Simple Math / Part Fifteen

YOU AND GHOST MAKE UP AFTER A FIGHT

I uh...kinda got carried away on this one. 18+ minors dni.

➼ you're fighting over something stupid, but both of you are stubborn as hell and won't let it go. the walls of your apartment shake as you slam the door behind you, and you can hear Simon's exasperated groan even through the door as you storm down the stairs

➼ it's late when you come back, the living room and kitchen empty. the door to your bedroom is closed, and the lights are dimmed. you debate sleeping on the couch, but fuck it, it's your bed too

➼ though simon doesn't look up from his book as you close the bedroom door behind you, you can feel his eyes dragging over you as you pull your shirt over your head, drinking in the bare skin of your back, the curve of your waist where it flows into your thighs. you hear a strangled mix of a sigh and a hiss leave his mouth as you pull your pajamas on, his eyes snagging on the lace hem when you turn to throw your clothes in the hamper

➼ you forcefully pull the sheets back, slipping into bed and tightening your jaw. simon glances up from his book, the left side of his lips pulled up, and you send him the darkest glare you can muster.

"this doesn't mean anything, simon," you snap, rolling away from him to switch your lamp off, "it's my fucking bed too." simon only chuckles, marking a page in his book and turning off his lamp, plunging the room into darkness.

➼ you lay in silence angrily, as far away as you can get from simon. you take deep breaths, trying not to revel in the warmth that simon exudes. though you hate to admit it, it's colder than you thought without being wrapped in his arms.

➼ you hear sheets rustle and suddenly, simon's chest is pressed against your back, head tucked in the crook of your shoulder, stubble scratching your neck.

"missed you today," he whispers, hands settling on your hips, dragging higher and bringing your top with them, "missed you so fucking much angel." you set your jaw again, hating how only the brush of his against your skin could get you so riled up, could get your resolve cracking.

➼ you don't respond, but your body sinks back into his, goosebumps erupting across your ribcage as his hands travel higher. you knew where this was going the second his fingers reached the hem of your shirt, but you still gasp softly as his huge, callused hands cup your breasts, rolling your nipples between his fingers.

"fuck you, simon riley," you try to hurl the words at him, but they come out as whine, your back arching as you lean towards his hands, chasing the stimulation. he groans, cursing under his breath as he slips his bare leg between your thighs. "i know," he groans, "i know, i'm sorry, lovie, let me make it up to you, please..." his voice his low, husky, desperate, one of his hands trailing downwards to land on your hip.

➼ his hand guides your hips as you roll them against his thigh. it's slow and messy, his low voice and the darkness only making you leak harder on his leg. you're moaning freely now, clenching desperately around nothing, head thrown back, landing on simon's chest. he's not in a better state, rutting against you, unable to stop the groans and swears that leave his mouth.

"you're a piece of shit," you gasp as you turn around, pressing your lips to simon's. he kisses you back desperately, still moving your hips against his as his tongue sweeps across yours. "i know, i know," he gasps against your lips. his hands are shaking as he pulls your shirt off, pulling you close to his chest, letting your nipples rub against his faded t-shirt. but it's not enough. "off," you moan, pulling at the hem of his shirt. you pull it off together, relishing in the skin-to-skin contact. you loop your arms around his neck to give you better leverage, rolling your hips harder. simon's lashes flutter as his head drops back, mouth falling slack.

➼ his hand creeps underneath the waistband of your sleep shorts, cupping you as you rut against his hand. he thumbs your clit, watching through heavy-lidded eyes as your thighs start to shake, a blush creeping down your neck and chest.

"si," you gasp, and he bites his lip at the sound of his nickname, "think- think I'm gonna-" "cum for me," his voice is halfway between a growl and a whine, he's so desperate, he's about to cum in his boxers like a fucking teenager just from grinding against you and the thought only makes him whine, ducking his head into your neck.

➼ you cum hard, all over simon's hand and wrist, thighs trapping him between your legs. he drags your lips into a messy kiss, thumb rubbing tight circles on your clit until you whine from overstimulation and push his hand away. he brings his hand to his mouth, eyes rolling back in his head as he sucks you off his fingers.

➼ you lie there together in silence, one of simon's arms thrown over your waist as you catch your breath, forehead resting on his scarred chest. his fingers toy with your hair idly.

"i am sorry, you know," he whispers, pressing a kiss to your forehead. you look up at him with a soft smile on your lips, pressing a kiss to the back of his free hand. "i know," you whisper back, "i'm sorry too. it was a stupid fight." simon tilts your chin up, huge hand cupping your jaw as he kisses you, slow and soft and sweet. "though," you start, speaking against his lips, "if this is how we make up, maybe we should fight more often." simon throws his head back and laughs, a true, full-bodied laugh. you press a butterfly kiss to the tip of his nose before pushing the blankets back and padding to the bathroom. simon groans, both at your absence and at the glare of the bathroom light, propping himself up on his elbows and throwing an arm over his eyes. "come back," he groans, blinking in the harsh light. you shake your head with a little hum, starting the shower. "nope. we both need a shower. a clean, sinless shower," you emphasize as simon pulls himself out of bed with a smirk, making a face as he pulls off his ruined boxers. he wraps you in his arms, tucking his head into the crook of your shoulder as steam starts to fill the bathroom. his hands are greedy as they trace over your bare skin, and he drinks in your giggles like wine. he can't believe how in love he is. "no promises," he whispers in your ear, tucking a strand behind it and leaving a kiss on the arc of your shoulder. you playfully shove him back into the shower, laughing harder as he pulls you in after him.

