Chapter Text
John Price knows that hiring you will only cause more problems in the future—but if not for anything, he’s a glutton for punishment.
The deployments are getting longer and the windows between them thinner; someone has to keep his place functional before he loses his mind to the maintenance he must upkeep. Still, there’s an edge to the logic that tastes of concession.
He expected silence. A shy grad student, soft-spoken, bookish—the kind that apologizes for existing. What he gets is a goddamn American with a voice that carries through plaster and a habit of filling space like it owed her rent. You spoke the way you thought: fast, elliptical, never-fuckin’-ending.
He spent three weeks doing the arithmetic and five weeks on the search—databases, discreet phone calls, a contact in local housing who owed him a favor. He ran background checks the way he used to run recon: layered, redundant, obsessive. Names cross-referenced, employment histories verified, a fingerprint scan against official records when a casual identity didn’t line up. If there was a loose thread in your past, he found it and pulled until it settled.
“I’m a grad student,” she says. “Astrophysics.”
He had already known she studied astrophysics. Theoretical astrophysics. He had found her article draft in a university repository, read the acknowledgments, learned the names of her advisors, found photos of her at a campus rooftop with a telescope. He had vetted the scholarship that paid her tuition, the visa paperwork, the tiny blog where she wrote about transit spectroscopy and the way light bends through planetary atmospheres. The evidence read like a dossier: methodical, improbable, and therefore reassuring.
The thing about OCD, he tells himself, is it’s not rituals for rituals’ sake; it’s a containment strategy. If you can map the perimeter and secure it, you keep the chaotic vectors outside. Hiring you is a way to outsource a kind of order he can’t sustain while he’s away—maintenance, laundry, keys, bills, plants that die when he forgets them. It is not, he insists, a way of keeping someone inside his orbit. Not yet.
He expected a quiet academic—someone who moved like background noise, efficient and invisible. Instead, you have opinions about everything: the “rotten” British cuisine, kettle types, the politics of celestial naming conventions, how the weather feels like “God forgot the sun.”
You’re a chatty, little bird. Observant as well.
“Aren’t you the least bit concerned about hiring a complete stranger to watch over your house?” You dared to ask during the interview. “What if I was lying to you? Or if I was a thief?”
He’d only looked at you then—long enough for the silence to answer in his place. The truth is, he already mapped your life down to blood type and shoe size. Knew the name of your primary and secondary school, your former landlord’s middle name, the color of scrap of rubbish car owned during undergrad. You aren’t a mystery; you are a file—and files didn’t frighten him. What unsettled him was that you asked the question at all. That you looked at him with unfiltered curiosity, as if the idea of consequence simply hadn’t occurred to you.
“If you were lying,” he says finally, voice even, “I’d have known by now.”
“What do you do for work anyway?” You ask, looking apprehensive for once.
He studies you for a moment, the way one might study an unknown variable in a familiar equation. You’re the first person to hesitate in the entire interview, and that brief unease feels like equilibrium restored.
“Logistics,” he says. The word lands between you like a dull round.
Your brow furrows. Big eyes travel over his grey cotton shirt and his camo pants. “Right. The pants are just for fun.”
“Sure.”
You laugh then—too bright, too human—and he hates that it lingers in the air long after it should. You don’t press further, which is somehow worse. You simply nod, jot something on your clipboard, and look back up with that same eager interest that made him decide against ending the interview early.
“Well,” you say, “I’m very good at logistics too. Different scale, though. Celestial, not terrestrial.
He doesn’t respond, but your phrasing sticks. Celestial logistics. The idea of someone managing the heavens with the same precision he gives to ordnance and field maps almost makes him smile. Almost.
You shift in your chair, crossing your legs. “When do you need me to start?”
He tells you the date. You jot it down, pen tapping the paper in a steady rhythm—one-two, one-two—the same cadence he uses when checking his gun holster before a mission. He’s aware of it. You aren’t.
The next time the two of you reconvene, it’s at his home, the day before he heads back to base. You let out a low whistle, taking in the scale of the house. Your eyes fall pointedly at his boots lined on the rack. Tan. Black. Navy. Green. “Logistics, huh.”
He doesn’t answer right away. You’re still in the doorway, the light catching on your hair, your tone teasing but not malicious. It’s just conversation to you—white noise. To him, it’s intrusion.
“Something like that,” he says at last, stepping past you to hang his jacket. You trail after him, soft footfalls against tile, taking in the place the way a scientist would observe a specimen—careful, curious, faintly impressed.
“You must really hate clutter,” you remark, scanning the stark kitchen, the absence of color. “Feels like a showroom.”
“Keeps things simple.”
“Simple,” you echo. “Or drab?”
His arches a brow. “You’re not here to redecorate, love.”
“I know,” you say quickly, hands raised in mock surrender. “Just making conversation.”
His gaze tracks your movement as you drift throughout the rooms—touching nothing, but looking at everything. The deeper you denture into the house, the wider your eyes become. You even let out another long whistle sighting upon the outdoor deck. “What did you say you do for work again?”
His answer comes smooth, unthinking. “Import–export.”
The next time you ask—days later—it’s private contracting.
Then international affairs.
Then consulting.
By the fourth, you stop pretending to believe him.
But you’re a smart girl. If your (not-so) indiscreet side-eyes tell him a thing, he’s sure you have an idea.
⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅
The rules are plain, and fairly simply to adhere to.
No guests.
No entry into the study, the shed, or the locked room at the end of the second floor hall.
Floors moped and waxed every Tuesday and Thursday.
No personal calls made from the landline.
No dishes left to soak overnight.
Upkeep and coordinate all the lawn work.
No food with strong smells—onions, garlic, fish—nothing that lingers.
No lights left on past midnight unless you’re working.
No deliveries signed without prior approval.
Mail sorted by date and sender.
Water all the house plants no more than once a three times a week.
The periods of time he departs are often inconsistent. He never says where he’s going, only that he’ll “be out for a while.” His absence feels deliberate—like a test of procedure. Each return is an inspection: a precise audit of dust, scent, and placement.
He almost never tells you when he’s coming back. That, too, is part of the order. Predictability breeds complacency, and he can’t abide either.
The few times he manages to catch you off guard are a quiet delight—something he’d never admit aloud. There’s a certain pleasure in watching your shoulders flinch, the way your mouth parts around his name, half a gasp, half a question. You recover quickly, every time, but not quick enough to hide the pulse that jumps in your throat. He sees it. Catalogues it. Files it away with the rest.
A test of how well you uphold procedure when you think no one’s watching. The times are few, but he’s never caught you in an uncompromisable position. Oftentimes than not, you’re fluttering around the house, tending to a particular area he’s nitpicked at. The drapes, the pesky weeds overrunning the front yard. Or hunched over your laptop, typing away furiously as the washer runs noisily. But there’s something deeper, darker, humming underneath that rationale. The kind of curiosity that has no place in a soldier’s life.
Sometimes he lingers in the doorway a few seconds longer than necessary, watching as you rush to straighten a stack of papers or smooth the hem of your shirt. Always poised, always quick to adapt. Like a good subordinate, or a wary animal.
And every time, the same thought returns to him—unbidden, unwanted, immovable.
He should’ve never hired you.
The house becomes a living thing under his rules—breathing on schedule, never too loud, never too full.
Obedient little bird, you are.
Satisfaction hums through his veins when he stumbles through the doors in the grey hours before dawn. Exhaustion and pain still aren’t enough to keep him from walking the perimeter, scanning every inch of the house. Restlessness is his energy; vigilance, his ritual.
And yet, even in your obedience, he finds you everywhere. A faint trace of lavender on the stairwell. A misplaced mug near the window. The ghost of warmth where your hand had steadied a frame.
