#of creating fake snow

[inspectorspacetimerevisited]

Unlike the rip-off, *Inspector Spacetime* never went to the trouble of creating fake snow for holiday specials.

It actually better reflected the reality in the UK during these warmer times.

[sixaustralia]

i just KNOW this school camp episode is gonna be wild but also NOTHING like my year 11 camp

[etfrin]

⤷❝The Study | Coriolanus Snow❞ˎˊ-

⇢☾Warning: NSFW | riding, toxic relationship, arranged marriage, mentions of cheating (no actual cheating occurs), riding, dom sub undertones, degradation (he calls you a slut once), hair pulling, edging if you squint, crying, pinv sex, unprotected sex (wrap it dumbfucks), creampie, dry humping, clothed sex (you were still wearing a dress) | lmk if I forgot anything!

⇢☾Pairing: young president! Coriolanus Snow x fem! Reader

⇢☾Summary: A video of you flirting with an elitist goes viral and Snow calls you to his study to confront you about it and it ends up in sexy times ;)

⇢☾A/N: btw for those who doesn't get why Snow asked reader to mark him, it's to show the Capitol that despite rumors, they are actually very close. And uhmm I hope you guys like this!

< masterlist > < bc: @cafekitsune >

< tags: @roryzzz @stelleduarte @strengthandstay @skywalker1dream >

The marriage was a facade, a show for the Capitol that the president didn't stand alone. The people in the manor were the only people who knew how fake the marriage was. Some of the elite of the Capitol could also tell. People can fake everything but not love, never love.

You learned early on Snow wasn't capable of love. A lover wouldn't do half of the atrocities Snow committed as he got to power but he had never done anything to you. You didn't exist for him in the manor and he was always respectful when you were by his side.

It was manageable, the life you had, nobody could mistreat you, not as the First Lady of Panem. However mistreatment and flirting are very different things, and the people of Capitol aren't a stranger to wandering hands and lustful eyes.

You didn't think Coriolanus would mind that you sometimes let the hands linger. That you would bask in the attention you were so deprived of from your husband. You were proven wrong as a video of you and an elitist was going viral all over the Capitol.

You didn't cheat on Snow, but you were too close to the stranger. His hand on your waist and your smile too wide. Cheating or not, it wasn't any less inappropriate.

A remainder by your servant made you walk to the study in which Snow spent most of his time. You were wearing a knee-length white dress, something that clings to your curves. It was a desperate, pathetic attempt to distract Snow. A part of you knew it wouldn't work and would make your mistake more obvious but it was an attempt better than none.

You knocked at the door and you could hear him say come in. So you did. Your hands are behind your back, and your eyes look at the floor like it's the most interesting thing in the world.

“Do you know what you have done?” He asked, you still couldn't look up to meet his gaze. Your fingers fumble behind your back as you bite your inner cheek. You give him a nod.

“And what have you done?” He questioned, his voice like the calm before the storm. “I created unnecessary gossip that isn't good for your reputation,” you mummer.

“What else?” He said, his tone suspicious and waiting for the confirmation. That's when you look up at the most beautiful demon you have ever seen. He looked all glorious with his suit and hair slicked back. “I didn't cheat,” you said, firmly, your eyes fierce and reflecting the truth of your words.

When Snow didn't reply, you insisted again, “I. Didn't. Cheat. It's a line I will never cross, Coriolanus.” Again, he didn't say anything, instead, his gaze went up and down your body, his expression unreadable. You flushed from his stare, not sure if wearing this dress was the right move after all. The man had always surrounded himself with those stupid white roses and this was the symbol that you had noticed.

“Come and sit.” You begin to walk towards the chair only to be interrupted by his words, “No, not there, in my lap.” You freeze from his words, but your brain tells you to obey his every word.

You make your way to him, your heels clicking against the marble floor. Your hands are sweaty and your heart is in your throat. You reach him before you straddle him without a word being uttered. Your dress hitching up to your thighs. Your hands around his shoulders as you wait for further instructions from your husband.

“What do you think we should do to make the rumors go away?” He asked, his voice deep and so seductive. You weren't even sure he realized the effect his voice had on you. You let out a small gasp when his hands held your hips, cementing your place in his lap.

His hands were warm and perhaps maybe it was biased but you thought they would be ice cold. Instead, his palm laminated heat against the thin fiber of your dress making your skin warm. Your former flush turns into a deeper shade of red.

“We could…” you couldn't focus, how could you when he was touching you like this? When he was so close. He was never this close to you before. Ever. His touch reminded you of the fact that despite everything he is a man and your husband at that. A demon in human flesh.

“We could do more PR,” you mumbled. He raised an eyebrow at the suggestion. “I mean if we do it right, I am sure it will work,” you fumbled. He gives you a nod.

“Take off my shirt,” he demanded. Your eyes widen and you hesitate. “Do it or I’ll make you.” he threatened and you know not to take his words lightly. With shaky fingers, you unbutton his shirt. The process was slow, meticulously slow. His toned physique comes into complete view, making your breath hitch. Fuck, he was a Greek God of tragedy and sin.

“Mark me up,” he said, his tone emotionless. “What?” you questioned, surprised. “You think you’re acting innocent?” he sneered, “You heard what I said, my wife. It's because of your suggestion. Mark. Me. Up.”

You swallow down your nervousness and bring your lips forward to his cheek. You pressed a soft kiss there and felt him tense underneath you. You drag your lips to his jaw and nip the skin, the tip of your tongue soothing the small teeth mark as he lets out a grunt. It was music to you. A masterpiece of symphony and you needed more, so much more. Snow had you deprived for months and it's time to take.

Your lips continue to nip at his jaw, placing sloppy wet kisses as his breaths get heavy. You moved down to his neck, a moan leaving your lips as you attacked his skin with your teeth. Sucking onto his pulse point and moaning when the salty taste of his skin hits your taste buds. Your hand goes to his neck, tilting his head to give you more access. All the while he lets out quite controlled sounds. You licked his Adam's apple before wrapping your mouth around it to suck a purple bruise. Marking him up just as he wanted.

His hand on your waist gave you a firm squeeze which made you bite harder and made him hiss. You lean back panting, as you admire your artwork of teeth marks and red love bites. You pressed down into him and moaned as his hard bulge pressed right against your clothed cunt. Your panties were soaked by now. “Snow,” you whimper.

“Corio, call me Corio” he whispered. His eyes briefly turned to a white bouquet of roses before he met your gaze. You didn't think much of it and whispered, “Corio.”

“Corio,” you tried the name again on your tongue and watched his eyes darken. You leaned in, your lips brushing against his. “Let me kiss you. Let me make you my husband, please,” you whispered.

You waited for a verbal answer but all you got was another squeeze on your waist. You were desperate enough to take what you could get. You started by grinding against his bulge. The juices that made your panties soaked are now ruining his pants.

You let out a breathless moan as you gained delicious friction against your pussy but it wasn't enough. There's no hell and heaven for which this would be enough. You crashed your lips to his. The kiss was all carnage and desire. Uncoordinated, something so unlike Snow Corio that it made you moan into his mouth. Your hands are in his hair, pulling him closer. Your lips glide against each other perfectly. His tongue took over your mouth, not leaving any place unexplored, untouched by him.

You break the kiss with a gasp. Your hand going towards his pants to unzip. The motion stopped as Corio held your wrist and you looked up at him. “You’re my wife, you're my right,” he said, “but do you deserve it?”

It was more than a question, it was a promise waiting to be made, a bond waiting to be sealed. “I…” you begin to speak, you meet his eyes, sea blue you wanted to drown in, “Never again, Sn- Corio. Never again.” “Please,” you added for extra measure. You had his taste already, no one else could ever compare. He had to know that too because he gave you a sharp nod.

You get up from his lap, taking off your panties first, not bothering with the dress. You knew he liked it now, more than you thought so he would. You find your rightful place in his lap again, his pants and boxers past his knees.

His cock was hard and twitching, the length had an angry tip with its slit profusely leaking pre-cum. It looked painful and it was because of you. You. You wondered if you had power over him now for a brief second but you shake your head clear of these thoughts.

Instead, you catch his lips again, the kiss slower this time. You raise yourself a bit so his cock can align itself to your entrance. Your dress is raised to help you. Even if his cock was on the girthy side with veins on the underside of his cock. You knew your pussy would stretch around him, that your walls would be a splendid fit around his length. You were too impatient for any sort of foreplay, you wanted the stretch, you wanted him to make you dizzy with his cock splitting you apart.

You let out a whimper as you began to sink onto his cock, your eyes flicked to him and his eyes were zeroed down to the place you both were connected now. His hands are on either side of your hip, guiding you down on his length. It was after his cock was fully stuffed in you, that his self-control allowed him to let out a groan.

“I respected you like a lady but sluts don't deserve respect,” he said, his lips parted as he let out a heavy pant. You let out a whimper, your mind hazy as your cunt tries to get used to his length. “I.. am sorry,” you whine, how many times do you need to repeat? When will he be satisfied with your apology?

“Prove it,” he said with a smirk, “Prove that you deserve to be my wife and the First Lady of Panem.”

You follow Corios’ command. Your hands are on his shoulders to support yourself. Your fingers fist his shirt as you begin to ride him. Raising yourself a few inches before slamming down on his cock with a loud moan escaping your lips. He reached the deepest spot inside of you like this. His cockhead grazing your spongy spot as you fucking yourself on his cock. Your arousal and his pre-cum being smeared all over your thighs.

The sight made his breath hitch, something you didn't notice as you were too busy with your eyes closed and taking his cock like a good wife. You looked completely debauched like this, your hair wild, your lips red and swollen, your hands digging into his shoulder. Your nipples are hard and obvious through the white dress.

He wasn't supposed to lose control, this was happening for a reason. No matter how many deem him God or devil in the end he was a man. And no man is perfect. He pulled you closer to him. One of his hands is on your back, pressing you to him. Another of his hands in your hair, tugging the strands without a care about how rough he is being. It makes you moan, your head on his chest now. His hips raise upwards to fuck you as he now lets out more vocal sounds of enjoyment.

His pace was slower than yours. Each thrust of his was made for his indulgence in your velvet walls. The drag of his cock was perfect, his speed however was making you feel insane. You needed him, faster, harder. Used would be a much more correct term. You wanted to be used by your husband. And right now, you were but it wasn't enough.

You let out mewls and whines to make him break his languid pace but Corio gives you no mind. His fingers interlanged in your locks, his hand still pressing you in and his strength made it so you couldn't take control. He was drunk in the pleasure your pussy gave, his head resting on his headrest, his lips parted to let out a grunt with every thrust.

You weren't a person for him, not right now, a fleshlight perhaps. It didn't matter what you felt, it mattered what Snow felt. Snow felt amazing, he felt stupid for denying himself this for months on end. He would never make the same mistake again.

Time passes and you don't know how long Corio has you like this, your nerves raw as your pussy impossibly sensitive. Tears were falling from your eyes and staining his shirt but moans slipped your lips every time he pushed in again.

“Corio, please,” you try to plead, raising your head to look at him. “Please, please can't anymore.” He turns his head to you, his fingers that you seemed to have forgotten were in your hair tugging your strands roughly.

That was it. You gasp out as the pain becomes a trigger to make you cum on his cock, your pussy tightening around his cock like a vice as the orgasm washes over your body. It was intense and you had snapped. “Sorry! Sorry!” You begin to sob, “I won't ever look at a man that's not you! Sn- Corio please!”

His languid thrust had sped up, his arms caging you to his chest. The last thing you heard before he spilled his seed inside of you was, “Snow lands on top.”

[after-witch]

The Driven Snow [Yandere Coriolanus Snow x Reader]

Title: The Driven Snow [Yandere Coriolanus Snow x Reader]

Synopsis: You're a District 2 school graduate who comes to the Capitol with her father before the 11th Hunger Games. You don't expect to meet anyone kind, especially not someone named Coriolanus Snow who offers you his arm, his smile, and treats in secret. 

Word Count: 5270

notes: yandere, abusive relationship, non-graphic descriptions of torture and death (not against reader); uses a mixture of book and movie canon

The Capitol was not as dazzling as your father described it but then, he had seen it before the war. Though perhaps it was your own bitterness that made you ignore the signs of returning prosperity that sets it above everywhere else.

The repaired elaborate buildings, the fresh pungent smell of plaster and paint. The cars pumping exhaust fumes into the air. The low rumble of garbage trucks that pick up bright green garbage cans, some of which are actually teeming with plastic trash bags. Such waste was unheard of, even in the oh-so-loyal District 2, where only the lowest of the low find themselves starving.

Although not-starving didn’t mean that everything was plentiful. 

You, though, were lucky enough to avoid the lima bean heavy diet that some of your classmates (now former--graduation was months ago) lived on. Or were you? The meat that graced your family’s dinner table, the pats of butter on toast, were all courtesy of your father’s  immense talent in building creative weapons that allowed the Capitol to stamp out every last bit of rebellion in the Districts. That allowed them to regain control. That allowed them to create the Hunger Games.

Which is why you were in the Capitol now. Oh, not to participate in them. Your father’s status in District 2 had seen to that; it would be a scandal if the name of his beloved daughter were to ever be pulled. 

You were there because your father had been given a lucrative contract, one that was sure to cement your family’s wealth for generations: a contract to build high-tech weapons for the Hunger Games themselves. 

They would still be killing. But on a much smaller scale, you supposed, than the weapons your father designed during the war. 

Still. Blood was blood. And if it had to be spilled, well, there was nothing you could do about it except hope they died quickly. Especially the ones from District 2.

Last year’s Games’ had been awful enough. Your family had watched the Games on a modest television set in the privacy of your living room, sent courtesy of the Capitol. 

You wondered if you would ever get the sight of Marcus’ battered, bloated face from your mind; if you would ever unhear the way his body thumped to the ground when that girl had killed him, out of mercy. If you would ever stop imagining what it must have felt like in those last moments.

But it wasn’t all horror. You’d liked Lucy Gray well enough, even though she was from 12. She had a wild way of dressing and the singing--it was practically theatrical, compared to what you’d heard about the previous games. 

Maybe that was why your father got this contract: theatrics. Maybe the games would be more dramatic from now on. Maybe they wanted tributes like Lucy Gray, who sang and spit and poisoned her way to Victory. It was strange, really, that there’d been hardly any talk of her since her win. 

“Father?” You asked, quietly as you could. 

Both of you were standing in the foyer of the grand university in the Capitol. The outside was still a little ravaged, but inside, it was perfectly lovely. Walls lined with books--perhaps some of them were fake--and marble floors and marble busts dotting the sight lines.

“Mm?” He replied, eyes scanning over his clipboard. He flips it, here and there.

“I was just thinking. About last year’s games. About Lucy Gray, and how the Games--”

Your father rounded on you, eyes suddenly serious and blazing.

“Quiet. Weren’t you paying attention on the way here?” Admittedly, you were not. You’d been daydreaming about what you might do now that you were done with school. There was no university in District 2, and your father hadn’t even mentioned a job. “You’re not supposed to mention--”

“Not supposed to mention whom? Ah, ah, ah. Lucy Gray Baird?” called a voice, almost in sing-song.

Your father stood up stiff, and the life seemed to drain from his face.

Both of you look towards the sound of the voice, and now it’s your turn to stiffen. The voice came from a woman standing in the doorway of the very office that your father was waiting to enter. She was wearing an elaborate jacket made of what looked like rainbow snake scales. Her hair was gray and curly. She had, you realized, two different colored eyes. 

Your father swallowed, and you could see the apple of it bob up and down. It made you think, abruptly, of suckling pigs. 

“Dr. Gaul,” he said, in a voice far too tight to be relaxed. “I apologize for my daughter’s insubordination, I assure you, she meant no--”

Dr. Gaul waved her hands at him and approached you. 

“Did you like last year’s games?” She didn’t look angry. No, she looked delighted.

“I…” It was your turn to swallow, your turn to feel that tightness. “It-it was the first time I’ve watched them, ma’am.” You want to ask this woman: do you think I liked watching someone from my District 2 so horribly? Or any District, really? Did I like it? 

Her smile grew wider. 

“I’m glad. You’ll be watching them every year from now on, I hope. We have big plans.” Her eyebrows raised high. “Big changes. Thanks to men like your father.” She glanced at him and you saw disdain flicker across her gaze. 

And then another door opened, and you heard the sound of polished shoes on the marble floor. Dr. Gaul’s attention dropped away from you like you were nothing at all. She turned to meet the sound of these footsteps, and you did too.

It was a young man. Probably your age, you thought, with light blonde hair and eyes that your mother would have described as “baby blue.” He didn’t look at you, or your father. But that was nothing new. You’d only been in the Capitol for 2 days, and you’d already gotten used to being treated as lesser than. Though, at least, you were not so far down on the food chain that you lost your tongue. 

“Ah, my protege,” said Dr. Gaul, giving the young man a grin. The smile on her face almost looked warm, which was somehow far more terrifying than her manic smile from earlier. “Ever the earnest student. Aren’t you supposed to be enjoying the day off, Mr. Snow?”

The young man, this “Snow,” chuckled and lowered his gaze. “I couldn’t stay away once I heard you were discussing some of the new prototypes for this year’s games.” 

He finally looked at your father, and then at you. But only briefly.

“Can I assume that this is…?”

Dr. Gaul nodded.

“Yes. My little designer from District 2. And his daughter.” Her voice dropped a few octaves when she referred to you. She probably didn’t want you here, you thought. You weren’t supposed to come, but your father had begged the Capitol for a pass; it would probably be your only chance to see it, he said, so you may as well take advantage of the chance.

Snow nodded to your father. It was a surprising gesture, almost respectful. But cold, too, like it was done from necessity rather than anything else. 

Your father stammered a bit and nodded back, and you felt shame begin to creep into your bones. It wasn’t fair, to be lesser-than. But weren’t others lesser-than you in your own District, where you ate better food and never worried that your name would get picked, that your blood would be spilled?

Everyone 

But when Snow turned to you, he smiled. It gave him dimples. 

It was the first kind smile anyone in the Capitol gave you. 

“My name is Coriolanus Snow. I doubt you’ve heard of me, but if Dr. Gaul’s teachings have anything to say about it, perhaps one day you’ll know me as a Gamemaker.” 

