bunny🪽

Johnny lives for being teased.

And not just the light stuff -- though he'll groan like a sinner when you sit on his lap and act all innocent. Grinding just enough to stir a cocky smirk and leave him hard under his jeans for the next hour.

No. No. No.

Johnny lives for the kind of teasing that tends to strip one bare.

The kind that ruins his rhythm. The kind that leaves him soaked in sweat, spine arched, begging like he's never begged in his life.

He thrives on the anticipation. The saturnine and feverish feeling when you trail kisses down his body just to his lip, just north to the side of where you know his hard cock leaks just right, and then pull back with a hum like you're thinking about something else rather than this.

Like his pleasure was just something secondary to none in your head.

And well… right now?

Right now, you have Johnny sprawled out on the bed. Flushed from the neck down. Hands fisting the sheets near the bed frame where his own wrists are tied because you don't trust him to not loose restraint. Teeth gritted and mouth humming with a gentle whimper as you flicked your wrist from the base of his cock to the root of his tip. All hammering red and achy leaks.

You hum in amusement as you watch Johnny buck his hips. Trying to chase the feeling once more. However, grunting as you let the heel of your palm meet the head of his dick before letting go. Then laughing softly as you drag your thumb through the mess of his tip unannounced like you're sampling it for yourself.

He whines. Actually whines. Back arching clear off the bed, eyes squeezing shut as his jaw clenches hard enough to ache.

"F-fuck!"

You laugh softly. Not mocking. More… pleased. Drunk on the way he falls apart for you. On the trembling mess you've reduced him to.

Smiling all toying and teasing as you drag your thumb through the slick at his tip once more -- unannounced, unhurried -- like you're testing the consistency. Like you're cooking. Or tasting something warm and homemade. Something you made.

Johnny shudders, chest heaving.

“God -- please--” he gasps, the sound more breath than voice. “Please, lass, I can’t—I can’t, I’m gonna fuckin’—”

You lean down. Drag your tongue slowly across your thumb where his arousal glistens. Moan just a little, just for effect. Biting your lip at the glossed and done for look Johnny blinks out at the teasing sensation.

“Mmm. Sweet,” you say, looking straight at him, voice too calm for the storm unraveling below you. “Almost makes me wanna let you cum.”

You watch his eyes widen. Hope blooming on his face -- and then dies the moment you smirk and settle your weight just beside his aching cock again without touching it.

“Almost.”

“Jesus Christ -- ” he whimpers, nearly buckling against the restraints. “I’m right fuckin’ there, please -- please, I’ll do anythin’, you want me on my knees, on the floor, fuckin’ beg proper -- I’ll do it, just let me -- ”

“Shhh,” you croon, crawling up until your chest brushes his, until your lips are ghosting over his flushed cheek. “You're already begging, Johnny. You’ve been begging for the last ten minutes. And you’re so good at it.”

He’s panting now. Staring up at you like you're divine. Like this is all holy and you’re the only thing between him and salvation.

“Tell me what you are,” you whisper, breath hot in his ear.

“I’m yours,” he says instantly, without hesitation. His voice cracked. Honest. Wrecked. “I’m fuckin’ yours -- please, love, I need -- ”

You cut him off with a kiss. Not a deep one. A soft, lingering press to his lips as your hand slides back down.

“Good boy.”

And well.... Hasn't Johnny suffered enough?

So you give him mercy -- or what tastes like mercy at first. Your palm cradles him again, steady this time, finally stroking with a rhythm that finally delivers what he’s been clawing for. His whole body jerks, hips lifting from the bed, every vein and tendon straining as if he might burst from the sheer violence of release.

You could only giggle playfully as you maintain the same rhythm, stroking him proper. Steady. Warm. Continuing with just the right pressure and rhythm that makes his hips lift off the bed in frantic, stuttering thrusts. His face twisted in ecstasy, teeth bared, a sound torn out of him that was halfway between a sob and a prayer.

Your thumb drags over the swollen head each time your hand glides up, smearing him messy over your fist, making every stroke slicker, crueler. Trying to goad him to finally shatter. Milking him and drawing out each pulse until he’s writhing under you, chest heaving, begging with his body even when his voice is wrecked beyond words.

His moans break against your mouth. His legs kick once, twice, and then --

You could only smile as you watch him shatter. A mantra of of thank you thank you thank you flowing out of his lips hurried and almost incoherent.

Johnny's cum comes undone like a dam bursting, hot and endless, spilling over your fingers as if you’d carved it straight out of his soul. His whole body jerks with it, arching so high that you watch as ropes of his spend strain at his wrists, his breath catching on a strangled cry that sounds like it hurts to let out. You don’t stop though, don’t give him the courtesy of easing your touch. Your hand works him through every violent spasm, stroking as though you’re wringing every last drop of devotion from him.

Giggling as you still follow how he sobs through it, mouth slack and eyes glassy, body caught between pleasure and pain, between collapse and the unholy bliss you keep dragging him through. Hulking chest heaving under you, his throat raw from sound, but still he chants it -- thank you thank you thank you -- like you’ve saved him, like this agony is nothing short of divine.

But mercy is a fleeting thing in your hands.

Even as his cum drips and goaches through your hands to your fingertips and sticky at the base of his balls and the bedsheets, still spilling himself in hot pulses across your fist, you don’t stop.

Your strokes remain steady, relentless, coaxing every twitch, every aftershock, until the pleasure bleeds into something sharper. His hips jerk uncontrollably then at the realization. Legs trembling, as if his body hasn’t yet realized there’s nothing left to give.

“Okay. F-fuck -- love, please --” he gasps, voice shredded to ribbons now at the wariness of your cruel appeasement. His own words tumbling out between sobs. He tries to buck away, to twist from the overwhelming ache, but the ropes bite into his wrists and you only tighten your grip, sliding through the mess with unholy devotion. His cock twitches helplessly in your fist, flushed and oversensitive, his thighs quaking as tears bead in the corners of his eyes.

You lean close, lips brushing his ear as you keep stroking, unyielding, your voice soft where your touch is merciless. “Though you wanted to come”

“F-fuck -- fuckfuckfuck -- yeah b-but ”, the words rip from his throat like a hymn gone wrong, broken and ragged, a plea turned to blasphemy. His head thrashes against the pillows, hair damp with sweat, his jaw clenching so hard it trembles. He’s trying to shake his way out of the storm but you hold him steady in it, your fist unrelenting, sliding mercilessly through his own ruin.

“Though you wanted to come,” you murmur again with a playful pout, cruel and almost tender, like scripture whispered into his ear. Each word drips with mockery. Your wrist twists again at the apex of every stroke, the head of his cock rubbing through the palm of your hands, your thumb grinding over his swollen tip until he’s keening, high and raw, the sound something that doesn’t belong in this world. Watching as his body bucks and bows, each nerve alight, as if you’re dragging him past the point of human pleasure into something else entirely -- sacred desecration, a ruin only you could deliver.

He’s breathless. Shaking. Mouth open and eyes dazed as he tries to ride it out and stop. Still holding it back but adamant. Hazy but pushed.

“Thought you wanted this,” you breathe again, steady, as though reminding him of his own sin. Your hand doesn’t falter -- slick, punishing, dragging him higher even as he claws for escape. Each stroke wrings another broken sound from him, his chest heaving, his body trembling like a man on the rack. His cock pulses helplessly in your grip, red and aching, every vein standing out as though his body can’t keep up with the demand.

You could only giggle as with a final flick of your wrist, it happens again. Sudden, brutal, stolen right out of him.

Johnny's hips jerking once, twice, and he’s spilling again, the orgasm ripped from his body like it cost him blood. You bite your lip as his voice cracks on a sob so raw it could probably raise your neighbour's alarms and such, his thighs shaking violently as more of his cum gushes hot and messy into your hand, adding more streaks up his belly, dripping continuous and nonstop over your knuckles. He whimpers through it, eyes glassy, tears spilling as if he can’t believe he’s being forced to feel this much.

Still, you stroke him through it. Past it. Stroking until every twitch wrings out another spurt, until his whole body collapses against the mattress in a ruin of sweat, tears, and devotion. He’s wrecked, trembling, chest rising like he’s been dragged through battle. And yet, even then -- his voice stutters out between panting breaths, raw and tender:

“Thank you… oh God, thank you.”

You could only smile, thumb dragging idly through the mess at his tip, coaxing another pitiful twitch that makes his hips buck despite himself. Your lips brush his ear, your tone as sweet as it is merciless.

“Not even close, darling.”

His breath hitches. A broken laugh, more sob than sound, escapes him. “F-f-fuck", he could only chuckle nervously. Voice frayed and shredded thin. And yet, there it is, curling at the corners of his mouth despite the tears streaking down his cheeks. A grin, shaky and ruined, but alive all the same.

drabbles

It started as a joke.

A little too much whiskey. A little too much proximity. A night that sagged under the weight of quiet comfort – no orders, no bloodshed, just the low hum of music and the slow exhale of survival.

But it hadn’t started there, not really. It had been weeks since you and Johnny had begun dancing around each other – a kind of gentle, orbiting sway that wasn’t choreographed but felt inevitable all the same. Drawn not by design but something akin to destiny if you chalked it up to that type of shite. By proximity. By the soft collision of shared wounds and quiet understandings.

Late night patrols carried that too much eye-contact. Heavy, slow, and brimming with the things neither of you could say under radio silence. Shared missions where the brush of his hand as he helped you over a ledge felt warmer than your whole issued kit. Moments where blood mingled with saltwater or sweat, and you cleaned each other up not with the coldness of protocol, but with delicate, wordless gentility. He’d touch your face like something worthwhile. You’d press gauze to his ribs like it mattered. Like he mattered.

You’d laugh at something stupid, and he’d look at you like he was praying. You’d touch his arm a beat too long. He’d call you “lass” with that softened Scottish lilt, like the word itself was something carved out of something saintly and arduous.

It was happening slowly. Softly.

Like sunlight melting frost off the edge of something too cold for too long. Like walking into the ocean and not realizing how far you’ve gone until your feet no longer touched the floor – until there was nothing left but the lilting current carrying you and you alone.

And all the while –

– Johnny didn’t know what to do with it.

Not really. He wasn’t stupid. He knew how he looked at you. How your laugh stuck to his skin long after you were gone. How the smell of your shampoo made his hands twitch, aching for an excuse to touch. How the sound of your voice – the raspy murmur of you when you were barely awake in the early morning before an op – made something inside him collapse like wet paper.

He’d murmured it once, quiet and a little drunk, to Gaz while you were halfway across the room, laughing over a game of cards.

“She’ll ruin me, mate,” Johnny had whispered with a grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

And then, softer still – “I’ll thank her for it.”

Gaz had just chuckled, shook his head, muttered something about poor bastards and love.

But you never heard any of it. You just kept smiling like you didn’t know your touch left him reeling for hours. Like your voice didn’t ring in his ears at night. Like you didn’t already own him in quiet, unconscious ways.

And well… that should have been both your first mistake

Because someone else was starting to notice.

Always in the periphery. Always still. Never interrupting, never speaking first, but always watching.

Standing at doorways longer than necessary. Lingering behind you when you leaned too close to Johnny. Never said a word when your fingers grazed the back of Soap’s neck, but he saw the way Johnny shivered, always.

Ghost was a man who lived in corners, made a life of shadows. He didn’t need light to see, didn’t need sound to understand. His eyes were quiet things. Razor sharp and half-lidded. All perilous and lethal. And when they landed on you and Johnny, they didn’t blink. Didn’t even flinch.

Known that look before. Worn it even. In warzones, behind scopes. When watching enemies draw too close to allies. When calculating distance, risk, and the soft underbelly of attachment. The look that wasn’t idle. The look that wasn’t friendly. The look that meant you would never be safe anymore.

He noticed how you curled around each other in the spaces between missions. How you both kept pretending it was casual. Friendly. Innocent.

He noticed how Johnny’s laugh was just a bit too loud when you were in the room. How his jaw clenched too tightly when you weren’t. He noticed how you’d glance toward the door when you thought no one was looking, waiting for Johnny to walk through it.

Yes. You will never be safe anymore. No one is.

No one will be.

Not from what you were stirring in Johnny.

And not from whatever Ghost hadn’t let himself feel in years – buried down deep beneath layers of war, duty, and iron-forged control.

That was the problem. You and Soap were loud about it in all the ways that didn’t involve words. In every shared glance, every playful push, every whispered joke that made Johnny’s ears go pink and your pretty pretty cunt to pulse. You were the storm, and he stood in the middle of it with arms wide open – ready to drown.

But Ghost?

He didn’t get swept up.

He calculated.

Measured.

Let the water rise until it reached his throat just to see how long he could hold his breath.

And that night, with the whiskey, Ghost had been the one to pass the bottle around. The one to let the silence stretch and fill the room with its honey-thick tension. The one who leaned against the far wall, arms crossed over his chest, unmoving – watching.

Because it had started as a joke. But the way Johnny looked at you?

There was nothing funny about it.

So when the bottle made its rounds that night – when the lights dimmed low, and the buzz in your chest felt sweet and slow –

You ended up curled beside Johnny on the couch, legs brushing, breath warm. You were laughing too hard at something he said, and he was trying too hard not to stare at your mouth. You leaned in. He didn’t lean away.

Electric blue eyes flicking to your lips – gaze quick and hungry. Inching closer. Open and inviting. Mouth slightly parted in fervor to what's to come. Finally bartering all that had been earned all those months in silence and toying touches, and now it was ready to collect.

But just before he could move, before you could tilt your chin and close that impossible distance, the air shifted.

You watched as Johnny swallowed and pulled away. Excusing himself with a breathless laugh before stumbling over some half-hearted joke about needing to “och, head’s naw right, hen. Need ta’ cool off”. But his smile didn’t reach his eyes. Not really. You were too tipsy, too flushed with wine and warmth and him to notice the way he avoided your gaze at the last second. You didn’t see how his jaw twitched, how his fingers trembled just slightly when he handed the bottle back to Ghost.

You only saw the way he slipped into the bathroom and shut the door a little too quickly.

And you didn’t hear the footsteps that followed after. Not really. Not over the low thrum of music, not over your own heartbeat.

But Ghost moved like he always did. Salient creature all silent, unseen, and undeniable.

He waited.

Let Johnny breathe for a moment. Let that little pup splash water on his face, lean over the sink and grip the sides like he could anchor himself back to earth. Like he wasn’t falling already.

Then Ghost knocked once. Firm, quiet.

“Yeah?” Soap called out, voice cracking ever so slightly.

“Open the door.”

A pause.

Then the click of the lock.

Johnny didn’t meet his eyes at first. He never did when he was nervous. Just huffed out a breath and turned back toward the mirror, water still dripping from his beard, eyes red-rimmed and blinking hard.

“I fucked it,” he muttered. “Fuckin’ hell, I – she was right there, Ghost. I could feel her breath, and – ” He laughed again, quiet and bitter. “I was shakin’ like some virgin schoolboy.”

Ghost didn’t speak at first. Just stepped inside and shut the door behind him. Locking it.

Click.

That sound made Johnny look up.

“You’re not stupid,” Ghost said, voice low, cutting through the haze like steel through silk. “You knew what you were doing the second you sat beside her. The second you let her touch you.”

Soap swallowed hard. “It was just—”

“No,” Ghost said, stepping forward. “It wasn’t. And that’s the problem, innit?”

The bathroom was small. Close. Too hot now.

Ghost smelled like gun oil and leather and clean sweat. The scent wrapped around Johnny like a hand around his throat. Not choking, not yet – but present. Heavy. Unavoidable.

“You want her,” Ghost said, almost thoughtful. Tone horizontal and in a singular pitch. “But you don’t know what to do with her, do you?”

Soap’s hands clenched. “Don’t talk like I’m some fuckin’ kid – ”

“But you are.” Ghost stepped close. Close enough that their chests almost touched. “You shake when she laughs. You can’t keep your eyes off the bird’s tits. You get as hard as a rock when she touches your leg.”

Ghost leaned in, lips near Johnny’s ear now. “You’ve already made her want you, Johnny. And now you’re running.”

“I wasn’t– ” But it died in his throat. Because Ghost’s gloved hand came to rest at the cusp of his jaw. Firm. Hot through the fabric. Steady. His thumb soothing the slight bob of Soap’s Adam’s apple underneath.

“You think she didn’t notice?” Ghost murmured. “The way you touched her back? The way your knees brushed and you didn’t move away?”

Soap’s breath hitched. His heart pounded against his ribs like it was trying to escape.

“She wants you too. Bird’s cunt’s prolly’ achin’ for it. Can smell it too,” Ghost said. “But you don’t get to take something like that and not follow through.”

Soap looked at him then. Finally. Really looked. Eyes wide and confused and something else too. Something guilty. Wanting.

“And you?” Johnny whispered. “You’ve been watching.”

Ghost smiled. Just barely. “I’m not the one who runs, Johnny.”

That did something to him.

Something dangerous. Something unraveling.

And Ghost leaned in again, his voice like silk over a blade:

“You want her?”

Soap could only nod. Slow and cloying.

“Then go back in there. And show her.”

He started to pull away, but then paused.

Ghost’s hand dropped to Johnny’s side. Gloved fingers brushing the waistband of his jeans. Just enough to make Johnny freeze. Breath caught. Spine stiff.

“And if you can’t,” Ghost said, eyes dark and hooded, “I will.”

It wasn't even a minute less when you saw Soap march towards you.

Moving like a man on a mission. All hulking steps and charging stance. The kind of determination that made the room shrink.

The music hummed low from the speakers, but you felt the sound warped around him – muted. Drowned. Deluged and saturated under the way his gaze locked onto you like a loaded weapon finally drawn. No more hesitation. No more stalling or reconsidering.

Just Johnny.

Flushed. Heavy breath and eyes burning all taut and earnest.

You barely got the word out before you felt Soap’s hands circle around your neck. Tilting your jaw upward before his mouth met yours like it had been waiting. Like it had suffered the wait.

The kiss wasn’t sweet. It wasn’t even careful.

It felt bruising.

Wild. A collision.

Rough and calloused hands sliding up the back of your neck, thumbing along your jaw as if to keep you exactly where he needed you – like if he let go, the world might stop spinning. His tongue sweeping the pillowy softness of your bottom lip, groaning low when you opened for him like he knew you would. Like he’d bet everything on it. All teeth, tongue, and spit.

Panting and mouth open, all syrup, sweat and salt at the cusp of his mouth on yours.

It wasn’t even a minute more when Soap had you shuffled inside Ghost’s car. All whimpering and wet in the backseat from where Soap had decided to just slide two of his fingers in your cunt. All cooing and shushing your huffing and puffing when he gave you so much but not enough.

Windows already fogging up by the time your eyes caught Ghost’s figure sliding into the driver’s seat. Silent. Gloved hands already tight on the wheel.

