tags | angst, abusive relationships, reader is married to another man, blood, killing of animals, graphic depictions of domestic violence, graphic depictions of violence, religious guilt, infidelity, please read at your own risk
ch. 7 | masterlist | ao3
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Thereâs blood everywhere.Â
Crimson staining the concrete under you, and splattered on your husbandâs sleeves. The juxtaposition of your husband and Simon solidifies itself then. Something that made your mouth water and heart race with desire when it came to Simon is repulsive on your husband. Something that lodges a lump deep in your throat, makes it difficult to swallow the tears running down your cheeks.Â
Your hands shake as you reach out to the bunny lying there motionless. Fear runs through your body, raging anger, but the guilt is the heaviest.Â
Itâs your fault. Itâs all your fault.Â
The bunny was innocent. A sweet, pure thing that had nothing to do with you and Simon or your deceit. And still, your husband took his anger out on it, snapped its neck in two like it was the one coercing you to Simon's doorstep. The poisoned apple.Â
Heâs too narcissistic to realize it was him. Too much of a coward to confess he was the one who forced you down this dark and moldered path. One that made you lose your wedding ring somewhere in the backroom of Simonâs butcher shop when you left your dignity on your knees.Â
Your husband had hardly noticed really, itâs not like he paid attention to detail when it came to you. You were shocked when he did notice, stuttering over your words, and you offered a weak apology, saying you had lost it while washing the dishes.
It was a lie, he knew it. A part of you thinks you didnât try to convince him on purpose. That you lost it on purpose because you didnât know how to end this any other way. Itâd be easier if he was the one.
Everything else after that is black, a flurry of running after him as he storms to the backyard shed. You had screamed so loud when he picked the bunny up, the poor thing kicking its hind legs in the toughest fight it could muster. It looked so tiny in his palm, trapped in his confines.
âBeen letting you feed this damn pest in my backyard and this is how you repay me?â He spat it out with fury, globs of saliva landing on your cheeks.
âPut it down, please." You spoke calmly, masking the way your chest was vibrating with anxiety. "I don't even know what you're talking about, sweetheart.âÂ
Sweetheart. There's that damn word you trickle in. A front. Appeasement of sorts to show you still care, that this is a marriage you want.Â
âI shouldâve known, marrying a whore like you.â
Whore. He says it so often you don't even bat an eye. Sweetheart, whore, the words have become analogous at this point. Â Â
You were too late after that. The sound of its cracking neck came first. Its thrown limp body on the floor. Its head makes a thud as it lands hard on the gray cement at your feet, blood splashed underneath it.
It all happened so fast you didn't have time to react besides falling to your knees next to it. The worst part is you didn't even name it. A part of you afraid of the attachment you would've grown when you knew it would eventually lead to this. Afraid of what it would mean when he finally did.
You think you black out for a few seconds, coming to in short fuzzy bursts as reality dawns on you. It's funny the way raw meat did not affect you, not when Simon was the one meticulously handling it. Funny how you were willing to lie on the butcher block next to it all, be the sacrificial lamb instead, but this draws a vizierial reaction.Â
You stay still, despite your quivering fingers, until the fog clears, until your hands stop and your heart calms. Everything clashes together then, morphing into this ugly, angry monster in your chest that takes over. Years of just burying it down, pretending you were okay, boil over and your pretty bow that sealed it all together unravels. Tears in two for the first time since you've laid eyes on your coward of a husband.Â
You look up at him then, at the ugly figure that has the audacity to call himself a man. You wonât be too late this time.
âYouâre right.â You stand, saying it with the same conviction he spat at you, except yours has reason, a deeper meaning than insecurity. "Itâs the butcher. Had me on my knees last week.â
He storms across the distance then, an anger in his eyes you're not quite used to. You don't move though, not even a flinch when he wraps his hands around your throat and slams you against the wall of the shed. Your head throbs from the impact, a panging tightness radiating from your skull down your spine. Your hands find purchase on his forearm, dragging your nails along his skin until it draws blood, legs kicking out as the bunny had in his grasp too.Â
âRight on top of the meat you eat for dinner every night.â You say it between your strangled breaths and stinging lash line with tears you try your best to hold back.
His fingers tighten around your neck after that and the edges of your vision go dark, hands losing their grip on him when you physically can't fill your lungs with air. You see your mom at the edges, the abuse she endured when you were young. When she wasnât brave enough to do something about it and leave. When she put her faith above reality. Above you.
You think maybe you should be thinking about your faith instead of hers. Muttering a prayer you were forced to memorize growing up, but none of them come to mind. None of them could help you now. This God shouldâve saved you years ago.
The rest is a blur, you donât know what you grab, or how you even manage to, but itâs heavy, and you can barely wrap your fingers around it. All you know is it makes your husbandâs hands fall from your throat, falling back after repeatedly bashing his head with it.
Your cross necklace follows him, silver jewelry ricocheting off the floor. You think it has to be a metaphor, a sign from this God. Being set free from the expectations of religion, set free of the shackles that weighed you down for so long. The cross scalded on your skin melted off.
Thereâs blood dripping from his forehead when you finally stop, and heâs looking at you in shock, fingers dabbing at the wound like he hadn't just had his hands around your jugular. It makes you laugh, a sound that comes out half broken from your strained throat.Â
âWeâre done.â It's raspy, but final.
You don't look back as you walk back inside the house you've lived in for years. Don't even give him a shred of acknowledgement when you pack a duffel bag.Â
You find you don't have much of importance in this house besides Simon's jacket.Â
You don't even realize you've got blood on your shirt and under your finger nails until you're outside Simon's door and he looks at you concerned.
Youâre not even surprised when you see your ring glimmer out of the corner of your eye, pinned to the wall like a trophy heâs won.
after a long break from being sick, Eat You, Eat Me will be up tomorrow. Thank you everyone for your patience. I rewrote it twice bc I didnât like it all, finally got it somewhere I like :)
The cold tang of metal; old pipes running overhead, faintly sweating in the dark, leaving the air tasting like a coin pressed on the tongue. Water drips from them in slow, uneven ticks. The concrete walls give off a sour, mineral scent that clings to your clothes, your skin, the inside of your nose.
You can feel its chill even at a distance.
The corridor beneath base isn't on any blueprint. You're almost certain of that. The blackout hit twenty minutes ago, throwing half the compound into emergency lighting, and you'd taken the wrong turn looking for a backup auxiliary generator just in case that failed in medical, too.
Down here, it's nothing but a maze of concrete veins and rusted pipes.
And then you see a light. Dim. Jaundiced yellow. It flickers from behind a door left slightly ajar.
You think: maintenance worker. You think: maybe someone else got lost, too.
You absolutely do not think: Ghost.
Until you pull the door open.
The room is small. Windowless. Hidden. A tiny bunker nested inside another bunker, like a pearl in an oyster. Shelves line the walls from floor to ceiling, sagging under the weight of things that don't really belong there. Weapons. Tac gear. And then... other things. Stranger. Human.
A wristwatch with a spider-web crack on the glass. A cigarette box with a corner crushed inward. Dog tags with the chain snapped. A deck of cards stiff with old blood, tucked inside wax paper so they won't rot. And there are photographs too, warped by water damage, every face blurred or gouged out entirely.
And there, sitting on an old crate in the center of it, is Simon Riley.
Unmasked.
You've barely seen his face, and it already feels like you've seen too much.
The sickly light above drags across him in piecesâ sharp cheekbones, sunken, exhausted eyes, a nose crooked from breaks that no one tended. He looks so much older than he sounds. His broad shoulders are hunched forward, forearms on his thighs, gloved fingers flicking open the lid of an old lighter.
Click. Click. Click.
The sound ricochets strangely around the cramped room.
Ghost doesn't move for the mask beside him, doesn't curse, doesn't even look surprised. He just lifts his eyes toward you slowly, and the weight of that gaze pins you in the doorway harder than any weapon could.
"You lost?"
The question comes out calm enough to make your stomach drop straight to the floor. You glance down at your boots because looking directly at him feels like reading someone else's obituary over their shoulder.
A dozen things suddenly crowd your throat, and all of them true. I was looking for a generator for the med wing. I didn't know anyone was down here. I didn't know anyone could come down here. But your tongue sticks uselessly to the roof of your mouth, like language itself has abandoned you in the scarred face of this man.
"I didn'tâ I, uh, yeah." Pathetic.
(Ghost doesn't seem like the type who wants anything more than the bareâbones answer anyway.)
"Mm."
Click.
You should leave. Every instinct hammered into you by years around dangerous men tells you that much. You should swear silence, pretending you never saw the shape of his lips in this light. But your attention catches on a simple silver band. It's scratched to hell, and there are initials carved inside.
T.R.
Your mouth moves before your better sense can catch it. "Whose was that?"
Ghost's thumb stills. "A dead man." Flat. Immediate. Final.
(You can't tell whether he means the ring or the lighter or every object in this room at once. Maybe he can't either.)
You swallow hard, mouth dry. "Sorry."
Click. The lighter snaps open, but the flame doesn't come.
"Should be." There's something wrong with the way he says it. It doesn't sound like grief, exactly. Grief is softer than this.
You don't know what compels you to step inside fully. Maybe it's morbid curiosity. Maybe explicit stupidity. Maybe it's because if you leave now, you'll never see this version of Simon Riley again.
The door shuts behind you with a muted clang, sealing the air in, sealing you in. The room immediately shrinks around it. It isn't large to begin with, barely bigger than a storage unit, but with Ghost inside it becomes suffocating.
"Did he serve?"
Ghost's thumb drags slowly over the ridged wheel of the lighter. Once. Twice.
"No."
Your eyes flick unwillingly around the room again. The objects make more sense now in the worst possible way. They're relics. Remains. Every item preserved like an insect trapped in amber.
Ghost notices where your attention goes because men like him miss nothing. "You ask everyone this many questions?" he murmurs.
"No."
One corner of his mouth twitches. "Smartest thing you've said since opening that door."
Heat crawls up the back of your neck. Embarrassment. Shame. Both tangled together so tightly you can't separate them anymore. You take half a step backward. "I should go."
"Probably."
But he doesn't tell you to leave, and if Ghost didn't want to be found, you would've never made it this far.
You glance at the walls again. "Do you keep all these to remember them? Why?"
Why keep pain? Why keep so much of it? Why hoard grief like a magpie with its sharpest baubles?
Click. Click. Click.
It's silent. Then: "Someone should."
You crouch carefully beside the shelves. Up close, the objects feel even worse somehow. They're gruesome in their normality.
A bent keyring with a faded supermarket rewards tag still attached. A cheap pen chewed along the cap. A cracked pair of sunglasses wrapped in cloth to keep the lenses from scratching further. Tiny pieces of lives, stripped of context, reduced to artifacts by time and violence.
Your eyes catch on a wristwatch stopped permanently at 2:17.
You imagine someone lending out that pen and asking for it back. Someone tugging on those sunglasses under summer heat. Someone flicking ash from cigarettes with living hands.
Now all that's left of them fits on a shelf.
A shiver crawls beneath your skin.
Ghost watches you from the crate without moving. Without the mask, there's nowhere for your eyes to hide from the damage time has done to him. His skin is weathered, roughened, uneven in tone;
patches of old bruising that never quite faded and tiny, pitted marks from shrapnel or gravel or god knows what else. He has a scar that runs along the corner of his mouth, tugging it into a halfâsneer even when he's expressionless.
He is not handsome. And you don't think he's meant to be.
"Most people disappear twice," he says after a while. His voice is low enough that the pipes overhead nearly swallow it. "First time's when their heart stops."
Click.
"The second's when nobody says their name anymore."
The lighter snaps shut.
You look at the silver ring again. "Were you close?"
Ghost's gaze rises.
It washes over you againâ that awful sensation of standing too close to something built to kill. Predators tend to go still before they decide whether you're a threat or a meal.
The room seems to contract around the weight of his attention. Then his eyes drift away again; a mercy.
"He talked too bloody much," Ghost mutters.
You blink. It's so unexpectedly human an answer that it nearly knocks the breath from you. A faint scrape sounds as he leans back slightly against the wall behind the crate.
" 'ated tea." His thumb drags once more across the lighter wheel. "Burned every meal he touched. Thought he could sing."
Another click of the lighter.
"Couldn't." A laugh nearly escapes you before you catch it. It still curls warm in your chest anyway, small and startled and terribly out of place down here among the ghosts.
Your gaze catches briefly on the bare skin of his face again before darting away almost painfully fast. You know, distantly, that you should be afraid of being caught staring. But there's another feeling underneath it too. Something terrible and magnetic.
Ghost's hand closes suddenly around the lighter, swallowing it entirely inside his fist. "Seen enough?"
You nod too quickly. "I won't tell anyone."
"I know." Your skin goes cold before your mind even parses the meaning. The weight of his stare nearly locks your knees. Then his eyes flick once toward the doorway behind you.
"Generator room's two corridors east," he says. "Take the left staircase. Panel sticks sometimes. Kick it before you flip the switch."
Your mouth parts slightly. He knew why you were down here. Maybe he'd known from the second you opened the door.
"Right," you manage softly. "Thanks."
