18+ mdni simon riley is a horrible lay, everyone says.
that’s what you’ve heard around base, from men and women alike. he’s too fucking big, apparently, fucks like the mean bastard that he is. hurts. apparently, he’s so cold he doesn’t even care for his partner. and apparently, every time anyone’s tried to sleep with him, they’ve always stormed out of his room, pissed off at him because his room is a hellhole.
apparently. it’s all word of mouth, but you believe it.
but after the end of the month drinks at the local spoons, you can barely get simon off you, he’s pawing at you with his big hands. the two of you split a cider in two, and he looks at you with his big brown eyes, “y- you’re really fucking hot.” he blurts out, kissing your nose with chapped lips.
his face is red, blushing deeply as you try your best to not flush the same. “and johnny told me you can’t ever think about the pretty lass on floor 3 with the filing cabinet, but guess what, i can.” he kisses you on the side of your head this time, and you’re enjoying his affections.
it’s only back in his room on base that he fumbles with his belt, before he looks at you again, “s-sorry, it’s just, i don’t really get to spend the night with pretty women like you-“
you want to hide your face in his pillows, his room is really fucking nice. he has plants, actual plants growing from gaz, sketch drawings from johnny, photographs of him and the captain.
his cock is huge, hard and leaking, slapping against his stomach, but he still looks at you with his sweet brown eyes, “love, it’s okay if it’s too big…” he sounds dejected already, but you just shake your head, it’s nowhere near as big what the word around base was.
“it’s fine simon-“ you whisper, licking your lips and placing kitten licks on his length, feeling the taste of him coat your tongue.
“no no no-“ he shakes his head, pulling away before his hands touch your wet panties, “fuck, you’re so wet love.”
and then he dives in, tugging them off, before licking at your cunt with a sloppy tongue, he doesn’t have a technique down but whatever the fuck he’s doing it’s good, your legs are shaking as his tongue dips inside you.
“gotta make sure it’s good for you-“ okay, what the fuck was anyone talking about?
he slides into you with ease, and thrusts into you? his hands above your head, his eyes still looking at you. “you’re very fuckin’… mmmph… hot.” he says, with a grin on his scarred face that would look terrifying if it wasn’t for the way his brown eyes shone with sweetness.
it wasn’t long before his cock twitches inside of you, and his eyes roll back, “oh fuck love, right there— fuck!” he was filling you deep, his cum thick in your stomach.
“love?” he asks, whimpering, his head on your chest, “love, did you find it good?” he’s desperate for your fucking approval.
you kiss his head, his soft curls growing out of army regs.
“yes darling.” fuck the word of mouth, did anyone even try this with him?
“th-thank you dove-“ he pants, his cock deep inside you as you keep stroking his hair, feeling his breath even out.
Simon being an emotionally unavailable bastard and purposefully keeping things casual between you and him with occasionally rearranging your guts. so when you ask him the dreaded question "what are we?" he just tells you that he's nothing to you and you're just something convenient for him to come back to. period. nothing more than that.
and although you're disappointed but not surprised, you accept it. you’re smart enough to distance yourself from him to find something more meaningful. to find someone who won't leave you in the middle of the night while you're asleep or even right after sex. someone who won't turn down an invite to your place if it didn't involve taking off your clothes. someone who doesn't shy away from being vulnerable or just silly conversations about mundane topics of life.
so why is Simon surprised when you go on a date with one of his sergeants? why's he surprised when you end up with the most stable one of his group? why is he surprised when he sees your face on Gaz's lockscreen?
and why does his chest tighten when Gaz has to excuse himself out of the room but hear’s his “hi, baby. what’s up?” following him out of the room? why do his fists clench under the table whenever Gaz mentions you with that stupid lovestruck smile of his? why this and why that and all the questions that Simon does not want answers to but the mere sight of you and Gaz together makes his throat burn.
this inexplicable ache, this never-ending throb in his chest that never seems to die down, that seems to unearth itself right after he buries it deep down. he can’t put a word to it. not because he can’t. because he won’t. he refuses to.
yet he almost punches the fucking wall when Gaz mentions that he plans to propose on christmas. but instead swallows down the thick lump in his throat and congratulates the man in advance before walking away.
he contemplates death when Gaz sends a message in the group chat saying “she said yes!💍” a week later.
royal portrait artist simon riley who is given a wife from the court to ensure his position in the kingdom. but he didn’t want a wife; he had no interest in entertaining some spoiled bird from the capital, so he just ignores you.
and you spends a few years married, no romance, no children, barely any words spoken between them, until you die young, a childhood illness that was never cured. and simon is left having to explain why your funeral portrait is one from before your union and not one he would have painted after. or a wedding portrait that he’d never even considered making until he realizes that he doesn’t have a single portrait, sketch, or watercolor of his betrothed.
even worse when he takes it upon himself to organized your belongings and he comes across your diary. a detailed recollection of your life and your decision to marry him because you know of his aversion of touching but you admire him and his work so much that it is worth the cold shoulder, and that it isn’t like you had much time left anyway, so you might as well spend your remaining years in his presence.
so that leaves simon, clutching to shakes memories and despair, to desperately try and replicate your essence in a portrait. for weeks, months, and years but none of them are worth any admiration. your eyes are the wrong color, your hair flows in the wrong direction, and your skin doesn’t have the glow it once did. it drives him mad, unable to rest until he can finally have you with him again.
Whatever you do, don't think about being Ghost's childhood best friend. About making blanket forts to hide from the world, sharing secrets in the dark or sneaking a beer from your parents in your early teens. Don't think about simply being each other's person — the one you tell everything to.
Don't think about writing letters and talking on the phone when he first enlists. About the butterflies you'd feel whenever he hummed some pretty pet name in your ear. Don't think about calling him big guy when you see him for his first leave — definitely don't think about the eye roll and the fond smile and the rosy tips of his ears.
The letters get longer, the phone calls more frequent, and it almost feels like the beginning of something — something new, something beautiful.
Don't think about the devastation when you get the news of the Riley family's death and the emptiness that fills your chest. About attending the funeral and shaking the hands of his fellow soldiers — the ones who got to live instead of him. Don't think about visiting his grave, replacing wilting flowers with fresh ones every time as you talk to him about your life. Maybe sometimes it feels more like a conversation than a monologue. Maybe sometimes you can't get out a word at all.
Don't think about seeing his face one day, years and years later, in a stranger passing by the window when you're ordering a morning coffee. The anniversary of his death is coming up, maybe you just miss him a little extra this year? Except it happens again. And again. And suddenly what had been your dream feels like it's suffocating you. He's older — but you guess even ghosts can't outrun time — he's scarred and covers more of himself than ever before. But you recognise those eyes; you'd recognise them anywhere.
Don't think about coming up behind him in the grocery store one day, his name so so soft on your lips, but it makes him freeze anyway. Don't think about the way he pointedly ignores you, going about his shopping as if he hadn't just returned from the dead and turned your world upside down.
"Simon," you say again, louder this time, harsher, and grab onto his elbow. Because you need him to listen, you want answers.
"'s not my name," he murmurs, stepping away from your touch like it burnt him. His words reaches out with stained hands, cracks open your ribs and strangles any hope that had dared begun to blossom there.
Your face falls, feet rooted to the spot, but you don't try again, and you can feel your heart shatter anew.
Don't think how, for a moment, you thought you'd maybe get him back. Get back the boy you grew up with, the one you loved, the one who got away. Only for him to die all over again.
author's note: This has been in my drafts for one and a half years man. Never say never 💀 And thank you so much for 10k, lovelies! 🤍 xx
The ad is three lines long.
You agonise over it for a week—drafting and redrafting on the back of a grocery receipt at the kitchen table while your husband is on deployment, crossing out words and rewriting them until the paper is soft and furred at the edges from erasing.
Three lines. That's all the local paper allows for the personals section, which is a relic from another era that you didn't even know still existed until you were flipping through the classifieds looking for a vintage bookshelf and your eyes snagged on the column header.
SEEKING CONNECTION
You'd laughed at first. Then you'd read a few. Then you'd read them all, sitting cross-legged on the sofa with your tea going cold in your hands, and something small and sharp turning over in your chest.
The ad you eventually submit reads:
Married woman, mid 30s, seeks interesting conversation and perhaps more with a like-minded gentleman. Discretion essential. If you enjoy good food, dry wit, and don't mind a woman who can out-drink you — I'd love to hear from you. Reply to Box 64.
You pay for four weeks in advance and feel sick the entire drive home.
Because here's the thing about being married to Captain John Price.
You love him desperately and completely, in a way that has settled into your bones over the better part of a decade and become indistinguishable from the architecture of who you are.
Adore the way he smells—stale cigar smoke and sandalwood and old gun oil, a combination that should be repulsive and instead makes you want to bury your face in his neck and stay there. Love his hands, broad and scarred and capable of violence you'll never fully understand, and how gentle they are when they cup your jaw or fix the clasp of your necklace.
And you melt for the rumble of his voice on the phone at two in the morning when he calls from whatever godforsaken corner of the world he's operating in, tired and tight-lipped but always, always asking about you first.
You love him, and he loves you, and it hasn't been enough for a long time.
