#seeing his reflection for the first time in decades

[kmr-creatz]

While I don’t know the intentions of the costume designers, it could also be a change with the times.

During First Class, both Charles and Erik both had individual styles that were representative of the general style of the 1960’s.

Erik often wore suits or turtlenecks with leather jackets. Charles wore suits and tweed jackets, often with the top buttons unbuttoned. He also wore a lot of sweaters.

During Days of Future Past, their individual styles were representative of the 1970’s.

Charles wore more casual shirts and leather jackets (as did rest of the cast, but it could also parallel Erik’s style in First Class) and less button-up shirts and suits. It’s important to note that he wore a lot of warm colors at the beginning of the film and wore more cool colors at the end.

The only time we see him wearing a suit is when he’s infiltrating the Pentagon. The only time that he wears a sweater is on his way to the White House, which could represent that he’s trying to go back to himself. Trying to heal, even if he’s evolved as a person.

He wore a tweed jacket at the White House, which was his last outfit at the end of the film.

However, Erik had been imprisoned for ten years and had not been educated on the trends of the decade. He was likely given or bought clothes that were available to him.

Later during the film, his choice in clothes became more intentional as he created a plan to attack the White House. His style was more similar to what he wore during First Class.

If you compare Days of Future Past to Apocalypse, the appearance of Charles’ hair seems very intentional.

Before and during Days of Future Past, he was a struggling addict with trauma from being abandoned and disabled, and overall, was not doing well mentally. This is reflected in his style throughout the film.

But most notable to me is his hair. It is unkempt, barely brushed. It’s not taken care of. But during Apocalypse, his hair is taken care of. It’s clearly been brushed, possibly conditioned, and styled.

He cared about how he looked, and while he didn’t fully revert back to the style that he had during First Class (whether it’s due to changes in trends or his evolution as a character), there were some characteristics that stuck.

For example, he still wore tweed jackets but no longer wore button-up shirts. Instead, he wore a casual lavender t-shirt.

As for Erik in Apocalypse, he had been in hiding from the authorities after nearly assassinating the President of the United States. He married and had a child in secret, and was a recluse who lived in the woods. He had dinner at his coworker’s homes, but they never knew him.

He had chickens. He lived in nature. And most likely, if he wanted to take care of his home, he probably wouldn’t have the same dapper style that he had taken on during First Class.

He also worked at a factory and probably got filthy by the end of the day. Plus, he had to disguise himself to hide from the authorities. It’s not that he doesn’t care. His style is very intentional, meant to represent that he was a family man.

He often wore plaid and flannel, and he wore a vest. He wore a lot of warm and neutral colors too, such as reds and greys.

By the end of Apocalypse, both Charles and Erik had taken on their respective styles from First Class, albeit with a few differences.

Charles wore a professional suit, but no longer had the top buttons of his shirt unbuttoned.

Erik had a less rugged look, appearing more polished than before, but had abandoned slicking back his hair. His (tweed?) jacket was more similar to the ones that Charles used to wear in First Class.

During Dark Phoenix, Charles wore the polished suits that he had worn at the end of Apocalypse. He was involved in the political world now and had to look the part.

Later in the film, his style became more casual and even slightly rugged. He began to wear more warm colors, which is a small detail but important to note.

Erik started out with a casual look. A long-sleeved black shirt and dog tags. Whether those dog tags had names of mutants who had died, or was simply supposed to be an accessible piece of metal, I don’t know.

While going after Jean, he wore an all black coat with a dramatic flare. It had a similar feeling to what he wore during Days of Future Past when retrieving his helmet. Leave it up for Erik to have a dramatic look when attacking someone.

By the end of the film, Erik had worn a dark green (possibly grey) shirt and a rugged brown jacket. It reminded me of his style during Apocalypse. His bangs were also choppy and brown instead of his usual auburn.

Charles wore a green T-shirt, now devoid of the polished style that he had at the beginning of the film. Stubble grew on his face. He had been stripped of whatever style that he had originally.

You could say that this evolution is indicative of their character evolution throughout the film, with Erik returning to his roots and becoming the savior of Charles instead of the other way around, and with Charles being the one having to accept help by the end.

Charles had to learn humility and he had to let go of his arrogance. Erik had (to the best of his ability) healed from the trauma that he had been subjected to throughout the films. They both learned hard lessons.

I noticed that whenever Charles is going through a hard time or having difficult emotions, he often wears warm colors such as reds and oranges, and complementary colors such as green.

Both Charles and Erik often wear dark, neutral, or cool colors. Blue is a color that’s been assigned to Charles by the fandom, I’ve noticed. It’s also important to note that when wearing his Magneto suit, he typically wears reds and magnetas.

Warm colors always seem to be a sign of conflict.

But maybe I’m reading too much into it. Maybe they lost the style that they had originally because the costume design wasn’t as detailed anymore, or perhaps they lacked the budget (or the care) to provide them with interesting costumes.

Perhaps they wanted their style to be more “realistic.”

Interpretation of their costume design is open and can vary. Most don’t pay attention to it. This is just my personal thoughts and interpretation on their style and costume design, which combined character development with color theory and symbolism.

i miss erik's chic bangs from 'first class'.

he used to look so dapper, he had STYLE and a HAIRDO. and then he went through a divorce and prison and a whole bunch of other not good things and we never saw him slay again.

not sure if we can call it a sign of his further mental deterioration (or can we) since he was far from stable in 'first class' to begin with and there were some remnants of his taste in dofp but after it just got worse. charles kind of bounced back after dofp and looked all shiny and babygirl in 'apocalypse' but erik. erik just stopped caring.

[l0cadef4nfock]

Some more of my Batfam appearance headcanons

Bruce: he 100% had salt n pepper hair; yknow, the black with lines of white in it, if not from his age then from the stress of being Batman for over two decades and being the father of like 7 feral children. But the cool part is that, his hair is jet black, and the white parts can probably reflect light. Also, I hc that when he adopted Dick he still went out in Gothic outfits with full face of goth makeup, but by the time he got Duke he just put on eyeliner everyday and wears black turtlenecks.

Dick: GIVE THAT MAN LONG HEALTHY LUSTROUS HAIR PLEASE. His hair reaches his hips when he showers, it’s almost as black as Bruce’s, and it’s straighter than him (pan Nightwing my beloved). He wears it in a man bun while he goes out as Nightwing, and either in a ponytail or wears it down when he’s with friends/family. He started growing it out when he moved out, and after one particularly bag fight with Bruce he got blue highlights that matched his suit, and gave his dad a heart attack because “secret identities dick!”.

Jason: I saw one artist that draws him half blind, like that the bomb that killed him got him in the eye and now he has an explosion shaped red scar on his face and a white soulless eye. When Roy really annoys him, Jason will come over to his house when he knows he’s on patrol and wait in the dark, and when Roy comes back he just see’s a green glowing eye in his kitchen and he almost shits his pants. Every. Single. Time.

Tim: TRANS TIM IS CANON IN MY OPINION. Let my dude be born a dudet. Let him be double queer. Also, he has piercing to match with his punk boyfriend that he loves very much. Like, it started with snakebites to annoy Bruce (he learned from Dick’s highlights phase), but then he really liked it, and got the regular ear piercing (little Robin earrings he had custom made), and after he started dating Kon they got matching earring together (I don’t know how they’re called, those long ones that sit on your lobe? You know what I mean?). And let my boy have a mullet, we all know he’s the biggest dick glazer and when he saw Nightwing with a mullet when he was 9 it changed his brain chemistry forever.

Damian: give that child some melatonin before I lowk commit. Also, very important, he is Arabic AND CHINESE. He has Chinese blood in him and you are definitely able to see that. In my mind, he’s a few shades lighter than Talia, and his hair is exactly Bruce’s color, he got his mother’s eyes and eyebrows, and his father lips and nose. Also that bitch is GAY and he dresses the part in the best way possible. Like yes he’s still emo as fuck but he 100% fits the gay stereotype of thinking about what to wear for hours and stressing about his looks. OH and he’s the biggest eyeliner abuser in the goddamn family (Bruce is very close behind him and dick is in 3rd and is very unhappy about that).

Cass: she is the proudest lesbian you have ever met, and I mean it. She has a lesbian flag keychain that she keeps on a scissor shaped carabiner that she puts on her jeans with a lesbian star pattern embroidered on it, she rocks scissor shaped earrings right next to her masc lesbian mullet with purple highlights that she gets so very excited every time someone asks about because that means she can info dump about her amazing girlfriend for the next three hours. She has 300 bracelets, earrings and necklaces to match with Steph, and the only shoes she ever wears are mismatched converse, one black and one purple, that she’s sharing with Steph. She has black mini vampire nails, she has countless queer pins on her bag (ahem ahem she uses she they pronouns) and will gladly give you one if you want it.

Steph: pretty much the same as Cass, but she has black highlights instead of purple and she is WAY less extreme than her. She was a bit hesitant about the highlights at first, because she wasn’t sure how that would go with her curly hair, but Cass argued that she always straightens it anyways and Steph is like. “Oh right. Okay babe.” After that talk in which Cass found out Steph has curly hair (she ment it when she said she always straightens it) she starts every morning by begging for Steph to style it curly, and that’s the primary reason why you might spot spoiler with curly hair and a very happy (and a way less brutal) Black Bat.

Alfred: just wanted to remind you all that he canonically sleeps in a suit.

[gotta-winwin]

in the brown and blue | j.ww

🧿 genre: fluff, angst | wc: 5.2k

🧿 preview: it’s the centennial of the tunnel’s existence, marking the legacy since its sudden appearance in the woods across your small town. legends say entering the tunnel sends you back in time to find those lost to you– and as you travel deeper into the tunnel, you swear you can see him, hidden in the brown and blue. 

cw/tw: dystopian narrative, multiversal travel, parallels to lila and four’s journey in the umbrella academy, mentions of blood, injury, minimal gore, swearing, selfishness

🧿 fic rating: pg 13

🧿 masterlist & a/n: what an honour to be creating for the 100 milestone collab! the biggest thank you to @gyubakeries for being the genius behind the ending :)

now playing: intro (end of the world) by ariana grande 

Legend has it that entering the tunnel would return those lost to you.

It’s a fairytale type of belief, a blind and misguided hope for something impossible, yet you choose to believe it anyways. You’ve spent your entire life stuck in the pockets of your small village, never once experiencing any type of loss, yet– something had always felt missing, as if a part of you had been stolen away without you even knowing. 

There was a hole in your life, and you were determined to find it– whatever it was. 

You take nothing with you but a cloth bag packed with the bare necessities: dried fruit for sustenance, rope, your leather-bound journal, a pot of ink and a pen. You clutch the rusting lantern tightly in your right hand and push into the light blue vines that covered the entrance of the infamous tunnel. The light illuminates the road in front of you and casts dancing shadows along the damp cave walls. 

Your stomach flips and turns, but you venture in anyways, searching amidst the ugly brown walls and scattered blue vines for whatever it was that was lost to you. 

Wonwoo swears he’s been searching for ages– at least a few decades or so. The boring scenery of the tunnel had long since transitioned into a sort of subway system, the walls tiled in blue and browning at the lines separating them like a badly maintained bathroom. 

It had taken Wonwoo approximately four days traveling the complex system to realize there was no way out. 

The first stop he got off at had taken him up a flight of stairs and into a grassy field, the crops dying from the glares of the sun shining above them. The field had been calm and quite serene, and Wonwoo had begun to enjoy the feeling of the sun on his face after days underground. Yet once the sky had darkened, wisps of shadow began to emerge, threatening to gnaw off his limbs whenever they got too close. 

The shadows seemed hell bent on getting him back into the subway system, clawing and slashing at him until he was forced back down the marble stairs– back into the cold and dampness of the tunnel system. 

The second stop was a little better, as Wonwoo found himself emerging into the middle of a bustling city, one mirroring the likes of New York in the 1930s— a time period he was all too familiar with. He found himself captivated by the glow of the city and the sounds of a thousand footsteps along the busy streets of Downtown. 

He had smoothed out the crinkles of his grey suit, doing his best to dust off the dirt, grime and blood– all reminders of his last stop in the tunnel system. He drew back his shoulders and fixed his hair, glancing at his reflection in a nearby storefront. He smiled, for he was quite pleased with what he saw, a dashing young man from the 30s, rich and perfectly poised. 

But no, he couldn’t be distracted. He had abandoned his timeline and ventured deep into the tunnel for one thing and one thing only: you. 

So Wonwoo forced himself to turn away, back underground, once again. 

On the third stop, the subway had screeched to a jolting stop, sending Wonwoo a few steps back as he tried to regain his balance. The doors slid open aggressively and he stepped out, racing towards the stairs and back into the light. He was excited to see what was at the surface this time, all the while picturing what you might look like once he’d found you. 

He was travelling through timelines, after all, and you might look drastically different than the girl he had once known before. But none of that mattered as long as your soul was the same. 

The shadows must have felt his enthusiasm however, as they swarmed the exit and refused to let him pass.

“Let me through!” He yelled, grabbing a fallen pipe off the ground and swinging furiously. “Let– me– through!” 

The shadows disperse for just a second before returning, stronger and angrier than before. A tendril curls around the pipe and yanks it from his hands, throwing it to the ground as another tendril swipes him off his feet. 

Wonwoo lands on the floor with a painful groan. He stays there, watching as the shadows danced through the dimly lit corridors of the subway system. 

I’m done, he thinks silently. It’s over and I’m tired. 

But something itches at him and pulls him back up. He boards the subway once again, pulling out his phone to note down the stops, keeping track of the directions. He searches stop by stop. He searches for you. 

It’s the damp smell of the underground tunnels that hits you first, as you note the sudden transition from narrow dirt cave walls to a large atrium, its walls lined with blue squares that looked old and weathered from age. You note the benches that line the walls, some broken and crooked, colored with brown paint that chipped at certain places. 

There’s a loud sound as the floor beneath you shakes, thunder running through the ground as you brace yourself against the wind that was picking up, breezing through your hair from the tunnel on the side furthest from you. 

A train blows past you and screeches to a halt inside the atrium, its metal doors opening for you in welcome. A strange voice sounds from the ceiling. 

“Train to 22nd.” 

You glance up, confused. A couple seconds pass as you hesitate, but you end up stepping into the enclosure of the train, taking a seat on the bright blue seats lining the insides. You hold on as the train embarks, picking up speed through the dark tunnel. 

It’s entirely new and absolutely thrilling to witness. 

You get off once the doors open again, stepping up into the light, emerging in a cornfield. You turn, confused, as the way back to the train station seemed to pop out of nowhere, completely out of place amidst the yards of wheat and corn. 

It’s pretty and much bigger than the fields you were used to. You’re busy taking it all in– the scenery, the breeze, the feel of the sun on your face– when something whacks you from behind and sends you flying, tumbling into the crops and onto the dirt. 

You barely have time to stand before it tries hitting you again. You dodge this time, running past the swirl of shadow and flying back down the stairs of the underground train station. 

It doesn’t follow you. Instead, it seems to stare at you from the top of the stairs, sending a silent threat right through your bones. It doesn’t want you to find it– whatever you had come here to recover. 

You stare down at the scrapes on your hands and knees, blood pooling and dripping down like uncomfortable tears. The train squeals to a stop behind you, as if it just knew. 

It takes you four more stops trying to find your way back home to realize it was impossible. The tunnel had laid claim on you now, and you were stuck– facing the shadows that wanted so badly for you to stay with them underground, a hole still in your soul and never finding whatever you were missing. 

It takes another two weeks for both you and Wonwoo to break. 

Wonwoo’s curled up underneath one of the benches lining the subway wall, his knees pressed against his chest and his arms holding them together. He shakes violently despite the humid heat surrounding him, his glasses fogging up with each heavy breath. His phone is dead– leaving his map of the subway lines on a brown paper bag, badly drawn and probably incorrect from his poor memory. 

He’s reluctant to admit it, for Wonwoo had always prided himself in being the most tenacious out of all his friends, yet it was more than obvious: the shadows had bested him. They had won, breaking his spirit and ripping apart his leg. 

It sat there, mangled and broken, held together with the remains of his tattered suit jacket. It was still connected to him, but the more Wonwoo stared at it, the more he felt as if it wasn’t his anymore. The tunnel had promised to return what was lost to him, yet it had taken everything left instead. 

And perhaps the cruelest thing of all happened once he fell asleep. Despite never finding you in his journeys across the subway lines– Wonwoo still saw you in dreams, each time he closed his eyes and sleep crawled out from the ground to find him. 

For just a moment, it would be as if he had never lost you in the first place. 

On the other hand, somewhere in the tunnel systems, you fought sleep like an old foe. You hated how nothing seemed to greet you on the other side, leaving all your dreams dark and gloomy– the void staring back at you until you woke again. 

It was an endless cycle, cruel and unusual punishment. So you sat, eyes listless as you leaned against the cold tiles of the wall, cradling your mangled arms filled with scratches and claw marks. You’re tired, adrenaline gone and running on fumes. You feel silly now– running headfirst into a scary tunnel, looking for something you didn’t even know you had lost. 

But you still stand up each time you wake, heading back into the train, allowing it to take you wherever it pleases. You stop trying to get to the surface, however, too drained to fight the shadows over and over again. 

Your only hope is that you’ll end up finding someone underground– a lost soul just like you, traveling amidst the brown and the blue. 

You blink once, twice, another time, staring through the dirty glass at what you think is a person. 

You can see the silhouette of him– bent over and slumped on the floor, his hair covering his eyes and a pool of red by his left leg. Your heart jumps to your throat as you stare at him– a person. You pray with everything in you that he’s still alive. 

The train slows to a stop by the platform and you wait for the doors to open, but it never does. 

A surge of panic rushes through you like a wave. “Open the door!” You scream up at the ceiling, at the voice you’ve heard a million times announcing each arrival and departure. “Please–” Your voice cracks and breaks, desperately prying at the doors with your fingernails. 

You keep your eyes trained on the man slumped on the floor, and for a moment, you think the train might pick up speed and you’ll never find your way back to him again. 

Then the doors slide open and you spill onto the train platform, face wet and sticky with tears and sweat. 

The train takes off, shaking the ground as you sprint towards the stranger like he was your saviour. 

Wonwoo thinks the universe must be glitching when he opens his eyes to see you. Your eyebrows are furrowed in worry as you fuss over him, hands grabbing at his bad leg and at his bruised hands, fingers tracing his battered knuckles with a sort of familiarity. 

“Y/N–” It comes out a croak, a little clumsy as he stumbles over the syllables of your name. “You’re here.” It’s a little unbelievable, as he raises a shaky hand to cup your face in his palms. 

He doesn’t miss the way you flinch at his touch, as if his hand burned your skin. He doesn’t miss the look you give him either. You don’t recognize him. You don’t have the faintest clue as to who he is. 

His hand retracts and drops to rest beside the rest of him. 

“You’re bleeding.” You whisper, choosing to ignore the fact that the stranger knew your name. “Your leg–” It’s an ugly sight, but you do your best to look at it instead of looking away. 

He lets out a sound that comes in between something of a groan and a sigh. “The monsters, they–” The rest of his sentence trails off, indescribable incidents too complex for words, but you know. 

“They’re ferocious, I know.” You offer up a weak smile, searching for humour in the midst of such gruesome things. “Nearly cut my arm off two stops ago.” 

The stranger’s lips twitch at the comment. It looks like a smile, or whatever remained of one– the rest lost to the tunnels a long time ago. 

You reach a tentative hand up to fix his glasses, rebalancing them on the bridge of his nose, wiping them clean with the sleeve of your shirt. 

He mumbles a quiet word of thanks before his eyes close again. 

You slump down to rest beside him, pressing your fingers against his wrist, focusing on the thready drum of his pulse. It rings in your ears, overtaking the loud wind of the train and the thunder coming from the train tracks. 

You drift off the sleep, your fingers still pressed against his pulse. 

You dream of big cities and the face of the stranger laying next to you.

Wonwoo doesn’t dream, not anymore– not when the focus of all his dreams is laying next to him, for the first time in a dozen years. 

You find the tunnels are easier to handle with someone to talk to. The walls no longer look as hideous and dull as they once did, the blue shining brighter than before, accenting the walls and making the grime and dust nearly invisible. 

There’s a structure, a sense of purpose– as the two of you work together to find your way out. You occasionally go up to the surface for food, water and other necessities. You come to learn that Wonwoo is smart and calculated, as he presents to you the list he had made, detailing which exits weren’t guarded and were safe to go out from. 

You make the train your home, laying tarps and blankets along the blue seats. Wonwoo does his best to help, limping beside you on his makeshift crutch, offering you random tidbits of advice and knowledge. He spends most of his time perched on the seats of the train, his bad leg stretched out on the seats and your journal in his hands. He catalogs the day, flipping through previous entries, cross-referencing them with the present day, looking for patterns in the tunnel’s system. 

You ask Wonwoo what he came down here to look for and he gives you a strange look. Whatever it is, he doesn’t seem to be looking for it anymore, as he helps you search for a way back to your village. 

“Are you sure you don’t remember anything about what the tunnel’s entrance looked like when you entered?” He asks you again after a period of silence, tapping the end of your ink pen against his chin in thought. “Cause mine was covered in metals and copper wires when I walked in, before it transitioned to the subway station layout.” 

You frown at the foreign words. “Wires? Subway?” 

He looks up. “Right. I forget you’re from like wayyyy back.” Wonwoo had traveled through a variety of different timelines searching for you– eons worth. 

You shrug off the confusion. “I just remember it was covered in blue vines. The walls were muddy and cracked– like the inside of a cave.” 

You look at him, hopeful for any sign of recognition in his eyes. You don’t see it. 

“I guess I haven’t explored as much as I thought I had.” Wonwoo looks at you apologetically. “We’ll find it.” There is a glimmer of hope in his voice and you respect him for it. 

“Yeah.” You try to muster up the same kind of hope, yet it sputters out weakly. “Yeah, we’ll find it.” 

Wonwoo knew he had run out of luck when he told you his name and there was no glimmer of realization in your eyes. You had stared at him with the same stare one would give a stranger– a nameless face you were just getting to know, a clean slate of a soul. 

Yet once he had learned you had no clue why you had ventured into the tunnel in the first place, a spark of hope began to appear. You didn’t know what you were missing– yet you were here anyways. 

Up on the surface, Wonwoo had been a physicist. World renowned and revered by all his colleagues, he had turned to the theory of the multiverse after losing you– obsessed with the idea of traveling to a world where you were as lonely as he was. He had entered the tunnel on a hunch, hearing myths of a place that could return those lost to you. His original plan had been to find a version of you out there, in a world where he had died instead of you. He supposed the idea was that you could accompany each other– for any version of you was better than none of you at all. 

But everything had changed now. The tunnel was far more dangerous than he had predicted it to be. And you were right here, living and breathing in front of him. All he had to do was make you remember. Make you fall in love with him all over again. 

Wonwoo stares at you from his spot on the subway floor, a scavenged blanket covering his knees and pooling on the floor around him. You’re scrambling all over the place, mumbling about some markings along the wall. 

A small smile makes its way across his face at the familiar sight. He hasn’t met that many versions of you in his travels, but you seem to be frazzled and a ball of energy in every universe. 

“What are you looking at?” Your voice cuts through the fantasy, breaking the temporary bliss he had found himself in. 

“Nothing.” His lips lay flat once more. 

It was your voice. You might resemble his lost lover down to the minute details, but your voice, your tones and inflections– it was unmistakably different. 

Wonwoo could only delude himself for so long. 

There are sixty-two scratches embedded on the train wall by the time you think you had finally cracked the case. Sixty-two days underground. Sixty-two days stuck next to a strange man– one who stared at you so blatantly and still insisted he wasn’t. 

“You’ve got that look on your face, dove.” He drawls out from his spot on the train floor, an accusatory finger pointed at you. “Speak.” 

You roll your eyes, both at the affectionate name and at the demanding tone. There were still parts of Wonwoo’s old life that he couldn’t shake– his lofty way of speaking and the air of command that followed him into every room. 

Despite these flaws however, you had to admit the two of you had grown close. He had finally let you into glimpses of his old life around day thirty-three, vague stories about his time in the big city: solving complex equations, gambling, teaching at top universities. 

“I lived a lavish lifestyle.” He tried painting the picture for you in immense detail. “Imagine ladies in red dresses that flow down to the floor, wine in every corner, a room so large you can’t see each wall.” He chuckles at your curious eyes. “I was always working too– constantly holed up in my office, scratching numbers into the blackboard. I would have probably rotted in there, but Y/N–” 

You perk up noticeably at your name and Wonwoo pauses, eyes wide at the slip. 

“Me?” You ask, intrigued. “You knew me in your other life?” 

Wonwoo shakes his head, a firm answer with no room for argument. “No, just the same name.” 

“Who was she?” 

“My wife.” 

You recall the way his eyes saddened at the mention of her, how his shoulders slumped and made him look smaller than he really was. It contrasted heavily with the way he was looking at you now, shoulders drawn back and a demanding look on his face. 

You motion for him to join you in your corner of the train and wait for him to maneuver himself over, his bad leg awkwardly limp as he shuffled himself closer. 

“Look.” You point to the sketches in your journal, detailed markings of carvings you had seen along the wall at certain stops. “I was wondering what the weird drawings were on the wall– but I think I figured it out.” 

It’s easy to explain your hunch to Wonwoo. He catches on to the idea quickly, finishing your sentences and filling in the blanks with ease. 

The theory is simple– and with just a bit of luck, it could get you both home. 

The sudden prospect of leaving the tunnel sat in the pits of Wonwoo’s stomach, unsettling and looming in the horizon. 

He didn’t know how to feel about it: the chance that the two of you could escape this place, never to see each other again and without the thing you were looking for. 

Wonwoo didn’t voice this hesitation however, silently following you as you navigated the complex systems of the train by following the markings along the walls. He didn’t say anything when you threw him a reassuring and hopeful look from over your shoulder, promising him that he’d be okay soon. 

He didn’t know how to tell you that the pain– his leg, the absence of the sun– was nothing compared to the pain he had already been in, in a world without you. 

Please. He wanted to beg. Don’t make me go back up there. A couple weeks ago, Wonwoo would have shoved you aside without a second thought, snatching the leather journal from your limp hands and racing towards the stairs to his Y/N– to a version of you who knew and loved him. 

But that was not the case now. You seemed to buzz with hope and it pulled Wonwoo along, stumbling after you like a lost dog. 

The thought of getting out of the tunnel for good excites you, pushing you to keep going as you venture further into the depths of the train system. Wonwoo trails quietly behind you, occasionally tapping your back to get you to slow down. He is silent, for the most part, until you stop by the foot of the white marble staircase leading out into the light. 

“We’re here?” He asks, scrutinizing the way out with wary eyes. “Are you sure?” 

“No.” You admit. “But it’s our best bet.” 

He glances down at the journal in your hands and the scribbles that covered most of its pages. “How does it work?” 

You spend most of the night explaining to Wonwoo how the markings work as a guide, laying on the cold concrete of the station floor. 

“We’ll try going up to the surface tomorrow.” You propose, glancing at the shadows already beginning to form around the base of the stairs, as if sensing your plan. “It’ll work, as long as we do it together.” 

Wonwoo nods, but there’s something you can’t pinpoint behind his eyes. “Right. Together.” 

Wonwoo wakes up in cold sweat, bolting upright to see you still sleeping peacefully beside him, the journal clutched loosely in your arms. 

It’s clear, what he has to do. 

“I’m sorry.” He mumbles, getting up awkwardly from his spot on the floor. 

He snatches the journal from your limp arms and flips to a new page. He maps out a new route. 

Wonwoo would like to think he’s changed since meeting you– since the tunnel had claimed his life, but he knows he hasn’t. He’s still every bit as selfish as he was before. 

He boards the next train and counts the stops until his destination. 

He’s still looking for you. 

Wonwoo doesn’t know what he was expecting. More shadows to fend off, most likely. He imagined he would emerge from the subway station to a vibrant city, one with those aristocratic elements you had always enjoyed. 

He figured he’d find you and you’d love him once he explained it all to you. He figured you would love him despite it all. 

“I’m sorry, Woo.” Is what he gets instead, your eyes sad and holding pity for him. “I don’t know what you were expecting but–” 

“I came all this way.” He protests, and he knows it sounds weak. “I came all this way. I-” I came all this way. 

“I know.” He doesn’t miss the way your eyes flick to his battered leg, over and over again, as if you can’t quite believe what you were seeing. “I can’t– it’ll mess with the timeline, you know that.” 

He did know that. Yet he was selfish and wanted you anyway. 

“I’d burn down a hundred timelines if it meant I could have you again.” 

Your eyes grow sadder at his words. “And that is why I can’t.” There’s an emphasis on it, a finality. 

“Tell me to leave, then.” He takes a step closer. 

You can’t. Your mouth opens and closes with frustration. 

“Tell me to leave.” His heart beats louder, quicker now– as his hands reach out for you. He’s so close. So close. 

And then you say it. You spit out the word like a sour drink and it washes over Wonwoo’s face, paralyzing him. 

