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No Good Deed (Simon Ghost Riley x Reader) 💀
CH 1
CH 2
No Good Deed
Simon 'Ghost' Riley x f!reader 18+
TW: Stalking, PTSD, obsessive behavior, grief, implied child abuse, will add as story goes
CHAPTER 2
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Simon starts showing up to volunteer practically every week. He’d seek you out anywhere and everywhere you were. If you were on food duty, he was there. If you were on shelter duty, he was there. You were on office duty? Well sucks he can’t help you there. He was honestly a God send considering Gary never came back, Mrs. Hassani was getting older and couldn’t volunteer nearly as much as she’d like, and Jen had her degree to worry about.
“You know you paid off your debt awhile ago.” You say as he folds the clean bed sheets over a mattress, the corners pin straight and perfect. “Not that we don’t appreciate the work you put in, but don’t you have like… a job or something?”
“I’m military.” He says, snatching the pillow from your hands. “Currently on leave.”
“Military! Oooh! That explains your tattoos.” You waggle a finger at his arm. “So what division are you? Marine? Army? Air force?”
“SAS. And it’s branch, not division.” He corrects. Moving onto the next bed.
“SAS? Super Awesome Soldiers.” You smile, “Ssssmashing Adult Specialists. Something Amaz-“
“Special Air Service.” Simon interrupts your antics.
“I was close.” You laugh, “you know I’d deal with a lot of veterans back home.”
“The states?”
“Yeah. What, my accent not give me away?”
“You all sound the same across the pond.”
“Well guess what Mr. Military, your accent is the blue print for impressions back home.” You puff out your chest. “Ello love, fancy beans on toast?” you voice comes out comically too high for an attempt at mocking Simon’s rough and tough Manchester dialect. His eyes widen a fraction. “Well? How was that?” you slap his arm.
“Bloody Hell.” He gives his disproval but you catch the slightest shake of his shoulders. “You always this thick?”
“Depends how sleep deprived I am.” You joke. “Besides, you keep coming around so I can’t be that insufferable.”
“Why’d you choose to work with the homeless?” He asks, the two of you having made the majority of the beds take a moment to sit.
“Well, I didn’t always work with them. I actually went into the field wanting to do case work.” You cross your ankles, toe of your foot itching at your calf. “I use to visit homes and check up on families. Hoarders, veterans, those with mental illness.” You look up to see him eyeing you carefully. “It would usually go ok, sometimes it’d get violent. I’ve had my fair share of furniture thrown at me. I eventually got to work with kids.” Your mouth twitches, “Kids were actually my first job after moving here. Welfare checks and homes suspected of abuse...” You go silent for a moment. Pondering if you should continue. A slight bit of anxiety rising up from your belly at the topic.
“When’d you move here?” Simon makes the decision for you, his elbows resting on his knees as he takes you in.
“Early Spring. Flew into London after a 15 hour flight with nothing but a carry on.” You wipe your sweaty palms into your pants. “Got a place in the city not too far from here. Old and dingy. But you know what, I kind of like old and dingy!”
“You’re out your mind.” He shakes his head.
The two of you wind up on laundry duty, hauling huge amounts of bed sheets and clothes to the industrial size wash. Simon’s eyes can’t help but wander to the corner of the room where a… dog thing was looking at him.
“You lot sheltering a mascot?” He asks.
“Oh that’s mine.” Simon just looks at you funny. “It’s a from a kids show, I wore it for Halloween. Needed a big enough washing machine to clean it.” You tug the thing up by the arm, unzipping the back and crawling inside. You wave your fuzzy paws at him with vigor. “G’day! I’ma blue Heelah!”
“….”
“If you were a soccer mom or a 10 year old, that would’ve killed.” You pull yourself back out, folding Bluey back into her corner. “I probably should get this out of their hair. Remind me to take her with when we leave.” The room falls into an awkward quiet as the two of you return to the task at hand.
“What do you call a dog magician?” He asks, finally breaking the silence.
“I don’t know. What do you call a dog magician?” you ask curiously. Fluffing a pillow as you await eagerly.
“A labracadabrador.” You stand there in shock. Your brain processing what this blunt, doom and gloom man just uttered out loud. And you just double over in a fit of laughter.
“Wha-hahahat?!” You smack the pillow into your knees as you laugh, not at the shitty joke, at the notion of a man like Simon telling the shitty joke. And with the room filled with your breathless laughter, Simon can’t help the genuine smile that spreads across his face.
“You work tomorrow?” Simon asks, though he already knows the answer.
“Nope. Why? You wanna hang?”
“How’s about a drink?” You hesitate a moment, humming as you ponder. Hand on your hip, face smothered by your red hood.
Your eyes wander the pub Simon lead you to, it was… rustic to say the least. Peeling discolored wall paper barely hiding the rotted brick laying underneath, weathered stools and booths with no cushion besides the worn groove in the wood someone’s ass put a lot of work into. The place smelled musty, the air weirdly heavy as if you could practically feel the grime sticking to your lungs with each inhale. The only other people here being older gents with a special kind of sadness in their eyes. The place oozed neglect. To say Simon fit right in would be an understatement.
“So… you come here often?” You ask.
“No.” You eye him curiously in surprise. Giving the place another once over.
“They get good reviews online or something?”
“Don’t know.”
“Hm.” you hum, eyes trying to look anywhere but his. Deep brown eyes set on you since you sat down. Unmoving and unblinking. The times you’ve spent with Simon at work weren’t this awkward. At least when neither of you had anything to say you could turn to a task and justify the silence. This… this was just uncomfortable. You glance around to find a distinct lack of a waiters in site. “So, do they like… bring you your order or-?”
“What do you want? I’ll go order.” Simon stands, his massive form blots out the light just above your table.
“Something sweet.” you peek at the bar to see the bartender digging in his ear before going back to wiping a glass down. “And comes in a can please.” While you wait, you pull out your phone. Seeing a message from your mom.
Have you looked at flights for Christmas yet?
No, not yet. I’ve been a bit swamped with work. I’ll look over the weekend. Promise!
You better hurry! Tickets are going fast!
The clink of a can on the wood table tears you away from your phone to find a hard cider and Simon with a can of his own slipping back into his seat.
“Texting your boyfriend?” Simon asks.
“Oh no. Just my mom!” you flip your phone face down. “She’s just asking if I’ve got my Christmas flight set up.”
“Not sticking around for the holidays?”
“Mom’s a die hard Christmas fan, it’d be blasphemous to miss the yearly family feast.” You pop your can open, hit with the sweet smell of crisp fermented apple. “Course the tickets are more expensive, but what’re you gonna do? You know?” Your lips cradle the cold aluminum as you take your first sip.
Simon’s massive hand eventually seeks out his own drink, peels his mask up the slightest margin, your eyes lasering in on the puffy scar that trails his lower lip and descends into his chin before being hidden by colored aluminum.
“So you like being in the military?” You blurt. Growing more curious by the newly revealed wounded skin.
He considers you with lazy eyes, taking a long gracious drink of his cider. His neck flexing with each gulp.
“Not particularly.” He answers.
“So, you don’t like it?”
“Not particularly.”
“Ok, well what do you like?”
Simon stares you down some more before his scarred lips open again. “Enya.” He says.
You sit up in your seat, “Really?” you reply with pleasant surprise. Simon catches your tone and tilts his head.
“Don’t seem the type, do I?”
“I thought you’d be more of a metal head or at least a classic rocker. What about food? Don’t tell me your a picky eater.”
“The very thought of military grade powdered gravy and gruel makes my mouth water.”
The previous silence is filled with your curious questions and his charmingly dry responses. You’re surprised to learn he likes rom coms, not a big fan of seafood, and in the summer turns an impecable bronze. You have doubts about that last one. You also learn his favorite drink is Kentucky bourbon, you offer to buy him a bottle to share at the table, only to find they prefer scotch on this side of the pond. You settle for more hard cider and the conversation gets turned onto you.
You tell him you like horror movies. That you’re the eldest daughter. That you’ve noticed the rain smells different here than back home. And while you miss your mom, it’s nice to be away from her tendency to be a little overbearing. You get to be a little more free in a new place, away from the familiar, away from the old. Away from- you catch yourself.
“It’s just nice to be on a new adventure!” You say it with a sickening layer of fake cheer. Too much. It sloughs off to expose the ugly layers of personal doubt. You can’t look him in the eyes. Diverting to the safety of your 3rd half empty can. Twirling the tab between your fingers before it snaps off. “I-I think I’ve had a little too much to drink.”
Simon slides his drink over to your side of the table, standing and slowly comes around to your end. You sit their looking up at him in hazy confusion before he sits, right up against you. His thigh presses into yours, crowding you into the peeling brick wall. His massive form blocking out most of the surrounding light. The contrast of his ghostly pale skin against his black clothes makes him almost glow in contrast. Eyes crawling up his face before meeting his almost black hypnotizing eyes gazing down at you.
“Why’d you really come here, Poppy?” he asks.
“I don’t know what you mean-”
“No. None of that.” you’re cut off. Your fake smile descending into a tight lipped worry line.
You just stare at him. Silence stretching the longest it has between the two of you. Your skin begins to crawl, with every second he’s looking at you feels like he’s peeling back another layer of your insecurities. As if he can see into your mind and know exactly what’s bothering you. You try to look away, to break the line of connection only to have his finger turn your chin back towards him.
“It’s alright. You can let it out.” He says it so sweetly.
“I-I failed…” your lips quivers. And you have to tear your eyes away from his as they begin to grow misty. Simon remains quiet as you pick at the broken tab of your drink. “I-I failed to protect a little b-boy.” You muster out the last revelation before the tears began to cascade down your cheeks. You sit in your confession in silence, trying to even your breathing as you await Simon’s judgement. Instead a thumb brushes your cheek of stray tears, forcing your eyes to meet his. They were the softest you’ve ever seen them.
“I have a hard time believing that.”
Your vision blurs, you hiccup a sob before you turn away in shame. Wiping furiously at your face. You feel his massive hands corral you into his side, flaps of his coat hiding you away from the eyes of drunk strangers. You feel like your floating as you unleash a plethora of grief into Simon’s abdomen. Head fuzzy and warm. Simon strokes your back as you wet his chest, fantasizing about the taste of their salt on his tongue.
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No Good Deed
Ghost x f!reader 18+
TW: stalking, PTSD, obsessive behavior, grief, implied child abuse, will add to as story goes
Summary
You’re an honest, hard-working, go getter who believes in putting the good out into the world. Working hard as a social worker, you moved from the states to England to distance yourself from a bad case. One of your acts of kindness puts you at the forefront of an unstable, grieving, lonely man’s attention. And he’s not going to let something good slip through his fingers like the last time…
Chapter 1
Glasses collect on the bar top in front of Simon. The bartender stopped catering to him a while ago, letting him sit with a shameful reminder of just how much he’s drunk tonight. They didn’t actually say anything, just let the awkwardness speak for their discomfort instead. Frankly ruining Simon’s attempts to stay in that haze of almost drunk but not quite. Just enough to make him feel he has a control of the situation. His pocket buzzes. The damned thing hasn’t stopped buzzing since his leave of absence. Not sure why he kept his phone on him. Habitual he supposes. Ignoring it to watch the ice melt just enough to get those bare remnants of booze left in the glass. Tongue darting out to collect the cool smoky taste as it spilled into his gullet. Desperate for that bitterness. For that pleasant burn that warms his belly.
