warnings: super brief nsfw section in the middle, brief mention of suicidal ideation
König has a life size, hyper realistic doll for a girlfriend. She's not a sex doll! He couldn't make love to her if he wanted to (and he does want to). Though she looks exactly like a real woman on the outside, vulva and all, she has no... entrances. She does have ball joints so König can articulate her limbs into different poses. He likes to watch documentaries with her curled up in his lap while he strokes her (real, human) hair. It's also helpful for when he's dressing her--he has a whole wardrobe filled with perfectly tailored clothes for his Schatzi. His favorites are the long, sheer nightgowns he changes her into every night before bed. They cuddle in "their" sleep--König is always the big spoon, his long, muscular arm thrown over her waist.
(Sometimes, when he wakes up in morning, he finds that he's made a mess of his Schatzi during his dreams, his cum drying on her pretty nightgown. He always apologizes profusely as he gently cleans her up).
His doll girlfriend is precious to him. He treats her like a real person, talking to her, buying her flowers and books and clothes and makeup, even serving her a plate of food at mealtimes. Deep down, he knows she's not real--but pretending that she is is the only thing that keeps the terrible, aching loneliness at bay. If it weren't for her, he'd have jumped in front of a stray bullet a long time ago. She is the only thing that makes him truly happy--the crazed, adrenaline-filled blood lust that overcomes him in the midst of battle doesn't even come close.
König loves his doll girlfriend. He loves her so much that one day, she comes to life.
What even is koing’s reaction to his doll wife/girlfriend coming alive? Does he instantly realize it’s her or does he think some random lady is in his house and tossed his dolly out?
Honestly, at first, he thinks he's just hallucinating. It wouldn't be the first time--though usually his "hallucinations" about her are more just a trick of the mind, thinking he's seen her blink or smile, something like that. But here she is, not just blinking and smiling, but talking, and surely he's not that insane... right?
His second thought is that there is, in fact, a random woman in his flat that just so happens to look exactly like his doll. But he quickly dismisses the idea. The woman in his flat is wearing the same clothes he dressed his Schatzi in that morning, and the makeup on her face is the same look he struggled to recreate on her after breakfast, down to the crooked eyeliner. And his doll is nowhere to be found.
But what convinces him that this woman is his doll, that he's been blessed by God with a miracle, is that she looks at him without fear, and immediately takes his oversized body into her arms, kissing his chest because she can't reach his face. She gazes at him with nothing but love and affection in her no-longer-glass eyes--a look he's dreamed of seeing on her face a million times before.
That makes him think he must be dreaming, but her warmth and weight against him feels so real. Even still, if he is dreaming, he never, ever wants to wake up
warnings: more könig/doll!gf. sweet, adorable fluff but also kinda angsty if you think about it. he's happy tho :)
Just thinking about König painstakingly doing his doll girlfriend’s makeup every morning, everything too small in his huge hands… he only buys her the best brands, and he tries six different shades of foundation before finding the right one. He watches YouTube tutorials obsessively, searching for new looks he thinks his Schatzi will like. And every night, he gently cleans it off of her with micellar water and cotton rounds, her hair held back by one of those cute, fuzzy head bands. Once her face is bare, he drops a kiss to her forehead and tells her she’s just as beautiful without the makeup, then carries her to bed, where he curls around her and falls asleep with her tucked against his chest.
warnings: könig is extra fucked up in this one (verging on dark!könig, maybe) there’s no dubcon/noncon from könig but the setting itself (prostitution) implies dubcon, heavy mommy kink but that’s nothing new on this blog, don’t mind him he’s just having a wee bit of a psychotic break
I was thinking about my headcanon that König lost his virginity to an older prostitute at twenty two and immediately proposed to her (and was promptly rejected), embarrassing himself so much that he never visited her again. But now I’m imagining if he hadn’t proposed to her, so the experience had been more pleasant than humiliating (though he certainly still felt a lot of shame about it), would he keep seeing prostitutes?
I think he would.
He’d keep seeing that same one until she decided, years later, to get clean so she could leave hooking behind. (Abandoning König like his real mutter had, but he can’t even hate her because she’s doing what Lia Adler never could and choosing something other than drugs). But by now, he’s addicted, so he trawls the street corners again, looking for a new Mama like a lost, ugly duckling. But all the girls are far too scared of him to lend him their services, even when he gets desperate and starts trying to negotiate—”Ja, I am serious! A thousand euros just to suck on your beautiful breasts this night, please, Fraulein!”—to the point that a teammate notices.
Nikto must have followed him, because one day, he hands König a sleek, red business card, says in a raspy voice that sounds like it hurts, “for your problem,” and walks away, studiously ignoring König’s confused questions.
When König finally takes the business card back out of his pocket that night when he’s in his room, he has to squints in order to read the small, cursive font.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cristoph’s Cage
Find the perfect Pet for you
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
König scoffs—what use has he for a pet? He wouldn’t be able to take care of it, being in the military, and the other man knows this—but Nikto, unlike the rest of their teammates, is not one to engage in pranks, so he finds himself pulling up the web address listed on the back of the card anyway.