You could have asked, Johnny could have too.

Said to have fucked off even, but Ghost must have been the most sober, or whatever he muttered to the both of you. Only catching Soap’s appreciative and doozy smile and murmuring something about Simon “bein’ a good friend again”. Too distant and warm to realize the sinking underbelly you and Johnny just dove into without warning.

Opening a pandora’s box meant to be buried and burned 578ft down.

Johnny knew the room was hot.

Too hot.

Yet, knew the hotel AC was on, but maybe it was just you. All and still you.

Still moaning into his mouth with the taste of wine between your teeth and sweat down the nape and sheen of your collarbones. Clutching and clawing at the fabric of his shirt with your sinewy and slender fingers, all frantic and clumsy. Trying to get closer. Trying to anchor yourself on something solid – someone solid – while the world kept tilting.

It wasn’t until you had Soap’s shirt halfway off, your bra already tugged down – felt the stretch and burn of his mouth over the swell of your nipple when he glanced up. Just for a second. Catching Ghost still seemingly standing in the corner. Silent. Still present.

Waiting.

You felt Soap freeze. Bearded lips stifled against the heat of your skin. You could only blink then. Dazed and messy underneath him. Unsure of whether you imagined the tension that just dropped into the room like a weight. But then – maybe you felt it too. That distinct wrongness crackling in the space, laced beneath your pulse and Johnny’s heavy breathing.

From where you lay. Disheveled and unraveled all in one, you saw Ghost standing by the door. Unmoving, unreadable. His head tilted slightly – almost like he was observing. Intrusive and salient. Letting this foreplay between you and his pup unfold like something akin to a test. A performance.

Gaze dark behind the mask. Unwavering and unflinching. Like this wasn’t the first time he’d watched something get torn apart right in front of him.

You blinked up at Johnny, who hovered over you now with a breath caught in his throat, hands flexing on either side of your head. The air between you was hot and thin, but cooling fast. Like neither of you knew where this started anymore – or if you could stop.

Because Ghost was still there. And he hadn’t told you to stop.

Hadn’t left.

And neither of you had said no.

“Ghost?” your voice cracked, a whisper barely formed. “What- What are you still doing here?”

Ghost didn’t move. Just the slow tick of his jaw. Just that heavy silence that made your skin crawl.

“You didn’t say no,” he said, so calm it made your chest tighten. “Neither of you.”

Johnny looked down at you, flushed, frozen. “We – we didn’t know you were still – ”

“You knew I brought you here,” Ghost cut him off, voice low. The cushion of the sofa by the corner creaks. Bending down under his weight as he takes a seat. “You knew the door never closed.”

And he was right.

He’d driven the two of you here after drinks. Told you it was closer. That Johnny was tipsy. That this room was already paid for. He said it so plainly. So gently, almost. Like he was looking out for you. And Johnny just laughed, tugging you along with his arm draped over your shoulder.

“I’ll handle things,” Ghost had said when he handed you the key. That same quiet voice. That same impossible calm. You didn’t even question it.

You and Johnny trusted him.

Handed over the keys and acted like you two hadn’t known nor flinched.

Autonomy and independence dropped in the open palm of a man who never once raised his voice, only looked.

Long. Steady.

As if he knew what you two would do before you did it. What you’d give. What you’d beg for. What you’d deny ever wanting.

Soap’s hips shifted over yours, like he just remembered where he was. Still hard. Still breathing ragged. Still strung out between guilt and want. His eyes darted to Ghost, then back to you. Like he needed someone to tell him what to do. Like he needed permission.

You weren’t sure who he was asking for it from anymore.

“What’s wrong?”, you hear Ghost voice out loud. Voice so heavy yet low that you could feel the shiver the timber sent to your core.

“Got shy all of a sudden? Bit more than you could chew, s’that it, pup”

“M’not shy”, you hear Soap growl. A bit of a snarl. Low and feral. Biting back.

You heard Ghost chuckle. Dark. Knowing. Like that slight flicker of rebellion was more amusing than it did to truly set the room on fire.

Soap’s hands tightened on your hips. Fingers digging in the meat of your ass to the slight softness of your stomach. Anchoring and body burning. Trembling from the besetting sensation of it all.

“You don’t have to – ” you started, soft. But Ghost cut you off.

“She’s not the one you’re listening to right now,” he said flatly, and the sharpness of it made your breath catch. He wasn’t cruel. He wasn’t loud. But there was a steel edge to his calm that made your pulse skip.

Soap’s gaze flickered to you again, almost apologetic. Then up to Ghost.

“Put yer fingers in her cunt then pup”

Ghost’s command dropped like a stone in still water. No rise, no scream, just depth. Weight. It echoed in the small room, settled into your skin.

Johnny swallowed hard. His jaw clenched. But he obeyed.

Because of course he did.

Because that’s what Ghost knew he would do. What you would do. It had never been a question of “if,” only “when.”

You gasped as Soap’s fingers slid between your thighs, still slick, still aching. His touch was rough with nerves, with shame, with heat, but his fingers were steady when they breached your pussy. Just enough to press in. Curl. Find the spot that made your back arch and your moan twist up between clenched teeth.

“Fuck,” he breathed, like it hurt. “You’re – Christ, you’re soaked.”

Ghost didn’t say a word at first. He just watched. A slight shift in his mask. A small smile probably slipping through.

You felt his gaze before you ever turned your head to meet it. Burning, searing, dragging over every part of you like a brand.

“She’s dripping for you. And you still think this is about me?”

Johnny froze. The guilt came in waves again. Hot. Red. Boiling.

But Ghost leaned back, voice quiet and sharp as a scalpel.

“Make her cum, Johnny. Don’t wait for me to do it.

The words knocked the wind out of you.

Johnny’s eyes flew to Ghost, wide, uncertain, glassy. Still moving his fingers in and out of you, still shaking. But now panting like the floodgates had broken.

You could only gasp and try to writhe in Soap’s hands. One of his palms holding you down as his other hand thrusted in and out of you wildly all of a sudden. Unable to do anything but try to hiccup a soft sob of protest as he curled and ventured deeper into the walls of your pussy like a man on a mission.

The fervent brush of his fingers. Hurried. Fast. Quick and urgent. The lewd squelch of your cunt trying to hold on to any kind of semblance of propriety immediately dying as Soap didn’t seem to stop until you cried out in pleasure. Wanting to earn his right to keep touching you.

You. Slice of heaven on earth. Syrupy sweet cunt dripping all over Johnny’s forearm like a faucet.

“Fuckin’ hell,” he gasped. “So wet baby. So so wet”, Johnny cooed, leaning down all mocking but almost apologetic. Meeting his lips with yours. Hushing and shushing all the protests you whined on his tongue.

“Didn’t mean t’be rough, bonnie jus-just can’t help it when you’re like this. Fuck. You don’t even know, do you?”

You could barely kiss him back. Your body arched, caught between dizzying friction and the raw burn of being laid open like this. Owned. Watched. Wanted. A trembling bundle of nerve endings in Soap’s arms.

Your legs trembled. Your gut tightened. And when Johnny curled again just right, just there, just once more –

– you broke.

Hard.

A choked cry wrenching out of you. Your whole body snapping taut like a live wire, back arching, thighs locking, cunt fluttering around his fingers as you came hard and fast and messy. Slurred his name. Sobbed. Nearly crumpled. Feeling Johnny holding you through it, arm tight around your waist, his mouth somewhere between an apology and a worship, whispering your name through the soft murmur of his tongue swirling around your nipple. Groaning at how your pussy clenched just as he pulled three of his fingers out. All drenched and slicked.

You heard Soap’s belt buckle come loose only to be stopped by a quiet, commanding click of Ghost’s tongue.

Pavlov’s dog leashed and stifled is what it was.

“Don’t move”, you hear Ghost say. Voice slightly hazy and drowned out from the ringing in your ears after just cumming loose and thorough.

Reverent. Singular toned. Not harsh. But final.

You felt Soap immediately froze atop you like he’d been caught red-handed. His fingers pausing – still glistening, still twitching from the echo of your cunt that squeezed him like a vice. Cock straining hard against the zipper he hadn't even had the chance to undo.

“But – ” he tried, breathless. Desperate. His voice cracked.

Ghost stepped forward, slow. Measured. His shadow poured over both of you like a tide. That mask, that look. Calm and heavy and possessive. Tilting just enough to level with Johnny’s wide, pleading eyes.

“You think you earned her just because she came?” Ghost murmured, a slow drawl, every syllable soaked in control, a hand reaching to pull the end of Soap’s mohawk. A slight tug that immediately stifled the weight man atop you. Scruffed and scrambling. Widening your eyes at the almost distant gaze in Johnny’s eyes. Something beastly being quelled and called back by a master. “You think I’m lettin’ you fuck her just because you want to?”

Soap swallowed hard. One of his hands finding your thigh like he was trying to anchor himself to you. To this.

“You didn’t earn shit,” Ghost said low, close now, mouth hovering by Soap’s temple. “Not yet.”

His fingers tightened in the mohawk, just enough to tilt Johnny’s head back further. The pull almost looking painful if you chalked it up to the way Johnny let out an involuntary whimper at another tug. Enough to hurt. Enough to remind.

"Look at her."

Johnny’s breath stuttered. You were flushed and wrecked beneath him. Legs trembling. Breasts rising and falling in frantic, ruined rhythm. Your cunt twitching, still drooling slick down your thighs. But your eyes – your eyes found their way to Ghost.

Not Soap.

Not the man whose sinewy fingers just met the ache of your pussy.

Not the man who you’d let laugh and chortle around for supposed weeks on end.

Not the man you pined for – all sweet and foolish – whose smile once fluttered your chest and sent pulses to the slice of your dripping pussy. Little doe-eyed bird beating its wings against a closed window.

No.

Ghost.

“You see that?” Ghost purred. “She’s mine. I just let you borrow her.”

Johnny’s body jerked like he’d been shocked. Like he wanted to cry and moan all at once.

“But I – ” he whispered, but Ghost was already shifting, lowering to his knees beside the both of you. One gloved hand on your thigh, spreading you further. Exposing you fully to him. To the air. To Johnny.

“No,” Ghost said, softer now. Thumb brushing slow circles over the inside of your thigh, smearing your arousal like it was paint he was admiring.

“She’s not yours yet, Johnny,” Ghost said, kneeling closer and making you gasp as you felt the slow and sauntering trail of his masked lips sniffing near your core. All slick and still dripping, but somehow still smelt all ravenous and pulpy if you chalked it up to how Ghost seems to almost purr at the scent. “She came ‘cause I told you to make her.”

You felt his hand stop just short of where you were soaked and ruined.

“She came,” he repeated lowly, “because I allowed it.”

You could only whimpered. Quiet. Your body still trembling under Soap’s arm, still catching your breath, still raw and sore and needful in a way that hadn't faded – in a way that Ghost fed.

Johnny didn’t speak. Couldn’t.

He was watching Ghost’s hand the way a starving man watches food being taken away.

Then Ghost turned his head, slightly, voice like frost:

“Take your hands off her.”

Johnny didn’t move.

Ghost didn’t repeat himself.

He didn’t have to.

Because when Ghost’s hand finally slid between your legs – bare, gloveless now, the leather peeled back with care and intent – you both felt the shift.

Power changing hands.

Soap let go. Slowly. Almost tender.

And Ghost took his place.

His fingers pressed deep into the mess Johnny had made, curling slow, cruel. Savoring it. Controlling it.

“This,” he said, voice nearly a whisper as you cried out again, squirming helplessly in overstimulation. “This is what you don’t get unless I say so.”

Johnny’s chest heaved.

Ghost looked up. Mask still on, but voice bare.

“You wanna fuck her, Johnny?”

Soap nodded frantically, shame mixing with the raw need on his face.

“Then beg me.”

"Come on then," he said, his fingers still pumping slow, indulgent thrusts into your soaked cunt. Each curl deliberate. Each knuckle a lesson. You whined again at the overstimulation. Puffy pussy already raw and woeful. “Beg for it.”

Johnny’s throat bobbed. His hands hovered useless at his sides, twitching like they didn’t know what to do now that they weren’t on you.

“Ghost – ” he started. But Ghost cut him off with a slow twist of his fingers that had you sobbing out loud. Your thighs trembled. Your spine arched.

“You hear that?” Ghost murmured, eyes locked on Johnny as your body writhed beneath him. “She’s still so fuckin’ sweet. Still greedy. And this – ” he pulled his fingers out, slow, glistening, ruined – “this is what you want, innit?”

Johnny nodded again. Desperate now. Voice cracking. “Yes. Fuck, yes – please – ”

Ghost stood, finally, towering. Fingers still wet with you. He brought them to Johnny’s lips.

“Open.”

Johnny didn’t hesitate. He parted his lips and Ghost slid his fingers in. Pressed them to the back of his tongue.

“Taste what I give you.”

Johnny groaned around them, eyes fluttering shut, humiliation and arousal fusing into something unbearable.

Ghost leaned in close. Voice low. Dangerous. Intimate. His own cock twitching at the feel of Soap’s flick of his tongue. All hungry and wanton.

“Bird probably used you to get to me”, you hear Ghost taunt. Idle. Cruelty tossed in the dark just to see what would burn. Voice dipping lower. Poisoning.

“You were just convenient. Easy.”

You see Johnny freeze. His mouth still open around Ghost’s fingers, but his jaw clenched tight. His eyes snapped open. Something shifting.

Not shame. Not even jealousy. Just spite brewing – all magnanimous and ticked.

His tongue flicked slow against Ghost’s fingers, eyes fixed on yours now instead. A flare of something petulant, bruised, and biting settling across his face. His nostrils flare slightly. Pride probably wounded. You watch as his chest heaves with fury and something inexplicably hurt at the sudden suggestion.

“Naw. She wouldnae’ do that”, he muttered. Voice trying to thicken with conviction even as Ghost’s fingers still rested on his tongue. “Not her. Not my girl”

Ghost’s hand stilled in Soap’s mouth and in your pussy.

The room quieted – just your breath hitching, the faint slicking sound between your thighs trying to coax Ghost’s fingers to move again, and the sharp, fragile pause of Soap’s fickle little amusing power, devolving once more.

Your girl.

It hung there, tender and defiant, like a bruise blooming under pressure.

Ghost pulled his fingers free with a wet pop, slow and deliberate. His eyes never left Johnny’s.

“Your girl?” he echoed, tone almost pitching to amusement, teasing and toying. Waggling a treat right before his pup’s eyes. Waiting for him to try and take the bait. “She’s not yours.”

You watched Ghost lean in through your periphery, close enough that his mask brushed Johnny’s cheek, close enough that you swore you saw how his breath fogged against Soap’s skin.

“She’s mine.”

Then Ghost turned to you. Still spread. Still ruined. Your chest rising and falling in shallow gasps as if your body didn’t know whose name to cry out anymore. Eyes rimmed with more tears as you felt the twisting and turning of his fingers once more inside of you. Exploring your heat like a knife learning the rhythm and pulse of your cunt’s walls. Humming and tilting his head at the way your pussy seems to envelope his fingers with practiced ease. The drip drip of your pussy – the only thing vibrating across your eardrums and nothing else

“Isn’t that right, love?”

You opened your mouth, tried to speak – but only a whimper came out. Not yes. Not no. Just need. Need and devotion and confusion twisted into one trembling breath. Letting out another helpless hiccup as he twisted his fingers just so. Cruel and precise. The pads of them brushing the spot that made your back arch and your vision blur

And Ghost smiled behind the mask, sensing it. Savoring it.

“Say it,” he murmured as he probed deeper again. Johnny’s fists curling at his sides at the sight.

You could only swallow. Eyes glossed over with feverish want and arousal.

“…Yours.”

Johnny flinched.

And Ghost?

He leaned back, satisfied.

“That’s right,” he said, thumb brushing your clit now, wicked and soft. “You fuck her when I let you. You make her come when I say so.”

He turned back to Soap, eyes gleaming through the black.

“You wanna fuck her?” he repeated. A pause.

A tilt of his head.

A slow, dark grin forming in his voice.

“On your knees, then pup.”

Soap blinked. Just once.

Like the weight of it hadn’t registered. Like maybe he hadn’t heard it right the first time – hadn’t quite believed Ghost would say it aloud. Command it like that. But then Ghost’s hand dragged down your inner thigh, a slick trail tracing the path of your wreckage, and Soap’s throat bobbed with the swallow.

He dropped.

Slow at first, like his bones were fighting it, then faster, like giving in wasn’t weakness but inevitability. His knees hit the floor with a dull thud, reverberating through the room like a vow.

You sucked in a breath. Ghost’s fingers still inside you. Still moving. Still owning.

And Johnny?

He didn’t look at Ghost.

He looked at you.

Eyes dark, not with shame – but hunger. Frustration and reverence. A desperate, coiled heat that danced behind his pupils as he watched your chest rise and fall. That flickered at every twitch of your hips. That followed every sound Ghost coaxed from your throat like prayer.

“She’s naw a prize,” Johnny muttered, jaw clenched. “She’s naw a toy.”

“Oh?” Ghost’s voice purred above him. Still gentle. Still cruel. “You sure? 'Cause she’s playin’ the part real well, ain’t she?”

Then he pressed his fingers deeper, and your mouth fell open with a broken moan.

Johnny twitched. His hand fisted in the sheets. His other trembled on your thigh.

“Use your mouth,” Ghost murmured.

A beat.

“Show me how bad you want what’s mine.”

There was something ancient in the air then. Something seismic. Like gods had drawn lines in the dirt and dared the other to cross. Like the smoke of old wars was still rising, licking the edges of something unholy and unforgettable.

Johnny didn’t move for a second.

Then he did.

And you felt it – felt the shift, the weight, the gravity of him bending forward between your legs. A soldier to a shrine. A sinner to his reckoning. One kiss away from worship or ruin. His mouth hovered over Ghost’s soaked fingers still stuffed inside you, lips parted. Shaky breath ghosting over your soaked folds.

And Ghost?

He only smiled.

“Go on, then.”

Johnny breathed you in like he needed to memorize the scent of surrender.

Like his defiance had cracked wide open the second Ghost gave permission – because that’s all it ever was, wasn’t it? The leash between his teeth. The reins Ghost never truly let go of, even when Johnny snapped and snarled like he had some kind of say.

But now?

Now he was just breath and hunger and shaking hands. Mouth parting at the sight of his pretty pretty girl’s wet wet pussy.

He looked up at you once – just once – eyes glassy with the kind of ache that begged not for forgiveness, but for ruin. For permission to fall apart under the weight of you. Of what Ghost had made you.

Then his lips touched you.

Soft at first. Tentative. A reverent kiss to the mess Ghost made.

Your whole body jolted.

