Fics & Prompts i Love

I hate reblogging fics onto my main bc it doesn’t look nice. Here’s my account for fic and prompts that I would love to revisit!! This used to be my junk page but now it’s gonna have some real use!!

[lesserthan-3]

reader who inhales some experimental aphrodisiac while on the latest mission.

the transport home is awkward to say the least. you’re whimper, humping your seat lamely while you’ve practically soaked through your panties, cargos, and down onto the seat itself.

“eyes forward, men.” says price from the drivers seat. his calm demeanor gives nothing away if it weren’t for his sweating palms that have a death grip on the drivers wheel.

you whine- a fucking delicious and needy whine. “please…please captain…please can someone help me? please? pleasepleasepleaseplease?”

“oh lord,” mutters soap from beside you. his eyes are oddly focused on the pattern of the roof. “lord please give me the strength right now.” his fingers twitch with ache and his leg is anxiously bouncing up and down. he continues to mumble prayers- which is odd since soap isn’t known to be a religious man.

“please- please it’s so hot. need to take these off. please,” you beg, hands fumbling with the button and zipper of your cargos.

“stop it, kid. Kyle, soap, hold ‘er down.”

gaz and soap look at each other, face full of emotion- uncomfortableness, concern, arousal?

“S-sir…don’t think it’s a good idea for me to touch the lass right now.” Soap admits, taking a slow and deep breath as his eyes unwillingly stare you up and down.

Gaz steps up. Not because he’s eager to touch you, not because he needs an excuse to get his hands on you- but because he genuinely believes that if anyone can have the restraint, it would be him. “I’ve got it, sir.”

he bunches your hands together by the wrist, bringing it away from your pants that are left unzipped but still fully on.

you let out a broken sob that just breaks his heart but stiffens his dick. “Nonononono, just a little touch please? please? Hurts s’bad. Need to…just once, please?”

gaz gulps, and for a second his grip loosens on your wrist. “Garrick!”

gaz jerks, meeting the stare of his lieutenant who’s sweating at the base of his mask. “we’re almost there. keep it together.”

you squirm, crossing and uncrossing your legs in any attempt for a piece of friction that is just never enough.

the rest of the ride is painfully silent, each man thinking the same thing but none of them willing it out loud. It feels like ages when the transport is finally parked at the base and three heads turn to their captain for his decision.

“Her quarters, now.”

[lambskine]

SWEET MUSIC - jack abbot x omega!reader

summary: the ED is overwhelming at the best of times. for a sensitive type-O coming up on their heat, it's unbearable. you try not to be a stereotype, but you can't help wishing someone would hold you. you don't expect that person to appear in the middle of an emotional meltdown - and you certainly don't expect them to be your boss.

contents: A/B/O dynamics, untraditional A/B/O dynamics, pre-relationship, emotional regulation, cuddling, omega!reader, fem!reader, subvocal communication, fluff

a/n: i have boarded the omegaverse train and i'm not getting off. HEAVILY inspired by the incredible Did's 'take a sad song and make it better' series, which i recommend to anyone even if they aren't magnus archives fans - i'm near 100% certain they originated the subvocal trope in ABO so i think it's pretty fundamental. . GIF by @lauraneedstochill

It always frustrated you how easy it is for type A’s in the Pitt. Not even for the stupid gender bias (though granted, that resentment is always simmering somewhere) but for how naturally their subvocalizations fit into their work. Walsh can snarl out a back off whenever anyone’s crowding her during surgery, Santos can bark mine on any case she’s calling dibs on. Robby’s subvocals run like a motorcycle engine all day, get away and follow me and careful and I’m watching you rumbling out of his chest with every tiny problem.

… That’s a little unfair. Sometimes he makes nice noises - a gentle be brave for a kid getting their blood drawn, or an all safe for a panicking victim.

It’s usually the mean ones, though.

It’s no one’s fault. Sure, Robby could benefit from a psych consult, but what else is new? It’s emergency medicine, tensions are always high and personal feelings just aren’t as important as the patient coding in the trauma bay. Still, it’s difficult to manage, especially for people like you. You’ve always been sensitive. Maybe a little too sensitive for emergency medicine, though some might say that’s exactly why you should be here. Every doctor here loved to preach about how empathy and gentleness go a long way in the Pitt - shame the alphas never bother to take their own advice. Sometimes their growls get too deep and they snarl with a little too much teeth, and your stomach flares with the primal instinct to collapse and whimper I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m small I’m frightened forgive me protect me I’m sorry. But you’ve been in med school for years, a doctor for two and an omega for more than twenty - you’ve spent your whole life learning to leave your baggage at the door. To focus on your medical instincts instead of your physiological ones. You know how to puff out your chest and play with the big bad alphas in the trauma bays.

When you’re due for your heat though, it’s harder to keep up the facade. That’s why you’re here. Hiding in PPE storage during shift-change. You begged Shen to hand off your patients to day-shift for you - perhaps it was a little cruel to whip out the puppy-eyes for such a petty problem, but you blame those type-B instincts of his. As aloof as he seems, seeing a type-O in distress is always going to tug at his heartstrings. You don’t like to take advantage of that too often - usually when you’re due for your heat (or working through it on suppressants, which is a little bit frowned upon, but it’s not like anyone’s going to send a healthy doctor home from the ED) you can stick out the discomfort, the sweats and the sensory overload until you get home. The second your apartment door closes, you’re trilling up and down your pokey little walk-up, your subvocals singing like a soprano - Hello? I’m here? I’m small. Help me? Take care of me? Someone take care of me? It’s humiliating, bordering on masturbatory, but emergency practitioners aren’t known for healthy coping mechanisms, and you’re no different. You’ve learned this habit since you were young, smothering self-soothing purrs into your pillow at night, praying no one heard and thought you weak for it. It only got worse in med-school. Student doctors were sharks in the water, and if they smelled blood, their competitive instincts would eat you alive. So you’d sneak out of your dorm and onto the roof, in cupboards, even a morgue on one sad, desperate occasion. No need for anyone to hear. No need for anyone to see you as yet another helpless, hysterical omega who can’t hack it with the grown-ups.

Settled in PPE storage, you allow yourself to breathe. You’ve hunkered down between two compact storage shelves, the crank only pulled enough to make a space just barely big enough for your body, so the cool steel walls press flush against your sides. When your senses start getting overwhelmed, you need stability. Firm pressure locking you in place. Mel’s taken to asking Langdon to give her a quick squeeze between cases whenever she’s in need of grounding - not that they ever do it in the middle of the ED, of course. You only found out when you walked in on them in the stairwell, Mel tucked in Langdon’s arms, purring a happy tune of safe, warm, thank you. One warning growl from Langdon was all it took to send you turning tail back into the ED. But you never stopped thinking about it.

Maybe if you asked nicely, Shen wouldn’t mind helping you out. You’re sure it wouldn’t be the nicest - he’d probably give you a perfunctory two-second squeeze and send you on your way. Still, even if it’d leave you wanting more, it’d be better than nothing… You shake your head forcefully. No. You won’t do that. You’re not going to randomly interrupt an attending to ask for a hug, especially when you’re on your heat. Shen could make the process as clinical as possible, it’d still send the rumour mill flying. You dread to think what Princess and Perlah would say if they found out.

You sigh, letting yourself soak in the darkness. You turned out the lights when you came in, the fluorescence too much for your sensitive eyes - the only remaining light is the soft beam from the hallway through the glass pane in the door. You settle against the two shelving units, let the cool metal soothe your burnt nerves. On a deep breath, you relax the muscles in your throat. Your sub-vocal cords hum gently, a little stiff from suppressing them all day. Mel had once asked you if you worried about long-term damage, but you’d always found that to be a bit of an urban myth. Your cords were perfectly healthy - if anything, it was hard to stop once you got going.

A mournful little purr echoes from behind your teeth.

Hello? Is anyone there? I’m lonely.

It’s always embarrassing to do this. It’s so cliche. The sad little omega crying for someone to take care of them. Fuck, you could be the topic of some red-pill podcast - a case-study on type-O’s being physically unsuited to high-stress environments. It’s all bullshit, of course. You’re just as good a doctor as any type-A, sometimes better for your experience in type-O healthcare. But your success doesn’t free you from scrutiny. Only your failures.

I’m here. I’m alone. Someone take care of me.

You tilt your head into the pit of your elbow, trying to muffle the sharp, synthetic scent of plastic and disinfectant. You want warmth. You want a strong body holding you close. Hot tears prick your eyes - you sniffle into your scrubs. Fuck, you really are due for your heat.

Help me? I’m sad. I’m fertile-

Oh, definitely due for your heat-

-I’m a little thing. I’m soft. Someone touch me. Someone please love me.

A beat passes. You take another steadying breath. A few more minutes, you decide. A few more minutes and then you’re gone.

And then, distantly-

Hello?

You freeze. Your neck jerks upright, swivelling towards the beam of light from the hallway. Scrap the shelving unites and the brutalist architecture and you’d look like a deer in a meadow, spooked by its own echo.

Hello? Where are you? Are you there?

Except it’s not an echo. That is a rich, smoky subtone, low and gravelly and powerful - the total opposite to your soft type-O chirping. Worst of all, it’s the subtone you least want to hear right now.

In a moment of hormone-fuelled, pre-heat panic, you shove your body into a gap in the shelving unit - you’re sure a pile of blankets must’ve been there, because it still smells like stale fabric and too-much detergent, but it’ll make a suitable burrow for now. There’s no way to close the gap in the shelves without turning the crank from the outside, so all you can do is hide and pray that Abbot doesn’t notice the suspiciously person-sized space between the shelving units. Hope he just assumes someone left the crank open and leaves.

Are you there? I’m not aggressive. I’ll protect you. Are you okay?

The gentle rumbling warms you right to the chest, and that treacherous, unevolved part of your brain wants to cry out for him. You hold your breath, strangle your vocal chords tight, and curl tighter into your hiding place.

The light switches on. Fluorescence burns your eyes, the hum of electricity making your tender ears ache. Before you can stop yourself, a whiney squeak escapes your lips, an aborted little wait-!

Hello?

Oh, God damn it-

I’m worried. Can you come out? I’ll protect you. Where are you?

You squirm in your makeshift burrow. You can feel your pulse rabbiting in your chest. Fuck, you should’ve just waited until you got home. Now your attending is going to find you throwing the world’s horniest tantrum in PPE storage.

For a moment, silence. Your breathing almost evens. Maybe he left. Probably going to tell Ahmad that a type-O patient is freaking out in the storage room, so you have about five minutes to compose yourself before you get the fuck out of here-

You feel the resonance of a hand pressing against the metal - and your eyes catch on hazel.

“Oh,” Abbot says quietly. “There you are.”

Fuck. Fuck. He must think you’re absolutely God damn insane, but it’s always impossible to tell with him - he delivers everything with a gruff mumble and intense, deadpan stare. Nevertheless, you’re an R2 curled up on the PPE shelves and wailing mating calls into the early hours of the morning. He’s probably not thinking anything good.

“Heyyy…!” You smile weakly, a pathetic attempt to sound casual. Perhaps if Abbot’s feeling merciful, he’ll let you leave without much questioning.

This attempt is immediately undermined by the sub-audible squeak in your throat - nooo, leave me aloooone....

For a fraction of a second, Abbot’s nose scrunches. You scoot your sneaker against the metal shelf, trying to force yourself impossibly further back.

“Sorry! Sorry, I’m sorry, it’s not - God, this is so unprofessional, it’s just - it’s around that - um - that time and I usually, I swear I don’t-“

Ahhhh leave me alone! I’m little! Don’t go! Hold me! Go away!

Fucks sake. This is why you wait until you’re home - it’s so hard to get it under control once you get going…!

Abbot frowns, but if he’s saying something, you can’t hear it. Your eyes, still hazy and soft from your tears, catch on the corner of his lips. Hm. Strange. Usually, he keeps his mouth in a flat, hard line - even when he’s smirking, his lips are always stiff, hard at the edges, keeping all those squishy parts locked deep inside. It’s still flat now, serious and stern, but… There’s a softness to it. A gentle downturn at the corners. Like a hunting dog holding game by the neck.

“Hey.”

You jolt, your head dinging against the shelf above you. You hate when he does that, when his subvocals go so low they mingle in with his regular speech. He never does it intentionally, it just comes with the territory for some type-A’s - still, it reaches somewhere deep and primal in your stomach, something that turns all you want to do into whatever he wants.

“I-I’m sorry, I-!”

“No, no, it’s okay-” Abbot flounders for a moment, his hands jumping towards you for a split-second before he shoves them back to his sides. You recognize that instinct - it’s entirely medical, a reflexive move from the trauma bays. Hold your hands out, stabilize the patient, grab that tube or that scalpel or to put pressure on the bleeding or whatever else. That’s Abbot, always reaching for something to save. You usually find it sweet. Evidence of the goodness he tries to hide. Now you find it deeply, deeply frustrating. “Can you hear me right now?” Abbot says tentatively.

“I’m type-O, I’m not useless,” You snap. Abbot frowns, and you realize once again that you are currently crying inside a storage shelf.

“… Right.”

He says, the same way he speaks to med-students when they suggest something totally fucking inane - perfectly deadpan, but dripping with bafflement. Your hormones flare, your subvocal suite descending into a total type-O tantrum.

Oh! OH! How dare you. I am small. I am a BABY. How DARE you!

Abbot holds up his hands placatingly, his eyes wide and sparkling with humour.

“Oh God, shut up,” you whine, more to yourself than to him. “If you say anything, I'm quitting!"

“I’m not.” Abbot says. Smiling. The dick.

“I mean it!”

“I’m not!”

It’s so hypocritical to get emotional when he raises his voice, because he’s not even really raising it - but your nerves are so frazzled, so sensitive, that it makes you want to cry all over again. Your voice hitches in your throat, and as you try desperately to swallow the sob, your subvocals wiggle through despite your best efforts to keep them quiet.

Poor me. I’m little and soft. Take care of me?

There’s a twinge of pink glowing on his cheeks.

“Um.”

“Don’t-!” You bury your face in your hands and groan. “I just - today was a lot and I - I need to go home and-!”

It’s okay.

You jolt at the noise, staring at him slack-jawed. He’s still got his palms up, his shoulders down, trying to look as small and unintimidating as is possible for a type-A ex-marine with biceps bigger than your head.

You’re safe. I’m not a threat. Look how nice and not threatening I am.

“Oh, don’t give me that-!” You snap - but his soothing rumbles reach a place deep in the pit of your stomach, and before you can stop yourself, your subvocals are crying out. Yes! It’s me! I’m little! Protect me!

His eyes soften, sweet and honey-toned - any humour he had for this bizarre situation has been replaced with the patented Abbot need to protect. To fix. He holds one hand out to you in a small, coaxing gesture. You want to be offended, you really do. You’re not an awkward teen going through their first heat. But he’s all big and nice and gentle, and his soft cooing is so soothing on your ears, and how long has it been since someone held their hand out to you without asking for a surgical tool?

You take his hand and crawl out from your metal burrow, pretending you’re only letting him support you instead of drinking the warm touch in like hot cocoa. You’re kneeling on the linoleum, and you feel a little pang of guilt that he’s had to sit on his good knee for so long trying to coax you out of your pre-heat blues.

“M’sorry.” You mumble towards his shoe. There’s a shift in the air above your head as he makes an amused exhale, the closest Abbot ever comes to laughter.

“It’s okay.” He says gently. “Today was… Hard.”

There’s something about the way that he means it, the way he’s not just placating you but really means it, that warms you inside and out. He makes to pull his hand away - because you’re still holding it, letting it hover above your sternum because you’re not weak enough to press it against your skin, but you’re not strong enough to let go yet - and you can’t stop the helpless whine that escapes you.

Please! I’m good! Aren’t I good? Won’t you hold me?

He makes a sound like he’s been punched. You drop his hand like it burnt you.

“I’m sorry!” You squeak. “I don’t - I swear I don’t mean to-!”

“Would that help?”

Your head jerks up, your eyes meeeting his - and that’s the trap, really, because once you meet Abbot’s eyes, it’s impossible to break his stare - and God, you must look pathetic, because he’s looking at you half-amused and half like you’re breaking his heart.

“What?” You say weakly.

“Holding you.”

You swallow, thick and heavy. You think back to Langdon and Mel, snuggled in the hallway. The way you burned with envy for the rest of your shift - not over Langdon, but over the enviable knowledge that there was someone who protected her. Someone who would shield her from all the hardships of this place. You’d never wanted to be a cliche - the wimpy little omega in need of someone big and strong to protect her - but you couldn’t help pining for that kind of trust. That safety. You ached for it.

He’s your attending. Your alpha attending. The one who flirts with anything that moves and still goes home alone every day.

He must sense your hesitation, because he holds his arms out loosely, an invitation and not a command. He rumbles, quiet and confident-

Come here.

You scramble into his lap like it’s the safest nest you’ll ever find.

It’s possible you’re a little too enthusiastic. He wobbles backwards with the force of it, but only a little, enough to plant himself properly on the floor and let his legs splay out around you, his good knee guarding your back and his impaired leg stretched out in the space between the shelves. He curls his thick arms around you, holding you steady, and you nuzzle into his chest like it’s a pillow, letting his gruff rumblings wash over you.

Oh. Baby. Poor baby.

“I am not…” You whine, but it’s hardly convincing. The low vibrations in his chest press against you like a cup of tea against your palms, and you feel more than hear yourself chirruping in response. Yes! It’s me! Take care of me!

Good omega. Sweet little thing. So brave for me.

“Stop that,” you mumble, your words so weak that he’d be able to tell you didn’t mean it even without your subvocals crying yes! Me! I’m here. I’m soft.

“Getting mixed signals, here.” He murmurs, his smile pressed into your temple. You huff out a breath, but that does nothing to help - it only fills your airways with his smell, all smoke and pine and resin.

Mm. Alpha. Nice alpha.

The rumbling beneath your cheek stutters for a moment. Fractionally - only by a degree, really - Abbot tips his nose towards your temple, brushing over your hair. His rumbling comes back like the roar of an engine.

Hush. All’s well. I’ll protect you. You’re safe.

Finally, your frazzled nerves feel soothed. Like your whole body’s been rubbed with balm. Your vocal chords, tired from going from underuse to sudden overuse, murmur a weak little mmmsleepy, and then go quiet. There’s a beat of silence, neither of you quite sure where to go next. Truthfully, you don’t want to go anywhere at all. You would live here if you could, swaddled in Abbot’s arms.

“Did that… Help?” He asks tentatively, his voice still rich and crackly as he transitions from his subvocal apparatus to regular speech.

“Mhm.” You nod, but you make no effort to separate yourself. Not yet. He doesn’t try to leave, either. He just holds you. Lets you pull yourself back together at your own speed

In stiff, jerky movements, you pull yourself out of his lap. He follows you at the pace you set, never moving too fast, always hovering nearby, just in case. You try not to scoff at him - you want to tell him that it’s not like you’re going to collapse, but considering what he’s seen in the past… Ten minutes? Twenty? It’d make sense if he thought you were going to.

