Line cook!Simon who's been sweet on you lately, always making sure to get your tables tickets out as fast as possible, and managing to sneak you a snack during your shifts.
He always brushes it off, shrugging about it when you ask, 'was tryin' somethin' new ou', luv, tell me f'its good, yeah?', knowing he would never let you eat anything less than delicious. Regardless, hes always eagerly watching for your approval, wanting to see that stupid smile on your face as you gush about his work.
Waitress!Reader whos saved plenty of money on meals, because even with your employee discount, appetisers and sides cost a fair bit of money when it adds up over the week. Not that it mattered anymore, Simon was always using his cooks discount to get you main meals, 'no' gonna le' 'is luvie, go hungry, will 'e?'
Head chef!Price who cocks a brow every time SImon does it, but never pries. Game is game, after all.
Simon who always makes sure to give you a lift home, even when you finish earlier than him, using his break to do so. He also manages to learn that your crappy studio flat is in the bad part of town...
Line cook!Simon who is quick to suggest you moving in with him. He lives close to your uni, you'd save money on rent, and be able to travel to work together most days.
You're quick to agree, it sounding like a dream to not worry about rent or transport and to live with your friend who's been so sweet to you!
Now he just has to figure out how to ask you out and address your lack of self preservation, because really luv, youd only known him a few months...
A/n: wait guys I might lowkey be onto something, let me cook up my idea 🫰
ALSO, if there are any specific posts of mine that you want a part 2 for, let me know cause im struggling to decide ("-ࡇ-)
I think about mean!Simon not wanting you to leave his place after staying at his place for too so long.
He’s very good at playing house with you, from cooking dinner and you washing dishes, hours spent in his arms and laughing at his corny jokes, trying your best to kick him out the bathroom while you go to the bathroom or do your hair. Your little conversations to yourself as he passes the room you might be in, finding you blasting music and going through photos. Whisky brown eyes glued to your thighs in his shirt that you’re wearing. The man likes the fact that he can come home to you, let you talk his head off or vice versa. Slugger, his dog, is more than happy to have two parents rather than one.
So when it’s time for you to go home— why is that even a thought that crossed you mind?
Simons mid bite of his sandwich when his ears catch the ‘thud’ of one of your duffle bags full of clothes is dropinh to the door.
His eyebrows are knitted together when he sees you coming down the stairs with another duffle, “Tho’ y’were jokin about leavin kitty.”
You bite back a smile, cheeks growing warm, “I can’t stay here forever Si, I gotta wash my clothes!”
“‘Ve got a washer ‘nd dryer.”
“I can’t wear the same clothes for ever! My closet is calling me.”
“Shops callin us then, yeah? Can get ya new clothes.”
You giggle through a groan, “Simon!” 
The rugged man is already pulling you by the waist and into his chest, nuzzling his face into the crook of your neck. He can’t say it, won’t say the words ‘don’t go’ or ‘I’ll miss you’ formally. But it bleeds through everything so blatantly, you can’t help but let out a chuckle. Rubbing his broad and scared back. Your fingers glide through his blonde locks of hair, scratching his scalp. “Why’re you bein cute, huh? so big ‘n bein cute.“
It’s got his heart pounding so loud, he lets out an incoherent grumble, as to quiet his own heart. Such a baffling yet peculiar feeling that the man has only groan more and more fond of with each passing day with you. Before you can even realize it, you’re being thrown over Simons shoulder that makes you yelp out. Slapping at his back to put you down, which he does, on the couch, not hesitating to lay atop of you and inhale your scent.
“You’re bein a fucking brat Simon, come on!” You giggle, it’s exactly how you ended up staying another week. Simon lifting you off your feet and taking back to bed because, ‘it’s too late to drive at night’ when it was only 6pm, and then in the morning, ‘it’s rainin too much’ when it was only drizzling.
Today’s no different, now, sandwiched between his chest and and the couch, head resting on his bicep. Letting him wrap his strong arms around you, so easily leaning into the soft touch of his calloused fingers at the back of your nape, your eyes closing.
“Is this how you usually treat the other girls around you?” You tease ever so lightly, not even expecting an answer.
He gruffly answers, distinct, “Why would I want anyone else ‘ere but you?”
And oh, how that alone shouldnt make your stomach flip like that, shouldn’t make you hide your face in his chest to hide a silly smile, wanting to run into an open field laughing.
“This is your answer then,” he hums, soft pink lips pressing to your temple, “you’ll stay.”
“That doesn’t sound like a question.” You say, another kiss falling to the apple of your cheek, your nose, your other cheek.
“ ‘S not.”
You hold onto him tighter, letting out a soft giggle between his kisses, “Agh, then I don’t know, got shit to do—“
“—Don’t be a bloody pain kitten, just stay.”
You feign contemplation for a moment, making the brute of a man fucking pout. Nuzzling his face into between the crook of your neck.
“…One more night couldn’t hurt, I guess.”
One more night, my ass. Simon thinks.
How about ‘move in.’
a/n: I could stare at your back allll dayyyyyyy, I could stare at your baAAack all DAAAAAAAYYYYYY
cw: afab!reader, video sex, simon is both hopeless and hopelessly in love your honour. 1.4k words.
"si… up a bit. or down a bit. just not… there. all i can see is your left nipple. which isn't a terrible view, but it's not the one i'm after babe." you're biting your lip, staring into your phone screen from the comfort of your pillow laden bed, tucked safely away in yours and simon's shared flat - a classified amount of miles from wherever the fuck in the world he is.
"love," he grumbles from off screen. "i don't think you quite understand the realities of my current situation. i am fuckin' large. an' i'm sleepin' on a bunk bed made for a bloke 'alf my size. give me a fuckin' second."
he finally comes into view properly- more than his left nipple anyway - face filling your phone screen. brown eyes, albeit with dark circles under them, stubble grown out for more than a few days.
but it's his face. the face you miss waking up to in the mornings when he's gone like he is now, trapped in some shitty temporary base somewhere. doing things you don't particularly care to think too closely about.
"there you are." you say quietly, voice softened around the edges with affection. "hey baby."
you can see him visibly relax - jaw unclenching, frown lifting. "hey petal." his lips twitch at the corners when he sees your reality compared to his. "you look fuckin' comfy, don't you?"
you grin - smug - and nod. "i am so fucking comfy si."
his lips twitch again. "good. you deserve to be, love."
and he means it.
the two of you catch up for a while - mostly you speaking, the same as usual - filling him on the minutiae of your life, the squabbles at work, the cups of tea you've been having with your 83 year old next door neighbour edna some afternoons. he listens, enraptured, like you're telling him the secrets of the universe and not small, everyday things.
he offers a few things in return - not much. just that johnny is being particularly explosion happy and gaz has got himself a boyfriend who likes caps as much as he does.
then you adjust positions slightly, the camera dropping down and giving simon a glimpse of the white tank top you're wearing; thin cotton stretched over your chest, nipples hard little peaks under fabric.
he groans.
then immediately drops his phone so you get a lopsided view of the slats of the bunk above him.
