your help, I don’t need to feel anything, I need you stop feeling like you’re obligated to care about me because you’re not.” The words come tumbling out before you can stop them, irritation laced in every snap and dent.

He says your name in an attempt to smooth you over. It only lands him in more trouble.

“No, listen, I get it. You’re uncomfortable about everything but you feel like you need to check up on me at the same time, and I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to worry about that. What happened, happened, and it’s my job to pick up the pieces because it’s my fault. You don’t need to meddle.” You’re breathing hard as you finish, finally settling back in your seat.

He’s already pulling up to your building, heat still penetrating the silence. You unbuckle your seatbelt, mumbling a thanks for the ride.

“Seok’s staying at Cheol’s tonight,” he calls out as you shuffle out the door. “Remember to lock the door.”

You stand sheepishly holding the open door as you nod quietly. “I’ll see you tomorrow for the shoot.”

1K notes · View notes

sameschmidtdiffname · 3 months

Text

Princess

Mike Schmidt x Female! Reader

Summary: You detest having a roommate. You enjoy cheap rent. One of these things is going to have to change at some point, and with the week you're having? There's only so long before people reach a breaking point.

Tags: Smut. Filthy smut. (This is the first smut I've published too, so enjoy that.) Enemies to lovers, mocking, Mike is so OoC at some parts you could really shove anyone into this role, I'm going to be so extremely for real. (I'm honestly just feral for the actor. Sorry.) Hate fucking, dirty talk, cursing, cucking(??), listening in, masturbating, dumbification, slight dacrophillia(??), Abby's out of the equation for this scenario. Imagine like, early 20s Mike, he's not caretaker yet. Praising, pet names (good girl, princess, whore, pretty girl), no use of Y/N. Dom! Mike, teasing Reader, Brat (??) Reader, phone sex, walking in on masturbation, walking in on sex, possessive! Mike, hickies/bite marks, finger sucking, hair pulling, slut shaming, probably missing some things imma be honest. Just assume this is depraved.

Notes: I'd like to apologize to God and Josh Hutcherson. This is filth and I recognize my eternal soul is indeed damned. Anyways, bone apple teet.

▪︎◇{¤♧■♧¤}◇▪︎

I didn't mind Mike when I met him, you know.

He's quiet. Shy. Keeps to himself. Those traits should make for a good roommate. If he'd kept his mess confined to his room, maybe the music that he blares just a little too loudly wouldn't be so headache inducing.

My fingers rap on the thin door, demanding his attention which is never given to me unless I make a production out of it. We both know that.

"Michael," I say.

Silence.

"Mike."

Nothing.

I open the door and there he is, peacefully asleep on his bed as the bass shakes the water in his glass. I sigh and click off the stereo, then turn to leave. It's incredible how quickly I hear him shift on the bed, scrambling to stand.

"The fuck?" He croaks, wiping sleep from his eyes.

"Your music was blaring. I already heard it from Mrs. Jones upstairs about you waking her kid up, I'm not dealing with that again," I say raising my hands up in the air defensively.

"I don't sleep well," he says.

"Neither does the baby," I say.

Mike rolls his eyes, turning the music back on and turning his back to me.

"Michael-"

"Don't call me that," he interrupts.

It's my turn to roll my eyes. "Schmidt, can you at least turn it down? I'm asking nicely," I say. He stands there for a moment and though I can't see his face, I know he's thinking.

Finally, with a sigh he says "Fine, princess."

"Don't call me that," I say. I hear a small huff of laughter from him and he turns to look at me.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Did I hit a nerve?" He asks with false sympathy.

"It's a simple request," I say. My eyes narrow at him in irritation.

"Which one?"

"Both."

We stand there for a moment, both of us sizing the other up, taking each other in.

"Fine."

With the agreement having been made, I turn to leave, shutting the door behind me.

Year long lease. Joy.

-Tuesday-

"Hurry up!" Yells Mike, pounding on the bathroom door.

"I'm fucken hurrying!" I yell back, my hands working as fast as they can to wash off my body. Late alarm, fever dreams causing me to wake in a pool of stinking sweat, and one bathroom make for a horrendous cocktail of repeated 'fuck you's through the cheap door.

"I'm gonna be late!" Mike yells.

"So am I, I'm sorry!"

There's a moment of long silence and I think maybe Mike has finally found a spot of pity, realizing that maybe we aren't enemies but simply humans who unfortunately have to coexist in this world together. Then the water turns freezing, and I realize I hate him.

"Michael!" I practically scream. Traces of soap still reside on my body, but the cold and my alarm both force me out. Angered and not thinking clearly, I wrap the towel around my dripping waist and swing the door open.

"Are you fucking happy?" I sneer, face inches from his.

His expression is initially satisfied, but as his eyes flicker downwards he and I both realize my mistake. His eyes widen, lingering for a moment on my bare chest as he processed what he was seeing, then returning to meet my glare.

"What?" I ask sharply. "You've never seen a pair before?"

He stammers. "I-I have."

"Don't act like it," I say. "Take a fucken photo, be the only pair you'll probably ever see in your life, dicksmack."

As though he remembers himself, his eyes narrow. "Move, princess."

I slam past him, walking quickly towards my room and slamming the door behind me.

"Don't wake the baby!" Mike mocks down the hall.

Oh, motherfucker. It is on.

-Wednesday-

It's hard to break a lease. It's harder when nothing as cheap exists in the area. This is a problem for both Mike and I. I know it's true for him because apparently even his bills are too troublesome to keep on the floor of his room. But despite his mess, it's him that comes barreling down the hall, bursting into my room with no warning.

"Jesus, Michael!" I start, spinning around in my chair. "Have you ever heard of knocking?"

"Have you ever heard of washing a dish?" He sneers. "It's not hard. My baby sister could do it."

"Oh, is she available? I'd love to see how she'd handle your laundry situation," I retort.

"Why is it impossible for you to actually wash something? You'll put water in it, let it soak. I respect that, but then you never come back to it. Do you enjoy flies? I think you enjoy flies," he says with hate dripping off of his words. I roll my eyes, but he's not entirely wrong either.

"Fine," I mutter. "I'll do the dishes. Sorry."

"See? Look at how hard that was, princess." He begins to turn away.

"Will you quit fucking calling me that?" I snap.

"I'm following our bargin. You're the one who slips first, princess," he says while laughing, raising his hands in defense.

A long moment passes, neither of us willing to back down.

"Do the dishes yourself," I say finally, turning back to the computer.

"Not my mess," he says.

"Too bad. I'm too delicate," I say with a faux breathiness to my voice. The door slams behind him, which has me instantly rising from my chair to race after him.

"Don't slam my door!" I say.

"You did it the other day!" He says, spinning around to face me and almost slipping on one of his shirts littering the hall. I can't help but smile at that.

"Problems?" I ask.

"Yeah, they exist in whatever demon spawned you," he hisses. His eyes catch on something though, narrowing as he leans slightly closer. "The fuck is on your neck?" He asks.

"The fuck you mean 'the fuck is on my neck?'" I ask.

"I mean you've got something on your neck," he says.

"No I don't," I say. "Move." I shove past him to enter the bathroom beside us, flicking on the light and feeling my irritation rise as he reaches to do the same thing simultaneously.

"See?" He says, pointing at a small, dark mark on my neck.

Fuck.

"I don't fucken know what that is," I lie, covering it with my hand.

"You liar, that's a hickey!" He says still pointing at it.

"Is not!"

"Is too. What, are you fucking some high-schooler?" He scoffs.

"Adults leave hickies too, Mike. It can be enjoyable. You'd know this if someone ever wanted to fuck you," I spit back.

"Who on earth would enjoy having sex with you?" He asks. "The only loads you leave attract flies I don't want to have to deal with come summer."

My jaw drops in shock.

"And the only loads you leave smell like menthols and depression!" I retort.

Staring. Always staring with this guy. Jaws clentched, eyes narrowed.

"Just don't bring this guy around here," he finally says. His voice is quieter but the edge is still there.

I blink. "What?"

"You heard me," he says. "I don't need to hear your shrill voice like that."

Am I imagining things or is he blushing? No, I'm definitely imagining things. It's the florescents.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" I taunt. The fuck kind of response was that?

His eyes widen slightly. "No," he says a little too quickly.

"What, you get one look at my tits and now you're thinking about that degenerate shit?" I press, stepping closer.

"I don't- this-" He's blundering. I've got him now, I've found his weak spot.

Without a word, I slip out of the bathroom and return to my room, shutting the door and beginning a plan that will guarantee I won't have to worry about being the roommate that breaks lease and looks for a new apartment.

-Thursday-

"Are you close, baby?" The sweet voice on the phone asks me. The battery on my toy is flashing, showing one of us needs to finish soon. And while I like Nick, there was just something lacking in him that kept me on this irritating edge, hiding my release from me.

"I'm close," I confirm, switching hands to try and hit a new angle. The video on the computer is doing nothing to help with this at all, and I'm so bored I'm tempted to just fake it and seal the deal.

The plan was simple. Establish dominance over my roommate via fucking a guy I'd met at some party the week before. Nick was an easy target, too busy thinking with his dick to question why I was suddenly insistent on him coming over. And to guarantee his presence at the apartment, I would have to put in work. Not that I wasn't fully uninterested. He was alright, I was single. Beneficial for everyone involved.

The vibrator finally found that sweet spot, the one that made me cry out softly into the receiver as my wrist pumped with newfound vigor.

"Close," I told Nick. "Isn't as good as you though."

Nick chuckles softly. "You're sweet," he says. Then he's prattling sweet praises, whimpering into the phone breathily along with me as I finally begin to tip over the edge, moaning loudly and clearly. It's my luck that Mike should be at work at this moment.

Should be.

Wasn't.

The door opens as Mike walks in, his mind obviously focused on something else but immediately taken aback at the sight of me sprawled upon the bed, legs open, toy in hand, Nick on phone, porn on computer. Shit.

"Jesus!" Mike shouts. "It's the middle of the day!"

"Get the fuck out!" I shout back, my voice less vicious than I'd like given that I was mid-ruined orgasm. Mike covers his eyes, trying to stumble out of the door without looking, muttering a dozen apologies a second before finally reaching and slamming the door shut behind him.

Nick and I are both silent for a long while, neither of us sure what to say.

"So... I'll see you tomorrow?" I ask finally.

"...yeah." He says. And with the click of my phone, the plan is solidified.

I don't see Mike that evening until about three hours later when he finally emerges from his room with pink cheeks and clothed in a large hoodie he seems to wish would swallow him whole.

"Hey," I say to him. I chew on my cheap food slowly, flipping through my novel at the cluttered table.

"Hi," he says quietly, not really making eye contact with me. He crosses to the cabinets, taking out a glass and filling it with water. We listen to the tap for a moment before I finally say "I didn't mean for you to see that."

His eyebrows scrunch in confusion. "I got that."

More silence. The tap shuts off and he leans against the sink, taking a long sip.

"So... hickey guy?" He finally asks. And I can't help the snort that escapes me.

"Nick," I say.

"And he's...?" Mike is testing the waters, that much is obvious.

"Canadian," I say.

Mike nods. Sip. Silence.

"Nick, from Canada," he says slowly.

"Yep," I say, popping the 'p.'

Mike looks at his drink in thought.

"So you're into Canadians," he finally says. I think for a moment.

"No," I say. I mark my book and close it. "Just bored."

"Just bored?" Mike asks.

"Just bored," I confirm.

Sip. Silence. Thinking.

"You... do that regularly?" He asks.

"I mean... I like sex," I say.

His cheeks redden at that, and he takes another sip as though to hide that.

"He's coming over tomorrow," I say casually. Mike's eyes dart to mine, dark and wide.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Another sip. He finishes his glass.

"Should I find plans for tomorrow?" He asks finally.

"No," I say a bit too quickly. Both of our cheeks redden at that. "I mean, we won't... shouldn't...." I don't know what I mean.

Mike stares at me thoughtfully for a moment then looks back to the glass in his hand.

"You're pretty loud, princess," he finally says quietly.

There's a new tension in the air. One that isn't brought on by hate or dirty dishes. One that I don't mind strangely.

"You could join us, if you'd like," I offer. Mike's grip on the glass tightens so suddenly I'm almost surprised it doesn't burst.

"I- I'm pretty sure I'd get in the way," he stammers. Then his eyes darken, a strange look in them. "Besides, I don't like being a whore."

This comment stings. Deeply.

"I'm not a whore," I say defensively.

"Oh?" Mike asks.

"He's the only guy I've fucked in months, so yeah," I say.

"Oh, is that why I hear you moaning late at night all the fucking time?" Mike says. "Seriously, you're fucking loud."

"And you're a fucking virgin," I snap.

"Says who?" He asks.

"Forget it," I say. I gather my things and rise from my chair. "Don't fucking talk to me."

"Fine," he scoffs. "I'll wash this dish too, princess," he calls after me.

I spin around. "You would be so much more fuckable if you were easy to swallow," I snapped, stomping my foot like a child.

Both of us stare at each other in a bit of shock at what I just said.

"Most girls swallow just fine, thank you," he retorts.

"Who's the whore now?" I say. I don't wait for him to respond, slamming the door shut behind me.

Fine. Let him hate me. That's the whole point of this anyways. Then it'll be me and someone else in this terrible fucking apartment. Maybe it'll be Nick. Anyone would be better, I tell myself.

...

...how easy is Mike to swallow?

-Friday-

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't struggling to remember the correct name right now.

Nick is underneath me, pumping his cock in and out like no tomorrow as I grind against him. My jaw is slack, my hands buried in the blankets fabric underneath of us. I'm staring at the thin door though, the thin door that I know leaks every little noise whether there's a towel under the enormous crack or not. And the shadows of footsteps that I see make it all the easier for Nick to continue his shallow rhythm, edging me closer and closer.

"Mi-Nick," I moan loudly. It sounds endearing, thankfully. But my heart races at how close I've come to fucking things up in a few different ways. "Fuck, you're thick," I moan. It's not particularly true, but his size is fine, so what's an ego boost to help him along the way?

Nick is sweet underneath of me, moaning that I'm his, that we're each others. That's great and all, but God. There is this missing edge. And it isn't until I hear pounding on the bedroom door that I finally feel real excitement begin to flow through me.

"We need to talk," Mike's voice says firmly.

Nick looks guilty, his eyes wide and asking for silent guidance. I don't respond, simply continuing to slide up and down Nick's cock and moaning while doing so.

"Hey, princess," Mike says firmer, pounding on the door again. "Think you can stop Oh-ing Canada and come talk to me like a fucking adult?"

I don't stop, grinding harder against Nick's base. My hands find my clit, rubbing it as I respond.

"I told you you were welcome to join us," I moan. Nick looks at me like I've gone utterly insane, and maybe I have. Maybe I'm completely delusional about all of this, but I couldn't care less as I feel my dripping cunt tighten to the point even Nick doesn't care what happens so long as he comes inside of me.

"Mi-Nick," I moan. "Mi-ne, mi-ne." Come on, Schmidt. Catch the fucking hint.

All night I had been plauged with dreams about Michael fucking Schmidt. I'd noticed when we met he was attractive to me. I liked his hands, his stubble. God, his shoulders made me think things that will probably send me straight to Hell. But hate usually kept these thoughts at bay. Last night however, the dreams wouldn't stop coming. Over and over, a new fantasy of him emerged in my head. Him underneath of me as a writing mess, him begging for more, my tits in his mouth as he finished inside me. It was depraved. I wanted it.

The door bursts open just as Nick is finishing inside of me. It's the look in Mike's eyes that causes me to finish, all while keeping eye contact with him as well.

Nick is quick to flip me on my back, covering my body haphazardly with a blanket prattling excuse after excuse. Apparently we're sorry. Apparently we had gotten too wrapped up in the moment because apparently, you know how it is, right man?

But it doesn't matter. Mike isn't looking at Nick, who's pulling on his shirt above me. Mike's looking at me, watching my fingers that trail gently along my areolas, flicking lightly at my hardened nipples and clearly longing for more.

"Mike wouldn't know the first thing about pleasing a woman," I say with little thought.

"Oh?" Both of them ask me.

"I think you should leave, Nick. Mike and I are going to have a little talk, and I don't want you to see how ugly this may get," I say without breaking eye contact with Mike.

The sudden shift in the air is not subtle, so maybe that's why Nick doesn't really hesitate to listen to me.

"I'll call you later," he says as he stumbles past Mike.

"Don't bother," Mike calls after him. Mike slams the bedroom door shut, locking it before turning to me and raising an eyebrow.

"Is there something you'd like to say to me?" Mike asks, narrowing his eyes and crossing his arms as his stands tall.

My hand dips to between my thighs where Nick and I's cum pools out, coating me in the thick stuff.

"Sorry," I say in a spoiled tone, smiling.

Mike's eyes scan my entire body. From the hickies coating my neck, to my breasts and even my thighs, I can see a new wave of anger washes over him. At least, it looks like anger. There's something else mixed with it too, something I desperately want to play with.

"You're not sorry for shit," he says. He's correct.

"I told you last night, I like fucking people," I say as my fingers circle my clit.

Mike's jaw tightens. "You like fucking people," he repeats.

I can see him grind his teeth. He's silent for another moment. "And do you like... him?"

I giggle. "You tell me," I say with a soft and low voice.

His eyebrows twitch. "You're still... going?" He asks with an unsure edge to his voice.

"Yes, Michael. This is what a woman looks like when she's turned on," I say in a mocking tone, batting my lashes as my fingers dip into my entrance. "Would you like to try?"

He steps closer, bending down ever so slightly to stand over me.

"Don't call me that," he says in a low growl.

"Make me," I taunt.

He blinks.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

A startled yelp escapes me as Mike grabs my hips, dragging me roughly to the edge of the bed. He spreads my legs, stepping between them and slips his rough thumb inside of me with no hesitation.

"Fuck. You do like him," he groans, his other hand fiddling with his belt. I can see how hard he is underneath his jeans, his fingers clumsy but working quickly at the items covering him.

"He's oka-ay," I say quickly, my voice trailing off into a soft moan. His thumb explores the inside of my cunt, probing the wet muscle and massaging inside of me spots a man had never taken time to look for before. "Your finger's thick," I moan.

Mike chuckles, freeing himself and pumping into his hand slowly as he presses his thumb deeper inside of me.

"You told Nick he was thick too," he says. "That just your line with guys?"

It is, but this time I actually mean it. So I shake my head. "No," I say quietly.

"I don't believe you," Mike says. He slips his thumb out of me, making me clench around nothing. I open my mouth to protest only for Mike to quickly shove his thumb into my mouth, touching the back of my throat while he sinks his cock into me.

"Go on, pretty girl," he moans. "Take it like the proud whore you are."

I gag around his thumb, both from the sudden intrusion and from the taste. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't like this, if I said that his actions didn't make me even more wet and that I didn't suck his thumb greedily, wrapping my tongue around it and sucking it clean until I can only taste his rough flesh. I swear it makes his dick twitch.

His cock slides in and out of me with ease, taking his time to feel how I wrap around him.

"Fuck," he drawls. "It's been awhile."

I moan around his thumb, running my tongue along the underside and trying to rock my hips against him to tell him to speed up. Instead, he presses a hand down on my lower stomach, pinning me down as he sinks in fully. At first glance his size is average, but inside of me it's overstimulating how he fills me just a little too much.

His thumb presses further into my throat, making me gag as he tilts his head back in pleasure.

"You are just demanding. Do you know that?" He asks. I try to respond, but he simply presses his thumb against a spot that makes me gag once more.

"Nothing's good enough for you. Not even Nick. You didn't even cum until I came in here," he laughed cruelly, looking down at where we connect. His other thumb trails down to rub my clit slowly, making me writhe underneath him and clench around his still cock.

"Never shutting up. Till now. I like it when you're quiet, princess. Makes you easier to swallow." He presses deeper inside of me, making me whine in overstimulation.

"You're mine now," he says, slowly pulling out. "You can call Nick all you want. Call him, fuck him. But we both know he's not gonna make you cum like I will." Just his tip remains in me, barely staying in before he slams back into me so hard I scream.

"So what's the point?" Mike asks, slowly slipping out once more. "Do you like pitting men against each other like that?" He slams back into me. My eyes water, but I don't protest.

