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20's. ghost's little doll 𐙚 (this is a sideblog. lax tags and taboo content ahead.)

[dollsghost]

you can call me dolly. 20's. this is a sideblog for fic recs/fanart/whatever else i like. sometimes i write. some of the content here is disturbing, a lot of it nsfw, so please read tags and proceed at your own risk. minors/phobes/zoos/maps fuck off.

[peachesofteal]

Keepsake previous - masterlist Ghoap/female reader - omegaverse au

Your phone is missing.

You’ve unpacked the entire duffel, taken stock of everything that Johnny grabbed from your apartment, turned the bag inside out, and you still can’t find it.

You swore, you swore, you had it with you when you left. You thought maybe you shoved it in one of the pockets when you got on the plane, but you honestly can’t remember.

You’ve been traveling for days, and everything is a bit fuzzy.

But you know you had it.

Which means…

You eye the bedroom door. You haven’t surfaced from this room, the one Johnny says is yours, all day. You’re somewhere between hiding and avoiding, unsure which one you’re leaning more towards.

It’s not like it’s a hardship. This is a nice place. The room you’re in is huge, and it has its own bathroom. Cream colored walls and gauzy floor to ceiling curtains, it’s stocked with linens, towels, toiletries, anything you would need. The king sized bed is lined with the softest pillows imaginable, and there’s every kind of blanket, from weighted to wool. It feels… homey.

The entire house does. It’s not rundown with peeling wallpaper and puke green bathroom tile like the first place. It’s not small, or decrepit, or heavily shuttered. It’s modern, bright, and warm. It feels less like a safe house, and more like a home.

“Do ye like it?” Johnny asked as he finished giving you the tour, and you had stared at him in confusion.

“I thought safe houses were supposed to be… sketchy.”

“Aye, they are. But this one is special. Better for a long term stay.”

He didn’t elaborate, and you didn’t push, eager to create some distance, get away, try to clear the war zone that is now your mind. Two sides pushing and pulling, rationality and biology, instinct and anger, clashing again and again, trying to drown the other out. The omega inside of you is screaming, crying, desperate to claw her way out and drag you out the door and down the hall, put you right into their laps.

These men are dangerous, your relation to them might get you killed, yet your instinct only knows them as something holy, something safe. Protectors. Alphas. Mates.

It’s torture, being here.

And worse… you think it’s making you sicker.

Your suppressants and blockers are working overtime, overloading your system, trying to compensate for the distance between you and your mates, the one that has been so drastically shortened. There’s a new hollow feeling in your chest, one that aches, it’s emptiness like a wound that won’t heal. A scrape that won’t scab.

A craving that can never be satisfied.

It’s a complication you were hoping to google, with your phone.

That you can’t find.

You take a deep breath. You know you have to face them, see them, you know you can’t hide up here forever. You have to live, or at least try to, during this entire… situation.

And in order to do that-

you need your phone.

Simon is in the living room when you come down the stairs. He’s alone on the couch, looking down at his phone, and you try not to react to the way he’s sitting, thighs spread wide, sweatpants and sweatshirt clinging to his bulk. He looks relaxed, so at odds with the intensity you’re used to, the laser focus that never lets up.

It scrambles your brain for a moment. Basal need wins out and the room turns a little hazy, a little blurred on the edges, too colorful and loud, and you swallow against a rising tide of conflict, trying to keep your head above water, trying to maintain some sense.

You hear your name. He’s standing a pace away from you. So close his scent invades your senses, and you unconsciously breathe it in, trying to soak up the sea salt and leather just like a greedy omega would. “What is it?”

Stop.

What are you doing?

“Um, I…” You start breathing with your mouth to block him out. “I’m looking for my phone?” It’s not supposed to be a question. It’s supposed to be a demand, but it slips weakly from your tongue. You focus on a piece of lint in the middle of his chest, purposefully avoiding his eyes.

“I have it…” he says slowly, stepping back. He motions to the couch. “Sit.”

“No, I’m fine. I’m just…”

“Sit.” It’s not a bark, not quite. Just teetering on the edge, just enough for you to clench your jaw as you do what he says.

You practically sink into the couch. It’s oversized, overstuffed, too soft. It’s the kind of couch you could spend all day in when it’s rainy, reading or watching a movie. The entire living room is the same. There’s a large tv over the fireplace, and a smaller couch perpendicular to the one you’re on the now. It’s a big room, but somehow still cozy. It has that same homey, lived in feeling as the rest of the house.

“I have your phone.” He says, sitting a few cushions away from you, turned entirely in your direction. You feel warm under his attention, like you’re basking in the sun. It’s unbearable.

“Okay.” You wait, expecting more. Expecting him to say, I’ll go get it, or be right back.

He says none of those things.

“You’ll get it back once this is over and dealt with.” Your mouth drops open.

“What? No. I need my phone.” This feels very nonnegotiable to you. Very. But he only shakes his head.

“Your phone is not secure. It doesn’t take much for someone else to have complete access to it, see through the camera, know where you are. It’s a danger to you, to us, right now.” Your pulse pounds between your ears. “You can have it back as soon as we’ve sorted this mess and eliminated the threat.”

“B-but… my… I have to call work. And my friends, I have to tell my friends-”

“I already called the diner, and you can text, call, whatever you need to do from our phones.” You think of Sarah and Alex, the only two people you really have. You went no contact with your family years ago, and outside of a few casual friends from the diner, Sarah and Alex made up your entire social circle. Were they wondering where you were? Were they worried?

“No. No, you can’t just… you can’t just take my phone.” His jaw flexes, and some of that softness you noticed ebbs away.

“I can. I am. It’s for your safety.”

You hate him.

He abandoned you. He rejected you. He humiliated you.

You shoot to your feet. His scent spikes, worn leather turning sun kissed, soothing. You grit your teeth.

“I want it back.” You hiss, a wildfire of anger flooding you like molten lava.

“No.” He stands to face you. Relaxed. Open palmed. At ease while you’re practically vibrating with rage, the feeling so overwhelming that you can feel it in the tips of your fingers.

“Yes.”

“‘m not doin’ this with you.” You expect him to bark. To give you an order, but instead, he does something entirely different.

He moves.

It happens so fast, too fast for your brain to understand, too fast for the rational side of you to step out of the way.

Instead, his palm lands on the nape of your neck and it’s big, warm, secure.

Safe. Your instincts scream. Mate.

You lock up. Once you’re finally caught up, processed, you get caught between trying to take a step back and turning stiff as a board, frozen in his grip.

“Easy,” he rumbles, the tone of his voice turning into something a shade close to gentle, something you didn’t know existed. And just like that, just one simple word, blunts the sharp edge of your anger.

But it doesn’t stop there.

He makes a sound low in his chest, a warm, coaxing thrum that your omega knows before you do.

Subharmonics.

It almost brings you to your knees.

“Enough now,” he murmurs, guiding you in closer, “We’re not your enemy, dove.”

Alpha.

You’re slipping away, losing the fight to your hindbrain, to who you are underneath it all.

He moves backwards, taking you with him, one step at a time, guiding you, urging you to move with him without forcing it.

You put your hands up, hold them out like you mean to push him away.

No, that is what you mean.

You mean to push him away, tell him not to touch you, not to talk to you, not to… alpha you… but his body is warm under your palms and his subharmonic rumble is like a siren’s song, sinking into your bones and turning you to mush.

“Don’t.” You whisper. It’s more for yourself than it is for him.

Don’t do this, don’t be weak, don’t give in.

Your protest doesn’t stop him, doesn’t prevent him from pulling you inward, closer, close enough you’re overwhelmed by him, the blockers and suppressants doing nothing to drown him out, sea salt and tobacco, sun warmed leather invading your senses. Even holding your breath, he’s there,

“No.” You croak, but he doesn’t stop, doesn’t acknowledge your protest. His arms are rebar as they come around you, force you into his chest.

“Settle,” the pressure increases, around your body, in your head, the careful construction of your resistance, your anger, starting to disintegrate right before your very eyes.

It’s not fair.

“You don’t need to fight us,” he continues, “we’re jus’ trying to protect you.”

“I don’t want this.” You choke out. “I don’t want to be here, I want to go home.” Home, home, home. You’re stuck on it, stuck on trying to get back to a shit hole apartment in a shit hole town.

“That doesn’t matter right now. What matters is keeping you safe.” Nothing about this is safe. Being trapped in a house with mates who rejected you isn’t safe, it’s hell.

Simon’s stopped trying to soothe you now, pheromones and subharmonics dialed down to a low hum, something still present, but not as strong.

The floorboards creak at your back and you stiffen in response, turning to find Johnny watching you and Simon from the edge of the room.

He doesn’t look upset, or jealous, or anything you’d expect. Only mildly concerned, brows barely creased in the middle.

“Everythin’ alright?” You shake your head, but Simon nods.

“She was gettin’ a bit worked up.” You stare at him, incredulous. Worked up? Like you’re some hysterical omega who can’t control herself.

“Ah. We cannae have that.” Simon’s grip slackens, and you take the opportunity to step away, trying to separate yourself.

“I wanted, I want my phone.” Johnny nods. It’s sympathetic, and understanding, and you hate it. Like you hate him. Like you hate them both.

“Sorry dove. It’s not s-”

“Safe.” You finish for him bitterly. “Yeah I heard.” You pull all your resolve together and turn away, aimed at the stairs, seeking your escape.

Neither of them stop you. There are no protests, not as you climb back up to the second floor and run down the hallway, and not as you slam your door like a petulant child.

It’s only once you’re curled up under a heap of blankets that you finally let go, and bury your face in a pillow with a sob.

It’s late when the knock comes.

“Dove?” It’s Johnny, his voice soft and smooth on the other side of your door, patiently waiting. It wakes you up, something inside you alerting to his presence, even in your sleep.

You don’t answer. He sighs.

“Ye didnae come down for dinner, an’ we dinnae want ye to be hungry.” You drag the covers up over your head, sitting in silence until he breaks it. “I brought ye some food, I’ll just leave it outside yer door. Try to eat somethin’, please.” There’s a pinch in your heart, a chord struck. Alphas are hardwired to care for their omegas. Ensuring you’re eating is not out of the ordinary, and you wonder if they hadn’t rejected you, hadn’t left you, it would be different, you would enjoy Johnny bringing you food.

But you can’t. Even though your hindbrain screams and tries to drag you towards the door to him, you dig in your heels and resist with all you have.

He knocks again.

You meet it with silence.

