They Will Not Leave Me Alone

Blah blah blah Gaz eats pussy unlike any other man you’ve ever been with. It’s not to get it over with, not to make you orgasm, not to taste you, or even to say he does it.

Gaz gets off on it.

He comes back from deployment and eats your home cooked meal, lets you settle him into the bath and wash the small amount of hair he has. But the second he’s out his one track mind takes over.

Pushing you down on the bed and lapping at you through your panties, depraved and sniffing at you like an animal. He’s got class, we all know this, but when eating you out his control slips.

Rutting against the bed as gets absolutely lost in you, panting and groaning like it’s him receiving the mind-numbing pleasure. He takes his time too. Sometimes he goes for hours, unable to satiate his need for you.

Happy Valentine’s Day you freaks!

NOOOOOO THE END? NOOOOOO

Daughters with Soft Underbellies

john price x fem!reader | cowboy/outlaw x preachers daughter | masterlist

Chapter Thirteen: shadows

tw: violence

Sleep does not come easy. 

Not even the comfort of a plush mattress can make the weight of slumber pull you beneath brackish waves, deep enough for the dreams to fester and swirl like poison in your mind. You lay flat on your back, eyes glued to the ceiling. It is dark, but nothing shines. The stars do not comfort you tonight. 

You spend the late hours of the night listening to muffled conversations that bleed through the walls as people mill about outside. Drunkards attempting to stumble back home. Theatre goers and prostitutes dragging men back behind closed doors. You hear their debauched moans in the room above yours, the way the headboard beats against the wall—there is no God in Heaven above, just a cruel, sacrilegious man. 

While the heat inside of you tells you that you ought to be scandalized, you can only feel rage. It boils over, still upset from dinner. John’s easy smiles can only placate you for so long before you’re brutally reminded about the blood that soaks his hands. Innocent men. Families torn to shreds. 

How long until your blood joins them? 

In the morning, breakfast is served downstairs in a private room. Soap and Riley smell strongly of lingering alcohol and sweat—Soap’s face turns so green you worry he might spew all over the skirt of your dress. Kyle yawns so often that you’re surprised he doesn’t fall asleep at the table, but those wide open sighs fade into a cheeky grin when John asks him how late he was out with some woman named Sofia. 

John. 

You do not look or speak to him for the entire meal.

He scarcely seems to believe you’re even at the table. 

It isn’t long before you’re put to work. Laswell returns to the hotel to give you a more in depth tour of the rooms while John vanishes into the mess of a city that is Grand Hollow. The building is bigger on the inside than it appears on the out, with endless corridors for housing and closets and kitchens that appear out of thin air. When your mind seems to swirl too much from the mass amount of information being shoved into your head, Laswell decides on a job that’s better fitting for a woman of your nature. 

Laundry. 

In a courtyard behind the hotel that sits next to a fetid alley, there is a small building dedicated to cleaning the linens. Inside, you find large wooden buckets that seem to be ten times larger than the bath you used  full to the brim with bedding. They soak in lye, breeding an aroma that smells peculiarly like roses, freshly cut from flowering bushes.

Several women work in other sections of the building, each wiping sweat from their brows as they beat the cloth into submission. Copper pots over fat fires boil water where women poke at them with sticks. Long washboards are used to scrub deeper stains from the bedding before they’re wrung out through a strange metal contraption that presses the water from the linens through two rollers. 

“It’s called a wringer,” Laswell explains upon seeing your narrowed brows. “It’ll be your best friend. Trust me.” 

For two weeks, you spend your days in this blistering building. It only takes one day for your hands to begin to dry and crack from the scalding water and unforgiving soap. Worsening around your knuckles, you find it difficult to grip your cutlery at dinner as your skin feels as if it’s stretching with each bend of your finger. 

When you begin to bleed into the cleaning water, a woman who you’ve only heard been referred to as Nonna sighs and shakes a bony finger at you. Thinking she’s mad, you do not argue or fight her as she drags you away from the water and sits you in a rickety wooden chair. 

She leaves for ten whole minutes before she returns with a small jar. Wordlessly, she slathers a pale yellow, fatty substance across your hands. It seeps into every crack that’s burrowed in your skin with a strong flowery aroma. Lavender, you realize. 

“Lanolin,” Nonna says. 

You hum. “How ironic.” 

On Sundays, you rest. It’s something Laswell forces you to do, but it’s not something that seems to be upheld by the other women. Still working throughout the day, spines curved over buckets and boiling water, she says it’s so that you may still go to church and enjoy your day of rest. 

It is—you realize—one of the few things that is familiar about Grand Hollow. Though it is a baronial building clad in pearl-white paint, and full to the brim of rooms that could fit the entirety of your small church back in Penmosa, it is still A House of God. You still feel His presence in the very marrow of the walls that creak like old bones that hum with the choir as they sing praise. 

So you sit in the pews with your Sunday best on, head lowered and fingers intertwined as the preacher teaches his lesson. Reciting scriptures. Raising his hands to the congregation. He’s dressed better than your father usually does. His voice is softer, too. A true shepherd caring for a flock. 

On the first day that you spent in that unfamiliar house of worship, you had to fight the terror that plagued you as you meandered out of the church. Each heavy step behind you felt like your father’s. Waiting, and impatiently so, with his hand grasping a stick and his tongue sharpened enough to draw blood. But there is no ichor to soak the floorboards that you can smell, and the only time the preacher looks at you is to smile. 

You didn’t think they could. 

Today is different. Your confidence and love soar like whiskey in your veins as your lips part to sing with the choir. There is comfort to be found in the fact that the hymns you grew up loving have followed you all the way out here in this strange, unfamiliar land. Closing your eyes, you sway to the angelic voices and the sonorous clinking of the piano, shoulders nearly knocking with the strangers seated on either side of you. 

When you were a child, your mother used to sing like this. Lost in the tune, melody carrying her away to some far off land. Sometimes you would get worried that she would float away—that feathered wings would sprout from her back and carry her upwards, too far for you to reach. To prevent it, you’d always hold her hand when you sang. Even now your fingers twitch with bitter yearning. 

The very moment she felt your little fingers poke her hand, she’d smile. It’s how you knew she was still there with you. Still within reach. 

But when she opened her eyes, everything would vanish. Even her smile. 

On the way back to The Twin Rose Hotel, you still find yourself humming old tunes that have long since been engraved in your mind. A self soothing habit of yours that you’ve cultivated for many years behind closed doors, forehead pressed against the wall behind your bed, knuckles tapping on the worn wood waiting for an answer. 

It isn’t long before someone is joining you in your humming. Curious bleating from the sheep mother and her lamb cut through the streets, snagging your attention as you cross through an intersection. Surprised to see them still here, you pause on the corner as the lamb butts heads against the lamp post. Their wool is greying—no longer the stark white that they were once before, now muddied with the grime of the city, and what you think might be blood or rust. 

After spending so much time here, both the ewe and lamb have grown more courageous around humans. The mother tenderly nips and licks at a woman’s hand as she crouches to pet her, rubbing the nub on the top of her head. The lamb chews on the hem of her dress, making her chuckle before weaning the creature off of the fabric. 

You smile. It is comforting to know that you are not the only wild thing here. 

Your sore feet welcome the sight of the hotel as you wipe the sweat on your palms off on the skirt of your dress. Though you’ve spent a few weeks here in Grand Hollow, you are not yet used to the rigid stone beneath your soles. In Penmosa, there are only patches of grass, slimy stretches of mud, and long packed dirt, leaving nothing but a mess of trails to follow until you’ve done enough circles to rival the rotations of the moon around the earth. 

What little reprieve you find in the open mouth of the hotel’s beckoning doors dissipates like fine mist the moment your eyes settle on the sparse inhabitants of the pseudo-restaurant on the main floor. There are familiar faces—Laswell, her wife, and unfortunately, John Price. 

