Some of my writing is explicit, please read with discretion. Minors need to navigate away.
AO3
SIMON ‘GHOST’ 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,
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.
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 fiancé 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.
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 Viraj’s 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 nothing—nothing 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, you’d 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 outside—motorbikes 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 wasn’t 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 there—the 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 Simon’s 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. Price’s most loyal dog.
It wasn’t 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 it—becoming 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.
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, you’ve filled an entire sketchbook. They’re mostly landscapes, although every once in a while you ask someone’s 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 you’re 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.
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 don’t use it when you’re 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.
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 – 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.
These days you try not to think too much of him. Try not to torture yourself with all the things you shouldn’t have said, because the moment is over and despite his reaction, you meant every word. Some things can’t be taken back, and some things can’t ossify into regrets.
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 – 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.
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? You’ve imagined it so many times that some part of you has already decided that yes, he does run hot, and yes he’d open his palm to reveal large calluses, but no he wouldn’t be rough, in fact he’d 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.
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 he’s 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 weren’t 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 aren’t 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 you’re the only person to happily be stalked into a horrible death.
But the flowers on your sister’s grave have never left your mind, and the appearance of goosebumps on your neck shortly after is a sign.
You’re being watched. Looked after. Stalked. Observed. Hunted.
Whether it’s Simon or a harbinger of death, you don’t really care. Either way the result can only be both bliss and pain, so for you they’re basically the same.
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 wasn’t to appear.
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 weren’t would also be a lie. At first you thought maybe Simon was avoiding you, but decided to release yourself of that particularly poisonous thought.
If he was, so be it. If it were simply coincidence, then so be it.
On you go with your life.
The breeze shifts.
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.
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 don’t move your eyes.
His voice is gravelly, and unsure. “Dot… I–”
You slam your sketchbook shut.
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 shouldn’t have said, because the moment is over and despite his reaction, you meant every word. Some things can’t be taken back, and some things can’t ossify into regrets.
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.
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 wasn’t to appear.
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 don’t move your eyes.
I couldn't breathe at that point. And I love her reaction.
You slam your sketchbook shut.
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 you’d stopped reading! Phew, I’m so glad to see that you enjoyed the return.
I’m still not really satisfied with how he came back, I had a different idea that came to me a few weeks ago but I didn’t 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 🧐
I do feel for Dot, it’s a lot of thinking and feeling on her part and at times I’ve almost changed tack with Simon because I felt like he was leading her on a bit… I won’t say too much because I’ll 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 won’t panic the next time you don’t 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 sister’s 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 can’t tell.
I’m 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 weren’t 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.
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, you’ve filled an entire sketchbook. They’re mostly landscapes, although every once in a while you ask someone’s 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 you’re 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.
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 don’t use it when you’re 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.
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 – 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.
These days you try not to think too much of him. Try not to torture yourself with all the things you shouldn’t have said, because the moment is over and despite his reaction, you meant every word. Some things can’t be taken back, and some things can’t ossify into regrets.
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 – 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.
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? You’ve imagined it so many times that some part of you has already decided that yes, he does run hot, and yes he’d open his palm to reveal large calluses, but no he wouldn’t be rough, in fact he’d 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.
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 he’s 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 weren’t 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 aren’t 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 you’re the only person to happily be stalked into a horrible death.
But the flowers on your sister’s grave have never left your mind, and the appearance of goosebumps on your neck shortly after is a sign.
You’re being watched. Looked after. Stalked. Observed. Hunted.
Whether it’s Simon or a harbinger of death, you don’t really care. Either way the result can only be both bliss and pain, so for you they’re basically the same.
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 wasn’t to appear.
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 weren’t would also be a lie. At first you thought maybe Simon was avoiding you, but decided to release yourself of that particularly poisonous thought.
If he was, so be it. If it were simply coincidence, then so be it.
On you go with your life.
The breeze shifts.
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.
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 don’t move your eyes.
His voice is gravelly, and unsure. “Dot… I–”
You slam your sketchbook shut.
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 shouldn’t have said, because the moment is over and despite his reaction, you meant every word. Some things can’t be taken back, and some things can’t ossify into regrets.
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.
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 wasn’t to appear.
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 don’t move your eyes.
I couldn't breathe at that point. And I love her reaction.
You slam your sketchbook shut.
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 you’d stopped reading! Phew, I’m so glad to see that you enjoyed the return.
I’m still not really satisfied with how he came back, I had a different idea that came to me a few weeks ago but I didn’t 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 🧐
I do feel for Dot, it’s a lot of thinking and feeling on her part and at times I’ve almost changed tack with Simon because I felt like he was leading her on a bit… I won’t say too much because I’ll 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.
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, you’ve filled an entire sketchbook. They’re mostly landscapes, although every once in a while you ask someone’s 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 you’re 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.
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 don’t use it when you’re 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.
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 – 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.
These days you try not to think too much of him. Try not to torture yourself with all the things you shouldn’t have said, because the moment is over and despite his reaction, you meant every word. Some things can’t be taken back, and some things can’t ossify into regrets.
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 – 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.
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? You’ve imagined it so many times that some part of you has already decided that yes, he does run hot, and yes he’d open his palm to reveal large calluses, but no he wouldn’t be rough, in fact he’d 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.
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 he’s 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 weren’t 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 aren’t 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 you’re the only person to happily be stalked into a horrible death.
But the flowers on your sister’s grave have never left your mind, and the appearance of goosebumps on your neck shortly after is a sign.
You’re being watched. Looked after. Stalked. Observed. Hunted.
Whether it’s Simon or a harbinger of death, you don’t really care. Either way the result can only be both bliss and pain, so for you they’re basically the same.
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 wasn’t to appear.
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 weren’t would also be a lie. At first you thought maybe Simon was avoiding you, but decided to release yourself of that particularly poisonous thought.
If he was, so be it. If it were simply coincidence, then so be it.
On you go with your life.
The breeze shifts.
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.
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 don’t move your eyes.
His voice is gravelly, and unsure. “Dot… I–”
You slam your sketchbook shut.
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!Ghost’s 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 spot—albeit, with a bartender you didn’t 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 deployments—or, at least you used to. Before he…
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.
“Sorry, I’m bad with faces, do I know you?” 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 wasn’t 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.
“-Simon.” He interjected with clear urgency, a last ditch attempt to hold your attention.
You stilled, looking at him with owlish eyes. “Did you… know him?”
