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submalevolentgrace · 2 years ago

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Hi! I'm very interested in attempting to write a disabled character (not for this blog, I assure, for an book I'm writing) in which the story doesn't fetishize/objectify her prosthetic limb. I'm in many writing circles and have been for a long while, but I've never seen this issue brought to light which I realise is a very important one. I have much to change in my thought process, and thank you for bringing this issue to attention.

I'm curious, and I apologise if this has been asked before, but what sort of design could you see for a functional prosthetic that doesn't go for a plainly aesthetic appearance, or is soully to please others? I do note that you said prosthetics are generally... not that helpful. So is there a way that it could be? Or do you think it would always generally be better to not use a prosthetic, as its mostly for aesthetic purposes, as you said?

I apologise if this ask is too outright or anything, and I don't mean to intrude. Thank you for your time and have a beautiful day!

okay, i want to answer this as in depth as possible, because whenever i talk about having a prosthesis, someone will always tag some variation of "#writing reference" and i do wonder what message they're taking away, and i want to get as much of my experience out as possible to maybe help shape how this is all portrayed in the future. and yeah… this is gonna be one of those rambly smg posts that the expand feature was invented for, so i'll start with the very abridged TL;DR:

if you're writing a character with an upper limb prosthesis; don't. arm amputees are unicorn level rare even compared to leg amputees, and i've never interacted with or even heard of an upper limb amputee that regularly uses a prosthesis, let alone relies on one. fiction has lied to you for the sake of cool aesthetics, don't repeat the cycle. more in depth writing advice including nuance and "but i waaaant to" will follow.

that said, grab your donning parachute and let's get started...

context for everyone involved: i am an upper limb amputee that rants a lot about how prostheses suck, i lost my right hand roughly five years ago at roughly the age of 30 after a very rough decline in health… it was pretty rough. this question is being asked in the context of a previous rant post of mine, and i checked that the ask is about an upper limb prosthesis in particular.

the situation regarding the usefulness of lower limb prostheses is totally different; i am definitely no expert, but by all accounts, prosthetic legs are incredibly useful for many people. getting a good leg can be absolutely life changing and more or less necessary for day to day life for some; mostly because infrastructure and society is just so fucking hostile to wheelchair users. being able to walk - at the cost of pressure sores and rashes and increased residual limb pain - is a preferable option to many people than being unable to fit through a doorway or in a bathroom stall or find out that the key to unlock the only elevator is in the admin office up three flights of stairs (true story).

but upper limb prostheses… see, the thing is, hands are incredibly complex organs that rely on a lot of immediate haptic feedback to work at all. hand dexterity is all about control, you need fine granular movements of the digits yes, but you also need the subtle sensations of pressure and proprioception in order to adjust your movements on the fly. i speak from experience, in the years leading up to the full loss of my hand, i was slowly losing function of it, usually swinging between numbness that made it clumsy at best, or screaming overstimulation from moving it at all resulting in unpredictable spasms… and let me tell you, a half working hand is infuriating to try and deal with. you can never know if you have a good grip on something or if it's slipping because of the wrong amount of pressure, and there's only so many smashed bottles of pickles on the floor before you give up using it all together… so amputation wasn't a great loss there, i had time to adapt.

a prosthetic hand of any kind has all of those issues and more. they're heavy and bulky, the cosmetic faux fingers or gripping claw have crude movement at best, and there's zero feedback (put a pin in this). 100% of the time you're using a prosthetic hand you have to keep your eyes on the grip and visually guesstimate whether or not the thing you're carrying is held tight enough but not too tight, that is if your "heavy duty" prosthesis can even support the weight without the servos disengaging or the wrist attachment socket just busting loose. i dropped a whippersnipper on my foot last week when my socket couldn't take the weight and i think that was the final straw in me desperately trying to prove to myself that there is a single task my prosthesis actually helps with.

this is usually where fully two handed people start talking about bleeding edge DARPA tech, and how we just need to invest more,research more, develop more. better tech, more tech, neural integration, more more more. okay i promise the writing advice is coming! for starters on tech, my experience is already with a mid-to-high end ottobock terminal device: i've got a myoelectric nerve-signal operated proportional control heavy duty greifer; about the only upgrade left for me to get would be a rotating wrist joint if i could coflex. it's not military, it's not "rockclimber that owns a prosthetic company", but it's quality tech. it still fucking sucks. secondly, that high level military tech exists primary for PR purposes so they can say they treat their discarded casualties well, "we can rebuild him, we have the technology" style. every war vet i've read about or heard from that's been gifted that high level tech also abandons it for the same reasons; it's imprecise, there's no feedback (or the haptic interface has to be fully recalibrated every time they put it on), but mostly they're more capable without one.

okay, the transhumanist ableds say (i should know, i used to be one), what if we did more ~research and development~ and got that neural feedback working? then we could have fireproof superhumanly strong robot arms to fix up everyone! here's where i take out that pin we put up before and i tell you that a class of prosthetic arms/hands already exists that has perfect proportional control, fine motor control, and physics perfect pressure feedback piped directly into the patients' existing sensory systems! they're called body-powered prostheses, and they were invented in like the 1600s. you strap a whole bunch of stuff to your arm and shoulders shoulders, and control the operation of the terminal device and elbow through cable tension by flexing your shoulders. they do take a considerable amount of training to operate - though hell i spent 18 months training to use my myo - but based on everything i've read, body-powered prostheses are the best option if you're an upper limb amputee and absolutely need a second hand for some reason.

but they don't look cool and futuristic, and according to my prosthetist, most people give up on using them too. we all give up on our prostheses, no matter the type. my rehab OT was impressed i lasted the 18 months of my training. towards the end, they even asked if the clinic director could drop in to one of my sessions to see my progress; he expressed genuine amazement at me casually using my bulky robot claw to use a brush and dustpan, and made an offhanded (hah) comment about what someone can achieve "if they stick it out to the end", implying it was somewhat of a rarity for me to have done so. several years on, and yesterday i wedged the dustpan between my ankles to sweep up into it, awkward but exponentially less effort than putting my dusty robot arm on. which, by the way, is a whole thing. look up some videos, they're all awful to don. i don't actually know the official technical name of what my clinic calls a "parachute" but it's a bitch to use! have you ever tried to pull back with your arm whilst also pushing it forwards at the same time, and simultaneously lean in to and away from an external force pulling on you? that's how you get a myo socket on.

bare with me, i promise writing advice is coming, and i promise it's more than the tl;dr. but. remember when i said a half working hand is infuriating to deal with? any prosthesis, from fancy myo tech to pirate-era body powered, will only ever be half as good as a working hand, and being juuuust within capability to do something but not quite able to is maddening! but you know what works way better than a half working hand? no hand at all. using whatever residual/vestigial limb you have - whatever "stump" you have, i hate that word - is pretty much always better than trying to use a prosthesis. i can use the inside of my elbow to grip and carry things, i can use the nub of my arm to apply pressure to hold things, open doors, use a computer mouse, turn on taps and lights, if i put a glove over it i can use it to prep for cooking. i have full proprioception and pressure feedback with skin contact, i don't think i've ever dropped and broken anything from my elbow, unlike countless things slipped from my greifer - which, by the way, absolutely will start clenching as tight as it can if i get even slightly too sweaty around the electrodes, which has both broken things i'm holding and also injured me, because surprise surprise but servo operated robot claws have pinch points on them right near the "emergency disengage" lever for some reason!

but i am exponentially more capable without it on than with it. no, i'm not fully independent, i rely on housemates and loved ones to help me out with some tasks that simply just need two handed dexterity, but none of those tasks are things a prosthesis makes me able to do anyway. i used to imagine my prosthesis would be like a bra; a bit awkward and uncomfortable, but i'd wear it throughout the day because it's helpful and take it off in the evening to decompress. in reality it's actually exactly like a bra: an absolute bitch to put on one handed, unbearably uncomfortable because it never sits right, ugly af unless you're a millionaire, and absolutely useless except for the fact that i get gawked at and judged by strangers if i leave the house without it on.

and if you really want to discover how far "no hand is better than a half working hand" goes, brace yourself, and look up the patient's stories (not medical system stories) of people that have had hand transplants. the first man to receive one hated it, he was promised a return to normal function, and what he got was a nightmare worse than being one handed; he wanted it removed again but the doctors refused because it would undermine their grand achievement of the first hand transplant. the doctors and society wanted him to be fixed, they wanted him to be normal, they wanted him to be abled. they failed. they made him less able to do things, denied his autonomy, and left him with someone else's hand slowly rotting on him, prioritising the idea of "scientific progress" and "two hands good" over the physical health, mental health, and ability to function of this man.

he's not alone; every story from the patients' perspective about hand transplants that i've read goes this way, including a woman who was born quad limb different and was promised hands would improve her life, pressured into a double hand transplant, only to find herself after the surgery essentially experiencing disability for the first time ever, because she had lived her whole life getting by just fine with her 'underdeveloped' limbs, but half working hands are worse than useless. you can try to find these stories yourself, but i'm not going looking for sources on any of these cases, because if you look back through enough of my posts you'll get a glimpse of the horrors and abuses that i too was put through by doctors who prioritised trying to "fix" me at any cost, rather than providing me the best quality of life, and in turn traumatised me and left me more broken than any loss of limb on its own could. dear goddess, i promise the writing advice is coming.

so. why do upper limb prostheses exist at all? if they're so terrible and useless, what is their function? i want to borrow something someone else left in the tags of a previous rant here, from someone who i believe works in prosthetics and/or rehab, cleaned up and anonymised at their request:

"upper limb functions are wildly more complex than: 1) bear weight static, and 2) bear weight moving. but every single upper limb amputee i know has a fancy expensive prosthetic just gathering dust in the closet because there is literally nothing it can do like a few years of adjustment and if needed non-dominant hand retraining can't do. the existence of forquarter prosthetics to begin with is just kind of silly and useless and entirely to make OTHER people feel comfortable, especially considering they universally are UNcomfortable for the amputee. i hate the notion that as soon as you get the amputation the prosthetic is The Thing That Will Fix You And Make You Feel Normal again because it universally isn't! but every forequarter person i know had like this ideal of Being Fixed By Magic Prosthetic that they were then obviously wildly disappointed by and had to do yet another grieving process with, versus if the dominant narrative were just one of: yeah. it'll take time, there is no magic fix."

and i think that really nails down what the actual purpose of upper limb prostheses is: they're not for the user, they're for the sake of other people. and not just their comfort when looking at our bodies, although based on the pressure for both amputees and people born limb different to get functionless cosmetic plastic hands, there is a lot of that. but it's not just that.

i fully believe that the reason prosthetic hands exists is to comfort the fears of the two handed. "don't worry", they say, "we can fix you again. you don't have to fear becoming Disabled, you don't have to worry about adapting or your life changing. we can make you Normal™ again."

