Kyle's 520th wife

Most of the men you meet aren't all that interesting, but there's this one guy...fucking hilarious, witty, a bit dry. His chat name might be "deadmeat" but by the pictures he sends it's anything but.

Deadmeat: thought of you again, bloody mess. Can't wait to have you.

The picture attached is his usual, hard cock covered in at least two previous loads, tip flushed pink and wanting. The calloused, tattooed hand it's cradled in is what drew you in initially. Most folk in the chat room were...well...gifted in size, and as fun as it is to imagine you can hardly manage two fingers on a good long day.

But this man? Perfect fit. About the width of his palm, fingers easily wrapping around. Not small by any means, but definitely not heart-stopping in a bad way.

You: just a few more days. Got the motel booked?

You make sure it's safe, of course you do. Swapping photos together in anticipation for the day.

Deadmeat, or ghost as he requested you call him now, is...a little different than you expected. Tall, for one, nearly brushing his head on the top of the doorframe when you nervously unlock the motel room.

You don't quite realize the breath of your mistake until you and ghost are half undressed in bed and you slip a hand under his waistband. You slide you hand along the soft hair at his base, wrap your hand over it and—

...no. no way.

The amusement on ghosts face as you frantically shove his pants down and pull out his dick is palpable. Holy shit, he's massive. You're a few centimeters shy of wrapping your hand around him, not to mention the length.

You swallow thickly, glance up at him.

The fucker has the audacity to chuckle, reaching down to wrap his impossibly large hands around his dick, give himself a few pumps "well? Everything you were expecting? Don't worry, i can make it fit."

Oh you are so screwed.

Of course you have a soulmark, just like every other person on earth. Distinct black, covering the entirety of your palm, as though you grabbed someone's arm or touches their shoulder.

You never concerned yourself with your soulmark, why would you? There's more important things in life than some silly future spouse. Like science, like biology and animals and mers. You've been fascinated with them since you were waddling on two feet, begging to watch video after video of mers and devouring any book you could get your hands on about them.

Of course, no one seemed to like mers just as much as you did. Obsessed, your classmates called you. Driven, more like it. Driven enough to graduate uni and start researching these creatures.

Then you met Gaz on your first expedition.

You two really hit it off. Finally, a like-minded person! You two would talk for hours about mers while processing various water samples below deck. Never once have you felt like someone truly understood you when you gushed about the subtle dietary variations among pods, or the courtship rituals of snail mers.

You began to suspect, with each passing conversation that gaz was...well. yours.

Hard to confirm, when gaz is always completely covered. Hates the cold, he tells you. It's rude to just ask, so you wait. No rush, you like him anyways. When you get funding to follow a specific mer across the ocean as a long-term data collection process, of course gaz tags along.

Ghost, the lone orca mer without a pod.

He's...shockingly sociable after the first month. Swimming alongside the boat while you and gaz film. Technically you're not supposed to touch the mers, but for once gaz isn't wearing gloves when he leans foreward to brush a hand along ghosts side. You can't see his soulmark, only your own, but...if it's there, it will light up when you touch.

You and gaz, soulmates on the same mission. The thought makes your heart flutter.

You reach out and your hand slips.

Instead your palm lies flat against ghosts side, and the distinct shape of a handprint reveals itself amongst the mers skin. It flashes brilliant white, no doubt caught from the multiple cameras.

You look down.

Your palm is flashing the same white.

Gaz has a tight expression on his face, somehow both let-down but horribly excited because your soulmate is a fucking mer!

The strange man becomes....not a regular, but a frequent visitor. Comes in twice a week or once a month. Always pays in cash, always heavily overpays. Always when you're on staff.

You've taken to calling him ghost because he dissappears so often. He laughed his ass off the first time you called him that, said you had perfect instincts. Whatever that means.

Without fail, whenever he comes in you're already calling out to the back "code ghost!" Long before he sits down. By this point patty just starts making whatever. Ghost will eat anything and money is never an issue.

He always ends with a vanilla milkshake. Cute.

It's just....today is the one day you don't want to see ghost.

He notices it instantly. The tight press of your lips, the wet sheen in the corner of your eyes. How you don't say hi the second he walks in.

"Whats wrong, kid?" He asks, sitting right in front of you instead of at his usual seat. You purse your lips, try to stop yourself from choking out the words.

"Nothing. It's silly." It still comes out weak, forced, and you take a breath before trying again. "Just....boy trouble. Really thought he loved me, yknow?"

Which is silly, of course ghost doesn't know. He doesn't seem like he's ever even locked pinkies with someone in the last century. you continue at his grunt, tears welling again "well, he said loved me. Just...not enough to stay loyal. I guess."

Ghost makes a low, dangerous sound in the back of his throat "want him dealt with?"

...

....what.

"What?! Like...dead? No. No, not–" the sheer absurdity of the statement and the tiny voice in your head telling you ghost is serious is enough to snap you out of your mind. "No! I don't want him dead!"

"Not what I said." Ghost grumbles, but pulls the usual cash from his backpack anyways. He lets you calm down while he eats what you assume is a hundred pancakes.

At the end, ghost asks for two vanilla milkshakes. He passes the second to you, and urges "just fuckin' relax a bit, kid. Life's too short and meaningless to worry about some bloke."

You've got maybe three hours left of your shift, sitting behind the bar and attempting to slog through physics homework when the doorbell chimes. You glance up curiously, both of your usuals have already been through tonight, just to see him.

This giant, six foot fuck-off of a man, he has to duck to get past the small door of the diner. Covered in grime and what you hope is just red clay, you think today is the day you'll die in a robbery or something.

