Light on - single mom/neighbor fic
Simon Riley/female reader
Prompt: Protective Simon. For the beautiful and talented @lethalchiralium
Simon’s phone is ringing.
Price raises an eyebrow from the end of the table, pausing mid-sentence, confused. Simon’s phone never rings. It’s always on full volume, because he never gets phone calls, except for ones from the 141, and they’re all here. At this briefing.
His fingers find the ringer, ready to silence what he’s sure is a nuisance call, some telemarketer or robot, when he reads your name across the screen.
You’ve never called him before. Unease tightens across his chest, and without any explanation, he excuses himself from the room and the bewildered looks being cast his way.
“Hey, you-“
“Simon?” You sound off. Like you’re trying to be calm, but there’s something lingering on the edge of your voice, something scared. His spine goes stiff.
It’s enough to propel him into action, his fist thumping against the window of the brief room, jerking his head south. I’m leaving, the motion signifies. Emergency.
“What’s wrong?”
“N-nothing. Just… there’s this guy that’s been like, half a block behind me since I got off the train.” He closes his eyes. The fucking train. He wants you to stop taking the train. He needs you to stop taking the train.
“He followed you from the platform?”
“Well, he could be walking this way too…”
“Where are you?” His keys are already in his hand, and he’s running down the hallway, past bewildered administrative staff and everyone else, bursting through the back door and into the truck. His phone chimes with multiple text messages, Price, Johnny, Gaz. All wondering where the hell he ran off to. Only Johnny’s text scratches the surface: Is it your neighbor? He waits another second in silence, hoping you’re trying to get your bearings. “Sweetheart?”
“I’m… I think we’re coming up on seventh and Warsail. ‘m not too sure. I’ve kind been walking in a roundabout way.” We’re coming up on seventh… we.
The baby is with you.
His foot slams the accelerator onto the floor, counting his breaths as he maneuvers each turn in the road. Do you have the stroller? Are you carrying her? Did this guy peg you as an easy target because he knows what Simon knows, that women are more likely to go along with instruction if their child is threatened? That you’d never leave Emmaline behind? That you’d do anything to protect her?
He feels sick.
“Are there other people around?” He’s calm on the phone, trying to visualize the street, the buildings, the alleys. Easy spots where cars could reach the highway in seconds, and then be gone. Cramped alleys that connect to others like tangled webs, able to swallow a human being easy, disappear them into the darkness. It makes his stomach turn over. His fingers tighten around the steering wheel so hard; it hurts.
“Yeah, it’s close to the end of the day, so-“
“Stay where others can see you. Are you sure you’re on seventh and Warsail?”
“Yeah. We’re in that park. I-I… wanted to take Emma to see the ducks.” Your voice wavers. “Simon he’s still behind us.” He���s turning the corner now, a block from your cross streets, and instead of yielding for oncoming traffic like he should, he floors it through an intersection, abandoning the truck still on, half parked in an empty street spot.
“Stay where you are, sweetheart. Okay? I’m coming.”
“You… wait, what? You’re what?” He doesn’t hang up, but keeps the phone against his ear, and takes off down the street in a sprint, fully subscribed to the worst-case scenarios that have been building in his mind, images of you and Emmaline bloody and bruised, or worse. He gets them confused for a moment, memories mixing with the present, two things swirling together until they become indistinguishable, noise and panic roaring too loudly in his head.
It all comes screeching to a stop.
He spots you in the park. You do have the stroller, and you’re by the little pond, headphones in, Emmaline in your arms, her little beanie pulled down over her ears. You’re glancing around, nervous, saying his name into the mic. He scans the rest of the faces, passing over anyone who doesn’t strike him as a creepy git, until he finds his target: a skinny, younger guy lurking on the edge of the fence line, watching you. He hangs up the phone and moves across the park involuntarily, rolling his shoulders, and he vaguely sees you from the corner of his eye, mouth dropped open in shock, faintly calling his name.