Was this one of his military buddies crawling out of the woodwork after all these years? His private life wasn’t 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 wasn’t impossible. Clearly he recognized you, maybe Si had been in this timeline too.
“Know him?” The big man across from you asked, frowning, “-I am him.”
You mirrored his expression, was this a sick joke? Looking over the man, it was obvious he was someone else—he was both bigger in height and bulk, deeper timbre, tattooed, older, dark brown eyes, and an entirely different face; the most important difference, however—
“—Simon is dead.”
He grimaced at your response, eyes drinking you in—he 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. “Yeah,” he huffed out “you are too.”
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.
Almost everything that can cock up an operation goes wrong – 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.
Meanwhile, Simon Riley disappears into rumination-induced dissociation and in his place is Ghost – immovable, implacable, impossible to break. A real mockery of a man.
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.
Grumbling to himself he shucks off even filthier clothing and turns the shower to as hot as he can handle. He’s fuming for no reason because lord knows he’s had significantly worse missions – he made it out of this one with nary a scratch – and he knows he’s being a fucking child but he’s angry for good reason…
He’s been hard for days.
Simon steps into the shower and resentfully glares down at his swollen, bobbing cock.
Embarrassment tailed him the entire latter half of the operation because he couldn’t stop fucking sporting a semi. Arousal is common and ignored when you’re in proximity with other people but surely the lads would have noticed and thought he had properly lost his mind.
The lack of control he has over his own body creates a sick, oily feeling in his stomach that hasn’t abated at all. The entire thing is fucking with him because yeah he’s thinking about your cunt and how much he wants to taste you but also he’s mad with anxiety about coming home and somehow being a massive fucking disappointment.
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.
Simon’s body is betraying him and he’s 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 isn’t prepared for.
He’s 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. It’s 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 he’s hard.
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 don’t split your lip on his teeth but then dive right back in. It’s 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.
You’ve never been so bold, but–
Can he do this right now?
“Love.” He stills you with a hot hand on your hip.
You sit up, your t-shirt crumpled and lips wet and swollen. You’re so beautiful that he forgets why he stopped you in the first place.
“Is it too much?” 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.
“Baby?” 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. There’s not an ounce of pity in them and while it doesn’t make Simon want to fuck you, it does make him want to hold your hand for the rest of his days.
“We don’t have to do this now, Simon,” you whisper as you curl close, “I was just excited about having you home.”
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. There’s 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 doesn’t face you. For you not to see it, he throws a thousand thanks to whatever is up there watching him.The truth is he’s not ready for this, but he’s ready for you. It’s a difficult juxtaposition but it’s the truth. He just can’t manage to vocalise it – can’t even bear thinking about it.
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.
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.
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.
It’s the best homecoming he’s had his whole life.
Belly full and arm locked around your waist, Simon falls asleep quickly.
His dreams, though, are haunted.
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 can’t 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 there’s no threat on the outside.
“Simon…”
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 it’s slightly turned to see him but he can’t make out your features.
You’re wet and unshaved and he feels his mouth salivate.
He looks down and realises he’s hard. It feels strange though, because he’s not quite caught up with what’s going on.
“Mmmmm, Simon…” You sway your hips from left to right, tantalizing him.
His eyes are locked on your cunt, but he can’t quite believe it. He has the feeling he’s 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.
He reaches out to feel you again. He’s 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.
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. He’s completely naked.
Simon inhales sharply. His cock is hard and leaking come but where the fuck have his clothes gone? He’s 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 won’t move and he doesn’t understand where his clothes have gone when he was just wearing them before–
“Simon?”
He looks up, chest heaving, and is horrified to find that you have become… he’s 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 don’t have tattoos.
His hand is on her waist.
What? How is that– he was just looking at– he doesn’t want to touch this person–
Gasping, Simon reels back.
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.
“Baby?”
Your voice snaps him back into focus.
It’s you! It’s you. You are on the bed, bare-bottomed but clothed from the waist up and the relief he feels makes his nostrils sting. You don’t seem to have noticed what happened.
“It’s okay baby,” you sing, “I won’t look.”
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 isn’t close to relief because suddenly he’s aware that you are waiting for him but he’s afraid to even go near you because he has not fucking clue what’s going on with him–
“Come on baby.”
His blood freezes. That isn’t your voice.
This time he doesn’t even deign to look up at your face because he couldn’t bear it if he didn’t see your lovely eyes staring back at him.
His gaze draws slowly to the exposed cunt in front of him and a whimper leaves him when he realises that it’s 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.
“You can do it baby, just take me.”
Simon squeezes his eyes so tightly he sees sparks, and screams.
“Simon!”
He chokes awake.
Sweating, gasping, back damp and lashes wet.
You float into his view, visage open with shock and concern. You aren’t touching him, because night terrors end badly when you do, but you’re on your knees close to him, hands fisted in your lap.
“Darling,” you say softly, with great kindness, “you’re alright. You’re here, with me. We’re home.”
Simon throws an arm over his eyes and coughs a sob into his elbow. He doesn’t believe it’s you, doesn’t believe that he can share this body with you, doesn’t believe that you want something as used and ragged as him. But if you leave, it’ll be the end of him.
He’s never cried like this in front of you, but the nightmare has made mincemeat of his heart.
“Simon…” you whisper, voice wobbling.
Slowly, his tremors die down. His nose is clogged and his throat is sore but he gives it just another moment before moving. He doesn’t know what he wants, and he’s so fucking tired of it. Why can’t 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.
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.
Even through his swollen eyes, he can see yours fly open in shock.
He knows you feel his cock pressing against your ass. He can feel you bending forwards in an effort to not touch it. You’re unsure because this is new territory. Never has he reached for you after a nightmare, not even neutrally, let alone with such brazen honesty.
“Simon…” your voice is even softer now. Not with pity, but with concern.
He brings you down to kiss you softly. It’s 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.
“I don’t– I want–”, he wants to say something, to tell you something about how much he wants you and how much he can’t 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.
“Do you want me?”
He nods. He closes his eyes because they’re growing wet. He wants you so much.
“Then let’s try something, okay?”
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.
“Just keep looking at me, and let me know.”
Hypnotized, all he can do is nod.
Suddenly, he’s 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.
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.
Your chest rises and falls heavily. You’re panting slightly, and rocking a little against your hand.
“Baby, can you take yourself out for me?”
Simon’s hand fumbles to bring his cock out. The proximity to your cunt is torture – he wants to see you sit on him and take him, but maybe it’s not something you’re ready for. Maybe you’ll get halfway and he’ll 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.
