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The Anatomy of a Weapon series masterlist

[28k] Worried. The word rolled around in his mind, unfamiliar, like a foreign language he’d forgotten how to speak. Simon didn’t get worried. Worried was a civilian emotion. It was an indulgence for people who had the luxury of a future, people who weren’t already ghosts walking among the living. He knew fear, he knew rage, and he knew the cold, dead vacuum of indifference. But this? This soft, gnawing irritation at the back of his mind that demanded he ensure your safety? It confused him. It pissed him off. He stared at the scuffed leather of the bag, jaw tightening. He didn’t know what to do with a feeling that didn’t have a tactical purpose.

Calculated Risk

[2k] Simon took that moment to take a sip of the mug of coffee you left on the counter next to you, and made a face of exaggerated disgust just to hear you giggle. “Tea’s completely dead,” he muttered, “Tastes like leaves and a pinch of disappointment.” “Good thing I didn’t make that for you, then,” you whispered, still a little breathless, your chest vibrating against his ribs as a chuckle got to you. “Dreadful,” he said, a ghost of a smile playing at his lips, though the thumb tracing your jawline was incredibly gentle. “Next time, try coffee. Or water. Hard to botch water.”

Josephine

[3.6k] Every time he looked at her, the ghost of his brother Tommy and little Joseph felt a little less heavy on his shoulders, like the universe had given him a second chance to get it right. To protect something that wouldn't be taken away.

Strings

[2.4k] In the center of the dimly lit room sat the Lieutenant. He was stripped of his tactical gear, wearing only his dark combat trousers. His massive chest rose and fell in a slow rhythm that belied the immense tension locking his frame. A thick, black strip of fabric was tied securely around his head, blinding him to his surroundings, forcing his chin slightly upward. Behind the heavy wooden chair, his thick wrists were bound tight, the coarse rope biting into the skin slightly. Simon Riley was a man who survived by controlling every variable in his perimeter. Right now, he had nothing but the dark. And oh, how the feeling made his cock ache.

Chain of Command

[4.5k] A late-night sparring session goes beautifully wrong when Ghost decides to supervise Johnny's groundwork. Two against one isn't exactly fair play, but you aren't complaining.

Gates of Hell on Hands and Knees

[4.8k] The hardest part was the haunting knowledge that the next time the deadbolt turned, it might not be Johnny returning with mud on his boots and mischief in his eyes. It could as well be a pair of polished, black service shoes on the porch, and a stranger in a pristine dress uniform holding his breath, preparing to tell you they were so, so sorry for your loss. Loving a man who loved to run toward the fire meant constantly mourning him in small increments just to survive the distance.

Part 2 [5.4k] Knowing someone is dead was closure. Having a gravestone to caress and leave flowers by was relief. Not knowing where the love of your life might be, whether he was dead or alive, buried or burnt, grave unnamed or not… You never did well with uncertainty.

The Comedown

[2k] The mission is over, the club is packed, and the rest of the 141 is just on the other side of the wall. Johnny MacTavish has you pressed against the tiles of a restroom stall, speaking absolute filth, determined to make you lose your mind before the exfil chopper arrives.

Bleeding Neon

[12k] You weren't going to be the one to fix him this time around. No use in playing the martyr, and you sure as hell weren't going to walk back into that kitchen with an ice pack and an apology for an argument you didn't start. If John MacTavish wanted an audience instead of a partner, he could sit in that empty, echoing house and applaud his own isolation until the sun came out.

01:54 aka The Fault Line

[4k] "sometimes i wish i could show you off, though." | friends with benefits.

Ghost's Rendition of ABBA

[1k] “Hold on, hold on,” he muttered, blue eyes lighting up with a sudden, terrible spark of drunken inspiration. He stepped out from your hold, spinning around to face you while backing into the dead center of the golden light. He clutched his right hand into a fist, bringing it to his mouth like a makeshift microphone. “Stage is set. For the MacTavish solo.” “Johnny, no,” you wheezed, instantly realizing what was about to happen. “It's midnight. Do not start singing.”

Chain of Command

[4.5k] A late-night sparring session goes beautifully wrong when Ghost decides to supervise Johnny's groundwork. Two against one isn't exactly fair play, but you aren't complaining.

Field-Expedient Thermal Sharing

[3.2k] The one where John Price pulls rank on the mattress setup, demands you take his heat, and then thoroughly ruins any semblance of professional distance you ever had.

soon!

The overhead fluorescent lights were shut off, leaving only the amber safety-strip lighting along the baseboards to cut through the dark. It painted everything in warm, shadowy angles.

You were flat on your back, chest heaving, fabric of your grey t-shirt sticking to your collarbone, damp with your sweat. Johnny was hovering over you, knees pinning your thighs, a wide, smug grin splitting his face. He’d caught you with a sweep of his leg a second ago, and he wasn’t about to let you forget it. His hands were braced on either side of your head, mohawk damp and messy, blue eyes gleaming childishly in the dim light.

“That’s three-nil to me, luv,” Johnny panted. He was warm, impossibly so, like a furnace— and the weight of him pressing down on you sent a low, delicious shiver straight down your spine. “Givin’ up yet, or do ye fancy another round on yer back?”

“I was letting you win, MacTavish,” you gasped out, trying to shift your hips to no avail as he only leaned his weight heavier into you, grin widening.

“Aye, keep tellin’ yerself that—”

The heavy metal door of the gym clicked, sound echoing in the cavernous room.

The soles of heavy combat boots squeaked slowly against the polished floorboards just off the edge of the mats. Neither of you had to look up to know who it was. The imposing shadow that fell over you was enough of a clue.

Ghost stood at the edge of the mat, arms crossed over his chest. He’d ditched his tactical outfit for a tight black compression shirt that showed off the breadth of his shoulders, and his signature balaclava was pulled down tight, his dark eyes fixed on the two of you writhing on the floor.

He just stood there wordlessly, watching.

Johnny’s grin slowly faltered, breathing hitching just a fraction as he felt the Lieutenant’s gaze drop straight to where his knees were pinning you down. His gaze drifted slowly down the line of Johnny’s back before settling directly on you, pinned beneath, your chest rising and falling in sharp, shallow little breaths.

“LT,” Johnny muttered, and the teasing cadence in his voice was gone, now sounding raspy, tense. He didn’t let go of you. If anything, the heat of his thighs flanking yours seemed to double.

Ghost took a single, slow step forward, boots transitioning from the polished wood to the soft, giving rubber of the mat. He didn’t even look at Johnny when he spoke.

“Keep her there, Johnny.”

The command sent a physical jolt straight through you. You flared your nostrils with the rush of heat blooming in between your thighs, exactly where Johnny was keeping you parted. But you weren’t about to just lie there and be handled without a fight.

“Oh, is that how we’re playing?” you panted, tilting your chin up to look Johnny dead in the eyes. You bucked your hips beneath him, the sharp heave making Johnny gasp, his fingers tightening around your wrists on either side of you. “You going to let him call your plays for you, MacTavish? Or are you going to finish this yourself?”

Johnny’s eyes darkened at that, and you could almost see the flash of primal hunger replacing the last remnants of his playful grin. He leaned down, mouth hovering just inches from yours, his breath hot against your lips.

“I can finish it just fine, lass,” he whispered, his grip on your wrists bruisingly tight as he pulled them flat against the mat above your head this time. “But when LT gives an order, I like to be thorough.”

From above, the shadow of Ghost’s massive frame fell completely over both of you. He dropped to one knee at the edge of your head, fabric of his compression shirt straining against the muscles on his chest. Slowly, he reached down, fingers wrapping around the back of your neck, thumb tracing the frantic pulse leaping in your throat.

“She’s got too much fight left in her, Sergeant,” Ghost murmured, dark eyes locked onto yours behind the balaclava. The nonchalance in his tone made you want to just disappear into the ground. “Take her breath away.”

Johnny, the good little soldier he was, didn’t need to hear an order twice.

With a low growl, he dropped his chest against yours, crushing you beneath his weight while his mouth slammed down onto your lips. It wasn’t gentle by any means; the kiss was hot, demanding, almost bruising, and tasted faintly of salt and the iron-rich tang of adrenaline. He kissed you the way he fought— relentless, driving his tongue deep into your mouth, taking everything you were so fiercely trying to hold onto.

You let out a muffled gasp against his lips, fingers curling helplessly into your palm as he still had your wrists pinned. The friction of his body grinding against yours, the delicious drag of his hardening length, paired with the grip of the Lieutenant’s hand at the back of your neck, had your senses completely overloaded.

