A/N: With credit/thanks to @ceilidho as of their posts (link) popped up and gave me the inspiration to write dark, pushy Johnny fixating on a shy, stuttering female reader.
It was your desperation, your utter enthusiasm for trying to remain unseen that achieved the inverse. The act of captivating him from across the bar required little effort or intention. How seamlessly you went against your own desires became the most delectable, ironic part of it all. Wrapped softly in a blouse, propped up on sensible shoes with neat hair and a brightly coloured little beverage. Your presence alone was an act of rebellion and contrast to the beer soaked den you’d somehow found yourself in.
You should’ve known better, part of him thought.
Thank god you didn’t, came a louder, more honest beat from deep inside.
It appeared he was not alone in sharing such fascination though it seldom inspired him to act. Instead, Johnny chose to observe with an intensity once thought exclusive to the glossy scope of a rifle. When hungry eyes that burnt and picked you apart across the bar grew more daring, more volatile to the point of flirting you remained silent. When, god forbid, it escalated to sneaking a few ravenous touches you still said little. Your face scrunched and your lips wobbled with a tremor he so deeply longed to bite or kiss away. He failed to deduce whether it was sadness, anger or meek protest pushing forth in the most diluted form possible. In fact, that was the most enticing thing about it all- the mystery and ambiguity. What would it look like if you tried to truly fight back?
A dozen sultry scenarios flashed in his mind, all of them a mockery of the image you presented.
‘N…no…thankyou …’ the little exchange between you and the pushy stranger was like a gift. It was a hamper of delightful, sweet little nervous doings hand selected for the voice inside him that yearned for something simple to claim. One would almost think your own conscience was breaking the rebuttal into smaller, more digestible pieces lest you come off as bold for self preservation. He longed to take the little fragments and swallow them whole; Johnny wanted to be the only man, the only soul privy to your weakness.
The staggered little cluster of speech was like a sirens call, a song performed to a melody made distinctly for his ears.
It took little for him to shoo away the other men. There was no fun here for them, no prize to be won from the game of torment. You weren’t likely to muster up witty retorts or humour them with shallow, reductive conversation. You weren’t there to pass time until you went home with whowever irritated you the least to satiate some boredom. They were simple and narrow minded, not inclined to the simple joy of taking your company for what it was.
Your eyes shone with discomfort, a glossy sheen that stood out as he remained by your side when the others trickled away.
‘Yer’ coming with me,’ stated in fact, a thick tone that left no room for imagined choice. He had to have you, had to take you home right then and there. A palm was offered, and even its coarse unfamiliar surface seemed softer and more favourable to those lurking nearby.
Perhaps it was for your own good. No one else would play as nicely as him. Johnny knew a treasure, a novelty when he saw one; he’d take good care of you if you’d just let him. Though really, it’s not like you’d protest. In fact, you’d probably struggle with mustering a clear coherent thought in your current state.
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Johnny’s teeth grazed the soft, sensitive skin of your throat as though it was there he sought to peel away whatever held you back. You couldn’t seperate yourself from the present, your mind doing little to aid you in denying the reality of his touches. Large hands wandered along every inch of you with something between obsessive precision and needy, famished conquest. His lips found your jaw- a kiss that started off chaste then sunk into a sloppy, greedy pop. Slowly but surely, he was burying himself deeper- the only sounds to be heard was the bed straining and his own grunts.
That wouldn’t do. ‘Don’ be a tease lass…’ he mumbled, grunting as he shifted, as though trying to push words out from within you. ‘Talk to me…’
‘D..do…’ you exhaled, the act of him moving faster both encouraging you and making it difficult, ‘d..do you have a…a con..condom?’
He took in every syllable, every sweet little choppy note and discarded the suggestion entirely. He huffed in amusement, squeezing you tighter as he made a stout point of going as quickly as possible. The bed continued to shift, adding a squeaking symphony to the mix that drowned out your continued albeit, barely audible expressions of need. Your own breathing heightened, you once again tried the question with an airy, distracted trill. It didn’t take long for him to finish, his grip anchoring beneath the plush of your breasts as he rocked through the waves of release.
He pulled out, eyes washed with an intensity that turned the temperate blue in them to a more leering, pelagic shade.
‘I’m sorry… I dinnae hear you. Yer’ gonna have to speak more clearly…’
ghost found you the way he assumes you found your collection of stray cats, soaked to the bone from a sudden storm and crouched behind a dumpster to hide from someone who wouldn't think twice about hurting you.
it must be that soft spot that soap keeps insisting he has that makes him stop with his cigarette half lit and stare at you shivering in the cold, well past the hour when pretty things should be home or in someone else's bed, your mascara running rivers down your cheeks and your lipstick smeared, a nice bruise blooming on your cheek where someone hit you (probably the same person that smeared your lipstick). you look up at him with wet eyes and a pitiful expression and he can't stop himself from offering you the cigarette, eager to taste your lipstick stain when you hand it back to him with shaking fingers. it feels like the beginning of the end to invite you upstairs to the little attic flat he's renting.
he doesnt pretend to be a gentleman when he offers you a towel and tells you to warm up in the showrr, doesnt turn around or avoid staring at you when you hesitantly strip. just as well when you pilfer one of his shirts and curl up on the mattress he's shoved in the corner, your lips still trembling as you hold your arms out to him.
its a bad move, mixing business with pleasure, but ghost hates the city and he can't say he feels bad turning his back on it to bury his face between your soft thighs. the same way he doesnt feel bad exchanging numbers in the morning when you set off to wherever home is with a pep in your step. the sex is meaningless, its a time killer for an otherwise boring mission
so then why does he feel his stomach clench when you tell him you'll miss him? why does he recognize your strays with the same familiarity as spotting gaz at the pub? why does he keep a budget line running for that shitty little attic flat that he said he was never coming back to?
and why the fuck do you keep texting him like you were something more than a convenient hole for him? (and why is he starting to think there might not be anything convenient about you?)
summary: things you'll never tell Johnny. and the one thing he'll tell you.
pairing: soapgaz x f!reader.
warnings: a dash of smut (mdni), a gallon of hurt/comfort :)
part of the [rotten work] series.
you’ll never tell Johnny this but you hate that his government name is John.
it makes your skin itch uncomfortably sometimes when you’re reminded of that little fact. takes you to a time when you felt like you were drowning and the people who were supposed to save you just didn’t want to. instead, they held your head below the water and slowly watched you die.
you were actually against getting into this fling because of it at the start. but since he normally went by Soap or Johnny, you looked past it. made it easier to bear and easier to moan his name in bed without feeling gross about yourself. or him.
“thanks, Johnny.” you placed a big, wet kiss on his flushed cheek after he had fixed your coffee machine.
and yet, in that same hour, you were annoyed at him from finishing your last bottle of face wash. “the store is closed, Johnny. how am i supposed to do my nightly routine now?”
“ye can borrow Kyle’s–” he shuts up when you throw the empty bottle in the small garbage bin with a force that makes a loud thud.
“no, Johnny! i can’t–” your voice raises a slight pitch before you cut yourself off. then close your eyes and sigh deeply. “i can’t just introduce a new product on my skin like that. i’ll break out and then it’ll take even longer to get shit back to normal. i can’t just use soap and water and call it a day the way you do.”
which is why you don’t really know why he had to use your cleanser. you figure he got curious and wasted the last bit of it. you just hate that it had to be at the expense of your skin. you know you’re going to wake up with a massive zit somewhere on your face.
“s’not like we care if ye have a mountain on yer pretty face.”
“mate.” Kyle, who’d been sitting beside him throughout this entire exchange, abandons the book he was reading and facepalms. “that is not the point.”
it doesn't come as a surprise how oblivious Johnny can be sometimes. it is equally as endearing as it is annoying, depending on the situation. like now, you want to hurl a shoe at his face because it's so hard to get anything done when his curiosity gets the better of him. half of the time, it's to somebody's detriment.
“Johnny.” you let out an audible, exasperated sigh while pinching the bridge of your nose. “i don’t do a whole skincare routine just to look pretty. i do it because these pimples. fucking. hurt.”
emphasis on the pain of each one that pops up on your skin. it's why you're so diligent with your skincare routine. cleanse, tone, moisturize, repeat. missing a single day could fuck up your entire week.
you’d never be this outspoken towards the other John. you’d never be allowed to raise your voice at him or Simon the way you did just now. despite the annoyance lining your tone, you know that what you're doing is just to test the limits of what goes. it's jarring that you're allowed such freedoms here. it's jarring that you're not met with immediate apprehension and the threat of a punishment.
the sad expression Johnny gave you in response to your rant made you feel guilty. damn him. this might be the equivalent of kicking a puppy. he’s pouting, sitting up on your bed and swings his legs over the side.
you huff and head back to the bathroom, where he promptly follows. he finds you washing your face with nothing but water. your frown deepens upon seeing him in your mirror as you wipe your face. he comes to hug you from behind, crooking his chin over your shoulder.
“i’m sorry, lovie. i really am.” he murmurs as he presses his lips against your neck. “won’t happen again. i’ll buy five bottles for ye tomorrow and ye can squeeze all the paint out of every tube if ye want tae call it even. how’s that sound?”
the other John would’ve never made such an offer. your complaints would’ve just been a minor inconveniences to his day. such complaints to Ghost would just hurting words at a cold brick wall. no compromise would've been made. you know that your grievances would've been ignored and shelved as non-essential. sometimes seen but never heard.
“you’re lucky you’re so cute.” he brightens at your reluctant response and presses a wet kiss against your cheek because of it.
you turn around, and still pinned between him and the sink, your arms curl around his neck to slot your mouth against his. the tension in his shoulders melts under your touch like butter on a warm day. he follows your lips when you pull away and you giggle into the next kiss. or the next as he swipes his tongue between your teeth.
you think the only reason he lets you stray from the kiss is to let you breathe.
“i’m sorry for being harsh.” you say. “forgive me?”
“there's nothin’ tae forgive, bonnie.”
you glance down. he’s blushing when you meet his gaze again. “you're not hard from being yelled at, are you?”
a pause. “no…?”
it’s only a moment that passes when you hold his timid stare. you purse your lips before pecking his cheek, brushing past him as your hand trails down his chest. he’s jolted when you cup his chubbed cock and stroke it over the fabric of his pants for a long moment but you’re walking away without saying another word.
it doesn’t surprise you when he follows. but if he had any intention of finishing what you started, he doesn’t follow through with them. instead, he settles on suffering through a movie you picked to watch as you’re laying your head on his chest while drawing little shapes on his stomach, completely ignoring the tent growing in his loose shorts.
“you alright there, Tav?”
he chokes back a sound when your head tilts, your lips grazing on his neck before you bare your teeth to nibble on his skin. his cheeks are flushed pink. his ears are worse. it’s cute. he’s so cute like this. quiet. pliant. while letting you torture him because he thinks he deserves it.
“i’m fine.” he grits out through his teeth, his breaths shortening when you lift your head and shift your weight off of him.
you and Kyle both turn your attention to him now, completely ignoring the movie. you’re the one still touching him, still rubbing his belly like a lazy kitten. your nails drag along his shirt as you sink down to meet where the fabric ends and his skin begins. his fists clench the sheets when your fingertips graze his happy trail. jaw clenched when he meets your soft smile, damn near to tears when he silently begs for more.
Kyle watches on, preening at the sight. biting his lip when Johnny’s breaths become laboured, his eyes half-lidded and hazy. he watches on proudly as you yield your power like a weapon. he’s all too thrilled at the strangled noise Johnny makes when you lift up his shirt and plant a kiss right on his belly button.
“you sure?” Kyle prompts him, cupping his face. “need some help with that?”
Johnny makes a choked sound from the back of his throat, his glossy eyes softly pleading.
your devious smile shines through. “aww, you poor baby.”
“you’re so evil, love.” Kyle’s lips brush against your ear as he whispers, “keep doing it.”
“dinnae encourage her.” you giggle at that, Johnny’s hand tugging at your silk nightgown with a soft urgency.
“why not?”
he pouts and tries to answer him but he chokes out something unintelligent when your fingers hook on his shorts and pull down. his cock is hard as steel, flushed and dripping at the tip. he hisses when Kyle grasps him at the base while you aim a little higher.
“yeah, Johnny.” your thumb rubs over the flushed tip. “why not?”
he couldn’t give you an answer if he tried. not when he buries his face into the pillow to smother a hoarse noise. you've never known Johnny to hide his unbridled desire from anyone so this is is truly a sight to behold.
makes it more fun to draw it out of him. it makes you understand why he and Kyle love doing the exact same to you. why they delight in watching you bloom with the pleasure they lavish all over you.
“bonnie–” you can't tell if he means you or Kyle.
you wager a guess that he means you since you're the one stroking his cock, your tongue slowly running over the tip. the brittle whine of your name, his hand reaching for your shoulder is well earned. it burns, hot and molten ichor pouring in your belly.
you watch Kyle fervently claim his mouth, the two lock in a heated kiss while Johnny desperately ruts his hips into yours. you feel all too triumphant upon hearing those muffled whimpers before Kyle pulls away from him just as you do.
“sit on mah’ face.” the words drag along his tongue like honey, pupils blown with pleasure. “i want yer sweet cunt on my face, bonnie lass, please. please, please, please–”
there he is. the shameless dog you know and absolutely adore.
Kyle caresses a finger along Johnny's cheek. “he’s begging real nice and sweet, isn’t he, angel?”
you hum sweetly, “he sure is.”
and you oblige his request. taking off your panties wasn’t his plan at the moment. you plant your knees on either side of his head and just push them to the side and allow him to indulge. for really, you cannot bear to deny him or Kyle anything they’d ask.
you care for Johnny so much, it makes your chest hurt. you do your absolute best to avoid John at all costs. you care for Kyle so much, you’re grateful that his brown eyes resemble nothing of Simon’s.
you’ll never tell them that you adore his nicknames Johnny and Soap. whatever the reason may be, however classified the latter is and how out of bounds you will ever be to reach the secret as to why that name particularly, you’re just happy to not have to associate him with the other John.
and with his arms hooked around your thighs and keeping you pinned to his mouth, his name tumbles off your lips, a prayer devoted to worshiping him. your sweet release came all too quickly with you gripping his mohawk while riding your hips along his mouth. it had drained you a lot more than you anticipated and had you basking in the aftershocks of it with Johnny’s head on your thighs as you watched Kyle fuck him.
a night well spent, you think. you haven’t felt this relaxed in a long time. you think you’re going to savour these memories for as long as you live.
“time for bed, sleepyhead.” Kyle muses when he notices your droopy eyes. they pulled you further down so you don’t doze off on the headboard.
you snuggled in between them, lazily murmuring, “we're already in bed.”
sleep claims you faster than you realize. their hearts melt at your little yawn.
Kyle’s lips press against your forehead. “goodnight, hen.”
followed by Johnny. “sweet dreams.”
you think if you didn’t care as much about Johnny and Kyle, everything they do wouldn’t be bringing you to the brink of tears. if you felt less about John and Simon, you wouldn’t be constantly worrying about what their predecessors think about you.
though you hope that they think of you when they fall asleep.
you will never tell Soap that you’re so grateful that he talks too much. his thoughts spill all over the floor and make it easy to pick apart. his thoughts spill all over you too, painting you with his world and making you a small, yet vital part of it.
truthfully, he makes it very easy to measure if he and Kyle are safe to be around on any given day. if Johnny’s in a bad mood, then Kyle might be either doing damage control or he’s just as pissed. either way, you prefer not to stick around for it. you learned that the hard way when you watched Johnny and Kyle argue amongst themselves the other day.
although, regardless of all that, you never have to worry about them using that as an excuse to take it out on you.
not to mention that Johnny’s funnier and more creative so he’s fun to hang around most of the time. you adore that he’s always keen on welcoming you with open arms (and sometimes a hungry mouth). it was difficult not to associate him with the other John at first because of them sharing a name but Johnny has continuously proven that they could not be any more different. overall, a day with Johnny is well spent in laughter and warmth and well worth any heartbreak you’ve endured on account of John.
and Kyle? thank god his brown eyes are nothing similar to Simon’s. you can’t imagine looking at him and expecting a gaze so cold that it burns. Kyle has never directed one harsh word in your direction. ever. even if he might have an excuse presenting itself so clearly in front of him, he’d never take it.
you’re safer with Johnny and Kyle. much happier too.
your affection is always returned tenfold and theirs is never bartered or begged for. your time and your body are treated as precious things to be treasured. all of your previous concerns about things turning out the way they did with John and Simon turned out to be of no consequence. there was really nothing to worry about with them.
or maybe you spoke too soon.
maybe you got ahead of yourself in trying not to take flight anytime things got too overwhelming. because it seems that the moment your muscles relax, everything goes to shit.
