Luna

She/Her | 24 | Reader | Fangirl

[rainbow-femme]

“Shane fuck Shane help we fucked up, we lost Ilya, I swear he was here one second ago and now-“

“Haas, where are you right now?”

“The club by the hotel.”

“And he’s not in the bathroom?”

“No.”

“Not on the roof?”

“No.”

“Not trying to access any of the dancers poles?”

“What? Why would- Oh, Troy says no.”

“Is he hanging out with drunk girls in the women’s bathroom?”

“Umm, one sec. Harris, can you ask her if Ilya is in there? … Harris says no.”

“Ok. What were you talking about before he disappeared?”

“We were trying to figure out where to eat.”

“Did anyone bring up sushi?”

“He didn’t say he wanted-“

“Just answer the question.”

“Uh yeah, someone suggested it, but he said he wanted-“

“He’s at the pier.”

“What?”

“He got bored, sushi put fish on his brain, which made him think about water, and he likes going to piers, and the hotel is walking distance from a boardwalk by the water. He’s there, most likely trying to look at fish going under the dock.”

“… How do you know that?”

“Do you have any ideas how many times I have gotten this exact phone call? He’s easier to catch if you bait him with mozzarella sticks but make sure he knows he only gets them if he comes quietly. If you let him negotiate he will take the sticks and run. Cliff always fell for that.”

[voidsagent]

Sticky Notes & Scrub Tops - jack abbot x reader

Pairings: jack abbot x reader

Summary: when you start packing lunches for jack, the ED takes notice. not just of the notes you leave, but of the changes in jack too.

Warnings: none really; TONS of fluff, age-gap, established relationship, mentions of the ED, soft jack, mutual affection, & medical inaccuracies.

Word Count: 3k+

Author’s Note: ahhh !! i finally finished this & have ‘just fluff june’ fic out for you guys !! i hope you all enjoy this one !! <3

Jack Abbot was never really the type to feed himself the way a person should eat. He lived off of vending machine food and granola bars. He could cook—he’s actually a very good cook—but didn’t see the point after a twelve hour shift that left him dead on his feet.

But for you? He’d cook a three course meal if you asked. He made sure you had dinner when he was off, waited on you hand and foot.

You did the same for him. But more so; you kept him fed.

You started meal prepping lunches for him to take to work; sometimes just leftovers from the previous night or something you made new entirely the day before while he was at work. Then you started adding desserts and snacks; a donut or pastry from the corner bakery you both loved, homemade cookies or brownies.

You left yogurt and homemade granola, veggie sticks with dip, beef jerky. But the dinners you packed? God, Jack could die on that hill.

He couldn’t explain how happy and domestic it made him feel to open up his lunchbox and find you’d packed him leftovers from the lasagna you’d made. Or chili, or a sandwich that looked like it came straight from a deli. Wraps that were filled to the brim with turkey and lettuce and everything he liked in them. He’d groan every time he took that first bite, leaning back in his chair with a content sigh. Something dangerous playing in his heart.

You—his sweet girlfriend of a few months who lived in his t-shirts and padded around his apartment with a giddy step and had more kindness in your pinky than most people had in their entire body—packed him lunch like it was nothing. Taking care of him like it was second nature. For you, it was.

People noticed, because Jack Abbot didn’t eat on shift unless it was a handful of nuts or whatever stale thing fell out of the vending machine when he kicked it after it ate his money.

But along with Jack eating good, came the changes in his body. Not anything drastic or bad but…he got thicker. At first it was just a little more pull at his scrubs, nothing he couldn’t handle by adjusting his arms a little.

He didn’t get fat or out of shape just; broader, healthy fat lining his muscles. His pecs and biceps always strained against his shirts, but now they looked like they were seconds away from busting the seams open. His ass got rounder, cheeks slightly more plush that you grabbed every time he kissed you; making him yelp a noise of protest. Every. Single. Time.

Don’t even get started on his torso. Layered with a slight pudge at the bottom when he wore his belt, abs and back muscles visible and flexing underneath his movements. He looked divine. He was stronger, more solid and filled out. His scrub top looked more than two sizes too small, hanging on for dear life.

Even if people noticed, they didn’t say anything; not at first. But of course Robby would be the one to put a stop to that; coming to a halt as he walked by with an ipad in hand, looking at his best friend like he’d just committed a felony in front of him.

“Jesus brother”, Robby says; “Let that shirt breathe.”

Jack turned to look at him, pushing his elbows off the counter of the hub; “What?”

“You look like your shirt’s two seconds away from ripping”, Robby points out, like it’s common knowledge.

“I don’t-“

Dana appears out of thin air next to them; “He’s right. You’ve been eating actual food too.”

Jack’s mouth stays open for a second, before a smirk takes its place; “So what? People eat.”

“You”, Robby says, pointing at him with a look over his glasses; “Don’t eat.”

“This feels like a personal attack”, Jack scoffs, still slightly amused; “You don’t eat either.”

“Correct. But i’m not suddenly showing up two months later looking like an honorary Avenger about to bust out of his scrub top.”

Jack’s jaw ticks, eyes flicking between the two; “You’re unbelievable.”

Jack grabs his own tablet, throwing a mock glare at the two in front of him; “I have patients to see, you know, like a real doctor?”

Then he walks away, throwing a half-hearted wave and a middle finger at whatever Dana and Robby are calling out after him.

Robby shifts on his feet, scoff leaving his mouth; “Damn.”

Dana gives him a look; “Whatever you’re thinking Robinavitch; don’t.”

Robby shakes his head; “No…Abbot’s got a better ass than me.”

─ ─── ─── ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── ─── ─── ─

A week later Jack finds himself standing in the break room, pulling out the lunch box you packed for him—leftovers from dinner the night before. Pasta and bread that he happily reheated in the microwave and toaster oven.

A small yellow sticky note was stuck to the top of the container, his lips already twitching at the corners.

‘Baby! I can’t wait to see you today. Go kick ass & save lives, sexy doctor man !! I love you sooooo much !! PS: I left you a surprise from your fav place !!’ with a little smiley face and heart drawn below it.

Jack’s heart skipped a beat, feeling the heat climbing up his neck and ears; settling on his cheeks as he slipped the note into his pocket to hang in his locker later with all the other notes of yours he kept.

He settled at the round table in the break room, looking further into the lunch box where sure enough—he found a pastry from his favorite bakery around the corner from his apartment.

He took a bite of it, sighing and letting his eyes close as the sweet taste hit his tongue. Shoulders dropping a bit as he relaxed a little into the chair.

He didn’t even open his eyes when the break room door swung open, whoever was stepping inside slipped to the back of his mind.

“Woah, is that homemade pasta?”, Shen’s voice broke through his thoughts.

Jack grunted quietly in response, nodding as he leant forward to take a bite; “Maybe.”

“You got a professional chef at home we don’t know about?”

Jack smirked a little; “Something like that.”

He took another bite, knowing more questions were coming and secretly hoping Shen would just do whatever he came in to do and let him eat in peace—but this was the ED, the night shift nonetheless; and Jack knew that was wishful thinking.

The door swung open behind them, Ellis sliding up next to Shen—stopping in her tracks.

“Abbot’s got homemade pasta”, Shen says, eyes wide.

Ellis leans over to inspect; “Now I know you didn’t cook that yourself.”

Jack raises his brows; “I can cook.”

“Not like that”, Ellis defends; “You burnt the noodles at last year’s potluck.”

“Robby was distracting me.”

“Excuses.”

Jack huffed and took another bite of his food.

“A pastry too? Who’s packing you this stuff?”

Jack takes the last bite of his pasta, pushing himself out of his chair and packing up the empty container; “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

He can feel the eyes on him as he puts the lunchbox back into the fridge, pulls out a water and slips past them with a smirk; “Enjoy your break, crawlers.”

Ellis scoffs, turning to Shen; “Fifty bucks says he’s got a woman at home. He’s not cooking like that.”

“Sixty-five”, Shen says, holding out his hand.

Ellis shakes it; “Done.”

─ ─── ─── ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── ─── ─── ─

The buzz of Jack Abbot’s sudden new eating habits—that actually benefited his body more than a vending machine dinner—quickly reached every corner of the ED. Various bets and hushed whispers of different theories floated around med students and residents alike. Hell, even Robby’s name had made it up on the betting board.

Jack himself couldn’t care less, the hushed whispers of the bet made him smirk to himself; knowing it was driving his coworkers crazy.

He wasn’t keeping you a secret exactly; it had just never directly or seriously come up.

He didn’t pay too much mind to all the whispers about his new size, either—mostly brushing it off as teasing or Robby and Dana just trying to get him all riled up.

But now, as he stood in the bathroom of his apartment—tugging a soft grey t-shirt over his head after a much needed shower; he was starting to think what Robby had said may have some truth to it.

You can hear him huff to himself in the bathroom, words you can’t quite pick up on as you flip through TV channels. A soft groan of frustration or disbelief echoes through Jack’s room, making you sit up more.

“Baby?”, You call, “Everything ok?”

There’s another quiet murmur of something before Jack comes out of the bathroom; hair still damp, greying curls lightening up as they dry. Boxers clinging low on his hips, the grey shirt he has on doing almost nothing to cover the contour and outline of his muscles—clinging to him so close he might as well not even bother wearing it.

Your mouth goes dry, watching as he sets his crutches against the bedside table and slumps down onto the end of the bed—every muscle in his back moving and pulling the shirt fabric even tighter.

“M’fine”, He says, messaging his residual limb; “Just starting to think maybe Robby’s right.”

“Ok…?”, You breathe; “Don’t ever say those words again…but about what?”

Jack huffs a laugh; “I’m serious!”

You shimmy out from underneath the covers, walking on your knees to the end of the bed and letting your hands roam over Jack’s shoulders. He instantly leans into it—like he didn’t even have to think about it anymore.

“He said my scrub top looked too small”, Jack sighs.

“Really?”

“Well actually his exact words were ‘let that shirt breathe, you’re about to rip it’ but I was phrasing it nicer.”

You laugh; “What makes you think he’s right?”

Jack shrugs; “Didn’t notice anything until I tried to put this shirt on and it barely fits. It used to be loose on me…”

He trails off, something in his mind making him think extra hard.

You hum softly, continuing to rub at his shoulders and a little down his arms; playing with the damp curls at the nape of his neck.

It’s quiet in the room as Jack continues to massage the tension out of his leg, eyes flicking over whatever TV channel you’d landed on before he came out. You press a soft kiss to his nape.

“Am I bigger?”, He asks suddenly.

Your eyes widen, a surprised laugh escaping your lips; “W-What?”

“Am I bigger?”, He repeats; “Have I put on weight?”

You soften immediately, realizing by the scrunch in his brow; he’s insecure about this.

“Baby, no”, You coo, slipping around to settle into his lap.

His hands come up to your waist, immediately steadying you.

“You’re just eating good”, You assure him.

His brow stays furrowed, a slight pout on his face and lips; eyes not looking at you.

“I mean maybe you’ve put on a few pounds, but with your job and SWAT; it’s all muscle, my love”, You say, letting your fingers comb through his hair.

He doesn’t answer yet, but his brow softens, eyes flicking towards yours now as you move your face in front of his.

“You’re so broad”, You whisper, hands roaming his shoulders again; “So strong.”

“Yeah?”, He asks, eyebrows raising a bit.

You nod, bottom lip between your teeth; “Yeah.”

You giggle softly when you feel his fingers flex at your waist, the way he shivers when you let your hands drift under his shirt—palms pressing flat against his torso. You let them settle there for a moment, fingers tapping against skin before you pull them back—tugging upwards at the hem.

His ears are pink now, but he doesn’t hesitate; pulling the shirt up and over his head with one pull at the back of the collar. It lands somewhere on the floor, but your attention remains on him.

Pale skin with a slight farmers tan disappearing by his elbows; laid out bare in front of you. His eyes flicking around the room, hands back at your waist.

With a soft hand on his jaw, you force him to look at you.

“You’re so thick”, You murmur, pressing a kiss to his bare shoulder.

His grip of your waist tightens, a breath leaving his nose.

Your kisses travel over his skin, trailing over his shoulders and torso; leaving no spot unmarked.

“So full and filled out.”

Kiss.

“So muscular.”

Kiss.

“So handsome.”

Your compliments start drifting elsewhere as you let your kisses trail over him.

“So kind.”

Kiss.

“So caring.”

Another kiss.

“So good to me.”

A kiss to his neck.

Your hands stop at the bottom of his torso, just below his belly button where the slightest bit of softer skin sits just above his waistband. You smooth your hands over it, feeling the muscle below it tense.

You look up, finding Jack’s cheeks the same color as his ears—his eyes wide and waiting. You pinch his skin once, before letting your hands roam back up his freckled arms to his shoulders; cupping his nape in your hands.

“You’re so beautiful, Jack”, You murmur.

A shaky breath leaves him, your lips against his cheeks and nose. He pulls back, eyes searching yours.

“God, I love you”, He huffs, pulling you in for a kiss.

His lips press firm against yours, hands traveling up your back and settling on your ribs. Jack’s forehead stays against yours when he pulls back, eyes still closed.

“It’s your fault, ya know”, He smirks.

You shrug; “I know, and I’m gonna keep feeding my man good.”

He lets out a noise between a groan and something of disbelief when you move off his lap, finding your way back to your spot on the bed. He follows you, rolling over to lay on his stomach; arms framed around his head and tucked under his pillow.

“Besides”, You say, mischievous smile growing; “Your ass looks ridiculously good.”

He yelps when your hand comes in contact with his ass, eyes wide as pink practically runs up his neck.

“Baby!”

“M’not even sorry”, You say, leaning in to capture his lips before he can protest any further.

─ ─── ─── ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── ─── ─── ─

Something in Jack settles after that, most of the insecurity gone. He takes all the comments from Robby and Dana in stride. He still eats what you pack him, still keeps your notes.

He frowns when he goes to get his lunchbox out, finding it missing with a note in its place.

‘No lunch today, baby. Got a surprise for you!’

He can’t help the way his lips turn up at the corner, curiosity taking over when the door behind him swings open.

“Abbot! We got a MVA coming in”, Dana’s voice cuts him out of his thoughts.

“How long?”

“About two minutes.”

Jack sighs once, putting his bag away and following Dana out the door; the part of him trying to figure out what you were up to slipping to the back of his mind.

About two hours later, the bay doors open around you; boxes stacked in your hands as you wander towards the hub.

“You need help there, hon?”, Dana’s voice comes.

She’s standing at the hub, brows quirked in amusement and confusion.

“Oh hi!”, You chirp; “I just brought some lunch for my boyfriend and his co-workers. Not really sure where to put it though.”

Dana’s smile grows; “Well why didn’t you say so? Follow me, we’ll put those in here.”

She shows you to the break room, holding the door open as you slip in.

“So boyfriend huh? Which one of our lucky med students gets all this food?”, She asks, leading you back to the hub.

“Oh! He’s not a med student, he’s a doctor! Uh, Jack?”, You say.

Dana’s smile widens even further; “So you’re the one who’s feeding our grumpy guy?”

Robby’s head whips up from the other side of the hub, Ellis and Shen slowing to a stop behind him.

You can’t help the laugh the slips out; “He looks grumpy sometimes, but he’s actually not. It’s all a ruse.”

It’s Dana’s turn to laugh; “Huh.”

“He thinks he’s got everyone fooled, but he’s just a big—“

“Sweetheart?”, Jack’s voice breaks through.

Your eyes light up immediately, rushing to meet him halfway; “Jack!”

You meet his chest with a soft thud, arms wrapping around him as you lean up and press a kiss to his lips. He’s frozen for a moment, but immediately melts into the kiss once your lips meet his. His strong hands find your waist, smoothing over them; keeping you both grounded.

Nothing else around him matters in that moment—not whatever trauma he’d just stepped out of, not the fact that his leg was a little sore, not the fact that the ED had fallen almost silent around you; and not Robby or his coworkers bewildered gazes.

He’s melted into you as you wrapped your arms around his torso, tucking yourself under his arm; hand rubbing softly over his ribs.

“Baby!”, You hum; “I missed you.”

Jack’s eyes wander over you; “I missed you too, sweetheart.”

There’s a moment where his brain catches up, and he’s suddenly tilting your head up to look at him; worried eyes checking over your features.

“What’re you doing here? Are you ok? Are you hurt?”, His questions come rambling out.

You giggle, squeezing his side; “I’m fine! I brought you and your friends some lunch. It’s in the break room.”

Jack softens, a small graze of his lips against your head; “Sweetheart, you didn’t have to do that.”

“I know”, You shrug; “But I wanted to.”

The gazes around you narrow, mouths agape at this Jack.

Jack Abbot was a lot of things in the ED; assertive, leading, confident, level-headed, kind, always looking out for everyone in his own quiet way; but he wasn’t soft.

But with you? Jack crumbled under your gaze, the strong-willed and grumpy looking attending was a smiling and sweet puddle in your arms.

“I got that coffee that you like”, You hum.

Jack dips his head down closer to hear you; “From the deli?”

“Mhm, it’s at home on the counter. Where do you think I got the sandwiches from?”

Something sparkles in his eyes; “That’s what you brought us for lunch? Baby, that’s too much.”

But the glint of excitement stays in his eyes.

You tsk and wave him off; “Not for you.”

His face goes unbearably fond, eyes and smile soft. His lips brush against your ear.

“You’re gonna spoil us”, He says, voice low and raspy.

“Let me”, You smirk.

Behind you, Robby finally clears his throat; “Jack you gonna introduce us or do we all just not exist now?”

“You don’t”, Jack rolls his eyes, smirking as Robby feigns hurt.

Jack introduces you, pointing to each of his colleagues that have gathered around; “That’s Robby, he’s annoying.”

You smack his chest; “Be nice!”

Jack doesn’t falter; “That’s Dana, she makes this place run smoothly. Behind her are Ellis and Shen.”

“Oh! You’re Dana!”, You smile; “I’ve heard so much about all of you.”

“Oh really—“, Robby starts before Dana stops him with a flick to the back of his neck; “Ow!”

Jack takes that as an opportunity to steer you away from the crowd and into the break room; Whitaker slipping out the door with a mouthful of sandwich from one of the boxes.

“Well it seems like they like the sandwiches”, You say, watching as Jack himself digs into the boxes you’d left on the counter.

“I labeled yours”, You add.

Jack finds his as the words leave your mouth, unwrapping it as he lowers himself onto the small couch—patting his lap; “‘Cmere.”

You drift towards him with a magnetic pull you’ll never be able to explain, finding your spot on his good leg. Hands drifting up to play with the curls on his head; a little sweaty now from working.

He hums around another bite of sandwich, his free arm resting at your back; “Thank you for this, really sweetheart.”

“You don’t have to thank me, Jack. I like taking care of you”, You tell him.

The smile on your face matches his as he presses a kiss to your temple, offering you a bite that you gladly accept.

“Your friends seem nice”, You add; “Kinda quiet though.”

Jack scoffs, smirk crooked; “Give them a chance.”

“We should have them over sometime, for a barbecue or something.”

Jack hums, palm circling your lower back; “Whatever you want, baby.”

You reach out and grab his chin, catching him off guard; his mouth still half open as he went in for another bite—brows in his hairline.

“I love you”, You coo, pressing a kiss to his cheek.

He chases after your lips; “I love you too, sweetheart.”

You let his lips take over yours, warm and present. You jump when you pull back, checking your watch; “Oh! I gotta get going, I’m gonna be late.”

Jack pats your bum as you press another kiss to his lips, slipping out of his lap and heading towards the break room door. You turn back when you get there, smiling at Jack whose eyes have never left you.

“See you at home?”, He asks, not really wanting you to leave.

You nod, bottom lip between your teeth; “With dinner and a hot bath ready.”

Jack groans, already aching to be cuddled up with you and unwind from his shift. You blow him a kiss with a soft wave, that he happily returns before you slip out the door; leaving him alone in the break room.

He can still feel your weight on his lap, your fingers in his hair and your lips against his—a blush and smile creeping up on him as he leans forward for another bite of his sandwich;

“So ‘baby’, huh?”, Robby’s voice comes.

“Shut up, Robinavitch”, Jack juts.

The sound of a clipboard hitting the floor and Robby yelping as he jumps out of the way are all that Jack hears as the door swings shut; humming softly to himself—more than ready to come home to you.

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[richeeduvie]

When Jack takes off his prosthetic, he has no time to prepare himself for how his daughter looks at the most complicated part of his body with her toddler curiosity.

Chubby has seen her father without his leg before, obviously. There are only so many ways to preserve mystery when she doesn’t believe in closed doors, and Jack’s routine of (slight and tight) relaxation involves removing Leggy, his prosthetic. Leggy is her friend, and sometimes it needs cleaning. She gets to put stickers on the thing and tries feeding it yogurt. 

But even with all the familiarity she has with her dad’s lack of leg, you and Jack should’ve expected the question to be asked at some point.

“Chubs, c’mon. You need your pajamas.”

“No pee-jams. No!”

Sitting on your bed in her diaper, Chubby keeps escaping your attempts to pull pajamas over her head. 

“You’re naked.”

She looks down at herself, considering your accusation. 

“I get diaper. Not naked.”

…Well. She got you there. 

“She got you there—”

“I know, Jack.”

Jack sits at the edge of the bed as he unfastens his prosthetic, and you glare at him. He pulls it free. 

“She sleeps between us half the time. The body heat of two parents and enough blankets to suffocate a horse works well to keep her warm. But sweetheart, listen to your mother—”

When he sets his prosthetic against the nightstand, Chubby stops trying to crawl away. She sits between the pillows and looks at Jack’s residual limb. The sudden stillness gets your attention first. 

When Jack notices, his hand moves to rest over the end of his thigh, as if there’s something indecent about her seeing too much of the part of him that she has literally helped you clean before. 

She tilts her head. 

“Dada, where leg go?”

Jack glances at his prosthetic, propped up. “Right there.”

“No. That’s Leggy. Other leg. Where it go?”

You lower her pajama shirt into your lap as you know Jack too well to understand that the muscles in his jaw settle in a way that tells you he doesn’t want to answer the question. That he’s arranging his body around her question, and you can’t stop him. 

Even if you could, you wouldn’t, because if you know your daughter well enough, too, she’ll know how to charm the hurt into something beautiful. 

“I don’t have it anymore. I lost it. You know that.”

He’s been better than good about his leg long before you. He’s let Chubby knock on the socket like it was a door.

...He pretended to answer. But this ain’t a joke. His daughter is looking at him and realizing that his body is different. 

He goes still, but he doesn’t stop her when she reaches out and presses a hand to his thigh. 

“Does it hurt?”

“No, not right now.”

She plops down next to him, criss-cross-applesauce style. Jack looks at you, but not to plead, which is obvious. He’d probably chew off his other leg rather than ask to be rescued from a conversation with his little girl. But…you see the clear uncertainty, because you’re so good at making big things fit inside small, soft words. 

You just nod. 

Go on. Tell her there was a world where you existed without either of us and almost stopped existing altogether. Maybe leave the parts that still visit you in your dreams for when she’s older. All she knows is that you kiss me too much and sometimes uses a scary voice when I accidentally leave the door unlocked. 

“My leg got hurt pretty badly.”

“Mommy fix with Leggy?”

Oh. That’s a heartkiller. Jack looks at you again, swallowing. 

“No, baby. I didn’t know Mommy yet.”

Chubby turns to stare at you. She’s disturbed by this. You understand totally. A world in which you and Jack did not know each other feels unreal to you, too.

“Mommy not there? Who fix you?”

“Doctors helped me. They tried to fix the hurt leg, but it was hurt too badly. So they had to take it away to help the rest of me get better.”

Chubby stares down at the rounded end of his thigh, her small fingers curling into his shirt.

“You were sick like me? Like Mommy when she cough?”

“Sicker than that. I was in the hospital for a while.”

“You cry?”

…Oop. That is also a heartkiller, the way she says it. The way Jack sighs.

“Probably.” 

“You were scared?”

Jack lowers his eyes at Chubby’s question. He feels as much as he feels he should lie. He could easily…well, not easily, but he could tell her that Dada knew everything would be okay and that he was brave. 

But she deserves more than that. She may be too small for the truth of fear, but she doesn’t deserve some false version of her dad. That’ll make the truth harder to take down the line. He doesn’t know if he could handle that. 

“Yeah, I was scared.”

Chubby’s face goes blank before it twists at the fact she’s just learned that her father can hurt. Of course, you should expect a tantrum or a wail for her dada, the immovable object of her life. The broad chest runs into, and the deep voice that makes the monsters beneath her bed dumb for even trying. 

Her eyes begin to tear up. Her lips begin to pout. You instinctively shift closer, but Jack rubs her back first. 

“Hey, hey. It’s okay.”

Anyway, Jack should think it beautiful and flattering that his being scared is harder for her to understand than his having one leg…considering it’s the most his heart can do before it dies on itself at her cries. 

…The way yours is right now. 

“Dada scared!”

“I was, but that was a long time ago.”

Her lip trembles as she sniffles.

“Your leg gone, you almost gone?”

…You’re not sure if Chubby even knows what she’s asking. Gone to her usually means work, or when you have to use the bathroom, and she can’t handle it. Or when she throws bun-bun under the couch. 

But, apparently, she’s put enough of the pieces together, and when you look at Jack, you think he’s the man that must’ve been in that hospital bed. 

You lay your hand over his before your tearducts can follow your daughter’s.

“I’m here now, baby—”

“No! Don’t go Dada! No Dada go!”

Chubby scrambles into him and locks her arms around his neck. Jack hugs her, which is too easy considering how tiny she is. 

“I’m right here, baby.”

“No go.”

“I’m not going anywhere right now.”

You hear the care he takes with the last two words, because Jack never promises forever, not with the future that he watches like a hawk. And as annoying as it is, you understand his point. 

But when your baby girl lifts her head and looks into his eyes, you understand the way he breaks in on himself. 

“Stay, Dada.”

And jeez, how can he not at that? You, though? Breaking inward—silently, that’s not your style. 

“...Dada’s not going anywhere. Can’t. I’ve got two girls to take care of.”

You sputter, rather.

[megalony]

I Am Tied To You

This is a new Emperor Geta imagine based on a lovely anon request. I'm sorry its taken me so long to write and post this for you, I hope it's what you were looking for.

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Joseph Quinn Masterlist

Summary: Geta's marriage to (Y/n) is a decision he did not have a say in. Therefore he takes his frustrations out on her and acts cold to his new wife. But all she does is understand and do anything he asks, wanting to be a good wife . Even putting herself in danger for him.

Enjoy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bright rays of light shone down in such great streaks that they burned when (Y/n) tried to open her tired eyes. The particles of dust floating all through the air sparkled and shimmered like tiny incandescent stars when the sun hit them just right. It made it hard for (Y/n) to focus.

A horrible thumping hammered against the inside of her head and when she tried to lift herself up off the cushion she had slumped against, her sense of balance became distorted.

(Y/n) realised with a grimace that during her sleep she had been biting down on her tongue. There was a dull ache in her jaw when the tension finally loosened and her muscles could relax and release that biting grip but her tongue felt like it was swelling and doubling in size.

Her jaw loosened again and her lips parted, emitting a frail gasp when she lifted her head and realised there was a cherub face staring down at her.

The girl looked to be young, probably a bit younger than (Y/n) herself and she had caramel skin and such wide eyes that seemed almost too big for her face.

There was a small basket in her hands and a rag sticking out of the top, cleaning supplies most likely. The basket was hanging down near the floor as the girl leant forward, analysing (Y/n) like she thought the Empress might well be dead laid there on the chaise lounge.

"Are you alright, Empress?" The maid didn't dare make a move until the Empress spoke.

She didn't want to begin dusting and trying to tidy the usually empty, isolated library in case she disturbed (Y/n). She might have been Empress for a few short weeks, but none of the servants would want to upset her. They didn't know what Geta would do if that happened and no one wanted to find out.

With a deep breath (Y/n) brought her hand up and rubbed at her eyes as she pushed herself to sit up and look a bit more lively and presentable.

There was an awful ache in her lower back, presumably from the way she had slept, and the blanket was half draped over her legs and half on the floor. There was her book laid neatly on the floor by her sandals.

(Y/n) wondered if she looked unruly, if she was a mess and if this was going to spread around the palace as an invaluable piece of gossip.

"Quite… I must have lost track of time."

Her smile was inviting and polite and she clasped her hands together on her lap once the blanket was tossed to one side. (Y/n) was rather surprised she had remembered to put a blanket here in the library for nights like this.

Her bare feet touched the floor and shivers rolled through her skin at the cold contact, but it proved to be useful in livening herself up. Her back straightened up against the cushions and she tried to look alert and presentable as she stared up at the maid who seemed to have calmed down a little. Clearly she had been shocked when she walked in here and found the Empress fast asleep.

And (Y/n) was certainly not going to admit that this was where she spent most of her nights and this was what she had come to call her bed since she had moved into the palace.

"Would you like me to tell the Emperor you were in here? He must worry where you are."

Everyone who worked in the palace knew how both Emperors could act. Most liked to avoid Caracalla in fear of his horrible mood swings, one moment he would be grabbing at them and playfully calling out to them and other times he would be screaming and launching ornaments in their direction.

Geta was the Emperor who no one conversed with, who people were uneasy around because of how precise and controlling he could be.

The maid clearly thought that the Emperor would be concerned that his wife had spent the night here in the library instead of in her room with him. She didn't want him to worry where his wife was or panic and think that something had happened to her when that clearly wasn't the case.

A flash of worry sparked through (Y/n)'s eyes before she managed to mask it and put on a calm smile that shone as brightly as the morning sun in the sky. Her hands clasped together in her lap, pressing down harshly into her thighs to stop herself from fidgeting or tapping too much.

She shook her head timidly, trying not to look overly concerned or eager. "Oh no, he- he will know I'm here, I- I'm always here."

"Very well."

(Y/n) certainly didn't need this girl going to Geta and telling him not to worry, that his wife had fallen asleep in the library. Because then he would have to put on a faux sense of concern and dismiss the maid. He would be irritated by the news because he didn't care.