This time when he pulls back, he stays there. I wait for him, trying to he patient. But then he removes his thumb and wraps his hand around his length instead.

"What?" I ask, my voice raw.

"Say it," Mike says as he jerks himself off slowly.

"Say what?" I ask.

"I'm not gonna fuck you like you want unless you say you're mine," he says casually. His tip is bright red and leaking precum, his length coated in Nick and I's milky cum.

"Fuck you," I say. Mike just laughs.

"You're the one laying here crying over some dick," he taunts. "I just want to make sure we're on the same page here, princess."

I try to hold strong, I really do. It'd be more fun if I did. But fuck. The way he stands over me, his shoulders broad. I could never deny I liked the sight of his hands either, and seeing them tug as his pulsing cock while he stared down at me with that stupid fucking smile?

It's not fair.

"I'm yours," I say quietly.

"Hmm?" Mike asks, pumping his dick quicker now. I can see how hard his veins are, and the sounds of him fucking his own hand make me want him more.

"Yours," I repeat slightly louder.

"Use proper English," he says. His face has this stupid blissful look on it, his mouth slightly open as he pants, fucking himself and watching me as he does.

"I am yours," I hiss through gritted teeth. It doesn't even take a full second before he's buried in me once more, his hands pinning my knees to my shoulders and fucking me with enough speed I'm genuinely scared he'll hurt me. And I love it.

"I'm going to make you mine," he grins, his voice suddenly turning feral.

"I'm going to make you mine so much that you won't even be able to remember what Nick's name is, let alone what he looks like. Or what he feels like."

"Uh huh," I whine. My voice is so unusually high and ragged, my mouth slack and eyes rolling back in pleasure. I rock against his hips, trying to find my second edge. I'm babbling, whether I'm asking for mercy or more is anyone's guess.

He laughs at me, and it's a harsh and cruel laugh - not at all like the usual sarcasm and mockery he displays. Instead, his laugh comes from a place that is raw and angry and vicious, the kind of laugh a wolf makes when he's about to go for the kill.

"What's the matter?" he asks, his voice dripping with sarcasm and mocking. "Not quite the big, bad man that he's made you think he was, is he? How disappointing," he continues, his hips thrusting into me repeatedly.

I cry loudly with each new thrust. His movements are cruel, borderline abusive. Christ, I love it.

"Bigger," I whine. "Bigger."

He teeth nip at my throat, sinking in hard enough I'll be wearing sweaters and scarves for weeks. Makeup won't touch the color.

"Bigger?" He asks in a mocking voice. "What's bigger?"

"You're bigger," I moan. My voice is broken, and there's no way the neighbors don't hear the degeneracy occurring around them. Sorry, Mrs. Jones.

"What are you going for?" he snaps, his eyes narrowing and his voice growing more and more vicious. "Big bad Mike?" he giggles, his grip tightening on my ankles as he continues plunging into me.

A loud scream escapes me as Mike finds my g spot. He doesn't relent, focusing on the spot and abusing it while I sob and try to wiggle away, completely overstimulated from pleasure and unable to handle it.

His hands pin me against him, trapping me where I am and forcing me to take him however he wants me to.

"You want more?" he asks, taking one hand away from my ankles, grabbing and pulling my hair harshly, forcing me to stare into his eyes. His pupils are so blown out I can't even see his pretty hazel irises. They're dark and predatory, his breath hot and heavy with rage.

"Is that what you want?" he asks, pulling back and plunging into my aching cunt again.

"Yes!" It's a violent scream that escapes me, feeling myself begin to tip over the edge. His eyes sparkle, his lips in a smile that shows he knows he's won.

"And what would Nick say if he could see you like this? All mine, all mine..." he taunts.

"Huh?" I'm completely stupid, my body coming undone so suddenly around his dick with cries, screams, whimpers and everything inbetween. Nick was foreplay and I've no mental energy to remember any detail that isn't Mike's.

"Don't even know his name?" Mike laughs. "You can't even remember his name, can you?" he grins, his eyes narrow again as he tugs my hair and shoves himself in further.

"Uh uh," I pant in a high voice. My body shakes terribly, his pounding length already edging me once more as he continues abusing my spot. How on earth am I supposed to walk after this?

"Then let me help you remember his name," he says. "Say his name."

"Mike," I moan pathetically. I'm right back on that edge, crying and feeling as though I'll burst from overstimulation.

"Louder," he says, his voice dripping with sarcasm and mocking. "Say it louder. Say his name loud enough for him to hear you."

"Mike!" I scream it religiously as I come undone a second time, gripping him to the point I can feel how close he is too. I hear him laugh above me, his other hand now wrapping around my throat and choking me slightly.

"That's my name," he says with mocking gentleness. "Say his name or I won't finish."

"I don't remember," I sob. Jesus Christ, do I have problems? "Just want you!"

His face glows, his lips split into a wide grin of satisfaction.

"So you want me, do you, princess?"

I nod pathetically. He's throbbing, slamming into me hard enough it may draw a third climax in a row.

His laugh is cruel above me, his lips landing on top of mine in a wet, possessive kiss. His tongue fills my mouth, forcing me to take him as the sounds of him fucking me like a depraved animal makes me whine in desperation.

He pulls away, a long string of spit between us connecting our lips.

"Then I'll give you what you want, princess," he says. "But there's a price."

"Uh huh," I agree. My eyes roll back as my body twitches, barely able to focus as he thrusts into me.

"Look at me," he says patiently, tugging my hair once more. When I manage to remember how, he let's out a long 'aw,' smiling down at me with false sweetness as I stare dumbly into his eyes. I suppose I'm staring into his eyes. God, I'm stupid.

His thumb grazes my jaw, tutting as he examines my face closely.

"Your eyes are pretty...*" he says, his voice sweet and tender, almost like I've made him soft and vulnerable, but his cock pounding into me causes the beginning of a headache that won't let me forget how much we hate each other. "Your eyes are pretty, your mouth is pretty..."

I lick my lips and nod lightly.

"You are just such a pretty girl, aren't you?" He asks. I nod, my body twitching uselessly as my third climax washes over me.

"Good girl," he praises. "All fucked out over me. That's good."

Suddenly and without warning, he pulls out quickly and shoves my face down close to his cock, coming all over my face. It's thick and everywhere. In my hair, my mouth. I can't even open my eyes.

"Stay like that," Mike commands as he lays me on my back. His softening cock reenters me and pumps lazily, his purpose to make sure he's fully emptied.

"Any new thoughts?" He asks me in a strange tone, light and amused. I simply moan, relishing the moment. He chuckles and spreads my legs so he can better see what is happening between us. It isn't until I hear the chime of his camera confirming a recording that I realize what he's done.

"Mike?" I ask, barely able to think straight.

A low laugh escapes him, cruel but warm.

"I want to show your new boyfriend the real you," he says. "Make sure we're all on the same page here, right?

...Fuck me, I have problems.

¤▪︎{♧}▪︎¤

Thanks for reading, pookies. See y'all in hell.

Masterlist

#yes nick is nick brady from paradise lost #i couldnt help myself #mike schmidt imagine #mike schmidt x reader #mike schmidt fnaf #mike schmidt #mike schmidt smut #mike schmidt x reader smut #mike schmidt x you #josh hutcherson #josh hutcherson fanfic

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sunflower-lilac42 · 6 months

Text

✧ 𝐅𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥 | nico hischier ♔

summary: y/n is a famous singer and on a couple of interviews, her love for the swiss hockey man comes out. or, two times y/n talked about nico hischier in an interview/on a talk show and one time he talked about her.

warnings: um, gross foods and a tiny mention of gagging.

notes: i wanted to do a third interview but i didn't want to write it really so if you want to imagine it it's the james corden carpool karaoke with niall horan and when they do a lie detector test, james and niall ask about nico. also I'm sorry, i think this is mainly dialogue and i tried to make it so it wasn't but it's an interview so that's kind of hard. pretend the niall video came out in the past year. definitely not proofread because it's two in the morning and i am delierious and have no energy to go back and edit so don't make fun of me, thanks bye! :) also let me know if you want a part two of when they actually meet or get together. part two is out!

publish date: 10/30/23

part two (his girl ) | nhl masterlist | main masterlist

Jimmy Fallon - Mad Libs Theater ➺ reference video here!

“Welcome back, I’m hanging out with y/n y/l/n! Her new album is streaming every, apple music, Spotify, you name it. Uh, y/n I want to do something fun with you and act out a dramatic scene, but first, we have to fill in the blanks. It is time for Mad Lib Theater.”

The intro of Mad Lib Theater plays and y/n readjusts herself on the seat to look at Jimmy, “Alright. So here’s how this works. I’m going to ask you for some silly words - nouns, verbs, adjectives, et cetera - and they’ll all be written onto our cue cards here, as we’re doing this. And then we’re gonna act out a dramatic Mad Libs scene. Are you ready for this?”

“Thank god I went to fourth grade.”

Jimmy laughs along with the audience and uncaps the marker, “Okay. Here we go. I want a noun that starts with a C.”

“Candle.”

“Candle’s good. Adjective.”

“Sweaty.”

“Type of bug.”

“Mosquito.”

“Animal.”

“Elephant.”

“A chain restaurant.”

“Chipotle. I used to work there.”

“Chipotle?”

“Yeah.”

Jimmy continues, “Noun.”

“Jersey.”

“Like New Jersey or a sports Jersey?”

“Oh, uh New Jersey.”

“A kitchen appliance.”

“Spatula.”

“A plural noun.”

“Buildings.”

“Sophisticated.”

“I know right.”

“Another animal.”

“A yack.”

“One of the Seven Dwarfs.”

“Dopey.” She looks into the audience and winks.

“Celebrity name.”

“Taylor Swift. I love Taylor!”

“Name me a number,”

“13.”

“Just 13, 13-”

“1386.”

“Type of profession.”

“Hockey player.”

“Hockey player? Okay.”

“Wow! Speed round. Here we go. Another plural noun.”

“Mooses?”

“Uh, okay. Body part. Watch it.”

“Elbow.”

“Phrase that you would say if you bumped into Leonardo DiCaprio on the street.”

The audience starts yelling, lots of fans of y/n knowing how much she loves this movie as it takes her no time to come up with an answer, “Why did you let go, Jack? You should have stayed on the door. You should’ve got on the door.”

“Why did you let go, Jack? There was room for you on the door.” Y/n repeats herself for the man as he writes down her answer.

“Another noun.” Y/n’s flustered, “You do this one.”

“Burrito.”

“Burrito, okay.”

“Type of drink.”

“Bloody Mary.”

“Another celebrity.”

“Elizabeth Olsen.”

“Verb ending in i-n-g.”

“Slaying.”

Jimmy busts out laughing, “Slaying. This is fun doing Mad Libs with you.”

“What you’d shout if you sat down in a wet seat.”

“Fudge that’s wet.”

“‘Fudge that’s wet?’ I love you.”

“First concert you ever attended.”

“Madonna.”

“Wow. Madonna. You know what, that makes sense.”

“A professional athlete.”

Without any hesitation, y/n blurts out, “Nico Hischier.”

“What?”

Y/n hides her increasingly growing red cheeks, “He’s my favorite hockey player. He’s the captain of the New Jersey Devils.”

There were some hockey or Devils fans in the crowd and they let out a couple of cheers. Jimmy wiggles his eyebrows at the girl before continuing, “Another verb ending in I-N-G.”

“Blushing.”

“Yes, very good. You’re blushing right now.”

Y/n laughs, “Two words that rhyme.”

“Swiss. Kiss.”

“A long, silly word.”

“Iridocyclitis!” A man shouts from the audience.

“What?!

“Is that a disease? Is that an actual-”

“Yeah, what is that?”

Jimmy attempts to spell out a word.

“Iridocyclitis. Yeah, of course. Alright, now, we’ve filled out the words for our scene. Good look to our cue card. So sorry, Roman. Are you ready to perform our scene?”

“I don’t know now.”

“Let’s go let’s do this.”

༶•┈┈⛧┈♛

Jimmy and y/n stand on the building after coming out in superhero costumes, “Am I green?”

“No, yeah, you’re green. Yeah, you’re green. I’m red.”

“Candle girl! What are you doing here?!”

“Oh, hello, Captain Sweaty.”

“Please call me by my nickname, Mr. Mosquito.”

“I’m here for the same reason you are here - to rescue the elephant stuck on the roof of this Chipotle.”

“I knew there was trouble tonight when I saw my signal in the sky- a light projected in the shape of… New Jersey.”

“Well, using our powers this rescue should be simple. I’m faster than a speeding spatula, and everything I touch turns to buildings.” Y/n says before Jimmy responds, “I have the agility of a yak. And when I get really dopey, I turn into Taylor Swift.”

Y/n starts laughing, unable to control herself, “Wow. I must tell you, my back story is complicated. When I was 1386 years old, I was… I was once bitten by a hockey player.”

She then spits out more laughter and doubles over to hold her stomach, “Oh my- Oh my god. And ever since, I’ve been able to emanate mooses from my elbow.”

“Why did you let go, Jack?” Jimmy holds his hand out before y/n places her own on his shoulder, “I know. It’s amazing, but with great power comes great burrito.” Both of the two laugh beofre controlling themselves and continuing the scene.

“Your story reminds me of my own. I became a superhero after I fell into a tub of radioactive bloody Mary. But listen. We must complete this rescue. In the trapped elephant’s collar, there’s a USB drive that contains images of Elizabeth Olsen slaying.”

Y/n snorts and covers her mouth quickly before laughing, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I thought it’d be much worse.”

“And as a warning, I do have one weakness.”

“What is it?”

“Madonna.”

“That’s okay. Just remember what Professor Nico Hischier told us. He said if we’re ever in a situation like this,” Jimmy pulls out a gold button, “You press this button, and we will both immediately start blushing. Here we go.”

Y/n laughs and the two start slapping their cheeks for them to redden, “Our blushing is causing the elephant to be saved.”

She looks at Jimmy and then the cue cards and shakes her head, “Swiss kiss! We did it!”

“Yes, let’s high-five and say the secret superhero catchphrase on ‘three’. One, two, three.”

They both squint in an attempt to read the word, “Iri-dira-calaptus.”

“Dude!”

“Yeah!”

“And scene!”

The two laugh as the scene ends and Jimmy tries to get his words out, “My thanks to y/n y/l/n.”

✧༺✎༻∞

James Corden - Spill Your Guts or Fill Your Guts ➺ reference video here!

The theme music plays as the camera cuts to James, Ewan, Niall, and y/n sitting at a table with a rotating top and a bunch of food laid on it.

“Okay. so let’s take a look at the food that we have here.” James proceeds to spin the top of the table to showcase the food, “We have a salmon smoothie. A beef tongue.”

Ewan sticks his tongue out and makes a noise causing y/n to laugh as she holds her napkin up to her face, “This is disgusting.”

“Bird saliva.” The audience yells in disgust and Niall makes a whiffing motion with his hands, “The smell just gets stronger and stronger.”

“A scorpion. Fish head. Hot sauce. “

“Is that safe to do hot sauce?” Ewan asks as he looks towards James, “We’re gonna find out.”

“And finally, bull penis.”

“Yay!” Y/n claps.

“So here’s how this works. Ewan and I will be asking questions to Niall and y/n. Now if someone on your team chooses not to answer their question, you both will have to eat the disgusting food. Have we got it?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, Niall-” y/n cuts in quickly, “I’m already mad.”

“You’re up first. Niall, I am going to giv eyou-”

Niall points, “Please don’t do that. My acid reflex will freak out.”

“Please don’t. Not the scorpion.”

“The salmon smoothie.” Y/n squels.

“Here is your question, So if you answer the question you don’t have to eat, if you don’t answer the qeustion, you both have to have a big glug of the salmon smoothie.” Niall laughs, “I don’t know what I’m more nervous about, the question or the smoothie.”

“Well, I’ve just seen the question and I think it might be the question. Niall, who is your least favorite member or One Direction?”

Niall swears but the bleep covers it as he goes to clink smoothies with y/n. Y/n looks at him, “I think you should drink, I am not your publicist, but I don’t know that you should.”

“I think I might and just take the daily mail hit tomorrow, and throw out a crap answer. I’m trying to help y/n.” The said girl laughs and hits him, “If it’ll help you out, I’ll drink it.”

“Don’t think of your teammate, think of your life.”

“What do you think, Nial are you going to go salmon-”

Y/n places the napkin around Niall’s neck to make a bib, “Yeah for future life, yeah, I think I will go with this.” The two pick up smoothies and drink them, well attempt to drink them.

James hands them spoons and they both put it in their mouths. Y/n immediately gags and goes to spit it in the trash, getting some in her hair. James and Ewan immediately burst into laughter as they watch the two.

Ewan looks at y/n, “Are you alright?”

“It is not so of the taste, it’s the texture. It;s like having salmon yogurt.” James looks at y/n, “Oh and there is some in the hair to keep for later. Right, so now y/n, you will ask your question to me.”

“Oh well, well, well.”

“Which would you like me and Ewan to have?”

“Have a look at the question first.” Niall leans over to help y/n, it was honestly like having a brother and sister team up agains someone.

“Oh, wow. Getting tactical.”

“Oh, he is going to eat. I know– Scorpion.” Y/n turns the table so the scorpion sits in the front of the two men on the other side.

“Scorpion. I think that is the easiest one.”

“Well, yeah, you say that until it is in your face.”

“Your question is, James, name one artist who you have turned down for carpool karaoke.” The crowd lets out a bunch of oos, “How long have you got?”

“Cheers mate,” James cheers with Ewan and the eat the scropion, seemingly without any problem.

“What is y/n going to eat?”

“I think I’m going for the tongue.”

“And it’s one each. You have to eat the whole tongue.” Y/n looks at him disbelief and he just shakes his head, “I’m just kidding.”

“Oh this is quite a cute one. Y/n you once said you had a favorite hockey player, Nico Hischier, is it true you might have a crush on the Swiss man?”

Y/n immediately blushes and places her head in her hands as everyone laughs, “Oh come on, this is an easy one.”

“Oh shit.” The bleep censors the word as y/n looks at the tongue, “Yes, it’s true. I do have a crush on Nico Hischier.”

The whole crowd goes wild and Niall playfully hits her on the arm, “Niall what would you like to give Ewan?”

“Ewan you’re up. Truthfully, all I’ve been thinking about is that saliva. Surely the question gets better.”

“It does. Sorry, boys.”

“Jeez, again, back to the bird saliva.”

Y/n looks at the boys, “How do they get it?” James and Ewan playfully try to mimic on what they think happens.

Niall pulls out the card and y/n reads it, immediately bursting into laughter, “This is the greatest question ever.”

The Irish man looks up at Ewan with a grin on his face, “Ewan, have you ever shit your pants?”

Everyone laughs uncontroloblly for at least 30 seconds, “The show is only an hour, Ewan.”

“I mean I could lie, there is only one or two people that would know.”

“I am really enjoying this.”

“Well, I guess, yeah.”

“Hand on, wait how old were you?”

“Well, I was very young at the time.”

“No, no there didn’t have any age in there, did it.” Ewan defends.

“Well, we’ve all technicaly shit our pants as babies.” Y/n looks at the man.

“That is all I was referring to. I might have shit my pants in the 90s one time.”

“Ewan McGregor. Spilling it.”

“Okay, Niall I am going to give you guys.”

“Please not the hot sauce.”

“Some beef tongue, are you ready. Okay.”

“I’m going to have to eat this, aren’t I?”

“Niall, you have dated both Selena Gomex adn Ellie Goulding. It is your last night on Earth, who would you rather spend it with?”

“Just it doesn’t hurt anyone.” Y/n says, “Y/n’s going ‘it doesn’t hurt anyone’.”

Niall places his arm on the girl’s chair, “I’m afraid it does, love.”

“The trouble is, is that it’s not relaly your last night so someone’s gonna be upset tomorrow.”

“Okay, I would, cause it’s the last night on Eart, Ellie is a big fan of planet Earth by David Attenborough so I would sit and watch that with her and for that reason, Ellie Goulding.”

“Y/n it is your turn, you now will ask me a question and select a food.”

