Vampire Smile - TheyWhoWriteAndKnowThings - Call of Duty (Video Games) [Archive of Our Own] (2024)

“Please.”

Your skin crawls as you hear his voice, ringing around your mind like he’s in the room with you. But that’s impossible, you haven’t seen him in weeks. You don’t want to see him.

Liar.

“Stop it,” you hiss into the darkness, “You need to stop.”

“I can’t, please. Just need to see you,” Simon’s disembodied voice weakens you as the hooks of his desperation find purchase in your resolve. He shouldn’t have this control, this access to your mind. You should be the one dictating the link, not him.

“You should be focusing on you, on staying alive,” you groan as you writhe under the blankets of your nest. You’re burning up, phantom sweat prickling at your skin as you push the heels of your palms into your eye sockets.

“Why?”

The question shakes you. So filled with venom, bitterness, self-hatred. A single syllable loaded with contempt, defiance, loss. He’s learned to manipulate your bond, he’s had help.

“Because I need you to live, Simon,” you groan as your nipples tighten as you feel him swelling in his boxers. It’s like you’re pressed against him, like that night in Tripoli – the beginning of the end for you both. You relive the way his heat bled into you as you let him worship your body. Your fingers dip down under the blankets and over the valley of your breasts.

“Stop thinking about that,” you snap, clenching your fingers into a fist as you snatch your hand away from your aching core. You’re too old, too strong to let a mortal like Simon play you like this.

He doesn’t respond, instead the mood of his thoughts shift, you hiss as you feel your fangs extend down over your lips. Your mouth floods with the heady tang of blood, his blood. It’s an illusion, a memory conjured up just for you, but it tastes so real.

“Simon,” you warn, voice hoarse as you pull your sleep mask from your eyes. You wince, even with your light-proofing, you can feel the UV radiation raging against the building around you. The burning threat of the sun behind your blackout curtains quells the thirst, the hunger for a brief moment.

“My Lady,” he trades your warning for one of his own, for every inch of his yearning you feel, you know he feels your pain.

“Where are you?” You groan as you force your aching limbs to move, you need to drink something. You’re sleep deprived, hungry, and no matter how hard you try to dispel the psychic haze blanketing your mind you can’t get the taste of Simon’s blood from your lips.

There’s a pause, a stutter in the psychic link, before you feel a deliberate, abrupt severance. You jump from your bed as experience the cold grip of fear wrap around your throat for the first time in decades.

“Simon?” You call to him, probing the cauterized connection in your mind as you search for his presence. He’s not there, he’s cut you off, somehow, he’s blocking your attempts to reestablish the link.

Or he’s dead.

The thought comes unbidden as you let the tendrils of terror twist around your dead heart. It’s pain like you’ve never felt as you realise, you’re trapped here. Simon could be bleeding out somewhere, dying alone, all because you couldn’t face your own feelings. Because you cannot venture into the light to find him.

You call Simon’s number, dread weighs heavy in the pit of your stomach as it goes straight to voicemail. You try again, and again. By the fifth time you’re pacing the length of your hall as you try to fight the urge to rush out into the sunlight.

You just need to know that he’s safe, but where do you even start? He could be anywhere in the world right now. But you’re stuck here, confined to your crypt.

You make yourself move, straight to the kitchen. You focus on the blood bags in your fridge, the A POS label taunting you as you snatch one up. It makes a dull slap as you throw it into your microwave, it kills some of the potency, but you’ve never been one to drink cold blood.

The microwave beeps cheerily and you tear the bag open with your exposed fangs before devouring it in hasty mouthfuls. The crimson liquid dribbles over your chin as you lean back against the kitchen counter.

You feel sharper, less hazy as you feel the warmth spread through your body. It numbs the need to throw yourself out into the sunlight. But it doesn’t stop the ache in your chest as you feel yourself spiralling.

Then you feel it.

He’s here.

The sound of a car door slamming down the street makes you sprint to the door, looking through the peep hole as you feel someone else’s anxiety bubble in your chest. Simon’s anxiety.