Not because the love ran out, because he did.
John Price gives everything to his work. Every deployment bleeds into the next. The gaps between homecomings stretch longer—three weeks become five, five become eight, eight becomes ‘I don't know yet, love, I'll let you know when I know’.
And when he does come home, he's there but not there; hollow-eyed and distracted, reaching for his phone at dinner, falling asleep on the sofa before nine, making love to you the first night with a desperate urgency that fades by the third morning into perfunctory kisses on the forehead and an apologetic mumble about an early briefing.
Someday, you stopped asking when he'd be home six months ago; stopped leaving the porch light on four months ago, and you stopped wearing the nice knickers three months ago because what was the point again.
Two months ago, you realised you'd gone an entire week without hearing his voice and hadn't noticed until Thursday.
That's when the panic set in. Not the sharp, clean kind, but the slow, creeping kind. The one that makes you lie awake at three a.m. staring at the ceiling and wondering if this is it, if this is what the rest of your life looks like. A nice house in Hereford with a well-maintained garden and a husband who exists primarily as a name on a bank account and a voice on the other end of an increasingly rare phone call.
You don't want to leave him. The thought alone makes you nauseous.
You just want someone to see you again.
John finds the newspaper three days after he gets home from a six-week deployment in eastern Syria.
He's not snooping; he's looking for the TV remote, which has migrated into the crack between the sofa cushions again, and his hand closes around the folded section of newsprint wedged beside it. He pulls it out, intending to toss it on the coffee table, and his eyes catch the circle of biro ink around one of the small ads in the personals column.
John reads it, and then again.
Then he sits down very slowly, the remote forgotten, and stares at the far wall for a long time, connecting puzzle pieces like his life depends on it, which it very well does apparently.
Married woman, mid 30s. His wife is in her thirties.
Dry wit. His wife is the driest, sharpest-tongued woman he's ever met. It's one of the first things he fell in love with—the way she could dismantle a man's ego with a single raised eyebrow and a well-timed "Bless your heart, love".
Can out-drink you. He's watched his wife put away Whisky Sours at the SAS Christmas do with a composure that made seasoned operators look like lightweights.
Discretion essential.
John sets the newspaper down on his knee. His jaw works and his eyes don't leave the wall.
And he doesn't confront you.
Not over dinner nor in bed that night when you roll towards him and press a kiss to his shoulder—a habit you've kept even through the worst of the distance, even when you're angry with him, even when he doesn't deserve it.
Instead, he waits, and he replies to Box 64.
The letter that arrives for you a week later is postmarked locally. Plain envelope, no return address. Inside, a single sheet of paper, handwritten in a bold, slanted script you don't recognise.
I enjoy good food, better whisky, and I've never met a woman who can out-drink me, but I'd enjoy watching you try. Friday, 8pm, O’Malley’s on St. George's Lane. I'll be the one who looks like he doesn't belong in a place that posh. — J
Your hands are shaking when you finish reading it, and you have to sit down at the kitchen table and press your palms flat against the wood to steady yourself.
You could throw it away. No. You should throw it away. This was a mistake—a stupid, reckless, selfish mistake born out of loneliness and too much wine and that ugly, gnawing ache in your chest that flares up every time John leaves.
But John has left again. Three days at home, then a call from Kate Laswell, then a bag packed and a kiss on your forehead and a quick ‘Be back soon, love’ and the sound of the front door closing and the silence that rushes in to fill the space he used to occupy.
You read the letter once more.
I'll be the one who looks like he doesn't belong in a place that posh.
Something warm and reckless curls in your stomach, and you hate yourself for it, and you fold the letter into the pocket of your cardigan and carry it around for three days before you decide you’re going.
Friday night. O’Malley’s.
You arrive twenty minutes early because you're a control freak in crisis, and you take the farthest booth in the corner because your back needs to be against a wall and your eyes need to be on the door—a habit you picked up from your husband without realising it.
You order a gin and tonic to give your hands something to do, and you check your reflection in the blank screen of your phone for the third time. You look good, like you tried again—not the kind of effort you make for John when he comes home, all desperate and over-polished, but a quieter kind; wearing your favourite dress with subtle makeup and your hair done the way you like it, not the way you think someone else wants to see it.
You look like your old self, and that's terrifying, because the whole point of tonight was supposed to be about being someone else.
When your wedding ring catches the light as you reach for your drink, and you stare at it for a long moment, the slim gold band John slid onto your finger nine years ago with steady hands and unsteady eyes, and you don't take it off.
You should, but you can’t, and you did say you’re married.
Eight o'clock comes and goes. Five past, then ten. You're about to convince yourself you've been stood up, which would be both a relief and a humiliation, when the pub door opens and a man walks in, and every nerve ending in your body fires at once.
Because the man standing in the doorway, scanning the room with those sharp, assessing eyes, is your husband.
John is wearing civvies. Dark jeans, a black henley pushed up to his elbows, boots that have seen better days.
He looks like he came straight from the base, which he probably did. His hair is freshly cut but his beard is full, and there is a tiredness around his eyes that you can read from across the room, the same bone-deep fatigue he carries home from every deployment and tries to hide and fails.
He spots you and your stomach plummets.
Meanwhile, his expression doesn't change; not a flicker. He holds your gaze across the crowded pub, and then he walks towards you with the kind of unhurried, deliberate stride that you've seen him use in exactly two contexts.
When he's approaching a superior officer, and when he's about to do something that no one in the room is going to enjoy.
Your heart is hammering so hard you can feel it in your teeth. Your hand tightens around your glass until your knuckles ache, and every instinct in your body is screaming at you to run to the bathroom, to the car park, to another country, but your legs won't cooperate, because Captain John Price is walking towards you and you have never in your life been able to move when he's looking at you like that.
He reaches the booth, stops, and looks down at you. And a beat of terrible, electric silence follows.
Then he smiles, though not the tight, exhausted smile he gives you at the front door when he's been gone for weeks, but something warmer, something almost boyish, and then he slides into the seat across from you, settling in with an ease that makes your blood run cold.
"You must be Box 64," he says casually, calm, like he's meeting a stranger for the first time, which is insane, because he is your husband and he is sitting across from you at a pub where you came to meet another man and he knows. He fucking knows.
"John—"
"John," he repeats, tasting the name like he's hearing it for the first time. Then he extends his hand across the table. "That's right. Pleasure to meet you."
You stare at his outstretched hand, then at his face, and back at his hand.
"John, I can explain—"
"Nothing to explain." He keeps his hand where it is, steady and patient. His eyes don't leave yours. "I'm J. You're Box 64. We're here to have a drink and see if we get on. That was the arrangement, wasn't it? What your ad said?"
Your mouth opens and something inside you dies a little, along with the words in your throat; anything but one.
"John."
"You gonna leave me hanging, love? Already?" He nods at his hand, one eyebrow raised, and there is something in his expression—beneath the calm and the performance—that you can't quite read.
It's not anger, not even hurt. Something closer to resolve, like he's made a decision about tonight and he intends to see it through, and nothing you say is going to alter the trajectory.
You take his hand, shake it weakly.
His fingers close around yours, warm and rough, and he gives one firm shake before releasing you. Then he flags down the barmaid, orders a whisky neat, and turns back to you with that same easy, unreadable smile.
"So. Tell me about yourself."
You stare at him owlishly.
"I—I don't—" You can feel heat crawling up your neck, your throat tightening with the precursor to tears. "John, please, can we just—"
"Tell me," he says again, and his voice is gentle, but his eyes are steel. "What do you do? Where are you from? What made you put that ad in the paper?"
The last question lands like another slap, even though his tone doesn't change. You swallow hard, your fingers wrap around your glass for something to anchor to.
He waits for you to answer; patient as a sniper in a ghillie suit.
"I'm—" You exhale shakily. "I'm from here. I live in Hereford. I'm—" Your voice threatens to crack, and you bite the inside of your cheek until it steadies. "I'm a teacher."
"A teacher." John nods, like this is new information and not something he's known for the better part of a decade. "What age?"
"Year four."
"Year four. That's—what, eight? Nine?" He takes a sip of his whisky. The barmaid left it quietly and shot you a look like she sensed the tension. "Brave woman. I've faced insurgents with less fight in them than a nine-year-old with a grudge."
The laugh that escapes you is wet and startled and completely involuntary, and John's eyes soften for a fraction of a second before the mask slides back into place.
"What about you?" you ask carefully, because two can play this game, and if he's going to make you sit through this surreal performance, you might as well commit. Your voice is still unsteady, but there's a spark of something underneath the fear—defiance, maybe, or the stubbornness that made you put the ad in the paper in the first place. "What do you do?"
"Military," he answers briskly, which is what he always says at parties and barbecues when civilians ask, offering nothing further.
"What branch?"
"The kind that doesn't let me talk about it." He leans back in his seat, one arm resting along the back of the booth leisurely and looks at you with an expression that's half amusement, half something hungrier. "I travel a lot. Gone more than I'm home unfortunately."
"That must be hard," you reply, and you mean it in a raw way that has nothing to do with the roleplay and everything to do with the long years of lonely nights and unanswered phone calls sitting between you.