“Simon.” 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.
“All I want is to feel you, okay? Nothing more.”
He understands.
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.
Benediction.
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.
War has scrubbed his ears clean and he has forgotten… you.
Desire roars through him like a hydrant suddenly bursting.
This is you, soft, adoring, wonderful, erotic you. Giving him this, giving yourself this. He mustn’t waste the chance.
Simon steels himself, and lifts a hand to support your thigh. You’re shaking, and it occurs to him that you might be waiting for him.
“Go on, love.”
It’s all you need, and what follows is the most loving embrace he’s 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 – 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.
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 you’ve done is sit on him and here he is, about to blow his fucking load.
“Fuckin’ amazing, love,” Simon grunts, “you fuckin’ wild thing.”
His words make you giggle, which in turn creates a churning in his cock that makes him grit his teeth.
“Just this?” He says, willing himself not to come and to just… enjoy.
“If you want,” 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.
Simon sits up and slowly adjusts you so that you’re 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.
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.
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.
With his other hand, Simon begins to lift your shirt.
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 you’re going to kiss him, but instead you whisper in his ear, “I’m always dreaming of you, Simon.”
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.
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 they’re loosely knotted in front of his mug.
Proximity warming you from the outside in, tea and company warming you from the inside out.
It’s Christmas, and you spent the morning bringing holly and a hot toddy to your sister’s grave. You drink it in her honour and tell her as much. It’s exactly as it was when she was alive – you can see her laughing as your face twists.
You said hello to Jane, the widow who cleans her husband’s headstone more fastidiously in lieu of crying, and you walk by several families who have come to pay their respects.
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 child’s bouquet in his fists. He doesn’t 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.
“I’ve got something for you.”
You can’t help the way you perk up in your seat. Simon’s 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 you’ll be thinking about this tonight, the shape of his lips and the possibility of his voice.
He reaches into the breastpocket of his jacket and produces something delicate. A slip of waxed paper, folded in two. It’s small, no bigger than the nail of his thumb.
You lean in and try to parse out the shape that hides between the waxen sheets.
Above you, Simon chuckles, and you realise you’ve practically crossed half the table with the way you’re peering at his hands.
Abashed, you lean back.
“Ah… what is it?”
His hand follows you and part of you can’t 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.
“Is that a flower?” you say with an exhale of astonishment.
It’s unlike any flower you’ve seen around here. It seems to have been pressed a while ago, but not so long that the petals have lost complete moisture.
“Brought it back from Brazil.”
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 you’re afraid that opening your mouth wil make room for something that isn’t ready to be named yet.
Simon doesn’t falter under your stare.
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.
In your hand you produce a black daisy, hand stitched and even smaller than the flower sitting in his palm.
“For you.”
Simon stares at the black leaves and swallows.
“I imagine you have things that need repairing. Clothes, I mean. You iron this or stitch it across the hole.” You slide the patch carefully onto the table and push it with your fingertips in his direction.
“I chose black because it seemed right.”
Simon takes the daisy with a trembling hand and places it in his breastpocket. His hand rests there for a moment.
Your smile broadens.
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 sister’s picture, a lock of her hair, and the last photo you took together. An addition of care to your box of Big Sad Things.
“Merry Christmas, Simon.”
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.
“He doesn’t 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.”
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 it’s because we know there were so many possibilities for one life.
I’m 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.
Almost everything that can cock up an operation goes wrong – 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.
Meanwhile, Simon Riley disappears into rumination-induced dissociation and in his place is Ghost – immovable, implacable, impossible to break. A real mockery of a man.
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.
Grumbling to himself he shucks off even filthier clothing and turns the shower to as hot as he can handle. He’s fuming for no reason because lord knows he’s had significantly worse missions – he made it out of this one with nary a scratch – and he knows he’s being a fucking child but he’s angry for good reason…
He’s been hard for days.
Simon steps into the shower and resentfully glares down at his swollen, bobbing cock.
Embarrassment tailed him the entire latter half of the operation because he couldn’t stop fucking sporting a semi. Arousal is common and ignored when you’re in proximity with other people but surely the lads would have noticed and thought he had properly lost his mind.
The lack of control he has over his own body creates a sick, oily feeling in his stomach that hasn’t abated at all. The entire thing is fucking with him because yeah he’s thinking about your cunt and how much he wants to taste you but also he’s mad with anxiety about coming home and somehow being a massive fucking disappointment.
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.
Simon’s body is betraying him and he’s 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 isn’t prepared for.
He’s 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. It’s 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 he’s hard.
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 don’t split your lip on his teeth but then dive right back in. It’s 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.
You’ve never been so bold, but–
Can he do this right now?
“Love.” He stills you with a hot hand on your hip.
You sit up, your t-shirt crumpled and lips wet and swollen. You’re so beautiful that he forgets why he stopped you in the first place.
“Is it too much?” 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.
“Baby?” 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. There’s not an ounce of pity in them and while it doesn’t make Simon want to fuck you, it does make him want to hold your hand for the rest of his days.
“We don’t have to do this now, Simon,” you whisper as you curl close, “I was just excited about having you home.”
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. There’s 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 doesn’t face you. For you not to see it, he throws a thousand thanks to whatever is up there watching him.The truth is he’s not ready for this, but he’s ready for you. It’s a difficult juxtaposition but it’s the truth. He just can’t manage to vocalise it – can’t even bear thinking about it.
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.
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.
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.
It’s the best homecoming he’s had his whole life.
Belly full and arm locked around your waist, Simon falls asleep quickly.
His dreams, though, are haunted.
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 can’t 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 there’s no threat on the outside.
“Simon…”
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 it’s slightly turned to see him but he can’t make out your features.
You’re wet and unshaved and he feels his mouth salivate.
He looks down and realises he’s hard. It feels strange though, because he’s not quite caught up with what’s going on.
“Mmmmm, Simon…” You sway your hips from left to right, tantalizing him.
His eyes are locked on your cunt, but he can’t quite believe it. He has the feeling he’s 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.
He reaches out to feel you again. He’s 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.
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. He’s completely naked.
Simon inhales sharply. His cock is hard and leaking come but where the fuck have his clothes gone? He’s 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 won’t move and he doesn’t understand where his clothes have gone when he was just wearing them before–
“Simon?”
He looks up, chest heaving, and is horrified to find that you have become… he’s 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 don’t have tattoos.
His hand is on her waist.
What? How is that– he was just looking at– he doesn’t want to touch this person–
Gasping, Simon reels back.