you would not believe the number of people that have approached me to shower me with pity, to tell me how horrific my life is, how they can't imagine it. people have told me, apropos of nothing, that they'd kill themselves if they lost a hand. indirectly, that my life isn't worth living. unless, of course, i happen to be wearing my cool as fuck looking robot prosthesis! then they tell me how wonderful it is, how lucky i am, how glad they are that we have the technology to fix me. that's what a prosthetic hand says, what all the happy fishing photos on limbs4life posters at the rehab clinic say: don't worry, we can fix you. that's what the bleeding edge DARPA flexi-whatever fully articulated neuro-feedback hands say: don't worry if you get IED'd while hunting civilians for us to drone bomb, if you get hurt, we will fix you, we will fix the fuck out of you, we will motherfucking adam jensen you into a cool as fuck cyborg that your son will idolise; come on boys, don't you wanna enlist just for the chance at being as cool as this? join the bomb squad for a ticket to the upgrade lottery.

and so we arrive at fiction. as much as his dialogue options protest, adam jensen loves his robot arms, they punch through walls, turn into fucking swords! they make him the most special man in the world. what would he do without them? learn to cope? grieve? practice acceptance? take up poetry? just, be disabled? there's no power fantasy for ableds in that.

in fact, can you think of a single fictional character that's an upper limb amputee that's, well, just an amputee? they all have robot arms. not realistic prostheses, not medical devices; robot arms. sleek or bulky, top of the line or broken down self built, steampunk or nanomachines or magitech automail; they're never without them. never just an amputee. never born limb different either! there's always that element of tragedy to overcome, always suffering and misery porn, always focus on the pain and the helplessness without the absolutely vital robot arm that makes them Normal and Whole. the closest amputee example i can think of is furiosa from mad max, who iirc fucking punches max in the face with her residual limb like a motherfucking badass! i can barely lean on mine wrong and she punches a guy! but she still apparently needs a dieselpunk robot hand to drive a truck, something you can do one handed so easily most drivers don't even notice they're doing it! please don't, by the way

and so many disabled fans love to point to robot armed characters as disability representation; the winter soldier, luke skywalker, edward elric, misty knight, that genderswapped furry girl from ratchet and clank, jet cowboybebop, finn the human, and yes, adam jensen…. these are all characters that someone disabled i know has told me they love because they "represent disabled bodies"…. and i know nobody wants to hear this, because i've been screamed at for saying it before, but… they do not. they are not disabled, functionally or within fiction. they are either perfectly able bodied Normal people with chrome paint on an arm, or tortured misery porn we are supposed to pity and feel lucky we're not them. sometimes both!

also you ever notice how it's basically always arms? lower limb amputations are orders of magnitude more common than upper, my prosthetist said i was probably only the 4th or 5th upper limb she'd worked with in her career, with literally hundreds of lower limb fits. but fiction doesn't seem to reflect that, huh? or any other part of the reality of disability. it's always cool as fuck robot arms, never cool as fuck wheelchairs or crutches or dialysis machines or colostomy bags. a fair few "i was blind but now i can see with Robot Eyes and also infrared and xray" around, which again, plays into that "we can fix you and make you cooler" propaganda.

by the way, up above when i was describing body powered arms, if you wondered to yourself why i went with a myoelectric one instead when i clearly believe body powered is better… yeah. i am not immune to propaganda! i too wanted to be cool as fuck. i spent years with deteriorating function in my hand for reasons that are still unknown, was misdiagnosed and medically neglected to the point that removing my hand seemed to be the only option left to offer some relief, and even that was a clusterfuck that left me worse than ever… of course i wanted to believe in the power and prestige of a cool robot arm that fiction promised me.

but fiction promises fantastical lies. and so.

we get to the writing advice portion of the novella that is this post. you asked for advice on how to write a disabled character with an upper limb prosthesis. you've read the tl;dr, you've read everything above i assume, you know i don't want you to do it. the obvious twist is that it's been writing advice all along, me trying to share my perspective on what it's like being an amp with a robot arm and how shitty it is, implying how almost any fully realised and realistic character that's missing an upper limb would give up on a prosthesis at all. you can already tell that every value judgement in me says "don't give her a prosthesis, no matter how functional or cool you make it. don't try to make the tech better to justify it, just let her be one armed, one handed. just let her be disabled, but not helpless. let her show off her elbow or underarm carry strength. let her love interest appreciate how soft and squishy her residual limb is in a moment of tenderness. let her natural disabled body be respected and valued."

but that's a personal value judgement from me, and you are the author of your own work. i know it's trite to say, but you are! even the act of deferring to someone with lived experience in the hope of doing a better job at representation is a value judgement, a good choice in my opinion, but one you needn't necessarily take. maybe you do want to write a character that has a cool as fuck unrealistic robot arm as a power fantasy, or a comfort blanket… i did.

i've been slowly writing my own probably terrible scifi epic for over a decade now, and when my arm was giving me hell back then, i'd take great comfort in this fantasy of my protagonist with her chunky robot arm, the terrible traumatic suffering of her loss, overcoming, the power and ability her advanced prosthesis gives her over others, that she alone has access to, because others are not willing to make the sacrifices required. inspiration porn. awful stuff to me now, but empowering to me then. as i grew and gained direct experience, i slowly reimagined her, rewrote her, ship of theseus'd her into an entirely new character; a reflection of me now, bitter at the whole thing, spiteful that her natural flesh arm evokes fear and distrust, but unwilling to suffer the pain and frustration of her unnatural prosthesis just to make others comfortable and respect her as "whole", however artificial that whole is. and as with the ship of theseus being two ships, once i realised the transformation, i re-added the old protagonist back in whole cloth as a separate character; proud of her robot arm and its power, but in new context, as a foil and antagonist, an in-universe military prosthesis propaganda figure to reflect how i now feel characters like her exist to us, the readers.

i'm not just sharing that as egotistical self promotion, but to highlight that, even if i sit here begging you all up and down not to write characters with robot arms for how bad and unrealistic they are; there's still something genuine and true that their inclusion can say. the great thing about the story that you're writing is that only you can write it, as they say. but i whole heartedly believe that to write to your best, you have to be aware of what you're writing and why. as tempting as it is to feel these characters form naturally in us and therefore we're averse to changing traits about them that feel organic and self evident; as authors we have omnipotent control over the text, every trait and detail is a reflection on us, so we'd sure as hell better understand why we're choosing to write a character with this trait. because anything you write without being aware of intent will take on its own meaning in the space between.

and on that note, if i don't say this, i'm leaving it to be inferred: i definitely don't want to appear to come down on the side of saying "you cannot write an amputee unless you are one", because we are rarer than single young bisexual unicorns! and it would be a tragedy if anyone read through all this and then turned away in fear, deciding to never write an amputee character (with or without robot arm) because they feel they can't do it justice… believe me, no matter what anyone says, some hack writer somewhere is going to keep writing adam jensens and winter soldiers. don't let them be the only voices in fiction! just try to do your best.

so my ultimate advice on the topic of writing a character with a prosthetic limb is to ask yourself one question in two different frameworks, and meditate on what you feel the answer is:

why does she have a prosthesis?

from a doylelist perspective as the kids say, as an author with omnipotent control, why are you choosing to write about this topic? why are you choosing to give this trait to this character? what does it say about how you view ability and disability, what makes a person normal, and what our society values? will you let her be in her natural body? or will you give her a prosthesis, force her to wear it by authorial fiat, or author her a meaningful reason to choose to? if yes, be sure you know; why did you give her a prosthesis?

and from a wastonian perspective, diegetically, inside the story, why does she choose to wear a prosthesis? what does it say about her inner character, and how she interacts with the world? how does she feel about doing it, is she prideful and loves the attention she gets, or does she resent whatever necessitates its use? how do people in this world view ability and disability, what does this society value? and above all, whatever the answer to these questions, whether or not she uses a prosthesis or is badass without one, how does she deal with the eternal freezing cold that every amputee ever feels constantly in their residual limb and why does nobody make a heat pack that fits over a nub without drafty gaps???

i can't outright tell you how to write a good upper limb amputee, but if you at least know why you're writing one and for what purpose, you're on track to write the best character that you can. that's the best advice i can give… other than, like, this whole rambly mess.

and, as a reward for reading this far, please have a very blurry cryptid photo of my cat doing his old man sit:

#prosthesis #prosthetic #disability #ableism

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jewelleria · 8 months ago

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I don’t usually talk about politics on here, if ever. But it’s been almost six months since the conflict in the Middle East flared up again, and I’m finally ready to start. Here are some of my thoughts.

I say ‘flared up’ because this has happened before and it’ll happen again. Because, even though what's currently going on is absolutely unprecedented, those of us who live in this part of the world are used to it. Let that sink in: we are used to this. And we shouldn’t have to be.

But I use that term for another reason: I don't want to accidentally call it the wrong thing lest I come under fire for being a genocidal maniac or a terrorist or a propaganda machine, etc., etc.—so let’s just call it ‘the war’ or ‘the conflict.’ Because that’s what it is. Doesn’t matter which side you’re on, who you love, or who you hate.

This post will, in all likelihood, sit in my drafts forever. If it does get posted, it certainly won’t be on my main, because I'm scared of being harassed (spoiler: she posted it on her main). I hate admitting that, but honestly? I’m fucking terrified.

I also feel like in order for anything I say on here (i.e. the hellscape of the internet) to be taken seriously, I have to somehow prove that a) I’m “educated” enough to talk about the conflict, and b) that my opinion lines up with what has been deemed the correct one. So, tedious and unnecessary though it is, I will tell you about my experience, because I have a feeling most of the people reading this post are not nearly as close to what’s happening as I am.

How do I explain where I live without actually explaining where I live? How do I say “I live in the Red Zone of international conflicts” without saying what I actually think? How do I convey the fear that grips me when I try to decide between saying “I live in Palestine” and “I live in Israel”? I don't really know. But I do know that names are important. I also know that, due to the various clickbaity monikers ascribed to the conflict, it would probably just be easier to point to a map.

I haven't always lived in the Middle East. I've lived in various places along America’s east coast, and traveled all over the world. But in short, I now live somewhere inside the crudely-drawn purple circle.

If you know anything about these borders you probably blanched a bit in sympathy, or maybe condolence. But in truth, it’s a shockingly normal existence. I don't feel like I've lived through the shifting of international relations or a war or anything. I just kind of feel like I did when COVID hit, that dull sameness as I wondered if this would be the only world-altering event to shape my life, or if there would be more.

I've been told that, in order for my brain to process all the horrific details of the past six months, there needs to be some element of cognitive dissonance—that falling into a sort of dissociative mindset is the only way to not go insane under the weight of it all. I think in some ways that’s true. I have been terrifyingly close to bus stop shootings when my commute wasn’t over; I have felt my apartment building shake with the reverberations of a missile strike; I have spent hours in underground shelters waiting for air raid sirens to stop.

But. I have also gone grocery shopping, and skipped class, and stayed up too late watching TV, and fed the cats on the street corner, and cried over a boy, and got myself AirPods just because, and taken out the trash, and done laundry on a delicate cycle, and bought overpriced lattes one too many days a week. I have looked at pretty things and taken out my phone because, despite it all, I still think that life is too short not to freeze the small moments.

So I'd say, all things considered, I live an incredibly privileged life—compared, of course, to those suffering in Gaza—one filled with sunsets and over-sweetened knafeh and every different color of sand. One that allows me to throw myself into a fandom-induced hyperfixation (or, alternatively, escape method) as I sit on the couch and crack open my laptop to write the next chapter of the fic I'm working on.