Simon could tell from the looks he was getting from patrons and bartender alike, they were going to eventually ask him leave. Just need to work up the nerve to actually do it. Tell it to the big hulking masked drunks face to “pretty pretty please leave”. Simon thinks of himself as merciful, saving them the embarrassment slapping down a few quid for his tab and slips out into the snowy streets. The cold hitting him like a brick wall. Nearly shocks the pleasant buzz he has going for him out of his system.
Nearly.
He stumbles down the cobble streets, towering over other pedestrians as he lazily watches fat flakes flutter down from the sky. They shimmer in the artificial streetlights as they meet their end on the dirt and grime of the earth. He wanders down random alleyways and neighborhoods he’s never ventured before. Anywhere but home. Anywhere but back to that prison of a flat. He didn’t want to go back to that emptiness. To just sit and fester on all the wrongs in his life, old wounds thought long scarred over ripped open again with the loss of… His feet have stopped walking, settled firmly in front of a festively painted shop window, a jolly snowman waving at him with the promise of a good deal on muenster cheese. His eyes wander to the people inside, a mum with little knee biters all nestled in puffy coats and wooly caps begging her for sweets. Some teenagers with armfuls of snacks and a box of condoms not so well hidden in the mass of crisps and fizzy drinks. One of them has a shitty mohawk and it makes his stomach sink.
“Do you need anything from inside?” Simon’s pulled away from the dread by a pleasant trill. His eyes wander to the woman peering up at him, kind eyes looking on with honest concern. A bright red coat draped over her form, a matching poppy pin over her right breast.
“Hm?” He hums. The woman tilts her head and points with a pretty finger to the corner shop he’d been peering into.
“Anything you need or want? Food, drinks-” she gives a sweet smile, but her eyes gleam with pity-”maybe some new clothes?” Simon blinks at her for a moment before he nearly lets out a scoff.
She thinks he’s homeless.
His long silence makes her fidget, eyes darting to and fro, her posture switching from confident to uncomfortable. He nearly turns her offer down, but something holds his tongue.
“A beer.” His voice rumbles. He smirks under his balaclava at the way she jumps at the sound. Her eyes look at him bewildered for a moment before that little sweet smile returns.
“Alright. I’ll be right back.” She twirls around and disappears through the automatic doors. Another glimpse of her through the glass, losing her again down an aisle. He can feel the buzz of his phone in his pocket again, though this time only once. A text. He waits a few seconds longer in search of that red coat before finally pulling out his phone.
missed call (2)
missed call
missed call (3)
missed call
At least let us know your still breathing -Price
He ignores it like the others. Slipping the object back into his pocket. Peering back into the window, eyes zone in onto the red coat at the till. She has far more than just a beer. She seems to be chatting up the cashier, a toothy smile and a laugh shared between the two as she retrieves her id. Friendly little thing. With a little wave she collects her full bags. He follows her the entirety of the way, meeting her as she finally exits. He can see the slight unease she carries in her shoulders as she presents him her haul.
“I got you a couple of extra things. Hope you don’t mind.” He peers into the bags to find a thoughtful amount of care products anyone on the street would greatly appreciate. A couple toothbrushes and tubes of toothpaste, a hairbrush, tissues and towelettes, soaps and shampoo, deodorant, a pair of extra large wooly socks (although he doubts they’ll actually fit), a bag or two of crisps, and of course his requested beer.
“Mighty generous.” His large gloved fingers slip into the loops of the plastic bags, grazing her bare ones as he retrieved his offering.
She smiles up at him brightly. “Of course! And um-” she fiddles in her purse for a moment before presenting a card to him. “In case you need a place to stay or anything else.” He glances over the text to find the address of a shelter and resource line. “I work there a few times a week so I can personally vouch for the place.” His eyes find the distinct lack of a name anywhere on the card. “Take care.” She begins her departure, red coat shining brightly against the snowy ground. The color nearly as warm as the feeling she’d left behind. He feels that warmth cut around the corner of a building and the world descends back into cold and gray.
Simon digs out his phone again, flipping open Price’s text, fiddling with the card between his fingers sending a thumbs up emoji.
_________________________________________________________
“How are things sweetie? Can’t imagine how dreary and grey it is over there.”
“It’s been alright, I’d say winters pretty much the same as back home. It dumped a foot on us the other day. Though I wish the snow had held off for another weak, really messed up October for me.” You step off the bus, having to swerve around the old woman who held up the line out for at least 10 extra minutes. “That and I was bummed to find out they don’t really party as hard for Halloween over here.”
“Well I’m sure you made it fun for your coworkers! The photos of your costume were so cute!” She preens, a little chuckle in her voice.
You grimace slightly at the memory, plainly dressed public transport passengers, ogling you struggle to sit properly in your bluey costume, or your arms failing to reach the overhead support bars. Even worse, it was the same day of an important administrative meeting you just so happened to miss the memo on. All those eyes on you, thank God the suit hid your face.
“I wouldn’t say that exactly. But the kids sure did! I was popular for once in my life.” You shake off the embarrassment with a laugh, “In fact that was probably the only reason I wasn’t fired…” you mutter. There’s a string of food stops along your route, the smell of rancid grease that always seems to seep into your clothes no matter how much you try to wash it off. It’s the very reason you now own a obnoxiously large dog costume.
“Oh please! Who would fire someone for a costume, really?!” Your mom scoffs.
“Mom, social work isn’t like any other office job. They expect a certain level of professionalism.”
“But where’s the fun! Those kids need fun in there lives more than anyone else.” You bite your lip, guilt in your chest. You haven’t told her yet.
“Yeah, they really do.” You barely hold back the waver in your voice. “Well I’m almost to the office mom. I’ll talk to you later. Thanks for staying up so late to chat.”
“It’s no bother sweetie, I love you!”
“Love you too.”
You spot the line of people gathering outside already. Many your grateful to see bundled in coats and blankets, awaiting there first meal of the day. You slip to the back of the church, key fob out and ready only to find the door already unlocked.
“I’m here! I’m here!” you holler, throwing your coat and purse into a corner of the back room, quick to throw on an apron and meet your coworkers scrounging to fill the trays with food.
“Thank God! It’s a mad house today!” Jen’s hair is a mess, her bun barely held back by a flowery scrunchy, food all over her front and her cheeks are flushed. “Gary’s a no show, so we’re down another pair of hands.” She shoves a ladle into your hand, gripping your shoulders and twirling you around to the serving area.
“What!? Why?” You find yourself parked next to Mrs. Hassani, an old widow who always found time to volunteer.
“Don’t know, never showed up, didn’t answer my calls either, the prick.” She waves you off. You face forward to the matter at hand, finding your first hungry guest for the day.
“Morning, you want some corn chowder today?”
Your about 30 bowls in before you make a double take at your next guest.
“Hey! I know you!” you perk up at the sight of giant gloomy man from a few nights before. Mask still in place over pale skin, deep brown eyes staring into you. “You want some corn chowder?” You make it a point to scoop up a ladle and let the contents spill back into the pot. “It’s nice and hot!” He tilts his head curiously at you.
“Give it to someone who needs it.” He states, “Just came by to see you.” You ogle him, a bit confused and the slightest bit offput.
“Do you want something else? We have eggs and ba-”
“Just you.” He blanks. His eyes boring into yours, unblinking.
“Alright um…” your eyes flit to the person behind him, peeking through the gap between his elbow and torso, giving Mr. gloomy the stink eye. “After breakfast, we can talk. Ok?” You give him a smile, hoping that satisfies for the time being. He just hums before stepping out of line, walking back outside and parking himself just outside the door. Leaning against the frame, giving him the perfect vantage point to peer in and watch you.
“Hi, corn chowder?”
You try not to look at him, but God is it hard not to. He’s just a big shadow in the corner of your eye, making the paranoid side of your brain vibrate in your skull. When you can’t help but glance up at him, he’s staring right back. Ignoring the inflow of people who also can’t help gaping at the human gargoyle guarding the doorway. You’d think he’d get a crick in his neck holding that position for so long. When the last few straggles enter, he follows at the rear.
“So,” you begin, lifting the pot up and out of the warmer. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m not homeless.” You freeze half way in the fridge, door swung open and cutting him off from view. Staring at the chunks of corn past the cling wrap.
“Oh.” You mutter. Pushing the pot to the back of the fridge, swinging the door shut to address this new revelation. “So the other night-”
“Never said thank you.” He cuts you off, “And felt like a bit of a prick about it.”
You rest your fist on your hip, “Oh, well your the one going to hell not me.” You chuckle, finding he isn’t laughing along. “That was- I don’t mean I actually think your going to hell- um-” you stumble over your words, playing with your hair and failing to keep solid eye contact. “I’m not religious.”
“Neither am I.” You’re relieved to catch the playfulness in his voice, “But I do believe in righting my wrongs.” He looks past you to the kitchen, sweeping his eyes across the skeleton crew cleaning their stations. “Need a hand?”
“It’s funny you ask, Misterrrr?”
“Simon.”
Bellies don’t stay full for long, coming back for lunch and dinner. Mr. Simon’s help makes the day go by faster and the labor much easier. Hauling the heavy boxes filled with shelf stable foods places neither you or the other girls could manage. Three times the trays you can carry are placed in the wash, sanitized, and dried before you can say “thank you”. And when some stubborn stragglers refuse to leave, it only takes him one look to get them up and out the door.
“Thought you said this was a shelter.” Mr. Simon pipes up, two tables over each shoulder as you gather the garbage and Mrs. Hassani mops the floors.
“The actual shelter is next door, the church serves as a food kitchen and office space.” You tie off the end of a garbage bag, wheeling it off toward the back. “So while it’s not one building, they are apart of the same shelter so to speak.”
“Hm.” he hums, trailing behind you out into the evening cold. His big hands swooping in to throw the heavier bags into the dumpster. Your eyes wander to the tattoos that trail his arm, black and ominous, littered with skulls, guns, and fire. “Why’d you buy the beer?” His question snaps you out of your daze.
“Huh?” You peer up at him.
“Why’d you buy me the beer?” He folds his arms over his chest, causing the images on his arm to bulge and distort. “Think feeding an addiction would be frowned upon.”
“They’re not all addicts.” You defend, throwing the lighter trash over your shoulder. “And if I was homeless, I’d hope people would grant me the respect to let me decide to have a God damn drink if I wanted one.” Pushing the large wheeled bin back toward the church. “Besides, it was one beer you light weight.” A stream of condensation escapes his mask, one you think means you earned some sort of silent laugh out of him.
