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eilidh-eternal · 2 months

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You don't like silence

Part of the Metanoia series | Part 1 | Masterlist |

The house is silent, but inside your head a brumous storm swirls, wispy tendrils of fog curling around delicate gray matter.

Your routine—watching Johnny walk Isobel to school, going to work and coming home, just in time to glimpse Johnny leaving to retrieve her—has changed.

You still watch from the window, mug bleeding warmth into cold, stiff joints from between your palms. Peer around the curtains every morning as the pair amble down the pavement together.

A new month brings a steady influx of meetings and end of quarter reporting, projected sales and last minute production tweaks, but your days are no busier than normal. Rarely miss a lunch break. Leave no later than three each afternoon.

Dinner, if you have any, is ready by five.

Even so, restlessness lingers in the midnight moons hanging beneath your eyes, darkens the air around you with somnolent clouds, and you list in the torpid deluge that rains down.

Sleep evades you altogether most nights, and you’ve made a game of picking out patterns in the knockdown. Faces, animals; nebulous, nameless things.

Some nights, when the faces of strangers, burned into your retinas, find their way into the patterns of textured drywall, you listen.

Isobels room must be on the other side of yours, beds sharing a wall. On the nights you manage to make it upstairs, you can hear them both. Isobel’s slow and measured pronunciations. The lilt of Johnny’s voice, filling in the blanks where she pauses on a word she doesn’t yet know.

They’ve finished all of her animal books, which means the imitated roars of big cats and bleats of farmyard animals have morphed into exaggerated accents. Sing-song rhymes about the importance of kindness, accepting differences, and other life lessons told through colorful illustrations and whimsical narratives.

Every now and then, if you’re lucky, she falls asleep within a few pages, and you can pretend that the low, pillowy rumble of Johnny reading is just for you. A gentle coaxing made of velvety words, swaddling your mind, heavy with exhaustion, and cradling it to his chest against the maelstrom you’re spiraling in.

Sometimes she stirs, woken hours later in the placid, milky hours before dawn, just as your eyes begin to droop. Tiny feet patter across the hardwood like rain, muffled in uneven intervals by what must be a rug or runner in the hall, on her way to Johnny’s room or the washroom maybe.

You wonder if it’s full of frilly, feminine things, her room. Pinks and purples, dolls and plushies. Does she have princesses or ballerinas on her bedding? Do posters and drawings line her walls or does floral, pasted wallpaper?

She likes Mulan, you remember. A warrior. Fighter. Soldier. Like Johnny.

Probably not so frilly, then.

Perhaps they could make a fighter out of you. Press you into the mold of their little family–strengthened by loss and galvanized with love–and breathe life into clay limbs. Carve a soldier from the malleable earth. Shape you into something useful.

Now, most of your nights are spent huddled in the living room, listening to the droning of the television. Throw blankets suck you down into the sofa like quicksand and each breath draws them tighter and tighter around you, filling pockets of air with crushed velvet and fleece. Tonight, you let them swallow you whole. Sink willingly into a latibule of plaid and warm cashmere.

The cold and quiet of your empty home isn’t so bad when you can hear Johnny moving about on the other side of the wall. Isn’t so unbearable when the warm timbre of his voice chases away the numbing fog that muddles your head.

There are nights that he calls you, like he knows. Knows that you're drowning in the silence.

He does that now, after he puts Isobel to bed for the night. Calls to ask about your week. Casts a lifeline into the churning ocean between you, procellous waves lofting you on spuming peaks, and calls your name from the battered, broken shore.

A lighthouse calling to a ship, lost in the mist on a perilous sea.

Last Thursday he asked about the cookies you made with Isobel. Asked if you would be willing to share the recipe with him–teach him–so that he could make them with her for a school event coming up in the spring.

The tenderness with which he speaks of her is a balmy breeze for your gelid heart. Soothes the burn of ice floes in your veins. Melts weeks of tension from aching muscles.

Now, his voice is somber, pensive, as it filters through the lack of insulation between you. “Friday. No, ah havnae told ‘er yet. Jus’ got the call.” He pauses, and you think you hear a muffled sigh. He sounds tired, too, accent thicker than honeyed whiskey rolling off his tongue, dropping consonants in favor of deep, throaty vowels. “Aye, ah ken. She’ll be happy tae see ye though.”

He’s on the phone, talking about Isobel. They must have family visiting soon, or a family friend if Isobel knows them well enough to be excited.

You wonder what the MacTavish family is like, if they’re a rowdy bunch. If they’re a large, extended family. Johnny seems like the kind of man who comes from a close knit community, one where you grow up down the street from your cousins and spend summers terrorizing small towns together.

“I’ll talk tae ‘er in the mornin’. Ah- No.” There’s a pause again, and even with layers of sheetrock separating you, you can feel the weight of his silence. “No, Mam. She’s… ah worry. Leavin’ ‘er like this. Piss poor timin’.”

He’s leaving? Without Isobel?

It’s muffled through the wall, and you feel like you can’t have heard that correctly. He mentioned the army, but you had thought, with a child at home, that his work wouldn't be the sort that requires travel.

Ice floes turn to glaciers in your chest, frozen spikes threatening to pierce brittle, fragile muscle, and the clouds swirling overhead descend upon you.

Lost in the mist, and he’s leaving.

He’s leaving, and he’s taking the sun with him.

“Ye cannae keep it from the lassie forever, John. Ye havnae even told 'er what ye do?”

Christ, this woman…

“She knows ‘bout the army,” he defends. “Cannae say much more.”

Fenella MacTavish clucks her disapproval. “Ye’re heids full of mince.” Dishes clatter and a cupboard closes a bit too forcefully on the other end of the line.

Johnny runs a hand through the disheveled strands of his hair, overdue for a trim, well outside of regulation length. “Mam—”

“Dinnae ‘Mam’ me,” she cuts in. “John Alexander MacTavish, ye tell that lass what she’s gettin’ herself intae—or I will.”

“Mam,” he tries again, voice pitched low, “Not yet. Cannae send ‘er off, naw like I do wi’ Bell. It’s safe enough here.” You’re safe with him here. “Dinnae like knowin’ she’s alone—Christ, I can hardly stand tae have the wall between us when I ken she’s hurtin’—but there isnae anythin’ I can do that’s naw already been done. Kate’s made sure of that.”

Fenella huffs and he can’t quite make out the garbled muttering on his end, but he has a fair idea of what his mother is blathering about beneath her breath. “Kirsten—have ye gone tae see 'er?” she finally asks, mercifully shifting the conversation out of your direction. “Has Isobel?”

“No,” he admits, and guilt twists in barbed coils through his chest.

He’s been meaning to, to drive up for the weekend and take her to visit her mothers grave, now that she’s older. Stay with her gran and look through the old albums. She's only ever seen the few photos they have at home, hanging in the hall near the kitchen.

Sometimes she asks about her. If she liked the things she likes. The way rain freezes on the tall grasses and tree branches in the winter, making glass gardens of trellises and window boxes. Extra whipped cream and blueberries for her pancakes.

If she would have walked with them to school in the mornings. Take her to the park down the block in the summer. Hiking in the fall, looking for wisps darting about beneath the fallen abscission.

Isobel is so much like her mother there are days Johnny swears it’s her refusing to eat the dinner he’s made. That it’s her complaining about cold weather and overcast skies in the heart of winter, bemoaning how long they have until spring revives the land. Swears it’s her voice that wakes him in the middle of the night. Her ghost, standing in the dimly lit doorway of his bedroom, a blanket pulled ‘round her shoulders and a teddy dangling from her hand.

“I’ll take ‘er, then.” Johnny can hear the grief that tempers his mothers voice, turning anguish to steely resolve. “I’ll come by tomorrow evening, let ‘er have a few hours with ye at home before ye say yer goodbyes.”

“Thank ye, Mam,” he says on a strained exhale, lungs rattling with fragments of his own grief. It slices into old wounds until pockets of air become sanguineous aquifers, bubbling up in his throat and leaving a sour, metallic taste on his tongue.

“I meant what I said earlier,” she reminds him. “Ye tell yer lass. Dinnae leave ‘er in the dark like ye did Kirsten.”

The line goes silent and Johnny sinks back into the old corduroy sofa, pushed up against the wall beside a shelf overflowing with picture books in the living room, and a ragged sigh unfurls from his chest.

The television across from him is dark, turned off when he took Isobel upstairs for bed, but he can hear an old rerun of Taskmaster playing softly behind him.

He listens, every night, for you. For the sound of your fridge, opening and closing. The soft ‘clink’ of porcelain against granite. The oven timer or the microwave.

He prefers the former. Knows, after these last few weeks, that you cook when you’re in a good mood. Usually go to bed soon after. The sound of the microwave precedes long, muted evenings and little sound from your side of the wall. He won’t hear the stairs creak beneath your sluggish feet until the wee hours of the morning. If at all.

He listens in the mornings, too, while he makes Isobel’s breakfast. Makes sure he can hear you doing the same. Smiles to himself when he glimpses movement in the window beside your door, a miniscule swaying of the curtain, and he holds Isobel’s hand a little tighter as they navigate lingering ice patches on the pavement.

The phone call with his mother, making arrangements for Isobel, masked the sound of your movements earlier, and his fingers twitch against his leather phone case.

When your side of the wall is quiet, he knows a storm is brewing; that you’re sitting in the eye of it, waiting for the walls to close in around you.

He doesn’t know if you’ve eaten tonight. Can’t hear anything beyond the muffled television and occasional creak of the sofa beneath your shifting weight.

So he calls.

One… two… three… four… “Hi, Johnny.” Soft and breathy. Like the air the words are spoken on has borrowed from the softness of your lips as it spills into the receiver.

This is the way you sound when you’re tired, he’s learned, all soft and rounded syllables. Too exhausted, even for your own nervous habits. You don’t have the bandwidth to explain every little thing like you normally would; don’t bother with rationalizing your actions aloud.

“Hi, bonnie. What’s cookin’?” It’s cheesy as hell, but it earns a huff of a laugh from you and it tempers the jagged edge of his worry—a knife, lodged between his ribs.

“I, uh… I had leftovers. Takeaway, from a work thing.” He’s never seen you with takeaway. Always canvas bags full of groceries and the occasional frozen box dinner.

How empty is your fridge? When was the last time you went to the grocer?

“Didnae take ye for the ‘easy’ type. Ye always make me work for it.”

“Work for it?” He can picture the pinch of your brows. The way your lips quirk to the side when you’re confused.

“Aye, got me makin’ puppy eyes an’ beggin’ for yer scraps.” You laugh again, more of a scoff, but it eases some of his worry all the same.

“When have I ever made you beg, Johnny?” He’s been begging any higher power that will listen to see you smile again, and he’d give anything to see the smirk he knows is dancing at the corner of your mouth right now.

“Could do it tomorrow,” he blurts before he can think better of it. “Come over. Show me that recipe again.”

Don’t make him tell you he’s leaving over the phone.

“I thought… you said the charity event is at the end of March, right?”

“Aye, but I think I’ll need a few lessons ‘fore my bakin’s fit for auction.”

He needs to know—needs to see—that you’re well before he goes.

“And you want to start tomorrow?”

“Why not?” He’d have you baking in his kitchen now if it weren’t for the late hour.

There’s a stretch of silence, interrupted only by the faint crackling of static and the sound of your breathing. “Do you have flour? Sugar? Anything to bake with?” you ask, and he answers with a proud ‘yes’. “Okay… okay. I can come over after work tomorrow.”

“I’ll ‘ave Bell home early then. She’ll want tae help.” Your amused sigh echoes across the line, followed by the faint rustling of fabric and then the soft pattering of stocking-clad feet over hardwood, fourth and fifth step creaking softly as you climb the stairs. “Off tae bed?”

Another sigh–on the tail-end of a yawn, he realizes. “Yeah. Well, trying. Don’t get a lot of sleep these days,” you admit, and though he’s successfully abated the storm of your thoughts, he wishes he could disperse it entirely.

Be the shelter you seek, at the very least.

He’d nestle you in the warmth of his bed, tucked close and sleeping soundly in the cage of his arms. Anchor you to him with a leg hooked between yours, whispering adulation against the howling, taunting winds.

He would make himself a rock to let your tempestuous thoughts batter and besiege. Weathered and whittled down to pebbles on a beach, he’d roll in the undertow alongside you. And when he is but sand on the ocean floor, still, he would drift and settle wherever the storm of you takes him.

“I used tae read for my sister when we were weans. She’d wake, spooked from a dream, and come tae my room in the middle of the night.”

“You have a sister?” A door clicks closed and blankets whisper over sheets as you settle in for the night. “What’s she like?”

“A lot like our Mam. Headstrong. Stubborn.”

“Are you the oldest?” You sound further away. Muffled. Like you’ve got the blankets pulled up to your nose and the phone beside you on the pillow.

“I am,” he lilts.

“She gets it from you, then,” you murmur, and his chest tightens.

“She got a fair number of things from me, I’d wager.”

He continues on, speaking just above a low, gravelly whisper. Reminiscing his early years and the trouble the two of them got up to. Thick as thieves and wild as the kellas cats roaming the highlands.

Your interjections dwindle, turn to soft hums and slow, even breaths. Sleeping.

He listens for a few more minutes to the soft, sweet sounds you make, little chuffs and sleepy hums, the susurrations of shifting sheets and nightclothes, and he whispers into the darkness, “Goodnight, sweet girl.”

Work passes you by in a blur, meeting after meeting chipping away at the hours and minutes ticking by on the analog clock perched on your desk.

The drive home is uneventful and it feels as though you’ve passed through a wormhole somewhere along the way. Can’t quite remember making the turn into your neighborhood from the main road.

Normally, Johnny would be leaving to retrieve Isobel from school right now, but as you gather your things and step out of the car you hear your name being called from several houses down.

Braids bounce and red wellies squeak as Isobel darts ahead of Johnny, weaving around patches of ice to get to you, and you step up onto the pavement just in time to keep her from running into the road.

She barrels into you, wrapping her arms around your leg and smooshing her face against your slacks. “Ye’re back!” she squeals, fingers curling into the fabric.

She’s leaving.

Your hand settles atop her head, soft wisps of curls tickling the pads of your fingers where they’ve escaped their plaits. “Where did I go?” you ask, and she tips her head back to look up at you.

“Bubby said ye were busy with work. Sometimes he gets busy too, and I have to stay with my gran.”

They’re both leaving.

Johnny’s caught up with her, lingering a few steps away near the walkway leading to your door. When you look to where he stands, hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans, windbreaker bunched up around his forearms where a tattoo peeks out, the corners of his eyes glimmer.

A smile curves the corners of his mouth, and it’s an odd mixture of grief and happiness that flickers there in the crook of his lips and set of his brow, sloped upwards and creased in the middle. His hair is longer than you remember, scruffy sides and tufts of mohawk curling at the ends, loose strands tousled around his face.

Wind blows at your back and a single tear tracks down the sharp plane of his cheek, disappearing in the dark shadow of stubble that lines his jaw.

“I have been busy with work,” you confirm, peering down at Isobel once more. “But I didn’t leave.”

You’re staying, and they’re leaving.

The wind picks up and she presses closer, shielding herself from the cold behind your frame. “Let’s get ye inside and put yer book bag away. Then we can catch up over cookies an’ milk,” Johnny says as he closes the distance between you.

“Cookies?!” Her excitement carries on the wind, and his smile sharpens, bright and hopeful, but the whetted edge of sorrow undercuts the warmth.

“Aye, but we’ll have to make ‘em ourselves.” He brushes a stray lock from her eyes, fingers brushing against yours where his hand settles beside it on her crown, and dread blooms low in your stomach where warmth should.

She ducks away from you both, bolting towards their front stoop, and you’re left with both of your hands hovering in the air, his half curled over yours, staring after her.

You pull away first, adjusting your bag on your shoulder. “I just need to sort this–” You gesture to the tote full of binders and your laptop. “–and I'll be right over.”

He fishes his keys from his pocket and takes a step back, towards Isobel. “We’ll be waitin’,” he says with a wink, and turns to take her inside.

There's flour in your hair and matching handprints on your slacks, and neither Johnny nor Isobel have fared much better. You’re all a mess, and the cookies you’ve made are tantamount to your disheveled state–lumpy, dry masses of something more closely resembling a biscuit.

“Dunno what ah did wrong,” Johnny muses, breaking one in half and inspecting the crumbly texture.

You sit beside him at the kitchen table, watching Isobel dunk half a cookie into a glass of milk. “It’s the butter and flour. The ratio is imbalanced–not enough fat.” She doesn’t seem to mind, stuffing the entire piece in her mouth and readying the next, fingers covered in crumbs that fall in her milk.

Johnny shifts beside you, sliding out of his chair and taking a bite out of his cookie as he moves towards the fridge. “Still tastes good,” he says around a mouthful and pours two more glasses, placing one down in front of you when he returns. “But I’ll need another demonstration when I’m back, I think.”