Ghost’s thumb firmly stroked over your pulse point, just enough to make you shiver as you tried to catch up to Johnny, his touch incredibly steady despite the raw size of him. He watched every detail of the kiss, his eyes dark and heavy-lidded behind the balaclava he wore, and you wondered if he’d fuck you tonight, or just leave you high and dry with the help of his Sergeant.

“Mmh, fuck, lass,” Johnny groaned out, breaking the kiss for a fraction of a second to get the words out and pant against your wet lips, blue eyes blown wide with desire. “Ye’re so fuckin’ warm under me.”

“Then don’t just… talk about it, Johnny,” you choked out, voice thick and breathless as you struggled against his hold, hips instinctively arching up, seeking the hard ridge of him through his sweatpants. “Show me.”

Above you, Ghost let out a low chuckle that seemed to vibrate right through the palm of his hand against the back of your throat.

“She’s begging, Sergeant,” Ghost murmured, free hand reaching down to grip your chin, tilting your head back so you had no choice but to look up at him. “And we don’t like to keep a lady waiting, do we, now?”

With an agonizing sort of slowness, Ghost let go of your pulse point, hooking his fingers into the hem of his balaclava and pulling it just past his lips, revealing his mouth set in a hard, hungry line. He leaned down a little more, then, and the scent of him— leather, cold rain, and a sharp touch of mint, crowded out the smell of the gym entirely.

“Look at me,” he commanded, and you stared up into those dark, intense eyes, heart hammering wildly against your ribs. Underneath you, Johnny was already shifting. He released one of your wrists, hand sliding down your ribs to catch the hem of your grey t-shirt and drag it up over your sports bra clad breasts. The cool air of the gym hit your sweaty skin, making goosebumps rise along the way, only for Johnny’s hot palm to smooth over your stomach, his fingers digging into your waist.

“LT,” Johnny choked out, gaze fixed on Ghost’s exposed, stubbled jaw. “Let me taste her.”

“Take what you want, Johnny.” Ghost murmured then, his eyes still set on yours.

With a breathless sound, Johnny buried his face in the crook of your neck first, teeth scraping lightly over the sensitive skin right where your shoulder met your collarbone. You gasped, head arching off the mat, hips bucking instinctively into Johnny’s lap. He groaned at that and locked his thighs tighter around yours to pin you down, mouth tracing a wet trail up to your jaw.

At the same time, Ghost’s heavy hand slid from your chin down to your chest, palm spreading flat over your racing heart, pressing you firmly down into the mat.

“You’re shaking, love,” Ghost observed softly, thumb brushing against the swell of your breast through the fabric. “That impatient, hm?”

“You’re such an asshole,” you gasped out, twisting your wrists in Johnny’s remaining grip, wanting nothing more than to wrap your arms around Ghost’s thick neck and pull him down. “Stop talking and kiss me.”

Ghost’s eyes crinkled slightly at the corners, dangerous amusement flashing in them.

“Feisty little thing, isn’t she?” Ghost murmured, tilting his head slightly as he looked down at Johnny, who was now nipping at your earlobe, his breath coming in desperate gasps.

“Aye,” the Scot muttered against your skin, his hand sliding lower, fingers hooking into the waistband of your shorts. “Thinks she runs the damn place. I reckon she needs to be reminded who she’s on the floor with.”

You watched as the last trace of amusement vanished from Ghost’s eyes. His hand slid from your chest up to your jaw again, fingers pressing firmly into the joint to force your mouth slightly open.

“Strip her, Johnny,” Ghost ordered, voice dropping to a low rumble that left absolutely no room for negotiation. “Take it all off.”

Johnny didn’t hesitate. An eager chuckle escaped him as he immediately back-pedaled off your thighs, hands moving with such speed it left you breathless. He hooked more fingers into the waistband of your shorts and underwear, dragging them both down your legs in one rough, sweeping motion, tossing them onto the dark floorboards off the edge of the mat.

Your t-shirt was bunched up around your collarbone, leaving you bare and shivering under the heavy gaze of both men.

Before you could even process the sudden rush of cool air, Ghost’s weight shifted. He crawled over you, frame eclipsing the ceiling lights with his thighs on both sides of your head. Slowly, he slid two thick fingers past your wet lips, pressing them flat onto your tongue.

“Take it,” Ghost murmured, eyes locked onto yours as he slowly drew his fingers out, only to push them back in, mimicking a slow, teasing rhythm against your tongue. “Quiet down for me now.”

Below you, Johnny was already moving. He settled between your thighs, broad hands gripping the undersides of your knees and pushing them back, opening you up completely to the dim amber light of the gym. He let out a ragged groan at the sight of you, chest heaving.

“Ye need to see her, LT,” Johnny whispered, voice trembling with sheer hunger. “Fucking beautiful.”

“Don’t just look, Sergeant,” Ghost commanded then, fingers swiping over your tongue to catch your saliva. “Eat.”

Johnny leaned down, messy mohawk brushing against your inner thighs as his hot breath hit your sensitive skin, making you spasm beneath him. When his warm, wet tongue finally made contact —lapping slick and broad strokes from the very bottom of your pussy all the way up to your tight, aching clit— your eyes blew wide.

You tried to scream, hips bucking wildly off the mat, but Ghost’s fingers locked behind your teeth, anchoring your head flat. His thumb pressed firmly against your chin, muffling your cries into a series of desperate whimpers against his hand.

“That’s it,” Ghost praised you in a soft tone, eyes tracing the frantic flush spreading down your neck and chest. “Take it all. Let your Sergeant hear how much you like his mouth on you.”

Johnny didn’t stop until you were entirely unraveled, thighs trembling violently against his shoulders as he drank the slick heat you poured out for him. Your fingers were clawed into the synthetic rubber of the mat, tongue lapping uselessly around Ghost’s thick fingers as you tried to ride out the waves of the shuddering orgasm they’d just forced from you.

But they weren’t anywhere near finished with you.

“Up,” Ghost commanded, finally drawing his slick fingers from your mouth. “Turn her around, Johnny.”

Johnny moved like a man possessed for each of his Lieutenant’s words. His hands, slick with your come, gripped your hips and hauled you upward. You were still dazed, limbs heavy and uncooperative, but Johnny guided you right where he knew Ghost wanted you, lifting your hips and pressing your knees into the mat until you were on all fours, head hanging low as you panted.

Your back arched instinctively as the cool air hit your wet core, leaving you exposed.

Ghost was already there. He was on his knees directly in front of you, thighs framing your head. He reached down and unbuckled his trousers then, and when he freed himself, his length was thick, heavy, and already leaking a bead of pre-cum that caught the amber light of the gym.

He reached down, fingers wrapping firmly in your hair, forcing your head up so you had to look at him.

“Like what you see?” the command sent a fresh spike of heat straight to your lower stomach. “Suck it, love. Wet it for me.”

Before you could even part your lips to comply, a massive weight pressed hard against your entrance from behind.

You let out a choked gasp as Johnny’s hands clamped onto your hip bones, fingers digging into your skin to anchor you. He didn’t wait. With a desperate heave of his hips, Johnny drove himself deep inside you in one thick push.

“Ah— f-fuck!” you cried out, back snapping straight, eyes wide as the fullness of him stretched you open.

Johnny let out a feral groan into the space between your shoulder blades, his chest slamming against your lower back as he immediately began to move, his pace fast, hard, and thoroughly desperate. The wet slapping sound of his skin hitting yours echoed in the otherwise quiet room.

“Keep your mouth on him,” Johnny gasped out, voice shaking with the effort of holding back as he drove into you again and again. “Suck… suck LT for me, please…”

Ghost’s grip on your hair tightened then, pulling your head forward until his thick tip was brushing against your wet lips.

“You heard the Sergeant,” Ghost whispered. “Open up.”

You opened your mouth, letting out a whimpering cry that was immediately cut off as Ghost guided his massive length past your lips.

The heat of him filled your mouth entirely, your jaw ticking to adjust to the size. You sucked him in as deep as your throat would allow, hands clawing desperately at his heavy thighs for balance as Johnny continued to slam into you from behind.

“Good girl,” the Lieutenant rumbled, as his hand remained firmly tangled in your hair, not to hurt, but to control the slow rhythm of your lips sliding up and down his shaft. “Just like that.”

Johnny, behind you, seemed to be completely lost to the sensation. His breath came in ragged bursts against your bare shoulder blades, fingers digging deep into your hips to keep you against his relentless pace. Every thrust was deep, bottoming out with a wet, slapping force that had your head bobbing deeper into Ghost’s length with every hit.

