I Won't Lie Daddy. Kitten Is A Little Worried

ex-tf141!mercenary!fem!reader x ex-husband!simon because there's nothing hotter than being covered in blood and debating whether or not to kill him or fuck him (18+) ⚠️🔞

cw: reader is curvy (deal with it), mature language and content, suggestive language and content, dramatization + graphic depictions of murder + violence, criticizes military service, blood kink, size kink (simon's huge ok), pet names (luv, sweetheart, baby, honey), mw3 spoilers, reader is unhinged and unapologetic about it, dark content ahead, unprotected piv, cumplay, (can this also be considered a throuple fic? maybe...)

this isn't her. he doesn't recognize her. she doesn't fight the way he remembers, she doesn't look like she used to.

she wears all black. the black cargo pants are tight around her perfect thighs, and the way they cinch around her waist makes his mouth water. her vest covers her torso, but he has vivid memories of ripping an identical one off of her, ripping the fabric of her shirt so he could bury his mouth between her tits.

when she used to be his. when she used to be a good girl.

he watches, frozen, as she shows off her newfound ruthlessness. she fires her weapon at one man's knees, bringing him to the ground. he feels sick when she kicks him onto his back, getting on top of him, and uses her tactical knife and shoves it into the softness of his neck. she leans over him, splatters of blood freckled across her face, and she watches the life leave his eyes.

she doesn't get up until he stops twitching.

he doesn't remember this. when she used to watch his six, he remembers having to hold her close at night, quieting her cries. he remembers the conversations they used to have, where she used to tell him that whenever she closes her eyes, she sees every person she ever killed.

the justification of murder behind the patches she wore on her vest had never been enough to quiet her nightmares. she was always so soft-hearted. she was always too good, too considerate, too kind. it was something her superiors always wanted to rip away from her; it was something simon fought hard to keep.

he had lost his humanity, but she had not, and he remembers smoothing his hand over her chest and across her heart, telling himself that he would never let it go, never let her lose it.

it is gone. he knows it--he knows it because she doesn't just kill her opponents, she tortures them. she aims for vulnerable places, and then she kills them angrily. she likes to hear them scream. she watches them cry. she wipes the blood of her enemies on her thigh, and then she gets up and does it all over again, in different ways, in heinous ways. she's terrifying, and she's laughing, and there is nothing behind those fucking eyes.

he holds her in his sight. he adjusts the scope, gripping the rifle tighter, and suddenly it feels too heavy in his hands. he can see her in it, and he watches in horror.

he knows his orders. permission to kill on sight, those are his orders--mercenaries had gotten the same intel as them, but they are not here to destroy the biochemical weapons. they are here to steal them.

he can kill her right now. he has her, right where he wants her, and even from this far away, he knows he won't miss.

when she's finally alone, she stands, and she looks up, turning in a slow circle. his heart squeezes--she knows he's here. she holds up a hand, four fingers held up. he reaches up to his radio and turns the knob to the right channel. it crackles, and then he hears her voice.

"hey, baby," you coo, and he sees you smile, and it's ugly, and he hates it. "you miss me that much that you gotta follow me around at work?"

"'f y'know wot's good for you, you'll pack up your shit and leave."

you tsk, spinning the knife around in your hand before sticking it back into your boot. you wipe the sweat from your forehead, and blood smears along your brow.

"awww, teddy bear, don't be that way," you pout. "how about you come down here?" you grin wide, turning just his way, giggling when you see him perched for overwatch. "hmm? you're just cranky, baby...need me to help you relax..."

"you're right fuckin' mad," he spits, and you reach down at the man beneath you, snatching his rifle off his back and making sure it's loaded. "and i'm gonna fuckin' kill you."

you wink up at him.

"yeah? so take the shot, honey," you challenge. the smirk that blooms on your face infuriates him. he hates you. but then you turn around and keep walking, knowing that he won't shoot, and his gaze follows the sway of your hips. instead of thinking about your brains splattered against gravel, he thinks about when he used to bend you over his bed in the barracks and eat your pussy from behind you--when he used to get on his knees and fuck you with his tongue and make you cum into his mouth.

when you disappear from his view, you laugh over comms. "you're pathetic, simon," your murmur. "could never trust you to get the fucking job done."

he remembers when you left. johnny had left a scar on you--an angry one, one that refused to heal. and while simon was equally as buried in his grief, he always felt just a little better when he was kissing you, holding you, feeling the warmth of you, knowing you were alive.

"you didn't love him. not like i did--" you snap, continuing to pack.

"are you fuckin' mad?! do y'hear yourself talk?! wot the fuck do you know about me and johnny?!"

"then how are you not angry?!" you scream. "how are still standing there, so fucking normal, how are you so fucking calm?!"

"sweetheart--"

"don't fucking touch me," you bite. "you don't get it--" angry tears flow easily down your face. "--you didn't love him the same."

"i did--" he grips your face, making you look at him. "i loved him like i love you, don't say that. don't fucking say that, don't you dare pretend you're the only one that feels anything--"

you rip his hands off of you, narrowing your eyes, and he does not recognize you. this is not you.

"y-you're a liar," you whisper. "you're a fucking liar. and you make me sick."

ghost steps over the bodies that you left behind. it is a massacre of men that you leave at your feet. slit throats, bullets in knees, in stomachs, little finishers you leave between their legs. you are not a fan of men--he knows this because of how hard it had been to get close to you. how difficult it had been to even so much as touch your arm, your face--to get you into his bed, to marry you in secret and fuck you spineless. the only easy thing that had ever happened to you was the way johnny fell right into step with you.

and the hardest thing that he had ever done was fucking die.

when he finds the trunk of biochemical vials, you are not there. he has found it first, and he bends down to inspect them, closing the lid and securing them inside before moving his hand up to press on the button of his comms to alert his team.

"uh uh uh," a low voice warns. "take your hand off the radio, sweetheart."

he moves, but the bloodied tip of a tactical knife is sharp against his throat, and he swallows hard. he calls your name, and you just giggle. this is a game to you. he lowers his hand, and you reach down, grabbing his rifle and tossing it. you also unholstered his handgun and the throwing knives from his boot, throwing them behind you.

"mmm..." you smooth a hand down his back. "you're as hot as the day i met you, baby..."

ghost grunts as you grip one side of his ass, and you grip his shoulder tight, kicking him just right so he was kneeling on both knees now. you lean over him and plant a warm, wet kiss to the jaw of his mask, moving so you were standing in front of him now. you kick the trunk of vials to the side, looking down at him, digging the sharp edge of the blade harder against his neck.

"look at you..." you hum, licking your bottom lip. "you're still so big, teddy bear..." he hisses when you lean over, cupping him through his pants. your warm hand squeeze the length of him, and you whine when you feel how hard he is, how much he still feels for you. he glares at you under that plastic, terrifying mask, but your panties are soaking. "so fucking hard for me, too...you miss me, baby?"

he leans over, into the blade, growling.

"'f you leave now, you can still take your life with ya."

you pucker your lips, and he snarls. your face is not one he knows--you have drying blood along your cheeks, smears of it along the softness of your neck. you have blood and dirt under your fingernails, and there is fire in your eyes, and you are not the good girl he fell in love with, but you look like her, and it scares him.