You stand slowly, pins and needles stabbing through your legs, and reach for the door. The concrete floor feels uneven beneath your feet. Damp cold curls around your ankles.
Your hand finds the handle... and then you stop. You don't know why. You don't know what you're waiting for. Permission? Forgiveness? A warning?
Ghost doesn't give you any of those. He just says, "Close the door behind you."
---
After that night, Ghost, who used to vanish the second a room got too full, who could slip between shadows like he was made of them, starts turning up everywhere. And for a man his size, it's wrong how no one else notices. Men twice as jumpy as you walk straight past him like he's not even there.
You do, though.
You're hunched over lateânight paperwork in medical, and the letters start to blur together until your eyes burn. You look up to blink the sting away and he's there.
(In the harsh light, he looks less like a man and more like the idea of one. Or maybe you're just tired.)
You take the stairwell because the elevator's been temperamental all week. Halfway down, thinking only of coffee and sleep, you round the landing and nearly collide with him. You mutter something, an apology, maybe. He says nothing.
You're outside, late, the air cold enough to sting your lungs. You step out to breathe, to be alone for thirty seconds. You're alone for three.
A shape detaches from the dark behind the storage crates.
You mention during lunchâ not even to him, you don't think he'd been anywhere nearbyâ that the mess stopped stocking honey packets again. Mostly, you complain because the tea tastes like boiled dishwater without it.
That evening, there are six honey packets lined up neatly beside your med bag.
Your field knife vanishes from your kit a few days later. You spend an entire shift irritated and muttering under your breath about theft until it reappears tucked back where it belongs, cleaner and so sharp it glides through gauze as if it were water.
At first, you convince yourself it's just Ghost's version of care. It's stilted. Awkward. A little unsettling, maybe, but harmless enough.
But then the others start helping.
You mention offhand that your bunk heater's been malfunctioning for weeks. The next day, Gaz appears in your doorway carrying an entirely new unit under one arm. "Simon said yours sounded dodgy," he says casually, crouching to install it before you can even answer.
You stare. "Ghost told you?"
Gaz glances up briefly, screwdriver between his teeth. "Mm." Like that explains literally anything. And maybe to them, it does.
A week later, you find a thermos sitting on your desk. It's not new, nor standard issue. It's an old, battered steel thing with a dent in the side and a bit of black tape wrapped around the lid to keep it from rattling. It's warm when you touch it.
You unscrew the top. Inside it is tea. It's not good tea. Not even close. It's strong enough to strip paint and smells faintly like someone boiled it in a canteen over a camp stove.
But there's honey in it. Your throat goes tight.
You carry the thermos with you to the rec room, still not sure what to do with it. Soap spots it instantly. "Och, ye found it then?" he says, eyebrows lifting.
You stop dead. "You know whose it is?"
He looks baffled by the question. "Aye?"
"And... you knew someone went into my office?" Your voice pitches higher than you mean it to. There's personal information in there. Medical files. Notes. pieces of people's lives sealed under law and ethics. HIPAA would have you by the hair.
Soap snorts into his coffee. "Someone?" he repeats. "Bonnie, that's Simon."
You stare at him, Soap stares back, and that's the end of the conversation, apparently.
Then, it's Price. One evening during a lull between briefings, you're standing in the doorway of his office with a mug of tea you don't remember making. The steam curls weakly in the dim light, and Price glances at it, at you, before returning to the report in front of him. "Simon tell you to drink more water too?"
You blink. "What?"
He flips another page, pen tapping at the margin. "Been on me for weeks about it." There's a faint twitch at the corner of his mouth, not quite a smile, but close enough to count. Like this is funny to him.
"Sir," you say carefully, "are you aware Ghost has beenâ"
You trail off because suddenly you don't know what word fits. Watching sounds paranoid. Following sounds worse. Collecting feels somehow closest, which is an insane thought to have about another human being.
Price supplies it for you without looking up. "Hoverin'."
"âŠYes."
"Hm."
Somewhere down the corridor Soap bursts into loud laughter before being shushed by Gaz. Price takes a slow sip from his mug before adding, almost absently, "Has Simon ever made you feel unsafe?"
The answer should be yes. Every metric of common sense says yes.
Objectively speaking, Simon Riley is terrifying. He moves like something built for violence first and humanity second. He appears soundlessly in doorways. Watches you with unnerving intensity. Notices things.
The things he does are strange. Undeniably strange. But for all the watching, Simon Riley is almost painfully careful with you. He doesn't corner you, doesn't demand your attention. Half the time he leaves before you can even thank him for whatever odd little act of care he's committed this week.
Your silence answers for you.
Price looks at you and nods once, satisfied. "There y'are then."
He returns to his report. Matter settled, then.
----
The mission in Moldova goes to shit fast. Too fast. The intel is compromised, the extraction blown, and gunfire erupts before anyone can reposition behind cover.
You aren't supposed to be at the front line to begin with. You're support: field medical, stabilization, trauma response. You're the medic they bring when intelligence suggests possible civilian casualties or prolonged extraction windows. Your job is to keep people alive long enough to make it home, not trade fire in the middle of kill zones.
And the safehouse was supposed to be clear.
You remember shouting, smoke, your ears ringing. Simon's voice in your comms suddenly turning sharpâ Medic, move. Nowâ and then pain. A bullet tears through your shoulder and the world folds sideways. You hit the ground hard enough to black out for a second or two at a time. Shapes blur around you. Someone is screaming. Maybe you.
One second you're alone on the ground. The next Ghost's on his knees in front of you, his gloves slick red as he presses them against your wound. Pain detonates white-hot behind your eyes.
"Stay awake."
You've heard him interrogate men in a softer voice.
Gunfire erupts again somewhere behind him. Ghost doesn't even look back. His body shields yours automatically, broad enough to blot out everythingâ light, movement, dangerâ while bullets punch splinters from the wall nearby.
Until all you can see is the skull on his mask and the rise and fall of his chest.
----
Recovery takes weeks. Simon becomes unbearable during them. He sleeps outside medical twice before Price threatens disciplinary action. You wake one night to find him standing motionless in the doorway at 04:13, just watching your chest rise and fall.
He doesn't even pretend he wasn't caught. Just leaves.
---
You return to the hidden room alone six weeks later. The light is still a sickly yellow. Lines reduced to residue still line the shelves. But something's changed.
There's space now, a section cleared carefully among the clutter. And sitting there is a little polaroid you'd forgotten existed entirely.
Soap had taken it weeks ago in the mess after somebody smuggled in terrible instant film cartridges that developed blotchy and grainy. Youd forgotten the picture existed almost immediately afterward. In it, you're laughing, head turned halfway away from the lens, grin wide enough to make your eyes crinkle, shoulders blurred slightly from movement because you must've been laughing hard enough not to stay still.
Your stomach bottoms out. It feels like you're looking at a grave that's waiting for a body. The door opens behind you with a low groan. Heavy boots scrape once. The silence that follows is thick enough to chew on.
You swallow hard. "Why do you have this?" Your fingers hover near the photo but don't touch it. Beneath the white border, written in messy black marker, is a date. The date you were shot.
Did he thinkâ? You turn to look at him. Ghost stands in the doorway, shoulders filling the frame, the skull of his mask gleaming pale.
"Did you put this up because you thought I was dying?"
For the first time since you met him, Ghost looks faintly offended, like you've questioned his competence. "No," he says immediately. "It was only a flesh wound."
Simon shifts his weight from one foot to the other, massive arms folding across his chest. "You were alert during extraction," he continues, matter-of-fact. "Bleeding slowed after pressure was applied. Entry and exit wound. Missed anything important by a fair margin."
Then, dry enough to almost sound irritated: "Not everyone falls apart after getting shot."
You stare at him. At the utter sincerity of it. At the absurdity of hearing only a flesh wound, as if bullet holes were only inconvenient weather. "Then why put it here?"
Simon's eyes settle on the Polaroid. "I put it because you looked happy."
It's sweet. Awkward. Deeply concerning. But sweet.
--
And then, Prague. Prague is wet and fast and mean. It's the kind of violence that happens in cramped stairwells where gunfire deafens instantly and men die choking around blood that steams in winter air.
Ghost kills three people in under thirty seconds. A throat crushed wetly by one gloved hand. A knife disappearing under a jawline. A gunshot so close the spray hits the concrete hot.
You spend extraction with blood soaking through your gloves while stabilizing a wound in the extraction van. Diesel fumes. Rain hammering the roof. Soap swearing through a morphine haze. By the time, you get back to the safehouse, your head feels packed with cotton.
The med bay lights buzz softly overhead in soft white strips while rain rattles against the windows outside. Soap's already been discharged with stitches and complaints. Gaz disappeared an hour ago. Price is somewhere, buried in paperwork and classified reports.
Ghost is the last patient left. He sits on the edge of the examination table in silence while you cut through the ruined compression sleeve on his arm.
Blood slicks your fingers dark and tacky. "Hold still," you mutter.
"I am."
You peel fabric carefully away from the gouge carved along his bicep. It's not deep. Ugly, though. Angry. Your fingers brush the straps at his shoulders.
"Need the vest off." Ghost doesn't move. You glance up.
The black paint around the eyes of his mask makes his stare look excavated. Watching you with that unnerving, absolute focus he always has. (Soap would call it a sniper's focus.)
Finally, he gives a single, heavy nod. You start emptying it out first, because the vest is heavier than it looks.
Knife. Radio. Extra mags. Another knife. Another.
Everything comes out piece by piece beneath your hands, heavy with rainwater and gunpowder and the metallic stink of blood. And then something small slips free from an inner pocket and lands soundlessly on the floor.
Black fabric. Tiny. Folded.
Your stomach drops before your brain catches up. You know those. You know them because they're yours.
For a second, neither of you move. The room becomes hideously quiet. Your pulse pounds thickly at your throat. Ghost looks down at the underwear. Then slowly up at you.
There's no embarrassment in his eyes. No panic. Not even surprise.
"Simon." Your voice barely works.
His eyes cut briefly toward the door like he's checking whether anyone else saw. Then back to you. You wait for a joke. An excuse. Anything.
Instead, Ghost reaches down calmly, picks them up off the floor with two fingers, folds it once between his huge hands, and slides it back into the inner pocket of his vest.
"Your hands are cold. Stitch me up, and we'll get out of here, get you something dry to wear."
How it feels to stumble upon an author who writes a scrumptious fanfic of a character youâre obsessing/hyper fixating on and on top of that they have a master list FULL of fics dedicated to them
tags | angst, abusive relationships, reader is married to another man, blood, murder of animals eventually, eventual smut, religious guilt, infidelity, darker than most concepts I write, please heed the tags before each chapter as this story is 18+
ââââââââââââââ
‷ Ribeye
‷ Sirloin
‷ Beef Stew
‷ Tender Cut
‷ Tenderloin
‷ chapter 6
Chapter 7
‷ ao3 | main masterlist âŽâŽâŽâŽâŽâčêźș Ë
tags | angst, abusive relationships, reader is married to another man, blood, murder of animals eventually, eventual smut, religious guilt, infidelity, darker than most concepts I write, please heed the tags before each chapter as this story is 18+
ââââââââââââââ
‷ Ribeye
‷ Sirloin
‷ Beef Stew
‷ Tender Cut
‷ Tenderloin
‷ chapter 6
Chapter 7
‷ ao3 | main masterlist âŽâŽâŽâŽâŽâčêźș Ë
CW: angst, canon-typical violence, hurt/comfort, references to suicide, injured Simon, eventual smut, military inaccuracies
wc: 7.1k
Masterlist đŠ
When Soap gave you Simonâs address, you thought youâd end up in some dodgy building with flickering lights and the pungent smell of piss.Â
You expected sleazy neighbours, creaky old doors, and grime-crusted flooring: he is a clean man, sureâpathologically so, youâd like to add, since his barracks back at HQ look like an ORâbut he absolutely adores his privacy. You wouldnât put it past him to move somewhere other people would never go for their safety, even if it meant tiptoeing around pools of unidentified fluids and used condoms.
Instead, as your GPS pings your arrival, you find yourself in front of the loveliest house youâve ever seen.
Uneven bricks, ochre and grey, cloaked by a pitched roof and tiles laced with moss and ashen lichen. A chimney peeks from the top left, darkened right around the top. Thereâs a stone path leading from the gravel where you parked your car to the front doorâsturdy hardwood thing, painted a deep dark chocolate with bronze trims all around. Wooden fixtures for the windows, worked and etched in that way that makes them look old, but they clearly arenât. Thick glass, maybe to isolate soundsâas if itâs needed.
This house is as pretty as it is lonely. Lost in the middle of nowhere.
At least you were right about one thing. Not even God would go this far to look after His disciples.
Out of four hours, you spent half driving through unpaved roads, with your car jumping over fat roots and potholes. Got lost once. Almost ended up in a ditch twice.
However, the landscape they led to is gorgeous as few. Worth the money that youâll surely have to splurge on new shock suspenders.
Itâs autumn, so thereâs the occasional tree popping golden amongst an emerald ocean extending behind the cottage, farther than the eye can see. In front of the house, thereâs a small grove. It rustles with the wind, coos with birds and owls, runs with squirrels and wildlife clawing up the trees. Evergreen bushes with the occasional pop of colour, whether red or pale orange, lean against the trunks. The sun is setting behind it, painting the landscape with the shadows of the fronds and a soft golden glow.