➼ all in all, it's a pretty good way to make up after a fight.

who put feelings in my porn????

Nightmares

kyaaaa I'm late to vampire school *runs out while holding a dude by the neck in my mouth*

Road-tripping with Dad!141 <3

Warnings: Mentions of snacks/eating, GN reader!

Kyle wakes you up at 5:30 on the dot with a hot travel mug in hand, already filled to the brim with your favorite hot beverage fixed up just the way you like it. This man already has a comfy outfit picked out for you to wear, with a sweatshirt of his own as an option if you get cold. While you go to wake the kids up, he stocks the minivan with their favorite snacks as well as yours and his own, blankets, chargers, plushies, etc. 

     Kyle giggles when he sees the kiddos dressed to match you, happily strapping them into their car seats. He grins and sings along to the cheesy soundtracks they insisted he put on as soon as the wheels hit the main road. He holds your hand when you start to doze off, stealing glances at your peaceful face and the children passed out in the back through the rear view mirror. Definitely enjoys taking the roads with prettier views, even if it takes longer and it means more bathroom stops. 

     Simon is also an early bird, but he’s the one to go get the kids dressed and ready while you sleep in. Once they’re awake and hyper as ever, he lets them wake you up by jumping on the bed and giggling in your ears. With you awake and in a good mood (contrary to if he had been the one to wake you), he gives you a kiss on the forehead and goes to pack up the truck. He peels and cuts all the fruit, cheese and other treats and places them into snack boxes, leaving them out for you to pack into the cooler. Since he does all the "heavy lifting," he leaves you to put the kiddos in their car seats (like he doesn't make giant children).

     Simon is absolutely the CEO of the Dad Grab™. As soon as he hears one of the kiddos opening up their snack box, the cupped hand goes back like second nature. If they dare to complain he gives them the blankest stare in the rear view until they dramatically sigh and place the food in his palm. He prefers to take the quickest route, but if one of his babies begs him to go see the pretty trees, who is he to say no? He makes sure everybody gets a turn to hear their favorite music on the radio. He will also 100% make you feed him even though he has a free hand—he’d just rather keep it planted on your thigh. 

     Johnny refuses to wake up early, not when he’s on leave. He’s big on sleeping in, perfectly content to cuddle you until you’re screeching at him that you’ll all be late. While you’re dressing the kids, he’s brewing coffee for the both of you and munching on a protein bar. The kiddos’ snacks are already in a cooler in the fridge (because you know how your husband is), and the back of the 4Runner is packed with all of the luggage (you made him do it the night before because, again, you know your husband). 

     Johnny insists on being the passenger princess because he’s jus’ so sleepeh, and pouts when you glare at him while all the kids dangle from a different one of your limbs. That look is enough for him to get into gear, helping you get the children into their car seats and plopping into the driver’s side while you settle into the passenger’s seat. Like Kyle, he’s a big fan of singing along to his kids’ favorite songs, albeit more obnoxiously until they (and you) are begging him to take it down a notch. If the children are asleep, he’ll try to cop a feel with only a 50% success rate.  

     John is another early riser, and he likes to wake you up with gentle kisses to your neck and the side of your face. The kids get to sleep in while the two of you prep the snacks and get the truck loaded. He helps you wake and dress the children, getting them settled into their car seats with their favorite toys. He brings earplugs and a neck pillow for you if you want to get some rest, assuring you that the kids will be fine and he’ll wake you if anything happens. 

     John is another Dad Grab™ fiend, tickling the kiddos’ knees until they give in and plop a snack into his palm. He’s not picky with music, happy to let you or the children decide, but he does prefer to turn the radio off when everyone’s awake and alert so that he can explain the history behind all the different landmarks as you pass them—he chooses the longer route for that very reason. He loves to hold your hand while he drives so he can bring it up to his lips and kiss your knuckles without taking his eyes off the road.

Thanks to my bestie @xoxunhinged for helping me with these ;)

Y/N: Simon and I are so close we even share a toothbrush! Simon: we what

Smoke and Mirror🪞

🌘Night routine: act 1

Hi, this might be a strange request, but could you please do some sort of character analysis, or maybe tell some of your headcanons for the 141 characters??

I’ve been trying to find some, but everything I find is either weirdly out of character or just some sort of weird projection onto the characters 😭

Not strange at all, anon! It just occurred to me that, for a blog dedicated to Ghost, I’ve never done something like this. Also, I understand what you mean, but it’s also important to remember that headcanons are extremely subjective. Maybe the same applies to my case, and someone also finds my headcanons out of character; who knows?