You take a cookie from the plate in the middle of the table, breaking off a chunk to dunk in your milk, and ignore the mirrored sensation in your chest. You knew this was coming. You know he’s leaving.

“When you’re back? From where?” you probe. No need to dance around the subject.

He shifts again, uncharacteristically nervous, and speaks softly. “Have to leave for a little while, for work,” he explains. Your cookie turns pliant between your fingers and you bite off the softened corner, chewing slowly while you listen. “Willnae know where they’re sendin’ me to until the briefin’.”

“When are you leaving?” You stare down at the crumbs swirling in your glass.

“Tomorrow morning.”

The foreknowledge of his impending departure doesn’t make the break any cleaner. The fracturing feeling in your chest widens into fissures and chasms, jagged edges crumbling, tumbling down into the festering darkness.

When you lift your gaze you find that he’s been watching you–studying you–and his hand has crept across the table, close enough you can feel the warmth of him. “How long?” It comes out wobbly. Unsteady.

You’re drifting out to sea again.

“Few weeks. Maybe a month.” Your chest feels like it’s caving in.

There’s a knock at the door. A canary in a coal mine, warning come too late.

“Gran!” Isobel’s chair nearly topples as she pushes back from the table, racing from the kitchen to the front door.

Johnny’s hand covers yours, long, callused fingers curling around your clenched fist and squeezing. “I’ll be back before ye know it,” he murmurs, smoothing a strand of hair away from your face and tracing the curve of your jaw as he stands.

He only goes as far as the kitchen doorway. Your heart’s already somewhere in the North Sea.

“Hi, Mam.” He’s greeted by an older female voice and pulled into a hug by a woman a whole head shorter than him. Isobel hovers nearby, bouncing excitedly from foot to foot, and tugs at the older woman’s–her grandmother’s–cable knit sweater.

“Gran, come meet our friend!” she says, and tugs again until she lets go of Johnny.

You stand from the table on wobbly legs, fighting to balance your listing emotions and put on a warm smile as Johnny’s mother slides past him into the kitchen.

The resemblance between the three of them is uncanny. Johnny shares his mothers dark coloring, rich hair and warm skinned, and they all have the same eyes–steely hues of grey-blue, spiraling outwards from inky pupils like storm cells.

“So, this is the lassie next door ye willnae stop glaverin’ on about?” she asks no one in particular as she openly appraises you.

“Mam–” Johnny begins, a simmering warning, but she holds up a hand to silence him.

They carry themselves in a similar manner, in the set of their shoulders and broad stance. She may not stand as tall as he does but she’s no less imposing, and it’s an effort not to squirm under her scrutiny.

Seconds feel like hours as she looks you up and down, cataloging the flour on your pants and in your hair, glancing to her left where Johnny stands in a state of equal disarray, and a knowing look flickers like lightning in her storm cloud eyes.

“It’s good tae finally put a face wi’ a name,” she says, smiling, and pulls you into a hug, too. “Call me Fenella, or Fen, whichever ye like.”

You return the gesture hesitantly, looking over her shoulder to Johnny for guidance and finding none. He simply smiles back at you from where he leans against the doorway, something unreadable in his expression lingering beneath it.

“It’s nice to meet you too… I- I’d love to stay, but should probably be heading home. I have an early morning and wouldn’t want to intrude on your visit,” you say by way of excuse.

“Ah’m naw stayin’ long, dear,” she explains, finally pulling away. Isobel returns to her side, pressing her shoulder to her thigh, and Fenella’s hand settles on the crown of her head. “Here tae take the wean for a stay wi’ her gran.”

“Is yer bag ready, leannan? D’ya have all yer books for school?” Johnny asks from where he stands, hands having found their way into his pockets again. His shoulders droop, broad frame deflating before your eyes. Leaving her behind, even with his mother, takes a toll on him.

Isobel leans around her gran to say, “I’ave all my books. And Mr. Ghost.”

“Goan an’ get yer things then, Bell,” Fenella ushers her out of the kitchen, climbing the stairs behind her to her room.

You watch until they disappear above the half open staircase, but Johnny has been watching you. Watching you navigate the shoal of your emotions, razor sharp rock scraping against a flimsy hull.

“C’mere, lass,” he entreats, one arm outstretched towards you, and your feet move of their own accord, carrying you forward until his hand settles on your shoulder, momentarily moored in the eddy of a tide pool. “Didnae mean to tell ye in the middle of… this.” He gestures above him to the sound of footsteps overhead. “Only got the call yesterday.”

With your hands folded at your front, you stare down at them, picking at a loose thread on your sleeve. “It’s okay. I understand—”

“No, lass, it isnae okay,” he interrupts, hand gliding up your shoulder, your neck, and coming to rest on your cheek. He lifts your gaze back up to his and he’s wearing that nameless emotion, staring down at you with a pained expression.

This hurts him as much as it hurts you.

“The job I do, it isnae always… predictable. Dinnae get much warning when I’m called in for assignments. I should have warned ye…” his thumb traces soothing arcs over your cheek, but it does nothing for the gaping hole in your chest. “I’m sorry… I should have—”

“It’s okay, Johnny. Really.” The lie feels like rubbing salt into a wound, burns the back of your throat like you’re speaking around a lump made of sandpaper, and your voice comes out scratchy and raw.

His hand lingers on your cheek, eyes darting from yours to your nose, lips, cheeks, brow. Memorizing.

“Let me walk ye home?” You nod, unsure if you can speak around the cordolium lodged in your throat, and his hand moves from your cheek to your waist, guiding you through the razor rock and churning tide to the front door.

His arm remains firmly around you, fingers digging into your softness as he escorts you across the meager expanse of your lawn.

There’s an SUV, still running, parked in front of both houses and left to keep warm while Isobel gathers her things. She and Fenella step out into the brisk evening air just as you and Johnny reach the top of your stairs, and Isobel waves to you as they descend. Your arm feels leaden as you lift your hand into the air, waving back to her.

“She‘ll miss ye. Talks about ye all the time,” Johnny says beside you, unwilling to let you go just yet. “I’ll be missin’ ye too,” he admits, and you thought you’d found the bottom of the pit in your stomach. Thought you were already lying at the bottom of it.

You were wrong.

The well of your affection for them feels bottomless. The floor crumbles, residual tremors of the quaking in your chest, and you’re falling, falling, falling…Even with his arm around your waist.

You fell in love with the man in front of you. Fell in love with the darling little girl climbing into her grandmother's car. You’re already in love with Fenella and her dedication to her family.

You’ve been falling this whole time, no safety net in sight.

“I- …” Your voice cracks, and you try again. “I’ll miss you, too. Both of you.”

You’re falling, and they’re leaving.

There’s little warning, just a tug of your blouse, before you’re being folded into his arms. A wide palm cradles your head to his chest, fingers threading through your hair, and he presses his cheek to your crown.

“Won’t be able to use my phone a lot, but I’ll call when I can.” He murmurs his promise into your hair. “If… if I’m not here an’ somethin’ happens… I gave my Mum yer number. Saved hers in yer phone when I gave ye mine.” He pauses. Sucks in a shuddering breath before he continues. “Whatever it is, she’ll help.”

You nod your understanding and he pulls back just enough to see your face, guides your head to look up at him and says, “Promise me. Promise that ye’ll go to her if ye need anythin’,” with a desperation you’ve never heard from him.

So you make another promise. Let your eyes flutter closed as he presses his forehead to yours and ghosts his lips across the chilled skin of your brow.

And then he leaves.

Isobel is sorted, buckled into her car seat and saying her goodbye’s to Johnny, and Fenella MacTavish stands beside the driver’s side door, watching.

She’s said this goodbye a hundred times. Sent him off to god knows where to fight a war she’s never heard of. It never gets easier.

Isobel’s door closes, and her son turns to her with pain in his eyes. “I hate leaving ‘er.”

“Which one?” she intones, and Johnny leans his hip against the B pillar.

“Both of them. The three of ye.”

“Then make sure ye come back tae ‘er–tae all of us,” she advises, and pulls him into one last hug. “I cannae bury another child.”

Next>>>

©️Eilidh-Eternal.2024 ~ The intellectual property of Eilidh-Eternal is not permitted for reposting, transcription, translation or use with AI technologies.

794 notes · View notes

halcyone-of-the-sea · 11 months

Note

So request kinda if not just sharing my thoughts in general.

Alex. My boy. What if reader is a civ or even another soldier in a different squad and the whole thing with him joining Farah’s forces indefinitely. I think this can really lend itself to some angst and that good old misunderstanding. Kinda leaning towards civ!reader just because the more miscommunication. I guess it’d have to be an angsty ending though 😳, but regardless-

Love your writing and, as always, feel free to change anything or do whatever gives you the most inspiration

World Caves In

PAIRING: Alex Keller x F!Reader

SYNOPSIS: Perhaps it would have been better if your husband had died - at the very least you could understand that.

WORD COUNT: 7.9k

WARNINGS: Angst, misunderstandings/miscommunication, hurt/comfort, vulgar language, abandonment?, Alex being an adorable husband, fluff, etc.

A/N: I was gonna make this an angsty ending but I got my period and thinking about that made me cry so here we are, lmao. Enjoy, Anon!

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

When you’d been escorted out of work by two uniformed men, you knew the news wasn’t going to be good. Sitting in the back of a large black car, you spare nervous glances as the vehicle jumps, its wheels going over the last speed bump. Your work building begins to become a fraction of a memory and disappears faster than your resolve.

The men sit on either side of you, silent, and the only comment is to the driver as you all enter the main road. Swallowing, you part your lips and mutter, plain dread in your tone, “Is he alive?”

All you get is a glance from the front mirror and nothing more. You hunch more in your seat and stew in agony, mind far off on the topic of your husband.

Alex wasn’t overly reckless, you’d managed to snuff most of that out over the course of the many years you’d expressed concern to him about it, but a large chuck of the blond was still too selfless for his own good. It was hard not to think the worst.

From training to advising, your husband was always off on one mission to another, far from your quaint and quiet home here—where you waited day after day for even a sliver of contact from him. Alex specialized in so many things that trying to wrap your head around it was impossible.

Even now, you only knew the bare minimum.

The soft-smiled man worked in the SAD division of the CIA. He’s an Operations Officer. Currently, he’s somewhere across the globe.

Away from you.

Thinning your lips, you take down a deep breath and settle back into the seat, pulse flying. The men were obviously Agents—you’d looked closely at their badges when they’d first shown their faces at the front desk and had kept within view of your work’s security cameras just in case this was a ruse. When you could find nothing out of the ordinary, you had tensely asked them what was happening.

They would be holding his dog tags if he was dead, you had reasoned, desperately, a flag.

It was frantic, the way you had thought that up; how could you not be like that? Alex was the light of your life! With him constantly putting his life on the line, it was inevitable for him to get hurt, sometimes seriously. It was ingrained into your mind the way you would help clean his wounds in the middle of the night when the pain woke him up with a grunt stuck in his throat. The way you would sit half-asleep in his lap and re-wrap bandages while he told you to go back to bed half-heartedly. His hands drifting over your warm skin like he was cascading his fingers up and down the spine of an old book.

You never listened.

“It’s late, Bug, I can’t keep you up like this.” His drawl echoes in your ear as you rub a heavy palm into your eye. Alex’s hands are both on your hips, squeezing the flesh just below your tiny sleep shorts. You have him sitting on the floor, back resting on the wall and shirt discarded to the side only wearing loose gray sweatpants. A long cut up his left pec is the center of your blurry attention—a wet rag held as you dab at it. Blue eyes narrow at you. “I’m just fine with doing it myself, y’know.”

“You’re being stubborn again,” you utter, the soft light of the bathroom placed at half-capacity to at least try and keep some of the veil of sleep over your heads. “I told you to wake me up when you needed it cleaned.” Your skin brushes his and Alex shivers under you, sighing breathily. “And you’re not keeping me here—I’m helping.”

A small flash of that full smile, mustache flinching up, “Well when you look so pretty sleepin’ I can’t just shake you awake and tell you to fix me up.”

You take your free hand and pinch his nose, yawning as he grunts out chuckles. A delicate glance is thrown his way as the rag lowers from reddened skin. Like a butterfly's whisper, you study his face gently; reaching and cupping his cheek with your palm.

Alex’s lids flutter, heavy weight falling into you as if waiting for this—lips pressing to your inner wrist in reverence. You hold back a tired giggle and feel the corner of his mouth pull up when he feels it.

“All that talk, and yet,” pressing a smooch to his forehead you take your hand back and hear the grumble he lets out after, “you still like it better when I’m the one that’s working on you.”

“Can’t complain too much,” he admits slowly as his head leans back to tap the wall, “my wife’s hands are way softer than mine.”

Alex’s grip on your flesh tightens when you sipe away the last line of crimson from the wound, tattooed arms flexing.

“Sorry,” you whisper, watching his eyes slightly awash with pain. “Got caught on a stitch.”

“Ah, well,” the blond sighs, shifting “I suppose I can forgive you.”

Laughing quietly as the house settles, you shake your head and rest your forehead on his.

“Such a saint,” your lips utter teasingly as Alex smiles wide, his hands moving higher to your waist. You lean into him, stealing his warmth as your tired eyes flutter; feeling his thumbs run circles over the flesh of your lower spine.

A content breath escapes you.

“Go back to bed, Sweetheart,” Alex whispers, lips brushing yours like silk, the bristles of his facial hair tickling you. “I can do the rest, promise.”

“Know you can,” your mutterings are barely heard, but the man seems to register them, sea-glass gaze incredibly soft. He chuckles at your sleepiness, one hand leaving your waist to capture the back of your head; weaving into your hair and gently massaging your scalp. You practically melt into him, limbs going slack, slurring out, “Quit it. Wanna help, Alex.”

His laughter shakes you, and with a huff escaping, you bury your burning face into his neck and lean into him, careful of his wound even in your fatigued state.

“No offense, Bug,” Alex shifts, grunting as he easily maneuvers you until you’re laying in his arms, inked forearms under your knees and behind your shoulders with vivid images of grim reapers, snakes, and angels guarding you close. A kiss is firmly pressed to your forehead as the blonde smirks downwards, “But you’re about as helpful to me right now as an empty mag.”

You grumble, trying to disappear into his skin and letting him dig his stubble into your cheek.

“If you bring me back to bed before you’re done,” you yawn and close your eyes, “I’m divorcing you.”

He laughs deeply into your ear, body shaking as he pulls back and sends you an incredulous look.

“Hell, we can’t have that, can we, Mrs. Keller? I’d lose my damn mind.”

It’s a long drive, and you worry through the entirety of it. A primal, whole-body-shaking type of fear. You’d built a life with Alex and loved him more than anything or anyone that had come before. Even if he was gone a lot, that had never dulled what the two of you had—your marriage was nothing short of something you would find in a fairy tale; flashing pictures on pages with vivid colors and tender glances. The very cover itself is made of the finest leather and inlaid with gold calligraphy.

Please, Alex, you plead in your head as you remember his loving gaze—his back as he makes supper in the kitchen and hums to himself. Please be okay.

The men hold open the car door when it comes to a stop outside a very obviously abandoned apartment complex near the outskirts of town. You get out quickly. Looking around, you take in the overgrown grass and the broken concrete with a knife in your lung; holding back the flood of anxious tears.

Though, confusion takes president.

“Where did you…?” You turn to look at the Agents, but they’re already clambering back into their car and snapping the doors shut. Wide-eyed and slack-jawed you watch them speed off as a cloud of dust drifts into the air.

Pulse echoing in your ears, you watch the vehicle speed down the road and disappear.

Swallowing, you whisper, “What the actual fuck?” Turning in circles, no one else is around. A part of you starts to worry less for Alex and more for yourself.

They were CIA, you reiterate, I checked their badges—Alex showed me the standard ones. Could I have missed something?

Expression nervous, you shift on your feet before your stuttering legs take you closer to the abandoned building, not really seeing much choice here. You could imagine the scene from The Wizard Of Oz—when the man pulls back the curtain and all is revealed.

That said, you could really only hope that was what was actually happening to you and you weren't getting kidnapped or shot. Taking a deep breath, you clench your fists and enter the building through the open front door.

It was in the wide lobby that you locked eyes with Kate Laswell. You blank, mouth parting as the scent of concrete and decaying furniture get stuck in your nose.

The woman seems highly agitated, brows tight and jaw clenched. Her white blouse had been flattened multiple times by rough hands, lanyard swaying on her neck like Alex’s dog tags would. She holds a file in her hands; the paper bulky as if holding something more than just paper inside its manila clutches.

“Kate?” You ask, confused, “What are you doing here? What’s all of this about?” Taking quick steps forward you splay your hands as your voice grows more serious. “Where’s my damn husband?”

