pairing: Simon “Ghost” Riley x fem!reader
words: 3k
tags: death. blood. cannibalism mention. zombies of course. AFAB reader. single dad ghost. there will be sex but it isn’t here yet. slow burn!!! enemies to lovers.
summary: After losing your companions, you run into a skull-masked man and his daughter. They are your last hope for survival.
a/n: I'm sorry lmaooo nine months... hopefully we can finish this thing!
You land hard, elbows hitting the ground with a jolt of pain, but it’s nothing compared to the realization that someone is screaming—Blue is screaming. The heat in your veins fizzles, your heart jolting. Ghost has already sped off toward camp, pulling a knife from his ankle, and you scramble to your feet to follow.
Your movements are clumsy, your mind replaying the last few seconds, searching for any signs of trouble you might have missed. The air is clear, the trees are quiet, the ground is still. Yet, as you weave through the tall grasses that swipe at your ankles, you finally hear it—muffled voices, unmistakably human. They grow sharper with each step you take.
Ghost reaches camp first, stopping in a lethal stance. You roll in just behind him, eyes snapping to where Blue stands behind the fence, alive and aiming one of her dad’s rifles at four strangers. Still dressed in an oversized sleep shirt, she juts the rifle through a gap in the fortification. Two of the strangers are mounted on a brown horse, while the other two flank their sides, backs swollen with rucksacks and chests thick with gear. There is no doubt they have weapons.
"D-don't come any closer or I'll blow your heads off! I mean it!"
“We’re not here to hurt you,” one of them says calmly. A man.
“I don’t care why you’re here! You need to leave before my dad…” Her eyes flicker to you. “Dad!”
When their heads turn in your direction, you waste no time arching the knife over your head. You’re not much without your bow, but this is all you have.
In a split second, your eyes land on the burliest of the group, a man with a boonie hat and a dense, brown beard. He was the one speaking. The leader, maybe. You aim the knife for his head, but before you can throw it, Ghost grabs your wrist, wrenching you to his chest without warning, the knife falling to the ground.
"Wait," he says in your ear, his breath steady against your skin. There’s a detectable lilt of surprise in his voice. You try to squirm free, but he holds tight. "Stay here."
He lets go. Confusion reels through you. Everything in you screams to pick up the knife, but you hesitate as Ghost signals for Blue to lower the gun.
He calmly walks over to the intruders, heading to the man you were aiming for. The air feels thick as you watch with parted lips, stance still readied and breath racing. Ghost stops in front of him, and the two stare at each other strangely before the man smiles.
A strong hand reaches for Ghost’s shoulder.
“It’s good to see you, Simon.”
---
The clanking of metal against ceramic plates and the low murmurs of a fire fill the cabin.
Your spine presses into the wall.
There isn’t a free chair at the table, but you’re not sure you’d sit in one even if there was. Blue stands beside you, hands laced in front of her. She’s silent. You are, too. The cabin feels cramped with seven people in it. It makes your skin itch.
You can inspect them more thoroughly now that you’re not thinking about who to kill first.
There are two men—the older one you believe Ghost called Price, and a younger one you think he called Kyle. He’s fine-looking, you figure, underneath the overgrowth of facial hair and grime smudged on his dark skin. He had a tan cap on earlier but now a head of short, black hair is free for him to slick fingers through every now and then. Then there is a woman, some years older than you. She’s beautiful in a raw, Grecian sort of way, with long black hair and a violet undertone to her skin. Lastly, a boy, maybe twelve or thirteen. It doesn't take much to discern he is related to Kyle in some way.
They all look starving, though not as much as you once were. Nevertheless, Ghost is feeding them more than scraps. Canned beans, rice, and rabbit. They shovel it into their mouths. The men have muscles on them, so they can’t have been struggling much. Based on all the supplies they carry and the horse tied to a tree outside, you’ve figured they’ve been traveling for some time. A flurry of questions runs through your brain, but your lips remain in a tight line.
Ghost hasn’t said much yet. He hasn't even explained who they are. Your slitted eyes flicker to him. While the strangers fill up the table, he hovers beside it. His body speaks more than his expression. His shoulders are not tense and lethal as they'd been when you first sat at that table scarfing down food. But they're not relaxed, either; his arms crossed, still exposed from the black tee he'd put on for training, giving way to the slight flexes in his corded muscles that signal even he is thrown off by their presence.
But he trusts them enough to let them in here. With the way they carry themselves, and the fact that Ghost hasn't killed them, they must've been in the military together. He doesn't seem like the type to have had normal friends.
Kyle speaks first.
He thrums the pads of his fingertips against the wood and clears his throat, breaking your thoughts. "We were hoping you'd still be here, but it was a shot in the dark."
"I’ve never left," Ghost says, plainly.
Kyle sips from his mug and wipes his mouth, then his eyes flash in your direction. Your muscles stiffen and you meet his gaze with a hardened look.
"We're sorry for scaring you."
It takes a moment to realize his words aren't for you. Blue glances to her toes. "I wasn't scared."
His lips lift. "Of course not. It's us who should've been scared of crossing paths with Simon Riley's kid. You did the right thing, you know. Protecting yourself."
"I didn't realize you knew my dad." She nibbles her lip and looks up. "My name is Blue, by the way. And this is..." Her eyes flick to you. "My friend, Twix."
Your tongue pokes your cheek as you look over the new faces. What are you supposed to say?
"Hi," is all you settle on.
Ghost clears his throat. "Kid, why don't you clean some more water for them."
Blue nods dutifully, lingering only a second before pouring more river water into the pot over the fire.
"It's a strong setup you've made for yourself," Price speaks, one hand stroking his beard while he pushes the cleared plate away with the other. He leans back, boonie hat still cradling his head and casting a shadow over his eyes, but you catch a glimpse of warm brown irises that might've comforted you in any other circumstance.
"It's lasted me this long." Ghost shifts his weight slightly. "Where are you coming from?"
"Near the base by the border, further north."
"Last I heard you were in Manchester."
"Once the radios went out, we picked up my wife," he touches the woman's shoulder, "Neraida, and Kyle's nephew here, Ari, from Newcastle. Made camp with a few others. Served us well for the past five years."
Ghost slowly nods and then drawls, "And Soap?”
Price leans his forearms on the table. "Not quite sure. The base was falling apart, but he stayed back, saying he'd meet up with us once he could. That was five years ago."
You're not sure who Soap is, someone else they worked with, maybe. There is a brief pause before Ghost asks, "Why did you leave?"
"More and more of 'em, Simon," Price replies with a slight shake of his head, emitting a low breath. "Made it difficult to even get food."
"Too many of them, not enough of us," Nereida murmurs. Tired. Distant. Her hand slips under the table, out of view. You imagine it resting on Price's thigh as she leans into him with a weighted sigh. "They always seem to be moving. Not with a destination in mind, of course, but it was only a matter of time before they ruined our setup. We decided to leave before that could happen."
Kyles adds, "It wasn't an easy decision, but living in anticipation of the worst isn't really living at all."
Your brows lower. “Where exactly could you be headed that wouldn't mean living in anticipation of the worst?” you can't stop yourself from asking, the question burning in your mind.
Price leans back, those warm brown eyes finding yours. A short heartbeat passes before he answers simply, "Switzerland."
The absurdity of that single word response forces a disbelieving, chuffed breath through your nose. Of all the things this stranger could have said, that would have to be the least expected. You anticipate an equally surprised reaction from Ghost, but he seems unnervingly unfazed. Blue, however, swivels her head from where she sits cross-legged in front of the fire.
"What the fuck is Switzerland?"
"It's another country," the boy—Ari—answers.
Blue glances between him and her dad. "Like... not in England?"
Ari snorts softly. "No, not in England. It's across the channel."
"The channel?" Blue frowns. "That's... far, isn't it?"
"Very far," Nereida confirms with a nod.
The subject is brusquely dropped when Ghost suddenly rises, reaching for their cleared plates. "You must want to bathe while you're here. There's a river nearby."
Price clears his throat. "These two can go first." He gestures to the woman and child.
Soon enough, you become irritatingly aware of what's happening; you're being shooed away, along with the kids and Nereida, so the three of them can speak privately. There isn't much room to object as you shuffle out of the cabin, carrying a handful of rags for them to wash with along with the homemade soap that you once used to wash away the grime and earth that caked up from traveling.