A pop-up asks him for a password, and he looks at the card once more before typing “Pet.” He’s immediately redirected to a new website, and he freezes as dozens of nearly naked women fill his computer screen, his cheeks turning bright red as his cock swells. Arousal and embarrassment mix low in his belly, making his heart race as it jumps into his throat. Nikto knows, how does he know—
Realization washes over him. Nikto knows what König does, knows his shameful secret addiction habit of paying for a woman’s companionship—because he does the same. Why else would he have this card? Because just like König, he cannot get another human being to touch him without bribery—or force.
König doesn’t want to have to use force. At least when he pays, he can pretend that they want him, too.
He scrolls through the website, looking at all the pretty women for one that reminds him of the woman who took his virginity—Crystal, she had told him she was her name, but he knew she was lying—but all of these girls are much younger. Crystal had been nearing sixty by the time she left him, if not already there, but there’s not a single girl over twenty-five on this website.
He’s about to give up with a sigh when he sees her.
At the very bottom of the page is a picture of a girl in flowy, white lingerie. It’s sheer, and he can see the shadow of pink nipples beneath the fabric draped over her small, pert breasts. She’s skinny—too skinny, he thinks with a small frown—but she has big, brown doe eyes and a sweet, round face. Her long, auburn hair tumbles across her shoulders in loose curls, and she has one pink, pouty lip caught between her teeth—but it’s not sultry like the other girls. She’s nervous—no. She's frightened.
Angel Lia
19
Like you’re fucking a virgin every. single. time.
König clicks on her profile and inputs his card information as if in a trance. He doesn't spare a thought for his info being stolen, or that this girl is nothing like Crystal, who was older and far more experienced—he just knows he has to have her. The hair, the name—she reminds him of his mutter so much that it makes his gut churn and his eyes grow hot. He needs her. He needs his mama! She’s been gone for so long…
A few more clicks, and König has an appointment set up with Angel Lia tomorrow night, at 21:00 on the dot. He chooses a nice hotel over an hour from base—just the thought of meeting her in a seedy motel makes him break out into a cold sweat. He needs to impress her. He needs to make her proud of the man he’s become. He wants her to regret abandoning him, to beg to be let back into his life. He won’t allow it, not right away—she needs to feel at least a little of the suffering and loneliness she’s inflicted on him, all these years—but when he finally does, he’ll never let her go again.
Somehow, I imagined when König's doll wife/girlfriend came to life, the situation is sort of like Pinocchio. She saw how much König care for her and is lonely, so she wished she was a real girl to be with him. I also started thinking, she'd want to learn to cook, sew, ride a bike, or more to be a real woman.
If she ever starts wanting to explore the world outside of König's- he'd be so anxious she'd leave him. Then unintentionally hurt her a few times, wanting her to be only his and stay in his house. Because of that, König's doll would slowly lose the will to live as a human and revert back into her doll self permanently. Seeing that life was more blissful before as a doll. Her bruises turns into cracks on her plastic/porcelain/ whatever her material was originally. No amount of fixing will return her to her original state and erase those crack marks (scars). König can only patch her up and pray for her return that will never come. Because this time, she truly left him for good.
(Or maybe he's nice and would never hurt her, what do you think? Sorry if I blabbered a lot, this scenario got me invested ^_^)
warnings: non-graphic mentions of controlling behavior/unintentional domestic abuse in the above ask
Anon this is SO good and SO angsty it broke my heart 😭😭😭 I know I'm an angst gremlin but I need happy endings so I wouldn't be able to pull this off... but there's no need for me to because you did it perfectly. If you don't write then you should definitely start!!!
That being said, since I love this scenario so much, I def can see the first part happening, at least. Though I would imagine the "hurt" König causes her to be emotional rather than physical, as he's so used to be incredibly careful with his doll so as not to break her (I always pictured her as her being particularly fragile, with her ball joints and glass eyes and all) that I don't think he would hurt her physically even accidentally (though I love that angst of that in your original idea teehee). And he definitely wouldn't hurt her on purpose.
-
But he smothers her with his anxiety about her getting hurt in the real world, or discovering someone better and leaving him. He gives her anything and everything she could ever want... except for her freedom. He won't let her leave the flat--he barely even lets her look out the window. He avoids answering her questions about the real world, and gets visibly uncomfortable and dismissive when she asks to meet the teammates that she remembers him talking about to her so much before she came to life. And as a human, she can feel so much more deeply--and what she feels isn't the love and joy she expected to, at least not mostly, not anymore. Now, she feels mostly lonely, and trapped, and sad.
It's not so much an active choice to become a doll again, but when König leaves for another deployment, locking the six locks on his front door once again so she can't get out, she sits down on the couch, tears in her eyes making them look as glassy as they did when she was a doll. She sits there for days, not eating, not sleeping, as the will to exist leaves her. And as she sits, her body morphs. Her soft, human flesh firms and hardens, her bones grow hollow, her blood disappears, her heart stops beating. She slowly returns to being a doll, the only sign that she was ever human the silvery, painted tear tracks on her face.