It’s difficult to look at him without seeing the bounty that hangs over his head, held by the very same rope he ought to be hung with. He stares at you, cerulean eyes cutting across the room with the same sharpness as a speeding bullet. Fear strikes through your chest, then frustration. A bitter culmination of rage and confusion festers in your stomach, and though your tongue darts out as if to speak, your throat closes before you can make a fool of yourself. 

“Oh, Lamb!” 

Luckily, you are temporarily saved from John’s biting gaze as Lottie rushes away from the table, feet quickly tapping along the floor like a dog with too-long claws. The scent of rose washes over you, thick as if you’re in the midst of a garden. Wordlessly, she pulls you in for a hug, arms surprisingly tight around you as she clutches you to her chest. 

“Oh, Lamb. Tell me! Tell me!” Releasing you, Lottie quickly does a little spin with her arms held out against her sides like a doll. She stops, gaze back on you, grin wide enough to nearly slice across her face. “What do you think?”

“What do I think?” you repeat, stunned. 

“About the dress, of course!” 

Blinking, you give her outfit a quick once over as you fold your hands in front of you. Truly, her dress is a marvelous work of art, one you don’t even want to attempt to put a price on. A thick petticoat sits beneath swathes of blush pink fabric trimmed with delicate white lace and full pockets. Her bodice is embellished with tiny, handsewn roses and stitched stems to match with it. It’s as if a garden had died and was reincarnated into a human being. 

“That’s a mighty fine dress,” you say, astonished. “Real fine, Miss Lottie.” 

“Oh, thank you!” she squeals. She takes your hand into her own as her feet excitedly stomp against the ground, unable to keep still. “Katie bought it for me! Isn’t that so sweet of her? We ought to get you one, too. A nice, proper dress. Doesn’t that sound fun?” 

You’re only able to talk about the prospect of dress shopping with Lottie for a short while before Laswell approaches and steals her away, chuckling as she mentions something about work upstairs. Feet following after them, you only make it halfway to the stairs. John Price, the inconvenient beast that he is, creates a bottleneck before you, blocking your path. 

“Afternoon, Lamb,” he greets. Though you’ve avoided him for the past two weeks, he doesn’t look much different. Still cleanly cropped, still holding himself with the same self-importance he always has. 

“Mr. Price,” you say bluntly. 

A fork in the road—that’s all you try to see him as. Something to sidestep. An obstacle to ignore. Yet the moment you move to go around him and up the stairs, you find him in front of you again, always in your way. 

“Do you have a moment, Lamb?” he asks. His voice is low, wary of listening ears. 

“I’m very busy on Sundays,” you say, half sarcastic.

John’s chuckle is crass, and it sends a shiver down your spine as he reaches for your arm, fingers digging into your bicep. “I’m sure your god won’t mind a break from your kvetching for one moment.” 

He doesn’t bother to wait for your response before his thumb presses against your artery, guiding you away from the stairs and toward the back of the room where the bar lays. You do nothing but huff and puff like an annoyed dog as he drags and seats you on a stool. Though there is no one to tend to the bar, John takes the liberty upon himself as he stalks to the line of liquor and beer bottles that line the shelves. It’s hardly lunch time, but he’s not at all ashamed of pouring himself a glass of whiskey. 

“I have a proposition for you.” He’s got the glass in his hand, pinched between his middle finger and thumb, pinky supporting the bottom. 

You stare at him, blunt and dull, hands folded in your lap and back straight as if this conversation is below you. “What is it?” 

As John’s lips wrap around the rim of the glass, he raises his eyebrows at your tone. Whatever malicious words he wishes to spew at you gets swallowed down with his whiskey. “The boys and I need a little help with an errand.” 

His words stoke the fiery coals pulsing in your chest, sending waves of unbridled heat searing through your veins. You wouldn’t be caught dead helping someone like John Price—the butcher of the Blackpeak Coal Mine workers. 

“Why can’t Laswell help you? I thought we were parting ways after you brought me here. Really, I’m surprised you’re still lurking around Grand Hollow at all.” It’s a true feat keeping your teeth from snapping, but it’s an honor you can hardly claim as your eyes burn through the bar before you. 

“Trust me, Lamb, you were not my first choice,” John chuckles sourly. “Blackpeak is a bit further than she’s willing to travel, and the task is simple enough for you to handle.”

“If it’s so simple then why don’t you just do it yourself?” you spit. 

Cocking his head to the side, John places his glass down on the counter with a dull thud, obscuring your vision with the amber liquid. You’re already very much aware of where this conversation is headed—Blackpeak, bank, a robbery, a desecration of graves; something you want no part in. 

“You know, I’m still not a fan of this attitude of yours, sweetheart,” John says, jaw tense and words smothered between clenched teeth. 

“Then why are you dragging this out, Mr. Price?” you quip. “Weren’t you supposed to dump me here and move on? Go do whatever it is a scoundrel like you does?” 

Something is wrong with his chuckle. It gets caught in his throat as he shakes his head, gaze falling low as he places his hands on the counter. It sounds like a wolf’s laugh—or a coyote squealing in the night. Predators surrounding you, closing in, maw glistening with want. 

“You know, maybe that bastard who raised you got something right,” John muses. “Is that what you need? Huh, sweetheart? Need Daddy to bend you over his knee for a good spank?”

Your eyes narrow. “You wouldn’t dare,” you challenge. 

“You and I both know I’m not above doing it right here in front of all these strangers, Lamb.” 

This is the moment where your father’s daughter rears her ugly head. Nothing but suffocating skin desperate for a loving touch but teeth and tongue too sharp to properly ask for it. Palms flat on the counter, you place them dangerously close to John’s as you lean forward, rump rising off of the stool, face inching closer to his. 

“Fine. Do it then. But there is nothing on God’s green earth that will ever get me to help you, John Price,” you seethe. “Not after what you did to those poor people in Blackpeak.” 

There is a brief moment of indignation that overwhelms John’s face as he looks at you with sharp eyes, but it fades into guilt when the true meaning of your words snake around his throat. His gaze softens, knuckles no longer blanching against the counter as he leans back. 

You’ve never seen a wolf cower before, but somehow it’s worse than watching one growl. 

“Is that what all this is about?” he questions. His voice is soft now, laced with curiosity and a deep self loathing that’s almost hidden too far within him to sniff out. “Lamb, that stuff in Blackpeak, it’s-” 

Metallic clattering interrupts John’s explanation as a man slams his hand down on the counter, coins rolling with the movement. It’s so sudden that you jump, shoulders curling as you glance to your right to spot a man dressed in a dark duster coat and black gloves. John’s misty eyes tear off of yours for a short moment before they narrow. Heat rises in his face in the form of red cheeks and a clenched jaw before he springs into action. 

The moment his hand reaches for the revolver on his hip, the stranger has his arm around you. Chest pressed into your back, arm crossing over your front, digging into your collarbones—you squeal like a pig as he nearly drags you off the stool. Your hands grip the man’s forearm, fingers curling into the taut muscle that holds you still, but you’re silenced by the unmistakable bite of iron against your ribs. 

“Howdy,” the stranger says bluntly. “I’ll take a glass of your finest brandy.” 

Wide eyed, you stare at John with a trembling bottom lip, question dying on your tongue. He’s looking at where the barrel of the stranger’s gun kisses your flank. Open mouth. Hungry bullet. His own hand caresses the handle of his revolver, but the way the arm presses against your throat gets him to pause. 

“No, this can’t be. John Price?” the man asks facetiously. “Funny running into you here.” 

“What the fuck do you want, Vance?” John spits. 

“Heard you were in town. Thought I’d pay you a visit,” Vance says flippantly. “The Sheriff of Blackpeak sends his regards, by the way.” 

