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The air is crisp with the early burgeonings of fall as Ethan walks through the park; leaves that have just begun to turn shades of fire squelch under the leather soles of his boots, the rain storm from last night now hidden behind sunshine and clouds.
Ethan hunches his shoulders; glancing at his watch then pulling the collar of his leather jacket up against his cheek to provide a thin barrier against the chilly air, before shoving his hands in his pockets. The buttery-soft, broken-in brown leather rasps against the greying stubble on his cheeks, and Ethan shudders out a sigh.
Everything was so quiet.
Not eerily so. Not like it was the end of the world and even the birds had stopped singing, not that kind of quiet.
But the kind of quiet that means the world just carries on turning, nothing threatening the fragile peace – a kind of quiet Ethan doesn’t really know what to do with. One he’s not really used to.
That’s why he’s here. In Seattle.
Because he’d saved the world again, and he doesn’t know what to do with his life anymore. Lost, unmoored; hoping to find some semblance of a way forward, even though he feels like he’s stumbling in the dark. The compass of his heart always pointing this way, towards his home. Towards her.
He hears her laugh seconds before he sees her.
Stopping, Ethan turns his head and there she is; laughing to herself as a squirrel bounds around by her feet. Just like the first time he’d seen her all those years ago; the breath whooshes from his lungs and his heart feels like it’s squeezed in the vice-like grip of her beauty.
Julia.
He watches the sun dapple across her face; her button nose scrunching as she laughs, twirling in place as the squirrel jumps over her sneakers before scurrying off. The dark purple scarf that Ethan had gifted her when they were dating hangs loosely around her pale neck, and his fingers twitch in the stitched nook of his pockets with the urge to reach out and touch her.
Dressed in a pair of leggings and an oversized sweater; her dark hair is loose, blowing around her in the light breeze. Ethan’s jaw clenches; throat tight as he swallows.
She’s so beautiful; he could look at her forever and never get enough.
Like he was permanently thirsty and he could only obtain some small amount of relief from the well of her lips. Not that he came here to kiss her. Doubts that she’d want him to, even if she hadn’t moved on with Erik. He just wants to look at her, soothe the ache in his heart the way only she can.
He gets so lost in watching the golden sun dance over her freckled skin that he ends up standing there for too long. Their gazes meet and her brown eyes widen in surprise.
He hadn’t meant for her to see him.
A man like him was made for the shadows; hidden away where he couldn’t sully the beauty of the world. Couldn’t ruin Julia’s life with his love.
He should turn and run. He should leave – pretend she hasn’t seen him; pretend he wasn’t here.
His feet remain where they are.
Julia’s face softens when she realises he’s not going to leave and she jogs over to him; a bemused but pleased smile curving her mouth, like she’s not quite sure she’s imagining him.
"Ethan?"
He clears his throat and lifts his hand, still in his pocket (it was safer that way), in a small wave.
"Hey, Jules." He husks; allowing himself the comfort of the nickname only he ever called her. Despite the world being saved, and life slowly returning to normal, Ethan feels like there were so few comforts of his left. But then again, he'd always found the most comfort in people rather than things, and he'd lost so many of them.
Always paying the high price on the slim hope that it’ll all be worth it.
(Some days he doesn’t think it is).
"It's so good to see you,” she says; pulling him in to a tight hug, and she sounds so painfully sincere, it almost guts him
“Y-You too.” Ethan fumbles to extricate his arms from his jacket pockets to return the embrace; heart pounding in the battered confines of his ribcage, a thousand miles a minute.
He feels every one of his sixty-two years and like a nervous school boy all at once. All because of her.
She pulls back and Ethan bites back a whine at no longer feeling her heat and curves pressed against him. “What are you doing here?” Julia asks; patting his roughened cheek, trailing her fingers down over his shoulder, before her hand drops completely.
“I—” Ethan wets his lips; shaking his head like his brain was full of cotton. He trails his gaze over her face – a few more lines fanning from the corners of her eyes, a few strands of grey in amongst the brown that tickle the ridges of her cheeks – and feels like he can’t breathe for wanting her. “I...I don't know what I’m doing, Jules.”
The confession spills out of him, and it’s so much more than he wanted her to know – an admission of the soft, vulnerable parts of him a good little IMF Agent wasn’t supposed to have. An admission of how much of a failure he was; only good for saving the world (and even then just barely), but no good for her.
She hums; smiling at him ruefully, always seeing right through him, even when he’d been trying so much harder to hide. They stand there, scant inches apart, and Ethan doesn’t know what comes next; the whole time he’d thought about her as he got on a plane from London to Seattle, he never allowed himself to picture being so close to her, they shared the same breaths.
