Thoughts on ghost saving reader from a hostage situation? Maybe she’s a bank teller or a flight attendant or stuck in a war torn country?
it’s dark, and you're trapped in the room with no windows, no light, just pure darkness. your body feels heavy and your breaths laboured.
you don’t know the last time you saw the light. you don’t know exactly how long it’s been. you’re not even sure how you got here.
one minute you were closing up at the café, next were hit across your head with something hard, and on the ground limp. and when you woke up... well... you found yourself here.
the guy comes in sometimes. he’s always mad. and always takes it out on you. you can’t say you’re shocked- he did kidnap you after all. maybe you’re just his plaything ro torture until he got bored and disappear again. it’s a cycle.
you thought he’d come back for another round of said cycle tonight, when you heard the sound of the deadbolt unlocking and heavy footsteps.
then they stop. right before they reach the room you’re locked in.
waiting with baited breath, your teeth drew blood out from your bottom lip.
but then you hear a slam. a groan and a grunt.
a hiss, beeping and sudden the door blows off, barely missing you and slamming into the wall behind the pole you’re chained to.
you whimpered and squeezed your eyes shut. maybe he was even more mad today.. or maybe..
maybe-
“love…” a shaky voice and then heavy feet running towards you. when you opened your eyes, you see him— simon.
you burst into tears immediately. you don’t know if you were feeling relief that someone’s here to save you, panic because your kidnapper could appear at anytime or guilt because you made him worry so much.
with a grunt, simon uses one of his tools and hacks the chains off before gathering you into his arms. you sob and sob, unable to catch your breath.
“it’s okay, it’s okay.. i’ve got you now,” he whispers, holding you closer with one hand and smoothing your hair down with the other.
and you allowed yourself to feel that relief.
you’d never heard him whisper until now.
he breaks the hug to look at you properly. “look at you…” he says, voicing breaking. he wipes at your tears gently, carefully, so light like he didn’t want to break you any further.
tilting your head left and right slowly, he examines you. a surge of anger rises through him again.
“s-simon, the guy-“ you hiccup.
“i handled it.”
it’s only then that you see the dark red painting the knuckles of his gloves. he lifts your chin up so you’re looking at him again, and traces the bruises on your face as he scans them with sharp eyes. “i promise… no matter what, i’ll find you, dove.” he says, tone dark and certain.
“i will always find you.”
Tagging: @withluvmia @sweet-honey-tears
a/n: hiii so sorry this took sooo long omg i haven’t had the motivation to write at all. i hope you like it anyway and thanks so much for requesting!
“Why is she here again?” you muttered under your breath as the influencer clomped through the mud in tactical boots cleaner than your mess kit.
“For PR,” Soap whispered, like it was classified intel. “And because someone hates us.”
The influencer—Tiffany or Tiff or whatever—gave Ghost another lingering look like he was a shirtless firefighter in a calendar. “Ghosty, can you show me how to hold the big scary gun again? Pretty please?” she cooed, doing something horrifying with her eyelashes.
Ghost didn’t look up from checking his gear. “No.
You bit the inside of your cheek to keep from laughing. She turned her death glare on you like you'd just stolen her ring light.
During drills, she "accidentally" pushed a duffel into your path. You tripped, took a dirt dive, and landed face-first in gravel. “Oopsies,” she said, not sorry at all.
Price barked at you in front of the squad. Ghost glanced your way, jaw tight. You grunted and kept walking. You’d live. Probably.
It wasn’t until the field op that things got serious. A misfired flare caused a small explosion, splitting the team. You and Ghost ended up holed in an abandoned barn with limited comms and nightfall closing in.
“You alright?” he asked, checking your shoulder where shrapnel grazed.
“I’ll live. You?”
“Better now that she’s not here,” he muttered.
You chuckled, the sound low and tired. “You know she sees me as a rival?”
“Figured. She stares at you like she wants to murder you with a glittery bayonet.”
A silence hung between you, thicker than smoke. Then—
Ghost reached out, his gloved fingers surprisingly gentle as they hooked under your chin, tilting your face up to meet his gaze. The harsh shadows of the barn softened around him, and for a second, the chaos outside completely faded.
With his free hand, he reached up and slowly pulled the edge of his mask up just past his lips. Before you could even register the rare sight, he leaned in, his breath warm against your skin. He pressed a soft, lingering kiss to the corner of your mouth, tasting faintly of mint and rain, sending a sharp jolt of electricity straight down your spine.
He lingered there for a heartbeat, his thumb brushing over your cheekbone, wiping away a streak of dirt. "I've been wanting to do that since you took that dive earlier," he murmured, his voice a low, rough purr right against your ear. "You look devastating when you're angry."
You could feel your heart hammering against your ribs, your breath catching in your throat as you wrapped a hand around his wrist, pulling him just a fraction closer. "Is that a confession, Lieutenant?"
"It’s a promise," he breathed, his hand shifting to cup the back of your neck, you could feel the heat radiating off him. "When we get back to base, I'm showing you exactly what you mean to me. Understood?"
Before anything else could be said, the door burst open. Tiffanie stood there, red-faced and holding her phone.
“I demand to be extracted! This lighting is heinous, and nobody told me there’d be spiders!”
Ghost pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Ma’am, calm down—” you tried.
“I knew you’d sabotage me! You’re just jealous!”
And that’s when she grabbed your vest.
You sighed, pulled out your taser, and shot her square in the thigh.
She collapsed like a diva in a soap opera.
Ghost looked down at her twitching body. “..You didn’t even hesitate.”
“She’s lucky I didn’t set her eyelashes on fire.”
Ghost stared at you, then nodded. “I’ll back your report.”
You shrugged. “Self-defence.”
Then you looked back up at the team who flooded in right at the moment, spoke deadpan. "You saw Nothing".
The squad looked anywhere but at them as the sky suddenly was a lot more interesting. "Must have been the wind.", they said in unison.
a/n: Genuinely i need this man irl, if you know where to find him, lmk. ENJOY!!💕
Simon “I don’t like kids” Riley wakes up extra early to get your daughter dressed and fed, before taking and dropping her off at daycare, just so you can sleep in
Simon “I don’t like kids” Riley will play barbie’s with your daughter to keep her occupied so she won’t bother you while you work. “Come er’ pretty girl, mamas busy right now. Let’s go play”
Simon “I don’t like kids” Riley scanned every toy store and online store for the exact jumbo pink fluffy unicorn stuffed animal for your daughter, after she left it at a restaurant
Simon “I don’t like kids” Riley shed a tear when your daughter brought him a piece a paper with colors scribbled on it, that said “Happy Father’s day!”. He hugged her and whispered, “Thank you baby”. To this day shes still the only one to see this man cry.
Simon “I don’t like kids” Riley who agreed to accompanying you and your daughter to the park so quickly. He nearly ran out of his chair to get his shoes on. You couldn’t stop laughing when Simon fell of the swings.
Simon “I don’t like kids” Riley who rocked your baby girl to sleep and sat with her for an hour before placing her in her own bed. He peppered her little face with kisses.
Simon “I don’t like kids” Riley who stands in the kitchen making you tea, while you sit on the counter in his tshirt.
“Thank you, Si”
“For?” He grumbles
“For helping me, and loving her like shes your own”
He walks over to you and hands you the tea, then he places his hands on your waist. He kisses your forehead and says,
“Whatever keeps my girls happy”
a/n: RAHHHHH I WAS GIGGLING AND KICKING MY FEET WHILE WRITING THIS!!! I hope you all enjoy this as much as you enjoyed my last post. I do just want to say, based off my schedule i’ll most likely be posting twice, maybe three times a week💕
lowdown ☆ the mission quickly unravels when a complication blows your cover. with tensions rising and plans falling apart, the night takes an unexpected turn.
ride or die ☆ soldier boy x reader ( f )
miles ☆ 3082 ride style ☆ kinda tense but not so bad??
danger on the trail ☆ mission tension, being chased, the deep being gross/threatening, brief physical restraint, violence
liv's log ☆ what the hell are we even supposed to make of this?!!
𐚁 .ᐟ masterlist ☆ join the taglist ☆ listen to the playlist ☆ support my work ᢉ𐭩
vought events always smell expensive in a way that makes your skin itch.
fresh flowers. polished floors. hot stage lights. designer perfume. catered food arranged in small, meaningless portions on trays carried by people everyone important has already decided not to look at. the whole civic center has been scrubbed and dressed until it no longer resembles a public building. red, white, and blue banners hang from the upper balconies. enormous screens loop the event title in shining patriotic letters: heroes for america: truth, strength, unity.
it’s so ugly you almost respect the commitment.
outside, the starlighters are already loud enough to reach the service corridors when the doors open at the wrong angle. chanting. whistles. a rolling wave of anger and devotion gathered behind barricades across the street, big enough to pull cameras away from the main entrance and make vought security pretend they aren’t nervous. annie’s people are good at noise.
inside, homelander smiles from every screen. not in person yet. not close enough to make the air turn sharp. only pre-recorded footage playing above the lobby while stage techs, assistants, security guards, and catered staff move through the building with increasing panic disguised as efficiency. his face appears twenty feet high over a crowd of donors and carefully selected families, all bright teeth and dead eyes, one hand raised in a wave that somehow feels threatening even when it’s only pixels.
you keep your head down and carry a tray of empty champagne flutes through the staff corridor. you belong perfectly. that’s the trick. not confidence exactly. confidence gets noticed if you wear too much of it. belonging is quieter. shoulders relaxed. pace steady. eyes moving only as much as they need to. staff badge clipped cleanly to your shirt. hair tied back. black trousers. white button-down.
“camera two is looped,” frenchie murmurs in your ear. “camera three is thinking about becoming looped, but she needs a little more persuasion.”
“don’t flirt with the cameras,” mm says over comms.
“i am building trust.”
“faster, french.”
kimiko is somewhere closer to the east stairwell, dressed in catering black with a tray she hasn’t once used for food. frenchie has disappeared into an equipment corridor with more wires than is probably safe for any building full of millionaires. annie is outside near the rally, face hidden beneath a cap and sunglasses while she keeps the starlighters pointed in the useful direction.
butcher is inside the building, farther north, moving through the lower service level with the confidence of a man who has never believed in restricted access. soldier boy is closer to the older backstage corridors, where the route maps suggest black noir might move if homelander’s personal security detail needs a private passage.
you’re alone by design.
that felt fine when the plan was still paper. now, with vought security around every corner and homelander’s recorded voice bleeding faintly through the walls, it feels less fine. manageable. but less fine.
you reach the end of the corridor and stop beside a service table, pretending to rearrange napkins while your gaze tracks movement through the open archway ahead. main event staff. two guards. a woman with a headset walking fast enough to ruin her shoes by the end of the night. another server carrying bottled water toward the green room hallway.
then you see blue. not literal blue. not the suit. the deep isn’t wearing the full oceanic circus costume today, but there’s something painfully aquatic about him anyway. a teal pocket square. a pin shaped like a wave. hair styled too carefully, jaw set in the expression of a man trying to look important while knowing nobody in the room considers it.
he stands near the hallway leading toward the backstage holding area, talking to a vought assistant who looks like she’s considering walking directly into traffic.
and suddenly, the deep turns.
you look down immediately, but the motion has already happened. his face shifts through boredom, irritation, confusion. then recognition. of course. immediately. because kevin moskowitz may be a profound idiot, but apparently humiliation improves facial memory.
your pulse kicks once. hard. you reach up as if adjusting your earpiece beneath your hair. “seaworld recognized me,” you say quietly. “i’m gonna have to make a run for it.”
mm’s voice enters low. “how close?”
“too close.”
butcher answers next, clipped and already moving. “don’t get caught. don’t make a scene.”
“wow,” you mutter beneath your breath, still facing the napkins. “hadn’t considered either of those.”
the deep’s voice cuts across the corridor. “hey—”
your stomach drops. not panic yet. panic is expensive, and you’re standing inside a building where one wrong reaction could end the mission and put homelander on alert before anyone gets close enough to do anything that matters. you turn your head slightly, just enough to see him walking toward you.
his eyes narrow. “wait! you!”
fucking fantastic.
you turn on your heel. “fuck—i’m made. headed for the south back exit.”
“i’m on my way,” butcher says. “do not get boxed in.”
“that’s the goal.”
you walk fast at first. not running. not while there’s staff and guards still moving around the corridor. the tray stays in your hands for six more steps, then you pass a prep table and set it down with more care than the situation deserves because dropping glass behind you would attract every set of eyes within fifty feet.
behind you, the deep says, louder, “hey—no, no, no. i know you!”
your pace quickens. a security guard glances up. you lower your head and take the left turn toward the service hall.
“south corridor,” you say. “passing storage c.”
“i’m too far out,” frenchie says, tense.
“stay on your position,” mm orders. “don’t break cover unless we call it.”
“mm,” annie says, voice tight from outside, the rally noise swelling behind her. “if he calls security—”
“i know.”
the deep’s footsteps come faster behind you. then he says your name. not your real one. something from the gala. the fake introduction you’d given him while smiling too sweetly beneath aquarium lighting like a woman with nothing in her head except blue tide summer and a crush on a man who talked to fish.
you break into a run.
the staff corridor narrows ahead, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, the south back exit sign glowing dim green at the far end. your shoes slap against the polished floor. the apron tugs at your hips. your earpiece crackles with too many voices at once.
butcher swears. “move.”
“i am,” you snap.
“security rushing toward you,” mm warns. “two at the cross hall.”
you cut right before the intersection, shoving through a swinging door into a secondary service passage. your shoulder clips the frame hard enough to send pain through your upper arm. you keep going.
behind you, the door slams open. “come on!” the deep shouts, breath already rough because apparently running through service corridors is not part of his ocean training. “you think i’m stupid?”
you almost answer yes on instinct.
you wish your knife pressed against your hip with every stride. you could draw it if he caught you. you know where your hand would fall. you know, with cold, practical certainty, that it wouldn’t be enough to make this fair.
you’re human. he’s not—even if it is idiot kevin.
“approaching south back exit,” you say, breath sharper now. “thirty seconds maybe.”
“twenty if you stop talking,” butcher says.
“helpful.”
a different voice enters the comms. soldier boy. low and flat. “where?”
“service passage. south side.” then mm’s tone changes. “soldier boy, stay on your mark.”
no answer.
you keep running.
the final stretch of hallway opens ahead with the south exit sign glowing like the ugliest miracle you’ve ever seen. your lungs burn. your shoes slap too loudly against the polished floor. the staff uniform pulls wrong around your body now, too tight at the shoulders, too obvious, too easy to grab.
there’s nothing at your hip. no knife. no hidden blade. no small hard weight where your hand has learned to fall. the staff search at the entrance had been light, but not light enough to gamble on steel. no weapons visible. no weapons hidden. just a badge, a tray, an earpiece tucked under your hair, and the hope that nobody important would look at you long enough to remember your face. so much for that.
behind you, the deep’s footsteps slap through the corridor with embarrassing effort. “where the hell are you?”
“approaching the exit,” you say, breath sharp and uneven now. “south side.”
then the deep shouts behind you again, closer now. “i see you!”
panic tries to take the wheel. you shove it down. running blindly gets people killed. soldier boy taught you that before everything went wrong. keep your head. check your corners. know where the next body is before it reaches you.
the next body reaches you anyway.
a hand catches your wrist. your whole body jerks in shock. for half a second, terror does the math wrong and decides the deep caught you. you twist hard, free hand flying uselessly toward an empty hip, breath tearing up your throat before you can make it into anything useful.
soldier boy yanks you sideways into the alcove.
your back hits the wall between a stack of cardboard signs and a mop bucket. his hand covers your mouth before the sound leaves you, palm pressed firm over your lips. the other hand closes around your upper arm to keep you still, not gentle, not soft, not enough to bruise if you stop fighting him.
your body doesn’t know the difference immediately.
wall. hand. no air.
panic flashes white-hot through your chest.
his eyes find yours. “quiet,” he murmurs.
nothing else. one word. rough. low. not a threat.
you breathe once against his palm and realize you can. the air comes in shallow through your nose. fast, then slower. his hand is over your mouth, not your throat. his body crowds yours, but his fingers aren’t cutting into your neck. he’s not holding you up by the bruises he left. the other hand stays locked around your arm because your feet are still half-prepared to run.
you force yourself still. his gaze flicks over your face quickly. not tender. not asking if you are okay. only making sure you understand enough to not get both of you caught. you nod once against his hand.
footsteps pound past the alcove. the deep runs by first, then slows several steps ahead when the hallway opens near the exit. “fuck,” he pants. “come on.”
you hold your breath. soldier boy goes still enough to become part of the wall.
the deep turns back slowly, scanning the corridor with obvious, wounded frustration. he’s close enough now that you can see the sweat starting near his hairline, the flushed anger across his face. he looks ridiculous. he also looks like a supe standing between you and the only clean exit.