“I can respect that.” He mumbles. Inside you find the others alongside Mrs. Hassani and Jen gathering their things to leave. Jen calls your name.
“Do you mind locking up? I’ve got an evening class to catch.”
“Oh yeah sure, I can do that. Oh!” a thought comes into your head, “Is the back door still being weird? I noticed it was unlocked this morning.”
“Ugh!” Jen rolls her eyes. “Yes! The bloody security system is being fickle again. I called in a maintenance order weeks ago and have yet to hear from the higher ups about anything being done.” She swings her purse over her shoulder. “In the mean time, there’s a bike lock in the cupboard near the lavatory. Next to the sponges.”
“How innovative.” You smirk, turning to your gracious volunteer. “Thank you so much for your help today. You saved us big time.”
“Course.” Mr. Simon bluntly replies.
You gather his apron and yours, wandering to the laundry room. Flickering light overhead to illuminate the small washer and dryer in the corner. A pile of soiled and clean clothes, each in their designated baskets. The last batch having finished its wash cycle some time ago. You start the transfer from washer to dryer, nearly jumping out of your skin at the shadowy figure in the corner of your eye.
Mr. Simon is standing in the doorway. Peering in at you silently.
“You can head out, Mr. Simon. Nothing left for you to do.” You close the dryer, twisting the knob to set the cycle time.
“I still never thanked you.” He speaks.
Waltzing up to him. You eye him up, seeing he has to tilt forward just the slightest to fit under the doorway. In a way it felt like he was leaning into you. “Well?” you ask.
“Just Simon. Not Mr. Simon.” And with that he finally backs out of the doorway. Shoving his hands in his pockets before wandering down the hallway and out the back door. You peek around the corner, watching as his dark form melts into the shadows.
“Still didn’t get my thank you…” you mumble.
shout out the folks playing with me in the fc5 sandbox a solid 7 years after it came out (especially sy), bc now i've got brain worms wriggling about jacob playing cat and mouse with his favorite prey--
(pre-apologies for the abrupt ending, i had to cut it off or this would become a Whole Big Thing)
your chest aches and sides hurt as you move as fast as you can through the woods, scant traces of dim moonlight lighting up patches of earth between the trees. it's hard to know where you are or where you're even going- but the way you figure, so long as the gunshots stay behind you and don't get any louder, wherever you're going is exactly where you want to be.
the night had been going so well, too- a bunch of friends getting together at someone's cabin to stargaze, shoot the shit, drink, smoke, and gossip. someone picked up a guitar and started singing. a few people got up and danced. it was a perfect evening- until men with guns ambushed, emerging suddenly from the night-black treeline, loading people into vans and shooting anyone who resisted.
if you hadn't already been at the outhouse that's located some distance from the cabin, you would've pissed your jeans at the first gunshot. you watched through the cracked open door as you hastily finished up, barely buttoning your jeans before you slunk out of the can and moved as quickly and quietly as you could in the other direction, occasionally turning back to catch glimpses of familiar faces being shoved into trucks or shot in the back when they tried to make a break for it.
someone must've talked- at some point, a man yells, loud, commanding the others with an authoritative bellow.
"there's one more! spread out!"
by no means are you the next up and coming cross country star for the cougars, but it's incredible the kind of second wind the threat of being hunted can bring.
your travels take you all the way to a river- one of a few snaking their way through the valley- and it gives you pause. on the other side of the bank you can see a little deer trail running up the little hill and into the treeline, potentially leading off to a cabin or a road.
the water looks black at night, and judging by the dull roar of the water and splintered reflection of the moonlight, it's going decently fast. gunfire still rings out behind you- far enough away that you don't feel each percussive shot in your chest anymore, but close enough to make you jump when they pick up after a small lull.
you have a decision to make- risk it in the river, or risk looping around back. drowning or gunshot wound, what a fucking choice to make. either way, you're tired, have a stitch in your side, and your lungs feel like they're burning. there's not much gas left in the tank, and you worry it'll be the end of you.
"better move, little bunny. i think they're getting closer."
a sudden voice behind you causes you to startle and gasp, your own hand clapping a little too hard over your own mouth as you spin on your heel. it's too dark to see very much, but there's the outline of a very large man leaned against a tree.
you're also pretty sure you see the black outline of a gun hanging by his side.
the silence between you stretches on as you squint in the dark, slowly inching backwards as your mind short circuits. you didn't hear footsteps, how did he get here? how long as he been behind you?
"you're running out of time. what are you gonna do, huh?" the man mocks, pushing off the tree and taking a few steps into the moonlight. even as dim as the moonlight is, it still takes your breath away when he shows you his face.
the silver moonlight shows you the scarred face of jacob seed, and you can't hold back your gasp of surprise. he tips his head back, looking down his nose at you as he crosses his arms over his chest.
what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck
even in the dark, you can still make out that same awful smirk he gives you every time you bump into him- sharp as a knife, mocking and cruel. that same expression that wordlessly says 'i didn't touch you, i didn't say anything- so what are you gonna do? kick up a fuss about me standing too close? looking at you the 'wrong way'? for taking an audible breath when you walked by?'
for months he's been creeping around you, showing up out of nowhere just to leer and stand too close, breathe too heavy, linger too long. he toes the line, not being outright objectionable while still having his attention feel extremely pointed. this is the first time he's ever spoken to you, and just by the playful tone you can tell he's not here to hurt you or save you.
he's just here to see if you're strong enough to save yourself.
the realization makes your stomach drop, but you don't have time to wallow in your horror- the sounds of shouting and the howls of judges are getting closer, and you need to act now.
exhausted legs carry you towards the black, frigid water, and the sound of an all-too-close rifle firing propels your frozen, cramping muscles forward until the current pulls you under and away. the cracks of fired rifles are muted by the roar of the river in your ears as your body is drug downstream, crashing painfully into rocks, muscles too contracted by the cold to be of much use.
high velocity bullets shatter in the water, rendered useless a few inches from your body as you're swept away, only daring to attempt to bob up briefly for air once the gunfire had silenced, narrowly avoiding a second shower of bullets as you outpaced them. they'll come back with vehicles to hunt you down more efficiently, you're sure of it- but you're too tired to run, and your impending hypothermia means you're going to need to find warmth soon if you don't want to die.
you allow the river to dump you into the lake, shuddering your way along the shoreline until you see the light by the dock. there's a cabin there- occupied, by the looks of it. hobbling on exhausted, bruised, and shaking legs, you make a snap decision- you don't know if you can trust these people to help. they could be peggies themselves, for chrissakes, so you're going to bypass begging for help and just help yourself.
you can see a faint glint of moonlight on the handle of a hatch just right outside the back door of the cabin, and a plan immediately starts to form. you could hide in their bunker for the night, potentially without detection. sure, you could also just steal their car and go home, but you're in too bad of shape to waste your time trying to figure out how to hotwire a car in the dark. no, you need warmth, you need safety, and you need it now.
it feels like the cold has sapped all of your strength, but you manage to haul open the hatch door and slip inside, engaging the lock before the alerted owners start yelling through the solid steel door about trespassing and calling the sheriff. a narrow metal ladder rung slips from under your wet sneakers, causing you to fall bodily to the ground, the wind knocked out of you with a wet wheeze as pain blooms along your back.
you don't notice the yelling from above tapering off as you slowly roll to your side and crawl further into the bunker.
it takes a few minutes to get from your knees to your feet, pained grunts echoing off sparse concrete walls- when you suddenly realize it's quiet. the shouting has stopped from outside- maybe they went inside to wait for the police? that's fine, if whitehorse or his deputies come they can help you. you can just explain what happened and it'll be fine-
a barrage of bangs, pops, and explosions rings out above your head, and you find yourself holding your breath, finger resting on the light switch, afraid to turn it on despite the fact it won't alert anyone to your presence. it's almost as if you hope the pitch black will hide you better, even though you're underground and behind an airtight door.
oh, speaking of, you should probably find the ventilation system and turn it on. you' doubt you'll're mostly sure you won't suck up all the oxygen down here in one night, but god wouldn't it be such a waste to die that way after all this?
almost begrudgingly you flip the lights on, blinking in the harsh lighting as your retinas snap almost painfully to constrict. looking further into the bunker you can see that it's a nicer one, with a little kettle and microwave and everything. perfect for making some sort of impromptu hot water bottle to hold to your chest.
you keep an eye on the hatch as you pour water into the electric kettle and search the cabinets for an empty mason jar or something that you can seal up so you can lie down with your makeshift heating pack. it's a fight to wrangle wet clothes off of your body when your limbs ache and shake so bad, but eventually they're off, replaced by a large blanket that you've found, because if there's clothes in here for anyone bigger than a fucking doll, you sure can't find them.
the pops and bangs overhead die down before the water boils, and the following silence feels so oppressive that as soon as you turn on the ventilation, you park yourself on the little couch, facing the hatch as you sip hot water and hold your makeshift hot water bottle against your chest. the shuddering has subsided a bit, but the terror certainly hasn't.
there's no way to know what's happening without popping your head out- and you don't plan to do that until your clothes are dry at the soonest. even then, you might wait a bit longer than that- there's an unease in your belly that you're pretty sure isn't swallowed river water or even those bison burgers cedar made earlier.
knock! knockknockknock knock!
something hits against the hatch, the pattern rhythmic but irregular.
and then it happens again.
knock! knockknockknock knock!
is that-?
knock! knockknockknock knock!
holy shit it is. wait. is it? shit. you don't really remember morse code, even though you were a wilderness scout as a kid. if it is morse code, the message is short as shit, just two letters. it's not 'hi', that would be four dots and then two, that one you learned pretty well while dicking around with flashlights at camp.
knock! knockknockknock knock!
as soon as your eyes land on the television, everything snaps into clarity.
t.v. only has two letters.
you turn it on, expecting the usual static since the peggies took control- but what you see instead runs a new batch of ice through your veins.
it's the house you're hiding under, riddled with bullet holes. wood splinters stick out everywhere, torn to shreds by powerful weapons. the windows have been knocked out, jagged pieces threatening to fall at a moment's notice. men bearing the cross of edens gate mill around, heavily armed and
the cameraman, clearly a novice, trips a little as they enter the cabin, camera flashing down to black boots before rocketing back up and panning over to a sight that makes you sob.
two bodies, laid side by side, their blood soaking the carpet around them. bloody, meaty holes are exposed in ripped clothes, and their faces look like ground hamburger with bits of broken bone and teeth thrown in. it's carnage, pure and simple-
-it's also all your fault.
you led these monsters to their doorstep. you stole their safe haven for yourself, locking them out and dooming them to contend with armed peggies. you'd assumed the worst of them and decided your needs were greater than theirs, and therefore sentenced them to die horrible, violent deaths.
big, ugly, rolling sobs rack through your body, exacerbating your sore back and ribs, pain and grief and horror rending you inconsolable as you try to hold back your wailing by clapping your hands over your mouth. the tears come so fat and constant that you can't even see the screen anymore, reducing the images to blurry dancing lights.
there's a rumble above the hatch before you hear him on the tv.