John hears it and you watch it land. A brief tightening around his eyes, a muscle jumping in his jaw before he takes another slow drink.
"It is," he says quietly. "Harder on the people who wait, I'd imagine."
Your breath catches. You look down at the table, at your ring, at the condensation pooling around the base of your glass.
"Yeah," you whisper. "It is."
The silence that follows is different from the others. Not tense or loaded. Just heavy, in the way that true things are heavy, settling between you like something solid.
Then John clears his throat. "Another round?"
You nod, not trusting your voice, and he waves the barmaid over again.
The second drink loosens something.
Maybe it's the gin, perhaps the sheer absurdity of the situation, but somewhere between your second and third drink, the fear recedes enough for you to actually talk.
And John—your husband, who has spent the better part of a year giving you monosyllabic answers over dinner and falling asleep during films—is talking back.
He's always been charming. It's how he got you in the first place, at a mate's wedding eleven years ago, when he cornered you at the bar and spent forty-five minutes making you laugh so hard you snorted champagne up your nose. Though you'd forgotten what it looks like when he aims it at you with intent.
John asks about your students and listens to the answers. He asks about the book you're currently reading and offers an opinion on it that tells you he's been paying more attention to your nightstand than you thought. He tells you stories from deployment that are carefully scrubbed of classified details but still make you laugh; the kind of stories he used to tell you when you were dating. Absurd, self-deprecating, designed to make you think he's funnier than he is.
He is funny. You'd forgotten that, too.
"You've got a nice laugh," he says at one point, swirling his whisky, and the way he says it, like an observation, like he's hearing it for the first time, makes your stomach flip.
"Don't flatter me, J." The letter feels strange in your mouth, this thin fiction stretched over the truth of him. "I'll think you're after something."
"Maybe I am." He holds your gaze and doesn't smile. "That a problem, love?"
Your mouth goes dry.
Three drinks in, you're leaning across the table towards each other, and his hand is resting on the tabletop close enough to yours that your little fingers are almost touching, and you're telling him about the time one of your Year Fours brought a live frog to class in his lunchbox and it escaped during maths, and John is laughing—really laughing, with his head tipped back and his eyes creased—and for a vertiginous moment, you manage to forget.
You forget that this is a performance; that your husband is sitting across from you pretending to be a stranger because you put an ad in the newspaper looking for someone else. Everything except the sound of his laugh and the warmth in his eyes and the way he's looking at you like you're the most interesting person in the room, which is how he used to look at you all the time, before the deployments ate him alive and left you with the husk.
Then his eyes drop to your left hand, and the warmth doesn't leave his expression, but something sharper slides in alongside it, like the glint of a blade edge, and then he reaches across the table and takes your hand, turning it over in his.
His thumb presses against the band of your wedding ring, holding it there.
"You know," he says, and his voice is still easy, still conversational, but there's a new undercurrent to it that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, "if you were really going to go through with this little adventure of yours—"
He taps the ring once with his thumb, clicks his tongue.
"—you probably should've taken this off first."
The blood drains from your face. The pleasant haze of gin and good conversation evaporates in an instant, replaced by a cold, lurching clarity.
"John—"
"Bit of a deterrent, love. Even when you mentioned it in the ad." He's still holding your hand, still running his thumb over the ring, and his expression is unreadable—not angry, not hurt, just steady, the way he looks when he's holding a position and waiting for something to break. "Any bloke worth his salt would've clocked that you're not really in it five minutes in."
Your eyes are stinging. "I wasn't going to—I would never have—"
"I know." He replies simply and releases your hand. "I know you wouldn't."
The lump in your throat is enormous and razor-edged, and you have to look away at anything that isn't his face, because if you keep looking at him, you're going to cry in the middle of this pub and he will never, ever let you live it down.
"I'm sorry," you manage, barely a whisper. "John, I'm so sorry, I didn't—I was just—"
"Don't."
You look back at him. He's leaning forward now, strong forearms on the table, and the mask is gone. All of it, the J performance, the first-date charm, the controlled amusement. And underneath is just your husband. Looking at you with an expression that is not anger, that has never been anger, that is something far worse.
Guilt.
"I should've been home more," he murmurs; too honest for a pub on a Friday night. "I should've—" He stops, his jaw clenches before he tries again. "I should've given you a proper life. A family. A husband who's actually fucking present. And I didn't, and you—"
He gestures vaguely at the booth, the pub, the entire premise of the evening.
"—you shouldn't have had to do this to get my attention."
The first tear slips down your face before you can catch it. You swipe at it furiously with the back of your hand before the barmaid, who has become somewhat intrigued by whatever is happening at your table, can clock it.
"I wasn't trying to get your attention," you lie, and you both know it's a lie, and his mouth twitches; not quite a smile, something more tender and much more broken.
"Yeah, you were." He reaches across the table again and takes your hand, properly this time, threading his fingers through yours and squeezing. "And it worked."
You let out a breath that's half laugh, half sob, and squeeze back.
For a long moment, neither of you speaks. The pub buzzes around you. Glasses clinking, conversations flowing, some '80s song you can't name playing from the speakers. And you sit in the middle of it, holding hands across a sticky table, and the nine years of silence and distance and loving each other badly feel, for the first time, like something that could be survived.
"I need the loo," you announce eventually, because your mascara is probably wrecked and you need thirty seconds of privacy to pull yourself together before you dissolve entirely.
John releases your hand with a nod. "Take your time, love."
You slide out of the booth on legs that feel slightly unsteady with gin and adrenaline, and make your way to the back of the pub, past the bar and down the short corridor to the ladies'.
It's a single-stall bathroom. Small, clean enough, a lock on the door that you click shut behind you before bracing your hands on the edge of the sink and staring at your reflection in the mirror above it.
Your eyes are bright and glassy. Your mascara is, as predicted, smudged. You look wrecked and flushed and alive in a way you haven't in months, and you hate that it took this—a dating ad and a Friday night charade—to put that look on your face.
You run the tap and press your cool, damp fingers against your closed eyelids. Breathe. You can do this. You can go back out there, finish your drinks, go home with your husband, and figure out the rest in the morning like adults who have been married for nearly a decade and know how to have a difficult conversation.
You're drying your hands when the lock clicks.
You freeze. Your eyes snap to the door in the mirror's reflection as it opens, and John slips inside and closes it behind him with a soft, definitive click of the lock.
The bathroom shrinks to nothing.
He fills the space. Not just physically, though he does that too, broad shoulders and solid frame taking up far too much of the small room, but atmospherically. The air changes when he's this close, gets heavier and becomes charged, like the pressure drop before a storm front.
"John, what are you—"
He moves. One step, then two, and then his big hand is flat against your lower back and he's pressing you forward, gently but firmly, until your hips meet the edge of the sink and your palms catch the porcelain on either side.
His body moulds against your back. Chest to spine, hips to arse. One hand sliding from your lower back to your waist, gripping and anchoring, while his other forearm braces against the wall beside the mirror.
You can see him in the reflection; towering behind you, head dipped, mouth hovering at the shell of your ear, and your breath stutters at the look on his face.
"Gonna make you remember why you married me, darling," he mutters into your ear, and his breath is hot and damp on the side of your neck, sending a shiver cascading down your spine. His hand tightens on your waist, pulling your arse back against the hard line of his cock already straining behind his zipper.
"John—"
"Shh." His lips graze the spot beneath your ear. No kiss but a warning. "You wanted to be seen, love. I see you."
His hand slides from your waist to the hem of your dress and drags it up slowly, bunching the fabric around your hips until you're exposed from the waist down. The cool air of the bathroom hits your bare thighs and makes you gasp.
"John, we can't—We're in a pub—!"
"Should've thought about that before you went looking for a date, shouldn't you?" His voice is rough and threaded with something dark and tender at the same time, and his fingers hook into the waistband of your knickers, tugging them down your thighs in one smooth motion. They pool around your ankles, and he doesn't bother removing them fully—just leaves them there, tangled between your heels.
"Anyone could—"
"Door's locked." His hand trails up the inside of your thigh, calloused fingers dragging against the soft skin, and you bite your lip to keep the sound that wants to escape inside. "And you're going to be quiet for me, aren't you, hm?"
You hear his belt buckle. The clink of metal, the drag of leather through belt loops, then the rasp of his zip, and your hands grip the sink so hard your arms tremble, because the sound alone is enough to make your pussy clench around nothing in anticipation.
"Nearly a decade of marriage," he murmurs against the back of your neck, and his free hand slides between your thighs from behind, two thick fingers dragging through your supple folds, finding you already embarrassingly wet. He lets out a low, dark sound of approval that vibrates against your skin. "And I let you forget."
His fingers circle your clit once and your hips buck back against him involuntarily.
"That's on me," he continues, his voice dropping to that gravelly register that makes your toes curl in your pumps. "My fault. My fucking failure. Not yours."
He presses one thick finger inside you, then two, stretching you open with a slow, curling thrust that makes your breath hitch and your walls clench around him. He groans quietly and his forehead drops against the back of your head.
"'M finally gonna put our baby in you," he declares, and the words are rough and raw and utterly certain, a promise sealed against your skin. "Should've done it years ago. Should've given you that. Should've given you everything."