It's quiet, in that way only nature can be.
If you hadnât been worried down to the bone marrow, youâd have lit a cigarette and smoked it with your ass on the trunk of your car while basking in the last shafts of sunlight of the day.
Alas, youâre not here for sightseeing.
You turn off your car and jump out of the seat. Gently, you stretch your arms; your shoulders pop, your back cracks like a fucking glowstick. Your knees arenât faring better, clicking when you stand up fully.
With a withering sigh, you walk to the back of the car and open the bonnet.Â
There are groceries for a lifetime stacked in there. Four bags from Tesco, two smaller ones from the chemistâs. Pain killers, vitamins, paracetamol, supplements, benzodiazepines, citalopram, escitalopram, and all the fucking prams the pharmacy had to offer. The list was long; you eyed Johnny worriedly when he gave it to you, but knew better than to ask.
Youâre tired. Tired beyond measure. You went to work at the crack of dawn and then jumped in the car when you couldnât take it anymore. Dropped everything, apologised to Kyle for leaving him to fend for himself with the diplomatic envoy, and when Price scrunched his nose disappointedly, you apologised to him as well and promised to do double the job once you were sure he was alright.
Because you hadnât heard from him in days.
Not a phone call, not a text, not a sign that he was using his phone at all. Not a sign that he was alright, that he was still grumbling about the growing prices of groceries, that he was still nursing a nightcap in the eveningsâthat he was alive.
He used to tell you.
They donât get itâJohnny, Kyle, Price. They donât know about the texts, the calls, the photos, the messages sent in the middle of the night, the ones left just shy of dawn, just to wish each other a good day.
Your little secret, that. Your little something soft, developed in the ruthlessness of your job. Something amicable and familiar stuck in between the horrors of cold-blooded murder, of dead bodies scattered in your lives, and endless stacks of paperwork.Â
Youâd send him pictures of your pale teaâtoo much milk, if you asked him. Of your pies baked during downtime, of the Christmas decorations youâd hang on the ceiling. Heâd send you those of birds landing on the hood of his car, cats heâd find along his walk that would nuzzle his calf.
SR: Donât know why.
LT: they think youâre snow white
LT: because youâre pale and you have the sweetest big brown eyes
SR: Wouldnât say sweet.
LT: in fact i said sweetest :)
SR: Flattery wonât work on your lieutenant.
LT: ha! but im a lieutenant too. you canât pull rank on me
SR: Iâm your L.T.Â
SR: Youâre my second lieutenant. Under my command.
LT: technicalities
SR: Youâre L.T. too
SR: L.Too
SR: L2
L2: oi
SR: Haha
L2: rude
SR: Alright, L2.
They donât get it.
SR: Sleeping?
L2: are you keeping tabs on me?
SR: Youâd be surprised.
L2: wonât ask
SR: Shouldnât.
L2: Fancy a chat?
And your phone would ring.
âL2,â heâd greet.
âNot funny anymore.â But it was.
âReckon itâs bloody hilarious.â
âBeen too long. Itâs losing its charm.â
âCharm?â Heâd breathe a laugh. Almost. âRight, thenâEl.â
Midnight, midday, seven AM, four AM, six PM. On and off the job. Christmases and birthdays and Easters and early Sundays and late-night Mondaysâ
His touch, secretive and fleeting. Warm hands on the hollow of your spine as he walks by, fingers tightening the straps of your vest, adjusting the holsters on your thighs. Watchful eyes chasing your shadow in the crowd, following your fingers as they deftly work through cables and buttons. Burning holes on the back of your hands as you aptly defuse an IED. His huff of relief, his palm warm on your shoulders. A pat, a caress.
âGood job, L2.â
âFuck off with that,â youâd laugh. âSpooky fucker.â
âThatâs my El.â
They donât get it.
Or maybe they do.Â
Price wrinkled his nose, but didnât stop you. Kyle took over your shift. Johnny gave you the means to reach him.
Maybe they saw itâyour eyes softening whenever he walked into a room, his shoulders unravelling whenever your voice crackled over comms. Two peas in a pod, birds of a feather. The moon and the fucking sun. Lieutenant Riley and his 2nd lieutenant.Â
LT and L2. Ghost and El.
On the seventh day of no contact, you couldnât take it anymore. You raided Tesco, you begged Johnny to give you his address (and thankfully, he was just as worried as you wereâyouâd have hated pulling rank on him), and he secretly passed you Simonâs medical file so you could pop by the chemist too.
Now, you find yourself properly hauling your own weight in groceries along the stone path leading to his cottage. You drop them with a grunt in front of his door.Â
On your side, his car is parked. Second-hand. Onyx black. Bird shit on the roof, windows grainy with soil and opaqued with rain tracks.Â
Unused for a while. Normal, in a way. Itâs not like he can drive in that state. For any amenities, a nurse would come by, provided by the SAS. Sometimes heâd open and be cordial enough. Sometimes he would just tell them to leave groceries and whatnot at the door.
The nurse told Price it had been days since Simon even answered his phone calls, never mind open the door. Price told the team, but not you. Kyle passed you the intel with the same secrecy as a mole working for the enemy.
Gooseflesh crawls up your spine as you look at the weathered bronze of the doorknob. Thereâs no doorbell that you can see.
You knock.
âLieutenant.â
Nothing.
The wind grazes your ears, ruffles the fronds as it intersects with the leaves. You dry the pearls of sweat on your forehead with the back of your hand, and knock again.
âL.T.,â you say, trying to sound chirpy. âSpecial delivery!â
Silence.
You lean to the side and try to peek through an overgrown bush into one of the windows, but the curtains are drawn shut. You bring your thumb to your lips and nibble at a cuticle.
Knock.
âLieutenant!â Again. Worry seeps through the cracks. âItâs me! Itâs lieutenantââ
You chew on your name. It dies on your tongue.
âItâs L2!â You yell instead. âItâs El!â
Blood beads on your thumbnail, bitten short.Â
Knock knock.
âPlease open the door?â You venture. Your heart pounds in your ears. âIâm so fuckingâso fucking tired and worried.â
Knock knock knock.
âWhere the fuck do you live anyway, uh?â You sniffle. Your nose stings. âWas right, wasnât I? You are fucking Snow White.â
Nothing.
Loudest silence youâve ever heard.
You hate it. You want to fill it with more knocks, with more yells, with the sound of his footsteps, with the gravel of his voice, the crackle through comms, the clicking of his ankle when he rests his weight on it for too long, the burn of his cigarette in the coldest nights, the breath of a laugh he wants to swallow but doesnât manage.
âLieuââ You gulp. âSimon? Please.â
On the far right, thereâs a bench whose greyish paint is chipping away. Old wood rots in the centre because of rain and constant humidity. Even though you sat in that godforsaken car for the past four hours and some, you feel your knees buckling the more you keep standing.Â
So, you carry yourself over there. Drop down. The bench creaks. As predicted, itâs wet and it seeps through your jeans. You sigh.
âI brought you food!â You go on, âAnd if you donât open the door Iâm gonna eat it. Everything. Even your stupid chocolate biscuitsâIâm gonna gobble them up in one sitting.â
The milk will go bad if you donât put it in a fridge. The ice cream will melt.Â
âThe bourbon too,â you yell. âGonna drink it all. Gonna get comatose on your stupid bench in thisâin this fucking fairy grove you live in.â
The fruit will start softening. The meat will start rotting and smelling. And flies will run to it, conquer it, eat it raw, and lay their eggs inside. Their buzz will drive you insane, and youâll lose your mind on this bench, in the middle of nowhere.
âAnd Iâm gonna sleep here until you open that fucking door, you hear me?â Your voice cracks. âAnd Iâm gonna get sick andâand itâll be your fault, because you didnât open the bloody door.â
You wonder whether youâd smell the same thing if you broke it down. If the buzz would be heavier, more persistent. If it would be something else driving you insane.
The image flashes bright and real. Smells like you have it within reach, before you, hanging from a chandelier, drowning in a crimson bathtub, or melting on the bed, stomach filled with pills and nothing else.
Your heart plummets at your feet. You feel claustrophobic, boxed in a square of cement that pushes in your shoulders and compresses your chest.
âSimon!â You yell, voice cracking. Droplets stain your jeans. Itâs not raining. âYou fucking cunt open the fucking door!â
Elbows on your knees, you drop your head in your hands. Youâre so tired. You donât even know if you can drive back home, especially now that the sun is setting. Youâd gladly sleep in your carâfuck, youâd sleep on this bench if it meant finding him at the door the next morning, looking all cranky and grumbling about the mess you made.
All you can do is plead quietly, a breathy prayer you hope he can hear, even if only whispered.
âPlease open the fucking door, please open the fucking doorâ"
Are you strong enough to break it down? Youâre special forces, but youâre not a battering ram. You donât have the tools that would helpâyou didnât think you were gonna need them.Â
Stupid.
Are you brave enough to open the door? To find whatâs inside? Should you call the police? An ambulance?
The thought makes you retch. You cover your mouth and bite on your palm.
âThis fucking idiotââ You whisper. Swallow thick. Your throat stings as bile rises. âI swear to God you selfish bastard, you better not. You better fucking not, Simon, I willââ
âWhich bourbon?â
Your head snaps.
His shoulders, wide and hunched, fill the doorway, open enough for you to see him entirely. A grey shirt hangs loose around his torso. Heâs got his hands stuffed in the pockets of his joggers, but thereâs a strain in his arms. Corded and rigid, tied in a way that shows in his neck, too.
A scar runs thick down the side of his head, starting from the centre of his forehead and tipping at the shell of his ear, following a curved line clearly left by a surgeon. Bulbous near his temple, where the flesh was too soft and took longer to heal.Â
Darkness blossoms under his eyes, swollen and sunken at the same time; puffy with sleep, hollow with tiredness. Heâs paler than usual, his cheeks are gaunt, and heâs so much fucking thinner.
But heâs alive.
His chest rises. His blood runs.
You blink.
A tear threatens to stream down your cheek, but you anticipate it, drying its path with the back of your hand. Your bones soften, muscles unclenched. Clumsily, you take a trembling breath, and it feels like itâs the first time youâve ever done it.
âI-I donât know,â you stutter. âDonât drink the stuff. Asked the clerk for his favourite and he justâjust tossed it in there.â
âMh.â
His eyes look for the bottle amongst the mountain of food and drinks stuffed in the bags.Â
âYou better like it.â You sniffle and nod at the bags. âFifty-five quid just for that thing.â
He snorts. Sighs. âGood enough then.â
You exchange looks.
Then, he nods his head inside.
âHelp me out?â He drawls.
Dizzy, you nod. Your legs tingle as if theyâve just been awakened, your stomach rumbles like you havenât eaten in days. The world turns upside downârelief so visceral and thick you feel like itâs drowning you.
You stumble to the doorway. Your guts squeeze and thrash. You might throw up, but you donât, swallowing the tightening feeling clawing up your throat.
You stuff the smaller pharmacy bags inside the Tesco ones.
Simon leans in too, taking his hands out of his pockets.
You hadnât seen the aftermath yet.
Heâs missing the last two fingers on his left hand. Surgery scars run along the back of both, slicing the tattoo on his forearm in a cobweb of thick, ruddy lines. That is, where the flesh isnât rubbery and burnt, convoluted as if yearning to weld itself back together in the aftermath of being torn apart.Â
They shakeâfiercely, like heâs experiencing an earthquake inside his body; unfolding before your eyes, shattering his bones.
You look at them. Transfixed. At the mangled flesh sewn back together, at the tremble that runs through his veins and tips at his nails. The strain of his muscles clawing up his arms, taut to the point of painâlike heâs putting all his effort to keep them still, to exert control over them.
Control he lost.
When you lift your eyes again, you meet his face.
Stone cold. Dreadfully frigid.
âThe bags are heavy,â you croak.
âCarried worse,â he replies flatly, and his hands curl around the handles of two.
His fingers tighten, knuckles painted white. Nails bite his palms, but he perseveres. Swallows a groan of pain that rumbles in his throat and lifts the groceries off the floor.Â
The plastic bags crackle like a gale is blowing furiously through them. The glass of the bottles clinks. You see, as he walks inside, the tension in his gait: forcing his legs to cooperate, to work by themselves, as he focuses exclusively on the stability of his hands.
Without looking back, he leaves the door open for you to follow.
You stand frozen stock still, arms down your sides, and eyes brimming with guilt.
Carried worse, he said.
Carried you, months ago, when the bomb went off.
Six Months Earlier
Intelâs rarely faulty when the source is the police themselves.
Granted, even in these cases, one should always take statistics into consideration: a mole, a diversion, the original source. However, things sometimes are so obvious that statistics fall flat.
Because in front of you, right now, thereâs a big, fat bomb. No doubt about it.
A squared box, half as tall as you. Itâs raggedly painted black, as if someone decided to spray the colour on the metal slabs at the last minute. Rust gathers at each corner, likely due to the humidity building up in this underground tunnel, which is also chipping away at the paint and leaving ruddy streaks scattered down the sides.