You hear his boots crunch on the gravel path, the gait of his walk memorised like a second heartbeat. Favouring his left, caused by an old injury left over from a time before you. It’s hard to imagine a time before him. Before this.

You hover at the front door, hiding behind the thick wooden barrier, fingertips poised over somewhere level with where you know his heart rests within his broad chest. You can almost feel it. Your skin pulses with the faux rush of his blood, tantalisingly close, yet so far away.

“Let me in,” he whispers, too low for a normal human to hear, but you pick it up as easily as if his lips were pressed to your skin.

“No,” you say, loud enough for him to hear, but it wouldn’t matter, the psychic link has burrowed back into your mind. He can feel your desperation, your need for him.

“My Lady,” he groans as you feel him slump to his knees on your doormat, “Please.”

You sink to your knees in a perfect mirror, forehead colliding with the door with a soft thud as you try to find the strength to deny him. When it was just the two of you, communicating with thought alone, it was like chipping away at an iceberg. His attempts to sway you miniscule.

But now, with his heat so close, his scent, gravelly and raw mere inches away, you’re powerless to resist.

“I’ll be in the bedroom,” you say softly as you reach up to unlock the door. The sound of the mechanism turning is deafening in the silence between you.

You trudge back to your bedroom, bed unmade, twisted up in a mass of pillows and blankets. It’s been like this since you sent Simon away. What’s the point in cleaning, in making an effort, when the only person who made you feel remotely human is gone? The rest of the house is spotless, but you’d have to leave your bedroom for more than just blood and to answer the door to even make a mark elsewhere.

You sit in your sleep shorts and his oversized Metallica hoodie. You hadn’t even realised you were wearing it until you looked down to assess your appearance. You consider changing, putting on something less emotionally charged, you could certainly do it before he reached you.

But you hear the solid thud of the front door closing behind Simon and you freeze. His scent invades your nostrils within fractions of a second of the door closing. It’s like liquid sunshine flooding your senses, bright and intangible. You smell his cologne first, the one you bought him for his birthday, subtle woodsy notes with hints of juniper and spice.

You close your eyes, shutting off your vision to enhance your smell. He’s only down the hall, the thrum of his blood in his veins roaring in your ears as his heartbeat increases. You know he can feel you, that invisible string tying your hearts together, it tugs on your chest too.

Then his natural fragrance hits you, he must be at the doorway to your room, he must see you waiting for him in his clothes. His bloodstream fills with Oxytocin, you can smell the shift as his co*ck hardens in his trousers. He’s smells so f*cking good.

Even without looking, you call tell he’s hydrated, sober, eating well, exercising and maintaining his health. The realisation that the distance has only made him more whole and you devastatingly empty makes your eyes sting with tears that will never come. It’s a bitter vindication, the stark reality that you were – are – bad for him striking your heart with more force than any stake could ever deliver.

You want to open your eyes, witness the rejuvenation of his soul, but you can’t. You know it’ll break your heart if you see it with your own eyes. He lingers in the doorway for a moment before you feel the air shift between you. He whispers your name as he kneels at your feet, close enough you can feel the hair on the back of your neck stand up, but he refrains from touching you.

“Why are you here Simon?” You ask, voice fractured and weak as you ball your fists on your knees, drawing your gums painfully tight around your fangs.

“You know why,” is all he says in return as you let him flood your mind with images of the good times.

Dancing under the stars in Lima, hushed whines and writhing bodies under canvas in the desert, lazy Sundays on Simon’s couch.

It’s almost enough to sway you but you’re pulled under by the riptide of guilt as waves of bitter memories surge up between you.

Simon’s pale form after you took too much, his life fading behind his eyes as you desperately fed him your blood to keep him alive. Tripoli. Where you bound his soul to yours, ruined his life, marked him for death and destruction. You finally found the tenderness and joy you’d never experienced in life, but with an unforgivable trade-off. You were forced to admit you were slowly killing the man you love.

