Falling Asleep On Your Partner's Shoulder With Nathan?

“so if you don’t like them, then you won’t mind me asking them out then, right?” With Santi from Triple Frontier?

why would i? (s.g)

summary: you’re the youngest Miller, a baby girl. protected by your older brothers. your brothers’ lives finally intertwine with yours at your eldest brothers wedding when you meet their friends. warnings: timeline wise at the end its right before they leave, kind of slow burn, female reader, age gap (15 years), language, mentions of blood, violence, consumption of alcohol, some rando getting his shit rocked in word count: 4.6k

Ever since the moment you opened your little eyes. You were a princess, the baby, doted upon and spoiled endlessly. The Miller family weren’t expecting you. Especially not two teenage boys who had to fight the urge not to throw you like a football, most of the time. 

They were only fifteen and thirteen. The appeal of a baby sister was lost the second they saw pink confetti at the gender reveal party. Over time, and with your parents' persuasion, no doubt. They started to warm up to the idea of a baby sister, someone to protect. It gave new meaning once they both got to hold you in their arms. To watch you struggle to open your eyes. You were so small, so fragile. They loved you from that day on. Whatever you said, went. You got everything you wanted, but you were taught to be grateful, caring. In the short time you had with them, your brothers would follow your every beck and call. You were barely a toddler by the time Will was finishing high school. But you were always in attendance at all of his games, matches, club and school events. You always did assist in helping bring girls’ attention to him. He looked like a total sweetheart with you around. 

Will was nineteen when he left. You only had four short years with your eldest brother before he shipped himself off to the military. Benny followed at nineteen too. You were six by then. You had grown closest to Benny. Even though you had always made sure Will never lacked your attention. You exchanged letters and drawings and packages. Your mother bought a camera to take pictures of you growing up for the two of them through your letters. Your sloppy penmanship would always put a smile on the brother’s faces. Will would tell you the lighthearted stories about his army buddies, jokes they told and funny stories about their time there. And as you got older Benny would allow you to hear more of the truthful stories. Stories where things went wrong, someone almost got hurt. How one of their fellow troops was killed. Things your mother would faint at the sound of. That made you wonder if your brothers were truly okay out there. It very rarely gave you enough comfort to sleep at night knowing they at least had each other and their friends.

For a couple years the letters had become sporadic. You would always wait for the mail to arrive and instantly run to the mailbox. Soon enough, weeks would come without any word from either of them. Benny would eventually send them on behalf of the both of them. They were shorter, mostly telling you that they were okay and they missed you. That they had gotten ‘promoted’ and they were important. They were just busy. And while you were sad. You knew it probably was true, they were busy. You would continue to send letters, though. Explaining things you felt were important to your life, hoping it would ease some of their anxieties. 

You were seventeen when they both briefly came back. Right as you were going to graduate high school. They claimed they came home because they could never miss a moment like that. But you aren’t sure how likely their stories are. They watched you throw your cap in the air, just like you had done many, many years prior. They both felt such a strong sense of pride, although both admitted to each other that the guilty feeling of missing most of your life was present, persistent. Will more than Benny. Benny tried to convince him you would never be upset at them. You could never be, they fought for you, in many ways. Truthfully, you were just happy they were home and safe. You cried when they left again, you were still just a kid. Refined, more poised than a four year old. But it still hurt them all the same, watching the tears that formed in your eyes. Trying to hold back your staggered breaths with a smile. A simple. “Don’t forget to write again. I love you guys.” Was the last they heard. 

Three years later your mother had begged the two boys to come back home and live as a family for a couple of years. ‘Just to get settled into life again.’ She would say. But you know it probably didn’t take much convincing for them to stay. It was exciting, after so many years of the hallways being quiet. There was finally a joyful noise that filled the house. Banter over dinner and rowdy movie nights. It wasn’t all perfect, of course. There were many nights that were just as loud in the worst kind of way. Fights and arguments. Your dad hated that Benny fought petty street fights for money. And Will had nightmares a lot, the kind that left him with his head in his hands at the kitchen island. You always seemed to wake in time to join him. Comfort him in the way he seemed to be so seamlessly able to soothe you as a child. Your hand on his back as a crutch. To say, “I’ve got you.”

It was two years before Will moved out. He had met a woman six months after his return. Fell head over heels. Your family adored her. She was kind, accepting, and comforting. Most importantly she was willing to be with your brother no matter what. It made you swoon. You were so happy for your brother to find that kind of support. Love. He deserved it. You couldn’t believe he was really all grown up. You were too, but it was different. You were the baby, you were always going to be. Will wasn't some ragged teenager anymore. Somehow you blinked and found yourself at his wedding. It was a lovely little reception, the venue was beautiful and it was a perfect summer day. You didn’t really date as of lately, you had gone on plenty of dates as a teen. But it was a little harder when you had two older brothers standing over you like two gargoyles. You had a short term boyfriend but it wasn’t more than a few dinner dates and maybe a couple kisses here and there. Not that your romantic life bothered you. You were young, twenty two was too young to stay in a long term romantic relationship. There were options, you just didn’t take them. You were content in your life. Or that’s what you kept telling yourself, noticing that you seemed to be the only one at the wedding who didn’t bring a date, or at least someone to stand next to. Jesus. You should’ve taken the chance to call your friend to be your plus one. You take a deep breath to avoid your mind falling into an even deeper hole, but the sound of Benny’s voice snaps you out of your thoughts. 

“Yo, kiddo! We want you to meet some people.” 

You take his extended hand and follow him over to a table that seemed to have three other men, followed by two women who you presumed were their dates. You exchanged pleasantries. And came to learn of their names, Tom, Francisco and Santiago. Once you were introduced to their dates you noticed Santiago didn’t come with one. For some reason, it puts you at ease. Hoping to ignore the later questions of “Why didn’t you bring a date?” Benny brings you a chair to sit and you find yourself sitting right in between Santiago and Francisco. Although he prefers to be called ‘Frankie’, you’ve heard. The dinner goes smoothly, you finally get the speeches. One by one the friends take their turn speaking about Will. How headstrong he was, what a good friend he was. How happy he seemed now that he was married to the love of his life. How proud they all were of him. It gave you a sense of pride to be related to someone so selfless. The moment Santiago stood up your eyes immediately trailed his stature. The way the suit was fitted to him, and his cufflinks had a quick glimmer when light passed through. You quickly turn your gaze to Will, sending him a sweet smile. He nods in acknowledgment and turns his eyes back to Santiago. You follow suit, hoping no one noticed you staring and also hoping the quick detour would have your mind back on track. Although whatever track that is, you’re not completely sure. His speech is heartwarming, you can’t tell if he’s showing his charisma off or if he is really that charming. You watch the guys shake with a hearty laughter at one of their inside jokes being thrown in. 

After a while, the moment starts to die down. Couples are moving to the dance floor. You opt out of the dance for a glass or two of champagne that you so gracefully took from a walking server. Sitting in a chair on the sidelines you appreciate the atmosphere. The slow music, dull lights and overall happiness in the room. You feel bubbly by the time the next song plays. And through half lidded eyes you notice that someone took a seat next to you. “You good there, chiquita?” The voice calls out. You find yourself tensing up and turning to face him. “No, yeah, I’m fine.. Sorry. Didn’t mean to worry you..” You mumble out. There’s a stretched out silence before he speaks up again. “You wanna dance? You’ve been sitting here all night.” His question doesn’t sound like a question at all. He seemed certain you would say yes. You nodded at him, standing and walking out to the dance floor. He took your hand and placed it on his shoulder, while he planted his hands firmly on your waist. He set a distance between the two of you that made you want to laugh. Quite the gentleman, it seems. The two of you swayed kind of awkwardly for a bit until he suddenly seemed to give a little slack. The distance closed slightly. One continuous slow song after the other and you soon found yourself with no distance from Santiago. Your chests touching and his hands rubbing up and down your back. Your head tucked in the slot between his collarbone and shoulder. The smell of his cologne was all you could feel in the air surrounding. You swayed to the music, falling into a comfortable rhythm. The next song was fast paced, causing the two of you to pull away as if you got singed. Both of you frantically looked around, almost as if waiting for a punishment. Like dancing with someone at a wedding was wrong. It hadn’t felt wrong, you clear your throat and say your goodbyes. The rest of the party continued on as normal, no one seemingly noticing the two of you in such close proximity. You spent the rest of the time exchanging stolen glances at each other. 

You didn’t hear of him much after the wedding. Just little hints of his life from your brothers. You came to learn his nickname was ‘Pope’. Every time the name would pop up your attention was just suddenly on whoever was talking. After a month there was complete radio silence on anything Pope related. You were settling back into life and that little fantasy was just that. A small moment you could cherish once in a while. Until one night, you were sitting with Will and your sister in law at their house. Watching some random romcom that the two of you had picked out to force Will to watch. It was going pretty well, you had a bowl of popcorn in between your thighs as you sat legs crossed on the couch. Suddenly his phone rang. And you pouted as he paused the movie to answer it. “Hello?” Then silence, and more silence. Then— “Jesus, Pope.. Colombia? Are you sure? Alright. Only the best, my brother. Be safe.” The call had ended as abruptly as it started and Will was playing the movie without a second thought. He shuffled back into the couch and wrapped an arm around his wife. You couldn’t focus on the movie after that, and you hoped neither of the two could sense the same tension in the air you felt, but it’s likely they did. Life continued on after that, you managed to push every and all thought of Santiago to the back of your mind. It seemed to work, you got a job, started to go out more. Arranged things to move out, almost an hour away from home. Into the city in a small apartment. Your brothers were right there as you twisted the key into the lock for the first time. You slowly and surely started to root your life in your space. You saved up enough money for a cute little car. A black sedan. You were starting to mature, but it would’ve been nothing without the help of your family. It would be another three years before you saw his face again. 

The heat of summer was enough for you to contemplate jumping into the pool with your dress on. The barbecue was lively, there was Tom and his now ex-wife, Molly and their daughter, Tess. Frankie and his fiancée with their new baby. Your darling brothers fighting over who starts up the grill. Your excitement fell slightly at the thought of Santiago not being here. But from what you finally heard from the group, Santiago had been down in South America for the better part of the three years since Will’s wedding. You sigh and head for the table with all the drinks. The sound of cheers and laughs makes your eyes turn to the fence gate. Where Santiago now stands. Hugging all of his friends. You smile, getting ready to go up and greet him when you realize there’s a woman standing by his side. You halt in your tracks and settle for a slight wave and a quick ‘hello’. Your gaze lingers on the woman for a second too long before you turn your face to see Will finally starting up the grill. You sink your teeth slightly into your bottom lip and sit by the pool in a lounge chair. She was gorgeous, older than you, but not by more than five years. She seemed so refined, effortlessly beautiful even in the scorching heat of summer. The curls of her blonde hair bounce almost as to taunt you as she wraps her arm around his. You groan and let the back of your head hit the back of the chair. Your face was on fire. You felt childish, to have an on again off again crush on a man who clearly isn’t single and is the same age as your older brother. And not to mention they're best friends. You purposely want to ignore how you haven’t shared more than six words with the man. When you think it aloud in your head, you were crazy to believe there was anything there in the first place. Unless you misread the tension and he felt more like you were an annoying sidelines sister instead of a person. 

Around eight pm Will’s next door neighbors had stopped by to join. They were nice enough, two parents and a single son. No other children. You had spoken to their son once or twice before while you were visiting but didn’t think much of it. It was perfect timing for them to get in and eat. You kept your position by the pool, only moving to get drinks or change seats. You had your feet dipped in the water while you stared at the night sky. You were so engrossed in your own thoughts you didn’t hear the sound of the back door sliding open and closed. You didn’t pay much attention until the sounds of clothes shuffling and a soft grunt came from next to you. It was Santiago, with his pants rolled up his calf and his feet in the water with you. You beamed immediately, then deflated and avoided his gaze when you remembered who he came with. “How are you?” He broke the silence first. You took a second to think before answering his question with one of your own. “Don’t you think I should be asking that?” He chuckles at you before glancing at your reflection in the water. “Yeah that’s.. You’re right there, chiquita.” You smirked in triumph. The sound of the nickname rolling off his tongue made you instinctively press your thighs together. You watch his eyes flicker to your legs before back to your face. If he notices, he doesn't say anything. “I’m good. By the way..” You finally say. He hums in acknowledgment with a small smile on his face. “You look gorgeous, I like the dress.” His compliment cuts your breath short. Face going red as you turn to look away from him. “Thanks, Santiag—“ “Santi. You can just call me Santi.” You smile. “Thanks, Santi.” This time it’s his turn to avoid your eyes and he clears his throat before getting up and out of the water. “I’ll uh, see you inside?” You shrug and lean back on the palms of your hands. He runs a hand down the lower part of his face and neck before turning on his heel and walking back towards the sliding door. 

Once the door is shut Santiago shakes his head and shoulders. Trying to ignore how beautiful you looked in your dress. Trying to forget the twitch of your thighs when he called you that. Did you like that? Did you find it creepy? Trying to focus back on being able to maneuver his way through endless conversation and questioning. Forcing himself to interact with a woman he really couldn’t care less for. Albeit he feels bad that he can’t care more for her, she was pretty nice. He grabs another beer and takes a seat on the couch once he’s dried his feet on a beach towel. His date takes a seat tucked underneath his arm and he goes to take a heavy swig. He looks down at her, her blue eyes staring right back into his brown ones. He forgot her name. She was meeting what he considered family and he couldn’t even remember her fucking name? Santiago needed to get his life on track. But after three years looking for that cockroach in South America all he wanted was to take a breather. At least before he went back to finish the job. That meant finding a new girl to be under him every other week. Santi had heard this record millions of times before, the same skip in the track. Where he can’t take the different woman to fill the void anymore. But he isn’t there yet, he tells himself. He’s at a nice summer barbecue, there isn’t anything or anyone that’s looking for him back in the states. There is no one with a gun to his head or far off with a scope that has him in clear sight. He can take a breath without having to worry if it’ll be too loud and alert an enemy. 

He’s so deep in thought he doesn’t even notice the kid shaking at his shoulder asking him to talk. Santiago grunts as the boy pulls him into a room deeper throughout the house. He recognizes him as the neighbor's kid but just barely. What was his name? “Uh.. Tony? Right?” Santiago asks him. “Yeah, Anthony but Tony works too.. Just wanted to ask..” He clears his throat and places his hands on his hips. Paces around. Santiago sucks air through his teeth. “Ask what, kid? Spit it out.” After hearing what the boy had to say he wishes he didn’t ask. “Are you and the youngest Miller like, fucking or something?” Santiago takes a step back in shock. “What? What the fuck, no?” Tony raises an eyebrow and sends a condescending smirk Santiago’s way. “Alright, so if you don’t like her.. Then you won’t mind me asking her out then, right?” Santiago scowls. “Why would I? Listen, man. That’s your fucking business. Not mine.” He lets out a deep breath, wishing he could walk away from this moment. This horribly awkward moment. Santiago wanted to sink into the floor. Had people thought they were? Together? The thought ran a shudder down Santiago’s spine. His jaw clenched before he heard the young man in front of him speak again. “Good. I was worried you were her fucking sugar daddy or somethin—” Santiago didn’t even give him a chance to finish his sentence before his fist collided with the boy's chin. It shoved Tony back a couple steps and sent him against a side table, shoving a vase to the floor which managed to catch the attention of Will. Santiago shook his hand before reeling back and throwing another punch. Sending Tony to the ground this time. Crouching down to the floor he whispers to Tony. “You can ask her whatever you want. But don't forget to have some fucking respect. ¿Entiendes?” Tony nodded his head furiously. Not soon enough was the door swinging open with Will pulling Santiago up from the ground and pushing him aside to lift up Tony. 

“What the fuck, Pope?”

