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soapskneebrace · 6 months

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muses - part one - next

Pairing: John "Soap" MacTavish x f!Reader Word Count: 2.8k Rating: Mature (mostly Soap being Soap) Warnings: please see this post for notes about this reader character Also on Ao3.

An artist meets her muse, and a solider meets his.

He arrives early as you’re setting up for your students, in jeans and a tight t-shirt, and the first thing that crosses your mind when you lay eyes on him is Jesus, he’s fit.

You are no stranger to bodies. Hundreds of them have cycled through your studio, all shapes and sizes and colors; you think you may know every dip, every roll, every hard angle and soft curve that a human body is capable of holding. The mystique of defined muscle has long lost its novelty. Bodies are bodies, and each holds the same value as the next when subject to brush and canvas. It never matters, you teach your students, what a body looks like in the modeling chair. It only matters if they can reproduce it accurately.

Even so, when a body like this walks in, you really can’t help but take notice.

Decadent muscle, fed and worked well, round and full with hydration. It’s impossible to miss, even through his clothes; each group delineated clearly, gracefully, as if sculpted rather than built, and alive with soft, subcutaneous movement. It’s indulgent to look at, the comfortable breadth of his shoulders and chest down to that slight taper of his waist and bulk of his thick thighs. It’s a physique no hard-bodied gym rat could hope to achieve merely with extra time at the racks—a physique that is easily, harmoniously attractive in its makeup of muscle and healthy fat.

The man is also mohawked and suntanned, and his mouth rests at an angle that suggests he often smiles—as if he knows that Michelangelo would have swooned at the sight of him. He comes into your classroom, saunters over to you, and stops precisely two paces away from you.

“Sergeant John MacTavish,” he says, offering his hand. “I understand you’re the instructor?”

He has gorgeous, vivid blue eyes (pthalo and cremnitz, with a touch of hamsa). You blink several times. Fit is still rattling around your skull, and begins knocking against sergeant at the same rolling frequency as his warm Scottish brogue. You realize his hand is still outstretched and quickly take it to shake.

“Yes!” you say. His palm is tough, callused, and not soft in the slightest, but very warm. “Nice to meet you, sergeant.”

He gives a grimace. “John’s fine. Or Soap.”

“Soap?”

“Nickname, y’know.”

Neither of you have released from the handshake. Soap’s grip is firm, the kind of firm that suggests he can squeeze much, much tighter if he needs to. And if the grip isn’t any indication, the broad forearms, dusted soft with dark brown hair, certainly are.

Black lines, a sword and helmet framed in laurels, catch your notice. The ink has the soft edges of having lain in the skin for a few years. You turn his arm to see it more fully. “Oh. Nice tattoo.”

He looks at the ink as if it is entirely new to him, and then gives an easy grin. “Thanks. I’ve got a few more too. Hope they aren’t hard to draw.”

When you loosen your grip on his hand, he releases you immediately. You still feel the squeeze in your bones even as you drop your hand to your side.

“So, then, Soap,” you say, “have you ever modeled before?”

He shakes his head, tucking his hands into the front pockets of his low-slung jeans. It tugs the waistband just a bit, revealing a sliver of warm, tan skin (raw sienna, flesh ochre, naples yellow). “Should have, honestly, with how much it pays.”

“It gets very boring, very fast,” you say. “What do you plan to wear for the breaks?”

“Was I supposed to bring that m’self?”

You are unable to suppress a laugh. “Yes, unfortunately.”

“Oh,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck and going a little sheepish—as if expecting a reprimand. You suppose it’s a valid expectation to have, in his world. You aren’t terribly familiar with the military, but you do know it’s one hell of a stickler for rules.

You also can’t help but admire the appealing pull and stretch of his bicep and deltoid, the flex of his pectoral as he lowers his arm.

“Why don’t you wait here, and I’ll go see if I can find something for you?” you suggest kindly, letting him off the hook.

“Sorry,” he says, pretty blue eyes filled with genuine apology. “I’ll remember nex’ time. Thanks.”

The expression is so hangdog that you almost want to pat his head and noise at him reassuringly, like an actual dog. You press your lips together to hide a smile, and leave the studio.

When you get back from the models’ changing room, you find Soap with one hip against the counter where you’d been organizing your supplies, one knee loose and shoulders set at a relaxed angle. You want to laugh at his easy contrapposto. He’s going to be an excellent model. You can feel it.

It looks as if he’s moving around the sticks of vine charcoal with one outstretched finger; he pulls his hand guiltily away when you reenter the studio, crossing his arms over his chest as if to hide the evidence of his snooping. It makes his pectorals bunch and round out, gathers the thickness of his biceps up into chiseled, full definition.

You lift one brow at him as you walk over.

“Never could keep my hands to m’self,” he admits, still sheepish.

“It’s alright,” you allow, smiling back. “Do you draw?”

“Used to,” he says. He looks back at the charcoal. “No time, now.”