Something within you attempts to feel relief at the words this stranger speaks, but there is a contradiction of actions and words. An unsettling antilogy. If Blackpeak’s sheriff is being brought up, then this ought to be a good thing—John Price will be brought to justice, you won’t ever have to see him again, and you’ll be able to live out your life quietly. Just the way you always wanted to. 

But this man—be he bounty hunter or otherwise—is no better than John Price himself if he’d so willingly press a weapon to you. 

“Let her go, Vance.” John’s words are stern and leave no room for argument. His jaw is clenching worse than his fingers, fist curling around nothing, skin dreaming of a tender throat to squeeze. 

Vance laughs—something short, like the squeaking of wood—before patting your shoulder. “I’m afraid I can’t do that.” 

“This is neutral ground,” John spits.

“Reckon you should come quietly, then.” 

There is a brief moment when your hearing fades and you close your eyes, and in that moment the vague attar of lilies washes over you. It is the closest to your mother you have felt in years. The veil thins. It shears. Cotton and wispy—enough to be torn apart by the softest zephyr. You can almost feel her hands reaching for you; then, there is the bite. Iron in your ribs, digging, burrowing until it’s enough to meet something tender. 

Something to make you wince. 

No sooner than your pule leaves your mouth does the firing of a bullet ring through the air. Something warm and thick coats you—a fine mist settling over your skin and the side of your skull. Your eyes open just in time to feel Vance’s arm fall from you and John reach forward, fingers curling inside of your blouse. 

“Up!” he orders. 

Quivering legs force you to follow John’s barking, and with his aid, you’re scrambling over the top of the bar, cloth ripping on the corner as you’re dragged to the floor. More gunshots ring out in a terrible cacophony that leaves your ears pulsing with each crack. You squeal as John fires back. Wood splinters as bullets rip through the walls, ceiling, floors—everything. There’s not a single inch of this building that feels safe as people bark and shout at one another. 

Gore is heavy in the air. The redolence of rose is quickly smothered by offals and meat—it reminds you of the butcher’s shop back home. Fresh kill. Venison. Tendons holding bodies together as they’re hung up on hooks for display. God’s creatures, here for your bidding. For sustenance. But you know that with each cry that fills the room, a life is snuffed out, and with it, every thought, desire, and love that made it human. 

When it gets too much, you cover your ears with the palm of your hands, and you fill the song of violence with a tune of your own. A quiet melody. Something muttered beneath shaky breath. 

“I am a poor wayfaring stranger.” 

It’s not enough to drown out the gunshots, nor does it quell the terror rising in your throat, but it’s all you have. Even as the ringing quiets, and there’s nothing but thudding feet on the floor next to you, you hold it. Clutch it close. Keep it safe. 

“I’m going there… to see my… my mother…” 

“Lamb?”

“I’m going there… n-no more to… roam…” 

“Love, look at me.” 

Hands. Warm. Over yours. Pulling. Music fades out and the present snaps back into focus. Too sharp. Too tangible. When your eyes open, you see John. There’s blood. It soaks his shirt. His vest. A hole through his arm. Scraping through the flesh. Still, he chooses to hold you instead of himself. Cradling your face in his palms. Thumbs wiping the tears from your cheeks. 

His touch ought to disgust you. Violent man. Violent hands. Instead, you lean into it. How he tethers you to the earth. You sniff, bottom lip still quivering. John’s head tilts to the side, chest deflating with a sigh. 

“Oh, Lamb,” he breathes. 

You don’t fight him when he helps you to your feet—that flame has been snuffed out of you. Smothered beneath blood and anxious bile. With a hand on your back, he leads you around the counter, and though he takes care to avoid the several fallen bodies on the floor, it’s impossible for him to hide them from your sight. They’re all men, clad in black, some with bandanas covering their faces, others with them blown clean off, leaving behind nothing but gnarly bone skewered flesh. 

There are more voices. More bodies. Fresh and alive. Still drawing breath. You see Laswell. Her usually tight bun is askew, locks spilling from the band, fringe awkwardly stuck to the sweat on her forehead. Then, there’s Lottie. The front of her dress is soaked in blood, and the cotton clings awkwardly to her petticoat. Her hands are clenched, fingers curling into the skirt, babbling about the stain, and how she’ll never be able to wash it out, how the dress is brand new and now it’s ruined because of these men. Riley is the last of the familiar faces you recognize. Towering over the small crowd left over from the fight and the concerned citizens, he cuts across the floor, muttering something to John that your fuzzy ears can’t make sense of. 

“Oh, Katie, it’s ruined! This is just awful,” Lottie babbles as she paces. “I don’t know what to do! Just awful! What a rotten group of people! What are we gonna do?” 

“Breathe, Charlotte,” Laswell attempts to console. 

“I can’t! I’m just so- so angry!” 

“Umbra catervae.”

Riley’s blunt voice bleeds through the conversation, silencing it, and forcing all heads—including yours—to turn to him. He’s standing by the counter, fingers tracing over the coins Vance slammed on the table. Huffing, he picks one up and holds it between his forefinger and thumb, displaying it for John to see. 

“Fuckin’ bounty hunters,” Riley snaps, tossing the coin back onto the bartop. 

There is only a single beat of silence that follows. Then, there is movement. 

“Lottie, why don’t you take Lamb up to the bath?” Laswell quietly suggests. 

Her wild, untamed eyes land on you where you can see the makings of a fit begin to wind up in her gaze, but it quickly vanishes when she fully drinks you in. The shellshock. The blood. Her hands unclench as she floats across the room, taking you out of John’s grasp with a smile. 

“Yes, a bath would be nice. Doesn’t that sound nice, Lamb?” Her voice is softer now. Tender. Like the petals of a flower. 

When you don’t answer, she guides you towards the staircase anyway. She talks about nothing. Meaningless small conversation that’s enough to fill the empty space in your skull. As your feet trudge up the steps, your fingers begin to twitch—but when you reach for your mother’s necklace, you find a terrible absence around your throat instead.

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Realized I have free will and WILL be posting every thought I have!

Simon Riley, the lieutenant in charge of training your batch of new recruits, who absolutely despises you. Every time you fall over from exhaustion on a 10 mile run, he’s always screaming in your ear and telling you what a useless slag you are. The moment one of your bullets misses the very center of the target, he’s down your neck telling you to pull it together before tea time or he’ll have you running laps until noon. The constant pressure and seeming disapproval from the man you look up to so much has you breaking down in tears one day when you sprain your ankle scaling a ten foot wall. It’s only when he’s by your side, big and rough hands gentle on your calf as he surveys your condition that he notices the fat tears rolling down your face and realizes his mistake.

“Love, I know this is hard but I need you in good shape if you’re going to be on my team. I ain’t letting you anywhere else but by my side. Now let me patch up this ankle.”

Simon makes love to you

Drabble to get me out of the block

Word Count: 1.6k

18+

CW: fluff, smut, contains themes of depression

Simon fucks you hard.

It's an unsaid promise, a sort of bargain. 

You need someone to fuck your head empty, he needs someone who'll let him unload whatever's mess is brewing inside of him. 

You like it hard.

He needs it hard.

Mutual agreement. Everything had clicked so easily you two had never even bothered setting ground rules or whatnot. They flowed naturally, as if you knew, and he did as well.

Whenever you wanted, you just knocked. If he was up for it, you'd spend the night in his bed until your throat would go raw and your limbs would turn floppy.

The same happened when he was on the other side of the door.

Independently on who asked, the outcomes rarely changed. If ever.

Yet Simon now finds himself in front of a crossroads, when you knock on his door with bloodshot eyes and a tiredness so horrible that, for a moment, he feels afraid.

That lasts a swift second, though, because the next thing he registers is complete discomfort. Helplessness.

He doesn't think he can fuck that out of you. Not when your eyes are so chock full of tears yet so hollow.