"fuck. shite." he grumbles, snatching his phone back up; holding it a little further away this time so you get a view of the scarred expanse of his chest, of blonde hairs scattered across pale skin. "sorry about tha' petal. just… you look good." a pause, "an yer tits look good. an' i 'aven't 'ad a wank for a week so i'm a little on edge."
you laugh softly, "a whole week? now that's a war crime babe."
"yeah, yeah. laugh it up." he mutters, but there's no real heat in it. he drags a hand down his face, "not exactly easy to sort myself out when i'm sharin' a safehouse with ten other blokes and sleepin' in a bed that creaks if i breath too 'ard."
you shift onto your side, propping your phone against a pillow so he gets a clearer view of you - tank top riding up over your waist, almost exposing the curve of your breast.
simon exhales audibly. "christ."
"you could always try." you say with a smirk. "be fun to watch you."
you know from the way his eyes don't leave your newly exposed skin he's going to struggle to argue.
he glances sideways - checking the door - then angles his phone so you can see more of him. the bunk is ridiculously small; one of his shoulders is wedged against the wall, his knees bent because his legs don't fit otherwise.
it would be comical if he didn't look so ridiculously attractive sprawled there shirtless.
"yer a fuckin' terrible influence." he grumbles, but he’s already shoving the waistband of his sweatpants down. his cock springs free, heavy and flushed, and he wraps a hand around himself with a hiss. “fuckin’ hell, look at what yer doin' to me. makin' me act like a fuckin' teenager.”
you grin, unrepentant, tugging your vest up, fully exposing yourself to him. "yeah, yeah. it's been a week. you'll be quick."
simon's too busy staring at your tits to notice you're getting a view of the underside of his chin and not the way his hand is wrapped around his length, stroking himself to the sight of you.
you bite back another laugh as simon's phone wobbles in his hand again - giving you a glorious, if accidental, split second shot of his cock sliding through his fist before it swings back up to his jaw.
"si," you grin, "c'mon now. if you keep giving me chin-cam i'm going to start thing you're shy."
"shy." he repeats, voice dripping with disbelief. "i'm wankin' on camera for you. an' tryin' not to take the bloody bed down with me as i do."
you shift onto your back again, propping the phone up at the end of the bed so the camera catches a better angle of you - tank top still rucked up; one hand lazily trailing down your stomach as your thighs fall open. "why don't you try that, si?"
his breath catches. audibly. and then he follows instructions like the soldier he is - camera propped at the end of the bunk; him ending up in a kneeling position, back curved to fit under the bunk above, one hand braced on the frame of the bed whilst the other wraps around himself again.
the view is perfect.
thick thighs spread wide, the muscles in his arms tensing, close enough you can see the light blonde hairs on his chest and down his stomach; leading down to where one hand is wrapped around his cock; pre come spilling over his fingers, the vein that you've memorised the shape of with your tongue pulsing slightly.
you grin. "huh. that's what you look like fucking me from behind. i don't usually get to see it. since my eyes are on the front of my head. it's a rather nice view babe."
"love." he grumbles, "petal. light of my life. can you please focus on the matter at 'and and not… yer delightful narrations on life. just for a minute or two."
you bite your lip, fighting another smile at his grumpy tone. "sorry babe. just admiring the view of you all tied up like a pretzel just to have a wank for me."
simon huffs, but his hand doesn’t stop moving - slow, long strokes, a familiar twist in his wrist as his fingers wrap around the head. "pretzel," he mutters. "fuckin' pretzel. i'll show you a bloody pretzel when i get home and fold you into one love."
you poke your tongue out, completely unremorseful - and he can't help but grin, fondness woven into the way he stares at you through the screen. "i'll hold you to that." you shoot back, biting your lip, letting your fingers trail lower, hooking the gusset of your thin underwear across to one side so he gets a full view of your cunt.
he groans. "bloody, fuckin' 'ell love. yer gonna kill me. go on. play with 'er. let me see."
your fingers glide over your slit; gathering wetness before circling your clit in time with the strokes of his hand - his fingers flex against the bed frame, knuckles white, the muscles of his chest tensing in the dim light as he watches the way your phone camera captures your cunt glistening in the warm glow of your bedside lamp, the way your face softens with pleasure.
"that's it petal. just like that. fuck - i miss you. miss this. so fuckin' much."
the distance makes both your chests ache, but this - your wrecked voices, his body contorted just for you - makes it bearable. you both drag yourselves to the edge; whispers and encouragements and wet sounds filling the call until his hips stutter and his hisses your name; spilling over his fist with a muffled grunt. the sight drives you over the edge, thighs tensing as your head falls back against the pillow; orgasm washing over you as he stares, awestruck, as your features soften out with bliss.
you both slump - you against your mountain of pillows, him against his thin military issue bedding, breathing hard, hearts slamming matching beats in your chests.
"christ, love." he mutters, camera angled to his flushed face. "thought i was gonna break the fuckin' bed. 'ow the fuck would i explain that to price?"
you laugh, tugging your top back down, bringing your phone back up from between your thighs. "worth it?"
"always." a rare, soft smile lights up his face. "get some sleep, yeah? i'll be home as soon as i can. love you, petal."
Okay I was reading your spoiled foxy post and saw how Simon thinks she should work for her orgasm…do you think he would get his way eventually? Like maybe on his birthday or if he was alone with her? Idk maybe I just want to see slightly mean!simon😝
foxy
simon has tried before. everybody else was home but it was just the two of you getting freaky. up in johns bed while everybody else works, he'll grant you that luxury.
but it always ended the same away.
kyle and johnny hearing your desperate whines and whimpers go unanswered and abandoning their chores to run to your aid.
and that leads to them eating you out while you choke around simon's cock or pulling you off of him because he's making you ride him and you're clearly struggling and fucking you themselves.
he tries so hard to make you work for it, but johnny and kyle make it so hard.
so, he waits for a day they're both out. John's taken the both of them to a livestock auction and left you alone with simon or something.
for the first time since you arrive at the farm, you have to work for your orgasm.
he holds your legs open, but he doesn't fuck you, doesn't touch you. you're trying to writhe and grind against something, but there's no friction.
"simon, please!" you cry, grabbing his hand.
he growls, sharp teeth on display. "always get what you want, don't you foxy?" his thumb brushes over your neck, a threat there. "got john and kyle wrapped around your finger. got johnny doing whatever you want."
he presses himself against you and you could cry with relief.
but it's short lived.
"should put you on the floor and make you suck me off," he grumbles. "should make you hump my fucking boot for your orgasm, not let you up until the boys get back."
a squeal leaves your lips when he picks you up and puts you on the floor. against his boot, wrapping your arms around his thick thigh as he works at his belt. "fuckin' spoilt, ain't ya?" he grumbles, freeing himself from his underwear. "gettin' whatever you want all the time."
by the time the boys get home, you're crying, grinding against simon's boot with his cock in your mouth. you're not even sucking him off, just holding him in your mouth as you writhe, working for an orgasm he's not gonna let you have.