Itâs not much different from the ones youâve dispensed of already, at least at first sight. Thereâs no timer, not a visible one at least. Though from the looks of it, you donât think this one is timed at all. If youâre fortunate, it needs to be manually detonated on site. Worst-case scenario, it can be set off remotely.
Thank fuck youâre wearing sturdy PPE, then.
With a huff, you flop on your knees before it. Thereâs a soft puff as the pressure pushes air out of your suitâa big, cumbersome thing that safely cradles you from head to toe.Â
âCaptain,â you call through comms. âYou sure itâs off, yeah?â
The static preceding his voice buzzes softly through your ear, before Johnâs usual rasp fills the helmet shielding your head.
âLocal bomb squadâs had a look already,â he says. âSaid itâs old.â
Though the bomb in front of you looks untouched by the deft hands of a demolition specialist. You wonder how they concluded that the device is too old to be active, since there doesnât seem to be a sign that it has been studied at all.
âDoesnât look like they did anything, though,â you offer.
John grunts. âDonât shoot the messenger.â
âRight.â
His voice rumbles even through the distortion of the radio. âJust passing it on, L2. They want us to check it before they move it.â
You roll your eyes at the nickname. You knew it would stickâSimonâs convincing like thatâthough it is the first time John actually uses it.
You let it slide.
âAnd whyâs that?â
âSigned by Konni.â
You tilt your head and easily spot the mark of Konni group sprayed on one side, dried red paint drawing a path downwards from where it dripped.
âAlways nice to see an old friend, isnât it?â
âKeep us updated, yeah?â
âOn it.â
You squeeze your eyes through the visor of your helmet, focusing on possible entry points. Each breath you take is measured and quiet as you clear your mind to steady yourself.
âAlrighâ?â
Though considering the questioning drawl coming from beside you, youâd wager the suit is amplifying not only your voice, but also the heaviness of your panting.Â
Itâs fucking hot in this thing.
âYou shouldnât be here.â You give him a sidelong glance. Heâs not wearing an EOD, only his usual uniform with an added clunky helmet, a bulletproof vest, and his stupid skull mask. âEspecially not naked like that.â
âNaked, uh?â He snorts. âBetter get a good look, then.â
You bite down a smile and return your eyes to your job. âCaptain, the lieutenant is padding around in his birthday suit.â
Priceâs voice crackles through the comms in your ear. By his tone, you can practically see the tight set of his jaw and the roll of his eyes.
âGhost, either wear the EOD or leave the premises, for fuckâs sake. Donât fancy scraping you off the walls.â
Simon gently kicks the side of your boot. âRat.â
You turn your head around just enough to stick out your tongue at him.
âI asked the second lieutenant a question anâ she ainât answered yet,â he drawls with his usual dispassionate tone. âPermission to kick her off the team?â
âYou wonât hear a single fuckinâ word she says if youâre ground meat, Simon,â Priceâs voice rasps. âWear the bloody PPE and then weâll talk.â
Static replaces Johnâs orders as communication cuts off on his part.
Only then does Simon pitch in.
âI asked you a question.â
You sigh, but itâs neither weary nor exasperated.Â
âYeah, Iâm alright,â you huff, already tinkering with your toolbox. âWhy arenât you wearing the gear?â
âIâm in good hands.â
âThanks, Iâm immensely flattered,â you quip. âPlease go wear it now.â
âThought it was too old to still be active.â
You donât have time to roll your eyes, because as soon as he mutters his thoughts, you notice a familiar indented square in one of the panels. A carefully hidden entry point that, once popped open, will show you the intricacies inside the device. Itâs like spotting an oasis in the desert.
You reach for a flat tip in your toolbox at your knees. Carefully, you wedge it in the embrasure.
It only takes a few tries, and it unhinges seamlessly. Metal clinks as you gently place the lid on the ground.
Thereâs no need for you to look his wayâhis presence is like a heavy blanket wrapped around your shoulders. A shadow sewn to your own.Â
âI wonât support your suicidal tendencies, so please, for the love of Christ, listen to the engineerââ you point at yourself with the screwdriver, ââand go wear the bloody bomb suit.â
Simon stays silent for a handful of seconds, only filled with the tinkering of metal of your tools.
âWorried âbout me, are ya?â
You huff. No use pretending, when he can see right through you. âPlenty.â
âGood heart.â
âChop chop, Riley.â
âAye aye, El.â
With a gentle squeeze of your shoulder, Simon turns on his heel. His footsteps become distant until the soft thud finally vanishes behind the creaky door that first led you down here, slamming shut behind you.
You donât turn around, too focused on studying the wires wrapped around each other in the panel you just opened. Thereâs an entire bundle crossing the opening diagonally and so shrouding most of the circuit board in the back. Theyâre held together by a couple of cable ties that look awfully cheap, like the rest of the device.
âWeird,â you mumble to yourself.
âWhat is?â John pitches in.
You flinch, not expecting an answer to your musings.
âUhm, uhââ You shake your head to recollect yourself. âThe bombâit looks quite cheap. Not their usual MO.â
John hums. âCould be one of Konniâs earliest works. Disposal said itâs old, innit?â
âYeah,â you huff. âI donât trust a single word those fuckers said.â
âRight,â he grunts, though you recognise that hint of agreement in it. âDo what you can with it. Keep me updated.â
âRoger that, captain.â
Back on track. First thing to do is get rid of those ties to isolate the cables.Â
You work quietly for a while, removing your gloves to minimise errors while doing such minute movements. The flush cutters are sturdy but the blades are small, and the thickness of the cable ties is stupidly non-existent. You want to avoid cutting things you shouldnât.
However, you canât quite ease the knot of doubt forming in your guts.
This device has literally nothing preventing you from disposing of it. Everything is poorly put together. The control centre was placed under a thin slab of metal, which you simply popped off using the flat tip of a screwdriver. There are corner store-level cable ties keeping together a bundle of wires. Each cable isnât isolated, but either overlaps with others or knots on itself.
This is amateurish.
And you know, with utmost certainty, that Konni isnât. The same Konni group that blew up an entire airport wouldnât DIY a bomb and spray paint their signature on a slab of metal like a mere local gang of criminals.
Unlessâ
âEl? You with us?â
Simonâs voice snaps you out of it. He sounds muffled and echoey, as if heâs speaking from behind a glass. You recognise that distortion: he put on the bomb suit.
Relief floods through you.
You shake your head to clear your mind. Sweat collects on your forehead. You feel each drop brewing on your skin, only to then slowly make its way to your brow, then your eye.
Your fingers close around the cutters, and the first tie snaps off.
Then, you squeeze your eyes to get rid of the burn.
âYeah,â you huff. âThey should invent more comfortable suits for us in demo. Itâs fucking sweltering in here.â
Priceâs voice crackles once more. âWeâll hire a fashion designer.â
Simon snorts.
âLook at you, captain,â you croon. âProviding jobs for the youth.â
Youâre sure heâs rolling his eyes. âDo yours or youâll lose it.â
But you know itâs an empty threat. Jokes tossed around to defuse the tension as you defuse your bomb. High stress situations require ways to destress in order to keep your mind clear and at ease, even as your life is on the line.
âAye aye.â
And from then on, silence lingers, only interrupted by Simon shifting his weight on his feet behind you. The crinkle of the suit folding as he moves, the tap of his fingers against the pack he must be holding in his hands. Thereâs the occasional clink of metal when you drop a tool in its box, or the snap of plastic as yet another tie comes off.Â
And finally, you manage to isolate the cables from one another. Carefully you pinch one between two fingers and shift it to the side, only so you can have a broader vision of the circuit board in the back.
Itâs entirely dead. Singed in places, the lights are off, no sounds fill your ears unless it's the ones youâve already recognised as familiar. The blasting cap has an old serial number on it, different from the most recent ones you came across. The base was once attached to a couple of red cables that have been cut from their root.
You exhale, emptying your lungs in a single, long breath.
âItâs dead.â
John huffs through comms. âThank Christ, eh. Sending Garrick over. ETA 20.â
But you stay put, staring holes through the jungle of wires that intersect and crisscross like vines in front of you, draped on the circuit board.
Simon shifts from behind you and comes to crouch by your side. The same puff of air exhales from his suit. You turn your head to look at him, though with the helmet itâs hard to have a good view of his face.
Heâs taken off the skull mask to favour the protective gear placed around his head. His eyes arenât poised on the bomb, though; theyâre on your face. He must pick up on something there that doesnât reassure him, because he knows you better than he should.
âHang on, Price,â he rumbles.
You stall for a moment.
Itâs only a hunch that spurs you to negate certainty. Youâre special forces, an engineerâsixth sense isnât enough to support evidence.
But Simon believes in it. He trusts that tiny spark he sees in your eye, the tautness of your fingers as they curl into fists atop your knees. You hear him sniff, shift on his knees to get closer.Â
âEl?â He whispers, perhaps not wanting the radio to pick up on it.
Your stomach lurches.
âI meanââ You gesture vaguely at the device. âIt looks dead. The circuit board is gone, and the wires have been cut from the detonator. Some of this shit could be older than meâ"
John cuts through your conversation. He sounds irritated, and in turn, it irritates you, too.Â
âGet to the point.â
You stare at the dead circuit board. The main piece of this puzzle. It doesnât take an engineer like you to recognise that itâs long gone, but in a very peculiar way that you donât know how to explain without sounding like a lunatic, it looks too long gone.
You smack your lips. âSomethingâs wrong. It feelsââ
âDonât care how it feels, lieutenant. Is it dead or not?âÂ
âListen, John, Iâm not here to fucking playâ"
âNeed to have another look at it, boss,â Simon cuts in. âGive us a minute, will ya?âÂ
âRoger.â
You sigh. You wish you could scratch your forehead. Your scalp stings as sweat collects on it. Each tiny, uncomfortable thing happening to you is amplified, including the knot in your guts.Â
âI hate him with passion each time he acts likeââ
âHe can still hear ya.â
âGood.â
If John can actually still hear you, he doesnât voice it. Thankfully, you think, because if he pitches in again with some more of his caustic sarcasm, you might just say things before your mind can properly filter them.
You take a couple of seconds to recollect your thoughts, guiding your eyes to study the device. Itâs composed of rusted metal plates welded together and protecting the bomb inside. Youâd need a plasma cutter to breach the plate, but the heat could set the thing off if itâs live. In fact, there are no entry points aside from a small, squared panel that youâve opened with unexpected ease.Â
Considering how the rest of the thing is protected, however, it feels out of place. Conveniently put there for you to declare that the device is gone, when it actually isnât.Â
A hunch isnât enough to negate evidence, that is true, but itâs there, and you wonât allow it to gnaw at your guts.
Easy is never the right answer, not with Makarov.
âPass me the snake cam.â
You hold your hand out to Simon, palm up, without sparing him a glance.Â
Your ears pick up on sounds even if youâre entirely wrapped in protective gear, even if your heart pounds madly up your throat. A zipper being opened, a cable as it unfolds. His hands are warm when they place the cold wire in your palm, steady when they close your fingers around it.
âGet it in,â he says. âIâll hook it up.â
In the corner of your eye, pale hands reach inside the pack at his knees to pull out a pad. It blinks to life as he taps his fingers on it.
Gently, you insert the tip of the snake cam into the opened panel, carefully steering the camera underneath the knotted bundle of cables and behind the seemingly dead circuit board.Â
âGot anything?â You ask Simon.
âToo dark.â
âTurn on the flash.â
The pace of your heart matches the rapid tap of fingertips running across the pad. In a blink, a soft glow fills the darkness behind the board.Â
Simon hums.
âGot something.â
You inhale sharply. Your eyes flicker around, sifting through your thoughts as if you can see them, rushing unrestrained with endless possibilities. You squeeze them shut, clearing out the sting of sweat as it builds up on your brow and fogs up your sight.
âFuck. Letâs switch.â
Simon shifts until heâs kneeling behind you. The rustle of his suit precedes his arms as they come around your head, carefully taking the cable from your fingers.Â
âGot it.â
Ever so slowly, you remove your hands, shuffling on your knees and ducking your head to leave the shelter of his body. With no minimal effort, considering the weight of your blast suit, you manage to stumble to where he once sat, grabbing the pad he left lying on the ground.
As he said, thereâs something. The flash clearly highlights a darkened silhouette, bulky and squared, but the quality of the camera doesnât allow you to make out much more of it.
Only one thing stands out.
A light.
âJesus fucking Christ.â
âThought so,â he spits. âFucking Makarov.â
You donât have time to curse him as well, though you quietly share the sentiment.
âJohn.â
Like lightning, his voice crackles in your ear. âSend over.â
âWe got something.â
âDetails.â
âIn a sec. Stay on.â
You look at Simon. Heâs perfectly still, not a tremble in his fingers, exactly as youâd expected. Heâd make an incredible demo specialist, though you know heâs an even better sniper.
âGentle, Simon,â you murmur. âNeed you to go south.â
He follows your orders, sliding the cable down inside the box.
âGentle,â you repeat. âSlower.â
And without a single word, he heeds you. Trusts you. Lets the camera cover each corner, bit by bit, moving his muscles imperceptibly as he snakes the camera through the jungle of wires.