“Fuck, ye’re so tight, lass,” Johnny choked out, pulling back almost entirely before driving back in, hitting your sweet spot so perfectly that your eyes rolled back, a muffled moan vibrating against Ghost’s cock. “LT, she’s…. She’s squeezing the life out of me…”

Ghost’s fingers stroked your scalp, hips twitching slightly as he pushed himself just a little deeper into your throat. His eyes were fixed on the way your body trembled under the dual assault, on how hard Johnny was fucking you, flashing that sleazy grin of his at his Lieutenant shamelessly. “Hold it, Sergeant. Don’t you dare come yet.”

“LT, please,” Johnny panted. He was shuddering, entire body vibrating with the effort to obey. “I’m right on the edge, sir. Fuck, she’s too good.”

Ghost set his gaze on how glazed your eyes were, how your lips stretched wide around his length, saliva dripping down your chin as you took him as deep as you could.

“Told you to hold it, Sergeant.” Ghost growled, hand tightening in your hair. “Make yourself useful. Open her up some more.”

Johnny let out a ragged laugh against the skin of your back. “Aye, sir.”

With one hand still clamped onto your hip bone, keeping you pinned to his rhythmic thrusts, Johnny reached his free hand down between your thighs. He smeared the moisture backward, broad thumb finding the tight, puckered rim of your ass.

You let out a sharp cry around Ghost’s cock, body going rigid as Johnny’s thumb pressed firmly against the entrance, testing the give.

“Relax for me, lass,” Johnny whispered behind you. “Let me in. Just a little bit.”

With a sudden push, Johnny slid the tip of his index finger inside.

The sensation was overwhelming— the fullness of Johnny stretching you open from behind, combined with his finger sliding deep into your tightest recess. You thrashed, hands clawing desperately at Ghost’s thighs, trying to escape the double penetration, but Ghost’s grip on your hair seemed tight. He leaned forward, free hand pushing your shoulders down, forcing you to take him even deeper into your throat to muffle your sobbing gasps.

“Take it,” Ghost growled, his own hips finally beginning to roll, driving into your mouth to draw out every single gag and sputter. “Suck me through it, love. Feel how good Johnny’s making you. Look how hard he’s fucking you to please me, hm?”

Johnny groaned, adding another finger to the mix, curling them to mimic the hard rhythm of his cock. The dual friction was dizzying, sending sparks straight to your lower stomach. You were completely caught between them— stretched to your absolute limit, crying silently around Ghost’s thick length as Johnny worked you raw from behind.

Johnny was just as undone as you, forehead pressed against the space between your shoulder blades as his chest heaved. His thrusts had grown frantic, losing their cadence and turning into deep, desperate plunges that bottomed out against you. His fingers were working tirelessly inside your tightest hole, driving you absolutely mad.

“LT, please…” Johnny sobbed out, the raw desperation in his voice echoing off the blank walls. “Please, sir, I cannae hold it. I’m gonna break. Let me cum. Please let me cum in her.”

Ghost’s breathing had grown heavier now, fingers remaining firmly tangled in your hair, holding you close as his eyes locked onto Johnny’s. He felt the clenching of your throat, the way your body was vibrating on the precipice of another shattering release.

Slowly, reluctantly, Ghost pulled his thick length out from between your wet lips. A long strand of saliva connected you to him as you did your best to cough and catch your breath, letting out broken gasps, jaw aching.

He gripped his own shaft then, hand wrapping around his thick, slick length, and began to stroke himself with vicious downstrokes.

“Do it, Johnny,” Ghost growled. “Fill her up. Cum for me, Sergeant.”

“Ah, fuck!”

With a loud cry, Johnny slammed his hips forward one last time, burying himself to the absolute root. His entire body went rigid, muscles locking up as he began to release, his seed pumping deep and hot inside you, and at the same time, he was twitching his fingers inside you desperately to drive you over the edge with him.

Your own climax hit again, this time harder, rougher. You screamed, sound muffled against the mat you collapsed onto, walls clamping down incredibly tight around Johnny, milking him dry.

Right as you broke, Ghost leaned forward, his grip on your hair tightening once more to tilt your head back. His strokes had reached a frantic, desperate speed.

“Open,” he commanded, completely out of breath.

You parted your lips instinctively, staring up at him through a haze of tears and sweat. With two last strokes, Ghost groaned, jaw clenching tightly as he came, sending thick, hot ropes of white semen shooting directly onto your tongue. The heat of it filled your mouth, heavy and sweet, and you swallowed greedily under his burning gaze.

The heavy silence of the gym was broken only by the sound of ragged breathing.

Johnny laid dead weight against your back. He was completely spent, his chest heaving in slow shudders. Inside you, his length was still thick and pulsing slowly as his climax ebbed away, keeping you stretched and wonderfully full.

Above you, Ghost remained on his knees, broad shoulders rising and falling with jagged breaths. His jaw was still exposed, slick with a light sheen of sweat, and his dark eyes were fixed on your face, watching the way you slowly swallowed the last of his come.

“Good girl,” he murmured, voice incredibly soft, almost tender, despite the intensity of the last few minutes. Slowly, he slid his hand from your hair down to your jaw. His thumb gently wiped away a stray smear of his seed and saliva mixed together from the corner of your lips, and he stared at his wet thumb for a second before rubbing it against his thigh, his eyes never leaving yours.

“Look at you,” Johnny whispered against your skin, leaving a soft kiss there, voice cracked and breathless. He squeezed your hips gently. “Absolutely ruined ye, didn’t we, lovie?”

“Shut up, MacTavish,” you groaned out with a soft grin on your lips. Your legs were shaking so much that you could barely keep your knees on the rubber mat. Every muscle in your body felt like warm wax.

Johnny let out a chuckle against you then as he slowly began to pull out of you, the wet sound of his exit incredibly loud in the empty room. You let out a quiet whimper at the sudden loss of his heat inside you, hips twitching instinctively to follow him.

“Don’t move yet.” Ghost commanded quietly, and reached down, his massive hands sliding under your armpits. With effortless strength, he hauled your limp body up and backward, pulling you flush against his chest. He settled you right between his thighs, wrapping his thick arms around your stomach to keep you steady while Johnny slowly crawled up beside you, his blue eyes soft and devoted as he looked at you.

You melted back against the solid wall of Ghost’s chest. Johnny reached out to brush a stray lock of hair from your forehead whilst Ghost’s hands tightened around you a little, grip firm as he looked over you at his Sergeant. His eyes dropped Johnny’s gaze, which was down on your thighs, wet and glistening in the dim light.

“Won’t you look at that, Johnny,” Ghost murmured gently. “You left a proper mess of her.”

Johnny’s jaw slackened slightly at that. “Aye, LT. She’s soaked in it.”

“Clean it up,” you heard Ghost say, but you weren’t sure if you were dreaming it up until the point you saw the glint come back to Johnny’s eyes. “Every drop. I want her spotless.”

“Yes, sir.”

Johnny dropped to his elbows on the mat then, shuffling down between your trembling legs. He gripped your knees, spreading your thighs wide once more as you sat cradled in Ghost’s lap. His hot breath brushed your sensitized, properly fucked out pussy a second before his warm tongue made contact, greedily lapping up the slick of your shared release.

Your head snapped back against Ghost’s shoulder as you moaned. “Ah— Johnny…”

“Stay still,” Ghost whispered softly in your ear. His arm remained anchored against your stomach, keeping you flush against him, but his other hand slid down. Slowly, his thick fingers parted your folds against Johnny’s tongue to grant him better access, then, his middle and ring fingers pressed right against your clit.

He didn’t use a light touch. He rubbed his fingers against your sensitive bud in firm, circular motions.

“Mmh— Simon!” you cried out, fingers clawing helplessly at the thick muscles of his thighs. Your hips bucked instinctively, trying to escape the pressure on your clit mixing up with the slick torture of Johnny’s tongue, but you were locked tight.

“I’ve got you,” Ghost whispered darkly against your hair, fingers never stopping their relentless rhythm as Johnny looked up at you two, eyes almost rolling back when he caught Ghost’s dark gaze fixed right at him like he wanted to eat him alive. “Just let him clean you, love.”

Johnny let out a muffled groan of appreciation against your center when one of your hands found its way to his mohawk, pulling him down harder onto your core, his tongue working in skilled strokes. He drank you down as Ghost’s fingers drove you higher and higher, pushing you right back over the edge of a helpless climax.

"Please—please, I can't," you sobbed out, your fingers clawing desperately into Ghost’s thick thighs, trying to find some sort of anchor as the world spun. "It’s too much… Ghost, stop—"

"No," Ghost rumbled, his voice pressing right against your ear. His chest was a solid brick wall behind you, refusing to let you retreat even an inch. "Keep your eyes open. Watch him."