She still feels things as a doll, but so shallowly that its easy to ignore the lingering sadness and regret. Time moves differently, too, and the weeks of solitude pass far faster, making them easier to bear. And when König comes home and finds her lifeless, his sobbing and pleading for her to come back to him only causes her the littlest flicker of guilt.
She watches through glass eyes as the man she loved loses his mind. Sometimes he yells at her unmoving form, screaming about her abandoning him, just like his mutter had--but most of the time, he cries, holding her close and apologizing for driving her away, for making her so miserable that she killed herself to get away from him.
Once, she feels a surprisingly strong urge to correct him--she's not dead, she's just not alive--but it reminds her too much of being human, and she retreats further into nonexistence to escape the memories.
She's not sure how long has passed since her return to dollhood when König starts to pull himself back together. But slowly, he returns to the man she had originally fallen in love with--the one who bought her fresh flowers every week, who cooked her food she couldn't eat just so she didn't feel left out at mealtimes, who dressed her in new, beautiful clothes every day, who painstakingly applied her makeup every morning and gently washed it off every night. Distantly, she notices that things are a tad different--he no longer serves her mushrooms, because when she was alive, she'd tried them and hated them. He always uses the cherry flavored lipgloss she'd eaten a whole bottle of, before she knew you weren't supposed to do that. He makes sure to cut the tags out of all her clothes, because they'd itched her something awful when she was human. And every night, when they lie in bed, he tells her how much he loves her, and how sorry he is he didn't treat her right, and how he promises he'll be better, if only she returns to him.
Part of her longs to, in a vague, unreachable sort of way. Similarly, part of her is scared. Scared he doesn't mean it. Scared to become a trapped thing again, with the whole wonderful, horrible range of human emotions.
But one day, those small changes give way to a big one. König dresses her, does her makeup, "feeds" her breakfast (chocolate chip pancakes, which she'd discovered were amazing when she was alive), and pulls something strange out of his closet--some sort of chair on wheels. He carefully arranges her inside of it, strapping her in so she doesn't fall out, and then--
Then he--
He--
He takes her out of the flat.
The hallway is the most glorious thing she's ever seen. And so is the elevator. And the lobby, and oh!--they pass by another person! A whole other person!--and then they're outside, and suddenly, it's the most devastating thing in the world that she can't feel the warmth of the sun on her skin.
But she can see it--the sun, bright and blinding in the pale blue sky, playing peak-a-boo with fluffy, soft-looking clouds. One is in the shape of a bunny, and she finds herself hoping fervently that she gets to see one, today. On the telly, they look so cute with their long ears and little, wiggling noses. König had promised to get her one, someday. She'd went back to being a doll before he could.
They're outside all day, and it's magical. König wheels her all over the city, showing her everything she's only ever seen through a screen. As the sun starts to set, he brings her to a park--she knows it must be a park because of all the grass and trees, while the rest of the city is concrete--and lays out a blanket, sitting a picnic basket on it and setting up a meal for them. Then, he sits down, putting her in his lap, and he "feeds" her all her favorite foods as they watch the blue sky turn pink and orange and purple.
As the sun finally dips below the horizon, she turns around, tears of joy in her no-longer glass eyes, and hugs him as tightly as she can.
retired hybrid owners ghoap, hybrids könig & lelia. thanks to @theunderscorekinginyellow for workshopping this idea with me!
In a world where hybrids are more intelligent than animals, but not quite as intelligent as humans, the hybrids of domesticated breeds can't survive on their own. So they're kept as pets, like their animal counterparts, with hybrid specific shelters, vets, and even breeders (the existence of which is highly controversial).
König is a giant Flemish rabbit hybrid--he was bred to work in the military, and was incredibly good at it. But rabbit hybrids, for all their pros, are particularly susceptible to mental health disorders like anxiety, depression, and PTSD.
(There's a long history of Hybird Activist Groups challenging the use of rabbit hybrids in military operations, but so far, they haven't managed to get it outlawed entirely, only highly regulated. The giant Flemish rabbit is one of the only breeds still valid for military use).
König lasts longer than most of his kind, but by the time he turns thirty-three, he can no longer manage the mental strain of active service. A hybrid's handler would usually adopt them after the hybrid retires, but König's handler was a mean-spirited man with little patience for "useless vermin," so he was transferred to a shelter instead.
The shelter is loud and lonely, but he isn't mistreated. Nonetheless, the longer König stays there, the worse his mental health becomes. When it gets to the point where he starts to refuse meals and attack the other rabbit hybrids when they get too close, the shelter is forced to put him on the euthanasia list.
Luckily, Ghost was recently convinced by Price and Gaz to adopt a former service hybrid, in honor of their Task Force's late hybrid, Roach, now that Simon is retired and will have the time to take care of one. He takes one look at the hybrid that's even bigger than him, and knows he's his only hope--no one else would dare take on a beast like him, cute bunny ears or not.