Leave.

And so he walks briskly, back along the city streets, past buildings that resembled his life before, back down those damn stairs. Back down into the darkness. Back to where he came before. 

You wake up alone. The silence of the tunnel– void of his breath– haunts you as you stir, sitting upright to look at the empty spot next to you. 

Your notebook is gone and so is he. 

“Don’t cry.” You chide yourself, picking yourself up from the cold floors and gathering your things. “You barely know the guy.” 

It was true. Despite having latched onto him like he was your lifeline, you and Wonwoo were still strangers. You tell yourself over and over again that it made sense for him to leave, if only as a way to soothe the anger quietly burning within you. 

“He wants his wife.” You remind yourself. “He’s not here looking for you.” 

The shadows churn along the bottom of the stairwell, the light from outside refracting onto the walls of the station, dancing like fireflies. You pick up the first weapon you find: a metal pipe. 

Fuck him, you decide. You’re getting yourself out of here, whether he wants to follow you or not. 

The shadows grow more aggressive as if taking on the silent challenge, beckoning you to fight them, to try. 

You let out a yell– a broken and insane one– unleashing from the pits of your stomach and releasing all the anger, pain and desperation. 

You picture what might await you at the top of those stairs. A secluded cottage house, flowers spanning on for miles, a friend waving at you from the porch. 

You take a deep breath. The shadows spin faster still. You charge. 

Wonwoo stumbles down the stairs like a ragdoll. He ricochets off the last step and lands roughly on the damp ground, cowering from the pain and embarrassment. 

He feels like dying, but he pulls himself back together enough to board the train again, navigating the system until he spills back onto the platform he had come from. 

He pictures what he might see as he raises his head from the ground. Your worried eyes, a wave of relief washing over them as they meet his. You, running across the platform to meet him. You, you, you. 

He raises his head and wishes he hadn’t at all. It is unmistakably empty. You are unmistakably gone. 

The tunnel is a distant memory now, resurfacing in your mind only when the rain gets hard and the farm starts to smell like the underground.

“You’ve got that look on your face.” He sets down a cup of tea on the table in front of you, bending down to press a kiss to your forehead. 

You smile. “Just thinking about how we met.” 

He pushes his glasses up with the back of his hand as his eyes crinkle with laughter at the memory. “When you stumbled into my garden, bloody and completely out of your mind?” 

You hum. 

“You thought I was a ghost. You knew my name.” 

You remember. The scratch of your throat when you had croaked out his name, stunned to see the man standing before you. The sinking feeling when you realized they were not the same Wonwoo. 

“No matter.” He shakes the memory away with a touch of his hand on yours. “That was a lifetime ago, my dove. And whatever it was, I’m glad it brought you to me. I love you.” 

You nod, and the memories of the Wonwoo you had encountered– loved– in the tunnels disappear. “I love you too.” 

You wonder vaguely where he is now. You hope he got what he was searching for too. 

day 170 

timeline #100

There is no way out. I was foolish to think there ever was. My mind spins back to that morning on the platform, a decision away from life and…whatever this is. Purgatory. Death. 

I should not have left. I know that. I grew selfish and discarded my chance at happiness. The tunnel, I’ve learned, gives you one chance and one chance only. 

Y/N was my chance. I should have followed her home. I should have…

It’s no matter now. I know now to stop searching. Timeline #100’s Y/N told me the truth. She had it all figured out, buried in research after her Wonwoo had died. 

There is no universe where both of us live. It is impossible. It is our canon event. Each time Y/N meets Wonwoo– she dies in the next 5 years. Each time Wonwoo seeks Y/N out— he dies in the next 3. 

It is impossible. I must stop trying. It’s time to be selfless– for once. My Y/N, wherever you are, I will stop looking. Live for me. For us. 

The shadows creep through the cracks towards me as I write this last entry. They are welcoming me home. 

Day 17132

timeline #4800 

research on the multiverse + subway system

Time does not flow the same underground, in the belly of the subway system. It has been 46.9 years since Y/N has disappeared and I have still not aged one bit. 

The tunnel makes no mistakes. It knows what it’s doing. 

The tunnel returns those lost to you. 

I have been stuck on this paradox for decades: the tunnel promises happy endings. Yet there is no universe where Y/N and I live happily ever after. None at all. 

Yet… time does not flow at all in the tunnel. And in these 46.9 years, I have not met another soul underground. 

We could have lived forever underground. Together. She would not have died in 5 years. I would not have died in 3. We…we could have had it all. 

There is a missing phrase from the legend: 

The tunnel returns those lost to you… but only ever once. 

Fuck. 

[shaylogic]

[cementcornfield]

can't stop watching that video with the new angle and the way ja'marr lets out a breath after letting go of joe and kind of tilts his head looking at joe saying long way in such a fond thoughtful tone.

[reasonsforhope]

"The first modern attempt at transferring a uterus from one human to another occurred at the turn of the millennium. But surgeons had to remove the organ, which had become necrotic, 99 days later. The first successful transplant was performed in 2011 — but even then, the recipient wasn’t immediately able to get pregnant and deliver a baby. It took three more years for the first person in the world with a transplanted uterus to give birth. 

More than 70 such babies have been born globally in the decade since. “It’s a complete new world,” said Giuliano Testa, chief of abdominal transplant at Baylor University Medical Center.

Almost a third of those babies — 22 and counting — have been born in Dallas at Baylor. On Thursday, Testa and his team published a major cohort study in JAMA analyzing the results from the program’s first 20 patients. All women were of reproductive age and had no uterus (most having been born without one), but had at least one functioning ovary. Most of the uteri came from living donors, but two came from deceased donors.

Fourteen women had successful transplants, all of whom were able to have at least one baby.  

“That success rate is extraordinary, and I want that to get out there,” said Liza Johannesson, the medical director of uterus transplants at Baylor, who works with Testa and co-authored the study. “We want this to be an option for all women out there that need it.”

Six patients had transplant failures, all within two weeks of the procedure. Part of the problem may have been a learning curve: The study initially included only 10 patients, and five of the six with failed transplants were in that first group. These were “technical” failures, Testa said, involving aspects of the surgery such as how surgeons connected the organ’s blood vessels, what material was used for sutures, and selecting a uterus that would work well in a transplant. 

The team saw only one transplant fail in the second group of 10 people, the researchers said. All 20 transplants took place between September 2016 and August 2019.

Only one other cohort study has previously been published on uterus transplants, in 2022. A Swedish team, which included Johannesson before she moved to Baylor, performed seven successful transplants out of nine attempts. Six women, including the first transplant recipient to ever deliver a baby back in 2014, gave birth.

“It’s hard to extract data from that, because they were the first ones that did it,” Johannesson said. “This is the first time we can actually see the safety and efficacy of this procedure properly.”

So far, the signs are good: High success rates for transplants and live births, safe and healthy children so far, and early signs that immunosuppressants — typically given to transplant recipients so their bodies don’t reject the new organ — may not cause long-term harm, the researchers said. (The uterine transplants are removed after recipients no longer need them to deliver children.) And the Baylor team has figured out how to identify the right uterus for transfer: It should be from a donor who has had a baby before, is premenopausal, and, of course, who matches the blood type of the recipient, Testa said...

“They’ve really embraced the idea of practicing improvement as you go along, to understand how to make this safer or more effective. And that’s reflected in the results,” said Jessica Walter, an assistant professor of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, who co-authored an editorial on the research in JAMA...

Walter was a skeptic herself when she first learned about uterine transplants. The procedure seemed invasive and complicated. But she did her fellowship training at Penn Medicine, home to one of just four programs in the U.S. doing uterine transplants. 

“The firsts — the first time the patient received a transplant, the first time she got her period after the transplant, the positive pregnancy test,” Walter said. “Immersing myself in the science, the patients, the practitioners, and researchers — it really changed my opinion that this is science, and this is an innovation like anything else.” ...

Many transgender women are hopeful that uterine transplants might someday be available for them, but it’s likely a far-off possibility. Scientists need to rewind and do animal studies on how a uterus might fare in a different “hormonal milieu” before doing any clinical trials of the procedure with trans people, Wagner said.

Among cisgender women, more long-term research is still needed on the donors, recipients, and the children they have, experts said.

“We want other centers to start up,” Johannesson said. “Our main goal is to publish all of our data, as much as we can.”"

-via Stat, August 16, 2024

[thighsa]

Hi. I wanted to know if you are working on that Izone Minju idea with old men?

That ask sounded hot, so I wanna know to look forward to it or not.

Request :

SILENCED BY AGE

Kim Minju X Grandpa's Friends

Warning : Non Con Smut (please don't read if you don't like it, thanks!)

CHAPTER 1

Kim Minju, a fresh-faced 23-year-old, stepped off the crowded bus with a gentle sigh, the chilly air of the early spring evening kissing her cheeks as she made her way down the quiet street. She had been a member of the world-renowned K-Pop group, Iz*one, but now, her days were filled with a different kind of spotlight: the solitary glow of a single bulb in a dusty nursing home room. Her grandpa's health had been failing for some time now, and with no one else to turn to, she had taken on the role of his primary caregiver.

The nursing home loomed before her, a stark contrast to the glitz and glamour she had once known. The scent of antiseptic and the distant chuckles of the elderly filled her nose as she pushed through the heavy doors. The receptionist, a plump middle-aged woman with a kind smile, nodded in recognition. "Ah, Miss Kim, you're here to see your grandpa again. He's in a good mood tonight."

Minju nodded and made her way down the dimly lit corridor, her heels clicking against the linoleum floor. She pushed open the door to room 306, revealing her grandpa, Mr. Kim, in a wheelchair by the window, staring out into the darkness. He turned to her, his eyes brightening. "Ah, my little Minju," he croaked, reaching out a trembling hand. "You came."

Her heart swelled with love as she took his hand and leaned in to kiss his cheek. "Of course, Grandpa. I'll always be here for you." She began to unpack the small bag of goodies she had brought him, his favorites from their weekly market trips before his health declined. The room was small and simple, with a single bed and a few personal items scattered about, a sad reflection of the vibrant life he once led.

As the weeks passed, Minju grew closer to the other residents of the nursing home, their grandpa-like charm and gentle teasing a comforting balm to her lonely soul. Most of them are widowers, each with stories of love and loss that stretched back decades. They seemed so innocent, so harmless, their flirtatious comments and innuendos slipping past her like whispers in the wind. But there was something in their eyes that made her feel... different. Something she couldn't quite put her finger on.

One evening, as she sat with her grandpa watching the news, Mr. Park, a sprightly octogenarian with a twinkle in his eye, sidled over to her. "Miss Kim," he began, his voice low and conspiratorial. "You're so pretty, so young. You must have a boyfriend, yes?" His friends chuckled quietly from their chairs nearby, their eyes glinting with mischief.

Minju blushed, shaking her head. "No, Mr. Park. I'm busy with my career." The grandpas feigned disappointment, their eyes never leaving her as she continued to care for her grandpa, their gazes lingering on her curves and the way she moved. It was innocent at first, but soon she noticed the way their glances grew more brazen, their smiles more knowing.

The fateful evening came when Minju's grandpa complained of the cold. She excused herself to the storage room to grab a fresh comforter. The room was a maze of shelves, filled with linens and supplies, and she had to navigate through it carefully. As she pulled out the requested item, she heard the squeak of the door opening.

Mr. Lee, one of the more talkative grandpas, shuffled in, his eyes twinkling with something more than innocent curiosity. "Ah, Miss Kim," he began, his voice a raspy purr. "Alone at last." He leaned heavily on his cane, the room suddenly feeling much smaller. "You know, I've noticed how much you care for your grandpa, how you've given up so much for him. It's quite admirable."

Minju's stomach lurched as she took a step back, her hands gripping the comforter tightly. "Mr. Lee, I'm sure my grandpa would love to see you, but he's a bit tired right now."

Mr. Lee's smile grew wider, his teeth gleaming in the soft light. "Nonsense, I just want a little hug from such a lovely young lady like yourself." His eyes swept over her body, and Minju's heart began to race. Something about his tone sent a shiver down her spine. She felt the weight of his gaze like a physical touch, and she knew she needed to get out of this situation quickly.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Lee," she began, taking a step backward, only to feel the cold metal of the shelving unit against her spine. "But I really should get back to Grandpa."

Mr. Lee's smile morphed into something predatory. "Ah, come now, Miss Kim. Just one little hug, that's all I ask." His voice was a gravelly whisper, his hand reaching out to her.

Minju's heart hammered in her chest, the room spinning as she tried to find a way out. But she was trapped, the towering shelves of supplies blocking her escape. She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. "Mr. Lee, please, I don't think this is appropriate."

But Mr. Lee's hand was already on the door, the click of the lock echoing through the small space. "Oh, don't worry, my dear," he said, his voice thick with a lust that had been simmering beneath the surface for weeks. "Your grandpa's sleeping soundly, and the nurses are busy with their rounds."

He took another step closer, and Minju felt the heat of his breath against her neck. His hand reached out, landing firmly on her ass, squeezing it as if it were a piece of fruit he was testing for ripeness. She gasped, her eyes going wide with shock and fear. His other hand followed suit, cupping her breast through her sweater, his thumb flicking against her nipple. She tried to push him away, but his grip was surprisingly strong for a man his age.

"Mr. Lee, please," she pleaded, her voice shaking, but he was deaf to her protests. His hand moved up to her neck, gently caressing the soft skin as his thumb traced the line of her jaw. His eyes bore into hers, dark with desire.

"You're so beautiful," he murmured, his breath hot and ragged against her ear. His other hand continued to roam, sliding down her waist to squeeze her ass again, his thumb pressing against the fabric of her skirt, hinting at the flesh beneath. "So... young and firm."

Panic surged through Minju as she realized the extent of his intentions. She tried to push him away, her heart racing as she felt his hands moving over her body with a possessiveness that made her skin crawl. "Please, Mr. Lee," she whispered, her voice strained. "We can't do this."

But Mr. Lee was not to be deterred. He leaned in closer, his breath reeking of minty toothpaste and something darker, something that made her stomach churn. "You're just like your late mother," he murmured, his hand sliding up her thigh. "So sweet, so innocent." His voice grew gruffer, hungrier.

With a sudden burst of strength, Minju pushed him away, the comforter slipping from her grasp. She stumbled backward, her head colliding with the cold, hard wall. Stars danced before her eyes, and she felt herself slipping, the room spinning out of control.

Mr. Lee took advantage of her daze, his hands grabbing her shoulders and slamming her back against the shelves. The force was enough to knock the wind out of her, and she felt her legs give way. She slumped to the floor, her vision going dark. The last thing she heard was the rustling of fabric as he dropped to his knees beside her, his breathing heavy and ragged.

When Minju came to, the world was a haze of pain and confusion. Her head throbbed, and her body felt cold and exposed. She looked down to find her clothes torn to shreds, her pale skin stark in the dim light. Her panties were gone, replaced by a piece of fabric lodged in her mouth, gagging her. Panic surged through her as she struggled against her binds, her wrists and ankles tied tight with strips of her own clothing.

Mr. Lee loomed over her, his phone held out at an odd angle. The sickening realization dawned on her: he was recording her. His gnarled fingers traced the line of her body, his eyes feasting on her like a starving man. She tried to scream, but the fabric muffled her cries, turning them into pathetic whimpers that only seemed to excite him further.

He leaned down, his tongue snaking out to lick the salty tears from her cheek. The sensation was so foreign, so disgusting, that she nearly vomited. His hands roamed further, one sliding down her chest to pinch her nipple, the other reaching up to hold her face still as he clenched his teeth around the tender peak. Minju's eyes rolled back in her head as she gagged on the fabric, her body writhing in a futile attempt to escape his touch.

With a grunt, Mr. Lee pulled away, his eyes alight with a depraved hunger. He slid two of his thick, wrinkled fingers down her trembling thighs, pushing them into the warm, untouched folds of her virgin pussy. The intrusion was sudden, painful, and Minju's body tensed, her eyes wide with horror. He moved them roughly, as if she were nothing more than a toy to be played with and discarded. She had never felt anything so violating, so wrong, and the pain was like a living thing, twisting and coiling inside her.

Her thoughts raced as she searched for a way out of this nightmare. She had to get away, had to tell someone, but the gag in her mouth muffled her screams, and her body was useless against the weight of his own. His breath was hot and foul against her neck as he whispered sweet nothings, his voice a parody of tenderness. She felt his erection pressing against her leg, and she knew what was coming next.

With a grin that sent a shiver of revulsion through her, Mr. Lee unzipped his pants, freeing his swollen cock. It was a sight she never thought she would see, and it filled her with a mix of terror and disgust. He stroked it slowly, the veins pulsing as he took in the sight of her vulnerable form. His hand moved to her face, the fabric of the gag sticky with her tears and saliva.

"Look at me, Minju," he growled, his voice thick with lust. "Look at what you're doing to me." He forced her chin up, his hand pressing against her cheek, and she couldn't help but stare at his twisted expression of pleasure. The phone in his other hand held steady, capturing every second of her degradation.

With a grunt, Mr. Lee positioned his cock between her trembling legs. She could feel the warmth and wetness of her own arousal, despite the fear that held her captive. Her body was betraying her, responding to his touch despite her mind's desperate screams of no. He leaned in, his weight pressing her into the cold floor as he lined himself up with her entrance. She squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the pain that was about to come.

The moment he entered her, it was like a hot knife sliding through butter. She bit down hard on the gag, muffling her scream as her body stretched to accommodate his thickness. The pain was unlike anything she had ever experienced, stealing her breath away in a fiery rush. His grip on her face tightened, his eyes never leaving hers as he pushed in deeper, filling her completely.

Minju's eyes watered as she felt him inside her, her mind racing with the horror of what was happening. She had never been with anyone before, had never even been kissed in the way she had read about in romance novels. And now, her first time was being stolen from her by this monster of a man who had once been her grandpa's friend.

Mr. Lee's hips began to thrust, each movement a brutal invasion that made her feel like she was being torn apart. She could hear the wet slap of his flesh against hers, the sound echoing through the small room like a taunt. His grip on her face didn't waver, his thumb pressing into her cheek as he held her in place, forcing her to watch the perverted show he was putting on for his own sick amusement.

Her virginity was lost in a flash, the pain so intense it was almost unbearable. She tried to clench her legs together, but his weight was too much. All she could do was lay there, sobbing and trembling as he took from her what she had been saving for someone she truly loved. His eyes never left hers, the hunger in them growing with each thrust. He was a man possessed, driven by a lust that had been festering for years, waiting for this moment to claim her innocence.

Mr. Lee's strokes grew more vigorous, his breaths turning into grunts of pleasure. Minju felt a wave of nausea wash over her as she felt his cock pulse inside her, releasing a warm, sticky flood that filled her up. The feeling was alien, disgusting, and she felt her body convulse around him. The fabric in her mouth was wet with drool now, and she could taste the bitterness of her own fear.

He pulled out, the sudden absence of him inside her leaving her feeling empty and violated. He stood up, his pants still open, his cock still hard and gleaming with her innocence. He looked down at her, a twisted smile playing on his lips. "Now, Miss Kim," he said, his voice cold and hard. "If you ever tell anyone about this, I'll make sure that video goes viral. You'll be known as the nursing home whore." He chuckled, the sound sending chills down her spine.

Minju's eyes widened in terror as she took in the reality of his threat. The video, the proof of her defilement, was in his hands. Her career, her reputation, her very identity as a virgin, all of it could be shattered with a single click. She nodded, her eyes pleading as she struggled against her binds. He took his phone and tucked it into his pocket, the smug look on his face telling her that he had won.

Mr. Lee bent down, his grip on her jaw tight as he pulled the fabric from her mouth. The taste of her own fear and saliva made her want to retch, but she held it back, her eyes never leaving his. "Now, my little cumdump," he said, his voice dripping with malice. "You're going to clean me up, and then we'll pretend like this never happened." He held his cock out to her, the last remnants of his release still glistening on the tip.

Minju felt a fresh wave of humiliation wash over her as she nodded, her voice a hoarse whisper. She took the shaking hand he offered and allowed him to pull her to her knees. The floor was cold and unforgiving, but she knew she had no choice. She leaned forward, her trembling hands supporting her as she took him into her mouth. The taste was bitter, the smell of his arousal filling her nose. She closed her eyes, focusing on the warmth of his flesh as she licked and sucked, trying to erase the evidence of what he had done to her.

Mr. Lee's eyes rolled back in his head, a low groan escaping his lips as she worked her mouth around his cock. He had taken her innocence so easily, and now he was taking her dignity as well. Her eyes remained closed, tears streaming down her face as she cleaned him, her mind racing with the reality of what had just transpired. How could she ever face her grandpa again? How could she go back to her life, knowing what these men had done to her?

After a few moments, Mr. Lee pulled away, his cock clean and glistening. He tucked it back into his pants with a self-satisfied smile. "Good girl," he murmured, patting her head like a pet. "Now, remember, not a word." With that, he turned and left the storage room, the door creaking shut behind him.

Minju remained on the floor for what felt like an eternity, her body trembling with shock and disgust. She managed to untie the makeshift binds, her trembling hands clumsy with fear.

The clock on the wall ticked away the moments, each second a painful reminder of the horror she had just endured. She knew she had to compose herself, had to act as if nothing had happened. But as she stumbled back to her grandpa's room, the weight of her violation felt like it was crushing her from the inside out.

Mr. Kim slept peacefully, oblivious to the monster that had just claimed her innocence. Minju took a shaky breath, willing herself to push the memories aside. She had to be strong for her grandpa; she couldn't let him see the fear in her eyes, the pain that was now a permanent part of her.

As she settled him into bed, Mr. Kim's eyes fluttered open. "Is everything okay, Minju?" he asked, his voice thick with sleep.

"Yes, Grandpa," she lied, her voice wavering. "Just making sure you're comfortable."

Minju's hands trembled as she tucked the blankets around Mr. Kim, avoiding his gaze. She couldn't tell him what had happened, not now, not ever. She kissed his forehead and whispered a goodnight before retreating to the chair beside his bed. The darkness of the room seemed to swallow her whole, the shadows playing tricks on her mind as she replayed the horrific events of the evening.

Exhaustion eventually took hold, and she slipped into a fitful sleep, plagued by nightmares of Mr. Lee's leering face and the pain of his touch. The hours passed slowly, each tick of the clock a painful reminder of the silent prison she now found herself in.

CHAPTER 2

In the deepest part of the night, Minju was jolted awake by the sound of a gentle knock on her grandpa's door. She sat up, her heart racing, as one of the nurse's voice called out to her softly. "Miss Kim, Mr. Lee wants to see you in his room."

Her stomach churned with dread. She knew what he wanted, and the thought of facing him again made her skin crawl. But she had no choice. The video was his leash, and she was his unwilling pet. She slid out of bed, careful not to wake her grandpa, and wrapped a robe around herself. She took a deep breath, steeling herself for what was to come.

Mr. Lee's room was down the hall, and she walked there with leaden feet. The corridor was silent, the only sound her own racing heart. When she reached his door, she paused, her hand hovering over the handle. Another knock, more insistent this time. "Miss Kim, don't keep an old man waiting."

Minju took a deep breath and turned the knob, the room inside dimly lit by a single bedside lamp. The curtains were drawn, and the air was thick with the scent of his cologne, which now made her stomach twist. She stepped inside, and before she could even fully close the door, Mr. Lee's hand was on her, his grip firm on her wrist as he spun her around. His eyes glinted with excitement as he looked her over, his hand sliding down to cup her ass.

"Ah, Miss Kim," he murmured, his breath hot against her ear as he squeezed her cheek roughly. "You're even more beautiful when you're scared." He leaned in closer, his teeth grazing her neck as his other hand began to roam, his fingers sliding under her robe to trace the sensitive skin of her back. She could feel his erection pressing against her stomach, a cruel reminder of what was to come.

"Now, now," he said, his voice a low purr. "Let's not waste any more time. I've been thinking about this all night." He released her and took a step back, his eyes never leaving hers as he began to unbutton his pajama top. His chest was covered in a thin layer of silver hair, his skin wrinkled and spotted with age. "Undress me, my dear," he ordered, his voice thick with lust.

Minju's hand trembled as she reached out to obey, the weight of his gaze heavy on her. She helped him shed his top, revealing a stomach that hung over his pajama bottoms. His skin was soft and cold to the touch, a stark contrast to the hardness of his erection that pressed against the fabric. She forced herself to look away, focusing on the task at hand.

Mr. Lee handed her a small bottle of oil that he had been hiding under his pillow. She uncapped it, the scent of something musky and overpowering filling the air. He patted the edge of the bed, and she swallowed hard, her legs wobbling as she sat beside him. He lay down, his eyes never leaving hers as she took a deep, shaky breath and began to massage the oil into his back. Her hands moved in slow, deliberate circles, her thoughts racing as she tried to find a way out of this nightmare.

"Oh, you do massage so much better than the nurses here," he groaned, his voice a gruff growl that made her skin crawl. "They're all so rough and uncaring. But you, my dear, you have the gentle touch of an angel." His words were a mockery of the situation, a twisted game that only served to deepen her humiliation. She continued to work the oil into his skin, her stomach turning as she felt his muscles tense beneath her trembling fingers.

"I want you to stop massaging me with your hand," he said, his voice dropping to a commanding whisper. "Undress and use your breast to massage my back, body to body." Minju's heart skipped a beat. The very idea of using her naked body to service this vile old man was repulsive, but she knew better than to argue. With trembling hands, she undid the tie of her robe, letting it fall open to reveal her bare skin.

Her modest breasts were heaving with fear and revulsion, but she knew he was watching every move, his eyes devouring her. She swallowed hard, trying to compose herself as she straddled him, her legs shaking as she settled her weight onto his thighs. The feel of his skin against hers was like a brand, searing her with a sense of wrongness that she couldn't ignore. She leaned forward, her breasts pressing into the oily expanse of his back as she began to move them in slow, deliberate circles. The friction was strange, the sensation of her nipples against his flesh making her want to scream.

Mr. Lee's hand slithered around her, reaching for the bottle of oil. He poured a generous amount onto her chest, his gnarled fingers smearing it across her skin as he chuckled to himself. "Looks like you need a little help," he said, his voice thick with lust. She felt his hand close around her breast, guiding it against his back as he took the bell nipple clamp from the bedside table. Her heart raced as he held it up, the cold metal glinting in the dim light.

"This will make things more... interesting," he murmured, a wicked smile playing on his lips. With surprising deftness, he attached the clamp to her nipple, twisting it tight until she gasped in pain. The sensation was sharp, a bolt of agony that shot through her body. "Now," he said, his voice gruff with excitement. "Massage me with your clamped nipple."

Minju bit her lip, the pain making her eyes water as she began to move her chest against his back again. The metal pinched and pulled at her sensitive flesh with every stroke, the sound of the bell chiming with every movement she made. It was a twisted symphony of pain and pleasure, and she hated herself for the way her body responded, her nipples growing harder despite the torment.

The sound of the bell woke up Mr. Park and Mr. Cho from their nearby rooms. They had been lying in bed, listening to the TV, when the faint ringing caught their attention. Curiosity piqued, they both shuffled out into the hallway, the sound growing clearer with every step. They followed it like it was a siren's call, until they found themselves standing outside Mr. Lee's door, their hearts racing with anticipation.

Mr. Park's hand hovered over the doorknob, his breathing shallow and quick. He glanced at Mr. Cho, who gave a nod of encouragement. Slowly, Mr. Park turned the knob and pushed the door open, the hinges squeaking like a confession. The sight that greeted them was not what they had expected. Minju was straddling Mr. Lee, her robe open, her breasts bouncing with the movement as the metal clamp chimed with each press against his back. The room was thick with the scent of oil and lust, and their eyes widened with excitement at the sight of the young, vulnerable girl being used so wantonly by the man they had known as a harmless old neighbor.

Mr. Cho's gaze fell to the clamp, his eyes lighting up with perverse interest. "Looks like she's been a good girl," he whispered, his voice hoarse with excitement. Mr. Park nodded, licking his lips as he took in the scene. They had always had their suspicions about Mr. Lee's intentions, but to see it playing out in such an explicit manner was beyond their wildest imaginations. They watched in silence, their own desires growing with every twitch of Minju's body, every whimper she couldn't hold back.

Mr. Lee's eyes flicked to the doorway, and he saw his audience. His grin grew wider, his eyes glinting with a malicious joy as he beckoned them closer. "Gentlemen," he said, his voice a low rumble. "I see you've come to join the party." Minju's eyes grew wide with horror, realizing she was not the only one who knew about her degradation. The fear of being watched by these men she had once considered harmless was almost as overwhelming as the pain in her chest.

Mr. Park stepped into the room, his eyes never leaving Minju's breasts. "We wouldn't want to miss this, would we?" He said, his voice a low, hungry growl. Mr. Cho followed, his own gaze lingering on the sight of Minju's exposed flesh. Mr. Lee chuckled, the sound sending a shiver down her spine. "Good, good," he murmured. "The more the merrier."