He withdraws his fingers and you whimper at the loss with a needy, desperate sound that you'd be mortified by in any other context, and then you feel the blunt, plump head of his cock pressing against your entrance and every other thought in your head goes static.
"John—" you mewl. John pushes in slowly.
He stretches you open around him with a fullness that borders on too much, and the sound that tears from your throat is muffled only because you clamp your hand over your own mouth.
More than a decade and his fat cock is still enough to make you go stupid.
"Fuck," John breathes, his hips flush against your arse, buried to the root, and his grip on your waist is bruising. He doesn't move yet just holds there, letting you feel every inch of him, letting your body adjust around the thick, throbbing weight of his cock.
Then he starts to move, and it's not the perfunctory, tired sex you've been having for the past year. The kind where he finishes quickly and rolls over and you stare at the ceiling and pretend you came.
This is John Price. The real one, the one you fell in love with. The one who backed you against the wall of your old flat on your third date and made you see God by eating you out through your knickers before he'd even taken anything else off.
He fucks you deep and deliberate, one hand gripping your hip while the other wraps around the front of your throat lightly; his fingers curled against your pulse point, feeling the frantic beat of your heart against his palm.
"Look at yourself," he orders, and your eyes—which had screwed shut at some point—fly open to meet his in the mirror. Pupils blown.
The sight of it is obscene. Your dress bunched around your waist, his thick forearm braced beside the mirror, tendons flexing, his body curved over yours, and the slow, powerful roll of his hips driving into you from behind with a rhythm that's making the mirror rattle against the wall.
"That's my wife," he grunts, and his reflection's eyes are fierce and fixed on yours. "Mine. Not some fucking stranger's from a newspaper ad."
You can't speak, only feel his cock dragging against your walls, his hand on your throat, his chest solid and warm and present against your back for the first time in what feels like forever.
He picks up the pace; harder and deeper thrusts, the wet slap of skin on skin echoing in the small bathroom while his ragged breath puffs against your ear. And then his rough hand leaves your throat to reach between your legs, flicking your clit and rubbing tight, fast circles that make you bite down on your own fist to keep from screaming.
"Quiet," he reminds you, and the bastard sounds smug. "You want the whole pub to know what I'm doing to you in here? Huh? Want them to know ‘m fucking my wife?"
You shake your head frantically; cunt fluttering and squeezing his shaft, because dirty talk from John Price is its own kind of sweet torture.
"Then cum for me quietly, love. Right now."
A few more hard, precise thrusts with his cock dragging inside your quivering cunt, massaging that spot that keeps swelling inside you, and you shatter.
The orgasm rips through you so violently that your knees give out, and the only things keeping you upright are the sink under your hands and John's arm locked around your waist. You clamp your teeth into the heel of your palm and muffle the cry that wants to tear out of you, your walls clenching and fluttering around his cock in rhythmic, milking pulses.
"Christ—fuck—" John's hips stutter, his rhythm breaks, and he buries himself deep—so deep—and holds, his cock kicking and pulsing inside you as he cums with a low, guttural groan pressed into the curve of your neck.
He spills himself empty inside you, balls throbbing with each little jerk of his hips. Hot and thick, deliberate this time. No condom, no pulling out this time, and the significance of that isn't lost on either of you. His hips roll lazily through the aftershocks, working every precious drop into your messy cunt, and his hand slides from your waist to your lower belly, pressing flat.
"There," he murmurs, and his voice is wrecked and satisfied, unbearably tender. "That's where it belongs."
You're shaking. Your entire body is trembling, your legs are useless, and there are tears streaming silently down your face that have nothing to do with pain.
He stays inside you for a long moment; breathing, his lips pressed against the nape of your neck, beard scraping your skin, his hand warm on your lower stomach. Then he pulls out slowly, carefully, and you feel his cum start to leak from you immediately, warm and slick against your inner thighs.
He reaches down, picks your knickers up from around your ankles, and slides them back up your legs with an almost clinical efficiency. When they're settled back into place, he pats your arse once, light and proprietary, and tugs your dress back down.
"There we go," he says, like he's just helped you with your coat. "Good as new."
You let out a sound that's somewhere between a laugh and a sob, your forehead dropping against the mirror.
"How about a 'thank you,' love," he adds while he tugs his softening cock back into his jeans, and when you lift your head and catch his eyes in the reflection, the smug satisfaction on his face is so thoroughly, infuriatingly Price that you want to slap him and kiss him simultaneously, "for stuffing your pretty cunt full of my cum, hm?"
"John."
"Mm." He presses a kiss to your temple, achingly gentle after everything he just did to you, and reaches past you to turn on the tap. He wets his hand and wipes beneath your eyes with his thumb, cleaning up the mascara.
"Ready to leave, love?" he asks, straightening up and buckling his belt with the same unhurried ease he does everything. "Or would you like another drink before your husband takes you home?"
Your legs are still shaking, his cum is slowly but surely soaking into your knickers, and your heart is so full it might crack your ribs.
"N-No," you manage, small and hoarse. "I'd like to go home now, John."
He looks at you, really looks. And there is nothing left of the J performance, not the Captain Price mask, just John, your husband. The man who drove to a pub on a Friday night not to punish you but to remind you both of what you'd almost let slip away.
"That's my girl," he replies softly.
He unlocks the bathroom door, checks the corridor, and guides you out with his hand on the small of your back. You walk through the pub on shaking legs, past the booth where your half-finished drinks are still sitting, past the barmaid who gives you both a knowing look that you pretend not to see.
The night air hits you like cold water when you step outside, and you suck in a breath that fills your lungs properly for the first time in hours.
John pulls his car keys from his pocket, presses the fob, and opens the passenger door for you without a word. You climb in. He closes the door, rounds the bonnet, and slides into the driver's seat.
Neither of you speaks on the drive home. His hand rests on your thigh, squeezing gently every other minute, and your hand rests on top of his, your fingers tracing the ridges of his calloused knuckles and the band of his own wedding ring, which he has never, not once in nine years, taken off.
When he pulls into the driveway, the porch light is off. You haven't left it on in months.
John kills the engine. Sits for a moment, looking at the dark house.
Then he turns to you, and his voice is quieter now, stripped of the previous smugness, the heat, the performance. Just the raw thing underneath.
"I will do better."
No grand speech or a promise wrapped in flowers and apologies and all the things you've heard before and stopped believing. It's four words, plain and blunt and offered without decoration, and they land heavier than anything else he's said tonight.
You reach across the centre console and take his face in both hands, and you kiss him slowly, like you have time, because you're going to make time.
"I know," you whisper against his mouth.
And when you get inside, John turns the porch light on.
"I want to live by the water one day." You tell Simon on a sunday afternoon.
You're sitting on a park bench in some quiet neighbourhood, his arm wrapped around your shoulders tightly, staring off at the lake in front of you, the blue waves lightly lapping at the shoreline. It was calm, peaceful here
He responds with a grunt, simple enough in nature, but you know you're Simon. He'd build you that house with his bare hands just to see you smile. All he ever wanted was to make you smile.
This was your little tradition, spending some quiet and alone time together before he left for another tour in some foreign country. He never called, he couldn't anyway, explaining that he wanted to keep you safe.
But you knew the truth, if he told you what was going on in his life, you'd be concerned, horrified with the life he willingly walks into, that he's choosing chaos and death over staying home with you.
4 long months. That's how long you waited for your husband to come home
You didn't expect to be handed the union jack flag by two visiting officers, a heavy stone placed in your stomach when they recited their apology. You could barely hear it through the intense ringing in your ears, the low moan of anguish building in your chest.
Simon was gone. ripped from your hands without a second thought for who he was, or how much he meant to you. But that was war.
His name, usually spoken softly with love was now a harrowing cry from your throat. You thought that if you wailed and sobbed enough to the heavens, maybe he'd hear you. That he'd come back, like he always promised you he would.
You didn't get the privilege of having a funeral, there wasn't enough of him left to put in a coffin anyways. Rough hands patted your shoulders and back, trying to console you on the loss, but how can you even comfort someone who just lost their world.
Johnny watched helplessly as you faded away, your eyes growing dull and lifeless, your clothes looking a bit looser on you. He'd promised Simon he'd take care of you if anything were to happen, and Johnny comes up short on his promise.
You don't go to him and he doesn't come to you either.
You couldn't stand living in this house anymore, every object a painful reminder of the life you'll never have. Your wedding photo is a cruel taunt, the empty bedroom for a baby in the future a spit in the face.
Now you do live by the water... just not with Simon.
CW: angst, canon-typical violence, hurt/comfort, references to suicide, injured Simon, eventual smut, military inaccuracies
wc: 7.1k
Masterlist 🦊
When Soap gave you Simon’s address, you thought you’d end up in some dodgy building with flickering lights and the pungent smell of piss.
You expected sleazy neighbours, creaky old doors, and grime-crusted flooring: he is a clean man, sure—pathologically so, you’d like to add, since his barracks back at HQ look like an OR—but he absolutely adores his privacy. You wouldn’t put it past him to move somewhere other people would never go for their safety, even if it meant tiptoeing around pools of unidentified fluids and used condoms.