"awww, baby, if i thought you would kill me, you would be dead--" you lean forward and lick along his hard jaw, tasting the salt and sweat of his mask. "...right along your other boys. don't lie to me. it's not a good look for you."

he bites, and you laugh, and then you nod your head.

"sit down," you demand, and he sits. he is big, and his gear is heavy, and he sits with a grunt, and you climb over him, into his lap. you reach down, your eyes on his, and you unzip his cargo pants, your hand slipping under and pulling his cock out, and you smile when it stands hard and heavy. "oh, baby...you want this, don't you?"

you lean in, kissing him through the mask, sucking along the fabric and whining.

"you want this, don't you? you still want me? you still love me?"

"fuckin' hell--"

"you wanna fuck me, teddy bear?" you spit into the palm of your hand, reaching down and smoothing your wet hand over the red tip of him. "you're so big...as big as i remember..." you whimper. "say you wanna fuck me, simon--" fuck, you're using his name, "--say you want me."

against your lips, you feel him whisper yes--fuck--yes, luv--and you can't help it. you can't help yourself.

he's so warm and big. you hold onto his shoulders, still gripping the bloody knife, and you sink down on him. it's easy though, because you're soaking, and even though you're so fucking tight, you suck him in, right until your clit is grinding against the little hairs at the base of his cock and you're bouncing in his lap.

simon is weak. he's weak, and he knows it, because he loves you, and your pussy is so tight, and your moans are music, and fucking you is the only thing he truly understands, the only thing that still makes sense.

you smooth your hands along the back of his neck, and when you whimper and moan, simon thinks he sees you. his good girl, his pretty little wife, the soft girl that he loves, the one crying as she rides his cock because he's hitting all the gooey, pretty places inside of her that make her so fucking wet. he grips your ass tight, guiding you up and down, fucking up into you as he feels his stomach turn and his balls tighten.

"simon--" you cry, and he nods his head, cradling you to his chest, his head tilted back as he looks up at you. there is blood on your skin and a knife digging into his back, but you're saying his name, and his heart aches, and your pussy is so good-- "gonna come--gonna come--"

"yeah--" he growls, and you push up his mask, lick into his mouth, kiss him sloppy and hard and desperate. "fuck--fuck, yeah--"

he takes off his glove to touch you, two big fingers on your clit as you fuck him desperately. when you come, you soak his cock, and when you tighten, he comes, too, rolling his hips as he spills out of your tight hole and onto your thighs, onto his.

it feels so good. it feels so good to be full of him, to feel him deep, and you smooth your hands down your stomach, feeling him there, stretching you so wide with his come on your thighs, and when he pulls out, you giggle when he gathers the slick onto his fingers and feeds it to you.

you suck his fingers, tasting him, and you whine, looking right into his dark eyes. your heart hurts for a moment--but only a moment. when he pulls his fingers from your mouth, your eyes flicker.

because he still wears his fucking wedding ring.

at the sight of it, you grip your knife tight, and you sink it right into his stomach.

he is laying there in a pool of blood when you're dressed, when the trunk of vials is secure for you to take. you lean over him, pressing on the button of his radio, and you call for medevac to his team, and then you rip the radio in two.

you cup his cheeks, kissing him softly over the mask, and you smooth a finger down his cheek.

"don't pull the knife out, baby, or you'll bleed out," you coo. you tilt your head to the side, knowing you only have a few second window to leave, and you smile down at him.

"until next time, simon."

when you go, you take a piece of him with you.

and fuck--fuck you. because he wants it back.

cw: post sex drabble, naked bodies

— Well, you done fucked up.

Look at you, waking up in bed right next to that hot neighbor, what was his name again? Simon? Yeah. He had been staring at you the past few weeks since moving in, and you thought he was cute, so of course you thought to yourself, "What's the harm in one good fuck?"

Everything. God he had such a good dick, and he knew how to use it, the benefit of an older man you supposed. By the third time you came you were face down into his soft pillow, whimpering and mewling like a cat in heat. And of course he had the audacity to give your ass a little slap, slowly easing out of you. A hand rubbing your aching tummy, maybe a few wet kisses pressed to your back as he laid on top of you.

A soft coo to follow, "Ah love, you took me so well, look at you, sweet thing."

All you could do was sigh into his big broad muscles, sniffling softly in exhaustion. And of course you fell asleep to his warm, comforting words, and gentle hands caressing you.

And when you woke up, he had you in an absolute death grip, one that signified that this would not be a one night stand. Of course, you could struggle and try to tug out of his big, burly arms. But the moment you heard a slow inhale and feel his grip tighten, you knew you were locked in.

A warm kiss pressed to your back, his rumbly voice crooning in your ear, "Where do you think yer going, love?"

And just maybe, you would let your eyes fall shut, a few more hours of sleep would surely loosen his grip, right??

The answer to your problems is self-discipline

finger

kate laswell x f!reader | ~3.6k words tags: alcohol, age gap (Kate is in her late 40s, Reader is in her 30s), cunnilingus, fingering, slight mommy kink, x2 'good girls', x1 'brat', porn with a dash of plot a/n: kate isn't married in this. reader has hair long enough for kate to grab. happy pride.

Forty swipes deep into dating app hell and down to the dregs of a beer, the bartender exchanges your glass for a tumbler. Face smushed into a palm, you stare incredulously at the liquor. You definitely didn’t order whiskey. Definitely can’t afford it. Even at a dive like this, your budget demands whatever’s on special, tonight being Rainier.

You’re quick to correct the bartender. No way you’re overdrafting again. “Hey–I didn’t order this.”

A knowing smile curves his mouth, and he jerks his head over a shoulder. “No, but she did.”

It’s a surprise your neck doesn’t snap when you look and a second that your jaw doesn’t hit the counter on its way to the floor. The she in question sits at the corner with her arm draped over the back of another stool. Older than you, maybe by a decade. She looks like a suit or off-duty fed, with a dress shirt undone to the top of her sternum, a blazer draped over her seat, and sandy hair pulled into a bun. Your eyes linger on the triangle of skin below her neck, and heat rushes up your neck when they pan to her face.

Though the color is difficult to discern in the dim light, they’re half-lidded and fixed to you over the rim of her glass. She taps the top of the empty seat beside her—as if the free drink wasn't a clear enough invitation.

Not your usual type, but a drink is a drink. It’s polite to respond.

Your thumb swipes the app shut, and you pocket your phone, scooting off your stool on an invisible leash. A warm ball of excitement tugging you across the sticky floor, slowing time in your head. You ferry the whiskey like it’s some grand gift, desperately not wanting to spill a drop and make a fool of yourself in front of whoever the hell this woman is.

Her eyes drop, appraising you on the approach. You think you might be buzzing as loud as the lights. 

“Hi,” you pass behind as her arm lifts off the stool, allowing you to sidle into the gap between and hoist yourself up. You set the whiskey on a coaster and tap it with a finger. “Thanks for the drink.”

“Hope neat’s alright.” She replies, head tilting slightly, body turning angling toward you. “Bad day?”

“Bad night,” you correct sheepishly. “I, uh, had a date but they canceled at the last second.”

Her tongue clicks, setting her glass down to undo the cuff buttons of her sleeves. “That’s bad manners. Their loss, though. You’re a knockout.”

