Penny for your thoughts
Synopsis: You’ve recently been transferred to a UK base and struggle with British currency. Your lieutenant is mortified—and rightfully so.
Relationship: Simon “Ghost” Riley x GN!Reader
Word Count: 1,286 (approx. 5-6 mins reading time)
Notes:
I thought it was funny when I wrote it, okay? It’s a crackfic. There’s some teasing and playful banter in there, but I can’t label it as fluff.
Warnings: Profanity. Lots of it.
More A/N at the end.
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You’ve been trying to escape the lieutenant’s grip for the past two hours.
The upcoming mission requires close combat skills, he said. You’ll need to infiltrate a facility with minimum weapons and immobilise—but not kill—the targets for interrogation.
You admitted to him that you hadn’t practised in a long time and your combat skills were a little rusty. But Ghost assured you this wouldn’t be a problem and offered a refresher course in ground fighting and submission techniques.
You never imagined this would be an issue when you agreed to it. On the contrary, your lieutenant was an expert in combat, and training with him could be considered a masterclass.
Looking at it now, with your cheek pressed against the floor and your body twisted like a nautical knot, you wish you could take it back.
The mats have become your second skin. Ghost relentlessly pins you to the ground and immobilises your limbs while explaining the mechanics behind each hold. Sometimes you wonder why he gets into so much detail since you can’t hear shit and are practically knocked out.
Yet, he doesn’t give up on you. He advises you to feel the weight shift, urging you to exploit the slightest openings, encouraging you to break free. Whenever he sees you’re struggling or senses you’re uncertain, he taps your hand or leg, giving you clues to help you.
He immobilises you once more, but he pats your back this time.
“Alright,” he says, standing up, “that’s enough for today.”
He walks to the bench, picks up his towel, and pats his neck. You roll on your back and spread your arms.
“I feel like a pretzel.” You whisper.
“Yup,” he confirms, “that’s Jiu-Jitsu for ya.”
Drenched in sweat, you push yourself off the ground and slowly walk to your bag. You extract your towel and begin rummaging through your wallet to find spare coins for a water bottle. You manage to find one pound, but unfortunately, you fall short.
“Lt.?” You call out.
He turns halfway to give you his attention while tugging the velcro straps from his gloves.
“Do you have fifty pennises?”
He stops midway and lets go of the velcro strap. It can wait. His eyes have formed two thin lines, and his eyebrows almost touch each other.
“Do I have fifty what, soldier?”
“I need fifty pennises.” You reply, this time louder, “Do you have fifty pennises?”
His eyes have changed. They’re not squinting anymore. They are bulging. He frantically looks left and right, bringing his index finger to his mouth.
“Shhhh!” He whispers and runs towards you, waving his other hand in front of your face. “Shut your mouth!”
He closes the distance between you and looks behind him.
“What is wrong with you?” He whispers.
You raise your eyebrows and blink rapidly.
“No,” you reply, “what is wrong with you?”
He lets out a sigh and looks at his surroundings once again. He scratches the side of his chin and clasps his hands in prayer.
“Tell me exactly what you want,” he requests more calmly this time, almost begging you, “Make a sentence out of it.”
“I’m thirsty.” You explain.
“Obviously.”
He’s starting to get on your nerves. You open your palm and raise it to his eye level.
“Look,” you order and point at the coin, “I have one pound.”
“I can see that.” He replies and puts his hand on yours, pushing it down so he can look at you.
“The vending machine needs one pound and a half.”
“Say it.” He commands and swallows hard, “The vending machine needs one pound and fifty...”
You clench your jaw and look at him dead in the eyes.
“Pennises.”
He lets out a snort and clasps his hand at the bridge of his nose. He turns his back to you and takes a few steps away. His shoulders move up and down.
“Ah, soldier,” he replies, still looking the other way. “that’s a lot of pennises.”
You run a hand through your hair and sigh.
“I know my pronunciation is probably wrong,” you state and shut your eyes, “but I need them.”
“Don’t say that,” he says between gasps, “you don’t need that many.”