He knew very well that (Y/n) hadn't spent one night in their supposedly shared bed chambers since their marriage, and he didn't care one bit.

Her teeth sank down into her lower lip when her mind cast back to that first night here in the palace and how it had turned out.

"This union wasn't my decision."

Was that a question? Was (Y/n) supposed to give a response to that, to agree or try and prove him otherwise?

Her eyes were as round as saucers, pupils blown wide and watching Geta with enough unease to make her look like a timid rabbit that was about to be slaughtered by the hunt.

She decided not to give an answer because she couldn't fathom any words to say that would be helpful. It wouldn't do to tell him that this hadn't been her decision either because he already knew that. This marriage was for the better of their two empires, this was to create an alliance, to forge a union that neither country could break.

It hadn't been up to (Y/n) and she had no part in agreeing to this marriage, it had been decided and she understood. Arguing the point wouldn't have done anything but antagonise her father. And (Y/n) knew almost nothing about Geta, she didn't know if he would be insulted or irritated if she stated that she didn't ask or at first want to marry him either.

(Y/n) settled for nodding when Geta looked in her direction, proving that she was listening but that she wouldn't antagonise him.

"I am tied to you for the good of Rome; I shall not be made to endure your presence in my own palace."

It took all of her willpower not to flinch at those words. Was she such a horrid person to be married to? Was her presence irritating or off-putting to Geta? Did it not serve any of his purposes to be married, and to be married to her?

Again, she chose to remain silent and not point out that she was also tied to him, for the remainder of her days, for the good of her home country and for the good of Rome which had now become her main home. Her main concern, her main nation.

This wasn't her idea or for her own benefit just like it clearly wasn't for Geta's benefit to be married to her.

Her hands fisted in her golden dress, the bangles on her wrists clanging together and holting when they caught the edge of her dress or the side of her hip. It was all she could do to stop herself from scrunching the fabric too tightly and causing wrinkles and creases.

She remained glued to the spot, staring at Geta's back as he faced the bed like he couldn't find it within himself to turn and glance at her when he spoke.

"Stay where you choose, do as you please."

(Y/n)'s lips parted but all that managed to come out was a quiet "oh," and nothing more.

The waft of Geta's hand in her direction made her want to take a step back, but her feet would not move.

Did he not want to consumate the marriage? Was this a ploy? If they didn't consumate the marriage then there would be ground for annulling the marriage. And (Y/n) would hate for that to be the case and for the blame to be placed solely on her shoulders.

There was no better match for her than to be betrothed and married to the Emperor of Rome. If this was annulled and she was said to be the reason, she might never find another match.

As much as the thought of lying with Geta intimidated (Y/n), it was a necessity she had wanted to get out of the way. This marriage would be firm, unbreakable. If she had a child then her place as Empress was secured and she wouldn't have to think or to worry about her future here and what any of this would mean for her.

Geta didn't want her around. (Y/n) hadn't been expecting this.

She had expected to be his wife like any other marriage. To have to lie with him whenever he wanted, to have to constantly try her best to please him, to remain at his sides at all times like a prize. She thought they would be engaged in conversation, that she would spend most of her time around him. In the very least she had expected to share a bed with him like she had been repeatedly told when everything was discussed with her and she was told what was expected of her.

But antagonising her new husband wasn't going to do her any favours and (Y/n) didn't want to upset him because she didn't know what his reaction would be or what he would act like if he were irritated and upset.

It would be best all around if she agreed with him and let Geta make the moves and approaches. She could follow his lead and let him set the pace, that way there would be no problems or arguments.

He seemed to realise she still hadn't moved, for he turned and looked at her with arched brows and slight annoyance dwelling within his eyes.

"Go. It's of no concern to me where you spend your time- as long as you don't entertain other men."

It didn't sound like he cared very much. Perhaps he wanted this to be a marriage on paper and nothing more. But then if it was nothing more, wouldn't people begin to talk? Wouldn't they notice that the couple spent no time together, that (Y/n) wasn't staying in her own bedchambers with him. And if she had no child, they would certainly speculate and think something was wrong with her, that she was barren.

She could see in his eyes that he had said that last part because he didn't want this to be known. He didn't want news spreading that they weren't a proper couple.

(Y/n) would never dream of going with another man.

She was married, she understood the sanctity of this marriage. If she were to sleep with another man and someone found out, then it would be an act of treason on her part. There was no consequence of Geta being with other women, but (Y/n) couldn't. She was supposed to produce an heir to the throne and that heir had to be legitimate, it had to be Geta's child and no one elses.

Perhaps he would change his mind soon, maybe he just needed time to adjust to this new situation. And (Y/n) would do whatever he asked of her.

She would become a better wife for him, she would make him happy, make this union worked in any way that suited him.

They had a lifetime together to make this work.

With a nod of her head and her hands still clasped in front of her, (Y/n) bowed and began to step back. "Of course, goodnight Emperor."

Curiosity burned within Geta's eyes as he watched her leave the room. She didn't even bother to go to the trunk in the corner of the room that had been brought in this morning containing most, if not all, of her things.

She didn't take anything with her. She didn't stop and tell him that she wasn't going to be shunned or dismissed like one of the servants.

And he noticed, more as an after-thought than anything else, that she had such a sweet voice.

***

Excitement coursed through (Y/n)'s veins and made her lighter on her feet that barely seemed to touch the floor as she glided through the halls.

Her eyes brightened like flames were burning within them when her sights set on Geta and the little entourage of servants and guards following after him.

He was going to the colosseum, and (Y/n) was permitted to go with him. Of course, he had only asked her because the people of Rome would be very suspicious if their Emperor's new wife wasn't seen by his side whenever he made his limited public appearances.

(Y/n) wasn't sure whether or not Geta would be fine with her going out into the streets of Rome without her, whether she took some guards with her or not. He might not want her going out without him, he hadn't really said, and (Y/n) wouldn't do anything that would upset her husband. She had remained inside until the times he called on her and said they were going out.

When they went out they stood side by side, sometimes he took her hand and kissed it in a display of public affection to appease the people. They sat close together, they shared carriage rides, and that was as much intimacy as they would have.

(Y/n) was simply grateful to be around Geta, to be by his side and allowed to venture out of the palace walls with him.

A hint of confusion pooled within Geta's eyes when he looked to his right and saw his wife approaching him. His wife for all intents and purposes of Rome, and no more.

She was always smiling when he saw her, always so eager to be by his side and leaving the palace. Always happy and joyous and kind, so incredibly kind to any servants who talked to her. Anyone would think she were one of the low born people of Rome who had been allowed to live among the royals. It always surprised Geta.

He noticed the way that she greeted him too. How she nodded her head and dipped into a curtsey to him.

"Good morning, I trust you are well."

For the life of him Geta couldn't understand why she was being so kind, and to him of all people. It wasn't like they were in public yet, being observed and watched by the people and expected to be somewhat loving and share a certain sense of intimacy together.

"You don't have to do that, you're not one of them." His eyes made a sweeping glance towards the staff hovering around them.

There was no need for (Y/n) to curtsey and show him that level of respect. She wasn't a maid, she wasn't someone who always had to wait for him to speak to her before she could talk or even look at him.

(Y/n)'s eyes cast down towards the marbled floor for a moment while she and Geta fell in step beside one another.

"The Emperor deserves respect, especially from his wife." Was the tepid response she gave in that sweet tone of voice that almost irritated Geta because why was she so understanding?

He glanced sideways down at her through narrowed eyes. "And you respect me?"

"Of course I do."

Her response was instant, no time given to think it over because she knew the answer and she knew it was true.

It didn't matter how cold or unsure or arrogant Geta was when he acted towards her. He was her husband, and (Y/n) would always afford him the respect that he was due. He hadn't been cruel towards her, he didn't shout or raise a hand or embarrass her in front of anyone, so she would never do that to him either.

Each time she saw him she would smile, she would nod or bow and speak kindly to him because they were married, and she was supposed to respect Geta above all others. She didn't need to be so formal and kind to him, but she would because that was how she was taught to act. That was how she wanted to be, how considerate she wanted to act to the man she was married to.

How would she be a good wife if she turned away from him or didn't talk to him at all or gave him a snotty remark? How would any of that help their situation and make things better?

(Y/n) wanted their situation to improve, and all she had was time and her personality to win Geta over and prove she could be a better wife. She would be the wife he wanted, even if this marriage hadn't been decided or chosen by either of them.

Surprise swirled through Geta's mind as they began walking. He didn't think she would be so considerate towards him, not with how he had shut her out and how he didn't want her presence around him except for formal events and occasions such as this. He knew he didn't deserve her respect, and he couldn't fathom why she would still give it to him.

Silence blanketed around them as they gracefully walked down the corridor aiming towards the huge wooden doors at the end.

As they walked in tandem, (Y/n) glanced to her left when a small clinking noise caught her attention.

Geta was fiddling with the golden cuff bracketing his right wrist and forarm. It was a lovely item, intricate swirling designs, polished and bronzed to perfection, and the metal was strong enough that it could give a concussion to anyone Geta saw fit to whack with his forearm if he were defending himself for example.

The clasp at the side didn't seem to be doing up properly, and clearly it was irritating him because the cuff was loose and sliding down his wrist towards his hand.

With her lips pressed together into a thin but gentle smile, (Y/n) tentatively reached out for him.

Her left hand braced under his forearm near his elbow to keep his arm elevated and let him rest his arm in the palm of her hand. While her right hand secured over the cuff and pushed down so she could twist the clasp and lock it into place. The touch was barely there for more than ten seconds before the work was done, but it was the most intimate Geta had allowed her to be with him of her own accord. The only touch she had initiated between them, and he didn't push her away.

He remained still and frozen against her, watching with narrowed eyes as she helped him without being asked and without wanting anything in return.

Her fingertips ghosted across the back of his knuckles, causing shivers to ride beneath Geta's skin all the way up to his shoulder. And when the touch was gone, his arm suddenly felt heavy and hollow at the same time, moving back to hang limply at his side as he stared down at (Y/n) without saying a word.

"The colour matches your hair," (Y/n) whispered quietly, still looking at the cuff on his wrist which had been long forgotten by Geta.

Once they were through the great doors and descending down the steps, (Y/n) curled her left hand around the crook of Geta's elbow so she could stand close to his side and keep up with him. Their pace was slow and matched and she couldn't resist gliding her thumb across the crease of his elbow which seemed to make his breath catch in his throat.

She looked so happy, as if she had been a caged animal finally allowed outside, Geta thought as he looked down at her out the corner of his eye.

Such a radiant smile.

***

This felt like one of those days where (Y/n) would rather be back in the palace than out here on the streets of Rome.

That being said, she was pleased to have another visit outside the palace walls. Another morning where she could venture further than the gardens and see more sights and come across the people that were now her people, her subjects.

Being out here was such a difference to being cooped up in the library which had become (Y/n)'s home since moving into the palace after marrying Geta. (Y/n) knew she was lucky that her father had chosen to have her tutored the same as he did his three sons, she could read all the texts in the library and was fluent in Latin and able to write her own ideas and notations if she pleased.

She didn't know what she would have done if she couldn't read the endless books in the library which she presumed the twin Emperors had rarely ever visited or looked upon.

Her days were currently being spent in the library, being there when Geta needed her for formal occasions and outings such as this, wandering the gardens, and being by her husband's side for meals. For the pretense of a normal marriage union.

They had been out for a while now, visiting a temple and seeing the people, and that had been all well and good, but (Y/n) was ready to go back. She was ready to be away from the crowds that were starting to push and shove to get closer to them. Wanting to see them, to either admire or despise them. Either shouting praise or words of vile origin.

As usual when they were out in public like this, (Y/n) had taken to curling her hand around Geta's elbow. Nothing elaborate and if he ever shrugged off her touch she would back away immediately, but he didn't. He seemed to understand she was trying to be an attentive wife, trying to give that impression to his subjects that his wife was loyal, she loved and respected him and wanted to be by his side.

Her steps had fallen out of line with his and she was a pace or two behind him with her right arm stretched out so her hand could remain curled lightly in the crook of his elbow.

(Y/n) couldn't help but fall behind when she was looking at all the people crowding round. She could see people from afar pushing to get closer and the odd flower being thrown at their feet. A generous act that she couldn't reciprocate or show gratitude for and collect the flowers because clearly Geta was a man on a mission, and he wasn't stopping for anything.

Each time that someone shoved their way closer and got a step further towards them, (Y/n)'s skin bristled and she was sure that she could feel Geta tensing beside her. He was looking around too, but he was looking towards his right whereas (Y/n) was looking in the other direction towards the thinner sea of people crowding them.

The guards leading their little entourage and the ones following a close distance behind them were brisk and rather closed off as if they were tuning everything out and trying to move forward whilst ignoring the crowds.

They were close to the carriage now that would take them the rest of the way back to the palace.s

Quickening her steps, (Y/n) tried to fall back in step with Geta but she faltered when something seemed to catch her eye on her left.

A shimmer reflecting the bright midday sun, a glistening light as if a star had fallen from the sky and landed right in their laps. The sunlight bounced and refracted and made (Y/n) blink furiously to stop herself from feeling blinded. That dazzling light came closer and attracted all of (Y/n)'s attention, though it felt like she was the only person who could see or focus on it.

And upon seeing what was catching the light, her blood ran cold and dread dwelled in the pit of her stomach.

A blade.

A blade too short to be classed as a sword, but long and angled and not something (Y/n) would call a simple knife. A dagger, perhaps.

Whatever specific weapon it was, she could see the arm raising to the level of their chest. Hand tightly clasped around the handle of the blade, venom in their eyes, teeth ground down and lips pulled back into a snarl. Feet hitting the floor as he set into a lunge, and his target was made impossibly clear.

Geta.

He was going to attack one of the two Emperors; he was going for the Emperor that was more of a threat, the one that couldn't be controlled or subdued.

"Emperor Geta." That voice was dark, gravelly and coursed with venom that made (Y/n)'s entire core tremble.

"No!"

She was moving before she could stop herself, before her mind could really fathom what she was doing, what she was about to do and what the consequences would be.

Geta turned, exasperation written across his face when (Y/n)'s hand was no longer hooked around his elbow and she suddenly flung herself in front of him. He had no idea what she was doing or what she was up to and it made his chest tighten with an unusual sense of anxiety.

Everything happened so quickly, but Geta could see every little detail as if time had stopped just for him to allow him to get a grasp on the situation.

He saw (Y/n) stand in front of him, he felt her hand shoving at his chest roughly pushing him backwards to get him out of the way. And then he realised what she was obscuring from his path; he saw a blade cross her skin.

He watched the blade swipe across her front so quickly that he actually wanted to believe that the blade hadn't touched her skin at all but had simply caught the ruffled layers of her flowing dress.

That clearly wasn't the case when Geta watched a sparkle of red begin to blossom like petals of a flower bud opening up right before his eyes. It stained the purity of her white gown and churned Geta's stomach.

As soon as (Y/n)'s body started to crumple forwards, as soon as she looked like she were about to drop to the floor, Geta bound his right arm around her abdomen and yanked her back. He didn't know where his own force had suddenly come from but it didn't seem to matter. He pulled with enough force that (Y/n)'s feet almost left the floor and her lower back was moulded up against Geta's abdomen as he curved his chest around her as if becoming a shield for her.

Words tumbled past his lips in a flurry. Calling for the guards, for help, for someone to get that man back and keep him away from the Empress.

What did he employ these men for if they couldn't even protect him or his wife?

None of them had been quick off the mark. Why had it been (Y/n) who had seen what this man was up to? Why was she the only one who had moved, who had done something and tried to protect Geta when that was not her job, not her role or her concern?

"Oh Gods!" He spat, venom dripping from his voice as he twisted to the right and pulled (Y/n) along with him so she was out of the way. "Get him secured!"

He could feel (Y/n) trembling in his arms as the guards finally seemed to get the derranged man pinned on his chest and stomach on the floor. Dirt stuck to the corners of his mouth where his face was scraped down into the floor and the dagger lay disposed at his side, blood sticking it to the sand coating the floor while his arms were detained behind his back.

The rest of the guards crowded in around the couple, clearly realising that they had to do something- they had to do their jobs- and make sure nothing else happened to them.

Both arms stayed glued around (Y/n)'s waist and Geta was sure he could feel her trembling hands gripping his forearm like she was trying to keep herself attached to him or hold herself up.

They moved in tandem, conjoined and clinging together as Geta guided and practically dragged her to the right, aiming for the carriage that would seclude them away from the rest of the world, away from the rabble and give them some privacy and safety.

"Up, up."

Despite the urgency in Geta's voice, (Y/n) could hear something else lying underneath, something softer, something levelling on concern as his hands shifted to her hips and he helped to get her up into the carriage.

"I want a healer at the palace when we get there. Now do what you're supposed to and make sure nothing else happens to my wife or me." There was a maddening look in Geta's eyes and fury laced through his words that spat at the guards like they were nothing more than the grit on his shoes.

They weren't here for appearances or to look appealing to the people of Rome, they weren't here for fun or for something to do. They were supposed to guard the Emperor and anyone close to him. These men were supposed to use their weapons if necessary to keep the people at bay, to stop anyone from harming them.

And they had become slack and allowed the Empress to come to harm and do their jobs for them. That was not acceptable.

As soon as Geta clambered up into the carriage, he slammed the door shut behind him and let his body slump down into the seat opposite (Y/n). The carriage was small enough that even sitting opposite one another, their knees were touching. And if Geta leaned a little closer, his breath would fan across (Y/n)'s face.

He took ragged breaths, pupils blown wide and lips dry and parted as he sat forward and reached out for (Y/n).

At first his hands ghosted across her dress, pushing the torn pieces of material to one side until the strap that had been hanging on her left shoulder suddenly slid down and hung over her chest instead. With the material now loose and at his will, Geta parted it so he could see the wound hiding beneath.

Not a deep thrust from the blade, more of a slice across the skin than a deep puncture wound, which was relieving. But the blood was still soaking into the dress just beneath her collar bone and no doubt it would be causing her pain.

Shudders crawled beneath (Y/n)'s skin when she felt Geta's hands suddenly reach forward and cup her face. His touch was so intent, so fierce and desperate yet he still managed to hold her with some restraint, with some knowledge that she was tender and he didn't want to hurt her.

His thumbs were pressing into her cheekbones and his fingers were touching the tips of her jaw near her ears. He tilted her head until she was looking at him, no ability to look anywhere else but into those dark eyes that were desperate for answers.

He leant in close until their temples were almost touching and (Y/n) could feel the end of his nose so close to brushing hers. Their faces had never been this close before; their lips never this intimate or about to touch.

"Why?! Why would you do that?"

Her blank eyes stared back at him like she didn't understand the question, but it only aggravated him further until he felt like shaking her head in his hands to make her listen and understand what he'd said.

"You could have gotten killed. You- Gods, you do not stand in front of me and take a blade for me. Do you understand?"

Under no circumstances did Geta ever want her to do that for him again. He didn't deserve that. He wasn't the kind of person who should be saved by people like (Y/n). She was pure, she was kind and loving and someone he had mistreated badly. He didn't deserve her kidness or a sacrifice like she had just tried to give for him.

Taking a leap of faith, (Y/n) reached a shaking hand up and curled her fingers around his wrist, holding his touch against her face. Wanting to make sure his touch stayed right there, cupping her face in his hands that she didn't want to part from her skin.

This was the closest they had ever been, and this touch was extremely comforting to (Y/n) right now. She didn't think Geta was the kind of person who could give such confidence and comforting embraces, but now he was holding her, she never wanted this touch to leave. It made the shaking in her system die down and the rapid hammering of her heart simmer down just a little.

"The… the people, Rome need their Emperor, not me."

What kind of person would (Y/n) be if she just stood there and let someone hurt her husband? Hurt the Emperor of Rome? (Y/n) could never rule in his stead, she couldn't make decisions or challenges or lead Rome to glory, that would never be allowed. The people needed their Emperor and if something happened to him, if someone hurt him there could be an uprising and outrage throughout the city.

All (Y/n) had done since she married Geta was try to understand him, try her best to go along with whatever rules he set and try her best to be a good wife, a better wife. That included looking after him and trying to save him from situations like that. Even if it did put herself in harms way.

Geta couldn't understand that logic.

He found himself taking a deep breath as he shook his head as if disappointed in her, but he wasn't. He was simply baffled by her.

"I don't deserve a sacrifice like that from you- especially not from you."

He's been cruel.

It was only now that this was all dawning on him. (Y/n) hadn't asked for this marriage either, she hadn't chosen this the same as he had no choice, but she had been understanding.

Geta had told (Y/n) to leave the royal chambers, he didn't want her there with him during the night, it was his space, his privacy that he wanted to protect and keep strangers out of. He hadn't made other accomodations for her and he didn't know where she ventured off to every night instead of coming to their room and demanding that she stay because it was rightfully her private space too. She hadn't argued with him when she had every right to, and he never gave her any gratitude for that.

He told her he didn't want to be around her, and she didn't push him. Each time he called to her to join him on events and days like this, (Y/n) was right there at his side where he wanted her to be. And she never questioned him.

She didn't get upset, she didn't argue or make logical points with him. She didn't talk badly about him or spread gossip through the servants- which Geta knew now that she had every right to do so if she wished. (Y/n) had kept up the pretenses that everything was the way it should be.

And now she has just stood in front of him because she thought her sacrifice was justified, that the people need him more than they would need her.

"But you," he brushed his thumb delicately across her lower lip and suddenly found himself resting his temple gently and longingly against hers. "You deserve gratitude; a thousand apologies from me. You're my wife, and I haven't treated you as such. That changes now."

His lips touched hers then. Gentle enough that if (Y/n) had closed her eyes, she would surely have mistaken the touch for the gliding of a feather across her lips.

Just as soon as the touch was there, it was gone and replaced with the feeling of Geta's hand leaving her face and curving around to cradle the back of her head. His fingers weaved into the intricate styling of her hair, letting her temple rest against his shoulder while his other arm curved around her waist.

He almost pulled her off her seat and onto his lap with how close he held her to his chest, as if he thought that if he let her go then she might vanish or become seriously harmed again.

(Y/n) found herself winding her arms around his back, fingers scrunching into the soft silky fabric of his robes and her nose inhaled his scent that did wonders in calming her down.

She could just about hear Geta muttering how sorry he was into her hair, and she held him back tighter, glad to be in his arms and feel like a properly married couple for a change.

This was a lasting marriage, this was something that couldn't be undone or changed and (Y/n) wanted to make the most of it. She wanted to make Geta happy and be happy and content by his side. She wanted to have a happy life and a good marriage, because it was the only one she was likely to have.

This might not have been a marriage of choice, but it could be moulded into one of love and contentment.

[shutyourmoustache]

[whotookmygender]

this fandom is a prison

[ficdelusioncore]

Little Visit ୨୧

Summary: After leaving your boyfriend some little notes of love in his lunchbox, you became very famous throughout the night shift. But you didn't know this until you had to step into the ER trying to give Jack his forgotten lunchbox.

Disclaimer: English is not my first language, so I apologize if there are any spelling or grammatical errors.

Thanks to the anon who requested a part 2 for Little Notes of Love and illuminated my brain because this little fic wasn't meant to have a part 2.

Hope you guys love it just as much as the first part.

(Sorry that this took me more time than I planned to 🙃)

The ER wasn't a place you liked. Really, you didn't enjoy being at a hospital. Ironic, since your boyfriend is an ER doctor. There is nothing specific for you to dislike about the place, it's just a hospital, and no one really likes being there. But this time, you drove voluntarily to the place all because Jack forgot his lunchbox, and your concern about the rare times your boyfriend gets to eat at his job is more important than your dislike for the hospital.

You don't really know where to get in. You're not a patient, and you're afraid that the lady at the desk would not let you in, so even if you're a little embarrassed, you get in through the ambulance bay. Your plan is not to stay too long and to bother people as little as possible. It's a very busy place, and you don't want to get in anyone's way.

You stand near the place where a desk is (the nurse station), trying to find Jack through all the people moving from one side to another so quickly that you could get dizzy.

Someone taps your shoulder, making you turn around.

“Ma’am, is everything okay? You should go through the desk at the front door.”

She said calmly with tired eyes, but she still gave you a small smile. By Jack's description, you think it's Dr. Ellis.

You smile at her, letting out a relieved sigh.

“I’m not a patient, I'm fine,” you assure her. You lift the gray lunchbox in your hand, and by the expression she makes, you think she recognizes it. “I’m looking for my boyfriend, he's an attending here,” you explain to her.

“So you are the mysterious Lady Notes, huh?” she said, smiling widely, her eyes suddenly bright with interest.

Your cheeks burn because you never thought that Jack would show them the notes, or that they would see them.

“Guess I am,” you said, telling her your actual name, but something tells you that you're stuck with Lady Notes.

“I’m Dr. Parker Ellis,” she introduced herself by shaking your hand. “Follow me.”

You do. She guides you through the nurse station toward a nurse who looks like she is in charge, and by the look she gives you above her reading glasses and Jack's description, you think she's Lena. By her side, there is a tall man who looks completely relaxed and not even bothered by the rush of the ED.

“Look who finally visited us,” Parker said, too excited.

You stay a few steps behind, a little embarrassed by the attention the three of them give you, and again, they seem to recognize you the moment they see the gray lunchbox in your hands.

Lena gives you a full smile, looking really excited, while Shen just says:

“You are Mysterious Lady Notes?” he asked, taking a sip from his Dunkin' coffee, looking as surprised as he could.

Lena gave him a look that made him shrug.

“You are beautiful, hon,” she said, walking toward you. “I’m Lena, the charge nurse from the night shift.” She smiles at you, and you give her your best smile as you introduce yourself to her.

“I don't want to disturb you or anyone. Jack forgot his lunchbox, so I thought I'd stop by and give it to him,” you explain.

“You don't disturb anyone. We all have been waiting to meet the woman who has softened Abbott.”

And you can clearly see that because of how excited the three of them seem at your presence, and their reactions attract more people.

“I thought Jack was having hallucinations when he said he would take five minutes to eat the lunch his girlfriend made for him,” Shen told you from where he was standing a few steps back from Lena. He had been talking about something with Parker before. “I’m Dr. Shen.”

You tell your name again, giggling at his comment.

You told yourself it was going to be a quick visit: give Jack his lunchbox, a kiss, and then head back to your apartment to sleep. But twenty minutes later, you have said your name more times than in your entire life, introducing yourself to anyone who tells you, “You're the mysterious Lady Notes.” You get to know Nurse Mateo, Dr. Henderson, the student Nazly, Nurse Vivi, and you think that by that point, you have met everyone who works there.

“What is happening here?” a well-known voice cut through the crowd surrounding the nurse station.

Jack stood there waiting for an explanation when his eyes met yours, and realization quickly hit him.

“Okay, you guys, stop overwhelming my missus.” He walked toward you, placing himself by your side and resting one of his hands on your lower back as usual.

“I don't think you get to call her missus if you haven't married her yet,” Mateo said playfully, pointing to your bare ring finger.

Jack looks at the nurse, narrowing his eyes, and points at him.

“Careful, or you'll spend the rest of the night with the bad cases,” he warns while the rest of the people laugh.

“He’s right, Abbott. I have no idea how you haven't put a ring on that finger already,” Parker says, raising both eyebrows.

If your cheeks were warm before, now your face was burning hot. All the eyes were on the two of you, and everyone was supporting Ellis and Mateo's thoughts.

“Okay, okay, all of you, leave them alone. Go back to your jobs. There are sick people who need you all,” Lena commands with a tone of voice that actually scares you, and it is a warning for everyone because they all say goodbye to you and go back to work as soon as they can.

Jack guides you to an empty room. Your face is hot, but the wide smile is something nobody could get rid of no matter what they said.

“So I'm the mysterious Lady Notes,” you said, giggling.

He looks at you in that intense way that only he is able to do, that hazel gaze that makes your legs tremble like jelly and your heart race so hard that you can hear it in your ears.

He huffed, rolling his eyes at your words.

“They insisted on calling you that until they knew you,” he mumbled, trying to look irritated but failing because of the smile growing on his face.

His hands go instinctively to your waist, and your arms settle around his neck. There is not an inch separating the two of you. You brush your nose against his, which finally makes him give you that crooked smile you love so much.

Jack didn't wait. He kissed you, not caring that anyone could walk in and catch you.

“You forgot your lunchbox,” you said through the kiss.

He breaks the kiss but rests his forehead against yours.

“And you brought it to me instead of going to sleep when you have to work early,” he whispered in disbelief.

“Your shift is long. You need to eat, and I don't trust the vending machine,” you said as if it wasn't a point of comparison, and just imagining him eating something from the vending machine felt like a betrayal.

He shakes his head and lets out a little laugh.

“I love you.” He leaves a kiss on your temple and another on your cheek.

“I love you too,” you respond, leaving a short kiss on his lips.

You wanted to stay a little longer, but you saw that the ER was full and that you had already attracted too much attention and distracted several people. You didn't want to take up too much of the chief attending's time.

“I’ll see you in the morning.” You leave the lunchbox in his hands and another kiss on his lips. “Eat something,” you said, pointing at him with your index finger like a threat.

He just smiles at you.

“I will. See you in the morning.” He watches you disappear through the door.

He's quick to open the lunchbox, finding just what he wanted: a little Post-it note. It was white, and written on it was:

“Lovely grumpy doctor, if you ever forget your lunchbox again, you will be temporarily banned from these masterpieces that I put my heart into.

(I’m being very serious, please don't forget to eat like you forgot your lunchbox.)

Should I be worried about memory problems? They are very common at your age.

Your beautiful girlfriend ;)”

He lets out a laugh, shaking his head.

That one was going to his locker.

Jack keeps the Post-it in his scrub pocket after reading it a few more times before Parker finds him and tells him that they have an incoming trauma. She also tries to see what the note says, but he makes sure to hide it from her view.

It was just for him.

After the trauma and doing some rounds, he finally has time to sit and do some charts. But peace was something that never happened in the ER, and definitely after your visit, he would know no peace for a while.