"oh, bunny. i'm so proud."
the backs of your arms swipe over your eyes in an attempt to clear them- and when you're finally able to see again, it's jacob seed's face smiling at you-
right next to the hatch door.
"you stayed strong and survived, just like i had hoped you would. and now you've run off-" the two rapid knocks on the hatch door thud dully through the ground mere moments before the sound plays through the tv. "-and holed up in your warren. i'll bet you've found a way to dry off and warm up, hm? maybe get a meal in, some coffee. and all you had to do was make a choice- save yourself, or let the weak dictate whether or not you could stay."
your memory flashes back to those mangled corpses, and the visible disgust on his face when talking about the 'weak' makes you shudder.
"but now you have a different choice to make. stay or go." jacob tells you, grabbing the camera from whoever is holding it, turning it around so the hatch fills the frame. "you're trapped down there, bunny. sure, you have supplies, but canned peaches and old granola bars won't save you if i bring an excavator back here in the morning. best case scenario is i scoop you out. worst case, it all collapses in on top of you as i try."
oxygen suddenly feels hard to come by. you did open the vents, right? jacob turns the camera back to himself, walking slowly away from the hatch and the dim glow of the back porchlight, turning his face into nothing but a featureless block of shadow as he trudges on, gravel crunching under his boots a few paces before he steps onto what you presume is the grass.
"but then again, maybe i won't dig you out. maybe i'll just wait right here for you until you're ready. turn this little cabin into a new base of operations. stay close by 24/7. and then when i'm tired of waiting, i'll pop the hatch open with a welding torch and come down there to get you myself." he aspirates a small laugh, that horrible smirk sliding across his face once again. "or maybe, i won't do either of those things."
the camera whips around again, blurry streaks of moonlight sliding across the screen until it stops and tries to focus on something- a small metal cylinder, poking out of the ground.
uh oh.
jacob's hand reaches into frame, setting a rather large bouquet of flowers up against the metal protrusion, and even in the dark, it's not hard to tell what those great big white trumpet shaped flowers are.
"did you know that bliss pollen is exceptionally small? most grasses range from two to two hundred micrometers, but bliss pollen is zero point zero nine micrometers. that's small enough to even bypass a hepa filter." he pats the pipe- what you're pretty sure must be the ventilation to the bunker. "man creates technology to defy nature, and nature adapts to defy technology. poetic, really."
he takes a few steps back, camera still focused on the dozens of white blooms pressed against the pipe. you have another choice to make- you can either shut off the vents and potentially suffocate in a few hours, do your best to run for it while he's focused on his cinematography, or you can surrender.
there's no way suffocating is better than being blissed out, you can barely walk right now, and if you surrender he's gonna throw you in a cage just like your friends, your brain unhelpfully supplies.
the edges of your vision start to warp, little flashes of light floating in your vision, and you know that the bliss is already working it's way in. you've never tried it- not out of prudishness, but a general lack of trust in anything the peggys are pushing- but you can tell that it's starting to get to you.
"just open the hatch, bunny. let me in. don't have to go anywhere tonight, can stay nice and cozy in your little burrow. can wrap yourself in warm blankets and rest, doesn't that sound nice?" yeah, it does. it really, really does. "but first you have to let. me. in."
you're on your feet before you can think too much about it, wobbling awkwardly on sore, stiff legs, blinking away the stars in your eyes in hopes the sudden lightheadedness doesn't make you too woozy to walk. counters and tables act as guardrails as you shuffle your way across the cold flooring in bare feet.
"come on, bunny. hop to it." jacob's voice calls from the tv behind you.
"i'm hopping, i'm hopping." you mutter to yourself before bursting into giggles. he can't hear you, silly!
the ladder is both easier and harder to climb. now that you're warmed up, your limbs aren't shaking anymore- but the narrow rungs hurt the arches of your feet, and the bliss is making you sway a bit side to side. whee!
with a push, the hatch unlocks loudly, metal clunking into place, and before you can try to push the heavy door upwards it's ripped open from outside.
jacob looms over you, slowly and fluidly sliding into a squat just above your head, staring down at you with wide, hungry eyes. self consciously, you pull your blanket closed a little more around your throat.
"i- i had to get the wet clothes off. so i don't die." you blurt, trying to explain your state of dress to the man who hunted you down for some godforsaken reason.
"i know, honey bun. i'll help you warm up. go lie down on the bed for me, and i'll be right there." he says, and something in his voice makes you relax- there's an authority there that you can't help but defer to, to trust entirely as the world seems to wobble and sparkle a bit more than normal.
"okay."
"okay." he echoes, watching you slowly climb down the ladder. there's a sharp whistle overhead as you wander back through the bunker, and the tv flashes to someone picking up the bliss bouquet as another grabs the camera and turns it off, sending the screen into static as you pass it by. the master bedroom is in the very back of the bunker, big plush bed calling your name as you curl up naked under the covers, the sensation of cotton on your bare body lighting up every nerve.
huh, this bliss shit kinda rocks, actually.
your floaty, flighty mind barely registers the sound of the hatch locking, or the heavy bootfalls that stalk closer and closer to the bed. it's only when jacob closes the bedroom door behind himself that you even remember that you aren't alone anymore.
the two of you stare at each other in silence, you on the bed and him leaning against the wall. you hardly know what to say- he's always just been that big, creepy seed brother, but tonight's events have changed things. if not for the bliss humming in your brain, you'd be screaming, crying, trying your best to run for the hills- but as it is, all you can seem to do is watch him watch you as you sink into the pillowtop mattress.
"are you going to hurt me?" the words slide loose on their own, and jacob aspirates an amused sound.
"a little. just at first." he chuckles and shrugs his jacket off. "i'm a big man, bunny, but you'll get used to it."
"i will?"
"mhm. you're adaptable, i've seen it. you'll stretch and give me all the space i need." his voice drops an octave, and you swear that suddenly all the bliss has evaporated from your body- the bunker- the world- and you're as alert and terrified as ever as he unbuckles his belt.
"what are you going to do?" you voice shakes, and you watch in real time as his smirk takes on a cruel edge in response.
"i already told you, bunny. i'm going to warm you up."
terrible visions in my sleep, i can see your face again. one more trial to scream, to plead into the void
-
a glimpse into ghost's mind, but from simon's perspective
peristalsis - vii
selkie!soap x reader. depression. strangers to “lovers.” suicidal resolve. major character death. violent drowning. a reckoning. . Running away from life to the Scottish Hebrides, you meet a man who won't leave you alone. . Masterlist. Ao3.
previous
When you’re sure that Johnny’s friends have left, you return to the beach. The wind has died down in the late afternoon; the clouds sit heavy and motionless in the sky.
Night is coming, and it promises to be cold. It hangs in the wary stillness of the air, in the waiting quiet. The seabirds’ calling is absent; the dune crickets’ singing has ended.
He’s there on the sand. Somehow, you knew he would be. Felt it, even before he came into view. He stands by the kayak, almost as if he’s been waiting there for you.
You hold the folded pelt with both hands against your stomach as you approach. The fur is so soft against your palms, your fingers. Cool from having spent a night in the ground.
He looks at it with sharp eyes. Then, up to you, expectantly.
His eyes on you in the cottage bedroom, moonlight shifting in them. Teeth in your neck. The taste of brine in your mouth.
Pearls in your memory. Parting gifts to enjoy, as you come to the close.
“Missed you at the end there, bonnie,” he says, even and purposefully steady. “The boys were glad to meet you.”
He’s known—the whole time. He always has. You don’t know how you know this, but you do.
“I’ve had a nice time with you, Johnny,” you say, when you’re only a few paces away from him. “But I think it’s time for me to go.”
Three days. That’s all it’s been. Nothing much, objectively, to say goodbye to. A good way to end things, truthfully, with the aftertaste of good food still on your tongue, the heat and girth of him still lingering inside you. The etchings of his calluses still fresh on your skin.
A kind ending. A gentle one. Better than you and he deserve.
You hold out the pelt.
He looks at it. Mouth a tight line. Brows low and flat. Then his gaze moves to you.
“Where will you go?” he asks, still steady.
“I’m not sure,” you say. “Maybe—Amsterdam. Does it matter? I don’t know.”
“Just like that,” he says flatly. “After everything.”
You frown. “I was always going to leave, Johnny. Remember? I only booked the place for a month. This is just…earlier.”
Something frenetic buzzes in his posture. The slight lean forward in the way he stands. The angles of his face seem harsher, more pronounced. Eyes dark as wet stone.
“Johnny, just—” you shake the pelt at him, still holding it out. “Just take it, okay?”
He looks at the pelt again, and then back at you.
At it, then you.
It—you—
Johnny lunges.
In one swift surge forward he snaps the pelt from your hands and flings it aside. As it flutters to the ground his hands whip at you, seizing fistfuls of your shirt a half-thought before you realize it, wrenching you forward.
“What the fuck?!” you cry, but then you’re off your feet, falling toward him, arms flailing as you lose your center of balance. You topple into him, and he hooks you beneath the shoulders with the iron bands of his arms, stepping away from the kayak, and only for a moment do you think that maybe he’s going to bring you back to the cottage before he starts dragging you in the opposite direction—
“Johnny, no,” you breathe, as you hear a wave break on the sand,“Johnny, no!”
You start to kick and thrash. You throw yourself against his grasp, dig your heels into the sand, try to find the meat of his forearm with your teeth, but he is resolute. Unstoppable.
You start to scream.
The waves eddy around your feet, rise up to engulf your ankles, your calves, as Johnny roils the water with wide, unfaltering steps, deeper in—
The water closes around your thighs. Your waist.
This is happening. This is really happening—
“Had a month to get to this, bonnie,” says Johnny, over your screaming, rough and harsh and completely unrecognizable. He slings you around to face him, jaw set hard, the muscles in his temples flexing as he clenches his teeth. “But I guess we’re doin’ it now.”
“Johnny,” you plead, “please don’t, Johnny, please—Johnny, no, no, no, no—!”
He clamps his hands on your shoulders and shoves you downward. You claw at him, push against the seabed, but your lover is too strong, immune to your fighting, and you are barely able to inhale before he forces your head below the water.
Frigid cold—it rushes into your ears, through your hair, knife-sharp and paralyzing. Salt flooding the open canals of your nose—
You close your throat. The surface swirls above you, distorting him, rippling and folding in on itself as a wave recedes. Hope waits for the retreating water to expose you, but he has dragged you out too deep, far enough that even the lowest point of the backwash still submerges you.
Seawater, eroding cilia, ramming against the rolled stone of your epiglottis. Burning the film of your corneas.
You reach up, swinging your hands at his face, but the distance of his straightened arms, muscles flexing to hold you down, is too great; you beat at empty air, or collide with the rock-hardness of his shoulders.
Another wave comes in, deepening the surf around you. You kick out, knee upward, wrench against him—you just need him to loosen his grip once, for just one moment, and then you can get away. You try to pry his fingers up, but they may as well have rooted in you.