“have you guys seen my phone?”
Kyle’s curious gaze snaps to you while he shifts on the couch. “no? have you checked our bedroom?”
“was just about to.” you say as you walk in that direction.
he gets up from the sofa and follows. “i’ll help you look.”
“no, that’s ok–” you don’t get the chance to dissuade him from doing so because he places his hands on your hips and urges you forward. “go back to watching your show.”
“eh, it wasn’t that interesting anyway.” the kiss on your neck suggests that he wants to do a lot more than just search for your phone. you wouldn’t mind the distraction with the way a giggle bursts out of you with the steps into the bedroom.
however, the room itself is, in no uncertain terms, messy. you and Kyle stop abruptly upon noticing this. there’s clothes on the floor, your combs and brushes are all over the dressing table, the bed has been unmade. it’s pure chaos. absolutely nothing like what it was thirty five minutes ago.
your nose wrinkles at the sight. “guess Johnny’s having the zoomies today.”
Kyle is far from pleased. you hold the urge to laugh when he grunts something under his breath and he picks up the things on the floor alongside you.
for once, you didn't feel out of place alongside him. you were right where you belonged in the domesticity of it. picking up Kyle's things and Johnny's and yours. folding them up and giving them to Kyle so he can pack them away.
at first, you were a bit queasy about having some of your stuff shuffled amongst theirs. little reminders that your presence was only temporary. a few shirts here, a few dresses there. your spare toothbrush in their bathroom. your skincare products took up a lot of space in their bathroom.
part of you had to come to terms with the fact that you were going to have to leave some, if not all, of these things behind in case it all goes to shit because you weren't going to find excuses to come back for them.
though, with the way they treat you, with how they handle you like fragile glass and how they do their absolute best to mend it despite never having a hand in breaking it, you truly don’t know if that day will ever come. it's hard to ever feel like something's missing with them. hard to feel out of place anymore. homesickness for a sanctuary where your heart doesn't ache or throb is a distant plight now.
with Kyle and Johnny, you never have to sacrifice pieces of yourself to appease their endless appetite.
but of course, fate finds a way.
fate always has a way of slipping through the spiderweb cracks and prying open the little sanctuary you’ve been trying to build for the last few months. the walls of it start to crumble before you realize it. each grain of sand and stone coming apart while you’re still blissfully ignorant.
the velvet box in your hands is proof of that.
you find it when you’re rummaging through the pile of clothes in the corner of the room from where you hear your phone ringing. which is also where you find the velvet box sitting right under it.
your breath hitches once you do. you open it without much thought, without truly considering the consequence of it.
inside?
glimmering gems. fractals of light painting shimmers all over the wall when they’re caught under the gaze of the lamp. diamonds.
a diamond necklace.
it’s gorgeous. precious gemstones meant to adorn the skin. worth thousands perhaps. worth much more than what you could ever afford. funny, you don’t remember ever owning a diamond necklace. hell, you don’t remember owning anything diamond in your entire life. your own mother would chosen to drop dead in front of the entire family before buying anything of the sort.
and you know you’d remember Johnny and Kyle ever gifting you something so valuable. so who does this necklace belong to? and why is it here?
“what’s this?”
holding the delicate item in your hand, you slowly stand and turn around. the moment you spot Kyle’s horrified gaze, you know that this is when your heart is going to shatter to a million pieces.
your name is breathless on his tongue. your stomach drops. the sudden weightlessness catches you off guard. it shifts your entire world on its axis.
“we wanted to tell you.”
tell you– what was there even to tell?
oh, god, it’s happening again.
your world crashing down. the pieces hit the floor and scatter all around, the shards piercing your skin even as much as you’ve tried to shield yourself. it was all an illusion. none of this was ever real to them. you were blinded yet again by your own delusions.
this time, they didn’t even have to be cruel to you. they didn’t have to say a single bad word about you. yet they’re going to break you open in a way that is much worse than what Simon and John could’ve done.
they’ve found someone else. that they’ve been seeing someone else this entire time. or they found someone along the way when you weren’t around.
“what?”
they look at each other, worried. “i– angel, we–”
how could you’ve not seen it? you’re so stupid to have missed it. of course you missed it. they were so good at hiding such a thing and you were too blinded by their flattery and deception to see through it.
you’re backing away before you even realize it, your eyes burning hot. “i should– i should go–”
Kyle blocks your only escape. he utters your name, pleading when you don’t look at him. you flinch when Johnny approaches to touch you, backing away into the nightstand. you’re trapped. you can’t breathe.
“angel, i promise you.” he raises a hand in offering, hoping to appease, to pacify. “whatever you’re thinking is not it.”
something boils hotly in your stomach. it burns your lungs, your throat as it bubbles up to the surface and it’s far too quick for you to catch when it does.
“what else am i supposed to think? that you’re not seeing somebody else?” you countered sharply, scowling. “i find an expensive diamond necklace in your stuff and what am i supposed to think?”
“that it’s yours, perhaps?”
okay, that almost gets a snort out of you. if it weren’t for the genuine looks on their faces, you would have let it out and expressed how woefully unbelievable all of this sounds.
John, Simon. Kyle, Johnny. they're all the same. you've only been gold as long as they touch you, otherwise you’re of no real value to them. even when you sacrifice so much of yourself. you’re nothing to them. you’re no one to them.
it’s nothing new yet it hurts. the certainty that Johnny and Kyle have carefully curated in your mind crumbles like dust.
it must show to them that you make an odd expression because their faces drop in a brief moment. “bullshit, Kyle.”
“no, he’s right.” Johnny steps in, pleading. “he’s no’ lyin’. it is yours, we jus’... couldnae tell ye yet.”
you cannot believe that both of them are seriously trying to gaslight you right now. if you had an expensive diamond necklace, they should trust that you would be all too aware of it.
you never thought, of all things, they would choose to lie to your face. to make you look and feel stupid after all you’ve pushed past and been through to be here.
you certainly feel stupid now when you remember how many times you’ve had to remind yourself not to overstep, not to take things the wrong way and believe something that isn’t there. you feel stupid knowing that you went out of your way to make sure that they didn’t feel obligated to keep you around for any reason at all, that they could just drop you and move on without making a big deal about it.
hell, you even went as far as having to clarify that this arrangement isn’t going as far as just scratching an itch. and every time you’ve tried to reinforce that rule, they pushed past them and trampled over any notion of a wall between you and them.
they’ve implied that they wanted more. they’ve whispered sweet nothings in your ear when you tried to be the voice of reason. they’ve pulled you close when you tried to step away time and time again.
yet they turn around and do this?
“Soap bought the necklace not long ago but i told him to hold off on giving it to you because i thought it would scare you–” Kyle’s placating voice cuts off when reaches for you but you rip your hand away. his throat bobs as his eyes begin to glisten. “it’s why we were arguing last week.”
you don’t want to believe they went through all this trouble, that they spent so much money on one goddamn necklace just for your sake. it just can’t be possible.
but. they’re desperate to speak their truth. desperate to make you stay. you can feel it in every breath, in every word, in every time they attempt to touch you.
“it’s…” Kyle begins with a shaky breath. “we had it custom designed but hadn’t gotten around to putting in the order until someone–” Johnny sheepishly grinned when a glare was aimed at him. “–made that hasty decision all on his own.”
a hasty decision is suddenly taking a trip without really planning how you’re going to spend your money or who you’re going to spend time with. a hasty decision is buying a pair of shoes you can’t even afford, knowing you’re going to have to work overtime if you want to eat for the rest of the month– that’s a hasty decision. not– not–
a diamond necklace that costs thousands.
they planned this. for over a long period of time. there was intent behind this. not some frivolous choice that meant nothing to them. there was nothing hasty about this decision.
custom designed.
they had been talking about this for days. for weeks. months. they’ve had this for months.
a heavy sensation sinks uncomfortably in your stomach. the world threatens to spin with each breath you take. you’ve bottled your tears for all of these months and now you’re choking on them. drowning in the ocean welling in your chest.
“lass…” Johnny pleads, holding the box tightly in his hands. “say somethin’.”
what could you say? what was there even to say? paralysis prevented you from uttering a word. for there would have been nothing to even suffice as a response that thoroughly mirrored how you felt.
so Kyle hastily continues where you fall short, “it– this probably costs more than half a year’s rent money. why–”
“why?” the sound is choked out, startling both of them.
“we…” one of them starts but you’re already turning away to hide the gloss in your eyes.
“i can’t accept this.” you mumbled, your face burning. “it’s… it’s…”
too much, you want to scream.
hypocrite, your mind screams back.
you’ve always crucified yourself for being too much yet, here you are. condemning them for the exact same reason. but this was different. this was an offer that far exceeded the benefit it seeks.
“it’s not–” you stop, heart pounding. vision blurring as you blink rapidly. “it’s really not a gift meant for a casual thing…”
Johnny and Kyle don’t think you realize how right you are in that assumption. they do know you think said assumption was made to fit around your frame.
“it’s not meant to be casual.” Kyle’s counter jolts you. his soft gaze remains firmly on your unravelling demeanor as he adds, “none of this ever was.”
it would have never been if you hadn’t been steadfast on keeping things as they are.
“you’ve always been more to us than just casual, love.”
“aye.” Johnny quietly agrees.
all of this is making your head spin. expensive gifts, affection that seems as endless as the vast ocean, that burns as brightly and infinitely as the stars.
what they’ve given you since they’ve met you is something you’ve never received from no other. something tailored just for you. but because you’ve gone so long without it, it remains far too unfamiliar to you.
“you shouldn’t.” the denial comes shortly after. you try to speak with a hardened voice but fail. “this wasn’t what you both signed up for. why would you–”
“bonnie.”
Johnny’s step feels like he took ten. you’re cornered. his eyes weigh heavy with something more profound than grief. and that is something you recognize, for it has lived within you for all these months.
don't say it.
“Soap, don’t you dare.”
even with Kyle standing between you and his other half, you know what’s about to happen next. you know the end of the world as you see it.
because even after everything falls to pieces, it's always going to be the two of them. Johnny and Kyle. (John and Simon). Soap and Gaz. (Price and Ghost). Your mother and father. Your brothers and sisters. Your friends.
It’s the same cycle repeating all over again. you’re always going to be the outsider looking in through the window. now the mere touch of your finger cracks the glass.
you're a crack in the wall. a malevolent tumor that's destroying a well balanced ecosystem. a cancer. you always have been since the very
“Johnny.” Kyle warns, “you’ll scare her.”
you're turning them against each other.
because of you. again.
you’re cursed. you must be.
with John and Simon, they worked in tandem to turn against you at any point in time. but with Johnny and Kyle, they're on opposite ends of the battlefield because of you.
you're hurting them.
“she deserves tae know.” Soap insists.
and Gaz still pushes back. “and you think now is the best time to–”
but you can’t bear it. you just can’t stand to watch them fight anymore.
“i don’t want to know!”
your voice cuts through their dispute and leaves them bleeding with silence. their shock lands on your trembling frame.
“i don’t…” you breathe out, throat tightening. “whatever it is, i don’t want to know. it’s tearing you two apart and i don’t like it.”
your eyes flicker between the both of them. neither one moves. neither one dares to take a step forward.
“please stop fighting.”
you don’t know if your plea goes unheard or if your interference will change the tide to something worse. you’d hate for this to go even more sideways than it already has.
“Johnny–” you start but what follows isn’t your bargain.
what follows is an earth shattering confession.
“i love you.”
an insurmountable force claims your breath. there is no end to the echo of shock, be it yours or theirs now that the words materialized into the very air you all breathed.
your lips shut as tightly as a vice. if a pin dropped, you all would’ve heard it.
Kyle lets out a heavy sigh, his eyes closing in defeat. your fates are all sealed. doomed.
“wh– sorry…” you stuttered, unbelieving. “what?”
for a time, it's been unclear to you how your world is going to crash first but the inevitable is that it is going to end. soon. you didn't think soon meant right now.
you don’t think he’ll dare to repeat it.
something's burning. your eyes. your throat. something in your chest. you can't breathe. their gazes hold the air in your lungs still.
it's Johnny who moved first. slowly. approaching a frightened animal. hands clenching before opening, his eyes set on his headstrong conviction but it breaks upon being met with your frightened silence.
“i…” he falters. it shocks you even more.
John MacTavish is known for never shutting up. from the moment his eyes open to when he closes them to sleep, he’s always got something to say.
but today. right now. the words fall short when he needs them the most.
so. you do what you do best.
stop the fire from spreading. too much is burning already but there’s still time to save it all from being engulfed by the flames.
deflect.
minimize.
your gaze pleads to his other half. “Kyle.”
pull him back. reel him back in.
it was his role in the cycle you've come to appreciate. when Johnny crowds you to the point of almost smothering you, it's Kyle who snaps at his chain and reminds him to give you room to breathe. reminds him of the boundaries you've all agreed upon. reminds him of the agreement.
it was a perfect cycle. a perfect agonizing cycle of not knowing where you stand but knowing that it was not worth losing over your own feelings getting the better of you.
(it reminds Kyle that you're not ready for what could be the perfect outcome.)
yet even Kyle couldn’t give you the answers you needed to hear. not this time. for the first time, he turned away, unable to look at you when you silence calls for his aid when you need it the most. you’re slipping. you’re alone in this once more.
“he’s not lying, dove.” Kyle softly asserts after a sigh. your throat tightens when he looks to Johnny and takes his hand, now united in their stance. “he loves you. and i love you. we both do.”
no regret in their shared expression. no moment of turning back time and taking it all back. there’s no holding back an ocean flooding in once the floodgates break.
you can’t quite explain what happens next.
something goes horribly wrong in your mind. where you should be elated that your deepest wish finally came true, a sudden wave of dread floods your veins until you couldn’t see straight.
your hands tremble with the force of all the moments that screamed at you that you’ve never been worth it.
“and we know that… that you might not be ready to hear that, but we can’t keep going like this.”
your breaths become shallow.
“if something were to happen to us, we want you to keep living knowing that we will always love you till the very end.”
then. something snaps a synapse in your brain.
Johnny’s confession isn’t the first. no. this shouldn’t be news to you. you’ve heard those three exact words long before all of this.
months ago, in fact. last year, around christmas time. when Kyle came to your place first two days before Johnny did. oh, how it all comes back to you now.
i missed you. i missed you. i lov–
you.
the memory becomes so vivid now. you couldn’t hear it then but the shape of Kyle’s lips changing and forming something else entirely is unmistakable now.
i love you.
Kyle said it before then. he’d spoken with such ardent reverence, with as much certainty as Johnny is now. months ago. possibly before the necklace even came into existence. and he’d timed it just right too, banking on the hope that you wouldn’t notice with the pleasure overriding every sense when the high hit to hide it from you.
god, and you quietly denied it too. swept it under the rug and gaslit yourself into thinking that it didn’t happen.
you’re going to be sick.
“i’m sorry, i–” you turn, head spinning perilously.
Kyle’s heart drops, a hand already reaching towards you when you stumble backward. “no, don’t–”
you can’t breathe.
“let me out.”
you can’t fucking breathe.
“we’re not letting ye go.” Johnny is already by your side, gently grasping your hand, even as you flinch and attempt to pull away. “not anymore, bonnie. ye’ve run from us for far too long.”
his touch burns. his presence overwhelming. Kyle isn’t helping when he compounds his own to the equation, blocking the door when you try to head towards it.