“I’m, um.” What do you even say? You’re sorry? Thank him? What is the rulebook for dubious-consent-based pre-heat-meltdown-induced snuggling? “I’ll… See you tomorrow.”

Good enough.

“Yeah.” Abbot nods, his tone suspended in the same way a dog holds a wounded paw. “See you.”

You nod awkwardly. You move left at the same time he moves right, then vice versa, then you just force your way past him and beeline for the door, ready to pretend this whole wretched morning never happened.

“Let me know if you need that again.”

You pause, your hand resting on the doorknob.

”… What?”

Abbot looks caught for a moment, then coughs, clears his throat, scratches the back of his neck. His short sleeve lifts with the movement, catching on the bulge of his bicep. You privately thank whatever God is out there that your vocal chords are too shot to say anything about it.

“Yeah, just… Y’know. It gets overwhelming in here, especially when you’re - um.” There’s a pause that lasts the same length as the words in heat. “Yeah. So… If you need… Help,” his jaw ticks as he says the word, “then I can do that.”

You… Don’t know what to make of that. Part of you wants to shut him down entirely. There’s plenty of gender bias in medicine before bringing secondary genders into the equation, and you don’t want to be known as the resident playing packmates with your attending. On the other hand… You’re not sure you’ve ever felt so safe before. So protected. You can’t remember the last time all those base survival instincts - run, hide, get to safety - just washed away.

And that’s all it is, isn’t it? Just instinct. Soothing those old impulses left over from years of evolution. It doesn’t have to mean anything.

“Um. Yeah, maybe,” you say hurriedly. “I mean, I - today was a bad day, I don’t know if I’ll, um - like, if I do need it, I’ll ask, but I probably won’t, so don’t - don’t expect me to-“

“If you need it,” Abbot says firmly, his eyes locked on yours, “you’ll ask.”

Strong and steady. Everpresent. There to fix those who need it. Classic Abbot.

“Yeah,” you whisper, your voice suddenly lost to you. “Sure.”

You throw the door open and scurry through the hallway, clocking out and racing into the cool night air.

It’s just a precaution. That’s why he’s asking. Just in case. Because he’s Abbot, and he always wants everyone to be okay. If you need it, you’ll ask, but you won’t need it. Not because you’re not grateful, but because this was very much a one-time thing.

When you get home, you bury yourself in blankets, pillows, plushies. You even dig out an old sweatshirt an ex left and hold it under your nose the whole night. You put on one of your many type-A audio porn recordings and try to let the vibrations take you somewhere else… But after Abbot - after that closeness, that safety - you’re not sure they’ll ever satisfy you again.

[erwinsvow]

𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐦𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐦 𝐲𝐨𝐮 — 𝐚.𝐜.

summary: against better judgement, you send a letter to a man at folsom with very sad eyes. against even better judgement, you send letters every week for years until he stops replying one day. and against everything you know, when he shows up at your door, you invite him inside.

pairing: prison letters reader x andrew cody

word count: 12.4k

tags: reader is silly and does things i do not recommend. kids do not write letters to prisoners and fall in love with them. unless it's andrew cody obviously. lots of context no one asked for. nurse!reader, descriptions of wound (andrew cuts himself to get into your work because why wouldn't he!), descriptions of wound handling, smut (oral - f receiving and mating press and the tiniest hint of breeding). takes place in season one, but just imagine he's got season two's hair. you have to fully immerse yourself in the fact that it's andrew cody and then ask yourself—wouldn't you take him home too? it's not her fault!

author's note: here she is! thank you for the patience ♡

you honestly had signed up as a joke. the club was known through your campus to be run by a couple of bleeding hearts. no one had thought the school would approve their activities—letters to prisoners. it was a recipe for disaster.

you should have known better.

but a friend of a friend was involved, and you knew it would make your nursing school application look better, and honestly, you didn’t think anything would come of it. a couple of letters here and there. you had thought it’d be all anonymous, messages of motivation and prayers signed with a first name only.

until your friend—bleeding heart and hopeless romantic, trying to appeal to those very same qualities in you—had shown you the website. that’s when you should have realized it wasn’t just a recipe, it was going to be a disaster.

the prisoners recorded videos—thirty seconds, short and sweet. a name, a couple of sentences about them, hometown and hobbies. underneath the video you could see what they had been arrested for. only the ones who were in for petty crimes—drugs and robbery, things where no one else had really gotten hurt, were allowed to partake. that was good at least. didn’t need any murderers sending letters to pretty co-eds.

your friend picked the guy she thought was the cutest. you watched his video—he was handsome, you couldn’t deny it. but the more videos you watched, the less you wanted to write a letter. you could almost see it, the desperation behind their eyes. it seemed like every man had nefarious intent. like your prettily written letter would not be used for motivation and prayers of a better life outside.

you decided not to send one. you’d rather have an empty slot on your application than a bad feeling in your gut for the rest of the semester. it’s not like the prison was across the country—it was just a couple of hours away.

she asked you to give it one more chance, watch a couple more videos. just pick a cute one, she’d told you. when you’d made a noise of disapproval, she had rolled her eyes.

“okay, pick whoever seems the nicest, then.”

so you had.

the video had been labeled andrew cody. first degree robbery.

the man in the video had been incredibly genuine. you don’t remember exactly what he had said—just bits and pieces. you knew he was from oceanside, born and raised from the way he sounded. he said he had a lot of brothers and a sister back at home. that he spent his time working out and reading books to distract himself from how noisy it was inside. the first thing he’d do when he got out was go to the beach and listen to the waves and breathe in the clean salty air.

and deep down inside, you knew you were just as much of a bleeding heart as the rest of your friends. you had folded instantly.

but it wasn’t just that. you spent the next several nights thinking about him. sad eyes, a singular half-smile at his own joke and then a real one when he mentioned going to the beach once he was released. he’d followed it up with—not that it’ll be any time soon. that made you sad, in turn. you thought about what he was like before prison—did he smile more? was he always so sad?

you thought about a lot of things. more than whatever your friends did, telling you how they had sent their letters, flirty yet inherently professional, so as not to get in trouble with the advisor.

you took a while to send yours. first you couldn’t think of what to write—everything felt so stupid compared to what he must be going through. andrew would hardly want to hear about the mundaneness of your daily life, or the struggles of trying to get into the nursing program.

you thought about not sending a letter at all after the first few times you tried to put pen to paper.

and then you thought about how sad he must feel, how lonely and scared, how terrible it would be to see all the other prisoners get letters besides him.

so you drove to the beach. you surprisingly had more in common with andrew cody than you even realized when you selected him. there was nothing you loved more than the beach, which is why you had even picked your college to begin with. and now, four years later about to graduate, you couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

you caught the sunrise. you brought your little notebook with you to the water after setting your bag down on the bench. the seagulls were flying around, a couple of other beach-goers walking along the border where the sand met the ocean. it was a day like any other.

there were two sides of you—a hopeless romantic inside of an inherently logical girl. one side argued how stupid it was to send letters to a stranger. the other wondered if this would be the day that changes your life. you push away the thought and focus on writing the damn thing.

you thought andrew might like if the letter smelled like the salt-water. the stupid idea felt a lot less silly when you were attempting it, bringing your notebook all the way down to the water and hovering it. a slightly bigger wave caught you by surprise, the corners getting wet where it splashed up.

cursing to yourself, you walked back to the bench with sandy feet. and then you started writing.

dear andrew, and then you paused. fuck. you got out some of the introductory stuff—your first name, that you were a nursing student. it took a while to get the rest of the page filled, until you stopped for a moment and thought about what you would tell the man with the sad eyes if he was sitting next to you.

i came to the beach to write this letter. i’m sorry if the corners are wrinkled when you get it, i almost dropped it in the water trying to get it to smell like the beach so you had a little piece of home with you. i’m not near oceanside but it’s still the pacific.

i can’t imagine how hard it must be to grow up near the water and then be so far away for so long. but at least you know it’ll always be waiting for you when you get released. they want us to write motivational things but i’m not sure how motivating it would be for you reading this letter about my silly life. so i thought i’d write about the beach instead.

it’s about seven in the morning. the weather isn’t too cold and sky is pink and orange right now. the waves were calmer an hour ago when i got here but now it’s getting more intense. there’s a couple with their dog, and another man running on the sand. i’m on a bench writing this, but i’ll walk along the water again before i leave. i would try to send you a shell but i’m sure they’d take it away. maybe sand?

i love the sound of the waves too. my school isn’t close enough to hear it, but i have one of those machines that makes the noises. it helps a lot when i’m trying to sleep. maybe you can get one when you get out too.

you fill up a page, and then another page. when you fold up the letter and slip it into the envelope, you take a couple grains of sand and drop it in there. a little piece of home for him.

then you mail the letter, and think that was that.

+

two weeks later, you get a letter in the mail. you’d heard some of the other girls had also gotten responses—some had been mildly wholesome, while others had been more along the lines of what are you wearing?

but you weren’t worried when you opened yours. andrew didn’t seem the creepy type to you, it felt more like… like he would be glad to have someone to talk to.

you read it in bed, holding an old stuffed animal tightly. his handwriting is stiff and neat, the evenness of the letters and dotted i’s and crossed t’s makes you smile. the way he wrote your name, with bleeding ink like he had pressed too hard into the paper while doing so, made you smile wider.

the first line—thanks for the sand—made you laugh.

andrew writes of the book he’s just read, how the beach you described sounds just like the one in his hometown, and a request that you tell him more about your life in the next letter. his letter isn’t as long as yours, which makes sense to you. he couldn’t have that much to write about. but the last line is what really gets you—thank you for the letter. it’s nice to talk to someone.

you blink away tears, unsure when you had started crying. you reread the letter twice over the next day and a half, deciding to head back to the beach early in the morning to write the next one.

and you’ve always been bad at this. your friends have always called you a hopeless romantic—but maybe you’re just in too deep. it was the product of having been alone for your entire life, not having the dreamy, intense love that so many of your friends had already gone through once or twice at this age. the result had manifested in how you treated the world around you. every door someone held open, every nice response, every lingering gaze could mean something more. that this could be the person, that this could be your soulmate.

you knew it was stupid. nothing could be stupider than assuming that a prisoner, for god’s sake, would be anything more than just that—a prisoner you write letters to. but your heart still beats faster each time you reread the letter, and when you think of his pretty, sad eyes and earnest expression, the urge to write another letter haunts over your entire body.

dear andrew, thank you for writing back. thank you again for writing back and not being creepy (like the responses some of my friends got). i could tell you more about my life but i really wasn’t lying—it’s pretty silly and mostly boring, but since you asked so nicely i’ll try for you. right now i’m getting ready for graduation. i bought a white dress last week. i’m waiting to hear if i got into the nursing program here. i majored in nursing so I just need to do one more year and then after that i can go work in the hospital. i’m thinking about labor and delivery since i think it would be so nice to see babies all day, but one of my friends said the emergency room is always hiring. she thinks it would toughen me up. but I’m not so sure i want to be tough. just incase all of this school talk is boring you, i’ll just tell you about my day on the condition that you'll tell me about yours. yesterday i woke up early and went on a walk. i made breakfast and went to class, and then studied in the library. my friend showed me a creepy response from one of the fellow inmates (by the way, thank you again for not being creepy.) i walked to get a chai—i don't really like coffee. and then i studied, watched the bachelor. it was terrible! my favorite contestant got sent home :(. and had dinner, then I went to sleep early because i woke up early to come to the beach today to write this for you. so i went to sleep thinking about this letter and woke up thinking about it too.

you add a little bit more about your routine this time, just so he has something to read about. you try to make yourself sound interesting where you can—but you’re really not. and you don’t want to force it, make your letters sound grand and full of lies.

you don’t know why—it’s not like you’ll ever meet him. but lying to andrew feels wrong, you guess.

stupid. you’re stupid for adding the last part—but something in your heart flutters reading the line again, because you did. andrew’s sad eyes are in your mind all the time, and you know it’s just a silly infatuation, that he’s a prisoner and you’re a random student and more likely than not, he’s not going to respond to this letter. but you still keep it in.

and so you send the letter. and what’s worse—the one you get back makes your heart swell. he says that you describe your routine so well he can almost see it happening in his head like a movie. he says that he could describe his day-to-day but that it might make you sad. you’re sure it will. he seems to know a lot about you from just a handful of letters.

you reply. he sends another. you reply. and before you can even discern what’s happened, this has been going on for the better part of a year and a half.

andrew gets all the life updates—your nursing school acceptance, how the first year goes. early morning clinicals, the mean preceptor who made your life hell for a month, the baby you got to help deliver, the cat you’re thinking about getting. and the not so great stuff—despite the nursing shortage, it seems the only available job at the hospital you like is in the emergency room.

you don’t give him names but he figures it out well enough. the program you sent the letters through was smart enough not to include the university’s name in the return address, but dumb enough to use a p.o. box in the same city. and in that city, there’s only two colleges, and only one of those has a nursing program.

these are the things he uses to figure out where you are after he gets out—not that you need to know any of that just yet.

after you get the job, the letters are stamped with the mark of the local post office. you must not know that they’re doing that, now that you can’t send the letters through the school anymore. that’s the last piece of the puzzle, figuring out which emergency room you had been working in.

he keeps those letters. they’re his sanctuary—pages and pages about your life. the highs and lows of an innocent girl who thought it would be a good idea to send letters to a prisoner. letters where you asked about him, how he was feeling, how he was doing. how much time he had left, how he thinks the next parole meeting will go, how that annoying guard has been recently. how’s your family, andrew?

if he closes his eyes, he can almost see you. you’re a faceless entity, a glowing angel with a halo hovering in his mind when he really needs you. you’re too perfect to be real—and he knows you would be outside too. if you can care this much through letters, go out of your way to send them even after you graduate, he can only imagine how you’d be if you stood in front of him.

the other students who sent letters stopped after one or two. he’s likely the only one who’s still getting them, and when someone questions who they’re from, he tells a story about his girl, waiting for him outside. a nurse—smart and pretty and devoted and who never fails to send him a weekly update. lives too far to drive up here but he’ll be there one day.

and then he gets sent to solitary.

he doesn’t like to think about it, if he can avoid it. sometimes the noises of the world get to him, brings him back to days and hours he wish he could wipe from his memory. the sound machine you recommended in your very first letter helps some. but the day he goes free, there’s only one sound he knows will calm him down—your voice, the first time he’ll get to hear it.

he has to go home first. he needs a car, the internet, a couple of phone calls to make sure he’s going to the right place.

days turn into weeks. unfortunately—very unfortunately. the only thing andrew wants is to finally see you in person, to finally hear what your voice sounds like. what color is your hair? what color are your eyes? he knows you like yellow—what would he find if he saw you? yellow hair clips? painted nails? how about your apartment? would the walls be yellow?

no, probably not. you rent. you wouldn’t do anything that wouldn’t get you your security deposit back. you’re too good for that, too safe.

yellow sheets, maybe. blankets, pillows. if he closes his eyes, he can imagine himself in it.

he tries to leave after the first job but there’s too many watchful eyes, too many moving pieces. he needs to get everything together—his truck, cash and some cards, a plausible excuse. he needs to make sure no one comes following him, needs to make sure that in his quest to come find you, he doesn’t get you tangled into the web of his family instead. he’s stuck somewhere between figuring out how to keep you safe and the realization that the safest you’ll ever be is right now, before he comes for you.

but fuck, if it doesn’t haunt him. the fact that he’s finally so close to you. that you’re a car ride away. that somewhere out there is the girl who, one day, realized another letter wouldn’t be coming.

had you cried then? been upset? wondered what had happened? bothered to find out if he was dead or freed or living without you? he hates that he couldn’t get you another letter to explain himself, but he figures explaining in person would be easier, and better. in all those years, you never once wrote him about a date or a boyfriend or anything in that realm.

the way your last few letters were, it were almost as if he was your boyfriend. (he lets the thought linger inside him for a few seconds, if that. any longer and it would possess him like a demon and he’d be rendered useless. unable to work, unable to think, unable to breathe. just him and the idea that he was that important to someone else.)

+

and then one day, a couple days after a job and after being fed up with the entire world being scared of him, he leaves to find you.

that’s just the thing—no one understands him. all his life, he’s been the unstable one, the one others are worried about, frightened of. but no one understands that there’s nothing to be afraid of.

no one, except maybe you.

so he says he’ll be back in a week, and he drives down to the hospital where you work.

he hasn’t gotten a real look at you yet. he spent the first night in the parking lot of the emergency room. he watches hordes of nurses go in and out, and no one stands out. he spends some time doing research—nurses only work three times a week.

his odds of seeing you for the rest of the time he’s in town are fifty/fifty. it feels like he should be able to pick you out from a crowd, with the way he knows you so intimately, but he can’t. he keeps an eye out for yellow water bottles or shoes or lunch bags, but he doesn’t see any for two days.

so he decides that he needs to get inside.

pope keeps a pocket knife on his person, and another one hidden in the car in case of emergencies. that’s what he uses to slice his palm open so he has an excuse to get inside. not too deep—he’s not stupid. just deep enough to need stitches, shallow enough that he can still feel all his fingers and wiggle them around.

and then he goes inside, and he waits.

each time the doors open, a different nurse steps out. some are too old, others too young. no one has anything yellow on them, or the personality that he knows could only belong to you. cheery, but serious. empathetic to a fault. you would probably cry if you saw a kid crying, just like how you used to write to andrew, telling him you had cried thinking about a patient you lost and their family, cried thinking about him alone in prison.

you’ve shed tears for him. a man you’ve never even met. he has to recognize you when he sees you. he knows he will—the two of you are bonded in more ways than one. through ink and blood and tears.

“david?” a voice calls out. so lost in his thoughts, he’d not realized the doors had opened again or the name he’d given them. he looks up, making eye contact with the nurse, his nurse, and she walks closer. “david?” the voice repeats, and he raises the non-bloody hand.

you are just like he thought you’d be. your hair is pulled back, which is a shame. he wants to see what it looks like when it’s down, what it smells like when you get close enough. pieces in the front fall out from behind your ear. his finger twitches momentarily.

and, he thinks with a pleasant sort of smugness, there is yellow—the plastic band around the stethoscope, the badge reel with a smiling cartoon on it, the pens tucked neatly in your scrub top pocket.