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.
“Baby?”
Your voice snaps him back into focus.
It’s you! It’s you. You are on the bed, bare-bottomed but clothed from the waist up and the relief he feels makes his nostrils sting. You don’t seem to have noticed what happened.
“It’s okay baby,” you sing, “I won’t look.”
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 isn’t close to relief because suddenly he’s aware that you are waiting for him but he’s afraid to even go near you because he has not fucking clue what’s going on with him–
“Come on baby.”
His blood freezes. That isn’t your voice.
This time he doesn’t even deign to look up at your face because he couldn’t bear it if he didn’t see your lovely eyes staring back at him.
His gaze draws slowly to the exposed cunt in front of him and a whimper leaves him when he realises that it’s 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.
“You can do it baby, just take me.”
Simon squeezes his eyes so tightly he sees sparks, and screams.
“Simon!”
He chokes awake.
Sweating, gasping, back damp and lashes wet.
You float into his view, visage open with shock and concern. You aren’t touching him, because night terrors end badly when you do, but you’re on your knees close to him, hands fisted in your lap.
“Darling,” you say softly, with great kindness, “you’re alright. You’re here, with me. We’re home.”
Simon throws an arm over his eyes and coughs a sob into his elbow. He doesn’t believe it’s you, doesn’t believe that he can share this body with you, doesn’t believe that you want something as used and ragged as him. But if you leave, it’ll be the end of him.
He’s never cried like this in front of you, but the nightmare has made mincemeat of his heart.
“Simon…” you whisper, voice wobbling.
Slowly, his tremors die down. His nose is clogged and his throat is sore but he gives it just another moment before moving. He doesn’t know what he wants, and he’s so fucking tired of it. Why can’t 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.
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.
Even through his swollen eyes, he can see yours fly open in shock.
He knows you feel his cock pressing against your ass. He can feel you bending forwards in an effort to not touch it. You’re unsure because this is new territory. Never has he reached for you after a nightmare, not even neutrally, let alone with such brazen honesty.
“Simon…” your voice is even softer now. Not with pity, but with concern.
He brings you down to kiss you softly. It’s 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.
“I don’t– I want–”, he wants to say something, to tell you something about how much he wants you and how much he can’t 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.
“Do you want me?”
He nods. He closes his eyes because they’re growing wet. He wants you so much.
“Then let’s try something, okay?”
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.
“Just keep looking at me, and let me know.”
Hypnotized, all he can do is nod.
Suddenly, he’s 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.
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.
Your chest rises and falls heavily. You’re panting slightly, and rocking a little against your hand.
“Baby, can you take yourself out for me?”
Simon’s hand fumbles to bring his cock out. The proximity to your cunt is torture – he wants to see you sit on him and take him, but maybe it’s not something you’re ready for. Maybe you’ll get halfway and he’ll 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.
“Simon.” 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.
“All I want is to feel you, okay? Nothing more.”
He understands.
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.
Benediction.
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.
War has scrubbed his ears clean and he has forgotten… you.
Desire roars through him like a hydrant suddenly bursting.
This is you, soft, adoring, wonderful, erotic you. Giving him this, giving yourself this. He mustn’t waste the chance.
Simon steels himself, and lifts a hand to support your thigh. You’re shaking, and it occurs to him that you might be waiting for him.
“Go on, love.”
It’s all you need, and what follows is the most loving embrace he’s 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 – 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.
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 you’ve done is sit on him and here he is, about to blow his fucking load.
“Fuckin’ amazing, love,” Simon grunts, “you fuckin’ wild thing.”
His words make you giggle, which in turn creates a churning in his cock that makes him grit his teeth.
“Just this?” He says, willing himself not to come and to just… enjoy.
“If you want,” 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.
Simon sits up and slowly adjusts you so that you’re 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.
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.
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.
With his other hand, Simon begins to lift your shirt.
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 you’re going to kiss him, but instead you whisper in his ear, “I’m always dreaming of you, Simon.”
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.
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.
you learn to look outside yourself, to see what lives and dies
[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
The return to routine does wonders for you.
Admittedly life is still hard and you lug grief and shame around like an Olympic weightlifter, but in a strange way, the heaviness of your burden has made you open to community in a way you have never experienced before; in the months and years after your sister’s death you sequestered yourself away like a princess in a tower, shedding friends and family like you were the one that had died instead of her.
These days your routine revolves around coming to the café early enough to enjoy the dregs of happiness from its last customers. You watch Selin and Esra play game after animated game of Barjis, each cackling with delight when the other loses. Groups of young teenagers rotate in coming to the cafe, sometimes loud and raucous, other times tired and cheerful. On one occasion a young family comes in, the parents yawning with exhaustion while the mother cradles an alert and babbling baby.
You savour the flavours of each dessert Emir hands you – sometimes it’s the only thing you eat all day.
The exposure to people complicates your walks to and from the café. While you are also a member of the restaurant, eating its goods and resting in its warmly lit embrace, you are still an outsider, a singular entity soaking up goodness and offering nothing in return. Before, your walks to the café felt full of simple pleasure and anticipation. Now the emotions roil within you each time – delight at others, disgust at yourself, peace and horror, pleasure and deep, unending sadness.
Weeks go by as you find your feet, and one day when you note that your mood has been on the uptick, you decide to go visit your sister.
The cemetery is a twenty minute bus ride from the town centre and you spend the ride staring out the window while loosely holding a bouquet of yellow tulips. Most of the time you buy a variety of daisies and chrysanthemums because your sister absolutely detested the former and adored the latter, and you loved the idea of pissing her off with one bouquet and then apologising with the next.
This time you buy tulips because you have one very distinct memory of visiting Borough Market with her during an unseasonably hot London summer and the two of you flying past the florist in an effort to get to some café you were both keen on, but the memory that has stayed with you is catching a glimpse of her as she swept by the golden tulips that matched her dress exactly. You didn’t say anything and she didn’t notice, but the fleeting glimpse of matching yellows has somehow become your most precious memory of her.
Usually you like to talk to her when you’re in front of her headstone, but today you miss her – you haven’t seen her in a while. You try something new.
Hi big sis,
Trees fly by, dusted in snow and bare from winter.
Sorry I’ve been away for a while, life has been a bit shit lately.
Tears burn in your eyes. You turn to face the window fully.
I don’t know where to begin…
You think back to the last few weeks, how they are distinct from the years without her and yet all of time has rolled into long sludge since she died. The city dwindles into countryside.