You didn’t know Laswell personally, in fact, when you had first got a glimpse of her here, you’d forgotten the older woman’s name for a moment. The first meeting between the two of you had been at a CIA get-together that Alex had been forced to go to because of his position—some celebration because a group of ICBMs had been taken back into US hands after being stolen. Your husband had introduced you to the Station Chief over a drink with a hand on the small of your back.

But it didn’t stop you now from talking to her like you’d known her for years. Not when fear was flooding your veins.

“What the hell is going on?” You say harshly, glancing around the room for any sight of someone else here.

Kate sighs heavily but wastes no time in speaking, her professional tone and serious face leaving your already fast-paced heart racing.

“Alex isn’t coming back to the United States.” Your eyes blank, staring into icy blue. She holds out her manila folder, jaw tight. Blunt. “He’s a deserter.”

It’s like your entire being halts; your skin suit feels as if it’s sagging on your bones with the weight of a cinder block connected by hooks to the floor.

What did she just say?

Opening and closing your mouth you stutter, lids blinking rapidly.

“I…” Fingers flinching in the air, an exhalation from your nose sounds more like a wheeze. Kate watches stiffly, taking a look at the floor before returning her attention to you; emotion flashes in her eyes. “...W-what?”

“Keller deserted his post—I tried to speak with the Colonel but there’s only so much I can do.” Laswell takes a deep breath as you continue to go through shock. Alex wasn’t coming home? How, why? “He’s staying in Urzikstan to fight with the Liberation Force.”

“Urzikstan?!” You gape, but the woman continues.

“For all intents and purposes, I shouldn’t be here, but Alex asked me personally to hand these to you.” Again the manilla folder is shown to you, but when you only glare and fight the fear and confusion rampaging in your gut a sigh echoes out and it’s placed on a termite-eaten side table. “Even communicating with you could put you in danger now that he’s gotten on the bad side of the entire SAD and CIA branches. This is all I can do.”

“What the fuck,” you whisper to yourself, hand coming up to capture your mouth.

“If Alex re-enters the states—he’ll be arrested and tried in a court of law. If he’s not shot on sight for what he knows.” Kate watches you closely, shaking her head in pity. “I’m sorry,” there’s a strained pause, “but he’s made his decision.”

As she brushes past you, leaving the folder on the side table, you feel your wide eyes well with tears—confused and horrified. But he’s coming back to me, right? Alex…Alex wouldn’t leave me here alone.

It was common knowledge that over the last years the blond had gotten more agitated at his line of work; the orders that he didn’t want to follow but had no choice. No voice. But he can’t just abandon you...could he? You’d taken vows. Had a happy marriage and relationship. Loved each other.

He can’t just…he can’t…

Your hands shake and you’re unable to stop them, gaze locked on that unassuming manilla folder. Kate pauses in the doorway, peeking back and seeing your sickly-looking face, the agony written in the lines of your forehead. Like the picture of a loyal wife being told her husband was never coming home. And Alex wasn’t even dead. Resentment begins to burn.

But he made his bed.

“He told me to tell you that he wouldn’t be angry if you wanted to leave him,” was all she said, a final knife being stabbed into your heart and being ripped out like a live wire. Electricity makes your back go stiff in an instant. “It would be best to never tell anyone that we met.”

You were alone, full body shivers and bile stuck in the back of your throat. Cold sweat coats your palms, a sticky mess of your barebones disturbance.

“He…” your voice is hoarse, bouncing off the far walls. “Alex left me here? He left me.”

It was easier to say that the sun had exploded and you were waiting for the last beam of light to incinerate you. Inside of your skull your brain pounds as, in a mad dash of desperation, you rush to the manilla folder and rip it open with vibrating arms.

Having Laswell tell you that Alex wouldn’t be mad if you…if you…the hairs on the back of your neck rise and suddenly you’re angry beyond a sliver of a doubt. It was insulting.

“Alex fucking Keller,” the paper opens to the bulk of your husband's dog tags and a flip phone—reports like his own personal file and the patch that he had once worn so proudly on his combat vest. Red, white, and blue dig into your retinas; it was old, worn beyond measure, but that little patch was something that was never removed. Not even to be cleaned.

“The dirtier it is,” Alex had commented on the American flag patch when you’d offered to mend it for him, cringing at all the blood stains and dirt flecking off it as he slipped his vest off in the foyer of your home. “The luckier I am.”

“I think the stench of it alone will frighten off anyone who comes near,” you had raised a brow, smirking up at him as he walked over, laughing. A kiss is placed on your lips, Alex’s bright smile transferring over to you as if able to spread from his mouth to yours that simply. You sigh dreamily.

He pulls back with a tiny wink as you gaze up at him, cheekily stating, “That’s the plan, Sweet Thing. Gotta make sure I come home to you in one piece.”

You brush your hands over it and think that maybe it would have been better if he had died. Then you could understand why he’s doing this to you. Anger spreads into rage.

Looking next at the phone and dog tags, all you do is shake your head and slam the folder shut, bitter tears tracking your face. You can’t read anything—can’t see his name imprinted on that metal that used to press coldly into your skin as you both slept in bed. You don’t care about the phone or the files.

None of it mattered.

“He fucking left me here,” it’s like you’re a broken record replaying over and over again. “You absolute bastard, Keller!” Yelling, you press your fingers into your face, hands spreading over your eyes and mouth to muffle your enraged sobs.

“You’re still alive and you left me alone.”

Only the abandoned building echoes your pain; replaying it back over and over again as your wails echo around the lobby like a symphony of laughing jesters.

—

The phone that Laswell had given you had been going off at least three times every day—morning, noon, and at night. You had stared at it with fury, knowing exactly who was calling even if the thing was displaying an unknown number. By now you had steeped in your anger enough that you had found yourself snapping at friends and family alike when asked if you were alright.

You wished Alex was here so you could hit him upside the head for being so stupid. So you could hate him until you had the pleasure to love him again.

Urzikstan.

You’d looked up the country after you had spent two days straight in bed, afterward manically cleaning the house with a glare that could light fires. The far-off place was a land utterly divided by war. Russian occupation, a terrorist group; the force that your husband had joined. Mass against mass against mass.

Brick meets wall.

And Alex had chosen to stay—without a doubt because he’d seen the dire situation and had used that damnable good heart of his to empathize to the max. Forget donations, humanitarian work, or anything else, the man had fucking decided to join in a Liberation Force.

As much as you wanted to say you hated him; had wanted to slam your gold wedding band to the table with a good riddance for betraying you like that…you still had his dog tags around your neck, and the ring was still on your finger.

“Too good for his own sake,” you grumble, shoving dirty clothes into the washer like they had tried to attack you. “Deserted the fucking CIA, Jesus Alex. Do you even think when I’m not around?”

There were only so many times you could curse his name until you felt a deceiving needle of pride slither itself into your skull. You could describe Alex as many things but he would always be steadfast in causes that truly needed his help. He often told you that the best missions were the ones where he could do so much more than take out a target—he strived to help the individuals he met. Form bonds.

God forbid something came in between the blond and the ones he’d chosen to give his loyalty to.

You slam the washer shut and stomp into the living room after starting another cycle. Stress cleaning was really not a good look on you—the entire house was without a single spec of dust but you yourself felt like you’d run seven marathons. Clenching your teeth, you go and drop to the couch, a grunt falling from your lips as your head hits the pillow.

Staring at the ceiling, you finally take in the utter silence of the house—not a home, because it could only be that if Alex was here—with a pained crease forming on your brow. The pipes spit water, and the washer grunted its mechanical garble…but there was no humming man making food in the kitchen. No blond hair visible as a head rests on your chest; your fingers playing in the locks that act like silk as you part them, the man on top of you purring. Body a weighted blanket.

“Was it really that easy,” you whisper to nothing, lip quivering. “Was it really that easy to stay away, Alex? I thought…I…”

Eyes wrenching shut, you hear the phone right at noon again as it sits on the coffee table. And you let it.

There were voicemails, no doubt, but you hadn’t thought to listen to those either. This small act of rebellion was all you could act on but for the simple fact that it also harmed you. Barbed wire steadily digging deeper as it kept your hands wound to your sides—neck plastered to the pillow as bright silver spikes glinted. You stare at the unknown caller who really wasn’t all that unknown and watch the screen light, vibrating over the wood in steady intervals.

What hurt the most was that if he’d asked you to come along—become an Expat just for him—you would have said yes. You could find a new job, a new place to call home. Humanitarian work would have been at the top of your list and Alex…well….he would still be fighting, just as he always had.

But at the very least you would have been there to clean his wounds. Together. You’d both promised on that altar to do nothing less. He could’ve asked. He should have asked.

Alex…

“Urzikstan,” you mutter for what seems like the fiftieth time. When the ringing stops a few moments later the new voicemail icon flashes. Placing your arm over your mouth, you clench your hand so tight it starts to shake, whispering into your skin, “Fine. I guess you did make your bed. And…and I won't be there to lie in it with you.” No matter how much I want to.

You slip the wedding band off of your finger and place it beside the phone before turning and burying your head into the cushions; feeling more numb than you ever had before.

—

It carried on like this for three months. The ring didn’t move from the coffee table and neither did the flip phone; the file had all but been tossed in the trash as it sat teetering on the living room desk. You carried on as well as you could, all things considered.

Work was a blur, going out with friends even harder to enjoy, and any enjoyment of hobbies or activities was dulled to an almost gray existence. Like a ghost, you wafted through experiences with dog tags and a withering appearance. Eventually, you just stopped going out unless it couldn’t be helped. You still bought meals for two at the grocery store out of habit. You placed blankets where Alex used to sleep beside you. You went to work.

And still, the calls never stopped except for a brief pause after the first month. You’d thought he’d finally given up, but no. Back at it.

It had gotten to a point now where the device was automatically deleting all recent voicemails—too little space in the inbox.

Angry curiosity was tempting you. It would be easy, you reason, to simply play the first message and listen. The worst part of it was that you’d begun to forget Alex’s voice and perhaps that was why, on that dead-aired Saturday, you snatched the phone and brought it into the kitchen.

Firmly planting it on the counter, you stand behind one of the island chairs and glare, hands tapping into the wood.

“I’m giving you three minutes, Alex,” you speak as if he’s still here, as if his form stands right behind you, head tilted like a damn dog with that infectious smile and those sea-glass eyes. “Three minutes,” your fingers snap the device open and you go to your voicemails; jaw tight, “and if you don’t hear you groveling, Keller, I’m deleting all of them and chucking this phone into the sink.”

You go down the line to the very first message, small buttons clicking, and before you can stop yourself you press play.

It begins with a small moment of silence. A cough.

“Hey,” he says your first name, not one of your epithets. Your brows deepen their annoyed furrow, but you can’t help the uptick in your heart rate. Inside your flesh, the sinews of your throat close in on itself like a balloon. “I…I’m guessin’ I have a good enough ass-kicking waiting for me since you didn’t answer.” A strained laugh before another pause. You feel acidic tears boil behind your lids. “I’m not surprised—not really. Done some stupid things but never something like this.” You can hear him shake his head, voice going lower in defiance. “But they were asking me to leave Urzikstan in a worse place than when I entered it. This Liberation Force, Bug, it…they’re good people and what they’re asking me to do…” Alex huffs, growling under his throat. “I can’t stand by that. The man you chose to marry, he can’t stand by that. They need me here. I’m not asking you to not be angry—to not hate me for this. I know I damn well deserve it.”

You let your tears hit the counter, head slightly bowing over. That was your Alex.

“You need a leash,” your strained voice hits the walls, bouncing off picture frames and your husband's cooking utensils. The small pieces that make up the whole picture frame of your life. “God,” you huff wetly, “you’re going to get yourself killed.”

“I know I should have talked to you first, figured out some plan. But, uh,” Alex’s throat gets choked up, and you snap a hand to your mouth when you realize he’s close to tears. He clears his throat. “Hell, I should have done a lot of things, Sweetheart.”

You can hear shouts in the background, calls in Arabic. The pounding of a door and a woman’s voice.

“Alex, we need to move! Everyone is ready—Barkov’s lab cannot be left standing a moment longer.” The hurried hand to the line muffles the words, but you hear him anyway.

“Affirmative!” He comes back. “I don’t have time to explain more, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for… everything. I’d understand if you don’t use the passport Laswell’ll give you, but that doesn’t mean I’m just going to stop calling.” Alex laughs and your face freezes.

“Passport?”

“What kind of Husband would I be if I just let the most perfect woman in the world go without a fight, huh? I’ll be waiting until you call to tell me to shut the hell up and leave you alone or that you’re down in the airport waiting.” There’s a large sound of combat vests being clicked on—pistols being situated into holsters and a rifle strap slipped over a chest. Alex suddenly pauses and you stare at the phone blankly. “I know this is a big ask, Doll, and I know I’m horrible for even springin’ this on you when I’m half a world away from our bed. But I had to try, even if it was selfish. I just…I just really need to hear your voice telling me if I’m an idiot or not for thinking this up. Call me back soon…or when you run out of my clothes to burn in the firepit out back…I love you, okay? More…more than anything.”

There’s a minute or two of nothing, just Alex’s ragged breathing, and then there’s an older man’s voice ordering him to hurry up. The line clicks.

Your ears ring as it does, wide eyes dripping tears from your bottom lashes as your lungs chill over. Hand slowly flinching out, you ghost over the keys before clicking on the following voicemail. As it plays, your feet start to take you backward at a snail's pace, your spine flattering against the wall as blood drains to your feet.

“Hey, it’s me again. I still haven’t heard from you—that’s alright. Take your time.” Steadying yourself with a hand, you look out of the kitchen and get a glimpse of the manila folder on the desk, its tan hide sucking you in. Pulse in your throat, you rush out to grab it as Alex’s voice echoes. “I know Laswell gave you the file, I trust her that much at least.” A sigh. “But even if it’s just to yell at me, please pick up the phone soon. Let me save some of my dignity and give me a chance to beg on an open line, huh, Sweetheart…? But I guess that’s all—gotta go. I love you.”

You don’t play the next message because you’re ripping open the file with rabid hands, seeing exactly as you had when Laswell left it for you. Alex’s mission report; his patch. The dog tags around your neck clink together like a song, some brutal rhythm.

“Passport?” Grasping the mission report you pick it up, flipping through the multiple pages of blacked-out words and more confused than ever. “Airport?”

The words come out as whimpers, hands so shaky that the pages slip from your fingers. They slam to the floor in a flurry of bond paper and you curse loudly, snatching for the remnants futilely. Grasping on your hands and knees hitches build in your breath as your fingers dance rapidly before they slip across something distinctly not paper.

Small, tiny, and blue. Laminate.

Your very blood seems to stop in your veins. Pushing back one last piece of paper, you come face to face with a singular American passport. Gasping down mute breaths and licking your lips, you pick it up lightly, leaning back on your legs as if you’d just slammed your head into the concrete.

“Alex…” you whisper to no one.

Flipping the hard cover open, a small, palm-sized piece of paper slips out to your lap as your own face stares at you in image form. You blink for a moment before going to take the note and separate the ends. Formal script is inside, stiff lettering. Not your husband's handwriting, but you didn’t have to guess who’d written out these directions for you.

Laswell.

There was a destination in fountain pen ink—an airport near the Urzikstanian and Georgian border. Seeing as Urzikstan was on the travel-ban list due to the turbulence of the government and terrorist threats, you wouldn’t be able to get there directly.

But you supposed Kate had your back for that too.

Georgian safehouse - wait for Keller there. It’s secure. More directions and then a small gap. A pause. Good luck.

You don’t know how long you stare at that paper—that passport. The first thing you think about is how could Alex ask you to do this. Uproot yourself with the snap of a finger. You wouldn’t be able to bring anything beyond what could fit in a few suitcases. No furniture, no large amount of clothes, or even sentimental items. You’d have to quit your job; leave behind family and friends to travel to a war-torn country.

But he’d said it was your choice, and he wouldn’t push you to make it. He’d said you could leave him if you wanted—keep all of this that you’d built here.

…But you’d built it together, hadn’t you?

You think of Alex’s bright smile and his mustache. His tattoos. How he’d hold you so tight in the long hours of sleep that you half-believed he thought you’d disappear if he didn’t; nuzzling his nose into the back of your head and grumbling out nonsense. The way you could trace his scars and watch as he willingly submitted to your praise, delicate lips curving into sheepish grins as you place soft kisses on the raised skin. Red cheeks.

This place wasn’t a home without Alex in it.

You look over at the coffee table and lock onto the gold of your wedding band.

—

Getting into Georgia was a long affair of paperwork and screenings—not days but months of legal jargon that Alex had dodged entirely because of his desertion. By the time you’d landed in country, you were wholly exhausted down to the very marrow of your bones. You get through the checkpoints, pick up your bags, and look out at the entirely new world outside of the airport’s windows.

“Okay,” you swallow saliva and nod carefully before looking down at Laswell’s directions to the safehouse.