“what if–” you choked. “what if i don’t love you back? what then?”
the words are poison spat at their feet. the remainder of it burns your teeth when you lick them.
“is that how you feel?” Kyle asks, almost hopeful that you don’t mean that but the longer your silence lingers, the more his and Johnny's hope breaks and crumbles like a fractured marble statue.
far from it, something in your whispers back. but you can’t bring yourself to say it back.
not with what you know now.
“is it?” he presses, challenging you to speak your truth.
but it continues to hide in the shadows. won’t come out no matter how much they both try to will it.
because you know better. regardless of how they feel, you know better. this reality wasn’t meant for someone like you.
this is just a dream. a sick, twisted dream to distract you from what has happened time and time again. the truth is that you’re not the one people choose or love. you never have been. so many others have told you so and have done cruel acts and motions to show you when words didn’t quite suffice.
this? with Johnny, with Kyle? such dreams aren’t meant for you.
it was time you relinquished them.
your gaze drops to the floor. “can i please leave?”
Johnny’s hand tightens around yours. Kyle remains still, unmoving from the door. their silence stretches on for much longer than you want it to.
“please?”
they both rescind their hold on you.
and you do the one thing you've always been good at.
run.
Johnny has always been the risk taker.
he’s the one jumping head first into places and situations he shouldn’t be. it’s a nasty habit of his, sure. has that gotten him some regrets in life? absolutely. and this?
this shouldn’t be one of them.
“she’s not answering my calls.”
Kyle has made several in the hour that you’ve gone while Johnny went to check your apartment. the trip was made in vain.
“i’ve just asked the neighbours.” said Johnny. “she’s no’ at her place.”
in hindsight, he should’ve anticipated that you wouldn’t go there. too obvious. especially with you knowing that he would most likely camp put at your door and howl for you to open up, regardless of how much he got on the neighbours’ nerves.
yet, despite that amusing thought, the worst case scenario is beginning to play out right in front of them.
“where the fuck could she’ve gone?”
you just vanished with no trace. there was no vague idea of where you could’ve gone or who could’ve seen you. or who took you.
they didn’t want to entertain the possibility of an accident or worse, an abduction. but with how much violence they’ve been exposed to in their line of work, it became increasingly harder to ignore the latter as the minutes pass by with no word from you.
you were gone.
with your absence leaving a black hole, a suffocating echo of silence haunting the walls.
Johnny feels entirely responsible for that with his careless impatience. he watches Kyle pacing around the room, a hand nervously rubbing the back of his neck whilst he kept checking his phone.
it hurts to see his lover like this. worried. restless. eyes hard. teeth clenched. heavy sighs leaving his lungs every few seconds. it hurts that he’s the sole cause of his distress.
“angel, please answer your phone. we just want to know if you’re safe.” Kyle’s phone was pressed against his ear. he pauses for a moment, sighing before adding, “call us back when you get this.”
Johnny’s chest tightens even more.
Kyle sighs once more as he hangs up the phone and goes right back to trying again.
and you?
sweet, kind, broken little bird. so terrified of any sort of warmth because it reminds you of the fire that scorched your feathers. you with your quiet song of grief and your trembling hands, with a light that you constantly try to smother behind little white lies and fake smiles.
you’re more fragile than anything Johnny has ever held in his hands.
you were a ticking time bomb. waiting for your time to run out. or waiting for someone to drop you on your head. whichever one comes first and everything goes up in flames.
and then it did. in Johnny’s confession.
the horror in your eyes when he said the words. how you looked to Kyle to cover the truth with the lie you keep telling yourself, that you’re not worth any of it.
Johnny might not have shown it but he was as serious as a heart attack about this gift. he was more nervous, more terrified than anything but he just couldn’t go on without telling you what he truly felt in his heart. he couldn’t let you keep believing that what you and they had was strictly casual.
because that couldn’t have been further than what was written in the stars.
and while Kyle might be a stickler about certain things when it comes to you but this? he was right about this.
your haunting absence was proof of it.
“ye were right.” the lump in Johnny’s throat tightens. “ye were right, love. she’s not… she wasnae ready.”
if only he had listened. if only he’d hid the box somewhere you’d never find it until it was the right time.
“i’m sorry…” he continued. “i drove her away.”
Kyle’s gaze softened once he looked at him. all this time he’d been fussing over you and thus forgot to check in with Soap. who had been blaming himself this entire time.
yet the house is already burning. adding more fuel to the fire won't do any good. you already slipped out of their grasp and left them to assume all sorts of bad things in your absence.
that had to stop. Kyle refuses to give up now, even if it might already be over.
“we both did.”
Johnny’s glassy eyes snap to him. “but i was the one who–”
“what’s done is done.” Kyle softly interjects. “no use blaming yourself for the choice we made. don’t forget, i only added fuel to the fire.”
he’s right. again. Kyle very easily could’ve minimized the confession and forced it under wraps. he could’ve lied about the gift and made up some bullshit story on the spot but chose not to. even if it would’ve pained him to do so.
“i don’t like admitting that as much as you do.” he adds, “but we have to think smart about this. we’ve got to be real careful around her. she’s–”
Johnny shakes his head, denial descending to despair. “we’ve already lost her–”
“we haven’t.” Kyle cuts in, shaking his head, his legs taking fast strides towards Johnny until he’s close enough to reach him, cupping his face in a firm grip. “i refuse to let her go now and neither should you.”
conviction was a dangerous thing. it twists and bends like vines on pillars, claiming dominion for as far as it reaches and holding firm.
and the truth of the matter is that they would never allow you to atone for the sins of those who’ve harmed you. no matter how much you’ve been made to believe that you’re responsible for carrying them.
Kyle gently pressed their foreheads together. “there’s no grave deep enough for the bastards who hurt her.”
“aye.” Johnny affirmed, pulling him closer for a much deserved kiss. “but we’ll get tae that later.”
first, they had to find you. and then.
they were going to bring you home.
everything’s much quieter here.
with the air crisp and clear, your skin was cold to the touch. you almost want to curse yourself for forgetting to grab a jacket or a sweater. but the air feels nice as it freezes over your flesh. numbs your racing nerves, soothes your raging heart. though you can’t feel at rest, this certainly feels better than jumping out of the frying pan and into the pit of fire.
everything flashes back to you in seconds. how Soap was all too excited to drag you back to bed when you tried to leave. how Gaz coaxed you to stay a little longer than you should have.
how they both looked at you since the very beginning. never once telling you off. never leaving you high and dry. always giving you a heads up that they were going on deployment for a possibly long time, yet always making sure that you knew they were coming right back to you once it was over.
finding reasons to keep you around. never needing one to open up to you, to just sit and talk to you and laugh with you. trusting you with their faults and giving you reasons to trust them with yours. taking the time to understand you in ways no one else bothered to.
always keeping the door wide open for you.
(never once threatening to close it, even when you were certain that you’ve stepped out of line.)
angel, you can text us anytime.
he meant it. they even wanted you to call them. anytime. whenever you felt like it. and they promised that they’d never get sick of it– of you.
now, with the truth laid bare for you to witness, you’ve come to terms with the fact that nothing would’ve ever made them break that promise. nothing would’ve changed their thoughts on the matter. they would’ve stood with you through everything. especially at your most vulnerable moments in time.
you’ve been so afraid of your heart’s intuition, even though it pointed you to the right direction, to where you fit in between their arms like the final piece of a puzzle that’s evaded you for your entire life.
every moment spent with them, every second of every day with them clinging to you, dragging you back when you tried to pull further away. the time spent in their embrace, the time spent with them speaking softly when you were there, the time spent looking at you like you were something to be treasured.
and– and–
it was all real.
tears blind your vision until the little city lights widened as they blurred until you couldn’t make out the shapes of what was in front of you.
it was all real and it was all true.
it was all real and you didn’t… you couldn’t believe it. you wanted to but you just couldn’t. you had known it for a long time but you denied it for even longer.
they love you. Johnny and Kyle love you.
and they had kept it to themselves. kept this secret as closely as you had guarded your own fragile heart because they were as terrified as you were.
how stupid you’ve been not to see it, to realize how much they cared and tethered themselves to you, knowing you could’ve taken off and never looked back. how selfish you’ve been to even consider running from them and hurting them like that.
god, they must hate you now. they offered you the one thing you’ve been secretly praying for and you spat in their faces with your cowardice.
the door creaks behind you, startling you out of your stupor.
“thought ye’d be here, lass.”
they’re here.
of course they’re here.
you stand from the cement bench on shaky legs. “how did you…”
“security cameras.” Johnny grins. “for a second, we though ye’d left the building.”
“but we just needed to bribe the landlord.” Kyle adds.
both men approach slowly, both with such kind and understanding gazes. both so forgiving of your cowardice, of the hurt you must’ve caused when you took off running out of their home like a bat out of hell.
the cold was of no consequence any longer. it was nothing compared to the warmth of their presence. them being here proved everything you thought you knew about them so woefully wrong. and you’ve thought this might be the first time in your life when you’ve never been so happy to be wrong.
you sniffled. “i’m sorry…”
Kyle shakes his head, reaching for your cheek. “there’s nothing to be sorry for, love.”
his patient smile gutted you. twisted your insides and wrung them out. Johnny side steps him and leans in to kiss the side of your head. and that’s all it takes for you to break all over again.
“i was overwhelmed– i’m sorry–” you blubbered tearfully. “i ran off and– that was so stupid of me–”
“it wasn’t.” they both countered, so certain, so firm in their answer that it grounds the unsteady tremble in your chest.
the truth is you’re still overwhelmed. still overrun with thoughts and emotions that now brought you full circle; right back into their arms. right where you belong.
“we wanted to wait first before telling you because we didn’t want to scare you off.” “you weren’t ready to hear it. but it doesn’t change the fact that we’ve felt this way for a very long time.”
“since the day we met ye, in fact.”
“and it won’t change even if you don’t feel the same and you want to cut ties with us.”
it does not matter how much you tried to stack the odds against their favour. they were never going to allow you to slip through their fingers.
“we love you, angel.”
“we always have and always will.”
it’s final. closing off all doors to any rebuttals. leaving no room for denial.
so this is what love feels like.
grief all comes pouring out of you in waves. it’s endless, it’s vicious. wrecking you from the inside out. your sobs were nothing short of loud, choked gasps that felt like squeezing a wound in your chest, wringing out the years of rot that had taken root in there.
and it hurts. more than anything, it hurt to let it all out and lay it all bare for them to see, to touch. but it felt so good to let it all go. to finally shed the skin that had held you in one place, restrained you as your bones shifted and grew out of your endless suffering.
Johnny and Kyle hold you there so you don’t take off again. you won’t, though you’re tempted to. though your heart is beating so loud, it’s almost all you can hear. they hold you through your painful cries without fear, without judgement or contempt.
they hold you with the love they had so easily given from the very beginning. the very love that had held you down and held you close when you thought you weren’t deserving of anything. the very love that had brightened your bleakest days and coldest nights. the very same love that had filled and woven into pieces of you that were missing and gave you something to look forward to when you previously had nothing.
“let’s go home.” Johnny murmurs into your neck as he and Kyle pull away.
home.
you have a home now.
worked on this since *checks notes* (mutters) holy shit... *looks back to audience with deadpan expression* february of last year.
sleeping with robby for the first time and he’s got you in doggy and his dick is so big that you’re actively trying to crawl away from him but he just start laughing, presses a palm flat between your shoulder blades and pins you down to the bed
I know you said no to writing Pope....but would you ever consider writing for Titus Danforth??
I have nothing classy to say about that man...genuinely, like I woulda been running towards him not away. I wouldn't even know where to start with Titus! Like am I freak enough?
I have been thinking about his "fucking Irish Catholics" line for a hot minute though....
Will we try some Titus?
MDNI
Titus Danforth who is obsessed with the new maid in the Danforth home. How you try to keep out of sight as much as possible...but he can still smell your floral perfume.
Titus Danforth who has never been told no in his life but knows that maids are off limits. The Danforth line is better than that, he can't sully it with some random girl
Titus Danforth who corners you in the library where you're dusting and drags his nose over your neck, inhaling you.
Titus Danforth who sneaks into your room to steal your panties... wrapping them around his thick cock as soon as he gets back to his quarters and spilling into them with hot ropes of cum.
Titus Danforth who tells you to run...and you do, heart racing, terrified of your new boss. But he finds you quickly on the grounds of the family home.
Titus Danforth who rips that pretty little dress off you and shoves his throbbing dick into you and fucks you on a bed of leaves and twigs.
Titus Danforth who keeps you tied to his bed, fucking you over and over. Pressing your legs up to your shoulders to get deeper and deeper into you. He's gonna put a baby in you.
Titus Danforth who is obsessed with seeing his cum leak out of your needy pussy...
Something about alpha!141 becoming free use during omega!reader's heat....
After realizing just how exhausting keeping up with an SAS trained omega is alone, the team came to the agreement of simply...moving in to price's house for the two weeks surrounded the lead up and come down of your heat.
The paperwork comes with, of course, they all still have jobs to do while you're on heat leave. But if you decide to interrupt said paperwork to ride gaz all evening...then that's simply how it is.
An omega with free reign of the home, not confined to a nest...it only feels a little bit like you're hunting them for sport.
Sometimes you end up dragging ghost to the nest all day, sometimes you're hopping between all of them. If you beg real sweetly and push your scent, you can convince gaz and ghost to fuck eachother while you get off on the show.
With the combined efforts of all of them, they can barely scrape by your heat intact. It's fine...you'll repay them when their ruts sync up, after all.
Thinking about ghost who typically hates Halloween, right?
Shocking, considering the guy wears a Halloween decoration everyday, but he hates all the social interaction. Strangers knocking on his door, begging for sweets. He'd rather decorate for a day or two, enjoy his night alone, and call it a day.
So why is he going all-out to try and attract the most trick-or-treaters this year?
Because you're participating this year. You, the single parent across the street who he maybe-kinda wants to invite on a date but hasn't figured out how yet. Thus...decorating. anything to get a conversation started, right?
"Alright sweetie, go ahead and knock," ghost hears your voice across the door. He's been hovering since he spotted you and your daughter three houses down. Three knocks, and he opens the door–
"Trick or treat!!! Guess what I am!!" Your little one squeals, holding her bucket decorated like an acorn up to him.
"Sweetie, you need to wait for treats first–" you try to tell her, knowing she'll get tok disappointed and forget to get candy if the stranger can't guess.
Ghost takes one look at her and nods "proper weevil, innit. Good costume, kid."
"Yes!!! Yes I'm a weevil! You got it right!!" She yells, hopping in place in pure joy, cheeks no-doubt hurting from the force of her smile. Finally, she looks around at his house, then back up at you "can I go look at the big skeleton?"
"Yes, yes, go ahead." You smile at her, checking that no one's waiting. Thin about having little ones is you always beat the Halloween rush. Then, you smile at ghost "thank you. No one's been able to guess her costume, and she was about ready to quit."
"'S a good costume," ghost nods to himself, "she a fan of bugs?"
"Oh, it's all she talks about!" You laugh, that fond laugh all parents have for their children "she's in love with all things crawly."
"....oi've got beetles, if she wants to see 'em."
Which is how a bowl with a hastily scrawled "take one" is left on the porch, meanwhile your daughter is about ready to explode when ghost lets her hold Betty, his Hercules beetle.
"You wouldn't mind if she comes back, would you?" You whisper, both of you stood back while she stares in awe at his centipede enclosure "you're the first person able to keep up with her bug talk."
Ghost smiles. May not be the dinner date he was expecting, but somehow it's better.
gristle | simon riley x reader au | 2.2k words | ao3
mdni
navigate to: part 1 | part 2
part 3 (final)
You squeeze your knees to signal him to release you, though your legs are shaky and coltish without his heft under you, and release your pinching clasp off his arms. You try to take deep, regulating breaths.
Just as you start to turn, face wet and burning, he suddenly presses his entire body against you, suffocating you in against the door.
