advienne que pourra
FKA: Meet Cuties (female!reader x eventual poly!141)
Part Sixteen - Simon Riley blushed
Previous | Series | AO3 | Next Summary: The road to recovery hasn't been easy for Johnny, but he's trying his best. And sometimes his best involves trailing his lover. CW: mdni, medical inaccuracies complete CW
Johnny got home later than he typically would. Simon’s car was already in the drive. Gaz and John were blessedly not home yet so he didn’t have to worry about explaining away where he had been or putting on a face. Johnny very much wanted to crawl into his bed with the fairy lights on and hide under the covers, and maybe when he crawled out hours later he would be a different person.
The shower was running when he passed the bathroom. In a past life he would have tried the door knob, if it was unlocked he would have snuck in and joined Simon. The two men had frequently shared leave together before Johnny’s injury. They had shared cots and slept next to each other on the dirty floors of safe houses. They had used the excuse of saving hot water to steal moments alone together when they had been on the road for too long, desperate wet kisses with lukewarm water pounding down on them.
Johnny had never shied away from Simon’s touches, he had savored them, craved them, coveted them. Gaz had called him insatiable, ribbed him something fierce when he caught Johnny giving their lieutenant head in the back of a Humvee.
There used to be no secrets between them, any of them. But how was Johnny supposed to tell them how he felt when there were days he wasn’t fully sure he could get the words out. It was like they were right there on the tip of his tongue, like he knew he should be able to form them, he could almost feel the intention and meaning behind them. But when it came to the articulation? When it came to opening his mouth and the sound coming out, he was paralyzed.
He wasn't sure if it was the fear of what those words might mean or the fear that when he tried he wouldn't be able to talk, flashes of times when he couldn't, of when he didn't remember how to speak.
Johnny burrowed under the blankets on his bed, the lights tinkling above him, the application was still tucked into the drawer of his nightstand like a dirty secret. It haunted him every time he was in his room, had forced him to spend more time in the living room, the kitchen. He had been more present than he had been since moving here.
Today he didn't have the energy to avoid it. He wanted his bed, the comfort, the safety, the lack of expectations. He had left his door open to listen to the sounds of the shower. When the water finally shut off, he wasn’t surprised when Simon appeared at his door.
Simon was, if possible, ever more bonnie since retiring. Fresh from the shower his face was still pink from exfoliating, his hair untamed and wet, the beads of water tracing the paths of muscle and skin down his bare chest. His whole body was a map of scars, a testament to his time in the military and the rough childhood he had run from. He didn’t wear a mask at home, by the time he had retired he had stopped wearing it on leave. Johnny would take any excuse to rub the palm of his hand over the stubble that Simon would let grow out before they returned to work.
Simon leaned against the door, one hand on the knot of his towel, holding it against his waist where it hung low, revealing the little bit of pudge the former lieutenant had put on since working a mostly desk job.
Past Johnny would have been obsessed with it, obsessed with how soft Ghost could be. The enigmatic and spooky masked lieutenant reduced to a homebody who drank tea while sitting in an armchair, wool slippers on his feet and a matching pyjama set, the shirt unbuttoned one button too many.
Johnny didn’t move from his spot, didn’t invite Simon to join him. He watched Simon like he wasn't in his own body. The biggest change since his injury had been the most unexpected. He had done enough training to know about amnesia, and not being able to talk and needing to relearn fine-motor skills, and the different degrees at which those could affect a person. He might not have realized how difficult they were to live with but he knew the risks. What he hadn’t expected though, what he hadn't realized would be ripped away from him just as brutally as his career was his desire.
He could look at Simon, every different and beautiful version of the man he had mooned over for months before getting the courage to make a proper move, and feel nothing where before he would have felt the heat of arousal, the rush of blood, the uncomfortable pressure of his cock in his jeans, the prickling heat on the back of his neck when Simon looked at him with those eyes, when he whispered those words to him.
The first time Simon kissed him proper after the hospital Johnny had kissed him back, but the movements felt rehearsed, like the way the physical therapist explained using his muscles to walk. Johnny was there, he was kissing back, but he felt none of the rush, none of pleasure he knew he should feel.
And when he had told his therapist, the one that specialized in vets like him, they told him it was normal. Expected. He would have to work on it just like every other thing he had overcome since waking up in the hospital.
Sometimes when he watched Simon he wished he had died in that tunnel because what was the point of living if part of his heart was missing.
And how did Johnny tell the man who was his lover, his other half, that when he looked at him, he had to remind himself to feel love, remind himself that that bonnie face had been the prettiest face he had ever seen, the embarrassing number of sketchbooks filled with studies of Simon were proof enough that there had been love there before, there had been devotion.
“Y'lright?”
“Aye, just knackered.”
“Gotta make sure yer restin’, Johnny. Won’t help if yer tirin’ yerself out.”