I feel lost in my life. It’s been four years since you died but I’ve not moved on in any way… everything is a blur and I’m getting older but I don’t seem to be better at all.
The cemetery comes into view and you lower your head to hide your face as you alight the bus.
I miss talking to you and seeing you and hearing you talk about your life.
The gate opens with a loud screech and leaves crunch underfoot. Crocuses lead the way, their purple petals glistening in the rain.
You were the only person I loved in my life.
You can almost hear her beside you, coy and teasing, saying wasn’t there someone else?
Yeah, and I screwed it up. I messed it up so badly, I shouldn’t have said anything and I keep thinking about how I should have stopped and just shut my mouth but he was so kind and gentle…
It begins to drizzle.
And now he’s gone and I can’t tell whether I wanted him or I just wanted someone to be good to be. It feels so fucking pathetic to be this way because I’m the one who hasn’t moved on, and I’m the one who cries at work and can’t sleep and can’t make friends and be a normal person and yet I’m asking for him to stay?
Almost there.
I can’t tell exactly what’s wrong with me but I know I have to get out of whatever this is but I hate that I ran to the first man I met, I hate that he was so good to me, and I hate that he’s gone now because I didn’t ask for much but at the same time I asked for everything and I hate that –
There are flowers by your sister’s grave.
Fresh flowers. Flowers you hadn’t bought, flowers wrapped in a way you don’t recognise, leaned against her headstone in a spot you have never put them.
You crouch down carefully and lean close to inspect them. No note, only a handful of stems wrapped carefully with butcher’s twine. The way the rope coils in neat rows tells you they were done with a careful hand. You know exactly the shape of the hand, the bluntness of the nails, the roughness of the skin.
You imagine him buying these flowers, wondering if he asked for these specifically. You want to know how he knows – how he knows you bought them for her, how he knows she was laid to rest here, how he knows anything about you at all.
How it was that he left.
How it is that he hasn’t come back to you and yet he has been here, your place where your heart was last broken.
Your plastic-wrapped flowers sit coldly in your palm.
He has bought your sister tulips.
part i, part ii, part iii, part iv, part v, part vi, part vii, christmas special, part viii, part ix
I know I promised Seepage part two last weekend, but my life circumstances changed beyond my control. I had an exchange about this story that changed the way I thought about it and decided to write something to say thank you for waiting.
[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
Perhaps it’s being chilled to the bone that starves you of your ability to sleep.
February’s frostiness hasn’t abated at all, and all night you lay in bed, feeling the cold air grow teeth. The radiator is at the other end of the bedroom and the trek there would take energy that you don’t have.
When the morning arrives and condensation builds on the window, you hobble into the bathroom and begin again with all the rituals of the living – the brushing of hair and teeth, the washing and make up drawing, the slow wrestle of a limp body into clothes, the shovelling of food into a mouth.
Then, the day. Long, bright and endless, a series of hours where nothing makes sense to you though you still appear coherent to others, where your eyes hurt and your muscles feel detached from bone yet you still walk back home without simply melting into the ground.
You have not been back to the café.
Distantly, you wonder how many cups of tea Emir has left for you, waiting and watching it go cold. You have no way to prove this assumption of loyalty, but at the same time you know it to be true.
How many is it? Twelve, thirteen? Your blooming depression blurred everything after day four.
You have spent the days wondering how long this feeling of being held underwater will last. It has saved you from the sharpness of hurt, the rancid humiliation that lanced you in the first few days, but you also know that whatever this is – this long, silent scream – will also kill you.
The rotten part of yourself says you're a coward, a fool’s fool for letting this one stupid experience ruin what was originally yours. The horrible part says that you gave up too much too quickly and that it is shameful to be seen wanting with such desperation.
The larger, more tender part of you is smarting with loss – a child wandering alone at a playground wondering why they are suddenly alone.
But the truth is that this feeling is not new. Delayed perhaps, suppressed perhaps, momentarily relieved, perhaps, but never fully gone. It predated Simon and he was just a moment of reprieve that you desperately needed.
You have survived worse, and this you will survive too.
So with a survivor’s will you drag yourself to the café just after one in the morning, far earlier than your usual time.
Even from the outside you can see that the café is dimly lit but buzzing with energy; teenagers occupy the far corner booth and are chatting away over coke cans and plates of chips; two older women are closer to the front and playing a game you will later find out is called Barjis.
When you enter and hear the familiar shoop of the door, the sound of it sparks tears in your eyes but the unfamiliarity of the occupants keeps them at bay. Your senses are assaulted with the smell of tea, spice, and sugar. Emir walks out from the back and seems shocked to see you. A quick succession of emotions flitter across his face, but you are too slow to catch them, and nor do you want to know.
He hurries over with a tea in hand and ushers you to your chair. Proffering your best smile, you try to lamely find an excuse for your absence but it seems Emir doesn’t need one – he hurries back to the counter and brings plate after plate of dessert: halva as rippled as the sky; Turkish Delight that wafts white sugar from being carried over, cardamom rice pudding so hot the steam curls in a stream over Emir’s shoulder.
He offers you these plates and arranges them in front of you as a grandparent would. He says nothing but before he leaves he places a hand on your head and murmurs something in his language. Neither of you can look the other in the eye, but the act of kindness is enough.
You don’t move for a while. Being presented with plates of sweetness and warmth feels alien to someone that has been subsisting on very little.
Eventually you manage to swipe a finger through the dusting of sugar that has fallen off the Turkish Delight. The spark of sweetness is so intense as to be almost bitter, but it whets your appetite and you chance a spoon of rice pudding next. It’s glorious, and you reach for your tea to wash it down.
Each mouthful of dessert warms the embers deep inside you, and you are brought back inside your body. You are suddenly awake to the pangs of hunger and thirst and aware of how deeply you have denied yourself.
When you are almost done with the rice pudding, something outside the window catches your eye.
You look up, spoon in mouth and pudding melting on your tongue, and spot a young couple walking on the street opposite the café. The boy has his arm around the girl but they walk loosely, hips colliding and feet stumbling. You get the sense that it isn’t due to alcohol that they walk like this, but rather a sense of joy in the present, a deep delight they have in being in each other’s company.
The boy stops for a moment and uses his hand that is intertwined with the girl’s to twirl her in a circle. The shape of it is ungainly and brittle, but the girl bursts into laughter that is free and wild and the boy yanks her in so that they are chest to chest. From where you sit you can see their hot breaths puff in the crisp air.