The sun beats hard, the river warmer now that spring has aged. Dried sweat clings to your spine from this morning, but bathing yourself is the last thing on your mind now, not when you're still reeling in the presence of people you don't know. You swing a glance at the cabin behind your shoulder, something in your gut twisting. Ghost doesn't want you there to hear whatever they're talking about. The thought eats at you.
"This is a good spot," Blue says, stopping in front of a shallow part of the bank where the water is warmest. She hands Ari some soap and teeters on her toes. You realize why she keeps staring at him like that; he's probably the only other kid she's met in years. She is even more shy than when she first met you. "Twix and I will look away, don't worry."
You and Blue sit perched on a rock as they wash themselves.
"This is weird," she admits quietly to you.
"Very," you mumble.
When they're done, you offer Nereida the only clean clothes you have at the moment: one of the oversized shirts Ghost gave you and some jeans. An annoyingly strange thought brandishes your brain... you don't like the way the black fabric sits on her bare chest, nipples poking through, and the hem hanging down to her knees as it does on you. You should've just given her the dirty blouse to wear.
She sits at the edge of the river, wringing her soaked hair with a rag. From the corner of your eye, you catch Blue helping Ari rinse his dirty clothes in the water. You want to keep an eye on him; your knife is still nestled around your ankle in case they try anything, though a woman and preteen don't heighten your paranoia as much.
"How long have you two been together?"
Her soft voice makes you blink. "What?"
"You and Simon."
You're utterly confused until you recall the revelation from earlier—the man you've known the past few months as Ghost, the one whose hard form laid beneath you just hours ago, is actually Simon. Simon Riley. You're tempted to say the name; try it out. But it is hard to reconcile with. It might taste strange on your tongue. The name fits a version of him that doesn't exist in this world now, you suppose. British. Simple. Like John or Kyle. The name of a lieutenant. The bits of his face you've witnessed crosses your mind; his nose, lips, and chin seem like Simon. The damn mask is Ghost, though.
"Jesus... I am not—" You shake your head, the sun even hotter on your neck. "I'm not with him like that. We're just allies." You glance back at the cabin in the distance and you fight a scowl. "If that."
She runs her fingers through ravenous tendrils. "Oh. I apologize for assuming."
You offer a small smile. "It's fine."
"How long have you been staying here then?"
"Um, a few months now." It's weird, talking to a normal adult for the first time in awhile. Socializing—you used to be good at it. You had plenty of female friends. And yet, you search your brain for something to fill the awkward pause. "I... I used to stay with my sister and a friend, but they died."
Her eyes soften. "I'm sorry for your loss."
You shrug. "Everyone has lost important people."
"Doesn't make it easier," she says. "Ari's mom and younger sister used to be with us," she adds quietly with a solemn downward cast of her eyes, as if a memory has taken her for a moment. "They passed two years ago during a really rough winter along with this other couple we knew. Then it was just the four of us."
You inhale through your nose and release, frowning. "No child should have to experience that."
"No," she agrees, nodding. "They shouldn't. Which is why we're looking for a better life for him."
"And you think you'll find it in... Switzerland."
Nereida offers a half-smile, as if reading your thoughts. "We'd heard of a commune there, up in the mountains."
"A commune? Like what, a town?" The idea has occurred to yo once or twice over the years; if there might be any towns or communities somehow safe from the infection, but the constraint of resources always erased the possibility from your mind.
"Sort of. Just... more people, living together. Protected. Greys make awful climbers, and the mountains there are much higher than anything in the UK."
This catches your attention, and the divot between your brows deepens. "How do you know it exists?"
"Well, we can't know for certain. John heard about it at the beginning of the spread, but it was too difficult to make arrangements at the time, especially when he had to help out at the medical site and then come find me. Things were a mess, I'm sure you remember."
"Yeah, I do." You reel in her words, thinking. "That was... years ago, though. Aren't you taking a huge risk going there now? What if nothing is there?"
"Staying in England would be a risk, too," she counters. "There is nothing here except death and hardship. You can't hide from it forever."
Her words burrow deep into you during the walk back.
Is that what the Ghost is talking about with them?
Did he know about this place, too?
You think back to the kayak you spotted in the back of his truck, and the Plan B that you know he has despite never sharing it with you. You want to ask. But it's hard to catch him alone, not with them here. It's impossible to stay out of your thoughts, not even by the time the spring sky blackens and Ghost sets up blankets for the visitors on the cabin's floor.
You offer Ari the couch, figuring an exhausted kid needs it more than you do. He knocks out the moment he lays down.
"Here. For the night." Ghost offers you a heavy blanket and nods to the only bare spot of floor left after they've all settled down.
You avoid his eyes and accept the blanket with a quiet thanks. The moment he's disappeared to his room, you slip outside under the starlit night, finding the flattest patch of ground to lay the blanket down, which happens to be only a few paces away from a sleeping horse. It's not the couch, but it'll do for a night or two, and you refuse to sleep in the shed again.
You're in the midst of standing back up after straightening out your makeshift bed when you bump into something solid. A hand grips your bicep and whirls you around, a pair of darkened eyes glowering down at you.
"What are you doing?" you breathe up at him. "I don't like when you grab me like that."
"What are you doing?" he retorts, voice low and hard.
"Trying to get some sleep."
"Out here?"
You look away and shimmy out of his hold. "Does it matter where I sleep?"
"It's not safe out here."
"You had no problem sending me out here before."
"You have since earned your keep," he mutters, as if annoyed you're even mentioning the past.
"My spot is taken for the night by your lovely friends, so for however long you plan to let them stay, I will sleep out here."
"There is a spot on the floor for you inside."
"I'm not sleeping in there." With them.
His tone softens perceptibly. A mere breath. "They won't hurt you, Twix."
You roll your eyes away from him. "I would just rather sleep out here by myself, okay? I prefer solitude at my most vulnerable. And it's not like my experiences with militant men have been pleasant so far." You hide a wince.
Ghost emits a low huff. There is a long stretch of nothing else said, and you figure he's conceded, until he suddenly rips the blanket from the ground and turns his back to you. "What are you doing?" you gape.
Pairings: John Price / Simon "Ghost" Riley / Fem!Reader / Johnny "Soap" MacTavish
Content Warnings: Voyeurism, mentioned exhibitionism, she/her pronouns used for reader
Word Count: 1.1k
A/N: Shorter fic this time-I've got a longer one in the works tho!
Also-If anyone has any fic suggestions PLEASE tell me and i'll try my best xoxo
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“She wanted to show off for you, Cap.”
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John Price knew what his boys got up to in their spare time. He didn’t have to be told-he saw how they looked at each other, how they’d cuddled up to each other in the back of the van when they thought no one was looking, how they’d instantly look at each other at the mention of an “early finish.” He knew what they got up to. Not that he cared-he loved his lads like they were family. He’d shot enough evil glares at anyone who dared to criticize or gossip about the two. But what he didn’t know was how they’d managed to pick up you. The pretty little thing he’d seen clutching Johnny’s arm when they went to the pub, with the most beautiful eyes. He was happy for his lads-how they’d found home in each other, but God his eyes were drawn to you. Your perfect curves, your breasts (even if it made him feel like a dick), and your eyes. He could envision them looking up at him through those beautiful lashes, lips wrapped around his cock.
He felt terrible about it. The lads obviously liked you a lot, and you’d been nothing but nice to him. And here he was-fantasizing about you. He’d often find himself getting off to you, wearing whatever tight little dress he’d seen you in. Cock in hand, imagining it was your mouth he was fucking. Nearly every night he’d flick through the selfies he’d gotten from MacTavish, nearly every photo including you.
And then another notification came through-a photo, as usual. But it wasn’t the usual jokey selfie-which usually included you draped over the lads in some sort of way. This was different. This photo was…new. Evidently Ghost’s hands-based on the glove-tilting your face up by the chin, with your big, beautiful eyes staring into the camera. Eyes lidded every so slightly, with a blissed out look on your face. God you looked perfect.