Johnny groaned low in his throat, tongue flattening, licking into the slick that Ghost’s fingers stirred. And Ghost – still knuckles deep inside you – watched it all with eyes like a storm held at bay. Controlled. Calculated.

Your hips jerked. Your hand fisted in Johnny’s hair. But Ghost was faster. He caught your wrist and pinned it to the bed.

“No,” he murmured, voice like velvet dragging across bare skin. “Let him earn it.”

Johnny moaned against your cunt at that.

Like the humiliation lit something in him. Like the taste of you – of Ghost’s claim on you – was a sacrament.

“You feel that, pup?” Ghost purred. “That’s me you’re licking off her. That’s mine.”

Johnny whined. A desperate, keening noise that melted into a sloppier suck, like he wanted to drown in it. Drown in you. Like shame had burned off entirely and all that was left was worship. Filthy, reverent, reckless worship.

And still, Ghost didn’t move.

Still, his fingers curled just right. Still, he kept you open. Offered.

To him.

To Johnny.

To whatever god would watch this unfold and dare call it a sin.

Parting your folds wider so Soap can dig his tongue in deeper to scoop and lick your wetness like the last saccharine and syrupy thing on Earth.

“You're obedient when you’re hungry,” Ghost murmured, tilting his head down, voice honeyed with threat. “But don’t forget your place.”

Johnny nodded into you. Didn’t stop licking. Didn’t even think about it.

Because what was pride, really, when he could have this? When he could taste you under Ghost’s hand, feel you shudder around the both of them, feel his own cock ache and leak untouched in his jeans? After all, Ghost said he’d take care of you both didn’t he? Said he’d handle things.

Handled his – Soap’s – hunger like a leash wound tight around his own neck – tugging only when he earned it. Handled you – his sweet girl’s pleasure like an idol with dirt under his nails – knowing exactly how to hold you open, how to draw out every shiver like music written in flesh. Handled the both of you with that impossible patience, and well, who else could do that except Ghost.

Who else could see so clearly through Soap’s bravado and your softness? Who else could orchestrate this madness so quietly, so devastatingly, and make it feel like mercy?

No one else could split Johnny’s head open like this. Could leave him drooling, desperate, untouched, yet still more satisfied than any fuck he'd ever begged for. No one else could make Johnny thankful for not being allowed release. Could make denial feel like something holy. Could make obedience feel like love.

Ghost could though. Ghost did.

Because it was never just control. Never just power. It was care, too. In his own rough, ruthless way.

Soap could feel it in the way Ghost’s fingers held you open, firm but unhurried, curling just enough to keep you on the edge, just enough to offer you up like a gift. Could feel it in the way Ghost let Johnny have this, but not without consequence. Not without remembering who allowed it. Could feel it in the burn of his knees on the bed, in the ache of his jaw, in the sweat at his hairline, in the tremble of his cock untouched and twitching against the denim.

And still. He didn’t want anything else.

Not permission, not climax, not even to be touched.

He just wanted this. To worship what Ghost made of them. To be part of this strange, sacred ritual where love looked like restraint and devotion came in the form of obedience.

And Ghost –

– Ghost was the only one who could ever make that feel right.

Fuck did that thought make Soap whimper. Softer than he’d even let anyone hear from him. Making him drag his tongue up the length of your cunt like he was famished all over again. Could die happy like this. All buried inside your pretty pretty pussy and never come up for air.

But of course he didn’t. Couldn’t. Never would without Ghost saying so.

You could only hiccup another sob as you felt Johnny suck your clit into his mouth with a shaky moan. Nose nudging where Ghost’s fingers still curled inside you. Still so filthy. Still so wet. But still so fucking perfect.

He thrusted his tongue around Ghost’s fingers faster and more purposeful. Chasing the twitch of your thighs and every breathless gasp. Learning you again under Ghost’s careful offering.

Ghost watched of course. Humming in both amusement and satisfaction at Soap’s growing eagerness to please. Pup almost purring in contentment when he flexed his wrist just enough to make you cry out and more of your slick to gush through for Johnny to eat. Ghost’s free hand drifting to his own belt then. Slow and measured. Unbuckling with a click that felt louder than thunder. His own cock – thick, flushed, and leaking – already hard.

You were too distracted to realize that Ghost shifted on the bed. His massive weighty form kneeling beside you now. Gripping your jaw with his hand. Shaking your head to grip your consciousness back into focus. Almost rattling every incoherent thought back in to shift you back to the present moment at hand.

“Open”

You were barely back in a state of proper coherence before Ghost shoved the head of his cock inside your mouth. Groaning at the wet heat of your tongue enveloping his shaft, all wet and tight. The slight gag you let out around the sudden press of him making him coo mockingly.

“Tha’s it”, he hissed as he thrusted deeper into the taut heat of your mouth. Hips rolling just enough for the tip of his cock to hit the back of your throat. Letting out a low groan at the sight of your small cheeks puffing up to try and take all of him in.

Johnny’s fingers gripped your hips tighter at the sight. The slight bulge of your throat from Ghost’s cock and the tingy saccharine taste of you making his moans grow louder. More desperate. Having to rut his hips against the bed like he could get relief from the air alone. Tongue suckling the pearl of your pussy as he watched Ghost shove his cock deeper inside your mouth – the fine hairs of his dick grazing the tips of your nose.

Your moan split the air like thunder when you felt Johnny suck harder. Tongue stroking at where Ghost’s other hand still parted the folds of your pussy all slow and cruel. Making you go cross-eyed and whiny around his cock. Drooling around the base, lashes fluttering, eyes swimming as he fed you more. Fed you deeper. The flat of his palm cradled the back of your head, fingers buried in your hair like reins, holding you still while your throat fluttered around him, helpless and heavenly.

“Good”, Ghost breathed after a soft hiss as he felt you swallow. “You’re gettin’ her close”

Soap could only nod again. Desperate wet sounds echoing through the room. Feral pup but obedient nonetheless. Yeah. Fuck. What a good fucking boy.

You could only gasp around Ghost’s shaft as you felt the sudden absence of Johnny from your legs. Your pussy pulsing in protest at the lack of warmth from Soap’s tongue. Cunt going empty and wanting. Unable to do anything but writhe and whine low in your throat. Mouth still full. Lashes fluttering once more to blink back frustrated tears.

Then you heard it.

The scrape of movement. A drag of fabric. Ghost’s voice again – lower now. Commanding. Rough with intent.

“Your turn.”

A hand – his – had found the back of Johnny’s neck and scruffed him up like a misbehaving dog. Pulled him from between your thighs with a low snarl of disappointment, like he’d been indulging too long. And Johnny. Breathless, lips shiny, chin slick. Only looked up at him with wide, ruined eyes.

A trail of spit followed as Ghost pulled his cock out of your mouth. Making you feel light-headed all of a sudden with the loss of your two holes now made both empty and barren after being filled so good. Made incoherent and eyes glossy. Having to tilt your head weakly just to watch what was even happening next.

“On your knees then. Come on. Don’t be shy”

Ghost’s voice snapped like the cock of a trigger, steady and sharp, dragging Johnny into motion before thought could catch up. And you could only watch as Johnny obeyed, of course he did. Mouth parting, breath shaky, thighs trembling as he crawled forward over the mattress, that thick streak of your slick still glossed along his lips.

Your legs were twitched open again without meaning to, greedy for touch. But Ghost didn’t look at you yet. Not yet.

Not when you’ve had your fill right? You didn’t want to be greedy, right?

Ghost cupped Soap’s jaw with the same hand that had just cradled your skull, fingers firm and familiar, tilting his face up like he was inspecting a prize. And maybe he was. His prize. His good little soldier. His cock-hungry pup.

“You looked real pretty suckin’ her,” Ghost muttered low. His thumb swiped at the mess on Johnny’s lip. Your mess. And smeared it across his cheek. “But I think your mouth’s due for somethin’ else now, yeah?”

Johnny whimpered. Honest to God whimpered, eyes locked on Ghost’s cock, already shiny with spit, twitching between them. Still wet from you.

You barely managed to suck in a breath.

And Ghost… Ghost didn’t make him beg. You watched as he just pressed forward, slow and brutal with the kind of control that made your belly flip. Pushing the head of his cock past Soap’s lips like a man feeding a promise.

“There you go,” he rasped. “Open up for me, sweetboy.”

And of course Soap did. He took it just like you had. Throat flexing, jaw slack, letting himself be filled until Ghost’s hips bumped his nose, until his moan went strangled and thick around the stretch.

And God, you could only watch. Lips parted. Body throbbing.

Left there. Wet and empty while Ghost fucked Johnny’s throat with the same care and cruelty he’d fucked your mouth.

Handled him just as good. Maybe even better.

You could only let out another breath at the sight. The two of them, looked so entwined in something brutal and beautiful, something ancient. Power shifting again like tectonic plates under skin. Looking like something worship would trade like blood and gold.

Ghost fucked into Soap’s mouth with the kind of precision that said he’d done this before. Controlled. Intentional. Each thrust meant and weight. Not stopping until his little naughty and ravenous pup memorizes the every vein and trail of his cock and nothing fucking else

“Good boy,” he whispered, stroking Johnny’s cheek. Gritting his teeth as Soap unconsciously swallowed to hold his drool in. “Take it all. Don’t you dare spill a drop.”

You couldn’t look away. Watching as Johnny moaned around him. Tears pricking his eyes from the force of it. But he didn’t stop. Wouldn’t.

Because after all. Ghost said he’d handle them right? Handled Soap’s devotion like a leash pulling taut. Handled his pup’s affection for you just measured and wrought. Handled and bent you both with the kind of tenderness meant to break. Meant to bleed.

Because this was penance.

This was reward.

This was ruin and reverence and the breaking of every line.

Because he handled you both well didn’t he? Handled you both so well like he was always meant to do it.

God threading needles through flesh – pulling just right until devotion held.

A reckoning.

And Ghost? He felt it too. His fingers still wet from your slick cupping Soap’s jaw. His body still cast in shadow. But the mask tilted. Just slightly. Like a king tasting the first signs of mutiny.

And maybe he smiled. Maybe he groaned. Maybe he was content and satisfied at his two obedient slags finally falling into place at the palm of his hand.

Because gods like him know the world ends in fire after all.

And fire, it seems, had just found its breath.

You were caught between them -- splayed out, wrecked, trembling. One hand clutched at Johnny’s arm where he cupped your jaw, gentle and reverent. The other clawed blindly at Ghost’s wrist, bracing yourself against the way he moved -- deep and slow, dragging every inch of his monstrous girth through your slick, spasming cunt from behind.

The room pulsed with heat.

The wet sound of Ghost inside you, thrusting oh so deep and so hard, the low groan he gave when the cushiony warmth of your pussy clenched, the kiss kiss kiss of Johnny’s lips brushing your cheeks like you were a thing to be soothed and fucked all at once -- it was all too much.

Soap had your face in his palms, thumbs swiping your damp cheeks as overwhelming tears start to hiccup out of you and onto your cheeks, his forehead pressed to yours, murmuring, "Yer doin’ so well, bonnie. Let Ghost have his time, aye? Jus’ let him take ye nice an’ slow."

You whimpered, back arching into the thick, deliberate thrusts behind you -- Simon’s cock filling you again and again, like he had all the time in the world to make you feel him. To leave you ruined and fluttering around him and no one else. Ass up, pussy perched, and back arched just like this.

“She’s dripping down my fuckin’ thighs, Johnny,” Ghost growled low behind you, voice rough and hushed. His hands gripped your hips like a man possessed, dragging you back onto him with every thrust. “Felt her tighten the second you kissed her. She likes this -- bein’ watched while I fuck her open.”

You moaned at that. High and broken -- and Soap smiled like it was his favorite sound.

“Aw, hen,” he cooed, both mocking and toying as you gasped again, tilting your face toward his. “He’s right, eh? Ye love bein’ caught between us. Like havin’ both of us stuffed in round ye, don’t ye, hen?”

You couldn’t answer. Couldn’t even breathe as Ghost bottomed out again, pressing in so deep it felt like he carved space just for himself.

Your thighs were soaked. Your voice was gone. Your mind unraveled like a spool on just the simple tilt of his hips towards yours.

But you nodded. You nodded. And Johnny kissed your lips, soft and slow, like you hadn’t just moaned into his mouth from the stretch.

Like you weren’t falling apart between them. All flesh and feeling, slick heat and unspoken need. Kissed you like you were made of sugar, and Simon fucked you like he could taste it on his tongue.

Your body jolted with every thrust, cunt spasming around Ghost’s cock in rhythmic, helpless pulses. The sound of him inside you, so filthy and wet and divine filled the air between Johnny’s murmured praise and your own hitched sobs. Your skin burned with the tender ache of being full. So fucking full. So completely fucking theirs.

“Aye, that’s it, lass. Jus’ like that,” Soap whispered again, brushing your hair back as if you weren’t trembling beneath his touch. Jolting forward every time Ghost thrusted in, only being pulled back whenever Simon pulled out with a slight hiss.

The wet and tight squelch of your cunt so fucking taut and snug that it would take an effort for him to just thrust back out. “Takin’ me him so well, sweet thing. Look at ye -- drippin’ down Si’s cock like yer cunt was starvin’ for it”

Your lips parted, but no sound came -- just a breath, a whimper, a broken echo of your devotion. Your hands shook where they held them -- Johnny at your jaw, Simon at your waist -- two anchors holding you in the eye of a storm.

“Feels good, yeah?” Ghost’s voice was low, guttural, sharp with restraint. His hips rolled again, slow and punishing, his cock dragging along that soft, swollen spot inside you that made your vision spot and your toes curl. “Fuckin’ tight and fuckin’ warm. Perfect fucking cunt was made for me.”

Made for them.

Your muscles twitched, your back bowed. You could feel it. Feel yourself unraveling, body wound tight like string, pulled taut between pleasure and surrender. Each breath came out a prayer. Each sound a confession.

Johnny leaned in, tongue flicking across your lower lip, tasting your helplessness like it was honey.

“Ye’re close, ain’t ye, love? I can feel it. Whole body's shakin” he murmured against your mouth. “That wee cunt’s flutterin’ ‘round him like she’s pleadin’, bonnie. Gonna cum for us, aye? Let go for us?”

Your whole body tensed, the tremor starting in your core and creeping outward, blooming like a storm over calm water. All whining softly in response. Wanton and cock-drunk. Simon groaned low and filthy as you clenched down hard around him, the skin of your thighs dripping copious amounts of slick and trembled as your climax start to rise like a tidal wave.

“Let go,” Johnny whispered, forehead pressed to yours, eyes burning into you. Electric blue eyes pinned around yours. A ghost of a smirk shadowing his mouth at your glossed over and dumbed down gaze. “C’mon, hen. Be good. Fall apart for us.”

And you did.

Finally breaking like dawn.

Tears spilled. Breath shattered. Your body locked up, then gave in all at once -- shaking, sobbing, held firm between them as you came with a cry muffled into Soap’s waiting mouth. Simon cursed under his breath, hips jerking against the vice-grip of your release.

They held you through it. Held you like something sacred.

Whimpering as you heard the sharp inhale, the low, broken growl Simon let out through gritted teeth as your walls fluttered and clenched around him, milking him for everything. His grip on your hips turned bruising, unrelenting, as he rutted into you one final time, deeper than deep, filling you to the brim with a wet, obscene warmth that made your breath catch.

You could only hiccup a soft sob as Ghost came with a groan that shook your spine, his hulking cock twitching inside you as he spilled himself into your cunt, thick and hot, the fullness spreading through you like fire and salt and sin. It was too much. You sagged between them, every nerve lit and quivering, every part of you soaked in them.

And for a moment -- for one, quiet second -- you thought it was over.

You panted, trembling, lips parted in a dazed gasp. Your body felt boneless, hollowed out and overflowing all at once. Only could let alone a soft whine that was shushed by Simon after you felt him kisscthe small of your back after he pulled his limpy cock out. The shaft of his dick wet and glossy with the lick of your cum and his. The sight making him grit his teeth to hiss a soft "fuckin' hell".

You felt Ghost's hands leave the fat of your hips. Making you exhale an exhausted and contented breath -- only stifled as you felt Johnny shift.

His hand sliding down your jaw, tilting your chin up toward him, gentle and slow like he was about to kiss you again.

Only he didn’t.

No -- Johnny slid forward on the bed, guiding your body with his until you were kneeling in front of him, face close to his lap, your thighs still sticky with Ghost’s release. You blinked, glassy-eyed, just as he fisted the base of his cock and brushed the leaking tip against your lips.

“Och, ye thought we were done, did ye?” he murmured, voice honey-sweet and mean all at once, smiling down at you like you were the loveliest little mess. “Aw, no, baby. My turn.”

You whimpered, still dazed, still glowing with the aftershocks of your orgasm and the heavy drip of Simon’s cum between your legs. But when Johnny tapped the head of his cock against your bottom lip again -- waiting -- your lips opened up, tongue dolled out and mouth warm, already inviting.

Soft. Obedient. Ruined.

“That’s it, love,” he breathed, sliding the first few inches into your mouth with a groan. “Go on now, tak’ me in -- all the way. That’s it, there’s my good girl”

And even now -- even after your body had been split and worshipped and filled to the brim -- you did. Because you were theirs.

Because your mouth remembered them like hymn. Because your body, trembling and slick and so beautifully ruined, still reached for more. Because there was no part of you untouched, no place they hadn’t claimed with praise and possession and patience.

You were dripping with it. With them. With lust turned violent and sacred.

Soap groaned as you took him deeper, tears slipping anew from your lashes as your throat fluttered around the weight of him. He stroked your cheek with trembling veneration and gentility, voice cracking on your name.

You felt Simon stay close behind you, hands already smoothing your sides, his breath warm against your spine as he goaded and murmured soft praises of encouragement. A plethora of good girl, perfect girl, and ours.

And you believed it. Let it brand you from the inside out.

You were a sanctified acme and laurel now. A mess they made together.

And Christ... when you could only choke as you felt the tip of Soap's cock kiss the back of your throat, you swore... you'd let them make it again

drabbles

You'd barely gotten two inches in before your body decided to clench tight -- resisting, trembling, overwhelmed.

And still, you whimpered softly, lip wobbling with exertion and grit before reaching for more.

Simon cursed under his breath, fingers digging the meat of your hips, holding you in place so you wouldn't sink down on his cock further. One coarse hand spanning nearly your entire side, a stark reminder of just how big he was. How much there was left of him to take.

"Bloody fuckin’ hell," he muttered, low and wrecked. “So tight, baby.”

You nodded against his chest, dazed, desperate, trying to rock your hips to take more of him in -- but Simon stilled you with a growl.

“None of that, sweetheart.” His voice rasped near your ear, warm breath cutting through the sweat-slick heat. “You’re already struggling, and we’ve barely started.”