You didn’t know what to say. Congratulations, one day you’ll be coordinating Games that kill people? Instead,  you gave your name, voice squeakier than you meant it. But it was fitting, you supposed. Here, you were a mouse, hoping you would get a bite of cheese and make it home unpoisoned. 

Dr. Gaul’s face seemed to react slowly, as if she couldn’t decide what she thought about his words or your interaction, but a small smile grew on it, eventually. “I do have high hopes for you, Mr. Snow. Now, shall we?”

She gestured for your father to follow, face once again impassive with a sprinkle of disdain, as she led the two of them into her office.

Snow gave you a smile and a nod before he left.

You waved, stupidly.

Your father didn’t even look back.

--

I’m dead. I’m dead. I might as well be dead.

Your heartbeat kept time with your racing thoughts as you went up and down corridors, begging your shoes to be silent, wishing your breath would catch and stop coming out in terrible pants.

You were lost. You weren’t where you were supposed to be. If someone found you, if the wrong person found you, they would think you were running, trying to get lost in the Capitol; they’d think  you were a rebel. They’d shoot you.

Just when you thought you might collapse and die from your own nervous exhaustion, you heard the most wonderful sound in the world.

Your name.

It was only the moment after that you realized it didn’t come from your father’s mouth, but the lips of--what his name--Coriolanus Snow. The young man who was a Gamemaker-in-training, or so your father said. But that’s all he would say. He kept tight about anything that went on behind closed doors. 

But this Coriolanus Snow smiled at you, and didn’t look at you like you were some kind of insect he might want to pin on a board, and so when you whirled around to look at him you were smiling.

Ah--for a moment. For just a moment, you saw his muscles tense. You saw the expression on his face falter in worry. Like he thought he was about to miss a step on a staircase, and corrected himself; like he thought you were a wolf and you were only somebody’s dog, off their leash. 

But it wasn’t too surprising. You knew most people in the Capitol thought anyone from the Districts wanted to rip out their throats. 

Well, the worry was mutual. Except in your case, you were forced to walk around with the living proof of that worry--all those “Avoxes,” they called them. Without tongues, without freedom. 

But you swallow all that. Because he smiled at you. Because maybe it wouldn’t hurt to make a friend. Especially right now.

“I’m--I’m lost,” you tell him, giving a shaky smile. “I was waiting for my father, but you see, I got to thinking, and I started to wander around and now I’m… well. I don’t know where I am, actually.”

His smile wasn’t very deep, was it? It was like the gloss of paint on the outside of the Capitol buildings. Pretty to look at, but there must be more underneath.

You expected him to lead you right back to where you’re supposed to be.

Instead, he asked you something.

“What were you thinking about?

You couldn’t tell him. Could you? But something about 

“About… the Games.”

You don’t tell him that you were thinking about Lucy Gray and all those snakes, and the way that Dr. Gaul’s outfit that first day made you think of them. Because your father had slapped you across the face when you got back to your lodgings that night, and told you to never, ever bring up Lucy Gray Baird or the 10th Games unless you were directly asked. And you would probably never be asked. 

Coriolanus gave a little snort through his nose. You liked it. It was nice to know that even Capitol people could seem a little dorky.

“They aren’t for another 3 months. Are you that eager to see them?”

You didn’t know what expression you made, exactly. It was so instinctive and fast that you didn’t have time to control it. 

You only knew that it made him shake his head and offer you a sympathetic look.  

“I apologize. That was rude, wasn’t it?” 

And then he did a strange thing.

He offered you his arm. 

Like you were Capitol, like you were a real person, and not some visiting District wench walking on the coattails of her arms-dealing father. 

“Let me walk you back to the waiting area.”

And the stranger thing?

You took it.

--

You and your father were quickly moved into a small apartment within the university, once it became clear that he would be staying in the Capitol through the duration of the Games. It was best, he said, because ordinary people in the Capitol didn’t really want to see new faces from the Districts mingling around unless their tongue had been cut out first. It made them nervous. The rebel bombings, and all that.

You didn’t mind, because it meant you didn’t have to be flanked by Peacekeepers on the streets. 

And, well.

You got to see Coriolanus more often. Sometimes he greeted you, sometimes he didn’t. He did it less often when Dr. Gaul was there,  unless she was talking to your father and it gave him an opportunity.

He asked you things, too, when he caught you walking back to your father’s little apartment. Like what you did back home. What you liked to do. Whether you went to school, and what you planned to do now that you have graduated. 

This morning, he caught you drawing while you waited in a chair outside Dr. Gaul’s office. Sometimes you waited there--you would admit to no one that it was to catch a glimpse of the kindest person you’d met in the Capitol--and other times you stayed in your temporary home.

“What are you drawing?” He asked. But he had a way of speaking that you’d quickly clocked into. He can make a demand sound like a polite little question. Oh, he wasn’t mean about it, but it reminded you of the way your father talked to his underlings back in District 2. On his home turf, he was far smoother than he was here, where his voice stammered and sweat beaded on his neck.

So you handed it over, even though, to your greatest embarrassment, you’d drawn… him.

“Why me?” He had a smile on his lips. His smiles were nice. Kind. The kindest you’d seen since you came here. But they always felt like that fresh coat of paint; like you didn’t know what he really meant by them, and that was how he liked it. 

“You’re… important,” is all you could come up with. You felt small, then. He would dismiss and probably never want to talk to you again. What a stupid answer from a stupid girl. 

But he just smiled. It was like paint peeling a little.  You could see underneath that he liked what you said, although you weren’t exactly sure why. And his expression tightened up so quickly, protecting what you’d seen, that you weren’t entirely sure if it was real or not. 

“I’m just a humble student at this university. Not so important. Not yet.”

--

You were really going to die, now. This wasn’t some panicked imagination gone wrong, some flight of fancy that took a wrong turn.

A pair of stony-faced Peacekeepers had walked up to where you sat in the waiting area near Dr. Gaul’s office and ordered you to come with them.

You asked to talk to your father. They said no. You asked where you were going. They yanked you up. 

And now they were leading you down hallways that you’d never seen before, where there weren’t even Avoxes roaming the halls with brooms and dustpans. 

They didn’t even answer, just spun around and walked back the way they came. You pushed the door open reluctantly--what the hell was going to be on the other side?--and it was--it was--

It was Coriolanus. Standing there in a nice suit, eyes downcast on a book. Until the door creaked and he looked up.

“What--why did you bring me here? Did I do something wrong?” The thought went through you, that perhaps this had all been a test, to see if you were loyal to the Capitol and he’d found you wanting.

“No,” he said, simply enough. He set the book down and gestured for you to step inside. You did, because what else were you going to do, in some strange room in a Capitol University where you’d been forcibly brought by Peacekeepers.

Snow studied your face. Your eyes darted around, from him, to the room, to the door. 

“I wanted to see you,” he said, a little softer. “In private.” 

“Me?” You furrowed your eyebrows. “But… why?”

He smiled. “Come now, you’re a smart girl, even if you aren’t in university.” 

You really didn’t know. Not at first. But then you watched the way his expression softened, and you remembered it, or glimpses of it, that he’d given you before. When he complimented your drawing. When he said your name. When he escorted you back from the maze of hallways. And his smiles, all his smiles, although you were never sure how much they meant coming from home. 

He took a step closer. You didn’t dare step back. You weren’t sure if you wanted to step back, but it didn’t matter, either way.

He pressed his lips to yours and took your first kiss, in a secluded little study in the heart of the Capitol University. 

--

Your days became routine, although the routine was strictly forbidden and could have probably gotten you executed or at best, gotten you a one-way ticket to a tasteless existence.

You wake up. You stay in your apartment.  You wait for the Peacekeepers. You get summoned here and there, always private rooms, secret rooms, rooms out of the way. You meet Snow--Coriolanus, he said, call him that--and you talk (well, mostly him) and kiss and sometimes a little bit more. He gives you gifts. Trinkets, necklaces that you can only wear under your shirt. Food, flaky pastries made with mountains of sugar, sandwiches made with cream and cucumber. 

But how much longer could it go on? The Games were going to start soon. As soon as they were over, you were going back to your District. There would be no more meetings, no more kisses. No more wondering how far he wanted to go or why he liked you or even if he even liked you as anything more than someone to keep him busy. 

You didn’t dare talk about the Games, but you did talk about this. In the kindest way you knew how for such a sensitive subject. 

“I’ll miss you,” you told Coriolanus after one meeting, when you’re both sitting on a sofa and he’s got your fingers tightly wound in his. He squeezed them tight.

“Miss me?” 

“After the Games,” you clarified. “We’re being sent home right after.”

He squeezed your fingers until it hurt a little. Then he looked up at you. To see if you would say something? Or did he not know how strong he was?

“Oh, that. I can arrange for you to stay.”

Your chest began to feel sick.

“Stay? In the Capitol?” You were torn about Coriolanus, but you didn’t want to stay here. You couldn’t. 

“Yes,” he said, as if it was the simplest answer in the world. “You wouldn’t be the first person from the District granted such an extreme privilege. I’m sure I could--”

“But I don’t know if I want to stay.” 

His gaze narrowed and you felt your stomach clench. He looked at the necklace you’d pulled out as soon as the door was shut, at your lips where a dollop of strawberry cream still rested. 

“I treat you so well, and you don’t know if you want to stay with me?”

His voice was calm, and that scared you. It would have been better if he flew off the handle.

Instead, he simply stood up and gently sent you out the door, and called the Peacekeepers to bring you back to your apartment.

--

Every night for the last week, you have cried yourself to sleep. Because every day for the last week, Coriolanus Snow has not sent for you. Not even once.

What if he told someone? What if you got sent back early, and your father was shamed? What if they broke his contract? Or--worse, worse, worse. There were so many worse things than merely being sent back to District 2.

And then he sent for you, and it was the longest walk of your life, though it was no farther than any of the times you’ve been escorted to your secret meetings.

This time, when you pushed open the door, Coriolanus was not alone. 

There was an Avox in the room. 

It was someone from District 2.

You didn’t know her. Not personally. But you saw her, before. She worked in one of the munitions factories and you watched her walk to work from your classroom window sometimes. Then she stopped showing up, and you thought perhaps she got married. 

That delusion was shattered the moment you saw her, eyes downcast to the floor, wearing a simple gray tunic. 

It’s not until Coriolanus tells you to hurry up and come in that you’re able to move. Even then, you weren’t sure how your body did it; how your arms managed to gain the mobility to shut the door, to twist the lock; how your legs moved, one foot in front of the other, until you were standing stiffly in front of him.

The Avox--you wish you knew her name, but she couldn’t give it to you now, even if you asked--moved seamlessly to a table set up nearby. There was tea and sweets. The sort of thing that you and Coriolanus had been enjoying together for the past few weeks. The sort of thing that you were sure would sit sour in your stomach, now. 

The cup shook in your hands when she handed it to you, and your tears dripped right into the tea.

Coriolanus glanced at the Avox and waved his hand. She left obediently. She would never tell the secret she witnessed in his room, that much was certain.

And then he looked back at you.

“Don’t cry,” he said. Soft but firm. A command, not a coo. “You shouldn’t cry here, in the Capitol. You should be grateful to be here. You should be grateful that I’ve arranged all this for you.”

“I am,” you whispered. 

“Then show me that you are.”

And you did. 

You said what he wanted and looked to him to show you how he wanted you to act, and did just that. You didn’t argue, even to lightly banter. You kissed him and nodded along when he told you about how things would be after the Games, when he had arranged for you to stay.

All you had to do was keep him happy until the Games were over, and then you could go home. 

Bitterly, all of this made you realize just how much of your father is in you; he knew how to appease the Capitol. You could do the same with Coriolanus Snow. At least until the Games were over. Just keep him happy until the Games were done and the blood was spilled, and you would go home. 

They wouldn’t let him keep you here after the games. You were sure of that. You’d overheard some of Dr. Gaul’s assistants murmuring how glad they would be to send the District profiteers like your father home once the Games were over. And you? You’re just his useless daughter, an appendage he brought like an unwelcome suitcase. Why would you be allowed to stay?

--

The Games were over. The winner was from District 1. 

You were going home any day now. Just as soon as your father finished tinkering with the designs, gave his notes on improvements that might be made for next year.

The thought gave you a delightful bounce in your step. It was like having a pat of sweet butter in your shoe on a day when you needed good luck-- District 2 superstition, although the strict rationing meant most people didn’t have even a pat to slip into their shoes anymore.

The sweetness didn’t even disappear when the Peacekeepers showed up to bring you to Snow. It was going to be a bittersweet farewell, you were sure. He might be angry. But you would kiss him and tell him that there was nothing he could do, and how sorry you were not to be able to stay, but that was how things had to be.

Except they didn’t bring you down a maze of corridors that led to a secluded room.

They brought you right into Dr. Gaul’s office.

Breakfast threatened to evacuate your stomach with every step. Not just because of nerves, but because of what you saw. Rows of experiments in glass tubes; some of them move. You walk by a room with a half-open door that showed someone strapped to a gurney, face contorted in a silent scream as they fought against restraints. You almost did lose breakfast, then.

But somehow you made it to the desk of Dr. Gaul without a dribble of vomit to show for it.

The Peacekeepers left with no fanfare and you stood there, ramrod straight. Did she know? Was she going to tell you that you were going to be strapped to one of those gurneys, now?

“I’m keenly aware,” she said, keeping her hands primly folded, “on how much you’ve enthralled my star pupil.”

Toast. That’s what will come up first, you thought . The toast.

“I don’t know what you mean, ma’am.” Your voice was so thin and tinny that you didn’t even believe yourself.

And then the prim facade cracked, and Dr. Gaul threw her head back and grinned.

“You really think I don’t know everything that goes on within these walls?  I know every time one of my lab assistants runs into the bathroom to throw up after a particularly nasty experiment. I know every time one of our university professors sneaks into a closet to down a vial of morphling with a student. And I certainly know when my newest protege is having an adorable little District girl brought to him for… canoodling.”

You weren’t even embarrassed. No.  You just felt terrified to the bone. You only hoped that you’d be killed, shot against a wall, instead of made into an Avox. Let there be some mercy in this world. 

”He’s asked to keep you, you know.” Her voice was low, almost a drawl. She tapped her fingers on her desk rhythmically.

“My Coriolanus Snow wants a bird of his own.” Her smile turned darker. “Not a songbird, though. Oh, no. I think he’s had enough of those.”

Her gaze bored into yours, each color magnified by her intense expression. “I think if I let him have his pretty caged bird, he’ll be happy. He’s more productive if he’s happy.” She smiled. “I like productivity. It keeps the Games more interesting.”

She looked you over one more time, and then waved you away.

“I’ve granted his request. You’ll be staying here indefinitely, courtesy of one Mr. Snow. Your father has already been told.” 

You were wrong.

It was not the toast that came up first, but the sweet butter you’d patted on top.

--

You still had your tongue, but you felt as though it was useless, stuck to the roof of your mouth, as Coriolanus fussed over your outfit. Or rather, as he directed an Avox to fuss over it for you. He could afford his own personal servant, now, he told you. He’d almost flinched after he said now, and you didn’t dare press him on it. Had he not been able to afford one before?

“We can’t walk arm-in-arm in public,” he said, walking around you, making sure the outfit was just-right. “But you can stand by me if I stop and direct you forward.” He reached over and fixed one of your buttons. “Don’t speak to anyone unless I’ve told you to, or they speak to you first. Always address someone older as ‘sir,’ or ‘ma’am.” He pointed at your hair, and the Avox began to fuss with it, eventually covering it in a colorful wrap that Coriolanus said was popular right now. “Address someone our age by the last name and Mr. or Ms.”

When he was satisfied with your appearance, he sent the Avox away. You liked it better that way, it was one last reminder of the horrors in the Capitol, even for someone “privileged” like you.  You’d only been without your father for 3 days, but you felt like your nerves were continually on fire. You wanted to go home. You wanted your family. You wanted out of this place.

But that wasn’t going to happen.

For now, you were still living in the small university apartment the Capitol had given your father. Coriolanus insisted on it, until he could figure out how to move you into his own sprawling apartment that he shared with his cousin, Tigris (who, at least, genuinely sounded lovely) and his grandmother, Grandma’am. She was the sticking point, or so you were told, with a thin smile. She hated Districts, and she ought to, he said. They killed her son. His father. 

She would hate you, too. Even if Coriolanus wanted you enough to make you stay with him; wanted you enough to keep you. But for how long? And would he change his mind, if you couldn’t fit in? 

He said your name, and you snapped yourself out of your thoughts. He held you by your shoulders. Gently. Like one would an unruly child that hadn’t yet learned that there were such things as salad forks and dinner forks, as polite conversation and etiquette. 

You got the feeling you wouldn’t have long to learn all of those things and more, to make him happy.

“Remember,” he said. “You’re District. You’re here because the Capitol has recognized that your loyalty can benefit us in some way. Be grateful.”

“I am,” you said, reflectively.

“Be happy..”

“I am,” you said again, your chest hitching.

He smiled at you. Was it real or not real? 

You smiled back, regardless. And he liked that, evidently, because he leaned forward and kissed you. Then he scrutinized your face and wiped at your lips with his thumb--the kiss had smeared your lipstick. 

“Good.” 

He gestured towards the open doorway. This time, he didn’t take your arm. There would be too many people lingering in the university hallways, all making their way to the soiree held to celebrate the end of this year’s Games and discuss what improvements might be made for the next year. 

You dutifully walked behind him, just like he said. And you would do exactly what he said in all respects. You would stay quiet unless you were spoken to, you would certainly never bring up anything confrontational or controversial, and you would make a good impression. You would be a loyal, grateful District citizen who was given the opportunity of a lifetime thanks to the graciousness of Coriolanus Snow. 

Of course you would. 

Your life depended on it. 

[mondaymelon]

— 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 ! ₊˚ෆ | albedo, xiao, childe x gn!reader

— cw: reader thinks theyre in a one sided love, accidental confessions + d r u g s, ig? do love potions count as that. these potions dont create fake feelings, they just amplify the affections he already has for you !! fluffy :)

[ The very man you've been longing for has finally fallen in love with you !? Ah, no... Instead, does it have to do with this mysterious pink elixir they've drunk? ]

"Oh? This shade..."

ALBEDO's eyes glitter with the glass' reflections, holding the test tube up against the light. The pink fluid within sloshes inside its confinements, shimmering in the sun's rays. "Strange." With his free hand, he whips out his pencil and pad, busy writing down notes in small handwriting, evenly spaced and well lined. "This formula should've been for a health recovery potion, which is red... How come the color is so light?"