“You know what, you guys seem so keen on the beef tongue, giving it to us time and time again, so we will get revenge. James, you are definetly going to eat that, so have you got your knife and for ready.”

“Yup.”

“Which Late Night Host do you prefer, Kimmel or Fallon?”

“That’s tricky. Oh, dear are we eating this?” The two bite into the tongue and y/n gags as she watches them.

“That was Spill Your Guts or Fill Your Guts. Big thanks to Y/n Y/l/n, Niall Horan, and Ewan McGregor, we’ll be right back, everybody!”

✧༺✎༻∞

Nico Hischier on Y/n Y/l/n on a random post-game interview

“So Nico, I hate to ask you about this but there’s been these videos floatinga round about y/n y/l/n talking about you, have you heard about this?”

Nico nods his head as he looks at the interviewer, “Yeah, actually I have. Jack actually showed me this video and let me tell you, that was the last thing I was expecting.”

“Everyone is dying to know after she came out and explicitly stated that she liked you, do you like her, or at least have a tiny crush on her?”

“Yeah, well you know, I haven’t actually met her so I can’t say I like her but I do think she’s cute and that’s all I’m going to say about this.”

The interviewer nods, “Thanks, Nico.”

#sunnylunespeaks #sunny lune writes #nico hischier #nico hischer x reader #nico hischier x you #singer!reader #fem!reader #nhl #hockey

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slut4thebroken · 7 months

Text

Trapped

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

Pairing | Robert Capa x reader

Summary | You ask Capa for his help, then get stuck in a a room barely big enough for the two of you. After only a few minutes of forced proximity, he snaps.

Warnings | NON CON sexual content, 18+, smut, dubcon but technically noncon tbh, forced proximity, vaginal sex, painful sex, forced breeding, crying, idk what else lol.

Words | 1k+

Notes | Don’t ask for specifics on the beginning… I kept it vague for a reason💀 Also I lowkey can’t tell if this is cringy cause I wrote and published it in one day which I never do so I’ll probably come back to it😭 but anyway I hope y’all enjoy

Ao3 link | <3

Masterlist

“Yeah I know, but everyone else is busy.”

“I’m busy.” He retorted.

“With what exactly?” You waited and he huffed, rolling his eyes, making you smirk. “It’ll be quick.”

“Fine.” You led him through the long hallways before finally stopping outside of a door. You used your key to open it, then stepped inside, and he waited impatiently for what you wanted to show him.

“I just need you to double check this for me. Better safe than sorry, you know?” He mumbled out an agreement, then stepped closer, trying to see. When he still couldn’t quite make it out, he stepped forward even more and your stomach dropped as the light quickly left the room, followed by the door clicking shut.

“Fuck! Capa— this door locks!” You all but yelled, panic filling your chest.

“What?”

“We’re trapped, you fucking idiot,”

“Hey, this is not my fault. You could’ve told me.” You could hear the handle violently jiggling as he tried to open it, despite what you just said. With the door now closed, you couldn’t even turn around to face him because of how small the space was. “Who else did you ask to help you before me?”

“Not enough people for them to realize we're missing anytime soon.” He cursed under his breath and you let out a heavy sigh. There wasn’t a light in this ‘room’ so he couldn’t even look at what you originally came down here for, which just made all of this worse.

You shifted your weight, trying not to think about how long you might have to stand here without being able to move. Even though you were praying someone would come, you knew deep down that it would take a couple hours at least. You heard him try the handle again before letting out a heavy breath. You were silent, trying to think of something to say or if you should even say anything at all. When his breathing picked up, you paused, listening for a few more seconds just to be sure.

“I hope you’re not claustrophobic.” You said, mostly teasingly.

“That’s not the problem right now.” He muttered, making your brows furrow in confusion. He cursed under his breath and you waited for him to elaborate on what the problem was. Instead, his hands just barely brushed your hips, making you stiffen. When he grabbed them lightly, your breath caught in your throat.

“What are you doing?” You couldn’t hide the slight quaver in your voice. He ignored you and started rubbing up and down your sides. “Stop it.” You warned, trying to bat his hands away, but barely being able to in the small space. You suddenly felt his breath on your shoulder and he dragged his nose up your neck, inhaling deeply.

“Capa?” You whispered, stomach knotting with fear. He let out a low groan and suddenly gripped your hips, hard enough to make you wince, to keep you from moving.

“I’m sorry.” He muttered. Before you could ask what that meant, he was shoving your pants and underwear down, making you yelp and try to pull them back up. His were next, pushing the clothing down just enough to free his cock.

“Wait,” You tried thrashing, but he pushed you forward against the wall and grabbed your hips again to limit your movement. “Capa, stop!” You felt his cock brush your hole and you stiffened. He moved one hand to line up his cock and the other to cover your mouth.

He applied some pressure, but wasn’t able to push in, so he used more force until he finally breached your hole. You let out a hoarse scream behind his hand, feeling your eyes burn with tears. That was nothing compared to the burning between your legs though.

“Fuck— I’m sorry. I just need this…” He said through a breath, only staying still for a moment before starting a brutal pace, making your tears fall. He rutted into you and the hand not on your mouth wrapped around your stomach, holding you still. You clawed at both of his hands and arms, trying to get him to release you. Instead, he just groaned at the pain and fucked you harder.

“I know… I’m sorry.” He said, as if that could make up for anything. You sobbed violently behind his hand and that only seemed to encourage him, making him fuck you even rougher. “Fuck you’re so tight.” He whispered, hot breath fanning your ear. “You feel so fucking good… god— it’s been so long.”

He humped into you desperately, chasing his own pleasure and ignoring your muffled cries. Even though your body was starting to adjust to make this easier, it still hurt like hell and you already knew you weren’t going to be able to sit comfortably for at least a day or two. He groaned and cursed against your ear as he tightened his grip, fucking you more frenzied now.

“Oh fuck— I’m already close… I have to fill you.” He said lowly. You let out the loudest scream so far. “I know, I’m sorry, I just need it so fucking bad. I need to come in a tight, hot pussy, I can’t take it anymore.” He whined, holding you tighter. You let out a stifled sob and shook your head.

“I’m sorry,” He moaned, thrusts becoming more forceful and desperate, “I can’t stop— I can’t pull out, I’m so sorry.” You tried to scream protests at him from behind his hand but nothing you said was coherent.

He moaned out one last apology before his hips snapped forward, burying his cock deep enough to make your cervix ache. He humped into you as he rode it out, groaning against your ear and squeezing your body tight enough to almost hurt. You felt his cock twitching as warmth filled you, making you let out a strangled whimper. The hand on your mouth dropped so that his arm wrapped around your chest instead, still holding you against his body as you cried silently.

“I’m sorry.” He whispered, one last time.

Taglist (join here)

@pedrisgatorade @lunyyx @cillianscrybaby @vivvive @ceruleanrainblues

#robert capa x reader #robert capa #sunshine #cillian murphy #robert capa smut #robert capa x reader smut #dark!robert capa

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skzstannie · 4 months

Text

"I'll take care of you"

SKZ-> Felix x Reader

genre: angst, hurt/comfort, stranger to lovers wc: ~3,100 cw: Abusive/toxic boyfriend, yelling, violence, Felix is literally the biggest sweetheart

summary: you'd never expect the coffee shop down the street to be your saving grace, but a certain sunshine had other ideas

A/N: Hellooooo! I reached 200 followers today, so THANK U AGAIN! Should I do something special for it?

Part 2 is now posted!

Happy Scrolling! | Masterlist

"Baby, please," you sob, your cheek throbbing in pain.

"Don't 'baby' me, you know this is what happens when you don't do your chores." His smirk is villainous as he stands over you. "Don't be a bitch! Get up and go do what you were supposed to do," he seethes, making you flinch.

You slowly get up off the floor, brushing yourself off as you stand. You feel his eyes on you as you scramble into the kitchen.

You forgot to do the dishes again. You should've known better than to forget; you know he gets like this every time. You don't necessarily blame him, though. He does so much for you, and you can't even remember to do a simple household chore.

You scrub the plates clean, the hot water burning against your skin. His footsteps echo into the room, coming closer to you.

His hands wrap gently around your waist, holding you close. "You know I don't like to hit you, baby. Why can't you just listen?"

"I'm sorry. I'll be better for you," you tell him as you lean back into his touch.

"I know you will be."

~ ~ ~

"One medium Iced Americano!"

You stand from your seat in the coffee shop, making your way towards the counter to grab your drink.

The cafe is crowded, the queue at least 10 deep. You squeeze past people, muttering the occasional "Excuse me" as you pass.

You're disappointed when you get to the counter, seeing your drink nowhere to be found.

"Excuse me," you call out to the barista behind the counter, "What happened to my drink? The Iced Americano?"

"Oh, some guy just took it. It was yours?" she asks distractedly, another cup already in her hand as she pours coffee into it.

"Yea..." you trail off, your eyes scanning the shop for the drink-stealer.

"I'm sorry about that, I'll whip you up another one. What size would you like?"

"Medium, please." The barista nods her head and gets to work. "Thank you so much."

You sit down at a table near the counter to wait. Your mind starts to wander, thinking about all the work you have to catch up on this week. You're an editor for the local newspaper, and your boss decided to dump a bunch of stories on you last minute. While they weren't set to be published for another few weeks, you were incredibly meticulous with your work, so it usually took you longer than necessary to get through them.

You're brought of your thoughts by a boy walking up to your table. "I'm sorry, but I think I accidentally took your drink. My friend ordered a large iced Americano, and I think this is the medium." His cute face is twisted in an apologetic expression.

"That's ok, she's making me a new one. No worries," you reassure him, giving him a soft smile.

"Oh good, sorry again." You expect to him to walk off, your original drink in his hand, but he continues to stand in front of you, his eyes never leaving yours. It's a little uncomfortable, and you're about to get up to avoid the awkward tension when he speaks again.

"Mind if I sit? You look like you could use some company."

You hesitate to answer. If your boyfriend found out you let some random man sit with you, he'd freak out.

"I was actually just about to head out. I have to get back to my boyfriend," you answer, deciding that rejecting his offer was for the best.

"Here you go miss, one medium Iced Americano," says the barista. Her arm is stretched over the counter, your drink in hand.

"Thank you so much," you immediately stand, stepping around the man to grab it.

As you go to step away, the man stops you, "My name's Felix by the way. I've seen you around here before." His eyes twinkle from the dingey lights overhead.

"I'm Y/N," your lips morph into a smile at his kindness.

"I'll see ya around?" there's a questioning twinge to his voice, a hint of hope peaking through.

"Sure. See ya around, Felix." With that, you walk towards the exit, heading back home.

~ ~ ~

"What took you so long?" your boyfriend's voice booms through the house as soon as you open the door.

"Someone else took my drink, so I had to wait for them to make me another," you explain, hopeful that you're calm energy will have the same affect on your boyfriend.

"You think that's a good enough excuse?! For all I know you could've been cheating on me! What am I supposed to think when you're gone for so long?!" he yells, his heavy footsteps approach you quickly from the living room.

"Babe, I promise it was nothing like that," you panic, your eyes darting around the foyer for an escape.

"Next time," he's in front of you now, his face red in anger, "tell me if you'll be longer." His rough hand reaches towards your face, roughly grabbing your jaw between his fingers. You wince, sure it'll leave yet another bruise. "Got it?"

"Yes," you mumble, your jaw stinging from his tight grasp.

"Good." He releases your face and wipes his hands on his pants, like he's disgusted by you.

You hurry off to your bedroom, quietly closing the door behind you.

~ ~ ~

It's been a couple weeks since you've been able to stop by the cafe. Your boyfriend's been stricter since the last coffee incident, not letting you leave the house without him.

"Hi Y/N!" your eyes glance above your computer screen, meeting the happy face of the man you met the last time you came here. What was his name again?

"Hi..." you say, hoping he'll fill in the blank.

"Felix!"

"Oh yea," you chuckle, embarrassed by your forgetfulness, "Sorry, it slipped my mind."

"That's ok!" You're heart warms, his bright and happy personality filling the emptiness of the coffee shop. "May I sit?" He gestures to the chair across from you.

You think on it for a moment. You really need to finish this article, but you guess a little break won't hurt. "Sure."

You didn't know it was possible, but his smile turns brighter at your answer. "Thanks!" He pulls the chair out and sits. It's silent between you for a minute, and you go back to typing away on your computer. "What are you working on?"

"I'm an editor for the newspaper, so I'm just finishing up this story," you reply.

"Oooh, that's cool? Do you like being an editor?"

You and Felix hit it off right away. He asks you more about your job, and you love the way he genuinely seems interested in what you have to say.

You ask him a few questions about himself, too, and you find out he's in a band with his friends.

"That's so cool!" You've finished you're article by this point, and you're nearing the end of your coffee, as well.

His eyes light up as he talks about his friends. They sound like an interesting bunch from all the stories he tells you.

"And then," he stops, letting out an adorable giggle, "he fell right on his ass, in front of everyone!" He laughs again and you join in. Something about Felix's aura just makes you feel so comfortable around him, like you've known him forever.

You both quiet down, and you become a little uncomfortable under his intense gaze. His eyes focus on your chin.

"What happened to your chin?" It's obvious he doesn't mean any harm with his question, pure curiosity taking over his features. However, the attention to your bruises makes you severely uncomfortable, and you instinctually look to flee.

"Oh, it was nothing," you think for a second, trying to come up with an excuse, "I'm just clumsy and hit my chin on my nightstand. No biggie," you tell him distractedly as you hurry to pack up your things.

His eyes widen at your panicked movements. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry," he apologizes, standing up as well.

"It's ok, I actually had to go anyway," you lie, swinging your bag over your shoulder. "I'll see you around." You quickly make your way out of the cafe, not even giving him a chance to say goodbye. He stands there with a slight tilt to his head, watching you rush out of the shop.

~ ~ ~

Weeks go by before Felix has the chance to talk to you again. He waits for you on your usual days at the cafe, hoping to see your familiar figure walk through the door, but you never do.

His eyes light up one particular Monday morning as you walk through the door, the little bell dinging, alerting the employees someone came in.

His smile falters a little upon seeing the man holding your hand. You're expression is stiffer than normal, your lips pursed in a tight line, replacing the bright smile you usually wear.

Felix watches as the man orders for both of you. "One medium iced Americano and a small Hazelnut latte," he says.

The man looks nothing like he thought your boyfriend would look. His eyes are cold and emotionless, practically burning holes in the side of the barista's face. Felix doesn't miss the way he rudely tosses the money onto the counter, not even gracious enough to hand it to the cashier.

Felix's gaze shifts down to your hands, your boyfriend's grip looking unnecessarily tight around your small hand. He notices the way your fingers are white from lack of circulation, and his blood boils.

Felix manages to catch your wandering gaze, your cheeks heated in embarrassment from the way your boyfriend was treating the staff.

He gives you a small wave, the corners of his lips upturned.

Your eyes widen at his show of friendliness, and you give him the smallest of head shakes. Your expression conveys, "Please don't say anything to me", and his heart clenches at this. Who does this guy think he is?

As much as Felix wants to go up to you and rip his hand from yours, it's clear you don't want him to acknowledge you right now. He knows it is because of the man next to you, and he begins to wonder if those bruises he saw on your chin weeks before weren't from your clumsiness after all.

~ ~ ~

"You never order anything when you're here. Why is that?"

It's a nice, sunny Monday morning, and you and Felix sit in the corner of the cafe.

"I don't actually like coffee much," he chuckles, his face flushing in embarrassment. You raise your eyebrows at that, waiting for him to continue. "I just like the atmosphere here, and now I come for you, too!"

Now it's your turn to blush, a pink shade creeping up your neck. "For me?"

"Yea, I figured we're friends now, and I like to spend time with you." his voice is deep and charming as he speaks, his eyes soft.

Friends aren't something that have come easy to you. Your boyfriend rarely lets you go places by yourself. Work is the main exception, and after some begging a few months prior, he allows you to come to the coffee shop by yourself, too.

Being friends with Felix sounds nice. It's been months since you first met, and most weeks you both sit at the same table, you working on your articles and him doing various other activities. Sometimes he'll bring a book to read, other times he'll just play on his phone until you're finished working.

The silence sits between the two of you as you think, and Felix worries he's made you uncomfortable. "I mean- we don't have to be, like friends, or anything. I just thought-"

You cut off his rambling, a smile gracing your lips, "I'd love to be friends with you Felix."

His shoulders slump in relief, and he gives you a relaxed smile. "Oh good, I was worried I'd scared you off."

"You're practically the nicest person I've ever met. How could you possible scare me off?" you laugh.

"I know I can come off a little strong sometimes, but I'm just a friendly guy, and I like your company," he explains to you, and you can't help but agree with everything he says.

That first day he talked to you he did seem a little overzealous. Now, after hanging out with him numerous times, you know that's just him, and you're ok with that. You love how Felix is able to bring a little sunshine into your life, even if it's only for a few hours every week.

"Well, don't worry about it. I wanna be your friend, too, and I like hanging out with you just as much," you assure him.

"Perfect! As my first duty of being your official friend, I have to ask you to stop lying to me," his voice goes serious, the light in his eyes dimming.

Your breath falters a little at this. "What do you mean?" you try to play it off, taking a swift drink of your coffee. You know he's not stupid; anyone with eyes can see the various bumps and bruises that litter your body.

"All these bruises... nobody's that clumsy, Y/N."

The familiar urge to escape fills your body, and panic bubbles in your throat.

"Felix," you choke out, your gaze lingering on your hands nervously rubbing against your pants. Tears gather in your eyes.

No one has ever confronted you about this. You pushed your family away long ago; it was upon your boyfriend's request, but who were you to tell him no? You've not been close with someone since then. You had friends before, but after so many unanswered texts, they just stopped texting. Stopped calling. Now their contacts sit in your phone as constant reminders of what used to be.

Felix's heart softens as your eyes well with tears, but he stands his ground. If he was going to be your friend, he couldn't let this slide any longer. "No more lies."

"Felix, I can't," the anxiety becomes too much, and you're quick to run out of the cafe, leaving your bag and coffee sitting on the table.

Felix quickly gathers your things and follows you out, earning a few curious glances from the people standing in line.

His eyes find your form, speed-walking down the sidewalk in the normal direction you leave in. "Y/N, please wait!" he calls after you, jogging to catch up.

He only has to run for a few seconds, catching up to you quickly. He reaches out to grab your elbow, and he immediately recoils upon seeing the way you flinch at his touch.

You stop walking, knowing there's no point in running anymore. Your head hangs low, your gaze permanently set on the ground in front of you. You allow Felix to guide you towards a secluded bench, sitting on the side of one of the buildings.

Felix's body immediately kicks into comfort mode upon seeing the tears flowing down your face. He softly sets his arm around your shoulders. You don't flinch, so he takes that as his sign to wrap you up into a hug, pulling you further into his body.

You continue to cry into his shoulder, not sure how else to deal with the emotions that overwhelm you.

"Y/N," he whispers as he rubs your back, "Can you look at me for a second?"

You raise your head from his shoulder, your eyes glossy with unshed tears.

"Please let me help you," he begs, his arms firm around your body.

"Felix, I can't," your sobs return, your arms leaving Felix to cover your face.

"Y/N, you've let him control you long enough."

Your lips wobble, and you don't know what to say. You've dated your boyfriend for years; he's all you know, all you have.

You've listened to his verbal abuse for so long, his words constantly swimming in your head:

"No one else will love you like I do."

"Nobody cares about you."

"Your family and friends left you, but not me. You can trust me."

His physical abuse marks your body. Old scars litter your arms and legs, bruises coloring your jaw and neck. You're always aching, different parts of your body always healing. You know your body needs a break.

"I know you probably feel stuck, like you have no one to go to," Felix continues, hoping that there's room in your cluttered mind for his words to get through to you, "But I'm here now. I'll help you. I won't let him touch you anymore."

Your mind is full of every emotion imaginable.

You know you can trust Felix. The problem isn't whether or not you can trust Felix. After all these months, he's proven to be one of the greatest people you've ever met. He's kind, loving, caring; everything you're boyfriend is not.

No, the problem isn't whether you can trust Felix; he's one of the most trustworthy people you've ever met. You just don't know how.

"Please, Y/N, I can't sit by and continue to watch you walk into the cafe with new bruises every week. I'll help you get out of this mess; you don't have to stay with him anymore."