Always loving her from a distance to keep her safe.
“Did you want to come up?” Julia tips her head backwards in the direction of a row of brownstones on the edge of the park. He hadn’t realised she lived so close.
“Won't Erik mind?” he says, rather than blurting out the yes that feels mangled in his throat. The thought of seeing her put-together, doctor husband with his too-neat smile making nausea churn in his gut.
“No.”
Something flickers in her eyes, but Ethan is too tired to work out what. He should say no, he should leave. He does neither.
“Oh.” Jerks out a faint nod. “Okay. Yeah, I’ll come up.”
Julia smiles at him then, properly. Curls her fingers around his wrist; making him suck in a sharp breath at her skin touching his. Tugs him in the direction of the brownstones, and his feet move willingly. At some point between Ethan inhaling and then exhaling again; Julia moves her hand from his wrist to slot into the curve of his palm.
Her skin is warm, soft. Her palm still fits perfectly in his own.
Ethan follows her silently.
They walk up the front steps; Julia finagling her keys from a hidden pocket in the waistband of her leggings, refusing to let go of his hand. Almost like she was worried that if she did, Ethan might float away or disappear.
Ethan was of half a mind to think she might be right.
The front door closes behind them, and Julia pauses for a moment to grab the mail from her box on the wall. She leads him up three flights of stairs to the top apartment; only letting go of his hand once they were in front of her door.
“Come in. I’ll get you a drink.” She shoulders open the door; toeing off her sneakers leaving them against the hallway wall. Her scarf gets hung on the coat hooks, and Ethan watches the sway of her hips as she moves down the hall towards the kitchen, chucking the mail on the side as she goes. “Coffee?”
“Sure.” He’s not really in the mood for it, but he’ll say anything to spend longer with her right then, and follows her inside; righting the number three on the door so it sits neat and straight in the centre of the dark-red painted wood. The door closes with a soft click, and Ethan kneels down to unlace his boots. Sets them neatly next to Julia’s sneakers; brow furrowing at the lack of men’s shoes filling the space other than his own.
Guess Erik is out, he thinks; shucking his jacket and hanging it up. Scrubs a hand over his face, sighing wearily tiredness clinging to his bones like tar, and then walks silently to where Julia is pottering around in the kitchen. She gestures for him to sit at the small, white wooden table in the middle of the kitchen and he doesn’t even think about arguing. Just slumps down in one of the seats; resting his head in his hand as he watches her.
Julia rolls her eyes at him fondly when he doesn’t look away from her to glance around at the living room the kitchen spills into; uncaring for what bric-a-brac she has on her shelves, or what colour she’s painted the walls, when she was there in front of him – alive and more beautiful than ever.
He didn’t need to look at all of that to know who she was as a person, he’s never forgotten.
The metal of the teaspoon clinks against the rim of the coffee mug as she stirs in two sugars and a splash of milk. The corner of his mouth quirks at the knowledge that even now, she remembers how he takes his coffee.
“Here you go.”
His fingers curl around the mug Julia places in front of him, and he exhales shakily. “Thanks,” he says. She sits down on the other chair nestled around the small kitchen table; their socked feet knocking together underneath it.
Ethan sips at his coffee; unable to look away from her for more than a few seconds at a time. He huffs out a laugh at himself for how pathetic – and still so pathetically in love with her – he was. Even though she hasn’t been his for longer than she ever was; he’s still not over her. Doesn’t think he’ll ever be over the peace he feels when he’s with her – like he was just Ethan, rather than Agent Hunt.
“You seem good. You look good, Jules. Better than, even.”
She grins at him behind the rim of her mug; a purple one saying ‘Nurses call the shots’ on. “Well, 49 is the new 29, did you know?”
“With you I'd believe it.”
“Flatterer.” She rests her hand on his forearm; squeezing gently through the thin cotton of his cream henley. “You look good too.” He snorts; knowing exactly how he looks – tired, older, broken. “Are you good, Ethan?”
“I...I'm here and I didn't expect to be.” His tongue feels heavy, clumsy in his mouth as he tells her the honest truth; making a vow twenty years ago never to lie to her again, even if he couldn’t always tell her everything. “It's taking longer for me to deal with that than usual.”
Julia makes a wounded noise in her throat working out what he wasn’t saying; fingertips skimming the sharp line of his jaw. “It was terrifying for a while back there,” she says; voice husky as it ripples down the notches of his spine to curl in his gut. “Everything was. Had no idea what was real or what would happen. What – who – I could trust.” She cups his cheek and Ethan quakes in his seat; leaning in to her gentle touch. “All I knew was I could trust that you'd be out there trying to put a stop to it - to save the world. And I was right.”