-
Johnny "Soap" MacTavish was dishonorably discharged from the SAS at age 26, mere months before Captain Price would have recruited him for Task Force 141. Soap's crime? Reporting a corrupt superior for abusing a fellow soldier, a hybrid under his command. A soldier who was threatened into claiming that it was Soap who'd hurt her.
Struggling with an overwhelming, constant anger over the injustice, and unable to find a job, Johnny falls into a deep depression, sleeping all day, barely eating, and never cleaning. In a perhaps misguided attempt to get her little brother out of his funk via some good old fashioned responsibility, Cora MacTavish buys him a designer Holland Lop hybrid from a well known breeder. (She has to take out a bigger loan than she did when she went to Uni, but for her little brother, it's worth it).
The little hybrid is tiny, adorable, and demanding. She sends Johnny's life into a frantic whirlwind as he scrambles to find everything she needs to thrive, including a way to pull himself back together. He manages it, barely, but her sweet cuddles and hilariously bratty thumps make him smile for the first time in months, and he realizes that she is what he needed.
Rabbit hybrids age at the same rate as humans, so at 18, his Lop--who is named Lelia, according to her breeder--is fully grown. She's a bright, friendly rabbit, and he can't help but spoil her. She doesn't usually take advantage of that fact, except for when she wants another treat, or for him to read her another story, or...
Well. Maybe she does take advantage of it quite a bit.
He doesn't care, though. She gave him a reason to live again---she can have as many treats as she wants.
-
The first time the four of them meet, they're in the waiting room of the vet office. Lelia is on a leash (she has a tendency to run off if she spots something interesting), pastel pink with frills and bows on the collar to match her pretty outfit. König, meanwhile, is hunched over in a massive crate loaded onto a dolly. He's more of a flight risk than Lelia--a bite risk, too. In fact, when the vets try to take him out of his crate to put him on the scale, he starts fighting, kicking and thrashing as he stares at them all with big, frightened eyes.
Lelia's leash slips from Johnny's grasp as he reaches out to grab her waist and pull her close. She wriggles away and darts over to the frightened rabbit hybrid, hopping right into his cage. Immediately, the commotion outside of it intensifies, hands trying to yank her back out--but training kicks in for König, and he pulls the hostage lop bunny behind him, his ears flattening as he grunts threateningly.
Lelia chitters at him, scolding, but at the same time, she starts to pet him, sitting up on her knees so she can nuzzle her nose against the nape of his neck. He jolts at the context before relaxing instinctively, sinking further into the crate and still watching the humans outside it warily, but no longer looking seconds away from biting off the vet tech's finger like it's a carrot.
As Lelia continues to calm König down, Johnny and Simon are seconds away from a full-blown fist fight as they both try to protect their pets. Johnny's sure the Flemish Giant is about to crush his poor, sweet Lelia to death, but Simon is far more worried about the man with a stupid haircut currently trying to get through him to crawl into the crate after his dumb bunny. Besides, he knows König won't hurt her. Probably.
While voices raise outside the crate, inside, Lelia has crawled into König's lap, grounding him in the present. At her urging, he starts to pet her soft, floppy ear with one hand, while grooming her with the other, straightening her many bows and twirling her long, loose curls around his thick, crooked fingers.
Several vet techs are trying to de-escalate the fight between Johnny and Simon, but the one crouched in front of the crate watches the two rabbit hybrids with wide, awed eyes, unable to help but coo over how adorable they're being.
In the end, Simon and Johnny have to learn how to get along, because Lelia and König refuse to be parted for their checkups, and whine pitifully when they have to separate to go home. König only lets go of her when both humans agree to schedule a playdate soon, but Lelia clings like a koala until the nebulous "soon" becomes "tomorrow."
König swoons at her hostage negotiation skills while Simon silently judges Johnny for his hybrid's lack of discipline. Johnny is too busy cracking under the pressure of his sweet bun's cuteness, and her dainty, twitching nose is the straw that breaks the camel's back.
Lelia knows she's won when her human sighs like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders, and she hops off of König's lap and back to Johnny, smiling sweetly at him as she hands him her pretty pink leash, looking like the picture of innocence.
Summary: Johnny’s flush reached his cheeks, half embarrassed, half offended. Ghost narrowed his eyes, refusing to think how Johnny probably took his pretty bird’s virginity. Refusing to imagine how he’d done it. If he’d been soft and gentle with her, or if he’d been too eager to be patient. He usually was, when they shared women. He’d eat them out like a man starved and then rut into them like a dog, hard and fast. They all liked it, of course, though a couple times Ghost had to scruff him to keep him from coming inside, when both of them were too drunk to remember to wear a condom.
Word Count: 3805
Warnings: thick scottish accent from johnny, Johnny/Lelia, Ghost POV, seemingly unrequited love (ghoap), a LOT of jealousy
Notes: I posted this to my AO3 ages ago, and I figured I'd finally out it up here, too. This is the first chapter to fic that will either end up being Ghoap, or Ghoap/Lelia. Really just depends if I decide to make it a long fic like Dove or a shorter one.
