he looks like he works with his hands

notes: reader is an ex-SAS sergeant turned chimera operative (but the reason for the switch is left ambiguous for your projecting pleasure), references to blood and broken bones (nose), reader has a violent streak (and nikolai likes it), reader has a pussy but isn't gendered/described, fantasising about choking, spit, scent kink ig? there's some weird shit about jerking off over blood and sweat idk this is gross and unsanitary be warned

Nikolai has always felt a sense of responsibility towards you. The way he might a feral cat who'd wandered onto his compound.

You don't need protecting. You're competent, quick-witted, downright vicious at times. He's seen you scrap with operatives twice your size and come away bloody-faced but grinning. Like you enjoy it.

You should see the other guy, you'd quipped to Mactavish as he'd hoisted you into the heli during an extraction in Verdansk last year; red on your teeth and pouring from your freshly-crooked nose.

You hadn't complained when your fellow sergeant had reset the broken bone, just grunted into your mic, soft and low and pained. The kind of thing that could sound like something else, and the stifled noise had gone straight to Nikolai's dick.

He'd felt a little guilty for it, at the time. You were injured, unaware, dripping blood onto the floor of his Mi-24 Hind and grinning at Soap like he'd popped a bottle of champagne instead of your cartilage.

He'd replayed the sound in his head for months after, the blood dripping over your mouth, hot with guilt and something more.

You remind him of a well-trained dog.

Something in Nikolai had envied Price when he'd watched him call you to heel, and now that you're under his command and not the captain's, that feeling of responsibility has grown tenfold.

When you'd shown up at his front door, SAS discharge still an open wound, and told him you wanted a contract? He couldn't refuse. Didn't want to, despite the slight complications it caused with him and your former CO.

You're an asset, he tells himself. You're an exceptional operator - highly skilled, quick-witted, ruthless. It's a smart decision to take you on, make you one of his.

Price has always been a bit cagey about why you left the service, and Nikolai tells himself that's why he's been keeping a close eye on you. He tells himself he's just looking out for the new recruit, that after what you've been through you need a grounding presence. His presence.

He finds he doesn't like having you out of his sight. Sometimes he wonders he's being too obvious, too overbearing, but you've never pushed back against it and he has no intention of changing until you do.

Nikolai may be the CEO of Chimera, but he doesn't skimp on the grunt work. Mechanical stuff helps settle his mind, and if he were more honest with himself: he's too much of a perfectionist to tolerate being at the mercy of someone else's handiwork.

You've been with him in the hangar for the last half hour, shooting the shit while he tinkers, spending a little too long reconnecting some lines because he wants to draw this out as long as he can — being the sole focus of your attention.

He's tucked under the lifted body of his workman's van, roller angled just right that he can see you if he tilts his head to the left. You're parked against his workbench, hip cocked against the corner and arms folded over your stomach except for when you gesture at something mid-sentence. You're scruffy from a day spent running PT drills and stripping the armoury, a little sweat soaked into the underarms and collar of your shirt, and he finds the sight of you looking less than put together distracting.

He likes you like this, rumpled. Messy. He likes you bloody even more; there's something about the look you get in your eyes when you're faced with violence that just digs into him and settles like liquor under his skin. Warm. With a kick.

You're in the middle of a story, something about Johnny and the vomlette MREs when he wheels himself out from under the van's chassis, sticking out a hand expectantly for the dirty rag you toss his way.

You go quiet as he cleans the oil off his fingers, and he glances up at you again, watching how your eyes linger, too heavy for just observation (or propriety).

It wasn't meant to be bait, but it's hooked you just the same.

He flexes his hand and watches your eyes dart away, watches your throat work as you swallow. He wonders what it would feel like under his palm. If you'd let him do it: his fingers like a collar, his touch a leash. He wonders if your pussy would squeeze him in time to his hand, if it would drool like your mouth if he just... kept... going...

He thinks about feeding it back into you, rubbing it all over your tongue, holding you open with his thumb and spitting into that hot, wet mess. Your mouth, your cunt, he doesn't care, he just wants to see himself on you - in you...

He realises he's been quiet for a beat too long when you give him a look and he clears his throat, tossing the dirtied rag back onto his workbench before rolling back under the van.

