Some of my writing is explicit, please read with discretion. Minors need to navigate away.
AO3
SIMON âGHOSTâ RILEY
Oneshots
show me what mercy feels like  [E]
follow me into goodness
Multi-chapters
whimper
part i, part ii, part iii, part iv, part v, part vi, part vii, christmas special, part viii, part ix, part x, part xi, part xii,
seepage [E]
part i, part ii, part iii (tbc)
drabbles
you try wearing lip gloss for the first time and Simon is a rabid fan [E]
you discover Simon's praise kink [E]
Simon is a planner [E]
CAPTAIN JOHN PRICE
Multi-chapters
Succession (AO3) [E]
i. Price
I used to write for BTS, you can still find it on my page if you search it up. Their masterlist is available on desktop.
author's note: This has been in my drafts for one and a half years man. Never say never đ And thank you so much for 10k, lovelies! đ¤ xx
The ad is three lines long.
You agonise over it for a weekâdrafting and redrafting on the back of a grocery receipt at the kitchen table while your husband is on deployment, crossing out words and rewriting them until the paper is soft and furred at the edges from erasing.
Three lines. That's all the local paper allows for the personals section, which is a relic from another era that you didn't even know still existed until you were flipping through the classifieds looking for a vintage bookshelf and your eyes snagged on the column header.
SEEKING CONNECTION
You'd laughed at first. Then you'd read a few. Then you'd read them all, sitting cross-legged on the sofa with your tea going cold in your hands, and something small and sharp turning over in your chest.
The ad you eventually submit reads:
Married woman, mid 30s, seeks interesting conversation and perhaps more with a like-minded gentleman. Discretion essential. If you enjoy good food, dry wit, and don't mind a woman who can out-drink you â I'd love to hear from you. Reply to Box 64.
You pay for four weeks in advance and feel sick the entire drive home.
Because here's the thing about being married to Captain John Price.
You love him desperately and completely, in a way that has settled into your bones over the better part of a decade and become indistinguishable from the architecture of who you are.
Adore the way he smellsâstale cigar smoke and sandalwood and old gun oil, a combination that should be repulsive and instead makes you want to bury your face in his neck and stay there. Love his hands, broad and scarred and capable of violence you'll never fully understand, and how gentle they are when they cup your jaw or fix the clasp of your necklace.
And you melt for the rumble of his voice on the phone at two in the morning when he calls from whatever godforsaken corner of the world he's operating in, tired and tight-lipped but always, always asking about you first.
You love him, and he loves you, and it hasn't been enough for a long time.
Not because the love ran out, because he did.
John Price gives everything to his work. Every deployment bleeds into the next. The gaps between homecomings stretch longerâthree weeks become five, five become eight, eight becomes âI don't know yet, love, I'll let you know when I knowâ.
And when he does come home, he's there but not there; hollow-eyed and distracted, reaching for his phone at dinner, falling asleep on the sofa before nine, making love to you the first night with a desperate urgency that fades by the third morning into perfunctory kisses on the forehead and an apologetic mumble about an early briefing.
Someday, you stopped asking when he'd be home six months ago; stopped leaving the porch light on four months ago, and you stopped wearing the nice knickers three months ago because what was the point again.
Two months ago, you realised you'd gone an entire week without hearing his voice and hadn't noticed until Thursday.
That's when the panic set in. Not the sharp, clean kind, but the slow, creeping kind. The one that makes you lie awake at three a.m. staring at the ceiling and wondering if this is it, if this is what the rest of your life looks like. A nice house in Hereford with a well-maintained garden and a husband who exists primarily as a name on a bank account and a voice on the other end of an increasingly rare phone call.
You don't want to leave him. The thought alone makes you nauseous.
You just want someone to see you again.
John finds the newspaper three days after he gets home from a six-week deployment in eastern Syria.
He's not snooping; he's looking for the TV remote, which has migrated into the crack between the sofa cushions again, and his hand closes around the folded section of newsprint wedged beside it. He pulls it out, intending to toss it on the coffee table, and his eyes catch the circle of biro ink around one of the small ads in the personals column.
John reads it, and then again.
Then he sits down very slowly, the remote forgotten, and stares at the far wall for a long time, connecting puzzle pieces like his life depends on it, which it very well does apparently.
Married woman, mid 30s. His wife is in her thirties.
Dry wit. His wife is the driest, sharpest-tongued woman he's ever met. It's one of the first things he fell in love withâthe way she could dismantle a man's ego with a single raised eyebrow and a well-timed "Bless your heart, love".
Can out-drink you. He's watched his wife put away Whisky Sours at the SAS Christmas do with a composure that made seasoned operators look like lightweights.
Discretion essential.
John sets the newspaper down on his knee. His jaw works and his eyes don't leave the wall.
And he doesn't confront you.
Not over dinner nor in bed that night when you roll towards him and press a kiss to his shoulderâa habit you've kept even through the worst of the distance, even when you're angry with him, even when he doesn't deserve it.
Instead, he waits, and he replies to Box 64.
The letter that arrives for you a week later is postmarked locally. Plain envelope, no return address. Inside, a single sheet of paper, handwritten in a bold, slanted script you don't recognise.
I enjoy good food, better whisky, and I've never met a woman who can out-drink me, but I'd enjoy watching you try. Friday, 8pm, OâMalleyâs on St. George's Lane. I'll be the one who looks like he doesn't belong in a place that posh. â J
Your hands are shaking when you finish reading it, and you have to sit down at the kitchen table and press your palms flat against the wood to steady yourself.
You could throw it away. No. You should throw it away. This was a mistakeâa stupid, reckless, selfish mistake born out of loneliness and too much wine and that ugly, gnawing ache in your chest that flares up every time John leaves.
But John has left again. Three days at home, then a call from Kate Laswell, then a bag packed and a kiss on your forehead and a quick âBe back soon, loveâ and the sound of the front door closing and the silence that rushes in to fill the space he used to occupy.
You read the letter once more.
I'll be the one who looks like he doesn't belong in a place that posh.
Something warm and reckless curls in your stomach, and you hate yourself for it, and you fold the letter into the pocket of your cardigan and carry it around for three days before you decide youâre going.
Friday night. OâMalleyâs.
You arrive twenty minutes early because you're a control freak in crisis, and you take the farthest booth in the corner because your back needs to be against a wall and your eyes need to be on the doorâa habit you picked up from your husband without realising it.
You order a gin and tonic to give your hands something to do, and you check your reflection in the blank screen of your phone for the third time. You look good, like you tried againânot the kind of effort you make for John when he comes home, all desperate and over-polished, but a quieter kind; wearing your favourite dress with subtle makeup and your hair done the way you like it, not the way you think someone else wants to see it.
You look like your old self, and that's terrifying, because the whole point of tonight was supposed to be about being someone else.
When your wedding ring catches the light as you reach for your drink, and you stare at it for a long moment, the slim gold band John slid onto your finger nine years ago with steady hands and unsteady eyes, and you don't take it off.
You should, but you canât, and you did say youâre married.
Eight o'clock comes and goes. Five past, then ten. You're about to convince yourself you've been stood up, which would be both a relief and a humiliation, when the pub door opens and a man walks in, and every nerve ending in your body fires at once.
Because the man standing in the doorway, scanning the room with those sharp, assessing eyes, is your husband.
John is wearing civvies. Dark jeans, a black henley pushed up to his elbows, boots that have seen better days.
He looks like he came straight from the base, which he probably did. His hair is freshly cut but his beard is full, and there is a tiredness around his eyes that you can read from across the room, the same bone-deep fatigue he carries home from every deployment and tries to hide and fails.
He spots you and your stomach plummets.
Meanwhile, his expression doesn't change; not a flicker. He holds your gaze across the crowded pub, and then he walks towards you with the kind of unhurried, deliberate stride that you've seen him use in exactly two contexts.
When he's approaching a superior officer, and when he's about to do something that no one in the room is going to enjoy.
Your heart is hammering so hard you can feel it in your teeth. Your hand tightens around your glass until your knuckles ache, and every instinct in your body is screaming at you to run to the bathroom, to the car park, to another country, but your legs won't cooperate, because Captain John Price is walking towards you and you have never in your life been able to move when he's looking at you like that.
He reaches the booth, stops, and looks down at you. And a beat of terrible, electric silence follows.
Then he smiles, though not the tight, exhausted smile he gives you at the front door when he's been gone for weeks, but something warmer, something almost boyish, and then he slides into the seat across from you, settling in with an ease that makes your blood run cold.
"You must be Box 64," he says casually, calm, like he's meeting a stranger for the first time, which is insane, because he is your husband and he is sitting across from you at a pub where you came to meet another man and he knows. He fucking knows.
"Johnâ"
"John," he repeats, tasting the name like he's hearing it for the first time. Then he extends his hand across the table. "That's right. Pleasure to meet you."
You stare at his outstretched hand, then at his face, and back at his hand.
"John, I can explainâ"
"Nothing to explain." He keeps his hand where it is, steady and patient. His eyes don't leave yours. "I'm J. You're Box 64. We're here to have a drink and see if we get on. That was the arrangement, wasn't it? What your ad said?"
Your mouth opens and something inside you dies a little, along with the words in your throat; anything but one.
"John."
"You gonna leave me hanging, love? Already?" He nods at his hand, one eyebrow raised, and there is something in his expressionâbeneath the calm and the performanceâthat you can't quite read.
It's not anger, not even hurt. Something closer to resolve, like he's made a decision about tonight and he intends to see it through, and nothing you say is going to alter the trajectory.
You take his hand, shake it weakly.
His fingers close around yours, warm and rough, and he gives one firm shake before releasing you. Then he flags down the barmaid, orders a whisky neat, and turns back to you with that same easy, unreadable smile.
"So. Tell me about yourself."
You stare at him owlishly.
"IâI don'tâ" You can feel heat crawling up your neck, your throat tightening with the precursor to tears. "John, please, can we justâ"
"Tell me," he says again, and his voice is gentle, but his eyes are steel. "What do you do? Where are you from? What made you put that ad in the paper?"
The last question lands like another slap, even though his tone doesn't change. You swallow hard, your fingers wrap around your glass for something to anchor to.
He waits for you to answer; patient as a sniper in a ghillie suit.
"I'mâ" You exhale shakily. "I'm from here. I live in Hereford. I'mâ" Your voice threatens to crack, and you bite the inside of your cheek until it steadies. "I'm a teacher."
"A teacher." John nods, like this is new information and not something he's known for the better part of a decade. "What age?"
"Year four."
"Year four. That'sâwhat, eight? Nine?" He takes a sip of his whisky. The barmaid left it quietly and shot you a look like she sensed the tension. "Brave woman. I've faced insurgents with less fight in them than a nine-year-old with a grudge."
The laugh that escapes you is wet and startled and completely involuntary, and John's eyes soften for a fraction of a second before the mask slides back into place.
"What about you?" you ask carefully, because two can play this game, and if he's going to make you sit through this surreal performance, you might as well commit. Your voice is still unsteady, but there's a spark of something underneath the fearâdefiance, maybe, or the stubbornness that made you put the ad in the paper in the first place. "What do you do?"
"Military," he answers briskly, which is what he always says at parties and barbecues when civilians ask, offering nothing further.
"What branch?"
"The kind that doesn't let me talk about it." He leans back in his seat, one arm resting along the back of the booth leisurely and looks at you with an expression that's half amusement, half something hungrier. "I travel a lot. Gone more than I'm home unfortunately."
"That must be hard," you reply, and you mean it in a raw way that has nothing to do with the roleplay and everything to do with the long years of lonely nights and unanswered phone calls sitting between you.
John hears it and you watch it land. A brief tightening around his eyes, a muscle jumping in his jaw before he takes another slow drink.
"It is," he says quietly. "Harder on the people who wait, I'd imagine."
Your breath catches. You look down at the table, at your ring, at the condensation pooling around the base of your glass.
"Yeah," you whisper. "It is."
The silence that follows is different from the others. Not tense or loaded. Just heavy, in the way that true things are heavy, settling between you like something solid.
Then John clears his throat. "Another round?"
You nod, not trusting your voice, and he waves the barmaid over again.
The second drink loosens something.
Maybe it's the gin, perhaps the sheer absurdity of the situation, but somewhere between your second and third drink, the fear recedes enough for you to actually talk.
And Johnâyour husband, who has spent the better part of a year giving you monosyllabic answers over dinner and falling asleep during filmsâis talking back.
He's always been charming. It's how he got you in the first place, at a mate's wedding eleven years ago, when he cornered you at the bar and spent forty-five minutes making you laugh so hard you snorted champagne up your nose. Though you'd forgotten what it looks like when he aims it at you with intent.
John asks about your students and listens to the answers. He asks about the book you're currently reading and offers an opinion on it that tells you he's been paying more attention to your nightstand than you thought. He tells you stories from deployment that are carefully scrubbed of classified details but still make you laugh; the kind of stories he used to tell you when you were dating. Absurd, self-deprecating, designed to make you think he's funnier than he is.
He is funny. You'd forgotten that, too.
"You've got a nice laugh," he says at one point, swirling his whisky, and the way he says it, like an observation, like he's hearing it for the first time, makes your stomach flip.
"Don't flatter me, J." The letter feels strange in your mouth, this thin fiction stretched over the truth of him. "I'll think you're after something."
"Maybe I am." He holds your gaze and doesn't smile. "That a problem, love?"
Your mouth goes dry.
Three drinks in, you're leaning across the table towards each other, and his hand is resting on the tabletop close enough to yours that your little fingers are almost touching, and you're telling him about the time one of your Year Fours brought a live frog to class in his lunchbox and it escaped during maths, and John is laughingâreally laughing, with his head tipped back and his eyes creasedâand for a vertiginous moment, you manage to forget.
You forget that this is a performance; that your husband is sitting across from you pretending to be a stranger because you put an ad in the newspaper looking for someone else. Everything except the sound of his laugh and the warmth in his eyes and the way he's looking at you like you're the most interesting person in the room, which is how he used to look at you all the time, before the deployments ate him alive and left you with the husk.
Then his eyes drop to your left hand, and the warmth doesn't leave his expression, but something sharper slides in alongside it, like the glint of a blade edge, and then he reaches across the table and takes your hand, turning it over in his.
His thumb presses against the band of your wedding ring, holding it there.
"You know," he says, and his voice is still easy, still conversational, but there's a new undercurrent to it that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, "if you were really going to go through with this little adventure of yoursâ"
He taps the ring once with his thumb, clicks his tongue.
"âyou probably should've taken this off first."
The blood drains from your face. The pleasant haze of gin and good conversation evaporates in an instant, replaced by a cold, lurching clarity.
"Johnâ"
"Bit of a deterrent, love. Even when you mentioned it in the ad." He's still holding your hand, still running his thumb over the ring, and his expression is unreadableânot angry, not hurt, just steady, the way he looks when he's holding a position and waiting for something to break. "Any bloke worth his salt would've clocked that you're not really in it five minutes in."