AO3, Masterlist
“Soap’s got a new bird, and he won’t stop runnin’ his fuckin’ mouth ‘bout her.”
That’s what Ghost was greeted with the day he got back from his latest solo mission. It was Garrick talking, the only other person awake this early in the morning. Ghost hadn’t bothered to go to sleep after he’d given his briefing, despite the exhaustion pulling at his bones. That way lay nightmares, and he’d already seen enough this time around. He was staying awake until he physically couldn’t anymore.
And if he ended up asleep on the rec room’s couch, foot digging into the meat of Johnny’s thigh because that was the most he’d let himself touch the other man, whose presence offered him so much comfort? Well, he knew his team wouldn’t say anything.
“Johnny’s got a new bird e’ry week,” Ghost grumbled, sipping his coffee, stolen from the stash of the man in question. Tasted like shite no matter what the Scot claimed, but it did the job of keeping him awake. “Reckon’ he’ll be mopin’ around about ‘er endin’ things any day now.”
“Nah, LT,” Garrick responded, sidling over to the couch with a cuppa in hand. Had a saucer under it and everything. Posh little shit. “They’ve been goin’ steady for nearin’ two months now. He’s arse over tits about her already. Could swear I caught 'im lookin’ at engagement rings the other day.”
Ghost’s chest squeezed.
“S’been two months,” he said, disbelieving for two entirely different reasons. The first being that Johnny had even managed to keep a girl that long, and the second that he was already thinking about marriage. Though he supposed that last thought was at least more believable than the first—Johnny wasn’t what he'd call a hopeless romantic, but he was a dog. And not just in the sense that he would hump anything he could get his cock in. No, Johnny was also desperate for affection and full of endless fucking loyalty. If some bird finally looked like she was gonna stay? He’d try to lock that shite down as fast as possible.
“S’what I said,” Garrick chuckled. “He’s gonna scare the poor girl off.”
Good.
“Least then I won’ have to hear him waxin’ poetic like a love struck fool any longer,” the Sergeant continued. “S’bloody fuckin’ annoyin’, s’what it is.”
“What's 'er name?”
Garrick looked a bit surprised at the question—Ghost had never taken much (any) interest in Johnny’s birds before—but then answered.
“Lelia. Met ‘er at a pub, one of ‘em tha’s filled with uni students. Soap won’ say how young she is, jus’ tha’ she’s legal.” Garrick laughed again. “Nasty perv.”
Despite the harsh words, there was a fond grin on his face. Insults were how soldiers showed they cared, after all.
Ghost clenched his fists around his mug anyway.
“She pretty?” He asked, trying to distract himself from thoughts of Johnny chasing tail that probably hadn’t even been born when Ghost enlisted. He felt like an old fuck, just as perverted as Garrick claimed Johnny was. Especially when he couldn’t help but imagine how Johnny looked, railing a sweet young thing from behind, toned arse just begging to be smacked…
Garrick whistled, low and long.
“As a peach. Clever, too.” The Sergeant affected a Scottish brogue, voice lowering an octave as he imitated his friend. “My lass dinnae need a single pence ta get inta Oxford. Smart as a whip, she is!”
“Are we talkin’ about my bonnie lamb?” A familiar voice called from around the corner, voice bright with excitement. For once, it made Ghost’s heart sink. “Ain't’ she just the prettiest li’l thing—LT! You’re back!”
Johnny lumbered over to the couch, plopping down between Ghost and Garrick before throwing an arm over his shoulder.
“S’good tae see you’re in one piece,” he said with a blinding grin. “Was startin’ ta worry about ye, bein’ gone fer so long.”
Ghost shrugged off his arm, as he always did—though he usually let it linger a bit longer. It had been nearly a year since Las Almas, and he’d gotten far closer to Johnny than he’d ever intended to. Perhaps this was the wake up call he’d needed. It was time to pull back. Protect what was left of his shriveled, blackened heart.
“Should bring my bird ‘round now that you’re here,” Johnny continued, oblivious. Too caught up in thoughts of Lelia. Ghost sneered at the name. It sounded so delicate—not like the type of person that could handle Johnny and all his energy, all his anger. Not like Ghost. “Ye’ll love her, Ghost. Bet even ye cannae resist her charms.”
Ghost highly doubted that.
“She’s far ta good fer me, I reckon,” Johnny said as he turned back to Garrick, sounding positively dreamy. Fuckin’ hell, this was torture. “I told ye she’s a real classy lass, aye? Comes from ol’ money, but she’s sweeter’n a bowl o’ Caledonian cream.”
“You’ve mentioned it,” Garrick replied, deadpan. Johnny didn’t seem to notice.
“You datin’ ‘er for the money, then?” Ghost asked, tone cutting. Johnny looked at him, an offended expression on his stupidly handsome face.