His jaw flexes; the warm ceramic of his coffee mug creaking against his fingers as it feels like he’s scrabbling to stay anchored in the moment and not let himself get washed away under the tidal wave of his love for her.
“Even after all this time,” he rasps, “you still believe in me?”
She chuckles then; a light and airy sound that blankets him like the sun. “Oh, Ethan. I never stopped.” Ethan closes his eyes for a long moment; glad he was sat down. He felt dizzy.
“Jules,” he hiccups out on a rough sob.
She hums; like she’s delighted she can still ruin him like this. “The world is here because of you, Ethan Hunt.”
He shakes his head in denial, and he realises then that her hand is still on his cheek; thumb brushing back and forth, greying stubble rasping softly against the pad and neatly trimmed nail. “My team. S’because of them.”
Julia sighs; well aware she won’t make him budge on this. She pats him on the cheek and then goes back to her coffee; swallowing down half the mugful in two pulls of her throat that only highlight to him the delicate line of her neck, and remind of how much he used to love putting his mouth there.
Ethan sips at his coffee; nose wrinkling at the bitter taste on his tongue. Usually he was better at ignoring how much he only tolerated it.
“How are they—your team?” she asks; when the silence starts to press in. “How is Luther? – he checked in about six months ago before everything became scary, but I haven’t heard from him since.”
The question takes him by surprise even though it really shouldn’t. He fumbles his mug back onto the table; coffee splashing on to the white, wooden tabletop. “Sorry,” he gasps; inhaling raggedly, the reminder of the hole in his life that used to be filled by his best friend, raw and bleeding at the edges. “I’ll get a cloth – clean it up.”
“Ethan.” He staggers to his feet. Looks around hunting for a dish towel. He spots one hanging through one of the cupboard handles and reaches to grab it. “Ethan.” Warm hands stop him; palms flat against his belly, the small of his back.
“What?” he cries, knowing how lost he sounds. “I need to clean it up, I was just—"
“Forget the cloth. Forget the spilled coffee okay? Sit down, Ethan, please” she says firm but painfully gentle. He sits; knees practically buckling under his own weight. Julia drags her chair closer; bundles his gun-rough hands in her own. “Where’s Luther, Ethan?”
“He's…” Ethan wets his lips, though it does nothing; throat still dry as a desert with the sands of time and grief scraping it raw. “He's gone, Jules. He's gone.”
A tear spills from his lashes; falling to the table in a silent splash.
“Oh, baby. I’m so sorry.”
He shakes his head; waving away her sympathy feeling like he might snap in two under the weight of it otherwise. “Ilsa’s gone too. Both died and I—” his voice cracks. “I couldn't stop it from happening. I saved so many people I’ll never meet, Jules, and yet the cost was two of the few people I hold close, and I h-hate it.” His voice trembles; catching on the word from how much he means it. The visceral hatred inside him for how much he’s had to sacrifice over and over a tumultuous storm in his veins.
“I'm so sorry, Ethan. I really am.”
Ethan pulls their joined hands to his mouth; panting, wet and small against her fingers; tears wetting his cheeks as he nuzzles his head back and forth almost like a babe seeking the comfort of its mother.
“He was my best friend,” he whispers; the words bubbling out of him like poison expunged from an infected, festering wound. “With me through it all and now he's just…gone. And I feel like there's a - a hole in my chest and I think I came here on the small chance I'd see you – and I only planned to see you from afar, I didn’t plan for any of this – because no one else every made me feel like I wasn't splintered and torn apart inside like you did, Jules.”
Julia pulls him into her arms and Ethan falls into her softness eagerly; tucking his nose into the crook of her neck, inhaling the faint scent of lavender that clings to her skin as he trembles. “It's okay, baby. I'm happy you came here. You're always welcome, Ethan, okay? Always.”
She cards her fingers through his messy hair; nails scritching against his scalp. She used to do the same thing when they curled up in their marriage bed together; part of him hopes she doesn’t do it with her new husband. That this was just theirs.
“I don't want to intrude.” He forces himself to say the next bit. “Or upset Erik.”
Her chest vibrates as she huffs out a laugh. “Erik's gone, Ethan.”
“What?” he blinks in confusion; pulling back to stare at her face. Her beautiful face. “What do you mean gone?”
“We're divorced.” She wiggles her left hand and he only notices then the lack of ring on her finger. “A year or so after Kashmir actually.”
Oh, he thinks.
