Pronebone With Simon Pronebone With Simon

The missiles are very eepy

Twitter saw it first because I always forget to share my artworks on tumblr too, sorryyyy 🧍🏽‍♀️

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

Soap: "Did he just call us little?"

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

fanfiction isn’t enough, I need to chew on him

it really is crazy how quickly people were willing to just let chatgpt do everything for them. i have never even tried it. brother i don't even know if it's just a website you go to or what. i do not know where chatgpt actually lives, because i can decide my own grocery list.

"Home, In All But Name"

Summary: The war’s loud. The world’s rough. But here, in this room, among these misfits, killers, and brothers — it almost feels like home.

Rating: wholesome, cozy, found family fluff

Soap was snoring on the couch again.

One boot half on, the other discarded somewhere under Price’s desk, his head hung off the armrest at an angle that couldn’t be healthy. Gaz had tried waking him up twice already, only to get a swat and a muttered, “M’fine, mum.”

Ghost sat in the corner, legs kicked up on the table, sharpening a knife with lazy, deliberate strokes. Every once in a while, he’d glance over at you from behind the skull mask, not saying a word — just checking. Just watching.

Price walked in with a tray of mugs, black coffee for himself and Ghost, tea for you, and whatever chaos-fueled mix Soap claimed helped him sleep like a rock. He handed you yours first, giving your shoulder a little squeeze as he passed.

“Everyone alive?” he asked dryly.

“Physically,” Gaz muttered from where he was trying to untangle Soap’s comms wire from his bootlace. “Emotionally? Jury’s out.”

Price chuckled, deep and warm. “Close enough.”

You sat back in your chair, wrapping your hands around your mug, letting the silence settle in. It was a quiet kind of peace — the kind you only found in the lulls between missions. No gunfire. No yelling. Just the low buzz of the heater, the clink of metal, and the occasional snore from the couch.

Ghost leaned back, mask tilted toward you. “You good?”

You nodded. “Yeah. This helps.”

“This?” he asked.

You gestured vaguely — to all of it. Soap drooling on the couch. Gaz swearing at tangled cords. Price humming something under his breath. Ghost sharpening his third knife for no reason.

“This. You guys.”

Ghost didn’t say anything for a beat. Then he nodded.

“Yeah,” he said. “You help too.”

Masterlist

Sometimes little pleasures in life are loadbearing. Whenever someone is like "If you'd just give up tea and coffee and sugar and--" im like I'll stop you right there. Because if you finish that sentence i am going to kill everyone in this building and then myself. If i have to face the horrors of the world without my little jar of caramel flavoured instant coffee i am going to go full American Psycho. Believe it or not, my main priority in life is not to have perfect teeth or be an Olympic athlete or look like a supermodel, but to actually enjoy living, because I spent far too long not doing that and it royally sucked. And boy, some people don't like hearing that. Particularly dentists

— Frank Bidart, from "The War of Vaslav Nijinsky";

Half-light: Collected Poems 1965-2016

Nikolai's appetite disappears over night and Price smells a rat.

cw: mention of body shaming, damaged relationship with food.

Nik loved food.

Not in the way that Johnny did, slamming an entire packet of Maryland cookies and then descending into a sugar coma, or the way that Gaz did, by seeing it as fuel to maintain a powerful and efficient body, so every macro counted. But in the way a wine taster did; there wasn't a city on earth where he couldn't steer John to the very best restaurant, be it tiny back alley taverna or sprawling five star hotel.

He loved sampling different cuisines, sourcing exotic dishes and sharing them with John (who had drawn the fucking line at sea urchin and puffer fish, because while he had never considered a rule about eating shit that could kill you in seconds, he made an ardent one in that moment). John reckoned it was a leftover from his army days when he would have had to survive on rat packs and mess food like the rest of them. He was enjoying it now he could.

So, when Nik suddenly stopped eating, it was bloody noticeable.

He'd still take John out, filling his plate and excitedly watching his face as he tried it, but he wouldn't eat himself. And if he did, it was some poxy salad or plain chicken that looked like it hadn't even glimpsed a spice rack. There were empty tupperware containers stacked in the co-pilot chair of the Black Hawk and Nik remained completely sober during a post-mission arse squeak celebration. (Where they had - in Ghost's words - bum squeaked their way through; Price wasn't sure it was technically an idiom, but he let it pass.)

"You watchin' yer figure, Nik?" Price asked finally, reclining in the wicker chair at the little café they'd stopped in. They were just outside Florence, and the tourists were just beginning to slither groggily into the sun.

"Da," Nik tapped his stomach, "I am, what do you call it, spreading?"

"You look fine t' me. More n' fine."

"I have lost some. But I still have more to do." Nik tugged at his sleeve, a self conscious gesture that John had never seen him do, and it set his teeth on edge.

"Did someone say somethin'?"

Nik swallowed and John wished he'd take those bloody aviators off so his eyes were visible. "Not recently."