You slip the paper into your pocket after memorizing the address, tips of your fingers brushing the smooth surface of the flip phone. Clenching your eyes shut, you take your hand back out and go to try and hire a driver. You were here, but that doesn’t mean all of this was forgiven.

After you find someone able to drive you to where you need to go, you end up standing with a quaint hostel ahead of you, home far behind. Gazing slightly nervous at the strange place you’ve found yourself, you think of Alex’s hand on the small of your back and sigh; caressing the cool metal of the ring around your finger.

Walking forward, you hitch your bags over your shoulders and grit your teeth against the hot sun. When you meet the owner at the front desk you state your name and ask for a bed.

The man’s eyes widen for a moment before he looks at something on his countertop, raising a brow in thought. Grabbing at a stack of papers he holds up a finger and begins digging. Too tired and overwhelmed to ask what was wrong, you just watch and rub at your face.

“Ah,” the man snaps his fingers and laughs to himself, “here it is! I knew I had placed the note somewhere, Mrs. Keller.” You blink, confused, but the man just takes a key from the wall and motions for you to follow. Sparing a glance around for a moment, you slowly slink after, not really having a choice.

“I remember your Husband coming to me—the blond with the tattoos.” The owner looks back, making sure you’re following. He motions to his right side with splayed fingers. “Scars on the side of his head, to reserve a room.”

Alex was here? How much had he done already pertaining to the chance that you would show up?

“Y-yeah,” you chuckle stiffly, “that was him. Sorry for being so long I was…preoccupied.”

“You’re lucky he kept up on payments,” the man grumbles, opening a door with the key and motioning you inside. “My pleasure to finally have you, regardless.”

Entering the small and sparse room, you take the key from him with a thankful smile and a quick thank you before he closes the door. As the barrier thuds, you sway on your feet. Blinking. Breathing hard. You drop all of your bags with a heavy thump that echoes off the walls in a single instant. Heart pounding at everything that was striking you in an instant, you walk slowly back to the bed. You don’t bother to take a shower or brush your teeth; even change.

You fall down on the mattress and pray you don’t have to dream about Alex sending money to this place every week simply on a suffocating hope that you’d come back to him. You pray you don’t dream at all.

The phone wakes you up only thirty minutes later.

Groaning, you shift your body so your hand can snake into your pocket, grasping it and tossing it to the pillow beside your head. You’d never made it through all of the voicemails without crying, so you just deleted all of them and let the inbox fill back up again.

Feeling the dog tags press against your chest as you form your chest into the bed, you shove your head downward and listen to it ring.

Bring-bring, bring-bring, bring-bring

It happens in a flurry of a sleep-addled mind and a horrible desperation to see your husband after nearly a full year of no contact. You flip it open and answer with your nose pressed deeply into the pillow below you. Ears straining and pulse running like a starving cat after a mouse.

Dead silence.

“...Sweetheart…?” It’s pitiful how fast the tears flood you at Alex’s shocked and tiny voice. Tight breathing sounds over the line from his end and your other hand digs into your scalp. A small, cut-off laugh. “Hey…I—”

You hang up with a vicious slam of the screen and let the silence settle again. People walk the hall; the sun dims as night sets in. This isn’t home. Dropping the phone back down to the pillow you curl into a tight ball and cry yourself back to sleep.

If you had to guess, you’d say the small curse was what woke you for the second time, though you didn’t register it until minutes later. That muffled ‘shit’ as a foot hits your dropped bags near the door. But then it’s silent again and your ears only twitch to the gentle sigh that brushes against your face; a thumb and forefinger caressing your cheek as hair is placed back over your ear.

Perhaps the only reason at all as to why you don’t wake up screaming bloody murder is because of his calluses. They burn your flesh as they slide over it—as ingrained into your very being as your own heart is. As if Alex’s touch was another organ that was needed to survive. More important than a liver or a spleen.

When your eyes slip open he’s leaning back in a chair he had turned to face you, built form shifting as the rickety wood creaks. No more than five feet away sits your husband, and all you do is suck in a tight breath and lock gazes with soft sea glass.

Alex freezes at the same time, strong brow line peeling back and mustache stiff as his lips immediately thin. You both stare for a good while, a thread of tension entering the air. The night deepens.

He speaks first, in the dense hours of confrontation. Your heart feels like it’s been stuck with a spear, vignette at the sides of your vision, and a blooming center of only Alex’s body and his messy hair. The scarf around his neck. The combat vest.

Had he driven all this way to see if you were here? Because you’d answered the phone? But you hadn’t even said anything. Your head stays on the pillow, wondering if you were hallucinating.

“Hey,” Alex forces a chuff before he glances away, nervous arms crossed. “Hey there, Doll. Sorry that I woke you. I…ah,” your eyes bore into him, hand on the sheets slowly clenching into a fist. “I figured there was an off chance you would be here.” He clears his voice, throat closing on a trying laugh. “Guess I’m glad I looked. You should remember to lock your door, by the way.”

At the sight of your rising glare, his tone drops, expression falling even more than it already was. Deep well of sadness grew in his eyes, lips pulling back in a strained agony.

Alex’s gaze drops to the floor.

“I know,” is what hits the air, “I know, Sweetheart. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t fucking cut it,” you push your body up as his large shoulders tighten—such an accomplished and strong man brought to a squirming heap when his wife’s sharp words hit him in the chest. “What the hell were you thinking, Alex?!”

Heavy feet hit the floor as you stalk over, fatigue and tiredness pushed all the way to the back of your mind yet also enhancing your emotions. Bitter rage was sparking—held in far too long. Alex’s eyes don’t meet yours, so you grab him by the chin and angle his head up to you.

At the sight of your red sclera and the baggy gaze he stills. Under your grip his beard tickles you, the soft grip of flesh that makes you want to wrap your arms over him and weep; make him promise to never leave like that again.

“I…I wasn’t…”

“That’s the thing isn’t it—you didn’t think.” Sea glass floods over, going glossy; hurt etched into both of your faces as if carved from the same stone. But you don’t stop now, growling out as your skin burns. Alex isn’t sad that you’re angry, he’s sad he’s done this to you. “You disappeared, Alex. Laswell had to just drop all of this shit on me. I thought you had died.” You growl. “Do you know what that feels like?!”

“Sweetheart—”

“Shut up! You let me talk,” he falls silent, hand delicately coming up to grab your wrist. Not to pull you away, just to hold you. To feel your skin and the heat of it. You sniffle and his eyes break. “And the worst part of it was that if you had just asked I would have followed you right then and there.” Alex sharply looks back at you. “But the biggest insult was that you thought I would leave you—that you even considered that.”

Shock slowly gives way to a blank expression. He was confused, now.

Was that what you were angry about?

“You’re an idiot, Keller. Hot-headed. Cocky.” You shake your head, but a tiny smile begins to bleed onto Alex’s face. Watching you like you’d just sprung a million dollars on him. His grip slightly squeezes, calloused thumb running the span of your knuckles as you shake his head with your hand. “Damn nuisance to my health, is what you are.” Trying to remain angry is tough when he’s looking at you like that—starstruck—but you spit out, “It’s insulting that you thought I’d just give up on us that easily.”

“Most women don’t want a man who’s wanted for desertion, Doll,” Alex whispers, testing a smirk on his lips with his expression still strained.

“Arrogant!” your voice snaps. “Not a single brain cell in his stupid little head.” You let go of his chin and grip the sides of his skull, feeling the dirty but still soft strands of hair before you huff at him.

But he just looks at you and smiles, face smooshed.

“...You really came?” Alex asks quietly. You fall silent and after a moment you deflate.

After the silence of trying to keep the sneer on your face, you let it drop, lips quivering slightly. Anger glints with pain. “I should hit you upside the head, Keller, for all the worry you’ve put me through,” you grunt, eyes flashing over every new bruise on his face—every cut you’d have to re-learn. He looks tired.

Oh, Alex…

Before the blond can respond to you, you’ve captured the back of his head and shoved it into your chest; face burying itself into his scalp to bring forth that scent of dust and cologne. You whimper out as he grips you around the waist with just as much fervor, “Did you think that I would stay away?”

Alex says nothing, only the slight tremor in his bicep betraying him. You firmly kiss his skull and run your fingers through his hair, the both of you so tight together there’s barely enough room in your ribs to allow your lungs to inflate.

But holding him was more important than air, a sentiment that Alex seemed to share entirely.

“I’m so glad you’re here, Bug.” He mutters into your skin. “Feels good to be able to hold my girl again.”

You stay like that for a long time before you pull back and capture his cheeks, face pulling closer before you kiss him deeply. It’s not a fast-paced or desperate thing—no clashing teeth or tongue. That wasn’t what you needed right now.

All that you needed was Alex. Your home.

You both separate and the blond grabs the back of your neck, forcing you back so he can lay another on the side of your mouth; nose, cheek. Anywhere that he could reach as his mustache tickled you to a smile. Giggles worm out and you wiggle out of his grip to wipe at your cheeks, spreading away tiny tear tracks and saliva.

“Quit it,” you whisper, and Alex gazes up at you reverently from his chair.

“Negative, Ma’am,” he says, equally as soft, not even blinking. “Don’t wanna.” You roll your eyes, face hot.

The seconds draw long of only watching one another before you shake your head and move your hands to shimmy out of the dog tags around your neck. Alex’s gaze locks on the metal swiftly, smile shifting.

“You’re horrible.” You huff, quietly, before shoving his dog tags at his chest. “Now put them back on.”

“But I’m not in the—” Your glare shuts him up. Alex clears his throat sheepishly. “Yes, Ma’am.”

You nod and watch as they’re resituated around his neck. Right where they should be. When you take a step back to really take him in, there’s a moment where you skim over the state of his left leg. After all, the metal was barely noticeable in the dark. But when you do see it every little part of you shrivels up with confused pain.

Alex stands with a noticeable preference to his right and as he towers over you, fingers coming to grab at your face and slowly drag it back up.

A slightly apologetic look washes over him.

“I’m guessing you didn’t listen to all of the voicemails.”

“Alex…” you slowly cut off. “You…” Staring at the metal limb instead of the real one, you gape. “...how?”

“Y’know,” he laughs, but you don’t find this funny. He notices and kisses your forehead, tapping his scalp to yours and saying after a contemplative pause, “I think it’s better if I don’t explain it. I’m alright, just...” Alex smiles cheekily, the spark that you love coming back easily as it shimmers in his eyes, “just a little more carbon fiber and aluminum than I was before.”

You hug him tightly.

“I’m sorry, I should have come sooner—I was just angry, and I wasn’t—”

“Don’t apologize to me,” Alex sighs, grabbing you and maneuvering the both of you to the bed. He sits and you end up laying in his lap like that moment in the bathroom ages ago. “None of this is your fault, okay? You deserve to be angry. I shouldn’t have put such a burden on you.”

You sigh in his arms, head under his chin and heart finally able to return to a steady pace. Licking your lips, you ask, “Does it hurt?”

Sending a glance down, Alex’s lips twitch with a grin before it disappears. He hums.

“Sometimes.” Your hand grips his opposite cheek and you lay a kiss on his chin, caressing his flesh.

It’s a tentative kind of love. An understanding and a plea all at once.

The blond leans back against the wall and pulls you closer, closing his eyes. Finally relaxing for the first time in what seems like forever. But his girl is in his arms, and he’s never been this calm.

“I have a home in Urzikstan,” he confesses lightly, fingers brushing your body and giving way to shivers. You listen, eyes fluttering at the vibrations of his words. “It’s safe—protected. I…want us to live there.” Alex nods against your head, swallowing. “If you’ll come back with me.”

“Yes,” your answer is immediate. “Anywhere, as long as you’re with me.”

You feel his breath hitch, soft chuckles brushing your hair far better than any comb. There’s a small tremor in his voice as he says, “I love you. God, do I love you.”

Your lips pull up, body growing heavy with a final sense of home.

“I love you, too.” Soft kisses and tight arms. Shifting tattoos. “But if you ever do something like that again without talking to me, I’m telling Laswell she has permission to put a bullet in your ass.”

His loud laughs shake your body, and you press your face into his neck to steady yourself; smiling.

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mawvax · 9 months

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random maceghost warm up doodles

#maceghost #call of duty #call of duty mw19 #mace #ghost #mace x ghost #my art #simon ghost riley

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daordinarylinchen · 12 days

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....and a commission😚😚it was my first time drawing nikolai and price не судите строго

#ibispaintx #fanart #call of duty modern warfare #cod modern warfare #call of duty mw19 #call of duty mwii #call of duty mwiii #cod mw19 #cod mwii #cod mwiii #call of duty nikolai #cod nikolai #call of duty price #cod price #john price #price x nikolai #nikprice

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cumikering · 6 months

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Alex Keller x reader

1.7k | fluff, suggestive

Your movie date involved a cherry lollipop (part 2)

For @glitterypirateduck ’s Alex Keller challenge! (Is this what you wanted, don’t make me answer that)

“You’re not on a date, are you?” Laswell asked rhetorically.

Alex opened his mouth to answer.

“Sorry, Keller, I need the report now.”

The private who he’d tasked had apparently not delivered the report to Laswell that Friday for some reason. He’d better be prepared for the earful Alex was giving him on Monday for ruining what would have been his 5th date with you.

“Come back to base and hand it over yourself or rewrite it. Your call.”

He groaned after the line went dead. He was about to exit his SUV and knock on your door, but you were already heading his way. You smiled, hair swaying behind you, giving him a little wave.

He reached over to open the door and you slid into the passenger seat.

“Hi, beautiful,” he mumbled, kissing you on the cheek.

Your smile brightened. “Thanks for picking me up. I’m looking forward to the movie.”

He winced. “About that… I just got a call from work.”

Your hand froze midway to the seatbelt bracket, your smile faltered.

“I need to redo a report at home, will take 30 minutes, an hour tops. Would you mind if dinner is pushed back?”

You let the belt retract. “Or is it better to cancel tonight?”

“No, I want to take you out. You want to watch that movie, and you got dressed already. We can catch a later showing? If that’s fine, of course.”

“I don’t mind waiting a bit, as long as you can get the report done. I know sometimes work can get unpredictable,” you reassured.

It was your first time at his place even that you didn’t live very far from each other. His apartment was neat with large windows overlooking the bustling street below.

He gestured at the couch. “Make yourself at home. If you need anything, go ahead and help yourself, okay?” he said from his room before hurrying back out with his laptop. He sat at the dining table, flipping it open. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”

You leaned back on his cosy couch.

At first, Alex had a hard time concentrating with your presence, stealing glances at you ever so often like a knee-jerk reaction. Not because you were a disturbance, but because he itched to be close to you. He had been excited to see you all week! When he eventually sank into the report, the room was silent for a long time except for the gentle keyboard clacking and few grunts and curses he muttered under his breath.

Sometime later, you unwrapped a lollipop from your purse. He felt bad because you must have been getting hungry. You sucked on the red candy as you kept scrolling on your phone, smiling to yourself at times.

His typing stopped. He wondered what flavour it was. Probably cherry – his favourite. Not like it mattered. It wasn’t like he was going to taste it on you, but as you tongue swirled around the sphere, he couldn’t help imagining it swirling around something else instead. Something that had stirred alive moments ago, now painfully strained in the confines of his jeans. It wasn’t like you were being obscene or anything, but maybe his mind was too dirty for his own good.

He shifted in his seat as he discretely reached under the table to readjust. He couldn’t believe what his overactive mind did with the innocent sight. He took a deep breath and got back to his work, but it caught your attention instead. He noticed in corner of his eyes how you were now staring at him with a small smirk. He tried not to look, but he couldn't resist anymore.

As your gaze locked, you popped the candy back in your mouth, twirling it around with your tongue. Your lips redder, sticky and sweet, and much more kissable than usual. His breath caught in his throat as you sucked the sphere, cheeks hollow. He’d never seen you like that before, pretty eyes so dark and alluring.

You held his gaze for a few more seconds before casually looking away, back at your phone. Like the classic bar brush-off, as if you weren’t just fucking him right there with your eyes.

Oh, you minx. He pursed his lips, taking a deep breath. You were going to be the death of him.

After a few more minutes, he pushed his chair back. “I’m done,” he announced, closing his laptop. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

“No problem. You didn’t take too long.” You smiled, walking over to wrap your arms around him.

In a swift move, Alex stood, caging you with his body. You let out a small yelp and turned to him, leaning back onto the edge of the table. His lidded eyes bored down into yours.

“Why were you looking at me like that?” he asked, a little breathless.

Your eyebrow cocked. “Am I not allowed to?”

“You are. Just that you made it very hard... to concentrate.” He leaned in, dragging the tip of his nose up the column of your neck. “Is this what you wanted?”

Your tilted your face, eyes shut. “Please don’t make me answer that,” you muttered, voice warbled from his breath on your skin.