“Oh,” he says; mind dizzy with the knowledge that Julia was no longer with Erik. Though he doesn’t understand how someone could leave her so willingly, without a fight. It’s been twenty years and he’s still clinging on, unable to truly let go.
“You can ask why. I can see you trying not to.” Julia offers him a wry grin; arching a brow.
“Sorry,” he winces. Clears his throat and sits back; scrubbing a hand over his jaw. “Why did you – uh – divorce?”
Julia sniffs; standing and clearing their coffee mugs from the table, placing them in the sink. Grabs a cloth hanging across the taps and wets it; wiping up Ethan’s mess with one efficient sweep of her hand. Only when the table is clear and she sits back down does Julia speak again. “Because I finally allowed myself to accept something that I'd been ignoring for too long.”
He swallows thickly; unable to look away from the endless depths of her dark eyes. “What was that?”
“That he wasn't you.”
“Jules.”
She cups his face then, and before he can even so much as beg – and for her he would, he would – she slots their mouths together in a kiss as soft as a cloud. Kisses him again. And again. He whines when she starts to move back, and she laughs, pressing back into him. Ethan wraps his arms around her, and lifts her from her seat to straddle his lap. The wooden chair creaks under their combined weight, but it holds. He tangles his fingers in her dark tresses; licking past the seam of her lips, seeking out her taste.
Fuck, it had been too long since he’s kissed her. Decades too long. Breaths too long.
“Ethan,” she gasps; undulating on the seat of his thighs, clutching the back of his head, the broad expanse of his shoulders.
“Fuck, I’ve missed you so much, Jules.”
“Kiss me again,” she demands; as if she hadn’t started kissing him first.
“Yes, Ma’am.”
He smudges his lips along her jaw, her throat – kisses his way to her lips. Moans at their softness and the taste of peaches from her lip balm. Sips from her mouth; smoothing his palm down the length of her spin, up under the hem of her sweater seeking out warm skin.
Julia grinds down on him, punching a moan from Ethan’s gut when he realises he’s hard; dick straining against the zipper of his jeans. He’d forgotten what it was like to have that heat in his belly, the pressing need in the cradle of his pelvis. Had thought he’d become dead to such things from all his years surviving like a damned cockroach. But then it’s Julia—
She always makes him feel alive.
Ethan stands then; lifting her with him before laying her out on the kitchen table. Pushes up her sweater with urgent hands, exposing her pale belly. His mouth finds the cluster of freckles by her navel that he used to think about when it was just him and his bruised soul under the blanket of darkness; a reverent sob of her name caught in his throat. Her belly carries the soft rolls and stretch marks of age, and he revels in all of it – how she’s still the same, but also how she’s changed. The aching primal part of him that had burned with jealousy at the knowledge that Erik had been married to her rather than him, was glad to know she hadn’t had kids with him. That that dream of theirs that had been put on the shelf as a maybe with a ‘to look at’ date of sometime in the unpredictable future when Julia wasn’t so busy with work, and Ethan felt like he could handle looking after more than a dog, hadn’t been taken down and acted on; his own name replaced by fucking Erik’s.
He hates how ugly and caveman-like it makes him, but he can’t help it. Julia has him all torn up inside, he can’t think straight. Always has.
“I really have missed you, Jules” he murmurs; palming her thighs, the generous swell of her ass. “So much.”
Julia cards her fingers through his hair; smiling down at him. “I’ve missed you too, baby.”
He smiles in relief against the jut of her hip bone, before pressing wet, bruising kisses over her quivering midriff, the curve of her ribcage. Tugs her sweater off and chucks it on the tiled floor. Sneaks a hand around her back and unclips her bra. That ends up tossed in the other direction.
She laughs fondly at his eagerness, and he can’t find it in himself to be embarrassed.
His palms curl just under the heaving swell of her soft, creamy breasts. His mouth seeks out the dusky nub of her nipple; pulls it onto his tongue, suckling gentle as a babe. Julia moans; pushing up into the wet heat of his mouth, demanding more.
“Fuck, your mouth, Ethan.” He huffs through his nostrils; smirking around the fat pout of her nipple, reluctant to let it slip from his mouth. “I forgot how sensitive my tits are – Erik didn’t really care for anything that wasn’t the main event.”
Ethan pauses in his sucking; eyes wide as he looks at her in shocked disgust. Not at her, no, never – but at the asshole that was her ex. Her nipple falls from his mouth with a wet pop. “You’re kidding?” She shakes her head silently. “He didn’t play with your exquisite tits or eat you out?”
Julia chews on her bottom lip; a flush spilling over her cheeks, the hollow of her throat. “No. Occasionally I’d get a bit of fingering, but it was mainly just fucking or me giving him a blow job.”