Order remains intact—but your presence seeps between the cracks.
The smell of cinnamon and sugar are the first to hit him. He drops his duffel in the entryway, listens. Nothing. Then, faintly—the scrape of a chair from the kitchen.
Something in him comes alive, then, tensing with…anticipation. He rounds the corner quietly, trained habit. You’re bent over the counter, tying your hair up, humming under your breath. There’s a line of flour on your wrist, a mixing bowl beside you. The domesticity of it is… disarming. Almost surreal, after months of sand and blood and static.
He watches longer than he should.
When you finally notice him, it’s not because of a sound he makes—it’s because the air shifts, the way it always does around him. You jump, breath catching, a startled little noise escaping before you steady yourself.
“Christ, Mr. Price—” You stop, eyes flicking to the clock, calculating something. “You’re so early. You said you’d be gone for more than a month.”
It’s hardly been three weeks. “Business went better than expected.”
Your narrowing eyes drop to his healing split lip, but you say nothing more.
The silence that eclipses is awkward. He should tell you to leave—routine, standard. But he doesn’t. Instead, his gaze drifts to the open textbook on the counter and a spiral notebook filled with complex equations.
He decides then that he’s going to move along like normal. Because everything is normal. Routine. Contained. He shrugs out of his jumper and heads for a glass, fills it at the sink. “How’s school going?”
“Good,” you reply, still standing where he found you. “Busy. I’ve been taking on summer work.”
“Yeah? Tell me about it.”
You blink, a little caught off guard, but humor him. You start talking—about new coursework, professors who expect too much, the long commute, how the observatory trips leave you half-dead by the weekend. Your voice fills the kitchen in a steady, lilting rhythm.
He listens. Not because the content matters—half of it doesn’t—but because of the sound of you. The way you fill silence without trying, the cadence of your words, the rise and fall of your tone. After months of desert wind and radio static, it’s almost unbearable in its humanity.
He nods when appropriate, asks the occasional question, but mostly he watches: the way your hands move when you speak, the way you tilt your head to think. It’s all small, meaningless detail—and yet it anchors him.
Somewhere along the way, the conversation shifts from school to your sorry living accommodations.
You mention it offhand—something about your lease being month-to-month, how your roommates are inconsiderate of your schedule, how the landlord hasn’t fixed the heating since last winter. You laugh when you say it, but he can hear the fatigue behind it.
“—and don’t even get me started on the kitchen. One of them keeps leaving our doors unlocked, and the other insists she’s a minimalist but hoards empty liquor bottles like it’s a frat house.
You’re gesturing now, animated, all that restrained professionalism slipping through your fingers. “I just—look, I like having fun, I do. I get the whole ‘live your twenties’ thing, but I also like sleeping. Or not coming home to six people in my living room because someone decided it’s karaoke night. At two. On a Wednesday.”
He lets you go on, only half-listening to the words. It’s not the complaints that hold him—it’s the way your voice lilts and cracks when you’re exasperated, the flush on your cheek, the cadence of your hands slicing through the air.
“Place sounds like it’s falling apart.”
“It is,” you admit, smiling. “But it’s cheap. Close enough to campus, at least.”
He takes a slow drink of water, eyes never leaving you. “Close enough to walk?”
You shake your head. “I use the train.”
There’s a flicker of amusement in his expression, gone almost as soon as it appears. “How long’s the commute?”
“Forty minutes, give or take. More if traffic’s bad.”
He hums low in his throat. Irrational, he thinks. Inefficient. Everything about it grates against his sense of order—the wasted time, the unreliable car, the vulnerability of a young woman driving home alone in the dark.
“You could stay here,” he says finally. “At least on the days you’re coming.”
Your head lifts, surprised. “Here?”
“It’s closer,” he replies, measured, even. “Would save you the commute.”
You laugh once, soft, uncertain. “That’s… generous, but I don’t think your rules account for houseguests.”
“You wouldn’t be a guest, love. You’ll still be maintaining the property.”
He doesn’t add while I’m gone, but it hangs there. You look at him then, searching his face for intent. “And how would you know it’d save me the commute?”
“Becuase you study at Oxford.”
You don’t answer right away. But he catches the way your fingers worry the edge of your notebook, the way you nod once, nearly indiscernible. He doesn’t smile, but something inside him settles—control, reasserted.
When you finally leave that night (to your shitty flat with your shitty flatmates—your words, not his), the house feels wrong again—too still, too quiet, too empty of movement.
⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅
You hadn’t really taken him seriously.
Or maybe you hadn’t expected yourself to agree.
The first few days in his house feel temporary—like you’re occupying a space that’s already been measured and memorized. You move quietly, as if the walls might remember every sound. The rules remain taped inside the kitchen cabinet, neat as scripture, though you’ve long since memorized them.
He doesn’t leave for weeks. That’s new. The steady rhythm of his routine—up before dawn, gone by seven, home just after sunset—roots itself into the air of the place. You learn his patterns without meaning to: the clatter of keys on the counter, the hiss of the shower, the way he always checks the locks twice before bed.
It should feel mundane, domestic. But it doesn’t.
It feels observed.
You don’t catch him watching you often, but you feel it sometimes—the subtle pause in a doorway, the quiet awareness when he crosses paths with you in the kitchen. He’s polite, always. Professional. But there’s something beneath it you can’t quite name.
Still, life finds its rhythm. You wake early to study in the kitchen, sunlight spilling through the big windows. You cook enough for two without thinking about it. When he comes home, you’re sometimes still there—laptop open, textbooks spread across the counter. You exchange a few words, sometimes a full conversation.
You wonder how different it must be; sharing a roof with a clinically insane, sleep deprived grad student. You like to think you keep your unhingedness under control and out of his perceptive gaze. He doesn’t ever comment on your atrocious schedule, but he’s certainly aware of it. Criticizing you for the sheer amount of energy drinks you consume. Scolding you for arriving late and leaving at the crack of dawn, sometimes even before him depending on the workload awaiting you on campus.
⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅
You had an inkling of John’s love for plants—if the countless ones scattered in his large home weren't enough to go off of—he had enlisted your help on his garden.
You weren’t one for dirt and bugs, but he made it fun.
“Farming runs in my family,” you tell him, stretched out flat on the wood flooring. Exhausted and sore from clearing out all the weeds in his yard. What looked like an overgrown jungle is now clear acres of earth, plots mapped for herbs, flowers and vegetables. “It’s like, tradition. Cultish, even. Blood or marriage, you’ll be folded in some part of the business.”
He stills when you name the family business name. Turns and stares down at you with shock you rarely ever see. “Stop pullin’ my damn leg, sweetheart.”
You shake your head. “No legs pulled here, boss.” A rueful smile tugs on your lips soon after. “Farmowner gets passed down to the first born.”
He doesn’t ask if you realize your family is one of the biggest contributors to fresh produce in America. For a long beat, he says nothing. Just looks at you, eyes narrowed like he’s trying to line up what he knows of you—the girl who upkeeps his home and studies like a maniac—with this new piece of information.
“Bloody hell,” he mutters finally, low and almost to himself. “You’re takin’ the piss.”
You grin, eyes still closed, wrist draped over your forehead. “Wish I was. My grandfather used to joke that I learned to walk between strawberries.”
He huffs, half incredulous. “You mean to tell me you’ve been muckin’ about in dirt since you were a babe, and you still flinched at an earthworm this mornin’?”
“That was a large earthworm,” you protest weakly. “Practically prehistoric.”
The corners of his mouth twitch, the faintest hint of amusement breaking through. But even as he smirks, he’s studying you again—quietly, deeply. Something turns over. The pieces don’t fit neatly anymore.
