#after i make outsiders fanart first

[winterfromwof-art-tumbler]

more oc art dont #flop

[critter-covenant]

Class is in session!

Idea inspired from this that I've been meaning to draw for the past few days

[amyrosedaily]

Day 29: Caught you!

PLEASE! Donate to save Muhammad Shehab's family! Main Post | GoFundMe

[souenkun]

I loooove the jp fandom's headcanon that geeta and larry are childhood friends who met during their time in the academy and, sometime in the future, geeta personally recruited larry to work for the paldean pokemon league, as she must be one of the first people who knew of his prowess in pokemon battling! Like yeah, the whole geeta being a "strict boss who is frustrated by larry's stubborn insistence to be an average worker that she has to assign him different workloads just to broaden his horizon" idea is intriguing, but stepping it up a notch by making geeta be the "best friend a.k.a the only one who has seen larry at his very best and his very worst, and knows for a fact that he could excel at anything he put his mind into if he steps out of his comfort zone, so she doesn't particularly drag him out of said zone, but pushes him out of it each time she can because she can't bear to see her best friend be unaware of the good chances and positive things that awaits him out there, not if she has a (small) say in it" is also downright hilarious 😭🤚

[szkicel]

btw guess who got into Arcana for the very first time, in the year of 2024

[connorsui]

One Touch Apart

Note: I couldn't help it after seeing the countless number of fanarts and game plays ....I just had to give myself an area to adore this man that is Mr. Crawling...♡♡

The faint hum of the outside world muted, but the warmth radiating from the strange entity in front of you made it feel less... empty. Mr. Crawling stood in the corner, his towering, spindly frame blending into the shadows, but his glowing, expressive gaze was fixed on you. For someone—or something—so otherworldly, he had a way of making you feel oddly at ease, even after everything you’d been through together.

Escaping the other world was nothing short of a nightmare, but somehow, having him here made it less terrifying. No one else could see him, which, honestly, was for the best. It meant you didn’t have to explain why this unsettling yet endearing entity was always hovering near you, his chirps and faint, childlike giggles filling the silence.

“Don’t look at me like that,” you muttered, trying and failing to suppress a smile as you caught him peering at you from behind the doorframe. His head tilted, chirping softly in response, and you couldn’t help but laugh.

He was like a puppy, in the most bizarre and disturbing way possible—always following you around, trying to mimic your actions, and doing his best to protect you, even if you weren’t in any real danger.

The language barrier between you two was a hurdle you hadn’t expected, but it hadn’t stopped you from trying. You’d started using hand signs, carefully shaping each motion to convey meaning. The first time you tried, though, he’d simply stared, his glowing eyes wide with fascination. Then, much to your amusement, he’d clumsily attempted to mimic your gestures, his ghostly fingers twitching in a disjointed imitation.

The two of you had ended up staring at each other in utter confusion before you burst out laughing. He’d tilted his head, watching you closely, then let out a high-pitched giggle, a hauntingly perfect mimicry of your own laugh.

That was the moment you realized how fond you’d become of him.

Now, as he chirped softly from his spot in the shadows, you glanced up at him, smiling. He smiled back—or, well, you thought it was a smile. His expressions were still hard to read, but the curve of his lips and the light in his eyes were unmistakable.

Hesitantly, you reached out, your fingers brushing over his arm. His skin—or whatever it was—was cool and smooth, like marble. He didn’t pull away, instead leaning into your touch with a quiet hum. Encouraged, you let your hand trail upward, brushing against his face.

Your knuckles ghosted over his cheek, gently brushing his hair aside. He froze for a moment, as if caught off guard, and you couldn’t help but wonder if he’d ever been touched so tenderly before.

His gaze—or where you thought his gaze should be—locked with yours. Did he even have eyes? You weren’t sure, but the intensity of his stare made your heart race.

The first time you’d felt this strange pull toward him had been in the other world, when he’d saved you from Mr. Scarletella. He’d pulled you down, crawling over you to hide you beneath his frame, shielding you from the other entity’s gaze. You hadn’t been able to forget the way his body curled protectively around yours, the warmth of his presence chasing away your fear.

It had only grown from there.

He’d been your constant companion, your protector, your solace in a place where nothing made sense. And now, as you stood here with him, that feeling blossomed into something more.

Your eyes drifted to his lips—pale, faintly cracked, but oddly inviting. What would they feel like against yours? Would he even understand the concept of a kiss?

You bit your lip, then pointed to your mouth, and then to his, hoping to get your message across. His smile widened, but he tilted his head slightly, an expression of playful confusion.

What? ; his expression seemed to ask, as if hes teasing you. would you care to show me?

Your cheeks flushed, and you let out a soft laugh. Of course, he’d turn this into a game.

“Well,” you murmured, stepping closer. “Who am I to say no?”

Carefully, you cupped his face in your hands, your thumbs brushing over his cheekbones. His skin felt smoother than you expected, like polished stone, and yet there was a warmth beneath it that made you shiver.

He watched you intently, his glowing gaze unwavering as you leaned closer. Your breaths mingled, and for a moment, you hesitated, wondering if you were crossing a line. But his head tilted slightly, almost inviting, and you pressed your lips to his.

The kiss was clumsy, his inexperience evident in the way his lips barely moved against yours. But there was a sweetness to it, a quiet eagerness that made your heart ache. When you finally pulled away, he let out his signature giggle, his lips twitching into an unmistakable smile.

And then he leaned forward, trying to capture your lips again.

“Greedy, aren’t you?” you teased, though you didn’t resist as he pressed another kiss to your mouth, this one slightly more confident than the last.

He giggled again, the sound almost giddy, and you couldn’t help but laugh with him. It seemed you’d spoiled him now—because judging by the way he clung to you, he had no intention of stopping anytime soon.

[jadeactuallysucks]

Idc what people say I loved seeing him a terrorist. He’s exactly how I would’ve imagined someone outside of his perspective seeing him

Also doing research on Azrael Angel of Death I can’t tell if he’s supposed to be a fallen Angel or just an Angel but I don’t know religion that well

More stuff I wanna say

With all of you chosen defenders out there saying it was dark who killed mitsi, nahhh we need A train Chosen, I’m calling him over during valentines. Ruin some relationships. Including yours. How is it not a surprise he kills people?He’s quite literally made to be a weapon with all the powers and violent tendencies.

And he was absolutely at fault for making dark a terrorist too no complaint about it. Very hedonistic ideology in which the two of them could do whatever they wanted. In which the world was their sandbox. Up to interpretation

Obviously I view chosen, especially my version of him, different than others. Some of you sickos are treating him nicely!!!!

Low-key mitsi didn’t need to be in the story at all. Just tweak a bit, and also the box would’ve been a lot more callous, instead of agent and victim hating chosen for killing their fridged gf, I would’ve loved the more controversial morals of victim hurting chosen for whatever justification he wanted to come up with. And like there’s too much of a pattern with killing off characters for the sake of plot. I think dark is a good exception cause he was a rabid dog and needed to be put down sorry dark lovers also not sorry cry

I liked that ambiguity, I know most people like stuff spelled out for them with backstories but I like mysteries cause that’s how fanart and fics can be made. Some stuff does need to be explained like how victim escaped and founded rocketcorp which I get.

Oh yeah agent 😛😛😛😛 smash smash smash I see why victim is on the bisexual dance floor he’s amazing. And I don’t need merc backstories, I can just guess he recruited work buddies or just buddies

First part and terrorism parts my favourite scenes, can’t wait for Ava 12 to make or break my interest haha. The box will forever remain my favourite episode the glaze is real

Oh my god victim getting tortured during the first scene. By far the best part (except chosen and dark) in the episode. Kicking and giggling seeing him get revived after being unsaved. I feel like it kinda one ups Chosen’s trauma so I definitely hope that stupid shit gets it worse than victim. Honestly this is the stuff I want left out. I want to imagine the pain he went through rather than see it. Cause even after that he still forgives his tormentor like a dog crawling back to its owner

Uhhh also I have a big complaint about women (sorry women) I don’t like the stereotypes. I don’t need to know they’re a women by the colour pink or long hair. But this is me screaming at a wall cause I watch the same thing kids watch and the main audience is children. I need more characters like blue. Where you can’t tell if they’re a girl or not and you don’t need to care cause they’ll be taking performance enhancing drugs either way

These were all made in the moment so yk agree to disagree. I can’t get myself to hate the episode like how other people manage to do. I guess it’s just cause I stuck around for a year to see this. And I’m sticking around 3 MORE SEASONS BABY

Also like this is a good day for multi fandom me. Al of the stuff I watch is getting new stuff. Like omg Ava, then walten files, then interloper and digital circus and prolly more but I can’t count as you can tell I can only count to four

[zeltqz]

it girl | sanzu h.

synopsis. you find sanzu after a fight at a party and end up introducing yourself and helping him patch up. turns out sanzu isn't as extroverted when it comes to speaking to girls, rindou finds out.

contains. smut, first time (sanzu's a virgin), nervous sanzu, bold reader, mentions of violence, busted lips, bruised knuckles, kantou!manji era, nude/explicit photos, oral (m), sanzu gets head for the first time, koko rindou and sanzu are best friends idc.

author's note. sanzu's so pretty but i just know that boy has never felt the touch of a woman, hence why i wrote this lmfao. call it a power move or whatever 🙄 (i wanna see more submissive sanzu honestly). fanart credits: caravaggist

“My head is fucking killing me,” Sanzu said with a pained groan. He began coughing until he started laughing, running purely on adrenaline. “I beat that fucker’s ass, didja see that?!”

“Shut up, stop being so loud.” Sanzu winced when Rindou smacked him upside the head. He looked down at his busted, bruised knuckles and cursed. “We’re so fucking dead.”

“Told you not to drink that much,” Koko sniped, gesturing with his chin over at Sanzu. “Got us into a goddamn fight.”

“Not my fault you guys are such wimps.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Koko doubled over to catch his breath, slumping against a car. 

“Are you guys okay?” you called out, steadily approaching the three boys. 

Your heart nearly stopped when they all turned to meet your eyes, but there was one you couldn’t take your eyes off of the most. He had green eyes and crazy pink hair tied up into a ponytail. You’d been eyeing him for the majority of the party, just small glances over at whichever end he was loudly talking at. The entire time you had been taking extra shots for courage to approach him but pussied out each time. When you were upstairs, there was loud shouting, chanting, and the sound of things breaking as a group of boys managed to get into a fight. You didn’t see the full thing, only coming down the stairs the exact moment you saw the three of them run outside, tearing down the street and around the block in record time. A quick scan of the party, you saw the pink haired guy was no longer there, so your feet went running before you could even think of what you were doing.

He was much prettier up close, an ethereal kind of beauty you rarely ever see. Not many people can rock long pink hair but he manages to make it work well.

You ran out, taking off after them. It was a miracle you found them, having guessed which direction they must’ve took off in. 

“Who are you?” Kokonoi asked, looking strangely at you.

“I was at the party,” you gestured down the street, “and saw everything. Are you guys okay?” you repeated, walking a little closer to the group. 

Kokonoi’s hostility dropped down a few notches and he nodded. Rindou shrugged and rolled his neck, trying to ease away the stiffness residing in his bones. Sanzu, on the other hand, just stared at you dumbfoundedly. He didn’t say a word, just stared at you with half wide eyes that only widened when you met his gaze. You held eye contact for a few seconds before looking down at his knuckles. Out of the three, Sanzu was probably the most roughed up, having done the most the entire fight and caught the most strays. His lip was busted and his knuckles were bruised.

“Oh that looks really bad. One second,” you said, pulling out a tissue from your pocket “Can I?” you asked, looking into his eyes. He doesn’t say yes or no, and Rindou isn’t even sure he’s breathing anymore. He doesn’t stop you as you hold his bruised hand and lift it up to your face for examination. 

You placed the tissue onto his knuckles. “I’m sorry that happened by the way. I don’t know how it started but I’m sure you guys didn’t deserve it.”

Kokonoi snorted and Rindou elbows him roughly. “Eh it’s whatever. Bottom line is we won, so.”

“You guys shouldn’t be fighting like that though. Especially in public. The police got called and are probably on their way here.”

“Wait seriously?!” Kokonoi whipped his head up at you and you nodded. He cursed under his breath. “We better get going again. Don’t wanna have to get bailed out again.”

Again?

“True that,” Rindou agreed, dusting off his pants. His head was pounding and he might probably have a concussion, but all that didn’t matter to him. He just needed to get out of here. “Call Ran, he’ll come pick us up.”

“He’s gonna fucking kill us,” Kokonoi replied.

“Better him than Mikey.”

“But—”

You tuned out the rest of their conversation and continued dabbing Sanzu’s knuckles, who still hadn’t said a single word since you approached. You blinked up at him and removed the bag from his hand. 

“Your lip is bleeding,” you announced, and he almost flinched away when your thumb rose to his lip. “Does it hurt?” He shook his head. “Can I put this on your lip?” You shook the tissue in your hand.

He nodded slowly and your smile nearly sent him straight to heaven. You pulled a water bottle from your purse and wet the tissue, pressing it on his lip and held onto his chin, tipping his head upright so you could see what you were doing better. Granted the tissue probably weren’t helping at all, but you had to work with what you had. 

“This looks really painful,” you murmured, fixated on the damages done to his face. He has these two pairs of twin scars on both sides of his mouth that you think are so cute. Without thinking, you let your thumb trace the diamond outline gently. You pull the tissue away from his lip and pocket it. “Does your lip hurt?”

Sanzu shook his head and you smiled. “That’s good.”

Rindou looked over at Sanzu weirdly, wondering why the loudest person in the group was suddenly so quiet. He didn’t have time to explore that train of thought deeper because Kokonoi spoke up.

“Rin, Sanzu. Ran’s on his way now. Let’s go.” He pocketed his phone and turned to you. “Thanks for the warning about the cops by the way. Really appreciate it.”

“It’s no problem.”

A black car pulled up to the curb and the window rolled down. “You three are so fucking dead,” Ran said exasperatedly. 

“As long as Mikey doesn’t find out we’re goo—” Kokonoi’s relief came crumbling down as his biggest fear came to light. The passenger seat window rolled down and Mikey’s face came into view. He didn’t look mad, honestly he didn’t look like anything. Just emotionless, but that was enough to scare the absolute shit out of Koko. “Boss, we can explain—”

“Get in the car.”

Kokonoi swallowed but obliged, his feet dragging behind him as he walked around the car to get in.

You looked back over at Sanzu who’s eyes hadn't left yours. “Guess this is goodbye. I’m (Name) by the way. What’s yours?”

Whatever reaction anyone was expecting, it wasn’t for Sanzu to completely stammer over his words, forgetting who he was, or how to form a literate sentence. “Me name? Who is—I—what, huh?”

Rindou looked at him like he grew two heads, even Mikey raised a confused brow. You pressed your lips together in a thin line to stop yourself from laughing and Sanzu’s ears burnt with humiliation. Frankly he was mortified with those being the first words he’s said to you ever. Rindou thankfully saved him from more embarrassment by grabbing the back of his collar hard.

“His name is Sanzu by the way,” he told you before dragging him towards the car, kicking him into the backseat. The door slammed shut and you watched as Rindou entered the front next to his brother and then the car pulled off, recklessly rounding the corner.

You stayed there for a minute, blinking, then smiled giddily down at the floor before making your way back to your friends inside.

~*~

“Yeah they’ve definitely got a concussion,” the nurse said, snapping her gloves off. She stepped away from the three boys at the table and handed them each plastic cups of water. “Make sure you drink plenty of water and get plenty of rest.”

“Thanks doc.” Mikey wrote her a check and she nodded, thanking him before exiting the room. He looked at the three in them in disappointment. They each had an annoying habit of crashing random parties going on in the street and getting shit faced, then turning up to work and events hungover or too exhausted. Now they have hit the final nail in the coffin by getting in a physical altercation with strangers and the police are probably looking for their asses right now.

“I have nothing to say to you three. You heard the woman, get plenty of rest,” he scolded before leaving the room.

“Who wants to bet the medical bills are coming out of our paycheck?” Rindou asked, sliding off the table. He rubbed his head exhaustedly and yawned.

“I might just have a heart attack if I see that,” Kokonoi responded, shuddering.

“That girl…” Sanzu muttered under his breath, scratching his chin.

“What?”

“That girl,” he repeated louder as if he just came to a sudden realisation, “was a fucking angel!”

“Oh. Welcome back to earth Mr. Who me is name I what?” Rindou mocked, amusement written all over his face as Sanzu rolled his eyes.

Kokonoi laughed loudly. “Oh yeah! What the fuck was that all about?”

“Shut up,” Sanzu grumbled and closed his eyes, blocking their mockery out. He tried to picture your face again behind his closed lids but the concussion was slowly getting worse and your face was starting to fade from his memory. “I need to find this girl and redeem myself. What’s her name?” he said snipply, snapping his fingers at the two boys for them to hurry up.

“Stop being a weirdo. You probably blew your chances anyway,” Rindou stated.

“Nah uh! It wasn’t that bad!”

“Who me is name I what?” Kokonoi repeated and Sanzu groaned loudly.

“Keep making fun of me whatever! But when I find her and make her my future wife I don’t want to hear shit from any of you.”

“Wow,” Kokonoi fake gasped. “You can tell your future kids the story of how you met!”

“Future wife huh?” Rindou chuckled. “So we’re just skipping past girlfriend?”

“Gotta aim big.”

Kokonoi shook his head. “That girl wants nothing to do with you.”

“Yeah? Well why did she patch me up and not you two fucking idiots then? HUH?” Sanzu gestured to his busted lip. The two boys had nothing else to say and just rolled their eyes, muttering whatever under their breath. “Exactly, shut the fuck up.”

Sanzu traced his scars with his finger. He could still feel the gentle trail of your finger on his skin and closed his eyes once more, picturing you in front of him, staring up at him with such care in your eyes as you genuinely found yourself worried at his injuries. He looked down at his knuckles, still bruised, and pictured your hand in his. He regretted not saying more to you earlier, regretted not actually having a conversation with you and telling him his injuries looked worse than they actually felt.

Sanzu stood up and Rindou called out to him. “Oi. Where the hell are you going? We’re heading back to mines.”

“I’m going back to that party to redeem myself.”

“It’s been like an hour and it’s almost three am. She’s long gone. Let it go.”

Sanzu shook his head, condescendingly clicking his tongue in a way that ground Rindou’s gears. “Don’t be jealous Rin.”

“Jealous of?”

“I got a girl that wants me for me, not my dick.”

“That’s something only a virgin would say,” Kokonoi inputs, laughing when Sanzu instantly closes his mouth. “No way, are you actually a virgin?”

“No I’m not!”

“Yes you are!”

“I’m not!”

“Who’d you lose it to?”

Sanzu scoffs. “Like anyone remembers that,”

“Okay playboy.” Rindou laughs. “I remember mine.”

“So do I,” Kokonoi high fives Rindou. The two of them look at Sanzu. “Well? What’s her name?”

“I was high. Don’t remember,” Sanzu shrugs. Rindou looks over at Koko who both equally look unimpressed. “ANYWAY! It doesn’t matter because I’m going to find that girl and redeem myself tonight.”

Kakucho enters the room. “Find what girl?”

“Redeem yourself for what?” Kokonoi asks.

Rindou laughs even louder. “Redeem himself for “Oh friend who I am what?””

Sanzu’s ears burn when Koko joins in the laughter. “Alright so just forget my question. Cool,” Kakucho rolls his eyes.

“Sanzu got us into a fight tonight and some girl helped him with his busted lip and now he thinks he’s in love.”

“I don’t think—”

“We know,” Kokonoi interrupts.

Sanzu shoots him a glare. “If you’d let me finish,” he says snarkily. “I don’t think I'm in love. I know I am.”

“In love with a girl you don’t even know the name of?” Kakucho asks hesitantly. He should be used to this by now honestly, it's not the first time Sanzu got hyper fixated over something, except in this case it's someone. In actuality, he should be worried for this girl, knowing how obsessive Sanzu gets at times. Picturing the boy in a relationship was something Kakucho just could not do no matter how hard he tries.

“I’ll find her name. You forget who I am and what I do in this goddamn organisation?”

“Aside from dragging us to useless parties and getting us involved in unnecessary fights?” Rindou asked.

“You had fun tonight, stop acting like you hated it that bad,” Sanzu complained.

“What did this girl look like?” Kakucho asks.

Sanzu describes your appearance from your height all the way down to your eye colour, recounting to his friends every single detail he managed to observe about you the entire time he spent staring at you. They all looked at him with concern.  Sanzu noticed their glare and shrugged. “What?”

“Surprised you didn’t count every single lash of hers honestly,” Kokonoi rubbed his forehead exhaustedly when his head pounded again. “This headache is killing me. Gonna head home.”

They all said goodbye and waited for him to leave the room. 

“I think I know the girl,” Kakucho said, recounting the horrifying moment of Sanzu describing you in as much detail as possible. 

“WHAT?!” Sanzu exclaimed far too loudly for his head and Rindou’s to handle, a sharp pain shooting their heads. “Ah fuck,” he groaned, rubbing his head. 

“Are you serious?” Rindou asked, looking at Kakucho who nodded.

“Yeah. Someone like that lives on my floor. I see her leaving every morning.”

“To Kakucho’s we go!” Sanzu grinned, grabbing the younger boy's hand and dragging him outside. Rindou reluctantly follows behind them, wanting to see where this situation was heading. 

Kakucho ended up being right, and when they entered the lobby of his apartment, they saw you collecting your mail. Sanzu’s feet felt frozen to the floor as he just stared at your side profile. He almost had a stroke when you turned to face in his direction, and he swore you were looking directly at him when you broke out into a smile, waving your hand.

“Hey! Haven’t seen you in a while,” you said and Sanzu was confused. It’s only been a few hours, hasn’t it? 

You were walking and he stood up a little straight when it looked like you were heading towards his direction, only for his heart to do a complete 360 when you hugged Kakucho instead. It wasn’t an affectionate hug, both your hands barely lingered on each other’s body, just an awkward side hug that lasted barely 2 seconds.

“Yeah, you know. I’ve been busy with work and stuff.”

“Ah cool cool. I’ve been collecting your mail though.” You handed him his mail. He thanked you and held them under his arm. 

You looked at two boys next to them and then gasped. “Oh its you!” You pointed between Sanzu and Rindou, who only nodded, asking how you’ve been. Sanzu was frozen again as you and Rindou gave each other basic small talk, only breaking out of his stupor when Rindou elbowed him hard in the stomach. 

You bit down a laugh when you saw Sanzu clutch onto his stomach in pain. “Oh my god, are you alright?” Sanzu could hear the laugh in your voice, but didn’t feel offended the slightest.

“I’m good, yeah. Just distracted.”

“Oh. Am I boring you?”

He was too scared of the fact you thought that about him to notice the playful hint in your voice. “No! Not at all. I just have a concussion that's all.”

“No way. Does it hurt? Are you okay?” You hesitantly lift your hand up and press it on his forehead which is burning up. “You need to get some sleep right now.”

“It’s too late to drive right now.” Kakucho says. “You two can just sleep at mine.”

“Only if I get your bed,” Sanzu adds.

“Fuck that. Sleep on the couch.”

“But I’m concussed.”

“And who’s goddamn fault is that?”

Sanzu rolled his eyes. Kakucho sighed. “Fine. You can get the bed.”

“Let’s fucking go,” Sanzu grinned and started heading towards the elevator. The other two boys followed them and Kakucho looked behind at you. 

“You coming?”

Sanzu pressed the button and turned to look at you and Kakucho as you shook your head. “No, I'm heading back out.”

“Right now?” Kakucho says and looks at his watch, “It’s almost 4 am?”

“I know,” you sigh exhaustedly. “My friend, well kinda friend, I guess wants me to come to his house. Just got his text a few minutes ago.”

“At this hour?” Kaku says sceptically.

“So a booty call?” Rindou says and gets elbowed by Kakucho, telling him to mind his business.

You laugh. “I guess if that's what you want to call it. I don’t sleep with him, he just uses me to impress his friends it feels like.” Your eyes slide over to Sanzu who has a scowl on his face and looks away almost immediately after you make eye contact. “I don’t wanna do it but he scares me so I feel like I have to.”

“What’s his name?” Kakucho asks.

“Why? You gonna hurt him?” you ask back. Though you and Kakucho are only neighbours at best, you’re well aware of what he does and his reputation around town. The Brawler is his nickname, or was, back when he was in Tenjiku. But you didn’t know what his role or job entailed, all you knew he was in some shady shit and you wanted no part of it. 

“Depends if I know the guy or not.”

You roll your eyes. “His name is Osanai.”

“Wait a minute,” Rindou says, “Is he tall? Smokes all the time, blonde hair? Kinda tan?”

“Yeah…” you say slowly, sceptically, “how’d you know?”

“We’ve actually been kinda looking for that guy. Mikey wanted to see him, didn't he?” Rindou asks Kakucho who shrugs and points over to Sanzu who’s been awfully quiet the entire time. “Didn’t he?” Rindou asks Sanzu again.