“Dinnae need ye tae mother hen me.”
“I’m not,” Simon stopped, running a hand through his hair and frowning. “Fuck Johnny, I don’t want ye to think I’m naggin’ or some shite like that. I just want to be there for ye, yer not alone in this.”
Johnny opened his mouth to tell Simon, tell him about the library, about the art class, about teaching. He could do that, give Simon that one thing to make him worry less, Johnny knew that's why Simon had been following him. He was worried. Johnny would have been worried if the roles were reversed.
The words felt heavy though, his tongue thick in his mouth.
Simon stepped into the room, it only took him a few steps to cross the space. He leaned over the bed, palm cupping the side of Johnny's face, leaning down to leave a chaste kiss on his forehead, right where the scar was. That constant reminder of what they had all lost.
“It’s okay, Johnny. I’m ‘ere when ye need me.”
Simon didn't wait for him to respond, standing up and stealing all of the warmth from the room in his wake.
"I'm off, don't worry about me fer dinner."
Johnny was in bed again, tucked away in comfy clothes, another evening spent hiding out and ignoring the application in his bedside table. Price and Gaz were somewhere in the house, each coming home at some point that evening. Johnny knew the words were for them, but they had pulled him from the pits, calling to him like a siren.
Simon had been going out more and more, once a week, sometimes twice, sometimes not even coming home from work first. He never said where he was going, who he was with, and Johnny couldn't find the words to ask.
But he was curious, too curious to keep laying in his bed without trying to figure it out.
With an energy he hadn't expected he leapt up, only pausing to check that he wasn't wearing something offensive, before slipping down the stairs, shoving his feet into the first pair of his trainers he could find.
The night air is cooler than he expected, he's thankful for the black hoodie as he stands on the front steps, looking down the street and spotting Simon walking at a brisk pace.
Johnny takes off after him, keeping his own pace casual. This was something that had once came naturally to him, but now he found himself digging deep to remember his training, to access that part of him locked away to avoid Simon noticing him.
When John and Simon had chosen this village, this neighbor, they had searched for somewhere near the train, somewhere walkable, somewhere that Johnny could have some modicum of autonomy. It would be ages before he was trusted to drive again and so being able to walk was the only way he wasn't cooped up at home while the rest of them went on with their new lives.
It worked in Johnny's favor tonight as Simon took the familiar route to one of the main roads, lined with shops, cafe's and restaurants. A few streets over and they would be where the nightlife was, the rows of bars that Johnny had tried to go out to, and for a few weeks it had felt like maybe retirement wouldn't be so bad, but then he had a setback, the doctor swearing him off drinking, reminding him that it would impair his healing and that had ended any desire he had had for going out.
Simon had stopped outside of a cafe, not the kind of place he would have pictured Simon. The man in question stood awkwardly next to the door, his work bag slung over his shoulder, a paper mask over his face. Johnny backtracked a block when he realized Simon was waiting there, the man checking his message as he leaned against the wall.
From across the road and down the block Johnny had a perfect view of Simon's face, his brows furrowed as he checked his phone again. There was a time when Johnny would have known if that was his annoyed furrow, or worried furrow. Or maybe it was confused?
Johnny contemplated leaving, the longer he loitered on this corner the more likely he was to get caught, the same way he had spotted Simon tailing him on more than one occasion. Just as his resolve wavered, the person Simon had been waiting for appeared, jogging across the road towards the waiting man. They pulled Simon into a hug, one he allowed with minimal badgering. There was a time where even Johnny had to strong arm Simon into any kind of contact in public.
The person pulled away from Simon, talking animatedly with their hands, Simon nodding along, all of the tension gone from his face.
Then you turned, a car blaring their horn as they passed, your eyes going wide in surprise before Simon's saying something to you and you are turning away, smacking Simon in the arm before darting into the cafe, Simon on your heel.
With the two of you in the cafe, Johnny risked moving his position, first standing across from the cafe, watching the two of you chatting as you wait to order and then he braves crossing the road, standing just to the side of the main entrance as the two of you sit together. It was familiar, the way you sat, knees touching, huddled over a tiny side table, drinking teas. It was intimate. This wasn't the first time the two of you had gotten together.
He expected to feel jealousy, the ripping, consuming fire that whited out all rational thoughts, that emotion he had only truly understood a handful of times, Simon always at the center of it. Never intentional, never something Johnny could properly understand or curb. Some stupid recruit making a pass at him, a woman who worked in the front office at a base, the captain of a visiting team.
It was knee-jerk, visceral, something written into the very fiber of his being that told him he needed to protect what was his. And in each of those occurrences, long after Ghost or Gaz had talked him off the ledge, he knew they were right, that those idiots posed no threat to him.