He hadn’t realized how long he’d been staring at that picture, his cock already stiffening in his trousers, until the next one came through. He exhaled sharply through his nose, gripping the arm of the chair a lot tighter than he had previously. It was like he could feel all the blood in his body rushing down, as he caught sight of you in the photo. Ass up in the air, face down in the pillow. Ghost’s hands were clearly holding your hands behind your back, and your pussy was barely covered by the lacy piece of string you called a thong.
“She wanted to show off for you Cap.” The text read, and Price sucked in a breath. His hand swiftly reached down to palm his now painfully hard cock through his trousers. He could just imagine slipping his fingers inside you-finding that sweet spot deep inside you that would make your toes curl.
His fingers were pressing the call button before he knew what he was doing.
“Evening Captain. To what do we owe the honor?” Johnny’s voice rang out, sounding slightly too amused with himself.
“Photos, MacTavish. What was up with that?” Price asked, his voice catching in his throat slightly at Johnny’s ever so evil chuckle.
Price swears he can hear the plot in Johnny’s head as he spoke, the soft rustling of the duvet giving away where exactly he was. “Why don’t I put her on the phone for you?”
————————————————————————
You could barely think-but somehow managed to pull yourself together enough to take the phone off of Johnny. “He-Hey John!” You squeaked out, instantly covering your mouth to conceal the moan that dared to try to escape your lips. Ghost’s hands gripped your hips, fucking into you at such speed you wondered how his knees didn’t give out, with his cock hitting that sweet spongy part deep inside you.
“Heard you wanted to show off for me, love?” His voice rumbled through the phone, dark and smooth like a good whiskey. That teasing tone, the soft chuckle in his words, it was enough to send a shiver down your spine. “Go on then. Talk to me.”
At that, Ghost picked up the pace, hands gripping the flesh of your hip so tight you were sure it would leave bruises. “Is he making you feel good, love? Making your legs shake?” You inhaled a strangled gasp, biting your lower lip slightly.
“Asked you a question.”
Ye-ah-” You whined, bucking your hips back against Ghost. Something about having Price on the phone, with Ghost fucking you like his life depended on it, and Johnny watching from the corner-it felt so dirty. But so good. “Need-need to cum-”
“I know you do, love. Gonna cum for me?” Ghost’s hands found your clit, earning a string of moans out of you.
“Yeah she is-can feel her squeezing around me. So fucking tight-and wet-” Ghost’s thrusts grew staggered, his hips slamming into yours. You didn’t care to be quiet anymore, there was no point.
————————————————————————
John already knew what was going on. He’d known before he’d called. He knew when he called that you’d be on your back-but he hadn’t expected to be listening. It felt dirty. But God the way your sweet little moans had him gripping his aching cock, and his head tossed back over the chair. Bucking his hips up into his hand, imagining he was fucking your soft little cunt.
“Gonna cum for me?” He’d asked-and the gasps and moans he got in return had him gasping for breath.
“I know you need it, love.” He murmured into the phone, trying his hardest not to cum before you. “Be a good girl and cum for me.” He needed to hear you cum. To hear those gorgeous gasps as you came on his Lieutenant’s cock, imagining he was the one balls deep inside you. “Come on, love, cum for me.”
And the shuddering moans he received was enough for him to spill over his hand. Panting heavily-he was barely aware enough to hear Ghost’s cursing gasps as he followed.
“Enjoyed the show then, Captain?” Johnny’s voice was back, sounding equally out of breath as the rest of them. “Should’ve seen it in person-she played such a good girl when you got on the phone.” His words sent another shudder down his back.
“You knew then?”
“Had a hunch. Couldn’t keep your eyes off of her.” Price groaned as his hand-the clean one-came up to cover his face. He’d been that obvious. The whole time.
“Don’t worry lad-she’s already eager to see you again. I’m always down for a good show-and Simon’s pretty interested in seeing how she’d take both of you.”
Well shit. The next pub meet was going to go very well for him.
Pairings : Johnny “Soap” Mactavish / Fem!Reader / Simon “Ghost” Riley Content Warnings : PIV Sex, Oral (Fem receiving) Voyeurism, She/Her pronouns used, [slut] used, praise Word Count: 3K A/N: This is my first time actually posting my writing-thank you SO much for reading xoxo
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“You want me…to fuck your best friend?”
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You almost dropped the dish you were scrubbing and looked over at your boyfriend in disbelief. Did he seriously just ask that, like it was nothing?
“What?” By the look on his face, you wondered if you’d misheard him. That was the face of someone asking what you wanted for dinner, or if you’d taken the bins out.
“What’d you say Johnny?” You asked, letting the plate fall softly back into the soap(hah funny) filled water.
“Simon. Think you’d ever fuck him?” He barely looked up from his phone, letting his arm drape lazily over the back of your well-loved sofa. It wasn’t your hearing messing up-he’d actually said that. You faltered slightly, turning around to look at your boyfriend.
“I mean-Johnny where’s this coming from?” You asked hesitantly. Johnny had never been an insecure boyfriend-he’d proudly show you off to his friends at any given chance. You’d be the one to choose the less revealing outfits, he was just so desperate to show his friends how lucky he got.
“He’s been in a bad mood lately. ‘Think he needs a good fuck.” Johnny finally met your gaze, placing his phone down on the console table to give you his full attention. “I haven’t said anything yet-not to him.” He clarified, clearing his throat as he spoke. ”I trust him to not be a stupid bastard-most of the time-and, you know, he’s not a bad looker-“
“You want me…to fuck your best friend?” You cut him off, a shocked look on your face. You hadn’t thought about it before, hell, Johnny hadn’t brought it up before. You’d never really thought of Simon in that way, the man that managed to darken any doorway with his sheer presence. The man with eyes so deep you could spend days exploring them. The man who never gave away so much as a hint of who he really was-the man who you could spend hours interrogating and all you’d get was a migraine.
“I mean, yeah? Only if you want to hen, completely up to you.” His words were gentle, not pushy or pressuring, but a question. “I’d be in the room with you, right next to you if you wanted. And it’s Simon-not just anyone, Si-“
“I’ll do it.” You answered-suddenly quite sure of yourself. You’d had sex with people other than Johnny, sure, but never whilst you were dating anyone. It was new, that’s for sure, but was new necessarily bad? Johnny would be right there-he said so, and it was Simon. You’d met him countless times. And he was Johnny’s best friend-his brother in arms.
“Grand, I’ll shoot him a message.”
————————————————————————-
Three days has passed since Johnny had sent the message, and all you’d got in response was “Ok.”.
You opened the door, expecting your shopping, and was instead met with the wall that was Simon. You felt warmth creep up your neck to your face as it dawned on you. Today was the day. What felt like minutes passed, and you were still stood in the doorway.
“Am I coming in?” His gruff voice asked, placing a gloved hand on the doorframe. You quickly moved to the side, and he walked his way in. “So we’re doin’ this?”
“Ah-yeah! You can still back ou-“
“No.” He cut you off, turning back to meet your gaze with those explorer worthy eyes. “I want to.” You just nodded, glancing back to wonder how a man could spend so long in the bathroom.
Johnny welcomed Simon soon after, pulling him into a hug, before leading him to the sofa. Unsure of how exactly this was going to go, you stood beside your boyfriend, letting a hand rest on his shoulder for comfort.
“Come sit down lass.” Johnny murmured, pulling you onto his lap as he continued talking to Simon about when they were next needed on base, the gentle rhythm of his finger gently stroking your thigh easing the building anxiety of what was to come.
“We doin’ this?” You glanced over at Simon’s sudden words, and caught sight of the small grin that had appeared on your boyfriend’s face. “Hope it’s not too..err..rushed-I assume Johnny already made out that I was some sex starved bastard.” Johnny snorted at that, his light strokes on your thigh soon turned into him gripping it tight, his fingers digging into the flesh of your thigh.
“Bit eager to fuck my girl, aren’t you Simon?” His grip stayed firm, almost holding you in place on his lap.
“Never said I wasn’t, Johnny.” Simon retaliated, his gaze staying fixed on you, those blue eyes meeting your gaze beneath his ever so familiar mask.
“Ready hen?” You barely had time to choke out a small “Yes” before Johnny was lifting you up, and carrying you into your shared bedroom.