“Hey, mate. C’mere.” He shouts, half the people in the vicinity startling in his direction. Everyone seems to move away, like a magnetic force, pulsing outwards as he overtakes the guy with an easy grab to his upper arm. “You like stalking women with babies?” He hisses in his ear, voice low with barely contained rage. The guy is younger than him, but rail thin, and coked out. Probably looking for money. Simon jerks him closer, and he actually yells for help, like he’s a victim. It’s enough to ground the situation, making Simon realize he has an audience, and he grits out a final warning before shoving him away. “I ever see you around my girls again… I’ll fuckin’ kill you. Piss off.”
“What did he say?” You’re frantic, rubbing Emmaline’s back in a circular pattern, over and over like you’re trying to calm her, even though she’s perfectly content. It’s you who needs soothing, he realizes, and he takes your hand without questioning it, letting his instincts guide him in regard to you without overthinking it.
“He was high, love. Looking for money.” He doesn’t want to scare you but… he doesn’t despise the idea of instilling some hypervigilance. Maybe this will convince you not to take the train.
“Oh my god.”
“Think I scared him off for good though.” He looks around, and then slips off his mask, wide thumb stroking a soft touch on Emma’s cheek before giving you a gentle squeeze. “It’s alright now.” You visibly relax, but don’t let go of his hand, tilting your face up to his, all bright and beautiful, still coming down from the adrenaline of your fear with a whisper on your lips, meant for only him to hear.
“Our hero.”
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Katniss describing Peeta:
“Medium height, stocky build, ashy blonde hair that falls in waves over his forehead.”
“For the first time, I look at him and realize that ablaze with the fake flames, he is dazzling.”
“He looks so clean and healthy and beautiful.”
“Then Peeta’s there looking handsome in red and white, pulling me off to the side.”
“I like to watch his hands as he works, making a blank page bloom with strokes of ink…”
“I also become a little fixated on his eyelashes, which ordinarily you don’t notice because they’re so blonde. But up close, in the sunlight slanting in from the window, they’re a light golden color and so long I don’t see how they keep from getting all tangled up when he blinks.” (girl you’re obsessed)
“My eyes travel up to where the flames licked across his forehead, singeing away his brows but just missing his eyes. Those same blue eyes that used to meet mine and then flit away at school. Just as they do now.”
Katniss describing Gale:
“Gale does look striking in the uniform, I guess.”
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I’m a firm platonic stonathan believer (and romantic but that’s not what this post is about).
And I love Steve and Jonathan being really friendly albeit awkward with each other.
But you know what I absolutely LOVE?
Stonathan who can’t STAND each other.
But would also go to fucking war for each other.
Some asshole is being a prick to Jonathan in school? The dudes suddenly thrown off of every sports team he’s on and the principal is fully aware of every time he cheated on a test. Steve just so happens to be at the high school that day to pick up the kids.
There’s some dickwad giving Steve a hard time at work every day? The guys windshield is busted in and car’s been keyed. Jonathan was totally just stopping by Family Video for a movie at the same time.
It’s just so funny to me. The idea of them both putting on this kind of mask around the whole group where everyone thinks they’re at least friendly with each other— the awkwardness is a given, honestly.
But then when it’s just them— getting high together or smth idk— they trade insults that would have anyone else in a ball crying.
And then them both slowly coming out of their shells around the whole group.
And the first time it happens Steve had called Jonathan a home wrecker and in turn Jonathan called Steve a whore.
Everyone was flipping shit trying to make them both apologize to each other before another fight broke out. But Jonathan and Steve sat and laughed at them.
Nobody ever gets used to their bitter teasing towards each other (nobody’s ever heard Jonathan use such foul language) but they learn to accept that that’s just how they are with each other.
This is kinda like a begrudging sibling-bonded stonathan.
This is also how I imagine madwheeler being btw. But I’ll make them their own post eventually.
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