Instead, as your GPS pings your arrival, you find yourself in front of the loveliest house you’ve ever seen.
Uneven bricks, ochre and grey, cloaked by a pitched roof and tiles laced with moss and ashen lichen. A chimney peeks from the top left, darkened right around the top. There’s a stone path leading from the gravel where you parked your car to the front door—sturdy hardwood thing, painted a deep dark chocolate with bronze trims all around. Wooden fixtures for the windows, worked and etched in that way that makes them look old, but they clearly aren’t. Thick glass, maybe to isolate sounds—as if it’s needed.
This house is as pretty as it is lonely. Lost in the middle of nowhere.
At least you were right about one thing. Not even God would go this far to look after His disciples.
Out of four hours, you spent half driving through unpaved roads, with your car jumping over fat roots and potholes. Got lost once. Almost ended up in a ditch twice.
However, the landscape they led to is gorgeous as few. Worth the money that you’ll surely have to splurge on new shock suspenders.
It’s autumn, so there’s the occasional tree popping golden amongst an emerald ocean extending behind the cottage, farther than the eye can see. In front of the house, there’s a small grove. It rustles with the wind, coos with birds and owls, runs with squirrels and wildlife clawing up the trees. Evergreen bushes with the occasional pop of colour, whether red or pale orange, lean against the trunks. The sun is setting behind it, painting the landscape with the shadows of the fronds and a soft golden glow.
It's quiet, in that way only nature can be.
If you hadn’t been worried down to the bone marrow, you’d have lit a cigarette and smoked it with your ass on the trunk of your car while basking in the last shafts of sunlight of the day.
Alas, you’re not here for sightseeing.
You turn off your car and jump out of the seat. Gently, you stretch your arms; your shoulders pop, your back cracks like a fucking glowstick. Your knees aren’t faring better, clicking when you stand up fully.
With a withering sigh, you walk to the back of the car and open the bonnet.
There are groceries for a lifetime stacked in there. Four bags from Tesco, two smaller ones from the chemist’s. Pain killers, vitamins, paracetamol, supplements, benzodiazepines, citalopram, escitalopram, and all the fucking prams the pharmacy had to offer. The list was long; you eyed Johnny worriedly when he gave it to you, but knew better than to ask.
You’re tired. Tired beyond measure. You went to work at the crack of dawn and then jumped in the car when you couldn’t take it anymore. Dropped everything, apologised to Kyle for leaving him to fend for himself with the diplomatic envoy, and when Price scrunched his nose disappointedly, you apologised to him as well and promised to do double the job once you were sure he was alright.
Because you hadn’t heard from him in days.
Not a phone call, not a text, not a sign that he was using his phone at all. Not a sign that he was alright, that he was still grumbling about the growing prices of groceries, that he was still nursing a nightcap in the evenings—that he was alive.
He used to tell you.
They don’t get it—Johnny, Kyle, Price. They don’t know about the texts, the calls, the photos, the messages sent in the middle of the night, the ones left just shy of dawn, just to wish each other a good day.
Your little secret, that. Your little something soft, developed in the ruthlessness of your job. Something amicable and familiar stuck in between the horrors of cold-blooded murder, of dead bodies scattered in your lives, and endless stacks of paperwork.
You’d send him pictures of your pale tea—too much milk, if you asked him. Of your pies baked during downtime, of the Christmas decorations you’d hang on the ceiling. He’d send you those of birds landing on the hood of his car, cats he’d find along his walk that would nuzzle his calf.
SR: Don’t know why.
LT: they think you’re snow white
LT: because you’re pale and you have the sweetest big brown eyes
SR: Wouldn’t say sweet.
LT: in fact i said sweetest :)
SR: Flattery won’t work on your lieutenant.
LT: ha! but im a lieutenant too. you can’t pull rank on me
SR: I’m your L.T.
SR: You’re my second lieutenant. Under my command.
LT: technicalities
SR: You’re L.T. too
SR: L.Too
SR: L2
L2: oi
SR: Haha
L2: rude
SR: Alright, L2.
They don’t get it.
SR: Sleeping?
L2: are you keeping tabs on me?
SR: You’d be surprised.
L2: won’t ask
SR: Shouldn’t.
L2: Fancy a chat?
And your phone would ring.
“L2,” he’d greet.
“Not funny anymore.” But it was.
“Reckon it’s bloody hilarious.”
“Been too long. It’s losing its charm.”
“Charm?” He’d breathe a laugh. Almost. “Right, then—El.”
Midnight, midday, seven AM, four AM, six PM. On and off the job. Christmases and birthdays and Easters and early Sundays and late-night Mondays—
His touch, secretive and fleeting. Warm hands on the hollow of your spine as he walks by, fingers tightening the straps of your vest, adjusting the holsters on your thighs. Watchful eyes chasing your shadow in the crowd, following your fingers as they deftly work through cables and buttons. Burning holes on the back of your hands as you aptly defuse an IED. His huff of relief, his palm warm on your shoulders. A pat, a caress.
“Good job, L2.”
“Fuck off with that,” you’d laugh. “Spooky fucker.”
“That’s my El.”
They don’t get it.
Or maybe they do.
Price wrinkled his nose, but didn’t stop you. Kyle took over your shift. Johnny gave you the means to reach him.
Maybe they saw it—your eyes softening whenever he walked into a room, his shoulders unravelling whenever your voice crackled over comms. Two peas in a pod, birds of a feather. The moon and the fucking sun. Lieutenant Riley and his 2nd lieutenant.
LT and L2. Ghost and El.
On the seventh day of no contact, you couldn’t take it anymore. You raided Tesco, you begged Johnny to give you his address (and thankfully, he was just as worried as you were—you’d have hated pulling rank on him), and he secretly passed you Simon’s medical file so you could pop by the chemist too.
Now, you find yourself properly hauling your own weight in groceries along the stone path leading to his cottage. You drop them with a grunt in front of his door.
On your side, his car is parked. Second-hand. Onyx black. Bird shit on the roof, windows grainy with soil and opaqued with rain tracks.
Unused for a while. Normal, in a way. It’s not like he can drive in that state. For any amenities, a nurse would come by, provided by the SAS. Sometimes he’d open and be cordial enough. Sometimes he would just tell them to leave groceries and whatnot at the door.
The nurse told Price it had been days since Simon even answered his phone calls, never mind open the door. Price told the team, but not you. Kyle passed you the intel with the same secrecy as a mole working for the enemy.
Gooseflesh crawls up your spine as you look at the weathered bronze of the doorknob. There’s no doorbell that you can see.
You knock.
“Lieutenant.”
Nothing.
The wind grazes your ears, ruffles the fronds as it intersects with the leaves. You dry the pearls of sweat on your forehead with the back of your hand, and knock again.
“L.T.,” you say, trying to sound chirpy. “Special delivery!”
Silence.
You lean to the side and try to peek through an overgrown bush into one of the windows, but the curtains are drawn shut. You bring your thumb to your lips and nibble at a cuticle.
Knock.
“Lieutenant!” Again. Worry seeps through the cracks. “It’s me! It’s lieutenant—”
You chew on your name. It dies on your tongue.
“It’s L2!” You yell instead. “It’s El!”
Blood beads on your thumbnail, bitten short.
Knock knock.
“Please open the door?” You venture. Your heart pounds in your ears. “I’m so fucking—so fucking tired and worried.”
Knock knock knock.
“Where the fuck do you live anyway, uh?” You sniffle. Your nose stings. “Was right, wasn’t I? You are fucking Snow White.”
Nothing.
Loudest silence you’ve ever heard.
You hate it. You want to fill it with more knocks, with more yells, with the sound of his footsteps, with the gravel of his voice, the crackle through comms, the clicking of his ankle when he rests his weight on it for too long, the burn of his cigarette in the coldest nights, the breath of a laugh he wants to swallow but doesn’t manage.
“Lieu—” You gulp. “Simon? Please.”
On the far right, there’s a bench whose greyish paint is chipping away. Old wood rots in the centre because of rain and constant humidity. Even though you sat in that godforsaken car for the past four hours and some, you feel your knees buckling the more you keep standing.
So, you carry yourself over there. Drop down. The bench creaks. As predicted, it’s wet and it seeps through your jeans. You sigh.
“I brought you food!” You go on, “And if you don’t open the door I’m gonna eat it. Everything. Even your stupid chocolate biscuits—I’m gonna gobble them up in one sitting.”
The milk will go bad if you don’t put it in a fridge. The ice cream will melt.
“The bourbon too,” you yell. “Gonna drink it all. Gonna get comatose on your stupid bench in this—in this fucking fairy grove you live in.”
The fruit will start softening. The meat will start rotting and smelling. And flies will run to it, conquer it, eat it raw, and lay their eggs inside. Their buzz will drive you insane, and you’ll lose your mind on this bench, in the middle of nowhere.
“And I’m gonna sleep here until you open that fucking door, you hear me?” Your voice cracks. “And I’m gonna get sick and—and it’ll be your fault, because you didn’t open the bloody door.”
You wonder whether you’d smell the same thing if you broke it down. If the buzz would be heavier, more persistent. If it would be something else driving you insane.