Your fingers curled into his shoulders, nails biting into scarred skin. He was being careful -- so fucking careful -- but your body didn’t want careful. It wanted full. You wanted him. All of him.

But he wasn’t having it.

You whimpered, clinging to his shoulders, trying to ease a little bit of the friction. Sinking down on him all of a sudden that you both gasped at overwhelming sensation. “But I— I want it all.”

“And I’ll give it to you,” he said, gaze dark, tone like gravel and stormclouds, teeth gritting at the plushy cushion of your pussy on his cock. The walls of your cunt tracing every vein of his dick with fervor. “But if you keep fucking pushing -- ”

He pulled you down another inch with a brutal grip, and your mouth fell open, a silent moan caught in your throat. Paralyzed and made cockdumb as you were speared on his cock.

“ -- you’ll tear, baby. And I’ll stop.”

“No -- please -- don’t stop,” you practically begged, nails digging into the broad plane of his chest. “Don’t -- ”

His thumb found your jaw, tilting your face up so you had no choice but to meet his eyes. They burned through the black smear of his mask, like smoke over fire. The sight of your eyes glossed with arousal and absolutely wanton making him quirk his lip up in both amusement and smugness.

“Then behave. Let me take care of you.”

And slowly -- achingly -- he started rocking his hips, coaxing your body to yield around him inch by inch. You swore you could feel every vein, every pulse, the sheer weight of him pressing against everything inside you.

He whispered low between your breaths. Toying and encouraging. Unable to do anything but whimper and whine with every whisper or murmur of praise that slipped past his lips unto the heat of your skin. “There you go. Attagirl.”

You felt stretched, wrecked, cherished. And still, not full. Not yet.

“You think you can take me just like that?” he asked, tone somewhere between pity and pride. “Two inches in and you’re already fuckin’ trembling.”

You whimpered, forehead pressed to his neck. “Simon, please--”

“Please what?” he asked, the edge in his voice cutting and sharp.

You tried to answer but couldn’t form the words. Couldn’t decide if you were begging him to go slower, or if you were begging him to ruin you.

He slid his hand from your side to your lower belly, spreading his fingers like he could feel himself through your skin. His rough palm meeting quivering swell of your abdomen. Your taut and soft skin bulging every time he thrusted just a little bit up.

“Look at that,” he murmured, voice gone soft and tender. “You’re already stretched tight as a fuckin’ drum. Can feel me in you right there.”

He pushed just a little more in, just enough to feel your breath hitch, to hear the soft, gasping sob you tried to swallow down.

“That’s it,” he growled, dragging his mouth along the curve of your jaw. “Let me hear it. No more acting tough.”

“I -- I can take it,” you breathed, voice shaking, lips parting around a moan as your walls spasmed again. The weighty tip of his cock hitting something so deep inside of you that you swore you go cross-eyed for a second.

His grip on your hips tightened, bruising now. Possessive. Like he had to keep you still or you’d burn yourself out trying.

“If you want it all,” he said, voice low and dark and almost gentle, “you’ll take it slowly. Understood?”

You could only give the barest nod. A hiccuping sob falling out of you as you tried to respond.

“Say it,” he commanded, cock twitching inside you at the effort it took you to obey. One hand grabbing your jaw and shaking it so you could focus.

“…I’ll take it slowly,” you whispered, shame and hunger thick in your throat.

He rewarded you with another inch.

Your whole body arched, your thighs shaking, and Simon shushed you, kissed your temple like it was love -- not torment -- making you cry like this.

“That’s it, baby. That’s my girl.”

His free hand trailed from your jaw to the back of your neck, not harsh, but firm -- controlling -- fingers threaded into the damp hair at your nape almost like a scruff.

“You’ll get every fucking inch,” he growled, guiding your hips to roll just a little again -- smirking at you as you gasped. The muscling motion of his cock bullying its way farther, just enough for him to push deeper inside your sopping pussy to make you feel the stretch anew. Your breath caught again, your back arching like a bow.

"But you’ll earn it. Slowly. Or I’ll pull out, and we start from the beginning."

“N-no,” you gasped, the threat of losing the fullness already inside you worse than the ache it caused. Already pleading and asinine on his dick.

“That’s what I thought,” Simon breathed, and pressed a kiss just below your ear -- soft, infuriatingly sweet. A cruel contrast to the way he pushed another inch into you, letting you stretch and struggle around him, walls fluttering helplessly.

You felt everything. The burn. The pressure. The impossible fullness.

“Can’t -- can’t breathe -- ” you choked out, but your hips were still trying to sink lower, driven by instinct, by need, by the desperate ache to be his -- all the way.

“Shhh,” he soothed, hand stroking your spine now. “You’re doin’ so well, lovie. That pretty cunt’s trying so hard to take me. So fuckin’ brave.”

You whimpered again at the praise, high and needy. Your body was strung tight like wire, vibrating under the strain of want -- of pressure, of fullness, of the unfamiliar ache that bordered on unbearable. You didn’t know if it was pain or pleasure anymore. Just knew it was him. That he was inside you -- that Simon was inside you -- and there was still more to go.

Still more of Simon to take.

It felt like he’d carved out space where there had been none before, making room in your body with every slow inch -- leaving nothing untouched, nothing unloved. Every breath was a promise, every sob a silent hymn.

You clung to him like that, face buried in the curve of his throat, mouthing something like please, like more, like yes with every broken inhale. He smelled like smoke and salt and skin. Familiar. Possessive. Sanctified.

Your perfect perfect Simon

Built like something forged from war and worship. A body meant to ruin, a soul meant to cradle. The only man who could split you open so thoroughly, so devastatingly, and still hold you like you were something fragile and precious.

“I can feel your heartbeat,” he murmured, voice low and delicate, thumb brushing your lower belly again -- right where the pressure was deepest. “Right fucking here. Like your body’s tryna hold me inside forever.”

You shivered in his lap, thighs trembling. Every nerve felt lit with fire. Your pussy fluttered around him again, a helpless little squeeze that made him curse under his breath.

“Christ,” he hissed, rutting just a little deeper without meaning to, and your mouth opened on a silent scream. “You feel that? That’s me. All of me.”

“Simon--” you gasped, voice high and ruined. “I--don’t stop--please, don’t stop--”

“Not gonna stop,” he growled, mouth dragging along your temple. “Not ‘til you take all of me. Every last inch. You asked for this, didn’t you?”

You nodded desperately, tears catching on your lashes--not from sorrow, but from the sheer intensity of it. The sacred ache of being filled too full, too deep, too much. The stretch that felt like breaking. The ache and spasm that felt like worship.

“I’ll split you open,” he warned, voice gone dark and low and hushed again. “But you’ll love every second of it.”

And you would.

Because there was no fear in the way he held you. No violence in the way he stayed still, let you breathe, let you tremble. Just adulation and praise. Just ruin made gentle. A slow claiming carved in sweat and softness.

You tilted your hips, desperate for more friction now, some kind of movement to ground the heat spiraling through you, but he only pulled you tighter. Anchored you.

"Not yet," he murmured. “Not ‘til you stop shaking.”

“I’ll never stop,” you whispered, voice splintered but honest, “not if you’re still inside me.”

He exhaled a quiet, broken laugh. Pressed his mouth to your temple like a man sealing something sacred.

“Then I guess I’ll never leave.”

And when he finally moved -- when his hips rolled up and your bodies met with that wet, aching slide -- it wasn’t just fucking.

So fucking good. So good but so so full and paralyzing.

But....

.... you let it happen. Let yourself be undone beneath him. Shattered. Remade.

Because if Simon Riley was going to break you, it was only so he could stay inside every part of you that split.

Forever.

drabbles

It started slow -- like everything did with him.

Your thighs trembled where they straddled his hips, knees digging into the mattress on either side of his strong frame. He lay back against the headboard, hands steady on your waist, thumbs tracing soft, encouraging circles into your skin.

You were already whimpering, overwhelmed by the fullness -- by the burn that came with trying to take him in inch by inch, your pussy fluttering helplessly around him. Around this. Around your John.

“Easy,” Price rasped, voice warm and rough, like gravel smoothed down by patience. “You’ve got me, love. Just like that.”

You rocked your hips again, a shallow little roll, and your head fell back as a gasp slipped from your lips. Everything felt molten. Tight.

Too much and still not enough.

His cock dragged against places you didn’t even know could feel that good. Veins and girthy weight filling you so much.

“Good girl,” he breathed, groaning low as he made you sink a bit deeper unto him. “So fuckin’ sweet when you take your time.”

You whimpered again, your hands planted shakily against his chest. He was so so big -- every part of him.

Hard muscle, warm skin, the comforting weight of his presence under you. Your nails dug in slightly, and he chuckled -- low, fond, filthy.

“You ridin’ me for the first time and still bein’ so polite about it,” he teased, thumbing at your hip as you tried again, lifting up and easing back down with a wet, desperate sound. “Fuck, look at you. So polite when you’re bouncin’ on my cock.”

“John,” you gasped, body trembling, tears clinging to your lashes already. “Feels so good -- don’t wanna mess up -- ”

“You won’t,” he murmured, cooing and shushing you as he sat up slightly to kiss the corner of your mouth, his beard scraping your skin just right. “You won’t, sweetheart. Just move how you need. I’ll help you.”

His hands gripped your hips and rolled them in a slow, grinding circle. Your breath hitched. Your body clenched. The pleasure bloomed so sharply it almost stung.

“That’s it,” he whispered against your jaw. “There it is. There you go. Look at you.”

You moved again -- shy, unsteady, slowly trying to follow the pace he had set -- but this time you tried to chase it. That flutter, that pulse, that perfect ache where he filled you the deepest.

“Fuckin’ beautiful,” he groaned, watching you with something close to awe. “You’re squeezin’ me so good, love. Sweet cunt’s all mine.”

Your moans got louder. Your rhythm a little messier. And Price?

He looked like a man absolutely wrecked by it. His eyes dark, lips parted, hands gripping tighter every time you slid down onto the base of his cock. The fat of your ass meeting the coarse muscle of his thighs every time you rode him just a little faster and more desperate. Panting with all the fervor you can muster at the tender and delicious ache that only John’s cock did whenever he bullied in between the gooey cushions of your pussy.

“That’s it, ride me, baby,” he groaned, jaw clenched, voice beginning to fray at the edges as he watched you. Eyes half lidded and a slight quirk of his lip at the sight of you all cock-dumb and desperate. “Just like that. Feels good, doesn’t it?”

You nodded quickly, desperately, gasping for air like each thrust was a wave crashing over you. Your legs were beginning to tremble harder, the rhythm faltering with every slick, wet sound of you fucking yourself down onto him. The filthy squelch of your pussy almost making you go cross-eyed.

But he was patient.

So fucking patient and still letting you lead, even as you fell apart inch by every impaling inch.

“I-I can’t -- my legs -- ” you whimpered, thighs quivering under the strain, movements starting to slow into stuttering little jerks.

“Yes, you can,” he murmured, but there was no cruelty in it. Just heat and praise. A challenge softened by fondness. “You’re doin’ so well, sweet girl. So fuckin’ good for me.”, he added. The rough tips of his fingers tracing the outline of your back to the slight swell of your hips all delicate and tender. Careful yet toying.

You choked on a sob as you tried again. One more bounce, one more slide down that thick, veiny cock that filled you to the brim, and nearly collapsed forward.

That’s when his hands moved.

Big, warm palms slid from your hips now to your ass, and then lifted, tilting your weight back until his cock hit deeper. Too deep that you could do nothing but cry out. Stars blooming behind your eyes as you felt him spear something so tender inside you that you could do nothing but squeak in both surprise and pressure.

“Oh -- John --!”

“There we go,” he growled, sitting up now, chest pressed against yours, your body folded against his. “You wanna take it all? Let me help, love. Let me take care of you.”

And then he thrusted again. Just once though. His hips lifting up to meet yours with filthy, wet force. Allowing your body to do nothing but shudder like it couldn’t decide whether to scream or sing. The sound you made was cracked and helpless, your hands clawing at his shoulders as you felt the cushiony walls of your cunt flutter near the base of his cock. Nearing balls-deep, you hoped.

“That’s it,” he muttered into your ear. “You feel that, don’t you? Deep as it gets. Deep as it fucking gets.”

You were crying now -- not from pain, not even from being overwhelmed. But from the way he handled you, the way he split you open with care and filth both, like your pleasure was something holy to him. Something he’d sacrifice everything to protect.

“Gonna cum, baby?” he asked, one hand cupping the back of your head now, cradling you close like something precious even while he fucked up into you slow and deep.

You sobbed out a nod, thighs twitching. Eyes rimming red at the charged and sublime sensation of bouncing mindlessly on John. Wanton and cock-dumb as you sunk deeper and tilted upwards again and again.

Nothing left of you but the soft, obedient curve of your body, tilting upward repeatedly to take more of him. To chase that edge he gave you so freely -- so thoroughly.

“Let go for me, love. Come on. Be my good girl -- come on my cock. Just like that. Just like this.”

He rolled his hips as he mouths a soft hiss into the curve of your neck after feeling you clench on his cock — making him grind deeper in that spot so perfectly, so deliberately -- that you couldn't help but shatter. Body locking up, mouth open in a silent scream. Throat going hoarse and breath shaky as you came around him with wave after wave of trembling release.

And you watched as your John -- your sweet sweet John -- held you through all of it.

Arms steady, heart thundering against yours, voice low and soft in your ear. Anchoring you to the earth while you fell apart.

All saturnine and ambrosial.

But still here. Always here.

In John's arms and nowhere else.

drabbles

You had come to Baghdad to chase ghosts.

Not the kind with names or uniforms. Just the kind wars leave behind.

A child's sandal half-buried in rubble. The flicker of smoke rising from a prayer rug. The sound of a man sobbing in a language you hadn't learned, but understood anyway.

You told yourself you were here for the story.

Yeah, how stupid you were.

That your camera was a scalpel, your voice a salve.

But really -- if you were ever truly honest with yourself -- you were running.

Running far far away like the coward that you were.

From the name that hung like a noose at the end of every news article. From the ancestral house you left locked and silent. Chandeliers still dripping with niceties and manners long ingrained into your system since you were presented in high-society.

You’d learned young how to curtsy. How to smile without showing teeth. How to answer questions without saying anything at all. How to carry the family name like a sacrament. Or a weapon. Silver cutlery. Latin mottos. Marble staircases polished smooth by generations of obedient sons and disappointing daughters.

You were the latter, of course.

Not married. Not settled. Not willing to smile pretty and nod at another arrogant brute who called your intelligence “a delightful surprise.”

They’d planned your future down to the very wine at your wedding. Almost made it seem like it was life or death whether or not Romanee or Blanc was served, as if the correct vintage might save a dying marriage before it even began.

Miss so and so, they used to address you.

Heiress to a banking empire older than some countries themselves. Your last name embedded in ancient and almost cathartic stock prices and liquidated assets. Signature moving fountains and all that.

You were expected to inherit. Marry and then to bear more silk-tied legacies into the world as if this Earth needed more rotting oligarchs sewn into its reserves. Meant to be the closing another bracket on a dynasty -- delicate, palatable, capable of balancing the books and birthing heirs in the same breath. The girl who walked in heels like she walked on water. The kind of woman who could bleed quietly through silk and still say thank you and open her mouth to sing praises over some blond-haired Harvard graduate with old money breath and teeth too straight to trust.

But you’d always been too loud.

Too curious.

Too unwilling to stay gilded in your cage.

And so, the week before the engagement announcement hit the papers with some marooning son of some tech-mogul, you booked a one-way ticket out of the country and told no one but your driver and God. And well... you weren’t particularly fond of either.

So before that soft-focus photo of you smiling in a dress you didn't choose, standing beside a cluck you didn't even know the proper name to, hit the press and wry online forums tracking the supposed secret and cult-like life of the top one percent --

-- you disappeared.

Leaving behind only a note scrawled on your father's monogrammed stationery, tucked beneath your family crest like a curse.

There was no scribbled explanation.

No jotted words of flowery sadness or tears and regret.

No last minute-apologies either.

Just one sentence:

"I want to know what the world looks like when no one's trying to own it"

Your mother called it a phase

Your father called it betrayal

Your sister didn't call at all.

But you never looked back.

Trading some of the estates still penned in your name for allowance to trek through border-crossings. Your shares and assets meant to be splurged on aesopian charity galas for real purchases for refugee camps and bulletproof press vests.

Gone were the pearls. Gone were the cashmere coats and curated skin-care routines and the signature scent your mother said made you smell “expensive but not loud.”

You bought field boots with the money meant for your honeymoon. A weather-worn camera with a lens cracked on the corner, one you refused to replace. You said it gave the footage character.

You wore linen and dust and sweat. And for the first time in your life, you felt real.

it was good—being no one. It was clean, in the way raw wounds are clean.

The work was brutal, and the stories you gathered scraped skin from your soul, but it was honest. It didn’t wear cologne or hide behind shareholder meetings.

It bled. It burned. It buried you alive some nights.

But it never lied to your face and kissed your hand at dinner.

And you were honest.

It wasn't heroism that lead you here. The word too sour and clandestine to really describe what you were aiming to do in your place. You didn't believe in that anymore.

And besides, with as much of those history books you were made to learn from your meager subjects in private tutoring and debate luncheons -- you were pretty sure you knew better.

You’d read too many accounts of wars dressed up as liberty, of saviors crowned in blood, of peace built on the bones of the quiet and the brown and the hungry.

No.

Heroism was a lie for men with medals and memoir deals. For politicians who smiled with white teeth and shook hands with the same ghosts they helped bury.

You weren’t here to save anyone.

You didn’t think the world needed another white journalist waxing poetic about grief she didn’t own, or stringing broken voices together into some sellable festival cut.

No.

You weren't here to save anyone.

You don't believe in heroes. You didn’t believe in saviors. You didn’t believe in parachuting into pain with a camera and calling it justice.

But you did believe in witnessing.

In showing. In the possibility that someone, somewhere, might see what you saw and feel it settle in their throat like stone.

You thought maybe if you could hold the world still for a second -- just one second -- then maybe all the parts of yourself you left behind wouldn’t seem so heavy.

Maybe if you pointed your lens at enough pain, you’d find the language for your own.

So yes. You had come to Baghdad to chase ghosts.

And you were here because the world was crumbling and you needed to see if it made a sound for yourself.

It was late in the afternoon when you landed.

Light pouring the wreckage like honey through broken glass -- thick and golden and indifferent. The concrete of the tarmac shimmering. Air thick and slow, buzzing with heat and the hum of a place too exhausted to weep anymore.

You clucked your tongue once then twice before shouldering your duffel and stepping onto the scorching pavement. The soles of your boots already beginning to stick to the ground like the dirt of the country itself was trying to swallow you whole.