You forced your glazed eyes down. Through a haze of tears, you watched Johnny’s dark head bobbing between your thighs. He was relentless, his hands locked like iron clamps around the backs of your knees to hold you wide, his jaw working frantically as he drank in the fresh, hot gush of slick your body was desperately producing. He was humming against your clit, the deep, vibrating sound sending sharp, electric jolts straight to your chest.

"Finish it, Johnny," Ghost ordered, his own breathing finally catching, his chest hitching as he felt the tremors starting to seize your thighs. "Take her over."

A high, broken scream was torn from your throat. Your body went completely rigid, your spine arching off Ghost’s chest as a massive, shuddering orgasm tore through you. You clamped down so hard on Johnny's tongue that he let out a muffled whimper, his hands squeezing your hips bruisingly tight as he held you through the waves.

Ghost’s hand stayed firmly in place, riding out the tremors with you, his heavy fingers pressing down until the very last twitch of your thighs subsided.

You collapsed back against him, completely spent as your eyes rolled back, jaw hanging slightly open. You stared blankly at the dark ceiling until Johnny came back into view from below, and you watched him wipe his mouth with the back of his hand, looking up at you and Ghost with a dazed, utterly blissed-out grin.

“Spotless, LT.” you could barely hear his hoarse voice.

"She's done, Johnny," Ghost said quietly, his grip on your waist loosening just enough to let you breathe a little easier, though he kept you anchored securely against him. "Go get some towels from the locker. And a bottle of water."

"Aye, L.T.," Johnny murmured, but he didn't move immediately. He leaned down first, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to your forehead, then to the tip of your nose, and finally a quick, tender press of his lips to yours. "Don't go anywhere without me."

"Can't move if I wanted to," you croaked out, your voice a tiny, raspy whisper.

A low, genuine chuckle shook Ghost's chest behind you. "Good little soldiers, both of you."

John Price stood by the reinforced door, practically swallowing the limited space. He had his heavy tactical jacket unzipped just a fraction, the scent of tobacco, rain, and sweat clinging to him like a second skin. His blue eyes, usually sharp enough to cut glass, always aware of everything around him, tracked you as you dropped your rucksack onto the dusty floor. 

“Cosy,” you remarked, wiping a layer of grime off the back of a plastic chair. “I see the Royal Army really spared no expense on the honeymoon suite. 

Price let out a low huff— the closest you’d get to a laugh while knee-deep in the red zone, halfway through a deep-cover mission. He pulled his watch cap down tighter over his ears. “You’re lucky it’s got a roof, love. Last time I was in this sector, I slept in a ditch with a wet poncho.”

“And you’ve been lovely ever since,” you shot back mindlessly, unbuttoning your own heavy coat to check the seals on your sidearm. You didn’t look up, but you could feel his gaze on you, always. Heavy, observant, laced with the respect he only reserved for operatives who were genuine survivalists out in the field. Sometimes you wondered if he only ever liked you because you didn’t know how to complain. “Don’t worry, Captain. If you get cold, I’ll let you have the chair.”

Price took a slow step forward, floorboards groaning a little beneath his boots. He leaned against the low ceiling beam, looking down at you with that maddeningly calm, knowing smirk hidden in his stupid beard.

“Is that right?” his voice dropped an octave, a rough purr that vibrated right through the thick, stale air of the room. “Generous of you. But I outrank you, Sergeant. Which means if anyone’s taking the luxury seating, it’s me.”

“Ah, pulling rank already? We’ve only been locked in a basement for, what, ten minutes?” you finally looked up, meeting his eyes with a challenging tilt of your chin. “I thought you liked a capable partner, John.”

“I do,” Price murmured, holding your gaze, his own darkening a little. Though you weren’t sure, as exhaustion had played with your brain way too many times before and told you that on quiet nights like this, Price was thinking exactly the same things as you were. “Which is why I’m letting you figure out how we’re both going to fit on a mattress meant for a single schoolboy without one of us falling off.”

Ah. Sure.

The unspoken rule between the two of you had always been distance. It wasn’t born out of dislike— quite the opposite, actually. In your line of work, professional distance was a life jacket. The cold, the bone-deep exhaustion, the proximity of holding the line with someone could easily play tricks with your head, make you see things that weren’t necessarily there, have you holding onto words like the world outside of that specific perimeter had lost all its meaning. 

Price was a man who carried the weight of too many ghosts, and you were a woman who valued her autonomy too much to let a commander see the softer edges of your armor. But there was a gravity between you, undeniable in its nature, a pull that both of you spent a massive, unnecessary amount of energy pretending didn’t exist. 

You took great interest in the smaller details of the room whilst your brain scrambled to find a way to get you out of the situation, before setting your eyes on him.

“A schoolboy’s mattress,” you repeated, voice a dry defense mechanism against the sudden tightness of your chest. “Right. Well. Good thing I practiced my posture in training.”

The banter was a shield, of course, but as the clock ticked past midnight, the cold began to strip it away. The heating unit in the corner, which you deemed hopeless within twenty minutes of settling in, gave one pathetic hiss before dying completely, leaving the air so frigid your breath bloomed in fragile, ghostly clouds between you. The Siberian winder certainly didn’t care about the military rank Price was always so eager to pull with you; if it could seep through the concrete this much, it could easily bypass your skin to settle deep into your bones until shivers wracked your shoulders.

Price noticed. Why were you even surprised, he noticed everything.

“Drop the boots and the rig,” he commanded quietly. It wasn’t his ‘Captain’ voice that you were used to— it was lower, thicker, roughened by the drop in temperature and something else he was trying hard to suppress. “We’re losing heat. We freeze up, we’re useless tomorrow.”

You didn’t have it in you to argue this once. The bravado was gone, replaced by the instinct to just survive which was quickly blurring into something far more dangerous in your book. You stripped off your tactical vest and boots, leaving you in your thick thermal layers. When you climbed onto the narrow cot, pressed flat against the damp concrete wall to leave him room, you realized just how impossible this was going to be.

The bed groaned under his weight as Price laid down beside you, facing away at first, trying to preserve a polite boundary. But you both knew it was useless. The cold was a physical blade, cutting through the thin fabric of your thermals, the skin beneath, your bones. You shivered again, hard enough that the rusted springs gave a little.

With a heavy sigh that sounded a lot like surrender, Price turned around. 

Thank God you were facing away from him because if you had to face him in the dark now, you would probably say something stupid.

“Come here,” he muttered into the dark. 

Before you could even try to fire back a witty retort, his arm reached out, hooking around your waist and pulling you backward against his chest. The impact took your breath away. He was a literal furnace— visceral, solid, and utterly massive. Your back pressed flush against his torso, thighs nesting into his, head tucked just beneath his chin. 

The dynamic shifted in an instant, you could feel it. You were no longer just two highly capable soldiers sharing a safehouse to lay low for the night. You felt skin and bone, heartbeat and heat, terrifyingly, deliciously close. 

Price’s breath hitched as your heat met his. Through the layers of clothing, you cold feel the hard expanse of his chest rising and falling against your shoulder blades, his heart thumping a steady rhythm that almost matched the sudden racing of your own. His beard brushed the crown of your head, the scent of him enveloping your entire being completely. He was rigid, every muscle in his body coiled tight as a spring, as if he were actively fighting the urge for something. To pull you closer, your treacherous mind whispered into you. To feel your body against his, closer, warmer, perhaps even wetter.

He’s affected by this, you realized, a sudden thrill of heat shooting through your veins that had absolutely nothing to do with the weather. The great John Price isn’t as untouchable as he lets on.

“Still cold?” he murmured, his voice rumbling directly into your spine, making its way down in between your legs, to contribute to the growing anticipation there.

You remained entirely frozen, terrified to your bones that even a single, misplaced shift of your weight would shatter the fragile illusion of military necessity. But the cold was unrelenting, forcing you to melt backward, pressing your spine firmer against the solid wall of his chest.

“I’ll survive, Captain,” you managed, voice nothing above a hushed thread in the dark. “Though I think you forgot to mention in your briefing that field-expedient thermal sharing involved being spooned by a human bear.”

Price let out a sound— not a huff this time, but a vibration that rippled right through your shoulder blades, making your muscles go taut. His arm, still wrapped around your waist, tightened just a little bit, pulling you a microscopic inch closer until there wasn’t a single millimeter of air left between his front and your back.

