Thinking About Omega!Soap And Omega!Reader Being Each Other’s Biggest Defenders. They Bond Heavily

hey me thoughts about simon hitting on a stranger somewhere and it works except whenever she comes back out all disheveled and sticky soap thinks it's the perfect time to shoot his shot too (nothing sloppy about those seconds, honey) and ghost has to be like wait that's actually my wife

BOJACK HORSEMAN | Original release: August 22, 2014

peristalsis - viii - epilogue

selkie!soap x reader. strangers to "lovers." rebirth. mommy issues. semi-public sex. breeding season. smut. pregnancy reference. the end. . Running away from life to the Scottish Hebrides, you meet a man who won't leave you alone. . Masterlist. Ao3.

previous

Your pelt is not the same as Johnny’s.

Its greys are subtler than his paint-splash riot; nearly a solid dove, sparsely freckled with dots of charcoal. It’s lighter in your hands than you think a second skin should be—sometimes it feels so gauzy, so filmy, that you fear to tear it simply by wrapping it around your waist.

(Where it belongs.)

You can’t bear to part with it. You must be touching it at all times, fingers idly rolling a few soft strands of fur, palms smoothing out the wrinkles over your lap. Sometimes you find yourself staring at it, never knowing how long you have been until you come out of the trance with a jolt, neck aching and stomach growling.

You have no idea how Johnny went without his for even a day—the thought of ever putting yours down feels like abandoning a days-old infant.

Truly, though, the real infant is you.

The world touches your senses as if they are brand-new. Every sound is sharper. Every color is brighter. The world has come into focus in such a way that you are surprised you ever thought you could see it clearly before—nothing blurs in the periphery anymore.

It’s as if you have been completely reset. Every nerve ending tuned toward decadence. Everywhere you look, you find something that captivates you.

It makes you dizzy with rapture.

He is terribly amused by it, Johnny. He’s amused by all of it. As you settle into your new self, he watches you quiver and shake on new, coltish legs, and grins amiably at your frustration, quick to smooth over your frustration with his mouth on yours.

He’s been through it, after all. More than once, even—he has two resurrections, to your one.

And you’re quick to accept the appeasement he offers. Your appetites now yawn wide for anything you can fit inside of them, and you are voracious. You bite at him when he kisses you, which only makes him laugh more, and then he drags you down to the floor to rut like he knows you need to.

“I’m going to kill you someday,” you snarl at him, more than once, held against him back to front. “You did this to me, you fucking asshole.”

He grinds his cock deeper into you every time, touching some hidden nerve that has you clenching desperately around him, writhing with every limb as he laughs into your ear. “I could always pull out, bonnie, y’want me to do that?”

You claw at his naked hips behind you with the sharp tips of your nails, digging trails into the sheen of sweat coating his skin. “I’ll fucking kill you if you do.”

You’ve hissed and spat for too long to remember how to speak gently to him, but Johnny takes it in stride. He fits his teeth around your neck and cups the soft parts of your body with hands that can’t seem to get enough of the way your flesh spills between his fingers; when you spasm around him, howling your climax, he wrenches you against him with an iron grip and finishes deep inside of you moments later with a torn moan, thighs and hips hot and flush along your backside.

You threaten to castrate him if he pulls out anytime soon after. He kisses the indentations of his teeth and smooths his spread hand over your belly.

You end up with him, like this, more often than not. He always chuckles at your antics, your clenched teeth, the red lines and half-moons you leave on his back and thighs. Less with amusement than satisfaction—because these days, you don’t walk around without the bruises of his grasp painting your flanks, or the arch of his bite etched into your neck.

He’s been alone, too. He was alone from the start. All of a sudden awake to the world, unsteady with awareness, and so hungry all the time it must have felt like he could never be full—

And he hadn’t had anyone, not like you have him, to hold him in the throes of it.

You catch a look in his eyes, every now and again, and see the echoes of that time. It glints like a shard of sea glass catching rare sun beneath a wave. Dulled edges—he can think of it without hurting anymore. He can remember the craving without succumbing to its dissatisfaction, without falling into the gall welling in his stomach at the injustice of it. This was not always the case, but watching you, now, balms the ache in a way nothing before ever had.

You know this without his needing to explain, and you know it like scenting petrichor in the air. All you have to do is meet his gaze, and you know.

And he knows, too. Everything. You cannot see him without him seeing you, and he’s been looking at you with the kind of eyes you now possess for much, much longer. There is no depth within yourself that you can hide from him in.

He can look at you and know you’re hungry. He can watch the way you wave one hand and know you’re antsy. You can begin a sentence, and he knows the end of it without you having to finish.

It can only flay you to the bone. You are known. From the best to the worst parts of you, Johnny knows them like he knows the creases in the palms of his own hands. He knows the yawning chasm in you that near-overflows with your want, and he does not hesitate once at the precipice on his way to diving into it.

It pulls your jaw tight. You can only shudder with fever at the exposure, and reach for him. Again and again. Swallowing his laughter down like medicine.

John Price, when he finds out, heaves an enormous sigh of relief even your newly-heightened senses couldn’t see coming.

Your new vision peels back the gruffness. The gaze he has fixed on you, this whole time, has not been the apprehensive criticism of a lover’s apathetic friend. Instead, it is the concerned look of a stranger, one who gives a damn about what happens to a woman all alone on a side of the world to which she, until very recently, did not belong.

It had been invisible to you before; a wavelength of color your old eyes were unable to perceive. Now, you see so much of him that you wonder how you could have possibly missed it.

You see his exhaustion. His own loneliness, in self-imposed exile, one eye always on a man he fears will find a convenient cliff to jump off of in a fit of despair. You see sleepless nights, and notice for the first time a gold band on his ring finger, scuffed, in need of a good polish—if only he would take it off long enough to clean it.

“I’m sorry,” you say to him, out of nowhere, meeting the cool blue of his gaze. He doesn’t seem surprised at your understanding. He only nods.

“Ain’t been easy,” he allows.

But now you’re here. He’s not the only one Johnny has anymore. You can see the weight lift from him the moment you tell him you’re staying.

He goes to his office at the back of the pub with a lightened stride and returns, a little while later, with a stack of papers in his hand that he drops on the bar in front of you.

“Take care of the place,” he tells you with a heavy pat to your shoulder. “And don’t let Soap off easy. I’m going home.”

Price leaves you there with the deed to the pub and a casual wave over his shoulder. You do not see him again—though he’s left his phone number in one of the margins.

“Oh, aye?” Johnny says when you tell him, later that night as he’s boiling lobsters for dinner.

He doesn’t respond for a laden moment. You watch your report pass over him like a gentle wave; you see where it could build, where it could swirl up into something bigger, harder, angrier—but it doesn’t.

His back tightens, and then loosens, and he turns to grin at you over his shoulder.

“Barry, there’s a wall in there I’ve been dyin’ to knock down, and he wouldnae let me. Place is too claustrophobic, ask me.”

You arrange the silverware, letting his placidity wash over you.

About a week later, you drive Johnny’s truck somewhere with cell service, and call your mother.

The landscape of her emotions changes as rapidly as an ocean storm; elation and relief, to finally hear your voice. Hope when she asks you when you’re coming home. Confusion—when you tell her you aren’t.

Johnny explained it.

“We canna go far from the ocean, hen. Not for long. It won’t feel…right. I’ve tried. You get an itch, ken? You can ignore it at the start. But it willna go away, and it willna be denied, either. It’ll drive you mad if you don’t go back. So you canna stay away.”

And you’d known immediately what he’d meant—

You can feel it on the edge of the periphery. A lodestone in your belly points in its direction, always. You could close your eyes, start walking, and find yourself on the shore, pelt already in your hands. Sometimes, you find yourself waking in the middle of the night with the sound in your ears, legs twitching restlessly. You feel too hot and too cold at the same time, and thirsty, all over your body rather than just in your throat.

Any thought of moving further inland inspires an existential panic you can’t explain. The notion of a fifteen-hour flight, and landing somewhere that hasn’t seen an ocean for at least a million years, makes your skin feel so tight around your bones that you have to run to the nearest shoreline just to make sure the sea is still there.

You’re on a jetty right now, in fact, watching the water lap against the stones. It was the only thing you could think of that would give you the strength to make the call.

You cannot go home. You know now that somehow, you’d always expected to, deep down. You’d return to the house you grew up in, pet the old family dog. Meet for brunch at the same hole in the wall you’ve gone to for years.

Sometimes the price you pay to become something more does not reveal itself until it’s too late.

So you cry with your mother over the phone, when you explain that it’s best if you stay. You tell her that coming back would only hurt you if you tried, and this time, you aren’t even lying to her.

You don’t know if she’s actually comforted by the conciliatory offer you make of your new job tending bar—she doesn’t need to know you own the place yet—but she sniffles, and puts a brave face on it.