“come on, sweetheart. i know you’re here,” his footsteps slow near the alcove.
soldier boy’s palm remains over your mouth.
the deep moves closer. “homelander’s gonna love this. but maybe i’ll have my fun with you first, huh? stupid bitch drugged me and thought i’d forget.”
the air changes. nothing anyone else could measure from the hall. only soldier boy’s fingers tightening once around your arm.
you feel him decide. you catch his wrist before he moves, not hard enough to stop him. your eyes widen over his hand, warning clear enough. let him pass. do not blow this up. homelander is on the other side of the building. the mission is already hanging by a thread. soldier boy looks at you for half a second. then he removes his hand from your mouth and steps out of the alcove.
the deep turns too late. soldier boy hits him.
the sound is ugly. quick. almost swallowed by the hallway, but still heavy enough to make something inside you wince. the deep’s head snaps back, and his body drops with none of the grace vought probably trains into its public assets. one second he’s standing there with his mouth open around some half-formed insult. the next, he hits the floor flat on his ass, legs folding awkwardly beneath him, eyes unfocused and blinking at the ceiling. a stack of folded bunting topples beside him.
for one stunned second, you stare.
soldier boy looks down at him. “shut your fucking mouth.”
your mouth parts. “you were supposed to let him pass.”
he turns his head toward you. “he passed out. close enough.”
the worst part is that something in you almost laughs.
then the comms explode.
“what was that?” mm demands.
frenchie says, “was that a punch?”
“why are we hearing punching?” hughie asks, distressed.
butcher cuts through them all. “everybody out. now. vought’s made us all.”
your stomach drops. soldier boy’s face hardens. that’s when you understand the sound was not only heard by your team. somewhere, maybe not close, maybe through a guard’s radio or a camera glitch or the deep failing to check in at the worst possible moment, the building has started correcting itself around the compromise. security details shifting. exits closing. homelander being pulled from the public stage before anyone gets the chance to make this worth the risk.
soldier boy catches your wrist. not your hand. his fingers close around the narrow bone with practical force and pull you into motion before you can object. you stumble once over the edge of the fallen bunting, catch yourself, and run.
the south back exit slams open into cold air.
rain has started lightly, barely enough to wet the pavement but enough to sharpen the smell of the alley behind the civic center. a black van waits near the curb with headlights off and engine running. mm’s in the driver’s seat, one hand braced over the wheel, the other near the gearshift. his eyes snap toward you through the windshield.
you and soldier boy reach the van first. he throws the side door open and all but shoves you inside by the wrist. you catch the edge of the seat with your free hand, breathless, knees knocking briefly against the floor as you climb in. he follows immediately, dropping into the space beside you with his jaw locked and his attention already turning toward the alley mouth.
mm looks at you in the mirror. his eyes flick to your wrist. then soldier boy. then your face. “where’s butcher?”
“coming,” soldier boy says.
the door remains open.
voices hit the alley next.
frenchie appears first with a security badge still clipped crookedly to his shirt, kimiko right behind him, silent and fast. she jumps into the van and immediately looks you over in one quick sweep that catches your flushed face, your empty hands, the way soldier boy still hasn’t fully let go of your wrist. his grip releases as if he only just noticed. you pull your hand back against your stomach.
soldier boy stares out the open door.
frenchie climbs in with a breathless, “i do not enjoy live events.”
“move,” mm says.
“we’re missing three.”
“i know who we’re missing.”
annie and hughie arrive from the opposite side of the alley, half-running, half-trying not to look like people who were trying to commit a crime. annie yanks open the passenger door and gets in beside mm, rain catching in her hair beneath her cap. hughie scrambles into the back, nearly trips over frenchie’s foot, and lands against the side panel with a pained little sound.
“everyone okay?” annie asks immediately.
“define okay,” hughie says.
butcher appears last. coat damp, face furious, cigarette nowhere in sight, which somehow makes him look more dangerous than usual. he slams the van door shut behind him the second he gets in, and mm pulls away before he has fully sat down. tires hiss over wet pavement. the alley slips behind you in a blur of brick, dumpsters, and red-white-blue banners flapping uselessly near a service entrance.
butcher looks at soldier boy. “did you get noir?”
the question lands strangely. not because you don’t understand it. because you do.
did you get him. killed him. finished it. the whole point. the reason soldier boy had agreed to stand inside a vought building two days after threatening to kill half the team.
soldier boy says nothing.
your breath slows with effort. you look at him. the side of his face is turned toward the window, rain-streaked city light cutting across his jaw. his hand rests near his knee now, curled loosely into a fist.
butcher’s expression shifts. “you had him,” he says.
the van goes very quiet. mm’s eyes lift briefly to the rearview mirror. annie turns her head slowly from the passenger seat. hughie stops breathing for a second. your stomach drops through the floor of the van.
had him.
soldier boy’s jaw flexes. “he got away.”
“did you kill him?” butcher asks, voice low. “or did you let him walk?”
soldier boy turns then. the look he gives butcher could strip paint.
“you had him,” butcher repeats, surprise and arrogance mixing in his tone.
“and you had one job,” soldier boy snaps, voice suddenly harder. “keep your people from getting made by fucking fish boy.”
the words hit before you’re ready. your face goes still. not because he’s wrong. because the insult is a blade with a handle he clearly chose.
butcher leans forward slightly. “careful.”
soldier boy’s eyes stay on him. “or what?”
the van holds its breath.
mm says, “not in my van.”
“mm—” butcher starts.
“not,” mm repeats, sharper, “in my fucking van.”
silence slams down again. the civic center disappears behind you, swallowed by distance and rain and the shifting lights of vought security vehicles redirecting around the front of the building. somewhere behind those walls, homelander’s being moved to a safer exit. black noir has vanished again. because soldier boy reached the van with you. no blood on his hands.
you look down at your wrist where his fingers had been. the skin there still feels warm, held too tightly for too little time. practical. rough. nothing anyone could mistake for tenderness unless they were desperate enough to count any touch that didn’t hurt as evidence.
soldier boy stares out the window. butcher keeps swearing under his breath. nobody says out loud why noir is still alive. only then do you understand that soldier boy made a choice.
Warning: Talk of stillborns, bullying, and incorrect fae facts. Angst with comfort?
This is less Roach x reader and more Roach as a changling. BUT HES A GOOD BOY In the future, I want to d the whole 'village bully ' reader thingy
·•—–٠✤٠—–•·
Roach liked you, you were nice to him.
·•—–٠✤٠—–•·
Roach was an oddball to the other fae. He rarely came to the woods, spending more time in the village. Yet they all knew why, and there was a silent respect for the hun in the air for the changeling. He was there to keep an eye on the village. Watch the change in language, culture, and religion. All the while, there to ensure there wasn't an attack in the making. That was where the respect lay. To risk one's neck for the sake of those he may not even like.
Over the years, he would appear as a traveler in different forms, wandering or selling. Staying long enough, normally a month, before reporting back. He would always trail back to the woods. Hands shoved in felt pockets as he walked to Price, or sometimes Ghost, to spread word. Their silent communications gave Roach deep comfort. Unlike the humans, who talked, talked, and talked. Roach may be the most human-looking and acting, but he hated the talking part. It had taken him years to learn the new human communication style. He much preferred the silly grunts or overly swirled language of the old days.
Things had changed, however, around the years you were born. He traded his traveling cloak for a pair of booties. As Roach, now Gary, took the place of a child of a young couple. He had reasoned it was time anyway to be retaught your silly math and writing system.
The couple would boast to the village about their baby, with hearts full of so much love, and Gary would see the wisp of pink coming from their chest.
He was the easiest baby, they told the village. Born without crying and always smiling. Yet their young son rarely spoke. They believed he struggled. In actuality, Roach's throat, tongue, and sections of the brain struggled to remold to better fit the current language; apparently, he was more out of touch with speaking than he thought. His delayed speech had reached the point where his little sister, two years his senior, started speaking before him. Many of his younger siblings spoke before or more than their oldest brother. Pulling on his arms, or riding his back as they babbled their way to school.
Gary, in nomadic terms, was picked on. He didnt speak to his peers or rarely did, instead preferring to use his hands to communicate. He could talk, strained a bit, but understandable. But why the hell would he? He hated those stupid years before you joined him in the schoolhouse. Humans were pestering, cruel little shits. If he didnt have a goal, a purpose for doing this, he likely would have scared those little brats away from him.
Then you joined. Shy-eyed, in a worn dress, and only with your grandmother. Your lunch pail is chipped and worn and clutched between your hands. You had a thin silver chain around your neck. Protection.
You were hesitant at first, whispering softly to him. He could see it in your eyes, how you had known something was off with him. He wasn’t sure how you knew; perhaps you had that feeling too buried in your bones. You were just as strange as he was. Talking about the sugar you'd leave out with your grandmother, and the dream catchers you'd weave. You were resilient in the face of the world that clawed at your skin.
But your Grandmother had known instantly. She has come down to walk back with you back to the house. But her eyes locked on his as you skipped to her. Grey, old eyes scanning Gary's many siblings hanging on his arms, chirping happily at their big brother. Those eyes. Full of such fierceness that he felt fear shoot through him. He - he needed to explain before she brought the iron out. What if she assumed his siblings were changelings too? What would happen to them? Humans could be brash, cruel things. Worse than the fae.
He snuck from bed that night, having to peel his little brother's arms from around him. His limbs carried him to the small house on the hill where you and your grandmother slept. Or, you just slept.
“What did you do with her child?” he hadn't even opened his mouth, just stood in the doorway. Golden eyes were watching the heavy silver ring that swung above the door. The naziatinb ripples that came from the iron hung in the door made his throat dry. “I had warded this town against your kind.” Grey, sharp, skeptical eyes bore into him. Venom tripping with every spiteful word. He had felt the ward for a long time, though he had never acted like a changeling. Never felt the whip of going against the warding.
“He passed away when moth- Mrs. Lauren had him.” He paused, allowing his heart to calm and his cracked voice to mend. He still thought of the small child. Barely a minute old but already too fragile for this cruel plane. “He was…so small,” he clicked, quickly clearing his throat. “We buried him…”He had nearly cried when holding the infant, forcing whatever magic Price had given him to strengthen the soul enough for its climb. He watched it wisps into the sky.
Her eyes had narrowed. “I wish to see him”
So he led the older lady, promising her a safe and timely return. She was smart, setting her expected demands, allowing for no loopholes. He had led her to a small clearing deeper into the forest. Where soon his human skin rippled and gave way to his true fae self.
Skin a dark brownish green. Two sets of large golden eyes, brushed with a wisp of golden red hair. Dragonflies like wing unfolding from the flats of his back as his body morphed to become slightly taller. Bones shifting, though he had a painless expression. Two slim antennas were poking through his hair as his ears seemed to shift and become pointy.
The walk was silent.
The grave sat there. A large, smooth grey stone is placed near the end of a rectangular patch of moss, with small sun-bleached pebbles surrounding it.
“I am not used to human customs…” he softly said, wings shifted deep to his side. “But we tried to make him comfortable…”
A white eyebrow raised as the woman peered closely. Small ‘gifts’ lay on the patch of moss, nearly covered by the fluffiness. Old dried flowers, smooth circular stones, shiny things of all sorts.
“You did well”
·•—–٠✤٠—–•·
He felt a warm hand on his back.
Gary enjoyed your presence, even if you didn't speak. Flitting around your kitchen, muttering about bad spices and all. All while he sat at your counter. Helping to sew the hem of a shirt. Eyes leading out the window ever so often to ensure all was calm.
lowdown ☆ with soldier boy keeping his distance, you stop waiting around to feel useful again.
ride or die ☆ soldier boy x reader ( f )
miles ☆ 3481 ride style ☆ still kinda angsty but vibing???
danger on the trail ☆ training/fighting, bruises, butcher being emotionally useful in the worst way
liv's log ☆ guys, i promise the next chapter is going to be so good 🤧
𐚁 .ᐟ masterlist ☆ join the taglist ☆ listen to the playlist ☆ support my work ᢉ𐭩
the new safehouse doesn’t have a gym.
it has a living room with two couches that weigh more than they look, one coffee table with a damaged leg, and a narrow strip of floor everybody’s been using as a walkway since arriving.
none of that stops kimiko. she decides the room can become useful sometime after breakfast, points at the furniture with both hands, then looks at frenchie until he understands he’s been assigned labor.
frenchie understands reluctantly. “the couch has done nothing to deserve this,” he says, bracing both hands against one end while mm takes the other.
“neither have i,” mm mutters. “still here fuckin’ up my back.”
you catch the opposite couch by the armrest and drag it toward the far wall before anybody can offer to help. the bruises along your hip complain when you lean too hard into the weight. your throat pulls when you breathe out sharply, tender beneath the fading marks around your neck. neither pain is bad enough to stop you.
by the time the living room’s been rearranged, the room looks faintly ridiculous. both couches are shoved against the walls. the coffee table has been exiled near the kitchen entrance. two spare mattresses sit side by side across the floor with blankets folded beneath the edges to keep them from sliding too badly over the wood. somebody produces an old yoga mat from a closet.
butcher walks in halfway through the process with a mug in one hand and the expression of a man discovering free entertainment. “what’s all this?”
kimiko stretches one arm across her chest and signs without looking toward him.
frenchie points at you. “combat rehabilitation.”
“that what we callin’ it?” butcher asks. his eyes move briefly toward the bruising beneath your jaw. the amusement on his face doesn’t vanish, but something underneath it sharpens before he looks away again. “thought you lot were rearrangin’ the furniture out of boredom.”
“that too. we watched a little too much of property brothers last night,” you say.
annie sits on the arm of the nearest couch with one knee drawn up, looking more relaxed than she has in days. “kimiko offered.”
kimiko signs again.
frenchie’s mouth curves. “kimiko insists.”
you roll your shoulders once and flex your fingers. no wraps today. no punching bag. no soldier boy standing in front of you with his weight planted solidly into the floor and his attention sharp enough to catch every mistake before you make it. the absence arrives suddenly, ugly and immediate. your hands almost expect the fabric. your body almost expects his voice.
hands up.
elbows.
again.
you swallow against the ache in your throat and step onto the mattress.
kimiko joins you barefoot, hair pulled back loosely, expression bright in a way that should worry you more than it does. she bounces lightly once on the balls of her feet, testing the unstable surface, then looks toward butcher when he settles against the kitchen doorway.
butcher studies the two of you with unnecessary seriousness. “ten quid says kimiko puts her on her arse in under thirty seconds.”
you stare at him. “your confidence is touching.”
“not personal, love. she’s a supe.”
mm gives butcher a flat look. “we’re not betting on ‘em.”
“why not?”
“because they’re training.”
“people bet on boxing.”
“this isn’t boxing.”
“fine.” butcher takes a sip of coffee. “five quid says she gets kimiko on her back once before this is over.”
kimiko signs something quick, already smiling. annie catches enough to laugh beneath her breath. “she says make it ten.”
butcher points toward her with his mug. “see? someone understands morale.”
“you’re impossible,” you say.
“and yet i keep spirits high.”
“you keep your own spirits high.”