Finally, after minutes, he gives up and leaves, taking the wave of cardamom and black tea with him, and you slip back into oblivion, closing your eyes to escape into sleep.

[indie-navarrete]

NIKKI FREEMAN — 2026, OBESSION // dir. Curry Baker

[rawme-price]

Imagine joining an online chatroom because you struggle meeting people in real life, but god do you want to lose your virginity, right?

Most of the men you meet aren't all that interesting, but there's this one guy...fucking hilarious, witty, a bit dry. His chat name might be "deadmeat" but by the pictures he sends it's anything but.

Deadmeat: thought of you again, bloody mess. Can't wait to have you.

The picture attached is his usual, hard cock covered in at least two previous loads, tip flushed pink and wanting. The calloused, tattooed hand it's cradled in is what drew you in initially. Most folk in the chat room were...well...gifted in size, and as fun as it is to imagine you can hardly manage two fingers on a good long day.

But this man? Perfect fit. About the width of his palm, fingers easily wrapping around. Not small by any means, but definitely not heart-stopping in a bad way.

You: just a few more days. Got the motel booked?

You make sure it's safe, of course you do. Swapping photos together in anticipation for the day.

Deadmeat, or ghost as he requested you call him now, is...a little different than you expected. Tall, for one, nearly brushing his head on the top of the doorframe when you nervously unlock the motel room.

You don't quite realize the breath of your mistake until you and ghost are half undressed in bed and you slip a hand under his waistband. You slide you hand along the soft hair at his base, wrap your hand over it and—

...no. no way.

The amusement on ghosts face as you frantically shove his pants down and pull out his dick is palpable. Holy shit, he's massive. You're a few centimeters shy of wrapping your hand around him, not to mention the length.

You swallow thickly, glance up at him.

The fucker has the audacity to chuckle, reaching down to wrap his impossibly large hands around his dick, give himself a few pumps "well? Everything you were expecting? Don't worry, i can make it fit."

Oh you are so screwed.

[theorist-fox]

Good Hands

Simon 'Ghost' Riley x f!Reader

Part One of Two

CW: angst, canon-typical violence, hurt/comfort, references to suicide, injured Simon, eventual smut, military inaccuracies

wc: 7.1k

Masterlist 🦊

When Soap gave you Simon’s address, you thought you’d end up in some dodgy building with flickering lights and the pungent smell of piss. 

You expected sleazy neighbours, creaky old doors, and grime-crusted flooring: he is a clean man, sure—pathologically so, you’d like to add, since his barracks back at HQ look like an OR—but he absolutely adores his privacy. You wouldn’t put it past him to move somewhere other people would never go for their safety, even if it meant tiptoeing around pools of unidentified fluids and used condoms.

Instead, as your GPS pings your arrival, you find yourself in front of the loveliest house you’ve ever seen.

Uneven bricks, ochre and grey, cloaked by a pitched roof and tiles laced with moss and ashen lichen. A chimney peeks from the top left, darkened right around the top. There’s a stone path leading from the gravel where you parked your car to the front door—sturdy hardwood thing, painted a deep dark chocolate with bronze trims all around. Wooden fixtures for the windows, worked and etched in that way that makes them look old, but they clearly aren’t. Thick glass, maybe to isolate sounds—as if it’s needed.

This house is as pretty as it is lonely. Lost in the middle of nowhere.

At least you were right about one thing. Not even God would go this far to look after His disciples.

Out of four hours, you spent half driving through unpaved roads, with your car jumping over fat roots and potholes. Got lost once. Almost ended up in a ditch twice.

However, the landscape they led to is gorgeous as few. Worth the money that you’ll surely have to splurge on new shock suspenders.

It’s autumn, so there’s the occasional tree popping golden amongst an emerald ocean extending behind the cottage, farther than the eye can see. In front of the house, there’s a small grove. It rustles with the wind, coos with birds and owls, runs with squirrels and wildlife clawing up the trees. Evergreen bushes with the occasional pop of colour, whether red or pale orange, lean against the trunks. The sun is setting behind it, painting the landscape with the shadows of the fronds and a soft golden glow.

It's quiet, in that way only nature can be.

If you hadn’t been worried down to the bone marrow, you’d have lit a cigarette and smoked it with your ass on the trunk of your car while basking in the last shafts of sunlight of the day.

Alas, you’re not here for sightseeing.

You turn off your car and jump out of the seat. Gently, you stretch your arms; your shoulders pop, your back cracks like a fucking glowstick. Your knees aren’t faring better, clicking when you stand up fully.

With a withering sigh, you walk to the back of the car and open the bonnet. 

There are groceries for a lifetime stacked in there. Four bags from Tesco, two smaller ones from the chemist’s. Pain killers, vitamins, paracetamol, supplements, benzodiazepines, citalopram, escitalopram, and all the fucking prams the pharmacy had to offer. The list was long; you eyed Johnny worriedly when he gave it to you, but knew better than to ask.

You’re tired. Tired beyond measure. You went to work at the crack of dawn and then jumped in the car when you couldn’t take it anymore. Dropped everything, apologised to Kyle for leaving him to fend for himself with the diplomatic envoy, and when Price scrunched his nose disappointedly, you apologised to him as well and promised to do double the job once you were sure he was alright.

Because you hadn’t heard from him in days.

Not a phone call, not a text, not a sign that he was using his phone at all. Not a sign that he was alright, that he was still grumbling about the growing prices of groceries, that he was still nursing a nightcap in the evenings—that he was alive.

He used to tell you.

They don’t get it—Johnny, Kyle, Price. They don’t know about the texts, the calls, the photos, the messages sent in the middle of the night, the ones left just shy of dawn, just to wish each other a good day.

Your little secret, that. Your little something soft, developed in the ruthlessness of your job. Something amicable and familiar stuck in between the horrors of cold-blooded murder, of dead bodies scattered in your lives, and endless stacks of paperwork. 

You’d send him pictures of your pale tea—too much milk, if you asked him. Of your pies baked during downtime, of the Christmas decorations you’d hang on the ceiling. He’d send you those of birds landing on the hood of his car, cats he’d find along his walk that would nuzzle his calf.

SR: Don’t know why.

LT: they think you’re snow white

LT: because you’re pale and you have the sweetest big brown eyes

SR: Wouldn’t say sweet.

LT: in fact i said sweetest :)

SR: Flattery won’t work on your lieutenant.

LT: ha! but im a lieutenant too. you can’t pull rank on me

SR: I’m your L.T. 

SR: You’re my second lieutenant. Under my command.

LT: technicalities

SR: You’re L.T. too

SR: L.Too

SR: L2

L2: oi

SR: Haha

L2: rude

SR: Alright, L2.

They don’t get it.

SR: Sleeping?

L2: are you keeping tabs on me?

SR: You’d be surprised.

L2: won’t ask

SR: Shouldn’t.

L2: Fancy a chat?

And your phone would ring.

“L2,” he’d greet.

“Not funny anymore.” But it was.

“Reckon it’s bloody hilarious.”

“Been too long. It’s losing its charm.”

“Charm?” He’d breathe a laugh. Almost. “Right, then—El.”

Midnight, midday, seven AM, four AM, six PM. On and off the job. Christmases and birthdays and Easters and early Sundays and late-night Mondays—

His touch, secretive and fleeting. Warm hands on the hollow of your spine as he walks by, fingers tightening the straps of your vest, adjusting the holsters on your thighs. Watchful eyes chasing your shadow in the crowd, following your fingers as they deftly work through cables and buttons. Burning holes on the back of your hands as you aptly defuse an IED. His huff of relief, his palm warm on your shoulders. A pat, a caress.

“Good job, L2.”

“Fuck off with that,” you’d laugh. “Spooky fucker.”

“That’s my El.”

They don’t get it.

Or maybe they do. 

Price wrinkled his nose, but didn’t stop you. Kyle took over your shift. Johnny gave you the means to reach him.

Maybe they saw it—your eyes softening whenever he walked into a room, his shoulders unravelling whenever your voice crackled over comms. Two peas in a pod, birds of a feather. The moon and the fucking sun. Lieutenant Riley and his 2nd lieutenant. 

LT and L2. Ghost and El.

On the seventh day of no contact, you couldn’t take it anymore. You raided Tesco, you begged Johnny to give you his address (and thankfully, he was just as worried as you were—you’d have hated pulling rank on him), and he secretly passed you Simon’s medical file so you could pop by the chemist too.

Now, you find yourself properly hauling your own weight in groceries along the stone path leading to his cottage. You drop them with a grunt in front of his door. 

On your side, his car is parked. Second-hand. Onyx black. Bird shit on the roof, windows grainy with soil and opaqued with rain tracks. 

Unused for a while. Normal, in a way. It’s not like he can drive in that state. For any amenities, a nurse would come by, provided by the SAS. Sometimes he’d open and be cordial enough. Sometimes he would just tell them to leave groceries and whatnot at the door.

The nurse told Price it had been days since Simon even answered his phone calls, never mind open the door. Price told the team, but not you. Kyle passed you the intel with the same secrecy as a mole working for the enemy.

Gooseflesh crawls up your spine as you look at the weathered bronze of the doorknob. There’s no doorbell that you can see.

You knock.

“Lieutenant.”

Nothing.

The wind grazes your ears, ruffles the fronds as it intersects with the leaves. You dry the pearls of sweat on your forehead with the back of your hand, and knock again.

“L.T.,” you say, trying to sound chirpy. “Special delivery!”

Silence.

You lean to the side and try to peek through an overgrown bush into one of the windows, but the curtains are drawn shut. You bring your thumb to your lips and nibble at a cuticle.

Knock.

“Lieutenant!” Again. Worry seeps through the cracks. “It’s me! It’s lieutenant—”

You chew on your name. It dies on your tongue.

“It’s L2!” You yell instead. “It’s El!”

Blood beads on your thumbnail, bitten short. 

Knock knock.

“Please open the door?” You venture. Your heart pounds in your ears. “I’m so fucking—so fucking tired and worried.”

Knock knock knock.

“Where the fuck do you live anyway, uh?” You sniffle. Your nose stings. “Was right, wasn’t I? You are fucking Snow White.”

Nothing.

Loudest silence you’ve ever heard.

You hate it. You want to fill it with more knocks, with more yells, with the sound of his footsteps, with the gravel of his voice, the crackle through comms, the clicking of his ankle when he rests his weight on it for too long, the burn of his cigarette in the coldest nights, the breath of a laugh he wants to swallow but doesn’t manage.

