There's Just Literally Nothing Better Than Having That Man Push You Down To Bend Over A Table So He Can

Stitches (Part One)

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

Part Three of Snowblind

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

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

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

Unfortunately for you, Laswell's prophecy comes true.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That's probably bad.

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

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

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

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

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

He pales.

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

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

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

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

---

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It sinks your stomach.

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

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

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

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

Ah.

Yorkshire Gold.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You don't even have time to say goodbye.

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

Alone. Again.

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

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

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

---

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Red. On your fingers.

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

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

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

Fuck, it hurts.

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

This is bad.

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

The infirmary.

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

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

You don't hear the plane land.

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

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

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

Then you see him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Fix?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The world shifts under you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I'm...not-"

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

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

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

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

It hurts.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He stills.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another set of hands. Cigar smoke, ash.

"Soldier! Fix! Look at me!"

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

"Where the fuck is the medical team?!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"We need to put her under."

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

"Do it."

Price. Captain. No, please-

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

Don't-

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

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

Then there's nothing.

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

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

you’re in his lap in the back of the transport truck, legs spread over his thighs, the rumble of the engine covering the wet sounds between your bodies. he’s still got half his gear on—vest, mask, gloves—like he couldn’t be fucked to wait.

his voice is low, hot against your ear.

“knew you’d let me have it. soon as i saw you, i knew.”

his hand’s around your throat, not tight—just there, just a warning. your head’s tipped back against the wall, trying to breathe, trying to take it, but he’s fucking into you like you’re his to use.

“look at you,” he mutters, cock buried deep. “so fuckin’ needy for it. all that mouth, but you open up like a good little slut when i get you alone.”

his thumb wipes the drool from your lip, smears it across your cheek.

“that’s mine too.”

Others can't understand the connection

Drew this long time ago, trying to depict the subtle atmosphere between you and Konig

happy qixi festival

Music

TEMPOREX - Around You

I keep reading balaclava as baklava 💔

Jane Austen really said ‘I respect the “I can fix him” movement but that’s just not me. He’ll fix himself if knows what’s good for him’ and that’s why her works are still calling the shots today.

Honestly bizarre that tomatoes get all the flack for “not being a vegetable” because they're technically a fruit when:

A) There are a ton of fruits that get categorised as vegetables. Like this also applies to pumpkins, squashes and cucumbers.

B) The fucking mushrooms are standing there at the back of the crowd in this witch trial, trying to look inconspicuous because they somehow got into the vegetable club with no fucking controversy despite the fact that they're not even plants.

the lies we tell

how far would you go for the person you love?

type: part one of the time rot collection pairing: simon "ghost" riley x tf141!fem!reader (x johnny "soap" mactavish) word count: 5k

cw: dark!simon, dark!reader, curvy!fem!reader, mature language and content, suggestive language and content, graphic depictions of murder + violence + extortion, mw3 spoilers, unprotected piv, oral (fem!receiving), cumplay (18+)

you don't believe in fate. you don't believe in god. you don't believe in anything at all, maybe, because luck disguises coincidences, and no good deed goes unpunished. everything you are and all that you have are products of a world that never stops spinning--and nothing about what has ended up in your way has ever been the selfish result of some higher power or some kind of entity that holds a grudge against you.

it's simple. in your world, if you don't think, you get your comrades hurt. if you hesitate for a second too long or take a step in the wrong direction, you compromise ops and let targets get away.

and if you're stupid, you die.

it only takes a second. one moment, your hands are steady, following careful instructions by a familiar lilt how to disable the ticking timer that counts dangerously low towards zero. the next, your vision blurs, and your head pounds, and you can feel the trickle of your own blood coming down the side of your face. you try and sit up, and when your eyes are able to focus just a little, you're staring down the barrel of a handgun.

you have never needed a knight in shining armor. the idea offends you, disgusts you, and it rips your heart out when you see johnny coming up behind him and pushing the gun out of your face just in time for the shot to hit the floor beside you.

and it takes only one more second for the next bullet to go through the side of his head.

you scream. it rattles the room, a horrifying sound, but you're too late. it happens so fast, it's ringing in your ears, but there's nothing you can do. you've never felt more incapable, more useless, and you crawl on your hands and knees to get to him. it hurts, your head pounds, but you will yourself to keep moving until you fall over his chest, gripping the edges of his vest, shaking him.

no. no, no, no, no.