"'Bedo, I'm here." Your voice rang into the previously quiet laboratory as you fling the door open, the invading wind carrying flakes of snow along with it. The blonde's eyes narrows at the sight of the inconvenience, dipping his head in silent greeting as he walks over and closes the door behind you. "What are you doing holed up here today too?"

"More work matters." He's about to close his mouth, already moved on from the brief conversation, but instead perks up, eyes rounding the slightest. "Ah, do you think you could offer some assistance?"

"Assistance?" You trail after him, eyeing the various ongoing experiments on the other tables, up until your eyes land on the practically glowing liquid that emanates a honey-like smell. "What, do you want me to drink that?"

Albedo immediately shakes his head. "No, there's no need to endanger your safety like that. I'll do the honors of consuming it, but I'd appreciate it if you could take some observations and write them down. Is that alright with you?"

A part of you was almost surprised at the relationship "progression", if one could even call it that. You had had your eye on Albedo ever since you had managed to get yourself lost in these mountains, only to stumble upon his lab at your wits end, helplessly shivering and lashes decorated with frost. He had nursed you back to health, and then provided directions back to Mondstadt... Since then, you had made it a habit to frequently visit the quiet male, whether providing just some company or bringing a snack or two, you just wanted a way to show your thanks! Somehow, somewhere along the line, you had developed feelings for him, feelings that you were rather sure he'd never be able to reciprocate.

"That... That seems doable enough?" You blink, hesitantly grabbing the pen that lay on the desk. "Just... ah- you should worry for your own health too, y'know?"

Albedo glances at you, taking the tub in his hands. "I'll be fine." And down it goes. Silence, at first, then his legs sway beneath him. You let out a noise of surprise, instantly moving to offer support, but the male manages to steady himself on the table, instead holding his hand out to keep you away. "Aha... oh, so it was that kind of concoction..."

Sensing the exasperation in his tone only alights more concern. "Is it dangerous? H-Hey, let's lie you down somewhere, and then we can-"

Your worries are effectively silenced as his... lips fall upon yours, jewel-like irises that shone with almost unnoticeable hearts, both his hands cupping your face in a touch so delicate you could've sworn it was never there, and the warmth from his pale, burning skin..

And just like that, you heard the usually level-headed and composed alchemist cursed under his breath for the first time. "No, it wasn't supposed to be like this-"

A shy flush left kisses on his features. He had always waited for the right time for his moves, albeit unnatural ones. It was far easy acting with equations and predicted outcomes, but you... you were something so natural, you made him thoughtless so effortlessly. It took him every effort to allow his usual expression to remain on his face, to not voice his feelings. Not now, he'd chide to himself. I'm not ready.

"...A-Albedo, what..." Stupid as you may be, it'd be impossible not to realize it, especially with the way his usually cool skin flamed with heat. "...A fucking love potion?" You touched a finger to your lips, still stunned.

"I'm sorry." He's ashamed, for being unable to control himself under the potion's influence. "The antidote, it's on the table." Dutifully, you hand it to him, your fingers brushing against his in the process.

"Ah-"

"I like you."

It hurts, to hear him say those words that you've been wishing to hear for far longer than you care to admit. "...What? 'Bedo, c'mon, drink the antidote, and then we can hold a proper conversation. You're not in your right mind right now."

"I've already drunken it." Was the moment now? The empty glass falls from his hand and onto the table, rolling to a still. "I like you."

"...What? No, is the cure not working or something, what is-" It couldn't be, but his turquoise-eyed gaze was clear.

"Must I state it once more? I love you." ₊˚ෆ

"Just what is it you have you brought me?"

XIAO's brows furrow with discontentment... or rather, disinterest. You were a peculiar mortal, it was an easy enough fact to gather from his encounters with you. And while he didn't find himself particularly delighted when you appeared, calling it annoyed would be a bit of a stretch. It's a flicker of a thousand emotions at once across the mask of his expression, all but one of them displayed for your viewing - indifference.

His golden, cat-like pupils stare down the small vial you've procured and gifted him, narrowing with suspicion in your growing silence. He prompts once more, "This is?"

"Hmm, think of it as a gift?" You chuckle sheepishly, recalling the rather shady conversation you had days prior, in a small store hidden away in the very edge of the city market.

"Dearest customer, perhaps you'd like this product? It's very popular amongst the young city goers these days, and I have a feeling you've been looking for something similar."

...A scam? "Sorry, I'm not interested-"

"It works. You're in love with someone, right?"

"How did you-"

"There's this distant look in your eyes. I see it all the time. Now, if you'll just purchase this..."

And just like that, you had been probably swindled into buying a likely useless product off of his hands. At the very least, you could use it to hold a brief conversation with the aloof adeptus who often decided to not turn up at all. "It's... a thank you gift for protecting Liyue all these years...?" In the corner of your vision that greatly encompasses a wonderful view of your shoes, you spot the unwavering features of Xiao's face give the slightest waver.

"There's no need to thank me." He says it all apathetically, yet accepts the gift. "You still have yet to answer my question, however. Of what nature is this object?"

"Ah... well, you see, I don't exactly know either? You could call it a local specialty, of sorts..." You weren't exactly lying, were you? You didn't know what it was, although by it's heart-shaped container and pinkish color you could likely wager a guess or two... but it was better to remain ignorant. At least that way, you wouldn't be to blame if anything unfortunate occurred.

Oh, but was such a term the correct word to describe such a happening? Had it all gone "wrong" the moment you bought the suspicious thing, or was it when you handed it to him, watching him drain the container of its fluid? Either way, something found its way inside your heart the moment the adeptus set the glass down with enough force to hear the sound of its surface fracturing into thousands of spiderwebbed lines.

"The glass... Xiao, are you alright?" You stepped forward worryingly upon seeing the adeptus clutch his forehead with his hand, eyes fluttered shut. Don't tell me... holy shit, was it the real deal? I'm so fucked.

"You..." His voice was deep, husky, almost with a raspy note as his eyes opened to reveal his sharp amber eyes. "What did you just give me? What are you doing to... me?" He grew silent as his slight stumbling paused, a hand gripping the balcony railing for tentative support.

When you met his gaze again, his eyes shone. Gold, no longer, but rosy pink, adorned with bright pupils cut in the shape of hearts. His breaths left small clouds of white that escaped his mouth with every quickened exhale against the cold air, yet despite the chill, his cheeks and ears were dusted with an almost feverish red.

You shake your head, wanting to step closer but growing afraid. Fuck, just how were you supposed to explain yourself? After pursuing your pathetic, so-called "advances" towards the man in hopes of one day achieving a level of intimacy, in longing of hearing those three, beautiful words part from his open lips... Ah, but you've screwed it all up now, haven't you? You might as well have fed him poison. "N-No, I didn't think it would actually-"

"I love you."

It's quiet.

Or perhaps its thunderous. That is, the sound of your heart in your ears, pounding without any heed of the absolute mess of emotions coursing through your veins at the moment. This wasn't right. He didn't love you, not in the way you loved him. An illusion, this was, a painful ploy that would do nothing to sway his heart.

"...No, no." You shake your head, taking a step back, too ashamed to meet his eye. "Xiao, you don't. It's... I'm sorry.""

"No, I do love you."

What? His eyes, his astonishingly gilded eyes, they've rid themselves of their hearts, yet the words still remain in his mouth.

You blink your eyes once, and then once more. "This…?"

"Adepti are naturally immune to such a thing. To fall for such petty tricks would be foolish to the highest degree. Despite this..." Xiao sidled closer, a hand covering the lower half of his face. "Does that mean... you wanted me to love you?"

Would he leave you if he knew?If such a thing could be possible. Unbeknownst to you, the male held some sentiments of the same regard, but how to address them lay far beyond his area of expertise. "And if I did, Xiao? What then?"

"I'm not well versed in the ways of mortals, but surely, I'd do this."

...His lips were soft. ₊˚ෆ

"Ahaha, so it's a gift for me?"

CHILDE grinned with delight, seizing the bottle from your hands into his. "Pink," was his only comment as his eyes swept over the vial. "Is this... valberry juice, or something?"

"Not quite~" You smiled mischievously, aware that no matter how many questions he asked, you'd be partaking in none of them. "Besides, it's more fun if it's a surprise, no?"

"Mmm, but the cute shape of it is making me pretty curious..." Childe's voice trailed off as he ran a single gloved finger across its glass expanse, clearly enjoying himself. "Well, I suppose there's nothing else to do but 'find out', yeah?"

Hmm, would it be a pleasant discovery? You toyed with the idea and he drunk the substance. The sleazy-looking merchant that had sold you such a product had claimed to be a "magician" of some sorts. A bold claim, since you had traveled to the waters of Fontaine in occasions prior and witnessed a true magician in the act - although that was irrelevant. Either way, you had let your curiosity get the better of you, and impulsively bought it just to own the thing. It didn't require a large chunk of your wallet, nor was it completely useless... that is, as long as it was potent. If it wasn't, then you could laugh it off, saying it was something you concocted for the fun of it and he was your test subject, but on the offchance it did...

A guilty expression flitted across your face. You had held feelings for the harbinger since he had been stationed at the harbor, at first only courageous enough to gaze at him from afar, admiring the way his lips curved upwards in a smile and the way the sun's rays reflected across his deep eyes that resembled troubled waters. Somehow, one lucky incident had led to another, and now the two of you were considered friends, yet you longed for something more...

Perhaps this "potion" would help you settle things. It was time you escaped from your daydreams and delusions, time to put your heart to rest. The two of you were friends, and you should be content with just that-

"Damn, this shit is strong." Childe let out a low whistle, and you almost felt inclined to applaud him. "Sweet, too. Not bad."

"...Ha?" You shook yourself out of your stupor. Fuck, who gave him the right to look so pretty doing menial things? "So... You like it?"

"You could say that, but I think I like you more~"

"I'm... sorry?" May the archons remind you to report that man to the Millelith later for witchcraft! "Are you drunk?"

"You're a sly thing, aren't you?" Since when had he gotten so close? "Acting all oblivious now that I've caught you in your act, did you really think I wouldn't notice?" He held the now empty, heart-shaped bottle between his pointer finger and thumb, chuckling. "These things are notorious among the underworld, you know, although I certainly didn't expect this dearest friend of mine to bring such a thing to me... what a riot!"

"Ah..." All the words that you could've said in the moment seemed to fly out of your head, and now you only gaped at him, mouth ajar. "Uhm..."

"You're lucky I've been trained to be immune from 'poisons', if you could call it that. That way, I can say that it wasn't a lie."

"...A lie?"

"I like you."

"Wait, but I- I just did that to you, and you're-"

"What, that? It's funny, if anything... besides, it just shows that you want me as much as I want you, no?" ₊˚ෆ

(a/n) sigh i got burnt out near the end so childe's part is about 300 words short im sorry ginger lovers... </3 happy new year eve (timezones are so weird lmao) !! ill be posting a fic tomorrow for that too most likely sooooo watch out for that ig? it would be ever so cool if you followed me . p le a. se. im like 10 away from a big silly number and id actually give you eternal kisses if you do

໒꒱ || ᴛᴀɢʟɪꜱᴛ (open! send an ask or a comment ♡) : @manager-of-the-pudding-bank, @iamdedinside, @ilyuu, @achlysis, @swivy123, @scara-is-my-wife, @lupicalbestwolf, @justyoureader, @fiannee, @aether-darling 

reblogs appreciated !!

[archesnalleyways]

Doctor!Coriolanus Snow x Naive!Reader

power imbalance, dubcon, corruption kink

dead dove do not eat

You’d go in for a full checkup, trying to stay ahead of your health. He checked your blood pressure, reflexes, listening to your breathing.

Doctor Snow has a habit of wanting to work in a cold room, and that’s made very evident from the way your nipples are straining against the thin fabric of your dress, creating two pebbles which made eye contact near impossible for him.

And you’d been so quick to follow his every task, looking up with expectant, nervous eyes. Lifting your arms with barely any prompt, twisting your torso for him to roam his stethoscope over your body. And something dark is starting to tug inside of him, something unstoppable.

“You seem nervous, miss” he starts with a voice full of fake concern, “is there any reason for this?”

Your face flushes and you twist your fingers in your lap.

“Oh.. well, um, it’s just my first, real doctors appointment” you mumble.

First. First. The word rings in Coriolanus’ mind. First means clean, first means uncorrupted. He wants to change that.

“I understand your nerves, miss, but there’s no need for them” he answers with a sweet smile, but he can’t hide the sinister glint in his eyes.

He goes over to his desk, ‘checking’ what else there’s left for him to check.

“Next thing I need to check for is for breast cancer” he states in a professional voice, walking back to the examining table where you’re sitting. “So I need you to lay down and, if you’re comfortable, the exam is best done on bare skin.”

Your eyes shoot up at his face but you’re met with a calm, almost knowing, look. In practically a trance your hands move up to unbutton the three buttons over the bust of your dress before pulling the fabric down to reveal your breasts to him.

It takes everything in Snow to not groan, to not ravage you on sight. But he knows that this is a delicate situation and too much desperation from his side will push it to break. So he just motions for you to lay down, which you do, and he places his hands on of your boobs.

“What I’m doing is checking for lumps” he explains in an attempt to prolong the façade that this is completely routine, “just say the word if I’m pushing too hard.”

His fingers start to move over you, digging into the fat of your breast. To his credit he does do a check for breast cancer. And he makes sure to check both of them very thoroughly. But then he can’t help himself from just touching you.

Roaming his hands over your tits, moving them together and then apart. He moves the tips of his fingers to your nipple, moving in tight soft circles.

And you let out a small, small gasp. It’s embarrassing, a professional just doing his work and you’re about to moan. But the pleasure was so overwhelming, so unexpected.

“There’s a lot of nerves in nipples” Dr Snow starts to explain, focusing on keeping his breathing controlled, “it’s important to check to see if there’s proper blood flow.”

He moves his hands so his knuckles are supporting your tits, either thumb on either nipple as he continues playing with them.

Your lips part and there’s a very faint line from your furrowed brows, but it feels so good that it’s hard for you to stop yourself from moaning.

And the sight is making something else hard, Snows eyes flicking between your boobs in his hands to your face mixed between embarrassment and pleasure. He can’t stop his fingers from giving your nipples a slight pinch and tug before moving away from you.

“Now I only have to give you a gynecological check..” he tries to say authoritatively, and turns around to grab gloves, “may I remove your underwear?”

And you’re in such a haze, brain already slightly fried from his fingers, so you just let your head fall in a nod.

He backs his chair down so he’s sitting by your legs, hands moving up your dress to pull down your pretty panties decorated with flowers. He folds the skirt of your dress over to get a better display of you. He feels his cock twitch obnoxiously in his pants at the sight of wetness that’s already pooling in your slit.

The doctor’s hands spreads you apart, forcing down the groan moving its way up his throat, and moves the tip of his middle finger to your hole. He pushes in gently, your self-made lubrication making it almost too easy, and he hears your breath hitch.

And you’re so tight, almost too tight, around just one of his fingers and it’s making his head spin. It also fills with dirty fantasies and the sight of it disappearing into your heat is not helping. After a few pumps he moves to add a second finger, and it’s a little stretch but you take it so well.

He moves his other hand so his thumb can move over your clit, and your teeth push into your bottom lip to stop every moan threatening to spill out.

“This is another very important nerve” he mutters, putting some extra pressure on your clit to clarify what he means.

His eyes move from your pretty pussy to your face, contorted in pleasure and obviously keeping your sounds in.

“It is very normal, and encouraged, to feel pleasure from this exam, miss” Snow explains, like this is protocol, “it is completely fine to.. emit sounds.”

With the blood for his brain drained to his cock he has a hard time keeping up with professional jargon. Even so his words of calming makes you release your lip from your teeth, letting your mouth hang open at first. But then his fingers graze your g-spot and the moan just falls out.

“To.. um, to make sure everything is working properly I need to bring you to orgasm.”

Coriolanus knows he’s pushing it, but your own words are still ringing in his head. It’s your first, how are you supposed to know this isn’t how doctors treat their patients. Plus after hearing your cunt squelch around his fingers he can’t possibly stop now.

So he’s pushing his fingers into you faster, curling them when they’re in the deepest parts of you, his other hand is working idly against your clit.

Your mouth is now, almost, shamelessly emitting all those sounds you swallowed earlier. He looks up at you with dark eyes, seeing how in your haze of pleasure you had not yet buttoned up your dress again, your tits still on display for him.

He feels you start to clench around his fingers after switching from circles over your clit to moving them back and forth, “yeah? That feel good?” He mutters, desperately wanting to feel you clench like that around his cock.

You feel your stomach starts to twist, legs tensed to the point of shaking and your eyes squeezed closed.

“You’re gonna cum, huh?” Snow taunts, moving his fingers impossibly faster.

And a moment later you’re stunned by white hot pleasure, gushing around his fingers. Every sound is muffled like your ears are stuffed with cotton, you can’t even register the words Doctor Snow are saying as he throws away his gloves before helping you button up your dress. He offers his hand to you and passes you your bag, bidding you adieu.

You’re so out of it that you don’t realize that you’re not wearing your panties as you walk out of his office, unaware that they were placed in Doctor Coriolanus Snows back pocket.

[obriengf]

Undercover Darlings || Mitch Rapp x Reader

Summary: It's Valentines day, and you and Mitch are playing fake lovers.  Words: 1.9k Warnings: swearing, cuteness, mitch being sassy to stan Notes: guys no this didn't turn out how i wanted?? I'm so sorry!