But there are bits of not-normalness that wheedle their way through the cracks. I pretend these moments are avoidable, even if they’re not.

They look like this: reading the news and seeing another idiotic, careless choice on Netanyahu’s part and groaning into my morning coffee. Watching Palestinian and Jewish children’s needless suffering posted on Instagram reels and feeling helpless. Opening my Tumblr DMs to find a message telling me to exterminate myself for reblogging a post that only seems like it’s about the war if you squint and tilt your head sideways.

These moments look like all the tiny ways I am reminded that I'm living in a post-October seventh world, where hearing a car backfire makes me jump out of my skin and the sound of a suitcase on pavement makes me look up at the sky and search for the war planes. They look like the heavy grief that is, and also isn’t, mine.

Here's the thing, though. I know you’re wondering when the ball will drop and my true opinion will be revealed. I know you’re waiting for me to reveal what demographic I'm a part of so that you, dear reader, can neatly slap a label on my head and sort me into some oversimplified category that lets you continue to think you understand this war.

No one wants to sit and ruminate on the difficult questions, the ones that make you wonder if maybe you’ve been tinkered with by the propaganda machine, if you might need to go back on what you’ve said or change your mind. We all strive for our perception of complicated issues to be a comfortable one.

But I know that no matter what I do, there will always be assumptions. So, while I shudder to reveal this information online, I think that maybe my most significant contribution to this meta-discussion spanning every facet of the internet is this:

I am a Jew.

Or, alternatively, I am: Jewish, יהודית, يَهُودِيٌّ, etc. Point is, I come from Jews. And, like any given person, I am a product of generation after generation of love.

I'm not going to take time to explain my heritage to you, or to prove that before all the expulsions and pogroms, there was an origin point. If you don’t believe that, perhaps it’s less of a factual problem and more of an ‘I don’t give weight to the beliefs of indigenous people’ problem. But, in case you want to spend time uselessly refuting this tiny point in a larger argument, you can inspect the photos below (it’s just a small chunk of my DNA test results). Alternatively, you can remember that interrogating someone in an attempt to make their indigeneity match your arbitrary criteria is generally not seen as good manners.

Now, let’s go back to thathateful message (read: poorly disguised death threat) I received in my Tumblr DMs. I think it was like two or three weeks ago. I had recently gained a new follower whose blog’s primary focus was the fandom I contribute to, so I followed them back. I saw in my notes that they were going through my posts and liking them—as one does when gaining a new mutual. Yippee!

Then they sent me this:

I tried to explain that hate speech is not a way to go about participating in political discourse, but the person had already blocked me immediately after sending that message. Then, assured by the fact that I surely would never see them complaining about me on their blog (because, as I said, they blocked me), they posted a shouting rant accusing me of sympathizing with colonizing settlers and declaring me a “racist Zionist fuck.” Oh, the wonders of incognito tabs.

Where this person drew these conclusions after reading my (reblogged) post about antisemitism…. I'm not actually sure. But I greatly sympathize with them, and hope that they weren’t too personally offended by my desire to not die.

For a while I contemplated this experience in my righteous anger, and tried to figure out a way to message this person. I wanted to explain that a) seeing a post about being Jewish and choosing to harass the creator about Israel is literally the definition of antisemitism and b) that sending a hateful DM and refusing to be held accountable is just childish and immature. But I gave up soon after—because, honestly, I knew it wasn’t worth my effort or energy. And I knew that I wouldn't be able to change their mind.

But I still remember staring at that rather unfortunate meme, accompanied by an all-caps message demanding for me to Free Palestine, and thinking: the post didn’t even have any buzzwords. I remember the swoop of dread and guilt and fear. I remember wondering why this kind of antisemitism felt worse, in that moment, than the kind that leaves bodies in its wake.

I remember thinking, I don’t have the power to free anyone.

I remember thinking, I’m so fucking tired.

And before you tell me that this conflict isn’t about religion—let me ask you some questions. Why is it that Israel is even called Israel? (Here’s why.) Why do Jews even want it? (Here’s why.) But also, if you actually read the charters of Islamist terrorist organizations like ISIS, Hamas, and Hezbollah (among others), they equate the modern state of Israel with the Jewish people, and they use the two entities interchangeably. So of course this conflict is religious. It’s never been anything but that.

But I do wonder, when faced with those who deny this fact: how do I prove, through an endless slew of what-about-isms and victim blaming, that I too am hurting? How do I show that empathy is dialectical, that I can care deeply for Palestinians and Gazans while also grieving my own people?

There's this thing that humans do, when we’re frustrated about politics and need to howl our opinions about it into the void until we feel better. We find like-minded souls, usually our friends and neighbors, and fret about the state of the world to each other until we’ve gone around in a satisfactory amount of circles. But these conversations never truly accomplish anything. They’re just a substitute, a stand-in catharsis, for what we really wish we could do: find someone who embodies the spirit of every Jew-hating internet troll, every ignorant justifier of terrorism, and scream ourselves hoarse at them until we change their mind.

But, of course, minds cannot be changed when they are determined to live in a state of irrational dislike. In Judaism, this way of thinking has a name: שנאת חינם (sinat hinam), or baseless hatred. It's a parasite with no definite cure, and it makes people bend over backwards to justify things like the massacre on October seventh, simply because the blame always needs to be placed on the Jews.

So when a Jew is faced with this unsolvable problem, there is only one response to be had, only one feeling to be felt: anger. And we are angry. Carrying around rage with nowhere to put it is exhausting. It's like a weight at the base of our neck that pushes down on our spine, bending it until we will inevitably snap under the pressure. I’m still waiting to break, even now.

I wish I could explain to someone who needs to hear it that terrorism against Israelis happens every single day here, and that we are never more than one degree of separation away from the brutal slaughter of a friend, lover, parent, sibling. I wish it would be enough to say that the majority of Israelis (which includes Arab-Israeli citizens who have the exact same rights as Jewish-Israelis) wish for peace every day without ever having seen what it looks like.

I wish I could show the world that Israel was founded as a socialist state, that it was built on communal values and born from a cluster of kibbutzim (small farming communities based on collective responsibility), and that what it is now isn’t what its people stand for.

I wish the world could open their eyes to what we Israelis have seen since the beginning: that Hamas is the enemy, Hamas is the one starving Palestinians and denying them aid, Hamas is the one who keeps rejecting ceasefire terms and denying their citizens basic human rights. Hamas is the governing body of Gaza, not Israel. Hamas is responsible for the wellbeing of the Palestinian people. And Hamas are the ones who are more determined to murder Jews—over and over and over again, in the most animalistic ways possible—than to look inwards and see the suffering they’ve inflicted on their own people. I wish it was easier to see that.

But the wishing, the asking how can people be so blind, is never enough. I can never just say, I promise I don't want war.

When I bear witness to this baseless hatred, I think of the victims of October seventh. I think of the women and girls who were raped and then murdered, forever unable to tell their stories. I think of the hostages, trapped underneath Gaza in dark tunnels, wondering if anyone will come for them. I think of Ori Ansbacher, of Ezra Schwartz, of Eyal, Gilad, and Naftali, of Lucy, Rina, and Maia Dee, of the Paley boys, of Ari Fuld and of Nachshon Wachsman. I think of all the innocent blood spilled because of terror-fueled hatred and the virus of antisemitism. I think of all the thousands of people who were brutally murdered in Israel, Jews and Muslims and Christians and humans, who will never see peace.

My ties to this land are knotted a thousand times over. Even when I leave, a part of me is left behind, waiting for me to claim it when I return. But when I see the grit it takes to live through this pain, when I see the suffering that paints the world the color of blood, I look to the heavens and I wonder why.

I ask God: is it worth all this? He doesn't answer. So I am the one, in the end, to answer my own question. I say, it has to be.

Feel free to send any genuine, respectful, and clarifying questions you may have to my inbox!

EDIT: just coming on here to say that I'm really touched & grateful for the love on this post. When I wrote it, I felt hopeless; I logged off of Tumblr for Shabbat, dreading the moment I would turn off my phone to find more hate in my inbox. Granted, I did find some, and responding to it was exhausting, but it wasn’t all hate. I read every kind reblog and comment, and the love was so much louder. Thank you, thank you, thank you. 🤍

Source Reading

The Whispered in Gaza Project by The Center for Peace Communications

Why Jews Cannot Stop Shaking Right Now by Dara Horn

Hamas Kidnapped My Father for Refusing to Be Their Puppet by Ala Mohammed Mushtaha

I Hope Someone Somewhere Is Being Kind to My Boy by Rachel Goldberg

The Struggle for Black Freedom Has Nothing to Do with Israel by Coleman Hughes

Israel Can Defend Itself and Uphold Its Values by The New York Times Editorial Board

There Is a Jewish Hope for Palestinian Liberation. It Must Survive by Peter Beinart

The Long Wait of the Hostages’ Families by Ruth Margalit

“By Any Means Necessary”: Hamas, Iran, and the Left by Armin Navabi

When People Tell You Who They Are, Believe Them by Bari Weiss

Hunger in Gaza: Blame Hamas, Not Israel by Yvette Miller

Benjamin Netanyahu Is Israel’s Worst Prime Minister Ever by Anshel Pfeffer

What Palestinians Really Think of Hamas by Amaney A. Jamal and Michael Robbins

The Decolonization Narrative Is Dangerous and False by Simon Sebag Montefiore

Understanding Hamas’s Genocidal Ideology by Bruce Hoffman

The Wisdom of Hamas by Matti Friedman

How the UN Discriminates Against Israel by Dina Rovner

This Muslim Israeli Woman Is the Future of the Middle East by The Free Press

Why Are Feminists Silent on Rape and Murder? by Bari Weiss

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theremustbeabear · 21 days ago

Text

a lot of monster media has a hard time with balancing making their monster incredibly dangerous but also keeping the most important characters alive without it seeming like obvious plot armour

but i think the terror does a really great job--not just because they do allow it to kill a number of important characters, but because of the composition of the two scenes where tuunbaq is beaten

the first, in ep 5, is when tuunbaq chases blanky up the foremast, which, on the surface, seems like a very obvious case of plot armour. tuunbaq kills several other crewmen with incredible ease in that very same scene, but then blanky is spared long enough to escape from it, simply because he's an important character.

but that's not what's going on there. all of the easy deaths, so far, prior to this, have occurred on tuunbaq's territory. on flat ground, on the ice, and now tuunbaq is staking its claim on terror. but terror is still occupied, and blanky, especially, is a man who is more at home on a ship than land. tuunbaq is beaten, here, because blanky is playing with a home turf advantage. blanky does have armour, but it's not because he's an important character--it's because tuunbaq has invaded the space where he's most comfortable, and so he goes up, to where he knows a bear can still follow him, but it'll be exposed, and too heavy to follow him all the way.

and this show has done a great job of setting the stakes, already, by this point--the first time i watched this scene, even though blanky was so far surviving the confrontation, i was incredibly sure that he wasn't going to make it out. i thought for certain that he was going to have to sacrifice himself in order for them to hit tuunbaq with the cannon, and so it was deeply satisfying when he actually survived. i was so fucking happy, because i was already starting to get sad about him being dead, even though he wasn't dead yet, lol. it feels earned, when he makes it out, and fair enough that he loses a leg in the process, too.

the second, in the final episode, is i think a bit more obvious, and considering how many other major characters get torn apart, it doesn't feel quite so much like crozier has plot armour. but tuunbaq is once again beaten by using the things that are not native to its land, that tuunbaq isn't designed to deal with. the sick and poisoned flesh of the seamen it's already consumed, for one, and then the boat chain.

and, for the second time, in order to beat tuunbaq, a limb must be sacrificed--crozier's hand, i think, counts, even though he loses it after the confrontation is long over, because blanky only loses his leg properly after the fact as well. and i think this can be brought around to how tuunbaq's shaman must remove their own tongue to communicate with it--if one wishes to have any sort of dominance over tuunbaq, a part of their body must be given in exchange. silna and her father give their tongues, blanky gives his leg, and crozier gives his hand.

and it is emphasized through hickey's failure that tuunbaq cannot be controlled by the expeditioners. the colonizers. it can be beaten back, and suppressed, and killed, through sacrifice, but it cannot be harnessed. it belongs to silna's people, to the inuit, and cannot truly be taken away. the only way to beat it is by invading its home with foreign powers and losing something of yourself in the process.

tl;dr thomas blanky doesn't need plot armour because he's just that good /silly and also this show is just. awesome.