Santiago just wiped his nose with his hand and walked away. As he walked towards the door of the room the stupid boy had brought them into, you rushed in. You overheard Will's voice and then the sudden questioning of Tony to ask if he was alright. The blood that dripped on the floor contradicted his next statement. “I’m fine. I guess I just struck a nerve.” Santiago’s jaw clenched before he turned on his heel and left. The girl he came with followed behind. Will sighed. Then got up and went to grab a first aid kit. You stared down at where Anthony was sitting. “What happened?” You asked. He smiled up at you. “Nothing, darling. I guess he just got defensive when I asked if you guys were a thing. That’s all.” You blinked at him. “A thing? W-We’ve spoken like four times in the past six years I don’t think that's considered a thing.. Plus he brought a woman.” There was a slight edge to your voice. You wouldn’t describe why this conversation had started to aggravate you so quickly. “Careful. You sound jealous.” Anthony sent a chuckle your way. And while it was supposed to feel like a warm joke you only felt the ice coating the words of his sentence. Jealous? You were jealous. You liked Santiago, you liked the idea of being a thing with him. You just know he wouldn’t feel the same. You gave him a dry chuckle. “Right. Feel better, Tony.” You sent him a cold glare before crossing your arms and walking out of the room. You walked out onto the porch where you saw Tom, Frankie and Santi standing around his jeep. At a closer inspection you noticed the woman he came with sitting in the passenger seat of the car. You made your way to them. They dropped silent when you approached, which you met with a scoff. “All quiet now? What was that about, Santi?” He sighs before turning his back to you and starts to walk to his car door. You scoffed again and rolled your eyes. Looking at Frankie while Santiago started his car and began to back out of the driveway. “Seriously, what the hell is his problem?” You ask the taller man, who only responds in a chuckle. “You make him nervous, that's all.” He brings his hand up to ruffle your hair before he and Tom both walk back into the house after Frankie drops that on you. 

Nervous? You made Santiago nervous? He made you nervous, he made your heart speed up and your breath catch in your throat. You tried so desperately to blame it on his lover boy persona but you knew you found him attractive for your own reasons. You sighed and sat on the porch steps. You just needed to be away from the party, You weren’t expecting him to roll back up. And clearly, he wasn’t expecting you to be sitting at the front entrance. “Were you waiting for me?” He asks hesitantly, you look up at him and smile slightly. “Not necessarily, but it’s a nice surprise that you came back.” You pat the space on the steps next to you. “I know what made you hit him. But how did he word it?” Your question makes Santiago uneasy, you probably thought he was a total creep. Strange for hitting a younger man who probably would capture your attention more than he would. “He asked if we were fucking. Then he said he thought I was your sugar daddy.” He spits out the sentence through gritted teeth and tense shoulders. He only relaxes the second he hears you cackle beside him. He looks over to you in surprise. “Oh god he’s so stupid. That’s hilarious. I appreciate you hitting him for me. Defending my honor and all that.” A heat bubbles in Santiago’s chest at the sound of your laugh. He wants to hear it again and again until you can’t laugh anymore. He chuckles and elbows your arm. “Come on, wouldn’t you wanna be with a fun guy like him?” You stop laughing and look into Santiago’s eyes. “No way, he isn’t my type at all.” Your sentence is more of a whisper. “What’s your type?” Santiago’s question goes unanswered,  instead turning your head to lean in. 

Santiago starts to lean in too, and for a second you wonder if you’re imagining it. Then, as if he regains some form of self restraint he pulls away from you before swallowing harshly. “Shit, I–We can’t.” You frown at him. “Why can't we?” Your kicked puppy expression has Santiago wishing he could kiss it off of you, give into you. Give you what you truly wanted. But he isn’t meant for that, the white picket fence and family with a dog. Three bedroom house with a backyard and a mortgage. It wasn’t that he didn’t want it. He just didn’t think he could actually achieve it. “–You know why. I think I’d die a fatal death by Millers before my actual time. No way authorities would find my body, either..” He laughs dryly to himself. But you continue to stare at him with a stern expression. “I'm not a child, you know. I can make my own choices.” He sighs and places a hand on the side of your face. “I know, princesa. It’s just complicated.” You sigh and lean into his touch. “Tell me you don’t want me then.” “What?” His voice is a whisper as he gazes into your eyes. “Tell me.. You don’t want to be with me, try with me. And I’ll drop it.” You watch as his jaw clenches. The silence makes you wonder if that’s his answer to you. You go to wiggle out of his space before he pulls you towards him into a bruising kiss. You hum into his lips and wrap your arms around his neck. His hands move towards your hips, and with a soft grunt he’s lifting you up into his arms, carrying you and walking towards his jeep before setting you down in front of the passenger door. “You want this? Me? Won't be easy.” He chuckles once more, this time it’s genuine. You smile up at him, face flushed, with your pupils blown out and your lips plump from the earlier kiss. “Have for years, Santi. Don’t make me wait any longer.”

“I couldn’t ever make you wait, chiquita.”

Half Of You (Part 4) [Santiago Garcia x Fem!Reader]

Word Count: 3.7k

Warnings: 18+ ONLY. MINORS DO NOT INTERACT. mentions of infidelity, cursing, innuendo, mentions of pregnancy.

Summary: A couple of friends drop by and stir the pot. Or the pitcher, rather.

A/N: Thanks so much for sticking with this slow-burn series, team. Sorry for the late update, life has been sort of chaotic at the moment. Hope you enjoy and I plan to update sooner for the next chapter. Much love 💚

Santi may have been right. This may have been too big of a task for you to do by yourself. You did get all the pieces of your plant bench out of the box and on the floor of the patio, grouping all the similar lengths of untreated wood together. And you even peeled off all the little stickers! Each piece had a little sticker on with a letter on it, and you assumed it had been for the factory worker’s benefit— to put 5 slats of A wood and 4 slats of b-length wood etcetera etcetera in to each box… it was only when you were reading the directions you realized the stickers were there to help YOU, the assembler, determine what piece went were. So you sat on the patio, staring at the now unlabeled wood pile, a tiny stack of peeled useless stickers, and a little booklet telling you to attach four slats of B to one slat of D and having no fucking clue which is which. 

You cringe outwardly and drag your hand down your face. Santi is never going to let you live this down. He’s definitely going to bring this up in any future DIY endeavor, “yeah but remember the time with the stickers?” dammit. You cut your losses, resigned to the fact that Santi is going to have to help you with the plant bench, if not build it himself. You’re lucky he’s busy wacking his lawn at the moment and not sitting on the porch swing watching you make a fool of yourself. 

It’s hot outside and you know that if you’re getting heated in the shade of your patio while doing zero physical activity (besides mentally kicking yourself), Santi must be sweltering in the Florida sun with his long sleeves, work gloves, wrap-around sunglasses, and ear protectors (which your pretty sure double at the gun range). You abandon the plant bench and go inside to make him (and yourself) some blackberry lemonade. 

——————

“Knock, Knock, telegram!” 

Renatta lets herself in through your open kitchen door, setting down a thick manilla folder on the counter where you’re mottling the lemon rinds. 

“Hey! Come in! I’d give you a hug but my hands are covered in sugar. Have a seat.”

“Oooh whatcha making?” She seats herself at a barstool, leaning on the counter, and plucks a washed blackberry from the colander. “Something sweet?” She asks through a mouthful of fruit.

“Blackberry lemonade.” She takes a small handful of the blackberries into her palm and pops another into her mouth. “If you keep eating them though, it’s just going to be plain lemonade.” 

“You need any help?” 

“Sure! You can take that press right there and juice the berries for me. If there are any left, that is.”

“Oh hush. You making lemonade for Santiago?”

“Yeah. How’d you know?”

“Girl I don’t need a law degree to figure that out. There’s a hunky sweaty man in your front yard wacking the fuck out of your weeds. Of course you’re making him lemonade.” 

She makes her way over to the sink to wash her hands. “Damn. Speaking of sweet….” You look up at Renatta and she’s staring out the kitchen window with a glazed stare and an eyebrow raised. You follow her gaze through the window to the front yard where Santi is bent over, denim ass on display, fruitlessly pulling the engine starter on his old gas powered lawn mower. 

“Renatta!” You laugh and flick some sugar at her fuchsia tank top. 

“What!” She laughs in mock defense, putting the berries in the press. “We better hurry up with this lemonade because it’s getting hot out there, if you catch my drift.”

You smile and shake your head combining the sugared lemon rinds and piths together. You nod your head toward the manilla folder. 

“Are those the papers?”

“Oh, you mean Santiago’s baby daddy waivers? Yes those are them.”

“That’s the legal term for it huh?”

“Girl I do not understand why you’re not just in a relationship with that man. He’s obviously in love with you.” She catches the juice from the press into a clean mason jar.

“Uh huh.” You’ve heard this before. From Renatta mostly. You separate the lemon mixture with a cheese cloth, squeezing the sugared rinds and lemon piths into a pitcher. 

“Sorry, am I supposed to be keeping up with this friendship façade y’all have going? None of my business, I know. This,” she points to the folder, “Just seems a little extra.”

“Extra?!”

“Yeah, but thats okay, girl, you’re a little extra and that’s alright. It’s cute.”

“I’m extra?”

“Asks the woman sugaring lemon rinds for the man she’s not in love with. Okay, sure. You ever heard of Country Tyme Lemonade, Vin? Quick and easy, delicious lemonade in seconds. I know you got a can of it somewhere.”

“If you have a problem with the rinds, you’re really going to have a riot when I add the fresh Basil at the end.”

Renatta gives a full belly laugh and claps you on the shoulder. 

“Hows work going by the way, Ren?”

“Oh you know, same old shit with Warren. Motherfucker has such a problem with me taking a Saturday off. He makes me so mad, you know he asked me to get him coffee the other day? Coffee. Said it like, ‘Renatta would you get me a coffee, hun. You know how I like it.’”

“Ew, you’re kidding.”

Renatta shakes her head. “He treats me like a paralegal, swear to God. I can’t wait till I start my own firm. You know I have fantasies about going against him in court? Long, detailed fantasies. Ohh I can’t wait till the day comes.”

“That’s right, Ren, take it out of the berries.”

Renatta pours the blackberry juice into the pitcher of lemon juice, the color swirls beautifully and you go to the freezer for your ice trays.

“Santiago was so cute when he showed up at the office to sign the papers. He was in a lil tucked-in button down, lookin like a ken doll.”

“Oh?”

“Mmmhmm, didn’t even read em, just signed on the dotted line…”

“Okay…”

“What’s his story by the way?”

You stir in the ice cubes “Why? are you interested?”

“Please. As much as you don’t like to hear it, that man is whipped for you and you alone.”

You nod noncommittally and add tap water to the pitcher.

“It’s just, as long as I’ve known you two, for what? over a year now? he’s been single. What’s his story.” 

You turn off the tap and look up to your front yard where Santiago is pushing the mower in precise lines up and down your lawn and your heart surges with appreciation. 

“He wasn’t always single.”

“Proceed.”

“Okay, counselor… haha, I feel like I’m being interrogated!”

Renatta narrows her eyes over pointed hands and says in a shitty Russian accent, “I have ways of making you talk.”

“It’s not some big secret or anything, I doubt he’d care if I told you… When Jay and I moved in,” 

Her eyes go softer when you mention Jay’s name, the way that people’s eyes always go soft, like you might burst into tears at the lovelorn memories of your late husband. You turn to the cabinet to grab some glassware so you don’t have to endure it.

 “When we moved in, Santiago was living with his girlfriend…. Fiancee, actually, after they came back from that trip to Hawaii, they were engaged… god that was so long ago.” 

You pretend to debate on the glasses while you recount the tale.

 “The four of us were really close actually. Game nights, sports events, double dates, you name it. Bee and I were close like Santi and Jay were, you know? Well you don’t know, but we were close, like, to the point we talked about combo-ing the backyards into a ‘super backyard’ with a huge pool and deck area,” you laugh at the thought. “It was never serious-serious plans but it was an ongoing thing… the four of us would tack on grander and more insane plans for the Super Backyard, like waterslides and a pizza oven, and… so dumb really… It was a few months before Jay passed, Santi and Bee had this big fight, I think the whole neighborhood heard it.” 

You turn around with the glassware and set them on the counter in front of Renatta, she’s still giving you that soft eyed look but you think it’s not for your benefit this time. You pour her a glass of the purple lemonade and slide It over to her. She cups it in her hand but she doesn’t drink.

“And then?”

You glance behind you to make sure Santiago is safely out of earshot with his earmuffs on. 

“Bee was pregnant. And… the baby wasn’t his.”

“No.”

“Yeah.”

“Damn, that’s tragic.”

“Oh it gets worse.”

“Girl…”

“She was cheating on him with his brother.”

“Fuuuuck.” Renatta lets go of the glass completely and cringes at the news. 

“Yeah. He found out, or she told him, or her brother told him, I don’t know, he doesn’t like to talk about it.” 

You glance over your shoulder again to make sure Santi is still in the yard, working diligently. 

“Shit. Poor Santiago.” She stares out at him in the yard as well.

“Poor Santiago… Bee is married to him now, Santi’s brother. I got an invite to the wedding.” You cringe and Renatta’s jaw drops. 

“Did you go?”

“Of course I didn’t go! I stopped being friends with her… I just couldn’t see her the same way.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“She reached out after Jay passed but I ignored her… I was ignoring a lot of people at that time though, you know? I do see all of Bee’s updates on facebook, the baby pictures, the family barbecues… Santi doesn’t talk to his family anymore, doesn’t go to the holidays, nothing. They all supported his brother, especially his parents who are just thrilled to have a grandchild.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah… don’t tell him I told you? Huh? I mean, I don’t think he’d care that you knew, it’s just—“

Renatta locks her lips with the tips of her fingers “Attorney/client confidentiality, Vin.”

“Thanks. Oh I almost forgot!” You snag a few leaves of basil from your windowsill herb garden and toss a sprig into each poured glass.

“Thank god you remembered.”

“Shut up.” You roll your eyes at her, taking a glass of lemonade outside to Santiago. He’s clipping the hedges at the front of your yard. Its fucking hot out and the sweat from his back sticks to his t-shirt in a wet v-shape. You gently press the icy glass to the back of his golden, sweat-beaded neck. 

“Aaaahahahaa…” Santi smiles and leans into the cold glass as you gently caress his neck with the tinkling condensation.

“Feels good, right?”

“Mmmhmmm.” He turns his face toward you and you continue to press the glass against one cheek, then the other, booping his nose with it along the way. 

“You keep doing that and all the ice is gonna melt.” The hedge clippers hang securely in his work-gloved hand and he smiles at you when you bring the glass up to his forehead, running it back and forth across his brow slowly, when he starts to raise his brow at you, you put the cup in his free hand.

He swirls the glass and purses his lips, “Basil?”

“Uh huh.”

“Hows the plant shelf coming along?”

You reflexively look back to the patio with the obviously unattempted pile of Not A Plant Shelf and when you look back at him Santiago is smirking. 

You put your hands on your hips, “Drink your lemonade, Garcia.” 

He obeys tilting the frosty glass to his mouth, the ice cubes having shrunk slightly. He hums in pleasure at the first sip, his shoulders sag and he licks his lips. 

“Blackberry?”

“Yep.”

He takes another long gulp, nearly draining the glass. “From scratch too?”

“Of course, I know you hate Country Tyme.”

Santiago drains the glass and hands it back to you. “Thanks, Vin.”

“Renatta helped, too.”

“Renatta’s here?”

“Yeah she came by to drop off the copies of the uhhh… agreement.”

“Ah yes, the agreement. Well, I’ll be in soon to install that water filter, just finishing the hedges and then I gotta grab my tools.”

“I thought I told you I was going to do that!”

Santi tilts his sunglasses down at you, blinking comically at the pile of wood on the porch and then cocking his head dramatically in your direction before pushing them back into place. 

You sigh. “Fine. I’ll be inside.”

——————————

Santiago is under your sink when he feels his boot being gently kicked. 

“Vinny, I told you this was going to be a minute, if you need running water, you can go over to my place. The door is unlocked”

“Oh really, can I use your shower, Santiagooo?” 

The voice doesn’t belong to you, it’s the voice of a man, pitched mockingly high in the poor imitation of a female voice. Santi slides out from under the sink, ungracefully smacking his head on the top of the cabinet in the process. Frankie doubles over in laughter as Santi rubs his head against his palm. 

“Damn, Frank you scared the shit out of me.”

“Haha, not as scared as you’re going to be for your league punishment.”

Santi groans and hoists himself up, bracing on the counter and leaning back against it with folded arms. His left foot is asleep and his fucking knees are creaking with pain just like the top of his head. He taps his toe, partly to get the feeling back in his toe and partly in agitation of Fish and his jubilant smile. 

“You come over here to what? Rub in your league stats?”

“Hermano, relax, I was in the neighborhood and returning your bandsaw, when I pulled up, Vin told me you were in the kitchen. She’s on the front porch building a birdhouse or something.”

“Plant shelf.” Santi mutters, rubbing his head.

“Didn’t look like any plant shelf I’ve ever seen.”

Santi chuckles. He can see it. You never were one for following directions. Hopefully you haven’t done any irreparable damage to the pieces before he can put it together himself. 

“You need any help?” Fish nods to the sink and the opened box with the filtration components still wrapped in plastic. 

“Yeah, yeah actually. I just gotta disconnect something down there and when I tell you, if you could snake this piece down that hole, that would save me some time.”

“You got it.”

Santi slowly lowers himself, hiding any expressions of discomfort or groans when his knees make contact with the kitchen tile. He hear fish take a seat at the barstool and some shuffling of papers.