“Lieu—” You gulp. “Simon? Please.”

On the far right, there’s a bench whose greyish paint is chipping away. Old wood rots in the centre because of rain and constant humidity. Even though you sat in that godforsaken car for the past four hours and some, you feel your knees buckling the more you keep standing. 

So, you carry yourself over there. Drop down. The bench creaks. As predicted, it’s wet and it seeps through your jeans. You sigh.

“Alright,” you slam your palm on the wood. 

“I’m gonna sleep right—” Thud. “Fucking—” Thud. “Here, then.”

There’s no sound.

You look at the groceries.

“I brought you food!” You go on, “And if you don’t open the door I’m gonna eat it. Everything. Even your stupid chocolate biscuits—I’m gonna gobble them up in one sitting.”

The milk will go bad if you don’t put it in a fridge. The ice cream will melt. 

“The bourbon too,” you yell. “Gonna drink it all. Gonna get comatose on your stupid bench in this—in this fucking fairy grove you live in.”

The fruit will start softening. The meat will start rotting and smelling. And flies will run to it, conquer it, eat it raw, and lay their eggs inside. Their buzz will drive you insane, and you’ll lose your mind on this bench, in the middle of nowhere.

“And I’m gonna sleep here until you open that fucking door, you hear me?” Your voice cracks. “And I’m gonna get sick and—and it’ll be your fault, because you didn’t open the bloody door.”

You wonder whether you’d smell the same thing if you broke it down. If the buzz would be heavier, more persistent. If it would be something else driving you insane.

The image flashes bright and real. Smells like you have it within reach, before you, hanging from a chandelier, drowning in a crimson bathtub, or melting on the bed, stomach filled with pills and nothing else.

Your heart plummets at your feet. You feel claustrophobic, boxed in a square of cement that pushes in your shoulders and compresses your chest.

“Simon!” You yell, voice cracking. Droplets stain your jeans. It’s not raining. “You fucking cunt open the fucking door!”

Elbows on your knees, you drop your head in your hands. You’re so tired. You don’t even know if you can drive back home, especially now that the sun is setting. You’d gladly sleep in your car—fuck, you’d sleep on this bench if it meant finding him at the door the next morning, looking all cranky and grumbling about the mess you made.

All you can do is plead quietly, a breathy prayer you hope he can hear, even if only whispered.

“Please open the fucking door, please open the fucking door—"

Are you strong enough to break it down? You’re special forces, but you’re not a battering ram. You don’t have the tools that would help—you didn’t think you were gonna need them. 

Stupid.

Are you brave enough to open the door? To find what’s inside? Should you call the police? An ambulance?

The thought makes you retch. You cover your mouth and bite on your palm.

“This fucking idiot—” You whisper. Swallow thick. Your throat stings as bile rises. “I swear to God you selfish bastard, you better not. You better fucking not, Simon, I will—”

“Which bourbon?”

Your head snaps.

His shoulders, wide and hunched, fill the doorway, open enough for you to see him entirely. A grey shirt hangs loose around his torso. He’s got his hands stuffed in the pockets of his joggers, but there’s a strain in his arms. Corded and rigid, tied in a way that shows in his neck, too.

A scar runs thick down the side of his head, starting from the centre of his forehead and tipping at the shell of his ear, following a curved line clearly left by a surgeon. Bulbous near his temple, where the flesh was too soft and took longer to heal. 

Darkness blossoms under his eyes, swollen and sunken at the same time; puffy with sleep, hollow with tiredness. He’s paler than usual, his cheeks are gaunt, and he’s so much fucking thinner.

But he’s alive.

His chest rises. His blood runs.

You blink.

A tear threatens to stream down your cheek, but you anticipate it, drying its path with the back of your hand. Your bones soften, muscles unclenched. Clumsily, you take a trembling breath, and it feels like it’s the first time you’ve ever done it.

“I-I don’t know,” you stutter. “Don’t drink the stuff. Asked the clerk for his favourite and he just—just tossed it in there.”

“Mh.”

His eyes look for the bottle amongst the mountain of food and drinks stuffed in the bags. 

“You better like it.” You sniffle and nod at the bags. “Fifty-five quid just for that thing.”

He snorts. Sighs. “Good enough then.”

You exchange looks.

Then, he nods his head inside.

“Help me out?” He drawls.

Dizzy, you nod. Your legs tingle as if they’ve just been awakened, your stomach rumbles like you haven’t eaten in days. The world turns upside down—relief so visceral and thick you feel like it’s drowning you.

You stumble to the doorway. Your guts squeeze and thrash. You might throw up, but you don’t, swallowing the tightening feeling clawing up your throat.

You stuff the smaller pharmacy bags inside the Tesco ones.

Simon leans in too, taking his hands out of his pockets.

You hadn’t seen the aftermath yet.

He’s missing the last two fingers on his left hand. Surgery scars run along the back of both, slicing the tattoo on his forearm in a cobweb of thick, ruddy lines. That is, where the flesh isn’t rubbery and burnt, convoluted as if yearning to weld itself back together in the aftermath of being torn apart. 

They shake—fiercely, like he’s experiencing an earthquake inside his body; unfolding before your eyes, shattering his bones.

You look at them. Transfixed. At the mangled flesh sewn back together, at the tremble that runs through his veins and tips at his nails. The strain of his muscles clawing up his arms, taut to the point of pain—like he’s putting all his effort to keep them still, to exert control over them.

Control he lost.

When you lift your eyes again, you meet his face.

Stone cold. Dreadfully frigid.

“The bags are heavy,” you croak.

“Carried worse,” he replies flatly, and his hands curl around the handles of two.

His fingers tighten, knuckles painted white. Nails bite his palms, but he perseveres. Swallows a groan of pain that rumbles in his throat and lifts the groceries off the floor. 

The plastic bags crackle like a gale is blowing furiously through them. The glass of the bottles clinks. You see, as he walks inside, the tension in his gait: forcing his legs to cooperate, to work by themselves, as he focuses exclusively on the stability of his hands.

Without looking back, he leaves the door open for you to follow.

You stand frozen stock still, arms down your sides, and eyes brimming with guilt.

Carried worse, he said.

Carried you, months ago, when the bomb went off.

Six Months Earlier

Intel’s rarely faulty when the source is the police themselves.

Granted, even in these cases, one should always take statistics into consideration: a mole, a diversion, the original source. However, things sometimes are so obvious that statistics fall flat.

Because in front of you, right now, there’s a big, fat bomb. No doubt about it.

A squared box, half as tall as you. It’s raggedly painted black, as if someone decided to spray the colour on the metal slabs at the last minute. Rust gathers at each corner, likely due to the humidity building up in this underground tunnel, which is also chipping away at the paint and leaving ruddy streaks scattered down the sides.

It’s not much different from the ones you’ve dispensed of already, at least at first sight. There’s no timer, not a visible one at least. Though from the looks of it, you don’t think this one is timed at all. If you’re fortunate, it needs to be manually detonated on site. Worst-case scenario, it can be set off remotely.

Thank fuck you’re wearing sturdy PPE, then.

With a huff, you flop on your knees before it. There’s a soft puff as the pressure pushes air out of your suit—a big, cumbersome thing that safely cradles you from head to toe. 

“Captain,” you call through comms. “You sure it’s off, yeah?”

The static preceding his voice buzzes softly through your ear, before John’s usual rasp fills the helmet shielding your head.

“Local bomb squad’s had a look already,” he says. “Said it’s old.”

Though the bomb in front of you looks untouched by the deft hands of a demolition specialist. You wonder how they concluded that the device is too old to be active, since there doesn’t seem to be a sign that it has been studied at all.

“Doesn’t look like they did anything, though,” you offer.

John grunts. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”

“Right.”

His voice rumbles even through the distortion of the radio. “Just passing it on, L2. They want us to check it before they move it.”

You roll your eyes at the nickname. You knew it would stick—Simon’s convincing like that—though it is the first time John actually uses it.

You let it slide.

“And why’s that?”

“Signed by Konni.”

You tilt your head and easily spot the mark of Konni group sprayed on one side, dried red paint drawing a path downwards from where it dripped.

“Always nice to see an old friend, isn’t it?”

“Keep us updated, yeah?”

“On it.”

You squeeze your eyes through the visor of your helmet, focusing on possible entry points. Each breath you take is measured and quiet as you clear your mind to steady yourself.

“Alrigh’?”

Though considering the questioning drawl coming from beside you, you’d wager the suit is amplifying not only your voice, but also the heaviness of your panting. 

It’s fucking hot in this thing.

“You shouldn’t be here.” You give him a sidelong glance. He’s not wearing an EOD, only his usual uniform with an added clunky helmet, a bulletproof vest, and his stupid skull mask. “Especially not naked like that.”

“Naked, uh?” He snorts. “Better get a good look, then.”

You bite down a smile and return your eyes to your job. “Captain, the lieutenant is padding around in his birthday suit.”

Price’s voice crackles through the comms in your ear. By his tone, you can practically see the tight set of his jaw and the roll of his eyes.

“Ghost, either wear the EOD or leave the premises, for fuck’s sake. Don’t fancy scraping you off the walls.”

Simon gently kicks the side of your boot. “Rat.”

You turn your head around just enough to stick out your tongue at him.

“I asked the second lieutenant a question an’ she ain’t answered yet,” he drawls with his usual dispassionate tone. “Permission to kick her off the team?”

“You won’t hear a single fuckin’ word she says if you’re ground meat, Simon,” Price’s voice rasps. “Wear the bloody PPE and then we’ll talk.”

Static replaces John’s orders as communication cuts off on his part.

Only then does Simon pitch in.

“I asked you a question.”

You sigh, but it’s neither weary nor exasperated. 

“Yeah, I’m alright,” you huff, already tinkering with your toolbox. “Why aren’t you wearing the gear?”

“I’m in good hands.”

“Thanks, I’m immensely flattered,” you quip. “Please go wear it now.”

“Thought it was too old to still be active.”

You don’t have time to roll your eyes, because as soon as he mutters his thoughts, you notice a familiar indented square in one of the panels. A carefully hidden entry point that, once popped open, will show you the intricacies inside the device. It’s like spotting an oasis in the desert.

You reach for a flat tip in your toolbox at your knees. Carefully, you wedge it in the embrasure.

It only takes a few tries, and it unhinges seamlessly. Metal clinks as you gently place the lid on the ground.

There’s no need for you to look his way—his presence is like a heavy blanket wrapped around your shoulders. A shadow sewn to your own. 