Enjoying having the effect on you, he pulled away with a smirk. Your chest rose and fell as your lips parted, still tinted from the candy earlier. He ached to taste them. He swallowed before his eyes flicked back to yours.

“I just want to say I’ve been enjoying my time with you a lot and I want to keep seeing you.”

You smiled, the kind that always made his heart skip a beat. “I’d like that.”

“Can I kiss you?”

“I thought you’d never ask.” You cupped his cheek, pulling him to you. He could taste a hint of the sticky sweetness on you, but couldn’t tell what flavour it was and he didn’t care at all anymore. Your lips were soft, so full that he couldn’t help the groan that slipped.

You wrapped your arms around his neck before scooting up to sit on the edge of the table. His beard scratched your skin in the most addicting way. You hiked a leg up, brushing it against his hip.

Your arching back was the invitation he gladly accepted. He took a step, closing the gap between you. He wrapped an arm around your waist, pressing your body onto his, his other hand as support on the table. He gave small licks on your lower lip as he suckled and nipped gently.

Your skin burnt up, the heat pooling in your belly unmistakeable. Your lips parted, letting his wandering tongue dance with yours. You moaned into his mouth, arm tightening around his neck. Your hand trailed down, over every rise and fall of his powerful arm, all the way to his bulging veins as he continued to hold you up. Your fingers crept back up to grip his bicep.

Alex was lost in the kiss, breathing heavier now, as he mindlessly thrusted his growing bulge onto your stomach for much-needed friction. It earned him a delicious gasp, fuelling his desire further.

You rolled your hips into him and he groaned into your mouth. His palm ran down your side, slipping under your top to grasp your soft hip, brushing the skin with his thumb as he helped you grind against him.

It took him a second to realise you were pulling away. When his eyes fluttered open, yours were hooded, wet lips parted, begging to be bit more. He leaned in again.

“I hope no one saw that.” You chuckled, looking out the windows, the curtains open.

He gave your hip another squeeze. “Oh, I hope someone did, so I know I’m not hallucinating about finally kissing you.”

You laughed, pulling him in again.

Alex was mildly disappointed when you finally suggested dinner, not like he didn’t want to take you out. It was just that kissing you instantly became his favourite leisure activity.

He had always been terribly attracted to you ever since he laid eyes on you, but after finally tasting you, it was like a switch was flipped. Suddenly linking arms and holding hands weren’t enough. He couldn’t take his hands off you - not when he drove, not when you had dinner.

He had to wrap his arms around your waist as you stood in line for the movie tickets. You smiled up at him, leaning your head back onto his shoulder. He didn’t need to make up excuses to touch you anymore.

The urge took him by surprise, to want to parade you around, to make it known that you were with him. He realised it was borderline childish, but he couldn’t help it. You were intoxicating and he wanted nothing more than to have you close. He had a hunch you felt the same as you squeezed and patted his arm ever so often.

At the movies, Alex had his arm around you as you leaned into him. He kept stealing glances at you and the only reason you didn’t notice was because of how engrossed you were in the movie. Truth be told, the title wasn’t his first pick, but he knew how big of a fan you were and the smile on your face made it all worth it.

This was beyond a terrible crush. He couldn’t stop his mind drifting to the kiss, about how good you felt up against him, about how good it was between the thighs he’d thought about for hours and hours. How soft and sweet and absolutely beautiful you were. As much as he loved spending time with you, he looked forward to getting home and exploring his vulgar fantasies in private.

“Thank you again for tonight. I had such a good time, and I loved the movie,” you said when he pulled up outside your apartment.

“It was my pleasure.” He took your hand to his lips.

“Do you… Want to come in?”

“What if I don’t want to leave later?”

His favourite smile was back again. “Don’t think I want you to either.”

Taglist: @sofasoap @b1rds3ye @gamergirlbonestaskforce141riot @caramlizedtomatoes

#alexkellerchallenge #call of duty #cod #alex keller #cod mw #cod mw19 #alex keller x reader #cod x reader #call of duty x reader #cod fanfic #cod fluff #call of duty fluff #alex keller fluff #call of duty mw19 #yo ate if you're reading this you don't know me

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mitosreblogs · 19 days

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im going 2 write for this maybe ?? but cat/lemon/reef shark! reader nd cthulu konig hhhh

shark! reader would honestly start off quite scared of konig tbh … they’re well aware of what cthulu hybrids and have seen their affects firsthand, the delirious, rabid glint in a victims eyes and the macabre foam that would bubble up past their lips. and not only was konig a hybrid of that species, but the operator of kortac, one who had seen hundred of battles and could snap a man’s neck as naturally as he blinked an eye.

however , being the only two marine hybrids in kortac means they’re both drawn to each other by nature, and furthermore shoved by missions that required time underwater that only you and konig could wrangle.

it’s a slow process. the flick of a tentacle or small swish of a fin that would signal direction or start ambushes had progressed into little inside jokes. konig sometimes acting in place of a remora, using his suckers to help clean off grime or stray corals off your tail. and maybe he isn’t as bad as the eldritch killer you’d made him out to be.

now there’s a heavy tentacle wrapped around your shoulder, and now your fin brushing against the plated guards on his shin feels even more like home than warm tides that held you as a child.

the relationship you eventually get into is a change for the both of you, so civilian compared to the violence and hardness that you were both raised in. learning to use tentacles to hold instead of strangle. sitting on the ocean floor and watching as fish dart around, your tail pulling him a little closer as he leans his head onto your shoulder. tentacles pulling you against konigs chest and strong arms around your waist when your nocturnal instincts go too far out of whack for his preference.

just two little guys finding whatever home they can in each other <33

(HOLY SHIT I POSTED THIS ON MY RB ACC MY MAIN IS @mitoad !!!)

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obsidiangravity · 4 months

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Nikto Gets A Cat

I saw this lovely artwork by @quimera-cami and it possessed me to drop all other WIP to write this.

Summary - Spetsnaz are tasked with guarding a remote location. Can’t ask for a simpler operation really. The only downside for Nikto is having to endure the stifling presence of his teammates. Maintaining what’s left of his sanity in such a tiny house is an exhausting challenge, but at least they all get their own sleeping quarters.

Until Rodion returns from a weekly grocery run with a companion.

Word count - 3.9k

Tags - Fluff, Alcohol, Nikto being nice.

It’s no secret to the closest people in Nikto’s life that he despises cats.

The incessant calls for attention. The hair that seems to overrun everything one owns. Their need to mark and ruin upholstery. His disdain for those common house pets are seen as irrational. Perhaps it's a childhood trauma long forgotten, the unsavoury memories regarding these animals locked away in the dark corners of his mind.

But he disagrees. The extreme hatred is warranted. How could it not? What do they provide other than misery and annoyance. He’s grateful to have been spared the torment of living around one since he joined the military over a decade ago.

So the man is rendered temporarily speechless and imobile when Rodion calls out from behind him on the armchair, “Look at what I found outside the supermarket!” and five kilograms of hissing fluff and fury is dumped on his thighs.

The feline snarls and bares its teeth at the person that dropped it. Long razor-sharp claws dig into Nikto’s flight suit, poking his skin.

He winces, gaze narrowing at the youngest Russian. “What the fuck is this?”

“Mm, it’s a cat,” Rodion mumbles over a mouthful of chocolate chip cookie as he searches for the TV remote and brushes stray crumbs onto the ground. It makes Nikto’s fingers twitch. “Siberian I think?”

Dmitry looks up from his task of chopping potatoes in the scantily sized kitchen, amusement ghosting the corner of his eyes. “Oh, it could be, but they are usually a little bigger, no?”

The cat, in a blur of unruly fur, launches itself off Nikto's lap, nails screeching and scraping the wooden floorboards as it skitters across like one of those rats caught out in the light in this shithole of a house. In a second, the creature vanishes behind a doorway to a bedroom. The one belonging to Maxim.

Rodion clucks his tongue. “Well, someone tell Maxim he has a new roommate when he’s back from patrol.”

An acidic scowl is hidden behind his balaclava when Nikto notices the strands of hair and filth left on his uniform. “Are you soft in the head? Why did you bring it here?”

“Saw her scavenging in the garbage as I was about to return. I couldn’t just leave her there.”

“Get rid of it, or I will shoot it.” His voice low and coarse. It is the only response Nikto gives before he stands up, readying to leave for a shift change with Maxim.

Nikto returns twelve hours later after a quiet night, slips out of his worn leather boots to find his single bed occupied.

The feline saw fit to curl up on it and rub dirt on his clean white blankets and pillows. Of course it would be in here, his room is the only empty one.

He’s able to get a better look at it as it sleeps. Dust clings to its matted and tangled cream-coloured fur. Its scrawny figure and ribs are barely concealed by its thick coat. Thin, elegant, almost silver whiskers a contrast to the extremely bushy unkempt tail.

Three small lines of scar run from its right cheek to its velvet-like ear. This is no pampered house pet, it may have been once, however those times were long gone.

He lightly shoos the cat away. It startles from peaceful sleep and hisses, tries to gouge his hand with the tiny daggers on its fingertips, but ultimately scampers off and hides under the bed.

Nikto sighs, long and drawn out. Questioning if he should bother using the back of his rifle like a stick to force it out of his room. He reaches for it, then decides it’s not worth potentially hurting himself from an accidental discharge.

He flips the switch off and collapses on the mattress.

~~~

He wakes up before everyone else again, the sun heating his face through the dusty window. Nikto blinks against the early morning rays and stretches his stiff muscles with a content groan. His toes collide with something furry and soft, and that brief moment of peaceful serenity is disrupted by a sharp scratch to his bare calf.

The half asleep man jerks away from the sting — accidently rolling off the bed. A shoulder and knee takes the full brunt of the fall and the greater pain jolts him fully awake, a “Blyat,” escaping his scarred lips.

The feral animal dashes around the small room, emerald eyes wide, fangs showing and claws unsheath. It howls and arches its back as it realises its trapped between the closed door and him.

Nikto scrambles to his feet, swearing a string of colourful curses that echo against the concrete walls. His jaw tightens. He wonders if he can turn the doorknob to kick it outside without being inflicted with any more injuries.

Goosebumps form on his arms when a deep rumble emits from it, as if it’s charging up an attack. He eyes the AK-47 propped against the wall on the other side of the room. Of course the one time he leaves a firearm out of reach is when he needs it most.

Tentatively, he takes a step forward and in a whirlwind, the infernal creature resumes its frantic scrambling.

It throws itself up onto the bed, rumpling the messy sheets further and jumps on his nightstand. In its rampage of destruction, it knocks the full bottle of vodka over.

It shatters loudly on the oak floor. Large and tiny shards of glass scatter in all directions as the liquid seeps through the planks.

Nikto, who is usually able to repress his anger and known for his stoic composure, lets his vision go red and a roar of unrestrained rage erupts.

He will gut this mangy stray then dump its entrails on Rodion for putting him through this. He has done far worse for less.

The bedroom door creaks open and Devil Incarnate finally dashes out.

A dishevelled Maxim peeks his head and a broad shoulder in, sleep clouding his eyes. “Can you not make so much fucking noise this early?” Then his gaze shifts to the spilled alcohol and groans. “You’re not wasting anymore of the vodka again,” he says and slams the door shut with a resounding thud before Nikto could redirect his fury at him.

He is left to simmer in the aftermath and he swears to drag Rodion’s face across the broken glass if that imbecile doesn’t clean this up.

~~~

It seems an illness has overtaken his comrades.

With its fur clean and brushed, they dote on the cat at every chance it decides to show itself. Regal grace that laid beneath the grime is now allowed to shine. It moves with the arrogance that all cats possess as it struts around the house.

“Oh, what a cute kitten.”

“Look at its shiny gemstone eyes! What a pretty girl.”

Running their fingers through the fur as they coo and play with it. All three of them mull over what to name it. As if it’s a newborn baby and they’re first time parents.

“How about Mishka?” Dmitry asks as he strokes its back. “Look at its silky coat! Nikto, you have to feel this.”

Maxim scratches his stubble. “I prefer Nina.”

“Satan,” Nikto offers, gaze not leaving his book.

“It’s a girl,” Rodion’s faraway voice interjects from the bedroom.

“Baba Yaga.”

“Doesn’t really suit her… Princess?” Maxim suggests.

Nikto flicks to the next page. “Gluttony.”

“I think Anastasia fits this beauty.”

“Garbage Eater.”

That night, he pulls the covers over him with the feline nowhere in sight.

But dawn finds that yet again the whiskered intruder found its way onto the bed near his feet.

Less scratching and hissing this time. He’s able to expel it with only an attempted swat at his arm and minimal destruction. No caterwauls of wildness, or pointed teeth and claws tearing at his blankets thankfully.

~~~

They take pictures and record videos of the nuisance doing the most inane drivel and send them to each other, including Nikto. As if he can’t see the damned cat himself. At this rate, they would probably snap an image of its excrements and praise it for defecating outside by the end of the week.

The cat takes the greatest liking to Dmitry. It’s no mystery why. Twirling about his legs for food at all hours of the day that it’s not sleeping.

And the meowing.

It doesn’t shut up. Always whining, always mewling. Like an alarm siren demanding more and more meals.

The short period where it is not doing that, usually when one of the Bale brothers has the little gremlin on their lap, massaging the soft fur around its ears — it purrs loudly. Impeccably imitating a broken lawnmower.

Nikto has no trouble tolerating most discomforts — the filthiness of a barracks, the lack of sleep during a long operation, numbness from the biting cold of Russian winters. He would endure all of it again over this.

Nobody else seems to be agitated by it. Madness has infected everyone but him. No longer can Nikto read a book or relax with a good bottle of vodka in peace. He enjoyed his lone shifts a little more than the rest of the team before. Solitude is always freeing.

Now, it’s his only solace for true rest.

His equipment, his bed, the whole house, is filled with stray strands of fur. Irritating his nostrils and ruining his clothes. He briefly considers murdering the cat and the idiot that brought it home when he finds a nonhuman hair in his half eaten soup.

The last straw that solidifies their insanity to him is when the living embodiment of chaos vomits a wet furball on the sofa.

They will throw the cat out now for sure. Nikto has no doubts about it.

Except, that does not happen.

They did not throw the cat out.

They mutter words of comfort and pat it on the back, cleans up the mess and offers it a treat.

Nikto occasionally catches the feline watching him from some dimly lit corner. A spark of intelligence in its big round eyes. As if it secretly taunts him, before prowling away.

The following night, he scours his room, getting on all fours to check under his creaking bed frame. His bloodshot eyes strains against the darkness and finds only dust bunnies. No furry form with a demonic glint in its jade irises. Satisfied, he switches off the light and crawls in, the chill of the night seeps through the small crack in the window.

Yet, come morning, the relentless animal inhabits his sheets, purring with satisfaction.

It amazes him that it is able to burrow up so close as he slept again — with him being none the wiser, considering how much of a light sleeper he is. Nikto makes a mental note to seal the window. Clearly the sliver of opening for fresh air is too much to ask for.

He lets out a bone weary sigh, running a hand over his scarred face and rubs his temple. It can stay for now.

It’s not being overtly infuriating. It barely takes up any space. The man observes its sleek fur shining almost golden in the sunlight. Is it as soft as they all say it is?

He reaches for it, his fingers lightly brushes its tail and it lets out a groan of discontent, hopping off the bed, onto the windowsill. It slinks away, landing on the bushes outside.

Nikto watches the raised fluffy tail disappear past the treeline and he pushes the pane fully shut with a resounding snap for tonight.

“She’s nearly done with her moult,” Dmitry comments as he sweeps the tumbleweeds of fur out the front door. There are clumps of it stuck on foliage, mixing with the twigs and leaves.

It’s visually revolting.

When asked why he doesn't simply throw it in the trash, Dmitry says it makes the birds happy to use it for their nests.

Birds don’t nest this close to winter, you moron. Nikto would have loved to retort, only, he realises he doesn’t have the energy for it anymore.

The one upside to the neverending mountain of inconveniences is there seems to be a decrease of rat sightings inside. Perhaps, it’s not as lazy as Nikto originally thought.

He scowls at the empty packet of potato chips left by Rodion on the coffee table. The cat is now far from being the most useless individual in the house.

He lies awake in his bed, watching the shadows of the tree branch right outside his window dance on the wall as the wind jostles it. Sleep has trouble taking him like most days.

As he is about to drift into unconsciousness, an ear grating yowl echoes in the living room through the walls, loud enough to wake the dead.

Nikto huffs and rolls onto his stomach.

It continues. The sounds of the kitchen’s trash can being rummaged and the occasional meow of discontent prevents him from dozing off.

He’s determined to ignore it, maybe yell at someone else to feed it but realises it’s probably useless. Dmitry can sleep through a bombing. Maxim is likely comatose from drinking and nothing less than a gunshot will wake him.

He sits up, fingers reaching for his balaclava, fully intending to throw some biscuits in its food bowl so it can leave him alone.

The moment he pries open the door, the feline sprints in and beelines underneath his mattress.

Nikto narrows his eyes, tired brain is slow to process what exactly occurred. A defeated exhale leaves his lips and pushes his door shut, returning to bed.

He has grown to expect the cat to claim the territory beside his left foot and is careful not to nudge it come morning.