It’s in that moment you realise this: to deny your desire to share your physical body with the ghostly man with whom you shared your tears and fears is to lie to yourself. The truth is that it has been years since you felt the warmth of someone else’s embrace, the feeling of being wanted so badly that you are dragged into their body, the possibility of dancing in the dark with someone to hold you from flying away.
You have no proof that it was ever going to happen to you, but as you watch the young couple disappear from view and take stock of your aching heart, you are disappointed to find that your heart latched onto Simon and led you astray anyway.
part i, part ii, part iii, part iv, part v, part vi, part vii, christmas special, part viii
Not super sure what to say other than I'm sorry for going silent after last chapter's angst! It won't get better for a while, but the important thing is that life keeps happening. Hope you've all been well.
Oh dang...I knew it wouldn't be okay, I knew that, but it still hurt all over again.
I'm so glad she went back though, even if it was painful. At least she got to see Emir, and he was so sweet.
This actually brought tears to my eyes:
He says nothing but before he leaves he places a hand on your head and murmurs something in his language.
The hand on her head was so gentle and kind. He's glad to see her back, but I'm sure he knows she's hurting.
It’s in that moment you realise this: to deny your desire to share your physical body with the ghostly man with whom you shared your tears and fears is to lie to yourself.
You have no proof that it was ever going to happen to you, but...you are disappointed to find that your heart latched onto Simon and led you astray anyway.
Give him time...maybe he'll come back. Maybe he'll make it right. ~please I beg~
There’s a line from A Streetcar Named Desire where Blanche says, “I have always relied on the kindness of strangers”… and that’s stayed with me over the years, and it’s so true!
Simon will return, but it won’t be easy… thank you as always for being an avid reader!
As a general rule, I don't seek out angst. It's always a testament to how good a fic and an author are when I stick with an angsty fic. You write this so well, I have to stick around. Easy or not, I need to see him return.
I had a question, and absolutely no pressure to answer, but do you know what's going to happen already? Like do you have the story planned out in your head? Or do you think of it as you go along? I'm just curious.
I have never written a plan for anything because I'm impatient and flighty, which means all of my stories go unfinished most of the time...
With this one, I just enjoyed the idea of Simon meeting someone in the quiet hours. I wrote the first instalment and then just forgot about it for over a year because I couldn't think of anything else -- I wanted it to be just snippets, but at the same time couldn't think of a way of writing snippets without involving at least some kind of story.
Before I write the next chapter I always worry that there has to be some kind of major development (ie. they get together or something bad happens etc) to fit an entertainment trope, but then I remember that it isn't the point of this story to be very dramatic or to fulfil a dramatic purpose.
I often have to start writing to then think of something -- I almost never have prior inspiration because my brain is always full of dramatic stuff and it just doesn't really suit these two characters.
I don't really have an idea of how this will end. I do want them together but I also want to be careful with it because I don't want the message to be that Simon rescues Dot from her misery. I didn't have a man save me from mine and I think if you're lucky enough to have someone help you on the way, that's amazing, but they don't have to be romantic interests.
Actually, I think I just figured it out. I want this story to be about community. I'll follow that theme wherever it goes.
Thank you for the question, it's clarified a lot about this story for myself. I wrote another part based off of the inspiration I felt from your comment, I hope you enjoy.
[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
Perhaps it’s being chilled to the bone that starves you of your ability to sleep.
February’s frostiness hasn’t abated at all, and all night you lay in bed, feeling the cold air grow teeth. The radiator is at the other end of the bedroom and the trek there would take energy that you don’t have.
When the morning arrives and condensation builds on the window, you hobble into the bathroom and begin again with all the rituals of the living – the brushing of hair and teeth, the washing and make up drawing, the slow wrestle of a limp body into clothes, the shovelling of food into a mouth.
Then, the day. Long, bright and endless, a series of hours where nothing makes sense to you though you still appear coherent to others, where your eyes hurt and your muscles feel detached from bone yet you still walk back home without simply melting into the ground.
You have not been back to the café.
Distantly, you wonder how many cups of tea Emir has left for you, waiting and watching it go cold. You have no way to prove this assumption of loyalty, but at the same time you know it to be true.
How many is it? Twelve, thirteen? Your blooming depression blurred everything after day four.
You have spent the days wondering how long this feeling of being held underwater will last. It has saved you from the sharpness of hurt, the rancid humiliation that lanced you in the first few days, but you also know that whatever this is – this long, silent scream – will also kill you.
The rotten part of yourself says you're a coward, a fool’s fool for letting this one stupid experience ruin what was originally yours. The horrible part says that you gave up too much too quickly and that it is shameful to be seen wanting with such desperation.
The larger, more tender part of you is smarting with loss – a child wandering alone at a playground wondering why they are suddenly alone.
But the truth is that this feeling is not new. Delayed perhaps, suppressed perhaps, momentarily relieved, perhaps, but never fully gone. It predated Simon and he was just a moment of reprieve that you desperately needed.
You have survived worse, and this you will survive too.
So with a survivor’s will you drag yourself to the café just after one in the morning, far earlier than your usual time.
Even from the outside you can see that the café is dimly lit but buzzing with energy; teenagers occupy the far corner booth and are chatting away over coke cans and plates of chips; two older women are closer to the front and playing a game you will later find out is called Barjis.
When you enter and hear the familiar shoop of the door, the sound of it sparks tears in your eyes but the unfamiliarity of the occupants keeps them at bay. Your senses are assaulted with the smell of tea, spice, and sugar. Emir walks out from the back and seems shocked to see you. A quick succession of emotions flitter across his face, but you are too slow to catch them, and nor do you want to know.
He hurries over with a tea in hand and ushers you to your chair. Proffering your best smile, you try to lamely find an excuse for your absence but it seems Emir doesn’t need one – he hurries back to the counter and brings plate after plate of dessert: halva as rippled as the sky; Turkish Delight that wafts white sugar from being carried over, cardamom rice pudding so hot the steam curls in a stream over Emir’s shoulder.
He offers you these plates and arranges them in front of you as a grandparent would. He says nothing but before he leaves he places a hand on your head and murmurs something in his language. Neither of you can look the other in the eye, but the act of kindness is enough.
You don’t move for a while. Being presented with plates of sweetness and warmth feels alien to someone that has been subsisting on very little.
Eventually you manage to swipe a finger through the dusting of sugar that has fallen off the Turkish Delight. The spark of sweetness is so intense as to be almost bitter, but it whets your appetite and you chance a spoon of rice pudding next. It’s glorious, and you reach for your tea to wash it down.