"get up!" you cry. "get up, get up, get up!"

he's still warm when you bury your face into his neck. when you feel the scratch of his stubble, the softness of his neck, the dark skin that shows where you kissed him the night before and the scratches along his arms that are from your own blunt fingernails.

"get up!" you hiccup. "you can't--you--you're not..." you drag him into your arms, picking up his head, and your hands shake as you cradle him into your body. you press your lips to the hole in his head, and you will it to disappear, to go away, to close up and spit out the bullet that was meant for you. "johnny--johnny, you have to get up--" your vision goes hazy again. "you...y-you have to get up."

when it's quiet is when you notice the shadows that hover over you. you don't move--you clutch johnny close, your arms tight around him, and when a warm hand touches your shoulder, you cry out, shoving them off.

no. no. no.

"no! no--" they're firm now, kyle gripping one of your arms, your captain taking the other. they drag you off, getting you onto your feet, and you thrash. you kick your legs, scream, anything to get them off of you, so you can pick up johnny's head and show them his eyes, because he has to be alive, he isn't gone--"no! no! get off of me! johnny! johnny!"

reality only sinks when you see him. ghost shifts, until he stands between you and what had been, and when you meet his eyes, you stop moving, shaking your head.

"simon--" your voice breaks. "simon--tell them--" you gasp. "we need a medevac, we need--he needs--"

you fall into his chest, and he catches you. one big arm wraps around your waist, and he grunts, tossing his rifle over his shoulder and cradling the back of your head with his other hand.

"simon--" you sob. "simon, it's not--it's--" you shut your eyes when you feel his gloved hand tangle into your hair. "it's not true, he's still warm, please tell them--!"

he says your name, low and gentle, and you shake your head. you won't say it. you won't believe it. it isn't true, because if it's true, it's all your fault, and you won't accept that, you can't.

you only laughed with him hours ago. shared his bed. woke up tangled between his sheets, pressed skin to skin against his burly chest, whispering against his lips about all the hours you would spend being lazy and unproductive when you finally got home to the bed that was actually big enough to hold the both of you, not the cot in the barracks with no locks on the doors--

you jump when the door shuts behind you. time passes without notice when you are this alone. you look around the flat; it's cold, and it doesn't look lived in, not like before. he always liked to leave it neat and proper, because it felt nice to come home to a clean home, but this isn't home anymore.

you pick up your bag and leave. you weren't even able to make it a few steps inside. you don't have it in you to get your things, to pack your clothes or your shoes or anything that still is in there because it won't feel the same to wear them again if he isn't here to see you.

price's name graces your phone all too often. he calls mornings, he calls evenings, he calls from unknown phone numbers. he says he's worried about you, that you didn't show to an important briefing, that you are welcome to take your leave but you need to tell him that you're alright, but you don't answer. when the call comes, an official one, asking you to gear up because wheels are up in an hour, you don't show up, and there is nothing he can do except scratch your name off his list and declare you dishonorably discharged.

but the world still turns. it doesn't stop just because your own did. you find yourself in need of the things that people use to survive, superficial papers and coins that rattle in everyone's pockets that keep them satiated with roofs over their heads.

at first, you start small. a friend of a friend is crying, hiding her bruised face, and she confesses to you that everything would just be easier if her boyfriend was gone. you're not there to see her face when he never comes back from his gambling night.

it starts as something good. johns threatening their girls disappearing when they take a smoke break. following drunk girls home only to drag their stalkers into dark alleyways. until one day it's a suit sliding you an envelope thick with notes, and you don't even bat an eye when you slip it into your jacket.

this is all you are now. you don't have anything inside. you aren't happy, you aren't good, and despite covering your crimes in the veil of defending those who can't, you know that it is just an excuse to wet your hands in the blood of someone else so you can forget what his own feels like.

because you can't forget. everywhere you turn, you see him. in the blue of someone else's eyes. in the dark curls of someone else's hair. in the shadow of another man's beard, the sound of a scottish accent, the plaid of a kilt that looks like the one he had shown you once that he said would be yours when you married him, because ye will marry me, bonnie, ye will--he always said you would even though you protested that you won't be a military wife, you won't sit at home and cook his dinner and grow his fat babies. and maybe you wouldn't, but he was good at showing you that he would fuck you dumb like a good wife should be, and you never had a problem with that.