~~~

Frantic scratching on worn oak is like fingernails on a chalkboard, agitating Nikto's taut nerves. It wasn't just the sound, but the urgency behind it.

He’s not the only person home, someone else can let it out.

He tries to ignore it and focus on his task. Cleaning firearms is a silent and soothing experience. It helps to clear his mind when he needs it most.

The scraping intensifies.

Nikto unclenches his jaw — gently places down the bolt carrier and oil stained cloth, and stands up.

Boots thudding on the floor as he marches to the source of the noise.

The cat paws at the front door and wails. Wanting to be let out. It looks at Nikto as he turns the corner. Its face saying, please I need to leave.

I need to leave right now.

He unlatches the steel lock and pulls the door open. The feline hesitates, its miniature nose twitching, testing the cool air and the scents wafting in.

Frosty blue irises flash in anger. “You wanted to leave? Then go!” His free hand gestures to the open space outside.

Seconds stretch into a minute.

It stands there. Peering outside. Then, with a flick of its tail, turns and walks away, returning to its favourite spot on the kitchen counter by the window.

Nikto watches it, a mixture of confusion and realisation settling in his chest. It gives him a side eye that speaks volumes before it lays down and gazes out the glass.

He had served this creature. Catered to her whims. Ungratefulness aside, he feels used.

~~~

Nikto leaves for his shift just like any other night. Familiar weight of his rifle in one hand. Vodka in the other. Stars glittering in the sky.

He settles down at his usual spot in the outpost overlooking the area he’s meant to guard. As he’s about to peel back the fabric of his mask to take a sip, a crunch of dry leaves alerts him to a presence not too far from his left.

Drink forgotten, muscle memory and instincts take over, he raises his gun in the direction of the intruder. Two glowing orbs look back at him, and then an inquisitive meow.

Low and behold, it’s Garbage Eater.

Exasperation washes over him. He lowers his firearm and stares at it.

The cat saunters up to his feet, rubbing its face on his boots.

Nikto silently grieves his allotted hours of privacy robbed away and sits back down. How did it even follow him? He was not as alert as he usually is compared during a mission, but for it to have not been detected since he left the house is a feat.

Surprisingly, it keeps a respectable distance. Choosing to lick its hand an arms length away.

He finally gives in. The Russian reaches out to run a hand over its back. A throaty groan of protest erupts.

Nikto stops. Fair enough. He doesn’t like being touched either.

As the night deepens, he offers little bits of chicken from his food container while they sit in tranquil company together. He will never admit to it if asked, but the presence of decent companionship is something he craves. Dmitry is pleasant and respectful, however he can be a little too worried more often than not. That man is not subtle. Nikto catches every glance of concern, every time his lips pull into a hard line.

Animals don’t do that. They don’t have any questions of his mental state barely held back on the tips of their tongues.

Sometimes when it gets too quiet, his thoughts can be overwhelming. Fragmented memories from his past come slithering back. Lately, he has been unable to keep them at bay.

Every now and then, a new door opens, and he often doesn’t like what comes out of it.

Maybe it senses his mood, or maybe it’s just cold, it inches closer to sit beside him for the remainder of the shift. Its green eyes full of concern.

When they return to the house together, the cat doesn’t have to sneak into his bedroom.

~~~

Tiny gifts in the form of dead rats are deposited in his quarters every so often. He could dispose of it normally, but he throws them into Rodion’s room. It grants Nikto a small bit of satisfaction whenever a screech of disgust sounds throughout the house, usually after that man returns from his shift.

A week passes and Nikto wakes up with a feather duster-like object in his face.

It seems that the cat, perhaps emboldened in the darkness, gained some courage and moved upwards long past midnight. She sneaked up close beside his chest as he was sleeping. Her padded foot, soft and warm, rests against his bicep with an easy pressure, tail tickling his cheeks.

She had stuck to the end of his mattress every day before this.

Her forehead nudges his hand, seeking contact, and she rubs her long whiskers against his open palm.

Sundown arrives sooner, the days grow colder and Nikto quickly discovers she likes to be squashed by his arm.

The cat blinks and carefully leaps over him to situate herself in the small space between him and the wall. She sniffs Nikto’s hand curiously and rubs her cheeks against it before rolling into a ball. He buries his fingers into her soft fur and closes his eyelids.

He knows she only pursues his company for his warmth. He doesn’t mind it. His nail traces patterns in her coat and she stretches languidly. Maybe it's not just her seeking him. Maybe he craves the physical touch too.

It has been too long, he realises, since he has hugged another living thing. To feel the pulsing of a heartbeat against his fingertips. It is not so bad afterall.

The even vibration of her purrs lulls him to a dreamless slumber.

He hears the rhythmic clacking of claws on the hardwood floor before the cat jumps onto the armrest. She puts a gentle paw on Nikto’s forearm and meows.

Nikto hums, the words of his fantasy novel momentarily blurring. “What do you need this time?” he grumbles.

Everyone else left ten minutes ago, a rarity. He has plans to finish this book today.

Unfazed by his hollow annoyance, she steps onto his lap and does a few circles before settling down.

He shifts in his chair, trying to find a position that’s more comfortable for them both. “I’m reading a story, do you want to hear it?”

She looks at him knowingly and yawns. Nikto clears his throat, he begins reading with a soft voice that feels unfamiliar, it has been a long time since he last used this tone.

At some point, her eyes drift close and her breathing deepens, yet he continues.