“What?” he asked Lena, who was looking at him above her reading glasses.

She gives him a look that Jack completely ignores.

“What are you waiting for?” she said as if it were obvious. “She deserves that damn rock on her finger.” It was more of an order than a suggestion.

Jack goes back to his chart, but the last thing he was thinking about was the patient. He would be lying if he said he hadn't thought about it, but it had only been a year and a half since the two of you started officially dating. He didn't want to scare you. Even though you didn't seem bothered by the comments his co-workers made, maybe you thought they were just kidding and trying to bother him.

There was nothing that he would like more than to call you his wife, Mrs. Abbott, seeing you stop signing your notes with “girlfriend” and replacing it with “your wife,” the title you deserve because there was nothing in that life that would make Jack let you go.

You were stuck with him for the rest of your life. What better way than to make it official?

Since your visit to the ER, your discomfort with the hospital has faded, and you have visited more often, dropping Jack off and picking him up, always making a little entrance to say hello and gossip a little with Lena, Ellis, and Shen.

Now you make sure to pack Jack more food than before and tell him specifically which bowls are for each nightcrawler: the dark blue one for Mateo, the red one for Parker, the green one for Shen, and so on with the rest of the crew.

He complains, telling you that you are spoiling them. But deep inside, he loves how you worry about all of them, so he gives them all the bowls, threatening that if they don't return them empty at the end of their shift, they will be stuck at triage for an entire week.

But something that keeps staying on his mind, and that everyone keeps telling him, even Dana and Robby, is about the ring that is missing from your finger.

It doesn't sound like a rushed step if everyone keeps telling him that he's been taking a long time.

I have to admit I was smiling like an idiot while writing this 😽

[ficdelusioncore]

♡ Little Notes of Love ♡

Summary: Just you making Jack's shift happier with hidden notes.

Disclaimer: English is not my first language, so I apologize if there are any spelling or grammatical errors.

Part 2 :)

It all started one day when you discovered that Jack didn't really eat proper food during his shift, and came back home starving and more tired than he should. So you decided, since you would stay at his home that day, that you would prepare him a proper lunchbox with different things that were healthy and he could eat quickly during those five minutes of peace that he could have during his shift.

You didn't put so much thought into it when you grabbed a pink neon post-it and wrote on it and then stuck it on one of the tuppers. He was a little confused when you handed him the lunchbox and left a kiss on his lips, but he didn't say anything and just left it in the fridge in the on-call room.

And it stayed there until twelve am when he started to feel a little hungry, and thought of going for something from the vending machine until he remembered the lunchbox. When he opened it, he saw a few tuppers with different fruits already cut, a sandwich along with a bottle of water and some more things that he didn't notice because his eyes were captured by the pink neon post-it.

“Have a great shift!! Save lives and stay hydrated!! I love you so so much, honey.”

And your name as a signature alongside a heart that you drew.

Jack took the note and read it again, and again and again. He looked at the note then at the lunchbox and he could feel his heart explode with love. A smile grew on his face that stayed the rest of his shift along with him taking all the free time that he got going back to that lunchbox to eat the next tupper while looking at the post-it.

Everyone noticed his change of humor but nobody really wanted to mention it, a little afraid that if they did his humor would decay. And nobody really wanted the grumpy Jack back.

When he got home, lunchbox in hand and completely empty, he left it on the table and ran to your bedroom. You were there still asleep, tangled in the sheets, he crawled into bed with you, his arms finding your waist pulling you closer to him, making it easy for him to fill your face with kisses that made you wake up with a smile on your face.

“Nice shift, huh?” you said once you woke up a little more, feeling his kisses go down your neck.

“One of the best,” he answered, leaving a sweet kiss on your lips.

“You liked the food?” you asked with your hands going from his broad shoulders to his salt and pepper curls.

“I like everything you do,” he said, hiding his face in the crook of your neck. “And I like the little note on it much more.” He started to trace kisses from your neck to your jawline until he found your lips again.

“Glad you liked it,” you responded between kisses. “Gonna do it more often then.”

“Please.” He started to take off your clothes spreading kisses all over your body making you giggle.

Since then you started doing it more often until you moved in with him and it became an everyday thing. You began to be more creative, every day it was a different type of color; blue, yellow, purple, green, pastel pink, among many more. Then they came in different shapes; hearts, stars, flowers, there was a cloud once along with one that had a teddy bear shape.

Jack kept every single one of them, some were stuck on his locker, the ones he liked the most;

“You save and take care of so many lives that I'm here to take care of yours. Eat something and come back to me in one piece.” A purple star with a heart drawn on the bottom.

“Eat some of it, doctor's orders!!! And remember that I love you and I'm waiting for you at home.” A baby blue one with a mini stethoscope drawn on the bottom.

“I dunno what makes me fall in love with you more; your big heart or how sexy you look in those scrubs.” It was an orange one with a heart shape.

“I keep doing this because I'm madly in love with you and you need your own doctor that takes care of you, my love.” It was a pastel pink heart-shaped post-it.

All of them had your name as a signature but sometimes said “Your beautiful girlfriend” or “The only person in this world that can bear your changes of humor” or “The madly in love woman that lives with you." The rest of the notes were in a little box in the drawer of his nightstand.

By that time everyone had noticed the notes. One time Langdon had told him how lucky he was, Robby had mocked him a little but Jack could see the jealousy in his eyes that Jack didn't take personally; he knew that Robby longed for something like that. Lena told him how sweet it was from your side to do it every day and that she could see the effort that you put into the notes, and Dana told him that he better not screw it up with you or she would personally act against him.

Jack Abbot definitely knew how lucky he was and it reminded him every time that he saw you preparing his lunchbox and when he found himself counting the minutes to open it and be surprised by a new post-it of a different color and shape alongside some new words of yours reminding him how much you loved him in different ways.

And he kept every single one of them.

When he came home finding you in your shared bed waiting for him to join you, he made sure to also show how much he loved you so deeply in a very Jack Abbot way.

Idk how I got the inspiration to write this after weeks without being able to write something, but I hope you guys like it!!!

[rawme-price]

No thoughts just ghost being horrified when his baby girl insists that he doesn't love her.

Small round face flushed red from wailing, tiny hands slapping against the breakfast table after ghost had set down her pancakes shaped like hearts.

"Stop it!!! Stop it dad!!" She wails, and ghost freezes at the fat tears that roll down her face "you don't love me!! Stop pretend!!! No love meee!!!"

This is nothing compared to her occasional tantrums, genuine heart-broken sobs as she declares ghost hating her. Simon, her own father who retired when she was born, who quit smoking after she said he smelled funny all the time, who leans all the way down when she wants to hold his hand on walks.

Ghost tries to soothe her, kneeling down to talk "man-to-man" as he says it. That only seems to upset her more today, kicking at his face and sobbing harder.

It's only when you come in from the kitchen and scoop her into your arms that she settles at all.

"What's wrong, sweetpea?" You ask, though you heard the whole thing from the kitchen. When she nearly breaks into outright sobbing again, you ask "your dad loves you very much, what makes you think he doesn't?"

It's now that she finally looks at ghost, eyes shiny with tears and clinging to your shirt for comfort "dada doesn't smile at me ever. Because dads smile at their daughters but he doesn't!! he doesn't love me!!"

Oh.

Simon...never really was able to emote much due to his scars. Of course he never smiled. Not that his little girl knew that.

Ghost goes tense across from you, expression darkens. Ghost doesnt like to talk about the things that happened to him, can hardly stand to see himself in family photos. He always told you he wasn't built to be a father.

He slips out of the room before you can say anything, and your daughter only takes that as proof, crying again.

"I told you, dad doesn't love me!! He doesn't want me, he hates me!!!"

Just outside the room, ghost starts to shed tears of his own. Why did he ever think he could give her what she needed?

He grabs the car keys before slipping out the back door. No need to make a fuss.

[mirrormauve]

faultlines

simon 'ghost' riley x f!reader | soulmate!au | 18.8k (oops)

Ghost didn’t want a soulmate, and he was sure, if they existed, that they didn’t want him either.

cw; soulmate!au in which soulmates share scars, references to self-harm, lots of talk about scars, angst, fluff, references to domestic abuse and past violence, references to simon's past, descriptions of pain, military inaccuracies, miscommunication, touch aversion, reallllly slow slowburn, ghost being sort of really bad and weird at affection

Simon didn’t remember how he got every scar on his body. 

The big ones, the important ones, sure. He remembered them all too well, even through the haze of pain and fatigue that often hung thickly around their reception. 

But there were too many to account for. To remember the particulars of each slash and burn and gunshot wound was a losing battle. He’d long since given up on keeping track of them. Little lines on the sides of his fingers, stretchmarks on the backs of his biceps, winged fans of a burn on the side of his thigh, a pale line along the point of his elbow that he might as well have been born with.

There were ones from further back, too. Scars that time and pain had eroded the precision of the memory, but not the feeling. Cigarette burns on his forearms, a necklace of animal teeth on his side, a craggy line across his hip, accompanied by the shadowy memory of hand reaching for him, and not being quick enough to duck out of the way. 

They all meshed together into the hard patchwork of scar and muscle his body had wrought itself into.

Almost none of them could be helped, out of his control, out of his hands.

They were a catalogue of his life, a story traced on his skin.

Stamped, more like. Branded. 

Survived. 

And soulmates shared scars. 

Their hurt was his; his hurt was theirs. Literally or metaphorically, he wasn’t quite sure. Simon had so many, spent so much time in pain, it was impossible to know if any of them didn’t belong to him originally.  

He didn’t like the thought of someone sharing his scars, having felt what he did. Possessive of them and the pain in a strange way. 

It’s ironic, then, that he should be able to find his soulmate more easily than the average unmarred person, and wanted to do nothing of the sort. Simon dismissed the whole thing as drivel a long time ago, anyway. If they did exist, if they weren’t just incredibly rare instances of luck, Simon was sure that he hadn’t been afforded one. 

There was guilt, too, settled somewhere deep inside him, that someone had to endure it alongside him. It was easier to believe he’d been left out of the whole thing. 

Better he was alone. 

The likelihood of finding that person was slim. It almost never happened. Eight or so billion people swanning around the planet would do that. A one in eight billion chance. 

A grand, cosmic joke. The unfairness of it drove some people crazy, drove them to do insane things to increase a probability that couldn’t be altered—to know that person probably existed somewhere and yet know that they would probably never run across them.

A trend of self harm cropped up online every few years, healed over self inflected wounds posted in forums of people seeking their other, fated, half. The presumption being that they were being desperately searched for in turn.  

Idiotic. Determined. Fallibly human.

And taboo. Most saw it as circumventing fate. 

Violently frantic for the thing Ghost had been unwillingly given. A way to find them, or, at least, easily identify them. And he never would. 

But, sometimes, he wondered. 

He tried to picture the imprint of a person somewhere out in the world wearing his wounds, suffering his losses. The thought would circle his brainstem in an unrelenting loop, a bright fish whispering around the perimeter of its bowl before it dissipated in lieu of something more pressing. 

It was always there, though, waiting to be grappled with again. 

He always came up blank. Nothing but a shadow in his mind where a person should be. Fitting, typical.  

It was a cruelty he couldn’t imagine, somehow. Someone being fatefully, inescapably afflicted with him. 

Simon didn’t want a soulmate anyway, and he was sure, if they existed, that they didn’t want him either. 

If there was someone out there, someone wandering around with his scars on their skin, he was certain they hated him already. 

He didn’t particularly believe in fate; life had taught him not to. He believed in himself, his capabilities, planning and contingencies. And Simon didn’t relish the thought of something he couldn’t control, someone holding the other end of his corded, deformed soul, like a leash they could tighten and use to yank him to his knees. Compromised, vulnerable. 

It wouldn’t happen; the margin for discovery was so small it was practically nonexistent. 

He blamed Soap, then, for tempting fate.

Ghost listened to Johnny yammer on, the sound of his voice louder than usual in the rattling dark belly of the transport plane home. The glow of green light, the roar of engines, the jangle of gear. 

It was an irritating, and sometimes endearing, quirk of Johnny’s that he couldn’t stop talking in the post-op cortisol and adrenaline drop, his words a smeared haze of jumbled thoughts spoken aloud for hours afterward.

The notion of a soulmate was at the front of Soap’s mind, not for the first time. He’d always seemed to enjoy the idea of it, and find some comfort in it, particularly after a close call. There was someone waiting for him, somewhere, after all, it couldn’t all come to nothing yet.   

Simon glanced out the window, watched the sea below morph into land. 

A yellow network of light winked below, a sea of reverse stars swimming in the black.

“Lucky that way, Lt,” Johnny declared with finality, finally winding down, sounding exhausted. “Findin’ ‘em will be easier.” 

Ghost glanced over, the first time in nearly an hour that he’d acknowledged the conversation beyond a hum and a nod. “What do you mean?” 

Soap gestured to his scarred chin, then his temple. “Know ‘em straight away, wouldn’t I?”  

Simon’s own thoughts spoken out loud; his hopes to never see his own scars reflected back at him turned on its head. 

Johnny made it sound like a good thing, instead of the nightmare it was. 

No, he thought for the nth time in his life, not that, not for him. 

But he’d always had an extraordinary knack for beating the odds. 

.

.

.

The base was a constant flurry of activity, a relentlessly buzzing hive of people. There were very few places that skirted away from the general chaos of life on a military base, but Simon had catalogued them all—the field behind the barracks when drills were not being run, the concrete service walkways beneath the base, crowded with spiderwebs and dust, the cool, sterile medical wing, and, the orderly administration offices. 

Each place had caveats. 

The service walkways were the most reliably quiet, but Simon hated being underground, hated the claustrophobia of it, like some part of him would always be clawing at black earth, and so usually avoided it. 

Soap had found him smoking behind the barracks once and now regularly joined Simon there. 

The medical wing could be crowded and frenzied, depending on the day. 

The administration offices were practically serene in comparison. Neat file folders, tidy desks, windows that let in the watery, gray English sun. Square offices with their doors propped open, conference rooms bathed in the light of glowing intel reports, data convergences, and map overlays, uniform gray walls and floors. 

The admin wing only occasionally spasmed into restless activity if an emergency op was underway or about to be, and if that happened, Ghost was usually already swept up in it himself, probably already long gone. 

A spare office stuffed away at the end of the hall with the name plate removed technically belonged to him. A mostly unused space he sometimes finished reports in but, more often than not, sat empty. 

He preferred to haunt the corridors, observe the more peaceful, inner workings of the military, breathing in the quiet air for five minutes at a time. It gave his perpetually over taxed nervous system, his forever-in-fight-or-flight-mode body, to relax, if even it was only an increment or two. The lightning was softer, the constant bark of orders and drills, the snap of gunfire, the general loudness of the rest of the place, was muted and far away.

Simon knew of all of the staff and their precuilarities—names, ages, birthdates, minor feuds among each other, immediate family members, previous posts, favorite foods, habits, complaints about the building’s irregular temperatures and the pervasive scent of diesel. It wasn’t information he necessarily collected on purpose. Gleaned over years of half heard conversations, glimpses of photos on desks. They, like the medical staff, didn’t often change, not like the revolving door of soldiers and operators. 

It was a regular, routine, quiet place. 

So it would be difficult for even the most oblivious person not to notice when the familiar order of the place was interrupted. 

Soft, dandelion light flooded the hall from a doorway that had always before been shut tight.

The scent of an unfamiliar perfume lingered in the hall in a feathery streak, oakmoss and lavender. It settled hard in his lungs, made his footsteps slow slightly, caution prickling at the back of his neck. 

The click of ceramic being sat on wood, the soft shuffle of files, tapping of computer keys emanated from within the now open office. The faintest notes of bubblegum pop floated by, at odds with the chill, still air. 

Inside, you were hidden behind two massive computer monitors, the very top of a pair of lilac headphones just visible over the rim. Plants in colorful painted terracotta pots lined the window to your left absorbing what they could of pale winter light, a thick blanket was thrown over the back of a chair in the corner, a jumble of bright, hand crocheted squares. A brass floor lamp with a circular shade sat behind your desk and drooped forward like the antenna of a giant radio, or a bug, casting a delicate halo of light around you like a protective ward. 

There was something. . .lambent that emanated around the room, that had nothing to do with the ridiculous lamp. 

Simon hovered in the doorway, in the shadow of the dim hall, just to get a glimpse of your face. Start a mental file on you, begin his careful catalog. Something to match the color and light to. 

It was a surprise to you both, then, when you glanced up and caught him at it. 

You stood hastily, headphones sliding down your neck when the cord jerked taut, the tinny sound of pop echoing loudly from them until you slammed your fingers down onto the keyboard and silence descended abruptly. “Sorry, sir. I didn’t see you there. Can I help you with something?” 

Simon could only stare at you, a curl of dread snaking its way between his ribs. 

Johnny was right, then, he would know his own scars anywhere. 

He would know his own face anywhere. 

He would, apparently, know you anywhere. 

Your face was a faded mapping of his own, the same scarring traced with a lighter hand. The same crack over your lips, a line drawn across your cheek, a faded check through your brow, the bridge of your nose bisected, the outline of webbed burn scars crosshatched at the edge of your jaw and shoulder. A jagged, thick line crossed your throat. 

Despite his legacy marring your face, you were pretty. Beautiful, even, with curious, cautious eyes, one side of your mouth pulled up into a half grin that tugged at the line across your cheek and somehow didn’t ruin the brightness of it. 

You were watching him watch you with a tentative gaze, brows drawing slowly together the longer he stood there staring at you, breathing around the newly minted cavern under his lungs. 

His eyes met yours again, and as soon as the realization settled in, something clicked violently into place inside his chest, like a missing rib bone had suddenly slotted into the cage around his heart. 

Pain bloomed hot and tight across his chest, so acute he covered his side, expecting to find a knife inexplicably lodged there. He grunted mutely. The discomfort receded as quickly as it had come, leaving behind a vast hollow just beneath his breast bone. Cavernous, lurching, undone. 

The hollow hardened into a solid brick of pain. 

Nausea swept into the back of his throat. 

“Are you okay?” 

He was frozen in the direct line of fire. Your eyes swept over him, fingers curling around a folder on the edge of your desk which you thumbed nervously. You began to lift your other hand, an aborted half movement toward your face that you dropped at the last second. But you didn’t avert your gaze. You looked past the mask, past him, and into his eyes. 

You saw him. 

Simon was not to be seen.

Ghost didn’t get caught, didn’t freeze. 

Didn’t feel like an animal trapped in a cage, pinned and weak and panicked. 

Not anymore. 

He was a ghost, a shadow, a silent—

The silence unspooled, thin and fragile as unraveling lace. 

Your smile widened, a slow, confident thing that stretched across your face crookedly, pulled at your scarred skin as you tilted your head. It was, maybe, the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. 

“Sir?”

Amusement threaded your voice; a laugh curled like a sleeping animal in your throat. 

Instead of answering, he faded back into the hall.

As he retreated an uncertain realization prodded at the back of his mind. One wonderful contingency. 

You had not felt the shift, the world turning horribly on its axis, the pain that radiated hot as a wildfire. 

You hadn’t recognized what he was. 

And he was going to keep it that way. 

.

.

.

It felt like there was a hook in his chest, slipped right between his ribs, a constant painful tearing that landed him again and again outside your office door. Like he was a fish on a line, and you held the reel in your fist, totally oblivious to it. 

He didn’t love you, that’s not how the soulmate bond worked. You were tied together, for some reason, though that reason remained to be seen. Resentment was all he felt, a burning desire to chew his leg out of this trap, to grip the line that bound you and run a knife through it. 

Better yet, through you. 

Sever the tie as cleanly as a blade through an artery. 

One sure way to free himself was your death. 

It was unusual, but it happened—headlines of a soulmate killing their pair because they couldn’t tolerate the connection. It was taboo, considering how rare the bond was. The link suffocated them, instead of comforting them. 

Simon understood the urge.

He thought of your office, the way your back was angled half toward the door, how easily he could slip in and slice your throat open. He had seen and done worse, but the thought of you lying in a pool of blood, let alone at his hands, was so abhorrent and wrong that he doubled over as an acute, sharp pain pinched between his ribs, like someone wriggling their fingers between the bars to claw at his insides. 

Which irritated him. Things like that didn’t bother him, not anymore. At the very least, he was better at handling discomfort than this. 

It did start him thinking about someone else doing it, though. Slipping quietly into your office and nudging a knife between your ribs, pressing a silenced pistol against your temple, Ghost left to find your cold corpse. 

It was wrong. 

He could feel your life wrapped around his fingers, tangled in little ribbons around his wrists. A pulsing, glowing, bright thing.  

The resentment doubled because he should not care. He didn’t know you, trust you; your death should mean nothing. You should mean nothing.  

Still, he found himself walking the administration wing again the following day, even though the sun was out and it’d be nice to sit behind the barracks and smoke and listen to Johnny rattle on about something or the other when he inevitably showed up. 

Your door was open again, gold light spilling into the corridor, the low flutter of too loud music in your headphones accompanying it. 

Simon would never admit it to himself, but he also needed to know that he could remain hidden from you. The shock of your eyes finding his still hadn’t left him. It had never happened before—not on an op, not about the base, not out among civilians. He blended in, he remained invisible, but you saw him, sensed him, and he needed to know if that was something he had to adjust to. Planning was survival, and you were an unknown factor he needed a method for handling.  

Simon stepped close to your door, out of the beam of light. 

Your office was bathed in soft, cream light but not from your antenna bug lamp. 

Your back was fully turned toward the door, face tilted into the scarce winter sun streaming in the window as you leaned back in your chair. Your eyes were closed, headphones over your ears as he suspected they were. 

Fuuucking hell. 

Couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, back toward the entry point of the room. 

Your life hung there, trusting, fragile as spun crystal. 

He waited, but you didn’t turn, didn’t seem to know he was there. Something in his shoulders uncoiled, tension slowly replaced with an odd sense of calm. The pain in his chest eased for the first time in twenty-four hours, fading to a tender ache. 

Your lunch, half eaten, laid abandoned on your desk. The blanket that had been on the chair in the corner was swaddled around your shoulders. 

You yawned, eyes still closed. 

He waited for you to sense him, glance up, but you seemed unaware of him. He wouldn’t admit it then, but he half hoped you would. 

Ghost backed away, left you to your peace. 

The weight in his chest intensified again.

He hated you for it. 

He went back the next day. 

And the day after that.

.

.

.

Anchor might be a better descriptor. 

Hook was too violent.

Simon knew what it felt like to have a hook between his ribs, and this feeling was not that. 

He was satisfied, after weeks of observation as late winter turned to a wet spring, that you did not have a preternatural sense of his presence. In the process, he learned other things. 

You hated the cold, and your office always seemed to be chillier than you would prefer, blanket perpetually tucked around your shoulders. He watched you fiddle with the radiator one morning, bottom lip caught between your teeth, sigh, and resign yourself to it. He waited for you to complain to your coworkers like everyone else did, to call maintenance to fix it, but you didn’t. 

You liked to sit in the sun, however you could, squinting against the glare of it against your computer screens just to have it on your skin. 

You hunched over your desk, and clearly had pain in your neck and back because of it. 

You often stayed later on base than many of the staff and walked out of the building alone late at night. 

You didn’t drink tea, but politely accepted the tea several different coworkers made for you with the very good intention of showing you a proper cup. You drank every drop as you chatted with them, even though you clearly detested it. It didn’t show, but Simon could tell. He didn’t like that he could, that it was instinctual and nothing else. 

They were also plying you with shit tea, of course you weren’t going to like it. He watched as one bloke let it steep for a full fifteen minutes and then presented you with what must have been the bitterest lukewarm tea to ever pass through the base. An older secretary took the opposite approach and handed you a cup of barely brewed tea with approximately four tablespoons of sugar in. 

Absolutely bloody foul. 

Horrific crimes committed in your name, and you swallowed them with a smile. 

And you smiled a lot. From the tiniest twitch of your lips when you were alone, to a grin so big he could see all your teeth, that your eyes squinched closed. 

You nearly always had headphones on—wired earbuds dangling from the collar of your shirt as you walked down the hall, or over ear headphones looped around your neck at your desk, usually pop, occasionally 70s rock or alternative spitting from the speakers. 

You talked a lot, and your voice carried. One of those truisms about Americans, you could be heard long before you were seen even if you weren’t being particularly loud. He didn’t need to be close to hear you, and he found himself thinking one afternoon good. It would be easier to keep track of you. 

He liked your voice, anyway, liked your laugh, liked to hear you say English phrases in that accent of yours that made them sound ridiculous. 

You could likely give Soap a run for a world record of useless chatter. Anyone who walked into your office was subject to your stream of consciousness if they lingered long enough. 

Lonely, he might have called it. But you were new, to the base, and to the country. Your only connections were those you were attempting to craft with stuffy intelligence officers who sometimes seemed to regard you as below them. 

He found his thoughts drifting to the sound of your voice once he’d left you for the day, replaying things he’d heard you say in the period of observation he allowed himself, like the tune of a lullaby. It calmed him. 

The resentment in his chest festered like a badly healed wound. You were nothing but a distraction, a thorn stabbed into his side, stealing his focus from nearly everything that was more important. 

That used to be more important. 

Now his every thought was asterisked by you. 

Distracted. 

He didn’t do well with it. 

He didn’t like that he could feel the newly rended hole in his chest corroding and throbbing when he wasn’t near you, suffocating him. He’d felt worse in his life, so he could mostly ignore it. 

Simon decided that the nature of the bond was at least neutral. You were not a threat.  

He was tired, anyway, of constantly thinking about your back to the door, your headphones playing too loudly. 

After you left one evening in mid spring, he moved your desk. 

Simon sat in your dark office for longer than he should have, letting the pain ease out of his chest. 

It was enough to be where you had once been. 

That was as close as he cared to be. 

He fixed the radiator before he closed the door again. 

.

.

. 

He went by Ghost, you learned eventually. 

His was a redacted, blacked out name in the files on your computer, so Ghost seemed less a name than a description. You briefly scanned the ops he had been on. It was a horrifyingly long list, most of them totally classified or excised beyond comprehensibility. And those were only the missions you could see, likely his involvement in many ops had been scrubbed entirely. 

It was clear that he was good at his job, though it left you to wonder what he had been doing in the administration wing of the base, let alone peering into your office like a silent wraith. 

It should have been terrifying to find him looming in your doorway. His massive frame had blotted out the corridor behind him. Mostly in black, a skull mask covering his face. You hadn’t been able to see his eyes in the low lighting. But you had only felt curiosity, apprehension, a delicate wrenching in your gut. 

Something that a different person might liken to butterflies. Absolutely absurd, but nonetheless true. 

Fear, afterward, of course, that you’d missed some kind of order or request. 

It had also been a while since someone stared so openly at you, since you’d felt the urge to duck your head, obscure the scars littered across your skin. You never had before, and you wouldn’t have started then. You wore them proudly. Most bore their soulmate’s scars better than their own, and you were no exception. 

It had become a rarity, really, in recent years that anyone spared you more than a glance. Being surrounded by military personnel who had seen worse, might have had worse on their own skin, meant you didn’t stand out.

When you mentioned the incident to Laswell, worried that some kind of disciplinary report, during your first month at this post no less, was headed your way, she had only shook her head. “That’s just Ghost. He probably didn’t say anything. You get used to it.” 

The base, especially among the operators, was filled with odd personalities with even odder quirks, so you decided not to question it. You had only nodded, and said, “Okay.” 

Laswell had smiled. “You’ll do well here.” 

You suspected you were being watched in the weeks following the incident, though you couldn’t say why at first. The suspicion was confirmed when you arrived one blissfully sunny spring morning to find your office warm and your desk moved. Your other furniture was rearranged neatly around it. You rounded it, dropping your bag as you went, half expecting to find a note. 

There was nothing, and you started to rotate it back, a bit irritated, when you paused and sat. The new angle gave you a clear view of the door and window. The sun hit your face without causing a glare on your screens. The monitors had been lowered ever so slightly so you could easily see over them.

You left your desk in its new position. It was better that way. 

Ghost appeared in your office that afternoon as suddenly as he had left it. 

You sensed that he’d been there for a long time when you finally noticed him in the doorway, that you were only seeing him because he wanted you to.

You smiled and turned away from a report. A welcome reprieve for your strained eyes and hunched back. 

“Hi. Something I can help you with, Lieutenant?” 

This time, he stepped into your office, grasped your offer with both hands. 

The room seemed to shrink and adjust to his size. He was more massive than you remembered, in height and breadth. His eyes didn’t leave yours, a deep blackened honey brown half hidden by skull. Neither of you looked away.

“Have I passed?” 

His head tilted ever so slightly. When he spoke his voice was like an iron rod shoved down your spine. Deep and jagged and rough, it settled between your ribs, in the pit of your stomach. “Passed?” 

“Your test?” 

“Think I’m testin’ you?” 

“You moved my desk.” 

He didn’t answer for a long moment, still not dropping your gaze. The silence lasted so long you began to think he wouldn’t answer at all. “Practically had your back to the door,” he said eventually, as though that explained it. 

It conjured the image of Ghost creeping around the base in the dead of night to adjust offices into more tactical configurations and you had to bite the inside of your cheek to keep the giggle in your throat from bubbling out.   

You nodded and then shrugged instead. “I guess I don’t think about things like that.” 

“Should.”

“Maybe.” 

“Especially in the field.” 

“I don’t do field work.” 

He nodded slowly and finally took his eyes off yours, glancing around the room again. When his lashes caught the light, you saw that they were a light blond. 

“Welcome to sit,” you offered, taking up a pen and a pad of yellow paper. “Ghost.”  

He didn’t sit, but he didn't leave either. When he remained mute and motionless, you looked back at your report and continued working, resigned to the new addition to your office. 

Minutes passed in silence, with only the scratch of your pencil over paper, the tapping of computer keys, for company. 

All at once, the room sighed, and when you looked up, he was gone. 

Ghost was strange, slightly off putting. 

You liked him.

Maybe, you thought, he’d come back. 

.

.

.

Ghost visited regularly after that. 

Sometimes he simply stood at the door and watched you work. 