#jupiter.txt #remus.txt #the terror #thomas blanky #francis crozier #tuunbaq #terror meta

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seresinhangmanjake · 14 days ago

Note

Fluff for Feyd, reader tells him that she’s proud of him and it’s the first time someone’s said that to him genuinely 🩵

Feyd-Rautha x reader

All He Knew

Summary: Feyd deals with the emotional aftermath of protecting you from his uncle.

Notes/Warnings: mention of past abuse, mention of death, and vulnerability. It's fluffy-ish and angsty-ish, and slightly different, but I still kept in the main idea. Hopefully you still like it :)

Words: 1150

Feyd-Rautha Masterlist / Main Masterlist / Tag list

You knew the second your husband’s blade went through the Baron’s neck that his whole world would change. Everything inside of him would disconnect. The pieces of his inner self would scatter chaotically, and he would no longer know who to be. You knew because of the power his uncle held over him for the majority of his life.

After Feyd killed his mother, the Baron was all he had. And how do you go from having the fullness of an overbearing presence on your shoulders—miserable as it was—to nothing? By killing the Baron, Feyd excised a part of himself, as if some creature had sauntered up to his side and taken a big bite out of his body. And now there’s a chunk missing that you fear cannot be filled, even by you.

He cries when he thinks you’re asleep. And though you continue to feign unconsciousness as you roll over and drape your arm over his waist, it’s not always enough to stop the tears. Part of you knew it wouldn’t be, but you still hoped. You hoped that having you beside him would remind him why he did what he did.

The Baron had ordered your execution because you were taking too long to provide an heir, and as you were dragged in front of the old man to answer for your ‘crime’, Feyd was nowhere near to protect you. The Baron was smart—he took you from the comfort of your bed in the early morning as your husband was training for another fight in the arena. The plan was simple, and Feyd wouldn’t know about your fate until it was too late. He wouldn’t be able to save you.

But he did, somehow. Your best guess is that Feyd has a mole, or many, throughout the Harkonnen fortress to relay everyone’s movements, because Feyd was rushing into the room and thrusting his blade into squishy flesh just as the order to end your life was leaving the Baron’s lips. And in those quick seconds, your husband was changed.

You don’t know how to bring him back to you. At least, you didn’t. You wrestled with it for days until it dawned on you that what he might need is not necessarily your touch or the reminder that he still has a wife, but instead, the words he deserves to hear.

—

“Feyd, I’m proud of you.”

You’ve been watching him all morning, standing aside, not wanting to interrupt his process of slowly nipping away at a training dummy with his knife. There are holes of all sorts in the torso, both deep and shallow, and slashes across the inanimate face. It has lost both its legs. One arm hangs on by what would be a thin cord of skin were it human. When your words reach him from the other side of the room, he pauses mid-swing.

“You did a hard thing,” you continue as his arm drops to his side and he straightens his stance from a fighters position. “You did a painful thing.”

His adam’s apple bobs. He sighs and stares down at the blade, the sharp point digging into his index finger as he twirls it. He has yet to look at you in the hour you’ve been here, and with the unpredictability of your husband, you don’t know what he’s going to do next. But you wait, patiently, because that is what you can do for him.

“I wouldn’t let him take you from me,” he finally says. The blade stabs into the gut of the dummy. “He’s damaged me enough.”

That’s all he gives you. Your heart shatters for him and for the walls he’s been building between you since he killed his uncle; walls that took you ages to tear down after you married him. You’d done so well at getting him to trust and love you, and you hate to watch the bricks stacking as the minutes pass.

“Since when are you proud when I kill?” he asks.

And it’s a fair question. You’ve never been a fan of the death that wreaks through the halls of the Harkonnen fortress. You’ve never enjoyed his triumphs in the arena. But this is different, and so you must handle it differently, with a gentle hand and well-chosen words, despite what those words may bring.

He hasn’t often handled well certain topics that you’ve tried to bring up in the past. Risky topics, you learned. Topics that have usually left him drawing away from you until the next morning comes and he can pretend as if you never brought them up.

When you’ve asked about his parents, he gets fidgety; can’t stand still, can’t stop messing with his hands, can’t look you in the eye for more than a quarter of a second. He’s unlike the husband you know. When you’ve asked about his uncle, he’s worse. He’s more than just unlike your husband, he detaches himself from the moment completely. He becomes stiff as a board; a statue with a faraway gaze in his eyes. He offers few words. But those reactions are enough for you to assume the truth of his past without him giving you more than the little he has.

“Feyd, he was abusive,” you say, closing the distance between you. “You ended someone who had power over you for years. Of course I’m proud of you.”

“It’s not as if I did it for me; I did it to save you.”

“You did it,” you tell him. “You did it when you needed to protect us most. You didn’t let him hurt me and force you to accept his justifications for doing so. That's what matters.”

Long beats pass that grow longer with each one. Your heartbeat pounds in your ears so violently that they feel stuffed with cotton. You fear his reaction; a further pulling away from you—something you’re not sure you’ll be able to take. But then he drops the knife to the floor, turns to you, and tucks his head into the space where your neck meets your shoulder.

His arms slowly snake around your waist and squeeze you tight, and you’re struggling to breathe properly, but you don’t care because the half-built brick wall just tumbled down. He needs you.

His exhales shakily graze over your collarbone. A droplet forges a path down your chest, disappearing into your cleavage and leaving a chilled trail in its wake. You raise your hand to the back of his head and hold him against you, letting more droplets trickle down your body, letting your skin muffle sobs.

“I’m sorry it had to be like this,” you whisper.

He inhales, breathing you in, and then says, “There’s not a life where I wouldn’t have done it for you.”

“I know,” you tell him.

“It shouldn’t hurt.”

“It’s allowed to hurt,” you say. “He’s all you knew.”

#feyd rautha x reader #feyd rautha x you #feyd rautha fic #austin butler #dune 2

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wanderingcas · 2 months ago

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[just a dumb little thing i wanted to write about Cas's bad moods being positively affected by dean's touch]

Dean scrubs a hand down his face and resists a loud sigh. Coffee. He needs coffee. Driving for eighteen hours straight isn’t good for anyone, but especially not for someone with a grumpy, newly ex-angel sitting shotgun.

Cas, tucked in the crowded line by Dean’s side, is oscillating between his typical feelings of disgruntled and fascinated by his surroundings. Just by the look on his face, Dean knows what he wants to complain about: the stuffy, small cafe is too hot, the people are talking too loud, and the barista at the counter is more focused on chatting with her customers than actually ordering their food, and Dean, why do humans insist on small talk if they’ll never see each other again? Most of these people are traveling and are transient, what is the point of commenting on the weather if—

“Would you stop!” Dean snaps. Several heads turn toward them. Ducking his head, Dean mutters a curse. He’s been listening to Cas’s bitching on the road trip for so long that it’s starting to knock around his head.

Cas frowns. “What’s wrong, Dean?”

“Nothing.” He pushes his shoulder into Cas’s. “Line’s movin’.”

He’s exhausted. Which makes him feel all sorts of guilty, because whatever exhaustion he feels, Cas must feel it tenfold. Cas’s grace fully depleted only a few weeks ago and the transition has been… less than pleasant for all involved. For Cas, it means feeling human like he never has before. He described the sensations—touch, smell, emotion, temperature, you name it—like a thousand itches that he can’t quite scratch. It makes him a grumpier bastard than usual.

Sam, as patient as he tried to be in the beginning, recently started losing his cool. Eileen had completely given up on the situation and wisely fucked off a few days into the whole process. When Claire called about the vamp nest she found in Nebraska, Dean couldn’t get in the car fast enough.

Cas insisted on coming. Sam insisted on staying. And, well—that was that.

Dean snags a glance at Cas next to him in the line. He’s squinting at the menu above the cashier. They found out he was near-sighted when he went full human, but he refuses to wear the prescription glasses Dean got him.

“Want me to read it to you?” Dean asks.

“No,” Cas snaps.

Grinding his back teeth, Dean huffs out a sigh. Which, of course, Cas hears. His frown deepens into a glare.

Dean’s gonna hear about it later in the car. Something along the lines of I’m so sorry my weaknesses are an inconvenience to you, Dean. Would you be more lenient with me if I was still an angel and could fight your battles for you? And no I won’t wear the glasses because I’m a big angry baby in a trenchcoat that doesn’t have any fucking clue how to manage his own emotions and—

“What can I get you?” the barista asks sunnily.

Dean slams his credit card on the counter. “Got any liquor?”

The barista’s smile goes a little crooked. “It’s eight in the morning.”

“Just—a coffee. Big one,” Dean adds as she keys it into the computer. He turns to Cas. “What do you want?”

Cas doesn’t answer; he’s looking off to the right, a frown on his face. But not his usual pissed-off frown. A curious one.

Dean elbows him. “Dude.”

Cas blinks, coming back to Earth, turning to the expectant barista. “Tea. Matcha, if you have it.”

Dean regrets letting Sam introduce him to that one. Taking his credit card back from the barista, their bill paid, he and Cas step off to the side. Dean finally glances at whatever the hell was so interesting to capture Cas’s attention.

Two women sit at a table, their eaten food just wrappers and crumby plates in front of them. Their hands are linked on the tabletop. Dean bristles; is Cas going to ask him why two women are holding hands? He can’t be that out of touch with humanity. But no; it’s something else. One woman is smiling, the other isn’t. Is that what caught Cas’s attention?

Dean sighs through his nose, shaking his head at himself. Trying to figure out what’s going on in Cas’s head lately is like trying to solve a Rubik's cube.

He feels a little tug at his jacket pocket. Dean paws Cas’s hand out of the way. “The hell are you doing?”

“I need your phone,” Cas says.

“What for?”

“I want to see how much longer until our destination.”

“You could just ask,” Dean shoots back.

Cas frowns. He goes for Dean’s pocket again.