“hi david, i’m going to be your nurse today,” you start, looking at him in the eyes. your eyebrows furrow a little, like you’re trying to remember why this man looks so familiar—it’s not like he had expected it. his hair isn’t the same anymore, longer than the video you had seen of him. if that was your benchmark, he certainly looked somewhat different. he doesn’t fault you for not recognizing him right away. in fact, it’s better this way. “if you’re ready, i can take you back now.”

you smile at him, beautifully. a bright, wide smile, like there’s nothing in this world you’d rather do than take david back, and have a look at whatever’s bothering him. it’s genuine, it’s safe, it’s warm. how do you do it? he thinks briefly to himself, how do you make everyone feel like they’re the most important person in the world? just with a smile and a couple of sentences you must say a thousand times a shift.

andrew’s not one for many words, but his thoughts run rampant—he’s always thinking. he can’t get his brain to turn off, not now, not ever. even putting pen to paper was hard for him, even for you. but you seem to understand him, just like you did back then. without words, without talking, without touching or knowing. you just know him.

you take him to a bed behind a curtain and start rattling off a list of rehearsed questions. first name, age, date of birth. the more he says, the more you seem to get a step closer to recognizing him, but he doesn’t push it.

you come closer to the bed and gesture to his wrapped up, bleeding hand.

“may i?”

“yes. yes,” andrew says, unsure of how it’ll be to feel your hands on him for the first time. you start slowly, unpeeling the layers of gauze that he had brought with him from home as a just incase. he doesn’t flinch or wince, but you still speak up.

“i’m sorry, i know it’s not very comfortable.” you apologize without needing to, and he’s sure it’s because you want him to feel better about it. “how did this happen again?” you ask, staring at his wound closely. you’re not very far from his face. he can feel your breath even against his skin.

“accident. was cutting something.”

“well, you should be more careful, david.” his middle name has always felt foreign to him, though somehow, it doesn’t seem that way coming from your lips. andrew briefly feels like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be than here, no one else he’d rather be than david, getting his hand tended to by you.

“yeah. i should.”

“well i’m going to go ahead and get this cleaned up. just to be sure, any drug allergies?” he shakes his head. “great. we’re gonna clean it and then the doctor will be in here to stitch it up and we’ll get you on your way back home. does that sound okay?”

you look at him earnestly. as if on the off chance he said it didn’t sound okay, you’d have an answer ready to go. nothing to shame him, nothing to make him feel bad. just to comfort him and make him feel better. like there’s nothing more important than getting him back home with aid instructions for the rest of the week.

memories of your letters wash over him like a warm wave over soft sand. you’ve known from the jump that you were meant for this, but it all suddenly makes sense. how kind you are, how gentle you are with him, how you’d be with anyone.

you were meant for this, just like how you were meant for him.

“that sounds okay.”

you sit on a stool at the level of his hand. you dab with the cleaning solution and tell him you’re sorry about the sting. it’s half a dozen apologies in the short time he’s known you, and he sits and wonders, staring at your pretty hair and the undoubtedly smooth skin of your neck, that he’ll have to work you out of that habit.

you shouldn’t be apologizing for anything, much less helping people the way you do.

he stares at you while you think of another question to ask him to distract him from the pain of cleaning his wound.

and your patient is nothing if not a starer. when you got up to add something to the chart and stopped to chat with a fellow nurse and friend of yours about how long it might take the doctor to see him—calling him by his nickname, mister sliced hand in bed four—she interrupted you half way through the conversation.

“the one who’s staring at us right now?” you turned your head too quickly to see what she was talking about, and were faced with sliced-hand david, looking at you and the other nurse.

not in a creepy way, like some other past patients of yours. he’s just…looking. like he’s waiting for you to come back. his gaze doesn’t leave you, you notice. he watches your friend as though he’s watching over you.

the thought is almost… sweet.

and then you shake your head and turn around, breaking the eye contact. you have a bad habit of doing this—turning every interaction, every look into your eyes and held-open door into something more than it was.

your new friends at the hospital also call you a hopeless romantic. you knew that you were just sort of an idiot when it came to these things. it was the long-standing result of still never having been in a real relationship. you’d never felt the fireworks, never known the rom-com sort of true love and happy ending. you had never even gotten to the angst-filled third act breakup.

so maybe you were still a bit of a projector—projecting every single interaction into something more than it was. a patient with a staring problem became a man who was looking out for you, worried for you, love at first sight.

and you shake your head again. snap out of it. you had a problem, seriously.

the closest you’d even come to anything remotely related to love at first sight was the insane amount of letters you’d written to a prisoner a few years ago, and even then—

stop. it. you barely knew what the guy looked like, and yet, you found yourself wondering all the time what had happened to him. if today would finally be the day you’d find out. he could be the stranger next to you in the coffee shop. the person buying fruit next to you in the grocery store.

for all you know, he could be the next guy who walks into your life, and yet—

“you are seriously such a goner,” she says with a laugh, playfully shoving your shoulder.

“what? i-i just got lost in my thoughts.”

“a guy could blink at you and you’d be imagining your embroidered towels and baby names-”

“that is not true-”

“right, i know. you’re right. you’re just gonna hold out for mister prisoner until you’re an old lady with a bunch of cats-”

“hey! i have one cat and he is adorable, okay-”

“yeah, yeah. that’s how it always starts. one cat.”

“i’m going to go take care of my patient now.”

“don’t let him blink at you.”

you roll your eyes and make your way back to bed four, where david stares up at you with pretty, sad eyes. eyes that seem a little familiar, but it’s hour eight of twelve and you’ve taken care of half a hundred people so far. your tiredness seeps through your pores but you still smile and sit on the stool.

“sorry about that, david.”

“are you okay?” he asks, incredibly earnestly. you blink at him dumbly. once, then twice.

“yes?” you reply slowly, unsure of what he means. maybe you’re more tired than you thought. “is everything okay?”

“i saw her push you.” you blink again.

“oh. oh. no, no, she’s my friend. that was just, um-” you blank momentarily. his concern is so palpable you can feel it in the air. “-a joke. she was joking.”

“oh. okay.” david goes silent but his eyes are still on you. you decide the best course of action is to change the subject.

“so! david. this might be hard but no going in the water for at least a couple days. maybe more, depending on what the doctor says.”

“sure. can i.. can i still go sit on the beach?”

“yeah. that should be fine.” you clean out the wound further, but he doesn’t wince. “do you do that often?”

“yes. it calms me down.”

“me too. something about the sand and the waves. the air is just-”

“cleaner.” for the first time that night, david interrupts you. your eyes leave his hand to look up at his face.

“yeah,” you agree, slowly, wondering why his words feel so familiar to you. “cleaner.”

there’s a brief pause, and david doesn’t say anything. you look back down at his hand, continuing your work. but something inside of you stirs, curiosity poking and prodding at your memories. you’ve heard that before, somewhere, and even then you had thought about how no one had ever used that word to describe the ocean air before, when—

“i thought you wanted to deliver babies. do you not want to do that anymore?”

as if it was in slow motion, you retract your hands away from his. you move your head to look up at him and your jaw falls open a little—you had known david looked a little familiar, but when you had seen that thirty second video of him, his hair had been short and his skin had been a little paler, and the man sitting in front of you now—

well he wasn’t cute anymore.

he was handsome now—dark brown curls grown out. he looked like he’d spent some time in the sun, recently. his eyes—sad and pretty as they were—seemed a bit softer now. and your gaze on him made them even softer, like he was trying his best not to frighten you. how someone takes care of a skittish animal, ready to bolt at any second.

you swallow, and then bring your hands back to his, keeping the piece of soaked gauze on top of his wound gently

“i-i do. want to. this was just the only job opening when i-” you pause, sucking in a deep breath. he already knows about this—andrew. it was in one of your letters. “when i finished school.”

you feel his hand move under your touch, and then his other hand, the unwounded one, over yours. his grip isn’t tight, but it’s tense. hard. like he wants to make sure you can’t just disappear like sand between his fingers.

“i thought you might have found another job by now.”

“it-it’s hard. you get used to something and it’s hard to leave.” you pause again. there’s a million and one questions storming through your mind, but you stare into hazel eyes and they all go quiet, one by one. “you said your name is david-”

“i wanted to see if you would recognize me.”

“i’m sorry, i-”

“don’t apologize.” andrew, like his letters, speaks concisely. you should have guessed. you would send him pages just to get a few paragraphs back—and he would always say it’s because he didn’t have much to talk about, that learning about your day to day was much better than whatever he could tell you.

it was the first time your heart fluttered with the knowledge that out there, somewhere, is a man who wants to hear about your day. the closest you had ever gotten to the semblance of a real relationship. a man who cared about you, even if he never said as much. it was always clear to you, through his carefully chosen words and the things he wrote you about and how much he said he liked hearing about you.

he used to ask you questions about things from a dozen letters ago. remember to follow up after some big exam or a really hard week at work. asked you what you did to feel better. tell you what he would do to help you feel better—nothing creepy, never creepy. if you were supposed to be scared of him, you never were. he never gave you any reason to.

“are you okay?” andrew asks, and you blink yourself out of your thoughts.

“yes. yes, sorry. i just-” it’s a little ridiculous.

you’re a smart girl. you’ve always been a smart girl. you don’t do stupid things—you don’t drink yourself silly at bars and go home with random men. you don’t say yes to dates with strangers, despite how much you believe that a stranger can become a soulmate in an instant. you don’t put yourself in situations you can’t get out of.

but when it comes to andrew, you haven’t listened to a single one of your own rules. you sent him letters for ages after the other girls in your class had stopped. you had opened up about your life and wanted to learn about his life in exchange.

and despite every greater instinct, you had fallen asleep for years thinking about the day he might walk back into your life.

“did you ever get my last letter, andrew?”

you’re not even sure where the words came from—that’s the last thing you should be saying right now. how did you find me? when did you get out of prison? why are you here right now? should have all come before.

but something inside you burns, like it has for years, with the knowledge that he never sent you another letter. and you need to know why.

andrew sits up a little straighter, taking heavy breaths and staring at you. it’s the first time he’s heard you say his name, his real name. you two haven’t moved an inch, his hand still on yours. he blinks slowly at you and you don’t realize it, but you’re holding your breath.

“i did. i-i was in solitary. they don’t let you write letters there.”

“oh. i’m so sorry,” you say, and it’s second nature. you hate what andrew went through, and seeing him in front of you brings you back to the first letter you ever got back from him. how polite he was in it, how sweet the whole thing seemed. it was never meant to get this far, but it had, and you—

you are nothing if not a believer of soulmates and fate.

“that’s okay. not your fault.”

“but still. that must have been really hard.”

“i wanted to write back. i-” he stops, pulling out something from the pocket of his button-up shirt. he unfolds a piece of white notebook paper—and the breath you were holding leaves you quickly. that’s the paper you used to write him letters on.

“is that my last letter?” when andrew moves to look at you, he’s expecting it. a nervous lilt to your voice, fear in your eyes. like he’s crazy, like you’re scared.

instead he glances over hesitantly and you’re beaming up at him.

“you carry around.. my last letter?” the words come out as a smile forms on your face—pretty and genuine and sincere. you stare at him expectantly, and he doesn’t know how to respond.

“i…” the words falter. “i just wanted to ask you about it. did you, did you get that cat?”

“i did!” it comes out louder than you meant it, drawing the attention of some other nurses around you. you turn briefly, using your free hand to push the curtain so it’s closed around you two. “sorry. i did, yes. he’s so cute. i don’t have my phone or i’d show you the pictures-”

“that’s okay. you-you can show me later.”

“but i didn’t say i was getting a cat in that one. i just said i was thinking about it,” you feel breathless.

“but there was another one before that. you mentioned it then too. i figured you’d get it since you were thinking about it so much.”

“yeah. yeah, exactly.” your brain can’t seem to compute what’s going on. any fear that had been in you, if there was any of it to begin with, has completely melted away, replaced with a warm, glowing feeling in your chest, slowly spreading out to your limbs.

you had been thinking about getting a cat for ages—a thought you had mentioned to andrew maybe twice. and your justification had been just as andrew said, because you were thinking about it so much.

how did he know that?

and then the curtain opens behind you, and the doctor comes in to stitch up andrew’s hand. you have to pull away from his hand and andrew thinks you’re leaving, eyes following you and his expression shifting, but you don’t leave. you go to the cabinets to pull the supplies and help the doctor and and keep your eyes focused on the wound while his hand gets stitched up. eight stitches and not a single wince of pain or discomfort.

and though the thought makes butterflies emerge and fly around your stomach, when you finally look up at andrew, he’s been staring at you the entire time.

+

you have a tiny apartment in a shitty neighbourhood. it doesn’t feel safe at all, save for the fact that one of the houses down the street is owned by a rookie cop and his wife. there’s not that much crime, but the area inherently feels bad.

maybe it’s just that way to him—since he doesn’t want you living in a place like this.

it’s fine for now though. he’ll get you a better place soon enough. it’s by the water, and when he closes his eyes, he can hear the waves crashing on the sand. the sound alone might be enough to justify why you’d live here.

he keeps his eyes shut, just for a half dozen heartbeats, when he pulls up against your curb. he just wants to hear it before he says goodbye—it’s getting late, almost dark, and you must be exhausted. you’ve been at work all day and though you act like you’re completely fine, he knows how intense it is. there’s other letters, safely stored away, where you told him about how breaks are far and few in between, how you barely get time to drink water and eat a snack because of how busy it gets. he offered to stop and pick you up something to eat but you refused, saying you had food at home that you shouldn’t waste.

you sit in the passenger seat of his truck, staring around it as if you’re looking for some more information about it. anything would help you—half-empty drinks or gum wrappers or extra clothes in the backseat, but there’s nothing. the truck looks like he just got it yesterday, no sign of use or anything branding it as andrew’s car.

“can i walk you to your door?” you snap out of your thoughts.

okay—maybe it wasn’t the smartest idea in the world to let a virtual stranger drive you home. but when his hand was taken care of and you give him the paper instructions with way too many sample packets of antibiotic gel, all he said was that he’ll wait for you.

“wait for what?”

“to make sure you get home safely.”

and, really, what are you supposed to say to that? no, i’m good, thanks. you’d be even stupider than you already are to say that to someone who is just trying to be nice to you.

(he’s more chivalrous than any guy you’ve ever talked to, and probably more than any guy your friends have ever complained to you about. and more than that, it’d be rude to say no, especially once he realized you wait for a shoddy-at-best bus to get you home because you don’t have a car and it’s too dark to walk. he wouldn’t take no for an answer after that.)

and more than that—he waited another two hours for you to get home. every time you’d step out to bring back another patient, you’d see him, sitting there, waiting patiently for you. glancing up when the door would open to get a glimpse of you, of the small smile you shot his way before taking back whoever’s turn it was.

and he’s not a real stranger, a voice in the back of your head keeps reminding you. you’ve known him for longer than some of your coworkers have known their fiancees and husbands. and in all the time you’ve known him (meaning all the letters you’ve sent and received), you’ve never gotten a creepy word or even a fragment of a sentence that frightened you.

so you think the least you can do is let him drive you home and walk you up the two flights of stairs.

“of course. thank you, for-” your sentence gets interrupted. andrew gets out of the car and you turn to do the same, but then you see him—walking around the front of his truck, coming to your side and then opening the door for you.

oh.

your heart thuds dully in your chest at the very idea of andrew opening his car’s door for you to get out. after driving you home and politely asking to walk you up. whatever inhibitions you had melt away and you briefly think that whatever he asked of you, you’d do it in a heartbeat, no questions asked.

if that made you stupid, then so be it. you’d gladly be the stupidest girl on the planet if you get to feel whatever it was that andrew cody has made you feel for the last couple of hours.

his truck is jacked up tall, and he gives you his hand, the one without the cut, to help you get down, and you accept. he closes the door for you and lets you lead the way up the stairs.

silently, you two walk up the creaky steps together. hands brush together for all of seconds and he briefly wishes seconds lasted longer, until you’re standing in front of your door.

you’d once had a cute spring-themed wreath on the door, bought on clearance from the local store after easter, and a matching door mat. your elderly neighbor had told you to get rid of it because it was basically an invitation to criminals that a young girl lived here alone. you’re stupid, but not that stupid.

and now your front door looks barren and empty. there’s a few plants you can see from the window sill but the curtains are drawn and there’s an extra dead bolt a fellow nurse from the hospital’s husband had helped you install.

you look up silently at andrew and he looks back at you. this is it—it’s supposed to be goodbye. any normal girl would know that this is where the night needs to end, that you need to process what all of this means and if you had any friends you trusted with this information, calling them and asking what to do.

but you don’t want to call your friends, because you know what they’d say—to lock your door and get a restraining order and burn andrew’s letters, the ones you kept in a cute box under your bed and reread much too often for anyone’s comfort.

and you’re not a normal girl.

“do you want to stay for dinner?”

there’s not much to study on andrew’s expression—he keeps it stern and serious for the most part. his eyes are soft when they look at you and they soften even further when you say those words.

“yes. yes, thank you.”

you think maybe he wasn’t expecting it. you think that you weren’t expecting it either, not exactly sure where the words had come from. but you still lead andrew inside, showing him the only slightly comfortable couch you had to get delivered since you didn’t have anyone to help you lug a used one up the stairs. the squeaky door that leads to the bathroom, the tiny space you called your kitchen. your bedroom is behind a closed door and andrew stares at it when you go inside to change out of your scrubs and come back out in the kind of clothes that you sleep in.

and then he stares at the shut door even after you leave, before realizing that you’ve already made your way to the space between the living room and kitchen, a narrow expanse with a small round table and some placemats with flowers on them. you set down your backpack and take your hair out of the clip that holds it back for you at work and suddenly, he’s staring again.

it’s just a little too close to everything he’s been dreaming about for years.

“i’m really sorry. i was supposed to go grocery shopping but i hate bringing everything up-”

“don’t apologize.”

“also, i’m-i’m not really a good cook. i’m sorry-”

“i don’t think anything you make can be worse than prison food.”

“i really doubt that. you’ve never had my cooking.”

you glance back him and he meets your eyes at the same time, and you both start laughing. it’s nothing crazy—andrew didn’t seem like the kind who laughs easily anyway, but he cracks a smile and the noise is indelible—all you can think of is how you can get him to laugh again.

“do you like spaghetti?”

+

if someone had told you yesterday that this time tomorrow, andrew from your letters would be sitting across from you at your dining table, eating spaghetti that you made while rushing, looking so in place in your tiny home that your heart hurts, you think you would have passed out.

you watch him while he eats, absentmindedly swirling your own noodles on the plate, unable to focus on eating when he’s really in front of you. after countless dreams and days spent wondering what had happened to him and if he was okay and if he ever thought about you. he’s… bigger than you thought he would be. shoulders broader than you had realized from that tiny video. his mannerisms interest you more than they should—how quiet he is, but how he seems to latch onto every word when you go on and on. just like the letters, it seems he’s still a listener.