You finally feel his cock against the swell of your ass. He takes his own deep inhale, mouth and nose shoved against the back of your head, and exhales loudly. It sounds mangled in his throat, and you shut your eyes to soak it up.
When the nerves start pinching at you again — what time is it? what did you just do? — he seems to sense it, and hauls your hands behind the small of your back as you bleat in half-hearted protest. "Stay."
Cheeks burning, you tip your head forward and slam your forehead into the door, not even knowing who you'll see in the rearview mirror in your car later. His grasp leaves your skin, and you obey, keeping your hands clasped at your back like you're politely awaiting arrest. The door doesn't even feel cool against your hot skin.
Behind you, there's shuffling. Scraping. A squeal of sharp against steel. His hands find you again, calming your brain, and then he's got you sat up on a wedge of cleared stainless steel countertop. It's disorienting, face to face; laughable to call yourself an equal in this scenario.
"Cute trousers, these."
You look ahead to what he's getting at. He wants you to take them off. The only scrap of fabric holding your sanity intact at this point. How quickly a little attention has you under this man's boot, ground into dust, no longer yourself.
You take them off and he's going to fuck you. He won't surprise you by going easy on you or delaying it. He's not ripping them off you either, forcing you to bend under him. A simple statement said out loud, dropped into the room, and left to fester.
"They're new."
He laughs, a broken-up brutish thing that rubs you raw. "That right."
You nod. "Can you kiss me again?" You want to feel it at this angle, no height difference with a craned neck.
It's the only time he's looked surprised, but he smirks and it's gone in a flash. "Soft girl." He laughs roughly, then buries himself between your open legs, and sets his large hands high on your waist where it gives you a fresh fall of shivers. His fingers knead your flesh through your thin sleeveless top, nipping in, not gently. He knocks his head to the side and catches your mouth with his, and your eyes flutter closed. His lips are softer this time, malleable and forceful all in one, and he notches you open finally; his tongue entreats yours, and you eagerly accept. His groan meets yours, bullish breath fanning out of your noses, and his hands tighten considerably at your waist.
You slide your hands, timidly at first, from his wrists up his arms — the hair feels sparse in spots, likely burned off from close contact — and bulking biceps, shoulders. You breathe excitedly as you explore up his pillar of a neck to his stubbled face. When they meet the prickly fuzz of his shaved head, you shudder again, running your fingers over and over. Your legs wrap around his waist to the best of your ability with the size difference, hauling him in closer up against you, his sweat smearing against your clothing and skin.
The more you touch and grab and pull at him, his mouth and tongue get more frantic, the lazy and self-satisfied passes chipping away.
You break the kiss, pulling a rude grunt out of him, and grab fistfuls of his damp, sweat-stained t-shirt. His eyes are glassy and dazed, and you think maybe the kiss handed the power back to you somehow.
"God, I want you," he mutters, his head looking suddenly very heavy. He kneads hotly at your sides until you squirm. It's enough of a yes, and your top is being peeled off. Your thin summer bra, discarded with it. "Fuck." You're coated in a fine sheen of sweat in this airless room and he lowers his head more, swiping his large tongue along the underside of your breast where the sweat's pooled. Finishes it with a bite to the fat of you, up to your tightened nipple. He draws it in, sucks, and lets it pop out all in one long harsh pull. His other hand then squeezes the neglected breast, twisting at the nipple experimentally to watch your face for a reaction. Your mouth drops open in a little gasp, and he smirks again.
Power evaporated.
He pushes them up together, cupping in a display just for him, and buries his face. Plants a weird mix of slobbery kisses and bites and suckles across both nipples until he growls frustratedly. "God, you're so fuckin' soft." Almost angry about it.
You know it's coming.
Your squirming, hitching breaths, and damp patch on your pants all tell Simon the story he's been getting you to write this entire time. Minutes ago, a I'm not going to remove my pants has changed to well maybe they can slide down a bit. How easy you went down; no fight at all.
"Simon," you whisper, your voice catching, and he lets a long, snarling groan out hearing it.
It's the yes.
Do it for me. I can't do it myself yet.
"Such a sweet girl, huh. Bein' a bit bad with me like this." He grunts, his hands dropping your breasts and dropping heavy and flat against the tops of your thighs. He rubs them up and down like you're freezing and he needs to warm you up, move the blood back around, like it's not already pumping thick and hot.
When you moan, he smiles tightly, stretching across his face. "Open your mouth."
You expect another kiss.
You get a sudden glob of saliva spat onto your tongue with a satisfied smirk.
"Hold it."
Your eyes bug out, making him laugh low and dark. His spit tastes like beef and cigarettes.
His thick, blunted fingers, nails bitten to the quick, tug at your zipper. He lifts you up so you can shimmy the pants down, lightweight things that flutter down over your feet and onto the dirty floor.
Glazed, hungry eyes latching onto your basic seamless underwear. "You're a sight, love." As if he's returned from war. He sucks in a sharp breath. "So fuckin' pretty. You're gonna ruin me."
His final words are more scorching than his gaze, and you want to hide, shrink away.
A large finger traces your labia through the opaque cotton, and your mouth breaks the spit down, flattening into across your gums and teeth until it fills you up, smoke and meat suffusing you.
"I'm gonna make you feel good again. Lemme do that for you."
You nod.
"That's a love. You're gonna make me feel good too, yeah?"
You nod harder, your thighs clenching around his feather-light fingertip.
"You want some more, love?" You don't need to nod. He fingers your mouth open, spits again, closes it back up. Smears his thumb across the seam of your lips. His head drops down; the scarring continues across his shaved head, breaking up the swaths of shorn hair like circuitry. His other thumb swipes up and down over your clit, and you shudder, grinding your hips against the countertop.
Just his thumb. Pulling your underwear teasingly to the side of your lips then letting it snap back into the crease. He moans appreciatively, a starving man sat down to sup on his feast.
Achingly slow and yet abruptly fast, his own zipper is being pulled down, his hard cock released from the depths. You try to control your reaction, but it looks intimidatingly big and mad about being caged up so long without release. Large and heavy, bobbing up, wet at the throbbing darkened head. Heavy sac. Hairy pillars for thighs. And you with your cunt squished by a pair of underwear squeezing your labia to the side.
He has the same revelation and his expression is far more wicked.
"Put your hand on me, love. Before we start."
Your stomach plummets at those words, like you haven't taken every step here yourself.
A hand droops down between your legs, past the soaked cotton of your underwear, until he's surging into your loosely curled palm and fingers. It feels like a fucking weapon. Your mouth hangs open dumbly, making him laugh, his cock jumping in your tightening grip in response.
"Christ, you got some soft hands there, bird."
He hauls you more forward off the counter, balanced precariously so he can fuck you at a good angle. Then he commandeers his cock out of your hands, setting yours back against the steel surface to rest back a little. Brace yourself.
He sets a thumb down into the wet shallows and drags your liquid up and up, around your clit until you're hissing. "S'good." You both watch as he sets the head of his fat cock up against your plumped lips, and you moan before he's even made contact, like wincing away from a needle before it's even pressed to skin. "Greedy, huh."
Just seeing the way his fingers hold his cock gives you shivers. He brushes up against you to find that sweet, slick glide, and you both make noises then. Your hips shift impatiently without you even meaning to. A smirk, low and dark.
"What if I just tease you like this, eh?" His eyes blink slowly up to yours, watching your face.
You shake your head.
"No?" He presses the head a little further, and you try to clench down on it right as he withdraws just a little. A fucking game of slap hands.
You finally swallow his spit angrily. "No."
"Mmm," he groans at the bite in your voice. His face mirrors yours — eyebrows drawn down tight tight tight, mouth hanging open in anticipation — mockingly, as he pushes deeper. Rocks in an inch, maybe two. Your cunt grabs at him and he gives, releasing a near-whine that seems to surprise him. "Alrigh', alrigh'. Give you what you need."
It's slow, but steady, and you can't keep your eyes off him until he bottoms out, the tops of his thighs meeting the fat of your ass hanging off. "Christ. Fuck me, girl."
You clench harder and he hisses sharp at you. "What, girl? You wan' me to just be done like that? Come in you like a young lad?"
Yes.
You can't even hide it. He sees it on your face and there's another wash of surprise, something he doesn't expect you to want or ask for. "You don't want me to fuck you nice an' slow?"
Head shake, then a full-body shudder when his cock pulls almost all the way out.
"Hm. Nice, sweet girl…maybe you'll just take what I give you, even if it's scraps." His voice is gritty, rubbing raw across your flesh, might as well be a thumb to your clit. "Hungry thing."
Your eyes flutter shut and it's a mercy that he lets you keep them closed as his cock works back into you, harsh and perfect against your soft. You lean back on your hands and instead of focusing on his cock striking true, you smell him. Inhale the stale, grease-laden air with his cigarette smoke and sweat and low-lying body odour working too hard over cheap antiperspirant and cooked meat and onions and everything that should repulse you, should have you marching out that door, but whatever the fuck it is — something chemical and sick — is like a immurement of your own design.
He grabs your ankles and props your feet up onto the edge so he can fuck you without your legs in the way, and you could just collapse back for all you care. You feel the ghost of his thumb over your clit every now and again, but it's as if he has to keep reminding himself not to work your clit; feed you the scraps.
Hungry thing, you do. You clench and pull and work at your own orgasm despite his strokes that aren't really paying attention to how you like it, trying to claw something out of it just for you, and you can practically hear him smirking behind your closed lids.
"You got me fuckin' close, lovie."
You could scream.
"I'm gonna come in this gorgeous fuckin' cunt of yours. You know that?"
Some garbled monstrous noise works it way out of you at that and your hands claw at the countertop ledge for something to grip before he slams you up against the shore.
"Yeah, you do. Dirty fuckin' bird takin' what I give her. Got some bad news for you, lovie. Real bad."
The worst fucking timing to reveal 'bad news' and your eyes fly open wide.
"You're it f' me now."
And then you're shattering up against his jagged rocks — taking what you can get, ripping it with your sharpened teeth, and then baring them like a wild thing.
gristle | simon riley x reader au | 1.3k words | ao3
mdni
navigate to: part 1
part 2
He scrapes stubble against smooth, rubbing against you like it'll reveal something underneath, almost like a cat with its scent glands, marking you. He holds your face still beneath his and does this quietly until your face is moving up with his, mirroring him, trying to find and bring his mouth to yours. Now, you actually are trying to kiss him, your lips finding purchase over his, neck tipped high and yet cupped so firmly by his hands.
His thumbs stroke down over your trachea, running along it to feel the ridges.
He doesn't let you kiss him yet; he teases you away from a full one, even though your mouth is opening to press the wet silk of your tongue against his. He seems to find this funny, especially when a tiny whine gets needled out of you after the third pass.
"Come on," you sigh against him.
"What's that, love?"
"Kiss me."
Oh, his eyes. Danger lurking brightly, luminescent under a filmy veil.
"You want me t' kiss you, hm?"
"Why am I here?" You suddenly break out, pushing at him to no success, feeling a pinch of embarrassment at your cheeks and and eyes and tits and cunt. He's barely left you space to slide off the stool. "I-I gotta go. I'm gonna be late for work."
"Mm, she doesn't like t' be teased, eh."
You don't want to put your hands on him, so you lock your forearm ups in a dukes-up position and push toward his body. "No! I don't." It surprises you by how raw it comes out.
Simon's arms are coming up and his hands are now cupping your face, which would look romantic but for his thick, scuffed elbows resting on your shoulders, nearly weighing you down. He probably looks like he's going to pop your head clean off the rest of your body. "Sweet girl like you. Too soft for those games, eh."
"No." Defensive. Too defensive.
He gives you a humiliatingly knowing smile, almost a mercy. "Yeah. Too soft. Maybe you just wanna feel good, huh." No question mark in the gravelling, thick voice.
You don't answer, you can't, but your thighs squeeze together and he knows.
Gently and slowly, he takes your cross-body bag off, setting it on the counter. Your only barrier. A loud skidding sound and he's dragging the stool away and chucking it behind him, clanging onto the grease-marked floor. "Shut the door."
You pull it closed, or try, but it's got a funny sticking latch that you can't figure out and the longer it takes you, the more embarrassed and inflamed you feel. Then, there's a dark rumble of a chuckle at the back of your neck — god he's so quiet, how the fuck did he get closer in this already-cramped space without you noticing? — and he reaches over you, the curve and sanctuary of his armpit resting on your shoulder damply as he pulls the latch and twists it funny. Cranks it once to test it. You turn your head slightly, and the wave of him pouring off his skin and t-shirt is thicker than the humidity.
You're the type who has sex almost exclusively after showers, and your cunt is throbbing at the acridity of him, that nose-crinkling density of smoke and sweat and grease. He doesn't smell like sex, but he smells like how sex with him might feel. Harsh and staggering and obliterative of anything else but.
"You smellin' me, love?" Fuck, his voice is right there, pressed into the hollow of your ear. He's not touching you anywhere else, but his fingers might as well be in your cunt. A cold shiver runs over you, setting goosebumps across your bare flesh.
You turn your face, shamed, back to the door, staring blankly at some certificate taped up shoddily. Simon Riley, it says his full name. You're not sure it suits him.
His arm presses down harder, and then the other one is doing the same on the other side, until he's got you in some strange MMA-like hold, chin propped closer to the crown of your head than your shoulder. You almost laugh, and then his hands land on the door. Your head, between his locked arms. A dark laugh heating your neck.
A gasp slips out of you when he breaks up your soft summer flats with his steel-toed boots, widening your stance. Then, a heavy knee and thigh are braced between your legs, and all of a sudden, you are pressed against the door. Forehead under the certificate.
"Think she wants t' feel good. Wants me t' take care o' her."
A moan as diaphanous as late summer steam pours out of you, like a teakettle announcing itself.
"Ohhh," he breathes out, ghosting your crown. "I'll take such good care of you," he croons, and then he begins to rock his thigh up until it hits your cunt squarely. Your head punches back, nowhere else to go. Trapped in this cage and rutting against it like an animal desperate for any sort of substance.
"That feel good, love?" He repositions slightly, raises his leg higher until you're lifting off the floor, the slippery soles of your flats scraping gently. As you lose your balance, your tits push out to overcorrect your tipping. "Where you gonna hold on?"
There's nowhere else. You hook your arms up until your fingers curl around the meat of his forearms, holding on tight. Hysterically, you think that it looks like his arms are next going to come down on you like a rollercoaster restraint, the steel band that cages you in and keeps you from falling out.
He shifts his leg back and forth, holding you up. A fucking thigh for a seat.
"There you go."
You breathe out a whining sound.
"Nah, don't be embarrassed. I got you. Y'wanna feel good, use me, love."
It's not the rough texture of his jeans against the thin fabric of your pants. It's not the breadth of him pressing everywhere, nearly hitting every spot under you. It's not his thick, tattooed arms banded on either side of your head, your fingers gripping for dear life.
It's his voice, telling you that. It's his smell, drenching your back, dripping down, way deep down.
It's not embarrassment that stills you. It's the wanting. The sheer intensity of it engulfing you out of the blue.
Your fingernails bite down into his skin and he groans coarsely and that's when you start rocking. A slow measure, testing it out, unsure. He can't see your face. All he knows is your first name. These are the things you hold onto as you start to keen, clamping and unclamping your dangling legs around his, still uncertain that he's got you.
Your hips begin grinding faster, deeper, rocking your clit downward to find the friction, and he works with you now, shifting his thigh exactly so it resists where you need it to, the hard grip of denim making you moan even through two layers of cotton.
"Oh my god."
Despite the strangeness and newness, you are bolting to your orgasm like a wild horse that's been penned in, frantic for the exit, for release.
His stocky arms are holding you up. Damp with exertion, marked up from your fingernails, but steady. His breath is hard and laborious behind you, nearly against you, so fucking close.
"'m taking such good care of you, huh?"
You squeeze your inner thighs and eyes at the same time, clenching everything down to ride him, sweat running through your hair now, down your nape. "Oh, fuck. Oh my god."
"Nah, lemme hear you." And then he bumps his thigh up abruptly, jolting the start of the orgasm through you, as your fingers nearly pry off his arm, so slippery now.