“Oh. Yes he has.” He looks up and meets your gaze one more time before looking away. 

“Where’s he at?” Rindou asks, approaching you.

“I dunno probably his house?”

“Okay but where genius.”

You give him Osanai’s address and he starts heading outside. “Wait! Don’t kill him or something.”

“Why do you care what we do? Doesn’t he scare you?”

“I mean yes but that doesnt mean I want him dead…”

Kakucho sighs. “Sanzu wait here with (y/n), me and Rindou will sort this out.”

Sanzu instantly looks at Kakucho. “Wait—”

“Just do it,” Rindou snickers before the two of them leave. Sanzu watches them go with a betrayed look on his face, already thinking of 101 different ways to kill Rindou once he got back home.  You look up at Sanzu and smile at him.

“So…you can go home if you want. I don't need a babysitter.”

“No it's fine I'll uh wait here.”

“We can go back to mine?” you ask a little hopeful.

Sanzu opens his mouth to speak but the words can't seem to come out. He resorts to nodding and you smile, taking his hand in yours and walking up to your apartment. 

~*~

Three hours in and you’ve been binging shitty movies together, laughing at the bad plot and horribly written characters. When you first saw Sanzu at the party, he was outgoing and the life of the room honestly. Maybe your opinion is a bit biased because you were focused on nothing but him, but he had this energy that attracted you to him. Now, in front of you, he’s nothing like he was a few hours ago, he seems shy and reserved, keeping to himself but he’s still funny and cracks a few jokes that make you cackle every now and then.

“Wait you got a little, i’ll get it for you,” you say, cupping his chin and turning his face to you. He watches you with wide eyes as your thumb comes up to his lip and wipes some tomato sauce off. you make continuous eye contact with him as you bring your thumb to your mouth and lick the sauce off the tip. Then, you almost give the guy a heart attack when you go back in with your wet thumb and wipe the remnants of the sauce on the corner of his mouth. 

His pizza flops in his hand and something else rises in his pants as you pull back, sitting reasonably closer than you did before, resting your head on his shoulder, continuing to watch the movie. It’s hard for him to even focus on the TV with you sitting this close to him right now. He can smell your shampoo, your perfume, can feel your body heat warming him up and he’s actually going to pass out if you continue clinging to his arm like that. He clears his throat and shifts in his seat a little, hoping his boner goes down and praying you don’t see it. 

Just to be on the safe side, he nonchalantly grabs a couch cushion and places it on his lap, claiming he's cold. You don’t buy it one bit but only smirk at the hidden implications. You let out a fake yawn and shift even closer to him, bringing your feet onto the couch, shifting into a lying position. 

You look up at Sanzu and smile slightly. “Is this okay with you?” you ask, batting your eyes at him.

“Y-yea. It's fine. cool.” He swallows thickly and turns to look back at the TV.

The cushion gets in the way and you click your tongue, sitting upright and almost bashing him in the jaw with your head. You toss the cushion away and Sanzu's about to protest before you lay back down, your head only inches away from his crotch. His erection was going down slowly but now it might as well sprung back up. 

“Oh wait a second,” you said, sitting upright and Sanzu almost panicked when you pointed down at his crotch. “You okay?”

“I—sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“No, it's fine,” you laugh. “These things are uncontrollable, I know.” Sanzu sighs in relief. “Do you need any help?” you ask and he blinks at you.

“What?”

“Nevermind,” you clear your throat. “That was a dumb question.”

“No wait!” he says abruptly, making you jump. “I mean, yeah, if you don’t mind.”

“Really?” you perk up a little. 

“Yeah I guess.”

You move to sit next to him, your head only inches away from his. “This is gonna sound a bit creepy but,” your eyes drop to his lips, “I’ve been wanting to do this since I saw you tonight.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” you say absentmindedly, distracted as you ran your finger over his scars. “Thought you were so pretty.”

“Pretty…?”

“Yeah, you’re really pretty Sanzu.”

He bites his lip, fighting the urge to look away from your intense eyes in the dark. You’re leaning in closer and his eyes close and then he feels your lips pressing against his. It starts off with short pecks that linger a little too long before you're actively moving your lips against his. Your hand cups his face and you pull him closer, sucking on his lips and entering your tongue into his mouth. He moans softly when your fingers find their way to his hair, scratching gently at his scalp.

You pull away and plaster kisses to his neck, gently pushing him down onto the couch, your body basically straddling him as you kiss down his throat.

His body feels hot and he can't focus anywhere  but your lips going down his body. Your fingers grab the seam of his shirt and your lips tickle against his skin as you mutter, “Take this off.”

He obediently does as he’s told and lifts his arms up as you help him remove the shirt. You toss it on the other couch and sit upright to examine his chest. His abs were faint but visibly and you bit your lip, running your finger along his chest.

He stares up at you as you look distracted at the sight of his bare chest. You make eye contact and smirk a little before lifting your shirt up and over your head. His eyes go wide at the sight of you in your bra. You go back down and kiss down his stomach, fingers moving to unzip his jeans and pull them down.

“Wait wait wait!” You freeze and look up at the boy in front of you, tilting your head in confusion. He swallows thickly. “I haven't…done this before.”

Your eyes widen in surprise. “Really?”

“Shocking, I know.”

“Oh. It really is. I thought girls would be all over a guy like you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like I said before, you’re really pretty Sanzu.” He instantly looks away and you laugh. “You’re shyer than I expected Sanzu. At the party you were really loud and stuff, I didn't expect this. It’s cute.”

“I’m not shy.”

“You said less than 100 words to me tonight and we’ve been hanging out for almost four hours.”

“...”

You laugh and sit upright, leaning back in to kiss him. “Do you still want me to…” Your fingers trail down his body, rubbing the outline of his cock in his briefs.

“If you want to.”

“I obviously do, that's why I'm asking you.”

“Sure then.”

You give him one last kiss before settling back between his lips. His cock has never felt more sensitive than in this moment when your fingers wrap around his cock, pulling it free from his boxers. It stands tall against your face and you lick the tip, not ceasing eye contact. He feels obligated to watch you suck his cock and desperately wants to look away because he knows he will bust in less than ten seconds if you keep staring at him like that.

You take him in your mouth and he moans so loudly, the sound soft and heavenly. You smile around him and begin to suction your cheeks as you take him lower. Your tongue swirled around his shaft every time you bobbed. He was throbbing inside you, your heavy eye contact and warm mouth making him grow harder.

He finally broke the eye contact to throw his head back, a long groan of “fuccccckkkkkkk,” leaving his mouth as he placed his hand on your head, bobbing you up and down. You moaned when his hips bucked up into you.

You pull off his cock and jerk him off, his words dying in his throat when he feels your tongue lick his balls, sucking gently on them.

He sits up and holds the back of your head, his fingers digging into your scalp as he pants heavily. Your eyes squeeze shut as you focus on pleasuring him, putting your mouth back onto his cock and taking him deeper than you did before, your fingers gently massaging his balls.

“I’m gonna—fuck, i’m coming,” he groans and without warning holds the back of your head, pressing you down and came inside your throat. 

Honestly you were shocked he lasted this long. Your body felt so warm and hot hearing his pretty moans, and the sight of him with his mouth open, head thrown back was something you’d never forget. His grip on your head ceased and you pulled off his cock, eyes teary and watery and mouth full of cum.

“Oh shit,” he mutters, watching you take a minute before swallowing. His dick twitches again. Without thinking, his thumb comes up to the corner of your lip and wipes a stray drop of cum. Before he can remove his thumb, your head turns and you suck the tip of it. “You’re actually trying to kill me, aren’t you,” he groans and you giggle around his thumb.

“Are you a virgin too if you’d never gotten head before?” 

He nods shamefully and you can’t help but kiss him again. “Want me to take it?” you ask, forehead resting against his.

He blinks at you before not-so-subtly dropping his eyes down to your cleavage. “yeah.”

You grin and push him back down onto his back, slipping off the couch. He watches you strip down naked, your bra and panties are tossed to the opposite couch. Thanks to the help of the tv, your body is still a shadow but the outline of your body makes him instantly hard again. You climb back on top of him.

His hands migrate to your hips, and with absolutely zero confidence with what he’s doing, his hand slides towards your clit and you gasp when his thumb snakes its way to your folds. “You’re really wet.”

You squirm, slightly embarrassed but bite your lip, amusement in your voice as you say, “Yeah…that’s supposed to happen.”

“I know that,” he grumbles, still rubbing your clit in circles, wetting his fingers with your arousal. “I’m not an idiot.”

He pulls his hand away and you grab his wrist, guiding his finger into his mouth, watching him suck your juices off his fingers. “God that’s hot,” you pull his fingers out and lean back down to kiss him.

“I'm going to get condoms,” you say against his lips before pulling away. He nods and watches you head down the hallway when his phone buzzes. 

rindou: we found osanai so we’re heading back right now

sanzu: hell no just go home 

rindou: ???? walk home then tf

sanzu: don't think that's an issue honestly think i might be sleeping over if you know what i mean ;)

rindou: what? you’re getting laid? YEAH RIGHT

sanzu: IM NOT LYING

rindou: i never once ever in my entire life found you funny but you’re telling some good jokes right now

sanzu: 1) im always funny, 2) im serious.  i would send you proof but then you’d see my dick and thats gross

rindou: would rather bleach my eyeballs honestly. you could barely look this girl in the eye and you really expect me to believe you’re fucking her?

“I’m back!” you call out making sanzu jump. “What’re you doing on your phone?” you ask, snatching it from his hands and reading the messages. 

It’s a miracle it’s dark right now because Sanzu doesn’t know what he’ll do if you saw him blushing from embarrassment right now.

“He’s fucking rude. Why doesn’t he believe you?” you huff, handing him his phone back before your face lights up. “Wanna show him?”

“Show him what…” He hopes you’re not heading in the direction you’re so obviously going. 

“You know what I mean, c’mere.” You sit back against the couch and pull up the camera app on his phone. You hold the phone out in front of you, “Stick your tongue out.” 

He does so and you stick yours out also, just barely grazing his as you snap a bunch of pictures. You take a couple more in different poses, putting your lips in a kissy face and kissing his cheek, his lips and resting your forehead against his as you smile at the camera. 

You sit upright and scroll through the photos, smiling at each of them. “Send these to me after yeah.” You toss the phone behind you and rip open the condom. You reach behind you and slip it easily down his shaft before aligning it with your pussy. “Ready?”

“Yeah…” The tip nudges your clit before slipping inside, warm heat instantly engulfing the tip of his cock and his mouth falls open, panting breathily as you continue sinking downwards, watching the pleasured look on your face as your pussy squelches trying to accommodate his entire length.

“Oh fuck,” you whimper, fixing your hands onto his chest for support. You bounce experimentally, ripping another moan from your throat it sinks you a little lower. 

“Shit, shit—wait,” He digs his nails into the fat of your ass cushioned against his thighs.

“Sanzu,” you moan, collapsing down onto his chest, wrapping your arms around his shoulders. He can hear your breathy pants beside his ear, sending shivers down his spine.

“You feel so fucking good,” He huffs against your ear and you sit upright, pushing your arms behind you to his knees and start swiveling your hips in circles that turn to full on bouncing on his cock. 

His eyes are focused on your tits that swing in motion with your movements and he can’t help but lift you up and down on his cock. “Fuck,” He gropes and squeezes your cheeks as you whimper, clenching around his cock with every bounce.

“Touch me please,” you whimper, looking down at him, grabbing one of his hands and bringing them up to your tits. He squeezes it and runs his thumb along your nipple, sending ripples of pleasure through your body, giving you more motivation to continue bouncing.

“Wait, slow down— oh fuck.” His body was tense, and you were sure he was leaving fingernail shaped dent marks on your hip with how tight his grip was. His cock felt so good, having a slight tilt to it that hit that spot no other guy had been able to reach. You couldn’t stop bouncing, his words falling on deaf ears.

“Wait wait wait stop,” he gasped, his grip getting tighter, bringing you to a stop. Wasting no time, you lean back down and begin kissing along his jaw as he catches his breath, impatiently wiggling your hips just to feel something. “I just came,” he admitted.

You froze and shot up, looking down at him. “For real?” he nodded, wiping a shameful hand over his face. “That's so cute,” you giggle and kiss him. 

You lifted yourself up and off his cock and laid down on top of him. “Did you like it?” you ask, tracing your finger along his chest.

“Yeah, it felt so good.”

“Yay,” you smiled bashfully.

“You didn’t finish though.”

“Eh it's not a big deal. I wanted to make you feel good.”

“Still though…” he mutters, pouting at the fact he didn’t make you feel as good as he felt. 

His phone buzzed and he sat upright to grab it. 

rindou: having fun loverboy??? u busy humping her pillow to text me back? asshole

Sanzu scoffs and you lean your head against his shoulder and read the messages. “Send him the photos.”

He turns to look at you, your lips almost brushing against his in the process. “You sure? You’re kinda naked in them.”

“I don't really care. It’s just a boob. You can crop it out if you’re that worried.”

“Okay…” He crops your chest out of the photo and stares down at the photos once more. He's never deleting these. He sends three different photos to Rindou, not even bothering to caption them and turns his phone off, waiting for his response.

“Oh wait! Gimme your phone!” You hold your hand out as he hands it to you. 

“What’re you doing?”

“Adding my number,” you hum and add your number to his contacts, adding a heart after his name. You’re never usually this forward, but you knew you wanted Sanzu from the moment you saw him, and you weren’t going to let him slip away. “Call me when you get home. okay?” Your forehead brushes against his and your eyes dart down to his lips, fighting the urge to kiss them.

“Okay.”

You give into temptation and kiss him slowly. Your thumbs traced along his jawline as you hum, almost lazily enticing your tongue with his. His hands ran teasingly along your body, cupping your ass and pulling you back on top of him.

The doorbell rang and you sat upright, cursing under your breath. “I’ll get it.” You press one more kiss to his lips and slip off the couch to re-dress. Your shirt was backwards and your pants were inside out, but you didn’t care as you answered the door with a cheery, “yes?”

Kakucho rubbed his forehead with a world heavy sigh and you instantly felt all colour drain from your face. He was with Rindou and probably saw the photos. “How can I help you Kaku?”

“Just…just tell Sanzu to come on, let’s go.”

Sanzu appears behind you,redressed, and gives you a hug goodbye, his arms lingering around your form for much longer than Kakucho considered friendly. You pull away and whisper in his ear for him to call you when he gets home. He nods and you plant another kiss to the corner of his mouth.

Sanzu is about to deepen the kiss before Kakucho grabs him by the back of his shirt and tugs him out of your apartment. 

[wriothesleybear]

Based off of this magnificent fanart

~warnings: a lot of fluff and romance, a bit suggestive in Wrio’s part, fem!reader. Word count: 1.6k

~a/n: I couldn’t get over the fanart of Wrio and Diluc as firefighters and I just had to write about it. It’s my first time writing for Diluc so I hope it’s ok. This is also in honor of getting a body pillow of him. It’s so beautiful and I sleep much better with it.

Firefighter!Wrio who you met when he rescued your cat from a tree. You couldn’t help but swoon from the image of this large, buff, muscled man holding a little kitten in his arms. You thank him and he can’t help but think about how beautiful you are. He was about to ask you for his number when he got called for another emergency. You meet him again when your cat gets stuck in a tree again. He feels slightly guilty for being thankful that your cat got stuck again so you two could meet again. After he hands you your cat back, he smiles down at you and asks you for your number. You blush and give it to him.

Firefighter!Wrio who is the type of boyfriend to tease and flirt with you. He has a playful and chill attitude outside of work compared to his focused and serious attitude at work. He likes to carry you a lot, either bridal style or throws you over his shoulder to get you into a giggling mood. It always cheers you up when you’re feeling down. Loves tickle fights. He will actually chase you around the house until he catches you, dragging you to the couch so you two can snuggle. Once he’s got you in a cuddle hold, there’s no getting up for a while.

Firefighter!Wrio who loves kisses and make out sessions. While you’re busy doing something, he’ll wrap his arms around you and pepper kisses down your neck until you decide to drop what you’re doing and give him your full attention. He enjoys when your fingers slide down his body, nails lightly scratching his skin as you admire his build and muscles. He really likes it when you pepper kisses on his scars.

Firefighter!Wrio who is a mixture of a golden retriever boyfriend and scary dog boyfriend. The golden retriever portion is due to him doing anything for you and being needy for affection. He’s always touching you in some way and follows you around the house like a puppy. The scary dog boyfriend is due to him looking scary to those who don’t know him. The piercing, scars, and large build sort of intimidate other guys from approaching you or bothering you. Little do they know, he’s just a golden retriever boyfriend who wants affection and cuddles. He is very protective as well.

Firefighter!Wrio who is great with kids and animals. He lets kids decorate his items with stickers because he can’t say no to them. If it makes them happy and smile, then who is he to take that away from them, he’ll deal with the onslaught of stickers. He sometimes thinks about what it would be like if it was your kids that were covering his things with stickers.

Firefighter!Wrio who loves to lay on your chest while your fingers rake through his hair. It helps him sleep better after a long stressful day. He acts a bit off when he’s had a hard day. He doesn’t really like to talk about the bad work days because he doesn’t want to spread the negativity to you but you can tell when he’s had a bad one. You don’t try to push him to talk if he doesn’t want to so you just open your arms for him and hold him. He can feel the weight lift off his shoulders when you hold him. It lets him know that it’ll be okay and that you’re always there for him even when you don't verbally say it or not.

Firefighter!Wrio who exercises on his free time. You love watching him work out and he likes your attention on him. Your eyes focus on his muscles as they flex when he does pull ups. Droplets of sweat slide down his sweat slicked skin, causing his skin to glisten in the lighting. While lost in your daze, you’re snapped out of it when he leans down in front of you, a hand positioned on each side of you on the bench, and he makes a flirty comment like “Darling, you’re drooling a bit. Am I really that mesmerizing?” as he gives you his signature teasing smirk. He’ll then offer you to join him in the shower. It turns out to be a very long shower that involved more than just washing each other’s body.

Firefighter!Diluc who you met when he saved you from a small kitchen fire. You were trying to bake something and it didn’t work out, therefore, it ended up in a fire. You felt so bad and embarrassed but he just reassured you that these happen a lot so it’s no big deal. He looks at the burnt pastries and points out that you accidentally put the temp up too high for too long causing the fire to occur. He sees the shameful look on your face and gives you a gentle look and some reassuring words on not to give up on baking. You smile and thank him and he swears his heart skips a beat at your beautiful smile. He’s unable to think about it further as he’s called away for another emergency.

Firefighter!Diluc whose heart skips a beat again when you show up at his firehouse later that week, gifting him some pastries you made as a thank you. You joke and say that they should taste better than the burnt ones you made last time. He covers his face to hide the slight blush that begins to cover his cheeks as he accepts your gift. You two exchange numbers as friends until it develops into something more.

Firefighter!Diluc is the slowburn type. You two start off as friends first, hanging out and all that until romantic feelings begin to blossom between the two of you as you get to know each other more. When he's sure you feel the same, he gathers the courage to ask you out on a date. He gives a small smile when you say yes. His shoulders relax and his heart is racing a bit more when he finally hears that you feel the same.

Firefighter!Diluc who is the protective type of boyfriend that spoils his s/o. He loves spending time with you doing mundane things. Cooking, having movie night, reading together, shopping, etc. You two could be doing the most boring activity and he’d still enjoy it because all he cares about is being with you.

Firefighter!Diluc who is a great cook and enjoys cooking/baking with you. He gives cooking advice and hugs you from behind while you cook. He says it's easier for him to help and supervise what you’re doing this way, but in reality, he just wants to be close to you as much as he can. He’s more than happy to taste test your cooking creations. (Plus he helps to make sure you don’t accidentally start another fire again). He thinks your concentration face is adorable.

Firefighter!Diluc who gives you a passionate kiss before he leaves for work. Neither of you ever know what could happen so he wants to make sure that you know how he feels about you in case it’s the last time you see him. He keeps pictures of you and him together in his work locker. It comforts him when he misses you and gives him the courage and strength to make sure he comes back home to you.

Firefighter!Diluc is the type to not discuss his work at home as well. He wouldn’t want to burden you with stress and worries. When he’s had a bad day, he’s pretty good at hiding it, but you’ve learned to read his cues that show he’s not doing too well mentally. You immediately drop everything and guide him over to the couch where you let him bury his head in your neck as you hold each other close. His hold is tight around you, but not constricting. You give him words of comfort while rubbing his back and playing with his long, beautiful red hair. He basks in your affection and comforting touches, inhaling your scent which helps calm him down as he nuzzles into your neck.

Firefighter!Diluc who lets you play with his hair. You have a blast trying multiple different hairstyles on him while he relishes in the feeling of your gentle touch on his hair. After a long day, when you two take a relaxing bath, he appreciates it when you take the time to wash his hair. It’s a rewarding massage that helps him relax and feel sleepy. He swears you have magical hands by the effect you have on him. All you have to do is touch a part of his body and he melts into your touch.

Firefighter!Diluc who loves holding hands with you. The feel of his warm, calloused hands compared to your gentle, soft ones. Your touch is like heaven to him. He prefers leaving kisses on your hands the most. Please cup his face. He’ll absolutely melt right then and there and give you anything you want. He also likes resting your foreheads together. He wraps his strong arms around your waist, holding you close as you cup his cheeks, leaning your forehead against one another and gaze into each other’s eyes. He thinks it’s the most intimate and romantic thing you two do.

[weebsinstash]

There's an unconfirmed theory that the love potion Velvette and Valentino sells is his spit, and literally just the spit in his mouth is a doping aphrodisiac

Like ok here's something I've considered. Say you're a new Sinner in Hell. You meet him night ONE down there. You've got nowhere to stay. You're watching people be stabbed and robbed outside, but here in the studio, you're sitting with this Mr Valentino who you just met. It's obvious that he's fucking trouble but he's a much more welcoming option to the unhinged chaos outside (especially if you're a woman, being without shelter is WOOOF dangerous)

It really depends on the person, but technically, isn't "sleep with me and I'll give you a place to sleep for the night" like actually an incredibly lucky almost one sided deal in this context?

So Reader agrees. It's- It's just sex right? It isn't... THAT bad? But little do you know, even just kissing him can turn your mind to mush. He's got his tongue in your mouth and, he suddenly starts asking all these really intimate, personal questions. You've already been drinking, and now with his red hot aphrodisiac delivered straight into your mouth, you're basically hopped up on ecstasy. One minute you're talking with Angel, not sure where you're going to go, the next, you're in Valentino's lap, willingly letting him shove his tongue down your throat, drinking after him, taking shotguns of smoke from his cigarette while he asks you how many times you've had sex, what your favorite positions are, just... he'd have you in the palm of his hand.

There's an Angel Dust fanart comic about Val luring AD into the room where he has aphrodisiac burning like an incense and Angel is being drugged just standing in the room and I can totally see Valentino doing shit like this. He's just chilling with some of his girls and they're all sitting around basically making out and being horny and drinking and doing drugs, and Valentino is still making you fetch him drinks. At some point you're standing there and he sees you wobble a bit and he realizes you're getting the secondhand smoke and suddenly he's intimately curious how you look and sound when you're embarrassed and starts teasing you and becomes addicted to it

Valentino is a sadist. You want me to believe he'd see Reader there hot in the face and starting to sweat and suddenly nervously giggling at all of his flirtatious comments and filthy questions and he WOULDN'T start groping you up just to hear you squeal for him to stop? Please. And then once you're all loopy and easily manipulated, then he'll start laying on the charms, the compliments, the promises. He could treat you so well, baby, and all you have to do is just have a nice little... cuddle session with him once or twice or dozens of times :3c and he always gets you so fucked up first that, really, his offers just sound like the most fun in the world...

[void-hoodie]

(A timestuck au)

Maybe he shouldn't have left the kid with his brother who lives in a hunted cabin

Some of the story

I read a few timestuck AUs, and what caught my attention the most was when ever the twins separated and Dipper ends up with Ford, he's subjected to a lot of stress and emotional distress due Ford's unstable behavior and constant distrust, especially when it's specifically the time where he calls Stan to hid the journal. along with physical harm when Bill possess Ford's body, even attempt to kill him.

so in this one it was inspired by this fic (not fanart but got the idea from it) i decided to take it up a notch!

the twins who was about go spend their summer with their grunkle ends up both with young Stan instead. Stan after they showed him the proof of them being from the future after showing him a picture of his big brother shermie in his senior years, decids to take them to his estranged twin brother to try and figure out how to help them. (it was a bit before the portal was activated for the first time, but still had a fight with Fiddleford)

the next day,Stan, after realizing Ford had no actual food in his home other than coffee, decides to go shop for a few thing.

it was also 5am in the morning everyone was awake except Dipper who was too mentally and physically exhausted to wake up to anything.