(it doesn’t help matters when he tries to clear the table and wash the dishes after—you have to wrestle the plates out of his hand and tell him to go sit down, that he can’t get his bandage wet. jostling against his iron-hard body was not on the list of things you thought you’d get to do today, and the very realization that andrew is twice as strong as you on his worst day does…things to you. things that do not need to be named or explored right now. he’s still a stranger, you try to remind yourself. no he’s not.)

but it seems that he can’t sit still. he wipes down the counter and then comes back to help you dry your yellow dishes and when you both finish up, with you still smiling at him and unsure of what excuse you can conjure to get him to stay, he finds it all by himself. you tell andrew to go sit on the couch while you finish up and he does, and when you follow him out there, he’s standing in front of it. he turns his head to look at you and then back at the couch.

your cat is perched on his usual spot, and you go over to him, scratching the top of his head between his ears and making extremely childish, stupid-sounding noises at him.

“andrew this is wardy,” you say, picking him up and bringing him closer. “he’s really friendly. i promise.”

“hello, wardy.” when he says it, you look up at him with a look he can’t find words to describe. as close to love as you can get it when it’s a technically a stranger. the way he greets your cat and helps you clean and knows more about you than some of your friends and coworkers do.

there’s no words for it. it just is.

so you sit on the couch next to andrew, your cat between the two of you, and you wait for him to tell you that he wants to leave. you flick on the television, settling for whatever silly romance movie is playing on your netflix account, sitting in the almost-silence with andrew and wondering why still, it doesn’t feel necessarily uncomfortable.

eventually andrew reaches out to pet wardy, and he curls up into his touch, settling comfortably against his forearm. (his huge, thick, veiny forearm, you think briefly, before chasing the thought away with a broom. and then another one—no wonder he had bled so much at the hospital. with veins like these.)

“this area’s not the best,” andrew says, speaking as though you need to be reminded of it, to know that he doesn’t approve.

“i know. but it’s cheap and it’s near the beach.”

“but you live alone. it’s dangerous.”

“but-” you glance over at him. he takes up most of your couch, wardy’s head resting against his thigh now, while he continues petting him. he looks over at you and it’s clear—this isn’t an argument. “you’re right. but i mean, how bad can it be? if you’re here now?”

you pause. stupidly, you’ve just revealed whatever thoughts have been rattling around in your head. like the fact that you’re assuming he’s going to be here more often, when the truth is that you have no idea if that’s true.

why would it be true? you tried, in earnest, to make sure your life never seemed anything more than it really was in your letters. but andrew drives a brand new truck and wears an expensive watch and you have absolutely no idea what he was robbing or why he was doing it—and you never asked. the assumption that just because he found you, meant that he was going to keep you was completely insane. a misgiving on your part, because surely, whatever’s waiting for him back home is better than your crappy cooking and a tiny apartment and a cat that you—

“sorry, i’m sorry. that’s such a jump. we just met. i’m so sorry, i can-” you stand up, and so does andrew.

“why are you apologizing?”

“because i just.. i don’t know.” you try to pace around your apartment but you only get a few steps away before you have to come back. “this is crazy. we’re both crazy.”

you feel it in the air before you hear him say it. it gets tenser, quieter, more serious. like what you’ve both been dreading for the last few hours is about to happen.

“do…do you want me to leave?” you turn to face him quickly.

“no! no, i don’t. that’s why this is crazy. people are going to think we’re insane. i don’t want you to go. i want you stay. i want you to tell me everything i missed in the last year and a half. i want to know what you did with my letters. i want to know-”

and when andrew reaches forward to grab your forearm—gently, not meant to hurt you—you freeze in your tracks. staring up at him, all the words in your brain, every stupid thing your friends ever told you about this make-shift relationship you had concocted in your head melting away.

“i want that too.”

“oh. well, i just thought-”

and this time, he doesn’t let you finish, leaning in for a kiss that makes your knees give out. andrew’s mouth—wet and hot and on fire—kisses you like you two were made for each other.

as cheesy as the thought feels, you swallow it and wrap your arms around his neck. it’s every stupid romance movie you’ve ever seen coming to life, your life. all because of him. he doesn’t break the kiss, not even to breathe. you feel his tongue poke into your mouth and you accept it gladly. you fall back on the couch and the movement of it makes wardy scamper off, and you move your head just for a second to see where he runs off too, but andrew doesn’t stop. he lines kisses along your cheek and your jaw until you turn back and he gets your lips again.

you feel his weight on top of you, and briefly, you wonder if you should tell him.

countless nights spent wondering what this would feel like, how he would kiss you, all the things he would do to you. you have to keep reminding yourself, you’re just a stupid girl—it’s not your fault that a few nice letters was enough to make you head over heels for the last few years.

because somewhere deep down inside, you knew. you knew that it would be like this, that it would be perfect, that it would be everything you wanted. that he would take care of you and want you as badly as you want him. your crown title of hopeless romantic had finally paid off.

another thought stirs as he keeps kissing you. it’s feverish and hot and makes you warm all over—how long it’s been since he’s had someone, how he kisses you like he’s out of practice. his mouth is so hard against yours it almost hurts, but you welcome the pain. it’s like he’s proving to you that he’s really there now, that nothing can tear him away from you.

but then he does pull away. you catch your breath, hands traveling to his face and running your fingers through his hair. andrew’s pretty eyes close and you cherish it—that you made him feel like that. he leans into your touch, head resting against your hand while you both take long, heavy breaths.

andrew leans in, pressing your foreheads together.

“i-i’ve wanted to do that,” another breath. you feel butterflies continuously emerge and flutter around your chest and your stomach, all the way down to between your legs. “since your first letter.”

and then you can’t resist—leaning back in for another hard, wet kiss. you feel him shift, strong hands on your hips, but staying firmly there, not traveling despite how much you wish they would. he’s been polite again, you think. waiting for you to give him permission.

“you can-” you start, but andrew keeps pressing kisses against your neck that make it hard to finish your sentence. “you can touch me.” you expect his hands to spread—grope and grab and tease until you’re begging for more. for him to be impatient and hungry and not stop until he’s inside of you.

“i can’t believe you’re real,” he says quietly, one hand moving up to your waist and touching the soft skin there gently. he traces up your arms and then down before intertwining his fingers with yours. you stare up at him, stupid as ever. every time you think you know anything about andrew, he proves you wrong.

“i can’t believe you are, either,” you say, tilting your head up for another kiss. a short, chaste one this time. “you’re just as nice as i knew you’d be.”

“you think i’m nice?” he asks, voice low. you nod in response, words escaping you. you settle to answer with another kiss, hands going to his shoulders to steady yourself, tugging and pulling on his bottom lip with your teeth.

you push up until he understands, and he uses two huge hands to get you into his lap, sitting up with his back against your couch. you straddle him, trying your hardest to not lose your train of thought as you realize how hard he is against you.

“i think you’re too nice,” you tease, unsure where you’re finding the confidence. under you, andrew looks spacey and flushed and all kissed out, but you don’t plan to stop. you lean in to press kisses to his cheeks and work your way to his jaw and neck. when you stop to look at him again, he looks hopelessly up at you, and you think he’s waiting again, waiting for permission to do something. “i think you’re so nice that you’re not telling me everything you’ve wanted to do to me these last few years.”

the way andrew looks up at you after you said that—god. you wish you could engrain it into your memory. you’re not someone who does this often, but you might just be good at figuring out how to get andrew to crack. he looks up with some of the hunger you’d imagined there’d be, and it makes something stir inside of you.

it feels strange to be wanted the way andrew wants you right now. you’re just not used to it, not entirely sure that you’d ever feel this way. that someone would ever make you feel this way.

your thoughts are wiped again when he pulls you into another kiss, and you deepen it, moaning into his mouth. you’re being so loud that your older neighbor might be able to hear you, but you can hardly bring yourself to care right now. andrew is quiet, like you thought he would be, but each soft grunt and heavy sigh is enough to make your entire body tingle.

you think you’re being better at staying quiet yourself when andrew scoops you up into his arms, carrying you like it’s nothing for him. you yelp loudly, forgetting everything for a second, realizing how lovely it feels to be carried by him. he leads you two to your bedroom, setting you down gently on the bed.

you stare at him, hovering above you, wondering how you’ll get to do this. how you’ll get his clothes off and watch out for his hurt hand and that you’ll finally get to feel him inside of you—when he just stops moving.

andrew looks up and around your bedroom, craning his neck to take in all of it. you’re not sure why, stuck in a position under him that forces you to just watch.

“is everything okay, andrew?” when you say his name, he turns back to stare down at you.

“yes. yes, it is. it’s just-” he pauses, looking back up and then down. the room is decorated with lots of pretty frames. there’s yellow curtains on the windows and your sheets are yellow under you too, just like he’d suspected. seeing it in real life almost sends him back to years ago—the first time he’d wondered what your bedroom looks like. the place from where you write your letters, the place you read them. “it looks just like i thought it would.”

and just like every other part of tonight, your reaction continues to surprise him. you smile and then laugh, holding onto his shoulder even tighter.

“spend a lot of time thinking about my bedroom, huh?” you tease, and he remains just as confused as ever.

you are such a conundrum. andrew thinks that he wants you so badly he can’t form a proper thought—and then the thoughts merge and blend and anger at the very idea that you’re so trusting of him. you should be more careful. you shouldn’t trust anyone how much you’re trusting him right now—inviting him inside your home, letting him into your bedroom.

and then you pull him down for another kiss and it all washes away like letters in the sand.

eventually he does pull away—though it takes an enormous amount of self control. the words you said on the couch haven’t completely left him yet and he still needs to answer you. you claw and pull at his shirt so he lets you take it off of him, you trace a hand down his chest, stopping at his heart and pressing your palm flat against him.

you’re staring, he thinks, but you’re really just admiring. taking in every detail, every scar and bruise so you can ask him about it later, moving your fingers down his abs and biting your lip while you stare daggers at his chest.

he moves away from your touch though, as sad as it makes you.

“you wanted to know everything i’ve thought about you?” andrew says, and the words make you tense up—thighs clenching, walls fluttering just from words alone. your fingers tighten around his bicep where you’ve been holding on, and you nod up at him dumbly. “can i show you?”

your head falls back onto your pillow with a thud. you nod again.

you let andrew set the pace—he peels off your clothes and you lift your hips and raise your arms in compliance. he starts with a kiss to your stomach that makes you whine, fingers leaving his skin and grabbing onto your sheets instead just to have something to hold on to.

you’re embarrassingly wet—you already know you are. it’s almost painful how badly you want him, even against better judgement that tells you that you could have, at the very least, taken things slowly.

you guess andrew just brings it out of you.

his kisses move south and you brace yourself, every muscle tensing up in anticipation. andrew is silent except for his deep breaths and somehow, with each one deeper than the last, they make your entire body shudder in anticipation. when he finally gets to your leaking cunt, you hear it. a strangled moan, sounding painful and from the depth of his chest and filled with want and need. just from looking at you. you can’t imagine what he’ll sound like when—

“this is what i thought about. this is always what i thought about.”

and then andrew licks down the length of your cunt with the flat of his tongue, and you can’t think about anything else anymore. he’s relentless, exploring you with his mouth like he’s a man starved. you can hear the noises, obscene and sloppy and wet as they are.

and then you feel it—his mouth around your clit while one finger prods at your tight opening. your back rises off the bed but he holds you down with one huge hand over your stomach. his finger slips inside you more easily than he thought it would. though you’re wetter than he imagined, he doesn’t stop teasing your clit.

your wetness coats everything—his tongue, his lips, his chin. your thighs are wet too, and he’s sure he can get your yellow sheets soaked too if he could tease you long enough. but he’s been incredibly patient all these years, unsure if he can wait any longer to get what he’s wanted.

his hand keeps you pinned down while his mouth stays on your clit and then andrew adds another finger and you thrash up against him. it’s useless against the weight of his hand holding you down, but your body moves anyways, hands wrangling into his brown curls, likely making a complete mess of them. you keep pulling and he moans between your legs and the vibration makes you thrash harder, a completely exhilarating cycle.

when he finally releases you from his grip, you think the other hand will explore up and down your body, but true to form, you’re wrong. andrew finds your hand and holds onto it, lacing your fingers with his while he keeps going.

when adds a third finger, you realize that he’s saying something against you. you can’t quite make it out with your heart thudding in your ears and how loud you’re being, but then it becomes a little clearer—

“you taste even better than i thought you would-” and you can’t stop it, the tension in your stomach winding tighter and tighter before it snaps altogether. a white hot heat washes through your body and makes you shake even harder, but andrew’s hold on you keeps you completely grounded. he works you through it, not stopping even once, not until you’re trying your hardest to pull away from him. you try to catch your breath but it’s useless. your head feels completely empty.

incoherent, you grab at andrew, murmuring something about inside, please, and he really tries to stay level headed. but one glance at your naked, writhing body and your expression while you beg for him is enough to tip him over the edge.

resisting you requires a level of self control that he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to have.

andrew doesn’t think he’s ever had any self control when it comes to you. it’s why he did this, isn’t it? showed up at your hospital with your sweet letter folded up and somehow convinced you, without saying much of anything at all, to trust him and let him back into your life. he doesn’t even know how he did it—he can’t recall most of what he said to you. it plays in his head like a movie, like how your letters used to.

he doesn’t know what he did to deserve your trust, just knows that he’ll do whatever he has to in order to keep it forever.

andrew’s thoughts about keeping you cloud him while he lifts up your legs, manhandling your body while you squeal under him. he pushes your knees to your chest and lets your legs hang in the air while he hovers over you. all he can think about is getting inside of you—-giving you exactly what you’ve been begging for, fulfilling every fantasy he’s had about you in the last three years. the noises you’ll make. how tight and wet and warm you’ll feel around him. how you’ll look with his cum dripping out of-

“andrew, please, please,” you plead, and he’s not sure that you understand exactly what you’re asking for. it’s good that it’s him you picked for those letters, good that he’s the one who tracked you down.

someone else, well, he thinks, lining himself up with your soaking wet entrance, someone else might have had bad intentions with you. not andrew, though.

his intentions for you are only good. intentions to keep you happy and safe and move you away from this tiny apartment and make sure you get the job that you want, no matter who he has to threaten in order to do so. intentions to keep everything taken care of so the only thing you ever have to worry about again is him, just like you’d done for all those years when you wrote to him.

and as he slips inside, he knows those letters are in this bedroom somewhere, that this bed is where you read them, that these were the pretty hands that held his letters and these were the pretty eyes that read them.

you stare at him while he hovers over you, not pushing in just yet. andrew’s dick is just like the rest of him—thick and broad and so wide that you don’t know how you’ll be able to walk tomorrow. there’s veins too, just like his arms, and it’s all you can think about with him enclosed over you.

when he pushes his thick head past your fluttering walls, you make a noise like nothing he’s ever heard before. pure want and heat wrapped up with pleasure and pain. you keep begging for more but he’s not sure you can even handle it—but who is andrew to deny you?

he pushes further inside of you, now half way, and you cry out. andrew leans in to kiss you again, swallowing the noise and letting you moan against his lips.

another thrust and he’s almost all the way in. he pulls out and pushes back in, and then he starts his rhythm. your tits bounce with every thrust and he watches entranced, until his eyes go back to where you and him meet. in this position, on his knees with you folded underneath him, he can see it perfectly.

it’s enough to make him finish instantly. you look completely fucked out under him, crying out with each push of his hips.

your open your wet eyes and glance up at him. through wet lashes and blinking eyes, you get out a few words, stopped by each thrust.

“is it-” you gasp, words getting caught in your throat because andrew is so deep inside of you that you can feel him in your stomach and your chest. “is it what you imagined, andrew?”

“god, yes,” he says, and the sound is so perfect to you. it comes out broken, in the form of a gasp and a moan combined, and you want to hear it again and again. he says your name like it’s a prayer grounding him to you and you keep your arms wrapped around his neck, holding him close to you and bringing him in for another kiss. you can feel andrew’s pace start to stutter, his moans getting louder and his grip on you getting tighter. you hold his face in your hands, locking eyes again.

“inside, andrew, please, i want it inside, please, please,” and again, andrew thinks to himself, like some besotted fool, who is he to deny you? he releases whatever inhibitions he had left and fills you up with his cum—rivulets almost never ending. it leaks out around his dick, messing up your sheets and staining your thighs and making a mess of everything. he hears your heavy breaths and looks to see you smiling sweetly up at him.

and then he collapses next to you.

“hi andrew,” you say quietly next to him. your hands go to his, playing with his fingers and running the pad of your thumb over the veins on his hand. “was it how you thought it’d be?”

“it was better,” he says, breathless. you giggle and lean in to press a kiss to his cheek—and for a moment, he forgets everything. the circumstances of your introduction and the way he’d discovered you long forgotten for a few heartbeats. just you and the sound of your laugh and the promise of the future he wants with you before him.

“there’s still some things i thought about that we didn’t get to yet,” you tease, and he wonders, briefly, what he’s going to do with you.

and then you two hear it—scratching at your closed bedroom door.

“oh god,” you say, sitting up in bed.

you groan a little since your thighs are sore and it’s a wet, sticky mess between them. andrew keeps his hand on your arm and helps you sit up, and joins you in the position, like he’s preparing to help if you need something.

“warden, stop,” you say, but he doesn’t listen. you turn to andrew. “i’m gonna get him.” you try to move your legs and put weight on them, but you feel your knees buckle immediately, with andrew rushing to your side to help you back into bed.

“oh my god. you broke me.”

“i’ll get him. just-just sit down.”

andrew opens the door and picks up your cat like it’s second nature, bringing him to you on the bed before getting in right beside you. your cat is sweet but there’s not many people over at your apartment, and you worry for a moment that he won’t be nice to andrew when he wants your attention. but wardy doesn’t move from his position, staying curled up again andrew’s chest and arm, completely at ease.

“he likes you. that makes sense,” you say, smiling up at him, leaning in to pet wardy’s head.

but andrew doesn’t understand.

“warden. i thought you said his name was wardy?”

“that’s just a nickname.”

“why warden?”

“oh well. it’s silly, um-”

“tell me.”

“well, uh. well, warden is just the letters in andrew. uh, rearranged.”

“oh.”

“i’m sorry. i’m so sorry, is that creepy? i was really projecting, i guess, when i got him. i just loved your letters so much and i’ve never had a boyfriend or anything like that-”

“do you think we should get married?”

thanks for reading! ♡

[lilyswritings]

valentine's visit.

synopsis: a continuation of christmas concussion and new year's reunion — you and robby choose to stay in for valentine's day and have a quiet night in, free from hazards and visits to the pitt. what could possibly go wrong? author’s note: starting writing this right after the darling @pocket-of-possibilities that commented this idea on the last installment, so thank you for that!! not sure if it's really in character but i had fun!! pls enjoy, and happy valentine's day, cuties <3 wordcount: 3,216

Michael Robinavitch x Reader

Valentine’s Day is supposed to be quiet.

That’s what you and Robby had agreed on this year, deciding to stay in – no dinner reservations, no crowds, no expectations beyond spending the night together in an ordinary way that’s begun to feel like a privilege. 