“You always did want to live somewhere else,” she offers, watery—but glad, you hear, that you’re alive.

You bite your lip.

From her, there will be no begging for you to come home. No entreaties of love or need.

When you say goodbye to her, you cry some more—but it isn’t the storm that used to claim you. You wrap your arms around yourself and squeeze, pinch the soft fur of your pelt and roll it between your fingers as you allow yourself to shake and weep, and when you catch your breath, you dry your face and drive back to the cottage, where Johnny is making lunch.

That night in bed, he holds you gently in his arms, rocking his hips into you as you cling to him with your fingernails.

“Don’t leave me,” you whisper in his ear.

He kisses the corners of your eyes before new tears can fall, and tightens his arms around you.

Each day you go to the sea.

It tugs at you, like a child tugging the hem of your shirt. Like a current pulling you outward. You wake every morning thinking not of breakfast, or the day ahead, but of that swaying world, slow and vast, hugging the edges of the land to coax it, eternally, back into the depths.

There is no serenity, now, like the serenity of the water. To enter the ocean is also to let it inside you; the barriers between yourself and the rest of the world thin out. You give some of yourself away, and receive something new to settle in the empty spaces left behind.

You think you understand now why Johnny is always smiling.

The cold no longer stings when you bare your skin to it, down in the cove. The salt-wind of the incoming tide is soft against you as you fold your clothes, beckoning as you tuck them beneath a large rock.

Johnny strips beside you, less careful, balling everything up in an untidy mass, until you glare at him. The intended admonishment falls flat as your glare turns into something sweeter, as the dark hairs on his chest lift with goosebumps.

He grins at you, seeing the shift. “Here, hen?” he teases as he obediently tidies his shirt and kilt. “Out in the open?”

Out in the open.

You draw him to you, dragging him down into the sand; the joining is quick and hard, spurred by the burgeoning need to go under. You cage his ribs with your knees as you ride him, breasts against his chest as you take his mouth without art or finesse. Johnny digs his fingers into the meat of your ass and helps you along with quick, forceful thrusts, and your orgasm prompts his own, inner muscles pulling him deeper as you pant and moan.

Primal. Without artifice. You exchange hot breaths through open mouths as you speak with your eyes, the ocean-blue of his gaze pulling you in. You grind together even after finishing, prolonging it, displacing a little longer the moment that your bodies must separate.

You have him every day, too. Often more than once. He is as essential a need as the sea, and he gives as freely and as frequently as you ask.

After, you both rise, and help to dust the sand away from each other’s bare skin.

Suddenly, you wonder aloud, “If I get pregnant—what’s it going to be?”

Johnny goes still, the hand on your shin stopping mid-sweep. Then, eyes crinkling, he barks a laugh. He kisses your knee and, as he rises, kisses your mons, then your navel, your sternum—

Then the reluctantly smiling curve of your mouth.

“Wouldnae mind findin’ out,” he says, stepping away from you, and walking backward toward the ocean.

His gaze does not leave you once it rises to meet him. It crests around him, embracing him, vibrant and alive and rushing toward you.

You draw your pelt over your head, and follow Johnny into the waves.

a/n: I'm going to put my final thoughts in a separate post. This is the end. Thank you so much for reading!!

ch1 something borrowed something blue (mafia!price x simon's sister!reader)

masterlist | next

-

“Yer gettin’ married next week.”

You scoff at your brother staring at his Scotch whisky like it holds the answers to the universe.

“And you’re the king of Egypt. Funny, Simon.” He doesn’t laugh. Instead, he glances at Johnny, his husband and right-hand man. The two have a silent conversation, a head twitch followed by a pursing of lips. Johnny’s lips are cracked and split, something you can’t imagine your brother is attracted to. Superb mental health does not run in your family.

Johnny rises out of his chair, a wooden thing that creaks with effort, and takes his leave. He ruffles your hair on the way out while you try, for the thirtieth time, to shove his side. You are, yet again, unsuccessful. He’s built like a tank.

“M serious, love. ‘Ve been in negotiations the past month. It’s happenin’ next Saturday, St Etheldreda's Church.” You run through a list of churches in your head. St. Ethledreda’s is not in Manchester. In fact, you’re pretty sure it’s not in your territory. Which means…

“Why’re you naming a church in London?” Simon’s quiet as his eyes bore holes into yours. This is one of his favorite tactics to use on his men - staying silent until they find the answer themselves. You hate when he uses it on you like you’re under his command and not his younger sister. 

“You can’t be serious.”

“We need an alliance an’ they offered.”

“Then write a fuckin’ treaty! Not a marriage certificate.”

“You know it doesn’t work like that.”

“It’s the 21st century.”

“Not in this family.”

That’s something you can’t argue against. Most people outside of your immediate circle don’t even know Simon’s married to Johnny, let alone into men. When he first came to power, you created a sob story for him - early marriage to his (female) childhood sweetheart, then fast-spreading cancer, ending with a man struck by grief. It allowed him a known reason for turning down arranged marriages while making him seem more human than your shared father. No one paid enough attention to you two as children to know the story wasn’t real, and fake certificates of marriage and death are a dime a dozen. Everyone knows he’s close with Johnny, his right-hand man, and that’s that.

“What about my bookstore?” It’s your pride and joy, plus it’s 95% legal. Mostly. 

“There’s bookstores in London.” London. Only 200 miles away, but it’s like another world. Another world where you can’t walk down the street where every single storefront owner knows who you are. Where the cops are on your family’s payroll and don’t blink an eye at the gun strapped to your hip. It doesn’t matter if you were raised away in your formative years, losing your accent and most concepts of slang that baffle you. It doesn’t matter if you only share a father with Simon, that your mother was a Riley employee and not Mrs. Riley. Manchester is your home. 

It doesn’t occur to you that you have a choice, mainly because you know you don’t. The firm, or mafia, gang, or whatever you want to call it, still operates as if women are objects to be traded and bought. Marriages are merely political agreements. Getting to run a bookstore, or cash-cleaning business, as a woman is almost unheard of where you’re from. Others might call you lucky, but it’s more like being a bird in a gilded cage. A glimpse of what a true, normal life might look like. Living in a flat above your store, hosting local book clubs, setting out free cookie samples - all to be ruined when Johnny stumbles through with a gunshot or the newest recruits are sent to grab more bullets from the basement. Every other week, you snap back from your daydream and remember that you’re a mafia princess at the end of the day, though duchess seems more adequate since the Rileys don’t have that big of a territory.

“And who is my husband-to-be in London?”

“John Price.”

“I’d rather marry Nikolai. In fact, I might just go elope.” Simon glares and you glare back. “I’m not marrying John Price.” You clarify, for emphasis. Simon leans forward in his office chair, looming over his desk like a puppet master. You’re in the chair across from him, crossing your legs casually like you’re not discussing your arranged marriage and potential future. “Contract’s done, love. Jus’ waitin’ on yer signature.” Your signature, the one change from the barbaric practices of old England. You could say no, but then Simon would have no choice but to cut you off. It would be a sign of weakness to the other families if he let a delinquent bastard half-sister run his decisions.

“I want to negotiate the contract.” It’s the closest your brother has ever been to rolling his eyes. They twitch with restraint, blonde lashes flickering. “This isn’t a TV show, kid. Yer not negotiatin’ yer bloody contract.” You uncross your legs, hands on your armrest like you’re about to leave. “Fine. Let me go call up the NCA, tell them all about my brother and his scary gang.” He sighs deeply, then pulls out his phone. “Bloody hell. Can’t wait t’ marry you off, fuckin’ arsehole.” You grab the bright pink stress ball on his desk, a stocking stuffer you gave him as a joke, and throw it at him. He doesn’t even bother to look up from his phone, huffing as the ball hits the side of his head. 

“Here.” He tosses you the phone that’s already ringing. There’s no contact name, just initials. JP. “Riley. Got a problem?” A smooth baritone emits from the phone’s tinny speakers. “Hope you’re not busy this weekend, future hubby. I can’t wait to see you.” Simon sighs at the consequences of his own actions. John’s silent on the other end, processing your words. Bit thick, that one.

“An’ why’s that, sweetheart?” It’s a term of endearment but he laces it with vitriol. “We’re having tea on Saturday at my store. Bring your contract and favorite lawyers. See you then!” You hang up before he can answer, tossing the phone back to Simon. He shakes his head at you.

“Smile, Simon. It’ll be nice to bond with your brother-in-law.”

This is going to be a very long marriage.

If you even get down the aisle.

-

Why does reader hate John? Why is she also a little shit? All will be revealed :)

Holy moly.

i have a breeding kink but at the same time i have a terrible fear of getting pregnant to the point where ive had nightmares about it and anxiety attacks (especially now that abortions are no longer a constitutional right in the US). yeah, not a great combo when in bed lol

just thought maybe my woe would spark some kind of lil story for ya :)

thank you for the request anon, hope you like it :) cw: breeding kink, smut, +18 content below

You shouldn’t want it... Not like this.