“Are you deployed often?” you ask, taking the opportunity to look at his face.

Beauty is cheap in art, but you notice it all the same—appreciate the strong brows, the hard angle of his jaw, the dark stubble of a beard you suspect he can’t keep shaved down, and the long scar that cuts through it across his chin. The light brown of his complexion is speckled with sun exposure, and there are the faintest of creases at the corners of his eyes, which you expect will deepen into genuine, gorgeous crow’s feet as he ages.

He’s not all rugged, though. There is a soft, thick curl to his lashes, which are as dark as strong coffee or expensive chocolate, and an equal decadence to the pink, plush little swell of his bottom lip—which, in the very middle, has the smallest of divots, as if he regularly spends time biting it.

They’re traits that are far too sweet to belong on an otherwise masculine face, and their effect is such that they turn an objectively average set of features into a shockingly attractive portrait—that suddenly has something fluttering, just a bit, in the roof of your stomach.

He looks at you, and catches your survey. You can see him realize you’d been watching, the knowledge of it blooming in ocean blue eyes like ink dropped onto linen.

“More often than no’,” he answers, showing teeth in a crooked, interested grin. And now he’s looking at you—attention flitting across your face, dropping down your body and jumping back up to meet your gaze. The creases deepen at the corners of his eyes.

The fluttering intensifies. The sudden role reversal has you feeling at once flustered and unmoored. You are never the subject of any perusal—always comfortably the observer.

“Well—” you try, and you’re embarrassed at the low tone of your voice. You clear your throat. “Well, let’s make use of the time we have you, then.”

His smile remains, cocksure and easy. “Let’s.”

He knows the effect he’s had.

“Anyway,” you say, blinking several times and proffering the sheet you’d retrieved, “none of the other models are your size, so I’m afraid this will have to do.”

He takes it in his hands, which are sun-dark and striking against the clean white linen. “So it’s a toga, then?” he asks.

“Whatever you like. Let’s go over the basics, and then you can undress.”

“Oh, already, aye? Y’move fast, hen,” he drawls, still grinning. “I like it.”

Heat rushes to your face, but you don’t feel embarrassed enough not to laugh. You busy yourself with tapping your charcoal sticks back in place, putting them back in an even row ascending in order of length, and saving yourself from having to look him in the eye. “Ha! We don’t do a lot of foreplay in this studio, I’m afraid.”

“No?” Soap hums, and he steps closer. He’s very warm, enough that you can feel it even with the space between you. You do have to look at him then. His eyes are half-lidded, lashes casting pretty shadows on his cheekbones as he gazes down at you. “That’s a shame. I’m right partial to it.”

Your brows lift, and you will your pulse to remain steady even as you inhale, catching a thread of—cologne? Aftershave? Just plain deodorant?—coming off of him. The scent caresses you, almost beckoning you to lean forward. You swear you can see the thrum of his heartbeat, there in the soft hollows by his Adam’s apple.

You blink. He is your model. “Well—I’ll try to set you up as best I can, anyway. Follow me, please.”

And you turn your back on him, because this is your workplace, and you are at work, and if you don’t get on with things you might do something stupid like actually flirt back.

Soap hadn’t been sure what to expect when he arrived at the art studio. He’s never been to one before, much less one housed in a university—which he has also never been to—and hell, he only ever took one art class in high school.

If pressed, he’d have imagined old brick walls covered in diagram posters, shelves of supplies in all colors, the smell of paint hanging permanently in the air. What he finds instead is modern, clean, and impersonal. Stage lights hang from fixtures in the ceiling, pointing at a platform in the back center of the room. A tight line of easels, all folded up, stand pressed into a far corner, next to a tower of stacked chairs, and waist-high cabinets line half the room against the bare, painted cinder block wall. The linoleum floor looks new.

None of this, however, has any opportunity to disappoint him. His final unmet expectation, standing across the room and organizing a tray of art supplies, is a very welcome surprise.

You’re bonnie. Like, every point on his wishlist bonnie. Christ, he must’ve done something really good lately, because he can’t imagine just lucking into this. There’s not a hard angle to you, all sweet and soft, but when you meet his gaze during introductions there’s a sharpness to you that skewers him through the chest. You are much smarter than him, he can tell immediately.

He’s always had a thing for smart women. Soft ones, too. And if that weren’t enough, you let him flirt shamelessly with you, while checking him out the whole time.

Steaming Jesus.

You direct him to get onto the platform and sit down, still clothed, in an armchair draped in another pristine white sheet. The stage lights are bright overhead, and they highlight free-floating wisps of your hair in gold.

“You want to ensure that you don’t rest your weight on only one or two points,” you explain. You have a nice voice. Steady, confident—this is your territory, your studio, and in it you are clearly the master. “The main danger is that your arms or legs might fall asleep, and you won’t realize it until you get up, in which case you’ll fall. We can’t touch you, so we can’t save you from that.”