"Put your arm around me." Words were pushed through gritted teeth as you tried to portray a smile of realism, one of joyousness and devotion to the overly familiar man sitting beside you. You could feel his chest rise and fall with a murmur before he released a small sigh - irritation was imminent, but what you couldn't see was the ghost of a smile lifting at his lips. Paris was beautiful this time of year - on the cusp of falling snow, but still clear enough to enjoy the elegance of such a romantic city. The architecture stood sharp as you peered around the vast space before you, eyes gazing over couples as they celebrated a holiday made purely for love. It created a warmth within you, only complemented by the additional weight thrown over your shoulders and the small tug of your body against the firmness of another's chest. A smirk found its way among the contouring of your facial features - amusement etching into the corners of your eyes and the scrunch of your nose. You could feel the muscles of the arm tense, and you knew that you had him where you wanted him. Your partner was never one to show emotion with ease if it didn't consist of anger or irritability, nor were you one to often show roguery or mischievousness. But Mitch Rapp, the big bad Assassin, brought that side out of you so damn easily. It was an enigma just how he managed to do so, but by now it was comfortable more than anything. A small twist of your head allowed lips to press to the man's scruffed cheek, his beard beginning to grow back through despite your protests - it only made his want for it to grow even faster. You could feel a deep breath as it filled his lungs, his heart hammering against the curve of your shoulder blade. A tone of sweetness fell so easily from your lips, "Thanks, sweetie." Mitch's arm squeezed your body, a warning more than a simple acknowledgment. He groaned quietly against the shell of your ear, "Don't push it."

To an estranged eye, the two of you would seem like a couple enjoying the presence of one another; soaking in the strong emotion of love as it filled the Parisian air, without a worry or care. However, that timeline of events was far from what led you both to this specific bench, in this specific park, watching a specific person as they dawdled at the base of France's tallest landmark. Your target was a man with a deep history of 'pissing off the wrong people', as Stan Hurley would put it so elegantly.

The man wasn't hard to miss; his stance tall and build hefty, eyes teetering on the edge of blackened hues, his behaviour shifty despite the experience that weighed so heavily behind him. He ran a weapons trade that spanned the distance of Europe and his focus was secured now upon the rest of the world. Which simply, cannot happen. Not when the Central Intelligence Agency had two of its most adaptable agents ready to stop him.

You had worked alongside Mitch for what seemed like forever when it was nearing almost five years. He objected to it at first, but you held persistence and dedication that your handler couldn't pass up, especially when it came down to taming the beast. It was quicker than expected when you both fell into a routine and soon enough, the quirks and characteristics that made you both so incredibly different were the structure of your unique relationship.

Without declaration, he would burn the world to keep you warm.

"Where is he going?" Mitch's voice hissed, your concentrated daze breaking before looking toward your target. He was meant to be meeting with somebody, however, it wasn't in the cards for his early departure. Your partner cursed as he stood up and your body went with him, a shadow to his lead. Mitch's arm fell from you before his fingers slid nonchalantly with your own; both a wordless protection and tenacity to keep your cover from being blown. Mitch rolled his lips before moving forward, "C'mon, we're gonna lose him."

You couldn't help the furrowed brows of annoyance as static buzzed in your ear, a baffled Stan Hurley blasting question after question in such an incoherence as Mitch led you through the bustling crowds. You side-eyed your partner as he gave you a reciprocated expression before his honey-coloured eyes rolled in an atypical fashion. "He's on the move.", You spoke quietly, hoping that the projection of your voice was enough to be recognised among the numerous conversations you were surrounded by.

"Well, you better fucking catch up to him!" Your handler replied, and Mitch rolled his eyes once more.

"No shit." Your partner's reply with hasty and simple, causing the utmost satisfaction for you both as he was reprimanded briefly afterwards by the voice in your ears.

The man led you both toward a Valentines market; the populated street covered in red from head to toe, acoustic tunes exuding romance playing from street performers, and couples shining their brightest heart eyes at one another. It was the perfect place to get lost in, and in the moment you hoped for dear life that your target didn't know that he was in fact, a target.

Mitch held your hand tighter before tugging you against his side; the familiar weight of his arm now slung back over your shoulders. You blended in perfectly, a flawless seam among the budding bustle of festivalgoers. The proximity bordered on 'too natural' and you wondered if Mitch felt even the slightest complacency as you did at this opportune moment. It was a simple question of 'what if' - in an alternative world where you both weren't government-employed assassins, would your lives be easy and intertwined by fate, where maybe the two of you could live a happily ever aft-

"Rose for the madam?" The thick accent made you jolt, the silly thoughts intruding your mind now gone as Mitch brought you both to a stop. You looked toward a small French man, a stand of explosive colours serving as a beautiful backdrop behind him. Flowers of all sorts were gathered into small bouquets, but the one that stood out most to you was the perfect red petals of a single rose as it was positioned for Mitch's attention.

You were anticipating a refusal, at least a polite decline, with your partner usually one to skip the antics and keep his eyes on the prize. Which is why it took you by surprise when he handed over a few euros, taking the delicate flower in exchange. You didn't often see him smile but the genuine grin that followed and the kindness in his eyes was more than enough to make your heart thump, thump, thump.

Mitch's brow rose as he looked down at your expression of puzzlement, a chuckle of the utmost quietness falling from his lips as he held the rose toward you, "What? It's Valentine's day."

"You just continue to surprise me, is all." You replied, accepting the gift. Your shoulders rose nonchalantly before you peered not too far ahead at your target as he typed away ferociously at his phone. He was quick to move again, and it was your feet now that led the two of you after his further retreat.

Mitch scoffed, his spare hand scratching at his scruffed cheek; a nervous habit you managed to notice easily but kept as a secret for you and only you to know. He cleared his throat, "I'm just tryn' to keep up our cover. We're meant to be in love, remember?"

"I think you're just going soft on me, Rapp."

You heard a grumble in reply and it made you smirk, his voice hiding as it fell gently into the collar of his jacket, "Whatever."

Navigating through the crowds was becoming more difficult, regardless of the tight grip Mitch had on your hand. You weren't sure whether it was to keep you close so you wouldn't get lost, or as a means to make you both move faster, but he wasn't planning on letting go anytime soon.

A familiar crack of static buzzed in your earpiece as the line opened, and you were greeted once more by your handler's voice with further direction. "We're close to your location, he's gonna run outta road soon so wherever this fucker is going, it can't be too far away. Stay vigilant, don't blow your cover."

You and Mitch replied with brief acknowledgment, your surroundings shifting to a smaller space down a city backstreet. Your mission had taken a turn the moment you left the gardens of the Eifel Tower, but you needed to make the best of a bad situation. No matter how frustrating it may be - and if it meant following a dangerous firearm trafficker through the heart of a love festival, then so be it.

The further he went, the less people there were to get in your way. It was a bittersweet concoction of keeping your eyes on him more clearly, versus his prevalent possibility of catching you out. Your target's paranoia was bubbling to the surface as his gaze flickered between the incoming messages on his phone and his surroundings. He was on edge, waiting with anticipation, searching for something. It was as if he could read your mind as he peered over his shoulder with the sceptical feeling that he was being watched.

Mitch swore as he pulled you to the side, avoiding the other man's eyes for a mere moment as he hissed toward you, "Kiss me. Now. Quick."

"What -"

"Kiss me."

You looked at him in confusion and it made your partner's eyes roll before his hands cupped your cheeks. They were splayed over your skin, warm and surprisingly soft, the perfect cradle for when he pressed his lips so carefully against yours. Mitch didn't want to scare you - knowing damn well that you would either kiss him back or sock him for his advances. Luckily, you found comfort in his taste and touch, and it took nothing more for you to melt into his tenderness.

Kissing Mitch wasn't on your cards for today, and you never would've thought that you'd be standing with your arms dangling around his neck, his fingers pressing gently against your jaw as his lips slid and licked with your own. For someone who was losing his patience earlier in the day, Mitch was taking all the time in the world to have you in his grasp. Holding you carefully. Cherishing your lips.

"Have you still got eyes on him?" Stan's voice sounded muffled as you poured every ounce of attention into Mitch. It was white noise, along with the music flowing from the local bands and the chatter of citizens moving around you. "Rapp, Y/L/N. Have you got eyes on the goddamn target?!"

Mitch jumped back slightly - lips still pursed, eyes fluttering as if he was waking up from a dream. He had never looked so at ease, until Stan's words finally caught up to him and his attention shifted to where the target was once standing. Where he was, no more.

Your eyes widened, locking with the honey brown of the man beside you. It was in unison when you both groaned, realization hitting that you did in fact, not, have your sight on the target.

"Fuck."

[wandasaura]

— SWEET FESTIVE LOVE

summary — so much has been taken from your girlfriends, so bringing a taste of the holidays into your shared apartment gives back some of the magic they lost out on for so long

warning(s) — just a sweet morning with your girlfriends, the faintest most nondescript mention of wanda/natasha’s childhoods

It was easier said than done; escaping from bed without waking the two Avengers you slept between, but eventually by some kind of miracle, you managed to untangle yourself from their warm bodies and the heavy blankets you had been practically cocooned beneath without too much trouble, and once your bare feet hit the cold hardwood, chills immediately spreading up your bones at the fluctuation of temperature, you were free to escape into the living room where Halloween decorations taunted you on every surface.

The first thing you did was switch the overhead lights on and start a pot of coffee in the kitchen — more for Natasha than yourself. You wouldn’t have much time before they noticed you were missing from bed and came to find you with worried and panicked frowns on their sleepy faces, but coffee was as good of a peace offering as any for your scarlet headed girlfriend. Wanda would just laugh when she eventually found you, she was always the last to jump to conclusions when it came to your spontaneous disappearances.

With coffee brewing and dawn approaching, the fresh-feeling yelled-toned sunlight that peaked through the windows created a gentle golden hue within the eerily quiet apartment, you set off on your original mission, the entire reason you wrangled yourself out of bed so early; setting up for Christmas.

You’d sat with the idea for weeks before you brought it up to your girlfriends, knowing Wanda came from a Jewish family, and Natasha had been cheated of a childhood entirely, you didn’t want to overstep on your first holiday season together, still in the stage of navigating new traditions and celebrations, but the witch had assured you that she didn’t mind the decorations and traditional festive traditions you wanted to bring into the apartment. She was secure in her upbringing (the little she got to have before everything was ripped away at the very least), and she enjoyed the cheesiness of a jolly sleigh riding home intruder and gingerbread men. Natasha had been otherwise indifferent when the conversation turned to her, not the most forthcoming when it came to reliving the Ohio mission, but you caught the slight curl to her pink lips when you started rambling about your family's traditions. After that, you’d slowly started to accumulate different decorations that you thought encapsulated theirs and your personalities perfectly. You shied away from the brighter reds and greens that overpopulated stores, sticking with cooler tones and golds that were more their laidback energy.

You started the process by dismantling all of the fall decorations you’d placed out in September, piling them all on the couch to be put away later on when you had more of an idea as to where all the Christmas decor would be going. You replaced styrofoam pumpkins and scarecrows with porcelain pine trees and snowmen, sprinkling fake snow and vines of artificial holly across the mantle where you’d be handing the matching stockings you had custom made.

You cleared the windowsill in the center of the front wall, stacking the picture frames on the arm of the couch before you went back to decorating, spreading a navy blue table runner across the white trim to add contrast to the primarily red and green decorations. You’d gotten a lot accomplished by time you heard panicked feet shuffling down the stairs, fumbling over the placement of palm sized glass dreidels when Natasha’s presence became known.

“There you are!” She gasped, tugging her fingers through her slept on red curls, keeping them out of her face as the panic turned into annoyance. “Halloween was yesterday, Y/N.” She emphasized her displeasure with a grumpy huff, staring straight at your collection of nesting dolls that were sitting where her beloved jack-o-lantern resided just last night.

“Oh don’t be such a scrooge.” Wanda called from the top of the stairs, amusement clear in her tone as she figured what you were up to, clearly not as worried as Natasha had been. She came down the stairs with less of a rush, busy tying her hair up into a ponytail before she paused at the bottom of the steps when her eyes drifted over to where you were standing. “Dove.” Her tone drips with fondness and appreciation as she takes note of the silver menorah in the center of the windowsill, the blossoming sunlight reflecting off of the glass dreidels that were scattered around as well, casting small shadows of rainbow light against the opposite wall.

“I know you don’t really celebrate Chanukah, but I wanted you to feel represented too. I hope I got it right.” You fiddle with your fingers nervously, “I looked up so many menorahs. I made sure the shamash.. is that what it’s called?…I made sure the shamash was a different height, and that the eight branches were level. So many I looked at weren’t.”

Wanda’s gaze was practically bleeding with adoration as she crossed the living room to hold your face tenderly in her hands, “Thank you.” She kissed your lips earnestly, brushing her fingers over your cheeks delicately before she flickered her gaze to the little details you paid close attention to. She spotted a gold Star of David sitting next to a suction cup hook, not yet hung up wherever you intended to place it, but her heart swelled at the intentions.

“You’re welcome.” You giggled shyly, leaning in to kiss her sweetly as she embraced you in a true and tight embrace. “Now! Since you both decided to wake up, the tree needs to be set up, and I wasn’t tall enough to hang that sign or the mistletoe!” You called out smugly, staring directly at Natasha who just groaned defeatedly, but you knew she didn’t mind, she was just too proud to admit how nice it was to see the apartment so lively and normal. This was all she’d ever wanted her life to amount to.

[firewasabeast]

Prompt:

Buck thinks he and Tommy should send out a Christmas card together. Tommy agrees...Clipboard Buck appears 😆

This was fun!! Thank you ❤️

“Evan?”

“Hm?”

“Um, when I- when we agreed to send out a Christmas card together this year, I can't say I was expecting all of this.”

Their front porch was decorated top to bottom in Christmas décor. Garland and bows around the door and front windows, small trees with white lights lining the steps, fake snow sprayed onto the glass framing of the front door. There were some boxes that were wrapped perfectly too, clustered together just past the top step.

It looked absolutely beautiful.

It also looked absolutely insane.

Especially since it was September.

The idea of sending out Christmas cards came to Buck a month earlier, as he moved into Tommy's place. He was putting away some things and found Maddie, Chimney, and Jee's card from the year before. The thought of him and Tommy sending out a card of their own for everyone to see was too enticing to pass up. Plus, it was a perfect way to let distant relatives know that he was in a committed relationship with another man without having to do the whole awkward, and downright ridiculous, coming out routine.

Tommy had agreed pretty quickly. He had learned by now to always be prepared for whatever Buck threw at him next, and he found it pretty exciting to say yes to all his little ideas and suggestions that he himself would never have thought about otherwise.

What Tommy didn't account for is that a suggestion like this would not be taken lightly. Not with Buck involved.

“What do you mean?” Buck asked, eyes shooting up from the clipboard he'd been staring down at.

“I just... I thought we'd pick a selfie, from our phones,” his voice wavered when he saw the look of utter disgust come over Buck's face, “and choose a template from Walgreens...”

Buck stood there, mouth hanging open. Like he couldn't believe such a crazy idea even came out of Tommy's mouth.

“Thomas.”

Tommy sighed. The full name was never a good sign.

“Christmas cards are quite possibly the most important piece of stationary you can send out into the world.”

“So, when we send out our wedding invitations they'll be, what, number two?”

“A Christmas card tells the people within your world,” Buck continued, ignoring Tommy's question, “that the person or people you are with in that card is who matters the most to you.”

Tommy crossed his arms over his chest, nodding. “Right, but Evan, Babe,” he smiled, moving closer, hoping to cut the tension he had created, “I'm pretty sure most people toss their Christmas cards like, as soon as they get them, or the day after Christmas.”

Buck shook his head. He lifted some papers from his clipboard and pulled out a sheet that he handed to Tommy. “Not this one. Ours is going to be made from botanical paper,” he said, pointing down at one of the options on the paper. “They'll plant it somewhere around their house or in a pot or something and from our love, plants will grow!” He smiled brightly as he finished his explanation, eyes wide and filled with excitement.

Tommy couldn't help himself. Buck was so cute when he got this way. There wasn't a piece of Tommy that ever wanted to dull Evan's happiness from even the smallest things in life. He leaned forward and gave Buck a gentle peck on the lips. “That's adorable,” he said, handing the paper back to Buck, “and very sweet.”

“I, uh, I think so too.” A blush rose on Buck's cheeks. Even after all these months together, he still got butterflies in his stomach when Tommy kissed him or was on board with one of his plans.

The thing was, Buck knew that he could be a lot to deal with sometimes. He knew people got frustrated when he had a clipboard in his hands. He knew he could get obsessive and overdo it. And, while Tommy may sometimes suggest simpler options (which were obviously wrong and insane), he never made fun of Buck or belittled him. Buck never had to worry about being too much with Tommy, and that was such a freeing feeling.

“Now!” Buck rocked up on his tippy toes, getting back to his list. “We've got our first photographer coming in half an hour. Our next one comes at one. Then we've got to wait until four for the last one, so you'll have to change out of your outfit or put on a robe or something so you don't spill.”

“We... We've got three photographers coming?”

Buck nodded, double checking his list. “Yes. Uh, three today, two tomorrow.”

“So five then? Five photographers coming?”

“Correct.”

“Evan, honey,” Tommy placed his hands on Buck's biceps, pulling his attention from the clipboard yet again. “Why exactly do we have five photographers coming?”

“To make sure we get the best photos?” Buck replied as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Right... Right, okay. Alright, well, you just tell me what to do and when to do it and I will be there.”

Buck leaned in this time, a hand placed at the nape of Tommy's neck, and kissed him. “First,” he said once he pulled away, “I've gotta go get the house ready for the dog. He'll be here in fifteen minutes.”

“Okay,” Tommy agreed. Buck was already back in the house when his words sunk in. “Wait! Dog?!” Tommy called out, “Evan, we don't have a dog!”

“We do today!”

[hongism]

AND IT'S SNOWING... - A WINTER FIC FEST

brought to you by bee (@atzfilm) and caly (@hongism)

tis the season for fics that have absolutely nothing to do with christmas and everything to do with other tomfoolery! (aka we spent an hour and a half trying to figure out how to make our concepts be christmas-themed just to forgo the idea of christmas altogether...) from aliens to fae to the ex-turned-sugar-daddy, tune in this winter season for shenanigans... and it's snowing! ❄

all fics are rated m and not intended for underage audiences. please heed individual warnings attributed to each work.

WINTER BLOSSOM

written by atzfilm pairing: k.yeosang x reader genre: alien au, secret relationship summary: earth abandoned centuries ago, you travel the cosmos alone. you land on a smaller planet, meeting an exiled dweller that calls himself yeosang.

WHAT LIES BENEATH US

written by hongism pairing: c.san x reader genre: college au, established relationship summary: one busy semester is all it took for you and san to find yourselves struggling to find footing in the storm that is your relationship, yet rather than let go, he asked for one more week, one more day, one last chance to help get you back to shore

APRICITY

written by atzfilm pairing: c.jongho x reader genre: faeries au, enemies to lovers summary: with your kingdoms having been at war for centuries, it's only fitting that you would be kidnapped and locked in the room with your sworn enemy – choi jongho.