Mabel decided to go with Stan to make sure he buys what they need, but she was hesitant about leaving Dipper, but she knows that this is gonna be the only time he sleeps deeply until their situation is solved, and with some reassurance from grunkle Ford about telling him when he wakes up, she goes.

Ford deciding to figure out what to do to send the twins back to their time, goes to the basement to do some research, accidentally falls asleep.

BILL who was watching the whole time immediately took control of the sleeping man's body, excited about someone new to play with he looks around , graps a scalpel puts it in the possessed man's pocket and leaves the basement straight to the attic where the boy is sleeping.

seeing the sleeping form of the kid, starfished, using Stan's dirty jacket as a blanket snoring softly.

BILL chose to mess a bit with the kid before trying anything else, he got closer and held the tween's nose cutting his breathing, gradually Dipper started to squrim from not breathing right, trying to breath from his mouth, BILL used his other hand and cut that too.

eventually, Dipper jolted from his sleep trying to breathe the missing air before he noticed his other great uncle looking down on him, smiling amusingly, like he was enjoying the fact Dipper almost choked, his smile also held sadistic enjoyment.

Alarms blaring in his head, he moved away,from the man, and he heard him say in a disoriented voice "why the rush to leave? We're having fun!" He said joyfully.

Fight or flight kicking in, Dipper picked the nearest box and threw it at his great uncle(?) And immediately jumped to his feet and ran out the attic, thinking of rushing outside the cabine the man is instantly chased after him, like he wasn't fazed by the attack, so Dipper hid instead.

Waiting for the man to go somewhere else, his heart beating like a rabbit's, he strains his ears to hear if he's still around.

Believing the coast to be clear, he leaves his hiding spot and books it for the door.

Only to feel a hand on his arm tighted and harshly pulling him backward in a painful tug, immediately following a sharp burning pain in his right shoulder, tearing out an ear splitting scream from him.

Trying to focus his eyes, he saw a scalpel imbued in his shoulder. He couldn't even register his blood before it was ribbed out and pierced into his left thigh, making his vision momentarily disappear from the pain.

He heard a maden laughter from above where he was laying on his back in pain and his right arm still held in a bruising grip.

The last thing he his mind made out before shutting down was the blooded surgery knife coming down on him again.

The first thing Ford mind caught on was all the fresh blood around him, that's the only thing his mind locked on the moment the his eyes caught sight if the blood staind hat with the little star on it.......

He knew who's the owner of the hat, even if he only met him yesterday, but where is he?

That is the only thing that circled his mind. Not the growing pain in his head, not the blood-soaked scalpel, not even moving a muscle from where he's kneeling.

He only moved his head when the door opened and two different gasps, followed by a shriek and sound of some things dropping . Meeting the horrified faces of his twin brother and the sister of the gone boy.

(Might make a comic for the rest of this idk)

[elitadream]

Hi guys~! ⛅👋

Long time no see! Much longer than I ever intended, in fact. Truth be told, I wanted to make a public post sooner, but I've had a lot to catch up on in terms of notifications and messages since logging back in a few days ago. I've also made some changes that I will address shortly, but first of all I wanted to thank those of you who have reached out with so much care and understanding during my absence. Adjusting has been a slow and fragile process for me -still is-, and I sadly haven't responded directly to everyone yet because of it, but I wanted to say how much I appreciate your patience and support nonetheless. 🥹 🙏

Long story short, I was gone for five months due to a huge burnout, then progressively found my spark again somewhere along the way and have since mostly recovered. It was my wonderful friend @drones-of-innocence who reached out to me outside of Tumblr, and her sense of initiative is largely the reason why I managed to make this post in a somewhat reasonable delay. 😅💖 With that said however, I must also mention that I've deleted a lot of stuff from my page and have removed most of my work from the public eye as well. This may seem quite drastic and frankly a little unsettling, but I assure you that it was a thoroughly considered and reasoned decision! The thing is that I was still getting lots of notes on these drawings everyday and… To put it simply, I didn't want that anymore. 🙇‍♀️ Experiencing popularity was very detrimental to me in the long run and I needed to put an end to it for the sake of my own wellbeing; at least for now.

Which brings me to my next point.

After mulling it over for a while, I've decided that I would not be returning as an active creator in the Mario community this time around. 👐 Making fanart for this franchise (with such a high and continuously maintained degree of involvement) had a lot to do with my health's decline and I've come to realize that I wanted to direct my focus elsewhere going forward. For that reason, there are things which I know will never be repeated again in the future, both in regards to my art and online presence in general, but that's alright. Things change, as they do and should. I'm looking forward to reuniting with folks and would be very happy to stay in touch with those of you who wish to message me privately. Like my lovely pal @istadris said, what matters most about any fandom are the friends you make in it. ☺️

And speaking of which-

@ody-and-fanatu That's so sweet of you, thank you! 💗 I'm glad you've enjoyed my contribution to the fandom. It was fun while it lasted! 💫 My visual ideas may be gone from my page, but most of my written posts and replies are still there for anyone who wants to revisit those at least, so there's that! And I'd also like to answer some of the asks I still have in my inbox at some point. Knowing that you hold my art in such high regard makes really happy! 🥰 Unfortunately, the other account that I have is reserved for my professional work and I prefer to keep them separate from one other, but the good thing is that I intend to go back to this blog occasionally. Hoping to see you around! Cheers! 🥂

@heiressofdoodles Thanks, I appreciate that! ✨ I'm honestly doing much better than I was earlier this Spring. Back then, I was running on empty and on the verge of crashing without even knowing it. Being in constant physical pain was one thing, but feeling mentally and emotionally drained on a daily basis was another entirely, and something had to be done. It took me a moment to really figure out what was wrong, but thankfully I realized very quickly what was causing it and applied the breaks with all my might. One of my main priorities now is to be more alert and respect my own boundaries to make sure that this never happens again. 🥲

@keakruiser Thank you. 🙏💐 I'm just glad to have found my footing again. Feels good to be able to create freely.^^ Hope you're doing well too!

Special thanks also to @pianokantzart, @jelly-fish-wishes, @katlyntheartist, @triniji and @wahooitsamee for their kind words. 🫂 Your graciousness and consideration means a lot to me. 💝

As for all the nice people who sent me anon comments and well wishes, I tried to summarize my thoughts as best I could in this update, but if there's anything else you'd like to say or know, don't hesitate to ask me anytime! Now that I feel like myself again, I think I'm gonna hang out on Tumblr for a little bit. I'll be excited to see what you guys have been up to in the meantime! 🤗 Wishing you all a very good day and pleasant Fall. 🍂

-elita 🌸

[my-religion-greek-myth]

Freedom far away - B

Yap, until my kink is satisfied, I'll keep writing these lol Who knows, once I'm satisfied, I'll stop writing suddenly. I'll prolly writing whole night tho..

Thanks all for liking this. Some of you probably noticed, that this story isn't set in America cuz this is all inspired by my own fanart (Korean Joseon Era), but I try to be subtle about any indications, so you can just imagine as some whre in western or other american town other than westview or salem.

Freeom far away - A

Fem Reader X Agatha X Rio

The first time you met Agatha and Rio, their presence lingered in your mind long after you exchanged names and hurried home. As you retreated, Rio's voice had called out, "See you later," her tone playful and lilting with a hint of laughter. You did not dare look back, but their gazes had felt almost tangible—slithering and coiling around you as if urging you to turn. It took every ounce of willpower to keep walking, to not succumb to the strange pull that seemed to emanate from them.

Days had passed since that encounter at the well, but their image haunted you. Whether you were studying, eating, or even engaging in conversation with your family, part of your mind was consumed by thoughts of the duo. You found yourself unconsciously touching your right hand, where Agatha's fingers had briefly brushed against yours. No other touch had ever left you feeling so electric, so unsettled. Their memory persisted like a faint melody you could not shake, and you found yourself debating—should you return to the well? Could you face them again? Would they even still be there?

With a deep sigh, you made up your mind. Opening the door to the courtyard, you noticed three servants diligently cleaning. One of them glanced up and immediately bowed when he saw you.

"Is there something you need, milady?" he asked nervously, his voice trembling as if he feared some unspoken reprimand.

You blinked, realising you had been unconsciously glaring in his direction, your mind preoccupied with Agatha and Rio. You opened your mouth to respond but thought better of it, shaking your head instead. You slipped on your shoes and made for the main entrance without another word.

"Where are you going?" came the familiar voice of your younger sister behind you.

You turned sharply, raising an eyebrow at her. Standing beside her was your younger brother, both looking at you with curious expressions.

"Did grandfather send you to keep an eye on me?" you asked, your tone sharper than you intended.

Your siblings and even the nearby servants visibly recoiled at the authoritative edge in your voice. It was a tone you seldom used, but it had a way of surfacing when you were particularly annoyed—or, in this case, deeply conflicted. And today, your irritation was palpable. The pull towards Agatha and Rio, the confusion they stirred in you, made you want to brush off any interaction with your family and rush to them.

Your sister quickly composed herself, though a frown etched on her face. "I was just asking. No need to snap," she muttered.

"We’re going to Jun’s house for archery practice. Want to come with us?" your younger brother interjected, clearly trying to ease the tension before it could escalate. He knew all too well how quickly tempers could flare between you and your sister.

"No, thank you," you replied curtly. "I have other matters to attend to."

"As if," your sister scoffed. You could almost picture her shaking her head in exasperation, arms crossed in that typical defiant stance of hers. But you did not care. Ignoring her remark, you stepped outside, your pace quickening as you made your way back to the well, determined to see if Agatha and Rio were still there.

---RAR---

The looming shadow of the mountain cast a dark veil over the well, making the place feel unusually eerie despite the daylight. You glanced around nervously, unsure why the familiar space suddenly made your body shiver. Your eyes caught the fluttering ribbons tied to the shaman's tree, their vibrant colours contrasting with the oppressive silence.

"Well, well, we have the pretty lady back here," came a lively voice.

Startled, you jumped and turned to see Rio, her warm brown eyes glinting with amusement as she chuckled softly. In her left hand, however, was a small dagger that gleamed faintly in the dim light. Beside her, Agatha stood poised, her fingers grazing her lips, a faint smile playing on her face as if she were appraising you.

"I told you we'd meet again, didn’t I?" Rio said, her steps deliberate and confident as she walked toward you.

Instinctively, you stepped back, but in your haste, your heel caught the edge of the well. Your breath hitched as you felt yourself teetering backward, the dark depths of the well below you. Before you could fall, a firm hand grabbed your arm. Rio, her grip strong yet gentle, pulled you back to safety.

The touch sent a jolt through you—an unfamiliar sensation that made time to slow. You had read about such moments in the romantic novels you had secretly consumed with your noble friends, moments you had laughed at for their absurdity. Yet here it was, and it was undeniably real. A sudden warmth spread across your face as you realised what had happened. Rio smirked, her gaze sharp yet teasing.

"Oh, don’t tell me you’re blushing, doll," Agatha said, her melodic laughter carrying a mischievous edge. She stepped closer, her ocean-blue eyes darkening briefly, like the sky before a storm. For a moment, you could not decide whether her eyes were a deep navy or an ethereal blue, but you knew they were the most captivating thing you had ever seen.

Before you could reply, Rio suddenly pulled you closer. Your face pressed against her chest—a distinctly feminine curve beneath the garments that suggested otherwise. Her warmth and the steady rhythm of her heartbeat enveloped you in a strange comfort. Without thinking, your arms circled her in an unconscious embrace.

Agatha pouted dramatically, crossing her arms as she watched. "Seems someone’s getting all the attention," she remarked, her tone playfully aggrieved.

"Don’t worry," Rio murmured above you, her voice teasingly soft as her breath tickled your hair. "I think the pretty lady has enough love for both of us."

The comment made you stiffen. You pushed against Rio’s chest, but she let you go with an easy laugh, nudging you backward—right into Agatha’s arms.

You gasped as you felt Agatha’s hands steady you, her grip firm yet gentle around your middle. Her scent—subtle and intoxicating—filled your senses as she leaned down, resting her chin lightly on your head.

"You smell nice, doll," Agatha murmured, her voice low and velvety, sending shivers down your spine.

Your heart raced your mind a whirl of confusion and resistance. You had come to the well seeking answers to the strange pull you felt toward them, but now they were toying with you, unravelling your composure as if it were child’s play.

"Why are you here, pretty lady?" Rio asked, stepping closer. Her long fingers lifted your chin effortlessly, forcing your gaze to meet hers.

You froze, unable to look away. Her darkened eyes were filled with a predatory intensity that made her presence feel overwhelming. Behind you, Agatha’s hands brushed through your hair, loosening it from its neat styling. The gentle motion was so intimate that it made your breath hitch again.

"Answer her, doll," Agatha’s voice purred in your ear, her warm breath caressing your skin.

You could not speak. The sensations overwhelmed you; Rio’s fingers tracing your face, Agatha’s hand trailing through your hair, the suffocating awareness of their proximity.

"How are we supposed to get to know you if you won’t answer?" Rio whispered, her face now so close to yours that her nose almost brushed against yours.

Agatha’s fingers tangled gently in your hair, her touch sending a new wave of shivers through your body. You were caught between them, their presence intoxicating and inescapable, as if the world had narrowed to just the three of you. You did not know whether to flee or surrender to the strange pull that bound you to them.

"I'm…" Your voice trembled. "I'm not scared of you two."

"That's not an answer," Agatha's voice carried a hint of a frown, but it softened quickly. "But I'm glad you're not scared of us." Her lips brushed lightly against your ear, sending a burning sensation through it.

"I can't stop thinking about you two," you finally admitted, gulping hard.

Rio pulled her face back, and, to your surprise, you felt a pang of disappointment.

"Why?" Rio asked, tilting her head, her eyes gleaming with mischief as they roamed over you. "We only told you our names."

"That's why I'm here," you said, frustration bubbling up. "I've never felt like this in my life!"

Agatha chuckled, her laugh light but somehow weighted with something you could not identify. She finally released you, and seizing the moment, you stepped back. Both of them watched you with amusement, their darkened eyes betraying some unreadable intent you could not comprehend.

"You’ve never been in love before?" Agatha asked, smiling that same captivating smile she had worn when you first met. It was hypnotic, alluring—utterly impossible to look away from.

Your eyes widened. Love? The very idea made your stomach twist. Love? With them? You had only just met them, and to feel this way for two people at the same time? It defied all logic and everything you had ever been taught.

You took another step back, and still, they did not stop you. Their smiles only grew wider.

Panic surged within you, and you turned, fleeing towards the safety of your home.

As you ran, Agatha’s melodic voice rang out behind you, the sound trailing you like a spell.

"See you later, doll!"

---RAR---

Your footsteps thundered against the path as you bolted away from the well. Your mind was a cacophony of emotions—confusion, embarrassment, and a simmering warmth you could not quite place. Love? How absurd, you thought, shaking your head. You had only just met them. And two people? At once? The very idea seemed preposterous, something out of fanciful tales told to wide-eyed children.

The cool air brushed your face, but it did little to cool the heat rising in your cheeks. You could not forget the way Agatha’s lips brushed your ear or Rio’s gaze seemed to peel back every layer of your being, leaving you bare and exposed.

As you reached the entrance of your household, you slowed to a halt, clutching your chest as you tried to steady your racing heart. What was it about them? Their presence was unlike anything you had ever encountered—intoxicating, overwhelming, and magnetic.

"Milady?" a servant called, stepping cautiously into the courtyard from the backyard. "Is everything alright?"

You startled slightly, realising how dishevelled you must have looked from running. Straightening your posture, you smoothed your dress and forced a neutral expression onto your face.

"Yes," you replied curtly, brushing past her and heading toward your chambers.

Once inside, you closed the door firmly and leaned against it. The silence of the room felt suffocating, yet your thoughts continued to churn. Despite your attempts to banish them from your mind, their faces—Agatha’s piercing, ocean-like eyes and Rio’s mischievous grin—kept invading your thoughts.

You slid down against the door, your knees drawing up to your chest. What are they doing to me? You could not shake the feeling that this was only the beginning.

Part A | Part B | Part C&D | Part E | Part F | Part G | Part H | Part I&J | Part K | Part L | Part M | Part N | Part O&P | Part Q | Part ? | Epilogue

[biscuitboba]

Prepare for a very long wordvomits from yours truly (or just ignore)

The thing about me being so frickin obsessed with luffy and zoro's relationship is that... i just think they really are that compatible and perfect for each other in a way that they just, makes sense 

Like yeah i think one or two ships involving zoro and luffy (other than zolu/luzo) are cute or at least ok, but like the amount of love i have for them is like dust compared to my love for zolu:"D And if i'm being reallyy honest, personally i can't really imagine zoro being with someone else that's not luffy IF luffy is present in his life and vice versa?, like for example i think *insert other luffy ship* is cute, but like zoro can't be present in luffy's life for that ship to actually work for me?? So it's gotta be an alternative universe where they don't meet... I can appreciate the fanarts of the other luffy and zoro ships though, as long as they are not insanely wayyy too out of character?? (i just don't actively seek out content of ships that i'm not crazy about)

Not to state the obvious but luffy is my favorite character in one piece:) and right after him, unsurprisingly it's zoro (zoro used to be my number one when i was younger but now he is number two, but i'm sure zoro is fine with me loving his captain just a little bit more, haha)

When it comes to the ships involving my favorite character(s)... i am actually suuuper picky about it? i have to think very deeply about it, like i only want what's best for them, but also the best for the other person too cuz it can't be one sided! And i literally love both luffy and zoro almost equally? (actually i always love the two characters that i ship cuz i can't ship my favorite character with someone that i dislike) With zoro and luffy i've done a lot of thinking. Like, a lot. I thought about all of their potential love interests, every single one of them, but always arrived at the same conclusion that no one completes them the way they complete each other. Proof? Plz just scroll through my tumblr #zolu or #luzo i literally only talk about their relationship😭 They really are the most perfect person for each other. It's almost like they were made for each other? Everything about them, their principles, their personalites, they just fits

Like they are so insane, because at a surface level they can be interpreted as just platonic (which is a completely fine interpretation for the non zolu people out there!), but when you try to look more into it, on a deeper level, looking at every part of their interactions while considering their characterizations, motivations et cetera, like everything just clicks. Their devotion towards each other, all the little things they say and do relating to each other. They are best friends, they are the captain and the first mate, and maybe they are also something a lil bit more? Sometimes i don't even think i can label their relationship, cause from the outside… their relationship looks so simple, yet not without depth (so much depth!) and nuance. With zolu, you either get them or don't get them at all. One thing for sure is that they work really well together!!

Also, everytime i think about zolu as just friends.. but then i compare my relationship with my best friend(s) to luffy and zoro's relationship... and i don't know, if my best friend treats me the way zoro and luffy treat each other? I fear i will have to drop the "what are we?" question. I'm so serious, like that man? zoro?? He is enamored. Completely whipped- bewitched, body and soul. While on luffy's side, his way of expressing love is more subtle, but i've talked about that before here.

They say there's a thin line between love and hate... but there's also a thin line between platonic and romantic love, and maybe that's why one of my favorite tropes in ships is the one where they start out as friends... (harurin from free, bakudeku, pegoryu, fluri, soriku, cloti, cleon, kimron, percabeth, kataang, lumity, appledash, katyana, korrasami, harlivy, etc #friendstolovers ftw!)

Like luffy and zoro... The god personified and the non believer. Oda is literally so insane for that..

One is very carefree and easy to put his trust in others. And the other is the more rigid one and needs to slowly build his trust. One is the more emotional one. The other is the stoic and more composed one. They share the same values, the same braincells, they can communicate and understand each other even without having to say much.

Their colors complement each other, their zodiac signs are compatible, their personalites can be quite contrasting but they actually blend perfectly. They are different but also the same. No one makes zoro smile as much as luffy, no one else luffy likes to lean on as much as he likes to lean and rely on zoro. No one makes zoro worry as much as luffy, even though luffy himself is very strong. No one luffy trusts with his crew as much as he trusts them with zoro, and his nakama means everything to luffy. They are the happiest when they are together.. fighting side by side, laughing with each other, talking with each other... They respect and understand each other the most. They are just so insane and i am also insane and-

They are the only two strawhats with twin numbers for their birth dates and months. The only two strawhats with CoC. The only two strawhats fighting for the greatest titles (pirate king and world's greatest swordsman respectively) they are the only two strawhats with a lot of parallels (let it be between each other like the hero talk in fishman island, or with the other captains and their first mates, which i kinda(?) have talked about before, here).

Zoro's the only member of his crew that luffy actually tries to find (he doesn’t stumble upon him like how he does with the rest of the strawhats) Zoro is the first person in canon that we see luffy enthusiastically feel it's okay to share his meal with. The first person outside of his family (i consider shanks and his crew, dadan, and makino as part of his found family!) that he cries and worries for (baratie arc). Zoro is the first person that he mentions when he splits up with his crew and the first one he calls whenever they meet again (alabasta, skypiea, punk hazard, zou, etc)

Zoro is luffy's anchor especially during difficult times (e.g. water7), he is luffy's voice of reason (e.g. pre-egghead), and luffy often listens to him (like when zoro gives luffy his assessment of a situation and how he thinks they should handle the situation and luffy immediately agrees to his plan)

And kinda random but meat is like the perfect food for beer! luffy's perfect for zoro!! Meat paired with the right beer can amplify each other's flavors. Even their favorite food (luffy) and drink (zoro) complement each other, like oda are you serious?? and the crazy thing is i'm pretty sure i haven't written down all the things that make me crazy about them

From their deal in shells town, then BOOM! zoro's sacrifice in thriller bark, all the way to luffy's blush, the iconic hug, and whatever tf that "if you're gonna invite our captain to hell, i'll come along as well" // "sorry... now you have no reason to die" bs in wano

Like how can i be normal about the two characters whose dreams have already merged into one that they can no longer achieve their dreams without each other by their side? i'm on my knees crying thinking about the bond between luffy and zoro-

[tsukimefuku]

kintsugi :: higuruma hiromi

Higuruma, former lawyer, curse user, and reformed jujutsu sorcerer tries to make sense of what his life has become after the war is finally over.

content warning: spoilers for jjk 269. hinted kusahigu. mostly fluff and introspection, some hurt and comfort if you squint.

wc: 1.8k

notes etc.: written to the sound of “here I dreamt I was an architect” by the decemberists. Inspired by this stunning higuruma fanart by @valleyofwater.

The sun hung high, and fully illuminated the classroom with the golden spring warmth. The blue sky surrounding it would be pristine, if not for a few stray clouds that on occasion cast its shadows over Jujutsu High, only adding to the idyllic, leisurely ambiance. 

“I didn’t understand that very well,” Yuji admitted as he sheepishly scratched the back of his neck, earning him the indignant grunts from Megumi and Nobara.

“What do you mean? Higuruma-san explains things much better than Gojo sensei ever did and you learned from him, of all people!” Nobara complained, leaning over her classmate’s chair and smacking the back of Yuji’s head with her fist. She then proceeded to adjust her eye patch and sink into her chair with her arms crossed over her chest.

“His explanation was, indeed, very clear,” Megumi chimed in as Yuji attempted to soothe his pain by brushing his fingers over a growing bulge on his scalp. 

Higuruma, unaccustomed to juggling three teenagers, solely watched the unfolding scene in utter helplessness. With a sigh, he reclined back against the black board while looking at Itadori.

“What exactly did you fail to understand?” 

Yuji cleared his throat for a second, knowing full well his answer would earn him another round of getting kicked around like a poor puppy.

“Everything,” he whispered, lowering his gaze towards the floor before Nobara’s protests in disbelief reverberated like a roar throughout the vicinity.

With a sigh of resignation, Higuruma relaxed his shoulders while checking his wrist watch.

“You do better with practical lessons, Itadori,” the reformed jujutsu sorcerer remarked.

“I do!” Yuji confirmed, starting to pull a contented smile on his face.

“That wasn’t a question.” 

“Oh.”

That smile left as quick as it came.

Megumi covered his face with his palm, and wondered for a second when the elation for being back to normal life gave place to the mundane, every-day annoyance of dealing with Itadori and Kugisaki’s shenanigans.

“Let’s wrap this up for the day, and tomorrow we can have a practical lesson at the Dojo,” Higuruma concluded, crossing his arms.

After some fumbling around, the three students finished packing their things. Nobara and Megumi stepped outside, as she tried to place a bet on who would get to the vending machines first. Megumi’s grumpy demeanor did little to hide the fact that he had, even if begrudgingly, taken her up on her challenge.

Yuji remained on his chair, though, still ruminating on his hardship to learn about the inner workings of the cursed energy world as quickly as his classmates.

Higuruma looked at the boy, and remained silent for a short while before asking him what was the matter.

“It’s just… I don’t know, after everything that happened, I thought I could learn these things faster now, you know?”

Softly brushing his hand around his jaw, Higuruma pondered for a moment.