“'Course naw!” He denied, reacting to the venom in Ghost’s voice with his own. “She got cut off, didn’t she? Gave up the money tae become a poet. A real starvin’ artist, my bonnie lamb.”
And now the dreamy tone was back.
“Not that I let her starve, o’course,” Johnny continued quickly. “Send her money every week, I do. Got ta show her I can be a good provider.”
“Hold on a fuckin’ minute, you’re givin’ this bird money?” Garrick asked, voicing Ghost’s concerns. “You’ve known her less than two months, MacTavish!”
“Fi’ty-seven days, today,” Johnny interjected, waving off Garrick's worries. “An’ s’not like that, Kyle. She’s no gold digger. Lass’ll barely accept the quids. Blocked me on Venmo after I kept sending her payments when she’d reject ‘em the first time ‘round.”
Johnny chuckled, clearly amused.
“Finally got her ta take the money when I said it’d distract me out in the field, kennin’ she was goin’ hungry. She’s a real good girl like that. Always worryin’ about me.”
Ghost couldn't take it anymore.
“Gotta piss,” he grunted, abruptly getting up and striding out of the rec room. But he didn’t head towards the loo. Instead, he went back to his own quarters, ripping off his mask and laying down on his too-small bunk. Even nightmares would be better than the torture of listening to Johnny pine pathetically after some little girl.
After someone other than him.
-*-
Ghost didn’t end up meeting her for another three months.
The four of them had been called away on a mission only a few days after he’d had gotten back from his last one. It hadn’t been too terrible, only a couple of weeks, but they’d barely gotten a day between that and the next one. And then the next one. And the next one.
Back to back missions nearly five months straight, and even he was nearing the end of his fucking rope.
Johnny constantly nattering about how much he missed his bird had nothing to do with it.
You keep telling yourself that, Simon. Maybe someday it’ll be true.
Some of the team had solo ops over the course of the three months, and seeing Johnny join him on the next mission with a bloody pep in his step annoyed him more than ever before. But it annoyed him even more that he’d keep his mouth shut whenever Garrick pestered him about it.
“Oh, I know that look. Someone just got laid.”
“Ye ken me, Gaz. I dinna kiss’n tell.”
As if that wasn’t a load of bullshite. Johnny couldn’t keep his big mouth shut about all his conquests. The fact that he’d suddenly become a gentleman told Ghost just how serious he was about this girl, and it itched at him.
Their last mission had been all four of them, and it’d been another long-hauler. A bad one, too. The shite they’d seen, the things they’d done… even Johnny was quiet, for once.
Garrick was laid up in the base hospital with a broken arm—a clean break, lucky for him. He’d be back in working order soon enough—and the Captain was already knee deep in paperwork. But not before he’d passed down the orders that Ghost was on two weeks leave, effective immediately. When he'd protested, he’d been told he didn’t have a choice.
“You’ve not taken your mandatory PTO yet this year. Brass is pushin’ it. S’just a couple weeks, son. You’ll survive.”
Ghost had grumbled about it, not looking forward to putting himself up in a cheap motel for the next two weeks. He never bothered getting a flat for the brief time every year that he was kicked off base. But when Johnny found out, he insisted on Ghost staying at his place.
“S’not much, but s’better than that rubbish heap you’re plannin’ on layin’ your big heid.”
Which was how he’d ended up here, in Johnny’s flat that was supposed to be empty, staring hard at the petite woman flitting around the messy kitchen like a bird making a nest. She hadn’t even noticed him, far too engrossed in her cooking. She was wearing a Kiss the Cook apron that was much too large for her small frame. She had flour all the way up to her elbows, a smear of sauce across her forehead, and a wild look in her wide brown eyes.
Johnny’s bird. He recognized her from the endless sketches the Scot had drawn of her on their last mission. He’d made them so realistic, it was like he was trying to will her to jump out of the page at him.
“Lamb!” Johnny yelled happily as he entered the flat behind Ghost, having hung back to pick up his mail. His bird screamed, dropping the mixing bowl she’d been holding and clutching her chest like she was having a heart attack. The clattering of the plastic bowl against the floor only seemed to startle her further, and she jumped so high she almost reached a normal person’s height. Almost.
“Och! Dinnae mean ta scare ye,” Johnny exclaimed as he rushed forward, ignoring the mess of ingredients on the floor to pull his girl into a hug, lifting her off the ground and spinning her around. Her expression of fear was quickly replaced by joy, before her face was hidden from view as she buried it in the crook of Johnny’s neck. Breathing in his scent, no doubt. Ghost knew it was a mix of pine, seawater, and crisp, cold air that shouldn’t have smelt anywhere near as good as it did.
Johnny finally set her down when she gasped that she couldn't breathe, his hands cupping her round face, his thumb wiping away sauce as he chuckled.
“Not that m’naw happy ta see ye, but what’re ye doin’ here, bonnie? Shouldn't ye be in class?”
Johnny’s bird giggled, the sound bright and innocent, her head tilted to the side like a confused puppy.