"Miss Kim," Mr. Lee said, his eyes gleaming with excitement. "I want you to keep doing what you're doing, but I think it's time to introduce you to some new friends." He gestured to the two men standing in the doorway, their lust palpable in the air. "Mr. Park and Mr. Cho here have been wanting to meet you for quite some time."

With trembling hands, Mr. Park reached out to close the door behind them, the click of the lock echoing through the room like a gunshot. Mr. Cho followed suit, drawing the curtains and ensuring no prying eyes could peer in from the outside. The room was now a cocoon of darkness, the only light coming from the bedside lamp that cast eerie shadows across their leering faces.

Minju's eyes darted between the two new intruders, her mind racing with fear. Mr. Lee's hand slithered down to her waist, his grip firm as he whispered, "Don't worry, my dear. They're just here to make sure you don't get lonely." His words sent a shiver down her spine, and she felt a cold sweat break out across her skin.

Mr. Park took a tentative step forward, his eyes locked on the clamped nipples that stood out against her pale flesh. "Can I?" he asked, his voice shaking with excitement. Mr. Lee nodded, a predatory smile spreading across his face. "Go ahead. She's all yours to play with."

Minju felt Mr. Park's hand on her shoulder, his grip surprisingly gentle as he took over her massaging duties. She couldn't hold back the tears anymore, the reality of her situation too much to bear. She was nothing more than a toy for these depraved old men, their lustful gazes stripping away the last vestiges of her dignity.

Mr. Cho shuffled closer, his eyes gleaming as he reached out to caress her thigh, his trembling fingers leaving a trail of oil in their wake. "So soft," he murmured, his voice filled with awe. "So perfect." The words were like a knife in her soul, a painful reminder that she was no longer in control of her own body.

Minju's tears fell in silent streams, her eyes never leaving Mr. Lee's as she felt Mr. Park's hand move down her back, his grip tightening on the clamp. He tugged it gently, and she couldn't help but moan, the pain morphing into a strange, twisted pleasure that made her feel even more ashamed. She felt Mr. Cho's hand move up her leg, his thumb brushing against the wetness between her thighs. "Ah," he said, his voice thick with lust. "Look at how ready she is for us."

With surprising strength, Mr. Cho reached around and ripped her panties from her body, the fabric tearing away with a sound that seemed to echo in the stillness of the night. He tossed the ruined garment aside, his eyes never leaving hers as he took the bottle of oil from the bedside table. She felt the cool liquid cascade over her, running down her back and pooling in the small of her back, making her skin glisten. His hand followed the trail, his palm cupping her ass and squeezing it roughly, his fingers digging into the soft flesh as if he was trying to mold it to his will.

Mr. Lee's voice was like a whip crack, ordering her to remove the robe that barely clung to her. Minju's trembling hands obeyed, the fabric pooling around her wrists before sliding off, leaving her completely exposed to their hungry gazes. She felt a fresh wave of humiliation as the two men took in the sight of her, their eyes raking over her body like it was a feast laid out before them.

Mr. Lee's hand remained firm on her waist as he guided her back into the position she had just vacated, her breasts now oiled and slick from the massage. "Miss Kim," he instructed, his voice low and dangerous. "You're going to continue massaging me with your tits, just like before. Don't stop, no matter what happens."

Minju's eyes remained locked on his, filled with a mix of fear and defiance as she felt Mr. Cho's hands on her hips. His breath was hot on her neck as he whispered, "Mr. Lee, you haven't used this hole yet, have you?" His grip tightened, and she felt something thick and hard pressing against her unprepared anus, the tip of his erection probing the tight ring of muscle. Panic surged through her, but she knew better than to resist. She took a deep, shuddering breath and nodded, her body trembling as Mr. Cho's oiled hand reached around to caress her clit, his other hand guiding his cock into position.

Mr. Park stepped closer, his own excitement palpable as he unzipped his pants. His cock sprang free, standing proud and erect in the soft light of the lamp. He took her right hand, which was still shaking from the trauma of her recent assault, and wrapped it around his shaft. His skin was hot and slick with precum, and she felt him shiver as she tentatively began to stroke him, her movements clumsy and forced. "Good girl," he murmured, his voice a harsh contrast to the gentle stroking of her hand. "You're going to make me feel so good."

Her eyes remained on Mr. Lee's, her silent plea for mercy lost in the sea of his depravity. He simply chuckled, his eyes never leaving hers as he watched Mr. Cho's cock disappear into her tight anus. She felt the head of Mr. Cho's cock breach her, the pain unlike anything she had ever felt before. It was as if she was being torn apart from the inside, her body no longer her own.

With a brutal thrust, Mr. Cho rammed his dick into her virgin ass, the sound of her scream echoing off the walls of the small room. She threw her head back, the pain so intense it was almost unbearable. She could feel him stretching her, filling her with his disgusting lust, and she wanted to die. But she couldn't. She had to keep going, had to keep up the facade for the sake of her grandpa.

Her hand continued to stroke Mr. Park's cock, her movements jerky and awkward as she tried to focus on anything but the agony in her ass. She felt Mr. Cho's hand move to her clit, his fingers moving with a speed that seemed inhuman. He began to rub her clit with a fervor that matched the tempo of his thrusts, the sensation sending shockwaves of pleasure and pain through her body.

Minju's screams grew louder, her body convulsing as she was pushed to the brink of sanity. She could feel Mr. Cho's balls slapping against her ass with each thrust, the pressure building in her stomach, her mind a whirlwind of despair. The pain was so intense it was almost unbearable, and yet, there was something... more. Something dark and twisted that made her body respond despite her mind's screams for it to stop.

Mr. Cho's grunts grew louder, his grip on her hips tightening as he plunged into her with an almost animalistic fervor. Each thrust was deeper, faster, his cock stretching her to the point she thought she might break. Her breath came in ragged gasps, her chest heaving with the effort to stay upright. The clamp on her nipple was forgotten, the pain lost in the overwhelming sensation of being filled so completely.

Minju felt her body start to shake, her muscles straining against the relentless onslaught. Mr. Cho's cock was thick and unforgiving, pushing into her with a force that left her struggling to breathe. Her eyes watered, and she bit her lip hard to keep from screaming, the pain in her ass a constant reminder of her degradation. Yet, amidst the horror, she felt her own arousal building, a traitorous response that made her hate herself even more.

Suddenly, Mr. Park leaned in, his eyes gleaming with a perverse excitement. His hand reached for the bell nipple clamp, and without warning, he gave it a firm pull, drawing her nipple outwards and elongating it to an almost painful length. The sensation was strange, a mix of agony and a dark, twisted pleasure that sent a jolt straight to her core. She gasped, her eyes flying to Mr. Lee's, who watched with a detached amusement, his hand still firmly on her waist, guiding her movements.

Mr. Cho's thrusts grew more erratic, his breaths coming in pants as he fucked her hard and fast. His hand never stopped working her clit, the relentless pressure building into a crescendo of pain and pleasure that had her entire body trembling. The sound of skin slapping against skin filled the room, a rhythmic beat that matched the pounding of her heart in her ears. The pain in her ass was a living, breathing entity, consuming her, making her aware of every inch of his cock as it plunged in and out of her.

Mr. Park took advantage of her distraction, leaning in to whisper in her ear, his breath hot and rank. "You like that, don't you?" His words were almost a taunt, and she could feel his cock pulsing in her hand, his excitement palpable. He gave the bell clamp another sharp tug, and she felt her nipple stretch even further, the metal digging into her tender flesh. The pain was exquisite, a white-hot line of agony that traveled straight to her clit, making her hips buck involuntarily.

Mr. Cho took the cue, his own excitement reaching a fever pitch. He pulled almost all the way out, the head of his cock teasing the entrance to her ass before slamming back in, making her body jolt. She could feel him getting closer, his thrusts becoming erratic as he neared his climax. Her hand on Mr. Park's cock moved faster, driven by the need to distract herself from the pain, to find some semblance of control in this twisted game.

Mr. Park stepped back, his eyes still locked on hers as he bent down and picked up the shreds of fabric that were once her panties. He held them up with a twisted smile, the flimsy material seemingly innocuous in his grip. With a deft twirl of his wrist, he wrapped the fabric around her right nipple, the oil from her massage making it stick to her skin. He tugged it tight, the fabric biting into her sensitive flesh. The clamp was already a torment, but the addition of the fabric was like a brand new level of hell.

Mr. Cho took a deep breath, his cock still buried in her ass, his eyes glazed with lust as he watched Mr. Park's cruel play. "I think she's enjoying it," he said, his voice strained with his own pleasure. Mr. Lee chuckled, his hand moving to her other breast, giving it a rough squeeze. "Look at her, begging for more."

Minju felt the fabric of her panties tighten around her right nipple, Mr. Park's grip growing stronger with every twist of the makeshift rope. The pain was unbearable, a sharp, burning sensation that seemed to pulse in time with Mr. Cho's thrusts. She could feel her orgasm approaching, a dark, twisted parody of pleasure that she knew would only serve to further humiliate her. She wanted to scream, to beg for them to stop, but she knew that would only make things worse.

Mr. Park leaned closer, his breath hot and moist on her neck. "Look how much you're enjoying this," he said, his voice a harsh whisper. "Look how wet you are." His hand moved down her body, his thumb sliding through the slickness of her pussy before pressing against her clit, adding to the torment. The fabric of her panties grew tauter, the pressure on her nipple increasing with every twist. The clamp's bell chimed a mournful tune with every jerk of her body, a soundtrack to her degradation.

Minju's eyes watered, her teeth digging into her lower lip as she tried to hold back the scream that was building in her chest. She couldn't believe the depth of pain and humiliation she was enduring, her body being used and abused by these old men. The fabric around her nipple grew tighter, the pain blossoming into a white-hot agony that was almost unbearable. She felt like she was being torn apart, her body a plaything in their twisted game.

Mr. Cho's grunts grew more insistent, his thrusts becoming faster and harder. She could feel his cock swelling inside her anus, his orgasm imminent. The thought of him filling her up with his cum was too much, and she couldn't hold back any longer. Her body convulsed, her pussy clenching around Mr. Park's invading thumb as she came, the pleasure ripping through her like a tornado of despair.

Mr. Cho roared as he climaxed, his cock pumping rope after rope of cum into her tight, unprepared hole. The sensation was indescribable, a mix of pain and violation that made her want to scream. The pressure built until she felt like she was going to burst, the warm, sticky fluid filling her up and stretching her to her limits. When he finally pulled out, she couldn't help but whimper as she felt the emptiness, the blood and cum dripping from her gaping anus painting a gruesome picture of her degradation.

Mr. Park watched with a perverse fascination, his own climax building as he saw the evidence of their depravity spilling from her body. He stepped closer, his cock in her hand now slick with precum and her own arousal. His eyes never left hers as he brought himself closer, the head of his cock nudging at her bruised and swollen pussy. "My turn," he said, his voice a low growl.

CHAPTER 3

Mr. Lee nodded in agreement, his own desire clear in his eyes as he positioned himself on the bed. He beckoned her closer, his cock standing proudly erect, a symbol of the power he wielded over her. Minju felt her legs give out, but the two men were quick to support her, their grip on her firm and unyielding as they guided her to the bed. They sat cross-legged, facing each other, a macabre reflection of a scene from a twisted fairy tale.

Mr. Park took his place opposite Mr. Lee, his cock jutting out like an accusation, eager to claim its share of her pussy. She trembled as she felt the head of Mr. Park's cock nuzzle against her slick entrance, the anticipation of the pain to come making her stomach churn. Mr. Lee leaned in, his breath hot in her ear. "Now, Miss Kim," he murmured, his voice a serpent's hiss. "You're going to show us what a good girl you can be."

With a cruel twist of his wrist, Mr. Lee yanked the rope tied to her nipple, the clamp biting deeper into her sensitive flesh. The pain was like a bolt of lightning, making her cry out, her body arching as she was forced onto Mr. Park's cock. It filled her, stretching her pussy to the brink of pain. Mr. Park's eyes never left hers, his own desire mingling with the satisfaction of watching her struggle.

"Now, Mr. Cho," Mr. Lee said, his voice thick with lust as he gestured to her quivering body. "Why don't you get ready for the main event?" He smirked, the gleam in his eye leaving no doubt about what was to come. Mr. Cho nodded eagerly, his hand already moving to his cock, stroking it to full hardness once more.

Mr. Lee turned his attention to Minju, who was sobbing quietly, her eyes darting between the two men as if searching for an escape that didn't exist. "Miss Kim," he said, his voice a mockery of tenderness. "You're going to be our little sandwich now. And remember, no matter how much it hurts, you don't get to come until we say so."

Her breath hitched in her throat, and she felt Mr. Park's cock pressing against her still-sore pussy, Mr. Cho eagerly watching from the side. With a sadistic smile, Mr. Lee nodded to Mr. Park, and with a single, brutal thrust, he filled her, the two dicks stretching her beyond anything she had ever imagined. She couldn't hold back a scream, her body arching back as she took them both, their grips on her hips keeping her in place.

The pain was unbearable, a fiery agony that seemed to consume her entire being as she was forced to accommodate the two thick, old-man cocks. Mr. Park's dick slammed into her pussy, the friction sending waves of pain crashing through her body, while Mr. Lee's cock invaded her ass, the head of it pushing against the bruised, sensitive flesh. Her eyes squeezed shut, tears streaming down her cheeks as she tried to adjust to the intrusion, her mind reeling with the horror of her situation.

Mr. Lee reached up to wipe her tears away, his touch surprisingly gentle given the brutality of the act. "Look at me," he ordered, his voice a soft growl. Minju's eyes flew open, meeting his, and she felt a strange mix of fear and resentment. He leaned in closer, his breath hot against her ear. "You're going to take us both, Miss Kim. And you're going to do it like a good girl."

Mr. Park took the cue, his grip on her hips tightening as he began to move his cock in and out of her pussy, the movement rough and unyielding. "Come on, baby," he coaxed, his voice a sick parody of sweetness.

Minju felt a fresh wave of humiliation wash over her, but she knew she had no choice. With a shaky exhale, she began to rock her hips, trying to find some semblance of rhythm amidst the pain. The two men watched her intently, their eyes feasting on her struggling body as if it were the most erotic thing they had ever seen. The fabric of her panties around her right nipple grew tauter with each movement, the bell chiming a twisted lullaby of despair.

Mr. Park's cock slammed into her with each thrust, the sensation of being split apart by two men at once an agony she never knew existed. Yet, she couldn't deny the way her body responded, the depraved pleasure that seemed to coil around the pain, wrapping itself tightly around her very soul. She bit her lip, trying to keep the moans at bay, but they slipped out, low and guttural, filling the room with the sound of her degradation.

Mr. Cho's hand was back on her clit, his fingers moving with a precision that was almost terrifying. He watched her face with a twisted glee, his eyes never leaving hers as he pushed her closer to the edge. "If you want this all to end," he panted, his voice a harsh echo of Mr. Park's earlier words. "Start moving your hips and show us your horny facial expressions. I want to hear your lewd moans also."

Minju felt a hot blush creep up her neck, her cheeks flaming with shame. But she knew better than to argue. With trembling legs, she began to rock her hips, her movements jerky and forced at first, but gradually growing smoother as the pain gave way to something else. Something darker, something that made her stomach clench with a perverse excitement she had never felt before.

Mr. Cho's fingers worked her clit with a brutal efficiency, drawing out sounds she had never made, sounds that seemed to fuel the old men's desire. She moaned, the sound a strange mix of pain and pleasure, a symphony of degradation that filled the small room. Mr. Park's thrusts grew more insistent, his cock driving into her with a force that made her vision swim. She felt Mr. Lee's grip on her ass tighten, his own need to dominate her apparent in every movement of his hips.

Her face contorted into a mask of lust, her eyes glazed over as she twerked her hips, grinding down onto their cocks. "Oh, yes," she moaned, the words torn from her throat. "Fuck me harder, please!" The words were foreign, a betrayal of everything she had ever known, but they slipped from her lips as if they belonged there.

Mr. Park grinned, his grip tightening on her hips as he began to match her rhythm. "Look at you," he panted. "So eager for more." He thrust harder, the sound of their bodies slapping together filling the air.

Mr. Cho leaned in, his eyes glinting with malicious pleasure as he whispered, "Say it again. Tell us how much you want it." His thumb pressed harder on her clit, and she couldn't hold back the moan that escaped her lips. "Yes," she gasped, her hips moving of their own accord. "Fuck me harder. Please."

The grandpas watched her transformation with a mix of awe and glee, their own arousal spiking at the sight of her submission. Mr. Park's thrusts grew more powerful, his cock plunging into her soaked pussy with an almost savage need. "Look at her," he said to Mr. Cho. "Our little slut is loving it."

Minju's moans grew louder, her hips moving in a frenzied dance as she took the three cocks in one time, her body betraying her with every twitch and jerk. Her mind was a whirlwind of emotions, but the only one that seemed to matter was the desperate need for release. She was theirs now, their toy to use and abuse as they saw fit.

Her pussy clenched around Mr. Park's cock, the sensation of fullness overwhelming as she felt Mr. Lee's cock hit her g-spot with each thrust. The pain in her ass had transformed into a burning need, a hunger that consumed her. She could feel Mr. Cho's cock thicken, his excitement palpable as he watched her degrade herself before their eyes. "Oh, yes," she murmured, her voice thick with lust. "More, please, I need more."

Mr. Park's thrusts grew erratic, his eyes glazed with desire as he watched her body take them both. "Look at you," he grunted, his voice strained. "Such a good girl for your grandpas." The sound of their bodies slapping together grew louder, a testament to their depraved passion.

Minju's moans grew louder, her voice a symphony of pain and pleasure as she was filled beyond capacity. "Oh, grandpa," she whimpered, her hips bucking wildly. "It's too much, please..." But even as she begged for mercy, her body betrayed her, her pussy clenching around Mr. Park's thick cock, urging him deeper.

"Good girl," Mr. Cho murmured, his thumb pressing down on her clit with a merciless precision. "Take it all for us, take it all."

Minju's body was a canvas of pain and pleasure, her moans now a constant backdrop to their depraved symphony. She had become a masochist's dream, a living, breathing embodiment of innocence corrupted. "Daddy, yes," she whispered, her voice barely a breath as she ground her hips down onto their cocks, the word slipping from her lips as if it were the sweetest of endearments. The grandpas' eyes lit up with a twisted delight, their grips on her body tightening in response.

Mr. Park's cock pounded into her with a ferocity that made her vision swim, her pussy clenching around him like a vice as she took them both in her pussy. "Fuck, you're so tight," he grunted, his voice strained with the effort of holding back his own climax. Minju's eyes rolled back in her head, her moans growing louder as she felt the pressure building within her.

Mr. Lee took the opportunity to lean in and whisper in her ear, his breath hot and heavy. "Call me daddy," he demanded, his voice thick with desire. She whimpered, her eyes flying open to meet his, the word a strange, dark thrill on her tongue. "Daddy," she gasped, her hips bucking as Mr. Cho's thumb worked her clit into a frenzy. The grandpas' eyes lit up, their grips tightening on her body as she gave in to their depraved whims.

With a sadistic grin, Mr. Park took his hand and slapped her face, the sound echoing in the small room. Instead of pain, she felt a jolt of pleasure, the sting on her cheek sending a bolt of electricity straight to her core. It was as if her body had been rewired, pain now a conduit for pleasure. She moaned, the word "daddy" slipping from her lips like a prayer.

Mr. Cho's hand left her clit, instead reaching out to slap her left breast, the nipple clamp chiming with the impact. The pain was intense, but instead of screaming, she gasped, her back arching as the pain transformed into something exquisite. The men watched her with a mix of astonishment and excitement, their eyes gleaming as they realized the depths of her newfound masochism.

Mr. Park took his turn, his hand landing on her cheek with a resounding crack, the sting spreading like wildfire across her face. But instead of recoiling, she leaned into it, her body craving the pain as it melded with the pleasure from their brutal fucking. The grandpas' eyes widened, and they shared a knowing look, their grips on her tightening as they grew more eager to push her boundaries.

Mr. Cho took his cue, his cock joining Mr. Park's in a relentless rhythm that had Minju's pussy stretched to the limit. The sensation of being filled by both men was almost too much, a delirious mix of pain and pleasure that had her writhing in their grasp. Mr. Lee, not to be outdone, began to move his own cock faster, the sound of his hips slapping against her ass cheek a gruesome counterpoint to the chiming of the nipple clamp.

Her cries grew more desperate, her body a playground for their depraved desires. Mr. Park leaned in, his teeth grazing her neck as he whispered, "You're going to take us both, baby. You're going to be our little cum dumpster." The words were like a knife in her soul, but she found herself pushing back onto their cocks, eager for the release she knew was just out of reach.

Mr. Cho's grip on her hips tightened, his eyes never leaving hers as he felt his orgasm approaching. He slammed into her one last time, his cock buried to the hilt before letting go with a roar. His hot seed filled her pussy, mixing with Mr. Park's as they both came inside her, their combined cum overflowing and spilling down her thighs. The sensation of being filled by two men at once was overwhelming, a mix of pain and pleasure that seemed to reach down to her very core.

Mr. Park pulled out with a wet pop, his cock glistening with the evidence of their shared violation. He and Mr. Cho stepped aside, allowing Mr. Lee to take his place. The older man's eyes were feverish with lust as they lay down on the bed, Mr. Lee's cock still buried in her ass. "Finish her" Mr. Cho said with a grin, his own cock still hard, the head gleaming with Minju's juices.

Minju's body was a wreck, trembling and sobbing, but she felt Mr. Lee's cock begin to move within her, his strokes rapid and merciless. He gripped her bruised breast tightly, his thumb flicking the nipple clamp with a sadistic glee that sent shockwaves of pain through her. Each twist of the clamp coincided with a thrust into her ass, creating a symphony of agony that she could no longer ignore. Her eyes were wide with fear and confusion, her mind a jumble of emotions she couldn't begin to process.

Mr. Cho and Mr. Park stepped back, their own climaxes subsiding as they watched Mr. Lee claim her one last time. They stroked their own cocks, not yet fully spent, eager to see the culmination of their twisted games. The room was thick with the scent of sex and sweat, the air charged with the electricity of their depraved desires. Minju's cries grew louder as Mr. Lee picked up his pace, the sound of his hips slapping against her ass a sickening reminder of her degradation.

Summoning every ounce of her will, Minju began to moan, the sounds forced and unnatural. She knew that the quicker she could make Mr. Lee cum, the sooner this would all be over. Her eyes locked onto his, she threw her head back, arching her spine and pushing her hips back to meet his thrusts. It was a performance, a desperate bid to appease the monster inside the man she had once looked up to.

"Yes," Mr. Lee grunted, his eyes glazing over with pleasure. "Just like that. You're such a good girl for your grandpa." Each word was a knife twisting in her stomach, but she didn't stop. She couldn't. The only thing that mattered now was escape, and if playing their twisted game meant she could leave this room with some shred of dignity, she would do it.

Minju's moans grew louder, each one a desperate cry for relief. "Daddy," she whispered, her voice shaking. "Please, I need it." It was as if speaking the words gave them power, a dark incantation that bound her to their will. She felt Mr. Lee's cock swell within her, his grip on her hips tightening as he drove himself deeper, harder.

Her eyes squeezed shut, she clenched her anus tighter than ever before, feeling the pressure building. "Oh, yes," she moaned, the words torn from her as Mr. Lee's cock slammed into her over and over. "More, daddy, more." Her body was a battleground, a war between the pain and the strange, perverse pleasure that seemed to be fighting for dominance.

Mr. Lee grunted, his pace increasing as he felt her tighten around him. "That's it," he said, his voice strained with his own need. "You're doing so good for me." Her anus was a vice around him, her muscles contracting with each of his thrusts as if trying to milk every last drop of cum from his balls.

Minju's moans grew more frantic as she felt his cock swell even further, the pressure within her building to unbearable heights. "Oh, daddy," she whispered, her voice a mix of pain and desperation. "Please, please." Her body was a symphony of sensations, the pain and pleasure intertwining until she couldn't tell one from the other.

Her eyes squeezed shut, she focused on the feeling of Mr. Lee's cock inside her, the way it stretched and filled her so completely. She clenched her anus tightly, feeling his length throb with every thrust. "Yes, yes," she moaned, her voice a desperate plea. "It's too much, please, I need it." Her body was no longer her own, a mere receptacle for their lust.

Mr. Lee's breath grew ragged as he watched her face, his eyes narrowed with concentration. "Look at me," he snarled, his grip on her hips unyielding. "Look at your grandpa as he fucks you." The humiliation of his words brought a fresh wave of pain, but she complied, her eyes locking onto his.

Her anus clenched around him, tighter than she had ever thought possible, the sensation pushing him to the brink of release. "Fuck," he grunted, his hips jerking as he drove into her. She felt him swell, the head of his cock pressing against her inner walls, demanding release. Her own body responded, a strange mix of pain and pleasure that made her moan once more.

Minju opened her eyes, her pupils dilated with lust. She had never felt so used, so degraded, and yet she was desperate for more. She leaned into Mr. Lee's touch, her face a mask of wanton need. "Daddy," she whimpered, her voice a breathless plea. "Please, let me have it."

Mr. Lee's eyes narrowed with excitement as he watched her transformation. She was no longer the shy, innocent girl who had walked into this room. She was theirs, a plaything for their twisted games. He thrust into her one last time, his cock pulsing with the force of his climax. She felt his hot seed fill her, the sensation sending her over the edge. Her own orgasm ripped through her, her body convulsing around his cock as she screamed his name.

Minju's mind was a whirlwind of confusion and anger as she felt the warmth of their cum inside her. She turned her body around, her eyes blazing with a fiery determination. Straddling Mr. Lee, she positioned his cock at the entrance of her pussy, her eyes never leaving his. "You're the one who started all of this," she hissed, her voice low and filled with rage. "Turning me into a slut." With a vindictive smile, she sank down onto him, her pussy enveloping his length.

Mr. Lee's eyes widened in surprise as she began to ride him with a frenzy that matched the intensity of their earlier encounters. Her hips moved with a wild abandon, each bounce sending a fresh wave of pleasure-pain through her bruised body. The grandpas watched, their expressions a mix of shock and arousal as she took control.

Her breasts bounced with every downward thrust, the clamps pulling at her nipples, sending jolts of pain-laced pleasure to her already overstimulated brain. Yet, she didn't stop. Instead, she leaned forward, her hands pressing down on Mr. Lee's chest as she bobbed up and down, taking his cock deep inside her. Her moans were no longer forced; they were genuine, raw expressions of the carnality that had been unlocked within her.

Mr. Cho and Mr. Park watched, their own cocks hardening once again as they took in the sight of their young, once-innocent plaything now eagerly fucking their ringleader. They could see the fire in Minju's eyes, the fierce determination to take what was hers by force. It was a sight that both terrified and thrilled them, a testament to the depths of her depravity and their own twisted power.

Minju felt her orgasm building, a crescendo of pain and pleasure that threatened to consume her. Her pussy tightened around Mr. Lee's cock as she rode him, her body moving almost of its own accord. The clamps on her nipples jangled with each thrust, the pain sending bolts of electricity straight to her clit. She threw her head back, her hair a wild mess, her breasts bouncing with every movement.

With a scream that was equal parts rage and ecstasy, she came, her squirt spraying across the room like a fountain. The warm fluid coated Mr. Lee's chest and stomach, the scent of her arousal thick in the air. Her body trembled, the force of her climax stealing her breath. But she didn't stop. Instead, she moved faster, her hips a blur as she ground down on him, her eyes never leaving his.

Mr. Cho and Mr. Park watched with rapt attention, their own cocks hardening again at the sight. They reached for their phones, eager to capture the moment for their own twisted memories. The flashes of light bathed the room in a strobe effect, highlighting the sweat on their bodies and the raw desire etched on their faces. They snapped photo after photo, eager to immortalize Minju in her moment of ultimate degradation.

Her orgasm subsiding, Minju felt a sudden weakness in her legs, but Mr. Lee's iron grip kept her in place, his cock still deep inside her. "Look at you," he taunted, his voice thick with his own arousal. "Our little cum dumpster." The humiliation of his words, combined with the cold reality of their situation, brought a fresh wave of tears to her eyes.

Mr. Cho and Mr. Park circled the bed like vultures, their phones held high, eager to capture her debasement. The flashes of their cameras pierced the dim light, painting the room in a stark, clinical white that only served to highlight the stark contrast of the scene unfolding before them. Minju's body was a canvas of sweat and semen, her dignity shattered into a million pieces.

Her hips slowed, her breath coming in ragged gasps as she felt Mr. Lee's cock pulse within her. His grip on her waist tightened, his eyes never leaving hers as she squirted again, the force of her orgasm making her vision swim. The feeling of her own wetness coating her thighs and the sound of her juices mixing with their cum was a symphony of degradation, and she knew that she had reached her breaking point.

With a final, desperate push, Minju felt her body give out. Her legs buckled, and she collapsed onto Mr. Lee, her breaths coming in short, erratic bursts. The world went dark around her as she fainted, her last conscious thought a silent scream of despair.