With your eyes still closed, you start babbling about how wrong he is and how you wish you had a million of them so you could escape this hellhole and retire on an island. He squats to the ground and covers his masked face with his hands.
He sounds like he’s whimpering. You might have assumed he was sobbing if you hadn’t known the cause of his stance. But you knew why he was half crying, half laughing. It sounded hideous. It was hideous. You just can’t remember the word.
What’s it called, what’s it called...
You open your eyes. Ghost is walking towards you, wiping away tears from his eyes. He retrieves a fist of coins from his pocket and, muttering something under his breath, chooses two. He pinches a silver hexagonal-shaped coin with his fingers and shows it to you.
“This,” he says, “is fifty pence, or 50p.”
“Pence or p.” You repeat.
“That’s right.” He confirms and pinches a smaller coin with his other hand. “Now, this little one is a penny. Fifty of these are called fifty pennies.”
“Pennies,” you echo and slap your thighs, “See? Was it that hard to explain?”
“Oh yes,” he replies and nods slowly, “yes, it was that fucking hard.”
You lift your palm. “Can I have the big one?” You ask.
“Say it first.” He commands you.
You roll your eyes. “Can I have the 50p, Lt.?”
“Of course, you may have the 50p.” He says and places the coin in your hand, “What you absolutely may not have is fifty….” He stops and lets a repressed chuckle out.
You press your lips together and bite your cheek to not respond to his teasing. But you can’t.
“…pennises, I presume?” You sneer.
“Yeah, no.” He says and vigorously shakes his head, “You don’t want that.”
You wince and rub the back of your neck. Ghost tries to comfort you, telling you it’s ok and you shouldn’t feel bad, but he doesn’t believe it himself. He’s smiling beneath that mask; you can tell by how the grimace alters his voice. You thank him for the coin and walk to the vending machine.
“Soldier,” he calls out, “how many times have you said that word since you came to the UK?”
You tilt your head and try to recall.
“I can’t remember.” You conclude.
“You can’t remember if you ever said it, or there were so many occasions that you can’t count them?” He asks with a trembling voice.
“No, Lt.,” you reply, defeated, “I don’t remember asking another person for that.”
He looks relieved. He lets out a long exhale and rubs his masked face with his palms.
“I never thought I’d ever say this,” he says, “but I’m glad I was the first one.”
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A/N: I wrote this in March, along with this story (yes, they’re very similar). Although I liked the idea and thought it was funny, I initially discarded it because it felt stupid, and chose to post the other one (not like the other one is pure genius). It remains as such, but as I said, it’s a crackfic. I’m not researching how to improve human welfare.
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wtf is dracula daily?
i’ve seen a couple people ask this question on my posts about it, so i thought i’d go ahead and clear it up here!
ok so, the classic horror novel “dracula” is an epistolary novel - that means it’s told via letters, diary entries, ship logs, and news articles. (technically the term “epistolary novel” refers to works told solely through letters or emails, but many have expanded it to mean any work that is told via in-universe documents, hence why diaries and logs often get included as well. “frankenstein” is another classic example; the whole framing device is robert walton is recounting the story he heard from victor to his sister via letter. a modern example would be “several people are typing,” which is told via slack messages, or “the perks of being a wallflower,” which is told via letters from charlie to his anonymous pen pal, which is functionally more like you’re reading his diary.)
because of the nature of the narrative, we actually know the exact day nearly everything in dracula happens - the letters, news articles, diary entries, etc. are all dated.
“dracula daily” is a substack project where the novel is broken up into parts, with people who are subscribed to the project getting emails every day something in dracula happens - for example, the novel opens with jonathan harker’s journal entry on may 3, so on may 3, subscribers are emailed that entry. the action of dracula takes place from may 3 - november 6, plus an epilogue set some years later. the project started in 2021 (i think), but fucking BLEW UP in 2022, and they’re doing it again this year! lots of us are very excited - especially people like me who fell behind last time.
why not just read the book?
valid! due to some parts of dracula being told out of chronological order, dracula daily does reorder some things. for example, the first section of dracula is told entirely from jonathan harker’s pov, then the second section switches the pov to mina murray. their sections have some overlap in the timeline, so dracula daily jumps back and forth between their perspectives.