Baghdad didn't welcome you, you could chaulk that up fairly easily by just the simple glance of the other passengers from the helion you were transported in. Saturnine eyes of strangers, stragglers, and the occasional mercenaries already glaring at you like you were something comical and resolute.

Pretty pretty rich girl playing pretend --

-- have seen your kind before. All too clean shoes, branded duffel, and expensive camera. Your cherubbed skin still too silky and foreign to learn what it means to look at death without flinching.

No one offered even so much as a perfunctory nod towards you when you brought back the communal water jug after taking your own share. No one even offered help when you jostled from turbulent winds after flying through the eastern hemisphere -- your body being bruised after shucking on your seatbelt just a second late from you trek from the restroom -- slipping through the seams of vehicle's carmite steel with a quiet wince of unease and pain.

You were the wrong shape.

Too foreign to be trusted, too familiar to be innocent.

A civilian with a camera was just another liability. Another pair of soft lungs to collapse in a raid. Another headline waiting to happen.

And in this place? Headlines were just a softer kind of death, they supposed for you.

Aymar met you at the edge of the outpost. Dust-stained, smoking, and already unimpressed. Your fixer standing beside a rusted Toyota, arms already crossed. No smile at all.

He looked you over as you approached, a bit sweaty and out of breath, but still standing on your own two feet, nonetheless. Yet, Aymar still examined you like a line item someone forgot to delete.

"They told me you spoke Arabic", he said flatly.

"I do"

He raised a brow, flicking ash from his cigarette. “Not well.”

“Not yet.”

“Hm.” He exhaled. “We arrive at dawn. Try not to make anyone hate you tonight.”

You offered him a tight, humorless smile. “Bit late for that.”

He eyed your gear, your posture, the sweat already pooling at the base of your neck. Then, with a sigh that sounded like he was doing penance, he jerked his head toward the waiting vehicle.

“I told Laswell this was a bad idea.”

“I’m used to being a bad idea,” you said, throwing your bag into the back.

He blinked. Just once. Then settled into the driver seat. Your sinewy fingers meeting the harsh and biting metal of the passenger's side-door. The hunking metal being opened now for the first time by yourself -- no chauffeur or valet waiting, no hand offered with a bow and a gentle "miss".

Just you, your sweat-slick grip, and a door that screamed in rusted protest as it cracked open.

The inside smelled like dirt, moss, and old cigarettes. Sand embedded in every seam. You slid in, wincing as the seatbelt creaked, and slammed the door shut behind you.

Aymar didn’t bother to ask if you were comfortable once the flat of your cargos met worn seats. As soon as he saw you settle in, he started the engine with just another groan that sounded like it hated the both of you before shoving the stick-shift in gear and readied on.

The tires kicked up dust immediately as soon as he backed up, making you cough into the crook of your elbow as he started to pick up speed and more grain, dirt, and sand shuffled in. Sky outside bruising at the edges, lavender and cordite color bleeding from the horizon almost like the world prepared for another sleepless night.

“You’ll regret this,” he muttered, eyes never leaving the road as he made a sharp turn that almost made you lean all to far-right. Your hip meeting graying metal almost too rickety to hold your weight.

“Probably,” you said.

He gave you a sidelong glance at your reply, eyes unreadable behind his scratched aviators.

“You think this is a movie. That you’ll find some poetic metaphor buried in the rubble, frame it just right, and call it truth.”

“I think the world deserves to be seen,” you said. “Even when it’s bleeding.”

“And you think you’re the one to show it?”

You didn’t answer. Not because you didn’t have one, but because you were too tired to argue a point you hadn’t finished believing in yourself.

The road into the camp was nothing more than gravel and memory. Heat glossed through the horizon like a mirage, and the hum of the engine was broken only by distant gunfire, like thunder that had forgotten how to sound beautiful.

Aymar drove like a man who had long stopped expecting to live long. Fast, clipped turns. One hand always too close to the emergency brake. His mouth stayed tight, but you noticed the way his eyes never stopped scanning. Always measuring shadows.

You pulled your camera from your bag and began filming. Bones of buildings clawing at the sky. Children with eyes too old. Prayer flags fluttering like ghosts in the dust. The closer you got to the field camp, the more the landscape blurred.

Concrete into wire. Stone into story. Heat into memory

“Don’t shoot the checkpoints,” he said.

“Why?”, you could only respond back, one eyes still squinted to get a better look into the viewfinder. Your hand adjusting to focus on a rusted outline of an armored personnel carrier half-draped in tarp, half-eaten by the sun.

“Because they’ll shoot back.”

Eventually, the outskirts of the camp revealed themselves -- not through fanfare or perimeter lights, but through sudden stillness. That taut silence that were only found in places too tired to panic.

The car rolled on, the sun bleeding lower behind fractured silhouettes of mosques and minarets. You passed what used to be a school -- now just scaffolding and sorrow, children’s murals still painted on what was left of a courtyard wall.

Aymar didn’t say anything. You didn’t ask him to.

Because what was there to say?

That you’d read about this place in essays?

That a professor once called war zones “compressed time capsules” in your Ivy League seminar?

You knew how disgusting that sounded now. You could feel it in your throat.

So without another word, you decidedly clipped all your equipment back inside. Shuffled and hidden. Not meant yet to be used.

Yeah. They'll shoot back

“We’re twenty minutes out,” Aymar said after a while. Voice ringing rough with cigarette smoke and something older. Tone almost belligerent and scolding as soon as he saw you try to nod off in between turns and straights. Finding it almost humorous that you could nap in between more sights of sorrowful and woeful sceneries of the dead and dying. “If they ask, you’re embedded for a civilian documentary. Don’t say the words independent press unless you want a broken nose.”

“Understood,” you said after starting to sit upright. Swallowing a bit as the engine started to hum lowly as you neared the camps. Then added, “You don’t think I belong here.”

“I don’t think you want to belong here.”

You turned to him then. He didn’t look back though. Just shifted gears and gunned the engine harder for the men at the checkpoint.

“Most people who belong here aren’t alive.”

The gate soon opened after another skeptical pause.

And not for you.

But for Aymar.

One of the guards recognized him—offered a quick nod, hand resting over his sidearm, eyes never leaving your face. They always looked at you like that. Like you were a question they weren’t in the mood to answer.

You tried to meet the gaze without flinching, without faltering. You’d practiced that once in a mirror—how to look unbothered. How to seem steel-boned and sharp-eyed. How to swallow your fear before it showed on your face.

But war didn’t care for performances.

The truck rolled through.

You didn’t breathe until you were past the barbed wire.

And that was the first real lesson.

No matter what passport you carried or what awards lined your CV, in Baghdad, your worth wasn’t measured by words. It was measured by who was willing to keep you alive.

----

The camp was.... quieter than you imagined.

Not silent -- never silent. Not here. But it felt subdued. Thick with the kind of energy you remembered from hospital waiting rooms when you were younger. Tired people moving between tents, some with purpose, others just to move. Radios crackling, boots thudding against sand, the distant hum of helicopters like dragonflies stitched into the wind.

You stepped out of the truck and immediately regretted it.

The air hit you like a mouthful of ash. It was dry, scorching, and reeked of oil and exhaustion. The dawning sun sat low and red behind the tents like a bad omen too lazy to hide.

You adjusted the strap of your duffel, tightening it across your shoulder, and took your first step into the compound.

It wasn’t ceremony anymore. No one came to greet you. No one hummed out introductions, kissed your cheek or shook your hand all with the accompanying pleasantries of your name. Just a camp too tired to care and a few dozen soldiers watching you from the corners of their eyes -- gauging, cataloging, dismissing.

And then you saw him.

A shadow against the wall of the command tent.

Broad-shouldered, still, wearing black like it was part of him. The skull mask white against the dusk, not bright, not shining, just... settled. Like bone picked clean.

He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Didn’t need to.

He was watching you. And you felt it.

Not like curiosity. Not like judgment.

No, what you felt was calculation.

Like he was measuring your presence for all its risks. Like he was already picturing what you’d look like dead.

Aymar said nothing as he passed him, just jerked his chin once in silent acknowledgment. The masked loon didn’t respond. Not even a twitch.

You reached for your camera.

And then --

“Don’t,” Aymar said sharply.

You froze, hand hovering above the strap.

“He hates being seen.”

“He’s wearing a skull on his face,” you said, not thinking.

“Exactly,” Aymar replied. “Means you’re already looking at his gravestone.”

A beat passed. The air felt hefty and broad between you, strung with dust and something heavier -- something unspoken. You let your hand fall away from the strap. The camera stayed where it was: bound to you, but unused. For now.

The hulking figure didn’t move. Not toward you. Not away.

He simply remained there -- anchored like a monument, like a grave marker, like something old and dangerous that the living had decided to leave alone. Eyes you felt following you as you trailed behind Aymar's retreating form.

You looked away first.

Reaching Laswell’s tent -- staked at the edge of the camp -- felt like something antithetical amidst the sheen of ruin and angst. The wry fabric was modest, tightly kept, flanked by crates and a satellite dish half-swallowed by sand.

Your eyes scanned a paper tag flapping furiously beside the entrance: OFFICE - AUTHORIZED ENTRY ONLY. You brushed the textile aside and stepped in without knocking.

She didn’t look surprised.

“Miss -- ” she paused, a hint of a smirk on her face, “—I suppose I shouldn’t call you by the name your father still pays lobbyists to protect.”

You offered a tired, humorless smile. Stifling an already ingrained response. “Just call me the embedded civilian, like everyone else.”

Laswell raised a brow. She sat behind a fold-out desk, papers and old coffee cluttering every surface. The tent smelled like dry fabric and stress.

“I hope you understand what you’ve signed up for,” she said, gesturing for you to sit.

“I read the waiver.”

She hummed. “The waiver doesn’t cover improvised explosives or psychological collapse"

You sat.

Laswell leaned back in her chair like the weight of this place was something she carried in her spine. Her fingers tapped against a dented tin mug that smelled vaguely of burnt beans and something sour.

She studied you for a long moment -- long enough for the silence to stiffen between you.

Finally, she said, “And it sure as hell doesn’t cover Ghost.”

You tried not to blink. “The man in the mask.”

Laswell gave a small, dry smile. “Not a man you want to film without permission. Or follow. Or argue with.”

“I’m not here to stir trouble.”

“No,” she said, tone clipped. “You’re here to dig in the graveyard and call it journalism.”

The words stung. Not because they were cruel -- but because they weren’t wrong. Pretty pretty rich girl still playing pretend

You swallowed. “I’m not trying to save anyone.”

Laswell raised an eyebrow, almost amused, shaking her head a bit in amusement. “Good. Because you won’t.”

She pushed a small folder toward you before you could utter out a retort. The cover all dog-eared and water-stained. Pages still clipped together with a rusting pin.

“Tomorrow’s recon. Ghost is taking a unit out to survey what's left of a shelled market district. High risk, low visibility, and too many blind spots for my comfort. You’ll ride with them.”

You glanced at the file. “You’re embedding me with him?”

She nodded. “I figured if anything’s going to scare the white savior complex out of you, it’ll be Ghost.”

You bit back your instinctive reply -- some flinty little defense you might’ve had six months ago. Now? Now you just looked down at the folder.

“Any other advice?”

Laswell exhaled through her nose. “Don’t slow him down. Don’t try to understand him. And whatever you do -- don’t try to humanize him in your little exposé. He won’t appreciate it.”

You didn’t say anything. Just tucked the folder under your arm and stood.

As you reached the tent’s flap, Laswell added, “And journalist?”

You turned.

“If he tells you to run, don’t ask why. Just run.”

"Naturally"

You didn’t sleep that night.

How could you? The atmosphere of the camp breathed like a wounded animal -- shallow, sharp, and twitching even in stillness. Every sound seemed laced with tension: the low murmur of voices outside your tent, the clink of gear, the far-off crack of something sharp enough to make your skin flinch before your mind registered it.

So you laid still, wringing your hands together atop the fabric of one of the spare nightdresses you still manage to keep -- albeit, the fabric more coarse now than silk -- staring at the ceiling, counting the seconds between each breath like a metronome keeping time with a world on fire.

At 0400, someone knocked once against your cot frame. Not your tent. Your frame.

You blinked better into consciousness. Eyes darting amidst your sleep-induced vision to find him standing there. Still. Like smoke with a spine.

Ghost.

A silhouette in the dark, half-swallowed by the tent’s entrance flap. One gloved hand at his side, the other not quite raised. You couldn’t see his face -- no one could -- but you imagined it was unreadable nonetheless.

“Time to move,” he said. Quiet. Sharp.

You nodded. Sitting up instantly, the cotton of your nightdress tangling around your thighs as your feet hit the dirt floor. You didn’t speak. You didn’t ask what time it was. You just reached for your gear like you’d rehearsed. Because that’s what this was -- your first test. And you weren’t going to fucking fail.

Your boots thudded softly as you slipped them on, fingers trembling slightly when you zipped your vest, the weight of the camera across your chest settling like a crucifix. You shrugged your duffel over your shoulder, squaring it behind you like a soldier would a rifle.

Ghost didn’t offer to help. He didn’t wait either. He turned without another word, and you quickly followed suit.

Outside, the camp was bathed in a bruised blue pre-dawn. Men in gear moved like murmurs through the corridors of tents. No one greeted you. No one asked your name.

You weren’t one of them.

Never is, might never will be.

The sun hadn’t even cleared the skyline when you were made to be seated on a rusting ammo crate inside the makeshift briefing tent.

The fabric above you flapped like breath, rattling with wind and tension. The air smelled of sweat, sand, and sour instant coffee. A projection map jittered on the canvas wall, flickering with each gust of wind that passed. Coordinates, red zones, blurred footage of what looked like smoke rising from a skeletal marketplace.

You weren’t the only one watching.

The rest of them stood scattered in the dim light like fragments of a storm. Men who moved like wolves -- quiet, fast, too lean with sleep but too used to this to show it. Not quite a unit. Not quite strangers.

Except for him.

Ghost sat at the far end, arms folded, his mask catching the stuttering light of the projector. He hadn’t said a word since collecting you at zero four. Hadn’t even looked in your direction. He didn’t need to. His silence did enough of the talking.

You were an inconvenience. At best, a weight. At worst, a liability.

Across from you, another man leaned lazily against a weapons crate, arms crossed. Electric blue eyes and a funny haircut. Dawning on a kind of smirk that spoke fluent sarcasm as he eyed you playfully.

“So this the docu princess, then?” he asked, glancing at Ghost, then at you.

Ghost didn’t respond.

The man whistled low. “Damn. Must be important if Laswell’s lettin' the skull babysit her.”

“I’m not a princess,” you said, evenly.

He tilted his head. “Nah? Then what are ye?”

“Witness.”

That earned you a look. Not a friendly one. Not hostile either. Just... assessing.

“Soap,” he said, nodding toward himself. “You can call me Soap.”

“I’ll stick to that if you stop calling me princess.”

He grinned. “Fair.”

Someone coughed behind you -- a smaller man, eyes sharp, holding a sheaf of weathered maps. He handed one to Ghost without meeting his eyes, then offered you a tighter copy, red ink bleeding through the edges. “Gaz,” he muttered, by way of introduction. “We’re rolling out in twenty. Don’t lag behind.”

“Copy,” you said.

“Don’t say ‘copy’ unless you’re on comms,” Ghost cut in, voice a rasp. Cold. Like gravel soaked in oil.

It was the first thing he’d said to you since this morning.

You glanced at him, met his gaze -- or what you assumed was his gaze. “What should I say then?”

“Nothing,” he replied. “Unless spoken to. Unless dying.”

Soap let out a soft whistle under his breath, but didn’t intervene. Gaz gave you a look that might’ve been sympathy, if he’d had time to mean it. You could only clutch your camera a little tighter in response.

The rest of the briefing was short and cruel.

In and out. Watch the rooftops. Don’t step where they don’t step. Don’t stray. Don’t slow down.

“And her?” Soap asked, jerking his chin at you.

Ghost turned to him, then back to the projection. “She stays out of the way. She doesn’t speak. And if she gets in the way -- she’s not my responsibility.”

Your stomach twisted, but you didn’t let it show. Because you weren’t here to be liked.

You were here to see.

And he was right -- you were not his responsibility.

You were your own.

Soap looked at you after that. Not cruel, not mocking -- just...checking. Like he couldn’t decide if he respected your restraint or pitied it. “Ye keep up then, aye?” he muttered, nudging his shoulder off the crate and stretching his arms overhead until his joints popped.

You said nothing. Just tucked the map under your arm and shifted your weight. The projector flickered once then another to shut off, humming like it was chewing through rickety mechanics and gears from operations past. The room began to stir with motion -- belts fastened, safeties clicked, gloves pulled tight.

Gaz was the one to break the tension. “We’ll be sweeping Sector D. Civilian chatter says there was movement near the old communications tower. Could be nothing, but Command wants eyes on it.”

Ghost grunted. “Could be a trap.”

“Then we spring it,” Soap said with a grin sharp enough to bleed. He turned to you again. “Got a vest yet?”

You nodded after a swallow.

He raised a brow. “A real one?”

You hesitated. Stiffening and not replying.

Ghost answered for you. “Give her one of the spares. And double the plates. She’s light -- won’t slow her too much.”

Soap moved to a battered locker near the tent flap, muttering something about rich girls and flak jackets. He came back with gear that looked like it had seen the inside of too many explosions and handed it off without ceremony.

“Put it on. We roll in ten.”

No one offered help. No one had to. You adjusted the straps with stiff fingers, metal biting through the fabric of your undershirt making you stifle a soft wince. The plates were heavy and rough. Good. Weight meant protection. Weight meant you might make it through the day.

Ghost watched, arms folded, his mask unmoving. When you looked up, he said nothing. But he didn’t look away, either.

That was its own kind of permission. Eventually, he turned, signaling the others. “Move out.”

Soap was whistling under his breath again. Gaz checked his rifle with a flick of his thumb. You followed last, camera slung tight against your chest, boots crunching over dry sand and silence.

And for the first time that morning, you let yourself breathe -- not deeply, not easily -- but enough to keep going.

This was the job. And no one was going to do it for you.

No security detail. No soft landings. No legacy waiting to catch you if you fell. Just the heat. The dirt. The risk. The ghosts.

And the world -- seen not from a throne or a penthouse, but here, where no one owned anything. Where survival wasn’t inherited, it was earned. Every second. Every step.

You'd come to Bagdhad to chase ghosts.

And in between the silence of the dead and the noise of the living, between the ash in your lungs and the weight on your shoulders, you will see it.

You will witness death. Unadorned and real. The unfiltered world --

-- "...when no one's trying to own it."

drabbles masterlist

hi hi hi. this is my second attempt to write longer fics. i wrote this as a way for all of us to explore the complicated and often uncomfortable realities that exist in the margins of war -- class dynamics, hidden imperialism, and the white-savior complex.