He takes a steeling breath; careful not to let his anger at Erik tighten his hold, bruising her soft skin. “I thought I was a fool for letting you go in the first place, but he’s the worst kind of fool for having you in his bed every night and not feasting on you like a goddess like you deserves. Jesus, what a fucking dumbass.”
“Like I said,” she sniffs, chuckling; blinking away tears. “He didn’t love me like you do, baby.”
Ethan surges upwards to kiss her then; pouring all his love for her into the press of their mouths together. Massages her breasts; feeling the heavy weight of them fit perfectly in his palms. Julia writhes underneath him; hooking a leg around his waist, rucking up his henley. Her nails scratch at his back and Ethan hisses in delight at knowing he’ll be marked by her.
He only stops kissing her when he has to draw air into his lungs.
“Julia,” he pants; nosing at her cheek, desperate to have her as close as possible. “Jules.”
“We should probably move this to my bed, darling.”
Ethan hums out a nod. Picks her up; blindly stumbling towards the bedroom. Lays her out on the neatly made sheets. Rolls her leggings down to her ankles and then tugs them off along with her socks, until she’s left in just a pair of plain cotton briefs. “God, you’re beautiful.”
She squirms under his gaze, though she doesn’t close her eyes against his intensity. Never shuts him out. Julia nudges him with her foot. “Get naked too, Mr Hunt.”
His mouth quirks in amusement, and he quickly yanks his henley up over his head; thumbing open his jeans and pushing them off his hips. Hops in place as he rids himself of his socks; hissing between his teeth as his aching, hard dick doesn’t exactly make it easy. Julia giggles at his lack of smoothness, and Ethan arches a brow at her, because really?
That just makes her laugh harder, and god, he adores her.
“Better?” he snarks when he’s down to just his underwear; troublesome socks defeated and strewn on the bedroom carpet.
“Much, thank you.”
She blinks up at him; mouth curled like a smug pussycat, and Ethan’s chest burns knowing she wants him as much as he does her.
“Good.” Ethan climbs on the bed; peppering kisses to every part of her he can reach, greedy hands touching the rest. He cups her between her legs, and groans; feeling how hot she was. The pulsing thump of her arousal. Rubs his thumb in a teasing circle over the damp cotton and his cock twitches in his boxer briefs at how wet he apparently makes her.
He sits back on his heels between her legs, and curls his fingers under the waistband of panties, eager to remove them.
“Wait,” she says before he’s so much as moved an inch.
Ethan pauses. Looks at her in silent question.
Julia covers her face with her hands; an embarrassed mewl spilling from her lips, muffled by her palms.
“Jules? You okay? We can stop if you wan—”
“No!” She flings her hands down against the covers; shaking her head vehemently. “No, I don’t want to stop. I just—” She huffs out a breath. “I was going to warn you that I’ve not had a wax in a while, but then I remembered that you – uh – oh jeez, you know…”
Ethan bites back a grin. Yanks her panties down exposing the tangle of dark curls between her legs. “Appreciate the natural look?” he offers cheekily, giving her an out, even though he very much loves the dark blush spilling across her breasts.
“Mmhmm. That.”
“You’re right,” he says; pulling her underwear down her long legs and throwing it behind him. Spreads her legs; feeling the muscles of her inner thighs bunch and flex under his palms. “I appreciate it very much. Let me show you, Sweetheart, just how much, hmm?”
He shuffles onto his belly, and then hitches her legs over his shoulders; kneading her ass cheeks, encouraging her to box him in. “Good girl,” he groans when she crosses her ankles against his back and he can’t move for her. Noses at the crease of her thigh and all he can smell is her – sweet and musky and thick in his nostrils.
Thumbs open the folds over her pussy; mouth watering at the gossamer strands of arousal that cling to the dark curls of her bush. His mouth falls open in reverent awe and fuck, he can taste her already. Tastebuds and synapses lighting up just from the memory of how perfect she tastes coating his tongue, staining his throat.
“Ethan,” she whines; bucking her hips, trying to get his mouth on her. His nose bumps against the curls on her mons and fuck, she’s trembling underneath him from how much she wants this.
“I’ve been dreaming of doing this again for two decades,” he confesses; flicking his tongue out, teasing the tip of her clit. Does it again just to feel her twitch in his arms.
“Jesus, Ethan – please, baby – you’re driving me insane.”
“Okay, love,” he chuckles. “I got you, I promise. Let me look after you, alright?”
Her fingers spear through his hair, tugging and silently telling him to get on with it. Ethan gets the message and presses in close; nuzzling his face right up where she’s dripping and musky. Runs the flat of his tongue over her in broad, possessive strokes; stroking his thumbs back and forth right by her spread, sopping entrance.