Now closer to the device, you can better make out its details on the screen. Itâs not old nor rusted, not singed nor dead. It sits attached to one side of the box, each cable perfectly isolated and running on sinuous curves around the circuit board. One that blinks red, then green, then red againâbeating like a heart, shifting its colours inside the darkness.Â
Stacks of white rubber are slathered around it, bulky and thick. You curse under your breath.
âC4.â
Simon clicks his tongue. âChrist.â
âJohn, tell the local authorities to clear out the area now,â you order steadily. âAdd that theyâre a bunch of lazy cunts, too.â
âWill do.â Then, quietly, âgood work, lieutenant. Stay safe, both of you.â
âRoger.â
The static on the radio goes dead. Thereâs only your heart pounding in your ears, falling in rhythm with the switch of colours on the screen.
Red, green. Red, green.
Simonâs voice reaches out to you. âSee a blasting cap?âÂ
âYeah.â You tongue your cheek. âSouth. Then move to the right.â
He follows suit, once again trusting you entirely. As the camera moves, you try to take stock of each tiny detail you can make out. The quality is poor, but youâre starting to have a general idea of what youâre working with. The serial number stamped on the blasting cap matches those of more recent detonators, causing the theory of the local bomb squad to completely crumble.
Red, green. Red, green.Â
While you canât make out the logo on the circuit board, you recognize the finish immediately: factory-made, not cobbled together in some basement workshop. New. Polished clean. A pale square chip mounted against the green lacquer of the board.
Red, green. Red, red, green.
You blink.Â
âStop.â
Simon falls still.
Red, green. Red, red, green.
There. Blinking in the shadows, off to the side.
âRight. Go to the right. Quick.â
Simon doesnât put up a fight, though you can see the uncomfortable shift of his knees. Imperceptible and yet conveying the same nervousness festering in your eyes as they fly across the screen. He is quick with his hands to find the source of the light.
It ticks, ticks, ticks.
âShitâSimon, drop it!â
And if the clock is right, it will tick only for two minutes more.
âDrop that shit and run!â
Simon bolts on his feet, awfully quick considering the bomb suit clinging to him. You hadnât accounted for that. Fuck, you hadnât accounted for any of this.
You told him to wear it. You put that extra weight on him. He wouldâve been out of the place and far away enough to be safe if you hadnât insisted, if youâd let the overwhelmingly stupid trust he had in you to win, for once.
âFuckââ You drop the pad and stand up. Your knees buckle under the cumbersome weight of your suit and the sudden dread gripping your stomach.
âItâs timed, John!â You bellow. Your yell echoes inside the EOD helmet, ringing in your own ears. âWeâre leavingâno time to defuse it. Less than two minutes and it goes off!â
An old, singed circuit board as a decoy to mask the real bomb ticking away just beneath its surface. Only a demolition specialist like those in the UKFS wouldâve thought of venturing further inside the device.Â
Makarov knew it.Â
He knew the local authorities would have called the anti-terrorism unit as soon as they saw the Konni group mark. Makes sense that he signed the device so clearly, like a fucking amateur.
He wanted Johnâs team there.Â
He knew those bastards wouldnât be arsed to check further. Why would they take on the burden when they could leave it in the good hands of better-trained professionals.
Call the big guns and then call it a day.
âRun. Donât look back and run, both of you.â
He doesnât need to tell you twice. Youâre already panting, forcing your legs to move against the strain put onto them by the suitânot protection anymore, but a cage. Your knees donât bend as they should, your feet struggle to hold you up. The sting in your eyes, the heart in your ears.Â
Simonâs ahead of you as you trudge behind him. But heâs faster, strongerâable to carry the added kilograms of his blast suit as if itâs only a mere annoyance to him.
Though he must hear youâor rather, he must feel the lack of you by his side.Â
He halts in his steps and looks behind to find you.
âFuckâfaster, El!â
âI know!â Youâd like to yell at him to shut the fuck up, but that would be a waste of precious breath that you need to focus on using to run.
âGo!â Your voice cracks. âFucking run, Riley!â
Though heâs been standing still for so long that youâre now by his side.Â
You stagger past him, grabbing his hand to tug him with youâthough thatâs one arduous thing, rooted on the ground as he is.
âWe got one minute at mostârun ahead for fuckâs sake!â
Itâs like you can hear it, nowâeach ticking breath exhaled by the device behind you. You wonder if it had always been there, signalling his presence as you knelt next to it, but you were acting too cocky to notice it.
Your fault. Your fault. Your faultâ
Your rushing thoughts recede to a trickle the moment you feel Simonâs hand slipping away from yours. As it does, he takes your own heart with him, as you feel it skip a beat inside your chest.
The momentum of your run makes it hard to stop, and you almost stumble on your own feet as the weight of the suit drags you forward. Thankful for a wall next to your side, you slam your palm against it to avoid falling face-first into the ground.
Though when you turn, itâs your stomach that touches it.
Simonâs already pulled at the quick-release cord hanging from the front of his jacket.Â
âWhatââ
The contraption strapped around his torso unlatches from the back. While he struggles with it, heâs impressively steady as he rips at the sleeves to take it off, shimmying his shoulders out of it with easeâchest plate and all, until everything falls on the floor at his feet.
Initially, your eyes widen in shock. Then, your face morphs into a mask of unadulterated rage.Â
âAre you fucking mad?!â
But heâs taking his helmet off, too. The thud of it as it hits the ground is deafening, echoing ominously in the otherwise quiet underground tunnel youâre stuck in.
âSimon what the fuck!â
âCome âere anâ shut yer mouth.âÂ
He charges forward, running much faster as most of the extra weight that was hindering him now lies uselessly on the floor. He bends at the waist, using gravity to his advantage, and reaches towards you with his arms.
You donât have time to think as breath is knocked out of you. His arm wedges between your legs, and the world turns upside down. Darkness and grey bricks swivel and roll before your eyes as the air catches in your lungs.Â
Your stomach curves around his shoulders. He holds your leg with one arm, curled around your knee, and your opposite sleeve with his offhand.Â
He stumbles at first, trying to find his balance.
âSimonââÂ
âKeep still.â
And then, he runs.
Thereâs a rasp in his breathing that makes it sound as if his chest is being crushed. The gravel of debris crunches under his boots, stomping heavily down the tunnel. Each sound is amplified, but youâre unsure of what is real and what isnât.Â
He trembles. Groans fiercely for each step he takes, baring his teeth as if to scare an invisible monster ahead of him.
âIâm slowing you down!â You yell, hoping the chaos wonât mask your voice too much. âPut me down! IâI have the bomb suit on, Iâm going to be fine!â
Though thatâs a lie. He knows it, and you do as well. If the tunnel collapses, no miracle can bring you back.Â
But at least your head would be protected, giving you a chance. Your chest, too. Your legs. A minuscule, tiny possibility to have a minute more to breathe as you wait for Search and Rescue.
A chance he doesnât have, not with half of his suit now lying uselessly on the floor.
However, Simon doesnât answer, just runs. Runs and runs and runs, towards the exit at the end of the tunnel. Itâs close, maybe another handful of meters, and yet now it feels like an endless chasm ready to suck you in.
A black hole hidden underground.Â
You donât know how much time you have left before the bomb goes off. Your breathing picks up, hand reaching around to fist his shirt around his collar to make him please, please listen.
âPlease Simon, please!â
His eyes are fixed ahead, feet as quick as can be considering the weight heâs carryingâyours, his own, the suits. He stumbles, pace naturally slowing down due to the effort, but it doesnât deter him. Hits walls with his shoulders, slams your helmet and your boots against corners, but he never stops.
He just looks ahead, drunk on adrenaline and ignoring the unfathomable strain heâs putting on his body.
Your eyes sting with panic and tears. His face is red with exertion and lucid with sweat as it beads on his forehead. Then his run turns into a stagger, trembling legs forcing themselves ahead.
Simon bursts through the door. Your helmet knocks against it.
At the same time, the tunnelâs darkness turns blinding white.
and and reader who is so nervous because you gained weight while Simon was on an assignment.
meanwhile Simon whoâs instantly hard at the sight of you. Round and plump. Groaning into your ear when he hugs you, greedily grabbing handfuls. Fingers dimpling into your fat because youâre so warm and soft, and he barely manages to get home before heâs stretching you around his cock.
tags | angst, abusive relationships, reader is married to another man, religious guilt, infidelity, oral sex, cunnilingus, fingering, multiple orgasms, crying, dubcon, use of âcuntâ a lot
Ch. 5 | masterlist | ao3
ââââââââââââââ
You think every sin youâve ever made has brought you here. Every question against God lead you to Simon. A testament to your faith if you listen to the word and not this horribly, icky feeling swarming in your gut.
Where is he? Where is he?
You donât know. Why should it matter right now? Off with another woman? At home waiting to yell at you?
âWe canât do this.â
That should do it. Youâre proud of that, even if itâs not a believable statement. Some weight of denial before it turns into something you canât control anymore.
âWhenâs the last time heâs made you finish?â
But did you ever have control over this?
Your eyes flutter, breath flickering in your lungs for a split second. That man hasnât wasted a second on your pleasure.
âNever.â Itâs a whisper.
Simonâs hands curl tighter around your hips, fingers digging into your skin like heâs actually angry at the fact. âPoor cunt.â
Your inhale a sharp breath, embarrassingly so.
âJusâ let me get a taste, yeah?â
His fingers slide under your shirt, resting at your rib cage. Thoughts of how he could snap each rib, one by one, flash into your mind. Maybe heâs counting them, slotting the feeling of each ridge into a file deep in his mind like every other animal heâs slaughtered and cut into pieces. Maybe heâs imaging how easy it would be too.
Your mouth salivates at the thought.
âShow you how a cunt should be treated.â
You finally look up at him. âWe shouldnât.â
âYou donât âave to do anything. Jusâ gotta let me do all the work.â He slides you off the counter, feet stamping to the floor before he flips you around swiftly, back pressed to chest, ass pressed to hips. Goosebumps bloom from how quickly he was able to turn you around, how easy it was for him to move you as he pleased.
You donât have to do anything.
You think he said that on purpose. Like he knows that your religious guilt would bury its talons in your skin until you ran out of his shop without a second look. As if heâs the one doing everything then you wonât have any blame in it.
Your religions talons donât compare to the fangs pierced in your throat. A snake. A wolf. The devilâs teeth holding you in place. You hope it doesnât leave a mark.
You think about your mom. At a time like this, it feels wrong, but you see her, standing with a cross and sending you off to private school because you snuck out once. You think about how she would view you now, bent over a table with your butcher practically begging for a taste.
Your leggings are at your ankles before you can even finish the thought.
âPoor cunt.â He cups your pussy through your underwear, and his palm is so big and so warm it makes you shiver. âJust wasting away, huh?â
When you feel his fingers hook into the seams you squeeze your eyes shut, trying to hide from the way you instinctively part your legs wider when they reach your ankles. Face burning when you just get tangled in the fabric and Simon chuckles. You choose to ignore the way you feel your underwear snap against your skin once and the sound of fabric tearing next. Thatâs a problem for later.
He helps you then, nudging your legs open with his foot, your hands falling flat on the counter. Your pussy on display, spread wide open for him, becomes an after thought when his fingers meet your bare skin.
âFuckinâ mess back âere.â
You canât even imagine the slick spread down your thighs or the way it probably clung to your underwear when he tore them in two.
âSorry, I donât know whyââ
He laughs again, and youâre not sure why heâs laughing when heâs got his fingers on your pussy, when he swipes them along the length and it makes a wet sound echo in the walls.
You whine again, burying your face in your arms so you lay flat against the cold counter. Tears well in your lash line from sheer embarrassment, humiliation, something. Your husband hasnât even gotten you close to this and Simon hasnât done anything. Heâs surely never spoken to you like this either.
âJusâ my mouth anâ fingers, yeah? Treat ya the way you deserve?â
Youâre not sure if you deserve this. You shouldnât deserve this. Your husband tells you so.
Horrible wife. Whore. Cheater. Immoral.
Still, you nod against your arms.
âPlease.â
He lifts you with a hand around your throat, fingers practically touching in the middle. âNeed you to say it.â
You keep your eyes closed, as if to shield yourself from the reality of what youâre doing. You canât turn back now.
âYour mouth and fingers, please, I want them.â
You donât deserve them. Shouldnât have them, but youâve already decided you need them. And you canât remember the last time youâve done something for you, without the weight of your husbandâs heavy hand and God's watchful gaze.
Your necklace presses to your chin, ring to your palm. You donât have the strength to take them off. You let them stay while you go against every message they portray.
The feeling in your abdomen, deep in your chest, coiled around your throat, and heavy behind your eyes is a nasty one when he slips a finger in. A storm brews in your mind and spreads to your toes and fingertips, emotions so contradictory that you donât know what the right answer is.
Youâre trapped, stuck in white water rapids that make it impossible to breathe. Struggling to come up for air and fill your lungs with anything but sin. Your jaw aches where your teeth clench. Tears wet on your cheeks from guilt when another joins the first and you finally understand why any woman would consent to this.
The white in your eyes is blurry when he glides his fingers out so fucking slowly you feel every bone in his fingers. Slumping when he slides them shallowly and presses down once.