The way she says it so casually, oozing confidence you only dream of, momentarily stuns you. You’ve been called ‘cute’ and ‘pretty’, but—Your brain short circuits at the sight of her deftly rolling her sleeves. Slight tan, a dusting of freckles, and a couple of interesting scars. Your eyes flick to hers, an amused smile telling you she’s caught you ogling for the second time.

“Thanks. That’s kind of you to say.” you finally reply, taking a sip of the whiskey in a move you hope exudes poise.

She tucks the fabric to one elbow and starts the other. “It looked like you could use something stronger. Thought a finger or two would help.”

The whiskey nearly shoots out of your nose, but you swallow after an embarrassing choke.

She merely chuckles and extends a hand to pat your back gently. “Of bourbon, that is.”

“Y-Yeah, no, I know,” you sputter and pluck a cocktail napkin from a stack, wiping your mouth and praying for a spontaneous, you-sized sinkhole to open beneath your seat.

“I’m Kate.” She rubs a slow circle near the top of your spine, then flattens her hand to rest her thumb on the nape of your neck. It brushes over the skin once when you give her your name. She repeats it, lifting her glass. “I’ll take their place for the night, unless you object?”

The assertiveness is a stark contrast to your fumbling and the coy indecisiveness of women you typically attract. The question hangs off her tongue, dangling like a worm on a hook. She wants you to bite, you feel it in the heat of her gaze, and let her in. She must be a fed with a focus like that; no way she’s corporate. You’ve lived in the DMV long enough to spot them. Can’t throw a rock without hitting one, anyway. 

You smile, feeling the warmth of Kate’s palm through your shirt. “I’d like that.” 

“Yeah? Good.” She sips, shifting further until her knee skims the outside of your thigh. “Tell me about yourself, kid.”

That does something for you, and you file it away for later. You mirror Kate’s posture, turning so your knees interlace. You know how intimate this must look to the handful of other patrons, to the bartender, as if you’re already a couple. Yet it feels natural, like you’re supposed to meld into the complete stranger because she bought you a drink. A breath slips out when her hand leaves your back, the angle too far to be comfortable, and drops to your kneecap. It’s like a game of chicken, all these small touches, and you kind of want to lose.

You prattle off the basics. How you moved to D.C. two years ago for work, how the city’s grown on you, and on a tangent, that you’re actually pretty lonely. It spills out of you freely, unable to look away from the steel blues seemingly hanging off every word. It’s the most attention you’ve received outside of work in a long time. It’s that and the whiskey, must be, why the butterflies in your stomach migrate to your chest, evolving into the thrum of a bird’s wings. 

To your quiet delight, her attention isn’t the only thing she gives you—it’s her interest. She hums and affirms. She asks questions. Digs into the meat of the story you spout off about your shitty landlord. And she squeezes your knee when you share how you spent the last holiday alone in the city. You try to turn it around once or twice, though you abandon that line of questioning after she tells you she’s a ‘contractor’.

Before you know it, you’re finished with a second whiskey and incredibly warm and wanting.

Kate hits you with the Let’s get out of here and loops an arm around your waist outside the bar. In the cab, you let her slide her hand up your leg, stopping in time to eat up your pathetic whine with a languid kiss. Though she pays the fare, you leave a big tip—an apology for the makeout he couldn’t’ve missed through the rearview.

You float through the hotel lobby in a haze of alcohol and lust, barely appreciating the swankiness of the place. Whatever ‘contractor’ really means, it pays well. She practically lassoes you into the elevator with one arm, her suit jacket draped over the other. 

“You can back out anytime.” She says, punching the button for her floor. “No hurt feelings.”

The blood in your veins itches with need as you grab her waist and haul her closer. You unabashedly stare, glossy-eyed. This woman, who’s been nothing but kind and attentive and generous—you want to return the favor. Tenfold. Something about her draws it out. “I don’t want to,” You whisper, the elevator softly dinging with each passing floor. “I want more.”

She smiles, hand fitting over the nape of your neck again like it belongs there, and reels you in for another kiss. It leaves you gasping when the lift stops.

Her room is a suite, another token of her apparent success. The best place you’ve ever stayed at came with a coffee maker. There isn’t much of a chance to admire it, though, since she plants you on the wall the moment the door clicks, latching it shut with her free hand. It’s a long, heated stumble further into the room, most of your clothes coming off with each step. It doesn’t hit you until she holds you at arm’s length to sit on the edge of her bed. She smirks up at you, tugging on the waistband of your underwear. Not to take them off but as direction.

You kneel between her open legs without a second thought.

“You still want more?”

Hours earlier, when your date texted a poor excuse to cancel, you didn’t think this was where the night would go. The weight of Kate’s gaze is heavy, almost as intoxicating as the whiskey lingering on your tongue. The anticipation is electric, and the view is…Well, you could get used to sitting on your knees if it’s her holding the reins.

You lay your hands on her thighs and feel the muscles beneath her pants shift. It’s heady, knowing someone this composed and enigmatic wants you, too.

“Yes.” You finally manage, hands sliding up to unbutton her fly and curling over the band to tug them down along with her underwear. Above, Kate chuckles, lifting her hips to allow you to peel them to her ankles. God, how desperate you must look when your eyes whip from her face to the patch of hair before you. Your mouth hangs open, drool already gathering on your tongue.

“You’ll catch flies like that.” she teases. 

Her hand lands atop your head. No pull or pressure. Yet. 

“But good answer,” Her fingers flex against your scalp. “Show me how good that pretty little mouth of yours is, shall we?”

Yes ma'am.

Without hesitation, you press open-mouthed kisses to Kate’s spread thighs, relishing the sigh of relief from above. You lay another on the hair above her pussy, inhaling her scent appreciatively, then give a few exploratory licks to her labia, avoiding where she wants you to wind her up. Something about a woman in control that makes you want to pick at a frayed edge and unwind her, even just a little bit. 

The hand in your hair tightens after more teasing, a silent Get to it. You still spare a couple more wet kisses, then lick a stripe over her hole before slipping it in. Her hips jut toward your mouth, pressure finally applied to your skull. You oblige her, searching for more of the vinous taste coating your tongue. You think it might be the best night of your life when she moans, your hands joining your mouth to gently spread her open.

“That’s it, just like that…” She rasps, voice thin and shaky. “That’s a good girl.” 

Your chest bursts at the praise, heat doubling in your cheeks. It cracks your eyes open, vision glazed. The sight of her, brow furrowed and lip caught between teeth—you did that. 

You dutifully continue, responding to each jerk of your head with soft groans, each one a direct line to your cunt. Pressing your thighs together, you feel how soaked you are, the cotton sticking. By the time you drag your tongue up to her clit, her legs shake, thighs trembling and bumping against your ears. Kate’s trying to keep them still; the tension beneath your hands charged and telling. When you wrap your lips around her clit to suck, you watch her eyes roll back and square your shoulders to keep her open.

“Atta girl.” She grits between her teeth, the fingers in your hair tightening to pull you snugly against her pussy. Her other hand fists the comforter, the fabric crinkling in her white-knuckled grip. “Don’t stop,” It’s almost a whine, bitten back and forced into a grunt. You could die here, nose buried in her bush and tongue stuck to her clit, chin slipping through her wetness. Drown or suffocate. It’d be a hell of a way to go.