he lives in the dark weather. the bricks of the buildings you pass by, the scratch of them almost mimicking the callous of his big palms. when rain touches your lips, you think about the way he would kiss you breathless, the feel of his spit on your tongue and the way he seemed to bare your soul with nothing but his smile.

the silence, it chokes you. you liked arguing; it meant he was alive, it meant he cared. he was charming. outgoing. he exuded fun, and he never ran out of energy, and maybe that's why you hated your superior so much. because johnny's eyes wandered, and you hadn't been around as long, and sometimes you would catch him staring at the back of a big, broad lieutenant only for you to rear him back and stuff his face between your thighs to distract him.

ghost always kept you on your toes. you knew he was a problem as soon as you joined their team. johnny was not subtle; from the first moment you met his eyes, you knew you would end up naked and underneath him in a short while, but it wasn't until weeks later that you noticed how stiff your superior was with you. how short. how mean. how angry. you didn't realize you had stolen something from him, but it was hard to feel guilty because johnny never behaved as if he belonged--he sought you out, he chased after you, he fell to his knees and begged for your attention, a hungry, starved dog that pawed at your pants for just a lick of the sweetness that pooled between your legs.

but that was why. johnny was starved. he wanted to love, he wanted touch and reciprocation and for the person he loved to tell him they loved him back, and that wasn't ghost. ghost held up a wall, even to johnny, and it wasn't enough. you would give what he would not, and maybe that angered ghost to some degree, because you could do what he couldn't, you could give what he didn't possess, and maybe he was jealous of that. jealous of how easy it was for you, and how impossible it seemed for him.

but the world keeps spinning. because it doesn't care about what you can and can't do. it won't stop, and neither would you, and he couldn't prevent what happened to you. he couldn't save the heart he didn't have.

and he couldn't save johnny from the bullet he would take for you.

and you think you hate him for that. you hate yourself for it, but you hate ghost, too. johnny couldn't see what you could see. his attention span was too short, he never looked long enough, but you did, and you noticed, and you saw the way ghost behaved. the subtly, the quiet longing, the eyes that never left him and the way he closed his fists. the twitch of his arm as he fought reaching for him, the way the masked moved as he contemplated saying something to him.

it was pathetic. it was pitiful. but you loved johnny, and you weren't going to try and coddle a traumatized man into taking what you really wanted. he loved johnny, you think, but he didn't love him enough.

not enough to fight for him. and not enough to save his life.

you haven't been paid for this. no one told you to look for him. no one told you that he was your mark, no one told you that he was the next on your list, that he deserved to find the end of the line at the killing side of your chosen weapon.

but he does deserve it. because you hate him. because he loved him, and he hadn't done anything to stop what never should've happened.

when he flicks on the light in his kitchen, he doesn't even react when he sees you standing there.

he's wearing civilian clothes, but you know better than to underestimate him. a hoodie under his rain jacket with the hood pulled up over his head, dark jeans over heavy boots, fading eye-black around the dark of his eyes, the only part of him visible under the balaclava. he could never quite cover up how striking his eyes truly are, or the blonde of his lashes. and he could never hide how big of a man he really is underneath it all.

"knew ya'd come eventually," he says finally. you try not to show any emotion, keeping your face neutral as you stare at him. he takes a step further into the flat, and the click of your handgun sounds as you hold it up. he still doesn't react, making his way towards the fridge and pulling a bottle out. he uses the edge of the counter to pop the cap off, and he grunts as he takes a seat at his table, relaxing into it.

you pull the chamber back, loading a round into the gun, and ghost narrows his eyes. he is still calm, very unbothered for someone about to eat the bullet he should've swallowed all those months ago, and it angers you more, unnerves you.

why isn't he afraid of me?

"wot's the price?" he asks, tilting his head to the side. "how much t'rid y'of me?"

when you don't respond, he laughs, humorlessly. this angers you, too.

"oh, i see..." he sucks on his teeth. "doin' this all on y'r own, eh?"

your lip twitches, and his eyes flicker, as if he's happy to get some sort of reaction out of you.

"i hate you," you whisper finally, and all he does is shrug his shoulders. "don't deserve to be here. to lead that team. to still call yourself a fucking lieutenant when you don't have anyone's back except your own."

he stares, not moving, and you envy how still he can be.