“I won’t support your suicidal tendencies, so please, for the love of Christ, listen to the engineer—” you point at yourself with the screwdriver, “—and go wear the bloody bomb suit.”

Simon stays silent for a handful of seconds, only filled with the tinkering of metal of your tools.

“Worried ‘bout me, are ya?”

You huff. No use pretending, when he can see right through you. “Plenty.”

“Good heart.”

“Chop chop, Riley.”

“Aye aye, El.”

With a gentle squeeze of your shoulder, Simon turns on his heel. His footsteps become distant until the soft thud finally vanishes behind the creaky door that first led you down here, slamming shut behind you.

You don’t turn around, too focused on studying the wires wrapped around each other in the panel you just opened. There’s an entire bundle crossing the opening diagonally and so shrouding most of the circuit board in the back. They’re held together by a couple of cable ties that look awfully cheap, like the rest of the device.

“Weird,” you mumble to yourself.

“What is?” John pitches in.

You flinch, not expecting an answer to your musings.

“Uhm, uh—” You shake your head to recollect yourself. “The bomb—it looks quite cheap. Not their usual MO.”

John hums. “Could be one of Konni’s earliest works. Disposal said it’s old, innit?”

“Yeah,” you huff. “I don’t trust a single word those fuckers said.”

“Right,” he grunts, though you recognise that hint of agreement in it. “Do what you can with it. Keep me updated.”

“Roger that, captain.”

Back on track. First thing to do is get rid of those ties to isolate the cables. 

You work quietly for a while, removing your gloves to minimise errors while doing such minute movements. The flush cutters are sturdy but the blades are small, and the thickness of the cable ties is stupidly non-existent. You want to avoid cutting things you shouldn’t.

However, you can’t quite ease the knot of doubt forming in your guts.

This device has literally nothing preventing you from disposing of it. Everything is poorly put together. The control centre was placed under a thin slab of metal, which you simply popped off using the flat tip of a screwdriver. There are corner store-level cable ties keeping together a bundle of wires. Each cable isn’t isolated, but either overlaps with others or knots on itself.

This is amateurish.

And you know, with utmost certainty, that Konni isn’t. The same Konni group that blew up an entire airport wouldn’t DIY a bomb and spray paint their signature on a slab of metal like a mere local gang of criminals.

Unless—

“El? You with us?”

Simon’s voice snaps you out of it. He sounds muffled and echoey, as if he’s speaking from behind a glass. You recognise that distortion: he put on the bomb suit.

Relief floods through you.

You shake your head to clear your mind. Sweat collects on your forehead. You feel each drop brewing on your skin, only to then slowly make its way to your brow, then your eye.

Your fingers close around the cutters, and the first tie snaps off.

Then, you squeeze your eyes to get rid of the burn.

“Yeah,” you huff. “They should invent more comfortable suits for us in demo. It’s fucking sweltering in here.”

Price’s voice crackles once more. “We’ll hire a fashion designer.”

Simon snorts.

“Look at you, captain,” you croon. “Providing jobs for the youth.”

You’re sure he’s rolling his eyes. “Do yours or you’ll lose it.”

But you know it’s an empty threat. Jokes tossed around to defuse the tension as you defuse your bomb. High stress situations require ways to destress in order to keep your mind clear and at ease, even as your life is on the line.

“Aye aye.”

And from then on, silence lingers, only interrupted by Simon shifting his weight on his feet behind you. The crinkle of the suit folding as he moves, the tap of his fingers against the pack he must be holding in his hands. There’s the occasional clink of metal when you drop a tool in its box, or the snap of plastic as yet another tie comes off. 

And finally, you manage to isolate the cables from one another. Carefully you pinch one between two fingers and shift it to the side, only so you can have a broader vision of the circuit board in the back.

It’s entirely dead. Singed in places, the lights are off, no sounds fill your ears unless it's the ones you’ve already recognised as familiar. The blasting cap has an old serial number on it, different from the most recent ones you came across. The base was once attached to a couple of red cables that have been cut from their root.

You exhale, emptying your lungs in a single, long breath.

“It’s dead.”

John huffs through comms. “Thank Christ, eh. Sending Garrick over. ETA 20.”

But you stay put, staring holes through the jungle of wires that intersect and crisscross like vines in front of you, draped on the circuit board.

Simon shifts from behind you and comes to crouch by your side. The same puff of air exhales from his suit. You turn your head to look at him, though with the helmet it’s hard to have a good view of his face.

He’s taken off the skull mask to favour the protective gear placed around his head. His eyes aren’t poised on the bomb, though; they’re on your face. He must pick up on something there that doesn’t reassure him, because he knows you better than he should.

“Hang on, Price,” he rumbles.

You stall for a moment.

It’s only a hunch that spurs you to negate certainty. You’re special forces, an engineer—sixth sense isn’t enough to support evidence.

But Simon believes in it. He trusts that tiny spark he sees in your eye, the tautness of your fingers as they curl into fists atop your knees. You hear him sniff, shift on his knees to get closer. 

“El?” He whispers, perhaps not wanting the radio to pick up on it.

Your stomach lurches.

“I mean—” You gesture vaguely at the device. “It looks dead. The circuit board is gone, and the wires have been cut from the detonator. Some of this shit could be older than me—"

John cuts through your conversation. He sounds irritated, and in turn, it irritates you, too. 

“Get to the point.”

You stare at the dead circuit board. The main piece of this puzzle. It doesn’t take an engineer like you to recognise that it’s long gone, but in a very peculiar way that you don’t know how to explain without sounding like a lunatic, it looks too long gone.

You smack your lips. “Something’s wrong. It feels—”

“Don’t care how it feels, lieutenant. Is it dead or not?” 

“Listen, John, I’m not here to fucking play—"

“Need to have another look at it, boss,” Simon cuts in. “Give us a minute, will ya?” 

“Roger.”

You sigh. You wish you could scratch your forehead. Your scalp stings as sweat collects on it. Each tiny, uncomfortable thing happening to you is amplified, including the knot in your guts. 

“I hate him with passion each time he acts like—”

“He can still hear ya.”

“Good.”

If John can actually still hear you, he doesn’t voice it. Thankfully, you think, because if he pitches in again with some more of his caustic sarcasm, you might just say things before your mind can properly filter them.

You take a couple of seconds to recollect your thoughts, guiding your eyes to study the device. It’s composed of rusted metal plates welded together and protecting the bomb inside. You’d need a plasma cutter to breach the plate, but the heat could set the thing off if it’s live. In fact, there are no entry points aside from a small, squared panel that you’ve opened with unexpected ease. 

Considering how the rest of the thing is protected, however, it feels out of place. Conveniently put there for you to declare that the device is gone, when it actually isn’t. 

A hunch isn’t enough to negate evidence, that is true, but it’s there, and you won’t allow it to gnaw at your guts.

Easy is never the right answer, not with Makarov.

“Pass me the snake cam.”

You hold your hand out to Simon, palm up, without sparing him a glance. 

Your ears pick up on sounds even if you’re entirely wrapped in protective gear, even if your heart pounds madly up your throat. A zipper being opened, a cable as it unfolds. His hands are warm when they place the cold wire in your palm, steady when they close your fingers around it.

“Get it in,” he says. “I’ll hook it up.”

In the corner of your eye, pale hands reach inside the pack at his knees to pull out a pad. It blinks to life as he taps his fingers on it.

Gently, you insert the tip of the snake cam into the opened panel, carefully steering the camera underneath the knotted bundle of cables and behind the seemingly dead circuit board. 

“Got anything?” You ask Simon.

“Too dark.”

“Turn on the flash.”

The pace of your heart matches the rapid tap of fingertips running across the pad. In a blink, a soft glow fills the darkness behind the board. 

Simon hums.

“Got something.”

You inhale sharply. Your eyes flicker around, sifting through your thoughts as if you can see them, rushing unrestrained with endless possibilities. You squeeze them shut, clearing out the sting of sweat as it builds up on your brow and fogs up your sight.

“Fuck. Let’s switch.”

Simon shifts until he’s kneeling behind you. The rustle of his suit precedes his arms as they come around your head, carefully taking the cable from your fingers. 

“Got it.”

Ever so slowly, you remove your hands, shuffling on your knees and ducking your head to leave the shelter of his body. With no minimal effort, considering the weight of your blast suit, you manage to stumble to where he once sat, grabbing the pad he left lying on the ground.

As he said, there’s something. The flash clearly highlights a darkened silhouette, bulky and squared, but the quality of the camera doesn’t allow you to make out much more of it.

Only one thing stands out.

A light.

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

“Thought so,” he spits. “Fucking Makarov.”

You don’t have time to curse him as well, though you quietly share the sentiment.

“John.”

Like lightning, his voice crackles in your ear. “Send over.”

“We got something.”

“Details.”

“In a sec. Stay on.”

You look at Simon. He’s perfectly still, not a tremble in his fingers, exactly as you’d expected. He’d make an incredible demo specialist, though you know he’s an even better sniper.

“Gentle, Simon,” you murmur. “Need you to go south.”

He follows your orders, sliding the cable down inside the box.

“Gentle,” you repeat. “Slower.”

And without a single word, he heeds you. Trusts you. Lets the camera cover each corner, bit by bit, moving his muscles imperceptibly as he snakes the camera through the jungle of wires.

Now closer to the device, you can better make out its details on the screen. It’s not old nor rusted, not singed nor dead. It sits attached to one side of the box, each cable perfectly isolated and running on sinuous curves around the circuit board. One that blinks red, then green, then red again—beating like a heart, shifting its colours inside the darkness. 

Stacks of white rubber are slathered around it, bulky and thick. You curse under your breath.

“C4.”

Simon clicks his tongue. “Christ.”

“John, tell the local authorities to clear out the area now,” you order steadily. “Add that they’re a bunch of lazy cunts, too.”

“Will do.” Then, quietly, “good work, lieutenant. Stay safe, both of you.”

“Roger.”

The static on the radio goes dead. There’s only your heart pounding in your ears, falling in rhythm with the switch of colours on the screen.

Red, green. Red, green.

Simon’s voice reaches out to you. “See a blasting cap?” 

“Yeah.” You tongue your cheek. “South. Then move to the right.”

He follows suit, once again trusting you entirely. As the camera moves, you try to take stock of each tiny detail you can make out. The quality is poor, but you’re starting to have a general idea of what you’re working with. The serial number stamped on the blasting cap matches those of more recent detonators, causing the theory of the local bomb squad to completely crumble.