if you want to read the book as bram stoker intended, dracula daily may not be for you. but for a lot of people (myself included!), it breaks up a very long text into easily digestible chunks (....mostly. there is one entry that is 10k words), and the fact that it’s a big project means there are a lot of people reading along with you.
i think there’s also something valuable about experience the slow revelation of wtf is going on along with the characters. the book which you might otherwise get through in a few days is stretched out into months of suspense and agony as you wait for the other shoe to drop, and it’s great.
plus, the whiplash between “jonathan harker’s neverending horror” vs “lucy is basically on the bachelorette” that you get in dracula daily is very very funny.
how do i sign up?
right here! and if you sign up and fall behind in the emails, no worries - the dracula daily website posts past entries so you can catch up.
what if i prefer audiobooks?
have i got great news for you!
like i mentioned before, i couldn’t keep up with the emails last year. part of it is that it is much easier for me to focus on an audiobook or keep up with a podcast than it is for me to sit down and read, especially with longer entries.
this year, there is going to be a podcast titled “re: dracula” that was inspired by dracula daily. every episode will be a dracula daily entry, with a full voice cast! (seriously, if you listen to british podcasts, you will recognize some of these names. the magnus archives and wooden overcoats girlies are WINNING.) you can find that here.
there is also a podcast called “cryptic canticles” that has an already-completed audiodrama of dracula that i’m told is also extremely good, and was also broken up by date. you can find that here.
why do i keep hearing about paprika/the boyfriend squad/lizard fashion/cowboys?
you’ll see.
oh god am i gonna hear about this nerd shit for the rest of the year
yes. sorry.
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im in love with your content omg😭 your writing style is just chefs kiss
can i req a reader with the tf141 being on a mission and hearing an enemy say something in british slang and they just go "what did they just say.." in comms? like a reader who doesnt know anything about slang like not even that bars in the uk r called pubs (if im not wrong) and just nods whenever a private talks in slang, and their brain is just trying to figure out what they just said?
its just a really silly plot with a silly reader :3
pardon? — python333
— — — —
synopsis just as the req says, you know nothing about british slang and on a mission the enemy speaks british and you dont know what theyre saying :3
relationships platonic!taskforce 141 & reader.
characters cap. price, soap, ghost, gaz.
word count 2.6k
warnings 2nd person pov [you/yours/yourself], usage of c/n [code name/call sign].
note HI YES I LOVE THIS REQ!! i take every opportunity i can to make fun of british people so this is right up my alley!! tysm for the compliments hjfhdjskf recently ive been getting more praise on my works and it makes me so happy i love yall. again, sorry if this sounds a little rushed or if any parts are incoherent, i wrote this at 12/1am and im both more productive and write more nonsense at this time + this one is wayyyy shorter than ones i usually do because i didnt know what else to write for it so i apologize for that as well! this is pure fluff and humor (i like to think im funny) so enjoy!!
“—eah, and now we have to camp out here ‘cause he can’t be arsed to do it ‘imself, so I feel like we should have a chat with the others, see if they’re willing to leg it out of here with us,” An enemy soldier suggests to you, his British accent thick enough that you think it might be cockney.
You cross your arms to hide your shaking hands and nod in agreement, as if you understood anything he said, and put on the same shitty British accent you’d been using for the past five minutes you’d been talking to this guy.
“Yeah, yeah, totally,” You agree, clearing your throat before asking, “You know where the others are stationed?”
“You don’t?” He asks, raising an eyebrow at you suspiciously.
“Mate, all the orders I was given went in one ear and out the other,” You sigh, holding back a wince at your desperate attempt to sound more natural using British slang, “I just know I’ve got to stand out here and shoot the enemy.”
The enemy eyes you suspiciously and he takes a moment to try and read your face before he says, “I don’t think I’ve seen you before, actually. Which would be weird, if we’re in the same platoon, don’t you—”
You sigh and quickly pull out the small switchblade you had hanging on your belt, stabbing the enemy in the neck before he can say anything else and grabbing him before he can drop to the ground, putting a hand behind his back as you half lead half drag him into a dark alleyway beside the building he was stationed outside of.