"and i know you're not going to wherever he is," you laugh bitterly. "not you, not someone as fucked up as you. you'll never have him again."

but neither will i.

"tha' wot y'think?" ghost asks. "tha' i don't have y'r back?"

"he's dead, isn't he?"

he leans forward, pushing his mask up slightly, and you watch with a shaky hand as he takes a long sip of his beer. his adam's apple bobs as he swallows, and you follow the pale lines you see that litter his lower face and neck. drags left behind from dull blades, the pieces of his skin that have been carved out and haphazardly put back together.

he looks like what you imagine you would, if someone looked on the inside of you. if someone pulled back the softness you wear and peeked underneath--they'd see you just like this. carved up, mutilated, picked apart. the anger wanes, just a little. you hate it, because it feels so true, the reflection of yourself that you see in him.

"why didn't you save him?" your voice breaks. your hand is shaking violently, your eyes are blurry with tears, and your legs feel weak. you look at him accusingly, and he stares right back. you can see more of his face, just his lips, but it's enough that you can see the way he snarls slightly. "why weren't you there? why--"

"y' 'ave no fuckin' idea--"

"you didn't love him enough!" you snap. you use two hands now, trying to hold the gun steady. "you didn't love him enough! y-you gave up on him, you fucking--"

"y' 'ave no idea wot i felt," he says, and you quiet, because his voice is dark and deep and a warning for you because he won't be so calm for long. "'ave no idea wot he was t'me."

"he was mine," you whisper, and you taste the tears that are falling down your face.

"wasn't always yours," he growls, and your hand shakes too much for your own good, and when he stands, he's too quick. he knocks the gun out of your hand, and it skids across the floor, and you cry out when he has you up against the wall, one big forearm trapping you there as he presses it firmly against your throat. he towers over you, glaring down at you, and when you try and use your legs, he forces you flat against him as he puts one thigh between your legs and holds you easily.

he's too strong. too big. too much of everything you aren't, and all you can do is gasp for air and thrash as much as he lets you.

"listen 'ere," he mutters, pressing down harder against your throat, and your breath hitches as you stare up at him through your tears. "the fuck y'wanna fight about? want t'kill me? want t'hurt me? wot the fuck are y'gonna do t'me that someone else hasn't, huh?" he spits at you now, angry and unhinged. "been buried alive. gnawed at m'own fuckin' hands t'break free. split apart from the inside-out, so wot the fuck can y'do t'me tha' i'll be afraid of, eh? y'r just a sorry fuckin' git tha' can't fuckin' admit y'weren't lookin'--and he's dead, and tha's a fact, and the sooner y'wrap y'r head around tha', the sooner y'can stop right fuckin' feelin' sorry for y'rself. y'think i don't play it in m'head everyday? thinkin' about wot i could've done t'get t'him?"

you break, crack, the tears spilling free. ghost isn't capable of feeling what you feel. of loving the way you love, of holding onto something so tight that he can't let it go, it isn't in him. he's fucking dead on the inside, you know that much. he wears that skull because he wants everyone to know that death is his friend, not his enemy, and that when he finally succumbs to his mortality, he'll just fucking go home.

"thinkin' about wot i could've done t'get t'you?" he breathes, and you blink up at him, your lips parting, trembling, and you take in the deep breath that he allows, and you aren't angry anymore. you don't understand. it doesn't make sense. "he had ya--" ghost wraps a hand into your hair, tugging on it, bringing you closer. "he almost had ya..."

what?

your eyes flutter shut when he presses his forehead to yours. his grip is firm, he isn't letting you go.

oh.

"almost had ya," he echoes, in a deep whisper, and you nuzzle your face to his, subconsciously.

oh...

maybe you were just naïve. so egotistical, so selfish, that you misinterpreted everything that you saw. was it anger, or was it longing? was it jealousy, or was it lust? was it the shame of the way he felt, or the timidness of revealing the truth of it?

wherever johnny was, there was ghost. right behind him, in the dark, purposefully watching.

or was he just waiting?

you want to feel guilty. you want to feel angry, you want to fight for the gun that escaped you and press it to his chest and pull the trigger, but you don't have it in you. you spent so long hating him, you didn't realize it could've been someone else.

vying for the attention of someone unattainable, someone unavailable, untouchable. someone that can understand the way you feel unlike anyone else in the entire, unforgiving world that keeps fucking spinning--

