#but...that is kind of how it works on the internet unfortunately
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bestie how the fuck do you start writing again when you haven't written in years bc you're so paralyzed with Fear of Writing Badly mixed with How Do I Get Started and also WHAT do I write about HELP
I WANT to write but every part of it is. so. DAUNTING
Ohhh bestie I have BEEN there. Whenever I take breaks from writing I find myself scared that I'll have just….forgotten to write?? I think the fear of "bad writing" is amplified when you don't write for a while, however long, because you have to like hype yourself up to go back to writing and it's like what if I do all that and then I just can't do it? Returning to writing, especially after a long time, for me has taken a lot of mental work, trying to understand what will make writing fun and healthy for me. A lot of it, honestly, is easier said than done, but also it's mental work you'll keep doing after you start writing again and as you write, and for me it's easier to process my relationship with writing when I am actually writing.
A big part of that mental work for me, and something I think is so valuable, is to reconsider what "bad" writing is and give yourself permission to write it. Sometimes you will think your writing sucks, happens to all of us, but that isn't all it has to be. Like yeah, I'll think something I wrote sucks, but I still wrote it. I can revisit it and work on it and maybe I'll turn it into something I'm happy with. And even if I don't, I still wrote it, I learned from it. Writing does not need to be "good" by whatever standard we're holding it up to for it to have value. And you can delete it! Nobody has to see it! Also you can have fun writing something and still think it's not your best. I've written a lot of "bad" scenes that I had fun with because the scene was entertaining to me! I love when writing turns out how I like it, or I write a banger prose line, but equally I found it helpful to give myself permission to not worry about that all the time and just focus on my interest/enjoyment in what I'm writing, regardless of the "quality". Again, easier said than done, but something I've found easier the more I write, because you'll have bad writing days but you'll also have writing days that are so good
I know a lot of people see writing as a skill that they want to improve, and like I agree it feels really good to see your writing grow, but writing is so much more than the skill and the craft and the theory. There is no objective "perfection" to reach with writing like we are not Sims with levelled skills LOL. Writing is art and creativity and it should be fun and fulfilling. And IMO, the more you focus on what makes writing fun, you will grow and "improve" as a writer a lot quicker and in a way that is a lot more enjoyable than if you treat writing like some icy quest for perfection. You also get to decide what "good" writing is for you/your story. Some of my stories are more prose focused and I'll play more with language, imagery etc. Others are more about the plot and just having fun imagining this scene. Sometimes it's a mix of both. What is "good" writing depends on the writer, story, genre, etc. There is no one way to write.
I'm rambling a lot because I'm just really passionate about this and I cannot express enough how easier writing got, including all the difficult and ugly and frustrating parts, when I gave space to prioritise my enjoyment and fun. People love to romanticise the idea of the "struggling" writer. I see stuff on here and I'm like you guys….writing should be fun. Like yeah sometimes it's hard and we should talk about that but like, you Need to make sure you are having fun. Anyway I'm going to try not to ramble and bullet point some things that helped me:
Make Writing Fun: Lol! Literally whatever makes writing fun. Sometimes I just write super indulgent scenes and the fun of that sets me up to work on my projects. When I work on my projects I try to find what in each scene I'm going to enjoy the most, and focus on that to help me write the rest. I make playlists, moodboards, memes, art etc for my story because it's fun, and it helps me be engaged with my story outside of writing it. Just, have fun.
On productivity: some people will benefit from setting clear goals and running towards them. Some people don't. For me it depends on my headspace. I don't think productivity is a bad thing, it can feel good, but productivity should not be the only reason you write. And the most productive writing process is whichever one makes writing enjoyable for you, because that's how you'll get words on the page
On that note, please be wary of anyone online who who treats the writing advice they share as Fact. I'm not saying every writing teacher out there does...but some of them market it that way! And creators do not have an authority on writing just because they have a platform however big. There are some AMAZING content creators out there who talk about writing, and I have found them motivating, but like just let yourself be picky about who you listen to/engage with. I say this because I consumed some very Strict writing advice when I was younger and it literally contributed to my years long slump so like...I'm picky now LOL
About goals: Personally, gentle goals are what help me get back into writing. Maybe just write for 20 minutes, or write every day for a couple days. When I do word count goals, I base them on how I feel that day, and recently I don't make a word count, I'll transfer it to the next session but smaller. So if I try to write 500 words but can't I'll say okay, lets try 250 next time. Goals can be a great motivator and way to feel achieved, and maybe bigger goals will help you, but you're also allowed to adjust them as you go to make it easier
On finding new ideas, having been there before, you don't need a fully fleshed out idea to start writing. My longest break I came back to writing with...one character and a backstory? If you have stories/characters already you can revisit them, either build on what you have or completely change it. Or if you don't have that, if there's a piece of media you like you can take that concept and play around with it in your own way, or you can even just write fanfic until you have your own idea (if you want your own idea, fanfic is cool too!) You can even just find a cool pic on pinterest and play around with describing it, writing about it, seeing if you can get anything from that. Ideas are everywhere and they can be tiny, and I think if you have that want to write you Will find your story eventually. All writers have had the Idea struggle, but I think the more you engage with writing and think about what concepts and stories interest you already, the more you'll like train yourself to get ideas
That was very long and maybe a lot but like, I am very passionate about this! I've been in writing "slumps" where I didn't know if I would write again, I've started writing again with no ideas, and in those times all I had was the fact I knew I wanted to write. There are a lot of reasons why we end up having long breaks from writing and it is totally normal, sometimes beneficial for us, and we should never give ourselves a hard time for not writing for however long. But also remember that you can always come back. Every one of us has the capacity to create, whatever that looks like, and you can make it as self indulgent and self serving as you want.
#also a bit on the creators and writing advice thing#I dont think every creator out there who does How To Do X.....is treating what they say as fact. and i dont think that's Bad#i think they're just teaching what they think is valuable info#but like...you're allowed to disagree with it#but I've also encountered people with big platforms who will say shit like if you don't do This Thing you WILL fail in some way#just because THEY had that expreience...or will do writing advice marketed like Harsh Truths For Writers!!!#and like yeah you might find something valuable in that but like it's all marketing!!! they want you to click on their post and engage!#again! not always a bad thing it's how the internet works unfortunately! but sometimes it IS kind of shady lol and you can just ignore it#i'm saying this as someone sharing advice right now. you can disagree with any of this lol#some people share writing advice online and that's literally how they make money or they're using that advice to sell their product#again fair i dont think that's inherently bad but i think just. look at this stuff with a critical eye. people have experience that can be#helpful but NOBODY is an authority on writing#cause unfortunately some people Are capitalising on the fact there are vulnerable writers out there looking for help#putting this extension in the tags because its not so much about starting to write again but i think its important#in regards to engaging with writers spaces. that engagement can be so motivating but you have to set barriers LOL
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hey man love ur stuff. i was wondering if youd considered posting some of ur art on ao3? ive seen more ppl doing that lately, since ao3 isnt gonna ban "adult content." id love to follow u on twitter but i had to quit using that god forsaken app awhile ago lmao
Hey!
I honestly don’t plan to do that, truth be told I was initially very hesitant to publicly link my ao3 to my art account at all tjfk writing is a skill I’ve only just started brushing up on (I’ve always done it, but never seriously and not with the intent of making stuff that was to be seen by the public, and definitely haven’t studied it the way I have art) and it’s taking me a bit, still, to not feel embarrassed enough by everything I put out to not even want my name on it. I’d rather keep my art and my writing separate! If I were to I would have to make an account specifically for that, but honestly, that would only come if I felt the need to archive my stuff and not actively partecipate in the community anymore? I don’t know how to explain it. Obviously I’m still gonna keep posting my stuff even if Twitter crumbles, I’m trying to find an equivalent alternative still, and I don’t blame anyone for wanting to leave that dumpster fire, I’m just the kind of person who’s very hesitant to leave a place once I’ve figured out how it works - I honestly don’t know where else to put my nsfw if it does crumble into dust, tho. I might start posting previews on Tumblr with links to privatter in that case (they say they don’t allow nsfw but until they actively come down and delete my posts themselves, honestly, I’m gonna treat it like it is ok. After all all my posts there come with a disclaimer warning about 18+ themes and every potential CW present in the image so, I don’t think there’s anything morally wrong with that.)? I think I’ll see about that once it really comes to it. Terribly sorry if that locks anyone out! For what it’s worth, the full pieces of my nsfw are still on privatter so if you can access them there they’re still gonna be available, and for regular art I have here, bluesky, and misskey. (And Instagram, though I try to be as non-controversial there as possible because I’m honestly kinda terrified of the large anti presence there hfjfkf, so I don’t post most of my ship art there.)
#asks#sorry if that’s not the answer you were looking for anon!#honestly re: twitter#the issue is also that it’s the only place I’ve managed to get a significant following on#and like. obviously I don’t care about clout or numbers that way#BUT art is kind of where I’m trying to go career wise#and if I’ve got a crumb of visibility and work (commissions) it’s been mostly thanks to it#weren’t it for twitter visibility my discord wouldn’t be visible either and while Tumblr is really nice#it’s really only down to how active your fandom is if you get any attention at all and also it’s not as international as twitter#unfortunately spardacest fandom while picking up slightly is still kinda dead here#and that’s ok! again I’m not doing it for like attention or clout or numbers#I’d keep making art even without an audience#(it’s what I’ve done all my life anyway since before dmc I never HAD an audience lol)#BUT AGAIN#it is what I’m trying to make a living off of#and that’s kind of hard in todays climate if no one on the internet knows you exist#so it’s kinda hard to move anywhere else#since I’ve kinda figured out how to make the whole twitter thing work#everywhere else? not so much#and I refuse to get on tiktok like. categorically LOL#+ I think what I do is just not the kind of content for platforms like it and again IG
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this might just be because i'm a bit older than your average mcyt fan, but it makes me kind of sad to see all these younger fans scramble to wipe their mcyt fanworks off the internet the second a content creator is revealed to have done something awful.
don't get it twisted, I'm a big believer in rescinding financial support to ccs you no longer agree with or admire by unsubscribing, deciding not to buy merch, or refusing to give them ad revenue by watching their content. if you don't feel comfortable giving someone money, don't give them your money. material support isn't what i'm talking about here - I'm talking about fanfic, fansongs, fanart. yknow, content that fans create for themselves and each other, stuff that's not for ccs.
in the past year (and especially the past week, obviously) i've seen tons of mcyt fans saying they're planning to delete their art (or that they already have deleted) because they don't want their work to be associated with content creators who behaved badly, and that they want "a fresh start." I've seen fan writers say the same thing about their fics. and like, this is fine, do what you want with your stuff, but i'll be honest...it does make me sad that so many younger fans seemingly have been made to feel such a high degree of responsibility for ccs that they're unable to enjoy fandom (a thing that is FOR US! FOR YOU!) or take any measure of pride in their past fanworks.
again, at the end of the day you should do what you want with your own shit. but what i will say is, if what you want to do with your work is delete it, at least think first about why you're considering the nuclear option. you aren't responsible for a cc's behavior, and that goes for literally anyone who's ever had a hand in making anything you like: books, movies, games, anything. you shouldn't be made to feel ashamed of having created fan content for a piece of media that a shitty person was involved in making. straight up, this kind of shame isn't something i believe should exist in fandom, because it's parasocial in the same way that positive emotions towards media/creators can be parasocial.
and also, as someone who's been involved in fandom for a long time, i can say with confidence that creators will keep disappointing you like this. there are shitty people out there. if you're searching for a piece of media with zero shitty people ever involved in the project, you will not find it. i'm not saying this to normalize shitty behavior on the part of creators, I'm saying this to emphasize that bearing the shame and guilt of every creator to this degree is not sustainable or healthy (and it's not how fandom used to operate, but that's a conversation for another day, perhaps.)
i understand why so many folks are considering deleting their fanworks, and if that's you...think about it before you do it. that's all i'm asking. you don't want to create a habit of divesting yourself of all evidence of having been passionate about art created by someone who sucks, because if you do get into that habit, then your chances of ever truly enjoying a fandom again are, unfortunately, pretty slim.
#mcyt#fandom#also deleting all your stuff is a nightmare for archivists but that's admittedly a selfish reason for asking ppl not to delete lmfao#....sigh#idk it just makes me sad to see so many kids panicking like this#long post
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there are a lot of posts out there that are positive and healthy coping mechanisms for handling the holidays. this is not one of them :)
i think there's like. going to be times in your life you will be stuck in a social situation that you cannot escape from gracefully. i do not know why the internet doesn't believe these times exist. it's not always just that your physical safety is at risk - sometimes it's legit like "i just don't currently have the energy or time to put in the effort of responding to this." sometimes it's a coworker you hate so much. sometimes it's just like, fine, you know? like you know you can handle your aunt when she's cheerily horrible, but if you actually set a boundary around her, it's going to be weeks of fallout with your father.
i don't know why people think the answer is always just "cut them out!" or "don't let them get away with that!" because ... the real world is tricky and complicated. i think kind of a lot of us have an internal "radiation poisoning" meter for certain people. like - i'm talking about the ones who are absolutely giving you gradual ick damage. like, you can handle them, but you'll be exhausted.
and yes. you absolutely should listen to your therapist and the good posts about handling others and set good boundaries and take care of yourself. prioritize peace.
HOWEVER :) ...... since im often in a situation with a Gradual Sense of Ick person i cannot just "cut out" of my life (without losing someone else precious to me) - i have sort of developed the most. maladaptive form of mischief possible. because like, if i'm going to have to listen to this shit again, i like to have a little bit of private fun with it.
now! again, i am physically safe, just mentally drained by this man. you should only do this with people you are not in danger with. which leads me to my suggestions for when your Unfortunate Acquaintance shows up and says oh everyone pay attention to me.
my favorite word is "maybe!" said as brightly and happily as possible. whenever the Horrible Person starts in on a topic you do not want to go further with, particularly if they make a claim that you know to be inaccurate, do not respond to it. you and i have both tried to actually argue with this person, and it hasn't gone well, because this person just wants the drama of an argument. however, "maybe!" gives them literally nothing to go on. it is incredibly disarming. they are used to people having some response. they know they can't prove what they're saying, and maybe! treats them like the child they are. it dismisses them in the politest way possible.
i like to say maybe! and then, in their stunned silence, immediately change the subject. this is because i have adhd and i will have something unrelated to talk about, but if you can't think of topics fast enough, i recommend just pointing to something and saying, "isn't that lovely?" because fuck you let's bring in some positivity.
by the way. that second trick - of pointing to something and stating an opinion about it? - that just works on its own, like, 70% of the time. i picked it up from teaching preschoolers. it's an intentional "redirect". it stops children crying and it also stops grown adults from finishing their explanation on why women belong in kitchens. dual wielding!
keep it silly for yourself. i absolutely do not care if people think i'm fucking stupid (it's more fun if they do) and as a result i will purposefully misunderstand things just to see how long it takes them to realize i've completely removed them from the subject at hand. when they say "women aren't funny" i get to be like. "which women." "all women." "all women in america?" "no in the world." "like the mole people? the people in the world?" "what? no. like, alive." "oh are we not counting the mole people?" "what the fuck are you talking about." "you don't believe in the mole people?"
similarly, i play a personal game called "one up me." my Evil Acquaintance literally knows this game exists (my family & friends caught onto it and now also play it) and it always fucking gets him. i don't know why. you have to be willing to be a little free-spirited on this one, though. the trick is that when they make one of those horrible little bigoted or annoying comments they are always making, you need to go one unit weirder. not more intense, mind you - just more weird. "you don't look good in that dress." "yeah, actually, my other dress was covered in squid ink due to a mishap at the soup store." "you shouldn't wear such revealing clothes." "wait, what? oh shit. sorry, your son tears off strips when no one is looking and eats them. i swear it was longer before we left the building."
the point of "one up me" is to completely upend this person's narrative. we both know this person likes setting up situations where you cannot "win" and then they really like telling other people how badly you handled it. in a usual situation, if you respond "please don't say something that rude", you're a bitch. but if you let it happen, you're letting yourself be debased. they are not usually expecting door number three: unflappably odd. because what are they going to say when they're telling everyone how badly you behaved? "she said my son eats her dresses" ".... okay?"
if you can, form an allyship with someone whomst you can tagteam with. where they can pick up on your weird "soup store" story and run with it.
the following phrase is amazing and can be deployed for any situation: "oh, be nice :) it's the holidays!" i do not know why this works as often as it does. i'll say it for the most random shit. i think this is bc most of the time these people know they're being impolite, they just like to fight.
godbless. when in doubt, remember that you could always start stealing their pens.
the whole point of this is - if you can't escape. maybe see how long you can just be. like. a horrible little menace.
#this is objectively bad advice#don't listen to it protect yourself and do real work on yourself find one of the good posts i've made about this#but also. u know. if u want to have fun while u do the work of setting boundaries#.... it IS fun#i will say that my fear of him went SO down after i just started. fucking with him.#bc i used to get SO fucking upset#i'd spend WEEKS arguing with him. tearing my hair out. sick with anxiety and dread and anger about all of it#and now i just LITERALLY do not engage#instead i'm like '' haha :) mole people" and get the HELL out of any tense conversation#i kind of think some of these people are literally addicted to drama as a form of connection#they like the rush they get from arguing#but those arguments are incredibly damaging for me#so like..... i am in the process of literally rehabilitating this person to figure out how to find connection thru#NORMAL CONVERSATION#he doesn't get it yet#i also do talk to them like they're preschool kids lmafo . ''are you using a safe and kind voice right now?''#'' do you need a snackie? you sound a little upset. let's have some hummus and come back to playtime when we feel ready''
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Full offense and pun fully intended, but I genuinely think the very existence of "dead dove, do not eat" was a fucking canary in the mines, and no one really paid attention.
Because the tag itself was created as a response to a fandom-wide tendency to disregard warnings and assume tagging was exaggerated. And then the same fucking idiots reading those tags describing things they found upsetting or disturbing or just not to their taste would STILL click into the stories and give the writer's grief about it.
And as a response writers began using the tag to signal "no, really, I MEAN the tags!"
But like.
If you really think about it, that's a solution to a different problem. The solution to "I know you tagged your story appropriately but I chose to disregard the tags and warnings by reading it anyway, even though I knew it would upset me, so now I'm upset and making it your problem" is frankly a block, a ban and wide-spread blacklisting. But fandom as a whole is fucking awful at handling bad faith, insidious arguments that appeal to community inclusion and weaponize the fact most people participating in fandom want to share the space with others, as opposed to hurting people.
So instead of upfront ridiculing this kind of maladaptive attempt to foster one's own emotional self-regulation onto random strangers on the internet, fandom compromised and came up with a redundant tag in a good faith attempt to address an imaginary nuance.
There is no nuance to this.
A writer's job is to tag their work correctly. It's not to tag it exhaustively. It's not even to tag it extensively. A writer's sole obligation, as far as AO3 and arguably fandom spaces are concerned, is to make damn sure that the tags they put on their story actually match whatever is going on in that story.
That's it.
That's all.
"But what if I don't want to read X?" Well, you don't read fic that's tagged X.
"But what if I read something that wasn't tagged X?" Well, that's very unfortunate for you, but if it is genuinely that upsetting, you have a responsibility to yourself to only browse things explicitly tagged to not include X.
"But that's not a lot of fic!" Hi, you must be new here, yes, welcome to fandom. Most of our spaces are built explicitly as a reaction to There's Not Enough Of The Thing I Want, both in canon and fandom.
"But there are things on the internet that I don't like!" Yeah, and they are also out there, offline. And, here's the thing, things existing even though we personally dislike or even hate or even flat out find offensive/gross/immoral/unspeakable existing is the price we pay to secure our right to exist as individuals and creators, regardless of who finds US personally unpleasant, hateful or flat out offensive/gross/immoral/unspeakable.
"But what about [illegal thing]?!" So the thing itself is illegal, because the thing itself has been deemed harmful. But your goddamn cop-poisoned authoritarian little heart needs to learn that sometimes things are illegal that aren't harmful, and defaulting to "but illegal!" is a surefire way to end up on the wrong side of the fascism pop quiz. You're not a figure of authority and the more you demand to control and exercise authority by command, rather than leadership, the less impressive you seem. You know how you make actual, genuine change in a community? You center harm and argue in good faith to find accommodations and spread awareness of real, actual problems.
But let's play your game. Let's pretend we're all brainwashed cop-abiding little cogs that do not own a single working brain cell to exercise critical thinking with. 99% of the time, when you cry about any given thing "being illegal!!!" you're correct only so far as the THING itself being illegal. The act or object is illegal. Depiction of it is not. You know why, dipshit? Because if depiction of the thing were illegal, you wouldn't be able to talk about it. You wouldn't be able to educate about it. You wouldn't be able to reexamine and discuss and understand the thing, how and why and where it happens and how to prevent it. And yeah, depiction being legal opens the door for people to make depictions that are in bad taste or probably not appropriate. Sure. But that's the price we pay, creating tools to demystify some of the most horrific things in the world and support the people who've survived them. The net good of those tools existing outweighs the harm of people misusing them.
"You're defending the indefensible!" No, you're clumsily stumbling into a conversation that's been going on for centuries, with your elementary school understanding of morality and your bone-deep police state rot filtering your perception of reality, and insisting you figured it out and everyone else at the table is an idiot for not agreeing with you. Shut the fuck up, sit the fuck down and read a goddamn book.
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yandere!ceo with villainess!reader scenario [part one]
warnings: suicide attempt/implication, implication of obsessive thoughts or love, workplace toxicity.
There might be potential triggers in this piece. If you do not feel comfortable with reading it, please hit the 'back' button on your phone or laptop and find something much more pleasant to read than a potential series of unfortunate events.
You are responsible for your Internet consumption.
Reblog to support content creators! ❤️
Hey guys, and welcome to another original yandere oc x series, featuring the good-looking prick and CEO of his family's conglomerate, Yeo Jung-Hwa. This is a collaboration between me and the incredibly talented @deathmetalunicorn1. Special thanks to @pinkgoldweebgirl and @witch-of-the-writing-desk for their honest feedback on the earlier drafts of this project.
Everyone has heard or watched the famous daily drama, Love and Fortune. Boasting over 124 episodes, it chronicles the romance between a cold-hearted CEO named Yeo Jung-Hwa and a hardworking, kind-hearted employee at his family’s conglomerate named Hyeong Mun-Hee. Of course, no drama is without conflict because that would be a very boring story to broadcast to the world.
Including the male lead’s family opposing the idea that would marry someone beneath his social status, the villainous Park Seo-yun refuses to break off her engagement to him even when her feelings are completely one-sided. In retrospect, Park Seo-yun had been written as a vicious and incredibly stupid antagonist so that Heyong Mun-Hee’s perseverance through such bullying and her devotion towards Yeo Jung-Hwa were highlighted and touched the viewers with her kind heart. At least that is what you believe after being trapped in the world of this drama for…how long has it been? A year? Three years?
It was hard to keep track of time when Being X - that’s the name you gave to whatever is controlling this world like a goddamned puppeteer - would reset everything if you tried to act out of character such as amiably breaking up with male lead so he could be with Hyeong Mun-Hee or trying to overdose on sleeping meds in a desperate attempt to escape. Presently this was your fourth loop, and you were not going to let everything, the hard work you’ve put in, to be all for nothing.
You were going to move forward.
You were going to survive.
You were going to have a peaceful life once this drama is over.
Just say your lines and be ready for the next scene. Right?
According to the drama’s script, the reason that Park Seo-yun worked for the Yeo family’s conglomerate is because everyone thought it would be a brilliant idea for her to see how the business of her future in-laws operated and be prepared to step in if Yeo Jung-Hwa was incapacitated for any reason. In your humble opinion, it is honestly a bad idea for two reasons. One, it isn’t wise to mix business with a marriage, let alone an engagement that is written to be destroyed upon the arrival of the female lead. Two, it just doesn't make sense. Prosperous businesses are supposed to have a qualified Chief Operating Officer, otherwise known as a COO, to implement plans and the direction that the CEO wishes to follow as well as coordinating with other team managers.
But this is common sense from the real world. You are stuck in a drama and currently the team manager of the conglomerate’s financial department. You might have a nice office in the back where you can see everything, but it barely alleviated your annoyance with Hyung Mun-Hee as she hunched over her desk, texting on her personal phone instead of correcting the mistakes she made on the documents you were supposed to hand out to everyone at today’s meeting; budget allocations, projected growths and downturns, including whether Team Leader Dokja Kim will be able to hire a few more employees that he really needs to help with the IT department’s neverending workflow.
You know that this is a pivotal scene in both Heyong Mun-Hee’s character development and the beginning of your downfall. You know that after accusing the female lead of slacking off, forcing her to kneel and apologize for paralyzing your department because everyone worked overtime to cover her unexcused absences, this is when the male lead steps in and protects his darling from being bullied further.
To the writers of Love and Fortune: this example of lazy creativity is why your successful series eventually received backlash and everyone demanded a revamped version. In layman’s terms, fuck you assholes for making your job as the villainess a lot more difficult than it should be.
You already made her kneel and all that jazz in the last two loops and it didn’t do shit. Not this time. You were going to go for a more subtle, professional approach. As long as it seems like you were antagonizing Hyung Mun-Hee because Love and Fortune is written from her point of view, you should be fine. Hopefully. God, you hoped so.
If you actually got through this scene, you were definitely going to reward the team for their hard work with some baked goods for breakfast or a catered lunch. You haven’t used your infamous black credit card since this loop started. Rolling your shoulders back, you inhaled a slow, deep breath before leaning over towards the printer, grabbing the documents that the female lead emailed to you. You pretended to read them over, eyes narrowing and fingers thumbing through all of them until you reached the end. Rising from your seat, you walked out of the office and addressed the staff, calmly.
“Excuse me everyone, but may I have a moment of your time?” Your slightly agitated voice caused all seven team members to stare at you with faces that ranged from confusion, fear, and curiosity. You respectfully incline your head. “Thank you.” You held up your little prop in the air for all to see. “Whoever emailed me the paperwork I am to present at this afternoon’s meeting, please come to my office. I have some questions about the context.”
An uneasy silence fell upon the office, making your heart stink. Shit. You needed to improvise and fast before Being X noticed. You sighed, pressing two fingers to the side of your temple to make it seem like you were starting to feel a headache coming on, which funnily enough you were.
“I’m not going to bite anyone’s head off, I promise. There are just a few things in here that do not make sense and I’d like to understand before I am to present them as the team leader.” Please take the bait, Heyong Mun-Hee. You thought pleadingly with your eyes closed. If you have any self-respect left or at least feel a little sorry for being lazy, stand up and admit your mistake so that your perseverance shines through in this scene. You’ve done it before, you can do it again.
When you opened your eyes, she was still sitting at her desk with wide eyes and a flushed face, clutching her phone as if it were a lifeline. Your eyebrow twitched. You have got to be kidding me. You thought sourly. This isn’t how a female lead is supposed to act, let alone an actual employee of a multi-million won company.
Fine. If she wasn’t going to come to you willingly, then you couldn’t play nice.
You were about to call her out when she suddenly stood up and made a beeline towards your office, passing by you and taking a seat in your office. Huh? Isn’t this a bit rude? Unfortunately your role isn’t to ponder why certain people like common decency. So you turned around, walking back inside your workspace and closing the door behind you. Once you sat down behind the dark mahogany desk that was at least twice the size of a normal cubicle, you booted up your desktop and logged into the company’s bookkeeping program before swiveling the monitor around so that Hyeung Mun-Hee could see where she made her mistakes.
“Assistant Manager Hyeung Mun-Hee, I noticed that there were some miscalculations here,” You moved your cursor over one column. “And here.” You moved it to the right. “Here as well.” You moved it back to the left, right in the middle. “The formula you imputed for Columns H to J is incorrect. I want you to refer to your department manual and make the necessary corrections before sending it out to the other departments. I trust you can handle this task?”
She should be able to. After all, the female lead had a buffer for being extremely intelligent and a math whiz in the script. That’s why she was selected to work here instead of Human Resources, where her communication skills were also top notch. Hyeung Mun-Hee quickly nodded, standing up from her seat and almost bolting back to her desk, still holding onto her phone like a security blanket. Which was a little odd. You don’t remember her being so protective of it in the previous loops.
You reclined back against your chair. Oh well, no matter. Time to see this house of cards come crashing down in five minutes. Too bad it can’t be longer. But the show must go on, right? She might be scripted to fail, but you gave her a chance to correct her mistakes. So in the end, it was truly and solely all her fault, not yours.
Sure enough the phones began ringing off of the hook, followed by shouting from a few of the senior employees. You got a frantic phone call from Research/Development manager Choi Iseul, asking why the promised budget had been cut in half. Closing out the screens on your desktop, you reassured the poor girl that you would look into this matter immediately before hanging up. She really didn’t need the stress right now at four months pregnant.
You stepped out of the office, demanding what was going on. All eyes turned to the leading lady herself, her head down and face pinkened in embarrassment. You blinked. “Assistant Manager Hyeung Mun-Hee, what happened? You did fix the report as I had asked, right?” You controlled the tone of your voice, careful to not show anger and annoyance, strictly professionalism. You were pretty sure that you didn’t sound like a vindictive bitch either. But somehow she took your question as her cue to shout at you, to stop bullying her before running out towards the elevator. And right into the arms of the male lead.
You exhaled a deep breath, running a hand through [Hair Color] tresses before you turned your attention back towards the team. “I need to fix this report and send it off to the other departments or else things will get ugly. I know I’m asking a lot right now, but could you screen the incoming calls? If any of them asks, please let them know I am making the necessary corrections and will email it to them promptly. Disregard the one that they’ve received from Assistant Manager Hyeung Mun-Hee.”
Everyone clamored in agreement before diving back into their work, some already answering the phones and reciting exactly what you asked them to say as you bolted towards your office, slamming the door behind you. Considering that this isn’t your first loop, you had already taken the liberty of creating the correct report this morning before clocking in at the office. The issues were the same, so it took you all but twenty minutes to adjust and send it out to the managers.
The calamity that struck evaporated in an instant, and the phones had stopped ringing. To you, it only heralded the opening sequence of the next scenario. Looking up from your phone, you saw two people walk out of the elevator. The female lead was dabbing her puffy face with a checkered handkerchief, standing by Yeo Jung Hwa himself as he got off his own personal device, no doubt finishing his talk with the CFO about his darling’s little fuck up.
Placing your phone face down on the desk, you watched them glide across the room before the CEO reached your office, opening the door with a frown stretched across his face.
Yeo Jung Hwa. The male lead of Love and Fortune, blessed with good looks, riches, and has been in charge of the conglomerate since he was twenty years old. A classic tyrannical CEO that almost everyone loved to read or watch because they’d see how soft he was around his lover and wanted that same kind of treatment for themselves.
You saw him as little more than a cunning snake who knew what he wanted and would use any means necessary to get it. But whatever. Time to get into character. You thought as you stood up, eyeing the male lead apathetically. “Good afternoon, sir. How can I help you?”
“Explain what happened.” He said, amethyst eyes narrowing at you. Yes, he has fucking purple eyes thank you goddamned screenwriters.
You raised an eyebrow. “Explain what, sir?” You asked. “The incident that has everyone in a panic?” Receiving nothing but silence from him, you continued. “It’s been resolved. I’ve already emailed all of the department heads the correct report to refer to at today’s meeting. I did tell Assistant Manager Hyeung Mun-Hee to fix the mistakes I’ve shown her,” You glanced at your employee before averting your attention back to the prick. “But when I looked at what was sent out, she did make a few adjustments…just that it only made matters worse and could have cost the company a lot of money.” You crossed your arms, leaning back against your desk. “Her performance was unacceptable, and she is my responsibility as her team leader. Which is why I would like to have Assistant Manager Hyeung Mun-Hee participate in this month’s upcoming financial seminars. A little refresher for two weeks, using her vacation days, and pass the tests so that there will not be a repeat of this incident again and jeopardize the conglomerate. Or would you see this as unfair treatment of an employee, CEO Yeo Jung-Hwa?”
You watched as the male lead looked over his shoulder, glaring balefully at his lover before he turned back to face you. “So be it. I want to see the results of her tests once they are completed and the lecturers aren’t under your payroll, Team Leader Park Seo-yun.”
“With all due respect, they are under your payroll, not mine.” You said drolly. “I don’t care how long it will take for her to complete the classes or to do the coursework. I want results, same as you. I do want to keep the completion certificates. If she doesn’t do it or chooses not to for whatever reason beyond a medical emergency, suspension with pay. No ifs, ands, or buts. Are these acceptable terms, sir?”