But she comes, eyebrows pinched and mouth wide, going stock-still and rigid until the tension snaps. Kate shakes through it, letting all of one moan loose before clamping her mouth shut, baring her teeth to hiss instead. Her hips buck, and you carefully move with her, intent on catching everything she gives, greedily lapping at her until she tugs your head back.

A wet sheen paints your upper lip to your chin, possibly your throat, and you stare, hands on her knees, up at Kate. Her chest rises and falls with heavy breaths, her eyes dark and color high on her cheeks. Mild carpet burn bites your knees, but you don’t dare move. 

It’s like that for a few minutes. Her hand loosens its grip to pet your hair, her breathing gradually leveling out. Her scent permeates the air and your skin. God, even if you never see her again after this, she’s a part of you now.

“Up,” She suddenly says, standing and gesturing to the bed. “Take off the rest, then on your back.”

You scramble, wincing at the pops of your knees, but she doesn’t seem to notice. The clasp of your bra works with you, unfastening easily, and you shiver when the damp gusset of your underwear slaps wetly against your thigh on the way off. She grabs bottled water from the nightstand instead, drinking deeply, looking away at the curtains covering the windows.

Turning around, she twists the cap and sets the water aside, licking her lip free of a stray droplet. The pink tip of her tongue enough to expel a sharp breath.

Peculiarly, she leaves her shirt on but joins you, crawling onto the bed with a smile that might’ve passed for soft if her eyes weren’t so sharp. She leaves barely any breathing space, draping a warm leg over yours and pulling it toward her. Her elbow rests beneath her, propping her up with a closed fist to her temple. Her other hand drifts from the crease of your thigh, over your stomach, and between your breasts. Head tilting, her tongue darts out again in apparent study, drinking you in. Her attention to the physical is just as reverent as it is in conversation. 

You cannot bring yourself to speak, afraid you’ll break the spell. But you twitch once, when her fingers ghost over a hard nipple, and she smirks.

“Yes?”

“Please,” You whisper, not too proud to beg, and reach for her hand. “Please touch me. I am so fucking—”

Kate tuts, freezing your hand’s approach, then softens it with a hushed laugh. “Impatient. If that’s what you want, then let me work.” She pinches the bud between her fingers, slowly maneuvering to her knees. “You were so sweet at the bar. Don’t tell me I’ve brought a selfish brat home.”

A frustrated groan slips out, stuttering into a whimper as she withdraws to sit on her heels. Your teeth catch your lip to silence another when she moves between your legs, not sparing a single glance to her prize. Her hands spider up your shins and down your calves. It’s torture, and she’s incredible at it. 

Never in your life have you been called a brat past childhood, and certainly not in the bedroom. It pokes at that earlier inkling, urges it out into the open, but you stubbornly smother it. Maybe you are—but you don’t want to be for her. 

“Kate, please,” you plead again. “Please, I just–I just got worked up when I–”

“Shh. I know. I’m being awfully rude. I’ll take care of you, pretty thing.” Kate purrs, finally lowering her gaze to your dripping center, and her lip curls. It’s calculated, the glacial speed with which she approaches your cunt. Situates herself nice between your spread legs, returning the favor of littering your shaking thighs with kisses, adding teeth into the meatiest parts. 

Her nails lightly comb south through your thatch of hair, two callused fingers tracing over either side of your sex. A third finger teasing a trail through the wet, before dipping into the first knuckle. “Fuck,” she gaps, marveling at the ease. “You weren’t kidding.”

Surely you’d think of a smarter comeback other than the nonsensical babble you stammer instead.

Your stomach twists into knots as a second finger joins the first, easing deeper, thumb hovering over your clit like a trigger. Her fingers move slowly and deliberately, but within seconds you’re taking them to the webbing. They crook and drag against your inner walls, coaxing a stream of needy sounds from your lips.

“Wish you could see yourself,” Kate rasps, voice a hair lower. Brow narrowed with rapt attention. “Think you can take three?” She chuckles at the breathy little in a minute you force out. “Good girl, telling me how it is.”

Her fingers start to scissor and stretch, thumb occasionally tapping your clit to see your hips jolt. Your eyes are rolled back into oblivion when her tongue makes contact, and they snap open so fast you need to blink away black spots. Your hands hover over her head, unsure if she’s—fuck, if she’s—

She unlatches from your clit, giving it a peck before nodding at your outstretched palms. As if all business, she sinks back into your cunt mouth-first and closes her eyes with a groan. Your pussy squeezes at the sight, a needy whimper accompanying your fingers as they thread through her hair, ruining her bun. 

Kate alternates between devouring your pussy and tongue-fucking your hole, showcasing an almost animalistic side to the controlled woman who charmed you at the bar. The sounds muffled by your thighs, so hungry and urgent, it’s almost too much. You suck your lip into your mouth as the heat flooding your abdomen steadily migrates.

“K-Kate, fuck, I’m close.”

With a wet pop, she lifts her head, face flushed and mouth drenched. Though you quietly protest, your orgasm dancing out of reach, you let a curse shrivel on your tongue. Her fingers slow to allow a third to prod at your hole. It’s a stretch, even as slick as you are. The two of you groan as she feeds them into you. She drops a kiss to your thigh once they’re in, gaze flitting up to read your face on the first languid push and pull.

“Yeah?”

“Y-Yeah, oh, oh fuck.” Your answer turns stupid at the insistence behind Kate’s renewed thrusts. The lewd, squelching sound drowns whatever shreds of coherency and possibly dignity you have left.

Her mouth returns, sawing your clit back and forth, applying pressure in tandem with the plunge of her fingers. 

If she minds the number you’re doing to her scalp, she doesn’t show it. Her hair comes undone under your desperate hands, trying to fuse your cunt to her jaw. Tit for tat, though maybe she thinks as you do, finding a warm and wet pussy a suitable demise. 

With deliberate timing, her fingers bury themselves, bullying through the tight clasp of your walls, and teeth graze your clit. They sever the last thread of control, and your vision whites out. Head tipped against the pillow and heels digging into the bed, you shatter, voice unrestrained and echoing through the hotel room. A sliver of embarrassment stitches through the silence after, the neighboring suites an afterthought.

Kate cleans you in the afterglow. Your legs twitch uncontrollably as a towel dips between your legs, brain too muddled to appreciate her undoubtedly flattering words. 

She climbs into bed after that, tucking the pair of you underneath the sheets. You guess you’re staying the night when she folds around you in a spoon. She sighs, deep and satisfied, breath tickling your ear. “Good?”

“Better than good.” A tired giggle ekes out, snuggling into the bedding. Your eyelids droop, your head blissfully swimming from the faint smell of Kate on your lips. You swallow, unable to stop yourself from sleepily asking, “What’s after this?”

Her lips press to your temple in a prolonged kiss. Long enough to make you think you made a mistake. Then she whispers. “Sleep. A shower. Then room service in the morning.” She must sense your unease, though, as she adds, “We’ll talk then.”

You nod, half-lost to slumber already, savoring the figure eights she traces on your side. 

In the morning, you wake to an empty bed and a knock on the door. One foot in post-sex sleep-induced delirium, you find a robe in the ensuite and greet an amused-looking hotel employee at the door. Cart in tow, they breeze past you, lifting a cloche from a mouth-watering breakfast and a small carafe of coffee.