It's a sobbing, breaching orgasm, rushing and hitching out of you, and it feels like you're on a fucking rocking horse, grinding yourself to a screeching finish. You feel a nail break skin but you can't stop the sounds, the words, the onslaught of everything pouring up and out of you —
— under your sounds, his own — sweet thing, s'good, that's fuckin lovely now, feelin' that pretty cunt on me — until you're drenched in tears or sweat or him.
cw/tags: 18+ (eventually). food truck owner simon x reader, eventual sexual content. cis-female reader. unedited.
part 1
Cheapest food truck around. Stuck haphazardly in the middle of a dirty industrial park, tucked between HVAC and roofing buildings. Shit signage — hand-scribbled nonsense that you have to squint at to decipher.
All it — he — serves are burgers and fries ("chips").
His line's long, but you watch him whittle it down with sharp teeth, big fast hands, and a loud barking voice. Thank god, it's so fucking hot out, standing out in the scalding sun with no relief of clouds is your worst idea in awhile. Rumour has it, if you don't answer his first call to grab your order, he gives it to the next customer in line and tells you to fuck off. If you're busy on your phone while trying to order, he shunts you to the back of the line.
You had flipped open the app to check his reviews while you stood in line behind a bunch of workers from the nearby businesses.
buddy needs an attitude check. good food though.
told me to fuck off then gave me the best burger i've ever had. will be back!
absolutely horrible service!!! he's lucky he only charges $5 or else he'd be OUT OF BUSINESS!!
You think there's no way a man like him cares about reviews in the first place. You internally practice your order — literally just 'burger with cheese and extra pickles with fries, please' — as you get closer. Tap at your phone nervously, watching how his looming body fills the order window. He leans over the window frame to hear properly, tilts his right ear down to the customer; his left ear doesn't seem to work as well. When he leans like that, his big tattooed arms press against the counter behind. He bites on his lower lip in concentration when he's listening, eyebrows drawn down tight. He can somehow ignore everyone else around him to focus just on the single person ahead of him at a time.
The two workers in front of you are next up to order and yapping about a job when a third, then fourth buddy call over to them, then melt themselves into the line like they were there all along. You were already on a tight lunch, adding two more orders ahead of yours is going to eat up your time.
It's petty, but you sigh loudly and pointedly.
One of them turns around, uses his height to look down at you disgustedly, and says, "Fuckin' relax."
"Excuse me?" You scoff, heat itching across your face and chest instantly. You glance behind you, but everyone's either glancing down into their phones or chatting with buddies.
"You fuckin' heard me."
"Oi." The voice is like a sudden clap of thunder over your house in the night, startling your whole body awake in a single crack. Your head snaps up, eyes wide, to see the man's arms punched fist-down on the countertop like a silverback, dark flat eyes fixed on the men ahead of you. "Get the fuck outta here."
"C'mon, man," one of them pleads. "S'just a joke."
You have only ever seen the look on the man's face on television before. A predator baring its teeth, dead-still like a stone dropped flat into a stagnant pond. A shudder runs through you as you stare at the men, who're all squawking complaints and fussing like babies.
He whistles so sharply, you press your hands to your ears and wince.
"Don't make me come out there."
You start to drift away, the heat washing over you too intensely to withstand. You don't want to order or be here. You just want to slink back to your car, drive to work around the corner, and grab something from the vending machine to tide you over until the day's done. You're not cut out for confrontation like this, a soft thing that can't take the heat.
"You. C'mere."
Everyone left in line is staring at you, open-mouthed. You want to disappear into the steam of today's heat, evaporate until you're a puff of something that melts away without notice.
His eyes on you. You couldn't possibly prepare yourself for it. Worse than the sun. He chucks his chin to the side, his eyes sliding slowly to tell you to walk around back. You move with shaky, locked-up knees, avoiding everyone's stares, head down. It feels like being sent to the principal's office. Shame and hot frying nerves soak your skin as you slink around the side of the fixed truck, eyes frantically assessing the environment. Dumpster. Broken-down boxes. The typical detritus, you imagine.
And a short set of stairs leading up to the back of the food truck, a door hanging wide open.
"All out f' the day. Fuck off til tomorrow." You hear the man bark, then there's a loud metallic shuttling sound, and when you glance behind you, the tail-end of the line are all throwing their hands up or groaning in frustration, starting to walk off.
Then, the man appears in the doorway and you suddenly think of Leatherface in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre: the bulk of him, the dirty apron knotted at his thick waist, his stomach fat plumped over it, and the eyes that don't move when they land on you.
You hesitate at the bottom of the steps, looking up at him.
"Up y'get." Like a child attempting stairs for the first time.
There's no railing to trail a hand over. You knot your hands on the cross-body bag strap in front of you, wringing it as you step up one by one. The heat is foggy in here, thick and weighty.
"They givin' you trouble?" He walks over to the far end of the truck interior where you can see fryer baskets and crooked stacks of take-out containers. No order notes at all. Must be all in that big head. It's so much darker in here with the order window shuttered closed.
"No…why'd you close up?"
There's a shrug across his hefty, rounded shoulders. His white t-shirt is filthy, the collar ringed with yellowed sweat stains, dried and fresh, long scoops of sweat darkening from his armpits to where his pecs must rest, a unique pattern set-in. The lack of light doesn't give you much of his face, but it's scarred and heavyset, a strong set of mouth and brows.
"How d'ya take it?"
"Pardon?"
"Pardon," he smirks down at the fryer, his body moving smoothly through the motions of pressing a fresh meat patty on the flat-top griddle. The meat steams up toward his serious face.
Why are you here?
"Just…whatever is fine."
You try to find the smallest corner you can occupy in here, unobtrusive. You don't know if he wants you to watch him, but you do anyway. His large arms, full sleeve tattoos curling up into his t-shirt, working diligently on flipping and pressing the patty. A little stack of onions on top, cooked together for a few seconds to melt them together a bit. Bun slathered with whatever he uses here. Melted cheese on top of the meat, over the fried onion. A dribble of liquid down the side of the bun as he delicately places each topping on top. Wrapped into burger paper. Fries pulled from the basket, shaken, salted and something else. Scooped hot and stiff into a take-out container.
He uses a steel-toed boot to pull out a stool that's pushed under the corner counter. Tips his chin up at you. "Sit. Eat."
You tell him your name as you stumble onto the tall, tippy stool, pulling your wide-legged dress pants up. He just grunts in response. "Simon."
Okayyy.
He turns his back and starts to put the little compact kitchen to rights, clanging around. With nothing left to do but eat your burger and fries, you dig in. Tentatively at first, self-conscious sitting here as some strange guest that somehow earned scary food truck guy's full attention and his preferential treatment. Sweat slides down from your neck to spine to ass under your thin office top. You take small bites until the relief of a good lunch melts over your taste buds. It's everything a burger should be: crispy, crunchy, melty, packed with flavour. Nothing fancy or stupid ingredients complicating it. You sigh a little, then jam a few of the hot fries in with a bite of meat. They're spiced with something you can't quite name, and when he finally looks back at you, there's a determinedly puzzled look on your face.
"Summat wrong." Should be a question mark at the end of his words, but no.
"No!" You realize you're hunched like crazy over your container, back molded in a c-shape, and spring back up. "It's so good. I was just wondering what you used on the fries, that's all."
A coarse grunt. Dishes slipped into hot soapy water.
"Turmeric." He mangles the word. "Lawry's." Better.
You savour a fry, trying to parse those out. "State secrets, eh."
"Not tellin' you everythin'. Nosy."
A laugh of surprise huffs out of you. "Oh, I wasn't ask—"
"Just fuckin' with you, bird." He might as well reach out an arm and shake the stool beneath you for how off-centre you makes you.
You let out a puff of nervous laughter. None of the reviews said he pulled me into his food truck and force fed me, so you were shit out of luck on what to do. How to act.
"Cute watchin' you eat all prim." He leans against a stainless steel countertop, some damp raggedy dishcloth folded into the fat of his crossed arms. "Makes me wonder what else you do proper."
Your mouth falls open, a round of tart pickle plopping squarely on your lap. Before you can gather up wits and senses not fizzled out by the heat in the truck and Simon's presence, he advances on you, pulling the shadows of the space with him. His huge arms prop up on either side of the corner counters, triangulating you right inside. Up close, you can see the beaded sweat at his hairline. Behind his ears. Where it's tracked down inside the t-shirt. You wonder what his armpits look like; if the hair there is pressed with moisture and a morning application of antiperspirant. His fingers strum on the stainless steel calmly. Deciding what to do.
Stupidly, you stare up into his eyes. Stupidly, you think of telling him that his eyes look like onions that have been caramelized on a stove for hours.
"You like my food?" Leaning on the muscles of his arms, playing with you, coming down a little to your height.
"Y-yeah," you laugh.
"Like watching you eat it."
The pickle round is soaking through the thigh of your pants. You're going to go back to work smelling like pickle juice and grease and fries. You shift on the stool anxiously.
"Gonna give me a kiss me then?" An old stitch near his lip pulls the corner of his mouth, but it widens further with a smirk. Dark tea-brown eyes flashing.
Your world shrunk down to a claustrophobic corner of a sweating food truck, wedged in by a man three times your size, feeling like you've just surfaced from a pool only to find yourself still underwater. "What?"
Closer, he smells like cigarettes. Coffee. Sweat has your top and pants plastered to your entire backside. It's breaking out on your upper lip. Your breath has shallowed out to thin short pants.
"I'll let you. For bein' so sweet an' cute."
Let you? Let you kiss him?! His audacity won't strike you until much later, unfortunately. Oxygen is low. Heat is swamping.
"Oh."
"C'mon then."
He lowers himself, arms still propped up and out on either side of you, until he's flush with your face. Lets you snap your mouth closed and hover forward on the stool precariously until your lips have pressed firmly over his.
"S'nice. Were I still in Year 6." You pull back and his eyes are nearly electric, how alive he looks, mouth tugged up.
In grade 6, you were a compulsive liar at your new school, desperate to make friends. You bragged that your dad was famous because he travelled all the time for work at a pop company and that was why you had to live with your cousins. You were bug-eyed and scrawny with a huge gap between your teeth. You certainly weren't being kissed like this, or at all. Simon seems like the kid who understood what all the bases meant and showed the other kids porno mags in the forest. Those boys frightened you.
Still do.
Suddenly, he cranks up to his full height. Arms down to his side. Boots wedging the stool in place, big pillar-like thighs covered by a nasty apron pressing into your kneecaps.
You are going to be late back to work.
His hands surprise you by drawing up your neck, setting loose a big shiver that you can't hide, and cupping you there. Large hands, damp with soapy water or grease or something else altogether. His thumbs make little circles on your jawline as he manipulates your face to tilt up toward him, and you realize then, with crystalline and unnerving certainty, you have never been kissed properly before this moment.
His fingertips curl around the tops of your ears, bumping over the flatbacks of your piercings, rounding out the cartilage and bone under his mapping.
Kisses that made you smile, kisses that melted into foreplay or sex, goodbye kisses with no eye contact. Lots in between.
But a kiss that demands nothing else of you except your eyes on the other person, watching them begin to dismantle you.
cw/tags: 18+ (eventually). food truck owner simon x reader, eventual sexual content. cis-female reader. unedited.
part 1
Cheapest food truck around. Stuck haphazardly in the middle of a dirty industrial park, tucked between HVAC and roofing buildings. Shit signage — hand-scribbled nonsense that you have to squint at to decipher.
All it — he — serves are burgers and fries ("chips").
His line's long, but you watch him whittle it down with sharp teeth, big fast hands, and a loud barking voice. Thank god, it's so fucking hot out, standing out in the scalding sun with no relief of clouds is your worst idea in awhile. Rumour has it, if you don't answer his first call to grab your order, he gives it to the next customer in line and tells you to fuck off. If you're busy on your phone while trying to order, he shunts you to the back of the line.
You had flipped open the app to check his reviews while you stood in line behind a bunch of workers from the nearby businesses.
buddy needs an attitude check. good food though.
told me to fuck off then gave me the best burger i've ever had. will be back!
absolutely horrible service!!! he's lucky he only charges $5 or else he'd be OUT OF BUSINESS!!
You think there's no way a man like him cares about reviews in the first place. You internally practice your order — literally just 'burger with cheese and extra pickles with fries, please' — as you get closer. Tap at your phone nervously, watching how his looming body fills the order window. He leans over the window frame to hear properly, tilts his right ear down to the customer; his left ear doesn't seem to work as well. When he leans like that, his big tattooed arms press against the counter behind. He bites on his lower lip in concentration when he's listening, eyebrows drawn down tight. He can somehow ignore everyone else around him to focus just on the single person ahead of him at a time.
The two workers in front of you are next up to order and yapping about a job when a third, then fourth buddy call over to them, then melt themselves into the line like they were there all along. You were already on a tight lunch, adding two more orders ahead of yours is going to eat up your time.
It's petty, but you sigh loudly and pointedly.
One of them turns around, uses his height to look down at you disgustedly, and says, "Fuckin' relax."
"Excuse me?" You scoff, heat itching across your face and chest instantly. You glance behind you, but everyone's either glancing down into their phones or chatting with buddies.
"You fuckin' heard me."
"Oi." The voice is like a sudden clap of thunder over your house in the night, startling your whole body awake in a single crack. Your head snaps up, eyes wide, to see the man's arms punched fist-down on the countertop like a silverback, dark flat eyes fixed on the men ahead of you. "Get the fuck outta here."
"C'mon, man," one of them pleads. "S'just a joke."
You have only ever seen the look on the man's face on television before. A predator baring its teeth, dead-still like a stone dropped flat into a stagnant pond. A shudder runs through you as you stare at the men, who're all squawking complaints and fussing like babies.
He whistles so sharply, you press your hands to your ears and wince.
"Don't make me come out there."
You start to drift away, the heat washing over you too intensely to withstand. You don't want to order or be here. You just want to slink back to your car, drive to work around the corner, and grab something from the vending machine to tide you over until the day's done. You're not cut out for confrontation like this, a soft thing that can't take the heat.
"You. C'mere."
Everyone left in line is staring at you, open-mouthed. You want to disappear into the steam of today's heat, evaporate until you're a puff of something that melts away without notice.
His eyes on you. You couldn't possibly prepare yourself for it. Worse than the sun. He chucks his chin to the side, his eyes sliding slowly to tell you to walk around back. You move with shaky, locked-up knees, avoiding everyone's stares, head down. It feels like being sent to the principal's office. Shame and hot frying nerves soak your skin as you slink around the side of the fixed truck, eyes frantically assessing the environment. Dumpster. Broken-down boxes. The typical detritus, you imagine.
And a short set of stairs leading up to the back of the food truck, a door hanging wide open.
"All out f' the day. Fuck off til tomorrow." You hear the man bark, then there's a loud metallic shuttling sound, and when you glance behind you, the tail-end of the line are all throwing their hands up or groaning in frustration, starting to walk off.
Then, the man appears in the doorway and you suddenly think of Leatherface in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre: the bulk of him, the dirty apron knotted at his thick waist, his stomach fat plumped over it, and the eyes that don't move when they land on you.
You hesitate at the bottom of the steps, looking up at him.
"Up y'get." Like a child attempting stairs for the first time.
There's no railing to trail a hand over. You knot your hands on the cross-body bag strap in front of you, wringing it as you step up one by one. The heat is foggy in here, thick and weighty.
"They givin' you trouble?" He walks over to the far end of the truck interior where you can see fryer baskets and crooked stacks of take-out containers. No order notes at all. Must be all in that big head. It's so much darker in here with the order window shuttered closed.
"No…why'd you close up?"
There's a shrug across his hefty, rounded shoulders. His white t-shirt is filthy, the collar ringed with yellowed sweat stains, dried and fresh, long scoops of sweat darkening from his armpits to where his pecs must rest, a unique pattern set-in. The lack of light doesn't give you much of his face, but it's scarred and heavyset, a strong set of mouth and brows.
"How d'ya take it?"