He didn’t like it, you could tell. Any event that separated from Hyeung Mun-Hee would put him in a sour mood and become more of a grouch. Kind of like a child having his favorite toy being taken away because he did something bad. But in this situation he couldn’t afford to have a temper tantrum for obvious reason:
1) Displaying an immature attitude in a professional environment will make him less appealing to the viewers.
2) As previously stated, it was the female lead’s fault that this whole mess happened. He saw the evidence of her major fuck up, the CFO saw it, everyone did. Trying to sweep it under the rug would only incite more rumors of nepotism. He has a reputation to maintain.
“...Fine.” He spat out. You nodded, seeing him turn on the ball of his foot and stomp out of the room. Nope, he is not happy about this. Neither is the trembling female lead standing in front of you. She really was a pretty woman, with reddish-brown hair falling past her shoulders and hazel eyes glistening with tears.
“You’re dismissed. I’ll let you know the seminar schedule once I hear back from HR. Please return to work, you still have two hours left on your shift.” You said, expecting her to go running to the restroom and cry, have a mental dialogue about how things were unfair right now but she will come out on top and preserve as it was written in the script. Except…she didn’t leave right away. She was glaring at you as if you were the most despicable person in the entire world, which you guess holds some truth.
“You said this is all my fault, but it isn’t because I wasn’t trained properly! Where do you get off, saying such horrible things like this?! Just because you are rich doesn’t mean you have a great personality!”
Your eyes widened in shock. Okay, this scene was definitely not part of the drama in the last three loops. And she’s smart enough to know to not say this, even if the door is closed!
Let’s be serious. No one should ever talk to a supervisor like this, even if they are an absolute scumbag and you hate their guts.
“Assistant Manager Hyeung Mun-Hee, you were trained to learn and carry out these tasks during the ninety day trial period after being hired by the conglomerate,” You said as you tried to calm your racing heart. “I showed you the mistakes you made, and it’s clear that you made almost no effort to fix them. If you had, then this incident would not have happened. That is why you are going to sit through those seminars and take notes, or you will be suspended without pay. This is not up for debate. And just because I am rich doesn’t mean you can talk down to people as if you are better than them, myself included. Now leave. And don’t let me hear such vulgar words in here again or I will punish you. Are we clear?”
“You-“
“Are you going to make me pull up your file and show everyone your certificates of completion from those training programs, the proof that you were trained to do your job and you’ve chosen to let others do your work for you?” You asked. “It’s fine to ask for help from others when needed, but you have to take responsibility for your actions or else you’ll never be able to surpass me.”
You watched Hyeung Mun-Hee’s face turn a darker shade of magenta and the tremors in her petite frame increase greatly before she excused herself. You could see the steam coming out of her ears; whether it was from embarrassment or anger, you weren’t certain. So long as she got your message and you acted your part as the villainess, then that should have met almost all of the requirements needed to move onto the next episode. The remaining factors were the viewership score and Being X’s approval.
The viewership score is a daily simple rating system numbered from 1 to 5 golden stars. If the episode reaches 3 and above, you’re clear. If the score is a 2, and Being X did not like your acting or even how everything played out, the loop would start all over again from the first scene. Perhaps instead of puppeteer, it’s more like a perfectionist director whose opinion can also be swayed by the viewership score. If the audience watching this fucked up universe enjoyed what they were watching, they’ll make it known.
After all, more ratings means more money, even if you’re not getting paid for this.
The last two loops where this episode happened, you followed the script to the letter without making any improvs. It didn't work out in the end, as you recalled with a frown at the memory. After being forced to kneel on the floor as you had done to her, you watched the lovebirds embrace. Well, at least the male lead was trying to comfort his ‘pure-hearted’ lover when that bitch smiled down at you from over his shoulder. As if she had won the game and you were the loser. Being X didn’t like the viewership scores back then. Now? Well, that’ll depend on whether or not you’ll wake up to the setting of episode 25 tomorrow morning. It’s either that…or finding yourself in the interview room again with Hyeung Mun-Hee during the pilot episode, her job application in your hand.
Fuck my life. You thought glumly.
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Congratulations, Congratulations, Congratulations!
Important things must be said three times.
The viewership score on Episode 24 has arrived!
Taglist: @nunezs-stuff @imperfectbloodmoon @yandere-dark-cupid @justcressida @cassanderasblog @faesdreaming @faux-ecrivain @abelheilonwife @tired-of-life-86 @tonightwrites @ixchelhernandez4 @aiimee9 @swallowtail-lotus @diannaflight @sweetbatherodonkey @strangepoppy @mochinon-yah @classicdummy @lanxianschoenheit @aman3kkun @beardedblizzardexpert @reiivven @majestichugs
#forbidden-sunlight#yandere x reader#yandere male#yandere#yandere oc#yandere oc x reader#yandere!ceo#fem!reader#villainess!reader#ns.fw#yandere manhwa x reader#x reader#tw sui attempt#tw sui implied#tw work toxicity#cw sui attempt#cw work toxicity
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I do want to say, my views on AI “art” have changed somewhat. It was wrong of me to claim that it’s not wrong to use it in shitposts… there definitely is some degree of something problematic there.
Personally I feel like it’s one of those problems that’s best solved via lawmaking—specifically, AI generations shouldn’t be copywrite-able, and AI companies should be fined for art theft and “plagiarism”… even though it’s not directly plagiarism in the current legal sense. We definitely need ethical philosophers and lawmakers to spend some time defining exactly what is going on here.
But for civilians, using AI art is bad in the same nebulous sense that buying clothes from H&M or ordering stuff on Amazon is bad… it’s a very spread out, far away kind of badness, which makes it hard to quantify. And there’s no denying that in certain contexts, when applied in certain ways (with actual editing and artistic skill), AI can be a really interesting tool for artists and writers. Which again runs into the copywrite-ability thing. How much distance must be placed between the artist and the AI-generated inspiration in order to allow the artist to say “this work is fully mine?”
I can’t claim to know the answers to these issues. But I will say two things:
Ignoring AI shit isn’t going to make it go away. Our tumblr philosophy is wildly unpopular in the real world and most other places on the internet, and those who do start using AI are unfortunately gonna have a big leg up on those who don’t, especially as it gets better and better at avoiding human detection.
Treating AI as a fundamental, ontological evil is going to prevent us from having these deep conversations which are necessary for us—as a part of society—to figure out the ways to censure AI that are actually helpful to artists. We need strong unions making permanent deals now, we need laws in place that regulate AI use and the replacement of humans, and we need to get this technology out of the hands of huge megacorporations who want nothing more than to profit off our suffering.
I’ve seen the research. I knew AI was going to big years ago, and right now I know that it’s just going to get bigger. Nearly every job is in danger. We need to interact with this issue—sooner rather than later—or we risk losing all of our futures. And unfortunately, just as with many other things under capitalism, for the time being I think we have to allow some concessions. The issue is not 100% black or white. Certainly a dark, stormy grey of some sort.
But please don’t attack middle-aged cat-owners playing around with AI filters. Start a dialogue about the spectrum of morality present in every use of AI—from the good (recognizing cancer cells years in advance, finding awesome new metamaterials) to the bad (megacorporations replacing workers and stealing from artists) to the kinda ambiguous (shitposts, app filter that makes your dog look like a 16th century British royal for some reason).
And if you disagree with me, please don’t be hateful about it. I fully recognize that my current views might be wrong. I’m not a paragon of moral philosophy or anything. I’m just doing my best to live my life in a way that improves the world instead of detracting from it. That’s all any of us can do, in my opinion.
#the wizcourse#<- new tag for my pretentious preachy rants#this is—AGAIN—an issue where you should be calling your congressmen and protesting instead of making nasty posts at each other
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it's just us | mv33
hi! i can't get enough of my dutch duo, so here comes the third part of the mad dutchman and the fearless dutchess and if you didn't read the second part of it but you wanna catch up, here it is!
you can read each of this solo and you can read it all like series. it work well both ways!
so yeah, as usual, bon apetit and enjooooy x
summary: y/n is upset by some media nonsense she read online but max is here to remind her that at the end of the day its just them and the rest doesn't really matter
warnings: i tried with a smut but im not sure how it went, sexual content, +18, eating p, praising, comfort sex?
pairing: fem!redbulldriver x max verstappen
The kiss didn't change anything between Y/N and Max.
In the other hand, it changed everything, but it absolutely did not affect their relationship. There were no nervous questions, no timid behavior, no checking whether a quick kiss at the strategists' table was okay, or whether it was necessary to count down the seconds of the hug they exchanged with each other after the race so that it wouldn't last too long.
To be honest, their entry into a relationship was a kind of relief for the entire team. Christian Horner himself, the team father of the two flying Dutch, seeing them kissing after winning the podium, just shook his head and with a slight smile admitted "Finally, fucking hell".
Of course, the media did not leave a single dry spot on Red Bull drivers. The couple, of course, did not flaunt their feelings left and right, because it was absolutely not their style, but it was difficult to take a seat in the car without a quick kiss and wishing each other good luck. And we know how hungry reporter hyenas are.
"This is absurd"
The girl shook her head and threw the phone into the pillows. It was already late in the evening and the couple was getting ready for bed, as they had a long media day ahead of them tomorrow.
"I told you not to read this nonsense."
Max replied, emerging from the bathroom in shorts and drying his wet hair with a towel.
Y/N didn't answer. She kept her eyes glued to the sheets and felt her stomach begin to ache from nerves. Max knew perfectly well that the lack of an answer meant only one thing. The overthinking machine already started.
He put the towel aside and sat next to her on the bed, wrapping his arm around her and kissing her temple.
"Look at you, a fearless Dutchess worrying about some stupid texts. That's not in your style at all"
He spoke jokingly, trying to cheer her up a bit. However, she was really touched.
"It's just making me sick when someone is saying made up bullshit"
She replied bitterly, feeling tears forming under her eyelids. She could deny with her arms and legs that these were tears of anger, but in the reality she was simply hurted. And Max knew this perfectly well.
"You know very well that this bunch of idiots will write anything for views. At the end of the day, only you and I know the truth. It's just us, remember?"
He said calmly and stroked her shoulder. Y/N sniffed. Max was absolutely right. It's just them and that was all that mattered. Even though she received numerous criticisms in the media over the years, newspapers and Internet portals often trashed her, all this did not make any impression on her. Unfortunately, it was different in this case, because it was no longer just about her. It was about them, about her and Max.
She raised her head and met a pair of blue, gentle eyes. The ocean was calm, july was dominating the cloudless sky. She herself slowly began to feel calm, accepting that it was just meaningless nonsense.
"I love you, but you already know that, right?"
She asked, smiling slightly.
He nodded and returned her smile, kissing her forehead.
"The only thing that matters is that we have each other and we love each other. And as a certain genius said, fuck 'em all."
"Fuck 'em all"
The girl repeated and smiled wider, causing the last tears of sadness and anger to leave the corners of her eyes. Max wiped her cheeks and lifted her chin, kissing her.
Y/N kissed him back, touching his rough cheek. He easily pulled her onto his lap and she sat on his soft thighs, laughing quietly. She knew exactly where this was going.
"We have a lot of work tomorrow, Max."
"We will boycott media day tomorrow. 'Red Bull drivers protest against idiotic headlines' sounds better, doesn't it?" he asked, being so serious that the girl burst out laughing, "Or better yet, 'Red Bull shock!' Couple had sex until dawn to boycott the media', yes!"
"With the link 'see photos', definitely," she added, laughing.
Max took her face in his hands.
"I much prefer it when you smile, you know?"
Y/N nodded and leaned in, kissing him again. He wrapped his arms around her waist and she tangled her fingers in his still damp hair. Their kisses were slow and tender, filled to the brim with love. Years of arguments, making up and standing up for yourself only to argue and slam doors again led to a place where there was an incredible amount of love to give and receive from both sides.
Max slipped his hands under her shirt, squeezing lightly her soft flesh. The girl sighed quietly into his mouth and he smiled at her reaction. If he thought that after so many years, he would fall in love overnight with the girl he always had by his side, he would laugh at himself.
He took off her shirt, so there was no longer any blockage between their heated bodies. Skin pressed against skin, lips pressed against lips. These moments were incredibly soothing for both of them. One might think that after so much time spent together, both in good and bad relationships, one cannot count on any elation. What wrong thinking this is.
Max grunted softly as he grabbed and pressed her closer to him. His soft purr, which lightly touched the girl's ear, gave her goosebumps. He moved from his mouth to her neck, leaving wet, slightly pink traces on her skin. Y/N involuntarily closed her eyes, feeling both the softness of his lips and his rough, scratchy stubble.
"I love the way you smell"
He said quietly, almost in a whisper. She smiled to herself and gently grabbed his hair, tilting his head back, making him break away from her neck and they were able to look into each other's eyes again.
"I taste even better though"
She lunged seductively and crashed into his mouth again. Max easily grabbed her thighs and lifted her, throwing her onto the bed.
"You always have to do this, right?"
He asked, his breathing a little quicker. His aura instantly darkened, and his eyes seemed bottomless. Y/N frowned a bit, not knowing what he meant. But seeing him like this, she only wanted one thing. Him.
"You always have to throw something away, set me straight. Always."
She raised herself on her elbows, looking at him with a slight smile and thus posing a challenge to him.
"You could try to humble me"
As soon as she finished speaking, he pressed her body against the mattress and kissed her deeply. The girl wrapped her legs around his hips and wrapped her arms around his neck. She wanted to be closer, as close as possible.
Their kisses were still full of love, but now the tenderness gave way to passion. When Max moved to the girl's neck, she felt her lips burning and swollen. It didn't help when she bit down on them, feeling Max suck on her nipple. Blue eyes carefully followed the girl's rosy face, wanting to make sure she was giving her nothing more than pleasure.
When his teeth hit the soft skin, a long groan filled the bedroom. Max smiled, licking her breast while massaging the other one with his hand. He much preferred to hear her moans rather than Dutch insults. After a few moments, he moved lower again, kissing his way across her stomach. He tightened his large hands on her sides and buried his face in her stomach. She smiled at his gesture, running her fingers through his hair.
"You're soft, so soft. Fuck, so soft."
Max murmured, his face still pressed against her stomach. Y/N couldn't help but laugh quietly. This whole situation, the very fact that they were now apparently a couple, was unthinkable to her. And the fact that they were both adults and now they were acting like a couple of teenagers.
"Simply, simply lovely"
He shook his head and placed a few more kisses on her skin until he reached the waistband of her panties. He looked up at her face again, wanting to make sure she had her consent, but she, still smiling slightly, just nodded in answer.
Max undressed her completely in one move and spread her legs, hugging her thighs. As soon as his tongue passed over her clit, she closed her eyes and licked her lips. This wasn't the first time they had had sex, but Y/N had already become familiar with certain behaviors Max displayed in bed, and one of them was the desire to please his partner. Max loved to take, but God, he loved to give even more.
As his tongue moved over her clit in smooth, circular motions, his eyes studied her body carefully. Her hard, pink nipples, uneven moving chest, her dry, parted lips, rosy face, her tightly shut eyelids. Max smiled slightly, proud of himself of turning her into such mess. Y/N involuntarily opened her eyes and looked down her body, causing their eyes to meet.
"Do you like it, schat?"
He asked, pausing his movements. He blew lightly on her pink, swollen clit, making her shiver.
"Mhm, please -just, just don't stop"
"As you wish, love"
He replied, going back to work. Her hand involuntarily tightened on his hair and it didn't take much for her back to arch and an orgasm to fill her body. A loud, long moan broke the density that had reigned in the hotel bedroom. Her head felt heavy and dizzy, and it was hard for her to breathe. Max pulled himself up and kissed her, moistening her dry lips with her own juices, which made him all wet. Y/N smiled and hugged his neck, giving him wet, sloppy kisses. He was resting one hand next to her head, and with the other he was trying to free himself from his suddenly too tight and slightly soaked shorts. When he succeeded, he slowly inserted himself into her hot, tight and incredibly wet interior. She broke the kiss, parting her lips at the sudden sensation, digging her nails into his bare, muscular back.
"Fuck, Max, oh my god-"
"Yeah, i know baby" he muttered, stopping his movements "I'll be gentle, take your time"
Max kissed her, wanting to help her relax. She returned each of his kisses, which were now delicate and tender. Max was incredibly gentle and had countless layers of love inside him. His tender touch, sweet nothings whispered straight into the ear, the certainty that his partner is happy and feels incredible pleasure. Max seemed to her as an incredibly selfish asshole at times, but in this case it had absolutely no effect. The only thing he cared about at that moment was pleasing her and distracting her from negative thoughts. After some time, he began to move slowly inside her, feeling that she is not so tense anymore and soon any discomfort disappeared and was replaced by incredible pleasure. Y/N wrapped her legs around his hips and pulled him closer, kissing him deeply.
"I'm all yours now" she said, smiling slightly into his mouth.
"You are and always been mine"
He replied and kissed her back. His movements went from slow and calm to faster and more decisive, increasing in intensity with each passing minute. Single moans that had been thrown into the thick air filling the bedroom some time ago now cut through them like bullets. Max felt the sweat that had formed on his back sting the scratches left by the girl's nails. He sat back on his heels and wrapped his arms around her thighs, now fucking her to the point where they skin were clapping on each other. His fingers dug into the soft skin of her thighs, his still damp hair falling into his eyes. His lips were bitten and every now and then a low moan escaped his throat. His arm and abdominal muscles flexed and relaxed steadily, and numerous love marks adorned his fair skin.
"You look so good, and feel -fuck, feel so good, too"
Y/N moaned, clenching her hands on the sheets, feeling how he perfectly hit her inner, sensitive spot with each movement.
"And you are doing so good by taking me so well, baby"
The truth was that she was a total mess underneath him. She wasn't even fully aware of her words or of her actions, all of this was feeling so good, he was feeling so good.
It didn't take much for either of them to reach their orgasm, which came over them almost simultaneously. A moment later they were lying next to each other, Y/N resting her cheek on his chest and her hand lying limply on his stomach. He was hugging her, tracing lines on her arm.
"I hope you won't worry anymore about any stupid things said by other people"
Max said and kissed her temple. She smiled and raised her head, kissing him on the cheek.
"At the end of the day it's just us, right?"
#f1 imagines#f1#f1 one shot#formula 1#f1 oneshots#f1 imagine#max verstappen x reader#max verstappen#max verstappen smut#mv33#mv1
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Artists that inspire me!
I'm a huge fan of art and these are only skimming the top of the wonders of the artist community and those that inspire me.
@iliothermia a trans Jewish artist who creates undeniably trans and Jewish art!!! Hyde's linework and composition is masterful, and his attention to detail is immaculate. He has a shop where he sells beautiful high quality prints, stickers, pins, bookmarks, and a few other odds and ends! Oh, did I mention he draws everything with a MOUSE!
@eleheba another trans Jewish artist I adore. Skilled in black and white work and color. Composition is crazy. It's the kind of work I'd think to find in old medieval books. They're definitely a modern day master artist. They also have a shop!
@stayatsam this artist has inspired me endlessly and got me into portraiture. Another transgender W. Sammi creates beautiful portraits with a unique coloring style. Edgy, gothic, and beautiful.
@littlestpersimmon I'm struggling to find the words to describe how incredible this artist's work is. Dreamy, ethereal, romantic, and detailed. He create enchanting mlm pieces inspired by southeast Asian art and culture.
@godivaghoul an erotica artist who creates dashing gothic scenes. Beautiful women with spectacular line art...need I say more?
@wiltkingart dark and moody paintings with incredible use of color. A focus on trans mlm. Another artist that deeply inspires me.
@skulkingfoxes on instragram and Twitter (edit: and now tumblr!) Rowan has incredible lineart and character design. They have several comics as well as a shop! Their composition and use of black and white is skillful and immaculate. I wish I could steal their hands
@the-nothing-maker their art always wows me. They have amazing control over color and use colored pencils!!! Genuinely their work GLOWS I wish I could see them in person.
@bunabi another master of color and character design. All her art feels soft and dreamy. She also make brush packs!
@rennybu where do I start... Adrienne's art is colorful, soulful, and dreamy. And so so tender. Not to mention they're incredibly kind! Here's a commission I got from them...agh I'm tearing up
Unfortunately I've run out of image space. The list could go on until I've named every artist on the internet. I hope you give these wonderful people a follow!
And of course all my wonderful art friends but you can just check out my tag #friend art
#rennybu is not the only one here whos incredibly kind#working with them was just so much fun#rambles#are these artists potentially very popular and dont need me to recommend them? perhaps.
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Yandere! Shouta Aizawa NSFW Profile
Yandere! Shouta Aizawa x fem! reader
Tw: mentions of dub-con, masturbation, stalking, kidnapping, voyeurism, toys, clothed sex, hair-pulling, this one is actually kind of soft and feels less yandere-y to me so sorry that this one is a little less creepy than normal, Shouta is a pleaser and lives for your praise, he gets off with a blanket you gifted him, very mild somnophilia, fem reader, MDNI
I do not condone any of the actions described in this post - this is fiction and should be treated as such. If you or a loved one is in a similar situation to anything contained in this post or my blog in general, please seek help. You're in charge of your internet consumption; please make responsible choices. With that, enjoy!
WC: 12K
HABITS
In general, Shouta isn’t that perpetually horny. He’s a busy man with constant stress weighing on his shoulders; working as a pro while being a full-time teacher leaves him drained during the few times he gets to relax, and it’s a lot of work to get himself hard, to get off, and to clean up afterwards.
It’s just not worth it to him – especially because it’s a bit sad to be left with just his fist and some low-grade, unrealistic porn as a man in his thirties, isn’t it?
He doesn’t have a partner, and hasn’t had one for quite some time – there was a girl a decade or so ago, but she didn’t last long, and the sex was subpar at best. And so, Shouta finds himself neglecting any sort of sexual activity most nights that he’s off work, not bothering to get himself all worked up and fuck away some of that pent up stress.
Except, then you show up.
His feelings for you form, and although it takes a long time for them to solidify, it takes an even longer time for them to turn lewd, any sort of sexual thought involving you not really taking root into he’s much further into his obsession.
This is for a few reasons – firstly, he just doesn’t have that high of a libido, and while seeing you naked when he’s watching from outside your window certainly gets him hot and bothered, he isn’t constantly fantasizing about bending you over and fucking you until you’re screaming his name.
(Not never, just not constantly – and at inopportune moments, sometimes. Moments where he really should be focused on the mountains of paperwork on his desk, not focused on how the desk is the perfect height for you to be standing on your tiptoes, ass poised out and your chest pressed against the hard wooden lacquer, your soft skin glistening in the dim light and your pretty thighs twitching and quivering as his fingers press deeper and deeper and deeper -)
Secondly, Shouta’s already feeling such crippling guilt regarding his infatuation with you that adding on overt sexual fantasies for you would push him too far. He already hates that he thinks of you constantly, that he’s always idly worrying about your safety, wanting to know your location and who you’re with and what you’re doing.
He already dislikes that he can’t stop himself from swinging by your apartment at the end of his patrols, making sure that you’re in your bed asleep, safe and sound and looking so fucking pretty in the moonlight. He doesn’t like how wrapped around your finger you have him, so how could he justify wringing himself dry to you, depraved fantasies running through his mind as he imagines the way you’d cream on his fingers, how you’d clench down on him so, so tightly when he fucks you just right?
Shouta can’t – it would breach too many protocols of trust, the friendship formed between the two of you precarious enough as it is with Shouta’s obsessive, disturbing feelings. He doesn’t think of you sexually, banishing every thought from his mind the moment it appears.
Or, at least, that’s what he wishes could be true – unfortunately, his hormones get the better of him sometimes, leaving him rolling around in his bed, cock painfully hard and his mind insistently flashing images of you changing behind his eyelids.
He’s embarrassed, more than anything, that he doesn’t have enough self control to successfully halt any lewd thoughts of you – it’s pathetic, really, because is he so desperate to touch you that he literally can’t stop himself?
Is he really so painfully, pitifully aroused by you that just the mere idea of you licking your lips or smiling at him can get him breathing hard, thankful for the bagginess of his pants?
He hates that the answer is yes, that his body is really that pent up and eager to get you under him, naked and soft and pretty, all for him and only him. It’s demoralizing, but Shouta only has so much restraint – he tries to hold out for as long as he can, really. He swears.
It’s torture at first, popping melatonin and chugging Nyquil, hoping he’ll be able to pass out and sleep off the horniness, but it never quite works. Instead, his dreams are full of you – on your knees, sucking him off so well that your cheeks are literally hollowing, drool spilling down your chin, a string of saliva and precum connecting your puffy lips to his swollen tip when you pull off for air.
He’ll dream of you on your hands and knees, peeking back at him with glassy eyes and biting your lip, clearly embarrassed as you ask him to touch me, please Shouta, I need you…
He always wakes up with soiled sheets, his entire pelvis sticky with now cold cum, and it becomes very, very difficult to look you in the eye that day, only able to conjure up the image of you all tied up in his scarf, your breasts perfectly framed and your thighs spread, slick covering them as you whine his name, desperate for him.
And though he tries to stave off, not letting himself actively fantasize about you sexually while he’s conscious, a particularly rough day of teaching and patrol have him giving up, throwing caution to the wind as he decides that he needs this, that a release is the only way he’ll be able to stay sane.
In the past, the few times he’s masturbated he’s always just fucked his fist, not needing anything too fancy. But for you, something about that feels disrespectful – it’s stupid and he knows it, but the idea of just thrusting into his hand over and over until he eventually spills all over his knuckles seems tacky, low-class, almost offensive to your image, like he’s tarnishing you and the way he idolizes you.
So, he relies on the next best thing he can scrounge up – you’d given him a blanket a few months ago, a birthday present that he’d tried desperately to cover his blush at receiving.
(Hizashi had pitched in, helping you decide which color and texture, having an expert’s opinion so that it would be perfect for the dark-haired man – a level of detail and attention to his desires that still, to this day, makes his heart flutter to think about. You cared, wanting him to be happy, and just that thought leaves his chest swelling with pride, his palms getting a bit clammy and his cheeks feeling too hot.)
He’s kept the blanket on his bed, using it every single night for the limited sleep he manages to get, making sure the material is always, always touching his body. It’s the only way he really feels close to you – the blanket was for him, sure, but you’d touched it, picked it out, held it in your arms while Shouta was dumbly gaping at you and struggling to utter out a strained thank you.
(If he tries hard enough, he thinks he can even smell you on the fabric – it’s not as good as if you were actually here with him, laying in his arms, touching him, but if he strains enough and pretends hard enough, there’s the faintest whiff of you.)
He’s gulping, throwing his uniform off and leaving it crumped up in the corner, before gently, daintily grabbing the edges of the neatly folded blanket (a stark contrast to the harsh pulling and tugging at his costume he’d thrown off moments earlier) and laying it out on the bed.
He lets out a shaky breath, gulping, before tying his hair back into a messy, low ponytail, excitement flitting through him because he’s really about to do it. He’s really about to touch himself to the thought of you, allowing himself to fully indulge in the fantasy that is you, the fantasy that is imagining the way you’d feel against his body, your lips against his own, your hands in his hair and your thighs around his waist.
He’s moving slow as he settles onto his knees on the bed, staring down at the blanket with furrowed brows. This isn’t quite right – the image of you laying before him, body nude and your legs clenched together in anticipation feels very, very right, but there’s something missing.
A thumb comes down to idly rub at the blanket, tracing small circles against the material as he wracks his brain. What’s missing? How can he make this feel like you, like it’s your body he’s touching, like it’s your perfect little cunt he’s fucking?
He’s not sure, but suddenly it hits him – your body, just as he’d been dreaming about.
The blanket doesn’t look enough like you – it’s two dimensional, flat and having no surface area to grip onto, nothing for him to fondle and touch and squeeze.
It needs to have more of your shape – quickly, methodically, he’s reaching down, grabbing handfuls of the blanket and bunching it up, forming a shape that vaguely resembles your torso. He’s careful to get the exact shape of your waist and hips, making sure to leave mounds of crumpled blanket to represent your breasts, even creating a little space between your thighs that represents something soft, something warm and wet and tight – your precious little pussy, something Shouta would literally kill to feel.
He gulps as he looks down at his work, the atmosphere suddenly seeming much thicker, heavier, hotter, because now, the solid colored blanket seems like you, at least having your body shape and your vague proportions. Aizawa lets his hand run down what would be your side, pausing right over your pretend hip.
Fuck, he mutters under his breath, before shifting forward slightly, letting his weight rest on his knees and one hand as he carefully guides his cock to the space between your crafted thighs.
He’d been careful to leave a fold in the fabric, a pouch of sorts – a place for him to push into, slowly spreading the two layers, trying to mimic the way your pretty lips would part for him, your walls sucking him and clenching him nice and tight, wanting to keep him inside and never let him pull out.
Shouta curses as he rubs his tip against the fabric, noting with a small, far-away sense of disdain that there’s precum smearing all along the fabric, certainly leaving a stain that he’ll have to scrub out later. His thumb comes up to gently swipe along where he imagines your cheek to be, even feeling phantom sensations of warmth, of softness, just as you’d be.
He leans down slowly, throat bobbing, before letting his eyes flutter closed, his lips pressing against the blanket – right where he imagines your own to be. The kiss is soft, gentle, heartfelt, his tongue flicking out to lick against the blanket material, groaning and wishing it was your own tongue meeting his, your own spit coating his lips.
As he gets closer, body inching further down until his chest pressed up against what’s supposed to be your breasts, he shuffles his hips forward, pushing past the fabric fold and into you. He groans, pulling back from the kiss to rest his forehead against where he imagines yours to be, letting his eyes shut tight, nearly squeezing them closed as he slowly rocks his hips.
The friction of the blanket feels a bit strange, not how you’d feel, but it’s better than nothing – and it’s so, so very easy to imagine you instead; your warm, slick walls, the way you’d squeeze at him when he brushes up against your spot, the way your legs would wrap around his hips, hooking your ankles and pulling him in closer, begging him to go deeper. He sighs out, biting his lip and furrowing his brow, the pleasure slowly beginning to mount.
He imagines the way you’d moan his name – he bets you’d be airy, a soft sound that gets his hips stuttering ever so slightly because he knows the way his name would sound spilling from your lips would be heaven, the sultry Shouta upturned at the end as he fucks into you just the slightest bit faster.
His hips pick up their pace at the thought of you crying his name, back muscles flexing as he slowly gets faster and faster, the slow, sweet, intimate pace he’d set blown to dust in the wake of his thighs propelling him forward, hips flying and smacking into the blanket so quickly and harshly that the mattress is shaking, bedframe slightly pounding against the wall.
Shouta groans, low and deep, imagining the way you’d beg him to go faster Shouta please, please please please you feel s’good, wanna come for you! Memories of seeing you touch yourself flash behind his closed eyes, seeing the way your face screwed up in pleasure, how you gripped at your pillows and bucked your hips and trembled and arched your back and gasped and came –
Shouta’s chanting your name, his hips sinking into the fold of the blanket over and over, and quickly he’s bringing a thumb down to rub frantic, uneven circles where he imagines your clit to be, desperate to get you coming, wanting to time your orgasm with his.
Fuck, come for me baby, give it to me, god you’re s’damn tight fuuuck - !
His eyes fly open as spurts of warm, milky cum spray from his tip, getting all over the blanket and making his hips stutter and jerk, the sensation of coming in something leaving his arms feeling weak.
He’s panting, still saying your name under his breath, dark hair falling around his face as his thighs flex and clench, the last bits of cum dribbling from his tip and leaving him feeling spent. He can’t help but imagine the way you’d take him, if you’d thank him for giving him everything he has to offer, if you’d hold onto him until you both caught your breath, if your walls would still flutter and clench sporadically even after you’d come down from your high.
He closes his eyes again, heart practically in his throat as he leans down once more to kiss the blanket, tongue sneaking out and wet noises filling the room as spit and drool get slobbered all over the fabric.
He’s still out of breath, panting when he pulls back, but it’s not until he leans back onto his knees and takes a good look at the blanket that his high begins to fade, the reminder that you’re not really there making a sharp feeling dig into his gut.
He stares for a moment, before sighing, slowly pulling out of the blanket and grimacing when he feels cooling cum sliding across his cock, the white mess all over the material and smeared across his skin.
He brings a hand to his forehead, covering his eyes and sighing. What was he doing?
He’d just fucked a blanket – a gift, from you no less – while pretending it was you, his desperation to get you naked and in his grasp strong enough to make him lose him mind.
Pathetic, he was truly pathetic.