You’re on your back, thighs spread and shaking, and Simon’s weight is pressing down over you, with his hands under your knees, pushing your legs open wide enough that you can feel it in your hips, that sweet ache where stretch meets surrender—but all you really notice is the way he’s looking at you.

A little wild. A little too pleased. Like he knows exactly what’s going on in your head.

"You’re fuckin’ dripping," he mutters against your throat, dragging the thick head of his cock through your folds, teasing you with it, slowly. “You want me to fill you up, yeah?”

Your body screams yes. It pulses with it. You tilt your hips, chasing the friction, heat curling sharp in your belly. That filthy little corner of your brain lights up like a match—the one that wants to hear him say it, again and again. That he’s going to put a baby into you. That your body’s his, made to take it.

But just behind that is the fear. Always is.

The kind that hits in the dead of night, heart racing, breath stuck in your throat. The kind that makes you double-check your pill pack and panic at a missed period. That terrible, breathless dread of being trapped in your own body. Waking up from a dream where you were pregnant and sobbing like it had already happened.

Your fingers grip the sheets, tension building under your skin, about to snap.

Simon feels it. Of course he does. He always knows.

He stills, just slightly. Doesn’t let go of your legs, doesn’t pull away—he just watches you, his brows pulling together. "Hey."

You blink, trying to smile, but it doesn’t work. “I’m fine. I want it. Just keep going.”

He doesn’t move. "You sure?"

“I am,” you say too fast, then softer, “I think I just… my head’s being weird again.”

That look he gives you—the one that feels like a fucking hand on your heart. He leans in, nose brushing yours, eyes locked on you like nothing else exists, and in that moment, it doesn't.

“Tell me,” he murmurs. “Whatever it is. We don’t play unless it’s good for you. Yeah?”

You swallow, heart hammering. You hate admitting it. Hate feeling like your brain’s betraying your body.

“I like it,” you say quietly. “The dirty talk. The whole—breeding thing. I need it sometimes. But I’m also terrified. Like, terrified of actually getting pregnant. It’s… bad. Nightmares, panic attacks...”

His jaw ticks. Just once. That barely contained fury that only shows up when he’s angry on your behalf.

“Fuck,” he says. “Alright. Come here.”

He pulls you in, lets your legs wrap around his waist, chest to chest now, holding you close, grounding you. One big hand slides up your back, the other gripping your thigh, his voice right at your ear.

“You trust me?”

“Yeah,” you whisper.

“Then let me take care of you.”

You nod against his shoulder, and that’s all he needs.

“Good girl,” he breathes, then pulls his hips back, just enough to push his cock against you again. “Gonna give you everything you want, every filthy fuckin’ word. Gonna ruin you like I’m tryin’ to knock you up. But I won’t. I won’t do anything to you that you don’t want, yeah?”

You whimper. “Yes, Simon. Please.”

“God, you sound so sweet like this,” he groans, sliding in, inch by inch. “So needy. You like when I talk like that, don’t you? Gets you so wet, you don’t even care how wrong it sounds.”

He bottoms out with a growl, and your back arches off the bed. You’re already close, tension thrumming under your skin, clenching around him like your body’s begging to be used.

“Look at this little cunt,” he pants, pulling out halfway just to slam back in. “Taking all of me like it wants it. Like it’s fuckin’ desperate for it.”

You’re gasping now, fingers digging into his back, losing yourself to the rhythm, to the stretch, to the low, filthy sound of his voice.

“You want it, don’t you?” he whispers darkly, lips against your jaw. “Wanna be full of me. Wanna let me fuck you raw and finish inside, over and over until you’re leaking, stuffed, ruined.”

“Yes—Simon, yes—”

“But you don’t have to be scared,” he says, voice dropping lower, sweet and vicious. “You’re safe with me. I’ve got you. Always.”

And somehow that undoing feels different.

Like you can want it—really want it—and still be safe.

He fucks you through it, one hand on your belly, pressing down just a little, groaning when you flutter around him.

“Feel that?” he growls. “That’s me. Deep as I can go. Where I belong.”

Your eyes roll back. You're shaking under him, every nerve lit up, body raw with pleasure.

And then he’s coming too, face buried in your neck, groaning your name like it’s the only thing he knows how to say.

He pulls out slowly and carefully. Your thighs are trembling, slick between them, and he’s already wiping you down with a warm cloth before you can even blink. No words—just his soft hands.

Then he climbs back in behind you, draping a blanket over both of you, pulling you into his chest.

“You’re not wrong for wanting it,” he says against your temple. “Wantin’ that kind of surrender. You just need someone who knows how to give it to you right.”

You smile, slow and sleepy. “And you’re that someone?”

He huffs. “You fuckin’ know I am.”

And yeah, you really do.

--------------------------------------------

@daydreamerwoah @kylies-love-letter @ghostslollipop @kittygonap @alfiestreacle @identity2212 @farylfordaryl @rafaelacallinybbay @akkahelenaa @lovelovelovelovelove987654321 @wraith-bravo6

Simon Riley pretends to be grossed out by you. Not like dramatically, but makes it obvious.

But he's actually in love with you.

You lick your lips and smirk up at him. "You look delicious today, handsome~"

He side eyes you. Wide eyed. "Fuckin' mental." But he's smirking behind his mask. And when you looked away he's looking you up and down to think of something nice to say back. He never did, because he didn't know how.

One time you came up behind him and hugged him tightly. You rubbed your face into his back and grumbled about college being the worst. And he's eyeing your arms, basking in the feeling of you against him.

He's not used to any physical affection, that's the whole reason. He wasn't shown much love when he was younger so of course it followed him into his adult age.

And he never tried. The women before you only used him and he did the same. It was something he was used to. And affection wasn't something he tried to do.

So maybe he started trying with you. And you don't notice it. (He thinks you don't, but you absolutely do and you're careful about it. Like carefully feeding a deer.) He starts to reach for you. Sitting on the couch, he's got his finger curled in your shirt. Driving, he would playfully slap your thigh, then sooth it like he was sorry, then leave his hand there.

You let him at his own pace. But you found that it you're talking and you reach for him, like his hand, he lets you take it and caress his knuckles.

He recognized that you were careful with him. You considered how he felt a lot of the times, and he saw that. Maybe that was why he fell harder for you than you realized.

Soon, he's pulling you into his lap so he could look up at you. He's pulling you in for long hugs. He's tugging your hands and putting them on his neck (you'd better scratch at his neck and back because he will never ask you to but he loves loves loves the feeling.) You've accepted that the man is kind of touch starved and will never voice it to you.

But he never stopped acting like a bully.

"Simon, you're so fuckin hot. I'd pay you to do filthy things to me." You stated so calmly that it made his eye twitch when he realized what just came out your mouth.

"Don't worry love, we'll find you that therapist soon." He shook his head with a sigh. And his heart leapt in his chest at hearing your laughter.

AHH YES

Thinking about Alpha!John Price x Beta!Reader today.

John, who leans always a little too close, presses himself into you ever so slightly, murmurs “Johnathan for you, love” and noses at your neck, coaxing out the faint soft smell of yours. Perfect darling for him, blushing so deliciously, hissing when he allows himself too much. Keeping him in line.

John Price whose hands are somehow always on you, thick fingers hooking in the loops of your jeans and dragging your hips to his, broad chest of his pressing into your back when he whispers “got you, sweetheart”.

He kisses you behind the ear, always lingering just a little to savour the taste of yours that he manages to swallow being this close to your scent gland. Licking air and not yet your skin, because you keep pushing him away, keep glaring at him like he is a dumb beast too keen on the idea of eating a local bookshop owner instead of looking for royal offspring. As he should have.

Dumb beast who is not realising that he shouldn’t rub his scent into you, that lingering pinewood and cigars kill all your chances to get a proper date with someone.

John, who hums when you protest and gently bites your neck, just holding you between his teeth, your pulse pounding into his lips.

Why’d you need dates with some boys, love? Don’t you have him? Isn’t he the best there is to get?

John, who keeps coming back just to chat you up, always with excuse to touch you, worming his way into your life until you don’t even notice that his thumb has been stroking your wrist for the last 10 minutes of your conversation.

He comes back after every deployment and rubs himself on you, smiling when you hiss and wiggle out of his grip. Feisty first thing after so long apart. He knows, sweetheart, he missed you too.

John who comes back once and has to swallow back a low growl, sound starting in his chest, his teeth itching because you don’t smell like him and you don’t smell like you.

He circles you around before pressing himself into your back, bracketing you against the counter, his nose diving into the neck of yours, beast in his head snarling when he finds someone else’s hickey there.

Kept yourself busy, didn’t you, love?