You, sprawled on his floor, sun-streaked hair stuck to your temples, dirt on your knees and smudged on your cheek—and yet, born into the sort of legacy people write checks for.
The image—
It jars him. It shouldn’t matter, but it does.
He glances toward the open back door, the stretch of dark soil you’ve both tamed into neat geometry. The quiet between you is filled with the hum of insects, the smell of turned earth, and the faint sound of your deep breathing.
“You never mentioned it,” he says finally.
(John can’t believe he missed something as wild and crucial about you in his search)
You shrug, eyes fluttering open to meet his. “I hate dirt. And bugs. Farming just isn’t really my thing.”
(No, he thinks, staring at your sweat-dampened shirt, some formula printed on the front, it really isn’t.)
⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅
Later, when she’s long gone—grumbling about a draft that’s been demanding her attention for weeks—John finds himself standing in the middle of the garden, restless. The late afternoon light drips gold across the soil they turned over together.
Something about her offhand story won’t leave his head.
He goes inside, boots leaving faint prints on the tile, and sits down at his desk. It takes him less than two minutes to find what he’s looking for.
The farm’s name pulls records easily enough. It’s a straight line of inheritance—a dynasty, practically. Decades of the same surname: a neat, uninterrupted lineage. Until now.
He scrolls slower, frowning.
There she is—only she isn’t. Her birth records, early education, medical registrations—all under the farm’s family name. Then, a change. Legal, tidy, bureaucratic. One signature and a court seal, and she’s someone else entirely.
He leans back, thumb grazing his lower lip.
It wasn’t an oversight, then. It was omission. A truth too complicated to fit in the casual chatter between them.
He should leave it there. But his mind fills the gaps easily, unbidden: a mother with a secret, a man who raised a child not his own, a girl who learned early that belonging could be conditional. Maybe that’s why she’d said it the way she did—half-proud, half-distant, like she was describing a place she’d once lived but never quite called home.
He thinks of the way she’d smiled when he’d asked why she never mentioned it. Farming isn’t really my thing.
He exhales slowly. Maybe it never came up because somewhere along the way, she decided it wasn’t hers to claim.
A strange pang twists through his chest—sympathy, maybe, or recognition. He doesn’t like examining it too closely.
Outside, a slight breeze brushes through the garden, bending the last of the stems. The rows of earth they’d carved together already look different without her there—emptier, disordered somehow.
He sits back, eyes fixed on the window. The evening deepens. The soil turns black in the fading light.
And for reasons he doesn’t bother articulating, John feels the weight of her secret settle in his bones.
⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅
He picks her up one sunny afternoon from campus. The windows of his truck are down, his elbow slung lazily over the door, sunlight cutting across his forearm. She’s so relieved to be free of equations and theoretics and the quiet warfare of her soul-sucking housemates that she doesn’t even find it weird. Mostly.
He waves when he spots her, that familiar grin easy and bright—like this is the most natural thing in the world. Like he belongs here, waiting outside a university instead of wherever men like him usually belong.
Like she’s not his employee and he’s not her boss.
She slides into the passenger seat, the leather hot against the backs of her thighs. There’s a faint smell of cedar and motor oil—clean but lived-in, unmistakably him.
“Rough day?” he asks, pulling away from the curb.
“Brutal,” she says, pressing her temple against the cool glass. “My brain’s mush. I think I lost ten percent of my IQ to one problem set.”
He chuckles, low and warm. “Guess I’ll have to feed you before you start forgetting your name.”
That makes her laugh, because it’s easy to laugh with him.
When she sneaks a look at him—how his hands look steady on the wheel, how his eyes flick to her when she speaks—she feels something quiet and unsettled stir beneath her ribs. It’s not fear, exactly.
He feeds her first—some hole-in-the-wall diner just off the highway, all greasy fries and syrup-slick pancakes at an hour that doesn’t really make sense for either. He insists on paying, brushing off her protests with an easy grin. The kind that could almost make her forget he’s twice her size and impossible to argue with.
It’s all his money, anyway.
By the time they pull back onto the road, she’s drowsy from food and sun. The hum of the truck lulls her half asleep, head tipped against the window.
“Where are we going?” she mumbles.
“You’ll see,” he says, voice all mischief. She’s too food drunk to notice.
It isn’t until he turns into his long drive, gravel crackling beneath the tires, that she notices it—the back of the truck is loaded. Bags and bags of soil, neatly stacked. A shovel or two clatters against the metal siding as he brakes.
Her stomach sinks. “Mr. Price,” she says slowly, leaning forward to peer through the rear window. “Tell me that’s not what I think it is.”
He glances over, utterly unbothered. “What, that?” His grin widens, boyish and maddening. “Thought we’d make some progress while the weather’s good.”
“Oh my God,” she groans, slumping against the seat. “You tricked me. You bribed me with food!”
“Bribed you?” he laughs, shutting off the engine. “Sweetheart, you said you liked helping.”
“I said it was fun once, not a lifestyle.”
He’s already out of the truck, rounding to the bed with that purposeful stride she’s come to recognize—broad shoulders catching the light, easy authority in every motion, hips swaying. When he hauls a fifty-pound bag of soil like it’s nothing, she has to look away before she says something she’ll regret.
He’s your fucking boss. Get a grip.
Still, somewhere between exasperation and something else, she climbs out after him.
⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅
A few days later when he comes from work, he asks her to tag along for the grocery store. Picking her up from campus was one thing. She really wasn’t going to deny a free ride—which she ultimately paid for in labor. And a nice bonus on her pay.
This is a whole other thing, which she finds slightly unnecessary. Not uncomfortable—John Price doesn’t do much besides tease and call her pet names—but at the end of the day, he’s her boss and she’s his goddamn employee. And there’s a twenty something gap between them.
The worst part is how easily he says it. Like it’s nothing. Like he hasn’t just invited his young housekeeper for a grocery run on a Friday evening as though it’s normal.
As hot as John Price is, she’s not an airhead. She’s not very scared of him no matter how intimidating he looks.
So when he asks why she doesn’t want to come, she’s honest with him.
She frowns, crossing her arms. “Isn’t that—I don’t know—a little inappropriate?”
“Inappropriate?” He arches a brow, mock offense lighting his expression. “It’s a grocery store, love, not a candlelit dinner.”
“That’s not what I mean.” She huffs, gaze darting to his shirt sleeves rolled to the elbow, the dark hair dusting his forearms. “You’re my boss. I work for you. It just… looks weird.”
He studies her for a beat too long. “So you’re worried what people’ll think.”
“I’m worried about boundaries,” she shoots back, sharper than intended.
That earns her a chuckle—quiet, amused, that seems to vibrate right through her. “Boundaries. Right. Tell you what—” He reaches past her, plucking her bag off the chair. “You can draw me a map on the way there. I’ll even bring a pen.”
She stares at him, incredulous. “Mr. Price.”
“Flattery’ll get you everywhere.”
“Mr. Price.”
“Sweetheart,” he smiles and it's like a salve to her rising hackles. “We won’t make it into a thing. You’ve been talking about how much you hate the cleaning supplies in the shed. Let's get some new ones.”
And somehow, against her better judgment, she’s in his truck again—seatbelt clicking, the smell of tobacco, leather and aftershave filling the cab.
It’s not awkward, exactly. He’s easy to talk to when he wants to be. The problem is that he doesn’t talk like a boss—he talks like a man who knows how to make silence work for him. He hums to the radio, asks if she’s been eating properly, tells her she’s going to ruin her back if she keeps hunching over her laptop. All of it too natural, too careful.
The grocery trip itself is harmless enough. He pushes the cart while she reads off the list, half of it his, half of it supplies for the garden. They bicker about fertilizer brands. She pretends not to notice when he tosses her favorite biscuits into the cart.