“It’s called survival, Sergeant,” he murmured, breath hot against the shell of your ear. You shushed your mind before it could tell you that he was doing it deliberately. “If you’ve got complaints, you can file ‘em with Hereford when we get back. Till then, shut up and take my heat.”

“Always so textbook,” you whispered, tilting your head back just slightly. The crown of your head rubbed against his jaw, the rough stubble of his beard catching on your hair. “And here I thought you were breaking character just to be nice to me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, love.” the term of endearment slipped out a little too easily, too breathily, with a weight that didn’t necessarily belong on a mission roster. Price’s fingers twitched where they rested against your stomach. His hand flattened there then, palm heavy and searingly hot through the synthetic fabric. He was pinning your hips directly against the apex of his thighs, and you didn’t have a single intention of complaining. 

“Besides,” Price added whilst shifting his weight, large thigh sliding between yours a bit. “If I were breaking character, you wouldn’t be doing this much talking.”

A treacherous thrill coiled tight in your lower stomach. The undercurrent of the remark he threw so casually wasn’t a blunt admission, no, that wasn’t in Price’s nature, but it was there— thick, sticky with a promise that made the back of your throat go dry.

“Is that a threat, Captain?” you whispered, your own voice taking on a slight edge. You tilted your hips back just a fraction into his heat, testing the boundary, testing him. “Last I checked, I’ve never had an issue keeping up with your pace. In or out of the field.”

You heard a jagged intake of air that ruffled the hairs at the nape of your neck, then, you felt the immediate consequence of your movement— hardening of a certain something against your lower back, thick and unmistakable even through the heavy layers of clothing. He was fighting a losing battle against his own restraint, and you weren’t exactly making it easier for him.

“Careful now,” the warning rumbled right into your skin. His hand on your stomach moved, palm spreading wide, charting the curve of your hip with an agonizingly slow pressure. “You’re playing a high-stakes game in a very small room, love.”

“But you’re the one who told me to take your heat,” you breathed, the dizzying heat washing over you entirely eradicating the chill that a few minutes ago was paralyzing you. “I’m just… following orders. Finding out how much you’re willing to give.”

“Wanna talk orders?” his voice was a rough purr now, lips brushing your earlobe as he spoke, sending an electric ache straight down between your thighs. His fingers dug a little deeper into your hip, pulling your backside flush against the rigid line of his groin. “If I give you an order right now, Sergeant, I’d have to make sure you take every single piece of it.”

The weight of his tone made your knees weaken, even lying down. It was a masterclass in control, a tether keeping the monster on a leash, but the leash was fraying way too fast. Every slow rise and fall of his chest rubbed torturously against you. 

“Then why don’t you?” you challenged softly, heart hammering against your ribs. “Unless the Captain is all talk tonight.”

Price didn’t answer that. The time for words, apparently, was over.

His hand moved from your hip with urgency, large fingers gripping the waistband of your thermal trousers before hauling them down along with your underwear in one heavy sweep, exposing your bare skin to the biting chill of the room. That didn’t last long, though, as his massive, burning body crowded right back against you. You heard the harsh, metallic slide of his own zipper, the rustle of heavy fabric, then the staggering reality of his bare length pressing directly against the slick, aching heat between your thighs.

He was massive. 

You let out a soft gasp into the dark, hands reaching back to blindly grip at the fabric of his shirt for leverage as he grabbed a hold of your leg, lifting it up and hooking it over his, opening you right up for easy access as his fingers found their way over to your aching clit.

“All talk?” Price growled into the nape of your neck, voice stripped of all the restraint it had before. It was deep, feral, and deeply, deeply hungry. “Let’s see how well you keep up now, hm?”

With a tilt of his hips, and a helping hand, Price managed to drive himself forward a bit, blunt tip catching onto your desperate entrance.

He didn’t ease into you, not that you expected him to. He sank straight into your tight, drenched heat in one long push, filling you to the absolute brim. The light pain of his thick length stretching you open took the breath out of your lungs, having your eyes snapping open in the dark, spine arching off his back as pleasure crashed over your brain. A loud, high-pitched cry built in the back of your throat, threatened to tear past your lips and echo straight up through the floor to the street above.

Before the sound could even escape, though, Price’s large hand slammed over your mouth. 

His palm was warm, smelling of one of his cigars, effectively smothering your voice into a muffled, breathless whimper against his skin.

“Shh, quiet, baby,” Price hissed against your ear, holding you completely still for one torturous second, letting your desperate body stretch and adjust to the fullness of him. “One sound out of you, and we’re compromised. You stay quiet for me, okay pretty girl? You hear me?”

You could only nod frantically against his palm. The danger of the mission outside was entirely eclipsed by the overwhelming danger and embarrassment of the orgasm forcing its way to the surface, before he even had a chance to move properly. 

Price let out an approving grunt. “Good girl.”

Then, he began to move.

Because of the cramped, narrow spooning position, every single thrust had to be so, so deep and agonizingly slow. He pulled back until he was almost entirely out, letting the freezing air hit the slick skin of your cunt, before driving all the way back in, bottoming out against you with a wet thud each time. His thick hips rolled against your backside, weight crushing you into the wall and the hard mattress with every relentless stroke of his. 

You writhed against him, muffled whimpers trapped behind his hand as he tore through all of your defenses. The pleasure was too sharp, too much. Every time he hit your sweet spot, your legs twitched helplessly, begging for a faster pace, but Price maintained a commanding rhythm of his own. He was using his size to dominate the space, thick thighs anchoring yours, chest pinning your shoulders flat when he moved a bit further to keep you under him.

“Look at you,” Price whispered roughly, lips dragging along your jawline. “Taking all of it. So quiet. Built perfectly for this, aren’t you? My perfect little soldier.”

The dirty praises sent an entirely new wave of heat straight to your core. You clamped your thighs tighter around his leg, tilting your pelvis back to meet his deep thrusts, desperately chasing the peak that had been building between your legs a while.

Price felt the shift in your body, the tight squeeze of your wet walls around his girth. He let out a low groan, hand gripping your jaw just a little tighter. “Yeah, just like that,” he muttered, breaths coming in short pants now as his own control began to fray at the edges. “Take it all from your captain, baby, take all of me.”

You felt Price’s restraint snapping cleanly in two when he stopped pulling back. He simply drove into you over and over, frantic thrusts that slammed his hips flush against yours with a wet echo, and at that point, his tight hand around your jaw wasn’t doing much to muffle you. The rusted springs of the cot creaked beneath, but neither of you cared about the noise anymore— not when he was so big and unforgiving, not when you were so tight and soft beneath his palms. 

“I’m gonna ruin you,” Price growled, voice barely feeling human as his teeth grazed your shoulder. “Gonna fill you up. Fucking breed you. Just hold on, love, hold on for me.”

Your walls clamped helplessly around him, and the orgasm actually felt like a physical blow against your pussy. You arched your spine, eyes rolling back in the dark as a choked, muffled scream was smothered entirely into his palm. Your walls clamping tight around his rigid length as you came around him pushed Price right over the precipice. 

He let out a guttural moan against your neck, body locking up when he drove himself into you one final time, burying his length as deep as it could possibly go, and then, he unleashed.

You felt the pulsing before the warmth flooded your tight space, filling you to the absolute brim. He poured into you in deep waves, the volume of his seed pooling deep within  your core until it slickly escaped the seal of your skin to drip onto the mattress beneath you. Price remained buried deep, chest heaving against your back, heart hammering on top of you like a war drum as he slowly emptied himself into you. 

For a long, beautiful minute, the only sound was the desperate panting of two people trying to catch their breaths. 

You felt him soften slightly, though he stayed put, preserving the connection there for a hot minute before carefully withdrawing his large hand from your mouth, fingers trailing down your jaw, over your chin, before resting against the pulse point on your neck. 

He pressed a soft kiss to the damp skin beneath your ear, breath still hot and shallow.

“Love,” he whispered into the dark, shifting his weight to ensure he wasn’t crushing you. “You alright? Did I hurt you?”

“I just might have to start disobeying orders more often, Captain,” you murmured with his soft chuckle rumbling against your back, as he buried his face into the crook of your neck. 

“Smart mouth,” Price whispered affectionately, thumb gently stroking the pulse point on your throat before he retreated a bit to pull the blankets back up over the two of you. 

The mirror was merely a fractured rectangle, held against a crumbling concrete pillar by two strips of duct tape. In its cracked reflection, the city of Verdansk —or what was left of it after the blockade— sank into a hazy blue.

Johnny sat backwards on a skeletal metal chair, forearms resting over the backrest with his head tilted high. His face was covered in a thick mask of cheap soap, whipped up in a rusted ration tin using a stiff shaving brush. 