The image flashes bright and real. Smells like you have it within reach, before you, hanging from a chandelier, drowning in a crimson bathtub, or melting on the bed, stomach filled with pills and nothing else.
Your heart plummets at your feet. You feel claustrophobic, boxed in a square of cement that pushes in your shoulders and compresses your chest.
“Simon!” You yell, voice cracking. Droplets stain your jeans. It’s not raining. “You fucking cunt open the fucking door!”
Elbows on your knees, you drop your head in your hands. You’re so tired. You don’t even know if you can drive back home, especially now that the sun is setting. You’d gladly sleep in your car—fuck, you’d sleep on this bench if it meant finding him at the door the next morning, looking all cranky and grumbling about the mess you made.
All you can do is plead quietly, a breathy prayer you hope he can hear, even if only whispered.
“Please open the fucking door, please open the fucking door—"
Are you strong enough to break it down? You’re special forces, but you’re not a battering ram. You don’t have the tools that would help—you didn’t think you were gonna need them.
Stupid.
Are you brave enough to open the door? To find what’s inside? Should you call the police? An ambulance?
The thought makes you retch. You cover your mouth and bite on your palm.
“This fucking idiot—” You whisper. Swallow thick. Your throat stings as bile rises. “I swear to God you selfish bastard, you better not. You better fucking not, Simon, I will—”
“Which bourbon?”
Your head snaps.
His shoulders, wide and hunched, fill the doorway, open enough for you to see him entirely. A grey shirt hangs loose around his torso. He’s got his hands stuffed in the pockets of his joggers, but there’s a strain in his arms. Corded and rigid, tied in a way that shows in his neck, too.
A scar runs thick down the side of his head, starting from the centre of his forehead and tipping at the shell of his ear, following a curved line clearly left by a surgeon. Bulbous near his temple, where the flesh was too soft and took longer to heal.
Darkness blossoms under his eyes, swollen and sunken at the same time; puffy with sleep, hollow with tiredness. He’s paler than usual, his cheeks are gaunt, and he’s so much fucking thinner.
But he’s alive.
His chest rises. His blood runs.
You blink.
A tear threatens to stream down your cheek, but you anticipate it, drying its path with the back of your hand. Your bones soften, muscles unclenched. Clumsily, you take a trembling breath, and it feels like it’s the first time you’ve ever done it.
“I-I don’t know,” you stutter. “Don’t drink the stuff. Asked the clerk for his favourite and he just—just tossed it in there.”
“Mh.”
His eyes look for the bottle amongst the mountain of food and drinks stuffed in the bags.
“You better like it.” You sniffle and nod at the bags. “Fifty-five quid just for that thing.”
He snorts. Sighs. “Good enough then.”
You exchange looks.
Then, he nods his head inside.
“Help me out?” He drawls.
Dizzy, you nod. Your legs tingle as if they’ve just been awakened, your stomach rumbles like you haven’t eaten in days. The world turns upside down—relief so visceral and thick you feel like it’s drowning you.
You stumble to the doorway. Your guts squeeze and thrash. You might throw up, but you don’t, swallowing the tightening feeling clawing up your throat.
You stuff the smaller pharmacy bags inside the Tesco ones.
Simon leans in too, taking his hands out of his pockets.
You hadn’t seen the aftermath yet.
He’s missing the last two fingers on his left hand. Surgery scars run along the back of both, slicing the tattoo on his forearm in a cobweb of thick, ruddy lines. That is, where the flesh isn’t rubbery and burnt, convoluted as if yearning to weld itself back together in the aftermath of being torn apart.
They shake—fiercely, like he’s experiencing an earthquake inside his body; unfolding before your eyes, shattering his bones.
You look at them. Transfixed. At the mangled flesh sewn back together, at the tremble that runs through his veins and tips at his nails. The strain of his muscles clawing up his arms, taut to the point of pain—like he’s putting all his effort to keep them still, to exert control over them.
Control he lost.
When you lift your eyes again, you meet his face.
Stone cold. Dreadfully frigid.
“The bags are heavy,” you croak.
“Carried worse,” he replies flatly, and his hands curl around the handles of two.
His fingers tighten, knuckles painted white. Nails bite his palms, but he perseveres. Swallows a groan of pain that rumbles in his throat and lifts the groceries off the floor.
The plastic bags crackle like a gale is blowing furiously through them. The glass of the bottles clinks. You see, as he walks inside, the tension in his gait: forcing his legs to cooperate, to work by themselves, as he focuses exclusively on the stability of his hands.
Without looking back, he leaves the door open for you to follow.
You stand frozen stock still, arms down your sides, and eyes brimming with guilt.
Carried worse, he said.
Carried you, months ago, when the bomb went off.
Six Months Earlier
Intel’s rarely faulty when the source is the police themselves.
Granted, even in these cases, one should always take statistics into consideration: a mole, a diversion, the original source. However, things sometimes are so obvious that statistics fall flat.
Because in front of you, right now, there’s a big, fat bomb. No doubt about it.
A squared box, half as tall as you. It’s raggedly painted black, as if someone decided to spray the colour on the metal slabs at the last minute. Rust gathers at each corner, likely due to the humidity building up in this underground tunnel, which is also chipping away at the paint and leaving ruddy streaks scattered down the sides.
It’s not much different from the ones you’ve dispensed of already, at least at first sight. There’s no timer, not a visible one at least. Though from the looks of it, you don’t think this one is timed at all. If you’re fortunate, it needs to be manually detonated on site. Worst-case scenario, it can be set off remotely.
Thank fuck you’re wearing sturdy PPE, then.
With a huff, you flop on your knees before it. There’s a soft puff as the pressure pushes air out of your suit—a big, cumbersome thing that safely cradles you from head to toe.
“Captain,” you call through comms. “You sure it’s off, yeah?”
The static preceding his voice buzzes softly through your ear, before John’s usual rasp fills the helmet shielding your head.
“Local bomb squad’s had a look already,” he says. “Said it’s old.”
Though the bomb in front of you looks untouched by the deft hands of a demolition specialist. You wonder how they concluded that the device is too old to be active, since there doesn’t seem to be a sign that it has been studied at all.
“Doesn’t look like they did anything, though,” you offer.
John grunts. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”
“Right.”
His voice rumbles even through the distortion of the radio. “Just passing it on, L2. They want us to check it before they move it.”
You roll your eyes at the nickname. You knew it would stick—Simon’s convincing like that—though it is the first time John actually uses it.
You let it slide.
“And why’s that?”
“Signed by Konni.”
You tilt your head and easily spot the mark of Konni group sprayed on one side, dried red paint drawing a path downwards from where it dripped.
“Always nice to see an old friend, isn’t it?”
“Keep us updated, yeah?”
“On it.”
You squeeze your eyes through the visor of your helmet, focusing on possible entry points. Each breath you take is measured and quiet as you clear your mind to steady yourself.
“Alrigh’?”
Though considering the questioning drawl coming from beside you, you’d wager the suit is amplifying not only your voice, but also the heaviness of your panting.
It’s fucking hot in this thing.
“You shouldn’t be here.” You give him a sidelong glance. He’s not wearing an EOD, only his usual uniform with an added clunky helmet, a bulletproof vest, and his stupid skull mask. “Especially not naked like that.”
“Naked, uh?” He snorts. “Better get a good look, then.”
You bite down a smile and return your eyes to your job. “Captain, the lieutenant is padding around in his birthday suit.”
Price’s voice crackles through the comms in your ear. By his tone, you can practically see the tight set of his jaw and the roll of his eyes.
“Ghost, either wear the EOD or leave the premises, for fuck’s sake. Don’t fancy scraping you off the walls.”
Simon gently kicks the side of your boot. “Rat.”
You turn your head around just enough to stick out your tongue at him.
“I asked the second lieutenant a question an’ she ain’t answered yet,” he drawls with his usual dispassionate tone. “Permission to kick her off the team?”
“You won’t hear a single fuckin’ word she says if you’re ground meat, Simon,” Price’s voice rasps. “Wear the bloody PPE and then we’ll talk.”
Static replaces John’s orders as communication cuts off on his part.
Only then does Simon pitch in.
“I asked you a question.”
You sigh, but it’s neither weary nor exasperated.
“Yeah, I’m alright,” you huff, already tinkering with your toolbox. “Why aren’t you wearing the gear?”
“I’m in good hands.”
“Thanks, I’m immensely flattered,” you quip. “Please go wear it now.”
“Thought it was too old to still be active.”
You don’t have time to roll your eyes, because as soon as he mutters his thoughts, you notice a familiar indented square in one of the panels. A carefully hidden entry point that, once popped open, will show you the intricacies inside the device. It’s like spotting an oasis in the desert.
You reach for a flat tip in your toolbox at your knees. Carefully, you wedge it in the embrasure.
It only takes a few tries, and it unhinges seamlessly. Metal clinks as you gently place the lid on the ground.
There’s no need for you to look his way—his presence is like a heavy blanket wrapped around your shoulders. A shadow sewn to your own.
“I won’t support your suicidal tendencies, so please, for the love of Christ, listen to the engineer—” you point at yourself with the screwdriver, “—and go wear the bloody bomb suit.”