SWEET JUICE

written by hongism pairing: s.mingi x reader genre: witches/warlocks au, strangers to lovers summary: the new apothecary in your small village is harboring a dark secret, you're certain of it, if only because he bears a starkly familiar crest on his shop sign - one that denotes the presence of magic.

LOVERS IN THE NIGHT

written by atzfilm pairing: j.yunho x reader genre: sugar daddy au, exes to lovers summary: just out of your college with a freshly printed degree, you set out for a job that would fit your somewhat high standards. after a brief scroll through a sugar daddy website and a meeting set-up, you sit across from the one man you didn't expect to see — jeong yunho, your ex-boyfriend and apparently, a millionaire looking for someone to spoil.

SILLAGE

written by hongism pairing: k.hongjoong x reader genre: royalty au, first love summary: sillage — the scent that lingers in air, the trail left in water, the impression made in space after something or someone has been and gone; the trace of someone's perfume — it hardly takes much to fall

SEASONS

written by atzfilm pairing: p.seonghwa x reader genre: blind date au, friends to lovers summary: after failing over and over on every date you've gone on, your friends finally resort to setting you up on a blind date in the hopes of making things go right.

AND THEY WERE ROOMMATES

written by hongism pairing: j.wooyoung x reader genre: roommates au, fake dating summary: you imagine that you've cut yourself a rather decent deal in bagging jung wooyoung as your roommate, and yet, things that seem a little too good to be true have a way of cracking at the seems all too easily.

fics created and written by atzfilm and hongism, 2023. all rights belong to owners. do not copy, emulate, translate, or alter the works in any fashion without permission.

[watercolourferns]

If there0s a villain that actually scared the soul out of me in a very raw and "I wanna get out of her presence" way, is Dra. Volumnia Gaul.

Viola Davis as a villain?? More excellent and mesmerizing than you'd think! She nailed the character, imo. And she did it so well that I think I'll have nightmares.

Don't worry, no spoilers from the movie, but by now I'm sure you've read the book.

Dr. Gaul comes off as not just villanous and 100% evil, SHE COMES OFF AS NON-HUMAN. In contrast with Highbottom, Arachne, and Grandma'am (yes, she's sort of an antagonist as she molds Snow's character negatively a lot) Dr. Gaul doesn't look like your typical villain in a dictatorship; she simply doesn't react like a regular human does.

She's not overly arrogant, nor overly spiteful, she knows she's good and she knows the power she wields not just as Game-Maker but also as a doctor; yet she's far removed from what's happening around her in the sense that it doesn't affect her negatively...up until the 10th games, but as I said, no spoilers. And even after that she recovers very well and doesn't take it personally.

She views humans and Panem literally as her laboratory and she takes her role as Game-Maker very seriously, but she's not pompous about it. She's a lot like Heavensbee in the sense they're both cunning, cold calculators... but Dr. Gaul takes it up another notch and isn't afraid of using innocent humans for her own research ends, and punishing people? A breeze. I think she doesn't regard humans as anything other than hairless apes she can do her research on. She reminds me of a certain doctor during WWII...

She's not driven by anger, hate, vengeance, pride... I'm not sure what drives her to do the things she does... it could be power? But I think it's a kind of undiluted, twisted, sick curiosity of how things work and how far she can push the limits, how much she can play to be a God before she breaks it... and part of the reason she needs to retain power is to keep the resources to continue pushing the limits of biology to satisfy her morbid curiosity... If there's a portrayal of psycopathy that isn't over the top, clownish, but has flair and is quite interesting that's Dr. Gaul.

I think she's responsible for the... feel of the Capitol in THG books and movies, that fakeness, plastic, unnatural coldness of it that puts Katniss off so much. It's like she created a psycopathic ENVIRONMENT, no empathy, no compassion, no feelings...

Re-watching and re-reading the saga I can see Dr. Gaul's trademark in a ton of things... and that's why I think she's the scariest villain... She bred a whole host of psychopaths that don't know they act psychopathic and are so vapid and shallow they can be pupeteered to do anything the people in power want... The Capitol was her largest experiment and her biggest success...

P.S. All my respect to Viola Davis... she's embodied a character that will probably mark the way villains are seen after this. I love her range and mastery of acting so so much.

[smokestarrules]

what are your fave warrior nun fics?

Oh, anon. You don't even know the can of worms you've just opened. Here are a few (a few!) of my favorites.

Firstly, teach me to love, as you have loved me by @birgittesilverbae. It's in the POV of Beatrice as she grows up in the OCS, putting Shannon, Mary and Lilith in the limelight as well, and the most recent chapter (12k!) has gone through essentially all of canon. It's about grief and family and warmth and loss and it's so fucking good. Cannot recommend this more.

Next I have sunday people (sunday shines for you) by @piratekane. Sundays are for the girls, by the way. if you even care. This is peak pining behavior, miscommunication that isn't just there for the dramatics, and Ava being The Best Girl Ever (and the most jealous girl ever). Fantastic fic.

Then there's show me something of a reckoning by @thirteenyasmin, which is a given, of course. Switzerland canon-divergent fic where, as the tags say, fake-dating becomes real-dating. As they deserve. Has some lines that will tear your soul to pieces in the best way.

Next is Nice jugs, a climbing AU by @cowboycatd. Do you know anything about climbing? No? Me, neither. But this series of fics describes it--alongside exceptionally-written flirting--masterfully. You should read Climbing AU.

Then I have falling (for you) like snow on christmas by @justawhitewall. Hallmark movie AU! They're much better when they're Avatrice, by the way. I read it during the posting and have reread it at least once a month ever since. Incredible.

Spellbound by @omomoification. Witch (kinda) AU! Will sweep you away into the world that's created and you won't even notice as the 15k goes by in a flash. Fucking gorgeous piece of art. Made me insane, made some people break the character limit while commenting.

the imprint of your soul on mine (feels nothing short of divine) by @the-penguinspy. Read this if you're feeling down, because you won't be when you're done. The softest thing you could ever read, and I read a lot of soft things. Fic that gives you a hug and a gentle kiss on the top of your head.

And last but certainly not least, A Bit of Earth by @whatwordsmiss. Full fic isn't posted yet but it is written, and this story is just... wonderful. It's about grief, it's about growing up, it's about falling in love and healing together and healing apart and being kind and, sometimes, in particular moments, it's about a Garden. A must-read.

[hadesisqueer]

hows is it obvious that daenerys was the prince who was promised?

im not saying she is not i just havent read the books and im curious

I mean, I read the books a long time ago, so I'll tell you what I remember after a bit of research.

There are two figures, The Prince That Was Promised, which is a prophecy hero, and Azor Ahai, a legendary hero from thousands of years ago who'd be reborn. They have been used interchangeably, which implies that they're believed to be the same person.

There are several characters who are believed by others to be —or who believed themselves to be— Azor Ahai reborn/TPTWP. Melisandre thought it was Stannis, then if I recall she thought it was Jon Snow. Rhaegar, who was obsessed with the prophecy, thought it was him, and then he thought it was his son Aegon (the son of Elia Martell, not Jon; Jon is not really confirmed to be R + L's son in the books yet if I recall, and we don't know if his name would actually be Aegon... probably not tbh because who names his two sons Aegon). Maester Aemon first thought it was Rhaegar, and then he became convinced it was Dany.

After looking back, I remember that a witch told Jaehaerys II (Dany's grandpa) that TPTWP came from his children Aerys and Rhaella's line, which is why he arranged the marriage with each other. If we assume that that is true, then actually there would have been six possible TPTWP: Rhaegar, Aegon VI, Rhaenys, Viserys, Daenerys and Jon Snow. Rhaegar, Viserys and Rhaenys are all dead, so I guess whe could scratch them. Aegon VI (Young Griff) is supposedly still alive in the books and he fits one part of the prophecy —and so did Rhaegar in a way. But lots of people are not really sure that Aegon is actually who he says he is and that he might be a fake.

Melisandre believed it could be Jon. If I recall, there's a part where she said something like 'I ask the lord to show me Azor Ahai and all I see is snow' or something like that (again, it's been a while since I read the books, sorry?).

Now, Daenerys? She fits the prophecy to a T.

Born of Aerys and Rhaella's line? She is their daughter. Check.

Born amidst salt and smoke? Well, she was born in Dragonstone, a volcanic island, so literally born amidst salt (from the sea) and smoke (from the volcano). Metaphorically speaking though, she was also reborn amidst the salt of her tears and smoke from Drogo's funeral pyre. So... Check. Twice, I guess.

A 'bleeding star' would be a herald for the arrival of the prince. There was a Red Comet when Daenerys went into the funeral pyre, where she was reborn. So-- Check.

It was also said that TPTWP would 'awake dragons from stones'. While there are other characters that fit other requirements, Daenerys is the only one who fits this one, unless someone else manages to make three petrified dragon eggs hatch like she did. So-- Check.

Now, the whole thing: Lightbringer. Lightbringer was Azor Ahai's legendary sword. He tried making it three times, but the first two times the sword broke when he tried tempering; he finished the sword by stabbing his wife in the heart. It was said that Azor Ahai would be reborn when stars bleed and cold comes or something like that, and that that warrior would draw Lightbringer as a flaming sword from a fire.

Does Daenerys have Lightbringer? As an actual, physical sword, no. Metaphorically-- yeah. It's Drogon.

She tried to make her dragons hatch (create her weapon) twice and fails-- until she kills her husband and places the eggs in his funeral pyre: she places Drogon's egg beside Drogo's heart, just like Azor Ahai stabbed his wife there and that's where Lightbringer came to be. Then she emerged from the pyre with dragons while there was a red comet (again, bleeding star; the 'cold' would be The Others —White Walkers in the show— and the Winter that comes). Dragons, well-- are fire made flesh. So-- yeah. While she doesn't have a literal sword, Daenerys has her Lightbringer, and it's Drogon.

So, yeah. While people have a lot of theories about who TPTWP/Azor Ahai reborn would be, and there are other characters who fit some requirements, Daenerys is the only one who fully fits the prophecy. That's why a lot of people aren't shocked that it's her in HOTD. It is kind of obvious in the books lmao

[iberiantalesif-game]

Genres: Heavy romance, Fall of your entire culture, Ancient history slice of life, Found family

Rating : 16+ for depictions of violence, mature themes and language. (List to be expanded on)

Summary

Life was once tranquil on the isolated coast of your city, surrounded by a loving family and promising prospects for success in your societal position. However, tranquility shattered when the Romans emerged victorious in the Punic War against Carthage, signaling the impending demise of the Iberian people.

As flames engulf your city, escape becomes the only viable option, if luck favors you enough to evade the soldiers blocking your path that is.

Yet, amidst the chaos, you realize that the existence of a stray and that of a Roman slave may not be so disparate.

If the gods truly have a plan for you, their track record thus far suggests they're not worthy of your trust either. But when a fate worse than death is upon your door, you really cant get picky can't you?

Features!

Assume the role of a member of an Iberian civilization dwelling along the coast.

Customize your protagonist's background as a warrior, priest, or noble, shaping both personality and appearance.

Flee from the Romans (or choose otherwise) and embark on a quest to find a new place to call home.

Reconnect with or forge new bonds to create your newfound family, if circumstances allow.

Decide between preserving your culture from extinction or embracing the dawn of new societal norms, and confront the repercussions of your choices.

Engage in romantic pursuits with one of the available romance options. (Witch will be expanding as the game develops and progresses)

The RO´s Cast

Theodosius (Theo) Aurelius [He/Him]

Theo resembles his father´s features, tall, blond and with eyes coloured by the sea. He also has a cold temperament and a tendency to keep people at arm's length.

But being a powerful Roman family heir might make him a good ally. The truth is that you have no option but to please him or his father who bought you, all in hopes of a change of fortune. Or so you tell yourself, as the cold man shows you a mercy not proper of Romans. Maybe they are not as beastly as you thought after all?

Tropes: Snow Prince with warm heart, Fake love to Soulmates.

Eon[He/Him]

Eon is a huge man, with signature red hair, heavily tanned skin and a green stare. So is his entire family, a mercenary group from the northern city of Numantine.

With a world of differences in between and a war that has shaken the safety of the entire peninsula, he is as good a bet on survival as it gets. But when the times can't seem rougher, this giant man offers a sweetness that you have rarely known amidst despair, maybe one strong enough to survive hunger?

Tropes: Buffed fluff/could kill and is a cinnamon roll.

[wondernus]

˗ˋˏ a winter interlude ˎˊ˗

synopsis: maybe this is meant to be an interlude – an unforeseen passing moment in each other’s timelines. but with the stroke of a conductor’s baton, the symphony lands on the fermata hovering above the note. do we allow this interlude to become something longer than a short period in our lives, or do we end it after all of it is over?

pairing: wonwoo x coworker!reader

genre: romance, drama, light angst

tags: children's book illustrator wonwoo, publisher reader, enemies to lovers, fake marriage, food/drinks, work husband jeonghan cameo, small town dynamics, snowed in, scene where reader almost gets physically injured

wc: 11.3k

message from nu: waaaa first fic of the year. special special special thank you to my beloved madi (@heartkyeom) for being my beta reader well after midnight. I also wanna thank mars (@onlymingyus) for being mars c: I remember a while ago I answered an ask with a possible wonwoo work husband spinoff. this is it. this is wonwoo's work husband spinoff. this can be read as a standalone fic. happy winter and happy new year to all of you. I hope you all enjoy this svthub snowventeen collab fic - nu ♡

wondernus's masterlist / snowventeen collab 18+

one

“Don’t forget to wear you layers because it’s about to be chillier as the week passes by. For those trekking into the mountains, make sure you look out for weather updates from the signal tower and stay indoors because a large snowstorm is about to paint the mountains white. Stay safe, and have a great day. Now, onto Yoon Jeonghan with the traffic.”

“‘Trekking?’ What are you? A protein bar wrapper? Anyway, thank you Joshu-"

Never really understanding why other people say they often find themselves turning down the music while driving to see better, you find yourself doing the same – driving in silence as if the silence could create such a frictionless surface that would shoot and propel your car to your destination. A couple of hours late to your annual winter work retreat, a clear understatement defined by the speed at which you are driving, what was supposed to be a carpool event turned into you sitting in a pool of cars while stuck in traffic.

The Sun shines lightly, a gentle kiss against your skin, but not enough to hug everything it touches in warmth. With the heater on high, you sit in your front seat sweating and dreading the moment when you have to get out of your car, thighs peeling off the leather seats and leaving a pool of sweat where you were sitting. Perhaps it is not the Sun and the heater’s heat that causes you to sweat, but a psychological factor – an amalgamation of stress and anxiety that stemmed from the moment you realized you were late.

No longer can you allow yourself to forgive him that easily, yet you really did not want t blame him for giving you incorrect meeting minutes. But when the retreat itinerary clearly stated to meet in the morning at seven in front of the publishing house, you should have known better than to wholly trust your ditzy new intern to attend your office meeting while you traveled out of town to hunt down your author for her overdue speculative fiction novel draft. Instead of writing the correct time to meet, he incorrectly noted the arrival time.

This unprecedented-precedented blip is the catalyst for a series of chain reactions that would metaphorically send you pummeling down the steep side of a mountain in a snowy avalanche that you could have avoided. But you do not know it, nor do you know how it, whatever “it” is, ends.

Dark circles under your eyes and a forgotten paper-thin pimple patch a jolt over a speedbump away from falling off your oily skin, you keep telling yourself that everything will be okay once you get to the camping grounds. Hopefully, this sort of denial could make up for the fact that you spent all of last night kicking your feet under your covers while binge-watching the reality show that your favorite boy group filmed rather than packing for your trip. But there is only so much your heater turned on high can do for someone wearing an old flimsy university tee with a couple of cat teeth-made holes who forgot to put their contacts in last night. You are better off skipping the winter retreat, but you are already nearing the mountains. There is no turning back – especially on winding roads.

And the embarrassment. This feeling of creeping anxiety seemingly washed away the moment it stepped foot into your head even though you are utterly unprepared and inappropriate for being late to the paid work retreat. Because this sudden realization hits you mid-drive: the only person who you would be embarrassed to meet in your current situation is excused for the retreat. Reasons unknown. And not that you would let any man define you, but at your core, you are simply a person with an embarrassingly big fat crush on your co-worker (and seemingly everybody else you work with). This crush is so bad that if HR made every team create their own set of photocards, you would put his in a protective cover with tiny holographic hearts, and then in a sturdy toploader decorated with overpriced stickers. One glance at him would put you in a trance, daydreaming about what it would be like to wake up in his arms on a sunny day with birds chirping outside your window, and him with a soft smile on his face.

Except for one thing – he hates your guts, so you decided to hate his too.

They always say “try, try again,” but how many tries would it take before the attempts turn Sisyphean? Sure, Hades enchanted Sisyphus’s boulder so that it would roll away before Sisyphus reached the top, but what about you? Car tires struggling against the icy roads, you drive carefully so your car does not turn into a giant hockey puck or a curling stone on (what is essentially) a giant ice rink. But being careful does not help the fact that you are unprepared. And being unprepared means your car has absolutely no way for you to drive over any sized slopes, no matter how many times you try.

You only realize any further attempt of going over the slope or taking any other route is fruitless when your tires spin in place after digging themselves well enough into the road. And you slump against your steering wheel like an exasperated character in a movie – pounding your head against 12 o’clock a few times for good measure. So much for a fifteen-minute-saving de-tour through a small town you have never seen before. And so much for you trying to drive over a slope you could easily walk over. Trying sucks.

Still, the only thing that keeps you from abandoning your hand-me-down car to trek forty-five minutes to the campsite is the fact that it is freezing outside, and your cellphone Wi-Fi gets especially spotty when you are in areas of high altitudes. With one final sigh, you push yourself away from your steering wheel to sit upright, leaning the back of your head against your headrest. There is not much to do except to put your car in neutral and try to push your car out of the little hole it dug itself in.