“Then turn me,” Simon says with a groan as he lays his head on your thigh, “I’ll do whatever you want, just don’t shut me out again.”

The plea stings, venomous rot agitated and burning in your chest as your eyes fly open.

“You can’t ask that of me,” you hiss as you move to push him away, but you’re frozen in place, palms flat on his chest.

Simon’s ochre eyes pin you in place as you see the fruits of his distance from you. His skin is glowing, tanned and healthy from decent exposure to sunlight. His eyes, though baleful, are radiant as he gazes upon you. He’s filled out, a healthy layer of fat covering his muscular body.

Ripe.

You recoil from his touch at your intrusive thought, you’re crawling back onto the bed, away from him. He sits back on his heels, tears shining in his eyes as you feel the rejection sting through him across your link.

“You look good,” you mumble, making conversation, trying to delay the inevitable expulsion of him from your lair. You want him to leave. You need him to stay. You’re trapped in a web of your own design. Locked down as you cower pitifully from your prey.

“You look like sh*t,” Simon counters with a chuckle and there it is again, the clawing need for him to hold you as you laugh together. A human, irrational need to grow old with him.

“You’re doing better without me,” you say, selfishly, bitterly, as you meet his gaze.

“I’m doing better for you,” he shakes his head as he places his broad palms flat on the end of the bed, pausing in his movement as he realises what he’s doing. He’s just as drawn to you as he was weeks ago it seems, but there’s a glimmer of hope flickering in your chest as he holds back. It’s not a compulsion anymore.

“Simon,” you say with a gnash of your teeth as he takes your lack of protest as permission to join you on the bed, “You can’t fix me,” you try to reason but with every second he’s getting closer, breaking down your feeble attempts at pious resistance.

“No, I can’t,” he says with a sad smile as he slots between your thighs, hands either side of your head as he impotently cages you in, “But I don’t need to fix you, I just need to be with you, forever.”

“Si,” you whimper as you rest your forearms on his shoulders, warmth blooms in your palms as you clasp his thick neck between your palms, “I won’t turn you. I won’t make you a monster.”

Like me.

“I’m already a monster,” he growls as he leans in to kiss you, his lips ghosting against yours, “My body count is probably close to yours,” he jokes, but there’s undeniable truth there. It’s like he wants you to bite, to take and take and take. But you won’t, this can’t be a suck and f*ck that ends in already half-broken promises and dooms your narrative for good this time.

“We have to talk about this,” you plead as he places a kiss to the corner of your mouth, “After.”

“After?” He goads as he nips at your jaw, you burn for him. You’re pliable under his touch, but you refuse to be the first to break. He needs to claim you, not the other way around. You won’t be complicit in ruining this man.

Even if that ship has sailed.

“Make love to me,” you whisper, “But I can’t bite you, not today.”

He pauses as his lips brush your throat, exposing his own to your fangs as he hovers there. It’s a challenge, a promise.

“But I want you to,” he breathes, hot against your cool skin as your gums sear with need to plunge your fangs into the broad, veiny neck mere millimetres away.

“Then leave,” you snap, teeth clacking as you refrain from giving into the heat in your belly, in moments like this, you would give Simon anything. You would let him drive a stake through your heart and it would please you.

For Simon, you would do anything. Anything but damn him to the curse of your lonely eternity.

“I will,” he says with an edge to his voice, dark and dangerous, “If you really want me to leave, and never return, just say the word.”

“No,” the word leaves your lips before you can stop it.

“Then, just for today,” he hums before he licks a thick, hot stripe up your neck, “Indulge me, feed from me,” he growls as you hook your ankles around his waist.

It’s textbook really, the thrall begging to be drained. But there’s something about the way he holds it over you, like there’s true agency there, that breaks you.

It’s like the world silences around you, the sound of Simon’s blood rushing in his veins is the only thing left. You don’t even stop to kiss him, you just bite.

Thump, thump, thump, thump.