Your lips look cracked and swollen, like you've spent a while nibbling at the flakes of dry skin. He's sure they'd taste of iron if he were to kiss them.

As he takes in your state, he narrowly misses your sniffle, the tremble of your hands. Or the way your voice, so feeble and strained, as if exhausted from the words themselves, whispers:

"Can you make love to me tonight?"

Simon barely reacts as it reaches his ears. On the outside, he's impassive as ever—inside, on the other hand, he's rattled to the bone.

Because he doesn't know how to do that. 

What he does know, is that he could tell you no, and you wouldn't so much as bat an eye. You're not one to push, and neither is he. It's always been such a balanced thing. 

And yet he'd rather gouge his eyes out than watch you tremble any more than you already are.

Which is why he doesn't answer verbally—doesn't trust himself to do that, to sound as kind as you need him to be. He simply curls his hand at the nape of your neck and pulls you in, lips to lips.

And exactly as he thought, taste of iron they do.

Simon's kiss is not devouring. It's hesitant because he's new to it, soft because you asked. There's no tongue yet, simply lips smacking and a gentle hand on your hips. The white lights of the building's hallway flicker overhead—some old place in which neighbours don't ask much about what's happening in the other flats, which is exactly what he needs.

Gently, he guides you inside, closing the door behind you with the flat of his hand. Feels the salt of your tears on his own lips, like he's cried them as well. 

Your hands cradle his neck, fingers dreadfully cold and rough—callouses you've bitten in anxious habit, perhaps to cause pain so the one inside would quell. 

Simon guides your back against his door, as his hand blindly reaches for the lock. It twists smoothly in his fingers. Clicks. You unravel there, like the sound's given you permission to do so.

Simon is used to drinking up your moans, never your sobs. He tries as you hiccup in his mouth, holding you gently yet firmly, grounding you to where it matters.

Careful as ever, his fingers tug at the zipper of your coat, and then helps you out of it. Similarly, your own lift his shirt up and off his head. And then it's a dance he knows by heart, hands tracing the shape of you the more it gets exposed.

Loose clothes on the floor. Your cold hands holding onto him for dear life. His own guiding you to the bed, steering your body where he needs it—where you do.

But differently from previous times, there's so much softness in his fingers that they tremble almost as much as yours, like he's afraid he'd bruise you when he bloody well knows he's held you far more harshly and you never complained once.

And then you're on his bed, on your back with his own body as an anchor to reality. A big arm snakes in the sliver of space between your bodies to reach your sex.

He kisses your cheeks first, as his fingers draw soft circles at your clit to get you wet. Your chest stutters with hiccups to catch your breath, tired hands threaded through his hair—perhaps to keep him closer, perhaps to ground yourself.

Whatever the reason, he lets you. Feels your breath—thick, heavy, wet—brush his skin. Your lips reciprocate his kisses, landing damp and swollen on his shoulder, on his neck.

That night, Simon fucks you softly.

He doesn't thrust into you until you can't breathe but keeps his hips flush to yours instead. He rolls idle circles that sheath him fully inside and cradles your head to keep you still—to keep you comfortable, to give you what you asked.

Can you make love to me tonight?

Simon is not sure he can, doesn't think he has what it takes.

But still, his hands hold you gently, instead of marking you blue. His mouth draws in your breath, like he's trying to even it out when you can't. 

"That's it," he whispers when he feels the stutters in your chest settle down. "That's it—deep breaths. Good girl, y're doing so good." 

Your hands come to hold him like he is you, and then you cum around him breathing hard and burying your face in his neck instead of moaning and clawing at his skin.

"There it is," he tells you quietly when your pussy clenches around him. His voice chokes on itself because you're not the only one affected by this—not by a long shot. "There it is, swee'heart. Jus' like that."

He keeps his focus on you as you come down from it, satisfied when he notices that the trickles down your temples are of sweat and not tears anymore. 

But there's something in your eyes, he thinks. Something that has been torn to shreds so many times you gave up even trying to fix it. A loneliness so fierce it’s burning you to ashes, an exhaustion so deeply engraved you carry it within your bones.

How a man as attentive as him has never noticed is beyond him, but now he finds himself wanting to see it, to try and help you mend it until you're whole again.

"Fuck, you're lovely, yeah?" He murmurs when your hands come to cradle his cheeks and his do the same. "Sight f'sore eyes."

You smile for the first time since you knocked on his door. 

Can you make love to me tonight?

Simon is not sure he can, but he'll be damned if he doesn't try—if it means you smile like that again.

Your hips start moving to meet him, ankles locked at his tailbone. Simon cums inside of you for the first time since you two started seeing each other, rocking his hips as you caress the back of his head.

He’s always tried his damned hardest to avoid leaving strands of any kind that could tie you to him. He's a dangerous man, one you shouldn't be tangled with. 

But if you look so safe in his arms, enough to seek him at your lowest, enough to smile even when your world seems torn asunder, then there's little he can do to fight it. 

To fight you.

He collapses, chest to chest, knocking the breath out of your lungs—a sound so soft it tickles his ear enough to raise goosebumps.

Simon holds onto you something fierce, arms tucked under the hollow of your spine—inked skin, rough and thickened by a harsh life, against the velvet of yours.

Usually, you’d spare a few moments for the two of you to catch a breath, and then you’d leave, or he would, and life would roll on by. Tonight, he senses your hesitation in the tremble of your arms, and how they’re still holding on tight, wrapped like a silk ribbon around his neck.

Simon finds himself at a crossroads again, but this time it’s so much easier to make a choice.

Can you make love to me tonight?

As he nuzzles your skin, Simon realizes he never even had to try.

“Stay,” he whispers into your neck. 

It’s then that you suck in a deep breath, one that bullies its way into his own lungs too. The curve of your cheek presses into his temple, as if you might be smiling. There, something fills him just right.

He wants to look up and see if he’s fixed a few of those shreds, if he’s managed to at least squeeze a thread in there, within the broken seams. 

Perhaps he has, because your voice quivers less, and there’s that golden touch of hope in it, refreshing and bright—somehow louder than the sobs he’s been striving to take from you all night.

“Okay,” you breathe. “O-okay, I’ll stay.”

Thing is, you never leave. 

If not once or twice, with Simon in tow, carrying a few boxes in his hands with your initials scribbled on one side.

Until your books are on his shelves, your toothbrush on his sink, and your name on the doorbell, right next to his own.

Just thinking about breeding programs between alphas and omegas in which people basically sell their uterus or sperm to have the most attractive/strong/smart kid possible.

And I’m thinking about the person you choose being John Price. You’d seen him one time in the hospital you worked at and immediately went “that’s the father of my child”.

Except he insisted on getting you pregnant the old fashioned way and would only take half the amount you offered him for his services. And as he laid you down in one of those sterile and neutral rooms they used for this sort of thing, his scent hit you full force.

John Price was your mate. And you had picked him out of a damn crowd of people, no scent needed.

The employees had to usher you both out as the planned breeding became a full-blown rut and heat, the alpha insisting on mating you at that very moment.

John Price is older and John Price has spent his entire life serving and giving. It’s only fair he finally take something. Something that was his from the very moment he came into the world.

Stitches (Part One)

(Simon "Ghost" Riley x F!Medic "Fix" Reader)

Part Three of Snowblind

Rating: Mature Wordcount: 6.1k Tags: Slow Burn, Heavy Angst, Trauma, Found Family, Taskforce 141, Team Dynamics, Major Character Injury, Whump, Hurt/Comfort, Unreliable Narrator, Self Esteem Issues, Referenced Familial abuse, Hospitalization, Self Sabotage Warnings: Explicit Injury mention, Forced sedation A/N: The needed, heavy, heavy chapter for Fix. Please head the warnings and read carefully, and practice self care if you need to

The first time you need heli-evac, it's in Venezuela.