Krueger has a penchant for getting himself into shit, and Nikolai has the urge to beat it out of him when he sees the state of you after training with the corporal. Your face is all bloodied again, cartilage askew from the impact of his knuckles and bruising blossoming under your eyes; deep and violent in the fluorescent glow of the medical room.

He'd ordered you in here before you could slink back to your barracks to lick your wounds, insisted on patching you up despite your protests that you had it in hand.

"That's the third time I've bust my nose up." You tell him, voice thick with the blood congealing in your nostrils and still dribbling over your philtrum.

"You need to work on your guard," he says drily, something tight under the words as he rummages for the supplies he needs.

"Probably," you agree mildly as you hop up on the examination table. "Still won, though."

You seem so pleased with yourself, borderline smug, and it tugs at something behind his sternum that almost feels like pride.

"Regardless. Don't make a habit of picking fights with your comrades."

"We were just sparring. He insisted we take the gloves off."

He should make some quip about how you can't trust Krueger not to bend the rules, but:

"You can always spar with me," he offers casually, trying to temper any eagerness in his voice. "I'm much more responsible."

"Yeah, but you might fire me if I break your nose."

"More likely, I break yours."

You scoff out a little laugh, then wince when it aggravates your injury, raising your hand to cover it.

"... Point taken," you concede, sheepish behind your palm as he tugs on a pair of latex medical gloves.

"Let me look," Nikolai demands, broaching no argument, and you drop your hand so he can see the mess.

He tuts, leaning in closer to peer at the crooked cartilage, watching a little more blood leak down onto your cupid's bow.

He doesn't register or restrain the impulse to touch, thumb swiping away the mess before it can stain your mouth proper. The gesture borders on too intimate, even with the gloves between you, and he feels a flicker of embarrassment at his behaviour when you just blink at him, expression unnervingly blank.

He tries to save face with his hip flask, tugged from the inner pocket of his jacket and offered to you.

"Liquid anaesthetic," he says, and you look like you want to scoff again but refrain when he presses it into your open palm.

"I can't smell shit so you're gonna have to tell me what this is," you tell him as you unscrew the cap, lifting it to your bloody nose for a moment anyway.

"Absinthe," he warns you. "Don't let it touch your tongue."

He watches you take a shallow sip, so responsible, and tries not to think too much about your mouth touching where his has been; lips lingering like a secondhand kiss.

"Tastes like mouthwash," you say drily, twisting the lid back into place and handing him the flask.

He makes a quiet, amused sound as he tucks it away again before bracing his hands against your cheekbones, his thumbs pressed firmly either side of your crooked bridge. This close, he can taste the alcohol coating your teeth, mingling with the iron-rich blood smeared across your philtrum.

"Deep breath." He murmurs, before bracing his thumbs and pushing.

You whine when your nose clicks back into place this time and fuck he gets so hard so fast it makes him dizzy, like he's the one who just swigged a mouthful of absinthe...

He takes your chin between his fingers - so you won't look down - under the guise of cleaning up your face and neck. You look a little woozy from the short burst of adrenaline and shock (and the ninety proof liquor melting through your veins) so he doesn't try and pry any more conversation out of you. Especially because you keep making these soft, breathless grunts whenever he dabs at your septum with the antiseptic gauze...

You grit your teeth when he layers four neat lines of medical tape across your swollen nose, thumbs gently smoothing down the edges as he checks his handiwork.

"There," he murmurs, stroking over the damage one last time, tender despite how his pulse spikes at your pained noise.

You poke gingerly at the strapping when he draws back, hissing when your nose throbs.

"No more sparring for a few weeks," he tells you, watching as you pluck at the blood-soaked neck of your shirt. The scent of it hangs heavy in the air between you; metal and the musk of your sweat. Deep and heady. Like the ache that's settled in his cock.

"Three, at least."

"Lucky for Krueger," you shoot back, grimacing when the tacky fabric sticks to your skin. "Ugh. Can I dump this in the medical waste?"

You nod at the yellow bin tucked beside the cabinet, and Nikolai knows he shouldn't, but...

"I'll sort it," he offers, voice softening slightly. Like he's offering out of care and not the sudden, sick turn of his thoughts. "You should go and sleep it off."

"The nose or the absinthe?"