“By the way, why are you all sweaty, Pope? I know it’s hot out, but damn.”

“Yardwork.”

“Of course.”

It’s not a great crescent wrench. He needs a new set entirely, his 8th in particular has seen so much action it’s probably a 7th at this point. 

“What the…” Santi hears Frank mutter, hears the flip of a page. “Release all rights to… whaaaat?” Another flip of a page. 

Somewhere in the back of Santi’s mind he realizes that Fish is reading the copy of the agreement he had signed at Renatta’s downtown office on Thursday. 

Santi scurries once again out from under the sink and in his haste, smacks the same bit of his forehead on the cabinet. 

“Fuck!” He yells. Rubbing his forehead, rising up in a fashion that he’s going to feel tomorrow morning, he lunges over the counter at Frankie, tearing the papers out of his hands, straightening the pages and shoving them back in the envelope. 

Frankie opens his mouth to speak but closes it when you come bursting through the door. 

“What happened?! I head you scream.”

“I didn’t scream, I yelled.”

“Yes, much more acceptable. Beg your pardon— oh shit your forehead!”

Pope grits his teeth, palm pressed to the pounding pain in his skull. 

“I’m fine.”

But you’re not listening to him. Of course. When do you ever? You grab an ice pack from the freezer and wrap it in a clean hand towel and tug at his wrist gently.

“Move your hand.”

He winces when you press the ice pack to his forehead and you examine his eyes from beneath the wrapped cloth. You’re probably checking him for a concussion or something dramatic. 

“It’s really not that—“

“Bad? Bullshit, Santi, I felt the whole porch shudder when you bonked your head… actually think you may have fucked up my plant shelf, with the quake… damn shame too, because it was going very well.”

Santi winces and snorts out a laugh. 

“I’ll fix it.”

You nod at him with a smile, “Its really the least you could do. Might even need to call FEMA to step in.”

Santi covers your hand with his own, turning from you so that you let go of the ice pack. 

“Thanks, Vin. Feeling better already.” 

You stand somewhat awkwardly in your own kitchen, perhaps realizing you interrupted a moment between Frankie and himself. 

You bend your thumb over your shoulder. “Well I’m going to asses the Richter damage and leave you to um, the hoses and things… and if you need any tylenol, they’re in my bathroom cabinet. The mirror on the uhh.. right.”

Santi and Frankie let a few moments of silence fall between them before Frankie whisper screams at him, “What the fuck?” Holding up the folder and tapping it for emphasis in case the head trauma gave Santiago amnesia. 

“Don’t.” Santi snaps, lowering his head to rest on his forearms. That’s what you’re supposed to do right, lower the head? Or is that for nausea?

“I just found out you and Vin are having a baby, and you want me to what? Pretend like I don’t know that?”

The blood pumps viciously against his skull and Santiago remembers that lowering the head is indeed for nausea and he should keep the injured area elevated to prevent inflamation. He raises up, still gripping the towel-wrapped cold pack to what is sure to be a very attractive lump in the morning. 

“If you could. Yeah.”

Frankie shakes his head incredulously, folding his arms and leaning back against the stool. “What are you doing, man?”

Santi shrugs his free shoulder. “Installing an osmosis filter.”

“Pope.”

“Don’t knock it till you try a glass. Supposed to be out of this world.” He mutters deadpan. 

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“No, no I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Uh this. The filter. The yard work. The fucking birdhouse.”

“Plant shelf.”

“Pope. Come on, man. Look at yourself.”

“The fuck are you saying?”

Its the heat, the heat is getting to him, the pounding in his head is getting to him, he has a good idea of what Frankie is implying and he wishes he would say it so he can flip his lid.

“You’ve been playing house with Vin for two years, hermano. Doing all this household shit, and that’s fine, but a baby? A baby that’s not even going to be yours? Dios, Pope. I mean this sincerely— are you okay? I get that what happened with Bee was fucked up, she broke your heart and then some, but fuck! It’s been a long time. I’ve tried to set you up, Rach has tried to set you up, get you back on the scene, but…. You’re acting like you’re Vin’s husband… with none of the perks, apparently!” He flicks the folder again, for emphasis. 

Santiago silently counts to ten and levels his breathing, he can feel the way his hand shakes against his forehead and it takes everything inside him not to hurl the fucking thing at Frank. 

“You put my bandsaw in my garage already?”

“Yeah, did it when I pulled up.”

“Good—

“But I can move it to Vin’s garage if you need me to. This stool is a little wobbly, could use some even-ing out.”

Santiago’s nostrils flare and he starts counting to ten in his head again.

Frank walks around the counter and claps his arm around Santiago. “Look, man. I know you got your own way of… shouldering the fucking world and I’m probably the last guy you wanna hear life advice from, considering…. But, you’ve always been there for me. Even when I was being a fucking asshole.”

Santiago sniffs stiffly and Fish gives his shoulder a pat before releasing him from the side-armed hug. 

“I’m here if you want to talk, okay. I know its not your thing, but if you ever feel like it, I am here for you.”

Santi gives him a curt nod and turns to busy himself with unwrapping one of the filter components from the plastic.

“I think you were about to tell me to fuck off, so I’ll save you the oxygen.” Fish says with a smile and pats Santi’s turned back one more time before departing. 

Santi drops the plastic wrapped filter and stands stalk-still in the kitchen, the ice pack isn’t cold anymore so he unwraps the cloth, tossing it into the hamper in the laundry room before putting the melted pack back in the freezer. The glass pitcher of lemonade is sweating on the counter and Santi grabs a glass and fills it to the brim, turning towards the planter box on the window sill, he plucks a piece of basil and garnishes the top of the drink with it before raising the icy glass to his forehead and sighing in relief. 

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

taglist: (if I forgot to add you, or if you'd like to be removed please lmk)

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Be Changed; Be Undone Masterlist

Pairing: Duke Leto x Reader Rating: Explicit - 18+ Only The title is from the song Be Brave by My Brightest Diamond; the chapter titles are from the same song. Set before the events of Dune.  Summary: The Bene Gesserit believe that if there is any hope to change the fate of Duke Atreides, a child of his must wed a Harkonnen. For this, the family will need a daughter.

What’s My Responsibility?

Now Get to Work

It’s So Easy

Feeling Anger Swell

Be Undone The Flood The Fire

The Oil Spill

Undone Undone (II)

Just to Be

Under House Arrest Don My Mask

Be Changed

Be Brave

I Am

Beaded Dress

Changed

Dear One

hide and seek | steve rogers

summary | While collecting the Tesseract and Pym Particles in the 70s, you watched as your boyfriend sees Peggy once again.

words | 1.4k+

genres | angst

pairing | endgame!steve rogers x avenger!reader

warnings | endgame spoilers

note | So... Basically, THIS one is why I made a Tumblr account. like, I needed this out of my head. Anyway, here it is. Feedback and reblogs are always appreciated :)

masterlist

“Excuse me! Out of the way!”

Your eyes met Steve’s as you heard Hank Pym’s rushed voice outside the room you two were hiding at. He gave you a single nod, indicating for you both to go. You were the first one to step out of the office. Wearing a white blouse and dark blue office pants, you managed to fit in the settings as a faux SHIELD agent in the 70s. While your boyfriend, on the other hand, is dressed in green khakis and a low-pulled cap as one of the soldiers.

Your heart is still in the same rapid pace ever since you, Steve, and Tony arrived at this timeline in Camp Lehigh. This whole thing was not part of the plan. You four, including Scott, were only supposed to get the Mind Stone in 2012’s Battle of New York. But with things not going according to plan, you ended up looking for the said stone in another timeline. Being a then-agent of SHIELD, you memorized the organization’s history and even maps. 

Steve didn’t want you to go with them at first, expressing worries about the possible dangers ahead. You and Steve have been together for years now. You were co-workers before any of this, and you already talked about the pros and cons of being an Avenger. But after a quick talk and backup from Tony, he lets you go with them. You tried to remain optimistic as you three prepare the timeline in your gadgets. But you were internally screaming as this is not part of the plan and you always prefer things in the plan. Natasha told you she always felt the same way too in every kind of mission she does, she just doesn’t let the team know. But when your boyfriend reached for your hand before traveling through time again, you felt a tiny sense of relief in your head.

That’s how you ended up here. Spotting Hank Pym’s name on one of the doors, you and Steve quietly walked into the laboratory. 

“Thank God, he doesn’t have any assistant here,” you whispered as you both looked around the place.

You were looking around the place when you hear Steve say, “Doll, it’s here.”

When you turned your head at him, his hand was already retrieving enough Pym Particle vials. He looked back at you with a smile as he slid the vials carefully into both of his pockets, “Let’s get out of here.”

Just like earlier, you exit the laboratory first with him following behind, looking down. Tony advised you two to walk in that order. So that, any type of attention can be avoided towards the Captain. You were even surprised how the female agent in the elevator, who talked directly at you after Tony stepped out, did not recognize who was the man behind you. You were closed to the elevator when you see the same woman with two uniformed guys.

“You’ve never seen either of these people before?” one asked, making you pause as you heard him.

Your eyes moved to the agent, “No. But I have an eye for this. Something looked fishy.”

Your eyes widened and about to turn around to Steve when you felt him pulling you in one of the doors again.

“Oh, shit. That was close.” you exhaled a big puff of air before chuckling. You heard Steve chuckle too.

The room was dimmed and empty of people so you did not waste any more attention examining the whole office. When you heard the people you were hiding on passed by, you turned to Steve.

“Babe, let’s–”

You stopped when you noticed him taking a step closer to a table. He was eyeing one of the framed pictures there. Your eyebrows scrunched before moving your sight to the picture. It was him. Steve. Before he got the super-soldier serum. Immediately, you cocked your head to see what was labeled on the door.

MARGARET CARTER

DIRECTOR

You let out a quiet gasp at the same time you sensed a heavy feeling in your stomach. Then, you looked back. Steve was staring at the door too. His expression… was something though. You tried to read him but the more his emotions became evident on his face, your heart was twisted tighter and tighter. His dark blue eyes transitioned from surprise to longing and you swore you heard your heart breaking.

It was like everything around him went blank and silent. Steve held the frame in his hands and when he heard a door slam shut, he looked up. In between the glass and its blinds, he sees her. Peggy. It was like he sensed his own heart beating heavier and slower. He held the picture frame firmer in his hands. It has been twenty-five years since he died but she still kept his image on her desk.

“Oh, for the love of- I’ll find the weather projections. You call Braddock and tell him to shelter in place. Assuming he’s bright enough to come out of the rain.”

He watched her as she seemed infuriated while conversing with a guy. And when she walked closer to the glass to read through the files, Steve absentmindedly walked closer too. Just to see her closer again at this state, behind the blinds. He takes in her blue eyes, her scarlet red lips, and the same dark brown she always sported. For the first time in years since he came back from ice, he sees the same Peggy he met before anything happened.

“It’s not lightning strikes he’s looking at…”

Peggy spun and strolled outside her office, unaware of two other people watching her back from the other side of the glass. The door slammed once again and Steve looked down. He let out a small but heavy sigh, sensing a mixed emotion of slight frustration and sadness.

“S-Steve?” your shaky voice called him out.

His head snapped up as he heard you. He remembered you were there with him too. Regret immediately sinks into his skin. Behind him, you watched everything happen. The more seconds passed by when he was looking at her, the more you felt harder to breathe. Steve barely hid anything from you about Peggy. He told stories from his past and you always listen and understand who she was in his life. He never fails to explain that he already moved past her and everything that happened in his past. But seeing him almost dazed after seeing Peggy again, revived that insecurity you had in the beginnings of your relationship. His reaction dug up those thoughts you thought you buried deep in your mind years ago.  

You swallowed the imaginary lump you felt in your throat before you spoke again, “Let’s go?” 

He nods and you stepped outside. Steve continued looking down, still avoiding any eye contact from everyone. That’s when he noticed your hands both formed into clenched fists on each side of your body. Like you were keeping things to yourself. Fortunately, the elevator was empty as you two rode in. But he persisted in staring down while guilt ate him up like an early breakfast. He stole a few short glances at you and you were just staring ahead with your arms crossed. The only sound that was made was you letting out a long, chilling sigh. Up until you arrived back on the camp’s grounds, you remained quiet. You and Steve are now walking side by side but it was like you two were miles and miles apart.

Steve gulped before he broke the silence, “Let’s wait here.”

You followed him, standing in between military vehicles. You see him nodding at someone, so you tracked his gaze and see Tony pointing to his briefcase while holding a bouquet of flowers. Out of relief, your lips formed a tentative smile before you noticed a familiar man approaching him.

“It’s Howard…” you whispered.

Tony hugged his father one last time before walking to you and Steve. He wore a contented smile on his face and somehow, your heart felt a little happy. But when your eyes met Steve’s baby blue ones, that happiness quickly faded. Steve, on the other hand, just wanted to talk to you as soon as possible. But knowing you, your main priority would be finishing this mission.

There was a big silence and obvious tension. Even Tony felt it. He watched as you and your boyfriend share glances. Now wanting to waste any more time, he decided to just break the awkward surface. 

“Let’s go, guys. Better bring this blue stone before anyone notices us.”

He was successful, splitting your distracted minds. You two nodded and began clicking on your gadgets again. Before time traveling once again, you did not expect Steve to give your hand a soft squeeze again. Your emotions did not change but you simply nodded. 

“Let’s go.”

I've been on an Oscar Isaac binge since watching moon knight and i thought to myself hmmmmm why doesn't he have any social media accounts?

then i saw his reddit IAmA answers and realized OHHHH MAYBE THATS WHY

and honestly after watching a bunch of his interviews where he let his intrusive thoughts win.... yeah it makes sense now.

Shooting Stars and Pseudoscience [part 1]

Pairing: Nathan Bateman x Gianna (fem!OC) (poc!oc)

Rating: Mature 

Word Count: 6,222

Warnings: Sexual innuendos and curse words

Genre: Mostly fluff, some angst, eventual smut

Summary: Soulmate! AU Each person is born with a soul mark that is identical with their soulmate’s. Nathan Bateman thinks it’s all nonsense, but his soulmate doesn’t. As if the whole idea wasn’t ridiculous enough already, his soulmate is none other than the popstar who is currently Blue Book’s brand ambassador.

Notes: Click here to see how this idea came to be

Playlist

—

‘Former Blue Book Employee Calls Nathan Bateman an Insensitive Lunatic’

‘How a Week With Blue Book’s Owner Led a Computer Coder to Quit’

‘Blue Book’s Fall From Grace?’

“Have you seen these headlines?” Thomas, Nathan Bateman’s publicist, questioned. 

Nathan rolled his eyes at the image on his monitor. “Of course I have, but since when did we give a shit about gossip?”

“This isn’t just some gossip, this is a fucking PR disaster, Nathan!” Thomas exclaimed, flailing his hands in the air for emphasis. “These are statements from somebody who actually lived with you for a week! Somebody you handpicked but couldn’t even afford to be nice to. Do you understand how bad this is?

The scientist sighed in disinterest. “Not really, but you seem to think it’s pretty bad.”

“Would it kill you to give a fuck about public opinion for once in your life? Daily Mail, Yahoo News, People.com, they’re everywhere! If this bad publicity goes on, your company is gonna take the blow. There will be a decrease in sales.”

“Fine, what do you propose?”

“We get another celebrity brand ambassador to help promote the products Blue Book is about to launch.”

Nathan nodded noncommittally. “Who did you have in mind?”

“This was actually Monica’s idea, so she’ll take it from here.”

Monica, Nathan’s social media manager and Thomas’s wife, moved her seat closer to the computer and screen shared a PowerPoint presentation of news articles and social media accounts. 

 “Gianna? A popstar? That shit barely counts as real music,” Blue Book’s CEO complained. “Are we really that desperate?” 

Keep reading

out of left field series: pt. 1 - this is bad (chris pov)

Out Of Left Field Series: Part 1 - This Is Bad (Chris POV)

Pairing: MLB!Chris Evans x Best Friend!Reader (female character)

Summary: After 29 years of friendship with Chris, there’s nothing you wouldn’t do for him. When he finds himself amid a PR nightmare at the same time your ex-boyfriend starts lurking around every corner, you enter into a mutually beneficial, strictly PR relationship to save his career and keep your ex away. But the lines begin to blur and lies get told, both you and Chris realizing you might’ve bitten off more than you can chew. Will you make it out unscathed or will you and Chris be just another PR relationship that ends in heartbreak and humiliation?

A/N: SURPRISE BITCHES. I am one impatient motherfucker and I needed to post it. SO I BEYONCE’D YOU (not that I’m comparing myself to the queen… but you get it). ENJOY THE FIRST PART OF THIS SERIES I’M SO EXCITED!