Tracking down a cartel supplier to AQ forces, Laswell tells you. International arms dealers. The mission is off the books, quiet. Clean house, harvest intel. Price and Gaz could have cleared it easily, but for some reason Laswell mandated the full task force. Something about the intel not adding up, too many loose ends. You know better than to question her, all of you do.

Unfortunately for you, Laswell's prophecy comes true.

You see the rug on the floor shift a moment too late. The trapdoor flies open out of the corner of your eyes as you spin, and there's yelling in Spanish just a split second before the bullet rips through your side. You fall backwards just in time to avoid the next hail of fire, and the motion throws off the aim of the attack long enough for you to squeeze off a round, the cartel member's figure jerking grotesquely as your aim rings true.

There's voices then, as your head falls back against the floor, cursing blindly at the pain. You'd been shot before, but this, the bullet inside you feeling for all the world like it was trying to twist inside you further, deeper, makes your voice crack hard and dry in your throat. There's iron in your lungs, breathed in with every staggered inhale, lancets of agony etched across your torso and spine. Something inside you feels wet and warm and abstractly wrong.

You press a hand to the center of the pain, and when it comes away red there's a cognizant dissonance to it, a small 'oh' that manages to filter through your thoughts as the stain blossoms scarlet against your side. It's the sight that manages to make the world begin to spin, hazy and unfocused even as there's shouts and it's Gaz's face that flickers into view, trembling like the hazy after effect of a poorly animated CGI movie.

He's talking, but with the blood rushing in your ears you barely hear him, blinking and trying to clear the strange filter that obscures the pure look of fear in his eyes.

"Stay with me, Fix. Gonna get you out of here."

You nod, and it's all you can really manage, heart pounding relentlessly, pain bubbling up your throat in a choked, pleading cry that has Gaz's face grow ashen with concern.

It's Price, then, who shoves the sergeant aside, and even in your dissociative, blank-minded state you see the tremble of his hands as he fumbles for the med pack strapped to your kit.

Oh. You think a bit groggily, blinking as you remember. I'm the medic.

That's probably bad.

There's no time to process it further, because suddenly Price is pressing down on your side and you yell, try and flail away from the pain. Gaz has to hold you down, face pinching with something that tears further at you, an emotion that feels far too concerned for what you're feeling. There's a distant part of your mind that runs through the possibilities, of the bullet lodged up against your diaphragm, through your spleen, or possibly even your lungs. You can breathe, you can kick your legs, but the dizzying rate of the spinning world around you does not bode well for your near and distant future.

"...x...h-ey...Fix! Keep your eyes on me, mate."

You try to, from behind the veil of tears that clouds your vision as the hurt coats the underside of your tongue in an open, confused whimper. Price is yelling something you can't quite make out, and there's a tone to his voice you've never heard before. It cracks and makes you blink, forces you to try and raise your head at him, only to have Kyle's gentle, gloved hand resting you back down against the floorboards.

When you try to breathe you choke, feeling your chest compress down painfully. The air in your lungs stales, and with a wheeze you grasp blindly at Kyle, feeling panic race potent and toxic through your veins. You catch his eyes then, and the worry there has now transformed into something all consuming. Terror.

He snaps at Price, and though you can't hear the words you hear the tremble in his voice, and you realize at that moment just how terrible things must be, because suddenly Price is cutting the straps of your tac vest and shoving it rudely aside, ripping your jacket and shirt and placing an ear to your chest.

He pales.

It's that bad. Something in your thoughts whispers, and then, in a sudden, macabre burst of clarity. Try to say goodbye.

When you fumble for Price, however, he only snaps at you, tells you to stay still and stay awake. You try, you do, but the world is too bright, oversaturated, spinning like the lights of the county fair rides you saw once as a child from the window of a car. Fluorescent, vibrant, dizzying and enchanting. Glittering in the distance from beneath the grey haze of incoming mid-season thunderstorms. Now it's tinted with a putrid, vile taste of metal and bile and a sudden wave of nausea washes over you, as the skies grow green in your memory. You close your eyes against it, trying to find ground on which to retreat where there is none. Price says something about a helicopter, and whether it's moments or minutes later you feel the dull whump whump whump in the distance, beating the air around you slower than your stuttering heart rate.

Who's arms hoist you up, you aren't sure, but you can smell the scent of them. Charcoal. Gun oil. Sweat. Musk. It's familiar somehow, but it isn't until you see your blood seeping red over white skeletal gloves that you understand.

It's the last thing you see before the world goes dark.

---

You wake about eighteen hours later, and the first word out of your mouth startles Soap so much beside you he barks a laugh.

"Your mother teach you to curse like that?" He asks, but mercifully dims the overhead light when you whine at him. You ignore the fact that your mother would turn you over to your father if you ever spoke like that, deciding that such a tiny detail isn't really worth the time it would take to convey it to the Scot.

When you turn to him, Soap's brow is furrowed in a way you don't recognize. He sits in a chair at your bedside, hands clasped, shoulders hunched forwards, leg bouncing and fidgety. Wound too tight. Anxious. His blue grey eyes are drawn with concern, brow furrowed. He doesn't look at you.

"Scared us stiff, hen." He murmurs low, enough that you have to strain to hear it. "Nearly kicked the bucket- Christ on a cross, Fix. There was so much blood."

You don't reply. There's not much to say, really. You messed up, forgot to check a corner like a goddamn rookie, nearly bled out a result but you're here. Alive, mostly whole...minus the hole.

You tell him as much, but when Soap laughs it's a little mirthless, his head shaking as if he's deciding between disbelief or a reprimand.

It isn't long before Price appears, leaning on the door with a weary smile that betrays his concern. You wonder if he's slept recently, or if he's subsisting only on cigars and a gluttonous dose of black coffee. Cognac, if he found it.

The captain gives you the rundown of your injury. Gunshot to the left side of your ribs, nothing short of a bloody miracle it missed your major arteries. However, it managed to puncture your lung, collapsing it and forcing you to briefly asphyxiate on the helicopter. You were unconscious by the time you were handed off to the med-evac crew, flagging by the time you got to the hospital. Had there been a chopper unavailable, and had it not been for Gaz's quick attention to your labored breathing, it very well could have been your death would have been in a sticky, spider infested cartel hideout, far, far away from home.

That fact makes you feel your heart drop down to your stomach, and Soap sends the captain a look. Yet Price's eyes remain locked on you, arms crossed, head slightly bowed, gauging your reaction. He's waiting for you to say you want out, for you to quit, to go home.

Home, wherever that may be, to the waspish gaze of your father and the sad, docile eyes of your mother. To linen sheets and pristine, white French doors, a garden where you aren't allowed to dig your hands into the soil.

You refuse. You don't speak to Price, returning his gaze with your own. Silent, unwavering, a bough not bending to the howling gale of your thoughts.

He nods to himself, then nods to the nurse hovering by the door, and promptly vanishes.

Gaz comes to visit you, and in the days that pass between him and Soap you are hardly ever lonely. They brings cards, games, sneak you snacks past the nurses. Slowly, their laughter and banter eases the unspokenness between you, the 'What if?' that hangs as a constant reminder in the shape of your bandages. Yet you see it in their eyes, the way they glance at you when wince after laughing too hard, when your eyes grow distant in the silence.

Price floats by, brings with him a thermos of hot tea. It's unlike him, and when you question him on it he merely shrugs, tells you to drink up. Yorkshire gold, you recognize. The same kind you mother liked, with her British sensibilities.

You try to ignore the bitter ache of disappointment that settles inside you when Ghost doesn't visit, acrid like over-steeped tea.

It's on Price's third visit that he tells you you're cleared to head back to base with them. After that, however, you have a mandatory six week leave to fully recover.

It sinks your stomach.