“Do I need to…pay for this?” You ask, head as scrambled as the eggs on the plate. 

“No, it’s being charged to the room.” The man says as he unloads the cart onto the room’s table. He delays his departure, though, and you get the message. He leaves with the last of your cash, and you spot a note tucked under Kate’s pillow.

Sorry to leave you like this. Duty calls. Take your time with the room. No one will bother you beyond delivering breakfast. You can reach me at this number if you need a finger or three, again. - Kate

You snort and shove a piece of bacon into your mouth to distract yourself from the ache between your legs.

Later, you consider adjusting your age preferences up a bracket across your dating apps before deleting them altogether. You send a text, and it’s under a minute that three dots appear. 

>> Miss me already, kid?

simon doesn't indulge much in pet names. he would call you love often, you know like every other British person.

you don't mind because you love using pet names on him. babe is what you use most of the time. calling him baby and sweetheart works too. he'll appreciate any name you used on him. though you used pookie on him one time when you were feeling mischievous and in return he just gave you a nasty side-eye with a raised eyebrow, silently asking what the fuck did you just called me?

but in the rare times when you are cocooned by the blankets and simon's arms wrapped around you, when you are feeling a tad bit emotional you would say his name in a whispered voice like it's the most sacred thing. it's a reminder that he trusts you enough to tell his name. a proof of your hard work peeling off layer after layer of him.

Bravo 6-1

baby blues

John Price + the panic of fatherhood x reader

pregnancy. babies. soft. sappy. angsty. slight allusions to rough sex. John being possessive and smitten. allusions to childhood trauma. the fear of children is somehow more potent than the fear of god. girl dad John. mentions of Price's divorce lmao

Most assume he'd take to fatherhood like he'd been born for the role; handcrafted to cradle a swaddled babe in his arms. The perfect father figure. But as he hovers over your sleeping form, the little bundle nestled in the sleepy bracket of your arms, he's overcome with a sense of dread that punches hard enough to shatter bone.

The reality is this: Price doesn't understand kids. He wants them. Covets them with a viciousness that almost immediately sets alarm bells off in the heads of those who were opposed to the idea of children, parenthood. Giving birth. But when it comes to being a dad, a role model, an effigy to siphon wisdom and knowledge off of, he flounders. Hesitates.

All he has as an idea of fatherhood is bruises laughed off by the neighbours as him being a clumsy boy. A man who drank in the living room, silent in his fury, his belligerence, until something—anything, really—set him off. He always seemed like he was itching for a reason to punish.

And god, was he ever fucking good at it.

If anger issues are hereditary, then Price picked up the generational slack of his seething ancestors. 

It's this, and the plethora of scars and burns that decorate his skin (well hidden, tucked away like a dirty secret because if Old Man Price was anything, it certainly wasn't stupid; he knows how to hide the ugliness of himself away, and how to turn a boy into a punching bag without causing too much damage, too much alarm) that make him ache something fierce when he sees his chubby little child for the first time. 

Price doesn't know how to be gentle. All he has are worn, rough hands and a constant stench of smoke. A voice that makes grown men tremble. An ire unmatched thus far in his life. 

Until you. Little spitfire. His hellion. You stood on the tips of your toes just to tell him off for being a stubborn pig! and then taught him how to hold you. How to be tender. But even now, he can see the wear on your skin from his bites. His propensity for violence that he morphs into desire. Into lust. 

How is he supposed to be a dad when he's this caustic? This mean? 

The answer doesn't come. All he gets is the rhythmic sigh of your breath as you sleep, well and truly exhausted after giving birth to their child. All alone. A constant in your lives, it seems. Aloneness. His work takes him away, throws him into dangerous situations. And you carry the brunt of it. 

It caused the rupture of his first marriage and is a needling fear he carried with him when you started pursuing him some odd years ago. To think that he'd be standing here now, gazing down at you with your heavy eyes and your soft cheeks, rounded with the additional weight you gained during your early trimesters. A plushness he's trying to keep on you for good—all softened edges, flesh that gives when he touches you, marshmallows out between his fingers when he squeezes.

You look good like this. Motherhood, despite your misgivings (it took three years of him hinting and hounding you before you'd relented with a sure, what's the worst that could happen? We're terrible parents and raise a terrible kid? Or we end up the catalyst for a list of psychological issues and get reamed out during their therapy sessions later on in life?), suits you. Fits you like a glove.

A fact you'd been quietly overwhelmed by in the first few months, grieving the loss of something he couldn't ever understand, or experience. A piece of yourself morphing into the mother that raised you. A kaleidoscope of feelings that you choke on when he asks, unable to render them into coherent words. 

But you're good at that, aren't you? Good at culling expectations, at superseding the limits others place on you. Even him. 

Especially him. 

When he'd said, don't know what you're gettin’ yourself into, love, you took it to the chin like he challenged you to a brawl, and set out to show him why you knew what this was, what he was, and why it didn't matter much. 

Even now—

Giving birth all alone. Overcoming the isolation of being shackled to a man who married his post first. Sisterwife to his career. Second in all things. 

Even this. 

He was in Iceland when he got the call. Laswell, of all people, was on the other line telling him his own wife was in the delivery room. Water broke. Baby is on the way. 

And you—

Don't worry, old man. Just do what needs to be done and we'll be waiting. Always. 

—well. You certainly are. Alone in a hospital room with the curtains drawn to blot out the sun as you sleep, cradling this thing he made with his fingers shoved deep into your mouth, uttering foul under his breath as he crushed you to the bed, rutting you like an animal—the most tender he could ever be—and he's suddenly all too aware of his own inadequacies. His shortcomings. Failures. 

He's not a dad. He's not the sort of man people think about when they think healthy father figure. He likes cigars and whiskey, and sometimes aches for a mission that will let him cut his knuckles on teeth—bloodletting; exorcising his demons out on the people he's sanctioned to kill. How is he supposed to guide a child when he threw a man over a railing without a second thought—

The bundle stirs. Wrinkled, red face scrunching up tight. Little thing is just like you, huh? All softness and give. All—

They cry, and it's shrill. Loud. It jars him.

Not the sound, but the anguish he feels piercing through his chest as they bellow out their confusion to the world, this lost little thing. Strapped with a father who was beaten black and blue and told to be a man when he cried. 

But right now—anger is the furthest thing on his mind. He can't fathom that emotion when his child is whimpering in your arms, chubby little fingers grasping at the air. Seeking comfort. 

Waking you feels cruel when you've spent the better part of two days awake. Four, really. You couldn't sleep when the contractions hit, wide-eyed and worried about everything. What if something went wrong? If they hated you? What if you hurt them—

Worries he tried to assuage, but couldn't deny he felt them, too. 

All he knows how to do is hurt. But as he reaches down for this little thing squirming in your arms, he tells himself to be tender. To be the man his dad never was. 

And they're soft. So fuckin’ soft. Tiny, too. His hands dwarf them, engulfing them completely. He tries to blame the way he trembles on the denial of nicotine for so long, but the mist in his eyes, and the burn in his throat, call him a liar. He doesn't know what to do. Even with all the hours spent thumbing through manuals and books and scoffing under his breath at the parenting courses you dragged him to (but paid rigid attention to every word the heavily bangled woman said to him), he feels lost. Unsure. The ground is shaky. Control slips. And that's maybe the crux of it all—

Babies can't be controlled. And it's the loss of this, what makes him whole, keeps him steady, that has him feeling rubber-limbed and fawn-like. 