There was only one time that he considered the possibility of Ghost being with someone else, someone that wasn't him. It had come after a drunken confession, something whispered in a dark pub after a close call, the kind of close call that shook you to your core even though everyone had come out unscathed. Johnny was the demolitions expert though, and he knew, knew that one wrong move would have had that whole building coming down on the team and it was only luck that he had stumbled upon the tripwire when he did.
Price and Ghost had already called it a night, the old men that they were, but Gaz and him had been pressed in close in a booth meant for smaller men, drinking whiskey neither of them liked because their COs liked it.
Tav, promise not to hit me, Gaz's words had been slurred and Johnny was pretty sure even in the moment that had he wanted to hit Gaz he was too drunk to land it. If it wasn't for Price, I'd 'ave climb Ghost like a tree when we first met.
They had never spoken again of that moment. Johnny never asked for the clarification if it was Price's professional expectations that had held him back, or that Gaz had already been harboring more than a casual interest in their captain at that point. It wasn't obvious, the schoolboy crush, the admiration of someone you looked up to, twisting into something more, something soul crushing because Johnny had never seen a single indication that the captain was interested in men. He was barely interested in women by the time Johnny had joined the team, so laser focused on the mission.
It was hard though, after that mission, after being faced with the possibility that one of them might not make it back, and it could be him leaving Simon behind, that he considered the fact that one day, there was a very real chance that Simon would be with someone else, and if that had to be the case then he wouldn't mind so much if it was someone like Gaz, someone kind, someone who would understand, someone who Johnny could trust to take care of Simon.
Johnny could no longer see your face, but it was you, he knew it from the way you moved, the way you listened, the way you waited for the other person to speak. He might not have been able to read Simon's face anymore but there was nothing small about the way you moved through the world.
You said something to Simon and he laughed, he laughed in that way where his eyes crinkled, and his lips pulled into a smile that twisted at the scarred bits of skin. He admitted once that it scared women and children, he was more comfortable with a medical mask on in public because he didn't want to be a monster, but it was hard when a kid would cry when they saw him.
The world wasn't kind to men like Simon Riley, it chewed them up and spit them out. Johnny had made it his job to soothe those old hurts, the insecurities.
And now you did that for Johnny. You had given him a safe place to be himself, a purpose.
And now you're getting tea with Simon.
He wanted to get closer, sneak through the front door when someone exited and try to hear what you were talking about, what could you and Simon have in common, how had you even met? Was it a twist of fate like him finding the flyer at the gym? Or was it something else, was Simon that worried about him that he had enlisted you?
It didn't look like Simon was getting intel from you, he was sipping a purple drink, shoulders still shaking. When he put the drink down you said something to him and he blushed.
Simon Riley blushed.
Then he leaned down, pulling something from his bag and passing it to you. From his position, Johnny couldn't see what it was, couldn't see your response, but he could watch Simon's face as you turned it over in your hands before you pulled it down over your head.
Simon had given you a hat. A lumpy, poorly knitted hat.
Johnny hadn't taken his declaration seriously, Simon wasn't the kind of man who knitted. Or, Johnny would have never expected him to be a man who knitted. But here he was, drinking tea and giving away hand knitted hats.
He tried to feel that jealousy, the rage, the heart stopping panic that would set in, that one sinking moment where he would consider the possibility that Simon could leave him for one of these other people, that they could offer Simon something Johnny couldn't. That one moment of insecurity before the anger, the indignation that someone thought they were good enough for Simon, good enough to replace Johnny.
And that was the kicker, wasn't it, because you could offer Simon something that Johnny couldn't. You could give Simon all of the physical attention Johnny couldn't, you could carry a conversation, you didn't get lost in your thoughts, you didn't have to hide out in your room when everything got too loud and too bright.
Fuck, you could make Simon laugh.
Johnny found that he didn't feel the familiar sting of jealousy but instead a sort of calm. He couldn't remember the last time he wasn't worried about disappointing Simon, about not being enough for him.
A plan started to form, something crazy, outlandish even, but it had Johnny smiling,and if it was that calculated smile he got back in the service when he thought about the best way to blow up a building then that was between him and the old lady leering at him.
"Ye comin' or goin'?" she asked with a heavy accent, her frown etched deep into the wrinkles around her mouth.
"Aye, Ahm goin', dinnae lose yer tits over it."
She harrumphed, watching him with beady eyes. He did look like a proper trouble maker, untied trainers, well worn and stained joggers paired with an oversized hoodie. He hadn't meant to leave the house when he had changed into them, but here he was, tossing a foul gesture up at an old lady before heading off in the opposite direction.
Johnny needed time to think. Space. The post work clatter of the village was beginning to grate on him, the hairs of the back of his neck stood on end, the whisper of an aura tickling the bridge of his nose. He would never be able to make a plan if he ran himself head first into a migraine. So he retreated back to their house with renewed energy.
First he would sign that bloody contract, he would happily teach that class, and then he would start plotting.
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