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You were used to the familiar sense of Johnny tossing you onto the bed with the greed of a starved man entering a banquet, but this time he ever so gently placed you down.
His gaze turned to face the shadow darkening your door frame, and spoke firmly. “Traffic lights rule apply-Green for go, amber for slow down, red for stop.” He shifted his body so he was facing you, his perfectly blue eyes meeting your gaze. “You still wanna do this? You can back out anytime lovie-mean it. He won’t be mad-neither will I.” His tone was gentle, but firm in a way that evidenced he meant what he said. You met his lips with yours, planting a soft kiss on his.
“I know. I want to.” And you did. Three days had passed-but it had been on your mind. How Simon would be the one to fuck you. How the hands you’d ever only seen gloved would be all over you. You’d wondered how he’d fuck you-would he be gentle? All soft words and soft hands. Would he be rough? Moving you around as if you weighed nothing, whispering harsh words into your ear as he ravaged you. It was enough to get you flushed in bed, lying next to Johnny.
“Don’t just stand there then Simon-not when she’s already on the bed, looking this pretty for you.” Johnny sat down in the corner chair, his gaze never leaving Simon-as he watched him slowly walk up to the bed.
You’d never considered the size difference before this. Johnny was tall, yes, but Simon was big. He easily towered over you, even when he crawled onto the bed, right by your legs.
His hands slowly met your legs, and a shiver ran down your spine. Even with those gloves on, you could still feel the heat radiating from his body, a stark contrast to how cold you felt. Gently pushing your legs to the side-his eyes never leaving yours, searching for any hint of discomfort-he settled in between them, blocking out the brightness from the ceiling light.
His hands continued their wander, up your lower legs, over your knees, and settled on your thighs. “This okay?” His rough voice asked, and you nodded. “Need an answer, I asked you a question, didn’t I?” You hadn’t expected him to sound so assertive, sending a shiver down your spine.
“Yeah-Yeah that’s okay.” You murmured, keeping your gaze on his masked face.
“Good.” His hands continued their journey, ending up on your waist, just under your shirt. “Want to lose this?” He gently teased the seam of your shirt, and you nodded once more. “Gotta speak up for me lovie.”
Once you’d consented, he carefully supported your back up, and lifted your shirt over your head.
“Fuck, you’re beautiful.” He murmured-quiet enough that maybe you weren’t supposed to hear. His gloved hands ran up your torso,
thumbs gentry stroking the skin just under your bra-wire. You sat up, gently moving him off you to reach behind your back. Simon scooted back, confused at first and searching for the uncertainty in your eyes. But when your bra fell forward, and you tossed it off the bed, his eye lit up. “So eager for me..” He murmured, lunging forward with his mouth stopping just over your nipple.
“Okay?”
“Yeah.” You murmured, taking a deep breath when you realised what he was about to do.
Barely waiting a second after you answered, he reached up to lift the mask onto his nose, revealing his scarred mouth. In an instant, his mouth was on your nipple, licking and sucking on it as if he would never be able to again. One of his hands moved to tease your other nipple-drawing a soft, desperate sound out of you. He captures it between his thumb and forefinger, pinching slightly to harden it between his fingers.
Desperate to pull that beautiful sound out of you again, he swapped over, palming your now damn breast with the gloved palm of his hand. “Such pretty fucking tits.”
“Aren’t they just?” Johnny’s voice chimed in, and your gaze turned to him. He got up out of his chair, and strode over to the bed. Crouching beside you, he planted a soft kiss on your lips. “Keep looking at him hen-keep those pretty eyes on him.” You nodded, turning your gaze back to Simon, and found his eyes staring up into yours. You’d never seen him so blissed before, suckling on your tit like he’d never see one again.
“You like that, eh? Having my best friends hands on you, teasing you, touching you?” Johnny murmured in your ear, and turned your face back when you went to look at him. “What did I say? Eyes on him.”
All you could do was let out a pretty whine when he pinched your nipple between his finger-sending jolts of pleasure down to your cunt, and earning a sharp inhale from Simon.
“She liked that, didn’t she L.T?”
Simon lifted his head, palming your breasts with his hands.
“You want some more hen? Is that it?” Your boyfriend murmured, and Simon’s hands slid off your tits, and down your torso until they rested on your hips. He-awkwardly-shuffled down the bed, until his head rested on your thigh.
“Are we losing these?” Simon murmured, his fingers resting on the hem of your shorts.
“Please…Simon..” You gasped, watching the small smirk appear on his face.
“So sweet for me-aren’t ya?” He breathed, gently pulling down your shorts and panties until you could kick them off.
“She’s awful sweet when she wants to get fucked.” Johnny chuckled, his hand on the back of your head to force your gaze down to Simon.
“All this, just from me worshiping those pretty tits?” You instinctively went to close your thighs, but his hands pushed them back open. “I’m not hearing red.” Simon’s eyes went up to meet yours, as he licked the first stipe up your folds.
You swear you met God.
A soft whine escaped your lips and the vibrations of his low chuckle ran up your spine. “So fucking sensitive-aren’t you?” You watched his eyes flutter shut as he darted his tongue over your bundle of nerves, and you couldn’t help but arch your hips into him.
Simon ate pussy like it was his last meal. He wasn’t sloppy, but you were sure the combined effort of his saliva and your wetness had made you a sopping mess for him. His hands left your inner thighs-and you didn’t quite understand why until you felt his thumb circling your clit. One gloved hand rested on your lower stomach, as you bucked your hips into his face. “Yeah-you’re real sensitive.” He murmured, his mouth taking over from his thumb, making what you assumed was a figure of eight over your clit.
With the ungloved hand-his middle finger gently teased your hole, until he pushed it inside to gently begin fucking you on his finger.
You definitely met God.
You should’ve guessed his hands would be thick-he was huge-but this was something else.
“You like that, hen? Knowing that my best friend is knuckle deep inside you, fingerfucking you.” Johnny whispered in your ear, planting soft kisses on the underside of your jaw. ”You love this. Knowing that whilst I’m planting kisses here-Simon is worshiping your drenched cunt.”
You bit your lip to stifle the gasps and whines that threatened to escaped, when something else pressed against your lips.
“Open.” Johnny murmured, and you tasted leather. Simon’s glove. “Bite down.” And you did-eyes rolling back as Simon added another finger inside you, stretching you.
“Ain’t that a sight L.T? These beautiful fucking tits, hard and wet, and her face blissed out whilst she has to bite down on your glove.”
You swear you heard Simon groan at the sight, increasing the speed of his hand, as his thumb found your clit again. Your back arched up at the sensation, and you heard him chuckle.
“Squeezing my fingers so fucking tight-you gonna cum? Going to cum on my fucking fingers?” All he got in response was your stifled whines, your gaze still meeting his. It was too much and not enough at the same time-your hips rocked against his hand, and the way his thumb drew circles on your clit had that tight knot inside you tightening, and tightening.
“C’mon lovie-cum for me.”
And all at once you felt that knot unravel-and you were soaring off the cliff. Simon’s hands gripped your shaking thighs, fingerfucking you through your orgasm. “Oh good girl…was that good? Looked so fucking good, didn’t she Johnny?” Simon murmured, planting soft kisses on your inner thighs.
“Looked beautiful hen.”
“Gonna let me fuck you doll?” Simon groaned, pulling his fingers free from your dripping wet pussy. “Gonna let me fuck you senseless, until you can’t even think?”
“Mmph-please Si..-“ You whined around his glove, clenching around nothing. Johnny chuckled, tilting your head up to face him. “Real fucking polite for someone fucking their boyfriends best friend.” He teased, forcing your head to look back at Simon.
You’d imagined a lot about this moment, but what you hadn’t considered was his size. Johnny was big, but Simon was huge. Uncut, and tilting slightly upwards, and perfect.
“God she’s drooling over it L.T.” Your boyfriend cooed, a small chuckle escaping his lips. “Drooling all over that fucking glove.”
Simon crawled up the bed until he was kneeling between your legs, the tip of his cock just ghosting over your pussy. “It’ll hurt for a bit lovie, but I know you can take it. Red and we stop.” His hands gripped your hips, digging into the flesh hard enough you were sure it’d bruise. He was gentle at first-pulling your hips close so he could push in. The moan that escaped around the glove was downright dirty, but you kept your gaze on him.