“Quiet, now,” he murmurs, and then winces at the rough drag of his voice in the silence of the room. Too firm, too forceful. All the gentleness he has in his bones was devoured by your greedy mouth when you cracked him open like the legs of a snow crab, marrow slurped up until he was hollow. Empty. His tenderness rests inside your belly. What else does he have to give—

But the warm bundle in his awkward, clumsy hold stops their shrill cries. A girl, he remembers you saying. Crying. Sobbing into the phone when he called, all ugly and gross. He heard you sniffle, snot undoubtedly dribbling from your nose as you wept to him about how fucking cute their baby was. Their little girl. 

She's soft. Smells of a newborn, too—something powdery. Sweet. Warmed milk, fresh bread. The clinical books that made you squeamish, the ones that outlined every anatomical and chemical change to your body, mentioned that newborns smelled distinct to each parent. A phenomenon meant to encourage protection and bonding. 

It made you shiver, muttering my little parasite under your breath, even as your hand curved possessively over your bulging belly. 

He knows that's what this is. Chemical. His mind is evolving, shifting. Changing. And it's then that he feels something hot thicken in his throat. Something ugly, and bitter. The scars on his knuckles, the cigarette burns on his fingers are a sharp reminder of what his father felt and ignored. 

He scoffs, then, irritated at himself. He's a grown man and still—

Still thinks of him. 

“Won't be like that,” he says, still rough. Still firm. She blinks up at him, eyes rheumy and wide. “Not with you.” 

Never. Never. He pins the word to his pericardium, letting it rot his tissue. He'd rather die, he thinks, than ever hurt this little girl. But despite that, he knows he will. Inevitably. Just like he does everything good—or bad—in his life. Leaching from the goodness of others, sucking them dry and letting them moulder. A disappointment everywhere except the battlefield where he screams himself hollow and rents the air with his ire. Incorrigible. Immovable. An object of cruelty. Unforgiving in all aspects. A curse that follows him home, into his marital bed when he pins you down, and makes you profess your love for the beast inside of him. Never satiated, never quelled, until you're shackled at his side. Tucked away from the world he knows is too cruel to people like you who end up a corpse he has to step over on his way for empty retribution. 

He thinks, too, about all the ways he's going to ruin this chubby little thing in his arms, and wishes, suddenly, he was a better man. 

“Gonna hate my fuckin' guts when you're sixteen, aren't you?” In response, this little thing just opens its red maw and blows bubbles. He huffs. “You're gonna be nothin’ but trouble, mm? Steal my car. Crash it because your mum's gonna teach you how to drive and she backed into the garage six times already. Gonna gang up on me. Both of you. Little nightmares.” 

He's not sure what else to say, and thinks, already, that he said too much. Bared his belly to her too soon. She'll have this memory, buried down in the deep recesses of her psyche of her father falling to pieces while he held her. An impossibility, he knows, but can't shake the feeling that this, in itself, is an epoch. A marker for what's to come. All the ugly, the hate. The screaming matches that make him curl his hand into fists as she levels his failures at him. Not to hit. Never to hit. But to stop the tremble that won't stop. That has already started. The shake in his joints that tell him to run before he hurts. Before he ruins this precious mass of his blood and your tissue in his arms. 

“Gonna—” he isn't crying. Isn't. But there's a thickness in his throat as he thinks about how quickly she'll grow up. Age marked in the crows feet that gather around your eyes. The laugh lines. “Gonna be a fuckin' menace, and I'll—” he chokes, then, when she reaches up with a pudgy, red fist and snags the strap of his vest he didn't even bother taking off before he fled here. Fat, tiny fingers curling into the spot he grabs to ground himself from lashing out. “Fuck.”

He'd burn the world for her, he knows. Sacrifice everyone and everything just to keep her warm. Both of you. It begins and ends with this little thing that has your eyes and his nose. 

But he doesn't know how to translate that into love. Into affection. 

It comes out caustic. Abrasive. Possessive. 

And he is. 

Now that he has her in his hands he knows that nothing else will ever compare. That they'll never be empty because she'll always fit in his palms no matter how big she gets. There's only ever been enough space in his heart for you. Chiselled into with a fuckin’ pickaxe because you wouldn't wait for it to grow on its own. 

But there's give, he realises. This domicile you carved yourself has a room attached. A place for her. And she fits like a glove. Sliding inside. Cocooned against his pulse. 

He loves her. Endlessly. Forever. She deserves better. More. 

But when he tells her this, she makes a noise and it sounds like a giggle. 

“Laughin’ at me already, mm?”

She giggles again, and he likes that her laugh is a little ugly. A little mean. 

“Scarin’ the wits outta me,” he confesses, shifting her weight as she occupies herself with the clasp of his vest, disinterested in the man that breaks into pieces around her now. “I don't know—fuck, I don't—”

You come to in a panic. It starts as a slow roll to the side before your eyes flash open, wide and furious even as sleep congeals in the corners, pawing at the empty spot where the lingering warmth of your child presses into your chest. Anger, fury, darkens over your brow, and the apoplectic rage that simmers in the gaps of your dread, your fostering panic, softens him. Makes him melt. The burn of your ire, your fear, liquifying his bones. 

He falls in love with you a little bit more at that moment. When the snarl rucks your upper lip up, up, teeth bared to the world as you whip your head around in frantic, desperate dismay, searching for the little girl he knows you, too, will burn the world for. 

“I've got her,” he says, whisper-soft and low. Cadence even, clear. Tries to quell the howl he can see hammering its fists against your throat before it rips from your lips and scorches the world around you in a hail of horrifying anguish. “She's safe.”

It says something when you immediately go still at the sound of his voice, muscles going lax, slack, as you slowly turn your head toward him, blinking against the fog clotting your vision. Something that cuts him to the core. Rents his chest in halves. One side for you, and the other for her. Nothing left to spare. 

This feeling brimming in his chest sweetens when you startle at the sight of him, them, lashes shuttering like an old camera as if you were trying to sear the image in your head forever. Branded on the back of your eyelids. (A sentiment he knows all too well considering the stream of photos added to his camera roll of you and her nuzzled together.)

“You—” your voice catches, breaks from sleep. Fatigue. You swallow, slowly licking your lips. “When did you get in?”

Your eyes are glued to them. Unblinking. Widened with pure affection, the intensity of which makes him want to touch you, hold you.

“A few hours ago,” he murmurs, glancing down at his—

It cuts a jagged line through his chest. Knicks his bone with how deep it goes. False starts pressed tight to his heart. 

—his daughter. Fuck’s sake. 

He's choked. Strangled. Rendered mute, immobilised. It guts him, this. Daughter. The ring of it echoes in his head, filling the recesses of his mind. Embedding itself within his head. Congealed over. Fixed in place. 

“I have a fuckin’ daughter,” he breathes at length, the air knocked from his lungs. He's not sure why this is what breaks him, but it does. And it's you, then, holding the fracturing pieces together, hands reaching out—in a startling mimicry of his daughter, and fuck, doesn't that just eviscerate him—and curling against the heaving brackets of his ribs, boxing him in. 