“Jesus, fine,” Dean mutters, pulling the phone out of his pocket and unlocking it. He shoves it into Cas’s hands. (Cas had a phone, but he left it at a gas station a few hundred miles back. Dean’s not sure if he can fully blame Cas’s inattention to detail on being a human.)

Dean folds his arms over his chest and looks at the women again. They’ve stood up from the table, and the more upset-looking of the two has leaned against the other, who has her arms around her.

Cas is looking up at the women again, the Google maps app open on the screen forgotten.

“Large dark roast and matcha latte!” someone calls from the counter.

Dean turns away from the women and Cas, scooping up their drinks. “Wanna drink ‘em in the car or here?” he asks. He hopes that Cas will choose the latter, because the thought of hurtling down the highway in an enclosed space again is making Dean’s stomach turn.

Cas’s blue eyes turn to Dean. “Can we drink them outside?”

There’s a small bench next to the entrance door. They park themselves there and sip at their drinks as people filter in and out of the door. The two women come out a few minutes later and go into a blue Prius a few spots away from the Impala.

“Somethin’ suspicious about them?” Dean asks. When Cas gives him a curious look, Dean juts his chin toward the women. “You’re lookin’ at ‘em a lot.”

Cas shakes his head. “Nothing suspicious. Just… curiosity.”

Dean clears his throat. Nods. “Well, Cas, in our society there occasionally comes a time where people feel romantic feelings toward each other, and they decide to express that through—”

“Not that,” Cas snaps. He rolls his eyes at Dean’s cheeky grin. “I’m trying to understand human behavior more. Since I’m… unfortunately part of your species, now.”

“All right, Jane Goodall, so what’d you observe?”

Cas takes a sip of his grassy drink. “The blonde woman was upset. The brunette woman comforted her through touch. And it seemed to work.”

“Okay,” Dean says slowly, “and why is that weird?”

Cas turns his gaze to Dean. “You’re not comforted through touch. In fact, it makes you angrier.”

Dean snorts, shifting uncomfortably. “I mean. It’s not like I just want people—touchin’ me all the time.”

“Especially not when you’re upset,” Cas adds.

“Well, yeah. That’s a pretty common thing.”

Cas shakes his head. “Not necessarily. When Sam is upset, Eileen hugs him. And that’s received well.”

“Yeah, ‘cause they’re dating.”

“So touch is only welcomed when one is upset when they’re romantically involved?”

“Well.” Dean frowns at the steam rising from his coffee. “I mean, not always. Friends hug each other when one of them’s upset.”

Cas cants his head to one side. “So the two women could have been friends?”

“I’m betting not,” Dean snorts. “Friends don’t really hold hands. Not all the time.”

“But sometimes?”

“Sure. Sometimes.”

Cas nods, seeming to consider this. Dean takes a sip of coffee; then nearly spits it out again when a hand gently falls on top of his. He snatches his hand back and gapes at Cas’s innocent gaze. “What the hell, dude?”

“You said that friends sometimes hold hands.”

“I mean—you don’t just—” Dean huffs out a frustrated sigh. “Hugging is more in the friendship zone.”

A line appears between Cas’s eyebrows. “We only hug when one of us is about to die.”

And—Jesus. Okay. Dean has to blink hard a few times to find his center again from that one. “Um, yeah, I guess we do.”

“So if hugging is reserved only for mortal danger,” Cas continues, “and holding hands is too romantic—what else is there?”

Dean’s jaw works as he tries to figure out what to say. “I—you just—” He throws up a hand. “I don’t know, Cas! A pat on the shoulder? A friendly high five?”

Cas’s expression drops a bit. He frowns down at his tea, crestfallen.

Dean scrubs a hand down his face. Shit. The only thing worse than a grumpy ex-angel is a sad one.

He glances around them. No one’s paying attention. The bench is by the door, but people are too focused on getting inside to eat, or making a beeline to their cars. Besides, he’s sitting so close to Cas on the bench, it won’t even be noticeable.

Dean sighs. He holds out his hand, palm up. When Cas just stares at it, Dean moves it closer with a frustrated noise. That seems to make Cas get the picture; with a small smile, he takes Dean’s hand. He even laces their fingers together, which does not make Dean shiver and feel like his nerves are on fire.

“Only for a minute,” Dean says gruffly.

Cas nods. “Okay.”

And they sit there, hands linked between them on the bench, as they finish their drinks.

[And no, dear reader, it does not last a minute. In fact, it becomes Dean's new superpower—hugging, holding, or letting Cas glomp onto him whenever Cas is even in a remotely bad mood. Sam and Eileen take notice, but don't comment, because Cas is finally a relaxed and happy human.]

#destiel #destiel fic #was going to make this longer but dean and cas had other ideas lol #here's... a silly thing?

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hoseoksluna · 7 months ago

Text

BLUR | myg ft. jjk

pairing: boyfriend!yoongi x oc (feat. jungkook)

genre: smut

word count: 17k

summary: one encounter with both of the males heals you enough that you don't become anything but joy.

pinterest board: blur

warnings: dom/sub dynamics, marking, oral sex (f. receiving), fingering, cuckold kink, toying with the idea of polyamory, daddy kink, punishment, nipple play, oc gets triggered, face riding, ass play, male masturbation, multiple orgasms, use of butt plug, raw sex, cum eating, clit rubbing

note: i want to thank oc. i've always wanted to pinch jungkook's nose and i got to do that through her. LMFAOFSJLDKFS ANYWAYS—this is the LAST part of the steam series, whoop whoop. finally. this took me so fucking long to write and idk if it even makes sense, which is why i need you guys to let me know everything that you're thinking, feeling, hating, loving. I NEED IT. so pls, send me asks. spam me. thank you. ENJOY READINGGGGG. ₊˚⊹♡

A thin layer of sweat coats your hairline. And inside your skull, momentarily, there aren’t any thoughts—none, whatsoever. They have been swept aside as the feverish evening wind carries your boyfriend’s words through the aroused energy pulsating around your naked form. Around Jungkook’s, too.

Yoongi is still the only one fully dressed. And, adamantly, he’s taken the role of a watcher, shifting the dynamic in such a frantic way that the sole impulse that you find opening within you like buds of tree flowers is to obey. To submit to the role, externalize one that will fit it. To play along like he did, when he caught onto your scheme.

Even though you don’t know how to particularly go about it.

And when Yoongi walks over to the armchair in his living room, plops down on it, angles his head slightly to look at you and waves a hand towards the couch across from him, inviting you to sit, your nescience claws at you. Brutally.

You don’t know if there are any shadows thickening in his headspace because you deem there must be a reason behind his sudden decision to turn things around. He’s been okay with every practice done so far in the playtime—he validated all of them, was in charge the whole time until he gave that control over to Jungkook. You can’t help but worry if there perhaps isn’t a catch.

And the lower your disquiet sinks inside your gut, the higher your distrust of yourself springs, lodging in your throat. You’re not sure anymore if you’re right about anything. What if there is something you’ve done that you completely overlooked in the middle of your pleasure? In the middle of Jungkook’s pleasure?

Once you exchange a heavily-charged look with the puppy, you hope to find a hint in the tenderness of his eyes that would help you figure it out. Though, the more you deepen the scrutiny, the more you’re met with absolute blankness.

He’s as clueless as you.

Bewildered, mostly, that Yoongi let him have the upper hand.

Your finger itches to hook around his, but you only angle your head in the direction of the living room, dubious to listen to your body, intentionally wary. You make the first move and you don’t sit down on the couch like Yoongi motioned you. No, you sink your knees into the space beside his on the armchair, the leather creaking beneath you. Wrap your arms around his shoulders. Study the depth of his gaze as he focuses it on your face, looking for the hint, for anything that would lead you to it. Bury your fingers into his night-tinged hair the way he likes it, the way you like to do it, too. Pull it a little to make known to him that you’re bubbling with uncertainty.

Yoongi merely watches you, borrowing his friend’s stoicism.

You click your tongue, disliking it. “Yoongi,” you drawl out, cupping the sides of his neck, willing his attention to be more of an intimate sort. Just you and him. You need to talk to him about this. Need a peace of mind in order for you to enjoy this. In order to please him in the process as well.

He turns his head behind him, though. To check the whereabouts of his friend. And when you follow the same direction, you discover that his dining space is empty.

You don’t detect any panic in you. Perhaps it’s due to the fact Jungkook never abandoned you before. Or perhaps you’ve healed to the point that it doesn’t bother you anymore, no matter who does it. And what’s more, you think he probably went to pee.

With two fingers on his jaw, you turn his attention back to you. Leave them there. His lips curl up as he tries to purse them, his stoicism fragmenting. Eyes gentle, moonbeams swimming. The sight is so endearing to you that your own mouth mirrors his, butterflies awoken, fluttering their wings in your tummy. This is the man you love. This is the man that’s yours. Yours, only. And you’re alone, intimately, cordially. Just like before.

“Is something the matter, honey?” He tips his chin, irises dilated and looking up at you. Latches his hands onto the fleshiness of your thighs, just below your hip bones.

With your inhale of breath, you muster as much courage as you can. “Have I done something wrong?”

Perplexity writes itself on his softened face. Could it be—

“No, why do you think that, hm?” He narrows his eyes at you playfully, tapping his fingers on the side of your hips. You exhale a breath that loosens your worry a little bit and your mouth rounds. He leans in to peck it. “You’ve been perfect.”

Have you? You’re not so sure—on the contrary, what you’re sure of is the fact you can better yourself. You have to, in order to make your worries dissipate all the way.

And you can fulfill that if you know what role to play.

“Tell me what to do.”

One corner of his mouth tugs ever so slightly to the side and one brow quirks in confusion. “You’re about to get eaten up. Enjoy it—that’s what you are to do.”

You sigh, realizing you should’ve worded it better. That’s precisely what you want to do—enjoy it, but you can’t risk getting lost again. Can’t risk getting submerged. You need him to tell you who you are to be in this new dynamic he established and you don’t want to hear that you should be yourself. If you relax your boundaries, you’ll step into a dangerous territory—and you’ve been there before.

So has he.

“Yoongi, no, I meant—”

He squeezes your muscles. “Don’t be afraid. I’m here, you hear me?” he murmurs, one hand coming up to your hair and curling it behind your ear. And it’s these words that unwittingly, little by little, drive you to drop your own hand, your guard and your worries. The fact that he doesn’t even want to hear your better wording, too, because he understood you the first time. It guides you to think it’s not worth speaking out, not when he evidently knows better.

And it feels nice. To have someone intelligent enough that they know. To have someone care enough that they don’t let you immerse yourself in doubts because they know the type of shit your thoughts consist of sometimes. He remembers everything you unraveled during the therapy sessions. And that feels nice. More than nice.

Your mouth rounds again and you repeat it after him. To acknowledge yourself with it. To swallow it so it streams down your body, where its meaning can unfurl. “You’re here.” Your voice is subdued, unsure, the words foreign on your tongue. You knit your brows while you taste them, unable to identify the flavor. That is until you realize it could offend him. You relax your features right away.

But Yoongi merely watches you with a sympathetic look, one that makes you feel terrible for reacting the way you did.

Not for long, though.