He’s ashamed as he throws the blanket into the laundry, hoping the cum stains will come out with all the bleach he’d thrown in alongside it, and as he chugs his coffee, deciding to get to school early and try to collect himself, Shouta can only sigh.
You make him such a fucking fool – a freak, perverted and creepy and gross, and as soon as he catches sight of you in the staff loungeroom, looking all pretty in your simple blouse and slacks, he knows he’s a lost cause, every bit of self-respect falling by the wayside.
Because as soon as he looks at you, all he can think of is how you’d look underneath him, stuffed full of his cum and a dazed, fucked-out expression scrawled across your face. All he can think of is how you’d be absolutely perfect to sink his cock into – and as he darts off to the nearest restroom, desperately trying to get rid of the insistent, raging erection in his pants, he can only sigh, letting his head hang.
He really is a fucking creep.
FAVORITE BODY PARTS
Your thighs
Shouta isn’t one to sexualize women’s bodies. He’s a man with urges, sure, but he’s never had trouble separating sexual attraction from respect for his female friends, even for strangers in the streets. A body is a body, and they aren’t made to be stared at and ogled.
Except where you’re concerned, of course, because while Shouta tries his hardest to not sexualize every thought of you, it’s difficult to hold himself back when he’s so utterly attracted to every single part of you.
It’s hard to not fixate and stare and want when he looks at you, and so while he gives a valiant effort to not obsess over your figure in a less than innocent way, eventually he can’t help himself.
And Shouta discovers that while he loves every inch of you, there’s something about your thighs that drive him absolutely fucking crazy.
Maybe it’s their shape – pretty expanses of your skin that look perfect to grope and squeeze, the soft curves making him salivate in a way that feels almost predatory.
Maybe it’s the way they feel – your skin is so soft, especially if he moves his hands further up, between them, nearing somewhere warm and wet and throbbing.
Maybe it’s the way they feel when they’re around his waist, caging him in and keeping him right where he wants to be, and when they’re around his head?
(Don’t mention the instances where he’s orgasmed just from simply eating you out – it’s embarrassing, and while he won’t deny it, he will change the conversation and pray you don’t see the soft, barely-there pink blooming on his cheeks.)
Maybe it’s even the way you respond when he touches them – how you jump a little bit, his calloused hands feeling a bit cold as they skim along the sides, thumbs pressing into your inner thighs, a comforting finger brushing along the juncture of your legs and pelvic bone.
He’s not entirely sure, but one thing he does know is that just seeing your bare thighs is enough to get him gulping, his dark gaze struggling to move away as he watches the area jiggle and flex while you walk, every step you take only making him want you more and more.
Even before he’s stolen you away, he’s fantasizing about your thighs – he’s bought more pairs of stockings and thigh-highs than he’d care to admit, keeping them neatly organized in a specific drawer in his closet, often fingering the material and biting his lip.
(The image of you wearing them makes him drool, the idea of the top hem squeezing your thigh and making a little bulge appear right above the socks getting his hand wandering down his torso, his fingers making quick word of his belt buckle because fuuuck, would you keep them on while he throws your legs over his shoulders and absolutely destroys you?)
He’s always taking extra time and care to properly worship them when he’s got his head between your legs, letting his lips and tongue trail all along the soft skin, leaving teasing bite marks and hickeys and feeling the way you tremble under his touch because he’s so close yet so far from where you need him.
He’s always got a hand on your thighs when he’s fucking you, his fingers clutching and digging into the skin while he shuts his eyes tight and wills himself to last longer, to prolong the moment, to give you more more more, just like you deserve.
He just really, really likes your thighs, so don’t be surprised when he’s got his hand casually placed on one when you’re watching a movie together, his gaze purposefully not looking at you because you can’t see how flustered he is from touching your clothed thigh in a non-sexual context.
You can’t.
His hands
In general, Shouta lives to please you in bed. He’s by no means submissive (though he could be persuaded if you really, really wanted to be in charge for a night), but he’s a caring partner in every possible sense of the word – sex is about you, and any pleasure he gets from it is just a fun bonus.
And because of this, he takes every opportunity to learn new ways to please you, trying everything from teasing your clit with the tip of his tongue, buying a collection of vibrators, even letting you grind against the expanse of his thigh.
But his favorite method by far is using his fingers on you. They’re thick, with scars and callouses dotting the rough skin, but they’re so gentle with you, always touching you like you’re something fragile and delicate and breakable. He's careful with you when he’s rubbing circles over your clit, the pressure consistent enough to feel good but not too hard, sometimes even teasing you. He’s gentle when he’s running his fingertips over your folds, occasionally dipping in just a hair to feel the warm wetness he wants so very badly to sink into.
(He often sucks in a short, nearly inaudible gasp when he does this, his Adam’s apple bobbing because god you’re wet, and he’ll pull back to lick off his fingers, letting his eyes flutter closed as he tastes you.)
He particularly enjoys fingering you – he’s dexterous, and he always goes slow and purposefully, learning quickly exactly where you like to be touched. He’ll angle the pads of his fingers against that spot inside of you that makes your toes curl, his lip caught between his teeth as he watches your face twist up, hearing your pretty sighs and moans, feeling the way you clench around him, your hips twitching a bit as if to get him deeper, to get more of him. He keeps his pace sensual, the come-hither motion slow and controlled, all the while keeping his thumb pressed firmly against your clit, drawing shapes that stay just consistent enough to get you closer and closer.
All the while, the other hand is gently working at your clit, his fingers expertly getting the exact pressure and pattern you like, making your thighs twitch and your little gasps and mewls louder and more insistent.
And when he’s not actively working between your legs, Shouta’s always got his fingers pleasuring you in other ways – gently kneading at your breasts, pinching and rolling your nipples between a thumb and index finger, groping and squeezing at you like a man starved as his tongue flicks and sucks at your clit.
They’re grasping a handful of your thigh and squeezing reassuringly as he’s fucking you, his pace slow and deep, making sure you feel every possible inch of him as he folds you in half.
He’s even slipping a thumb against your tongue when you take a break to breath, your chest heaving and your fingers wrapped around his girth, a groan slipping from his lips because god, the sight of his precum dribbling down your chin is enough to get his cock twitching on its own. He’ll press down on your tongue, his lip caught between his teeth as you stare up at him, the sight indescribably erotic, a few praises falling from his mouth about how good you look, how pretty you are, how well you take care of him.
(All the while, he’s feeling you suck on his thumb, eagerly running your tongue along the skin and even swallowing around it to give the extra suction. Shouta curses under his breath, and suddenly stands, grabbing you by the hips and forcing you to bend over the chair he’d previously been sitting on, roughly spreading your legs and immediately diving in to lick and suck against your clit, a finger slipping inside of you because he just can’t not touch you after watching you drool all over him.)
He just likes to make you feel good, and while he enjoys pleasuring you with his mouth, nothing can beat the way you moan and shake when he’s working his fingers on you, pulling orgasm after orgasm out of you until you’re incoherent, your poor body trembling, the only thing you can think of him him him.
DRIVE
Though you inspire more sexual desire and drive within him than he’s experienced for the last twenty years, Shouta is still not absolutely desperate to fuck you at all times.
Sure, the idea is nice – being intimate with you is something he craves, but nine times out of ten this intimacy takes the form of simply holding you. Sitting beside you with your head resting on his shoulder, a blanket covering the both of your bodies as you snore softly and cling to him in your sleep, showing that you feel safe with him, that you trust him to protect you.
(Shouta is normally able to keep his staring in check and not be too terribly overt with it, but in times like these he allows himself to openly gape at you, those dark eyes of his examining every detail of your face. Every small wrinkle, every hair and mole, even every lash and baby hair that frames your cheeks. You’re just too damn pretty, and like this he can commit every last detail to memory – as if he hadn’t already, as if he doesn’t sleep at night with your face dancing through his dreams, as if he sees flashes of you in everything he does. As if he isn’t thinking of you as unconsciously as he breaths.)
He generally imagines sleeping with you (and genuinely just sleeping – curling up with you in his arms and his face buried next to your neck, the scent of your body and shampoo filling his senses and making him breathe out something that walks the fine line between a sigh and a moan), the peacefulness and tranquility of just having you close to him in the safety of his protection and home.
It’s a type of intimacy that gets Shouta red in the face, the idea so domestic and taboo and foreign that he comes to crave this on a near constant basis, serving as motivation and a way to calm himself when his students are out of control or a villain is being particularly difficult.
But of course, Shouta is only a man, and men have needs – no matter how he tries to keep his obsession with you as innocent as it possibly can be, sexual thoughts trickle in through the cracks of his mental fortitude and leave him with a phantom wonder of how you’d taste – would you be sweet, like the jellies Hizashi had gotten him? Would you be rich and savory? He hopes you’d have a strong musk to you, a smell that he can breathe in and think of you, something that gets his salivating and his body growing hot and his fingers restless and his breath heavy and labored and god –
He’s hard before he knows it, immediately covering his face with his hands because it’s equal parts embarrassing and terrifying how easily you manage to affect him, just the simple thought of you getting his entire body on edge.
And so he eventually takes up masturbation with you in mind, feeling dirty and disgusting each time he recovers from his orgasmic high, making it more and more difficult to look you in the eye without thinking of all the depraved things he’d imagined doing with you mere hours before.
But Shouta thinks he can survive – sure, he wants to fuck you, needs to kiss you, has to see the face you make when you’re coming, but he can control himself. He won’t succumb to the urge to break into your (frustratingly poorly protected) apartment to run his fingers along your pretty skin and fuck his fist mere inches from your face, no matter how badly his body yells and begs him to. He won’t cross this boundary – it’s hypocritical to think of himself not as a pervert at this point, but it’s the only way he confidently resists you.
Except, then you go and force him into kidnapping you – and now you’re with him nearly all moments of the day, your scent in his bedroom (though he knows you never willingly enter there, and he doesn’t force you to), your body always just a heartbeat away, the idea of holding you and kissing much, much closer now.
And even with the constant temptation, Shouta manages to hold out – it’s torture, really, forcing himself to be a good man and giving you privacy, to not touch you, to not press himself against you and feel the contours of your body against his own, but it’s worth it to him. He can’t force anything – he doesn’t want to scare you, and he has this horrible, sneaking suspicion that if he propositioned you, you’d feel too afraid to say no.
And just the thought is enough motivation to keep him from touching you, to keep him celibate from you purely by his choice – even if it starts affecting him physically.
(He’d never, ever admit it to you, but his lust for you becomes so extreme that if he’s gone more than a week or so without having touched himself to the thought of you while you’re under his care, his cock starts physically hurting when he sees you, his hips involuntarily twitching when he hears your voice, his throat feeling dry and his cheeks blooming bright red because god, he’s never wanted to fuck something so bad.)
And so, Shouta forces himself to be an outstanding man – but no one can be alert every moment of every day, and it’s only a matter of time before you catch him in a moment of weakness. Because really, while Shouta was suffering, you were certainly undergoing a struggle of your own – you’ve been stuck with him for a few months at this point, trapped in his modest apartment with everything you could ever need with one glaring, important exception: human touch.
You don’t necessarily want to be physical with your kidnapper, but as the days pass and you slowly come to accept the fact that you won’t be escaping Eraserhead, things start changing. You’re still understandably frightened of him, worried that although he’s not harmed you in any way and hasn’t forced you into much aside from your captivity, he’ll show his true colors and make your life even more of a living hell.
But that doesn’t happen, Shouta staying that familiar presence you’ve become accustomed to; steady, quiet, consistent. Except the more days that pass, the more you start noticing other things about him – he’s strong, isn’t he? You see it when he walks from the bathroom to his bedroom with the towel tightly fastened at his waist, showing off the lean muscle of his arms and torso.
(He can feel your eyes sometimes, but tries not to dwell on what your staring at his naked chest could mean because getting his hopes up means getting them inevitably crushed.)
He’s awfully attentive, isn’t he? He listens when you speak, those dark eyes boring into you and your every wish – aside from escape – granted without so much as a complaint.
And sometimes, he’s a little attractive, isn’t he? In a rugged, man-ish way – a way that makes you gulp and press your thighs together a bit, because something about the stubble that coats his chin and the veins that litter his hands and forearms makes it difficult to breath correctly.
And then the daydreams start – little thoughts about how it would feel for those hands to touch you, for those lips to brush against your own, for his hair to tickle your neck as he hovers over you, his hips moving slowly and rhythmically against you, gruff grunts of your name filling the air between you.
They scare you at first, really, but soon you can’t stop yourself – you know it’s the lack of human contact that’s influencing you, but as time passes and you grow more desperate to know if he’s as attentive in bed as he is everywhere else, you’ll stop caring.
And Shouta can sense that something’s changing – he feels you watching him, notices the way your eyes follow him through a room, how you suck in the sharpest, smallest breath when he nears you, how you grow stiff when he has to flex a muscle in front of you to lift something heavy. Shouta knows that something is different – but it’s not until you grow brave one day that everything is confirmed.
It’d been a long, tiresome day for Shouta – his class had been especially rowdy today, with a simulation villain attack that the teachers participated in, and of course he’d ended up assigned to spar with Todoroki – meaning he’d been moving about, his muscles tired and sore from multiple hours of repetitive fighting. Then he’d had an extra patrol directly after, the villains particularly restless and causing more trouble than normal. Coupled with a nasty rainstorm that had him half freezing to death, Shouta wanted nothing more than to melt into bed, ideally with you beside him but knowing better than to wish for foolish things.
And when he’d stepped in the front door, you’d been waiting for him, sitting nervously on the couch. You’d stood up, but Shouta – despite feeling slightly more awake and alive at the sight of you, like normal – was still exhausted, already on the brink of unconsciousness as he gruffly greeted you. You looked nervous, twiddling your thumbs and biting your lip, but Shouta was too tired to properly ask about it, only mentally noting to check on you tomorrow.
Slumping towards his bedroom, he was abruptly stopped with you grabbed his hand, his entire body going rigid. Your voice was quiet when you asked him why he always seems to avoid touching you, asking if he didn’t want to, if he was repulsed by the idea of touching, if he was repulsed by you.
And Shouta, still half delirious with exhaustion, let the truth slip from his lips before he could help himself – explaining just how badly he craves to feel you, imagining you in every lewd position he can think of, noticing the way your pajama shirts sometimes grow tight when you sleep and roll over, exposing the outline of your breast and nipple and making him physically stop in his tracks and nearly drool like some horny teenager.
Every secret was spilling out of him, his voice still tired and coarse but making your jaw drop, the admission that he’s been fantasizing about making you a mess on his fingers and tongue and cock stunning you. You’d known Shouta harbored some sort of feelings for you, but this?
When he finishes detailing the fact that he regularly fucks his fist to the thought of you at least twice a week after you’ve fallen asleep, you release his hand, immediately missing the warmth of his skin.
Shouta rubs at his eyes, still not facing you, but muttering a small goodnight and retreating to his room, only realizing what’s happened the next morning. His hands shake and he bolts from his bed, his eyes wide and his heart racing, something horrible and feeling like shame and dread sitting in his chest because why the fuck had he told you that?
Facing you the next day has anxiety sitting in his every nerve, his actions jerky and on-edge, an he’d nearly bolted back to the safety of his room when he sawy you sitting at the kitchen table, but then you’d done something unexpected – you’d walked up to him, stood in silence for a moment, then grabbed his hand. Shouta had been confused, unable to ignore the way your hand fit into his own and the softness of your skin against his, but you’d not given him a chance to even ask questions – soon your lips were on his, and your hand had placed his on something warm and soft and squishy –
Shouta gasped against your lips, the feeling of your breast in his hand and your tongue swiping at his lips nearly making his knees buckle. He didn’t respond to your kiss for a few moments, forcing you to pull back and stare at him, something like worry and rejection reflected in your eyes, but it’s not until you whisper in a very small voice that he snaps out of his stupor.
I want you Shouta, and I know you want me.
You were in his bed moments later, his hands frantic and eager and shaking as he practically ripped off your borrowed pajamas, fingers moving fast and settling over every part of your body, seemingly unable to decide on where to stay.
It was rushed, desperation clouding both of your senses, but as Shouta threw your leg over his shoulder and pressed wet kisses against the juncture of your shoulder and neck, his whispered affirmations of his love for you only had you pulling him closer, adoration and shock and something so happy it nearly hurt filling his chest.
Perhaps, just perhaps, something in you loved him as he loved you.
MAIN THREE KINKS
Clothed Sex
It’s about convenience for Shouta – he’s not lazy in the bedroom, but although he finds you irresistible and is normally willing to expend what very little energy he has on sex with you, he’s willing to take any shortcut he can.
Of course, sex with you in an ideal world sees the both of you completely nude, your bodies pressed as close together as physically possible so that not a breath of space lays between them. He likes being close to you, feeling every inch of you, the intimacy of it unmatched and making Shouta revel in the fact that you’re really there with him, that he’s really getting to touch you, that he’s really getting to kiss you and touch you and fuck you, just as he’s been fantasizing of for months.
But that said, there’s a strange allure to clothed sex – it’s taboo and a little dirty, something that makes him feel a little warm, his palms growing a bit sweaty because it could happen at any time. Whenever the mood strikes him or strikes you, he could simply unzip his pants, shuffle them down a bit and fish out his cock, and he'd be ready to go – already half-hard, the eager anticipation of your touch exciting him from nearly the moment you entered the room.
And it’s easy access to you, too – not that he’d ever take advantage of that fact, your consent still something he asks for every time he touches you. It’s easy to slip your panties to the side, sinking you down onto his lap as he groans and his head lolls back, the feeling of your warmth making his toes curl. He just likes how easy it all is – no time is wasted with struggling to get off your shirt or his pants, and the desperation to be inside you that always seems to overwhelm him at the most inconvenient of times can be attended to that much faster.
He just thinks there’s something so hot about it – he’ll specifically stock you with clothing to wear that makes this easy – flouncy skirts and shorts that make shoving everything to the side and bunching his fist into the cloth to get better leverage while he pounds into you.
He’ll get you tank tops and things that make fishing your breasts out of your top easy, so that they can freely hang and jiggle as he bounces you up and down on his lap, your nipples hardening and shivers racing down your spine as he flicks his tongue at one.
He’ll buy underwear that doesn’t chafe when he shoves it to the side, the pretty sight of lace against your skin making him feral, making him fuck into you harder and more frantically because you almost look like some sort of lewd present when you’re wearing that lingerie – like his very own present, the one thing in the world he wants more than anything else.
And he’ll wear clothing that makes this easy, too – pants that can be unzipped and boxers he can tuck underneath his balls, making sure that nothing gets in the way. And although having sex without clothes is much more common than with clothes, Shouta will surprise you and suddenly press up behind you in the kitchen, telling you that you look too good, that he can’t help himself, that he needs you, and has to fuck you right here, right now, I can’t wait.
And so when you nod, he’ll flip up that skirt of yours – the main culprit for the throbbing between his legs, of course, because the clear view of your legs and thighs makes his mouth water – and slip aside those panties, his cock already out and hard and dripping for you.
It’s spontaneous, more than anything, and it’s one of the only ways in which Shouta is a little carefree with sex – one of the only times that he isn’t serious, or at least as serious.
The main way Shouta likes to engage in clothed sex, though, is through cockwarming. He just likes being close to you – he’s touch-starved, and although he doesn’t have the energy to actually fuck you, he still wants to be inside you, to have your body against his, to have you near and be smelling your scent and hearing your voice.
And so, it’s not a rare occurrence to have him pull you into his arms on his modest leather couch, your frumpy sweatpants and t-shirt (both his, of course, a fact that isn’t lost on him – he will not be washing either of those items when they eventually are off your body) covering your form and his own loungewear covering his.
He’ll shuffle up behind you, pulling you against him so that he’s spooning you, and before long you’ll feel something poking at your ass – something hard and insistent, something that seems to be bobbing and moving every few moments.
Truthfully, Shouta couldn’t say what got him hard – perhaps it was just being with you, or maybe smelling you, or the sight of you in his clothes. It could be any number of things – but his breath hitches as you swallow and carefully tug down the hem of your sweatpants, pressing your exposed ass back against him.
He makes a sound like a low whistle, and then he’s fishing his cock out of his own pants, the tip already wet with precum as he shifts his hips to slip between your legs, propping your leg up over his so that he can push inside. He does so with a small groan, resting his forehead against your back, and he feels you clench down on him.
He’s content to lay there – the warmth of his clothing and from you almost too much, but seeing the way you snuggle deeper into the shirt sending something warm and hot and possessive through his chest. He’ll just pull you against him tighter, the slight shift making the both of you hiss at the small burst of pleasure. He’s content to fall asleep that way – relaxed, his cock still nestled inside of you and hard as a rock, the feeling of your cunt lulling him into dreams filled with you naked and moaning his name, all bouncing breasts and desperate hands and begs for more.
(Don’t be surprised, when this happens, to wake up feeling something dripping out of you – yes, it’s cum and yes, that wet dream was enough to get him there. Don’t mention it, either, because Shouta’s always disappointed that he wasn’t awake for it - after all, call him old-fashioned but finishing inside of you is arguably his favorite selfish part of sex.)
Overstimulation
Shouta is not a stingy lover. In the bedroom, he lives to see you enjoying yourself – it soothes this primal, horrible ache in his chest that yearns or your approval and happiness. A lot of his obsession is born out of a desire to please you and keep you happy and safe, and this translates into making absolutely sure you’re satisfied in every possible way between the sheets.
Sex isn’t really sex until you’ve had at least two orgasms, whether that be because of his fingers or tongue, and only then will he throw your pretty legs up over his shoulders, sinking into you with a sharp exhale and letting his face rest against your sternum as he wills himself to not get too excited, to keep his cool and not rut into you like wild animal. He wants you to enjoy sex with him – he craves intimacy with you and he needs you to crave it too, and he’s hopeful that by giving you the best attention and care in bed, you’ll be more inclined to kiss and hold him, to touch him and whisper those three little words in his ear.
(The three little words that make him gasp and shudder, cum immediately spurting out of his red, swollen tip, his knuckles turning white as he grips onto your thigh and the bedsheets tightly enough to keep himself grounded through the pleasure.)
And so, Shouta finds that there’s something darkly pleasing about being the one to get you orgasming, being the source of your pleasure – seeing your face twist up, your mouth forming that pretty ‘o’ and your eyes rolling to the back of your head.
Shouta develops a bit of a sick fascination with seeing just how often he can make you come for him, and from what. It stems from a good place; a genuine desire to make you happy and get you shaking with pleasure and incoherent enough that all you can say is his name.
He likes to choose how you come – will it be his fingers? Will he draw pretty circles on the inside of your thighs, teasing you and feeling the way your breathing picks up a bit, a whine of his name telling him that you’re growing impatient, that you need more, that you need him?
He’ll get closer and closer to your folds, pressing a thumb against them and dipping in ever so slightly, the dull pleasure making you bite your lip, embarrassment eating you alive because it feels so dirty to be teased like this, to keep your legs so wide open for him, to feel the way his eyes are staring at you so fully and intensely, the adoration and lust swimming in those dark depths nearly too much for you handle.
He’ll press two fingers against your clit and get to work, rubbing with light pressure and slowly increasing it, feeling the way the nub gets harder and more swollen, fingers swiping down to collect a bit of your slick to make things easier, the pads of his fingers gliding along your sensitive skin and making your hips jump and twist.
He’ll use his other hand to finger you, rough calloused skin dragging against your walls and pressing right into the spot he knows you love – the one that makes your back arch up, your head pushing back against the pillow, your nails digging into the bedsheets and tangling through his hair. Working you through an orgasm with his fingers is his favorite and what you’ll most likely get – he gets a front row seat, watching with rapt attention as you fall apart for him, feeling the way your thighs tremble and close in around him when you’re right on the edge.
There’s this feeling of power, pride and desire making him light headed and only work harder at his ministrations, ignoring your yelps and gasps of overstimulation because he needs to see that again, to feel the way you clench down onto his fingers so tightly that he has to work to pull them out to thrust back in. You’re just so damn sexy, the sight of you laying before him with your pretty legs spread wide open making him swallow so hard you can hear it.
But of course, Shouta also loves using his mouth to get you off – pink lips attaching to your nipple, sucking and running his tongue over your areola to make you squirm, your little keens making his cock twitch against your thigh.
He’ll kiss at your hips, making a trail down to your clit, giving you little kitten licks while his eyes flick up to look at you, seeing the way you sigh and bite your lip, the rising and falling of your chest making him near feral.
He wants to see you moan and writhe, to feel you grasping at him and needing him, and so his patience wears out and he dives between your legs, slick coating his nose and chin as he licks and sucks and thrusts his tongue against you, eyes closed in concentration and hair getting in his face but he doesn’t care – how can he, when you sound so pretty moaning his name like that?
How can he, when your thighs are clenching around his head and you’re just so fucking wet for him, showing him exactly how much he’s affecting you?
It's euphoric, and soon you’ll be crying out his name and creaming all over his lips, shaking in his grasp so hard that he has to hold you down by the hips to help you ride out the pleasure, the taste of you making him so hard that it hurts.
And god, there’s something about the way you respond to voice and his commands in bed that makes Shouta curse under his breath. You look up at him all wide-eyed, pleasure written across your face as you look to him for guidance, his voice gruff and thick with lust as he tells you to let go, come for me, want to see you come for me.
You immediately furrow your brows and bite your lip, grinding yourself harder against his fingers, feeling the pads of them brush against the spot that has you seeing stars, his name a prayer as you chant it over and over, only stopping to moan or gasp.
The sight is intoxicating, leaving Shouta gaping like a fish with parted lips and heavy breaths, staring at you like you’re something heavenly, divine, unable to tear his gaze away because he still can’t quite believe this is happening, that you’re moaning his name, that you’re letting him touch you and oh, he knows what that change in your facial expression means, how you’re blinding grasping at him, how you’re stuttering out a rushed ‘m coming, Shouta ‘m coming fuck-!
Watching you come undone right before his eyes has Shouta’s cock throbbing, his hips subtly moving against your thigh because he needs friction, the sight of you and the knowledge that he made you this way nearly too much for him to bear.
And when you finally calm down, your breathing wild and your eyes a little glazed over, he’ll just swallow and quickly situate him hips between your legs, gripping himself at the base and impatiently prodding at your entrance, his words dark as he tells you that you’ve got another one in you, give it to me.
When he pushes in – slowly, so as not to hurt you – he lets out a groan, only muffled by the way he leans down to kiss you, feeling the way you tense up and eagerly return the gesture, wrapping your ankles around his waist and pulling him deeper, showing him that you need more more more if you’re going to finish like he wants you to.
And Shouta’s happy to oblige – snapping his hips into you until his muscles are sore and screaming, a thumb relentlessly toying with your clit, his lips against your neck and whispering praise tainted with curses.
He’s encouraging you to feel good, telling you to tell me how it – fuck, how it feels, you’re so goddamn tight, tell me how to fuck you – o-oh…
Because really, while he loves to get you coming and falling apart on his terms, Shouta’s pride flies out the window where you’re concerned – he’d do anything to get you clenching down on him and begging him to finish inside you.
Anything.
Voyeurism
Honestly, it’s a byproduct of having stalked you for such an extended period of time. Watching you was the only way to feel close to you – he wasn’t able to hold you and kiss you, to feel you and lay with you and make you whine his name, and becoming your shadow was the only possible substitution.
And even then, it wasn’t enough – all the guilt he harbors from watching you in your more intimate moments never fades, not even after years of having stolen you away, your pretty body and mind fully his to do as he pleases. He’s still ashamed, but some things he just simply can’t unlearn – and so, even once your sexual relationship begins, Shouta finds himself still utterly excited by the prospect of watching you pleasure yourself.
It’s dirty, horrible, something that makes him feel so guilty he can hardly stand it, but he can’t not stop and watch through the crack in your door when he hears what sounds suspiciously close to muffled whimpers.
He can’t not press his ear against the wooden door, closing his eyes and imagining what you’re doing to yourself – maybe you’re playing with that cute little clit, rubbing it in circles and biting your lip because it just feels so damn good, mimicking the way that Shouta works you up slowly and steadily, getting you so sensitive that your hips jump and twitch at just the slightest bit of pressure against your sensitive nerves.
(He’s had dreams about the way you taste – he thinks you’d be musky, something natural and strong and savory, a taste he wants in his mouth at all hours of the day. And the way you’d tremble and gush for him if it was his fingers and mouth toying with the nub, how you’d tangle your fingers in his hair and pull him closer and closer to you, needing as much of him as possible, needing him him him…)
Maybe you’re sinking your fingers inside of you, working up from one to three, stretching yourself out and imagining it’s him instead, that he’s the one filling you up and making your toes curl, that he’s the one causing all those pretty noises to fall from your lips.
(He knows just how much bigger his own fingers are – he’ll imagine the size difference, his eyes shutting tight when he thinks of how much more he can stretch you out, how much better he can make you feel, how the texture of his fingers must send pleasure up your spine in a way that your soft, comparatively dainty fingers can’t.)
Maybe you’re perched up on a pillow, straddling it with your cunt pressed snugly against the fabric, slick smearing across the cotton as you grind your hips back and forth, hunched over so that the angle is just right, imagining it’s him underneath you and it’s his thigh or cock you’re rubbing against.
(He’s had wet dreams about this sight, always hoping and fantasizing that you’re just so desperate for him that you’re imagining it’s his face you’re riding, his mind conjuring up the sound of your voice moaning out his name and telling him yes yes o-oh fuck yes, Shouta ‘s so good, you feel so good! He’d never seen you riding a pillow during all those months of stalking, but the idea’s just too graphic and wanton and lewd for him to not fantasize about, the idea satisfying the part of him that’s embarrassed and ashamed of just how badly he craves you – because surely if you’re humping some piece of cotton and pretending it’s him, then what does he have to be embarrassed about? Lots, really, but it makes him feel slightly better.)
Or maybe you’ve decided that you want something a little more physical, something to really mimic him – he’d seen you using your vibrator many, many times before he stole you away. His face always turned pink at the sight, his throat going dry and his grip on his capture weapon a little loose as he simply stared, the sight of your pretty body contorting and the plastic held against the crest of your pelvic bone making everything else fade away.
You’re so damn pretty – the way you moan and sigh, how your legs twitch, how your breasts sway and jiggle with every motion, making his fingers ache to reach out and squeeze, to knead and touch and grope, like some sort of pervert.
And this fantasy and mental image has stayed with him long after kidnapping you – once your physical relationship begins and Shouta no longer feels it would make you even more uncomfortable and scared of him, he’s buying you a replacement for that trusty vibrator you used to use to death. He’d left it on your nightstand one morning with a hasty note simply saying I’m gone a lot, I don’t want you to get lonely.
Of course, this is only half the truth – he does want you to be happy, and he doesn’t want you to grow resentful of the times when he’s too exhausted to give you proper sex. But of course, the unspoken portion of this gift is that he wants to watch you use said vibrator – and badly.
He wants to sit in a chair at the side of the bed, legs spread wide as he grips the base of his cock, absentmindedly squeezing at his balls while his dark eyes stay trained on your figure. He wants you to be spread out for him, perhaps a skimpy set of lingerie covering your pretty body (or perhaps none at all, if you’re comfortable with it) with your legs spread wide, the vibrator in your hand hovering against your clit. He wants to hear the steady, dull buzzing sound mixing with your whimpers, to see the way your body tenses up and you whine, feet flexing and shaky breaths slipping past your lips as you slowly work towards your high.
He wants to see the way you eventually grow impatient, changing the vibrator’s setting and immediately crying out, the feeling much more intense and making your orgasm hurtle towards you, getting slick all over the bedspread as you cry out his name and writhe.
And Shouta doesn’t want you to look at him – he doesn’t want you to acknowledge that he’s there. Ignore him, just as you would have back when he was simply watching from outside your window – he wants to watch you, not have a show be put on for him.
You’re just too pretty, and there’s something about watching you that gets him hard as rock, his fist twisting and flicking so quickly it’s nearly a blur as he watches you transition to fucking yourself with the toy, your cries loud and wanton as Shouta grunts and curses under his breath. He wants to finish with you this time, his hips thrusting against his hand in an effort to match the pace you’ve set for yourself. It’s a dirty secret of his, and while Shouta won’t force you into it, just know that he would love to catch you masturbating – just the sight of you pleasuring yourself is enough to get him hot under the collar immediately, hand rushing into his trousers to cup himself because god.
He just likes to watch you, and even during regular sex when he’s folded you in half, those eyes are alternating between watching your face, your bouncing breasts, and your cunt swallowing his cock again and again and again, his cheeks a rosy pink and a bead of sweat dripping from his brow.