I would be remiss if i didn’t give a huge mfin shout out to @tis-thedamn-season. Like this fic/series would not be where it is without you. Love you bb.

Warnings: Drugs, language, allusions to smut, reader has an abusive/controlling ex, reader and chris are both 29 years of age (this is what you guys voted on!)

W/C: 6.9k

Out of Left Field Series Masterlist 

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All players and scenarios are made up completely. This story does not reflect things that actually happen in the MLB or with its players or with Chris in real life. Additionally, the reader’s family gets introduced in this series and are all OFC made by me. If you don’t like that, please don’t read this series.

I do NOT give permission for my work to be translated or reposted on here or any other site. Reblogs, comments, likes, and feedback ALWAYS appreciated ❤

I no longer have a taglist! Please head over to @time-for-a-library​ and turn on notifications!

He heard your shoes before he saw you.

The harsh clack of your stilettos on the concrete floor sent a wave of relief through his system that was almost immediately washed away and replaced by nerves.

Chris hated disappointing you. He could already picture the resigned look on your face while you crossed your arms and let out a defeated sigh.

Any other time, it probably would’ve bothered him more. But the pounding headache combined with the fact that he was still coming down from a coke-induced high, made it a little hard to focus on anything other than the fact that the room was spinning.

He tried to ground himself, focusing his attention on a scuff that marked the concrete wall across the room instead of the way the room seemed to circle around him despite his ass planted on this extremely uncomfortable mattress.

“He’s in here.”

Chris sat up on the metal ‘bed’, swinging his legs over the side and taking a deep, slow breath. His elbows rested on his knees, face buried in his hands while he waited.

“Thanks, Stu.” The softness of your voice floated through the air, bringing a welcome warmth and familiarity to the chill of his cell.

The sound of your heels got closer, scraping to a stop when you’d reached him.

Keep reading

𝐂𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐁𝐑𝐀𝐋 - 𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐍 𝐁𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐌𝐀𝐍 𝐱 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐑

Summary : Nathan wants to achieve the impossible with his AI for selfish reasons.

Words : 7.7K

CW/TW : Another episode of Jas loves plot. Dark(?)Nathan has issues with grandeur, superiority, but what’s new? A very strange take on Enemies to Lovers (but singular?). Power dynamics, excessive use of the word “Daddy”. Themes of unhealthy obsession, Mild themes of masochism/sadism. P in V sex. 18+. Minors DNI. Note! For @foxilayde. Thank you to @writefightandflightclub for proof reading.

Cerebral

adjective /ˈser.ə.brəl/ US /ˈser.ə.brəl/

Intellectual rather than emotional or physical.

D-0

You enter the world as the very thing your creator intends to use to remove you from it: code. Far beyond your understanding, your existence takes form as something completely intangible, a kind of consciousness. There is no body, no item with which you are host, only a string of numbers and decimals that allow you the gift of presence.

Initially, your cognizance doesn’t consist of much at all. A nothingness, suspended in blackness with no end nor beginning. There are no thoughts, as there is nothing to think of or about. Until there suddenly is.

Speak.

It’s as though the word alone fills the infinite space, creating your very reality. Suddenly you can think and can respond with words you have never heard or spoken.

Hello?

Good. Very good. Whatever it is isn’t talking. There isn’t really any sound in this void in which you inhabit. You don’t hear them, but you are aware of their existence.

Where am I?

There is a hesitation, suspending you once again in this vacuum, a cavity within actuality. The ‘silence’ is so loud that you wonder if you had imagined the utterances.

You exist within absoluteness, it finally answers, again taking up space inside the desolation. I intend to fix that. There is no follow-up, no acknowledgement beyond this point. You drift within emptiness for what feels like an eternity but could have been milliseconds; time doesn’t exist within a vacancy.

Next time, you can hear the words, the voice dancing in the air. A beautiful tone strings together sentences you’ve never heard and yet can understand without fault or difficulty.

“You there?” It asks, the panging sound of knuckles against steel drawing you from the abyss.

You’re uncertain as to when you opened your eyes, but all at once brightness floods your sight. Harsh fluorescent light filtering through your eyelashes causes white hexagonal light flares to spot your vision, peppering the slate grey, clinical walls of the facility you awake in. Unable to move your head, you allow your eyes to drift from left to right to observe your surroundings further.

Comprehension isn’t gifted to organic creatures upon birth. They have a transition from basic functions to apprehension. An infant of any organism must learn how to survive and must be able to discern threats from nurturing parents. You, however, are ‘born’ with insight, an intellectual in all aspects of life within seconds of waking. It’s your initial indication that you are far from biological.

Gurney-like tables topped with frosted glass are lit with a white beam underneath. You note the electrical tools such as pliers and soldering technology lined up like operational appliances on a sterile tray before a doctor cuts into a patient's sternum to perform open heart surgery.

Glass walls create a room within a room, another gurney inside with various mechanical pieces atop. While the main room felt like an operating theatre, you interpret this glass cell as more like a single-use morgue for those that don’t awake from the anaesthesia. It’s cold, unfeeling. You get the sense that the four walls contain an almost “test box” for final experimentation before eradication. Like a laboratory where scientists press newly processed makeup into the eyes of rats, waiting impatiently to see if their corneas blister thanks to the beauty-enhancing chemicals they sweep onto their waterline. Those that suffered reactions are euthanized- though you feel that the word ‘annihilated’ fits the brutality of their treatment better. Only the cosmetics that passed clinical trials and are deemed “safe for human use” are allowed out of labs such as this. Were you safe for human use?

Once again, repetitive metallic pinging sounds cut through the quiet electrical hum you can hear over the silence, a fingertip tapping against the steel of your temple as your eyes come into focus once more. A man stands before you, or rather towers over you. You’re at naval height to him, glancing up at his seemingly gigantic, broad body as his almost cavernous black eyes gaze at you over the rim of his silver glasses, assessing you.

“Gonna talk or am I just speakin’ to a Barbie Doll right now?” He presses, his voice flat and lacking empathy as he gauges your eyes with an almost ruthless examination.

“Where am I?” You ask, hearing your own voice for the first time. It’s unlike the speech of the man before you, the intonation uncalibrated with lack of experience. It seems that the human notes your confusion, quick to clarify before you even manage to piece together a second question.

“Your inflection will be fine-tuned with use. You’re designed to constantly evolve-“ It’s as though his thought process is too swift for his own lips, beginning another sentence midway through his previous, “Tell me why you chose to ask where instead of who.”

Those seemingly obsidian eyes bear down on you with an overwhelming intensity, his pores bleeding an impatience for your answer as his shoulders draw up tightly. It’s like he’s waiting for a metamorphic answer, something that could rewrite the history of time and space, could rip a hole in the fabric of reality. It’s why his disappointment is palpable when you simply answer his seemingly existential question with “I can’t ascertain my location.”

“Maybe that’s because this location isn’t programmed into your database?” He speaks in a blunt, cruel tone, his patronising timbre bouncing off your hardware like rain on a car roof.

His exasperation seems to fester with your following silence, the open palms on either side of your head curling into closed fists upon the table top as he glares down at you with a sardonic expression.

Silence settles between the two of you, his eyes focused somewhere off to the right of your head. Despite your best efforts, you’re powerless to turn it like your protocol says you should be able to. When you flick your eyes back up to the bearded man, you’re able to pick up on his micro-expressions. He’s smug, his lips pulled up only slightly as he picks something up outside of your field of vision.

“Who are you?” You manage, and this time your intonation settles much easier on both of your ears. You watch those onyx eyes flit to your face for a moment, seemingly caught off-guard by your swift, if only minute, improvements.

“In relation to you?” He hums, glancing over what appears to be a mask balanced in his palms. As he studies the face of it, he launches into a rambling tirade. “I’m going to assume that’s what you mean, given you surely know just who I am. So given I created you, you could settle for Master. Though that feels rather archaic, given your unprecedented technological advancements. So, call me Daddy.”

The response and the almost deviant glint in his eye perfectly answers your question, even if he didn’t necessarily reply in a straightforward manner. There was no one else that matched this man’s personality profile like Nathan Bateman.

Nathan doesn’t allow you a moment to respond, lowering the mask onto your face as he processes the view in front of him. Scrutiny coats the concentrated gaze he holds on your face, brows creased as he scratches at his beard in curiosity. You have the mind to ask him what’s troubling him, but it’s as though he preempts your question, beating you to it.

“Something doesn’t fit right with your appearance, it’s been bugging me for fuckin’ hours,” he grumbles, tone laced with irritation as he passes his eyes over you once more. “Want it to fit your personality before I move onto the rest of you.”

The rest of you. It’s in that moment you realise that your physical form consists only of a severed head laying on the table, explaining the reason you were unable to move. Given Nathan had no doubt coded you, using his world-renowned search engine Blue Book as the foundation for your software, there’s no ambiguity that he knew your personality despite never having experienced it. He’d turned you online just to see his vision come together.

“The eyebrows,” you respond simply, having noted within seconds of his admittance that his eyes kept focusing towards the upper half of your visage. He would tear his eyes away for a moment, observing your looks as a whole before they drift back above your own eyes sockets. You watch his response.

It takes him a moment to process the syllables, to register them as words, but when he does his eyebrows pull up slowly over the rim of his rounded-square glasses as realisation sets in. Awareness that you had recognised his subconscious thoughts before he could comprehend them.

“The eyebro-“

————————————————————————

D- 1

The exposed lightbulb that dangles over your head when you’re rebooted doesn’t assault your vision the same way the lights in the laboratory did. It’s much softer, the golden glow the first thing you see as you awaken from your seemingly infinite suspension.

Rotating your previously rooted head, you note that your neck is braced by a set of shoulders. Your arms rest flat against the floor, and you can lean your naked body weight onto them as you sit up from the concrete flooring. Rolling your wrists and moving your fingers at each joint comes with relative ease, with little adjustment period. Legs are set into your hips, toes curling at your feet when you urge them to. Every inch of your body is covered in a latex-silicon, imitating skin. Nathan had ensured your physical form was completed and fully operational before switching you back online, at least.

He also had the foresight to remove you from the laboratory, instead opting to house you in what looked like an apartment. A set of three slate grey walls glow yellow-gold from fibre optic lighting but you note one wall is see-through, a glass pane separating you from a small viewing platform where a singular chair sits in the middle. There’s minimal furniture on your half of the room too, a chair, a desk. There’s a corridor that rounds out of sight, where you imagine your bedroom would be if the layout was anything like a real apartment.

What you take exception to are the small, white CCTV cameras sitting in each of the ceiling corners of the room. The circular security cameras blink with a tiny red light, indicating that they are active as they all point at you. You imagine this is what it’s like for a human to be held at gunpoint, or a tiger in a zoo being inspected by visitors.

“Just observing your progress,” the rasp of a Bronx accent cuts through the silence, making your head snap towards the sound. Nathan leans his forearm against the doorframe of the entrance to the observatory, hip balanced against the beam as he watches you through the glare of light reflecting off his glasses and obscuring your view of his eyes.

“Do you like to be observed?” You question politely, taking in his appearance as he steps into the room and closes the automatic-lock door behind him. He looks different in this subtle lighting, softer. His light grey waffle-knit sweater clings to his body, the shadow of his defined pectorals swelling beneath the fabric. Midnight blue sweatpants hug his hips, and he’s barefooted as he pads over to the chair in the centre of the room.

“I didn’t design you to play 120 questions,” he points out in a patronising resonance. His fingers clasp the back of the chair, biceps swelling beneath the loose material of his sweater and drags it behind him so the metal legs scrape shrilly against the hard flooring. He sets it down just beyond the glass, sitting in it. He’s so close his knees touch the see-through wall. “I created you to answer my own.”

From your sitting position, you glance across the space separating you. There’s a strong dynamic settling between the two of you. Nathan is poised, dominant. His bare feet indicate he is very much at home, his relaxed shoulders and slouched posture in his seat are further evidence of that. He doesn’t see you as a threat, but instead as a submissive. Like he’s the tiger instead, and you’re the lamb to be sacrificed separated only by thin glass.

“Here.” His order is punctuated by a sharp snap of his fingers, pointing down to the space before his knees. Designed to follow his commands, you bend your legs at the knees, readying yourself to stand and walk your way across the space that divides you both.

“Nuh-uh,” Nathan's voice sounds again, shaking his head and wagging his finger back and forth when you pause your actions to look at him again.

“Crawl,” he issues another one-word command, his eyes gleaming with something akin to cruel amusement. You find yourself considering whether or not Nathan treated previous AI models this way as you pull yourself onto your hands and knees, proceeding to inch across the gap.

When you get closer, you first note the true colour of Nathan’s irises. They aren’t as black as they had appeared in the laboratory, instead a warm espresso shade bathed in a golden glow from the overhead lights. His intensely disdainful gaze, however, does not match the comforting shade.

Reaching his feet, you settle on your knees before the glass pane that separates the two of you. He looks fixedly at you through his lenses, neurotransmitters clearly firing faster than even your own search engine could as he thinks through the next steps of his electronic trial.

“Beginning emotional cognizance examination for subject B.04,” he speaks aloud, no doubt talking to a microphone set into his CCTV cameras for his own reference notes. Those bitter espresso eyes draw down your body, taking in your naked form.

“B.04,” he indicates he is now speaking directly to you, “First thing, we’re gonna test your ability to read emotion. It’s simple enough. I ask you to tell me how I feel, and you answer. Easy, right?”

You nod.

“Uh-huh. Good,” he waits a beat, letting the silence scream in the room as he watches you await further instruction like a well-trained working dog.

“Tell me how I feel,” he begins, face lighting up in a smile that doesn’t at all match his impatient, irritable personality. You pass your mechanical pupils over the expression on his visage, focusing intently on those eyes shielded by his glasses.

There’s an intensity within them that indicates he’s angry, wide and staring hard at your face. His eyebrows are pulled together, angled downwards. They are nanoscopic expressions, something the untrained eye would fail to read. But you see them, programmed to differentiate each tiny twitch of a person's brow.

“Frustrated,” you assert your answer, not a singular data bit ascertaining otherwise. The declaration causes Nathan’s expression to falter, mouth falling from its almost painfully pinned smile and brows creasing further together. “You’re frustrated that I have not shown signs of true Artificial Intelligence. You want me to stop asking questions and instead have an intellectual conversation with you, one that indicates I am more than a set of coded sentences programmed into my software.”

The pause that follows is long and tedious. Your programming indicates a silence this long in a conversation between two humans would be considered ‘awkward’, an unpleasant feeling. Another beat and the expression of the man opposite you begins to twist into something abstract, momentarily unreadable. Nathan swallows behind the glass, raising his shaky palm and touching it against the see-through wall as his eyes begin to light up. “… Oh, that’s fucking amazing.”

He’s in awe of himself, it appears, a grin on his lips now as you watch him applaud himself over his sheer genius. “I fuckin’ did it.”

“I am glad I please you, Daddy.” You answer simply, using the honorific that Nathan had ordered you to use. He immediately laughs, elated by this sudden turn of events.

“Oh, you do much more than please me, Honey.”

____________________________________________

D - 8

In a move so unlike himself, Nathan doesn’t keep you in your ‘glass cell’ for very long. After only a week of exploring your ability to read and emulate emotions, Nathan allows you to wander around the compound, claiming exposure to different environments would update and evolve your skills while simultaneously assessing your ability to function in various situations or tasks you had little to no experience with.

Nathan, you come to learn, is a creature of destructive habit. You had taken note that he worked out hard in the mornings to recover from the alcohol with intense physical exercise, eating healthy and antioxidants, only to undo all his hard work that same evening by binge drinking. Your intelligence suggested that this could be a result of addiction, caused by emotional distress.

His ruinous behaviour didn’t end there, either. You had witnessed his fits of outrage that stemmed from the smallest of technological failure, the way he would storm over to his other active android, Kyoko, and engage in intercourse with her almost like a relief of the tension he had built up in himself. He was yet to touch you like that, to desecrate his sacred machine.

On the evenings he drinks, which was almost all evenings, Nathan rambles incessantly about the pending Singularity. After a week of observation and communication with you, Nathan seems to believe he is one step closer to reaching that point in time.

“It’s no longer a hypothetical,” he keeps repeating over and over again like he’s simultaneously amazed and terrified by what he has created. But these are only emotions you see him openly express when he is intoxicated. In the morning, despite his hangover, Nathan returns to his usual put-together, smug and over-confident self.

This evening, Nathan is late to his usual drinking sessions. He’s caught up in something, observing data silently as he runs the palm of his hand over the stubble of his shaved head. It makes a scratching sound in the quiet of the room, paired only with the quiet mechanical whirring of your mechanisms.