Your eyes are stinging. "I wasn't going toâI would never haveâ"
"I know." He replies simply and releases your hand. "I know you wouldn't."
The lump in your throat is enormous and razor-edged, and you have to look away at anything that isn't his face, because if you keep looking at him, you're going to cry in the middle of this pub and he will never, ever let you live it down.
"I'm sorry," you manage, barely a whisper. "John, I'm so sorry, I didn'tâI was justâ"
"Don't."
You look back at him. He's leaning forward now, strong forearms on the table, and the mask is gone. All of it, the J performance, the first-date charm, the controlled amusement. And underneath is just your husband. Looking at you with an expression that is not anger, that has never been anger, that is something far worse.
Guilt.
"I should've been home more," he murmurs; too honest for a pub on a Friday night. "I should'veâ" He stops, his jaw clenches before he tries again. "I should've given you a proper life. A family. A husband who's actually fucking present. And I didn't, and youâ"
He gestures vaguely at the booth, the pub, the entire premise of the evening.
"âyou shouldn't have had to do this to get my attention."
The first tear slips down your face before you can catch it. You swipe at it furiously with the back of your hand before the barmaid, who has become somewhat intrigued by whatever is happening at your table, can clock it.
"I wasn't trying to get your attention," you lie, and you both know it's a lie, and his mouth twitches; not quite a smile, something more tender and much more broken.
"Yeah, you were." He reaches across the table again and takes your hand, properly this time, threading his fingers through yours and squeezing. "And it worked."
You let out a breath that's half laugh, half sob, and squeeze back.
For a long moment, neither of you speaks. The pub buzzes around you. Glasses clinking, conversations flowing, some '80s song you can't name playing from the speakers. And you sit in the middle of it, holding hands across a sticky table, and the nine years of silence and distance and loving each other badly feel, for the first time, like something that could be survived.
"I need the loo," you announce eventually, because your mascara is probably wrecked and you need thirty seconds of privacy to pull yourself together before you dissolve entirely.
John releases your hand with a nod. "Take your time, love."
You slide out of the booth on legs that feel slightly unsteady with gin and adrenaline, and make your way to the back of the pub, past the bar and down the short corridor to the ladies'.
It's a single-stall bathroom. Small, clean enough, a lock on the door that you click shut behind you before bracing your hands on the edge of the sink and staring at your reflection in the mirror above it.
Your eyes are bright and glassy. Your mascara is, as predicted, smudged. You look wrecked and flushed and alive in a way you haven't in months, and you hate that it took thisâa dating ad and a Friday night charadeâto put that look on your face.
You run the tap and press your cool, damp fingers against your closed eyelids. Breathe. You can do this. You can go back out there, finish your drinks, go home with your husband, and figure out the rest in the morning like adults who have been married for nearly a decade and know how to have a difficult conversation.
You're drying your hands when the lock clicks.
You freeze. Your eyes snap to the door in the mirror's reflection as it opens, and John slips inside and closes it behind him with a soft, definitive click of the lock.
The bathroom shrinks to nothing.
He fills the space. Not just physically, though he does that too, broad shoulders and solid frame taking up far too much of the small room, but atmospherically. The air changes when he's this close, gets heavier and becomes charged, like the pressure drop before a storm front.
"John, what are youâ"
He moves. One step, then two, and then his big hand is flat against your lower back and he's pressing you forward, gently but firmly, until your hips meet the edge of the sink and your palms catch the porcelain on either side.
His body moulds against your back. Chest to spine, hips to arse. One hand sliding from your lower back to your waist, gripping and anchoring, while his other forearm braces against the wall beside the mirror.
You can see him in the reflection; towering behind you, head dipped, mouth hovering at the shell of your ear, and your breath stutters at the look on his face.
"Gonna make you remember why you married me, darling," he mutters into your ear, and his breath is hot and damp on the side of your neck, sending a shiver cascading down your spine. His hand tightens on your waist, pulling your arse back against the hard line of his cock already straining behind his zipper.
"Johnâ"
"Shh." His lips graze the spot beneath your ear. No kiss but a warning. "You wanted to be seen, love. I see you."
His hand slides from your waist to the hem of your dress and drags it up slowly, bunching the fabric around your hips until you're exposed from the waist down. The cool air of the bathroom hits your bare thighs and makes you gasp.
"John, we can'tâWe're in a pubâ!"
"Should've thought about that before you went looking for a date, shouldn't you?" His voice is rough and threaded with something dark and tender at the same time, and his fingers hook into the waistband of your knickers, tugging them down your thighs in one smooth motion. They pool around your ankles, and he doesn't bother removing them fullyâjust leaves them there, tangled between your heels.
"Anyone couldâ"
"Door's locked." His hand trails up the inside of your thigh, calloused fingers dragging against the soft skin, and you bite your lip to keep the sound that wants to escape inside. "And you're going to be quiet for me, aren't you, hm?"
You hear his belt buckle. The clink of metal, the drag of leather through belt loops, then the rasp of his zip, and your hands grip the sink so hard your arms tremble, because the sound alone is enough to make your pussy clench around nothing in anticipation.
"Nearly a decade of marriage," he murmurs against the back of your neck, and his free hand slides between your thighs from behind, two thick fingers dragging through your supple folds, finding you already embarrassingly wet. He lets out a low, dark sound of approval that vibrates against your skin. "And I let you forget."
His fingers circle your clit once and your hips buck back against him involuntarily.
"That's on me," he continues, his voice dropping to that gravelly register that makes your toes curl in your pumps. "My fault. My fucking failure. Not yours."
He presses one thick finger inside you, then two, stretching you open with a slow, curling thrust that makes your breath hitch and your walls clench around him. He groans quietly and his forehead drops against the back of your head.
"'M finally gonna put our baby in you," he declares, and the words are rough and raw and utterly certain, a promise sealed against your skin. "Should've done it years ago. Should've given you that. Should've given you everything."
He withdraws his fingers and you whimper at the loss with a needy, desperate sound that you'd be mortified by in any other context, and then you feel the blunt, plump head of his cock pressing against your entrance and every other thought in your head goes static.
"Johnâ" you mewl. John pushes in slowly.
He stretches you open around him with a fullness that borders on too much, and the sound that tears from your throat is muffled only because you clamp your hand over your own mouth.
More than a decade and his fat cock is still enough to make you go stupid.
"Fuck," John breathes, his hips flush against your arse, buried to the root, and his grip on your waist is bruising. He doesn't move yet just holds there, letting you feel every inch of him, letting your body adjust around the thick, throbbing weight of his cock.
Then he starts to move, and it's not the perfunctory, tired sex you've been having for the past year. The kind where he finishes quickly and rolls over and you stare at the ceiling and pretend you came.
This is John Price. The real one, the one you fell in love with. The one who backed you against the wall of your old flat on your third date and made you see God by eating you out through your knickers before he'd even taken anything else off.
He fucks you deep and deliberate, one hand gripping your hip while the other wraps around the front of your throat lightly; his fingers curled against your pulse point, feeling the frantic beat of your heart against his palm.
"Look at yourself," he orders, and your eyesâwhich had screwed shut at some pointâfly open to meet his in the mirror. Pupils blown.
The sight of it is obscene. Your dress bunched around your waist, his thick forearm braced beside the mirror, tendons flexing, his body curved over yours, and the slow, powerful roll of his hips driving into you from behind with a rhythm that's making the mirror rattle against the wall.
"That's my wife," he grunts, and his reflection's eyes are fierce and fixed on yours. "Mine. Not some fucking stranger's from a newspaper ad."
You can't speak, only feel his cock dragging against your walls, his hand on your throat, his chest solid and warm and present against your back for the first time in what feels like forever.
He picks up the pace; harder and deeper thrusts, the wet slap of skin on skin echoing in the small bathroom while his ragged breath puffs against your ear. And then his rough hand leaves your throat to reach between your legs, flicking your clit and rubbing tight, fast circles that make you bite down on your own fist to keep from screaming.
"Quiet," he reminds you, and the bastard sounds smug. "You want the whole pub to know what I'm doing to you in here? Huh? Want them to know âm fucking my wife?"
You shake your head frantically; cunt fluttering and squeezing his shaft, because dirty talk from John Price is its own kind of sweet torture.
"Then cum for me quietly, love. Right now."
A few more hard, precise thrusts with his cock dragging inside your quivering cunt, massaging that spot that keeps swelling inside you, and you shatter.
The orgasm rips through you so violently that your knees give out, and the only things keeping you upright are the sink under your hands and John's arm locked around your waist. You clamp your teeth into the heel of your palm and muffle the cry that wants to tear out of you, your walls clenching and fluttering around his cock in rhythmic, milking pulses.
"Christâfuckâ" John's hips stutter, his rhythm breaks, and he buries himself deepâso deepâand holds, his cock kicking and pulsing inside you as he cums with a low, guttural groan pressed into the curve of your neck.
He spills himself empty inside you, balls throbbing with each little jerk of his hips. Hot and thick, deliberate this time. No condom, no pulling out this time, and the significance of that isn't lost on either of you. His hips roll lazily through the aftershocks, working every precious drop into your messy cunt, and his hand slides from your waist to your lower belly, pressing flat.
"There," he murmurs, and his voice is wrecked and satisfied, unbearably tender. "That's where it belongs."
You're shaking. Your entire body is trembling, your legs are useless, and there are tears streaming silently down your face that have nothing to do with pain.
He stays inside you for a long moment; breathing, his lips pressed against the nape of your neck, beard scraping your skin, his hand warm on your lower stomach. Then he pulls out slowly, carefully, and you feel his cum start to leak from you immediately, warm and slick against your inner thighs.
He reaches down, picks your knickers up from around your ankles, and slides them back up your legs with an almost clinical efficiency. When they're settled back into place, he pats your arse once, light and proprietary, and tugs your dress back down.
"There we go," he says, like he's just helped you with your coat. "Good as new."
You let out a sound that's somewhere between a laugh and a sob, your forehead dropping against the mirror.
"How about a 'thank you,' love," he adds while he tugs his softening cock back into his jeans, and when you lift your head and catch his eyes in the reflection, the smug satisfaction on his face is so thoroughly, infuriatingly Price that you want to slap him and kiss him simultaneously, "for stuffing your pretty cunt full of my cum, hm?"
"John."
"Mm." He presses a kiss to your temple, achingly gentle after everything he just did to you, and reaches past you to turn on the tap. He wets his hand and wipes beneath your eyes with his thumb, cleaning up the mascara.
"Ready to leave, love?" he asks, straightening up and buckling his belt with the same unhurried ease he does everything. "Or would you like another drink before your husband takes you home?"
Your legs are still shaking, his cum is slowly but surely soaking into your knickers, and your heart is so full it might crack your ribs.
"N-No," you manage, small and hoarse. "I'd like to go home now, John."
He looks at you, really looks. And there is nothing left of the J performance, not the Captain Price mask, just John, your husband. The man who drove to a pub on a Friday night not to punish you but to remind you both of what you'd almost let slip away.
"That's my girl," he replies softly.
He unlocks the bathroom door, checks the corridor, and guides you out with his hand on the small of your back. You walk through the pub on shaking legs, past the booth where your half-finished drinks are still sitting, past the barmaid who gives you both a knowing look that you pretend not to see.
The night air hits you like cold water when you step outside, and you suck in a breath that fills your lungs properly for the first time in hours.
John pulls his car keys from his pocket, presses the fob, and opens the passenger door for you without a word. You climb in. He closes the door, rounds the bonnet, and slides into the driver's seat.
Neither of you speaks on the drive home. His hand rests on your thigh, squeezing gently every other minute, and your hand rests on top of his, your fingers tracing the ridges of his calloused knuckles and the band of his own wedding ring, which he has never, not once in nine years, taken off.
When he pulls into the driveway, the porch light is off. You haven't left it on in months.
John kills the engine. Sits for a moment, looking at the dark house.
Then he turns to you, and his voice is quieter now, stripped of the previous smugness, the heat, the performance. Just the raw thing underneath.
"I will do better."
No grand speech or a promise wrapped in flowers and apologies and all the things you've heard before and stopped believing. It's four words, plain and blunt and offered without decoration, and they land heavier than anything else he's said tonight.
You reach across the centre console and take his face in both hands, and you kiss him slowly, like you have time, because you're going to make time.
"I know," you whisper against his mouth.
And when you get inside, John turns the porch light on.
"he's so good with kids," your friend says knowingly, an obvious smile on his face, as your eyes flit over his shoulder to see the man chucking the older kids around in the pool while they scream-laugh and swim back to him.
"mm," you murmur noncommittally to the friend. "I don't even think I want kids."
"sure, but still."
your sunglasses hide your heavy gaze, always finding him: in the pool, climbing out with shorts plastered to pillar-like thighs, the gold necklace nestling into his chest hair that the kids tease him about.
across the pool party, laughing with a friend, but eyes fixed on him grabbing a plate of barbecue food, piling it up high and clapping a big hand on the host's shoulder in thanks.
it's not a surprise when he eventually makes his way to your table, tucked in the shade, your legs sprawled out on a chair in front of you under a spare slash of hot sun.
"here with your husband?"
you laugh softly, shaking your head. "one of the few singles here."
the only reaction you get is creasing of his eyes. it's hotter than it has any right being. "that right. aren't we a pair then." voice grittier and softer than it should be. gets you between the legs like a finger.
"like these big family dos," he says lightly then, stretching back in his chair, his legs knocked obnoxiously wide (gets you like a second finger added to the first). the water drips off his curled chest hair onto his potato salad and chips. "seein all the mums and dads with the lit'l ones. sweet."
"any of 'em yours?" gesturing to the pool with the splashing kids.
"nah," said lightly. "not yet for me. when I meet her, i'll know. then it'll be a family decision, y'know?" a sun-hot hand landing on your thigh, shocking. could be he's squinting from the sun moving. could be he's winking.
*Nothing about this page is family friendly or meant for minors. Being a minor and proceeding anyway goes directly against this author's wishes.*
AO3
Masterlists for Multiparts
A Dichotomy of ThoughtâGhoap/readerâYou move next door to a disabled veteran and his troubled partner. You've got troubles of your own. (E, abuse, sex)
Harmless FunâGhoap/ReaderâDesperate for a place to stay, you answer an ad and become the roomate of two disabled vets. (E, sex)
Skin DeepâGhost/ReaderâLooking to expand your horizons, you get your first tattoo from an awkward, brilliant tattoo artist who goes by "Ghost". (E, sex) Masterlist Here.