"Pardon?"
"Pardon," he smirks down at the fryer, his body moving smoothly through the motions of pressing a fresh meat patty on the flat-top griddle. The meat steams up toward his serious face.
Why are you here?
"Just…whatever is fine."
You try to find the smallest corner you can occupy in here, unobtrusive. You don't know if he wants you to watch him, but you do anyway. His large arms, full sleeve tattoos curling up into his t-shirt, working diligently on flipping and pressing the patty. A little stack of onions on top, cooked together for a few seconds to melt them together a bit. Bun slathered with whatever he uses here. Melted cheese on top of the meat, over the fried onion. A dribble of liquid down the side of the bun as he delicately places each topping on top. Wrapped into burger paper. Fries pulled from the basket, shaken, salted and something else. Scooped hot and stiff into a take-out container.
He uses a steel-toed boot to pull out a stool that's pushed under the corner counter. Tips his chin up at you. "Sit. Eat."
You tell him your name as you stumble onto the tall, tippy stool, pulling your wide-legged dress pants up. He just grunts in response. "Simon."
Okayyy.
He turns his back and starts to put the little compact kitchen to rights, clanging around. With nothing left to do but eat your burger and fries, you dig in. Tentatively at first, self-conscious sitting here as some strange guest that somehow earned scary food truck guy's full attention and his preferential treatment. Sweat slides down from your neck to spine to ass under your thin office top. You take small bites until the relief of a good lunch melts over your taste buds. It's everything a burger should be: crispy, crunchy, melty, packed with flavour. Nothing fancy or stupid ingredients complicating it. You sigh a little, then jam a few of the hot fries in with a bite of meat. They're spiced with something you can't quite name, and when he finally looks back at you, there's a determinedly puzzled look on your face.
"Summat wrong." Should be a question mark at the end of his words, but no.
"No!" You realize you're hunched like crazy over your container, back molded in a c-shape, and spring back up. "It's so good. I was just wondering what you used on the fries, that's all."
A coarse grunt. Dishes slipped into hot soapy water.
"Turmeric." He mangles the word. "Lawry's." Better.
You savour a fry, trying to parse those out. "State secrets, eh."
"Not tellin' you everythin'. Nosy."
A laugh of surprise huffs out of you. "Oh, I wasn't ask—"
"Just fuckin' with you, bird." He might as well reach out an arm and shake the stool beneath you for how off-centre you makes you.
You let out a puff of nervous laughter. None of the reviews said he pulled me into his food truck and force fed me, so you were shit out of luck on what to do. How to act.
"Cute watchin' you eat all prim." He leans against a stainless steel countertop, some damp raggedy dishcloth folded into the fat of his crossed arms. "Makes me wonder what else you do proper."
Your mouth falls open, a round of tart pickle plopping squarely on your lap. Before you can gather up wits and senses not fizzled out by the heat in the truck and Simon's presence, he advances on you, pulling the shadows of the space with him. His huge arms prop up on either side of the corner counters, triangulating you right inside. Up close, you can see the beaded sweat at his hairline. Behind his ears. Where it's tracked down inside the t-shirt. You wonder what his armpits look like; if the hair there is pressed with moisture and a morning application of antiperspirant. His fingers strum on the stainless steel calmly. Deciding what to do.
Stupidly, you stare up into his eyes. Stupidly, you think of telling him that his eyes look like onions that have been caramelized on a stove for hours.
"You like my food?" Leaning on the muscles of his arms, playing with you, coming down a little to your height.
"Y-yeah," you laugh.
"Like watching you eat it."
The pickle round is soaking through the thigh of your pants. You're going to go back to work smelling like pickle juice and grease and fries. You shift on the stool anxiously.
"Gonna give me a kiss me then?" An old stitch near his lip pulls the corner of his mouth, but it widens further with a smirk. Dark tea-brown eyes flashing.
Your world shrunk down to a claustrophobic corner of a sweating food truck, wedged in by a man three times your size, feeling like you've just surfaced from a pool only to find yourself still underwater. "What?"
Closer, he smells like cigarettes. Coffee. Sweat has your top and pants plastered to your entire backside. It's breaking out on your upper lip. Your breath has shallowed out to thin short pants.
"I'll let you. For bein' so sweet an' cute."
Let you? Let you kiss him?! His audacity won't strike you until much later, unfortunately. Oxygen is low. Heat is swamping.
"Oh."
"C'mon then."
He lowers himself, arms still propped up and out on either side of you, until he's flush with your face. Lets you snap your mouth closed and hover forward on the stool precariously until your lips have pressed firmly over his.
"S'nice. Were I still in Year 6." You pull back and his eyes are nearly electric, how alive he looks, mouth tugged up.
In grade 6, you were a compulsive liar at your new school, desperate to make friends. You bragged that your dad was famous because he travelled all the time for work at a pop company and that was why you had to live with your cousins. You were bug-eyed and scrawny with a huge gap between your teeth. You certainly weren't being kissed like this, or at all. Simon seems like the kid who understood what all the bases meant and showed the other kids porno mags in the forest. Those boys frightened you.
Still do.
Suddenly, he cranks up to his full height. Arms down to his side. Boots wedging the stool in place, big pillar-like thighs covered by a nasty apron pressing into your kneecaps.
You are going to be late back to work.
His hands surprise you by drawing up your neck, setting loose a big shiver that you can't hide, and cupping you there. Large hands, damp with soapy water or grease or something else altogether. His thumbs make little circles on your jawline as he manipulates your face to tilt up toward him, and you realize then, with crystalline and unnerving certainty, you have never been kissed properly before this moment.
His fingertips curl around the tops of your ears, bumping over the flatbacks of your piercings, rounding out the cartilage and bone under his mapping.
Kisses that made you smile, kisses that melted into foreplay or sex, goodbye kisses with no eye contact. Lots in between.
But a kiss that demands nothing else of you except your eyes on the other person, watching them begin to dismantle you.
would actually love to not be bothered by things however nazely being used to uplift whitaker and make him look wise and smart when both of these interns have been there for four days is still so fascinating to me. you're telling me this girl couldn't figure out a magnet and so then they just decide to add another scoop onto whitaker having an unrealistic amount of independence, workload and trust from his superiors schtick. and make her look stupid for that specific sake. like i could actually turn into smoke it was so uneccesary
Post-TBI!Johnny who turns to art to cope and convinces you to model for him because you’ve got an interesting face, hen. Interesting bones. Something in the slope of your shoulders and the set of your mouth that makes his fingers twitch for charcoal, makes him stare at you, want to see what’s buried beneath your skin.
It should make you uncomfortable
(Maybe it does. Maybe you should’ve listened to that thin little alarm trembling at the back of your skull, but hindsight has always been cruel like that, arriving only after the door has closed, after the lock has turned, after you’ve already mistaken hunger for reverence. And nobody has ever looked at you the way he’s looking now-)
Ach, dinnae look at me like that. It’s only art.
He lays it on thick-
Tells you he’s been stuck for months. That nothing’s moved him. That he’d started thinking there was something dead inside him until he saw you standing beneath the washed out lights of a corner shop, fumbling with your change.
Then there ye were.
So you agree.
Just once, you tell him. A few hours. Fully clothed.
Course, bonnie. Agrees too easily, bobbing his head, boyish grin sliding onto his face to ease your nerves. Whatever makes ye comfortable.
The studio is warmer than you expect. Old brick. Tall windows dripping with rain. Canvases stacked against every wall, most of them turned backward, their painted faces hidden from you. It smells of linseed oil and damp wood and (- the sharp stench of a cave where things lie nestled in the dark with sharp teeth and sharper claws, maw dripping with hunger for every unsuspecting little thing that crosses in front of it’s eyes, too close too see the danger until its dragging them across stone floor- )
(And you’ll think about those canvases later. About how each one had been carefully turned toward the wall before you arrived, how easy it had been to assume this was modesty instead of concealment. Artists are strange, you’d thought. Private about unfinished things. You hadn’t yet considered that there might be things Johnny didn’t want looking back at you.)
Johnny puts you in an oversized white shirt (‘s mine, Bonnie, but ye can borrow it- ), says the fabric catches shadow better. Leaves your own clothes folded on a chair near the door (- farther away than they need to be- ) and settles you on a low platform beneath the windows, your knees drawn loosely beneath you, one hand resting against your throat.
The first few minutes pass in silence.
Charcoal scratching.
Rain needling softly against the glass.
Johnny looking at you, baby blue traveling slowly, steadily, returning to the same places over and over- the soft inside of your wrist, the hollow beneath your throat, the place where the shirt slips away from one shoulder whenever you breathe too deeply.
You try to hold still, but your back starts to ache. Your fingers curl against your collarbone. Each time Johnny looks up, you remember you’re being watched and flinch, shoulders rising, knees pressing closer together, chin sinking protectively toward your chest, too stiff.
His charcoal stills.
You apologize.
Ach, dinnae apologize. He smiles when he says it, but something in his expression stays still. His mouth curves. The rest of him doesn’t.
Ye keep foldin’ in on yourself every time I look at ye. Ahm not goin’ tae eat ye.
It’s too perceptive and your laugh comes out smaller than you meant it to. Johnny’s gaze sharpens at the sound, charcoal held motionless between fingers stained black nearly to the knuckle. He sets the charcoal on the easel tray and walks toward you, wiping blackened fingertips against his trousers.
His hands settle on your shoulders and press them down, thumbs sweeping slowly along the tight muscles beside your neck, working circles into the ache until your head tips forward despite yourself.
(That should’ve frightened you too, perhaps, the ease with which he found the softest part of you and pressed his thumb into it. But cruelty rarely introduces itself as cruelty.)
Can feel ye fightin’ me, he murmurs.
You tell him you’re only nervous.
I know, hen.
His mouth brushes close to your ear when he says it- That’s the problem-
You’ve never done anything like this before. Never sat beneath someone’s attention and been expected to let them take whatever they saw.
Johnny hums.
- Got somethin’ that might help-
He leaves you there and crosses to a cabinet near the sink. The bottle he brings back is already open. Red wine, dark enough to look black where it gathers in the bottom of the glass.
He pours while you watch, the glass filling nearly to the widest part before he seems to remember himself and stops.
You tell him that’s more than a little.
Is it?
The dimples appear.
Scottish measure.
You laugh despite yourself, and that seems to please him. He passes you the glass, waits until your fingers close around the stem, then returns to the easel as though the matter is settled.
It’s sweeter than you expect.
Dark fruit and spice, something thick and jammy that clings to your tongue after you swallow. It warms your stomach on the way down and then sits there, a small red coal beneath your ribs, heavy in your stomach, spreading outward in a slow bloom that reaches your fingertips first.
Johnny starts drawing again once you drink, charcoal moving with renewed purpose, and each time you begin to tense beneath his gaze, he tips his chin toward the glass.
You obey because you don’t want to be difficult (- not after he told you that you were the first beautiful thing he’d wanted to draw in months. Pride and vanity always did come before the fall-)
The first glass disappears without you noticing.
Johnny refills it.
You watch the wine climb the crystal, a dark red tide swallowing the clean sides. He pours generously this time, his wrist turning until the glass is almost full.
Johnny-
Ye’re still wound tight.
He presses the glass back into your hand, cups the base and tips it toward your mouth, red wine spilling over your lower lip, a thin ribbon escaping the corner of your mouth to trail down your chin- Swallow, hen, that’s it, good girl- thumb catching the crimson streak on your chin, smearing it gently across your swollen mouth, bringing his thumb to his own lips and dragging his tongue slowly over the wine stained pad, his gaze still fixed on your (- tasting one thing and thinking of another entirely- )
The room softens, hard corners of the platform blurring, rain beyond the glass stretches into silver threads. Johnny’s face becomes something painted in oils- dark lashes, blue eyes, the warm cut of his mouth- each feature bleeding gently into the next whenever you look too quickly.
(You’ll try to remember how many times he filled the glass after that. You’ll count backward later and find nothing solid enough to hold. One glass becomes two only because you remember him pouring. Two becomes three because the bottle was lower when you finally noticed it again. Memory is unreliable even when sober; drunk, it becomes something else entirely)
Your thoughts begin losing their edges.
That’s the strangest part.
Not the warmth or the heaviness gathering behind your eyes, but the way one thought stops connecting cleanly to the next. You think you should check the time, but the idea floats away before you remember where you left your phone. You think you’re thirsty, although there’s still wine in your hand. You think Johnny has been staring too long, but then he smiles and the concern dissolves before it can settle into fear.
Your brain turns liquid. Loose.
Everything inside your skull has melted into something warm and buoyant, thoughts drifting past one another like pale shapes beneath dark water. You can see them. Almost touch them. But each time you reach for one, the motion sends it farther away.
The warmth moves deeper with each glass. Into your thighs. Your cheeks. The soft tissue behind your eyes.
Nothing has edges anymore. Johnny’s charcoal scratches from very far away, scraping down the back of your mind.
You take another sip.
Your tongue feels too large for your mouth.
The wine sits syrup thick in your veins, turning your body slow and porous. You can feel yourself dissolving from the inside, bones losing their hard white calcifications, thoughts melting down into something warm and red and viscous. Your mind becomes a glass overturned on its side, everything inside it pouring lazily toward the lowest point.
Johnny tells you to lift your chin and it takes you a moment to understand him.
Your head feels full of warm red water. Too heavy for your neck, too light to belong to your body. When you turn toward him, the studio follows a moment later, swaying gently around its fixed point. Your stomach seems to remain behind while the rest of you drifts forward.
Johnny smiles. Feelin’ better?
Mmm. Floaty.
The word leaves your mouth thick and childish. You hear yourself say it from somewhere above the platform and start laughing, embarrassed by the way your tongue seems to have grown too large for your teeth.
Floaty, he repeats. Aye, I can see that.
The glass slips sideways in your hand when you try to lift it again, wine cresting the rim, pouring over your fingers in a slow, dark sheet, slipping between your knuckles and tracing along the inside of your wrist. You make a startled little sound at the coldness that breaks apart into a thousand shards against the brick of the walls.
Johnny catches the stem before it can tumble from your loose fingers- careful, hen- and you try to straighten it but some how make it worse. Another red thread spills across your palm, and your laughter returns, thick and breathless, your head bowing beneath the weight of it.
Can’t hold it, you confess.
Johnny looks at your hand.
His smile doesn’t disappear, the warmth staying arranged across his face, but everything behind it grows watchful and still, his gaze following the wine as it crawls toward the soft bend of your elbow.
Aye, he murmurs. I can see that.
He takes the glass from you and places it beyond your reach.
Then he closes his hand around your wrist.
(There are moments when the body understands before the mind does. A pulse quickening beneath someone’s thumb. Fingers curling uselessly toward the palm. Some small animal instinct lifting its head inside you and finding every door already underwater. Yours tries to warn you now, but the wine has made a soft, red grave of your thoughts, and whatever is screaming has sunk too deep to be heard.)
Johnny raises your hand slowly, turns your wrist upward and studies the dark streaks shining there as though you’ve offered him something.
His tongue touches the center of your palm.
Tickles, you mumble, trying weakly to pull your hand back.
Johnny doesn’t let you, fingers tighten around your wrist, dragging his tongue between two of your fingers, gathering the wine with slow, deliberate strokes, his eyes lifted to your face the entire time, stubble scraping your skin, your head tipping drunkenly toward one shoulder while he follows the spill downward. His mouth moves over the heel of your hand, then the tender inside of your wrist, tongue tracing the dark path until it reaches the quick beat of your pulse.
Johnny, you breathe, his name breaking apart around another shy (nervous) giggle.
Shh.
His lips close over the fluttering place beneath your skin, sucking gently at the flesh, and the laughter catches strangely in your throat.
For a second, the floating stops.
Your eyes find his. There’s no boyish embarrassment there now. No artist’s wonder. Only concentration, calm and proprietary, as if he’s discovered the precise place where you’re weakest and is committing it to memory.
Then the room tips again.
The fear slips away before you can name it.
Johnny lifts his mouth from your wrist. A faint red stain shines across his lower lip, though you can’t tell whether it’s wine or the shape of his teeth pressed too hard against your skin.
