Work Text:
Living alone is something that you had adapted to when you were in college. None of your roommates seemed to stick around for very long and you were blessed with a room all to yourself, having blissful silence and isolation. You treasured that, being able to set your own schedule and not have to worry about a whole other person in your space, messing with your time and space and things. That, however, didn’t last long, and you had to sacrifice your solitary existence for cheaper rent.
The good days, though, were when your boyfriend came over and let his existence drown out their loud laughs and jarring lives. Johnny was a blessing and a curse for you, since he was such a touchy person, you never felt lonely with him around, but he also had to go across the world on deployment and you were left alone for weeks at a time, with only his voice through a tiny speaker on your crappy phone assuring you that he was alright.
You had wanted to move in with him, but Johnny had told you not to give up your lease just to live in his one-bedroom apartment while he was gone. Your house was nicer than his apartment building, even though you had to share it with four people. Johnny never really spent time at his own place when he was stateside, opting to spend as much time with you as he possibly could. Sometimes you thought that maybe it was to placate your whirring mind, or maybe his, but Johnny told you over and over again that it was because he wanted to be with you as much as possible before he had to leave again.
It was almost one in the morning when you got the text from Johnny telling you that he had arrived at his apartment and was safe. You shot him back a smiley face and went back to clattering your fingers over your old laptop’s keyboard, pushing your reading glasses back up to the proper spot on your nose. The dulcet strains of your ringtone startled you and you looked down to see Johnny’s contact photo smiling up at you from your phone.
“Bonnie, what’re ya doin’ up so late?” his accent made you smile, and you sat back in your chair, staring sadly at the bright screen before you.
“This paper’s killing me, Johnny,” you whined rubbing your tired eyes and taking a deep sigh in, “The first draft is due next week and I swear that it will be the death of me.”
“Why it so bad?” he asked, grunting as he moved his bags back into his apartment.
You scrunched your nose up at the screen, tilting your head slightly. “I don’t even know. I’ve just been staring at it for hours and not a single good word has come from my stupid brain.”
“Now, lass, your gorgeous brain isnae stupid, you’re just a tad tired,” he crooned, “how about I get packed up and head over to ya, aye?”
“Aye,” you agreed, “I don’t know how awake I’ll be when you get here, though.”
“No mind, I still have the key you gave me,” he said, a smile in his voice, “and bein’ with you is the only thing I want right now, my love.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The door cracked open behind you, but you didn’t notice it over the music you had started pumping over your headphones after you’d hung up with Johnny an hour ago. Some inspiration had struck you and your fingers were flying across the keys, words pouring through your brain and onto the page, a little faster that you could actually type them. Jumbled spellings didn’t matter though, all that mattered was that you were finally getting words down at a good rate and nothing could stop you.
“What are you still doin’ up, love?” Johnny asked, jerking you out of your writing stupor for long enough to take your headphones out. His big hands ran down your shoulders, working at the knots as you continued to put down words, flying through the points on your outline, working quickly, paragraph by paragraph.
“Please don’t make me stop, if I look away from this computer, I don’t think I’ll ever look back again,” you mumbled quietly, not stopping your pace, and only stopping to refer to the open book beside you before clattering back to work again. Johnny hummed quietly, continuing his small massage into bigger strokes that spanned down to your shoulder blades. You wanted to melt under his touch and let him work out all of the tightness you had collected over the hours of hunched research, but you were so scared of not finishing that you let your hands keep moving.
“Lass, its early. You can do this tomorrow, the paper will still be there,” he whispered to you, tugging your chair back so your hands weren’t hovering over the letters anymore. Something akin to a whine escaped you as you felt the words tumbling around in your brain and fading just as quickly as they had surfaced, almost like fish in a deep pond. There, but hiding from your sight for fear that they would be caught on a line and filleted out for the world to see.
“There ya go, love,” his voice was quieter now that you had dropped your stiff posture and had melted into his firm touch. His fingers ran across your tight shoulders, digging in ever so slightly so you could feel the warm pressure of his hands trying to find your pain. Weakly, the document was saved, the computer was turned off, and the words forgotten, all while being quietly coaxed by Johnny.
You looked up at him from your chair, reading glasses slightly obscuring his mile-blue eyes in the low light. He chuckled at your expression, the sound resonating deep in his chest. You sat like that for a minute, taking in his blurry form while he smoothed the knots out of your angry muscles and letting the words fade from behind your eyes. Soon, your eyelids were drooping, and you were finding it hard to stay awake.
“Looks like bedtime for my girl,” Johnny laughed and quickly scooped you up from your chair, startling you back awake. He was wearing the pocket tee from your college you had sent him when he had been deployed for the first time since you had started dating. It was worn soft with love and age, and you played with the pocket as he brought you over to the bed, picking at a loose string.
You were situated nicely on your side of the bed, on top of a plush sherpa blanket that you had shed before you had started working on homework. He quickly shed his sweats and flopped down on the opposite side, jolting your glasses off your nose as you attempted to get under the mass you called a duvet. A quiet laugh bubbled from your chest as you caught your glasses before they got crushed, depositing them on the side table. Johnny took no time scooting close to you and burying his face in your tummy humming his contentedness.
“You good down there?” you chuckled, carding your fingers through his hair and letting a soft smile spread over your face.
“Missed ya’” he mumbled, “tha’ boys were saying I was gantin’ for ye in my sleep. Said I sounded like lost puppy.”
“Aw, I missed you too,” you said, dropping a tiny kiss on the crown of his head before moving your hands down to his neck lightly scratching his scalp as you went, making him melt like putty underneath you. It was a heady feeling, running your fingers under the neck of his tee, feeling the subtle heat of his skin, the texture almost velvety under your tired fingers as you ran your slow fingers over every scar you could find. The fresh skin felt odd under your touch, and you raked your nails softly, feeling when one scar began and another ended. Johnny suddenly jerked up, his ocean eyes cutting through the dark, and whipped off his shirt, snuggling back down into your stomach. His arms cinched a little bit tighter around your waist, fingers playing a tune over your own back.
“Where did you go this time?” you asked, not really expecting an answer, but asking anyway, since you wanted to hear his sweet voice.
“Romania,” he had to turn his head over to talk to you, but his digits continued their symphony on your spine, “it was gorgeous. I wanna take ye sometime.”
“I’ll go anywhere you take me, baby,” you said, causing him to hide his face in your tummy again, humming something incomprehensible.
Johnny’s tapping and pressing weight across your legs was beckoning sleep to you, and you grasped blindly beside you for a blanket, flinging it over the both of you as soon as you found one. You wished you could get up and turn the fan on, or maybe turn on some white noise, but Johnny kept you close in his strong embrace, and you had no want to leave it anytime soon. So, you fell asleep, tracing patterns over Johnny’s scars and listening to his snores.