His heartbeat is a melody in your ears as you break the skin as easily as slicing through butter with a white-hot knife. Your fangs pump aphrodisiac into your mouth, directly into his bloodstream. You’re nearly delirious as you cling to him. Fingernails digging into the back of his shirt, ankles pressing into the small of his back as he grinds down against your barley-clothed c*nt.

Monster.

You groan as the splash of blood hits your lips. Honey, cinnamon, spring water. All the things you remember that make up the heady drug that is your Simon.

“Thank you,” Simon’s voice is hoarse in your ear as he lets out shuddering breaths across your rapidly warming skin.

The urge to keep feeding binds you like silver chains, burning at your skin as you feed and feed.

Thump, thump, thump.

“Take what you need,” his voice is quieter now, like he’s speaking through a veil. Your tongue laps at the blood that runs in molten rivers down his skin.

Just a little more.

The poisoned voice in your mind urges you on, it wants you to drain every last drop. Leave behind a pretty little corpse for you to mourn and grieve for eternity. It wants to twist you into the monster you claim to be. You’re about to give in, to flip Simon on his back, pin him down and rip out that beautiful, thick throat.

Thump. Thump.

But he whispers so sweetly in your ear the words you’ve been dreading to hear. Because how can you hide from him now?

“I love you,” his voice is strong in your mind as his lips brush against your skin.

You push him off you, retracting your fangs just in time to stop his skin from tearing under the power of your jaws. He groans as you straddle his hips, your hands flying to his throat, thumbs pressed above his Adam’s apple. There’s no pressure in your grip, it’s weak despite the power raging through you. Simon has made you strong, stronger than you thought possible as you watch his amber eyes gleam with unshed tears.

“Knew you wouldn’t hurt me,” he says with a grin as he takes your wrists in his hands, thumbs brushing over where you once had a pulse.

“Never,” you vow, but your hands don’t move, blood smears against the heel of your right palm as the punctures bleed freely.

“I trust you,” he says with a smile as you feel his mind brush against yours, hazy and blissed out from your venom and his blood loss.

“You’re a fool,” you splutter as you lean down to pepper his scarred face with your bloodstained kisses, “Too stubborn for you own good,” you chide but there’s no malice in it.

“Look who’s talking, My Lady,” he grumbles as he drops his hands to your waist, fingertips dipping under the hem of his hoodie, “f*ck, I feel so good.”

“Yeah?” You purr as you feel the scratch and pull of his callouses on your skin.

“Yeah,” he repeats with a lazy smile as he palms your breasts with both hands, “Let me see you.”

You respond with a flurry of movements, too fast for his eyes to follow as you tear your clothes from your body. You grin down wolfishly at him as you now sit bare above him. You move his hands to your hips as you start to grind down against him.

“Like this?” You ask as you rock your wet c*nt over the front of his trousers, using his painfully hard bulge to seek some relief in your aching core. Your breasts sway to the rhythm of your rolling hips.

“Yes,” he breathes your name as he grips your ass with both hands, encouraging you to move faster, but you slow down, to a veritable whisper of motion as you tug on his shirt.

“Your turn.”

He sits up with more strength than you expected. A bonus of being nourished and healthy, you think morosely to yourself as you try and push aside the negative twist of guilt in your gut.

You’re back on top of him in no time at all, his coarse happy trail rubbing deliciously against your cl*t as you splay your palms across his broad chest. His hands cup your cheeks as he pulls you down to slot your lips over his. You melt into his embrace and swipe your tongue over his bottom lip.

He cedes his mouth to your bloody maw as you tug at his hair, short blonde locks twisted around your fingertips while you pour your soul into his mouth. Unspoken admissions of love are written in the dance of your tongues. Hot muscle sliding over cold, feeling his warmth seep into your bones.

His co*ck glides between your ass cheeks as he refrains from taking you. The echo of his pleasure rippling through you every time his tip catches on one of your holes, leaving you groaning in depraved desperation when he angles his hips away.