“Y’canna touch me?” Soap repeats.

“Not without your explicit consent,” you say.

He smiles at you, the kind of smile he saves for bright nights at the pub over platoons of shot glasses. “I explicitly consent to you touching me.”

The corners of your mouth tug upward, just a bit, and you look away, clearly bashful. Something in Soap’s chest starts beating a drum. He knows already he’ll ask you to drinks after the class ends tonight.

“I doubt I’d be able to do much,” you say, “you’re a bit more substantial than the usual models.” Your eyes flick down his torso and back up.

“Guess I’ll have to follow your advice, then,” he says.

“You should,” you say, and he looks at your thigh shamelessly as you pat it—even beneath your jeans, he can see the ripple of the impact. “One of the worst-case scenarios is nerve damage.”

“So you have done this before!”

He can’t help it—Soap’s imagination runs wild. Titanic, draw-me-like-one-of-your-French-girls wild. It’s not exactly polite to imagine a teacher naked while she’s in the middle of giving him directions (and Jesus, what a concept, he might be half-mast already), but Soap has always found that people like it when he’s a little rude.

You drum your fingers. “I have.”

He finally hears the nerve damage part of your instruction. “How, uh—how bad can it get?”

The drumming stops. “For me? It just starts to twinge a bit if I sit on this side very long. So don’t rest your weight all on one hip, yeah?”

Concern assuaged that he had not ignored your genuine pain in order to objectify you, Soap grins. “Yeah.”

“Good,” you say. “Also—even if it doesn’t hurt, Soap, you can stop at any time, okay?”

That has him blinking. “Kinda defeats the purpose, doesnae?”

You shake your head. “It doesn’t matter. This is your first time modeling. You don’t know how you’ll feel, sitting here with your clothes off and everyone looking at you. If you need to stop, I want you to stop. I’ll make sure you’re paid anyway, so don’t worry about that.”

You are…so serious about this. The line of your brows is furrowed, imploring, like a little discomfort on his part is a violation of the highest order.

“Sure,” he says, a little dumbstruck and mostly lying. He’d be a rubbish soldier if he tapped out of a little thing like sitting down, but it’s nice that you care.

You purse your lips, nod, and then move onto the task at hand, stepping back and then down off the platform. When you begin to survey him—gaze flitting up and down his body, more pensive than appreciative—he has to resist the urge to flex.

Instead he watches you as you look at him. He especially likes, he decides, the slope of your nose and the smart, serious press of your mouth. You could get him all turned around, he thinks, if you gave it half a try.

Your tits are also great, but that’s by the by.

“Try resting your elbow up a little higher, and twist at the hips a bit,” you instruct, and Soap obeys. “Hm. How would you feel about crossing your ankles?”

You continue like this—nudging him in directions he doesn’t think make all that much of a difference, standing in different positions around the room to check the angles. He half-wishes he could step out of his body and join you, curious as he is about what you’re seeing, what your students will see. He’s not sure he has any clear expectations for how the class will go, but if you’re any indication, it’ll be more fun than he expects.

“Not sure if I’ll remember how to get back into this,” he says, partly to be helpful and partly to get you to talk to him again.

“I’ll help you, don’t worry,” you say. “Okay, I think that’s a good one, you can move now—I’m going to start setting up, the students should be here any minute.”

He stands, and you turn away to collect your supplies, so Soap figures this means it’s time for him to strip. He pulls off his shirt and drapes it over the chair’s arm, unbuttons his pants and shoves them down to his knees.

“Soap!”

He freezes. Then he looks at you. You’re blushing again, deep and saturated, mouth parted in surprise and hand pressed to your chest. He does not miss the quick flick of your gaze down his body; he’s probably violated some rule or another of the studio, but he can’t help but grin.

You’re adorable.

“Gotta happen eventually, right?” he says.

You cover your face with your palm. “I was going to leave the room first!”

“First time someone’s wanted to run away when I’m takin’ my clothes off, I won’t lie—”

“You just come get me when you’re done!” you say hastily as you beeline for the door. “I’ll be right outside!”

Soap chuckles a little when you’re gone, the door slamming mortified behind you, and folds his clothes up behind the armchair he’ll be sitting in. You’re so cute. He can’t wait to sit naked for you for the next three hours.

And he’s definitely asking you out for drinks.

Author's Note: THE PROMISED FIC. I really hope y'all enjoy this one, I've been teasing it since March and I have so many plans. This fic has a special place in my heart because it's drawing heavily from my college days--my bachelor's degree is in fine arts, and I have a lot of fond memories of many hours in the studio both as a student and as a model.

I expect this series will also have a looser timeline than my Neighbors series, so I'm open to suggestion in terms of scene ideas! I already have plenty, but if I know my mutuals, y'all might have some good ones as well. No promises I'll write them, but you never know.

Thanks everyone for your patience, and I hope you'll look forward to where this fic goes!!

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