Felix's pleas swirl around in your mind. The kindness he emits mixes with the words of your boyfriend like oil and water. If Felix was ice, your boyfriend would be fire; the two polar opposites in every way.

"That boyfriend of yours is no good for you," you remember your mom telling you. It was one of the last conversations you had with her before he made you cut all contact with her.

Maybe she was right. Maybe it is time for a change. Felix has always made you feel safe, like you could tell him anything. He could help you.

"It's your call, don't let him think he has power of you. All you have to do is tell me, and it'll be taken care of. I'll take care of you, Y/N."

You sit in silence for a few moments, nothing but the sounds of your sniffles filling the air.

The cold wind whips past your clouded head, bringing you back to reality. You finally gain the courage to look up at him, and his eyes have never looked softer.

"Please help me, Felix," you sob, your hands going to grip his hoodie as you lay your head against his chest. Your ear presses against his heart, the gentle beat soothing you better than words ever could.

"Oh, sweet girl," he whispers, running his hand through your hair. He's holding you so tight now, like he never wants to let you go. "You'll never have to see him again. I've got you now, nobody will hurt you anymore."

Part 2

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xxmaxwellxx · 1 month

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Can someone help me find some Sagau fics?

1. Alhaitham begs to see author/writer reader’s work and they’re a little insecure about their writing so they hand over some of their work and panic about what he thinks about it, eventually reader forgets giving to him only for him to publish their work. Reader panics and goes over to his house and kaveh opens the door and reader asks to speak with alhaitham and when they do he’s spewing praises. Edit: found this one! It’s Language Shenanigans by thatdeadaquarius!

2. There’s some kind of written language barrier in teyvat where the reader can’t read there and the characters can’t understand what they write and alhaitham kinda recognized what the reader was writing so he took them to the library and there’s like slang from 2015 carved into stone and it kinda horrifies reader. Edit: here’s the link! https://www.tumblr.com/thatdeadaquarius/706940879634628608/about-language-brainrot-imagine-writer-creator?source=share

3. Headcannons where the reader is playing shirtless and it flusters the characters, I remember reader going to the character selection and all of them were flustered, blushing and one sqeaked and stuttered through their voiceline

4. Reader stimming by clapping their thighs while playing and the characters are confused and flustered because they think something else is going on, I think xiao was in it and was blushing really hard lol Edit: I couldn’t find this on the master list so here’s the link! https://www.tumblr.com/fandangotales/698730573789806592/500-followers-event-about-your-prompt-could-you-do?source=share

5. Reader gets isekaied to teyvat and is very flustered by the characters because reader thinks they’re hot, they constantly avoid eye contact with the characters and it makes the characters think that looking at reader is some kind of grave sin, eventually reader bumps into zhongli and they make eye contact and reader blushes really hard and stutters and tries to look away but zhongli thinks something is wrong with reader and goes and fetches a healer only to find out that no, there’s nothing wrong with reader they just think the characters are hot. Edit: It’s a simp in Sagau by hiraya-rawr!

6. archons reading readers fanfiction. It somehow got into book form and has been circulating to the archons, I remember zhongli sitting behind the desk at the funeral parlor and being so focused on reading that he didn’t notice reader coming in and reader snatches the book from him only to be horrified because he was reading fanfic they wrote and him being like “is this another universe creator?”

7. The archons reading imposter au fanfic, I remember ei reading it and sobbing because she would never do something like that to the creator and zhongli says he would never kill reader because he’s worshipped them for years and why wouldn’t he recognize the creator???

8. Headcannons where The characters get isekaied into readers world. I remember reader walking into their office and finding the characters and thinking they’re cosplayers so the reader yells to their secretary thinking it’s a joke only for them to be real, I’m pretty sure scaramouche was in this one

9. The reader being isekaied into teyvat and thinking it’s a dream so they go to the dawn winery and gets drunk and accidentally cuts themselves to reveal gold blood, cue everyone freaking out and when diluc comes in for his shift the reader is sobbing asking why he hasn’t come home yet. Edit: Here’s the link! https://www.tumblr.com/hiraya-rawr/677068166680166400/diluc-drunk-creator-reader-creator-reader-waking?source=share

10. Headcannons where Reader likes to play glider chicken with them. They think their god is going to kill them only for them to pull out a glider last second and if the reader does it to much it becomes a tradition or something. Edit: I looked through their master list and I couldn’t find the name so here’s the link! https://www.tumblr.com/fandangotales/698541977190449152/i-have-a-request-for-the-500-follower-event-if?source=share

11. Venti sleeps with reader in their world and when reader is isekaied to teyvat. venti’s upset because the social standards are different and in teyvat if you sleep together that basically means you’re married so he’s upset because I think reader started flirting with the others? The last part is a little foggy but I remember venti being upset because he thought they were exclusive and reader is just like ‘wat?’

12. Reader being isekaied to teyvat and albedo keeping them at his house. They live with albedo and Klee and they only get discovered because they went out for a picnic or something and someone discovers reader and albedo is brought back and is to be punished but reader stops them from punishing them

13. Characters being isekaied to readers world and having nsfw thoughts about everyday items, this one is a little fuzzy so I can’t remember the details but one of them having nsfw thoughts about a spoon and thinking about readers saliva and other doing their laundry and wanking it over the washing machine. Edit: found this one! It’s Reverse isekai, Childe and Heizou in reader's home (MATURE CONTENT). By fandangotales!

14. Reader gets isekaied to teyvat with a gun and shows the characters how to use it

15. Sagau reader helps wanderer/kuni. It’s where reader goes out to his house to help him and at night when they’re in their futons he gets a boner and reader decides to help him in other ways

#fanfic #fanfic finder #genshin sagau #sagau #sagau cult au #sagau x reader #self aware genshin #sentient genshin #genshin impact #genshin x reader

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bluebeary-jay · 1 year

Text

Reason

(Joel Miller x Reader)

Summary: things go wrong when you try to cross a small city. joel almost gets himself killed and you finally confront him about why he never seems to trust you with anything

Tags: angst and fluff, probably a little ooc, a bit of humor, love confession

Warnings: mentions of violence and wounds (but nothing very graphic), age gap, swearing

Word count: 3.8K

A/N: this is my first fic ever published so i'm kinda nervous but i couldn't stop thinking about this guy. english is not my first language so excuse any mistakes. hope you enjoy <3

Joel was acting like nothing was wrong.

Which wasn't exactly anything new, really. Ever since you knew the man, he always had this rough exterior, that ‘do not fuck with me’ aura around him, and was never, ever, one for showing emotions.

Back in the QZ, when he and Tess sometimes let you hang along with them to get a job done or sneak into the restricted territory, you saw how he burst, pent-up and concealed emotions spilling out of him at long last when something went horribly wrong. He had never aimed his yells at you, though, even when it was clearly your fault that someone noticed you or you fucked up your part of the job.

Just like today. You weren't exactly to blame this time – something heavy fell over around the corner of the building you were sneaking by, and the thug looking for you three spotted you as you were ducking behind a car. Shit like that often happened when you had to work in the ruins of the old world.

Then you got separated from Ellie and Joel when the gang shot at you. All of you saw before that the street was blocked and you were practically surrounded. You barked at the pair to get out of here and that you’ll join them later, and ran in the direction of the ravaged stores, hoping to find a way around the blockade.

You remembered bullets firing at you and missing your head by centimeters. You remembered shooting and killing some of the guys chasing you, then screaming when you bumped into one of them and they grabbed you. The kicks to your stomach, the struggle, some nasty comments made by the thugs before you managed to stab one of them through the cheek. You remembered faces contorted in fury and a man lifting a gun to your head.

In that brief moment, you were glad it was you who was about to die. Better you than–

The man who was about to shoot you dropped his pistol after a loud bang pierced the air and he fell to the ground, dead. Others were soon to follow, too slow in drawing their own guns. It was Joel, of course, all bloodied and livid, blasting a head after head of the guys who were trying to hurt you. You were pinned face down to the floor and couldn’t do anything but watch as he fought them with only his knife and bare hands, as the corridor he was in was too narrow to make use of the gun without it catching on a wall or his clothes. You struggled and tried to break free, unable to bear the sight of the men’s blood mixing with his own from the growing number of cuts on his skin.

The thug holding you down apparently decided to finish you off, but didn’t have a chance before Joel tackled him to the ground, receiving another long gash below his ribs. For one terrifying moment you were sure he was stabbed in the chest and your whole world stopped. But the grunts and curses coming from the spot where Joel was knocked down on the ground quickly told you that he was fine.

You saved Joel just in time, driving a sharp shard of metal into his attacker's neck. After that the older man quickly looked you over, asking if you were hurt, and when you told him no, he grabbed your arm and led you to where Ellie was waiting.

All of you managed to get out and it didn’t seem like the gang was following you anymore. Excluding a couple of cuts and scrapes you all were fine and alive, which had to be a goddamn miracle.

That didn’t mean you weren’t absolutely furious.

Joel knew it and you suspected that’s why he was so insistent about walking in total silence, sending you and Ellie angry glares every time either of you opened your mouth. You were shooting daggers at his back as he walked in the front and even Ellie had to sense the tense atmosphere, for she was unusually quiet.

You knew Joel Miller was a protector at heart. That, among other things, was what made you care for him more than anyone else in your life, more than you’d care for a companion or even a friend. His caring, gentle nature hidden from the world under the rough exterior was what ultimately made you fall for him.

But no matter how attractive and admirable you found him, it drove you up the fucking wall that he never listened to you, never let you do anything even slightly risky or dangerous, like he always expected you to mess up. He didn’t even want you to sneak outside the QZ with him and Tess, and it was the other woman who finally convinced him.

You hated the thought that he might see you as a daughter, or worse - a burden. But the age gap between you two seemed bigger and bigger every time he did something like that, going after you because he didn’t trust you to get the job done.

And you hated it.

Only when the place you’ll spend the night in was picked and Joel took off his backpack with a wince of pain, you marched over to him and shoved his chest in frustration. Even though he was tired and hurt, he still towered over you and was much heavier, which made taking your anger out on him extremely difficult.

“The hell you're doing?” he asked incredulously, looking almost surprised at the fury painting your face.

“Don’t you ever think about doing something like that again, Joel!” you yelled at him, knowing you’re too far for any unwanted ears to hear you screaming. “I fucking told you to take Ellie and run! Why the hell did you come back?!”

“You’d prefer me to leave you behind and let those bastards do whatever sick things they wanted to do? A ‘thank you’ would be nice.”

Okay, now you were seething. You clenched your jaw and pushed him again, feeling honestly so fed up with his bullshit.

“Why don’t you ever listen to me?! You almost fucking died, not to mention you put Ellie in danger, too!”

“Hey, I was safe!” Ellie chimed in, straightening from the place she was sitting in on her sleeping bag. “And there wasn’t actually–”

“Ellie,” Joel cut her short harshly, making it clear it’s not the time for her usual sarcasm. She rolled her eyes and muttered something about grumpy old men, turning their back to them.

You huffed and turned around, going deeper into the woods. Joel said your name but when you didn’t react he went after you with long strides, grabbing your arm and halting you.

“Will you tell me what’s going on?”

“You know damn well what’s going on!” You yanked your arm out of his grasp. “I told you to go and you didn’t listen, like always, and probably had to hack your way through the whole group of these idiots just to almost get yourself killed because of me!”

“Did you really expect me to leave you behind?” he asked with his voice raised.

“Yes! At that moment it wasn’t about me, I was thinking about Ellie and you! She’s way more important than I am! You’re more important!”

“Don’t you dare say somethin–”

“Do you think I’d be able to take Ellie across the country without getting any of us killed?!” You threw your hand to the side, huffing with anger. “I don’t have your skills and experience. You’re the only one able to handle it on your own, so if any of us is to die, it will be me, no questions asked.”

“Like hell it’ll be you!” He was seething now, too, and he came up to you in two long, angry strides, stopping just before he could stomp on your shoes. Suddenly you two were so close that you could feel his breath on your face. “I am not fucking letting you get yourself killed! Not now and not ever.”

“Can’t you just think logically for a second?!” you shouted in his face, tears of rage and helplessness gathering in your eyes. “I’m a goddamn burden to you both! Yes, it was me who alerted them of our presence and I understand that’s probably why you never trusted me…” Actually saying those words out loud was more painful than you anticipated and you had to take a deep breath to calm yourself down. “It’s just, I can’t fight like you can, I’m not as valuable as Ellie, I…”

You had to press your lips together not to sob accidentally. Although you knew you had to make your point across, you still didn’t want Joel to see how weak you actually are.

“But I’m not fucking useless, understand?” you said sternly, looking him dead in the eyes. “I am gonna help you both go as far as possible, but if we’re ever in that kind of situation again, you’re leaving me behind and I’m buying you and Ellie as much time as I can.”

His expression hardened and he started to shake his head, but you beat him to it.

“I know you never wanted me to go on any missions with you, but just once let me be useful, alright? Even if all I can do is buy you a couple of precious minutes.”

“By letting yourself die.”

He said it with such finality and disbelief, all your anger got swept off and replaced by weariness. You sighed heavily and leaned against a tree.

“Yes, Joel. I know you’d rather not lose anyone else, but if I have a chance to help those I care about…” You realized you said too much and shook your head. “I don’t understand why it is such a big deal for you.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. His warm brown eyes were on you and for the first time ever you wished he'd look away. You turned your head and sighed again.

God, you were so very tired.

“I’m going to look for some firewood. You go check if the place is safe, alright?”

“No, listen–”

“Just this once, Joel,” you cut him off, not turning around. The tears that have gathered in your eyes before were threatening to spill down your cheeks and you weren’t going to show him how much this situation has pained you. “Just this once, drop it. Please.”

This time he didn’t stop you when you wandered further away from the camp and you truthfully didn’t know if it was better or worse.

*****

The rest of the evening went by mostly in silence. Ellie tried to lighten up the mood by reading some bad jokes from her book and though Joel was his usual grumpy self, it actually helped you a little. The girl seemed pretty proud of herself about making you crack a smile, but her efforts to bring Joel into the conversation came to naught. The smile disappeared from your face every time your eyes met and he looked away.

He almost didn’t say a word throughout your meal and preparing for bed, only muttering something under his breath when Ellie told you both goodnight. You were so tired that you managed to fall asleep almost immediately despite the worry and sadness gnawing at you when your thoughts drifted to the man laying on the opposite side of the fire.

When you opened your eyes again, the dawn was only just breaking. The air was cold and crisp, and you groaned, shivering and pulling your coat tighter around yourself, only to realize something else was draped over your form.

You rubbed your eyes and noticed the familiar green jacket covering your torso. Its owner was a couple of feet away, sitting with his back to you on a big log. The rifle lay next to him, propped up against the fallen tree. Your shoulders slumped at the sight of him and you remembered your argument from last night. You almost laid back down, but ignoring his act of kindness felt wrong, so with a quiet sigh you stood up, making your way to where he was sitting.

Joel glanced to the side when you approached and his gaze was instantly drawn to his jacket you wrapped around yourself.

“You were shivering,” he muttered, apparently knowing what you were about to ask. He said it as if giving you his jacket was the most sensible thing to do in a situation like that.

Was that an attempt to say he’s sorry for how he reacted earlier? You decided not to question his intentions too much and instead sat down next to him, nailing your eyes on the patch of recently disturbed ground.

“Thanks,” you replied under your breath, still not looking at the man. “But you didn’t have to. You’re probably cold now.”

“M’not.”

Liar. Stubborn as always.

None of you said anything else for a long time. You contemplated whether you should just go back to your sleeping bag and leave his jacket on the log, or stay and try to defuse the tension between you two. Somehow neither of these options appealed to you but it was so difficult to just sit here in silence and–

“I’ve been thinkin' about what you said,” Joel spoke up suddenly and very quietly, which interrupted your dwelling. “And I couldn’t stop remembering how damn sure you sounded when you said I don’t trust you.”

A wave of uneasiness washed over you and you wrapped his jacket tighter around yourself. “It’s okay that you don’t,” you said slowly, not really sure what he was getting at. “I mean, I’m not sure if even I would trust my–”

“That’s the thing,” he interrupted you with an irritated sigh and turned his head to look at you with his brows furrowed. “I do trust you. I just have no clue how…” Another sigh. “How I could’ve fucked up so badly that you’d think that.”

You blinked several times, not sure if you weren’t still dreaming after all. It kind of felt like a dream when he was sitting so close to you, his jacket around your shoulders and a rising sun painting his hair in a golden light.

“But you never let me do anything important or dangerous on my own,” you contradicted quietly, which caused Joel to drop his head loosely and close his eyes. “You’re always against taking me with you anywhere, and–”

“That’s because you’re important to me!” he cut you off, evidently louder than he intended, because he immediately glanced at you and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Sorry,” he muttered. “It’s just hard for me to understand how… how did…”

Joel seemed at a loss for words and you longed to touch him, to take the burden of carrying the conversation from his shoulders and ease the weariness on his face, but you weren't really sure what he intended to say. You didn’t want to get your hopes up, but it almost sounded like…

“I can’t bear the thought of losing you,” he said softly at last and you could pinpoint the exact moment you stopped breathing. Joel’s eyes were closed and he was propping his forehead on his hand, and he looked so… sad. “That’s why I never wanted you to take any risk, because if something happened to you and I weren’t there to protect you…”

He swallowed heavily, inhaled, then straightened up and looked over at you. The look he gave you was so tender and open, it was almost difficult to focus on his words.

“I care about you, too,” he whispered, and you remembered what slipped out of your mouth when you were arguing earlier. “A lot. Much more than I should, but I can’t… I can’t help it.” He turned to look forward, his eyes narrowing from the sunlight creeping from between the trees, and he looked so beautiful in that moment, you wished you had a camera on hand.

“Joel,” you breathed, but he shook his head.

“I didn’t want to make shit weird between… us.” He waved his hand in a vague gesture. “So don’t feel pressured into sayin’ anything. Just don’t expect me to idly stand by while you’re risking your life because–”

“Joel,” you repeated, louder this time, which finally made him shut up.

“What?”

You didn’t really know what you were going to say. You just wanted him to stop talking because he was only torturing himself with this ramble and you couldn’t bear it.

Very slowly, and very gently, you took Joel’s hand in your own and moved it over to your lap. Ignoring his eyes on you, you traced the length of his calloused fingers and brushed the center of the palm where a cut from a couple of days ago was still healing. Your heart was beating so damn loud in your ears, you wouldn’t hear if a parade of clickers just walked past you both, but with all your might you tried to keep your breathing steady and your face from going beet red.

He said you were important to him. That he couldn’t bear the thought of losing you. He didn’t see you as a burden as you feared, so maybe… maybe he didn’t view you as a kid, as well.

Throwing all caution to the wind, you laced your fingers together and brought them to your lips, leaving a small kiss on his bloodied knuckles. Joel tensed in a split second and you weren't sure if he was still breathing, but you didn’t look at him in fear that his expression may take away the remnants of your temporary courage.

“If I misread you, this is gonna be painfully awkward,” you mumbled in a feeble attempt to defuse the tension in the air, so thick it was almost choking you. “But I’m still grateful you told me all thi–”

His other hand – the same hand he was ready to kill and protect with, with which he was ready to tear his way through the mass of enemies just to save you – lifted itself to your face and cupped your cheek. Joel was looking at you with wonder, the fingers you cradled in your own twitching slightly as if he was holding back from tightening his hold. His eyes seemed like they were made out of liquid gold in the light of the morning sun and he looked at you with such adoration that you once again humored the thought that it was just all some cruel, vivid dream.

But no, it couldn’t have been. Not when Joel’s skin was so cold against your burning face and not when his eyes flickered to your lips…

It was you who leaned in first, but once your lips touched, Joel took the reins, untangling his fingers from yours to wrap his arm around your waist and pull you closer.

You expected him to be rough and confident, just like he was during a fight, to take what he wanted and devour you – at least that’s how you always imagined kissing him would be like. What you didn’t expect, however, was a trembling sigh that escaped him when you two parted for a moment to take a breath and a gentle touch of his fingertips along your jaw. His hold on your body was by turns firmer and more loose, like he was afraid he’d scare you off if he let himself use too much strength.