You quickly set him down into a sitting position and take your knife out of his throat, tucking the blade back into the handle before adjusting it to latch onto your belt once again, letting out a frustrated huff as you stare at the now dead man in front of you.
“[c/n], how copy?” Price’s voice crackles through on your ear piece.
You push in the PTT button and lower your voice, “Copy, I fucked up a little bit. One of the guys was onto me.”
“You were there for five bloody minutes,” Gaz’s voice rings through, his tone both disbelieving and amused, “How’d he already catch onto you?”
“The British are smarter than I thought,” You breathe out, standing up and looking around for a ladder to climb to get to higher ground before anyone spots you. You go farther into the alley and find an old, rusty ladder with rungs that look like they’d snap if someone sneezed on them too hard—perfect for climbing up.
You wrinkle your nose as your hand makes contact with one of the rungs but don’t say anything otherwise, instead wordlessly hauling yourself up onto the ladder.
“Reminder that there’s three British people with you, currently,” Ghost’s deadpan tone crackles, his breathing heavy, as you can tell he’s whispering into his mic, “All of which are very smart.”
“I caught you reading the instructions on a box of tea bags the other day, don’t fuckin’ talk right now,” You grumble, slowly climbing up the ladder, hating the creaking noises it makes as you do. It sounds like it’s going to snap at any minute, and you try to go up as fast as you can, but one wrong move and you’ll easily slip, some of the rust that flakes off of the ladder enough to make you slip up.
“They were circles,” Ghost says, exasperated, “I didn’t know if that made a difference.”
“I thought British people were supposed to know everything about tea,” You roll your eyes, putting your hand on the next rusty rung up on the ladder.
“Yeah, L.t,” Soap agrees with you teasingly, the wind hitting his mic, making it obvious that he’s running, “Thought ye Brits were s’possed to ken everything ‘bout tea.”
You laugh quietly to yourself as you finally make it to the top of the building, the top just high enough for you to look at the few soldiers below and hear a majority of their conversations without them noticing you.
You get to the edge of the rooftop and pull the sniper rifle you’d been carrying around off of your back, glad to finally be back in your element rather than trying to get in undercover, and set it up.
You pull the stand out and set it on the edge of the roof, and look through the scope of the rifle, lining it up so that it’s aiming directly at one of the soldier’s heads, specifically the one that was standing directly out of the entrance you originally were meant to try and get into—but doing this didn’t change much.
Regardless of if you got in or not, he would’ve died, and the others would’ve gotten in too. You getting in first was just meant to make it more efficient.
You press down on the PTT button on your earpiece as you look through the scope of your sniper rifle, keeping the aim on the soldier in front of the entrance, “The guy in front of the entrance is just standing still, so whenever you need me to, I can shoot ‘im down.”
“I don’t think we need to get in just yet,” Price hums, “But maybe in a minute.”
“M’kay,” You hum, taking your eye away from the scope, instead just looking over at the enemy soldiers. You lay on your stomach, leaning your head down a bit to try and listen in on the enemy’s conversations easier, trying your best not to make yourself too obvious.
The conversations were pretty boring and almost the same for every soldier you’d eavesdropped on, for the most part. Enemy soldiers joking around, talking about what they’ll do once they’re on leave—like they would be able to do that after you completed your assignment—and just some general team camaraderie.
The lackluster subjects of their conversations weren’t bad at all, no, in fact, you could care less what they talk about.
It was their stupid accents you hated.
Are you surrounded by British people everyday? Yes. Does that stop you from hating on the British everyday? No. Okay, maybe the accents aren’t stupid, but God, they had the thickest cockney accents you’d heard in your entire life, and it was making your eavesdropping so much harder, and had almost been the reason you were given away earlier.
They used slang words that you’re certain you’ve never heard before in your life, and used analogies that didn’t even make sense—you heard one of them use the words, verbatim, ‘Don’t get stroppy’. Stroppy? Stroppy?