“I know I’ve made a mistake in the past, but that’s not happening again. I’m not leaving you on your own this time,” he says and you realize that is precisely what you needed to hear, what your body needed to consume first in order to recognize the flavor of his reassurance. You caress his face in deep emotion and you try again.

“You’re here.” It’s a mere silken sound for only the both of you to hear, but it matters—it’s enough, it’s perfect. In the distance, you hear a shuffling of feet in the kitchen, the song of the wind gaining momentum, inclining to listen to the expression of love between you—to be a witness of the right thing being done at last. And you can taste the sweetest wine of the ripest of grapes, spiced with the most vibrant of roses. You can taste home; his stability you can lean on.

Yoongi smiles in your grasp, noting the way the words sounded different—more secure. The moonbeams liquify in his waterline. “That’s right. And because I’m here, I’m not letting history repeat itself.” He pinches your cheek, knocking your head back and forth with the well-meaning, ferocious movement. Erases completely the lingering presence of the guard and fears you’ve dropped. You laugh, softly, relieved—so fucking relieved. Joy fills your empty body, energizing you, roses rising in you. Your roses, the ones you know, fraternizing with the unknown flowers that Jungkook planted in you. And you discern that it’s you who’s in your comfort zone, in your safety zone. The males have stepped inside theirs and now you have. You inhale fresh air in your new lungs, exhale your relief. “Say it. So I know you understand.”

“You’re here and you’re not letting history repeat itself.” Beautiful, beautiful words—beautiful consolation and kindness. A pillar of the most exceptional magnificence. Mentally, you rest against it, rest your enfeebled, exhausted body of all your needless worries and false thoughts.

You didn’t do anything wrong. Didn’t make a mistake. Though, if it weren’t for the weak moment, you wouldn’t be here. Wouldn’t have gotten the comfort you didn’t know you needed.

So peculiar, the newness. It dawns on you that it should’ve been like this in the beginning. Healthy conversations, reassurance. Why hadn’t you done this? Why did you jump headlong, bringing along such darkness of—

You close your eyes fleetingly to shut down those thoughts. Forgetting is taking place. Newness is here. Old is gone. Like the verity that he’s here, you repeat it to yourself again and again in your heart. You can’t change what’s happened. You can only move on with the eternal perception that you’ve changed, that you’ve learned. And that’s enough.

You brush your thumb upon the column of his neck. Back and forth, like he did with your cheek. Thankful for him. “You’re here and you’re not letting history repeat itself.”

Yoongi isn’t puzzled you whispered it to yourself again. In fact, he embraces it. Kisses you tenderly, deeply to seal those words. They spread roots in you. Rake through the earth so the roses, the flowers can grow healthily, happily, luminously. You feel them lean into the satin touch of the butterflies that elongate their dusty wings before they curl the membranes around their radiant petals, forming a protection circle. A dose of healing you didn’t expect to receive. Not from him, not now—not now when you’re about to be eaten out by his friend.

It’s so surreal to you. To feel protected like that. To feel safe. Safe to now roam freely in your undiscovered sexuality because you have someone to look out for you, to possibly guide you back if you lose your way. The stability that envelopes you—you can’t bear it; it’s too good to be true. And when you take a deep breath and those roses tremble with excitement in you, in the circle, there’s nothing left for you to do but to accept it because it’s so strong, because it’s unyielding. You couldn’t move it even if you tried. It won’t let you—it’s here to stay. Here to be alongside your boyfriend, protecting you as you venture out on your perverted adventure.

You’ve worked hard to get to this point. And now you get to reap what you’ve sown.

Yoongi grins after the long kiss, proudness emanating out of him and you feel like weeping. You’ve done the right thing, for the very first time. “That’s my good girl.”

The praise does something to you. Stirs you violently, magnifies the intensity of the flapping of the butterfly wings in you. Sends back feeling to the ache between your legs, propped against the linen of Yoongi’s pants. Throbbing, slapping, memories of what has been done to your pussy—you’re a meadow of wildflowers and you’re ready to be pleasured again, however you register a matter that pulls you away from this notion for a moment.

There’s no catch.

Because Yoongi created a new realm for both you and Jungkook with his sense of safety and comfort, there’s nothing for you to fret about. There’s no role for you to play. And, furthermore, who you are meant to be upon this ground is who you’ve been throughout the whole trajectory of your relationship.

A good girl.

Only this time it’s entirely different.

You didn’t want to be yourself because, if anything were to backfire, you thought you’d have the responsibility for it. In addition to that, you thought the normalcy of your sexual life was a no-gone zone for Jungkook, which is why you’ve been racking your brain, trying to come up with ways you could differ it, so Yoongi wouldn’t get jealous.

But things changed so drastically that because Yoongi took control, now you don’t have to be in charge of that. You’re not the artist, you’re not choosing colors for the palette. Yoongi is.

There’s still one more thing that doesn’t add up. And you voice it out. “If you’re not letting history repeat itself, though, why are you letting Jungkook be in control?”

Yoongi grabs your hands and holds them. “I’m letting him be in control of how he does what I tell him to do. I’m in control of the whole situation, honey.”

You suck in a breath. To protect himself, he won’t make the same mistake again; that’s just the person Yoongi is. He’s allowed Jungkook to have the freedom of a bird in the pleasure he wants you to receive from him, but he won’t hesitate to ensnare him if he runs up against something he doesn’t like.

You find that immensely, immensely attractive.

Hot.

The pillar of stability, the warmth of reassurance, the absolute fucking boss—that’s your man. You lid your eyes, swearing, leaning forward to suck onto his lip, kissing him with utter desperation and he lets you. Lets you kiss him. Lets you show him how much you liked that. Growls when your hand creeps to his neglected, clothed length and squeezes it. Hums when you feel him up until you find his tight balls. Responds to your touch—bucks his hips so you focus on them more and you go mad. Interminably, mad.

And when you swirl your tongue around his, you feel a cold, wet hand on your back.

The magnet to your madness. The healer stands by the side of the armchair with a dew-sprinkled face and there’s a feigned, playful jealousy that you feel when you regard him, for the only dew you want on his face is one that’s your own. He washed up in the bathroom—you reckon he did it to cool his desperation, to cool the sweat of arousal that lines his skin, much like yours. You note that it didn’t work, at least not fully, because when you roam your gaze down, you discover he’s still painfully hard. Much like your boyfriend.

You wrap your hand around him and the forbidden, exhilarating feeling of having two cocks in your grasp is too brief for your liking because Jungkook pulls your hand away again. Holds it and leads you towards the couch. You frown at him with a puckish smile, but while he tugs you away, you steal a kiss from Yoongi. A hard, quick kiss that makes him twitch—something that you get to feel before Jungkook grabs you by your pits and throws you on the couch.

You let out a string of giggles, loving the feeling of being manhandled; loving the feeling of Jungkook being in desperate need to eat you out. Your face heats up, your body following suit, the ache between your legs worsening. Yoongi smirks, validating your enjoyment and he adjusts in his seat, which you think is dismal. You don’t want him to be neglected. You want him to be pleasured, too.

The words tumble out of you before you can think them over. “Can you touch yourself for me, baby?”

Yoongi licks his lips. Pauses before he responds. Tortures you like he tortured Jungkook. You spread your legs to provoke him, giving him a show of the shine on your folds. It’s enough for him to palm himself briefly, as if he lost control for a split second. He takes his hand away and places it back on the armrest. “I’ll consider it.”

The boss at play. You swear, closing your legs to squeeze them, to give yourself some sort of relief from the ache you feel. Butterflies go rampant in your tummy, but despite the buzzing tension, you feel content, safe and utterly elated. Happy.

You expect Jungkook to say something, though he merely props a knee on the leather of the couch and spreads your legs how he wants them. He doesn’t lift them, only parts them as far as they can go. You go to grab his length again because you feel a certain magnetic pulling to it, but he catches your hand in time.

“Behave.” He presses your hand firmly to emphasize his scolding before he lets go. Such a stark contrast to the playtime of before. You remember how he wanted you to do the complete opposite. To misbehave. Your body heats up even more, the fire compulsing your hips to sway, asking for attention.

Another set of words tumble out of you unwittingly and you place your hands under your thighs. “I’m sorry.”

The surprise that floods Jungkook’s features is overwhelming to you and in response, you grin, coyly. He strokes the adorable fat of your cheek. “Good girl. That’s what I like to hear.”

You purse your lips and before the fire of that praise can lick your whole body, Yoongi speaks up, too. “Good job, honey. You learned your lesson so well.”

Shock comes first, then fire—vibrant blue fire that scorches you whole. You blush, deeply, squeezing the leather of the couch—the praise and the validation from both males so profuse, so profound that you can’t take it. You hide your widening grin beneath your palms. “Stop,” you drawl, the sound muffled and soft, even though you don’t want them to do anything of the sort.

Jungkook coos, pulls your wrist away, uncovering your rosy, glowy face. Then, he pets your head, fingers sinking into your hair. He forces you to look at him, to see the smile of endearment that bathes his face in light, but he does it so gently that you purr, his hold so stimulating, so titillating—his countenance so lovely, so darkly angelic. Eyes crinkled but still round, still so tender. “Who taught you to have such good manners, huh?”

You swipe your tongue along the top arc of your lip, his gaze flicks to it and and the answer thrums in your belly warmly like a sip of a good wine. It doesn’t unnerve you, doesn’t make you afraid. In fact, it’s so tranquil and so right that you relish every syllable. “Both of you did.”

The rays from the light side penetrate the dark one and healing takes place. Healing that you never thought you’d ever be a witness to. You know that the act of forgetting was supposed to fully sink in all three of you, but your words diverged its path. You swallow warmth and you swallow relief, watch as Yoongi gets up from his seat and mirrors Jungkook’s position, one knee on the leather, hand under your jaw. A soft set of tears rush in at the attention and the realization of what’s actually happening, and when the healer sees them, he lets go of your hair and brushes his thumb across your brow, hand spread across the side of your face. You lean into his palm, so terribly emotional, and when Yoongi plants a delicate kiss on your cheek, your chin begins to quiver. He felt it, too. Felt the gravity of those words that now dulcify his intention to make things right this time. And he kisses you again, prolongs the peck, as if to thank you for your goodness.

When Yoongi lifts his head and bores his mellow gaze into you, it is the same relief that you’ve swallowed that you see saturating his face in effulgence. At last, it has come for him, has come to live in him. At last, it’s here.

You’ve done it, all three of you. Healed from the pain.

Jungkook knits his brows at the sight of the first tear plopping down onto your skin as if it physically pained him to see you cry. And before you can register the movement, he swipes the liquid emotion away and kisses the residue of it, as if it were fate itself that wrote it was meant to pour down on the right side of your face—for Jungkook to collect, for it to seep into his fingerprint.

So much love. The air is thick with it. Your lungs tremble as you take a deep breath. The wind billows in and out, but doesn’t carry it off—intertwines its translucent body with it instead, bringing in a fresh gust of briskness into the atmosphere. No more tears stream down your cheeks; you smile at both of the males—the healer and the boss.

Yoongi remains standing beside you. Takes your hand in his. Says a myriad of silent words of great importance that you cannot decipher as he exchanges a look with Jungkook, who merely nods at them in plain understanding. You don’t have to wonder long what was behind it. Jungkook turns your jawline to him and kisses you softly. Doesn’t let go. Prolongs the kiss until he whimpers onto your mouth, softened, too, by the healing that occurred. No tongue, just the warmed silver of his lip ring, the smooth tenderness of his mouth and the most affectionate emotion exuded into the kiss.