There’s a light dusting of snow falling softly outside the windows, the city blurred and muted by the winter weather as Robby gets home from his shift. 

He kicks his shoes off in the hall, wincing and rolling his shoulders to try and get rid of the crick in his neck, when he notices the warm, savoury smell in the air, and music faintly carrying through the apartment.

“Sweetheart,” he calls as he enters the living room, his voice rough from a long shift of barking out orders. “Why does it smell like I’m being seduced?”

You poke your head out of the kitchen, a smear of something red across your cheek, and smile almost smugly. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

Robby’s whole posture softens at the sight, the tension in his shoulders easing and his mouth curling into a tired, affectionate smile. “You cooked for me?” He asks, unable to believe how he got so lucky.

“You just worked a double,” you reply. “I’m not a monster.”

He crosses the apartment in a few long strides and kisses you, skin still cold from the frosty air and tasting like coffee. His hands are warm and grounding on your back, but before you can melt too far into the kiss, you plant your hands on his chest and push him back.

“Don’t distract me, or your dinner will be charcoal.” You scold, shooing him toward the couch with the wooden spoon in your hand. “Go. Sit. You’re off duty, relax for a bit. Dinner should be ready in maybe twenty.”

He holds his hands up in surrender, dropping his bag onto the couch and shedding his hoodie, before he comes to stand in the doorway of the kitchen, eyes tracking you as you move around, humming along to the music.

“What’s the menu?” He asks, folding his arms over his chest.

“Pasta,” you say, glancing at him over your shoulder. “From scratch. Which was either very romantic of me, or an all around terrible idea.”

He squints, glancing at the various pans and cutting boards strewn across the counters. “Do I need to worry?”

“No.” You answer quickly, shaking your head, and then, “...Maybe. I don’t know. We’ll see how the sauce turns out.”

He laughs, leaning against the doorframe, watching you work. “You know I would’ve been perfectly happy with takeout.”

“I know,” you say, softer. “But I wanted to do this.”

Something in your tone makes him go quiet, a warmth building in his chest as he studies the care you’re putting into it, the way you keep glancing over like you’re checking he’s still there.

“You know, you don’t have to do all this to seduce me,” he says gently, wry smile on his lips. “I’m already dating you.”

“I’m not,” you insist, slicing through a clove of garlic and throwing a small smirk over your shoulder. “I just like you.”

He smiles at that. “Good. I like you too.”

You roll your eyes. “Don’t get sentimental on me, Robinavitch.”

“Okay,” he comes up behind you, pressing a kiss to your cheek. “Then I’ll just say you look really hot wielding a knife.”

Heat rushes to your cheeks. “Michael–”

“Very capable. Slightly terrifying.” He continues to hum into your ear, arms wrapped around your waist.

“Okay, this is definitely distracting.” You laugh, shaking your head as you turn back to the cutting board. “Seriously, go sit, I’ll come join you soon.”

He huffs a sigh of disappointment but does as he’s told, disappearing back into the living room with only minimal grumbling.

You get back to it, ignore the flush in your cheeks and the butterflies in your stomach, focusing on the food. The knife glides through the garlic, in a rhythmic, comforting motion, and you relax into it.

And then the knife catches.

It doesn’t skitter off the cutting board or impale your hand, it just skids sideways instead of down, a slight misdirection, your grip just off enough for steel to meet skin. You drop the knife with a clatter, your hand suddenly really warm, and grimace.

Pain blooms a half-second later.

“Ah–!” Your voice catches high in your throat, coming out strangled as you see red suddenly start to well up along the cut, your stomach churning at the sight. You snatch a tea towel to wrap around your hand, and within seconds Robby’s head is appearing through the kitchen doorway. 

“What happened?” His eyes are dark, sharp and assessing, scanning the kitchen before they land on your wincing expression and the towel you have wrapped around your wrist. 

You can physically see the moment he shifts into Dr. Robby, eyes narrowed as he swiftly moves to your side and gently takes the towel from your hands, sliding his glasses from the top of his head onto the bridge of his nose. 

You’re already shaking your head, a dismissal of the situation poised at the tip of your tongue, but then he starts unraveling the cloth and your breath catches. 

Oh. That’s a lot of blood. 

“Shit, sweetheart,” Robby grimaces, throat bobbing as he swallows. “Did the knife slip?”

You nod, wincing as the fabric brushes against the cut. “Fuck, I feel so stupid–”

“Hey, no, don’t do that.” He admonishes gently, catching your eyes over the rim of his glasses. 

You can already feel tears welling in your eyes at both the situation and his kindness toward you.  “That’s– That’s a lot of blood.” You manage to vocalize, peeking at it from the corner of your eye.

“I know,” Robby murmurs, already applying firm pressure with a clean dish towel, his movements automatic but careful. “Don’t look. Just look at me.”

You try, but your traitorous eyes get the best of you and flick back to your hand anyway, and your knees go a little weak.

“Hey,” he says, sharper now, sliding an arm around your waist and steadying you against him. “Sit. Sit down before you fall.”

You let him guide you to the chair, heart hammering, the kitchen suddenly too bright, too loud, the sizzle of the pan still going, oil popping cheerfully like there’s nothing wrong.

“I was just trying to be romantic,” you mutter faintly, swallowing hard as another wave of nausea rolls through you. “And now I’m bleeding out all over the kitchen.”

A corner of his mouth twitches despite himself. “You’re not bleeding out,”

He glances at the clock on the microwave, jaw tightening, and despite the small smile he puts on when he catches your eyes, you can tell he’s pretty worried by the little crease formed between his eyebrows.

“Can you move your fingers for me?” He prompts gently, watching your hand carefully. “Just a little. Don’t force it.”

Your heart rises into your throat, but you still try. Your thumb curls in obediently, index finger too, but when you get to your middle finger, it hesitates – like the signal got lost halfway between your brain and your hand.

You frown, anxiety swelling. “I– Wait. That’s weird.”

Robby goes still beside you, the hand holding your forearm tensing for a moment. “Try again.” He says quietly.

You do, with the same result – the finger barely moves, tugging uncomfortably before stopping. Your eyes widen, looking up to him, just in time to see his expression sharpen, face going tight, and you know immediately that it’s not good.

“Okay,” his voice comes out steadily, calm but decisive. “That’s important.”

Your throat tightens. “Important how?”

He doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he adjusts his grip, elevates your hand slightly, checks the depth of the wound without fully uncovering it, just enough to confirm what he’s already suspected.

“This isn’t something I can fix here,” he says finally, voice low, meeting your eyes with a thin smile. “The cut’s deep, and I’m worried you might have nicked a flexor tendon.”

The word tendon sends ice sliding down your spine, but before you can get too worried, Robby huffs out a humourless laugh. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but…”

You go still. “Oh, God, we have to go to the ER?” 

He nods, and you groan, heat rushing to your face in embarrassment. 

“I can’t–” You swallow, face tilting down to stare at your lap. “I can’t go back to the ER. Robby, it’s Valentine’s Day, you just got out of there, I’m already so embarrassed, I–”

“Hey.” He ducks his head to catch your eye, scooting his chair closer to you, his knee pressing lightly against yours. “Listen to me.”

You do – you always do.

“I don’t care what day it is,” he says, eyes narrowed, voice low and rumbly. “And I don’t care that I just left – what I care about is that you’re hurt.”

Tears spill over despite your best efforts. “I didn’t want to ruin tonight.”

His expression softens completely at that, thumb brushing gently over the knuckles on your good hand.

“You didn’t ruin anything,” He says, then glances down. The towel is fully saturated now, blood seeping through onto his fingers. He notices, and his jaw tightens again.

“Okay,” he adds, already reaching for his keys in his back pocket. “We’re going in. I want imaging, proper exploration, and someone who can repair this correctly.”

You wince. “You sound very doctor right now.”

“I am very doctor right now,” he says, helping you to your feet, arm firm around your back, before adding, softer, “And very boyfriend, and both of those want you safe.”

It’s a very fast drive to the ER (after you double- and triple-checked that all the burners were turned off and the food was off the heat), with Robby most definitely pushing the speed limit, and you’re back outside your least favourite building before you know it.

As soon as the sliding doors part, and the familiar ER smell hits you – antiseptic, coffee, something metallic underneath that you don’t want to think about. Robby’s hand is firm at your lower back as he guides you inside, already rattling off details to the triage nurse before she’s even finished asking what he’s doing back so soon.

“Knife injury to the left wrist, deep laceration, uncontrolled bleeding at home, lightheadedness. No LOC. No anticoagulants.”

The nurse takes one look at the towel and waves you through, offering you a comforting smile. “Central Eight is open.” She calls after you, and Robby nods gratefully, steering you through the chaos.

“I swear we made you leave already.” A voice calls out from behind you. 

You can feel Robby relax in visible relief, turning you both to face the source of the voice. You know from photos that it’s Jack, or Dr. Abbot, you guess you should call him here, who has his arms folded over his broad chest and his eyes narrowed at the two of you.

“Brother, I am so glad to see you right now.” Robby greets, patting Jack on the shoulder, and Jack nods, eyes still fixed on you.

“So. You’re Handle With Care.” He hums thoughtfully.

You frown for a moment, confused at the arrangement of words, before it finally dawns on you, and you glance up at Robby, who’s grimacing lightly, before looking back at Jack. “Oh my– No. No. Is that my nickname?” 

Jack raises his eyebrows, glancing between the two of you, before he gestures at one of the curtained off sections with his head and starts walking that way. “Come on, let’s get that looked at. It looks pretty gnarly – what happened?”

“I was cooking, and it just– Slipped.” You explain, still a little indignant over the nickname.

Jack nods, slipping on gloves as Robby helps you sit down on the bed and pulls the curtain closed behind you. “And it started bleeding immediately?”

“Yes.” You nod, swallowing thickly as you’re reminded of the injury.

“Steady flow or spurting?” 

You hesitate, and Robby steps forward. “It was steady, soaked through direct pressure within minutes–”

Jack fixes him with a look, and Robby stops mid-sentence, holding his hands up in silent apology, and Jack returns his attention to you like nothing happened. “Any numbness when it happened?”

“No.”

“Any difficulty moving your fingers?”

Robby shifts next to you again. “There was slight delay in flexion of the third digit initially, but–”

Jack’s eyes shutter closed for a split second. “Robby, man, you’re killing me.”

You glance between them, equal parts mortified and oddly touched. “He’s just worried.” You offer quietly, a small smile tugging at your lips.

“I know,” Jack says, meeting your eyes conspiratorially. “He’s worse when he knows the patient, but he should trust that I know what I’m doing, and don’t need him to be the attending right now.”

“I am right here.” Robby grumbles.

Jack finally looks back at him fully. “Exactly.”

There’s history in that look – shared shifts, shared disasters, shared losses, and you’re somewhat grateful that this whole mishap finally allowed you to see it in person.

“Alright. Let’s see the damage.” Jack steps closer, catching your eye to check in with you as he reaches for the towel, and when you nod, he begins unwrapping it. You avert your eyes immediately, stomach rolling. 

“Okay,” his voice is calm and steady. “That’s a deep palmar laceration. Looks dramatic because hands are vascular – lots of little arteries. But it’s clean. Superficial palmar is intact.” He throws that last bit at Robby, who exhales in relief.

Jack gently rotates your wrist. “Can you wiggle your fingers for me?”

You do, and they move, a little stiff, a little painful, but you’re relieved to see them obeying your brain.

“Make a fist.”

You try, narrowing your eyes as it pulls at the skin, but everything curls how it should.

“Good,” Jack nods. “Flexor tendons are intact. No motor deficit.”

He presses lightly at your fingertips, checks sensation, watches the color return to your nails.

“Nerves are fine. Circulation’s fine. You probably nicked a small radial branch, which was why it bled like it was auditioning for Carrie.”

You huff weakly, nodding gratefully.

Robby steps closer again. “Are you sure there’s no deeper involvement?”

Jack sighs and nods toward the door. “Okay, brother, maybe you should go be a gentleman and grab our patient here a coffee, what do you say?” 

“You sure?” Robby meets your eyes, and you huff softly, nodding. 

“I’d love a coffee.” You smile at him.

“Go.” Jack urges.

Robby hesitates, torn, then looks at you.

“I’m okay, really.” You say softly, and he squeezes your shoulder once before leaving reluctantly.

The curtain swishes shut behind him, and Jack turns back to face you, eyebrow raised. “You don’t really want a coffee.”

“No,” you admit, relieved. “But thank you.”

Jack snorts softly. “Figured.” He gets back to work, moving efficiently now, voice even as he explains it all to you. “I’m going to numb it, clean it out thoroughly, and put in a few stitches. Nothing complicated.”

The anesthetic burns briefly, and you grit your teeth through it, but after that, everything dulls to pressure and tugging.

Jack works with quiet competence, irrigating the wound to reduce infection risk, checking one last time for debris, then placing several neat sutures to close it. 

It’s all much quicker than you expected, and just as Jack finishes tying off the last stitch, Robby reappears, coffee in hand, scanning your face first before your wrist.

“Everything’s fine,” Jack says before he can even ask. “Eight sutures. Tendons intact. No nerve damage.”

Robby nods, relief flooding his face.

Jack wraps your wrist in gauze and a light compression bandage. “Keep it clean and dry for twenty-four hours. No heavy use. Stitches out in ten to fourteen days. If it gets redder, more painful, starts draining – you come right back.”

You nod, though you can still feel your pulse in your fingertips, your throat tight with worry.

“It’s not severe,” he adds, meeting your eyes reassuringly. “It just looked scary.”

That, more than anything, makes your shoulders drop. “Thank you.” You say quietly.

Jack shrugs, pulling his gloves off and tossing them in the trash. “Try to avoid any power tools until at least March.”

Robby lets out a strained laugh, patting Jack on the arm as he goes by.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, lovebirds.” Jack says dryly as he leaves the room, and just like that, it’s over.

Much later, you find yourself curled up on the couch, takeout cartons spread across the coffee table, a cheesy romcom playing low on the TV in the background, your wrist wrapped and throbbing dully.

You’re tucked into Robby’s chest, wrist held gently in your lap, your boyfriend’s hand rubbing gentle circles on your back as you let the rising and falling motion of his chest soothe you. 

As the movie ends, he plants a kiss on the top of your head and strains up, reaching behind the arm of the couch, and you twist to try and see what he’s doing.

His hand reappears with a small gift bag hanging from his finger, and you frown.

“Michael, we said no gifts–”

“It’s not– Just open it, will you?” He pushes it toward you, and you sit up, readjusting so the bag sits in your lap, peering inside. 

You look down, brows tugged together in confusion, before you reach in and pull it out. The mug in your hands is white, simple, and when you turn it around, has the words PLEASE STOP INJURING YOURSELF printed in bold black letters.

You stare at it, and then groan loudly, burying your face in your good hand. “Oh my god,” you mumble. “You already had this.”

There’s a low rumble in his chest as he laughs, eyes squeezed shut, overcome by the absurdity of the situation. “Yeah.”

“You were already going to give me this tonight?” You restate, peeking through your fingers at him, and he nods again, the creases around his eyes even deeper than usual as his entire face crinkles in amusement.

“Yep.”

You squeeze your eyes shut. “This is mortifying.”

“Don’t be mortified.” He leans in, kissing your temple and shaking his head. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”

You groan, turning and letting him kiss you on your forehead this time. “I can’t believe this.”

“I mean, if you wanted the mug that badly,” he murmurs against your skin. “You could’ve just asked.”

You lean back and swat at him gently. “Shut up.” Though you’re smiling now, running your thumb over the text on the mug, overcome with fondness at the idea that he’d remembered a stupid joke from before you’d started dating. 

“Hey,” Robby nudges you, and when you meet his eyes, he’s full of sincerity now. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

You press the mug to your chest, still mortified yet beaming now. “Happy Valentine’s.”

He grins, pulls you closer, and envelops you in a kiss – careful of your wrist – and you melt into it, making a solemn vow in your mind to wrap yourself in bubble wrap and not dare even leave your bedroom when St. Patrick’s Day rolls around.

[ponyosmom35]

Dr. Micheal 'Robby' Robinavitch

Dr. Robby x fem nurse reader

Synopsis: Robby falls in love with a young nurse and fights it every step of the way. But when you know, you know.

Warnings: smut, 18+, MDNI, angst, fighting, slow burn, blood, gore, medical inaccuracies, pittfest, panic attacks, mentions of suicide.

Pre season one:

one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | nine | ten | eleven | twelve | thirteen | fourteen | fifteen | sixteen

season one:

7 am | 8 am | 9 am | 10 am | 11 am | 12 pm | 1 pm | 2 pm | 3 pm | 4 pm | 5 pm | 6 pm | 7 pm | 8 pm | 9 pm

Blurbs during the ten months between season one and two (can be read as a standalone):

I love you (18+) | whats going on in that head of yours? (18+) | Intimacy (18+) | nobody can touch you the way that I do (18+) | dreams (18+)

season two:

7 am | 8 am | 9 am |

[ficstoreadagain]

The way this gave me butterflies all day. Started at 8 AM and binged all day!!

[blueywrites]

nip.

wolf hybrid!141 x sheltie hybrid!reader

a direct continuation of this fic written by @rawme-price, borne out of my burning need to answer the following question:

okay, now how exactly would this dynamic turn filthy fucking sexual?

afab!reader. explicit sexual content. tags vary per part; check before reading.

about hybrids: in this fic universe, hybrids have basic human anatomy with the addition of ancillary animal-specific features such as ears, tails, claws, fangs, etc. skin is human-colored and may be accented by fur, scales, feathers, or other textures depending on the hybridized species. in society, hybrids have equal legal status to humans and do not need handlers, though human/hybrid and hybrid/hybrid social politics and relationships are far from simple. while hybrids are cognitively equals with humans, their preferences, nervous systems, instincts, and behaviors are heavily influenced by the animal species they've been hybridized with.

about reader: in this series, reader is a shetland sheepdog hybrid who has joined task force 141 as a medic. while reader's fur pattern (ears, tail, bush, plus sparse accents in places like elbows, stomach, nape, etc.) aligns with traditional sheltie coloration (sable brown with white and black accents), this has no bearing on skin color, hair length, hair texture, etc. reader is intentionally written to be racially neutral as well as body-shape neutral, with the exception of being smaller than the wolf hybrids by comparison. for now, reader is afab and referred to without gendered terms; if that changes, individual chapters will be labeled fem!reader instead of afab!reader.

i. soap

ii. gaz

iii. ghost

iv. the pack

v. price

[quarterlifekitty]

Werewolf!Soap who’s tried so hard to keep his dog on a leash for you.

Not that he isn’t still nasty. He is. He’s still burying his nose in your pits every time you come back from hiking. You know what he is— but he’s never let you see him turn. He’s terrified of hurting you, or worse, without even knowing— he isn’t himself when he turns, he can never remember the things he does, so it’s best for everyone if he just stays away.