Or, Simon is no longer satisfied with staying on the sidelines when it comes to having you
Masterlist
Ghost knows you won’t text him.
Knows it before you even left the cafe. Knows it when he watched you twist your scarf between your fingers, hesitant, bracing yourself for him to laugh and take it back, say say never mind, don’t worry about it, forget I asked.
You smiled, typed your name in fast, handed it back faster.
That’s what gets him.
The smile.
Not the smile itself, worn soft at the edges- pretty- but the way it was practiced. The expression from someone who's spent a whole life leaving rooms before anyone has to ask her to, so it won't hurt as much if you can tell yourself you left first.
You smiled like you’d already forgiven him for not using the number. Like you’re trying to make his future neglect painless for him, convenient, easy to step around. A little gift wrapped absence. No hard feelings. No expectation. No evidence that you’d hoped, even for a second, to be wanted past the moment where wanting you was convenient.
Ghost saw that smile and felt the dog in his ribs bare its teeth.
You won’t text him first. Not because you don’t want to. He knows wanting when he sees it, and you were sick with it by the end of those three hours. You weren’t loud with your wanting, giggling across the table, leaning in with your mouth soft and your lashes lowered, playing at anything clever enough to call flirting.
Your wanting was uglier than that. Lonelier. It sat underneath your skin, trapped, pressing its face to the bars every time he asked another question and didn’t look away from the answer.
You wanted his attention with the shame of someone who has gone a long time without it being give. Without being fed.
Authors always made hunger pretty in stories. They made it into longing, into hands reaching across moonlit sheets, into mouths opening under rain, into women looking out windows and being tragic in a way that can still be admired.
They don’t talk about the way starvation ruins. They don’t talk about how it hollows the eyes and rots the teeth. How it makes the stomach cramp around even the promise of food. How something can be so empty that being fed feels like a threat, because emptiness at least has been faithful. Emptiness at least never pretended to love you and then sat laughing beside another woman’s ring.
He saw you in the cafe and knew you were starving.
A thing under the porch with its belly flat to the dirt, tail tucked hard, ribs showing through the hide, eyes huge and wet. Something that had learned to live off scraps and then hated itself for salivating when a hand came close. Something that would crawl forward an inch, trembling, nose full of the smell of food, singleminded focus on the pile of meat in the palm of the hand rather than focusing on the person attached to it, never knowing whether that person was coaxing you forward to actually feed it or just wants to watch it want.
Ghost had taken you off guard.
He hadn’t meant to, not at first. The cafe had meant to be a small, controlled reintroduction. Coincident, engineered- even if the path had already been laid beneath your feet before you walked it. He had planned for a cup of tea, ten minutes, a quiet word spoken between you two.
Nothing more than a hand lowered to the ground, palm down, fingers curled in, near enough for the frightened thing to smell him without feeling seized.
Then you sat down.
And you ate.
There was no other word for it. Once you understood he was listening, once you realized he wasn’t waiting for a gap so he could put himself back in the center, something in you split open at the seams and spilled out. You started carefully at first, picking at the edge of conversation, apologizing with your eyes and your curled in shoulders every time you took up more than a mouthful of space. But he kept asking. Kept waiting. Kept his gaze steady, his voice low, greedy for even a scrap of your attention.
After that, you devoured, tearing into his attention like a starving thing with meat, single minded, blood soaking the maw of the need inside you while the rest of you tried to keep your hands clean. His questions became bones cracked open for marrow, redirecting attention back to you became bowls full of steaming food pushed closer, his patience became warmth, and you were so cold you took so much of it before you remembered you were supposed to be civilized.
You talked safe subjects, nothing important, not to you, but Simon took every piece and kept it. Let it settle under his ribs. Let it gather, building a nest inside his chest, taking up space that had previously been empty for so long.
Then you saw the clock and there it was: the flinch after feeding.
He watched the horror move through you. Watched you understand three hours had passed and immediately become sorry for them. Sorry for speaking. Sorry for taking. Sorry for having a need visible enough that someone might recognize the size of it.
You gathered yourself head down, tail tucked, voice gone light and brittle with the scramble to leave before he could change his mind about wanting you there.
He should have let you go.
He asked for your number instead.
Now, sitting in the dark of his car with your contact open on his phone, he can still see the way you looked when he did. Startled, then pleased, then frightened by the pleasure.
You held his phone and he could see you already imagining how this would go: You’d give him your number, spend the next several days looking at your phone every time it chimed, hope blooming so instinctively you never had the chance to crush it. Then you’d see it was only another app notification, another spam email, another weather alert, and quietly swallow the disappointment before it had the chance to embarrass you. By the end of the week, your stomach would churn with hope turned sour almost as soon as your screen lit up.
Still, you typed.
That matters.
(He tells himself that has to matter.)
Now, he sits with your name glowing beneath his thumb and his thoughts drift towards Price.
That’s the bitter root of it, isn’t it? Price. Always Price somewhere under the skin of this. Price with his steady hands and his calm voice and the brutal, useful patience that once got inside Simon Riley the same way he did to you, teaching the dog in his ribs where to lie down.
Ghost remembers being young, though young feels like the wrong word to use. Young implies something soft that could have still been saved. He had been all bone and bristle by the time he met Price, a body full of locked doors, every kindness treated as suspicious, every hand as a possible fist that hadn't swung yet.
He doesn’t remember himself as a boy so much as something that existed wrong in the world. A dog with wire sunk deep around its throat, grown mean from the pull of it, teeth bared at every hand because every hand he'd known came moments before pain.
He had his hackles up at everyone. Soap's noise put his teeth on edge- all that warmth and reckless affection crowding the air until Simon wanted to bare his own just to make him back off. Gaz was worse, quieter, easy in his skin, easy with people, trust that had never once cost him anything to give. It made something starved in Simon snarl before Gaz had done a single thing wrong. Price's attention was the worst of all, because it didn't rush him. Didn't demand his loyalty and trust. Didn't pity him. Didn't give him anything obvious enough to reject.
Price approached like he knew the dog.
That’s what Simon hated first.
(A mug of tea left near his elbow without comment. A plate shoved toward him with a blunt eat before you drop. A cigarette offered after a bad op without mentioning the shake in Simon’s hands. Price never asked for the animal’s belly before he’d earned the right to see its teeth.)
The first time Price touched the back of his neck, Simon nearly broke his wrist.
It hadn’t been much, that was the awful part. Just fingers carding into the short hair at his nape after a mission had gone bad enough that Simon’s vision kept flashing white at the edges. A firm grip, warm and certain, thumb pressing where tension lived like a buried wire. His whole body had gone rigid. (- Teeth. Blood. Movemovemove. Every old alarm screaming at once, every nerve insisting this was the part where the hand became a fist, where the door locked, where the kindness took off its mask and showed the bill due-)
Price didn’t flinch.