Dips the point of his tongue into her cunt; licking, curling, fucking it in and out feeling her swollen channel quiver around him.
“Ethan,” she sighs; running her hands over his head, heel digging into his shoulder blade.
“Feel good?” he rasps. Julia just bats him on the shoulder, looking at him as if he can’t possibly be serious. Ethan winks with a boyish shrug. “Just checking. You taste incredible by the way. Even better than I remembered – and I remembered a lot.”
She tries to hide her blushing face in the overstuffed plump of her pillows, and Ethan loves that even now, twenty years on, he can still have her squirming like an innocent schoolgirl. “Shut up, Ethan.”
“Yes, darling.” He grins wickedly, and then wraps his lips around her clit; sucking, rolling it on his tongue. Suckles on her until she’s throbbing in his mouth, and then slips two fingers inside her. Her breath hitches at the stretch, but she takes him so well. Parts her like the flesh of a sun-kissed peach; juices spilling into the cracks and grooves of his knuckles.
Pumps his fingers; crooking them at the tip to rub over that spongy patch inside her right where she’s all swollen and hot and needy. Runs his tongue all over the dewy folds of her pussy, practically slobbering over her like a greedy dog, desperate for her taste.
He can feel her tighten around him, and he hums in encouragement. “That’s it, baby. You’re gonna come, yeah? Come on, come for me, I can feel you want to. Let go for me, Jules. Let me catch you.”
“Oh god – fuck – Ethan!”
Julia pulls tighter and tighter; thighs boxing him in, pressing his ears to his skull almost hard enough it hurts. He gives her clit a bruising suck, and she breaks apart around him – whole body juddering, mouth flooding with her slick heat.
He glances up over the dips and curves of her body; drinking in her flushed face and the way her lashes flutter, teeth digging into her plush mouth as he keeps licking, keeps sucking, pulling another orgasm from her. Wanting – no, needing – her to drown him in her arousal like a Baptist fully immersed in water, hoping to be cleansed of their sins.
She sobs out his name; fingers clawing at the bedsheets as she grinds her pussy up against his face.
Ethan only pulls back when her gasping whines of pleasure hold a sharp edge to them like it’s the wrong side of too much; cunt so swollen around his fingers she feels as tight as their first time.
“You okay?” he croaks; tongue sore, voice thick with her cream.
“Mmm,” she giggles, pleasure-dazed. “Very okay. God, your mouth is dangerous, baby.”
He smiles to himself, proud as he sits back on his haunches. Wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, chest heaving. Rubs the heel of his palm over his straining cock; boxer briefs soaked with precum just from getting to worship her with his mouth. Tugs on his balls to relieve the aching pressure, just for a moment, and exhales softly, because he won’t ask for more.
Not when he’s already been allowed to have more than he dreamed he could have.
“Get over here, baby,” Julia purrs; crooking her finger, not letting him pull back. “And lose the underwear.”
Ethan’s throat clicks as he swallows, but he stands on shaky legs; ridding himself of his boxer briefs. A whimper bubbles in his chest as his cock smacks against his belly; heavy and thick, balls almost bursting with the need to blow his load all over her. In her. Whatever she wants.
He crawls back onto the bed; sweat beading down his spine, heart pounding in his chest. “Condom?” he asks; gaze flicking to the drawers next to the bed.
Julia tugs him close by the shorthairs, and he grunts as he covers her with his muscular, compact frame. “Ethan,” she says plainly. “The only thing that’s been inside me in the past few years is the vibrating dildo in my bottom drawer.”
“R-Right.”
“I got tested after Erik left and it was all negative, and I know the IMF wouldn’t allow you to go on missions unless you were fit and healthy, right?” He jerks out a wheezing nod; feeling overwhelmed by her and he hadn’t even gotten inside her yet. “Well then. Put that pretty dick of yours inside me and fuck me until I can’t think, Ethan Hunt.” Their noses brush; breaths hot as they ghost over his chin. “Show me how much you’ve missed me, baby.”
He wets his lips, and then kisses her. Swipes his fingers in between her legs and coats his straining length in her slick. Notches the plump tip at her entrance and takes a second to breathe.
Julia pets his stubbled cheek; eyes soft with understanding. “I know, baby,” she coos. “I know, it’s been so long. But we’re here now, okay? And you don’t have to hold back anymore. You don’t have to tell yourself you can’t have this because you can – you can have me. I’m yours. I’ve always been yours.”