“Each person has a different learning process. I learned jujutsu by reverse engineering my own cursed technique and figuring out how it worked. Most learn about cursed energy and then go onto training their own CTs all the way up to domain expansion. It’s fine. With only three students, we can tailor classes for each and every one of you.”

His words seemed to soothe Yuji, who looked at Higuruma and spared him a relieved smile.

“I guess you’re right,” Yuji conceded, pondering for a few moments before proceeding, “you remind me of someone.”

“I do?”

“Yes,” Yuji replied, getting up and walking towards the door. For a second, Higuruma’s suited up, responsible demeanor brought him flashbacks of a much lighter colored suit, a blonde, side parted hair and a pair of green shades. “He was a very serious person, and kind, just like yourself.”

Higuruma’s mouth fell slightly open, but no words came out before Yuji waved at him, bidding his teacher goodbye before sprinting towards Nobara and Megumi.

I am so out of my element. Why did I agree to come here, of all places? Higuruma asked himself while sinking down on his desk’s chair. 

“Rough class?” 

The familiar, low baritone voice came accompanied by a few footsteps inside the classroom. Hiromi lifted his gaze to see the signature brownish-beige trench coat, along with the man who wore it.

“Good afternoon, Kusakabe,” Hiromi offered, nudging himself over his seat while motioning to get up. Kusakabe signaled for him to keep seated with one of his hands, before leaning himself on the desk’s side with his hands in his pockets and a lollipop shoved into his mouth.

“Rough life,” Higuruma replied, half in jest. Truth was, those past few months — nearly half a year after the fight at Shinjuku against Sukuna — felt like some sort of uncomfortable fever dream to Higuruma.

He was offered the opportunity to atone for his crimes as a teacher at Jujutsu High, and he seized said opportunity. However, the former lawyer caught himself struggling to fall asleep most nights while pondering. He didn’t know, unfortunately, what had made his soul so uneasy.

“At least we are not shacked up like sardines inside a makeshift bunker while fighting for our lives against a genocidal maniac,” Kusakabe promptly replied, earning him a nod from Higuruma.

”I guess you’re right. How has life as the new NSS headmaster been?”

“Almost pushing me back into smoking. Sometimes, I wish these lollipops were made out of pure nicotine.”

At that, Higuruma spared a quick, discreet smile.

“That bad?”

“Don’t even get me started on it,” Kusakabe grunted, glancing over towards the windows. “It’s a beautiful day, huh?”

Higuruma looked down at his hands, which sat together over the desk. After Kusakabe was done admiring the view, he turned his eyes to Higuruma, noticing the man sinking further into himself.

”Higuruma, how have you been? Is everything alright?” 

“I…” Higuruma let his voice drag, uncertain just as his feelings had been about everything that had happened ever since that fateful day in Keita’s trial, “I don’t know how to do this.”

“Do what?” Kusakabe inquired, confused.

“I thought I was supposed to die back at Shinjuku. I believed that I would fulfill my duty, and… I don’t know, achieve some sort of spiritual absolution if I died while playing my role in the battle against Sukuna. But I just lived. It doesn’t make sense, it’s not adding up to me.” 

Kusakabe quickly realized this was the first time Higuruma was effectively putting these feelings into words, and conceded him the moments’ reprieve necessary for the man to collect his thoughts.

“Everything I’ve learned since gaining my CT was how to fight a war.” 

Higuruma sighed, and upon further contemplation, realized that what he said wasn’t the entire truth.  

“Actually, ever since I was a lawyer, all I ever did was fight a war, be it symbolically or literally. No one told me how to live my life after it was over, in peaceful times. I don’t think I quite know how to do that.”

“No one does,” Kusakabe quickly interjected.

“What?” Higuruma asked, his voice slightly surprised.

“No one knows how to live life. We’re just… living it, and doing what’s needed to get by. Clinging to what might give it some meaning from time to time.” 

Higuruma looked down, and let his colleague’s words sink in slowly. For all this time, he’d felt like a movie that overstayed its welcome, dragging along its plot for much longer that it should have. Upon experiencing the warmth of the sun coming through the wide set windows caressing his skin, however, Higuruma thought it didn’t seem so bad, after all.

“Everything I had ever believed in was broken, and I guess I was, too. My life,” Higuruma remarked, “and I’m finding it hard to piece things back together. I don’t know if that’s possible.” 

“I suppose you’ve heard of kintsugi,” Kusakabe said while pulling another lollipop from his pocket and replacing the already finished candy with a new one.

Higuruma was taken aback by the sudden shift in the conversation.

“The practice of fixing broken ceramic pieces with gold? Yes, I’m familiar.”

“Your life is the broken ceramic.”

… What?

Kusakabe had no ease for metaphors, and it showed in Higuruma's completely puzzled expression.

With a grunt, the seasoned sorcerer pulled the lollipop from his mouth and began gesturing around, as if trying to pull the words to have himself make sense out of thin air.

“What I mean to say is… broken things can be fixed, and sometimes the way they’re fixed can make them more valuable than they were before. Or something like that.”

Higuruma’s confusion subsided for the most part, but he remained silent to see if Kusakabe would offer some final commentary.

He did. 

“There is value in the healed cracks. That’s all. Perhaps this second chance you’ve been given is an opportunity to do just that. Heal those cracks with something valuable, I mean.”

Higuruma’s eyes traveled gently over the classroom in front of him, and he finally gazed out the window while actually paying attention to it for the first time in a long while. He saw the golden rays of sunshine projecting a soft, welcoming light over the students’ desks, noticed how clear the sky truly was, and the cloud-scattered blue that encompassed it all together as a visual symphony.

“It really is a beautiful day, after all,” Higuruma remarked, looking back at Kusakabe with a smile.

Kusakabe’s eyes met Hiromi’s, and this was probably the first time he had actually seen the man smiling with actual joy.

In a second, Kusakabe coughed, feeling his face warming up, and averted his gaze while covering his mouth with his fist.

“Is everything alright?” Higuruma asked, gently tilting his head to the side. “Did you choke on your lollipop?”

“No. It’s okay, I’m fine,” the other man answered, mentally pulling himself back to normal. “I just really have to go back to work.”

“Oh. Okay. I should probably leave this classroom too and get something to eat.” 

Kusakabe nodded and propped himself up, walking towards the door. However, he stopped as he was nearly past it, and turned around.

“Higuruma.”

The former lawyer had just gotten up himself, and turned to face his colleague.

“What?”

“Me and some other people from jujutsu high — assistants, mostly — will have a happy hour this Friday. Would you like to join us?”

The question caught Hiromi completely off guard, and he faltered for a few seconds before clearing his throat and answering, “yes. I appreciate the invite.”

Kusakabe nodded once more. “Okay. See you this Friday, then.”

As he watched Kusakabe leaving, Higuruma could feel the liquid gold slowly seeping into the cracks of his broken life, gluing things back in place.

written by tsukimefuku ㋡ comments and reblogs are appreciated. do not copy, translate or repost. copycatting is for losers.

[mandalhoerian]

lamb to the slaughter | leon kennedy x reader

read part 1: moth to a flame pairing: leon kennedy x fem!reader summary: ❛ You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince. ❜ It's as easy as that three word sentence for Leon to undo a month of moving on from him right after he comes back from Spain. Easy as surrendering to sleep. Eagerness for his uninhibited love makes you forget he isn't one to open up like that in the first place, you should have known the moment he showed up on your doorstep on his own volition that he wasn't your Leon. He'd only come back to spirit you away. Yet, each man kills the thing he loves, as a famous poet would say. But what about when the beloved lets herself be led to the killing? word count: Almost 25K (im sorry) warnings: DARKFIC, proceed with caution. porn with plot, switch leon, yandere leon (kinda? he's infected/plaga leon), lots of smut (face sitting, dry humping, couch sex, rough sex, mirror watching kinda its a window, chained leon, blowjob, tail riding, kinda bondage with chains, creampies, no protection dont be like this kids), jealousy, angst, things go to shit, abduction, leon infects you, protectiveness, confinement, psychic connection through plagas, corruption, consensual arousal-inducing venom. you got the bad ending. lmao dont look at me. we are not seeing the pearly gates notes: 🐑 i say bad ending for a reason, you can accept this as a sequel to moth to a flame or just ignore it! 🐑 leon's appearance here is inspired by the red eyes mod + the mechanic of his superior species is built on what we saw with krauser and all the plaga leon fanart i've seen. though he only lets his tail out and nothing else. 🐑 the pressure of leon's characterization got too much so i threw it all out of the window. now everyone can be equally upset. thank you for all the love, i hope you enjoy this!

🌀 read on ao3!

Leon comes back from Spain a bit different. 

Different is the specifically chosen word here because you’re not accustomed to seeing him like this. It might be you who’s the problem here, but right off the bat something’s out of place to you.

A pattern has been broken.

No contact with him for nearly a month and he appears on your doorstep one night with a dreamy smile on his face you could only imagine a younger, more carefree version of Leon could afford as if all the weight of this world has been lifted off his shoulders, and as if he isn’t here to pick up whatever he’s left behind after your break-up. 

You’re more flabbergasted than anything. He’s absolutely glowing. Healthy. His black compression shirt leaves little to the imagination underneath that leather jacket, and the tight jeans hug his legs in just the right places, your nose picking up the whiff of some rich cologne that would have you normally salivating over him had it not been for the timing. 

A delivery to home directly from your late night daydreams, tempting as a mirage in the middle of a desert, as he intends to be — you’re acutely aware why in the hell he’s dolled himself up at night knowing you’d be either reviewing some documents for work or getting ready for bed, all in your humble, homely peasant outfit. 

It doesn’t feel good knowing what might be the reason. Feels even worse sensing something’s up. 

The thing is… When Leon decides he’s done with ghosting you after the eventful business trips that have him dropping off the face of the earth, it’s almost always in bad shape. It’s rare that he breaks a bone or two, but purple, yellow and green are his colors, along with the sunken, red, and sleep-deprived, exhausted eyes. He comes back to you like a cat seeking refuge from the storm outside, for a safe place to get some rest where he can switch off the survival mode. And you’ve learned to prepare for these rainy days he tends to make his return on. 

This man standing in front of you with take-out dangling from his hand, relaxed and confident with light in his brilliant blues, perfectly silky hair, and a well-rested, handsome face that lacks all the gloom? You almost don’t recognize him. His soft and exuberant voice as he greets you, “Hey,” might as well belong to a stranger. “I look that bad? Haven’t seen you make that face in a while.”

“No,” you refuse automatically, squinting your eyes and trying to wipe the sleep off via rubbing, shaking the initial shock and the whiplash off, your hand tightens on the side of the door. The more entertaining quips have escaped you, such as: ‘More like, haven’t seen you in a while, and that, second.’ But of course your woozy first instinct is to relieve him, and rooting for how Leon can’t look bad even on the worst of days, but that’s irrelevant now, isn’t it? “Sorry, I’m a bit loopy.”

“Ah, shit.” He raises his wrist and shakes it so the sleeve of his jacket would pull back to reveal his watch. “I didn’t realize it was this late. God I am so sorry—”

“No, it’s fine—”

“I bring offerings for your time, if it’s any consolation.” He looks hopeful. God, when has he last been this youthful? It’s blinding. “Have dinner with me?”

You would have jumped at the offer one month ago and done your best to keep him around as long as possible, especially when he’s the best you’ve seen him in a long while — but he’s supposed to be a stranger to you now, an ex. You have tried to move on already, it’s such a betrayal to your overworked heart that the desire to bask in his presence is still strong as ever. 

“Hey, um.” Ever so slightly hiding behind the frame of the door, you watch as his face falls, your hesitance telling everything you can’t put into words out loud. “It’s too late for dinner.”

It comes out weird from your mouth, maybe you should have worded it differently — it feels like it’s not dinner you’re talking about, and him staring with a wrinkled line between his eyebrows as if he’s trying to control his countenance isn’t helping. 

“Should seriously focus on trying to break old habits,” he chuckles hesitantly, a voice crack towards the end of the sentence, and you have to break eye contact. “I forget my normal isn’t normal sometimes. I’m sorry.” 

You fold. 

Not because it’s what you always do, but to get whatever he wants out of the way and get him out of your life as abruptly as he decided to randomly come back today. You want this to be over already. “I’m making an exception for tonight, okay? You can’t come here like this anymore, Leon. Please understand.”

Leon's hopeful expectation slowly fades, replaced by a disappointed understanding. His eyes, once filled with a vibrant light, now dim slightly, and the confident aura that surrounded him wavers for a moment. He takes a deep breath, as if trying to steady himself, before nodding slowly.

"I see," he says, carrying a tinge of sadness, you kick yourself inwardly for wanting to reach out and comfort him. "I didn't mean to intrude. I just... I wanted to see you again… To—to explain, I mean."

His words catch your attention, curiosity sparking a small candle light within you. Despite the whirlwind of emotions and confusion, you find yourself opening the door wider, gesturing for him to step inside.The way he visibly relaxes, shoulders deflating and the flash of an involuntary relieved, tiny smile on his face before he follows you inside makes your chest contract in endearment. 

This is a grown man you decided to let go. This grown man walked out on you. This grown man made you lose years of your life. This grown man doesn’t need your protection, you shouldn’t want to hide him in your ribcage, you’d be taking in a fish instead of a bird. 

The aroma of the take-out food fills the room, teasing your senses and reminding you of all the shared meals and late-night conversations you used to have. Memories flood your mind, threatening to break down the walls you had carefully built to protect yourself.

God, it hurts. He brought your favorite that he doesn’t like all that much. 

You go ahead and settle at the dining table, the take-out boxes placed between you and where he usually sits — where he used to sit whenever he came over, your base instinct embarrasses you. And as you open the containers, you look back to see what’s taking him so long or if he’s left to wash his hands, and notice that he’s just standing there in the hall, engulfed by the shadows, looking alert in the direction of the living room. You can’t see his face. 

“Is everything alright?” you ask, weirded out by how tense he is suddenly. 

He turns to you, and the kitchen light reflects strongly in contrast from his eyes precisely because he stands in the dark, like some cat. “It… smells.”

“What?” You walk over to him, mortified, trying to pick up what he’s talking about. “Is it the floor cleaner? I changed it to lavender recently. What, you don’t like it?”

“No, you… You—” He takes a few slow steps away from you as if you said something hurtful to him, awe and betrayal taking over his features. 

“Leon,” you try to reach out, confused. 

He’s looking you up and down, the weird shock he went through transitioning into perturbance. “Who is it?”

“What are you talking about—?”

“There is someone else?” He points towards the living with his chin, a look of devastation twisting his forlorn features, arms basically flattened to his side. “You brought them here and— and—”

An icy wave of chills wash over your body. “How do you know that?”

“Because it smells.” He brings a hand up and puts it on his middle as if it’s hurting, alternating between rubbing his nose and down to his chest again, like he doesn’t know what to do with his body. “Shit.”

Leon's reaction takes you aback, his sudden accusations leaving you bewildered. This is the most ridiculous thing you ever heard, what is he, an animal?  “Smells? You smelled him?”

You can’t fathom how he could have possibly known about someone else in your life, let alone the details of their presence in your home.

He gestures with his hand and slaps it back to his side, pressing his lips into a thin line before speaking. “Wonderful.” 

Never in a million years would you have expected to see Leon get bothered by another person in your life. He just isn’t the type to react, this has happened before because of course you tried him, to see if he’d get jealous the way you did — he didn’t, something about you having the right to be with anyone you want and that he can’t stop you. This was early into your ‘arrangement’ — where the line was blurred between hanging out and sleeping together, and you were naive enough to bring the scattered, floating letters between him and you together to define the word. 

This right here has to be about something else, bitterness maybe, that you could move on from him. It gets you worked up, blood slowly heating up. “I don’t have to explain myself to you. We’re not anything, Leon. Not anymore.”

Leon's gaze hardens, and for a moment, it seems like the fragility of hurt and anger flashes and trickles in. He sharply inhales, his chest rising and falling as he tries to steady himself. "I know we're not anything." He flexes his jaw, turning his face to the side in self-inflicted disappointment. "And I’m the reason, that’s on me. But damn, it’s only been a month and I’ve been miserable while you—"

You take a step closer, looking to find the middle ground in all of this. "While I’m just going about my life.” Confusion swirls in your mind as you struggle to comprehend Leon's reaction.You hadn't anticipated such a visceral response from him. You don’t know why the next second you’re trying to smooth things over to spare him, there’s no need. But you still are doing it anyway. “And he and I are friends—"

He tilts his head, something entirely cold and hostile under unreactive stoicism squares his shoulders, it’s that perpetually uninviting face of his that scares everybody off. His nostrils flare, but his voice is low and smooth. “Friends that fuck on the couch?”

“How did you—” It’s the cold chills again. “This is getting weird. How can you know that?”

Leon's eyes narrow, and the tension in the room becomes almost palpable, your nervousness almost makes it like the blue of his irises are brighter. He drops to a low, dangerous tone, but he isn’t doing anything to be threatening, so why?—. “It’s dangerous, you know? Letting unknown guys into your home. Who knows what they have in mind? What they want to do to you?”

“Sex, Leon,” you bite back, a bull to red into your apprehension, thinking why in the hell should you be intimidated when he’s being the weird one, you still have to hear about how he knows about your relations. “We had sex. Don’t be dramatic.” 

He laughs in a way you’ve never seen before, and suddenly it’s making sense why you felt like something was wrong when you opened the door to him. Maybe he’s drunk on something different today and it’s influencing him. Different liquors have different attitudes. 

“I, on the other hand, have to still hear about how you know. Have you been spying on me?”

“I apparently should have.” 

“Excuse me?” You shake your head, trying to rationalize the situation where he is practically lacking, lost in his own head, his usual personality is currently unavailable to the call for reasons unbeknownst to you. He is a calm guy. Reasonable. You don’t get where this immaturity is coming from, anger-related or not. “Leon, you can’t just go ahead and talk lightly of invading my privacy! I don’t want to joke around right now!”

You should send him away to talk later, or both of your hearts are going to break ugly tonight.

Leon's gaze doesn't waver, his eyes narrowing with a mix of concealed pain and anger. "No, I wasn't spying on you," he retorts sharply, giving you the information you want to know. "But it's hard to miss when the person you care about moves on so quickly."

So he must have seen something? He came back from Spain earlier than you thought? Was this visit about interrogating you all along? 

You hate the way your hands warm up immediately with his admittance to caring about you, even though he will never outright say that he likes you or anything more. It’s unbelievable that’s what your heart decided to pick up on instead of literally anything else right now. 

The hall feels suffocating. It's as if the air itself has turned tar-thick. You take a step back, and escape into the kitchen, trying to gather your thoughts amidst the rising storm of confusion.

“I thought you wanted this. Why would me moving forward be a problem?”

“Because I can’t.” 

You want to yell at him. Why should that be your problem? He wanted this. You prepared yourself because he was perpetually with a suitcase in his hand, so much so you can’t imagine his visage otherwise.

Be calm about this. You’re a grown adult. 

"I don’t understand.” Hands grabbing at the handles of a chair, you spare a glance at him over your shoulder. "I thought we would give each other space, go our own ways."

A bitter laugh escapes Leon's lips, devoid of any humor. "Space? That's just another word for running away, isn't it? And haven’t you immediately found someone else to run towards? That’s how important I was to you, huh?"

The accusation stings, and you struggle to find the right words to defend yourself, his honesty coercing the affection out of you within the ice of self-preservation. "Leon, it's not like that. I’m trying to navigate my life, this isn’t me trying to get back at you or hurt you."

He runs a hand through his hair, frustration carved into every line of his face. "Well, congratulations. You succeeded anyway."

This is getting ridiculous. You don’t know how to handle the situation because he never put you in one like it in the first place. 

How are you the guilty one? How is the blame on you, now? Why? Being with him was slow torture, loving him was a doomed gambit, and now he has the gall to make you into the bad guy — for what, prioritizing yourself for once? 

The silence hangs heavily between you, punctuated only by the distant sounds of the city outside. It feels as though the foundations of your bond are crumbling beneath the weight of unresolved emotions, the connection you once shared now seems fragile, teetering on the edge of irreparable damage that you’re not sure you want to let go even though it really is the best solution to let it be. You remember how you told him that break-ups don’t always have to end in fights, it seems how the afterward would be like hasn’t crossed your mind at all. 

“Ironic of you to say that,” you mumble, turning away from him with a disbelieving smile, hands on your hips. 

“What?”

“I said,” you turn around, cold anger freezing your features in a silent mask. “That’s rich coming from you. Running away, I mean. All this time I’ve known you, you’ve run away from me—” With each example you give, you take one slow step towards him. “From intimacy, from a deeper connection. I know you couldn’t help but be away for your job and that’s not the issue here.” You stop right in front of him, seething, looking up, doing your best to keep your shit together as you shake a finger at him. “But you don’t have the right to accuse me of running away.” 

He just stands there like a statue. Doesn’t move. Doesn’t look away. As if this means nothing at all to him, forever the unaffected, desensitized man that he is. You have to flatten your lips to keep them from quivering.

“I’ve had to chase you like some race horse while you were sitting right next to me,” you jab that finger into his chest, not to get something out of him, but because the floodgates were finally open. “I have betted on losing dogs this entire relationship.” Another jab. “I let you treat me like a doormat.” Jab. “I gave you the patience and understanding some mothers wouldn’t give to their children—” And it finally ends with a slap with the back of your hand on his wall of a chest. “Because god smite me I made the mistake of falling in love—” A fucking joyful, pretty sparkle in his eyes that has his eyebrows lifting. It bloods your boil like nothing else. “—-and all of this for you to come into my home and pick a fight over who I fuck after breaking up with me?” You push him — or, rather, try to push him further back into the hall, and when it doesn’t work, raise your arm to point to the door. “Get out.”

Leon's jaw tightens as he stares at you and you see it jump, his gaze piercing through you, ablaze. He tries to grab you by the elbows but you shake him off. “Sweet girl, I—”

The nickname has you on the edge of crumbling and you ricochet back as if burned. “No, nuh-uh,” you rapidly shake your head and one hand at him, eyes burning, deliberately looking at his shoulder not to make eye contact. “You don’t get to call me that anymore. No. Just go. Get out of my house.”

The room plummets into an agonizing quietness filled by the heavy breathing you’re doing your best to stop from shaking as Leon stands there, his hand still lingering, frozen in a futile attempt to reach out to you standing in the light of the kitchen, and him in the shadows. The absoluteness of your words is the hammer of a judge about to fall on his head, sharpened by your anger and the shattered remnants of your flightless hopes. 

You never wanted this. It had ended so peacefully, why was he back as a vengeful ghost bringing the worst out of you — why now? Why?

Finally, Leon lowers his hand, his gaze falling to the floor. There's a momentary lowering of his guard that flickers across his face, a crack in the armor he usually wears. "I know I messed up, and I've been running away. But it's not because I don't care, it's because... I'm — I couldn’t give you anything. Not anything you deserved. Not everything I wanted. And I couldn’t face any of that without having to confront I needed to get out of your life," he says softly, caked with remorse and self-hatred. “Like being somewhere between life and death, I didn’t know what to do, how to move forward.”

His words hit you like a punch to the gut, and you feel your anger momentarily waver, you’ve seen the pain in his eyes before, the demons that haunt him from his past — you understand, you understand. In every reality possible, you’d understand, even when you don’t know. “I know, Leon.” The acknowledgment leaves you pained, but this time, don’t give anything in consolation, don’t justify the harmful outcomes of his escapism just so he wouldn’t be scared and pull himself back. Yes, you know. But that’s it. It has to be enough.  

“I want you to also know — I’m not that man anymore.” He takes a step closer, his hand reaching out tentatively, but you flinch away, unwilling to let him touch you, and he stands right at the threshold of shadows bleeding away into the light streaming from the room behind you. 

"Are you seriously about to tell me you changed, Leon? Really? No, I know you," you assert, your voice tinged with skepticism and a lick of frustration. Folding your arms across your chest, you wait for his response, your gaze fixed on him, brows furrowing but a slight smile souring your lips. “But I’ll humor you. Tell me, what could have possibly happened in such a short amount of time, because I’m not having it if it’s about us separating—” It’s mean, the way you outright grin at him, one small part of you regrets laughing at his face when he’s declaring he’s changed, but you can’t stop the poison from wanting to sink into his skin, from wanting to see yourself affecting him. “You, my late blooming pupa, had two whole years to break out of your cocoon. Don’t even waste your breath.”

Leon meets you head on, unfazed by your demeanor, it makes you feel like a child when you were in the right, brings sense to you that this was Leon you were trying to hurt, you knew he wouldn’t give you excuses some man after some piece of ass would — the hurt is bringing the girl out of you that wants to maim as she has been maimed, and he just stands there and takes it as if he wants to show you he’s had way worse before. It isn’t fair.

He takes a moment to steady himself, his hand unconsciously fidgeting with the edge of his jacket as he prepares to explain, raising his hands up and tracing the invisible line of the veins inside his wrist. His body language conveys a distant sense of sincerity. 