THE END

[aziraphale-is-a-cat]

DCxDP Danny Jones

(inspired by this particular image)

The depths of Gotham harbor were, historically, not the kind sort of waters. Many lives had been hidden in their depths, taken by nature or by the nature of man. The coast itself was mostly silt deposits while the water was dark and cold. Many sailors had lost their lives to the unpredictable waters and only rumors told of the number who had been laid to rest beside them. Any day on the beach overlooking the Delaware Bay it could be assumed more people lay beneath the waves than were sunning themselves within their reach.

Danny had grown up landlocked in the great state of Illinois. He had never seen the ocean in his lifetime and generally considered his first experience with it to be the sensation of his death. The portal to the Realms was suffocating, and to his senses, endless. Crashing waves of energy had overtaken him as he felt warmth seep from him for the last time.

A new start in Gotham City was meant to help him escape that emptiness, but standing at the railing over rocky and turbulent waters dissuaded him of the plan's effectiveness. The currents were strangely alluring to Danny, and for yet another night in a row he watched the stars reflect off the water and wondered how they would look from beneath.

He knew it was a strange compulsion, given the reputation of the harbor, but it was one he felt the need to see through. Sighing, Danny made the descent down the generally unwelcoming beach. The rocky dropoff from the wall was easy enough to make his way down, but looking behind him he couldn't help but feel as though it wasn't there to keep people out of the ocean, but in. A wave rolled in lapping at his feet, an invitation.

The water was cold, a welcome temperature as he waded to waist deep, then further. As the water reached his chest he felt a cold hand wrap around his leg. And another. And more.

Being dragged through the ocean, Danny thought, was much less stressful when you didn't need to breathe.

-0-

Red Robin sat idly in the Bat-Swivel, wondering if the new case he'd picked up was a new rogue with a bit, or bonafide supernatural phenomena. One would think that after reaching a certain point in scientifically backed investigation that it would gradually be discovered that all presumed ghost sightings and alien abductions could be disrobed as pseudoscientific Scooby Doo style nonsense, but one would be dismayed to discover otherwise.

A new problem had erupted in fall, as what reports describe to be a drowned soul attacking and disfiguring prominent and low level gang members alike to be later found on the shores of Gotham Harbor. The attacks were committed in ways that at first seemed random, but many could be matched to the details of autopsy reports dating back decades with one thing in common, location of the cadaver.

Each body which could be matched to an attack had been discovered within or on the shores of Gotham Harbor. None of the attacks were fatal nor immobilizing, simply visible, as if the goal of these attacks was to display a level of brutality the victims may have taken with their own victims. The more gruesome of the attacks seemed to be the combination of multiple autopsy reports, which painted a brutal picture.

Tim ran his hand over his face, still covered by the cowl, and exited out from all applications on the Bat Computer. He paused slightly at the file explorer tab. He stopped to take a minute to rename the drive "Davy Jones" before ejecting the external hard drive the case file was stored on and packing up for the night.

[sulfies]

I do think Altair, Ezio and Connor would be mortified by the concept of Animus but At first they would probobly think that its funny, like Ezio would be going "so you just lie down, watch us go about and wake up with our skills?.... Thats cheating!!!" Altair would be prob a bit salty. Connor would wish he had that of an easy time training.

Then they learn its not like "lying down and resting while animus does the work" at all;

Desmond wakes w muscle spasms and phantom pains from injuries he never got. He has chronic insomnia because his sense of time has been blinded so much he is basically jetlagged 24/7. He doesnt remember how long a day is supossed to go, how slow a month passes, how decades indeed take decades. He has backpain from lying down all day without being able to move, then his muscles protest when he has to move out of animus because thats the only time he used them. He forgets to eat, sit, drink, shower till someone tells him because he didnt have to in animus. He is shocked when people speak to him unprompted because there was always a reason for someone to talk to him first in animus.

Then they learn about his bleeds, how he became a puzzle of their skillset but also their minds. How he forgets his likes and dislikes because he has been others daily, longer than he has been himself in a while. He forgets where he is, if he is supossed to be there, if what he is seeing is supossed to be there. He forgets his name sometimes, replies to anything but his own even if the person is in the room as well. How he freaks out when he sees his reflection sometimes, remembering it as a strangers face. How he sees and talks to things that arent there but maybe was or will be.

They learn he isnt even himself sometimes, cant remember how to be. He doesnt know if he is mad at someone because he doesnt like them or if its Others feelings bleeding. They learn some of his own memories been forever replaced by their own and he doesnt even realize he never met that person only Connor has met before. He cant remember the day his mom got him his 5th birthday gift but Ezio's 5th birthday and his new gift of a carved horse figure is fresh in his mind. He doesnt remember his girlfriend from when he was 19 but he remembers Altaïr's one crush that lasted a week. He cant remember if he ever tried a dish but knows if one of them would like it based on the ingridients. He cant remember faces of his classmates at the farm but knows the novices names by heart.

They learn while they might have sacrificed their bodies and years for their training Desmond has sacrificed his whole self for it.

And it doesnt seem like cheating anymore.

[inkedinshadows]

The Greatest Gift

Pairing: Azriel x f!reader

Summary: Being introduced to a partner's family is always nerve-wracking, especially when Azriel has never talked much about his mother and you don't know what to expect.

Warnings: pregnant reader, barely edited, maybe rushed ending?

Word count: 3.7k

A/N: so sorry for being late in posting this one! Literally wrote the last part today and edited quite quickly so I could post it. Hope you'll enjoy it anyway!

Main Masterlist | Week Masterlist | Azriel Masterlist | AO3

@sjmxreaderweek

“Stop fussing. You look lovely.”

You looked at your reflection in the mirror for the hundredth time and frowned. You could see why Az thought that, but there was still something that felt… off. You just couldn't put your finger on what it was.

“Something's missing,” you murmured to yourself, smoothing out non-existent creases on your dress. You had picked your most beautiful one—a nice summer dress that flowed to your feet and hugged your body perfectly. Just tight enough to reveal the small bump that was beginning to show.

Your hair was styled in a low bun at the nape of your neck—classy and delicate, but not too formal. You didn't want to come off as too concerned with appearances. For that same reason, you had kept your makeup minimal and natural.

Maybe that was it. Maybe you should have done more. It wasn’t too late, you could still—

“Y/N.”

Azriel came up behind you, his arms sliding around your waist as he pressed a kiss to your neck. “There's no need to be so nervous, my love.”

Your eyes met in the mirror, but, unlike every other time, his soft smile did little to calm you.

“I just don't want to make a bad first impression,” you murmured. You tasted blood on your tongue and realized you were chewing on your inner cheek again. You stopped immediately.

“And you won't.” His hands came to rest on your hips as you both looked at the reflection. “Look at you. You're gorgeous, Y/N.”

You were beautiful—you could admit that much. But you didn't feel perfect, and that's what you were aiming for.

Turning around to face Azriel, you placed your hands on his broad chest, feeling his steady heartbeat beneath your palms. He had also dressed up nicely, and you knew he had done it for you, to help you feel more at ease. He didn't have to, after all. It was his mother you were about to have lunch with. He didn't have to impress anyone.

“I don't want to disappoint her.” You looked into the depths of those beautiful hazel eyes. “She's your mom.”

“And you're my mate, who's also pregnant with my child,” he answered, his hands now resting on your belly. “You have nothing to worry about. She's going to love you. Trust me.”

Hearing the certainty in his voice, you finally relaxed. You closed your eyes and rested your forehead against his, breathing in his familiar scent.

Despite having been mated for a few years—and all the decades of friendship first and being in love later—you had never met Rosalind. Every time he visited her, after Winter Solstice and for both their birthdays, you never accompanied him. He had never asked you to, and you had never pushed him about it. You knew how he felt about his mother, how he wanted to keep her sheltered from a cruel world that had already taken so much from her.

She's a kind soul, he always said. You didn't doubt it.

That's why you had been so surprised when he had come home after his last visit and told you he would like you to meet his mother.

And here you were now.

Azriel kissed your forehead before pulling back. “You're ready to go, baby?”

You nodded, turning to take one last look in the mirror. And that's when you realized what was missing.

“Wait! Hold on…” You opened the top drawer of the dresser and rummaged through it until you found what you were looking for. “Aha!” you exclaimed triumphantly, holding a little necklace between your fingers.

The jewelry itself wasn't anything special—a thin chain with a small star-shaped pendant—but it held a symbolic meaning: it was one of the first gifts you had ever received from Azriel, back when you were nothing more than friends, and every time you wore it, things went well. It might be just superstition, but it quickly became your good luck charm. That's why it was reserved for special occasions such as this one.

“Your lucky necklace?” Azriel took it as you offered it and stepped behind you to put it around your neck. “I thought we were meeting my mother, not going on some kind of adventure.”

You whirled, worried that your nervousness was starting to annoy him. Instead you found him with an amused smile on his lips, looking down at you with a softness that made your heart flutter.

“Y/N, my love.” He cupped your cheeks, his voice low and gentle. “All that matters to me is that you're comfortable. We can reschedule, if you want.”

You shook your head and a small smile appeared on your face. “No,” you said firmly. “I want to meet her. I'm just a bit nervous.”

When he arched a brow, you chuckled. “Okay, maybe more than a bit.”

Azriel leaned in to brush a kiss across your lips. “I know. But I can already tell you she's going to adore you. Trust me. Everyone does.”