Couldnae leave ye all messy, he murmurs.
You smile at him, heavy eyed and grateful.
(That smile will return to you later. Not his. Yours. The soft, trusting curve of your own mouth while he held your pulse between his teeth, already learning how much he could take, could take, could take before you’d realize something was missing- )
His hand slides behind your neck when your head lists toward one shoulder, catching you with a palm spanning the base of your skull, fingers sinking into the soft place beneath your hair, and the strength of him feels like a pillar rising from the black water at the exact moment your feet stop finding the bottom.
You lean into him, body pouring toward the nearest solid thing with the blind obedience of water finding a crack.
(That’s the part you’ll hate most afterward. Not the touch itself, but the relief. The soft, grateful sound your throat makes when he holds your head up for you. The way your body, stupid animal that it is, mistakes restraint for shelter because the room has become a dark and gently turning sea, and Johnny- Johnny, who tipped the bottle into your mouth, who stood on the shore and watched the red water climb over your face- feels like the only thing left that won’t move beneath your hands.)
Can barely hold yourself up, can ye?
There’s laughter curled inside his voice. Warmth too. Enough warmth to blunt the edge of it, enough tenderness painted over the words that you don’t see the teeth beneath until much later, when you’re sober enough to pick each moment apart and find where the sweetness spoiled.
You mumble that you’re fine, word coming loose and swollen, a soft little shape that collapses against his chest before it properly leaves your mouth.
Course ye are.
His thumb moves behind your ear, slow enough to feel fond, presses into the tender hollow there and draws a circle, then another, while your thoughts slosh heavily from one side of your skull to the other.
Jus’ need a wee bit of help holdin’ the pose.
He reaches past you.
Something drags from the shelves, whisper of fibres over unfinished wood, dry and soft, the sound stretching strangely inside your head, unspooling through the wine until it becomes the scrape of something moving beneath a bed, the hush of grass parting around a body.
When Johnny settles back into view, there’s a pale coil resting in one charcoal stained hand.
You stare at it.
The meaning is there- somewhere- can feel it beneath the surface, pressing upward through the wine. But your thoughts are no longer thoughts, drifting pieces of them, each one separating when you reach, each one slipping wetly through your fingers before you can force it into words.
What’s that for?
The question sounds very far away.
Johnny looks at the rope, then at you.
You.
He says it so easily that you blink up at him, chin hooked against the hard planes of his abdomen.
Then his grin breaks wide, dimples cutting deep enough to make the answer harmless again.
The pose, hen. It’s for the pose.
He kneels beside you and takes your wrist, winding the rope around your skin once, then twice, explaining tension and composition and the body’s instinct to protect itself when it tires.
Always curls inward, he murmurs, thumb smoothing the inside of your wrist. Always tries tae hide the soft parts.
You watch his fingers move.
Over.
Under.
Through.
Cream colored rope, the shade of old lace or clean bone, pretty where it crosses your skin, fibres blurring at the edges when your eyes lose focus, becoming something delicate, ornamental. A bracelet. A ribbon. (Gift-wrapped and hand delivered-)
Johnny-
Too tight?
You don’t know.
You should know. The answer ought to exist inside your own head, but your body has gone dim and distant, a house seen through fogged glass. There’s pressure around your wrist. Heat beneath it. A pulse knocking weakly against the rope like someone trapped behind a wall.
Johnny slides one finger under the knot, fingertip stroking over your pulse while he looks up at you, eyes bright and attentive.
Wouldnae hurt ye.
You nod because he sounds so certain and rational thought is a stone tied to your ankle asking you to climb through red waters.
He binds the other wrist before you understand that the first one is finished. Lifts both arms above your head, and your body follows with a slow, boneless obedience that makes him smile. The stretch pulls through your shoulders, arches your back, tits pushing at the fabric of his shirt, body bent sharp enough to split the soft haze for half a second, and a whimper escapes before you can swallow it.
Shh. Easy, bonnie.
His hand slides down your arms, your sides, soothing the hurt he created, and the wine rushes back into the space pain briefly cleared. Warm. Heavy. Merciful.
He secures the rope to an iron ring sunk into the studio floor.
You hadn’t noticed the rings before.
There’s one near either side of the platform, black metal half hidden beneath old paint and dust. More beside the mattress in the shadowed corner, arranged at careful distances from one another.
The pattern should mean something.
(It does mean something.)
Your gaze catches on them and then drifts helplessly away.
(Fear needs a body that answers when called, and yours has become warm wax beneath his hands, softening wherever he presses, cooling around whatever shape he leaves behind.)
Your legs are next.
He cups one ankle and draws it outward. Then the other. Your heels drag over the platform with a soft rasp, your knees falling apart beneath the loose white shirt. The fabric slips higher along your thighs, and the first clean spark of alarm pierces the drunken fog when you try to close them again.
Johnny feels the resistance and his hands stop on your thighs, heat from his palms sinking into you until you can feel his fingerprints burning their marks into your bones.
Easy.
The word is quiet. Almost kind.
You shake your head, but the motion tips the ceiling sideways. The windows pour rain upward. Johnny’s face splits into two softened versions of itself, then swims back together as nausea rolls lazily beneath your ribs.
I don’t-
The sentence knots behind your teeth.
Don’t what?
The words are all there, drifting separately through the dark, but you can’t gather them into the same mouthful.
Johnny leans closer- what was that, doe- gives you every appearance of listening, eyebrows drawn with concern, mouth softened at the corners.
You try again.
Your tongue feels soaked through. Heavy as nebula, the sounds smearing against one another until even you can’t tell what you meant to say.
Johnny waits, watches the effort drain out of your face and only then strokes both hands down your thighs.
Thought so.
The ropes tighten around your wrists. Your ankles. A careful loop above your knee when your leg keeps listing inward, another where the position pleases him but your body won’t hold it on its own.
His hands guide the white shirt higher whenever it catches beneath you.
It’ll wrinkle, hen-
A little farther-
Hold still-
The fabric gathers in pale folds until it rests beneath the curve of your breasts, baring the plane of your stomach, the flare of your hips, your soft, silky cunt he has spread open for himself. His thumbs stroke once along the crease where thigh meets hip, pressing into the give of flesh (- as though he is already imagining how it will feel when he is between them- )
He looks at what he has done and the boyish grin is gone. What remains is quieter. Hungrier. His eyes move over you like he is deciding which part to taste first.
There we are, he murmurs. Much better.
You drift.
Fear is still there, but it has risen above you now, trapped on the other side of the wine. You can see its shadow crossing the surface while you float beneath it, black and frantic and distorted by the red water between you. Your shoulders ache. Your wrists burn dully where the rope takes your weight. Your legs are held apart by pale fibres and Johnny’s careful arrangement, but the body enduring it feels impossibly far away.
A figure at the bottom of a lake.
A pale thing laid open in the silt.
You’re near the ceiling. You’re inside the rain crawling down the glass. You’re suspended somewhere behind your own eyes, watching a woman in a white shirt test the ropes with small, weak movements she won’t remember making.
She looks frightened.
You wonder why she doesn’t leave.
(Drunkenness makes a cruelty of distance. It lets you watch yourself suffer without understanding that you’re the one inside the body. Lets the mind climb out through a crack in the skull and hover somewhere clean while the flesh remains below, warm and obedient and available. It feels almost like escape until you realize Johnny can still touch what you’ve left behind.)
Christ.
The reverence in his voice draws your gaze back to him.
He’s looking at you, eyes moving slowly over your arms lifted and secured, your knees drawn apart, the shirt bunched high where his hands kept moving it, pausing at each point of strain as if pain is another line he’s finally managed to place correctly.
Something in his face has gone still, colder than lust. The deep and emptied devotion of a man standing before an altar built for a god that cannot refuse him now.
There ye are, he whispers, as if you’d been hidden from him, as if the rope has finally uncovered something true.
Then he crosses to the studio door and you follow him with your eyes slowly, the room dragging several seconds behind his body.
Johnny turns the lock and the click enters your head like a stone dropped into deep water. He slides the bolt into place and the sound travels down through the wine and settles somewhere beneath your heart, where the part of you that still understands begins, very quietly, to drown.
Then his hip catches the corner of a canvas on the way back.
It happens slowly from where you’re floating. The frame tips away from the wall, knocks against the one beside it, and then the whole uneven stack begins to slide. Wood scraping brick. Canvas whispering against canvas. Johnny swears beneath his breath and reaches for them, but they have already fallen face up across the floor.
And…
There you are.
Your face.
You blink at it, wondering for a syrupy moment whether it’s the sketch he’s just made, though the woman in the painting is wearing your green coat from last autumn. Her hair is damp, cheek tucked into the collar against the rain. She’s standing beneath the yellow shelter at the bus stop near your work, eyes lowered toward the phone cupped between her hands.
Another canvas has you carrying groceries against your chest. The paper bag splitting at the bottom, oranges bright through the tear, your mouth caught open in a laugh you don’t remember giving him.
Another-
you behind the steamed glass of the little cafe on Bell Street, both hands curled around a mug. There are Christmas lights reflected over your face. Red and gold smears threaded through your hair like something festive and burning.
That’s me, you say.
Or think you say.
(There’s a truth arranged across the floor in front of you, patient and chronological. Months of it. Seasons of it. Proof painted in oils and hidden with its face toward the wall, waiting for the moment when you could no longer count backward clearly enough to understand what you were seeing. But your brain has become a red tide inside your skull, and recognition is a small animal trying to swim through it. You watch its paws break the surface once. Then it sinks.)
When did you- ?
The question dissolves halfway out.
Johnny crouches and turns the first canvas over, handles them gently. (More gently than he’s handled you.) Checks the corners for damage, thumb brushing dust from your painted cheek before he hides it against the wall again.
Clumsy bastard, he mutters.
You stare at the remaining portrait. The one at the corner shop. Washed out lights. Coins scattered across your palm. Your face turned slightly to the side as if someone has just called your name.
- The moment he told you about-
- The first time he saw you-
Except the painting of you at the summer festival last year is underneath it.
Your eyebrows pull together and the thought almost forms.
Johnny looks over his shoulder and sees you struggling there and his expression softens.
Dinnae hurt yourself, hen.
He rises, steps over the paintings and comes back to you. One blackened fingertip presses between your brows, smoothing the crease away as though confusion is another flaw in the pose.
Ye’re thinkin’ too hard.
You try to tell him there are paintings of you. You try to ask how long.
You try to but the words leave your mouth sodden and misshapen, each syllable dragging another behind it until the sentence reaches him as little more than a murmur, the beginning falling away before you reach the end.
Johnny understands anyway. (He always seems to understand you when it suits him.)
He watches your mouth with that same fond concentration he wore while sketching (the patient attention of a man waiting for something soft to finish struggling) then glances toward the canvases he hasn’t managed to turn over.
Did tell ye I’d been stuck for months.
The dimples sink deep.
Never said how long I’ve been working since then.
You look back at the paintings.
The woman beneath the bus shelter has your green coat buttoned neatly with a button that broke last September. The woman at the cafe is holding the chipped blue mug they stopped using sometime around Christmas. Another version of you is walking beneath trees still fat with summer leaves, bare legs flashing beneath a dress buried now at the bottom of your wardrobe.
Your mind touches the sequence and recoils, but there’s nowhere for the thought to go. The wine has flooded every corridor inside your skull, filled every room up to the ceiling. Understanding swims toward you through it- slow, pale, terrible- but each time it comes close enough to recognize, the current rolls you gently away.
Something cold opens inside you, but the wine pours into it before it can become fear. It fills every clean edge, rounds everything off, turns horror into a distant pressure beneath the sternum. Johnny strokes your cheek and waits until your eyes lose focus again.
(He hadn’t found you beneath the lights of the corner shop tonight. Not in the way he’d made it sound, not like lightning or providence or some dead part of him suddenly shocked back into motion. He’d already known which bus carried you home. Which cafe you preferred. What store you used. He’d watched summer soften into autumn around you, watched autumn die into winter, and called it inspiration because obsession sounds beautiful when an artist says it.)
Johnny collects the last canvas and turns it toward the wall and your painted face disappears.
There, he murmurs. Nothin’ tae worry about.
He comes back to you slowly, hands settling on your thighs, hot enough to feel like brands through the wine heavy numbness, heat sinking in around the breadth of his palms and the effortless weight keeping you where he put you.
You shake your head.
Or perhaps it only falls weakly to one side.
Johnny’s mouth brushes your trembling knee, almost gentle, while his thumbs draw slow circles against your skin.
Easy, hen.
You try to tell him you want to go home but all that emerges is a broken little breath.
He lifts his head and watches you struggle to assemble the words, patient until the last of them dissolves behind your teeth. Then he smiles tender enough to make it seem as though he’s forgiving you for being afraid.
(And somewhere above the wine, the small surviving part of you finally understands why the paintings were turned toward the wall.)
Johnny reaches back without looking and the amber lamp beside the platform clicks off.
Darkness folds over the studio, warm and absolute, and his hands tighten around your thighs when the ropes instinctively draw taut.
Now, he murmurs against your skin, hold the pose for me, hen.
cw: afab+f!reader, virginity loss (a/n virginity is a social construct). 4k words.
simon knows you haven't had sex before.
it wasn't a big secret. you'd told him early on in your relationship, when things got a little too heated on the couch and you'd panicked when his hand slid under your shirt and his fingertips grazed your bare stomach.
you'd sat there and twisted the hem of your shirt between your fingers, eyes firmly on the hardwood floor of simon's flat, quietly telling him that it wasn't because you didn't want to, you just hadn't found anyone that you trusted not to make it a… thing. a conquest. an oh look i fucked a virgin story that gets told to mates at the pub. that the older you got the harder it was to find someone who… understood. and the longer you left it? well. the more the anxiety about it built, until the idea of sex became an almost impossible landscape to traverse.
he'd watched the way you fidgeted. listened as you spoke but wouldn't meet his eye.
then shrugged.
"love, i like spendin' time with you. i like kissin' you like we're fuckin' teenagers. not gonna stop seein' you just cause you 'aven't got laid before." he'd paused, considered his words, "ball's in yer court now sweetheart. you want t' fuck? tell me. an' i'll do what i can to make it right for you."
and the ball… stayed in your court. for months. no pressure. no wandering hands where you didn't want them. just dates and kisses and the one time you were ovulating and overwhelmingly horny and asked him to go down on you on the sofa. and even then, with your thighs trembling around his head and your fingers tight in his hair and the taste of you on his tongue he hadn't pushed, just pulled you into his lap after you'd come down and held you like he realised just how overwhelming it was for you to be close to someone in that way.
he was… surprisingly sweet about it all for a man who looked like he might kill someone for breathing wrong in his company.
sweet enough that the idea of having sex with him stopped feeling like something insurmountable and started feeling more like excitement curling through your veins instead of terror.
so you told him. over dinner one evening. all casual.
he'd looked up from his pasta, nodded. "want me to… book a hotel? or a cabin? you wanted to go away for the weekend, anyway." a pause and then, "or is that too much pressure?"
you'd blinked. once. twice. like the idea of making an occasion of it hadn't even crossed your mind. you'd swallowed softly and then nodded. "yeah. that would be… nice actually." but then you'd pulled a face - eyebrows knitted together, lips pursed. "…what if i bleed on their sheets?" like the idea of inconveniencing hotel or air b&b staff was more concerning to you than the fact you might bleed at all.
then it was simon's turn to blink. "… i'll bring some blankets. if yer that worried love." he'd offered back - not mocking. just cataloguing all the things he can do to make this less stressful for you. there's a pause, "might not bleed. not everyone does."
you'd stared at him.
he'd shrugged.
"been doin' some… recon. about how to make it easier for you." he'd admitted quietly. "not… done this with someone who ain't before. don't want to… traumatise you or some shite. want you to enjoy it. not suffer though it."
your heart had flared warm in your chest.
you'd smiled softly down into your pasta.
