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He was supposed to die tonight.
That’s what rides in with Soap when the door bangs shut; the smell of rain, gunpowder, and hospital iodine that never quite leaves. Stitches tug along his side when he breathes too hard; the bandage crinkles like paper. The medics said he got lucky. Soap has never been lucky. He is stubborn. Alive by inches. Alive by spite.
The near-death is still on him, a ghost that hasn’t let go. Should’ve died. He knows the feel of that floor, the cold under his spine, the buzzing lights that made the room look like a morgue. He doesn’t say any of it. He just finds you.
You say his name like it’s something warm. He’s already on you; mouth hard, grateful, a little savage; pinning you to the bed hands memorizing the map he nearly lost: jaw, throat, hip, the give of your waist under his palm. Clothes go, his, yours, doesn’t matter. Skin is the point. Heat is the proof.
He fists your knee, presses it toward your chest, lines his cock up, and sinks deep with a ragged sound that isn’t a word. God, the fit- hot, tight, home. He stops there, buried, breath stumbling.
His hand drifts to your lower belly and presses, slow. He imagines the shape of himself there. Imagines the future tucked under his palm like a live charge.
You laugh a little, breathless. “You good?”
“Better now.” He isn’t lying.
He moves like purpose, not charm. Heavy, greedy thrusts that aim for depth more than grace, chasing the angle that makes your mouth fall open, the one that jolts the soft gasp out of you he’ll think about later if he has to walk back into hell. He hears his voice- take me, keep me, that’s it, good girl- but under it something tighter runs: stay, live, leave more than a callsign and dog tags and folded flags behind.
You’re already close, he can feel it in the way you grab for him, in the little panicked drag of breath you make when his thumb finds your clit and grinds with intent. He wants you clenching when he gives it to you; he wants your body wringing him out like it’s hungry for the future he’s decided on for the two of you.
“Johnny- ” you warn, breaking sweet, eyes gone wide.
“That’s it,” he pants, hips hammering, stitches stinging and ignored. “That’s my lass.”
You come hot and messy; he chases it down and spills with a low, helpless noise, deep as he can get, pulsing into heat that grips him like it’s keeping him. His chest goes hollow with relief. He stays. Counts heartbeats. Waits for the twitch to fade.
He doesn’t pull out.
Your hips tilt when he shoves the pillow under your lower back, and the grateful, fogged look on your face nearly undoes him.
“For the soreness,” he lies softly, because he can’t say the other bit: for the angle, for gravity, to make sure it sticks.
When he eases partway out, he watches his spend slick after him, catches it with two fingers- fuck- and presses it back in slow, jaw tight, eyes fixed. “There we go,” he murmurs, like he’s coaxing a miracle. “Don’t waste it.”
You shiver; he kisses your cheek, your mouth, your breath. Sixty seconds of gentleness, and the fever returns. He’s rolling you onto your side, hooking your leg, sliding back into slick heat with a hiss. He can still taste metal and iodine; he wants this new taste to bury both.
“One more,” he rasps against your jaw, already stroking deep and tight, each shove deliberate, the head of him nudging the place that makes your eyes glaze. “Need it.”
You tease- “Thought you were shot”- and he huffs a broken laugh that isn’t really humor.
“Am.” His palm finds your belly again, thumb drawing circles over the place he keeps touching tonight. Where are you in your cycle? He doesn’t ask. Doesn’t need the no. He’ll bully fate if he has to. Again tonight. Again tomorrow. Again until yes and two little pink lines are his future.
Your body answers him like it always does: fast, honest, greedy. He holds you open and works you up until you’re shaking into his hand, until the tight, wet clench of your cunt takes his breath and he empties again against the plug of your cervix with a vow he doesn’t say out loud.
After, he knots your panties, presses the cotton firm between your thighs. “Hold that,” he says, softer than he means to. “Good girl.”
You float. He’s wired. He tucks the blanket higher, checks the pillow under your hips, drags you back so your spine fits his chest. One big hand spreads over your lower stomach and stays- guarding, sealing, praying without a church.
“Sleep,” he murmurs into your hair. “I’ve got you.”
You doze quickly; he doesn’t. He watches the dark like it owes him. He counts the thunder pacing off in the distance and thinks about the fluorescent buzz in the med tent and the way the world shrank to the barrel of a gun and the thought that bloomed when it should’ve been the end: leave something behind.
You stir; he’s already hard again. He kisses your shoulder, careful of the stitches, and slips between your thighs on a whisper. “Last one,” he lies, need scraping his throat. “Promise.”
You let him. He’s gentle for three strokes; then purpose comes back and it’s deeper again, tighter, the kind of rhythm meant to take, keep, seed.
He doesn’t talk about babies; he talks about staying. He doesn’t ask for permission; he listens for every small yes your body gives and stacks them into a future he intends to force into being.
When you finally sleep for real- hips propped, panties tied, his mess kept where he put it- Johnny stares at the ceiling and keeps his hand firm over your belly like he can hold the decision in place.
He thinks of a little mouth with his laugh and your eyes. He thinks of the mark he wants to leave in the world that isn’t a blood trail. He thinks of doing this again in a few hours, slow and certain, and again tomorrow night, and the next, until luck becomes odds and odds become yes.
He closes his eyes. Doesn’t sleep. Keeps watch over the dark and over you, palm warm where he’s decided his legacy begins.