His boots were so silent that you often didn’t know he was there until he was leaving again. It felt as though he often melted into nothing but shadow, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable feeling. 

You didn’t feel watched, so much as observed, minded.

But the lengthy silences began to wear thin, so you started talking to him.  

Talked at him, more like, about anything that came to mind. 

The shit weather and how cold you always were. Recounted phone calls with your sister and noted things you’d seen on your commute. You told him of your slightly creepy neighbor who would follow you occasionally down high street when you did your weekly shopping trip, but that was probably harmless.

You were sure he wasn’t actually listening, his eyes focused somewhere in the middle distance as he stood statuesque in the middle of your office.  

The visits were occasionally broken up by operations that could last days or weeks, once up to a month. Time passed either way, but you found it passed more easily when you could reliably count on a visit from Ghost. Hearing his voice in staticky communications wasn’t the same. A blinking green dot on a map that you tracked just a little more closely than the others. 

Ghost sat down for the first time toward the middle of a particularly miserable and cold spring afternoon. He sighed as he did, the only sign of any feeling. Almost a resignation in the soft cut of it. 

You didn’t comment on it, just chatted as you usually did, buoyed in a way that you could not explain. 

He started to bring you coffee, done up to your preference, always when you were hitting the midday lag. 

In exchange, you left offerings at the edge of your desk. Baked goods, protein bars, chips, sweets— which disappeared when you looked away from him. You noted what went first so you could invest in it. Chocolate went more frequently. 

But Ghost, whether he was listening or not, made you feel less alone. The ache of loneliness in your heart eased, and maybe that said more about you than him. 

If he was around, he usually slipped in while you ate lunch. He didn’t eat with you, the mask never moved, but you began cooking extra in the evenings, leaving tupperware containers at the edge of your desk in addition to brownies wrapped in waxpaper, chocolate chip cookies sprinkled with sea salt. “Don’t have to,” he always said. 

“Want to,” you answered, and then received the empty, clean container from the day before as though it were an offering.

Your office always smelled like tobacco and tea for hours after he left, a comforting combination that you began to wish you could bottle. 

He didn’t appear one day at his usual allotted, precise time. You figured something came up or he finally got tired of you, but he turned up instead late in the afternoon.  

“Sorry,” he said as he sat, without explanation, a paper cup of coffee steaming at the edge of your desk like it appeared there by his will alone.  

“Oh,” you answered. “You didn’t have to—“

“Did,” he said simply. “‘ave you eaten?”

“Yep. Got something for you, too.” 

He settled back. “Neighbor still botherin’ you?” 

You blinked in surprise, the slightly creepy neighbor had not spoken to you in a few days. “Oh. . .I—You were listening.”

He tilted his head. “‘Course I was, bird.” He leveled you with a look. “So?”

“Not recently. Not in a couple days.”

“Good. Let us know if he does, yeah?”

Then he sat back and waited, shoulders relaxed as though attending a sermon, but content with silence anyway. 

When you glanced up from a report a while later, for clarification on a mission detail that he happened to be on, his eyes were closed. 

It felt akin to having a wolf willingly curl up in your lap, blood wet maw dripping peacefully onto the floor.

.

.

.

When you turned from watering your plants one innocuous spring day, you found Ghost entering your office with a different mask on. A soft black balaclava. You could see his eyes and brows, the bridge of his nose and the thin, bruised skin beneath his eyes.

You froze and then smiled at him, tried hard not to stare. His eyes were always pretty but now you felt you could actually see him. Blond brows and lashes, his irises were lighter, amber honey in the yellow light of your bug lamp, as Ghost had called it one afternoon without a shred of humor. 

It was raining, and the dim light made the small space cozier than usual. The patchwork blanket was around your shoulders, a ward against the chill bleeding beneath the window. 

In his usual chair, you’d laid a gift. 

He pointed to the blanket you had carefully folded there earlier. 

“It’s for you. I knitted it.” 

He froze, hand half extended toward it. You swept past him around your desk again, inundated with the scent of black tea and cigarettes as you went. His was alternating black and dark blue squares to your brightly colored purple and teal. “Just in case you were cold. You’re always so buttoned up after all,” you joked. “And you fixed my radiator this winter. So it’s a thank you, too.”

Ghost only moved it to the back of the chair. You hadn’t expected him to take it, really, but his gloved fingers lingered on it for a moment, rubbing the fabric gently. “How d’you know it was me that fixed it?” 

“Who else would have?” 

He grunted. “You knit?” 

“When I can’t sleep,” you answered. “Keeps my hands and brain busy.”

His brows furrowed, and seeing even that small movement felt like seeing him naked, like seeing something he didn’t want you to. You averted your eyes, heat crawling up your neck. 

“Can’t sleep?” His fingers slid off the blanket and he sat.

You shrugged. “Must seem silly to you. You see it with your own eyes. But some of the reports. . . stick with me.” 

Ghost considered this for a long moment. “It’s not.” 

“What?” 

“Silly.” 

The way he grunted the word made you laugh. 

“Could I ask you something, Ghost?”

“Reckon you just did.” 

You rolled your eyes. “Am I allotted only one question?” 

“Just two.” 

It was. . . funny. You giggled and shrugged. “Guess I’m shit out of luck.” 

“And out of questions.”

You laughed again. 

He surprised you by laughing too. If a low, graveled grunt counted as a laugh. You certainly counted it, a cache of swollen pride bubbling in your stomach. “Go on, then.” 

“Where are you from?” 

The levity vanished. His brows lowered. “Why?” 

You shrugged. “Just curious. I’m not good with all the accents yet. Just can’t place you.” 

He relaxed back into the chair again, but didn't answer. 

The pinch of his brows, the tense line of his jaw, remained, his expression considering as he tilted his head back. 

“Why do you come here?” You asked instead. 

This question he answered readily. “It’s quiet.” 

“That’s one way to tell me to shut up.” 

He blinked and lowered his chin to meet your eyes. “Not the kind of noise I mean.” 

You decided not to take offense at being called noise. 

You snorted and reached beneath your desk, taking some pride in the fact that Ghost did not tense anymore than usual when you did, withdrawing your lunch. 

“Hungry?” You asked.  

“Tryin’ to see my face?” 

You smiled. “Never,” you answered, “Not sure I want to see what you’re hiding under there.” 

The rain tapped against the window as you popped the thermal lid off.  

“Why are you here?” He asked as you folded your legs beneath you on the chair and tucked the blanket around them. Ghost rose without asking and twisted the knob of the radiator beneath the window a bit higher.

You waved your fork, indicating the office. “Fairly positive I work here. But perhaps base security is more lax than I thought.” 

He sighed, a long suffering sound. “England, smartarse.” 

You smile and dig your fork into last night’s spaghetti bolognese. The steam caressed your face in a warm puff as you lifted a bite. “I’m on loan to Laswell.” 

“On loan?” He asked as he settled back into the chair, broad shoulders pressed to the wall behind him, against the blanket. It slid over his elbow a little, curled over his forearm. He didn’t move it. 

When you lifted your gaze to his, his stare was piercing, brows lowered, furrowed. You imagined he must be frowning.  

“Temporary replacement for whoever used to be in this office,” you explained. “She needed someone quickly, who she could trust.” 

Ghost folded his arms across his chest, something more tense than usual in the movement. “How long are you on loan for, then?” 

You shrugged, twisted your fork into the noodles. “It’s unclear. So, for now, indefinitely.” You smiled, “Hopefully not through another winter, though, I don’t think I’m cut out for the rain and cold.”

His shoulders eased, but only marginally. If it weren’t for all the hours he’d passed in your office, you weren’t sure you would have caught it at all. 

“From somewhere warm?”

“Warmer than here. Especially in the winter.” 

“Must be nice, that.” 

“Has its perks. But the summer is its own kind of hell.” 

“One you enjoy.” 

“But of course. I like feeling like I’m baking alive.” 

He snorted again.

You ate in silence for a bit. The quiet had become comfortable between you somewhere along the way, silken and gentle. 

When you were scraping the last bit of sauce from the bottom of the container, Ghost said, “Manchester.” 

“Hm?”

“Where I’m from.”

His voice was low; he wasn’t looking at you, eyes trained on the door instead. 

“Manchester,” you repeated, trying to place it on the map of the UK in your mind. “And do you all sound sort of like—“

You were about to say like you have gravel in your mouth but he makes an affected noise, that stiff grunt again. “Are you laughing at me?”

“It’s your fucking accent.”

“My accent?” You asked incredulously. “Have you heard yourself?” 

“Got a thick one, bird.” He imitated your voice. “Manchester.” The sharp rhotic r sound was like a gunshot in his mouth, each letter enunciated to the point of being butchered. 

You scoffed, not bothering to fight your smile. “Takes one to know one, I guess.” 

“Suppose it does.” 

“Fucking Brits,” you said, without any venom. “I can’t do anything right according to you all.” 

He tilted his head, something predatory in it. It made your heart flutter a little. “Who’s tellin’ you you can’t do something?” 

You sighed, long suffering. “My coworkers. Can’t make tea, apparently. I don’t care for it and everyone keeps insisting I just make it wrong.”

“They make it wrong too.” 

You groaned. “Not you too.” 

Ghost rose to take his leave as you snapped the lid back onto the now empty container. 

“I’ll show you how to make a proper cup sometime.” 

You paused, a warm surprise sweeping into your chest, and decided not to linger on this solitary acknowledgement that Ghost would return to your office. “Big fan?” 

“I love tea.” 

It made you laugh. “Of course, English afterall.” 

He nodded, just once, and started toward the door. “Ghost?” You called. 

Ghost turned and you slid another tupperware container across your desk. “For you.” 

He stared at it, for a moment too long, as he always did, like he was telling himself to leave it. “Didn’t have to.” 

“I know.” You nodded at it again and then then ducked behind your computer screens. “I always want to.” 

Ghost moved so silently that you didn’t hear or see him take it, but when you looked up again he and the container at the edge of your desk were gone. 

.

.

.

It should be a good thing. 

You would be gone soon enough, none the wiser of who Ghost was. Of what you were to each other. 

But it didn’t sit well. It was a new thing to nag at the back of his mind, finding your office empty, you becoming a ghost in your own right. He hated the ache in his chest, the thought of you so far away. He could only assume you’d be stationed back in the US.

The thought festered, burrowed. 

“Laswell.”

She jumped, hand going beneath her desk before she spotted Ghost in the corner of  her office. She sighed and closed her eyes, fingertips rubbing her eyes instead. 

“Ghost,” she sighed, “Don’t do that.” 

Simon said your name, and Laswell lowered her hands to look at him. “How long has she got?” 

“What do you mean?”

“Said she’s on loan. I want to know how long.”

Laswell considered him; Ghost waited. He wouldn’t explain himself, and Laswell knew that. 

“Maybe as long as a year.” She tilted back in her chair and asked anyway. “Why?” 

Ghost didn’t answer, slipping back out of her office and down the hall. 

You were still in your office, hunched over the desk, lavender headphones pulled down around your neck. He watched you for a long moment, eyes tracing over scars that belonged to him. It was jarring each time to see pain he experienced threaded over your skin. It made him feel exposed by proxy.

As he watched, you lifted a hand and rubbed your neck with a wince, fingers lingering on the long scar slashed at the base of your throat. The grimace faded from your face and your expression receded into the impassive, blank, focused slate it always settled into as you continued working. 

When he sat down in your office, you just shot him a tired smile and continued working. 

He walked you to your car around midnight. 

“Tell us if you’re here this late again,” he said, not looking at you. 

“Ghost,” you said. “It’s almost enough to make me think you like me.” 

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” he answered. 

You just laughed. 

.

.

.

“Tea?” 

You jumped, just as Laswell had, only your hand didn’t go beneath the desk. Nothing there to reach for, he knew, your vulnerability like a beacon, or a stain. 

It would need remedied. 

But first, this. 

It was the sixth time in two weeks that you were at your desk well past when everyone else had gone home.  

“Jesus Christ.” 

“Unfortunately not.” 

You laughed; his shoulders eased. “Ghost,” you said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” You tilted your head. “I’m starting to think you’re spying on me.” 

“What’re you still doing ‘ere?” 

“What are you doing wandering around our wing after hours?” 

Not a line of questioning he was keen on following. That just being near a place you had been earlier in the day was enough to loosen that fucking tether in his chest. That he was worried incessantly about you being alone at night.

“Offerin’ to make you a tea,” he answered. “Obviously.”  

“Obviously,” you echoed. “Of course.” 

“You’re supposed to tell me when you’re stayin’ late.” 

“Ghost,” you said seriously, lifting your brows, “I’m here late again today.” 

“Hilarious, you are.” 

You giggled again. “Are you really offering to make me tea?” 

He nodded. “C’mon then.”

You smiled and shrugged the blanket off your shoulders. He waited while you locked your computer and stood.

Simon allowed you to lead toward the breakroom where he’d observed the many cups of tea you’d politely swallowed from well meaning coworkers, who left it to steep for too long or too short, added too much sugar and milk, or left it totally plain. 

The overhead lights were too bright, a blue-white glare that made you frown and squint. Your nose scrunched up in distaste. There were circles beneath your eyes, exhausted loops that matched his own.  

“So,” you prompted, leaning against the counter, “How does one make a proper cuppa?”

“Not bad,” he said of your accent, lifting the electric kettle from the hook to fill with water. “Little posh.” 

“I’ve been practicing.”

He grunted, and put the kettle on, before rooting through the cabinet above the sink for tea bags. A grim selection awaited him, but he’d make due with what was available.

“Ah, so you boil the water. I was under the impression you could just stick it all in the microwave.” 

He involuntarily made a pained sound. “Fucking hell,” he muttered, “That your usual method?” 

You bit the inside of your cheek, poorly concealing a laugh. “I scandalized a data analyst with that joke.” You cup your chin in your hand, peer up at him from beneath a thick fringe of lashes. “I do know how to boil water, I’ll have you know.”

“Got a head start then.” 

You laughed again, shoulders shaking. Simon watched the corner of your mouth curl, and it eased something in his chest. You were painfully close, the woodsy, floral scent of your perfume curled in the air. Your elbow brushed his. He didn’t know how you could be unaware of the bond at that moment, when being that close to you felt like being lit on fire. He wanted to reach for you so badly that he had to clench his fist closed to avoid it. 

If someone were to ask him to move away from you right then, it would end badly. Bloody. 

The thin, needle sharp connection ached, begged. 

Simon ignored it.  

When you glanced up, he looked away. He could feel your eyes on his face, and didn’t mind the scrutiny in it. He didn’t mind you watching him, and wondered what you saw. 

“I like being able to see your eyes,” you said, just as the kettle clicked off. 

He met your gaze, disarmed by the declaration. Your features had softened, melted into a dangerous fondness. “Why?” 

“You have pretty eyes,” you shrugged. “And it’s hard to see you with the other mask.” You shifted, watching him lift the kettle, pour the hot water into a mug and over the teabag he’d dropped into it. 

“You can tell me to fuck off, if you want,” you began carefully, fingertips drumming nervously against the counter. “Why do you wear it?” 

Simon watched the teabag bob on the surface of the water, thin amber trails unfurling, coloring the water slowly brown. “Five minutes,” he nodded at the tea. “Don’t touch it. None of that dunking shite.” 

“Yes, sir,” you agreed. “Five minutes, no touching.” 

He huffed, and your smile widened. You bumped your shoulder against his. The contact only lasted a second or two, but the relief it provided was so intense that he nearly choked on it. 

The pain, softened by your proximity, returned immediately, crept down into the soft ligaments between his bones. He felt the loss in the roots of his teeth, the middle of his chest; it was like losing his breath in a different way, being suckerpunched in the solar plexus, knocked on his ass.

“To hide my face.” 

“Your identity, you mean.” 

“My identity,” he agreed.

“Why?” 

He released a long, slow breath, and thought about telling you to piss off, maybe even just to see how you’d take it. Were you as good as your word? Would you let the subject drop? 

Instead, he said, “There are a lot of bad people in the world, bird.” 

You pursed your lips, fingers toying with the teabag string, flicking the tab at the end with your nail. There was another question swimming in your eyes, but you let it go unasked, dropping your eyes from his instead. 

“You’ve seen more of them than most,” you said. “I would guess.” 

“Part of the job.” 

Your mouth curled a little, lashes fluttering against your cheek. “Hm. But y’know something? I think I’d know you anywhere,” you said, without a hint of shame or irony. “It’s all in your eyes.” 

Before Simon could respond, you hid a yawn in your sleeve and rubbed your hand over your face, exhaustion layered in thick rings beneath your eyes. “Even if this is gross,” you indicate the tea, “At least it will keep me awake.” 

“I take offense to that.” 

You laughed again. “Hm. Sorry, Lieutenant.” You leaned in, “It smells so nice, so why does it taste like shit?” 

He rolled his eyes. “I’ll make you a coffee if it’s shit.” 

“You’re kind.” This time when you leaned your shoulder against his, you left it there. The empty soreness like a bruise inside his ribs loosened again. For the first time in a while, he was left with the absence of pain.  

When the tea was done steeping, he did yours with a bit of honey. There was no way you’d take it plain and like it, but he drew the line at milk. Especially the blasphemy that was the military issued powdered milk in a canister that sat on the counter. Abso-fucking-lutely not. 

“There you are,” he said, “Cup of tea.” 

“A proper cuppa,” you tried again. It was a little less posh this time. 

He huffed. “Better all the time.” 

“And I have you to thank.” 

Your face creased as you took the cup between your palms, an unreadable expression flitting across your features. Then your mouth twisted to the side, a sure sign you were attempting to keep some emotion or thought in check. 

Your shoulder was still pressed heavily against his. 

“Thanks, Ghost.” 

“”S just tea.” 

You shook your head and lifted the cup, blowing gently on the surface before you took a tiny sip. He watched your face, watched your throat move as you swallowed, the flickering web of your lashes. A step up, at least, from all the shit tea from your coworkers that make your brows tense in an effort to conceal a grimace. “One good thing has come of this,” you said after a moment of contemplation. 

“What’s tha’?” 

“I know how to make tea for you now.” 

“Like it?” 

“I love it.” 

You briefly tilted your head onto his shoulder, then pulled away entirely. The flood of discomfort was worse than before. His muscles spasmed around it in a violent convulsion. “I mean that really.” 

He breathed out, through it. “I don’t take honey.” 

You studied the contents of the cup, tilting it one way and then the other, like something important laid at the bottom of the porcelain well. 

“Noted.” 

Sure enough, the next day, a hot cup was waiting for him, which he drank as you chatted from behind your computer, decidedly, pointedly, giving him the privacy to do so. 

.

.

.

Things settled into a pleasant rhythm. 

A regimented, regular existence that you had long ago learned to embrace. The base became home more than the tiny apartment you rented and spent only enough time to sleep, bathe, and cook in. 

You timed your days to the ebb and flow of the base, to visits to your office, debriefings and conference rooms, the restless energy of so many people in one place moving. You breathed around absences, the pockets of emptiness that sometimes cropped up. The loneliness that felt like an unfillable pit in your stomach. 

People often saw your scars and thought not to bother. Why would fate have marked you so heavily if you weren’t meant to find your pair? The scars meant nothing, really. They were no more significant than anyone else’s. Your chances of running into your soulmate was no higher than someone who had accrued no scars from their bond. 

You were a stopping off point, a bit of fun, but not someone to invest time and effort into, not when the reminder that someone else might come along and render it all moot was so visible, so literally in their face. To look at you was to be reminded of that bond waiting in the wings, for them and for you, and that you could only ever be temporary. 

It made friendships hard too. Some were jealous, others thought there couldn’t be room for anyone else in your life. You were important to no one.

It had been proven to you time and again, and you weren’t sure what kept you hopeful that someone would one day see past it. So when Sergeant Davies stuck his head in your office one Friday afternoon long after Ghost had departed your office for the day, and asked you out, you found yourself saying yes. 

“Would you like to go out sometime?” He asked, hand rubbing the back of his neck. “Just round the pub for drinks?” 

“Oh,” you said. “I—” 

It had been a long time since anyone took interest in you. You’d only talked to him a few times before, but Davies was handsome in a boyish way and sweet and you liked him well enough, you found yourself hesitating for half a second. To your horror, your mind flashed to Ghost, stomach lurching painfully, a knot of tension fisting itself in your chest. 

You looked at his usual chair, empty now, seeing his large frame sprawled there anyway, thighs spread wide, arms crossed over his chest, eyes steady and focused, locked onto you with an intensity and constancy you still weren’t used to.

Heat bloomed in your lungs, crept up your neck. You glanced away, back at Davies waiting at the door. 

“Yeah,” you answered firmly. “Sure.” 

“Brilliant,” he grinned. “How about tonight?” 

Your belly gave another sour squirm that you ignored; it had just been a long time, that was all. “I’m free.” 

“Brilliant,” he said again. “I’ll text you.” 

“Okay.” 

His grin was crooked and self satisfied as he exited your office. 

So you found yourself walking off the base with Davies later that evening. You found yourself laughing and hopeful in a local pub that you hadn’t gotten the chance to explore yet, busy as you were, the base a tide that tugged you back again and again. Like a magnet, you wanted to be there. 

And all of it came to nothing, the moment Davies saw the extent of the scarring when you took him home. It wasn’t just your face, it was your hands and arms and chest and belly. Your whole body was marked, dogeared for someone else. He looked down at you in your bed, his head framed by your ceiling fan and you saw the moment it clicked. The moment it wouldn’t work. 

“Someone out there is really looking for you,” he said. “You’re lucky.” 

“No more than anyone else,” you countered. “You know that’s not how it works.” 

“I know,” he said, pulling on his shirt. “I’m sorry.” 

“It’s okay,” you said before he kissed your cheek and retreated. 

Still, you didn’t sleep, just laid on your side, half undressed, staring out at a sky that slowly lightened, stars fading, wondering if perhaps your truest fate was to be lonely for your whole life. 

You didn’t hate your scars, or your soulmate. But sometimes you thought it would be easier if you didn’t have one at all. 

.

.

.

Monday. 

There was a knife in Simon’s pocket. 

Not unusual in and of itself, he carried several at all times, slipped into his sleeves and belt and boot. 

The one in his pocket, though, was for you.

A gift, a contingency, and an offer all wrapped in one. 

The knowledge that it was yours was an uncomfortable weight in his chest. It meant admitting he cared enough to procure it, test it, hand it over. 

It wasn’t quite your typical lunch hour, but Ghost was headed to your office anyway. It was sunny, for once, and he expected to find you taking an early break anyway, leaning back in your chair with your headphones on, absorbing the rare rays. 

And, he wanted to be done with it, to stop tapping his pocket repeatedly, checking the blade was still there, like it might have run away. 

Soap had noticed his fidgeting as they all sat through a briefing on intelligence reports with Laswell that morning. Ghost had forced his hand still, exuded a forced calm, but Johnny’s eyes hadn’t turned away. 

When he arrived at your office, deliberately rustling against the doorjamb so as not to startle you, you glanced up and smiled tightly and his plan vanished. 

Something was wrong. The blinds were closed, your office an unusual sea of gray air. Your shoulders were caved inward protectively, your expression wan and closed. Your smile didn’t reach your eyes, your voice was rough when you said, “Hey, Ghost.”  

Simon took his usual seat, watching you type something, decidedly not looking at him. He watched you, the set of your mouth and eyes. He waited for your chatter to begin but it didn't. 

“All right?” 

“Hm?”

“You’re quiet.” 

“Oh, only one of us is allowed to be quiet?” You joked, but it came out a bit brittle, and worn.

There were, he noticed as he looked at you, circles beneath your eyes. “What ‘appened?” 

You looked up again, and shook your head. “I’m just tired.” 

“Try again.” 

Frustration crept into your features. “Who said I want to tell you?” With that, you ducked behind your monitors.

Simon waited, but you did not reemerge. 

He stood, and rounded your desk. You glanced up then, leaning back when you found him so close. “Jesus, Ghost—” 

“Nice weather.” 

“I can see that.” 

“And you aren’t out there sunnin’ yourself? Something horrible must have happened.” 

Your mouth twisted to the side and you glanced away. “I. . .I’m just being dramatic.”

“C’mon, then.” 

You blinked up at him. “Where are we going?” 

He didn’t answer, but you rose anyway when he tilted his head toward the door. Simon snagged the blanket you’d knitted for him months ago from its place along the back of his chair, finally with a proper purpose, and carried it over his arm. 

“Lunch.” 

You grabbed it and followed him down the hall. Simon shouldered open an external door and held it open for you, the scent of your skin, the warm brush of your body so close to his as you ducked under his arm like a beacon, a light he wanted to follow. 

Carefully, you nudged your shoulder against his as you walked. The familiar sharp, sweet pang whenever you brushed too close together settled in his chest. He wondered if you felt it too, if you felt that sickly flutter in your chest, or if his suspicion that he was holding one end of an untethered bond in his hand was right. 

Just his luck. 

Didn’t matter though. 

He ticked his elbow out a little, and after a moment, you pushed your hand against the inside of his arm. His shoulders loosened; his jaw unclenched. The pain in his chest settled. 

The absence of the ache was intense; he was so used to being in near constant pain. 

“So, what are we doing?” 

“Walking.” 

“I can see that.” 

“Why’re you askin’, then, bird?” 

You huffed but didn’t ask anymore questions as he led you down one concrete pathway. 

The sky was a flawless robin’s egg blue, only a wispy, thin line of cloud on the very distant horizon. The distant shouts of drill instructors snapped in the warm summer air. Your shoulders drooped as you walked, eyes fluttering closed for a few seconds at a time as you tilted your face to the sun, inhaling deeply. 

He led you around the last building in a long line of barracks and brought you to a halt. The only thing beyond was a chainlink fence that marked the edge of the base. A faint breeze coated him in the smell of your skin, settled deep in the well of his lungs. He took a breath, watched your lashes flutter. 

Your thumb stroked a pattern against the inside of his arm, lazy and slow. “You’ve got a soft spot for me, Ghost.” 

He didn’t deny it. 

“What are we doing back here?” 

Ghost pulled away from you with some effort and spread the blanket over the grass. He sat on the concrete steps that led to the back door of the unused barracks.

You sat on the blanket, started to open your lunch and then flopped back in the sun instead. “A usual haunt?” 

“Sometimes.” 

“Secret’s safe with me.” 

“Mind if I smoke?” 

“No.” Then, “I won’t look.”  

He grunted in acknowledgement, rolled the bottom of his mask up, carton of cigarettes and lighter pulled from the depths of a trouser pocket. Simon watched the rise and fall of your chest, tracing the latticework of scars over your face. They looked better on you, he decided. Not as noticeable as his own, faded and light, pencil through wax paper instead of the thick groves of his own. 

They glinted a little in the sun, like the scales of an iridescent fish. 

Your eyes remained peacefully closed, soaking up the sun like a long deprived plant. Sweat beaded along your forehead, and when you pushed up your sleeves, Ghost was reminded that all of you matched all of him.

He recognized a burn mark on your forearm that belonged to him, a cut that wrapped halfway around your wrist. He was pretty sure the burn mark was from a mishandled flare, the wrist scar from a rope that had gotten tangled and burned him. 

Simon wanted to reach down and cup the side of your throat, feel the soft, sun warmed skin beneath his fingers. He wondered if your scars felt the same as his own, rough and grooved. 

Probably not, they were imitations, ungenerous sketchings of his own. 

He’d like to map them all against his own, find out if he bore any of yours. He wouldn’t have noticed something small that you might have collected yourself. A childhood fall, a careless burn while cooking. 

He watched the delicate flex of muscle in your forearms. Your shirt was a little askew, more faded marks left like a tracery of veins on your chest and collarbone and shoulder. It was fucking awful, a wrenching feeling in his chest, to know all that had been inflicted on him, had fallen on you too. 

He wondered about the pain again, imagined you writhing with terror and agony and confusion, every gunshot wound and burn and slash he received an echo inside you. Cigarette burns dotting your arms and wrists when you were just a child, months of pain without end when he was captured and tortured and his life was irrevocably changed. 

Simon wanted to ask, needed to know just how much damage he’d inflicted. But the words stuck in his throat. A fear of knowing, if he asked about the pain, maybe he’d hear other things too, how much you must hate him and didn’t know it was the man in front of you your hate should be directed at.

When he stubbed out his cigarette on the heel of his boot and rolled his mask back down, you blinked into the sun and exhaled, long and slow, and then sat up, leaning back on your palms. 

“What ‘appened?” He asked.

Your mouth twitched into your usual, if a bit more sheepish, smile. “You’re like a dog with a bone, you know that?” 

“Affirmative,” he said. 

You rolled your eyes and set up straight, brushing your palms together before reaching for your lunch. “I brought something for you.” 

“Stalling.” 

“Pushy,” you countered, giggling, rummaging around in your bag. Your smile faded as you pulled free one of the usual containers, what looked like lasagne within. He watched the edge of your mouth curl, the scar slitted along one side pulling at your expression. “I went on a date this weekend.” 

Ice slid down his spine, curled in a viscous circle in his gut. “Bad date?” 

“No,” you said, shaking your head adamantly, staring down at the container in your lap. “No, it went really well.” You glanced up at him and then dug in your bag again, passing another one to him along with a fork. “Until he saw my—” You fidgeted with your sleeve and then yanked it down. The other followed suit. “My marks. My scars.” 

“He’s a prick.” 

“No, he wasn’t,” you shook your head. “It’s happened before. They see the extent of it, and it’s like something biological clicks. I’m off limits.” You sat your food to the side and wrapped your arms around your knees. “Even though I’m no more likely to find mine than anyone else.” 

You looked very small, and alone at that moment. 

“I know it’s not my soulmate’s fault,” you said quietly. “I know that. I know that. And I don’t blame them for it. But sometimes I get so lonely I just—I wish—I wish I didn’t have one. Sometimes I wish I could hate them.”

The chill spreads outward.  

It was confirmation enough. If you knew, you would hate him. All that repressed, sentimentalized resentment would come bubbling up the moment you were actually faced with the person who so fundamentally changed the course of your life. 