"cabin would be nice."
the drive was quiet, just the low sound of what you teasingly called simon's dad rock coming from the car speakers. his right hand was on the wheel; left resting on your thigh whenever he didn't need to change gears, rubbing gentle circles with his thumb on the side of your knee.
"love, i want t' talk before we get there."
you spine stiffens automatically at the words, eyes flaring wide as your head snaps around to look at him.
the corners of his lips twitch.
"not like that love. you don't need t' act like i'm sendin' you to the headteachers office."
you can't help but laugh - a soft little huff of air as your shoulder relax.
"sorry, habit." you murmur back, slumping back into the seat. "so, if i'm not in trouble, what do you want to talk about, si?"
he rolls his eyes. "in trouble? when th' fuck 'ave you ever been in trouble with me love?" he grumbles back, but the crinkles in the corners of his eyes give away that he's nowhere near mad. there's a moment of silence - not heavy, but there - before he continues carefully, "i just want to talk about… expectations. or a lack of 'em really."
you open your mouth to interject. he squeezes your knee to stop you.
"jus' let me talk a minute love." he says softly, glancing across at you for just a split second. "i jus' want to be clear with you. we're goin' away for the weekend. that's all. i know we've said we'd… y'know. but if you don't want to? if you change yer mind? at any time? that's fine love. i just want t' 'ave a nice weekend with you. that's all."
you're quiet for a moment, warmth flaring in your chest. that feeling that's so close to love you can almost reach out and grab it. for a moment you don't know what to say, how to shape a sentence that conveys how much you appreciate that - or how sure you actually are about this weekend. and when you open your mouth? nothing eloquent comes out.
"i bought fancy knickers."
simon's eyebrows shoot up to his hairline, but he doesn't take his eyes off the road. he clears his throat slightly, absolutely shoving the image of you in whatever you mean by fancy knickers somewhere deep in the back of his brain so he doesn't drive you both into a ditch.
you bite your lip, suppress a laugh that threatens to bubble out of your throat. "i just mean… i went out and bought special pants for the occasion. i've been uh, looking forward to it. but… thank you. for being so sweet about it."
he glances sidelong at you, eyebrows pinched into a frown "it's not sweet. it's basic consent, love." he says quietly, squeezing your knee again and for a moment you think he's got more serious talk to get out of his system before you get to your destination; but then his mouth twitches in the corners, "but i am lookin' forward to seein' these fancy knickers, in that case."
simon has outdone himself with his choice of weekend getaway destination.
a cabin nestled in the clearing of a forest. log burner. claw foot bathtub on the deck.
no neighbours for miles; unless you count the owls currently hooting from the trees.
it's perfect.
he presses a kiss to the side of your head, "go unpack. i'll put th' kettle on."
forty minutes later you're curled into simon's side on the back deck, mug clutched in both hands, both just staring at the night sky with quiet awe; the stars visible here in a way they aren't back home.
your new fancy knickers and matching bra have already been slipped on under your sweatpants and hoodie. simon looks down at you, at how soft and open your face looks; the way your jaw hangs slightly loose with amazement as you look up at the sky. his chest flares warm, unable to stop the way his entire expression softens.
"i've been under a lot of nice skies, all over the world." he says quietly. "but this one might be my favourite."
he doesn't need to say it's because you're there. you can tell from the way his arm tightens around your shoulders, the way he leans his weight into you slightly.
you melt inside. like butter left on the counter on a hot day. that same warm feeling from the car flaring in your chest as you tilt your face to his.
then you're kissing him. mug discarded on the deck. half crawled into his lap, his arms wrapping around your waist to steady you.
for the first time in the months you've been together you're not holding anything back. you're not trying to leash yourself to stop this going further than you're ready for. you're all in.
simon can feel the difference. the way you're letting the energy you usually keep simmering under your skin out into the air around you; the way you kiss him deeper, let your hands wander over his chest and biceps.
he's instantly, painfully hard in his sweatpants.
and acutely aware of the fact that you can tell. that the fabric of his sweats does nothing to hide the way he's hardened underneath you, that he's thick and heavy against your inner thigh where you're now practically straddling him. he tenses slightly underneath you; not able to control his reaction but hesitant to be the one to take the next step.
but then you groan into his mouth.
the sound goes straight to his core.
"christ, love. those really are fancy knickers."
he scoops you up in his arms without hesitation, carrying you through the cabin and kicking the bedroom door shut behind him.
you don't think you've ever seen an expression on simon's face quite like the one he wearing now, staring down at you sprawled out beneath him, clothes removed with enough care it made your heart ache.
reverent. that's the only word for it.
"yer really… jesus. yer fuckin' beautiful dove, you know that, right?"
your cheeks heat automatically at the compliment, "it's the underwear. it's doing a lot of the heavy lifting." you reply, mock serious - deflecting.
simon rolls his eyes. "shut up. daft bint. s'all you."
before you can retort he pulls his sweatshirt off over his head, and the only word you're left capable of is "fuck."
you reach out; trace your fingers over the scars that criss cross his torso like a roadmap of everything he's survived. the muscle of his chest and stomach is solid; but there's a soft layer of fat over his abdomen that he gets between deployments - the layer that makes him feel warm and soft and human; not just the soldier everyone else sees.
simon's breath hitches when your nails graze lower, but he catches your wrist, bringing your open palm to his lips to press a kiss against the centre of it.
"lay back for me, love." he murmurs, "i'm takin' care of you first."
you nod, heart slamming in your chest so hard you're sure he can hear it.
your bra comes off first; carefully unhooked and pulled away from your body, placed carefully on the side next to you.
your underwear comes next, the soft black lace you knew was perfect the moment you picked it out in the store. cool air hits your skin as he tugs them down your calves and you fight the instinct to close your legs.
simon looks down at you from below his lashes. "yeah. it's not the fancy knickers love. yer just fuckin' beautiful."
simon settles between your legs, lips pressing a trail down your stomach to where your thighs part; and for a moment he hovers above your bare cunt, nose flaring as the warm scent of you hits him.
he groans.
your ears go hot.
he looks up at you, "gonna go down on you now love, alright?"
you manage a short jerk of your head, pupils blown wide as you stare back down at him.
then his mouth is on you.
the last time he did this - that one night on the couch - is burned into simon’s memory. and he remembers, in beautiful high definition, what each little gasp and groan you made sounded like, and what he did to drag them out of you.
the first slow lick from your slit to your clit pulls a shaky sound from your throat, fingers tightening in the sheets next to you.
he doesn’t rush.
has no intention of skipping steps.
he’s treating this like the main event. like if he could just stay between your spread thighs for the rest of the weekend and the two of you didn’t go any further than that he’d be fine with it, happy about it even.
he explores every inch of you with his tongue; licking broad stripes across your entire cunt, before flicking the tip of his tongue against your clit - little patterns that make your thighs tremble.
“si…” you breathe, feeling yourself relax into the mattress with every touch.
simon pulls away to press a kiss against your inner thigh, “okay up there, sweetheart?”
you nod.
vigorously.
then reach to tangle your fingers in his short hair and tug his mouth back towards you with a desperation that surprises even yourself, like now he’s started you really, really don’t want him to stop.
his lips twitch in the corners, his shoulders relaxing a fraction, like you’ve just convinced him you really are okay.
he seals his lips around your clit and hums softly; the vibration shooting straight up your spine and sparking white behind your eyes. you hips jerk, hard; immediately one of his hands comes to rest on your lower belly, pressing down gently - reassuring rather than controlling - whilst he continues to work you with his mouth. he sucks softly, then harder, alternating rhythms until your fingers are twisted tightly in his hair and your breathing comes in short, ragged gasps.
it’s messy.
the wet sounds of his mouth fill the quiet of the room - slick, obscene noises that you think should mortify you but actually only turn you on more. he pulls back just to groan softly, eyes flicking up to yours. “yer fuckin’ perfect love. can i open you up proper?”
one finger circles your entrance, spreading slickness - but he waits until he sees your chin jerk in confirmation before pushing in achingly slow. it’s an unfamiliar stretch; his finger thicker than your own, but it’s not unwelcome, not unpleasant. he sinks that first finger to the knuckle before curling it upwards, searching for the soft, spongy part inside you that makes your back arch sharply off the mattress.
“there you are.” he murmurs, a soft kind of satisfaction threaded through his voice.
he doesn’t stop, just keeps working you in a steady rhythm while his mouth finds your clit again.
your eyes flutter shut. body slowly melting into something that feels like syrup and not flesh against the sheets as pleasure crawls through you.
after a few minutes he carefully adds a second finger - immediately slowing when he sees you wince at the slight burn low down in your pelvis, only continuing when he feels your body go soft again. “easy sweetheart.” he murmurs against your folds, the slight pain mixing with pleasure as as he works his fingers in and out, scissoring gently to open you up. your thighs tremble around his ears; you’re gripping his hair too tight, probably hurting him, but he doesn’t complain - if anything he groans against you at the sensation.
you’re right on the edge. stomach tensing, muscles tightening when he pulls back. his mouth and jaw are slick and shiny with you and his eyes are so, so soft when he gazes up at you.
“not yet.” he murmurs, moving so his body covers yours, wiping his face with the back of his hand, leaning down to kiss you. “want t’ see if i can get you there with me inside ya.”
he shifts, stands, tugs his sweatpants and boxers off in one motion.
you swallow. hard. watching his cock spring free - thick, heavy. flushed dark at the tip and already leaking.
you have no idea how the fuck he’s meant to fit inside you.
he sees your pinched expression, the nervous flicker in your eyes, and he leans down, crawling back over you, resting his forehead against yours. “we go as slow as you need. you say stop, we stop. you say you need a break, we take a break.” he promises, voice thick with want but edged with control.
he reaches across into the bedside drawer, grabs a bottle of lube he’d clearly tucked away there earlier.
he really did do his research.
your pupils blow wide as he squeezes a generous dollop onto his cock. he wraps a calloused hand around his length and strokes it slowly, spreading the slick shine from base to tip, lower lip sucked between your teeth as he starts to guide himself to your entrance.
the blunt head nudges against you, slipping a little because everything is so wet.
he pushes forwards.
the first inch stings. sharply. you hiss through your teeth, nails digging into his shoulders.
simon freezes immediately. “too much?” he asks, voice strained.
“just… a lot.” you manage, trying to breathe through the burn. “give me a minute.”
he stays perfectly still, barely inside you, dropping soft kisses on your face - your eyelids, the tip of your nose, the corner of your mouth. he reaches between you, pad of his thumb finding your clit, rubbing slow, soothing circles until the edge of pain dulls into an aching fullness. you nod, shaky, but firm.
he sinks in another inch. the stretch is intense - you feel every ridge, every vein as he works himself in deeper; your walls slowly opening up and moulding around him.
then he slips. just a little.
simon is tall - broad and long limbed - and the angle he’s curved himself into is awkward. shoulders hunched, one arm braced at an odd angle so he doesn’t crush you.
his cock slips out completely on the next shallow rock of his hips.
“fuck.” he mutters - frustrated with himself. “sorry love. ‘ang on.”
he tucks a hand under your knee, lifting your leg higher and hooking it over his hip.
the new position makes it easier; opens you up more. so this time when he pushes back in, he slides a little deeper in one smooth glide.
you both groan.
the fullness is overwhelming, foreign, bordering on too much.
but it also feels right in a way that makes your chest ache.
simon’s breathing is ragged against your neck. sweat already coating his skin under your palms. “christ, you feel like fuckin’ heaven. you alright?”
you nod, nails digging into his skin. “move… please.”
he starts rocking into you - slow, shallow thrusts at first. the wet, obscene sound of him moving inside you fills the quiet cabin.
it’s messier than you expected. all of this is.
your bodies don’t slot together like puzzle pieces; there’s sweat, the awkward shift of limbs, your leg keeps slipping off his hip until he grabs it again.
every thrust drags against that perfect spot inside you, but there’s still a sharp little spark of pain when he finally bottoms out completely. you whimper. simon freezes again. “talk to me dove.”
“it hurts. a bit.” you admit, voice small. “but… don’t stop. please.”
he curses softly and adjusts again, reaching for a pillow and sliding it under the small of your back.
the new angle… changes things. the next thrust makes your toes curl for a reason that isn’t pain. pleasure starts overtaking discomfort -and on the next snap of his hips you rock up to meet him, chasing the sensation. his fingers press firmer against the sensitive little bundle of nerves just above where he's buried inside you.
you feel your cunt flutter around him.
he lets out a completely wrecked sound.
"that's it." simon hisses through his teeth. "yer doin' so fuckin' well love."
the praise goes straight to your head, to your core, setting alight nerves you didn't know could be affected by words.
both your movements grow less coordinated, more desperate. sweat gathers in the space between your bodies. his hips snap a little harder, still careful but less restrained; the slap of skin on skin louder now. his hand that's not still slowly stroking your clit between your bodies finds yours, lacing your fingers together beside your head.
the tenderness of the movement makes your eyes sting.
you come suddenly - a sharp, peak that makes you clamp down around him. it's an unfamiliar wave of pleasure, coming with him inside you like that, and you let out a long, low moan that he feels in his bones, that he feels burning its way into his brain as a new core memory.
simon groans, hips stuttering as he fucks you through it. the overstimulation makes you whine, but you can tell from the way he's tensing that he’s close too.
“gonna come inside you.” he bites out, voice wrecked. “that okay?”
you nod frantically, legs tightening around him. a few more deep, messy thrusts and he buries himself inside you with a broken groan, hips jerking as his own orgasm hits. thick pulses of heat flood you, his cock twitching, face dropped into the curve of your shoulder as he presses his mouth against where your pulse is hammering in your throat.
neither of you move. you just stay wrapped in a little bubble of oh fuck that just happened. simon's collapsed half on top of you, propped up on one elbow so he doesn't smother you completely with his body. his breath is warm on your neck, heart slamming in his chest against your arm.
“you okay love?”
simon's voice is gentler than you've ever heard it, cautious in a way that you know he only ever is with you.
“yeah.” you breathe back. “i’m good.” you shift slightly underneath him, wincing as you unhook your legs from his waist.
he notices. immediately shifts so you can untangle yourselves properly, sliding out of you with a soft, slick noise.
you wince again, glance down, see a faint smear on your thigh; cum, slick - both tinged faintly with pink - and stare down in fascination at the physical evidence of what you've both done lingering on your skin like a brand.
he follows your gaze, jaw tensing when he sees the faint pink mixed into your shared fluids. “you sure you're okay?”
you pull him down next to you, curl into his chest, tucking your face into the curve of his neck. “i'm good. i promise. i’m… i’m happy, si.” there's a brief pause and then you add, almost awkwardly, “...was that okay for you?”
simon leans down and kisses you slowly, before pulling back just far enough to rest his forehead on yours. “you were perfect.” he murmurs. “that was perfect.”
you laugh weakly. “that was not perfect. we were like… tangled giraffes at one point.”
he huffs a quiet laugh against your mouth. “yeah, well. still got there in th’ end. still perfect.” he drags his knuckles down your cheekbone, eyes soft in the low lamplight. “no regrets?”
you watch him pad naked across the room - huge, scarred, relaxed in a way you rarely ever see him - and feel a rush of affection so strong it almost hurts.
“none.” you whisper fiercely - and you mean it. you ache in the best and worst ways, but the warmth in your chest is brighter than any discomfort. “thank you. for not rushing me. for… that.”
simon kisses you again, slower this time, then carefully climbs off the bed. “stay there, dove. i’ll get a cloth and run th’ bath. i reckon that fuckin’ clawfoot thing outside looked big enough for both of us.”
you get that same pang when he wipes down your thighs with a warm, damp cloth and again when he deposits you in the bathtub on the deck, climbing in behind you without a second thought.
simon settles you both into the warm water, your back to his chest, his arms wrapped around you, the night breeze ghosting over both of your skin. one of his hands strokes lazily up and down your arm without thought.
“next time we’ll try you on top,” he says quietly, pressing a kiss behind your ear. “see if we can avoid the giraffe shite.”
you laugh, loud and free in the quiet night, and tilt your head back to kiss him again properly.
yeah, you're already looking forward to the next time.