Ethan pushes in; her blood-swollen cunt spreading around him beautifully until he’s buried to the balls inside her. Tucks his face into the crook of her neck; every part of her he rasps the bristles of his stubble against will be left red and tender, but she doesn’t complain. Just pulls him closer.
He shudders out a sob. She feels like heaven around him; hot and wet and clenching down around his dick like she wants to suck him deeper. Ethan starts moving then; small, grinding circles of his hips that allow her to get used to being split open on his cock again, until heat burns at the base of his spine and he has to move faster.
Cradles her face in his hand and pants into her mouth; snapping his hips in sharp, deep strokes.
“I’ve missed you so much,” he murmurs; tears mixing with sweat to blur his vision. “Even when I felt like I knew nothing anymore, I knew that I missed you. And that I love you, Jules. Will never stop loving you.”
“Oh, Ethan.”
She rocks up to meet him thrust for thrust; kissing him fiercely, feeding him her tongue. Ethan fucks her; using his body to show her how much he wants her. How knowing she was alive and out there had kept him alive in the darkest of moments. How she unmade him with just a smile and put him back together again with barely a touch.
Each wet drag of his cock rubbing over her swollen cunt has pleasure shooting up his spine, but it’s been years since he’s enjoyed anything other than the touch of his own hand and he knows he’s not going to last as long as he wants to.
Would stay inside forever if he could.
He wiggles a hand in between their sweat-slick bodies. Finds her clit. Rubs it in time with his thrusts, and soon Julia is moaning into his mouth; slick gushing around his cock as she comes.
“Can I come inside you?”
Julia rakes his nails down his back; arching up into him. “Yes!” she shouts; tremors still rippling over her, his fingers still lovingly torturing her clit. Ethan chases his release; bedframe slamming against the wall as he tries to carve out a space inside her that only he fits, like he wasn’t filled with her until he felt like he couldn’t breathe from it, in every little part of him that had for so long been hollow and empty.
His hips stutter, and Ethan shoves his cock in as deep as possible; spilling hot and wet inside her in thick, claiming pulses. He comes so hard he feels like his teeth rattle with it; moaning Julia’s name against the hinge of her jaw.
“Fuck,” he sighs; collapsing on top of her, wrung out.
Julia kisses his sweaty temple; running her hands up and down his back. Makes no move to push him off her. “You were much more satisfying than my dildo, in case you were wondering.”
He chuffs; nibbling on her ear to make her squeal before nuzzling into her neck again. “Good to know. What about…?” He lets the question trail off, but he knows she knows what he’s asking.
She palms his ass; massaging the firm flesh of his cheek. “Not even in the same league, baby.”
Ethan hums, satisfied. They lay there tangled together until his cock softens; slipping out of the snug heat of her cunt in a drooling squelch of semen and slick. “Think we made a mess of your duvet,” he mumbles.
“It’s fine. It needs a wash.” She taps him on the back. “You’ll have to get up though. I have to pee.”
Ethan heaves himself off Julia with a pouting sigh, because he had been comfier than he’d been in years laying on top of her, and kicks the soiled duvet off the bed while she pads naked to the bathroom; taking a second just to look at the curves and lines of her, marvelling at how he’s somehow managed to end up back here in her life again, when he thought it would be impossible.
Julia returns a few minutes later, and grabs a knitted throw from the chair in the corner; dragging it over them as she curls up behind him. Slips her arm under his neck and rests her hand on his belly; tucking her legs in between his letting him warm her cold feet.
Her lips brush against his neck and she sighs happily. “You’re so beautiful, Ethan,” she says; fingers brushing back and forth, gently tugging at the dark, grey-speckled hair that trails under his navel down to his groin. “Even more so now then when I first met you.”
He chokes out a disbelieving laugh, though it might have been a sob. “I’m barely hanging on, Jules. I don’t even know how I survived that last mission. I feel like I’m cracked inside – broken in a million different ways. I’m not beautiful, I’m just a mess. And I shouldn’t even be here. Nothing good comes from having me in your life.”
She pulls him tighter against her; arms locked around him, refusing to let him go. His lungs squeeze in his chest, and he doesn’t understand how she still wants him, even now. “You listen here, okay?” she says against his ear. “I’d rather have a thousand messy lifetimes with you by my side, than spend even one minute in a life where I never met you, never got to love you. Do you understand me, Ethan Hunt? Sure, you might be a mess right now, and a little damaged because who the fuck wouldn’t be after what you’ve been through, but don’t for one single second think that means I don’t love you, or don’t want you, or don’t think you’re beautiful down to the bones, okay?”
His jaw flexes; throat thick with emotion. He nods against the pillows, a tear trickling down towards his ear. “Okay,” he says, because what else could he say? “Okay.”