“I want to taste you,” he growls against your lips as he swipes his tongue over his own, collecting blood and venom before swallowing thickly. Your c*nt clenches at the way the muscles in his neck flex and ripple. You want to bite down again and again, but you focus on Simon’s eyes, smiling down at him as desire swells within you.

“Then taste me,” you say with a smile as you feel the cobwebs of despair being blown from the corners of your mind. It’s easy to forget the bad times when you come together like this. It’s more than sex, it’s in the sweet intimacy as Simon flips your positions so you’re onto your back. In the way he eases you down onto the pillows, cradling your body in his strong arms as if you’re made of glass. It’s in these moments you forget and allow yourself to feel human again.

The irony makes you giddy as he kisses your jaw, nipping firmly against your cool skin before leaving wet, open-mouthed kisses down your body. His lips latch on your left nipple as he swirls his tongue around the hardened peak. The noise he makes as he worships your breasts makes your legs weak.

Caught in his throat, somewhere between a whine and a moan. Your response is desperate, feral.

“Simon, please,” you beg as he hums contentedly against your skin, slowly moving further down your body. His tongue lashes at the curve of your stomach, over the expanse of your ribs. You yelp in surprise and pained arousal as he nips at your skin. You buck your hips up as his lips meet your cl*t.

You want to cry out, to say something meaningful, but all that spills from your lips are strained whimpers. You’re gasping, even though you have no need for air, as he laps wetly at your slick folds. His hot breath and broad tongue ignite against your skin as he devours you. You buck up into his thick tongue, grinding against his slick muscle and he growls into your core.

“Taste so good, been dreaming of this,” his voice is muffled but you can see the flashes of those nightly visions behind his eyelids.

First, you’re riding his face, face contorted into a fanged snarl as he pulls org*sm after org*sm from you. Next, pushed down into the mattress with his nose bumping against your dripping hole as he delves his tongue through your folds, lapping at your cl*t as you fall limp against the bedsheets.

The images run wild through your mind as he loops one arm over your belly, pulling your c*nt tighter against his mouth. Two thick fingers tease at your hole and you’re whimpering for him, begging with thighs tightening around his head. Your fingers knot back into his hair as you urge him on, fingernails scraping on his scalp just how he likes.

He eases his fingers into your slick puss*, curling them up just how you like. Hours spent mapping your body out with his tongue, his teeth, fingers and his co*ck have made your pleasure second nature to him.

“Don’t leave me again,” he groans before sucking your cl*t between his lips, tongue swirling over your exposed bundle of nerves as he f*cks you roughly on his fingers, “This c*nt is mine.”

The sudden possessiveness arouses and angers you as a primal, monstrous need to dominate him flares at the base of your skull. It’s another blow to your twisted, broken ego, pulling you down from the precipice of total annihilation. It humbles and excites you just enough to let hope seed in amongst the putrid rot of self-hatred in your chest.

“If it’s yours,” you pant as you feel the subtle fraying of your nerves as your org*sm builds, “Then take it, show me how much you need me Simon Riley,” you growl, invoking his name like the night in Tripoli, “Show me you’re worthy of me.”

“Yes, My Lady,” he whimpers into your slick folds as he f*cks his thick fingers into you, a pace and force strong enough to bruise if you were capable of such a thing, “Anything for you.”

Your mouth burns with the venom that leaks from your fangs as you dose yourself on your own poison. It’s blistering euphoria as you clench hard around Simon’s fingers. Slick gushes from you, coating his mouth, his chin, and his fingers. You scream his name as you remove your hands from his head, fisting and ripping at the bedsheets. Even this far gone, you will not hurt him.

Never again.

“Simon,” you whisper as you tremble, legs falling weakly as he laps gently at your core, worshiping at the altar of your sex as he drives you to overstimulated bliss.

“Did I do well?” He asks softly as he dips his tongue into your quivering core, causing your back to arch.