The thing is, the texture of real snow is a lot different from the snow that giant portable snow machines shoot out of their gigantic cylindrical nozzles to cover the courtyard in front of the city hall whenever the local city has its annual winter festival. Real snow is also incomparable to the “snow” a child creates along the perimeter of an ice skating rink, hands holding onto the rails for support while they repeatedly scrape the inside of one of their blades towards the inside of their other shoe, creating soft ribbons of shaved ice before the navy blue Zamboni can create a clean slate before private lessons start.

Real snow is relentless toward anybody who does not come prepared to interact with it. So, no matter how much you try to dig and twist your sneaker sole into the snow, that tactile grip that you wish to create that supports your feet while you are pushing against the back of your car can seldom be created. You slump against your car’s bumper in defeat. The Sun still shining on your skin, a little bit stronger now, leaves you with the same warmth you felt against your skin, a bit tingly and upsetting, when you knew your skin would still burn no matter how nice the cordiality of the Sun felt on that one Spring day in the past.

Plus, there is a little more time to observe your surroundings when you have given up completely.

In the grassy median strip that denotes the entrance into the small town is a wooden welcome sign with the name in loopy golden lettering against a beautiful pine green: “Welcome to Interlude.” A few feet ahead of you, the mountainous road marries smooth concrete, and the sidewalks pave in a festival town-esque brick lining. And you conclude you must be on the outskirts of the town. Leftover snow fills the grooves between each brick and covers the dark-colored awnings in front of each shop along the town strip. Where flashy LED shop signs and brightly colored bulbs decorate sidewalk trees drawing visitors in from around the world, is surprisingly a lack of people. And you frown while thinking about how you would be able to push your car to the side of the road if another vehicle wants to enter the town.

Not a few moments later, a navy blue truck slowly climbs up the road, and you feel the littlest bit of hope surge into your body. Forcing yourself to stand up, you move out of the way and wave at the incoming car. But as your day could not have gotten any more unfortunate, your car starts rolling backwards towards the pickup truck. And you cannot help but see your entire life flash in front of you – a person dressed too lightly for the snow and the used car passing by like a celebrity on a parade float, all in a moment.

What is scarier than the fact that your car is now bumper-less and the pickup truck remains unscathed is the man who hops out of his truck. Looking like a snow-stage boss from a video game, the man who is large and menacingly looking enough to make his shiny dark green car look like a minivan next to him stalks over to you with his finger pointed directly at your face. The only thing missing from the scene is the army of ice ogres that are supposed to follow closely behind him.

However, the only thing you can register is the fact that he is yelling at you – face glowing bright red and spit flying out of his mouth. Your body is frozen in fear. There is a lack of capacity for you to be able to stand up for yourself while you are shocked and unable to recognize your surroundings while terrible words spill out of the man's mouth. And you cannot do anything except take in his expletives while teardrops well up, ready to spill out of your tear ducts.

But they do not. A figure puts himself between the man and you, and your view is too obstructed to see the other side.

“I called the insurance company. Give me your information and I’ll handle it,” the mysterious person says.

“And who are you?” You hear from the other side.

“I’m their husband.” He fishes for his wallet in his back pocket and takes out a business card, handing it to the man between two fingers. “Call me. Email me. Your choice. I’ll get it sorted. Sorry about the whole thing, I didn’t have time to drive my partner. Bad husband right?... So, I heard you’re the new fishing shop owner? I’ll drop by sometime.” He tries to switch subjects to lessen the tension while slipping his wallet back into his pocket.

The thing is, it works. The presence of the man who uses his body to shield you calms the angry pickup truck driver almost exponentially. And the man who yelled at you seemed to forget he was yelling at you just because he realized your marital status. The man calms down, and even falters in his speech.

“Ahh…I’m not a fishing shop owner. I guess it’s fine now that you’re here, but you know men. There aren’t bad husbands, only ba-”

“I’ll be at Town Hall if you need more information from me.” The man who calls himself your husband purposely and curtly cuts the other man off, knowing very well that he would be even more upset if he heard the man finish his sentence.

The man does not turn back to address you until he is done taking photos of both cars and waving the other man goodbye. And your piece of junk car stays in the same spot, bumper-less and bruised, while the pickup truck, clearly without any injury, smoothly makes its way into Interlude, disappearing from your sight.

“You’re just going to dumbly let that man say those things to you? About you? Do you have no respect for yourself?” He lectures you, his deep voice muffled by the black wool scarf wrapped around his neck and mouth.

You see him clearly this time, how his black locks fall in front of his face in neat curtain bangs, set in a defined “C” shape. The oversized fleece-lined collar jacket falls to the middle of his thighs, leaving little room for his cream-colored sweater to peep into view. And his stance, focusing his weight on his right heel while his left foot slightly protrudes forward, allows him to tap his foot against the snow while he waits for you to answer him.

But what is shocking to you is not the code-switching he uses when speaking to the driver versus when speaking to you. What is shocking, you realize, are the thin silver-framed glasses that sit on the bridge of the man’s nose and the familiar deep woody scent that clings onto him, touched with a hint of peach.

It couldn’t be.

A cold chill leaves your tongue dry and squeezes your stomach.

“Are you dumb? Did you not hear about the snowstorm coming?” He asks you, a voice without concern, all while pulling out his phone from one of his pockets.

He tugs his manicured thumbs out of his gloves to wake his phone and proceeds to reveal his face from under his scarf to unlock his phone. After a few loud keyboard taps, you hear your phone’s notification sound from your car. But all you can do is stare back at the man, stomach gurgling and queasy.

“Yn,” your co-worker sighs, clearly annoyed by your lack of response. “Why are you here?”

two

A backpack-wearing piglet who happily crosses the street. A fashionably dressed lumpy toad who rows across the pond in a wooden paddle boat. A shrew who picnics with a chipmunk in a grassy city park. Tiny children who sit between each of a stegosaurus’s scutes. An angry and scruffy-looking Siamese cat who wears a cone too big for it to see. The backside of each illustration states:

Jeon Wonwoo ILLUSTRATOR Same Dream Publishing House Work Email | Work Number | Personal Website

Nicely squared recycled textured card stock printed with soy ink, Jeon Wonwoo’s business cards can very well double as collector cards. And the owner of these cards himself, in your eyes, is the most beautiful man you have ever laid your eyes on. No fantasy writer, no Renaissance artist could ever truly depict how you see this man. Yet it makes you feel terrible, so entirely rotten on the inside, knowing that he would rather crawl up several flights of stairs made of tiny plastic building blocks than take a fifteen-second elevator ride with you.

If you could pinpoint the exact day Jeon Wonwoo started hating you, it would be the Monday after coming back from a previous work trip to the vacation home of a poet the two of you were assigned. The two of you were amicable with each other, even more so – close friends. A power couple in the children’s books and short stories field – a force to be reckoned with. And the hotel rooms adjacent to each other where the two of you decided to sit on opposite sides of your shared door and talk to each other with both your backs against the door. You remember the sound of his hair brushing against the wood and his soft chuckle when you accidentally bump your head against the door. The goodbye after the trip lingered for a little too long while the first hello back never came. And you can only watch from the back of the crowd during meet and greets and panels, sometimes only catching the tip of his tiny flyaway from far away.

It would hurt your feelings a lot less if he turned away whenever you walked near him, but he chooses to frown instead. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make you like him any less. But you do not know what you are holding onto (or if there is anything to hold onto at this point).

Even now, there is a blatant emotional and physical distance between the two of you. He briskly walks at least a meter in front of you, never turning his head back to see if he left you behind or if you were following closely behind.

The thick uncomfortable shoulder strap keeps slipping from your shoulder, unable to find any traction against the smooth nylon of the puffer you put on earlier. And it is just a walk, a measly ten-minute walk to the police station where you can report the accident, but it is hard to walk while looking ahead when you are so close to crying. No matter how much you try to adjust your shoulder strap so it doesn’t stop falling, it finds a way to slip from your sore shoulder or frozen grip. Overwhelming emotions usurp any will to continue onwards and leave you feeling so annoyed, so dejected, and so frustrated with everything that happened today. And when your bag’s strap slips again, you let it slip from your shoulder, sending your entire duffle bag crumpling against the wet and icy brick pavement. 

And so you crumple with it, sinking to your knees and wallowing in your unhappiness.

The winter boots that clop in front of you never stop. Jeon Wonwoo would never stop for you, never walk backwards to pick up your heavy duffle and offer you a hand. So it wracks your head trying to understand why he would help you out in the first place, leaving you in the snow once everything was settled, and threatening an IOU coupon for the future. Why he would be in this town in the first place.

The shop window lights of the tiny electronics store to the side of you flicker on. On display and pressed flat against the glass are a bunch of old television sets stacked on top of each other, creating a large screen if not separated by the thick plastic television frames. Golden tempera paint in a modern Serif font exhibits the store’s logo across the glass: “Stay For A While,” in a wide downward pointing arc.

Every single television screen livestreams the local news. According to the subtitles, a giant snowstorm is about to hit the local area. Residents are advised to seek shelter and stay home. The sunny weather is only a farce. 

But you don’t notice the news. To you, the only thing in front of you is a lachrymose shadow of a blob trapped in a foreign town with nowhere to go. And your heart follows closely behind the man as if dragged by him on a leash – blindly bouncing, cobbling, and getting scratched by the various pebbles and dirt on the pavement.

The man never looks behind to check on the organ. He doesn’t even know it’s there.

“What do you mean you’re cat sitting? Jeonghan, you never volunteer to do things willingly…Oh, for the friends who are high school teachers? Then road trip with their cat and save your cousin who is stranded in the mountains.” You adjust your grip on your phone while mindlessly browsing through the several knickknacks for sale in the souvenir shop in the town’s only lodge.

Passing the wall of graphic tees and sweaters and passing through a shelf of souvenir mugs, you stop at a shelf of tiny woodcarvings. Your eye lands on a figurine of a whittled cat, hand-painted orange with a white belly. On the other end of your phone call, your cousin complains about the weather, but you don’t listen – clearly too entranced by the tiny cat.

“Of course I listened to the radio this morning,” you mutter while running the tip of your pointer finger against the cat’s ear, feeling the smooth sanded wood under your touch. “Okay, you got me. It was for background noise. Look, I’m not asking you to pick me up today. I somehow ended up booking a room after finding out cab services are down today. But if you’re not going to pick me up then I’m going to hang up and solve this myself. But if you don’t hear from me in three days, then call a search party. Okay?”

Except he hangs up before you can say goodbye, grumbling about how you never listen to him. Still, you’re unbothered by his action. The tiny cat, now in the palm of your hand, looks so content with life, unbothered by what goes on around it. Your mind wonders about its artist, how long they must have spent carving the cat from a single block of wood, the hours it must have taken to create something so tiny yet so fulfilling to own. And you wonder about the artist’s emotions, if they ever felt sadness after parting with their cat. If the cat was the artist’s friend, even for the brief moment, that juncture, in their individual timelines.

It would be best if you left the cat on the shelf, you think. Just in case the artist ever changes their mind about selling the cat. And the cat looks happier sitting on the shelf with its other animal friends, happier than what its painted lazy smile suggests.

And for the first time today, you feel a tiny bit of happiness – a halcyon moment surrounded by forest-themed trinkets and flashing keychains with generic names and soft 2010s pop music playing from the store speakers. That is until you see a familiar figure being escorted to the lobby of the lodge. Curiosity causes you to leave your spot in the souvenir store, edging closer to the creation of a new scene.

“I have a room.” You hear him try to reason with the security guard. “It’s not called loitering if I am a guest.”

You can’t hear the security guard, but it seems like Wonwoo’s bluntness is not a strong enough source of logos for the guard. And the guard stands in front of the illustrator, fully unconvinced that the man wearing a suit and holding his work briefcase would be any other out-of-town guest. And one look of pure panic on Jeon Wonwoo’s stupidly handsome-looking face sends you on autopilot, making your way to his side for no good reason.

“Babe.” You lie through your forced smile while looping your arm around his right arm. “Where were you?”

His arm jerks in the tiniest bit before it relaxes as if he hesitated for a moment before making his decision. Of course, another explanation could simply be because he experienced a negative bodily reaction to your mere presence. Flabbergasted, he would mutter. The nadir of today’s excitement. And you would hate him even more for using vocabulary without incorporating any malapropisms. He is as pretentious as the outfit he wears.

“Baby,” he grits through his teeth. “This gentleman seems to think I’m stalking the halls like some animal out to hunt its prey.”

“Sorry, Sir.” You pout at the security guard, hoping your natural pathos could appeal to the man. “My husband has a tendency to walk around whenever he’s bored. It’s been a while since we went on vacation, and he clearly has too many thoughts in his head. You see his outfit? It’s a bad habit.”

The security guard strokes his chin and nods, eying Wonwoo’s ineffable outfit. He wonders why the man in front of him would pack a business suit for a vacation in the mountains, but he doesn’t want to be the one too quick to judge. Rather, he agrees with the fact that the suit actually fits the man very well. If the man wasn’t stalking the hallways just a few moments ago, he would’ve asked him about which tailor he sees. “If he’s so bored, why don’t the two of you join couples night tonight? Winners get a free bedroom upgrade. And between you and me, I heard there’s a famous author who’s staying with us,” he whispers the last portion, a quick cheeky wink.

You don’t realize that you are still grabbing onto his arm until you dragged him into your room. And he shrugs you off, taking the extra step to smooth out his suit fabric while looking through your vanity mirror before turning to you.

“You have the grip of a snapping turtle,” he scoffs while looking around your room.

It is a standard room with a single queen-sized bed at the center of the room. If it were not for the carpeted floors, the entire room would look like a wooden box from its Western Red Cedar planks that make up the four walls to the wooden paneling that covers the ceiling, giant circular wooden beams that keep the ceiling steady by design. The rooms in this lodge are a termite’s dream feast and an art deco enthusiast’s nightmare. Even the bedframe is made of logs, cylindrical in every piece, and the bedsheets are of deep burgundy red bordered with silhouettes of black bears as if it came straight from the video game your cousin was so obsessed with a few Summers ago.

What catches his eye is not the fact that your duffle bag is thrown across your bed, nor the fact that the lamps in your rooms may as well be oil lamps. Rather, he stares at the door to the right of your mounted television, the divider between your room and your neighbor’s. And you can’t help but wonder what is going on in that head of his.

“You are insufferable, you know that?”

“How long did it take for you to think of that comeback?” His attention is drawn away from the door and aimed toward you. “Just because I compared you to a turtle didn’t mean you had to act like one.”

Your jaw drops and becomes your turn to scoff at him, loudly. You cannot believe what you are hearing, and your breathing becomes shallower as you glare at him. “Are you kidding me? Me helping you literally saved you from being pathetically kicked out by the security guard. You should be happy I didn’t record it and post it online.”

“Like you would have enough followers for it to go viral,” he sneers while taking a step toward you. “And I never asked you for help.”

“Loitering in the hallways? Wearing a business suit when you’re supposed to be at the retreat?” Now there is almost no space between the two of you. And you reach over to his chest, grabbing the plastic nametag that dangles from his neck, and holding it up to his face. The item feels as cold as the person who wears it. “Wearing your work badge? Fine, I’ll admit I have no idea why you’re here. But if you thought that walking around and waiting for some author to come out of their room and have some preplanned accidental meet cute could work, then you’re so wrong. And I’m not going to let you defame our company just because you have no social skills whatsoever.” You let go of the item you’re holding, letting it drop against his chest.

“Okay, I’ll be the bigger man and admit that I was waiting for the author my team wants to work with to show up. But talking about defaming the company? You want me to care about what you say when all of that was coming from someone who would rather let some random man verbally degrade their worth than to stand up for themselves? You’re all bite and no tongue. Just like a snapping turtle,” he says, his face entirely without emotion.

“SNAPPING TURTLES HAVE TONGUES. DUMBASS,” you snap at him.

“That’s exactly what a snapping turtle would say,” he challenges you.

The thing is, Jeon Wonwoo likes to keep things short even though he is not as quick-tempered as you are. He prefers to relay everything he wants to say at once, saving anybody from asking for clarification. Yet, you can feel that Wonwoo only seeks to maim you with his words. Even at your most imperturbable composure with your intern, you cannot stand being alone in a room with Wonwoo once he starts opening his mouth to speak. And stupidly and repeatedly you let his elementary quips affect you like rubbing salt on an open wound. The laceration in your heart.

“You’re so rude Jeon Wonwoo. No wonder I hate you more and more every single day. You’re the single-most worst person in the entire world, and I hate how I once considered us friends.”

He looks like he has something to say to you but mentally drops the notion. Instead, he sighs and makes his way to the door beside your television, unlocking the knob and opening the door. He doesn’t make some offhanded comment about being your neighbor and only quietly closes the door behind him, making sure it’s locked with a tiny click.

three

It is a tiny office breakroom, the kind with a beige refrigerator whose motor is a little too loud, a low-watt microwave, and light green walls decorated with random pen marks from the lodge workers signing up for holiday potlucks. The late afternoon sunlight shines in an ethereal orange glow through the window, casting what could be the day’s last warm ray across the round wooden table in the middle of the room. Central heating runs throughout the building, and the lodge manager sits in the hot seat, his hands folded in front of him while he stares at you and your “husband.”

“Darling?” A nice elderly receptionist on break holds up a bag of mini marshmallows, the tri-colored kinds you can only find in baking stores, and points to it with her manicured finger. “Marshmallow?” she asks you from her place near the kitchen cabinets.

“No thank you,” you reply, your hands wrapped around a warm disposable cup filled with generic brand instant hot chocolate. Gratis, courtesy of the elderly receptionist before the manager arrived to talk to the two of you.

You bring the sugary drink to your lips, blowing softly and watching the steam disappear into the air. The drink itself, velvet chocolate that coats your tongue, is a warm invitation to this little town in the middle of nowhere. However, you cannot help but feel the only thing – or person – that unwelcomes you is the man who tries to angle his body away from you and the manager if the two of you ever cause trouble for your neighbors. Again.

“Look, we’re not going to kick you out. It would be inhumane to kick someone out during a snowstorm. And also we’re all kinda snowed in…actually, we’re super snowed in so nobody is coming in or out at this point. Funny how it was sunny earlier, right? Anyway, word has it that the two of you are married. So why don’t you two take some time to work things out, yeah? I’m no relationship counselor, but this is a small lodge in a small town so word gets out fast. So, seeing how far the two of you are sitting apart from each other, maybe channel that pent up anger into some competitive spirit during couple’s night because we can’t have you two being loud and arguing elsewhere. And I hate to be the bad guy here, but no more calls from your neighbors complaining about the two of you arguing or else we will contact authorities. Alright? Just keep it down and work it out, would ya?”