"I received a gift that opened my eyes," he confesses, his voice carrying a brooding, yet grateful significance. His eyes momentarily drift, as if lost in memories of what transpired. His fingers continue to rub along the veins, he’s recalling something, it’s not a self-soothing nervous habit that betrays his inner turmoil.

Your skepticism wavers, switched with a curious glimmer. The lamb sees the slaughterhouse and thinks it’s home again. You unfold your arms, inching closer as you invite him to elaborate. 

"It saved me. Gave me a new life. Changed me.” He pauses, looking far, far away again. “It changed everything," Leon states with a sense of conviction. He stands a little taller, his demeanor transformed by the profound impact of this revelation.

Your eyes flit in rapid blinking, captivated by his warm, honest intensity. A welcoming, pleasant surprise lingers on your face as you take in the magnitude of what he's sharing.

"Changed everything?" you question, holding back your wonder and uncertainty in fear of disappointment. Your body involuntarily leans forward, drawn in by where he’s taking this.

"Yeah. For good this time. Because I’m not… bound anymore, I’m not trapped. For the first time in forever, I know what it’s like to be truly free.” 

“Oh…” You begin to speak, but words escape you. He is uninhibited, truly elated, that soft smile on his face doesn’t carry the anxiety of what comes next. This is a first for Leon Kennedy. When you remember you mocked what might have happened to him, it fills you with shame. So, something truly wonderful did happen — could happen. It has to do with his job, that much you know. No wonder he’s insisting things have changed, what he does for a living is what haunts him like a shadow, after all, you couldn’t be more aware of that. “I’m… I’m happy for you, then, Leon. I don’t know what to say.”

“You’re not wrong for doubting me. I did.” He looks down at his arms, clenching and unclenching his fists. “I believed I had changed before, you know — had been changed, whatever you wanna call it... Because I had to," Leon admits with introspection. He pauses, searching for the right words to convey the depth of his experience. 

"Then someone I know told me no, you haven't, you just think you have. And both of those options are worse than each other in retrospect, don't get me wrong,” his voice cracks slightly, revealing the conflict within him. There's a flicker of nostalgia and longing. 

He takes a steadying breath, his eyes locked onto yours, conveying a yearning for understanding. This is the most open he’s been with you, the most you’ve seen of him, you’re hypnotized.

"I envy who I was in 1998, but I don't want to be him. The me one month ago is superior, but he was miserable and fucking blind," Leon confesses, the air around him somehow gravitating towards him, becoming hard to breathe because of how hard he’s frowning. Self-deprecating. And his eyes are on you again, back to the moment. “You wanna know how I know I’m different now? I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you everything.”

He steps forward, into the kitchen, into the light, and shadows dance on his face, and you know what this is — the cat has decided he wants pets, seeking to butt his head into you to initiate contact, and you step backward with the sudden panic sinking in your stomach, but he keeps advancing the more you back off. 

“I’m not afraid anymore,” he rasps, and you make a small sound at the back of your throat. “Not afraid of what I want. Not afraid of wanting. Not afraid of what comes next.”

“Leon—” you interrupt, hands shooting forward, hovering just between you two, feeling his body heat, but terrified of touching him in fear of what might ignite inside you if you do. 

But he catches both your hands, intertwining your fingers and pinning them on two sides of you on the counter the moment your hips hit the lip of it, and you’re immediately steaming underneath your skin, shutting your eyes and turning your face away as his body snuggles in, flush against you. 

“It’s pathetic, the person I used to be—” he breathes, a gentle invitation, a subtle beckoning, though his words are harsh, he’s uttering them so sweetly like it’s a love letter to you, and hot wind from his words licks the side of your face, you can feel the feathery touch of his lips moving a hair’s breadth from your cheek. Your heartbeat is hammering. “He would have bitten his tongue and gone right back home to lick his wounds. Never see you again. He would think it’s what’s best for you, that he’s protecting you this way.”

You swallow, and he chases the motion, head following the movement. His nose caresses the column of your neck, the sigh that escapes his lips echoes the hidden depth of his desires, an unspoken language of pining. 

Your breath catches in your throat as Leon's increasing body heat and tantalizing weight knead and melt you like dough, his words moving you from within, his proximity creating a charged volume that crackles with tension and desire you were fighting so hard to deny. Every fiber of your being is acutely aware of his presence, his warmth pressing against you, and the raw defenselessness he's revealing. 

You missed this. You missed this. You missed this. 

The blood coursing through your veins sings to him, sings for him, and you’re alive again after one month of absolute emptiness, and hate him for doing this to you.

Love him for coming back. 

His grip on your hands tightens, and you can feel the tremor in his touch, mirroring the intensity of his emotions. “Look at me.” 

You know you don’t want to, because if you were to see him right now, what he’s showing, what he’s finally allowing you to see, you wouldn’t know how to look away ever again — don’t want to hurt.

Your own heart races in response, fear and anticipation swirling within you. And he places his knuckles on your chin, gently guiding you to face him, “Don’t look away.”

Your glazed over eyes lock with his in a moment that feels suspended in time.

"Leon..." you murmur with a blend of longing and caution. The weight of unspoken possibilities bursts in color in the air between you, begging for acknowledgment.

He nuzzles closer, his lips grazing your skin with feather-light touches. Your body reacts instinctively, a tremble washing through you as his sigh tickles your neck. It's as if the world around you fades away, leaving only the magnetic pull between you, drawing you inexorably closer. It’s sweetness so intense it’s trying to hold back the bitterness, a muzzle on a hungry dog’s jaw. 

His voice, a whisper against your ear, is temptation, a pied piper. "I don't want to make the same mistakes anymore. I can't keep denying what I truly want, what my heart desires. I can’t lose you. I’m not losing you. Not like this. Please."

The admission electrifies the mood. Time stands still as you process everything, mind foggy, your own desires intertwining with his. It's a precarious precipice you find yourselves on, teetering between the past and the mirage of a future, between fear and the possibility of something more.

“That’s awfully self-centered,” you laugh weakly, not knowing if this is you unable to look away from his lips or unable to bring yourself to meet his gaze. “What if it’s too late? What if that ship has already sailed?”

He nudges your nose with his, bringing his forehead to rest against yours. “You don’t want me? Look into my eyes when you tell me, then.”

In that moment, you make a choice. With an upsurge of courage, you do as he asks, searching his need-darkened patience waiting for you, and you let your guard down. Closing the remaining space between, your lips find his in a tender yet fervent kiss, an unspoken consent that verbalizes everything. 

God, you want this man with all your being. One moment of vulnerability, the confirmation you needed for so long from him was enough to melt all your walls down and conquer without war — the things you let him do to you… 

What was tenderness from you ricochets back from him as desperation, he licks into your mouth like a man starved, and a sigh shudders from Leon, you feel it roll through his entire body. He catches your waist in a tight, unyielding grip, his touch conveying a scared need to hold on to you, as if to make sure you're real, and not a fleeting dream. 

“Fuck, I want you so bad. Never wanted more in my goddamn life.” The pent-up tension and unspoken emotions flow between you, igniting a flame that burns brightly, dispelling any doubts or regrets. “Let me have you. Please, let me have you.”

“Give me half of you, and I’ll give you half of me.” His lips, soft and warm, melded with yours in a passionate embrace, separate with a wet pop. “How’s that for a start?”

Leon's lips attempt to dip into yours again, but he wavers to a panting stop, leaving a lingering, ticklish warmth in their wake. His declaration, filled with a mix of intoxication and determination, spills forth. “‘ll give you all of me,” he mutters, his kisses raining down upon your skin in a frenzy of affection. “—Give you all my love. Want all of yours, too.” 

Love. He said love. 

Someone must have hit you over the head, you feel like it, all breath is knocked out of your lungs.

Leon pulls back only inches when he feels you freeze in his arms, and you see it in his eyes — he doesn’t try to hide it… 

And you realize, you’ve seen the ghost of this look before, the shyer one, the more apprehensive, curt one that was prone to hiding away. The pure adoration on his face makes him look younger, like a whole other man. 

Yet, you ask. It’s all you’ve ever wanted from him, only a passing acknowledgement and you’re a sunflower bending over backwards with the first rays of the sun. "You love me?"

Your stomach does a summersault at feeling his heart miss a beat.  "Y... yes?" he stutters, his voice rising. "Yeah."

All that romantic talk. All the insane things he said, and it’s scary to him when the word is spelled out loud. 

The room goes completely noiseless for a moment, your ribcage might as well explode at this point, and then he lets out an audible sigh, trying to calm himself down. "Is that so strange to you?" he adds. "Is that... something you... don't want?"

He knows what you feel. Known it all along, danced around it for both your sakes. Yet, he’s still asking — exposing that defenseless underbelly of his that reveals he thinks he’s unlovable, not worth it, skeptic that someone could want him in that way. 

His eyes stay locked with yours, but some of his confidence seems to have drained away. All that's left is his look of pure, unbridled infatuation, and the expression of genuine, unwavering honesty.

Your mouth seems to have gone dry, heartbeat picking up, stomach swirling, looking at him like he's out of this world, eyes flying everywhere on his face. No words come to mind for a good while. It’s a slow blooming flower at first, but the beaming of your smile takes him aback. “It’s all I wanted,” you practically exhale. 

He makes a small noise of relief and chokes out a smile. 

As your lips mold together again, a new symphony of sensations unfolds. His kiss has the devotion of held-back hunger, lips seeking and exploring every contour of yours, and you surrender completely. To how he desires you, to the intoxicating pull between you, letting your inhibitions fall away. There is only the searing heat of his touch, the intoxicating sweet taste of his mouth, the mint from an already discarded gum and something uniquely Leon, and the synchronization of your combined breaths.

He moves downwards to take nip at the corner of your mouth and then your chin, a soft hum escapes from deep within you, a testament to the overwhelming pleasure he makes you feel by the littlest of sensualities.

“Leon…” Your hands find their way to his tousled hair and a waft of his shampoo fills your nose, you pull him closer, yearning for more of him. The room fills with the heady scent of desire, starting to pool deep in your stomach drop by drop.

He bites down on your jaw, knowing just how to make it pleasurable and not hurt, and you gasp out loud. “Sweet girl, my sweet girl,” he chants. His lips find their way to the sensitive skin of your neck, trailing a path of feverish kisses and gentle nips. “My sweet girl.” Each sensation sends waves of pleasure coursing through your body, leaving you rasping and yearning for more. 

You arch into him. His hands, now guided by a primal instinct, roam freely over your body. They explore every curve and dip, tracing the contours of your silhouette as if committing every inch to memory. Fingers dance along your spine, leaving a trail of delicious shivers in their wake, before finding solace in the small of your back. 

With a firm yet gentle grip, he lifts you effortlessly, placing you on the counter, the cool surface contrasts with the scorching heat that burns even your palms up as he slots between your legs immediately afterwards. 

With a delicate yet possessive grip, his hands glide along your upper thighs, and a needy warmth trickles down to the crevice he grinds his crotch against, the roughness of his jeans delectable against where you need him. 

Your own hands, emboldened, mirror his actions, eagerly exploring the planes of his chest, nails dragging through the fabric. Overwrought fingers interchange between pulling on his leather jacket and the compression shirt that hugs him so tight it won't stretch. “Get this off."

A low growl reverberates deep in Leon's chest as your hands keep hungrily tugging at his clothing, seeking to peel away the layers that separate you. “In the kitchen? That impatient for me?” 

Ah, he’s trying to embarrass you. Not going to work. “Shut up you hypocrite, you made me come on your thigh in broad daylight, in the kitchen.”

“I don’t remember you complaining,” he grins against your lips, and you feel him grow bigger, straining against the cage of his jeans. “God, you were so fucking hot using me like that. Want to see you more — pleasure yourself more — in front of me. I was about to make a mess of my pants like some teenager, just looking at you and,” he rocks both of you upwards as he babbles, and your hands glide down to cradle his flaming neck, your eyes closing, head spinning with his words. “Your pussy on me, shit. I still feel it.”

“Stop running your mouth and get these off then,” you half-heartedly order, not at all an attempt to hide how turned on you are and practically dying to feel him already. 

He opts to tease, “What the lady wants, the lady gets,” like he’s only doing it because you asked him to, but he willingly complies, his movements hinting to be fueled by a shared hunger and a desire to feel your touch against his bare skin.

The leather jacket slides off his shoulders, revealing the sculpted contours of his chest, accentuated by the tight shirt that clings to him. And in one motion, that’s also off, you don’t even get to watch how his muscles ripple and flex, but your hands are on him right after, groaning at just how high his body temperature is, how wildly his heart is beating underneath your palm.

Your mind short-circuits at something foreign wiggling underneath your palms on his chest and not at the way he’s sucking red flowers on the underside of your thrown back chin. 

Your mind can be playing tricks on you, because you swear you can feel something move underneath his skin that’s not tendons, but before you can dwell on it, his lips, now free from their exploration of your neck, capture yours once more in a searing kiss, filled with a soulful need, an unspoken plea for more, as if he wants to consume every ounce of you. 

“Can’t believe kissing alone feels this good,” he says. “I could just do this all day. Have you on my lap, underneath me, above me, and just.” Your lips are teasingly bitten and tugged on. “Have this to myself.”

As his hands continue their tantalizing journey along your thighs, inching higher, you find yourself surrendering to the exquisite sensations. Your legs instinctively wrap around his waist, pulling him closer, craving more friction as the restlessness grows tighter. 

The hardness of his crotch presses against the heat between your legs, creating a delicious ache that demands to be satisfied. He hisses and sighs into your mouth. “Fuck, I can’t wait. Hold on to me.” 

Leon has his arms locked tight around your legs clamped on his legs the next second, and begins to carry you out the kitchen as you hold onto his shoulders, once again in awe of how easy it is for him to manhandle you like this without at least grunting. 

You think he’s taking you to your bedroom and worrying if you left it too messy, but where you find yourself sprawled on your back instead, is the fucking couch in your living. 

The couch your one night stand had his way with you on. 

You sense a subtle shift in the currents of his shadowy gaze bearing down on you, in the flicker of his eyes, in the tightening of his jaw, that you glimpse a revelation you have not anticipated hidden beneath layers of charm and composure, the shifting of tectonic plates beneath calm waters. It’s uncharted territory. A dormant beast awoken from slumber, his demeanor betrays an unfamiliar greedy intensity that enthralls you. Once soft, subtle adoring nature of his, now holds a smidge of territorial longing, as if he yearned to claim you as his own, to wrap you in the cocoon of his desires, the undercurrent untamed, raw, unfamiliar — both to you and him. You’re no stranger to his intensity, his passion, but this is foreign to you. 

With surprised anticipation, you laugh to hide the nervousness. “I didn’t know you could be jealous.”

“I didn’t know I was capable of it either.” His big palm comes down on your stomach, fingers fanned out, and it drifts up as if he’s just taking you in, with some pressure sinking into you, and your shirt rides up because of it, exposing your stomach all the way to the beginnings of your lower ribs. “Of this much need to monopolize.” 

He hooks a strong arm around your waist and tugs you a bit up to meet his descending mouth to your revealed abdomen, leaving wet kisses and kitten bites all over, teasing by faking you out that he’ll go higher to play with your aching breasts, the tip of his nose touching the bottom curve of one and then going lower. Either way, it’s your loss, heat keeps pooling in the ever-so-hungry pit as your panties become uncomfortable already. He knows how to build you up.  “It’s so ugly in my head right now because of this goddamn smell—and all I think is what I’m looking at right now was seen by another man. Wanna fucking tear into you to get rid of it.”

You quip, “Does he smell that bad?” amused, an attempt to distract yourself from how easy he has you, hands finding his hair again and tugging, eliciting muffled groans from Leon, but the promise of roughness thrills you, the shiver going through you perking your nipples up. You honestly didn’t know he had this much of a sensitive nose up until today, goes to show how little of himself he showed you in the past. 

“He reeks.” He drags his blunt nails through the line of your waist soothing it with feathery, tickling, lazy strokes of faint pleasuring zaps as he bucks into your clothed core, drawing hisses and gasps from both of you. The rough zipper line of his jeans accentuated by his hardness hits just the right spot, you could do this forever — gosh, you have a wet spot in your panties, it feels gross but it’s so warm and it’s so good — 

Oh you love the way his eyes darken, the way his voice deepens ever so slightly when things you never thought would come from him in a million years are sent your way, goosebumps awaken all over you at the, god, you can’t believe you’re saying possessiveness. “We could, you know, get it reupholstered. If you’re paying for it—” 

“I have a better idea,” A devilish smirk curls at the corners of Leon's lips as he lifts his head from your abdomen, eyes glinting. His grip on your waist shifts to the waistband of your pants, teasingly tracing the edge. “How about instead I reclaim it so you won’t be able to sit on it ever again without getting so hot and bothered by what I did to you here. Hm?”

His touch sends invigorating currents coursing through your body, pooling desire between your thighs. You arch your back, wordlessly urging him to continue. and he kneads your hips, digging into your flesh with a delicious pressure. “I’ll make my sweet girl so fucked out stupid she forgets any touch that came before me.” He squeezes once and your cunt just throbs. “Only remembers my name.”

Fucking hell. 

"But if it bothers her, I'll consider reupholstering," he continues, a hint of playfulness there. "She’ll just have to pay in other ways."

A mischievous gleam dances in your eyes as you match his playful banter. "Oh, I have a feeling I can think of a few ways to make it worth your while," you purr, your fingers still tangled in his strands, urging him to bring his lips back to yours.

“That right?” Leon's chuckle reverberates through his chest, vibrating against your skin. He leaves a trail of heat and moisture on your stomach as he climbs up, capturing your mouth in a hungry kiss, his tongue exploring the depths of your mouth with a fervor matched only by his growing desire.

His heat washes over you, and your breath hitches as you struggle to control the rising tide of need, and you can’t stop the small whine from escaping when he tempts. “How would she like it?” with hooded eyes, you see him imagining — thinking, living the filth out in his brain and not hiding it from you at all. The thought of being completely consumed by him, of surrendering to his desires, sends a torrent of suspense coursing through your veins.

With deliberate slowness, his fingers dip beneath the waistband of your pants, grazing over the sensitive skin of your lower abdomen, and you nod fervently, wanting Leon to stop with the leisurely approach and just fucking throw you around or bury his fingers into your pussy already — “Use your words sweet girl.” He chuckles when he sees the delicately restrained agitation of yours, his touch is both gentle and possessive, his fingertips tracing maddening circles that dangle you over promised pleasure.

His piercing stare ensnares you, a captivating force that renders you powerless. His inquiry lingers, emphasized by his almost restlessly eager fingers massaging your skin, akin to a tantalizing vow of sensual delight. In this very instant, a revelation dawns upon you—Leon's unchained greed does not arise from insecurity alone; rather, they stem from an unquenchable thirst to know you’re his, to conquer every fragment of your being and eliminate any shadow of uncertainty.

In a flurry of emotions, your words spill forth, infused with a potent blend of yearning and submission. “Take me, I want you to take me. Wanna feel only you…” Succumbing to the irresistible yearning surging through your veins, you surrender yourself to the overwhelming craving that courses within you. “Any way you want.”

His jaw falls open slightly in shock, like the shape of language has left him, hold stilling around you in an iron grip — the way his cheekbones get slightly pinked gets you bucking up to him. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” you smile, extending your arms at him like you’re asking for a hug. “Make me forget however you like.”

His chest expands with the big breath he sucks in, a guttural growl escaping his throat, a primal sound that makes him feel almost inhuman with another trick of the light that makes his veins appear darker, dancing, almost, as he pulls you up, leaves you dizzy with how quick he reverses your positions, it’s his back on the plush cushions now, one knee bent a little bit and you on top of him, straddling his lap. He’s looking up at you, and you flash to how you had him exactly that way before he left for Spain.

“Sit on my face.”

You blink a couple times. “What?”

His fingers catch the band of your pants and underwear. “I want you to ride my face.” The small grin that breaks out on his face after licking his lips is downright sinful. “Wanna be fucking suffocated by you.”

“Will you be alright—”

“It’s nothing to me,” The persuasion is nonchalant, like he has experience being waterboarded and it’s something trivial. “I said I’d make you remember me whenever you sit on this couch, didn’t I?” 

His request is bold, ramming the boundaries of your comfort zone, there’s the fear of crushing him and there’s the embarrassment of how he’d receive your weight, yet overcome by the part of you that craves to fulfill his desires, overtaken by how he always wants to give pleasure and not take it. 

You slowly rise from his lap, and he momentarily releases you from his hold. Your hands tremble slightly as you reach for the waistband of your pants, undoing them and sliding them down your legs, along with your underwear, his dilated pupils are fixated on the silvery thread of your arousal stretching. Your heartbeat quickens, a flush heating your body up at the deep assertion of, “Attagirl. Come here.”

With a deep sigh, you find the courage to surrender to the experience, encouraged by how much he seems to want this. You shift your position, allowing him to steer you to straddle his face, your knees sinking into the soft cushions on either side of his head. Your core hovers tantalizingly close to his waiting mouth, aching for the pleasure he promises to deliver. 

Not knowing when his hand sneakily crawled between your legs, you are caught by surprise when he drags a finger through your slit, gathering the moisture and spreading it around. “This all for me?”

“Hmmm,” you confirm, heartbeat shooting straight downwards, pulsing against his finger. “All for you.”

“Don’t be shy, take a seat,” A deep rumble vibrates in his chest, he’s looking drunk already, and you twitch upwards with the way hits your wetness, then, he’s massaging the tension of your thighs holding your body up. “All of your weight, sweet girl. Don’t hold back. Just sit. I promise I’ll make you feel so good, it’ll feel so good, just—” He raises his head to lick an galvanizing stripe right where you want him and you moan, the experience all the more elevated by being able to see how his eyes flutter close as if he’s feeling in and the focused pinch of his eyebrows. 

Trembling legs weakened by his begging, you begin to lower yourself onto him, the searing, wet warmth of his breath against your sensitive, aching folds making you gasp. His hands guide you and you hold onto his bulging biceps, his touch firm yet gentle as he helps you find the perfect angle, anchoring you in place. 

“Le – ah! Leo—n!” You can’t even arch off from the couch when his mouth dives into your tender cunt, only able to throw your head back and tremor in place because he has you in an iron grip against him, fingers sinking into the plush of your hips the moment he hears the stutter of your sweet whining. 

He hums, and you feel the vibrations reverberate inside you, mouth hanging open when his tongue delves in, as well. 

“So good — shit…” You fall forward, hands finding purchase on the armrest of the couch, your nails digging into the fabric as his skilled tongue dances against your most sensitive parts, exploring and teasing with an expertise that leaves you respiring, a particularly shocking jolt of ache striking and leaving your vision with dancing stars when he gently nips at your clit with his teeth, your hips spasming, but unable to even squirm in peace because he won’t let you move away from him. “That! That — ah, yes, yes!”

He is just delighted and it shows in his excited panting when it gets you to start rocking your hips in sync with him, and after a while, falling back and letting you take control of the pace. 

He traces delicate patterns against your most intimate parts, setting a pattern and then breaking it, building you up and pulling you back down, teasing and exploring with a fervent hunger. “That’s perfect — yes, Leon, you’re making me feel so good, you’re — hmm! —”

The groaning moan is swallowed by an even prettier whine when you pull on his hair, it wasn’t the intention to get him to do this, you were just particularly feeling good, but you try again, and he shudders this time, a more restrained version of the sound, you swear, literally makes you gush. 

“You sound — you sound so pretty moaning from making me feel good— So pretty—” You can’ complete the sentence as he sucks on your clit, only able to babble. “So pretty, so pretty…!”

You absolutely weren't expecting being accidentally called pretty would be the final straw to start palming himself against his jeans and fucking dry hump his hand, leaving only one hand to hold you down, and he wraps his entire arm around your waist to staple you to his mouth, you feel the veins and the flexing muscles on your skin from how much strength he’s using, and it’s enough to heighten the throb in your cunt.. 

“You’re gonna come in your pants from eating me out?” The bucking of your hips becomes harsher, faster, the coil in your stomach tightening just from seeing his blissful mien and urgency of his hip thrusts, walls contracting around his tongue. “That’s so fucking sexy—”

The pleasure builds, spiraling higher and higher, each flick of his tongue sending you higher and higher, his ability to read just when you get close is exquisite, and you enjoy him slowing you down, each flick and swirl of his tongue pushing you closer to the edge of ecstasy, but not quite getting you there, his own hand matching that pace and edging himself on, as well. 

The world narrows down to the sensations between your legs, the sound of your own moans building in speed and pitch mingling with his fervency, a blast of heat building deep within you unexpectedly fast, like dropping from the peak of a roller coaster, a wildfire spreading. “So close, so close, so close so closesoclose!”

You cry out his name as your pleasure crescendos, he holds your gaze the entire time through it, an explosion of sensation that engulfs you in waves of ecstasy, your voice mingling with his muffled groans of satisfaction against your sensitive flesh, body oscillating with pleasure, every nerve ending electrified by the intoxicating completion Leon provides — and he laps everything up, 

He does not give you one single break. 