You, on the other hand, had no reservations in taking his face in your hands firmly and parting your lips, encouraging him to go on. It seemed to work at first, because Joel pulled you in even closer, letting you crawl onto his lap, but then he stopped abruptly and moved you gently away, still keeping his hands on both sides of your face.

“Darlin’, I need to know if you’re sure about this, because I won’t be able to…”

You pressed your lips to his again, this time much slower and more delicate, in an attempt to silence him. Joel finally relaxed when you cupped his face and planted a kiss on his brow, always so furrowed in concern and worry.

“Joel, I wanted you to kiss me for the whole time I knew you. I really, really care about your bullheaded skull.” You looked down at him with a playful smile, to which he chuckled. “Though you’re shit at sending signals. I was sure you hated me.”

“Well, you are hard to deal with sometimes,” he mused in a teasing tone and you jabbed him in the stomach before he managed to grab your wrist. “But I… I'm sorry that I made you feel this way. Like you didn’t matter to me.”

You furrowed your brows at the uncharacteristic vulnerability and sadness in his voice and your worry must’ve etched itself in your eyes because when Joel looked at you, he turned away and closed his eyes immediately.

“Listen, you know now you matter to me more than anyone else in this cursed world. I don’t want to ever be as worried sick about you like I was yesterday,” he whispered. You brushed some hair off his face and the creases on his forehead softened a little. “And I don’t ever want you to think you’re not important. You’re… fuck, you’re the goddamn reason I’m doing all this. You're my reason, you hear me?”

You just nodded with a wide smile that threatened to split your face in half.

“I understand,” you answered, just as quietly. “You’re also the reason I’m doing all of this for.”

This time it was unclear who initiated the kiss. Nevertheless, you ended up held tightly in his arms, marveling at his touch on your skin and the feeling of his chapped lips on yours, and there wasn’t any other place you wished to be in.

It lasted just a couple of seconds though, because you were interrupted by the sound of fake barfing and gurgles of disgust coming from the direction of your camp.

“Gross!” yelled Ellie loudly, but she had a shit-eating grin on her face when she squinted at Joel holding you in his lap. “Don’t suck faces when there are children present!”

“Shut up!” Joel yelled back, but without any bite in his tone. A soft smile played on his lips when he looked back at you. “She’ll be insufferable now,” he murmured and you snorted at how done he sounded. He mirrored your expression and held your hand to his face to kiss your fingers tenderly, which made Ellie gag even louder.

“If you start making out in front of me, I won’t hesitate to throw a fucking sandwich at you!”

“She won’t,” muttered Joel, not even turning to the teen before he leaned in and kissed you slowly again.

You smiled into the kiss, barely noticing stale pieces of bread flying over Joel’s shoulder.

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #the last of us #tlou hbo #joel tlou #joel miller #featuring our badass queen #ellie williams #the last of us fic #joel miller x y/n #the last of us fanfiction #pedro pascal #pedro pascal x reader #beary writes

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halcyone-of-the-sea · 6 months

Text

Choke On The Sun

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*

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.”

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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bloodhoundluke · 6 months

Text

drunken smiles & fishnet stockings

pairing: luke hemmings x fem! reader

description: it's halloween and luke is hosting a party! luke and y/n know each other, but little do they know that this night would change something pivotal between the duo.

warnings: 🔞 MINORS DO NOT INTERACT. sex talk, smut, protected p in v, alcohol consumption, cursing, fluff, an embarrassing amount of pet names. (i don't think there’s anything else??).

word count: 5,8k-ish. a/n: hey there friends! 🌟 i wanted to publish this fic before publishing requested & other fics, i'm working on all of them so pls be patient! and this is my first fic which contains smut so there's a huge chance this sucks (i'm actually nervous to release this pls help me i'm scared lol) 😬 also, i have a lot of deadlines atm so pls bare with me, i am working on the requests whenever i can. thank you for supporting my blog, i adore you all so much 🤍 happy late halloween to everyone who celebrated 🎃

dividers by @silkholland.

"Y/N!", you heard your best friend yell from the other side of your studio apartment. You had been getting ready for nearly two hours, and to one one’s surprise, you and your best friend were already late. Calum had been texting you for a while now, telling you two to hurry up.

"What?"

"We are so late! We need to get going! Oh my god, this is so embarrassing", your best friend sighed and now stood next to you. You were still fixing your hair in front of a full body mirror.

"Okay okay, stop fussing. Do I look okay?", you asked them and placed the curling iron on top of your drawer, shutting it off. You reached for the hairspray sitting on the drawer, and looked over at your friend who looked absolutely stunning.

"Yes, you look amazing Y/N. If I wasn't your friend I'd totally hook up with you", your friend cheered and nudged your shoulder gently.

"Gosh, thanks. I'd totally hook up with you too", you giggled and took a glimpse of their police costume. You ruffled your hair slightly and placed some hairspray on your locks to hold them in place.

You locked your hands with your friend’s, and got into the cab that was waiting outside.

You had been invited to your friend Luke's Halloween party. You had met him a few years prior through your mutual friend Calum, who was also his bandmate and one of his best friends. Calum and you had known for four years or so, and you considered him to be one of your closest friends. You considered yourself lucky to have a friend like him, since you could tell him anything and you knew he wouldn’t judge you.

You looked through the cab window with the city lights passing by. You wondered who’d be at the party. Luke must have sent invitations for hundreds of people, since he was a pretty popular guy. You found the guy and his shy-ish exterior rather charming, but only in a platonic way. Luke and you weren’t extremely close, but you exchanged text messages every now and then.

You arrived at the party and looked at the sea of people, who were mingling with each other in their Halloween costumes. Luke’s house was decorated in decorative spider web, pumpkins, and some skeleton figures. Purple lightning illuminated the whole house. You liked the decorations, it wasn’t too much or too little.

You and your best friend decided to go and say hello to Calum and his group of people. Calum hugged you tightly and commented on how he hadn’t seen you in ages. His girlfriend, Brandy, did the same. They were wearing a matching set of vampire costumes. You were happy for Calum, he had finally found a girl who loved him just the way he was.

You walked over to Ashton, Michael, Crystal and Luke. Ashton was dressed in a cowboy costume, which made you smile a bit since he practically dressed like one in real life. He brought you into a bear hug and you couldn't help but smile. Ashton always made you feel so welcomed. Michael and Crystal goofed around in their Anime costumes. You catched up with them and then finally noticed something familiar about Luke’s costume. It was a Harry Potter costume.

No fucking way.

"Cool costume", Luke commented as he saw you eyeing his Gryffindor badge, and the lightning bolt on his forehead. His hair had grown out a bit, but it didn't look bad. Actually, it looked anything else than bad. That man could definitely pull off any hairstyle, you were sure of it.

"Thanks! You too. Suits you", you stated and straightened your own Gryffindor badge on your costume. Dressing as Ginny Weasley, or what you called it low-budget Ginny since you had no cape, was a decision you had made a few days ago. You were supposed to dress as a Pumpkin, but you managed to break the costume and didn’t have the time to fix it. So the second best option was Ginny.

You sighed and looked around the room, thinking of grabbing a drink.

“Oh my gosh! We need to take a picture of you two”, your best friend suddenly exclaimed and you giggled, nervousness plastered all across your face. You saw them giving you the look, and knew instantly what it meant. They believed in fate, what you on the other hand called nonsense. You were sure Luke and you dressing in similar costumes was some sort of sign of “fate” to your best friend. Luke and you could never happen.

“Really?”, you giggled as you felt a knot in your stomach. Luke was sometimes difficult to read, and you weren’t entirely sure if he would conform to the idea.

“Yes!”, your best friend commented, and ‘totally’ and ‘absolutely’ from Michael, Crystal, Calum, Brandy and Ashton followed after. You and Luke both looked at each of them, then finally looked at each other. Your friends would never let it go, so you’d better just get it out of the way.

“Okay”, you accepted your defeat. “You okay with that?”, you confirmed Luke. “Yeah, sure, why not?”, he took a sip of his beer and placed the bottle on the counter, giving you a small smile.

You, Luke and your best friend found a spot in Luke’s house and you settled in with Luke against the white wall, as your best friend was holding their phone towards you two. Luke placed his other hand on your lower back, and you placed yours on his stomach.

“This okay?”, you looked up to him and shuffled a little closer to the man. You saw him eyeing your legs, which were covered in fishnet stockings. His oceanic blue eyes met yours, and you did your best not to drown in them. You hadn’t even chugged down one drink, and you were already a fool for some man. And worst of all, it was your friend. You blamed this growing lust for him on the Halloween spirit. Surely someone had once said that Halloween brings out feelings you don’t usually feel.

“Uh..yeah, sure”, he cleared his throat and chuckled. “You ready?”, he offered you a little smile.

“S-sure”, you returned the smile and you both stared directly at the camera.

“And say….cheese!”, your best friend cheered.

You took an awkward glimpse in Luke’s direction and both of you bursted out laughing. The photos shown afterwards were pretty cute, you had to admit that. And Luke’s hand on your lower back left you yearning for more of his touch.

Damn, you really needed a drink. And to forget Luke fucking Hemmings' hands.

—❦

After taking the picture of you and Luke, you had been mingling with people, eating, and drinking a few tequila sunrises. You had just settled into Luke’s living room to play Spin the Bottle, the classic party game. The group playing consisted of you, your best friend, Luke, Ashton, Calum, Brandy, Michael and Crystal. To be honest you were zoned most of the time, since you found the game a bit ridiculous.

Then you heard your name as the bottle pointed towards you. In your alcohol-infused state, you picked a dare.

“I dare you to kiss the most attractive person in the room”, Ashton dared. You heard a few encouraging comments coming from your friends, and Brandy gave you a wide grin. “Ash? Really?”, you squeaked, and gave him a deadly glare. “Well, didn’t you pick a dare, pumpkin?”, he asked and chuckled. Suddenly the rush of confidence you had seemed to fade out, and you mentally cursed the drummer.

“Okay”, you sighed, and looked across the room. The choice was obvious, but you didn’t want to give it away. So you pretended to consider your options for a while.

You got up from the floor, and got on your knees in front of Luke. You caught him looking at you, and he looked away. But then you leant to kiss him, and he kissed you back. The tingling feeling of him kissing you back flustered you. You shouldn’t like the feeling of his lips pressed against yours this much, but you did. His lips brushed over yours delicately, and your heart was pumping. It made no sense, but you loved every second of it. His beard stubble tickled you, but you didn't care. Not everyday you got the chance to kiss Luke fucking Hemmings, who was practically the hottest guy you had ever seen.

You backed away from the kiss first, then did Luke.

“Cool”, he let out a nervous chuckle and you did the same. Cool…really? You didn’t know if you should have been offended or relieved that the awkwardness of it was finally over.

“That was hot”, your best friend whispered into your ear as you went back to your place on the floor. “He’s hot”, you whispered back. The taste of pure tequila lingered on your lips.

“And Ashton’s so hot too”, they whispered. “Go get him, Y/B/F/N”, you advised, and winked at them.

The game continued and the next rounds were spent by hearing how Ashton’s favorite sex position was Basset Hound Doggy and Brandy’s biggest turn off in a relationship was controlling behavior. You also saw your best friend give a lap dance to the person who they fancied the most in the room, Ashton. They both seemed to enjoy it. Michael and Crystal had also shared a steamy make out session, to which you all cheered.

It was Luke’s turn next.

“Hmmm…okay. What is your biggest turn on?” Michael asked Luke and took a sip of his Corona, placing the bottle on the floor afterwards. Luke’s answer interested you, you had to admit.

“Ohh…got many. But neck kisses are a big one”, Luke slyly answered and gulped down his tequila. “Ohhh, that’s a good one”, Ashton agreed and you saw him looking in your best friend’s direction. You rolled your eyes slightly, and giggled to yourself. They would totally share the bed tonight.

Luke spun the bottle, which landed on Calum. He chose the truth. Luke didn’t come up with anything, so your best friend chose the question instead.

“Which two people in this group should hook up?”, your best friend asked Calum.

Oh my god, were they serious? You totally knew where they were getting at. But hopefully Calum didn’t understand that, or anyone else for that matter. You were safe, Calum would definitely pick Michael and Crystal. Or Ashton and your best friend.

“Well, the obvious choice would be Brandy and me. Or Michael and Crystal, but…I feel I want to stir the pot, I guess.. So… I think Luke and Y/N… I mean we saw the kiss Luke and Y/N had earlier”, Calum smirked devilishly at Luke, and then at you. The group around you chuckled, and seemed to agree with Calum as they were nodding their heads. But not you nor Luke.

“Okayyyy, so maybe Cal should stop drinking for tonight”, you chuckled, and Calum gave you a humorous smile, which screamed a polite fuck you, in return. You saw Luke looking down at his drink on the floor with a drunken smile on his face. He fiddled with his rings on his left hand. He looked up and directly at you, boring his eyes into yours for a milli-second. You wondered what was going through his head, since yours was filled with so many questions.

Why didn’t he say anything? Why was he so quiet? Did he find your kiss icky? Did he find you… repulsive? Why was he acting so strange?

—❦

The party was over and people had left Luke’s apartment, which was now littered with red cups, beer bottles and pizza boxes. You had been settling into a spare bedroom in Luke’s house. Ashton, Calum, Brandy, Michael, Crystal and your best friend were staying over as well.

You drank water alone in Luke’s kitchen, since everyone had already gone to sleep. The now quiet atmosphere made you feel at peace, and you smiled to yourself.

You enjoyed the brief moment of silence until a head of blonde messy curls appeared from the doorway.

Luke walked into the kitchen and gave you a tired little smile. He opened the refrigerator door and took a large water bottle, pouring it into a glass he retrieved from the cabinet. He placed the bottle back to the refrigerator and closed the refrigerator door as you were still drinking your own water.

You noticed how he had gotten rid of the jacket and the tie, leaving him with a slightly unbuttoned white collar shirt and dark gray pants. He had also wiped the lightning bolt off his forehead.

Standing here with Luke, in this terrifyingly awkward yet weirdly comforting silence, made you question your lust towards the man. Maybe it was just the alcohol running through your veins. That might just be the only logical explanation.

“Let me guess, you don’t want to get a hangover?”, you chose to break the silence.

“Hell no”, he sipped water, “did you have fun tonight?”. The blonde locked his eyes with yours and you looked away, your eyes now fixating on your ring-covered fingers.

You cleared your throat, and answered, “Yep, had a blast. And you?”.

“Yeah”, he smiled and you went closer to him, as you were about to place the cup in the sink. Your hands brushed against his as he was just about to do the same. You both placed your cups in the sink, and your eyes met his. You both stood in your places quietly, and for some weird reason, you couldn't help but look at his parted lips. And you noticed him doing the same, then his eyes studying yours.

Your heart started to race a million miles an hour. You weren’t nervous around the people you fancied, but Luke was a different story. He was the epitome of gorgeous, so you couldn’t really blame yourself, could you?

He turned his body towards yours, and you took a step closer to him. You didn’t know what you were doing. Hell, you didn’t know what he was doing either.

Luke let out a low chuckle and you couldn’t help but bite your lower lip.

Yes, even a fool could tell you wanted to kiss him. But you weren’t sure if you should. And you weren’t sure if the man in front of you noticed that too.

Thankfully Luke had noticed your indecisiveness as he leant in for a kiss. You had imagined this after the kiss during the game, but now that it was actually happening, you couldn’t believe it. This was rougher than the last time. More passionate. More demanding. He moved even closer to you, placing his hands on the sides of your face. You felt his cold rings against your bare skin, but it didn’t matter. Not when he touched you like this, his thumbs brushing against your cheeks and his tongue battling for dominance over yours.

He backed away from you, licking his lips.

“Fuck… I shouldn’t have done that, I’m sorry”, he apologized and rested his body against the kitchen counter.

“What do you mean?”, you frowned your eyebrows. Was he being serious right now?

“It’d mess things up…if we go further. Shit, this on its own could make everything awkward...”

“What if…what if we just don’t think about the consequences? You want me, and I obviously want you”, you suggested. You didn’t want to think, not now. You didn’t want your growing lust for Luke to go to waste. It would be a shame if it did.

“Are you..sure?”, he scratched the back of his head.

“Yes”

“Okay”, he let out a low chuckle and took a step closer to you, studying your lips in the meantime.

“Luke?”, you looked into his eyes as you spoke.

“Yeah?”, he bored his blue eyes into yours, and placed his hands on your waist, tugging you closer to him.

“Just fuckin’ kiss me already”

“Thought you’d never ask”, he whispered, his voice perfectly husky and seducing. His plump lips found their place on yours and you swore you had never kissed someone like him before. His lips moved swiftly, hungrily against yours.

You tugged his shirt, wanting to get rid of it as soon as possible.

“Luke?”, you asked, out of breath.

“Yeah?”, he wiped his mouth with his hand, and you couldn’t help but stare at the man’s mouth. The mouth that you wanted to do incredible things to you.

“What are we doing?”.

“What do you want to do princess?”, his voice was heavy, and hoarse. And so god-damn sexy. He moved a few stray hairs out of your face.

“Fuck…”, you cursed.

“...me?”, Luke smirked.

You were totally gone off the rails, so whipped for him, there was no going back now.

“Actually, yeah”, you decided to toss logic aside, and once again, Luke placed his lips hungrily on yours. You kissed him back passionately and he grabbed your ass under your skirt. You wrapped your hands around his neck, and felt the need to do such things to Luke you could never say out loud.

“Jump”, he groaned between the rough yet lustful kisses and you jumped into his lap. He grabbed you by your outer thighs and placed you on the counter. He left wet kisses on your neck, leaving you wondering why you hadn’t done this sooner with him. Maybe it was the fact you had known this man for years, and he had never shown you any sign of interest. But it didn’t matter now, he clearly wanted you.

“Is this okay?”, he reassured you.

“You’re perfect”, you sighed and stared at the beautiful man in front of you. Yes, you had always thought Luke was hot, but this was something else. You loved how soft and assertive he was at the same time. This was dangerous, anyone could see you two. But you liked it this way. You didn’t want to think, you just wanted him. You craved him. You needed him.

His lips found their way back to yours and you bit his lower lip by accident. You felt Luke giggling against your lips, and you couldn’t help but do the same.

“Can I take this off?”, he asked between the kisses as he was holding the fabric on your shirt. “Please”. And he does, leaving your chest area covered by your black bra. You started to unbutton his shirt and when you were done, he threw the white collar shirt on the floor next to yours.

Luke traveled kisses from the side of your face to your neck, then to your chest. “Fuck, you’re so hot”, he remarked and you chuckled slightly as a response. Luke kissed you, and you kissed him, sliding your tongue into his mouth. You made out for a while until he decided to move the strap of your bra over your shoulder. He placed a few kisses on your shoulder, and you didn’t understand how he did it all this, being this fucking good at everything, but you enjoyed the show.

“Need to get my fishnets off”, you whimpered under his touch.

He ripped open your fishnets using his hands, and you swore to yourself you hadn’t seen anything as hot as that. You lifted your body using your hands on the counter so he could take the remains of the stockings off. And when he was done, he nibbled your ear and his heavy breathing made you squirm.

“Finger me?”, you asked as his lustful ocean eyes stared into yours. “It’d be my pleasure”, he smirked, pushing your lingerie to the side and pushing two fingers into you with the perfect amount of pressure.

“Fuck, you are so wet…so good, Y/N”, he remarked huskily and moved his fingers inside you in swift motion. You widened your legs so he’d get a better entrance. “Mmmmh”, you whimpered, your head tilted back and eyes closed. Luke trailed down kisses from your neck to your chest. You opened your eyes and his lips crashed into yours.

“Need you to fuck me, Luke”, you whispered into his mouth. “Believe me, I will. Just wanna make you cum first”, he whispered and kissed you. And in under a minute, you were a whimpering mess under his touch, him giving you a smug look. You swore you just saw the stars, no one had ever known your body like him. And it didn’t make any sense, this was the first time being with him. But it didn’t have to make sense, you were now with him and god, he made you feel incredibly good.

His fingers left your entrance and his lustful dark eyes met yours again. He brought his fingers into his mouth and sucked on them, still holding the eye contact.