Only for him to sit at the farthest end of the bar with a grunt and just....wait.

For a moment, you consider dipping into the back and asking patty to make him leave. Instead, you grab the little notepad from your breast pocket and approach as though he were a wild animal "uh– night, sir. What can I get started for you?"

"You got omelets?" The man grunts, not bothering to take off his balaclava. When you nod, he drums his fingers on the counter "seventeen of those. Please."

"Fuckin' Seven–! Uh– seventeen, sir? Uhm. For an order that large, its policy to charge partial up front and–" you begin, mentally listening for patty in the back as you slowly realize he really could jump the bar and kill you if he wanted.

"Tha's fine." He cuts you off, shoving a hand into the pocket of his pants. You gape at the wad of cash he pulls out, held together with a rubber band. Half expecting him to count out the clear hundreds he has, it takes you a moment to react when he pushes the entire wad at you with a "an' however many sausages you got. And a milkshake. Vanilla. Please."

You take the wad, ring him up in stunned silence. "I'll...bring the first dishes out when they're done."

Patty nearly murders you when she gets the ticket, until you show her the cash. Far be it from you or her to turn down suspicious monet.

The guy eats silently, scarfs down all of the omelets and the sausages like it's nothing. You try not to stare too much while you pretend to work on your physics. But...christ. shouldn't he be worried about a heart attack? He must be like...forty or something. ugly lower half of his face and a rough voice says so at least.

When he's done, the man cleans up and stacks his plates neatly, doesn't say a word as he leaves.

But when you go to grab the last plate, you find another two hundred dollars with a little note of 'for uni. Study hard, kid.' And a shitty skull face next to it.

...you pocket the note and split the tip with patty, along with the excessive amount leftover from the roll he gave you.

Your soldier loves it when you swoon over his voice. He also can't help but be a smug knobhead every time he catches you staring, whether he's half or fully naked, and the less said about how handsy you get and the subsequent noise complaints, the more vanilla this stays.

Doesn't help that Simon subtly-but-not-so subtly encourages you like the horny bastard he is, and he'll be the first to admit that he's unashamedly your number one enabler because why the fuck not? Feels good, you like it, he loves it, and all that PT is fuckin' paying off.

And yeah, your book's a good read and all, but you know what else you can have your face buried in? His tits. Perfectly made, perfectly comfortable, and right here for the taking.

Ghost has yet to learn how to soften his grip, or he prefers not to because in a real fight he'd have killed you by now. Soap is nice, but you can tell he gets frustrated when you spend to long making the same mistake. Price....absolutely not.

But gaz? Gaz is perfect. He doesn't mind running the same moves over and over until you can figure it out, warm body pressing against you for the sixth time just to mutter in your ear "c'mon, runt, you can do better than that."

Maybe you're a bit too comfortable losing, but can anyone blame you when every lose means sweaty biceps caging you in and an exhausted kyle huffing "again– Lets go again, you almost had me." Betweens gasps of air?

When you finally accomplish whatever goal was set that day, gaz cools down with you on the benches. Ice cold water from his bag, followed by tangerines peeled by hand.

"Going in the showers anyways, love." He tells you when you wrinkle your nose at the juice slipping down his wrist. Though recently all you can think about is wondering if he'd let you lick the line up to his fingers.

Of course...gaz doesn't think of you like that. You're his teammate. All these silly moments that mean so much to you are just a part of the job to him, a way to decrease your errors on the field.

Ghost, this giant of a man who towers over other soldiers in hallways, who's face is a messy web of scar tissue and abuse, is an adorable bunny when he shifts. Not just any bunny, but one the size of two cupped palms with fluffy golden fur and shiny little eyes.

He used to hate it, the innocent form he was gifted. The centre of arguments in ghosts home, no father wants a son that turns into that. Weak, vulnerable, easy to hurt. Doctors tend to ignore broken bones if the kid turns into something so fragile.

Simon was quick to learn to control it. By highschool, only teachers and the school nurse new he was a shifter.

A good thing, too, after seeing what happened to the open cat shifter that enlisted. He didn't shift for a long time, not even during roba. Well...not until the coffin.

But now? Twenty-some years and more trauma than be can handle later? Ghost....doesn't hate his shifted form.

Its small enough to curl up into the jacket you always forget in his room, small enough he can pretend you're keeping him safe.

Ghost has a secret box under his bed, with a little something from each of his teammates. One of prices scarves, kyles gloves, johnnys shirt, your hoodie. No one besides price knows what he is, but here in his box...he can pretend himself into a better reality.

A tiny bunny tucking itself into a carboard box of stolen clothes. It feels horrible to be so vulnerable in his form, but it's also the quietest his mind had ever been. He wonders what the real thing would feel like.

he's tenacious-- thats the first thing we know about him! he's wily, a little underhanded, very aware of his charm, and a damn good planner. sticking a tracker on ghost is just a matter of slipping one into a hole in the lining of his jacket (and maybe stopping for a sniff). seducing a colonel or something to pull his personnel file. getting little bugs onto the outside of ghosts window in his dingy flat, into the apartments across the street, a bug tucked into the tattered carpet. ghost finds them every so often, but usually just the ones kyle leaves for him to find.

kyle watching him. watching him sleep on his bare mattress and shower and shave and tug himself off and live off of MREs and takeaway. watches him nightly sort and re-sort his knives, an abbreviated version of his nightly gear check on base. it soothes kyle a little bit when he cant get everything he wants on a mission, to pull up his ghost cam and watch his lieutenant (HIS lieutenant, though ghost might not know it yet) putter around in his little regimented routines. following him around on his errands. stealing his dirty boxers from the laundromat mid wash.