The next second, you’re knocked on your back, and then flipped on your stomach like a ragdoll, and he shoves you up toward the other armrest of the couch until you have to hold onto it and hold yourself up — and you have to, from how much your thighs are trembling. You don’t even have the time to look back after hearing the frantic fumbling of his zipper being pulled down before feeling his rock-hard length gliding through your puffed and abused cunt, and a pained whine shakes your body as you snap your knees shut. “Leon—Leon—I can’t—”

“You can,” he coats himself in your dripping wetness, and you’ve accidentally created more friction for him by snapping your legs together, he’s just dragging himself against you, not entering, but pushing strong enough that it gets you to shake and squirm to get away, but he hooks one arm across your torso and grips your shoulder, pulling you up so your back is flush against his sweaty, burning chest. He extends an arm and places his hand just beside yours for support. “You’re so perfect taking everything I give you. My sweet girl, always so good to me, so gorgeous — just look at you.”

He gently nudges your chin up to get you to look at something, and —

You are looking straight at the reflection of yourself in the window ahead, Leon’s chin on your other shoulder, he is also staring, watching you there — both of you look so fucked out already. 

He seems to be in a more of a drunken daze than you are, his hair is so sexily messed up as if it was deliberately styled, the fact that it was you has you clenching around nothing. You hiss when the head of his cock slips in momentarily, only to slip out as he keeps the motion of sliding back and forth,  teasing, edging, your moans become softer, yelp-ushered, and shorter.  

“Look how pretty you are,” he nips at your earlobe, looking straight into your eyes in the window. You see the raw desire etched across your face, the sheen of sweat glistening on your skin, and the unbridled lust that courses through your veins — the sight of yourself, lost in the throes of passion, sends a rush of arousal through you. 

He begins to bite and suckle at your neck and shoulder as the edging persists, the tension within you, yet again, beginning to stretch beyond belief without a snap at horizon, your whole body is quivering at how fast it’s coming down on you. 

“I’m gonna— Leo–n, please, please—!”

You’re teetering on the edge of ruin, the need for release becoming all-consuming. You cling to his well-built, thick arm holding you to his chest, seeking an anchor amidst the overwhelming pleasure. A particularly sharp bite at the most meaty part of your shoulder makes you cry out and he begins mumbling in your ear, needy, and keeps up the same pace just for your pleasure even though he sounds so needy. “Come for me, I want it, pretty girl, come on, give it to me—” 

With a final plunge, Leon relinquishes the tease and thrusts deep inside you, filling you completely to the hilt, and your vision goes completely white as pleasure crashes over you in a wave of intensity, your body attempting to thrash around with the force of your orgasm, his chest shudders at your strangled cry. 

He stays buried deep within your convulsing walls and just breathes and softly hisses as you come down from your high, following you as you fall forward to rest your head on your forearms on the armrest. 

He plants kisses on the ball of your shoulder, trailing a line all the way to the other one, and then coming back to your nape. “You okay?”

You whine in response, completely blissed, and feel him jump inside you.

He sighs with force. “Don’t rile me up like that just yet.”

“‘m not doin’ ‘nything…”

“You don’t know what you do to me.” His chest rumbles from how thick and deep his voice lowers, albeit in affection. “You could be watering flowers or something and I’d go out of my mind for you.”

You weakly sputter in laughter, heart expanding nonetheless. “Watering flowers?”

“Yeah, I mean—”

“Couldn’t you have chosen something mundanely and unconsciously sexy. Like, I don’t know, sitting and reading a book?”

He scoffs, but you can tell he’s tiredly endeared. “Reading is sexy to you?”

“Well. You squint your eyes and clearly need glasses but the concentration is definitely hot.”

“I don’t need glasses.”

“You do. Leon, baby, you squint when you’re trying to read—”

“Maybe because I’m trying to understand what I read—”

“You don’t understand anything you read, then? Because you do it all the time.”

“That’s ridiculous, I’ve never had a problem with my vision.”

“Uh-huh. Yeah, sure, dumb jock of mine.”

He responds with one singular fast and shallow thrust, testing the waters, lips curling up against your shoulder at the sweet sound rising from you. “You must have gotten the rest you needed if you’re sassing me.” 

“Fuck—” you hiss at the stretch, so delicious, stings so good. “Leon, can we just—”

“No,” He presses you forward, squishing you, and one of your hands digs into the armrest and the other one on his forearm that lines like a special pillow just for you to bury your head in. Your teary eyes accuse him in the window, your mind playing tricks on you again and makes it seem like they flash a deep red at you like some demon in your imagination. “Eyes on the window, watch me.”

He starts torturously slow, setting a lazy ebb and flow, the tip of his cock aimed to hit your G-spot every time he inches into you, his fingers are curled underneath your chin and still making you watch, but you can only look at how feral he is marking your neck like he’s some vampire, sucking and popping noises spreading around your body in ripples, and behind your tears, you can see the red eyes still on yours.   

“Faster,” you sob, feeling like you’re about to pass out from yet another building orgasm but know ultimately that’s not going to happen and it’s just how well he wrecks you. 

He moans obscenely into your ear, completing that with a delighted hiss as your nails mark his forearm laced with defined veins. “Gonna come for me again, huh? How many minutes has it been, and you’re gushing already? Are you just that perverted or is it me?”

“Yes, you, it’s you.” You throw your head back and rest it on his shoulder, and he lowers the fingers on your chin to hold you by the throat against him, putting slight pressure with at the two sides of your neck — not cutting your airway, but the blood flow to your brain, plunging you into cloud-soft, pleasure-fueled fuzziness.

“Inside?” he asks for permission, strained. His thrusts pick up, not shallow, but brutal all the way, and so do your whimpers. “Can I—” 

You can imagine the sensation of the warmth of him spilling into you. You’re so thankful for actively looking for hook-ups before this and getting on birth control for it. “Yeah, inside, come inside me—”

He bites down again, it has to be a new favorite thing for him, and he reaches down to circle your clit, pressing and playing, gentle and then sharp. 

You feel a familiar fullness growing, and clench yourself up, it makes Leon hiss. “Bathroom—” you choke, panicked. “We have to stop, I have to—”

He doubles the finger on your clit and you squeak, squeezing your thighs together — something’s coming and he keeps hitting that spot over and over and over again — you’re going to fucking wet yourself — “Leon, I’m serious, I’m gonna—”

“It’s not what you think it is,” he says, reassuring, caring, peppering kisses everywhere.

How is he so sure! 

“No, no, I can’t— Leon, Leon, Leon, Leon!”

Third time, third time it’s something else, you can’t, you can’t—

“You can.” He grunts, smothering your squirming by his weight. “Go ahead sweet girl, just like that. You’re doing wonderful, I got you. Let it go. Let it come.”

You hear the brief spray of something, the trickle of liquid between your thighs and the intermittent whining of his as he comes inside, but you swear you fucking pass out for a good fifteen seconds from how the coil of pleasure detonates in your core and shatters your consciousness in a foggy haze.

You fucking squirted. 

Didn’t even know you could do that. 

He made you because he was jealous.   

“Asshole,” you cry-mumble, trembling like a leaf. “My couch.”

He just laughs. His eyes are still glowing red in the window’s reflection. 

You’re too sleepy for this.

You’re dreaming that you’re Leon. 

It’s a weird nightmarish vision bleeding pulsating black at the edges probably fueled by imagining him as a mean demon ravishing you yesterday. 

One moment you’re looking down at yourself suffering in your sleep at the backseat of a car, head resting on his lap, some blond man even buffer than Leon is driving the car, you can see the outline of a scar at the side of his face and you call him Major Krauser; and the other you’re intensely gazing at yourself in the bathroom mirror, eyes are still red, but this time, there are dark veins mapping all over your body, all over your face, and they’re pulling back and moving.

You startle awake to an unfamiliar bedroom, a dull ache in your chest, weak and absolutely sick to your stomach that it feels like your guts are restlessly moving around. 

“The hell?” Just where are you right now? This isn’t your home. “Leon? Leon!”

Soft, muted hues adorn the walls, casting a serene ambiance that envelops the room, but you’re far from calm, the tight feeling in your chest pushing up into your lungs. Gentle lighting, emanating from carefully placed fixtures, are dancing upon the surfaces, creating a mockingly soothing ambiance with a faint scent of cleanliness, mingling with freshness.

You are on the plush bed, adorned with crisp linens and plump pillows, the centerpiece of the room, with bedside tables holding the essentials within arm's reach. Ahead is a cozy seating area with its comfortable armchairs and a snug loveseat and a work desk, strategically positioned near a well-lit window or a dedicated reading lamp. This awfully looks like a hotel room. 

He emerges from a door, and you see the glimpse of a bathroom behind him before he shuts it behind him. “Hey, you’re awake.”

The anxiety of the gap in your memory dissipates the moment you see him.

“And confused, where is this? Why don’t I remember getting here?” You grimace and prop your body to sit up, pressing the heel of your hand to where your heart is, his eyes flicker to the motion, eyebrows dropping down. 

He sits on the edge of the bed, faintly smiling, trying to hide his worry. “You were sleeping.”

You reach for the bottle of water sitting on the bedside table to your right. “And why did you feel the need to bring me somewhere while I was asleep?”

He eerily looks mysterious for a second. “You remember me talking about the gift I was given?”

“Yeah..?” 

“I’ve shared it with you.” 

“Oh-kay…” God, that water was heavenly. You weren’t aware that you were parched. “Is that why I feel sick? Did we go out last night and get blackout drunk or something, is that it?” 

“You feel sick?” You stop playing with the plastic bottle when his face hardens. “You shouldn’t be hurting, why…”

“Can we dial it back a little?” You raise your hands, remembering your priorities. “Leon, where are we? I can’t be here, I need to go to work, there is this article about the Spanish guest President Graham has dropped everything to meet with today and I need to get it out—”

“I’ve called in for you. You’re good.” 

Well. 

It was truly the right call to make given just how weird you’re feeling, just on the precipice of getting badly sick, you’re grateful he took the initiative for you but it wouldn’t have been bad to be told before he did this. The newspaper could have caused big trouble. “I would have appreciated it more if you asked me first.”

Leon looks genuinely bothered, you don’t know if it’s because you’re telling him off. “Sorry about that, I had no time before—”

“Time for what?” 

“Well…” He trails off, lost in thought. “How about I start from the beginning?”

“I’m more than happy to listen, but first, where are we? Spoilers are fine.”

A voice you don’t know abruptly cuts in and makes you jump. “Spain, sweetheart. You’re in Spain.”

Why the hell is there a stranger in your room?

“Who the hell are you?” You pull the covers up even though you’re not naked and dressed in a casual outfit you have no memory of throwing on. His presence in this room feels like a security breach because you’re in bed. “Why are you — Leon, why is—“ 

“Krauser.” Leon shoots up from his seat in urgency. “I told you to—”

What he said registers suddenly. “Spain?” You’re unbelievably alert. It’s the guy you saw in your dream, driving the car. Leon calls him the same name you heard in it, as well. “Leon, who is this, what is he talking about?”

His chest puffs up in concentrated dejection, misery engulfing him as he looks at you, mute. You ask him with your eyes to tell you the random guy in your room is kidding, but he doesn’t. 

You edge closer to the other side of the bed like you’re some scared animal. “What the fuck is going on?”

The glare he gives to the guy would have scared you shitless had it not been for the shock you’re going through. “Get out.”

This isn’t a prank. 

You finally explode, hands gripping the linens in a tight ball, heart beating a mile an hour. “Listen, I would like to be spoken to! Spain? Can you please explain it to me already!”

“Your boyfriend has given you the Las Plagas parasite, and you’re here to go through the initiation ceremony, so to speak. You’re to be presented to our Lord. Sorry, kid.” A pitying chuckle. “Should have had better taste in men.”

Huh.

Huh?

The very military-looking man, with the beret and the outfit and all, says it with the most fed up and serious intonation ever that a loud, ringing, involuntary laugh comes out from you and rings in the room, but something in your stomach hurts from the force of it, so you double down in pain, gasping. Something moves in you. “What… God, fuck, ow…”

You clutch your abdomen, the pain intensifying with each passing moment. It feels as though something is writhing inside you, twisting and contorting with a sickening energy. It’s foreign. Doesn’t belong in your body, you’re about to hyperventilate. 

Your mind struggles to process the gravity of the situation unfolding before you. Spain? Parasites? Initiation ceremony? It all sounds like a macabre nightmare, but the agony coursing through your body is alarmingly real.

You don’t know when Leon moved to get to you, but he is next to you all of a sudden, supporting you, eyes widening with concern, his earlier mysterious demeanor crumbling away. He moves swiftly, his hand reaching out to prop you. "Easy, take deep breaths, it’ll pass, I promise, I’ve got you," His voice drips with something icy as the person he’s addressing changes. “You told me that shit would take away her pain.”

Major Krauser watches the scene unfold with a mixture of detachment and sympathy. His presence is imposing in his stern countenance. "I told you it would make it easier," he interjects, gruff. "The worst of it is over. Superior species process differently than the regular one."

“Can’t we just—”

Fear grips you like a vice as you try to comprehend the magnitude of what is happening. "Why... What have you done to me?" you manage to make out, wavering with both pain and confusion.

His hands move gently, yet frantically to caress your arms in attempts to comfort you through the pain. “I saved you.”

“Oh, you are gone in the head, rookie.”  

Leon looks scary, a barely contained rage just under the surface, gripping you tighter. 

Your mind races, trying to make sense of the fragmented information you've been given. It all feels like a nightmarish delusion, an absurd reality you've been thrust into.

What’s going on? Just what’s happening right now?

Gasping for oxygen, you manage to choke out a question, desperation just beneath. "What kind of sick game is this?"

Krauser, stoic and unyielding, interrupts with a dispassionate tone, his eyes fixed on you with an unsettling intensity. "It's not a game. Lord Saddler seeks vessels, chosen ones who can carry the power of Las Plagas. You were chosen, through Leon."

You reel back, disbelieving. "Chosen? Lord Saddler? Leon, what in the world—"

Leon's gaze turns somber, regret across his face. "I made a choice, so we could be together. So you would be protected." He becomes pleading. “The world is about to change forever—”

Oh what the fuck.

You begin to cough uncontrollably, slapping a palm on your mouth, whole body wrecked by the velocity of the fit.

There’s blood when you remove your hand. 

“Oh, god,” you whimper, but the spillage of blood also marks the ebbing away of the pain, it’s gradually fading.  

“Make her drink it again. It should be fine, three days have passed.” 

Major Krauser, the enigmatic man who claimed you had been infected, remains stoic but watches your distress intently before leaving the room from another door. 

Three days. Three days? You slept for three days?

“I want to go home. I want to leave.”

Leon sighs, visibly sad. “I know, sweet girl, but I can’t let you go anywhere right now.” 

“Why!” You yank away from him, crawling to put some distance between him and you. You trust Leon, you see that he is loyal to you, but can’t stop freaking out. “Then explain it to me! What the hell is Las Plagas or whatever the hell it’s called! Just what did you do to me?”

“First, you have to know I’m — I was a government agent. I work to wipe out bioweapons, the kind in Terragrigia. That’s the basic gist of it, anyways. Spain was a mission. To save the President’s daughter.”

“What.”

Throughout the long and agonizing day, you continue to plead with Leon, hoping desperately that he will release you from your confining prison. Each time, he feigns sympathy and expresses apologies, but his determination remains unyielding. The realization that the man you love has become your captor sinks its fangs deeper into your psyche, a tormenting truth that threatens to shatter your sanity.

Moved to a more luxurious room, attended to by servants who treat you as though you were some revered figure, you feel the suffocating weight of your captivity. Leon, on the other hand, freely comes and goes, moving about with an air of authority and control here in this unknown location. 

The stark contrast between your roles within this twisted dynamic only further amplifies the madness of the situation. It becomes increasingly difficult to maintain your composure when everything around you appears normal, yet you are trapped, on the verge of losing your grip on reality.

Leon's attempts to justify his actions, delivered with a soft and soothing cadence, only serve to deepen the chasm between the man you once knew and this deranged version standing before you. He speaks of a global project involving the parasitic vaccination of the entire world, claiming that he only sought to protect you and longed for your reunion in this new world order. 

According to his words, everyone will be connected through what he refers to as the Holy Body, and he brought you here to shield you from the chaos that looms outside. He even speaks of defying some enigmatic figure known as "their Lord," as if he had waged a battle for your favor against him.

It’s insane. He’s insane, but looks perfectly okay saying all of this stuff. Leon wasn’t like this one month ago, it’s Spain that changed him, the dots connect themselves — the gift that he talks about wasn’t a gift at all, he was most likely infected against his will like you were, and now believes in the batshit crazy nonsense he’s talking about like it’s gossip over tea.  

You realize quite a bit late that this is a cult because of his perfectly ordinary demeanor. He’s Leon and you trust him, and it stalls your thought process. 

You have to repeat it over and over again to process it.

Leon took you against your will, to a fucking cult. 

They even have a name for god’s sake, Los Illuminados — the ‘servants’ are cultists. It’s easy to fall into the normalcy and accept it the way Leon puts it, like some fairy tale, like telling you about news from another country. 

With the new knowledge of his past, you don’t know to be in awe of him or terrified, your whole relationship unraveling in transparent context littered between the lines as you rediscover who he is as a person and why he did the things he did — but definitely lean towards the latter the more you can’t get through to him to let this stop already, it becomes more clear to you very quick there’s a certain instability to him now that wasn’t there before, something dark as if he’s balancing himself on the razor’s edge of control, it swims closer to the surface whenever you mention you want to go home. 

The Leon you remember was gloomy at times, yes, but he was also rational, calm, and grounded. He was unyielding in the face of adversity and never subscribed to such ludicrous beliefs. The dissonance between the Leon of the past and the current incarnation, who mindlessly parrots the teachings of the cult, leaves you utterly bewildered. You struggle to reconcile the two versions, grappling with the question of who he truly is and why he committed these unthinkable acts.

In these moments, when Leon reverts into the preaching mode, his gaze becomes vacant, as if he is merely regurgitating the words he has been fed. It is only when his attention turns to your well-being that glimpses of the man you love flicker to the surface. 

The conflicting emotions within you reach a boiling point, leaving you paralyzed and unsure of how to proceed.

The gaping divide between the Leon you once cherished and this altered persona rattles your very core. Fear grips your heart as questions swirl in your mind. What now? What lies in store for you? The uncertainty looms like a dark cloud, casting shadows of doubt and despair over your fragile existence.

The answer and possible salvation comes to you in the form of a man, a mysterious figure who materializes from an entry point to the room you had no idea was there. 

The dim light casts eerie shadows on his face as he greets you with a slight bow. 

“Who are you?”

“Luis Serra, Princesita. Your only chance.” He nods, lighthearted, but you see the weight of his seriousness. “We don’t have much time. If you want to get rid of the parasite, come with me, I’ll explain on the way.”

Why do you feel like all you do is being swept with whatever current washes down your way? 

It’s bizarre to be running away — from Leon, of all people. Go with this random man number two, where? To do what? What happens to Leon, then? 

Thrown off by his sudden appearance, you try to assess the situation, searching for any signs of deception or ulterior motives. 

Despite your apprehension, something about his urgent demeanor and the glimmer of hope in his eyes instill a soft landing for trust in him, you feel that he can help you somehow — but there is the obvious elephant in the room. “What about Leon?”

“I’m doing this because he asked,” Luis replies, his words carrying a sense of loyalty and commitment. They have some sort of history you don’t know. 

Without further delay, he administers a serum, providing you with a temporary respite from the torment inflicted by the parasite Leon’s infected you with. It offers relief, albeit temporary, buying you precious time before the inevitable returns in Luis’ words.

You decide to go with him and see where this path leads, you have nothing better to do, can’t see any way out of this. 

He motions for you to follow him, leading you through a concealed passage that winds its way beneath the labyrinthine corridors of the cult's stronghold — a castle, as you’re shocked to take in. The path is bleak, the air heavy with a musty scent, but you push forward, driven by pure survival instinct to get away to safety.

Luis starts explaining not too much into your journey, hushed, he has all the answers you needed in the first place, quick to the point. "Las Plagas are ancient organisms with a malevolent sentience. They infest and control their hosts, erode their will and sanity. They were made to be… weapons to be harnessed by Los Illuminados. Those who succumb to it become pawns of their leader, Saddler, carry out his agenda. Slaves to his will. They don’t have their minds intact, just flesh prisons to obey his orders."

Your first thought is of Leon, the horrible sinking feeling unspun in your stomach. 

Luis knows what you’re thinking. “Leon… and his buddy Krauser are exceptions. They possess what’s called the superior species, newly engineered.” He raises his eyebrows and tilts his head at the same time, like he’s contemplating a good business deal. “That means free will. To a degree. Their parasites are connected to Saddler, so their bodies can be controlled, but not their minds. Not entirely. They’re not like the inferior ganados. That’s why he was able to seek you out with his own volition.” 

The realization that Leon is trapped within this nightmare strikes you like a blow, your heart sinking with each passing moment. "He isn't controlled?" you inquire, hope blossoming in your chest. "Can you save him too?"

Luis's response is filled with regret, his eyes reflecting a sorrowful truth. "I'm afraid he's beyond saving," he confesses. "The procedure I have can only remove newly hatched eggs, and Leon... well, he's already been consumed by this darkness."

The words reverberate through your mind, the horror of the situation fraying your soul. "But... I can't just abandon him!" you protest, determination and anguish trying to overpower one another.

"You'll be gone forever too if you don't," Luis warns. "It's now or never. If you hesitate, if he catches even a hint of your trail, it will be over."

“You said you were helping me because he told you to.”

“Before he was lost, yes, he made a final wish.” Luis softens, and you realize he’s grieving, too. “He told me to take you as far away as possible from him if he ever were to try and get you involved in this mess. Because he would never do that to you in his right mind, so he said. A total romantic underneath all that ice, eh?”

He would never do that to you in his right mind… 

You flash back to three days ago, to his words, to how he said he loved you, all his adoring, the broken dam of affection and how he didn’t hold back anymore. 

He wouldn’t have decided to go through with opening up to you like that had it not been for the parasite’s influence? 

Uncertainty dangles heavy as you fight with the bitter reality you thought was a dream come true, the heart-wrenching realization that the man you love has been ensnared by the very darkness he sought to protect you from — that only giving into it broke his control of keeping away from you emotionally.

Regret etches itself onto Luis's face as he observes your inner turmoil. "I'm truly sorry, Princesita," he offers with empathy. 

The moment hangs suspended, an agonizing choice looming before you, as you weigh the love you hold for Leon against the desperate need to escape the clutches of this cult. 

You don’t want to leave Leon, even when there’s something clearly wrong with him that can’t be fixed, but on the other hand… 

“Can you honestly tell me he isn’t the man I know?”

“He is less and more.” His tentativeness bleeds into the clearest possible simplification he’s able to give you.. “But isn’t the same.” 

“So what do we do? What should I do?”

You still cannot wrap your head around your whole world flipping upside down, can’t comprehend you have to leave Leon behind, you barely processed him being an agent. You’re stalling. Hesitating. And deep down in your heart, you know why. It’s because you don’t want to go. 

Leon is still Leon. 

But you’re terrified. 

 "The choice is ultimately yours to make. But I implore you to consider your own well-being and the chance to break free. I know that’s what he truly wanted."

“I—”

But as you open your mouth to respond, a sudden, excruciating pain shoots through your head, causing you to cry out in agony. It feels as if someone has driven a searing spike into your skull, rendering you momentarily incapacitated. Your body crumples, and you find yourself on your knees, clutching your head, desperately trying to block out the piercing ringing in your ears.

Amidst the torment, your consciousness is abruptly whisked away, transported to an ethereal realm. It is a dream-like state, observing the world through the lens of another's mind. The golden chandeliers cast a cascade of shimmering light upon turning corners and ornate doors, as the person you are connected to races frantically through the maze-like passages.

The frenzied movement abruptly halts, and your vision pulsates in tandem with the rapid beat of a heart. It’s Leon’s voice echoing through the recesses of your mind, a hidden depth of anger and desperation at the heart of his control. "I feel you," he utters, a slight tremble of heartbreak. "You're in here. I know you're listening. Where are you? Why did you leave?"

Realization dawns upon you, a profound understanding that you are inhabiting Leon's thoughts, sharing his fears and confusion. The sheer intensity of the experience overwhelms you, and you cry out, "No, make it stop!" Your consciousness briefly returns to the physical realm, tears streaming down your face, the pain of the connection too much to bear. "It hurts!"

The ethereal realm engulfs you once more, Leon's emotional turmoil swirling around you. His voice billows with remorse and longing. "It might... Things might have escalated a bit too quickly," he confesses, his tone laden with regret. "It's my fault, I got too cocky, too impatient. But I never wanted to scare you off. I only ever wanted to keep you safe. You have to trust me and open your eyes so I can do that, sweet girl, okay? I'll come get you. We’ll talk it out. You can’t run."