It took a while, and patience, but he bottomed out inside you, his hips flushed against yours. And the filthy moan that shuddered out of him was incredible.
“Just gonna sit there Simon?” Johnny teased, and was met with a stern glare.
“Recalculating Johnny. Didn’t realise how fucking-Jesus-tight she’d be.” He panted, pulling out nearly completely, before thrusting back in. “And so-so fucking warm.” He gasped, shuddering slightly as he thrust into you once more.
“Taking him so well hen, isn’t she Simon?” Johnny cooed in your ear, his hand resting on your throat.
“So-so fucking good.” Simon uttered back, getting a firmer grip on your hips as he picked up a regular pace.
“Such a good little slut for us, fucking my best friend whilst I watch.”
Simon let out a breathtakingly beautiful moan at that word-his head falling back slightly. “She-she fucking squeezed me Johnny.”
“She likes being a slut, don’t you hen? A little slut that gets fucked.” Your boyfriend chuckled, and Simon picked the pace up.
“Is-is that it? You like being fucked?” Simon groaned, drawing a string of moans to escape your lips as he picked up the pace. “Yeah you do-you love having your boyfriend watch you fuck someone else.”
His fingers found your clit again-and your legs instinctively squeezed around his waist. “Atta-fucking-girl.” Simon growled, the one hand gripping your waist moving to rest just over your collarbones. “Like that? Like having someone tower over you whilst they fuck you into the mattress?” He leaned over you completely, his head resting in the crook of your neck to leave open mouthed kisses.
“Gonna cum again? Gonna cum on my cock-yeah, you are.” His voice was rough in your ear, and you felt that knot tightening in your lower abdomen again. “Squeezing me so fucking tight-God you’re so fucking perfect. Wanted to fuck you for ages.” He shuddered, his rhythm faltering slightly. “Every time I saw you-those fucking eyes. Knew I needed them looking up at me as i f-fucked you.”
“Gon-gonna-“ You whined against the glove, no doubt biting through it at this point. And that was it-that knot unraveled once more, leaving your legs trembling around his waist.
“Gonna cum lovie-gonna fuck-fucking-“ He gasped, quickly pulling out as hot cum splashed onto your lower stomach.
It wasn’t until you heard Johnny’s own shuddering gasp that you realised he’d gotten off on this. How you didn’t consider he maybe liked watching, it was unknown.
“Open.” Simon’s gruff voice sounded next to your ear, cleaning the cum off your stomach with his fingers. You obeyed-and his fingers set on the flat of your tongue. You sucked on his fingers-until he pulled them out, and took the glove off of your chest.
“How’d you feel now Simon?” Your boyfriend teased, earning a tired glare from Simon.
“Should be asking her that. She’s been so fucking good for me.” His eyes bore down into yours as he knelt between your trembling thighs.
“Let’s get you cleaned up hen.” And you were scooped off the bed, your boyfriend carrying you into the en suite bathroom.
————————————————————————-
It was gone ten by the time Simon went home, and you’d ended up curled on the sofa with Johnny. “How was that hen?” He murmured, brushing a piece of hair out of your face.
You hummed, looking up at him. “Do you want to do it again sometime?” You asked your boyfriend, his blue eyes meeting yours.
pairing: Simon "Ghost" Riley x fem!reader
words: 3.3k
tags: death. blood. zombies of course. single dad ghost. there will be sex but it isn't here yet.
summary: After losing your companions, you run into a skull-masked man and his daughter. They are your last hope for survival.
a/n: of course i am watching tlou right now so this is what came about in my brain! i can't stop thinking about this story.
The forest is covered in a blanket of white.
You’ve been monitoring the unfamiliar area by the pond for hours. Most of it is half-frozen slush, but there’s enough liquid water left for life to visit. At least, you hope. The brittle cold laced in your bones and the pained hunger in your gut clings to this hope as you wait in position against frayed tree bark.
Desperation has brought you this far into the forest— uncharted territory. The risk is buried beneath the long week you’ve had, days that have blurred together with only death and solitude as the glue between the cracks. You are still alive, somehow. Your blood is still red. It moves. The pulse in your neck— the loudest thing in this forest.
But still, it’s quieting. Slowing.
You drag numb fingers over the bits of snow sticking to your hair, the light flakes feathering down. Then, your hand settles back on the curve of your wooden bow, whittled from oak years ago. Chiseled by hands that belonged to a friend whose corpse you’d left behind. This bow is your only momentum of him, along with the memories. But those memories are turning shallow with each day, killed by starvation. Thirst. Fear.
The clouds above the trees are grey and swollen.
Grey— an in-between color.
Somewhere between white and black, life and death.
You can feel yourself slipping closer to the grey.
Maybe you will be one of them soon— the Greys.
They are the reason for the lack of fresh meat in this forest, man and animal alike, and the reason for the loss of your companions. The smell of their molten flesh, greyed and tattered against rotting bones, has faded from the air the further you have journeyed. Over the years, you’ve grown accustomed to flaring your nostrils in constant search for their scent. Right now, as you keep your eyes on the pond, you don’t bother sniffing for them. If they come, they’ll put an end to your hunger.
There is not even much of you left for a Grey to sink its teeth in. You’ve turned slack and gangly. Your fingers could easily slip between the spaces of your ribs. Clothes hang loosely over your frame— Paul’s frayed winter coat, your sister’s trousers. You’d quickly peeled them off their dead bodies in your fleeing because your own clothes had been torn and doused in blood, unsuitable for the winter.
But that was days ago— now, you barely remember what their dead faces looked like. Grey, maybe. Empty.
Not too different than your own face as you sigh through your nose and dig the tip of your bow into the frost. Only a few hours of daylight remain. You will have to find a tree to sling yourself upon once night falls. That has been your strategy since the loss of your old camp, but you’re not sure how much longer you can keep it up. Climbing the oaks requires fuel.
You swallow the dryness in your throat, thick and tasteless, and listen carefully to the sounds around you: branches in the wind, low whistles, your own heartbeat. And then—
A new sound.
The crackling of snow beneath light footsteps.
Lifting your bow back up, your pained breath quickens in a matter of instinct as you squint through blurred vision. A deer—? You have memorized the sound of their hooves after five years of hunting them. This isn’t it. Maybe it is a lone Grey crawling through the forest towards your scrawny, awaiting flesh.
Your eyes shift around. When you finally spot the owner of the footsteps, shock skips like a stone over the blood in your veins. More than ten meters away stands a child; not too young, not too skinny. Human eyes stare intently into yours, but you keep a strong grip on your bow and take aim.
A child—?
Would your hunger take you there?
Your stomach quivers and howls and chews at its own lining, but even in your desperation, you don’t consider the idea.
You can't.
The child continues to peer at you as you shakily lower the bow. You can’t make out much from this distance, not even gender— all you see is a thick coat on their small shoulders, a hood drawn over their head. When was the last time you had seen someone so young? Children, elderly: they’d been picked off the quickest.
A child could not survive on their own—
In your weakened state, you take a second too long to catch up to this realization.
A burly arm grabs you from behind.
A blade to your throat.
The bow slips from your grip and from your unused larynx, a hoarse scream ripples.
The end came on a day of homemade marmalade and Hemingway. The morning started quietly at your sister’s northern property. A quaint house in the suburbs where her son and husband played in the backyard while the two of you spread the jam on slabs of bread. Breakfast was shared between the four of you before their days began. You were visiting. You often did, taking the four-hour bus ride from London in search of a break from tantalizing coursework. Nursing school had been your dream, but it quickly took the form of a nightmare. Their home, their small family— you found sanity in it all.
You ate with them.
Your sister took the boy to school.
Michael promised to bring curry for dinner before he left for work.
In the quiet house, you cleaned for them. You didn’t know what would happen that day as you folded their laundry and stacked toys in the bins. At noon, the neighbor you knew to be Paul knocked at the door.
“You’re her sister, right?”
He was kind-eyed and of retirement age, yet thick-boned and strong. You’d heard a few stories about the gestures he sprinkled their household with in the loneliness since his wife’s passing. On that day, he offered you a stack of books as you propped the door open. All Hemingway.