“Hold still, MacTavish, or I’m going to have to leave you with a permanent smile like a Batman villain,” Gaz muttered. He was leaning in close, sharpest knife he could find held delicately between his fingers. With surprisingly steady precision, he dragged the flat of the blade down Johnny’s cheek, clearing a wide path through the thick soap and weeks of stubble.

“I am holding still, ye bloody butcher,” Johnny grumbled, slightly muffled by the layer of foam covering his top lip. His eyes darted up to the mirror, tracking Gaz’s movements with an intense amount of suspicion despite trusting him with his life. “Jus’ making sure I dinnae go home to my gorgeous wife looking like a had a run-in wi’ a blender. Domestic necessities.”

A low huff echoed from the shadows beside the pillar.

Simon was leaning against the structural wall, arms crossed tightly over his chest. Even inside a decaying apartment building with no running water and zero supply lines, the Ghost managed to look completely unbothered. His dark eyes flickered from Johnny’s overgrown hair down to the foam dripping onto his collar.

“Domestic necessities, my arse,” Ghost rumbled through the distant, sporadic artillery fire outside. “If I were her, I’d leave the deadbolt slid shut.”

“Ah, dinnae listen to him, Gaz,” Johnny flashed a sharp, white-toothed grin cutting through the remaining foam on his face as his eyes sparkled with mischief. “LT’s just jealous ‘cause no one’s seen his jawline since the late nineties. He disnae understand the logistics of a proper reunion kiss.”

Gaz let out a soft chuckle, wiping the edge of the knife on a piece of torn cloth before stepping back in for another pass. “Though personally, Johnny, if I spent eighteen months ghosting the grid just to come home and get nagged about a crooked shave, I’d head right back to Middle East or something.”

Johnny grunted, flinching slightly as Gaz ran the blade along his jawline. “She disnae do the nagging bit. She’ll look at me, at the absolute state of my mohawk, and tell me I look like a rat born out of wedlock. It’s the quiet judgment that gets ye, boys. Saps the confidence right out of a man.”

“Good,” Ghost said, cold amusement bleeding through his mask as he shifted against the concrete wall. “Keep you humble. Lord knows a year and half of surviving on stray dogs  and rainwater hasn’t done much to quiet your mouth, MacTavish.”

“Hey, it’s canned mutton. I won’t allow this smear campaign against our rations,” Gaz chuckled whilst finishing the final stroke along Johnny’s neck and wiping the knife clean on his thigh. “I think making sure he’s got all his limbs is far more important than caring about the symmetry of his body hair.”

Johnny reached up, splashing a bit of cold water from a plastic jug onto his face to rinse away the leftover foam and hair. He blinked through the droplets, looking at his clean-shaven face in the cracked glass. The dark circles under his eyes were deep, and there was a new scar slicing right through the edge of his left eyebrow from a rogue piece of masonry six months back. But beneath the grime and exhaustion, his jaw remained set. He looked like himself again. You’d grab his face and call out how unfair it was for him to be this handsome, he knew it. 

“Aye,” Johnny murmured, patting a cloth against his face to dry the skin. He looked over his shoulder at Simon, then at the Captain, keeping watch by the window. “Eighteen months of this shite. I’m ready for a proper roof.”

Eighteen months of quiet had turned the house into a museum of waiting. The living room, once bursting with Johnny’s booming laughter, discarded clothes thrown carelessly upon the excitement of seeing you home, and the warmth of his all-consuming presence, now felt vast and uncomfortably, uncharacteristically still. 

Friends and family had stopped calling about it around six months back. You barely got any visits from them anymore. At some point, you’d stopped taking up on the offers of going out to a pub, to get something to eat, as friends definitely noticed how hollowed out you seemed; and after that point, people just stopped asking. 

You couldn’t blame them, really. Knowing someone is dead was closure. Having a gravestone to caress and leave flowers by was relief. Not knowing where the love of your life might be, whether he was dead or alive, buried or burnt, grave unnamed or not…

You never did well with uncertainty. 

You sat in the exact same spot on the floor, back pressed against the base of the sofa, half-empty glass of red wine resting on the carpet beside your knee. The telly was on, of course, he’d told you to keep it on, and it cast a flickering glow across the dark room as it played that same home restoration show. On the screen, a new couple was bickering over the layout, their superficial problems serving as a numbing cream over your bleeding heart. It didn’t feel like mockery anymore. You found an odd sense of comfort in seeing that at least they had each other. 

You swirled the wine in your glass, watching the dark liquid coat the crystal, mind drifting back to the last afternoon you had spent on this very rug— with Johnny’s heavy, stubborn head resting against your lower abdomen while he grumbled about the work on TV. You had spent all this time nursing that memory, holding onto the phantom weight of his head, the ghost of his gravelly purr. 

The house was hell to walk through. The bathroom shelf with its hollow wall anchor sat exactly as he had left it, the mismatched color of the patchwork he’d done serving as a sacred testament to his messy domesticity that you refused to let anyone touch. You lived your life in a perpetual, agonizing limbo, walking that fragile tightrope without any sort of safety net whatsoever, never knowing if the man who loved you more than his next breath was still fighting his way back, or if the dark had finally taken over. 

You took a slow, deep sip as you stared blankly at the TV screen, completely unaware that a few streets over, a matte-black military transport was quietly cutting through the twilight.

A few minutes later, the heavy thud of a car door shutting broke the silence of the street.

Your hand froze halfway to your mouth, glass of wine tilting slightly whilst your chest locked up. That sound. It was way too heavy for a regular car. None of your neighbors owned a car that sounded like that.

Your heart hammered violently against your ribs as you set the glass down with a shaky rattle, scrambling off the floor. Your slippers skidded on the rug as you dashed into the hallway, hands trembling so much you could barely get a proper grip on the deadbolt. 

You threw the front door open, the cool evening air hitting your face as you stepped outside, but your eyes immediately locked onto the curb. 

The military transport was sitting there, its exhaust spitting thin plumes of gray into the air. But only one door had opened.

Simon stepped onto the pavement. 

He was moving slowly, shoulders hunched, skull mask making him look like the grim reaper incarnate under the dim yellow of the streetlamp. He walked across the grass alone. No loud, booming Scottish accent behind him. No Johnny.

Your world as you knew it, completely tilted on its axis. The terror you had spent eighteen months mourning finally crashed down, crushing out the remaining air from your lungs. 

“No,” you choked out, a breathless sob tearing from your throat as you stumbled down the porch steps. Your hands flew to your mouth, eyes wide, pleading, wild with the paralyzing grief that began to consume you. You didn’t necessarily see a soldier in front of you. You saw the nightmare that kept you awake, the dress uniform, polished shoes, hat off by the chest, and he’s so, so sorry. “Simon, no… please, no. You promised me. You promised…”

Simon caught you before your knees could buckle into the grass. His gloved palms gripped your body, hold firm, grounding as he pinned your collapsing weight against his broad chest. 

“Hey, no, look at me. Look at me, love,” Simon barked, trying to cut in between you and the rising panic bubbling in your heart. He leaned down, forcing his forehead agaisnt yours, forcing his eyes to lock onto your tear-blurred ones. “He’s not dead. Johnny’s alive. Breathe, bloody hell, breathe.”

The words took a second to register through the loud ringing in your ears. You clutched at his vest, fingers digging into the stiff nylon until it hurt. “Where is he? Simon, why isn’t he with you?”

Simon let out a long, heavy sigh, beginning to slowly lead you back into the house. You fought against it, but to no avail, he was too strong for you to fight back and run to the car. 

“Because your husband is the most pig-headed bastard in the entire British Army,” he muttered and you caught the faint edge of exhausted, fond irritation in his rough cadence. He practically forced you into a sitting position on the couch, eyes catching the wine glass and some of the empty bottles around, but he didn’t comment on it, getting down on his knees to force you to look down at him. “Took a nasty bit of shrapnel to the thigh a few days ago. Nothing fatal, skipped the artery, but the idiot hid it from us because he was terrified we’d miss the extraction window.”

You let out a trembling breath, eyes closing for a second as you leaned forward, closer, just to make sure you weren’t mishearing anything. “Oh my god…”

“Fever hit him like a damned train halfway through the flight,” Simon continued, hand coming up to gently pat your knee. “He’s completely out of it, mumbling nonsense. Medics put him straight into the base infirmary the second we touched down to get him on an IV drip and flush the fever out.”

He pulled back a little, then, eyes softening beneath the mask as he looked up at your unraveled face. “He wanted to come straight to the door, love. Genuinely tried to fight the orderly. When he couldn’t, well…” he shrugged, vaguely pointing at himself. “He’s safe. I kept my promise.”