Oneshots, Twoshots
ThresholdâGhost/ReaderâSimon asks you to take his virginity, just not in so any words. Or any words at all really. (E, sex)
Complicated PleasuresâSimon/Reader/JohnnyâYou and your husband Simon have been friends with Johnny for years when he finds the page you post your couples porn to online. (E, sex)
A Girl (Not Mine)âSimon/Johnny/ReaderâGhost is a little obsessed with Soap and a lot obsessed with Soapâs girlfriend (you). (E, sex)
Certified Drabbles
PracticeâGaz/Fem!ReaderâYou ask Kyle to practice sucking dick on him. (E, sex)
Help--Ghost/Fem!Reader--You're convinced your lieutenant can't get laid, so you help out. (E, sex)
EdgingâGhost/Fem!ReaderâHypersexual!Ghost asks for help building his stamina. (E, sex)
SilenceâSimon/Johnny/ReaderâMilitary!fem!reader is dosed with sex pollen. (E, sex)
She hasnât been active in over a year, but this author is my North Star of writing. Itâs so succinct and intelligent and sensitive that Iâm not even sad thereâs no more â Iâm grateful for what weâve been given. Read everything.
[fem!reader - inexperienced!reader - slow burn - loss and grief - insomniac!reader - insomniac!simon]
part i, part ii, part iii, part iv, part v, part vi, part vii, christmas special, part viii, part ix, part x, part xi,Â
(previously)
He clears his throat a few times but you donât move your eyes.Â
His voice is gravelly, and unsure. âDot⌠Iââ
You slam your sketchbook shut.Â
Simon inhales sharply.
Hearing his voice, after so long, after flowers on your sisterâs grave and following you like a spectre, your chest is alight with rage. It feels thick in your chest and hot in your nose. Whatever you say next you know will be a type of violence, possibly irreversible.
âSimon.â
The man clenches his gloved hand into fists and slowly uncurls his spine so he is sitting straight, alert and at attention. You realise he is mirroring your furious posture and it occurs to you that maybe his insecure stance at the cafe was perhaps also a way of copying you.Â
In the first heartbeat you feel comforted, and in the second you feel doubly enraged.
âI donât know what your game is, Simon, butââ your throat seizes, to your great annoyance.Â
You despise your propensity for looking on other peopleâs care as life-saving. Other peopleâs small kindnesses feel enormous to you in a way that feels foolish because you know that for a strangerâs words to carry such unintended effect, it means you are severely lacking in care.Â
It makes you sick, the constant urge to be saved from your life.Â
Simonâs sporadic appearance was a comfort at first, a meteor in the dark sky of your days, but is this all your life is going to be? Waiting on a person with whom youâve shared your darkest moments but not an ounce of joy?
âI really appreciate you staying with me at the cafe,â you say in a low voice, âitâs been a huge comfort to me. I think you know just as well as I do how much grief feels like too much griefâŚâ
You press your tongue to the roof of your mouth in an effort not to cry. Around you, birds chirp brightly.Â
âBut I donât think you know that when you leave as you do, it makes me more afraid than Iâve ever been in my life.â
The fist clenched tightly on his knee twitches.Â
âI donât have the security of being able to message you to ask when youâre back, and while I know that it isnât my right, it feels like Iâm living a double life, which is funny considering Iâm⌠me. When you leave I look at the people around me for proof that you existed and apart from Emir, no one knows who you are.â
You add, âOr me. No one knows who I am either.â
âSo I have to go about my life with this hole that makes the already huge hole even bigger, and so now Iâm wondering how it is that when youâre around I donât feel alone but when youâre gone I feel more alone than ever.â
A dog-walker runs by, four dogs in tow and three unleashed. Ridiculously, something in you doesnât want the dogs to hear what you have to say. So you stay quiet as a little french bulldog sniffs a snowdrop, then angles itself to pee over it. It runs off, leash jangling all the while.
âAnd I see myself in two months time, two years time doing exactly the same thing, sitting awake at night and then sitting in the diner. I sit there and now somehow sitting there and drawing has become sitting there and waiting for you.â
âWhile my friends get married and have kids and go on holiday and get promotions and become more themselves, I just sit there, waiting for you to release me,â you say, staring at a lady pushing her pram. Would that ever be you? Was that ever going to be you?
Simon still hasnât said a word.Â
You glance at him. Unlike you, he stares at nothing.Â
Unnerved by his silence, you continue.Â
âI donât mean to say that I want these things with you, let alone at all.â You shake your head, feeling the anger drain away into the all-too familiar feeling of anxiety, âI just mean that of all the lives I envisioned for myself, being up at half-three in the morning waiting on someone isnât how I imagined it.â
Though, even as you say it, you know that losing your sister wasnât part of the plan either. Yet it happened.
âJustâ just⌠Iâm grateful for your company, and I really look forward to it.â
âBut⌠if it isnât making me a more whole person, I have to ask whether it really is okay for me to continue like this.â A breeze picks up and rustles the leaves. âAnd I donât think it is.â
You take a deep breath.
âIâve had this tight band around my chest now for years. Even before my sister died. With you it gets looser, but when youâre gone the tightness is unbearable. I canât exist knowing I can only breathe a few times a year.â
This isnât where you thought your speech was going. Youâve forgotten what you wanted to say, what you wanted him to hear. Youâve forgotten that youâre meant to demand clarity from him because your own truth is spewing forth without prompting.Â
âIâve had enough grief for one lifetime, thank you,â you say, âI donât want to grieve you as well.â
Simon says nothing as you pack your things and stand. You should chance a glance at him, but you are afraid to see what his expression might be. Fully aware that one withering look from him would destroy you, you decide itâs now or never.
âI have so much kindness to repay you. If you want that, Iâd love a chance to see you in the morning for a coffee.â
Whatever happens next is up to him. Youâve said your piece, and you try your utmost to walk away with strong shoulders. There is far too much density to the emotions roiling in your chest for you to name one, but there is power in your stride. Even if this is the last time you ever see him, you were courageous in your conviction. At least for now, you did the right thing.
You blink rapidly and the tears come, unbidden.
part i, part ii, part iii, part iv, part v, part vi, part vii, christmas special, part viii, part ix, part x, part xi,Â
June flew by and of course while I planned for this to come out a week after the last update, it's been almost a month. I really enjoyed writing this, and actually I didn't want this to be a confession of love or anything even close, but as I kept writing I knew that there was no point drawing anything out because if what Simon was doing for her wasn't love, then what is it? If Dot feeling this way isn't love, what is it? This story is about grief and longing and aren't they all kinds of love?
It may not have been what she thought she would say but what she said was perfect and honest.
The tension is palpable . What a great opening I can feel this anxiety from Simon as he starts and then his tensing at hearing his name.
The paragraph about others kindnesses. I think Iâve been there too. Small acts of kindness can be small big things. Is her feeling foolish about this due to her self perception. It seems like sheâs skeptical about the sincerity of people actions . Maybe Iâm reading that wrong but I know that Iâve felt that way on occasion.
Then the confession! It was beautiful and painful . All of it. Sheâs right and Simon is feeling it . He has to feel terrible about how heâs made her feel. But also if he was hoping for something dots confession also seems to dampen hope of having a something with her. Loved that the dogs make her lower her voice that was a nice touch. It just really made the conversation feel all that more tense, serious and private . Intimate.
I like that sheâs asking him what he wants, what is this thing to him , what does she mean to him. And Simon doesnât say a thing but she does give him an opportunity to meet her at the cafe. I hope he comes opens up.
Thank you for reading! I think I was writing from my own experience when I understood people were being gently kind, but I took it as enormous and ground-breaking and almost like a declaration of love. I think I was so hungry for it that even the tiniest thing felt huge, which isnât a bad thing necessarily, but I lacked perspective.
Iâm keen for your thoughts when the next instalment comes out. Simon really comes to the fore. Thank you so much for reading!
[fem!reader - inexperienced!reader - slow burn - loss and grief - insomniac!reader - insomniac!simon]
part i, part ii, part iii, part iv, part v, part vi, part vii, christmas special, part viii, part ix, part x, part xi,Â
(previously)
He clears his throat a few times but you donât move your eyes.Â
His voice is gravelly, and unsure. âDot⌠Iââ
You slam your sketchbook shut.Â
Simon inhales sharply.
Hearing his voice, after so long, after flowers on your sisterâs grave and following you like a spectre, your chest is alight with rage. It feels thick in your chest and hot in your nose. Whatever you say next you know will be a type of violence, possibly irreversible.
âSimon.â
The man clenches his gloved hand into fists and slowly uncurls his spine so he is sitting straight, alert and at attention. You realise he is mirroring your furious posture and it occurs to you that maybe his insecure stance at the cafe was perhaps also a way of copying you.Â
In the first heartbeat you feel comforted, and in the second you feel doubly enraged.
âI donât know what your game is, Simon, butââ your throat seizes, to your great annoyance.Â
You despise your propensity for looking on other peopleâs care as life-saving. Other peopleâs small kindnesses feel enormous to you in a way that feels foolish because you know that for a strangerâs words to carry such unintended effect, it means you are severely lacking in care.Â
It makes you sick, the constant urge to be saved from your life.Â
Simonâs sporadic appearance was a comfort at first, a meteor in the dark sky of your days, but is this all your life is going to be? Waiting on a person with whom youâve shared your darkest moments but not an ounce of joy?
âI really appreciate you staying with me at the cafe,â you say in a low voice, âitâs been a huge comfort to me. I think you know just as well as I do how much grief feels like too much griefâŚâ
You press your tongue to the roof of your mouth in an effort not to cry. Around you, birds chirp brightly.Â
âBut I donât think you know that when you leave as you do, it makes me more afraid than Iâve ever been in my life.â
The fist clenched tightly on his knee twitches.Â
âI donât have the security of being able to message you to ask when youâre back, and while I know that it isnât my right, it feels like Iâm living a double life, which is funny considering Iâm⌠me. When you leave I look at the people around me for proof that you existed and apart from Emir, no one knows who you are.â
You add, âOr me. No one knows who I am either.â
âSo I have to go about my life with this hole that makes the already huge hole even bigger, and so now Iâm wondering how it is that when youâre around I donât feel alone but when youâre gone I feel more alone than ever.â
A dog-walker runs by, four dogs in tow and three unleashed. Ridiculously, something in you doesnât want the dogs to hear what you have to say. So you stay quiet as a little french bulldog sniffs a snowdrop, then angles itself to pee over it. It runs off, leash jangling all the while.
âAnd I see myself in two months time, two years time doing exactly the same thing, sitting awake at night and then sitting in the diner. I sit there and now somehow sitting there and drawing has become sitting there and waiting for you.â
âWhile my friends get married and have kids and go on holiday and get promotions and become more themselves, I just sit there, waiting for you to release me,â you say, staring at a lady pushing her pram. Would that ever be you? Was that ever going to be you?
Simon still hasnât said a word.Â
You glance at him. Unlike you, he stares at nothing.Â
Unnerved by his silence, you continue.Â
âI donât mean to say that I want these things with you, let alone at all.â You shake your head, feeling the anger drain away into the all-too familiar feeling of anxiety, âI just mean that of all the lives I envisioned for myself, being up at half-three in the morning waiting on someone isnât how I imagined it.â
Though, even as you say it, you know that losing your sister wasnât part of the plan either. Yet it happened.
âJustâ just⌠Iâm grateful for your company, and I really look forward to it.â
âBut⌠if it isnât making me a more whole person, I have to ask whether it really is okay for me to continue like this.â A breeze picks up and rustles the leaves. âAnd I donât think it is.â
You take a deep breath.
âIâve had this tight band around my chest now for years. Even before my sister died. With you it gets looser, but when youâre gone the tightness is unbearable. I canât exist knowing I can only breathe a few times a year.â
This isnât where you thought your speech was going. Youâve forgotten what you wanted to say, what you wanted him to hear. Youâve forgotten that youâre meant to demand clarity from him because your own truth is spewing forth without prompting.Â
âIâve had enough grief for one lifetime, thank you,â you say, âI donât want to grieve you as well.â
Simon says nothing as you pack your things and stand. You should chance a glance at him, but you are afraid to see what his expression might be. Fully aware that one withering look from him would destroy you, you decide itâs now or never.
âI have so much kindness to repay you. If you want that, Iâd love a chance to see you in the morning for a coffee.â
Whatever happens next is up to him. Youâve said your piece, and you try your utmost to walk away with strong shoulders. There is far too much density to the emotions roiling in your chest for you to name one, but there is power in your stride. Even if this is the last time you ever see him, you were courageous in your conviction. At least for now, you did the right thing.
You blink rapidly and the tears come, unbidden.
part i, part ii, part iii, part iv, part v, part vi, part vii, christmas special, part viii, part ix, part x, part xi,Â
June flew by and of course while I planned for this to come out a week after the last update, it's been almost a month. I really enjoyed writing this, and actually I didn't want this to be a confession of love or anything even close, but as I kept writing I knew that there was no point drawing anything out because if what Simon was doing for her wasn't love, then what is it? If Dot feeling this way isn't love, what is it? This story is about grief and longing and aren't they all kinds of love?
I felt JOY when I saw a new chapter on my dash. Even though I knew it might be another painful chapter, it was still more of Simon and Dot, and that brings me joy.
I think it was a brilliant approach to make this all about what Dot has to say. What she has been thinking. And Simon has to just sit there and take it. Sit there and listen.
And she wasn't mean or angry, just honest. Very honest. And at this point in their...situation...honesty is needed. They both need to be honest to know what is happening in both of their minds and what they both want going forward.
Dot did an amazing job, even though I'm sure it was so hard. And I'm sure it was hard for Simon to hear it. I kind of feel like Simon feels similarly, he has just been incapable of breaking through. She was able to first. Able to open up a little. Maybe he will now.
Whether he does or doesn't, I very much look forward to what happens next.
I'm very proud of Dot. But oh boy, do I want to give her a BIG hug.
Give her a big fucking hug, Simon! Come on! You've put her through too much to not follow through! (That's not me saying you should or shouldn't go that route, I'm just thinking out loud what I would like to see, and I'm not even sure. What I want to see is what you want to write, I trust in your storytelling and know whatever happens will be the right thing.)
Thank you so much! I was so keen for you to read it. I think thereâs only a couple of parts left for this because⌠Iâll keep that to myself for now, but rest assured I think it absolutely is Simonâs time to step up and and be brave. Up until now Simon has been stoic and silent, but Dot has thrown down the gauntlet and Simon really needs to decide whether heâs willing to step into the light with her.
[fem!reader - inexperienced!reader - slow burn - loss and grief - insomniac!reader - insomniac!simon]
part i, part ii, part iii, part iv, part v, part vi, part vii, christmas special, part viii, part ix, part x, part xi,Â
(previously)
He clears his throat a few times but you donât move your eyes.Â
His voice is gravelly, and unsure. âDot⌠Iââ
You slam your sketchbook shut.Â
Simon inhales sharply.