”Baby, you taste so good... Fuckin’ incredible”, he mumbled.

”Fuck…”, you whimpered as you were still coming off your high and watching Luke taste you did not help to urge to feel him inside of you. Neither did the fact that you noticed his boner through his dark dress pants. What was this man doing to you?

“Wanna go to my bedroom?”, he suggested, and placed a strand of your hair behind your ear, giving you a small lingering kiss on your collarbone.

“Thought you’d never ask”.

You both grabbed your clothes from the floor and you went upstairs. In the upstairs hallway, Luke couldn’t resist but pin you against the wall, kissing your face like he had never kissed before. You grabbed his erected dick under his dress pants and stroked it slightly above the material, making Luke whimper. “Y/N…”, he started yet couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Mmmh? Tell me?”, you asked as you started to unbuckle his belt.

“Mmmmh, don’t tease me, Y/N”

“That’s bold of you since you started it...”, you pointed out.

“Mmmhhh…fuck, that’s true. Let’s go before I fuck you against this wall and everyone will hear it”, he gave you a quick peck on your lips, leaving you wanting for more. You didn't know Luke could be this smug, but it definitely turned you on.

Luke led you to his bedroom. You placed yourself on his California King, and looked around. You had never been in Luke’s bedroom. A few paintings hung on the dark -painted walls, a vintage record player rested on the dressing table and the TV across the bed covered most of the wall space.

Luke retrieved a condom from his wallet, which was resting on his night-stand and pulled down both his pants and boxers, revealing his hardened dick. In the meanwhile you got rid of your skirt, and underwear. He placed the condom on and you couldn't help but admire the sight in front of you. Luke tossed both his pants and boxers off to the floor. He placed his body on top of you, kissing you and making the kiss deeper as you slid your tongue into his mouth. Your tongues danced together and your anticipation for the following grew, even though you had gone through your high already. But maybe, just maybe, he could make you come twice. His lips parted from yours, and he looked into your eyes, his fingers traveling along your lips.

“You’re so damn beautiful”.

“You’re fuckin’ beautiful too”, you answered, your need for him growing.

“You ready?”. You nodded and he slipped into you slowly as you kissed his neck. You detached your lips from his neck and tugged his hair, your hands exploring the softness of his curls. A few moans escaped from both of your mouths. How could he make moaning sound so damn good?

“Please keep on going”.

"Was planning on doing so, princess".

He thrusted into you, and your walls clenched against him. You saw him biting his lip, his eyes wide open, clearly enjoying the view of you. “Fuck, you are perfect. So tight around me.... So good”, he praised.

This would probably never happen again, so you decided to make the most of it.

You met his lips in a kiss and you slipped your tongue into his mouth, his own meeting with yours. His thrusts became quicker and you both moaned of pleasure. Your hands had moved to his upper back, your nails scratching the warm skin.

And when you both came undone, you cleaned yourselves up and laid in his bed. You both stared at the bedroom ceiling. Luke had asked you to stay, which had surprised you.

“I held myself back when you kissed me in the game”, the blonde confessed. You looked at Luke, whose left arm was leaning against the back of his head. Only now you noticed his bird tattoo on his bicep. You couldn’t see it properly in the dim lightning, but you were guessing it was a hummingbird. To be honest, there probably were a lot of things you didn’t know about him.

“Did you?”, you asked in a rather suggestive voice, and turned your body towards him under the covers.

“Well, yeah, have you seen yourself? Fuckin’ beautiful. I wanted to rip those fishnets off you the moment I saw you in them”, he chuckled and his eyes met yours.

You couldn’t help but feel flustered. Luke Hemmings, of all the people in the world, thought you were…beautiful?

“In that case, I’m happy I decided to wear them”, you giggled.

“I can buy you a new pair of fishnets”, he offered.

“You really don’t need to do that”.

“If that gives me an excuse to see you, then I’d like to”, you saw an endearing smile appear on his face.

“What if you break them too?”, you chuckled, not that you wouldn’t mind him doing that.

“Then I’d have another excuse to see you again”, he reasoned, and shuffled closer to you. You didn’t know if it was still the alcohol clouding your judgement, but you liked him. Maybe a bit more than you wanted to.

“Seems like you want it to be a pattern”, you suggested.

“Well, if it makes you scream like earlier…”, he smirked and took you in his arms, your face squished against his warm and toned chest. “Luke!”, you screamed into his chest.

“Hush hush now, everyone is asleep”, he kissed the top of your head, and chuckled.

“Sorry”, you giggled and wrapped your hand around his waist, snuggling closer to him. Your face rested against his chest, and he stroked your hair gently.

"Good night beautiful", he reached for your lips and planted a small kiss on them, then turning off the bedside lamp. "Good night, Luke".

—❦

“Quit starin’ at me princess”, Luke spoke with his eyes closed as you lied with him in his enormous California King bed.

“I can’t, you’re way too pretty”, you played with his curls, both of your naked bodies under the same duvet.

You had been awake for a while now, mainly going over the memories of last night. Luke’s lips pressed against yours, his hands grabbing the sides of your body, him whispering sweet nothings into your ear as he was inside of you. You had contemplated leaving Luke’s house, but you didn’t want to do it to Luke. And the change in Luke’s behavior towards you made you question his motives. He even let you sleep in his bed, and didn’t want you to leave to your room. Did he actually like your company? Or was he just lonely?

You removed your hand from his set of curls, and wondered what it must be like to be that beautiful. It was unfair how good-looking he was.

“Talk to me about pretty, huh?”, he opened up his eyes and scanned your face. “Hush”, you gave him a deadly glare and he grinned back at you.

“Tell me when did you get so freaking hot?”, you asked him.

“Haven’t I always been?”, he winked and readjusted the pillows on the bed, his face and body now towards yours.

“Yeah, but I mean…like this hot. Ridiculously hot. So hot I want to jump into your lap”

“Now you’re just makin’ a fool out of me”

“Am not! I promise”, you exclaimed. “I swear when I saw you last night, something happened inside of me. This lust, I guess…I don’t know what the hell it was”

“Well, thank you. Good to hear I don’t look like an absolute knobhead”, he rolled his eyes, and letting out a chuckle.

“And he’s funny too”, you giggled.

“C’mere”, he motioned you into his embrace and you laid there for a moment in silence, taking in the moment. This silence felt comfortable in some odd way. His fingers brushed gently against yours, moving to cup your face, his mouth telling you compliments you never expected to come from his mouth. You’re gorgeous. Your eyes are pretty as hell. I like cuddling you. You smiled back at him, not really knowing what to answer.

“So this wasn’t a one time thing?”, you decided to break the newly founded silence.

“Nope. If that’s okay with you?”, Luke searched for your approval from your softened eyes, and you gave him that. “More than okay”, you smiled. You looked for something in his eyes. Maybe a hidden truth. You were his friend, but you didn’t know him truly. You did not really have an idea who he was deep in his core. But your instinct told you to find out.

"Good. Did you actually like my Halloween costume or were you just being polite?", Luke hummed, and placed his head into the crook of your neck.

"I thought you looked hot. And so dreamy... So yes Luke, I liked it", you beamed, and pecked his lips. "A lot", you added and caressed his pretty curly hair.

"You were a pretty dreamy Ginny yourself", he placed his mouth on your neck, sucking on the skin slightly, then placing a few sloppy kisses on your jawline. His breath started to become noticeably heavier, and you giggled, "Luke Hemmings, you are one hell of a guy".

After a while of lounging around with Luke, you both decided to do your morning rituals and throw some clothes on. Yeah, you might have hooked up with him again, only in the shower this time, and you felt as if you couldn't keep your hands off the blonde.

You and Luke had decided to go downstairs and cook something for breakfast, and now you waited for him to come out of the bathroom. Luke opened up the bathroom door attached to his bedroom, and you studied his features.

You couldn’t help but smile as he was humming some song you had never even heard of. He had a habit of doing that, making you smile. Or at least that was what he had been doing the past hours. And last night, obviously. He was dressed in a pair of gray sweatpants, which made you drool over him, and a black AC/DC t-shirt. He had also offered you an oversized band t-shirt to wear since your own shirt was a bit uncomfortable to wear. So now you were standing in front of Luke, wearing his oversized t-shirt and barely visible black skirt. You would have never guessed that something like this could actually happen.

“Ready?”, he asked, and you nodded. You were waiting for him to open the door, until he decided to turn around and he grabbed your face into his hands. He pressed a delicate and endearing kiss on your lips.

“Actually, now we’re ready”, he chuckled and finally opened the door. “You dork”, you giggled, the taste of his toothpaste lingering on your lips.

“No one should be up, it’s barely 9am”, Luke commented as you were walking down the stairs. “Yeah, there’s not a chance anyone’s up yet”, you agreed with him and you both walked into the kitchen, only to discover every single person that had stayed at Luke's sitting by the kitchen table.

“Good morning, Luke and Y/N”, Crystal greeted you two, to which both you and Luke responded.

Luke offered you a glass of water with a side of lemon and ice, after he had convinced you of how the drink makes a great hangover cure. You and Luke found yourself seats by the kitchen table, next to each other since they were the only ones not taken.

"Luke? Y/N?" Ashton opened his mouth.

“We fuckin’ heard you last night”, Ashton remarked as both you and Luke were caught up in your own worlds. And then you made sense of what Ashton had just said.

...Oh my god, had they really heard all…that?

Your best friend was sitting next to Ashton, and they were giggling with Ashton’s arm resting behind their chair.

You hadn’t talked this through with Luke. Shit, shit, shit. You hadn’t really even thought about if anyone had heard you last night.

“Oh you are speechless now, is that it?” Ashton giggled, making your friend, Michael, Crystal, Calum and Brandy laugh too.

“We really hope you Luke cleaned up the kitchen afterwards”, Crystal commented. “Just saying”, she added and gave a quick peck to Michael. Michael chuckled, and took turns looking at you, and then Luke.

“I did, don’t you worry about it Crys”, Luke scratched the back of his head, obviously feeling awkward as hell. You cleared your throat, wishing to be anywhere else than being questioned about your little rendezvous with Luke last night.

“And you used a condom?” Ashton asked, making Luke groan. “Of course, you fuckin’ moron”.

“Okaaaay, should we change the subject? Us having sex isn’t the most exciting topic”, you chuckled nervously, avoiding eye contact with everyone. Even the handsome blonde beside you.

“It definitely did sound exciting last night…All the screams and objects fallin’ to the floor, all Y/N’s whimpers and Luke’s -”, Ashton remarked, but was soon interrupted by an annoyed Luke.

“Okay okay, we get it. We were a bit loud. But let’s move on, please”, Luke groaned.

"I want to hear more details though... Were the kitchen and Luke's bedroom the only places you had sex in?", your best friend took apart in the conversation, grinning from ear to ear. Y/B/F/N had to be kidding. And were the walls of Luke's house made of paper? "Yes", you answered in turn, trying to sound as convincing as you could. They didn't need to know about the shower session an hour ago.

”It was no wonder you ended up sleeping together, I mean you were drooling over each other the whole night”, Michael continued, and chuckled.

”You’ve got to be fuckin’ kidding me right now”, Luke cursed, obviously wanting the conversation topic to change sooner than later.

“Calm down, Hemmings”, Calum chuckled, earning a side eye from you and a deadly glare from Luke. “Okay, okay, I won’t say anythin’ next time”, Calum put his hands up in defense and grinned awkwardly.

You looked at Luke only to discover him looking at you, a small smile creeping upon his pretty pink lips. Next time.

a/n: hey please do share your thoughts on the gifs, did they disturb your reading experience? i’d love to know, ty! 🤍

#luke hemmings fluff #luke hemmings imagine #luke hemmings fanfic #luke hemmings x y/n #luke hemmings x reader #luke hemmings smut #luke hemmings x you #5sos fluff #5sos smut #5sos imagine #5sos fanfic #my writing #5sos x reader #5sos x y/n

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kosije · 4 months

Text

safe word.

a/n ★ ׂ something i had written randomly for kinktober that was never flushed fuller or saw the light of day.

c/w ★ ׂ dom/sub dynamic, dubcon, abuse, huge pain trigger warning, crying

— main masterlist | insert masterlist

hes rough.

you’re crying, not because it feels good, but because it hurts. he’s not holding back on slapping you, and you thrash to get him off you, to get him to stop, but he doesn’t. just slaps you harder, fucks you faster, deeper, and keeps yelling at you. you scream and beg, but he doesn’t let up, not even for a second. tells you to take it, sluts don’t complain when they get what they’ve been asking for, do they? and you wanna say that you weren’t begging for anything, that it hurts you, but he isn’t listening to anything but the sounds that your pussy makes when he pounds it like you’re not even human. and you think right now, he doesn’t even see you as anything but a hole.

๋࣭ . ⭑

he comes back after washing himself off, slides into bed beside your limp and bruised body. his arm slides over your waist, and kisses you down your shoulder. “’m sorry,” he whispers into your hair. “forgive me, my love. forgive how i’ve hurt you. i love you so much i got… carried away.” and you let your hand rest over his, tears welling back up in your eyes, and say “okay, i forgive you.” and cry yourself to sleep in his arms.

© all rights reserved. all content published on this blog belongs to me, kosije. please refrain from plagerizing, reposting, or translating my works. i do not allow adaptation in any way without my permission!

#( ☆ ) smuts #( ☆ ) mha #( ☆ ) jjk #( ☆ ) spiderman: atsv #dubcon #dabi x reader #dabi smut #toji smut #toji x reader #geto x reader #geto smut #miguel o'hara smut #miguel o’hara x reader

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 4 months

Note

AITA for telling my wife her book isn't that good?

So me (27M) and my wife (27F) have been married for 5 years. In the entire time we've been married, she had put her professional advancement on hold and chooses to stay at an office job with little potential for career advancement because her true dream is to write and publish books and she says she won't have time to write and pursue that dream if she has to put all her energy into a career she doesn't care about. I think that's not a good attitude to have, because being able to make money from writing books and getting published is really difficult and depends a lot on luck and her career choices impact me because we're married. If she doesn't reach her earning potential then I will need to make up for it by earning more for the both of us. So I feel a lot of the burden in finances while she just gets to chase her dream.

She has been resentful of me for a while that I don't support her writing, but I do! I think she's a great writer and I'm very proud of her, and I tell lots of people that my wife is a writer when they ask what she does. The only thing is that she's always talking about her books and thinking about them and talking about them to her friends and writing partners. She claims to have ADHD and writing is her hyperfixation but she's never been officially diagnosed and hasn't ever tried medication or anything. She'll work on them when there are things to do, like the kitchen is a mess or it's dinner time. And before people get mad at me for expecting her to be a maid I cook and clean a lot too. I just want more participation from her because I get tired of doing everything and sometimes I just want to be taken care of, too. She cleans and cooks sometimes, though she always half-does things, but it just bothers me when I get home hungry from work and she's been home for 20 minutes or so and she hasn't started cooking and the house is a mess and she's just sitting at her laptop.

If I'm honest, I don't like reading. English isn't my first language which makes it harder, and she writes what she calls "young adult books" and they're plots about teengers that aren't very interesting to me. I tried to read her book and got about six chapters in, but it was just really hard for me to keep going so I never finished it. Honestly I don't really care about her books, and it bothers me that her books are ALWAYS on her mind. For example if we're intimate, sometimes her gaze goes distant and I can tell her mind is elsewhere and probably on her books, and when we finally get time together it's like she's not interested in the conversation until it touches on writing or her books. I don't usually talk to her about her books much though, so to be honest she doesn't talk that much to me about it, she'll text other people. But I can tell she always wishes I would talk to her about it. I just wish she could be interested in something that isn't her own writing, like me and our life together.

So this issue kept coming up with her saying I'm not supportive, and I decided to take it to heart. I wanted to support her as a writer and help her achieve her goal of publication. So I sat her down and told her that while she's a good writer and her finished book is good, it's not great, and she's telling a story about a girl who's experiencing poverty and death and mental illnesses, all of which she doesn't have experience with, and it shows. It's a good accomplishment, but probably won't be published so if she wants to be published, she should maybe start something else. Well, she blew up at me and started yelling at me that I have no room to say that because I'm not the intended audience and I never finished it anyway and that she knows more about publishing than I do and her friends and family that read it thought it was amazing. But first of all, she can't trust her family and friends because they'll just support her even if it's not what she needs to hear, and I should be the one who she can count on to tell her the truth. Besides, I'm in the finance industry and know much more about business than she does. She got angry and stormed away and refused to talk to me for the rest of the day.

I don't want to apologize, because I think she needed to hear it. But she was so mad and even talked about it to her therapist, so I'm wondering if I'm the asshole for saying that in the first place and if she's actually right and I'm not really supporting her.

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

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lovingrosewho · 10 months

Text

Framed

Hello there! It’s been a while since I’ve written anything but I recently began watching Criminal Minds again and fell in love with Aaron Hotchner all over again as well, so I just had to write this, I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it :) This is my first Criminal Minds (published) fanfic, and the first Hotch x Reader I’ve written ever! (also the first nsfw)

ONE SHOT (but who knows, it may even have a part 2 on a future maybe not-so-near but not-so-far-away either)

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Cis!fem!reader

Rating: 18+

Word count: 3467

Summary: reader has been accused of murdering her older, rich ex-fiancé (of course I took my inspo for this piece of fanfiction from Brooke Whyndam, of the movie “Legally blonde”, also, the line “then show them a picture of his dick” is from that movie).

Warnings: NSFW content (innuendo, sex, curse words, age gap - reader is in her mid twenties, Hotch is in his early/mid forties)

“I didn’t do it!” you scream one last time slamming your fist on the table, on the edge of tears.

It had passed around 8 hours already with you in custody, accused of the murder of your ex-fiancé, a (quite older) man, CEO of a big company in town, and as if that wasn’t enough, the best friend of the sheriff.

SSA Aaron Hotchner rubs his face, tired, after observing Prentiss and Morgan’s attempts to get you to confess. It’s almost 3am.

“Sheriff, with all due respect, I think she’s telling the truth” he tells him with a soft voice after a deep sigh.

“And with all due respect, you profiled that the suspect would be a female in her mid twenties, who we’d have to get the information out of her”.

“And we also profiled she’d be seeking for attention and validation which we don’t see it happening do we?” Aaron retorts rolling his eyes discreetly.

The sheriff gives SSA Aaron Hotchner one last glance before grabbing the doorknob of the interrogation room and storming in, Hotch follows close behind, seeing how the sheriff turns off the videocamera recording what happens inside the interrogation room, knowing no good can come from asking the same questions over and over again when everybody is also tired and fed up with trying to get a false confession out of you, which, from your behavior, Hotch knows it’s impossible.

“That’s it!” the sheriff yells “You killed my best friend! Either you confess or I’ll let you rot in here the rest of the 72 hours we can have you legally detained!”

“For the last time, I. Didn’t. Do it!” you yell back.

The BAU team exchanges glances between each other.

“What judge is going to believe you huh? You were engaged to a successful man in his mid fifties! And then he goes and marries someone even younger than you!”

“That was over two years ago!” you talk back.

“You had motive and opportunity, no judge nor jury is going to understand any other reason for you to be with him that is not for the money”.

“Then show them a picture of his dick! That might clear a few things up” you finally bark at him. The sheriff looks at you in astonishment. Morgan disguises a snicker as a cough, Prentiss bites down her lower lip to suppress a laugh, and Hotchner… Hotchner just stands impassive at you.

The sheriff leaves the room enraged, and everyone else follows, not before giving you an apologetic look. Hotchner is the last one to stay. You see the slightest doubt on his eyes and the subtle twist his lips make. You know he’s thinking about letting you go, but he then lowers his stare and gets out of the room, just like everybody else.

You sigh, drained out of energy after all the interrogations. This can’t be happening to you.

You knew since the moment you met John, that just his pure acquaintance could ruin your life. He had many enemies, and even more groupies who belonged to social circles that if you hadn’t met him, you would have never even imagined they existed, but what you had never imagined either, was that after all the heartbreak, loss and pain of what you thought in that moment to be the love of your life, you’d be reliving all those feelings, cause of some stupid cop negligence.