Each mouthful of dessert warms the embers deep inside you, and you are brought back inside your body. You are suddenly awake to the pangs of hunger and thirst and aware of how deeply you have denied yourself.
When you are almost done with the rice pudding, something outside the window catches your eye.
You look up, spoon in mouth and pudding melting on your tongue, and spot a young couple walking on the street opposite the café. The boy has his arm around the girl but they walk loosely, hips colliding and feet stumbling. You get the sense that it isn’t due to alcohol that they walk like this, but rather a sense of joy in the present, a deep delight they have in being in each other’s company.
The boy stops for a moment and uses his hand that is intertwined with the girl’s to twirl her in a circle. The shape of it is ungainly and brittle, but the girl bursts into laughter that is free and wild and the boy yanks her in so that they are chest to chest. From where you sit you can see their hot breaths puff in the crisp air.
It’s in that moment you realise this: to deny your desire to share your physical body with the ghostly man with whom you shared your tears and fears is to lie to yourself. The truth is that it has been years since you felt the warmth of someone else’s embrace, the feeling of being wanted so badly that you are dragged into their body, the possibility of dancing in the dark with someone to hold you from flying away.
You have no proof that it was ever going to happen to you, but as you watch the young couple disappear from view and take stock of your aching heart, you are disappointed to find that your heart latched onto Simon and led you astray anyway.
part i, part ii, part iii, part iv, part v, part vi, part vii, christmas special, part viii
Not super sure what to say other than I'm sorry for going silent after last chapter's angst! It won't get better for a while, but the important thing is that life keeps happening. Hope you've all been well.
[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
Perhaps it’s being chilled to the bone that starves you of your ability to sleep.
February’s frostiness hasn’t abated at all, and all night you lay in bed, feeling the cold air grow teeth. The radiator is at the other end of the bedroom and the trek there would take energy that you don’t have.
When the morning arrives and condensation builds on the window, you hobble into the bathroom and begin again with all the rituals of the living – the brushing of hair and teeth, the washing and make up drawing, the slow wrestle of a limp body into clothes, the shovelling of food into a mouth.
Then, the day. Long, bright and endless, a series of hours where nothing makes sense to you though you still appear coherent to others, where your eyes hurt and your muscles feel detached from bone yet you still walk back home without simply melting into the ground.
You have not been back to the café.
Distantly, you wonder how many cups of tea Emir has left for you, waiting and watching it go cold. You have no way to prove this assumption of loyalty, but at the same time you know it to be true.
How many is it? Twelve, thirteen? Your blooming depression blurred everything after day four.
You have spent the days wondering how long this feeling of being held underwater will last. It has saved you from the sharpness of hurt, the rancid humiliation that lanced you in the first few days, but you also know that whatever this is – this long, silent scream – will also kill you.
The rotten part of yourself says you're a coward, a fool’s fool for letting this one stupid experience ruin what was originally yours. The horrible part says that you gave up too much too quickly and that it is shameful to be seen wanting with such desperation.
The larger, more tender part of you is smarting with loss – a child wandering alone at a playground wondering why they are suddenly alone.
But the truth is that this feeling is not new. Delayed perhaps, suppressed perhaps, momentarily relieved, perhaps, but never fully gone. It predated Simon and he was just a moment of reprieve that you desperately needed.
You have survived worse, and this you will survive too.
So with a survivor’s will you drag yourself to the café just after one in the morning, far earlier than your usual time.
Even from the outside you can see that the café is dimly lit but buzzing with energy; teenagers occupy the far corner booth and are chatting away over coke cans and plates of chips; two older women are closer to the front and playing a game you will later find out is called Barjis.
When you enter and hear the familiar shoop of the door, the sound of it sparks tears in your eyes but the unfamiliarity of the occupants keeps them at bay. Your senses are assaulted with the smell of tea, spice, and sugar. Emir walks out from the back and seems shocked to see you. A quick succession of emotions flitter across his face, but you are too slow to catch them, and nor do you want to know.
He hurries over with a tea in hand and ushers you to your chair. Proffering your best smile, you try to lamely find an excuse for your absence but it seems Emir doesn’t need one – he hurries back to the counter and brings plate after plate of dessert: halva as rippled as the sky; Turkish Delight that wafts white sugar from being carried over, cardamom rice pudding so hot the steam curls in a stream over Emir’s shoulder.
He offers you these plates and arranges them in front of you as a grandparent would. He says nothing but before he leaves he places a hand on your head and murmurs something in his language. Neither of you can look the other in the eye, but the act of kindness is enough.
You don’t move for a while. Being presented with plates of sweetness and warmth feels alien to someone that has been subsisting on very little.
Eventually you manage to swipe a finger through the dusting of sugar that has fallen off the Turkish Delight. The spark of sweetness is so intense as to be almost bitter, but it whets your appetite and you chance a spoon of rice pudding next. It’s glorious, and you reach for your tea to wash it down.
Each mouthful of dessert warms the embers deep inside you, and you are brought back inside your body. You are suddenly awake to the pangs of hunger and thirst and aware of how deeply you have denied yourself.
When you are almost done with the rice pudding, something outside the window catches your eye.
You look up, spoon in mouth and pudding melting on your tongue, and spot a young couple walking on the street opposite the café. The boy has his arm around the girl but they walk loosely, hips colliding and feet stumbling. You get the sense that it isn’t due to alcohol that they walk like this, but rather a sense of joy in the present, a deep delight they have in being in each other’s company.
The boy stops for a moment and uses his hand that is intertwined with the girl’s to twirl her in a circle. The shape of it is ungainly and brittle, but the girl bursts into laughter that is free and wild and the boy yanks her in so that they are chest to chest. From where you sit you can see their hot breaths puff in the crisp air.
It’s in that moment you realise this: to deny your desire to share your physical body with the ghostly man with whom you shared your tears and fears is to lie to yourself. The truth is that it has been years since you felt the warmth of someone else’s embrace, the feeling of being wanted so badly that you are dragged into their body, the possibility of dancing in the dark with someone to hold you from flying away.
You have no proof that it was ever going to happen to you, but as you watch the young couple disappear from view and take stock of your aching heart, you are disappointed to find that your heart latched onto Simon and led you astray anyway.
part i, part ii, part iii, part iv, part v, part vi, part vii, christmas special, part viii
Not super sure what to say other than I'm sorry for going silent after last chapter's angst! It won't get better for a while, but the important thing is that life keeps happening. Hope you've all been well.