Six weeks. Six weeks they'll be deployed without you, six weeks you'll be trapped at base, not knowing the details of their missions, not knowing if it's at that very moment that they need you. All because you got caught off-guard, because you didn't check your corners and nearly bled out in from of your team.

You swallow hard at the news, but know any protest on your part is futile. Price's orders, as per the doctor's, are absolute.

The next day, you find yourself being assisted down to the tarmac, Soap present at your side and offering little jabs that mask his worry. Price deposits your pack beside his, between the three others. You blink then, see in one of them the thermos he brought you, and wonder why it isn't stored with his own things.

Ghost watches you from where he sits, locks eyes with you when you glance from the thermos to his silent, piercing stare.

Ah.

Yorkshire Gold.

You settle in one of the seats, wave off Gaz's fussing as he checks with your pain. You'd been dosed shortly before the flight, and by the time the plane is in the air you find yourself drifting off to sleep, slouching uncomfortably as drowsiness takes you.

Strangely, when you wake shortly before your landing about eight hours later, it's not your seat you find yourself in. Instead, you lay on the floor of the cargo hold, head braced by a folded jacket. You can smell the scent on it. Charcoal. Musk. Gun oil. You have just enough time to turn and bury your face into it before Soap is shaking you awake and helping you back to your seat.

No sooner have you landed are you rushed off to medical once more, checking your stitches, rebandaging the gash in your side. The doctor frowns when he examines you, pushing his glasses up his nose and commenting within ear range of your captain to not undertake any strenuous activity, that you may require eight weeks instead of the six you've been issued with.

Eight weeks. Fifty six days. Two months without your team.

Stuck alone on base, in the dim light of your room, praying that somehow they return whole, unharmed.

Price must sense your thoughts, for he lays a heavy hand on your shoulder, offers you a conciliatory smile that you feel only deepen the wound in your chest.

"It seems like a long time." He tells you genuinely, voice dipping low, rusty with cigar smoke. "It'll be over before you know it."

You don't have time to reply, because to your horror there's another soldier at the door, saluting before conveying that the captain is needed in the briefing office. When you trail behind Price, he only turns, settles both his hands on your shoulders and gruffly tells you to rest.

When you watch his back vanish down the corridor, you try not to hear the sound of creaking bones and rifle bullets, of cataclysmic destruction that leaves behind only the aching void of loneliness in its wake.

You don't even have time to say goodbye.

You watch from the windows of the barracks as the plane lifts off to an unknown destination, vanishes behind the veil of clouds, and then there's just you.

Alone. Again.

Alone with your thoughts, with the embrace of rumination that feels like the whisper of the witching hours, desolate, dark, restless. You feel it wrap around you even in sunlight, and the ghost of solicitude loops her lithe arms around your neck like a lost lover, kisses the inside of your thoughts with the taste of temptation.

They aren't coming back. They don't need you. They've seen how weak you are now, they'll never return.

"They'll be back." You whisper aloud to yourself in response, placing a trembling hand against the glass pane. "They haven't given up on me yet."

---

You wander the base aimlessly for the next few days, haunting the mess hall and rec room, trying to find yourself in the silhouettes of others. Your small collection of paperback novels is polished off quickly, tiny notes scribbled  in the margins of 'Dante's Inferno' and 'Wuthering Heights'. Eventually they stack in a tiny tower at your bedside, spines creased gently and pages dog-eared.

You heal slowly. Far too slowly. The pain has become mostly manageable, but there are nights when you rise in your sleep with a wheeze, pace the dark confines of your room trying to escape the shadows there. It doesn't help that your dreams are plagued by them, your comrades, bloodied and broken, reaching out for hands that aren't there. Hands you cannot reach.

One night you wake in a cold sweat, gasping for air, the visage of a cracked, bone white skull mask haunting your innermost thoughts. The eyes blank, cold. Dead.

Laswell tells you little about the mission. You get bits and pieces, but every time you push all you receive on the other line is a disparaging sigh and "Fix, you need to rest. I'll keep you updated if anything goes wrong."

You hate it. You don't want to know when things go wrong. You want to be there when they do, to prove yourself to them, in hopes that maybe they'll keep you just a little longer.

Soon. You remind yourself by day five of the team's absence, constantly pacing the corridors, trying to find instances of them in your loneliness. Soon they'll be back. Soon they'll need me again. Soon, I'll know I can stay.

You wake on day six before dawn, gasping awake as you fall in your dream, endlessly into the chasm of failure, where the crippled bodies of your teammates reach out for you with emaciated, broken limbs.

The training grounds are still dark by the time you get to them. You run them, blasting music, circling the perimeter over and over again like you're trying to stay to the edge of a dark, endless whirlpool. Running so as to avoid the chasing, predatory self-doubt that nips at your heels with feral eyes and jagged teeth.

The sun rises, and soon it begins to bake the back of your neck, your shoulders. Eventually you stop, and the inertia of your motion threatens to drag you off your feet. Your chest aches, but you welcome the pain. It's a distraction, a reminder. An anchor against the fraught silence that plagues you more than any wound.

By the time dinner rolls around you're back again, circling the drain until well past sunset, after your playlist has looped for the third time that day. By the end of it you're bent over, breathless, shaking, and yet somehow there's triumph. Yet it tastes hollow, bitter like over-steeped tea, and you push down the part of you that offers a gentle respite, a reminder of self-preservation.

If you run, you can flee, can hide from the perilous self-doubt that threatens to haunt the shadows of your thoughts, spinning cobwebs of dismay that overtake the empty caverns you've long since carved out. Fight or flight fuels every waking moment, a spiral you mimic with your steps across the training field, running a rut in the grass so deep it resembles the abyss that haunts your dreams. Perilous failure, a chasm where the wind howls in your ears and bites across your skin. You feel like a doe in the twilight glade, heaving heavy breaths as the wolves of your ruminations bark and howl, nip at the hocks of your legs.

The entire time your mind flashes with visions of them. Of Gaz's grin, eyes hidden by his sunglasses that reflect the sibylline brightness of daytime. Of Soap's jovial laughter, the corners of his eyes scrunching and broad chest rising, a sound that feels like trumpets announcing victory. Of Price and the sulfurous mist exhaled like dragon's breath, floating up into the same sky where you silently offer wishes for his approval.

Of Ghost, of the stygian, merciless presence of him that feels less like the visitation of a reaper and more of shadows in which to shelter yourself from the dazzling brightness of all things blinding. You lean into him and wordlessly, he has you, watches you from afar and traces your steps that mimic the history of his, observes you ascend the precarious tower of expectations you've yet to dismantle inside your soul. He extends his arms, prepares to catch you if you fall.

You need them. More than they need you, and it's the realization of that which has you clawing your sheets in your dreams. You need them to keep you, here in the place where you've found a home, dangerous and fraught that it may be. There's nowhere else for you. Not with your parents, not with your former company. You need to not be alone. You need to prove to them you can stay. Even if you can just fool them, be selfish enough to trick them into keeping you, you need them to smile at you long enough for the smoke to clear in your hideous self-deprecation, to drink in the oxygen of them like it's your last breath.

If you can heal faster, can show them how resilient you are, then everything will be fine, everything will be-

Red. On your fingers.

Wet, warm, crimson as you delicately prop under your shirt, hissing at the feeling of something torn and damp against your skin. It shines rusty under the scant light of the dark training grounds, coats the pads of your fingers like scarlet ink with which to smear a forbidden oath.

You stare down at it mutely, realizing with a strange sort of distance that it's yours. Gingerly, your hand snakes under your shirt, reveals a torn gash in your side. When you press down your knees nearly buckle at the sudden wash of pain, dark and viscous and choking you. Your voice chokes in your throat and you hate the sound of it, hearing the useless whimper of agony that chases up your windpipe. How you didn't notice the tear before is beyond you, something about imbibing in the hurt, letting the ache fill the crevasses of your heart like liquid metal seeping into a fissure.