Your smile grew, and with one last look at your reflection, you finally stepped back. “Alright. I just need to grab the pastries and we can go.”

~~~~~~

Azriel winnowed you to the outskirts of a little village. Though the street was quiet, peppered only by a few houses, you could hear children laughing and screaming playfully in the distance.

The manor in front of you—Rosehall, Azriel had called it—was smaller than anticipated, with colorful flowers in every window.

You smiled at the sight and let Azriel guide you to the red-painted door.

When he didn't knock, you looked up at him and found his eyes already on you.

“What?” you asked, brows furrowed.

“You're doing it again.” His hand came up to cup your face. “Stop biting your cheek, love. It'll bleed.”

“I didn't even realize I was— sorry.” With a sigh, you cleared your mind of the nervousness that was starting to rise again. Then you gestured toward the door. “Shall we?”

Azriel nodded, and his hand fell away from your cheek to knock on the red wood. It took only a few seconds for the door to open, revealing a smiling Illyrian female.

Her hair was the same black as her son's, just like her hazel eyes—both common Illyrians traits. But you knew Azriel's face well enough to notice they shared the shape of the nose, the curve of the mouth, the slightly upward tilt of the eyes. He wasn't the spitting image of her, but no one could have mistaken them for anything other than mother and son.

“Oh, my boy! It's so nice to see you again so soon!” Rosalind hugged her son, who could embrace her with only one arm, the other one holding the wicker basket with home-baked pastries.

“Hi, mom,” he replied, his tone as soft as the one he usually reserved for you. She smiled as he leaned down to place a kiss on the crown of her head. She was several inches shorter than him, just like you.

Rosalind then turned to face you, and a second later her arms were around you. “It's such a pleasure to finally meet you.”

You were so stunned by the sudden display of affection that it took you a moment to return the gesture, and another one to find the words. “The pleasure is all mine.”

When you pulled back, Rosalind’s smile was even brighter than before, and it was enough to make you forget any semblance of anxiety.

“Come in. Come, dears,” she said, stepping aside. “Come inside. Let me take a good look at you, Y/N.”

Azriel placed a gentle hand on your lower back to set you walking, and as you passed by his mother, you caught a glimpse of the wings Rosalind kept tucked behind her back. Twin long scars ran down both of them—clipped. A wave of horror coiled in your gut, and you had to swallow to keep your composure.

“Are you alright?” Azriel whispered close to your ear. Ever the observant mate.

You gave him a nod, then quickly took the basket from him just to have something else to occupy your mind. When his mother closed the door and guided you to the sitting room, you offered it to her with a smile. “I made these for you, since it was your birthday last week. It's pastries.”

Rosalind took it, lifting the lid to peek at what was inside. Her eyes gleamed as she looked up again, a bright smile on her lips. “You're too sweet, darling. You didn't have to. Thank you.”

Despite having just met her, you could already see why Azriel always said she was a kind soul. If Rosalind had been your mother, you would want to protect her from such a world too.

The Illyrian female handed the basket to her son, instructing him to take it to the kitchen and if he could please start setting the table. Azriel brushed a kiss to your hair, then disappeared down the hallway.

His mother turned to you again.

“Oh, Azriel said you were beautiful, but…” Her hands hovered over your baby bump, but she didn't touch it. “You're glowing, Y/N.”

You smiled back at her. “Thank you. Az never told me much about you… I'm glad I finally met you.”

Rosalind shook her head. “Of course he didn't,” she said with a soft laugh. “He thinks even talking about me will put me in danger.”

You couldn't help but chuckle with her. You were very aware of Azriel's overprotectiveness. It had only grown since you got pregnant.

“It's because he loves you,” you offered gently.

“Oh, I never doubted that.” Rosalind gestured for you to sit on the plush couch, then followed to settle beside you.

The sitting room was large and inviting, with sand-colored rugs layered across the wooden floor and shelves filled with old books and trinkets. Only a few paintings hung on the wall, and your gaze lingered on them as you leaned back against the deep red cushions of the couch.

“But I think he loves you more.”

You turned to look at Rosalind, opening your mouth to protest that she couldn't compare the two things. But she leaned in as if to reveal a secret, a smile playing on her lips.

“He always talks about you,” she murmured.

Your lips curled. “He does?”

Rosalind nodded. “Oh, yes. He can go on for hours about you.”

Your eyes darted to the hallway, at the end of which you'd caught a glimpse of the dining room as Azriel had walked away to follow his mother's instructions. Now you could hear the faint rustle of dishes being arranged on the table.

“He'd done it since he met you, you know,” his mother went on. “The first time he told me about you, he said you were the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen. And that you were so nice and sweet, he hoped you'd fall in love with him one day.”

Your smile grew. Azriel, usually so reserved and quiet, had been talking to his mother about you since the beginning. That shouldn't have surprised you—you'd always been close, after all—but the things he'd told her… You never thought he'd so open about it from the very start, even with his own mother. Maybe you'd just assumed that since he didn't talk to you about her, he wouldn't talk to her about you.

As if on cue, Azriel appeared in the doorway. “The table's ready,” he announced.bhh

His eyes darted between you and his mother, and he arched a brow when twin complicit smiles bloomed on your faces.

Rosalind rose to her feet, wings shifting awkwardly behind her. “Well, I should go check on the food,” she announced. “It's probably ready, or it’ll be soon. So you can start getting comfortable at the table.”

On her way out, she placed a hand on Azriel's arm. “Thank you, dear,” she said with a smile before continuing down the hallway.

Azriel watched her go, then turned to you with a questioning look in his hazel eyes. “Did I miss something?”

Walking up to him, you tried to suppress your smile but failed. Biting your lip was the only way. “Did you really spend hours telling your mom about me?”

He stilled, and you noticed the tips of his ears turning a faint shade of red. For a moment, he didn't meet your eyes.

“She told you about that, I see.”

Mother above, he was adorable when he got flustered.

“She did,” you grinned, leaving the room with him following close behind. You glanced at him over your shoulder. “She also said you hoped I'd fall in love with you from the very beginning.”

Azriel's ears were now completely flushed. But his lips quirked up at the corners as he said, “Of course I did. You were perfect.”

You reached the dining room—smaller than the sitting room, yet just as cozy. Cushioned chairs suited for Illyrians surrounded the table, and sunlight poured in through a large window.

But before you could turn to face Azriel and answer, his arms were already around you, pulling you back against his chest.

“I was perfect?” you repeated as you turned your head back to smile at him.

“Mhm,” he hummed, brushing his lips against yours. “You always have been.”

His broad hands slid down to rest on your small bump.

“And now you're even more perfect,” he murmured.

You finally turned around in his arms and looped yours around his neck. “That's also thanks to you, you know,” you replied with a smile.

His hands found your hips and he pulled you flush against him. "Some days I have to remind myself that,” he admitted quietly. “That there’s a wonderful new life inside of you. And I helped create it.”

He didn’t have to say more. You knew why he needed the reminder—that someone like him could create something so beautiful. After everything he had been through and he had done, he had convinced himself he would never be good enough to create such a miracle. And now he was being proven wrong.

“You did,” you replied, nails gently scratching the nape of his neck. “And this wonderful life will become a wonderful baby. Our baby. And you will be a wonderful father.”

His eyes locked with yours, and slowly, another smile appeared on his face. “Our baby,” he repeated.

Then leaned down, capturing your lips in a tender kiss—a silent thanks you, a testament to the love you shared. And even after you broke apart, the feel of his lips on yours lingered like the last warmth of the sun before it sets.

The delicious smell of roasted lamb pervaded the room, and followed by the quiet rustle of dishes and pans that announced Rosalind's entrance.

She glanced at the two of you still standing there, a warm smile curving her lips as she placed the serving plate in the center of the table, where Azriel had left space for it.

Biting the inside of your cheek, you took a small step back from him.

Even after your chat with Rosalind, being caught kissing her son felt oddly awkward. You weren't quite sure why—you were mated to him and pregnant with his child, after all. And Rosalind didn’t even seem bothered by it.

She gestured toward the table and the chairs. “Come sit, dears,” she encouraged. “We don’t want it to get cold, now do we?”

Azriel placed a hand on your lower back and gently guided you to a chair, pulling it out for you. As you sat, he leaned down to murmur in your ear, “Your cheek, my love.”

He was already moving to sit next to you before you even glanced at him.

You offered him a grateful smile, then helped Rosalind serve the food, realizing only then what she had cooked.

Roasted lamb. Baked potatoes. The same blend of herbs you always used—flavors that bloomed across your tongue at the first bite.

“This is delicious,” you said, smiling. “And it's one of my favorites, too.” With a look toward Azriel, you added, “What a nice coincidence.”

“Yes,” he replied, far too casually. “A lucky coincidence.”

His mother chuckled and you playfully rolled your eyes at him.

“I wanted to make a good impression,” Rosalind explained. “It's not every day I get to meet my son's mate.”

At least you weren't the only one who'd been worried about first impressions.

You turned back to her with a smile. “It's not every day I get to my mate's mother,” you replied. You nodded toward the basket of pastries you'd made, now waiting on the sideboard, ready for dessert. “I asked him too, for the pastries. I wanted to get you a real present, but.. I've never been very good with gifts.”

Azriel had told you not to worry, that you could show up empty-handed and his mom wouldn't mind. But it hadn't felt like enough, yet you always struggled to find the right gift for your friends, so how were you supposed to pick one for your mate’s mother? So you'd asked him what she liked best and baked it yourself.

Rosalind slowly set her fork down and reached across the table to take your hand. She gave it a gentle squeeze.

“Don't worry, dear. I have everything I need here.” Her smile was soft, reassuring. “And you've already given me the greatest gift I could ask for.”

At your confused frown, she gave your hand another squeeze. “You make my son happy,” she explained. “It's all I ever wanted.”

Your heart swelled at her words. “Don't worry,” you assured her. “That's all I want too.”

Your gaze drifted to Azriel. His eyes were already on you, love shining in their hazel depths. Beneath the table, his hand came to rest on your knee.

“I told you both you’d like each other,” he said softly, glancing between you and his mother. “You were both nervous for nothing.”

Picking up your fork again, you replied, “That's because you never introduced us before, Az.”

He looked like he was about to protest, but then he sighed instead. “Yes, that's fair,” he conceded. “Maybe I should have.”

“Oh, it's alright,” Rosalind chimed in. “We're all here now and that's what matters.”

You nodded, and while you and Azriel returned to your delicious meal, Rosalind fell silent, a thoughtful expression replacing the smile she often wore.

After a moment, she spoke again.

“Can I ask you something?” she said, looking first at her son, then at you. “A favor, if it’s not too much trouble.”

You nodded without hesitation. “Yes, of course.”

Azriel looked curious now, though he remained silent. Maybe he hadn’t expected her to ask anything, either.

Rosalind hesitated for a second before continuing. “When the baby arrives… could you visit me more often?” She paused, then quickly added, “Or maybe I could visit you? But I’d like to be a part of the baby's life and watch them grow.”

You blinked, stunned by the suddenness of the request. Of course you wanted her to be involved, to know her grandchild and be part of this growing family.

But the emotion behind her words caught you off guard, stealing whatever answer you might’ve given.

Before you could find your voice, Rosalind turned to Azriel.

A new vulnerability shone her eyes—his eyes. A mix of sadness and tenderness in equal parts, as though she were remembering something from their past.

“I didn't get to be the mother you needed when it mattered most,” she said, her voice trembling slightly. Still, she went on. “So let me try to make it up by being the grandmother your child deserves.”

All you could do was watch, your heart straining, as Azriel’s throat bobbed once.

“You were—” He stopped, shook his head, then tried again. “You are the best mother I could ask for, mom.”

They shared a heartfelt smile, and for a moment, you felt like an intruder on a private, sacred moment.

“Of course we can visit more often,” he said gently. “Or you can finally come to Velaris, if you'd prefer. Rhys and Cassian would be happy to see you again.”

Rosalind's eyes lit up, her smile blooming bright. A mother, happy to reunite with her son's world. With his chosen family, and the new life he was building.

You watched her, and wondered—would you wear that same expression when your baby arrived? That same fierce, unwavering love that would never make your child doubt they were wanted and adored.

You hoped you did.

You knew you would.

Azriel already had that look. He'd had it since the moment you told him you were pregnant.

“I'd love to see them again,” Rosalind said. “It's been too many centuries. And maybe…” She chuckled softly, “it's about time I visited Velaris.”

A flicker of uncertainty sparkled in Azriel's eyes, as if he still wasn't sure his mother should be exposed to the potential dangers of the world, even in a city as safe as Velaris. But it was there and gone in a heartbeat, so fast you might have missed it if you didn't know him so well.

Rosalind didn't seem to notice, though, and the conversation flowed easily from there. She asked you many questions—about your childhood, your passions, your job—eager to know you as you were, and not just through Azriel's stories.

You got to know her just as well, and during the few hours you spent together, a connection began to take shape. Quiet and natural, it settled between you like it had always been meant to grow there. You wondered why you’d even been nervous in the first place.

Maybe it was because of your lucky necklace.

When you and Azriel finally left, just before dinner, Rosalind made you promise to return the following week—and to start planning her visit to Velaris.

*lovely divider by @slytherin-pen

Taglist: @mrsjna @navyblue-eternity @paintedbyshadows @highladyandromeda @starswholistenanddreamsanswered @azrielsmate3 @mollygetssherlockcoffee @mirandasidefics @tinystarfishgalaxy @cynthiesjmxazrielslover @anarchiii @readinggeeklmao @anneas11 @lilah-asteria @lorosette @azrielsrealmate @pey2618 @mellowmusings @k8r123-blog @daughterofthemoons-stuff @minnieoo @saltedcoffeescotch @georgiadixon @quiet-because-it-is-a-secret @ivy-34 @yesiamthatwierd @lreadsstuff @littlest-w01f

[ilguna]

☼ six feet below (Finnick Odair) ☼

summary; after being swallowed into the ground during the quarter quell, you’ve found yourself claustrophobic ever since. and so when you find out that district thirteen is a bunker, there’s no stopping the panic attack that comes.

warnings; swearing, torture and death mention, illness, claustrophobia, panic attack description.

wc; 3.5k

--

There has never been a more disappointing moment in your life than watching yourself get reaped for the Hunger Games a second time in less than a decade. Only this time, it was for a Quarter Quell. Which was destined to be your own personal hell.

The way your lips pulled up in disgust at the sound of your name, not at all amused by the Capitol’s antics. When you looked off, not wanting to give them the satisfaction of making eye contact with the camera, your face had been reflected back at you, due to a projection on a nearby building.

It was highly gratifying to know the entirety of Panem would see the irritation, and they’d never be able to edit it to make your reaction some other way. Even if they were to try and cut your expression out later on if you were to win, it would never fit. 

You barely got reprimanded for it after. All your escort had to say was that it wasn’t very lady-like. As if there was a more graceful way to take the news you’d be fighting for your life again. You couldn’t help it when you asked her what the appropriate response would’ve been. Should you have thanked her?

She didn’t give you an answer, either because she couldn’t think of one or she knew if she were in your shoes, she would’ve broken into tears the moment her name had been called. Especially since she knows what it entails and just how brutal it can be.

From then on, you did your best to steer a wide path from her for the rest of the Capitol week. The last thing you needed was her correcting manners, when you could be dead within the next two weeks. 

The week was far from what you thought it would be, not that you were expecting it to be easy. You knew there would be a lot of familiar faces, but it took until the Tribute Parade for you to realize what you were dragged into. You had to interact with other victors as a tribute that you’d met as a mentor. Several of your friends found themselves in the same position you were in.

Not to mention, your boyfriend had been reaped, too. 

Finnick couldn’t stop the onslaught of tears that followed. When you saw the way the stylist had dressed him for the Capitol—you were inconsolable. He thought it was because you were scared, causing him to swear up and down he would protect you. When really, you were terrified if you’d make it out alive without him, and you’d be forced to live with his ghost.

The Capitol had you trapped, something they were never able to do before.

When you were announced the winner of the Sixty-seventh Hunger Games, you promised yourself you’d never let the Capitol get the best of you. If you could control it, you’d always stay one step ahead, sometimes two if you could manage it. It’d worked out so far, right up until that point.

You were sixteen when you won, and seventeen when you returned for your first year of mentoring. President Snow tried to negotiate a deal with you, but you’d already heard the rumors of what it meant. All the victors back home in Eleven warned you about what he would want from you, what it would mean going forward.

They weren’t wrong, and while you were ready for everything he had to throw at you, it was hard to keep a grip on your future. He threatened your family, only for you to tell him most of them had died due to the illness that was going around. Anyone still alive wouldn’t be for much longer.

He threatened your friends, all of which you’d lost following your Games. As glorious as the victor life is in the Career districts, it’s less so in District Eleven. And while the whole year of rations should’ve lifted a lot of spirits, it hardly worked in your favor. There weren’t a lot of congratulations to go around.

So, President Snow threatened your life.

You stared him in the eye as you gave him a shrug, telling him he was more than welcome to give it a go. Your quality of life had significantly decreased already, what else could he do? 

Nothing. Nothing was the answer. 

It was probably the first time a tribute has ever pulled one over on the president without having their hand slapped immediately after. Seeder was convinced he’d have something coming for you, but you were left alone. Maybe it was because he knew the Quarter Quell would be coming, and he’d have you then.

Well, he was right. The wishful thinking that you’d be able to escape them forever worked for a handful of years. As time grew on, it became harder to keep it that way, and when the Quell had been announced, you gave it up altogether. President Snow knew it was a matter of time before he’d get you under his thumb. And he had you good. 

The arena has been and always will feel like it’s targeted at you. You’re sure everyone thinks the same when they rise out of the podium, but your misfortune so far has been immeasurable compared to the others.

The jungle was no exception. 

You tried to regain your footing when it came to being a step ahead, by remembering how deceitful the arena had been for Haymitch. You figured it would be the same way, just by looking at how the arena had been sectioned out. 

The concentric circles seemed purposeful, with the way it had been the Cornucopia, the water, the beach and then the jungle. The only part that didn’t make sense were the twelve spokes that shot out from the center, but you shrugged it off, thinking the Gamemakers needed to add ground for the tributes who weren’t strong swimmers. 

The lightning, fog and monkeys should’ve been your clue as to what was happening, except you were too busy fighting for your life to be drawing up theories. So you can imagine your surprise when Katniss announced the arena was working like a clock, and that’s what Wiress had been attempting to communicate the whole time you’d reunited with the second half of the alliance.

It made sense for the next couple hours, the group of you had gone to the center to see it all play out. Then the Gamemakers spun that goddamn Cornucopia, confusing you all again. None of you had any idea on where to go, so you took a gamble on one of the spokes and decided to wait on the beach until one of the hours gave away what time it was.

At some point during this period, you thought you’d check out the jungle while you found a place to relieve yourself. Finnick wanted to go with you, but he got pulled away by Johanna when she began to argue with Katniss again. You promised him you’d be careful, and went off.

You don’t think you made it twenty feet in before you were swallowed by the dirt. It was as if you stepped into quicksand, only it was dry and you sunk much faster. You barely managed a scream before you were breathing in the jungle’s dirt. 

It felt like you were stuck in the ground forever, trying to claw your way out, holding your breath, but it couldn’t have been longer than a minute or two. By the time your hands broke the surface, Finnick and a few of the others were there, searching for you. As soon as you’d been spotted, they tugged you out and several feet away from where you’d been eaten.

You were choking on dirt while gasping for air, feeling the crunch of the soil between your teeth, the way it stuck to the back of your throat. You couldn’t help it when the first sob came from you, tears washing away the filth that was stuck in the creases of your eyes.

Finnick held you, rocking you as you cried into him. You couldn’t stop, you knew if they’d shown up a few minutes later, you’d be dead. Just another victor to be remembered but never forgotten. Anyone would’ve reacted the same way you had, even Johanna.

However, if you knew President Snow would capitalize off this moment, you never would’ve shown how vulnerable it made you. You would’ve just shaken off the experience and pushed through.

Instead, Snow exploited it. 

It was planned that at the end of the third day in the arena, what was left of the rebel alliance should meet at the lightning tree. Whoever was left in the area after the arena exploded would get rescued and brought to a safe place. The main goal was to make sure Katniss was there, since she’s the face of the rebellion. Everyone else was expendable. 

It worked out fine in the beginning, but the plan went to shit when what was left of the Careers tried to attack you, Johanna and Katniss while you were executing Beetee’s instructions. The three of you got split up, and while you were off fighting Enobaria, the arena went black, which meant the hovercraft would be appearing at any moment.

When you did get to the tree, it was far too late. The hovercraft had come and gone, and you were left to fend for yourself. You found you weren’t the only one left behind, because Johanna and Peeta showed up shortly after, accusations flying everywhere. 

It didn’t matter what you had to say to either of them, because you all wound up in Capitol custody. And all the pent up anger Snow had been containing was released on you for the next couple weeks. 

It was a good thing the rebels from District Thirteen rescued you when they did, because you were beginning to crack. Just a few more hours and you’re sure you would’ve started telling the Capitol anything and everything they wanted to hear—even if it would’ve been lies.

You’re just glad the people of Thirteen have been understanding of your situation so far. They’ve been so patient when it comes to interacting with the refugees—a bulk of them coming from Twelve. From what you heard, it’s been flattened by the bombs from the Capitol, following the abrupt ending of the Quarter Quell. 

You’ve slowly started integrating into their lifestyle after being in the hospital. The head doctor has finally allowed you to move into a compartment with Finnick, which means you have free reign of the building. You’re returning to normalcy, even if it’s taking forever.

Your favorite part about your newfound freedom is that you’re able to sit at a table with your friends, again. You never thought you’d be able to enjoy their presence after what happened in the Capitol. But it seems as if the doctors don’t care about the intermingling of the victors.

“How was your time in the Capitol?” Peeta asks you, stone cold serious. “Did you enjoy it?”

Although, maybe they should.

You stare at him for a long moment, not sure how you’d like to respond. You didn’t know Peeta super well prior to the Games, but he was always courteous in passing. If this is how the Capitol has left him, you can’t even begin to think of what they might’ve done. 

You’ve noticed that he’s lost his sugar-coating. Everything he says seems raw and unfiltered, which you can come to appreciate in the future. As of now, he needs to be reminded that sensitivity isn’t a weakness, even if the Capitol has taught him otherwise.

“Did you?” You shoot back at him. “I distinctly remember you crying for your mother, but maybe I’m mistaken.”

Peeta lets out a short laugh, a half-smile on his face. 

“Maybe we shouldn’t be talking about the Capitol so soon.” Finnick interjects, reaching over to rub your back. He raises his eyebrows, expression gentle as he watches your face. “It’s not the greatest subject.”

“Why not?” Johanna asks, mouth full of food. “Peeta and I can talk about it, right?” She nudges him with her elbow. Peeta gives a mechanic nod, causing your face to twist. “We’ve come to grow as best friends.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.” Peeta murmurs, looking away.

“Johanna, don’t tease him.” Finnick tilts his head. He stops rubbing your back, instead moving to hold your hand to squeeze it.

“I’m not.” Johanna says simply. “Would you rather me tease (Y/n)?”

“No.” He tells her, tone hard.

“Yes, absolutely.” You nod. “What do you have for me?”

She eyes Finnick, gauging whether or not it’s worth what Finnick will do to her. She must decide it isn’t, because she crosses her arms and leans forward onto the table, shrugging her shoulders. 

“Oh, come on.” You groan. “No snark? You’re going soft on me.”

“I would, but I’m mildly afraid of triggering Peeta in the process.” She says.

Peeta rolls his eyes, which is so unlike him that you can’t take your eyes off of him. 

“Okay, fine.” Johanna says. “Why do you always have Finnick walk in front of you? You never hold hands and walk side by side anymore.”

You look past her to the concrete ground, and all you picture is the ground opening up, a dark pit waiting for you underneath. It’s pretty self-explanatory on why you act the way you do. You thought she was more observant than this.

“The arena.” You tell her. “The sixth hour.”

“That’s it?” Johanna asks. “You let the jungle get the better of you?”

Finnick clears his throat, shaking his head at her. “Was the blood rain easy for you?”

“It’s not that the jungle got the better of me. Do you know what it’s like to be encased in dirt?”

“I do. We currently are.” Johanna waves her hand in the air.

Your face twists, eyes squinting at her. “What do you mean?”

She opens her mouth, raising her eyebrows as if it’s obvious. “Where do you think we are?”

“District Thirteen.” You say, not getting it. “Where else would we be?”

“Are you fucking with me?” Johanna asks. 

You two stare at each other for a minute. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Johanna. What do you mean we’re encased in dirt?”

“District Thirteen is a bunker.” Peeta tells you plainly. “Everyone knows that.”

No—no, not everyone knows that. You didn’t know that. You’ve been underground this whole time? You thought… you thought that Thirteen was just some building hidden in the woods, too far for the Capitol to reach. You never would’ve guessed it’s a bunker.

You can feel your heart begin to beat in your chest, room elongating due to the new information. You grip your silverware tightly in your hand, knuckles turning pale, swallowing hard.

“(Y/n)?” Finnick asks, trying to pull his hand free.

Your hands pop open, fork clattering against the metal table, fingers beginning to shake. You’re going to get trapped down here. The bunker could explode at any moment. It’ll be much harder to escape a cement chamber than it was to crawl out of dirt.

You can feel the air rapidly passing between your lips, a hand placed on your chest, which seems to grow tight with every passing breath. 

“Honey, breathe.” Finnick tells you, combing your hair out of your face. “What’s the matter?”

“I’ll never get out.” You gasp, shoving your food tray away from you.

You suddenly get to your feet, tripping when you try to step over the bench. You find yourself staring down at the floor, the same one that was opening up earlier. The only thing holding you up are your hands and knees, which are shaking so hard you can’t even see straight.

“(Y/n)!” Finnick shouts, sounding drowned and faraway.

Your hand forms a fist, which you slam against the ground, as if it’ll let you out of the nightmare. You’re stuck, though. You’re back in that box, body twisted in awkward angles to let you breathe, staring into the pitch black—into the unknown.

“Let me out!” You scream, bending your arms to push off. Nothing moves. Nothing ever moves. They won’t let you out, not until they’ve decided you suffered enough. You could be here for the next ten hours if they felt like it.

It’s always a box, and it’s never big enough to let you breathe.

“(Y/n), let’s go.” A voice says, grabbing onto your arms, pulling you to your legs.

You stumble, feeling the sweat dribble down your forehead, reaching out to stabilize yourself. Finnick’s face is in yours, too blurry to focus on. He’s saying something, trying to pull you along, but your knees have locked in place.

He just sweeps you up into his arms, hurrying out of the room.

“Please don’t take me back there.” You cry.

“I won’t, (Y/n).” Finnick places a swift kiss to your forehead. “I’m here. I’ve got you.” 

He takes you into the elevator, doesn’t bother shutting the safety door, and presses the button that will bring you straight up without stopping. When you reach what you perceive as the ground floor, you’re met with multiple unwelcoming faces.

“Please, she just needs to be outside.” Finnick begs, pushing through them. “She can’t be in there right now.”

“Let them through!” A voice calls, a man in black armor waves Finnick on.

He wastes no time, running through the space, straight to the nearest door. He backs through it, shielding you from the initial sunlight. As soon as it touches your skin, you break.

Finnick lets you down to your feet, only to watch as you collapse in the grass, crawling a few feet away from the door, sobbing into the Earth. You take handfuls of it in your hands, ripping the roots free from the soil, throwing them away.

Two weeks. 

You’d basically spent two straight weeks in a box. The only time you were let out was to relieve yourself, and then you were locked back in. It didn’t matter how much you screamed, how much you begged, how much you pushed against the walls. You could never leave. 

The spots that had been appearing over your vision are finally disappearing, but the lightheadedness isn’t. You lift your hand in Finnick’s direction, and that’s all he needs before he’s cradling you against his body, trying to console you.

“I’m so sorry.” He tells you, lips pressed to your hair. “I promised to protect you. I told you nothing would happen.”

“You never could’ve known.” You tell him, fingers tight against his jumpsuit. “He’s been trying to get me for years.”

“I know.” Finnick sniffs, holding you tighter. “I tried to stop it. I never wanted him to have you."

You sit in silence for a long time. He rocks you, humming a tune he learned from Katniss, gently massaging your head. You watch as the trees behind him seem to return to normal, no longer so far away. And there's a dull ache in your fingers from how hard you've been squeezing them.

"I need help." You murmur to Finnick.

"With what?" He asks, pulling away to see your face.

"I need to see the head doctor, don't I?" You ask, lips trembling.

Finnick brushes the sensitive skin on your cheeks. "It's nothing to be ashamed of, honey." He tilts his head to look at you better.

"I wanted to be fine." You tell him.

"And it's okay that you're not." He says. "Katniss, Peeta, Johanna, Haymitch and I got help while we’ve been here. And we knew it was only a matter of time before you’d follow in our steps.”

Your face twists. “What do you mean it was a matter of time?”

“You started doing things that weren’t like you.” His eyes fall away. “You won’t go into small rooms. You touch the tips of your feet to the ground to make sure it’s solid. You ask people to walk in front of you. You stop in doorways to look inside rooms before deciding to go in.”

Your lips wobble, hearing your mannerisms repeated back to you… You can feel another round of tears coming, building in your eyes. When Finnick looks up to see your reaction, his face softens. He cups your face in his hands, shaking his head.

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not.”

“We’ll get you help.” He tells you, wiping away the tears that fall with his thumbs. “Just like we did for Annie. You’ll get better.”

“But I’ll never be the same.”

Finnick presses a warm kiss to your lips. “That will never stop me from loving you.”

[vesperaominosum]

Second Reason

@purplerosebouquet asked:

"Heyy! Could you do a res4 Leon x fem reader fic where reader is his colleague/ fellow agent who has a situationship w Leon but he’s getting hung up on Ada and reader is jealous? Maybe even confronting him about it? Lots of angst but good ending 😭"

Summary : You escape burnout by turning your life around and becoming a government agent. Old mistakes haunt you and you find it difficult to replace old problems with the new, especially when you find yourself in a situationship.

Pairing : RE4 Leon! × Fem Reader

Tags : Angst, angst, ANGST, unreliable narrator, unethical therapy mention, hurt/comfort, slight smut, moderate strong language, slow burn (for a one shot) jealousy, open ending perhaps, reader is not okay and grew up watching cop drama. Word count: 10k A/N: I did NOT proofread it as well as I should've. It starts off as a hard read. but gets better eventually.

[part II]

You always held pride in your emotional intelligence. It wasn’t superficial, you had a degree in psychology after all, so you knew it to be true. Managed to practice as a therapist for few months before taking time to reflect and turning your life around. It was quite a big stretch to jump from your ideas of becoming a therapist, leaving your straight A student persona behind, ditching those PhD dreams and leaping into a cycle of never-ending physical trainings, on your way to become a government agent. It was a shock to everybody in your life, but to you it wasn’t. Not in any way.

There were two reasons.

First, you mapped up the time, glued up a dream board and realized that it would take you years to finish your academic journey before you could actually do what you intended to. You also realized that watching a lot of daytime TV did you a disservice and planted an unrealistic idea in your head. You wanted to seek our murderers using your knowledge of the human nature. Help the police track the bad guys, interrogate them, wear expensive suits and even go out in the field wearing bulletproof vests with a real gun.

After years in university, this concept revealed itself as unattainable. It would take you decades to even get on a level where your expertise would be sufficient to write a decent report that could be used in court. And no one would ever let you go after criminals with a gun. And what was it about it that drew you in? What were you planning to do exactly in this scenario other than looking good and feeling badass? In case they actually hire you for that job, as a profiler (which would take additional years and expertise), you’d be too old to be physically fit enough for any of the badass visions. And when it came to those visions, you’d have to be too visually old to be taken seriously as a woman in the field anyway. At least some grey hair and wrinkles to get any respect from the men who stepped anywhere near military. It was not at all what you wanted.

Second reason was a bit more personal and way more grounded in reality. You didn’t like to think about it, but you had to be honest with yourself. Sometimes you wished you were a little bit less honest, just in your head. You wanted to sugarcoat things, and ignore problems and patterns, but you couldn’t. Admitting that you wish you could cloud your mind was too, a testament of seeing things clearly. You assessed the situation you got yourself into, and left. You didn’t like thinking about the second reason, it was a little too private, even for your own thoughts.

The third reason, that wasn’t mentioned, was the one you kept repeating to others. It wasn’t mentioned, because it wasn’t entirely true. After all, you couldn’t lie to yourself, but lying to others was easier. You told everyone that therapy was stressful and not at all physically demanding. You got into university with a scholarship because you were an athlete in school and the prospect of growing stiff sitting around and stressing wasn’t alluring. Stress needed a way out. You needed an active job. That was true, you knew it better than most and had a degree to back it up.

Training for becoming a government agent wasn’t easy. You did your best and still couldn’t get in the first year. Nevertheless, you weren’t known for the lack of determination, and soon enough you were an agent. Your dreams of wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a gun were close enough to grab, if it wasn’t for all the paperwork you were hired to handle.

Didn't take long before you found out they only decided to accept you because of your degree, which to them made you a perfect candidate to process large amounts of information fast and make important connections. Heading straight into severe burnout, you nagged your way into a mission once, where you successfully managed to enter the building without drawing too much attention, and this success turned everyone’s eyes to you, becoming your golden ticket into the world of real missions, where the stakes were high, adrenaline was rushing and your actions actually mattered.

It was your dream life, bulletproof vest, a gun, you signed commands to your teammates, had a codename “Dove” (that you chose yourself) and for the first time in your life you felt in the right place doing the right thing. Your family and friends did not agree.

Every time you got back home, people would ask whether you found yourself a husband, implying that you only got into the field because “that’s where the real men are” since you must've gotten tired of those whiny boys you met in therapy and uni. You were perfectly aware that they tried to devalue your achievements and it made you want to never ever settle down out of spite, which wasn’t healthy, but you couldn’t help yourself. Poor coworkers that were bold enough to try their luck asking you out - got rejected, before you even thought of it. The idea of your family ending up thinking they were right all along and smirking about it for the rest of their lives made you sick. You were emotionally intelligent, yes. It didn’t mean that you were suddenly a robot and their toxicity didn’t get to you. Understanding and admitting this issue was a part of it, keeping it in mind was enough. Besides, it’s sensible to know better than confusing professional with personal.