Red, green. Red, green. 

While you can’t make out the logo on the circuit board, you recognize the finish immediately: factory-made, not cobbled together in some basement workshop. New. Polished clean. A pale square chip mounted against the green lacquer of the board.

Red, green. Red, red, green.

You blink. 

“Stop.”

Simon falls still.

Red, green. Red, red, green.

There. Blinking in the shadows, off to the side.

“Right. Go to the right. Quick.”

Simon doesn’t put up a fight, though you can see the uncomfortable shift of his knees. Imperceptible and yet conveying the same nervousness festering in your eyes as they fly across the screen. He is quick with his hands to find the source of the light.

It ticks, ticks, ticks.

“Shit—Simon, drop it!”

And if the clock is right, it will tick only for two minutes more.

“Drop that shit and run!”

Simon bolts on his feet, awfully quick considering the bomb suit clinging to him. You hadn’t accounted for that. Fuck, you hadn’t accounted for any of this.

You told him to wear it. You put that extra weight on him. He would’ve been out of the place and far away enough to be safe if you hadn’t insisted, if you’d let the overwhelmingly stupid trust he had in you to win, for once.

“Fuck—” You drop the pad and stand up. Your knees buckle under the cumbersome weight of your suit and the sudden dread gripping your stomach.

“It’s timed, John!” You bellow. Your yell echoes inside the EOD helmet, ringing in your own ears. “We’re leaving—no time to defuse it. Less than two minutes and it goes off!”

An old, singed circuit board as a decoy to mask the real bomb ticking away just beneath its surface. Only a demolition specialist like those in the UKFS would’ve thought of venturing further inside the device. 

Makarov knew it. 

He knew the local authorities would have called the anti-terrorism unit as soon as they saw the Konni group mark. Makes sense that he signed the device so clearly, like a fucking amateur.

He wanted John’s team there. 

He knew those bastards wouldn’t be arsed to check further. Why would they take on the burden when they could leave it in the good hands of better-trained professionals.

Call the big guns and then call it a day.

“Run. Don’t look back and run, both of you.”

He doesn’t need to tell you twice. You’re already panting, forcing your legs to move against the strain put onto them by the suit—not protection anymore, but a cage. Your knees don’t bend as they should, your feet struggle to hold you up. The sting in your eyes, the heart in your ears. 

Simon’s ahead of you as you trudge behind him. But he’s faster, stronger—able to carry the added kilograms of his blast suit as if it’s only a mere annoyance to him.

Though he must hear you—or rather, he must feel the lack of you by his side. 

He halts in his steps and looks behind to find you.

“Fuck—faster, El!”

“I know!” You’d like to yell at him to shut the fuck up, but that would be a waste of precious breath that you need to focus on using to run.

“Go!” Your voice cracks. “Fucking run, Riley!”

Though he’s been standing still for so long that you’re now by his side. 

You stagger past him, grabbing his hand to tug him with you—though that’s one arduous thing, rooted on the ground as he is.

“We got one minute at most—run ahead for fuck’s sake!”

It’s like you can hear it, now—each ticking breath exhaled by the device behind you. You wonder if it had always been there, signalling his presence as you knelt next to it, but you were acting too cocky to notice it.

Your fault. Your fault. Your fault—

Your rushing thoughts recede to a trickle the moment you feel Simon’s hand slipping away from yours. As it does, he takes your own heart with him, as you feel it skip a beat inside your chest.

The momentum of your run makes it hard to stop, and you almost stumble on your own feet as the weight of the suit drags you forward. Thankful for a wall next to your side, you slam your palm against it to avoid falling face-first into the ground.

Though when you turn, it’s your stomach that touches it.

Simon’s already pulled at the quick-release cord hanging from the front of his jacket. 

“What—”

The contraption strapped around his torso unlatches from the back. While he struggles with it, he’s impressively steady as he rips at the sleeves to take it off, shimmying his shoulders out of it with ease—chest plate and all, until everything falls on the floor at his feet.

Initially, your eyes widen in shock. Then, your face morphs into a mask of unadulterated rage. 

“Are you fucking mad?!”

But he’s taking his helmet off, too. The thud of it as it hits the ground is deafening, echoing ominously in the otherwise quiet underground tunnel you’re stuck in.

“Simon what the fuck!”

“Come ‘ere an’ shut yer mouth.” 

He charges forward, running much faster as most of the extra weight that was hindering him now lies uselessly on the floor. He bends at the waist, using gravity to his advantage, and reaches towards you with his arms.

You don’t have time to think as breath is knocked out of you. His arm wedges between your legs, and the world turns upside down. Darkness and grey bricks swivel and roll before your eyes as the air catches in your lungs. 

Your stomach curves around his shoulders. He holds your leg with one arm, curled around your knee, and your opposite sleeve with his offhand. 

He stumbles at first, trying to find his balance.

“Simon—” 

“Keep still.”

And then, he runs.

There’s a rasp in his breathing that makes it sound as if his chest is being crushed. The gravel of debris crunches under his boots, stomping heavily down the tunnel. Each sound is amplified, but you’re unsure of what is real and what isn’t. 

He trembles. Groans fiercely for each step he takes, baring his teeth as if to scare an invisible monster ahead of him.

“I’m slowing you down!” You yell, hoping the chaos won’t mask your voice too much. “Put me down! I—I have the bomb suit on, I’m going to be fine!”

Though that’s a lie. He knows it, and you do as well. If the tunnel collapses, no miracle can bring you back. 

But at least your head would be protected, giving you a chance. Your chest, too. Your legs. A minuscule, tiny possibility to have a minute more to breathe as you wait for Search and Rescue.

A chance he doesn’t have, not with half of his suit now lying uselessly on the floor.

However, Simon doesn’t answer, just runs. Runs and runs and runs, towards the exit at the end of the tunnel. It’s close, maybe another handful of meters, and yet now it feels like an endless chasm ready to suck you in.

A black hole hidden underground. 

You don’t know how much time you have left before the bomb goes off. Your breathing picks up, hand reaching around to fist his shirt around his collar to make him please, please listen.

“Please Simon, please!”

His eyes are fixed ahead, feet as quick as can be considering the weight he’s carrying—yours, his own, the suits. He stumbles, pace naturally slowing down due to the effort, but it doesn’t deter him. Hits walls with his shoulders, slams your helmet and your boots against corners, but he never stops.

He just looks ahead, drunk on adrenaline and ignoring the unfathomable strain he’s putting on his body.

Your eyes sting with panic and tears. His face is red with exertion and lucid with sweat as it beads on his forehead. Then his run turns into a stagger, trembling legs forcing themselves ahead.

Simon bursts through the door. Your helmet knocks against it.

At the same time, the tunnel’s darkness turns blinding white.

[warmfrequency]

after price kills shepherd, he has a finite window of time to grab his things and say goodbye to his wife.

cw: angst

You hear the front door swing open and hit the wall behind it and your first thought is he’s early.

You’re at the stove, wooden spoon in your hand with the skillet throwing up steam, onions gone soft and golden at the edges, music murmuring from the speaker on the windowsill.

The word ‘early’ is halfway up out of your throat, light, a little teasing, but it dies there when the sound coming from down the hall isn’t the sound of a man home for the night. There’s no pause to toe his boots off, no keys dropping in the bowl. Just the stairs taken too fast, two at a time, the whole house shivering under the weight of him going up.

Your hand finds the gas dial and turns the flame down. You open up your ears, straining to listen. Then you’re moving, following the sound of him up into the dark of the second landing.

The bedroom door’s open, and inside, John’s just a blur of motion against the moonlight behind him. The wardrobe’s flung wide open, the duffle is out — the one that lives at the back of the closet behind the winter coats, the one you were trained long ago not to touch nor ask about — and now it’s unzipped, open on the bed. His hands are working through the canvas with a fervor that turns your blood cold before he’s said a single word.

He hasn’t looked up, he’s too focused. And there’s something practiced and deeply troubling about the speed of which his hands are movings — it tells you more than his face even would.

“John?” you try, his back is to you now.

“Hey,” he says, a drawer slides open, he rifles through it, turns around, and whatever he took from the drawer disappears into his bag. “Listen to me a minute.”

“What’s happening? Wh- what’re you doing?”

You take a tentative step toward the bed.

“I have to go,” he says flat, pared down, slotted neatly into the rhythm of his packing. “Right now. Tonight.”

“Go where? You’ve only just got back. Is it a—,”

“It’s not work,” he cuts in roughly, then shakes his head, eyes squeezed shut.

His hands go still over the bag and he turns his head and finally, finally looks at you, blue eyes hooking under your ribs. He takes a steadying inhale through his parted lips, then out his flaring nostrils.

“It’s… it’s not a job, dove.”

You feel so behind him in this, like you’re still standing in the warm kitchen five minutes ago, still on the version of tonight where dinner’s almost ready. You can feel a tickle of dread crawling up the back of your neck.

You’ve never seen him like this.

He’s never like this — frantic.

“Then what is it, J—,”

“Shepherd’s dead,” he spills. He says it the way you’d pluck a splinter from a soft palm, all at once because slow is worse. “It was me, I did it. There’ll be people comin’ here to look for me, and I can’t be here when they come, and I can’t—” His throat bobs. “I can’t be anywhere near you. D’you understand me?”

You don’t.

His confession arrives in pieces and your hands rise to your temples as the words work their way into whatever corner of your mind is properly conscious.

He’s gone back to moving, the zip of the bag closing like something tearing in half. It’s the moving you can’t deal with right now because the moving means it’s already decided. It was decided before he came through the front door. You’re hearing the end of a conversation he’s been having with himself for god knows how long.

Sick turns over in your belly, hot and acidic as it ascends your esophagus, burning the back of your tongue before you swallow it back down.

“Stop.” Your hand closes firm around his forearm. “Stop, just— just look at me. Goddamnit, just— Stop moving!”

To his credit, he goes still for a moment, turning fully toward you now and lifts both hands to your face, cradling your jaw, and every scrap of that frantic velocity drains out of him. His forehead comes down to yours, warm, a little slicked. And suddenly you would give anything to have the frantic version of him back, because stillness means he’s made time for it. John doesn’t make room for things that don’t matter. He’s making room to say goodbye, and knowing that opens up beneath you like a trap-door.

His thumbs sweep the tears you didn’t even feel on your cheeks. “Look at me,” his hands stiffen and close tighter when they rest on your face, forcing your gaze onto his. “I need you to hear me.”