Your hand clings to the fence beside you, fingers tangling with the chain link as the distress of your injury washed over you all at once.

Fuck, it hurts.

You've done something, whatever that may be, and now your mistakes seeps over your fingers.

This is bad.

Bad not just for you, but for your recovery. Shit, the looming eight weeks ahead of you seems to stretch into infinity, into an inexhaustible leave where they leave you behind, dismiss you and curse you to roam the earth endlessly, looking for a place in which to rest.

The infirmary.

You have a key, of course, being one of the medics. It's probably empty at this hour save for the sergeant on attendance. You can probably sneak past them, grab enough supplies to see to this yourself without one of the nurses telling on you to Price or Laswell.

You stumble in the direction of the barracks to retrieve your key, shrugging on your jacket to hide the blossoming stain across your side.

You don't hear the plane land.

The barracks are quiet by the time you reach them, most of the officers and squaddies already tucked into their quarters, the commanding officers lounging in the rec room or officer's lounge. It makes your journey easier as you traverse the corridors, trying to avoid any questions lest someone see you even now, realize what a complete and utter wreck you are, dipping falsehoods onto your fingers. Your feet nearly trip over the stairs, hand clutching at the rail ad dragging yourself upwards despite the effort it takes to not think about your leaking wound.

Carnations, scarlet and blotted with vibrance, blossom where stitches meet skin, a grotesque bouquet of regrets with the scent only of iron to color your senses.

When you reach the third floor, and turn the corner, you feel a wave of nausea suddenly wash over you, green and viscous and sour. You have to brace on the wall for a moment, waiting for your stomach to settle before making your way down the hall.

Then you see him.

Tall, imposing, clad in black. He soaks up what little light there is in the dim hallway. The unshed tactical gear makes him look bigger than he is, looming like a phantom outside your door. His scarf trails behind his back, and for a moment it feels almost like the cowl of a specter, his bone white mask a flash of white before it all ends and you're sucked down into an obsidian infinitum.

His hand is raised to knock, hovering over the metal surface. You can smell the grenade smoke wafting off of him from where you stand, acrid, burnt, molten metal like the glint of his stare. You blink as you realize he must have come straight from the plane, not bothering to untack or store his gear before coming to see you.

You startle at the sight of him, and it's in the corner of his stained vision that somehow he sees you, turns with an alert gaze that's soon masked by an expression of disinterest.

"Ghost." You hoarse, and his eyes narrow at your tone, closing the last few steps between you, stopping just short of you. Not touching, not moving, not reaching for you. Contained in his own orbit that you're drawn to anyways, looking up into his eyes, where the ink of his paint has faded from his blonde lashes.

"Fix." He greets, hands loose at his sides, chin tucked to fully regard you. The strap of his helmet creaks as he does, and briefly your eyes dart up to the night-vision goggles still strapped to his head.

"Price sent me to check on you." He offers in the silence that follows, and there's enough clarity within you to note that it somehow feels rehearsed, too practiced.

"Well-" You huff an anxious laugh, try to not let your eyes dart to your door handle, mind running to your desk drawer, where you keep your clinic key stashed. "Consider me checked on."

There's a pause between you, and within it lies the heaviness of the unspoken, the unsaid. All the confessions inside of you threaten to bubble up like the last gap of air before drowning in the deep, dark ocean.

I'm glad you're safe. Where are the others? Are they hurt? Did you need me? Will you forgive me when I wasn't there?

"How's your injury?" He asks suddenly, voice flat, but beneath the feigned disinterest you see his eyes, framed by blonde lashes, dip to your side. Your heartbeat flutters -too loud- as you pray the blood has yet to seep through the fabric of your jacket.

"Fine." You answer, a little too quickly, and that dark gaze sweeps up to your face, pins you to the spot without a single touch. You feel your chest tighten now not with the constricting compression of pain, but with something more phantasmic, a byproduct of his very presence. A prickle of awareness that breathes across your neck every time he ventures close, a reminder of him where he smears his ink stained fingers on the inside of your skull.

Door. Desk. Drawer. Stairs. Five minute walk. Clinic. Back room. Supply closet. Third shelf.

Your mind runs the steps ahead of you, but you can't sidle past, not with Ghost's immense, towering form blocking the width of the hallway. His dark gaze stares down at you, scrutinizing you, and it feels somehow like you're being flayed open by his knife, skin parting from bone as he dares a glance at the hidden, duplicitous interior of you. You try to not meet his eyes, knowing that if you do he'll see it, he'll see all of you, with his gaze that feels like black holes, threatens to tear you asunder with the gravity inside them.

He says something else when your eyes again dart to your door. When you don't immediately, he tilts his head at you, eyes narrowing.

"Fix?"

"Sorry-" You supply immediately, eyes darting back to Ghost. Yet the world around you wavers then, and you frown, blink, trying once more to tether yourself firmly to gravity. Even as you focus, however, the room seems to tilt and sway under you, and you can't help but rock on your feet a little in a subtle but desperate bid to find balance. "W-what did you just say?"

Ghost stills suddenly, and his eyes narrow from behind his mask, form going rigid as he appraises you.

Don't. You think desperately, both to yourself and to him. Don't look.

The wound must be worse than you thought, because the sudden wash of dizziness makes you threaten to sway on your feet, lost in inertia. You can feel the tug of it, your feet carrying you in endless circles as you spiral down a familiar whirlpool, lost in despair.

"...You alright?" Ghost asks tentatively, as if not expecting you to give him a straight answer.

"Solid." You reply almost instantly, and even as you tilt your head up to regard his massive form the shape of him seems to shift before your eyes. Despite being pinned under his stare you try not to sway, not to buckle.

Just breathe. You remind yourself, forcing manual inhales and exhales in an attempt to remain composed. The warm wetness of your wound is already bleeding through your bandages, soaking the gauze packed against your side and dyeing it a rancid scarlet that reeks of failure. You know the longer you stay here, the longer he questions you that you run the risk of being discovered, of your ruse being revealed in horrific, dazzling color.

God, you wonder if he can smell it on you- the bitter, iron taste of blood.

"Don't lie." He states, stepping closer, and when you instinctively take a step back you nearly stumble, one arm dropping to your side in an attempt to find something to balance with. "You don't look fine."

"W-what do you mean?" You try, but your voice wavers when you speak- as unsteady as your form. A sapling in a thunderstorm. Lighting bursts across the darkened skies of your anxiety.

"Fix." Ghost states, and that sends a flash of panic through you, the way his voice evens with seriousness, eyes suddenly steely and trained completely on you. A hunter's scope, and you're caught in the snare.

"Don't." You manage, and take another step back, retreating-

The world shifts under you.

You have just enough time to blink, for your lips to part in an 'oh' of realization before the weakness in your legs finally gives. As they buckle your eyes dart to Ghost's, and you catch a single glimpse of shock that flashes plainly across his gaze before he's moving, reaching for you-

When the world stills again it's to the sensation of an arm under your back, the hand snaking around your side and pressing close to your raw, seeping wound hidden under your gear.

You choke on the pain, the sound a strangled gasp that bubbles up your throat and forces the air from your lungs.

When Ghost moves his hand you feel it, feel the crimson ooze soaking through your shirt and jacket against your side, and painting his glove in dark, glistening wetness.

"FUCKING hell." Ghost snarls when he realizes what it is, his eyes darting down to your side where red colors across the fabric of your white tee.

"G-Ghost-" You manage, even as the world spins around you, an abrupt kaleidoscope of shape and color. It's the white of his mask that grounds you, mirroring his wide, surprised gaze as it turns from his glove to your ashen, stricken expression. "LT, wait-"

"You stupid girl." Ghost snarls, and you flinch.