You had it all figured out at first, the work/life balance thing. While most people in the filed allowed themselves to lack focus, only wishing to go back to their families, or on the contrary, spent all their time working as a distraction from not having any personal life or hobbies - you managed to be right in the middle. Hobbies, friends, self-care, education. At first.

Your optimistic desire to learn and improve yourself led to you taking on all the available courses that work managed to provide, which in turn led to you dealing with things mostly outside of your grade of training. Every time they were short on agents, you came in to help. Never alone, you were still too inexperienced and a woman. Nobody wanted to be responsible for writing you off dead. Even though your work was impressive, sending a young girl on a mission which resulted in her death cold not possibly look good on paper.

You disliked working with most agents. They happened to be arrogant, bad at commutation and for some reason always acted insulted that you were given the same task. It was never about teamwork to them. One of the agents once greeted you with a “Seems like I’m going to be your babysitter for this mission”. You knew better than to bite back, you never spared them the reaction they wanted to get out of you. Always friendly.

It took a toll on your mental health, but it wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was them being nice, making you finally feel accomplished, just to badmouth you behind your back afterwards.

Laugh about you being a burden and whatnot. You knew they just tried to keep up their image, to appear tough to other guys and to make sure everyone knew that they did not take you seriously, so their little crush wouldn't be that apparent. You also knew that everybody knew that, so it wasn’t getting under your skin most days.

Some nights it felt too unfair to ignore, so you imagined telling them off and commanding respect, like the women in those daytime shows you loved to watch as a kid. But every morning you felt too professional and too grounded in reality to pay it any mind. Maybe too small, but it was a secret you kept, unable to grant yourself at least a little courtesy, at least a little white lie, a lie by omission. Some silence that would protect you from self-doubt. Had to be cruel.

That nagging and flattery bothered you up until the moment you got paired with the moodiest agent. It was a brief time, a small task to help him out on a mission, getting into the building pretending to be barista and retrieving a package with intentions to pass it on to him. Got caught in a little bit of a cross fire and ended up helping out beyond your instructions.

He was famous for extreme cases and a cool attitude so you prepared for the worst. To your surprise, he happened to be extremely easy to deal with. A bit cold and he made a weird joke once that almost didn’t seem like a joke coming from him (or at best, for sure didn’t land). You hated that it didn’t go according to plan and prepared to hear all about how you were trusted with something delicate and created problems (even though it wasn’t your fault, it rarely was), but when you learned of his reports praising you for having potential and a fast reaction, you started seeing him in a different light.

Leon Scott Kennedy kind of proved to you wrong just when you started to think you were doomed to drown in self-deprecation before finally quitting. Your higher ups mentioned him giving you positive feedback and you didn’t waste time telling them that you found working with Agent Kennedy productive. He didn’t need your praise, so you praised your synergy. In all the best and seamless ways you knew how to, in order to manipulate them to pair you together more.

Your skills did not disappoint, soon enough you were working together every other mission. You were cautious not to seem annoying, but he had a way to make you feel at ease. He’d smile when you saw each other. He wasn’t a talker, but you didn’t feel any pressure. You were comfortable with his professionalism, it made you feel understood and respected.

After some time working, you were happy to return the favor, tolerated (a fair share of) his weird sense of humor. He’d alert your walkie-talkie with a stern “Dove.” and when you answered, he’d say “Flying high today?”

Made you roll your eyes every time. And finally, you were the one who got to feel annoyed, instead of feeling like you annoyed others.

He appreciated your attitude, sometimes he’d call you up to the shooting range at the base and helped you adjust your aim dealing with a bigger recoil than you were used to.

Maybe it was when he put his strong arms on yours, standing so close behind you without the gear being there to block his body heat from warming your back.

Maybe it was when he asked you if were okay at the end of the day. Maybe it was when he protected you from danger as his first priority every mission. Maybe it was when he trusted you with his life. Maybe it was when he wrapped up the mission before completing the task, because he didn’t want to risk you loosing too much blood due to your injury that one time.

Maybe it was when he texted you later. Lying in your hospital bed, you read “Dove. How’s the flight?”, how it made all the pain irrelevant. How you never answered because you suddenly didn’t want to say the wrong thing, but did everything in your power to hop back to your feet and get back to work. Maybe it was the shift in the energy that you felt once you saw him again, maybe it was the way you noticed how attractive his attitude was (when it was directed at everyone else but you). But you noticed that he certainly had an effect on you.

It was him who was the first to tell you that you’d have to stay put for a while, no feet on the ground, just “remote work”, as he kindly put it.

“Found a way to get rid of me?” - you joked before letting the sadness seep from your tensed up eyebrows straight into your eyes. He noticed and reassured you it’s temporary. And for the better. “If you say so.” was all he got. You were agreeable and there was nothing to discuss really. It was the first time he made you feel hurt. It wasn’t his fault, and you knew it, you were very mature after all. Emotional intelligence. But you still wanted to test if he’d feel bad about it and judging by the sigh that he let out, it worked. Smirk on your face as you walked away.

Same smirk curled up your lips when he came by the headquarters to ask how you’re doing, seeing you in hoodie with your hair down, talking to an intern, a young nerdy guy who was explaining something you pretended to care about.

“Getting comfortable?” – he asked, you weren’t sure if he was referring to your friendliness with an intern or your blunt dress code violations. Truth be told, you knew he was entering the base and let your hair down intentionally.

“Yeah…” – you put a hand through your hair, - “Keep getting headaches staring at the screen for hours and all..., hair ties do not help”.

You noticed his gaze lingering, - “Can’t catch a break, can you?” – he joked.

“Well, if everyone writing me off counts as a break, it’s all I’ve been catching.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” – he rolled his eyes, before looking at the intern, the guy's name was Nail, Neville, Niall something like that. Niall pretended to work behind you, and Leon lowered his voice, softened even, - “you know it’s not like that.”

“I know, I’m just making sure you know I don’t like it.” – you lowered your voice to match his, - “However it is.”

“Came here to make sure of that.” – there was a hint of a smile in his voice as he leaned closer to say that, before pulling away, - “Planned on disrupting your little holiday soon.”

Your eyes sparked, - “You did?”

“Can’t afford all my mentoring go to waste because of one stab wound. Ridiculous.”

“Your mentoring?” – you laughed, watching his relaxed smile for the first time, you liked that smile, - “Sure, that would be criminal.”

Getting back to work was easy, you never really needed that much time off anyway. You’d consider it a waste of time, if it wasn’t for a conformation that Leon cared about you in some way. You got bolder equipped with that knowledge.

Things generally shifted a little. His usual teasing turned into “Dove. Flying high? Both wings intact?”, he switched to a more hands-on approach, moving you around and grabbing your arms to stall you more than usual. He got more comfortable. It was like after your first big injury he got his conformation that you can handle harm and stopped acting like he was responsible for your every step, even though he never was.

Things got more easy until they got more complicated. When adrenaline got the best of you after speed climbing an abandoned military base wall to get away from landmines that were about to be triggered by a fallen satellite tower. Both heaving, lying on the floor, ecstatic that you made it.

Leon crawled his way to you, putting his hand to your side, where you were stabbed (three months ago by now), - “You okay?” - he put his hand on your forehead and brushed his knuckles over your temples, like it will give him any indication.

You sat up slightly. “Yeah…” - grabbing onto his forearm to get up, but getting lost in the vision instead. You both were high on the rush, him almost on top of you, sweat covering your faces, breathing deeply, it was only natural to put your hand on his shoulder and letting him kiss you. Kissing him back. Falling back on the floor, hearing him grunt into your lips as he fell onto you, putting your hand into his hair, pressing him closer, deepening the kiss. You made it out alive. You were so alive.

“Fuck,” – he breathed out between kisses, - “we got to go back”, - he kissed you deeper, as he let his hand grab your chest, moving it to your back, possessively, lifting you up, closer.

You held onto his arm, as if ordering it to stay there. Ordering, begging, approving… Nodding, - “yeah,” – and kissing him back. You both knew this moment might be the only one to steal. It was all there. It was all there was.

But you managed to pull away, the spell was broken and it turned into tension. And you got back without any distractions. Silent on the helicopter, both solemn in your own throughs.

Both planning on how to go about this incident, both trying to keep it professional, without ruining your partnership. Both failing as your off-duty talk turned into you kissing him against the wall of your on-base apartment, his knee between your legs, your hands under his shirt.

The story was: you both had the same monologue prepared, your ideals, sense of professionalism and morals aligned. And since it all aligned anyway, why does it matter?

You were great when it came to team work, you trusted him with your all and he met you in every way possible, every kiss, every thrust, every bite, he even came through with it every time all you needed to cum was to hear him moan.

You managed to keep it professional outside of the bedroom (or any room really where no one could see). It worked. You were too busy for proper relationships, you knew how to make each other feel good, you cared about each other, and you both wanted it. That’s what you kept telling yourself.

But you were a bad liar when it came to facing yourself. You knew damn well that you didn’t want any other proper relationships. You also didn’t want to change how things were, you did not put everything at stake for this career to throw it away on some good dick. Some good dick. Nice shoulders. And strong hands, that held you up, like they designed you and were making sure it stayed in place. Big legs and steady hips, that felt just right every time you came down on them. Firm lips, that took what they wanted. Soft voice that was sharpened with a rasp, always asking if you’re all right, if it’s okay, if you like it, if you’re close. Never had to ask, in his mind he always knew. His mind, always busy. Baby blue eyes, attentive, detached, sad. Ghosts, so many ghosts.

You wanted to take it away, you could. You saw past his exterior, you wanted to repair it, whatever it was. Your past mistakes coming back to the surface. Your second reason. Never could keep any boundaries. Drawn to all the broken things, too invested. You made a bad therapist, an even worse agent as it turned out.

But it was different with Leon, he was on the same page. There was no disbalance, no uncomfortable power dynamic, besides that in the bedroom, where he could easily overpower, holding you down, as you shake, as you pull his hair; him not letting you come down from your high before forcing another round of bliss onto your overstimulated body. No, outside of all that, there was no disbalance. You were on the same page. You were both okay. You were equal. It was better, he wasn’t your client, you didn’t have to feel bad.

You could care about him and it didn’t mean going back to destructive patterns. And it’s only natural for a person to care about another. You weren’t his therapist. You weren’t even his friend. You were just two people who understood what they..., were to each other and who were on the same page. Whatever that page was. He wasn’t letting you down this road alone. He had you. Whatever it meant.

It was special. And you felt like it was all worth it. It was scary to let your mind wonder to places he occupied, but soon enough you had trouble finding any space he didn’t. He was everywhere, like a new puzzle you tried to put together. What shaped him into this man you wanted to disappear into? What weights him down? What was he like as a child? What’s on his mind when you’re not together? What are the missing pieces? What pieces needed mending?

It was not your intention to let yourself get so wrapped up, but it was hard not to when he wrapped your legs around his shoulders, riling up the tug in your stomach with his tongue until your mind went white. So so wrapped up. Messed up. His hair, your body, your thighs, your thoughts.

You cut down on joint missions, couldn’t risk it. Seeing him in action distracted you, it wasn’t safe. He understood. It was hard seeing you in gear. It was really hard.

When you finally learned how to behave, you happened to work together more, couldn’t risk growing too far apart. Had to keep your hands to yourself, your thoughts focused on the task. Despite betting your all on these changes helping you to prioritize your career, you found yourself more ready than ever to throw it all away. Head first into his embrace, you didn’t care about your family gloating about being right, about proving it to yourself that you’re unable to keep anything professional enough. Despite every wall you’ve built. He made it seem worth it. Inviting. Safe. And if you were on the same page…, Were you on the same page? He had to be.

Where was he?

Those thoughts were doomed to be pruned before blooming because you couldn’t let the reality slip away. You had a dangerous job, even if you leave to make it more acceptable for you to be together, he won’t. And you can’t trust yourself to be okay with him putting himself at risk with no means to help out or at least to know what’s going on.

And you couldn’t forget that the only reason you happened to fall into this was out of convenience. Maybe not the only reason, but the main reason. One of the main reasons.

You were sensible, but in your head, you were retired in a house near some sea, lying on a blanket on some beach, reminiscing the old days with a smile with Leon next to you. For now, your goal was to collect as many memories as you could, make sure you have plenty to look back at. He’d be hot with grey hair. He’d kiss your temple and there’d be no ghosts in his eyes by then. You could see it so clearly. You’d love it all down. It would be perfect.

The day you wrapped up another mission (a big round number for you) you started planning the celebration. It was how it was done here. Had to plan ahead, but was way too busy daydreaming.

You knew it would be risky to have other agents, you and Leon at the same table. Add alcohol into picture, and the risk is high. But not inviting a person you owe at least half of the number you’re celebrating to, would be even more suspicious.

Little did you know, the reason why it was the worst idea ever never even crossed mind. The topic of you two wasn’t brough up until most of the guests left, the bar was almost empty, it just you and some of the agents who knew Leon “forever”, to quote them.

“So, Leon keeps snatching up all the ladies?” – came from one of them.

You had no idea if they knew anything or simply insinuated, so you looked taken aback. That’s when the guy added, - “Oh, I’m just kidding. I know Leon does not shit where he eats, not after Ada Wong!”

You didn’t know what to process first. To be relieved you were off the hook, to be disgusted by the phrasing, or to pay attention to the way Leon’s face changed after the mention of the name. He said the guy’s name sternly. A warning.

“Oh sorry, hit a nerve. He doesn’t talk about Ada.” – he finished his beer before adding, - “Would you believe our Mr. Cool over here fell for an enemy out of all people? Now he’s above it all, sure. Let that bitch walk all over and still-”

Leon stood up, - “Shut it. And take her name out of your mouth. You know nothing.”

It was your cue to deescalate the situation, but you just sat there. Silence filled the bar, and Leon walked out.

The guy who brought it up whistled, - “You’d think he’d be over it by now.”

“Hopeless romantic, that one” – cackled another, - “You must be used to his temper by now.” – He looked at you knowingly.

Before they left, you said that you’re were going to stay for a while, you had some business with the bartender. And you did, asked him for something stronger than beer.

At first you waited for Leon to come back, not letting any thoughts seep into your head. It wasn’t the best idea. You were better than this.

Did they know? Did they suspect? Was it their way to warn you?

You knew of Ada Wong, not much. Clearly not enough. It didn’t matter.

Didn’t it?

Whiskey never eased your thoughts, just made them flow more freely. It was a mistake to drink more after what happened. Another mistake.

Was it all a mistake? A thousand thoughts you desperately tried to keep at bay broke the dam and flooded your mind.

So that’s what it was about. Not about you, just him falling back to his habits. How could you judge? You weren’t exactly exhibiting a golden standard of professionalism yourself. It’s not a big deal. You both knew it wasn’t a big deal since the start, on the same page. Were you?

Suddenly everything felt disgusting, the bar, waiting for him felt embarrassing. Your thoughts right now, your dreams earlier. God, you were stupid.

You paid for the drinks and headed out. Bartender asking you something, as you turned to leave, not even listening. That was rude. Disgusting behavior.

It will all go away in the morning. It’s just too much information. Not enough information. Most people your age had past relationships; Leon was a couple years older. It’s not a big deal, he’s a young man with needs.

And you were just there to aid him with that. You had needs too. It was convenient and fair. Never gave any promises. Except that you did.

A lot of silent promises, it was convenient. Didn’t have to follow through if the only person who knew of them was you. Falling asleep was a challenge. You prayed for sleep to take away these thoughts. These feelings. You begged for a clean emotional palette in the morning.

But morning felt heavy on you on your shoulders. Sticky thoughts clinging to your consciousness and spreading like a disease. Embarrassing, grotesque, ugly.

You did your best to pick right through them and cage unwarranted ones. You were an adult.

So what, he had an ex. So, he didn’t want to talk about it with others. So, he didn’t want to be mocked. So what? It makes sense.

Was it because of her? What was it? You wanted to interrogate him, to strap him down to a chair and to get it all out of him. Make him confess it all to you. You deserved it. He owed nothing to you. You were way too mature to think like that.

You knew it was unhealthy since the start, you never learn. You needed a reality check. It felt like a slap in the face; hot, burning. Shame.

You were stupid enough to think you were special. You were stupid enough to overthink it now. Always overcomplicating. Was she the ghost in your eyes?

It wasn’t about you, it was your curiosity that made you walk into the office, wasting your day off, finding the intern you used to flirt with. By the time he got a promotion. Cut his hair differently, training weathered his frame a little, a beard making it's way to his face. Almost handsome. You tried your best to gather a crush, to cling to some dignity. It wasn’t all about Leon, your mind was capable of thinking of other people as well. And when you asked ex-intern to get you all info on Ada Wong he could find, it wasn’t about Leon as well. It was about your case. You saw him as a puzzle after all, it wasn’t personal. Just a curiosity.

Leon looked unaffected, if you weren’t there that evening he got all insulted over a mention of his ex-whatever, wouldn’t have a clue. He’s good at hiding. What else is he hiding? You thought you had your clues, not one.

Reading Ada’s files made you feel stupid. You kept thinking to all these times you thought it was sweet of him to care about you, to train you. You thought he liked feeling like he had something to teach, something to show. You were wrong, if Wong was what he wanted, he found your training sessions pathetic at best. She was better than you, better than him. Is this what he liked? You were so stupid. She was beautiful, not in the way you were.

You learnt all about how she wrapped Leon around her finger, he messed up. It was pathetic of him, embarrassing. You tried your best to transfer those feelings onto him, to project. It didn’t work. He wasn’t pathetic, he was this hopeless romantic with a ghost of a lover in his eyes. A woman who managed to steal her way into his heart even after betrayal. That wasn’t pathetic. You were, collecting any piece of information about her that you could. Now that was pathetic.

How you wanted to solve this puzzle, convinced that once you do, it will let you go. Set you free. You couldn’t possibly spend much longer on his leash. Tracking all your thoughts to him. To her.

They made you feel sick. You hated her for disrupting your fairytale. You hated him for not playing his part right. You hated yourself for allowing this fairytale to take roots.

It was stupid. You had so many guys after you in university, so many people at work who’d die to ask you out. You had all the cards when it came to dating, and you knew it. But you felt stupid and ugly. It was like all the miserable scenarios; all your jealousy seeped its way through your skin and you had to wear it heavy on your face. Ugly.

He ruined everything. He was not responsible for your feelings. You took pride in your emotional intelligence. Even that, he managed to take away from you. It was all tainted.

You weren’t jealous, just disgusted with yourself. Ashamed of being naïve. Ashamed of your thoughts and reactions. Was it even her real name? Ada Wong. Seemed fake. She surely made that up, who in their right mind uses a real name with a job like hers? If you can even count it as a job.

You wondered if Leon knew her real name. He knew of her nature, knew what she was doing for a living, he killed people for less. And yet couldn’t stand someone speaking badly of her. Left you alone.

Maybe it was a way to escape the conversation, maybe he knew something, knew these people and knew they would dig to find the truth about your affair if he stayed. This had to stop. You couldn’t afford to advocate for him just to justify your lack of maturity. You had sex because you were two adults in close proximity who happened to find each other attractive enough. That was it. Any complications will only hurt down the road.

The urge to shut off and be cold was as immature as it was natural. You could not force yourself to be any different. Couldn’t let go of the only shield that you knew, even though you knew it was childish, you knew it was wrong. You know it, you knew it all. You were smart. You were beautiful, you were capable and daring and independent. Why on earth did you do this to yourself?

You were miserable.

You had to let this go. It was in your head. Ada Wong was nowhere to be found, she was an evil, horrible person who betrayed people, a criminal with no regards for anything other than money. If Leon fell for it, he’s pathetic. You had a moral high ground in the situation regardless of any circumstance. At least you weren’t a criminal. The days you spent in therapy came to your mind. That was unethical, not illegal. It would be considered illegal in some states.

You weren’t a bad person.

Seeing Leon on duty was easier than you anticipated. Acting like you didn’t drag your dignity through the mud was harder, but you managed. Made it work.

A little more quiet than usual, but it was fitting for the mission. You flew over to another country to assist Secret Service agents responsible for president’s safety by tracking down the shooter. They knew assassination attempt was planned, but couldn’t risk to let it be carried out, so you had to track down whoever was smart enough not to die by being too bold, but dumb enough to be entangled in this mess. Not very physically demanding for the most part, a lot to do with getting into the head of someone who puts their life on a line to do something stupid.  

Daytime shows always portrayed these criminals as some genius people who had a plan and an ideology. Reality was disappointing; it was mostly poor people with no education, desperate enough to do any “job” for a promise of money they never end up seeing.  Their handlers weren’t much smarter, bribed to organize the mess you had to take care of because violence pays.

They were all stupid at the end of the day, putting their lives at risk for money. Just like Ada Wong. She was less stupid than your regular criminal, had to give her that. Maybe that’s why she was able to leave such a lasting impression. She’s just like a daytime TV drama character.

So smart and horrible, but since she’s sexy and rich, it can all be forgiven, it makes her cool. Was she rich? No idea, but she had to be, a lot of money involved in the field, if you can even call it that. Surely, she was sexy, you saw the photos that were in the system. Studied the 3D model of her face that was created to identify her under all the wigs and disguises just in case. You looked at her face for hours imagining Leon kissing her lips, what it would feel like. Desensitize yourself, so you don’t get visually bothered next time someone brings her up. To understand him better, perhaps, he was just a puzzle at the end of the day. You were invested as a phycologist; it was essentially just research.

“Missing the action?”

“What?” – you looked at Leon, who was setting up yet another spyglass set (that looked more like a telescope fit to see what was happening on Mars) in the empty apartment you were stuck at.

“Looks like you’re not enjoying our little getaway.”

“That’s not a getaway, Leon, we’re on duty.”

“Could be worse.” – a sly smile as he adjusted the lens, eyes hidden by the steel tube.

Fuck, he was hot. You knew better than to open your mouth, feeling the word vomit coming up. You were going to mention her name, if you kept talking. This whole thing turned into obsession that wasn’t healthy. Let it go.

There are ways to process those emotions. Therapists can provide valuable assistance in dealing with feelings of jealousy over a partner's ex by offering various strategies and approaches. You’re capable.

Understanding Emotions. Exploring and understanding the roots of this jealousy. Was it insecurity? Fear of abandonment? You had nothing to be insecure about. And there’s no abandonment if you weren’t an item in the first place. Knowing someone could be this close to you and not head over heels might have hurt your self-esteem. So, he was kissing your neck as your bodies collided, but it wasn’t enough to forget another woman. Like you weren’t that special. That hurt, we all want to be special. Sometimes you felt your pride suffer when a barista ignored your smile as they gave you your coffee. That rarely happened, maybe once. But you still remember. It was an issue to work on. Nothing to do with Ada Wong.

Cognitive Restructuring. Cognitive-behavioral techniques were useless on you, you had no irrational thoughts. You got high on feelings, got hurt, humbled and it was an uncomfortable situation to deal with. Your negative thought patterns associated with jealousy were mostly about your pride. It wasn’t about other people. They had no control over you.

Communication Skills. There was no point in talking about something you created in your own head. You were not in a relationship with Leon, you did not know the Wong girl, whatever her real name was. It was about you and your self-esteem issues. Thinking it through was enough.

So, building self-esteem was the way. What were you defined as that you took most pride in? It used to be your academic achievements. You gave it up. Your job? Where you really any better than hired criminals who put their lives at risk for someone else? Where you really that much better than Ada fucking Wong?

There was no pride in your job anymore. Daytime TV lied and you weren’t even the best at what you were doing. Did you find pride in your looks? Yes, but now that you were used as a fuck doll, it was pretty hard to do it. Your maturity and emotional intelligence? Not when you were crushing out because a co-worker you screw for fun has an ex he didn't manage to get over. As if it matters in any capacity. Ridiculous how you let yourself get so low. All this inadequacy and competitiveness was a result of doing a job you did not even like anymore. A burnout.

Mindfulness and Emotional Regulation. You had to regulate any and every ugly thought, filter your goddamn mind. No more wallowing.

Setting Boundaries. It wasn’t even an affair; you were just helping each other to blow off steam. You had to trust each other with your bodies at work, it worked. Could trust each other with your bodies off work; not a big deal.

Had to reframe the relationship in your head. Remind yourself of the frame.

Comparative Analysis. Ada was nowhere to be found. Hiding like a criminal, that she was. And you were there. There was no way she could realistically get in the way of you living your life, and even if that happens? She can have him and moody ass any time. You do not need his energy bringing you down anyway. She can play these mind games with him; you just liked the way his body felt. The rest was hormones, you must’ve been very hormonal when you made all these things up. And you analyzed him because you missed your true calling.

Finally, the curse is broken. You took a sip of hot green tea, relaxing into the sofa in your hotel room. It was nice to be back, to not feel guilty, to finally make sense out of everything.

A knock on the door. Leon, Leon, Leon. So predictable. You debated opening the door for a split second before realizing that it’s a perfect opportunity to prove to yourself that you can finally trust your mind to not act like a lunatic. Essential even.

“Hey, I thought…” – he couldn’t finish his excuse, before you grabbed his shirt and tugged him inside, put him up against the wall. He looked at your hands, taken aback slightly; like it wasn’t what he came for. So charming, just how you like him.

You kissed his jaw, broad kisses travelling down his neck, - “Now that’s a gateway”, - you smiled as your hands dropped to the belt and felt up his thighs, teasing.

“Yeah…”, - he swallowed, throwing back his head slightly. Like he was contemplating something. You felt his neck move under your lips and it made you think of all the ways his body could move, will move in few minutes, the bottom of your stomach feeling tense, - “I thought… Had to check up on you” – he hissed as you bit above his shoulder.

“Check up on me, huh? I got a couple ideas…” – the hands on his pants circling closer to bulge that was very much prominent at this point.

“You must have some ideas” – he let out a breath, brows knitting slightly, - “Spent so much time at the office lately.”

You laughed, so silly. Did he keep track of your whereabouts? Waited for you to be available? – “Mhm… I have friends there.” – the circle came to a point and you palmed him, squeezing lightly.

“Like that Niall guy? What’s his name?”, - he tilted his head down to look at you, fast enough for you not to see it coming, you found yourself scared you might accidently kiss his lips. It terrified you for some reason, so you sank lower.

And lower, - “You’re thinking about me with Niall?” – slowly stroking the outline clear under his clothes, - “Does it turn you on?”

“What?” – he made a face, scrunching his nose, - “No”.

Hilarious, - “What about us three together?” – a frustrated huff through the nose, - “What about us three but with another girl?” – you picked up the pace, undoing the belt with a free hand, it was so entertaining riling him up, all this frustration, he could let it all out on you.

He called your name in that assertive tone that you liked, made you laugh as you licked the skin between the pants and a shirt, - “What if it was Ada Wong?”

He said your name again, catching both of your hands in a tight grip. Had to ruin all the fun.

“Come on, what now?” – you whined, rolling your eyes.

He yanked you up to your feet and looked at you. Studying, disappointed, accusing. What did you do?

You started at each other for a moment. You didn’t do silent treatment. “What?” – you repeated, this time more genuine annoyance in your tone, - “Use your words, Leon, fuck. I’m too tired for this.”

That look of a disappointed parent. Or a pet owner, - “Get some rest then.” – so full of it as he set in motion.

“No need to react this way, threesomes aren’t for everybody.”

“And don’t,” – he closed the door before lecturing you more, - “Don’t ever mention her name."

“Fine!” – you exclaimed, raising your eyebrows, - “Jeez, thought she made you hard, didn’t know she was such a boner killer.”

“You don’t know anything about her.”

“Fine! And I don’t want to!” – he wanted to act like an angry dad, you could match. It didn’t sound at all like you wanted, you didn’t have the authority in that scream to back it up; so, you stood there in silence for a slip second, - “Get out.”

The sound of the door closing felt like a punch to the core, a sob coming straight from your ribs before you chocked it with a hand to mouth. Pressing hard, tears flooding your fingers, tickling.

So fucking stupid. Everything was so fucking stupid. It hurt that you were just another fling at work, yes. But it hurt more that she wasn’t.

You hated her. You couldn’t bring yourself to hate him. You wanted to die.

The pain in his eyes, the disappointment. Did she do this to him? The ghost in his eyes? Was she the one who could make it go away? The burn in your chest rang up your ears and breathing got harder.

If she was so dear to him, you’d find her. Set them up together. And then you’d die. Horribly. You’d fall off a cliff, rocks breaking every bone and smashing away your body parts and then some… Some wild dogs would tear you to pieces and he’d watch. And before the fall someone would shoot you like ninety times. Straight to the heart, and then you’d fall. And as those wild dogs ate your flesh, they’d growl loudly. And he wouldn’t care.

He would be happy with his glorified criminal knowing that you died for it. And you’re the only reason he got to be happy. And it would… It would haunt him forever. He would look at Ada and see your ghost. Finally, she would be the one dealing with the ghost of you staring back from his beautiful eyes.

You were mature and rational. And you’d rather be dead than live through this.

You never learned how to lie to yourself, no matter the effort. It was never meaningless to you; it was larger than what you allowed yourself to dream of. And he was never a puzzle.

He was the only person who made you feel like you had nothing to prove. Like you were worth the effort with no payback. And you had such deep respect and love for him. It hurt to admit. Knowing that your feelings were yours alone. It hurt to know that truth.

That all these times he trained you, he missed his very much skilled lover. That every moment that was meaningful to you, was just a distraction for him.

You didn’t want to be small, your ego was through so much, but maybe it was the lesson you had to learn. To let go of that thing that stalled you every time you made a mistake.

You weren’t special, nobody cares if you’re in the right, if you’re better, smarter, ethical. So, it’s okay if you fall short. That you’re going to live through this.

You are going to live through this.

Last day of the mission the weather was mockingly good. Feathered clouds hugging the sun just enough to soften the rays that danced on the ground as if they were playing hide and seek with the wind. Daytime TV always matched the weather to the feelings of the main character. Maybe you weren’t. Not even special enough for the weather to reflect your turmoil. It made you smile, the realization. Bittersweet, but you could handle knowing this truth, so you could handle the rest.

Leon was even more brooding than ever, weather didn’t pick him as the main character either. You were both doomed. Warm wind merrily moved his hair, as if it was pleading “Play with me, play with me, Leon!”. He didn’t care for it.

Leon noticed you looking at him, tucking his radio set in a pocket, he was about to say something when you interrupted, - “I’m quitting.”

The wind decided to try you this time, tickling your face by messing up the hair and exposing your neck, you smiled. That wind reminded you of a little kid. You weren't in the mood to play, sorry.

Leon nodded, said “Okay, we’ll get back to that” and picked up the radio set. Just like he would if you weren’t there. Just like he will.

Sure, but there was nothing to discuss. He could go back to whatever he wanted.

The flight home was silent. It was nice to be on a plane for a change, a private jet, not being thrown into the helicopter. You realized you never got to say goodbye to those views out of that noisy flying box. You never knew your last helicopter work transfer would be your last the last time you were there. Funny how things work. You have it all figured out and before you know it, everything changes and you don’t know whose body you’re in. Who is this strange person? What will this person do? Will it feel familiar ever again? Will it feel like home inside your skin?

Your blue-eyed partner spent the flight staring at the window, deep in his thoughts, up until he decided to occupy the seat next to you, leaving quite a bit of space, like you might not be safe to get close to.

“Hey…” - his voice soft, you’d like to remember that voice instead the one that he used earlier, - “Listen… Did something happen? Is it your family? Did something happen at home?”

The tenderness in which he carefully approached almost surprised you. You looked at him.

“You’ve been… I’ve never seen you like this. Noticed for a while… Now you want to quit.” – he glanced and looked away, not to pressure, - “You know, you can tell me”.

You slowly shook your head, - “Nothing happened.”

Silence once more claimed the cabin. It was comforting to have him around, not too close, just there, - “You spent so much time at the office lately. Reading, studying… Do you miss it? Want to go back?”

You looked at him, indifferent yet with so much pain in your eyes, tired, raised your shoulders in a little shrug. You looked so broken.

“You know… I understand. I had my moments… I was the best at the academy, put my all into it, and when I… When I graduated and it hit me that you can’t always measure… How good you did something…”

He was truly good. You could never paint him a villain in your story. Not even when he hurt you. He managed to find the root of the problem, you missing the career you left behind, dodging every shameful detail. Took your time spent studying as something upstanding instead of what it was, dignified your most embarrassing lows. You really loved him. And it tugged on your shattered heart.

“What are you doing?” – you asked him kindly, his attention fully yours, - “You don’t have to mentor me…” – you reached out and put your hand on his, comforting. It was okay.

A warm look, those blue eyes studying yours, looking for something, - “I’m not…”

“It’s okay.” – Gave him a bittersweet smile.

He took your hand in his. Strong warm fingers, brushing carefully, - “The sky is going to be lonely without you, Dove.” – you hummed, humoring the joke, - “I’m going to be lonely.” – he added, it hurt.

You sighed, - “You’ll find another.” - Took your hand away, - “You and the sky.” – There was no malice in those words, you truly meant it, - “After all it’s not your first affair at work. Won’t be last.” – it was comforting to finally accept it. Accept it to the point where you could say it and not feel rage. It broke your heart, but you’d learn how live with it. It wasn’t your first affair at work as well, after all.

Silence was cushioned by the mellow sound of the engine, white noise; after some time, he got closer and you put your head on his shoulder. He kissed your head as you pretended to fall asleep. It was something that will always stay with you. Had no photographs, it was too late to borrow his clothes, nothing. Just this one memory that wasn’t tainted by jealousy. That wasn’t butchered by an autopsy and fragmented into pieces to be devalued in a shrewd attempt to glue your ego back together. And it was nice. He was nice. It was okay.

You sat up straight when you were convinced that Leon fell asleep, looked at him, expecting to memorize his features. To your surprise, he was awake, completely still. You could swear his eyelashes were more matted than before. Your poor baby, it wasn’t worth it.