“most important ones.”
kimiko gives you less than a second to prepare.
one moment she’s smiling across from you. the next, she closes the space between you so quickly your body answers before your brain catches up. you step back, forearm rising to intercept the first grab, weight dropping automatically through your hips as her hand slips toward your shoulder. she changes direction before you finish the defense. her foot hooks neatly behind your ankle. your balance breaks. the mattress catches you hard enough to knock a breath from your chest.
butcher checks the watch he is not wearing. “eight seconds,” he announces.
you glare at the ceiling. “thank you.”
kimiko stands above you, expression apologetic only around the edges. then her mouth curves. she holds out one hand.
you take it and let her pull you upright. “enjoying yourself?”
she signs one-handed. you catch the not-at-all-innocent ‘a little’.
“traitor.”
kimiko’s grin widens.
the second attempt lasts longer. not by much at first. kimiko remains faster than anybody has a right to be, movements compact and difficult to predict, no wasted force anywhere. she reaches high and drops low before you commit fully to the defense. catches your wrist, turns, nearly sends you down again. nearly. your body knows the answer now.
you go with the rotation instead of fighting it, step close enough to ruin the angle, and slip your hand free before her grip tightens fully. the movement’s clean enough that surprise flickers across kimiko’s face. you use the opening to drive your shoulder forward. not enough to hurt. enough to shift her backward half a step. butcher whistles.
“shut up,” you breathe, already moving again.
kimiko comes at you harder. the mattresses slide faintly across the floor beneath your feet. your breathing turns rougher around the edges. she catches your forearm. you twist out. your hand finds her shoulder, but she drops beneath it and drives into your center, forcing you back before you can plant yourself properly. you stumble once and recover. her fingers reach for your side. you slap the hand away, pivot, and catch her wrist instead.
the rhythm feels different from training with soldier boy. faster. lighter. less punishing in the obvious ways and more demanding everywhere else. kimiko doesn’t have to work around her strength to teach you anything; she moves with it naturally, body quick enough to become a blur whenever she decides you’re getting too comfortable. she’s smaller, though. compact. easier to shift when leverage becomes possible. not easy. never that. only possible.
you learn quickly. that’s something soldier boy gave you, whether either of you wants to acknowledge it now or not. your body remembers corrections long after his voice stops offering them. stop reaching. use their momentum. drop your weight. do not waste time fighting strength when balance will do.
when kimiko reaches for your shoulder again, you step inside instead of retreating. one arm catches around her middle. your hips turn sharply. your foot plants between hers. she realizes what you’re trying a fraction too late, surprise breaking across her face as you lift. not high. not for long. enough.
kimiko leaves the mattress for one clean, impossible second before landing flat on her back with a soft, breathless sound. the impact sends both mattresses sliding several inches across the living-room floor.
the room erupts.
butcher slaps one palm against the wall. “pay up.”
“nobody took your bet,” mm says.
“technicality.”
annie laughs openly now, shoulders loosening as she looks toward you with something warm and proud.
frenchie stares at kimiko on the mattress with delighted betrayal. “mon coeur, you have costed me imaginary money.”
kimiko looks up at you. then she smiles.
your own laugh escapes before you can stop it. real. startled out of you by the sight of a supe lying beneath you because your human body managed to put her there through training and timing and stubborn repetition. your lungs burn. your throat aches. your hair has already started slipping loose around your face. you did that.
you don’t get long enough to enjoy it. kimiko catches your wrist and moves. the room turns sideways. your back hits the mattress before the laugh fully leaves your mouth, and one second later, kimiko’s above you with your arm pinned carefully beside your head and one knee planted near your hip. her breathing is slightly rougher now. not exhausted. not remotely. just enough that you notice.
you stare upward, winded. she lifts her brows. “okay,” you admit. “you win.”
kimiko signs with her free hand. ‘obviously.’
“humble.”
kimiko releases your wrist and stands, offering her hand again. you take it and climb upright with far less dignity than the situation deserves.
that’s when you see him—soldier boy stands near the end of the hallway. you don’t know how long he’s been there. long enough, apparently. his shoulder rests faintly against the frame where the hallway opens into the living room, arms crossed over his chest, expression unreadable beneath the rough line of his jaw. he hasn’t brought his shield. he hasn’t come to train. maybe he heard the furniture moving. maybe the laughter drew him out despite every instinct telling him to stay inside the room he claimed as his own. there is no television to pretend he’s watching. only you.
your pulse reacts before pride catches it. you hate that.
for a second, the room quiets by degrees as everybody notices him. annie’s smile fades slightly. frenchie looks toward the equipment spread near the counter and then away again. mm remains where he is, arms crossed, gaze steady. butcher drinks from his mug with the faintest curl at the corner of his mouth, because butcher would observe the emotional collapse of civilization and still find a way to look entertained by it.
soldier boy doesn’t acknowledge anybody. his eyes remain on you. not your bruises first. not the throat he marked with his own hand. your stance. the position of your feet on the mattress. the way your shoulders have settled after exertion. your breathing. the loose fall of your hair around your face. the body he spent weeks correcting until movement became instinctive enough to survive him, then survive without him.
something changes faintly behind his eyes when kimiko circles you again. you understand the look because you’ve chased versions of it across too many mornings in the gym: assessment. irritation. reluctant recognition. his attention catches every detail even while the rest of him remains packed tightly behind anger. he sees that you no longer overreach. sees the clean shift of your weight before kimiko commits to a grab. sees you escape the next hold before it closes fully around your shoulder.
you don’t look toward him again. that’s harder than it should be.
kimiko catches you distracted once and drives you backward. you recover before the edge of the mattress trips you, duck beneath her arm, and use the opening to slip behind her. your forearm catches lightly across her middle. she twists before you secure the position and sends you down again with enough force to make the room tilt. you land with a groan.
butcher points at you. “bit less starin’, bit more fightin’.”
you lift one hand from the mattress and show him your middle finger.
his grin widens.
somewhere near the hallway, soldier boy’s mouth almost moves. barely. nothing soft enough to call amusement. nothing generous enough to offer you. not that you see it. you get back up.
the next round lasts longer. then the one after that. by the time kimiko finally signals a break, both of you are breathing hard. her cheeks have flushed faintly. a few loose strands of dark hair stick near her temples. you bend forward with both hands resting against your thighs, dragging air into lungs that have started complaining properly now.
butcher looks between you both. “not bad.”
you glance toward him. “you sound surprised.”
“you used to throw a punch like you were apologizin’ to the air.”
“i did not.”
“you did.”
frenchie nods solemnly. “there was an emotional softness to it.”
“i hate everyone here.”
kimiko signs. annie’s mouth curves. “she says you got annoying.”
you straighten slowly, one hand pressing briefly against your side where a bruise will probably appear by morning. “that might be the nicest thing anyone has said to me all week.”
your eyes move toward the hallway before you can stop them. soldier boy is gone. the empty doorway hits harder than his presence did.
you look away before anybody notices.
the living room resets slowly. frenchie and mm drag one couch back into place while butcher critiques their technique without lifting a finger. annie folds the blankets and leaves one mattress against the wall rather than forcing everybody to restore the room completely, because kimiko’s already signed something about tomorrow. kimiko steals your water bottle from the coffee table, drinks from it without shame, then hands it back with a bright, satisfied expression.
for a little while, the house feels less hollow.
you shower before dinner. the water runs hot across your shoulders, stinging faintly where kimiko’s grip left the beginning of new marks along your arm. when your fingers brush the bruising beneath your jaw, the memory arrives quickly: soldier boy’s hand. your shoes scraping uselessly against plaster. the terrible instant when he understood you were human again and let you fall.
you force yourself to finish washing anyway. self-pity is seductive when you give it too much room. it turns every wound into a chair and asks you to sit there forever. you know better than that. you’ve made mistakes before. hurt people before. lived through the consequences of your own choices without waiting for somebody else to decide you’ve suffered enough to move again.
though never like this. you hurt soldier boy. soldier boy hurt you. both things remain true after the water shuts off. neither one gets to become your entire life.
the kitchen is mostly empty when you enter later with damp hair and a clean shirt. evening has settled blue-gray beyond the windows. mm and frenchie are in the back room arguing quietly over security maps for the civic-center event. annie and hughie have gone out to meet one of the starlighter organizers. kimiko disappeared into the bathroom after training with a towel over one shoulder and frenchie’s shirt folded under one arm.
butcher sits at the table alone. a knife rests in front of him. your knife. clean. dry. ordinary enough to look almost insulting beneath the yellow kitchen light. the sheath sits beside it, leather worn faintly along one edge. somebody packed both from the old safehouse during the evacuation. you noticed them on the dresser yesterday and immediately trained your eyes elsewhere. there’s no looking elsewhere now.
butcher taps one finger lightly against the table beside the handle when you stop near the kitchen entrance. “been carryin’ this thing from one hideout to another like it’s decorative.”
your shoulders tighten. “not today, butcher.”
“didn’t ask you to stab anybody.”
you bite immediately. “then what are you asking?”
“pick it up.”
you look at him. “you don’t get to decide when i’m ready.”
“never said i did.”
“sounds a lot like you’re trying.”
butcher leans back slightly in the chair, studying you with the frustrating patience of a man who knows exactly which nerve he intends to press and has already accepted that you’ll hate him for it. his gaze drifts briefly toward your throat. the fading marks. then toward the new bruise darkening along your forearm from training.
“world hasn’t got any kinder while you’ve been busy feelin’ sorry for yourself,” he says.
your mouth tightens. “honestly, fuck you.”
“yeah, yeah. queue’s gettin’ long.”
“you are a very unpleasant person.”
“been told.”
you almost leave. you should, probably. turn around. go to your room. close the door. deal with the knife tomorrow, or next week, or whenever the memory of blood against your trousers stops feeling cold enough to crawl beneath your skin the second you look at the handle.
then butcher speaks again. “knife didn’t make the choice.”
his voice has changed by almost nothing. still rough. still stripped of anything pretty enough to mistake for comfort. but there isn't any mockery inside it now. no pressure beyond the truth sitting plainly between you.
“you did,” he continues. “guard had in on hughie. you moved. saved him.”
your throat tightens. “and killed somebody.”
“yeah.” the answer lands cleanly. no denial. no attempt to polish the memory into a heroic little story where your hands remain pure because the outcome happened to be good. butcher looks at you without flinching from the worst part. “both things are true. bloke’s dead. hughie isn’t. you’ll carry both. leavin’ yourself defenseless won’t bring him back.”
you stare at the knife. your fingers curl faintly at your side. “is that supposed to help?”
“no.” butcher tilts his head. “it’s just true.”
silence moves through the narrow kitchen. the refrigerator hums near the wall. rain threatens faintly against the window without fully beginning. somewhere in the back room, frenchie says something sharp in french and mm tells him to use a language everybody understands.
butcher’s eyes move toward your throat once more. “don’t much fancy watchin’ anybody get their hands around your neck again, love,” his jaw tightens briefly. “supe or otherwise.”
the protectiveness is real. that’s the dangerous part with butcher. the care is never false. it simply lives beside something harder. something practical. he needs you ready. needs every useful person inside this house capable of moving when the civic-center event arrives in two days and homelander stands beneath lights with noir somewhere close enough to strike. he looks at you and sees someone he dragged home after blood dried against your trousers. he also sees a piece of the plan wobbling badly enough to become unreliable. both versions of him are sitting at the table. both versions mean what they say.
you walk toward the knife. your hand hovers above the handle for a second. the memory arrives before contact does. cold concrete pressing into your knee. blood soaking through fabric. hughie’s white face. the awful, small sound the guard made when the blade entered him. your fingers remember the weight more clearly than your mind wants them to. you want to pull away.
butcher doesn’t touch you. doesn’t say your name. doesn’t tell you to breathe. he simply waits.
your fingers close around the handle. the knife remains an object. your hand trembles once. not violently. enough that the blade catches the kitchen light unevenly when you lift it from the table. you stare at the clean metal, pulse beating too hard beneath your skin, and wait for the room to turn into a warehouse. it doesn’t. the refrigerator hums. frenchie swears in the back room. butcher sits across from you with his coffee and says nothing.
you fit the blade into its sheath. the quiet slide of metal against leather makes your stomach pull tight. then the knife settles completely with one soft click.
you look down at it for another second before fastening the sheath at your hip where it belongs. your fingers remain resting near the handle briefly. not gripping. only acknowledging the weight.
butcher’s mouth shifts faintly at one corner. “better.”
you glance toward him. “don’t make it weird.”
“wouldn’t dream of it.”
you roll your eyes, but the shape of the motion feels almost normal. lighter than the knife. lighter than the last day.
when you walk into the living room, soldier boy is there. he sits on the far end of the couch with one arm resting along the back, an untouched beer on the coffee table in front of him. no television tonight. the screen remains black, reflecting the vague outline of the room and the window behind it. maybe he came out because staying behind a closed door started feeling too much like another kind of cage. maybe he heard your voice in the kitchen. maybe he’s simply decided the living room belongs to him whether you exist inside it or not.
his eyes lift when you enter. they move over you once—damp hair. clean shirt. bruises beneath your jaw. the new marks along your forearm from kimiko’s hands. then the knife at your hip. his gaze stays there for half a second longer than it should. something passes faintly through his face. recognition. approval, maybe, though he would choke on the word before offering it aloud. something harsher too, because he knows exactly who moved the knife to the better position against your body in the first place. he taught you where your hand should fall. he taught you how to reach faster. he told you to finish the move.
you stand near the doorway long enough to feel the old instinct rising: explain. ask. search his face for permission to feel proud of one small thing you managed without falling apart.
you let the instinct pass. soldier boy says nothing. for once, you don’t need him to.
lowdown ☆ the new safehouse begins settling around you, even if you and soldier boy do not
ride or die ☆ soldier boy x reader ( f )
miles ☆ 2123 ride style ☆ angsty
danger on the trail ☆ emotional distance, vought propaganda, mission planning
liv's log ☆ so... yeah... i don't even know gang. i'm inside the angst and i can't find a way out. can someone come get me pls? 🙂
𐚁 .ᐟ masterlist ☆ join the taglist ☆ listen to the playlist ☆ support my work ᢉ𐭩
the next morning, you reach for two mugs. that’s the first stupid thing.
not the worst. not even close. there are far uglier things sitting inside this house now. bruises under your jaw, a closed door at the end of the hallway, a man who used to sleep in your bed and now doesn’t want you close enough to breathe near him. but the mugs are what catch you off guard because they’re small, and small things have no right to hurt this much.
your hand’s already inside the cupboard before your brain catches up. one mug in your left hand. your right fingers curling around the handle of a second. black coffee. no sugar. no milk. the kind he drinks because apparently sweetness is an insult to the republic, or whatever ancient masculine bullshit he would use if you asked.
you freeze. then you put the second mug back. your fingers recoiling like the handle burned. quickly. quietly. like the cupboard might tell on you.
the new safehouse kitchen is narrow enough that every movement feels witnessed. annie’s at the table with her laptop open. hughie sits beside her, pretending to read a file while actually worrying the corner of one page between his fingers. frenchie’s asleep with his forehead on an open notebook and a pen still tucked behind his ear. kimiko sits on the counter, swinging one foot slowly, watching everything with the kind of quiet awareness that makes lies feel embarrassing before they leave your mouth.
nobody comments on the mug.
you pour coffee for yourself only. your throat pulls when you swallow, the bruising beneath your jaw making every sip feel like a reminder your body refuses to stop delivering. annie’s eyes flick toward the marks once. controlled anger wearing the face of concern because she knows you’ll leave the room if anyone looks too directly at the injury.
“you want toast?” she asks instead.
“no.”
“i wasn’t asking.”
you stare at her over the rim of your mug, one brow raised. “that was exactly a question.”
“it was the polite version of eat something before i become annoying.”
kimiko signs without looking up from the banana she is peeling. you catch it as her meaning that annie’s already annoying.
you almost smile. the muscles remember the shape and then give up halfway. “rude.”