You’re just too pretty, he can’t take it – how can he not immediately want to get something of his on you, staining your lovely skin and gorgeous face with his cum?
OTHER NOTABLE KINKS INCLUDE
Hair Pulling
But not on you – unless you like it, in which case he might consider but will only ever do it lightly. He doesn’t like causing pain in general, and would only be willing to do it in very specific scenarios – and even then, it will be as gently as he possibly can.
Rather, Shouta likes when you pull his hair – he doesn’t let most people touch it, and it’s a rare day that he actually runs a comb through it, so as a result his scalp is extremely sensitive. And so, when you tunnel your fingers through his dark locks and pull, Shouta audibly groans, the tingling pain sending pleasure racing down his spine.
There’s just something naughty about it – only you get to touch him like this, so only you get to run your fingers through his hair and tug at it.
He particularly likes when you pull it while he’s got his face between your legs. He likes how your fingers tunnel through it and scrape against his scalp, and he’ll often use it as an indicator of whether he’s doing a good job or not. If you pull often and hard, he knows he’s doing what he needs to do – he’ll keep the pace up and stay in that same spot, doing everything and anything in his power to keep you pulling at it, working through any pain in his jaw or tongue because he needs to make sure you’re feeling good even at his own expense.
When he’s got you perched on his face, your pretty thighs framing his head so that all he can smell and taste and feel is you, he likes to have you reach down and still pull lightly at the roots, your breasts squished together and nipples taut, the visual alongside your taste and the slight pain from his scalp making his eyes roll to the back of his head and precum dribble down his length.
When he’s hovering over you and thrusting into you, balls clapping against your ass and your legs wrapped around his waist, he likes to have you tug at his hair, moaning out and crying his name with each tug and letting his ego swell, each burst of light pain making his hips go harder, faster, deeper, anything to get you louder and clenching around him tighter.
Even when you’re just kissing – simple, innocent kisses full of smiles and his hands gripping you just ever so slightly, Shouta likes to have you running your hands through his hair and tugging lightly, keeping him on his toes and forcing his cock to life.
He just really, really likes to have you touch his hair – it’s something intimate and something he’ll only ever let you do, so really, you should count yourself lucky. Shouta sure does when he’s buried deep inside you, watching your face and feeling your hands in his hair as he gives you every last drop he has to offer.
Mirror Sex
In general, Shouta absolutely loves watching you in bed. He thinks you’re genuinely the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen, and when you’re gasping on his cock and moaning his name, you’re even prettier, even more breathtaking and lovely and perfect.
And while he prefers positions where he can see your face, he wants to be able to see your expressions always, even if he’s got you bent over while he presses his back to your chest and mounts you like some sort of wild animal.
And so, to solve this problem, Shouta invests in a modest, simple mirror that he keeps facing the end of your ‘shared’ bed – it’s roughly four feet tall and two feet wide, the perfect size so that when he’s got you on your hands and knees for him, your back arching and your arms threatening to give out, he can watch your eyes roll to the back of your head.
He’ll experiment with the pacing of his thrusts, going deeper and harder to see the way your brows scrunch up, how your jaw drops and the most depraved whine slips out of you, pride and arousal swelling in his chest because he made you make that noise.
He’ll go slower and keep his thrusts brushing against the spots that make you gasp just so that he can see the way your lips twitch.
He’ll speed up, fucking into you so fast that his balls slap lewdly against your ass, the noise filling the room alongside your pants and his groans, watching all the while how your eyes flutter and your back arches. He’ll sit you in his lap facing the mirror, spreading your legs and getting to work with his fingers curling and rubbing inside of you, a thumb circling your clit and his lips at your ear as he tells you to watch, pretty, see how good you look?
He’ll kiss a line from behind your ear, down your neck and over your shoulder, occasionally glancing up to the mirror to make sure you’re actively looking, whispering praises against your skin each time.
And he’ll bring you close to the mirror, too – sitting you only a foot away from the reflective surface, letting you get a nice view of Shouta’s favorite sight – your cunt, all spread out and wet, practically begging for something big, heavy, and throbbing to fill it, to stretch it out and make you see stars.
He’ll spread your lips, exposing your clenching hole, smiling at your reflection and making you tell him that you’re pretty, forcing you to grow comfortable with your body because he knows that it makes you insecure to see so much of yourself, and it drives him crazy.
He’ll even fuck you against the mirror – forcing you to watch your face from mere inches away, your hot breaths fogging up the glass, and he’ll make you come like that – holding your chin straight ahead and telling you to watch, sh-shit, watch, don’t take those fucking eyes off your face in a strained voice.
He just likes getting a good view of you during sex – you’re too pretty not to be seen, after all.
BIGGEST FANTASY
In general, Shouta absolutely loves being intimate with you. While he’s no virgin, he doesn’t have an extensive amount of experience, and frankly he’s never been the biggest fan of sex – it’s too messy, too energy draining, and just a massive hassle.
However, when it’s with you, and when you moan his name just right and leave your nail marks down his back, Shouta will gladly strip his clothing at your beck and call, his lips already on yours before you can even finish your sentence.
And while he loves good, rough, passionate sex that’s full of smacking hips, gasps, moans and growls, there’s something to be said for slower, gentler sex, the kind that’s full of airy breaths and slow, meaningful kisses.
It’s the kind of sex where you can really feel him; every inch of him, the way his body covers yours as he hovers over you, the tickle of his hair against your jaw and neck as he buries his face in the juncture of your shoulder and collarbone, his hips rocking into yours and managing to grind against that one perfect spot that gets you sighing out a moan. It’s just more intimate this way, less of a wild, frantic race to get inside of you and more a slow, controlled love making, as embarrassed as he is to use to term.
Regardless, you’re most likely to get this type of sex from Shouta in two specific scenarios – the first of which being after a very long day, filled with a harrowing patrol where he maybe wasn’t able to save everyone, or things didn’t go according to plan. When this happens, he needs to just hold you, to feel you, to hear you whisper his name under your breath and tell him how good he feels, how he’s the best you’ve ever had, how he’s the only one you’ll ever want…
The second – and far more likely – scenario is in the early hours of the morning, when the sunlight is streaming into the modest apartment he keeps you in, your shared bed feeling warm with your bodies pressed against one another. Soft, sleepy morning sex is Shouta’s favorite, and something that he tries to incite as often as he possibly can.
There’s just something about it that gets him hot under the collar; maybe it’s the casualness of it all, the way it feels so natural, so human and so right, as if your bodies were made for each other. Maybe it’s the way it feels so intimate, like you’re both raw, yourselves in the most wonderful way.
Or maybe it’s the way you’re still just slightly sleepy, and you’re much more likely to be clingy at this time, touching him more and letting your real noises come out, not hindered by any shame or hate or embarrassment.
Regardless, Shouta loves it – so on the rare weekends where he’s off, expect to be woken up on the brink of an orgasm just as you deserve.
A yawn slips past Shouta’s lips, eyes peeling open and seeing the gray of his bedsheets. Everything is warm and soft, and as he shifts slightly, something moves next to him.
Nothing seems real for a few moments as he gazes down at you, your body curled up next to his own. It doesn’t feel real that you’re really here – in his bed without any clothing, happily sleeping without a care in the world. He swallows, something coming over him and moving him slowly – carefully – peel off the covers, moving down to where your legs slightly part.
He leans down, face mere inches away from the tufts of your pubic hair, his eyes fluttering closed as he inhales. You’re perfect – and as he gently pries your legs open further, Shouta can’t help but think of how often he’s fantasized about this very moment – how often he’s dreamt of what’s between your thighs, how he’d lay awake at night and press his fingers between two pillows, grinding his fingers against the cotton and pretending it was you, imagining how warm and wet you’d be for him.
He swallows, determination setting his brow as he lays onto his stomach, shuffling so that he can lightly lick at your inner thighs, eyes closing at the familiar taste of you. He takes his time, going slowly and softly, licking closer and closer to your pretty folds, eventually reaching them and licking his lips at the taste.
A thumb comes up to slowly press against your clit, knowing too much pressure would hurt and not warm your body up the way it needed. He continues his licks, before switching roles and starting to suckle at your clit as a finger dips between your folds, collecting the slick and rubbing it between his fingers.
Soon he’s pressing one inside, feeling the way your thighs twitch slightly, a small, sleepy moan ringing in his ears. God, you’re so damn perfect – even unconscious you’re enough to get his cock throbbing against the cotton sheets.
He keeps his pace slow, but as time passes you stir a bit, and when he hears your sleepy voice mumble out his name, Shouta curses, his fingers speeding up a bit.
That gets you more awake – soon your fingers are carding through his hair, sighs and murmurs of his name sounding like heaven.
“Mm, Shouta, that feels good…” You mumble, still dazed from waking up. Your hips are twitching now, a sign that the pleasure is slowly beginning to build.
Shouta groans against your cunt, the sound muffled.
Soon his fingers are picking up the pace again, his circles and licks at your clit growing more insistent, and the hands weaving through his hair start to tug – the sensation gets him humping at the bed for a moment, the morning glow still shining on you as he glances up at your face. You look like an angel – shining in the sunlight, your lips parted in a moan, head thrown back in pleasure.
Shouta pulls back for a moment, sending a kiss to your clit that makes your hips buck. He chuckles a bit, licking his lips.
“You’re so beautiful..” He whispers against your thigh, pressing open mouthed kisses against the skin. You hum at his compliment, and he watches as you smile, his breath practically punched out of his lungs.
“Shouta, you’re too good to me…” Your voice is soft, too, and soon he’s back to sucking at your clit, feeling the way your body jolts slightly, the pleasure making you sigh and swallow. He watches the movement of your throat.
“Feels good, mm yes, oh Shouta - just like that,” You start, eyes closed again, and Shouta finds himself abandoning the gentle pace he’d adopted, instead being more insistent, more pushy – suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to get you coming on his fingers.
You gasp lightly at the new change in pace, grinding your hips to match the new stimulation, and it makes Shouta dizzy. How can you be so attractive? How can you look so perfect in this moment; in his bed, moaning his name, looking and tasting and smelling like his own personal slice of heaven?
It’s cheesy and he’s almost embarrassed, but tears prick at the corners of his eye.
Soon your gasps have turned to moans, and all too soon you warn him in a slurred voice that you’re coming, your back arching up off the mattress and your moans light and airy as you gush against his fingers, white coating all the way down his knuckles and onto his palms. It makes him choke a bit, the feeling of your cunt rhythmically clenching down on him and your chest heaving, and with a final lick to your clit that makes you jerk, he’s moving up to kiss you.
The kiss is slow, his tongue brushing against yours and wet sound filling the room, but Shouta doesn’t mind. How could he, when he’s never felt this relaxed before?
His eyes slowly open as he feels your fingers wrap around him, a thumb brushing along his tip to collect a bit of the wetness there.
“Shouta, let me make you feel good.” You tell him, your voice just a whisper.
He looks at you, his lips parted for a brief moment, before a small smile quirks up the corners of his mouth. “Why would you do that?”
You trace the line of his jaw with your free thumb. The slow strokes of his cock have him a bit distracted, but he hears every word you speak to him. “Because I love you.”
He swallows, the words making something feel tight in his throat.
You laugh a bit at his silence and the dumbstruck look on his face. “What? Do you not love me too?”
And to answer that, Shouta scoffs, leaning down to kiss you again as he grasps himself around the base, pulling himself away from you and pushing into you, feeling your sharp intake of breath against his lips.
His pace is slow, soft, like he’s trying to tell you something – hips moving slowly and deeply, letting you feel every inch of him. He kisses your neck as your head falls back, your eyes fluttering closed.
Pressing a kiss against your collarbone, Shouta smiles against your skin, a groan falling from his lips.
“I love you, more than you’ll ever know.”
And he means it – you’ll don’t know half of the things he’s done for you, and as he squeezes at your breast and hears your soft moan, he knows he’ll never tell you.
#yandere bnha#yandere mha#yandere aizawa#yandere eraserhead#bnha smut#mha smut#_bnha#_shouta aizawa#_lee's profiles
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Hi, im a 19 yo nerd, yesterday some kids wre playing with a soccer ball in front of my house, the ball got into the garden of my house and when i threw it out, i didnt nlticed i threw it a bit far and it arrived into the house across the street, breaking a window, the neighbor, a single man, came to my house and told my parents what i did, he demands i repair the window by myself, i dont know how to do that, can you give me a little help?
First of all, you do what you do best. You sit down at your computer. Enter "repair soccer window" into Google. A lot of things come up that won't help you at all. Care tips for footballs. And advertisements for household contents and liability insurance. The soccer care thing doesn't look very helpful, but it might be interesting.
Shit, you can waste a lot of time on the Internet very quickly. After half an hour, you're back to the current and upcoming match day in the Premier League. But you still don't know anything about repairing windows. "Repairing windows". Perhaps it would help to remove soccer from the search query. It doesn't matter why the window is broken. It just needs to be repaired.
Now we're getting closer to the point. Lots of tutorials on youtube. Surely there's something there. Unfortunately, you don't even know what kind of window is broken. And what exactly is broken. Damn, just how many different types of window panes there are. You can find an article about German windows. They have a lot of damn cool features. I wonder if that would be a market to sell and install German ones here. What this tilt function is supposed to do is still not clear to you. But these shutters on the windows are hot shit. You'd like to install something like that at your parents' house.
You're guaranteed not to install something from Schüco for a few thousand dollars in your neighbor's house… You're assuming that your neighbor will have vertical sliding windows in most of the rooms, just like you do. Probably made of aluminum. A shame, really. Horizontal sliding windows made of wood with glazing bars would fit the character of the house much better.
Haven't you ever worked for your neighbor? You must still have plans and views from the street side. Or at least a photo. Yes, here. Where were you standing again? How hard did you throw the ball? What was the wind like? Just because you did an apprenticeship as a carpenter doesn't mean you're stupid. So it's probably the window of the study on the second floor. Yes, it must have been rotten, you can see that quite clearly in the photo. Just replacing the glass won't help much.
Nowadays, working on the computer is half the battle. Calculating material requirements, programming saws for cutting. And downloading some porn in between. Hehehe, unlike your father, you don't need to hang up raunchy calendars in the workshop anymore. Your father is hardly ever seen here anyway. It's no longer his world. In his day, a carpenter needed a hammer and a saw, he used to say. Old man, those days are long gone.
Before you start, you went to your neighbor's house across the street. Real life is sometimes more reliable than virtual life. But it was the right window, you measured it again with your laser measuring device. You had miscalculated by a few millimeters. You are a craftsman with passion and dedication. You don't mess around. You deliver precision work.
"Mr. T, better than before my throw," you say with a grin. But it's the pure truth. But you know exactly why your neighbor insisted that you carry out the repair. He'll do anything to get you to fix things in his house. And when no more chairs tip over and no more doors squeak, you'll take care of Mr. T. yourself.
He asks if you can have a look at the shower after the window. While you take off your dungarees, you say that you are a carpenter and not a plumber. You will probably need help. You don't have to ask Mr. T for long.
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What about us?
Pairing: Lewis Hamilton x ex!Reader
Warnings: mentions of loneliness, sadness, breakup, co-parenting and maybe more
Summary: Where Lewis hasn't been himself lately.
Next Chapter
Lewis and I met when I was working in the media department at Mercedes, I wouldn't say we fell in love at first, but he was definitely the guy I loved most in my life.
But unfortunately not everything we love stays in our lives forever.
We dated for 3 years and then when 2021 came, he was so devastated that the title was taken away from him that our relationship didn’t last.
He was so out of himself that u didn’t recognized him anymore, I seem like the man I love was taken away from me when he lost that day.
So that when we decided to go in separated ways.
But 3 months after i found out that u was pregnant with our daughter and we had to get our path together again. He said to me the day I told him about my pregnancy that I saved him for making the stupidest mistake of his life because he was about to retire from formula 1.
The internet already new that we weren’t together anymore but they just discovered my pregnancy when he posted about it.
We obviously will have a connection for the rest of our lives and I am extremely happy that we manage to be in good terms or co-parenting would have been harder.
I would be lying if I said it was easy because it wasn’t, the fact that we are separated makes Harley's schedule and routine harder than would be if we were together.
Today is Harley’s 3th birthday and I’m was going crazy with everything, she wanted a formula 1 themed party and it was all thanks to her father who got her addicted to the sport.
So here I was running around my apartment to decorate everything while she was with Sebastian and his wife.
Kika is here with Pierre and the other boys helping me with the party.
Lately he was kind of absent, he obviously came to see Harley but when I tried to talk to him, Lewis answered as little as possible and my messages he didn't even answer.
I had been trying to get him to help me with her birthday but now I was worried that he wouldn't come.
I hope he is only busy now in the afternoon because I will kill him if he doesn't show up.
We live in Monaco so some of the drivers came since they are all passionate about Harley.
This includes George, Pierre, Sebastian, Charles, Carlos, Daniel, Max and Lando.
Max and Lewis were not biggest fans of each other, far from it, but Benjamin his son was best friends with Harley so we met occasionally. And above all they treated each other with respect so we had an acceptable relationship for the sake of our children.
And Lewis hated that Harley adored Uncle Max.
The party had been going on for two hours and nothing came of him, I didn't know whether to be worried or angry.
"Mommy, where's Daddy?"
"I don't know my love, he should be here soon." She agrees a little discouraged but runs to where Ben and Max were.
"Anthony do you know where Lewis is?" I asked his father who was talking to my parents.
"I don't know darling, he said he would be a little late but he would come." I sighed in frustration. "I'll try to call him."
"Thank you."
He left to try to call his son and I went off to try to concentrate on distracting Harley with play.
…
He appeared in the middle of the party and I sighed with relief when I saw him coming through the door with Angela with him, Harley ran up to her father and I was happy to see her smile.
"How nice of you to come." I hugged Angela and she smiled.
"You've done well with the decorations." She said and I thanked her. "Can I talk to you? I want to take advantage of the fact that he's distracted by her."
I looked at the two of them and Harley was talking non-stop and he was listening attentively.
"Sure." We went into the kitchen where no one was around. "Is everything all right?"
"I'm not sure, I'm a bit worried about him."
"What happened?"
"I arrived at his apartment today and everything was a mess and he was asleep on the sofa." I was surprised because he rarely slept during the day and his apartment was always spotless. "I tried to talk to him but you know how he is, Lewis doesn't open up easily but he ended up saying that he wasn't happy and that he missed you both a lot."
"But we're always here."
"I think he misses a family." I sighed because I understood his feeling. "You know that he loves you both more than anything in the world and I remember when you were together he was planning to marry you, have children and have you live in a more secluded house so that you wouldn't be swallowed up by the media but from one moment to the next his plan became just a dream."
"I understand."
"And the only thing that's kept him going over the last few years is that little girl and the fact that you're her mother because that's what's kept you in his life. But he hasn't been the same for a while."
"I've noticed that he's been acting strange lately, he doesn't talk to me directly and avoids me whenever he can."
"Because he knows that you know him like the back of your hand and that you would know what was wrong with him." She takes my hand. "I'm not telling you this because I want you to feel guilty or anything, but I wanted to ask you to talk to him and try to help him in any way you can."
"All right, I'll talk to him after the party."
...
I said goodbye to the last few people and the only ones that were still around was Max, Ben and Lewis
"Buddy it's about time we go home." He says trying to talk the boy off the trampoline.
"Not yet Daddy, wait a little longer." He says short of breath from jumping around.
"If you don't mind I can take him to your apartment later."
"All right, thanks." He said goodbye and went home.
They kept jumping on the trampoline while Lewis was inside grabbing the trash.
After 10 minutes Bem said he was tired and i asked Lewis to watch Harley while I take him to his father and when I came back I could hear them in her room.
"I've missed you so much, Daddy." She says, already lying on her bed.
"I missed you too baby bear." She smiles tiredly and closes her eyes. He kisses her forehead and stays there for a few more minutes until he sees that she's asleep.
"Hey." He smiles as soon as he sees me outside her room. "I'm sorry I couldn't help, I got caught up with some work stuff."
He was lying but I knew it was juts for me not to worry about him.
"It's okay, I sorted it out." He smiled and went back into the living room. "Are you all right?"
"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?"
"Maybe because I know you better than you think." He sighs. "You don't have to tell me what it is, but I want you to know that I care about you."
"It's just that everything's been a bit too much lately."
"What do you mean?"
"The constant pressure at work, the media, the fact that I'm not there for you two every day. Everything." He turns to me. "I just don't know how much I can take anymore."
"Lewis..."
"I miss you, and I miss us, I miss Harley and this feeling that I'm good at what I do has been haunting me."
"But you are good."
"Apparently not so much because I can't even stand on the podium." I sighed. "I don't expect you to understand but I don't think I want to do this anymore."
"What do you want to do then?" He looks at me. "You know that Harley and I don't care if you're a driver or not, we care about you too much to worry about whether you're still in Formula 1 or not."
"It's just that I've lived this for so long that I just wish I could be with you every day without worrying about having to catch a flight to the other side of the world."
"I understand and I'll support you in whatever you decide.
"Thank you." I sat down on the sofa and nudged him to sit next to me, which he did, resting his head on my shoulder. "You know I love you, don't you?"
"I know, I love you too."
"But I love you in a way that..."
"I know, and I love you the same way." He looks at me. "I understood what you meant from the start."
"And what does that mean for us?"
"I don't know but we don't need to find out today, we have plenty of time." He smiles and we lie down on the sofa.
Bonus scene!
Yourusername instagram post
Liked by @lewishamilton, @susiewolf, @cherlesleclerc and others 293629
@yourusername I still can believe my baby is turning 3 years old today.
I’m so happy that I’m your mama and that I’m able to watch you grow and turn into this beautiful little girl.
I can’t imagine my life without you and I’m grateful for having you in my life.
Thank you @lewishamilton for making me a mama and for giving me the best gift anyone could ever give me.
Happy birthday sweet girl, mama loves you so much 🩵.
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Guys I have so many ideias for another chapters of Lewis being Harleys dad so if you guys want to read the next chapters let me know so I’ll tag you guys.
#f1 fanfic#f1 imagine#f1 x you#f1#f1 instagram au#lewis hamilton#lewis hamilton angst#lewis hamilton imagine#lewis hamilton fanfic#lewis hamilton art#lewis hamilton fanart#lewis hamilton edit#lewis hamilton wallpaper#lewis hamilton icons#lewis hamilton headers#lewis hamilton one shot#lewis hamilton x reader#lewis hamilton x you#lewis hamilton instagram au#lewis hamilton aesthetic#lewis hamilton smut#lewis hamilton social media au#lewis hamilton drabble#lewis hamilton fluff#lewis hamilton lockscreen#lewis hamilton masterlist#lewis hamilton blurb#lh44#mercedes amg f1#mercedes amg petronas
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While I was looking into Fulla dolls, I found out another Muslim fashion doll was released around the same time!
Meet Razanne! (And be prepared for a loooooong deep dive under the Keep Reading lol)
From what I've been able to piece together from various sources, she was created by Palestinian-American Ammar Saadeh and his wife Noor in 1996, being initially launched through the internet before more publicly advertised to Middle-Eastern and American audiences in 2004. Their goal was to show Muslim girls that "what matters is what's inside you, not how you look" (quoted from an interview with Greensoboro News and Record). They wanted to give them a role model with an emphasis on education and religion, while also having a career! To reflect the diversity of the global Muslim ummah, each of her dolls came in three variants: Pakistani-Indian (olive skin w/ dark hair), Black (dark skin w/ dark hair), and Caucasian (fair skin w/ fair hair).
While unfortunately she's no longer in production, the WayBack machine has a record of all her dolls released through the Noorart website! Each doll listing also includes additional information to educate on Islamic culture!
First there's Schoolgirl Razanne, whose listing reads:
"Razanne loves school and is all ready with her bright red book bag to join her friends in class. For your information…Traditional uniforms are worn by schoolgirls in Islamic schools. In addition to the usual subjects, students also study the Arabic language and the Qur'an - the Muslim Holy Book."
Next we have Teacher Razanne, whose listing reads:
"What is a more honorable and specialized career than education? Our teacher Razanne comes full equipped with lap top computer, briefcase and all the necessary items for school. For your information... Many Muslim girls study to become educators. Two-piece suits with jacket and skirt are popular styles for Muslim women who work outside the home as teachers or other professionals."
There's Playday Razanne, who unlike the prior two came with no accessories, her listing reads:
"Dressing modestly doesn't keep Razanne from having fun! On the playground, Razanne plays in her scarf and a loose fitting jumper that gives her lots of room to run and jump. For your information... Dressing modestly doesn't prevent Muslim girls from having fun outdoors! Whether biking, skating, on the playground or at the park children manage to have fun no matter where they are!"
We also have a Muslim Scout Razanne, who came with a free audiotape of Muslim Scout Cheers and a preview of We Love Muhammad! Her listing reads:
"'I'm honest, kind and trustworthy.' Muslim Scouts' organizations all over the world help build character and skills for success in this life and the next. Razanne wears her merit badges and awards earned for community service, Islamic behavior and Qur'an memorization. Respect for Allah, parents and all members of the community are a top priority with Razanne. For your information…like all Scout troops, Muslim Scouts are encouraged to excel in personal attributes such as honesty, cooperation and leadership as well as taking an active part in community service and environmental protection."
Next up there's Eid Mubarak Razanne, which came two different color variants for her outfit, her listing reading:
"Razanne is all ready to celebrate the Muslim holiday. Dressed in her new floral fashions of pink or blue, Razanne has Eid cards addressed to all her friends and is ready to deocorate the party with balloons. The perfect Eid gift for any girl! For your information… Muslims celebrate two major festivals each year. One is the Eid Al Fitr following the month-long fast of Ramadan. A second holiday occurs during the annual Pilgrimage to Makkah. Children and adults look forward to these two special days with great anticipation. Before the Eid the entire family goes out shopping for new clothes to wear for Eid Day. Early Eid morning the family meets with other members of the community for an Eid Prayer then disperse to family gatherings and other celebrations. Children are often given gifts of toys or money and families exchange delectable sweets that differ according to the region in which they live. Muslims exchange greetings of Eid Mubarak,"Eid Congratulations", Eid Saeed, "Happy Eid" and wish each other a coming year full of God's blessings. Kul 'am wa anta bi khair!"
I wasn't able to find any other images for Prayer Razanne like the others unfortunately, and apparently she came with accessories too! Her listing reads:
"Allahu Akbar! God is the Greatest! It's time to pray and Razanne is ready! When it's time for prayer, many Muslim girls cover their everyday clothes with these traditional two-piece garments and stand to pray on colorful prayer rugs. We receive so many letters from customers that tell us that Razanne usually joins the family for salah! For your information… when it's time for prayer, many Muslim girls cover their everyday clothes with these traditional two-piece garments and stand to pray on colorful prayer rugs. Muslim women may pray in congregation at the Mosque but it is often more convenient to pray the five daily prayers at home."
And finally we have In And Out Razanne, whose listing reads:
"In and Out Razanne comes with a two-piece fashion set for wear inside and outside the home. At home Razanne loves to dress in all the latest fashions. In a minute she can be ready to go out with this traditional jilbaab coat. Razanne helps Muslim girls understand that in the home they can be the ultimate fashion statement yet still have attractive attire while dressing modestly outside the home. For your information…Razanne helps Muslim girls understand that in the home they can be the ultimate fashion statement yet still have attractive attire while dressing modestly outside the home."
I'm honestly so glad I found this, because doing research into this doll has been a blast! I love the vintage vibes of her outfits with the patterns and color choices, and it makes me really happy seeing this doll being used as an educational tool for Islamic culture and practices!
Thank you to limbedolls.blogspot.com, emel.com, Greensboro News and Record, and "Framing Muslims" by Peter Morey and Amina Yaqin for the information that went into this long-ass post!
Ramadan Kareem!
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FORCE QUIT // EPISODE III: SPIDER
somebody has to make sure you make it through the firefight alive.
pairing: lee minho x reader | series masterlist (3/4) | prev. episode
series summary: it's 2077, and life's a fucking nightmare. corporate titans ate the state and shat it back out, leaving citizens of the new republic to fall in line, or fall to their knees. a reckoning is coming — where will you fall?
au: series — dystopian, cyberpunk; episode — mutually-pining fuck buddies.
➢insp. by: cyberpunk 2077 + the true lives of the fabulous killjoys
genre: smut + angst
word count: 23.5k
rating: 18+ — minors do not have my consent to interact.
series warnings: violence (hand-to-hand, firearms, explosives), depictions of injuries (blood/bruising/burns), some characters have cybernetic modifications, class conflict + poverty, surprise - corporations are bad!, unethical medical/tech experimentation, self-indulgent references to non-skz idols, reader is afab and uses she/her pronouns.
episode: above + combat leader!minho, disabled!hacker!reader, pov switches, time skips, reader has a prosthetic/cybernetic leg, loss of limb due to injury (not depicted, minimally described), ref. to hospitalization + recovery, sunshine/storm cloud dynamic, minho is kind of a dick, depictions of combat violence, minor character death(s), unprotected p in v penetration.
a/n 1: this part required a lot more external resources than anything else i’ve written, so i’ve kind of… footnoted? what i used. see the note at the end of the fic for the list!
a/n 2: each episode features a different member x reader pairing, but the plot is linear, so you'd need to read them (in order) to get the full picture! you can sign up for the taglist to be notified of the next uploads. thank you to my beloved @sailoryooons for beta'ing this and @jihopesjoint for being my emotional support internet wife even though she doesn't stan skz. ily both endlessly!
Yours is the Black Screen’s worst kept secret.
The irony of that isn’t lost on you. Professionally, your most marketable skill is your ability to lower others’ defenses; to build and break walls as needed to take what you want for keeps. With finesse few can imitate, you vault over boundaries. Unfortunately for you, you don’t personally have any of those.
You’ve always been this way — no poker face, no affinity for bluffing, no discernible self-preservation instinct — and just the same, you’ve always wished you weren’t.
Time and again, your cards are on the table the second they’re dealt. If that alone wasn’t shitty gameplay, you and that relentless optimism of yours raise the stakes, double down. There’s no hesitating before you go all in; and there’s no surprise when you lose it all, either. Nothing you’ve ever felt has shocked anyone because they saw it coming in the previous turn.
Like Seungmin, for example, who won’t stop rolling his eyes at you from the other side of the room.
“If I took a shot every time you looked up at the door…” He sighs, gesturing from your corner of the Hub to its entrance, “I’d have died of alcohol poisoning six times over by now.”
The grimace you don’t want to concede can’t be hidden, so you rein your gaze in and direct it back at the screen in front of you. You don’t absorb any of the information flickering in front of you, however, because Seungmin has a point. Any second you haven’t spent staring wistfully out of the room is wasted on glancing at the clock.
It’s close to nine o’clock now, which means your not-so-secret distraction is due any minute.
That reminds me…
You check again, wondering how many minutes have passed since you last looked, only to learn that it’s been less than one. That’s when the reflex takes over. Without your permission, your eyes wander from the glowing, green digits on the wall to the door — just in case.
No dice.
Damn it.
In a feeble attempt to cover your chronic — terminal — hopefulness, you try to refocus on your work. All it takes is a few seconds of staring before your eyes glaze over again. That disinterest isn’t reflected in your rigid posture, though. Your brain may be a flat tire, but your body is a bow drawn back, ready to fire.
Anticipation is a hell of a drug, isn’t it?
Seungmin crosses his arms. From the corner of your eye, you can see the knowing look he shoots you. He may not speak his favorite words, but that doesn’t mean you can’t hear them, loud and clear.
Told you so.
“It’s kind of funny, actually,” he says instead.
You know better than to be thrown off by his trademark, flat affect. This is the most amused you’ve seen the weaponsmith in weeks. The corner of his mouth even twitches slightly; it might be the closest he’s ever been to smiling. “He only steps foot in here when you do.”
With all the heat you can muster, you aim to warn him — to puff out your chest a little, just this once — but it just sounds like a whine. “Seungmin…”
As if on cue, light footsteps sound off from down the hallway, shifting closer with every muffled step and cutting your would-be bickering off in the process.
Even with Seungmin’s judgment focused elsewhere, you continue to pretend that the glaring, blue light in front of your face has garnered any amount of your attention. It doesn’t. It hasn’t and won’t, so long as you can feel the seconds tick by in your chest.
He snorts. “Like clockwork.”
Damn it.
For being as light on his feet as he is, Minho tends to drag them more, the longer the day lasts. You never point that out to him; he doesn’t need to know that you’ve noticed. That fact sits among the million others you try to keep to yourself, just like your ability to identify him by gait alone.