Until one night after a long deployment. Six months he’d been away— six months since he’d seen you, smelled you, touched you. The pair of used panties he’d taken with him had practically been worn to shreds with how often he fisted his cock with them and felt for them in his pocket. He’s so damned excited to see you, his leg thumping the entire ride home, practically sprinting away once Price dismisses him.

He’s too heavy with anticipation and need. He doesn’t keep track of the date. Of his cycle.

He wakes up at dawn with that sore, tingly feeling that follows his transformations. Once it settles in his brain, he shoots straight up. Your side of the bed is empty, save for some stray specks and one larger pool of blood staining the sheets.

Johnny immediately buries his face in his hands, bearing only to look at the evidence through the gaps in his fingers. He sobs. His worst fear in the entire world has been realized, the monster inside him that’d always hungered for you had finally got what it wanted. His stomach lurched and rolled with the possibilities— what might have ultimately become of you. Where the body was— if there was one. Maybe, if he was lucky, you crawled off and lived and would never want to see him again. But he knows his instincts would have never left escape an option— especially not when it came to you. The ring box that’s been sitting in his coat pocket is proof of that.

His entire body shakes with the torment and grief of it all, teeth clenching, his eyes shut as the tears just keep escaping. Love is over, because he killed it.

He’s so caught up in his despair that he doesn’t hear the footfalls on the floor. He doesn’t hear the clink of a glass set onto the nightstand. He doesn’t feel the dip of another weight on the bed.

Soap almost thinks it’s a trick from his deranged mind, a symptom of lupine madness, when he feels the warmth of a hand comfortingly rubbing up and down his back, another hand at his shoulder in a half-embrace.

“Baby, what’s the matter? Was it a nightmare?”

He had them, on occasion. Nature of the job, you knew that when you got involved. But he’d never seen this bad. It takes a minute or two before Johnny can bring himself to pull his trembling hands from his face, eyes puffy and wet with tears.

“B-Bonnie…? Yer… Yer okay?”

Soap was beginning to care less and less if this was a delusion. He would live in whatever reality kept you with him.

“I should be asking you that… Oh, Johnny—“ you sighed before wrapping him in a tight hug, even though his face and neck were wet and a little snotty from all of his crying.

“But, the blood—“

“Oh my god. Please, I’m so embarrassed… my period started while I was sleeping. I was so excited about you coming home that I totally lost track of the days…”

“So ye were gone because—“

“I left to clean myself up and get water… I wanted to change the sheets, but I didn’t want to wake you…” you start connecting the dots, even more embarrassed from all the worry you caused. “Did you think something happened to me?”

“Thought I fockin’ killed ye!” He says with a new wave of tears rushing to him, this time in relief. He pulls you in about as close as he can.

“Well, uhm… you basically did with like the dozen orgasms you gave me when you turned. I didn’t… I didn’t know your cock would do that thing, uhm, where it swelled up and… god, it was so hot,” you murmur, face feeling a bit warm just recalling it. A shiver runs through Johnny’s spine— your confession would have him thumping his tail if he still had it.

“Marry me.”

[peachesofteal]

I really like the idea of Johnny getting in trouble for bringing home strays.

Simon has told him so many times, stop bringing home strays. It’s not fair to them, to let them get attached and then tell them goodbye. He hates the look on their faces too, like disappointed puppies. They get all twisted up, confused, and then they're put out in the cold. It's sad.

But of course, his husband has a hard time with no, brat that he is.

So tonight, when Johnny get's home from his usual evening run Simon is not surprised, and only mildly irritated, that you're right behind him, not uncomfortable but apprehensive, and possibly in a bit of pain. Huh.

"Found bonnie on my run," Johnny plants a kiss on his cheek and he grips the back of his neck with a squeeze before whispering in his ear.

"What did we talk about last week?"

"Ach c'mon, look a' her. She's so sweet." You are, there's no denying that. Probably sweet as pie. You give him a nervous smile.

"Hi." Might as well. He gives you one back, albeit not nervous, but very practiced. They've been working on it for years. Before they got married, Simon's smiles were usually scowls.

"Hi sweetheart." You try to hide your reaction, sweet thing, but you're not very good at it. The sharp inhale, double blink. Cute.

"She twisted her ankle." You're favoring your right leg. "Thought ye might be able ta take a look." He twists the top of his water bottle open and offers it to you. You shake your head.

"No, thank you. I um, well I live pretty far. I usually run all the way home but I stepped on a rock funny and now..."

"C'mon. Couch is comfortable. Promise we don't bite." It's shocking to him that you're naive enough to go with a strange man, to a strange apartment, where another man also lives. With or without their martial status, you should have run the first time you noticed Johnny in your line of sight.

But with a broken wing, where are you going to fly?

You hobble over to the couch with Johnny, whose hand is casually lingering at the small of your back. If it's bothersome, you don't say anything, and you sit down without fuss, allowing Simon to take your shoe off and pull your foot into his lap with a whine. "Owww."

"Hurt?" You nod, little pout like a child who's lost her doll.

"I'm not usually so clumsy." He eyes Johnny. Wouldn't put it past him to have seen you in the park and then chucked the rock right under your heel, but he shakes his head. He already knows what Simon is thinking.

The ankle is swollen. Not too badly, not bad enough you'd need an x-ray or professional medical attention, but he knows it has to hurt. "Thanks again for helping me out. Both of you." Simon pats your thigh, and your lashes flutter.

"'s alright, we're happy to. Don't have much goin' on, just two old timers. We'll get it wrapped up and get you on your way. Can someone come pick you up?"

"Oh, no. It's just me. I can call an uber." Imagine that.

"'m not an old timer!" Johnny yells from the kitchen, appearing a moment later with a steaming cup of tea. Here we go. "Made some tea."

"Oh! Thanks." You graciously accept the cup and Simon stares at you slack jawed. Johnny is beside himself with glee. God you're cute, but christ are you way too trusting. "Mmm, my favorite."

It doesn't take too long, never does. The mix is potent, and it's not your usual GHB/ketamine mix that amateurs use, no. It's specially made, produced by the military for something else entirely, though it suits their purposes just fine.

"We're gonna take good care of you." Simon murmurs, rubbing his hand up and down your leg. The motion is easy, and works as a metronome, entrapping you as your pupils dilate. "You won't be hurt too much and we'll patch you after. Everything is gonna be jus' fine, alright love?"

"Wha... what?" Your head bobs, and you fight it, trying to remain upright as Johnny slides in next to you on the couch, shouldering your weight as it leans to the side.

"Just had ta have ye, pretty girl. I promise ye'll have fun." His hand snakes under your shirt, slides across your belly and up to where he grazes over your nipples.

"N-no-"

"Shhh," Simon squeezes your ankle. The bad one, and you try to shift away. "Be good f'us sweetheart. Be good." He pulls your other leg up onto the coffee table, framing his own, and works the flesh of your upper thighs, thumbs grazing over the middle seam of your leggings, right where he knows you're already burning thanks to the drug. Your garbled protest turns to a moan when Johnny pinches your nipple and they both smile.

Game on.

[ficstoreadagain]

[bitterrfruit]

iron tide

masterlist

fisherman price x reader cw: noncon undressing/bathing, dubcon touching. references to drowning

the crew aboard a deep-sea crabbing vessel rescue a woman adrift in the north sea. you wake up on a boat surrounded by men you don't know, with no memory of where you came from.

or: john price rescues you from certain death and decides that you belong to him

part 1 part 2 part 3

or [read on ao3]

extras

moodboard

this was supposed to be a one shot, but as per i got carried away and now its a 3-parter. don't hate me

[thundersoothers]

john price, his wife, and... the dog (derogatory)

who: John Price x wife!reader

what: inspired by this thought about john price being an absolutely softie for his wife.

word count: 2.4k

warnings: mentions of cheating but it’s NOT TRUE! you’ll see… just fluff that reallyyyyy makes me want to marry this man.

It’s 2AM on a Saturday in the summer when John Price thinks he hears his wife cheating on him. 

“Shhh!!  You have to be quiet, you’ll wake up my husband.” 

He opens his heavy eyes to see the TV paused at the end credits of some movie he can’t even remember the name of.  The screen reflects in the crystal of the empty rocks glass on the coffee table next to his feet, holding only a warm whiskey stone.  

He groans and stretches, his old t-shirt riding up to show a dark happy trail disappearing into low-waisted flannel pajama pants.  He has one sock on with a hole in the toe.  You told him to get rid of them and got him a pack of 20 of the same sock (he’s very particular about his socks), but he still wears these ones, anyway. 

“Stop moving, I’m trying to concentrate here.  Damn lock… can never— oh, shit.  Heh. Wrong key.” 

He can hear you muttering and giggling and the scratch of the key against the lock as you struggle to get it in. 

It’s your girls’ night and he likes to wait up for you to make sure you get in safely.  He saw you off around 8PM, pouring himself a glass of whiskey as you took a shot of tequila.  You planted a big kiss on his cheek, leaving a red lipstick mark that he didn’t bother to fully wipe off. 

“Sorry, I know you’re eager to get inside.  I bet you’re so cold, all naked.  Here, you can go in my dress, is that better?  Fu—ow!  Don’t bite my tit, Jesus!  Sharp teeth…” 

Price suddenly feels much more awake.  He pushes himself up from the couch and starts to walk to the foyer. 

“This damn door… ah!  There we go.” 

The door creaks open and he hears you tiptoe inside in your heels (wearing heels and tiptoeing—are two actions that are mutually exclusive, especially when you’re plastered). 

“Remember, we have to be quiet.  My husband waits for me to get home, we don’t want to wake him up.  He’s very nice, you see, but he can’t know you’re here.” 

Apparently, you have gotten home safely—with an extra guest who just bit at your tit.  And you’re being louder than your guest, who you keep telling to be quiet. 

“My husband is gonna be soooo mad.  He’s gonna be so mad at me, but once he sees how cute you are, I think he’ll forgive me.  He’ll understand.  I had to.  I just had to!” 

He hears rustling as he gets closer to the foyer, you fumbling around in the dark. 

“Stay there, don’t move, okay?  Stay, yeah?  You know that, don’t you?  Mummy will teach you if not.  Just stay right there.  Lemme get these damn heels off…” 

There’s an odd sound of something quickly clicking on hardwood floor that makes his eyebrows furrow, and then you gasp—

“Wait, don’t run—“ 

Bang! 

You groan loudly. 

Price flicks on the lights.

You’re lying face down on the rug.  You have one heel on.  The second heel is twisted around your other foot—what you fell over.  Your little dress is flipped up over your ass and your arms are outstretched. 

“You okay there, love?” John asks, torn between amusement and concern. You just groan.  “Sounded like you fell pretty hard.” 

“I tripped,” you say into the rug, sounding very sad. 

“You hurt?” he asks.  “Anything broken?”

You shake your head and curl up a little.  “I’ll just sleep here.” 

He laughs softly.  “Come on, none of that.” 

“It’s so comfortable.  I’ll just—“ 

There’s that clicking sound again and he’s almost startled by the abruptness of your movement.  You push yourself up with one arm, stretch the other out and fucking snatch the quick-moving little brown blob that’s moving toward you.  You pull it to your chest and cradle it, shielding it from John’s view. 

He blinks. “What you got there, love?” he asks after a second. 

“Nothing,” you say innocently. 

“Right.”  He crosses his arms, looking you over.  “Who were you talking to just now?” 

“No one,” you say quickly.  “Myself.” 

“Right,” John says again slowly. “Show me what you have.” 

You look over your shoulder up at him through your lashes, vision blurry.  “No.  You’re gonna be mad.” 

“Just show me.” 

“Promise you won’t be mad.” 

He sighs.  “I won’t be mad.”  You give him a look.  He sighs again.  You’re wasted—he can tell by your eyes. They’re unfocused and heavy.  “Promise.  Now show me.” 

You look down at whatever you’re holding to your chest.  “Okay,” you whisper (to your tits?), “you need to be very well-behaved, okay?  No biting, please.  Be very nice for Daddy so he will like you, okay?  Can you do that?  Yes?  Okay.” 

You glance up at John again over your shoulder and then turn yourself around in a very clumsy movement.  Then, as if presenting whatever it is like you’re Mufasa from the Lion King, you lift it up in the air toward your husband. 

It’s a puppy. 

It’s quiet. 

The little dog wriggles in your hands, wagging his tail so hard his whole body shakes.  He barks up at John, high pitched.  A small pink tongue lolls out of his mouth. 

It’s still quiet. 

You lower the dog a little so you can look up at John.  “You said you wouldn’t be mad!” 

“I’m not mad,” John says, sounding mad. 

“You look mad.” 

“I’m not mad,” he says again.  “It’s just… dirty.” 

You gasp.  “He’s not dirty!” you exclaim, sounding offended on behalf of the dog.  You pull him to your chest.  “He’s just a little mangey, you see.  But that’s okay.  It can be fixed.  You know—they have medicine for that.  Or lotion, or whatever it is.  He’s very nice, John, I swear.  I know he’s a little… skrunkly but he’s very cute and—ow!  That’s my hair, no biting Mummy, please.” 

“You’re already calling yourself his Mummy?” he asks, bemused, eyebrow raised at you.  Yep.  You’re fucking wasted. 

“Yes, and you’re his Daddy.”  You hold the dog up again, this time facing him toward you.  “I think you’re very cute, puppy. You’ll grow on Daddy.  Just be very good for him, you can do that, can’t you?  Yes, you can.”  You whisper, as if John isn’t standing right there, “We’ll wear him down. Don’t worry.”

“I thought it was something else,” Price says. 

“What did you think it was?” you ask, not looking away from the dog.

“Where did you find it?” he asks instead of answering. 

This is much better than what his traitorous mind momentarily supplied.  You, cheating? As if.

How silly of him to even think that. For a moment, his stomach twists with the guilt of doubting you. He should have known better. 

Of course it’s this.  What else could it have been?

A puppy. 

A puppy! 

“Oh, hello, there.” 

You crouch down in your dress and heels and hold out your hand to the little puppy emerging from the bushes by the side of the road. 

“What are you doing here, all alone?  Come here, love, I won’t hurt you.  Come on, puppy, come to me.  Yeahhh, there we go.  Oh, look at you.  You’re so cute.  You’re all mangey, though.  Oh,” you say pitifully, “you little baby.” 

You’re drunk as fuck at 2AM on a Saturday in the summer, halfway through your walk home from the bar, squatting in the middle of a back road in England, about to cry while petting this puppy clumsily—but he doesn’t seem to mind.  He wags his tail and nips at your fingers. 

“Where’s your Mummy?  You shouldn’t be out here all alone.  No collar… oh, goodness, what should I do with you?  I don’t want to leave you.  I’m not sure what to do.” 

He barks at you, high pitched. 

You nod at him seriously.  “Oh, yes, good point.”  He barks again.  “Mhm.  Yes, yes.  I thought so, too.  Exactly right.” 

He runs in a circle around you. 

“What are you, a month?  You should be with your Mum, you shouldn’t be all alone.  Oh, you little baby, you must be so scared.”  (He’s wagging his tail.) 

“It’s so cold.”  (It’s summer.) 

“Maybe you can come home with me?”  (Your husband would be so mad.) 

“Yes,” you decide.  “You’ll come home with me.”  (Your husband is going to be so mad.) 

That’s how you end up stumbling home with a puppy in your arms, rambling to him about yourself and your life. 

“Well, puppy, my name is Mrs. Price.  I’m from around here.  I live in a nice three bedroom house with my husband, I think you’ll like it very much.  It’s very cute. He let me decorate it. He doesn’t understand feng shui, you see. You should see his office, puppy, it’s so bland. No taste for interior design.”

“Our house is only 10 more minutes away.  See that big tree there?  That means we only have 10 minutes left until we’re home.  I’m not great with street names, you see, so I go by landmarks.”  He barks.  “Yes, yes, you get it.” 

“Anyway.  So, I’m—stop wiggling please, Mummy’s going to drop you—I’m married to a very nice man named John.  I love him very much.  You’ll like him, too,” you tell him seriously, “he’s very likable.  I like lots of things about him, puppy.  Actually, I like everything about him.” 

“He says I can’t have a dog, though.  He says it’s for my own good—booooo. Boo! But maybe we can sneak you in.  What do you think, puppy?  Should we do that?  I think we should do that.  We’ll have to be very quiet, though.  Very quiet.” 

“John waits for me to get home safely—he’s so nice, he’s so kind to me, I love him sooooo much—but we have to make sure not to wake him up. This is one of them—uh, covert operations. He’s very well-versed in those. My husband is very talented, puppy, he’s a Captain. So we’ll have to be extra careful.”

And that’s how you end up trying to sneak into your own house and then trip over your shoe and fucking slam! your face on the rug. 

“Where did you find it?” John asks you as you sit on the floor after you presented the dog to him.

“On the way home from the bar, kind of my that big tree.” 

“By Notting Street?” 

You furrow your eyebrows.  “Notting Str—I dunno.  Maybe?  I just know the big tree.  The one with all the branches.” 

“‘The one with all the branches,’” he repeats, nodding slowly.  “Right.” 

“But he was there all alone so I took him home.  I couldn’t leave him, John, he’s so little.  And he’s very cute, look at his little ears?  And his little feet?  His toes are soooo small.  His little teeth are sharp, though—like a shark.  Fuckin’ hurt, he almost bit my tit off.” 

“Yeah, I heard.” 

“You heard?  Oh.  I was trying to be quiet.  I didn’t want to wake you up.” 

He smiles at you.  “I know.” 

You smile back. 

“Give me the dog.” 

You frown.  “No.” 

“The dog, please.” 

“No.”  You hold him tighter.  “You’ll take him from me.” 

“Well,” he says, “yes.” 

You sigh heavily.  “Be gentle.”  You hand him to John and he takes him in one hand and holds him out, frowning, as if it’s offended him. 

A puppy. 

“Can we keep him?” you ask hopefully. 

He glances at you and then back to the puppy and then back to you and then back to the puppy.  “No.” 

“Please?” 

“No.” 

“But…”  You trail off and he looks back down at you.  You’re starting to tear up. 

“Oh—love, don’t cry.” 

“He’s so little and soft and nice and he’s all mangey and he’s all alone and he’s just a little baby and…” 

“Okay, okay, darling, we can keep him.” 

(By that, he means you’ll talk about it tomorrow when you’re sober, and by ‘talk about it’, he means, ‘no.’) 

“Really?!” you gasp.  

The way your face fucking lights up makes John pause.  For a second, he almost feels like he lost his balance.

“Oh, John, really?  Oh, thank you so much!  Puppy, did you hear that?  Daddy said yes!  See, he’s very nice, just like I told you, remember?  He’s very nice and kind and he’s very handsome and I love him very much, and I—“ 

“The dog can’t understand you.” 

“You don’t know that,” you say defensively.

He looks down at you. “Right.”