“accurate,” hughie mutters, then immediately looks guilty for speaking at all.
you glance at him. he looks like he hasn’t slept either. guilt sits on his face plainly, deeper than the shadows beneath his eyes, heavy enough that you want to be angry with him just to give the whole thing someplace clean to go. you can’t. not yet. maybe not ever. he looks at you, then at your throat, then away so fast it nearly hurts.
from the hallway, a door opens. the room shifts before soldier boy appears.
that is the thing about absence. it teaches everybody where to look.
he walks into the kitchen with his shield nowhere in sight but the shape of violence still sitting in his shoulders. hair slightly damp, jaw rough, eyes flat. he looks like he slept badly or not at all.
your hand tightens around your single mug. his gaze touches the cupboard. the coffee pot. your hand. it’s like he instantly knows. for half a second, something moves through his expression—not sadness, not guilt, nothing soft enough to help either of you. resentment maybe. or the ugly satisfaction of catching proof that a habit existed and now doesn’t.
then it’s gone. he reaches past you without touching you and takes his own mug from the cupboard.
you step back too quickly. enough space that nobody can pretend not to notice. soldier boy notices most of all. his mouth tightens, and the look he gives you says he finds the retreat ridiculous, which is almost funny, considering he’s the one who told you to stay the fuck away from him. apparently, even distance has rules you’re expected to guess.
he pours his coffee. black. no sugar. no milk. then he walks out of the kitchen without looking at you again.
the safehouse keeps moving. the world doesn’t have the decency to pause because you broke something intimate and can’t figure out where to put the pieces.
mm and frenchie spend the morning bent over manuals and warehouse manifests, rebuilding the map of vought’s next move from half-burned paper trails and shipping numbers. butcher disappears before noon.
soldier boy exists on the other side of the house as if the last few weeks did not happen. no couch. no late-night weight beside you. no arm over your waist. no hand catching the back of your shirt when you pass him in a doorway. no rough voice in your room complaining about your mattress while making no attempt to leave it.
he’s still there. that’s the cruelty of it. he sits at the kitchen table during briefings. he answers questions when butcher asks about old vought layouts, old payback safe routes, old security habits. he makes crude little comments when hughie says something too careful. he calls frenchie frenchie with the exact same irritation as always.
only with you, there’s nothing. not even cruelty most of the time. just a wall where a man used to be.
by late afternoon, butcher brings the room to attention by dropping a folder onto the table hard enough to wake frenchie from a half-doze. “got our next opening,” he says.
mm looks up first. “what kind of opening?”
“big one.” butcher flips the folder open and slides two printed pages into the middle of the table. “vought’s putting homelander on stage in two days.”
annie’s posture changes immediately. “where?”
“civic center downtown. live broadcast. family-friendly little flag-wavin’ circle jerk.” butcher taps the page. “heroes for america: truth, strength, unity. christ, even the name’s got teeth rot.”
“that’s a public event,” hughie says.
“well done. gold star.”
mm pulls the page closer. “security?”
“heavy out front. worse backstage. but not tower-level.” butcher’s smile is sharp and unpleasant. “and those starlight obsessed groupies are already planning to make noise.”
“starlighters,” annie corrects with bite.
“big rally across the street,” butcher continues. “officially a protest. unofficially, a distraction.”
“we’re not using them as shields,” annie says.
“didn’t say shields. distraction.”
“there’s a difference only if we make sure there is.”
“then make sure.”
the room tightens. annie holds his stare a second too long before looking back at the folder.
frenchie leans forward, rubbing sleep from one eye. “what do we need inside?”
“access,” mm says before butcher can answer. his eyes move over the page, already working. “camera blind spots. route maps. security timing. if homelander’s on site, noir might be too.”
soldier boy, standing near the far wall with his arms crossed, perks up at that.
butcher notices. “that get your attention?”
soldier boy’s eyes stay on the folder. “noir’ll be close if homelander’s there.”
“that’s the hope.”
“hope,” mm repeats, unimpressed.
“educated hope.” butcher pulls out another page. “we’ve got a way in. catering company’s been contracted through a vought subsidiary, but the actual staff’s local. low vetting. one of annie’s people knows a woman managing the schedule.”
annie’s mouth tightens. “my people?”
“your groupies.”
“they’re activists.”
“fine. your activists with merch.”
hughie gives annie a cautious look. “i mean… there is merch.”
she points at him. “not helping.”
for one tiny second, the room almost breathes. then mm says, “two days isn’t enough.”
“it is if we stop wasting time arguing with the furniture.” butcher looks around the table. “we get in, we confirm whether noir’s with him, we take whatever shot makes itself available.”
“against homelander?” hughie asks.
butcher’s eyes flick toward soldier boy. “that’s why we brought the nuclear option.”
soldier boy’s face doesn’t change.
yours does. only a little, but enough that annie sees it. enough that soldier boy might have, if he was looking at you.
mm closes the folder slowly. “we plan first. no improvising. no temp v surprises. no hidden backup moves. everybody gets told everything, or we don’t move.”
the silence after that lands with intent.
butcher’s jaw works once. “fine.”
“i mean it,” mm says.
“heard you.”
“then act like it.”
soldier boy looks at butcher then. the room drops a few degrees around the motion.
butcher meets his stare with a blood-dark bruise still fading near his mouth. “don’t start preenin’, soldier boy. rule applies to all of us.”
“you first.”
“boys,” annie says sharply.
nobody asks you anything. maybe that’s kindness. maybe punishment. maybe everyone is simply exhausted by the amount of catastrophe that seems to happen whenever your name becomes part of a plan.
you sit near the end of the table with your hands wrapped around your cooling mug and let the details move around you: entrances, crowd density, vought uniforms, staff badges, possible rally timing, escape routes. it should feel important. it is important. homelander in one place. noir close enough to finally draw out. vought distracted by cameras and flags and their own need to look holy on a live broadcast. this is big. bigger than a warehouse. bigger than a snitch at the docks. bigger than another stolen file.
when the briefing breaks, the hour when you would usually train arrives without invitation. your body notices before you do—it’s stupid, muscle memory turning grief into a schedule. your hands itch faintly for wraps. your feet want the mat that doesn’t exist here. you find yourself near the living room doorway, looking at the cleared space between the couches like it might become useful if you stare long enough.
soldier boy is by the window, checking the edge of his shield with a cloth. not because it needs cleaning. because his hands need something to do and he would rather die than admit that.
the words are on the tip of your tongue as your heart races under your chest. are we training? you want to know. you want to train. you want him to look at you with anything other than resentment and hatred and anger. you want to be around him. to feel his hand on your stomach as he turns training into something soft.
instead, you clamp your mouth shut. you’re not that pathetic. even if your heart is beating off rhythm from a possible yes. you’d take him fighting you for real. you’d take him having his hand around your neck again. pathetic. and unhealthy.
you walk away before you can humiliate yourself further.
night comes with rain tapping lightly against the windows and the safehouse smelling like instant noodles because hughie panicked while cooking and made enough for a family of twelve. nobody comments when soldier boy takes one end of the couch with a beer and an old war movie already playing. nobody comments when you enter ten minutes later, pause without meaning to, then sit on the other couch.
not beside him. not across his lap the way his hands used to invite without asking. not tucked into his side while the television spits out gunfire and historically inaccurate speeches neither of you believes. just the other couch and a bowl of noodles.
soldier boy usually announces that the movie is shit within the first five minutes with such specific disgust that even mm listens despite himself. tonight, he says nothing. he watches men in clean uniforms pretend war happens in neat emotional arcs and keeps drinking slowly.
a soldier on screen salutes the wrong way. you almost look at him. he almost looks at you. neither of you does.
you stay on your couch until the ache in your throat becomes too difficult to ignore. then you stand quietly and walk toward the hallway.
behind you, the movie keeps playing. someone on screen says something noble about sacrifice. the line is terrible enough that, three weeks ago, you would have heard soldier boy scoff and mutter something crude beneath his breath. you would have nudged his thigh with your foot. he would have caught your ankle and held it without looking at you while the corner of his mouth twitched into fondness.
tonight, there’s only the television. only rain. only the quiet scrape of your own footsteps down a hallway that doesn’t know you yet.
on the couch, soldier boy tells himself that this is better. clean. no warm body pressed against him. no half-asleep voice murmuring his name into his shirt. no soft little habits built in the dark and then turned into evidence against him when the lights came on.
the seat beside him stays empty. he tells himself that this is what he wanted. the lie tastes enough like anger that he almost believes it.
summary: Castiel learns about squirting through porn, he decides to test his capability with a live demonstration.
cw : straight smut. squirting. multiple orgasms. praising. pussy eating. i cannot stress this enough, minors do not interact!!
a/n : been working on this for four days and it's finally readable, hope you enjoyed it <3 feel free to leave a comment if you want !! tagging @angel444riley
Days like this in the bunker never ceased to entertain you. especially when Castiel found Dean's laptop. you were going about your day having chosen to leave the room after Sam rambled on about lore for 30 minutes straight only to walk in on Castiel watching something on Dean's laptop.
it took you a minute to register as the sounds of slapping and moans filled the room. you stood there, blank expression and indescribable dissapointment as Castiel studied it very intently, as though he was attending a philosophical lecture.
"Cas" you spoke up with a sigh to which he stood abruptly, hands awkwardly by his sides, "... I've been looking for you" he replied, no emotion on his face despite the very obscene position the two people on screen were in.
you shook your head choosing to walk away, "sure you have, you've certainly been looking in the wrong place" you muttered while he scrambled after you, "i have a question"
you glanced over your shoulder, "about what Cas?" you responded, already preparing for whatever this man was about to utter.
"it's about the female anatomy"
you stopped in your steps and turned around to face him, "...yes?" you questioned, narrowing your eyes.
he cleared his throat, glancing down before meeting your eyes, "in that video, the pizza man was touching her and it appeared that this liquid shot out of her. Is that possible?" he inquired.
it took you a second, once again, to process his words. when you did, you flushed, heat rushing through your face. your throat suddenly felt dry as you stumbled over an answer, "you mean squirting?" you blurted.
his brows furrowed and tilted his head in that puppy like innocence he always had, "is that what you call it?" he contemplated this for a minute while you stood there, heart racing.
he then stepped forward into your space causing you to tense at the proximity. the intensity of his gaze caused heat to pool low in your belly, "so it wasn't fabricated?" his voice was low.
you once again gaped, trying to look anywhere but his dark stare, "i- i mean most of the porn is laid on thick for views but it is a real thing yes" you stammered, eyes wide as the musky scent of him filled your nostrils.
suddenly his eyes narrowed and you watched as he angled his head down and sniffed. your heart dropped in horror.
"your arousal..." he murmured, eyes glancing towards your parted lips, "i can smell it" he inhaled again.
his gaze darkened as you froze, mortified simultaneously feeling the slick gathering in your panties. his hands came up, settling on your hips and gently pushed you back against the wall causing you to let out a small gasp. the lust haze filling your brain almost let a moan slip at the contact of his big strong hands man handling you.
"i would like to try, if that's alright" he suggested, voice low with his own seduction.
the suggestion took you by complete surprise and you could only stare, baffled.
"I'm going to need your words sweet girl" he prompted, husky with a faint smirk tugging at his lips.
the shaky exhale and the tiny nod you gave him was all permission he needed before he took you by the waist and roughly guided to your bedroom. your heart raced with anticipation, a thrill shivered down your spine.
there was a flutter in your stomach as he closed the door behind him, click. he locked it and turned back to you. he approached slowly, that angel like innocence being replaced by a predatory hunger in his eyes.
you tensed again when he stopped in front of you, a low chuckle rumbled in his chest, "easy," he soothed and buried his nose in your neck, inhaling again.
he captured your lips in a kiss, hand cupping your cheeks as his thumbs rubbed coaxing circles before he gently laid you down on the bed so that your lower half was hanging off. you couldn't help the small whine that escaped when he kneeled in front of you.
god he looked divine, lidded eyes staring up at you dark and ravenous. hair that was going to be tousled soon no doubt as you needed something to hold onto. lips plump and swollen from the kiss. his warm hands stroked up your thighs, gripping them tightly and pulled you closer.
"what are your limitations?" he suddenly asked.
you blinked at him, "... what?"
"how many rounds can you handle?" he clarified.
you swallowed thickly, "yes" you answered without thought.
a humourous huff escaped him, "words baby"
"I don't mind" you replied more sure of yourself. he nodded, pleased with the answer and tugged your pants down in a smooth motion.
you startled slightly. you had forgotten for a moment how strong angels are. you didn't get a chance to react as he suddenly spread your thighs and buried his nose against your covered pussy, inhaling again, a low groan escaping him. his lips brushed the wet spot gathered there.
your head tilted back, lips parting, "Cas...please"
god, the need was too much. the ache in your cunt was begging to be relieved. he pulled back, the juices that had soaked through causing strings of slick to stretch from his lips. you moaned at the sight, one hand coming up to tug at his hair.
his hands tightened on your upper thighs at the sound of your moan, eyes flickering up briefly before tugging down your panties. wordlessly he stuffed them into the pocket of his trench coat. you watch as he positioned your legs over his shoulders and paused at the sight of your glistening pussy, as swollen and pink.
"already so wet" he remarked with reverence watching as slick pooled onto the sheets below.
without warning he swiped his tongue through your folds up towards your clit. you gasped in pleasure, falling back into the sheets in bliss. he pulled back momentarily with a groan of your name, "you taste divine" he said, awe filling his eyes.
he dove back in like a man starved, slurping up your juices obscenely while white hot pleasure weakened you, squirming beneath his hold. you cried out, "Cass...god" you breathed.
the rumble he let out sent vibrations through you, "god wouldn't be able to make you feel this way sweetheart" he teased before his lips wrapped around your clit and sucked.
you cry out again, the pleasure already building in your belly. your hands tangled in his hair, holding him in place as you whine.
you came suddenly with a loud call of his name. he made a low pleased sound in the back of his throat, tongue not slowing down as he coaxed you through it. you didn't get a chance to catch your breath as he slid two fingers into your sopping hole without warning. thick, filling you up so good.
you whimpered at the intrusion, only able to voice barley coherent words as he pumped them, lips working in unison as he continued to swirl your clit. the other hand splayed across your stomach, keeping you in place.
you came again, cum coating his chin as he hummed, "that's it" he murmured against your puffy clit. by this point your eyes were teary from overwhelm as his fingers hit that sweet spot inside of you. you clenched around him and he sucked a breath through his teeth at the feeling of your gummy walls squeezing his fingers.
he added a third finger, stretching you out. you writhed beneath him, "please...Cass please" you pleaded, for what you didn't know. you just knew you needed more.
his teeth grazed your sensitive bud and you flinched, back arching at the strange sensation causing his hand to knead your belly in response, soothing. he pulled back briefly, face flushed and his tongue darted out to flick your clit. kitten licks as he looked up at you, watching as your face scrunched in pleasure while you gushed around him.
wet obscene sounds filled the room, squelches which seemed to redden his cheeks as his eyes watched your expressions with fascination.
the coil in your belly snapped again, your vision going white and his lips wrapped around you again, sucking harshly. you're crying at this point, squirming helplessly against him with pleading.
"Cass... too much" you gasped but he knew you didn't really mean it.
his lips quirked again when your thighs squeezed around his head, tears streaming down your face and reduced to a babbling mess. he added a fourth finger and you moaned loudly at the stretch.
another strange pressure built in your belly and you tried to push him away, "Cass wait" you gasped but he didn't let up, this only encouraged him as his eyes lit up.
his lips sucked roughly, his fingers speeding up angling his wrists to hit your spot deeper, more relentlessly. your mouth fell open in a guttural whine and he blushed.
then the pressure snapped. for a moment you couldn't hear anything, couldn't see anything as white clouded your vision. an unbearable climax as a clear white liquid forcing his fingers out, coating his chin, neck and chest while he watched with a grin, eyes wide with captivation.
your hands, tight in his hair finally loosened as you struggled to catch your breath. he slowly stood, lowering your sore thighs gently and you whined. he shushed you softly, leaning over and cupping your cheeks, "you were amazing" he praised causing you to giggle helplessly.