Oh dang...I knew it wouldn't be okay, I knew that, but it still hurt all over again.
I'm so glad she went back though, even if it was painful. At least she got to see Emir, and he was so sweet.
This actually brought tears to my eyes:
He says nothing but before he leaves he places a hand on your head and murmurs something in his language.
The hand on her head was so gentle and kind. He's glad to see her back, but I'm sure he knows she's hurting.
It’s in that moment you realise this: to deny your desire to share your physical body with the ghostly man with whom you shared your tears and fears is to lie to yourself.
You have no proof that it was ever going to happen to you, but...you are disappointed to find that your heart latched onto Simon and led you astray anyway.
Give him time...maybe he'll come back. Maybe he'll make it right. ~please I beg~
There’s a line from A Streetcar Named Desire where Blanche says, “I have always relied on the kindness of strangers”… and that’s stayed with me over the years, and it’s so true!
Simon will return, but it won’t be easy… thank you as always for being an avid reader!
[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
Perhaps it’s being chilled to the bone that starves you of your ability to sleep.
February’s frostiness hasn’t abated at all, and all night you lay in bed, feeling the cold air grow teeth. The radiator is at the other end of the bedroom and the trek there would take energy that you don’t have.
When the morning arrives and condensation builds on the window, you hobble into the bathroom and begin again with all the rituals of the living – the brushing of hair and teeth, the washing and make up drawing, the slow wrestle of a limp body into clothes, the shovelling of food into a mouth.
Then, the day. Long, bright and endless, a series of hours where nothing makes sense to you though you still appear coherent to others, where your eyes hurt and your muscles feel detached from bone yet you still walk back home without simply melting into the ground.
You have not been back to the café.
Distantly, you wonder how many cups of tea Emir has left for you, waiting and watching it go cold. You have no way to prove this assumption of loyalty, but at the same time you know it to be true.
How many is it? Twelve, thirteen? Your blooming depression blurred everything after day four.
You have spent the days wondering how long this feeling of being held underwater will last. It has saved you from the sharpness of hurt, the rancid humiliation that lanced you in the first few days, but you also know that whatever this is – this long, silent scream – will also kill you.
The rotten part of yourself says you're a coward, a fool’s fool for letting this one stupid experience ruin what was originally yours. The horrible part says that you gave up too much too quickly and that it is shameful to be seen wanting with such desperation.
The larger, more tender part of you is smarting with loss – a child wandering alone at a playground wondering why they are suddenly alone.
But the truth is that this feeling is not new. Delayed perhaps, suppressed perhaps, momentarily relieved, perhaps, but never fully gone. It predated Simon and he was just a moment of reprieve that you desperately needed.
You have survived worse, and this you will survive too.
So with a survivor’s will you drag yourself to the café just after one in the morning, far earlier than your usual time.
Even from the outside you can see that the café is dimly lit but buzzing with energy; teenagers occupy the far corner booth and are chatting away over coke cans and plates of chips; two older women are closer to the front and playing a game you will later find out is called Barjis.
When you enter and hear the familiar shoop of the door, the sound of it sparks tears in your eyes but the unfamiliarity of the occupants keeps them at bay. Your senses are assaulted with the smell of tea, spice, and sugar. Emir walks out from the back and seems shocked to see you. A quick succession of emotions flitter across his face, but you are too slow to catch them, and nor do you want to know.
He hurries over with a tea in hand and ushers you to your chair. Proffering your best smile, you try to lamely find an excuse for your absence but it seems Emir doesn’t need one – he hurries back to the counter and brings plate after plate of dessert: halva as rippled as the sky; Turkish Delight that wafts white sugar from being carried over, cardamom rice pudding so hot the steam curls in a stream over Emir’s shoulder.
He offers you these plates and arranges them in front of you as a grandparent would. He says nothing but before he leaves he places a hand on your head and murmurs something in his language. Neither of you can look the other in the eye, but the act of kindness is enough.
You don’t move for a while. Being presented with plates of sweetness and warmth feels alien to someone that has been subsisting on very little.
Eventually you manage to swipe a finger through the dusting of sugar that has fallen off the Turkish Delight. The spark of sweetness is so intense as to be almost bitter, but it whets your appetite and you chance a spoon of rice pudding next. It’s glorious, and you reach for your tea to wash it down.
Each mouthful of dessert warms the embers deep inside you, and you are brought back inside your body. You are suddenly awake to the pangs of hunger and thirst and aware of how deeply you have denied yourself.
When you are almost done with the rice pudding, something outside the window catches your eye.
You look up, spoon in mouth and pudding melting on your tongue, and spot a young couple walking on the street opposite the café. The boy has his arm around the girl but they walk loosely, hips colliding and feet stumbling. You get the sense that it isn’t due to alcohol that they walk like this, but rather a sense of joy in the present, a deep delight they have in being in each other’s company.
The boy stops for a moment and uses his hand that is intertwined with the girl’s to twirl her in a circle. The shape of it is ungainly and brittle, but the girl bursts into laughter that is free and wild and the boy yanks her in so that they are chest to chest. From where you sit you can see their hot breaths puff in the crisp air.
It’s in that moment you realise this: to deny your desire to share your physical body with the ghostly man with whom you shared your tears and fears is to lie to yourself. The truth is that it has been years since you felt the warmth of someone else’s embrace, the feeling of being wanted so badly that you are dragged into their body, the possibility of dancing in the dark with someone to hold you from flying away.
You have no proof that it was ever going to happen to you, but as you watch the young couple disappear from view and take stock of your aching heart, you are disappointed to find that your heart latched onto Simon and led you astray anyway.
part i, part ii, part iii, part iv, part v, part vi, part vii, christmas special, part viii
Not super sure what to say other than I'm sorry for going silent after last chapter's angst! It won't get better for a while, but the important thing is that life keeps happening. Hope you've all been well.
⚠️ A situation that calls for your humanity, the tears of my disabled child in the paws of your generous hands 🙏🏻 The solutions have ended, and death remains the master of the situation. Gaza is dying alone without saying goodbye. #Humanity has fallen and Gaza remains alone with the shrouds, face to face‼️.💥 Save my disabled child and my innocent children.I am so sorry. I am asking for a donation of €20 which will go a long way in saving my family's lives from death and war and providing a lifeline and safety. Help me secure the money for a meal during Ramadan I would be very grateful 💔🫂
yousharknotpass
origamiaround
2087
dailybridgerton
vaporwave
izzy806
blakekathryn