“It’s Christmas break, моя радость, remember?” She said, and beneath his balaclava, Ghost raised a brow at the Russian. Suddenly, her face dropped, and her hands twitched where they were wrapped around Johnny’s back. She began to scratch at her cuticle with a perfectly manicured nail. Nervous little thing. “You said I could stay here, since the dorms were closed…?”
“S’December already?” Johnny asked, shocked. “Fuck, lamb, I got ta get ye your present!”
“You being here is more than enough,” she said, turning her head to press a kiss to the center of Johnny’s palm. It was sickeningly domestic. Ghost didn’t want to see another second of it.
“Psh,” Johnny waved off her words, turning around and sliding his arm around her as Ghost tried to make his silent escape. “LT! Where ye goin’? Come meet my lass!”
Ghost froze, trying to figure out a way he could get out of this without irreparably damaging his friendship with Johnny. When he realized he couldn’t, he took another second to decide if he should leave anyway. But the thought of only getting to see Johnny’s smile when it was directed at someone else made his gut clench, so slowly, he turned back around.
Johnny’s bird was scolding him for bringing a guest over without telling her—the fuck would he have to tell her for? S’his flat—because now she’d gone and made an awful first impression, screaming like a child and looking a mess. Ghost didn’t disagree with her, even as Johnny did his best to placate her despite the amused grin on his face.
“I’m so sorry for all this. I was trying to make Johnny a welcome home meal, but I’m not really a good cook…” she said, finally looking away from Johnny. She had untied the oversized apron—Johnny’s no doubt—and was wiping flour off her hands with it. It was a lost cause, and she seemed to realize that too, as she stopped and gave him a sheepish expression. “I’m Lelia. I’d shake your hand, but…”
He waved her off. He was glad he wouldn’t have to touch her. He fucked women when the urge got too great to ignore, even shared a couple with Johnny when they were both pissed out of their minds, but he never let them touch him anywhere but his cock. He never took off his mask, either. Their complaints always stopped sometime around the third orgasm.
“Ghost,” he grunted after a long moment of silence. The girl’s—Lelia, Simon, don’t be a fucking bastard—face had fallen the longer he put off answering, and those sad eyes were fucking effective annoying. So was the expectant look Johnny was giving him.
“It’s nice to meet you, Ghost,” she said, still perfectly polite despite his near brush off. Posh little bird. He had to give her credit, though, she didn't even acknowledge the mask. Johnny must have told her about it. She did eye his duffel, though, looking uncertain. “Are you staying over?”
Figures she wouldn’t want him here. Probably wanted Johnny to fuck her brains out in peace. Ghost wasn't exactly keen to be an audience to that, no matter that his twitching cock said otherwise.
“Sorry, lass, I wasna keepin' track o’ the days,” Johnny apologized. “Ye don’t mind if he stays, do ye? He’s naw got anywhere else ta go.”
Ghost shot Johnny a glare at that, but the other man just shrugged. Lelia hesitated before shaking her head.
“No, of course not, I just—” she blushed, and then leaned in close to whisper something into Johnny's ear. Ghost rolled his eyes. What was she, twelve?
Whatever she asked made Johnny laugh uproariously, and Ghost felt a spark of jealousy.
“Ye don't need ta give him a gift, lamb,” Johnny replied, still chuckling, and Ghost blinked. Was she talking about him? Why the bloody hell would she think he wanted a gift from her? “Christ, you’re an angel. C’mere.”
Johnny pulled her into another kiss. She let out a noise halfway between a protest and a moan when his hands cupped her arse, pulling back and swatting his chest. There was a scandalized look on her face as she shot a furtive glance in Ghost’s direction before glaring at Johnny again.
“John MacTavish! Keep your hands to yourself,” she scolded him, and Ghost would have found it amusing, his friend looking contrite from such a tiny girl’s reprimand, if he weren't so fucking annoyed.
“Sorry, Bonnie,” Johnny said, only looking like he half meant it. “You’re just ta damn sweet. Canna help but want a taste.”
“Save the foreplay f’the bedroom, MacTavish,” Ghost grumbled, pissier than he had any right to be. Lelia eeped and took another step back, and then another, before bustling back to the kitchen to start cleaning up. Johnny glared at him with a surprising amount of heat for such a relatively tame comment, and Ghost frowned. Johnny followed Lelia into the kitchen, murmuring something in her ear as he helped her clean up. Her tense posture softened, and she leaned into his bulk, letting him kiss her cheek.
“You’re ta good ta me, lamb,” Johnny said quietly, and Ghost knew he wasn’t supposed to hear that. He didn't want to hear that, didn’t want to be faced with proof that she treated him right, that she was better for Johnny than Ghost could ever hope to be. So instead he turned away, heading towards the couch and dropping his duffle on it. He only looked up when Johnny tossed him his phone, catching it in one of his gloved hands, a single brow raised beneath his balaclava.
“Order us a kerry oot,” he said as Lelia disappeared down a short hallway leading to what he assumed to be the bedroom. Meanwhile, Johnny started scraping some sort of burnt food residue off a pan and into the bin. “Chinese. S’Lelia’s favorite.”