“No.” You’ve got two fistfuls of his shirt now, the cotton crushed in your hands, your head moving side to side against the cage of his palms. “No. No! You don’t get to do this, we’ll— we’ll fix it,” you try to sniffle but sob instead. “You’ll go to someone— Kate! There’ll be a way—,”

“There isn’t,” he murmurs, almost pleading.

“There’s always a way.”

“Not for this.” He says it so softly it takes the legs out from under you. His breath is warm against your mouth. “Not this one, dove. Not this time. I’m sorry.”

Part of you doesn’t quite believe the apology. It was tacked on at the end like an afterthought. You know John. Or, maybe you thought you did. The blood in your heart feels like it’s curdling, heavy, turning to tar as you continue to process exactly what’s happening here.

What he’s done.

You wrench your neck and free your face from the heat of his hands.

“How long?” you ask, voice breaking.

He doesn’t answer.

You strike his chest with the flat of both hands, again and again, then again. You can’t even shift him an inch and the both of you know it, it’s just somewhere for the fear to go as it bubbles. His chin tucks, watching with a curling devastation as you keep connecting with his body. In a flash, he’s got both of his hands on your wrists, yanking you forward against him. “How long, John?!”

You’re starting to learn how long.

He says nothing.

This isn’t a tour. It isn’t a season away with a date at the end of it. He’s running. There is no number because there is no horizon he can point to, no morning he can promise you he’ll be standing in this room again.

The realization comes out of you barely above a breath as you tip your head back to see him. “You’re not coming back.”

His eyes fall shut. He presses his mouth to your forehead hard and holds there, and when the words come they come muffled into your hair just above your ear, into the warmth of you he’s trying to memorize.

“I love you.” It’s not an answer to your question by any stretch of the imagination. He pulls back again to meet your eyes. “Whatever they say about me, whatever you hear — that’s the only truth, yeah?” His knuckles lift to your chin, the pad of his thumb pushing against the front of it, holding your gaze. “When they come, you tell them I was here, I threatened you, and I left in a hurry.”

Your lip wobbles as you look at him, your throat is so tight it hurts.

“Say it back to me.”

“Y- you were here, you left in a hurry.”

“I was here, I threatened you, I left in a hurry,” he repeats.

“You were here, y-you thre- threatened me, you left in a hurry.”

“Good.”

He kisses you and you can almost taste both halves of him in it at once: the half that’s yours, and the half that's already gone. You give it back to him like you can hold him in the room by your mouth alone. But you can’t. And you feel the precise instant he decides to stop, the breath he takes to force himself away.

“Lock the door behind me,” he says.

And the velocity is back. He swings the duffle bag up onto his shoulder, and he’s past you before you’ve turned, out the bedroom door, and you spin and rush after him with his name tearing out of you, your bare feet slapping against the hardwood.

“John! Please! John!”

But he’s already at the foot of the stairs, already crossing the hall, always faster than you, and you’re only halfway down when the front door swings open and the cold of the night pours in over the threshold to meet you. You reach the bottom step, lurch for the door.

The street is empty.

You look left, you look right. It’s as if you dreamt the whole thing. As if you made him up, boots to beard.

Behind you, the speaker’s still playing music from the kitchen. The onions have started to catch, the sweet smell tipping over into something bitter and charred.

[welshj03]

Free time

+ An animatic idea is haunting me but it’s not gonna be fun

[rusticfurnace]

john call-of-duty price experiencing the horrors, again.

[spiltspit]

Kelpie Soap 🌿 (cropped) my last mermay art for 2026 💜

[beebymoonlight]

@ghouljams when people think his baddie girl is locked in the room with him, but really he's locked in there with her. (18+)

she can't look at his stupid face. she presses her hands against his puffed chest, squeezing her thighs around his waist as she gets comfortable. her acrylics dig into the scar-lined skin there, making him hiss as she mewls, sitting down on his cock and rocking her hips.

she's a performer even like this. wants to look good. she moves like there's a camera watching her (there is, but simon knows how to cover the red light, he's not a fucking amateur). arches her back, pushes her tits out, moans like a pornstar as she curls her toes and rides him all desperate-like.

he's getting hot, sweaty, wants to kiss her more. he moves to take his mask off, but as soon as it makes it just over his nose, she smacks his hand down, making a displeased sound as she frowns at him and moves a little faster.

"what the fuck are you doing?" she spits, and simon holds onto her hips tight, bruising them, bending his knees and choking. he feels like she's gonna break his dick off if she clenches any harder, holy fuck. "i don't want to see your face. no one wants to see that shit."

"fuck you—" simon hisses, shaking his head. "bloody soaking me. you love it."

"i like you quiet and out of my fucking way."

she grabs the pillow from beside his head, covering his face with it. he groans into the cotton as she presses it down over him. he has to swallow parts of the pillow, but he can't concentrate on breathing when she starts slamming her hips down on him harder and harder and harder. she's leaking like a faucet, and he wants to come—he needs to come—

he takes in deep, struggling breaths after he comes. she tosses the pillow aside, rolling his mask back down, and he smacks her ass to watch it shake as she laughs and wiggles her hips so he can poke at her cervix. fuck, he's deep.

"awwww..." she coos, "poor boy. can't last for shit."

when she kisses him over the mask, he grunts at the show of affection.

"the fuck you want now, eh?"

"i'm late for my appointment. drive me?"

[theorist-fox]

Preferences

Simon 'Ghost' Riley x f!Reader — 18+

CWs: smut!!! PWP. Established relationships, freaks who love each other, choking, light dom/sub dynamics, sub!simon, dubcon if you squint because the consent isn't explicitly stated but I promise you they had a conversation beforehand whatever

CoD Masterlist | Masterlist 🦊

Simon prefers sex in the morning.

First thing, as soon as he opens his eyes.

At night, he’s far too tired to put in the work. You’re rather knackered as well, considering your shifts often end right by dinner time. Not that you’d refuse him, if he asked, but he’s noticed how you tend to simply lie down and let him do the hard work. 

And it doesn’t bother him. Not at all. 

He thinks you look glorious when your lashes are fluttering closed and your moans are breathier. Thinks you look delicious when he’s pistoning his cock inside you, tits bouncing on your chest, and sweat glistening on your brow. Fuck, he could eat you up the moment you start babbling nonsense, looking syrupy soft and slack beneath him.

But he has preferences, one might say.

Honestly, he’s tired of being in charge.

Responsibilities drown him when he’s wearing the uniform. He’s called left and right by sergeants who need his supervision. Runs up and down the hallways of HQ to do Price’s bidding. Takes the stairs two, three at a time, ditching the elevator to favour speed. His quads burn because he’s way too old for this shit. His chest aches because he smokes way too much and he should quit. 

He’s tired. So, so tired. 

And while you’re positively gorgeous, taking the whole of his cock as you lie down, you’re even better when you’re sitting on top of him.

A preference of his.

Sunlight’s still dim, not intrusive. It sits there, just behind the drawn curtains, flickering past whenever the breeze brushes through the window, left ajar.

And it loves you, just like he does. 

Caresses your skin, plays with your features. When it’s this gentle, the sun highlights the parts of you he likes the most. Granted, it’s hard to pinpoint what he loves best when the entirety of you is his favourite sight.

But there are pieces of you that come out exclusively during this time of day, when the sun is just shy of rising. When you’re naked, specifically, with his cock sunk inside you and your thighs spread wide to accommodate him.

The goosebumps down your arms, for example. With no blanket sheltering you from the cold and without his arms caging you to his chest, even the softest of breezes can make them rise. 

Fuck, he loves to look at your skin as it wakes up. And he could watch you for days like this, bathed in gentle sunlight and stretched wide.

But it isn’t only how you look that strikes him. It’s how you act.

He’s the breathless one when you straddle him. The one whose lashes flutter when you sink fully, rolling your hips until the tip of his cock touches deepest. It’s his brow that glistens with sweat, his jaw that works to keep his mouth closed; otherwise, his words would come faster than his thoughts.

Though you’re catching sounds right out of his lips—hook, line, and sinker.

“Look at you,” you croon, settling your palms on his chest. 

Your biceps press against your tits as you lean forward, peering down at him. His eyes fall on the way they bounce, plump and still slick with his spit—his mouth having been on them just minutes before. Then, your face: glossy lips, hooded eyes, sharp and attentive. 

His silence doesn’t go unnoticed. The tight line of his mouth makes you frown, and you roll your hips once, twice, until he’s forced to open it just to breathe. There, you catch his lower lip with your thumb, fingers curled under his chin.

“Mh,” you hum, voice velvety and low. “Like this, uh?”

And you do it again, stretching yourself wider until your pussy is flush at the base of him.

“You like it when you’re deep, yeah?”

By then, Simon can barely catch up. 

“Yeah,” is all he mutters.

Through his lashes, he can see the smirk that blooms on your cheeks, like you could eat him up whenever he speaks so reverently.

You lift your hips. 

“Again,” you demand.

And sink down on him.

“F-fuck,” he croaks. “Yes. Yes. Do tha’ again.”

You do, leaving him just a speck of choice. Making him believe that he has one at all.

With a smile, you grind yourself down. Though he can see it falter when the curls on his pelvis scratch your clit. So, you do it again, and again, and again. Until your lip is trapped between your teeth. Until your eyes are rolling to the back of your head. 

“God, you’re so big,” you breathe, spoken so quietly he wonders if you’re talking to him at all. “Splitting me open, baby.”

His eyes flicker to where you two join. The curls growing below his navel glisten with the wetness dripping from you. Your folds split in half where you’re impaling yourself on him, the knot of your clit grinding down hard each time you surge forward.

Fuck, he has to look away if he wants this to last.

“Fuckin’ hell yer killin’ me,” he croaks, eyes hooded and breath hoarse when he finds your face again.

Simon takes the lead there, if only briefly, sucking on your thumb that’s still resting against his mouth.

Breath is punched out of you, stumped as you blink yourself out of your bliss to return your focus on him. The look of complete surprise and adoration blossoming on your face might be enough to make him cum then and there.

How he loves to make you proud of him.

You push your thumb deeper, working your other fingers to grasp his jaw instead of his chin. Tight grip, forcing his eyes on your face.

A smile dimples your cheek, tender and still cheeky. “The lengths you go so I don’t hear you, uh?”

His skin is ablaze, heat stemming from all the places you touch. Chest blotched red, cheeks flushed pink. Diligently, he sucks on your thumb, welcoming it in the cradle of his mouth. He hums around it, with his lips pursed around the last knuckle.