Fiction, however, is never the best substitute for the real lived experience. Fiction is meant to convey, show, and reveal. If you are interested in the real world issues that is the reality of this story, I encourage you to seek out firsthand sources and continue learning.

Below are some resources begin with:

Palestine-Israel: A reality check

The Nexus of Elite and War Mobilization

Our fatal flaw: "Indifference to the Woes of Other Human Beings

When people told you how the world would end, you didn't expect it to end on a Sunday.

You always imagined that the earth would rot and something fiery and evil rucks from the depths. Sirens. Swallowing. Something saturnine and jaw-like tethering to eat the unkind and unholy in one breath. Biblical, of course. Perhaps too obviously so. But even that couldn't be helped.

You figured if Revelation were to come, it would at least have the decency to feel divine.

Instead, it felt like forgetting.

You thought it might be loud.

A reckoning.

Heavenly father roaring through smoke and trumpet-blare. Fire on His tongue and angel blades flanking either side.

St. Michael and Peter, swords drawn, feet firm on clouds that churn like ocean storm. Thunder in their mouths, and judgement in their gaze. A second genesis scorched into sky and ash, the abbess of your cloister preached repeatedly.

That’s how it was meant to be.

If God was real, He would come like that. Loud. Blazing. Beautiful in the terrible way only something eternal could be.

Instead --

He left the door open on His way out.

And the silence that followed wasn’t holy.

It was vast. Muffled. Like the earth had been wrapped in wool and dropped underwater. The birds stopped singing. The trees forgot to bloom. Time sagged. Like it didn’t want to go on but hadn’t yet figured out how to stop.

The cities blinked out first. News anchors stopped blinking at their desks. The presidents and diplomats stopped speaking. The grocery stores went empty with less panic than politeness.

And people… people just got tired. They stayed indoors, waiting for the rescue. Then they stopped waiting.

Bread ran out. Power flickered off. Radios went silent. The last sermon you heard was from a dying priest who asked for morphine and was buried in the back garden two days later.

Some of your fellow sisters followed the silence inevitably.

When the produce started to run out, meat had gone stale from the cellar, wine turned to vinegar in the chalice, and the eucharistic bread slowly crumbled into all your fingers like ash. Your sisters started to see it as sacrifice. A sign. A famine of holy design. A thinning of the body to make space for spirit.

Mother Superior Abby of course advised all of you to fast.

Preaching from the molding pyre and pulpit, her own aging lips cracking from thirst and piety, "We are being called", she rasped, graying and aching hands clutching the wood with trembling fingers, "to lessen ourselves, to clear the body of its wants so that the soul may hear what is coming."

She said this with her spine like bent iron and her eyes already half in another world. She would not eat. She would not rest. She slept curled at the foot of the altar as if it might rise like a ship and carry her to the other side.

You all followed, of course. What else was there to do?

You drank boiled rain and chewed bitter roots. Sang matins even when your voices rasped like rust. Shared what little you had and pretended not to notice when the youngest among you began forgetting words, forgetting names. Fasting blurred into fainting. Piety became penance. Some of you crossed yourselves even as you vomited up the little you’d dared to eat.

And when the hunger began to feel less like an ache and more like clarity -- when it shimmered just behind your eyes like stained glass catching too much sun -- you truly started to believe she might be right.

That if you just held on a little longer, God would return.

But He didn’t.

He didn’t return when Sister Mirabel collapsed during vespers. When her knees hit stone so hard you thought it was a pew falling. You ran to her, but her lips were already blue, her breath already a whisper swallowed by the chapel's belly.

He didn’t return when Sister Therese tried to eat candle wax. Or when Sister Agnes started hoarding pebbles and muttering they were “the new loaves.”

He didn’t return when Mother Abby finally stopped preaching mid-homily, slumping forward against the pulpit like she was only sleeping, her hands still gripping the spine of the Bible as if it might speak for her when she no longer could.

You buried her behind the chapel wall, where the ivy was starting to crawl. No hymn. No procession. Just your shaking hands and the earth that refused to take her gently.

Sister Constance was the first to say it out loud.

“Maybe He’s not coming.”

The remaining shushed her. Quietly. Not with reprimand but with a kind of desperate gentleness. Like the words were too fragile to crush, too terrifying to let echo. Almost like the weight of it was too despairing to hear. The truth too morbid and painful to stomach than that one time you were tried to chew on the last of Sister Stella's cat's remains.

She was gone by the end of the week though. Not dead -- just gone. Her bed cold, her wooden rosary left coiled on the windowsill like a serpent that had shed its skin. Almost traitorous and mocking.

After that, they began to leave in twos. Sometimes with prayer books and walking sticks. Sometimes just with coats and hands clasped tight. They said they were going to the city, to see if any lights had returned. To look for survivors. To spread the Word.

You never saw them again.

Only Sister Agnes remained. One of the oldest among you. The only oldest left among you that wasn't already tucked beneath dirt or crumbling in the mind. Near blind, always muttering half-hymns as she shuffled barefoot through the hallways like a relic still in use. She refused to leave. She said the Lord would knock before He entered.

Her eyes had gone milky by then. White as soapstone, though she still claimed she could see the saints if the candlelight hit just right. She died in the pews, hands folded, veil soaked in rain from the broken roof above her.

You buried her under the yew tree with the others. Wrapped her in linen. Whispered the rite. Marked her grave with a bent iron cross.

No one was left to say the eulogy.

So you said it yourself, out loud, alone:

“Dust you are. And to dust, you shall return.”

And then it was only you.

You, and the ruin. You, and the echo. You, and the chapel with its cracked bones and stubborn spine.

You swept the floors with a broken broom and sang when your throat allowed it. You burned the last of the frankincense on Holy Thursday even though no one came to Mass. You rationed the dried beans. Boiled nettles from the garden. Learned to drink rain when the barrel filled.

The chapel became a mausoleum. Every echo returned only your own breath. The saints above the altar began to look less like protectors and more like watchmen -- unmoving, unmoved. The incense ran out. The wax dwindled to stumps. The last of the wine soured so deeply that even your tongue recoiled from it.

But you stayed. Because you didn’t know what else to do. Because if you left, who would tend the bones?

Who would keep the vigil?

You imagined God was still out there, maybe -- but even He seemed tired.

At night, you still prayed.

Not because you believed. But because you didn’t know how to stop.

Sometimes, in the stillness, you asked aloud, “Was I left behind?” And then quieter: “Or was I spared?”

No voice ever answered. No dove descended. No trumpets. Only the wind in the bell tower, and the creak of wood like bones settling.

Sometimes of course, the occasional stragglers would pass through. Not many. Not often. But never twice.

Men and women with too much sun in their eyes and not enough soul behind them. Skin rubbed either raw from travel or grown thick with the callus of surviving. Shoulders hunched like they'd forgotten how to stand before anything sacred. Voices low, eyes lower. Dusty, drawn things with guns slung low or knives strapped to thighs, asking for water or shelter or forgiveness.

Some came with guns. Some with children. Some with nothing but a story in their throat and rot on their breath.

You never asked where they’d come from.

Not because you didn’t care. Because you already knew.

Everywhere was ruin now.

You gave them what little you could.

A half-filled jug. A crust of rootbread. A night under the eaves if they asked without malice.

None stayed. None prayed.

Some made the sign of the cross, crooked and clumsy, like they were half-remembering a story told long ago. Others scoffed at your habit, called it foolish, archaic, dead. One woman spat on the altar. You didn’t stop her. You only cleaned it afterward, hands slow, heart still.

Sometimes they offered trade. Matches. Rusted bullets. One left a cassette tape you couldn’t play. Another left a tooth -- still gold-capped, still bloody.

None of them asked your name.

They called you “Sister” if they were kind, “witch” if they weren’t. “Ghost,” once. That one stuck more than it should have.

You began to wonder if you were a ghost. Bound to this place not by chains, but by the last threads of duty. Waking. Sweeping. Tending to bones. Whispering to the stained glass saints who no longer wept or bled.

You were still human, though. Still hungry. Still tired.

Still stubbornly alive.

And so you kept the doors unbarred, though they moaned on their hinges. You kept the chapel swept, though no feet tread the nave but your own. You kept the bell tower standing with rope and prayer and your bare hands when it threatened to fall.

You kept the faith -- not in God, but in keeping.

And then one morning, it changed.

Not with a raid as you have so much expected after the church you sheltered in was the only building left standing still with its brick and stone still in tact. No loud crack of spare boots on stone or the snarl of men grown hungry enough to kill and take what was left of your virtue. Not the metallic clatter of weapons flung open, nor the feral bark of violence that had become its own language in the silence of this after-world.

No.

It changed with a knock.

Three slow deliberate careful raps on the old chapel door.

Not loud. Not desperate.

Not even pleading either.

Just.... there.

You froze. Mid-sweep. Again. The same spot by the front pew where the floor dipped and creaked with every pass of the broom. You looked to the door, half-expecting the wind to take credit. But the knock came again. Steady. Human. Unhurried.

You hadn’t heard a knock in years.

Most people barged in. Or crept. Or crawled. Or didn't bother at all.

You approached carefully, one hand near the handle of the broken candleholder you kept tucked in your belt like a weapon. The other rested just above your rosary, as if it might still protect you.

The door moaned open. The light beyond it was grey and pale, all dust and wind.

A man stood there.

All broad-shouldered and still. Clad in black and what seemed like all the remains of war. All knotches and heavy belts from a life previous. On the edge of violence and aftermath.

His gear was worn, but functional. A knife sheathed upside down on his chest. Boots scuffed raw. Gloves torn fingerless, one hand twitching like it hadn't unlearnt the habit of the trigger in the longest time. Killer ingrained in his DNA.

But it was the mask that held you.

White. Bone. Expressionless. Shaped like a skull, like something that remembered death and chose to wear it proudly. A memento mori in motion. The wind teased the edges of his coat, but he didn’t shiver. He simply stood, patient as a monument, silent as a tomb.

You did not speak.

He did not ask to come in.

He only said, “I was told there was still someone alive here.”

His voice was low. Ragged in a way that suggested disuse more than malice. English accent. Northern, maybe. A voice that carried weight, not volume.

You studied him for a beat longer -- then stepped back. Enough to let him through. Fingers trying not to clutch the broom by your side in both readied fear and anticipation. Self-preservation still in the cusp of your palms. The dignity to survive still gnawing and present. Slowly overriding your caring spirit. A man's body who had too wry and exploring hands that aimed to touch the meat between your legs was still rotting somewhere in the back garden near the molding petunias. The shucking and disgraceless thing, you had buried and let rot. Your first kill, you remembered almost like a dream.

“I keep the place,” you said, voice hoarse from too many weeks of unused speech. “If that’s what you mean.”

He nodded once. Then faltered.

Not dramatically -- not like the saints painted in oils on your ceiling, swooning at the divine. No, it was something smaller. A subtle tilt, a momentary shift in his footing. Just enough to notice that the black beneath his coat was darker than it should be. Wet. Blooming.

Blood.

You didn’t move at first.

He didn’t complain. Didn’t ask. Didn’t even grimace. Just leaned against the doorframe as if the weight of his own body was something he’d grown used to fighting against.

Your hand twitched. Instinct. Memory. The part of you that still reached for the sick and the broken. The part that hadn't died with the others.

"You're hurt," you said.

He tilted his head like he hadn't noticed. Or maybe he had, and simply didn’t care. Then, in a tone so flat it almost passed as humor, “Yeah. Bit.”

Bit. As if the stain spreading across his ribs was just an inconvenience. As if his breathing wasn't shallow. As if the blood hadn’t begun dripping onto your stone floor like some backwards baptism.

“Sit,” you ordered. Not gently.

He obeyed. Slowly. Like his bones had to be negotiated with. He slumped onto the front pew, the same one where Sister Agnes used to sit. You grabbed the kit. What little of it was left. A rusted scalpel. Two spools of thread—one black, one white. Dried alcohol. Torn linen you’d meant to save for burial.

When you came back, he’d removed the coat, the layers beneath it. A bullet wound, shoulder to lower ribs, jagged like someone had carved a sin out of him and forgot to sew it shut.

You muttered a prayer without thinking.

He looked at you, from behind the skull.

“I’m not dying.”

You didn’t answer. Just reached forward and pressed cloth to wound. He didn’t flinch.

“You’re not screaming,” you said.

“I learned not to.”

“And the mask?”

He didn’t answer. You didn’t press.

Instead, you cleaned. Pressed. Sewed. Slowly, because your hands remembered flesh before faith. You’d mended more broken bodies than you’d like to admit. Plague sores, cracked ribs, Sister Anne’s suicide attempt. All death-adjacent, none quite like this.

His blood was darker than it should’ve been. You weren’t sure if that was a metaphor or a warning.

“You should rest,” you said, once the last stitch was tied. “Your body needs stillness.”

He turned his head toward you. The mask didn’t move, but the silence between you cracked.

“Will you watch over me?” he asked softly. Almost like a whisper. Confessionary and sinewy. Not even mocking in the slightest.

You hesitated. Then, quietly, “Yes.”

It wasn’t a promise. Just the truth.

You watched him sleep that night from your spot near the altar. One hand on your rosary. One eye always on the man wearing death like a second skin.

When dawn broke, he was still breathing.

And for the first time in months, so were you.

You learnt that his name was Simon.

He said it like it was nothing as he first started to stir in one of the makeshift cots you let him rest on near the storage where you still kept the sullen ivory and wood of carved saints and sacred statues. He said it like it was nothing -- Simon -- as if it hadn’t once meant something to someone. Kept secret so only the closest of him should know. Callsign his only moniker once but now did it even matter if Ghost died here now and Simon took his place again?

You weren’t sure if he gave it to you because he trusted you, or because he didn’t expect to live long enough for it to matter. Maybe both. Repeating your own name to him when he asked in return. Giving it away and smiling warmly when you said it aloud -- for the first time in what felt like years -- felt like exhaling. Like unclenching a fist you hadn’t realized had been tight since the world ended.

He nodded when he heard it. Just a small tilt of his head, like he was memorizing the shape of it. Your name.

No holy title. No “Sister.” Just your name, stripped bare.

As if names were dust now, too. You weren’t sure if it was mercy or detachment that made him say it that way. Like he didn’t expect you to remember it. Like he didn’t expect to need it again.

“Simon,” you echoed, quietly, without meaning to.

He glanced at you. The mask still on.

Always on.

Like it had once meant something and now it didn’t anymore.

You didn’t ask for the rest and neither did he. The world didn’t need full names now. Names had begun to rot like everything else. Stripped down to bones. First names. Breaths. A single syllable that could be carved on wood when it came time to bury.

Simon.

You repeated it once under your breath, not in reverence, but with a strange sort of anchoring. Like saying it tethered him here. To this place. To you.

You watched over him for three days.

His fever came and went like a tide. He never cried out. Never whimpered. Just clenched his jaw beneath that mask and dug his nails into the old cot mattress like he’d rather bleed through the palms than admit pain.

You wiped the sweat from his brow. Sometimes he flinched when you touched him. Sometimes not. You weren’t sure which unsettled you more.

You tried not to stare. But you did.

It was hard not to when the lines and meat of him were all sharpness and exhaustion. Muscle stretched over discipline. A man hewn for violence and carved from the kind of silence that didn't need to be filled. Even in sleep, his fingers twitched like they were remembering the shape of a trigger. His breathing, even shallow, sounded like it was braced for interruption.

The mask never came off.

Even when he dozed. Even when the fever made him mutter broken things -- “clear the room,” or “don’t open that door,” or “Price, do you copy?”

Even then, the bone-white skull stayed. Like he didn’t trust the air around him. Like he didn’t trust you. Or himself.

But you started to notice things.

He always faced the chapel doors when he slept. Even unconscious, even injured. And when he woke -- because he always knew when you were near -- he would shift, subtle but exact, until his back wasn’t to you.

Not fear.

Not entirely.

More like instinct.

More like a wolf that had forgotten how not to be hunted.

And sometimes -- God forgive you -- you realized that you started to watch him too long.

Watched the shape of his throat when he drank water. Watched the way his shoulder muscles shifted beneath healing skin when he sat up to restring his gear. Watched his hands, how sure they were. Precise. Brutal even in rest.

It was wrong.

It was so wrong.

But you hadn’t seen a man in almost three years. Hadn’t touched a man since you still believed God was watching. And now -- well.

If God was watching, He was being very quiet about it.

You still prayed. But you found yourself saying his name instead, sometimes, when the candlelight flickered low.

"Simon."

And sometimes, you caught him watching you, too.

Not often. Never boldly. But in the reflection of the chapel’s broken windows. In the stillness when your back was turned and the candlelight behind you made a silhouette of your veil.

He’d look. He’d linger.

It wasn't after you've filled him with enough stories and what was left of paracetamol and antiobiotics from previous stockpiles and trade, handed over in rust-bitten foil like holy offerings from a nurse who once sheltered near the candelit flicker statue of Mary that you started to worry.

You started to worry when he began moving like a man with purpose again.

Strength back and soul recharged.

Not just the morning walks around the chapel perimeter which you insisted was a good form of exercise, watching for more stragglers that need aid or for wind-loosened tiles that needed repairs. And not just the quiet inspections of hinges and locks, the silent mending of scavenged nails and pieces of broken pews. That was habit, muscle memory -- the remains of who he was before.

No.

You started to worry when he began packing.

Quietly. Precisely. Like a man preparing to disappear.

He didn’t say anything. Not right away. Just re-checked the straps on his vest. Sorted through the medkit you’d pieced together with hope and leftover gauze. Counted matches. Lined up bullets like communion wafers beside his dismantled rifle.

And when you passed him -- basket in hand, veil a little askew from wind and the slow work of laundry lines -- he gave you a look that wasn’t quite goodbye but wasn’t far from it, either.

That’s when the worry settled. Behind your ribs. Low and hollow. Like a cough that never came.

Because you’d started sleeping with the door to the chapel open. Just a crack. Because you’d started brewing double portions of root tea even though he only took a sip. Because when you caught your reflection in the baptismal font, you no longer flinched at the woman you saw.

And when you spoke your prayers at night, you’d begun to leave space for him. Not as supplicant. Not as savior. But as… something else.

You started to worry when you caught him standing in front of the statue of Saint Jude -- the patron of lost causes.

It was on the fifth night that you finally thought he was going to leave.

Not because he said it.

But because he started moving like he might.

His gear, once scattered in the back storeroom, began to return to his side. His pack was restitched. Supplies rationed. Knife sharpened to a glint that caught the morning light like prophecy. The wound had closed. The fever broken. His silence heavier. Less fevered now -- more final.

You found the cot empty one morning, blanket folded with military precision. The linen shirt you’d sewn for him folded neatly atop it.

Your breath caught.

Not with panic. Not exactly.

Just... with the weight of something about to break.