"next time we'll test how many times i can make you squirt"
your eyes widened, your heart skipping a beat in thrill and chuckled nervously while he stroked your cheeks, staring down with adoration.
lowdown ☆ soldier boy wakes up in the new safehouse with thirty-one hours of missing time and no trust left to spare
ride or die ☆ soldier boy x reader ( f )
miles ☆ 3737 ride style ☆ angsty / tense
danger on the trail ☆ physical confrontation, choking, bruising, emotional cruelty, betrayal, violence
liv's log ☆ idk how yall are gonna fix this but yikes!! 😶
𐚁 .ᐟ masterlist ☆ join the taglist ☆ listen to the playlist ☆ support my work ᢉ𐭩
the new safehouse doesn’t feel like anything yet.
it’s smaller than the last one. colder too, though that might only be the lack of history inside it. no boots abandoned near the couch. no stack of takeaway menus curling at the edges beside the fridge. no deep poster hidden badly enough to become an ongoing threat. no patched square on the gym wall remembering the exact shape of a fist that could’ve landed in your head.
there isn’t even a gym.
just a narrow kitchen, a living room with two couches pushed against bare walls, three bedrooms that smell of dust and shut windows, and the clutter of a hurried arrival still sitting wherever somebody dropped it. duffels near the front door. stolen manuals spread across the table. frenchie’s equipment occupying one corner of the counter. a half-open box of cereal somebody brought from the old place in the rush, crushed slightly along one side.
home didn’t follow you here.
maybe that’s for the best.
soldier boy has been unconscious for thirty-one hours. you know because hughie keeps checking the time. every hour at first. then every half-hour after the first day slips into a second night and the sedative still hasn’t fully released its hold.
frenchie insists the dosage was calculated carefully. enough to put him down without harming him. enough to give the team time to move locations before noir reached the old safehouse. enough to prevent him from tearing butcher apart in a motel room with walls too thin to contain the consequences.
enough.
you’ve started hating that word.
frenchie checks his pulse twice. annie checks on him once more after that because she trusts frenchie but not the amount of guilt sitting visibly across his face. mm refuses to let anyone restrain soldier boy while he sleeps. no rope. no gas. no cuffs. no clever little precaution tucked beneath the mattress because somebody might decide preparedness justifies repeating the ugliest possible thing.
his shield stays inside the room, propped visibly against the wall near the bed.
the door stays unlocked.
you sit in the chair across from him because leaving feels worse. not even remotely close to touch him accidentally when you shift. not anywhere he could mistake your presence for another trap if he wakes disoriented. the chair is pushed near the far wall with several feet of bare floor between you and the bed, positioned close enough to the corner that the doorway remains completely open. if he wants to leave, he can. if he wakes and never wants to look at you again, there is nothing standing in his way.
the temp v is gone.
you feel that absence everywhere. the strange electric hum beneath your skin disappeared first, burning itself out sometime during the drive to the new safehouse. then, the sharpened edges of the world softened again: sounds returning to their normal distance, your body settling heavily back inside its ordinary limits, exhaustion sinking into your muscles so completely that walking from one room to another started feeling far more demanding than it had any right to. the headache remains. so does the bruised pressure behind your eyes. the faint soreness beneath your nose after hours of wiping away blood. the shame sitting somewhere lower and harder to reach. your body is yours again.
you keep looking at soldier boy and wondering whether he can say the same.
morning arrives slowly through the gap in the curtains. ugly gray light creeps across the floorboards, reaches the edge of the bed, and catches along the rough line of his jaw. he hasn’t moved much. one arm lies near his side. the other rests over his stomach, hand loose rather than curled. his chest rises slowly beneath his shirt somebody changed him into after the motel, a clean one dragged from the duffel because his other clothes were dusted with plaster and marked by the room falling apart around him.
you haven’t slept properly. you drifted once in the chair sometime before sunrise, head tipping against the wall for less than twenty minutes before a sound from the kitchen startled you awake again. since then, you’ve been staring at the floor more than at him, fingers folded tightly together in your lap, trying not to imagine the exact expression that’ll cross his face when his eyes finally open and memory reaches him.
the room shifts. there’s a change in his breathing first. no dramatic inhale. no violent movement. only the faintest interruption in the rhythm you’ve been listening to for too long.
your head lifts.
his fingers curl once against his shirt. then his eyes open. the disorientation lasts less than a second. maybe not even that. his gaze finds the unfamiliar ceiling, the pale morning light, the shield propped near the bed. his body goes rigid beneath the blanket before he has moved at all. then he sees you and memory returns visibly. not in pieces. not slowly enough for mercy.
your mouth opens as you begin to stand. “ben—”
he’s across the room before the name finishes leaving you.
he moves with the kind of speed your body has learned to fear and answer at the same time. not think. answer. the chair legs shriek against the floor as you shove yourself sideways out of it, heart slamming so violently that for half a second the room narrows to his hand reaching for your throat and the place where you know his weight will land if you let him close the distance cleanly.
weeks of training save you before bravery gets involved.
you duck under his first grab. his fingers catch air where your neck had been, and the force of his missed grip brushes hot against your cheek. you twist away, shoulder clipping the wall, one foot sliding on the bare floorboards as you scramble toward the open space near the dresser.
“stop!” the word comes out rough. panicked. ordinary. nothing happens.
soldier boy turns toward you. your stomach drops. he knows how to read your face. he always has. his eyes sharpen.
you step back again. “ben, stop.”
still nothing. no flicker in his body. no pause. no command wrapping around his muscles. just the brief, ugly flash of something across his face when you say his name and pair it with an order that no longer has teeth.
then he comes at you again. you try to pivot the way he taught you. weight low, shoulder turning, hand catching his wrist before he gets the angle he wants. for one stupid heartbeat, your body remembers being stronger. remembers shoving him into a dresser. remembers the sharp, awful thrill of power answering panic.
but your fingers close around his arm like human fingers. small. breakable. useless against him. he tears through the defense like it isn’t there. your wrist slips. your balance breaks. the dresser catches the back of your hip hard enough to make pain flare up your side, and you barely manage to throw one forearm between his hand and your throat before he changes grip, faster than your eyes can follow.
“ben—”
his hand clamps over your mouth. your breath stutters violently against his palm. the message is clear before he says a word: no voice. no commands. no chance.
his eyes are dark, viciously awake now, and close enough for you to see the exact shape of his fury. “don’t,” he growls. low. deadly. “you don’t get to do that anymore.”
you make a small sound against his hand. not a word. barely a noise. his gaze flicks over your face, searching for the glow of something unnatural, the confidence of temp v, the thing that made you dangerous enough to strip him of choice. he doesn’t find it fast enough. or maybe he does and refuses to trust it.
you shove at his chest. nothing.
your nails drag against his wrist. nothing.
then his hand leaves your mouth and drops lower. your spine hits the wall hard enough to knock air from your lungs before you understand that his hand is already around your throat. fingers closing. palm broad and hot against the front of your neck. the cheap framed print hanging behind you jumps crooked from the impact. your feet leave the floor.
for one horrible second, your body doesn’t react. shock gets there first. then instinct slams through you all at once. your hands claw at his wrist. your nails drag uselessly against his skin while your legs kick beneath you, toes searching desperately for floorboards that remain several inches out of reach. your lungs lock around the pressure. your mouth opens, but the breath inside you cannot find a path out.
soldier boy stares into your face. he expects resistance. you see the exact moment he realizes it isn’t coming. no surge of borrowed strength. no hand catching his wrist and throwing him backward hard enough to split furniture against the wall. no doubled voice reaching beneath his skin before he can stop it. only your fingers straining uselessly around his arm. your shoes scraping against plaster. your pulse racing frantically beneath the grip he has closed too hard around your throat.
human. entirely, painfully, weakly human.
his expression changes by almost nothing. then his hand opens.
you drop. your knees hit the floor first. one palm slams down beside your thigh to keep you upright while the other flies immediately toward your neck. air tears back into your lungs in a harsh, ugly gasp that turns into a cough halfway through. your throat burns. your eyes water automatically, blurring the floorboards beneath you for one humiliating second.
soldier boy takes one step back. his chest rises once. his hand remains suspended near his side, fingers curled slightly inward as if your throat is still there beneath them and he resents the memory of it.
you drag in one breath. then another. each one scraping painfully on the way down. when you look up, he’s staring at the faint marks already beginning to rise beneath your jaw.
he doesn’t apologize. you don’t expect him to. the silence stretches until your voice becomes possible again.
“it wore off.” the words come out raw and hoarse, damaged enough that you almost don’t recognize them as yours. you swallow and immediately regret it when the motion drags against the bruise forming beneath your skin. “the temp v. it’s gone.”
his jaw tightens. “figured.”
you push yourself slowly onto your feet. your knees shake once before locking properly beneath you. soldier boy watches the weakness move through your body without stepping forward, without offering the hand that spent weeks settled against your back at night as though holding you had become the easiest thing in the world. you miss it so suddenly you hate yourself.
you stare at him for a second. hair still messy from unconsciousness. shoulders squared. eyes stripped of every quiet thing you spent weeks finding beneath the anger. there’s nothing familiar in the way he looks at you now except for the cruelty, and somehow even that feels worse because it used to carry something warmer underneath it.
“do you really think,” you say slowly, “if that shit was still in my blood, i wouldn’t make you forgive me?”
the words leave you husky and painfully human.
soldier boy goes still.
you hate the sentence as soon as it exists. hate how pathetic it sounds. hate the truth living inside it—not that you would ever do that to him again, not that forgiveness could be forced into anything real, but that you want so badly to erase the look in his eyes that a small, shameful part of you understands the temptation.
your lips tremble once. “i feel like shit,” you whisper. “i know what i did. i know i can’t make you forgive me. i just—” your voice fails briefly.
“you made me fucking kneel.” the words hit hard enough that your breath catches. his voice doesn’t rise. it doesn’t need to. every syllable lands with the same rough force as his hand around your throat, blunt and impossible to soften after the fact.
“i know,” you whisper.
“you shut my mouth with a sentence.”
“i know.”
“you told me to leave, and my body listened to you instead of me.”
“i know.”
“stop saying that.”
your mouth closes immediately. not because of power. not because anything remains inside your blood capable of forcing obedience from either of you. because the words have started sounding unbearable even to you. thin. useless. an acknowledgment too weak to resemble accountability.
soldier boy stares down at you. “you don’t know. you got no fucking idea what that feels like.”
“you’re right.”
that seems to make him angrier. maybe because you don’t fight back. maybe because anger becomes harder to sustain cleanly when it has nowhere easy to land. maybe because he wanted the sharp version of you, the one who always found something ugly enough to throw at him before the silence had a chance to become honest.
you take a careful breath. “i didn’t know hughie was going to drug you.”
that makes something flicker behind his eyes. not exactly surprise. “you expect me to care which part of the lie belonged to you?”
your throat tightens around an answer. “i expect you to know i didn’t plan any of that.”
“you planned enough.”
“i made a mistake!”
“fuck you.”
the words land quietly. no shout. no violence. nothing dramatic enough to make them easier to survive. only the full weight of his anger and his hurt.
you nod once.
soldier boy turns toward the bed and takes his shield. the leather straps drag faintly against the floor before he lifts it properly, sliding one arm through with the familiar ease of a movement learned long before you knew him. you remain near the wall. don’t reach for him. don’t say his name again.
he crosses toward the door.
your throat tightens around the silence. still, you force the words out before he reaches the handle. “ben—”
he stops and glances back over his shoulder. “you don’t call me that anymore.”
his eyes settle on the marks around your throat for less than a second before returning to your face. whatever moves beneath his expression never reaches the surface.
“it’s soldier boy.”
then he leaves.
the main room goes quiet when he steps into it. conversation doesn’t fade naturally. it dies. mm rises slowly from his seat beside the kitchen table, one hand still resting near the stack of manuals he’s been reading through since before sunrise. butcher sits at the opposite end with a mug of coffee untouched near his elbow and a bruise darkening one side of his jaw from the motel fight. hughie stands near the counter with both hands wrapped tightly around a glass of water he’s forgotten to drink. frenchie’s beside him, face drawn with exhaustion. kimiko occupies one corner of the couch, legs pulled beneath her, attention sharpening instantly. annie turns from the window. her eyes find soldier boy first. then you.
you step into the hallway behind him, slower than you want to. one hand still resting near your neck. annie’s gaze drops to the bruises. her entire face changes. faint light gathers instinctively beneath her skin, soft at first, then brighter. “what happened?” she asks.
you shake your head once. “annie.”
her eyes snap toward you. “did he—”
“not now.” your voice is rough enough that everybody hears the answer inside it.
soldier boy doesn’t look back. his gaze moves across the room once. frenchie. hughie. the equipment bag. butcher.
mm stands slowly. “hold on.”
the words fall deaf to soldier boy’s ears.
butcher leans back in his chair and looks up at him with the exhausted irritation of a man either incapable of reading danger or stubborn enough to resent it for being obvious.
“sleep well?” butcher asks, tone typically mocking.
soldier boy stops beside the table. “you drug me again, i’ll kill you.”
butcher’s mouth curls faintly. “i’ll take that as no, then?”
soldier boy hits him.
the punch cracks loudly enough to make the mugs jump against the table. butcher leaves the chair sideways, body thrown hard into the wall near the kitchen entrance. his shoulder hits first. then his head. then the rest of him drops heavily against the baseboard, one hand catching the floor too late to make the landing anything close to clean. coffee spills across the manuals. for one stunned second, nobody moves.
then everybody does. annie lights up beside you, gold sharp beneath her skin. kimiko pushes off the couch with a smooth, immediate motion, body lowering into a stance built for violence. hughie steps backward before forcing himself forward again, face draining of color as his eyes flick toward the empty space beside soldier boy like he’s already calculating whether he has time to juice up on temp v again before getting snapped in half.
frenchie’s hand moves toward the duffel.
mm sees it. “don’t,” he snaps.
frenchie freezes. soldier boy turns his head slowly toward him. the room quiets again around the movement. “try it,” he defies, waiting for an excuse to move.
frenchie’s fingers hover several inches above the bag. after one long second, he pulls his hand back.
butcher coughs once against the wall. blood shines faintly at the corner of his mouth. he wipes it away with the back of his hand and looks at the smear with an expression more amused than hurt. “feel better?”
soldier boy turns back toward him. “not yet.” he takes one step.
mm moves between them. not touching soldier boy. not reaching for him. not giving anybody another reason to turn a confrontation into a war. he simply plants himself in the space and holds his ground with the kind of steadiness that makes the whole room recalibrate around him.
“you kill him, you lose the leads,” mm says.
soldier boy’s jaw tightens. “move.”
“no.” the word lands plainly. no fear underneath it. no attempt to posture beyond what already exists between them.
mm keeps his eyes fixed on soldier boy’s face. “black noir’s still out there. homelander’s still out there. vought has the parts for that chamber. you walk out now and start hunting blind, you lose every advantage we’ve got.”
“i can find noir.”
“maybe,” mm says. “eventually. while he keeps finding us first.”
the words settle badly across the room because they’re true. noir found the safehouse. noir followed you through an alley. noir’s moving through a plan none of you fully understand yet with enough silence to make every new location feel temporary before the bags are unpacked.
butcher pushes himself upright against the wall with a wince he refuses to show properly. one hand presses briefly near his ribs before dropping again.
“deal still stands,” he says.
soldier boy looks toward him.
butcher spits blood faintly into the empty mug on the edge of the counter, then wipes his mouth with his thumb. “we get noir. we get homelander. we put an end to the whole bloody nightmare.”
silence stretches.
soldier boy’s shield rests heavily against his arm. dust clings faintly to his shirt from the bedroom wall. his hair remains messy from sleep. his jaw’s locked tightly enough to sharpen every line of his face.
his eyes move toward you. you remain near the hallway beside annie, one hand hovering close to your throat without touching it. kimiko has shifted nearer too, simply placing herself within reach if you decide you need somebody. hughie stands near the table with guilt carved plainly across his face. frenchie watches soldier boy from beside the duffel, visibly aware that one wrong movement will become a promise neither of them can undo.
you meet soldier boy’s gaze. you don’t speak.
he looks away first. “deal changed.”
butcher’s mouth tightens. “how?”