He only tightened his fingers enough to hold and said, low, “Easy, lad.”
Easy.
(As if Simon were something that could be calmed without being humiliated. As if the dog in him could be spoken to without making a joke of the muzzle. As if staying still under a hand did not have to mean surrendering to it.)
It worked.
That was the part Simon never quite got over. It worked. Price domesticated the dog by increments, by pressure and food and presence and that damned voice that always sounded like it knew the dog would heel because he’d decided it would.
He taught Simon which hands could be tolerated near the throat. He taught him that a command could be shelter if given by someone willing to stand in the storm with you. He taught him that being fed did not always mean being owned.
(Or maybe it did.
Maybe Simon just learned to love the owner.)
The thought should disgust him more than it does.
Instead, it sits cold and useful in his chest as he looks at your name. Price made a lesson of him. Fine. Ghost can use it better. Ghost can take the thing Price used to pull a snarling, half feral man into loyalty and turn it back on what he was careless enough to lose. There’s a irony there so sharp it feels like mercy if he holds it at the right angle.
Price taught him how to quiet the dog.
Ghost will use the lesson to take Price’s girl.
Not fast or clumsy. You’d bolt. He knows you’d bolt because he knows your fears now, knows the way it presses you low to the ground the moment wanting makes you visible. He can’t come at you head on with sweetness.
Sweetness would make you sick. Price ruined sweetness for you, poured it over lies until even kindness must taste like another woman’s perfume if it gets too warm. You need plain things first. Small things. Dry things. A line of crumbs leading out from under the porch.
So he sends a photograph.
It’s of an old dog outside a laundrette, sitting just outside the spill of yellow shop light. It had made him think of you before he could stop it, the way it held itself apart from the door, close enough to still feel the heat every time someone came out, far enough back not to be kicked.
It was the way it didn’t ask to be let in, didn’t even seem to believe in being let in anymore, and still hadn’t left.
He sends it without a caption.
Then he waits.
Waiting is usually nothing to him. He can empty himself into it. Become breath, pulse, shadow, the patience behind a scope. He can wait through cold, blood loss, hunger, the slow crawl of pain up the spine. He can wait while men lie. Wait while they bleed. Wait while orders change and bodies cool and the world makes its ugly little adjustments around him.
Waiting for you is different because he knows what the silence is doing to you.
He imagines the phone lighting in your hands. Imagines your face going still when you see his name there, surprise catching in you before pleasure can make itself known, before you can shove it back down where it belongs. You wouldn’t have expected him to reach for you first. Wouldn’t have known what to do with the weight of anyone’s attention laid in your lap.
He can see it too clearly, the small panic that must have buzzed beneath your skin, the way you must have froze, start trying to build yourself into something acceptable before you answered, trying to decide what kind of person you’re supposed to be in response. Casual. Funny. Grateful, but not too grateful. Interested, but not hungry. Human, but not so human that the need shows and scares him off.
The message sits delivered.
No answer.
Thirty seconds.
A minute.
Two.
The dog in his ribs starts to pace.
(He can almost hear Price, years ago, voice dry with that infuriating calm. Patience, lad.)
Ghost’s jaw tightens.
He gives you another thirty seconds, then sends the second text.
Made it home alright?
Nothing elaborate. Nothing that corners you. Just concern shaped like a practical question, societal expectations to ask even for people who just met, something you can answer without needing to expose the whole trembling nerve of yourself. It’s neutral enough to pass for restraint, and it would pain the picture of polite concern, if the tracker hadn’t already told him you were there. (If Simon thinks too long about that, about the fact that he knows the answer before he ever asks the question, the whole thing gets a little harder to call patience instead of hunger.)
Your reply comes fast enough that he knows the first message had you frozen.
Yeah. Sorry, I should’ve texted.
There it is.
The apology lands in him like a match dropped into oil.
Not because he’s angry at you. He doesn’t think he could be, not for this, not for a reflex beaten so deep it moves before your pride can catch it. He’s angry at the invisible boot. At every room that taught you to lower yourself before anyone asked. At every person who made you believe being remembered created a debt. At Price, most of all, because Price knew exactly what it meant to be trusted by a wounded thing and still treated you like something that he expected to still be there when he came back to it after neglecting it.
The image is ugly, but it’s true, and truth has never cared whether it flatters.
Ghost types, You don’t need to apologize
He stares at it, then adds, Just wanted to make sure you got in
A softer man would put a smile after it. A warmer one might add something sweet, something easy, something with a little glow to it. Ghost does neither. He doesn’t want to sound like Price, doesn’t want to lay syrup over the wound and call it comfort while maggots and flies fester around it. You’ve had enough of that. You need the plainness of bread before the body can tolerate anything richer.
The messages go read.
You don’t answer for long enough that he knows you’re retreating into yourself, trying to fold the whole exchange into something manageable, trying to draw on experience of theoretical scenarios you’ve read about, heard talked about, seen on tv- to figure out how to respond next in just the right way to seem interested in the conversation without appearing ravenous and scaring someone off with the force of your hunger.
Finally, you send, I did. Thank you.
Too careful.
Too small.
Manners, then. The old kennel. The place you go when you’re trying to be acceptable enough to keep, distant enough to discard without mess.
Ghost lets the silence sit for a breath.
He could push for more.
He wants to. Christ, he wants to. There’s a hunger in him too, quieter and more disciplined, but it lifts its head at the sight of yours. He wants to put his fingers into the wound and make you tell him who did it. Wants to count every reason and give each one a name, a face, a consequence. Wants to hear you say Price with that broken softness and then teach your mouth to shape someone else’s- his- name afterward.
But pushing now would be greedy.
You take another few seconds, and he imagines you looking at the screen, worrying your bottom lip as you try to find reasons to keep the conversation going- desperate for even a crumb of attention. Maybe the corner of your mouth moves. Maybe it doesn’t. It matters too much to him either way, which is its own warning. He ignores the warning. (He’s good at that too.)
Then you text, Did you get home okay too?
Ghost looks up.
His car is parked beneath the hacked back branches of a sycamore, engine off, rain ticking against the roof. The street is wet and mostly empty, amber black under the lamps, water running in the gutter and gathering around the tires. A car drives past at the corner. Somewhere above him, someone’s television hums through a cracked window. Somewhere lower, a couple argues.
Ghost sits in the dark and looks at your question.
‘Did you get home okay too?’
You’re returning the shape of concern because receiving it without offering something back feels like debt. You’re trying to make the exchange equal so your own need doesn’t show too much. He can almost see you doing it, can almost hear the little startled scramble inside you: ask him too, ask him too, don’t just sit there being cared about like a wound with a mouth.
His thumb moves.
Close enough.
Of course he’s close to home.
Because he is outside your apartment.