The manager’s lengthy spiel is immediately followed by silence, although not awkward, but one that provokes thought. And when you sense Wonwoo, being the smartass he is, open his mouth to counter his marriage status, and you immediately kick him in the shin with the heel of your tennis shoe. And he folds like his latest pop-up book, glaring at you while trying not to wheeze in pain. A fake smile and a solemn pledge to not bother the other patrons for the rest of the night are enough for the two of you to be excused from the conversation with the manager.

But not from each other.

How you ended up blindfolded and dizzy with a bat in your hands while Wonwoo angrily yells at you from the sidelines is beyond you. For the time being is what the two of you agreed with, albeit this one is far from Ruth Ozeki’s version. It’s a small promise to try to prove the two of you are more than amicable: attend a few games and activities together with the other couples, attempt to act like a married couple, and dip after an hour.

After twelve elephant spins with your forehead against the baseball bat, you and the other blindfolded contestants try to cross to the other side of the banquet hall in order to smash one of the many squashes on the large blue-colored plastic tarp laid across the floor. And Wonwoo, along with the other separated pairs, barks into the open air in the direction he wants you to move.

The funny thing is, you would expect to hear him call your actual name out of all of the pet names being thrown around, but Wonwoo cannot yell for the life of him, so much to shout your name in public. So even though you hear a bunch of people getting confused with the various forms of “honey” and “baby” being called out, you struggle to find his voice amidst the cacophony of shouts. Once the physical dizziness from spinning around evaporated, you feel a new kind of dizziness from being agitated as an aftereffect of trying to find Wonwoo’s voice in the middle of the crowd. By the time you decide on giving up, the shrill sound of a whistle signaling the end of the game fills the air. Shrugging the blindfold off your face, you look around to see the aftermath. While the other pairs are on the other side of the room surrounded by broken pieces of squash, there is only one man standing in front of you alone and separated from the others.

Your breathing hitches when you realize he’s walking towards you – long, even strides like the romantic lead in a movie. By the time he places himself in front of you, your baseball bat is in his hand while your cheek is in his other.

“It was hard, wasn’t it?” he whispers while looking into your eye.

Except you can’t help but train your eyes elsewhere, unable to look him in his eyes while it feels like your heart is beating erratically. And even though you know very well how he is faking everything, you can’t help but regress to the same you, the same you who is so helplessly in love with the man you hate. The same you who spends every day wondering how did the two of you end up that way.

“You only took the bat from me because you’re scared I might whack you with it. And not going to lie, I was contemplating it,” you mumble.

“It’s okay babe.” He tries to cheer you up, a slight undertone of insincerity in his voice. He continues to ignore your statement. “You did your best. Snapping turtles are slow, but they still manage to survive.”

Ignoring the fact that Wonwoo’s hand is warm because he has warm packs in each of his loungewear jacket pockets (and the fact that he refused to share one with you), someone catches your eye in the distance. Where workers are cleaning up the aftermath of the squash game, a familiar-looking man stands to the side where some lodge patrons flock around him with rectangular objects in their hands. Once you see him turn his head your way, your entire body freezes – Wonwoo’s touch suddenly begins to feel cold against your skin. And Wonwoo, who was expecting you to get mad at him for calling you a turtle, can’t help but notice your state of panic. And he not so subtly turns around to see who could be causing you so much fear.

“Oh my,” he mutters, coming to his realization.

“I can’t believe –” you begin before Wonwoo interrupts your train of thought.

“I hope he rots in hell before he can get his next book deal,” he almost spits at the man from several feet away. He drops his hand from your cheek and takes a tiny step back before taking a deep breath as if he is about to ask you something that he would regret, “Do you mind staying a little longer? I want to make sure chauvinists never win book upgrades.”

“Room upgrade,” you correct him while glaring at the other man from afar.

“What?”

“You misspoke.” You guide your attention back to the man who is, for what you think is the first time, looking at you attentively and without malice. And the fact that he is looking at you amicably makes your brain go haywire, but you subdue your thoughts and continue the conversation. “It’s the ‘room’ upgrade that we’re trying to stop him from winning.”

“Book upgrade or room upgrade, it’s the same thing.” He frowns while tapping the end of the bat against the ground. “It turns out your pickup truck man is the author my team is after. But I’d rather be jobless than to work with someone like him.”

So he works with you, absolutely demolishing the competition during the Dinner and Paint section and loudly cheering for you while you stacked plastic cups. And the way he smiles at you, lovingly and with the glimmer reflected from the ceiling lights contrasted against the cocky attitude he surrounds himself with when one of you wins a game – it almost makes you forget that you’re supposed to hate him. How easily he wraps his arms around you, hugging you tightly against his embrace so much that his cologne lingers on your clothes, leaves you feeling hopeless. Because the only time Jeon Wonwoo could ever approach you without visibly withering in repulsion is when he acts like he is in love with you.

Outside the cozy lodge, the Sun sets its rays on the heavy layers of snow. While the Earth turns to face the other way, the rays wash the pillowy white crystals in a warm and deep burgundy orange – a warm embrace, a promise to return, before parting for the night. As you clean Wonwoo’s smudged glasses with the hem of your shirt, he sneaks his right arm around your waist while he leans further into his seat as the Couple’s Night host announces the next game. You feel something warm enter the pocket of your jacket and look down to see Wonwoo’s hand back on your waist. The untouched hand warmer gradually feels hotter in your pocket when you gently place your fake husband’s glasses back on the bridge of his nose. He whispers a small “thank you,” and you can only smile back at him with a heaviness in your heart that only you can carry.

The hand warmer feels like it would burn through your clothes at any second.

four

“Team Snowball, what did your partner answer for the question: ‘What is your partner picky about eating?’” The emcee points at the woman sitting next to you who gladly flips her sketchbook around for the other half of the room to see. She squints her eyes, trying to read the woman’s squiggly writing, and smiles when she realizes it’s a match. “Soft grapes? It’s a match. Point to Team Snowball.”

Despite everything going around you, you can’t help but fidget in your seat, the sketchbook’s pages starting to feel damp in your sweaty palms. Wonwoo sits with the separated pairs across from you. He crosses his legs, and his sketchbook lays comfortably across his lap so he can twirl his black marker in his hand. Even when you know you wrote the correct answer to Wonwoo’s food preferences, the two of you are still several points behind the other teams. Your stomach cannot help but feel queasy every time you embarrassingly flip your sketchbook for others to see. Because every single wrong answer about your “husband” whom you love very much feels like a punch in your gut every time you hear snickers from the others around you.

Seafood is your answer; you’re the last to answer this round’s question. You earn a small cheer from the woman reading your answer and a small smile from Wonwoo. He sneaks you a tiny thumbs up, the tip of his thumb poking out of his sweater.

“Next question,” dictates the emcee. “When did you know they were the one?”

It’s an abstract question – one that doesn’t necessarily need matching answers from both sides. Still, you look across to look at Wonwoo, uncertain whether or not he would put much thought into an answer he would have to pull out of thin air. Uncapping his marker with his mouth, he pulls the sketchbook closer to him to scribble down whatever comes to his mind. The action leaves your mouth feeling dry: one, obviously, because he uncapped the marker with his mouth; and two, he was the first to start writing.

Some answers are simple. Some answers are meaningful. Some answers are like yours – “love at first sight.”

Corny, overused, and unusual, your answer is the safest route you knew you could take. And despite how clichéd your answer is – its timelessness, its Hallmark-ability – still garners a series of awws from everybody around you. Technically, there is some truth to your answer. You developed a tiny crush the first time you saw him at the office. Who wouldn’t? He surrounds himself with illustrations of anthropomorphic animals and has a laugh that bellows and fills any room with joy. He made your days brighter by simply existing.

Now, the brightness struggles to navigate its way through the thick fog. And you’re left alone in the cold, the fog’s misty droplets clinging onto your skin.

It’s weird how in this life, time moves linearly, but moments and experiences with others exist in intervals – interludes that we can relive over and over again through memories. Sometimes we experience interludes of happiness, interludes of pain, and interludes where it only seems like there are only two people in this world. But nobody can determine how long these interludes can last and for how long you can try to hold on to these moments before letting go.

“Let’s see if Team Turtle can earn a point. Please show us your answer.”

“I’m kind of embarrassed,” he softly chuckles, voice more sonorous than ever, while standing his sketchbook on his knee.

9 pm is his answer. You, and the rest of the people sitting beside you, cannot help but gaze at his answer in confusion.

It is only when he sees you staring at him he finally clarifies, “When we were sitting in my car eating donuts while the waves crash on the shores in front of us. You smiled at me with pieces of maple donut glaze stuck to your upper lip.”

You. He speaks in the second person and looks directly at you with a soft gaze. It couldn’t be, you think. But it is true, you recognize his diction as true. He’s speaking to you.

And you remember that shared moment in the front seats of his car, the night of the work trip. The donuts were for the poet, but the two of you had the door slammed in your faces before being able to hold a full conversation with the poet. And after an entire day of confusion and apologies, the two of you were finally able to fulfill your portions for the work trip. Who knew that the tiny suggestion of walking along the pier after dinner would turn out disastrous – frigid ocean winds strong enough to blow people away? The clothes the two of you packed were not meant to sustain harsh winds but harsh sunlight – after all, the work trip’s destination is a beach town. So the two of you sat in his car, eating donuts, people-watching, and sharing anecdotes to get to know each other better. It was the type of conversation that you would do anything to prolong its duration, the type of conversation with the right type of person.

“You were so happy,” he finishes.

You were so happy, it echoes in your head.

Are you happy now?

“How about you?” The emcee turns to you for clarification. “Your partner gave us such a beautiful explanation. So, you have to explain your ‘love at first sight.’ Tell us about it.”

“Ohh,” Wonwoo begins awkwardly while giving an equally awkward chuckle. “You don’t have to if you do-”

“I was having a really bad morning.” You smile into your lap and look up at your supposed husband. You don’t know why or how the full day with unease bubbling inside of you dispersed so quickly after Wonwoo’s particular answer. But you launch into your story, letting the words flow out of your mouth like melted snow on a grassy hill under the bright Sun. “A really bad morning. I ended up working overtime and accidentally missed my morning alarm. I had to chase the bus while my hot coffee poured out of its opening and onto my skin. My entire day at the office was a mess because I kept messing up. I felt awful and exhausted. So I worked overtime for the second day in a row to clean up my errors. Someone places hot green tea in front of me, the free ones at the office. There is a doodle of a stingray with the dumbest-looking smile on its face. It looked so pathetic that it made me feel a little better about myself. He says that he accidentally boiled too much hot water and thought to make a cup for me. And then he holds his own up in front of his face. There’s a picture of a cat wearing glasses. ‘You can do it,’ he tells me in a squeaky voice. And he leaves. We don’t meet again for about a month, but his kind gesture pieced me back together. And I held onto his kindness for days.”

He stares at you, a few strands of his hair out of place and in front of his eyes. He doesn’t care to move them back in place. There’s that smile on his face, the exact one you imagined to be on his face that time he sat on the other side of your shared door. Soft coral lips relaxed, but the cupid’s bow is slightly perked as the corners of the lips turn upward. He tries to hide the fact that he is smiling, keeping his happiness hidden and only to himself.

So you smile at him. An honest, genuine smile where the cheeks kiss the lower lashes. And his lips stretch thinly so that his brilliant white teeth shyly make their way into the open. He smiles back at you.

Musicians know that an interlude, in music, is an interrupting or intervening passage that connects different parts of a song. An interlude can also be a song in an album. In other words, there are different ways for musical interludes as well as temporal interludes to exist. Now, there is a new interlude in your timeline, this shared moment where two timelines from two completely different lives collide and converge. Anybody can tell that this shared moment is filled with happiness and understanding…perhaps, even longing.  

But what do you call it when these two timelines have converged in the past? If two timelines that once converged reconverge at a further point on the timeline, did that initial interlude ever truly end? Are interludes simply short periods in our lives if these interludes stay in our timelines forever, even when the moments they denote end?

Nevertheless, at this moment, you know you’re happy. And you can only hope the man who sits across from you, the one who looks at you with a reminiscent expression you once experienced so long ago, is feeling the same way.

“Okay. We’re in third place. If we win this one, then we’ll be a point ahead of them.”

“I tied it pretty tightly. Is the tightness okay with you?” Wonwoo frowns from below you, seemingly exploring a different problem at hand. He inspects the rope he tied around your leg, poking and prodding at different sections. “It’s a three-legged race, but I don’t want you getting hurt from an accidental rope burn because I tied it too tightly.”

“Wonwoo, it’s fine.” You pat his left shoulder, letting him know he doesn’t have to worry.

He grabs your stretched hand, and you help hoist him upwards. But there is an apparent frown on his face.

“Why do you still call me Wonwoo,” he mumbles while wrapping your arm around his back and on his waist. There is a tiny pout on his face pointed downwards as he naturally loops his arm around your shoulders like he had done it a thousand times. “Are you not comfortable with calling me ‘babe?’ Any other name also works.”

Deep down, or not even deep down, you know he is right. You are uncomfortable with the idea of casually calling him by these pet names over and over again. Calling him by fake pet names, not counting the many idealistic scenarios that once played in your head, in this case, feels very wrong. His sudden change in attitude towards you as well as his overall demeanor after the last game left you in shock. A plot twist in a season finale would be less shocking than what you feel at this very moment. Like every other hypothetical person in your situation, you choose to ignore your problems by focusing on your other problems at hand. Because you know very well, allowing yourself to fully play into this fake husband rouse, even in times when you’re truly happy, would only hurt you in the end. And you’ve been hurt by him before, not really sure if you ever fully healed.

But you can’t deny he looks and seems nothing like the literal he-devil he was this morning. In fact, he seems to be the opposite. Even without being physically tied to you, he trails behind you like a lost puppy and clings onto your sleeve like a cat who kneads dough on your arm, nails hooked onto the fabric of your clothing. And you let him hold you close to him so much that he leans his chin on your shoulder while listening to others talk. And you let his hair tickle your scalp and would let him melt into you if he asked.

Getting hurt by the same man twice does not make a right. Succinctly, it only makes you dumb. So, to protect yourself, you use the image of the screaming man from the morning to remind yourself that everything is a rouse no matter how much you enjoy each moment with the illustrator.

The three-legged race’s course starts in the banquet hall, passes through the hallway and into the lobby, takes several twists and turns throughout the sitting area, and finishes in the banquet hall. Wonwoo takes the lead, firmly holding you against him while he chants “in, out, in, out” to direct how the two of you should speed-walk. But the excitement of the games and the promise of the upgraded room must have gone over the heads of several of the teams, causing each team to speed walk into a sprint once they left the banquet hall.

Wonwoo and you are also victims of wanting to win, or at least of wanting to beat the author. But in this incredibly small lodge, there are only so many paces you can take before having to try to squeeze past another team. And Wonwoo practically hoists you onto his foot without notice, penguin-walking you to make it past another team to navigate through the sectioned seating area.

Startled by his sudden lack of communication, you demand he set you down. “Let me go,” you grunt after being jostled against one of the round wooden tables. You are absolutely sure your hip would bruise in the morning if he bumped you into one more object. “It’d be easier if one of us walks ahead of the other.”

Does it look like I care?” His ego slips from his tongue, completely coating the sweet words that came out of his mouth before the game started. His sudden change in tone catches you by surprise. “I’ll buy a sled from the gift shop if it means I get to drag you instead of hauling you around.”

“It’s just a game.” You try to push yourself off of him, annoyed that he’s suddenly being uncooperative with you. In the meantime, the team behind the two of you catches up and pulls ahead. “Let me go before one of us gets hurt.”

Wonwoo’s eyes aren’t trained on you. Instead, he stretches his head to look at the few teams in front of the two of you. Surprisingly, the two of you make it out of the seating area without any trouble. Before the two of you can make a sprint back toward the banquet hall, you pull yourself away from Wonwoo, yanking his arm off of your shoulder.

“Babe, come on.” He holds out his hand for you to grab onto. “We’re going to end up being last.”

But your hand never reaches out to meet his.

“Babe? Are you serious? Are you kidding me? Are you really calling me ‘babe’ right now?” You almost shriek at him if it weren’t for the fact that the two of you are standing in proximity to the reception desk. But you are exasperated, your voice wobbles as you voice what is bothering you. “I’ve had it with you, Wonwoo. I tried communicating with you. I tried voicing my fears. But your head is so far up your ass that you couldn’t even think about the safety of the person right beside you. Am I sad and mad about what happened this morning? Yeah, I still am. Nobody deserves to be treated that way, but nobody deserves to be ignored. I don’t care about winning anymore. I feel humiliated, utterly and devastatingly humiliated by you and by myself. To think I let myself have fun around you. To think I believed for a second that you truly did care about me. At one point, I thought we were friends. At one point, I really did like you for who you were. But I guess I can’t expect people to stay the same, can I?” More words and sentences pour out of your mouth – like a small tornado that grows larger in size after picking up all of the things you left unsaid, the words that threatened to slip from your tongue all picked up and twirled into the tornado, you ended up saying more than what you meant to say.

“Look, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say,” he begins, but he can only hopelessly stare at you squatting in place to untie the rope that binds the two of you.

“There.” You bitterly drop the rope in his free hand. “You’re free from me now. You can go back to hating me all you want.”

“But I don’t hate you.”

“I’m done, Wonwoo. I’m done with being confused so I’m just going to give up and wallow in my room until Jeonghan picks me up once the snow clears.”

five

“No offense, but I would never spend that much time or energy on a guy…especially a guy who treats you like that. He even stopped pounding on your front door so that obviously means that he’s the type to stop trying after a while,” your cousin rants from the other side of your phone screen. He shuts his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose while the cat he is looking after purrs contently on his lap. “So what are you? A masochist? You like men who treat you poorly and then reward you with like an hour of happiness? That’s literally like if professors gave you the hardest final you’ve ever taken in your life and told you to grab a free cookie after you turned in the final. What are you even holding onto at this point?”

“I don’t know,” you wail at the older man, crumpling your used tissue in the palm of your hand. It quickly joins the growing pile of snot-riddled balls of tissue at the edge of your bed. When you recline into your initial position, the shifted blanket knocks Wonwoo’s hand warmer onto the floor.