“John,” you say, but your voice wobbles. Wavers. When he peels his eyes away from the sleepy yawn she lets out long enough to look at you, there's tears flooding your lashline. Threatening to break. “Fuck,” you say, crass and beautiful, and he's overcome with the urge to tuck you into his other arm, keep you both cradled in his hands. “Don't make me cry or my stitches will tug.” 

“We've got a daughter,” he says again, just to hear it uttered aloud. We. Yours. His. It messes with him. Bludgeons into his core. “We've—”

“She's beautiful, isn't she?” 

Your words shatter him, but the pinch of your hands on his waist keeps him from buckling. 

“Yeah,” he rasps, voice thick. Ugly. It's mangled in his throat. All fractured and raw. “Just like her mother.”

He shows his affection in the burn of his embrace. In the way he holds you tight, refusing to let go. Keeps his words callous and firm. Soft utterances, declarations of love, tucked away in the sure, greedy way he clings to you in his sleep. Yields to you like no one else. Lets you in. 

And he supposes he ought to say it more often if the way your face crinkles up just like his daughter when she cried, tears spilling over your rounded cheeks. 

“Don't,” you heave, ugly and brittle, and he thinks you're the prettiest thing he'd ever seen in his life. “Don't or I'll rip my stitches—”

He huffs. Nods only once, and then steps toward you. “Do you want—?”

“Keep her for a little while,” you mutter, leaning back into the bed, eyes lidded by fond. So in love with him, the picture they paint, it's almost sickening. “She likes you.”

He snorts. “She's only three hours old. Give her time.” 

You're quiet for a beat. Pensive. Mulling something over. It's never a good thing when you're silent, and the unease that grows in his belly is justified when you heave out a long, tired exhale through your nose. 

The way you look at him is raw. “You're not your father, John.” 

And isn't that just the worst lie he'd ever heard.

He scoffs, then. Shifts his weight, still cradling his daughter tight to his chest. “Mm, 'dunno about that.”

“I do.”

“Jus’—” leave it. Keep going. Keep feeding him lies as he stands here and pretends that he wasn't a horrible bastard for wanting this from you. From taking it. Strapping you with a man who's always, always, one foot out the door—

“No.” You say, soft and sure. “You're not him. I know you're not because you're still here.”

“So was he.” 

You don't acknowledge the interruption. Content, it seems, to rattle off lies and half-truths into the stifling air. Your eyes close, the curve of your lashes leonine. Breathtaking.

“Do you want me to take her?” You ask instead of the multitude of things he can see piling behind your eyes. Some of the ugly. Jagged glass. Others powder soft. 

He shakes his head. “You need your rest,” it's a half-truth. Fatigue clings to you still, swathed in the purpling of your skin. The slow, heavy blinks you take to try and fight the tug of an artificial sleep. 

But the real reason is this:

He's just not ready to let her go. 

Thinks, viciously, suddenly, that if he does, this moment built between them in budding, liquid blue will cease forever. Severed too soon. She'll carry the same resentment in her heart he feels for his own father, and he'll die in a shallow pit thinking about how badly he wanted just a second longer. 

Generational, right? Trickle down hatred. Ancestral rage. It's what your grandma talks about sometimes over tea and fried bread, half disbelieving you brought a white man into her home, and making a show, a facade, of wisdom even though he spotted the how to raise a child notebook she hastily shoved into the kitchen drawer when you arrived. Taking over in place of your own mother, stepping up. And yet—

She just doesn't get it, you said, rubbing your hands over your belly when she steps away after another long-winded conversation about traditions, spirits, and dead languages. Raising a child like yours in a world like this. She's just. I don't know. Ignore her. 

(He doesn't. But you don't have to know that.)

So. He clings to her a little tighter. Holds her a little firmer. Brings her close to his chest and hopes she can hear the echo of his heartbeat and know that this tired, old song is just for her. 

(The heart itself for you—)

And maybe—

Maybe he's not quite ready to see you be a mother. Some perverse part of him is already trembling at the promise of watching you nurture and feed her, the tantalising whisper is enough to make the air in his lungs turn humid, sticky. Tar, you remind him sometimes, having seen the ugly spatter of black in the grainy photos the doctor in Hereford likes to shove at him. Never too late to reverse the damage, John. 

Or maybe he wants you for himself just a moment longer. An hour. A day. When you're still you, shackled and bound to a man who reeks of stale tobacco, and started sneaking cigarettes in the dead of night like some pimply, awkward teenager when you first came to him, cheeks wet and eyes wild, and said:

“John, I'm—”

Pregnant. 

He did it, of course. Put that baby in you. Made it with his teeth buried into your throat and your hips canting up to meet him, taking everything he had to offer. Animal aggression. Nothing tender in the way he chewed you up, made you beg him for it. But still—

Wanting and having are worlds apart, aren't they? 

Faced with it, the consequences of his actions, he's at a standstill. 

You hum, and when your eyes slide open, he feels the mallet against his head. Cracked open. You fossick about until you find what you're looking for. Cheeky fuckin’ thing—

“Fine. Just pull up a chair before you keel over, old man.” 

“M’fine,” he grouses in that voice that serves as a dice roll between making you feel hot or homicidal depending on the mood he catches you in. Muttering something under your breath that sounds like a whispered plea for guidance (“tss, gimme strength.”)

But even with the waspish denial, he's inching closer to the spare chair left in the corner, looping his ankle around the leg to slide it closer. The squeal of rubber on aluminium makes him grimace, eyes darting down to his sleeping girl, nestled in his arms. Her brow pinches in the same way your grandma’s do when she's annoyed by the news. Her bingomates. The way he refuses her offering of burning tobacco and lemongrass whenever he goes away for a while, unable to really commit to this little, broken family that feels more like home than his own ever did. 

(“aint my place,” he says, and she scoffs. 

“fuck, s'matter wit’cha?” is her counter, the harsh line between her brows now perfectly superimposed on his daughter’s face. “tss. ain't yer place, eh. are you tryna piss me off? fuck, you make me mad—”)

He sees that spitting anger in you. Generational, he knows. The same inherited attitude his daughter will inevitably have. The one that singles him out as an outlier. Outnumbered. Three, now, to one—

There's got to be a reason why his chest bubbles, innervated by the thought of a Sunday dinner when she's old enough to watch her grandma make intricate bracelets, necklaces, earrings, and pins with thread and glass beads as you, her mother, cuss at the stove that doesn't burn as hot as it used to, flipping over golden dough in a sizzling pan. 

Orange juice in old cups your grandma kept since the nineties. Something soft playing on the radio. The peeling, waterlogged wallpaper flakes off the wall when you slam the pan down too hard. The way the spill of the sun through the rusting window rents the room in half. Pale yellow and oak. Little orange blossoms in soft pink above the speckled granite countertops. Everything awash in a gossamer of sleepy-eyed affection. 

Just like it is now. But—

He looks down at her, head full of lead. Cotton. 

Complete, maybe. 

“Don't know how to be a dad,” he confesses to you, and thinks of how much easier it is to slam a sledgehammer into a metal door than it is to peel back the veneer sometimes. “Don't want to mess up.” 

“You'll be fine.” 

The crinkle of the plastic mattress, the scratch of the sheets sliding across the bed is louder now than it was before. He cuts the gentle sounds with an abrading hum that clicks off his teeth. 