He doesn’t let himself dress it up as sentiment. Sentiment is soft, and this isn’t soft, has never been soft, never been the lover standing under a balcony reciting poetry to a swooning maiden. This is the clean, brutal certainty of coordinates fixed beneath his skin. Your building. Your window. The narrow mouth of the alley beside it. The weak spill of light through your curtains when you forget to shut them all the way.
It should feel like surveillance. It does feel like surveillance. But beneath that, uglier and harder to name, is the fact that some part of him has already settled here with you. Already placed itself inside the narrow hallway, beside the lock, under the hum of your living room lamp, in the corner of a life that has not invited him in. Close enough, he’d said, because the honest answer would’ve been worse: he hasn’t gone home in weeks without coming here first.
There’s a pause.
Then you text, Close enough?
It’s the first time you ask for clarification without apologizing for it.
Small. So small it would be nothing to anyone who hadn’t spent three hours watching you ration your own existence. But to him it is movement in the dirt. The creature under the porch lifting its head. A trembling step forward, belly still low, tail tucked.
He writes, Still out.
Another pause.
In this weather?
Had worse.
That comes out natural enough. True enough. He can almost feel your uncertainty through the phone, the way you’re trying to decide whether this is banter or concern or too much. Trying to find the right amount of you to put into the next message.
You settle on, That’s not reassuring.
Wasn’t meant to be.
You answer with, You’re weird.
Ghost’s mouth shifts, barely.
You kept talking to me for three hours.
He knows the second he sends it that it’s too direct.
Direct enough to turn a light on. Direct enough to show you the bowl after you’ve licked it clean. In his mind, he sees the shame come up fast and hot, sees you jerk backward from the memory of yourself sitting in that cafe, devouring his attention until the clock betrayed you. (Like he still wouldn’t be there listening to you speak if you hadn’t looked up and seen the time) He sees your hands tighten on the phone. Sees the animal in you realize there is blood on its mouth.
He sends another text before you can bolt.
Wasn’t a complaint.
Then, after a beat, because the truth is already loose and he doesn’t feel like calling it back:
Best part of my day.
He lets it stand bare.
No joke. No softening. No easy escape hatch where you can pretend he doesn’t mean it.
The silence afterward stretches.
Ghost watches the rain slide down the windscreen and thinks about food after famine. How the body rejects what it needs because it has forgotten the basics of receiving. How the first mouthful can twist the gut. How fullness can feel like sickness when emptiness is the only thing that has stayed. You’re holding those six words somewhere in your flat, and he knows they are too rich. He knows they are turning over in you like cream in a stomach that has only lived on drops of water.
Your reply comes at last.
Oh.
Just that.
“Oh.”
A sound more than a word. A small animal noise, really, translated into text because you have no other way to make it without being seen.
Then:
I had a nice time too.
Then, almost immediately:
Sorry. That sounds weird.
Ghost exhales through his nose.
Again. Always again. The apology running after every honest thing you say, trying to drag it back into the dark before someone punishes you for letting it breathe.
He wants to be upstairs.
The want comes sharp enough to hurt. He wants to be in the room with you, close enough to stop the apologies before they leave your mouth. Not softly. Softness wouldn’t do. Softness would let you wriggle away, would give you too much room to turn fear into politeness and politeness into distance.
He wants his hand at the back of your neck, firm the way Price’s had once been on his, holding you still through the first wild panic of being kept. He wants to press you down out of the wind, out of the open, out of reach of every old voice that taught you wanting was something to be ashamed of. (Wants to feel you fight the comfort because of course you’d fight it, because starving bodies cramp around food, because a kicked dog still snaps when someone kneels too close. He could take the blood. He’d take worse if it meant you learned.)
Easy, he’d tell you.
Easy.
Not a plea. Not a coax. A command with shelter inside it.
He sees it too clearly: you beneath the weight of him, breathing fast, hands braced against his chest like you can push away the thing you’ve crawled toward your whole life. Not hurt. Not trapped. Held down from the panic. Held through it. His voice at your ear until the animal in you exhausts itself against his steadiness and finally- finally learns that staying doesn’t always end in a kick.
Then the quiet after.
You curled beside him because he has made himself the safest place left.
Ghost watches your shadow cross the seam of the curtains.
The thought is intimate enough to be covetous and he knows it.
He is not a good man. That has never been a useful lie to tell himself. Good men have soft hands and clean intentions and the luxury of waiting for permission without needing to stack the world in their favor. (Good men call themselves good while they leave women like you crying at bus stops because goodness, he has noticed, often ends where inconvenience begins.)
Price would be called good by plenty of people.
Price, who made you a home and kept another one behind your back. Price, who let you send tenderness into the dark and never told you it was being filed beside someone else’s garden, someone else’s ring, someone else’s future. Price, who knew how to love damaged things, or claimed he did, and still left you standing in a doorway while laughter closed over your head like water.
(He wonders what Price is doing now. Wonders whether the man has noticed your absence. Whether he’s staring at an unanswered message with that crease in his brow, annoyed that the quiet little place he kept tucked away from the rest of his life has stopped opening on command. Simon hopes it hurts. Not enough. It won’t hurt enough. Men like Price don’t understand the worth of a thing until another man’s hand is already around it.)
No. Ghost is not good.
He is patient.
There are worse things to be.
(And the patience works.
Not quickly. Not all at once. Nothing so crude as a trapdoor snapping shut beneath your feet. It’s slower than that. Meaner, maybe, for something being gentle. A photograph here. A message there. Home yet ? Eat something? Door locked? Little scraps pushed under the porch with two careful fingers, close enough for you to smell, never close enough to make you bare your teeth. He lets you take them and run. Lets you retreat granted, every time, because that’s part of it too: teaching a frightened thing that the food will still be there when it comes crawling back.
Months of it. Months until you text him first about stupid things- the woman in front of you at Tesco buying twelve tins of peaches and nothing else, the rain getting into your shoes, something that happened in the book you’re reading. Nothing important. Everything important. Tiny pieces of your day dropped into his hand like offerings.
Then one night, you call.
Your name fills the screen, and Ghost goes still with the phone in his hand because he knows before he answers. There are sounds the world makes when a thing finally comes to fruition. The low click of a door catching. The wet snap of bone under pressure. The little choked intake of breath on the other end of the line when he says your name and you come apart.
“I didn’t- ” A swallow. A breath that judders so hard he can hear your teeth almost click around it. “I didn’t know who else to call.”
There it is.
Months of crumbs. Months of the hand beneath the porch. Months of letting you creep forward and startle back and creep forward again, belly low, tail tucked, eyes huge with the shame of needing anything at all.
Now you’ve crawled close enough to press your shaking mouth into his palm.
“I think there are two men following me,” you whisper, and the last word breaks ugly, wet in the back of your throat. “They’ve been behind me since the station. I crossed twice and they crossed too. I don’t- I don’t know what to do.”
For one sharp second, he isn’t here.