The pop of the withdrawal is all you hear. You keep your eyes closed. Feel him take that kiss onto your neck, your collarbone, to your sternum. Feel the tightening of your boyfriend’s grip around your hand as Jungkook drags his lips down your tummy, where the healing vibrates and he says hello to it with his tongue, makes it feel safe. Feel the tightening compulsion to watch him as he does it and you obey your body.

Jungkook is kneeling before you. Brows furrowed, expression so terribly serious as he understands how significant this part of you is. Sinks his whimpers into your skin while he sucks it and it’s only when you run your fingers through his silky hair that he looks up at you. And the sight of his wet eyes breaks you.

He’s as emotional as you.

Your throat constricts. If it weren’t for him, none of this lively beauty would take place—and if it weren’t for Yoongi, too. It is their work of art and you’re the one doused in colors of most resplendence. And you tell them, your body urges you to, while you squeeze Yoongi’s hand and caress Jungkook’s hair. “I’m so grateful for you both.”

The healer whimpers again, letting go of your skin, leaving behind a purple memory of this heartfelt loveliness. His tears don’t escape the confinement of his waterline—he blinks them away. Blinks them even more rapidly when Yoongi places a hand on Jungkook’s bare shoulder and he gapes at him in disbelief—in disbelief that his closest friend is touching him with such gentleness after everything. You don’t allow yourself to think of the past, of the last violent touch that you saw, but you can’t help the emotion rushing in your eyes. You let go of Yoongi’s hand to clasp the one on Jungkook’s shoulder, deepening the love.

And you press a loud, exaggerated kiss on Jungkook’s forehead to make him laugh—like he did that one time by talking about his worm. To distract him, if there are perhaps any overbearing thoughts in his mind.

Now his disbelief is directed towards you. Mouth parted, wrinkles between his brows. You burst into laughter and it triggers his. Yoongi’s, too. It’s your breasts that bounce now and none of the pairs of eyes flick to it, fixed still on the glamorous gracefulness that blossoms out from your face. Jungkook shakes his head, cheeks awash with redness, irises glinting with a spark you’ve never seen before, and you consider your job done. He tells you to lay back down, but his grin lingers.

Yoongi takes your hand back in his and you perceive that he needs it, that he needs to hold you. You smile at him, fluttering your lashes, blowing him an air kiss, and he nudges his nose against yours to remind you to enjoy this. You begin to prepare yourself, taking a deep breath—

It hitches in your throat harshly. Jungkook kitten licks your clit with deep pressure, just once, lifting his head to watch your reaction. The reverberation of the pleasure causes you to moan and he smirks at you—what’s worse, he winks at you, so terribly smug that he coaxed such sound like that by one lick and it makes you tremble, needing more. He can see it, but he tortures you, keeping his hands on your thighs.

And when Yoongi reaches behind himself and sinks your headband with yellow kitty ears into Jungkook’s hair, you’re done for. You must’ve left it there when you were doing your makeup. Jungkook doesn’t acknowledge it, however. Too drunk by his first proper taste of you to do so, glossy eyes transfixed by that flesh of yours.

It suits him so well that you coo at him, grasping his neck to pull him back to your cunt, but he doesn’t let you. Your heart begins to thump with hard beats and you grow desperate, whining, looking at Yoongi to make him do something.

He merely smiles at you. “Be patient.”

At his words, Jungkook lifts your legs and begins to focus on the back of your thigh, marking it, groaning against your skin, inhaling your mango scent. He roams his tongue all over and you whine louder, finding it so unfair that you have to wait for it, that he reinforces your neediness by those hard kisses and sucks, by his sounds, breaths and control. You grind your hips, the ache between your legs made unbearable by your helplessness and Yoongi stops you by placing his hand on your lower belly.

“Did I not tell you to be patient? Be good,” Yoongi scolds, lowly, rubbing the place in slow circles. Your whine is bratty, but you nod your head, pouting, halting all your movements, becoming still like the wind that has come to stay and observe the unfolding of your daydream.

At your submission, Yoongi creeps a finger to your wet clit, testing you. Doesn’t do anything beyond that and once he sees you’re well-behaved, he plunges the same finger into your mouth, giving you a taste of Jungkook’s saliva. You mewl, sucking it. The healer watches the act in deep thought, your skin in his mouth, and you’re certain an idea flashes in his mind.

Jungkook straightens to his full height, proving you right and the feeling is utterly gratifying. Reaches behind him and grabs the tall glass filled with water that you never noticed he put on the coffee table. Yoongi withdraws his digit and inspects his friend’s doing with curiosity. Jungkook takes a small sip of it without taking his gaze off of you, tips it to your mouth right after and you realize he did it more so it wouldn’t overflow, as you take a well-needed sip of your own, rather than to refresh himself. That is until he does something that completely shocks you, ripping away your delightful proudness of being proven right.

It is something between a yelp and a moan when the coldness of the water drops onto the skin of your chest, scattering it with tiny, pellucid pearls that almost pool by your violent heart. The demo before the full game; your breathing gains as much speed as the throbbing in your clit. Jungkook inclines the glass again, holds it as a longer, thicker trail trickles down your body—from the middle of your breasts, across your tummy until it reaches your cunt. And the contact of the liquid with the hotness of your swollen seashell? You groan, rolling your body. So much that you slap your hands down on the leather, gripping it with all your might, needing something stable to hold onto, to release your pent-up desperation.

Amused, Jungkook sets the glass down and kneels back down. Licks a long, torturous stripe from your clit up to those pearls, following the path he mapped out while zeroing his stare into yours. You part your mouth, your madness closing around you again, puffing out short breaths and subdued, desperate moans and when Jungkook closes his lips over your neck and begins to suck, you turn your head towards Yoongi and roll your eyes back. Struggle to keep them open as you feel that muscle of his tracing patterns on the sensitive skin and Yoongi knows. He knows how good it is for you and he kisses you like he means it, mimicking what his friend is doing around your tongue.

Your sounds grow in volume. Your desperation, too, in intensity.

“Please.”

Jungkook emerges from your neck but wraps a hand around it, nonetheless. Is as close to you as your breath, his nose bumping into yours. He squeezes your column firmly before he curtly turns your jawline away from Yoongi. You wonder if he can feel your heartbeat under his forearm, if he can feel how desperate she is for him, too—in a way you don’t understand. “Please what?”

He opens your mouth wider and spits.

Shock comes first like a thunderbolt, spreading across your veins, paralyzing your body. Then it blurs into a tumultuous arousal that seizes you whole, that makes you beg for more. No one has ever spat in your mouth, not even Yoongi. You’ve never liked it in porn, but experiencing it first-hand gives it another meaning. The dominance, the absolute film of lustfulness caking his face, the estimable seriousness that wafts off of him. He’s turned you into a boneless putty, his putty, and you want him to do it again.

“Spit in my mouth again, please—please.”

Jungkook grunts. Shadows surround your vision as you narrow your eyes in sheer pleasure at his sound, biting your lip to cage in your worsening desire for him—but he saves your lip, pulls it away from your teeth and opens your mouth wide. You ogle him as he sloshes his saliva in his mouth above you before he taps your tongue, signalizing you to stick it out for him. Once you listen, he spits hard onto the muscle that waited for it. You moan, satisfied, swallowing it right away and showing him.

He pokes his own tongue in his inner cheek, fire blazing in his as equally narrowed eyes, the act of spitting in your mouth making him beyond fucked out. You can sense it deep in your core and your obsession with it grows.

“You’re filthy, but so good. It’s making me lose my fucking mind,” he says, hazily, fingers squeezing your throat for a heartbeat. The momentary lack of oxygen gives you a perfect demonstration of his words and the moans you let out are so breathy, so choked out that he takes your madness and makes it his own—loosening his grip and kissing you nastily, licking into your mouth, both hands traveling south to your breasts and kneading them harshly, pressing your nipples between his fingers.

And when you utter the words rising vehemently in your throat, he takes the demonstration to otherworldly levels. “Thank you, Daddy.”

Jungkook cocks his head at you and drags his teeth painfully across his bottom lip, swearing. His eyes darken, at last. Thrill sizzles beneath your skin and you feel an upsurge of adrenaline, the aftertaste of the title so sweet, so delicious on your tongue. “As if you didn’t deserve it already, I’m gonna take you to heaven for that.”

You laugh softly, brushing your fingers through his hair, anticipation joining the adrenaline. “You like me calling you that?”

He hums his agreement and you don’t feel Yoongi, you don’t even feel his hand; your vision, surroundings, persona blurring so rapidly. “Daddy’s gonna make you feel so good. All you have to do is come for him as many times as you can. Thank him that way. Is that clear?”

You shiver at the use of third person. Never thought you’d find it as alluring as you do. Brush your thumb across his brow like he does it to you. He coos, kissing your hand, sinking his body lower. Touched by the gesture. “Yes, Daddy. That won’t be too difficult for me to do.”

Jungkook gives you a smile that envelops you in an aura, where it’s just you and him. You don’t have the brain cells, nor the will, the desire to stop it. “That’s a good girl. On her best behavior for us.”

It wakes you up and the feeling of Yoongi’s grip on your hand returns, the circle of the aura withering. Disappointment descends in your gut, one that is soon forgotten when Jungkook sucks your clit into his mouth.

The squeak you let out would be embarrassing if you weren’t so out of your mind, but the confidence it came out with, the seductiveness and beauty—Jungkook shows you how much he liked the sound by humming against your sensitivity, the appreciation smothering every fiber and nerve ending of your body, hoisting you up towards the canopy of clouds. He swirls his tongue around the flesh, sucking deeper before he opens his mouth wider and licks you all over, closing his eyes and moaning, reveling in the feeling of you, the scent of you and the warmth of you. He toys with your lips, chuckling in delight when he acknowledges himself with them, burying his mouth completely in them, kissing them, caressing them with the puffiness of his pillows.

He’s pussydrunk—and the sight of it intoxicates you just the same.

And then he pauses. Kisses your clit. The peck so ardently earnest that he sucks it in the process. Does it again and again until he tinges your femininity in the faintest, daintiest, most dreamiest tone of red, prettier than any flowers you’ve ever seen—so akin to the wash of color scattering along his cheekbones. Then, he rubs his face in you, vigorously, moaning against you so intensely that your sounds become one.

Raising his head, features drenched in your dew—just like you wanted it—his chain taps your cunt in long staccatos. The pleasure is so dizzying, along with his looks, that you feebly jump at every contact. It reminds you, vividly, of the spanks you like so much. “Pussy so fucking wet and pretty for me. I’m gonna destroy you.”

It’s only at this time that you hear Yoongi smug but quietly laugh. He draws close to your ear and his hardened breath steals your attention from his friend’s praise. “He makes me wanna taste you, too, and make you come repeatedly on my tongue. Fuck, honey. I want that so bad.”

You mewl, about to burst at the seams, unable to take the double relish given to you from both men. Yoongi latches his mouth onto your neck, causing your eyes to roll back, and it sparks up some kind of competition in Jungkook, for when he dives back in—you scream.