“He means to say you should order pizza,” she cut in as she returned to the kitchen, holding a broom in one hand and a dustpan in the other. “That’s Johnny’s favorite, and tonight is about him.”
She smiled at Johnny, so sweet it made Ghost’s teeth hurt. Then she turned that smile on him, and fuck, he swore he could feel a cavity forming.
“You too, Ghost,” she said, a little shy but far too god damn earnest. “You've both been away on a mission, right? That means it's time for you two to relax.”
As she spoke, she bumped her hip against Johnny, trying to nudge him out of the kitchen. He studiously ignored her, pretending to be entirely focused on the dish he was washing. Finally, she sighed, and whacked his arse with the flat of the dustpan. He yelped and tucked his nonexistent tail, giving her the same look he did Garrick whenever he stole a fry from his tray in the mess hall back on base.
“I said,” Lelia repeated, nudging him again. “Go relax. I made the mess, I’ll clean it up.”
“Ye were makin’ it fer me though, lamb,” Johnny argued, but when she brandished the dustpan at him again, he raised his hands in surrender and backed off, chuckling.
“I should’ve known it would end in a mess,” she sighed, shaking her head as she bent over to sweep flour off the floor. Ghost’s eyes lingered on her arse. It was small, and mostly hidden by her long skirt, but he could tell it was soft and pert, just like Johnny liked. He quickly looked back at his phone, pulling up a food delivery app. “I’m no Román, much as I try. Even your recipes couldn't make me a competent cook.”
“If ye keep talkin’ about Román in that wistful tone, m‘gonna think ye miss him fer more than just his cookin’,” Johnny teased as he plopped down on the couch, kicking his feet up on the coffee table. Ghost settled next to him after a second of hesitation, passing him his phone and training his eyes on the telly, willing it to turn on with the power of his glare alone. “Startin’ ta get jealous.”
“You were already jealous of Román, моя радость,” Lelia pointed out, voice fond. Ghost saw Johnny scowl out of the corner of his eye.
“Ye said his cookin’s better’n mine,” he grumbled, and Ghost could tell he was only half joking this time.
“I did not. I said his technique was better, but that your food always has more soul in it. Which means I like yours more,” she replied, sounding like they’d had this argument before. The reminder of how long they’d been dating made Ghost clench his hands into fists as another wave of jealousy swept over him.
“Who’s Román?” He interrupted, trying to distract himself. “An ex?”
“Oh my days, no,” Lelia said as she moved on to washing the dishes, looking flustered just at the suggestion. “Román was my family’s private chef.”
Ghost digested that about as easily as the shitty MREs they ate on missions. He remembered Johnny mentioning that his girl came from money, but he’d not realized she was that rich. Spoiled little priss. The fuck did Johnny see in her?
“Besides,” she continued, oblivious to how badly Ghost wanted her to shut the hell up. He regretted asking a question in the first place. Stewing in his jealousy was better than hearing her chirp at him in that sweet little voice about how easy she had it. It was insulting. “My parents didn’t let me date, growing up. Johnny is my first boyfriend.”
“Christ,” Ghost muttered under his breath, shooting Johnny an unimpressed look. The tips of his ears were red, and Ghost leaned in and flicked one. Hard. “How fuckin’ young is she, Johnny? Do I gotta call the bloody cops?”
Johnny’s flush reached his cheeks, half embarrassed, half offended. Ghost narrowed his eyes, refusing to think how Johnny probably took his pretty bird’s virginity. Refusing to imagine how he’d done it. If he’d been soft and gentle with her, or if he’d been too eager to be patient. He usually was, when they shared women. He’d eat them out like a man starved and then rut into them like a dog, hard and fast. They all liked it, of course, though a couple times Ghost had to scruff him to keep him from coming inside, when both of them were too drunk to remember to wear a condom.
“Fuck off LT, she's nineteen,” he sniped. Ghost really had no room to judge, and he wasn’t, not actually. He should have been—pretended to, to hide his own interest. “Twenty in March.”
“Did you two order the pizza yet?” Lelia interrupted their whispered conversation, oblivious.
“Aye,” Johnny answered, looking away from Ghost. “Got ye a small one of yer own, no cheese but loads o’ veggies.”
Can’t even eat a pizza like a normal person, fuckin’ ‘ell.
“Thank you, baby,” she said, giving Johnny that tooth-rotting smile again. Ghost looked away, leaning over Johnny and snatching the remote from the coffee table to turn the telly on. He was still flicking through channels when he felt a presence behind him, and he stiffened, turning to see that Lelia had joined them. Johnny threw an arm over her shoulders and pulled her close, and she curled up against his side happily, laying her head on his chest and looking up at him adoringly. Johnny kissed her forehead, the same look on his face, and Ghost burned.
“Gotta piss,” he said gruffly, standing up and tossing the remote at Johnny’s crotch none too gently. He heard him wheeze in pain as Ghost stomped away, and Lelia’s concerned chirping.