He’s years back with Price’s hand scruffed firm at the nape of his neck, fingers buried in short hair, holding him still through the first feral snap of panic. Easy, lad. Not a plea. Not comfort, not really. A command with a wall built around it. Something to hide inside until the teeth stopped showing.
Ghost’s hand tightens around the phone.
The dog in his ribs lifts its head, and grins; all blood slick teeth in the dark, delighted, patient no longer.
He steps out into the night, keys biting into his palm, and lets the door swing shut behind him.
or: Trucker!Price does you a solid, you return the favor
cw: 2.5k wrds, 18+ mdni, plot and smut, dad bod Price! mentions of sèx work, hooker!reader, mentions of violence, power imbalance (?), age gap (40s John, mid 20s!reader), heavy praise kïnk,
inspo song: be like a woman by Chris rainbow
How could such a pretty girl like you, all dolled up for the middle of no where, end up staggering into the close to empty diner with a bloody nose and a few other bruises on your face.
Your tight crop top had a few droplets of blood on it, you were holding your head back the best you could, curls on your hair just a little bit messy, the waiter came from the back. His eyes widened at the state of you.
“Can I get some napkins please?”
How kind of you, John thought. To ask in this shitty place when most people would just take and go. You stuffed the napkins up your nostril, unknowingly passing the older bearded man sitting in the booth right next to you. You leaned back on the red cushion of the seat, letting out a shaky inhale and exhale. And John’s so attentive, listening so closely to how you soothe yourself right under the 60s pop hits that play from the radio. He waits to see if you end up moving again, but you don’t. The man catches wind of your hushed snores and your stilled feet.
Price shifts in his seat, just so see enough of your sleeping face, long lashes closed, your chest rising and falling as you held your tattered purse to your chest. Clearly you were exhausted from, whatever the hell you just experienced. But John doesn’t intend on leaving you alone like this. Not in the dead of night in this empty diner where anything could happen. So he stays, two hours, three hours, finishes his meal and waits. The few stragglers not bothering to come near the large brute of a man sitting just on the other side of you.
Your body is aching when you wake back up, eyes adjusting to the poor fluorescence. Using the table to stand, you stumble out the door, heavy foot steps soon to follow. You’re bent over cleaning your nose of the body mess with a half empty water bottle and the napkins you stashed with John sets eyes on you again. Just at the end of the restaurant’s parking lot, as if this will revive you in some way. The nights still young.
“You alright?” John asks that makes you slightly jump. You take a deep breath out, wiping the blood from your nose with a damp napkin, you give him a nod, “Yeah, thanks.”
A few moments pass but John doesn’t leave, keeps his eyes on you, his surroundings, hearing the cars fly by on the highway.
You fix your posture, using the glass of the diner as a mirror. Fixing your hair, pulling your cropped shirt down so your cleavage shoes.
“Do you need something?” You look over at him, eyeing the middle aged man up and down, before you shift in your heels, eyebrow cocking, “or do you want something?”
John doesn’t know how to answer. no, no that’s not what he wanted. It was to make sure you were alright, that no one would give you hell. Atleast for the rest of the night. But the man couldnt deny you were attractive. Even with you mascara smudged, slightly irritated look on your face.
The man clears his throat, “Just checkin t’see you weren’t lying.”
“About?”
“You want the truth or should be beat around the bush all night?”
He’s got you there, with a huff, you turn on your heal, “‘Ve had a shit night, as you can see.”
“A little scuffle?”
“Little considering how quickly it ended. Not the reason.”
“And that being?”
It might as well been an interrogation, you could be police for all you knew and what do you look like running from police at a time like this in the middle of fuck ass no where. But tonight, just for tonight, less than 30 minutes you’ll let this beared stranger be your therapist.
You cross your arms over your chest, letting out a dry laugh, “About money. It’s always about money around these parts though right?”
“I’m really not a hard girl to pay, really. I can be sweet if someone wants me sweet, or mean if they want me mean. But that son of a bitch— why do you gotta be such an asshat and a stingy fuck for a pinky sized dick?! Makes no fuckin sense! And then fight me about it? Fight fuckin lady about paying?!”
You didn’t realize how loud you were getting, your voice booming with anger, resentment you’d been holding on for so long. Working constantly for a living, to get the fuck out this shitty town in no man’s land. But you’re stuck. In a sink hole, how many other girls have disappeared from your line of sight out here and never to be seen again, how many street walkers end up on drugs out here.
This wasn’t even you plan, to be living like this, day to day. You were supposed to be in Hollywood— lights the cameras, writing some tv show. Or some fucking intern for a shitty pay— not- not like this.
You sniffle, hold yourself tighter, “I- I’m talking too fuckin much, I gotta get home. Call it a night.”
John hates it, the thought of it, of you going. Of you goin back to that life. Even if he’s only known you for less than a couple hours, he’s got tattoos and beard hairs older than you. But it’s something about you, that’s him dead set on you. The way you’re talking to him, your walls, rightfully, miles and miles high.
If he knew what was best for him, he’d be casual. Leave you alone. Knows better than to get too deep.
“Don’t you wanna get outta here?”
You look back at him, confused, but shake your head, “I wouldn’t even know how if I tried. Where would I even go?”
And there’s a silence from the man, still but strong look on his face, one that has you wanting more answers to unrealistic questions. “With you?”
“It’s an option better than being stuck here.” He starts, watching you scuff and walk towards the motel. Heals clicking against the pavement, with John hot on your tail, the flickering sign buzzing as you get closer, crickets singing.
“Don’t follow me.”
“Give me a ‘no’ and I will.”
You let out a frustrated noise, squeezing your eyes shut, “Sir, I really will do better without the hopeful shit you and everyone else who comes through here thinks I’m willin to fuckin buy!”
“I’m not sellin you shit for fucks sake, ‘m givin you a chance.” Price griped, jaw tightening, “You come for a day, even a fuckin hour and you if you like it, we’ll go. Give yourself a chance to think about what you wanna do. You hate it, I’ll get you on the first flight back to this shit hole, you hear me?”
You look around, the near silence of this cool summer. Music coming from someone’s room, cars passing by, blue ocean eyes glued to you. In a dry desert, he was a drop of rain.
You rock on your heels, biting your lip, you stare at your feet, “Where are you goin?”
“North.”
He’s a liar.
This man you’ve just met is a god damn liar.
And you’re aiming to get yourself killed.
“Do you wanna get outta here, or not?”
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
Trucker!Johns semi truck is nice.
Much nicer than you expected it to be.
Tattered and worn books stacked in crates, his clothes stored in drawers of the small bed, bed neatly made, rustic, plaids and brown bedding, cross dangling from the sun visor. John takes your duffle bags and puts them in the overhead.
“You can sit upfront or go to sleep, ‘s your pick.”
You meekly take a seat in the passages side, watching as John ignites the truck to life, lettting a hand wipe down his beard with a incoherent grumble, checking his mirrors.