You lay your head slowly on the table, feeling the coldness of the metal surface on your cheek, and close your eyes for just a couple of minutes. You can’t sleep, not until this nightmare is all over, but at least, you get to have a few moments of peace and quiet before some other agent enters the room and begins yet another interrogation, demanding new information. Information you don’t have.

Outside the gray room, where you can’t hear nor see anything, the BAU team argues with the sheriff about your freedom.

“We’ve gotten out of her everything we’re going to get, I’m telling you, she didn’t do it” Morgan tries to reason with him.

“An unsub who planned a homicide this calculated would be equally calculated both on his answers and his behavior, this girl was in shock when we started showing her the case photos and couldn’t get a single cohesive phrase out. You can’t pin this murder on her” Emily backs up Morgan.

The sheriff looks at both of them, puffs a sigh and places his hands on his hips before discussing.

“Look, I get it, you profilers or whatever think you’re better than all of us, but this is still my county, and while I can have her in custody, I will. Who knows? She might even give up a confession or at least some new information. Goodnight gentlemen. And lady” he starts to walk to the exit without giving any of them any chance to convince him “I suggest you too get some rest. It’s been a long day and there’s one even longer ahead of us. Lock up when you get out”.

With that last statement, the sheriff ends the discussion and exits the precinct. Morgan and Prentiss move their heads in disagreement, proceeding to look back at Hotch, who is frowning at the door the sheriff just left through.

“What now?” both the BAU members look at the unit chief.

“Sheriff is right in one thing: you should get some rest. I’ll stay here with (Y/N), keep her company and see if there’s something we missed” he declares “Call Reid, Rossi and JJ, head back to the hotel, I’ll catch up with you in a few hours”.

“Hotch she’s not our unsub” Morgan defends you again “I mean we could, let her go right?”

“I’m afraid not. If we step ahead of the local officers, we might make things worse by getting ourselves kicked out of the investigation. It’ll be of more use the sooner we find something, anything, that might help (Y/N) clear her name and get her out of here” Hotch answers, he’s looking at Morgan but directs his orders to both of them, he knows his team too well to not know for a fact that Emily is the one who’s more inclined to let you go. They both nod silently.

“All right” Emily surrenders, not just because she’s too tired to continue arguing, but because she also knows that perhaps getting back to the hotel and going over some of the facts and scenes with Reid or JJ, might be more useful “Do you want me to stay with you? I mean the precinct is completely empty. You’ll be here all by yourself”.

“It’s okay. You and Morgan. Hotel. Rest. We’ll gather first thing in the morning and go through everything we have so far” he assures and doesn’t wait for a reply, beginning to walk back to the interrogation room, hearing the exit door of the precinct close behind him and the key turning.

When he enters again, he finds you on the same position you were trying to rest, your cheek against the now warm table, your hair falling on it and covering parts of your face.

“I’m not asleep” you mutter softly “I just needed to clear my head, breath and relax for a bit”.

Hotch lets out an almost imperceptible sigh, but everything is so quiet, that you get to hear it.

“(Y/N) I know you didn’t do it” he pronounces just as softly as you.

“Really?” you frown and shift your position, sitting back on the chair, looking at him “Then… can I go?”

He presses his lips into a straight line, and lets out a firm, but still tender “no”. A single tear escapes your right eye and you wipe it off quickly, not quite giving in to the emotions just yet. Hotch notices and comes to stand right next to you, laying on the edge of the table.

“If I’d let you go, the local authorities would not let us continue the investigation and they’d pin that murder on you. Trust me, the best we can do right now is wait a few hours until everyone has cooled down and come back with fresh eyes” he guarantees you, his features relaxing as he tells you this “Everything’s gonna be fine”.

“Everything’s gonna be fine” you repeat his words slowly, then look up at him. Damn it. He’s handsome. It’s no secret to anyone you have a thing for older men, but did that trait really have to emerge right now? You can’t help but to laugh out loud at the thought, it’s absurd to you that you could be thinking of that when you’re being accused of murder.

“What’s so funny?” he asks confused, and distances himself ever so slightly from you, without leaving his place on the table.

“Nothing, just…” you start, in an attempt to explain yourself and don’t end up looking crazy “God, if I had met you under any other circumstances, I’d probably be all over you right now”.

SSA Aaron Hotchner does not move, nor his face changes towards you, but you can see the most subtle blush on his cheeks, and his fists tightening. His lips finally crack up a light smile, finding the situation absurd as well, he quickly remembers the videocamera is off.

“You do realize you could be facing murder charges, right?” he asks playfully, kinda mocking you, keeping the volume of his voice down.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry” you apologize “It’s just so late, I’m tired, and well, you’re smoking hot” you confess with an apologetic, but also mischievous, look. Hotch finally lets out a laugh. Get a hold of yourself, Hotchner, he thinks to himself, takes a deep breath and goes back to his serious stare.

“(Y/N), I understand it’s been a long day in which you’ve been under a lot of pressure, but for me to keep up this game would be not only unprofessional, but also unethical. Your mind is probably just making up this crush for you to pass the time and distract yourself from what is happening. You’ll get over me” he explains sweetly.

“I wish I could get under you instead…” your witty retort catches him off guard, he swallows hard and starts coughing. He’s not used to women flirting with him anymore, not for a long time, let alone women almost half his age.

“I’ll see you in a few hours” he says standing up and reaching towards the door, not really uncomfortable by your approaches, but more by his increasing boner.

“No, okay I’m sorry, please stay with me” you beg him, standing up as well “I was just joking. Well, not really, but just… please keep me company, stay?”

He turns back at you not realizing how close you are, less than a couple steps behind him and he almost crashes into you, but he prevents the two of you from tripping by stabilizing himself grabbing your hips, but his hands can’t get to let go afterwards. You breath heavily, feeling the arousal and heat from the proximity suffocating you.

“Please fuck me” you half ask, half beg, admitting to yourself that what you need right now is precisely what agent Hotchner said: relieving some stress and distraction.

SSA Aaron Hotchner can’t help himself.

Ugh, fuck it, he thinks. It’s the sheriff’s fault for turning off the videocamera in an attempt to scare you and try and trick you into making a confession.

Without any further notice, he grabs your ass and the highest part of the back of your thighs to lift you. Your legs instinctively wrap around his back and your arms around his neck, not breaking eye contact as you let him carry you to the table. He places you on the table with tenderness, caressing your back as he does so. You bring your dominant hand to grab his tie and pull him in for a long, wet, controlled kiss, running your other hand along his arm and chest, ending the trace on his cheek, allowing your thumb to move back and forth on his skin.

Quite to be honest, Aaron doesn’t know how well he’ll be able to perform. It’s been a while since he’s last had sex, and his mind is always either on his job, or his family. He’ll probably won’t last more than a few minutes. But he can try and make it up to you.

He begins to deviate his trace of wet kisses from your mouth, to you jaw, your neck, and slowly your chest, discovering little by little the skin under your clothes, while his hands drop by the side of your waist, hips and legs, exploring you under the midi skirt you’re wearing. His right hand finds the slit between your legs, covered by your panties, and starts caressing it through the fabric. He listens to you moan and brings his other hand to cover your mouth with endearment, letting you know you’ve got to keep quiet.

He moves your panties to the side and traces one finger along your slick, inserting it inside of you. You have to suppress an even louder moan. He moves that one finger up and down, hitting your G spot, inserting another finger when you’re ready.

“Please” you beg once again. Aaron chuckles, grabbing you and getting you closer to the edge of the table, proceeding to get down on his knees and sucking all your juices without any type of heads up. You can’t but let out a loud moan. He looks up at you, and even though his eyes demand silence, you can tell there’s the slightest grin on his lips, before he continues sucking and licking your folds and clit. Your back drops to the table, unable to keep yourself steady so you can watch him. You’re trembling with desire and lust “Agent Hotchner, please” you beg once again. Hearing you call him ‘agent Hotchner’ does something to him. He stands up, wiping a little bit of your juices off his mouth and kissing you afterwards, his hands resting on either side of you on the table, one of them coming to grab each of your nipples one at a time.

“How much do you want this?” he asks softly.

“I need you” you answer “Please, fill me”.

His eyes meet yours and he nods slowly. His mouth comes to encircle one of your nipples as he pulls down your underwear and hides it in his suit pocket, and undoes his belt and trousers, without taking any clothes off. You come up from your laying position to support yourself with your elbows on the table, not wanting to miss how the special agent from the FBI takes his cock out to give it to you.

When he’s got it out and ready for you, he pumps it up and down a couple of times before lifting entirely your skirt and positioning himself in your entrance. He enters slowly, letting you take him all in, allowing you to accustom to his size, and for the love of him, he feels like he could explode any second. He breathes deeply and clears his mind, his ego not letting him end up looking like a teenager having his first time.

“Let me ride you” you ask after a few slow thrusts, needing more of him. He looks at you and nods.

God, what is he doing? At least you’re innocent. Are you? Right? You’ve gotta be. The profile doesn’t fit. But they’ve been wrong before haven’t they?

You exchange positions so he’s laying on the table, you get on top of him and guide his cock back into you again. You part your lips in a moan when you come down on him and begin moving your hips, his hands moving alongside them. You lower yourself without stopping so you can kiss him, rubbing your whole torso on his, your sweat making your skin slip on his skin. He grabs your breasts so he can bring them to his mouth, nibbling them.

Meanwhile, you’re wondering if this might just be another trick for you to let your guard down. But what could you say that might incriminate you? You know you’re innocent. What if he’s not even a real agent?

You’re so close that you can’t give yourself permission to sink into those thoughts, instead, you start riding Hotch faster and stronger, your clit rubbing against his pelvis as you do so.

“Aaron, Aaron…” you moan lowly. You don’t know if it’s okay that you’re on a first name basis already, but it just seems weird to you if you call him ‘Hotch’ like his colleagues.

It seems like he’s perfectly fine with it, as he digs his fingertips on your hips, encouraging you to keep going, feeling how your walls tense around him as your orgasm hits you.

You moan uncontrollably as you come, not being able to keep those in, digging your nails in Aaron’s shoulder suit sleeves. Afterwards, you lay slowly on his chest, until you start feeling like he’s pulling himself out.

“Wait” you gather and pull yourself up again, with him still inside of you “What are you doing? Don’t you wanna finish too?”

He looks at you in disbelief.

“Well I thought you may wanna rest or…” he begins explaining. You laugh and look fondly at him, lowering yourself again to murmur “don’t stop” in his ear.

Of course, he remembers. Twenties.

That’s everything he needs to start thrusting into you with everything he’s got left.

“(Y/N) I’m not-“ he tries to phrase “I’m not going to last longer, I’m- is it okay if I…?”

“Come inside me” you order “It’s okay, don’t worry, I’m on contraceptives”.

He decides to believe you, for his sake, and fastens his pace until it becomes sloppy, spilling inside of you just like you asked for, his cum filling you and showing between your folds as he brings himself out.

“Oh my god” he breathes out as he brings you down to his chest, securing his arms around your back, bringing you even closer to him “I’ll put you in handcuffs myself if it turns out you’re not innocent”.

You chuckle, tracing circles on his chest through the fabric of his shirt.

“I am. But still, you can put me in handcuffs any time you want”. He laughs alongside you, still feeling a bit like a teenager. A teenager who just did something very very wrong and that nobody should find out about. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes for a few seconds before his cellphone starts ringing, he answers almost immediately.

“Hotchner” he says calmly “Yes I’m still here. No, everything’s fine, she’s… behaved. Prints don’t match? Well of course they don’t, was García able to tell whose are they then? Right. Well, tell her to keep digging. I’ll see you in a bit”.

After he hangs up he turns to you with a playful look.

“You never touched the gun that was in your purse, did you?” you shake your head.

“Guns and, weapons of any type really, give me the creeps, I just left it there thinking it was someone’s idea of pranking me or something”.

“Well that may have just made your case. You’re free to go. Whoever was trying to frame you did a lousy job not guessing you weren’t going to grab the gun” he tells you arching his brows at you. You stare perplexed at him.

“You’re serious? Oh my god Aaron! Thank you!” you exclaim kissing him.

“Yes, and we should get dressed and get out of here before anything else happens” he affirms gently, helping you stand up so you both can fix your clothes.

“Well, agent Hotchner, it’s been a pleasure. Truly” you tell him when the two of you are walking out of the interrogation room towards the exit.

“Pleasure is all mine, (Y/N)” he says, winking an eye at you “I’d like you to know… I don’t usually do this. I don’t…”

“Aaron” you interrupt sweetly, one of your hands coming to grab his forearm to stop him “I know. I can tell. It’s okay. I know that if I hadn’t initiated it or followed up you would have never even considered it, I get it… but now, can we please do it again?”

He chuckles.

“You know where we’re staying and the number of my hotel room, sweetheart. And I also recall reading on some case file that you’re from Virginia and were just visiting your home town?”

You smile widely at him as you nod, pulling him in from his tie for one last kiss. Or who knows, it might not even be the last one.

MASTERLIST

#hotch x reader #aaron hotchner x reader #hotchner x reader #aaron hotch fic #hotch fic #aaron hotchner fanfiction #criminal minds fanfiction #bau team fanfiction

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the-kr8tor · 10 months

Text

Under the clocktower

Pairing: Hobie Brown x gn! reader/ Spider-Punk x gn! Reader

Word Count: 5.6k

Synopsis: Hobie's stuck in a time loop where he keeps seeing you die over and over again. He tries to find a way to escape the loop, at the same time saving you from your fate.

Tags: no use of Y/N, no specific physical description of the reader, TW blood, TW death, TW injuries, TW violence, established relationship. Time loop AU, angst.

My masterlist

* I don't consent to having my work translated/ published on other platforms*

Hobie opens his eyes, the blinding light from the early morning sun mixed with the smell of burning breakfast wakes him up instantly. He jumps off the bed running towards the smell.

His body feels heavy somehow, his lungs sit weirdly in his chest, his eyes wide and alert. It's like he swung around the city while asleep.

He shakes it off attributing it to not sleeping well. Shutting off the stove he sighs at the burnt omelet. He briefly sees the clock on the stove in his peripheral- 8:00 am

Good thing he reached the kitchen before the fire alarm went off, he grabbed a nearby rag to fan away the smoke. Suddenly hearing wet feet squelch across the wooden floors, Hobie instinctively looks towards it.

"Fuck, the eggs!" You run around the corner in your bathrobe, your hair wrapped in a fluffy towel. Running too fast on your wet feet, you slide across the floor, hitting your hip against the table. You're sure it would leave a nasty bruise.

"It's too early to burn down the flat, don't you think so, love?" Hobie puts his hands on his hips, annoyed that he woke up so early. Sweats hang low on his waist, an old band shirt ripped at the sleeves, his arms and midriff on full display.

"Ow, sorry Hob," you rub your aching hip, "I'm sorry I woke you up, grumpy" you close the small distance.

"You better be sorry," he grabs you by the waist, inching his hand toward the hastily wrapped belt of your bathrobe. "I'm still bloody tired" he says with a yawn.

"Aww, my poor baby Hobie," you cup his cheeks, "let me kiss it better" you peck the corner of his eye, your soap and strawberry scented shampoo fills his senses.

While you're distracted, he slowly unties your robe. Noticing the sly movement, you grab at Hobie's wrist. "Tsk tsk. Not today, babe. First day at my new job, remember?"

"Ah shit, that's today?"

"Yep, can't be late" you kiss his lips quickly before he escalates things. "You can go back to bed, I'll see you tonight" you push yourself off Hobie.

"Good luck" he pulls you back by your hand, "remember they're lucky to have you, not the other way around" Hobie kisses your knuckles while looking into your eyes.

You chuckle, "I know what you're doing, Hobie Brown. It's not gonna work"

"Worth a shot" he finally lets you go.

The doorbell rings, both of you looking at the intrusion. Who could that be this early?

"I've got it, Love. Can't have you answering the door in your robe can I?" Hobie winks at you tiredly, which makes his eyelid move slowly.

"Very sexy, babe" you shake your head as you head back towards the bathroom.

Grabbing the door, he sees your neighbour mid knock.

"Ohh, hey!" He looks disappointed "Morning neighbour!" Hobie winces at how chipper this man is this early in the morning.

"What is it?" Hobie asks flatly, leaning on the doorway.

"Ah," he subtly looks behind Hobie "do you have any sugar, white preferably. You see I'm making ensaymada -"

"Wait there" Hobie cuts him off, disinterested at whatever information he was about to share. He just wants to go back to bed.

He shuts the door with a bang.

"Who's at the door?" Your muffled voice rings out.

"No one, just your neighbour!" Hobie yells out so that the man outside hears it.

He grabs a bag of sugar from your pantry, Hobie opens the door, quickly handing it off.

"Thanks! Can you tell-" He gets shut down again when Hobie closes the door in his face.

"Welcome"

Hobie plops himself back on the bed, he groans when his back cracks. He falls asleep to the sound of your humming.

Chaos rains downtown, buildings crumble around Hobie while he pursues Green goblin. Everything went bad so fast, he didn't see it coming. Green goblin cackles menacingly while she randomly throws bombs below her hoverboard.

She went completely off the rails when Hobie got a few punches in, desperate to get away, she just started chucking random stuff at him, conveniently one of them was a bomb. The explosion threw him off, Goblin got a few blocks ahead of him, but Hobie's determined.

He swings after the flash of green, he hears the familiar chime of big ben - 6:00pm

Goblin leads him towards the tower bridge, it's packed with vehicles because of the rush hour, that's not good.

"Catch, Spider-Punk!" Goblin chucks another bomb below her, she clearly knows this one will surely cause chaos on the bridge.

With his quick thinking, Hobie grabs the bomb with his web, slinging it away from the crowd below. A shockwave resonates through the old bridge, its old wiring swings letting out a metallic groan. puffs of green smoke cloud above the area.

Hobie hears screams below him, looking down he sees the crowd scrambling away from danger. His senses send electricity through him, he looks back toward Goblin, she's now just hovering in place, in both of her hands she holds belts full of spherical bombs, she holds it against the edge of her hoverboard, threatening to let go.

"Don't you dare!" Hobie webs up both of the belts holding the spheres, ready to fling it away. Before he could do just that, the clips holding the bombs give out, time seems to slow down as Hobie watches in horror, the little balls of destruction falling down like rain. Goblin's shrill laugh pierces Hobie's ear drums.

He ignores the crazy lady, instead he goes after the green orbs. He webs as much as he can reach, quickly throwing them off the bridge, they go off the second they hit the water below. He keeps repeating this process till he's sure he got all of them out.

He lands breathlessly on the concrete, he points towards the nearest end of the bridge, guiding the remaining people off the bridge. Roaming his eyes above to see where Goblin could be.

His senses go off again, Hobie's ears perk up towards the faint ticking sound. He sees the ball bounce off a taxi, it doesn't go off, instead it just lands down the concrete with a clink. He eases up a bit, figuring it might be a dud. Until he looks inside the black taxi, Hobie sees your terrified face against the taxi's window, you're struggling to open the door.

Electricity pulses through him, sounding off alarms. The whites of his mask widen when the sphere stops ticking.

It's not defective, it was just counting down.

You finally notice him, frozen in fear. He tries to reach you, but the shockwave from the explosion stops him, Knocking him down.

The sheer force of the explosion flips the taxi, tethering close to the edge of the bridge. Green smoke covers Hobie's vision, he can barely make out the silhouette of the dark car, he throws caution into the wind, he doesn't look for more ticking bombs, instead he quickly runs toward the creaking metal.

He finally reaches you, as the car finally falls. Hobie quickly webs up the trunk of the car sticking its end on stagnant cars, and columns. He hears your muffled screams inside the deathtrap.

"Hobie!" You desperately scream for him, clinging to the car's headrest, the taxi swings against the wind. You can see him trying to pull you up.

Seeing Goblin wreaking havoc, you see her throw more bombs towards fleeing civilians, you make the conscious decision to yell at him to help them instead.

"Hobie! On your left!" Your throat burns trying to get his attention.

Thanks to his spidey senses and your desperate pleas, Hobie understands quickly, he ties the web he's holding onto a nearby truck, hopeful that it sticks until he can get you out.

"I can do both" Hobie whispers

He yanks Goblin down from her hoverboard with one precise shot of his web, she falls hard on the concrete. In one swift movement Hobie grabs his guitar on his back, using it as a bat, he swings it against the ticking bombs, before its countdown ends.