"Both."

You snort, then wince again.

"Yeah..." You sigh as you stand, already shrugging off your ruined shirt. "Thanks, Nik."

There's no body shyness when you're in the military, but he still busies himself packing away the medkit as you strip off, eyes averted because he knows he shouldn't stare. It feels too much like a violation with what he's planning to do next.

It's more a vague shape than an idea, but the picture grows clearer when he catches a brief glimpse of the bare curve of your spine.

You leave your shirt on the counter next to the dirtied gauze, the front of it soaked through with blood and sweat. It's disgusting. It's a fucking biohazard but that doesn't stop him from bagging it up and stealing it back to his private quarters. Like a bad dog with a dead rabbit.

When he's alone, in the privacy of his bedroom, he presses your bloodied shirt over his mouth and inhales rich iron, sweat, the faintest hint of the soap bars he stocks the compound with... It goes straight to his cock, which has been at least half-hard since he reset your nose.

And fuck, the noise you'd made when he did...

That whine, soft and pained, raspy at the edges like it had been punched out of you. He wants to know what else it would take to make you sound like that again - one finger? two? Your cunt stretched tight around three of them, thick and calloused, dragging against that soft, textured spot inside you that makes your thighs shake...

He wonders if you'd make that same sound when you take him all the way: breathless and rough and so fucking sweet to his ears.

He knows he's big, thick, knows you'd have to work to take him, knows you're stubborn and prideful enough that you would.

He presses your shirt harder against his mouth at the thought, tongue dragging over the sodden fabric, tasting you as his other hand paws desperately at his cock; unable to resist the urge to just grind against his palm through the heavy fabric of his trousers.

It takes him a minute to work his belt open one-handed, another few seconds to tug down his zipper, moving your shirt away from his mouth for just a moment - spitting into his palm, rubbing his slick fingers over the swollen head of his cock - before he shoves it back against his face, inhaling deeply with a low, muffled groan.

He rocks his hips up into his hand, slow and demanding, like he's got you splayed across his lap. Fuck, he wants you like that; thighs spread and shaking, knees pressing either side of his hips to try and give yourself enough leverage to ride him. He'd let you, at first, let you try and take him like that, let you grind your hips, let your cunt swallow an inch at a time until you slot flush together.

He doesn't think of himself as a cruel man, but he'd move before you were ready; just thrust up into you, deep enough to hit your cervix and make you whine with pain, make you flutter and squirm and squeeze around him...

He thinks about you, your blood and your sweat on his tongue as he mouths and sucks at the fabric of your shirt; the hot, slick pressure of his hand becoming your body. You take him so well, cunt stretched to a thin, swollen ring around his cock, lips parted around sharp, fluttering gasps - like the ones you'd made when he'd dabbed at your reset nose - but faster now, in time to the quickening snap of his hips as he fucks his fist.

He wishes he'd kissed you earlier. Indulged in the intimacy of tasting you properly: the blood smeared across your mouth; the sweat pooled in the hollow of your throat; the soft, vulnerable skin of your inner thigh; the mess of your cunt... He thinks you might have let him, the way you'd looked at him in the hangar before, at his hands, like you want them... He pictures them around your throat again, how they'd turn your sharp little sounds thinner, needier...

Precum and spit drool down his shaft as he works himself, soaking into the dark, unmanaged curls that spill onto his pale inner thighs.

"Блядь, блядь, блядь..." Nikolai curses thickly as he sucks the bloody collar of your shirt into his mouth, biting down around another ragged groan as he feels the building pulse of his orgasm. Too quick, way too fucking quick.

He wouldn't do that with you, no, he'd make it last, make it good; pull out before the slick grip of your body could drag him over the edge, sit you on his face and make you grind against his tongue. Христос, Christ, the thought of it has his cock aching, pressure and pleasure knotted together in his gut as he groans your name into your shirt and cums at the taste and the thought of burying his tongue in your hot, wet cunt.

He wraps your shirt around the head of his cock as he tugs the final pulses of release from his body. It's a fucked up intimacy, the two of you melding together, his mess soaking into the fabric that’s already saturated with you.

He feels disgusting after, lying there, stomach tacky with his drying cum and your blood smeared across his mouth, but it's not enough to keep him from doing it again.