You narrow your eyes down at the soldiers below you, listening to a conversation they’d just started up.
“—eah, ‘cause he can’t be arsed to do anything about it, so now we have to camp out here and wait for somethin’ to happen,” One of the soldiers scoffs, “I’m telling you, man, if I see that skull-masked bloke runnin’ ‘round out here, I’m legging it from ‘im immediately.”
You draw your eyebrows together in confusion, but you stay silent for now. Isn’t that exactly what the other soldier said? Are they like a hive mind or something?
“You’re legging it?” The other soldier asked, sounding almost incredulous, “What happened to you chattin’ to some of the others about your loyalty and what not?”
“All that’s irrelevant when the fuckin’ grim reaper rolls around and starts murkin’ people like he’s been doing for the entirety we’ve been here, mate,” The first soldier laughs, “You think I wanna be here when he does that?”
“Don’t act like a prat about it, man—fuckin’ talking’ like you can outrun him.”
“A prat? I’m not—” You tune out the rest of their argument and instead try and figure out what they were saying.
A prat? Legging it? Can’t be arsed? What the fuck? You push the PTT button on your earpiece and as quietly as you can, you ask, “I need some help. Serious help. Life or death situation.”
Immediately, Price’s voice rings through, “What? What is it? What happened?”
“The soldiers are British and I can’t tell what they’re saying,” You answer, ignoring Price’s relieved sigh on his end, “I need help.”
“Jesus, fuck, don’t scare me like that,” Price sighs, taking a few breaths before continuing, “Alright, what do you need help with?”
“Figuring out what they’re saying.”
This time, you hear Gaz’s voice crackle through, “Well, you’ve got three British people here—tell us what he’s saying.”
“One of the guys was talking about ‘legging it’ if he saw Ghost heading towards him, and talked about Ghost ‘murking’ people, and then the other guy he was talking to told him he was being a ‘prat’ about it and he got all offended,” You eloquently say into the earpiece, watching as the argument gets a little more heated. You can hear an amused huff from Ghost on his end and a scoff from Soap in return.
“They’re just saying they’re gonna run away if they see Ghost because he’s been killing a lot of their soldiers, and the other guy said he was being a prat, which I guess is like…” Gaz pauses to think of how to explain the slang term before settling on, “Someone who’s kind of full of themselves, I guess. Or ignorant. Either or.”
“They couldn’t just say that?” You muse quietly, still staring down at the enemy soldiers.
“I’m gonna pretend you didn’t just say that,” Price’s voice cuts through, “Go ahead and shoot the guy down. I’m ready to head in.”
“Got it,” You hum, quickly putting your eye back up to your scope and readjusting it a bit before quietly warning, “Shooting him now.”
You pull the trigger and the enemy goes down immediately, and through your scope you can see the small twitching of his body as the other soldier starts to freak out.
You quickly aim the gun at his still-alive friend and shoot him down as well, silently congratulating yourself on your good aim and continuing to look through the scope, watching as Price runs in with Gaz and a few other soldiers.
They struggle with the door for a moment and you sigh before pressing in the PTT button on your earpiece and quietly saying, “Price, Gaz, move away from the door for a sec.”
Wordlessly, they do as they’re told, and you take the opportunity to line up the gun’s aim with the complex electronic panel on the outside of the door and pull the trigger, shooting the most crucial part of the panel, causing it’s functions to disrupt and as a result, the doors open.
“Thanks for that,” Gaz breathes out as Price kicks open the door, his voice cut off a bit at the end as he takes his hand off the PTT button too quickly in order to follow after Price.
“Uh huh. Of course,” You say offhandedly, taking your eye away from the scope of your sniper rifle and listening to the loud sirens go off in the facility the others break into, and push yourself up so that you can sit up straight to properly watch it. You grunt as you sit up, stretching your arms out for a moment before letting them fall into your lap.
“Are they in?” Soap asks, curious, his voice a little strained and breathy. There’s no loud gusts of wind coming through his mic anymore, and you look around for a moment, before your eyes catch on to him climbing up a ladder to get to the rooftop adjacent to yours.