There are a few times too many where a stranger mistakes the two for a couple. Doesn’t matter that John Price looks (and is) old enough to be your father. Or that you leave as much space between your bodies without being obvious.
When it happens for the third time, you side-eye him, unamused to find him holding back—and terribly failing—a shit-eating grin.
“Not funny,” she mutters, shoving the cart toward the truck.
“Didn’t say it was,” he says, still smiling. “But I’ll admit, you’re a hard woman to shop with.”
“I’m not doing this again.”
“‘Course you will,” he says, like it’s a fact of nature. Like gravity or rain. “You love the company.”
She opens her mouth to argue but stops when she catches the ghost of something softer behind his grin—something that looks suspiciously like fondness.
And for a moment, she forgets entirely what she’s supposed to say.
⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅
It’s bittersweet to witness the wilting and flooding of all your hard work as the temperature changes and stormy clouds overtake the skyline.
Though, that’s not the object of your focus currently.
“Love,” a familiar deep voice yells out into the yard. The wind howls and the rain pelts down on every surface, dampening the sound of his voice. “What are you doing out here?”
You hear him, but are too occupied to properly answer. If you strain your ears hard enough, you’re absolutely certain you hear soft mewls, but over the sounds of the elements and John Price’s yelling, it’s hard to be certain.
The earth is wet and soggy against your clothes as you venture further from John’s property and closer to the drain.
It’s then you hear it, a soft meow.
The meows come again, soft and plaintive. You push through the heavy rain, mud squelching beneath your boots, and spot the tiny shape huddled at the edge of the drain. A kitten, soaked and shivering, its fur plastered against its body.
“Hang on, little one,” you murmur, crouching low. Your hands are careful, but not fast enough to escape the mud spraying up around your knees. The kitten’s ears twitch at the roar of the storm, but it doesn’t move. Poor thing is trembling beyond measure.
“Love, get back here!” John’s voice cuts through the rain again, closer now, sharper, commanding—but not panicked. He always sounds this way: authority beneath calm. You hear his boots on the wet grass.
“Mr. Price!” you call over your shoulder, lifting the tiny creature gently into your coat. Its little body trembles, and you cradle it close, heart thudding.
He emerges from the storm a moment later, just as soaked to the bone as you but moving like he’s in perfect control of the chaos around him. Water drips from his hair, from the hem of his jacket, and he is unbothered by it all. His eyes catch yours immediately, annoyed and exasperated. “The hell are you doing out here, darling?”
You manage to still shield the little animal from the storm as you show him. “It’s the kitten I’ve been hearing. I told you there was one.”
His gaze flicks to the tiny ball of fur pressed against your chest, then back to you. Something in him tightens—interest, irritation, maybe both. He doesn’t move to take it, but the sharpness in his posture makes it clear he wants to.
You think.
“You shouldn’t be out here in the storm like this,” he mutters, more to himself than to you. “You’ll fall ill.”
“I’m okay,” you sniffle, tucking the cat back into the warmth of your body. He must see the question getting ready to fly off your tongue because he says—
“No.”
Fuck. “We can leave it out all alone. It’ll die out here!”
“I don’t do animals, love.”
“That’s fine,” you try, hoping he can see the desperate puppy-eyed look in your eyes in the waning light. “I’ll take it back to my place when I leave on Sunday. I promise.” He gives you a withering look. “I do! I promise!”
“Love—”
You tug on his sleeve. “Please, John. Please.”
He always gets on you for only addressing him as “Mr. Price” and never his first name.
John is fine. You make me feel old, he had grunted at you one evening before you left. Mr. Price is safe though. Clear lines drawn. But you’re a cheeky little thing. Sometimes, when you really want something or feel like being a nag, you’ll say his first name. It always gives you a little power rush, watching how quickly he’ll concede once the name John falls from your lips.
Hook, line and sinker, he falls for it, though his displeasure is written all over his face. He tugs you close by the drawstrings of your raincoat, hard enough to elicit a gasp from you. “If that damn feline so much as gets a strand of fur in my house, I’m spanking your ass red.”
Yeah, you like to use his first name as leverage against him, but it never quite goes the way you expect.
⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅
For all his griping about how much he dislikes animals, John takes a liking to the little feline. The feeling is mutual, it appears. You’ll even say the traitorous feline likes him more than you—-the person that saved him.
You watch in amazement as the man moves about in the kitchen, preparing dinner with a kitten perched atop his shoulder.
“It’s rude to not greet people in their homes.” He says, without ever turning to look at you.
You lean against the doorframe, arms crossed, taking in the sight. It’s absurd, really—John Price, all broad shoulders and thick thighs, with a kitten balanced like a second conscience. Its tail flicks idly against the fabric of his shirt as he dices onions with surgical efficiency.
“I was… surprised,” you admit, eyes dropping to the cat. “ You two look like the besties.”
“Don’t start,” he warns, setting the knife down. “Little bastard refuses to leave me alone.”
“He has a name.”
Grey. With an E, not A.
“Mm,” he murmurs, noncommittal. But his hand rises automatically to steady the kitten as it shifts its weight, nearly tumbling off the man’s shoulder.
It’s disarming—this easy tenderness from a man who handles everything else with such deliberation. The same hands that clean weapons, fix broken fixtures, and keep every inch of his life measured are now adjusting a small creature’s paw from falling into the sink.
You clear your throat, forcing your gaze elsewhere. “Need any help?”
“Not with this,” he says. “You’ll make a mess.”
“I’m not that bad.”
He glances over his shoulder finally, blue eyes sharp but amused. “You’re worse.”
You roll your eyes and step further into the kitchen. The air shifts again—the subtle static that always hums between you when he’s too close.
The kitten hops down from his shoulder, then onto the counter—your jaw drops when John doesn’t flip out, but he rolls his eyes, and grumbles, you’ll be cleaning that counter anyway—and trots toward you, rubbing against your leg before curling up next to your feet. Traitor, you think again, though your heart feels it might burst with fondness.
Price notices the motion, and his expression softens—fractionally. “Seems he’s decided on the both of us, then.”
Later, after both of you have had your fill of stew and potatoes, the house hums with the kind of quiet that only comes from full stomachs and bad weather. The fire crackles low in the hearth, casting amber light across the table. The kitten dozes on the rug, its small chest rising and falling in rhythm with the storm outside.
You’re halfway through stacking the dishes when a sound breaks through the calm—a sharp, metallic buzz. Not the usual phone he keeps on the counter, but another, tucked somewhere out of sight.
John’s up and out his seat before you can blink. He moves quickly reaching into a cranny you’d never even noticed to retrieve a second device you hadn’t realized existed. It’s a compact, sleek thing. Looks like something straight out of a spy movie.
He doesn’t answer right away. Just stares at the screen for a long moment before pressing it to his ear.
“Bravo Six,” he answers, voice dropping into something clipped and rigid. A tone you’ve heard hints of before—when you tell him of your unhealthy habits to keep from going mad while drowning in grad work, when a snapped at you or being “the dumbest driver in fucking London” while larning to drive on the left side, when advising you on how to handle your toxic housemates—but never this sharp.
You stand there with a damp dish towel in your hand, trying not to listen. He exits the kitchen all together, his voice a distant murmur in the neighboring hall.
You catch fragments that morph into understanding in your running-a-mile brain.
He’s leaving again.
When he finally returns, the air feels heavier somehow—like the warmth from the meal has drained out through the floorboards In its wake, the chill of the . He sets the phone face-down on the table, staring at it as if it might ring again.
You clear your throat carefully. “Work?”
“Yes.” His answer is automatic. Dismissive.
You nod, unsure if you should say more. The silence stretches.