Hearing his voice, after so long, after flowers on your sisterâs grave and following you like a spectre, your chest is alight with rage. It feels thick in your chest and hot in your nose. Whatever you say next you know will be a type of violence, possibly irreversible.
âSimon.â
The man clenches his gloved hand into fists and slowly uncurls his spine so he is sitting straight, alert and at attention. You realise he is mirroring your furious posture and it occurs to you that maybe his insecure stance at the cafe was perhaps also a way of copying you.Â
In the first heartbeat you feel comforted, and in the second you feel doubly enraged.
âI donât know what your game is, Simon, butââ your throat seizes, to your great annoyance.Â
You despise your propensity for looking on other peopleâs care as life-saving. Other peopleâs small kindnesses feel enormous to you in a way that feels foolish because you know that for a strangerâs words to carry such unintended effect, it means you are severely lacking in care.Â
It makes you sick, the constant urge to be saved from your life.Â
Simonâs sporadic appearance was a comfort at first, a meteor in the dark sky of your days, but is this all your life is going to be? Waiting on a person with whom youâve shared your darkest moments but not an ounce of joy?
âI really appreciate you staying with me at the cafe,â you say in a low voice, âitâs been a huge comfort to me. I think you know just as well as I do how much grief feels like too much griefâŚâ
You press your tongue to the roof of your mouth in an effort not to cry. Around you, birds chirp brightly.Â
âBut I donât think you know that when you leave as you do, it makes me more afraid than Iâve ever been in my life.â
The fist clenched tightly on his knee twitches.Â
âI donât have the security of being able to message you to ask when youâre back, and while I know that it isnât my right, it feels like Iâm living a double life, which is funny considering Iâm⌠me. When you leave I look at the people around me for proof that you existed and apart from Emir, no one knows who you are.â
You add, âOr me. No one knows who I am either.â
âSo I have to go about my life with this hole that makes the already huge hole even bigger, and so now Iâm wondering how it is that when youâre around I donât feel alone but when youâre gone I feel more alone than ever.â
A dog-walker runs by, four dogs in tow and three unleashed. Ridiculously, something in you doesnât want the dogs to hear what you have to say. So you stay quiet as a little french bulldog sniffs a snowdrop, then angles itself to pee over it. It runs off, leash jangling all the while.
âAnd I see myself in two months time, two years time doing exactly the same thing, sitting awake at night and then sitting in the diner. I sit there and now somehow sitting there and drawing has become sitting there and waiting for you.â
âWhile my friends get married and have kids and go on holiday and get promotions and become more themselves, I just sit there, waiting for you to release me,â you say, staring at a lady pushing her pram. Would that ever be you? Was that ever going to be you?
Simon still hasnât said a word.Â
You glance at him. Unlike you, he stares at nothing.Â
Unnerved by his silence, you continue.Â
âI donât mean to say that I want these things with you, let alone at all.â You shake your head, feeling the anger drain away into the all-too familiar feeling of anxiety, âI just mean that of all the lives I envisioned for myself, being up at half-three in the morning waiting on someone isnât how I imagined it.â
Though, even as you say it, you know that losing your sister wasnât part of the plan either. Yet it happened.
âJustâ just⌠Iâm grateful for your company, and I really look forward to it.â
âBut⌠if it isnât making me a more whole person, I have to ask whether it really is okay for me to continue like this.â A breeze picks up and rustles the leaves. âAnd I donât think it is.â
You take a deep breath.
âIâve had this tight band around my chest now for years. Even before my sister died. With you it gets looser, but when youâre gone the tightness is unbearable. I canât exist knowing I can only breathe a few times a year.â
This isnât where you thought your speech was going. Youâve forgotten what you wanted to say, what you wanted him to hear. Youâve forgotten that youâre meant to demand clarity from him because your own truth is spewing forth without prompting.Â
âIâve had enough grief for one lifetime, thank you,â you say, âI donât want to grieve you as well.â
Simon says nothing as you pack your things and stand. You should chance a glance at him, but you are afraid to see what his expression might be. Fully aware that one withering look from him would destroy you, you decide itâs now or never.
âI have so much kindness to repay you. If you want that, Iâd love a chance to see you in the morning for a coffee.â
Whatever happens next is up to him. Youâve said your piece, and you try your utmost to walk away with strong shoulders. There is far too much density to the emotions roiling in your chest for you to name one, but there is power in your stride. Even if this is the last time you ever see him, you were courageous in your conviction. At least for now, you did the right thing.
You blink rapidly and the tears come, unbidden.
part i, part ii, part iii, part iv, part v, part vi, part vii, christmas special, part viii, part ix, part x, part xi,Â
June flew by and of course while I planned for this to come out a week after the last update, it's been almost a month. I really enjoyed writing this, and actually I didn't want this to be a confession of love or anything even close, but as I kept writing I knew that there was no point drawing anything out because if what Simon was doing for her wasn't love, then what is it? If Dot feeling this way isn't love, what is it? This story is about grief and longing and aren't they all kinds of love?
Pairing: Simon 'Ghost' Riley x F!Reader (Jaguar)
Chapters: 1/?
Notes: Why yes I am writing a final Ghost and Jag fic after three years, funnily I wrote my fiancĂŠ into existence via these fics, this is ever as much our happy ending as it is Ghost and Jag's, This will be Ghost and Jag's final fic so I hope you guys enjoy and thanks for being a part of this crazy fic writing adventure!
AO3 | MASTERLIST
You were in a rough state, weaving through the swarms of people in the market. The summer heat was glaring down on you like it was personal, and your fever was making you see double. Of all the shit situations the 141 put you in, getting taken out by a fever seemed the most demeaning. Christ, you survived a near-direct rocket launcher blast in Mexico. And now here you were, in Old Delhi with too many people, sick out of your mind, and not enough fucks to give to continue your reconnaissance.Â
Somehow you made it back into the small safe-house where you had been staying the last five weeks while stalking your target. The objective was simple enough: trail your target through the never-ending crowds, down the exhaust filled streets. Observe him to see if he ever met with Viraj or other of his contacts. Price needed a way into Virajâs illusive inner circle so he could send in the heavy hitters (a certain towering Specter and his favorite Scotsman) to take out the terrorist organization from its root. But five weeks lead to nothingânothing except three days of a high fever and spilling your guts out in the dilapidated safe-house bathroom. At least there was a toilet.
Dragging yourself to the bathtub, you fell back into your makeshift den of blankets and a pillow. The ceramic tub was the only semi-cool thing in the place, and this way you were at least close to the toilet when you inevitably threw up again. Your backpack was next to the tub, with your personal kit of pain killers and electrolyte packets. A benign part of you thought to go to the local hospital, but you had seen the line out the building, and had witnessed the chaos and clamoring to get seen and treated, and you decided sweating it out in a bathtub sounded like a better idea than that hell. Beside, youâd have blown your cover anyway. So you laid back in the tub, both shivering and sweating profusely at the same time, stared at the ceiling above, and wrapped a blanket around you.
In the quiet of the room you could hear the clamor outsideâmotorbikes honking and trucks zooming by; people shouting and yelling over all of the noise. There was an electrical hum somewhere near the room that had insidiously drilled its way into your skull, and vibrated your cranial stem. Suddenly a wave of nausea surged through your body and you violently dry heaved into the toilet. There wasnât much in you that came up since you could barely stomach anything. You forced yourself to take some more pain killers and some water, and then curled back up in the tub.
What the fuck, you thought before the fever took over and you succumbed to your exhaustion.
When you woke later, the sun had already set, and the humidity had stagnated in the room. There was still a buzzing from the streets outside, but you were freezing and shivering in the tub now. You stared at the mildew in the caulking next to you.
Images played in your mind, as your eyes unfocused. You thought about how you ended up in this situation. Thought about Russia, and your time thereâthe coldness of it all; Vladislava and her teachings that inevitably led you to here. You thought about your apartment in San Francisco, and how you sold it after joining the 141 since you were never home. Thought about Simonâs in Leeds too. And how the light in the bathroom also hummed when you turned it on.
Simon. That was the reason you were here, six years later. Priceâs most loyal dog.
It wasnât his fault, you knew. After all he had been through, after all he had done⌠killing, doing these missions: it made him feel useful; gave him a purpose. And a part of you hated Price a little bit because you thought he exploited that. And you had been swept up in itâbecoming an honorary part of the 141 because your need to be enveloped and filled by Simon every single day outweighed brushing hands with death on every single mission. But here, in this shitty safe house all alone in Old Delhi, dying of a fever miles away from your man, had you rethinking it all. You wanted out.
But all you could do was curl further into yourself and wait. Perhaps Fate would be good to you.
-------
Old tags so let me know if you want to be (un)tagged!
@deadbranch @solidly-indulgent @aalxrose @dotcie @thepowers-kat-be
[fem!reader - inexperienced!reader - slow burn - loss and grief - insomniac!reader - insomniac!simon]
part i, part ii, part iii, part iv, part v, part vi, part vii, christmas special, part viii, part ix, part x
Two months drip by and mercifully the weather grows warmer. On the occasional sunny day you take a half day off work and sit in the park to draw. London being London, it drizzles almost the entire time, but the light refraction makes for some beautifully complex views.Â
You try to sit in as many parks as possible, absorbing as many different trees and squirrels as you can. The people change too, and you try to capture the spirit of each borough as best you can. In only a few short weeks, youâve filled an entire sketchbook. Theyâre mostly landscapes, although every once in a while you ask someoneâs permission to draw their portrait. You always show them, but never part with it.
The portraits are always done with ballpoint pen, sometimes felt tip liner if youâre in the mood, but the landscapes have become increasingly similar to pointillism, and despite the exhaustive nature of the technique, it captures in particular the drizzly London mornings with almost loving effect.Â
A smaller sketchbook sits in your jacket pocket. You take it out when you sit on the Tube, but it mainly comes out at the cafe. You donât use it when youâre out and about at the parks or at work, but it sits in your pocket constantly, a little talisman of⌠something.
In it, you draw hands.Â
At first the hands look slightly dissimilar, one with thicker thumbs, the next with short and rectangular nail beds, another with prominent veins, the next with mottled scars. Eventually they merge into the same hand, those that belong to your insomnia companion.
Simon.
Once again gone with the wind, something you reconciled a while ago. For a while evenings were unbearably difficult â you sitting in bed, the quiet of the streets allowing your inner shame to run amok. That night with Simon reigns supreme above all others. It is ever present, abating with the sun but returning with the darkness.Â
These days you try not to think too much of him. Try not to torture yourself with all the things you shouldnât have said, because the moment is over and despite his reaction, you meant every word. Some things canât be taken back, and some things canât ossify into regrets.Â
But in making friends with the shame and the longing, you had to accept that your attachment to him runs deeper than you thought. Whatever pours out onto the pads of your sketchbooks carries him â more subtly in the landscapes (thinking of him as you dot your way into art), but accepting that the notebook that burns a hole your pocket is full of him, full of his hands, scarred and strong and for some reason, the part of him you remember best.Â
A daydream you keep hidden in your heart of hearts is the feeling of his hands. Would they be rough? Does he run hot? Is he dextrous, or are his fingers merely tools? Youâve imagined it so many times that some part of you has already decided that yes, he does run hot, and yes heâd open his palm to reveal large calluses, but no he wouldnât be rough, in fact heâd be surprisingly nimble. Sometimes you fall asleep to the idea of his hand in yours, and when you jerk awake around midnight the shame and loneliness that fills you sets off days of unyielding insomnia.Â
On those days, you think you are breaking your own heart.
A breeze rustles through the trees and goosebumps erupt over your arm. They join the ones permanently raised on your neck. You smother a smile and look down at your sketchbook, half-filled with a pouncing grey squirrel.
Simon is difficult to say goodbye to because heâs still around. At first you were so mired in your own misery you could barely feel your own hands, and then post-depressing your heart felt like such a raw, pulpy mess that you werenât bothered with feeling your body, but now that things have rounded out, you have come to the conclusion that you are being watched.
Unlike the last time though, you arenât afraid. Something about the way the wind caresses you, the way the sun warms your back makes the instinct a little less terrifying. You laugh at yourself a little. Alternatively youâre the only person to happily be stalked into a horrible death.Â
But the flowers on your sisterâs grave have never left your mind, and the appearance of goosebumps on your neck shortly after is a sign.Â
Youâre being watched. Looked after. Stalked. Observed. Hunted.Â
Whether itâs Simon or a harbinger of death, you donât really care. Either way the result can only be both bliss and pain, so for you theyâre basically the same.Â
You know for certain that he is back though because Emir let it slip one night as you were leaving that you and Simon seemed to be ships in the night, appearing at his cafe only when the other wasnât to appear.Â
That had hurt you deeply. It embarrassed you, knowing that Emir and the other inhabitants probably saw you most nights and thought you were a lonely girl waiting for her man, but to say you werenât would also be a lie. At first you thought maybe Simon was avoiding you, but decided to release yourself of that particularly poisonous thought.Â
If he was, so be it. If it were simply coincidence, then so be it.Â
On you go with your life.Â
The breeze shifts.Â
Your neck prickles.
A scent fills your nostrils. Clean, masculine, earthy.
A figure sits down next to you, clad in all black and wearing heavy black boots. His mass is enormous, so much bigger than he seemed when sitting across from you.Â
You keep your eyes down on the paper before you, but you know who this is.
The hand that holds the pen begins to quiver.
Beside you, he sits with legs splayed open but body learning forwards, elbows resting on his thighs. You can feel the tension and heat rolling off of him in waves.
He clears his throat a few times but you donât move your eyes.Â
His voice is gravelly, and unsure. âDot⌠Iââ
You slam your sketchbook shut.Â
part i, part ii, part iii, part iv, part v, part vi, part vii, christmas special, part viii, part ix, part x
thank you for being patient. In particular, thank you to @clonethirstingisreal and @vrycurious for your vocal support and enthusiasm. I wrote this after seeing your responses to me and although I'm not super happy with the problem solving of it all, at least the two are together again.
I was so excited when I saw the notification that you'd tagged me on something! I was hoping maybe it was another chapter of this fic, and it was!! Oh happy day!! Even though it still hurts :'(
And this is just my rambling thoughts. It's not a good analysis. I just wanted to talk out loud about the chapter as i read it. That's all this is...just my feelings and thoughts.
I went back and read the last few chapters, to really get myself in the correct mindset. To really feel her pain all over again.
These days you try not to think too much of him. Try not to torture yourself with all the things you shouldnât have said, because the moment is over and despite his reaction, you meant every word. Some things canât be taken back, and some things canât ossify into regrets.Â
That's a good strategy...try not to think of him. Easier said than done, but at this point, a couple of months later, she's getting there. I'm sure each day she thinks about him a little less. Maybe she'll go a full hour without him popping into her head. Maybe two hours. Maybe she'll make it all night without dreaming of him. She's trying so hard to move on.