Lungs pulsing. Throat already fighting to open. Chest heaving, diaphragm beating upward to pull in air. Pain lancing up your chest, unimaginably sharp, head so heavy it might burst—
You throw yourself to one side, kicking against the sand, and physiology subsumes your control. The cost of fighting is breathing. The floodways open—the ocean rushes into your throat—
Salt abrades the walls of your esophagus, claw-slashing downward. Acid bypasses the filters of your alveoli, honeycomb structures collapsing to the pressure, to the spasming of your lungs desperate to send oxygen to the rest of your body. Your diaphragm contracts—your chest convulses to cough, to force water out, only to welcome more of the sea in.
You beat at Johnny’s arms again. All you manage is to throw water against him. He is a sea stack above you. A pillar. Unmovable.
Holding your body against his in the bedroom, frighteningly strong, moving against you like the ocean itself—
The water churns above you with your struggle. You cannot see his face. All you see is the unstable shape of his silhouette, wavering lines distorting the edges as the corners of your vision darken.
More seawater, expanding your chest. Heart stuttering between your lungs, yanking in the last of your oxygenated blood, with nothing to send back out. The weight of your body swells, arms too heavy to hold up. They crash into the water before you force them back up again, searching and unwieldy.
Perception narrows. Him, and you. That’s all.
Sunlight through the window the next morning, rimming him in gold. The heat of his shoulder pressed to yours.
The seawater steals the tears from your eyes, throat convulsing on a sob you cannot make.
Grinning as you shared oysters.
You slap your hands against his arms, clapping your palms to whatever they can find, begging, praying—
Him moving inside you, his warmth, his smell, the weight of his tongue in your mouth. The tug of his hand on your arm.
His smile, his voice, his hand in yours—
Fists like weights holding you down. Fire in your chest. Too full.
Upward—something in you tugging upward.
You want to live. You want to live. You want to live—
It’s done.
Johnny lifts your body from the surf and carries it back to the beach. You fit in his arms as if they were the mold you were cast from.
He knew you would the moment he saw you in the airport. Perfect. You were perfect for him. He saw it in the angles of your body, the way you stood, the emotions moving behind the mask of your face.
He tried to explain it to Price once—the seeing. The knowing.
How he could look straight at his old captain, for instance, and know, without ever hearing the man say a word, that he felt responsible. For everything. For the gunshot. For the months afterword. Even though he hadn’t chosen to discharge Johnny himself, Price saw the mold of his hands in the shape his sergeant’s life had taken.
It’s how he knows Gaz couldn’t see the change in him, because he saw what he wanted to see—his best mate whole and healthy, thriving in a new stage of his life.
It’s how he knows Ghost doesn’t even recognize him anymore. Not really.
And it’s how he knows you’re just like him.
He lays you down on the sand, cradling the back of your head so it settles lightly down. Stretches your legs to rest straight out. He aligns your limp arms with the length of your torso, turning your hands upward so the sand will not cling to your palms.
Beautiful. Even with your face slack. Eyes half-open, unseeing. Mouth parted; seawater dripping from the corners.
Your feet touched the island the same way his did, years ago. Running away. Looking for the end, without really trying to find it. It was in the set of your brows, the tight pull of your mouth against your teeth.
Life had gone in every direction opposite of your intention. And it had left you alone.
Johnny smooths a few stray hairs away from your forehead, and kisses the place between your brows. The little line that has sat between them this whole time is gone, smoothed away. He kisses the bridge of your nose, and then your mouth, and then stands.
It took him a while, back then, to make the decision. It was hours before he woke to find Price watching him, sitting despondent on the sand, tears tracking salty down the older man’s face.
He goes to the place he threw his pelt away and retrieves it, shaking it out. Holding it in his hands assuages the anxiety that has wriggled in the back of his mind since the day he shoved it into the lintel of the croft. He’d known where it was, but survival instinct prevails over logic—for the rest of his life, he will always fear its loss.
It’s a consequence, but not one he’d been unfamiliar with.
And, in the end, preferable to the alternative.
He lowers himself to the sand a little ways away from you, propping his knees up and spreading the pelt across them.
When he had done this—he’d done it alone. It had been close. He almost hadn’t made it.
If he takes up this vigil—if he stays, the whole time, watching you—you’ll make it. It’s not a matter of hope or belief. It’s a matter of knowing.
He knows every time he looks into your eyes. Every time he’s been inside you. Every time your body has risen to meet his touch.
You want to live.
So he sits back. He keeps his eyes on you.
And he waits.
The sky claps you between its palms and hurls you back down the gravity well—
You vomit up the ocean.
Panting, with burning lungs. Closer—everything is much, much closer, loud and bright, and suddenly, individually distinct.
Channels of sound and aroma dance on the wind—sea salt, the smoke of someone’s grill from the village, burning meat, the rolling crash of the incoming tide, birdcall and the gust of beating wings and—and—
And you can sense them all.
A gap in the clouds lets the sunlight touch the earth.
You move on the sand. Turn onto your belly, chest heaving, empty and light. The cove—you’re still in the cove. There’s the path back up to the cottage. There’s the kayak. There’s—
Johnny, riotous, waiting in the crashing waves.
He calls to you: loud, long, triumphant, teeth bared in jubilation.
You cry out. Wordless. If you’d had any words to say, your lips could not shape them.
You’re alive.
It crashes into you. Alive.
You lift your head into the wind coming off the ocean. It caresses your face softly, tenderly, like a mother’s kiss on your cheek.
Johnny suddenly turns from you and darts into the water.
You wail with surprise. A wave rushes up to where you lay, water licking up the fibers of your body. You’re not ready. It’s too soon. Why did he leave you? What’s happening? Why isn’t the water cold?
You clutch at the sand. You can’t find your legs—you can’t stand up. All you can do is crawl, shuffle your ungainly body forward with the clumsiness of a newborn child. You cry out again, trying to convince him to return, to come help you, but if he hears it, he does not come to your aid.
Another wave surges forward; salt water crashes across your face. You flinch away from it, but something nictates over your eyes, shielding them from the burn.
Once you reach the surf, the water cradles your body, buoyancy easing your way. You submerge, finding something to kick with—
And then you’re gliding.
Murky, and blue. Sand clouding in the tide. But comfortable—cool, without being cold. You remember frigidity cutting into your skin only hours earlier, rending you at the seams, unmaking you.
Now, it receives you like an old friend.
Ahead of you, Johnny moves further out. You can feel him, far out in the distance, tiny eddies of water rippling against your cheeks.
He’s not the only thing you can feel. The radius of your awareness vibrates with blips of movement, darting, swaying, dancing, below and above and all around. It shocks you to realize, and you go still, hovering in place, momentarily stunned by how much there is living around you.
Johnny pauses too, ahead of you. Waiting. A lone distinct figure, patient for you to follow.
You shiver with startled wonder, and resume your way toward him.
The coastal shelf slopes downward, falling away. The water gradually clears as overhead, past the surface, the sun sinks in the sky. Warm golden light dyes the sea around you. He leads you on, further and further, until a forest of kelp grows up around you.
In the turquoise, ribbons of twisting green undulate and twirl, feathery and dancing in the windy current. Silvery bubbles trail toward the sunlight, intermingling with tiny schools of glimmering fish that dart and jump between the fronds. Down below you, red and green algae fur valleys of rock, swaying lazily like prairie grass.
It’s beautiful.
Johnny drifts to a stop in the middle of it all, wheeling around to face you. You approach him, coming in close—and it’s almost like approaching the sun, so much that he radiates across your senses.
His dark eyes hold yours the same way they had that day on the beach, and the pendulum swings balanced now between you.
He brushes the side of his face along yours, and with his touch he leads you downward, following the stipes of kelp toward the stone to which their holdfasts grip. The heat of his huge body warms the water that flows in the narrow spaces between your bodies, even as the coolness intensifies the further you dive.
The two of you draw up along the forest floor—and find the myriad little denizens of the sea. You’d known they were there, at the very edge of your senses, and now they bloom into fullness in your attention.
Shrimp perambulate beneath rocky ledges. Crabs walks along the ridge of a huge boulder, like climbing a mountain. And there, further down, snails in their spiral shells, pulling themselves across the sandy grain. Starfish, in shades of red and blue and orange. Anemones, translucent hair streaming.
Tiny lives—insignificant to you, before. Hardly worth your notice. Now, you marvel at them, reeling. You want to cup them all in your palms and bring them up to clutch against your chest.
Something brushes against you.
You look up—Johnny, sliding along your side, curving back in toward you, then looping underneath. He nudges at you, then darts away; you gaze at him, confused, so he comes back in, shunting you with his body, and once again retreats.
Behind him, you catch a turtle fluttering in between the green leaves. Atlantic salmon chasing capelin. An eel peeking out from its cave. Undisturbed by Johnny’s—and your—antics.
He nudges you again, then backs off, looking at you expectantly. Realizing his intentions, you follow—he makes a low clicking sound in his throat, pleased, and jets into the flowing leaves, buffeting you with the wave he leaves in his wake.
You’re shocked only for a moment before the kelp parts for you in your pursuit. Johnny quickly disappears ahead of you, dipping down below the canopy. You feel him rapidly shrink in your awareness, and you propel forward, scanning for telltale splashes of gray and white, arms of green caressing you as you pass.
You close in on him, but suddenly he evades. You follow again, only to find he’s nowhere in view. Then the chase is on: he stays in one place only long enough for you to catch sight of him before he bolts, or wheels around and backtracks to confuse you every time you approach. Teasing, taunting, flaunting the dexterity he has underwater which you have yet to acquire.
Golden shafts of dancing sunlight begin to dim and shorten as he leads you on. Frustration rapidly builds in your chest, buoyed as your lungs press against your ribcage. You need to breathe, even as Johnny becomes no more than a dot of movement in your senses, confounding you at every turn.
Why is he doing this? Why won’t he stay with you? If you surface, you’ll lose him, but the sudden memory of saltwater flooding your chest has you kicking toward the fading daylight. Self-preservation taking its place at the head of your priorities, and you follow it with no longer any second thought.
Above you shifts a mirror of silk.
You rise. Faster as the weight of the sea lessens, your reflection blooming as you approach, closer and closer to the wedge-shaped face, the large, dark eyes—
You swim into yourself and breach the air. Your nostrils open, and you inhale the wind.
You see the twilight bleeding into the day. Clouds moving quickly off as the sun sinks into the horizon.
Where is Johnny?
You can’t sense him anymore—as you knew would happen—and your chest contracts with fear and longing, suddenly believing you’ve seen him for the last time—that he’s left you all alone, to figure out what to do next, with no idea how to live in the skin of this new self you’ve become.
You give a mournful howl. You don’t want to do this alone, you can’t, you thought you wouldn’t have to—
But in the distance, back the long way you came, you hear an answer.
You whirl around, facing the shore, and almost too far away to see, a dark shape rests on the sand.