"b-but--"

"was never jealous," he admits, and you swallow hard. you almost stop breathing when you feel the faint brush of his lips against yours. "y'were out of m'reach." he loosens his grip on your neck, but you don't move. "couldn't 'ave ya, couldn't--"

the kiss is messy. you lean forward just enough to swallow his words. your heart squeezes in your chest, it bursts, and you cradle the back of his head as you slide your tongue between his teeth and taste him hurriedly. you want to know him, you want to understand him, you want to crawl inside the warmth he emanates and pretend the world stopped moving right before it took away the thing you loved more than anything.

you hate him, don't you? you hate all that he is, you hate the man he isn't, you hate him because he loved what you loved, and he didn't do anything to save him, you hate him because he had what you had, and he wasn't selfish enough to not let him go.

you hate him because even though it is all your fault, he doesn't hate you, and you think that's what you hate most of all.

because i am not worthy of anything anymore.

you want him to hate you. you want him to kill you, you want him to blame you for everything you've done. you want him to remind you that you aren't worthy of any kind of affection, of love, because you were stupid, and so was johnny, but he won't do it--he won't. he slides his hands down your sides, he puts them around you, picks you up from under your thighs and carries you until you fall underneath him onto the cushions of his couch that you don't deserve to feel.

he feels too good. he bares his layers. he takes his jacket off, slips the hoodie over his head, and you stare speechless as he kicks his jeans low and strips the mask off of his face.

your hands shake as you cup his cheeks. he's so pretty, unfathomably so, and you think you're crying because you recognize him even though you've never seen his face before. there's something so familiar about the shape of his nose, the way his brow bone feels under your fingertips, and you cry because you loved johnny, but you might love ghost more.

fuck.

you don't know him, and you think you love him more, and it isn't because you love johnny less, it isn't, but while johnny loved unconditionally, ghost loves you because he isn't capable of not loving you. you love him more, and it hurts to love him more, because he sounds grateful that bullet took everything from him except for you.

when you look into his eyes, you wonder if he let it happen. if he saw johnny step in front, if he knew where the bullet would land, and let it happen so that it wouldn't happen to you.

fuck. fuck, fuck, fuck.

it's selfish. it's disgusting. it's cruel, he is so cruel, it's frightening to think about him hesitating just to keep you, but it's even more frightening that you are looking up at him, all this time later, and you're letting him have what he abandoned everything to take.

you're letting him slip the shirt over your head. the pants from your legs, steal the lace from between your thighs so he can settle himself there and bury his head in the warmth of all that he wants.

he's cruel about this, too. he eats like he has never eaten before, like he tastes what he has been searching for his whole life and will lose it if he doesn't consume it all. he barely breathes, arms hooked around your thighs as he yanks you close, tongue buried inside as he coats his mouth in everything that you are and swallows it just to take more. you arch your back, bow it tight as he devours. and devour he does, squeezing the thick of your thighs hard as he bobs his head and fucks you with the warm muscle of his mouth. it drags along your insides, slips between the puffy folds, swirls around your clit until he suckles on it viciously, until you are crying for a different reason and letting the terrifying thoughts spill out of your ears until there is nothing to think about but the man between your legs and the love you have for him more than another.

"simon--"

it spurs him on. his name, the one he doesn't use anymore. it clouds his own head, and he groans as he opens his mouth wide and tries to eat you whole, eat you wet, eat you entirely like he will die if he doesn't.

and it isn't enough. never enough. he snarls when you cum, using two fingers to slip inside of you and feel the clench of your walls, and then he slips them out and feeds those fingers to you. you choke on his hand slightly, the girth unfamiliar, and when he smiles, wickedly, you shiver, afraid.

his love is so visceral, he let johnny die. his love is so broken, so jagged-edged and terrible, that he let go of what was his to have it. he smiles because he knows what he wants is now his.

did he know? did he know what would happen to johnny all that time ago and let what we were manifest because he knew how it all would fucking end?

ghost is a sickness. ghost is poison. ghost is what lives under children's beds, he is the black hole that sucks in the glow of anything nearby, that swallows anything in its path because anything other than what he wants is in his fucking way.

was johnny in his way? he must've loved him, he must've. they were lovers, friends, comrades, they stood back to back and faced their makers with nothing but each other--he must've loved him, but now you are so afraid, because if he did love johnny, what do i call what he feels for me?