Simon stays silent for a handful of seconds, only filled with the tinkering of metal of your tools.
“Worried ‘bout me, are ya?”
You huff. No use pretending, when he can see right through you. “Plenty.”
“Good heart.”
“Chop chop, Riley.”
“Aye aye, El.”
With a gentle squeeze of your shoulder, Simon turns on his heel. His footsteps become distant until the soft thud finally vanishes behind the creaky door that first led you down here, slamming shut behind you.
You don’t turn around, too focused on studying the wires wrapped around each other in the panel you just opened. There’s an entire bundle crossing the opening diagonally and so shrouding most of the circuit board in the back. They’re held together by a couple of cable ties that look awfully cheap, like the rest of the device.
“Weird,” you mumble to yourself.
“What is?” John pitches in.
You flinch, not expecting an answer to your musings.
“Uhm, uh—” You shake your head to recollect yourself. “The bomb—it looks quite cheap. Not their usual MO.”
John hums. “Could be one of Konni’s earliest works. Disposal said it’s old, innit?”
“Yeah,” you huff. “I don’t trust a single word those fuckers said.”
“Right,” he grunts, though you recognise that hint of agreement in it. “Do what you can with it. Keep me updated.”
“Roger that, captain.”
Back on track. First thing to do is get rid of those ties to isolate the cables.
You work quietly for a while, removing your gloves to minimise errors while doing such minute movements. The flush cutters are sturdy but the blades are small, and the thickness of the cable ties is stupidly non-existent. You want to avoid cutting things you shouldn’t.
However, you can’t quite ease the knot of doubt forming in your guts.
This device has literally nothing preventing you from disposing of it. Everything is poorly put together. The control centre was placed under a thin slab of metal, which you simply popped off using the flat tip of a screwdriver. There are corner store-level cable ties keeping together a bundle of wires. Each cable isn’t isolated, but either overlaps with others or knots on itself.
This is amateurish.
And you know, with utmost certainty, that Konni isn’t. The same Konni group that blew up an entire airport wouldn’t DIY a bomb and spray paint their signature on a slab of metal like a mere local gang of criminals.
Unless—
“El? You with us?”
Simon’s voice snaps you out of it. He sounds muffled and echoey, as if he’s speaking from behind a glass. You recognise that distortion: he put on the bomb suit.
Relief floods through you.
You shake your head to clear your mind. Sweat collects on your forehead. You feel each drop brewing on your skin, only to then slowly make its way to your brow, then your eye.
Your fingers close around the cutters, and the first tie snaps off.
Then, you squeeze your eyes to get rid of the burn.
“Yeah,” you huff. “They should invent more comfortable suits for us in demo. It’s fucking sweltering in here.”
Price’s voice crackles once more. “We’ll hire a fashion designer.”
Simon snorts.
“Look at you, captain,” you croon. “Providing jobs for the youth.”
You’re sure he’s rolling his eyes. “Do yours or you’ll lose it.”
But you know it’s an empty threat. Jokes tossed around to defuse the tension as you defuse your bomb. High stress situations require ways to destress in order to keep your mind clear and at ease, even as your life is on the line.
“Aye aye.”
And from then on, silence lingers, only interrupted by Simon shifting his weight on his feet behind you. The crinkle of the suit folding as he moves, the tap of his fingers against the pack he must be holding in his hands. There’s the occasional clink of metal when you drop a tool in its box, or the snap of plastic as yet another tie comes off.
And finally, you manage to isolate the cables from one another. Carefully you pinch one between two fingers and shift it to the side, only so you can have a broader vision of the circuit board in the back.
It’s entirely dead. Singed in places, the lights are off, no sounds fill your ears unless it's the ones you’ve already recognised as familiar. The blasting cap has an old serial number on it, different from the most recent ones you came across. The base was once attached to a couple of red cables that have been cut from their root.
You exhale, emptying your lungs in a single, long breath.
“It’s dead.”
John huffs through comms. “Thank Christ, eh. Sending Garrick over. ETA 20.”
But you stay put, staring holes through the jungle of wires that intersect and crisscross like vines in front of you, draped on the circuit board.
Simon shifts from behind you and comes to crouch by your side. The same puff of air exhales from his suit. You turn your head to look at him, though with the helmet it’s hard to have a good view of his face.
He’s taken off the skull mask to favour the protective gear placed around his head. His eyes aren’t poised on the bomb, though; they’re on your face. He must pick up on something there that doesn’t reassure him, because he knows you better than he should.
“Hang on, Price,” he rumbles.
You stall for a moment.
It’s only a hunch that spurs you to negate certainty. You’re special forces, an engineer—sixth sense isn’t enough to support evidence.
But Simon believes in it. He trusts that tiny spark he sees in your eye, the tautness of your fingers as they curl into fists atop your knees. You hear him sniff, shift on his knees to get closer.
“El?” He whispers, perhaps not wanting the radio to pick up on it.
Your stomach lurches.
“I mean—” You gesture vaguely at the device. “It looks dead. The circuit board is gone, and the wires have been cut from the detonator. Some of this shit could be older than me—"
John cuts through your conversation. He sounds irritated, and in turn, it irritates you, too.
“Get to the point.”
You stare at the dead circuit board. The main piece of this puzzle. It doesn’t take an engineer like you to recognise that it’s long gone, but in a very peculiar way that you don’t know how to explain without sounding like a lunatic, it looks too long gone.
You smack your lips. “Something’s wrong. It feels—”
“Don’t care how it feels, lieutenant. Is it dead or not?”
“Listen, John, I’m not here to fucking play—"
“Need to have another look at it, boss,” Simon cuts in. “Give us a minute, will ya?”
“Roger.”
You sigh. You wish you could scratch your forehead. Your scalp stings as sweat collects on it. Each tiny, uncomfortable thing happening to you is amplified, including the knot in your guts.
“I hate him with passion each time he acts like—”
“He can still hear ya.”
“Good.”
If John can actually still hear you, he doesn’t voice it. Thankfully, you think, because if he pitches in again with some more of his caustic sarcasm, you might just say things before your mind can properly filter them.
You take a couple of seconds to recollect your thoughts, guiding your eyes to study the device. It’s composed of rusted metal plates welded together and protecting the bomb inside. You’d need a plasma cutter to breach the plate, but the heat could set the thing off if it’s live. In fact, there are no entry points aside from a small, squared panel that you’ve opened with unexpected ease.
Considering how the rest of the thing is protected, however, it feels out of place. Conveniently put there for you to declare that the device is gone, when it actually isn’t.
A hunch isn’t enough to negate evidence, that is true, but it’s there, and you won’t allow it to gnaw at your guts.
Easy is never the right answer, not with Makarov.
“Pass me the snake cam.”
You hold your hand out to Simon, palm up, without sparing him a glance.
Your ears pick up on sounds even if you’re entirely wrapped in protective gear, even if your heart pounds madly up your throat. A zipper being opened, a cable as it unfolds. His hands are warm when they place the cold wire in your palm, steady when they close your fingers around it.
“Get it in,” he says. “I’ll hook it up.”
In the corner of your eye, pale hands reach inside the pack at his knees to pull out a pad. It blinks to life as he taps his fingers on it.
Gently, you insert the tip of the snake cam into the opened panel, carefully steering the camera underneath the knotted bundle of cables and behind the seemingly dead circuit board.
“Got anything?” You ask Simon.
“Too dark.”
“Turn on the flash.”
The pace of your heart matches the rapid tap of fingertips running across the pad. In a blink, a soft glow fills the darkness behind the board.
Simon hums.
“Got something.”
You inhale sharply. Your eyes flicker around, sifting through your thoughts as if you can see them, rushing unrestrained with endless possibilities. You squeeze them shut, clearing out the sting of sweat as it builds up on your brow and fogs up your sight.
“Fuck. Let’s switch.”
Simon shifts until he’s kneeling behind you. The rustle of his suit precedes his arms as they come around your head, carefully taking the cable from your fingers.
“Got it.”
Ever so slowly, you remove your hands, shuffling on your knees and ducking your head to leave the shelter of his body. With no minimal effort, considering the weight of your blast suit, you manage to stumble to where he once sat, grabbing the pad he left lying on the ground.
As he said, there’s something. The flash clearly highlights a darkened silhouette, bulky and squared, but the quality of the camera doesn’t allow you to make out much more of it.
Only one thing stands out.
A light.
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
“Thought so,” he spits. “Fucking Makarov.”
You don’t have time to curse him as well, though you quietly share the sentiment.
“John.”
Like lightning, his voice crackles in your ear. “Send over.”
“We got something.”
“Details.”
“In a sec. Stay on.”
You look at Simon. He’s perfectly still, not a tremble in his fingers, exactly as you’d expected. He’d make an incredible demo specialist, though you know he’s an even better sniper.
“Gentle, Simon,” you murmur. “Need you to go south.”
He follows your orders, sliding the cable down inside the box.
“Gentle,” you repeat. “Slower.”
And without a single word, he heeds you. Trusts you. Lets the camera cover each corner, bit by bit, moving his muscles imperceptibly as he snakes the camera through the jungle of wires.