“You know… Ada.” – his voice heavy. Oh. Well, perhaps that was worth it. Perhaps she was, - “We met… Few times. She was the one who took something from me. Made it impossible to care for others.” – That explains it. Finally, the puzzle is coming along. Your goal is about to be complete and there’d be nothing left to do here. You almost didn’t want to know all the answers of why he couldn’t ever care about you, - “I spent years thinking I gave my heart in vain. I was so sure all I was good for was to be used.” – hearing him say that was devastating, - “But when I met her again. I figured it wasn’t like that. She saved me, more than once. More than in one sense. She really cared. She did. But she couldn’t act on it, fully, because she wasn’t free. It wasn’t me who was good for nothing. It was her, refusing to let go of her cage. I owe it to her, recognizing that there’s something worth breaking the rules and cages for, and if you don’t…”

“You embody the cage that trapped you?”

He nodded, - “Hollow.”

You wanted to move to hug him, to hold his hand, anything, but he wasn’t done.

“So, I owe it to her. Nobody gets it. I owe it to her to not end up the same. I know that she l…- “– he bit his lip, angry at himself for some reason, - “She loved me. I know it. She had love in her. And she walked away from it. So, I promised myself not be like that.” – there was a build up in his tone, what seemed to be a sob story about his one true love, was revealing itself a charged speech that was about to go off, - “So you may it call an affair, us, but I cannot agree with this. I don’t. And if you want to treat it that way, it’s your call. But you have to be honest with yourself.”

That was a lot to process. A lot of cracks in your theories to fill. What kind of strategy is this? What was he getting you into? This is disruptive, it made you uncomfortable.

“Understand that. I care, okay?” – he nudged your shoulder, - “Whatever it is, you can tell me. I’m all ears.”

That last phrase sounded a lot like “I’m all yours” to you at first and when the realization of what he actually said hit, you found yourself looking for an escape from that corner he got you in. You’re hearing what you want to hear again. That’s unhealthy.

That man didn’t even belong to himself. Despite what he’s saying, he’s a lot like Ada, a thought ran through your head. He saw so much of himself in her, and he didn’t like it. He must’ve seen enough of goodness in her to not give up on himself in that case. You spent so much time cursing the woman who in actuality convinced him to care about you, if you buy what he says. Did he have a reason to lie? Where you becoming just like them? Jaded.

Above all, she saved his life. You owed it to her. And in that moment, it hit you all at once. The stress you’ve been under. The idea of Leon dying, not being able to talk to him again, to touch him. Ada Wong and her love that she never got to share. Was it fair that she saved him for someone else? Where was she? How was she? Were you experiencing ego death?

Your eyes hurt, tears filling up the corners, chocked up, - “I’m so tired.”

Leon must’ve pulled you in, because for a moment, the world narrowed down to black, feeling of wet cheeks against a fabric, the sound of your heart pounding in your ears, temples pulsing, and it smelled like him. Must’ve been an awkward position, couldn’t tell where your limbs were, but you felt his hands caressing the back of your head, rubbing your back; you stayed like that till you breathing evened out, and you wiped your face, standing up and excusing yourself to go wash your face.

When you came back, he offered you a water bottle without saying a word.

Lingering sadness in the air. What a wild mess. Who are you going to be when you walk out of the jet?

“How can I help?” – poor guy looked genuinely worried, was probably convinced something bad happened and you were going through a lot. Maybe you were.

You shook your head and he dropped it.

Usually, he’d carry the bags with equipment out to the storage facility once you land, a courtesy to the staff. This time he followed you, calling your name and on land you felt more strangely claustrophobic next to him, more so than in a tiny cabin in the skies, so you quickened you pace, hearing him call your name. Dangerously bad at goodbyes, so much for being mature, you just took off and ran. You wanted out.

Leon caught up to you, trapping you in an empty hallway, both of his hands against the cold white walls, your shoulders in between, didn’t touch you, but you knew you couldn’t get away easily. You whined and closed your eyes, when will this interrogation stop? You wanted to sleep.

He got closer, studying your swollen face intensely, traced your jawline with his nose, pressed a soft kiss onto your lips, the corner of your mouth, to the side of your nose, you tried to push the man away; your palms on his chest, but he grabbed your hands by the wrists and pinned them to a wall, next to your face. So dependent and reactive, every time one of you got tougher, the other got weaker. It was obvious what was coming, you had no strength in you left to fight it, it wasn’t clear why you were fighting it to begin with. He kissed your lips, soft and intimate. A deep kiss, slow, it was the most vulnerable thing between you to this day. Heartbreaking, for no reason at all. His hand, cupped your face, as soon as he felt tears on the lips, then he took your face in both, - “Fuck, not this…” – he kissed your cheeks, stroking your jaw; rough hands suddenly tender and careful, - “Please, baby…”

You clung to his neck, hiding, gripping, he picked you up, held closely, before sliding down the wall, squeezing you in his arms, like you’d fall apart if he were to let go. It was true.

You were so scared of letting go of the life you grew to be familiar with. Scared of starting it all again. Scared of facing the truth that running away from problems was the biggest problem of them all. Scared of letting another person in, the one who had too much power over you, who had an affect on you so profound you were no longer the one in control. Scared of not letting him in and ending up alone. Scared of loud noises because of all the blood and the pain. Scared of this job traumatizing you for life for no good reason.

Someone appeared from the left side of the hallway, you heard rushed footsteps echoing and a worried voice, - “Is everything alright?”

Scared of footsteps.

“Need a medic.” – Leon’s voice firm, full of urgency.

You felt like you were going to die.

You didn’t die though, and no one did. Got looked at, got a strong prescription, got sent home. Got a service dog, kept you active as well as safe and alert when it got worse. Leon loved that dog, sometimes it even made you slightly jealous, making you laugh at how immature you could be. You quit. On your way of getting a PhD, working on most severe PTSD cases and yet still sometimes jealous over the silliest things like your boyfriend paying too much attention to your dog. It was hard to stay jealous through, catching Leon’s adoring eyes every now and then as he watched you. And he loved watching you; as you were studying, writing, doing chores, cooking, walking, playing with the dog. You never wondered what was it, never tried to read his mind. His mind was his and you trusted him with it. Couldn’t see far enough into the future, but you trusted him with it too.

———————————

I typed a lot straight to tumblr at the end there and if doesn't go through i'm gonna kms bc it will be lost forever

[part II]

[weaselandfriends]

Sword Art Online (anime)

Sword Art Online is a Frankenstein monster. Here is every episode of the first arc and how it was adapted:

Episode 1 is from the original web novel, published in 2002.

Episode 2 is from a more detailed rewrite of the story, Sword Art Online Progressive, published in 2012 (only a few months before the anime aired).

Episode 3 is from the second volume of the light novel, published in 2009.

Episode 4 is from a side story published shortly after the original web novel, in either 2002 or 2003.

Episodes 5 and 6 combine a side story published in 2007 and another side story from the eighth volume of the light novel, published in 2011.

Episode 7 is from a side story published shortly after the original web novel, likely in 2003.

Episodes 8, 9, and 10 are from the original web novel, published in 2002.

Episode 11 and 12 are from a side story published in 2003.

Episodes 13 and 14 are from the original web novel, published in 2002.

By stitching together stories written across an entire decade, often with wildly different purposes and goals, the anime is tonally erratic, with glaring plot and character inconsistencies. For example, Episode 3 is a tragic episode in which Kirito brings several low-level players to a high-level floor, leading to their deaths. Kirito is traumatized; he later explains that this incident is why he plays as a solo player, so nobody else will ever get hurt because of him. Episode 4, by contrast, is a lighthearted episode in which Kirito—having learned nothing, because this story was written six years before the previous one—brings a low-level player to a high-level floor as bait for dangerous player-killers. When the low-level player is comedically groped by a tentacle monster and cries out for Kirito to save her, Kirito only shrugs and says, "Come on, it's not that powerful." He's ultimately correct, and this time the player survives, but what happened to his trauma?

These inconsistencies, combined with Sword Art Online's massive popularity, made it the favorite target of the fledgling anime video essay community circa 2014 to 2017. Though it's possible to do a longform video poring over every single plot hole for almost anything, Sword Art Online made it easy; half of its "plot" was never intended to be arranged in this way, and even when there was intent, it was the intent of an amateur author writing their first-ever story. You couldn't generate a work more perfect for endless nitpicking and angry rants in a lab.

But if the show is blatantly incompetent, what made it so popular?

It's tempting to ascribe its popularity to "right place, right time." By 2012, the year Sword Art Online came out, the internet had changed the primary way people interacted socially. Rather than being bound by family, proximity, race, creed, religion, or so on, people grouped together by hobby. "Gamer" was now a community-binding identity, an attribute that distinguished a person and their niche online space from the othered outside. And the Gamers craved legitimacy. They craved the approval and recognition of mainstream culture. They craved representation, that feeling of seeing yourself reflected in the world around you.

The world refused them. The mood of the entrenched pop cultural elite was best encapsulated by Roger Ebert, famous film critic, who had been waging a years-long crusade against video games as an artistic medium. In 2005, in response to the live-action Doom movie, Ebert said, "Video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized[,] and empathetic." He reiterated this claim in statements and essays in 2006 and 2010, and in March 2012, on the eve of Sword Art Online's airing, described Dark Souls—Dark Souls!—as a "soul-deadening experience." "Video games can never be art," he asserted plainly later that year.

In this milieu, it makes sense why Gamers glommed onto Sword Art Online. If nothing else, Sword Art Online takes video games seriously, more seriously than any non-video game media before it (asterisk; excepting .hack). This seriousness manifests in a consistent theme, a singular perpetually present thread that lingers even as plot, character, and tone skew wildly, stated by Kirito to Klein in Episode 1:

"This may be a virtual world, but I feel more alive here than I do in the real world."

This statement defines Asuna, who stops seeing her time trapped in the game as years stolen from her life, and instead learns to live each moment as if it were truly real. It defines Silica, mourning her dead Neopet and willing to risk her actual life to revive it. It defines Lisbeth, hurtling a million miles into the air but still for a moment enraptured by the beauty of a digital sun shining over a digital land. It defines Griselda, murdered by her husband Grimlock for motives he can only confusingly explain as related to how she "changed" in the game, how she became more confident, more self-realized, while he sank into despair (he was not a Gamer. He lacked the Gamer spirit). It defines Yui, the sentient NPC whom Kirito and Asuna adopt as part of a pantomimed marriage that the show's nauseatingly boring second arc is about protecting against an outside world that does not acknowledge it. And it defines Akihiko Kayaba, the game's creator, who when confronted at the end over why he trapped 10,000 people in this death game, can only say that he no longer remembers, before rhapsodizing about the "castle in the sky" he so achingly desired to bring to life. Unstated is that, to make it truly alive, he needed to make it—and the people inside it—capable of death. This logic is twisted, even more bizarre than Grimlock's murder confession, but neither the scene's wistfully poignant tone nor Kirito's responses reject it.

As the video essayists have done, it's pathetically easy to pick apart Kayaba's rationale. But to mire oneself in the story's logic is a mistake; Sword Art Online is not a story guided by logic. What matters is that Kayaba's illogical words are consistent with the ethos that underlies the narrative: The virtual world is as important as, or even more important than, the real world.

The anime's production values reflect this ethos, too. Sword Art Online looks strikingly cheap for its level of popularity. In almost every fight, still images with blur lines vibrate in tacky simulation of animation. There is no dynamism in the camerawork, and sword duels are often depicted in shot-reverse shot so only one participant is on screen at a time. Nobody interacts with their environment; every battle occurs on a flat, empty plane. Some of the monsters are CGI and look awful. The character designs are bland and generic. Even the music, by the otherwise-excellent Yuki Kajiura, sounds like phoned-in B-sides from her work on Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011) and its sequel film, Rebellion (2013).

But what the show does expend effort on is its backgrounds, which are both visually inventive—floating islands, towering columns that hold up the sky—and depicted with glimmering post-processing effects to bathe them in sunsets, sunrises, rainbows, and starry nights. First and foremost, Sword Art Online sells its virtual world to the viewer, makes them believe in that world the way the characters in the story do.

And in having that world sold to them, in expressing its legitimacy and the legitimacy of those (hero or villain) who believe in it, the Gamers had their rallying cry, the work of media that finally said: You are seen.

But was it really Gamers that Sword Art Online saw?

While Sword Art Online is invested in selling its virtual world, it is not invested in selling its virtual game. The in-universe Sword Art Online is primarily defined by its lack of gameplay mechanics, rather than those it actually has. In Episode 1, Klein explains that the game lacks a magic system, which he describes as a "bold choice." In Episode 2, members of the raid party state that the game also lacks a job or class system. There is no long-ranged weaponry; everyone uses melee weapons, usually swords. The only strategy during raids is human wave tactics, where armies of players charge in and attack at once. The only cooperative maneuver is "Switch," a mechanic that is never explicitly explained but seems to involve a player who has already charged in backing off so another player can charge in their place.

Compared to even basic single-player RPGs, these mechanics are primitive; for an MMORPG, they're antediluvian. The point isn't whether a game with these mechanics would be fun or not (in many ways, it's similar to Dark Souls, where the basic core gameplay of dodge-and-hit is rendered meaningful by the consequences for failure), but rather that the game's mechanics have little importance within the story.

They're so unimportant that it's never explained why Kirito is so good at the game, what he's doing differently from everyone else. He's not even a grinder. He spends most of the first half of the story slumming on floors far beneath his level. It's no-nonsense Asuna who grinds hard, who tries to exploit the game mechanics, like when she proposes using NPCs to lure a boss. The plan makes logical sense, but logic is absent from Sword Art Online's ethos; Kirito rejects it, not on the grounds it wouldn't work, but because the NPCs would be killed. He prioritizes respecting the game world, while Asuna—at least initially—prioritizes respecting the game mechanics. Kirito's philosophy is ultimately proven right when he and Asuna adopt an NPC daughter who turns out to be sentient.

Meanwhile, Kirito's most impressive feat involves him ignoring the game's rules entirely. The one mechanic described in detail is that if you die in the game, you die in real life; when Kirito dies, though, he wills himself back alive to defeat the final boss.

The game, the experience of gaming, being a Gamer—none of these are part of the underlying ethos that guides the narrative decisions of Sword Art Online. Kirito didn't tell Klein, "I feel more alive playing this game." He said, "I feel more alive in this virtual world." Asuna didn't find happiness by exploiting the game, but by learning to live in it as though it were her real life. Kayaba didn't design Sword Art Online because he loves games, but because he wanted to make his world real.

This isn't a story about Gamers. It's a story about a virtual world. It's a story about the internet. It's a story about online community.

In his introduction to Speaker for the Dead (1986), Orson Scott Card describes the heroes of most science fiction novels as "perpetual adolescents": "He belongs to no community; he is wandering from place to place, doing good (as he sees it), but then moving on. This is the life of the adolescent, full of passion, intensity, magic, and infinite possibility; but lacking responsibility, rarely expecting to have to stay and bear the consequences of error […] Who but the adolescent is free to have the adventures that most of us are looking for when we turn to storytellers to satisfy our hunger? And yet to me, at least, the most important stories are the ones that teach us how to be civilized: the stories about children and adults, about responsibility and dependency."

Card, of course, wrote Gamer fiction long before anyone craved it. Ender's Game (1985) is obsessed with the mechanical minutiae of its titular game in a way Sword Art Online is not; its protagonist is successful in the mold of Asuna, able to understand and exploit game mechanics better than anyone else. But in this quote, Card describes Kirito perfectly. Kirito is, of course, an actual adolescent, emphasized by his character design and Columbine trench coat ("Don't show up to the GameStop tomorrow," you can almost hear him say), but his character is also adolescent in terms of Card's model. He spends the first half of the story as a solo player, wandering from floor to floor, doing good (usually), moving on. He lacks—or rather, avoids—responsibility. While Asuna is second-in-command of a top guild organizing high-level raids, Kirito is off on his own reviving some girl's Neopet.

When viewed from this perspective, Sword Art Online actually does have a coherent and comprehensible character arc for its otherwise inconsistent protagonist. Kirito develops as a result of his relationship with Asuna, finding through his marriage to her the responsibility that he previously forsook. When Kirito's error causes Sachi to die in Episode 3, he moves on, immediately abandons even his own trauma by Episode 4; Sachi is never mentioned again. (Of course not, since her story was one of the last ones written.) He feels no lasting responsibility for his actions. But later, Kirito realizes he could not brush off the trauma if the same thing happened to Asuna. It is through his responsibility to her that he joins the final raid and thus bears, shoulder to shoulder with everyone else, the cooperative responsibility of the entire virtual community of Sword Art Online. He has become an adult, with wife and child. He has become "more cultured, civilized[,] and empathetic," as Ebert would put it.

(And isn't that what Ebert is really saying, when he criticizes video games? That they are adolescent, childish, playthings?)

Through Kirito's character arc, and its underlying ethos about virtual worlds, Sword Art Online depicts online community via the language of marriage and responsibility that is traditionally ascribed to real-life community. This too resonated with its audience. After all, it wasn't just Gamers who craved recognition. Teenagers in 2012 had lived their entire conscious life in a world defined by the internet, and yet the "real world" considered online relationships and communities to be a joke. Sword Art Online, rather than legitimizing Gamers, legitimizes the virtual world, the internet.

But does it really even do that?

Immediately, Sword Art Online rejects the notion of online identity. Kayaba's first move upon trapping everyone inside the game is to force them all to look like their real-world selves. As per Sword Art Online's anti-logic ethos, he does not explain why he does this. Shortly afterward, Kirito looks at his real-world finger, which received a paper cut before he entered the game; he imagines it bleeding profusely, before saying, "It's not a game. It's real." By enforcing real-world identity within the game world, Kayaba possibly intends players to see the world as more real too, the way Kirito does. This fits the monomaniacal focus of Kayaba, and Sword Art Online as a story, on the importance of virtual space over any other aspect of virtual experience, and it's not surprising that Kirito tacitly agrees with Kayaba's decision when he and Klein tell each other they look better as their real selves than as their avatars. But it also alienates Sword Art Online from its connection to the reality of the internet, where personal identity is far more fluid.

Furthermore, despite his character arc, Kirito ultimately stands apart from his online community. At the end of the story, everyone lies on the ground paralyzed as he alone is given the privilege to duel the final boss, one-on-one. At this climactic moment, Kirito returns to being a solo player, while every other member of the community lacks agency, including Asuna. Especially Asuna. Shortly before the final battle, Asuna claims she'll commit suicide if Kirito dies, which is already an unhealthily adolescent view of marriage (as seen in Romeo & Juliet). Then, before the duel, when Asuna is paralyzed, Kirito demands that Kayaba "fix it so Asuna can't kill herself." Not only has Kayaba, the villain, stolen Asuna's agency over her own body, but now her husband is requesting he steal even more of it.

This, too, is part of Sword Art Online's ethos. Though the game has 10,000 people, nobody except Kirito actually matters. He is a "Solo Player" in the sense of Solo Leveling, the most popular airing anime, which has a mistranslated title; it should be "Only I Level Up." The implication of the real title is clear: Only the protagonist has agency. Kirito is the same. Only he plays the game, in any meaningful sense. The game—reality—bends to him; none of its rules, even death, constrain him.

It is total self-centeredness, a complete rejection of the responsibility to society that Card describes. This ethos pervades the show. Kirito is never wrong, even when he obviously is, like when he rejects Asuna's proposal to use NPCs as bait. The entire reason he realizes Heathcliff is Kayaba is because, during an earlier duel, Heathcliff beat him; Kirito (correctly) posits that someone who beat him must have been cheating. Everyone who likes Kirito is good, everyone who dislikes him is evil; Kuradeel, who chafes with Kirito initially over bureaucratic guild regulations, eventually unmasks himself as a sadistic serial killer. Every girl is in love with him, a harem rendered vestigial because Kirito is married to Asuna and expresses zero interest in Silica or Lisbeth or his sister or the second season's Carne Asada; but it's not about whether Kirito wants a harem, it's about the prestige of his ability to command one.

This is where the true face of Sword Art Online shows itself, what truly made it so popular, and where the core of its long-lasting influence remains.

Only the virtual world matters. Not the game, not the online community, not online identity. Only a different world, one that isn't the real world. And in this world, only Kirito matters. Sure, he'll fight to protect other people. Exactly like he'll fight to protect NPCs. In this world, real people are worth the same as NPCs, compared to Kirito. His wife is a real person; his daughter is not. But really, both his marriage and his child are a form of playacting, pretending at adulthood. When convenient, they are disregarded and trampled upon. Asuna spends the next two arcs of Sword Art Online sidelined—even viciously sexually assaulted—so Kirito can hang out with girls he doesn't even like, just because they're shiny and new; Yui is almost completely forgotten after the second arc, like a discarded toy.

This is an ethos of pure, distilled escapism. It is an escape from the real world to a false one, where every conceivable selfish fantasy is rendered real, where every desire can be granted and then disposed of when no longer wanted. It is an ethos without responsibility, without consequence.

And without shame. Sword Art Online is remarkably devoid of self-consciousness. It treats as real its virtual world, but doesn't feel the need to justify that world with logic. It doesn't feel the need to justify anything with logic; what it says is so, self-evidently.

In my Kill la Kill essay, I mentioned Sword Art Online's vast influence, and someone wrote (and sadly deleted) a well-reasoned response that explained how the aesthetics and tropes of modern isekai are much more heavily influenced by Japanese webfic that predate Sword Art Online, like GATE or Overlord or Re:Zero. That's true; I'd add that modern Gamer fiction, which is often obsessively concerned with the rules and statistics underlying game logic, is also not very similar to Sword Art Online on a superficial level. But Sword Art Online's ethos transcends genre. It can be found in isekai, Gamer lit, or even genres popular long before Sword Art Online, like battle shounen. Sword Art Online created the web fiction to light novel to anime pipeline, and in doing so popularized amateur literature and its decidedly adolescent mentality of shameless and solipsistic self-indulgence. "Only I Play the Game."

[introloves]

higuruma apologizes when his nose bumps into your clit while he’s going down on you.

assumes it had been a reaction of displeasure with how eager he had been, trying to be mindful of the placement of it while he salivated at the mere thought of swiping his tongue up your weeping hole.

he felt bad for her. poor cunt going unattended, knowing it was something that should have happened the first time you had touched each other- noisily leaning down and huffing hot air against you.

it’s desperate and he should be ashamed of the way his mouth practically drools for the chance to make you cum, tongue sliding noisily against your folds. fingers reaching to grab at your thighs to pin them down, gentle and stoic demeanor lost.

eyes that usually held a sort of sadness and discontent for nearly everything now looked, mean. strands of thick, black hair pressed against his forehead, a blur with the way he shifted his head up and down.

the ridge of his nose slipping up and down your swollen, throbbing clit- the singular bump of it sending tingles down the very core of your being. thigh jumping up in attempt to clamp down against his head- stopped meanly with a strong hand.

he looks up at you- focused gaze instead of the wild frenzy while he had been leaned down into your soppy cunt. see's with lidded eyes the way your knees try to jump off the bed with a singular press of his nose to your swollen, licked clean clit and it takes seconds for him to reign in the impending orgasm when he realizes you like it.

you love the way the curved line of his nose digs in, heated air of his own breath pairing well with how hot you are- shoulders shaking when he tilts his mouth in further, tries to press more of his tongue inside of you.

you fear hiromi is trying to swallow you whole.

"oh- god!" you plead to no one in particular. try to keep yourself down while he keeps you right there- no longer trying to tilt his head to the side, no longer apologizing for the fact that his nose is too hooked, too big. higuruma leans into it, swiping side to side- making sure to smear the remnants of your arousal across his nose.

he should have pulled away and asked if you were okay, should have backed off and verbally inquired about why you were shaking this bad. but if hiromi was wrong, he'd atone for it tenfold.

pride simmering deep in his chest, cock throbbing with the chance that you were reacting so fervently thanks to him or more specifically his nose.

words dying in his throat, any thought slowly melted away- following you to that orgasm he knew was coming so, so soon.

closing his eyes to let you ride him- hands grabbing at you, pulling you closer despite desperate movements.

you were okay, he was here. hands holding you with a revered delicacy despite the frantic bumping of your clit to his nose, or the way his tongue fucked in and out of you over and over.

heated coil finally snapping in mere moments after the way he realized why you shook so hard.

and hiromi curses for letting you slip, unable to hold onto you with how frantic you twitched- sitting up to watch you tip your head back into the bed, pretty mouth popped open to scream a broken chant of his name.

leaning to curl over you, forearm splayed against your head while he himself panted. face dripping, nose shiny- reflecting the utter tenderness he had treated, revered you in.

waiting for you to come back to him, trying to keep his own lowly groaning down- drinking it all in.

"hiromi." you finally cried- pichy and high. shaky fingers reaching for the front of his pressed, white shirt. wet at the collar.

"yeah, i'm here baby." he responded, voice low- bringing himself in to kiss your waiting mouth. sighing when you licked at the line of his lips. greedy little thing.

hypocritical for the singular thought when hunger struck deep in his core the second he rose up off you and saw the line of your slick printed off the line of his nose- gleaming in the low bedroom light.

decadence personified.

[dameronology]

laundry (frank castle)

summary: frank castle is good a lot of things. being domestic is not one of them.

warnings: language and this has not been proofread in the slightest lmao. enjoy!!

It wasn't often that you caught Hell's Kitchen in a beautiful moment but that first hour of light on a cold Tuesday morning caught your entire apartment perfectly. Streams of blonde light peaked through your crooked blinds, filling your bedroom with a warm glow; you could see little specs of dust in the air rising with the angle of the sun - shit, you really needed to vacuum in here - that eventually faded off into nothing. It was your day off, and you didn't want to get up early but Frank Castle's insufferable snoring had interrupted your slumber and unless you'd suddenly gained a liking for Jurassic Park style white noise in the last five seconds, the chances of getting back to sleep stood at zero.

You threw the duvet aside and pitter-pattered out the room, quietly shutting the bedroom door behind you. There was no reason for Frank to be up any time soon, either. With his night job and you being on a work trip, he'd had about seven hours sleep in the last three days.

The state of your apartment reflected that: there was a pile of unwashed combat clothes in the corner, paired with a few pairs of unpolished boots and every single mug to either of your names marinating in the sink in a washing up bowl of coffee and last night's dishes. You let out a sigh - fucking hell, Frank. Still, you weren't going to get on at him for it. You'd only lived together for a month or so by that point and up until now, he'd been perfectly tidy to the point where you hadn't even lifted a finger. The mess was clearly just a reflection of his drained mental state.

With that in mind, you set off to work. Laundry into the washing machine, plates into the dish washer that you weren't even entirely sure Frank knew existed, boots polished and put to the side. It was like clock-work really, just half an hour of cleaning, cleaning and a little bit more cleaning.

"Morning, sunshine," Frank's gravelly voice rung through the small apartment, just in time to walk into a cloud of Febreeze. "Jesus fuck, are you trying to suffocate me?"

"Sorry, Frankie," you pressed a kiss to his jaw, "was just doing some cleaning."

"I can see," Frank looked around, brown eyes flickering between you and the sparkly kitchen counters, "I'll do my bit later."

"It's cool," you shrugged, turning to flick on the kettle.

"Huh?"

"I already did it," you replied, "your clothes are in the drier now and I think I polished your boots."

"You did my laundry?"

You put down the coffee filter you were holding, turning to face Frank with a furrowed brow. "Yeah. Don't tell me you're weirdly specific about your laundry being done? Only because last week I saw you use tape to fix a hole in your-"

" - no, it's just, uh..." Frank paused, dragging a calloused palm through his cropped hair, "I'm not used to people doing shit for me. Sorry. I mean...not sorry, baby. Thank you."

You smiled. "No problem."

--

A few weeks passed, and the apartment stayed tidy.

Another Tuesday came and went, and as usual, Frank was dead to the world. He was finally sleeping normally now that you were home and his routine had been restored. Frank always slept in nowadays - now that he had you beside him, he was catching up on a decade's worth of sleep.

Now, Frank Castle was normally a very heavy sleeper. Save for when he was out on tour in the military, he slept like a fucking plank. Nothing could wake him up - not fire alarms, not your neighbours and their inconsiderate routines, not even when a police car came ripping by your apartment window at 4AM.

"FRANCIS FRANKLIN FUCKING CASTLE, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY FUCKING CLOTHES?!"

Yeah, that'll do it.

Before Frank even had a chance to open his eyes and comprehend what was going on, the door to your shared bedroom burst open. He could see that you were angry - seething, even. The second thing he quickly spotted was your favourite jumper. Only now, it looked like it was from the newborn section at Target.

"Uhhhhhhhhhhhh."

"Now you're speechless? You run your mouth your whole life but the minute you ruin my favourite jumper - my favourite VINTAGE Paramore jumper THAT THEY NO LONGER SELL - you're silent?!" you exclaimed, throwing the jumper onto the bed. "Finally, a solution!"

Frank gulped. "Uhhhhhhh."

You let out an angry huff.

"You did my laundry last week," he began. Frank had a habit of starting sentences and hoping that the rest would come to him half way through, "it made me happy so I, uh, I thought maybe I'd do the same for you. But, I guess you read instructions on clothes and I don't."

Your angry face suddenly softened. "Oh, fuck. Now I feel bad."

"I did wonder what the little symbol on the label meant," Frank muttered.

You picked up the edge of the duvet and slid into bed beside Frank, pressing a kiss to his cheek. He was obviously still a little embarrassed, albeit more relaxed now that he knew you weren't about to bury him alive. Many people had tried, but he was sure you were the only one who could do it.

"Sorry, baby," he quietly said, "I had good intentions. For once."

You smiled. "Don't worry about it."

Frank furrowed his brow at you. "How the goddamn hell did you calm down so quickly?"

"I dunno, I have a hard time being mad at you."

"Huh," Frank murmured. "No-one's said that to me before."

You elbowed him lightly, pressing a kiss to his jaw. "I said I had a hard time staying mad. That doesn't mean you don't drive me up the-"

Before you could finish, a strong pair of arms wrapped around your waist and pulled you under the covers. Frank pressed a warm kiss to your lips, forehead resting against yours.

"I'm sorry about your jumper," he said. "I love you."

"I love you too," you replied, "and it's okay - you can just Paypal me the money for a new one and I'll forgive you."

[karinasbaby]

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐊 𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐆𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐍 — BED 박성훈

"strawberry lingerie, waiting for you strawberries, lingerie."

PAIRING: fiance!sunghoon x fem!reader (17+)

WARNING: pool sex, breath play, unprotected sex, creampie, marking, make out sessions, hickeys, cursing, petnames, lots of praising cuz he's in love, semi public sex?, slight shower sex, jealous & possessive hoon, jake makes a mini appearance, so does winter (aespa), and so does hee, my miserable attempt at angst & fluff, food play, oral (f), breeding, mentions of pregnancy and slight lactation kink, just nasty stuff.

WORD COUNT: 7.8k (what.)

SYNOPSIS: your fiance, sunghoon insisted on a "mini honeymoon" before your wedding preparations took over your time, so how would your day go now that you're on an island thousands of miles away from home with sunghoon?

A. NOTE: hey y'all.. surprise ! idk what this is either all that i know is that i've had this idea for months, anyways this is for all my hoon stans and babygirls i love you. (i apologise from the bottom of my heart for making jake a a fucking CREEP but someone had to be sacrifcied :( i love u jake <3)

"got a kiss with your name on it,"

you and sunghoon have been in a relationship for the past four years, being with sunghoon truly was a blessing as he was an incredibly understanding, attentive, caring and a very loving boyfriend.

to put it short he is a real sweetheart,

your personality mixed and clashed with his perfectly, time spent with sunghoon flew by without either of you noticing, it felt like you've known each other for decades though its only been a handful of years,

so when sunghoon finally proposed to you, practically everyone saw it coming from miles away, to the point where sunghoon had some 'finally!'s thrown into his congratulations from his friends and family after you broke down the elating news,

both of you were over the moon after his proposal as you two were officially together and were on the gates of being a newly wed couple where you both vow for life to each other,

and before both of you got distracted by the big day preparations, sunghoon so generously insisted on a 'mini honeymoon' before the stress and tiring days of the preparations swooped both of you away from each other for weeks, maybe even months.

which is how you found yourself in this predicament, pushing inside your suitcase after sunghoon's on the dark oak floors of the forest facing house that sunghoon rented for the rest of the week, taking in the dark and wooden interior along with the floor to ceiling windows that exposed the kitchen accompanied by the living room to the forest, you could also see a mini pool placed right outside the balcony,

before you could bring back your attention to your suitcase and explore the rooms, you felt a familiar pair of hands snaking around your waist, sunghoon's arms wrapped around you delicately, keeping you in a strong hold as he whispered into your ear, "like the view baby?"

"i love it," you whispered back, your eyes entranced by the view of the sunrise peeking behind the dark green leaves of the massive pine trees decorating the vast land of the forest in large masses, the sky being painted in multitude shades of pink and orange, each colour reflected off your face beautifully as sunghoon's loving eyes gazed at your pleased expression,

smiling happily at your words and satisfaction, he loved making you happy.

"go into the pool first, i'll join you in a minute, angel." he spoke against your ear before placing a gentle kiss onto your temple, his warm embrace untangling from around you, nodding at his words before walking towards the glass door, as you slid it open to allow the warm breeze to brush against your skin, you stripped completely before advancing into the lukewarm water, soft crystal ripples surrounding your frame while you edged towards the corner of the pool,

peering at the sunrise from the parted branches as the light mirrored against the surface of the water around you, your heart drummed against your chest as this was the first of many upcoming vacations that you were to venture out on alone with sunghoon, excitement bubbling in you at the possibility of all events that could unfold with your lover,

before your thoughts and imagination trailed further, you heard his footsteps approaching you, walking next to the pool as you took in his larger frame gazing at you, "what a sight to walk into," he breathed out while you chuckled at his words, signaling him to join you with a motion of your fingers making him waste no time in stripping himself bare, his hoodie and sweatpants along with underwear discarded carelessly around the balcony as he allowed your eyes to take him in all his glory,