"Well, this has been goin' on for months," John said, gesturing at the black coffee that comprised Nik's entire breakfast, while John had polished off the continental version of a Full English. "So out with it. Who said what?"

"I..." Nik cleared his throat, shifting in his chair. "I was not wearing a shirt on a beach in America, visiting Laswell, and a group of young women advised me to go to the gym."

"You can olympic press Ghost."

"Da."

"You can bench press over twice your own bodyweight."

"Mm, da."

"I think you go to the gym plenty."

Nik went silent. He wasn't looking at John, which meant he was embarrassed and not sure how to recover. Whatever this was, whatever had been said, he would have retaliated with his usual bolshy dismissal at the time, but up there in his Heli it would have buzzed around in his head in the quiet until it got its barbs in.

"Fer a smart bloke, you 'n' 'alf thick sometimes."

"That is what I am trying to fi--"

"Not what I meant, Nikolai." John sighed, rubbing a hand over his beard as he considered Nik's slumped shoulders. "You're good-lookin', fit, hotshot pilot with yer gold chain. This is the first time some horrid cow has said somethin' cruel, I bet."

"I might have let myself go."

"You're fifty. It's allowed," John said. "But you haven't. Yer just as built as when we first met."

"I was thirty, John. That is not possible."

"I don't think I stuttered there, but I might be wrong..."

Nik tsked at him and wrapped his arms over his chest. He tried to make it look nonchalant but it was absolutely a barrier. "I am feeling self-conscious. It will pass. I do not wish to talk about it."

"Tough shit, Nik. We're talkin' about it." John scraped his chair loudly around the table and crowded into Nik's space, leaning down with his elbows on his knees to look up into the forlorn expression on his lover's face. "If - and I mean if - I thought your health was at risk, or you were lettin' yourself go, you not think I'd get you runnin' laps with my new crop until you were fit to run missions with my team again?"

"Da, I would expect nothing less."

"Yer part of my task force, Nik. I don't accept anythin' but the best. No exceptions. Tell me I'm wrong."

"I cannot."

"And has my performance between the sheets been any less enthusiastic?"

"Nyet..."

"Right, so, engage that mensa level intelligence of yours and compute the obvious bloody conclusion."

John reached forward, continuing even when Nik tried to recoil, to run his hands beneath his shirt. Nik's belly was warm, the hair on it soft, and John wanted nothing more than to rub his damn face into it.

"I know it's gonna take time to rebuild yer confidence, Nik. Not sure yer tellin' me the whole story but whatever they said, they're wrong. Women like that, they're cruel for sport. You could look like, uh... whathisname, Chris Hemsworth, 'n' they'd still say somethin'. Gives 'em a way to cover up their own insecurity, right?"

There was a small smile of amusement and Nik's arms fell away, letting John run his hands a little higher. "I am impressed you remembered the name of an actor, captain."

"Yeah, I watched a whole film the other night..."

Nik smiled. "A whole film. Impressive."

"Cheers." John lifted his hand to cup Nik's jaw, one hand on his knee. "Still wet my knickers for you, Nik, but tell me what else I can do t' help."

"Nothing, I am... I will be fine."

"Not like you to let some bird get under your skin like that. Sure there's nothin' else?"

Nik cleared his throat, looked to the side and then finally at John's face. "You do not wish to trade me in for a newer model?"

"Jesus fuck... waiter, il conto, per favore."

"Where are we going?"

"Back to the hotel room."

"Why?"

"'M gonna shag your brains out, since they're not functionin' particularly well on the inside. Up. Double time."

Nik reached for his wallet to pay but John had already slapped his credit card on the scanner by the time he looked up. He grabbed Nik's hand and dragged him down the few blocks to their hotel, where he intended to spend the rest of the afternoon making Nik feel like the hottest piece of arse on the planet.

Clark watched Bruce warily as he experimented with the string between them. Bruce had long ignored the red string of fate that connected them, but he could no longer avoid it after Clark had used it to stop him from storming out of a heated argument. Although only Bruce could see the string, Clark always felt its undeniable presence.

Recently, Bruce had begun to find practical uses for their bond. He usually used it as a communicator, tugging at the string whenever he needed Superman’s assistance.

Despite their growing reliance on this bond, neither really talked about the emotional weight of their connection. Bruce never initiated the conversation, and Clark hesitated to push the subject, especially when Bruce had only recently acknowledged the string's existence.

Clark had always assumed that Bruce saw their bond as more of an inconvenience until one day, Clark suddenly found himself able to see their string.

To his shock, it wasn’t the red he had expected—it was black. Traditionally, red strings of fate would turn black when a relationship was filled with rage and contempt. Bruce had been distancing himself because he thought Clark harbored resentment toward him.

But as Clark examined the string more closely, he realized something Bruce hadn’t seen. Their string wasn’t truly black—it was the deepest shade of red, signifying a mutual love that had matured and strengthened over time. Its color was so saturated that it appeared black to the naked eye.

What Bruce mistook for hatred was, in fact, a love so strong that its depth had been misinterpreted.