“Good,” she huffs; kissing his cheek and snuggling up against his back. He can feel her pubic hair tickle the crack of his ass where Julia holds him so tightly, and he slowly melts into the mattress as he allows himself to feel truly safe and cared for without a gun under his pillow.
“Shouldn’t I be the big spoon?”
“You’ve spent decades putting yourself between me and the world, Ethan, just let me hold you like this. Please.”
He lets her hold him.
They lay in silence for a while.
He watches beams of sun dance across the floor and then looks to the alarm clock on the bedside unit. Less than ninety minutes since he saw her in the park. He should be used to how quickly life could change, and yet he wasn’t. His gaze snags on something laying innocuously just off to the side of the alarm clock and he stops breathing.
Two circular bands.
One bright green plastic with a simple yellow flower painted on the top; the other a cheap looking black and white panda stuck on dull metal.
They’d picked them in a rush in the hospital gift shop – Ethan had chosen the flower for her because she brightened even the darkest moments of his life. Julia had snagged the panda one with an impish smile for him saying he was a cuddle bear so it fit.
Part of him hadn’t wanted to replace it when they’d bought actual wedding rings afterwards. The reminder that joy and whimsy was as easy as a cheap ring picked with love, all you had to do was go out and find it, something he felt like he might need in the future.
He’d given her the panda ring when they’d divorced, hoping she’d at least keep it as a nice memory.
He just hadn’t expected her to keep it there by her bedside so she looked at it every day.
The axis of his world feels constantly in flux, titled at an angle, and he doesn’t know what he’s doing.
What his future will be.
When you spent so long thinking you weren’t going to have one, you tended not to make plans. But god, does Julia make him want to make plans. With her.
Ethan closes his eyes and matches his breaths to the rise and fall of Julia’s chest. “It all linked to when we were together,” he says; voice cracking in the silence. Julia’s hand moves from his belly to cup the slightly-sagging swell of his pec, holding it possessively.
“Hmm? What did?”
“The Entity. The code for it.” Ethan wets his lips; brushing the hair out of his eyes. “It was what I stole for Davian to get you back. The Entity became like it did because an asshole arms dealer kidnapped my wife and I'd have done anything to get her back - to get you back. I know technically – legally, really – you’re not my wife, but to me you still are. In my heart. And I didn’t care about the consequences or what I stole, because to me, getting you back safe and alive was the only thing that mattered to me. Even when I found out that I was partly to blame for everything that was happening, I still couldn’t bring myself to regret it, because even though I’ve saved the world numerous times, there will always be a part of me that would also burn it down if it meant keeping you safe.” He twists his neck, looking at her over his shoulder. “You’re my world, Jules. You will be until the day I die.”
She blinks away tears; looking at him so soft and open, heart bared to him right that in the angles and sweet lines of her face, and for some reason that would never make sense to him, it had his name written all over it.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
Ethan’s brow furrows. “What for?”
“For making it so you’ve had to choose things other than your own happiness for all these years. For making it so that part of you resents having to save the world even when you do it so well because you care about the one and the many. And for letting you go all those years go when I’ve spent every moment since wishing you were still here with me no matter how much I tried to pretend otherwise.”
“Don’t apologise. It’s okay.” He brings her fingers to his mouth and kisses the tips of them. “It’s how it had to be.”
“Yeah, well I wish it could’ve gone a different way.”
“So do I.” He sighs heavily. “But we’re both here now, and that’s more than I thought I’d get not even a few hours ago.” Even now he can’t quite believe that he’s here in bed with her, and not alone again somewhere having walked away like so many times before, but he’d followed her up the stairs and into her bed, and to him that means something. Means this is different to before. “So despite everything I find myself feeling something I haven’t felt in a really, really, really long time.”
“Yeah?” She asks sleepily, smiling against his nape. “What’s that, hmm?”
Ethan tucks her hand under his chin, Julia having always been the sum of his infinite choices. Even when he chose being an IMF Agent and saving the world over remaining married to her, he was still choosing her – choosing to keep her safe even from himself and the dangers being loved by him brings; choosing to protect the world so that she can go on living in it.
It was always her.
And now he’s saved the world and he’ll probably continue to do so because people like him didn’t really retire, but Luther had said he was a master of his own fate, and this time he wasn’t choosing one or the other. He was choosing both.
Because he’s had enough of being without her.
And because he’d quite like to put the broken parts of himself back together with her right there with him. It would be nice not to have to love her in secret anymore. Not to have to love her from afar when she looks like all his dreams come true up close.
He thinks she’d like quite that too.
“Happy,” he says. “I feel happy.”