“Eww stop holding your phone so close to your face,” Jeonghan complains, “Vernon says I kinda look like you, and I can’t help imagining that’s how I look when I cry.”

“I don’t know why I still like him,” you mumble to your cousin. You honestly still don’t understand why you like him despite every single recent negative encounter with him. To be honest, your heart doesn’t flutter as it does with the characters in the novels you read. Nothing cliched happens when you see him, like how the world stops and he is the only one who walks in slow motion. Quite frankly, your days pass by whether you see him or not, but it doesn’t mean that the thought of him crosses your mind every once in a while.

“Maybe you just like the idea of him,” he offers with a sigh. There isn’t much that he could do for you in the middle of a snowstorm except to be on a video call with you and hope that the can solve whatever you have going on before his bedtime.

“I make up scenarios of him in my mind but I still prefer the real him,” you admit with a twinge of embarrassment. You can only sink deeper under your covers, pulling the cabin-themed sheets closer to your chest. Maybe you’re still holding onto the Wonwoo who existed during the work trip, and maybe, you think, he still exists somewhere.

“Hypothetically, do you maybe think that the reason why he’s so bad at everything is because he spends most of his time with children and draws instead of writing so his communication skill is basically hindered? Like how you’re good with feelings and ideas because that’s the bulk of the media you surround yourself with daily so you have more exposure to that area. So you have man-child versus person with skewed expectations on love and relationships. But then you literally have people like me…perfect in every aspect.”

“Shut up. You talk about traffic every morning but you can’t even name the model of your car. You were also tricked by a catfish.”

“I’m hanging up.”

“I’m sorry,” you beg him. “Please don’t.”

“My point is.” He places his phone down on the sleeping cat to use as a temporary phone stand while he gathers his thoughts. “The two of you seem like total opposites. And the only time the two of you seem to work well together is when you meet in the middle. So, have you ever tried communicating with him? Ever pulled him to the side to ask him why he’s such an ass?”

Yoon Jeonghan’s simple solution to your problem causes your brain to briefly short-circuit. Silence fills your lonely cabin room as your mouth slightly hangs open while your cousin silently judges you from the other end of the phone. It took a simple suggestion to make you realize that you have been hanging onto Wonwoo’s personality change to even think to consider the idea of confronting him about it. And Jeonghan’s hypothesis may not be wrong at all – life isn’t a fictional novel where everything can be magically solved in the incoming chapters.

“No?” Your answer is meek. You don’t know what to feel after this revelation. Anger? Despair? Peacefulness?

“And is he still knocking on your door? Trying to talk to you?” His tone is gentle for once.

“Yeah?” You look to the right side of your room where the door stands between his room and yours. Slips of lodge notebook paper often found in the nightstand drawers slowly shove themselves through the tiny crack under the door. “I think he’s pushing slips of paper under our shared door.”

“Then go talk to him. But throw away your snot pile and fix your appearance before you do. Yeah?”

“What would I do without you?”

“I don’t know. And I don’t care. Bye.”

Sitting on the floor with your back leaned against the door, you shuffle the sheets of paper in your hands. There are a couple of sorry notes partnered with sad and apologetic-looking animal doodles. There are a few slips where he asks you to forgive him. Then there are these series of slips – a mini cartoon of his morning, this morning – that somehow cause a small upwards curl to form on your lips.

Blue ballpoint pen ink depicts a series of panels starting with a text he received this morning. This comic is void of cute tiny animals and can only be drawn with the sincerity of a children’s book illustrator. He draws himself staring at his phone screen in confusion – you’re missing, and the rest of the work group chat has no idea where you are. And he’s worried. Everybody is worried, but nobody is worried enough to send search parties for you. Blue-figured Wonwoo rushes out of his room, completely abandoning his presentation for the author, to rush to the entrance of Interlude. Because he knows that your team always passes through Interlude, but you’re known to arrive at the campsite while rubbing your eyes, hair frizzing from the static built from your head rubbing against the headrest while you were sleeping on the way there. But the scene he stumbles upon makes him angry despite how relieved he is to know that you are okay.

The few pages that you hold in your hand are smudged with blue ink, and the ending is unfinished. Wonwoo softly rasps his knuckles against the shared door, calling out your name. When you don’t reply, he sighs and sits down with his back against the door. You feel a tiny jolt with his added pressure against the door. Still, you can’t bring yourself to confront him. At least not yet.

“I’m childish and I let myself get caught up in moments. And you were right, if something happened to you, I would never forgive myself for hurting you. At one point, I really did forget that the reason why we agreed to work together was because we didn’t want him to win. I ended up wanting us to win, or at least for you to win so you could have the upgrade. I’m really sorry for not communicating well with you, and for how I acted.”

The sound of his hair leaving the door lets you know that he probably dropped his head toward his lap.

Taking a shallow breath, he mutters into his hands, “And I wasn’t lying when I talked about us at the beach. I really did like you then. I still like you.”

“Then why ignore me? Why act like you hate me? What did I do to deserve how you treated me?” The questions leave your mouth in a flare of anger.

“I started ignoring you because I was hiding from you. I couldn’t confront you because I knew I would make it obvious that I liked you. But I guess I hid from you for too long because you thought I hated you.” His voice muffled from being on the other side of the door.

“So all of this happened because of some big misunderstanding? Just because we couldn’t confront each other?”

So it really was a simple problem with a simple solution. The revelation feels like a sore punch in the gut, one that’s so surprising that all you can do is laugh.

“I’m sorry, Yn. I really am.”

“I’m also sorry.” You feel really guilty now that you know that you were wrong to believe that he hated you. “I should’ve confronted you about this earlier.”

“Does it still hurt?” His voice sounds clearer as if he shifted his body so he sits facing the door.

“Oh, from the race? Actually nothing happened.”

“From when you fell from heaven,” he finishes with his voice trailing in diminuendo, almost as if he is slightly embarrassed from using the overused pick-up line.

“It actually hurt a lot,” you joke. “But I’m glad it was you who found me in the middle of the road.”

“Then can I stay by your side? Not separated by doors, but by your side?”

So you push yourself away from the door, turning around to unlock the brassy knob. The door slowly swings open to Wonwoo, who is still sitting on the floor, now facing you. And you awkwardly sit in front of him, not really able to meet his eyes.

“I think I have a lot to learn.” He fiddles with the hem of his sweater. “I’ll start by being more communicative about my feelings,” he promises with a soft smile. “Because I really do like you.”

“I like you too.”

There is a magnetic pull that slowly draws the two of you closer together, a comforting sort of sensation that offers a moment of solace created from two extremes. The outside world is dark. The snowstorm has long gone. The surfaces where the sunlight once touched are replaced with the soft yellow glow of several lamps around both of your rooms. Kaleidoscopic remnants of shards of light scatter around every surface. But the two of you, seemingly in the very corners of your shared world exert a different type of glow - one that can only be created in a collision like the break of dawn after a devastating snowstorm. 

“I really like you too,” you can’t help but reaffirm.

“It’s actually ‘I also like you.’” He can’t help but playfully correct you. “You’re the publisher. You shouldn’t be making these errors.” He teases.

“And you’re the illustrator, so shouldn’t you stay quiet so I can kiss you?”

one month later

At the base of a computer monitor, a tiny wooden whittled cat naps lazily next to its turtle counterpart. Two people sit side-by-side in the breakroom a few rooms away, the metal seats practically stuck to each other. While their lunches heat up in the microwave, the two happily discuss the upcoming young adult novel they are finally working on together. Under the table, their pinkies naturally interlock. The man who scrolls through art ideas on his tablet can’t help but let his eyes linger on his partner for a little too long while they scroll enthusiastically through the several concept art slides he created. When the microwave sounds, he quickly leaves a soft and brief kiss on the side of his partner’s temple before getting up to remove their heated lunches. And the partner smiles while turning back to look at him, a smile brighter than the soft sunlight that wraps the room in a warm afternoon glow.

There’s a new interlude in their timelines. In this interlude, the two opposites are taking it slow, learning to meet in the middle.

dedicated to ellie (@flowershu/@eliphant). just wanted to thank you for supporting wondernus for all these years. happy new year <33

Copyright © 2022 Wondernus. All rights reserved.

[tinytinyblogs]

Monster

While others may perceive him as a monster, in your eyes, he is anything but.

(Mentioned self-loathing, stranger to lover, gender-neutral) 2,1K words

A narrative drawn from inspiration found on Pinterest.

Ateez masterlist here

Your insights and reactions make these posts come alive. Love reblogs, comments, and all the good vibes welcome ✨

The world saw San as a stormy cloud, like a large creature in human form making loud noises. His uniqueness, deeply ingrained in him, was like a red mark on his soul. Instead of being curious, people were scared of him. He is a destroyer; everything he touches ends up broken or injured. His name was rarely spoken, like a forbidden sound in the normal places. He was naturally isolated, surrounded by whispers and avoided looks. Every time he tried to touch someone, it ended in disaster, leaving behind only pain. The laughter he wanted to hear was like a song in his dreams, unfamiliar in the regular world. His heart, wanting warmth, stayed in the cold shadow of being rejected. Every morning reminded him of his lonely existence, and every laugh mocked his silent cries. The world seemed to have created a lonely prison for him, and its key was made from a distorted view. As bitterness grew, San felt a change in the ground beneath him. Whispers turned into screams, and avoided looks turned into full-blown terror. He, who was pushed away, started pushing others away. His pain, fueled by the world's negativity, started fighting back, a desperate plea for acknowledgment and connection, even if it meant creating it through the fires of fear.

The monster in him believed that nobody on earth could be kind to him. His heart was like a closed garden with no space for the difficulties of human interaction. And then there was you—a spark in the lonely landscape of his life. Your eyes, without the usual flinch or disgust, seemed like windows to a world he thought he could never access. When you bent down to pick up his red scarf, a gift from a long-gone mother, your voice, a soothing touch to his troubled soul, broke the silence. "You dropped this," you whispered, the words carrying a melody he'd never heard before. Hesitantly, he reached for it, his eyes meeting yours once again. There was no sign of fear or disgust, just a gentle curiosity. Surely, you knew. You must have. Whispers followed him like crows, a dark group casting shadows on his soul. Yet, there you were, untouched by fear, offering a connection like a bridge across a deep gap. The red scarf, once a symbol of his isolation, now became a delicate lifeline—a glimmer of hope in the overwhelming darkness. Could it be? Could someone truly see beyond the scary exterior and catch a glimpse of the boy he might be? The question lingered in the air, a silent plea resonating between your gazes.

The monster in him, a twisted snake of fear and distrust, showed itself. You, with clear eyes and a kind voice, bravely peeked beneath the damaged mask he wore. A tiny bit of hope grew in his empty heart, but old hurts quickly killed it. He thought, maybe, your innocence was fake, and your kind look just a passing fancy. He couldn't let himself believe in such a cruel trick. The lonely street, covered in swirling snow, matched the emptiness inside him. The freezing cold got through his worn-out coat, but it was the isolating loneliness that really made him numb. Every gust of wind reminded him of his solitude, an unwanted friend in the quiet. Then, a bit of warmth broke through the darkness. A careful tap on his shoulder, a whisper in the icy air. Surprised, he turned to see you standing there, a steady light in the snowy darkness. Your closeness woke up his senses, but your gaze stayed calm, as pure as the first snow. Stuck in your eyes, a captive of your comforting presence, he felt drawn to a part of himself he hadn't explored before. This vulnerability, this dependence, made him feel uncomfortable yet strangely comforted, leaving him angry at himself.

The monster in him woke up, confused. You, offering kindness like he had never experienced. Your hesitant smile appeared as you pulled out a paper bag from under your coat, holding it like a precious ember against the winter cold. With a gentle push, you placed it in front of him, silently inviting him to share. San, cautious but curious, looked inside. In the bag, like a small sun warming the chilly air, was a bread shaped like a fish, its golden crust still carrying the warmth of the oven. Yet, it wasn't just the warmth of the bread that surprised him. As he cautiously broke off a piece and tasted it, a different kind of warmth spread through him, thawing the corners of his long-cold heart. The simple act, the unspoken understanding in your eyes, sparked a glimmer of hope he hadn't dared to nurture. He enjoyed the bread, each bite a small rebellion against the loneliness he had worn like a second skin. The taste – sweet, yeasty, with a hint of the sea – turned into a connection, a song playing just for him. In that moment, the scary part loosened its grip on him, and a crack appeared in the icy fortress he had built around himself. It's cozy, but it's not because of that fish-shaped bread – it's because of you.

The monster in him roared, a basic clash against something he didn't know. You, a guiding light in the chaotic landscape of his life, showed a kindness so real, so different from the harsh treatment he was used to, that it stirred up his very soul. Was this warmth you were giving real, or just another cruel illusion in the emptiness of his existence? Doubt and questions messed with his mind like hungry rats. Lost in his thoughts, he didn't notice the cautious stares of the people around, fear evident as they moved away from the monster they thought he was. But in the midst of his contemplation, a glimmer of hope appeared. It was the image of you, stepping out of the store like sunshine breaking through heavy clouds. He braced himself for the expected – your eyes turning away, quickly passing him, silently confirming his outsider status. However, you looked into his eyes, and everything around him paused. A smile, a real and bright smile, spread across your face, like a flower blooming in the desolation of his lonely world. He stood still, unable to believe it. Never before in his memories had he seen such a sight.

The monster in him backed away, like a quiet puppy retreating after a surprising encounter. He couldn't believe what was happening. You, like an angel in a world full of troubles, were walking towards him, a bright smile on your face. The whispers from the people around, like a mean song, stopped when you showed up, and their fear faded away in the face of your constant kindness. He stood still, stuck in the whirlwind of you coming closer. The city sounds turned into a dull noise, and all he could focus on was you. When you stopped, like a heavenly being in the busy marketplace, the air was filled with unspoken questions. Your hand, like an offering from another world, held a simple candy, a symbol of something much bigger. "Do you want some?" your voice, a melody he never thought he'd hear, floated in the air. His world, full of shadows, couldn't possibly fit someone like you. He was the scary one people talked about in quiet voices, the one kids hid from, the one fear kept away. But there you were, a real embodiment of hope, offering him a sweet treat dipped in kindness. It's sweet, but it's not because of the candy – it's because of you.

The monster in him once like a growling storm cloud, had now become a quiet shadow. However, doubt still stuck around, like a fog hanging onto the edges of his thoughts. Was it real, the warmth and kindness you shared, like a sprinkle of care on his lonely life? He really wanted it – the feeling of sunlight, a sense of belonging. He wanted to believe in you, in the chance you brought, like a fragile bridge connecting his solitude to the rest of the world. So, he began to notice you everywhere. Not actually everywhere, but in sounds like your laughter or in the sunlight like your smile. He took a risk and started talking to you, cautiously at first, like opening a rusty lock, scared that it might make noise. But with each moment he stole with you, each word he shared, the rust started to loosen, and the door to his heart opened a bit wider. Listening to your voice, the stories you told with laughter and vulnerability, made him feel alive again. He wasn't just the scary one people talked about in quiet voices, the shadowy thing. You saw him, really saw him, not with fear but with a kind curiosity that melted the frost around his heart. And in return, he found the forgotten joy of smiles hiding in the corners of his own lips.

The monster in him started moving, a dark feeling of fear twisting in his stomach. The idea of you, the light he wanted the most, turning away and leaving him in never-ending darkness - it was a terror too deep to describe. The silence between you felt like a big gap he really wanted to fill, but he didn't know how. He couldn't take the heavy quiet, so he spoke up, his voice rough with hidden pain. "I'm a monster," he said, the words feeling like a sharp blade cutting through his throat. Your reply, simple but deep, hung in the air, like a rope thrown across the gap. "No, you're not," you said, your voice filled with gentle confidence. He raised his voice, saying, "I am," his eyes teary, letting out emotions he had kept inside for a long time. "I've always been different; people always avoid me. I destroy everything; I hurt people. Are you still pretending you don't know?" he exclaimed, without a hint of a smile, while you sat next to him, watching his inner struggle. "I don't care," you answered calmly. This wasn't news to you; warnings about him had reached you when you first came to town, but you never let those warnings change your view. After expressing your lack of concern, he went quiet, stood up from the bench, and started walking away. "San," you called after him, and he stopped without turning to look at you. "You've never been a monster in my eyes," you reassured him.

It was the monster within him, wanting you like a dry desert wants rain. Even though he tried to keep away, staying alone, your image stayed in his mind like a ghost that wouldn't leave. So, the scary part gave in, leading him to your door without a plan. With hesitation, his hand touched your door, knocking gently. You answered right away, warm and welcoming. There you were, looking beautiful in your soft clothes, a smile on your face like a sunrise. Without saying anything, you moved aside, inviting him in without words. In that moment, under your kind eyes, the scary part inside him did more than want – it felt a strong desire for you. He stepped inside, like a hesitant traveler entering a special place. Your scent, familiar and comforting, wrapped around him like a gentle hug. The scary part, so used to darkness, blinked in the soft light of your presence. You guided him in, offering not judgment but a safe place. And the scary part, for the first time ever, felt a bit of hope, a chance for redemption, just because you let him in. "I'm sorry for taking it out on you," he whispered, and you replied with a soft sound. "No need to apologize, San. Not at all."

And suddenly, the monster in him fall silent as he rest his head on your lap. his head nestled in your lap, a haven of warmth and comfort. Your fingers combed through his hair, each touch a silent symphony of tenderness. He inhaled the scent of you, a balm to his troubled soul. "Can I stay like this?" he murmured, eyes fluttering shut. "Can I keep feeling this… this sunlit warmth from you? Can I just be with you… always?" His hand found yours, resting it gently on your knee, anchoring him to this precious moment. He yearned to bottle it, to preserve it against the inevitable tides of time. "I don't need anyone else," he whispered, his voice thick with emotion. "Only you." A soft smile curved your lips. "Then stay," you breathed, pulling him closer. "Stay here with me, san. You're safe here." In your eyes, he saw not a monster, but a reflection of the man he could be. You treated him with respect, with an understanding that pierced through the layers of darkness he'd worn for so long. And perhaps, under your gentle touch, the beast within him was finally learning to recede, replaced by the flicker of a hopeful future. The monster in him has vanished as he found his home, it's no more.

©Tinytinyblogs