You found him outside, near the old steps by the chapel’s side garden, where the weeds no longer grew and the gargoyles had long since crumbled from their stones. He was checking the horizon like it owed him an answer.

He didn’t look at you.

Just said, “Weather’s turning.”

You stared at his back. Broad. Steady. Whole again. A man built to move forward. The flap of your habit fluttering restlessly near your face.

You didn’t ask where he’d go. You didn’t ask if you could come. You didn’t ask him to stay.

But you wanted to.

God, you wanted to.

You thought about saying: “There’s still work to do here.”

Or: “The roof still leaks.”

Or even just: “I don't want to be alone.”

But he was a man carved from war and wear, not words. And you were a woman who’d buried half the world and learned silence could be holy, too.

So you said nothing.

Until he turned.

And you saw that he hadn’t put the mask back on.

Just his face.

Unhidden. Raw.

All thick scars and broken nose. Pale-rodden mouth that rarely smiled but softened at the edges when he looked at you. Eyes like bruised wood -- pale, sharp, but tired. So tired. He looked like a man who had survived things no man was meant to. Like someone who had forgotten softness, only to find it again in the way you said his name.

Simon.

And he looked at you like someone counting the reasons to stay and not finding one that wasn’t you.

“I was going to leave,” he said. Quietly. Truthfully.

You nodded. Because you’d known.

His eyes flicked to the chapel. The graveyard beyond. The broken bell that no longer rang. Then back to you.

“I... didn’t.”

It wasn’t a question. Or a decision.

Just a line, spoken like scripture rewritten at the end of the world.

You stepped closer.

Close enough to see the wear in his expression. The grief in his jaw. The peace he didn’t yet know he’d been carrying since the first night he slept beneath your roof.

“Why not?” you asked, barely above a whisper.

He blinked slow.

Then: “You kept the door open.”

A pause. His voice, lower still:

“And I think I forgot how to knock.”

Your throat burned.

You wanted to reach for him, but didn’t.

Didn’t need to.

Because he stepped forward instead.

Your first kiss was taken that afternoon.

Not given. Not asked for. Not planned.

Taken.

Like breath. Like communion.

He reached for you with the quiet desperation of someone who’d been starving and didn’t know until the first taste of bread touched his tongue. His calloused hand cradled your jaw with a reverence that bordered on disbelief -- like he wasn’t sure if you were real, or if the world would shatter for daring to touch something holy.

Your veil was still on.

You hadn’t worn it for piety in months. It had become habit. Comfort. A last thread of ritual in a world that no longer answered back. But now -- now, it felt like a question.

Simon leaned in, slow enough to stop if you flinched.

You didn’t.

His lips touched yours like a secret. Like prayer whispered in a locked chapel long after the faithful had died. And you -- God help you -- you kissed him back like absolution.

It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t chaste. It wasn’t anything you’d been taught in the cloistered hush of girlhood. But it wasn’t filthy either. Not the way the men with knives and hunger in their eyes had once made you feel. It wasn’t taking. Not really.

It was... need.

Just two people that had outlasted the world. Reaching.

Grasping.

Remembering.

You fisted your hands in his shirt, still faintly smelling of blood and ash and whatever passed for soap the last time he washed. He groaned into your mouth, quiet and aching, like the sound was dragged from somewhere deep, somewhere old.

The kiss broke with breathlessness.

He didn’t step back.

Foreheads touched. A gloved hand still at your face, thumb trembling where it traced the corner of your mouth.

"Goin' to be the death o'me you are. Goin' to be the death of me", he could only repeat in soft prayer.

You and Simon fall into a decent routine after that. A rhythm carved not from the life before, but from the bones of what remained.

He never said he was staying. Not aloud. But he never packed again. Never stood near the chapel’s threshold with that far-off look in his eyes like he might vanish with the mist. Never again shucked on his gear and steadied what was left of his rifle near the posts. The hunky metal now kept and stashed somewhere only he knew to keep his shelter safe and protected. Contained and maintained. Preserved and kept sacred for the likes of a soul like you.

Simon stayed.

And worked.

He worked like he owed the place something. Like staying meant repaying a debt he hadn’t yet spoken aloud.

The chapel hadn’t known the weight of a man like him in years -- broad and unrelenting, made of muscle, scar, and silence. But it didn’t protest his presence. If anything, the building seemed to lean into him, let itself be held up where it sagged.

He fixed what could be fixed. Reinforced the pews with salvaged beams. Braced the chapel walls with tension wires and stubborn hands. Replaced the rotted steps with planks pried from the broken fence beyond the herb garden. What had once been holy was now held together by war and willpower.

You worked beside him. Sweeping ash and dust while he hammered. Scrubbing old brass while he sealed cracks with tar and grit. Fetching rainwater while he set traps around the chapel’s perimeter. For stragglers. For beasts. For things worse than both.

Sometimes, your hands brushed when he passed you a tool. A rusted nail. A cloth. A bowl of bitter stew shared in quiet thanks at the end of the day. He never lingered in touch longer than needed, but his closeness warmed like a coal left under linen. Present even when you weren’t looking.

You taught him how to grind the dried herbs properly for tea. He taught you how to hold a knife without cutting yourself when turning over old crates for salvage. He reinforced the cellar trapdoor. You relit the chapel’s sconces. He cleared the dead ivy from the roof. You finally replanted the rosemary.

And when the wind howled through the rafters, louder than wolves, he moved without a word -- climbed the tower again, cloak whipping like a fallen flag, and braced the bell with steel cable and rusted bolts.

He came down bruised, bleeding slightly, smirking like a man who knew no one was watching but you.

And when you ran to him, heart pounding, fingers searching for injury, he only said:

“Still rings.”

Still rings.

God hadn’t answered in years. But that bell still rang. And Simon still stayed.

He slept in the storage room now, though you were pretty sure he was expecting you to follow and make your own bed next to his side.

He never said it. Not in words. Not in any blunt ask or beckoning hand. But he’d leave the door slightly open. Let the candle burn longer than needed. Fold the spare blanket at the foot of his cot like an invitation rather than an offering. He never crossed your threshold -- not without permission -- but he lingered near it.

Waited.

You didn’t follow. Not at first. Pretended not to hear when he himself took his own pleasure and groaned it behind the old wool of a blanket. Breath in a slight hitch as he toiled with the tip of his cock and stroked it languidly with the memory of your whiny little mouth and soft palms. Tugging himself quickly and cumming all over his own hand at the final image of you on your knees no longer in prayer but in between his legs where he knew you would swallow and choke like the best girl that you were.

But you heard it anyway. Always heard it.

Swallowing in both restraint and guilt, biting your knuckle beneath the covers as the sound of him -- low, quiet, aching -- carried through stone and wood like incense made flesh.

The way he breathed when he touched himself -- God, it was reverent.

Like you were holy.

Like he was praying to the memory of you, mouth parted, eyes glassy, veil slipping as you moaned his name into your own knotted fingers.

It should have felt like shame.

Instead, it felt like prophecy.

Like your body had known long before your soul had caught up.

But you still had vows in your bones, even if the world had stopped keeping track. You still said your prayers each night by the altar, hands clasped tight enough to leave nail-prints in your palms. Still recited the rosary even if after you found your fingers inching their way into the soft and wet plush of your cunt's walls. The reverent touch of your fingertips and the memory of his voice and heat enough to make you tremble and pulse from want and desperation. Sinewy and arching fingers repeatedly trying to reach the plushy muscle that makes you see the divine.

But even after all that.

You remained steadfast. Chaste.

Cloistered and quiet regardless.

But maybe it was different now.

Maybe it was different because you could hear him breathing. Simon breathing

Because when nightmares came -- and they did, often, brutal -- he’d mutter your name like a talisman. And you’d rise, barefoot and bleary-eyed, and sit beside him until the tremors eased. Sometimes, he'd rest his forehead to your shoulder, masked again, but softer for it.

“You don't have to stay,” he’d say into the dark. “I know,” you’d whisper. “That’s why I do.”

Slowly, sleep lulled from nightmares by his side became a habit neither of you dared name.

There was no ceremony to it, no grand declaration -- just a slow drifting of bodies toward each other night by night. He started leaving the cot unmade. You stopped lighting your candle at the altar. You prayed from the doorway now, rosary whispering between your fingers as your eyes drifted toward the place where he lay waiting.

The fifth time you curled beside him, it was because the storm outside sounded too much like the end again.

You stood at the edge of the room, clutching your shawl like it might tether you to sanctity. Simon didn’t look at you. Just held up the blanket with one hand, a silent question.

You crossed the floor.

You curled into him like you’d done it for years.

No words. No vow undone. Just his warmth at your back, the beat of his breath at your neck, and the weight of a man who still hadn’t asked, but hadn’t stopped hoping.

The 16th night, you whispered a prayer between his shoulder blades. Not to God, but to him.

“Still here,” you murmured.

"I know", he only whispered in return.

It was at the 21st night lying with Simon that you learnt that he feasted on your cunt like a man starved and parched.

Kissing the pulse of your clit like he'd earned nothing in this life but the right to kneel at the gooey drip of your pussy on his tongue. Like the space in between your thighs offered sanctuary, and his mouth the only prayer he still remembered to offer.

You remember gasping. Clawing. Fingers buried in his hair. Thighs trembling around his shoulders as he suckled at the fat of your hip and fondled the swell of your breasts with rough and coarse hands.

Hearing him groan lowly like he was the one unraveling beneath the taste of you. Whimpering softly in between your hitched breaths as he mumbled about how "pretty your cunt is baby. So fucking pretty" and "could stay here all day -- fuck tha's it"

Should feel filthy with the way the warmth of his tongue prodded your pussy until you sobbed and hiccuped release after release. But it wasn't. Hardly held a candle to it even. Because it wasn't just want or hunger.

It felt like worship.

The kind you hadn’t felt in years. Maybe ever.

With Simon's hands firm at your hips, steadying you like an offering, like if he let go you might rise from the bed entirely -- lifted not by grace, but by need. He kissed, bit, and licked the soft of your inner thighs like benediction, like apology, like he'd been starving and had finally been granted mercy.

And when he looked up at you, eyes heavy-lidded and reverent, you realized:

This was not desecration.

This was a new kind of devotion.

One without altar or incense or choir -- only breath, and trembling, and a man who stayed.

Many nights thereafter were spent like that with Simon. Quiet, aching things. Half-whispered, half-held. Not rushed, not taken. Just… given.

He never asked for more than you could give. Never took without reverence. His touch was steady, slow, and worshipful. Every time his hands traced over your skin, it felt like he was re-learning the world by memory alone -- like you were the last holy thing left, and he didn’t dare rush through the psalm of you.

You didn’t speak of it in the daylight. Didn’t name it. Didn’t need to.

It existed in the spaces between -- the way he’d brush your hand as you passed the kettle, the way he would gently cup your cheek to goad you to take his girthy and weighty cock into your mouth after a long day. Shushing you and gritting his own teeth at the pretty pretty sight of you suckling the brutish red tip of his head with shy kitten licks, or when you'd whimper around your bitten fist after he chose to go down on your sopping pussy on rainy afternoons -- having to stifle your own sounds like you weren’t sure you were allowed to make them -- like pleasure was something earned, and not given.

And Simon Simon Simon, ever patient, ever reverent, would pull your hand away, lace his coarse fingers with yours, rising from the seam in between your cunt, saturnine mouth and jaw still dripping with your slick, and coax your nails back around the meat of his back and shoulders with a low, “Don’t hide from me, sweets. Let me hear you. Wanna hear you.”

And sometimes on cold and silent nights -- when the sweat cooled and the dark wrapped around you both -- he’d hold you tighter than he needed to, face buried in your neck, breath damp and heavy. Not saying anything. Just being.

Letting the weight of the world fall off his shoulders inch by inch because your skin was the only place it didn’t stick to. Almost like your body was the one place ruin from the apocalypse couldn’t follow him.

Like between the soft weight of your breasts, the curve of your belly, the quiet hush of your breath against his temple -- there was no memory of blood, or fire, or orders barked through static. Only the warmth of now. Of you

And maybe that was why it felt like the world cracked again the day the raiders came.

It happened fast.

Too fast.

Not with the thunder of boots or the scream of old warning sirens. Running again to announce the second coming of a replicated end. But instead, it slipped in.

Quiet and jagged, like a knife at the base of the spine.

The kind of violence that lives in the next silence before it’s named.

You had been bent over one of the makeshift basins you've made from an old holy water font, wringing out one of Simon's shirts when the first warning shot rang out.

Distant. Then closer.

The kettle screamed before you did.

The chapel bell didn’t even have time to sound before Simon had already grabbed the rifle he swore he’d never raise again. You’d barely turned for the altar before he was barking low orders -- stay down, keep quiet, don’t move -- and his body became something else entirely. Not cruel, not cold. Just deadly. Trained. Focused.

The scuffle didn’t last long. A few more warning shots. A flash of motion in the trees. A rustle of boots on broken stone -- and then silence.

They hadn’t gotten inside.

But they’d gotten close enough.

Close enough that when Simon returned, breath ragged and knuckles bloodied, his eyes didn’t find you right away.

He looked through you -- like he was still out there, somewhere in the woods, in the dirt, beneath the bodies. Like his soul hadn’t caught up with his skin yet. Ghost returning and Simon now absent.

“Simon,” you whispered then, stepping forward from the nook where you hid. Standing up and shuffling closer to where he stood, his wet shirt still clinging to your hand. “Hey. Look at me.”

And slowly, like something winding down inside him, he did. His eyes refocused, dragging themselves back to the here and now. To you. He didn’t speak. Just stepped forward, reached for you with hands that had once held his rifle --he dropped the grimy thing onto the concrete as his palms met the soft skin of your waist beneath your clothes.

Careful and tracing the plush flesh like it was something fragile. Like if he touched too hard, you’d break.

Kissed you hungrily too right after, like he was checking to see if you were still alive with the press of his mouth. Hands moving all over you to caress your face, hips, and jaw. His fingers trembling just slightly. Like he hadn’t realized how scared he was until he had finally felt you under him, breathing.

And you let him. Because maybe you were both shaking.

Because maybe the idea of losing each other had never felt more real than now.

That was the night Simon took you for the first time.

Not in his bed. Not in hiding. But there, near the front pews. Where the light from the broken stained glass poured color across your skin and the altar watched in silence.

It wasn’t rough, not really. Urgent, yes -- but not unkind. Like he needed to feel you, to know you were real. That you were still here and that he still could.

You felt his hands shake just slightly when he pushed your skirt up. Your breaths hitched when he kissed your collarbone like it might vanish. You heard him murmur things under his breath -- not quite words but silent cooing to soothe the wry and shy whimpers and whines slipping past your lips as you felt the impatient and exploring tips of his fingers prod near your entrance.

“Shhh, baby,” he whispered, voice thick with something broken and pious. “S’alright. I’ve got you. Just let me in. Please baby let me in.”

You could only nod then. Gasping with a shudder as you felt his fingers trail down the seam of your cunt, spreading your slick gently and nimbly -- like he was parting pages of a sacred text. His touch was tender, almost hesitant, thumb circling your clit as if in apology for what he was about to do every time you so much as winced as he tried to slowly insert his third finger in.

“Fuck,” he breathed, almost to himself. “You’re so warm… already so fuckin’ wet for me.”

His forehead pressed to yours as he worked you open, slow and delicately, like he feared rushing would ruin the moment all too quickly. Each drag of his fingers inside you was trying oh-so hard to be patient, measured -- curling just right, his knuckles brushing deep against a spot that had you keening, your thighs trembling around his wrist. His other hand cradled the back of your head, grounding you while the rest of your body tried to come apart.

“Doing so good for me, love,” he murmured, voice hoarse and low. Goading you. “Letting me in, lettin’ me feel you…”

Your hips rocked into him without meaning to, soft, needy whimpers slipping through your lips -- a plethora of "please" and "Simon". The stretch was delicious, the pressure deep, and the wet sounds of his fingers working inside you only grew louder -- obscene and intimate in the echoing hush of the ruined chapel.

You blinked up at him through half-lidded eyes, breath catching at the look on his face. He wasn’t watching like a man chasing pleasure. No -- Simon looked like he was witnessing something. Something sp heavenly. Something so good, in a world that hadn’t been good in a long time.

And when he pulled his fingers from you as you gushed out your first release, holding them up still glistening with your slick, forming a glossy web as he separated his index from his middle to examine it more closely -- the act sending a rush of both shyness and warmth to the pool of your belly. The view so crude and erotic that you tried to close your legs at the slight pulse it tingled at the sight of it all.

However, you were only able to whine again as you watched him bring said fingers to his mouth and suckle them. So slow and filthy, almost making a show of it as he groaned like he was tasting honey after years of salt.

“Christ,” he growled, shaking his head like it rattled something loose in him. “Gonna take my fuckin’ time with you.”

You nodded at that. Mind all blank and wanton after a good orgasm. Helpless and pliant beneath him, your thighs already falling open once again as an invitation.

He didn’t waste it. Shucking off his pants enough to let his dick finally spring free. Letting out a soft hiss as he stroked the underside of his shaft to grant a moment of reprieve for himself. Alleviating the anguish to be inside your pretty pretty pussy with soft and hurried strokes, before aligning himself near your aching and tender core.

You felt the thick, blunt head of his cock press against your entrance, and he paused there -- just for a moment. Just long enough to look at you. Really look at you. His brown eyes were dark, jaw tight, and his breath shuddered as he said, low and raw:

“You sure?”

You didn’t need words. Just lifted your hips, pressed your palm to his chest, hands fisting his shirt as you blinked up at him in fervor want and desperation. Damned anyway if there's anything to be learnt with Simon here in between the keening tremble of your thighs -- might as well make it worth the fall -- “Simon. Please.”

And that was all it took.

He pushed in, slow and steady, inch by inch, stretching you around him with a groan that sounded ripped from his chest. You gasped, legs tightening around his waist as the ache bloomed into pleasure, hot and full and grounding. His body trembled above yours, arms braced on either side of your head, trying desperately not to collapse from the feeling of your taut and snug cunt all around him.

“Shit,” he hissed. “You feel… fuck, so fuckin' tight sweets. So fuckin' tight.”

You whimpered -- breathless, wet-eyed, and aching -- only nodding in response at his words. Shuddering and whining softly a bit in unease at the sudden full feeling. Almost dizzy at the overwhelming sensation of being stretched and filled so completely. Your body now learning what it meant to take someone fully.

Simon didn't move right away.

He stayed there. Bullying more of his cock in until you felt the front of his thighs finally meeting the skin of your behind. Now buried to the hilt. Your own breath hitching softly as you felt him breathing hard against your cheek like he needed a moment to gather himself from the sensation of your gooey and tight pussy cradling the shaft of his cock.