You stare up at him, standing over you as you sit on the floor.  “How are you handsome even from this angle?”  You frown deeper.  “Stupid face,” you mutter. 

“What was that?” 

“Nothing.” 

“Let’s get you up.” 

“I’m so comfortable.” 

“Hand.”  He tucks the dog under his arm and extends his other hand toward you.  He crooks his long, thick fingers at you.  “Now.” 

You look between his hand and his face, and then slip your hand into his.  He fucking yanks you up and, in one movement that’s somehow graceful, bends down and throws you over his shoulder. 

He, naturally, slaps your ass and you squeal.  “Hey!!” 

You kick your feet (still with only one heel on) and he laughs, resting his hand on your hip, heavy fingers digging into the plush of your butt, as he makes his way up the stairs with you on his shoulder and the dog in his hand. 

Gently, he drops you onto the bed and you fall back with an oof! and stare up at him. 

“Well,” Price drawls, “aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.” 

You grin.  “I missed you.” 

“I missed you, too.”  He takes off your shoe (singular), your dress, and your makeup as you hold the dog, curled up, on your chest. 

“You’re so good to me, John,” you say, your eyes closed.  “I’m so lucky.  I don’t know how I got so lucky.  And, you, puppy,” you mumble, petting him slowly, “you’re so lucky, too.  You’re about to have the best Daddy in the world.  He’s so good to us.” 

“‘Puppy’ is asleep,” John says.  “And,” he adds, scooping him up in one hand, “puppy is not sleeping in the bed.” 

You just groan, too tired and drunk to argue. 

He holds the dog out in the air again, turning him around and upside down to examine him.  He yips and wriggles in his hands, but John shushes him.  “Hush now.  Your Mummy is asleep.”  He shakes his head and sighs.  “What am I going to do with you?” 

He takes the dog to the bathroom and puts him down on the floor. His paws slip a little on the cold tile. John puts his hands on his hips, staring down at the dog.  “I can’t believe this.”

He reaches over to turn on the heated floor (which he got installed for you) and says to the dog, “You are so, so damn lucky I love your Mummy.” 

In the morning, despite John Price’s best efforts to say no to you, you end up convincing him to keep the dog. He’s a military Captain but the pleading of his wife is enough to make him crumble.

The happiness on your face when he finally says yes, makes him wonder why he ever said no in the first place.

note: thank you for reading! this is my first time posting in years–and in a totally new fandom. thank you for your patience and your support. let me know your thoughts! merry christmas!

posted 12.26.24. revised 12.27.24.

do not repost or modify any of my original words on any other platform.

to masterlist.

[whirlybirbs]

I'm asking nicely and politely but also banging my credit card on the table like a shopping addict on Black Friday. And you're the TJ Maxx Cashier.

I just need more freak loser Simon, in any capacity really. I just like thinking about him trying to decipher anyone being nice to him, like manually sorting interactions into mental boxes, just staring down at someone as he's trying to figure out if he's putting something in the 'friend' box or the dusty cobwebbed 'flirting' box

1. handler's manual — ghost / reader

desc: moth is the 141's intel specialist. ghost is the 141's resident freak. pairing: lt. simon "ghost" riley / f!reader ; callsign: moth playlist: weird by kaytranada a/n: leaning into my roots with good old drabbles that will eventually ruin all our lives because of the slow burn.

"Bugger off, Moth." For someone whose whole gig is intelligence, Lieutenant Riley makes you feel awfully fucking stupid. I mean — Christ, does he have, like, a handler's manual? He should. He needs one. At this point, you're convinced the 141's Ghost has some sort of moon-based mood indicator that is also entirely dependent on what the mess is serving for lunch and if Philip Graves has opened his mouth more than three times that day.

Layers. Complicated.

Stupid.

You feel stupid.

You tug your ball cap down and shake off the sigh that rattles out of your chest. You try to ignore the sting of rejection in your chest, pointedly deciding that fine, good ol' fashioned camaraderie apparently isn't the vibe today. Sucking your teeth, you knock two knuckles on the mess table and nod. "Sure, el-tee. You got it."

Apparently, the big man wants to eat alone today.

You stand, turn your back, and don't say another word to him.

Simon winces. You miss it, thank fuck. Credit where it's due: you do a good job hiding the obvious sting his words reap, like a fresh slap across the face. But, Simon knows you well enough — he's spent a long time trying to unravel you, trying to understand you, from afar. He sees the rejection and the instant burn of guilt makes his knee bounce under the table.

Simon cracks his knuckles before taking a long sip of his cold tea.

Lately? Being around you is like staring into the sun and he isn't sure why. He can hardly handle it, because fuckin' hell, you don't act like he's a dead man walking. You listen. You talk. You laugh.

You even chime in with those stupid fuckin' rippers him an' Johnny fire back at one another over the comms on long recon missions when you're their Overwatch.

It makes him uncomfortable. Unsettled.

He doesn't let people get close.

There's a tight roster of people who know him. He doesn't like that you're creeping in — that you're creating cracks in the walls he has toiled over for years... Or, maybe you're not creating them, but you're sure as fuck finding them. "Moth."

You stop mid-step, your fingers tight around your meal tray. He always uses your callsign — more so than the others. Like he's keeping you at arms length. You cast a look back over your shoulder, noting the way his blonde brows are pinched tight beneath his balaclava. "Jus' need some space, s'all."

You're not sure if he means now or forever, but you take what you get. You offer a reassuring nod, throw in a smile, and jut your jaw towards the others sitting a few tables over. He's saying something more than just needing space, and you'll figure out what as you mull it over for an unforeseeable amount of time. It's what you do. You figure people out. "Don't worry."

"I ain't worried."

"Good."

"Right."

You'll write the handler's manual if you have to.

[beloveds-embrace]

Part two of monster!141 x chubby reader

Part One.

CW: reader isn’t in a good place mentally and it’s affecting her reactions and the 141 absolutely take advantage of it. This is definitely not accurate in terms of reality. Reader has a lot of self-esteem issues, especially regarding her weight.

The thing is, you know you should be panicking way more. You know you should be fighting back, trying to think of an escape plan.

But you don’t. Exhaustion clings to you like a second skin, and you simply decide you don’t have any energy to do anything much- especially against shifters twice your size at the minimum. If they want to kill you, so be it. You doubt there’d be anyone to miss you; your parents only ever cared about your other siblings, your friends weren’t exactly your friends apparently, and you ex…

“Penny for your thoughts, dove?” The harpy whose lap you are perched on murmurs, wings fluffing out around you, the feathers soft and warm. You haven’t been on any couches or cushions ever since you woke up here, always in one of their laps. You had been terrified at first, and fear still lingers even now, but all they do is hold you tight and occasionally sniff you. Nothing more.

“Not worth much.” You whisper, closing your eyes as you take a deep breath. The feathers around you rustle again, tickling your skin ever so slightly, and you can feel him nuzzle the crown of your head.

“I disagree,” Kyle says, voice musing.. The arms wound around your waist tighten, and you are pulled impossibly closer to him. Your head still finds it hard to believe just how strong they are- easily maneuvering someone even of your size like your weigh nothing. Your ex never bothered; often just made a passing mention that maybe he’d carry you like that if you hit the gym and lost a few pounds. “Worth quite a lot to me. To us.”

You don’t have a reply to that; it’s still weird and unbelievable to you. Soulmates. What a joke. Even if they existed, you doubted anyone would like you like this. Not to mention the soulmate of a harpy, a werewolf, a dragon and a wraith? It sounded like a crappy plot you’d find while scouring the internet, written by a college student driven insane in their last year.

But they insisted they were right, and refuse to let you go, and now here you are being cuddled to one of them while the other three thud about upstairs. You can hear their voices, but not what they are saying. Though it sounds like they are quite busy.

“You cold, dove?” Kyle asks when he feels you shudder again, at last wrapping his wings fully around you even before you can answer. The feathers are so soft, and he smells so nice, like jasmine and vanilla. You almost felt hungry, simply smelling him.

“No.” The answer is quiet, croaked out tiredly. Sleep tugs at you even though it hasn’t been that long since you’ve woken up, the pounding, hungover headache long since dissipated.

You hate this syrupy slowness that lets you remain snuggled against him. You hate how safe you feel, despite your mind screaming at you otherwise. You don’t know these men, don’t know anything about them except their names, and yet your body has never felt quite this comfortable.

“Sleep, precious.” Kyle croons, his hand rubbing down your back. He buries his face in your hair, still crooning, and leaves a trail of kisses across your temple. “Sleep. You are safest and soundest here, with us.”

And so your eyes flutter shut, and your breath evens out; sleep comes to you as easy as breathing, and for one, ephemeral second, you don’t worry about your weight being too much for him.

[beloveds-embrace]

Chubby reader x monster!141…. Chubby reader where you are at all-time-low after your ex cheated on you with the woman you had always been insecure of (she was everything you were not), so now you are just done. Done with him, with her, with your terrible work that forced you to come in even while sick, done with life.

So you go to a bar, and intend to fully drink yourself and all your sorrows away. You don’t even care enough to ask any friends to accompany you- they knew. They fucking knew. Calling them friends anymore is just stupid- and you don’t care enough to look around at anyone; you know you aren’t anyone’s preference either.

When a man, big and burly, curling horns and two big ass wings (maybe one of those dragon shifters? You know harpies have feathers, but the rest of your brain is too muddled) sits down next to you, you just ignore him and continue nursing your drink, trying your best to bite back the tears in your eyes.

“That’s enough now, love,” he croons, and much to your confusion, he takes the glass away from you. His voice is rough and rumbling, like thunder. Too hazy, too drunk, you don’t even care enough to get angry at him. No, your eyes fill with tears instead. “No, no, calm down. Let’s get you out of here, alright, little love?”

Another man joins your other side, just as big and burly but shorter than the dragon man who is making you tear up by holding your drink, your source of solace tonight, hostage in his hand. This one is a werewolf, his ears flicking in your direction much like his grin and his tail eagerly thumping to and fro against your chair.

“Sweet lass,” he croons, your teary eyes flicking towards him. You can see his hands clench in the air. Why, why, why- you just wanted to drink away. They are both so handsome, such a shame they clearly don’t like you and are just bothering you for the sake of bothering you, a fat woman in a miserable corner. “Enough tears and enough alcohol, aye, hen? Yer aff yer heid!”

His words are so strange, your tears momentarily pause. “What…?” You wonder outloud, shivering when you feel a warm breath across your neck, warming your skin. The dragon. His hand settles on your lower back, nudging you to get off the chair with them, and you feel like crying again. He probably can feel all the fat there, how horrible-

“Careful there, little love.” Dragon steadies you with two hands when you get dizzy, and with weak hands you try to swat at him, try to move away, but the werewolf is at your other side and keeping you pressed between them.

“S’op… stop callin’ me that,” you mumble. The tears roll down then. “Not- not funny, not at all-“

Two other hands on your back, a tail thumping against the back of your thighs, you are still led outside even as you babble about everything. Your size, your ex, the one your ex cheated, your work, your ex-

You want your damn drink back.

For their part, Price and Johnny didn’t think coming out for a drink tonight would lead to finding their last soulmate. The second they had entered the dinky bar, John had expected to need to puff out a deep, smoky breath to keep his nose clean from all the overwhelming smells and Johnny had prepared to to keep his nose happily pressed into John’s skin.

They hadn’t expected to smell you, something like the smell of stepping into a warm home after spending time out in winter, something like watching soft, golden sunlight stream into the nest room on a morning they spend sleeping in with Kyle and Simon. Like soulmate, like the last link of John’s hoarde and Johnny’s pack, and he has no doubt that you are Kyle’s nest and Simon’s. Simply his. A part of him just as you are a part of them.

Driven so wholly by instincts, seeing you drunk and crying pushing them even more into said instincts, they easily you herd along with them, back to their home. All explanations, everything else can wait until tomorrow. You are so soft to the touch, all tender and squishy, they already think you so perfect. In the back of the car, it doesn’t take seconds before you are dozing off and dead to the world, already so trusting.

By tomorrow morning, Simon would be easily able to track down where you live and get all your items. And also find that shitty ex of yours. John hasn’t yet decided if he wants to thank or beat him.

Watching the way Johnny holds you in his lap from the rearview mirror while he drives, hands squeezing your lovehandles with a low groan, mumbling about how much he already adores you, soft bonnie hen, all theirs- John decides he doesn’t give a single fuck about your ex at the moment. He needs to hold you between his arms and wings, in the comfort of his nest.

Fuck, he might end up breaking more than just a few speed limits.

Part two

[bagofshinyrocks]

Government name vs Military callsign

Prompt: What scares them worse? Addressing them by their full government name, or addressing them by their military callsign?

Featuring: Task Force 141 (CoD: MW2) - John Price, Simon "Ghost" Riley, Kyle "Gaz" Garrick, Johnny "Soap" MacTavish (separately) x GN!Reader

Word Count: 0.9k

Warnings: none

John Price

Government name.

Calling him Captain or Skipper just ends with him sauntering to where ever you are and ask (in an obnoxiously self-satisfied voice) what you wanted. Like a cat pretending it can’t hear the urgency in your tone when you say to get off the counter.

“If you want me to ‘shake a leg’, call my name, luvie.”

Now if you holler “Jonathan Price”, he’ll drop something. Either the newspaper in his hands, or his heart into his stomach. He sure as hell moves his ass with a purpose, and he’s peering into the room with an apology on his lips.

“Yes, luv? What’s wrong, poppet?”

“Lift the other end of the couch, would you?”

He does, and you shimmy it further back in the room. “Anything else I can do, love o’ my life?” He’s hovering, and gently coaxing you into his arms. Gauging how mad you were at him. You curled into him and kissed his chin. Then stepped away with a pat to his chest.

“No, sweetheart, just wanted you to shake a leg is all.”

When he remembers your previous conversation, he groans and tells you to fuck off.

Simon Riley

Military callsign.

When you two are alone, and he’s already given you permission to call him Simon, don’t call him Ghost. When you say that word, he assumes one of his mates are at the door or on the phone, and goes from Simon to Ghost. Stalks into the room with narrowed eyes, only to find you in the kitchen. By yourself.

“Ghost, you want a sandwich too? Turkey and cheese.”

“Fuck you callin’ me that for?” 

Once he sees you’re alone, he swoops in and wraps around you like a hoodie. A firm kiss to your ear, then your cheek, then spun you around. Back pressed to the counter top. Settles his face right close to yours.

“We playin’ games now?” You didn’t want to upset him, so you pressed a kiss to his nose. His grumpy look faded a bit.

“Sorry, baby.” Arms wrapped carefully around his shoulders. And your fingers scratch his scalp. Another kiss to his nose. “I’m sorry for playing games with you. Simon Riley.”

Hearing his name on your lips finally cracked, and he gave you a smile. A little scar on the upper lip. You gave it a kiss, and then pressed a kiss to his lips. 

A quick surge forward, and you only just had time to shove aside the things behind you before you found yourself on the countertop.

Kyle Garrick

Government name.

He doesn’t mind being called Gaz, and you’ll use Kyle and Gaz interchangeably. Doesn’t even mind if you use “Kyle” or “honey” in front of his squadmates. Though “Kylie” he does have some displeasure with.

“I’ll have you know, Soap is still calling me Kylie, you asshole.”

Call him ‘Garrick’, and he knows that you are pretending to be mad at him. He slinks over and rubs his face against your cheek. He’s too cute for you to stay mad.

If you shout “Kyle Garrick”, he comes running. He could have sworn that he put his clothes in the hamper. And did the dishes. And taken out the recycling. Damn, what was it that he forgot?

“Kyle Ga-”

“Yes, dear!” Shit, he didn’t mean to ‘yes, dear’ you. “Yes, my dear, I’m right here.”

You pause your laundry folding and summon him with a crook of your finger. Once he’s close enough, you tap your lip with the same finger. “I need a kiss.”

He blinked once. Then twice. “God damn you.” He squishes your face in his hands and gave you a quick, firm kiss. “Don’t stress me out like that. Thought you were mad.”

“Give me another kiss, or I will be.”

He rapid fire kissed your mouth, chin, and cheeks, then gave you a smack on the ass before returning to the living room. 

“In my own fucking home,” he muttered.

John MacTavish

Military callsign.

He’s got some thick skin. And he’s had his name shouted angrily many a time. He would all but skip into the room with a big smile on his face. The only people who shouted that name (and wore out the scare-factor on it) were his family members. Shouting “John MacTavish” meant you loved him. You were also mad at him, but you loved him. That was more important. Even with your scowl and the gross pile of garbage he kept forgetting to take out. You loved him.

Now shouting his callsign reminded him of his superior officers.

“SOAP!”

Shit shit shit. He put down his beer and ran from the garage to the backyard. Leg brace over his sweats, low cut muscle shirt that you also wolf-whistle at when he wears. You were only weeding the garden boxes.

“JOHNNY!”

“I’m here, bonnie,” he hollered, rounding the corner. You were sitting in the dirt, a tidy pile of weeds and dead plant bits next to you.

“C’mere, c’mere.”

He leaned down next to you, hand on your shoulder and good knee on the ground. “Wassit?”

You pointed to the leaf in your hand. “A caterpillar, Johnny. An itsy-bitsy caterpillar.”

He sighed heavily and kissed your shoulder. “Bonnie, I thought something was wrong.”

“Hm?” You spared him a glance. “What are you talking about, bubba?”

“You called me Soap.”

“Did I? Didn’t mean to spook you, loverboy.” You gave him an apologetic kiss on the lips. “Just wanted you to see the caterpillar before he wiggled off.”

Posted: 2023 Dec 10

[rose-fics]

Soap being bitten by a weird looking attack dog on mission and does the usual rabies shots treatment/whatever. All his tests came back fine so he's not really worried about it.

It's just that....

Was he always this hairy? Like yeah sure he's never been sleek exactly, always had a dense bit of hair across his arms, legs, and torso. But recently it feels thicker, coarser.

Did you start wearing a new perfume? Weird he didn't notice until now. It smells amazing on you, he can't help but bury his face in your neck given any chance to do so, nibbles at your neck as you giggle and swat at him.

Everything's louder now. He mentions to Price that he can hear conversations from three offices over, and Price just shrugs and asks why he's complaining- his hearing has been damaged by so many close proximity explosions. Maybe it's just healed on its own somehow.

He keeps having to trim his nails for some reason, and doesn't miss Ghost's weird, observant stare as he sits next to the trash bin for the third time that week trimming his toenails. "Giving yerself a pedicure, Johnny?"

He's so hungry all the time. Gaz jokes he's going through a growth spurt the way he devours his meals, piles on the protein and craves red meat. Soap tells himself he was planning on going on a high-protein diet anyways so he can bulk out a little, so it's not really an issue.

You complain about the love bites he gives you, how he's biting harder than he should, and Soap swears up and down he isn't. The welts on your neck and shoulders tell a different story though, and when you frown at him Soap whines, wanting to tuck a tail he doesn't have under him in apology.