Besides, you think, he’d never listen if you begged him to slow down, even if it’s just for a night. Rest doesn’t feature on the short list of things Minho wants from you. Come to think of it, neither does advice or concern for his well-being.
“Well, well, well. Look who it is,” Seungmin sings out when the shuffling stops short. “You lost, hyung?”
The way your head snaps up has nothing to do with Seungmin’s mocking tone and everything to do with the flutter in your chest. You’d attempt to keep that a secret, too, but then Minho walks in, and it’s game set.
He’s fatal with his tattered, grey t-shirt half-tucked into ripped, black denim; and you have to clench your jaw to keep it from dropping. Before your dry throat can choke you, you clear it, swallowing down the thought that Minho and his jagged edges are the most beautiful things you’ve ever seen.
It gets easier to get a fucking grip on yourself when Seungmin starts needling again: “No, seriously, are you lost? What are you doing here?”
Dark, cat eyes flick to you, then back to their target. Deadly, you think, just like the rest of him.
“Wishing you weren’t,” Minho responds without missing a beat.
As usual, his tone is carefully balanced between bored and annoyed. You suspect that’s purposeful. A tactic. It leaves listeners in the dark about his feelings, so they have to guess whether or not they should run.
Nine times out of ten, they guess wrong.
This time, Minho deigns to give a hint. It’s quick enough that you would’ve missed it if you hadn’t been staring. Thankfully, his target sees the microscopic flex of his eyebrow, too.
All that bark leaves Seungmin in a hurry, no bite to follow. With his tail between his legs and his palms raised in defeat, he skirts around Minho before slipping wordlessly out the door.
You frown slightly as you watch him flee, although you sure as shit won’t mind his absence.
“Seungmin’s harmless,” you remind Minho quietly, although you don’t know why you bother. He’s never felt threatened in his life, as far as you can tell. You don’t necessarily hate it when he flexes that fact in front of you, but that doesn’t mean he should. “You don’t need to scare him off.”
Minho crosses his arms and tilts his head in a way that makes you only the slightest bit insane. “I’m not scary,” he rebuts matter-of-factly, as if that’ll make it true.
You make the mistake of looking him in the eye then. Like it always does in moments like this, heat immediately rushes to your face like a backdraft.
Like he always does, Minho senses the spike in temperature. To crank it higher, he meanders his way across the room to you, eyes glittering impishly all the while. Your heart thuds harder with each footfall. Stupidly, you wonder if he can sense that, too.
“In fact, I’m offended,” he corrects you as he closes in.
His palms press down against the opposite side of your desk once he reaches it. This close, you can read the mischief scribbled all over his face, which only serves to tear you in two — equal parts fucked up by his assertiveness and the rare playfulness that only comes in flashes, only with you.
Minho looms over you now, his hardened stare softening just slightly. Whispering through what almost looks like a pout, he adds, “And you’re mean.”
For a second, you think that the hand inching its way across the tabletop is seeking yours. Anticipation makes your fingers twitch. Try as you might, you can’t think of a single fucking thing you want more than to slip them between his.
Proving once again that you’ll never read him right, Minho’s hand darts out to your side instead. You watch in slow-motion as he snags the bag of honey twists from its resting spot near your left forearm, which is nowhere near fast enough to catch him before he pulls away. Useless, your empty hand drops back onto your desk.
You stare longingly at the stolen packet, so dejected that you really could cry, and mumble, “It took so much effort to get those.”
“It shouldn’t have,” Minho counters with a shrug.
He isn’t wrong, and you hate that.
The Black Screen’s demolition expert, Lee Jihoon, is as hard to crack as the shit he blows to pieces. His footlocker full of snacks — a rarity, given the whole everything going on in the world — is even more impenetrable. Charming your way through his stony exterior had been your only option to gain access. It took months, as well as unrelenting friendliness administered in small, persistent doses.
Just like —
Minho wouldn’t have wasted his time with flattery or nuance. He never needs to open his mouth to get what he’s after because his presence — from his stance to his intense, vaguely violent gaze — does all the talking for him. All he would’ve needed to do is blink in Jihoon’s direction, then he would’ve walked out of there with the older man’s treasure trove and the jacket off his back.
Having just been robbed blind yourself, you keep your mouth shut about that.
Shrugging once again, Minho throws down the gauntlet: “Finish your shit quickly, and I might decide to share them with you.”
How thoughtful.
If he’s expecting a verbal response, he won’t get one, you decide. The most you give is a disgruntled sigh. Dying star that you are, you collapse in on yourself, sinking deeper into your chair until you wind up as a half-crumpled heap on the desk below your monitors. It’s a perfect picture of abject failure, making this the only thing you’ve gotten right all day.
You don’t expect Minho to ask after your current state, so you’re not disappointed when he doesn’t. Or, at least, you will yourself not to be. In reality, your bated breath is held for a second or two before you remember who you’re dealing with.
He does speak, though, which surprises you. Your first guess would’ve been that he’d give a hard pass on your dramatics and wander back out the door while your face was buried in your arms.
“Spider,” he sighs, and his tone is so gentle that it shocks the hell out of you. Intimate, almost, even if it is just a caricature. “Call it a night.”
More curious than cautious, you lift your head enough to blink up at him. Between his eyebrows, there’s a small crease that you don’t see often enough to competently translate. You stare at the tension there for a beat longer than you mean to before your gaze drifts downward to meet his.
See? Beautiful.
The second Minho sees your eyebrows raise slightly in question, a switch flips. He shuts the light off, irons out his expression. Whatever softness you found there is gone as quickly as it came.
He clears his throat, then huffs, “Come on.”
You frown and gesture to the screen ahead, pointing out the program you’ve spent all goddamn day working on to no avail. The silent protest doesn’t work on Minho. His stare only becomes more expectant the longer he levels it at you.
“Seriously. Fuck it.”
Having chosen the hill you plan to die on, you envision roots tying your unmoving body to the floor beneath you. Your frown deepens. No, you think emphatically, as if making your internal monologue shout will make him listen.
Minho tries again. “It’ll be here to ruin your day tomorrow.”
You don’t budge, and it pulls an exasperated noise out of him. Curling his right hand into a loose fist, he taps the knuckle of his index finger lightly against your elbow, like the contact will force your mental task list to shut down.
“I’m bored.”
You know exactly what that means.
“Come up to the roof with me.”
Strike that.
“The roof?” You peep, hardened expression smashed to bits before you can blink.
Minho looks a little too pleased by your sudden concession. He even makes one of his own, chuckling slightly before he rolls his eyes and elaborates, “It’s nice out.”
It’s nice out, so you want to fuck me… on the roof?
The hand at your elbow pulls away and re-routes towards the back pocket of his jeans. When it returns to the space between you, there’s a dented, silver flask glinting in his grip. He shakes it, arches one eyebrow, and tops it all off with a wolfish grin that makes your stomach flip.
“Stolen whisky tastes best in restricted areas, I hear.”
He nods his head towards the door, beckoning you to give in, and you’re on your feet without needing the invitation to be repeated.
The sudden movement after sitting for so long means that your body isn’t as enthusiastic as your brain. A sharp pinch pulls a slight gasp out of you. That’s the extent of your own reaction, but Minho isn’t used to this the way you are. Alert eyes flick down to where your residual limb slots into your manufactured one, then back up to search your face.
Once again, he asks without saying a word. You answer with a wave of your hand, “All good.”
Minho’s concern doesn’t immediately dissipate. To prove that you meant what you said, you snatch the packet of honey twists out of his unsuspecting hand and circle around the desk until you’re face to face.
“If I’m on my ass for too long, my leg forgets how to leg,” you explain, grinning more out of triumph than reassurance. Then, you dangle your reclaimed prize from your fingertips because you are nothing if not a little shit. “I’m not a doctor, but I think science says that food helps.”
“Science says?” Minho snorts.
You nod authoritatively, then you turn to the spare folding chair near your work station. Your jacket waits for you there, carefully folded on the cracked, plastic-coated cushion. Shrugging it on, you shove the honey twists in your right pocket and tease, “Sure does.”
The corner of his mouth tugs slightly upwards, and you swear there’s an affectionate smile threatening to break loose.
It doesn’t.
Instead, after pushing off his palms, Minho stands fully upright, nods his head towards the door a second time, and starts making his way towards it. You follow because you always do, biting back your lips to keep your giddiness to yourself.
As the pair of you exit and head down the hallway in comfortable quiet, you note his proximity to you. It’s always the same; he’s always close by but never near enough to touch. The edge of his shirt sleeve brushes against your arm, although his skin never does.
You stopped wondering about that a long time ago, unwilling to figure out if this is a tactic, too.
Halfway to the nearest stairwell, Jeongin appears in a doorway. The room he emerges from used to be an office for the human resources department, back when the factory was operational — back when employers bothered with pretending to give a shit.
Now, the room’s function lands somewhere between a bar and a bedroom. The latter only comes into play when the former makes staggering upstairs to the residential area too much of a hassle. From what you can see over the younger man’s shoulder, that’ll likely be the case tonight.
Jeongin gives you a cursory smile before directing his full attention to the man keeping cursory distance at your side.
None of it makes sense to you, all this effort spent to hide intentions. Maybe, you think, that’s why you’re so fucking terrible at it.
“Hey, hyung!” Jeongin chirps as the pair of you approach. He lifts his hand to wave, but it just looks like he’s shaking the deck of cards in his hand at Minho. “Do you want to —”
Without slowing down, Minho cuts him off mid-ask and at the knees. “No.”
And then his finger slips into the belt loop of your jeans, tugging you along beside him as he keeps up the pace. You’re gone before you can see Jeongin’s face fall, but you’re sure it does.
Yours would.
When you reach the stairs, Minho matches your careful pace, albeit much less awkwardly. For as life-saving as the chunk of metal and carbon fiber on your right side has been, there’s at least one problem it hasn’t solved: going up steps is a bitch.
To compensate for your less dynamic knee, your left leg takes stairs two at a time so you can simply step straight up with your right. And even though you’re a bit out of breath from the extra effort, you open your mouth to comment on what you just witnessed.
Minho stops you before you can start. Shooting you a look you know far too well, he sighs, “Don’t.”
You’re as good a faker as you are a listener.
“He’s just trying to —”
He releases his grip on your belt loop. It’s the only reason you realize he’d still been holding on. Stopping at the landing, Minho turns to look back at you. “Can’t think of anything I want to do less than sit next to someone and have to hear about their fucking day.”
Eyebrows raised, you stare up at him. This time, you don’t say a word, letting your expression speak for you.
“With the ever-present risk that I’ll be murdered by the state tomorrow, forgive me if I’m not wasting today by listening to shit I don’t care about.”
There it is, you think.
The combat leader’s insistence that his life will only end one way: too soon and bloody.
That unexploded ordnance drops heavy between you. You step over it, joining him on the landing, and you don’t look back. Just at Minho, who watches you carefully for a reaction; whose tension leaves his muscles when the slight, upward curve of your mouth says, I understand.
Together, you climb the remaining flight until you reach the thick, steel door leading out to the roof. It’s barely functional, like the vast majority of the factory, and can’t shut all the way. With more force than is even remotely necessary, he kicks it fully open. The thick, rubber tread of his boot thuds against the metal. It’s quickly drowned out by the strangled squeak of its hinges.
You’re at least slightly thankful that those hinges don’t explode into a cloud of rust.
On his way to the ledge, Minho grabs two empty buckets from the pile of discarded odds-and-ends near the doorway. The rest of the pile — mainly two-by-four planks too busted to rehab and similarly spent range targets — threatens to collapse without its foundation, but neither of you stops to fix it. He leads, and you follow, ultimately coming to a stop near the ledge.
“So?”
His insufficient question is underscored by the two buckets landing mouth-down on the concrete with twin thunks.
You’re still blinking through your confusion when he unceremoniously drops himself on the furthest bucket and when he stretches out his leg to tap the remaining one with the side of his boot. Coincidentally, you’re still waiting for the rest of his inquiry when you sit — much more gently — next to him. This time, it’s you who moves, nudging your chrome knee against his flesh-and-bone.
Minho finally takes the hint and continues, pulling out his flask as he does. “How was your day?”
The whiplash makes your neck ache.
Remind me again about the last thing you said to me.
After taking a swig without incident, he passes the flask to you. You take your sip — small, cautious — and immediately let out some clownish, choking noise when the strong notes of wooden barrel hit your taste buds.
“Oh, that’s —” You cough, nose scrunching. Whisky-laced breath slips out of your teeth in the form of a hiss. “Absolutely wretched, I fear.”
For the first time all night, Minho’s mask cracks, and a full-fledged laugh tumbles out of his mouth, high and clear as it cuts through the otherwise dead air.
“It’s not,” he counters. Without taking his eyes off your pout, he lifts a hand to catch the flask that you toss at him. “You’re just childish.”
In recompense, you swat his arm.
He lets you.
“Shut up.” Your distinctly childish comeback is breathy because, like always, your laughter isn’t something you can successfully hide. “Am not.”
Another swig, no further incidents.
“Think you need to be demoted. Maybe I should start calling you baby instead of Spider.”
The violent flutter in your chest doesn’t seem to care that what it heard isn��t at all what he meant. For now, you let it happen. You focus instead on his creased eyes and barely-crooked smile; drink them in as quickly as you can, knowing that your window is closing.
As rare as it is, levity looks perfect on him.
While your laughter ebbs, the wind kicks up slightly, bringing a chill with it. You pull your jacket tighter around you as you watch browned leaves spin in pirouettes near your feet. Their presence here is surprising, given how devastating the War was to the ecosystem, but it’s welcomed. It’s a reminder sorely needed: nothing’s ever truly fucked beyond repair.
Minho pipes up suddenly, “You never answered me, you know.” And even though his voice is low, it startles you.
He’s too busy fiddling with the cap of his flask to see it when you turn your head to look quizzically at him. He probably missed the way you jolted just then, too, which is fine by you. Your goldfish brain is still trying to recall what he asked that went without a reply.
When you remain quiet, he supplies, “Your day.”
As it turns out, you’re just as stunned by his question the second time he poses it. Part of you wants to remind him that he could be murdered by the state tomorrow, just in case he wants to reclaim his wasted time. The rest watches as his absentminded fidgeting stops, and his head lifts to look at you — not impatiently, not sardonically, but with the tiniest bit of insecurity scribbled into his slightly furrowed brow.
Oh.
Now, you’re frozen into silence for an entirely different, entirely devastating reason: he wouldn’t have asked if he didn’t genuinely want to know.
A self-effacing laugh serves as a smokescreen for how fucking flustered that realization makes you.
“Well, I had plans to go phishing, but they fell through.”
“Beach advisory?” He feigns a frown, making your lips curve upwards at the corners. “Those hypocrites at Thanotech really need to stop dumping their shit into the reservoir.”
At this, you laugh outright.
This is the Minho that no one but you could pick out of a lineup: the one that will take a bit and run with it, who lets his guard down and catches you off yours. This one may not be yours — you know he isn’t, not really — but at times like this, when it’s just the two of you alone, it feels like he is.
“I’ll make sure to tell them you said so.” You pat his thigh, which tenses slightly in the second your palm rests on it. Redirecting your thoughts from where they’re headed, you pull your hand back and tuck it into your jacket pocket. “I really think they’ll listen if they know Lee Minho’s the one asking.”
His eyes roll in response, but the amused smirk he wears doesn’t dissipate. It’s still there when he slowly leans closer, making your breath hitch. His hand shifts closer, too, and your pulse hammers harder with every millimeter that’s cast aside.
There’s an old saying about where the shame should fall when a person gets fooled twice. You practically feel it collide with your thick skull when, for the second time, Minho turns the tables. He nearly turns your pocket inside out in the process, hand snatching the yet-untouched packet of honey crisps before you even know what’s happening.
Just like last time, you put up no fight when he settles back into his own makeshift chair with a smug glint in his eyes. A forlorn sigh is covered by the racket of plastic ripping, followed soon after by a faint crunch.
“Speaking of bait,” he snickers once he’s swallowed. “What are you dangling?”
You really want to hate him for that segue, along with all the rest of his committed atrocities, but you can’t. So, you offer up the only thing you still have:
Technobabble.
“The plan is to sneak in a program to mine data. So long as nobody interrupts me —” You pause to shoot him a pointed look. “— I’ll finish coding it tomorrow and fire it off at some grunt in Ulsan’s fiscal department using a cloned, corporate email account.”
“You think they’ll fall for it?” Minho asks, curiosity piqued.
You flash a grin. “I know they will. Nothing spooks a low-level employee quite like an overdue, mandatory, cybersecurity compliance attestation.”
If you didn’t know better, you’d swear he looks almost proud when he hears about the form of your Trojan horse. It’s certainly what you feel blooming in your chest, especially when you pluck the crisp from between his unsuspecting fingers and pop it into your own mouth.
“Once the program installs, it’ll start reaping what they have access to,” you explain. “I’m sure it’ll be limited at the start, quarterly budget reports and such.”
You shrug dismissively, then look down at your hands. There’s no way this is interesting to someone that isn’t you, but he asked, and you’re answering, and you can’t seem to stop talking.
“But those point me in the direction of invoices and their line items, which gets me to payment accounts, recipients, and other shit they don’t want me to know. It’s a paper trail leading to a paper trail, honestly, but it’s —”
“— how you weave a web.”
It stops your brain in its tracks, leaves your would-be sentence to peter out. You can’t remember the last time anyone followed where your explanations led, let alone saw the importance of all the tiny, tedious steps you take. All the intricacies of your carefully plotted architecture.
With you stalled out, Minho finishes that thought where he left off. “Strand by strand.”
“Yeah,” you exhale, warmth creeping from your chest to your cheeks. “Strand by strand.”
You sit on that bucket on the roof for however long it takes for your ass to go numb, and then you sit some more. Hours, maybe a day or two — irrelevant, as far as you’re concerned. You have Minho next to you and a burgeoning sunrise ahead; and you’ll bask in the glow you’ve found there for as much time as you can.
Minho, it seems, has other plans.
He sighs and flattens his palms against his knees before standing, causing the bucket he’d been occupying to scrape against the concrete. The noise is what gets your attention, not the movement. You turn to look up at him. Your disappointment is more than likely broadcasted all over your face.
“Stay with me,” you whine before you can stop yourself.
Needy isn’t normally a word you’d use to describe yourself; you’re far from it. Now, though… In this moment, it might be written in blaring red letters on your forehead, judging by the extremely brief flash of surprise you see in front of you. It’s gone as quickly as it came. The twinge of embarrassment you feel sticks around to keep you warm.
Minho is quiet for a beat, like he’s got something to consider. Whatever he decides on, it makes his head tilt to the side. A devilish look takes over his features, washing from his narrowed eyes to his tilted lips. All mischief, he counters, “Fuck me.”
Why do those things have to be mutually exclusive?
You don’t voice your question out loud, even though you kind of want to scream it, because he holds his hand out to help you up, and instant gratification together feels so much better than waiting through a delay alone. So, you take his hand, just like he knew you would, and you follow.
Back to the door, back down to the second level of the factory, back to your room in an otherwise unoccupied wing, until the door is shut softly behind you.
Every single one of your rendezvous has been different from the last. The time, location, everything varies, not unlike the version of himself that Minho lets you see. Even though the steps change completely from tryst to tryst, they still feel like they’ve been choreographed and rehearsed ahead of time.
For example, he’s never caged you against a wall and pinned your wrists one-handed above your head before, but your body reacts as if this is the sole position it was made to occupy in life.
His teeth nip at the side of your neck, and your head falls back instinctively. You don’t give a shit about the muted thump of your skull against the brick, but Minho seems to.
“Watch yourself,” he murmurs, lips fluttering against your throat. Despite the muted volume, his tone carries an authority to it that makes even your chrome knee weak. “If you wind up with a concussion, I’m not explaining it to Doc.”
You gasp when his tongue flicks out to soothe the sting his teeth leave behind. Beyond desperate, you push up on your toes to bring yourself closer to his mouth. It’s further out of reach than you remember — it shouldn’t be. Barely a week has gone by since he last had you like this.
Embarrassingly breathless already, you ask, “Have you gotten taller? What have they been feeding you?”
His knee comes forward slowly to nudge yours apart. You make room, letting his thigh press into the gap created. If his left hand wasn’t keeping you stretched up to your full height, you’d be riding that thigh by now.
“You know what I eat.”
Your eyes roll back. You’re not sure if that’s a reaction to his line or the way he clenches his thigh, shifting it further into the space between your spread legs. Either way, that taut muscle is only millimeters away from your cunt now; the low hum that rumbles from his chest says that he can feel the heat rolling off you in waves.
You want so badly to be able to touch him, cling to him, scratch your nails across his scalp and pull him in by his hair. You want him to touch you — really touch you — not just to tease you the way he is, threatening to mark you up with his mouth without following through.
If you try to tug your arms down, will he let you?
Part of you hopes that he doesn’t.
At least, not without consequences.
Minho can tell how fucking restless you are. You’re not surprised; you vibrate with want at a frequency he’s always been attuned to. Speaking any of it out loud would be redundant, so you save your breath. His fans warmth over the shell of your ear, pulling the hammer back: “What’s the matter, Spider? You don’t like being the one in the trap?”
You can’t help but tremble at that.
“Fine,” he tuts, finger on the trigger.
Your eyes widen in anticipation when his hand drops its hold on your wrists; and your arms fold slowly back down when he retracts. There’s a muted ache in your muscles from the strain they’d been put under. You can’t say that you mind.
His hands move next to his belt buckle, deft fingers making quick work of the metal before the two pieces dangle on either side of his zipper. That’s the image burned into your brain when he leans in close enough to kiss you. He doesn’t kiss you — he never does — but he finally fires at point blank range:
“Turn around.”
Bang!
It’s so unexpected that you don’t register it as real at first. Neither does Minho, whose demanding gaze stays glued to you. The noise comes again, louder than the first, and you hear the cry that comes with it through the door.
“Spider, are you there?”
Hyunjin.
It’s his voice, you know, but it doesn’t sound right at all. The air of self-assuredness he usually carries is long gone. Whatever’s replaced it sounds completely unlike him in a way that makes your stomach turn.
Minho puts distance between your bodies in the time it takes Hyunjin to push open the door. You notice that he forgot to address his belt buckle, but you suppose it doesn’t matter. The youngest among you is too visibly shaken to see it as he stumbles inside with red-rimmed eyes.
Oh, fuck.
Panicked, you shoot a quick glance at Minho, hoping he’ll see your alarm and know what to do with it. His eyes are locked onto Hyunjin, who comes to a stop in front of you; Minho’s expression is the definition of illegible.
Your hand lifts instinctively to Hyunjin’s shoulder. Apparently, that reassuring touch is all it takes to break the dam; to break him down into sobs.
“Hey!” You gasp, knitting your arms around his frame and hauling him towards you. His face slots into the space where your neck meets your shoulder, allowing his hyperventilated breaths to hit your skin directly. “Hey, it’s —”
You know better than to lie and say it’s okay.
Minho may be fearless, but it’s Hyunjin that’s the least flappable in the entire group by a long shot. If you were to search back through the last decade, you wouldn’t be able to find a single moment where he seemed annoyed or anxious, let alone fucking devastated to the degree he currently is.
This is the farthest from okay things could possibly be.
You can’t tell if it’s heartbreak, nausea, or both that swells when you fill your fists with the back of his jacket and hold on tight.
From his spot two meters away, Minho cuts to the chase. “What happened to you?”
Hyunjin can’t answer, not at first.
Maybe, you think, saying whatever it is out loud will confirm the reality of the situation. You don’t push him. Instead, you stop holding him long enough to pull him over to the far corner of your makeshift bedroom, where he drops down to sit on the mattress held off the floor by two wooden pallets. Despite his wiry frame, the force of his collapse makes the wood clatter against the concrete floor below.
When you take a spot beside him, it’s much less quickly, no more graceful. Hyunjin doesn’t mind the hand you place on his shoulder to keep yourself steady. If he hears the click at your manufactured joint over the sound of his own barely-regulated breathing, he doesn’t say so.
Still standing where he was left — where he left you, more like — Minho’s narrowed eyes hone in again on Hyunjin. The expression on his face is just as unreadable as before, and he still won’t look at you.
As much as that bothers you, your own feelings are never your first priority. You turn your head to look from Minho to Hyunjin, whose hands grip the black denim of his jeans like a lifeline. When the latter finally does speak, the explanation hemorrhages out of him, spilling and flooding until there isn’t much air left in the room to breathe.
Three things in particular hit you like a train:
The Bliss Beta is infinitely more insidious than you could’ve imagined — even for Ulsan — and its mass rollout is closer than you ever would’ve guessed.
You now have the data you need to find the servers running the Beta, which means there’s a chance that the way things currently are is the worst they’ll get.
There’s a guillotine blade looming over the Professor’s neck, and it’s your hand on the rope, obligated to let go. It’s your scale that’s tasked with weighing lives.
Nausea, you realize, almost too late.
You grab hold of the wastebasket near the foot of your mattress and squeeze your eyes shut while your honey twists leave you in a hurry.
He loves her.
He loves her, he loves her, he loves her, and there are fifty-one-million faceless reasons why he can’t have her. You feel the weighted stares of every single one of them on you when he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small, silver datashard. It’s thin, flat with sharp edges, but it’s a bullet if you’ve ever seen one.
When Hyunjin places it in your hand, your fingers don’t close around it. You can’t even look at it without feeling faint; your body won’t accept the weight of it in your palm. You avert your eyes, praying that your object permanence disappears along with it.
And then that reflex kicks in again, craving some semblance of safety.
Minho is already watching you intently when you turn your head his way. The relief you feel is immediate, and you don’t have the energy left to pretend that’s not the case.
You love him.
You love him, you love him, you love him, and this goddamn horror show you’re living through feels survivable while he’s around, even if it isn’t.
Maybe, you think, if you live to see the end, his presence will help you hate yourself less for the things you’re about to do to get there. That’s been the case so far, anyway. You’ve got a decade’s worth of scorched bridges behind you, and the ash on your face has never made him see you any differently.
Hyunjin clears his throat, dragging you back into the moment you don’t want to be a part of.
“She said there’s multi-level encryption on this thing,” he mumbles, voice weak. His hand envelops yours and gently folds your fingers over your palm, as if he knows damn well you won’t do it yourself. “I don’t have to tell you this, but be careful, Spider. One move too many, and we’re all dead.”
You freeze; he stands, wiping invisible dirt from the front of his jeans. Nothing he attempts will make him feel clean, you know, but you don’t fault him for trying.
Before he can take a single step back towards your door, you reach out and grab his hand, preventing him from leaving.
“Keys,” you croak.
His eyebrows knit together.
“Cryptographic keys — characters. Numbers, usually.” You shake your head to realign your thoughts. It doesn’t do much; your explanation still comes out sputtering. “Each encryption is going to have a different algorithm altering its data, and it’ll be faster if I don’t have to write a separate program to try and find the strings I need.”
Judging by his face, the explanation makes sense, but he still looks as if he has no fucking idea what the answers might be.
For the first time in nearly an hour, Minho speaks. The suddenness of his participation makes both you and Hyunjin flinch.
“Dates,” he offers gruffly. “Ones that are significant to the two of you, maybe.”
The suggestion cracks against your skull like a baseball bat.
Of all the things you could’ve expected him to say in the presence of someone other than you, something sentimental didn’t even come close to making the list. Hyunjin, it seems, is just as startled by this — by the appearance of your invisible friend, who’s spent ten years refusing to let this side of him be seen.
You make a note to ask Minho where this idea came from. If there are any dates he holds onto, with no one the wiser.
Hyunjin’s brow furrows for a moment while he thinks. Then, the light bulb behind his eyes flashes.
Eureka.
Dashing now towards the door, he calls out to you over his shoulder. “I’ll make you a list,” he promises breathlessly before he disappears altogether.
Without Hyunjin’s voice to fill it, the silence of your room roars in your ears. You need to shrug it off you, physically; move around so that you stop feeling like you’re being hydraulically pressed.
In a wordless request for help, you hold your hand out to Minho. The jury’s still out as to what you want when he takes it: to drag him down to you, to be hauled to your feet, or to simply have it held.
For the first time — possibly ever — he doesn’t take it.
Well-practiced hands drop to his belt buckle instead of reaching out to you. He re-fastens it quickly, and over the clink of metal, he grunts, “Stop looking at me like that.”
You blink rapidly when that sucker-punch statement hits you. “Looking at you like what, Minho?” You ask gently, as if your excess will make up for his lack.
“Like I’m your future.”
And just like that, he’s gone without another word or a backwards glance.
Eleven days crawl by without you seeing or hearing from Minho. You struggle to keep count as they pass. You’re so preoccupied that there’s no real difference between them, leaving them all to bleed together. It doesn’t help that all ten nights so far have been more or less sleepless.
While you’d love to say that all your time awake has been productive, you’d be lying. Sure, you spend the vast majority of it with the bright light of your monitors boring into your retinas, but that doesn’t mean you’re actively engaging with the shit displayed there. Between your program and your spent brain, it’s your neural pathways that are most in need of re-writing.
“Goddammit,” you hiss when a shock jolts through your upper right thigh for the umpteenth time today alone.
Halfway crazy from frustration, you glare down at your quad and see the remaining muscles there twitching violently. And even though it’s been over a year, your brain is still surprised to find that the source of your pain doesn’t exist at all.
That outburst from you certainly isn’t the first, yet it’s the one that catches Chan’s attention. Like you, he’s spent an unhealthy amount of his time in the Hub over the past week and a half, pouring over who knows what. It’s safe to assume that’s how he’d describe your work, too.
“Been especially bad lately, hasn’t it?” He asks, head popping up from behind a stack of files.
He probably doesn’t expect you to squeak out a laugh at the sight of him, but you can’t help yourself.
“You look like a meerkat when you do that.” The frown you get in response only makes you giggle more, despite yourself. “Like an overworked, overtired, under-caffeinated meerkat.”
Chan works overtime to control his expression, steel himself. It doesn’t work. It never does, no matter how obnoxious you and your comrades are around him because at the end of the day, all he ever is, is fond.
He sighs as he sits up fully in his chair. “Spider.”
It’s funny, you think. He sounds just like your father when he takes that tone with you, although the name he uses is nowhere near the same.
“Talk to Doc.” Realizing he sounded more stern than he meant to, Chan’s mouth softens from a thin, straight line to a slight smile. He adds, “Please.”
And because you’re the best behaved of all his pseudo-children, you don’t put up a fight. You don’t roll your eyes the way Seungmin does, or do the exact opposite of what you’ve been told, like —
Don’t go there.
You just get up, ignoring the strong urge you feel to buckle at the knees and hit the floor, and push your chair back with the underside of your thighs. Chan sees the pained look on your face immediately and moves to stand up and help you. You wave him off.
“All good,” you lie through gritted teeth, bearing weight on your palm as you maneuver your way around your desk.
Chan may not believe you, but he listens, nonetheless. While you guide yourself from your workstation on the far side of the room towards the door, you try very hard to ignore the thought that keeps ricocheting around your skull like a bullet, shredding whatever grey matter gets in its way.
There’s one person that line wouldn’t have worked on.
It takes a considerable amount of time to hobble to Doc’s clinic, which is clear on the other side of the compound, but you eventually make it there without breaking too much of a sweat.
In a past life, the space was an employee locker room that featured shower stalls and toilets on one side, and numerous lockers and benches on the other. Jeongin tried his best, but the plumbing was fucked beyond repair; all the utilities were scrapped. Whatever useful parts remained were repurposed elsewhere, while the broken bits wound up in that pile of assorted garbage on the roof.
Don’t.
Due to the size of the space, there’d been a multi-day debate on what to use it for. In the end, the decision was made to give it new life as a makeshift field hospital because Minho was right. The tile and drainage system is ideal for —
Stop it.
When you push through the swinging, double doors and stagger inside, you learn that you’re not today’s only patient. On one of the cots up ahead, Doc’s nimble fingers work to stitch Scraps’ left eyebrow back together, while Felix paces in the background with his hands in his hair.
“I’m so —”
“Felix!”
Scraps slaps her hands down onto her thigh. The sound echoes off the tile walls like a thunderclap, but she doesn’t flinch at the contact. Doc does, however. She freezes solid, needle-holder in hand.
If Doc is frustrated, she doesn’t show it. That bedside manner of hers is unparalleled. Her gentle voice sounds suspiciously like Chan’s when she pleads, “No violence until I’m done holding a needle near your eye.”
Scraps nods in acknowledgment, which only contributes to the panicked look on Doc’s face. You bite your lips to hold your laughter in as you amble closer and dump yourself onto a nearby cot.