He looked at his scars winking in the sun on your skin and felt a self hatred so intense it nearly made him flinch. He wished he could crawl out of that grave and kill them all over again, slower, just for this. 

You glanced up and smiled tightly. “But I’m a hopeless romantic, and dramatic. It was just disappointing. I always have hope someone will see past it.” You ran your hand over the blanket and unfolded yourself to finally begin eating. “This helped, though,” you said. “Thank you, Ghost.” You nodded at the food in his hands, averted your gaze again. 

And even though you could easily glance at him, Simon pushed up his mask and popped open the lid of the lasagne still warm between his hands. 

You ate together for the first time, in silence in the sun. You closed your eyes, kept your face pointed up and away, a cool breeze ruffling your shirt sleeves. 

“Have you found yours?” 

Simon looked at you, the edge of your jaw, the soft shadows your lashes cast over your ruined cheek. “Don’t think someone like me is meant for one.” 

You nodded. “Me either.”

.

.

.

He walked you back to your office. 

You felt better, settled, but he sort of just had that affect on you, you were coming to find. 

Ghost smelled like sun and freshly mowed grass and cigarette smoke. His shoulder kept touching yours, something in your chest lurching each time, like a rib bone had come loose and was knocking against your heart and lungs. 

Ghost carried the blanket back, folded it and set it carefully along the back of what had become his chair. 

You sat and turned, expecting to find him already silently gone as was his way. 

Instead, he was very close and depositing something on your desk. 

Matte black, compact, deadly, cold to the touch. 

A folded pocket knife sat at the edge of your desk. Ghost loomed over you, his shadow curling around your edges. 

He slid it toward you, watched you fold your fingers around it. For a long moment, each of you was holding it. “What’s this?” You asked when he released it, gloved fingers sliding across your desk, back to his side.  

“A knife.” 

“Oh, really? I've never seen one before.” 

He rolled his eyes. “It’s for you. I’ll teach you how to use it.” 

“Why?” 

“In case you need to.”

“Is this about me staying late?” 

“No.” He did not elaborate. 

“You know I received firearm training. I can shoot a gun. Isn’t a knife a little—” 

“But you don’t carry a gun.” 

“No,” you agreed. “I don’t.”  

He nodded as though that explained it. “Right.” 

You considered it, flipped it open. Deadly, shiny blade newly sharpened and oiled and well cared for. It was odd to be given a weapon, and yet unsurprising where Ghost was concerned. You glanced up, watched his dark, intense eyes flick over your face. You weren’t sure what he was looking for, but his brows knitted the longer you stared at each other. Concern, weariness.

“Okay.”

His shoulders loosened. “Tomorrow.” 

“Tomorrow,” you agreed. 

.

.

.

If you thought you would receive one lesson in knifework and be done with it, you didn’t know Ghost very well. 

You only ran drills first, as though Ghost were making sure the physical fitness exam you had to pass once a year was up to scratch. You proved again and again that you could run without getting too winded, disassemble, load, and fire a service weapon. When he was satisfied with that, the real training began. 

You practiced with a rubber blade that bruised when stuck into your ribs. He did not go easy on you. You left the gym battered and bruised, sweaty and just a little bit resentful. But you could break a wrist lock hold, grapple and use your body and size to your advantage. The goal he repeatedly told you, was not to turn you into a fighter or a soldier, but give you an opportunity to get away, to run away.  

What kind of danger he imagined you getting into between the base and your apartment you couldn’t begin to imagine. But you enjoyed spending time with him, enjoyed being in the gym. You found yourself laughing when you were repeatedly slammed into the mat, knife wrested from your fingers. It was fun. And, it was good for you, you decided, even if you thought his intense insistence was a tad dramatic. 

Ghost was a bit dramatic about certain things, you were coming to learn.

This was one of them. You were, you thought with warmth, one of the things he was a bit dramatic about. For whatever reason, you’ve been tucked under his wing, into his shadow. 

On the third week of relentlessly brutal training, you arrived at the base gym, empty as it always was, to find him holding a length of rope. 

You eyed it warily and shifted from foot to foot, amused despite the discomfort. “What do you imagine is going to happen to me?” 

Ghost didn’t answer as you set your bag down and pulled off your sweatshirt. The room was warm, close and humid, the scent of left over dregs of soldiers clogging the room for most of the day. The scent of plastic, lemon disinfectant, and sweat is thick on the air, but when you stepped toward Ghost, his familiar comforting smell of tea and cigarettes washed over you in a vacuous, orbital cloud. 

You looked up just as his eyes slid away from you, blond lashes catching the light, skin pink around his eyes. You’d swear it was a blush if you didn’t know better. “Ghost?” 

“Better to be prepared, yeah?” 

“For what?” All the same, you turned with a sigh. 

After a painfully long moment he stepped close and pressed the dark material around your wrists. His body was warm behind yours for that brief moment even without touching you, like the glow of a heat lamp that made the rest of the room feel cold by comparison. 

His gloved fingers were carefully delicate against your skin. It sent sparks skittering up your arms. What would his bare skin feel like against yours? 

Rough, warm. Safe.  

It’s a thought that had curled its roots into your mind the first time you fell to the mat together and you felt his weight against yours, brief and heavy, but comforting somehow. It wasn’t supposed to be, he was playing predator, it should have been panic inducing. 

Stupid, silly. 

If your most recently failed date had shown you anything, it was that feeling anything for anyone that had seen your scars was a failing venture. And Ghost had seen more of them now, than most. Maybe you should start wearing a mask. 

“What’s the goal today?” You asked, feeling a little like you couldn’t breathe. His warmth and scent and the weight of his presence was overwhelming in a way that made you want to curl into him, gladly suffocate. 

“Same as always,” he answered drolly. “To get away.”

“Hm. I keep thinking you’ll challenge me,” you teased.  

“Not a game, bird.” 

“But what am I meant to do? I can’t fight.” 

“Get out of the bindings. Get to the door.” 

“Is that it?” 

You would swear he’s smirking. “Simple enough, aye.” 

It wasn’t easy. 

For the third time in a row, you landed hard on your back. 

Ghost’s weight was heavy against you, before it lifted away. Your sweaty skin stuck to his hoodie.

Your breath comes in hard, deep pants. Your wrists ached and panic had begun to set in. 

“On your feet.” 

Clumsy as a newborn deer, you stumble to your feet. You had to be faster than him, incapacitate him. “You won’t be getting away from me,” he’d said once, “so you’d have a chance.” It was a compliment; one that said you were doing good. 

It didn’t feel like you were doing good now. 

By the sixth time, you felt raw and helpless, wrists caught at an odd angle beneath you. It wasn’t fun; it wasn’t sparring. You couldn’t manage to wriggle out of the bindings and you were useless at anything he’d taught you without your hands. 

“You’re hurting me,” you gasped. 

He released you immediately and the pressure in your wrists eased. It hadn’t been pain, not really, just panic, just exhaustion. 

But you knew instantly that you’d made a mistake, that he would not take it that way. 

“Shit.” 

.

.

.

The window was open and you were not in your office. 

Simon paused in the doorway, noted your bag on the chair in the corner, the patchwork quilt trailing over the arm of your desk chair and spilling onto the floor. His was gone from the chair. You’d been wandering off without him recently. 

He turned and marched back down the hall. An administrative assistant pointed toward the external door. “Getting sun, she said,” he said. “Sir.” 

Ghost nodded and shouldered the door open. He found you behind the barracks, lying on his blanket, staring up at a patchy sky, slices of blue peaking from between low hanging gray clouds. 

When his shadow fell over you, you opened your eyes and squinted up at him. “Ghost, you’re blocking my sun.” 

“Not much sun to speak of.” You grimace and frown at the sky. “You weren’t in your office.” 

“Sorry, should have left a note.” You patted the blanket next to you. “Sit.” 

Simon sat on the concrete steps. “Where’s your lunch?”

“Forgot it.” 

Worry sprouted, blossomed along his veins, ubiquitous as the pain that accompanies it. 

“Canteen,” he said. “Let’s go.” 

“It’s okay—“

“Wasn’t a suggestion.” 

“You’re bossy,” you said but didn’t move, chin tilted up, eyes flitting shut again. “I’ll have a big dinner.” 

He sighed and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, content enough to wait you out and smoke. The clouds continued to gather, putting your beloved sun to rest for the moment. The air grew steadily thicker with humidity. 

“Gonna rain,” he commented. 

You ignored him, eyes squinching closed harder, like you could will the sun to return. He watched you, made himself look at the bruises on your wrists and forearms, he knew there were matching ones on your ribs. They were harmless, just the usual consequence of sparring, but the ones around your wrists—that’s a mistake he won’t soon forget. 

When a fat raindrop landed on your arm, you sat up with a grumble. “Ready now?” He asked, pulling down his mask again. 

“I can see you won’t leave it alone.” 

“Affirmative,” he said. 

You rolled your eyes and started to get to your feet, pausing when he held out a hand to you. You stared for a beat too long before gripping his hand in yours. 

Even through his gloves, it was like being electrocuted. 

You released his hand as soon as you could, eyes skirting his. “Your lead,” you said. “I haven’t had the privilege.” 

He grunted, followed you closely back inside. 

As Simon’s misfortune would have it, Johnny was still in the canteen. 

He lasered in on the pair of you immediately, a grin growing across his face as he approached. “Ach so this is where you’ve been off to LT.”

Ghost herded you into line, a raucous group of new recruits halting their conversation to ogle you before their eyes flicked to his and away, conversation continued at a more subdued level. He shifted closer, between you and them, though you didn’t seem to notice.

“Haven’t been off anywhere,” he grumbled. 

“Who’s this then?” 

You smiled and offered your hand and name. “It’s nice to see that Ghost has bad manners with everyone.” 

“John MacTavish,” Soap said, all charm as he practically bowed. “Call me Soap.”

“Soap,” you giggled. “I’ve seen you in my reports.” 

Soap’s gaze flicked over your face, sharp eyes making the quick calculations that had made Simon hope he wouldn’t be in the canteen. “Are they yours?” 

“Sergeant—,” Ghost said sharply, a warning in his voice. 

But you only laughed and touched your cheek with obvious pride as the line moved up. “No. None of them belong to me. They’re nice though, right?” 

Simon went very still, swore his heart rate slowed. You held out your arm, showed off a sliver flash.

“Very becoming, lass.” 

You smiled again and gestured to your own chin, the side of your head. “Yours?” 

“Aye, all mine.”

“Ah, luck.” 

“Lucky indeed.”

Johnny’s eyes shifted to Simon’s, brows raised, with a look that said he knew. Simon glanced away, gritting his jaw so hard it ached.

 “Am I going to get food poisoning from this?” You asked as a tray was handed over, eying warily what was ostensibly mash, peas and carrots, mystery meat. 

“Probably not,” Johnny answered cheerfully. “Been mostly fine.” 

“Yes, but I think you military people might have tolerance to low levels of poison.” 

“That’s for sure, bonnie.” 

“Bonnie,” you said, giggling. “Are you calling me pretty?” 

Soap covered his heart, balancing his tray with one hand. “You wound me. Simon only keeps us good looking bastards around.”

“Simon,” you said softly, glancing up at him. “I didn’t think anyone knew your name.” 

Ghost didn’t answer for a moment, glaring daggers into the side of Johnny’s head, ignoring the way his heart was clenched so tight it felt like it was in a vise. Simon, his name on your tongue—  

“It’s need to know,” he snapped. 

Your expression folded and you glanced away. “Right, of course. Sorry.”

Simon clenched his jaw so hard it clicked as Johnny shot him a look. “This way, lass,” he said, leading you toward a spot in the corner of the mess. 

“Oh,” you said weakly, “That’s all right. You don’t have to—”

Ghost couldn’t help but notice the anxious look you threw him, the thin line your voice had transformed into. 

Soap wasn’t listening, already talking your ear off, pulling out a chair for you. You smiled and sat and Simon was left to silently watch it unfold. 

.

.

.

“Fuckin’ hell,” Soap muttered when they’d safely returned you to your office where a contingent of lesser analysts awaited you. The corridor leading away from the now closed door seemed impossibly long. “D’ya know how many people would kill to meet their soulmate? You’ve got yours right under your fuckin’ nose and haven’t even told her yer name!” 

“She doesn’t need to know.” 

“Yer name?” 

Ghost leveled Soap with a stare. 

Soap gaped at him. “Steamin’ Jesus. You aren’t plannin’ to tell the lass at all?” 

“Stay out of it, MacTavish.” 

Johnny followed him down the hall, outside into a bleak, gray drizzle. “You know it can kill you?” Simon kept walking. “Simon.” 

He stopped, glanced at Soap with a warning in his eyes. “Do ya?”

“It won’t.”

Johnny continues anyway, urgently. “There’s a pain, they say, under the ribs when—“

“Stay out of it, Sergeant,” Ghost growled, that very pain growing as it always did as he moved further and further away from you. “It’s nothing.” 

“It‘ll corrode,” Johnny said to his retreating back. “She’ll feel it eventually.”

Simon ignored him. 

But he wondered as he walked away, if he died, if you’d feel the corded snap of his life floating away from yours.  

Somehow, being that sort of ghost, didn’t sit well with him. 

.

.

.

Johnny, predictably, did not stay out of it. 

He regularly and reliably began to show up in your office. More than once, he looped Garrick into accompanying him. Ghost had watched as the same realization Soap had snapped into place on Gaz’s face, and knew it was only a matter of time before Price knew too. 

Luckily, they were the only three on the entire base that could make the connection, that had seen his face, so at least it was done with. None of them said anything to him about it, but there were a lot of worried glances being exchanged. 

Ghost felt the edge of his sanity begin to wear thin the longer it went on, not that there was much left of it in the first place.

The disruption, the infiltration, the distraction grated until his insides felt raw with irritation. He hadn’t wanted anyone else to know, not because he was ashamed, but because you were his, and you didn’t deserve to be burdened by that. He would shoulder that horrible belonging for both of you. 

But the way you’d tenderly touched your cheek remains burned into his memory. The soft look in your eye. The gentle way you and Soap always spoke of soulmates whenever they came up, reverent and tender. 

You enjoyed their company, Johnny and Kyle, and seemed all the better for it. It was clear immediately how much you liked both of them. How much you desperately needed friends. 

Ghost was loath to admit there was a seed of jealousy wriggling in his belly. The easy way you got on with them proof enough that a wire had gotten crossed somewhere, that you were more cursed by him than anchored by.

Then, the gifts left at the edge of your desk began to extend to the lads and not just himself, and it felt vaguely as though he were losing a vital piece of himself to it. 

Then, you stopped coming to the gym. You were gone, office dark, before he could walk you to your car. You went on another date. 

He didn’t know what to do with any of it.

One Tuesday at the end of July you were in your office, but Soap was there before him, tearing into a packet of crisps, lounging in Simon’s chair, patchwork quilt flattened beneath him in a heap. It was hot, and humid, a fan in the corner working overtime, window propped open.

You were happily listening to Johnny explain the ins and outs of football. A match was playing on your computer screen which you’d turned back so both of you could see. 

Your eyes found Simon’s when he paused in the doorway, and you waved him inside, an unsure smile twitching at the corners of your mouth. “Hi, Ghost. Do you keep up with soccer, too?” 

A groan from Soap. “Bloody Americans.” 

“Sorry, sorry. You keep up with footie too, mate?” 

“Horrendous,” Ghost said flatly.

Your smile faltered then brightened again. It didn’t quite reach your eyes. “You should hear my Scottish accent. Soap said I offended every one of his ancestors.” 

“Aye and you did lass,” he said solemnly. “Yeh—” 

“Sergeant,” Ghost interrupted loudly. “Aren’t you due for PT?”  

“Ach, right,” he muttered, getting to his feet, “Thanks for the reminder, LT.” 

“Oh, Soap,” you said, “Hold on.” You rummaged beneath your desk for a long moment, then passed him a brown paper bag full of cookies. “Your favorite, as requested.” 

“You sweet on me or something, bon?”

You rolled your eyes and said, “Out of my office.” 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

Ghost took Soap’s vacated seat, watched you avoid looking at him as you moved things needlessly around your desk, twisted your monitor back around and muted the match. 

The silence was suffocating. 

“All right?” 

You froze, then shuffled the papers together and slid them to a corner of your desk. “I wanted to apologize.” Your voice hitched a little. 

He blinked, taken aback. He didn’t like that you could surprise him. “For what?” 

You bit your lip, fidgeted again. “Your name, I guess. You didn’t want me to know.” Your mouth twisted to the side. “And your team bothering you here—” 

“You’re apologizing for Soap?” 

Your brow furrowed. “Well I encourage it—”

“No.” 

“No?” You shook your head, “and that day in the gym—” You opened and closed your hands anxiously. “I think I upset you.” 

He stared across the room, toward your big, sunny window, all those little potted plants that have flourished through the summer months. Your bug lamp seemed to droop in the heat, sad and watchful. He’d hurt you, and you’d taken the blame. Something horrible lurched in his belly, heavy and unforgiving. “Didn’t. I should have been more careful.” 

“Right,” you said carefully. “So if it’s not that, why are you—” 

He shrugged, watched one of the emerald leaves sway in the warm breeze. “I like you to myself,” he admitted. “Not the best at sharing.”  

“Oh,” you said, voice tender. “Oh.” 

“Mm.” 

“I’ll make space.” 

He didn’t quite understand what you meant by that, but he liked the way it sounded. Space for him. 

“You’ll come to the gym later, yeah?” 

“Yes.” 

“Good.” He stood, deposited your knife, which he’d snagged early in the morning to clean and sharpen, back onto your desk, along with the new box of tea because he noticed you were out the night before. “And don’t tell bloody Soap.” 

“Aye, LT.” 

He chuckled. “Take care of that.” 

“Teach me how?” 

He nodded. 

“Thanks for the tea. I used the last bag yesterday afternoon.” 

“I know.” 

Your smile was soft, your fingers touched his. He breathed a little easier. 

“‘Course you do.” 

.

.

.

Simon couldn’t stop thinking about pain. 

His body functioned at a constant low level of pain, had for years. Maybe it had his whole life, so he tended not to notice it. But the ache you caused had only seemed to grow over time, tendrils spreading to the furthest reaches of his body, the tips of his fingers, the backs of his knees, places he didn’t think could hold pain. 

The intensity increased too, until he could no longer ignore it. It was like a whine, like a child begging to be seen to. 

He kept thinking of your voice, too, dreaming of it. You’re hurting me. Panic ridden, laced with fear.

You said he didn’t, after,  but he didn’t relish the thought of the possibility. Accidentally hurting you, hurting you on purpose. He thought of his mother, doing her best with a brutal man. He was afraid of unknowingly stepping into a cycle, to find himself standing above you one day, drunk, mean, angry. 

You’re hurting me.  

It echoed like a heartbeat. Inevitable. 

You might collect his scars, but he would not add to them with his own hands. He’d rather die; he’d rather be burned alive; he’d rather crawl out of a grave a hundred times over. 

He was afraid of it. Afraid that every terrible aspect of this bond between you could only bring you pain. 

His father loomed in the recesses of his mind, all the violent men he’d ever known, every bloody fist. Simon’s scalp ached, the memories swam behind his eyes. Long nights, wild animals, dead girls. 

There was one person who had a preoccupation with soulmates who was likely to know, who badgered him regularly about eroding the bond, about bond tears and pain. Simon could know, once and for all, if he was the cause of the indirect pain, at least. His own imposed on you, pushed into your skin like a punishment. He could cross that off his long list of sins. 

Johnny, when Simon finally tracked him down, was sat in the armory cleaning a rifle. He watched over his Sergeant's shoulder for a long moment. The methodical movement soothed him, brought his heartrate down a little. 

“Johnny.” 

Soap jumped and glanced around. “Spooky fucker. Should put a bell on ye—” 

“Does she feel it?”

“What—”

He exhaled long and slow. “My pain. If I’m shot tomorrow, would she feel it?”

Soap glanced around, brows raised. “Ye don’t know?” 

“Say I don’t.” 

“No, the lass doesn’t feel it.” Soap turned his wrist, pointed to a scar that was lighter than some of the others, a pale tracery that slipped from the inside of his elbow to mid forearm. “Not mine. Watched it fade in one mornin’. Didn’t feel a thing.” 

Ghost looks at the scar, and Soap lets him. “Tha’ why you haven’t—”

“No.” 

“Why?” 

“Deserves better.” 

Johnny nodded, continued cleaning the rifle. “Thing is, LT. She doesn’t. That’s the point.” 

Well, at least he only had to worry about becoming his father. 

Fucking perfect. 

.

.

.

Two months deployment.  

The pain in Simon’s chest was agonizing, a constant fire. He couldn’t sleep, pain meds did nothing for it. 

He could only wait it out, wait until he was back on base and hope you were in your office, that the solace of your presence in that warm yellow light would be waiting for him. The pain would recede. He needed a plan, though. Clearly it wasn’t fucking viable to just let it go on. It was too distracting and only getting worse. It was no longer something he could ignore. 

Maybe, he didn’t really want to.

Maybe, Johnny was right. 

He half convinced himself that the lancing ache was so bad because you’d been posted somewhere else the last two months and you were further away than ever. Your office would be empty. This was just an agony he would have to learn to live with. 

Finally, though, they were going home. Intel secure. One last building to sweep. Empty. A loaded silence that made the back of his neck prickle. 

Not as empty as they thought. 

Soap steps quickly into the last room ahead of him, gaze sweeping from one side to another before he lowered his weapon and stepped forward. 

Ghost followed quickly, lowered his gun when he saw what Johnny had. Civilians. One curled around the other, sobbing so hard she made no noise. 

When she lifted her face, Simon sucked in a startled breath. She looked like you, only without his scars. There was a mark slowly bleeding into place on her temple, one that matched the gunshot wound of the woman beneath her. 

The wail that suddenly pierced the air was distraught, horrible, a lurch and a bang. 

Soap was there, kneeling, looking for wounds that Ghost knew didn’t exist. Horror froze him for the second time in his life, your face swimming behind his eyes. 

“I thought you said they couldn’t feel it,” he barked. 

“What?” 

“Soulmates.” 

Soap looked at the pair with fresh eyes. 

“They can’t, LT,” Soap said without glancing at him. “It’s no’ that. It’s just—” 

Grief. The unbearable snapping of a fated cord. The tether in his own chest pulsed, ached. He thought of it breaking cleanly in two, as though it never existed, your light snuffed out, leaving him in total darkness again. 

It wasn’t pain she was feeling, it was the absence. 

“Ghost,” Johnny said sharply and Simon finally snapped out of it, went to his side. 

It wasn't worth it, he thought. None of this could be fucking worth it. He was left with the sinking sense that all he could ever do was hurt you. 

All the same, he felt an urgency to go home. To return to your side. To feel your pulse under his fingers. 

Just to be sure. 

It took them a long time to get her to leave the body. 

.

.

.

Task Force 141 was deployed for nearly two months. 

September and October passed slowly, in starts and fits that seemed to drag. 

You developed a pain in your side, a stitch from taking it too hard in the gym you assumed. But nothing seemed to help it. The pang became a prick became a small misery that the base medical staff couldn’t pinpoint the origins of. 

You missed Ghost, and Kyle and Johnny, tolerated the terrible tea your coworkers made for you, went on another series of failed dates, and finally became friends with your cross-hall apartment neighbor. Months of baked goods and hellos finally coming to fruition. Pieces of a life were falling together. 

Finally, they were coming home. You left your offer that night with the assurance that they were uninjured, that Ghost, and likely Soap, would be in your office by noon the next day. 

But Simon still managed to reappear as he always did, silently and without warning. A shadow crossed your back as you were locking your office near midnight, a hand grazed your back. You followed the series of steps you’d been taught months ago. Foot back, elbow out, knife in hand, open, turn—

Your wrist was caught by the flat of his palm, fingers of the opposite hand yanking it from your grip.  

You blinked and breathed out heavily, relieved. The tight tenderness in your side leveled off for the first time in a month. “Ghost,” you murmured, lowering your now empty hand, “You aren’t supposed to be back until tomorrow morning.” 

“That disappointed to see me?” 

No. Never. But he was still in full tactical gear. The skin around his eyes was still layered with eyeblack, exhaustion and an acid tension rolling off him in a thick wave. His gaze was heavy, but steady, assessing you in turn. He smelled like diesel and cigarettes and gun powder. You lifted your chin. “Surprised to see you. Glad to see you.” 

He only flipped the knife around and held it out to you. “Nice work.” 

You smiled as you took the blade and stored it again. “You’re making me paranoid, I think.” 

“Good. Paranoid keeps you alive.” 

His eyes flicked over you, looking long and hard, though for what you couldn’t be sure. He stepped closer, until you were forced back against the door. He towered over you, corralled you back against the cool wood. Soft, dark eyes like wells of ink in the shadow of the hood pulled over his head, searched long enough that you began to worry something was wrong. 

You reached out and rested your hand on his forearm. His body was so taut you could feel the tremble of exhausted, overwrought muscle. “Ghost,” you said gently, carefully. “Are you okay?” 

He inhaled deeply, so hard and fast it sounded pained. 

He looked at you again, eyes sliding over you slowly, like he was orienting himself, finding steady ground on which to stand. 

“Why don’t you cover ‘em?”

Your belly clenched. “Cover what?” you queried, silently begging him not to ask that question. 

“Scars.” 

You went still, looking down at your skin. You had rolled up your sleeves earlier in the evening when furious typing had required it. They glinted silver in the low light of the hall. Pretty and delicate as dragon scales. 

It wasn’t anything he hadn’t seen before. 

Still, you fought the urge to cross your arms. You hated when he stared at them. 

“Why would I?” You rubbed your wrist. “I don’t want to. They belong to my soulmate.”

He glanced away from you, his jaw tight beneath the mask. “You actually believe in that shite?” His voice was harsh, aggressive in a way he had never spoken to you before. “It’s a bloody children’s tale.”  

You bristled, felt something hard and mean well behind your breastbone in a tight knot. The pain that had been kicking you in the ribs lately reared again, made you wince and cover your side. “Well,” you snapped, gesturing to yourself with your free hand, “these aren’t mine, so I guess I have to.”  

He scoffed and you felt your heart lurch, hurt settling in your gut, twisting an invisible knife that much deeper. You tried to side step him but he didn’t move, a terrible, solid wall of muscle and—anger? Irritation? You couldn’t tell. “What the fuck do you care? Maybe you’re ashamed of yours,” you said roughly, “But not all of us are.” 

His brows furrowed and he shook his head again. “Oh, come off it.” 

“What?” 

“You’re tellin’ me that if you came face to face with the bastard that did this to you, you wouldn’t hate him?” 

Indignation burned a righteous path up your throat. “You don’t get to do that,” you said lowly. 

“You didn’t deny it,” he said. “You would.” 

“No,” you interrupted vehemently, swallowing around the word like gravel in your throat. “No, of course I wouldn’t. It wasn’t done to me, it—” 

But Simon was determined, his mind set. 

“He hurt you, changed the course of your bloody life, whether you want to admit it or not. You’ll hate him for it, love.” 

“For something he went through?” You asked incredulously, defensively. “Do you know how scared I was?” 

Ghost’s eyes went blank, his stare suddenly flat and far away. His gaze drifted from yours, the weight of flinty amber lifted. “Of him,” he said viciously, like something terrible he’d always known had been confirmed. 

“No,” you snarled again, not sure why Ghost was fighting you, not sure why he cared about your scars suddenly. “You aren’t listening. For him.” Your ribs ached, your breath came in short bursts. He was too close, the clashing sensations of safety and agitation calcifying the tension between you into a solid, immutable wall. 

You inhaled shakily through the sudden distress. Your lungs hitched and spasmed before you could suck in a proper breath, feeling faint, glad for the wall behind you. 

He blinked, looked down at you again. “Hey—” 

“I was so scared I would lose him before I ever got to meet him. Ever since I was a kid I’ve had scars. Cigarette burns and scratches, bite marks. I used to hope he was older than me, so it wouldn’t have meant that he—so that he wouldn’t have been—” Agitation rises like a tide, all the nights you’d sat awake watching scars bleed into your skin. Your parents had been unable to look at you in the morning, wondering what the future held for you. What kind of person that child would grow up to be. 

The same fear Simon seemed to be holding onto so tightly. 

You stumbled over his concern, something prickling at the base of your neck. 

“Once,” you continued shakily, “they just kept showing up, day after day, for months. I didn’t know what was happening and there was nothing I could do. I thought he was going to die and I couldn’t help him. I was so worried and all I could do was watch.” 

You met his eyes, saw something so raw and wretched there that you flinched back, closed your eyes, breath caught. 

You aren’t sure when you transitioned to using he instead of they. 

It suddenly didn’t feel like you were talking about someone you hadn’t met yet. 

You thought of how strangely intense he was about you. How you had felt so strongly about him immediately. How the only bit of his skin you’ve ever seen has been around his eyes; the delicate veins at his wrists.

You thought of him making you tea and teaching you to defend yourself. You thought of him walking you to your car and pulling you into sunny days. You thought of all the cups of coffee and boxes of tea, the gentle way he handled the blanket you made him from cheap cotton like it was spun gold. 

You thought of Johnny asking after your scars the first time you met him. How not long after you’d been personally introduced to the rest of the 141 for no discernable reason. How they checked on you. How they were probably the only people that knew what Ghost’s face looked like. 

“No,” you whispered, pieces of a terrible puzzle sliding together in your mind. 

You opened your eyes.  

“Ghost?” you asked softly, tentatively lifting your hand. 

He jerked back. “Don’t do that,” he warned.  

You stepped closer, knowing you were playing with fire, that he might burn you, lash out like a dog with its leg in a trap. 

But if he was yours—

If he was yours, you would not be the one to inflict more hurt on him. 

He did not want this, he did not want you, that much was clear. 

You closed your hand and let it fall, pushed your fist against your heart instead. “I see you,” you said gently. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.” 

“You don’t understand,” he rasped.  

“You survived.” You backed away. “That’s enough. To know you’re okay.” 