It's weird, but it's mostly explainable.

That is, until the next full moon, when you wake in the darkness of your bedroom to the low, dangerous growl of something wild and feral as he slowly creeps up your body and lets instinct take root.

[frogs-crackcorner]

It's nearly one am when Simon stumbles out of the bar. The team was in Berlin for an operation but they had wrapped that up yesterday. Their flight home wasn't scheduled till the next day so they had decided to enjoy the sights and activities. And you can't visit the beer capital of the world without getting a pint, Soap had pointed out. So they stopped by the pub. One pint turned into two, two turned into three. Now he was, staggering down the streets of Berlin with only one goal in mind.

He needed to get home to the missus.

Simon didn't get very far away from the bar before Soap noticed his absence. Soap gently steers him back to the bar. Simon loosely swats at him.

"She'll be u'set if 'm naw home," Simon slurs at him. Soap chuckles and nods.

"I know. But you canny just waltz out on us," he says, pushing Simon into a seat. Simon huffs and begins to stand again, wobbling just a bit.

"Sit yer ass down. We'll call the missus, right?", Soap offers. After fumbling his phone for a minute and trying to get the password typed in, Soap helps Simon call you.

"Hi, honey. How is it going?", your voice rings through the phone. Simon gives you a drunken grin.

" 'llo love," he slurs. You giggle at his love drunk expression.

"Hi baby. Had a bit to drink?," you chuckle.

"He near tried to walk himself home," Soap shouts to you. You laugh harder. Simon wrinkles his nose at Soap, still displeased with being kept there.

" 'm sorry, love. I won't be home in time for dinner," he rumbles. He looks so sad. Big brown eyes staring down at the phone, lip poked out in a small pout. You wipe a tear of laughter from your eye.

"Oh honey, I think it's past dinner time."

[eowynstwin]

clawing at the door

ghoap x reader. jealousy. bisexual soap. bisexual ghost. emotionally constipated ghost. manipulative soap. ghost likes em thick. lightly explicit. MDNI. ao3

When Ghost first sees you and Soap together, his jealousy is hard to parse. He doesn't quite understand what he's feeling.

On the one hand, Occam's Razor. Simple explanations usually prove the truest. Soap is his boy, has been since Las Almas, and you are an interloper in their hard-won dynamic. Ghost does not absorb others into his life lightly, even less so then he allows them to strongarm themselves beneath the mask. He doesn't particularly like people, isn't really fond of their tendency toward abject mortality.

Soap's strong arms are a rare exception. And Ghost has nearly died too many times not to admire a nice round ass when he sees one—the kind that glistens and quivers beneath the weak spray of a communal shower. Some part of him has always kind of supposed the sergeant had been showing off specifically for him, too, when he dropped trousers and moaned like a whore when the hot water started flowing.

The boy certainly dogs his steps like that's the case.

Then, you: showing up on base one day, Soap's hand spread wide and possessive on the small of your back. Jewel-bright eyes following your every move. Blush high and feverish on his boy's cheekbones every time you throw half a smile his way.

So it's envy. So it's a crush, unrequited.

Simple problem, simple solution. Getting over by getting under and all that. There are apps for every heartache, and plenty of hard-bodied gym rats out there tripping over themselves to bottom for a brute like him, who can actually throw them around.

Not two minutes after making his profile (military, six-five, top), likely candidates start filing themselves into his inbox. Some part of his ego is gratified, at least. The influx of taint pics certainly confirms for him that his vanity, in fact, is justified, even if the last thing he wants to see is some random stranger's asshole.

He messages a jacked brunette with brown eyes and dimples, who led instead with a comparatively tame "hey big guy," and lets him pick the bar where they'll meet up.

And it's...fine.

The guy is fine. Equally as attractive in person as on camera, with curly hair and short stubble. He's there before Ghost, and directs an easygoing smile at him when he drops onto a stool at the bar beside him.

He doesn't even question the mask, though his eyes linger on it, half-lidded, the kind of way that suggests he's figuring something out about himself that he hadn't considered before. Not the first time it's happened for Ghost.

The problem with fine is that Ghost can't work up even much of a chub talking to him. The guy has a nasally voice and a friendly attitude that makes Ghost's teeth go numb from the sweetness. When they sequester in the dingy pub bathroom, the guy goes to his knees like an angel, and Ghost's cock actually softens more, thoroughly bored already with the notion of this random guy’s mouth on it.

The problem is, Soap would bust Ghost's balls for this.

Sure, Ghost could get him on his knees. Soap is a good boy, he'll take an order if he's given one. But he's also a fucking brat, and the moment Ghost pulled his cock out Soap would immediately start complaining about it.

Too big, too ugly, not hard enough, and when was the last time Ghost washed that fucking thing? How romantic, LT, making him suck Ghost off in a pub bathroom, hasn't he ever heard of good old-fashioned wooing?

He'd complain, Ghost knows, because he'd want, more than anything, for Ghost to just cut through the bullshit and shove straight down his throat. He'd run his mouth because the only thing he wants Ghost to do is shut him the fuck up, for once, and make him actually work for the praise they both know he's so desperate for.

And Ghost would give it. If Soap earned it. The fight isn't about winning.

This guy isn't putting up a fight. He tries nicely, licks all over the limp-hanging head and pale glans, but Ghost ends up making some excuse—Dad has cancer, Mom died, the usual—and leaving him there still on his knees.

He deletes the apps. He can invest in a fleshlight, and find some porn star another with enough of a resemblance to be functional.

Less of a hassle for everyone involved.

Problem solved.

And then he encounters you again.

You're walking out of the supermarket one night, with two huge bags over your shoulders, digging through your purse out in front of you. He has to stop you with one hand on your shoulder to keep you from running into him.

The evening is warm; your shirt is a thin camisole with little elastic straps. His palm meets your bare skin, and finds it soft and dewy with a little sweat.

You look up, startled, blinking as if caught in a bright light.

"Oh," you say, "Ghost, hello!"

"Bird," he grunts, wondering why he's surprised that you recognize him.

He pulls his hand away, and still feels the imprint of your body heat in its grooves.

"Sorry, I should have been looking," you say, smiling. It's a friendly expression, open and innocent—a daisy's petals spread on a clear day. "Johnny's making beef wellington tonight when he's off duty, so I went and got everything."

Ghost frowns. What kind of boyfriend lets his girl do so much heavy lifting?

He helps you carry the bags to your car. He's jealous, not an asshole. You thank him with a breezy laugh when he closes the hatchback—

"I'm sure Johnny wouldn't mind if you stopped by for dinner," you say, folding your arms across your ribcage. It presses your tits together as you cup your elbows in your hands, pronouncing the line of your cleavage with an uncomfortable eloquence.

"Busy," Ghost says immediately, staring very hard into your eyes. "Thanks."

You shrug, unperturbed. "Anytime. Good night!"

He stands in the carpark for a full five minutes after you drive away. He thinks he can feel his own heartbeat throbbing through the palm he touched you with.

Well, then.

Bereft of any opportunity to get to know you—as if it would even be appropriate—Ghost stalks social media until he finds you through Soap's Instagram. Your account is private, so he sends a follow request, expectations very low that you'd allow someone with a blank sky for a profile picture and only one post on their feed to follow you, "sghostriley" notwithstanding.

But—you do. And suddenly he has a decade of material to peruse, beginning with your last year of secondary school and leading all the way up to present, the most recent photo one of you and Soap at the top of some mountain, grinning at the camera in your hiking gear.

You don't post very many pictures of yourself, he finds. Instead you document interesting food you eat or make, crafts you're working on, nice scenery you caption with variations of "saw this on my walk today :)". It's all very domestic, sweet in a way without being saccharine.

Soft, really. Totally separated from the hard edges of the world he and Soap routinely throw themselves along.

And yet, honest in a way that makes your version of the world feel more like the real one, and his and Soap’s the nightmare.

Ghost hasn't been with a girl—let alone been interested in one—in years. It isn't that the attraction had ever died, exactly. Rather, it simply became so complex, so twisted in on itself and trapped beneath years of grown-over scar tissue, that he'd made an unconscious decision never to confront it. He ignored Price’s stories about his wife’s antics at home, Gaz’s perennial heartbreak after strings of failed dates—

Soap’s lurid bragging about the women he’s taken home from various pubs.

(Were you one of those pub girls?)

So, here it is now, confronting him instead. Reminding him, in a pretty camisole, just how very much it exists.

In the carpark, there’d been a bead of sweat slipping down your neck as you’d waved him goodbye. He finds himself wondering how long it would’ve taken to slide all the way down to the slope of your breast, if he didn’t catch it with his tongue first.

He continues through your Instagram. The majority of your selfies show up, he guesses, after the beginning of your relationship with Soap.

Earlier pictures of you make your discomfort obvious. You don't like the way you look, and it shows in the tension on your face when confronted with a camera lens. But later on, you gain confidence. Your expressions are softer as you show off a new haircut or glasses.

And when the first picture of you with Soap shows up, it's like seeing someone glowing from the inside.

Your head is tucked into the juncture of his shoulder and neck. The smile on your face is soft, small and lovely in how little you're clearly thinking about it.

You're happy.

It floors him. A happy girl, settled into the embrace of a man who’s made her feel that way.

Piece of work, he is. Could ogle another man's ass without shame, but present him with that man’s girl and suddenly it upends his entire sense of self.

Some old cunt psychiatrist would have a field day analyzing him.

Ghost skips the apps and, following in Soap’s footsteps, heads back to the pubs.

It’s worse.

Not that he doesn’t have options sidling up to him, that is. It seems like all he has to do is sit at the bar and wait, and women circle their way into his orbit, not really talking to him but letting him know, simply by hovering, that they’d love for him to talk to them. Batting their lashes, laughing near him seemingly at nothing.

Up to him to make the first move then. It seems to him like the rules haven't changed over his long absence from the dating pool.

Therein lay the snag—Ghost doesn't know how to talk to women. Not that way, the way one says without saying it that he'd like to take her home and bend her over the back of his couch. Say that to a man at the right bar and that was his evening sorted, but Ghost has a feeling that won't play as well among people with cat-shaped brass knuckles on their keychains.

He's not much of a talker, period. Soap yaps enough to fill in his side of the conversation whenever they're in the field. And you...well, he doesn't know about you. Ghost has the uncomfortable feeling that he'd try for you, and fail miserably.

The bartender slides a drink in front of him, distracting him from his agonizing. When Ghost gives him a questioning look, he nods in the direction of a table behind him.

One of the barflies has made the first move.

She winks at him when he raises the glass at her. She’s pretty—her dark makeup makes her eyes look angular and mysterious, and her red dress is tight, thin, and low-cut. Her exposed chest shimmers, as if she dusted some sort of powder across her collarbones before making her way here.

Sparkly and colorful, like a lure on a line. Ready to hook something and pull it in.

(Your camisole had been threadbare and lined with cheap, fraying lace. A favorite of yours, probably, something you wore when you wanted to be comfortable, and didn’t care who thought what about it.)

Ghost notices other men are eyeing the woman, and a couple of them send nasty glares his way. That is, they do before promptly averting their gazes once they see what he looks like.

He can have this, then, if he wants it. He just has to reach out and take it.

He feels your warmth in the palm of his hand again. The breeze of your laugh brushes his cheek with a soft touch.

He sends the woman one of her own drink, drops forty quid on the bar, and leaves without looking back.

Another dinner invite comes his way, this time courtesy of Soap himself.

“She told me she met you at the store,” Soap says, one afternoon when they’re in the changing room. “Really nice of you to help her out, LT.”

“You weren’t there to do it,” Ghost grumbles. Soap has been prancing around shirtless for fifteen minutes, faffing about while Ghost waits for him to leave so he can adjust his erection.

“I didn’t tell her to get everything!” the sergeant protests. “She just went and did it herself.” Then Soap’s eyes go all dreamy and stupid. “She’s grand, isn’t she.”

Ghost grumbles again, something noncommittal.

“Anyway, dinner’s at seven, and I’ll send you the address,” says Soap, pulling a thin t-shirt over his head. Ghosts watches him yank the hem down over his pecs, covering the toned plane of his abs.

Soap winks at him. “See you there, Ghost.”

Ghost grunts.

Soap does, in fact, see him there.

He goes out of resignation. Or maybe with some notion that seeing Soap and you together again will finally vanquish whatever sits on his chest so heavily whenever he thinks of the two of you.

Soap’s the one to answer the door. “There he is, the braw wee bastard!”

“Soap.”

From the looks of it, it’s your flat. It’s nicely decorated without being too over-designed, something warm and comfortable and welcoming. When Ghost steps inside, he’s hit immediately with the smell of seared pancetta and garlic.

The sergeant leads him through the flat. Ghost has a bottle of wine under one arm, having remembered at the last minute he should probably bring something along. You’re in the kitchen, stirring a pot on the stove.

“Hi, Ghost!” you chirp when you look over your shoulder. “Ooh, good, that’s drinks settled. Hope you like bolognese. It’s all I know how to make.”

“S’fine,” Ghost says, which he would say even if bolognese made him violently ill.

“Ach, you can make more than that,” Soap says, retrieving three long-stemmed glasses from a cabinet. “Pour a nice glass of water.”

You snatch the dish towel hanging from the oven handle and give it a snap in the general direction of Soap’s ass. He laughs and dances out of the way.

“There’s a bottle opener in the island drawer, Ghost,” you say cheerfully. You're pretty tonight, in a loose t-shirt and soft-looking joggers. Casual, like you don't have a guest over at all.

Like it's just a night in with your boyfriend.

Ghost pops the cork as Soap sets the glasses down. After he pours, the sergeant delivers a glass to his girlfriend, and there’s a brief moment of quiet as everyone sips and the sauce on the stove bubbles.

It’s all so nice and normal as to make Ghost’s hackles raise just in anticipation, although he knows there’s no reason for it. Truthfully, he almost hadn’t come. The thought of you and Soap, and Soap and you, in the same room, together, a unit, had made his stomach clench up so tight that he though he might not be able to get any food down.

But some part of him needed to come, and see this. Test out Pavlov’s theory, to see if enough negative reinforcement could break him of this borderline manic fixation. If he could associate Soap and you with romantic nausea, and nothing more, maybe he could finally stop jerking off every night to no satisfaction.

Because he had, in fact, found a porn star who looked like Soap. More tattoos, and a buzz cut rather than a mohawk, but Ghost couldn’t be picky.

The real shock had been to find that this proxy often partnered with a girl who looked enough like you to be uncanny. Too skinny, definitely, but in the one video Ghost had watched of them together, he could have sworn, as the lookalike reamed her from behind—

That it was you looking at him over your shoulder.

Looking at Soap. Or, looking at Ghost, behind him.

At that moment in the playback Ghost had come so hard, cock blazing red and raw in his hand, that the notion had liquified a little. So he couldn’t be sure what the thought had originally meant.

He hadn’t been brave enough to watch another.

“This isn’t bad,” Soap says after tasting the wine. “Nothin’ on a good whisky, mind.”

“Don’t neg your lieutenant, Johnny,” you say. “This is good, Ghost, thank you.”

Hearing Johnny fall from your lips so casually threads something uncomfortable between Ghost’s intestines. Uncomfortable, because he likes it.

Had Soap told you to call him that? Or had you decided on it all on your own? Did Soap think of Ghost whenever you said his name? Did he think of you whenever Ghost did?

“Simon’s fine,” he replies.

It escapes him before he even thinks about it. The same way he’d taken his mask off in Las Almas and looked directly at Soap, wondering in some hidden part of himself if the sergeant was impressed.

“That’s a nice name,” you say, swirling the wine in your glass. You take another sip, closing your eyes to savor it, and then, tilting your head like a little bird in thought, you pour a stream of it from the glass into your pasta sauce.

“Suits him, aye?” Soap says, side-eyeing Ghost with amusement. “Right posh name he’s got for a big scary bugger. Hidden depths, him.”

“Yeah, unlike you,” you snark, stirring.

Soap slaps a big hand over his heart. “Ach, lass, you wound me always.”

“Someone has to keep you humble,” you say, grinning. There’s a charming twinkle in your eyes.

“You gonna let ‘er get away with that, sergeant?”

He surprises himself by saying it. But something in the way you and Soap bicker—absent of the usual sugary drivel, as if the two of you have skipped over the honeymoon phase and stuck the landing right into stable commitment—invites him in.

It's magnetic, almost. It seizes the spinning needle in his brain, draws it to a standstill. Evens out the landscape, so he knows where he can go.

“You’re absolutely right, LT,” says Soap, who smacks his lips, sets his wineglass aside, and bum-rushes you.

You shriek as he captures you in both arms, lifting you off the floor and whirling you around—both the spoon in one hand and the glass in the other fling drops of red and white absolutely everywhere. And then you’re giggling as Soap wedges his face between your neck and shoulder and shakes his head like a dog, probably biting down.

Soap growls; a big smile takes over your face, eyes squeezed shut as you laugh breathlessly. The sergeant’s broad, brown forearms have yours pinned up against your chest, pressing your breasts together.

“Not fair, Ghost!” you exclaim as Soap’s growling noises turn into obnoxiously loud kisses. “No pulling rank in my house!”

“Two against one, hen, you’re outnumbered,” Soap counters. “What should we do with this one, eh, LT?”

“See if I ever cook for you two again, is what!” you protest, still grinning with delight. You kick your legs to no effect.

Soap, also grinning, slots his face back into your neck. You giggle again, complaining that it tickles.

Some incomplete circuit finally connects.

Order given. Girlfriend “punished.”

Soap making you laugh because Ghost told him to.

Not one. Not the other. Both.

“Think we can let ‘er off the hook this time,” he says, feeling dazed.

The pictures on your Instagram, with you and Soap together. The both of you, smiling together, wrapped around each other, standing at the top of a mountain and grinning what the two of you get to share.

Soap's hand spread on your back.

“Aye, sir,” Soap says, setting you down. You’re still laughing a little as you go to check the sauce, and Soap finds a towel to clean up the mess he made. Ghost reels in the meanwhile.

There’s an imprint of Soap’s teeth on your neck.

They wouldn’t be there if Ghost hadn’t sicced Soap on you.

He’s still reeling as you begin plating dinner, and Soap sets out the silverware. When everyone sits down to eat, the sergeant tops up everyone’s drinks.

“I hope you like it,” you say to Ghost, setting his plate in front of him. There's a shyness to you, a verity to your concern for his opinion.

“Oh, he will,” Soap says.

He trails the tips of his fingers along the back of your arm as he directs that jewel-blue gaze at Ghost. It's sharper than Ghost has ever noticed before—

“The LT has good taste. Don’t you, Ghost?”

And with his other hand, he raises his glass to the knowing smirk on his lips.

a/n: I can't use arse, I know it would be more accurate but I just can't I'm sorry