“no more needles.”
nobody argues.
“no more gas.”
mm nods once.
“no more tricks. no more secret shit.”
butcher breathes out faintly through his nose but remains quiet.
soldier boy’s eyes go to frenchie. “nobody touches me.”
frenchie lowers his gaze briefly. “oui.”
“and nobody uses that shit on me again.”
his stare shifts toward you.
you hold it even when something deep inside you wants to look down. apologize again. say something softer than the room can tolerate. ask him whether the boundary includes an emergency, whether there’s any possible circumstance where saving his life might matter more than his agency, whether he understands that you never wanted any of this. you say nothing.
soldier boy’s face turns colder. “she stays the fuck away from me.”
the sentence doesn’t need your name. everybody knows.
mm speaks first. “fine.”
butcher watches you for half a second too long. calculation flickers briefly behind his exhaustion before his attention returns to soldier boy. “fine.”
the word settles.
soldier boy looks around the room once more, making sure everybody understands exactly what the terms mean and exactly how little patience remains beneath them. then he turns away.
the hallway swallows the sound of his footsteps one by one. he passes the bedroom where you waited. reaches the final door at the end of the hall and opens it without checking whether somebody else claimed it first.
the door closes behind him.
for a moment, nobody speaks. butcher wipes the remaining blood from the corner of his mouth. hughie stares at the floor with his shoulders drawn tight. frenchie kneels beside the duffel and zips it shut slowly, careful not to let the metal catch too loudly. kimiko’s gaze stays on you. annie turns toward you fully now, eyes dropping to the bruises darkening beneath your jaw.
“let me see,” she says.
you almost tell her you’re fine. the lie has become too exhausting to lift. so you let her tilt your chin carefully toward the light. her touch is gentle enough that your throat tightens for reasons that have nothing to do with pain.
down the hallway, soldier boy’s door remains closed. you tell yourself the distance is fair. necessary. the first thing you’ve given him freely since your voice became something dangerous. it still feels like losing him.
lowdown ☆ temp v has given your voice teeth. trapped together in a motel room after the evacuation, you try to explain what happened, but soldier boy has already realized that your secrets run deeper than he thought.
ride or die ☆ soldier boy x reader ( f )
miles ☆ 3414 ride style ☆ angst!!
danger on the trail ☆ intense argument, betrayal, secrecy, temp v, accidental mind control, loss of bodily autonomy, references to past captivity and torture, panic response, physical confrontation, emotional distress, cliffhanger!!
liv's log ☆ is this the end??
𐚁 .ᐟ masterlist ☆ join the taglist ☆ listen to the playlist ☆ support my work ᢉ𐭩
“temp v.”
the words sit between you for one long second.
soldier boy remains on the floor, one palm pressed hard into the carpet, shoulders rising and falling with each rough breath. sweat shines faintly at his temple. his knees are still planted beneath him where the command dragged him down, but nothing about the shape of him looks submissive. not even now. especially not now. anger runs through every locked muscle in his body, held too tightly to explode outward yet.
you don’t move. your hand stays near your mouth, fingers curled slightly inward as though you’re still not sure whether letting them fall would make the room less dangerous or leave you without anything to stop the next wrong word before it escapes. your pulse pounds inside your throat. the strange pressure behind your eyes hasn’t eased. neither has the hum beneath your skin, sharp and electric, making the motel room feel too clear around the edges.
soldier boy drags in another breath. then, he pushes himself upright. one broad hand catches the edge of the dresser, fingers curling around the cheap wood hard enough that the drawer shifts crookedly inside its frame. the lamp trembles again when he puts weight into the furniture and rises slowly to his feet. his knees straighten. his shoulders roll once. his chest lifts with an inhale that sounds almost controlled if you ignore the way his jaw clenches immediately afterward.
“when?” he asks.
your mouth feels dry. “this morning.”
“when this morning?”
“before you woke up.”
“how long before?”
“ben—”
“answer me.”
the words crack hard enough that you glance involuntarily toward the door, toward the motel walkway outside and the other rooms where the rest of the team is trying to regroup. the walls are thin. not safehouse-thin, maybe, but thin enough. every raised voice will travel. every piece of this will become everybody else’s business soon enough.
“around 6… 7 am,” you say.
his stare stays fixed on you. “butcher gave it to you.” it isn’t a question.
you nod once. “yes.”
“and hughie knew.”
you hesitate just long enough to betray yourself.
his mouth curls without humor. “course he did.”
“he’d taken it before. he knew what to expect better than i did.”
“that why you’ve been sneaking off together?”
the accusation lands sharper than it should, maybe because you’ve spent weeks watching his suspicion slowly tighten around him and telling yourself it would settle if you gave it nothing real to feed on. maybe because there’s no clean way to admit that some of those closed doors contained exactly the thing he feared: butcher handing you a secret and asking you to keep it.
“we weren’t sneaking,” you say.
“right.”
“we were trying to figure out whether taking it was even an option.”
“without telling me.”
your temper stirs despite yourself. “it was my decision.”
“yeah?” his brows lift faintly. “funny how that works.”
the words hit. you know exactly what he means. your choice to take the drug. his choice to stay and fight noir. one body protected as personal territory while the other became negotiable the second fear entered the room.
you swallow. “i know.”
“do you?”
“yes.”
“how many times did you use it on me?”
“twice. in the safehouse and now.”
he laughs once under his breath. the sound is ugly. disbelief stripped of amusement. “bullshit.”
“i didn’t even know what it did until the safehouse.”
“but you knew in here.”
the quiet after that feels heavier than the shouting.
your fingers press briefly against your palm, nails biting into skin. “you were coming toward me.”
“so?”
“you were furious.”
“and?”
“you almost blew a hole through the safehouse the last time you got that angry with me!”
his eyes sharpen. something moves through his face quickly enough that you almost wish you hadn’t said it, but the words are already loose and you’re too tired, too scared, too full of whatever temp v has turned your blood into to soften the edges properly.
“that’s what this is?” he asks. his voice lowers instead of rising. worse. “you decided you needed a new way to manage me?”
“no—”
“butcher find the right leash for you?”
your mouth parts. “are you—”
“all those nights in your bed,” he continues, taking one slow step closer. not crowding yet. not close enough to touch. close enough that the room shifts around him. “all that sweet little shit you’ve been pulling. climbing into my side. kissing me whenever you feel like it. telling me to stay.”
your stomach twists. “don’t do that.”
“do what?”
“make it dirty because you’re hurt.”
his expression hardens. “it is dirty!”
the words hit like a slap. you stare at him. heat crawls upward beneath your skin, not the pleasant kind, not the morning warmth of his mouth against your neck or his hands dragging beneath your shirt. this is anger. humiliation. the sharp, ugly ache of having every moment you thought belonged to both of you dragged under suspicion because one terrible thing’s happened and he’s decided to stab at everything soft enough to bleed.
“i never used it on you before today,” you say.
“real convenient.”
“i didn’t.”
“you expect me to take your word for it?”
“yes!”
his laugh is brief and vicious. “why?”
that quiets you. not because you don’t have an answer. because every answer suddenly sounds flimsy inside the room where you forced him to his knees with one word and watched his body fight itself for the right to move again.
still, the hurt inside you refuses to stay quiet. “because i’m telling you the truth.”
“you’ve been telling me half the truth for weeks.”
“because i knew you’d react exactly like this!”
“you knew i wouldn’t want you shooting mystery shit from butcher into your veins?”
“it’s my body.”
“that was valid until you opened your mouth and made mine yours too.”
you flinch.
neither of you backs down.
“that’s not what i wanted,” you say, voice tightening.
“doesn’t matter what you wanted.”
“i was trying to keep everyone alive.”
“don’t hide behind everybody else.”
“i’m not hiding!”
“could’ve fooled me—”
“fuck, can you just shut up for one second and let me speak?”
the room changes. no hand on his arm. no fingers catching his wrist. no touch at all. you stand several feet away from him near the curtains, breathing too quickly, anger hot behind your eyes, and the order leaves your mouth wrapped inside a sentence you didn’t mean to turn into anything more than frustration.
still, your voice doubles beneath itself. the second note is faint. deeper. wrong.
soldier boy’s mouth clips shut. immediately. the argument dies in the middle of his next breath. his jaw locks with visible force, lips pressed together so abruptly that the silence feels louder than any shout could have. his nostrils flare. a muscle jumps sharply near his temple. his eyes widen by barely anything before narrowing again with a rage so clean and cold that your stomach drops through the floor.
his mouth remains closed for one long second. you’re across the room. you’re not touching him. it doesn’t matter.
the pressure behind your eyes spikes. fresh warmth gathers beneath your nose. you taste metal faintly at the back of your tongue. then the command loosens. his lips part. air enters his lungs in one harsh drag.
soldier boy stands taller. the physical strain from the first command still sits visibly in the tension of his neck, the damp hair near his temple, the chest rising too heavily beneath his shirt. but he straightens until every inch of him looks carved out of something harder than fury, his stare fixed on you with an expression that makes your pulse trip.
“you better stop that bullshit.”
you hold your ground.
every sensible instinct says retreat. give him distance. lower your voice. stop letting the drug sharpen every feeling until each thought arrives carrying teeth. but your body no longer feels human-fragile. not right now. strength hums through your muscles, strange and undeniable. you shoved soldier boy hard enough to send him crashing into furniture. you know the drug will wear off. you know the confidence from it’s temporary and probably dangerous.
still, for the first time since meeting him, the physical imbalance between you does not feel absolute.
“then stop forcing me to—” you cut yourself off so quickly your teeth click.
his shoulders twitch. barely. a fractional hitch beneath his shirt. maybe nothing. maybe the first edge of another order trying to take hold before the sentence finishes forming.
your breath catches. you press your lips together. close your eyes for one second. force air slowly into your lungs, then out again.
when you speak next, each word comes carefully, no sharp imperatives, no careless edges. “i don’t know how to control it.”
his stare does not soften. “figured.”
“i didn’t know what power i’d get.”
“but you took it.”
“yes.”
the admission tastes awful. necessary anyway.
you wipe beneath your nose with the back of your hand. fresh blood smears faintly across your skin. “i tried to use it on noir first.”
that catches his attention. not enough to ease anything. enough to sharpen the angle of his stare. “what?”
“when we realized he was following us. hughie saw him first. we cut down an alley, tried to lose him, but he kept coming.” your fingers curl at your side. “i told him to stop.”
“and?”
“he paused.” you swallow. “barely. half a second, maybe less. then he kept moving.”
soldier boy’s eyes narrow.
“i didn’t know whether it failed because he’s stronger than whatever this is, or because i was panicking, or because i didn’t know what i was doing. i didn’t have time to figure it out. we ran. we got back to the safehouse. then you refused to leave.”
“so you tried it on me.”
“i didn’t try anything.” your voice rises despite your best effort. you catch yourself and breathe again. “i told you we were leaving. i didn’t know your body would… i didn’t know.”
the memory returns in pieces. his feet moving while his face remained fixed in refusal. the brief catch in his breath. the strange obedience settling into his body before either of you understood it had arrived.
“you didn’t look back,” he says.
your throat closes. “i didn’t understand what happened until we were already in the van.”
“and in here?”
you look away. that answers enough.
soldier boy takes one step closer. not fast. not threatening in any way either of you can pretend is accidental. “you knew.”
“i panicked.”
“you knew.”
“you were coming toward me!”
“i wasn’t going to hurt you!”
he looks at you for another second. then his gaze shifts toward the motel door.
you know where he is going before he moves. “ben—”
he reaches the door and throws the chain free. metal scrapes hard against metal. the deadbolt turns beneath his hand.
“ben, don’t—” you bite the rest of the sentence off before it can sharpen into something heavier.
he glances back. the look on his face is colder than anything he said to you inside the room. not rage now. not only rage. hurt packed down tight enough to become cruelty because cruelty is easier for him to carry. “stay the fuck away from me.”
he yanks the door open.
cold air spills into the motel room, carrying the smell of wet pavement and car exhaust from the parking lot. yellow lights hum overhead along the walkway. across from you, the curtains in butcher’s room glow faintly around the edges.
soldier boy steps outside.
you remain where you are for less than a second. then you follow. not close. not enough to touch him. not because you think you can stop him without doing something you can’t take back again. because butcher has no idea what’s about to walk into his room, because everyone’s already balanced on the edge of something terrible, and because even after the things soldier boy just said, some stupid part of you still can’t let him go alone.
he crosses the walkway in three heavy strides. the motel door opposite yours opens before he reaches it.
mm stands there first, one hand still on the handle. his expression shifts immediately when he sees soldier boy’s face. “what happened?”
soldier boy shoves past him.
“hey—”
the room’s crowded. butcher stands near the bed with the stolen manuals spread across the blanket, cigarette hanging unlit between two fingers. frenchie’s beside the dresser with the equipment bag open at his feet. kimiko sits near the window but rises immediately when soldier boy enters. annie turns from where she was speaking quietly to hughie near the bathroom door.
hughie looks pale. not surprised enough. soldier boy sees that too.
his gaze lands on butcher. “you dosed her?”
butcher’s eyes flick briefly toward the doorway behind him. toward you. then back to soldier boy. “might wanna take a breath, mate.”
wrong answer. soldier boy crosses the room so quickly nobody gets a clean chance to stop him. one second butcher’s standing near the bed; the next, soldier boy’s hand closes around the front of his coat and slams him backward against the wall hard enough that the cheap framed print above his shoulder drops crooked.
annie jerks forward. “soldier boy!”
mm catches soldier boy’s arm. “let him go.”
“you put that shit in her,” soldier boy snarls.
butcher’s mouth tightens. still not afraid. never smart enough to be afraid at the right time. “she made her own choice.”
“with you whispering in her ear.”
“didn’t take much whisperin’.”
soldier boy’s grip tightens. the fabric of butcher’s coat strains beneath his fist. “you knew what it could do.”
“knew it might give us an edge.”
“an edge.”
“against homelander.”
the room shifts around the name, but soldier boy barely seems to hear it. “you turned her into a goddamn leash.”
“she ain’t a leash,” butcher says, voice roughening. “she’s a weapon.”
your stomach drops. soldier boy’s expression changes. his free hand draws back.
butcher’s eyes flare.
the movement happens too fast for you to understand cleanly. something wet and black ruptures from beneath the skin near butcher’s wrists with a sound that turns your stomach. not blood exactly. worse. thick, unnatural limbs tearing outward in a violent tangle, slick beneath the motel light and moving with a life that seems only loosely connected to the body they came from.
annie gasps. mm recoils sharply, grip falling away from soldier boy’s arm. kimiko drops instantly into a defensive stance. hughie’s face drains of color. frenchie closes his eyes for half a second.
then the black tendrils strike.
they wrap around his torso and arm with brutal speed, tightening before he can fully turn. one lashes hard across his chest. another coils near his shoulder. butcher snarls through clenched teeth and throws him.
soldier boy hits the opposite wall with enough force to split plaster.
the motel room shakes. the lamp on the dresser crashes sideways. one manual slides from the bed and lands open on the floor. somewhere next door, somebody shouts through the wall, startled by the impact.
for one stunned second, nobody moves.
butcher stands near the wall with his coat dragged crooked around his shoulders, black limbs curling and flexing from his wrists in slow, hideous movements. sweat has broken across his forehead. the cigarette lies forgotten on the carpet near his shoes.
annie stares at him. “what the hell is that?”
the words barely sound before soldier boy pushes away from the cracked wall. dust shakes loose from his shoulders. his face has emptied of everything except rage.
his eyes go to butcher first. then frenchie. then hughie.
hughie, standing near the bathroom door in clothes he has been wearing all evening, hands clenched too tightly at his sides, expression sick with the anticipation of something he already knows is coming.
soldier boy looks at you last.
you stand frozen in the doorway with horror crawling upward through your chest.
you didn’t know.
he can’t possibly know that from your face quickly enough.
butcher’s black tendrils draw closer around his body, readying for another strike. “don’t be stupid.”
soldier boy steps forward.