âSweet fuckinâ cunt.â
You let yourself drown.
Arching your spine, and pressing your forehead against the counter, sinking into the cold water. The sound you make is gurgled, like youâre choking on water or maybe itâs tears, spreading your legs even wider as he continues.
He likes that. He hums approvingly.
âAtta girl.â
You hate the way it makes your knees buckle. Hate the way he laughs like youâre some clumsy prey in the palm of his hand. Like he thinks itâs cute. The counter edge digs into your hips thatâll surely bruise later, and Simon just places a hand on your tailbone, pushing you harder against it, keeping you firm in his grasp.
Thatâs when he dips deeper, as if he can finally give you what he wants now that youâve succumbed. Now that the water is calm.
You feel his cock, fat and heavy, against your thigh. Youâre taken aback with how hard he is, throbbing in his pants just from fingering you. As if he wants you as badly, something more than the way your husband uses you to get off.
And it shouldnât happen this fast, the string weaved in your core shouldnât already feel like snapping, but the threads are tearing at the seams. Desperately clinging to anything as he starts to pump his fingers in and out, in and out. Harsher, harder, deeperâ deeper, deeper.
It takes everything in you not to break when his thumb stamps your clit. And he circles it slow, gently, soaked from your weeping cunt, but itâs still too much. Too much that you can feel his lips mapping out the curve of your ass, that his fingers have your legs shaking and knees knocking together, that you can feel his breath on your thighs.
On your cunt.
And suddenly itâs his tongue, one swipe replacing his thumb on your clit.
You jolt forward, head snapping back when you feel it. Wet and warm, licking through your folds like he has every intention to taste you whole. And you canât remember if you showered this morning because everythingâs a bit hazy, and you stormed over here, and you're sure you sweated on your way.
You attempt to push at his head, âSimon, waitâwait. Iâm not clean.â
You feel him scoff against your pussy, sending vibrations against your thighs like heâs offended. âYour husband makes you shower before? Tastes the best part.â
âNo,â You pause. âHeâs never done this.â
His free hand curls around the back of your thigh tightly and he growls angrily. Angry that your husbandâs never had his mouth around your clit or pressed to the inside of your gummy walls. Angry that he has you all to himself and he still wastes it all.
âFuckin married a prick.â
Yeah.
You would voice your agreement, but then his tongue is flat against your pussy, fingers parting you just enough for his tongue to join and all you can manage is a shriek. Garbled words and breathless pants are all that make their way through your lips when he circles your clit. Sucking the bead between his lips harshly before smoothing figure 8âs over it again and again until your vision goes white.
You donât last long, like some virgin. Breath caught in your lungs and abdomen tightening as you convulse. It washes over you like nothing before. Itâs not the same by yourself or when you pretend with your husband.
This is overwhelming, pulse thrashing, and pussy quivering around his fingers before it finally calms. Pinpricks turn into soft tingles, soft buzzing under skin that makes you melt into the counter, falling into his touch like putty. You feel like warm honey, gooey and malleable, and so content for the first time in months.
You think this is the first time someoneâs ever sought after you. The first time someoneâs put your pleasure above theirs. The first time you felt more than just the broken cracks.
Did you think he was only going to give you one, bird?
You hear him, but itâs muffled, everythingâs still hazy when his fingers slide out and his tongue takes their place. When you feel his tongue pressing against the inside of your walls and heâs fucking licking you clean.
God, itâs nasty.
Nothing could save you now. Thereâs not enough repentance in the world to make this god forgive you.
And then heâs going at it. Sucking like heâs fucking drinking a fresh coconut. Tongue wide and flat and so fucking obscene as he licks along your pussy. You scramble against the counter, moaning loudly, and rolling to your tippy toes to escape, but itâs too late for that.
He growls like a dog with a bone, hooking your knee onto the edge for a better angle. He laps like a dog, messy and so wrong, on his knees worshiping you like your pussys the altar. Eager. Voracious. Debauched.
You should hate it, blasphemy, but your second orgasm hits you like a truck and without warning, gushing on Simonâs tongue. Shaking and twitching frantically, lungs void of air as you struggle to catch your breath. Muscles tensing in your thighs sporadically, mindlessly rocking your hips back to meet his tongue until you physically canât take anymore and whimper pathetically into your arms.
He catches you before you completely collapse.
âEasy, bird.â
He helps you turn around, helps you pull your leggings back up before he sits you on the counter. And you whine when he turns to leave your side.
He shushes you, sliding between your legs instead, big palms finding your hips, rubbing small circles into your skin. You blink at him lazily, eyes heavy and half lidded. Heâs got a big smirk on his face that you canât miss, lips glistening proudly with your cum.
You smile slowly, a huff of a laugh slipping from your lips as you look at him.
âGood?â He asks.
You nod with a giggle. âEven better.â
He leans down to kiss you, and you should push him away, be disgusted with tasting yourself on his tongue, but you donât. Canât be when he doesnât care, when itâs an honor for him to have tasted you in the first place. Canât care when two orgasms makes it impossible to be upset about anything.
You just lick into his mouth, deliriously, and he lets you, like youâre some animal lapping away. He only stops you when your hands trails where they shouldnât.
âLetâs get you home, love.â You donât want to go.
He helps you walk to his truck, kisses you goodbye a house down from yours, and sends you home with your underwear tucked into his back pocket and a pussy soaked with your cum and his saliva.
Reality floods your lungs when you see your husband.
cw: afab reader, reader can visibly blush, breeding, cucking, scratching, size difference, simon thinks about eating you a lot :)
medieval!au based on this post of mine. your lord husband is letting you down and simon knows he can do something about it
Simon remembers the first time he saw you.
How could he not? You were a stranger in a strange land.
A flower from the south, grown up in warm soil and rich sun. Looking like you lived on fruit and honey, and Simon bet you smelled like it, too. Blackberry jam, and sweet cream, and nectar, he'd reckon. It was the first thought that passed through his headâthat he'd like to smell you. Wanted to shove his ruined nose into that soft part in the hollow of your neck, where you were warm and delicate and he could feel your pulse thrumming just beneath, and inhale. He had to get close to anything to get a scentâhis nose was mostly scar tissue, burned and singed from coke smoke over and over throughout the yearsâbut he had wanted it.
You stepped out of your vulgar carriage, a little bird, bright and smiling in the bitter, sodden morning, and he had wanted it.
He doesn't know why. Hours in the forge leave him plenty of time to mull thoughts like warmed, spiced wine, but he hasn't yet figured out his taste for sweet things. Finespun things. Things he could crush in his hands like eggshells. He only knew that the sweet things never liked him much. Sweet things were frightened of the large, scowling thing making iron sing among the flames.
Until you.
You looked him in the eye. Smiled at him that day when he stood in the receiving line in the courtyard. You had a flash of teeth for everyone, it was true, but often even those generous with their smiles could never quite find one for Simon. They got lost somewhere, swallowed by his imposing frame. And maybe you didn't know to be afraid, maybe you'd never learned to be wary of mutts in your fair, tempered home, but Simon thought it was something else:
Curiosity. Interest in the beasts bred in the northâbecause your lord husband certainly wasn't an example of one.
The first son of a first son with a great old name and a castle. His family had lived within its walls for four hundred years, building and defending it in the name of some faraway king Simon couldn't give two shits about, and your mooncalf lord was going to run it all into the mud. He was a dull axe, meek and mollycoddled. Played at war to take the spines of other, greater men. A bare branch, too, Simon figured.
You'd learn all that when he returned from his latest campaign.
Married in absentia for your father's wealth of fighting men, you'd meet your new husband for the first time a month after your arrival. For now, you're alone, a warmblood getting used to the frost. It's no wonder you wander into Simon's forge.
Three days into your residence at the keep, your maids have you dressed for the winter. All wrapped up in a dull-coloured cloak. Hiding you beneath thick fur and delicate embroideryâas if anything could dull what you hold within you. The waifs are too flighty to follow you into Simon's workshop. The smell, the heat, the man withinâall of them offend their delicate sensibilities in one way or another. Not you, though. You run to the bellows with no mind paid to the bull hammering metal beside them.
Simon only stops his work when you clear your pretty throat.
"What is your name, ser?" you ask. You're a daisy blooming in the winter muck. Or a weed, sprouting stubbornly where it doesn't belong. Wilting petals sucking sunlight in a smithy.
The only light here is from the fireglow; all else is choked. Coal smoulders in the hearth, belching sulphur and tar into the dense, stifling air. Breezes are throttled the moment they pass the threshold, so there's nothing to kick up the ash and sootâthey lie in a blanket over the vices and punches, chisels and swages. Anything in Simon's forge doesn't stay clean for long. Even you, satin eve. Linger, and you'll melt into the walls with all the rest.
"Not a ser, little bird. Just a blacksmith," he says.
He had been mending a mail hauberk ruined in your lord's last battle. Some bannerman had a terrible day, and it was Simon's job to set the chain back right so another soldier could have one more. He sets the armour aside, and the loops of steel shimmer like stars in the firelight. You demand his full attention, and Simon wants to see what you'll do with it.
"My lady," you say, tone polite and proper. You run him a cunning once-over, top to toe, and Simon wonders what you see.
"Not no lady, neither."
"No, blacksmith, I'm a ladyâthe lady of your liege lord," you remind him with a smirk. As if he needed it. You look the part enoughâclean and soft, highborn, grown up never scraping a knee, no doubt. But there's mischief twinkling in your eyes, like a child looking at a stream they want to ruin their boots in.
Simon doesn't know if he wants to stamp out that mischief or if there's something else he'd like to do with it.
He'll have to get closer to find out.
"And what does the lady of my liege lord want?"
"Your name." You're puckish and enjoying it, a smiling imp playing in the tick of your mouth. Even as your neck cranes to look up at him.
He rounds the heavy anvil to stand in front of you. Simon knows he's a big man. Can't forget when he's looking at the tops of people's heads all the time. And he's reminded, often and loudly, by highborns who think their sigils and names make them large. If I were your size, I'd rule the fucking kingdom, they say, and they're right. Simon probably could be a knight if he wanted. A ser. Fight hard enough for a lord who would give him a holdfast and a wife of his own. But he prefers the forge, prefers bending iron to his will to being bent to a lord's.
And if he were some perfumed knight, you wouldn't be here, looking up at him with intrigue.
Mud-madness, maybe. Maybe you want to know what it's like in the dirt.
"Riley," Simon says. He gives you his last, a secret joke just for him.
He's stepped into your space, something that would get him flogged if there were anyone around to see. But it's dark, and warm, and lonely in his poor hovel, and he likes how a little bit of your bravery is sapped away with him so close. Likes to see the uncertainty bleed into the curve of your brow with every notch your fine spine bends.
"Riley the blacksmith." You run a delicate finger on the flat side of a blade Simon was working on earlier, pressing prints into the cooled iron where it rests on the table beside you both. You're pretending now, pretending you're not afraid. But you can't look at him, and Simon can see your chest rise and fall.
"You'll forge a new sword for my husband," you continue. "I've brought good steel from my home for you to use."
"Not some jewelry?" he asks.
You hum. "I have enough jewelry."
"Didn't mean for you."
That gets your eyes back on him. You're affronted at the insult to your perfect lord. You draw yourself to your full height, taking back the measures you shrank. It's still lengths below Simon, and you know it. Simon sees the exact moment you realize just how tall you'd have to grow to match him, so you put another kind of distance between you and him. You glide to the other side of his work table, and when you speak, it's harsh and proud. "No jewelry. A sword, a longsword."
"Why?"
Chin tipped high, shoulders squared; a bead of sweat rolls down your temple. "Because I want for it."
"Used to getting what you want, little bird?" Simon follows your path, but when he steps, you step, and it's a dance. Not the measured steps you were surely taught as a girl, not the proper trips of light to plucked strings. It's a different sort of dance, and it doesn't help you. The only thing it does is get his blood hot.
If it's a chase you're after, you'll get it.
"Yes," you say.
Simon likes how your throat looks when you swallow.
"You don't know what you want," he tells you.
He could show you. In his mind's eye, Simon sees the woods outside the keep. He hears your soft footsteps thumping on the forest floor and the sounds you'd make when he catches you. Can almost smell the frozen leaves tangling in your hair, and the prey-sweat on your skin, and his jaw tingles.
"I do." You circle the table, never letting Simon get within arm's reach. Smart bird, but you sound as petulant as a child.
"And what's that?" he asks.
A table between you and him, and you think it is enough. That's the problem with highbornsâthey never think the lowbreds are half as bloodthirsty as they are. They think they are the teeth. Think their rank is armour. But what's a title in the mud, and even a worm will turn. That table could be across the room in a second, if Simon had the mind. You stir some creature in him, your furtive steps like the beating of wings. It rises from his chest like bile, that urge to hold you down, stop your movings and twitchings with his weight, feel your muscles flex below him.
Like a hound on a coursingâonly what runs is hunted.
"A happy husband," you tell him, and Simon can't remember what the conversation was. He's busy keeping his feet planted, even as you step into the doorway and his every instinct begs him to act. He hadn't even realized you'd circled all the way back to the entrance to his forge, where the cold and daylight await.
"And a sword. By the end of the month, Riley, for his return."