Confusion intertwines with the pain coursing through your being. Leon's words perplex you, as if there is a hidden meaning beneath his pleas. "My eyes?" you utter, the question hanging, unanswered.

Luis gets so loud that you’re brought back to your location for a split second. “Shit. Do not open your eyes!”

Leon hears what he says somehow — and it suddenly comes to you that if you’re in his head, he is also in your head. “Luis. I should have known.”

You feel a sharp pinch at the side of your neck that cannot even compete with the tremendous headache, and the vision begins to crumble, Leon getting fainter — his presence fading away, the last you hear of him is a furious and equally anguished, “Goddamnit, no!” before everything goes black.  

Luis detects the stirring of your consciousness before you do, and as your awareness is brought back from the dormant state you were in, he calls to you in the darkness surrounding everything. “Don’t open your eyes yet.”

You shift around, feeling the coolness of a rough surface against your back and the firmness of the stone floor beneath you. The silence is broken by a peculiar sound—an unsettling symphony of metallic echoes. Chains. Accompanied by Luis’ feet shuffling around, they slither across the ground, you can almost envision their length, extending and coiling, like serpents of iron, their echoes intertwine, creating an eerie melody because you can’t see them. 

“What are you doing?”

Luis's response is calm and purposeful. "Setting the scene," he explains. The sound of nails being hammered into stone with an underlying jingle punctuates his words, causing you to jump in surprise. "For Lancelot seeking his Guinevere."

The pieces start to come together, albeit slowly. "You want to trap him," you realize.

Luis acknowledges your understanding. "Wonderful, Princesita," he praises. "You catch on fast. Leon is connected to you somehow, and we can't progress if he sees through your eyes. So, we need to create an illusion."

Confusion and concern overflow as you question the feasibility of their plan. "But Leon is... He could be listening right now."

Luis dismisses your worries. "Do you feel that he is sharing your head at the moment?" he asks. The uncertainty in your response betrays your lack of knowledge. "Ey, you'd know," he asserts. "That means he isn't present. Perfect."

Doubts linger in your mind as you consider the risks. "Will it work? He's... well, I recently learned he's an agent. I don't think it'll be easy."

"Whose side are you on?" he teases, playful. But when he senses your unease, he quickly reassures you. "No worries, I get it. He's better with the ladies, I've learned."

You can't help but feel a pang of guilt. "Luis..."

He brushes off your concerns with understanding. "I'm almost done here. He's supposed to think you're alone, so you can't look at me when I tell you to open your eyes. I'll be hiding. Don't talk to me, don't acknowledge me, just wait."

Curiosity gets the better of you as you ask, "How are you going to..."

Luis's response is concise and determined. "It won’t be me who’s doing it. It will be you. I will be your distraction.” You hear his footsteps approaching, and something small but heavy being placed on the floor just beside you, hidden from your line of sight. “You’ll hide when he arrives, and when the time comes, I want you to shoot. Don’t worry, it’s a tranquilizer gun. Wish me luck so he won’t kill me on sight, eh?”

It doesn’t take long for him to signal you. 

You open your eyes, the darkness giving way to dimly lit surroundings. The scene before you is carefully arranged, meticulously designed to deceive. The chains that previously echoed through the room now come into view, hanging ominously from the winch on the ceiling, you follow the line with your eyes to see the other end is secured to the stone wall by a circle of nails. The clinks and clanks reverberate, amplifying the tension.

Luis is nowhere to be seen, but his presence lingers, a silent reassurance that you're not alone.

In the deafening silence, doubt gnaws at you, and you question the madness of your current circumstances. 

You’re unsure of what you truly desire, unable to look over how you really just found yourself going along with Luis's plan, not because it feels right, but because your mind is clouded, unable to think clearly. You feel like a reluctant child, accepting the path laid before you simply because it seems to be the only option available.

Uncertainty presses heavily upon you as you contemplate the impending encounter with Leon. Fear grips your thoughts, entwining with the deep-rooted emotions you still harbor for him. Despite the revelations and warnings about his true nature, your heart remains entangled in a web of love and trust, the idea of seeing him again evokes a conflicting mishmash of longing and apprehension. 

You find yourself yearning for his presence, against the knowledge that he is not the same person you once knew when the mere thought of his return conjures a happy expectation of hope within you, a desperate desire to be whisked away from the nightmarish reality that has unfolded — deep, deep down, you pine for him to be the savior, the one who can shield you from the horrors of this supernatural ordeal he inflicted upon you himself.

Yet, simultaneous fear engulfs your soul, you question your own liability, knowing that you still trust him, still harbor the potential to be swayed by his words and actions. The thought terrifies you, the notion that you might have readily agreed to his plans had he presented them differently, had he explained the sinister truth of the parasite in a more inviting manner. It's a terrifying realization, the awareness of your own susceptibility to his influence, and despite everything, he’s the only anchor you can hold on to not be swept away into that chaos. 

You want him to enter the room, to make everything right again, tell you all of this is a nightmare you made up in your head because in the real world you still miss him, and at the same time you also fear what his arrival may entail.

As if attuned to your thoughts, a prickle in your mind disrupts your musings—a subtle trickle of awareness, the sensation of being watched by an invisible presence sharing the same space as you.

So you wait, your heart pounding in your chest, the weight of the impending confrontation with Leon bearing down on you. Every second feels like an eternity as you strain to listen for any sign of his approach. The air grows heavy with anticipation, and your senses are on high alert.

Suddenly, a noise echoes through the chamber, a faint, careful creak of a door opening. Your breath catches in your throat, he was so deadly silent infiltrating the building this basement is in, and you scramble to crouch and hide behind stacked boxes facing his direction, praying to god he hasn’t heard you. 

His eyes search the room in  a hardened gaze, a mask of determination, scanning every corner, every shadow with professional coldness. 

Leon cuts through the silence, as if he’s been hurt by you somehow. "Come on, I know you’re here, you don’t need to hide from me, I’m just here to talk.. Don’t be afraid of me.”

Your heart aches at the sound of his voice, you fight back tears, reminding yourself that this is necessary, for both his sake and your own — you can’t crumble right now, absolutely dreading what actually hearing him out would do to you. 

Luis emerges from where he’s hiding, unknowingly coming to your rescue, stepping forward with calculated confidence. "Looking for someone, Leon?" he asks, dripping amused intrigue.

"Where is she?" Leon demands, and you’ve never heard him like that before — that bone-chillingly cold and intimidating, menacing, low tone is downright terrifying. 

“Not even a hola for your old friend?” 

Leon fucking pulls a gun on him and your heart jumps to your throat. “Where. is. she?”

Luis raises his hands in a placating gesture, a sly smile playing on his lips. "No need for violence, my friend. I'm here to help."

Leon's grip on his weapon tightens, his suspicion evident. "I don’t need your help anymore. Tell me where she is."

Luis chuckles softly with a trace of mischief. "Ah, the stubbornness of a man in love. But I'm afraid your Princesita is in another castle."

Anger flashes in Leon's eyes, his frustration mounting. "Don’t bullshit me Luis, I know she’s here. What are you up to?"

Luis takes a step closer, sympathetic as much as he’s purposeful. "I've done what you asked of me. She's safer without you." 

Leon's face contorts with disbelief and fury, threatening to consume him. "Safer? You have no idea what you’re talking about. There is no safer place on earth right now than by my side. The world's about to go shit. The President is down, and the impending mass vaccination is nothing but a precursor to chaos. Do you think this is some deranged lover’s obsession? No."

With hopeless resoluteness, Leon continues to pour out his frustrations and fears. "Someone, be it the WHO, Terrasave, or the BSAA, someone will eventually expose the truth about the parasite spreading through medicines. And when that happens, all hell will break loose — do you understand the scale of what I’m talking about? The illusion of a smooth and controlled resolution is nothing more than a lie, and we both damn well know it."

Emotions wash over Leon, leaving him vehement and exposed, self-deprecating, raw. "I may have failed in my mission, and I may have failed everyone, but I refuse to let her become a mindless puppet like those villagers and cultists. I won't let her perish chasing scope after scope for news articles that’ll get her killed. She's all I have left." His voice quivers with a defeated tenacity and desperation, he shakes his gun at Luis. "So yes, I made a choice. It's the right one. It's the only one. A choice where I can be with her, where she can stay safe. A choice where I become the monster, but I can’t care less about the consequences anymore. So, get out of my way, Luis, and take that getaway chopper of Ada's while I'm still giving you the chance. That a good deal?"

“What happens when Saddler loses?” Luis sighs through his nose, totally unaffected by all that talk. “What happens if you die on that hill?”

His question lingers for a moment before Leon responds, less baleful and more mournful, even accompanied with a strange sense of happiness. "I know the end. As long as I get to die in her arms, it doesn't matter."

In that instant, something within you snaps. The anguished anger and the raw empathy you feel for Leon flow through your veins, overpowering any rational thought. Without hesitation, you make a decision that feels both natural and inevitable — to shoot the tranquilizer. 

You pull the trigger, the dart finding its mark with an unsettling precision, and time slows as you watch it puncture his skin, him flinching with a hand clamping around the dart and yanking it out, his wide, red eyes finding yours as you stand up, the realization dawning in his eyes. 

You want to cry when it’s relief and happiness that comes first to him upon seeing you as if on instinct, and confusion and hurt wash over his features next as he sees what’s in your hands. It's a sight that cuts through your heart. He staggers, toward you, his body fighting against the encroaching numbness, as if defying the very fate that befalls him. With outstretched arms, he reaches for you, fingers trembling, yearning for connection amidst the sense of betrayal. 

Yet, despite his desperate efforts, his strength fails him. His legs give way beneath him, and he tumbles to the ground, his reach falling short. You watch, your heart splitting in two, as he crumples in a heap of confusion. His fingers graze at where your presence is, a touch that never finds its mark.

In the waning moments before unconsciousness claims him, his eyes search yours, pleading for answers that you struggle to provide. You stand rooted to the spot, grappling with guilt and anguish, questioning the validity of your actions, second-guessing the choices that have led to this heartbreaking scene.

As Leon finally succumbs to the claim of the tranquilizer, his body surrendering to the oblivion of unconsciousness, you're left with your final commitment, crystal clear. 

Your heart was set on this from the start. You were just too scared to admit it. 

You’ll stay with him in this darkness.

Leon’s all alone here, knows he’s doomed by the narrative, can’t leave — and all he thought throughout that was you and what would happen to you. 

You can’t leave this man in the solitude of tragedy, with the first ever selfishness of his was seeking you out despite himself to protect you. No moment has solidified his love for you more than this. How he thinks of you tremendously. 

You can’t not love this man. You can’t bring yourself to obey his wishes and abandon him.

The lamb doesn’t want to leave the slaughterhouse. 

With a heavy yet determined tone, you utter the words that seal your fate. "Go, Luis."

Luis protests, filled with concern and a touch of reluctance. "You can’t—"

Tears well up in your eyes as you gaze at Leon's unconscious form, lying helpless on the cold ground. The depth of your emotions overwhelms you, but you gather your resolve. "I can't abandon him now. Not after everything he's been through. He needs someone by his side."

Luis hesitates, torn between honoring your wishes and his genuine concern for your well-being, making a final attempt to persuade you. "I understand your heartache, but you're risking everything for him. Are you sure about this? There's so much at stake — you’ll become just like him, you know? You’ll never be able to leave Los Illuminados and go back to your old life."

“You don’t get it do you? It’s true that I'm scared, Luis. Scared of what lies ahead, the stuff you’ve talked about is straight out of a dystopian novel. But I'm more scared of losing him in all of this.” It haunts you how he said it doesn’t matter if he gets to die in your arms, no regard for his own well-being and health. Leon has never cared for himself enough, that much you know, but to think his entire system has collapsed like this, to the point where he’s let himself go entirely and came to you while wounded… It’s something you can’t turn a blind eye to. A cry for help you can’t ignore. “He looked for me in this chaos. Underneath all of the excuses of protection, Leon’s just scared. He doesn’t want to be alone.” You can’t look away now that you’ve seen everything. “I can’t go back anyway after knowing this. I’d never forgive myself. It's better to face whatever’s coming with him, no matter what horrors it holds.”

“There’s absolutely nothing I can do to change your mind?”

The fact that he’s set on doing this and looking out for you until the last second because he has promised Leon and is truly concerned warms your heart up. “You really should catch that ride before it’s too late.” 

“You’re making a mistake.” His concern mingles with a touch of admiration for your unwavering will. “But he’s hell of a lucky bastard to have you by his side throughout it all. This is the sacrifice of your life, I’m not joking. And I hope it’ll be worth it.”

He’s not like you, and that’s okay. You actually admire and envy his sense of self-preservation overweighs his loyalty and promise to Leon, that’s how a normal person should be. But the situation is far from normal, and you’re infected by a mind-altering parasite for fuck’s sake, and you’re not even sure you’re going through the quarter of what Leon has. 

“Thank you Luis.” Touched by his understanding, you reach out and take Luis's hand, gratitude shining through. “For everything.”

A somber atmosphere settles in the room as Luis grows more melancholic. He takes a deep breath before making his final request. "Before I go, there's one last thing I want to ask. Considering we don't know how he’ll react when he wakes up, I think it's best to be cautious. We should chain him up, just to be safe. I don't want him accidentally hurting you in his confused state."

You hesitate, unsure about the idea of restraining Leon, but Luis's earnestness compels you to consider it. "I don't think he would ever harm me..."

Luis interrupts gently. "Oye, let me worry about that, Las Plagas is unpredictable and dangerous. Do me this favor, it’s the least you can do to pay me back, yeah? A little caution won't hurt. And if Leon questions it, you can blame me. I can handle it from a safe distance out of his reach in the comfort of my luxury ride."

With Luis's words echoing in your mind, both of you set to work, struggling like you’re trying to roll a boulder up a hill with the weight of Leon's unconscious body. The effort is tremendous, sweat pouring down your faces as you maneuver his unexpectedly heavy frame. 

Exhausted from the strenuous task, Luis hands you the key, his face flushed with exertion as you finally finish securing Leon in chains. The room is filled with a heavy silence, punctuated only by the sound of your own labored breaths.

As the unvoiced question of what happens now makes itself known between you two, caught in the tension between Luis’ desire to stay and the necessity of his departure. His words come out disconnected, hesitant, obviously having an awkwardness that comes from bidding farewell under such circumstances. "Well..." he begins, trailing off as he struggles to find the right words. "It was a pleasure to know you, Princesita." His smile is half-hearted, betraying the mixed emotions within him. "I hope we never have to meet again."

The unexpected humor in his remark catches you off guard, and a genuine laugh escapes your lips, the sound reverberating through the room, mingling with the faint clinking of the chains as Leon stirs behind you, his presence a constant reminder of what you’ve decided to get yourself into.

Luis's insistence breaks through the brief moment of levity as he implores you, his eyes flicking between you and Leon's kneeling form. "Take care of him," he urges, a sense of responsibility coloring his words. "And yourself."

You offer him a reassuring smile, endlessly thankful for his guidance in getting you to realize Leon’s perspective. "Will do. You too, Luis," you respond, nothing but warmth in your heart for him as you acknowledge his efforts. "Don't feel bad about not being able to help us, please? You've done all you can."

He nods once, his features a blend of bittersweet defeat and acceptance. With a final glance, he retreats into the shadows, his presence fading away. The room feels emptier without him, and sadness washes over you, a stab of guilt for potentially failing him now that you are left alone with your thoughts and the finality of the decision you have made.

The room remains shrouded in an eerie silence, broken only by the faint sound of Leon's steady breaths and the gentle rattling of the chains that bind him. 

Your gaze inevitably falls upon him, bound and unconscious before you. 

The sight of him, held captive by the chains, elicits strange emotions that defy explanation. There is an undeniable allure that emanates from his restrained form, drawing you in despite the chaos that surrounds you. It is a conflicting blend of fascination and revulsion, a cocktail of sensations that confound your senses. You should be consumed by panic, overwhelmed by the dire circumstances and the looming threat of the parasite within you. Yet, in this moment, a strange calm settles within your being. Is it the influence of the parasite that dulls your anxieties, or is it a resolute acceptance of the path you have chosen?

Despite the restraints that hold him captive, there is an undeniable attractiveness that surrounds him, gluing your eyes to the sight before you.

Kneeling on the floor, Leon’s muscular physique is accentuated by the susceptible position he finds himself in, the chains tightly holding his wrists above his head, rendering him defenseless and at your mercy. His sculpted arms, stretched taut and slightly strained, display the evidence of his strength even in his helpless state, veins beneath his skin appear more pronounced, as if awakened by the touch of captivity and the strain of gravity. His tousled locks of blond hair cling to his forehead and darken in shade where they meet with sweat, adding to his prettiness. Even in his unconsciousness, there is a magnetism that emanates from his chiseled features — strong jawline, cheekbones, and glistening lips that have known both determination and tenderness. The pinch of his eyebrows low over his eyes adds a touch of rugged toughness, contrasting with the vulnerability imposed upon him by the chains. His chest rises and falls rhythmically, betraying the calmness of his unconscious state. Light and shadow dance across his defined torso, revealing the slopes and curves that bear witness to his physical prowess. 

It is an unintended pull that arises from the juxtaposition of strength and exposure, dominance and surrender. The image of Leon bound and kneeling, his arms raised and secured by the unyielding chains, creates a powerful visual dichotomy — a captivating blend of control and submitting, strength and fragility.

You didn’t know you were into BDSM. Is this what it is? Why the hell does he look so mouth watering in chains to you when there are more dire matters to feel about — you are being a giant pervert about an unconscious man. Sympathy, desire, and protectiveness intertwine, blurring the lines between what is right and what is alluring. In this moment, you are both drawn to his physical presence and compelled to ensure his well-being, torn between the magic of his bound form and the urge to set him free to not let your thoughts run further.

You have no idea how much time passes before Leon's eyes flutter open, blinking away the haze of unconsciousness, and you stand up from where you were sitting, hands clasped before you in an anxious gesture, fearing his reaction. Panic briefly flashes across his face when the drowsiness clears enough for him to notice he’s bound by heavy chains, his arms held aloft and his movements restricted — the harsh tug on the chains makes you jump and that’s how he spots you standing nearby, concern etched on your features.

"You’re okay," Leon breaks the silence, his words a murmured astonishment. It's not a question, nor is it a statement of certainty. It's an observation imbued with gratitude. He's taken aback, as if his mind is struggling to comprehend that you are here with him at all. That’s the first thing he worries about? That’s what he cares about? “You stayed.”

The corner of your lips tugs upward in a soft, bittersweet smile. "Yeah, I did," you reply. The way he looks at you, as if you hold a small piece of his shattered world together, tugs at your heartstrings.

Leon’s more wary and threat-seeking when he brings up the stranger. “Luis?”  

You start playing with your fingers. "He left.” A pause. “It was my decision.” 

He sits up straighter, like he can’t believe what he’s hearing. “Is… that so?”

It’s so bizarre having a serious conversation with him in chains now that you’re living it. “I’m… I’m sorry for the chains, I, Luis, uh—”

“No, I get it.” He says it like it’s a given and he doesn’t mind it — and that’s when you’re reminded again that he’s a specially trained agent, that’s where the attitude weirdly used to these kinds of things has to come from. “I haven’t given you a reason to trust me.” He gazes at you, his eyes betraying remorsefully hidden emotions, voice dropping down to a low whisper. “Yet you stayed anyway even when I’m like this. I never thought... I never expected anyone would ever, for me… You know.”

Your heart is a soaked towel and he has just wrenched it dry. The way he sees himself physically hurts. "I couldn't leave you, Leon.” You sniffle, head shaking as you confess, revealing your devotion. “I could never leave you."

He reaches out, his restrained hands straining against the chains, as if longing to touch you, to reassure you of his own unwavering devotion. But all he can offer is his words. "That’s all I’ve been terrified of," he admits. It stays unknown to you if the subject of the sentence is you leaving him or you not leaving him. "Ever since I caught myself falling for you, that’s what all this has been about and — this shit inside me amplifies the worst in me, and you’re still here. Damnit.” 

Tears well up in your eyes, blurring your vision, but you refuse to let them fall. "Leon, you are not alone in this." You want to kiss away all worries and fears he keeps to himself, now in front of you in all of their intricate, overthought glory. "I made this choice because I believe in you. I believe in us."

His gaze intensifies, searching you for any trace of doubt or unease. But all he finds is unwavering faith, and a love that refuses to be shaken. "I don't deserve you," he murmurs,  barely above a whisper. All of a sudden, the tiredness you know all so well pushes down on him. "Not after everything."

A soft smile graces your lips, a gentle warmth spreading through your entire being. Luis is wrong. He is definitely wrong — this is Leon, and he’ll always be Leon. "And I don’t deserve your love." He immediately looks like he’s going to disagree on the spot, but you don’t give him the chance. "But here we are anyway. I'm here, no matter what. I’ve made my choice. If you’ll have me too—"

The tension in his shoulders eases slightly. "I'll do everything in my power to keep you safe," he vows, engraved with purpose. Just the way he says it could be added to a resume, the self-confidence and intentness of a professional in his field behind the power. "I'll prove to you that I can be the person you deserve."

"Leon, I already know the person you are. And I'm not going anywhere."

Leon's widened gaze inflames, breathing becoming more labored as he hangs his head down and nods a couple times while hiding his face from you. “Okay.”

You didn’t expect that to make you burst out laughing, and his head shoots up when he hears your laughter echoing in the chamber. “Sorry,” you cover your mouth, turning around to not let him see and think you’re mocking him. “Sorry, I’m not laughing at you.” You manage to turn it down to snickering, screaming at yourself to stop already. “It’s just… that was so unironically you and… God, help. I don’t know why this is so funny to me—”

“Okay...”

“Stop! Stop saying okay.” You laugh again at his intonation, pushing the back of your hand against your nose. “That’s all you can say?”

Some sort of fascination surfaces beneath his stoic mask, like he’s someone who’s hearing the birds chirp for the first time. “Actually, I have a lot to say, but…” You watch him rise, his height allowing him to hold his chained wrists on his waist level. He reaches out with his shackled hands, beckoning you to come to his side, yearning for a connection, “You’re too far away for it.”

You jokingly tease. “Will you be a good boy?”

It has an immediate effect on him, sweet adoration stains into something suggestive, lingering between you like a charged current, and you can feel the shift in his demeanor, the warning tilt of his head, the faint red shine swallowing the blue of his eyes, the chains rattling as he grabs onto them in a tight, restrained grip, body tensing, a coiled energy barely contained. 

As his voice emerges in a single, sharp syllable, a low and husky whisper, “Don’t,” it sends a shiver all over your body. The words are measured, deliberate, and carry an undertow of caution that both entices and warns. It's a dark invitation. 

Oh. 

Oh. 

It’s not just you. 

You’re both fucked up. 

And you take a step closer, closing the distance between you, your heart pounding in your chest, and he watches you like a hawk. “I’m just asking a question.”

His eyes glow with an intense crimson hue in response, piercing through the dim light, making you halt when there’s only about five feet left between you and him. Black veins spread across his skin like intricate patterns of ancient curses, marking him up. And extending from his lower back, a large scorpion-like tail emerges, its barbed stinger poised in the air, and just as how the spine is a series of individual vertebrae, small bones stacked one upon the other, his tail too is articulated, allowing it to curl like a snake, curving and undulating with an eerie grace, almost as if it has a life of its own.

It dances through the air, floating towards you, its presence both beguiling and unsettling. You watch, apprehensive and curious, as Leon manipulates his tail, rotating it to show you every angle. As he nudges you gently with it, an unexpected tenderness shines through his alien appearance. "It won't hurt you," he emphasizes, a soothing reassurance. He looks like a creature plucked from the pages of a fantastical novel, but his care for you remains undeniable. "Try touching it."

You observe the chitinous exoskeleton, marveling at its texture and the otherworldly allure it possesses. "Will you feel it?" you ask, a snap of fidget in your curiosity.

Leon's eyes meet yours, a flicker of a mischievous smile playing at the corner of his lips. "That's a dangerous thing to want, don't you think?" His words carry a double meaning, an underlying invitation to explore the depths of desire that lies beneath the surface. In that moment, you realize you've unknowingly become a participant in his intricate game, a delicate dance of discovering boundaries.

"Leon, half-insect or not, I would want every part of you," you confess, unapologetically honest and smoking with desire. A swelling of boldness overtakes you, fueled by a mix of desire and affection. You take a step closer, your hand reaching out to grasp his tail. The texture surprises you—smooth and warm, defying the expectations of a creature born from nightmares. Leon's tail jerks slightly in response to your touch, the connection between you both sending a jolt of static through where you’re touching, and he is momentarily stunned, his ardor momentarily subdued by your unabashed declaration. “I want you, always.”