He’s been gone for too long, his scent got too weak.

John admits, he should have come back sooner, should have pulled you under a long time ago.

But he liked your little game of push and pull, he enjoyed the tag so much that he forgot he isn’t the only one playing.

An oversight, not a good thing for a captain.

John who is still hazy with the blood from last deployment, urge to tear another throat out simmering right under the surface when he presses his hips to your ass, slotting against you like perfect puzzle.

If he knew you’d get impatient, he would have taken proper care of you, sweetheart.

But he won’t make the same mistake again.

John Price, who takes leave of absence so he can stop taking suppressants for the first time in years.

Rut of his pounding in the back of his head, spreading through him like an infection, dripping under his skin like poisonous honey.

Sticky sweet, molten with yearning, hungry for blood.

Hungry for you.

John Price who clicks his tongue at you to stay behind your counter, as he locks the doors behind him and lowers himself down. On his knees, nudging your stance to widen.

So he can pull your jeans down, tongue sliding between your thighs, big hands holding you open for him.

No need to thrash, love. He isn’t letting go now. He isn’t backing away either, not anymore.

His rut makes you hazy, his rut clouds your head and makes you slip, bracing your forearms on the wooden counter, his ‘good job, sweetheart’ dripping slick between your thighs.

John eats you out until his knees ache, until your hips roll into his mouth, until the sweet faint scent of yours blends in with his.

Your whole bloody shop is going to smell like you have a man, love. Like you have John.

There is a low dangerous rumble in his chest when you try to pull away, to stop him from eating you out into overstimulation. Because where do you think you are going, sweetheart? You need to be nice and slick to take all of him.

You need to be soft and pliant for John to feed the thick length of his cock to your greedy hole.

“Goin’ to fuck attitude out of ya, lovie.”, John breathes out, biting your ass until you whimper trying to get him off and until the indent of his teeth is a red mark on you. First out of many. “Any bloke in this bloody country would be able to tell you are taken. Anyone who takes a step inside will know I was here.”, he growls, grinding on the plush of your buttock.

Not going anywhere now, love. Never again.

John Price who clicks his tongue when you whimper about condoms, because that’s just silly, sweetheart, you won’t need any of it with him. How are you supposed to feel his knot if you won’t let it in?

That just won’t do.

John Price who bounces you in his lap, thick calloused fingers holding onto the meat of your hips, slamming you down and pulling you up, until the knot of his pops inside of your hole, plugging you in, binding you to him for the next half an hour.

John Price who holds you in full Nelson, arms under your knees, teeth grazing your ear when he bounces you on his knot, pulling just enough so you’d feel the stretch, so you’d start whimpering for him, so you’d scent become sweeter for him.

Naughty fucking thing, you like him being mean to you?

John who lets the rut take reigns, so he can press you into the counter, biting all over your shoulders, snarling “mine, always mine, only mine” when you can’t help but arch. Whether to pull away or to press into him, he’s not sure.

John who licks the scent gland of yours, teeth itching to sink in, dumb beast in his head pulling him to rut into you. And Lord, you are slick and warm and perfect, squeezing him like you never want to let go, milking him for all he’s worth.

Perfect mate.

He humps into you like a feral dog, heavy thick hips of his pressing into yours, not letting you close your legs. Not when he’s folding you into the mating press and sinking his teeth in the crook of your neck, popping the untouched and unmated gland there. Binding you together, blending himself into you, drinking you in so your sweetness is always in his scent from now on.

Won’t be anyone else, love. Not for him. Nor for you.

John Price who presses your face into his neck, rasps out “bite, sweetheart”, his knot popping back inside of your hole — your legs twitching above his shoulders. Sweet thing, he’s too much for you without much of a preparation. But it’s okay, he will be better next time.

He will take you somewhere soft and warm, he will feed you meat and fruit, letting you lick juices off his fingers, he will suck on your tender sensitive parts until you are crying.

You just gotta bite, lovie, just sink your teeth in his gland, will ya?

John Price who licks his lips when you nuzzle in the crook of his neck, your teeth grazing his gland, your jaw trembling. Rode you ragged, didn’t he, love?

It’s okay, John will help, just open wide, aye?

John murmurs, voice half a growl when he presses your head into his neck, when he closes your jaws down on his gland, shiver running down his spine, everything clicking in place.

This is right. This is how it’s supposed to be.

John who kisses your face pulling you out the crook of his neck — your eyes gone, pupils blown wide and jaw slack when he ruts into you again.

Just one more orgasm, sweetheart, just one more. He knows you can do it, you can be good for him.

You can give him his reward for being so patient, you can thank him for not tracking down your now irrelevant suitor and not presenting you bloke’s fingers as a courting gift.

You can thank him proper and you will, won’t ya, lovie?

Come on, one more time, he rasps in your ear, fingers prying your mouth open and stuffing it until you are drooling messily all over him. Pretty thing, see how easy it is? Just had to come to your Johnathan and he would have taken care of this greedy hole.

He would have made it better. And from now on he always will.

Till death do us part, sweetheart. If he has to say anything about it.

Daughters with Soft Underbellies

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

Chapter Twelve: apple pie

tw: minor violence

You remember the Blackpeak Coal Mine Slaughter well—very well.

Plastered over the front page of every newspaper in the nation, it’s hard to forget the event and the harrowing accounts of survivors and the family members that were left behind in the wake of the tragedy. Over thirty men were massacred that day. Nothing but lifeless torsos without hands to stop the bleeding, limbs too far out of reach to retrieve. Twelve more were injured. You remember the paper retelling a story of one of the workers, now rendered blind from the explosion that rocked The States, rippling through the population. 

Confusion kept everyone stupid for some time—it was widely accepted that this was an accident. Natural gases within the earth that ignited when explosives were detonated in order to carve deeper into the earth’s surface. When this take was first published and traveled down the wagon trail to Penmosa, you remember your father huffing at the words, fist clenched tight around the arm of his chair. 

“Serves them right. Desecrating God’s green earth like that. Bastards, every one of them. You hear me, girl? This is what human greed does. It makes you a corpse.” 

You suppose that, in the end, he was right. 

Weeks later it was confirmed that this was no accident, but rather intentional. Workers came forward with stories about strange men in masks wandering into the worksite towing obscene amounts of TNT. Many men fought back, only to be shot. Others couldn’t quite escape before the earth caved in on them, burying them beneath mounds of rubble. Even to this day, they still find pieces of them. Shattered bones and dusty work boots, never to be lacquered again. 

Last you knew, the criminals were still on the run. Some uncouth hit and run. Nothing but a slimy act of terror. The old company went out of business, unable to make up for the lost workers and the compensation that was owed, and a new one moved in, still putting the site to use. A memorial was erected in honor of the lives lost. The day has been lost to memory and grief. 

Now, you know otherwise. 

Dead or Alive: for the Blackpeak Coal Mine Slaughter. 

Your stomach twists as you travel down the winding roads of Grand Hollow, but the nervosity chewing on your neurons makes it impossible to enjoy the otherworldly beauty presenting itself before you. When Mr. Beckett had warned you about John Price and his posse, you had never expected violence in a magnitude such as this. You’ve broken bread with these men. Fished in the same waters. Laid on the same dirt. 

Now you understand his secrecy. All John’s hidden motives and dodged questions, answers given with vicious snark and a half lidded glare. What terrors does he expect to rage now in Blackpeak? Was his slaughtering of those working men not enough? Must he now steal from their grieving families, too? 

Guilt spears through you like a freshly born knife still hot from the furnace. How dare you have the audacity for such emotions? Had you known John Price was this much of a monster, you would have let him spill your blood next to the campfire the night you fled from your father. 

“Pecora.” 

The driver’s rough voice pulls you from your nightmarish anamneses. You glance up from your worn, tattered nails and stare at the back of his head where his wiry, white hair greets you. He does not look at you, but you’re certain you were the one he spoke to. 

“Pardon?” you ask. 

He looks over his shoulder and stares at you blankly for a moment before pointing to something on the cart’s right. “Pecora,” he repeats. 

Following the crooked curve of wrinkled his finger, you spot an ewe and her lamb. They’re terribly out of place, fresh white wool contrasting against the darkened grey cobblestone of the streets, but the ewe does not fret. She trots through the foot traffic, splitting pedestrians who gawk at her and her child with coos, all while stopping to chew on the weeds that spring up between the bricks. 

Her lamb, however, stumbles behind her on jelly legs with wide eyes and a mouth that knows nothing other than to cry. Its voice is strident as it weaves through its mother’s legs, eyes anxiously gazing at the tall creatures that surround them. Utterly lost and out of place, you hum as you watch them find a patch of grass to lay and bask in. 

“Oh, sheep,” you realize. “How cute.” 

“Cute,” the driver repeats with a nod. 