“Seriously — stop apologizing,” Scraps calls over her shoulder.
If it wasn’t for Doc’s gentle hold on her chin, you suspect that she’d turn her head to look at Felix outright.
“I told you to raise the stakes, and you did. So, I owe you a gold star for being a good listener, I guess.”
The way he looks at her when she can’t even see him kind of makes you want to sob. That ache only grows when he puts his hands on either side of her head, leans down, and plants a kiss on her hair.
Meanwhile, Doc is muttering, “Please stop moving, please stop moving, please stop moving,” like those are the only words she knows. You feel as guilty as you do grateful; her distress is a sufficient distraction from your own.
“Done!” She chirps moments later. Relief washes over her in a heartbeat, releasing tension from every single muscle cell she has — like she’s successfully disarmed a bomb, rather than sutured a minor injury.
And even though she’s too polite to say it, you swear you can hear her thinking it:
Please leave now.
And they do. They fall into lockstep, with Scraps tucked under Felix’s arm and hers wrapped around his waist.
And you’re still staring at the door once it swings shut again, so lost in all your conflicting thoughts that Doc has to call your name twice to get your attention.
“You’re not due back in for another month or so.” She frowns. “What’s on your mind?”
As usual, you don’t know where to start. You don’t know how to turn the faucet on without overflowing the bathtub, either, so you just let it all pour out.
“Everything was fine — perfect, probably. Or the closest it’s going to get, I guess. Then — I don’t even know what happened, but he won’t fucking look at me now. Won’t talk to me, walks out of a room when I walk in, like he can’t even stand to ignore me in my presence.”
You suck in a breath through your teeth to make up for all the ones you skipped out on while you rambled on.
Of course, that doesn’t mean you stop rambling.
“And I think it might be breaking my heart. I don’t know. I don’t — I don’t know what to do now. It’s very distracting,” you mutter, frowning.
A laugh slips out to signal how uncomfortable you are with the sudden intentional vulnerability. It sounds more like the sort of hiccup that precedes a sob.
“Stupid thing to fixate on when the world’s on fire, isn’t it?”
To say that Doc is taken aback would be an understatement. Her eyes go wide; her lips purse. She pauses for a moment before she ultimately whispers, “I meant your leg.”
You’d go dig your own grave out back if you could walk that far.
“Oh.”
Doc does you the favor of averting her eyes. She focuses instead on her lap, eyes widening without blinking, as if she’ll be able to see her way out of the conversation more easily that way.
Self-conscious now to the point of nausea, you play with the frayed edge of denim that lays over the end of your residual limb. You can’t help but wonder how many right-side pant legs you’ve chopped off over the last twelve months, and what those bits of fabric ended up being used for.
Maybe they’re in that pile on the roof.
“Is mirror therapy helping at all?”
You glance up at Doc. “Not as much as it used to,” you sigh. “I think my brain figured out I was trying to bamboozle it and threw another wall up. Those are all it has at this point — walls and holes.”
It’s quiet for a few moments. Now, you wonder if you’ve taken Doc out of her depth. You were her first — and thankfully remain her only — amputation. If anyone’s gonna stump her, it’s you.
You snicker at your own unspoken joke.
Get it?
“How much do you remember?” She asks, catching you off-guard. It was the fact that she asked you anything that surprised you, not the question itself, but she assumes she’s offended you. Quickly, she apologizes. “I’m sorry. You don’t need to talk about it.”
The truth is, the before and during are both incredibly vague. You know that you went with a small group to Ilsan, planning to fuck up one of WraithCo.’s supply lines, and that their ghouls caught wind of your plans.
Beyond that, it’s anyone’s guess. The audio underscoring this montage in your mind is warped to all hell; the faces and voices are blurry, as if they’ve since been censored. Deleted, just like the lower two-thirds of your leg.
As for the after… All that comes to mind is pain, in one form or another.
Fighting off an infection, which left your waking hours in some fever-filled daze that only stopped when the various meds worked their magic and knocked you back unconscious.
Being bed-ridden for an eternity after that fever broke and the infection cleared, too exhausted and depressed to keep your eyes open.
Aching all over as you forced your body to remember how to walk, too obsessed with your newfound crumb of independence to let anyone see you stumble.
Self-imposed isolation to hide the toll it’d all taken on you, and the frustration that came with knowing what you were doing but being unable to stop yourself.
“Nothing I wouldn’t mind forgetting” you finally say.
Doc hums thoughtfully but offers nothing beyond a tiny frown. The part of you that wants to know why she’s asking is overrun by the part of you that fears what she’ll tell you; clearly, she’s similarly torn.
Add this to the list of things you’ll have to learn to live without.
Time continues to both slip and crawl by. Days are gone before you can blink; nights encase you in cement, trap you in place. You know it’s not a coincidence. You’re only alone after dark.
Still, it’s not all bad. You’ve certainly been more productive lately, whether or not you truly want to be. That’s not a coincidence, either. You’re capable of accomplishing quite a bit when the only person you truly want to talk to has no interest in listening.
If he did want to listen, you might tell Minho that he was right about the keys to the encryption being linked to dates. You could thank him, if he’d hear you out. Maybe you’d finally summon up the courage to ask where the idea came from.
What if…?
These little hypotheticals of yours only get more painful, the longer you steep in them, and you’re no good at reining your mind in when it starts wandering. It runs off in the same direction every time it goes — back to the night you finished peeling back all the layers.
You know there’s no point in imagining the ways Minho would’ve distracted you then because he didn’t. He was nowhere to be found; and you cried alone in your room, overwhelmed by both the relief of having answers and the all-consuming guilt of knowing what — and who — it cost to get them.
A familiar, prickling feeling at the corners of your eyes pulls you back to the present. You tilt your head back and blink rapidly to keep the dam from breaking. Part of you is proud. This might be the first time you’ve ever managed to keep your feelings to yourself.
“My halmoni always said that holding back your sneezes like that takes a year off your life.”
With a jolt, you snap to attention. Your neck does the same, head falling back down so quickly that your teeth click painfully against one another. The surprise — and the inadvertent scowl it prompts — melts away when you register Jeongin in the doorway.
You frown, although you laugh a little. “That’s horrifying, kid.”
If Jeongin sees you swipe the back of your thumb over your cheekbones, he doesn’t say so. He simply ambles into the Hub and finds his usual spot at the far side of the central table.
“She said the same thing about being under streetlights when they burn out,” he tuts, taking a seat. He blinks through thoughtful silence for a moment before re-focusing newly-widened eyes on you. “Now that I think about it, she did die young...”
You would’ve loved to hear that theory play out, but the opportunity flies out the door as soon as Hyunjin walks through it. The comment you want to make about his surprising punctuality is swallowed down just as quickly as it bubbles up. His expression tells you that he’s not up for much of anything, let alone teasing. With a cursory nod, he acknowledges that he is, at the very least, capable of noticing his surroundings.
Unfortunately, you’re not capable of looking at him — seeing the state of him — without your bleeding heart cracking right in half.
Chan serves as a sufficient distraction, thankfully. He enters shortly after Hyunjin with both Seungmin and Doc in tow. He ignores the former’s nagging about who knows what and ushers the latter to the chair next to the head of the table. He doesn’t sit, though you wouldn’t have expected him to; he never does. Instead, he stands at the back of his chair with his eyes flicking expectantly over to the door.
In the time it takes you to cross from your workstation to your usual folding chair, the guest list doubles. Holding up the wall in the corner, Jihoon stands with his arms crossed loosely over his chest. To his right, Scraps sits on a rare patch of free space on Chan’s desk, legs swinging idly as they dangle; and to his left, you spy the cat-eyed girl whose name you still haven’t learned. All you know about her is that she works under Hyunjin, and they’re so in-sync that people have taken to calling them siblings.
You see no similarities between them now, however. She has light left in her eyes.
Several others filter in as the minutes pass, most of whom you haven’t yet crossed paths with. Well, you might have. Your days all run together; your short-term memory isn’t firing on all cylinders. You don’t take the opportunity to register their faces now, though. Your eyes only linger for the second it takes to confirm who they aren’t.
Chan turns his head to you, earning your attention. “Where’s —?”
Doc shoots him a look that interrupts his question before he can finish it. She knows what he doesn’t, after all: You’re currently the worst person to turn to for information on Minho’s whereabouts, even though you used to be the first.
Behind you, a heavily-accented voice chimes in, “He’s with little Yongbokie on an errand. They should be back soon.”
You don’t have to turn around to know who’s speaking. Sierra, as she’s known within the collective, has the sort of presence you can feel, even when she can’t be seen. It’s still unclear to you how she wound up a world away from the island she grew up on, but you’re glad that she did, and that she’s on your side. If she wasn’t —
Well…
Suffice it to say, there’s a reason why this foreign mercenary is called what she is — two reasons, actually, according to her native language — and neither bodes well for enemies. Specifically, there’s a mountain of bodies behind her, all of them hacked to bits by those blades she’s so fond of.
Yeah, you think. Definitely better to keep her close.
“Just start without them,” she snaps at Chan, eye roll evident in her tone.
Despite outranking her, Chan can’t hide the uneasiness that comes with being addressed by Sierra directly. You watch him swallow the lump in his throat before he clears it fully. “Everyone, listen up,” he says with the sort of gentle authority only he’s capable of.
You can’t help the smile that tugs at the corner of your mouth. It’s such a stark contrast to the tone that goaded him to speak in the first place.
Still, a hush falls over the Hub immediately.
“I know some of you have heard whispers about this. I don’t necessarily trust that the rumors swirling are accurate —”
Pointedly, Chan looks at Jeongin, who’s often the point in the relay where things go horribly wrong. The youngest never intends to pass on off-base gossip, but his attention span is about as poor as his audio processing. Jeongin ducks his head down; the tips of his ears go a dangerous shade of red.
“— so I’d like to make sure our record is straight.” Chan claps his hands, and as he rubs his palms together, he turns on his heel towards your side of the table. “Take it away, Spider,” he sings, beaming.
You turn your head quickly to the left and then to the right, searching for whoever the hell he’s truly cold-calling because it simply cannot be you. He knows better; he has to. For the decade you’ve worked together, you’ve hidden behind your screens because you don’t have the stomach for this leadership shit — especially not public speaking. It’s why you nominated him to run the show.
Eyebrows disappearing into your hairline, you stare incredulously back at him, silently begging him to pick the gauntlet back up.
Meanwhile, at least twenty pairs of eyes burn holes into you, like sun rays through a magnifying lens.
Fitting.
“Well,” you eventually manage to squeak out. “I — um… I spent the last month or so spelunking into confidential files relating to the — uhh — the Bliss Beta?”
It’s not a question. You don’t know why you made it sound like one.
Collapsing in on yourself, you knot your fingers on the table in front of you and stare down at your hands. “There’s a facility, it turns out, in — umm —”
“Is this going to take long? If it is, I can go and grab snacks.” Seungmin, from his spot across the table, smirks at you in such a way that you might — for the first time in your life — choose violence.
That is, if his jokes at your expense didn’t have your nervous stomach churning even harder, sending bile up your throat.
That is, if a cold voice didn’t fly out of nowhere, primed to eviscerate Seungmin before you can even process your own reaction.
“It’ll be a bit hard for you to chew after swallowing all your teeth, don’t you think?”
You hadn’t noticed Minho enter, but you find him easily now that he’s given himself away. He leans casually against the door frame with his hands in his pockets, leaving his tone as the only indication that he is, in fact, bothered. Everyone that had previously been standing near the door must’ve cleared a perimeter at some point — undoubtedly without being told to.
In response, Chan’s warning look is bifurcated, shot off to both men with equal, albeit subtle force. Seungmin’s face gives way to something apologetic. You can see it in his eyes that he thought he was being funny; that there’s no malice, only an inability to read a fucking room. To the contrary, Minho’s expression is pure venom, jaw set so tight that his teeth could crack.
He may have just interjected on your behalf, but he doesn’t look at you for more than a split second, as if he didn’t mean to concede even that much time.
And even though it feels illegal somehow, you keep your eyes fixed on him, as if you’ll catch another sliver of acknowledgement.
“In Cheongju,” you continue shakily. Your voice barely registers above a whisper, like you’re speaking to a single person, rather than a room full of them. “There’s a facility in Cheongju. All the servers currently associated with the Beta are operating out of there.”
Despite your anxiety, you manage to laugh. “They’re sitting ducks, really. Terrible planning from a security standpoint — either stupidity or arrogance.”
“Both,” Jihoon adds gruffly. If you’re not mistaken, he directs his next line at Seungmin. “Those things aren’t mutually exclusive.”
You know it wasn’t his intention, but you crack a tiny smile, nonetheless. “Comorbidities, aren’t they?”
As soon as you say it out loud, your cheeks set to burning. You send a panicked glance to Doc and duck your head, like your fear of looking stupid isn’t on full display. “Please tell me I used that term correctly,” you mutter, feeling instant relief when she nods and a profound sense of comfort when she pats your still-clenched hands.
“So, what are we going to do about it?” Sierra cuts to the chase, as she often does. “Arson?”
Her eyes sparkle at the suggestion. You find yourself surprised that she’s offered something so tame. Only a week ago, her response to seeing a cockroach in the canteen was to shoot at it.
Not for nothing, you’re also surprised by how endearing you still find that little anecdote — but maybe you shouldn’t be. It’s not the first time you’ve developed a soft spot for someone so sharp.
Reflexively, you look over at Minho. You see his eyes flicker, like he’d averted them just in time to miss yours. It’s the only reason you have to believe that he’d been watching you, save for the inexplicable warmth you’d felt crawling up your neck.
You don’t know what to do with any of that.
“Destroying the servers would only be a bandage,” you sigh. “I want to fully eradicate the program itself, which means those servers need to remain intact — for now.”
“So, we do it like Daegu, then?” Felix suggests. Judging by his sudden participation, he’s overjoyed to have something to contribute to a conversation he wouldn’t normally follow. “We broke in and set up that…. thing for you, in that room that was like an…. air-conditioned microwave?”
You bite down on your lips to keep from laughing. It’s a miracle that he remembers the Thanotech raid at all with the concussion he sustained in the process. It’s even more incredible that he remembers the non-technical explanation you gave for the server room within that data center.
Shaking your head, you frown. “I need to be on-site for this one.”
“Absolutely not. Fuck no.”
Across the room, Minho now stands fully upright. His hands are no longer in his pockets; they hang at his sides, clenched tightly.
You can’t help the incredulous scoff you let out. Bold of him, you think, to write you off completely and then attempt to dictate where and when you get to exist. That slap in the face still stings, but you keep your tone as light as possible.
“If something goes wrong, or if things have changed from the schematics I was able to access, I won’t be able to handle it remotely. I need to be there to troubleshoot.” And even though it goes without saying, you remind him anyway: “We’re not getting a second crack at this.”
“I know you don’t remember Ilsan, but I do,” Minho glowers, tone as dark as his eyes. The rest of the room falls into a charged silence; everyone is too tense to breathe, let alone speak. “I remember carrying three-quarters of your body out of Ilsan and spending weeks at your bedside.”
Just like that, the air in your lungs turns to cement.
How do you admit to not knowing he was even there?
And what the hell are you supposed to do with this information now that it’s reaching you for the first time — a year after the fact — in front of an audience?
You try to start somewhere. “Minho —”
“No.” His voice is sharp when it cuts you off, but there’s a crack in the blade, so microscopic that you wonder if you’re imagining things. He clears his throat to try and keep himself even. “You don’t get to make that call.”
Here comes that prickling feeling again, causing tears to spring up at the corners of your eyes. You clench your jaw and try to wish them away.
It’s Chan that speaks next. “You’re right. Spider doesn’t get to make that call,” he concedes. Then, his expression turns to stone. “I do. She said there’s no way around it, so she’s going —”
Minho seeks to interrupt, but Chan raises his hand and stops him in his tracks. You want to argue, too, because you’re right here and don’t need to be spoken about, as if you’re not in the room. The leader plows through, unaffected.
“— and because you know what the stakes are, your only job is to keep her safe.”
If the anguished look on Minho’s face says anything, it’s that he wants nothing to do with the burden of keeping you — what’s left of you — in one piece.
The briefing continues after his outburst, but Minho doesn’t hear a word of it. It all flows past him, waterlogged and warped, without sinking in. He finds it hard to give a shit about that fact, though.
Clearly, his input doesn’t matter. Worse, the sole order that’s been made of him is fucking redundant. He can’t imagine that the rest of them would mean much, so what does it matter if he didn’t pay attention?
He’s halfway out the door by the time Chan wraps up. Dodging eye contact, Minho turns to leave outright, to disappear somewhere and lick his wounds. One last lash manages to hit him as he goes:
When you cross the room, you’re not headed his way. No, your quick steps take you straight to Jihoon.
Minho knows that he has no right to feel this bitter. He should be grateful that his pushing you away is having the intended effect — that you might’ve found someone other than him to lean on — but the relief he’s been waiting to feel is nowhere to be found.
It never is.
The quick fixes he’s gotten of you in back rooms and shadows didn’t satiate him, either. Cutting you out completely has only proven to be more of the same ache.
Unwilling to watch the consequences of his own actions unfold, Minho turns sharply out of the doorway. Automatically, his feet carry him down the hall, up the stairs towards the roof. His brain might tell him otherwise if it wasn’t currently swimming, but his body acts on its own, seeking out the last place and time where he didn��t feel like this.
It’s a bad call, he realizes as he ascends.
He’ll never be able to recreate a scene with half the cast absent. The stage directions are fucked now. There’s no reason to take the steps one at a time now that he’s alone, but he still does. Without context, his motivations make no sense; and his hands don’t know what the hell to do without a belt loop hooked underneath one of his fingers. They twitch in the absence of denim.
With every step, he repeats his only line:
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
And when he reaches that busted fucking door and kicks it with everything he has, no one looks at him with amused disapproval.
It’s all wrong.
Steel hits cement with a sickening clang that’s still ringing out as he stalks over to the ledge and drops himself down on a familiar, overturned bucket. Its counterpart sits unoccupied at his side. Minho can’t look at it, can’t get up to throw it off the fucking roof, can’t do anything except simmer in his rage because —
Your only job is to keep her safe.
He tilts his head back, closes his eyes, and shouts into the void above, “Fuck!”
As if he needs to be told.
As if he hasn’t been trying to do exactly that for all the years he’s known you, driving nails further into his own goddam coffin with every second spent in your web.
Elbows come to rest on his knees. His face falls, too, until it drops into his palms. No matter how hard he tries to control his breathing, it comes out through gritted teeth, seething.
The fucking audacity.
Even if Minho hasn’t given you a reason to know better, Chan should. He’s seen better, firsthand.
Every time Chan stopped by the clinic to check in on you, he found Minho already sitting next to your glorified cot, watching your sleeping form like a hawk for any sign of distress.
Chan didn’t need to ask how your hair ended up in poorly-executed braids because the unskilled hands that made them were wringing themselves at your side. He never needed to ask why, either. When you finally stopped thrashing through nightmares, you didn’t wake up to find yourself tangled in inescapable knots.
Keep her safe.
That’s the fucking problem, isn’t it?
When his candle gets snuffed out — and he knows it will, can feel it in his bones that this is it — who’s going to keep you safe?
Hyunjin doesn’t have the capacity — not anymore. Minho was there with you the night Hyunjin’s whole world exploded into pieces. You saw love, but Minho saw your future. He sees it every time he looks at Hyunjin, who’s still listless, still lingering on the periphery like a fucking ghost. Hyunjin will never be the same, and if Minho lets himself get any closer to you than he already has, you’ll wind up just as empty.
Then who?
Chan is too busy. Doc is just as preoccupied, and as kind as she is, she’s never understood you — not really. Felix and Scraps can barely manage themselves; you’ll fall through the cracks amidst their bullshit shenanigans. Neither Seungmin nor Jeongin can be trusted with anything — or anyone — this important. They’re both fucking disasters in their own right, although Jeongin may eventually grow out of that. Changbin is too reclusive, and so is Jihoon; Jisung’s an anxious mess. Sierra is, at absolute minimum, insane.
And Minho may be the worst of them, but he tried his best for you. He’s still trying, even though that means keeping you as far away from him as possible.
“Fuck,” he repeats, albeit much less strongly.
That pathetic, choked-out word hits the air and dissipates quickly, leaving Minho alone in self-imposed exile. He stays there until sunrise, when the unoccupied bucket to his left becomes too visible to tolerate.
The next time Minho steps foot in the Hub, it’s much less crowded than the last. In fact, for what might be the first time ever, he’s beaten everyone else in. It’s no wonder; his stomach has been churning for hours now, and it was useless to keep laying in a bed he couldn’t sleep in.
Because life is far from fair, you’re the second to arrive. He doesn’t have to see you enter to know it; definitely doesn’t need to look up to confirm that it was your deliberate, slightly uneven footfalls he heard coming up the hall. It’s a reflex, though. His gaze lifts just in time to meet yours.
“Oh,” you peep, eyes bright despite the dark circles below them. “Hi.”
You seem startled to find Minho here ahead of you. Warranted, he thinks. The sunshine you cast on him isn’t, but you don’t try to withhold it — or maybe you can’t. As much as he loves that about you, it confuses the shit out of him and scares him just as badly. You either didn’t get the memo when you chose this life, or you don’t feel the crushing weight of it yet:
Sparks like yours can’t last forever.
His voice sounds like gravel after last night’s anxious reflux, but he echoes you, nonetheless, “Hi.”
And then Chan walks in. He stops short when he sees the two of you, eyes flicking from your face to Minho’s with barely-hidden intrigue. Somehow, he misses the daggers Minho shoots at him with eyes alone.
“I re-routed everyone else to the vans and told them to load their shit. You ready?” Chan poses the question to both of you, but his focus is fixed solely on you. It lingers for a moment, like there’s some secret, second question hidden between the lines.
Minho doesn't know what’s going on, but he does know that he hates whatever it is.
You nod. Whether that’s in response to what was asked or what wasn’t, he can’t say. Your mouth sits in a tight, straight line. That, Minho can easily translate to feigned confidence. You’re not ready; you’re not good at bluffing, either.
He sees his window in that bit of doubt and tries to leap through it. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”
It doesn’t sound as firm as he wants it to. If you listen closely — and you always do — it probably sounds like he’s pleading, which feels both alien and illegal to Minho. He clears his throat. “We can do this without you, Spider. I’m serious. Tell me how to get you set up for remote access, and I’ll —”
“I don’t know how many more times I have to say this for you to understand: You can’t do this without me. You need me.”
Despite what you say, there’s no heat in the way you say it. It sounds like you’re pleading, too; scratching at the door to be let in. He knows you well enough to catch the subtext; to know that you’re not just talking about the job. But Minho can’t make his mouth move. Likewise, he can’t turn away.
Stop looking at her like she’s your future.
Chan doesn’t have time for the thousand of things going unsaid, so he interjects with an exasperated grunt, “Vans.” He points to the clock before gesturing between you and Minho. “Ten minutes, or you’re both walking to Cheongju.”
Neither of you moves once he clears the threshold and disappears again. Say something, he tells himself. Say anything.
He doesn’t.
“You didn’t sleep last night,” you muse, eyes narrowing slightly with concern. It’s not a question. There’s no uncertainty in the way you look at him, although that’s nothing new. “I read somewhere that peppermint gum helps with reflux.”
You shrug, like it’s simply a fact you’re sharing. It’s not. It’s the millionth way you’ve found to say “I love you” without using those words.
Minho slips off the empty workstation desk he’s been sitting on, dusts off the back of his jeans once he’s back at his full height. With a nod of his head, he gestures to your workstation. “Take what you need,” he advises quietly.
When he moves towards the door, you move forward into the room. Your paths cross in the middle, but Minho keeps his distance, too aware of that magnetism of yours to take any risks now. Upon reaching the door, he pauses and looks back over his shoulder to call out your name. As if you were anticipating it, you look up from the desk drawer you’re combing through.
He freezes for a moment, although he doesn’t mean to. You might be the only person capable of catching him off-guard. Once his brain stops lagging, he says only half of what he wants to: “Don’t forget your mask.
Hurriedly, like you really would’ve forgotten, you pull open a drawer and fish out a black gaiter, which you then tuck into the zippered pocket of your jacket. Instantly, Minho’s posture gets a little less rigid. Not for nothing, yours does, too.
“Thanks,” you sigh. The corners of your mouth raise slightly. From what he’s been hearing lately, this might be the closest you’ve been to smiling in weeks. Your reaction stops when you notice the way he’s halfway out of the room. “No need to wait on me. I’ll meet you in the loading dock in a minute.”
Minho stalls, feet unwilling to move, until you go back to gathering items. He nods once, as if you’ll even see his acknowledgment, then slips off into the hallway without you.
The loading dock he’s headed for is on the opposite side of the factory, but his anxiousness propels him there in half the usual time. His team is loitering around the two vans when he reaches them: one unmarked, one branded, both stolen.
Felix grins from the hood of the primary vehicle, where he sits cross-legged. He slaps his hands on the white metal below and proudly states, “I told you it would work.”
“Let me guess.” Minho looks over at Scraps. “You were the one who hot-wired them.”
She glances apologetically at Felix, then turns back to Minho with a shrug and a sheepish smile. “He tried his best,” she sighs. “If we had all day, he probably would’ve succeeded.”
At this, Felix’s grin droops into a cartoonish frown. “What do you mean probably?”
Minho rolls his eyes. “Enough — and go put a hat on, or you’re getting a full balaclava.” He points to the mess of blue hair spilling onto Felix’s shoulders. “If your fashion statement gets us pinged on a security camera, I’ll kill you myself —”
A laugh rings out behind him. He turns on his heel to find Sierra snickering at Felix’s reddening cheeks, both tattooed hands covering her mouth as she does.
“— and you know better,” Minho snarks, pointing straight at her. “Gloves. Now.”
Scraps’ eyes are as wide as the moon when Minho swivels back towards her. She doesn’t give him the opportunity to say it; she’s already shoving her decorated arms into the sleeves of a plain, black jacket and zipping it up as high as it’ll go. He hears relief leave her in a quiet sigh when his focus finds who he’s truly been looking for.
A few meters away, Jeongin is buried so far under the hood of the secondary van that his feet barely touch the ground. With his target now acquired, Minho crosses to the neighboring bay.
“Well?” He demands, “Did you find them?”
The younger one startles at the sudden questioning; there’s a dull thud when he smacks his head on the underside of the hood.
Jeongin groans, “Aigo,” and carefully ducks his head until it clears the obstacle above him. His cheeks are pink and smattered with both dirt and grease — and the mess only gets worse when he mindlessly wipes sweat from his forehead with the back of his semi-blackened hand.
“Behind the radiator on this one.” Jeongin then thumbs over his shoulder to the van Felix sits on. “That one was attached to the undercarriage, near the fuel tank.”
With a grunt, Jeongin exhumes himself from the engine compartment and hops to his feet. It’s completely unnecessary, but he drops the tracker he just detached onto the concrete and smashes it under his steel-toed boot.
“You won’t need the GPS blocker anymore, so make sure to turn it off,” he advises. And he clearly didn’t learn his lesson thirty seconds ago because he taps one of his temples, leaving a dirty fingerprint behind. “Otherwise, it’ll interfere with your comms.”
Jeongin then blinks up at Minho like he’s expecting a pat on the head.
Over my dead body.
Minho instead points at the shards of plastic littering the ground. Affect flat, he tells his junior to clean that shit up, which is the closest he will ever fucking get to you did good, kid. The second Minho steps away, Jeongin drops down to hurriedly scoop the broken bits into his palm.
While he waits on the rest of the group — namely you — to roll up, Minho busies himself with checking supplies.
The unmarked van will carry the backup team to a rendezvous point half a kilometer away from the Ulsan facility, just in case. For this reason, it’ll also carry the big guns, which — like the vans themselves — were nicked from corpo rats. The seats inside were gutted immediately to clear out a cargo area. The trip sure as shit won’t be comfortable, but six people and a few ammo bags will fit inside without much issue.
Most importantly, there’s enough room for Minho’s crown jewel: a goddamn, motherfucking anti-tank gun. He’s been dying to try it out since the WraithCo. raid that brought it into his possession, but he has a sinking feeling that he never will.
Moving on to the primary van, Minho notes the logo emblazoned on the side. This one was harder to steal than its counterpart, but you stressed the necessity, and he made it happen. Now, when the infiltration team drives up to the facility, it’ll be under the guise of the outsourced IT company that Ulsan uses for routine maintenance.
According to the data you managed to reap, Ulsan’s made two glaring security errors, likely because they assume they’re infallible — not handling their own shit in-house, and scheduling their tech contractors to pop by on the same dates every month. Both details were barely footnoted in the reports; anyone but you wouldn’t have thought twice about them.
Something twinges in his chest when his thoughts start wandering in your direction, so Minho shakes his head to clear them. It doesn’t work. Instead, it seems to summon you. You step onto the loading dock a few seconds later.
You’ve changed since Minho left the Hub. The lapse in time makes sense now that his eyes sweep over your frame. The black jeans you’re wearing now aren’t chopped halfway up the right side. In order to conceal that highly recognizable part of you, you struggled through the significant extra time it takes to get your artificial foot through the openings — and he didn’t have to tell you to do any of this, unlike the rest of the team.
It’s been so long since you’ve been one of the boots of the ground that he underestimated you. Clearly, he shouldn’t have because you haven’t skipped a single detail. The treads of your boots have been filed down; but the platform sole remains intact, concealing the brand and size, as well as your true height. Specially-designed black gloves cover your hands, so you can utilize whatever touchscreens and keys you come across without leaving your trace behind. Likewise, the gaiter you grabbed at the last minute rests just below your chin, ready to cover your mouth and nose.
His breath catches in his throat when he sees the long-sleeved black top hanging loosely and hiding your figure. He wants to ask if you remember, but he doubts you do. You borrowed it from him so many years ago that it might as well be yours now.
To stop himself from staring, Minho starts to address the group. “Now that our guest of honor has shown up —”
“We still need Jihoon,” you interject with one finger raised, gently asking Minho to wait.
“What?” Minho can’t keep the confusion off his face, and he can’t wrap his head around this curveball you’ve thrown. Incredulously, he scoffs, “It’s a covert break-in.”
There isn’t a single reason he can think of to include the demolitions expert in something requiring finesse.
You don’t respond with words; your eyes flick to Chan, which is enough of a hint. The two of you are planning something — keeping him in the dark about something — but Minho can’t figure out what or why. The leader doesn’t provide much in the way of explanation. All he offers is, “We need a driver and an extra pair of eyes,” as if that’s the whole truth.
Whatever.
The second Jihoon finally walks through the door, Minho immediately starts his briefing.
The main team — including you, Chan, Felix, Sierra, Jihoon, and Minho himself — will head straight to the facility. The reinforcements — Scraps, Changbin, Eunjae, Sunwoo, Hongjoong, and some fucker from Texas known only as “Cowboy” — will wait just outside the property line with range weapons, ready to party with any gatecrashers.
On site, Felix and Sierra will take out security at the gate; only two men guard that post at any given time. Meanwhile, you’ll slip in and disable the remaining security measures: cameras, mainly, although the alarm system is your biggest priority. To get everyone inside, you’ve cloned the badge of a mid-level researcher who, like the Professor, has authorization beyond the front desk.
From there, the interior group will divide into watchdogs and infiltrators. Given the relatively small size of the building, it shouldn’t take long to get you to the control room, where you’ll take a crack at the main computer housing the Beta’s program. If everything goes as planned, you’ll be in and out within 30 minutes.
Nothing ever goes as planned, though. That Ilsan mission was simpler with significantly lower stakes, and it was a fucking nightmare. Minho can’t think about anything else when he crawls into the back of the van next to you.
For over two hours, Minho has been sitting cross-legged on the floor of this godforsaken van. His brain, unlike his body, is wholly fucking incapable of staying still. No matter how hard he tries to ground himself, he can’t shake the chill running down his spine or the voice in his head. It just keeps repeating the same thought, over and over:
This van will be missing passengers on the drive back.
“It’s your turn, Minho.”
His head snaps up. Instead of Atropos and her scissors, it’s Felix staring back at him, smiling curiously. Warmly. Minho’s pulse should ease up at the realization, but it doesn’t.
He clears his throat, although his voice still comes out jagged. “My turn?”
“He’s asking everyone what they’re going to do with their lives when this is all over,” you explain. Minho turns his head to look at you. For once, he can’t decipher the look on your face. You laugh when you squeeze his bent knee gently, adding, “Don't worry. I didn’t have an answer, either.”