“When do you leave?” you ask finally.
“Tomorrow.”
You’ve only just gotten used to him being here. To the strange comfort of his presence moving through the same rooms as you.
He notices your expression then—because, of course, he notices everything. His eyes linger a moment longer than necessary before he pushes back from the table, his glass of scotch forgotten. The legs of his chair scrape softly against the tile, a small, decisive sound.
“How long will you be gone?” you ask, quieter this time.
He doesn’t blink away from you. “Can’t say, love.”
You dry your hands on a towel that smells faintly of detergent and smoke.
In some alternate reality, instead of his pesky housekeeper, you’re his housewife.
You wake before dawn to the rasp of his boots on the floorboards, the kettle sighing on the stove. The morning light leaks pale and cold through the windows, spilling across the kitchen tiles like a thin wash of milk. His uniform hangs from the chair you always tell him not to use, the fabric smelling faintly of sunlight and cordite.
In that world, you know the pattern of his movements by heart—the metallic click of his belt buckle, the scratch of his beard against your face when he bends to kiss you goodbye, one for both cheeks, one for your full lips. The ritual of departure feels holy somehow: boots laced, mug drained, the hush before the door closes. You imagine yourself standing at that threshold, apron strings tied like a truce flag, watching him walk toward a horizon you’ll never see.
The rain in this fantasy always starts after he’s gone. It slicks the windows and fills the garden beds until the soil turns black and glistening, swallowing the footprints he left behind. You tell yourself he’ll return to them—to you—unchanged. But even in the dream, you know better.
The house waits like a held breath. The bed stays too large. The clock ticks in time with the distant echo of something heavy and mechanical—rotor blades, maybe, or the pulse of artillery. You wipe the same clean counter over and over, polishing what isn’t dirty, because that’s what you’d do: maintain, preserve, endure.
When you blink, the kettle has stopped hissing. The light has shifted. Reality folds itself neatly back into place.
The real John Price is upstairs packing, and you are what you’ve always been—a grad student with a nice paying job, not his wife. Still, as the floor creaks above you, the ghost of that other life hums at the edges of your mind: soft, persistent, and perilously comforting.
⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅
It’s still dark when the sound of movement wakes you. The house is hushed except for the soft clatter of drawers, the muted zip of a duffel. You blink toward the doorway, momentarily unsure if you’re still dreaming—if this is another version of that same morning your mind conjured hours ago.
But then you hear his voice, low and rough, muttering something about misplaced gloves.
You push the blanket aside and pad barefoot into the hall. The kitchen light spills in a pale rectangle across the floor, catching the outline of him at the counter—dressed in olive drab and dark webbing, the tension in his shoulders sharp against the dim. You linger at the doorway. For the first time, you see him without the veil of pretense. No easy humor, no half-smiles meant to soften the space between you—just John Price, fully dressed for his line of work.
His uniform is immaculate. The olive and tan weave of the SAS fatigues seems to sharpen every line of him. The insignia on his sleeve—a winged dagger—catches the light when he moves. His beret sits folded neatly beside a sealed field pack, with the brass badge polished to a gleam.
His rank patch—Captain—catches faintly in the light. You watch as he fastens the last button, adjusts the cuff. There’s an almost ritual grace to it, as though dressing were an act of discipline — or defense.
You’ve always had an inkling of what he does. The clues were there—the regimented order of his life, the quiet authority that filled every room he occupied, the scars you sometimes caught glimpses of when his sleeves rolled too high. But this is the first time you’ve seen it.
And it strips away everything else.
He doesn’t look up. “Did I wake you?”
“No,” you lie, voice still thick with sleep.
He hums, unconvinced. You move closer anyway, folding your arms against the chill. The kettle is steaming on the stove. His thermos waits beside it. You reach for it before he can stop you, fill it then twist the lid tight. It’s busywork, transparent and unnecessary, but your hands don’t seem to care.
He smells faintly of gunpowder, and aftershave. You pretend not to notice how your chest tightens when he steps past you to grab his jacket—a heavy, waterproof smock with the SAS insignia barely visible under the cuff. The brush of his sleeve leaves the faintest trace of warmth against your arm.
You should say something ordinary—offer your assistance, ask when he’ll be back—but the words stay tangled. The sight of him like this pins you still. The man in front of you is no longer the one who argues with you about the proper way to prune basil, or the one who sneaks a smile when you burn toast or the one who patiently teaches you how to change a flat.
He reaches for his jacket, a weatherproof smock dark enough to blend with the predawn. You catch the faint sheen of his dog tags at his collar before he tucks them away, hidden like a secret you’re not supposed to touch.
“Eat something before you go,” you say, fussing because it’s easier than saying be careful.
He gives a small, amused huff. “You trying to send me off with a full English?”
You shrug, dropping your gaze to your bare feet. Tired. Saddened. Missing him when he hasn’t even left yet.
The silence between you hums with unspoken things—the questions you’ll never ask, the fear that lodges somewhere between your ribs.
When you step closer, you do what you always do to fill the quiet: fuss. You tighten the strap on his duffel, check the cap on his thermos, straighten the edge of his sleeve. He lets you, wordless. It’s the smallest mercy he can give.
He shoulders his pack and crosses to the door. The air that rushes in is sharp with cold, the kind that smells of rain and iron. He glances back once, eyes catching yours. You see him as he is—not the man who made a home feel less empty, but a soldier walking out into whatever waits for him.
For a moment, the space between you collapses.
“Promise you’ll be back?” Anxiety is weaved within your tone, all-encompassing, tightening your throat. What a desperate sound it is. “You’ll come back safely.”
His gaze softens, but only barely—like a muscle remembering how to move after too long in tension. He steps closer, the polished leather of his whispering against the floor. The morning light, faint and colorless, spills over the sharp planes of his face. There’s something ancient in his expression—resolve carved deep, and beneath it, a quiet regret.
“Love,” he says, and it’s a word that lands somewhere between habit and honesty. “I’ll always try.”
It’s not the answer you wanted. Not really. But it’s the only one he can give—the kind that doesn’t tempt fate by pretending he’s invincible.
Your hands twist in the hem of your sleeve. The rain outside is coming down harder now, drumming against the roof like a countdown. He looks at you for a moment longer—steady, unflinching—as if trying to commit you to memory, every small line and shadow, every trace of warmth.
Then he pulls his beret over his head, tugs the strap of his pack higher, and opens the door wider. The wind moves through the house in a rush, lifting strands of your hair.
“Lock up behind me,” he says, and then he’s gone.
The door closes with a sound that feels final. The faint smell of gunpowder and aftershave lingers in the air, mixing with the morning chill. For a long time, you don’t move. You just stand there in the silence, listening for his movements—his engine rumbling, the peel of rubble against asphalt—until even they fade, and there’s nothing left but the house breathing around you.
⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅
The house is like something waiting to exhale. You try not to notice it, the way silence expands to fill every room he once occupied. Ultimately, you realize it is futile. The faint traces of his presence—his mug left drying by the sink, the faint musk of tobacco and cedar clinging to the air—are both comfort and punishment.
You move through your days in the same careful rhythm you always have: cleaning, organizing, studying. It only misses the unseen observer who used to move just beyond the edge of your awareness.
It startles you, how often you catch yourself listening to him. The sound of boots at the door. The low timbre of his voice through the hall.
Grey keeps you plenty company. School keeps you plenty occupied. Endless amounts of research. Gradually, you spend more days in his home and less at your shitty apartment with your shitty housemates.
His absence seeps into the marrow of your bones, but you have better things to do than mope about your hot military boss.
⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅
The first message arrives a week after he leaves. No greeting, no context. Just:
Have you burnt my house down yet, love?