Proud, baronial buildings slowly dwindle into something quieter the further you’re taken away from The Twin Rose. At first you passed them off to be more stores and places of interest for citizens and travelers alike to visit, but you come to the realization that these are houses when you catch a woman throwing bed linens out onto a clothesline. 

Wide lawns stretch out like royal carpets before two story houses with large windows and porches sporting long sunroofs. If your father witnessed the white paint that decorates the wood, you’re certain he would keel over in the dirt of the streets, scandalized that simple homes would bear the same pure milky sheen of his church. It’s quieter here without the hustle of the deep city. Fewer pedestrians, sparse horses, children laughing in a nearby field as they kick and throw various toy balls around to one another. 

The cart comes to a stop in front of a house at the end of a cul de sac. It’s different from all the others in the neighborhood, sporting a rosy pink rather than snowy white. Several flower bushes line the siding of the house, almost in full bloom, bitterly reminding you of your mother’s lily plants back in Penmosa. From somewhere inside of the house, music bleeds. It’s a quiet crackle with a canorous melody soaring over compressed violins, trumpets, and pianos. It sounds wrong. Nothing at all like the warm tones you’re familiar with from the church choir. 

Your driver hops out of his seat, worn boots scraping on the stone at his feet, and offers you a hand. “Here. Laswell home.” 

Placing your hand into his worn palm, he helps you out of the cart and gestures to the front door with a wrinkled, lopsided smile. You give him a quiet thanks as he loads back up, reins flicking and prompting the horses into action where he turns around and slowly trots back down the street. 

Each beat of your heart threatens to drown out the music as you trot up the steps to the porch. The sillage of rose and lavender bleeds from the flower bushes at the base of the stairs and mixes with the warmth bleeding through the open windows of the house. Swallowing, you approach the door and knock. 

There is no answer. 

Someone obviously is inside the house. You can hear chirpy humming and various utensils being knocked around, so you try again only to have the same luck. After a few minutes, you muster up the courage to open the door and peek your head inside. 

The foyer is small with shoes lined up against the floorboards and various coats and hats hanging on hooks drilled into the wall. Just past the entrance you can see a staircase that leads up to the second floor with a rich vermillion runner along dark stained wood, but there is no sign of the woman you were sent to help. 

“Lottie?” you call out as you close the door behind you with a shaky hand. 

Still receiving no response, you exit the foyer and begin to wander where the noise is loudest. You travel down wide hallways with open windows, sunlight bleeding through wispy drapes like mist on a cold autumn morning. Various paintings catch your attention as you walk, hung up high and proud, displaying scenes of nature and animals and captured with a keen eye. Other hallways split off like a burrow of tunnels, like a warren lurking in a field, but you keep your feet steady until you reach the kitchen. 

The woman you’re assuming is Lottie stands with her back faced toward you as she sways her hips in front of the stove. A phonograph plays on the counter, spinning a waxy cylinder and playing its music loud and proud. A rosy pink skirt twirls around her legs as she wipes her hands off on her apron, then toys with the frizzy curls of her bright blonde hair as they fall from her disheveled bun. She’s humming along to the music—some upbeat tune you don’t recognize—as she hops on her feet, hips twisting as she reaches for a large wooden spoon. 

“Miss Lottie?” you ask once more. 

The woman squeals like a bird caught in the maw of a barn cat as she spins around, spoon waving as if she wields a knife. She’s rather pretty, you think, even with this look of terror on her face. Pale brows rising as her teal eyes widen, free hand pressed against her collarbones as if to still her fluttering heart. She looks you up and down and then sighs before wiping her brow. 

“Oh, darlin’ don’t do that to me. Damn near scared me half to death!” Her voice is saccharine and slow, accent drawing long vowels and dropped consonants. Southern, you think—Georgia, if you had to guess. 

“I’m sorry, miss,” you apologize. You raise your hands as a sign of good faith before you glance at the items behind her on the counter. Fresh meat, a mason jar of white, bubbly liquid, a fresh block of cheese. “Laswell sent me here. I’m supposed to help with dinner?” 

“Did she now?” Lottie asks. Her face melts. All tension vanishes back into the depths of her skin as a smile pulls at her lips. “Reckon we have guests to cook for, then?” 

You nod. “Yes—erm—myself and a few others. Four men.” 

“Sounds like we have half a battalion to feed,” she muses. Tapping the spoon against the side of her hip, she seems swept away by the chorus of the song crackling from the phonograph, melody bleeding from the speaker like a warm campfire in the midst of the boonies. “Awfully kind of Katie to send me a little helper, then. Why don’t you grab one of those aprons darlin, we can’t have you mucking up that dress of yours!” 

She points over her shoulder to a small rack of off-white aprons long stained by home cooked meals. Each of them are embroidered with little flowers. Some sport roses, others daisies, and what you think is an attempt to do forget-me-knots. You snatch up the one with lilies before tying it around your waist and hopping in line next to Lottie, who isn’t afraid to throw work your way. Handing you a knife, she orders you to peel potatoes and cut them into cubes while she works on heating the stove up enough for the meat. 

When she asks you what your name is, you tell her the truth, though it’s overshadowed by the mention of your nickname. Lamb. It makes her giggle something sweet and bubbly like champagne. 

Lottie is a beautiful woman—it’s difficult not to find yourself starstruck by her. Rosy cheeks flush in the heat of the kitchen, illuminating the sweet and sparse freckles that spot her face. Her lips are painted a matte cherry red, though it slowly fades each time her teeth dig into the tender flesh as she mutters to herself about the next steps for her meal. Then, there’s her bosom. Your eyes burn when you notice the swell of her breasts and how her corset can hardly keep them from spilling over the blushing fabric of her dress. She’s any man’s dream. 

“So,” you speak up. Small talk is not a strong attribute of yours, and Lottie and her phonograph are doing plenty of conversing for the both of you. Still, you are a stranger in this home, and the acrimonious bile in your stomach urges you to make something of yourself. “You live here, then? With Laswell?” 

“Well, of course,” she Lottie giggles. She’s got flour smeared on her face, dusty eggshell staining a line across her forehead. “Certainly wouldn’t be doin’ all this good cookin’ for free.” 

“Are you and Laswell sisters, then?” you ask. 

Lottie’s in the middle of placing a thinly rolled piece of pastry dough on top of her sheet of pot pie when she freezes. Her gaze is quizzical as she turns her attention to you, eyes studying every line in your face. For a moment, there’s something malicious that lurks in her gaze. An incensed flicker that leaves your spine tingling. It quickly vanishes when her eyes drop to the necklace dangling around your neck. 

“Oh, bless your heart. Aren’t you just as sweet as a peach,” she says with a quiet smile before returning to her work. 

Unsure of what else to say, you continue to do as you’re told. Chopped potatoes. Rolling dough. Making bread—sourdough. Slicing apples. Warming sugar until golden brown. You’re grateful for the work. It’s been a long time since you’ve cooked a proper meal, and you’re hoping you’ll actually be able to get a taste of it this time around. 

Neither you nor Lottie take a break until her apple pie is cooking in the oven and her pot pie is staying warm atop the stove. She fetches you a cup of water from a valve in the kitchen, leaving you slack jawed, and corrals you out onto the porch where the two of you sit next to one another on a thatched bench.

As you drink, you can’t help but realize that even the water tastes different here. It’s strange. Tangy, like blood from a split lip. You hold the glass up to the setting sun where amber light refracts through it, illuminating the bubbles that swirl through the liquid. 

“You’re not from around here, are you?” 

When you turn your attention back to Lottie, you realize she’s staring at you, bright eyes piercing through you like cold rays of sun. Pressing your lips together, you place your hands into your lap, fingers clenching around your glass. 

“No, I just got here today, actually,” you explain. 

She nods. “Where’re you from?” 

“Penmosa.” 

“I’m not familiar.” 

“It’s… well, it took us a fair bit of travel to get here.” 

“Us?” 

Blinking, you realize the slip of your words. John’s name rattles through your brain like dark ink on parchment—pinned to a board, face on display for all to see, a call for violence; for vengeance. 

“Yes. I’ve been traveling with… a man named John.” 

“John Price?” Lottie confirms. 

Solicitude seeps deep into every bone in your body at her recognition. “Yes. Him and the others will be here for dinner tonight. I… I hope that isn’t a problem.” 

“Oh, not at all!” she beams as the tips of her feet tap against the porch. “It’s been quite a long time since I’ve last seen John and his boys. Didn’t think he’d be comin’ back to Grand Hollow so soon. Last I knew he was out wandering while tryin’ to wait for things in Blackpeak to cool down.” 

The more she speaks, the more your brows draw together. “You know him?” 

“Of course I do! Him and Kaite have been doin’ business for a little while now. He’s a fine man. A little strange, but I think all those English folk are, if you ask me.” 