Before you can stop him, Ghost reaches for his radio, and when he presses down it leaves a bloody stain on the casing.

"Price." He barks, voice grating deep in his chest- the one he uses to issue orders, bring men back into line. "Fix is injured. Tore her stitches."

In a desperate bid you try to reach for him, face alight with pain and shock as you try to stop him, try to grapple the radio away. Yet Ghost merely knocks your hand aside and fixes you with a stare so harsh and cold it freezes you in place.

"How bad?" Price's voice crackles from the other end of the comm, and you swallow, try to answer.

"I-I'm okay." You supply, but Ghost snarls at you.

"She's not okay." He echoes over you. "She's fucking bleeding out."

"I'm...not-"

"Shut up." Ghost bites at you, but there's a waver in his voice you don't recognize as it harshes inside his chest, grinding and impatient and...somehow scared.

You hear Price curse on the other end of the radio.

"Where are you? I'm on my way and sending Gaz to find a medic."

"Southeast hallway. Third floor. Outside her bunk." Ghost replies sharply, and at once he's readjusting you, laying you down on your uninjured side. You curl into yourself, feeling tears threaten as he does so.

It hurts.

The pain itself, but the knowledge that with every stained drop you're exposing yourself, letting him know you failed, that you aren't fit to stand by him, that your injury is-

When Ghost's hand presses down against your wound you yell, the agony of his touch unexpected and horrific as he tries to stem the gush from your side. It blinds you, sends white shooting across your vision in brilliant white specks, blotting out the brightness of the humming fluorescent lights above you both. The aftertaste of it lingers in your mouth, like burnt pennies, thick and vile as it clogs your chest, grips your heart-

"Stay. Still." Ghost tells you on no uncertain terms even as you writhe, tears now spilling from your eyes and tracing down your cheeks in hot, furious trails.

"I'm sorry-" You try, but your voice is cracked, caught in your throat as a sob. "Ghost, I'm sorry-"

"Why did you do this?!" He hisses, as he uses one hand to press against your shoulder and anchor you. "Why didn't you say anything?!"

You swallow, but it does nothing to stop the ache in your throat, the pain that laces up your side and cross your spine, your hips, your heart.

"I-I didn't-" You hiccup, and the world is in chaos now, with your cries and your secrets exposed, with his gaze raking over your trembling, injured form. "Didn't want you to see, Ghost. I'm sorry-"

He stills.

Then, Ghost's eyes take on a light you've never seen before. Frustration, anger, disappointment, these things you've been witness to in your lieutenant. However now the color of Ghost's eyes is dark not with these things, but with fury.

"Have you gone bloody mental?!" He bellows at you, and the world feels like it's trembling with the volume of his voice alone, shaking at the foundations of the earth itself. "Do you have any idea the danger you put yourself in?!"

There's a note of his words that ring true in you, that cleave apart the shell of doubt and allow radiance to seep through. You hide from it, curl further into yourself on the cold linoleum of the hallway, a sob cracking your throat as the weight of the world comes crashing down around you.

They're going to leave you for this. You're going to be alone again, all because your life seems to be a litany of failures, an impossible grave to claw out of as dirt pours in from the top.

You're heaving now, breaths too uneven, too ragged, and when it presses down on your lung the hurt is enough to make you cry out a strangled yell, kick out your feet in an automatic reflex.

Ghost's voice sounds distant now as blood rushes in your ears, your heartbeat wild and banging against the inside of your chest like a frantic, trapped bird. His hands are on you but you hardly feel them as panic engulfs you, and the whirlpool roars as it drags you down, down, down.

"Hey! Calm down, Fix! Fuck, just breathe!"

It hurts. Everything hurts. Your chest, your side, your lungs, the pain feels like it's seeping into your bloodstream, blocking your airways, poison running through your veins.

Another set of hands. Cigar smoke, ash.

"Soldier! Fix! Look at me!"

You can't. You refuse. If you see Price's gaze now in the moment of your ruin the stitches that bind you together will come loose at the seam and you'll unspill, empty cotton falling over their fingers. Fluff where there's supposed to be iron.

"Where the fuck is the medical team?!"

"They're on their way. Keep pressure on the wound."

Hands on your face. Gloves that smell like gun smoke.

"Fix, darling. You're having a panic attack. You need to breathe, you're going to hurt yourself if you don't."

You shake your head, dislodging the captain's touch.

No. You think with a ragged heave of air. Don't look. Don't look don't look please don't look.

The ground trembles as footsteps draw closer, and there's voice you don't recognize, hands pawing at you, light in your eyes-

You flail blindly, confused, scared, and when a heavy pair of hands lands on your shoulders to pin you it only makes your voice choke out with a frantic cry.

"We need to put her under."

No, no, please don't. Not sleep, not the nightmares-

"Do it."

Price. Captain. No, please-

"It's alright, darling. We've got you. You're okay."

Don't-

A jab, a little pinch on the inside of your arm. You try to make a noise, a whimpering sound of protest. There's a sudden flash of clarity before the darkness, and you open your eyes (When did you start crying?) to Price above you, his face pinched, distraught. Ghost is holding down your legs, and as your eyes drift to him he becomes nothing more than a shimmering phantom, blurred dark at the edges, a void in contrast to the too bright world around you.

"Please-" You whisper, the word heavy on your lips, eyes blinking-

Then there's nothing.

Tag List: (Reblog this post to be added to future fics from this series! If you'd like to be removed please DM me!)

@dankest-farrik @zwiiicnziiix @moondirti @sritashimada @ladiilokii @yeyinde @sandinthemachine @verdandis-blog @guyfieriiifierriii @fan-of-encouragement @starlitnotes

Price: "Keep up, boys. Little sergeants who get left behind get eaten."

Soap: "Did he just call us little?"

Gaz: "I'm more concerned with the getting eaten part."

My favorite kind of balls is the ones that have so much loose skin they hang… especially when it’s fresh from somewhere hot, like a bath, so they’re even more relaxed. The swing…. the heaviness

I’m not sane. Not anymore 😪

Price coded....

I know that man's got low hanging fruit, makes you lay on the edge of the bed and warm them in your mouth while he tugs on your tits. Doesn't need to see the way your tongue darts out to lick over the seam of his sack to know you're enjoying yourself. He can see the way you're starting to slick between your legs, the way you press your thighs together to try and relieve some of the ache. If he were a selfish man he might make you stop and take his own pleasure licking you clean, but the hum of enjoyment that rattles through your chest is enough to keep him where he is. Purring like a lazy cat and sucking at his heavy balls without a care in the world to what he might want.

Laving your tongue over the loose skin, opening your mouth wide to suck both balls in, trying to lick the base of his cock. Pulling back only enough to suckle at the heavy weights that hang from him. Ooooooooh that man's got hair too, plenty to wiggle your tongue through and bury your nose in. Makes you feel accomplished to tug at the skin and see the dark hair darken further with your spit, slicked to his balls like he's fresh from the shower. He'll give his cock a few lazy pumps just to keep himself nice and hard for you, for when you decide to stop squirming those pretty hips and let him do his job. But for now you can have your fun.

mh. thinking about price keeping you plugged and filled all day. fully casual too, picks toys from your drawer in the morning, working them into your half asleep form first thing after waking up. putting on fresh underwear and pulling it up nice and tight to hold everything in place, muttering a warning about being good and keeping them in, punishment if he notices they're not where they need to be. goes about his day as per usual, let's you go about your day too, calling to check in on you while he's out at work. comes home in the evening to have dinner with you, helps you clean up after and pulls you to sit on his muscular thigh while relaxing on the couch. bouncing you gently, knowing damn well how it makes you squirm, squeeze the poor toy tightly while soft whimpers escape your throat. he adores the way your face scrunches up, adores your soft pleas that he gets to give in to once you're in bed. and the best part about it? He gets to do all of it again tomorrow.