The empty spot in your chest ached, seemed to grow tendrils that wrapped around your heart. A bond so close and not latched. Because you haven’t seen him. He has to let you in.

“When you’re ready. If you’re ever ready. I'm here.”

He finally returned his gaze to yours. 

“Did it hurt?” 

“Did what hurt?” You tilted your head but he didn’t answer, just stared at you with big, moon dark eyes, brows pinched inward, eyeblack creating a tiny white line there. “Oh, you wouldn’t know, I guess.” You shook your head, “No I was just scared. Just worried. It didn’t hurt. You’ve never hurt me.” 

He moved so quickly and silently that you jumped when his hand curled around your wrist. Light enough that you could pull away if you wanted.  

“You don’t have to. You never have to. I don’t want to take anything else from you.” 

Ghost hesitated, his chest rising and falling quickly. “Do I have any of yours?” The question was quiet, almost reverent.  

You nodded, “‘Course you do. I fell out of a tree when I was a kid. Gave me a nasty scar on the back of my elbow. I landed on a rock.” 

His eyes flicked away, like he was trying to imagine it. You twisted your arm, showed him the thick line of scar there, totally different than the lighter version of his on your skin. “See? You’ll have that one in the same spot but lighter. Maybe not even visible, since you’re so pale.” 

Your breath caught when he stepped closer, the pain in your chest was so intense it made breathing difficult.

“It’s not fair to you.” 

“What isn’t?” 

“To bloody leave it. Hurts, yeah?” 

You didn’t admit to the spasming in your chest; it wouldn’t help anything. “When have you ever cared about fair?” 

He made a pained sound. “Don’t.” 

“I’m okay. I don’t need anything from you. I don’t want anything from you.”

“You’re supposed to need things from me.”  

He peeled his gloves off, tucked them into his back pocket. The hall was still and silent aside from your combined ragged breathing. It sounded like you’d been running a marathon. “Ghost—” 

“Simon,” he said. “Please, call me Simon.” 

You closed your eyes, felt his hands graze your collarbone, your throat, before anchoring on your jaw, tilting your face up. “Look at me, sweet’eart.” 

“I can’t.” Your voice trembled, tears clogging your throat. 

“Can.” 

Very gently, he leaned down and pushed his forehead against yours. 

You shuddered and swallowed and stepped closer. Simon curled his arms around you, pulled you into his chest. He was so broad and tall, you felt swaddled against him, warm and secure. His scent wrapped around you like ribbons holding you together. “No point dragging it on, yeah? No point you being in pain.” 

“How long?” 

“The whole time,” he admitted after a moment. His voice rumbled against your cheek. It felt like home. “First time I saw you.” 

“You have had this pain for almost a whole year—” 

“Not your fault,” he interrupted, one massive hand sliding down your spine. “Not your fault.” 

You huffed, hooked your fingers beneath his tac vest. “I’m sorry anyway.” You pulled back, felt his arms tighten around you for a moment. He didn’t want to let you go. “Is there anything you need to take care of? Reports or debriefing or something?” 

“No.” 

“Would. . . would you want to come to mine—” 

He reached under your arm and plucked your keys out of the lock before you could finish, guiding you down the hall, his hand never leaving your skin. 

You had never seen Simon outside the base, you realized suddenly, and everything felt vastly more fragile. It also felt as though that hollow pulse in your chest would tear if you were asked to walk away at that moment, something real and physical would tear and drop out of you, an irreparable part of your soul. 

You weren’t sure how you drove home, Ghost huge in your passenger seat, your hands shaking each time he shifted his grip on you. 

In your apartment, you hesitated, not sure where you belonged in your own space anymore. Simon looked strange in your tiny living room, among soft blankets and years of collected books and knicknacks. An all consuming shadow. You wondered if this would end like all those dates, just another failure, another loss. 

When you started to step toward the lamp, Simon’s fingers curled around your wrist to keep you by his side. “No.” 

“Just turning on the lamp.” 

He released you.

As you stepped away, a hollow pulse in your chest retched with pain that made you gasp and clutch the edge of the sofa. It felt real, like something was breaking, jagged edges clawing at the inside of your skin. You wondered what Ghost’s self imposed distance might have done to the bond. There were stories, albeit few, of corrosion. The bond literally rusting out, slowly poisoning the soulmate and their pair. 

“Come ‘ere,” he muttered. “Sit down.”

When his palm cupped your elbow, the world became softer. Like purr instead of a shriek. He guided you onto the sofa. 

Your hands shook when he released you, making quick work of the lamp. The room flooded with soft yellow light. He glanced around. Art on the walls, forest green rug over hardwood floor, molding you had painted a delicate gold. You felt embarrassed of it all suddenly. 

“God,” you muttered. He didn’t seem to feel the pain at all, which made your chest ache in a different way and guilt pool heavily between your bones for it. You didn’t want him to be in pain, but you felt as though you were breathing water, choking on your own lungs. “How have you dealt with this?” 

“Worse now,” he said, though you felt it was his version of a kind untruth. 

He sat next to you, reached for you, then faltered, unsure. You closed the space, folded your fingers between his. The scars made a fucked up little mirror when you looked down at your hands. They matched exactly. “I’m sorry.” 

Simon didn’t answer, but stayed close to you, letting you hold his hand. Even the smallest amount of space between you seemed to burn, a brazier that flared hot and demanded attention. But it was better; just having his bare hand in yours helped. 

“Nothin’ t’be sorry for.” He said after a few minutes of uneven breathing, eyes trained on your hands, thumb running over the back of your fingers. 

“You don’t want me.” 

It wasn’t a question. 

He glanced up, something razor sharp in his eyes. You flinched a little, but his hand tightened on yours. 

“You don’t have to—We don’t have to bond,” you tripped over the last word. “It’s okay.” 

“Obviously it’s not, bird.” 

Your heart sunk and you glanced away. A one in eight billion chance was sitting under your nose for months, and he wanted nothing to do with you. He was being forced into it.

“I’m sorry,” you murmured again. “Ghost, I’m—”

“Simon,” he corrected.  

“Simon,” you echoed. 

He curled his hands around your wrists, lifted your palms to the bottom of his mask. He let your hands settle at the base of his throat, eyes never leaving yours. “I didn’t want you,” he said plainly. “I never wanted you to know.” 

You swallowed and nodded. “I’m s—” 

“No.”

You closed your mouth with a click of your jaw. You don’t expect a speech and he doesn’t give you one. “You deserve better,” he said. “But I’m all you get.” 

His knee touched yours. Your faces were tilted together, so close that the only thing you could see were the soft depths of his eyes reflecting the gold light.

It didn’t feel close enough. 

You wished it were all different. 

That he didn’t feel forced, that you were what he wanted. 

“I deserve you. Isn’t that the point?” 

He watched you for a long moment, an unreadable expression on his face, then nodded. 

“Go on, then.” 

Your throat felt tight as you tugged the mask upwards, heart lurching when you recognized the same scar on your throat on his. You pushed the fabric over his chin and mouth, up until you could pull it over his head. 

You looked at him, the same scar over his mouth, along his cheek, the bridge of his nose was nicked, the outline of burn scarring crossed the edge of his jaw and neck. When you looked past that, you saw him. Crooked nose, thick, furrowed brows, dark eyes you’d loved for a long time cast darker by the black around them, light eyelashes and hair, longer on top and curling. 

Something seemed to. . .snap then. A warmth broke between you, filled that awful, dark, pained well in your chest. It hurt, but the pain was brief, like stitches done by a seasoned medic. 

Breathing was easier. You could feel the pulse of him without the threat of imminent pain. It was a warm, comforting, safe thing in your lungs. You inhaled, attempted to stand, to give him a bit of space. “Should be able to separate now. Shall we test it—” 

You didn’t get a chance to move away, tugged suddenly from your seat and into his lap. You fell heavily against his chest, wrapped tightly in his arms, foreheads slanted together. 

“No,” he said, sounding, for the first time since you’ve known him, breathless. “No.” 

“I don’t want to.” 

“Good.” 

“Can I touch you?” 

“Can do anything you like to me, bird.” 

You stroked the side of his throat, felt him shiver. “Well, I won’t. Not anything.” 

He made a content noise of agreement. 

You touched his jaw, his cheek, the tail of his brow, the faded check through it that you’d never noticed matched your own. His arms tightened around you in increments until the pressure forced you to take shallow breaths. “You’re beautiful.” 

“Lookin’ in a mirror, are you?” 

“Sort of,” you answered. “A little.” 

His hands shifted, anchored on your hips, and pushed you back a little. 

Disappointment that it was over so soon pinched at your throat but you backed off, attempting to slide from his lap. His hand caught at your hip. “Stop trying to bloody move.” 

“What—” 

He was only taking off the vest, which probably should have been left at the base. It dropped heavily to the floor as he pulled you against his chest. It was warmer, softer like that, thick muscle coiled beneath your cheek when you rested it against his shoulder, heartbeat hard against yours.  

“No more pain?” 

“None.” 

“Good.” 

You pushed your face against his throat, felt him tense and then uncoil. One large hand cupped the back of your neck, holding you there. You brushed your lips against his pulse point, felt a scarred flutter against your mouth, a muted grunt.

“You’re all I want,” you admitted quietly. “I think I knew. I think everyone knew. I’m sorry,” you finally said, “that I’m not who you need.”  

His hand squeezes your neck and then he’s pushing you down against the cushions, pressing one massive thigh between your legs, hauling you closer like it could never be close enough. The space between your bodies would always be too large, because you couldn’t climb into his chest, nest among his veins. 

It would have to do then, his hand tilting your jaw up, his eyes searching yours as you part your lips. 

“You are, sweet’eart,” he said simply, mouth brushing yours before he kissed you properly. 

He tasted of black tea; his eyeblack rubs off on your temples. 

Already, he was leaving pieces of himself behind with you to mark safe.

“Simon,” you murmured against his mouth. Just to say it, just to be rewarded with a shudder.

The kiss slipped into something more desperate, your hands felt the skin of his back, your own scar on his elbow, and you thought, maybe, you could become what he needed.  

if you made it this far thank you for reading! I'd love to know what you thought!

[beebymoonlight]

[jewelcoatfish]

interviewer: ilya rozanov, do you have any comment on the alleged homophobic comments targeting you in today’s game?

ilya: if they could just put their minds off where i put my dick and into where i put the puck, maybe they would notice that it is going into the goal

interviewer: shane hollander, do you have any comment on your husband and captain’s rather coarse language?

shane: is he wrong?

[escapic-mezzanine]

Humiliation

Baelor ❝Breakspear❞ Targaryen x wife!reader

Baelor Targaryen's wife losing her temper awakes some unexpected possessiveness in the prince...

word count: 4.2k+

“What if war comes?”

It was a cunning question, asked with something vicious in the lord’s eyes. It was a spark that could start a ruinous fire, and it all seemed like the man would enjoy its heat.

You could feel your cheeks burning too, but you wouldn’t give him the satisfaction so easily. Anyway, you always thought about yourself as a composed woman; you never expected your nerves to be brought so close to their end, especially after all the horrors that you’ve been through.

“What then?” You answered like you would to an unruly child, but trying to sound respectful at the same time. It was a hilarious matter to speak of, too hypothetical to approach seriously. “We have remarkable generals and strategists, my lord. If, as you imply, the council will suggest against his grace leading the army, I’m sure he will choose someone equally suitable as himself. Perhaps his brother, Prince Maekar.” You nodded at the youngest of King Daeron’s sons, who grunted under his breath.

Your brother-in-law refused to look up, apparently biting his tongue and fighting to remain silent. You preferred it that way too. The king asked you directly to watch over the peace of the dinner that you were sharing with a significant guest. It would be much more challenging if you had Maekar running his mouth, unable to control his building fury.

As much as you liked him silent right now, you wouldn’t blame him if he snapped. Truth be told, you wouldn’t even mind if he stood up to drag the lord out of the room… The man stabbed the cake on his plate with unnecessary force. You could see Maekar’s grip on his goblet tighten. The faces of his children were warmed with small grins that they tried to hide. The little menaces awaited some action: perhaps someone being yelled at, punched if they were lucky.

You would mutely cheer on that too if you weren’t the main person responsible for the conversation with the guest. A man who was speaking against your husband ever since the meal was served. He balanced on the line of fake concern for the realm and open objection to Baelor being his father’s heir.

After the events of Ashford, he was intrusive enough with his letters that the king finally agreed to hear him out. He expressed his worry that the prince, who recently recovered from his life-threatening injury, wasn’t the right choice. It boiled your blood, truly. Not out of hunger for power, the crown… You couldn’t care less for that. It was the audacity and rudeness of the man that made you furious.

The accident clearly and visibly affected your husband’s health and life; there was no question about that. He spent long weeks in bed under the watchful eyes of maesters, with you and his sons by his side. Even longer until he was finally able to sit or walk on his own. He sometimes complained about his eyesight failing him, and his hearing in one ear almost disappeared. He spoke of it like it was his own fault, with embarrassment and distress that you assured him were unnecessary. A grimace appeared on his face whenever he became too aware of his limping walk. Something that was connected to the damage of his spine that the injury caused. Yet, he recovered.

The long path of coming back to health earned him many silver strands in his hair and beard, and he felt overwhelmingly lightheaded when tired, but except for that, you couldn’t tell that the man almost faced death. You sometimes still teared up, watching him during normal daily duties. There was no sight more beautiful than Baelor sitting at his desk, back straightened like you would expect from a prince, doing his work while humming under his breath from time to time. You always pointed out he worked too hard and too much, but now you couldn’t even forbid him that. On some days you spent hours sitting with him, watching the view that you missed so greatly despite hating it before.

And now this—this fucking cunt dared to ramble against Baelor while looking you deep in the eyes. Audacious bastard, you thought probably for the sixth time during this damn dinner.

“Fine…” he muttered as an answer to your words, making you want to stand up and slap him. Then he smiled again in that planned way, fakely respectful and expressing the worry he held. “And what if our friends, an ally country, send their proxy here one day? Let us say that the prince – then king – has one of his worse days. Because you admitted, your grace, that he has ‘worse days,’ am I correct? How will that make us look if he passes out or feels too weak to attend the council?

You clenched your jaw and cursed your father-in-law, the old king, for being too tired today to join you. None of this would happen if he were here, listening to the lord. On the other hand, you weren’t surprised that he needed more time to prepare himself before he would call for the audience that the guest could express his thoughts on. Baelor was currently attending to his urgent duties. His absence was better for the situation, actually. Better for the world. You were sure you would stab him with your fork if he dared to speak like that in the prince’s presence.

“It’s not me you should speak about this to,” you said sharply, and yet still more calmly than you would like to. “I am not in a position to make those choices, and to put it simply, your words cannot make me think differently of his grace.”

You always referred to Baelor as ‘your husband’ or ‘the prince,’ but now you felt the need to mark his superiority over rascals like the man. It made the air around the room heavier. Even Maekar’s kids stopped in their hushed bickering, sensing the built-up tension to finally break.

“They will simply think we are ruled by a cripple,” he said, like you didn’t hear your words at all.

That was when the first person at the feasting table broke. Maekar’s hand  hit the table, making the plates clatter. “You will be a cripple by the end of your visit here if you don’t start watching your tongue,” he said from between his clenched teeth.

“My prince, I just…” he tried, silenced by you but only for a moment.

“Not another word from you, my lord.”

But you had enough. The expectation, Baelor’s tendency to work himself to death, Maekar’s moods, the king’s demands, and the memory of the maester’s words that your husband’s condition is fatal… All of it. The bastard was just one more pull to the thin string that held your composed nature in check.

“My lady…” he tried, making you stand up from your seat abruptly.

He was lucky he sat away from your place at the top of the table. He was also lucky that you had some mercy left in you, because the thrown goblet of wine crashing nearby him and not on him certainly wasn’t your bad aim.

A deep breath sounded between everyone, making you more aware of what you have done. There was not even one bone in your body that would regret it, though. Daeron moved from his seat with painfully little grace to reach the pitcher of wine that stood in the middle of the table and keep it close to him as if you would come for it next.

“You have been insulting and speaking against our house ever since you showed up in the Keep,” you said in a hoarse grunt that surprised even you.

“Princess,” he spoke up again, reconsidering how he should address you. “I’m sure we can come to an agreement with calmness, my princess,” he muttered, but you could hear his voice growing more and more unsure.

“You will achieve no agreement with me,” you announced firmly. “Perhaps the king will be more understanding of your vituperations.”

He nodded and looked at his lap for a moment, apparently gathering his thoughts. “I have no doubt that he will hear me out with fairness and will be able to acknowledge the truth. It would mean a lot to me, though, princess, if I could call you my friend in this matter.”

“You fucking can not.” The yell was the final thing that made him drop the sure face he tried to keep. You pushed your chair away and leaned more over the table, pointing him out with a finger. “I almost lost my husband to The Stranger, and look at him now. He’s fine. Not unaffected, yes, but healthy and in good spirits. He’s a victorious survivor, not a victim as you put him.”

“Not unaffected, that’s my point…”

You had to stop yourself from stealing Maekar’s cup and also throwing him at the man. This time  pointing it straight at him. Luckily for your dignity, you were able to hold back from the fantasy of his bloodied face.

“Shut up, bastard,” you ordered harshly.

It was his turn to stand up with anger. He could handle even the worst scolding from a royal, but a woman? Oh, that’s something he was very unused to and never planned to change. “Gods, woman! You are blinded by your desire for a higher position!”

Prince Maekar’s deep voice broke the silence that rang in your ears after the lord’s scream.

“Insult the princess once more, I dare you,” he warned. “Then you won’t walk away as a cripple. You will be carried out.”

He was never very fond of you, you imagined, but when it came to protecting the good name of his family, he knew no measures.

This calmed the lord, scared him enough that he sat again.

“I am merely a simple man concerned for the future of his land and country,” he muttered under his breath.

You scoffed in irritation.

“A blithering idiot is what you are.”

It was a loud remark that made him sit back in his chair. Daeron snorted in his drunken state, quickly being hit with his father’s murderous gaze.

But you acted upon your frustration and turned to him at once. “Shut the fuck up, Daeron.”

The loud thud of the doors sounded in the room long after you left.

All that you felt bad for was screaming at your husband’s nephew and doing it not only in front of a guest but also his siblings. If you were honest, you wished to banish the memory from your mind, even if worse words escaped your throat that day. You didn’t regret anything said to the lord.

With your husband busied by his duties, you were left to linger around your room, unable to focus on anything. After seeing the hours pass with no mercy and being left with no choice, you walked out of your chambers to find Daeron. He was probably too drunk to be bothered by your scream. All that caused him was a headache, but even for that you felt wrong.

You found him with his young siblings outside the castle, lying in the grass. He threw a hand behind his head to make the hard ground more comfortable and let out quiet snores while the others played around. Daella and Aegon stayed on their backs too, pointing out certain clouds and giggling about their shapes, while Rhae tangled the grass into numerous braids before connecting it together. Pretty convenient for Daeron, you thought. If only they could always be so well-behaved when he was ordered by his father to watch over them.

Rhae smacked her eldest brother straight in the face when she saw you approaching. “Wake up!” She demanded in a pitched voice.

“Wha–” Daeron almost sat up before his back hit the ground again. He had hair all over his forehead, and he looked up at you, upside down, before letting out a relieved sigh. “Oh, it’s you.”

“I’ve come to apologize,” you said after clearing your throat but weren't given a chance to speak more.

Daeron waved his hand dismissively and closed his eyes again. “That’s nothing, aunt. No offense taken. It was… rather entertaining, anyway.”

“It was,” Egg agreed loudly. “Especially when you threw that gobble his way!”

The siblings agreed in a mutual, excited hum. You felt the need to massage the aching space between your eyebrows.

“Come, watch the sky with us,” invited Daella.

“Yes, auntie!” Rhae was quick to grab your hand and drag you down to the grass, putting all of her little body’s strength into it. “Sit with us!”

Well, how could you say no to them? Sometimes it felt like the children were the only genuine creatures in this castle, even if they could also be the most cruel ones.

You laughed out loud, forgetting about the awful feeling left in you after the dinner. Just before you approached the kids, it struck you that the news would eventually reach Baelor’s ears, and you would have to face him. The mere thought made you dizzy. Now you could abandon the worry for a while, almost choking on your giggle when you noticed that Daeron was making up the shapes he ‘saw’ in clouds at the demands of his sisters, while his eyes were still closed.

“That one looks like Uncle Baelor,” claimed Rhae, nudging her brother’s shoulder.

Her sister deeply disagreed, snorting under her breath. “Perhaps when his head was all swollen,” he mocked.

You knew she was a child who probably only meant to hurt her sibling a bit, but you couldn’t feel your breath stop for a while. You stayed still, not very trustful of your own reactions today. Thankfully little Egg, the kindest boy you knew, sat up immediately and threw his sister a look of utter disappointment.

“Daella!” He screamed at her, making her blush and look your way as if she just realized you were there.

“I didn’t mean… I’m sorry,” she said to you, looking at her feet.

“It is alright,” you said quickly, certainly not wanting to cry in front of them. “I must go back to my occupations now. Have fun and… try not to walk away far from your brother.”

You looked at Daeron, snoring and asleep again, for the final time before getting up.

It wasn’t alright, not at all. The memory of Baelor’s suffering was a horror you would never forget. All the moments when his sons woke up at night were engraved in your mind. When you didn’t keep watch over your husband, you often sat by their side, holding them in your arms when they needed it. They were almost men, and yet they called for their father like children because of the worry for his life.

Ashford was about to stay with the four of you forever, and you knew it was better to accept it. Just sometimes, in moments like this, when your husband was locked in his room, you felt the overwhelming burden of it. It was like a force that could break your shoulders, your spine, and bend you in half just so you could hide your aching head between your knees.

When you reached your bedroom again, you gripped the goblet of wine like it was your only salvation in life. Gods, you really couldn’t handle it sober today. It made you feel even more pathetic when Baelor came in the evening, forcing you to turn around to hide your face reddened from crying and drinking. You banished the memory as much as you could when he left, forced by your desperate please.

If only you knew how much it broke his heart to leave you with all of it alone.

The pain was unbearable when you stood in front of his study the next day. It was midday, and you could still feel like sleep didn’t free you from its paws.

You entered slowly, recalling all the words you had prepared. The door didn’t squeak; your steps didn’t betray you.

“I pray…” you spoke without proper greeting, but your voice broke. It was so pitiful you wanted to scream. “All I can hope for is that you see my behavior as humiliating only for myself and not for you too.”

Baelor's head snapped up, and his expression turned from surprise to something gentle.

“My wife…” he whispered like he didn't hear your words at all, just taken aback by your presence itself. You knew he had problems with hearing, but you also knew he did that deliberately now. “How do you feel, heart?” He asked, rising from his chair, not daring to step closer to you.

That was the worst; you screamed at him too last night, and now he resented you. He must have. You were almost scared of yourself too, especially after how you behaved towards him when drunk.

Moments after your fury and your vulgar, uncontrolled speech, you were partially proud of it. With time came the questioning. You decided you couldn't bear the embarrassment.

You refused to open the door when Baelor sought you, but he entered anyway.

“Please, please…” you sobbed in your drunken state. “Leave me alone. I am deeply sorry, husband, but I cannot– Scold me all you like… all I deserve, but tomorrow. Let me have tonight…”

“Are you certain you are good to stay on your own?”

“Fuck, just leave!”

He had awful remorse for leaving you alone, but you also never looked at him with such fright. He didn't know how to react and fled, feeling more like a coward than ever.

“Baelor…” you whispered, making him return his thoughts to now.

You didn't answer his question, but he saw you were swaying on your feet. It wasn't something he would ever blame you for. He remembered his youth well; he had drunken nights with his brothers and tried to drown his sorrows in wine as well in the past.

He wished to take you in his arms and rock you calmly but didn't wish to overstep. There was deep doubt in him that your wish from last night would ever leave his memory. To him it wasn’t about your behaviour, though. It was about how much he failed as a husband, which made you feel like you had to hide.

Left with no choice, straightened his back and took a deep breath. “I could never think of your acts as humiliating. To neither of us, never.”

It made your breath hitch.

“But I…”

“It was… unexpected, I admit.” He nodded his head and stood up slowly, allowing you to step away if you wished to.

He prayed you wouldn’t. It would be unbearable if you backed away to the wall, fleeing from him like that. His fists tightened and loosened as a way to distract himself from the need to have you close.

You teared up again, trying to fight it, but your head ached, blood buzzed in your ears, and you felt like collapsing in front of your husband.

Baelor broke his promise to not do anything against your wish. He ignored it and closed the distance between you, pulling you to his chest.

“Do not cry, my love,” he said softly, brushing the top of your head with his lips. “Shhh… I'm so sorry it happened to you.”

You allowed your hands to move up and grip the material of his clothing over his chest.

“I let him provoke me,” you explained, trying not to sound hysterical. “It's my fault…”

You could hear it in Baelor’s voice that he smirked. “Even if you're not the first and not the last.”

“I'm so sorry.”

He moved away just to have a proper look at you. With his thumb, he brushed your tears away. Then it collided with your shivering lower lip and pressed a little. When he leaned in and you felt his warm breath all over your neck, you couldn’t help but think that some part of him enjoyed all of it. You decided to ignore it, not wanting to leave things unsettled.

“Why are you apologizing to me, sweet?”

“I never meant to rush you outside our bedroom,” you explained, ignoring his question. “I didn’t want you to see me looking so pitiful. Certainly not when I expected you to be ashamed of me.”

“I could never be ashamed of you,” he assured you without the need to think about it. “And besides, from what Maekar told me, there is nothing I or you should feel bad about.”

You smothered the material over his chest from the crumples your grip left. You looked up at him again with worry. “Did he tell you what caused it?”

“He refused to, but don’t take me for a fool, my wife. I know this lordling’s belief better than I would like to,” he muttered with a grimace.

Not wishing to see him like that, you moved onto your tiptoes and tugged at the collar of his shirt. Your lips merely brushed over his, but you felt him smile and chase you chastely when you meant to pull away. His touch was warm, and a big hand placed over your back made you shiver.

“What he did mention, though,” he spoke up, parting from your lips swollen from your own biting, “was that you fought like a true dragon. It’s a grand compliment from my brother.”

“I am no dragon…”

“Well, I guess you take from people you surround yourself with.” He played with your hair before brushing it behind your shoulder. The path of his finger that traced your face made you realize he missed you as much as you missed him. “Now answer my question, wife. How are you feeling?”

The tension suddenly left you, making you sigh deeply. You were happy to lean into Baelor’s strong arms more, supported by him.

“Awful,” you admitted. “Disgusting…”

That's what he figured. A night like that couldn’t leave you with anything good, especially when the remorse that caused it was unnecessary.

“Will you allow me to take care of you?”

“I don't want to be a bother,” you murmured quietly, hiding your face in his chest, but he gently made you look at him again.

“Nonsense. And when you feel better, perhaps tomorrow, I would like to take you for a ride. Would that be appealing to you?”

You hesitated for a while, knowing how much worse Baelor’s anger could make the situation. Still, you placed his good name above everything, and it felt like your chore to remind him of that.

“Baelor, I think it would be better if I stayed out of sight for some time. I certainly shouldn't show up next to you anywhere. At least for a few days. I…”

Baelor's eyes darkened dangerously. You felt him cupping your face tighter. Still gentle enough to call it sweet, but it was slowly turning into a touch of urgency. Made from the need to keep you close even against the wishes of others.

“Are those your thoughts, or did someone suggest that to you?” His voice turned lower and quieter. He always spoke his warnings like that. But it wasn’t meant to intimidate you, certainly not.

“They are mine,” you promised. “I only meant what's good for you…”

Baelor stared at you, his face barely over yours, and you would swear he didn’t even breathe. You could no longer recognize if his expression was a grimace or a smile, but there was something wicked in it. Something that you could only see on Baelor when he was furious or led by desire. It made you feel warm.

With thrill settling in the base of your spine, you wrapped your arms around Baelor, settling yourself more comfortably against him.

“Husband?”

“Say it again,” he dared. “Say that your wish is to stay away from me.”

“Oh, you know that it's not like that.”

“Say it,” he repeated, placing his big hand at the nape of your neck like he needed to support your head. He forced you to look up and throw your head back a little.

You watched him eye your bare neck like a man starved for what was his to take.

“I don't want to say it.”

He brushed another strand of hair out of the way. Your noses almost touched before he leaned in closer. A lazy kiss was placed on the side of your neck, dragged on for too long to consider it proper. Baelor’s warm lips traveled up to your ear, settling there for a while and playing with your earlobe before he spoke up again.

“If anyone says something about it again,” he spoke up in a serious, quiet voice that sent shivers down your body, “tries to pursue you into staying in the shadows…”

“Baelor,” you didn’t want him to end that sentence, even if your less rational part was thrilled with it. Enough harm was done already.

But would Baelor think the same if he were there with you, hearing the lord speak all of those sick words? For now he looked shaken only by the idea that you could be pushed away from your place by his side.

“Whoever tries to keep you away from me will have to face something much worse than your screams. Not that they weren’t scary enough, from what I’ve heard.”

a/n: this was such a pleasure to write. just me, wine and my dear friend baelor break-my-back… oh i mean–

sorry for baelor being so eerie (i’m not sorry) but peter steele was moaning into my headphones almost all the time during writing and that’s the reason

[thoroughfareluvr145]

Brendon “the shark” Park x reader

‘Warm safe place’

Brendon “the shark” park x f!curvy!reader (sorry if it isn’t for u, if anyone wanted I could do none curvy!!)

Tags: mentions of SH! family issues (cough* cough* projection), soft!brendon, ED (cough* cough* projection), size kink (not sexually—yet 😘), lots of fluff and plot!!, implied age gap.

No word count cuz I’m lazy at the moment xx

Summary: reader has just come home from a week long trip back home! Bren is there to pick up the pieces.

a/n: this is acc fully a projection fic icl but enjoy lovelies. Feedback is welcome just don’t be too mean pls.

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It had just gone 7pm when you walked through the door of the apartment you shared with your boyfriend. Instantly, the smell of your favourite meal assaulted your senses. You could cry, especially after the week you had just had.