Nikto couldn't help but see the similarities they share. They both exude an independence born out of necessity. He runs a calloused thumb over her old scars. They’re both survivors. No other person he met has understood it truly. Though with the way she regards him, the reserved man thinks she might.

~~~

Nikto takes the last bottle of Five Lakes on a hunt with him before Maxim could — he can have whatever slop is left.

It’s been years since he had hunted, nevertheless, he still remembers how to track deer and rabbits.

Gloved hand securely clutching the cool glass, he ventures further east.

People argue that vodka isn't for taste. Nikto disagrees.

He values the smooth, barely detectable flavour, a welcomed change to the generic liquor he usually endured on duty. To him, the subtle burn is appreciated. He doesn’t think his alcoholic comrade can tell the difference.

It’s not that he can’t handle the harsh taste, he would simply rather get drunk with a minimal amount of hangover.

He’s not surprised when he hears the rustle of grass and the well-accustomed to call of his four legged companion behind him after he crouches down to inspect the gnawed on vegetation.

She trots up, her sleek form brushing against his thighs and investigates the leaves, sniffing it with a delicate nose.

“Can you hunt rabbits as well as rats?”

She flicks a ear and chirps in response.

Nikto takes that as a yes.

Undeterred by the distant rumble of thunder above, they proceed further, the sparse canopy offers little protection as tiny droplets soon begin to rain down upon them.

Eventually, the soil grows too damp for her liking and she tries scaling up his leg, tips of her claws latching on to his thigh muscle through the thick fabric.

She advances quickly, her pointed nails has no trouble finding purchase on the straps and gear tied to him. Nikto hisses and grips her to his chest with his forearm before she can make it any higher.

She calms instantly, feeling secured in his solid hold.

The mild drizzle subsides quickly, leaving the forest dripping and smelling of fresh earth. However the once stray Siberian forest cat has no desire to return to the damp ground.

He purses his lips and takes a deep breath. “Fine.”

He can’t use his hunting rifle with one hand and he refuses to let her on his shoulders. Daylight is about to leave anyway. Won’t be a terrible decision to return.

As the sun dips below the horizon, dousing the hills with the warm colour of fire, Nikto observes the sky and settles on the grass, Garbage Eater curling up on his lap in content silence — he thinks that having a pet cat isn’t the worst thing in the world.

#nikto #cod nikto #call of duty #cod mw #call of duty mw #call of duty fanfic #call of duty fic #call of duty MW19 #call of duty MWII #call of duty mw2 #Dmitry Bale #Maxim Minotaur Bale #Nikodim Rodion Egorov #MW19 Spetsnaz

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keys-hellscape-1020 · 11 months

Text

Gaz Headcannons

Damn y’all, sorry for disappearing for six months. I’ve been in and out of the mental hospital like a yo-yo, so uh, have some headcannons to make up for it ig.

SFW

Tw: Cursing, brief mentions of violence, (very brief) sexual themes.

I picture him as a night owl, but that doesn’t mean he likes sleeping in super late. He likes some structure in his day (a side-effect of being in the military) and if he’s not out of bed by 9 he starts to feel guilty, like he’s wasting the day.

Despite me saying he’s a night owl, he’s not truly a night owl so much as he just gets so absorbed in what he’s doing he looses track of time and next thing he knows it’s 2am.

From an outside perspective it would be easy to assume he has more trauma than the rest of the 141- but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. He probably has the same amount for the most part, he’s just the only one who handles it in a healthy way. He’ll reach out for help if he needs it, has a therapist he sees regularly, and takes a low-dose of anti-anxiety medication (I want to say Zoloft cause that’s what I’m on lol). All said, he’s the only one who actually acknowledges it and doesn’t pretend it’s not there.

This man definitely games. He might play a first person shooter here and there, but honestly I don’t think he’d like them, they remind him to much of work and in his free time that’s the last thing he wants to be reminded of. I can see him playing Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, and Graveyard Keeper (it’s not well known but it’s SO good). The grim themes while still managing to be a cozy game really appeal to him.

His perfect date is you two ordering take-out and eating it on the couch while you play games together. He just absolutely adores being in your presence.

Despite this, quality time is not his main love language (although it is a close second). His first is words of affirmation. He loves how you get flushed and turn away from him when he compliments you out of nowhere. Literally you could just be in the same room, not even interacting, and this man would out of nowhere be like “You’re so fucking gorgeous. It’s a miracle I don’t drop to my knees every time you enter a room.” And then just causally go back to what he was doing.

On that note! This man is so into body worship. Just let him kiss, and lick, and suck, on you to his heart’s content and you will have one happy Gaz.

Also he just adores showing you off. He likes staying home sure, but he also likes taking you out on date nights and flaunting you (respectfully). He’s just so very proud to be in a relationship with you.

On the theme of bars, if someone gets close to you or touches you without your permission, this man is watching. He won’t say or do anything, he’ll just silently watch the person’s behavior. His years in the military have made him very good at reading people.

If he sees that they’re getting closer than you want, or otherwise making you uncomfortable, he’ll suddenly get very close to you. He won’t outright say anything, he knows you can handle yourself, but he’ll rest a hand on your shoulder. Both telling you that he’s there if you need him, and the creep to watch themselves.

If they back off without him having to intervene, great, you both can go back to enjoying yourselves, if he does need to get involved gods help the person his aggression is aimed towards.

He’ll take a few steps towards them, subtly growling (you know that one scene with price? Yeah that). He’ll tell them to back off, that you’re obviously not enjoying the conversation. If words don’t work, he won’t hesitate to resort to a fist fight. He won’t land the first hit however, he knows better. He might not be as physically strong as Ghost or Price, but this man has technique, and his opponent is knocked out in an heartbeat.

After that he is all over you, asking you if you’re alright, if you want to go home, etc. Whatever you need or want will be provided. He isn’t feeling jealous in that moment, just concerned. He wants to make sure you’re okay more than anything. After the fact, when he thinks back on it, he may feel a spark of jealousy, but it’s nothing he can’t quickly and easily reason away. After all, he trusts you completely.

NSFW

Tw: Body worship, nipple play (but no mention of breasts), biting, mentions of BDSM (in general), choking, slapping, Praise kink, minor degradation, quickies, aftercare

As mentioned earlier this man is the king, of body worship. He’ll work you up slowly, sensually. Kissing, licking, and teasing every inch of you before he even thinks of touching in-between your legs.

Your nipples will be sore by the time this man is done with them. He’s just enthralled by them, watching them get hard at he pinches and bites.

Speaking of bites, it’s not just your nipples. Afterwards you’ll find plenty of dark bite marks on your chest, neck, waist, and inner thighs. The feeling of your flesh under his teeth is just… exquisite.

Yes this man may be a tad bit… nippy, but he isn’t into anything that would truly hurt you. The farthest he would go would be choking you (after a long conversation and plenty of research), or a quick slap or two to your ass.

He also mixes degradation and praise together beautifully. Things like “such a beautiful little slut for me.” And “Damn, you’re such a good little whore.” He’ll sprinkle in a healthy bit of praise to. His main priority is your pleasure after all. <3

While he isn’t opposed to aspects of BDSM, I can’t see him being interested in the strict dynamics side of it, at all. Yeah sure he enjoys doming and subbing but I can’t see him wanting to bring them outside of the bedroom. And even in the bedroom, there’s no strict rules. He just wants to have fun with it, and he wants you to as well.

He isn’t opposed to quickies. He doesn’t partake in them often as I see him having a sex drive that is average to low. But if you both need to be somewhere soon and you just have to have him? He’ll get on his knees and make sure that yours are wobbling as you walk out to the car. Don’t worry about him darling, you can make it up to him later. Like I said, your pleasure is his priority.

When all is said and done this man takes very good care of you. He’ll insist on a shower or bath together (depending on if you can stand or not). He seriously enjoys taking a bath with you afterwards though. He’ll run a bath that is steaming hot, “To relax your muscles” he says. He’ll also add some lavender and sandalwood oil to the water, to relax and ground you.

He’ll take such good care of you. If your hair needs washed he’ll give you the best scalp massage you’ve ever had. If it doesn’t (or you just don’t want him to) he’ll put it in a remarkably neat bun on the top of your head so it doesn’t get wet. And if you don’t have a lot of hair/no hair? You’ll still get a scalp massage. It doesn’t matter how little hair you have, this man is rubbing shampoo into your scalp claiming “It helps keep you clean!” Just let him take care of you please.

After he’s dealt with your hair he’ll lather up a rag with a generous amount of soap and take his time gently cleaning off every part of you. He won’t ask you to, but his heart will melt if you return the favor and wash his body clean.

After you both are clean he’ll take his time drying you off with the fluffiest towel he can find. This man knows your skincare routine by heart and WILL make sure every step gets done in the correct order. Once you’re all clean and dry he gives you some of his clothes to wear. And you know this man wears oversized clothes when he’s off duty for the sole purpose of making sure they fit you.

If you’re hungry he’ll order your favorite take-out, if your not he’ll still insist you eat a granola bar and drink some water. You burned a lot of calories and sweat a lot! You need fuel!

If you’re somehow still awake after all this he’ll gently pick you up and bring and you to bed. Falling asleep in this man’s arms is a dream come true. <3

A/N: I’ve never written any kind of smut before, so constructive criticism is very welcome. I got kinda out of control with the aftercare part. I had to stop myself. Plz let me know if you enjoyed!!

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eilidh-eternal · 1 month

Text

You learn the truth

Part of the Metanoia series | Part 1 | Masterlist | Ao3 |

Thank you @gemmahale for reading this monstrosity and helping me fine-tune it <3

“Sergeant. How copy?”

Simon looms over Johnny in the team room, sidled up to a sagging couch that’s seen better days, and when he lifts his derelict gaze from the battle-worn photo in his hands he’s met with pinched brows, sloped granite, and folded arms. Worry, in the staid manner he’s come to expect from Simon.

“Solid, Lt,” he answers dutifully, devoid of his usual ebullience, and with a tenor forged from damascus and flint.

Simon rounds with a languid gait to the opposite cushion, stained with something dark, iron-rich and oxidizing in the loose weave, and lowers himself down beside him. Holds out a gloved hand. Johnny obeys his silent command and relinquishes what might just be the most valuable thing he owns. Deposits it gingerly in his waiting palm.

“How’s she doin’?” he asks, smoothing out a crease in the portrait.

“Started school this past year. Whole head taller than last ye saw her. Still carries that damn bear ‘round the house, too.” Takes his tea the same as Simon, according to Isobel.

“Better that than the bloody mask.”

“Aye. Better, that,” he agrees, and a ragged breath saws out of his lungs when he sinks back into the sun-bleached nylon.

“And your pet?” Simon passes the photo back and Johnny tucks it reverently back into his breast pocket, folded neatly and pressed close to his heart—where it belongs.

“Isnae ‘mine’,” he drawls, somnolence roughening his voice despite the afternoon sun pouring in through the concrete window. “Stubborn thing, too. Hasnae been answerin’ her phone.”

“That what’s got you mithered?”

“Worried,” Johnny corrects, and Simon folds his hands across his midsection, settling back alongside him with a throaty grunt and the echo of artillery fire in his bones, popping and cracking beneath the weight of his battle-worn body.

“All the same, innit?”

“Not with her. Not when she…” He toys with a clip on a canvas belt loop, rough fingers tracing the burnished amalgam of iron and carbon, and for a moment, he feels your skin. Metallic beneath his touch, chilled by the wind, precious and perfect in his hands. “You an’ her are cut from the same cloth. Dinnae care much for sharin’.” Even when you should.

You keep him up at night, itinerant thoughts always finding their way through the morass of post-operative lassitude back to you. Wondering what you fill your days with. If you still linger by the window in the placid hours of the morning with a steaming, ceramic mug warming your hands, marking the passage of time by the melting of the ice. If the final snow of spring has laced the wild cherry trees along the row with pearl-drop blossoms and an almond sillage. If you’ve seen the picture he managed to take from the ramp mid-flight, on transport to Laswell’s station, mareel lea of clouds undulating beneath a star-flecked velarium.

Thinking about all the things he said, and the things he didn’t, before he left. Burning with the memory of you, pressed flush against him; soft and warm and safe in the lambent halo of his arms. You felt like his in that moment, and he lies awake, breathing in char and soot from the moreish conflagration ravaging his chest, staining his throat a fuliginous shade of black with each serrated exhale.

He might have told Simon—if the big bastard weren’t rattling the ballistic glass in his sleep.

You’re standing in the pasta aisle, staring at the selection of boxed macaroni, and you’re drifting further and further into an endless, atramentous night.

Funny, you think, when the sun and stars live next door. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. None of it was supposed to be this way. Stars don't fall from the sky. But meteors do. And now… now you have to crawl out of the crater at the bottom of a pitiless ocean, navigate the upheaval of silt and abysmal detritus, and search for the surface without the gilded hand of the sun to guide you.

You should have stayed away.

Isobel would choose the box with the cartoonish bear. Johnny would make a joke about bears liking porridge, not cheesy noodles. You toss it in your basket with the rest of your ready meals, soggy cardboard already weeping condensation, and battle the undertow to the queue at the till.

You should have left them alone.

“Beautiful day, today is.” They don't know that the stars have gone nova. That the ossified remains of the Earth creak and settle in the brumal gloaming, caliginous and desolate. They can’t hear you, pounding on the ice, desperate for apricity in a nuclear winter.

Now you’re the one who’s alone.

“It is,” you lie, and the effluvium of ozone burns your lungs. Cauterizes the hemorrhaging, pulpy mess you call a heart, languishing in the frangible cage of your ribs.

Free divers can hold their breath for 10 minutes at a time. You wonder how long you’ll last trapped beneath a frozen mantle.

It snowed again, the morning Johnny left—pillowed the earth in anticipation of your fall—but several weeks of sleet and freezing rain has turned the pavement into a patchwork of slush and ice that mimics the glacial floes in your veins. Your wellies don’t have the same grip as proper snow boots. Crampons are better suited for the climb ahead. Neither are very practical for a quick trip to Tesco, though. Would look quite odd, standing on ice cleats in the pasta aisle.

The same can’t be said of the car park. With your canvas tote clutched close to your side, you pick your way through fissures of lingering snow. Opt for trickling streams of runoff rather than attempting to balance on the slick pavement. It’s slow going. Tedious. The lingering wind of last week's squall whips at your exposed skin. Lashes and bites, pumping a gelid venom into your veins, and the blackening, gangrenous bits of your mangled heart feel numb. Numb enough that you don’t immediately recognize the car parked next to yours. Twin sets of eyes, stratified ice, rich with moraine, watching from the windows. You don’t realize how the world suddenly feels too bright, staring up through a polynya, until you glimpse an aureate complexion and charcoal hair, silver-streaked with ash and tied up in a loose pony, emerging from the driver's seat.

Fenella MacTavish is a star in her own right. Has a gravity to her that demands to be felt and heard. The pull of your name on her lips drags you through the hole in the ice and dangles you there. Bait for something bigger. Hungrier. And she does it all with a friendly face, a cordon of coronal light woven into a beaming smile—aimed at the fallstreak hole that’s been punched through your sternum.

“Ye’re a fair way from home, lass.” The divisional line of the Baltic and North Sea, from the feel of it. Or maybe somewhere off the coast of Shetland. It doesn’t really matter. Dread still percolates down your spine and you blink against the sudden shock of the sun emerging from the clouds, lurid rays burrowing into your retinas.

“Better prices for produce on this side of town,” you hedge, and she looks pointedly at the sharp protrusions of box corners against canvas, faultline of her brow erupting with skepticism.

“Thought Tesco’s all have the same prices, more or less,” she reasons, and you watch the way she leans against the D pillar, arms folded and braced against a hiemal wind that tousles loose strands of hair about her face. A similar image of Johnny from several weeks ago effervesces to the surface of your memory and you shove it down. Drown it in the brine that spumes on roiling white caps.

You answer with an indolent shrug and make to step around her, slipping your hand in a fleece-lined coat pocket in search of your keys, but like the other MacTavishes you’ve come to know, Fenella has a propensity for prying questions.

“Have ye heard from Joh—”

“No,” you say before she can speak his name, gloved fingers curling around the worn canvas strap across your shoulder like it’s a lifeline. Trying to pull yourself away from the hole in the ice, procellous waves lapping hungrily at your feet where she dangles you from artfully strung words. It’s not technically a lie. Even if there’s a novel's worth of texts from him that have gone unopened and unanswered. “I have—”

“Come have dinner wi’ us,” she volleys back. Guts the wretched desiderium curled at the back of your throat, backed into a corner and hissing at anything that comes near. Coaxes the dolorous, indignant want festering in your chest into the light.

You want Johnny and his ribald jokes. Want him to look at you the way he looks at Isobel when they walk together. To hold your hand inside the pocket of his coat when you both forget your gloves on the way to pick her up from school. Remind you to leave work at the door. Shut your laptop and close the manuscript. Give yourself a break and come watch some mind rotting show with him and Isobel on the couch. Curl up in a tartan blanket, woven with his family's colors, and pretend you aren't falling asleep with your cheek pressed to his shoulder. Want to bake with Isobel and chase Johnny from the kitchen. Read to her on the nights he’s away, out at the pub on Main with friends from work. Be there, sleeping on the couch with Isobel, waiting for him to come home from assignment.

You want, and the teratoid it’s become circles with the porbeagles. Has teeth and a consciousness all it’s own, shredding through sinewy trepidation and tearing through every layer of adamantine flesh that you wear like armor. Stripping you down to the bone and sucking on the treacly marrow.

There’s no reason why you can’t. Johnny’s said as much. Made it patently clear when he all but tucked you into his jacket with him and let the warmth of sun-chapped lips bleed into your algid skin that night on your stoop. But there’s a picture in the livingroom of the townhouse next to yours that clamors each time you pass it. A ghost, bound to this plane by molecules of ink on photo paper, materializing at your back and whispering words of doubt from the umbrage. Telling you to leave. They aren’t yours to have.

You feel rime creeping up your legs, briny sea spray turning denim stiff in the darkening carpark. The sun is sinking, varicolored sky unfurling against the plumage of clouds and an austere snowscape, and it casts shadows across the city, long as the list of reasons you shouldn’t.

“Tomorrow night,” she presses, “roads ‘round here get a tad dodgy after dark wi’ the ice an’ all.” Her eyes drift to the ice surrounding your feet. Stare for a moment, like there are memories trapped there.

You’ve found your keys. Found them several minutes ago, and have been toying with pressing the panic button. Manufacturing some way out of this conversation. Your toes are numb, too. Whether it’s from standing in a river of runoff or Fenella’s snare, swaying precariously and staring down into the gaping maw of repressed desire, you don’t know. But you do know that you can’t stay here. Can’t keep staring at this woman who looks like Johnny and pretend you don’t want to know everything about her. Him. Them. That you don’t want to go to dinner with her and Isobel because you miss them.

“Tomorrow,” you begin, “I have a meeting. Have to stay late.”

“Tomorrow’s Friday,” she counters. “Bell stays up late to watch Still Game wi’ me. Sure she wouldnae mind waitin’ an hour tae have a friend join us fer some stovies.” You can see Isobel in the car behind her, twisted around in her car seat to watch the two of you, and your heart lurches in your chest. Gnashes and snarls at the web of lies you’ve woven around it, glittering trip wires disguised as a safety net.

Don’t get too close. Don’t get attached. They’re not yours. This will never be your family.

‘Go!’ it wails, and her eyes beg you to stay.

When you finally find your footing again, you take a step towards your car. “I’ll think about it.” Move carefully between cracks in the ice. “See if I can get the meeting moved up. Isobel should keep to her schedule.” Keep your eyes up. Don’t look at the monster she’s dragged out of you.

Fenella nods like you’ve agreed. Either chooses to ignore your feeble attempt at a polite refusal or twists your words into reluctant acceptance as she fishes her phone from her vest. Hums as she taps away at the screen, and you feel the echo of it when your own phone vibrates in your pocket beside your keys.

“We’ll see ye tomorrow night, then.” She smiles, wide and machiavellian, before she severs the snare and watches you plummet. Slips into the warmth of her car as you plunge through the hole in the ice and it freezes over once more. Chum in the water.

Staring at Fenella’s address on your phone screen effects a sinking feeling in your stomach. Drags you down to that abyss again, only this time, you aren’t alone. You weren’t alone before—not really. You’d just denied the truth of what was clawing its way through your chest. Couldn’t face what its existence means.

You stare until the screen goes dark, and then stare some more, until the oven timer chimes and you wade through your kitchen to silence it. Produce a hot pad from an adjacent drawer to pull a cardboard tray of lasagne from the rack, and nearly drop it when the chiming starts again.

Your phone vibrates on the table behind you, Johnny’s name lit up across the screen. Calling.

‘Won’t be able to use my phone a lot, but I’ll call when I can.’

The awful thing in your chest shudders in answer.

Every muscle in your body tenses. Aches to open the line. Grab it with both hands and pull. Drag yourself from the depths of your self inflicted misery and bathe in the ardent warmth of his smile. You want to talk to him. Want to hear that gravel rich timbre and your name rolling off the escarpment of his tongue.

But should you?

Should you even try to be something you aren’t? Something you never thought you could be. Would want to be. Should you—?

“Bonnie? Ye there?”

Oh, fuck…

“Yeah… I’m here,” you breathe, and it’s not salt water but kerosene that fills your lungs. Burns with self-loathing and penitence as it commingles with ozone. “Johnny, I—” Your voice pitches, teeters on the precipice of trepidation and want, and crumbles away with the marl.

You’ve been ignoring him. Ignoring how you feel. Absconding yourself in your abnegation and rotting on the ocean floor, too afraid to swim. To look for the light. Afraid of falling even further.

And all of that want comes pouring out of you now. Out of the hole punched through your chest when he left. In a briny deluge down the berm of your cheeks when he shushes you. From puncture wounds, perfect impressions of serrated teeth, sunk to the bone. Not letting go.