the sight of his sculpted body bare for your eyes never failed to make you blush, sunghoon dipped into the water his body approaching yours in a blur, arms wrapping around your body as he closed off all possible space between the two of you, he breathed out a sigh of relief at the calming feeling of your body so close to his,

"i can't wait to spend the whole week with you, baby" he spoke out amidst him placing his head on your shoulder gently, your hands on instinct trailed around his shoulders, softly massaging his skin beneath your fingers while his lips brushed against your neck with each word,

his body heat making yours warmer in the cool water as you smiled at his words, "yeah? what are your plans?" replying back to him while you busied yourself with pulling at the shorter hairs along his nape faintly, "i'm keeping them as surprises" he responded while smiling, you paused your touches making him blink up at your faux pouting expression, "at least tell me one?" you asked, blinking through your eyelashes at him in hopes of convincing him, sunghoon rolled his eyes playfully before his gaze darkened,

his hold on your waist tightening whilst he pushed ever inch of his body against yours, "hold your breath for me, angel," he spoke lowly, inching his face closer to yours making you close your eyes as his lips brushed against yours, you breathed in a deep breath, following his words, "let's see how long you can last" was the last thing he spoke out before he dragged both of your bodies beneath the slightly cooled water,

goosebumps arose on your skin at the feeling of the colder water engulfing your body entirely contrasting the feeling of sunghoon's warmer body that he pressed against you, the moment both of you had sunk down, sunghoon dipped his head towards your lips, you held yourself from gasping out as his soft pillowy lips pressed firmly against yours,

sunghoon going far enough to teasingly lick your bottom lip, the lack of oxygen had your head spinning while he still held you beneath the water, clearly testing your limits as one of hands untied from your waist and began to delicately fondle your breast, his fingers brushing against your hardened nipple as he continued to taunt your body while you began to squirm in his hold,

seconds marched by as you felt a burning sensation spread over your chest while sunghoon's hand dipped lower, brushing pleasantly at your soaked folds, the feeling of his hands caressing and fondling your skin combined with the absence of air made your head spin, your dizziness increasing at the feeling of sunghoon's lips part from yours only to lower and bite at your neck whilst his finger was poking teasingly at your entrance,

with the burning sensation on your chest increasing, you pinched his arm as you felt your chest constricting, sunghoon hastily loosened his hold before he allowed both of your bodies to float towards the surface, gasping in desperation as you heaved in air, sunghoon himself breathing heavily against you as he grounded himself from his own lightheadedness, "didn't last that long, huh?" he mockingly asked as if he wasn't breathing in heaves of air,

"didn't expect your 'plans' to include murdering me" you replied back, closing your eyes in attempts to regulate your breathing while sunghoon chuckled against your neck, before sucking in a breath through gritted teeth, "i have other plans now, baby," he spoke lowly,

not giving you the chance to speak, sunghoon pushed his body against yours completely for a second time, this time allowing his hardened length that was standing proudly against his lower stomach to press against your abdomen, gasping quietly at his movements, sunghoon's hands loosened from around you, "come help me with my plan now, angel," sunghoon said as he leaned against the wall of the pool, resting his elbows in the edge behind him as water droplets cascaded down from his dark wet locks down to his broad chest,

the sight of his hooded gaze peeking at you through his strands almost made your knees buckle, you followed after him, sunghoon's love filled eyes following your every move as you stood in front of him, his frame towering over yours once you wrapped your hands around his neck to kiss him properly this time,

connecting your lips to his tenderly made sunghoon's hands drop from the edge to grip on your hips, nails digging into your skin when you began to suck on his bottom lip, altering from gently biting his lip to swallowing all of his low moans, whilst you busied yourself with his mouth, sunghoon's hand went lower to hold onto the back of your thigh,

lifting your leg to wrap around his hip, the change in position allowed his rock hard length to land directly against your dripping folds, both of you moaning at the feeling of his tip pressing against your entrance, "let me hear you, darling," he spoke against your kisses, dizzy by your continued suckling on his swollen lips, you parted from his mouth to allow all of your pretty sounds that he adored to fall from your lips the moment he pushed in his tip further against your welcoming soaked walls,

lustrous half lidded eyes studied all of the expressions painting across your face at the feeling of his length invading your walls, sunghoon's jaw dropped as he mimicked your expressions, breathing heavily at your tightness engulfing him when he bottomed out completely,

his other hand wrapped around your waist to keep you in place while his other tightened around the plush skin of your thigh, frailly beginning to rock his hips against yours while moving yours to match with his soft thrusts, his lips lazily locked around your shoulders, marking the skin sweetly whilst all your groans and moans landed perfectly on his ears, his length rubbing against all of the spots that had you seeing stars before thrusting out with only the tip remaining, he repeated this routine as both of you felt your lower stomachs tightening,

impending highs creeping up on you, while sunghoon quickened his pace, his mouth now occupied with sucking dark marks along your neck, beautiful blueish red marks decorating the expanse of your chest up to your neck, occasionally biting to make you gasp adorably against his ears, he swiftly moved your other thigh to wrap around his waist, your legs easily floating and wrapping around his waist beneath the rippling water, his tip pressing against your cervix deliciously in this position making you cry out his name,

"i'm right here, angel," he spoke against your neck, hips pressing against yours harshly, sunghoon was fully hugging you now while he pounded into you, ripples gradually turning into small waves travelling across the surface of the pool as both of you neared your highs, your cries fell into his ear while his continuous praises fell against yours, your body jerked in his hold, thighs trembling around his waist as you felt your orgasm right around the corner,

"h-hoon, i'm so c-close," you mewled out as his thrusts only began to turn rougher, almost pushing him over the edge with your weak voice crying out his nickname oh so sweetly, his own body shook as he felt his climax impossibly closer, his nails digging onto every inch of skin they touched whilst you desperately held onto him,

"i've got you, angel, i'm right here, baby," he croaked out needily into your ear, his weak voice combined with his nails clawing in despair whilst he held onto you as his thrusts became sloppy and his hips trembled against yours were enough to push you over the edge, the familiar tightening of your walls when you gushed around him dragged out his climax from him in a breathtaking manner,

sunghoon instantly locked his lips onto your swollen red ones as he dipped you below the water yet again, thick ropes of white, warm cum pushed out right against your cervix as your walls clung almost painfully around his length, the sudden loss of air made both of your climaxes take entirely over your body,

clutching onto his shoulders when he continued thrusting, his tongue riskily pressing inside of your mouth as you felt dizziness take over your body from your orgasm and the cold water engulfing you, lungs burning when you felt yourself seconds away from blacking out, slipping further from reality when sunghoon's hand sneaked downwards to toy with your clit, prolonging your dizzying high even further, relishing in the way you bit down harshly at his bottom lip,

sunghoon made you both ride out your orgasms, mouth still pressed against yours while tears prickled in the corners of your closed eyes, before you could pinch him again he quickly made you rise to the surface, your weak body slumping against his as he held you up, having the audacity to chuckle breathlessly at your fucked out expression, "darling, we haven't even started yet," he spoke out as he attempted to regulate his breathing, too tired to respond you only left his comment with a harsh pinch onto his shoulders that you were holding onto, earning a pained laugh from him,

sunghoon quickly walked towards the other edge facing the house, grabbing onto the towels he discarded once he walked into the balcony, he carefully walked out of the pool with your body wrapped around his, using a towel large enough to cover your slightly shaking body to shield you from the cold breeze along with his,

"let's go shower then we'll take a nap, alright angel?" he whispered softly into your ear, hands loosening around you when you nodded against him, he walked into the shower, dark interior extending into the bathroom, he gently placed you down after he removed the soaked towel, arm wrapped around your waist in support as he stepped beneath the large rectangular shower head,

warm water cascaded down both of your cold bodies, the slight numb feeling in your fingers disappearing whilst the water poured, sunghoon's larger frame wrapped around yours, love-struck eyes entranced by the sight of your blissed out face, with your eyes closed you wrapped your arms around his waist, his length remained between your thighs as he hold you close to him, allowing your bodies to warm up,

"'did so well for me, angel" he praised, loving gaze still stuck on you as you completely clouded his thoughts, "my pretty, perfect, angel" his voice continued to spill out praises lowly, squirming in his hold at his sweet words his hold on you tightened, holding himself back from moaning once your thighs brushed against his sensitive length,

you stopped your movement once you felt his semi hard length pressing against you, frozen as you looked up at him to see sunghoon's sultry gaze already locked on yours with his face flushed, "you're so needy today," you lowered your face, chuckling against his chest, when he grumbled, "you drive me crazy, angel" he groaned out, "i can tell," you responded, sneaking your hand between your bodies you grabbed his length before placing it between your folds, "baby-" sunghoon began, wanting to protest as he didn't want to tire you out, you shushed him your your finger, rocking your hips slowly against his allowing his cock to slip against your soaked folds,

sunghoon moaned lowly at the feeling of his cum dripping out from your cunt to rub against his length, your warmth gently stroking him whilst pearly precum dripped out from his reddened tip, mixing with the water, "fuck- baby, just like that," he moaned out once you began to move quicker, clenching your thighs to squeeze his cock perfectly,

"so fucking perfect for me, angel" he began to babble out once he felt the tensing feeling in his abdomen, "every part of you is so perfect," he breathed out needily, you stared at his expressions before he threw his head back, the hot droplets landing directly on his flushed face, cascading to drip down his neck, through the dim lighting you could see the expanse of his chest revealed entirely before your hungry eyes, without a second thought you dipped towards his neck, trailing soft kisses along his pale, smooth skin making him moan breathily, "i'm so c-close, angel, keep going," he choked out, imminent climax tightening in his lower stomach familiarly, his body trembled against yours as you continued to stroke his length,

sunghoon was in pure euphoria, you continued your ministrations, completely pushing him over the edge, his grip on your hips became firmer, he began to quicken your pace even further once he felt his high wash over his shaking body fully, breathy moans echoing throughout the bathroom as his cum trickled down your inner thighs before mixing with the water, you continued kissing and sucking along his neck resulting in goosebumps appearing along his skin, his thrusts slowing gradually, his grip on you loosened while you looked up at his dazed expression, "i'm so glad i married you."

"love me good, love me down, don't turn me down,"

after your mini marathon with sunghoon, he kept his words of letting you both take a rest before doing anything else for the rest of the day, it was way past the afternoon now, the evening approaching slowly as you and sunghoon were sitting on a small towel on the beach, the sunset's colours ahead of you mirrored on you both stunningly,

vibrant lights glowed from the numerous food stands placed around the side of the beach, carrying twinkling fairy lights from all colors while on the other side you could spot bodies swaying with other bodies as the loud speakers from the stage of a mini platform blared the song of the band performing atop of it,

your eyes occupied with gazing at all the scenes unfolding ahead of you, the chatter of the small crowds from the passersby accompanied by the singing of the dancing crowd, your ears also picked up the echoing laughter of children whilst they raced away from the waves, you felt at peace in such a happy place along with your lover who was gazing at your pleased expression with his heart soaring, every color from the fairylights and the fluorescent lights reflected from your twinkling eyes that he oh so deeply adored,

sunghoon shifted your attention back to him when he laid down gingerly and placed his head on your lap, chestnut strands contrasting your white dress that you wore as they spread out graciously, tempting you to run your fingers delicately throughout his hair which you began to do subconsciously, he hummed in satisfaction at the familiar feeling of your fingertips massaging his scalp gently,

"feeling tired?" you asked him quietly as you stared at his gorgeous profile, the slope of his nose seeming to be carved by a deity, his moles decorating his pale skin elegantly, his usually furrowed eyebrows relaxed with his eyes closed, breathing in the salty air around him deeply, he looked serene as he was in a state so calm and tranquil he almost felt drowsy, "a bit," he replied,

truth is, he felt himself slipping further into his drowsiness, mere seconds away from completely disconnecting and falling into pure slumber as your fingers continued to work through his strands, the sounds of the crashing waves lulling him deeper,

he, however held himself back from falling asleep, especially not when you're in a good mood and you weren't even feeling sleepy like he was, he wasn't going to allow his plans to suddenly have the opposite effect on him with you awake and him asleep, fighting against his own body, he opened his eyes, his tired gaze meeting your expectant ones, "want me to get you a drink?" you questioned,

pointing into one of the stands that appeared to be serving cocktails to the group pf adults lining as other servers leaned down, smiling as they handed a bunch of kids what appeared to be colorful drinks from all types of fruits, sunghoon quickly nodded before he pushed his body off, "don't take too long," he grumbled whilst you began to walk away from him, you only chuckled at his grumpiness,

arriving before the welcoming server who happened to be a girl slightly younger than you, you hastily ordered a non-alcoholic beverage for sunghoon knowing that him getting drunk when he's sleepy was not the best idea, as the last time it happened it somehow ended up with him sleeping on the balcony without a blanket after he refused to listen to you in his intoxicated state, which resulted in him dealing with a cold for the rest of the week, and you for sure didn't want the trip to end so quickly,

the brunette— minjeong who told you her name sweetly during your small chat with her, "you're engaged?!" she questioned, bewilderment and shock evident on her face, "but you're still so young!" she continued as you laughed at her adorable expressions before you shrugged helplessly, you still had difficulty at fully digesting and processing the fact that you were engaged as well, everyday with sunghoon passing by as a mere blur yet it was something you grew accustomed to over time, "is that him?" minjeong asked you, looking behind you at an approaching figure of a young guy,

you turned around, thinking maybe you had taken too long hence why sunghoon could possibly be behind you right now, but instead you came face to face with a guy who appeared to be around your age, blonde hair sleeked back, slightly messy from what you guessed- him running his fingers through his strands as he was literally doing it in front of you,

he was a gorgeous man, curious dark brown eyes quickly travelled your figure before he revealed a breathtaking smile, he swiftly stood besides you, facing minjeong as he blurred out a random order, after minjeong's confused eyes flickered between the both of you, she walked towards the back, momentarily disappearing from your sight, the taller man next to you accepting this as an advantage turned his body to face you,

once he met your gaze, he smiled once again "you're a new face here," he spoke with a thick accent as he chuckled, eyes studying your face,

"you're for sure new around here," his voice low and smooth, awaiting for your answer while your heart drummed in your chest, you pushed the idea of sunghoon seeing you with a random guy, because besides avoiding getting him sick again on this trip, you truly didn't want to anger him- or worse, make him jealous on this trip,

opting to fix your hair with your engagement ring clad hand in hopes of him noticing and returning to wherever he came from, yet it seemed that it flew completely past by him as he continued, "you gonna respond to me, doll?" he leaned his body further towards you, provoking you even further whilst you backed away, "i'm here for a trip," you replied,

eyes ignoring his playful gaze, desperately searching for minjeong to arrive with sunghoon's drink so you can go back into his comforting embrace, "really? i can show you around then, doll" he smiled at you once again, eyes drinking you up, god you were gorgeous.

seeming to get no response again from you, your anxiousness growing worse with each second as did your discomfort, tapping your foot on the sand beneath you, "i'm jake by the way, what kind of trip are you on, doll?" he winked at you, his arm brushing against yours finally making you snap-

"a honeymoon trip."

a deep, familiar voice rasped out from behind you, sunghoon's arm snaking around your waist protectively and his figure towered behind you, almost in a scary manner, the comically funny sight of jake's face falling at sunghoon's appearance and words almost made you laugh, sunghoon's heavy breathing fanning at your neck forced goosebumps to arise on your body as his body almost shook with jealousy and at the sheer audacity of this random dude approaching you, was the diamond on your ring finger not big enough?

"you don't seem too happy about it, jake." sunghoon pressed on, now holding your hand and waving the diamond ring directly in front of his face, the irritation on jake's face becoming more visible with every passing second, before he sucked a deep breath in, "nah.. totally the opposite, congratulations." he replied through gritted teeth,

"so you were saying.. about showing her around?" sunghoon asked, eyebrow raised as his face remained stoic, his intimidating, glowering gaze raking over jake multiple times, while your heart only thumped at the increasing tension, part of you wishing minjeong to not come back and have the young girl witness whatever was going on between jake and sunghoon,

"you don't really find beautiful girls all alone around here.. they're usually with someone," jake began, his own challenging gaze holding sunghoon's angry one, "i knew she probably isn't from here, so that's why i approached her, she was standing all alone after all," jake kept bringing up the fact that you were alone, with each word coming out of his mouth sunghoon's grip tightened around you, you cursed at yourself for somehow managing to end up in this situation, sunghoon and jake felt like they were seconds away from jumping at each other as the latter kept spewing words to rile sunghoon further,

you held onto sunghoon's hand, his knuckles white and cold as they trembled beneath your hold, "you seem a bit experienced at approaching 'pretty girls' , jake." sunghoon replied, jake's eyes visibly darkening at his words, tilting his head yet before he could respond, a taller guy, clad in rings and chains, with jet black slightly wavy hair approached both of you,

his hands wrapped around jake's shoulders as he pulled him back, "woah! gentlemen, let's calm down a bit, yeah? there's still a lady here," the man with captivating round brown eyes smiled at you sweetly before his gaze switched between the two men who were breathing heavily, jake stumbled back into the guy's arms, huffing in frustration as his gaze softened in realisation once he saw your worried gaze, sunghoon's demeanour never wavered, his eyes still stuck on jake's face who seemed to be yet again distracted by you,

breathing out in relief, your shaky breaths finally caught the attention of sunghoon who stepped away from jake as he was getting scolded by the other guy, noticing the tight grip you had over his hand, sunghoon's racing heartbeat due to anger suddenly raced due to worry, guilt seeping through his veins when you closed your eyes in relief, face stricken with worry,

"baby.." he began, hands carefully reaching upwards to hold gently onto your face, before you held onto his wrists, jake and the other guy seemed a far distance away as the taller one seemed to be explaining something in an overly dramatic matter to another dark haired guy who looked at jake with a disapproving look, his frown only deepening when jake's only response was to roll his eyes and wave them off,

sunghoon's heart momentarily stopped when your weak hold wrapped around his wrist, "i'll see you at the house," you spoke, voice quiet though it rung in sunghoon's ears once you walked away from him, heading towards the house which was a few streets away, leaving him all alone in the beach,

he fucked up.

you fucked up.

if only you had been able to tell jake from the beginning that you were engaged, maybe that could've stopped him from continuing his questions which resulted in sunghoon almost getting into a fight if it wasn't for the bambi-eyed guy stepping in and dragging jake away, now both your and sunghoon's mood was ruined entirely, especially sunghoon's— which was way worse.

all scenarios and daydreams that you kept thinking of, how magical this trip would be and how special it'll be for only the two of you got ruined as you managed to fuck it up.

how were you going to make it up for sunghoon?

not only did you anger him, you left him alone at the beach as well, who knows maybe he got into a fight with jake after you left? or he sat down and sadly drank his drink minjeong handed him as he decided that giving you some alone time would be the best decision for now,

just how were you supposed to make it up for him?

slumping against the bed once you finally arrived into the house, the memories of the morning earlier overtaking your thoughts, what a turn of events.

and as you wallowed in worry and guilt, an idea popped up in your head so sensibly, praying to all deities and gods above that sunghoon would follow along to what you were thinking,

"got a bed with your name on it,"

and after what seemed to be an hour or maybe a half, maybe even two, sunghoon lost complete track of time as he sat down at the beach, his glass empty infront of him, memories from the previous hours kept repeating in his head, great, it was only the first day of the trip he insisted on and he managed to ruin it by almost breaking one of the main promises you begged him for, to never get into fights because of you, or possibly end up in a situation that hurt him because of you,

the promise went both ways, and you so politely kept yours throughout the four years, whilst he on the other hand always ended up in situations where he either broke it or almost broke it,

his anger was one of the main things he despised about himself, he hated how out of control his emotions could get sometimes to the point of worrying you like today, his possessiveness and jealousy were different factors that he also disliked, but he couldn't help it.

not when he got so miraculously lucky and was blessed with you as his lover, he loved and adored you so much, you were his entire world, his entire universe revolved around you, you were such a pure hearted and kind soul, your breathtaking beauty another bonus making you an angel in his eyes,

you attracting the hungry eyes of other men should be no surprise to sunghoon, turning heads in every room you walked was something he had to grow accustomed to, holding back his anger from punching any and every man that stared at you with nothing but lust in his eyes,

yet when he saw jake so carelessly hitting on you, even though you did every possible movement to get your ring in his vision along with jake's ministrations continuing though you were clearly uncomfortable, anyone could tell from miles away that you didn't wish to continue whatever jake was insunating and it had sunghoon seeing red, like stated before, he can't help himself.

and now after a short conversation with the guy who dragged jake away, who he learned to be heeseung, seeming more mature than jake, he apologised for his friend's actions which he unexpectedly received an apology from sunghoon for,

"i acted on my anger as well, i'm sorry, i should've just told him we're engaged and ended it there," he spoke out, voice low in exhaustion and guilt, heeseung only smiled at his changed demeanour, witnessing a contrasting side of sunghoon that seemed like a complete different person than the man who he distanced jake from in fear that this might be the time that jake will end up hurt,

his fiery eyes simmered down to eyes filled with regret and shame at his childish behaviour, heeseung quickly reassured him that it was alright, understanding sunghoon's perspective entirely, "it's cool man, you only did what you had to do as a man, to protect your woman." heeseung smiled comfortingly at him, sunghoon smiled slightly at the way heeseung referred to you, it wasn't anything new to him, but it never failed to make his heart skip a beat whenever people mentioned your name around him let alone called you 'his woman',

"which- congratulations on the engagement by the way," heeseung added, his twinkling round eyes gazing at sunghoon gently, before sunghoon smiled back at him in appreciation, "thank you."

"we could still.. show you around the island you know.. i'll keep jake in control, i promise," he spoke, awkwardly scratching at his neck, preparing his response for sunghoon's rejection, his words made sunghoon chuckle, nodding in agreement at heeseung, resulting in the older's eyes brightening, "you better get going now, i'm sure she's waiting for you," he spoke while wiggling his eyebrows in a kid like manner, his actions made sunghoon shake his head as he chuckled before he decided to finally head back home, apology memorised and prepared in his head throughout his time at the beach,

"see you tomorrow, sunghoon! goodnight!" heeseung shouted from the opposite direction of sunghoon as he waved his hand, sunghoon responded with a 'goodnight' before they both disappeared from each other's sights,

sunghoon's heart was thumping against his chest, thoughts of your reaction and responses clouded his anxious mind, he hoped and wished that you both will be able to talk this out and not fight, he could feel small sweat droplets roll below his neck, his head almost aching from his worry and fatigue, all he wanted to do was to hold you tight in his embrace and sleep comfortably, but it seemed like the universe had different plans,

you had completely different plans.

walking inside of your house to see all the lights turned off, no traces of you in the balcony nor the kitchen, sunghoon's stress worsened as he dragged his feet into the bedroom to welcome a sight that'll easily knock the breath out of his lungs,

maybe he was overthinking with your 'reactions and responses', especially since every scenario in his head consisted of negative emotions followed by negative outcomes, that completely contrasted the sight of you, clad in nothing but a light pink— strawberry coloured lace lingerie, laying on your side cozily on the bed, facing the forest, seemingly awaiting your lover's arrival,

sunghoon swallowed thickly, heart thundering once you turned around, dazed eyes meeting his gaze making his breath hitch, he took in your appearance for a second time,

"angel.." he breathed out heavily, he could feel the apparent tightening in his pants increasing, you blinked at him innocently, before you turned your whole body towards him, the sight of your breasts barely covered by the see-through lacey bra had him biting the inside of his cheek, he came here to apologise, so what the fuck was he going to do?

"join me?" you spoke out, drawing him out of his conflicted thoughts, once he registered your words he quickly wiped his sweaty palms into the fabric of his pants, walking towards you and noticing a small strawberry in your hand, the bowl of strawberries placed onto the bedside table also coming into view accompanied by a can of whipped cream,

he really did get ridiculously lucky with you.

his feet dragged him towards you in no time, body crawling over the bed to tower over yours, you looked at him through your lashes once he began to move, grabbing the strawberry from your hand before reaching out for the whipped cream, removing the cap to press on the nozzle and cover half of the strawberry with the icy frosting, he inched his hand towards your mouth, never breaking the eye contact when he fed you the strawberry,

his hand flicked into the corner, landing a bit of the frosting onto the side of your mouth, "sorry.. let me help you," he spoke with faux sympathy, his lust filled eyes barely visible with his hair strands falling graciously, obstructing his vision yet his eyes never left your mouth, your heart hammered in your ribcage once he licked his lips before he leaned in to lick the frosting from the corner of your mouth teasingly,

whilst he had you distracted, his hand held the can above your chest, tilting the top lower to drip the remaining bits of the cream onto your chest, and once you hissed at the cold droplets landing against your warm skin you heard him gasp in shock, "oops, i don't know how it's getting everywhere," he chuckled, not giving you the chance to respond he dipped lower to caress your skin with his wet tongue, humming in delight once the sweet frosting melted in his mouth, relishing in your low whimpers,

he shook the can in his hand whilst he busied his mouth with softly suckling on your supple skin, dragging the cream over your rib cage then going lower to your stomach, "sorry baby.. i just can't help it," he breathed out, licking up all the whipping cream from your rib only to land kisses along the expanse of your skin when it got clean, you whimpered once he dipped lower to lick your belly button, before he stopped at the hem of your panties, you sat up on your elbows to see sunghoon discarding the bottle onto the bed, attaching his teeth onto the hem as he held your gaze, hauling the thin fabric to your knees then yanked it off below your ankles,

you fell back against the bed, lightheaded when he lifted your thighs gently to wrap them around his shoulders, face descending lower, allowing him to inhale your sweet scent, he felt slightly dizzy at your closer contact that he had been impatiently waiting for,

"you're dripping baby.." his voice lowered, sunghoon ran the tip of his tongue along your soaked folds, eyes closing once your nectar bursted with flavour on his tongue along with your breathy moans falling onto his ears divinely,

one hand coming up to rub slow circles over your aching clit as he began to carefully push his tongue into your drenched entrance, you gasped out in surprise once his tongue began to lick all over your walls, waves of pleasure electrifying your spine as he continued to please you, his tongue and finger never faltering in movement while you gripped the sheet, the coil in your stomach constricting from your building up release, voice increasing in pitch when he began to fasten his actions, "hoon- i'm cumming!" you warned before your climax crashed onto you quicker than you could've processed,

sunghoon only moaned lowly against your cunt while you gushed around him, he licked every drop of your nectar whilst his finger never stalled, aiding you in riding out your high as you continued to moan beautifully for him, sunghoon slowly stopped and finished off with a small kiss onto your clit making you squirm before he crawled towards you, allowing you to take the heavenly sight of his face glistening, his gaze almost seeming intoxicated at your flavour, "so much sweeter than that stupid cream," he spoke out amidst him connecting his lips onto yours, groaning slightly at the taste of the sweet strawberry still on your tongue all the while you tasted yourself and the cream on his,

sunghoon's hands restlessly tugged at your lace bra, his mouth still latched onto yours as he impatiently ripped the fabric off easily, you mewled into his mouth once his hands began to fondle your breasts, fingers pinching and pulling at your hardened nipples while his mouth sucked onto your bottom lip,

sunghoon pulled away momentarily to discard his own clothes in a blur, each item landing in a different location in the room, he crawled back to you eagerly, your hands instantly lifting up to caress his smooth skin, running your fingers down his shoulders to his waist as you stared at him lovingly, his body warming yours, your tender gaze making butterflies erupt in his stomach, he quickly reconnected your mouths with his tongue running along yours, lifting your legs up carefully to rest on his shoulders then he moved to push your knees onto your chest,

his rock hard length fitted snugly against your folds, teasingly resting his heavy weight over your pulsing clit, sunghoon pulled away to reach into the bowl, pulling another strawberry, placing the fruit into his mouth with half of it protruding, he leaned towards you, enticing you to take a bite,

you pushed yourself forward, connecting your lips shortly until you took a bite of the fruit, sweet flavour exploding to your mouth whilst sunghoon stared at you, gaze half open and glimmering as his length twitched against you, he hastily dipped to capture your lips again, in the meantime his hand went lower, positioning his tip along your entrance before he slowly pushed himself deeper, inch by inch stretching you open on his thick length, deliciously filling you up all the while licking needily into your mouth,

you moaned into his mouth once he bottomed out, tip pressed snugly against your cervix whilst your walls were accommodating to the burning stretch, sunghoon mouth worked sloppily against yours, swallowing all your sounds when he began to slightly move, drool dripping from the corners of your mouth yet it bothered neither of you, his hands held the back of your knees roughly, keeping you in place as he began to pound into you,

his mouth kissed along your jaw, allowing your moans and whimpers to reverberate throughout the room, you helplessly clawed at his biceps, digging your nails into his skin resulting in him hissing in pleasure, sunghoon's hips pistoned into yours, his cock running along and hitting all of your sweet spots, his hands moved towards your breast, caressing the skin before he latched his mouth onto your nipple,

the feeling of his teeth slightly biting your skin had your eyes rolling back, your hands pulling at the sheets once squelching, wet sounds echoed throughout the room followed by both your and sunghoon's moans, "i'm gonna fill you up so good, angel," he groaned against your skin, "you'll feel my cum throughout the entire week, he continued,

nuzzling his head into your neck, he pressed his mouth onto your ear, hips never faltering against you, "gonna let me breed this pretty cunt, yeah?" he grunted, breath hot on your ear, his body jerking against yours, small sweat droplets rolling off from him to land against you, the smell of sex and your mixed arousal filling the room, "fuck- yes! please, baby," you whimpered in his ear, abdomen tightening for a second time causing your walls to clamp around him, he groaned in pleasure as he sloppily thrusted into your heat, "please what, angel?"

"please fill me up," you whispered weakly, throat hoarse and your voice almost disappearing, his mind was spinning once he felt his approaching release as his cock was practically moulding your walls to his shape, his length was continuously jerking inside of you at his orgasm, your wetness mixed with his precum now dripping below your thighs to stain the mattress, "gonna let me fuck my baby into you, hm?" he teased with his cock drilling inside of you, "god you'd look so gorgeous carrying my baby," he continued babbling whilst you nodded dumbly at his words, too distracted by your release, sunghoon's hands fondled your breasts, "gonna look so pretty with these filled with your sweet milk," his hands squeezed your tits at his 'these' word, finger pinching at your nipple before he sucked it into his mouth,

his own hips began to uncontrollably convulse while your legs trembled on his shoulders, your eyes rolling back for the nth time once your orgasm washed over you, jaw going slack all the while sunghoon's gaze never left your face, his mouth still latched onto your nipple as he whimpered at the tight feeling of your walls clamping on his length, he lifted his face to pepper small kisses all along your jaw and cheeks, your breath uneven as sunghoon helped you to ride out your orgasm, eyes closed tightly in pure bliss, "such a good girl, creaming all over my cock" he praised, softly brushing loose strands away from your face before he pecked your lips, "my perfect good girl,"

in the blink of an eye he switched your positions, holding you on your side while he laid behind you, his sweaty chest pressing against your back as he held your leg open before plunging his cock back into you, both of you groaning at the feeling of your wetness gushing out more when he thrusts back in, his other hand swiftly landed against your clit to rub slow circles on your puffy nub whilst his length thrusted into your warmth in deep and steady strokes,

his hot breath fanning your shoulders, kissing the skin of your neck every now and then while his eyebrows furrowed, his mind in a frenzy as his climax felt mere seconds away, "come on angel, cream all over my cock again. come on, baby" sunghoon whined from behind you, each word going straight to your needy cunt making you clench around him, you felt like you were on cloud nine with his constant overstimulation, his hand never slowed against your clit while his cock ached inside of you,

"h-hoon i c-can't-" you stuttered out, he moaned at the feeling of you tightening at his words, your cunt sucking him in entirely, "yes baby, you can, come on. i need to feel it, baby" he blabbered, you couldn't tell if you were being overstimulated or if sunghoon dragged another orgasm out of you as you cried, your body shaking entirely once you began squirting all over his length, sunghoon's breath hitched, a chain of fuckfuckfuck- spilling from his mouth as his climax washed over him, pressing his hips against yours to push his tip to your cervix, allowing his warm load to shoot into your womb while your walls milked him fully, both of you panting in overstimulation and fatigue as he filled you up,

sunghoon carefully placed your sore leg down, length still buried deep in you to keep his load in place, you were exhausted, already slipping off to a deep slumber whilst you began to feel sunghoon press kisses along your shoulder,

"so.. am i forgiven?" he asked quietly,

"yeah- yeah i think so."

then you heard him whisper a sweet 'i love you.' before completely surrendering to sleep,

BONUS:

and here you were on your fifth day of the trip, indulging in a conversation with heeseung as he explained all the other different games to you, all with captivating colorful lights that easily distracted you,

on the other side of the arcade you could spot minjeong and jay sitting down at a bench together, each holding a cup that contained god knows what as they were both already tired with their social batteries empty,

while your dear fiance- there really was no need to look for him once you heard him yelling at jake, a few feet away from you while jake shouted a 'cheater!' to his face,

"how the fuck can i cheat when i'm literally playing a claw machine?!" sunghoon yelled back in bewilderment,

"seriously how did you marry him?" heeseung questioned as he covered his ears for the nth time due to their shouting, you only laughed at his frustrated expression since you, yourself didn't know how you managed to marry sunghoon.

A. NOTE (pt2): this took like more than 4 days i'm not gonna post till next year atp. also this is proof read but it's also 7k so pls ignore any sentences that don’t make sense <3