But I absolutely understand torturing yourself over something like this. I certainly would. But at some point, you have to try to stop.
I love the fact that she's tried to tell herself that she just needed someone. Someone so she's not alone. Someone to hold her, because it's been so long. He just happened to be the one, because he's the one who happened into her life.
But now she's realized that's not all it is.
But in making friends with the shame and the longing, you had to accept that your attachment to him runs deeper than you thought. Whatever pours out onto the pads of your sketchbooks carries him...the notebook that burns a hole your pocket is full of him, full of his hands, scarred and strong and for some reason, the part of him you remember best.Â
So many times when they were in the cafe together, she was drawing. So she was looking down at the table. And she wasn't good at eye contact with him. So of course his hands are what she remembers the most. That was a nice touch.
Remembering that he had watched her from a distance before, makes it totally believable that he's doing it again. And I would find that very comforting. Because it would make me think he still wants to be near me, but he just can't bring himself to talk to me, because of the whole mess of how things went down last time (of the poor way HE handled it, not me.) But there would still be hope. Someday. If he could ever get over whatever hurdle was keeping him at a distance. And even if I might be annoyed with myself that I couldn't just move on, I would also accept that it's totally understandable. There was such a connection between them, that doesn't just go away.
You know for certain that he is back though because Emir let it slip one night as you were leaving that you and Simon seemed to be ships in the night, appearing at his cafe only when the other wasnât to appear.Â
That had hurt you deeply.
And yes, that would hurt. A lot. But I would keep telling myself, but he keeps coming around. He's fighting an inner battle too. He's struggling. In a different way maybe, but struggling nonetheless.
I think I could tell myself at that point that I didn't do anything wrong. Even if I was still embarrassed, I would still be glad that I was brave enough to say what I did. I hope maybe Dot can get to that point too.
And then when he finally sits down:
You can feel the tension and heat rolling off of him in waves.
He clears his throat a few times but you donât move your eyes.Â
I couldn't breathe at that point. And I love her reaction.
You slam your sketchbook shut.Â
He deserves that. He has to know how miserable she was for so long. How she was beating herself up. So he can't just expect her to be excited that he finally decided to come out of the shadows.
I'm on the edge of my seat wondering what will happen next, but no pressure. I know you don't usually plan ahead and might not even know yet what's going to happen.
Thanks again for continuing this! I hope you're not miserable writing it just for those of us who love it.
For a minute I was so worried that youâd stopped reading! Phew, Iâm so glad to see that you enjoyed the return.
Iâm still not really satisfied with how he came back, I had a different idea that came to me a few weeks ago but I didnât write it down and forgot about it⌠even though this is a lot more tepid than what I had originally imagined, I think it leaves the next chapter a lot more room to develop, and I feel like I have a good idea of what happens next so maybe this chapter being more lukewarm was a good thing after all đ§
I do feel for Dot, itâs a lot of thinking and feeling on her part and at times Iâve almost changed tack with Simon because I felt like he was leading her on a bit⌠I wonât say too much because Iâll leave it for the next chapter! I think it will be (hopefully) a gratifying read.
As always, I keenly await your feedback!! Thank you for reading and writing :)
Oh no! I'm so sorry you were worried that I'd stopped reading! Heavens no! I will never stop reading this fic until you're done. And even then, I know I'll revisit it when I want to read an amazing Simon fic.
For future reference, I "like" fics when I first see them, until I have a chance to reblog with my comments. So, if you see a like from "savebytheodore", that's me. It's my main account, so the one that likes will show from. And as soon as I saw your tag on this fic, I "liked" it to bookmark it for later. I did read it as quickly as possible though, because I was so excited. But I didn't have time to comment then.
And it's interesting what you said about Simon leading her on a bit. Of course, I can only go by what you post, so I won't know what you're thinking or planning or how you're viewing the characters. Not unless it shows in your writing.
And with the information I had in the chapters posted, I didn't even think about him leading her on. So, I find that fascinating. What I thought was probably happening was that he is emotionally distant with walls that are difficult to break through. And I actually pictured him as being more scared of what he might be feeling, and what she might be feeling, than actually leading her on.
Maybe that's because I did that with a couple of guys in college. I hadn't spent as much time with them as Dot and Simon had. I didn't let it go that long. I got scared sooner than that and ghosted (pardon the pun.) I even almost did it with my now husband early on. I about ran away, because I was scared of what I was feeling. And I was scared when I realized his feelings were becoming stronger. It's only because he was so patient with me that I stuck around. And we just had our 24th wedding anniversary, so I'm so glad he was.
So yeah, I think my personal experiences were coloring how I saw Simon here. And I'm not saying how he handled the situation was good. No, it wasn't good at all. It was very hurtful and disappointing. But I can kind of see why he might have reacted that way. But if you feel like he was kind of leading her on, then that changes the way I see that a bit. Now I'm even more curious where the story will lead them!
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me! And I don't think your readers will think this is lukewarm at all. I know I don't! <3
Good to know! I wonât panic the next time you donât immediately respond to something I write lol.
So interesting to hear your experiences, and thank you for sharing. When I say I think Simon was leading her on I meant from my perspective as a⌠third person? I think Simon is as you say, wary, cautious, busy, and traumatised. Dot did a lot of the courageous reaching out, and I think because I identify with her more than I do Simon, I want something clean and clear and well-defined for her.
I think the flowers on her sisterâs grave could have gone either way⌠along with the stalking⌠I think if Dot had a modicum more of self-preservation and possibly self-respect, I think she might be furious about those things. I think a less damaged person could take those things as severe infringements of privacy, but I think Dot is so wounded that she canât tell.
Iâm sure you know all this, but I just mean to clarify that the leading on is my own frustration with the two of them (as though I werenât the one writing it lmao)
[fem!reader - inexperienced!reader - slow burn - loss and grief - insomniac!reader - insomniac!simon]
part i, part ii, part iii, part iv, part v, part vi, part vii, christmas special, part viii, part ix, part x
Two months drip by and mercifully the weather grows warmer. On the occasional sunny day you take a half day off work and sit in the park to draw. London being London, it drizzles almost the entire time, but the light refraction makes for some beautifully complex views.Â
You try to sit in as many parks as possible, absorbing as many different trees and squirrels as you can. The people change too, and you try to capture the spirit of each borough as best you can. In only a few short weeks, youâve filled an entire sketchbook. Theyâre mostly landscapes, although every once in a while you ask someoneâs permission to draw their portrait. You always show them, but never part with it.
The portraits are always done with ballpoint pen, sometimes felt tip liner if youâre in the mood, but the landscapes have become increasingly similar to pointillism, and despite the exhaustive nature of the technique, it captures in particular the drizzly London mornings with almost loving effect.Â
A smaller sketchbook sits in your jacket pocket. You take it out when you sit on the Tube, but it mainly comes out at the cafe. You donât use it when youâre out and about at the parks or at work, but it sits in your pocket constantly, a little talisman of⌠something.
In it, you draw hands.Â
At first the hands look slightly dissimilar, one with thicker thumbs, the next with short and rectangular nail beds, another with prominent veins, the next with mottled scars. Eventually they merge into the same hand, those that belong to your insomnia companion.
Simon.
Once again gone with the wind, something you reconciled a while ago. For a while evenings were unbearably difficult â you sitting in bed, the quiet of the streets allowing your inner shame to run amok. That night with Simon reigns supreme above all others. It is ever present, abating with the sun but returning with the darkness.Â
These days you try not to think too much of him. Try not to torture yourself with all the things you shouldnât have said, because the moment is over and despite his reaction, you meant every word. Some things canât be taken back, and some things canât ossify into regrets.Â
But in making friends with the shame and the longing, you had to accept that your attachment to him runs deeper than you thought. Whatever pours out onto the pads of your sketchbooks carries him â more subtly in the landscapes (thinking of him as you dot your way into art), but accepting that the notebook that burns a hole your pocket is full of him, full of his hands, scarred and strong and for some reason, the part of him you remember best.Â
A daydream you keep hidden in your heart of hearts is the feeling of his hands. Would they be rough? Does he run hot? Is he dextrous, or are his fingers merely tools? Youâve imagined it so many times that some part of you has already decided that yes, he does run hot, and yes heâd open his palm to reveal large calluses, but no he wouldnât be rough, in fact heâd be surprisingly nimble. Sometimes you fall asleep to the idea of his hand in yours, and when you jerk awake around midnight the shame and loneliness that fills you sets off days of unyielding insomnia.Â
On those days, you think you are breaking your own heart.
A breeze rustles through the trees and goosebumps erupt over your arm. They join the ones permanently raised on your neck. You smother a smile and look down at your sketchbook, half-filled with a pouncing grey squirrel.
Simon is difficult to say goodbye to because heâs still around. At first you were so mired in your own misery you could barely feel your own hands, and then post-depressing your heart felt like such a raw, pulpy mess that you werenât bothered with feeling your body, but now that things have rounded out, you have come to the conclusion that you are being watched.
Unlike the last time though, you arenât afraid. Something about the way the wind caresses you, the way the sun warms your back makes the instinct a little less terrifying. You laugh at yourself a little. Alternatively youâre the only person to happily be stalked into a horrible death.Â
But the flowers on your sisterâs grave have never left your mind, and the appearance of goosebumps on your neck shortly after is a sign.Â
Youâre being watched. Looked after. Stalked. Observed. Hunted.Â
Whether itâs Simon or a harbinger of death, you donât really care. Either way the result can only be both bliss and pain, so for you theyâre basically the same.Â
You know for certain that he is back though because Emir let it slip one night as you were leaving that you and Simon seemed to be ships in the night, appearing at his cafe only when the other wasnât to appear.Â
That had hurt you deeply. It embarrassed you, knowing that Emir and the other inhabitants probably saw you most nights and thought you were a lonely girl waiting for her man, but to say you werenât would also be a lie. At first you thought maybe Simon was avoiding you, but decided to release yourself of that particularly poisonous thought.Â
If he was, so be it. If it were simply coincidence, then so be it.Â
On you go with your life.Â
The breeze shifts.Â
Your neck prickles.
A scent fills your nostrils. Clean, masculine, earthy.
A figure sits down next to you, clad in all black and wearing heavy black boots. His mass is enormous, so much bigger than he seemed when sitting across from you.Â
You keep your eyes down on the paper before you, but you know who this is.
The hand that holds the pen begins to quiver.
Beside you, he sits with legs splayed open but body learning forwards, elbows resting on his thighs. You can feel the tension and heat rolling off of him in waves.
He clears his throat a few times but you donât move your eyes.Â
His voice is gravelly, and unsure. âDot⌠Iââ
You slam your sketchbook shut.Â
part i, part ii, part iii, part iv, part v, part vi, part vii, christmas special, part viii, part ix, part x
thank you for being patient. In particular, thank you to @clonethirstingisreal and @vrycurious for your vocal support and enthusiasm. I wrote this after seeing your responses to me and although I'm not super happy with the problem solving of it all, at least the two are together again.
I was so excited when I saw the notification that you'd tagged me on something! I was hoping maybe it was another chapter of this fic, and it was!! Oh happy day!! Even though it still hurts :'(
And this is just my rambling thoughts. It's not a good analysis. I just wanted to talk out loud about the chapter as i read it. That's all this is...just my feelings and thoughts.
I went back and read the last few chapters, to really get myself in the correct mindset. To really feel her pain all over again.
These days you try not to think too much of him. Try not to torture yourself with all the things you shouldnât have said, because the moment is over and despite his reaction, you meant every word. Some things canât be taken back, and some things canât ossify into regrets.Â
That's a good strategy...try not to think of him. Easier said than done, but at this point, a couple of months later, she's getting there. I'm sure each day she thinks about him a little less. Maybe she'll go a full hour without him popping into her head. Maybe two hours. Maybe she'll make it all night without dreaming of him. She's trying so hard to move on.
But I absolutely understand torturing yourself over something like this. I certainly would. But at some point, you have to try to stop.
I love the fact that she's tried to tell herself that she just needed someone. Someone so she's not alone. Someone to hold her, because it's been so long. He just happened to be the one, because he's the one who happened into her life.
But now she's realized that's not all it is.
But in making friends with the shame and the longing, you had to accept that your attachment to him runs deeper than you thought. Whatever pours out onto the pads of your sketchbooks carries him...the notebook that burns a hole your pocket is full of him, full of his hands, scarred and strong and for some reason, the part of him you remember best.Â
So many times when they were in the cafe together, she was drawing. So she was looking down at the table. And she wasn't good at eye contact with him. So of course his hands are what she remembers the most. That was a nice touch.
Remembering that he had watched her from a distance before, makes it totally believable that he's doing it again. And I would find that very comforting. Because it would make me think he still wants to be near me, but he just can't bring himself to talk to me, because of the whole mess of how things went down last time (of the poor way HE handled it, not me.) But there would still be hope. Someday. If he could ever get over whatever hurdle was keeping him at a distance. And even if I might be annoyed with myself that I couldn't just move on, I would also accept that it's totally understandable. There was such a connection between them, that doesn't just go away.
You know for certain that he is back though because Emir let it slip one night as you were leaving that you and Simon seemed to be ships in the night, appearing at his cafe only when the other wasnât to appear.Â
That had hurt you deeply.
And yes, that would hurt. A lot. But I would keep telling myself, but he keeps coming around. He's fighting an inner battle too. He's struggling. In a different way maybe, but struggling nonetheless.
I think I could tell myself at that point that I didn't do anything wrong. Even if I was still embarrassed, I would still be glad that I was brave enough to say what I did. I hope maybe Dot can get to that point too.
And then when he finally sits down:
You can feel the tension and heat rolling off of him in waves.
He clears his throat a few times but you donât move your eyes.Â
I couldn't breathe at that point. And I love her reaction.
You slam your sketchbook shut.Â
He deserves that. He has to know how miserable she was for so long. How she was beating herself up. So he can't just expect her to be excited that he finally decided to come out of the shadows.
I'm on the edge of my seat wondering what will happen next, but no pressure. I know you don't usually plan ahead and might not even know yet what's going to happen.
Thanks again for continuing this! I hope you're not miserable writing it just for those of us who love it.
For a minute I was so worried that youâd stopped reading! Phew, Iâm so glad to see that you enjoyed the return.
Iâm still not really satisfied with how he came back, I had a different idea that came to me a few weeks ago but I didnât write it down and forgot about it⌠even though this is a lot more tepid than what I had originally imagined, I think it leaves the next chapter a lot more room to develop, and I feel like I have a good idea of what happens next so maybe this chapter being more lukewarm was a good thing after all đ§
I do feel for Dot, itâs a lot of thinking and feeling on her part and at times Iâve almost changed tack with Simon because I felt like he was leading her on a bit⌠I wonât say too much because Iâll leave it for the next chapter! I think it will be (hopefully) a gratifying read.