“Get some sleep,” he says again instead of the awful truth that buoys in his throat. Things like you don't know and I tricked you this whole time into thinking I'm a good man and look what you’ve let me do to you. “You need it.” 

Another noise. In his periphery, he watches you lean back against the upright pillows, lips parted on a soft sigh. He feels—

Small, then. An oxymoron considering he has to duck his head to get in and out of the room, towering over most he meets daily. But the inadequacies gut him. Vivisect him. He should be more comforting to you, he knows. This whole thing has been difficult. Tiresome. Cut into and having the life you grew inside of you cut out—

“Did good,” he rasps, still staring down at her even as he pulls the chair as close to your bed as he can get. “With her.” 

You snort. It's inelegant. Ugly. Brittle, like you're holding back tears. 

When he glances up, he finds that you are. “You're strong,” he adds, and knows he should have started with this first. “Doin’ this all on your own.” 

“I had help.”

It's awkward trying to adjust himself in the seat with his daughter perched in his arms, but he finds a way. Settled, then, with her still sleeping away, he lifts his hand from her back, keeping her cradled in his arm with the other, and reaches for you. 

The starchy sheets catch on the bramble of hair on his knuckles, the back of his hand, and the static jolts tickle against the rough scar tissue thickened over his knuckles, some still fresh, scabbed from the latest mission he'd been deployed to. You watch him, misty-eyed and tremulous, as he draws nearer, eyes flickering like a pendulum between the bundle nestled on the thick of his arm, to him, watching you back. Greedily taking in every spasm, every blink. 

Something inside of him cracks. Softens. He thinks, breathless, that you've never been as beautiful to him as you are right now. Bubbles of snot in your nose. Eyes reddened, dropping from exhaustion. A dizzying mess. The sort that speaks of tireless work, of physicality. Muted pain brimming in the backs of your eyes when you pull on your stitches. 

“Got a pretty wife,” he says, and it's not enough. He knows it isn't. Looks away before the fracture lilt to his tone breaks him in two. “And—” it's hard to say. He forces himself to. “And a beautiful daughter.” 

The tears stream down your face at this quiet, clumsy admission. 

“Don't—” you sniffle, hoarse. “Or I'll tear my stitches.”

“M’not doin' anythin’, love.” 

“Fuck you, John—”

He leans back in his chair with a hum, eyes slipping shut. A brief respite amid the panic still clinging tight to his ribcage. “Love you too.” 

It's quiet. Nothing but the soft drag of each breath his daughter takes, the tremulous sniffle you give as you try to dam the tears sliding down your cheeks. His heart hammering in his ears. He commits it all to memory. Glueing it to the fibrils of mind where it'll stay, embedded in tissue, for as long as he is of sound mind. 

Much like the grainy, black-and-white ultrasounds stuffed in his breast pocket. Tucked inside the drawer of his desk where he keeps the pictures of you. Keepsakes he's unnecessarily possessive over, elbowing the rowdier men who try to needle him for sparse information on the little wife he hides at home and the baby they'll never meet. Something just for him. Unshareable to the rest of the world because they don't deserve you. 

The feathered snores tell him you're finally asleep, and he thinks about resting for a moment as well—the bone-deep exhaustion he feels jetting from Iceland to home, to the hospital catches up to him with a vicious kick to temples—but the weight in his arm keeps him awake. Hyperviligent. 

There's this urge clawing at him, making ruins of his chest, and he answers its worried insistence by opening his eyes just a sliver to stare down at the little bundle in his arms only to find she's staring back at him. Eyes wide. Comically too big for her chubby face. 

She has your complexion, but his dark curls. Her eyes, though, are the perfect equilibrium between pools of sapphire, burnt blue, marbled with the dark gleam, that vibrant shade of yours that he's so fond of, the one that's often accompanied by a smart-ass remark. Seeing it gaze up at him with such incipient adoration knocks the air from his lungs. Has his heart shuddering in the brackets of his chest. 

It's love, he thinks first. Instantaneous. Apodictic. And then, cold, callous—

Chemical. 

Just to hurt himself, maybe. Just to let it cut deep. Scar. Because as he stares down at her, he knows it doesn't matter. No amount of hatred, of anger, will ever rip her away from him. His daughter. His family. His.

Like her mother. The root of it all. The catalyst. The start. 

Shackled to this gaping chasm that devours endlessly, never satiated. Always starving. 

Needy. Full of greed. 

Because even now he covets. Craves. Muses to himself about how he can convince you to have another the moment the opportunity arises and you're healed. Whole. Aching for it. 

He wasn't joking when he said he wanted a football team. 

But for now—

The soft sighs you make in your sleep, ones that almost sound like his name, and the comforting weight of his daughter in his arms are enough to make the beast inside purr. Preening under its own conquest, its own victory of successfully turning your body into a home he can rest his weary head on. Sacrosanct. 

He looks at her, then, and feels the dread ease into pride. Into elation. An emotion he knows should have come first, but it's here now, and that's all that really matters.

“Gonna be trouble,” he grouses, watching her pink mouth gape wide, blood-red maw grinning up at him in delirious glee only babies can imbue. Unhindered by the ruination of the world around them. Unfettered. 

Something he couldn't protect you from, but knows you're both on the same wavelength when it comes to her. At all costs, you'd said, hand against the burgeoning swell. And he kissed you until he couldn't feel his lips anymore. Until all he tasted, all he knew, was the taste of you.

“Of the best kind, though, mm?” 

In response, she coos. And he hews the sound into his chest where it sits beside the brand of when you first said, i love you, too, John. 

So, he relaxes. Whispers soft, conspiratorily. "Think you might need'a brother, mm? What'd you say about that?"

And she giggles.

Thinking about professor!Ghost and his stupid motorcycle, abs how he definitely isn't stalking the hot Anthropology professor but he does notice she hasn't left the parking lot at her usual time so he goes to check what's up with that. And when he finds out someone let the air out of not one but two of her tires, thus rendering her one spare useless, he offers her a ride home. Something he never does, because he doesn't like carting people around he likes going fast and not worrying about cargo, but he settles next to Love's car and offers her a ride home. He does tell her to stay put while he runs to his office for his extra helmet and when she finally gets it in her hands she tells him,

"Its pink," with a sort of soft smile that melts his heart, he just grunts and responds,

"I thought you liked pink."

Which is immediately met with laughter like bells and a smile that feels a lot more genuine as she pulls the full face helmet over her head. She steps close to the bike and Ghost stops her to check that the helmet is on right, his gloved fingers skirting under her chin to make sure the strap is on tight. He offers her a hand, holding the bike steady as she climbs on behind him, and he's maybe a little too eager when her arms wrap around his middle and squeeze.

Ghost's never liked feeling a helmet against his shoulder, but somehow when it's her it's tolerable. Somehow he doesn't want to go as fast, meandering down the streets until she taps his thigh and Ghost feels all his blood rush south. He stops in front of her flat and helps her climb off, staring a little too much at the way she swings her leg over his bike until she's fiddling with the helmet and again he reaches out to help.

She shakes her hair out with a smile as soon as it's off and offers the helmet back. Ghost doesn't have a good reason to tell her he got it for her, so he takes it back and watches her make her way inside. He can still feel the squeeze of her arms around him. Maybe he should make a move.

they are going through scottish highlands on google street view