You’re already down the road by the time you’re able to say anything, the sign of the motel getting smaller and smaller as you drive away. Your heart threatening to leap out of your chest. Everything you’ve known for the last couple of years suddenly now gone. And your alone.
In a truck.
With a Mr. John Price who you just do not know other than he drives this truck and that he’s getting you out of the country for a change of scenery.
“How am I gonna pay you back?”
It catches the older man off guard for a moment, it never crossed his mind. All he knew was that he wanted you. Call it naive for his age. John leans back in his seat, one hand on the wheel, takes a glance over at you, “Didn’t ask you to luv, think of this as my good deeds to the world. Helpin an angel out.”
An Angel? You want to roll your eyes but you don’t, biting the inside of your lip, “but I don’t have enough money to give anything to you, unless you want my stash— I- how can I be useful to you Price?”
“Sit there and be pretty.”
“But-“
“—You’re a stubborn little thing, aren’t you that doll?” He interjects, ends of his lips curving upward. Handsome face going in and out of the glow of the highways few lights.
John puts out his hand for you to take. You hesitate but slip yout hand in his. Letting his thumb go over your knuckles, he sighs, “Not expecting much ‘f you. But you do what you want, ‘s your trip too. All I ask if you keep the place clean, just as you see it. And don’t ask what’s in the back.”
Should be simple of enough. No- it is simple enough. You’re good at not asking questions that can lead to bad answers.
You’re free living, easy living.
For the first time in years.
It’s early in the morning when John wakes you up to go to bed with him. You’d shoo’ed him away the first couple of times he tried to get you to go to bed alone. Made sure his warm calloused hand was rested on your thigh, yours atop of his like it was instinct.
It’s what you really liked about Price so far, how warm he ran with small touches. How he made you feel like you didn’t always have to be on edge.
The old man tried to be good, really he did.
Instructed you to sleep on the inside and John would basically sleep on the edge of the cramped bed. But you slipped you hand onto the plush roundness of his torso, fingers tiptoeing up his chest to cup his face, you straddled his hips, beard hair prickling your hand. “Can I- lemme repay you, Price.” His voice so hushed, sultry, your manicured thumb going over his bottom lip, “please.”
Trucker!John is bigger than any man you’ve ever been with. To the point it shows on your face, lips full lips slightly parted, it’s fat and girthy, large and slapping against your stomach when you pull it out. Crown of his length leaking down every vein.
“Not too late to back our love.” He lets out low rumble of laughter.
You gulp down, shaking your head, “Can handle it, just- hah- just need a second.”
Right? All you needed to do was stretch yourself out for it!
And that would be the perfect thing to say after the old man lazily finger fucked you, lips brushing against each other every time the both of your fingers, all messy in your juices, fucked into your heat. Had your lower half shaking just from three of his thick digits paired with a slow kiss, wrapping your tongue around yours, swapping saliva till you came and hard.
But even with some fingering, it only made you dizzy just from the way his tip was stretching you out. The sweet burn that had you choking up as you eased yourself down on him, your jaw slack, and head thrown back. Covering your mouth to try to hide the scream you so desperately want to let out.
“Eaasssy luv, you’ve got it. Can take it for me.” John croons, large hands firm on your hips. Guiding them up just enough so you slowly rock more and more of him inside.
Your pussy so throbs, mewling at his words, your mind already hazy, “I- can- shit- I can take it. Aaangh! god its so good. Feels so gooood Price.”
His blushing cockhead is probing your insides, only reaching higher and higher as your thighs smack against his with every thrust. Your hands lay flat on his hairy chest, bouncing yourself up till just the tip is in, and down, hiccuping on a moan, “Fuck- wanna move f-faster. Wanna make you feel good.”
John lets out a low grunt, loving just how warm and soaking you are even through the thin condom that’s just barely fitting him. Threatening to break with every sleazy drop of your hips onto him. “No baby, gotta let you feel every bit of my cock, get your cunt nice ‘nd used to me. Doin so good fuckin me slow.”
John must be a miracle worker, getting you all worked up, hushed moans as his hands travel down to your supple ass, spreading them apart and squeezing the globes of your ass while you gyrate your hips on him. So hipnotic, sensual, desperate to meet every sledgehammer of his member up into you. His Pubic hairs damp with your slick with every squealch of your greedy and tight pussy brushing against your g-spot. The little bed is creaking, unsure if the truck itself is moving along with it.
Price’s hand wraps around the back of your neck, bringing you down closer to him, your nipples hard and brushing against him through your shirt, “Bloody good at this aren’t you hun, atta girl.”
You whimper as rolls your hips, lashes flirting shut, “Wanna hear you Price, nngh- please, need it.”
“‘F course you do baby, wanna hear juuust how gorgeous you look all fucked out on me. How you tremble and pull me away when you feel too good. Hck- How good you make me feel, How your cunt chokes me out every time i press, right here,” he thrusts up with a heavy thwack, pushing against your sweet spot that makes you keen out in pleasure. “Desperate fuckin thing, wanna hear how I could stay deep inside you all day. Wrapped up this all fuckin day-“
“Yes!” You gasp, head falling against his shoulder, clawing at his broad shoulder. Your fingers going through his greying brunette locks, lips weaving together is a wet and steamy French kiss, his beard tickling your face. Hushed groans and moans filling up the space. Meeting each other half way with each grind of your hips till you’re feeling every shockwave rush through you to the tips of your finger tips.
“Good work lovie.” He coos, slipping his cock out after filling the condom with his cum, it’s heavy and creamy. Price kisses your forehead, both of you exhausted from the long day, his hands patting you back to soothe you in his beefy arms, “We’ll make perfect partners from now on won’t we sweetheart?”
a/n: so much shit plot for shit smut that took too long to write. Sorry all.
"No!" Simon's voice cracked between his guttural sobs, the word tearing itself from his throat in a way it never had before.
For a long, agonizing moment, he couldn't move, and his feet remained rooted to the ground as his ragged breaths echoed through the beautifully decorated lakeside venue.
The white flowers swayed gently in the breeze, fairy lights shimmered above the aisle, and the lake behind the altar glistened beneath the afternoon sun.
It wasn't beautiful, it was hell.
And it wasn't true.
Right?
It can't be, but the way it felt so real, he could not deny it, how his breath hitched with every syllable of your name, the painful cries burned into his throat as Simon saw you smile at the end of the aisle, but not at him --
the same smile he had earned after years of hovering around you -- the smile he memorized like a map of a pirate who was on hunt for treasure, and you did it at someone who wasnt even him, while your hand rested in another man's hand way too easily.
Though you looked too ethereal in that bloody wedding dress. The dress you'd chosen with such quiet excitement, the one Simon had sneaked a glance at. It was supposed to be for him. For Simon. Not... not for another man.
And in that moment, Simon Riley felt his heart shatter into pieces he'd never be able to put back together, "Fuck!"