“Dropping these off for Michael. He said he was a fan.”
“I’ll make sure they get to him, thanks.”
It was funny how the end of society could bring unlikely souls into collision. When everything cracked later that afternoon, Paul would become the reason for five years worth of your survival. It started with another knock on the door— but this time, Paul knocked with grave urgency. You had paused from cleaning after his first visit. You sat on the couch with A Farewell to Arms in your grip, but when you opened the door for him again, your finger parting your place among the pages, his words caused the book to slip from your hand to the floor.
“Call your sister— Michael, both of them.”
“I— I don’t understand. Who said all this?”
“The news. Fuck— have you not been listening for the past hour?”
You called your sister with fingers that trembled. She panicked on the other end: I'm driving home with Joseph right now and the streets are insane. I can’t even get a hold of Michael - oh god - try calling him for me?
You tried. He never answered. Your sister returned. The three of you followed Paul. You learned he was an ex forest-ranger. He calmed you through the screams you heard in the distance, through the strewn of bodies that began to litter the roads. Some sliced in half, crawling. Cars battered into each other.
“They’re coming from the city.”
He packed a bag. It was a flurry. Your sister carried the weeping boy. Your stomach felt full of acid. Panic. Paul kept a radio on him as you traversed towards the treeline, away from the entanglement of screams and blood and chaos. You overheard some pieces through the static: London was in shambles. The military was closing in on itself.
It is all in the brains. An infection.
Between living and dead.
Grey, grey, grey.
That first week felt like seconds.
Paul took you to a fenced-off parcel of land he owned in the forest; a private shooting range. He only had a few shotguns, outdated. Limited ammo. But he was quick to string tarps along the chain-link fence and add bolted locks to the gate. You helped him pin up two tents. Nailed wood boards to any gaps along the perimeter. You didn’t bring much with you; there hadn’t been time. All you managed was two changes of clothes, a thick coat, canned beans from the pantry, A Farewell to Arms.
You read it ten times over.
Paul did the hunting.
You begged to help, so he made you the bow. The arrows.
He took monthly trips to nearby, abandoned supermarkets.
“Never let anyone into our camp.”
You did well to listen, filling in as the second leader in his absence. Your older sister never did well under stress, never liked the outdoors. She’d lost her husband. A little boy clung to her. You tried to offer quiet comfort to the brokenness of their family, but it was all in vain.
A year.
Only a few hoards of Greys approached the fence. You helped Paul eradicate them. It’s all in their brains. Obliterate the brains.
Two years.
Joseph caught some sickness. Flu, you figured. You did your best with what Paul had picked up from the pharmacies, but you had little to work with. You listened to his wheezing, the dry and insistent cough. The winter didn’t help. Pneumonia.
He died just before his eighth birthday.
Your sister might as well have died that day, too.
She was a ghost for the three years following. You had to force food down her throat. You had to mother her, nurse her grief. Until the fifth winter, when the deer began to diminish. Their carcasses sprung up like daisies in the nearby wood. Eaten and gnawed by encroaching Greys, the smell of spilled blood and their own rotting stench attracted more and more of them from the distant city.
There were just too many for your handmade arrows and Paul’s shotgun. He ran out of ammo. The fence and tarp and wood did little against the coalesced wave of them that finally scraggled over it with moaned hisses and mindless teeth.
You watched them consume your sister.
Then, Paul.
You lived. You ran.
A week.
You slept up in the trees.
You had a knife. Your bow. You whittled more arrows.
Alive.
But barely.
The strong arm cages your body against something hard— a chest. The blade on your neck is icier than the air and it stings and burns with a threat that instantly has you squirming in the owner’s hold.
“Stop movin’ or I’ll fucking kill you.”
It is a gruff, quiet threat in your ear accompanied by a heated breath. Your eyes fill with moisture and you gasp for panicked gulps of air. You lift your hands up to the arm that holds you and attempt to claw at it feebly because your muscles, at this point, are nothing but hungered dust.
“I said stop movin’.”
A growl.
He presses the knife harder against your throat until you feel the skin prickle. The man behind you doesn’t need to step before your eyes in order to make his strength and size known. It is apparent in how easily he restrains you. You understand you have no chance— though, you’re certain even a child could pin you. Bony hands drop to your sides and you turn limp and helpless against him.
“This is my territory.”
“I didn't know anyone was here,” you hiss, voice scratchy. “I’m just passing through.”
His hold has you lifted up to the balls of your feet. The soles of your worn boots hover over crackling snow. There is something hard pressing against the top of your cranium as he lowers his head to utter more words in your ear.
“Give me a reason not to slit your throat.”
Your heart pounds. Adrenaline. A human instinct to survive, even though death is already at your fingertips.
“I’m a nurse,” you half-lie. You never finished. Your credentials are shortened to textbooks and little experience.
“Don’t need a nurse,” he murmurs. “Anythin’ else?”
Words float through the soupy mess that is your brain. It is hard to think. There isn’t a good reason for him not to kill you— you and Paul had to do it a few times before. Other humans could pose even greater threats than the mindless Greys. Humans are smarter. They have something to strive for; something to kill for by all means necessary— survival.
Your failure to respond is cut off by sudden footsteps crunching the ice, as light as a curious rabbit. It's the kid. A young girl you now realize, even through your state of panic. Her cheeks are pale like porcelain under the hood of her coat and her azure eyes observe you from head to toe.
Her lips part, but nothing comes out.
Instead, another growl in your ear.
“I know you have a knife,” he says, tightening his hold until you whimper. “Empty your pockets.”
There is not much room in this situation for you to disobey.
Flushing out your pockets, your nimble hands reveal only a small blade.
“Drop it.”
The knife falls to the ground with a quiet thud, just beside the oak bow. The only two items that have kept you alive for the last week lay in the thin snow. Even if you had the strength or will to fight back, you no longer had the resources to.
“Pick it up, Blue.”
The man behind you nods his chin. The young girl leans down to grab the handle of your knife. She inspects the blade, runs her index gently along the dull edge with her brows furrowed together. She stuffs it somewhere in her coat. Then, she looks back up. She flickers her blue gaze between you and whoever it is that stands behind you.
“So,” he grumbles with a click of his tongue. “Thought of that reason yet?”
You swallow. Then, your throat spasms around a sneer as you say, “This is your kid, isn’t it? Are you really going to kill me in front of your kid? You want her to see that?”
“Nothin’ she hasn’t seen before,” he muses in a dark brass. “Good lesson for her.”
Oh—
Blood chills in your veins.
Freezes over like the nearby pond.
You can’t think of any more words, so it is now that your eyes flutter shut. You seek darkness in preparation for whatever may happen once his knife digs deeper. Death— maybe it’s not so bad. It must be better than whatever it is you have been doing for the past week. Struggling. Life has little meaning at this point, and getting bitten by a Grey seems too transient. Death, on the other hand, will be permanent. Your sister, her family, and many others are waiting for you in the crevices of its darkness.
“Ghost…”
It is a soft voice.
The girl speaks now, and you open your eyes to watch as she nibbles at her lip.
“Ghost, do you have to?” She looks over the length of your body, inspecting it with a softness that is so different from the harsh grip you are locked in. “She's not much of a threat, right? It looks like she hasn’t eaten in days.”
“Told you, Blue.” The gruff voice arrives from over your shoulder. “The hungrier they are, the less you can trust ‘em.”
If you cared enough, you might have pleaded your case some more. You can trust me, you might have said. But you know how this goes. For as long as you are alive within their space, you are a problem. A problem for their food sources, and a problem for wherever they have made camp. The child may not fully understand this, but he certainly does.
“Just do it,” comes your voice; exhausted. The adrenaline hides under defeat. “Just fucking do it, alright? Kill me.”
He snarls.
You expect darkness.
You expect to see your sister again. Her son. Paul.
“Dad… don’t.”
A gentle plea.
A low huff in response.
And then, instead of receiving a slash to your jugular, you are thrown to the icy ground as if you are nothing more than a sack of bones. Your palms barely have time to spread open and break the fall. A pain shoots up your knees the moment they dig into the frozen dirt, but you don’t have it in you to wince or cry.
He listened to her—?
Shifting onto your butt, you look up at your attacker.
A skull mask stares back at you.