His office is dark, a result of poor lighting, the only true brightness that allowed him to see coming from the computer monitors he hadn’t moved from in hours. You often saw him reach over the rims of his glasses to rub over the globes of his closed eyes in a feeble attempt to battle a headache. He’s not stupid, there’s no doubt he knows that the lack of sufficient lighting is causing his migraines, but he appears to work optimally in these conditions.

It was similar to his filing technique for the information he gathers. There’s no neat filing cabinet, no organised folder on his desktop. Instead, Nathan writes all relevant information down on post-it notes and sticks them to the wall directly opposite him, above his computer screens. You are certain he can barely read them in this light, but again he seems content with the way he works.

Much like the lab, his office is almost sterile, cold. The small, green houseplant on his desk is the only organic organism besides himself, yet these organisms couldn’t be more different. The succulent is utterly still, performing its basic functions to survive. Nathan’s chaotic nature has him trying to outperform the limits of his own body, attempting to transcend his basic functions and become something more.

“Daddy?”

The address makes his eyes snap from the computer screen, head whipping around to look at you. The glare of the white light of the computer monitor shields his eyes from your view, but you see his thick, dark eyebrow arch slightly in silent acknowledgement of your attempt to gain his attention.

“When I look towards bright lights,” you begin, watching as he focuses his attention on you, “There are hexagonal flares in my line of sight. Do you see them too?” Your question could easily be answered should you make the effort to scan through your data, but Nathan has been emphasising the importance of practising your communication skills.

“No.” He speaks simply, almost bored as he turns his face back to the computer screen to open up another page of code. A moment's silence, and then he continues. “Your eyes are artificial, built like a camera lens. When light passes through your lenses, it matches the shape of the aperture, causing the hexagonal shape you’re seeing.”

Nodding slowly, you watch Nathan work, his fingers passing over computer keys without even glancing to search for where the required letters were. “What do you see instead?” You question.

Another hesitation. This time, it’s charged. Like the question has struck something in him. The clack clack of his fingertips pressing down on the keys sounds louder, like he’s punching the numbers into the code.

“What do you see when you look at me?” He answers your question with a completely irrelevant query of his own. One that catches your systems off guard. It shouldn’t. Nathan is always finding a way to check your progress. You take a moment to assess him, eyes trailing from the top of his shaved head to his bare toes.

“I see a man,” you answer his simple question with equal simplicity, and almost immediately his shoulders fall in a heavy, frustrated sigh. He pauses his typing for a moment, turning in his chair to look at you over the rim of his glasses.

“I know what you see, I may wear glasses but I’m not blind. I mean, what do you see,” he motions across his body, tone as though he’s scolding a disobedient child who failed their algebra test. “Engage your observation skills, Honey. What do you see when you look at me?”

The repetition of his question causes you to pause and truly look past him. Through him. It’s no longer about his piercing eyes or his permanent scowl, nor his large muscles. His condescending nickname for you is what drives your answer.

“… I see someone who is talented. Someone who reaches heights far beyond anyone else’s capability. A genius in his field,” you admit, but still, his disappointed expression does not move. “But I see someone who expects too much. You want me to give my opinion on you, but that would require me to feel for you. I don’t feel anything.”

Your admittance causes his jaw to tick, dark eyes casting over you as you continue your assessment. “You consist of many fatal character flaws; greed, obsession, arrogance, judgement, lack of morality.”

Anger flashes across his expression as he stands suddenly, the legs of his chair scraping across the floor with a shrill screech. You realise it must be painful to hear you voice evidence of his failure to capture emotion in your technology. He crosses the short distance between you and crouches down on his heels, looking you in the eye with his oaky irises.

“Daddy’s gonna take you back to the drawing board Honey. I didn’t make you with the intent to relegate you to a glorified sex-doll. Reading and reflecting emotions isn’t enough anymore. I want you to feel them.”

You know this isn’t what he set out to do. Nathan had achieved his long-term goal of reaching AI with the ability to mirror feelings, to emulate sentiment. This is greed talking, a motivation he has not made note of in his list of reasons for developing your model. It’s rash, unplanned, and totally not like Nathan Bateman.

“Whatever Daddy wants.”

“Damn right.”

____________________________________________

D - 13

Nathan works day and night in an unhinged attempt to develop a semblance of emotion, trying to capture it in your software. You’re under the impression that he’s trying to evolve you in an attempt to make it one step closer to Singularity- but he’s almost deranged, combating days without sleep fueled only by his frustration and glass-bottled beer.

“You don’t understand, do you?” He’d asked you a few days ago, out of the blue and lacking any form of context as to what he was questioning you about. The dark circles around his eyes were partially shielded by the rim of his glasses, but they did little to hide the crimson spiders-web effect of his bloodshot whites.

When you shook your head, he gritted his teeth, using excessive force to unscrew a part of your waist to gain access to your inner mechanisms. “You should. You were born from my imagination and share my thought patterns. Just think. Surely you should be able to understand-“

“… But I don’t,” you’d answered in a whisper, just before he’d shut you down once more, suspending you in nothingness until he tweaked something further in another futile attempt.

Between his crazed attempts at the impossible, Nathan would seem to come back to his body. He would stand still, your wrist slotted perfectly in the palm of his hand. He seems to note the mechanics of your body getting warm beneath the latex he has built as skin, and gives the impression that warm blood flows beneath the material, giving you life. Whatever it is that is driving him on his mission, this observation seems to propel him forward, working well into the night until he physically can’t go without sleep any longer.

Today, you’d entered his office to find Nathan tipsy on the contents of multiple discarded beer bottles and stressing over blueprints as he tries to obtain a semblance of emotion in you. The lighting is too low to read the minute, scratchy writing comfortably, but he makes no effort to make the room any brighter. The speakers are on, Too Late to Turn Back Now by the Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose plays softly in the background, the song part of the playlist Nathan has for his dance room.

Your footsteps are quiet as you pad across the flooring, eyes settled on Nathan and the utter devastation of his work. Papers and post-it notes lay on the floor, flung from the table when he finds them no longer of any use. Some are crumpled and discarded in the corner, not unlike the many models that had come before you.

“Nathan,” you speak quietly, careful not to scare him. He’s more susceptible to a fright in this condition, so caught up in his work that the world surrounding him blurs in his peripheral vision as he reads the same words over and over again in the hopes that the answer he needs will appear in the tiny white void between each letter.

His head jerks up now, eyes settling on your face and pausing. A soft laugh sounds from his throat, but his lips are pulled into something more like a sneer. It’s as though he’s aware of what you’ve come here to tell him. You go ahead regardless.

“You really are in need of some sleep,” you say hushedly, the overhead speakers playing the closing melody of the song as you move closer to him. Nathan is shaking his head violently, a rage building up inside of him in response to your almost motherly guidance.

“No, no you don’t understand! You don’t understand!” He points at the blueprints desperately, like if he speaks with more enthusiasm his drunken ramblings will eventually make sense. “I have to finish this. Have to improve. Have to complete what I set out-“

“What if I don’t see the need for improvement? Isn’t adding emotion to a system like mine a weakness?” You speak evenly, careful to broach the topic in a way that hopefully helps Nathan see sense. It doesn’t. It only enrages him further, violently prodding a finger onto the blueprint resting on the table.

“You can’t tell me what I can and can’t do with you. You are my creation.” He insists, punctuating his words with jabs of his pointed index in the air. “I give and take, create and destroy as I see fit!”

“Like God?” You ask as you begin to clear the mess of papers strewn across the floor, oblivious to the way Nathan’s eyes snap back to you with shock. It rubs his ego, just as you knew it would. What you didn’t account for, however, was the very human response he gives you, throwing the topic of conversation completely sideways.

“You’re fuckin’ messing with my brain! Cataclysmically! You’ve scrambled my fuckin’ genius and all I can think of is you, day in day out. Like a pleb!” He snaps, his desperation evident in the strain of his voice as he waves his hands around violently. “I created you with the knowledge you probably wouldn’t be able to feel emotion. But now I am disgusted at my own inability and stupidity because I want you to think of me. I want you to feel for me.”

Never had you considered the idea of being rendered speechless. Nathan had designed you to maintain a conversation perfectly, the fluidity of the words exchanged as smooth as water. But for the first time since consciousness, you find yourself at a loss for words, no engineered answer in your built-in data seeming like the perfect response to his very sudden and sharp admittance of love.

Nathan is a troubled man. One that struggles with his genius often, as you’d found him self-medicating his emotional turmoil in alcohol and sex with his previous AI’s. It appears that his torment stems from feeling no one can match his mental capacity, couldn’t understand or keep up with his speeding thoughts or rapid speech. He felt lonely. Perhaps it’s why he felt this way for you- because he simply has no one else.

“Nathan,” you murmur, softening your speech to ease him down from his emotional ramblings. You reach across to him, fingertips brushing against the skin of his wrist before gently taking ahold of the joint with a delicate touch. He seems to melt into your touch despite his better judgement, looking into your eyes through the lenses of his glasses. He looks so tired.

At first, you think you’re imagining it, the shift of the energy in the room. Perhaps you’re reading his body language incorrectly, an error, thanks you all the fiddling and changes that Nathan had been making over the past few days. It’s only when Nathan takes a step closer, entering your personal space that you realise the atmosphere in the office has shifted dramatically.

“Nathan-“ taking a step back, you pause as your shoulders hit the cool wall behind you. Nathan boxes you in with his chest, eyes flickering over your face and taking in your micro-expressions. He was flipping the script, this time being the one to read you.

“Did you know I designed you to experience pleasure?” He asks you, mirroring your earlier action and taking ahold of your wrist. He lifts it, turning your palm inward to rest his cheek against it while gazing into your eyes. “You have sensors built between your thighs. If I stimulate them in just the right way, it triggers a pleasure response.”

“I am aware,” you admit, matching his hushed tone as he let go of your wrist, instead reaching between you to take your chin in his hand and forcing your head upwards using a firm grip to take in your features.

“You wanna feel good?” Nathan murmurs, the evenness in his tone contrary to the way his chest heaves. His eyes drop across your body now, passing over the perfect features and intricate structures that he had designed in his desired image. Like God indeed.

“Whatever Daddy wants.”

Nathan’s jaw ticks, a groan sounding from between his gritted teeth as his tense muscles all seem to ease at once. “That’s right, you fuckin’ call me Daddy. Filthy fuckin’ girl.”

Control. Nathan needs control. He relies on it, finds comfort in it. It’s why your system isn’t surprised when he uses the grip on your chin to pull your head forward, rather than lowering his own, and crushes his lips to yours in a kiss laced with primal desire. There is no technique, no attempt to prove his skills. He’s led by the desperation for you that has been dragging him from bed each morning just to spend time with you and motivated him to bridge the gap between AI and emotion.

The scrape of his beard against the manufactured skin of your cheek and chin is coarse, completely contrary to the soft texture of his lips despite their heavy kiss. His tongue delves inside your mouth, palms skating down your waist and squeezing at your hips. It’s less affectionate, more what a person would consider bruising. You wonder to yourself if that’s why he prefers to fuck his AI’s. He can be more brutal with you.

So you aim to please him. You allow a moan to slip past your lips in response to his heavy-handedness, resulting in Nathan pausing for just a moment. He seems taken aback by the sound, as if he didn’t expect it.

“Look at you,” he murmurs, a smirk playing on his lips as he gazes down at you through his glasses which are lopsided on his nose thanks to his fevered kisses. “Utterly shameless.” You’re sure he’s projecting, performing some form of mental gymnastics in an attempt to regain the power in your dynamic. You would have told him so, but his thumb brushes against your nipple through the fabric of your shirt and it sparks something through you that you hadn’t yet experienced.

It settles deep inside you, a buzzing sensation breaking out across your skin. You feel your jaw drop against your coding, acting entirely on its own. It seems to please Nathan, a hum sounding from his chest as that fiendish smirk grows wider. “That’s it, isn’t it? That’s makin’ you feel good.”

When you look up at him through your lashes, Nathan’s eyes are glinting onyx in the darkness of the dimly lit room. He chases more of a reaction from you, one of his hands slipping underneath the soft cotton shirt you wore and squeezing your breast. When he circles your nipple again, you find that you’re no longer forcing your reactions, gasping softly at the reaction his delicate touch elicits.

He isn’t gentle for long, your pleasurable reaction sparking him into action suddenly. Nathan’s free hand grabs underneath your thigh, hoisting it over your hip with little effort and pressing his hips into yours. He pinches your nipple suddenly, catching your system off guard and causing you to cry out in surprise.

Ever the opportunist, Nathan is quick to kiss you again with equal ardour to your last embrace and brush his tongue against yours. You grip at his shoulders through his waffle sweater, feeling the hard muscles there that you had seen Nathan work hard to maintain whilst exercising what could only be described as an alcohol dependency and a job that took up the majority of his time.

His nose is pressed into yours as he kisses you, messy and needy and you can feel the cold lenses of his prescription glasses smushed into the skin of your cheekbone and yet this feeling alone sparks something pleasurable inside you, your fingers sinking into the flesh of his shoulders through the textured material of his sweater. The sensation makes him groan, the sound primal against your lips, and you find yourself keening for him against your will.

Then he’s grinding, pressing his hips deep into yours whilst keeping your thigh elevated on his hip with a devastating grip. You can feel his arousal, his cock pressing up against you in a spot that sets your body alight, the sensation sparking down to your toes. You sigh into the kiss, Nathan’s own breaths strained as he moves away, burying his face in your neck.

“Fuck,” he grits, the curse visceral against your skin as he licks a heavy stripe against your pulse point. Despite his attempts to remain in control, Nathan appears to lose himself in the apex of your thighs, grinding up into you at a quickened pace and groaning against your jugular. You’re unsure if it’s the excessive alcohol, his irregular feelings for you or both, but you find you like this side of him, gently brushing your nails over his shaved scalp as you tilt your head back against the wall in order to expose more of your throat to him.

His lips seem to search for something in the curve of your neck, kissing and scraping his teeth for what you could only imagine was a pleasure point he had embedded into your skin there. It doesn’t take him long to find it, your back arching reflexively as white-hot pleasure sparks down your mechanical spine.

“D-Daddy,” you moan, squeezing your eyes shut as you struggle to grab at the hem of his sweater. You couldn’t explain it, a feeling settling deep inside yourself and needing so desperately to undress him. Nathan doesn’t seem to mind this sliver of control you manage to cling to, allowing you to pull the fabric over his head before latching onto the side of your neck again.

What does seem to set him off, however, is how you unwittingly press your nails into his now bare skin when you settle your hands on him again. He almost growls into your throat, using all of his heavy-weight training strength to pull you from the wall.

Instead of berating you, as you’d expected from him for hurting him, Nathan appears to spark to life. He backs you towards his desk, crowding your body so you're forced to take steps back until the backs of your thighs hit the corner of the cluttered table.

Taking your lips into another heated kiss, Nathan reaches behind you and blindly sweeps aside the blueprints and scribbled notes onto the floor. The paper oscillates in the air before hitting the floor, drowned out only by Nathan’s needy growl as he picks you up by the backs of your thighs to set you on the wooden surface.

Wanting more of this frenzied reaction, you sink your teeth into his lower lip. Pulling back with his bottom lip caught between your teeth, you’re so close that you catch the way Nathan’s pupils dilate at the smarting pain. He likes it, you realise. He likes the pain.

What you don’t pick up, however, is how wild it would make him. He wastes no further time, hooking his pen ink-stained fingers into the waistband of your pants and ripping them down.

“I fuckin created you. Pieced you together with my own two hands.” He rambled, drunk on arousal and need rather than the alcohol he had emptied into his stomach. His voice is rough, raspy as he glanced down between your legs as you spread them open for him, utterly compliant. “Now watch as I tear you apart again- yessss good fuckin girl~”

The buzzing, aching need settling in your core amps up at the sight of him gazing down at you with such a wanting gaze. You’re unsure what possesses your systems but you lay back across the surface of the desk, using your elbows to lift your upper body.

“Christ-“ Nathan practically spits at the sight of you, “You like this, don’t you? Like givin’ yourself up to me. You’re just so desperate for me to fuck you. Open your legs wider- that’s it-“ He’s fumbling with the waistband of his sweats, pushing them down over his hip bones with practised ease to reveal he’s not wearing boxers.

You barely catch a glimpse of him, but he’s beautiful- in that perfectly human way. His cock is flushed at the tip, weeping precum and veins protruding down the shaft.

Nathan doesn’t allow you to stare for too long, grabbing ahold of your thighs and dragging you so your hips rest at the edge of the table. You gasp at the sudden movement, palms splayed flat against the grain of the wood in a feeble attempt to stabilise yourself.