But it’s not an answer that he lacks, it’s time.
Don’t you know that I’m already dead?
The van slows considerably, shifting from paved roads to gravel. Then, it stops entirely. Jihoon turns in his seat and squints through the holed, metal divider between the cabin and the back of the van.
“Spider?” He calls out over his shoulder, and it’s no wonder he struggles to identify you. Everyone sitting in this unlit area is cloaked in black from head to toe.
To help him out, you raise your hand and wave. Even if the dark gloves you’re wearing aren’t visible, your smile is. Your voice is just as bright when you chirp, “Over here!”
Minho sees Jihoon smile for the first time in all the years he’s known him. If he was anyone else, that flicker at the corner of his mouth wouldn’t count for shit; but Minho’s no stranger to steel or your uncanny ability to bend it. He knows your impact when he sees it.
“End of the line,” Jihoon reports. “The next time I stop, you’ll need to sneak out the side. I can see a camera positioned directly above the security vestibule, pointing downward from the left. The van will create a blind spot if you stay low to the ground.”
Now, Jihoon’s involvement is starting to make sense. He’s one of only four people who joined the Black Screen within the last year — after the Ilsan disaster, which led to the incorporation of masks into all field ops. Out of the entire organization, his face is one of the only ones that won’t tip off the guards.
Until the next news cycle, Minho thinks ruefully.
Once the driver is satisfied that the passengers are on the same page, he turns around and sets the van back into motion. Every dip in the uneven road below throws your shoulder against Minho’s; and every time you collide, he wants to wrap his arm around you to keep it from happening again. He doesn’t. Eventually, the opportunity disappears along with the faint crunch of gravel beneath the tires.
The brakes squeak slightly when the van stops a second time. Minho can’t hear the conversation Jihoon is making with the security staff from where he sits, just the slow-motion movements of you, Felix, and Sierra as the three of you inch the side door open and spill onto the driveway like molasses.
All Minho has left to do is wait — for you to come back or for shots to be fired. His pulse picks up when seconds slip by without either of those options playing out.
It’s funny, he thinks as he pulls his rifle into his lap, that the thing bringing him comfort now is designed to take it away. His thumb hovers over the selective fire switch, flexing in anticipation. Any second now, all his best laid plans will explode.
It’s only a matter of time until —
“All clear,” comes your voice through static.
Minho flinches. In all the tense silence, he’d completely forgotten about the earpiece he’s wearing. The breath he’d unknowingly been holding leaves him in a hurry, taking the tension in his shoulders with it as he deflates.
“Meet us at the fire exit on the northeast side. I shut off the emergency alert system, too, so we shouldn’t have any issues getting into that stairwell.”
Jihoon is already pulling the van around by the time you finish speaking. In a matter of seconds, he pulls up to the door in question and shifts gears to park.
You’re standing in the doorway when Minho’s feet hit the ground, eyes crinkling when you see him with a smile he can’t otherwise see. He doesn’t know what to do with that, so he addresses Sierra first. She’s got blood on her temple, and Minho can’t tell whose it is.
“You didn’t make a mess, did you?” He asks, frowning slightly.
“This is business, not pleasure, so no.” She rolls her eyes. The sigh she lets out reeks of disappointment. “Wrung out their necks like chickens and shoved their bodies into cabinets.”
Glancing quickly at Minho, Felix figures out where his leader’s eyes are focused. “Not hers,” he clarifies, nodding to Sierra. With the back of his sleeve, he reaches over and gently wipes the blood from her face, like he’s cleaning gochujang off a child. “Didn’t leave a trace, though.”
That’s all Minho cares about, so he asks no further questions. Instead, he checks his watch before looking up to check on you. He doesn’t pose the question, but you answer him, regardless; and when you do, you accompany it with your thumb raised.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
“All good!”
You then gesture with that thumb to the stairwell over your shoulder and ask, “Shall we?”, as if you’re inviting him to dance.
“You two —” Minho points to Felix and Sierra respectively, drawing their attention. “Station yourselves along the main hallway. If anyone so much as pokes their head out of a doorway, blow it the fuck off. No witnesses.”
Both nod in acknowledgment, but it’s not enough, not when your life is in his hands. He glares expectantly at them, waits in silence until they get the hint.
In tandem, they repeat, “No witnesses.”
Good enough.
Wordlessly, Minho waves his hand and sends them on their way to the second floor. He doesn’t budge until he sees the tops of their heads through the window, disappearing past the landing. Seconds later, Felix’s voice sounds off in Minho’s ear to advise him that the area is clear.
He turns back to the three people standing behind him to ensure they’re ready to move in. The second he sees the pistol in your grip, his stomach lurches so violently that he really might vomit on his boots.
It’s categorically fucked — so fundamentally, intrinsically wrong — that you’re standing here now with lethal force in your hands. Over ten long years, you’ve never fired a single shot in combat; never stolen the light from someone’s eyes while you’re staring into them. Still, no matter how nauseous the image makes him, the irony of it all can’t be ignored.
You only know how to shoot because he taught you.
“Let’s move out,” Chan says when Minho doesn’t.
Minho takes point with you close behind him. Behind you, Jihoon follows with an inexplicable duffle bag strapped to his shoulder. By now, Minho knows better than to question what’s going on here. He wouldn’t get an honest answer if he did; and Chan makes no excuses for it as he trails after Jihoon up the stairs.
At the top of the landing, you tap Minho’s shoulder, prompting him to stop. When you gesture up ahead, his eyes follow, gaze sweeping down the long corridor towards the southwest side of the building. Near the end of the hall, a pair of glass doors interrupts the path to the server room, which sits further down on an intersecting corridor. Somewhere between that server room and the bulletproof barrier in front of you is your target: the main computer running the show.
All the signage he can spot declares the area secure and for authorized personnel only. You’re neither safe nor sanctioned, but the badge you pull from inside the neck of your — his — shirt will let you pretend to be.
Lim Namseok, it reads.
That poor bastard will probably be dead before sunrise for the things you’re about to do. Minho doesn’t have any higher hopes for himself, but he wonders whether or not you’ll be able to sleep when this is over.
No, he ultimately decides. You won’t.
You keep glancing down at that man’s photograph, swallowing hard like you’re choking down an apology. Committing those features to memory, as if you’re obligated to remember each one of the creases in his forehead.
It’s not a question of if that face will pop up in your nightmares but when.
Minho’s both unwilling and unable to let you keep torturing yourself, so he shifts his assault rifle to his non-dominant hand and reaches out to you. Neither of you says a word as he gently removes the badge from between your fingers and lets the lanyard unfurl. You watch the ID flutter downwards until it rests against your chest; his eyes don’t leave your face.
“Come on,” he says softly. “There are fifty-one-million Namseoks out there that still need their asses saved.”
You don’t want to laugh. Your furrowed eyebrows inform him that you’re trying very hard not to, like your half-hearted glare will override the muted chuckle that slips through your mask. His attempt at levity worked, though. You start moving again when he does.
On the way to the first set of security doors, the four of you pass both of your lookouts, who’ve taken up posts half and three-quarters’ way up the corridor, respectively. Not for nothing, both look bored by the lack of action.
When Felix sees Minho, he complains, “Why is it always unpaid fucks like us who have to work on weekends? Shouldn’t these goons be here to justify their salaries?”
He’s not wrong. This place is a fucking ghost town, and although the datashard you combed through said this would be the case, the emptiness still makes the hairs on the back of Minho’s neck stand up. Whether or not he can put his finger on it, something feels off.
“Wouldn’t mind a desk job,” Chan muses, more to himself than to the rest of the group.
Minho leans into the assumption that he wasn’t meant to hear it. If he was, he’d have no choice but to point out that Chan hardly leaves his fucking desk as it is. So, to keep the peace, he keeps his smart mouth shut.
When several more meters come and go, the four of you reach the security checkpoint. With the badge back in hand and nerves evident in your tone, you hold it to the scanner and mutter, “Here goes nothing.”
Nothing is precisely what you get. No sirens wail, no trap doors give way to swallow you all down. The glass panels simply part with a click before sliding outwards along their respective tracks. Your shoulders sag with relief, unlike Minho’s. He carries tension in every single one of his muscle cells; and he only grows more rigid with each passing second.
To keep his pulse down, Minho counts each step he takes towards the control room. It’s an exercise in futility, of course. He’s a goddamn mess, no matter how hard he tries to hide it.
16…17…18…
Present moment excluded, he can only think of one other in which he’s ever experienced fear. Real fear, that is; the kind that begs his limbs to lock. It’s no coincidence that he can barely function now. How could he, with the common denominator trailing behind him like a shadow?
19….20…21 —
Suddenly, you hiss, “Shit!”
By the time he wheels himself around, you’re frozen in place with your pistol aimed through a doorway that wasn’t open when he passed it. A woman in a lab coat stands there with her hand still on the handle, eyes doubling in size when they land on you. Immediately, the coffee mug in her hand drops, sending both liquid and shards of ceramic flying. Both of her hands are in the air before the pieces can settle at her feet.
You fire once, panicked, and strike her in the upper arm. It’s a shit job, one that’ll give her time to call for help before she bleeds out on the floor, so Minho’s instinct takes over.
“Turn around,” he tells you.
You do.
From her knees, the woman clutches her bicep and begs Minho to lower his weapon. She still wants to have kids someday, she tells him, sobbing. She’s too young to die.
Unaffected, Minho aims at the space between her brows. “Aren’t we all?”
Bang!
Her body drops to the floor like a bag of cement, lifeless. Although the shot still echoes, it’s otherwise dead silent until you whisper, “I’m sorry.”
Stepping to the side to look at you, Minho furrows his brows. “Don’t be. We can’t leave witnesses.”
“I’m sorry that I didn’t do it right,” you clarify, voice wavering but louder than before. “You taught me better than that.”
For a minute, he forgets where he is; loses track of the two people standing on eggshells behind you both. There’s definitely still a corpse lying two meters away, but all he sees in his peripheral vision is proof: You may have chosen this life, but this life hasn’t chosen you.
Despite the bullets and the viscera making a mess of the tile nearby, you’re still the person he met a decade ago — someone with the instincts to do what’s needed but too much heart to be swallowed by them.
He hopes you never change.
“There may be more people that we haven’t accounted for.” Chan’s reminder forces three pairs of eyes to focus on him. He urges, “We need to get this done. Spider, where’s the control room?”
With his gun and without a word, Minho gestures to an office several doors down from where the group currently stands. In giant, black letters, it states, “CONTROL ROOM”. Your answer would be redundant at this point, so you don’t bother giving it. Moreover, Chan can fucking read.
“Oh,” is all the leader says before the group presses onward.
You swipe the badge again when you reach the control room. As was the case with the previous door, this one opens without any theatrics. All four of you slip inside before they close on their own, several moments later.
As soon as he steps foot inside, Jihoon whistles. “Damn.”
Damn is right.
The room feels even larger than the dimensions he saw on the blueprints; and with the forced air flowing from the overhead vent, it’s far less welcoming than Minho expected. Halfway between an operating theater and an airplane, the crisp whiteness of his surroundings seem both sterile and stale. He’d wash the feeling off himself if he could, but he can’t, so his skin continues to crawl.
Consuming the back half of the room, a U-shaped desk boasts multiple monitors, keyboards, and switches. Minho has no fucking clue what any of this equipment is supposed to do — he doesn’t give a shit, either — but he sees your eyes go wide with that childlike wonder he’s always been stupefied by.
Your hands twitch, likely from a desire to touch every surface they can find, so you hold them close to your chest while you look around. After studying all the options at your disposal, you take a seat behind the monitor at the left end of the desk.
Jihoon asks what everyone else is wondering: “Is the main computer not the one in the middle?”
Normally, this is the sort of thing you'd laugh at. You don’t, though; you barely seem to have heard it. Transfixed, you simply mumble something about that computer being hardwired to the server room. Minho doesn’t catch the rest of your explanation, but he hears the words “temperature control” and “ventilation” before concentration makes your voice peter out mid-sentence.
The next few minutes pass by without you noticing. Nobody speaks, nobody breathes too loudly for fear of interrupting your train of thought. That’s not to say it’s silent; far from it. Your rhythmic typing takes over the room, and the effect it has on Minho is borderline hypnotic.
A siren song, sort of.
In response to its call, Minho’s mind picks up and races from the room you’re in — back to the Hub, where this all started; to the countless hours he’s spent just like this, watching you work. As mundane as those moments might be in the grand scheme of things, they’re still his happiest.
Maybe he’d count this moment among them if the Sword of Damocles wasn’t swinging so blatantly overhead.
Out of nowhere, you slam your fist down on the desk, startling everyone else enough to flinch. It’s not just the noise that has Minho, Chan, and Jihoon on high alert; it’s the fact that none of them have ever seen you explode like this.
“Goddamn it!”
Immediately, Minho rushes over to where you’re sitting. His eyes dart from your face to the screen, then back again, finding no obvious answers for your distress.
“What?” He demands, “What’s wrong?”
Eyes glued to the monitor, you continue to mutter, “No, no, no —“
“Spider, talk to me. Tell me what’s going on, so we can fix it.”
“They fucking —” You smack the desk again, like hitting something will knock your thoughts loose. “Fuck!”
For a second, you let the rage simmer. Then, the defeat you still haven’t articulated settles in. You slump down in your chair with your face in your hands, forcing your breathing to slow.
“They must’ve added it after the Professor defected. I can’t — It wasn’t referenced anywhere on that datashard, Minho. There was nothing.”
All your panic is funneled directly into the palms of your gloves, making it difficult to decipher what you’re saying. Minho leans closer just in time to hear you cry, “They built a failsafe.”
Minho is out of his fucking depth. In fact, he’s drowning.
“A failsafe?” He asks, “What, like a back-up program?”
“No, as in, any attempts to delete or alter the program data will invalidate the study.”
Based on your phrasing, Minho assumes you’re quoting something directly. Swallowing back the acid rising in his throat, he opens his mouth to ask you what the fuck that means. Before he can hurl his question out, you look up at him with abject hopelessness in your eyes; and suddenly, he can’t speak.
“All of their research subjects will be purged,” you spit.
On the other side of the desk, Chan and Jihoon exchange a look — a grim one, but not one of surprise. They’ve arrived at the conclusion before Minho can leap to it, and they’re still talking without saying a single goddamn thing out loud.
Minho can’t take it anymore. He shouts, “What the fuck does that mean?”
“If Spider wipes the beta, everyone with that chip goes with it,” Chan sighs. He scrubs his hands over his face until it’s red. “If they don’t drop dead immediately, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that their brains will be permanently and irreparably fucked as a result.”
Now what?
Now what?
Minho’s legs grow less steady by the second. He presses his palm flush against the desktop to keep his knees from buckling. He knows damn well it won’t make a difference; his spinning head will bring him down if his body doesn’t. Everything — including the pulse hammering in his ears — is simultaneously too quiet and too loud.
What the fuck was this all for? The time, the energy, the lives everyone keeps sacrificing to this fucking cause — any of it.
All of it.
What’s the point of fighting this hard if Ulsan will always be ten steps ahead?
“Minho!”
His head snaps in your direction only to see that you weren’t the one calling his name. He blinks, confused. Who —?
“Minho, they’re coming! Lim Namseok — terminated yesterday. His badge — it flagged —”
Scraps’ voice comes shrouded in gunfire. The weak connection makes it even harder to hear her; whatever isn’t exploding is crackling due to the distance. Each word fizzles at the end, as if lit by a fuse.
“— to get out —”
Hand flying to his left ear, Minho presses down the button at the center of his ear piece. “Who’s coming?” He barks, “Scraps, what the fuck is going on?”
When she doesn’t respond, someone else takes over.
“It’s the fucking retention team. A sniper took Eunjae out before any of us even saw them coming,” Hongjoong yells. “They’ve got a unit on the ground and one in the air. I’ll try to shoot the chopper down, but you need to get out of there now.”
“Hongjoong, do as much as you can to tear them up, but don’t push your luck. If you’re outnumbered, fall back before we lose anybody else. Do you copy?”
He doesn’t get a response.
Jihoon moves closer to the door to listen for any incoming footsteps. Hearing none, he growls, “Who the fuck called the boogeymen? Don’t they only deal with defectors?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Chan waves him off, “They’re here, and we need to be anywhere else.”
Despite what he just said, the leader doesn’t move; doesn’t budge a centimeter in any direction. Chan simply glances across the room at you, and when you stare back at him, it’s with the same, eerie calmness. Some quiet resignation that makes no fucking sense under the circumstances.
“If I can’t kill the program entirely, I can make it inoperable long enough for the existing chips to be removed,” you say, like you’ve already had this idea in your pocket. “Force quit, so to speak.”
You don’t elaborate, leaving Minho’s frustration to drive him halfway out of his goddamn mind. Worse, you ignore the way he’s staring so fucking desperately at you and address the person standing several meters behind him.
“Jihoon, did you bring the party favors?”
In response, Jihoon slips the duffel bag off his shoulder and holds it out to you. Only then do you move. Chan follows behind as you cross towards the door; neither one of you says a thing when you pass Minho, who’s still cemented in place.
“What the fuck are you planning?” He demands, although his voice shakes. “What fucking secrets have you been keeping, and why?”
Once you secure the duffle bag on your own shoulder, you finally bring yourself to look at him. Above your mask, your eyes soften. They crinkle at the corners, as if you’re smiling, but there are tears brimming at your lash line, threatening to fall.
Please don’t look at me like you don’t have a future.
“For what it’s worth,” you start. Then, you sniffle, breath hitching as you try to get the rest out. “You’ve always had my heart. All of it — every stupid piece.”
And with nothing more than a nod to Jihoon, you’re gone, running out the door with Chan towards the server room before Minho can say a single word to you; before he can even think of chasing after you.
In the blink of an eye, biceps wrap around him like a vice, pinning his arms behind his back and gripping tighter with every kick he tries to use for leverage.
“Spider!” Minho yells.
He fights with all he has to break free of Jihoon’s hold, to throw one or both of them to the ground, to get to you, but the older man doesn’t bat an eye. As if Minho weighs nothing at all, Jihoon begins hauling him back down the hallway towards the fire exit.
“You’re going the wrong way,” he grunts as he thrashes. “Let me — go —”
Jihoon doesn’t say a word, doesn’t waste a breath, doesn’t stop pulling. Whatever strength he has left in the reserves, it’s wielded against Minho, not on making apologies.
Minho bucks again, throwing all the weight from his legs to his back. It does nothing apart from exhaust him, but he can’t stop. He’ll never stop.
“Spider!”
Close to feral, his anguished shouts devolve to desperate, growling noises. “I swear to god, I’ll bury you for this, Lee —”
He digs his heels into the ground to slow the older man’s momentum. His knees could snap at the force with which he’s resisting. He doesn’t give a shit if they do; he’ll crawl to you if he has to.
“I’ll splatter your brains against the fucking wall when I get my hands on you,” Minho spits. “I’m your commanding fucking officer!”
The next time he kicks, someone grabs him by the ankles to help carry his restless body down the stairs. Felix, judging by that pathetic, apologetic look in his eyes. Minho resolves to kill him, too, when he gets his limbs back. He’ll burn the whole goddamn compound to the ground for standing in his way; for letting you do this.
It should be me.
You’re the best of them, and they’re letting you die.
It should be me.
They’re going to stand here, watching while you —
A sob he wasn’t prepared for bursts out of his chest in the form of your real name. With it, his threats dissolve into pleas, so goddamn pitiful in comparison to the violent way he still flails.
“Please!” He cries, voice raw. Making himself louder doesn’t make him heard. Incapable of doing anything else, he begs, “Please don’t let her do this. She’s all I have — All I want — Goddamnit, please! I need to get her out of there —”
So useless.
“I have to get her out,” he sobs with one final burst of energy rattling through otherwise spent limbs.
The arms and hands around him still don’t relent. Over and over, he repeats his only thought in rapid succession until his voice gives out:
“I have to get her out.”
Two seconds before they drag his body over the threshold, the whole facility shakes, like the earth below has opened up to swallow it down. Even from the opposite side of the building, Minho can hear shattered glass hitting the ground like sheets of rain. With the heavy, black cloud swirling over the southwest section of roof, he might’ve believed in some storm.
He might have.
But now, Minho sees the flames licking at the sky above, and he no longer believes in anything.
There are 244 kilometers between Cheongju and Changwon. By car, the distance flies by in fewer than three hours, assuming the expressways aren’t clogged with corporate commuters. All things considered, it’s not a trip that disrupts a person’s day. It’s straightforward, and above all, it’s easy.
What isn’t easy is crawling on your stomach underneath a blanket of smoke, only to drag half of someone else’s body weight with you down a flight of stairs.
There’s nothing straightforward about slipping through alleyways and ditches, trying to avoid nearby police blockades as they pop up; or attempting to conceal clothes that are singed in some places and actively smoking in others.
That distance does not fly by in three hours, even though the expressways aren’t clogged, because there’s disruption after disruption:
Starting on foot, only to steal — and later dump — a car when the walk becomes unbearable.
Wandering blindly without a working mobile, unable to access assistance or a map, and learning that your best guesses are wrong turns more often than not.
Avoiding phones in general due to the localized surge in cell surveillance, knowing even a coded message could wind up with you and any recipients dead.
Stopping repeatedly with burning lungs to check on someone in far worse shape than you, pretending not to hurt for their sake.
No, the estimates are all fucked.
It takes twenty-one hours to travel the 244 kilometers between Cheongju and Changwon; and you feel the weight of every single one of them when you hobble through the front doors of the factory just to drop, exhausted, onto the floor.
News of your survival spreads like dandelion seeds throughout the compound. Within minutes, it seems, everyone you’ve ever made eye-contact with swings by the clinic to pat you on the back.
One of them — Sierra, of all people — does you the greatest kindness of all: bringing you a change of clothes and then refusing to stick around for a chat.
Half of them have never spoken to you before now, though you try not to hold that fact against them.
Almost all of them throw the word “brave” around like it’s weightless.
You know better.
What you did was useless in the grand scheme of things, and knowing that is heavy. Crushing, even, so much so that you find it hard to catch your breath. No, you’re sure, what you did was peak cowardice.
You need to get out of this clinic. You need all of these well-wishers to stop looking at you like some tragic hero. You need —
You push off the cot you’re occupying without giving it a second thought. The lightheadedness threatens to take you right back down again, but the feeling passes as quickly as it comes. You stay on your feet, even though you sway, by sheer force of will.
That’s it. There you go.
Doc gave you a once-over when you were first hauled in. Neither one of you truly felt like you were a priority. She may have been justifiably distracted, but in forming her expert opinion, she saw your bruised — not broken — body and declared you “good enough”. You take that glowing assessment at face value now and promptly discard the bit about “needing to stay for observation”.
Her primary concern is that you shouldn’t sleep with your concussion. Baseless, you think ruefully. You’ve been awake for two days and don’t see that changing any time soon.
Before you attempt to make a break for it, you glance at the far end of the clinic. There, a white screen stretches longways across most of the area for privacy, leaving two exits on either side. You don’t see the point of it; it doesn’t hide a thing. Two work lights shine so brightly from their spots by the wall that every movement in front of them is broadcasted on the thin, nylon divider.
As expected, the shadow puppet you’re looking for is still hovering around an unmoving mass in the center of the screen.
Chan.
He’s alive, even though he doesn’t look it. He’s talking, too, which is a marked improvement from the state he was in just a few hours ago. The morphine drip must be helping, you figure. Until now, he had a belt between his teeth to quell the pain, which would’ve kept him quiet.
Otherwise, there’s only one explanation for the corner he’s turned over the past few hours: The love of his life hasn’t left his side since he was carried into the clinic; and he knows she’s there.
You’ve learned the hard way that both of those conditions must be met to make a difference.
One without the other isn’t enough.
You can’t hear what they’re murmuring to each other, and you don’t want to. It’s theirs. Thankfully, their hushed tones give you the only confirmation you need: neither of your pseudo-parents will catch and scold you for leaving against medical advice. They’re oblivious; they’re fine; they have each other. You have —
Do you, though?
The person you want to see is coincidentally the only one in the entire compound that hasn’t come by seeking proof of life.
At first, you feared the worst; ripped your cuticles to shreds when the faces passing by weren’t his. No one mentioned his name or asked you if you’d seen him, as if there was no him left to see.
Then, you saw Jihoon walking around with his cheekbone stitched together. There’s some sick comfort in knowing that Minho at least lived long enough to beat his knuckles bloody. You’ve apologized to Jihoon three times now for the effect you caused, but he’s shrugged off every single one of them, like yesterday was just another day at the office.
Wasn’t it?
You creep out the door undetected and make your way to the nearest stairwell. The quiet throughout the halls in the factory isn’t comforting in the way it used to be. No part of the deeply familiar landscape is.
It should be.
It’s the only real home you’ve ever known — one you thought for sure you’d never see again.
But every empty doorway you pass may as well have a body in it. You still see that woman and her unspent aspirations everywhere you look. You still hear the way she begged for her life before she lost it.
And when the stairs ahead finally come into view — ones you’ve taken a million times — they’re insurmountable. Your body aches automatically, like you’re still pulling Chan’s phantom weight out of the fire. That memory is muscle-deep now, you fear. There’s no getting rid of it.
At the landing, you force yourself forward. The siren song only you can hear is far stronger than the call of your own bed. It lures you around the corner whether or not you’re ready to follow it.
You aren’t, you realize as your steps continue automatically. The guilt threatens to eat you alive, and frankly, you’re prepared to let it. You deserve it.
Somehow, despite your bullshit insanity and your numerous violations of trust, you still managed to skate through with a life left to live. Considering what you did, you figure it’s only fair that you pay this price — feel this fucking awful — for the rest of your unearned years.
Maybe.
You don’t know.
You’re in uncharted territory now because your plan didn’t include an after.
As your footsteps draw closer to Minho’s room, it dawns on you that you don’t have a plan at all now. You don’t know what the fuck to say to him, let alone where to start. You wonder whether or not you should bother at all.
If Minho knows you’re back at the compound, that means he made a choice not to find you. You have no right — none whatsoever — to take away his options a second time.
He’ll never forgive you, you tell yourself. If the roles were reversed, you’d do the same.
Maybe.
You don’t know.
You can’t take those hypotheticals and draw conclusions because Minho has never — would never — put you in the position you stranded him in. He wouldn’t hijack a mission you created or exclude you from a half-baked, shittily-executed contingency plan. He’d never force a friend to make some destructive, deathbed promise; wouldn’t have you dragged out of blast radius, kicking and screaming and fighting and spitting, just to drop you in a front-row seat.
He’s the best of all of you, and you did your absolute worst to him.
It’s selfish, walking up to his door now. You know it is. Despite that, you can’t make your body stop moving now that it’s started; can’t keep that boulder from rolling down hill. One last look, you tell yourself. That’s all you need.
Even if he never looks you in the eyes again, this can be enough.
You raise your hand and reach out to the scraped-up wood with your knuckles leading the way. They’re dirty, you note, caked with soot in every crease. They shouldn’t be. You scrubbed them raw to get the blood and plasma off your skin. It’s possible — likely, even — that your brain is fried beyond fixing, and that you’re imagining things.
Maybe.
You don’t know.
You don’t hear an answer when you finally bring yourself to knock. No, you correct yourself, that’s an answer in and of itself. Acting selfishly once again, you don’t heed that silent reply. You don’t knock again, either. Heart hammering against your ribs, you wrap your hand around the knob and twist.
Part of you wants to laugh. Of course, his is the only door in the whole fucking factory that doesn’t squeak horrifically on its hinges. His tolerance level for annoyance has always been low.
Inching your way over the threshold, you call out, “Minho?”
And once again, you don’t hear a response.
Standing now inside his room, you don’t see him — not at first. He certainly doesn’t see you. His back leans against the window frame while he slumps on the ledge, presumably staring off in the opposite direction through the glass. His defeated posture is as telling as the position he’s in.
The Minho you know never sits with his back to a door. It’s too big a risk and too broad a target; an invitation for a nasty surprise. He’s said it a thousand times: whoever kills him needs to look him in the eyes.
This is what it looks like when a person’s given up, you think.
This is what you did.
Throat thick, you call his name again. This time around, it barely qualifies as a whisper; all your breath is caught up in that tangle in your chest. There’s no way he heard it because you barely did. Really, you should —
“Fuck off,” Minho growls without turning around. “I won’t tell you a third time.”
His words don’t carry the same venom they usually do in circumstances like this. He just sounds hollow, and it devastates you so completely to hear the emptiness that tears start falling without your permission. You don’t move from where you stand, too overwhelmed to process both ambulation and falling apart at the seams.
The lack of footsteps tips him off to your ongoing, unwanted presence.
“When will you people give up? ” After slamming his left fist against the window frame, he pushes himself abruptly off the ledge to his feet. “I don’t want your goddamn sympathy. All I’ve ever fucking wanted is —”
He wheels around then, fists clenched and ready to swing. All the air in his lungs leaves him when he sees you standing there. The rest of that thought is strangled, and it drops lifeless on the floor.
“You.”
You can’t guess what comes next: screaming, blame, silence, violence. You don’t even know which of those things would be worst — just that he’s entitled to all of the above, and you’ve earned the lot.
What you end up with isn’t an outcome you ever would’ve anticipated. It’s him, his quivering mouth, and his exhausted, red-rimmed eyes taking several steps forward on shaky legs. It’s a desperate bid to close the distance, and a look built on so many conflicting emotions that you can’t even begin to take inventory.
At first, your hammering heart tells you to back away; that he may hate you enough to hurt you.
But he doesn’t.
He falls to his knees in front of you when his legs ultimately give out. Boneless, he crumples forward onto his palms until his head hangs low between his arms. From where you’re standing, it almost looks like he’s praying. That is, until you notice the way his shoulders shake.
Of all the people you’ve met in your life, Minho is the only one who seemed to be incapable of crying. Nausea swells now that he proves you wrong. It feels like a violation to see him this way, especially knowing that you’re the reason for the state he’s in.
Through a clenched jaw, he begs for answers you didn’t anticipate needing to give:
“I’m hallucinating, aren’t I? I’ve finally lost my fucking mind?”
Oh.
Without a second thought, you fall to your knees, too. Chrome and carbon fiber scrape against concrete as you scoot yourself closer, and you pray that your proximity will be proof enough that you’re here.
It’s not.
“I left you for dead, and now I’m seeing ghosts. Is that it?”
Heartbroken, you try your best to get through, “Minho, no.”
Tentatively, you reach out to touch his shoulder, thinking that you might be able to ground him, even if you can’t comfort him. Before your fingertips find him, he senses your movement and lifts his head. Your hands automatically reroute to claim either side of his face, fingers sliding into unkempt hair. To your surprise, he doesn’t pull away. Instead, Minho studies your features intently, like he’s ruling out translucence; like his sanity is on the line.
Maybe it is.
More desperately than you ever have before, you drink down the sight of him. Beautiful, you think, even like this.
Now that you’re able to see his face in full, you find it tear-streaked. Somehow less alarmingly, his right temple is scraped to hell and back, while his left is black-and-blue. It’s a perfect portrait of the fist that struck him. The darkest shades of indigo demarcate where the knuckles dug in deepest; and the scabbed, scarlet lines on his other side illustrate the state of the ground he fell to.
Gravel.
You have to stop yourself from asking who hurt him. After all, it doesn’t fucking matter whose name he’d drop. You already know who’s to blame.
Nevertheless, Minho sees the question in your eyes, and he tells you, “I tried to run in after you once the bomb went off. After the fire started.”
Of course he did. What did you expect?
“I’m sorry,” you whisper, as if that’ll ever be enough. It doesn’t and won’t erase what you did, yet you repeat it anyway, “I’m so sorry.”
Opening your mouth was a mistake, you quickly realize. The dam breaks, and you can’t keep the words from spilling out. They all pile up, overlapping in time and urgency.
Every word you say comes out in one breath; sputtered, as if your head has finally broken through the surface of rushing water. “I should’ve told you about the contingency plan, but I knew you’d try to take my place, and I couldn’t —”
“I couldn’t leave you there,” he swears, as if you left him with any other choice. “Even if I was too late to save you, I needed to bring you home.”
Minho suddenly shifts, prompting your hands to fall from his face. To erase the distance he’s created, he sits back on his knees and pulls you into the space between them. You melt into his body when his arms wrap around you. Just as easily, you give in to the thousandth conflicting reason you’ve found to cry:
He’s never held you like this before.