did he know that johnny's love would kill him? did he know, and he let him love me anyways, because he's so patiently twisted inside?

he grips your jaw tight, and your eyes sparkle, diamonds in the wasteland you must be drowning in, and he shakes his head. it's so dark, night blackening the room, but you can see his own eyes bright as day. there is nowhere else to look. this is the man you have resigned yourself to. this is the thing that feeds on what you have left, and you should run away, he has killed what you truly are, but you won't.

i can't. i'm not capable of it. i'm not strong enough to leave, he has me, he fucking has me--

and he does. he won't even have to tie you up, he knows you won't leave, you can tell that he knows. he kisses you, still holding onto your face, and you just sink more into the cushions as he uses his free hand to find your entrance and sink himself deep.

it takes one smooth grind of his hips to press himself against you. his hips meet yours, and you whine when he lets go of you, gripping you around the thighs and hoisting you underneath him so you're nestled right under him, knees up and pussy fluttering. he seals it, he's infected you, and you should tell him to go away, you should tell him to stop, but it feels so good, it feels so nice, he's so big, he's mine, mine, mine--

"all y'needed," he murmurs, staring down at you. "'s all y'needed, luv. somethin' to shut y'up."

your body betrays what you feel inside. it grips him tight; every time he drags his cock out, it fights to pull him back inside, and the grunt he lets out as he sinks deep again tells him he knows this, too. no matter what atrocities the two of you commit, this is where you will end up. staring each other in the eyes, knowing you are black inside, and fucking each other anyway because that is my reward, this is where i'm meant to be, this is where i'll end up in whatever fucking universe we end up in.

"y'feel me, swee'eart?" he asks, pressing his palm to your stomach. you rock with him as he grinds slow, hitting you deep and powerful every time, and you nod frantically, your lips parting as you rattle every time he hits his hips to yours. "feel me right 'ere...yeah..." he smooths his thumb over the stop his tip hits, and you whimper, sliding your own hand down and over his, keeping his touch there. he fucks so well, every move he makes draws the blood from your head and makes you feel stupidly wonderful, and he knows just when to angle his hips to touch the sensitive little clit that pulses in rhythm with his thrusts.

this is what you are. this is what you always were going to be, even if you fought it, and you want it to hurt that johnny was collateral damage, but it doesn't.

it doesn't.

your eyes meet his, and he has your face in a strong grip now, leaning down as he picks up the pace. he hits a gooey spot inside of you now, a wet squelch sounding out as you drip, as you wet his cock because he is every desire you didn't know you had, and he bares his teeth, smiles down at you, he has me, he fucking has me, he'll never let me go.

"all mine," he slurs, and you aren't coherent enough to read between the lines. you aren't lucid enough to understand what he means, that now that you don't belong to anyone, not even yourself, there is no logical place for you to be except for underneath him. for him to own you, from the light in your eyes to the very breaths that you share with him.

connected, one being, and if i do not obey, i don't know who he will take next from me.

but there isn't anyone left to take. not even yourself, because you think it has already been given.

you cry when he holds you by the throat and fucks you stupid. hips snapping, breathes short and heavy, the spill of your arousal and the need of the very oxygen to breathe. you claw at him, wanting more, your stomach clenching and a feeling catching in your chest because you are climbing a mountain so fucking tall, and please get me there--i'm so close--yes-yes-yes!

your eyes roll back into your head when he cums. he groans into your ear, fucking you through it, gripping your hips tight as he keeps his hips pressed to yours. you feel so full, a kind of euphoria that is beyond you, a hazy place of pleasure that you've never been to before. it clouds your vision and the thoughts you know you should have.

the thoughts that would make you run. the ones that would reach for the knife you see taped under the coffee table and use it to slit his pretty neck.

you blink up at ghost, trying to think, but he bends low to kiss you again. you whine as he settles down between your thighs, his weight heavy and solid above you, and you relax with both of your hands on his face.

he smiles, and it should scare you, but it doesn't. you want it to hurt, but it doesn't. you want him to kill you, but he won't, you want to kill him, but you can't. his eyes all but confess what he's really done. the secret he hides inside but reveals in what he holds in his very hands. the world keeps spinning. it doesn't care. and, you suppose, neither do you.

because all you do is smile back at him.

BOJACK HORSEMAN | Original release: August 22, 2014