A subtle discontent stirs at the base of your skull leaving your mind spinning. A dissonance screams. It burrows deep and roots. You’ve been warned that John Price is not a good man, and you’ve seen the very proof of it yourself. That man he shot and killed. The clothes he ripped off of your body. The wanted poster with his name and face plastered on it. 

Yet, he saved you from your father, and Lottie spews about him as if he were a disciple. You know it is ungodly to cast judgement on another person, but you can’t shake the discord of the situation. How thin is the line between salvation and betrayal? 

“Speak of the devil, and he shall appear,” Lottie murmurs. 

There, just down the road, trots a line of horses. Bear’s familiar head rears while his tail flicks, shooing off flies attempting to nurse on him all while Kyle pats the side of his head. John lazily looks around at the houses, shoulders squared as he seems to chat away with Laswell, who leads the pack on her own horse. 

Swallowing, you prepare for what you’re sure is about to be the most painful dinner you’ve participated in for quite some time. 

Laswell is the first to dismount, leg easily swinging over the side of her horse without a dress to get in the way. She trots up the porch and greets you with a polite nod before her hands reach for Lottie. The woman grins, bright, pearly teeth flashing between the blood red of her lips, before she allows Laswell to help her off of the bench. Then, their lips meet. Soft, chaste—enough to stain Laswell’s mouth with color. 

For a moment, all you can do is stare. Two women, embracing one another in such a way. Heat simmers from your core for only a short moment before it’s boiling, splashing bubbling water all up your insides until they’re searing and raw. You can hear John’s chuckle haunt you from somewhere along the staircase. 

“Come on, Lamb,” Lottie urges with a wave. “Let’s go set the table.” 

The distance you sow between you and John is appreciated and welcomed, but it only lasts for a few fleeting minutes before God has brought the two of you together again. Palms flat in your lap, eyes staring at the long table as you’re squished between Kyle and Riley, John’s eyes flickering like a lone candle flame across from you—the weight is nearly unbearable. Crushing. Bones fracturing. Splinters sticking in the raw, fleshy parts of you. 

Thick fingers curl around his fork, dark hair lining the space just below his knuckles. You watch as his tendons dance just below his skin as he cuts into his food before he shoves it into his open maw. As he eats, you wonder how many men he’s murdered with those very same hands. How much blood the earth has had to swallow because of him. How many children weep over rotting fathers because of what those hands have done. 

As he cracks his knuckles, you’re reminded of the first time he ever taught you how to shoot. Trigger finger trembling, he told you a gun is nothing more than a tool. Something to protect yourself with. It’s a similar mentality he barked at you when you dared to challenge him over his slaughtering of that farmer who threatened to soil you. Protection. Saving. Family. 

What honor was there in slaughtering those coal mine workers? 

“I can see why Laswell’s tied you down with a ring, Lottie,” John hums. His thumbs graze over one of your sourdough rolls, nails biting into the crisp crust as it caves in beneath his pressure. He places a fluffy piece against his tongue and offers a tight-lipped to the woman. “With cooking like this, I reckon you had her ensnared.” 

Lottie’s giggle falls like a sheer blanket over the table as she shoos John off with a wave. “Oh, I can’t take all the credit. Your little lamb was quite the helper. Pretty much did everythin’ for me! And, as far as I know, she ain’t taken quite yet.” 

John’s eyes settle on you, and though you know better, you can’t help but return his gaze. Sticky like tree sap on fresh logs, you can’t look away. You hold his gaze, jaw tense and aching, he hums. His lips quirk into a smile and for the first time in your life, you find yourself wanting to slap it from his face. 

“Maybe we ought to keep you around after all,” he muses. 

Scoffing, you glance back down at your plate. There’s hardly anything left for you to eat, yet you poke at it with your silverware anyway. “Awfully rich coming from the man who considers me a right nuisance. What did you call me again? Cargo?” 

Enmity soaks your tongue so much that it does not feel like your own anymore. This is your father’s tongue that rots your mouth—bitter and swollen from long standing annoyance, ever petulant. Even John seems to recognize this change within you. Eyebrows rising, he shakes his head and chuckles. 

“Right,” he agrees. “The most headache-inducing cargo I’ve ever laid hands on.” 

A hush halts the table’s conversation leaving you to face the white hot anger brewing in your chest all by yourself. You note the sideways glances. The way Kyle turns away from you. The way Soap’s lips press together. 

Look at you, once again, the prodigal daughter. 

“Well, how about some dessert to offset all this bitterness?” Lottie suggests, voice gentle like honey, blunt humor pulling at her words. 

Laswell pushes her plate away before looking up at her wife with a nod. “A perfect idea, love.” 

Apple and cinnamon dance in a waltz on your tongue but their feet are numbed as the rest of the feast is finished in choppy conversation punctuated with long bouts of silence. Fatigue pulls heavy at everyone’s eyes, but your anger keeps you wide awake. Fork clutched in hand. Metal scraping on porcelain. When everyone is finished, John attempts to have everyone stay behind to help clean up, but Laswell waves him off, saying that he ought to get everyone back to the hotel to rest. 

Before you leave, Lottie bids you farewell with a soft hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Welcome to Grand Hollow, darlin. I hope it’s everythin’ you need.” 

You ride on the back of John’s horse. You’re much too close for comfort to him, and your skin tingles as if there were a million small beetles dancing on your body. He at least offers you the courtesy of not talking to you, allowing you to stew in your thoughts as your eyes glaze over and focus on the dusty stones that crumble beneath the horse’s hooves. 

Still, you are incensed that you missed all the omens. Vague warnings from Mr. Beckett. The bursts of anger that seemed to seep from every pore in his body. The way he never flinched when enacting violence upon others. 

You spent so long attempting to find humanity in the eyes of the wolf that you failed to notice the fresh blood staining his teeth. 

“Ever been to a theatre before, Lamb?” 

It’s the first thing John’s said to you for the entire ride, and it’s enough to get your ears to quirk. Gaze shifting upwards, you notice an unfamiliar sight that you’ve only heard about from word of mouth. Fat bulbs light up the street as they line a marquee board listing off show names and times. Stories you don’t recognize, with actors and actresses from a whole other world. Behind a glass window sits a man selling tickets, who looks as if he’s about to fall asleep face first into the palm he rests his chin on. 

“Can’t say that I have,” you reply tartly. 

“They used to be shows of just actors. People dancing on stage, things of that sort,” John explains, head leaning back in active conversation. “Used to have women hiking their skirts up, too. Would probably send your daddy into a proper fit if he ever saw it. Now they’re showing moving pictures. Films, I think they call it.”

“Is that so?” Short. Dull. The theatre passes you by and you’re back to staring at the ground. 

John’s hips shift in his saddle, fingers tightening on the reins. “The boys and I were thinking about seeing one tomorrow.”

All you do is hum in reply. You watch as John’s shoulders tense and rise before falling with a huff. The horse begins to slow, its proper trot dwindling to a lazy meander. 

“You know Lamb, I can’t say I’m too overly fond of this new attitude of yours. Picking fights at dinner while we’re guests wasn’t too godly of you,” he bites. 

“Well, it’s a good thing you’re getting rid of me soon, isn’t it?” you retort. 

His body stills. Not even the swaying of his horse can move him. 

“You might be right about that, little lamb.” 

With Laswell tucked away at home, John is the only one left to show you to your room. He bids the boys a goodnight before leading you up to the second floor, key pinched between his fingers as he unlocks the door for you. You find your carpet bag waiting for you on the foot of the largest bed you’ve ever seen—big enough to house six swine comfortably, if you had to guess. Another vanity sits shoved against the far side of the wall, along with several complementary products of soap and oils, but the wonder is lost on you now. 

Sighing, you take the key from John’s hand and busy yourself with sorting through the items in your bag. John’s gaze sears your skin. Shoulder tucked into the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, he stares at you. Through you. Piercing your body as if his eyes were knives. 

“You’re not still upset at me for earlier, are you?” he suddenly questions. 

“Earlier?” you repeat. You’re still turned away from him. Shoulders hunched, hands busy. You know it’s not smart to face away from wolves but you can’t bring yourself to be scared of his bite anymore. 

“When I interrupted your bath.” 

“Whyever would I be mad about that?” you reply bitterly. 

While John’s chuckles are usually warm, earthy things, the one he gives you now can only be described as sour milk. Thick and clumpy, noisome and in desperate need to be thrown out. “Full of fire today, aren’t you? Did you ever talk to your daddy like this?” 

Your fingers have just wrapped around your comb when he asks you this, and the unfamiliar choler it fills you with nearly suffocates you. Tossing the item onto the comforter, you whip around to face him, head tilted to the side and teeth grinding like eroding stones. 

“No, Daddy beat me whenever I opened my mouth out of turn,” you snap, stating the obvious with so much vitriol you nearly choke on it. Still, it propels you forward, feet sliding across the floor as you approach him. “Is that what you wanna do to me, John?” 