Dark eyes, broad shoulders, a towering height.
If you weren’t so relieved - surprised - to still be breathing, you might have been frightened to the point of tears.
He moves and you flinch, but rather than touching you, his heavy boot stamps something beside you. Your bow. The oak splinters in half under his foot.
“Are you—“ You suck in a strangled breath, looking between him and your now-ruined weapon. “Are you fucking kidding me? Just… just kill me. I can’t - I have nothing now! You might as well fucking kill me!”
But he doesn’t.
He gives another nod to the girl. A silent language that you don’t understand, and in response, she carefully steps around you. She offers an apologetic look before she follows after her skull-faced companion, and then you are left with nothing. Not a knife, not a bow. Only your rapid heartbeat and a pink welt on your throat where his knife had been.
It seems cruel that such terrible things must happen at moments when you are your happiest. There’s logic in it, sure—there can be no joy without pain, and happiness is bracketed on either side by sadness—but logic and cruelty don’t have to live apart from each other. In fact, you would often say they are married.
Your boyfriend stands over you, blotting out the sun like a raincloud come to pour down on the briefest moment of peace you have felt in the last several days. Everything about him is innocuous: his clothes, his posture, hands shoved deep into his pockets as he stares down at you with unspeakable fondness in his eyes.
“Hi honey,” he says. “How was work?”
Johnny goes to stand, but your boyfriend is quicker, banging his shin violently against Johnny’s knee. Johnny sucks in a breath as the pain winds him, body bowing over to protect his most vulnerable areas.
“Don’t stand on my account,” your boyfriend says to his crumpled figure. “Did I get the right knee? I did, didn’t I? I wasn’t sure if it was the right or the left—“
“Hey!” you bellow, the volume of your own voice surprising you. You stand between them, put both hands against your boyfriend’s chest, and push. He nearly goes sprawling on the sidewalk, only barely managing to get his feet under him in time. You point a shaking finger in his face. “You don’t fucking touch him!”
“An accident,” he laughs, lifting his hands. “I stumbled into him. It could have happened to anybody.”
“Yer a fucking cunt,” Johnny groans, both hands gripping his thigh above his knee, knuckles pale. “And so’s yer mother. Syphilis-infected-cocksucking bitch.”
“Not nice,” your boyfriend says mildly, shoving his hands back into his pocket. “Do you kiss my fiancé with that mouth?”
“You don’t even know what you’re talking about,” you hiss. All three of you quiet down as an older couple inches by, hand in weathered hand. When they are a safe distance away, you ask: “How did you know I was here? Were you following me?”
“I can’t reveal all my secrets,” he says, lowering his voice to a dangerous timber, one that promises violence. “The same way you’re not willing to give up all of yours. You thought I wouldn’t notice you coming home late all the time? Do I look stupid?”
Johnny makes a sound, some kind of wounded laugh that only serves to put you on edge even more. You can imagine his answer—but he doesn’t know your boyfriend. He doesn’t know the kind of grim, intelligent cruelty that is wielded against you every day. Johnny is hot headed and craving violence, but he’s in no condition to experience it.
You have to protect him.
“We can talk about it at home,” you mutter, making sure to keep between the two men who seem eager for each other’s blood. Your boyfriend tongues his cheek, eyeing Johnny, weighing his options.
“Come on,” you say, louder. Reaching out, you grip his arm, nails digging into his skin. He doesn’t even flinch. But after an endless moment of waiting for further provocation from Johnny, he decides Johnny isn’t worth his time. He laces his fingers in yours and pulls you along, further away from the bench, from Johnny, from the sunlight.
“Get in the car,” he says, walking to the driver’s side.
“You’re not supposed to drive.”
“I won’t say it again.”
He won’t, either. You know him. So instead you slip into the passenger seat. There’s no worse feeling than being in an enclosed space with him. The air feels heavy and oppressive, weighing you down. At the same time, your body buzzes with adrenalin, preparing for pain. You numbly buckle your seatbelt while he starts the car.
“How long have you been cheating on me with that cripple next door?” he asks calmly.
“I’m not.”
The calm snaps, nothing but a thin sheet of icy veneer over a deep, dark lake of fury.
“Don’t—lie—to—me,” he says through his teeth. He holds out a hand and wiggles his fingers. “Phone. Hand it over. You’ve lost your privileges.”
“I don’t have it,” you lie. “It’s at work.”
“You really do,” he says, staring at you with borderline awe. “You think I’m a fucking idiot, don’t you? Oh, baby. Oh, honey. You’re in for it. How do you think I fucking found you? Give me the goddamn phone.”
You shake your head. You can’t give it up. Not when it’s the only safe way for Simon to contact you.
He reaches for your hand. The two of you struggle as you try to avoid his touch, briefly banging your knuckles on the car window, but then he has your hand in his grasp, and he takes your smallest finger and wrenches it back, back—you feel the pop, pain lancing through your hand all the way to your wrist.
You screech.
“Give me the phone,” he says, letting you cradle the misshapen hand against your breast. You grit your teeth, tears dripping off your chin. When he reaches for your hand again, you break and turn out your pockets, handing over your last lifeline. He takes the phone and beats it against the dashboard, again and again and again until the screen is a spider’s web of cracks, glass littering your knees.
He hands you back the broken phone.
“You broke my fucking finger,” you cry, voice warbling embarrassingly.
“You broke your own finger by not listening to me the first time,” he says, tossing the phone in your lap when you don’t take it. He puts the car in reverse. “Don’t blame me for your mistakes, baby.”
-
The two of you spend five hours in the emergency room together. This is an integral part of the experience; when he hurts you, he has to heal you.
Your pinky isn’t broken, only dislocated. They set it and splint it and warn you that it could take months to feel normal again, like you know at all what that word means. Beneath the tinny lights of the exam room, your makeup job must be failing, because the nurse asks your boyfriend to step out so that she can ask you a few questions alone.
This isn’t your first time in the emergency room, and you know the rules. You stick to your story (the one he had stitched together on the drive to the ER) even without your boyfriend’s oppressive presence looming over your shoulder. The nurse gives you a look that is both professional and pitying. You spend the rest of the visit refusing to meet her eyes, chewing on the nails of your good hand.
“Could you be any more suspicious?” your boyfriend asks mildly while the two of you leave. He waves to one of the nurses, who gives back a cheerful little salute.
Making friends wherever he goes; that’s your boyfriend.
-
Walking into your apartment is like walking into another world.
Everything has been upended: the couch cushions, the silverware drawers, the chairs at the table. DVD’s have been removed from their boxes. Even the fucking lamps have had their lampshades removed. The bathroom and bedroom doors have been taken off their hinges and laid neatly against one another in the bedroom.
“You weren’t the only one busy today,” he says, relishing in your grim expression. “You know the drill. Clean up. Then we’ll go to bed.”
This is an old trick of his that you know well. He tore the place apart searching for contraband—but he knows that even he isn’t all-powerful. Now he waits to see where you will rush to clean up first, where your anxious mind will take you, desperate to find out if he’s found whatever you’ve been hiding. Once it was money. Another time, a business card for a lawyer.
This time, a lighter that’s not your own.
You’re smarter now, though. You don’t go straight for your sock drawer where the lighter is hidden. You begin at the northernmost point of the apartment and clean north to south, east to west, methodical, your hand throbbing as the anesthetic wears off.
It is deeply late by the time you make it to the bedroom to find your clothes strewn across the bed. Your eyes burn with exhaustion, body aching from a long day at work (and a longer day after work). You can’t help but think of Johnny as you clean, tucking clothes back into their drawers, putting clothes back on their hangers. Did he make it home safely? Did he finally message Simon? Did he try to walk home? Thinking about Johnny out alone in the dark makes your stomach turn unpleasantly.
Sock drawer now. Most of these are still in the dresser, though some have been pushed out into the floor in your boyfriend’s search for ammunition to use against you. You pick up the few outliers and stuff them back into the drawer.
No lighter.