Now closer to the device, you can better make out its details on the screen. It’s not old nor rusted, not singed nor dead. It sits attached to one side of the box, each cable perfectly isolated and running on sinuous curves around the circuit board. One that blinks red, then green, then red again—beating like a heart, shifting its colours inside the darkness.
Stacks of white rubber are slathered around it, bulky and thick. You curse under your breath.
“C4.”
Simon clicks his tongue. “Christ.”
“John, tell the local authorities to clear out the area now,” you order steadily. “Add that they’re a bunch of lazy cunts, too.”
“Will do.” Then, quietly, “good work, lieutenant. Stay safe, both of you.”
“Roger.”
The static on the radio goes dead. There’s only your heart pounding in your ears, falling in rhythm with the switch of colours on the screen.
Red, green. Red, green.
Simon’s voice reaches out to you. “See a blasting cap?”
“Yeah.” You tongue your cheek. “South. Then move to the right.”
He follows suit, once again trusting you entirely. As the camera moves, you try to take stock of each tiny detail you can make out. The quality is poor, but you’re starting to have a general idea of what you’re working with. The serial number stamped on the blasting cap matches those of more recent detonators, causing the theory of the local bomb squad to completely crumble.
Red, green. Red, green.
While you can’t make out the logo on the circuit board, you recognize the finish immediately: factory-made, not cobbled together in some basement workshop. New. Polished clean. A pale square chip mounted against the green lacquer of the board.
Red, green. Red, red, green.
You blink.
“Stop.”
Simon falls still.
Red, green. Red, red, green.
There. Blinking in the shadows, off to the side.
“Right. Go to the right. Quick.”
Simon doesn’t put up a fight, though you can see the uncomfortable shift of his knees. Imperceptible and yet conveying the same nervousness festering in your eyes as they fly across the screen. He is quick with his hands to find the source of the light.
It ticks, ticks, ticks.
“Shit—Simon, drop it!”
And if the clock is right, it will tick only for two minutes more.
“Drop that shit and run!”
Simon bolts on his feet, awfully quick considering the bomb suit clinging to him. You hadn’t accounted for that. Fuck, you hadn’t accounted for any of this.
You told him to wear it. You put that extra weight on him. He would’ve been out of the place and far away enough to be safe if you hadn’t insisted, if you’d let the overwhelmingly stupid trust he had in you to win, for once.
“Fuck—” You drop the pad and stand up. Your knees buckle under the cumbersome weight of your suit and the sudden dread gripping your stomach.
“It’s timed, John!” You bellow. Your yell echoes inside the EOD helmet, ringing in your own ears. “We’re leaving—no time to defuse it. Less than two minutes and it goes off!”
An old, singed circuit board as a decoy to mask the real bomb ticking away just beneath its surface. Only a demolition specialist like those in the UKFS would’ve thought of venturing further inside the device.
Makarov knew it.
He knew the local authorities would have called the anti-terrorism unit as soon as they saw the Konni group mark. Makes sense that he signed the device so clearly, like a fucking amateur.
He wanted John’s team there.
He knew those bastards wouldn’t be arsed to check further. Why would they take on the burden when they could leave it in the good hands of better-trained professionals.
Call the big guns and then call it a day.
“Run. Don’t look back and run, both of you.”
He doesn’t need to tell you twice. You’re already panting, forcing your legs to move against the strain put onto them by the suit—not protection anymore, but a cage. Your knees don’t bend as they should, your feet struggle to hold you up. The sting in your eyes, the heart in your ears.
Simon’s ahead of you as you trudge behind him. But he’s faster, stronger—able to carry the added kilograms of his blast suit as if it’s only a mere annoyance to him.
Though he must hear you—or rather, he must feel the lack of you by his side.
He halts in his steps and looks behind to find you.
“Fuck—faster, El!”
“I know!” You’d like to yell at him to shut the fuck up, but that would be a waste of precious breath that you need to focus on using to run.
“Go!” Your voice cracks. “Fucking run, Riley!”
Though he’s been standing still for so long that you’re now by his side.
You stagger past him, grabbing his hand to tug him with you—though that’s one arduous thing, rooted on the ground as he is.
“We got one minute at most—run ahead for fuck’s sake!”
It’s like you can hear it, now—each ticking breath exhaled by the device behind you. You wonder if it had always been there, signalling his presence as you knelt next to it, but you were acting too cocky to notice it.
Your fault. Your fault. Your fault—
Your rushing thoughts recede to a trickle the moment you feel Simon’s hand slipping away from yours. As it does, he takes your own heart with him, as you feel it skip a beat inside your chest.
The momentum of your run makes it hard to stop, and you almost stumble on your own feet as the weight of the suit drags you forward. Thankful for a wall next to your side, you slam your palm against it to avoid falling face-first into the ground.
Though when you turn, it’s your stomach that touches it.
Simon’s already pulled at the quick-release cord hanging from the front of his jacket.
“What—”
The contraption strapped around his torso unlatches from the back. While he struggles with it, he’s impressively steady as he rips at the sleeves to take it off, shimmying his shoulders out of it with ease—chest plate and all, until everything falls on the floor at his feet.
Initially, your eyes widen in shock. Then, your face morphs into a mask of unadulterated rage.
“Are you fucking mad?!”
But he’s taking his helmet off, too. The thud of it as it hits the ground is deafening, echoing ominously in the otherwise quiet underground tunnel you’re stuck in.
“Simon what the fuck!”
“Come ‘ere an’ shut yer mouth.”
He charges forward, running much faster as most of the extra weight that was hindering him now lies uselessly on the floor. He bends at the waist, using gravity to his advantage, and reaches towards you with his arms.
You don’t have time to think as breath is knocked out of you. His arm wedges between your legs, and the world turns upside down. Darkness and grey bricks swivel and roll before your eyes as the air catches in your lungs.
Your stomach curves around his shoulders. He holds your leg with one arm, curled around your knee, and your opposite sleeve with his offhand.
He stumbles at first, trying to find his balance.
“Simon—”
“Keep still.”
And then, he runs.
There’s a rasp in his breathing that makes it sound as if his chest is being crushed. The gravel of debris crunches under his boots, stomping heavily down the tunnel. Each sound is amplified, but you’re unsure of what is real and what isn’t.
He trembles. Groans fiercely for each step he takes, baring his teeth as if to scare an invisible monster ahead of him.
“I’m slowing you down!” You yell, hoping the chaos won’t mask your voice too much. “Put me down! I—I have the bomb suit on, I’m going to be fine!”
Though that’s a lie. He knows it, and you do as well. If the tunnel collapses, no miracle can bring you back.
But at least your head would be protected, giving you a chance. Your chest, too. Your legs. A minuscule, tiny possibility to have a minute more to breathe as you wait for Search and Rescue.
A chance he doesn’t have, not with half of his suit now lying uselessly on the floor.
However, Simon doesn’t answer, just runs. Runs and runs and runs, towards the exit at the end of the tunnel. It’s close, maybe another handful of meters, and yet now it feels like an endless chasm ready to suck you in.
A black hole hidden underground.
You don’t know how much time you have left before the bomb goes off. Your breathing picks up, hand reaching around to fist his shirt around his collar to make him please, please listen.
“Please Simon, please!”
His eyes are fixed ahead, feet as quick as can be considering the weight he’s carrying—yours, his own, the suits. He stumbles, pace naturally slowing down due to the effort, but it doesn’t deter him. Hits walls with his shoulders, slams your helmet and your boots against corners, but he never stops.
He just looks ahead, drunk on adrenaline and ignoring the unfathomable strain he’s putting on his body.
Your eyes sting with panic and tears. His face is red with exertion and lucid with sweat as it beads on his forehead. Then his run turns into a stagger, trembling legs forcing themselves ahead.
Simon bursts through the door. Your helmet knocks against it.
At the same time, the tunnel’s darkness turns blinding white.
An open relationship happened with Ghost after a few years.
He asked to open it. He couldn't look you in the eyes when he murmered it, you couldn't find it in you to fight a losing battle.
He'd just been so irritable lately, he'd always shrug his shoulder to get your hand off him when you'd scratch his back. A few times of that and you stopped. You stopped putting so much thought into dinner after he'd come home saying he'd eaten.
But Ghost had to ask for the open marriage, he had to. And Simon Riley had to cry into Johnny neck as he fucked into him. He just couldn't stay away, he made the wrong choice marrying you, he would've made the wrong choice marrying Johnny.
Somehow in six years you'd never met his best friend but you knew of the man, knew how wild he was. No clue what he looked like though, he had no pictures of his crew.
He couldn't marry Johny because the man was so unfaithful. It was just too hard for him to stick to one track. But Ghost opened up his marriage for him, he ruined his wife for him.
It took ages for you to stop crying so much in front of him. You knew it was hopeless, but how could you divorce him. You knew you would never find another man even remotely like him again. So you stayed in your opened marriage. Was he even doing anything with it? He never came home smelling like another woman, not even hotel soap.
It took even longer for Simon to see you get back to normal, if only a little bit. Your eyes stopped being so puffy all the time for one. Less and less tissues were seen on the grocery bills.
Only to find out the man who'd been cheering up his wife was Soap himself.