The suffocating amount of terror that had colonized your chest for a year and a half didn’t vanish entirely, that would be too easy. It shifted a bit, transforming into a frantic need to move, right that second. 

“Take me to him,” you whispered, voice cracking as you made a move to stand up from the sofa. “Simon, please. If he’s fighting orderlies, he needs me. Take me to the base.”

Simon refused to move an inch, hands anchored to your knees, keeping you safely seated. “Not like this, love,” he murmured, eyes trailing your mismatched loungewear, the tremor in your hands, the frantic gaze you sported. “The base is a forty-minute drive, and the infirmary is freezing. Wash your face first. Then go put some boots on. Grab a proper jacket. I’ll wait right here.”

You wanted so badly to argue, to tell him you didn’t care if you walked into the military hospital stark naked as long as you got to Johnny, but the authority in Ghost’s gaze brooked no refusal. You nodded sharply, swallowing down a fresh wave of emotional exhaustion as you stood up and bolted down the hallway toward the bathroom.

Your hands shook so violently you could barely pull the sweater over your head. You grabbed the first pair of sturdy boots you could find and snatched Johnny’s heavy flannel off the back of the closet door— craving the faint scent of him even if it was buried under eighteen months of dust.

When you hurried back into the living room, Simon was already standing by the front door, holding your house keys in his gloved hand. He took one look at you. “Right,” he rumbled, turning the doorknob and stepping into the night. “Let’s go get your idiot.”

The engine rumbled with a vibration that seemed to match the anxious knot restarting its hold under your ribs. Simon’s hands rested steady on the steering wheel, eyes tracking the slicked roads as the typical purple twilight bled into the deep ink of the night.

You sat in the passenger seat, wrapped so deeply in the oversized flannel that the cuffs swallowed your hands. Your knees were pulled tightly to your chest, boots braced against the dashboard to keep yourself from coming apart. Every red light felt like a lifetime, every mile of asphalt a physical barrier stretching between you and the breath Johnny was drawing in a hospital bed. 

“Stop that,” Simon didn’t look over you, his eyes locked on the dark highway ahead. “You’re going to put your foot through my dash.”

You slowly dropped your legs, pressing your palms flat against your thighs to force the trembling to stop. “How bad is the fever, Si? Really.”

“He was out of his head by the time we crossed the airspace. Kept trying to unbuckle his harness because he swore he heard you calling him from the cargo ramp.” he let out a huff of quiet laughter, then. “He’s strong. Too strong to let a bug take him down after a year and a half of dodging mortars. But he’s spent. The whole lot of us are.”

You looked out the window, watching the bleak walls of the military base finally materialize out of the dark. “You kept him alive.”

“You owe me one, then,” he spoke flatly, which managed to pull half a smile out of you. The vehicle swung through the security checkpoint, guards waving the transport through on sight. “There were at least a dozen separate occasions in that blockaded sector where MacTavish’s crazy logic was the only thing that cleared a path for us. He fought like a demon to get back to this city. To get back home.”

The vehicle squealed to a halt in the restricted red zone directly outside the brick building of the base infirmary. Simon was out his door in an instant, walking around to your side to throw the door open, hands catching your waist to help you down onto the asphalt. 

“Second floor,” Simon murmured, nodding towards the heavy doors where a faint fluorescent white light spilled out onto the pavement. “I’ll handle the parking. Don’t let the orderlies give you any grief, tell ‘em the Ghost sent you.”

You practically sprinted through the double doors of the infirmary, and bolted up the stairs to the second floor. When you rounded the corner, the harsh lights overhead blurred together, but your eyes instantly locked onto the small, rectangular window of Room 204. 

You flinched upon the sight. Not that he looked like shit, well, he did, but he was Johnny. Your Johnny. Asleep. 

He still looked massive in the narrow hospital bed, broad shoulders propped up by pillows. He was stripped of all his armor, only wearing a loose green medical gown that showed a glimpse of a thick white bandage wrapped around his thigh. His face was flushed with the remnants of the fever, and a cannula was hooked beneath his nose. But his chest was rising and falling. He was breathing, and he looked so, so alive. 

“Hey, sweetheart.”

The soft murmur made you tear your eyes away from the window. Sitting on a row of plastic waiting chairs directly outside the door were Price and Gaz. They looked entirely spent, barely out of their dirty uniforms, eyes hollowed out by the same tomb Johnny had just escaped. Each of them was holding a steaming cardboard cup of coffee. 

Gaz was already on his feet before you could get a word out, setting his coffee on the chair beside him. The second his eyes met yours, a look of profound relief broke through the obvious exhaustion. 

You stepped straight into his space, arms wrapping tightly around his shoulders. He caught you instantly and pinned you to his chest in a brief squeeze that smelled of rain and mud. 

“I got you,” Gaz whispered into your hair. “He’s good. He’s okay.”

As Gaz slowly let you go, Price stood up. The Captain had taken off his iconic boonie hat, revealing a sweat-dampened hairline, though his thick beard couldn’t hide the paternal tilt of his mouth. He looked at you, then down at Johnny’s oversized flannel drowning your frame, and let out a long breath.

You moved directly to him next, throwing your arms around his neck. The older soldier braced himself with his calloused hands coming up to rest against the back of your head, holding you securely against his shoulder for a long moment. It was the embrace of a man who carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, but had made damn sure to carry his boys back with him. 

“Go on inside,” he murmured near your ear, voice steady and certain as he patted your back. “He’s just waiting on the right voice to wake up to.”

The heavy wooden door turned with a click as you stepped into a space that felt entirely frozen in time. 

The steady beep… beep… beep… of Johnny’s heart monitor worked as proof that he was here. He was breathing. 

You walked over to his side of the bed, unlaced boots dragging against the concrete floor. Up close, the reality of just how tough the deployment had been was written all over him. Johnny was pale beneath the flush of the fever, jaw rough with a dark stubble. There were small, faded nicks along his collarbone, and a jagged line through his eyebrow looked pink against his skin. He looked thinner. 

Your knees gave out slightly as you sank into the chair right beside the mattress.

Slowly, your trembling hand reached out from the sleeve of the flannel. Your fingers hovered over his hand for a second, genuinely terrified that he might vanish into a puff of smoke if you touched him. But when you finally pressed your palm flat against the back of his hand, he felt real. Skin burning hot, slick with fever sweat, but the weight of his bones beneath your touch was the most beautiful thing you had ever felt. 

“Johnny,” you whispered, the sound small and broken. “My baby.”

At the sound of your voice, the line on the heart monitor jumped, the beeping speeding up just a fraction. Johnny’s jaw shifted sharply. His head rolled against the thin white pillow a little, a pained groan vibrating deep within his chest as his brow furrowed. His internal radar had instantly picked up the one frequency he’d always tune into.

“Sunshine?” he rasped.

His eyelids fluttered, heavy and uncooperative from the medication, but he fought them open. He was a fighter through and through. His bright blue eyes were clouded, unfocused, and bloodshot, rolling blindly across the ceiling before they finally drifted down and locked onto your face. For a long moment, he just stared at you, chest heaving deeper as if he couldn’t quite decide if his mind was playing a cruel trick on him. 

“Am I… am I dreaming ye up again, hen?” he whispered, large fingers twitching beneath yours, desperately trying to find the strength to curl around your wrist. 

Hot tears finally spilled over your eyelashes, dropping onto the back of his warm hand. You leaned over the metal guardrail of the hospital bed and brought your other hand up to cup his face. Your fingers slid into the short, soft hair of his mohawk, thumb tracing the sharp, trembling line of his jaw just like you used to, back home.

You choked out a soft sob, smiling through it as you pressed your forehead gently against his damp temple. “You’re not dreaming. I’m right here. Look at me, John, you’re safe, you’re at the base. You’re home.”

Johnny let out a long, shuddering breath, chest lifting so violently it probably strained the wires of the heart monitor. The rapid beeping of the machine echoed through the room as his clouded eyes slowly began to track the movement of your thumb on his skin. He swallowed hard, his throat working against the dry rasp of his breath.

You could see the sudden wave of clarity breaking through his fevered haze. His jaw trembled, the hard mask he was so used to wear beginning to shatter at the edges.

“Sunshine,” the word ripped out of his chest like a sob.

With a sudden urge of desperate and uncoordinated strength, one of his arms came up, hand locking around the back of your neck to keep you there. He didn’t care about the IV line pulling taut in his veins or the burning of the stitches in his thigh. Burying his face in the crook of your neck, he let out a deep breath that tasted stale in his mouth.