As always, I keenly await your feedback!! Thank you for reading and writing :)
[fem!reader - inexperienced!reader - slow burn - loss and grief - insomniac!reader - insomniac!simon]
part i, part ii, part iii, part iv, part v, part vi, part vii, christmas special, part viii, part ix, part x
Two months drip by and mercifully the weather grows warmer. On the occasional sunny day you take a half day off work and sit in the park to draw. London being London, it drizzles almost the entire time, but the light refraction makes for some beautifully complex views.Â
You try to sit in as many parks as possible, absorbing as many different trees and squirrels as you can. The people change too, and you try to capture the spirit of each borough as best you can. In only a few short weeks, youâve filled an entire sketchbook. Theyâre mostly landscapes, although every once in a while you ask someoneâs permission to draw their portrait. You always show them, but never part with it.
The portraits are always done with ballpoint pen, sometimes felt tip liner if youâre in the mood, but the landscapes have become increasingly similar to pointillism, and despite the exhaustive nature of the technique, it captures in particular the drizzly London mornings with almost loving effect.Â
A smaller sketchbook sits in your jacket pocket. You take it out when you sit on the Tube, but it mainly comes out at the cafe. You donât use it when youâre out and about at the parks or at work, but it sits in your pocket constantly, a little talisman of⌠something.
In it, you draw hands.Â
At first the hands look slightly dissimilar, one with thicker thumbs, the next with short and rectangular nail beds, another with prominent veins, the next with mottled scars. Eventually they merge into the same hand, those that belong to your insomnia companion.
Simon.
Once again gone with the wind, something you reconciled a while ago. For a while evenings were unbearably difficult â you sitting in bed, the quiet of the streets allowing your inner shame to run amok. That night with Simon reigns supreme above all others. It is ever present, abating with the sun but returning with the darkness.Â
These days you try not to think too much of him. Try not to torture yourself with all the things you shouldnât have said, because the moment is over and despite his reaction, you meant every word. Some things canât be taken back, and some things canât ossify into regrets.Â
But in making friends with the shame and the longing, you had to accept that your attachment to him runs deeper than you thought. Whatever pours out onto the pads of your sketchbooks carries him â more subtly in the landscapes (thinking of him as you dot your way into art), but accepting that the notebook that burns a hole your pocket is full of him, full of his hands, scarred and strong and for some reason, the part of him you remember best.Â
A daydream you keep hidden in your heart of hearts is the feeling of his hands. Would they be rough? Does he run hot? Is he dextrous, or are his fingers merely tools? Youâve imagined it so many times that some part of you has already decided that yes, he does run hot, and yes heâd open his palm to reveal large calluses, but no he wouldnât be rough, in fact heâd be surprisingly nimble. Sometimes you fall asleep to the idea of his hand in yours, and when you jerk awake around midnight the shame and loneliness that fills you sets off days of unyielding insomnia.Â
On those days, you think you are breaking your own heart.
A breeze rustles through the trees and goosebumps erupt over your arm. They join the ones permanently raised on your neck. You smother a smile and look down at your sketchbook, half-filled with a pouncing grey squirrel.
Simon is difficult to say goodbye to because heâs still around. At first you were so mired in your own misery you could barely feel your own hands, and then post-depressing your heart felt like such a raw, pulpy mess that you werenât bothered with feeling your body, but now that things have rounded out, you have come to the conclusion that you are being watched.
Unlike the last time though, you arenât afraid. Something about the way the wind caresses you, the way the sun warms your back makes the instinct a little less terrifying. You laugh at yourself a little. Alternatively youâre the only person to happily be stalked into a horrible death.Â
But the flowers on your sisterâs grave have never left your mind, and the appearance of goosebumps on your neck shortly after is a sign.Â
Youâre being watched. Looked after. Stalked. Observed. Hunted.Â
Whether itâs Simon or a harbinger of death, you donât really care. Either way the result can only be both bliss and pain, so for you theyâre basically the same.Â
You know for certain that he is back though because Emir let it slip one night as you were leaving that you and Simon seemed to be ships in the night, appearing at his cafe only when the other wasnât to appear.Â
That had hurt you deeply. It embarrassed you, knowing that Emir and the other inhabitants probably saw you most nights and thought you were a lonely girl waiting for her man, but to say you werenât would also be a lie. At first you thought maybe Simon was avoiding you, but decided to release yourself of that particularly poisonous thought.Â
If he was, so be it. If it were simply coincidence, then so be it.Â
On you go with your life.Â
The breeze shifts.Â
Your neck prickles.
A scent fills your nostrils. Clean, masculine, earthy.
A figure sits down next to you, clad in all black and wearing heavy black boots. His mass is enormous, so much bigger than he seemed when sitting across from you.Â
You keep your eyes down on the paper before you, but you know who this is.
The hand that holds the pen begins to quiver.
Beside you, he sits with legs splayed open but body learning forwards, elbows resting on his thighs. You can feel the tension and heat rolling off of him in waves.
He clears his throat a few times but you donât move your eyes.Â
His voice is gravelly, and unsure. âDot⌠Iââ
You slam your sketchbook shut.Â
part i, part ii, part iii, part iv, part v, part vi, part vii, christmas special, part viii, part ix, part x
thank you for being patient. In particular, thank you to @clonethirstingisreal and @vrycurious for your vocal support and enthusiasm. I wrote this after seeing your responses to me and although I'm not super happy with the problem solving of it all, at least the two are together again.
Being OG!Ghostâs significant other and waking up in a world where everything is just a little off.
One thing that stayed the same though, was the pub where you and Simon met. Your regular spotâalbeit, with a bartender you didnât recognize minding the establishment. Aside from that, it was identical to the place where you spent countless nights out together after long days and longer deploymentsâor, at least you used to. Before heâŚ
It was him who approached you first, a stranger with haunted brown eyes and a shaken expression, privacy mask pulled up over his nose. You could hear him exhale. Then, quietly, he spoke your name.
You looked at him warily.
âSorry, Iâm bad with faces, do I know you?â You asked sheepishly, a bit concerned that someone in this seemingly parallel world recognized you.
He looked as if you shot him, hackles raised like that wasnât the response you should have given, but still hefted himself across from you in the booth where you sat nonetheless.
You looked around, flighty as your eyes landed on the exit, hopefully you had a running tab here too.
â-Simon.â He interjected with clear urgency, a last ditch attempt to hold your attention.
You stilled, looking at him with owlish eyes. âDid you⌠know him?â
Was this one of his military buddies crawling out of the woodwork after all these years? His private life wasnât something he was one to divulge so readily, there were a lot of little mundane and domestic secrets he took with him to the grave, still, it wasnât impossible. Clearly he recognized you, maybe Si had been in this timeline too.
âKnow him?â The big man across from you asked, frowning, â-I am him.â
You mirrored his expression, was this a sick joke? Looking over the man, it was obvious he was someone elseâhe was both bigger in height and bulk, deeper timbre, tattooed, older, dark brown eyes, and an entirely different face; the most important difference, howeverâ
ââSimon is dead.â
He grimaced at your response, eyes drinking you inâhe was almost always one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but this was different, this was you.
He was desperate.
after a moment, he spoke up in a low, almost imperceptibly trembling voice. âYeah,â he huffed out âyou are too.â
a chronicle of desire for two people who have intense, complicated feelings about it (find part one here)
inexperienced reader, experienced but traumatised Simon Riley, complex feelings about sex and physical touch, cockwarming, nipple sucking, nightmares
Month twenty-seven blurs the edge Unluckily for Simon, time passes eventfully.Â
Almost everything that can cock up an operation goes wrong â satellite issues turn into communication failures that snowballs into a compromised location⌠Johnny gripes the whole time about dying ignoble deaths from frostbite, and when the team stumble into the bare safehouse that appears to be more shack that house, even stalwart John Price is ready to blow a bloody gasket.Â
Meanwhile, Simon Riley disappears into rumination-induced dissociation and in his place is Ghost â immovable, implacable, impossible to break. A real mockery of a man.Â
He remains that way the entire trip back to Hereford, stomping out of the Chinook with barely a nod to his Captain and team. He stalks all the way to his room and dumps his filthy gear on the floor and yanks open the door to the bathroom, ignoring the way the hinges screech in protest.Â
Grumbling to himself he shucks off even filthier clothing and turns the shower to as hot as he can handle. Heâs fuming for no reason because lord knows heâs had significantly worse missions â he made it out of this one with nary a scratch â and he knows heâs being a fucking child but heâs angry for good reasonâŚ
Heâs been hard for days.Â
Simon steps into the shower and resentfully glares down at his swollen, bobbing cock.Â
Embarrassment tailed him the entire latter half of the operation because he couldnât stop fucking sporting a semi. Arousal is common and ignored when youâre in proximity with other people but surely the lads would have noticed and thought he had properly lost his mind.Â
The lack of control he has over his own body creates a sick, oily feeling in his stomach that hasnât abated at all. The entire thing is fucking with him because yeah heâs thinking about your cunt and how much he wants to taste you but also heâs mad with anxiety about coming home and somehow being a massive fucking disappointment.Â
He hates that he is thinking about his scars and burns and he hates that thinking about it makes his skin crawl and his clothes feel too tight and he hates knowing that this will lead to panic so he needs to keep breathing steadily, but above all else he hates that the more he tries not to think about you, the harder his cock gets.Â
Simonâs body is betraying him and heâs never felt more like a little boy.
Usually he can get away with having a wank once every blue moon. Now, as he fists his cock with a dirty hand and pumps soberly to completion, he worries that this new version of him is a new kind of monster that he isnât prepared for.Â
Heâs worried about bringing this home to you⌠worried about what you will think.
Simon comes with a few short grunts and watches as his come hits the shower glass. He leans his head until his forehead rests on the glass and sighs lightly. He really does miss you. Itâs time to man up and get the fuck home.
The door of the flat opens and within moments you are barrelling down the hall and slamming into his body. Simon lobs his keys in the direction of the hallway table and reaches down to mash your lips against his. You sigh happily into his mouth and jump up into his arms. Gathering you into his arms, he hopes you ignore the fact that heâs hard.Â
Your kisses smack noisily as he carries you into the bedroom. Once there he turns around and falls back on the bed with you in his arms. Squealing at the descent, you pull back just enough to make sure you donât split your lip on his teeth but then dive right back in. Itâs a blissful exploration of tongues and roving hands
Eventually he breaks through the fog of desire to realise that you are rolling your hips over his⌠Wave after wave of agonizing undulation that makes him pant like a dog in summer.Â
Youâve never been so bold, butâ
Can he do this right now?
âLove.â He stills you with a hot hand on your hip.
You sit up, your t-shirt crumpled and lips wet and swollen. Youâre so beautiful that he forgets why he stopped you in the first place.
âIs it too much?â You move to clamber off of him. His hands twitch in indignation although his arms remain solidly at his side. Simon stares up at the ceiling, hating himself.Â
âBaby?â Your warm hand cups the side of his face and he turns to look at you. Darling thing you are, you sit there looking thoroughly ruffled though your eyes are concerned. Thereâs not an ounce of pity in them and while it doesnât make Simon want to fuck you, it does make him want to hold your hand for the rest of his days.
âWe donât have to do this now, Simon,â you whisper as you curl close, âI was just excited about having you home.â
The last part is said quietly, confession-like.
He rips his face from your tender grasp and blinks up at the ceiling. His throat works and nose burns. Bloody fucking hell. Thereâs no way he can cry right now. Man the fuck up Simon Riley you piss weak piece of shit.
A rogue tear slips down the cheek that doesnât face you. For you not to see it, he throws a thousand thanks to whatever is up there watching him.The truth is heâs not ready for this, but heâs ready for you. Itâs a difficult juxtaposition but itâs the truth. He just canât manage to vocalise it â canât even bear thinking about it.Â
Beside him, you make yourself still. He can feel it and is afraid of your judgement, so he places a hot, shaky palm over your hip as a consolation prize. It grounds him to feel the gentle rise and fall of your body. Your breathing slows down and he is soothed by your benevolent presence.Â
Before you, war made Simon believe that the world was just never-ending bloodshed and that everyone was doomed to the same fate. Whether or not you got any goodness in your life was entirely luck, and Simon had run out of luck when his family died. Then you came and stayed, and he finds himself close to throwing prayers out⌠there. To keep you safe. To keep you from harm. To keep you with him. To make him a better man.Â
You fall asleep and so does he, and then both crawl up close to midnight for a snack of cheese and biscuits. You make him a cuppa and sip your warm water and lean in under his arm as the two of you eat quietly in the dark of your kitchen.
Itâs the best homecoming heâs had his whole life.Â
Belly full and arm locked around your waist, Simon falls asleep quickly.
His dreams, though, are haunted.Â
Simon is standing at the foot of the bed, dressed in civvies. His mind is foggy and his eyes are heavy. He knows this is the bedroom but canât figure out why he feels so sluggish in his body. His eyes rove over the door to the bedroom and then the bathroom. Secure, though he has no real way of knowing. Something deep inside him just knows thereâs no threat on the outside.Â
âSimonâŚâ
Your voice draws him back to the bed.
He turns slowly and is electrocuted by the shock of what lays before him.
You, on all fours, arched and bare. Your hair is covering your face and itâs slightly turned to see him but he canât make out your features.Â
Youâre wet and unshaved and he feels his mouth salivate.Â
He looks down and realises heâs hard. It feels strange though, because heâs not quite caught up with whatâs going on.Â
âMmmmm, SimonâŚâ You sway your hips from left to right, tantalizing him.Â
His eyes are locked on your cunt, but he canât quite believe it. He has the feeling heâs missed something⌠How did you get in this position? What happened before?
His body moves; his hand reaches out. He catches a drip of slick and without thinking, sucks at his fingers. His cock jumps.Â
He reaches out to feel you again. Heâs met with warmth and the soft press of skin, and he hears you sigh in satisfaction. He digs a thumb into your arsecheek and squeezes as hard as he dares to, watching your pussy clench and hips sway.Â
He grunts, stepping closer to you as though magnetized. His other hand reaches to pull out his cock but instead of cloth he meets his own skin.
Struck, he steps back and looks down. Heâs completely naked.Â
Simon inhales sharply. His cock is hard and leaking come but where the fuck have his clothes gone? Heâs completely bare, from head to toe. His hands come up to feel for a mask but touch nothing and the light glancing off his skin makes his insides churn with nausea. He wants to reach for clothes but his body wonât move and he doesnât understand where his clothes have gone when he was just wearing them beforeâ
âSimon?â
He looks up, chest heaving, and is horrified to find that you have become⌠heâs no longer looking at you.
The person looking back at him is some other woman, someone from his past. Her body is different, leaner than yours and he rakes his eyes down her figure and snags on a tattoo on her lower back. You donât have tattoos.
His hand is on her waist.