“Of course,” you croon as you sit up, fingertips tracing the scarred ridges that litter his face, palms cradling his jaw, “More than well, Simon, my love,” you whisper as you press your cool forehead against his, eyes closed as you let yourself just feel. Heat flows between you as his hands find your face.

“May I f*ck you?” He asks, strong nose pressing against yours as he kneels between your legs, amber eyes flashing with desperation while he awaits your command. He smells of you, your essence smeared over his lips making you shudder as you press a chaste kiss to his lips.

“I don’t want you to ask permission like I’m your Lady,” you say as you feel his apprehension spike across your bond, “I want you to take what is already yours, Simon. As my lover. Not as a pale imitation of a pet.”

He pauses and you feel the flash of indecision under your skin like it is your own before his eyes darken. There’s something simmering under the surface as he trails his hands down your body, lingering on your waist as his thick fingers curl around your hips.

“I need you,” he murmurs your name, “I will have you.”

“Then take me,” you purr as you twist your fingers through his hair, pulling his head back taut as he snarls, “Use me, show me the meaning of need.”

Simon presses you back into the mattress, his hips slotting between your thighs as you feel his co*ck slap against your cl*t. You look down to see how broad he looks, and whimper at the sight of his hips rocking lazily back and forth. His tip catches at your entrance before he slides his shaft up through your folds.

You tremble as his bulbous head bumps against your overly sensitive bundle of nerves again and again. He’s toying with you now, making you squirm as he tests the limits of your patience. But you simply smirk up at him as you drag your fingernails down the column on his neck, his hips stutter and the way he grins down at you is almost enough to make your heart beat again.

“So beautiful beneath me,” he coos as he finally relents, notching himself at your aching core, “Oh f*ck.”

He presses into you slowly, stretching you out, filling you to the brim in one slow, agonising roll of his hips. You huff out an empty breath, devoid of the air you no longer breathe, but the instinct to make room for his weight on top of you, deep inside you, prevails.

“Take me so well,” he grunts as he presses his chest against yours, head falling forward as he nips at the line of your jaw, “Like we were made to be together.”

You wrap your ankles around his waist as you expose your throat for him, it’s an unspeakable act of submission to a human. But you don’t care, you war with the monstrous instinct that makes your blood boil. You want to give Simon this, this symbolic gesture of equality. What he does with it, you dare to hope will change things for the better between you.

No more invisible noose around his neck, nor stake pressed to your heart.

He presses his cheek to your own, his scent invading your senses as you wrap your arms around his back, digging your nails into him as he slowly pulls almost all the way out.

“Bite me again,” he whispers against your skin, right where your pulse once throbbed, “I can take it.”

“Simon, I-,” you’re cut off by the arcing pain that erupts from your neck as he sinks his blunt, inefficient teeth into your neck, sucking wildly as he snaps his hips into you. He groans into your neck as the loud, wet slapping of skin on skin weaves through the air between you.

Pleasure rips through you as he splits you in two on his co*ck. It’s maddening as you feel another org*sm flaring hot at the base of your spine. You can’t help the way your fangs slide back over your lips as his sweat glistens on his neck. His blood pulses visibly under his skin as you let go, lips pressing to the thrum of his lifeblood. It echoes in your mind as you taste the salt of his skin.

“Please,” he growls one more time before you lose your grip on your carefully cultivated self-control.

Your fangs sink into his skin and you drink greedily the moment the tang of his blood hits your lips. Your puss* clenches like a vice around him as he ruts into you, desperate noises spilling from his mouth as he bites you again and again.

You take from him as his thrusts increase in pace, your release crackling up your spine as you try to last a little longer. Honey and cinnamon, spill onto your tongue as you gulp down more than you should. But Simon doesn’t falter, his pace punishing as he chases his own release now.

“Simon,” you whine as you force yourself to stop, “I’m gonna come.”

“Do it, milk me dry, f*cking- hah- please.”