“Baby, that you?” Bren shouts from the kitchen, even the sound of his voice causes an instant rush of emotion to wash over you.

“Yeah, give me a sec Bren.” You replied trying to make your voice as even as possible, even if all you wanted to do was cry.

You sat by the door on the little bench Bren had insisted on getting so you could sit and take off your shoes. God, even thinking about all the thought Bren put into your home together wanted to make you cry. You were so fucked. Bren would see through you right away, you needed to get your shit together. Just as you were taking deep breaths, trying to regulate yourself just as your therapist had told you to, your face came in line with Bren’s crotch.

“Just breathe baby. You don’t have to hide anything from me, we’ve talked about this.” Who would believe it, the supposed “shark” being so soft. In your family, problems, especially emotional, were to never talked about. Your issues were either dismissed or discussed using raised voices. You always tell yourself that you’re being dramatic and so many people have way bigger problems.

“Come on. Let me take you to the kitchen.” Bren scooped you up bridal style, you of course protested.

“Bren, I’m too heavy for you to be pulling this shit. You should put me down before I injure you.” You sighed tiredly.

“Now what have I said about this baby. You will never ever be too heavy for me to carry.” You scoffed in response, clearly not believing him. He set you down on one of the kitchen stools at the island (because you actually had a kitchen island now!!).

“Okay, spill baby. The silence this week has been killing me. I can’t stand it a minute longer.”

“I don’t know Bren. Promise not to shout at me. Please.” You asked, shrinking in on yourself.

“Sweetheart, please tell me. I want to understand you, maybe even help you.”

Reluctantly, you start to tell him.

“I don’t know whether I’ve told you about my brother before.” You paused, you had only been dating for three months and your brother was a subject you don’t like to talk about with anyone. Not even Bren.

“He’s an addict. Not any hard drugs, just weed. But shit Bren- you should have seen him 10 years ago compared to now.” You breathe deeply, blinking back tears rapidly.

“He was so fucking thoughtful. He was also so smart and funny. He was my only friend. Then he gets a girlfriend, and she was so lovely. But she introduced him to smoking weed. At first I thought it was fine, you know loads of people smoke weed. It can’t be too harmful. But he changed.” A single tear rolled down your face, wiping it away quickly before Bren see’s. He of course caught it.

Softly he walked over, lifting you from the stool and taking you to the living room. He sat on the couch, pulling you into his lap. Slowly, he stroked your hair with his big hand, occasionally leaving small kisses along the back of your neck and shoulders.

“Bren- I’m too heavy let me get off.” The glare he gave you was enough to keep you quiet. Maybe you see why people call him the shark.

“Oh, we’ll get to the part where you have been skipping meals soon, sweetheart.” He said, not unkindly, but with a sternness he only used when he was deeply concerned. He knew that you had a rough time expressing emotions without thinking someone would shout, so he tried to be as gentle with you as possible. Even if he was so frustrated with the way you refused to look after yourself.

“Carry on baby. Please. No one’s mad at you.” You nodded softly.

“He’s so violent now. Any discussion he doesn’t want to have, he’ll get up in your face and shout. He’s never got physical with me but there’s been times where I’ve been scared he would. He’s also so selfish, he eats all the food, he lives off of my parent’s money. He’s older than me for christ’s sake. He should have a job by now. This sounds so dramatic, there’s so many bigger problems in the world.”

Bren is quiet for a moment, he knew you had an older brother. He didn’t know what type of relationship you had though. A flare of protectiveness strikes up in him. How dare he scared his baby. He’s processing the conversation, tuning in on how you said he was your only friend. Bren knew you had no friends now, but had it always been that way? His heart is slowly cracking open, physically hurting his chest the more you speak. How can such a sweet, caring girl think that because people are going through harder situations that she couldn’t complain. That she thought what’s happening to her is okay. He will spend every hour of every day making sure you knew you were loved now, no one was ever going to hurt you or do you wrong again.

Finally he spoke. “Baby. You are not being dramatic. This situation is not right, no matter what other people are going through.” His eyes are deadly serious, his string hands striking your hair soothingly.

“Hmmm. Maybe.” He still didn’t like the sound of that dismissal, but he allowed you to continue.

“He also smokes weed in-front of the house constantly. He is out every half an hour smoking weed. My parents live next to fucking kids Bren. A 3 yr old kid has to play outside whilst my brother is stinking up the place with his weed.” Your sadness has quickly turned into anger, you got up from Bren’s lap despite his protest. Pacing back and forth through the living room.

“I am so pathetic. Some people have it so much harder than a brother addicted to weed you know. I feel so shitty for complaining. I don’t know, just- ughhhh.” You groan, lying on the floor dramatically.

“Okay. Sweetheart, sit up for me. There you go baby. First of all, you are not pathetic, you have watched a person you love change dramatically because of substance abuse. I don’t care about other people’s situations or other people’s addictions. It doesn’t make your brothers any better. His behaviour, weed or not, is selfish and harmful. You and your family deserve better, despite what I think of your parents at times. Now sweetheart, you are going to get off of that floor and eat something because I sure as hell know you have not eaten a full meal all week.” You open your mouth to protest. “No, don’t think I haven’t noticed how much lighter you have become in a week. It’s not healthy, let me feed you my love.” He offered his hand, pulling you off the floor and into his large, beefy arms.

“It’s going to be okay.” He whispered kissing the top of your head. He guided you to the kitchen, sitting you on the same stool from before.

He placed the warm dish infront of you and sat in the stool next to you.

“Eat baby.” He encouraged.

“Bren. I don’t want to sound like I’m fishing for compliments, but I feel too fat to eat right now. I don’t think I’m in the right head space.” You said quietly, avoiding eye contact.

“I won’t force you to eat. You are a grown woman who can make her own decisions. But you need to know how it makes me feel when you talk bad about the girl I’m in-love with.” His lips were turned down in a frown. “Please tell me why you haven’t been eating baby.” You looked up, his gorgeous eyes were filled with softness. He was too good for you and you knew it. He was so big and attractive he could have whoever the fuck he wanted. Your mum had told you so all week long. If you didn’t get your hips smaller then he would leave you.

“Why are you with me? You could have anyone Bren.”

“Fuck sweetheart.” His eyes were glossy, you had never seen him look like this recently. Not since the beginning of your relationship where he discovered your old self-harm scars. “You don’t know how much that breaks my heart.”

“I’m sorry.” You reply.

“No, no, no. Baby, no. Don’t apologise. I love you so fucking much and I hate that you have been made to feel this way.” His large hands enveloped your face, he peppered kisses all over your face until he got to your lips. The kiss communicated everything he couldn’t make you understand with words. It was so so so soft and gentle, yet somehow possessive- you were his and there was no doubt about it.

You broke apart and spoke. “Sorry Bren. My mum has been down my ear all week. My hips, my thighs, my waist. Shit- basically all of me is too big.” You laughed, although it came out as more of a hysterical sob. You folded in half. The whole week catching up to you. Bren caught you, engulfing you in his large arms, your face again his broad chest. He soothed you with sweet words.

“I love you so much Bren. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“I am pretty great.” He smirked down at you, taking in your glossy eyes and red face, still so fucking beautiful.

“What happened to you comforting me, Hm?” You smiled, his things gently swiping under your eyes, across your cheeks.

“Well, it got a smile from you didn’t it?” His own face breaking into a wide smile, very rarely seen by the Pitt.

“Sorry for not really texting this week. How was has your week been?” You asked, your head laying back against his chest.

“Pretty bleak without you baby.” He began recounting different surgeries and patients. Updating you on your weekly gossip of the Pitt.

“Missed you Bren.” Standing on your toes to give him a kiss. It started off light, little pecks and slowly turned into deep, passionate kisses. His tongue swiped across your bottom lip, asking for permission. You quickly granted it, whining softly into the kiss. He captured your thighs, lifting you up so they were wrapped around his thick, stocky waist. The angle added a whole new vigour to your kisses, becoming frantic and sloppy but so fucking addicting. He slowly broke the kiss.

“Okay baby. That’s enough for tonight. You’ve had an emotional week. Let me look after you sweetheart. I’ve got the day of tomorrow, maybe we resume this in the morning? After food and sleep?” He says out of breath, your mouth all red and glossy, and your eyes half shut.

“You’re such a tease Bren. But fine. You’re too good to me, don’t deserve you.” Your murmur sleepily into his neck. “Dinner in bed?”

“Thought you’d never ask my love.” He chuckled. Carrying you up to bed with one hand supporting your ass, the other holding a plate of food.

“Love you baby.”

“Love you too Bren.”

Fin!

a/n: this is so bad but self indulgent asf. I don’t know if anyone will get the staind reference. “Warm safe place” is my fav song rn. Pls listen bbys. Any spelling errors- well it is 2am and I have an exam tomorrow so deal with that.

[zivistardust]

Can’t wait to read this in bed

[themotherofhorses]

His Handmaid's Tales [REWRITTEN]

Chapter Seven | Wherein Misery Enjoys a Company

Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x handmaid!reader

Summary: 

By the Hour of the Bat, the ribbon had not come. Sweetling told herself this was relief.

Warnings: Explicit sexual content (titty sucking & fingering; nothing regarding vaginal sex, we're building up to that).

WC: 9.3k (I think).

Notes: Smut. The bane of my existence. I'm not good at smut, particularly smut styled in an ASOIAF/medieval period. It's beyond difficult to make it work, because saying "—sheathe thy veiny sword between mine scalding loins" is just . . . not hot.

Posted first on my AO3.

His Handmaid's Tales | AO3 Version

dividers: #enchanthings

By the Hour of the Bat, the ribbon had not come.

Sweetling told herself this was relief.

She lay on her narrow pallet in the little chamber she shared with two other serving women, listening to rain skitter against the shutters and Bessa snore softly from the far bed. The air smelled of damp wool, lavender soap, and the onion broth someone had eaten too quickly before sleep. Her hands rested folded atop her blanket like a corpse’s.

The ribbon lay beneath her pillow.

She had hidden it there after supper. Then taken it out. Then hidden it in her sleeve. Then in the small pocket of her spare apron. Then beneath the pillow again, because apparently she had become the sort of girl who could not be trusted with cloth.

It had not come because he had not sent it.

Good, she thought.

Then: coward.

Then, horrified at herself: ungrateful fool.

He was doing what he had promised. He was letting her choose. He was not pressing. Not summoning. Not sending a seal that would force Alicent’s hand and hers together. Not making a spectacle of restraint so that she might praise him for it.

He was behaving honorably.

Sweetling turned onto her side and stared at the dark.

Honor, she decided, was extremely inconvenient.

Bessa snorted in her sleep and rolled over.

From the pallet nearest the door, an older maid muttered something about goats.

Sweetling closed her eyes.

Aemond’s mouth waited there.

She opened them.

“No,” she whispered into the dark.

Bessa snored.

Sweetling slid one hand beneath the pillow and closed her fingers around the ribbon.

It was cool at first. Then warmed quickly.

A choice.

That was the trouble. Choices were heavier than commands. A command could be obeyed while one kept some little injured place within blameless. A choice belonged to the chooser. It could not be set down later at a prince’s feet, or a queen’s, or a gods’. If she went to him, she would be going because she wished to. Not because of duty and not because of fear. But because she wanted the danger badly enough to name it.

Sweetling lay very still for a second more, then she sat up.

The room remained dark. Bessa breathed on. The older maid muttered again. Rain kept its counsel.

Sweetling slipped from bed and drew on her plain robe over her shift. Her feet found cold stone, and she stood for a moment with the ribbon clutched in one hand and her own heartbeat making war in her throat. Before, she told herself. Decide before you leave the room. She looked at the door. 

“I choose,” she whispered.

No one heard.

That was just as well.

Sweetling tucked the ribbon into her sleeve and stepped into the corridor.

She did not go to Prince Aemond’s chambers.

Not yet.

First, she went to the linen room, because even foolishness required order. She lit one small lamp. She took up a basket and placed within it two clean cloths, a needle case, black thread, a pot of salve, and one of the prince’s shirts with a loose tie she had deliberately not finished after supper because some new, sly part of her had apparently learned strategy from dragons.

Then she stood in the warm little pool of lamplight and waited.

A corridor away, footsteps passed.

A guard coughed.

The castle breathed.

Sweetling took the ribbon from her sleeve and laid it atop the folded shirt.

Not sent by him. Sent by her. A warning—a question—a confession in cloth. She lifted the basket. By the time she reached the turn before his apartments, her courage had become a thin, bright thing, liable to snap. The guard outside Aemond’s door straightened when Sweetling stopped before him.

“The prince did not summon you,” he said.

“No.”

His eyes dropped to the basket. Then to her face.

She hated him for seeing the heat there.

“I bring mending,” she said.

“At this hour?”

“Yes.”

The guard’s mouth twitched.

Sweetling lifted her chin by a fraction. “You may announce me, or you may explain to Prince Aemond on the morrow why you turned away his handmaid with his linen unfinished.”

The guard stared. Then, very wisely, he knocked.

Aemond’s voice came from within. “What?”

The guard opened the door only enough to speak through. “My prince. Your handmaid.”

Silence.

Sweetling’s grip tightened on the basket.

Then Aemond said, “Send her in.”

The guard stepped aside, and Sweetling crossed the threshold.

Aemond stood by the desk, one hand braced on its edge, a letter open beneath his palm. His hair was loose. He wore no outer tunic, only a dark shirt unlaced at the throat and black breeches tucked into boots he had not bothered to remove. Candlelight made him sharper. Lonelier.

His eye went first to her face.

Then to the basket. Then to the ribbon lying on top. The whole room seemed to still. Sweetling shut the door behind her. Aemond did not move.

“You were not summoned,” he said.

“No.”

“You were told the risk.”

“Yes.”

His gaze pinned her. “And yet.”

Sweetling crossed the room on legs that felt much too mortal for what she asked of them. She set the basket on his desk, careful not to disturb the letter beneath his hand. Then she picked up the ribbon and held it out.

Aemond looked at it.

He did not take it.

“You send my own warning back to me?” he asked.

Her pulse beat everywhere. “No.”

“What, then?”

Sweetling swallowed.

Her mouth had gone dry. Of course it had. All her grand courage had carried her to the edge of speech and then abandoned her there like a faithless knight.

Aemond waited.

He could be patient when cruelty would have been easier. She wished he would stop proving that. It made everything worse.

“I choose the risk,” she said. “Again. I shall continue to choose the risk, again and again.” 

Aemond’s face changed, enough that she noticed it. He came around the desk slowly, knuckles dragging across the wood. “Do not say that because you think I wish to hear it.”

“You do wish to hear it.”

His mouth tightened.

Sweetling held the ribbon between them. “But that is not why I said it.”

He stopped before her. “Why, then?”

Because I wanted to know whether you would let me come to you.

Because I wanted you to know I could.

Because all day I have been praying for gentleness and thinking of your hands.

Because I am frightened, and I came anyway.

She said, “Because I wanted to.”

Aemond closed his eye. Only for a moment. When he opened it, the hunger there had gone quiet. He took the ribbon from her hand and set it on the desk. 

“Then we begin again,” he said, and then he kissed her as if he had been starving in silence.

There was no sweetness at first, no shy fumbling courtship such as girls whispered about over laundry tubs when the older women had gone. Sweetness came later in songs, polished clean by singers who had never stood in a prince’s chamber after midnight with a ribbon hidden in their sleeve and the door shut soft behind them. This was hunger made careful. This was a hand at her waist that could have bruised, and did not. This was his mouth taking hers with such deliberate restraint that Sweetling understood, with a sudden bright terror, that gentleness was not the opposite of danger. Sometimes it was danger held by the throat.

She had stepped into his hand, and he had taken that as an answer enough to begin, but not an answer enough to forget. 

Even as he kissed her, even as his fingers tightened through the plain wool of her robe and drew her nearer until her basket pressed awkwardly against the edge of the desk, he kept a measured space between their bodies, no more than a breath, no less than a warning. Sweetling felt that space more keenly than she would have felt his weight. It invited. It asked. It made her choose again with every inch.

Her hands found his sleeves. Black cloth, warm beneath her palms. He wore no rings tonight, no jeweled ornament, nothing but the severe fastening at his cuffs and the leather belt at his waist. Somehow, that plainness made him worse. Less prince, more man. Less court, more body. Aemond Targaryen with his hair unbound and falling against her cheek, with his breath catching when she did not pull away, with his mouth hot and exacting and already learning the shape of hers.

He broke the kiss before she did.

Sweetling had not known she was clinging until his mouth was gone, and her fingers tightened as if to call it back.

Aemond looked down at her hands, then up at her face.

“You came here,” he said.

Her lips felt swollen. “Yes.”

“Not summoned.”

“No.”

“With that.” His gaze flicked to the ribbon lying on the desk where he had set it, dark against pale parchment. “And with mending.”

She remembered the basket then. The shirt inside. The needle case. The little coward’s excuse she had carried with her so she could pretend to herself that she had not crossed half the sleeping Keep because she wanted to be kissed again.

Her cheeks heated.

Aemond saw, of course. His eye sharpened with that cool, unbearable pleasure he took in every honest betrayal of her face.

“Were you going to mend my shirt?” he asked.

“If it needed mending.”

“It does not.”

“I thought it might.”

“You lie poorly after being kissed.”

Sweetling lowered her gaze, but he caught her chin before it could fall too far. His fingers were firm beneath it, not painful, merely refusing her escape.

“No,” he said. “You do not get to hide from the answer and enjoy the question.”

That made her breath catch, which was answer enough to darken his gaze.

Aemond bent, not to kiss her mouth this time, but the corner of it. Then beneath it. Then the place where her jaw softened toward her throat. The kisses were not hurried; he put them down one by one, as if each had a use and he meant to discover it. Sweetling stood very still under them, eyes half-lidded, fingers gathering black cloth at his sides. When his mouth found the pulse beneath her ear, her breath escaped her in a small sound she could not call back.

He stopped.

Not withdrew. Stopped.

His mouth remained against her skin. She felt the stillness of him before she understood it: the sudden lock of his shoulders, the halt of his breath, the hand at her waist gone fixed, as if he had taken himself by force and held.

Sweetling opened her eyes.

“Aemond?”

He lifted his head just enough to look at her. The candlelight made a blade of his cheek, a shadow of his scar, a dark pool of his remaining eye. His mouth was parted. Not much. Enough.

“Say it again,” he said.

She swallowed. “Aemond.”

The hand at her waist flexed once.

“Again.”

“Aemond.”

He kissed her then with something rougher in him, though still not careless. It was not the controlled lesson of the sept, nor the restrained answer at the threshold. It was hotter, deeper, his tongue pressing into her mouth as if patience had thinned and the taste of her had become an argument against every rule he had set himself. Sweetling answered without meaning to. Her mouth opened for him. Her hands slid from his sleeves to his shoulders, and when she rose onto her toes, chasing him, Aemond made a low sound against her lips.

That sound ruined more of her than any touch had.

It was not princely. Not composed. Not measured. A breath of want, caught too late.

Sweetling pressed closer.

This time, he let her.

The space between them disappeared. Her body met his through wool and linen and black cloth, softness against hard line, trembling against restraint. He was warm. Warmer than she expected. She had thought dragons might feel like fire, but he felt like a man who had trained until heat lived in his blood and then stood too long alone with it. His chest rose hard against hers. His belt brushed her stomach. One of his thighs came between the folds of her robe, not forcing, only there, and the pressure of it made her fingers dig into his shoulders.

Aemond broke the kiss with a quiet curse in High Valyrian.

She did not know the word, but she understood its shape.

“Sweetling,” he said, and it was nearly a warning.

“Yes?”

His mouth twitched, though there was no amusement in it now. “Do not answer me so sweetly when you know what you do.”

“I do not know.”

That was true enough to make him still.

Her face burned as she forced herself to meet his eye. “Not as much as you think.”

Aemond looked at her for a long moment, and the hunger in him changed again. It did not lessen. Gods, no. It deepened, became heavier, more dangerous because it had found tenderness and did not know whether to devour it or kneel before it.

“You came to my chamber at night,” he said.

“I did.”

“You brought my ribbon back.”

“Yes.”

“You told me you chose the risk.”

“Yes.”

“And still you would have me believe you innocent?”

“No,” she whispered. “Only not practiced.”

His hand rose to her face. The backs of his fingers touched her cheek, then turned, knuckles brushing down the side of her throat. The path was slow enough that she felt every place before and after it, each inch of skin waiting its turn. He reached the tie of her robe and stopped.

“Then we will practice honesty first.”

Her pulse beat hard against his hand. “Honesty?”

“If you want my mouth,” Aemond said, voice low, “you will say so. If you want my hands, you will say so. If you want me to stop, you will say that too. Not with frightened eyes. Not with silence. With words.”

Sweetling’s throat tightened. A fine thing, words. Useful things, in theory. She had spent a life learning which words to swallow, which to soften, which to bury entirely. The Red Keep had taught her that speech was dangerous, that a handmaid survived by becoming a shadow with hands. And now here was the prince, the most dangerous man in the room, demanding that she stand in the candlelight and name what she wanted of him.

It felt obscene before she had even spoken.

Aemond’s thumb brushed the knot of her robe. “Do you want my mouth again?”

Her lips parted. No sound came.

His gaze did not leave hers.

“Sweetling.”

“Yes,” she managed.

“Where?”

The word went through her like a spark dropped into dry rushes. Her hands tightened where they rested against him. She could have said on my mouth. That was safe. True. Already known. But his thumb was still at her throat, and his body was still against hers, and the want in her had become a creature with claws.

“My neck,” she whispered.

Aemond’s eye darkened.

He did not smile. That would have been easier to bear. Instead, he inclined his head as if she had answered correctly in some private lesson and bent to her throat.

The first kiss was soft enough to make her ache.

Then his lips parted.

The wet heat of his mouth closed over the place she had offered, and Sweetling’s head tipped back before she could stop it. He kissed her throat, then sucked lightly, enough to pull a gasp from her, enough to make her fingers slide up into his hair without asking. He allowed it. More than allowed it; she felt his breath change when her fingers tightened in the pale strands. Aemond’s hand came up behind her neck, supporting, guiding, holding her exactly where he wanted her while his mouth moved down to the hollow above her collarbone.

Her robe had loosened. She did not know whether by his hand or hers. The cord hung slack, the wool gaping enough that cold air touched the thin shift beneath. Aemond’s mouth paused at the edge of exposed skin.

“Hands?” he asked.

It took her a moment to understand.

Then the understanding nearly undid her.

He was asking.

Again.

Not because he did not want. She could feel the want in him, against her, hard and unmistakable. Not because he was gentle by nature, as his mother had said, he was not cruel by nature, both women speaking as if nature were a thing that mattered once power entered the room. He asked because he had chosen to make himself ask, and the effort of it showed in the set of his jaw.

Sweetling’s fingers trembled in his hair.

“Yes,” she said. “Your hands.”

“Where?”

Her shame rose up hot and useless.

Aemond lifted his head. “You came all this way to become shy?”

That should have angered her. It did, a little. Enough to give her spine back.

“My waist,” she said.

His hands went there at once, fitting over her through the robe, large and warm and sure. A simple touch. Almost proper, if one were blind and charitable. But there was nothing proper in the way he drew her closer, nothing courtly in the way his thumbs moved inward, finding the curve beneath her ribs, measuring the smallness of her against the span of his hands. Sweetling’s breath shook. Aemond watched it happen, then bent and kissed her again, as if her reaction had pleased him past patience.

The kiss turned hungry quickly.

This time, when he backed her toward the desk, she went with him. Parchment crinkled beneath the basket. A letter slid to the floor, and neither of them looked at it. Aemond’s hands remained at her waist until the edge of the desk met the backs of her thighs, then one hand shifted, palm pressing flat beside her hip as he leaned over her. The other slid up, not to her breast, not yet, but to the open edge of her robe.

“May I?”

The words were quiet. Roughened.

Sweetling’s heart knocked once, hard.

“Yes.”

Aemond drew the robe open.

Only that.

Only wool parting from wool, the plain garment falling wider over the desk behind her, leaving her in the thin shift she had worn beneath. Yet Sweetling felt more naked in that moment than if he had stripped her bare. Candlelight passed through the linen where it pulled over her breasts and waist. She saw his gaze move over her, not greedily, not at first, but with terrible concentration, as if he meant to remember the sight correctly.

Then greed came.

She saw it enter him.

His eye lifted to hers, almost accusing. “You wear this beneath your robe?”

“It is only a shift.”

“It is nearly nothing.”

“It is what I sleep in.”

Aemond’s gaze dropped again. “I know.”

The answer was too quick, too dark. Sweetling’s breath caught.

He had imagined it, then.

The thought of him alone in this chamber, severe and composed before others, imagining her in thin linen and undone braids, sent a shameful little heat through her belly. Aemond saw that too. His mouth parted faintly.

“What is that look?” he asked.

She shook her head.

His hand caught her jaw, not hard, but with enough command to halt the lie before it formed. “Words.”

“You thought of me,” she said, barely audible.

The pad of his thumb touched the corner of her mouth. “Often.”

No embroidery. No denial. Often.

Sweetling felt the room tilt.

“And how did my prince think of me?” she asked before she could lose her courage.

Aemond went utterly still.

For one heartbeat, she thought she had gone too far. Then his thumb moved over her lower lip, dragging it down a fraction, and his eye fixed on the small parting of her mouth with such heat that her knees would have weakened had the desk not been behind her.

“Do not ask questions you are not prepared to have answered.”

“I am trying to learn.”

His gaze snapped back to hers.

Ah, that pleased him.

It was there and gone, a spark beneath black water.

Aemond lowered his mouth to her ear. “I thought of you on your knees.”

Her breath stopped.

“Not like that,” he murmured, and now there was a trace of cruelty in his softness, not enough to wound, enough to make her feel the blade. “Not yet. I thought of you kneeling to mend a cuff. Kneeling to gather fallen parchment. Kneeling because servants kneel when told, and every fool in this castle thinks obedience is the same as surrender.”

His hand slid from her jaw to her throat, thumb resting just beneath her chin.

“I thought of how often you lower your eyes when you wish to look. How carefully you hold your tongue when you wish to answer. How still you make yourself when fear passes through you, as if stillness makes you safe.” His mouth brushed her ear. “And then I thought of making you less still.”

Sweetling’s hand closed around his sleeve.

Aemond kissed the side of her neck. “There. That was the thought.”

“You are cruel,” she whispered.

His mouth paused.

“Sometimes.”

The honesty of it chilled and warmed her both.

“Are you cruel now?” she asked.

“No.”

“Then what are you?”

His answer came against her skin.

“Hungry.”

His hand moved at last to her breast.

Over the shift first, palm settling with firm, almost reverent pressure. Sweetling gasped. Her body arched before she could command it otherwise, and Aemond caught the movement with his mouth at her throat, sucking once, harder than before. The ache that answered between her thighs shocked her into silence. She had known wanting in little ways, in flushed cheeks and restless nights, in the memory of kisses that made her press her knees together beneath blankets.

This was different. This was want with teeth.

Aemond’s thumb found the shape of her nipple through the linen.

Sweetling made a sound she had never heard from herself.

His hand stilled.

“Pain?”

“No.”

“Fear?”

She swallowed. “Some.”

His eye lifted. “Enough to stop?”

“No.”

The word came fast. Too fast. She blushed, and his mouth curved against her skin.

“And want?” he asked.

Sweetling closed her eyes.

His thumb moved again, slow over the stiffened peak.

“Yes.”

Aemond kissed her with a groan caught low in his throat. The sound was almost angry. His hand closed more fully over her breast, kneading through the linen, testing, learning. He was careful at first, maddeningly so, until she arched into his palm and his control slipped enough for his fingers to tighten. The sharper pressure sent heat racing through her. She clutched at him and heard herself whisper his name.

That did something to him.

His mouth dragged from hers to her jaw, then down. He bent, and for one dizzying moment, Sweetling did not understand what he meant to do until his lips closed over her breast through the shift.

She cried out softly.

The linen dampened under his mouth. Heat, pressure, the scrape of teeth barely there. Aemond sucked her through the thin fabric, one hand braced at her back to keep her from slipping off the desk, the other holding her breast to his mouth. Sweetling’s fingers twisted in his hair. Her head fell back. The chamber blurred to candlelight and rain and the obscene wet warmth of his mouth pulling at her like he meant to draw the soul out through her skin.

Aemond lifted his head only far enough to look at her.

Her hand remained tangled in his hair, fingers gone tense where they had caught and held him to her. The linen clung wetly to the shape of her, transparent where his mouth had worked it, and beneath the damp cloth her nipple stood hard and dark against the fabric. Sweetling’s eyes were unfocused, her lips parted, her fingers still twisted deep in his hair as though she had forgotten she could let go.

He looked at her hand first.

Then at her mouth.

He had had his mouth between her legs the night before. 

“Sweetling,” he said, and her name came low, roughened against the edge of his restraint.

She swallowed. “Aemond.”

He had already made her cry out into the storm. He had already learned how she broke and how she trembled after, how quickly shame rose behind pleasure and how fiercely she tried to gather herself back into modesty once it was done. This was not the first opening of some forbidden gate. That gate had already yielded to him, and gods help them both, she had walked through it willingly. Tonight felt different because of that. Less discovery, more return. 

Less accident . . . more answer.

“You pull harder when you forget to be ashamed,” he said.

Sweetling’s blush came at once, warm and furious, spreading from throat to cheek. “I did not mean—”

He bent again, but not to her breast this time. His mouth found the other through the thin linen, slow and possessive, and Sweetling’s head tipped back with a little helpless sound she tried too late to bite down. 

Aemond’s hand slid behind her, broad palm braced against the small of her back to hold her where he wanted her. He did not rush—that, somehow, was worse. He sucked her through the fabric with lingering attention, dragged his tongue over the stiffened peak until her nails scraped lightly at his scalp, then caught her gently with his teeth and made her gasp his name again.

“There,” he murmured against her. “That one.”

“What?”