Your throat convulses with a clumsy breath, and then you dive. The water parts for your body, sliding around you, streaming through your hair. Faster than you expect, the slope of the shelf draws close, and you jet upward, belly meeting the sand, and when the water recedes and you drag yourself back onto the beach, your own weight settling heavy on your bones, you cry out again.
You shake the water from your head, wailing at the top of your lungs, desolate and blind as you blink the salt away, and then there’s a warm body up against yours, weight melding against you, heat reaching out to drive away a coldness you hadn’t felt until you’d surfaced.
You continue crying as Johnny closes his teeth around a hank of your neck and drags himself on top of you, pressing you down into the sand. You shift to let him settle over you, and all of his weight compresses your body—sandwiching you between himself and the earth, pinning you down in one place.
Something in you still wants to fight. To shake him off—to escape. But all you can do is cry. He enters you with no resistance, and you cry more, harder, until your lungs deflate, and then you take a deep breath and start wailing again.
Saltwater streaming down your face, dripping into your own mouth. Your voice hits the cliff walls, rebounds off the stone until the air fills with your weeping. Johnny shifts on top of you, pressing your head down to the sand.
The vessel you have contained yourself within overturns. You cry.
You cry for yourself. You cry for him. You cry for what you’ve done, what you haven’t, and for what you can never undo. Your lament fills your own ears and spills out again, all across the beach, catching in the wind to fly off into the ether, raised to the birds, to the passing clouds overhead.
You cry with despair of never going back. You cry with the terror of Johnny finally rolling off of you, to dart back into the waves, to leave you here alone again. You cry until your throat hurts, stinging and raw—
And Johnny’s hands, strong and warm, edge beneath your pelt and pull you out, still bawling with every drop of shame you’ve carried in your body since the day you realized you hated yourself.
“Shh, shh,” he murmurs, drawing you up into his chest, arms steady and strong around you. “It’s alright now, bonnie, it’s alright. I’m here.”
You cannot respond to him. Your mouth hangs open only to wail your grief. Your body wracks against him, convulsing, involuntary, as you scream with despair and relief and horror and resolve, too much to contain, too overwhelming now to ever split yourself away from.
You find his arms with your shaking hands and grip on tight. He slips the pads of his thumbs beneath your eyes every so often to clear away your tears, and you feel his mouth press against your forehead. You wait for him to drop you. Wait for him to see the mess you’re making and wash his hands of it.
He doesn’t. Every time another sob wracks you, he grips you tighter.
Eventually—when you begin to wonder if it ever could, if this is all you are now, a squalling bundle of fragile skin pebbling in the cold—it passes.
The next time you pause to draw breath, you find nothing more inside you to disgorge. You begin to shake in Johnny’s arms, trembling with exhaustion, whimpering with clenched eyes.
He breathes slowly against you. Calm and even. He strokes your face with gentle fingers, even and patient, as if there’s nothing more in the world he’d rather do.
You find the courage to meet his gaze when your heartbeat steadies, finding the rhythm in Johnny’s chest to match. You see again what you saw that first day, that next night; you know now what you’ve always known, somewhere inside you. Your face is familiar in the reflections of it in his eyes.
His mouth curls gently as he gazes down at you. His eyes dance in yours, corners creasing as he traces the curve of your cheek. Light catches in his pupils.
You see him clearly, as the sun gives way to the evening, and the moon rises over a cloudless night of stars.
epilogue early access
a/n: shoutout to @/gildui for suggesting screenshots for that one section of text. Thank you to @/bi-writes for trying to figure out how i could keep the formatting with tumblr's coding. Please let me know if alt text is necessary. God forbid a text-based website allow for formatting said text.
a talking point i often see when defending the consumption of dark content is that it’s a coping mechanism for those with trauma which is very valid and true but i also want to make this abundantly clear: you can like dark content for no reason. you can enjoy fucked up shit in fiction because it’s enjoyable and entertaining. trauma is not required as a ticket for entry. enjoy your dark content bc it’s fun and sexy and don’t let anyone take that away from you
Guillermo del Toro on AI
Periodic reminder that I fucking hate AI content, no nuance, no exceptions, there is no AI “writing” or “art” that I have any scrap of respect for. Make your shit badly the same way the rest of us did when we all started and learn how to do it better. Your feeling bad about what you made is not a unique struggle and it will not kill you. Power through it like the rest of us and fucking find some pride in the fact that you’re at least TRYING.
AND FUCK C.AI.
dark matter | ghost x f!reader
INSTALLMENT TWO — TIME ROT COLLECTION
type: one-shot, part of anthology series, can be read standalone (6.5k)
cw: dark!ghost, mature language and content, mature sexual language and content, mw3 spoilers, death, grief, unhealthy coping mechanisms, dubcon, size kink, manhandling, breeding kink, cumplay, unprotected piv (18+)
You don't know how long it's been. Maybe days, or maybe it's been weeks, you aren't sure, but it's hard to move when there is nothing that waits for you.
All that's left is a box that sits on your kitchen table. It has his name scribbled across the top, and when you opened it up, just seeing the photos of him tucked into the sides was enough to nearly make you sick. You haven't opened it again since. You haven't touched it. When you touch the cardboard, it burns, it stings.
You don't know what you're supposed to do when the love of your life doesn't come home. You don't know what you're supposed to do when there's bills on the table, when half of the bed is empty, when everything that was supposed to happen died along with him.
You used to sit on this very couch and talk about everything you would do and everything you wanted. You used to lay there, your head in his lap, looking up into those baby blues and tell him about what a good husband he would make, how it was going to be so hot watching him fixing the leaky sink and hanging up the new shelves you bought, being the house husband he was always meant to be.
Someone that pretty deserved to be at home all day, baking bread and fixing a vintage car.
He promised you so much. He promised you love. He promised you laughter. He promised you a lifetime of something more.
But there never really was anything more. He never married you. He never proposed. He just fucked you full before every deployment, whispering into your hair as you drooled about how, "I'll see ye when I get back, bonnie, 'n I'll tell ye how much I luv ye."
But he didn't come back. So you really aren't sure now how much he loved you.
You stand in front of the bathroom mirror, fluffing a brush over your cheeks. The makeup helps, but you look dead, and your eyes are dull.
You don't want to go to work, but you can't pay your bills, and Johnny wasn't your husband, so the box in your kitchen stands as a loving gesture from his mother, and that is all he left behind. And when you went to the service and asked for something, for anything, they said it was out of their hands.
You are entitled to no compensation—because on paper, you are nothing to anyone, and you belong to no one. And though his mother kissed you shakily, with tears in her eyes, you couldn't bear to ask her for anything, because she hurts, too, and you are nothing to anyone, and you belong to no one.
So you work; you work, and you don't stop, and you sleep only a few hours before you get up and do it all over again, and even after a long day, you count the pennies in your purse, and it isn't enough. You let yourself get comfortable, you allowed yourself to succumb to a man, a man you loved, and what did it get you?
Fuck all. You have fuck all, and you let a man do it to you.
Fate and destiny are a cruel reality. Unforgiving—they don't care about the choices you make because they happen anyways, and it's hard to be angry when this is how it was always going to be. It doesn't make you hate any less, and it doesn't make the dust collecting on the box any less thick.
When you do gain the courage to touch it again, you have a week left to find a new flat. You don't know where you will go, but you're packing, and you rip the top of the box off as harshly as a band-aid. Your eyes focus on the knick-knacks that Johnny must've kept. A few different sized sketchbooks, the nubs of worn and used graphite and charcoal pencils, a crystal and beaded rosary that his mother gifted him when he first enlisted. You pick up the crinkled and well-loved papers that are stacked at the bottom, and your eyes blur with fresh tears at the ripped out sketches that sit in your hands.
It's you, in different angles. Asleep, staring out at something, smiling at him. He captures your face beautifully, and you can see where he's smudged the shading with a thick finger to cast shadows and light over you. He sketches in exquisite detail—he always has, but he has always had a certain style, a certain eye, that made lead look like real life.
It’s odd to see what you looked like through his eyes. Bright. Lovely. Soft. He draws with a breath of fresh air, and you can see where his finger has rubbed away all the harsh lines. When you see a few places where the graphite on his thumb has stamped his fingerprint onto the paper, you feel your throat close up. You want to feel those fingers on your face. You want him to brush the hair out of your eyes and look down at you. You want to feel that hand tracing your jawline, your nose, the lid of your eye—you want to feel the warmth that he always radiated, and you want to breathe in the scent of him until you forget the smell of anything else.
You pick up a loved and bound book, with thinner pages that you know can't be a sketchbook. You unwind the leather string on the front, flipping it open, and you swallow thickly when you realize what this is.
A journal. You never knew he kept one.
The first few pages are dated from when he first enlisted, a few years before he met you. He writes just as eloquently as he draws, and you settle into the couch behind you as you read about his enthusiasm joining, the purpose he finally has, the weight of the world lifting off of his shoulders as he thinks about all the things he will be able to do as he rises through the ranks. You let your fingers skim over the words, feeling how his pen has pierced the paper, and you try to imagine him—fresh shaven with less muscle, life in his eyes as he thought about serving his country. You smile a little, but it hurts after a few moments.
You flip a little further, your eyes skimming over times he cursed out his commanding officer, punched a private for sneaking into the women's barracks, the love he has for a detonator that began when he soldered his first pins. His personality shines, and it's like you can hear him talking to you all over again, and when he begins to talk about a love he doesn't know how to handle, you smile to yourself, because you think he's talking about you.
But when you look again, the dates are wrong. You hadn't met him yet, not at this point, and your smile fades when you realize he's talking about someone else.
He never says their name. He writes at length about them, someone who has captured his eye, someone he says he can't have. Someone unattainable, unavailable, and then there is his own reservations. You don't realize until his entries from a few months later that he's talking about a man.
never felt this way before. not about anyone. rosary i always look at is fucking mocking me, i think. i can hear mum, somewhere, telling me to find a good catholic bonnie, but this is real. i know it is, but i don't know what to do about it. not like anyone i've ever met. can't explain the bond. but i look at him, and i think he looks at me, and i just know. i know. it can't be just in my head, can it? i'm not mad. i'm not. but what am i supposed to do?
You flip the pages frantically. There's sketches of hands on one page, hands that hold a handgun, that squeeze a trigger. They're tame sketches, but you feel a little sick because you feel like you're looking at a part of his life that you're not supposed to be looking at. The intimacy of these sketches—just hands, and you feel like they should be censored to your eyes.
The sketches and the words, they morph as time goes on. Sketches of closed eyes. Of blonde lashes. A harsh brow, a scar cutting across a thin lip. There is no softness in these sketches. Johnny draws with an abrasive pencil. It cuts the shapes, jagged edges akin to glass.
i can't tell anyone. i want to tell the whole world. won't let me. want to scream it from the fucking roof that i love you, but you're such a stubborn bastard. so fucking stubborn.