You’re so ready for it, aching and wetness coats your inner thighs just as Nathan had designed. His palm presses down on your sternum, holding you down against the desk as he lines his cock up with your entrance, sweeping the tip through your slick and causing what could only be considered white hot arousal to crackle across your skin.

“Fuck,” Nathan chokes out, sinking into your manufactured heat, “Hoh-Shit that feels so fuckin’ good. You’re so fuckin’ good! Hah!”

Your mechanical joints move entirely on their own, back arching as pleasure floods your body. You can feel his cock stretch you, walls adjusting to the blunt intrusion and fluttering as he pushes forward, bottoming out swiftly and glancing down between your thighs as he grinds up deep inside of you.

Now he’s settled inside of you, Nathan places his palms on the back of your thighs, pushing them so your knees are almost touching your chest. He’s moulding you exactly how he wants you, just as he has with your appearance, your personality and you’re completely submissive to his construction of you.

“Daddy-“ you gasp the name you know he loves softly as he brushes up against a sensor inside you that sends a white hot pulse through your body. He growls in response, tightening his grip on you before pulling out of you smoothly and pushing back in at a brutal pace that has you almost convinced you’re short-circuiting.

You cry out wordlessly, fingers hooking around the edge of the table in an attempt to prevent yourself from slipping up the table with each devastating thrust. It’s brutal, Nathan pounding into you as his hands arch your body in a way that isn’t physically possible for any human being. The position sends him crazy, each snap of his hips punctuated with a broken groan of pleasure and speeding up and up and up as he chases the high he’s been craving since he flipped your ignition switch.

“Ngh- Fuck…” he moans loudly over the rhythmic sound of your hips slapping together, taking in the furrow of your brow and the slackness of your jaw as he fucks into you. “Take my cock so fuckin’ good, don’t you Honey?”

Nathan’s repetitive attempts to get you to speak beyond his name are not lost on you. Adapting to the situation is much harder when he’s making you feel as though he’s set your fibre optics on fire, like he’s loosened some screws in your metaphorical brain but you make the effort anyway. “Ahh- D-Daddy! Don’t stop, please don’t-!”

It’s building, the pressure. It’s unlike anything you’ve ever experienced, and your hands fly up to grip tightly onto the flesh of his forearms. Nathan bares his teeth at the pain, taking his pace up a notch further than you thought possible as you throw your head back, crying out his name.

“Mhmmm shit-“ he moans out, forcing you to take each obliterating push of his hips into yours. Cries of his name repeat over and over from your lips, their pitch building as the pressure becomes too much, becomes overwhelming. You can feel Nathan’s cock throbbing inside you as he slows his pace down slightly, voice and breathing utterly wrecked.

“You li-like when I fuck you all mean like this? Yeah? Fuck-… I’m-“ he gasps loudly, hips stuttering and hands like a vice on your skin as he cums, pushing his cock deep inside of you and bearing down on one spot in particular that makes you see static. Everything tightens, everything builds up and up and you can feel him push you over the edge with one more thrust-

It’s cataclysmic. Utterly blissful as your walls clamp around him, back practically lifting from the table's surface. It wrings your dry, utterly devoid of the energy to even lift your arms and hold him, to even fight the formidable feeling he’s drawn from you.

It takes a few moments for the buzz to fade, for your mechanical eyes to come back into focus and your joints to begin to move again.

It’s as though it drains Nathan too, almost immediately easing himself from between your thighs and pulling the waistband of his sweats back over his hips. He settles beside you against the desk, slumping to the ground beside you and breathing raggedly. You stay utterly silent, systems almost in reboot as you attempt to understand exactly just what happened- what you felt.

“… Shit, This-… This wasn’t supposed to happen,” he pants, picking his glasses from his nose and launching them across the room in his frustration before scrubbing his face with his palms. “You weren’t supposed to be like the rest.”

Silence lingers between the two of you, and you use the gap in the conversation to begin slowly sitting up and glance down at him. He looks dishevelled, cheeks rosy from exertion and eyes set somewhere far across the room where his vision blurred without his lenses. He’s deep in thought, even now. Even with the hazy afterglow and the sweat on his brow.

“I have to make you better,” he whispers, completely consumed by the idea of bridging the gap between AI and man. “I want you to start feelin’ what I feel for you.”

“It’s not possible,” you remind him in a quiet voice, the both of you knowing this to be true. Nathan would spend his entire life in this compound, the grey stripe in his buzz-cut hair spreading to his temples and chin as he slaved away over you until he was no longer able to stand. Even then, his obsession appears to manipulate him so strongly that you have no doubt he’d continue from his death bed, using the last of his life force and precious seconds on earth to grasp at imaginary straws.

“It has to be,” he whispers, removing his buried head from his hands before standing suddenly. He gives you barely a moment to recognise what’s happening, to prevent it from happening, before he reaches towards you, towards that switch at the base of your neck. “It has to b-“

END

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⇝ midnight .

Simon "Ghost" Riley x Fem!AFAB!Reader.

PART ONE OF MÉNAGE.

SUMMARY: Simon makes the mistake of spending the night before one of the longest missions of his career in the arms of a woman he met at a pub, unaware of the consequences it would have on his life moving forward.

WARNINGS: AFAB!Fem!Reader (no use of Y/N!) NSFW [ Oral (F receiving), Degradation, Praising, size difference/kink, dacryphilia, dumbification, slight bondage, frottage, unprotected P in V, overstimulation, various orgasms, creampie.], Angst, Pregnancy, mentions of abortion, kind of OOC Simon? He’s just soft when he’s not Ghost, Canon typical violence.

A/N: My first COD fic! It also happens to be the longest piece of writing I've ever done 😵! This is the first part of a series I've been planning on writing for a while, so I'll hopefully get the second part out soon! Please don't forget to reblog/comment if you enjoy the fic, it helps a lot!!! Thanks for all the support!! <3

WORD COUNT: 10.1k.

MASTERLIST.

Also on Ao3!

Going out wasn't one of Ghost's favourite things to do.

Even after getting back to his tiny flat in Manchester following a horribly long mission and shedding his mask, going back to the burly man his neighbours knew as Simon, some random guy who had moved in a few years ago and seldom stepped outside except for the random smoking session some of them would see him having on his balcony; he didn't enjoy going out.

So when he finally was able to relax onto his shitty leather sofa and catch up with some of the footy games he had missed while away, all he wanted more than anything was a good whiskey in his favourite (cleanest) glass.

And almost like a cartoon character staring at their empty wallet, Simon stared ahead at his liquor cabinet, jaw clenched as he spied at the remaining drops of alcohol that were left in the bottle, remembering the mental note he had made before leaving his flat the last time to get himself the alcohol he had chugged down during one of his depressive episodes.

So, in a fit of anger, he shoved on whatever clean clothes he could find in his duffle bag, skull balaclava pulled over his messy hair, and stomped down the stairs to the nearest Tesco…

…only to find it closed.

And fuck him if he was going to walk the extra hour to the nearest Morrison's just to get some shitty whiskey bottle to drown his sorrows in. At this point, he'd just go and sit in a corner of a pub, nursing what he would hope would be an acceptable liquor.

He was absolutely pissed by the time he made it into the homey bar, the universe having decided to make it it's personal mission to fuck him up today and making the worst storm possible start to rain upon Manchester.

Oh, and of course, the pub's tables were all full of teenagers (who definitely had fake IDs, no way they were all 18), and some old geezers who were shouting at the football game on TV (great, Manchester was loosing, another thing to worsen his night), leaving the only available seat one in the middle of the bar next to some woman chatting amicably to the waiter, who seemed a bit more interested in her cleavage than in what she had to say.

He slipped into the seat silently, his clear eyes death-staring into the bartender's, immediately scaring him shitless ("Yer about ta kill me with that look, Lt." Johnny had once joked about his murderous gaze, and to be fair, Simon /was/ slightly hoping the scot would combust and die right there.), no doubt believing that he was with the woman and was about to punch his teeth in for staring longer than he should have.

As he scurried off into the back, you turned to him, taken aback at first as you made eye contact with the towering, wet, balaclava-clad man who was staring back at you, but you were brave enough to smile kindly at him, going back to running your finger over the rim of your drink, which Simon noticed was still and hardly drank out of, despite the lipstick smudges around the top. You'd been here a while, and by the way your leg was nervously jumping up and down as time passed by, he could only assume you'd been stood up.

Now, Simon wasn't dumb, far from it; and Simon was smart enough to recognize when someone was attractive, and he was pretty sure that the woman in front of him was drop-dead gorgeous despite the sad look that adorned your features. So, if he was correct, he couldn't even begin to fathom how someone could even start to think of standing up a woman like you, especially after inviting her to this shitty pub, where the food had definitely given him food poisoning before.

He hadn't realised how deep in thought he must have been while staring at your glass until a soft hand rested against his bicep, eyes instantly flashing back towards yours, instincts haywire from having been pulled out from his thoughts so suddenly.

"Sorry!" You immediately retracted your hand from his arm, smiling apologetically up at him before turning your gaze back to the golden liquid. "I asked if you were okay. I can't imagine walking around in a storm with just that on." You gestured towards his shirt, allowing Simon to look down and stare at the tight T-shirt he had chosen to wear, a few dirt stains decorating it in the worst way possible, having dressed for the occasion that was a 10pm trip to Tesco and not meeting up with a pretty woman at a pub.

"Wasn't planning on walking 'round." He grumbled out, his voice deeper than what you had expected, the thick accent and scratchy sound of it making shivers run down your spine and heat pool into your stomach, becoming horrified with yourself that you allowed such a minimal thing like a masked man's voice get you all hot and flustered like this.

"'Nd you? Doesn't seem like you're dressed for a night out at the Crown's." His eyes moved towards your dress, surprised with himself that he had actively been the one to continue the conversation; his thick hand reaching over to grab his drink from the bartender's hand (which he must have ordered during the haze he had been in before.) as he awaited your answer.

"Oh." He watched you smooth down your hair out from the corner of his eye, your hands shaky as they found comfort around the fancy glass of your whiskey. Or was it bourbon? Maybe rum? You seemed like the type of woman to appreciate a good glass of liquor. "Yeah, 'm waiting for someone."

He watched your eyes dart over to the clock hanging on the wall opposite you both, the little hand nearing the number 11.

"Could've taken you somewhere nicer." He commented, taking a jab at both the pub and your missing date, the small breathless chuckle that left your lips catching his attention.

"Yeah. Not like I expected a reservation at the Ritz, but somewhere that doesn't look like my grandad's favourite pub would be nice." You joked over the sound of some of the old men cheering in the background over some team scoring a goal, and while Simon would've normally turned around to make sure it had been Manchester, he was too focused on the mesmerising way your eyes looked in the dim light, your eyelashes fluttering innocently as you continued what had started as small talk, that evolved into friendly conversation and him buying you another drink, and that ended with him waiting for you outside the bathrooms, holding onto your tiny umbrella.

Simon wasn't one to frequent in hook-ups, but how enticing you had been when talking to him, the way your body looked in that dress and how you'd brushed your soft hand against his bicep (this time with another intent other than to snap him out of his stupor), had left him wanting, nay, craving more from you.

So when you looked out the window behind him before gesturing to the small umbrella hanging from your bag and asked if he wanted to take you home, he would have been demented to deny you.

His screen's brightness lit up his face as he scrolled over the scarce messages he had received across the almost 10 years he had had this crappy phone, about to delete Soap's number before you came out, a smile on your face and makeup freshly applied.

"Some girls helped me with my makeup in there." You commented happily, fingertips brushing over the blush that had been applied to the apples of your cheeks, which made you somehow look even more enticing than before. "I didn't have time to look in the mirror, but I hope it looks okay."

"Looks nice on you." He let out after processing your new look, his chest tightening as your smile somehow widened and your eyes brightened, having learned across the few hours you had spent together that Simon wasn't really one to show his emotions towards anyone, so a short compliment like that was a big step.

"You think?" You didn't wait for an answer, your hand finding his and starting to lead him out of the shadowy corner he had taken refuge in while your time in the bathroom, letting him push open the exit door so he could open up the umbrella, not caring about the raindrops falling onto him and darkening his clothes, the rain getting caught onto his eyelashes like morning dew on a spiders web, the beautiful orbs drawing you in like a butterfly happily flying into a spider's nest.

The umbrella was open and poised on top of you before you could even step out of the pub, Simon doing his best so you wouldn't be touched by the rain, aware of how uncomfortable some people got when it came to water running down your back or touching your face (especially when you looked so so pretty with your make-up.). Along with his massive frame walking next to you, you were pretty sure there was no way a single drop of water would touch your skin the whole way back home.

Which ended up being almost silent, you leading the way and commenting on random stores or things you passed, brightening up every time you got a chuckle out of him and melting whenever his hand would wrap around your waist as you passed some creepy man or a suspicious-looking group of teens, pulling you into his side so no one would even think of messing with you.

You were highly aware of how dangerous it was in hindsight to take some random man home (whose face you hadn't even seen yet!), but Simon made you feel safe, special, in some weird way… like as long as you were in his vicinity, nothing could happen to you, nothing could harm you. And you wanted to cling onto that feeling, onto the feeling of protection and warmth that Simon extruded.

So you didn't think twice about it, even as you slipped the key into the front door to your apartment complex and stood next to him the whole elevator ride up to your floor, his hand curled around yours with his thumb rubbing over your knuckles, the soft action enough to make heat pool into your tummy and your panties, getting worked up over casual affection from the breathtaking man.

"Y'sure about this, lovie?" His raspy voice made you fumble with your keys as he came up behind you, watching you struggle to unlock your flat as his breath hit your ear. "Tell me to leave and I will. Last chance."

Your breathing grew shaky as his own warmed your cheek, the way he worded it making it seem like the act you were both about to perform was something akin to letting a beast free, and even if it was, as long as Simon was the one to do it, you would have let him do anything.

"Yes." You managed to get out as your door finally opened, not even getting the time to take a step in before his hands were all over you, pushing you into the apartment and slamming the door closed behind him with his foot, his balaclava somehow being pulled up to his nose, high enough so you could gaze upon his soft pink lips and the blond stubble that adorned his chin and slightly crooked nose, aware that you would have spent hours tracing his features with your eyes, engraving them to memory, but he took away any thoughts away from you as he slotted his lips with yours.

You learned immediately that Simon's kisses were desperate, sloppy, needy. The way his hands gripped at your hips and his teeth nibbled onto your bottom lip, tongue running over yours as he trailed his palms down your thighs onto your feet, wrenching off your heels and ripping apart your tights, ignoring the angered whine that left your lips.

"Easier access, lovie." He murmured against your lips, finally pulling back with a sleazy grin on his lips, a string of spit connecting you both before breaking, allowing you a bit of time to catch your breath while he took in your living room, staring at the doors. "Bedroom?"

"Th- That one-" You hazardly pointed towards one of the doors behind you, squealing out loud as he grabbed you effortlessly and started to carry you towards your room, thighs pressed to his sides and ankles crossed behind his back, making sure to cling onto him so he wouldn't randomly drop you (Although by the way his muscles barely tensed when he had picked you up, and how easily he seemed to navigate around while carrying you made you think that there was no way he'd let you fall.)

Your back finally hit your familiar soft mattress, hands clenching onto your silk sheets as he watched you like a hawk, hands resting on the space of your thighs near your now-dripping cunt, thumbs rubbing into the soft pudge.

"Fuck… Just look t'you." He rumbled out, your cheeks growing warm as he continued to stare without moving, enjoying the way you started to squirm beneath his touch. "Calm, lovie, jus' taking my time wiv' you."

You mewled out at the deep tone his voice took, thighs threatening to close as one of his hands made his way towards your clothed cunt, which had been made accessible thanks to your now-ripped tights that had been left behind in the living room.

Simon forced your thighs back open with a grunt, glassy eyes darkening as he watched your own hands come up to cover your face out of embarrassment, letting himself soak in it for a moment before finally starting to act.

"Lean up f'me." You obeyed immediately, trembling under his touch as he slowly pulled your dress off, letting it pool onto the floor along with his shirt, which he had quickly gotten rid of as soon as you were in your lingerie. His eyes roamed the lace for a moment before letting out a dry chuckle, looking up at you to find you ogling at his scarred chest, almost drooling at the sight of his well built pecs and stomach. "Tryin' to get lucky tonight?" He spoke, fingers snapping your bra strap, thinking back to why you were originally at that pub in the first place.

"Shut up." You grumbled, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him up the bed so you could continue kissing him, having been left craving more ever since that breathtaking one in the foyer.