What? How is thatâ he was just looking atâ he doesnât want to touch this personâ
Gasping, Simon reels back.Â
He wants to leave but his feet are glued to the floor and panic crawls up his throat in such a vicious way that for a moment his eyes are filled with tears and his throat full of heat and sand and despair.
âBaby?â
Your voice snaps him back into focus.
Itâs you! Itâs you. You are on the bed, bare-bottomed but clothed from the waist up and the relief he feels makes his nostrils sting. You donât seem to have noticed what happened.
âItâs okay baby,â you sing, âI wonât look.â
Huh?
He looks down and like a bucket of water has been doused over his head, is again shocked to see that he is clothed once more. His cock is still hard and wanting, but no longer visible. Nor are the scars and burn marks and bruises.
What he feels isnât close to relief because suddenly heâs aware that you are waiting for him but heâs afraid to even go near you because he has not fucking clue whatâs going on with himâ
âCome on baby.â
His blood freezes. That isnât your voice.
This time he doesnât even deign to look up at your face because he couldnât bear it if he didnât see your lovely eyes staring back at him.Â
His gaze draws slowly to the exposed cunt in front of him and a whimper leaves him when he realises that itâs not you. The colour of the pubic hair is wrong, the shade of skin entirely too dark. Simon knows that with the weakness he feels right now, to be met with the face of another person would destroy him.
âYou can do it baby, just take me.â
Simon squeezes his eyes so tightly he sees sparks, and screams.
âSimon!â
He chokes awake.
Sweating, gasping, back damp and lashes wet.
You float into his view, visage open with shock and concern. You arenât touching him, because night terrors end badly when you do, but youâre on your knees close to him, hands fisted in your lap.
âDarling,â you say softly, with great kindness, âyouâre alright. Youâre here, with me. Weâre home.â
Simon throws an arm over his eyes and coughs a sob into his elbow. He doesnât believe itâs you, doesnât believe that he can share this body with you, doesnât believe that you want something as used and ragged as him. But if you leave, itâll be the end of him.Â
Heâs never cried like this in front of you, but the nightmare has made mincemeat of his heart.
âSimonâŚâ you whisper, voice wobbling.Â
Slowly, his tremors die down. His nose is clogged and his throat is sore but he gives it just another moment before moving. He doesnât know what he wants, and heâs so fucking tired of it. Why canât he just give you what you want?
He feels you lean closer to him. Ordinarily he would be repulsed by the thought of you touching him after a night terror, but this time he finds that all he wants is to dig his fingers into your flesh so hard it hits bone.Â
Loose-limbed and eyes sore, Simon slowly peels his arm off his face and beckons you to come closer. You do, immediately. The moment your knees hit his side he drags you up and over him so that your legs straddle his hips.Â
Even through his swollen eyes, he can see yours fly open in shock.Â
He knows you feel his cock pressing against your ass. He can feel you bending forwards in an effort to not touch it. Youâre unsure because this is new territory. Never has he reached for you after a nightmare, not even neutrally, let alone with such brazen honesty.Â
âSimonâŚâ your voice is even softer now. Not with pity, but with concern.Â
He brings you down to kiss you softly. Itâs early in the morning, and the gentle light caresses the both of you as your lips stick together. The sound crinkles in his ears and unwinds the knot in his gut.Â
âI donâtâ I wantââ, he wants to say something, to tell you something about how much he wants you and how much he canât do it, but nothing useful comes out.
You hush him and press your cheek against his. Your hand comes up to stroke his hair, the other running up and down his clammy shoulder.Â
âDo you want me?â
He nods. He closes his eyes because theyâre growing wet. He wants you so much.
âThen letâs try something, okay?â
He nods. He trusts you with his life, with his body. Because he cannot trust himself.
You raise yourself slightly and place a hand on his cheek. His eyes open and you smile warmly at him.
âJust keep looking at me, and let me know.â
Hypnotized, all he can do is nod.
Suddenly, heâs aware of all that is happening. He can see your nipples under your shirt, he can see the way your underwear is sticking to your cunt, and the moment he clocks it he is absolutely locked in.Â
The vision is reminiscent of his dream, though the reality is far different because he can feel your skin warm on his and he can smell your hair and your skin and your lotion and he can smell your pretty pussy, too.
Your hand dances along the line of your underwear, touching everything with a lightness that entrances him. He watches your fingers reach down to rub at your clothed cunt and his mouth is flooded with saliva. He wants to taste, but he wants to watch even more.Â
Your chest rises and falls heavily. Youâre panting slightly, and rocking a little against your hand.
âBaby, can you take yourself out for me?â
Simonâs hand fumbles to bring his cock out. The proximity to your cunt is torture â he wants to see you sit on him and take him, but maybe itâs not something youâre ready for. Maybe youâll get halfway and heâll tap out. The backs of his knees begin to sweat again. The prospect of failing makes him clench his cock just a little too hard.Â
âSimon.â Your voice is firm. His eyes dart up and catch your sober expression. Feeling chastised, he tries to lock away the self loathing, but does a poor job at it.
âAll I want is to feel you, okay? Nothing more.â
He understands.Â
Your fingers resume their motion, and on the third swipe you curl your fingers on one side of the gusset and pull to reveal your cunt. Simon can see your wetness lingering on your pubic hair, slightly catching light from the open drapes. A wave of emotion rushes over him as he looks at your core.Â
Benediction.Â
He holds himself up and watches with bated breath as you sit close, lips grazing the angry tip of his throbbing cock. The moment you make contact, he releases a shaking breath, and you, a tiny, controlled moan.
The sound snaps him back into his body, and suddenly he is hurtled back to the months prior when he was home and deeply acquainted with the sounds you made with his mouth and fingers in you and on you.Â
War has scrubbed his ears clean and he has forgotten⌠you.
Desire roars through him like a hydrant suddenly bursting.Â
This is you, soft, adoring, wonderful, erotic you. Giving him this, giving yourself this. He mustnât waste the chance.Â
Simon steels himself, and lifts a hand to support your thigh. Youâre shaking, and it occurs to him that you might be waiting for him.
âGo on, love.â
Itâs all you need, and what follows is the most loving embrace heâs had his whole life. The sight of your cunt slowly swallowing his cock fills his vision, entrancing him in a way that endows him with the knowledge that he has never experienced awe as he is experiencing right now â your slick sliding down his cock, your hair meeting his and your body melting down until you sit right on him, gasping and panting like the siren you are.
You look down at Simon, sweat dotting your brow and a small, proud smirk on your face.
Your chest rises and falls erratically, seemingly the only sign that you are just as affected as he.Â
He can feel your heartbeat like this, cunt tight and sealed around his cock. Simon is absolutely taken aback because fuck knows if sex ever felt like this before. In his mind he knows that this is different, that nothing that came before ever counted. All the people before, all the bodies and the motels⌠all of it just washed away like a castle in the tide.
All youâve done is sit on him and here he is, about to blow his fucking load.
âFuckinâ amazing, love,â Simon grunts, âyou fuckinâ wild thing.â
His words make you giggle, which in turn creates a churning in his cock that makes him grit his teeth.
âJust this?â He says, willing himself not to come and to just⌠enjoy.
âIf you want,â you say above him, but your hand leaves is perch on his chest to slide up your shirt. You cup your breast and maybe you squeeze because your head drops back in a sigh and your thighs relax just that much more on his hips.Â
Simon sits up and slowly adjusts you so that youâre sitting in a tight embrace. Your eyes roll back from the movement and your hand is lax under your shirt, then trapped between your chest and his.Â
He leans forward to place a small kiss on the corner of your mouth. You crane your head slightly to catch his mouth, but he has a different intention in mind.Â
His fingers circle the elbow of your arm, then follow it up under your shirt. You allow him to cup your breast instead, and when his calloused thumb brushes your nipple your stomach tightens, making Simon grunt.Â
With his other hand, Simon begins to lift your shirt.Â
Your eyes open and you look down with curiosity at his actions.
Simon pulls only so much that your breast is exposed to the cool morning air, leaving the other side untouched. His breath tickles your nipple and he squeezes it carefully between his thumb and forefinger. You shiver and lean in close.
For a moment he thinks youâre going to kiss him, but instead you whisper in his ear, âIâm always dreaming of you, Simon.â
His thighs quiver, and Simon closes the gap to take your breast in his mouth. The feeling of soft flesh under his teeth strums a deep desire in his bones. The feeling is so soothing, so comfortable, that he feels he has entered limbo. Your hand twines into the hair at the back of his skull and pulls slightly. He takes more of you into his mouth.Â
Your breathing slows, as does his, and the two of you sit in the morning light, pressed close and even then even closer.
I really only expected this to be two parts - I had them having sex in this part but it just didn't make sense with the amount of time they took leading up to this so... there will be a part three.
This part is more meditative than the first... the third will take on another tone.
Apologies this took so long. I just reached 1000 followers so I thought I should get this out. Hope you enjoyed.
[fem!reader - inexperienced!reader - slow burn - loss and grief - insomniac!reader - insomniac!simon]
part i, part ii, part iii, part iv, part v, part vi, part vii, christmas special, part viii
This Christmas, it's this:
You, sitting with a masala chai cupped in two hands, Simon across from you with a steaming black coffee, hands mirroring yours except theyâre loosely knotted in front of his mug.Â
Proximity warming you from the outside in, tea and company warming you from the inside out.Â
Itâs Christmas, and you spent the morning bringing holly and a hot toddy to your sisterâs grave. You drink it in her honour and tell her as much. Itâs exactly as it was when she was alive â you can see her laughing as your face twists.Â
You said hello to Jane, the widow who cleans her husbandâs headstone more fastidiously in lieu of crying, and you walk by several families who have come to pay their respects.Â
As you walk by one of the families you spot the parents crying, particularly the mother. Her child, a boy of no more than three or four wriggles impatiently at her feet, a small childâs bouquet in his fists. He doesnât have the misery of the parents (particularly the mother), but his boredom also feels apt - life goes on and we only grow into our awareness of deaths.
âIâve got something for you.âÂ
You canât help the way you perk up in your seat. Simonâs mouth quirks and like the child in the cemetery, you are suddenly restless and eagerly await the next moment.
Simon seems to want to say something else, but wrestles with the words and skips it entirely. Oh, how youâll be thinking about this tonight, the shape of his lips and the possibility of his voice.Â
He reaches into the breastpocket of his jacket and produces something delicate. A slip of waxed paper, folded in two. Itâs small, no bigger than the nail of his thumb.Â
You lean in and try to parse out the shape that hides between the waxen sheets.Â
Above you, Simon chuckles, and you realise youâve practically crossed half the table with the way youâre peering at his hands.
Abashed, you lean back.Â
âAh⌠what is it?â
His hand follows you and part of you canât really believe how gentle his thick fingers are at handling the paper. A soft crinkle reveals a papery, dusty yellow and the dark veins of dried petals.Â
âIs that a flower?â you say with an exhale of astonishment.Â
Itâs unlike any flower youâve seen around here. It seems to have been pressed a while ago, but not so long that the petals have lost complete moisture.
âBrought it back from Brazil.â
You look up at him fully, back straight and eyes wide. This man went overseas for an unknown amount of time, bearing scars and knicks and burns and a body more damaged than before. But he came back carrying a carefully pressed flower for you. Because you draw flowers.
You want to say something but youâre afraid that opening your mouth wil make room for something that isnât ready to be named yet.Â
Simon doesnât falter under your stare.Â
Your hand darts into your coat pocket and you fumble with the thing you have prepared, at first afraid it was too small and also too much but now you know, now you know that you are on the same frequency.Â
In your hand you produce a black daisy, hand stitched and even smaller than the flower sitting in his palm.Â
âFor you.â
Simon stares at the black leaves and swallows.
âI imagine you have things that need repairing. Clothes, I mean. You iron this or stitch it across the hole.â You slide the patch carefully onto the table and push it with your fingertips in his direction.
âI chose black because it seemed right.â
Simon takes the daisy with a trembling hand and places it in his breastpocket. His hand rests there for a moment.Â
Your smile broadens.Â
You fold the wax paper and pinch it between your fingers like it were a butterfly wing.
It will sit in your box of precious things, next to your sisterâs picture, a lock of her hair, and the last photo you took together. An addition of care to your box of Big Sad Things.Â
âMerry Christmas, Simon.â
part i, part ii, part iii, part iv, part v, part vi, part vii, christmas special, part viii
Merry Christmas dear readers. If you're having a hard time, my thoughts are with you. Let the fineness of nature remind you that there is deep and natural beauty in this world, and that you are not alone.
Sometimes I feel like I have insomnia, but maybe just mild.
The concept of death and those left behind is interesting.
âHe doesnât have the misery of the parents (particularly the mother), but his boredom also feels apt - life goes on and we only grow into our awareness of deaths.â
These lines really struck me bc it really makes me think of what is my purpose, and is it really that important?
We feel the grief of death more as we get older. I think itâs because we know there were so many possibilities for one life.
Iâm so glad this story resonates with you. I write this with a look back at the more nihilistic and lonely period of my life, and I like to think that this story is an expression of that sort of transition between alone-ness and togetherness. I hope that you can transition into togetherness as well.
Thank you for reading and leaving such a thoughtful comment on my work.
a chronicle of desire for two people who have intense, complicated feelings about it (find part one here)
inexperienced reader, experienced but traumatised Simon Riley, complex feelings about sex and physical touch, cockwarming, nipple sucking, nightmares
Month twenty-seven blurs the edge Unluckily for Simon, time passes eventfully.Â
Almost everything that can cock up an operation goes wrong â satellite issues turn into communication failures that snowballs into a compromised location⌠Johnny gripes the whole time about dying ignoble deaths from frostbite, and when the team stumble into the bare safehouse that appears to be more shack that house, even stalwart John Price is ready to blow a bloody gasket.Â
Meanwhile, Simon Riley disappears into rumination-induced dissociation and in his place is Ghost â immovable, implacable, impossible to break. A real mockery of a man.Â
He remains that way the entire trip back to Hereford, stomping out of the Chinook with barely a nod to his Captain and team. He stalks all the way to his room and dumps his filthy gear on the floor and yanks open the door to the bathroom, ignoring the way the hinges screech in protest.Â
Grumbling to himself he shucks off even filthier clothing and turns the shower to as hot as he can handle. Heâs fuming for no reason because lord knows heâs had significantly worse missions â he made it out of this one with nary a scratch â and he knows heâs being a fucking child but heâs angry for good reasonâŚ
Heâs been hard for days.Â
Simon steps into the shower and resentfully glares down at his swollen, bobbing cock.Â
Embarrassment tailed him the entire latter half of the operation because he couldnât stop fucking sporting a semi. Arousal is common and ignored when youâre in proximity with other people but surely the lads would have noticed and thought he had properly lost his mind.Â
The lack of control he has over his own body creates a sick, oily feeling in his stomach that hasnât abated at all. The entire thing is fucking with him because yeah heâs thinking about your cunt and how much he wants to taste you but also heâs mad with anxiety about coming home and somehow being a massive fucking disappointment.Â
He hates that he is thinking about his scars and burns and he hates that thinking about it makes his skin crawl and his clothes feel too tight and he hates knowing that this will lead to panic so he needs to keep breathing steadily, but above all else he hates that the more he tries not to think about you, the harder his cock gets.Â
Simonâs body is betraying him and heâs never felt more like a little boy.