"Alright, alright. You made your point," he interrupts, a flicker of bashfulness visible beneath his attempt to maintain a composed facade. The teasing spark in his eyes is replaced by a rare sentiment, his emotions laid bare before you. "Well. " Some sort of self-consciousness fogs his expression as he looks down. "Though I do feel the same,"  he concedes, pink creeping across his cheeks.

But you're not finished. You close the remaining distance between you, your eyes locked with his. "Leon, I love you." You pour your heart into those three words, stronger, unmoving, louder, hoping he understands the depth of your affection if he hasn’t gotten it yet.

He looks away for a brief moment, his gaze fixated on something indiscernible, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. "Yeah," he mumbles softly, almost lost in the space between you.

Undeterred, you reach out to gently grasp his face, turning his gaze back to meet yours. "I love you," you repeat, scolding him that he’s not taking you seriously. You want him to hear it, to understand the magnitude of your feelings.

A flicker of surprise crosses his features, quickly replaced by something akin to relief, leaning into your touch as if you’re the coolness he needs on a hot summer day. He likes hearing it from you, that much is clear, but the unfamiliarity of the sentiment leaves him momentarily at a loss for words. "Okay," he finally responds, his voice a soft affirmation.

You're about to reprimand him, demanding that he say the words you long to hear in return before you unchain him. But before you can voice your frustration, a sudden wave of dizziness crashes over you, throwing your world into disarray. Your vision blurs, the room spinning and tilting on its axis. You desperately blink, hoping to clear your sight, but the disorientation only worsens. The force of gravity seems to intensify, tugging at your stomach and weakening your legs, causing you to stumble forward. The pain strikes you with a merciless blow, knocking you off balance and into Leon's waiting arms. Your hands, once cradling his face, now find purchase on his shoulders for support.

"Hey!" The weight of your limp body causes Leon to follow you down, sinking to his knees just as you do. However, the chains that bind his arms above his head prevent him from fully supporting your torso. In a swift motion, he maneuvers his tail to secure your body against his, stopping you from falling backward. Your head lolls on his shoulder, basically shaking against him.

"Hang in there, come on," he pleads, trying to reach you. "Talk to me, what's happening?"

Struggling to keep the pain under a manageable level, you reply briefly, not wanting to talk. "I don't know... Felt… dizzy..."

"Shit, okay," he curses softly, his concern deepening. "Does it hurt?"

You just make a curt sound, wanting him to let it go and keep yourself from flopping like a fish out of water on the ground from how it’s ripping you apart. 

“I gotta know if it does. Can you tell me?”

You’re suffering, how does he not see? Does he need verbal affirmation that badly?

“Yeah,” you say behind gritted teeth. “Sure does.”

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes.”

“I’m going to sting you, alright? Only a drop of venom into your bloodstream,” he explains as merciful and comforting as he’s able in your state.  “You’ll feel a pinch but it’ll relax you. It might put you in an… aroused state because of your parasite, but you’ll no longer feel pain — it’ll feel good. I’ll take care of you.”

The mention of the potential side effects of whatever he wants to do to you makes your brow furrow in confusion, but there's no time to dwell on it. The pain has become unbearable, hacking at your every thought. "I'll feel good?" you question, dying for any kind of escape from the burning.

"Yeah," Leon affirms, a tenderness that reaches deep into your soul. "You'll feel good."

A stream of questions floods your mind, but Leon interrupts before you can voice them. "Not now," he interjects, pressing the syllables with more stress and emphasis. "Will you let me take care of you?"

His distress resonates with your own need for relief. "Yes," you respond without hesitation. "Yes, okay. This pain is killing me, just do it."

With a swift movement, his scorpion-like tail hovers near your exposed nape, its barbed stinger poised and ready.

"I promise, it'll be over soon," Leon whispers, dead set on his goal. "Just hold on."

The venomous tip of his tail makes contact with your skin and a sharp pinch sends a jolt of sensation through your body, but the initial pain subsides almost instantly, replaced by a soothing coolness that spreads from the injection site. It's an odd sensation, the venom working its way through your bloodstream, numbing the pain and replacing it with a peculiar mix of relaxation and heightened sensitivity.

A soft exhale is pulled from your lips as the effects continue taking hold, the relief washing over you like a gentle wave, and you melt against Leon, wrapping yourself around him, having automatically sought him out on pure instinct. He carefully adjusts his sitting and goes down on the balls of his feet to allow you to crawl on him, ensuring you're comfortable, his tail retracting to support your back for a more comfortable embrace.

"You're doing great," he murmurs, his voice a soothing melody amidst the chaos. "Just let it take effect, I’m here."

The heaviness in your limbs dissipates, replaced by a newfound lightness, as if a mass has been lifted from your body. The world around you becomes hazy, the edges blurred as the arousal Leon had warned about intertwines with the relief spreading through your veins, 

It begins with a tingling warmth that spreads across your limbs, akin to tiny sparks dancing on your flesh, and then, the heat gradually intensifies, caressing your senses with a gentle yet invigorating burn that awakens every nerve ending. But amidst the rising warmth, the usual wave of the venom’s coolness follows, like a frosty breath gently kissing your skin. The burn and the coolness entwine, creating an annoying race of who gets to be on top. The heat stimulates your awareness, drawing attention to how good it feels to have Leon’s strong body against you, how you would like more, how you want to explore this new form of his as he’s ribboned up like a present before you; but simultaneously, the coolness acts as a tranquil connection to reality, tempering the fiery sensations with its gentle touch.

Leon’s unique smell underneath your nose pours into your circulation from your heaving lungs, you snuggle in to get more of his scent, in the crook of his neck, right behind his ear… You can’t help but rub your head against it like it could somehow pass to your own body — it’s all instinct, the space of your head pleasantly misty, the feeling of only wanting to get closer wiggling enthusiastically inside. You notice your hands are on the move later, running up his sides and his back, only when you feel the ripple of bumps on his spine following your fingers gliding up and down as if responding to your touch. 

“Leon…” He sucks in a sibilant sound when your nails run down his back, momentarily shivering against you. “Leon…”

“Yes, I’m here.” It’s his tail that cuddles you against him because his hands are unavailable. “What do you need, sweet girl, hm?”

How do you say you want to fuck his brains out and do as you wish with him as he’s chained when he can’t retaliate, and how turned on you’re getting by the minute? “I need you.”

You hear the chains rattle and glance up briefly to see his hands balled up in the restraints. “How do you need me?”

His tendency to take things slow and enjoy the augmentation of need as it builds up is a formidable adversary to the you of the present, the frustration is testing the limits of your endurance. There’s something carnal in the way you want him right now, eating away at your patience for playing games with him. 

You rise on your knees still framing the outside of his thighs, and taking advantage of the small difference of height it gives you, yank his hair back to make Leon look up at you, his eyebrows arch upward in an arc, the ascent giving away the shock, and his mouth falls agape, lips parting to release a whispered exclamation “I don’t need this dirty talk, I want your dick in my throat.” You stare him down, catching your reflection in his red eyes and see that the same blight webbing him up is also infesting you, shining in your eyes in the same shade of crimson as his. You simply don’t care. “Is that a satisfying answer?”  

His chin lowers, leering lascivious, and you swear the veins on his face become a more prominent shade of black. “Jesus Christ.” He yanks on the chains, the harsh sound higher in pitch with the power behind it. “Gimme the key.”

“Nooooot gonna.” He leans towards you when you scooch away from his lap, but is unable to chase you fully. You fixate on his crotch, mouth watering, throat anticipating taking in his shape, phantom soreness reminding you what’s coming. You reach out to his thighs and place your palms on his knees, running them up awfully slow, feeling the rigidifying limbs under your touch. 

“Huh? Hey, what do you mean—” He’s stuck between trying to get up and staying that way for you. “What, you’re not untying me?”

“Shut up, I’m in heat right now.” You pop the button of his jeans and bring down the zipper, palming his half-hard bulge above his underwear. “Stop complaining.”

His hips jolt up into your hand, eyes fleetingly rolling behind his head from the satisfying contact, and his cock continues to swell up in your hand, straining against the confines of his briefs. “I’m not complaining — ”

You yank his underwear down, his head popping free and dangling, you bring the underwear underneath his hips along with his jeans with a little help from him rising up and allowing them to slide down better. “You brought this on me, so I’ll feel good the way I want to. Stop. Talking.” 

Chuckling in an underestimating mirth, he’s in the middle of saying, “Yes, ma’am—” mockingly when you lift the edge of his top up to shove the crumpled fabric into his mouth, exposing the carved dips and curves of his chest and stomach. He’s rendered shellshocked for only a second before he lukewarmly glares at you, that’s how you know he doesn’t hate it and only acts like he does. That interested swishing of his tail would be enough to break the chains, but he doesn’t attempt it at all. A silent communication passes between you two, that this is an extension of the role-reversal sex you had the day he left for Spain, and he makes it clear he’s down for whatever you want to do with him. 

Without breaking eye contact, you kiss down his chest and the pads of your fingertips glide along his heated, soft and firm skin, and slow down when you reach the plane of his pronounced abs that tense with each lick and open-mouthed nibble from you, the tautness increasing when the way down from his navel and the path you follow along the veins end up becoming torturously unhurried. 

He has to breathe from his nose, and you pick up where he is on the scale of impatience from his control breaking for it to seep into how sharp or deep they become 

You decide to go on your stomach for now,  letting him remain perched, the coldness filtering into your clothes from the ground not really all that important compared to drinking in all of Leon’s crumpled microexpressions. 

A satisfied noise rises from him as you take him into your hand and give a couple pumps and purposefully stick your tongue out to let your spit dribble considerably on it for better slip and slide, he’s starting to get red in the face. 

And when he thinks it’s about to start with the usual opening of getting him in the mood by the standard jerk-off and the buildup from there, you catch him off-guard by taking him all the way into your throat in one go, concentrating to keep your gagging and choking at a manageable bodily response that won’t make you recoil and start coughing — and surprisingly, it doesn’t hurt, whatever’s in that stinger of his is making everything feel different, you are actually scratching an itch at the back of your throat with Leon and it feels so fucking good to give him head and hearing him respond so eagerly to it. 

The sound he makes despite holding his shirt up with his mouth is choked and powerful as his hips jerk forward and pushes into your mouth, his guttural whine stutters from Leon as you swallow around him. He can’t talk and respond or tell you how you’re doing, but all the pretty noises, from gruff groans, to desperate humming, and restrained moaning tell you all about how he’s feeling. 

You run your nails along the skin underneath his naval and the muscles there jump, the bobbing of your head picking up unexpectedly as you’re literally working to rip his climax off, and he doesn’t feel it sneak up on him, breathing getting more rapid and panicked at how fast you’re wrenching it out of his dick and unconscious shallow thrusts meeting your movements right in the middle — you know exactly when he’s about to come from the slight swell of his dick in down your fluttering esophagus and the tightening of his stomach. 

That’s when you stop and take him out with an audible pop, your lips puffed and red, eyes teary. It twitches before slapping against him and his shirt falls from his teeth in an agonized and disappointed groan as his hips stutter forward in an attempt to search for friction, the fucking saliva trail connecting his lips to the fabric makes your heartbeat swoop downwards. “Why? I was right there!—”

You bat your eyelashes at him, blowing cold air on his denied arousal. “I know, baby.”

“You…” His lips draw back in the middle of a low sound at you gripping his base and giving the head kitten licks, alternating between swirling your tongue around and focusing on sucking the tip only. “Ah, what the fuck.” Your tongue delves into the slit of his head and precum gushes forward, his teeth are exposed in a breathy sharp hiss and a jolt.  “Yeah, that’s it… Shit.” 

The view of his fat chest and his strained, sweat-glistening strong neck swallowing is divine, you pick up the momentum again just to see him get worked up enough to throw his head back for the sight of his striking Adam’s apple, the black veins are doing something else to you that has your insides flipping.

You catch the glimpse of his tail swishing in the air, curling at tandem with your movements. You try taking all of him again to see how it’ll move and the sudden stop and trill has you wanting some friction between your legs. “Fuu—ck, your mouth is a vision, full of me.”

You lick along the bigger vein trailing up under his cock. “Does it feel that good?”

He only nods and thrums a small shudder, but you don’t let him off the leash just yet. “How easy.” Leon’s eyes snap open at the audacity. “Being chained and played with like this…” You give him a particularly harsh pump and the chains jangle because of his sudden tug. “Letting it happen because you want it so much. Desperate to be fucked.”

The degradation alone gets him to pulsate in your hand a couple times, his brow wrinkles as if he’s suffering. “You like this.” You drag a sluggardly strong grip up his weeping cock and his tail whips the ground. “Say it.”

His muscles tense and release, creating a rhythmic movement beneath the surface of his groin upon your teeth getting into the mix. “Shit — I love it.” His arms flex, causing his shackles to rattle. “Everything you do — everything you do to me feels amazing. Keep going, nearly there, I’m about to—”

You hum around him, and he clearly feels the vibrations, rising his hips in an unbelievably hot fluid movement and cursing under his breath, ruby-stained eyes glassy and feverish and mouth thinned and bit from inside. His thighs caging you begin to shake, and you’re made aware he’s close again. 

And this time, it’s him who knows you’ll pull back when he needs it the most. “Oh no, you don’t.” 

Something coils around your torso and pins you in place so his dick can’t slip out of your mouth, you struggle for air and attempt to pull back, but Leon barges in on your alarm, hoarse and gravelly. “Easy, it’s just me, don’t worry.”

Your hands grasp to the fabric of the jeans on the inside of his thighs, finally able to comprehend he used his tail to bind you — surprisingly gentle yet immovable, it doesn’t suffocate you, nor hurt you in any way. 

Mouth still around him, you look up to see he’s watching you, possessing a smoldering zeal, hunger a glint on a knife’s edge, shadow of a sly smile dances upon his lips, a knowing smirk, a sense of assuredness amplifying how he has you, one that reveals all that he’s thinking and claims control from your hands. With every heavy breath he takes, his chest rises and falls, revealing the heightened state of his arousal, and it seems his irises glow a shade darker crimson, a pulsating energy radiating from him, a palpable magnetism that ignites a fire within your own being.

“I’m going to move us around, stay still.” 

He makes sure to remove his erection from your mouth without hurting you before it’s with a natural predator’s grace he rises and stands up, his tail maneuvering you around to sit on your knees right in front of him, and you can only gape as he wraps the excess of chains around his wrists so they don’t get in the way, his forearms and biceps pop like they belong to a god like this. 

“Pretty mouth, waiting just for me.” At this height, he’s able to reach down and run a thumb along your bottom lip and push in, rubbing through the length of your tongue, fascinated.  

The giant appendage, then, unwinds around you, but much to your astonishment, doesn’t slither away, the thinnest end sneaking its way between your thighs instead and your legs clamp around it, but the drag forward defying your refusal has you squeaking. God, the jointed nature of it, like some weirdly shaped anal beads, is acting as periodic zaps moving against your heated sex. It even has the strength to fucking lift you up. Your panties are going to be ruined at this rate. “Leon, what—”

“Wanna make you feel good too.” You’re boosted up when it gives you a particularly harsh press, stars shooting everywhere in your vision with the delicious press not just focusing on one area, but rolling through your clit and dipping to make your entrance contract. “I’ll move it, you focus on taking me.”

Fuck, this is basically the thigh riding from before but on another level, that’s so hot —  

His manacled hands wrap around the angry red of his cock, the size of his hands so titillating fisting the length. “I’m gonna fuck your mouth, is that okay?”

You reflexively swallow, mouth watering instantly. “Please. Please.”

“Such a good girl, begging for my cock down your throat. I can’t refuse when you plead like that.” He rewards you by a rich thrust of his tail forward, your eyes closing in delight, you’re sure that a wet spot is forming with all that moving around. “Open up.” 

You obey and loosen your jaw as much as you can to let him set the pace, hands grabbing on the moving appendage between your legs in preparation to be used like some glory hole, but unlike your aggressive start from before, Leon is much more deliberate and unhurried in bottoming out, your head is swimming in a sea of dizzyingly gratifying smog, white and blanked out as he pleasures you through it. 

You get so lost in it that he sharply hisses and caresses your forehead with shaking hands and has to warn, “No teeth, sweet girl. Relax… Yeah, just like that. You’re doing so well, so perfect, making me feel so good.” 

You don’t mean to mewl around him the way you do, but his praises are so sweet as if he’s always getting his dick sucked for the first time, makes you feel appreciated, makes you feel special. 

Tears are streaming down your face, saliva drooling down your chin, you’re sure you’re gonna have a sore throat after this, and that sight would be ugly and messy to you, something you wouldn’t want to show anyone, needlessly embarassing, but it spurs Leon on, he craves prettying you up as he says, loves that you become a mess just for him — and you had missed all of that being a sign of neediness before all this. He loves the feeling of being special just as you do, loves that he’s able to get you filthy like this. 

“Shit — can’t believe I get to have this forever, now… Never thought… Never—” He breathily laughs, the sound turning into a wanton growl as your throat constricts through his drawn-out, unrushed thrusts. He’s babbling like a man in a confessional, speed beginning to pick up, the movement of his tail also reflecting the frenetic climb, sending your snowballing itch spiraling into completion. “Don’t care what happens anymore — don’t care, don’t care, only need this—sah, fuck!”  

His hands hastily rest on top of your hand to keep you in place and you whine and squeal, his stretch digging impossibly further down, a long groan echoing in the chamber at the same time of something metallic shattering and falling off with incredible strength, Leon’s hips twitching in place with your nose buried deep in the fuzz of hair at the base of his cock. Waves of warm spurts drizzle down your esophagus, and you don’t taste anything, but have a go at swallowing on instinct, and it coerces a strained, debauched moan out of him. 

His tail moves to pull you away from him and you sit back on your heels, shaking more so from your impending orgasm being pulled right under your feet like a rug because of the abrupt halt of the rhythm, unable to stop the coughing, wrapping a hand around your throat for dampening the soreness, and before you know it, his lips have taken the place of your hand, smothering your neck and your face with kisses. 

“You did so good. A fucking angel of sin — for me only.” He doesn’t hesitate to entwine his tongue with yours tenderly as if it’s a honeyed treat to lap up, his gratitude and enthusiasm running high as before. The way he speaks into your mouth gets you pressing your legs together to ease the painful, sweet throbbing between your legs. “You were amazing, sucked the soul out of me, holy shit.”

A whiny, “Leon,” and a tug on his shirt is all he needs to know you need him.  

“I know sweet girl, I have you.” His tail sneaks around your waist again, loose in case of your refusal. In the corner of your eye, you see the winch fastening the chains on the ceiling is squashed on the floor, yet his hands are still bound. “You trust me to make you feel good, right?”

“Yes, always.”

“You can say no if you don’t like this.” The sensation of being moved so easily by something alien is frightening as much as it’s arousing when it’s coming from Leon, your anticipation is about to drip down your legs at his tail gently propelling you up to stand on both feet steadily and turning you around so your back is facing Leon. You are bent down from the waist, and the fear of falling makes you jump, but the appendage is fully supporting you, almost making you float, you could stand on your tiptoes with full body weight and you wouldn’t crash on your forehead. “Is this alright?”

You are about to break down in a series of tremors from how much this is turning you on. “Yeah.”

His hands run along your tailbone. “I’m going to chain your wrists behind your waist. That okay?”

“Fuck. Yes.”

“Tell me if it’s too tight.” He doesn’t need to reach for your hands, you align them to rest on your waist on top of each other. He does adjust them a bit and sets you straight after you crane your neck to take a good look at what he’s doing — you’re only able to get a single frame of him unwinding some of the restraints around his wrists to bind them around yours, affectively connecting both your shackled wrists together in a short line of chain. One of his hands grabs and tugs, securing his tail around your torso a bit better at the same time. “How is that? Any discomfort?”

“It’s fine.”

“You sure?”

“Can you please just fuck me already, I’m about to die.”

He lets you go to slide two fingers up your clothed pussy, your folds quite literally pulsing at the contact. “It’s burning up —- you want to brand me, huh?”

You don’t indulge in his running mouth, just wanting to enjoy the fiery pleasure his fondling fingers light in their wake. 

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.” He switches to pulling your pants down together with your panties, but not all the way down, making it hang in the middle of the most supple part of your thighs, efficaciously getting them to act as yet another restraint, this time, around your legs so you won’t be able to part them. Two digits easily slide inside and you yelp, held in place mercilessly. “Fuck,” he says, faintly, a subdued composure, the voice going straight to your pussy and making you clench over his fingers. “You eat me up so eagerly. That hungry, sweet girl?”

Your head’s tingling and buzzing from all that rush of blood in this position, everything gets more overwhelming when you bow your head. You just want him inside you. “Please…”

 You pitifully moan at the loss of your fingers, and the brief squeeze of his tail is comforting. “I’ll relieve you.” The replacement of his bulbous tip running through your lower lips is enough stimulation for your toes to curl inside your shoes. 

You’re shaking with the release of your anticipation, and he curses. “Fuck, you’re sucking me in.” The same chain that binds you both rattles when he grabs your bound wrists, your eyes widening at how his tail also simultaneously pulls you towards him to sink into his girthy length, working together with his hips. 

He’s working you. Using you. Manhandling you, drilling you into him like he’s using a fleshlight as he pleases and everything feels so euphoric, your mind descending into a foggy, floaty bliss despite the tears of instant gratification; the whole burden of responsibility, decision-making, and external pressures melt away and only he exists, and the ecstasy Leon’s spoon-feeding you.

He checks in on you, pulling on your binds, voice tight. “Feel good, sweet girl?” 

“I wa—” You hiccup, followed by a trembling whimper, wanting something for your neglected clit, you can’t reach the threshold like this, you keep rising but not enough. “I wanna come, please, let me—”

“Sshh.” His tail is circling you, like a snake twisting around its prey, and you don’t get it at first that he’s getting more of it into the grip for the fat and curling part of his stinger to be able to reach and roll over your unattended, swollen nub. 

Your mind is so sunken into the pleasure you can’t even worry about the barbed part getting near your vulnerable parts, but he’s an expert at making it knead just the way that gets you uninhibitedly screaming. “I got you, I got you.”

Your legs collapse beneath you, his tail carrying your entire weight as your climax fractures within you unexpectedly, not even taking some time to grow and spread and take time aching — it just explodes, making your body convulse in aftershock shudders, unable to contain your palpitating sobs. 

“Ah, Jesus Christ, fuck!—” The clamp of your cunt around Leon also dropkicks him into his own orgasm, shooting straight into your cervix. He rams into you a couple times before he bottoms out to the hilt, his chained hands having yours in a death-grip, staying like that until the twitching of his cock subsides and he starts going soft. 

When you come to next, the chains are completely gone, broken and shattered on the floor, even. Your clothes are straightened and he sits cross-legged on the ground, his back to a wall, and you’re on his lap, tightly hugged by him, still struggling to catch your breath. The view of his muscular arms around your waist is a delight, as always. 

“I feel disgusting,” you say. A sense of discomfort washes over you, amplified by the lingering physical sensations of sweat and fluids. Your face contorts with a mix of satisfaction and unease, the need to cleanse yourself from the stickiness that clings to your skin uncomfortable.

“I think that was amazing.”

You snort. “Not that — I mean, I want to take a bath, everything feels so sticky.”

Leon plants a kiss to the side of your head. “I’ll take you.” 

He probably means somewhere you can clean yourself, but you can’t help but ask. “Take me where?” 

He pulls you in to snuggle better, resting his forehead on your shoulder, tired but playful. “Well, there’s this castle.” 

He still hasn’t told you all that much about what’s going to happen. There is no salvation from the parasite inside you anymore, it has its home in you, but you know you’re not a captive, not when you share the same chains as him. “After our visit, can I—can we return home, then?”

“I…” The sentence dies as it starts. “I don’t think that’s possible. Not for a while.”

“Because you won’t let me?”

“Because I don’t know what Saddler will want with you.”

He knew the consequences. 

Something inside you makes you change your mind — no, he chose the lesser of two evils for you knowing what was coming. 

You can’t bring yourself to blame him, this was meant to happen — you were meant for this gift, meant for this fate, to carry this creature, share it with him. You feel less doubtful and sure of this now, feel the same red of Leon’s eyes, the black of his veins, you shoulder the agony together. 

Your common sense gives a last breath as it fades into non-existence. “We’re fucked, aren’t we?”

He chuckles, shielded and spiteful. “Yeah.”

“But you still wanted me by your side.”

“I was worried.”

“You were lonely.” He succumbs into a muzzled silence, and you try to reach out once again. “At least we’re together, right?” 

“Yeah… Together in this hell.” You don’t get to see what kind of face he’s making. His deep voice is raspy, and despite his contrition, he’s holding onto you tighter than before. Failure is a shame upon him, and he doesn’t let himself be comforted. “I’m sorry for bringing you down with me.”

“I’d burn for you, anyway. I don’t care.”

He’s brusque and uncompromising. “I wouldn’t let you burn.”

“Then I’d burn with you.” You turn in his lap to look him right in the eyes — his red meets your red. “Together in this hell, right?”

Lambs to the slaughter.