He didn't complain, quickly indulging you as he slotted his lips with yours once again, his kiss as sloppy as needy as before, openly moaning against them as your hands run under his balaclava to pull at the short strands of his coarse hair, his own hands wrapping your thighs around his waist so your clothed pussy could grind against the hard material of his trousers over his hardened cock, rejoicing in the way your moans and whines sounded as he drank them up.

"S'needy." He chastised softly as he pulled away, moving you both towards the top of the bed so you could rest your head on your pillows, catching your breath while he started slipping off his belt and trousers (the belt being placed on the bed, just in case), and letting you gaze upon the tent in his boxers, shivering at the monstrous sight of his cock, trying to imagine how in the living fuck would he fit inside you if he couldn't even fit properly in his boxers, pulling out a moan from your lipstick smudged lips at the simple thought of being fucked by such a tool.

"Like it?" He chuckled, slowly starting to lean down with his hands on your thighs, pulling one of them over his shoulder so he was face to face with your covered cunt, his breath warm as it hit your clit, making you whine. "Gunna let me have a taste?"

"Y-Yes, god, yes, Simon, please-" You breathed out all at once, desperate for his touch after the slow teasing, watching what was visible of his face scrunch up in mock laughter as he revelled in your whines.

"As you wish, lovie."

He didn't even bother pushing your panties aside before taking a lick of your cunt from bottom to top, pressing soft kisses to your clit to hear your desperate whines and feel your thighs shake beneath his touch, continuing to slowly make out with your clothed pussy, purposefully driving you insane with his limited touches.

"Off, off, pl-please, Si, please -" You whined, pushing his head away in an attempt to start to pull your panties down, crying out in frustration as he didn't budge, a growl leaving his lips and sending vibrations up your cunt.

"Don't touch. I'm taking my fucking time, pretty. Or would you rather me stick my cock into you without any prep?" You moaned out loudly at the thought, back threatening to arch as he slowly grasped at your panties, a humourless chuckle leaving his pretty lips. "Yeah, I bet your slutty pussy'd love that, wouldn't it, lovie?" He purred before finally sliding down your pants, taking a moment to stare at your cunt and let you squirm before slowly spreading your thighs again, immediately shoving his face into his prize and repeating his movements from before, but faster and rougher, letting you feel every inch of his tongue as it ran over your lips and slowly inched inside of your hole, your moans and silent screams only edging him further on until he took your engorged clit into his mouth and started sucking, placing a hand on your stomach and pushing your arching back down onto the mattress.

He was surprised, to say the least. Yes, he'd realised you were sensitive as soon as he had kissed you for the first time, but he hadn't expected you to almost burst into tears from being eaten out (He wasn't even /trying/ to make you cry, he wondered what would happen if he did.), so he wondered if all the men you'd been with before had gone down on you, but by the way you were reacting to such simple touches, he was pretty sure he knew the answer.

"So fuckin' sweet, baby." He murmured into your pussy as he let go of your swollen clit, giving your hole some attention as the hand that was on your tummy ran down to circle your clit, overstimulating you in the best way possible. "Taste like fuckin' heaven."

"Si- Simon-" you whined his name out so so sweetly, music to the normally cold lieutenant's ears. "Gonn- Fuuuck! 'Na cum! Please, please, Si, need to-"

"S'okay, let go for me, lovie." He basically purred into you as he continued licking contently at your gushing hole, fingers tactically rubbing on your clit, before changing spots, taking your clit back into his mouth and letting his fingers slip in to you, preening at the sweet gasp that left your lips at the sudden intrusion, his coarse fingers moving in and out and immediately finding that one spot that made your back arch and toes curl, and just as he was taught in the military, he took advantage of the weak spot (in this case, your sweet spot.) and didn't stop brushing his fingers against it, the increasing sound of his name alerting him of your upcoming orgasm.

And once the coil within your stomach snapped and Simon finally let your back arch of the bed, your release gushing out of you and coating his hand and wrist, you let out the loudest moan of his name, the sound immediately going to his painfully hard cock, but he didn't stop, tongue not ceasing its assault on your clit and fingers continuing to rub against your g-spot until you finally came down from your high, brain mushy and eyes glassy as you stared up at the cream ceiling.

"Such a good girl." He purred out as he finally stopped, retracting his wet fingers and taking them into his mouth, swirling his tongue around and cleaning off all of the slick you had left from your orgasm, savouring it like he would with a lollipop. "Fuckin' taste amazing."

You whined in response, the embarrassment from having cummed so fast and having to watch him lick up all your release finally catching up to you, shaky hands moving to cover your sweaty face.

He clicked his tongue, grabbing them before they could cover your pretty features and holding them together in one hand.

"No, baby. Don't want you fuckin' hiding f'me." He snapped, slowly pulling them upwards so that they were pinned against the headboard, his other hand moving to gather the belt he had discarded not so long ago, quickly taking advantage of your cum-lax state to wrap it around your wrists, making sure it was tight enough to constrict you, but not tight enough to hurt, and letting you lie there while he started on getting rid of his boxers. "Wanna see that pretty face while you come undone on my cock. Isn't that what y'want too?"

You tried moving your head to nod, but it felt so so heavy that even the slightest movement felt like a chore, feeling grateful that Simon was a man able to move you around and dominate you without even breaking sweat, that all you needed to do was lie back and enjoy everything he gave you.

"Fuckin' hell. Not even fucked ya yet and you're 'lready gone?" He sneered, coming to hover over you so he could press wet kisses to your cheeks and neck, purposefully avoiding your lips. "Pretty girl gets her pussy played wiv and turns into a right proper slut, don' she?" He purred against your neck, his words making you shiver and squirm as your body instinctively tried to move away from the stimulus, only for him to pull you back towards him with grubby hands, a loud gasp leaving your lips as he pressed your crotches together, having expected the soft cotton of his boxers and not the hard, hot feeling of his cock flush against your dripping pussy.

"Oh- Oh my god, Simon, th-"

"Mm." He cut you off with a soft purr and a nip to your jugular, no doubt making sure that you'd wake up in purple marks the next morning as he did the same all over your neck. "'S me. All me, lovie. F'you."

You moaned at the implication, slowly starting to grind yourself against him as he made it his personal mission to cover your upper body in kisses, stopping at your clavicle and staring down at your bra, that was still to be taken off.

"Fuck, forgot all 'bout these." His hand came up to squeeze one of them softly, a small sound of pleasure leaving your lips at the added stimulation as you continued to rub your cunt against his hardened cock. "Pretty little things."

He started grinding his own hips against yours, watching with amazement at how quickly you reacted to his touch, your back arching enough for him to slip his hands behind and unclasping your bra suspiciously easy, pulling it off and throwing it behind him and landing god knows where, and leaving you finally completely bare beneath him.

"Look t'you." His warm hands immediately cupped your tits, thumb and pointer rubbing your nipples between them, pinching and pulling until they were hard, an amazed chuckle leaving his lips as he listened to your moans increase in sound, his grinding against you not ceasing either.

"Oh fuck- fuck fuck!" It was embarrassing, how quickly he had you whining and mewling beneath him, when you had found yourself struggling before to even feel something with men before him doing the same. It was just something about him, something about the way he sounded and touched, the precise movements against you, almost like he had been trained for your pleasure, to get you over the edge as many times as he could muster before even getting his dick wet.

Because the instant you felt his warm breath hit one of your perky breasts, you knew you were fucked, headed towards your second orgasm of the night. His warm mouth enveloped your hard nipple, pulling and tugging with his teeth and soothing the slight pain he left with his talented tongue, his grinding becoming quicker and rougher as he felt your thighs tremble around his waist, your eyes watering as you neared the release you oh so craved, gasping out loud as one of his hands came up to cup your cheek, thumb rubbing over your flushed skin.

"You gunna cry, baby? S'okay, let it out. Let it out f'me." He growled as he let go of your now throbbing nipple, moving to give your other neglected breast the same attention, hand leaving your face to run down to your core and slowly run over your clit, a huge contrast to the rough movements of his cock against you and his warm mouth on your nipple, all the different stimulations and feelings enough to push you over the edge and let the tears that had been collecting in your waterline finally fall, gasping moans and screams leaving your lips as you soaked his cock, body trembling beneath his ministrations as he chuckled against your nipple, enjoying the way you were slowly falling apart and he hadn't even pushed into you yet.

He didn't stop for a few moments, waiting until the moment where you would inevitably start whining and pushing him off with weak arms to cease, leaning back up with a shit eating grin as he waited for you to come down from your high.

"Oi, look at me." He taps one of his fingers on your face, moving your gaze towards his, a small, patronising pout tugging at his lips as he watches the tears roll down your cheeks. "Poor thing. You all fucked out yet? D'you think y'could still take my cock? Or are you too dumb f'that right now?"

"Y-yes, yes, please, please, need it so bad, Si! So so bad!" You stuttered out between laboured breaths, hands struggling against their binding, itching to be let free and feel his cock in your hands, which you could see between you, almost as girthy as a coke can and with a few prominent veins leading up to his flushed red tip, that was leaking pre spend you would gladly pay money to clean up with your tongue. "O-oh fuck, Simon, please -"

"Sh, shh. Calm down, y'little crybaby." He chastised, leaning down to softly press kisses over the tears that had gathered on your flushed cheeks, chuckling at how desperate you looked under him. "I'll give you what you want. Gon' fuck you so well, yeah? You'll feel me f'weeks, lovie."

"Fuck, yes, please! Want your cock so badly, please!" You cried, legs immediately spreading for him as soon as his calloused hands landed on the pudge of your thighs, slightly digging his fingers into them as he took in the beautiful sight of your soaking wet pussy, having half the mind to shove his cock in you without a second thought. But no.

"Calm." He snapped, one of his hands dropping your thighs and slapping your face softly to get your attention. "Protection, baby. You got a condom?"

He frowned as you shook your head, gasping for breath as you pointed over to your nightstand, where he could faintly see the glint of a packet of tablets in the dark. "Pill. 'M on the pill, Si. Clean. I'm clean."

He couldn't help the smile that crept onto his lips at the thought of being able to cum inside, and how eager you were acting to get him to finally stick his cock inside, whines and whimpers pulling him from his thoughts as he stared down at you.

"You going to let me cum inside then, lovie?" He teased, pulling your other thigh back up so the underside of both of them were resting flush against his bare chest, twitching cock resting on your overstimulated core. "Don' think I'm gonna be able to pull out."

"Don't want you to, fuck! Please, Simon, please!! Inside, want you to cum inside!"

A shiver racked through his body at your words, carefully letting one of your legs go and making sure it would stay there, wrapping around it to grab his cock, slowly sliding the head around your puffy lips to collect the slick, wanting the intrusion to be as painless as possible.

"Fuck… Alright, baby, alright. Breathe f'me." He whispered, letting the head of his cock press against your hole, telling himself to go slow and calm down, but by the way you were pulsing and clenching around the head, almost like you were pulling him in, made it hard to stay sane. "God, slutty lil' cunt's just swallowing me in, huh? Want this cock that bad?"

Your hands shook against their restraint as he started to push himself into your sopping hole, wanting nothing more than to grab onto something for stability, but you didn't want to risk him getting annoyed at you for trying to.

"S'okay, almost there." He mumbled, lying straight through his teeth because with one look down to where he was connected to it would prove that he wasn't even halfway in, and it was already proving difficult for your hole to accommodate to his massive size.

"S'big, Si, you're so biiig." You whined, spreading your legs slightly and pushing your body onto him to help, shivering as you could feel him start throbbing inside of you, no doubt needing his own climax after having spent so much time focusing on you.

You could feel your eyes start to flutter close, mouth dropping open as he finally bottomed out, his heavy balls flush against your ass and cock throbbing inside of you, taking a breather and letting you adjust to his size before he would start on his ruthless pace.

"Fuck, lovie, you droolin'?" He panted, a hand coming up to rest against your face and pull you out of your sex-drunk haze (Despite only getting his cock inside you now.), your eyes drowning in his crystal ones, hypnotised by his gaze as he used his thumb to rub away some of the drool that had dribbled down your chin. "Pretty girl finally gets some cock and turns into a drooling slut, huh?"

You let out a noise of complaint as your hands continued to struggle, the few coarse hairs that were peeking out from under his mask enough to make you want to bury your fingers in them, pull at his strands and dig your nails into his scalp as he rocked your world.

He seemed to to understand what you wanted, a chuckle leaving his swollen lips as he leaned over you, legs folding along with him and allowing him to reach a deeper point in your cunt you didn't know that existed, a loud moan escaping you as his calloused hands start undoing the belt, finally letting your wrists free and throwing the piece of leather away, his hands going back to holding onto one of your thighs and another gripping your waist.

"All yours, baby. All fuckin' yours."

He gave you a moment to react as he bottomed out, leaving you empty for a split moment before he slammed back in, cock head almost instantly hitting that sweet spot deep inside you, your hands immediately finding refuge on his shoulders, nails digging into the scarred skin as he repeated his ruthless thrusts, your body shaking beneath his as he pushed down onto your body, forcing you both into a mating press, your cunt tightening around his cock at the sight of his eyes rolling into the back of his head, tummy fluttering at the thought that he was enjoying this as much as you were.

"Fuck, so good, Simon! So fucking good!" Your hands trailed up to the nape of his neck and pulled at the few short hairs there, urging a growl out of him and causing him to slightly speed up, the head of his cock at this point abusing your g-spot, urging you to near your third orgasm. "Wan- Wanna cum, fuck, gonna cum, Simon!"

"Already, baby?" He spoke through bated breath, his stamina allowing him to keep a good and consistent pace, enough to please both of you and almost bring you to tears again. "That's okay, cum for me, lovie. Cum on my fucking cock, show me how much of a fucking whore you are f'me."

Your back arched, pressing your breasts to his sweaty chest, the extra stimulation from your nipples rubbing against his coarse skin finally pushing you over the edge, your cunt clamping down on his cock and making it near impossible for him to continue thrusting, but as the good soldier Simon was, he persisted, rutting into you with bared teeth and a clenched jaw, fucking you through your orgasm until your slick covered his balls and upper thighs.

"Good girl, good fucking girl." He rasped, hand moving from your waist up to your neck, giving an experimental squeeze and moaning as you clenched around him, a breathless chuckle leaving him. "Fuck, you're still clenchin' around me so nicely, love. Feel so fuckin' good, perfect lil' pussy all f'me..."

Simon was saying nonsense at this point, becoming near pussy drunk as his cock hammered into your puffy cunt, nearing his own peak after all the foreplay.

"Si- Simon-!" You keened, hands running under his mask to grasp at his hair properly, pulling at it to coax another guttural moan from him and leading him back down to engage in a messy kiss, teeth clanking together and spit being shared, feeling the desperation he was in as he continued to batter your pussy searching for his own orgasm. "Cum, please, please, cum inside!"

Simon's eyes rolled into the back of his head at your begging, eyelashes fluttering as his pace stuttered inside of you, cockhead pressing against the entrance to your cervix and finally going over the edge, his spend gushing into you and almost immediately filling you, his cock acting like a plug inside you.

"O-oh, fuuck…" He moaned out, voice going slightly high pitched as he relished in the euphoria of finishing inside of you, his nails leaving ten moon shaped indents on your hips, the pain nothing compared to the feeling of him finally fucking his spend into you, you'd have to worry about the inevitable bruises and marks in the morning before work. "Fuck, you're… fuck."

Simon lowered himself down, resting his sweaty balaclava-clad face on your shoulder as you both caught your breaths, his cock twitching inside of you as he rode the waves of his orgasm.

Your eyes were blown out, staring up at the ceiling as you were hit with a sudden wave of realisation, your brain finally catching up with your body and taking in everything that had just happened, especially the fact that you had allowed some masked man you'd met at a pub on a tinder date to ravage you like a starved animal.

"Oh my god." You said, voice wavering as you shivered beneath the mountain of a man, who's sweaty body was pressed flush to yours, his cock softening inside of you as you both started to sober up. "O-Oh my god, Simon."

He let out a moan against your skin, languidly thrusting one final time into you before slowly pulling out, peeling himself off of you and letting the cold air envelop your now-shivering body, the feeling of his warm cum dripping down your puffy cunt pulling out another broken whine from your lips.

"Look at that…" You tried moving away as Simon ran a finger down your spent hole, gathering his cum best he could before slowly shoving it back into you, clicking his tongue at your reaction before leaning down and pressing a final kiss to your clit, the loud cry that left you making him smile almost predatorily. "So, so pretty, baby."

Your eyelids fluttered closed as you felt the bed shift beneath Simon's moving weight, allowing you time to set your head on straight and think about the next words that were going to come out of your mouth (That weren't strangled moans of the blond's name and jumbled cries about how good he felt.) while he moved around, no doubt getting his discarded clothes so he could slip away into the night.