“I know, sweet girl. I know,” he soothes, palliating and emollient, but the breath you take scrapes against your throat, coarse with sand and silt. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too, Johnny.” You thought it would hurt, admitting it. That the jaws would clamp down and you would scream and kick and fight. You were so heavy, full to the brim with want, that you mistook it for that leaden, sinking feeling. Thought it was drowning you.

“Bell said she saw ye today. That ye’re goin’ to visit her tomorrow?” There’s hope in his voice, nestled in the colluvium that tumbles from his lips and settles at your feet.

“Yeah,” you decide then and there. “I am.”

The MacTavish home isn’t what you thought it would be, limewashed stone tucked at the end of a winding, gravel lane, cradled by the tussock and sedge of a heathland and perched on the slope of a shallow vale. Double paned windows cast a genial glow onto the drifts around it, tenuous peaks capped in flakes of gold, and a scintillant lamp floods the walkway, salted cobble, free of the ice your tires struggled to navigate on the narrow streets of Old Kilpatrick. The door is a bathic blue, nearly the same depth as the lacuna between stars on a moonless night, and a boar-head knocker greets you, impeccably polished silver despite its exposure to the elements. Your hand halts halfway to the ring that dangles from gleaming ivory tusks and hangs surprised between yourself and the refulgent star across the threshold. Everything about Fenella and her home is bright.

She ushers you inside, pulling you by a handful of billowing cashmere into the foyer, and promptly defoliates you of the flailing garment and congruent scarf wound around your neck, taking your bag and hanging it from a brass hook beside your coat. “Bell, come an’ look who’s here!” she calls down the passageway, and a brontide reverberates through the hardwood and soles of your shoes. A storm rattling the foliage of a coppice in the thick of Summer.

Isobel shrieks, effusive in the manner of her excitement, when she rounds the corner from the doorway to the left and catches sight of you, teddy forgotten and swiftly discarded in favor of launching herself down the wide hall. You rock back when she connects with your leg, sinking her hands into layers of chiffon, pleated at your waist and cascading to the buckles of your flats around your ankles.

“Ye made it!” She wears a t-shirt many sizes too big, sleeves billowing around her and the hem rolled and tucked up inside with a knot that presses against your shin. The cracked, peeling numerals 141 are barely visible, on her left side just below her breastbone, and her surname is printed just below, peaks and plateau of the M and T rising above the cloud of your skirt bunched up in her arms. Her hair is loose, curls tumbling just over her shoulders in an unruly race to the wide crew-collar of her shirt, and the smile she beams up at you is blinding. Disorienting. Burrowing into your brain in search of a home. Looking for its carbon copy, etched in a memory of Johnny, sitting on a wooden chair in a kitchen that mirrors yours.

A timer chimes, echoing off smooth plaster painted with a whisper of green, sage and seafoam, and an eclectic collection of frames maps a rich family history from the front door down the length of the passageway,

“That’ll be dinner,” Fenella announces, a hand coming to rest between your shoulders and another delving into her granddaughter's curls. “Bell, show ‘er where tae wash up.” She herds you both forward, and your stomach knots with budding nerves.

“Can I help with anything? Setting the table?” you offer, attempt to make yourself useful, and she tuts her disapproval.

“Nae, jus’ wash up wi’ Bell. Dinner’ll be on the table when yer done.” She slips by the two of you, disappearing down the passageway and to the right while Isobel fits her hand into yours and leads you through the door she came from.

There’s a sideboard adjacent to the washroom, and while Isobel scrubs the days mire from her nails you cast your attention to the portraiture above it. Echoes of a convivial home, filled with family during the holidays, outings in the city, and school portraits. Johnny’s service portrait hangs front and center above a shadow box, pin board nearly full with brassy medals and gaudy ribbons. Years younger and clean shaven, he looks boyish and bright-eyed, even with the army drab and neutral expression. But there's a familiar tilt to his mouth, permanently skewed in an inveterate smile, and a whisper of laughter in the gentle slope of his shoulders, not yet filled out with the corded muscle that’s become so familiar. Several inches to the right and many years later, he appears as you know him now. Dark shadow of stubble, interrupted by the stitchwork that created the twisting scar on his chin, and—

The bulk of his body is curled around a young woman, dark cloud of curls concealing her face, buried in the hollow space beneath his jaw, but the swell of her belly is obvious in her profile. Isobel’s mum.

“Yer turn!” Isobel lilts from behind you, but you remain rooted to the polished hardwood, staring at a ghost, and wait for the rebuttal.

They aren’t yours. This isn’t your family.

Budding nerves blossom in the loamy pit of your stomach, creeping along spiculated vines towards the moldering gaps between your ribs, and your heart stutters in its crumbling cage alongside the starving, pacing creature you call want.

Forget them. Leave.

You wait, and wait, and wait—and it never comes. The ink doesn't wail, the frames don’t rattle, and there is no voice whispering over your shoulder.

There is a darling girl, tugging at the fabric of your skirt and the mess of snarled threads around your heart, picking apart the tangled web you’ve been lost in, and she guides you through the fray to the washroom basin.

“Ah spoke wi’ Johnny this morn’,” Fenella begins, reaching across the table to wipe at the broth dribbling down Isobel’s chin. “Said ye finally had a chance tae talk.”

“Oh. Yes, we did.” You don’t tell her how Johnny did most of the talking, took your sniveled apologies for avoiding his messages and buried them in the colluvium. Caught you, from a world away, and lowered you gently to the earth when you fell apart in your kitchen. “He sounds well.”

“Aye, he does. Havnae heard ‘im like that since Kirsten died.” She leans back in her chair, half-finished bowl of stew all but forgotten. “Those two… och, they were a right pain in my arse. Where one went the other followed, an’ made twice the trouble for their Mam.”

The revelation glues to your brain, tenebrous and viscid.

“Has he told ye about ‘er, his sister?”

“She saw the picture in the passageway,” Isobel chimes in, babbling around a mouthful of roast potato.

Their Mam. The picture in the hall. Johnny’s sister. The ghost next door.

“He’s mentioned her once before.” You drag your spoon through cooling beef and potato, breaking up the congealed, starchy mass, and try to do the same with the memories that tangle themselves together in your head. “He told me about his wife; that she passed two years ago. I— He never said his sister passed as well. I’m so—”

“His wife?” Quicksilver brows fly towards the inky peak of her hairline, bewilderment etched in the incredulous slash of her mouth, lips drawn tight. “Johnny’s ne’er wed, lass.”

Your hand stills but your heart rattles, throwing itself against baleen bars, and the pinpricks of teeth, gnawing at the fallstreak hole in your sternum, threatens to crack your ribs open at the dinner table. “Isobel’s mother—”

“Is his sister,” Fenella finishes for you.

“Then, Johnny… Why didn’t Isobel’s father raise her?”

Fenella casts a furtive glance in Isobels direction and finds cordierite eyes staring back at her over an empty bowl, gleaming with a startling discernment. “Stay here,” she motions towards you, and plucks Isobel from the chair between you, balancing her on a broad hip. “All done, Bell? Let’s get ye settled in the den, hm? With Ghost?” Isobel clutches at her shirt for balance, dips her chin in agreement, and Fenella takes her from the dining room, leaving you alone with the savage things in your chest.

Sister. Never married. Niece.

It percolates through gray matter. Drips from the roof of your mouth, nauseating and saccharine, and when you swallow you feel the drop in your stomach like an iron weight. Wilted petals and desiccated vines withering. A febrile joy laced with bile bubbling up your throat; sickly cocktail of absolution and compunction.

There was never a ghost trapped in a picture frame. No headstone inscribed with the MacTavish name and the words ‘Loving Wife and Mother.’ Every poisonous word whispered in your ear came from the devil on your shoulder, sowing demurral and rooting it in reproval, and the roaring in your chest, thundering pulse in your ears, screams yes.

The muted playing of fanfare from the TV cuts through the cacophony in your head, and Fenella’s voice allays the discordance. “She knows more than she lets on.” A sigh filters through her nose with a ‘hum’ and she slides into the chair Isobel occupied previously. “She misses him. Misses him like a wean misses their Da.” Misses him the same as her Mum. Gone somewhere she can’t follow, a place kept secret from her, with no way to know when he’ll be back. If he’ll come back.

The unpleasant realization of that very real possibility scrapes down your spine, whetted talons screeching against corrugated bone.

“Johnny’s the closest thing Bell’s ever had tae a Da,” she elucidates. “They used tae work together, ‘fore Johnny joined up wi’ the Task Force. Passed selection the same year.”

“She—Kirsten—met him through Johnny?” She nods, smiling, but the curve of her mouth has a mournful edge.

“She did. Johnny brought some lads round for Hogmanay one year. Took his sister out wi’ ‘em tae the pubs. Said she took one look at Aaron MacAndrew handin’ ‘er brother his own arse at darts and knew she’d marry ‘im. Did so, the following year. Hardly made it another ‘fore she told us she was havin’ Bell.” The memory of her daughter brightens Fenella’s eyes. Bottled lightning, bouncing off maldivian blue glass. “We were all excited. ‘Specially Johnny; couldnae wait tae meet his niece. Brought home gifts for Kirsten and the wean from every tour and couldnae go to ASDA wi’out buyin’ another teddy or romper.”

“Did Johnny and Aaron tour together?” She nods solemnly.

“Few weeks after Kirsten had Bell they left. Got their orders a month earlier, an’ Aaron… He didnae let Johnny tell Kirstin ‘til after she had the wean. Didnae want her tae stress.

“They were tae be gone three months, so Kirsten stayed here an’ I helped wi’ Bell. Went a while ‘fore we heard anythin’ from Johnny. Said things got hairy. Had tae go dark. Stay hidden. We didnae know why ‘til he called again an’ said he was comin’ home early, but naw Aaron. Naw ‘til he was the only one tae come off the plane.”

Laughter trickles in from the den, pooling in the hollow silence that yawns between you and Fenella. “I…” you try, but every word you string together with the next frays around the knot in your throat.

“She was angry wi’ him for some time. Aaron had died weeks before he called, an’ he kept it from ‘er. Didnae want tae tell her on the phone. Wanted tae be there when she found out.” She shifts her weight in the chair. Leans forward to fold one arm over the other on the table. “Johnny took it hard, too. Losin’ his mate an’ then his sister. None of us saw her for the better part of a year after he died, an’ Johnny took the blame for it. She wouldnae see him. Didnae come ‘round for holidays. He thought if he made ‘imself scarce she might come out her shell, so when he heard from a Captain he used tae serve under, ‘bout the Task Force an’ the longer assignments that came wi’ it… He packed ‘imself up an’ off he went. Was another year ‘fore they finally saw one another. Never knew what was said between the two of ‘em, but they were close as ever afterwards. Right up ‘til she passed.”

“And she listed Johnny as Isobel's next of kin.” Fenella nods, bottled lightning limned with a silvery tide. “I… I’m so sorry. About Kirsten, Aaron, bringing it up— I shouldn’t—”

Despite the tears tracking down her cheeks, Fenella shakes her head. Smiles, and reaches across the table to clasp your hand in hers. “Ye dinna need tae apologize, lass. I should be thankin’ ye, really.” You try to pull away but her hand tightens around yours.

“Thank me? I haven’t—”

“Done anythin’? Lass, ye’ve done more than ye know. He talks about ye. Every time we go tae lunch. It’s ye, an’ Bell, an’ how excited she always is tae see ye. How he thinks she might fancy ye even more than he does. And he smiles. You brought that back.”

And fuck, if that isn’t everything you hoped for. To know that he smiles for you. Because of you. It alchemizes the iron in your stomach to lead, bathed in acid and leeching an acrimonious guilt into your bloodstream.

You ignored him.

Pulled away, just like his sister did.

And Fenella is thanking you.

Midnight settles over the MacTavish home in a mantle of crushed velvet and embroidered stars. Fenella insisted that you stay after dinner. Spend some time with Isobel in the den.

That was several hours ago.

Curled in the corner of a chenille couch, you sit with Isobel pressed to your side, head pillowed by the masked bear she clutches in her sleep.

“Someone’s finally tuckered out,” you muse, brushing an errant curl away from her face. “I should head home. Let the two of you rest.” Fenella stands from her chair beside the couch and maneuvers around the coffee table in the dim light of the TV.

“It’s late,” she rebukes. “I’ll naw have ye out at this hour. Stay the night. Ye can take yer rest in Johnny’s old room.” Fenella croons as she peels Isobel out of her cocoon of blankets and hoists her up into the cradle of her arms. “C’mon Bell, let’s show the lass where she’s stayin’ the night.”

“The roads really aren’t that bad, I— I should be able to make the drive just fine,” you insist, but the admonition in the gaze she levels you with quashes any further argument.

You follow, albeit hesitantly, from the den up a narrow flight of stairs, and hope that she can’t hear the tremulous rattling of your breath behind her. She deposits Isobel, teddy and all, in a colorful room, shelves overflowing with picture books and bins piled high with teddies and toys, tucks her snug beneath a hand-sewn quilt and leaves her with a peck on the cheek to guide you into the room across from hers.

She rifles through a chest of drawers, scratched pine and chipped lacquer, stood up against the wall opposite a wrought iron bed, draped in purples and greens that bring thistle to mind. “Ye can wear some of Johnny’s old things. I’d give ye somethin’ of mine but, well… I think ye’d be more comfortable in this.” Tracksuit bottoms and a pullover. She leaves it on the bed as she moves to where you hover near the doorway. “Washroom is just down there, on the right,” she directs, pointing to the far end of the hall. “An’ I’m just across the way if ye need anythin’. See ye at breakfast.”

With you and Isobel settled in your respective rooms, she ambles off to her own, door clicking shut softly behind her, and you’re left staring at Johnny’s clothes. On Johnny’s bed. In the bedroom where he grew up. Wondering how—if at all—you’ll be able to sleep tonight.

©️Eilidh-Eternal.2024 ~ The intellectual property of Eilidh-Eternal is not permitted for reposting, transcription, translation or use with AI technologies.

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sharkssharpteeth · 1 month

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I will forever believe that Hadir deserved better. I love Graves to death, but I’d trade his life for Hadir’s any day.

Song: The View Between Villages - Noah Kahan

Video credits // MW 2019 clips @MKIceAndFire // MWII Atomgrad Raids clips @Gamer’s Little Playground (Both on YouTube)

Originally completed on 12/24/23

#cod mw19 #cod #cod modern warfare #call of duty mw19 #call of duty modern warfare #call of duty #hadir karim #farah karim #alex keller #john price #kyle gaz garrick #video edit

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shadow0-1 · 1 year

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You call yourself an operator?

#call of duty #modern warfare #call of duty modern warfare #blender renders #cod mace #mw19 #call of duty mw19 #idk I wanted to do something spooky

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daordinarylinchen · 4 months

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у меня сессия у меня экзамен через три дня но мне пофиг a quick alex sketch because these days I'm busy playing mw2019

#ibispaintx #fanart #call of duty modern warfare #call of duty mw19 #cod modern warfare #call of duty #call of duty alex keller #call of duty alex #cod alex #alex keller

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cloudofbutterflies92 · 5 months

Text

Call of Duty OC:Eden“Spectra”Park

PERSONAL INFO

Name: Eden Johanna Park Mason

Alias: Spectra [She has several aliases however, as MI6 agent she must maintain anonymity about her true identity]

Rank: Agent

Age: 28(in 2022)

Sexuality: Heterosexual

Native Language: English

OtherLanguague(s): Italian, Russian, Ukrainian(A little bit), German, Spanish, Arab, French, Japanese

Date of birth: November 17 1994

Birthplace: Birmingham, England

Eye color: Olive green

Hair color: Raven black [But in the past she has had different hair colors such as blond, green, red, and blue. And she has also had them shaved]

Height: 5’3’’/1.60 cm

Body type: Lean

Bloody type: 0 negative

Faceclaim: Margaret Qualley

Relationship/Family

Grandmother: Helen Park

Mother: Anna Park

Father: Andrew Mason(deceased)

Love interest: Simon ”Ghost” Riley

Best friends: Chloe Valentine, John “Soap” Mactavish; Kyle “Gaz” Garrick

Friends: John Price; Alyssa Price (@alypink ,wife of John), Kate Laswell, Alejandro Vargas, Rodolfo Parra, Reggie [Another OC, inspired by Wrench from Watch Dogs] Valerie "Gorgon" Watson (@onehornedbeast OC) Maya “Pip” van Rijn(@justasmolbard OC)

Other: Alex Keller, Farah Karim, Yuri Volkov

Pet:Mr Orange, a orange cat that her and Simon adopted

Affiliations

Task Force 141

Captain John Price

Lieutenant Simon ”Ghost” Riley

Sergeant John ”Soap” Mactavish

Sergeant Kyle ”Gaz” Garrick

Lieutenant Maya “Pip” van Rijn(@justasmolbard OC)

Mexican Special Forces

Colonel Alejandro Vargas

Sergeant Major Rodolfo Parra

Special Officer Alyssa Martinez Price(@alypink )

SASR(Australian Special Air Service Regiment)

Valerie "Gorgon" Watson(@onehornedbeast)

MI6

Helen Park

Agent Reggie

Anna Park

CIA

Station Chief Kate Laswell

Operation Alex Keller

ULF

Commander Farah Ahmed Karim

Personality and Traits

Introvert: She is not very disposed to the social life, preferring a good glass of wine in front of the fireplace in her home rather than the hectic life as a social butterfly, however doing her job as a secret agent she is very good at being able to hide her character, becoming the most social person in this world and using her manipulative techniques to get to the goal.

International Relations ability: Having a degree in international relations Eden was always sent by MI6 to a variety of places around the world to negotiate, interrogate, and even kill enemies who threatened the British government despite being very young, thanks in part to the help of her grandmother Helen, who instructed her on how to become the perfect agent.

Sarcasm: If there is one thing Eden specializes in it is finding sarcasm in situations even where it is the last thing a person might think of (ask Ghost during their mission in Russia just to give an example)

Camouflage: Being a spy Eden is capable depending on the situation that requires her to perfectly disguise herself in the role during the mission.

Profession and Skills

Profession Background and Main Skill: Bachelor's degree in international relations, with a master's degree in languages

Current Profession: Secret agent specializing in international negotiation for SIS, currently stationed in England. Other affiliations include the British government/MI6/CIA/Task Force 141

Weapon Preferences: B&T VP9, Assault Rifle, M4, Soul Harvester, Fiber Wire

Combat style:Krav Maga, Bujutsu, Judo, CQC(Close Quartet Combat)

Personal Preferences

Clothing Style: Dark Academia; Grunge, Femme Fatale

Favorite book: The Hellbound Heart-Clive Barker

Favorite Color: Red

Favorite drink: Argiano Brunello di Montalcino red wine, strawberry margarita, Pepsi, Monster

Favorite food: ramen, pizza, lasagna, carbonara

Favorite song: Cherry Waves - Deftones

FUN FACTS

•She studied in Italy under the false name of Selene Mastroianni until she finished high school linguistics (in Italy it ends around age 18) because her grandmother Helen being a 'secret agent' wanted her to study away from England.

•When she was sixteen she decided to shave her head to zero because she thought it was cool and played in a punk band.

•Her first tattoo, a small flower on her groin, was done when she was 17 illegally by a tattoo artist friend of hers.

•Eden has a scar on her belly, at the level of her uterus caused during a mission in South America

•Eden listens to various genres of music but the ones she likes best are grunge, punk, black metal, shoegaze and gothic.

Every weekend when there is visitation day at the nursing home for the elderly where Grandma Helen lives Eden happened to find Simon there playing chess with her grandmother and drinking some excellent black tea.

Eden tends to burn easily in the sun; in fact, one of the things she does in her routine is to put on sunscreen, even in the winter because her skin is so delicate that it quickly turns red.

Other habits Eden has are to bite her lips often, walk back and forth in tense situations, and carry a stress ball to avoid going into outburst.

Background Story/Biography

Eden was born in Birmingham in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Soon after her birth her father Andrew and mother Anna moved to Bexley to be closer to Eden's grandmother, the legendary Helen Park. There Eden spends the early part of her childhood, although her mother began to bear a grudge against her and treat her badly.

Since she was little, Eden has always wanted to discover the world, also thanks to the passionate stories of her father Andrew, a well-known English poet and professor. However, one evening, while they were all in bed apart from her grandmother Helen, on a business trip a fire broke out in their residence due to her mother, who had now fallen into the abyss of alcohol after being fired from MI6 which cost the life of her father. From that moment on, Eden's resentment towards her mother grew even more and without a chance for forgiveness, their destructive relationship led Eden's grandmother to ask for custody of her granddaughter.

When she turned 14, her grandmother Helen had her enrolled in a well-known linguistic high school in Rome, where she met her best friend Chloe Valentine. Those years were full of rebellion for her but also of so much freedom that then made her mature as a person.

At 18 she returned to England where, with great commitment, she managed to obtain a bachelor degree in international relations resulting in a master's degree in languages at the University of Oxford at the age of 26 and at the same time began training in MI6, despite her grandmother being against it.

In a short time, Eden managed to make a name for herself within the famous English spy agency, being nicknamed Spectra because she left no trace of herself in her missions.

One day, in January 2019 her grandmother Helen ordered her to investigate a group of Russian ultranationalists with the collaboration of Kate Laswell, Station Chief of the CIA and Herschel Shepherd, general of the US Navy. After that mission, Helen would retire, after many years of work within MI6.

With the orders received Eden reached Russia, where she managed to intercept through some informants that there is a known chemical gas compound that could be launched in Urzikistan. The mission was also in collaboration with the SAS, which had sent its best man: Lieutenant Simon "Ghost" Riley. The information should have been extorted from a well-known former Specnaz who ran a club in the city of St. Petersburg. The two together managed to infiltrate the club, posing as a couple there to have fun and capture the target after a very violent scuffle with his henchmen , after hours and hours Eden and Ghost managed to get information about the cargo. With the available information Eden is reached by Alex Keller, who manages to intercept the compound but he is attacked by a group of unknown enemies.She will come to discover that the cargo had been transported to a different area and that Kulikov had been used as a red herring to allow the enemy to hide the material and take time.

Between Modern Warfare I and Modern Warfare II

Eden was sent to Verbansk in late March 2019 to investigate a threat from a Russian ultra-nationalist group whose leader was Vladimir Makarov together with Ghost. The two, recovering information, managed to intercept a coded message in which they spoke of a terrorist attack within the next few days.

Modern Warfare II

The relationship between Eden and Ghost during this period is full of ups and downs, especially when Eden learns that Ghost has been sent by Sheperd and Laswell on a mission to Al Mazrah working with the Shadow Company. Eden does not trust Commander Graves and warns Ghost of the danger of the mission, but her grandmother persuades her by saying that they have a common goal: to stop Hassan Zyani, heir to General Ghorbrani who may pose a threat to the entire world.

I'm not very good at creating bios but I hope it was done well😭, it took me a whole day to make it and I hope you like it

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