It’s not there. You know even as you continue to search without hope, rifling through your paired socks as subtly as you can. This is all just another game. He’s found the lighter and has just been waiting for you to notice it’s gone so that he can torment you with it. Maybe he’ll flick the spark wheel (the way Johnny can’t—God, Johnny, please be okay—) and hold the flame to your skin or your hair—
You touch something hard, plastic. Your breath catches. It’s there. It’s still there, tucked inside a pair of socks. He hadn’t found it. Relief rises up in you so poignantly that tears fill your eyes, even as you force yourself to shut the drawer and move on to another part of the room, feeling your boyfriend’s presence at the door, watching.
The lighter was so little, but it meant so much. You couldn’t even put into words why. Because it was Johnny’s, maybe. Because it was yours, now. Because it was one thing your boyfriend hadn’t put his hands on and destroyed or claimed as his own. Nothing belonged to you—not your money, not your body, nothing. Except maybe that silly lighter.
You wait until after he fucks you to speak, stubbornly maintaining your silence even through the pain and humiliation he inflicts on you. There’s something even worse about the way he draws your body against his afterwards, an arm looped possessively over your waist, the imitation of a loving cuddle.
“I want to break up,” you say.
He gives a long-suffering sigh, breath rustling your hair. “Keep dreaming, baby.”
The words won’t stop tripping out of your mouth.
“I mean it. I hate you—and you hate me. All we do is fight and hurt each other. Why…” you get choked up, swallow past the lump in your throat. “We don’t have to do this anymore. You can’t possibly be happy. Is this really how you want to live the rest of your life? Tormenting me?”
He is quiet for longer than you expect. You hold your breath, tears dripping from your eyes and over the bridge of your nose, down into your pillowcase. Maybe he’s thinking about it. Maybe he’s really considering it.
At last, he says: “Don’t ever think that there’s anywhere else in the world…anything else I’d rather be, than right where I am.”
Your heart plummets.
“Now go to sleep,” he says, kissing your neck. “You work in the morning.”
-
The sun goes down before Simon finds him. Johnny sits shivering on the bench where you left him, his eyes red rimmed and unseeing even when he hears the familiar footsteps of his lover against the pavement.
Simon sits next to him where you once sat, and for a long time, neither of them speaks. When Johnny finally breaks the silence, his voice is rough from hours of crying and disuse.
“I brought her here,” he says.
Simon nods. He knows. Of course he knows.
“I think she liked it,” Johnny adds, trying to find any brightness in the dark that encompasses him.
But all at once the tears come back, his throat burning, head throbbing. He bends at the waist, elbow on his thigh, and shakes, trying to keep his crying quiet, still clinging to the remnants of a dignity that God tears more from his grasp every day. When Simon’s warm arm wraps around him, it just makes him cry harder, even as he leans into the heat of the other man like a flower bends toward the sun.
“I’m useless,” Johnny weeps. “Fuckin’ useless. He showed up and just—took her, and I couldn’t do a thing to stop him. Even you think I’m useless—druggin’ me to keep me from getting in your way. I can’t dress myself, can’t tie my own shoes. What fucking good am I, as a human being? What’s the good in being alive if I have to live like this?”
Simon says nothing. Johnny leans up, letting the moonlight wash over his tear-soaked face. He wipes at his cheeks.
“You can’t be happy, either,” he says, taking in the solemn lines of Simon’s face, the shadows under his eyes. Simon looks older than his age, and Johnny knows who is responsible, who has aged him. Terrified to know the answer, he asks: “Is this how you want to live? With an overgrown child as your lover? One who can’t remember where he took off his shoes? Who needs you to, to cut up his food and button his shirts?”
“If that’s how it’s going to be,” says Simon simply. “If that’s how I get to be with you. Then yeah, Johnny. I’m solid.”
Johnny shakes his head. He can’t even find the energy within him to be angry. All that’s left is disbelief. “You can’t mean that.”
“I mean it. I—“ Simon ducks his head. “—I never should have put those pills in your juice. I should have trusted you. I wish I could take that back.”
Johnny sniffs wetly. It’s as close to an apology as he’s ever heard Simon give, and it makes no small amount of guilt bloom in Johnny’s aching chest.
“You were right not to trust me,” says Johnny. “I was lying.”
“I know,” says Simon. He reaches down and laces his fingers with Johnny’s one hand. “But I want to be a man who trusts you, even if I’m wrong.”
Johnny is quiet for a long time, turning those words over in his head. A painful longing rises up in his chest, one he hasn’t felt since the days when he was still in the 141, days when he could barely breathe for wanting the man beside him so badly. When they’d had to love each other in secret, and it felt like he would happily have given anything if it meant they didn’t have to hide anymore.
I miss you, he thinks. I miss myself. Leaning in, he lays his cheek against Simon’s shoulder.
“Are we gonna make it?” he wonders quietly, watching the last of the fireflies twinkle around the dim park. Soon it will be too cold for them. Soon it will be too cold for Johnny.
“Whatever we do, we’ll do it together,” Simon promises, laying his temple against Johnny’s head.
-
He waits until you are asleep to creep out of the bed. There is no rest for him—not when he gets in these restless, paranoid moods. Not when he has a hunch to follow.
Quietly, he drifts through the apartment like a ghost. Everything is back in its place, but he tries to think of anywhere he might have missed to search. You are hiding something; he knows it. He knows you. You’re see-through to him, predictable in a way that used to thrill him but now just irritates.
“Where is it?” he mutters, standing in the living room, turning a slow circle.
Was the lighter really all you’d been hiding? That stupid piece of plastic and metal? He’d found it easily and decided it served him better left in its place. Let you think that he had missed it. Let you think that he was slipping.
“I’m sharper than ever, baby,” he mutters to himself in the darkness.
Halfheartedly, he searches a few places that he had already gone through: checking some of the mugs on the top shelf in the kitchen, feeling beneath the table in the foyer for anything taped beneath it.
He thinks about the cripple next door while he does it. Johnny. A problem, if he’s ever seen one. Him and his boyfriend both. What two faggots want with you, he can’t imagine—good Samaritans, perhaps? Well they would find out in good time what happened to people who put their noses where they didn’t belong.
Regardless, he doesn’t like it. It leaves a sour taste in his mouth.
Sighing, he braces his hands against the table, resting his weight against it. If he’d known that this building would cause so much trouble, he never would have moved you in here. Not that the two of you had been swimming in options.
Your keys on the table catch his eye, but he doesn’t know why. He nudges them with his hand, metal dragging over the wood. On a whim, he counts them.
There is an extra key.
His brows lift. He picks up the keys and goes through them one by one, wracking his brain to remember what each one is for. At last he’s left with a single unfamiliar key. One that looks identical to the key to their apartment. A duplicate? he wonders. For when she’s locked out?
But no, the keys are different. Just similar.
An idea tickles at the back of his brain, but he’s never been the kind of man to ignore his instincts. He goes to the door without bothering to slip on his shoes, and steps silently out into the hallway. At this time of night, there is no one out and about, no one peeking at him from their doors. On silent feet, he pads to his neighbor’s door and grips the knob. Locked.
He slips the key into the lock—and it opens.
Oh that little bitch. Fury rises up in him until he can taste it in the back of his throat. He wants to go and wake you, take a fistful of your hair and drag you out into the hallway for all your nosy neighbors to see, wants to hear that shriek of pain you give when he hurts you so unexpectedly—
But no. He has to be smart.
He locks 5C’s door again, checks the handle, then slips back into his apartment. There will be no rest for him tonight. Not when there is so much to think about.
Whole-heartedly BEGGING writers to unlearn everything schools taught you about how long a paragraph is. If theres a new subject, INCLUDING ACTIONS, theres a new paragraph. A paragraph can be a single word too btw stop making things unreadable
Ok So I’m getting more notes than I thought quicker than I expected! So I’m gonna elaborate bc I want to.
I get it, when you’re someone who writes a lot and talks a lot, it’s hard to keep things readable, but it’s not as much about cutting out the fat(that can be a problem) so much as a formatting issue.
You are also actively NERFING yourself by not formatting it correctly, it can make impactful scenes feel so, so much better. Compare this,
To THIS.
Easier to read, and hits harder.
No more over-saturated paragraphs. Space things out.
while we're all online and memeing the failed assassination of a usamerican fascist please take a second to [donate to save a family in Gaza] and do your [daily click for Palestine]
turnnoffyourmind
andulkaphoto
tangentwithtanner
blakekathryn