“ben—” your voice breaks. not doubled. not heavy. no command hidden beneath it yet. but something sharp rises into your throat anyway. stop. one word. one clean order. something powerful enough to lock his body before he reaches butcher and turns the motel room into a graveyard.
you hate yourself for considering it. you open your mouth.
hughie disappears. the air cracks softly where he stood, a strange displaced rush that pulls annie’s hair sideways for half a second. his clothes collapse into an empty heap near the bathroom door—sweater, trousers, shoes, everything dropping bonelessly onto the carpet. then he reappears beside soldier boy. entirely naked.
under any other circumstances, the absurdity might earn one stunned second of silence. a laugh. an insult. something human enough to break the horror apart—there’s no time.
hughie has a syringe gripped tightly in one hand.
soldier boy begins turning toward him, eyes narrowing in confusion before recognition has time to settle into anything useful. hughie’s face twists with something that looks painfully close to apology. then he drives the needle into the side of soldier boy’s neck.
soldier boy’s hand snaps upward. too late. his fingers catch hughie’s wrist hard enough to make him gasp, but the plunger is already down. whatever frenchie put inside the syringe enters his blood in one quick push.
“fuck,” soldier boy snarls.
he shoves hughie away. not full strength. not enough to break him. enough that hughie stumbles backward naked into the edge of the bed, catching himself with one hand while butcher’s tendrils recoil sharply.
soldier boy reaches for the syringe still lodged near his neck and rips it free. his eyes find frenchie. “what—”
the word slurs before he finishes it. his balance shifts. only slightly at first. one boot dragging half an inch against the carpet as though the floor has moved without warning beneath him. his shoulders tense. he blinks once, hard, then again. confusion flickers across his face quickly enough that it hurts to see.
the room starts catching up around him. annie’s mouth opens. mm swears. kimiko moves toward frenchie, expression sharp with a question he cannot answer quickly enough. butcher watches soldier boy with his jaw set and those grotesque black limbs still coiled near his wrists like something pulled from a nightmare.
you step forward without thinking. “no.”
his gaze catches on you.
the motel room blurs at the edges for him. you see it happen. the way he struggles to hold focus. the way his hand reaches blindly toward the wall for balance and misses by an inch. the anger remains, but it has nowhere stable left to live. his body betrays him slowly this time, strength draining out through a drug he never agreed to take while everyone around him watches. again.
always again.
you move faster, one hand lifting instinctively toward him before you remember what your touch means now. before you remember the look on his face when your voice took hold. you stop just out of reach.
soldier boy notices. even now. his eyes move from your hand to your face. something in his expression tightens, but the sedative is already pulling him under too quickly for the thought to become words.
his knees buckle. mm catches one shoulder before he hits the floor. butcher’s tendrils lash forward on instinct, wrapping around soldier boy’s torso to slow the fall. the sight makes your stomach turn—black limbs holding him upright while his head drops forward and his boots drag uselessly against the carpet.
the motel room sways faintly around the silence that follows.
soldier boy’s head lifts once more with visible effort. his gaze finds you through the blur.
you can’t tell whether he sees you clearly. can’t tell whether the expression crossing his face is anger, betrayal, or something worse because it resembles the look he wore in the gym with his fist buried in the wall and his chest beginning to glow: the terrible realization that his body is no longer answering him.
your lips part around his name. he doesn’t hear it. his eyes close. and this time, when soldier boy falls, nobody gives him the choice.
It all began in the briefing room when the task force returned from a long deployment. Everyone was exhausted after being stuck in those cargo planes for hours. You couldn't get comfortable in your chair; your backside was aching from those shitty, cold, netted seats.
Price was rambling about information you all already knew, gesturing at diagrams and maps, but your head was somewhere else. You were trying hard not to whine about the pain, scanning the room for anywhere more comfortable to sit. Suddenly, your eyes landed on Ghost’s well-defined, muscular thighs, and dear God, did they look cushioned.
"Ghost," you whispered, trying not to draw attention to yourselves. "Hey."
"Wot?" he grunted, his eyes fixed on Price.
"My ass really hurts from those shitty aircraft seats. I’m literally dying here. I was wondering if I could sit on your lap?" you begged.
"What? No. We’re in a bloody meeting."
"Please! It really hurts!"
Ghost remained silent for a long moment, analyzing the situation. You were just about to give up when you saw him spread his legs and pat his thigh softly. "You bloody nightmare."
You blinked several times, then immediately crawled onto his lap. Thank God—they were just as comfortable as you’d imagined. It was like sitting on a damn cloud. Seeking even more comfort, you grabbed both of Ghost’s arms and wrapped them around your waist. He was so massive that he simply rested his chin on the top of your head.
"The next mission will take place on—" Price cut off abruptly in the middle of his sentence, his eyes locked on the two of you.
"What? My ass hurts; you really should change the bloody seats on the aircraft," you defended yourself against Price’s judgmental stare.
That didn't stop you, though. From that day on, you were always found in your usual place: perched on Ghost's thighs. Without fail.
Oh I was CRAVING for something like this i just adore how fucking massive this man is RAWR
Thinking about affectionate delirious Sam during the trials ・₊✧
thinking about Sam who's delirious during the trials. he's pale, circles underneath his eyes, hair mussed yet staring up at you with a goofy grin. his eyes are filled with adoration as you desperately try to lead him to bed.
"you smell nice" he comments, one hand coming up to absentmindedly play with your hair.
"sammy come on -"
he giggles, burying his face in your hair "i love it when you say my name" he mumbles.
you share a look with Dean who only grin and step back, "your problem now" he says before disappearing to go look for clues about Metatron.
you glare after him, bastard
with a sigh you try to pull back to reason with Sam, "Sam-" you try again, "you're sick. you need sleep" you try to be stern. you really do but the way he's looking down at you melts your heart.
next thing you know, he's wrapping himself around you, clinging as he leads you two down the hall. you're basically carrying him as he leans over you, "only if you come with me" he pulls back and taps your nose, "boop"
you fight a smile, heart clenching at how adorable he's acting, wide brown eyes gazing at you like you're the only place he wants to be. his warm arms wrapped around your waist, holding you.
"sam" you try to sound stern but made no effort in moving out of his hold.
your tone makes him pout and you have to psychically look away, facade already melting. suddenly he starts peppering kisses over your face. forehead, cheek, nose with urgent aggression, "no wait, if i don't do this you'll leave me" he sounded so earnest, your heart broke a little.
he pulls back to look at you again, hands cupping your cheeks and squishing them slightly, "you know you're important to me right"
his eyes are glossy, pupils dilated. you said his name again, muffled as he squeezes your cheeks, "Sam-"
"you're like... really pretty" he tilts your face up towards the light to study you before wrapping his arms around you waist and pulling you into a tight embrace, your face now burying against his chest.
"sam, bed" you say, muffled letting out a giggle.
he hums in agreement yet makes no effort to move. he abruptly looks towards a shelving unit. a moment of silence.
"want to see me climb that?"
"no" shaking your head, you lead this affectionate and sleep deprived man to his hotel room
and when you finally make it to bed, he's quick to pull you down with him. arms around your body, your pulled in warm and snug against him. you let out a surprised laugh as he settles like a cat.
"sam i have to go help Dean-"
he mumbles something incoherently already dozing off. you sigh, defeated. hopeless. and start to stroke your fingers through his hair to which he smiles, content.
summary: ben has a reputation to uphold as a legendary supe, but his girls are worth the risk
─────────｡ ₊°༺❤︎༻°₊ ｡────────
If anyone from Ben’s past, anyone from Payback or from the old days, could see him right now, they wouldn’t even recognize the man.
He’d look them dead in the eye and swear that he was just "handling his responsibilities" and doing his job as the man of the house, but you knew better.
The legendary Soldier Boy. The strongest man on earth. The ruthless leader of Payback who didn't take shit from anyone, was currently being held hostage in his own living room.
Your baby girl was a few months old now. She was a lot more mobile, bubbly, and completely unaware of who her father was. Her tiny fist was curled tightly around the collar of his shirt, while her other hand gently tapped his face, her small fingers poking at his beard curiously as if to see what would happen.
Ben grumbled, but he didn’t make any effort to move away. On the contrary, his arm was wrapped around her, holding her steady so she wouldn’t lose her balance and fall.
He looked up when he heard your footsteps "Doll, she’s testing my beard again" He said with an impatience you knew wasn’t really there “Tell her it’s not a damn toy”
You walked into the living room from the kitchen, a warmed baby bottle in your hand "You can always put her down, you know" You said with amusement, sitting next to them and leaning back on the couch.
Ben scoffed, looking at you like you’d just suggested something ridiculous.
"I can't" He muttered "She’ll cry if I put her down. Then she’s gonna give me those damn eyes, and eventually I’ll have to pick her up again"
You chuckled softly, shaking your head. You knew better than to believe he was holding her out of obligation. He didn't put her down because he simply didn't want to.
Ben reached out, taking the bottle from your hand. He guided the nipple to her mouth, and your daughter immediately cuddled against his chest, latching on her milk. Her tiny, bright eyes never left his face.
Ben supported her head as he watched her drink "She looks exactly like you, y’know" He muttered quietly, his tone softening just a bit "Got your nose. Your eyes" He paused for a moment, staring at her face before a dark, protective scowl appeared on his face "Look at her. She’s gonna grow up, use those damn eyes on some idiot, and get whatever the hell she wants. Just like you do with me"
He looked up at you then "If she ever brings a boy home, he’s not coming out again. I’ll bury him in the backyard”
You burst out laughing "Ben, she’s not even a year old yet. Relax"
"I’m just thinking ahead, doll" He grumbled "Gotta keep the vultures away"
A few days later, the quiet afternoon was interrupted by soft, happy babbling coming from the nursery. You paused what you were doing and made your way there to check on your baby girl, assuming she had just woken up from her nap.
But when you pushed the door open, she wasn't in her crib.
She hadn’t just woken up from her nap, but she was also sitting on the soft carpet of the room. Her hair still a little messy from sleep, but she looked awake and content, with Ben sitting on the floor right next to her.
She was surrounded by a comical amount of toys, and a brand new baby swing that definitely hadn't been there yesterday.
You leaned against the doorframe, a smirk on your lips. It was hilarious how her little collection of toys had grown, and it was all because of Ben. The man absolutely loved spoiling his two girls, even if he would completely deny it every single time you teased him about it.
Just the other day, he’d walked through the front door carrying a boutique shopping bag. He’d tossed it on your lap with a casual grunt.
“Brought something for you” He’d muttered, nodding towards the bag “And for the squirt”
When you opened it, you nearly melted. Inside was a gorgeous summer dress for you, and right beneath it, a tiny, identical matching version for your daughter.
When you had teased him about it, asking if the great Soldier Boy was getting into fashion, he’d just grumbled “They were on sale. Don't look into it”
But the small smirk on his face had completely given him away. He wanted his girls to match.
You looked at them. Your daughter grabbed a plushie from the floor, clumsily lifting it with both hands and holding it out to Ben, looking up at him expectantly.
Ben looked at the toy with narrowed eyes, then looked up at you "She's looking at me again" He grumbled "Like she expects me to entertain her. I’m a global icon, doll. I don't do that peek-a-boo crap you do"
You laughed, walking into the room "Oh, come on. I’m sure a global icon can handle a stuffed bear”
"I handle threats to national security, not fuzzy animals" He complained, tho his hand was already reaching out to take the toy from her.
Before you could tease him back, a soft babble interrupted. Your little girl cooed, her eyes locked on Ben's face.
"Da…da" She babbled, patting his knee and handing him another toy. Then she repeated it, more clearly this time “Dada”
The room went silent for a moment. Ben froze, his hand stopping mid-air. For a split second, his tough-guy attitude completely cracked. A mix of pride and a rare vulnerability appeared on his face.
It was her very first word. And it had been him.
You felt your own heart melt. A soft, emotional smile on your face as you watched your daughter and Ben’s reaction.
But Ben didn't do emotional crap. He caught himself quickly, clearing his throat and shaking his head as he grabbed the toy she was holding out.
"Yeah, yeah. That’s right" He muttered, a small, smug smirk on his face "You tell your mom who’s number one around here"
You rolled your eyes, but there was pure warmth in your chest. You sit down with them and leaned in, resting your head on his shoulder while your daughter happily started chewing on the ear of a stuffed bunny.
Ben dropped the stuffed animal to wrap his arm around your waist, pulling you tightly against his side while his eyes were still on the baby.
"Look at you two" He murmured lowly "You’re completely ruining my reputation. If the guys from Payback saw me right now, I'd have to kill 'em all just to keep 'em quiet"
You smiled, pressing a soft kiss to his shoulder "Is it really that bad?"
Ben stared at you for a long moment, his thumb tracing your cheek before dropping back down to hold you tight. A small smirk appeared on his face as he looked between his two girls.
“It's worth it" He murmured softly against your hair.
so i wasn’t really thinking about a part three for this little story but @angel444riley shared an idea and this is what i came up with, i hope i did justice to what you had in mind haha
lowdown ☆ things almost feel easy for a while. then the safehouse is in jeopardy, and soldier boy learns there may be a reason your voice has started getting under his skin.
ride or die ☆ soldier boy x reader ( f )
miles ☆ 3570 ride style ☆ tense!!
danger on the trail ☆ emotional avoidance, paranoia, secrecy, unsafe-house evacuation, brief involuntary loss of bodily autonomy, cliffhanger!!
liv's log ☆ ya'll know what i'm talking about right? right??
𐚁 .ᐟ masterlist ☆ join the taglist ☆ listen to the playlist ☆ support my work ᢉ𐭩
the thing about safehouses is that privacy is mostly a decorative concept.
you learn this in stages. first, when you realize the bedroom walls are thin enough to hear hughie sneeze from two doors down and then apologize to everybody. then, when butcher starts knocking on doors with the subtlety of an eviction notice.
but the kitchen sink becomes yours for ten whole minutes.
nobody calls a meeting. nobody writes your name on the faucet. but annie’s drying plates beside you, kimiko’s perched on the counter with one knee drawn up, and the rest of the safehouse is busy enough somewhere else that the three of you fall into a pocket of quiet that feels almost stolen.
soldier boy is not in the room. which is why annie waits exactly forty seconds before saying, “so.”
you don’t look at her. “no.”
“you don’t even know what i was going to ask.”
“you said so. that’s worse than any question.”
kimiko’s mouth curves. she signs something small and neat, and annie immediately presses her lips together like she is trying not to laugh.
you point at kimiko with the wet spoon in your hand. “don’t encourage her.”
annie gives up pretending. “she asked if he really said it again.”
your grip tightens on the spoon. “that depends.”
“on?”
“on whether you’re going to be normal about it.”
annie turns toward you slowly, dish towel held between both hands. “have you met us?”
fair. devastatingly fair.
you set the spoon down and look toward the hallway like soldier boy might materialize through a wall just because his name is being discussed with too much feminine energy in one place.
“yes,” you mutter. “thrice now.”
annie’s eyes widen enough to make you want to shove your face into the sink. kimiko signs again, faster this time, her expression delighted in a way that feels unearned by the moral complexity of your current romantic choices.
“she says,” annie translates, voice already bright with betrayal, “that it slipped out because he means it.”
“he does not mean it. he says things. he’s old. old people say things.”
“he called you his girl.”
“while complaining the first time.”
annie’s smile becomes unbearable. “that’s very him, actually.”
you splash water at her. she dodges with a laugh, and kimiko claps one silent hand over her mouth, shoulders shaking. the warmth of it catches you off guard—this weird little domestic softness in the middle of stolen files, freezer schematics, vought shipments, and the kind of men who can level buildings because they have unresolved issues. for a moment, you let yourself have it. annie looking at you like she’s happy for you and worried about you at the same time. kimiko signing something you don’t catch but understand from the wicked curve of her brows.
“it’s not a thing,” you say, which is stupid, because if it were not a thing, you wouldn’t be whispering about it near the sink with your face heating like a teenager after a school dance.
annie makes a soft, skeptical sound. “sure.”
you grab the towel from annie’s hands and throw it at her. “i hate both of you.”