They explode in mid air, green clouds rain over the historic bridge.

Hobie runs back to you, on his way he notices that Goblin recovered and is nowhere to be seen. He'll find her later, right now he needs to save you.

He swings towards the edge where he last saw you, the only thing he sees is the cold rushing water swallowing the taxi.

His breath hitches in his throat. His knees threatened to collapse under his weight.

"No, not you" he weakly says.

Before he follows you towards the black depths, Hobie sees the Green Goblin rise up from under the bridge right in front of him, a sickenly bloody smile on her face.

"Got your little birdy, spidey" she shakes your terrified form, her claw-covered hand covers the bottom half of your face painfully, your feet floating a few inches off her board.

"Mmph!" You yelp for him as you try to reach him with your hands.

"Let them go! Or I swear I will tear you apart!" Hobie barks out, he doesn't recognize his own voice.

"Oh, okay!"

Your terrified eyes look back at him.

One minute you were in Goblin's hand, the next you were falling to your demise.

Electricity cackles around Hobie, he leaps off the edge, everything seems to be moving in slow motion. Shooting a web towards you, he curses gravity, his web merely a hair's width away from your form. Your fingertips graze its ends.

Your head hits the water in a horrible cracking sound.

A cold splash hits Hobie's masked face, he braces for impact.

The water hits him like a truck, but he shakes it off, adrenaline pulses in his body like never before. He tries to find your form under the dark water.

It's dark and quiet under, the only thing he could hear is his own heart thumping in his chest. He hopes to hear yours too.

He roams his eyes, his eyes squinted looking for your familiar silhouette. Hobie finally spots you, slowly floating down towards the endless void. He swims down as fast as his limbs could, his air is running out, he's afraid yours might be too.

He grabs hold of your arm, Hobie quickly brings you against his chest, he ignores the absent beating of your heart.

Reaching the surface was an uphill battle, but he finally got you out. Stopping by the riverbank, he doesn't waste any time doing CPR.

He dares to look at your face, Hobie lets out a pained sound when he sees your dull eyes looking up at nothing, your lips slowly turning blue. He counts in his head to keep track of his chest compressions.

15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

" C'mon lovey, breathe for me please"

25 26 27 28 29

Your lips are now a harsh blue color, he whispers your name like a prayer.

He quickly puts his lips on yours to breathe into it, he does it twice, desperation increasing in every breath he gives you. He counts again.

10 11 12 13 14 15

He lets out a pained sob, he bites his lips to stop more from coming out.

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

"I can fix this" he ignores the aching in his arms.

26 27 28 29 30

He breathes into you again and again. He takes a step back to examine you, no reaction.

Desperation, fear and anger flows through every crevice of his body. But his mind fills with you, only you.

He takes his stance again-

Silence

Searing pain ebbs out of his chest, crimson flows from the wound, Hobie finds himself impaled on Goblin's hoverboard, his back trapped in between a wall. Green Goblin lets out a victory screech.

He groans out, his blood seeps through his mouth, gagging on it.

He's dying.

How poetic he thought, dying mere minutes after you. You once joked that you're soulmates, he now thinks you're right.

"I DID IT, I KILLED SPIDER-PUNK!" Her laugh slowly fades away, like he's walking away from her.

He imagines that he does and instead of your lifeless body waiting for him, he imagines that you're standing there, smiling at him. His only wish is that you both end up at the same place.

Big Ben's clock rings out again.

"I should've tried harder," He murmurs. Darkness embraces him like an old friend.

Hobie opens his eyes, sunlight tears his red eyes open. He quickly sits up breathless. He grabs his chest, kneading it with his knuckles. He smells something burning.

Hobie gets up, heading towards the smell. He stares at the pan - omelette or what it used to be an omelette.

"Fuck, the eggs!" You run around the corner in your bathrobe, Running too fast on your wet feet, you slide across the floor, almost hitting your hip against the table. Hobie stops you mid slide with his web shooters. You would've hit the table pretty hard.

Why did he know that?

You look towards Hobie looking dumbfounded. "Hobie, why are you just standing there? Turn it off!"

He snaps out of his stupor, turning down the knob he looks at you, his breathing heavy.

"Shit, sorry for yelling, Hob" you grab a rag to fan the smoke out.

You look at Hobie, he has a weird look on his face. He hugs you suddenly, his face landing on the crook of your neck. Hobie recognizes the smell of your soap and strawberry scented shampoo, he takes a deep breath.

That was just a dream, right?

"You better be sorry"

"Aw, my poor baby Hobie, did I wake you up with my culinary skills?" You rub his cheek with your thumb, "I'm sorry I woke you up, grumpy. Let me kiss it better" you crane your neck to peck the side of his head.

Just a dream, right?

Hobie anxiously fiddles with the belt around your robe, you take it as flirting. "Tsk tsk. Not today, babe. First day at my new job, remember?"

You pull away from his warmth, cupping his face, you look directly at his eyes. Hobie briefly sees your lifeless eyes staring back at him.

You take his lack of response to being sleep deprived. "Can't be late" you kiss his lips "You can go back to bed, I'll see you tonight" you push yourself off Hobie.

He calls after you, "remember they're lucky to have you, not the other way -" your doorbell rings.

"Could you get that for me?"

Grabbing the door, he sees your neighbour mid knock.

"Ohh, hey!" He looks behind Hobie completely ignoring him, staring at your bathrobe clad body "Morning neighbour!"

You wave at him awkwardly while you fix your robe to cover yourself up more.

Hobie notices, his eye twitches at the realization. He closes the door slightly, so he's blocking the creepy neighbor from you.

"What is it?" Hobie asks flatly, leaning on the doorway.

"Ah," he subtly tries to take a peek at you behind Hobie "do you have any sugar, white preferably. You see I'm making ensaymada -"

Hobie's ears perk at the last word. He stares at the man suspiciously.

"What did you say?"

"Ensaymada, it's a pastry with-"

"I know what the fuck that is, it's their favourite, why the fuck-"

A dream, right?

"Wait there" Hobie cuts him off, he shuts the door with a bang.

He grabs a bag of sugar from your pantry, Hobie opens the door, tossing it off.

"Oof, Thanks! Can you tell-" He gets shut down again when Hobie closes the door in his face.

Hobie slowly walks back towards the bedroom, he sits on the foot of your bed. He feels tired, wondering what the hell is happening to him. He lifts his shirt to look at his chest, no sign of a wound. He looks around your room, nothing seems out of place, it's the same cream colored walls, the same bed, and dresser, the same lab coat hangs on it, ready for your first day at work.

Hobie plops down, his muscles aching for relief, he starts to drift back to sleep, until he hears you humming the same tune, in the same cadence. Hobie's eyes open in a flash.

"This already happened"

–-

Hobie goes about his day, knowing what happens today, he has the advantage. He can save you this time.

Hobie anticipates every move Goblin makes, he dodges everything she throws at him. Bombs still get thrown about, but now he has the time to react before it causes chaos.

She can't get a single hit in, watching every precise movement he makes, knowing her every move before she even does, it terrified her, so she just flies away crossing the Thames, she sees an opportunity to stop Spider-Punk from chasing her.

Goblin in her desperation, haphazardly throws every single one of her bombs below, Hobie tries to fling them away but he couldn't stop every single one of them from detonating. Loud booms and green smoke cover the iconic bridge.

What did he do wrong?

Spotting you from above, Hobie dive bombs towards you, he's a few feet above you, he reaches out to you, your fingers brush against each other as a bomb explodes near your feet.

Hobie opens his eyes, he feels a harsh heat staying on his face, like a lingering taste.

"FUCK!" He screams, "this can't be happening" he holds his head in his hands.

"Babe you okay?" You come out of the bathroom, smoke fills Hobie's nostrils like some kind of cruel joke.

"No! My breakfast!" You rush out.

He follows you, as you fan away the fumes, Hobie hugs you from behind.

"Hey grumpy, sorry about that" you lean against his chest, you crane your neck so he could slip his head on the crook of it.

Hobie smells your familiar scent along with a hint of smoke, he promises into your skin that he would try harder to save you, no matter how many tries it takes him.

"Are you okay? You seem out of it"

"Just tired, lovey"

"You know that I love you, right? I'm right here, you can tell me anything"

"I know"

He left your flat at the same time as you, following closely behind your cab. He's paranoid that Goblin knows that she's in a loop too and might try to get the upper hand.

Hobie finds Goblin before she could find him. He leaves her body beaten on the pavement.

How she reacts with his questions with every angry hit, it's safe to say, she doesn't know about the day resetting.

Hobie continues on throughout the day, Big Ben rings its bell - 6:00pm

This time instead of the Green Goblin surprising him, it's the Vulture.

They fight, and eventually end up on the bridge. They clash against each other, Hobie doesn't have the advantage of precognition this time, but what he has is pure unadulterated anger.

Hobie tries everything, but you still fall. Grasping your limp body, he lets the vulture take his revenge.

The clock chimes again

Hobie opens his eyes. This time he doesn't waste time, he swings away immediately, leaving you confused.

He finds Goblin, then the Vulture, but still another Villain replaces them.

Hobie almost beats the Lizard but alas with his enhanced healing he gets up over and over again. Hobie, exhausted and bleeding, watches you cradle his limp body, Lizard's massive shadow falls over you.

You both die in the hands of the Lizard.

>47

Hobie opens his eyes, he starts to count how many times he looped back.

No matter how he keeps killing and trapping all the villains that somehow keeps replacing each other on that bridge. More and more obscure ones start filling the role of your murderer. They seemed endless.

You and Hobie have been impaled, electrocuted, burned, and tossed into a vacuum of space. And yet he keeps coming back to the same day, on the same bed, waking up to the same smell.

He ignores it, he wonders what he did to deserve this. Seeing you die over and over again is hell. That must be it, he's in hell, he doesn't believe in it, but after hearing your pained screams, and countless times he tried to revive you, he's starting to believe in it.

You jump out of the shower, running towards your stove, you don't notice him awake.

After seeing you alive and well, he's sure this isn't hell, because if it is you wouldn't be in it.

>81

He tries something new, he confronts your weird neighbor, he lets his anger get the best of him. Hobie dumps the bag of sugar on his head, letting it fall on him like snowflakes.

You still drown, he still gets killed by Goblin.

>104

He wakes up with anger boiling inside him. Why can't he save you? Why is he so slow? Why can't he figure out what's causing this time loop? He lashes out on you leaving you sobbing on your floor.

You die in his arms this time, thinking that he doesn't love you.

He curses himself, as he lets the uncontrollable fire consume him.

>141

He invents various gadgets made from scrap, to aid him in fighting. He wasted the entire day creating them.

Hobie uses them once, but he still fails. You still fall, he gets burned.

At least he gets to bring his hardwork in the next loop right?

>142

Hobie opens his eyes, his gadgets are nowhere to be found.

He curses his optimism.

>173

He has every villain's attack pattern memorized and predicted, he stares at Vulture's lifeless body on the pavement.

He finally beat one on the bridge.

Breathless he looks behind him, he stares at your wide eyes, your white lab coat is a stark comparison to the chaos around you.

He did it, now to get you home.

Hobie was just staring at you, in a split second, you're hanging from Goblin's hoverboard, the sharp end of it sticking out of your chest.

"NO!"

Goblin laughs as she throws numerous bombs at him, Hobie falls on the bridge, his right arm no more.

"I almost had it" he weakly says as the dark waters of the Thames engulf him.

>212

Hobie's falling apart at the seams.

>237

Hobie opens his eyes, his muscles feel like they're being torn away from his bones. His eyes grow heavier with every revival. His ears are still ringing from the bell's endless chiming.

He needs help, so he goes after you in the kitchen. "Hey" he says morosely.

"G'morning, grumpy-" you turn around, gasping at the sight. Taking in his slouched posture, sunken eyes, his signature smirk notably absent. He looks exhausted.

"Hobie?" You ask, as if you weren't sure it's really him. "What happened? Are you okay?" You slowly close the distance, careful not to startle him.

"Baby?" Grabbing his shoulders, he falls forward with a thud.

"I think-" he clings to you "I think I did something wrong"

Your heart breaks for him "could you tell me what it is?"

He pulls away "I'm stuck, I don't know what to do" he cups your face, for a second, he sees blood covering it, your once bright eyes turning white, then your face comes back to normal "Please, help me"

"Let's sit down, yeah?" You lead him towards your emerald couch. Was it always this colour? It reminds him of the smoke billowing from Goblin's bombs.

He puts on a brave face, "what I'm about to tell you sounds crazy, but please stay with me" and so he tells you everything, starting from the beginning to end.

He thought not telling you of your death might help you swallow it down better, so he doesn't, instead Hobie tells you that he keeps dying over and over again.

After rambling you look at him, emotion unreadable on your face.

"I believe you," you kiss his hollow cheeks "I believe you" you put your forehead against his, grounding him to reality.

"I'm so fucking sorry, it didn't work out, our plan" he murmurs.

"What? Hobie, how many times have you asked for my help?" You pull away, cringing at your tone, he might interpret it as anger.

"This is the thirteenth time"

Your breath hitches in your throat.

"Every single time I've told you, you always believed me, not once you didn't. But I've never asked you, why do you always help me?"

"Because, I love you, Hobie Brown. You could tell me that whales could walk on land, or the sky is falling and I would believe you"

For Hobie the sky IS falling, every time he sees you die, his world ends, and he's powerless to stop it.

"I have every reason to help you, because I can't lose you"

That's a first from you. Hobie never thought of it that way. He was too focused on saving you that he forgot to save himself.

Hobie thinks of something he has never done before in a couple of hundred rotations.

"So, what if we don't do anything? We just stay here, doing nothing" Hobie asks.

"We've never done that before?"

"Never, it could work. Us staying out of danger" determination sparks in his eyes.

"Then let's do just that" you smile.

Hope sparks in Hobie's veins. It has to work.

So you don't do anything all day, you don't go to work, he doesn't do his patrol, Hobie doesn't open the door.

You do your usual things at home, eating together, cleaning the flat to pass the time, savoring each other's presence.

Hobie feels his soul slowly get stitched back together again. This could work.

Your alarm rings out, he glimpses at it 6:00pm

His heart thumps in his chest loudly, he's sure you could hear it too from where you're cuddling into him. You make a fist, before rubbing your knuckles over his chest, your way of calming him down.

You're both gonna make it to tomorrow, he's sure of it.

"I don't know how this could end, but I want you to know that I love you so fucking much. If we make it to tomorrow, know that I will continue loving you every day" he wipes a lone tear on your cheek. "If we keep reliving the same day over again, I will love you in every cycle"

You crane your neck to kiss him, he closes his eyes in anticipation. Your lips never reached his.

>238

Hobie opens his eyes, He lets out a guttural scream.

You rush out of the bathroom, concerned.

He tells you what's happening again.

You have the brilliant idea to leave, just leave the city till the sun rises the next day.

You borrow a car from a friend, grabbing a few necessities, you drive off.

Hobie watches you from the passenger seat, the sun bathes you in its light, giving you a halo of soft light around your head. He smiles tiredly, this could be it.

Once the two of you hit the outskirts of London, darkness wraps him in an embrace.

>239

Hobie opens his eyes.

They tried a train this time. Everything seems to be moving smoothly.

Until the train skids to a violent stop, derailing it. Bags and people start flying around. He tries to web them into place.

He grabs your body shielding you. The train lights shut off, bathing them in darkness while their bodies get thrashed around.

Hobie hears a harsh cracking sound.

The train finally stops, its emergency light turns on, he sees you in his arms bathed in the dim light. Why are your eyes closed?

Hobie feels something warm hit his hand, He lifts his hand away from the back of your head, gore covers his hand. Hot crimson seeps into his clothes.

Not again.

Why does he need to see this again?

Why?

Hobie weeps, as he cradles your body. He lifts his head towards nothing but at the same time looking at you.

"Why aren't you helping me?! Why are you just sitting there watching all of this-"

>240

Hobie opens his eyes. The blinding light from the early morning sun mixed with the smell of burning breakfast wakes him up instantly. He jumps off the bed running towards the smell.

>276

He hates that he's getting desensitized everytime you breathe your last.

But no matter how many times he changes some things, he will always try to save you.

Hobie's exhausted, he feels his mind get numb with every rotation.

He feels like he's watching himself, like a ghost haunting his own body.

>348

He's accepted it, after numerous times trying to get out, he accepts his fate.

Hobie convinces you to stay home and spend time with him, he doesn't tell you why, but by just looking at him, you know he needs you now more than ever. So you stay.

The rigmarole starts where he convinces you to remain home, Hobie keeps you close, you do the exact same things together until it's time for the reset.

>349

He does this over

>356

And over

>381

Again.

>391

He stares at your blue walls, was it always blue?

Your neighbour doesn't knock anymore.

>414

He notices things looking different, your once pristine oak table now looks old.

Your white lab coat is now a slight yellow.

Your kitchen ceiling is covered in soot.

What's happening?

>449

Hobie can't help but look back at you burning a hole on the side of his head with your stares.

"What is it, love?" His voice hoarse.

"You don't look too well Hobie, are you okay?" Concern fills your voice. He pretends this is the first time you've asked him that question.

"Of course I'm okay"

Liar.

"Shut up" He blurts out.

"It's just that you haven't smiled the entire day. I'm sorry, okay, I- I'll drop it" tears prick your eyes.

"Shit, I'm sorry, I didn't- I wasn't- fuck" he rubs his tired face.

"Please tell me what's bothering you" you sniff.

You're met with silence.

"You know I love you right?" You rub his arm, comforting him.

Those three words wake him up. He remembers now, his promise to you. But it comes with a harsh realization.

"I don't think I can save you"

He tells you everything, your deaths, every violent end, every pain that could've been prevented.

Every single cycle.

You look at him, tears threatening to spill out. "You've spent a hundred lifetimes with me?"

"I'm sorry for being selfish" he hugs you tightly, your body shaking. You finally let the tears fall. "I'm so fucking sorry"

You spend a moment in his arms, contemplating your own end.

"Hobie," you reluctantly pull away, "promise me something, okay?" He nods "promise me you'll let go?"

"We-I can keep trying"

"No, you have to stop. You need to go on without me" you cup his face "Don't let me stop you from moving forward" you kiss every inch of his face to soften the blow.

"I don't think I can," his eyes shine with unshed tears.

"Yes, you can, eventually" a sob breaks out of you "eventually you will, just don't you dare ever forget that I love you so much it hurts"

You duck your head to meet his eyes "promise me in the next cycle, don't tell me anything, and you can't convince me to stay with you the entire day, okay?" You wipe his tears with your thumb "you let it happen, just like the first time"

Tears flow out of you freely. He guides you to meet his lips one last time, memorizing every second of it. "I promise. Wait for me, yeah?"

"I'll wait for you no matter how long it takes"

Your alarm rings out.

>450

Hobie's eyes open. He jumps out of bed, turning off the stove before smoke could billow out. Hobie prepares your omelette for you.

He watches you eat happily. Hobie takes a mental picture of the scene.

He lets it happen, no matter how much it hurts his soul, but he promised you, so he lets you go.

You fall.

He fights Goblin until she can't fight him anymore.

Hobie wins, but your life is forfeit. Did he even win when he can't even fulfill the promise he made hundreds of rotations ago?

He dives after your body, he knows you're already gone the second your head hits the water.

Hobie places you on the same riverbank like he has done a hundred times before.

Hobie rubs his knuckles over your heart, he says his final goodbye. "I'll see you when I get there"

He hears sirens coming towards the riverbank, you'll be okay.

He hears the familiar bell.

Hobie swings back home to your flat. His knees give out from under him. He falls on your bed with a thud, sleep hits his exhausted body.

—

Hobie opens his eyes, your telephone rings endlessly in the living room. No burning smell, no hint of strawberry in the air.

He looks at your clock- 11:00 the new date mocking him in red numbers.

Hobie did it, he broke free but now he has to live in a world where you don't exist anymore. Your promise echoes in his ears like a mantra.

A/n: I've hc'd that Hobie would definitely find out he's in a time loop by the second reset lol. Hope you liked it! Likes and reblogs are appreciated ❤️

*the picture above is from pinterest*

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