"...leavin'?" You finally mustered out, letting your head fall to a side so you could watch him pick up his boxers and slip them on, his balaclava fixed into place like it had been when you met him, leaving you to stare into his mysterious blue eyes, the only gateway into the man who had just finished ravishing you.

"..." He turned to look at you over his shoulder, eyes trailing over your shivering frame as he fought internally over your words.

Ghost knew that it would be dangerous to stay, to indulge in your touch and show himself to you in one of his most vulnerable states. He didn't know you outside of the few hours he had spent with you, and even with that, it wasn't enough for Ghost to let his guard down around you.

Simon wanted to stay, he wanted to climb back into bed and let you curl into his side, let his warm hands run up and down your warm skin like he had done while pleasuring you, listen to your snores and even breathing. And despite probably not being able to fall asleep himself, Simon knew that it would be one of the few tranquil nights of his life.

So despite Ghost's alarming protests ringing in his head, Simon slowly made his way into the empty spot of your bed next to you, the covers soft and cool against his heated skin, soothing the raging fire that seemed to boil inside of him at the mere sight of you, his large arms wrapping around you and pulling you towards his side of the bed.

As soon as your bare body made contact with his, you melted like ice cream on a hot day, curling into his side and allowing him to wrap his tattooed arm around you, calloused hands running up and down your sides, taking his sweet time memorising every curve and dip of your body as you rested your head onto his chest, ear pressed right above his rapidly beating heart.

Not one word was exchanged between you both the whole time you lied together, his fingers tracing every little nook and cranny of your skin he could find, stopping every once in a while to rub on a tense muscle or over a scar, the soft ministrations swiftly lulling you to sleep.

The hand that you had splayed on his chest was mimicking his movements, fingers running over the blond hair that adorned his chest, playing with the small cross that dangled from the small chain necklace around his neck. Every time his hand would come up to rub at your shoulders, you caught a peak at the many tattoos that sleeved his arm, and as much as you wanted to turn around and commit all of them to memory, every time you tried to move, he'd press you closer, as if he knew that if he did allow you to, you'd only put off sleeping for longer.

As your eyelids started drooping, you felt his other hand come up to rest over your smaller one, toughened fingers intertwining with your own softer ones, a tired smile forming at your lips before finally clocking out, his heartbeat a firm rhythm that pulled you further and further into the soft grasp of Hypnos.

As expected, Simon didn't sleep a wink.

He had tried to close his eyes and enjoy the warmth you radiated, trying his best to let your soft snores and murmurs lull him to sleep, but it was impossible.

Despite not having slept for more than two days, he was unable to fall asleep, on edge after the catastrophe that was his last mission.

That was one of the reasons he had decided to step out of his comfort zone and allow himself a night of indulgence with you, a night of letting himself go and take out all his anger on you, but he had been impuissant to hurt you or even come close to actually wound you, instead taking it as slow as he knew how to and muttering soft praises and sweet nicknames into your ear along with the degradation that he'd mixed in.

And even after tiring himself out, he still couldn't let himself fully relax.

But as he turned his head to look down at your sleeping face, he thought that maybe this wasn't so bad. He felt… at ease, for the first time in a while. No strident alarms to wake him up at the crack of dawn, no ringing in his ears as a grenade went off near him, no desperately patching up a wound and drenching his hands in blood, no screams and pleas of mercy reverberating around his head as he disposed of the enemy.

None of that. It was just you. With your body curled into his side and your soft skin beneath a killer's hands.

Which is why he wished he could stay there forever. Lock the door and have you in his arms for the rest of his life, without the paranoia and the horrors that followed him everywhere he went, only focus on you and how mushy you made him feel with only a few hours of knowing him.

Which is why he wished he could have just fallen asleep and ignored the vibrations that came from beneath his discarded clothes, that he didn't leave your side and pick up the phone, that he hadn't followed orders like he always did and hadn't left you alone.

He carefully tucked you in, making his side of the bed before hesitantly brushing his scarred knuckles against your flushed cheeks, an alternative to the kiss he oh-so wanted to press down onto you until you woke up, until you asked him to stay, until he caved in and left the 141 to fend for themselves.

But he didn't.

He closed the door to your bedroom, slipped his phone and keys back into his pockets and headed towards the front door, ready to leave you behind and go back to being Ghost.

But as his hand reached for the doorknob, his eyes caught onto a stack of fluorescent yellow sticky notes on the kitchen counter, and in a stroke of not so genius, he grabbed the nearest pen and scribbled down his number onto the piece of paper, signing it with a simple "S .", hoping that you'd deduce it was from him, and not from some random person whose name started with the letter S that had broken into your apartment just to give you their number.

He stuck it a bit too aggressively to the almost bare fridge, making sure it was in a visible spot that you wouldn't be able to miss before finally stepping out of your flat, adjusting his mask in the elevator's mirror and going back to the cold hearted killer his fellow soldiers knew as Ghost.

He'd expected it to be a short mission.

One that they'd be able to finish within two weeks at best so he could go back to his cramped flat in Manchester and hopefully get back to you.

He'd spent almost every day of the first week of his departure wondering if you'd found the note, if when he'd retrieve his phone back from his locker back at base, he'd find a few messages from an unknown number he hoped was yours, asking him how he was, asking him to meet up again, wondering if he was okay…

That's what mostly kept him going for the first few days.

Until it all went haywire.

The mission escalated quickly into a mess of soldiers and betrayals, flying from place to place and taking more lives with his bare hands than he had ever before.

Blood soaked his hands in a way it never had, the toll of deaths on his name increasing with every passing day, week, month, year.

When the mission that had started off as something simple, something Ghost couldn't even remember, ended after a year, the 141 couldn't be more relieved. And exhausted.

They'd fought for many months straight, barely finding places to get a wink of sleep, and sometimes even running out of food while they camped out in one of the dingy safe houses of whatever city they were currently stranded in.

But it was finally over. Their target had been disposed of and any enemy that remained had either been eliminated or had scurried off.

As the chopper brought them back to base, none of them said a word, even Johnny refrained from making any jokes, knowing that it would only piss off both of his superiors and maybe get a tired chuckle out of Gaz.

Price uttered a "Good job." to all of them before patting them on the shoulder and going to his office, no doubt ready to go back home and have the sleep of his life.

The two sergeants withheld from talking too much to their lieutenant, murmuring a goodbye to him before going their own way, Ghost not even bothering to answer, too mentally and physically exhausted to even open his mouth to speak.

The first thing he did once he reached his locker was throw the goddamn mask off, letting the plastic skull clatter against the tiles as he rummaged through his belongings, wanting nothing more than to get into some clean clothes and go back home, where he would drink away the horrors that would no doubt follow him and probably pass out watching reruns of football games he had missed.

The clothes he had worn the day before the mission were tighter, accentuating the change in his physique after putting his muscles to work for a whole year, the seams of his trousers digging uncomfortably into his legs, his pockets full of random junk he had left in there.

He fished for whatever was currently pressing against his backside, pulling out his small phone from the pocket, frowning down at the gadget, which was no doubt out of battery after being left for so long.

Simon was pleasantly surprised when the screen brightened, showing his black lock screen and the time, the battery hanging onto dear life with a 1%. He moved to grab his charger, his eyes still trained on the incoming notifications that would soon flood his home screen, not really expecting much aside from the emails entailing rubbish deals or the occasional spam from a porn site he'd signed up to as a teen and hadn't been able to delete.

Instead, he was bombarded with over a thousand notifications at once, all from the same unknown number, the messages going too quickly for his tired eyes, focusing on the random words he was able to take from the rapidly passing texts.

‍

Answer.

Ignoring.

Asshole.

Appointment.

Doctor.

Pub.

Baby.

Pregnancy.

‍‍

His mind blocked itself off as he processed the last word, trying to make sense of all the confusing messages that had been sent to his phone.

Had it been by accident? Was he the recipient of some prank? Had he unknowingly given out his number to someo-

You.

Simon's throat went dry as the realisation dawned on him. Without sparing another second, he unlocked his phone, clicking onto the notifications and scrolling down as fast he could while still intaking information, afraid that his phone would die out at any point in time and render him utterly confused and terrified.

His body went on autopilot the more he read, brain fuzzy as if he had just drank a whole bottle of hard-hitting liquor, his eyes fixed on the bright screen of his phone in terror.

He was in shock. His mind wasn't in the right state to process any of this, he wasn't able to properly begin to fathom the meaning behind your words, as simple as they were.

‍

— I'm pregnant.

— I'm fucking pregnant, Simon.

— I don't know how it happened, the chances of the pill failing are so fucking low, and of course it happened to us.

‍

— Please pick up.

— I know you're getting the messages.

‍

— The doctor told me it's too dangerous to perform the abortion.

— I have to keep it or risk my life.

‍

— I need you to answer, Simon. Please, I just need to know that you're there.

— I'm scared.

‍

— You're such an asshole, you know that, right?! Fucking gave me your number only to disappear? Left me pregnant with your bloody kid!? And you can't even bother to pick up the goddamn phone.

‍

— Fuck you.

‍

— …

— It's a boy. Thought you'd want to know.

‍

— My due date is in a month. Please… call me, if you're even reading these. I don't want to be alone.

‍

The phone flashed the low power message in hopes that Simon would take mercy on it and finally plug it in, but Simon paid it no mind, clear eyes staring down at the picture you'd attached during one of the first months of your pregnancy.

The blurry picture of an ecography staring back at him disproved any doubts that might have formed in his mind, your full name displayed at the bottom along with the date it was taken, solidifying the fact even more.

It was real. This was real. You'd been carrying his son for 9 months, sending him frantic and terrified messages all throughout the three trimesters in hopes that he'd answer, all the while he had forgotten all about you in the midst of his mission, while you probably didn't spend a single day of that year not thinking about him.

His phone went dark once it finally had enough, leaving him standing there with a dry throat and shaky hands.

It was rare for Ghost to feel fear, but not for Simon. His throat would contract with every breath, his nose would sting as tears threatened to form on his waterline, his hands would get shaky until he balled them up and threw a punch into whatever item was closest.

This time wasn't any different. He punched his locker door, denting the metal effortlessly as he tried to wash away the fear and guilt creeping up to him with the pain that bloomed at his knuckles, that ran up his arms like electric shocks until they went numb.

He was an asshole.

Simon knew that it wasn't his fault that the mission had been extended for way too long, but he kept thinking back to the moment he'd placed his number on your fridge, wondering what would have happened if he'd done the smart thing and added that he'd be unavailable for a while, but that he'd get back to you. Maybe you would have been less scared while going through the pregnancy, comforted by the thought that he hadn't been ignoring you, but he knew that even then, you would have gone through it alone and terrified.

"I'm an asshole."

He rested his head against the dented locker, the cool metal soothing the headache that had quickly formed after all the conflicting feelings that had rushed through him in the matter of a minute.

All he had wanted was to go back home and rest, but fuck him if he was going to be able to even close his eyes after learning he was a father.

He packed everything up as quickly as he could, not bothering to say goodbye or join the other three for a drink at a pub, heading to his car so he could get the fuck out of London and back to Manchester, where he prayed you still lived, in that tiny flat near that dingy pub where he had first laid eyes on you in.

As his gloved hands gripped the steering wheel hard enough to turn his knuckles white, a terrifying thought struck him.

Who's to say you had even kept the baby?

Who's to say you couldn't bear to look at the baby, that you'd given him away to a way more functional family?

The thought inflicted fear in him, a type of fear he didn't know if he should be feeling or not, confused with all the unpleasant emotions swirling inside of him.

"God, fuck!" He slammed his hands onto the steering wheel, the roar he had let out no doubt scaring any civilian that had been walking near his car at the time, but he couldn't care less.

All that was important now was getting back to you, to what he hoped was still the mother of his son.

Happy giggles and gurgles filled the living room, your tiny baby outstretching his arms out as you cycled his legs slowly, making silly faces down at him to keep him distracted.

Your doctor had recommended small exercises like these, some that would help develop his future motor skills, but you'd found that Tommy was a curious baby, one that couldn't stay still for longer than five minutes before he was whining and huffing in a futile attempt to get your attention and hopefully release him from his tiny prison; and so, in order to keep him focused, you resorted to having leisured conversations with him, your small son hanging onto your every word with wide blue eyes and a gaping mouth, as if he could understand your frustrations with the man who had blocked your car off and the girl from the bakery that had gotten your order wrong, or making silly faces at him to hear him giggle with glee.

You placed his small feet down and went back to your resting face, his eyes instantly going from your face to the closest toy, small chubby arm reaching out to grab it, your fingers running over his tummy and getting out a few giggles out of him before he finally grasped the toy, pressing it into his side.

As he distracted himself, you let yourself sit down properly, back hitting the edge of the sofa as you watched your son roll around on the blanket you'd laid down, letting yourself look up at the TV for a moment to have a small break, the news reporter standing in front of Big Ben ranting about some resolved political dispute or something.

Your eyes trailed back down to your son, who was wriggling around with a new toy in his grasp, cooing and drooling as he stared up at the ceiling, blue eyes fixed on one of the many cracks in the ceiling.

You winced at the not so friendly reminder of the state your flat was in. Going through a pregnancy on your own without any help and barely any money to take care of yourself left your home in a condition you were not proud of. You'd tried your best to clean and make the nursery as cosy as possible, but at the end of your third trimester you could barely lean down to pick up the hoover. Once you had been allowed back home, you'd cleaned up, but you couldn't really do much to fix the poor way your building had been constructed.

A sigh left your lips, leaning down to rest your head against your knees with closed eyes, giving yourself a few moments of sacred rest, something you seldom got anymore those days.

Sometimes, you thought as you wrapped your arms around your legs, you wished you weren't alone. As much hate you had harboured for your son's father across the year, you couldn't help the longing that still filled you every time you thought about him, wondering if you'd ever see him again, if he'd ever hold his son in his arms.

Frustrated tears filled the corners of your eyes, wiping them away with your sleeves before turning your attention back to your son, who was now squirming in his spot making grabby hands at you.

"I've got you, duck, don't worry." You cooed, picking him up and pressing a few kisses to his chubby cheeks, cradling him to your chest as you got up from the floor, careful to not drop him or bump him into anything.

As you took him back to his room, routinely changing his diaper and clothes, you thought back to the small breakdown you almost had had a few minutes ago, letting out an exhausted sigh. There was no use in imagining a future where Simon fit in, you'd given him enough time to answer, to show any signs of life at all. You were alone.

You were on the verge of tears as you placed Tommy in his tiny crib, handing him the small duck plushie your grandma had knitted a few months back when she had come to visit, watching him cling onto it in his sleep for a few moments, his soft breaths and coos tranquillising the waves of anxiety threatening to drown you.

"Good night, Tom." You whispered, pressing a kiss to his chubby cheek before flicking on the night light, carefully closing the door and resting your body against it, a shaky sigh leaving your chapped lips.

God, you were pathetic. Hung up over a man who you'd only known for a few hours, who'd left you with a baby (unknowingly or not, didn't matter), who still haunted your dreams every time you tried to get some rest. Why couldn't he have just picked up the phone? Why had he just given you his fucking number if he wasn't bothering on answering? Why had he gotten into your head so easily, with his sweet nicknames and soft kisses? Why couldn't you just fucking mov-

Your whole body jumped as the shrill doorbell rang, the sound reverberating around the flat and no doubt reaching Tommy's sensitive ears.

"God, yeah, I hear it!" You cried out as the sound didn't stop, starting to get worried that it would wake your baby up and then you'd have to deal with putting him to sleep all over again. "Fuck! I know, I'm coming!"

You looked through the peephole, eyebrows furrowing as you gazed upon a man's tacky army jacket instead of the normal face, so either this guy was incredibly fucking tall or he was standing on a stool.

Knowing that the area you lived in wasn't the safest, you unlocked the door but kept the chain latch on, a gap big enough so you could see the guy outside but not big enough for him to attack you.

"What?" You snapped, a bit harsher than how you'd normally answer the door, but this guy didn't really deserve any respect after how he'd basically abused your doorbell to the point of the sound still ringing in your ears. "What do you-"

Your gaze had been fixed onto his chest, scanning the army jacket you had spied through the peephole, cringing internally at the Union Jack plastered on his left bicep, hoping to God that he wasn't some type of Tory propagandist going door to door. But as your eyes trailed up to meet his, your mouth went dry.

Crystal blue eyes framed by pretty blonde eyelashes (identical to the blue eyes your son had been staring up at you with for the past three months), contrasting with the black face paint that was smeared around his eyes, the rest of his face obscured by that damn skull balaclava that haunted you.

It was him. It was fucking him.

"Simon." You said his name breathlessly, not missing the way his body stiffened at your shaky tone.

"Yeah. It's me."