You stare at it for a long while before typing back a reply.
if i wanted to destroy ur home i would’ve done it long time ago mr price
A few hours later, another text: Use proper capitalization, grammar and punctuation when corresponding with me, please. Plants watered?
You almost laugh. It’s so him, to be halfway across the world and still preoccupied with the state of your texting etiquette. Mischievous little thing you are. lmao. wtv old man!
He dislikes the message. You try to imagine him finding a search engine and typing: What does lmao and wtv mean?
⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅
There’s something oddly reassuring in his brevity, in the clipped precision of his words. He’s still out there—wherever there is—and somehow, he still finds time to check the temperature of your world.
Days become weeks. Messages come irregularly, but they come. Sometimes it’s a question about the house; sometimes a comment that borders on personal. Always brief. He only answers immediately, or twelve hour gaps. You send him pictures of Grey, who’s growing faster than your heart can handle.. You send him pictures of all you can relate to school. Waitlist letter into UKSA internship program. A plaque in recognition of your involvement for a national conference.
He doesn’t always respond.
And yet, you wait for them. Every night, without meaning to, you check your phone before bed. It’s become its own ritual—the ghost of a voice threading through the static quiet.
Each message feels like proof of life—his, and, in some inexplicable way, yours too.
⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅
The days pass without distinction. Time becomes a sequence of consistent repetitions—wake, work, study, research, clean, sleep. The house remains immaculate, almost reverent in its stillness. It becomes too loud if you don’t fill it with something—movement, sound, people. So, every now and then, you let yourself be dragged out by the girls from your old job.
They still text, even though you’d half-expected them to forget you after you quit. It starts innocently: a message about drinks one Friday night, or a trivia night at the pub near London. You tell yourself it’s healthy, necessary even, to socialize. To remind yourself that you exist outside this house.
The first night you go out, it rains the way it always does here—sideways, needling through your coat. You drink cheap beer, laugh too loudly, and listen to stories about workplace drama that no longer concerns you. The noise and the light feel almost obscene. When someone asks what you’re doing now, you keep it vague. “Housekeeping,” you say. “Private residence.” You leave it there.
They tease you about being domestic, about turning into some British man’s Cinderella. You laugh along, even though the joke makes something twist inside your chest.
It becomes a pattern after that. Every few weeks, another invitation. You go. You drink. You let yourself exist in chaos for a few hours—talking about nothing, losing time to warmth and music, laughter and sweet company. But you always come home early, earlier than you mean to. The moment you step through the door, the quiet hits you like a pulse. The faint smell of cedar and tobacco still clings to the air, and you realize how accustomed you’ve become to it.
Halloween decorations appear on the neighboring lawns—plastic skeletons, grinning pumpkins, strings of orange lights that blink through the fog. You wear a lazy fairy costume to a party, some half-hearted attempt at festivity, and wake the next morning—in bed with the cowboy who couldn’t keep away from you all night—and a killer headache. You scroll through your phone and find one unread message from John—it’s been two weeks since his last. Everything quiet on your end? It’s timestamped just past midnight.
You are ninety percent sure his message came in while you and Cowboy swapped saliva—-
And some other bodily fluids.
A vague sense of regret hits you then. You don’t answer right away, glancing upon your Cowboy snoring into oblivion, his chest rising and falling with deep breaths.
Typical. You toss the phone aside and sink back into the pillow, eyes tracing the cracks of unfamiliar plaster. The room smells like beer and sweat and cheap cologne—nothing like cedar and tobacco and the faint bite of gun oil that’s seeped into the walls of John’s house. His house. The thought lands heavier than it should.
You tell yourself it doesn’t mean anything. That this—warm skin, the dull ache in your throat, the weight of someone else’s arm thrown lazily over your waist—is proof you’re still young, still capable of something resembling normal temporary. Artificial. The kind of intimacy that dissolves in daylight.
You slip out of bed before the cowboy wakes, dressing in silence. The floorboards creak beneath your bare feet, and you wince, half-hoping, half-dreading he’ll stir. He doesn’t. You leave quietly, the chill of the early morning biting at your skin as you make your way home.
The city feels gray, washed out. The streets are littered with candy wrappers and the remnants of last night’s celebration. You catch your reflection in a darkened window—a smear of glitter on your collarbone, lipstick faded to a ghost of color—and for a moment, you hardly recognize yourself.
By the time you reach the house, the sun is a weak, low burn against the horizon. You key in the door, step inside, and the silence greets you like a reprimand.
Everything is in its place. Exactly as you left it.
You shower until the water runs cold. You scrub until your skin feels raw. And when you finally check your phone again, his message still sits there unanswered in the thread—quiet, patient, unassuming.
You type:
Yes. All fine here.
You stare at it before hitting send. Then, impulsively, add:
Hope you’re safe.
⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅
November sneaks in soft and gray. Brings in rain that never seems to stop. The air bites sharper now, mornings misted over, the trees stripped bare and skeletal. You miss the smell of autumn back home—the cinnamon and woodsmoke, the sound of American football games playing somewhere in the background, your mother’s kitchen crowded with noise and heat. Here, the season feels quieter, paler. No one seems to notice the missing holidays the way you do.
You work. You teach. You go out when you’re invited. The small circle of friends you’ve managed to gather—make the foreign feel a little less foreign. You drink too much and end up singing badly in a karaoke bar, laughing until your ribs ache. It feels good. Honest.
Cowboy manages to weasel his way back in sometime around then. He’s got this half-grin that always looks like he’s getting away with something, and a laugh that catches you off guard. He’s ridiculous, really—makes corny jokes, listens to old southern country music like it’s sacred, and calls himself a “man of simple pleasures.” You roll your eyes, but you can’t help smiling when he’s around.
There’s no pretense between you. You both understand exactly what this is. No promises. No strings. Just fun, temporary company when the nights stretch long and the quiet grows too heavy. He brings warmth, laughter, and—on the rare occasions you let yourself stop thinking—something close to comfort.
On Thanksgiving—in American standards—you cook for the first time in months. It’s a pitiful attempt: mashed potatoes, store-bought rolls, and a roasted chicken standing in for a turkey. You video call your family, half-listen to the chaos of their dinner back home. It’s all noise and warmth through the phone, and when the call ends, the silence comes down like a curtain.
You visit Cowboy at his apartment soon after with your leftovers and Grey tucked in his crate. Sleepovers have become a thing and you refuse to go anywhere without your sweet kitty that’s growing too quick for your heart to handle.
He surprises you with apple pie and vanilla ice cream. He says he searched for traditional Thanksgiving desserts and found the pie in some corner bakery “run by angels,”. You don’t have the heart to tell him it tastes like cinnamon-scented cardboard. Still, it’s sweet—both the gesture and the way he insists on warming the ice cream first because “no one likes their teeth frozen off.”
The two of you eat at his small kitchen table, knees brushing, half-drunk on cheap whiskey and shared loneliness. The city hums outside the window, the cold night pressing against the glass. As always, you forget the ache that’s settled within your very being. It quits, nestled in the warmth Cowboy provides as you lean against him, blissfully wrung out and sated. The air is saccharine with lust and post-orgasmic glow. He’ll pet and soothe you until you swat him away with a laugh.
When the desire settles and the exhaustion loosens your muscles, he’ll tug you close by the waist, and allow sleep to pull you under. Satisfied with each other.
Mostly.
In the battle of waning consciousness and intensifying slumber, where the vestiges of lucidness cling to you—-
John Price’s rugged face is the last thing you see.
⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅
By December, the city shifts again. The streets fill with cold and light, the shops dressed in gold and evergreen. You and Cowboy buy a small tree—barely four feet tall—and decorate it with whatever you can find: ribbon, paper stars, a few glass bulbs from a discount shop. It leans slightly to the left, shedding needles faster than you can sweep them, but it glows soft and steady in the corner of his living room.