With his cheek pressed to the side of your bowed head, you can feel his runaway tears. Though his voice wavers, his intentions are rock solid. “I fought like hell to get back to you. They had to knock me out just to get me into the fucking van. I didn’t want to leave you. I swear, I wouldn’t —”
“I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t stop the rollout,” you cry. “Keeping you in the dark was the only way to keep you safe.” You bury your face into the front of his shirt and repeat it even more emphatically, “Minho, I’m so fucking sorry.”
For a moment, he stays quiet. As curious as you are about his silence, you don’t pull away to look up at him. You think you’d rather actually die than sacrifice a single second of the closeness you walked through hell and back to find.
Eventually, without prompting, Minho does speak. His voice is so soft that his question hardly reaches you. “Why did you do it?”
You pause, unsure of which part of your explanation he wants repeated. If he’s truly asking you to start over from the top, you will. You’re prepared to rake yourself over those coals forever, but you doubt he has the time.
“In the control room,” he explains when you don’t arrive at the point yourself. “You told me that you love me, and then you ran off to blow yourself up. Why did you leave without letting me respond?”
Once again, you’re thrown; so disoriented that you can’t find the starting line. There were several reasons for running out the way you did: fear that he’d stop you if he caught on too quickly, or that he’d follow before Jihoon could drag him to safety. More than anything, as you sheepishly admit, “I didn’t think you’d say it back.”
He goes silent again. His arms pull you even closer, though you didn’t think it was possible.
“I think Medusa had it easy,” he confesses, sounding almost self-conscious for the first time in his life.
Though you’re caught off-guard, you don’t interrupt him.
He hesitates for a moment, then adds, “I think my curse has it all backwards. I turn to stone when people look at me, not the other way around.”
At this, you finally unearth your face from where it’s buried in his t-shirt. His body goes slightly slack without your frame to hold him up; the look on his face is just as deflated.
Turning in your spot to face him, you frown, but you tell him the truth. “I’m not as good at reading you as I thought I was.”
“Say it again.”
You blink.
Minho lifts his hand and cups your cheek. “Please,” he begs, thumb brushing over your skin. “Say it again, so I can get it right this time.”
You lean into his palm, allowing the warmth of it to radiate until you feel it everywhere — feel him everywhere. From there, as is always the case, the reflex takes over. “I love you. I think I always have.”
“I love you,” Minho echoes emphatically. “And unfortunately for you, I think I always will.”
It strikes like a pickaxe, sending cracks through a well-built wall. You swear you can hear the pieces of it falling. If you look closely, you can see the light as it rushes in.
There you are, you think. I knew you were in there somewhere.
He kisses you then, scrambling your brain so thoroughly that you almost forget it’s the first time he ever has. But he’s no stranger to you, and he proves it. Calloused hands maneuver you into his lap without resistance, without interruption, and lean arms snake around you as you straddle him, pinning you against his chest.
In an instant, you thread your fingers through his hair, hellbent on clinging to whatever parts of him you can get your hands on. That desperate grip of yours has always made him lose his mind; tonight isn’t any different. He groans into your mouth when you tug those strands now, proving that you’re no stranger, either.
His tongue flicks over your bottom lip, like he’s scratching at the door to be let in. You let him, let out some needy, mewling sound as he licks into your mouth to claim it.
Yours, you think. Yours, yours, yours.
When he unexpectedly pulls away from you, those little whines of yours only get louder. Kiss-bitten, Minho’s lips flatten into a thin line that indicates he’s fighting off a smile.
“Spider, I know vulnerability is your thing,” he sighs. His left hand releases its hold on the bottom of your thigh. With it, he gestures to the other side of the room. “But did you mean to leave the door open for this?”
Whipping your head around, you confirm that you did not, in fact, close the door behind you. Heat rises to your face before you can stop it. No matter how thoroughly you rack your brain, you come up short. There’s no excuse— not even a bad one — for a cybersecurity expert being this abysmally accessible offline.
You’re in the middle of questioning your qualifications for the role you occupy when Minho gently pats the side of your leg, wordlessly asking you to leave his lap. With great difficulty and a dash of awkwardness, you do. Just as soon as you’re back on your feet, your body riots. All the exhaustion and soreness you’ve been ignoring screams for acknowledgement.
Minho must hear it.
“Bed,” he murmurs, punctuating his instruction with a quick kiss to your temple.
Also a first, you note.
Despite your long history of entanglements, you’ve never once ended up in his sheets. Your heart flutters involuntarily at the prospect; the fever-grade burning in your cheeks only gets worse. Thankfully, with his back now turned to you, Minho doesn’t see how eagerly you stagger towards the stolen bed frame in the corner. You hope he doesn’t hear the relieved moan you let out when you collapse in an aching heap on his mattress.
Across the room, the lock clicks. Footsteps follow so quietly that you would’ve missed them if you didn’t have his gait committed to memory. The person walking back to you looks unfamiliar, though — somehow. There’s no trademark sharpness at the edges now. There’s no want darkening his eyes, but something delicate that softens them.
It’s need, you realize when he comes to drape himself over you. It’s gentle, the way he compensates for your strained muscles and takes it upon himself to shed your clothes, layer by layer. And it’s trust, finally letting him see the way you exist on your own — with your artificial leg removed from the equation and set carefully off to the side.
After positioning himself between your thighs, Minho pauses. His forearms rest on either side of your head, caging you in against the pillow below. Time doesn’t seem to pass while he gazes down at you, and you certainly don’t mind the delay. Of all your moments, this one — here, with him — is your happiest.
“In case it doesn’t go without saying,” he murmurs, nudging the tip of his nose against yours. “I forgive you for doing what you had to do.”
Blinking quickly doesn’t do much to dispel the tears prickling in the corners of your eyes. You bite your bottom lip and nod to the extent that you can. “Thank you,” you whisper.
“Do me a favor, though?”
“Anything.”
“Kiss me,” he requests, and you do.
When your mouth is finally on his, he rolls his hips forward with deliberate precision, length sliding through your arousal until he enters you, groaning. He maintains that slow, careful pace; coaxes you open for him until the stretch melts from pain to pleasure.
Eloquent as ever, you mewl with your lips still pressed to his. It’s muffled, of course, but there’s no context to miss. “Oh, my god.”
Once you acclimate to his size, Minho could ramp up the intensity if he wanted to. He doesn’t. He takes his time, grinds against you so perfectly that you’d never dream of rushing through this.
At this pace, every stroke hits deeper than the last; each languid drag of his cock along your walls converts more and more of your thoughts to static.
It’s such a change-up from every other time you’ve wound up underneath him. Part of you wishes that you could scrap all those trysts and pretend that this is your first. In a way, you suppose, it is. There’s a drastic difference between being fucked by Minho and being loved by him. For obvious reasons, you don’t plan on going back to the way it was before.
His length grazes your g-spot, pulling a whimper out of you. Dizzy from the sensation, you don’t notice the way your cunt clenches down on him until he curses under his breath.
“Shit,” he moans, “Wish you knew how perfect you feel wrapped around me. I swear, I’m not leaving this bed as long as you’re in it.”
Another stroke hits you exactly where you crave him most.
“Please,” you gasp, back arching off the bed. He leans in to capitalize on the length of neck you’ve left exposed; the heat of his tongue on your flesh drives you absolutely insane. “R-right there, Minho. Please, I’m so close.”
Other people have described Minho as defiant, but you have to disagree. He does precisely what you beg of him, angling each thrust to get you gushing around him. And even after he has you shaking underneath him, he refuses to slack off.
The orgasm he pulls from you is so overwhelming that you feel it tingling in your scalp, resonating down your spine until every nerve in your body is a live wire. You’re still somewhere in the stratosphere when Minho unravels, twitching and spilling inside of you until he’s got nothing left to give.
Spent, he pulls out of your heat, maneuvers himself carefully around you, and collapses at your side to catch his breath.
His eyes are closed when you regain enough motor function to turn your head his way. Across his forehead, stray strands of black hair stick to a thin veil of sweat. The slow rise and fall of his chest says he’s halfway to sleep, and with how hypnotic you find it all, you’re nearly there yourself.
Just a few more minutes, you tell yourself. It’s too hard to look away from him. You’d never had the chance to see him this way before, and you know better now than to waste it.
“Please don’t ever stop looking at me like that,” he mumbles with his eyes still closed.
Your quiet laughter doesn’t prompt him to look at you, but it does spark the hint of a smile. “Like what, Minho?”
“Like I’m your future.”
while likes are appreciated, comments/tags/reblogs with your thoughts are really what make my brain go brrrtt.
series taglist:
@saintriots, @mal-lunar-28, @dabiscrustyfeet @ldysmfrst @obeythemasters @moni-logue
stray kids permanent taglist:
@variety-is-the-joy-of-life @sourkimchi
multi permanent taglist:
@jihopesjoint @bahng-chrizz, @/variety-is-the-joy-of-life
resources used
regarding prosthetic limbs: tiktok users @/bren_hucks @/footlessjo @/alex1leg @/bionickick; amputee coalition
regarding hacking + world-building: gurps: cyberpunk guidebook by loyd blankenship
#stray kids#skz#lee know#lee know x reader#minho x reader#minho fic#minho smut#minho angst#lee know fic#lee know smut#lee know angst#lee minho#lino#stray kids fic#skz fic#stray kids smut#stray kids angst#skz smut#skz angst#stray kids series#skz series#jade writes#re: force quit#kvanity
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Hello! This is kind of a weird ask, I'm sorry to bother you, but seeing as you're a very intelligent studied historian that I deeply respect, I was hoping you could offer some advice? Or like, things i could read? Lately, i feel like my critical thinking skills are emaciated and its scaring the shit out of me. I feel very slow and like I'm constantly missing important info in relation to news/history/social activism stuff. Thats so vague, sorry, but like any tips on how i can do better?
Aha, thank you. There was recently a good critical-thinking infograph on my dash, so obviously I thought I remembered who reblogged it and checked their blog, it wasn't them, thought it was someone else, checked their blog, it also wasn't them, and now I can't find it to link to. Alas. But I will try to sum up its main points and add a few of my own. I'm glad you're taking the initiative to work on this for yourself, and I will add that while it can seem difficult and overwhelming to sort through the mass of information, especially often-false, deliberately misleading, or otherwise bad information, there are a few tips to help you make some headway, and it's a skill that like any other skill, gets easier with practice. So yes.
The first and most general rule of thumb I would advise is the same thing that IT/computer people tell you about scam emails. If something is written in a way that induces urgency, panic, the feeling that you need to do something RIGHT NOW, or other guilt-tripping or anxiety-inducing language, it is -- to say the least -- questionable. This goes double if it's from anonymous unsourced accounts on social media, is topically or thematically related to a major crisis, or anything else. The intent is to create a panic response in you that overrides your critical faculties, your desire to do some basic Googling or double-checking or independent verification of its claims, and makes you think that you have to SHARE IT WITH EVERYONE NOW or you are personally and morally a bad person. Unfortunately, the world is complicated, issues and responses are complicated, and anyone insisting that there is Only One Solution and it's conveniently the one they're peddling should not be trusted. We used to laugh at parents and grandparents for naively forwarding or responding to obviously scam emails, but now young people are doing the exact same thing by blasting people with completely sourceless social media tweets, clips, and other manipulative BS that is intended to appeal to an emotional gut rather than an intellectual response. When you panic or feel negative emotions (anger, fear, grief, etc) you're more likely to act on something or share questionable information without thinking.
Likewise, you do have basic Internet literacy tools at your disposal. You can just throw a few keywords into Google or Wikipedia and see what comes up. Is any major news organization reporting on this? Is it obviously verifiable as a fake (see the disaster pictures of sharks swimming on highways that get shared after every hurricane)? Can you right-click, perform a reverse image search, and see if this is, for example, a picture from an unrelated war ten years ago instead of an up-to-date image of the current conflict? Especially with the ongoing Israel/Palestine imbroglio, we have people sharing propaganda (particularly Hamas propaganda) BY THE BUCKETLOAD and masquerading it as legitimate news organizations (tip: Quds News Network is literally the Hamas channel). This includes other scuzzy dirtbag-left websites like Grayzone and The Intercept, which often have implicit or explicit links to Russian-funded disinformation campaigns and other demoralizing or disrupting fake news that is deliberately designed to turn young left-leaning Westerners against the Democrats and other liberal political parties, which enables the electoral victory of the fascist far-right and feeds Putin's geopolitical and military aims. Likewise, half of our problems would be solved if tankies weren't so eager to gulp down and propagate anything "anti-Western" and thus amplify the Russian disinformation machine in a way even the Russians themselves sometimes struggle to do, but yeah. That relates to both Russia/Ukraine and Israel/Palestine.
Basically: TikTok, Twitter/X, Tumblr itself, and other platforms are absolutely RIFE with misinformation, and this is due partly to ownership (the Chinese government and Elon Fucking Musk have literally no goddamn reason whatsoever to build an unbiased algorithm, and have been repeatedly proven to be boosting bullshit that supports their particular worldviews) and partly due to the way in which the young Western left has paralyzed itself into hypocritical moral absolutes and pseudo-revolutionary ideology (which is only against the West itself and doesn't think that the rest of the world has agency to act or think for itself outside the West's influence, They Are Very Smart and Anti-Colonialist!) A lot of "information" in left-leaning social media spaces is therefore tainted by this perspective and often relies on flat-out, brazen, easily disprovable lies (like the popular Twitter account insisting that Biden could literally just overturn the Supreme Court if he really wanted to). Not all misinformation is that easy to spot, but with a severe lack of political, historical, civic, or social education (since it's become so polarized and school districts generally steer away from it or teach the watered-down version for fear of being attacked by Moms for Liberty or similar), it is quickly and easily passed along by people wanting trite and simplistic solutions for complex problems or who think the extent of social justice is posting the Right Opinions on social media.
As I said above, everything in the world is complicated and has multiple factors, different influences, possible solutions, involved actors, and external and internal causes. For the most part, if you're encountering anything that insists there's only one shiningly righteous answer (which conveniently is the one All Good and Moral People support!) and the other side is utterly and even demonically in the wrong, that is something that immediately needs a closer look and healthy skepticism. How was this situation created? Who has an interest in either maintaining the status quo, discouraging any change, or insisting that there's only one way to engage with/think about this issue? Who is being harmed and who is being helped by this rhetoric, including and especially when you yourself are encouraged to immediately spread it without criticism or cross-checking? Does it rely on obvious lies, ideological misinformation, or something designed to make you feel the aforementioned negative emotions? Is it independently corroborated? Where is it sourced from? When you put the author's name into Google, what comes up?
Also, I think it's important to add that as a result, it's simply not possible to distill complicated information into a few bite-sized and easily digestible social media chunks. If something is difficult to understand, that means you probably need to spend more time reading about it and encountering diverse perspectives, and that is research and work that has to take place primarily not on social media. You can ask for help and resources (such as you're doing right now, which I think is great!), but you can't use it as your chief or only source of information. You can and should obviously be aware of the limitations and biases of traditional media, but often that has turned into the conspiracy-theory "they never report on what's REALLY GOING ON, the only information you can trust is random anonymous social media accounts managed by God knows who." Traditional media, for better or worse, does have certain evidentiary standards, photographing, sourcing, and verifying requirements, and other ways to confirm that what they're writing about actually has some correspondence with reality. Yes, you need to be skeptical, but you can also trust that some of the initial legwork of verification has been done for you, and you can then move to more nuanced review, such as wording, presentation of perspective, who they're interviewing, any journalistic assumptions, any organizational shortcomings, etc.
Once again: there is a shit-ton of stuff out there, it is hard to instinctively know or understand how to engage with it, and it's okay if you don't automatically "get" everything you read. That's where the principle of actually taking the time to be informed comes in, and why you have to firmly divorce yourself from the notion that being socially aware or informed means just instantly posting or sharing on social media about the crisis of the week, especially if you didn't know anything about it beforehand and are just relying on the Leftist Groupthink to tell you how you should be reacting. Because things are complicated and dangerous, they take more effort to unpick than just instantly sharing a meme or random Twitter video or whatever. If you do in fact want to talk about these things constructively, and not just because you feel like you're peer-pressured into doing so and performing the Correct Opinions, then you will in fact need to spend non-social-media time and effort in learning about them.
If you're at a university, there are often subject catalogues, reference librarians, and other built-in tools that are there for you to use and which you SHOULD use (that's your tuition money, after all). That can help you identify trustworthy information sources and research best practices, and as you do that more often, it will help you have more of a feel for things when you encounter them in the wild. It's not easy at first, but once you get the hang of it, it becomes more so, and will make you more confident in your own judgments, beliefs, and values. That way when you encounter something that you KNOW is wrong, you won't be automatically pressured to share it just to fit in, because you will be able to tell yourself what the problems are.
Good luck!
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When Life Gives You Lemons
Nurse!Joel Miller x f!reader
Masterlist
Wordcount: 3,559
Summary: You've just been diagnosed with cancer, and as you navigate through the grueling treatments, you find solace in an unexpected place - a deep and intimate connection with your nurse, Joel.
Warnings: 18+, reader has cancer, Joel is the softest, kindest man ever, fingering. Yes, there's an orgasm in this cause maybe I'm whackodoodle, but it's my fantasty and I'll do with it what I want.
Notes: Thank you, @saradika-graphics , for the pretty divider 🥰 and thank you @morallyinept for posting adoration it truly made me feel more comfy posting this. This a hard one for me to post, and im not looking for sympathy, but it truly has helped me process my own experience with this. I am not a doctor or medical professional, I only know my own lived experience, and this is semi-based on my own cancer diagnosis and current treatment and me wishing Joel was my nurse. 😍 and obviously, I've added embellishment for the story.
You've always been a fighter, but the diagnosis still hits you like a truck. Cancer. The big C-word, the one you never thought would apply to you. You're only in your late twenties, you think, far too young for this. But here you are, sitting in a sterile hospital room, staring at the white walls and trying to process the news.
A knock on the door startles you, and you turn to see a second doctor. Two doctors, that's never a good sign.
The first doctor, a middle-aged man with a kind face and gentle demeanor, speaks up. "This is Dr. Lee. We've been reviewing your test results, and we wanted to discuss them more in depth with you."
You nod, still in shock from the diagnosis. Dr. Smith continues, "As you know, we found some abnormal cells in your recent biopsy that are cancerous. Unfortunately, the results confirm that you have acute myeloid leukemia, a type of cancer that affects the blood and bone marrow."
Dr. Lee, a younger woman with a serious expression, adds, "This is a serious condition, but it's also highly treatable. We recommend starting chemotherapy as soon as possible to destroy the cancer cells and prevent them from spreading."
You take a deep breath, trying to steady your nerves. Not sure exactly how to respond or process this. "When?”
Dr. Smith glances at your chart. "We can begin tomorrow if that works for you. You'll be here for several hours each day, and we'll monitor your progress closely.”
The doctors make you feel cold, sick, disposable, they have a job to do, and you're just the next number on their list.
After the doctors leave, you sit in silence for a few minutes, trying to process the news. The word "cancer" keeps echoing in your mind, and you can't help but feel overwhelmed and scared.
You know you need to leave, so you gather your belongings and head to the parking lot. You sit in your car for a while, staring blankly at the empty space in front of you. Your mind is racing, and you can't seem to focus on anything.
Eventually, you realize that you need to do something more productive than spiral, so you decide to go home and research. You know you're not supposed to do this. The doctors said you shouldn't, but you can't help yourself. What the hell do they know? You're the one with the diagnosis, not them. You need to know what you're up against.
When you get home, you spend hours scouring the internet for information about AML and chemotherapy. You read that AML is a relatively rare cancer. Of course, your bad luck would curse you with something rare that wasn't worth anything of value.
You learn that chemotherapy is the primary treatment and that it involves administering powerful drugs that destroy cancer cells. However, you also read that chemotherapy can have significant side effects, including nausea, hair loss, fatigue, and an increased risk of infections - the lighter of risks among them all.
Hair loss - your safety blanket gone in those two words, nothing left to hide behind.
As you read more and more, you start to feel overwhelmed by the statistics and the potential complications. You know that chemotherapy is going to be rough.
Eventually, you drag yourself to bed, exhausted but unable to sleep. You lay there for hours, staring at the ceiling and thinking about what it would feel like to have these drugs in your body and how they would truly affect you. It makes your heart race, and you feel hot, and you get almost no sleep.
The next morning, you wake up feeling groggy and disoriented. The reality of your diagnosis hits you like a ton of bricks as you get ready for your first treatment. You can't help but feel a sense of dread, but you know you have to stay strong.
When you arrive at the hospital, you're led to a large room with several chairs. Each chair is equipped with an IV pole and a monitor to track vital signs. You take a deep breath and find a seat next to an elderly lady named Ronda. She gives you a warm smile and introduces herself.
"Hi there, I'm Ronda. You don't look like you're feeling too well. It's your first time here, isn't it?" she asks gently.
You nod, still feeling overwhelmed and unsure of what to expect.
"Don't worry, dear. You're in good hands here. Just take it one day at a time," she reassures you.
Before you know it, you see a tall, broad-shouldered man with a kind smile and warm, dark eyes approaching you with a big smile on his face.
"Well, hello there, darlin. I'm Joel, your nurse for today. I'll be takin care of you and makin sure you're comfortable during your treatment," he says in a friendly Southern accent.
You feel a sense of relief wash over you as Joel expertly sets up your IV and begins administering the drugs. You can't help but notice that he's different from other medical professionals you've encountered. He takes the time to explain everything to you, answers all your questions, and even cracks a few jokes to lighten the mood.
As the treatment progresses, you start to feel the effects of the drugs. Your head begins to spin, and your body feels heavy. You glance over at Ronda, who nods sympathetically.
"It's normal to feel a little sick during your first treatment. Just rest and let the drugs do their job," she advises.
You take her advice and close your eyes, trying to focus on something other than the discomfort. As you're lying there feeling particularly weak, Joel pulls up a chair next to you and takes your hand. "I know this is tough," he says softly. "But you're tougher. You can do this.”
Joel squeezes your hand gently, and you can feel the warmth of his touch radiating up your arm. You open your eyes and look at him, taking in his kind smile and the concern etched on his forehead.
"Thanks, Joel. I really appreciate this," you say, feeling a lump forming in your throat.
Joel's face breaks into a warm smile. "Of course, darlin'. I'm here for you every step of the way. Now, I'm going to try something that might help with the nausea. It's an essential oil that's been shown to help with chemotherapy-induced nausea. Would you be open to giving it a try?"
You nod, eager to try anything that might alleviate the queasy feeling in your stomach. Joel reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small bottle of lavender essential oil. He uncaps it and wafts it under your nose, and you inhale deeply, feeling the calming scent wash over you.
Within a few minutes, you feel your nausea start to dissipate, and you can feel your body relax a little. Joel smiles at you, pleased with the results.
"Now, I'm going to let you rest for a bit. I'll be back in a little while to check on you, okay?"
You nod, already feeling yourself drift off. Joel's voice fades into the background as you slip into a peaceful sleep, feeling comforted by his warm presence.
When you wake up, you're surprised to find that you feel a little better. The nausea has subsided, and your head is clearer. You look around, and your eyes land on Joel, who's sitting in a chair next to you, taking your vitals. You swear he's the most handsome man you've ever seen.
—
The next day, you return to the hospital, feeling a mix of emotions. On one hand, you're anxious about the treatment and the potential side effects. They haven't been too bad yet, but you know it's likely to worsen. On the other hand, you're grateful for the support and care you've received from the medical staff, especially Joel.
As you enter the treatment room, you notice that Joel is already there, setting up your IV. He looks up and gives you a warm smile, and you can't help but feel a sense of comfort wash over you.
"Hey there, darlin'. How are you feeling today?" he asks, his voice full of genuine concern.
You shrug, still feeling a little down. "I've been better," you admit.
Joel nods sympathetically. "I can imagine. Remember, you're not alone in this. You need anything. I'll be here for ya." As he speaks, you notice that he's holding a single red rose. Your heart skips a beat as he holds it out to you. "I know I'm not supposed to be bringin’ in flowers or scented things, but I thought this might help brighten your day.”
You can feel your eyes welling up with tears as you take the rose from him. "Thank you, Joel. This means a lot to me," you say, your voice choked with emotion.
"You're welcome, darlin'. Now, let's get you settled in and start your treatment, okay?"
As the treatment begins, you can feel yourself relaxing in Joel's presence. You take a deep breath and close your eyes, feeling the warmth of the rose in your hand.
As the chemotherapy drugs begin to take effect, you start to feel nauseous and weak. You can feel your body tense up, and you know that you're going to be sick.
Joel notices your discomfort and quickly moves to your side. "It's okay, darlin'. You're doin great. Let's get you to the bathroom before you get too sick," he says, his voice calm and soothing.
He helps you to your feet and leads you to the bathroom, holding your hair back as you vomit into the toilet. You can feel his hand on your back, rubbing gently, and his other hand holding your hair back. The warmth of his touch is comforting, and it helps you to focus on something other than the nausea.
After a few minutes, you're spent and leaning against him. Joel helps you to sit down on the floor, cradling you into his own body as he begins wiping a cool washcloth on your face. "Take your time, darlin'. It's okay to rest for a bit, I gotcha. "
You take a few deep breaths, trying to calm yourself down. Joel stays by your side, holding your hand and rubbing your back. You wonder if Joel's this nice to every new patient.
After a few minutes, you feel well enough to stand up. Joel helps you to your feet and leads you back to your chair. He gives you some water to drink and encourages you to sip it slowly. "It's important to stay hydrated, darlin'. Even if you don't feel like it,"
You nod, taking small sips of water. It feels heavy in your stomach.
Joel looks at you and notices that you seem to be getting a little restless. "Hey, how about I tell you a story? It might help take your mind off things," he says, smiling at you.
You nod, eager to hear what he has to say. “Lay it on me.”
Joel begins, "So, there I was, just a young boy, livin' in the countryside with my family. We had this old, beat-up truck that we used to drive around on our farm. It was so old that the engine would sometimes just give out on us in the middle of nowhere."
He chuckles, shaking his head at the memory. "One day, my brother and I were driving the truck down a dirt road, and sure enough, the engine died on us. We were miles away from home, and it was gettin' late. We tried to start the engine, but it just wouldn't budge."
Joel pauses, taking a deep breath. "So, there we were, stuck in the middle of nowhere, with no cell phone reception, and it was starting to get dark. We were both getting pretty worried, but then my brother had an idea."
He grins, looking at you with a twinkle in his eye. "He said, 'Joel, we have to push the truck to the nearest hill, and then we can coast down it and hopefully make it back to the farm.' It sounded like a crazy idea, but we were out of options."
Joel starts chuckling again, and you can't help but smile, his laugh, his smile - it's all infectious. “We both got out of the truck and started pushin' it up a nearby hill. We were determined to make it back home without telling our parents. After what seemed like an eternity, we finally managed to push the truck to the top of the hill."
He takes a deep breath, still chuckling. "And then, as we were gettin' ready to hop back in, the truck suddenly came back to life. The damn engine started purrin’ like a kitten, and we were both stunned. We looked at each other, and then we both burst out laughing. It was the craziest thing. We never figured out why the engine suddenly started working again."
You laugh, feeling a sense of warmth and comfort wash over you. Joel's story has taken your mind off the treatment, if only for a little while, and you're grateful for it, for him.
When treatment is finally over, Joel helps you to your feet and leads you to the can waiting for you. He gives you a warm hug and a gentle kiss on the cheek. "You did great, darlin'. I'm proud of you."
You feel your eyes welling up with tears as you hug him. "Thank you, Joel. I don't know what I would have done without you today," you say, your voice choked with emotion.
"You're welcome, darlin'. I'll see you tomorrow."
—
You find yourself growing more and more comfortable with Joel as the weeks go by, and you soon find yourself confiding in him about everything - your fears, your hopes, and your dreams. You know that he's there for you, no matter what, and you feel a deep sense of gratitude towards him.
One day, as you're feeling particularly vulnerable, before treatment, you find yourself wanting something more from Joel. You're not sure what it is, exactly, but you know that you want to feel closer to him, to experience a deeper level of intimacy with him, you want to feel something.
The words leave your lips before you have a chance to think them through, and you can feel the weight of what you're asking hang heavy in the air. You can see the hesitation in Joel's eyes, and you understand his reservations. You're asking him to cross a boundary that he's never crossed before, and you know that it's not a decision to be made lightly.
"I know this is a lot to ask, Joel. And I understand if you say no. But I feel so numb and heavy right now, and I just want to feel light. I want to feel alive," you say, your voice quiet and earnest.
Joel looks at you for a long moment, his eyes searching yours. You can see the struggle in his expression, the war between his professional obligations, and his personal feelings for you. Finally, he takes a deep breath and nods.
"Okay," he says, his voice barely above a whisper. "I'll do it."
You feel a surge of relief and gratitude wash over you as Joel takes your hand and leads you to the small break room just off the treatment floor. He locks the door behind you and turns to face you, his eyes full of concern.
"Are you sure about this, darlin'? I don't want you to do anything that you're not comfortable with."
You nod, feeling more certain than ever. "I'm sure. I trust you, Joel," you say, your voice firm and steady.
Joel smiles and takes a step closer to you, his hands reaching out to touch your face. You can feel the heat of his touch, the warmth of his skin, and you close your eyes, letting yourself fall into the moment.
As Joel's lips meet yours, you can feel the weight of the world lifting off your shoulders. You can feel the lightness and the joy of being alive, and you know that this is what you need. This is what you've been searching for.
Joel's hands tremble slightly as he undresses you, and you can feel the heat of his gaze as he takes in every inch of your exposed skin. You can see the longing and the desire in his eyes, and you know that he's holding back, that he's trying to be gentle and careful with you.
You reach out and take his hand, guiding it to your breast. You can feel the warmth of his touch, the gentleness of his fingers as they brush against your nipple. You moan softly, your body responding to his touch.
Joel continues to touch you gently, his hands exploring your body with reverence and respect. You can feel the tenderness of his movements, and you know that he's taking his time, that he's trying to make sure that you're comfortable and safe.
You can feel the tension in your body beginning to melt away as Joel's hands continue to touch you, as his fingers continue to explore your skin. You can feel the warmth of his breath against your neck, the softness of his lips as they kiss your skin.
As Joel's fingers move lower, you can feel the heat building between your legs. You can feel the wetness gathering, the ache growing stronger, and you know that you want him. You want him to touch you, to explore you, to make you feel.
Joel's fingers begin to move in slow, gentle circles, and you can feel the tension building inside of you. You can feel the pleasure growing stronger, the ache becoming more intense, and you know that you're close.
You moan softly, your body trembling with pleasure, and Joel's fingers move faster, his touch becoming more urgent. You can feel the orgasm building inside of you, the pleasure becoming more intense, and you know that you're close.
With a cry of pleasure, you come undone, your body trembling with the force of your orgasm. Joel holds you close, his arms wrapped around you, his lips pressed against your skin, and you can feel the warmth of his touch, the tenderness of his movements.
As the orgasm fades, you can feel the exhaustion washing over you. You can feel your body growing weak, your limbs growing heavy, and you know that you need to rest. You lay in Joel's arms, feeling more at peace than you have in a long time. You know that what you did was a risk, that it could have consequences, but you don't regret it. You needed this.
"Thank you, Joel," you say, your voice quiet and sincere.
"Anythin’ for you, darlin'.” He smiles, kissing the top of your head.
As you lay there in Joel's arms, feeling the warmth of his body and the rhythm of his heartbeat, you can't help but feel grateful for this moment of respite from the harsh realities of your current battlefield.
"Hey Joel," you say, sitting up and looking at him with a mischievous grin.
"Yeah, darlin'?" he responds, looking at you with a mixture of curiosity and concern.
"I think we should start a cancer patients' underground fight club," you declare, trying to keep a straight face.
Joel stares at you for a moment, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. And then, just as you think he's going to take you seriously, he starts to laugh.
"A fight club, huh?" he says, still chuckling. "You never fail to surprise me darlin'."
You grin, feeling a little silly but also relieved to have broken the tension. "I just figured it would be a good way to blow off some steam," you say. "And besides, who wouldn't want to see a bunch of cancer patients duking it out in a makeshift ring?"
Joel shakes his head, still laughing. "I think we'll leave the fight clubs to the movies, darlin'. But I appreciate the creativity."
You laugh, feeling a sense of warmth and affection towards Joel. Despite the challenges you're facing, you can't help but feel grateful for the moments of lightness and joy that he brings into your life. And as you lay back down in his arms, you know that no matter what the future holds, you'll always have this moment to look back on and smile.
#joel miller x reader#joel miller fanfiction#joel miller smut#joel miller#tlou fanfiction#pedro pascal fanfiction#joel miller x f!reader#pedro pascal#tw medical
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