“You better slow down, sweetheart,” John warns. 

Ignoring him, you stalk closer on wobbly legs. Nothing but a freshly jellied lamb. 

“Gonna take off your belt and beat me the way your daddy did to you?” you challenge. You’re within biting distance now. John’s no longer leaning against the doorframe, but instead standing with his feet wide and firm as if ready for a blow. “Gonna make someone pay for your pain? That’s all you wan’t, isn’t it? Vengeance? You’re no better than the man behind the belt, John Price, you’re-” 

All it takes to shut you up is a hand on your jaw. 

Thumb and fingers curling into the fat of your cheeks, John Price is close enough to your face that you can feel his breath fan across your skin. His grip is firm enough to get your lips to part, but not enough to ache—not yet, anyway. Your pounding heart quivers against your sternum, making it impossible for you to swallow properly as you stare at him. 

Tobacco pairs nicely with the hue of his eyes—dark like a lake rippling during a storm. You want to be scared. Everything within you tells you to be scared. These are the hands that slaughtered innocent lives. Still, the way his thumb brushes across your bottom lip is the most gentle thing you’ve ever felt since your mother’s last parting kiss to your forehead, and you’re not sure why, but it feels worse than any slap you’ve ever received before. 

“Dunno what’s gotten into you sweetheart, but I’ll just assume you’re in desperate need of some good rest.” John huffs when he releases you, hands falling to his side before his fingers wrap around the doorknob. 

For a moment, he stands there like this. Gaze wandering up and down, his pupils soak up the narrowing of your eyes and the shaking of your knees before he swings the door shut. 

“Goodnight, Lamb.”

follow @mother-ilia to be notified of updates | get early access to chapters here

fear of god

There's someone outside the spacecraft. You don't remember them being part of the crew. Part 12 masterlist

-

A false moon dictates the coming of night. 

You set up a cot in the medical unit again, going to your quarters to grab a spare set of sheets before returning, Gaz shadowing you the way there and back. His presence scratches at the back of your head, reminding you that he’s there at your back. You don’t ask him why he insists on keeping up this charade of monitoring your behaviour—his motives are as unclear to you as ever.  

“This isn’t necessary,” you finally manage to get out on the walk back to the medbay, the door within sight. 

“I know,” Gaz says simply. 

The door slides open and you enter with him still at your back. “Then why are you following me?”

“Those were Graves’ orders, weren’t they?”

“And you what? Follow his orders now?”

It’s difficult to determine who you actually feel betrayed by. Gaz owes you no debt—it wasn’t you that let him into the ship. The focus of your anger should be on Graves and the rest of the crew, but yet—

Your chest twinges when the door slides shut and Gaz leans against it, no different than a guard posted at the door. 

He shrugs, unbothered by the reproach in your voice. “He’s the commander.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s right.”

“Maybe not.”

“I had nothing to do with Hadir getting sick.”

“I know that.” Your chest deflates when you can’t detect any insincerity behind his words. “But Graves is in charge of the ship and unless you think you could get the others to agree with you, isn’t it better to toe the line for now?”

It would upset you if it were any less true. The hierarchical arrangement of personnel on board has always been clear, and it’s not lost on you that you’ve always hovered near the bottom, falling further from grace with every passing day. Who apart from Gaz and Hadir have been sympathetic towards you in recent weeks anyway? Nikolai’s friendship is an extension of his disposition, an affection easily given and easily taken away. Farah barely even regards you as trustworthy these days, convinced that you’re teetering on the edge of losing your mind.

She might not be wrong. 

Gaz watches you make the bed, settling into your office chair, a mite more comfortable than the stool by the counter. 

“Do you want me to set up a cot for you?” you ask begrudgingly. 

He shakes his head. “Don’t need one.”

“You can sleep comfortably sitting up like that?” 

His smile verges on patronizing. “I don’t need to sleep, love.”

Your skin crawls. You hate when he does that—when he lets you in on your shared secret, the knowledge that he isn’t as human as he appears. Whatever he is still eludes you. Alien or divine. There’s no point in asking though. That knowledge sits beyond your purview. 

You ignore him to the best of your abilities and finish setting up your cot, his words still ringing in your ears. 

Things take a turn for the worse when Hadir stops responding altogether. 

Though his verbal responses have become less and less frequent over the last couple days, the dropoff is significant. As your only patient though, you’ve been monitoring him closely since he was admitted, and you pick up on the change quickly. It’s like an itch under your skin, a sixth sense from working with sick patients for the better part of your adult years. 

Gaz picks up on the change in your mood, sitting up straighter. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” you respond through stiff lips. “Something changed.”

The base of your spine tingles when the vital signs monitor suddenly beeps, alerting you to a change in Hadir’s condition.

You flip a switch and press a button on the keyboard, speaking directly to the Ship’s AI. “Ship, what’s the patient’s status?” 

Patient's temperature is unusually elevated

Recommendation to increase fluids and decrease external temperature 

You lift his eyelids and find his pupils irregular, one larger than the other, and they don’t respond properly when you shine a light on them. 

“What can I do?” Gaz asks, as serious as you’ve ever seen him.

“We need to cool him down. His fever is spiking. I’ll get the cooling blanket—there are ice packs in the freezer over there—” You point to a refrigerator on the other side of the room. “—get the ice packs and start packing them around his armpits and groin. We need to get his temperature down while I figure out what the fuck is happening.”

Gaz moves quickly, retrieving the ice packs from the freezer and packing them up against Hadir’s pits and in between his legs under the medical gown. Hadir’s lips flutter reflexively at the cold but that’s as much responsiveness as you get out of him. 

You press the button to speak to the AI again. “Ship, is his temperature coming down?”

Negative

Patient temperature currently: 104°

Even his breathing has changed, his breaths similarly irregular and increasingly shallower. You put in the orders for another CT scan, moving quicker and typing faster than you ever have before. The breathing tube gets put in next to secure his airway and you don’t like the way his gag reflex doesn’t kick in when the tube is shoved down his throat. It signals something dangerous. 

The situation before you doesn’t bode well. Dread clings to the wall in the far corner of the room but you ignore its presence to focus on your work, throwing everything at the walls to see what sticks. 

His labs are all over the place. High fever, low platelets, high D-dimer, high FDPs. An hour passes in a blink with you running test after test to no avail—none of his results that come back make any sense—all while his temperature continues to rise. 

Patient temperature currently: 105°

Plastic backliners flutter to the floor when you rip them off the electrodes, pasting the small metal discs around Hadir’s scalp for the EEG, working as quickly and efficiently as possible. 

“Has his temperature come down yet?” you bark, too preoccupied with your work to chance a glance up at the monitor.

“No,” Gaz says curtly. “Still 105°.”

It’s all happening so quickly that you can’t seem to get your bearings. If it were anyone else on the table, you’d at least have Hadir to assist you; you’re on your own now though, Gaz barely any help to you without any real medical knowledge. 

Your heart pounds against your chest when you notice blood coming up Hadir’s ET tube. A few droplets at first, and then a trickle. 

A horrible, prophetic knowledge falls over you, threatening to collapse you. 

“What’s wrong with him?” Gaz asks.

“I don’t know—” Then his nose starts to bleed and your heart stops. The stain on the front of his gown and what you find underneath it when you lift it up confirms your worst suspicions. “He’s going into DIC—”

“DIC?”

“His blood—”

The AI takes that moment to interject, speaking over you: Patient body has used up all of its clotting factors and will begin to bleed out

Sepsis—a severe infection—an autoimmune response—trauma—cancer—so many different possible answers to explain why Hadir would spontaneously go into disseminated intravascular coagulation, but his labs tell you shit. Nothing makes sense. You can’t explain why he might be hemorrhaging because there isn’t anything in his scans or labs to indicate anything wrong with him.

More blood leaks from his face and nethers, staining the light blue of the bed a dark red. Logical objections halt in the face of the tangible, and blood is tangible. Blood is all you see. 

The final moments are harried, frenzied. You bark orders at Gaz, which he follows militarily, and struggle in vain to keep Hadir’s condition from further deteriorating, but it’s nearly impossible without being able to address the root cause. Transfusions of platelets, fresh frozen plasma, and cryoprecipitate only go so far. 

When his brain activity goes flat on the monitor, your mind goes blank. Static noise fills your head. You slump against the wall, staring at Hadir’s bleeding body on the exam table, still leaking blood from all of his orifices, the sound of the monitor blaring like a siren in your ears. 

“He’s dead,” Gaz says blandly, staring at the body nonplussed. 

“Yeah,” you rasp. Your voice is thick in your throat, devastated. 

There’s blood all over the bed, more in one place than you’ve seen in a long time—not since working in trauma units back on Earth. Every inch of your body aches as the adrenaline recedes, having reached its peak in the throes of Hadir’s final moments, jaw so tight you almost can’t unclench it.