Your scent sits in the air like poppy oil long after you've left.
You come back the next week, a winter rose tucked behind your ear and flakes of snow dusting your crown.
You're a bright thing, too full of life for this unwelcoming keep. Simon keeps thinking you'll wither, that one of these days he'll see you round a corner and you'll be sallow and wet like the rest of the north, but you keep surprising him. He eats his fill of you in glimpses, flutters of your cloak through the keyhole of his doorway, traipsing through the snow with your litter of gamines at your heels. You haunt his nights, his dreams, walking the scorched halls of his mind like a shade of witness, and in them, too, you run.
Simon wakes every dawn before you're caught. Always just around the next bend, soft soles padding on the stone.
Seeing you, then, measures from his wingspan and unaware of the danger dripping drool at your feet, Simon feels of consequence. Feels like a whispered name of a fable, too treacherous to say too loudly, or something may hear. Infamy, that's where Simon's thoughts lead him. Or into the loop of a noose.
Where you got that rose, though, he'd like to know. Crystal ropes of ice line the petal edges. A precious beauty frozen in time, black as liver blood. When he asks, you pluck it from your ear and hide your smirk behind it. "I met a handsome fairy in the wood, and he said he would give me a secret if I gave him a kiss. All I received was this rose," you tell him. Grinning like this is the start of a fun game, like you're the Good Neighbour between the iron oaks.
In your southern home, perhaps, The Folk are just stories. Here, in the unyielding North, people don't have the luxury to laugh at tales. If you're born in the snow, you don't take bargains with a light heart.
"Trading kisses, eh?" Simon grunts. Coke smoke and steam billow around him as he quenches a blade in a pail of water. Metal screams and hisses as it chokes for breath. "What do you want, then? A pair of earrings? I could give you a necklace you'd like."
You come to his side, straining around his torso to watch the steel drown. You're nothing, just nothing beside his great frame. He could bend you as easily as red iron, but your teeth flash with alloyed courage.
"Is that your usual payment, Riley?"
"Give me a kiss, little bird, and you'll get more than a necklace."
Sheltered, highborn lady, whistling in the dark. You don't even know what he's saying. You may have a shade of an idea, words sipped from distant whispers not meant for your ears, but it's like the light that slips through coloured glass. Insubstantial, just a facsimile of the real thing. You're here to catch rays to see what they feel like. To know.
Because you came backâlike a moth to a flame, you came back alone to singe your wingsâand you don't call for the guards when he drifts into your space. Simon wonders how far he can push you, and how quickly. Cool a blade too fast, and the core bows. Warps. Its edge turns to brittle glass, itching to chip and crack. Heat it too fast, and the steel tempers and softens. Becomes just another useless lump of metal.
He wants you boiling when you come to him, and you will come to him.
You've caught his scent just as much as he's caught yours. Like a doe snuck into his territory, you tease his edgesânot wise enough to realize just how threadbare his control is.
For now, he'll let you feel the warmth sitting, perpetually, just underneath his skin. Let you feel your own size as he looms over you. Some birds like their men grizzly, like towering beasts with hard fists and mean jawsâyou love it. Simon can see it in the twitch of your chin, the draw of your pupils, the hard spots of heat on your cheeks. Bad luck that you're married to your dim, fallow reed. Frightfully bad luck.
"There you go again," Simon whispers. The tips of his boots touch your fine shoes. Your delicate hands wring together in front of your belly.
"Pardon?"
So mannered, so decent, even as Simon can see your thoughts swimming around your empty head like water wraiths. Just the promise of a kiss below the murk, or a wet grave. He could pluck the pictures from your mind, roll them around his mouth like spit-stones, and he knows what he would taste. Interest, and imaginations, and lilac honey. Sweat and dew. Clotted cream. So virtuous, even as your lips hang slack, and he can see the pink, wet muscle of your twitching tongue.
"You blush when you look up at me," Simon tells you. Lets some scorn, some mockery, flavour the words as they burrow into your ear. "You even know what you're blushin' over?"
Your hand flies to your cheek, cooling away the flush with dancing fingers. An indignant huff puffs from your mouth, and Simon is sure you'd stomp your foot if you had less of a hold on yourself. It almost makes him smile. Do it, he thinks. Give him a reason to take you over his knee. Welts on your ass and three fingers in your cunt would wipe that whiny look off your face, he's sure.
He doubts anyone's ever taught you that lessonâdoubts you even know just how hard lessons can be learnedâbut he wouldn't mind being the first.
"I do know," you puff.
"Know what, little bird?" There's a sparrow, just there, embroidered on your heavy wool cloak. The hours it must have taken to thread it carefully between the weave, the years of practise to accomplish a stitch with such beauty, precision. And Simon could ruin it. Ruin it in a moment. The urge bites at him as he reaches forward to pet the fine fabric between his fingers.
A risk if he's ever taken one. Simon likes his hands. They're rather important to him.
"Why ladies blush." Your voice is just a promise.
"Do you, now?" You're looking at your hem balled in Simon's heavy fist, at the scrapes on his knuckles so close to your belly where you're warm and heaving with breath. "Good little ladies like yourself blush at pretty highborns with flowers in their hair. Why're you blushin' at me?"
You're looking at him like a traveller near a bluff, aware of the drop, feeling the call. One tug, and you would fall into him.
He doesn't get the chance, though. At least, not yet.
The spell breaks, your lady's maid calling your name from the snow, and you take flightâspinning when he, for just a moment, doesn't let your cloak slip from his grasp. Simon knows it's no matter. Your winter rose rests on the cobblestone at his feet, already withering in the heat and choking air. You'll visit him in his dreams again, and maybe he'll see what will happen when you're snared.
Some rabbits chew their foot off. What will you do?
Your milklivered lord comes home clean as spring, and brings disappointment with him.
You try to hide it, but Simon knows. Plucked and preened, you greet him in the courtyard as you were greeted a month before, and present to him the sword Simon forged. The sword with the bloodgutter shaped to the exact curve of your lips, Simon's sickness hammered into the folded iron. The sword your lord can hardly hold upright as his thin arm trembles. Chagrin dusts your tepid smile when his frail hand cups your chin. When he wraps you in his hold, and so much of you is left exposed to the chill.
He's weak, another thing Simon can crush in his palm, but that one, he hates.
And the disappointments only grow, only follow youâdragging behind you like a limp mule slowing down the retinue. Better to cull the lame thing, put everyone out of their misery, but you, the dutiful wife, do try. The servants say you read to him by the hearth in the evenings, and tug him on gentle walks through the wood, and they whisper about the noises he makes as he sweats over you every night. And you glow and simper in the mornings, but he can't keep you happy.
Simplest thing in the world to breed a bird, and your lord is failing.
He's letting you wilt. When more months go by without an heir in your belly, the folk start to whisper. They think there must be something wrong with you. The women make you eat comfrey and daisy, and carve words into the butter you lathe on your bread. They stir hare's egg powder into the tea you choke down. You plant parsley alone in the dawn light, nails cracking in the hard, cold soil, and if you aren't growing soon, you'll be sent away. Back to your father, who may not receive you, or to a lone and quiet convent to dwindle into old age.
Or worse. Much worse can befall a woman who doesn't give her husband a child. You're in a different sort of trap, now.
Simon knows it's not your fault, but he seems to be the only one who does. So he waitsâlingers in your periphery for you to work it out for yourselfâand it's the dead of night when you come back to him at last. Your lord has just left on another campaign for his king, and you're shivering and washed with the snowfall, standing in Simon's forge. Winter-dimmed, strained in the face and hard around the mouth, but the blustering bellows dance warm, orange light over your skin.
It's what you've needed. Some heat. Should've come to Simon weeks ago. He can press some warmth back into you.
You open your mouth to speak, but Simon hasn't forgotten your last conversation, and it's time you listened to him. "It's because you like blushin' at me, isn't it?" he asks, coming to you where you stand by his work table. "Like lookin' at me. Wonderin' how it would be to have me in your bed and not that tallow-faced lord of yours."
"He's notâ"
"He is. Can't even put a baby in your belly." The keep is dark and quiet in the distance. Only the mice are awake. Even though you don't scream when Simon bullies one paw beneath your cloak, planting his palm on your soft stomach, he doubts anyone would hear if you did. "I can do it, little bird. I can give you a pup, and it won't take me no season either."
You grip his forearm like you're going to push him off, but when your nails sink into the scars and mottled flesh there, you hesitate. Something mercenary sits in your gaze, something hard-won and hewn in ice. No more mischief, just purpose.
Simon's a venal man. What's another ware to be sold?
"I need a son," you say at last. Jaw set, shoulders tight.
Simon was never one who needed to be told twice, and he's held long enough. You squeak when he lifts you, hefting you with hands around your ribcage to be set on his worktable, but don't protest when he undoes the clasp of your cloak. Shoves it off your shoulders to find the thin shift beneath. Diaphanous, flimsyâyour nipples pebble through the linen. You were probably tossing in bed thinking about this, of coming to him in your night things, wondering what he'll do with you.
Brave thing. You're a conscript yet. Simon can't blame you for your means to an end, and this is as sweet a bargain as he's ever struck.
You run trembling hands over his shoulders, as if picturing a child with his build. "A son, blacksmith," you repeat, as if you can speak it into being.
But that's Simon's jobâyou only need to lie there and let him.
"I'll give you one. I'll give you three."
Propped in front of him like a dinner plate, eyes round as the moon, gone is your stiff upper lip. Maybe you thought you'd take it like a soldierâget the job done like farm animals and be back to your soft bed within minutes. You don't know, though, what you owe him. What you've done to him in his thoughts. Simon has a score to settle in your flesh, and a hunger in his belly he intends to sate in your sweat. Made him wait, you did. He's going to savour it.
He slips between your legs, bending down and down to bump your chin with his own. You know your pact. He wants his payment.
The kiss you give him is hesitant, cold lips on a warm, scarred mouth. His melted flesh pulls his lips into a permanent sneer, but you don't seem to mind. It's your tongue, first, which presses into his teeth. Your jaw, first, to pop open, expecting. You taste like the first spring dayâsnow-melt and sunshine, new grass and dripping, shining, iciclesâand you hold him like you're going to blow away in the wind. Tugging at him, his clothes, like you're skinning a deer. Folding stripped flesh over itself to get to the warm, wet muscles beneath, still filled with the blood that made them run.
Your shift is insubstantial, so delicate that Simon could shred it like wet paperâso he does. Rips it down the front in one, great sheer to lay bare the body below that he had been thinking of for months. Months. Wondering what you hid beneath your many layers of wool, how your breath would catch when Simon grabbed heavy handfuls of your curves, picturing sooty handprints marring your pretty dress.
You break the kiss to complain, some indignant protest that falls on deaf ears because Simon isn't listening.
He's looking, swallowing the sight of you so he can never forget the way it felt slipping down his throat. The swell of your breasts, the soft roll of your stomach, the plush give of your thighs, knees knocked wide around his hips. Simon's longed for this painting. His muscles cramped with it.
How dare that lord of yours let you walk the halls of the keep. If you were Simon's, really his, you wouldn't be allowed. He would take you to the woods, the vast, unending forests of the North, where no one could ever find you, and he'd tie you to the bed. Make sure the only thing on your mind is the next time his cock will be seated inside you. Drip honey in your mouth and fill your womb with his seed again, and again, and again.
He has half a mind to do it. Take you. Bring you to a place where you could run for lengths and never come close to another heart beating between the trees.
You're halfway to letting him, he thinks. Dropped back into some primal part of your mind as he lays you back, tools clattering to the floor, and latches his mouth to the soft velvet of your breasts. Everything he does, you react as if it is the first time, and Simon wonders. Wonders if he could mark the warm curves of you, sink his teeth in, take a bite and swallow, and if your lord would ever notice.
Limp, pidgeonhearted lord. Wasting you.
He wouldn't waste you. Thoughts catch like fingers on cliff edges, cock swelling, achingly hard, at you so sweet and fictal looking up at him. He'd crack his ribs open, tuck you there, if he could. Make you sip the air from his lungs, breathe when he breathed. Your years of careful comportment, of being hidden in high towers, crumbling in his palm like white ash.
Simon's never wanted anything like this. His stomach aches. He feels washed away, uprooted, by the wantâvicious and cruel, rearing now after months of suffocation.
The want to raze and build anew.
Simon has a bed, somewhereâa threadbare nest tucked in some cornerâbut he likes you where you are, laid out on his table like another thing to be forged, moulded into whatever he sees fit. You move how he wants, pliable as liquid metal, as sweat blossoms in the dips and wells of your body. He could make you, but you let him. You only falter when he parts your legs and dips his head between them, looking like a filly. New to the world on weak knees. Eyes wide, confused, as he kisses your thighs. You rest your hands protectively in a knot below your navel.
It's a near thing, holding back the sleeping creature within himself. The one that howls to devour, claim, own. But things can be owned in other waysâforever changed, tied to him. Something, finally, for himself. Made to keep.
The first brush of lips against your cunt has you squirming, and he has to hold you down. "Is this ⊠necessary?" you ask.