The entirety of his body began to shake beneath the thin medical gown, shoulders racking with silent sobs as he held you. His arm kept you pinned so close to his chest that you could feel the frantic rhythm of his heart hitting against your own ribs. He was breathing you in, nose brushing against the collar of his own old shirt, desperate to drown out the memories of concrete, smoke, and blood with the scent of you and home. His favourite. His everything.

“Ye’re the only real thing I’ve got left in this miserable world,” Johnny wept into your skin and you couldn’t help but weep with him, at how unraveled he was, how small and scared he seemed with the sobs breaking out of him. “Thank ye for no’ letting go, no’ moving on yet, ye’re my home— I did it, I crawled through, for you, for you only, I—”

“Shh, I know,” you held him back just as tightly, fingers burying deeper into his hair as your tears ran hot against his shoulder. You could only whisper as you didn’t trust your voice just yet. “I know you did, Johnny. I never stopped looking at the door. I never stopped waiting for you.”

Within the quiet minutes of your embrace, the beat of his heart began to ease, settling into one that synced with yours. The monitor slowed down, though Johnny didn’t loosen his grip an inch, grounding you against his chest as if the physical friction of your body was the only thing keeping him tethered to the real world.

He pulled back just a fraction when tears no longer ran free, eyes the brightest of all blues, clearer now, stripped of the dark illusions he kept close to his heart, searching your face with a breathtaking reverence. His thumb came up, rough skin brushing a tear from your cheek with that breathless gentleness that always made your chest ache. 

“God, ye’re beautiful,” a tiny, lopsided ghost of his classic smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth as his eyes drifted down to the flannel drowning you. “Wearing my shite, too. Missed me a wee bit, did ye?”

A wet laugh escaped you at that, his timing still so absurd, although it definitely flushed away the remnants of your grief. You leaned forward, pressing your nose playfully against his just to feel his breathing. “Not just a wee bit, I should say.”

The discharge papers took another thirty-six hours of bureaucratic nightmare, but Price pulled the necessary strings to get Johnny cleared for a much needed home recovery.

The vehicle pulled up to the curb and Johnny, of course, didn’t necessarily have it in him to argue about pride. He was still weak, skin pale and the stitches in his thigh pulling painfully with every move. Simon killed the engine, walked around to the passenger side, and hoisted Johnny out of the seat. Gathering his friend into a careful carry, Simon bore him up the porch steps, his heavy boots making the wooden floorboards creak as he navigated the front threshold. 

You had hurried ahead to get the house ready, and the second the front door swung open, the entire space was flooded with the rich, savory aroma of Johnny’s favourite meal— the rich scent of a slow-cooked beef stew and fresh caramel shortcake sweet enough to push back eighteen months of cold isolation. 

Simon carried him straight into the living room, carefully propping Johnny up on the worn cushions of the sofa. He arranged a stack of pillows behind his back and gently elevated his bandaged leg onto the low coffee table. 

The softness of his actions put a smile on Johnny’s face as he thanked him quietly and sank into the fabric with a long sigh of surrender. He looked at the television, the rug, walls, and then tracked the scent straight towards the kitchen doorway where you were standing, a dish towel clutched between your hands and a soft, welcoming smile across your face.

Simon stepped back from the sofa, no gloves on his hands as he wiped them down his thighs. Instead of heading straight for the front door like he used to, his boots turned to navigate into the kitchen. He leaned against the counter where you were beginning to serve the food into plates, crossed his arms over his chest, and looked down at the simmering pot, then back up at you. 

“Smells good,” Simon murmured, gaze drifting back towards the sofa for a second before locking onto you. “Are you going to need any help with him? With the leg, fever… the rest of it? He’s going to be a handful when he regains his full mouth. And he’s heavy.”

Knowing amusement flickered in your eyes. You looked past his broad shoulder towards the living room, where your husband was already melting into the couch, before looking back up at the giant in front of you. 

“You can stay in the guest room for as long as you want if you’re that worried and eager to see him, Simon,” you teased softly, but the warmth in your eyes made sure he knew the invitation was real. “You too gotta get some warm food in your stomach, you know.”

Simon was still for a few moments. The sudden offer of a proper roof, a warm meal, and an open door was a heavy thing to process for him. He looked at you, then down at his own worn boots, a faint shift in his shoulders telling you all that you needed to know. 

The fabric of his mask huffed as he gave a single, slow nod. “Just for a bit. Make sure the idiot doesn’t try to walk before the stitches settle.”

You didn’t mind having him around. He didn’t mind staying around either, and God knows you couldn’t hoist Johnny to the bathroom for a much needed shower yourself. 

Dinner was pretty quiet. Johnny stayed on the sofa, too drained for the kitchen chairs, as Simon sat on the opposite edge of the hearth. There was little talking, just the scraping of spoons and the football match on the TV that nobody bothered to pay attention to. 

The real hurdle had been getting Johnny cleaned up. Between the weakness from his fever and the fresh stitches slashing across his thigh, a standard shower was out of the question. It took both you and Simon to navigate him into the bathroom. Simon provided the brute strength, stabilizing Johnny’s frame against the tile while you handled the warm water and soap. He’s seen me in worse conditions, lass, Johnny had joked while Simon was busy looking away. By the time you helped him into a soft pair of sweatpants and had him settled back into your bed, Johnny looked profoundly human again— exhausted, pale, but clean nonetheless. 

Now, the bedroom was bathed in the golden amber of the bedside lamp, rest of the house falling into deep silence whilst Simon was —you hoped— fast asleep by the other side of the wall. 

You were propped up on one elbow, cheek resting in the palm of your hand as you looked down at your husband. Johnny was lying flat on his back, clean sheets pulled up to his chest with his heavy, stubborn head sinking deep into the plush pillows. One of his large hands was resting palm-up on the mattress between you, his fingers twitching in a silent invitation. 

“Ye’re staring, sunshine,” he rumbled softly. 

“Just making sure you won’t fade if I blink,” you murmured, sliding your fingers into his open palm. He closed his hand around yours instantly. 

“Give it half an hour and LT’s snoring will let ye know jus’ how real all of this is.” a soft laugh was shared between the two of you, then. “Thanks for allowing him to stay, too.”

“He looked like he was too busy looking after you to take care of himself these past days,” you murmured softly and shifted a little, laying down on your back next to him as both of you stared into the dark ceiling. “And he didn’t seem like he wanted to leave you yet.”

“Bastard’s been on my arse for a year. I cannae take a proper break,” Johnny shook his head and brought your joined palms up, pressing the back of your hand against his chapped lips slowly. “I always imagined what this would be like. Coming home after all that. Most days I imagined a would have my dick out in ten minutes for the reunion shagging.”

You snorted. “Wishful thinking. It took two people to give you a shower.”

“Aye, well, a man can dream, sunshine,” he murmured, bright blues rolling toward the ceiling with a lazy fondness. “Kept me warm in the cellar, did it? Kept me going, thinking about those shorts you wear. Wee ones with the frayed edges.”

“You are unbelievable,” you whispered, a genuine smile tugging at your lips as you turned your head to face him. “Eighteen months in God knows where and your motivation was a pair of denim shorts?”

“The very same,” he nodded solemnly, eyes flashing with a spark of his classic fire that defined him right down to his core. “Gave me somethin’ to focus on, it’s no’ easy spending all that time with three other wankers. Though I suppose I can settle for the current view. Ye’re no’ a bad sight for sore eyes, hen.”

“Flattery won’t get you out of bed tomorrow, MacTavish.”

He slid his arm out from the sheets, carefully pulling you just an inch closer until your shoulder was pressed against his ribs, bridging the last bit of distance between you. “Guess am yer captive now, then.”

“Completely,” you murmured, closing your eyes as you tuned in to the steady thrum of his heartbeat. “Get some sleep, my love.”

“Goodnight, sunshine,” he whispered against your hair, thumb tracing circles into your skin as his eyelids finally won the battle. “Am home. Dream of my cock still, might be a while ‘til we get the beastie to its full power.”

Outside the window, the twilight faded into a deep black, and for the first time in eighteen months, the deadbolt was slid shut, the house felt warm, and the silence was broken by all the ridiculous things Johnny had in him to say. 

heeeyy, so... hihihi. thank you all so so much for reaching out with sweet comments, dms, asks, all that— it means the absolute world to me and i'm so glad i managed to write something that made you feel something!! i hope you're all having the bestest year and i love you all sm. hugs hugs hugs. lmk if you want to be tagged in future works or not tagged in anything and feel free to drop by to say hi!