“What happened?” he asks, almost quizzically. 

The curious lack of emotion in his voice doesn’t penetrate through the brain fog. “I don’t know—he just…” 

The weight of all that just happened comes over you swiftly. An hour ago, Hadir was fine for all intents and purposes. Stable. Now, blood stains his chin, the underside of his nose, the front of his gown, and the bed underneath him, the sweat caked on his forehead cooling as the life leaches out of his body. 

Your hands shake by your sides, a violent tremble rolling through you. 

“I don’t get it,” you whisper. 

You should’ve quarantined Hadir from the start, from the very second he was admitted into your care. You should’ve ignored the fact that his labs came back fine that first day and just assumed that the nature of his illness was more severe than it appeared. Shame and dread plunge like a dagger through your midsection.

Protocol should’ve dictated that you initiate a quarantine, but since you didn’t—

You stare at the body on the table, the ET tube streaked with blood.

—your duty now is to ensure that no one else gets sick too. 

You’ll need to seal off the medbay until every surface has been properly decontaminated and then quarantine yourself until you’re sure that you aren’t infected as well. Your eyes flick towards Gaz momentarily before you shoot down the thought of testing him as well. 

Mitigate the transmission. That thought sticks out amongst the rest. The body lying on the bed in the middle of the room is no longer a patient that needs tending to but rather hazardous material that needs to be disposed of lest whatever infected it is transmitted to everyone else on board the ship. 

It’s waste. Filth. And it will contaminate everything on board if you don’t remove it. 

Your body moves on autopilot. You wheel the bed to the ejection chute at the back of the medbay. It takes a series of codes in order to open the door to the chute and you key them in quickly and efficiently. When the door slides open, you raise the bed until it’s slightly higher than the chute, tipping the bed forward in order for the body to slide into it. 

Ejection chute engaged

Hadir’s body disappears into the chute, the reinforced metal and glass sliding shut when the sensors register that the chute door is empty. There’s a thunk from behind the wall as his body is shuttled through the pneumatic tubes towards the back of the ship, and it won’t be more than a minute before the body is projected from the ship entirely. 

Your heart skips a beat when the AI pings awake again.

Object ejected 

“I wouldn't have done that if I were you,” Gaz says, and you flinch at the sound of his voice, momentarily forgetting that someone else is in the room with you. 

Your eyes drift over to him, the room murky for a moment, the air hazy like water, like you’re looking through a film and only just starting to settle back down into your body after watching from overhead. He seems bigger somehow.

“We have to quarantine ourselves,” you say, frantically towards one of the cupboards and ripping it open, pulling out rolls of plastic to plaster over the door. “We didn’t put on any PPE, so we might’ve been exposed to whatever Hadir had.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that.”

His lips are turned up at the corners when you look over, frowning, but noise in the hallway keeps you from following up on his remark. 

The announcement over the intercom must have alerted the others, and you hear footsteps from down the hall seconds before they arrive, boots clanking against the metal flooring. When the door slides open and you see Farah standing there with Alex at her back, her face hauntingly vulnerable in a way you’ve never seen before, words fail you. 

“What happened?” Farah asks. 

“I don’t know. He was fine just a second ago and then—”

“Where is he?” she demands, scanning the room for him. “Where’s Hadir?”

“I—” The words get tangled up in your throat, terror and shame making it hard enough to breathe, never mind speak. 

Graves barrels in a second later, flushed and out of breath. He must have been in the cockpit when the intercom alerted him to the ejection chute being utilized. Nikolai is fast on his heels, less winded but just as concerned. 

You realize that from the direction Nikolai came, he must’ve been at the back of the spacecraft, and you morbidly wonder if he heard the sound of Hadir’s body ferrying through the pneumatic tube system.

“Doctor, what did you just throw out of the chute?” Graves asks, his tone hard and uncompromising, softened only by the breathless note in his voice from running halfway across the ship. 

You don’t answer.

His eyes lift to the space over your shoulder, where the patient bed is flush to the wall, the head level with the chute leading out of the ship. Blood still saturates the mattress. 

You watch as the knowledge of what you’ve done dawns on them, realization morphing into distress and horror. From behind Farah, Alex goes ashen, a hand clamping down on her shoulder to hold her in place before she realizes what you’ve done and the inevitable happens. You see it play out in your head like a movie. 

“Farah—” he starts, but any effort to steer her out of the room is thwarted by how quickly she comes to the same conclusion. 

“Where’s my brother?” Farah screams, and you wince, your head aching like there’s something else in there listening to her scream too. 

Alex has to hold her back from lunging at you, fighting to keep her in his arms, her body thrashing wildly. You’ve never seen her like this before. Grief and rage strip her of stoicism, and when her screams turn to tears, it rips a hole right through you. 

“You ejected Hadir from the ship?” Graves breathes, stunned. 

Nikolai just stares, at a loss for words. You’ve never seen any of them so obviously affected, so contrary to the image of them that you’ve carried with you in your mind for months. 

“I had to!” you shout, vocal cords tearing under the strain. “We couldn’t keep his body on board! What if it was some hemorrhagic fever—like ebola? Or worse?”

“You don’t even know what killed—” Graves roars before stopping abruptly, squeezing his eyes shut. He presses his fist to his mouth, the skin around his knuckles bone white. 

“We need to quarantine.” Your fingers tremble when you press them to your temples, flinching when you realize that your gloves are still covered in blood. “I was going to seal off the room to keep it from spreading, but now that you’re all here, we’re probably all been infected—”

“Infected by what?” 

“I don’t know.” 

A shade is falling over you. Everything feels raw, livid—a wound being prodded. The light hurts your eyes when you lift them from the floor to meet Graves’ gaze. Even the air feels caustic against your skin. 

Even your impulses don’t feel like your own, like there is some

insidious rot

fruiting under your skin.

“Are you going to say anything to them?” you finally snap at Gaz, desperation loosening your tongue. “You were here—you saw what happened. Why aren’t you telling them what happened?”

The others turn to look at him, orienting like sunflowers towards the sun. It’s the only comparison that comes to mind. And at the centre of them, Gaz stares back at you, an ersatz approximation of confusion. 

He gives a slow blink, eyes glinting with something unknown. “Tell them what? That you tossed Hadir out into space?” 

You should’ve expected that you’d be left hanging, but the reality of it is unbearable. Humiliating. 

You know what you look like to them: dangerous, erratic. Your paranoia on full display. Even Nikolai’s mouth is set in a grim line.

You can hear the accusations flying through their minds—that you caused this somehow. Overdosed him on anti-clotting medication and let him bleed out, then disposed of the body before a proper autopsy could be performed. That maybe you prolonged his illness, knowing it would lead to this.  

It happens swiftly and without word, as if planned ahead of time. Nikolai and Graves lunge towards you suddenly, grabbing you by the undersides of your arms and nearly lifting you off your feet when they haul you forcibly out of the room. Alex still has Farah trapped in his arms in the corner of the room when they drag you past her. 

“Farah, I’m sorry—I’m sorry—” 

You’re not strong enough to break free of Graves’ and Nikolai’s hold though, so you’re carried off before Farah can say anything. There’s only a split second for your eyes to lock and for you to see something broken beyond recognition there, and then the door cuts you off from her.

“You’re all fucking insane—let me go—” you scream, spittle flying from your mouth. The scream that tears out of you is so animalistic and loud that your throat squeezes up in protest, a cough forcing its way out. “I didn’t do anything wrong!”

Down the hall and towards the back of the ship. Boots echo against the metal floors, the two men on either side of you in sync with each other. Neither says a word nor responds to your screams. Their patience with your increasingly unhinged behaviour has finally crossed a threshold once thought impossible, your reputation alone no longer enough to save you. 

They all but throw you into the brig, the metal door clanging shut behind you when you’re dropped to your hands and knees, peering over your shoulder to find Nikolai punching in the key to lock and arm the door, a rueful, pained look on his face.

“Nikolai, please—” you beg, crawling to the door and curling your hands around the bar. “It wasn’t my fault—I didn’t kill Hadir. I’m sorry! He could’ve made everyone on board sick if we’d kept the body! Please, Nikolai, please—”

Your pleas fall on deaf ears. The last sound you hear is the brig door slamming shut and then their footsteps gradually recede into the distance.

obsessed with the idea of onlyfans model! reader x Simon

Maybe you’re one of the biggest creators on the platform and you’re very well known after doing it for a few years. Except, you only do solo content, despite your peers constantly asking to collab or getting requests from fans to see you getting fucked.

Then, one day you post a video showing off some new panties and Simon’s tattooed and scarred hand just appears, squeezing the meat of your ass, claiming and possessive. A subtle message he’s sending to your audience as he spreads your cheeks apart, sliding your panties to the side and shows off your pretty pussy dripping with his cum.