Your lips twitch into a smile at the sight of him completely clueless to your presence and you press your PTT button to talk.
“Yeah, they’re in,” You say, watching as he finally gets to the rooftop, “Didn’t you hear the sirens?”
You can see Soap’s eyebrows furrowed together in confusion for a moment, and he looks around for a moment before finally seeing you on the rooftop directly next to his, and he looks surprised for a moment before a grin splits across his face. You see him press the PTT button on his mic as well.
“I did, yeah, just wanted tae be sure,” He says into his mic, looking right at you as he does, “It’s a surprise seeing you here.”
“Imagine how I feel,” You muse, almost to yourself, before looking away from Soap and speaking up, “Ghost, you don’t wanna join us on the rooftops?”
“Absolutely not,” He replies almost immediately, making you huff out a small laugh and Soap’s grin grow, “I’m perfectly fine on the ground.”
“Where are you?” You ask, scanning the area around you for Ghost, “I feel like I haven’t seen you this whole time.”
“I’m just behind the facility,” Ghost hums, voice still a low whisper, “I’m gonna be heading in once Gaz and Price make it to the second floor to clean up the first, in case there’s anyone left.”
“You’ve been behind the facility this whole time?” Soap’s voice cuts through, surprised by the fact.
“Mhm,” Ghost hums.
“It’s a bit boring back there, innit?” Gaz’s voice crackles through, his voice a little breathy, “You can sweep the first floor, by the way. Should be nobody left, though. Pretty sure all the soldiers were just faffing around, not doing much.”
“Fucking faffing around?” You ask incredulously to yourself, though apparently your voice is loud enough to make Soap chuckle.
As if he can read your mind, Price’s voice comes through, “Faffing around is just doing nothing or doing nothing particularly productive, [c/n].”
You sigh and push your PTT button this time, talking into your mic, “You couldn’t just say that, Gaz? You had to say something silly like faffing around?”
“It’s not silly,” Gaz says, his frown audible, “They were faffing around.”
“Jesus, fuck,” You breathe out, laughing lightly, “It’s totally silly.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yeah it is.”
“No it’s—”
“I just want one day where you two don’t start up stupid arguments like this,” Price’s tired sigh comes through, “Just one day, I beg of you both.”
“Aw, Captain, we were just faffing around,” You whine playfully, the misuse of the slang making Soap cover his mouth with his hand to muffle his laughter and you hear Ghost groan into his mic.
“That is absolutely not how you use that,” Gaz says, though you can hear some laughter in his voice—from your very non-British accent saying British phrases, you presume, a small grin gracing your lips at the thought.
“It sounded natural to me,” You lie straight through your teeth, shrugging even though only Soap can see you.
“You’re insufferable,” Gaz groans, making you laugh quietly, “Never use British slang again, please.”
“What if I get a British accent? Will that fix it?”
“Nothing can fix what you’ve said today, [c/n].”
“Well that’s dramatic,” You scoff, “I’ll learn British just for you guys.”
“Holy shit, please stop talking,” Price’s exasperated voice interrupts the both of you, “You’re both insufferable. Drop it.”
“… I don’t think I will,” You say defiantly, making all three British people in the same voice channel as you groan in unison, the sound sounding like some sort of middle school choir trying to sing in harmony, “I’ll use Duolingo or something to learn it.”
“British isn’t a language you learn, you muppet,” Price grumbles, making you snort.
“Muppet?”
“It’s someone who’s dumb and clueless and can’t take a hint, like you,” Ghost defines, “And Soap, most of the time.”
“Daen’t go draggin’ mae into this,” Soap’s voice quickly cuts through, “I haven’t said onything.”
“Uh, yes you absolutely did, earlier, remember?” Gaz argues, ignoring Price’s protests for him to stop arguing, “About Ghost being stupid with the tea thing?”
“Oh, I’ll have you all know—”
“Ghost, don’t start—”
You listen as the once casual, teasing conversation turns into an argument and chuckle quietly to yourself, knowing that they’d be arguing about this until you all finished your assignment.
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