You consider decorating your shared apartment with your housemates. Your suggestion just about sets off a long-lasting conflict—one insists on a “sustainable” fake tree, and the other declares Christmas a capitalist farce. You bow out before it turns into another shouting match about recycling, responsibilities or rent.
For a fleeting moment, you think about decorating John’s home. The image flickers unbidden—wreaths on the doors, candles in the windows, a tree standing proud in the living room. But the thought of actually doing it feels too intimate, too presumptive. The house itself is so large, so quiet, so clean, it resists the kind of warmth you’d try to give it. Besides, with the term ending and reports to finish, you tell yourself you wouldn’t have the time.
Still, you wonder what he’d think of it. Probably call it impractical. Maybe he’d tease you for it. Indulge you eventually.
You’ve started to lose track of where you belong. The shared apartment feels like a holding cell, a place to sleep between days. John’s house is too big, too still, too full of his absence. Cowboy’s apartment smells like citrus candles and bad takeout and feels real—until you leave, and the spell breaks the moment you hit the cold air outside.
Home doesn’t have to be a place, right? But some nights, when you can’t sleep, you scroll back through John’s messages—the short ones, the brief ones—and wonder if maybe you’ve left a piece of yourself in every room you’ve ever locked behind you.
⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅
The last message you receive comes many days before Christmas, in the mail.
You nearly miss it, sorting through his mail. But your name is printed on the front.
You rip it open with a ferocity that startles Grey.
Inside is a single sheet of thick, cream-colored stationery—folded once, the edges smudged faintly as though it had been handled often. The handwriting is neat, deliberate, unmistakably his.
You read it once standing by the counter, and then again, slower. It isn’t long. A few lines—careful, measured, impersonal at first glance. He thanks you for maintaining the property, notes that he’ll be away a little longer than anticipated. He writes that payment for the next five months has already been arranged. Then, at the bottom, a single sentence written in smaller script, as if an afterthought:
I’ll return before Christmas. Keep warm. Be good.
You sit down at the table without meaning to, the paper trembling between your fingers. The rain outside has turned to sleet, hissing softly against the windowpanes. Grey—traitorous, spoiled Grey—hops onto your lap and paws at the letter, as though sensing the shift in your mood.
You trace the indented lines where his pen pressed hardest. The mundane phrasing, the formality—it shouldn’t mean anything. And yet, it does. It feels like the ghost of his voice in the room again, steady and quiet, saying the things he never lets himself say aloud.
And then you spot it. Your breath catches. It’s tucked in the corner, concealed by a fold. The date is small, scrawled almost absently in the upper corner—his handwriting tighter there, more hurried, as if written without much thought.
October twenty-eighth.
The same night you’d been half-drunk and laughing, tangled up in someone else’s sheets. You stare at the number until it blurs. The letter suddenly feels heavier in your hands, as though it’s absorbed the weight of every unspoken thing between you.
Something quieter, more intimate, edged with the knowledge that he’d written them while you were busy trying to forget the ache of his absence.
Grey shifts in your lap, searching for pets, and you realize you’ve been sitting there too long. You fold the letter carefully this time, pressing the creases flat with the heel of your hand.
For the first time in months, John Price’s absence feels like a presence all its own—haunting, deliberate, lingering in every corner of the house he left behind.
⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅
That night, the fantasy returns, unbidden and cruel.
You dream you’re his wife again.
The house is smaller in this version—warmer. There’s a coat hung by the door, his boots lined neatly beside it. You stand at the window as dawn breaks, the sky bruised purple and gray, and the kettle whines low in the background. He’s already in uniform. The scent of starch and gun oil clings to the air.
You fuss over the smallest things—his collar, his gloves, the flask you’ve filled for him though he’s never asked. He catches your wrist when you try to straighten his lapel, that look in his eyes halfway between amusement and apology.
“Love,” he says, voice softer than you’ve ever heard it. “You’ll wrinkle it.”
You ignore him. You want to memorize him instead: the weight of his hands against your hips, the shadow of his cap against the wall, the scrape of his stubble when he kisses your temple. Every part of him feels borrowed, as though the world could reclaim him at any second.
Outside, the wind howls—the same cold smell of rain and iron. You pretend not to notice the convoy idling down the road, headlights like watchful eyes. You pretend this isn’t goodbye, that he isn’t walking out into the kind of dark you’ll never understand.
When he leaves, you don’t cry. You never do in these dreams. You just stand there with your hand still lifted in a half-wave, your throat tight, the tea growing cold on the counter.
When you wake, Grey is curled on your chest, purring, the letter on the coffee table. For a moment, you forget where you are—his house, not yours, strewn across his couch—and that the man you dream about isn’t yours to lose.
⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅
Each passing day feels like a coin flipped—heads, he’s back; tails, another empty room. You move through the motions of the season like someone underwater: the markets, the lights, the noise of the city trying its best to be merry. Everything feels both too loud and too far away.
And John Price doesn’t come before Christmas.
The kaleidoscope of feelings that take over you should be studied. You cycle through them all with precision—fear, anxiety, frustration, and something sharp that might almost be jealousy. Jealous of what, you couldn’t say. The world that needs him more than you? The version of him that belongs entirely to the dark?
Sometimes you think you hate him for it—for being gone, for making you care that he is. Other times, you catch yourself setting out two mugs instead of one, checking your phone before bed, leaving the porch light on though there’s no reason to. And you hate yourself for that, too.
Grey weaves between your ankles, tail flicking as though to scold you for your foolishness. You crouch down, scratching behind his ear, whispering, “He’s not coming home tonight, baby.” The words taste bitter.
The house feels suspended in time—half alive, half waiting. You’ve memorized the sounds it makes when it breathes: the ticking of the radiator, the sigh of old wood, the hum of the fridge at midnight. You can almost pretend that he’s still here, that if you turn the corner, you’ll find him standing in the doorway, sleeves rolled up, watching you with that deep blue gaze.
But the door stays shut. The night deepens. And the ache of not knowing when he’ll return settles somewhere deep in your bones. Festers like a parasite, feeding off your negative emotions until you’re stewing and rotting. It’s not love, not exactly—but it’s something close enough to mimic the symptoms: the hollow stomach, the sleepless nights, the mind that drifts toward him against your will.
Days slip by like wet pages, ink smearing together until you can’t tell one from the next. The city glitters through December, dressing its loneliness in gold tinsel and cheap champagne. You witness people hurry through the streets with bags of gifts and laughter spilling from their mouths, and you wonder how they manage to stay so bright when everything in you feels gray and brittle.
Frost veins the windows of John’s house. The ivy he’d trimmed back in autumn curls brittle against the brick. You tell yourself you’ll take it down, but you never do. The wilted leaves seem truer somehow, honest in their exhaustion.
Cowboy invites you to a New Year’s party. The thought of pretending to celebrate makes your throat close up. Yet—half out of habit, half out of spite—you say yes. It’s a cramped affair, a lake of familiar faces and a sea of strangers. The airreeks of beer, sweat, and cheap fragrances. The bass of the music rumbles the floorboards, a steady intensity that reverberates in your ribs. You drink and drink until your edges soften, until laughter feels less like a foreign language and more like something you can mimic.
The clock ticks, deliberate and unhurried, every second pulling you further from the version of yourself that used to believe waiting for someone was romantic.
People shove past, shouting half-heard resolutions and promises they’ll never keep. It ignites something dangerous within your veins, and you’re close to punching someone—or burst into tears—when Cowboy finds you and whisks you away from the saturated crowd. His arm is slung casually around your shoulder, lean, and long. Not at all like the thick, corded arms of John fucking Price.