You do as instructed, a coy smile on your lips as you realise you enjoy being dictated to by him. Your org*sm blurs the line between your bodies as you clench hard around him in desperate, erratic bursts. You pull him into a kiss, letting him taste himself as your tongues tangle together. You swallow his shallow moans as his rhythm falters and he snaps his hips into you twice more before he’s buried to the hilt, filling you with his spend.

You’re bound together in a mess of hot and cold limbs, Simon’s ragged breaths fanning across your skin as he kisses you, and kisses you, and kisses you until you have to roll him onto his side to stop him.

“Enough,” you scold him playfully as you curl into the deep warmth of his form.

You lie there quietly for some time before you feel the tension leave his body, his breathing slows and you hear the telltale sign of sleep in his heartbeat. You peel yourself out of his embrace to clean up in the bathroom down the hall. It’s not strictly necessary, but you were a sucker for sexual hygiene in life, you were never going to give that up, even in undeath.

Once you’ve washed up, you head back to your bedroom, grabbing Simon some water and a protein bar on the way.

He’s exactly where you left him, sound asleep as his blood smears against the sheets around him. It’s a beautiful sight, seeing him like this, exhausted and sated but not broken. It’s not something you’re used to, not something you ever thought you’d see.

“Come back to bed,” he grumbles, and you can’t help but smile as you throw the bottle of water and snack onto the bed next to him.

“Only after you’ve eaten something and drink all of that water,” you protest as you settle on your knees next to him. You refrain from touching him as your euphoria ebbs, there’s a bitterness clinging to you as you realise that you’ve lured him back into danger.

“It’s ok,” he says as he rips open the packaging of the snack bar, “I’m ok.”

He rests a broad palm on your knee and you feel the assurance flood your mind. He’s baring his heart and soul to you through your bond and you nod. Despite the fear in your gut that threatens to devore you whole, you believe him.

“So,” you start as you watch Simon finish off the protein bar, “You going to tell me who I need to murder?”

“What?” He nearly chokes on a mouthful of water as you feel the panic rise in his chest.

“You had help,” you say, probing against his mind with your own, “With this.”

“Ah,” he chuckles as he flops back on the bed, “Yeah, Johnny’s been helping me with it, with everything.”

“Son of a bitch,” you grumble as you realise Soap has probably seen more of you through Simon’s mind’s eye than you’d like.

“He got a nip slip, of sorts,” Simon grumbles as his cheeks flush pink, “Asked me to think of the strongest memory, focus on it, channel it,” the aforementioned memory rippling into your mind as you watch yourself, asleep in Simon’s bed. It’s from the first time Simon let you feed from him, you’re splayed out under a simple sheet, moonlight illuminating your form. Your left breast is uncovered as you watch Simon move the sheet back up to cover you.

“I remember this night,” you say with a smile playing on your lips, “We f*cked like rabbits,” you giggle to yourself as you feel a new wave of emotion rush in through your bond.

“Thrall or not,” he says with a heavy sigh as he pulls you down to lie on his chest, “It was the first night I knew this was more than a fling.”

And you feel the truth in his words, the raw honesty and the clarity in his mind. It sets your mind at ease, for the first time in months, you don’t feel like you’re damned to ruin him. You rest on his chest as his heart hammers in his chest, a deep rhythm etched into your soul.

“Thank you,” you whisper as you feel his breathing slow as sleep threatens to take him.

“For what?” He asks, thick fingers tracing patterns on your back as he holds you impossibly close.

“For trusting me, for getting better,” you breathe as you place sloppy kisses to his pectoral.

“Was selfish,” he shrugs it off as he places a kiss to the top of your head, “Can’t love you if I’m dead, can I?”

“No,” you shake your head, “I guess you can’t.”

There’s an unspoken understanding, flowing between your psychic link as you vow to keep him safe. To keep him by your side. For as long as he wants you.

You eventually settle back under the sheets, tangled together, saying little as you pull the blankets around you both. You know this isn’t perfect, that there is work you and Simon need to do, things that need to be said. You know there will be more pain to come but for now you’re content to exist in this moment a little longer.

And for the first time since you died, you feel warm.