Simon hooks your legs over his shoulders, opening you up more to him, and his mouth waters. He can feel his cheeks tingling as saliva collects, and he can smell you. Finally close enough to really know. Loam, and lye soap, and the tang of dandelion milk. Gooseflesh blooms in the wake of his searching nose.
"Yes," he tells you.
"No wonder I'm not withchild yet, my husband has neverâoh." A needless sentence, aborted with a bleat as his mouth descends.
Even though you run from him. You're prim and proper about it, hiding sighs behind a furrowed brow and the flit of your fingers. Simon doesn't want the Lady; he wants what he knows is beneath, but he knows he's going to enjoy teasing it out of you. You're jumpy, writhing and twitching, swallowing soft hums and hiccups as Simon parts you with his tongue. Sipping nectar from the source, kitten-licks around your pulsing entrance until he finds the sensitive bud at the apex of you and wraps his lips around it.
Soon, other wetness joins his spit, and your hands leave their knot to scratch against Simon's scalp. Gripping his hair at the root, pushing his face into your bucking hips, and it tastes like victory. Your lord is off conquering a strip of land no one cares about, and Simon is here conquering his wife. Simon can feel the rumble in his own chest as he groans into you.
He pulls back, chin wet, to watch his finger disappear inside you, practically sucking him in as you whine. He'd give up breath to keep tasting you, to keep your velvet heat under his tongue and feel you pulsing as you're wrung out, but he has to see. Has to witness the crescent of dirt under his nail, the dark lines in his knuckle sinking in. Watch your stomach as it jumps, and your pretty face twisting up. Your walls flutter around him, giving in to his prodding, his petting, until he can slide another inside. And because he's greedy, Simon's tongue follows too. Muscle against muscle, he could drown in you.
Live forever on only this. On your trembling thighs and plaintive cries, nuzzling his ruined nose against your clit until you shout.
Supine, you thrash, limp limbs tensing and releasing like the crash of waves. Like you're scrabbing for purchase in the dark, and only Simon is there to lead you. "Waitâstop," you mewl, voice high and reedy, and Simon haltsâbarely. He doesn't ask why, doesn't trust his voice to be anything but a growl, and he doesn't want to frighten you. Not yet. Not when you're teetering on the edge of where he's taking you.
Tears rim your glossed eyes when you catch his gaze down the line of your body. "I don't know what'sâI feelâ"
Rage and male pride swirl in his chest, a potion he could get drunk on. Ire-honeyed mead his fists could siphon out. Sweet, sweet bird. Poor, mistreated highborn. Simon'll give you a dozen, a score, until you're spent and dazed. Until your eyes can't focus, and the only thing you can say is his name.
"Told you this was necessary, didn't I?" he asks.
You nod, a pout Simon wants to chew off tugging at your lips.
"Then stop whinin'."
You hold his hand through your release, lacing your fingers in his and holding them, locked, to your chest. Your eyes are closed as if in concentration, and Simon can feel your heartbeat against his wrist, thumping in time with your pitiful laments. They pour from your throat as if hooked out, spiralling upward in rungs like a silver-keen melody. It's winsome, how you curl against him, shoulders bowing inward, fingers scrabbling at the singed hair of his forearm. How you clench down on his fingers, still petting inside you, gummy walls pulsing as your muscles tense. Tight as a bowstring, horse tendons dried and twisted, until you're loosed, limp and panting.
Simon's decision is made. It drives into place like a rosehead in his nape, clouted in with your lips on his knuckles. Wrought-iron against bone, muscles making room for rusted metal. Can't pull nails without a fight, not once they've been clenched.
You scrunch your face up when he kisses you afterward, pressing your own taste back into you. He expects you to shy away again. To fawn, coltish and faltering. But you're on him the moment he pulls away, chasing him, sitting up from the table to follow the heat of his torso like you're an early-spring lamb. His tunic, you shove halfway up his chest without a care for the ties, and your nails follow. Clean, shaped things that leave lines in their wake, coaxing Simon's blood to the surfaceâa red bloom on pale flesh and stark, pink scars. Old burns still holding flame inside him.
Perfect, kept teeth sink into the plush of his chest as you tug at his trousers, paw at him, hard and leaking, straining against the fabric, like you can't wait another moment
âand you're his. Another man's wife, traded to him for swords and arms to wield them, but you belong to Simon. From the moment you smiled at him in the courtyard, you did. And not you nor any man could stop him. You mark bites into his skin like you could chew him living, and Simon thinks about making off with you like a monster in the night. Not Beowulf, but Grendel. But no one is nailing his arm to any wall, not when it can slip around the curve of your back and bring you close to him.
You come readily into his hold, trembling legs locking around his hips, fingers letting blood at the back of his neck, as you're carried. Anywhere. Any flat surface Simon can find so he can sit, can hold you fast in his lap and feel you tense atop his thighs. Let you work yourself full of him as the fire spits.
He doesn't know where he lands. Somewhere hay-filled and dusty. He can't stop relishing the feel of you, better than he could've ever conjured in his rotten mutt mind. So fragile, so softâyour ribs give when he presses his palms into them. A thing to protect, or shatter like overheated glass. Because blood-heavy, aching in anticipation, Simon wants to be cruel. Wants to let free the leash, the vice clamped somewhere in his stomach, and see what crawls out the back of his throat. Pour it into you, let your wrangle or succumb. Plant an ugly seed and watch it sprout.
Simon likes the thought of your lord finding out. Of him stitching it together like piecemeal and coming in the night. Likes the thought of grinding his jaw into the anvil. Making his skull into a fine cup.
You buck clumsily in his lap, hunting for friction. Grinding a wet spot into his trousers because he hasn't even freed himself yet. You cease at a growled command and wait so nicely for Simon to pull himself free and line up, even if your brows furrow at the sight of him.
"It will fit?" you ask. It's vulgar, the sight of himâmean and thick and dripping white globs of seed as his fist tightens around the base of himselfânext to you. Shaking thighs and supple flesh, spit and slick dripping down your legs as you hover above. "Riley?"
"Yes, little bird."
"It's only ⊠You're much larger thanâ"
"M'not him, am I?" He wraps his other paw around your nape, bending your neck to make you stare down between your bodies. The two of you watch together as you slowly sink down on him, the angry, red flesh and veins like bruises pushing inside, just past the lip of his crown. You're too tense to allow anything more, strangling him already; he can hardly breathe. "Look."
Your hands grasp at his shoulders, fingers clawing at the flesh and meat there. Can't do that to your lord, Simon thinks. Your husband is made of bones and twine. He can't take the bruises you want to mould into muscle, can't fill you so full you can't even swallow. Simon can just picture him wheezing over you in your marriage bed, you silent and smiling. Nowhere near the creature Simon's madeâthe lap dog panting in his hold.
You need him.
Need him to protect you, someone to cover your whole body with his own until you're not even there. Until nothing can find you. Your lord can't make you safe like that. Simon can.
You suck in gulping breaths like a gaping fish as you lower yourself, squeezing him in steadily. It's velvet heat and mouthwatering pressure all around him that make his thoughts dart like wide-eyed hares. Your forehead slides against his, slick with sweat and the mixed putty of settling ash, and he can taste your lungs on his lips. You grind back and forth as you work him inâtoo fast. Too fervid and impatient, you constrict around him, forcing him in with hurt twisting your pout into a grimace.
"Careful," Simon warns. He moves his grip to your hips to guide you, sliding you up and down his length in slow, shallow dips as you hiccup. "Like this. That's it."
Teaching you how to take him, making you ease him inside because you're too eager to check yourself, choking down pain just to get him in, inâit cracks open something wretched in Simon. It spills like spoiled egg yolk through his chest, dripping through the rungs of his ribcage to dry and split. He wants to pop out every one of your teeth like willow buds and hold them in his cheek. Wants to bite your knuckles into his mouth and feel the bones grind together. He wants. He wants.
You, eyes fastened to the joining of your bodies and none the wiser, spill a warm whine over his mouth. Protesting the pace, you scratch your grievances into his skin.
"Slow at first," he tells you, nipping at the curve of your jaw to quell the ache in his own. "Just this time, little bird."
"No," you complain, pettish and sullen. Sour in your urgency, piqued in your restlessness. "I wantâ"
"Patience," he murmurs, but he can hear the strain in his own voice. Simon's been patient for months. You can weather a palmful of minutes. It's only a blink of time to get you used to his size. Simon's ox-built in all countenance, so it's steady, patient work, but your muscles give to him eventually. Suddenly, he's seated inside you, fully sheathed and struggling for control.
You're a vice around him, battened down like a garrote. He feels smothered, having to clamp down his insides so he doesn't do something awful.
"Can I move?" you plead, ignorant of the maelstrom happening inside his head, his stomach. You plant sweet kisses on his cheeks, the corner of his mouth, supplicating for movement. Supplicating to be eaten.
Simon rolls your flesh under his palms, hobbling his desire with thin-spun thread. "You think of this when he's inside you? Think about if it were me?" he demands, unable to keep the cruelty behind the ladder of his teeth. "I'll show you."
He starts off blunted, keeping his clip deliriously slow, letting you languish in the feel of him dragging inside youâbut that can only go on so long. You cry for him to speed up, to fill you harder, and deeper, more savage, more bruising, and Simon obliges.
And Simon tells himself that thisâsnapping his hips into you, the head of him grinding against the plug of your womb, bullying himself inside again and again as your eyes roll, hands spasmâis for you. That he's freeing the snare, not tying a new one round your twitching ankle. But it's for him. Because maybe Simon likes sweet things because of the opportunity they promise, the chance of ruin. Nothing sweet lives in the world for long, not without interference, and you have so many lights Simon could snuff out
âor fuel. He could make you burn only for him.
A selfish sort of preservation, like a lover's hands kept in milky jars of vinegar.
His back aches with the strain, that old injury born of being bent over anvils for all his life flaring now as he pistons upward, but he's chasing. His own release and yours, hunting oaths and promises and the feel of you coming apart around him. He tucks you against himself, forearms squeezing your torso into his to lock you in place, but also because he cannot fight the instinct that's telling him to hide you away somewhere warm and dark and that might as well be somewhere beside his liver.
Your skin slides against his, your arms, so much smaller than his own, crushed between your chests so all you can do is huff and squeak as he drives out and in and out again. Rude, crudish squelching sounds dance in tandem with your high cries. Simon shoves your head into the crook of his neck, wanting you close to his pulse hammering there, and tilts the angle of his hips so that your sensitive bud grazes his abdomen with every thrust.
His name is a stunted cry whimpered out between heaving breaths as you clench, but it's not the pulse of your walls constricting around him, or the tender way your muscles run taut as you come, that sets his own release spinning. It's the thought of spilling inside you, filling you full and some part of himself taking root there. Of you, raised on silver and grace and careful comportment, letting yourself be bred by a lowborn smith with only the dirt to call his own. Because only he canâand you want only him to.
A lifetime of prudent rearing, unravelled in seconds. You've left the door open
âand a wolf wandered in.
Simon's body draws tight as his hips stutter, settling finally for just badgering the head of himself against your womb as he floods it with his seed. You thrash in his hold, bucking like an ill-tempered mare, at once running and grinding back on him in your own throes. You shake in his hold like a needle clinging to a pine, simpering out your afterglow into the humid heat of his neck. You're both left panting and sticky, the air in the forge suddenly suffocating.
You try to pry yourself from his arms, to sip cool air instead of the steam between you, but Simon grips you fast. "Can't spill a drop, little bird. You're going to sit here until it takes."
You whine, but settle, nuzzling at the strong cut of his jaw in a sated, satisfied way that makes his chest puff up.
You're very good, listening at last. Sitting there with Simon licking the soot and sweat off your skin until, eventually, he grows hard again, still inside you. So Simon flips you over so you're tucked beneath him and he can finally know what your muscles feel like straining below his, and know how you sound begging him to go slow, please. And he doesâtake his time, this go. Drives into you slow and hard until drool and tears slip down the side of your face, and you're begging him instead to fill you again.
You pay with a froth-spit kiss, and take your own price with eight red scratches up the curve of his back.
Simon wraps your cloak around your shoulders for you, fastening the cotton tight together up to your chin, and tells you to move quickly and silently when you return to your rooms. He tells you he will burn your shift, but you leave without ensuring it. Instead, Simon folds the tatters carefully and holds the linen to his nose as he closes his eyesâinhaling steady mouthfuls, looking forward to a dreamless sleep. Ragweed pollen, and sunwarmed skin, and the chimney tar he knows he crushed into you like powdered marigold.
He'll keep the shift.
Rage brews in his stomach at the thought of your lord returning, of him putting his spider hands on you, rubbing smooth palms over your growing belly and demanding the world proclaim what a splendid job he did. Simon tamps down the violence clawing at his throatâsaves it for later, storing it in the cold cellar of his fists.
Yes, he'll keep the shift.
How else will Simon prove to the little lord that you're not his anymore?
Friends with benefits!Simon âGhostâ Riley who wonât look you in the eyes during sex, fucks you in a doggy and pushes your face into the pillow because absolutely no emotion can be involved.
Friends with benefits!Simon âGhostâ Riley who fucks you in missionary, slow and deep, when he comes back from an assignment, forehead pressed to yours, making you hold eye contact with him the entire time because he needs to feel something real.
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