The sketches suddenly become warped. Angry, spiked, and you can see the emotion from how hard he presses the pencil into the page. More hands, and you can’t help but notice how he draws them simply functioning. Hand over wrist. Holding a utensil. Picking nails. These hands tell a story, and you can see the bumps and bruises and the wounds that litter the surface of them—these hands are anything but delicate. They have wrought. They have dug until their fingernails bled. They have been stuck through barbwire, maimed to the point of texture and roughness and the blurring of scar tissue.
don't fucking believe you. it isn't just me.
You're blind for a few moments from the intensity of your tears. You wipe them furiously, you need to know more, you need to know. The dates skip, and you pause on the day that you met.
so bonnie. so beautiful.
Softer sketches. The delicate lashes that are your own, the gentle curve of your pouty lips. You recognize yourself, but only barely, because he draws you like you are out of focus. He draws you as if you are too far away, just out of reach.
she's everything i've ever wanted. so why can't i let it go?
Your bottom lip trembles when sketches of a butterfly overlap skulls. The motifs never disappear, not completely, and it's only obvious what his true feelings are when you smooth a finger down the sketch of a butterfly escaping its cocoon that hangs from the mouth of a discarded skull head.
haunt my fucking dreams. go away. go away. go away. the ring is right there, so why can't i give it to her?
You close it abruptly. It falls to the floor, the cover of it thudding as you cover your face with your hands. Was he thinking of someone else all this time? Every morning, every kiss, every time he looked into your eyes and told you that he loved you—was all of this meant for someone else? Someone he wanted but couldn't have? Someone that just didn't love him back?
You scream. You toss the coffee table. You shatter the flowers that have died, you pick up the box of his things, and you throw it. You watch the papers fly, the books fall, you hear the rattle of his dead memories meet the floor of the home he left behind, and you scream at all of it just to stop, please, stop, stop, stop—
You're not even sure if it's really Johnny you're angry at. Maybe yourself, because you've never really been good enough to be loved by anyone. No one has ever loved you and you only—you've only ever been additional, on the condition of loving another, never enough to be the one and only, and maybe that's your real problem. Maybe the real problem is that you want to die because you always give everything you have, and no one has ever wanted it enough to give you the same.
Maybe you just want too much. Maybe your dreams are too big, maybe it's just that no one wants what you are handing over. Packaged pretty, all shiny and new, but if no one wants it, you shelve that kind of love, and that's where it rots.
Maybe this kind of love died with Johnny. Not the beginning of something, but the reality of it, and now all you can do is accept the things you cannot change and tame the heart inside of you that isn't good enough to be for anyone else.
When you pick up his things off the floor the next morning, you find a scribbled address on the back of a torn sketch. So, you do the kind thing, and you gather his things back into the box, close the lid on what never really was, and you carry it with you out the door.
The door is unmarked. The paint on it is peeling, but you know this must be the place because there's a pair of dark boots caked with mud sitting out by the bottom step. You raise your hand to knock, and you tap it with your knuckles timidly, adjusting your hold on the box in your arms.
A few minutes pass by, but no one answers. You knock again, louder and firmer this time, and it finally swings open. From the dark flat emerges a large man, sticking his head out from behind the chain latched and glaring down at you. You think he's about to close it on you, but then his eyes flicker down, and you know he must read the name scribbled in big letters on the box that you hold.
It’s enough to make him pause. It’s enough to make him stay, rooted to that spot, even if you can tell all he wants to do is sink back into whatever void he came out of.
"Hi," you whisper, and you have no control over how broken the word comes out. "I...I just thought you should have this."
Because he never really loved me. Not really. Not the way he loved you.
The door shuts, and you hear the chain unlatch, and then he opens it wider. He emerges in the doorway, taking up the entirety of the width of it, and he snarls down at you from behind the mask he wears.
He opens his mouth to spit something at you, but then you hold it out to him with shaky hands, and he can see the tears that are coming down your face. You can't control them, he can tell that much, and he reaches out to take the box from you. You look at his hands, and you recognize them immediately. Uncanny, the resemblance, and you recognize the scar that cuts across the knuckles on his left hand. You know if you push his mask down, you could trace with closed eyes the scar he must wear that starts at his nose and ends at his chin.
He doesn’t know it, but you know what he looks like. You know what he is. If he took off that mask, you would see a face you know, even if Johnny never drew the entirety of it at once. Always bits and pieces of him, but you’d know them if you saw them put altogether. You have the puzzle pieces of him in the back of your mind, and you know you could put them back together if you really tried.
He would not be able to do the same for you. The pieces of you are scattered, and you know they are lost, and that there is no getting them back. Johnny took them to grave; you would never ask for them back, anyways.
You don't ask who he is. He doesn't ask you who you are; but when your eyes meet, there is some kind of understanding. Some kind of knowing. You almost don't want to leave—you know he mustn't be kind, not from what you’ve read of him and the way he looks, but Johnny loved him, and you want to cling onto anything that still breathes that might connect you to him. You hate him, but you love him, and Johnny loved this thing, so maybe...maybe—
The door slams shut in your face, and you catch yourself with the step railing as you crumple to sit there, on his dirty step, crying into your hands. You don't know how long you sit there, but it is dark when you drag yourself home.
It is much too dark outside for you to see the shadow that you pick up along the way—and you’re too in your head to realize it never leaves.
When you come home from work, your knees are weak when you see the letter that’s taped to the front of your door.
EVICTION NOTICE.
They give you until the weekend, a courtesy they tell you they don’t normally give to anyone. You aren’t allowed to stay, even if you come up with the money, and you’re in tears as you pack up your flat. The last place you shared with Johnny, and it’ll be gone soon. You don’t know what you’ll do with your things. You don’t know where you will go.
Johnny never married you. You don’t have any family. You’ll have to stuff your car full of as much as it can hold, and you’ll need to toss the rest. You’ll have to—
The knock at your door startles you. You get up off the floor, where you were trying to stuff all your dishes into a small bag. You pull the curtain back on the window beside the door, and your eyes widen when you see a giant man standing at your door. He feels your eyes on him, and he turns his head towards the window, tilting his head to the side menacingly when he looks at you.
You wipe your face, trying to dry the tears on your cheeks. You open the door shakily, poking your head out.
“Hi,” you say. You wish your voice was steady, but it cracks. “Can…C-Can I help you?”
The mask he’s wearing today is different. There’s a skull mouth painted on it, and his hood is flipped up over his head. He seems taller with his boots on, and he takes up nearly the entire width of your doorway. He’s got so much bulk on him—if you reached across and touched him, you know your hand would hit nothing but a solid wall. No give, just pure muscle and fat. His eyes are still dark, and he still looks like the most unapproachable man in the entire world. He clicks his tongue under the mask, and you swallow when he snarls a bit.
He fishes something out of his jacket. You recognize it—Johnny’s journal. He holds it out to you, expectant, and you open the door wider to take it from him. You feel tears come all over again at the sight of it, and you hold the leather to your chest, hugging it. Johnny never married you, but he would’ve taken care of you right now. If he would’ve known you were here, about to live in your car, he would not have hesitated moving you in with him. Getting you into his bed. Shielding you from the world that was much too scary, much too unforgiving. Johnny would know what to do.
Johnny’s dead.
Just as you are about to close the door, a thick boot stops it. You flinch a bit, looking up, and then a big hand presses against your door and pushes it open until it hits the wall. The man cranes his neck to look around you, and he narrows his eyes at the heap of your belongings huddled in the living room of your flat.
You sniffle, shaking your head.
“I’m just…moving.”
You step aside when he moves. He ducks his head just slightly to get through, and you watch as he walks around, taking stock of what’s in front of him. He seems to find what he’s looking for when he sees the notice on your kitchen counter. He snatches it up and and turns it around to face you, and you just stand there, frozen.
“I told you. Moving.”
His house is soulless. White walls. Beige carpet. Grey tiles. There’s one couch, one coffee table, and one TV mounted to the wall. There’s only dishes in the kitchen enough for one person, and he only has one bedroom. It’s the same lifeless place in there, too. His mattress is on the floor, but he has the decency to put a mattress cover and sheet over it. There’s one nightstand, with just a few cables where he must charge his phone, and one lamp. There are no decorations. There is no other furniture. His house is functional, not valuable.
He puts your bag in the bedroom. That settles that.
You cry that first night. You sleep early, curling up under his one measly sheet, and you cry. You cry because you’re sad. You cry because you’re lonely. You cry because you feel like you owe this man now, this stranger who hasn’t told you his name, and you have no idea how you will pay him back. You cry because you miss Johnny, and he never even loved you.
You jump when the bedroom door opens. He walks in, kicking the door shut, and you watch as he strips himself of his jeans and hoodie, tossing them onto the floor. You sit up on your elbows, meeting his eyes, but he doesn’t take off his mask. Instead, he comes towards the bed, plopping down on the mattress next to you, and you pull the sheet up to your chin. You hadn’t anticipated sharing a bed with him, but you’re also too afraid to complain.
“I can sleep…on the floor if—”
A big hand covers your mouth. You’re silenced, startled that he would touch you this way, and you start to cry again when he presses until you are laying on your back again, moving his hand back until it rests behind his head.
“Please—” You hiccup. “Please don’t hurt me.”
He hums at that. Satisfied. Pleased at your reaction. He could pluck your strings right now, and you’d play music. He falls asleep with that thought.
You try to give him money. He never takes it. You try to buy groceries. You find the notes you spent stuffed back into your wallet later. You try to pick up a broom to clean up, and he locks the supply closet after that. The only way you find out his name is when you find his dog tags in the bathroom drawer, because he still hasn’t spoken a single word to you.
Simon “Ghost” Riley. That’s who Johnny really loved.
You don’t know why the sex started—you don’t know why you let him in, not exactly. Simon had been gone, one of his usual spurts of absence that he occasionally had, but he came home earlier than you expected. Simon likes to shower as soon as he comes home, but you are already in there, under the hot water, leaning against the tile as you empty your head of any thoughts. Simon doesn’t knock, and he pulls back the shower curtain even though he sees your silhouette. There are no words exchanged as he comes in, getting under the hot water, and there are no words exchanged when he takes off his mask for the very first time, and he hoists you up against the wall and fucks you into it.
You know this, too. Your hands trace his back, and you can feel every scar you know will be there, and you can taste the same things Johnny said you would taste when you lick over his jaw. Tobacco. Citrus. Animal.
It almost feels like cheating, but you’re too empty inside to be sad about it. It really feels like lying, even though Johnny’s too gone to hear your excuses. At the same time, it feels like getting something back. Not in its entirety, but something close, something that doesn’t feel the same, but feels so good anyways.
You cry again when you realize you like it better. You cry more when you realize that you’re starting to lose your dreams of Johnny in favor of Simon. You see in the dark instead of in blue. At first, you used to mumble Johnny’s name into the pillow. You used to bury your face into it, muffle the sounds as Simon fucked you from behind, two big hands pushing your ass apart as he pulled you back over and over onto his cock. Now your head is turned to the side, and you’re crying Simon’s name, and he’s fucking you harder, getting down onto his elbows, pressing you into the mattress and using your throat as leverage so he can arch your back and get your ass shaking with how firm he pushes his hips against you.