Usually he can get away with having a wank once every blue moon. Now, as he fists his cock with a dirty hand and pumps soberly to completion, he worries that this new version of him is a new kind of monster that he isnât prepared for.Â
Heâs worried about bringing this home to you⌠worried about what you will think.
Simon comes with a few short grunts and watches as his come hits the shower glass. He leans his head until his forehead rests on the glass and sighs lightly. He really does miss you. Itâs time to man up and get the fuck home.
⢠⢠⢠â˘
The door of the flat opens and within moments you are barrelling down the hall and slamming into his body. Simon lobs his keys in the direction of the hallway table and reaches down to mash your lips against his. You sigh happily into his mouth and jump up into his arms. Gathering you into his arms, he hopes you ignore the fact that heâs hard.Â
Your kisses smack noisily as he carries you into the bedroom. Once there he turns around and falls back on the bed with you in his arms. Squealing at the descent, you pull back just enough to make sure you donât split your lip on his teeth but then dive right back in. Itâs a blissful exploration of tongues and roving hands
Eventually he breaks through the fog of desire to realise that you are rolling your hips over his⌠Wave after wave of agonizing undulation that makes him pant like a dog in summer.Â
Youâve never been so bold, butâ
Can he do this right now?
âLove.â He stills you with a hot hand on your hip.
You sit up, your t-shirt crumpled and lips wet and swollen. Youâre so beautiful that he forgets why he stopped you in the first place.
âIs it too much?â You move to clamber off of him. His hands twitch in indignation although his arms remain solidly at his side. Simon stares up at the ceiling, hating himself.Â
âBaby?â Your warm hand cups the side of his face and he turns to look at you. Darling thing you are, you sit there looking thoroughly ruffled though your eyes are concerned. Thereâs not an ounce of pity in them and while it doesnât make Simon want to fuck you, it does make him want to hold your hand for the rest of his days.
âWe donât have to do this now, Simon,â you whisper as you curl close, âI was just excited about having you home.â
The last part is said quietly, confession-like.
He rips his face from your tender grasp and blinks up at the ceiling. His throat works and nose burns. Bloody fucking hell. Thereâs no way he can cry right now. Man the fuck up Simon Riley you piss weak piece of shit.
A rogue tear slips down the cheek that doesnât face you. For you not to see it, he throws a thousand thanks to whatever is up there watching him.The truth is heâs not ready for this, but heâs ready for you. Itâs a difficult juxtaposition but itâs the truth. He just canât manage to vocalise it â canât even bear thinking about it.Â
Beside him, you make yourself still. He can feel it and is afraid of your judgement, so he places a hot, shaky palm over your hip as a consolation prize. It grounds him to feel the gentle rise and fall of your body. Your breathing slows down and he is soothed by your benevolent presence.Â
Before you, war made Simon believe that the world was just never-ending bloodshed and that everyone was doomed to the same fate. Whether or not you got any goodness in your life was entirely luck, and Simon had run out of luck when his family died. Then you came and stayed, and he finds himself close to throwing prayers out⌠there. To keep you safe. To keep you from harm. To keep you with him. To make him a better man.Â
You fall asleep and so does he, and then both crawl up close to midnight for a snack of cheese and biscuits. You make him a cuppa and sip your warm water and lean in under his arm as the two of you eat quietly in the dark of your kitchen.
Itâs the best homecoming heâs had his whole life.Â
Belly full and arm locked around your waist, Simon falls asleep quickly.
His dreams, though, are haunted.Â
Simon is standing at the foot of the bed, dressed in civvies. His mind is foggy and his eyes are heavy. He knows this is the bedroom but canât figure out why he feels so sluggish in his body. His eyes rove over the door to the bedroom and then the bathroom. Secure, though he has no real way of knowing. Something deep inside him just knows thereâs no threat on the outside.Â
âSimonâŚâ
Your voice draws him back to the bed.
He turns slowly and is electrocuted by the shock of what lays before him.
You, on all fours, arched and bare. Your hair is covering your face and itâs slightly turned to see him but he canât make out your features.Â
Youâre wet and unshaved and he feels his mouth salivate.Â
He looks down and realises heâs hard. It feels strange though, because heâs not quite caught up with whatâs going on.Â
âMmmmm, SimonâŚâ You sway your hips from left to right, tantalizing him.Â
His eyes are locked on your cunt, but he canât quite believe it. He has the feeling heâs missed something⌠How did you get in this position? What happened before?
His body moves; his hand reaches out. He catches a drip of slick and without thinking, sucks at his fingers. His cock jumps.Â
He reaches out to feel you again. Heâs met with warmth and the soft press of skin, and he hears you sigh in satisfaction. He digs a thumb into your arsecheek and squeezes as hard as he dares to, watching your pussy clench and hips sway.Â
He grunts, stepping closer to you as though magnetized. His other hand reaches to pull out his cock but instead of cloth he meets his own skin.
Struck, he steps back and looks down. Heâs completely naked.Â
Simon inhales sharply. His cock is hard and leaking come but where the fuck have his clothes gone? Heâs completely bare, from head to toe. His hands come up to feel for a mask but touch nothing and the light glancing off his skin makes his insides churn with nausea. He wants to reach for clothes but his body wonât move and he doesnât understand where his clothes have gone when he was just wearing them beforeâ
âSimon?â
He looks up, chest heaving, and is horrified to find that you have become⌠heâs no longer looking at you.
The person looking back at him is some other woman, someone from his past. Her body is different, leaner than yours and he rakes his eyes down her figure and snags on a tattoo on her lower back. You donât have tattoos.
His hand is on her waist.
What? How is thatâ he was just looking atâ he doesnât want to touch this personâ
Gasping, Simon reels back.Â
He wants to leave but his feet are glued to the floor and panic crawls up his throat in such a vicious way that for a moment his eyes are filled with tears and his throat full of heat and sand and despair.
âBaby?â
Your voice snaps him back into focus.
Itâs you! Itâs you. You are on the bed, bare-bottomed but clothed from the waist up and the relief he feels makes his nostrils sting. You donât seem to have noticed what happened.
âItâs okay baby,â you sing, âI wonât look.â
Huh?
He looks down and like a bucket of water has been doused over his head, is again shocked to see that he is clothed once more. His cock is still hard and wanting, but no longer visible. Nor are the scars and burn marks and bruises.
What he feels isnât close to relief because suddenly heâs aware that you are waiting for him but heâs afraid to even go near you because he has not fucking clue whatâs going on with himâ
âCome on baby.â
His blood freezes. That isnât your voice.
This time he doesnât even deign to look up at your face because he couldnât bear it if he didnât see your lovely eyes staring back at him.Â
His gaze draws slowly to the exposed cunt in front of him and a whimper leaves him when he realises that itâs not you. The colour of the pubic hair is wrong, the shade of skin entirely too dark. Simon knows that with the weakness he feels right now, to be met with the face of another person would destroy him.
âYou can do it baby, just take me.â
Simon squeezes his eyes so tightly he sees sparks, and screams.
âSimon!â
He chokes awake.
Sweating, gasping, back damp and lashes wet.
You float into his view, visage open with shock and concern. You arenât touching him, because night terrors end badly when you do, but youâre on your knees close to him, hands fisted in your lap.
âDarling,â you say softly, with great kindness, âyouâre alright. Youâre here, with me. Weâre home.â
Simon throws an arm over his eyes and coughs a sob into his elbow. He doesnât believe itâs you, doesnât believe that he can share this body with you, doesnât believe that you want something as used and ragged as him. But if you leave, itâll be the end of him.Â
Heâs never cried like this in front of you, but the nightmare has made mincemeat of his heart.
âSimonâŚâ you whisper, voice wobbling.Â
Slowly, his tremors die down. His nose is clogged and his throat is sore but he gives it just another moment before moving. He doesnât know what he wants, and heâs so fucking tired of it. Why canât he just give you what you want?
He feels you lean closer to him. Ordinarily he would be repulsed by the thought of you touching him after a night terror, but this time he finds that all he wants is to dig his fingers into your flesh so hard it hits bone.Â
Loose-limbed and eyes sore, Simon slowly peels his arm off his face and beckons you to come closer. You do, immediately. The moment your knees hit his side he drags you up and over him so that your legs straddle his hips.Â
Even through his swollen eyes, he can see yours fly open in shock.Â
He knows you feel his cock pressing against your ass. He can feel you bending forwards in an effort to not touch it. Youâre unsure because this is new territory. Never has he reached for you after a nightmare, not even neutrally, let alone with such brazen honesty.Â
âSimonâŚâ your voice is even softer now. Not with pity, but with concern.Â
He brings you down to kiss you softly. Itâs early in the morning, and the gentle light caresses the both of you as your lips stick together. The sound crinkles in his ears and unwinds the knot in his gut.Â
âI donâtâ I wantââ, he wants to say something, to tell you something about how much he wants you and how much he canât do it, but nothing useful comes out.
You hush him and press your cheek against his. Your hand comes up to stroke his hair, the other running up and down his clammy shoulder.Â
âDo you want me?â
He nods. He closes his eyes because theyâre growing wet. He wants you so much.
âThen letâs try something, okay?â
He nods. He trusts you with his life, with his body. Because he cannot trust himself.
You raise yourself slightly and place a hand on his cheek. His eyes open and you smile warmly at him.
âJust keep looking at me, and let me know.â
Hypnotized, all he can do is nod.
Suddenly, heâs aware of all that is happening. He can see your nipples under your shirt, he can see the way your underwear is sticking to your cunt, and the moment he clocks it he is absolutely locked in.Â
The vision is reminiscent of his dream, though the reality is far different because he can feel your skin warm on his and he can smell your hair and your skin and your lotion and he can smell your pretty pussy, too.
Your hand dances along the line of your underwear, touching everything with a lightness that entrances him. He watches your fingers reach down to rub at your clothed cunt and his mouth is flooded with saliva. He wants to taste, but he wants to watch even more.Â
Your chest rises and falls heavily. Youâre panting slightly, and rocking a little against your hand.
âBaby, can you take yourself out for me?â
Simonâs hand fumbles to bring his cock out. The proximity to your cunt is torture â he wants to see you sit on him and take him, but maybe itâs not something youâre ready for. Maybe youâll get halfway and heâll tap out. The backs of his knees begin to sweat again. The prospect of failing makes him clench his cock just a little too hard.Â
âSimon.â Your voice is firm. His eyes dart up and catch your sober expression. Feeling chastised, he tries to lock away the self loathing, but does a poor job at it.
âAll I want is to feel you, okay? Nothing more.â
He understands.Â
Your fingers resume their motion, and on the third swipe you curl your fingers on one side of the gusset and pull to reveal your cunt. Simon can see your wetness lingering on your pubic hair, slightly catching light from the open drapes. A wave of emotion rushes over him as he looks at your core.Â
Benediction.Â
He holds himself up and watches with bated breath as you sit close, lips grazing the angry tip of his throbbing cock. The moment you make contact, he releases a shaking breath, and you, a tiny, controlled moan.
The sound snaps him back into his body, and suddenly he is hurtled back to the months prior when he was home and deeply acquainted with the sounds you made with his mouth and fingers in you and on you.Â
War has scrubbed his ears clean and he has forgotten⌠you.
Desire roars through him like a hydrant suddenly bursting.Â
This is you, soft, adoring, wonderful, erotic you. Giving him this, giving yourself this. He mustnât waste the chance.Â
Simon steels himself, and lifts a hand to support your thigh. Youâre shaking, and it occurs to him that you might be waiting for him.
âGo on, love.â
Itâs all you need, and what follows is the most loving embrace heâs had his whole life. The sight of your cunt slowly swallowing his cock fills his vision, entrancing him in a way that endows him with the knowledge that he has never experienced awe as he is experiencing right now â your slick sliding down his cock, your hair meeting his and your body melting down until you sit right on him, gasping and panting like the siren you are.
You look down at Simon, sweat dotting your brow and a small, proud smirk on your face.
Your chest rises and falls erratically, seemingly the only sign that you are just as affected as he.Â
He can feel your heartbeat like this, cunt tight and sealed around his cock. Simon is absolutely taken aback because fuck knows if sex ever felt like this before. In his mind he knows that this is different, that nothing that came before ever counted. All the people before, all the bodies and the motels⌠all of it just washed away like a castle in the tide.
All youâve done is sit on him and here he is, about to blow his fucking load.
âFuckinâ amazing, love,â Simon grunts, âyou fuckinâ wild thing.â
His words make you giggle, which in turn creates a churning in his cock that makes him grit his teeth.
âJust this?â He says, willing himself not to come and to just⌠enjoy.
âIf you want,â you say above him, but your hand leaves is perch on his chest to slide up your shirt. You cup your breast and maybe you squeeze because your head drops back in a sigh and your thighs relax just that much more on his hips.Â
Simon sits up and slowly adjusts you so that youâre sitting in a tight embrace. Your eyes roll back from the movement and your hand is lax under your shirt, then trapped between your chest and his.Â
He leans forward to place a small kiss on the corner of your mouth. You crane your head slightly to catch his mouth, but he has a different intention in mind.Â
His fingers circle the elbow of your arm, then follow it up under your shirt. You allow him to cup your breast instead, and when his calloused thumb brushes your nipple your stomach tightens, making Simon grunt.Â
With his other hand, Simon begins to lift your shirt.Â
Your eyes open and you look down with curiosity at his actions.
Simon pulls only so much that your breast is exposed to the cool morning air, leaving the other side untouched. His breath tickles your nipple and he squeezes it carefully between his thumb and forefinger. You shiver and lean in close.
For a moment he thinks youâre going to kiss him, but instead you whisper in his ear, âIâm always dreaming of you, Simon.â
His thighs quiver, and Simon closes the gap to take your breast in his mouth. The feeling of soft flesh under his teeth strums a deep desire in his bones. The feeling is so soothing, so comfortable, that he feels he has entered limbo. Your hand twines into the hair at the back of his skull and pulls slightly. He takes more of you into his mouth.Â
Your breathing slows, as does his, and the two of you sit in the morning light, pressed close and even then even closer.
I really only expected this to be two parts - I had them having sex in this part but it just didn't make sense with the amount of time they took leading up to this so... there will be a part three.
This part is more meditative than the first... the third will take on another tone.
Apologies this took so long. I just reached 1000 followers so I thought I should get this out. Hope you enjoyed.
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