Then he ran towards where you stood, without thinking -- and his lungs burned with every ragged breath he took, while his boots pounded against the rain-soaked pavement creating that shmack-- sound, and soon people around him, blurred past him into nothing but shapeless figures.
The church bells rang in distance, once, twice, thrice, then again and every chime sounded like another nail sealing his fate.
No. No. No.
Was he too late?
He couldn't be. And you simply couldn't do this.
Because it was always supposed to be the two of you. It had always been you — through every year, every deployment, every lonely night he convinced himself he didn't deserve a future.
and in every step of his journey, you'd become woven into every version of tomorrow he had ever dared to imagine.
You couldn't do this. Not to him. He repeated in his mind like a mantra.
You couldn't stand at the end of that aisle, smiling at someone else, promising forever to another man — because if you weren't his... then he wasn't sure there'd be anything left of him. He could survive bullets, broken bones, and wars that refused to end. But losing you?
That would take whatever remained of his soul with it.
Then, through the haze of panic, something felt... wrong. You weren't moving, at all you just stood there like a puppet, a smile so wide, he hadn't seen before.
he will cut that man's throat, if he had to -- whoever that was.
Suddenly, an anguished pain bloomed deep inside his chest — his heart squeezing and twisting against his ribs, while every breath drove invisible splinters of his own bones that started stab at his lungs, as if his own body turned against him and finally wanted to break him apart.
and he realized he could make it to you, he had to, he will deal with the man later he had to save you, first, hold you, have you.
So finally he shoved through the crowd, ignoring the curses thrown his way, his suit jacket hanging crooked from one shoulder, tie half-undone, hair damp with sweat and rain, "Move!" He growled, his tears falling at his side, yet the aisle stretched before him like it had no end.
It felt too long, far too bloody long.
He still ran. "Don't fucking do this, luv," he begged, shoving through the crowd again, but you wouldn't look at him. Wouldn't see him.
Then you moved, and started to slid the ring onto the other man's finger, and Simon felt his stomach drop through the floor. "I fucking object!"
and you finally turned to him then, and finally. He thought— he prayed — he could reach you. He raised his hand toward you, trembling, and you looked at him with something like grief and whispered, "I can't do this—"
"Please." His voice cracked, "Please. I love you." Simon cried.
...
"Ghost!" Then finally his eyes flew open and he bolted upright so violently the cot beneath him groaned in protest, hitched breaths tore from his lungs as he swallowed hard, his pulse thundering in his ears, and his frantic gaze darted around the room, searching for the hint of what he just saw, but there was no church. No aisle. No wedding.
Just the familiar walls of his quarters, and standing over him was Soap, his brows knitted together, equal parts confused and concerned. "Bloody hell..." Soap muttered, taking a cautious step forward. "Ye alr't, mate?"
Simon dragged a hand over his face and felt the wetness there , he'd been crying in his sleep, his cheeks still damp, his throat tight.
He blinked still in shock, heart hammering, the image of you slipping that ring onto another man's hand still seared behind his eyelids. What the hell was that?
Simon turned his face towards soap and tried to breath evenly but even so, he failed, because all that came out was a broken sound of him inhaling the air, "wh're, 's , she?
Soap frowned at him, reaching out to squeeze his shoulder, but Simon yanked himself away before his hand could reach him, "What the--... she is--" Soap stammered, confusion written all over his face.
"Wh'e's my girl?" Simon growled, cutting him off in between. "F'cking answer me!"
"In her quarters," Soap answered, with no hesitation. Because he knew better than anyone: Simon usually don't look like this, but if he did, you didn't ask questions.
and right now Ghost wasn't just rattled by the dream he had -- he looked like he'd lost something irreplaceable to him, his breathing came uneven, his eyes darting, searching for something that wasn't there.
Soap had seen him furious, seen him exhausted, seen him bleeding half to death in the back of a moving truck. But never like this.
Honestly, he had only come to tell him you were in your quarters getting ready -- to remind him it was almost time for him to start preparing too.
Standard wedding-day preparations -- but when he saw him like this crying and reaching for something that wasnt there, he got worried and looking at his mate now, at the devastation carved into every line of him—Soap told him where you were -- instead of telling him to get ready for the day.
as soon as Soap told him where you were Simon was already moving.
He shoved Soap aside before he could stop him and stumbled out of the room, barefoot, he didn't bother fixing his wrinkled clothes, didn't bother with his hair, or even his mask, while still breathing hard from the nightmare, he tore through the base toward your quarters.
He didn't care who saw him. He didn't care what they thought.
He just ran.
...
Moments later, he reached your quarters and pounded against the door like a frantic man, each knock louder and more desperate. It didn't take long before the handle turned and the door swung open.
There you stood, wrapped in your wedding dress, looking every bit as breathtaking as you had in his dream —only this time, you were looking at him.
For a long moment, Simon could do nothing but stare at you, drinking in the sight of you as though he needed to convince himself you were real.
You blinked up at him, your innocent eyes filled with confusion at the sight of his disheveled state — his hair a complete mess, clothes wrinkled, feet bare against the cold floor, his chest rising and falling with frantic breaths.
Slowly, your confusion gave way to worry as your brows knitted together. "Si?" you called softly to him.
Then it hit him. You hadn't married someone else. You were still here. Still his to love. Still the woman who would soon become his wife — not someone else's. "Bloody hell," he breathed, relief crashing into him with such force that his knees nearly gave out.
You wanted to tell him it was bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding. The words reached the tip of your tongue... then died there the moment you saw him like this. "Are you okay, si?"
He let out a shaky laugh, shaking his head as though he couldn't quite believe it himself.
Then, without another word, he walked straight into your room and pulled you close against him, his one hand gently tilted your chin upward, forcing your eyes to meet his, while other hand wrapped itself around your waist pulling you flush against until there was no space left between you and him, and then he finally kissed you. Almost desperately, and you kissed him back almost, with same desperation.
He did it like he'd spent an eternity believing he'd already lost you. Like if he didn't kiss you now, you'd slip through his fingers all over again.
The kiss was messy, and breathless, almost —filled with every ounce of fear and relief he'd been carrying since waking from that nightmare.
When he finally pulled away, his forehead rested against yours and his chest heaved with each inhale of breathe, "Promise me, that you will be mine forever."
"I vow to be yours forever, Si," you breathed against him, your arms slipping around his waist as you held him close. "But now..." you smiled softly, "...we have to get married."
Simon let out the faintest huff of a laugh, and pulled you even closer to him his hands tracing small circles into the dip of your spine, which makes you involuntarily sigh in releif, "Just five more minutes like this," he murmured before stealing another kiss.
You melted into him almost instantly, smiling against his lips. "Okay," you whispered. "Five more minutes."
And for the first time that morning, Simon truly breathed.
because the nightmare that had haunted him only minutes ago finally loosened its grip on his heart, and he realized you were here. You were safe. You were his.
And in just a little while, you were finally going to become his wife -- for this life and every other to come.