You’re so delicate, but he can’t be nice. He can’t be gentle. He needs to see teeth marks on your thighs and on your back. He needs to taste your blood and your cum and your spit. At first, he thinks he was doing it because he was lonely, too, but now he just wants to eat and eat and eat.
Eat Johnny’s pretty girl. Fuck Johnny’s pretty girl. Keep Johnny’s pretty girl, because how dare he keep this one a secret, and how dare he try and hide her from him? Johnny wrote a lot of things in that journal, but he didn’t talk about Simon’s insatiable appetite, and he didn’t talk about Simon’s rules. He blamed the entire world for his seemingly unrequited love, but the reality was that Johnny was selfish.
Johnny didn’t want to share. He wanted it all for himself, so it’s no wonder he died for it. When your world isn’t in balance, it compensates. Johnny ended up on the wrong side of the scale.
That’s the fucking truth.
Simon’s got you on your knees again. He likes you this way, ass up, face down, on display. On your back, he stacks enough under your back that you’re nearly upside down, pussy in his mouth as he bends you in half and eats it like that. Now, he’s squeezing your hips, pressing down between your shoulder blades, thick tongue inside of you as he teases your ass with his thumb. Johnny used to love that, but you’re such a jumpy girl.
He’s going to fix that.
Johnny is so predictable. Letting you run around, spoiled, never telling you the way it should be. Johnny made you think you were a pretty princess. He probably intertwined your fingers and fucked you in missionary like a good Catholic boy, but soft, delicate things like you don’t need to be reminded of what they are. They need to be so cockdrunk and dizzy that they don’t know anything else but this place right here, in his bed. Simon knows that’s what you really need—to not know the world outside of this bedroom.
Love is useless. Love can be lost. Love comes and goes, it’s subject to change. Time bends it, rusts it like iron, and Simon doesn’t need something else that will slip through his fingers, no. He needs something that is latched onto him forever. He needs to take one of your ribs and absorb it. He needs to taste you on his tongue and between his teeth always. He needs your blood to be his blood, and he needs your eyes to be his eyes.
Marriage is not finality. Love is not permanent. No—it isn’t enough. He couldn’t keep Johnny, and maybe he can’t keep you, but there is something he can give you that will keep you with him. Even if you left, you would stay somehow, some part of you, and he can see it in some distant place.
Once Simon sees something, it’s as good as true. It might as well be real. Simon is something himself of a manifestation, and he realizes now that maybe he never really saw Johnny because it was you hiding in what he couldn’t see.
Everything is in focus now. He knows what he has to do. Johnny was too stupid to see it—to preoccupied with how beautiful you are between the legs, too mindless when he was cock-deep inside of you to understand what he had in his hands. They don’t make things like you. One of a kind. Once in a lifetime. Something that will never be again if you let go, if you look away.
Simon knows all too much about what it means to leave a scar. He understands permanence. It’s why he’s still alive. It’s why he’s got you here, right here, underneath him, wet-faced and sobbing and clenching so tight around him. Your nails are fixtures in his back, holding him here, and he knows that you understand, too. If he asked you, you would think about the answer, but your body knows. It knows who Simon is and what he wants. He’s certain it does because even if he wanted to, your cunt has him tight, barely enough give for him to pull out and push right back in. It doesn’t want him to leave, and he’s glad for it.
You cry so sweet. Blubbers and gentle tears. You want this; it’s evident in the way you claw at him and pull him back in every time he pulls out just enough. When you pull just that hard, he drops onto his elbows, caging you in, and you sob into his mouth as he grinds his pelvis into yours. The wet smack of his thighs has stopped, but the pressure against your clit has you whining so nice. Fuck, you are beautiful, and you look so sad. From the first moment you showed up at his door, you were all big eyes and sadness. You drag around an air of heaviness that hasn’t left, and Simon is so sick of it—Johnny wasn’t man enough to eat you whole, won’t you just fucking let it go?
Maybe Simon did love him, too. Maybe he did love him back. No, he must’ve—that feeling in his chest still hasn’t left. Simon made a thousand excuses. A man like him, simply unloveable. A soldier like him, just too busy and too dedicated to have anything for himself outside of duty. A victim, what a rotten word, but that is what he is; no one can want him, not really. He saw it, in the back of his mind, peeling back layers of himself just for someone to make a face. After everything, after breaking his nails crawling out of an early grave, rejection just might be the thing that finally killed him. Not a bullet, but the sheer pain from the cut of giving a nasty piece of himself over and not even getting everything back.
Johnny was careless. Loving two things at once, pulled in opposite directions. Too distracted by what he couldn’t have that he forgot about how good he really had it—what a fucking dog. Greedy. Naïve. Fucking delusional. Johnny gave up this to chase something that could never be real. It was pathetic. It was stupid.
It was mine.
“Look at me.”
You do. Your eyes, hazy and wet, meet his, and your hands are shaking as you cup his face and sob because yes, yes, yes, please—I need it, it hurts s-so good.
It does hurt. It burns. It steals. It takes. It swallows, like a brush fire against dry land, licking and eating and tearing apart whatever it can reach. Your moans enrage it, and your cunt feeds it, whatever the thing is inside of his chest that is begging to come out.
This isn’t love. This isn’t romance. This is necessity—survival. Without him, you will come apart, and without you, Simon will starve. He used to take bites out of Johnny. Just enough to make the screaming inside of him quiet a little, just enough to be distracted; but he hasn’t eaten in months, and whatever you’re made of is too good to let go of.
This time, he’ll make it permanent. He’ll make it forever. Where you end, where he begins, where his hands have sunk into you, where his teeth are stuck; he’s going to fix himself to this place, and then he’s going to make himself forget how to leave.
You’re buzzing. You’re somewhere else. You feel like you’re floating above yourself, but at the same time, you’re right here. Simon’s so big; he told you he would be, but it’s another thing entirely to have this man inside of you and hitting your squishy cervix. He’s nasty about it, too—he likes putting a big hand on your stomach and pressing; he likes to feel himself inside of you and laugh at how you cry, and he likes the sound it makes when you’ve come, and your thighs are wet, and his skin smacks against yours with a toe-curling squelch.
“‘s mine,” he says, and you whine, and you nod. You don’t know if he’s asking you a question, but you figure he isn’t. Simon isn’t the kind to ask. He just takes what he wants. He always has. When you come back from the dead, consequences don’t apply to you any longer. You’ve cheated reality, and now you get to reap your rewards.
“Yeah.”
Yeah. Yes. Of course. Yes. Yes, Simon, whatever you want, Simon, anything for you, Simon, yes, yes, yes, yes—!
It will take time. As Simon puts his thumb to your clit to hear you sing, he thinks about how it won’t take much of it. You’re already so docile. You’re already in his bed, eating his food, crying with his cock inside of you and your thoughts filled with nothing but white noise and his name.
Simon won’t be like the man before him. Johnny drew you as a butterfly—something in need, but something that would eventually fly away. Fuck that. If there is a light in you, Simon will snuff it out. If he has to keep you from discovering your wings, he will just cut them off. If it’s the blood inside of you that keeps you warm, he will let it drain from the wounds left behind by his teeth because I will keep you warm, I will make it better, no one else, just me—
His index and middle finger in your mouth silence you. You choke on whatever you are saying in favor of sucking on his wet fingers, your eyes crossing a little as he bites down on your ear and pants there. It’s rare to hear him; Simon tends to swallow any noises he makes in favor of concentrating on hitting that same spot inside of you, but you can hear him now. It’s low and rumbly, so much so that you can feel his chest vibrating against yours. A groan—fuck, he sounds so good. To know your pussy feels so good, it’s making him falter is enough to have you just at the cusp of something white-hot and blinding.
You come when he comes. Simon’s other hand has an iron-grip on the side of your thigh, hiking it up around his hips as he comes hot and heavy inside of you. You shake underneath him, sucking hard on his fingers as he presses his pelvis to yours. You can feel it dripping between your thighs, and the heat of it makes you come, too, a sob coming out of you as you spit his fingers out in favor of closing your mouth over his.
He tastes like you. You suck on his tongue softly, lapping it up, and he uses his wet hand to hold your jaw at an angle so he can spit into your mouth and kiss you again. You grip his dog tags hard, tugging him back to you when he tries to look down at where he’s inside of you. He suffocates you when he lays over you, but you don’t care. You need him skin-to-skin. You need his mouth on yours, his cock still this deep, sharing breath and spit and heat. If you lose it, you’ll lose something else, something more, and you can’t lose it again.
His weight crushes you, and you don’t register the significance of one of his hands underneath you and between your shoulder blades. He feels for something that you can’t see, and he kisses you again when he’s satisfied with what he finds. The lack of something. The killing of it. The knowing that you’ve gotten what it is you’ve been searching for all this time.
He holds you like that always. He keeps your eyes on his when he comes inside of you—always wants to look at you when that first spurt of cum fills you entirely. He likes the way your lashes flutter when he brands you. He likes the way you lose the ability to speak. He likes the way your entire body goes rigid and pliant all at once, seizing up and then melting underneath him until it takes no effort to turn you over onto your stomach and do it all over again.
He notices the change before you do. The tender breasts, the warmth of your lower belly. You are wet always now, eager to be bent over wherever you are because the ache between your thighs is tenfold now.
You’re smiling. You haven’t smiled in a long while, and you’re smiling, hips hiked up on the couch, your dress crumpled around your middle as his cum drips down the back of your thighs. Simon licks his lips as he sits back on his heels, thumbing over your puckering hole.
You lay underneath him in your cocoon. Death at your doorstep, and you let him right in. You draw it around you tight, tucked into this blanket of security and warmth and factitious love that you think will hold this time. Simon’s hand draws around your throat, but you easily fall into him. When he squeezes, crushing what you’ve built back up, you sigh with relief, letting yourself fall into his chest and stay there.
When you close your eyes, it feels like something familiar. Like a place you’ve been before. When you open them, it’s gone. Simon is there, staring at your curiously. Your shadow that never leaves. The thing that remains. Time passes, but you know this will stay, you know it won’t go away. When he bends you over again, his hand slides low, cupping your belly, and your mouth twitches—the ghost of another smile. You put your hand over his there and press, feeling the scars you know by memory alone.
You will give him new scars; and these ones will be only for you.
you'll go to hell
for what your dirty mind
is thinking
full as always is here
just needed to map out his scars for science reasons, I promise...
Pov: run and hope he wont find you later
i truly cannot stress how much of a fucking freak ghost is. he is a fucking weirdo. he is so fucking strange. mask? always on. 90% of cutscenes are happening and the man looming in the back, staring off into the middle distance. he speaks a max of, like, six words per interaction. he does not make eye contact or — worse — he makes extremely prolonged eye contact. he is a fucking freak. he is a deranged weirdo. i know we like to gas him up and make him all hot n horny but he is a fucking freak and it's time we start championing him as such
xP