“no, you don’t.”
“i could.”
“you won’t.”
you roll your eyes, but the smile gets through anyway, tugging at your mouth before you can crush it. “he’s just… being soldier boy about it.”
annie’s expression softens by one careful degree. “and you?”
that’s the problem. soldier boy is easy to explain in the ugliest possible terms. crude, possessive, violent, emotionally allergic to every honest thing in his own body. but you? you’re supposed to know better. you’re supposed to have a spine, a working brain, several functioning survival instincts. you shouldn’t be thinking about the way he says my girl, or the way he sleeps beside you now with his arm heavy over your waist, or the way his face sometimes goes very still when you kiss him first, like the whole world has briefly handed him something he doesn’t know how to hold.
you rinse another plate even though it’s already clean. “i don’t know.”
annie doesn’t pounce on that, which is why you love her a little and resent her a lot. she just nods once, slow. “okay.”
kimiko signs something smaller this time, not teasing. annie translates more softly. “she says he looks less angry when you’re around.”
you laugh under your breath. “that’s his less angry?”
annie tilts her head. “apparently.”
“god help us.”
the kitchen doorway darkens.
all three of you stop speaking at the same time. it’s not subtle. not even a little. the silence drops so abruptly it might as well trip on the way down. annie turns back to the plates with the worst impression of casual labor ever performed by a woman with superpowers. kimiko looks down at her own hands like she’s suddenly discovered them. you pick up the same plate you have already rinsed twice and begin scrubbing it with the intense focus of someone trying to erase state secrets from ceramic.
soldier boy stands in the doorway.
he looks from annie to kimiko, then to you. his shirt is stretched across his shoulders, sweats hanging low on his hips. nothing about him says he heard anything specific. everything about his face says he knows he interrupted something.
his eyes narrow slightly. “what?”
“nothing,” you say too quickly.
annie says, “plates,” at the same time.
kimiko signs something that, judging by annie’s sudden refusal to translate, is not helpful.
soldier boy’s gaze stays on you. “you coming to train, or you gonna keep me waiting till i grow roots?”
“you’d need soil,” you say, turning off the faucet. “and emotional nourishment.”
“cute.”
“thank you.”
he gives you a look that should not make your stomach warm. “gym. now.”
you dry your hands on the towel, pretending not to notice the way annie immediately bites the inside of her cheek. “bossy.”
“slow.”
you pass him at the doorway, shoulder brushing his chest because he does not move nearly enough. the contact’s brief, ordinary to anyone watching, except his fingers catch the back of your shirt for half a second as you slip by. not enough to stop you. just enough to touch. your breath stalls like a traitor, and when you glance back, his expression gives nothing away.
for the rest of the week, things almost feel easy. almost is the word that ruins it.
training continues because there’s nothing else useful to do while butcher chases contacts, mm and frenchie tear through vought documents, and annie tracks homelander sightings with the quiet, grim focus of someone watching storm clouds gather over a house she still has to live in.
you and soldier boy fall back into the routine as if nothing strange is happening beneath it. mornings in the gym. afternoons full of briefings, old manuals, maps. nights tangled in your room or stretched together on the couch while the tv lies about war and everyone pretends not to notice how naturally his hand ends up resting somewhere near you.
he still trains like an asshole. that, at least, is familiar. comforting, in a deeply stupid way.
you get good at using him against himself. not physically. not fully. soldier boy is still soldier boy; your strongest hit disappears into him more than it lands. but you learn the timing of his distraction. the half-second pause when you smile like you know something. the slight shift in his focus when your hand catches the back of his neck or your mouth gets too close to his jaw during a break from a hold. you break his concentration, slip free, and he calls you a cheater while breathing just a little harder than before.
at night, he keeps coming to your bed. some nights are rough and hungry, both of you too restless to bother pretending the bed is for sleep. some nights are slower, worse somehow, his mouth moving over your skin with a patience that leaves you shaken long after the lights go out. other nights, he does nothing but lie beside you, one arm behind his head, the other heavy around your waist, making rude comments about your mattress while refusing to leave it.
you don’t ask what this is. he doesn’t either. that’s part of why it works.
for a while, soldier boy lets himself believe the shape of it. your room. your laugh down the hall. your fingers tugging at his shirt when you want him closer. your foot knocking his beneath the kitchen table and your innocent face afterward. your body loose against his in sleep, trusting him with the soft, defenseless weight of you.
then the closed doors keep happening. small at first. explainable. he walks into the kitchen one afternoon and finds you with annie and kimiko again, heads bent close over the counter. annie is speaking too quietly for him to catch from the hall, which is annoying on its own because he catches everything. when he steps in, the conversation cuts off. you look up, smile, and ask if he wants the last piece of toast. nothing suspicious. just girls talking. you’re allowed to talk to your friends. he knows that.
still, the silence arrives too fast.
the next day, he wakes from an afternoon doze on the couch and you’re gone. not in your room. not in the gym. not sitting on the bathroom floor painting your toenails with kimiko. he finds hughie in the hallway, carrying a stack of printouts too large for his arms, and asks where you went.
hughie blinks. “uh… out?”
“with who?”
“butcher.”
the name lands the same way it did before.
hughie shifts the papers in his arms. “i think it was just, like, a contact thing. or a supplies thing. maybe both? there might have been, uh, batteries involved.”
“batteries.” soldier boy stares at him.
hughie swallows. “i’m gonna stop guessing.”
you come back an hour later with butcher, carrying a plastic pharmacy bag and a face that says nothing important happened. you press a bottle of painkillers into annie’s hand, toss a pack of gum at hughie, and steal a sip of soldier boy’s beer without asking. he watches your mouth touch the bottle. watches you grin when he gives you a look. watches butcher drop something small into his coat pocket before walking away.
no proof. not even a question he can ask without sounding like something he refuses to become.
two nights later, he goes looking for you after dinner and finds your room empty again. this time frenchie is gone too. when he asks, mm tells him you went to check on a lead at a bar near the old rail line. nothing major. frenchie went because the contact only speaks french, apparently. you return smelling faintly of rain and cheap beer, laughing at something frenchie says as you come through the door. the laugh dies when you see soldier boy looking at you from the couch.
he looks back at the tv.
you stand there for another second, then come over and drop onto the couch beside him, still damp at the ends of your hair, shoulder pressing into his side like nothing in the world’s wrong. after a moment, his arm moves behind you. automatic. stupid.
the next morning, you and hughie disappear before breakfast.
that’s harder to explain away. not because hughie is threatening. hughie has the energy of a man who apologizes to furniture after bumping into it. but hughie knows things. hughie keeps having quiet conversations with butcher that stop when annie enters the room. hughie looks at you sometimes with a specific kind of guilt soldier boy can’t place and doesn’t like.
you return with coffee and a paper bag full of pastries, talking about nothing. actual nothing. something about the bakery woman thinking hughie was your younger brother and hughie being offended because, apparently, he believes he has “older cousin energy”. you’re smiling when you tell the story. a real smile. soldier boy watches from the kitchen doorway and tells himself, again, that there’s nothing there.
then butcher says your name from the back room, and you go. just like that. conversation stops behind the door. for the first time, soldier boy stands in the hallway and almost follows. he doesn’t. not then. the handle of the back-room door stays still beneath his stare. no one comes out. no voice rises sharply enough to give him an excuse. whatever butcher says to you stays behind old wood and thinner walls than anybody in this safehouse should trust, blurred into a low murmur he could hear if he stepped closer and chose to listen.
soldier boy stands there for another second anyway. then he walks away before the fact that he considered it becomes something he has to deal with.
your room is empty when he enters. it has become easier to end up here than admit he’s waiting for you. your blanket is folded badly near the foot of the bed, one corner dragging against the floor. your charger still hangs crookedly from the socket. there’s a shirt thrown over the chair and a half-empty glass of water on the dresser beside the knife you still haven’t touched.
the knife bothers him. the room bothers him. everything bothers him lately.
he sits on the edge of the mattress first, forearms resting against his thighs, then gives up on pretending he’s only there for a minute and shifts back against the headboard with the blunt entitlement of someone who’s spent enough nights in your bed to stop negotiating with it. one leg stretches out. the other stays bent. his fingers tap once against his knee, then stop when the sound starts irritating him.
he tells himself he’s not waiting.
the safehouse moves faintly around him. floorboards groan in the hallway. a cabinet shuts in the kitchen. someone speaks too softly to catch. ordinary sounds. harmless sounds. the sort of sounds he should be able to dismiss without his entire body remaining alert beneath the surface.
then the front door slams open. not closes. slams. the sound punches through the safehouse hard enough that soldier boy is off the bed before the wall stops shaking. his boots hit the floor without him remembering the space between lying down and standing. every nerve in his body snaps awake at once, clean and immediate. voices rise from the living room. hughie’s first—too high, too fast, words tripping over each other badly enough that none of them land properly.
“—behind us, i don’t know how long, i didn’t see him until—”
butcher says something sharper. mm answers. footsteps scatter. a chair scrapes violently across the floor.
soldier boy reaches the doorway just as you turn into the hall. you nearly collide with him halfway between your room and the living room. both of you stop short. not because there’s time to stop, but because for one second, the sight of you makes everything else narrow around the edges.
your breathing is wrong. too quick. too shallow. pupils blown wide enough that your eyes look darker than they should beneath the yellow hallway light. there’s blood dried along your cheek, a thin red-brown streak dragged unevenly across your skin from somewhere near your nose. no cut. no split lip. nothing he can trace cleanly to a hit. but not somebody else’s blood. yours.
his gaze catches on it immediately. “what happened?”
you shake your head once, already moving to step around him. “we need to go.”
soldier boy catches your wrist before you can pass. just enough to stop you. enough to bring you back in front of him when your attention keeps trying to snap toward the living room and whatever’s happening behind it. “whose blood is that?”
your hand lifts absently toward your face. fingertips brush the dried mark. your expression changes when you see the red left behind on them—not shock, exactly. something closer to confirmation. one more problem shoved onto a pile already too high.
“mine,” you say. “i’m fine.”
“what happened?”
“ben.” your voice tightens. “black noir is following us.”
everything in him goes still. memory comes alive too quickly beneath his skin: payback. nicaragua. betrayal arranged behind his back while he still thought the people around him understood what loyalty was supposed to mean. noir’s mask. noir’s silence. noir running with everybody else after helping put him in the hands of men who spent decades finding new ways to hurt him.
“good,” he lets out.
your brows draw together. “what?”
“let him come.”
from the living room, mm barks, “bags. now. nothing you can’t carry.”
annie rushes across the far end of the hallway with two backpacks looped over one shoulder, face tight with concentration. kimiko follows close behind. frenchie’s already shoving equipment into a duffel while butcher reaches for the stack of manuals on the kitchen table.
everyone is moving.
you stare at him. “did you hear me?”
“yeah.” his jaw tightens. “noir wants to show his face, he can come show it.”
“ben—”
“should’ve killed that little shit years ago.”
“this isn’t the time.”
“looks like the time found us.”
he steps toward the living room instead of the back exit. you catch his arm before he gets far, fingers closing around his bicep. your grip should mean nothing. you know that. he knows that. you can’t stop him physically and neither of you has ever wasted time pretending otherwise. still, he looks down at your hand.
“we don’t know how many people are with him,” you say. your voice comes fast now, panic sharpened into something cleaner because there’s no room left for fear to remain messy. “we don’t know if vought tracked us here. we don’t know if homelander is coming.”
“then he can get in line.”
“this place isn’t secure anymore.”
his eyes return to your face. to the blood drying there. to the strain tightening your mouth. he can hear hughie behind you, breathing too quickly while he shoves something into a backpack and asks butcher where the keys are even though butcher has already told him twice. he can hear annie arguing with mm about the rear exit. he can hear frenchie curse when equipment catches against the zipper of the duffel.
too much motion. too much noise.
and beneath it, the older rage settling comfortably into soldier boy’s body because rage is simple. useful. familiar.
“i’m not running from noir,” he says.
your fingers tighten around his arm. “we’re not running. we’re regrouping.”
“call it whatever makes you feel better.”
“ben, listen to me—”
“if noir’s coming, vought’s coming. probably fish sticks too.” something ugly pulls at the corner of his mouth. “might finally have time to finish what frenchie started at the docks.”
under any other circumstances, you would react to that. roll your eyes. tell him the deep is hardly worth derailing an evacuation for. make some sharp little comment about jealousy. instead, your face goes still with a kind of fear that has nothing to do with soldier boy and everything to do with the clock ticking loudly somewhere only you can hear.
you step closer. your palm flattens against his arm. “we’re leaving,” you say. “now.”
the words lands inside him. not in his ears. lower. deeper. a strange rush moves through his body before he understands there’s anything to resist. not pain. not pressure. something cleaner than either, slipping beneath muscle and instinct and every furious thought he had already chosen. it races down his spine and through his legs in one cold, immediate sweep.
soldier boy’s jaw locks. no. the refusal forms clearly in his head. his mouth almost opens around it. he knows exactly what he intends to do: pull his arm out of your grip, tell you to get in the car if you want, plant himself in the living room, and wait for noir to walk through the door.
his feet move anyway. one step. then another. his body turns toward the rear exit before permission arrives.
the sensation is wrong enough that his breath catches. tiny. nearly silent. something in him strains against the movement, but his legs keep carrying him forward with a calm obedience that belongs to somebody else. you run. soldier boy follows.
not because he chose to. that fact follows him down the narrow back steps, out into the cold air behind the safehouse, and toward the waiting van while every instinct in his body claws uselessly at the command still humming beneath his skin. we’re leaving. now. your words. your voice. your hand on his arm.
he climbs into the van because his body has already decided he will. the doors slam shut behind him. mm starts the engine. tires scrape hard against the pavement as the safehouse disappears behind you in the rear window.
soldier boy sits near the back with his shoulders rigid, pulse beating hard beneath his jaw, eyes fixed on you across the van.you’re breathing fast. wiping the dried blood from your cheek with the heel of your hand. asking hughie if he’s okay. you don’t look at soldier boy. because for the first time since you started crawling beneath every defense he has, soldier boy isn’t trying to decide whether he trusts you. he’s trying to understand what the hell you just did to him.
No thoughts just alpha!ghost who grew learning to control his scent and omega!reader who very much...didn't.
Ghost had always been told that spilling your scent everywhere was poor manners, that only children couldn't control their scent. Meanwhile you were taught that having an open scent was essential for communication and perfectly normal.
Which means the first time ghost meets you, his instincts have no idea what to do with such strong happy omega scents suddenly in his space. Ghost grew up with scent blockers at home, and in most public spaces people wear some sort of blocker. You barely have a chance to purr a greeting before he's grabbing you by the shoulders and shoving his face into your neck.
"Mghhggh— omega. Sweet. Good." He rumbles, low and muffled into skin, almost as if he doesn't register it's happening. You can only stand in shocked confusion. Gaze slipping to the still open door of his office and wondering if you should call for help, because you have no idea why he's acting like this and—
"Fuck— you smell good— christ—" ghost holds you tighter, crowding you against the desk. You tentatively lean in to sniff around his scent blockers and get the faintest scent of arousal.
Which is instantly confirmed by his hips rutting forward, his hard cock rubbing against you while he whines "sorry— I don't— fuck that's good—"
Oh. Oh shit. The peices slowly click into place, and you realize exactly what your scent is doing to him, though you always thought this sort of aphrodisiac like reaction was a myth.
You try to soften your scent, knowing it will stress him out if your own scent fluctuates too much, one hand sneaking up to massage the back of his neck "hey. Hey, it's okay. I get it, do what you need to do."
Ghost makes a sound caught between a growl and a keen, pressing the entire length of his body against you. "Fuck— sorry— hold still— omega. Smell good. Mhhh—!"
You've never seen an alpha react like this.
You've also never seen an alpha pop a dry knot in his trousers, and yet thats exactly what ghost just did.
....you. probably shouldn't leave him alone in such a vulnerable state, right? You should stick around in his office, close the door and makes sure he's okay.
You're just being a considerate coworker....or thats what you'll tell yourself later.