Then, he pulls his head back, knocking it against the pillow, and releases your thumb with a pop.

The smirk he gives you is lazy and subdued, stretching just below the press of your finger. 

“Mh. Caught red-handed.”

You don’t hesitate to smear his spit all over his mouth and chin.

“Can’t give me those pretty noises, Si?”

You roll your hips. His grin falters.

You click your lips. “Like to be quiet, don’t you?”

“Y’know I ain’t much of a talker,” he quips through gritted teeth.

Then, you’re lifting yourself off of him languidly. His nostrils flare, tongue tied and swallowing a groan down his throat.

“Mh,” you chuckle breathlessly. “But I bet I can make you sing.” 

You sink again. Roll your hips, over and over, until the crown of his cock is entirely engulfed by you, somewhere so hot he thinks his skin might melt off. God forbid you rip yourself off of him now, of all times. He uses his hands on your hips to keep you firmly placed there, slotting his fingers in the crease between your thighs and your hipbones.

He’ll apologise later for the eventual claw marks left on your ass.

“Jesus, bird,” he curses, rolling his eyes to the back of his head. “Won’t last long if you keep tha’ up.”

Your hand holds his head steady, wrapped around his jaw. But then, you shift. 

Dainty fingers slide down the column of his throat, barely brushing the skin. He thinks you might go further down and start touching yourself—nothing better than to feel you clench around him as he finishes inside you. 

He’s left speechless when your hand curls around his neck instead. 

Your fingers press against the sides of his throat, palm flat against his windpipe, but exercising barely any pressure. Though he feels that, anyway—a tightness that rapidly wraps around his jaw and runs upward. His cheeks grow red, heat brimming just under the surface of his skin. 

Simon is completely disarmed. Utterly at your mercy.

“F-Fuck—”

“Yeah?” You grin. “You like that, don’t you?”

“Shit,” he croaks. 

The air in his lungs is rarefied, so much so that each word pains him to speak. And still, he does, unable to control his tongue.

“Fuck, sweethea—oh shit.”

It’s then that your pace picks up. Your ass slams against his thighs, hips working tirelessly to milk him for all he’s worth. Until the room only echoes the slap of skin on skin, the wetness of sex, the shortness of his breath. Until there’s only the smell of sex, cloying and sharp, imbuing those rare gasps of air he can take in.

“Yes, you do.”

His body feels so good that it’s shocked in place, with only his nails digging into the fat of your hips and his toes curling by the edge of the bed. He feels like he’s floating, even as your hands weigh him like a chain around his neck. 

Simon’s brain is fogged, his thoughts misty and scattered. Doesn’t know what his mouth is babbling, only feels its movements, totally out of his control—because you have it. You hold the reins. You guide him through this otherworldly bliss, cooing and tutting each time he manages to rasp a sigh. 

His vision is hazy, fighting against the lack of oxygen. How ironic that it only took the softest of hands to make a sniper’s sharp eyes tremble.

“Fuckin’ hell.” A breath, staggered and worn. “Fuck I love ya. God yer—”

The shape of you, fuzzy and soft, tilts her head. “Oh, what’s that?”

“—perfect.” He croaks. “Yer perfect.”

The plump lines of your mouth curl in a smile, ever so gentle. 

“Then cum for me, Simon,” you whisper.

Briefly, you release the hold on his throat. It only lasts a couple of reluctant seconds that he uses to gather some air to fill his lungs with. Though the natural relief coursing through his body has goosebumps rise along his skin, making his cock twitch inside you.

Then, you’re closing in your fingers again, and Simon groans.

You haven’t stopped for a single moment, not even to catch a breath yourself. You keep fucking him undeterred, and with how wet you feel and sound, he’s sure all it’d take is a brush of his fingers on your clit for you to shatter. 

But you seem to have other ideas in mind, as his own floats in between reality and heaven.

“Show me how much you love me.” You pant. “Cum for me.”

He’s lost sight of you now—eyes rolled behind hooded eyelids. He can barely feel anything anymore that isn’t the waves of unbearable heat and pleasure that ripple from his thighs up to his throat—where your fingers grow tight, tight, tighter.

“Fuck—” He mouths, breathy and quiet, losing control of his tongue. “Fuck I love ya. Love y—”

“Then cum, baby,” you bark like it’s a command, slamming your hips down. “Come on. Fill me up—”

The groan that rips from his chest crackles, breaks on his tongue. His orgasm is earth-shattering, seizes his body, and only his hips react as they uselessly rut upwards to meet your ceaseless grinding. Dark spots in his vision, tinnitus in his ear—loud, cottoned by the clouds he’s still floating upon.

Only then do you release the hold on his neck.

Simon splutters, coughs. The pitch in his ears ratchets up, ricochets in his skull. There’s a fierce tremble in his hands as they abandon your thighs, exhausted as they fall onto the mattress. 

There are bruises left by his fingertips on your skin, cuts marked by his nails. He’ll kiss you there, then, when he remembers how to breathe correctly.

His breathing is staggered, broken into tiny puffs of air that meddle with his vocal cords. It’s why each breath takes the shape of his voice—whimpers, cries, moans. Some softer, some louder. Some lower, others more shrill.

Simon can barely hear them as he comes down from his high, almost slamming onto the mattress from the heaven he’d inhabited for a while.

He looks at you like you’re insane. He looks at you like maybe he hasn’t left that heaven at all. 

“Yer mad,” he wheezes in awe, taking pleasure in the sharp aches in his chest. “Fuck I love you.”

Your hips come to a slow, measured pace. Your hand finds his cheek. Nose to nose, lips to lips. 

“I told you I’d make you sing.”

[yeyinde]

i really love the idea of Simon's and Johnny's entire relationship being built on freak finding freak—or two hunters sussing each other out. but being very sly about it.

like Ghost knows Johnny's whole persona is a facade, and that the doe he keeps huffing about, the one that keeps wiggling away from him, isn't actually a deer or an animal, but a person. and when he makes these little remarks about needin' tae tame a doe or get a stronger rope, a bigger cage; or when he tells them that the scratches he has on his arms and neck are from finally bringin' his doe home, he isn't talking about improving his husbandry.

just like Soap is pretty sure that the lil birdie keepin' 'im up all night isn't a pidgeon or a sparrow, but is instead the tourist who went missing a few months ago.

[peachesofteal]

previous

The alpha at the counter doesn’t really speak to you.

It’s not abnormal. You get plenty of folks, all ranges of them in here. It’s a pass through town. People pulling off the interstate to get gas and a bite to eat, a revolving door of stranger’s faces.

So, he doesn’t really say much, but it doesn’t really bother you. He orders coffee with milk and a standard breakfast, eggs scrambled, toast, sausage, the usual. And then after that, he’s quiet. Either lost in his thoughts or he doesn’t care to share them, and you don’t care either way.

You’re here regardless. In this diner, waiting tables, gritting your teeth, faking smiles, just like you have been for the last six months.

Since them.

They haunt you like a phantom. A cold you can’t shake. Their proximity triggered your basal instincts, your buried need, and put you into heat. A miserable, painful one that you spent alone. One you almost died from, and once the smoke cleared, you were left with the sickness, the very kind you didn’t even believe existed.

Bond corrosion.

Poisoned.

Since then, it’s been non stop suppressants, scent blockers and whatever you can get your hands on for pain relief. Every day, for six months. Cleaning out your checking account, your savings account, everything just to buy medication. 

The over load of pills can’t be good for your health, but neither is the alternative.

But does it matter?

You’re nothing, after all.

The man clears his throat. You realize you’ve zoned out and he’s watching you, waiting.

“Can I get a refill?” He motions to his empty mug. There’s something wrong with his face, something off. A serrated blade of foreboding, something sinister in his eyes.

A shiver runs down your spine.

“Of course, sorry.” You lean over with the pot, careful to pour slowly, and at the same time, he drifts forward, close enough you register his breathing.

His sniff.

He’s smelling you.

You pull back, startled. Alphas don’t smell you, not anymore. Not with the blockers.

“Thought you’d smell different.” He drawls, eyes sweeping your body, hips to face. “Sweet, or somethin’.”

“I’m sorry?” What the fuck? He just shakes his head.

“Never mind,” he lifts his mug in a salute. “Thanks for the top off.”

“Uh, sure.” You try to calm the uneasy feeling that’s now swirling in the pit of your stomach, the off kilter axis you’ve been thrown into. You chance another look at him, but he’s gone back to ignoring you, reading something on his phone, and you take the opportunity to slip away, mentioning to your coworker that you’re going on break, before stepping out into the back parking lot and cool crisp air.

Gravel crunches under your feet.

Don’t think about it.

Your mates’ rejection has become a living, breathing thing inside of you. A tumor taken up residence in your brain, something that white and grey matter grows around, accommodates, changes shape for like it’s a part of you now. Permanently altered down to your DNA. Every morning feels like it only happened the day before, even though it’s been almost seven months, but your designation, your biology, the crux of who you are, makes it impossible to move on. Time ticks forward, but you stay stuck, frozen in place with empty bonds that grow heavier and sicker inside your soul, poisoning you from the inside out. Trapped in a moment where your scent matches throw battered bills at your feet and turn their backs on you. Leave you.

Pathetic.

Desperate.

You didn’t think it was possible, biologically, for mates to leave one another, to want to be separated. Rejections are so rare, they’re like ghost stories told in the night to scare little children.

But here you are, alone with rot in your soul where two bonds should be.

Dogs bark in the distance. Somewhere past the parking lot, the trees, a trio of howls start up, loud enough that it startles you. They don’t stop, not after a few seconds, or a minute. The hairs on the back of your neck stand up, that unsettling feeling turning to wariness, discomfort.

It’s enough to force you back inside, locking door and double checking it.

When you make back into the dining room, intending to check on your sole customer, you discover he’s gone. Mug emptied, cash left next to the napkin, empty sugar packets wedged under the saucer.

His absence lightens a load, loosens your shoulders, and you breathe a sigh of relief.

He’s gone, and that’s one good thing at least.

You keep checking your rear view mirror on your drive home. The sky is starting to purple, bloom like a bruise, and while there are no other calls on the road, you can’t shake your discomfort, the unease that’s crawling up your spine. Something was off with that alpha. Something was wrong. You can’t shake it.

And why does it feel like he was there for you?

The light in the hallway is out, naturally.

It never gets changed. Just another shitty part of this shithole building that houses your even shittier apartment. The one with uneven floors and drafty windows and water stains all over the ceiling, ones that gradually grow larger and larger, leaving you to wonder when it’s all going to come crashing down on your head.