When the countdown begins, you mouth the numbers along with the crowd.
Ten. Nine. The crowd swells with anticipation.
Eight. Seven. Gentle hand on your face, tipping your chin.
Six. Five. His touch is soft compared to the rough callouses on the pads of John’s fingertips.
Four. You glance toward the window, searching instinctively for something beyond the threshold you know you won't find.
Three! There’s red lipstick on Cowboy’s face that does not match the clear gloss on your lips.
Two! You lean in anyway.
One!
The fireworks outside bloom like open wounds—red, gold, violet—brilliant, brief, and already gone. The sound shakes the glass. They burst and fade, burst and fade, until the smoke hangs low and heavy over the rooftops.
You think of him out there—somewhere beyond all this sound and color. Maybe he’s watching the same sky from some nameless base, or maybe he’s too deep in the crippling danger to notice the turning of the year.
Cowboy kisses your cheek, his breath warm with gin and tequila. You smile because you’re supposed to.
And when his attention drifts from you…
…you whisper a soft, pathetic “Happy New Year” and the words vanish into the air, swallowed by the noise.
⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅
You stumble back to John’s house well after two, boots in one hand, heels of your feet raw and frozen from the walk. The world hums with the soft static of alcohol—streetlights haloed in gold, the air sharp and endless. Your breath fogs as you fumble with the key, bitching about how the door never unlocks on the first try.
Inside, the house greets you with its usual order—silent, still, clean. You kick the door shut with your heel, wincing at the echo. You think about the leftovers in the fridge, about washing your face, about how the floor feels blessedly steady beneath you for the first time all night.
You’re rubbing sleep out your eyes, flicking on every light you pass because you’re dizzy beyond comprehension.
And you go to flick on the light in the kitchen, only to realize the switch has been flipped already.
You blink, once, twice, as if sobering could make him vanish. But when you lift your gaze again, he’s there—leaning against the doorway to the kitchen, half-shadowed by the dim light. No uniform this time, just a dark jumper, sleeves rolled to his forearms and utility pants that seem molded to his thighs. His eyes fix on you, slow and assessing, the way they always do—like a man measuring distance to a target.
Your heart stops.
He’s home.
“John,” you rasp, rooted in place.
He doesn’t answer right away. Just watches you—eyes traveling over your mussed hair, your gloss kiss-bitten and smudged, the half-drained bottle still clutched in your hand. There’s something unreadable in his gaze, sharp and soft all at once. A mixture of concern, disbelief, and something far darker.
The bottle of whiskey beside him glints in the low light. Half gone. You know for a fact it was unopened this morning when you left. How long has he been here? Drinking himself into a stupor, waiting?
You take an unsteady step forward. The floor creaks. He doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. His forearms rest on his knees, shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows, the faint tremor of tension running through him like a live wire.
“How long—” you start, but your throat gives out.
He finally lifts his head fully, the motion so slight and so heavy it cuts the air between you. His voice comes quiet, rough from disuse.
“Didn’t think you’d be home so late.”
It’s nothing, and yet everything. A thousand things buried in six words. The reprimand, the relief. The longing. The ache.
You stare at him, breath caught somewhere between guilt and anger and disbelief. He looks exhausted—haunted, even—but there’s something archaic and unsettling simmering beneath the surface, biding its time.
“I—“
“Why are you home so late?”
You blink at him, still halfway to the doorway, the draft curling around your ankles. “I went out,” you manage. “I was invited to a party—”
“I can tell.”
Your head jerks up at that. His eyes flicker—once—to your throat. You realize too late what he’s looking at. The faint mark blooming there. His gaze drags downward, to the sweater and jacket that’s definitely not yours. Something skin to shame dampens your nape as he studies your flushed cheeks, your smudged lips, your unsteady posture.
Something cold and furious twists through him, then seeps out, seeking you. He leans back in the chair, a quiet laugh leaving his chest—empty, mirthless. “You look a mess,” he says finally. “Falling through my door at two in the morning, pissy-drunk, dressed like—” He stops himself, jaw tightening.
You flinch. The air crackles between you, sharp and unbearable.
“Like what, John?” Your voice wavers, brittle and small.
He doesn’t answer right away. His knuckles whiten against the glass in his hand. “Like you forgot who’s waiting for you.”
You’re seething. Coward. “Fuck off.”
He meets your eyes, and for a second, the anger falters—gives way to something raw, almost pleading. “I came home,” he says, quieter now. “Walked in here thinking maybe—maybe we’d have time to celebrate. And you were gone.” He shakes his head once, dragging a hand over his jaw. Painting the anger back in place. “You never fucking came back.”
“You could’ve texted! Called me! Email even,” you burst out. “I’m not—I don’t understand.” Your anger rises with every word, every breath. “I have a fucking live and it doesn’t revolve around you.”
He exhales through his nose, slow and scathing, the sound more dangerous than shouting. “A life,” he repeats, almost to himself. “Right. That's what you call it now, honey?”
You recoil. “Don’t—”
But he’s already on his feet, the chair legs scraping against the floor. “You think I didn’t see? That I haven’t a clue what you’ve been up to?” His voice rises, hardening with the force of what he hasn’t said.
Your blood goes cold. “Oh my God. Oh my—do you—“ It clicks, slow and sickening. “Do you have cameras inside the house?” You frantically glance around, trying to spot something, anything— “You’ve been watching me?”
He doesn’t answer, only stares—eyes dark, unreadable, the kind of look that makes you feel stripped bare.
“You fucking creep!” Your voice fractures—disbelief, anger, humiliation colliding in one breath. Horror and mortification flood your mouth, metallic and thick. “You lied.”
“Watch your mouth.”
All the mornings, afternoons and evenings spent in his home, all under surveillance. “I asked if you had any cameras besides outside and you said no.” Fear strikes you at the possibility of a camera in the guest bedroom you’ve been occupying. A shiver runs down your spine at the thought, quickly snuffed by the rage controlling your tongue.
Maybe if you took a deep breath, you’d notice the similar glaze in his blue eyes. Or the tension buzzing through his body in uncontrollable tremors.
“You’re a sad, pathetic bastard.” Poison on your tongue and wafting through the air. “And you’re hurt because I’m not waiting for you like some kept woman.”
His expression tightens—something ugly flashes through it, too quick to name.
And then he’s moving closer, a hand clapped firmly over your mouth, pining you against the wall. For the first time you understand the scale of him. The mass of him. Every movement feels like it drags the air with it, as though gravity itself bends around his frame. He isn’t just a man anymore—he’s a presence, vast and terrible, like something that belongs to the wild.
He’s enormous, hulking, invading your space. The plaster is cold through your shirt, grounding you against the thrum of panic climbing your throat.
You thrash against him, fighting him with all your drunken outrage.
“Go to you fucking room,” he rasps into your ear, withdrawing to glare you down with wildness in his blue eyes.
It's said with the same cadence you would scolding a misbehaving child.
Maybe you should’ve listened.
His hold loosens, his big hand still covering your mouth.
Not add fuel to the fire brewing between you.
You can move, slink away with your tail tucked between your legs.
Maybe…
Instead, you sink your teeth into the meat of his palm and bite hard, until flesh breaks beneath your incisors and iron fills your mouth. His “Fuckin’ hell” floats through your dizzy head, licks at the heat threatening to consume you.
John Price grips you by the face, squeezes hard enough that your jaw aches, and your lips pucker apart. You realize too late when he spits a glob that lands more on your chin. His thumb smears the blood on your mouth, then his saliva, creating a mess on your face.
It’s utterly débauched..
And when his eyes finally meet yours—soulless, detached and impossibly dark…
You know you’re in fucking trouble.