“The sound.” His mouth moved to the damp edge of her shift, pushing it aside with the bridge of his nose rather than his hands, as though he meant to keep the act slow enough for her to stop him if she wished. “You make it when you forget to be ashamed.”

Her face burned hot. “I do not.”

Aemond lifted his head.

The look he gave her was flatly disbelieving, and somehow that almost made her laugh. Almost. It died before it could become sound, smothered by the heat in his gaze.

“You are a poor liar after I’ve had my mouth on you,” he said.

“You keep saying that.”

“You keep proving it.”

His hand slid from her waist to her thigh, gathering the thin shift upward by inches. He did not duck his head between her legs as he had the night before. He did not lower himself to his knees and feast until she came apart over his tongue, though the memory of it moved between them like a third presence in the room. She felt it in the way his eye darkened when her knees parted around him, in the way his mouth, still wet from her breast, curved with private knowledge.

“Do you expect my mouth to be there again?” he asked.

The wickedness of it stole the breath from her.

Sweetling’s gaze flew to his. “Aemond.”

“Is that yes or rebuke?”

“It is—” She swallowed, dignity in ruins. “It is your name.”

His expression sharpened, pleased despite himself. “So it is.”

His thumb traced the inside of her knee. Not higher. Not yet. The restraint of it was cruel because it was deliberate, because she could see how easily he might have moved differently and chose not to. He watched the place where his hand rested against her bare skin, then looked back at her face.

“I remember how you tasted,” he said quietly.

Sweetling closed her eyes.

“No,” he said.

They opened at once.

“There. That is better.” His thumb slid higher, slow as sin. “You do not get to hide from what you already gave me.”

“I gave?” she whispered.

His eye lifted. “Did you not?”

The question struck softer than a command and deeper than a kiss. The night before, he had asked. Again and again, in that severe way of his, as if words could make a wall strong enough to keep both of them from ruin. He had made her say what she wanted, made her answer fear and want separately, made her understand that surrender and permission were not the same thing.

Sweetling’s throat tightened. “I did.”

Aemond’s hand stilled on her thigh. 

His eye searched her face. He brought her hand back to his jaw and held it there, as if the touch were something he had decided to endure and wanted more of in the same breath. 

So she touched him.

Only that. 

Only her fingers against his cheek, the slight rasp of new-shaved skin beneath her fingertips, the hard set of his mouth easing by a fraction he would have denied if she named it. He looked almost angry with the tenderness of it. Sweetling understood. Tenderness was not safe for either of them. It stripped more cleanly than desire. Desire could be called weakness, appetite, sin; tenderness asked what a person might become if they were held and not used.

Aemond turned his face enough to press his mouth to her palm.

Her heart clenched.

Then his teeth closed lightly against the tender heel of her hand. The softness vanished into heat. For a breath, the hunger in him changed shape. It did not lessen. It became more dangerous, more focused, as though the truth had given him something to hold and something to break himself against.

He kissed her then, not gently, not at first. His mouth took hers with the heat he had left on her breast, and Sweetling tasted rain, candle smoke, and the faint salt of his skin. She opened for him because she wanted to, because she had learned the shape of his kiss and wanted it deeper. His tongue slid against hers; his hand tightened at her thigh; her body, traitorous and honest, rolled toward him.

Aemond groaned.

It was low. Almost swallowed. But she heard it, and hearing it made her bold.

Her hands left his hair and lowered her hand to the front of his tunic, fingers brushing the dark cloth where the fastenings sat. “Last night, you stopped.”

“Yes.”

“You did not let me touch you long.”

Aemond’s jaw flexed.

“You said it would be another night.”

“I did.”

“And is this another night?”

The room seemed to still.

Rain whispered at the shutters. The candlelight bent in the draft. Beneath her fingers, his breath went shallow and controlled, each rise of his chest too measured to be natural. Sweetling’s own courage faltered beneath the weight of his stare, but she did not take the question back. It had cost too much to ask.

Aemond leaned closer, one hand braced beside her hip on the desk. “Do you know what you are asking?”

“No,” she said, because he had taught her better than lying. “Not wholly.”

His eye darkened with something more dangerous than desire.

“Then ask what you mean,” he said.

Sweetling swallowed.

Her hand slid lower, not to his belt yet, only to the place where his tunic ended, and the leather began. She could feel the heat of him even through the cloth. Feel how still he had made himself. The control in him was frightening. The wanting beneath it more so.

“I want to touch you,” she said.

Aemond’s mouth parted slightly.

For one breath, nothing happened. Then he closed his eye, just once, as if gathering the words inside him before they could come out as a command rather than an answer.

“When you touched me last night,” he said, “you did it because I guided you.”

“Yes.”

“If you touch me tonight, it will be because you choose to.”

“I know.”

“No.” His eye opened. “You know the words. That is not the same.”

Sweetling’s temper sparked, small and bright beneath the heat in her face. “Then teach me the difference, if you are so determined to lecture me half-naked on your desk.”

Silence.

Then Aemond laughed.

It was quiet, low, gone almost as soon as it came, but it was real. The sound caught Sweetling so wholly off guard that her own mouth softened into an answering smile before she could stop it. Aemond looked at that smile as if it were the most inconvenient thing in Westeros.

“You will be the death of someone,” he said.

“Hopefully not me.”

His amusement faded, but not into coldness. “No. Not you.”

The promise was too grim to be sweet. Still, it settled warm somewhere beneath her ribs.

He took her hand, the same hand that had hovered uncertainly at his belt, and placed it flat over the leather buckle. Sweetling stared at her fingers there.

Aemond did not help this time.

The difference was immediate. Last night, he had guided her through the first shock of it, taken her wrist, and shown her the shape, movement, and pressure that pleased him. Tonight, he made her reach for knowledge herself. It was cruel in the way honesty could be cruel. It was also exactly what she had asked for.

Her fingers worked the buckle loose. Slowly. Too slowly, perhaps, because Aemond’s breath grew rougher above her. The leather came free, then the ties beneath. Her hands trembled once at the threshold of it, and Aemond’s gaze snapped to her face.

“Stop there if you wish.”

The words made her look up.

He meant it. Again, curse him; he meant it. His pride hated the offer. His body hated it more . . . yet he gave it.

Sweetling shook her head.

His eye narrowed.

She remembered. “I do not wish to stop.”

“Good.”

The word sounded almost pained.

She drew him free with less surprise than last night but no less awe. The sight of his cock still stole the sense from her for a moment—the hard, flushed length of him, heavy in her palm, hot against her skin. He was pale in thickness and a bit darker at the tip, a soft pink that nearly matched her lips. Aemond watched her face so intently she felt the flush spread from her cheeks down her throat to where her shift hung loose and damp from his mouth.

“You are warm,” she said foolishly.

His mouth twitched. “Was I meant to be stone?”

“No,” she whispered. “Only you seem it sometimes.”

“That is because stone is rarely asked what it wants.”

The words came too quietly. Too bare.

Sweetling looked up.

Aemond seemed to regret them at once. His face hardened, the prince returning like armor drawn over skin, but she had heard the man beneath. She had felt his heart. She leaned forward and kissed the place beneath her palm.

Aemond’s breath caught.

Not much.

Enough.

His hand moved to the back of her neck with dangerous speed, not hurting her, but holding her there as if the kiss had struck somewhere he did not know how to defend. Sweetling pressed another to his chest, then another, her mouth warm against him through the open tunic. She did not know what she was doing. Not truly. But she knew what he had done to her: the deliberate learning of her body, the way he had followed every breath and tremor until she could no longer pretend she was not being known. Perhaps this was the same. Perhaps it could be.

Aemond’s fingers tightened in her hair.

“Sweetling.”

She looked up at him from beneath her lashes, mouth still close to his skin.

The sight seemed to undo something in him.

He bent and kissed her, hard enough that she had to brace one hand behind herself on the desk. His other hand returned to her breast, but no longer content with damp linen. He tugged at the neckline of her shift until the fabric slipped low, baring her properly to candlelight.

Sweetling sucked in a breath and almost covered herself.

Aemond caught both her wrists in one hand.

“No.”

The word was firm, but not angry. A command, yes, but one that waited on her face. His gaze moved down to her bare breasts, and this time there was nothing between his mouth and her. Nothing to soften the sight of his hunger. Nothing to save her from the way he looked at her, as if the court, the crown, the gods, the rain, all of it had become less real than the small, trembling lift of her chest.

“You are lovely,” he said.

It sounded almost resentful.

Sweetling’s eyes stung. “You say it as though it displeases you.”

“It does.”

That surprised a laugh out of her, breathless and shy. “Why?”

“Because I have enough trouble.”

Then his mouth closed over her bare breast.

The laugh broke apart into a moan.

Aemond’s hand released her wrists so he could grip her waist, holding her steady as his tongue circled the stiffened peak. The first touch was wet and hot and direct enough that her spine arched. He sucked slowly, then harder, drawing at her until pleasure pulled tight from her breast to the deep ache between her thighs. His teeth scraped with just enough edge to make her gasp his name, and when she did, he answered with a low sound against her skin that she felt more than heard.

He did not rush.

That was the cruelty of him—the devotion of him. He gave the same attention to her breasts that he had given to the rest of her the previous night, as if no part of her body deserved to be passed over simply because he had already learned another. He tasted one nipple until it was swollen and wet from his mouth, then crossed to the other with maddening patience, his hand kneading what his lips had left behind. Sweetling’s shift sat bunched beneath her breasts, her robe open around her, her thighs parted around the hard line of his body. She had never felt so exposed. She had never felt so held.

Her hands went to his shoulders.

This time, she did not ask.

Aemond’s mouth curved against her breast.

“Good,” he murmured.

The praise—if praise it was—settled low and hot inside her. She hated how badly she liked it; hated worse that he knew.

His hand slid beneath her shift again, over her hip, across the soft lower curve of her belly. Sweetling’s breath quickened before he reached where she wanted him. Aemond paused.

“Already?” he asked.

“You are being cruel.”

“I have barely touched you.”

“You know what you are doing.”

That pleased him.

Gods help her, it pleased him.

His fingers slipped beneath the edge of her smallclothes and found her wet.

They both went still.

Aemond shut his eye for one brief moment, as if some disciplined part of him needed darkness to survive the discovery. Sweetling watched his face while his fingers rested against her, not moving yet, only feeling the slick heat she could not hide. The night before, she might have died of shame beneath such attention. Tonight, shame still burned, but it no longer stood alone.

She wanted him to know.

That was the terrible part.

Aemond opened his eye. “You are not frightened of this now.”

“I am frightened.”

“Not of my hand.”

Her lips parted.

No answer came.

He was right.

The fear lived elsewhere now: in the door; in the whispers; in the queen’s quiet gaze, Rylene’s warnings, and Jeyne’s mean little smile.

Not here. Not exactly. Not with his hand between her thighs and his mouth still warm from her breast.

“No,” she admitted.

His expression shifted. Hunger, satisfaction, and something like wonder made darker by pride.

“No,” he repeated.

His fingers moved.

Sweetling bowed forward with a broken breath, forehead nearly touching his shoulder.

He stroked her slowly at first, parting her with the kind of care that made the intimacy worse. He knew her now. He knew what made her hips lift, knew where to press, knew that circling too softly made her impatient and circling too firmly made her clutch at him with both hands. He knew because he had learned it from her body the night before, and now he used that knowledge without the clumsiness of first discovery.

She made room for him.

That, too, he noticed.

His mouth brushed her temple. “There she is.”

The words were soft, almost fond, and filthy for all that.

Sweetling turned her face into his shoulder. “Do not say it like that.”

“Like what?”

“As though you have been looking for her.”

His fingers slowed.

For a moment, only rain spoke.

Then Aemond said, “I have.”

The answer entered her more deeply than his touch.

She lifted her head. His face was close, too close for either of them to pretend. His eye moved over her features as if searching for the line between what she could bear and what he wanted to take. His fingers were still under her smallclothes, slick against her, but his attention had gone to her mouth.

“I thought of you today,” he said.

Sweetling’s breath caught. “When?”

His mouth curved faintly. “Often.”

“Doing what?”

The question came before shame could stop it.

Aemond’s eye darkened.

“You ask dangerous questions after midnight.”

“You answer them better after midnight.”

That earned her a look sharp enough to cut silk.

Then he kissed her, and while he kissed her, his fingers slid lower, one pressing slowly inside. Sweetling gasped into his mouth. Not surprise, not the way she had the night before. Recognition. Her body clenched around him as if welcoming a known trespass. Aemond felt it and groaned softly, his composure slipping again, just enough for her to feel powerful and endangered all at once.

He moved his finger inside her with slow, deep strokes, his thumb working above in the rhythm he had discovered before. Sweetling’s hands found his open tunic, pushing it wider, needing skin beneath her palms. He let her. More than let her. He shifted closer, giving her access to the hard plane of his chest, the lean cut of muscle beneath pale skin, the heat of him. She touched him clumsily, greedily, while his hand ruined her. His breath thickened when her nails dragged lightly over his ribs.

“You like that,” she whispered.

Aemond’s eye flashed to hers.

The answering pride in her own voice seemed to surprise them both.

His fingers withdrew almost fully, then pressed back in with a second alongside the first.

Sweetling’s pride vanished into a moan.

Aemond’s mouth found her breast again, sucking hard as his fingers worked inside her, and the room turned molten. Desk beneath her. Maps crushed under her palms. Rain at the windows. His hair against her skin. His hand was between her thighs. His mouth at her breast. Her own hands learning the shape of him with growing desperation. She was not new to pleasure now, but knowing did not make it smaller. Knowing made it worse because she could feel where he was leading her, and she still went willingly.

Her hips began to move with his hand.

Aemond lifted his head.

He watched.

The look on his face made her burn hotter than the touch itself. Not because he seemed amused. He did not. Not because he seemed gentle. He did not. He looked fiercely attentive, almost reverent in the most dangerous way, as if her pleasure were a thing he had summoned and now meant to master without breaking.

“Do not stop,” she whispered.

His jaw tightened. “I had not planned to.”

A laugh almost escaped her, but his thumb pressed more firmly and it became a whimper instead.

Aemond kissed her mouth, her jaw, the side of her throat. “That is it. Let me feel it.”

The words were too much. His voice was too close. Sweetling clutched at him, body tightening around his fingers, pleasure coiling low and bright. She knew the edge now, and knew the terrible swelling rush before it. Her thighs shook around his hand.

“Aemond.”

“I know.”

He did not take her maidenhead. He did not push toward what he had promised would not be tonight. Instead, he made the denial into another kind of torment. He touched her where she was already swollen and slick, pressed and circled and stroked until she shook against him, all while he thrust into her hand with harsh, controlled movements that grew less controlled each time she moaned. His mouth returned to her breasts, dragging the shift lower now, baring one to the candlelight so he could close his lips over her skin without linen between them.

Sweetling cried out.

Aemond’s free hand rose at once to cover her mouth, but his lips did not leave her breast. The double claim of it—his hand silencing her, his mouth drawing pleasure from her, his body straining into her touch—sent her nearly senseless. She tasted salt and skin against his palm. Her eyes stung, not with pain, not with sorrow, but with the intensity of being held in so many ways at once.

“Quiet,” he murmured against her breast.

She nodded, though both of them knew obedience would soon fail her.

His fingers moved faster.

Pleasure climbed in her again, familiar now and no less frightening for it. She knew the crest. Knew the bright, impossible edge of it. Last night he had pulled her over it with his mouth. Tonight he brought her there with one hand while the rest of him trembled for what he had not yet allowed himself to claim.

Sweetling’s hand moved desperately around him. She wanted to give him that same loss. Wanted to see his control break and know she had done it. Wanted, with a sudden fierceness that startled her, to be the reason Aemond Targaryen forgot himself.

His breath caught against her skin.

“Sweetling.”

The warning in her name made her pulse leap.

She tightened her grip as he had shown her last night, twisting on the upward stroke, thumb brushing the place that made his hips jerk harder into her hand.

Aemond groaned.

It was not loud. The storm outside might have swallowed it. But she felt it in his chest, in his mouth at her breast, in the sudden rough pressure of his hand between her thighs. That sound undid her. Pleasure broke hard and sudden, wringing a muffled cry as her body tightened beneath his fingers. Aemond kissed the sound from her mouth, then dragged his lips back down to the breast he had dampened earlier, taking it again through the linen while his hand worked between her thighs. Sweetling nearly lost her grip on him. 

His teeth grazed her, his tongue soothed the same place, and pleasure folded in on itself—his mouth at her breast, his fingers below, his hard length in her hand, all of it too much to keep separate.

Her release took him with it.

His head bowed against her shoulder. His hips drove once, twice into her hand, control shattering in tight, restrained pulses as he spilled over her fingers with a sound bitten nearly in half by pride. Sweetling held him through it, dazed and shaking, her cheek pressed to his hair, her own pleasure still moving through her in faint aftershocks.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke.

Rain tapped at the window.

The candle guttered.

Parchment lay crushed beneath them, maps of kingdoms ruined by the weight of a handmaid’s hip and a prince’s poor restraint.

Aemond removed his hand from her mouth slowly.

Sweetling drew a breath that trembled on the way in.

He did not lift his head at once. That was the strangest part. He remained bowed against her, mouth near the bare curve of her breast, hair falling over her loosened robe, breathing as if the world required effort. Sweetling’s clean hand rose, hesitated, then settled on the back of his head.

He went still.

She stroked his hair once.

“Aemond?”

“Do not,” he said.

Her hand froze. “Do not what?”

His voice came low against her skin. “Make it gentle yet.”

The words hurt in a place she could not name.

Not because he rejected gentleness. Because he recognized it and feared what shape it might demand of him.

Sweetling resumed stroking his hair anyway.

Aemond said nothing.

After a moment, his hand closed around her wrist—not pulling her away, only holding her there.

Afterward, Aemond cleaned her fingers himself.

Sweetling protested at once, because there were limits to what a girl could survive with her dignity intact, and apparently having a prince kneel between her knees to tend to the evidence of his pleasure was very near one of them.

“I can do it,” she said, mortified.

“I know.”

He did not give her the cloth.

She sat on the edge of his desk with her shift pulled properly into place and her robe tied loosely enough to be a lie. Her hair was half fallen from its braid. Her mouth felt swollen again, though less from being taken by surprise than from being kissed too thoroughly for too long. Her knees still trembled whenever she shifted. Aemond stood before her with a damp cloth in hand, his own clothing restored with irritating efficiency, though his hair and breathing had betrayed him enough that she did not feel entirely conquered.

He took her hand.

The warm cloth passed over her palm, between her fingers, along each knuckle with the same grim care he gave wounds and weapons. He did not make a spectacle of it. That made it more intimate, not less. Sweetling watched his face as he worked. His expression was severe, almost distant, but the set of his mouth had softened in ways he likely did not know. Or knew and hated.

“You are thinking,” he said.

“I am often thinking.”

“Not always wisely.”

She almost smiled. “No.”

His gaze lifted to hers. “What?”

The question was too direct. She looked at their hands instead.

“Last night,” she said carefully, “afterward, I thought I would feel ruined.”

Aemond’s hand stilled around hers.

Sweetling felt the room tighten.

“And did you?” he asked.

“I felt frightened. And ashamed. And pleased.” She swallowed. “The pleased part frightened me most.”

His thumb moved once over her cleaned palm. “And now?”

She should have lied. Not because he would fail to catch it, but because honesty had begun to feel like undressing more thoroughly than desire had managed.

“Now I feel foolish,” she said.

Aemond’s face hardened.

Sweetling shook her head before he could speak. “Not because of you. Because I thought knowing what your mouth could do would make me less helpless to it.”

The corner of his mouth shifted.

Ah. There was that flicker of wickedness. He tried to hide it and failed poorly enough that, despite herself, Sweetling laughed under her breath.

Aemond’s eye narrowed. “You find your helplessness amusing?”

“I find your pride amusing.”

“My pride?”

“You look pleased enough to start a war over it.”

“I have started no wars over your thighs.”

“Yet.”

The word escaped before she understood how bold it was.

Aemond went still.

Sweetling’s laughter vanished.

For half a heartbeat, she thought she had ruined the ease between them. Then his gaze dropped to her mouth, slow and dark, and she realized the danger was not anger.

“No,” he said softly. “Not yet.”

The heat that went through her was immediate and devastating.

He finished cleaning her hand, then set the cloth aside with more force than necessary. That, too, pleased her. Aemond Targaryen, undone by a handmaid saying one foolish word. She would have liked to keep that knowledge folded somewhere secret, pressed between the pages of herself like a stolen flower.

His hand came to her chin, tipping her face up.

“You grow bold after midnight,” he said.

“You told me you disliked half-courage.”

“I did.”

“I am trying to be obedient.”

His mouth curved.

“Liar.”

This time, the word was almost fond.

Sweetling did not know what to do with almost fond. Fondness seemed far more dangerous than lust. Lust had at least been named in warnings. Fondness came quietly, wearing no heraldry, and set itself beside a girl before she realized there was room for it.

Aemond seemed to sense the same danger, for he stepped back and turned toward the basin.

“You will return by the west stair,” he said. “Not the lower passage.”

Sweetling gathered the edges of her robe, pulling herself back into order piece by piece. “You said that last night.”

“And you remembered?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

She slid from the desk, and her knees nearly betrayed her. Aemond caught her elbow at once.

They both looked down at his hand.

It should not have mattered after everything else. Yet this touch was different. Public enough in shape to be innocent, private enough in timing to undo her.

“I can walk,” she said.

“I did not ask whether you could.”

“No. You merely grabbed me.”

“I kept you from falling.”

“I was not falling.”

“You were considering it.”

That startled another laugh from her, softer this time. He watched it in the way he watched things he meant to understand and disliked needing. His hand remained at her elbow.

“Aemond,” she said.

The name altered the room again.

He released her slowly.

Sweetling reached for the basket she had brought, only to find that it had been knocked half beneath the desk. The shirt inside remained unmended. The needle case had spilled open, black thread looping over the floor like some little shadow-snake. She stared at it.

Aemond followed her gaze.

“The mending,” she said.

His mouth twitched. “Yes. That grave purpose for which you came.”

“I did come with mending.”

“You came with an excuse.”

She bent quickly to gather the thread, because if she looked at him her face would show too much. “It was still mending.”

“You mended nothing.”

“That is not true.” She tucked the needle case into the basket with unnecessary care. “Your patience was in tatters.”

Aemond stared at her.

Then, impossibly, he laughed again. This one lasted even less than the first, but it warmed her all the same. It made him look almost startled at himself afterward, as if she had somehow stolen the sound from him rather than earned it.

Sweetling straightened with the basket in hand, her smile small and traitorous.

“Do not look so pleased,” he said.

“I am not.”

“You are.”

He sent her away with one final kiss. 

The corridor beyond was cold enough to make her shiver. She walked as he had told her, west stair, Maegor’s tapestry, eyes lowered but not blind. No one stopped her. No one saw enough to matter. Beneath her sleeve, the ribbon brushed her pulse with every step.

By the time she reached her narrow bed, the castle had gone quiet in the strange way living beasts went quiet before dawn. She undressed without lighting a candle and slid beneath her blanket with shaking legs and a mouth still warm from his.

Bessa snored softly from the far pallet. The older maid near the door muttered in sleep. Sweetling lay on her back and stared into the dark. She had crossed into his chamber as a handmaid with a basket; she had returned as something else. Not beloved, maybe, and not safe. Not ruined, though the court would name her so if it knew. 

Not wife, not whore, not lady, not lamb.

His, if she gave it. Hers, if she chose it.

Between those two truths, sleep came for her at last, dark and deep and full of dragons.

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[nepentheansea]

Tapes For My Lover

© nepentheansea all works are my own and contain mature content!

𝒎𝒂𝒊𝒏 𝒎𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕 ・𝑺𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒓 𝑻𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝑼𝒏𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒆

premise: You left some tapes for Eddie to have after you’re gone, and now he is finally listening to them… 

Warnings: smut, angst, fluff, blood sweat and tears. (tell me if their is more) 

WC: 6.8k

A/N: So this idea came to me and I instantly fell in love with it. There is just something about it that leaves me with a feeling of comfort knowing that its Eddie. Anyway, I hope you guys like this one, I sure as hell did.

Keep reading

[zendariii]

I'm sorry in advance for what you're about to read 🥹

[Next]

Imagine Ghost who is at his wit's end because you keep giving him the cold shoulder ever since he got back. He know he promised that the mission was only going to be a week long and that he would be back before you even realised. But then something happened and a week turned into three whole months. Ghost had missed your birthday, the anniversary of you two, and even Christmas which he had promised he would spend at your family with you this year.

Ghost understand that you would be mad, but it's been three whole days and you had not even said a single word to him. Ghost wasn't great with words, so when he first came back, he had tried to help you around the house. But whenever he tried to help in any way he could, you just walked away without even sparing a single glance.

At this point, Ghost is straight up desperate for your forgiveness, and he needs it fast. You didn't know but Ghost actually planned to propose to you right after the mission is over. He prepared the rings, planned a honeymoon vacation, Ghost even filled out a transfer request to a desk job because he knew how you always worried about him when he go on missions. Price had smiled when he received the documents, saying how Ghost had finally found the family for himself.

"Yep, she's the one, sir." Ghost remembered saying with a fond smile.

So today, Ghost is a man set on a mission. He wore his best shirt, huh, when did you move all of his clothes to the dresser in the second bedroom, and prepare a fancy dinner full of your favourite food, strange, he went to make a cuppa while waiting and couldn't find his favourite cup anywhere.

But still, Ghost was hopeful. And so far, everything was going great. And while you still haven't said anything to him yet, at least you didn't move away when Ghost wraps his arm around you while watching movies on the couch.

"Bloody hell sweetheart, you really do love this movie ay? I can practically recite the whole damn script after so many times watching it with you." Still no reply, but Ghost wasn't going to give up so easily.

It was later that night when there was a knock at the door, Ghost was prepared to stand up and open the door but you beat him to it. It was a bit of a surprise to see his captain on the other side of the entrance, and Ghost can't help but feel a bit jealous over how you easily hug Price.

"How're you holding up, kid? I know it's been hard for you these couple of days. Johnny and Kyle really wanted to come along today but they had something urgent come up and-"

"I-it's alright John, I understand. Please, come in and have a seat. I'll make some tea."

"No need, kid. I won't be taking too much of your time. But before that, have you been taking care of yourself? You know Simon would hate it if he knew you've been neglecting yourself."

"It's....fine. I just finished eating some takeout and was just watching some movies for.... old time sake."

"Good, good." Price said as he took out a small velvet box. "We, uh, we found this. In his office. And we think that you would like to have this, kid. I'm sorry."

Once Ghost had registered that the small box was actually the rings he bought, he almost ready to jump across the table to take it back but stopped mid way because he heard you begin to cry.

"Oh God, John, I can't do this, John. I-I just can't. Please, John, please tell me that all of this is just a horrible nightmare and that my Simon isn't-! Please, I beg of you, I can't! He can't be dead John!!"

What? Ghost thought. But he's not dead? He's right here though? The mission was a success wasn't it? Ghost finally tracks the enemy down, sneaks through their defense and gets the information needed. Then he snuck back out and went back to the safe house and oh, right, he was shot, wasn't he? Ghost was shot just as he finally reached the safehouse. He never managed to get back to you like he promised before he left, never get to take you on that vacation, never get to propose to you.

It was finally then that Ghost realised you never gave him the cold shoulder, you just couldn't see him anymore.

Not-so-fun fact, I originally planned that instead of Price who knock, it was actually a robber and then Ghost would have been forced to watch his lovie get hurt while not being able to do anything but I feel like that would be too much angst in a single post so you guys have this instead :33 Hope you enjoyed 🫶

[myblogystuff]

Here are fanfics I truly enjoyed reading (multi-fandom)

Call Of Duty

Simon's girl has to leave for a few days by @softaestluv

Simon does a terrible job asking out his crush by @ghostedink

Johnny finds a job (and a bird) through Craigslist by @rosaries-and-thorns

Knight Simon expresses his affection through flowers by @kira-writes-stuff

Simon x Secretary!reader, if you need help, simply ask by @sheepispink

Ghost takes off his mask, does his girl run or stay by @beebymoonlight

Ghost's friend has a crush on a new guy who has scars by @rawme-price

Reader gives Simon the cold shoulder after he comes back, but... by @zendariii

Post headshot Johnny x neighbor reader by @drmonstersdungeon

John price gets his wife a wedding dress by @drmonstersdungeon

“I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus” by @ohclaire

Simon isn't as ugly as he thinks by @crashingcryptid

Johnny has a strong accent, and you love it by @ohclaire

In your eyes I saw a longing, while I longed to lift you up by @theorist-fox (this one is long and a masterpiece)

TF 141 think you betrayed them by @criminalamnesia

You show Simon you Halloween costume by @readwritealldayallnight

Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley, who from the moment he laid eyes on you, has only ever referred to you as his wife by @readwritealldayallnight

The band Ghost

The secret chamber beneath the chapel by @askpapa-3

In a desperate attempt to seek out the third Papa’s counsel on an intimate matter a Sister of Sin slips into the confessional one night – only to be met by the voice of Papa Emeritus II instead (+18) by @writingjourney

Copia feels sad not to be papa anymore by @library-ghoulette

Swiss taking phantom under his wing by @ghoulseason

Vampire Copia (one of the greatest fics in this fandom) by @the-curator1

Copia befriends reader (Terzo's widow) (also one of the greatest fics of the fandom) by @the-hole-in-terzos-shoe

Top Gun

Bradley Bradshaw tries to remember you. A series by @beyondthesefourwalls

Stranger Things

Dustin thinks his sister is buying drugs from Eddie, the truth is far from that by @zodiyack

You left some tapes for Eddie to have after you’re gone (this one hurt) by @nepentheansea

Peaky Blinders

Your brothers believe and fear they can no longer put off having ‘the talk’ with you (this one has the funniest plot) by @theshelbyclan

Harry Potter

Remus Lupin x Slytherin!reader by @jamilelucato

My Tumblr TBR

You return after the 'blip'. Matt Murdock x f!reader by @foli-vora

[theshelbyclan]

Thank you so much for mentioning me! 😘