Some place to call home, even though that’s what it is. Your home, the only place you have, in this backwoods town that caught you in its snare.

You rub your chest with your knuckles as you fiddle with the lock, jimmying the key just right, getting it to the point where it finally pops and lets you turn the handle.

The door swings open, to a dark apartment.

You frown.

You always keep the hallway light on. Always. You hate coming home to pitch black apartment, hate the way it makes you feel, like nothing is waiting for you, no one. You’ve thought about getting a dog or a cat, more than once. Just so there’s someone to welcome you home, snuggle with you at night.

For a brief second, a split moment in time, your brain breaks. It goes blank.

And then-

You smell it.

Cardamom.

Tobacco.

Sea salted leather.

Honey black tea.

It’s muffled. Covered by what you suspect is blockers, but for you, for their mate, it’s clear as day.

Your hand flies to the wall, slapping against plaster, looking for the light switch in a panic as your heart pounds in your ears, but as your fingers graze it, something moves in the dark. A mountain cuts through shadow, faster than you can even blink, and then your mouth is covered.

“Don’t scream.” The rough voice says in your ear. A voice you recognize. A voice who called you desperate and pathetic, a voice belonging to the man, the alpha, that left you behind in a gravel parking lot.

Your body knows him immediately. Instinctively. You hate yourself for it. Your omega hindbrain lights up like a jackpot has been won, trying to drag you under, soften you, turn you into some starved, pathetic thing, reduce you to nothing but everything they think you are.

Alpha.

Mate.

Safe.

No.

You bite. Hard. Jerk back and then unhinge your jaw, bringing your top teeth down onto what you’re assuming is his gloved palm, as hard as you can.

He doesn’t even flinch.

So then you scream. You let your lungs loose behind his hand, thrashing in his hold at the same time, causing enough of a disturbance that he loses his grip for a nanosecond, enough time for you to pull far enough away, far enough to reach the light switch and flick it on.

He lets you go.

The living room light floods your surroundings, illuminating him in all his cruel glory.

Dressed in black from head to toe. Combat boots. Black hoodie pulled up over his head.

Skull mask covering his face. Skeleton gloves on his hands.

It’s terrifying. He’s terrifying. He looks like the grim reaper.

He’s larger than life in your apartment, towering inside it like a monster in a doll house, dark eyes focused on you with such brutal intensity you have to look away.

“What… what are you doing in my apartment?” The words are rusted metal scraping up your throat and out of your mouth. Metal and bitter and painful. His jaw flexes under the mask.

“You need to come with us.” Us?

Johnny appears over his shoulder in the hallway at the exact right time, a zipped up black duffel in his hands.

He looks the same. Brilliant blue eyes, impossibly handsome face. Only the mohawk is different, longer.

He offers you a small smile. It shocks you. Getting hit by a truck would be less surprising.

“You can’t… You can’t be here. What are you doing here?”

“We’re here to take ye.” Johnny says, taking a slow, careful step towards you, palms flat and non threatening at his side, duffel still slung over his shoulder.

“Take me?”

“Aye. Take ye somewhere safe.” It’s at that moment you realize there’s something strapped to Johnny’s thigh.

“Is that a gun?” You squeak, the already loud pounding of your heart now vibrating in your ears, your blood turning to ice as fear churns in your belly. You’re not sure you’ve ever seen a gun in your life. At least, not up close. “Wh-why do you have a gun?” Johnny’s smile disappears, his face turning severe. Serious. His eyes flick to the window, then to Simon with a nod, a silent conversation unfolding in the room, one you’re not a part of.

You should run. Flee. Try to make it around the blockade that is Simon’s body and make a break for the door. But you can’t, you’re stranded, a ship run aground, lost in the fog. Your body is already shutting down, at war with your instincts and your brain, an impossible fight unfolding inside your tissues, a battle all the way down to the molecular level.

“Get yer shoes.” Johnny motions to the pair of sneakers next to the door, the best pair of shoes you have, better than your worn out work non-slips. You shake your head.

“No, what? My shoes? I don’t… I don’t know what you’re d-doing here, or what’s going on, but-”

“What’s going on is you’re comin’ with us.” Simon nods to the duffel Johnny is still holding. “Got everything?” It’s your duffel, you realize with dawning horror, the one that lives in the back of your closet, unused and mostly forgotten.

Now, it’s stuffed full.

“Why do you have that?” Why, why, why. All these questions in a room full of deaf ears.

“We had to pack your stuff. Now get your shoes.”

“Pack my stuff?” You ask weakly, because it’s all you can do. You’re a parrot, repeating everything, trying to make sense of it.

“I got everything I think ye’ll need.” Johnny says gently, face soft. “Some clothes an’ yer toothbrush. Yer meds.” Your face heats with shame. Your meds. The suppressants, the blockers, the pain killers, all on display on your nightstand. You imagine them, in your room, in your space, going through your things, cataloging them, studying them. Seeing them. Seeing your pain, your destroyed nest, the one you built meticulously and then tore apart after they came and went. “Anythin’ else ye need we’ll-” he stops dead, face turning towards the living room window.

Simon kills the lights. You open your mouth to ask, again, what is going on, but words die on your lips when a small red dot appears in the room, it’s trajectory lined up right next to your head.

The rest of it happens very fast. Too fast.

There’s a crack, like a whip, and then the window explodes, spraying glass everywhere. You’re suddenly in someone’s arms, Simon’s, his body curved over yours, a shield that takes you down to the floor and keeps you there with an impossible weight.

There’s more cracking, popping, Johnny and that gun, firing into the shattered glass, your frightened screams covered by the gloved hand on your mouth, and then you’re being pulled onto your feet.

“Move.” Simon barks in your ear, and your body automatically responds, a puppet played by a master. He’s half dragging, half pushing you through your apartment’s front door and then down the hall, thundering towards the emergency exit. Everything is happening so fast, too fast, and you can’t process it, can’t even begin to put the pieces all together as the door opens and the three of you spill out into the night.

What is happening?

The alley behind your building is pitch black, and you stumble, tripping as Simon pulls you in tighter to his side, an impenetrable force, pinning your body against his.

Another crack splinters the air and you scream as Johnny swears, his gun coming up from his side.

“Keep your head down.” Simon orders, and you close your eyes, following along numbly as he leads you past your building and around the corner.

This can’t be happening.

Whatever this is, it can’t be real.

Johnny appears on your left. You get a whiff of him, honey black tea steeped in raw fury, the violent edge of it tainting that honey sweetness you smelled before, and he’s so close, close enough you can feel his heat through your shirt.

“Almost there,” he murmurs low, and you hate, loathe, how it sinks into your bones. How it tries to warm you.

There’s a black SUV parked at the end of the alley, engine running, lights off, waiting. Waiting for them, you realize numbly as you’re propelled forward, waiting for you.

You try to dig your heels in.

“I’m not going-” Simon yanks open the back passenger door, grabs you by your arm.

“You are.” There’s no room for an argument, no room for even a single word. Before you know it, you’re being tossed into the back seat, door slammed at your back before Johnny is climbing in up front and Simon is sliding behind the wheel.

The engine turns over.

The locks click.

And then you watch as your apartment building fades into the distance, your life and everything you ever knew slowly disappearing from view.

[quarterlifekitty]

IDEA IN MY MIND‼️‼️

Okay, so based off the kidnapping group chat, I think to think that every once in awhile, they'll meet up and let their kidnapped partners interact with each other while they drink beer and watch football together.

It's like, a really fucked up hangout session.

Here’s how you can tell who’s who at a meetup like this!

cw: kidnapping, dark, references to physical violence, etc

Gaz’s girl is wearing leggings, a sweatshirt, and one of his baseball caps. She’s giving everyone dirty looks and picking at the skin on her fingers.

Price’s girl is in a knee-length dress, a delicate gold chain necklace, and dangling gemstone earrings that match the dress. She keeps looking over at Price— like she’s trying to make sure he can see her behaving. She has some heavy eye bags.

Ghost’s girl is wearing one of his t shirts and some loose shorts. She’s got bruises in the shape of his fingers on her wrists and the column of her throat. She’s handcuffed to him with a few feet of chain for slack between them.

Nikolai’s girl is wearing long sleeves that come to a cinched ruffle at the wrist, with a shapeless corduroy dress overtop (a bit of a smock) that goes to her knees, with stockings underneath. She’s perfectly behaved, and has a little silver cap on the remainder of her left pinky finger.

How can you spot Soap’s girl, you may ask.

Well, Soap’s girl is the one wearing a metallic collar with a red light on it. I’ll let you guess why that is.

[ladykelsi]

so kidnapper!gaz used books. kidnapper!ghost uses a cat.

straight up adopted a cat solely for the purpose of luring you out of the public eye, courtesy of the infamous cat distribution system, and using it to capture you. he takes off her collar, which is all he needs for you to feel the need to intervene. and it works masterfully from the moment you spot his cat just minding her business.

“oooh, kitty!” you exclaimed. but when you tried to come closer, the cat moves away, which then encourages you to follow while trying to coax her to come to you. “pspspsps! here, kitty kitty!”

his cat meows and keeps running away, further to where there were less and less people. and closer to where Ghost was. in a dark alleyway.

you slow down to a screeching halt once you see the hulking figure at the end

he knew that you knew you were crewed when you heard his devilish ehehehe, followed by an ominously mocking “here, kitty kitty.” and really that was all he needed to catch you.

there wasn’t even a chance to scream before he was on you.

[lxvvie]

Kyle talks you through it while he's balls deep. You're on your back so he can see that pretty face as he fucks you, and you've long since given up wrapping your legs around his waist; they're trembling so badly. It's good, so bloody fuckin' good for you both that Kyle comes before he wanted to. Thrusts uncoordinated, hips stuttering, getting tongue-tied, lost in your tight pussy, losing count of how many times you've come already... Jesus fuckin' Christ.

"Look at me. That's it, beautiful—shit."

And now it's Kyle's turn to be a fuckin' mess.

But, he keeps goin'. There's more to fuck out of you, gorgeous.

[puppygirldick]

Viktor Lyapkalo Artwork: 'Blowing bubbles' & 'Evening' Painted 9 years apart.

Same woman

[asteroidtroglodyte]

[asteroidtroglodyte]

Yooo I went and looked up the Artist responsible for these masterpieces and holy shit did this guy love Big Women:

[nudity under the cut]

A man of excellent taste, I dare say!