One hand found yours on the floor beside your head -- fingers lacing tight, grounding -- while the other stroked slow down your side, coaxing your body to relax around him.

“S’okay baby. Shh s'okay,” he murmured against your skin, voice hoarse and reverent. “I’ve got you. You’re takin’ me so fuckin’ well. So good for me.”

Your hips twitched a bit at his words. Your own sinewy fingers finding their way to cup the bare skin of his face. Leaning up slightly to meet his lips like that was the only thing tethering you to the earth at this moment and this moment alone.

And he kissed you back like he believed it too.

Not hungry. Not possessive. Just… there. Like he was pouring everything he couldn’t say into the seam of your mouth -- gratitude, fear, tenderness, relief. His tongue brushed yours, soft and coaxing, the kiss breaking only so he could breathe your name between them like he needed it more than air.

You sighed into him, your thighs falling wider in surrender. Offering. Inviting. He groaned at that, hips giving a slow, instinctive grind, grinding his cock deeper into the slick heat of you -- like he couldn't help himself, like your body was where he belonged and he'd just remembered how to live inside it.

“Fuckin’ perfect,” he murmured, lips brushing your cheek. “Like you were made for me.”

You whimpered, high and wanting, forehead resting against his. “Simon… please…”

You didn’t even know what you were asking for. More, maybe. Or just him, like this.

Real and solid and yours.

He must’ve heard it in your voice, must’ve felt it in the way your legs wrapped tighter around his waist, because his grip on your hip firmed -- anchoring you as he began to move.

Slow at first. A careful roll of his hips that dragged his cock against your walls so perfectly that it had your breath catching in your throat. Shuddering out soft whimpers and whines. He groaned again, long and low, head dropping to the crook of your neck as he buried his mouth there.

Soon enough, every thrust went from gentle to something deep and deliberate. Measured and heavy, like each one was meant to leave a mark -- not on your skin, but inside you, where only he could reach. Where it would echo long after the heat faded, where it would settle into the marrow of your bones as something you’d never be able to scrub clean. Wanting your pretty dripping pussy to memorize the shape of him and only him. To feel every inch of how your body has been opened for him, clung to him, welcomed him and will only ever let him in and no one else.

Your hand tangled in his hair. His hand squeezed yours tighter. And the sounds between you -- slick and breathless and desperate -- filled the chapel like a hymn.

“God, sweets. Fuckin' heaven you are. Fuckin' heaven” he whispered, voice cracking with something close to awe as he thrusted deeper and deeper inside you. Gritting his teeth with a hiss as you unconsciously tightened at his words.

Your pussy sucking him in further and snuggly cushioning his cock like you never want to let him go. The taut lump of your sopping hole tracing every vein and outline of his cock almost making Simon lose his mind then and there. “Could stay inside you forever. Fuck -- Just like this, baby. Just like this.”

You would let him.

Yes. Yes. Yes, you would.

Because the world outside didn’t matter here. Not with the pews broken and the saints above watching in shattered silence. Not with Simon inside you like he was trying to anchor his soul to something real again. Something only you could give him. Saintly and beatific if he could even put it to words.

You could only gasp, loud and unrestrained, as he suddenly hit something deep inside that had your whole body clenching around him. Making the rim of your eyes wet at the devastating and consuming feeling.

“That it sweets?” he rasped. “Right fuckin’ there, huh? Right there?”

You couldn't answer. Paralyzed and dumbed down as he continued to let the brutish tip of his cock meet that spot again and again. Each thrust purposeful. Perfect.

The drag of his hips letting his dick constantly strike that place inside you almost relentless and feverish. Almost brutish and pitiless it was. Simon already too pussy-drunk to stop.

Your hands tried to scrabble at his back, nails digging into the hard muscle beneath his skin, grounding yourself on the only thing that still felt real -- him. Simon. The weight of his body over yours. The heat of him inside you. The ruin of him spilling over into you like a sacrament.

“Fuck, look at you,” he gritted out, eyes locked on your face, hungry and devout. “Takin’ it so well. So goddamn good for me, baby. So fuckin' good for me.”

Your mouth hung open in a silent cry as your body tried to give another desperate clench around his cock ramming hurriedly inside you, the sensation tipping past pleasure and into something indescribable. Your thighs shook on either side of his hips, the world narrowing to nothing but the rhythm of his thrusts, the slick sounds of your bodies meeting, and the broken mumble and whispers of your name on his lips.

You came again. And this time you were sure -- was harder than most. Gasping, clutching at him, nails dragging down his back that you felt the fabric of his shirt rip -- and Simon at the sight of you unraveling beneath him, had to let go of what little restraint he had left. Snapping his hips forward once, twice, until a low groan of his own tore from his throat once he chased the heat of his own climax.

Your pussy fluttering helplessly alongside his dick as you felt him pulse with every shot of his cum. Making you whine a bit in unease at being filled with so much of his seed that you felt trickles of his release seeping out of the seam of your cunt to the concrete below.

You felt him shudder as he spilled into you, arms locking around your waist as he pressed his forehead to yours. Your breaths mingling, warm and damp and gasping between whispered curses and broken pleas.

You could only whimper through the aftershocks, legs trembling, walls still spasming around him like you were trying to brand him with your body.

And Simon, panting and desperate now, was barely holding on again.

His hand slid between you two once more, thumb rubbing slow, practiced circles against your oversensitive clit even as you mewled and squirmed beneath him. “One more,” he whispered roughly. “Gimme one more, baby. Let me feel you fall apart again.”

And well. Who were you to deny your Simon?

After all --

-- the world had ended.

And not with trumpets. Nor with judgement and fire.

But with silence.

With the soft wet sound of breathless kisses in the ruins of God’s house. With the weight of your Simon’s body pressed to yours like prayer. With hands that once held death now holding you -- tenderly, and delicate, like you were the last psalm left worth remembering.

When people told you how the world would end, no one said it would end like this.

With sticky and pearly cum drying in between the slice of your thighs and broken stained glass coloring your skin. With your legs wrapped around a man who no longer believed in angels -- but chose to stay anyway.

You thought if Revelation came, it would feel divine.

But this?

This was quiet. This was aching. This was the soft creak of old wood beneath your bodies. The trembling hush of Simon’s breath against your cheek. The warm spill of him still leaking out of you.

It was the weight of just two people trying to survive the quiet. Trying to survive each other.

And when he kissed you again -- slow, breathless, unsure -- you didn’t say anything.

You just kissed him back.

Because there was nothing left to say.

The world ended in silence.

All gnawing quiet and undulating placidity --

-- and it began again when Simon's voice whispered itself in the wreckage just to finally sound your name.

drabbles

"Alright baby --nghh -- ow okay okay", Simon groaned. Voice cracking halfway through as your hips rolled atop his again. Slower. Reverent. Deliberate. But trying oh so hard to be gentle despite it all.

Laughing softly in both amusement and pity at the sight of him below you like this. Flushed. Heaving. Hair mussed and breathing quick with every tender rise and fall of your cushiony and warm pussy taking his dick deeper inside you. The velvety walls of your cunt cradling his overstimulated penis. Tip pulsing, sapped, and sensitive. Gooey walls still painted with his previous spends from when you already ridden him raw once -- twice -- three times before.

Simon’s head fell back against the pillow, throat bare, Adam’s apple bobbing with a strangled groan. “You’re gonna kill me,” he muttered, voice shot and ragged. “Actually -- actually -- shit just like that -- gonna die in this bed, birdie.”

You leaned down until your chest was flush with his, your lips brushing against his ear as you whispered, “Then die knowing you made me feel so fucking full, baby.”

His whole body shuddered, glutted, and frenzied to the point of delirium. He was so so sensitive that it fucking hurt, and yet, the way your slick vagina gripped him so perfectly again -- warm pretty pretty cunt, wet, greedy, and still taking him in deeper like there's anymore his penis can go -- made him pulse inside you. Weakly but gorged and waning nonetheless.

God were you a sight, Simon thought. All pretty, poised, perched and perfect -- his beautiful beautiful fucking wife. All danger on horseback. Honey-dipped and syrupy pussy. His louder than life little bird taking him again and again. Sinful is what it was. Absolutely profane and sacrilegious. His bloody own Lilith on his cock. Hopping and riding him like there was no tomorrow but this one.

The way your body moved above him, deliberate and devastating, like you knew just how far gone he was -- how pliant, how raw. Every slow grind of your doughy thighs and hips wrung another breathless sound from his throat, every flutter, clenching, and squeezing of your walls to pull him in deeper into the kind of madness only you could summon.

It was worship. Plain and simple.

You fucking worshipping him with every roll and press, and him -- Simon fucking Riley, on his knees, fallen, erring, and sullied. Sinner carving pieties on crumbling cathedral halls. Completely at your mercy -- Mrs. Riley -- offering himself up like he didn’t care if he ever came back down from it too.

And fucking bleeding Christ did you move again. Oh so slow and wicked. Making him draw in another choked curse from his lips as he feels his girthy shaft glide against the squelching heat of your pussy. His fingernails digging in the palms of his hands from where his wrists were still tied atop the headboard. Weak, trembling, achy, and sore. The grooves of his nails sculpting indents into his chaffed and coarse skin. The momentary sensation of cutting skin grounding his consciousness to this moment and this moment alone.

Muttering another fuck and shit as he tries and fails to unlace himself from his own fucking cuffs. Cursing the bloody thing like it had its own villainous agenda.

Betrayal it was. Merciless and viper like.

Groaning lowly in regret at ever giving you the green light to even restrain him like this from a few hours back

“Fuck,” he hissed, eyes screwed shut. “You’re milking me, love. You’r -- Jesus -- milking me dry.”

You kissed the corner of his mouth at that. Giggling out at his words. Skin clammy and hot. Bits of your hair sticking to your flushed cheeks, you perky tits, on your clavicle, and on your back. Glowing and glistening like fucking firelight in some springland in an Athenic lyric.

"You said I could take control", you huffed with a faux pout. Pausing your movements to blink down at him coyly. Toying. Teasing. Taunting

"I know baby. I kno -- oh f-fuck --"

You giggled again as Simon's words were caught in a gasp at the heady and overwhelming thickness of your cunt's walls constricting and squelching on his dick. The quicker and almost animalistic gyration of your hips hugging and sucking his prick at every rise and dip. Inundating him to the point that he has to bite bits of his lips to stifle the overawed whines and moans coming out of his chuffed and dazed self.

Truth be told, it was all Simon's fault really. Well... okay most of it probably.

It all started that afternoon at the ranch, the day your family first invited you both out to their old spread under the endless blue sky. A first time for Simon leaving anywhere outside british soil that wasn't for a mission or some grim, graying warzone.

With sun hanging heavy. Burning gold and slow. Trying not to laugh at the sight of your husband -- all big bad brooding and hulking Ghost -- pinkening like a newborn baby rat under the sweltering rays of the merciless summery weather.

You’d been watching from the porch, a cool drink in hand. Some cucumber-ade made by your gran as sharp and refreshing as the breeze you wished was blowing through the dry heat when you caught sight of him -- your Simon -- awkwardly tackling the cowboy chores like a fish out of water. Trying to finish them all within a day despite your own pa's reassurances that he didn't need to.

But that was Simon, wasn’t it?

All 6'3 infuriating and unyielding mass of a man. Always pushing through. Jaw clenched, stubbornness stitched into every muscle in his body. He’d never admit it, but you could tell he wanted to prove something. Maybe to your family. Maybe to you. Maybe to himself -- that he could belong here, out of the shadows of war and into the dust and sunshine of your world. You. With you. His dusk-kissed hellraiser. Sunshine with spurs. Proper menace you were bringing out something human and honey-laced in him from the moment you said "I do".

So here he was. Sleeves rolled up, tartan and gingham cloths all clinging to his broad back and dampening from his sweat. Your bloody fucking Simon wrestling with the stubborn old tractor, muttering curses under his breath that barely matched his usual steely calm.

The way his hands gripped the rusty steering wheel, knuckles white from effort, made your chest tighten and clit throb. You could see the grit in his jaw as he tried to make sense of the ancient machine, the sweat dripping down his temples despite the shade of his weathered hat.

Holy shit

How he’d struggled with the stubborn horse, flinched at the bark of the dog, and wrestled with the ancient leather saddle. The way his hands clenched and unclenched as he tried to figure out the lasso, eyes narrowing with fierce determination despite the fumbling.

That rough, raw effort that made you keel over like the first time all over again. All heart and feeling and no other wrought out notion of smarts and reason. Nothing but pure sex and love and... sex -- the way he dipped his head into the sun, sweat pearling along his neck, forearms gleaming all lustrous and satiny from dust and perspiration. Scars and scars of monolith muscle -- that was when something inside you shifted.

Because here was your man, out of his usual world, trying so damn hard to be your cowboy. But still fucking trying.

…And wasn’t that just the cruelest thing he could’ve done to you? Not the guns. Not the blood. Not the crying and waiting for his uncertain return everytime he left. Not even the gritted teeth or the haunted eyes when you first told him how you felt.

No. Christ in all heavens no.

It was the tenderness of effort. The resolute, silent way he tried -- for you. For a life that wasn’t clawed out of ash and ruin. A life with grass stains and porch swings and Sunday suppers, where the only thing loud was you -- his unhinged, sun-drunk wife hollering at the cattle and tossing your boots off like grenades the second you hit the porch.

And damn if it didn’t make your blood run hotter than the midday sun.

So by the time he wiped his brow with the back of his hand and looked up -- muttering under his breath about the goddamn heat -- you were already moving. Fast. Mean. Eyes wild and jaw set.

You were gonna ride that man. And you were going to ride him good. Right into the fucking dirt.

And now?

Now he was tied up in your bed like some kind of penance. All that hard work and grit, those calloused hands that had hauled hay and hammered fenceposts, now balled into useless fists above his head. Cuffed to the headboard, straining against the wood with every wet grind of your hips. Having said yes so sweetly. So fucking naively when you both pulled away after the kiss you dragged him in was all teeth, tongue, and spit. Blinking up at him pleadingly like you always did when you wanted something.

All low and gruff, a little chuckle in his throat and that smitten, dumb puppy look in his eyes. “Course, love. Whatever you want. 'Can take it yeah?” Like it was a game. Like he hadn’t just handed his entire body over to the most unhinged little piece of sunshine the world ever conjured up.

Didn’t take fucking long for regret -- and bloody arousal -- to blur into one brutal thing though.

Christ he should've thought that through too didn't he?

“Bloody --” he choked out, voice all torn leather and smoke. “Baby please. 'nough yeah? I'm so sensitive”

You just smiled. Leaning down. Perfect fucking beautiful nipples, pointed, prosed, and engorged with your own arousal meeting his heaving and sweaty pecs. Grinning all candied and saccharine as you licked the sweat off his chest like it was sugar. Tongue warm, wet and moist. Lapping languidly like his dew and slick was ambrosia, nectar, and cream.

Bloody fuckin' hell.

Simon was wrecked. Fucking done and splayed out at that. At you. At this. Your little pulsing hole, all leaky and dripping from his previous cum, but still trying to take his weighty cock again and again inside the gooey and pillowy-soft walls of your pussy. Proper mess it was alright.

Your sodden and glistening folds. All sticky, glazed, and dewy with the salty and milky streaks of his sperm.

Fuuckkk

“Should’ve thought of that before you played cowboy,” you whispered, hips rolling again, slow and cruel.

He groaned -- raw and desperate -- eyes fluttering open just to stare at you like you were the sun and the end of the world all in one.

And maybe you were. Jesus H. Christ maybe you were.

Mary Magdalene had nothing on you -- wild and untamed, sinner and saint tangled in one. Like you were holy fire, burning through every doubt and damnation he’d ever carried. You were the reckoning, the grace, the temptation all rolled up into one reverent blazing light. And he was lost. Fuck was he so fucking lost.

Demeritorious and blessed.

Sanctified and cursed.

Consecrated and made divine everytime the tip of his dick touched nirvana and utopia inside you.

And by the time you kissed him again, full and deep and aching. All need, want, desire, hunger, appetite, and thirst. Simon Riley realized he’d never be free of you.

Not even if the cuffs came off.

Not even if your marriage certificate got moth-eaten and faded into nothing -- especially since you forgot to tell him to buy more bug spray.

Not even if his memory slipped away like smoke in the wind when dementia or alzheimer's or whatever the fuck he'd inherit from his old bastard of a dad would wring him nought -- leaving him with nothing but shadows and whispers of you.

Not even if they skinned him raw until he forgot your name, piece by bloody piece. Flaying and tearing away at every thread that tied him to you, stripping him down to a bare, broken shell --

He’d still carry you inside. Like a bloody brand seared into his soul.

And even if death herself came knocking, cloaked in cold and finality, ready to drag him away -- Simon Riley will always be stubborn.

-- because even if he’d never admit it, but you could tell he wanted to prove something —

Maybe to your family. Maybe to you. Maybe to God, the universe, Ghandi or some shit even, he supposes -- that he could belong here, out of the dark, hardened shroud of decay and rot, and into the breathless heat and ecstasy of your honeyed and fleshy cunt. Taking his dick like a fucking champ you were.

Born for it.

Made for it.

Melded and molded for him and him alone.

For You.

With you.

Always you.

His sunlit minx on horseback, scorched earth tempest and the fucking love of his life.

Proper menace you were bringing out something human and honey-laced in him from the moment you clenched just right again to finally pull his 5th trembling release -- making him gasp and whine outright at the sight and feel of your own pussy clamping down on him like a vice. Milking and drawing in every drop of what's left that he can give of his cum. Poor thing all watered down and chaffed. Sperm all clear, viscous, and liquid.

And bloody hell was he fucking enamored and in awe as his orgasm triggers your own. Pushing and pulling you over and down under as well.

Mouth agape and flushed at the glazed over sight and scene of you gushing your own release into his dick and chest.

Your own bleedin' cum and squirt sprinkling everywhere and washing him down like blessed mist and sacred liquid. Anointed and made holy. Divine mercy falling soft as rain.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Artemisia in fucking cowboy boots is what it was, and Christ, did Simon thank every fucking thing in this universe for it.

BONUS scene:

You (leaning over him, whispering with a grin): “How’re we feelin’, big guy? You want water, a nap, or... me again?”

Simon (hoarse): “Emergency… evacuation… call in reinforcements…”

You (laughs): “Reinforcements? Honey, I am the cavalry.”

You (patting his chest softly) But seriously, blink twice if you're still with us, Si"

"Yeah I'm good birdie, don't worry"

"Okay good because I signed us up for couple's yoga tomorrow. At dawn"

Simon (eyes wide, voice cracking): “Fuck. You’ve got to be kidding me.”

You (winking): “Nope. Flexibility is sexy. Plus, I bought you skull-patterned leggings to match. Know you’d love them”

Simon (muttering): “Fuck”

drabbles