Please note that I can’t say much about the other boys since I’ve only focused on Ghost, so here are some of my headcanons (i.e. that’s how I personally imagine Ghost):

He’s your average, ordinary guy on the outside. Sure, he is stereotypically attractive (tall, beefy, with a deep voice), but so are a billion other people in this world. There’s nothing extraordinary about him, which is precisely what makes him so intriguing.

I like to imagine his personality similarly to how he wears his uniform—layer, under layer, under layer. You want to peel him like an onion; uncover what lies beneath the surface.

He’s extremely pragmatic and values function over form. It doesn’t matter if something looks bad/ugly/weird as long as it gets the job done. If it works, it works.

Moderation gives him a sense of discipline. He wants to control everything that’s within his ability to do so—managing what food he puts in his body, regulating his alcohol intake, handling finances, and even carefully choosing his words. It helps him maintain his sanity, knowing he has control over his life, especially considering what he went through.

He’s also incredibly efficient. He doesn’t waste time on things that aren’t important or beyond his control.

He’s not a gym rat (he doesn’t regard it as a second home), but he’s definitely a regular. The gym owners are familiar with him, though their interactions are brief—maybe they exchanged a few words to renew his membership in the past, but that’s about it.

He tends to stick to the free-weight section at the gym. If it’s crowded, he’ll put on his headphones to tune everything out, but if it’s quiet, he doesn’t bother. While he doesn’t use the machines often, he’ll turn to them occasionally, particularly when he needs more controlled movement.

Warming up before exercising is particularly important to him, and he takes his time to stretch afterwards, usually in an isolated corner of the gym. He never skips leg day.

He is not a flirt. Usually, it’s others who pursue him rather than the other way around. It’s almost like he has it too easy in that department. He doesn’t have to make much effort—he simply goes about his business (occasionally checking his surroundings for potential dangers,) and suddenly, people gravitate towards him. He’s not a fan of this attention but keeps it to himself.

He engages in a flirtatious exchange almost every day with the elderly lady who manages the convenience store in his neighbourhood, though. He often compliments her on her hair and how young she looks and sometimes jokes that if her late husband were still around, he’d have some competition. She, in return, offers him freebies, which he politely declines. However, he sometimes accepts these gestures in exchange for lending a hand with tasks around the store.

His apartment is modest since he travels a lot, yet he considers it his personal haven when he returns to it. He deliberately keeps it free of any traces of his alternate identity. There’s a family photo framed somewhere. Even his dad included. Maybe he considered cutting him out of the picture but decided against it. He wants to be reminded of both the positive and negative experiences that influence his decisions and actions.

He likes to make his own jokes. They mostly come to him when he does something mundane, like cooking, showering, or watching TV. He doesn’t take offence if others don’t laugh at his jokes, though. He simply views them as idiots or lacking a sense of humour.

He opts for public transport only when needed, like during heavy traffic, but that doesn’t mean he likes it. He keeps his back against the wall and doesn’t wear headphones since he wants to be aware of his surroundings.

He breaks fights if he stumbles upon them late at night and calls the police. When the officers arrive, he is the first to talk to them and usually scolds them for not getting there faster.

I don’t think he wears his mask when he’s out and about. In my mind, Simon Riley is different from Ghost. If someone manages to connect the dots, he’ll make sure it’s the last time they do so. For him, good people don’t know who Ghost is. Only bad people do.

He wants to extend his sleeve tattoo further up his arm but struggles to find the time to schedule an appointment with his tattoo artist. Yes, he has a trusted tattoo artist.

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.

I just wrote 8 pages when I haven't written in months and was beginning to think I'd never be able to again. Idk what it is, but I am sharing and manifesting this energy for every writer who sees this. May you write 8 quality pages effortlessly and find joy writing once more

Ghost and reader car sex... 😮‍💨🥴

i used to have a mini cooper and for some reason when i seen this my mind went to fucking him in that tin can of a car lmaoooo someone shut me upppp

but anyway it happens nearly every time you pick him up from the airport, it’s like a routine. his cock twitches just at the sight of your text message popping up, telling him you’re outside waiting. it’s always about ten minutes in to the drive, his hand grips onto your thigh, mouth-dryingly close to your groin, and without a word he’s nodding towards a small dirt track — one of the many locations he mentally notes as another place to take you to and ruin you. it’s never even seconds after the engine is switched off and he’s unbuckling your seatbelt, sucked onto your neck like a silly man starved, hurling your legs over his and showing you just how much he missed you.

and let’s not even talk about that after date night car sex. where it’s unexpected, yet influenced by the tension that’s been built between you through the night. he can barely keep his hands off, groping and grabbing any bit of skin he can, whilst he’s still trying to focus on getting you both home alive. if you’re wearing a skirt or a dress, something with easy access to your cunt, he’s shoving your thighs apart, the pads of his fingers rubbing circles over your clit. his other hand gripped so tightly around the wheel, you swear his knuckles might break through the skin. but it doesn’t stop him from slipping a finger or two in you, and then proceeding to suck them clean when he pulls his car off the road, exits the drivers side and runs to yours. before you’re even fully out, the rear door is open and waiting, and he guides you to where he wants — bent over. face squashed against the leather seats, your bare ass exposed to elements, and then simon just falls to his knees and devours you.