The flicks of his tongue are so brutal that your lungs heave. You take many breaths but you can’t catch them, the heat from Yoongi’s kisses and the rapidness of Jungkook’s movement numbing your body to the point that you’re rendered powerless.

Jungkook alternates between fast flicks and long swipes from your entrance to your bundle of nerves, parting your lips so he can have easy access. And being spread like that, attended to by two males that you have strong attachment to, the kitty ears bobbing up and down as Jungkook devours you—your orgasm chases you down, the knot in your lower belly pulled so taut that it takes a mere heartbeat for it to snap completely.

And when you come, Jungkook laps you up, grunting in insatiable need for more. Your body violently shudders, but he keeps going, widening his swirls of tongue around your clit before he rubs it with the tip of his nose and—

He begins to fuck you with his tongue.

You don’t feel anything. Not your heartbeat, not your struggling lungs—just the hard jabs of his tongue inside your hole, pushing you closer and closer to paradise. Not heaven, you’ve been there, but to something beyond. A paradise of the warmest color and sunlight, swaying trees and a pool of the most refreshing water.

And Yoongi’s noise of joy is the bird that flies past in that place, dipping to its reflection. “Daddy’s so good he’s giving it to you better than I ever did.”

It’s those words that make you come again.

He laughs, fondles your nipples, holds you steady as Jungkook prolongs your orgasm by strenuously sucking your clit and you sob hard, tingling all over, senses gone, everything gone. You feel so lightweight, so airy, dopamine and oxytocin making your head all fucked up. Happy, satisfied.

Jungkook withdraws, kissing your clit one last time, licking it slowly. “You came so hard for Daddy, well done,” he praises, mouth wet, face as colorful as the meadow of flowers in you, gleaming iridescently. “But I’m not done with you.”

You moan, wanting more, badly. Take him by the neck with both hands and draw him closer to you, the chain stimulating your breasts. You kiss him hungrily and the taste of your dew causes you to let out such obscene sound that Jungkook and Yoongi growl simultaneously. Dulciness, with a hint of piquancy that makes you even hornier—the slipperiness of his mouth making it worse. “I want to ride your face. Please, please, let me.”

Jungkook smiles at you, pecking your lips, faintly. Cocks his brow at Yoongi. “You’re gonna give the princess what she wants?”

Your eyes follow the sharp line of his jaw and you bite your lip. Don’t think twice about taking that skin into your mouth, licking it over, watching as Jungkook closes his eyes at the contact. Musk, the forest, wood—you carry your still lingering hunger and unravel it upon the spot beneath that strong jaw, devouring that scent of his, aware of how his breath lodges in his throat. You mimic what he did to your clit there, enjoying every second of it, enjoying his reaction as he hums and thumbs your clit, waiting for Yoongi’s approval.

And you quicken it by begging for it, squeaking little sounds, beckoned by that slow motion of his digit. “Please, Yoongi. I want it so bad.”

Badly enough that you force your head away and look at him. As much as you thought there would be puzzlement to his face, what you detect is far more sinister. His smirking mouth tells you that he is simply pleased with the way you’re begging, with the way he gets to torture you. And not just you, but Jungkook as well. Ego high—his control at full play. You don’t blame him, not at all. It must be delicious to him in the middle of all this healing.

“Ride him well, make me proud.”

The joy springs in you so fast, but you don’t have the time to take in it. Yoongi gets up from the couch and you apprehend that you were very, very wrong.

You haven’t healed to the point that it doesn’t bother you when Yoongi leaves.

Your panic is so enormous that you rise, your movement so rigid that Jungkook stumbles, his arm quick to wrap around your chest, pulling you back onto the leather beside him. And you don’t see the twist of his brows, the deep clefts of his dimples while he scowles. No, you watch your boyfriend’s back as he makes his way to the dining table, your heart expanding in your throat.

“Tell her at least where the fuck you’re going,” Jungkook grumbles, ever the healer who senses your emotions and the fact he stood up for you like this makes you mouth merely round, your otherwise triggered trauma unsettling the rest of your feelings.

Yoongi returns a moment later with the butt plug and lube in his hand and with a solemnly guilty face. Kisses the top of your head in apology, but it’s not enough. Not when you can’t hear your heartbeat. Not when you can’t swallow. Not when your mind is so numbed by the recurring panic that you cannot even hear your mind.

“Don’t do that to me,” you whisper, but the words are firm, piercingly sharp, important and gravely, so much that Jungkook, with sticky hands by his sides, stills next to you.

Yoongi cups your chin, a dominant gesture, but you glare at him—masculine strength being the last thing you need right now. You may have foolishly thought your healing was complete and as much as it knifes you to be proven wrong, it’s the fact you expected more from him that hurts the most, especially after he promised you he’d be here. But maybe it’s foolish altogether, to be in hidden demand of him to tell you of his whereabouts, notably when you never voiced it out for him, not once during the therapy sessions, not once during the course of this perverted adventure—the matter of the gravity of your abandonment issues.

You point your anger at yourself and fall to a dark, dark abyss.

And you pushed yourself there on your own because you were incapable of reminding yourself of Yoongi’s reassurance, mind too blurred, too fucked out to remember.

“I’m sorry, honey. I’m still here. I never left you.”

You nod because he’s right. “I know now. I didn’t remind myself. It’s my fault.” It’s as much of a surprise to your ears as it is to Yoongi’s. He widens his eyes at your honesty before tenderness swims past. “I’m really sensitive right now.”

Jungkook rubs circles on your back with his thumb and you welcome his touch, his warm energy.

Yoongi caresses your face. “It’s okay, it’s not your fault. What we’re doing here is pretty overwhelming. But I’m here. I got you.” His words hold the same firmness that yours did and it’s difficult for you to grasp how they’re mending you, how they’re swooping that darkness in their arms and flinging it away from your reach. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Not one thing. Let me make it better for you, hm? You want me to make you feel better?”

Emptiness plummets down your body, in place of the darkness and the anger, and the moonbeams in his eyes engulf it, filling it with its pale light. All you can do is nod, too weak to express any other form of affirmation.

Yoongi kisses the place on your cheek beside your ear, slipping inside his words. “Good girl. The best. I’ll make you feel better. I’ll make you happy again, my love.” You sob at the pet name, at the tenderness, at the comforting feeling of Jungkook’s hand on your arm, pulling you back so you lean against his chest, participating in your healing. The round valley of his tattooed bicep nudges you in your cheek as he cages you in and you nuzzle your face into it, hooking both of your hands on his forearm. Musk, forest and wood suffusing your senses, along with a strong dose of safety. “That’s it, lean against him like that. Daddy will help you forget, too. Spread your legs for us.”

You do as he says, needing what he’s promising you—needing it from them both. Maybe then, when it’s from such a vast source, will you get your full healing.

Yoongi squirts a good amount of lube on his fingers, smearing it on your pussy. The coldness of it enlivens you and you lean your head back against the hardness of Jungkook’s chest, pressing your lips against his bulging muscles. And when Yoongi begins to massage your clit in slow circles, the healer tightens his hold around you, hand gripping your shoulders, the other one gliding down your tummy and staying there. Nipples pebbled against his forearm, breasts full and squished, your form safe, tucked, pleasured in the whole enormity that he is—you relax, giving yourself over to the delight of your boyfriend’s fingers.

He sinks two of them inside you, stuffing you to the brim and pausing there. Jungkook sneaks his towards your bundle of nerves, resuming the circles, breaths hot against your scalp, gaining pleasure from pleasuring you, especially so when your healing is the primary goal behind it.

And when Yoongi begins to fuck you, his hand drops from your shoulder and settles over your tit, pinching your nipple between the knuckles of his thumb and forefinger. You cry out and it drives your boyfriend to pump his digits harder—to the point that you can’t see the in and out motion, the pace so fast it becomes a blur.

“Let go, honey, come on, let it go for us,” Yoongi murmurs, putting his whole body into his intention; you would move along with him, too, if Jungkook weren’t holding you so tightly. “You feel so good around my fingers. So tight, so wet. Such a good girl, getting what you deserve.”

Jungkook quickens his circles, gruff groans muffled against your scalp. “You can do it, sweetheart. I know it feels good when we touch you like this.”

Your body drips in sweat and only when Yoongi agrees, pistons his fingers faster into you do you fully let go. Your anger, your trauma, your darkness leaves you in the form of your dew and Yoongi collects it in his hand. Doesn’t stop fucking you, in fact encourages another one and you spill until your wetness overflows from his hand. Eyes rolling back, hips lifting, legs spreading even further apart. Both men praise you, but you can’t hear them—your senses silent.

They come back to you when Yoongi licks his digits clean, swallowing your pain. Doesn’t waste time and turns you around, your sore, sensitive body colliding into Jungkook’s. And like him, he dives into your pussy, licking you clean, not having enough of your darkened taste.

You’re so out of it that you can only focus on the brush of Jungkook’s hand down your hair and the overstimulation that seizes you, that you can’t do anything about other than take it. “Coming so well, so many times for us. You feel better?”

You can’t answer his question, not when Yoongi begins to trace your tiny, virgin hole with his tongue, giving you a new kind of pleasure that you’ve never felt before. Your eyes whisk to the back of your head and Jungkook cradles it, understanding whooshing past his eyes—understanding that you can’t speak, not when you’re experiencing something so extensive. He smiles down at you, squishing your cheeks. “Feels good, doesn’t it? Fuck, you look so pretty.”

Your choked out moans are enough of an affirmation for him. He coos. Then, a squirt of lube. A finger slowly going in. A gasp, a warm breath that Jungkook inhales, feeling it with you. The uncertainty in your eyes that he instantly smooths out. “You can take it. You’re such a good girl, why wouldn’t you be able to take it? Just relax. I got you.” He kisses your nose and you want to weep in joy, so overcome with it all.

Per his reassurance, your round muscle relaxes and sucks him in. And when he begins to fuck you, you can’t contain your sounds. So lewd, so dirty, and Jungkook emboldens you by scrunching up his features, groaning with you, taking breaths with you. You give in, entirely, feel another orgasm coming, but Yoongi rips it away. Wants you to come around the thicker toy.

The coldness of it makes you tremble, although the hunger both of the males awakened in you for it drives you to move your hips back, helping Yoongi insert it in. It takes a few tries, a few ins and outs before you welcome in it, before the fullness enthralls you so much that you become even needier, even more confident and seductive.

Yoongi presents you to his friend, but each movement you make causes you to be more desperate than you’ve been the entire sultry night. Everything is heightened—every touch, every enjoyment of praise, every sliver of attention and all you want is to be fucked. Brutally, ravagedly fucked.

To absorb the sight of you as you’re positioned on your hands and knees, Jungkook begins to make love on the skin of your behind with his tongue. You feel every word of apology compressed into it. For every bruise, for every red splodge, for every acute pain caused, no matter how much you enjoyed it in the moment. It’s just between you and him, shielded by the premise of desire stirred by your adorned tiny hole. And you keep it that way, whimpering for him sweetly, validating it for him. Tucking it safely into every chamber of your heart.

Then, he strokes the flesh, replacing the bad memories with good ones—replacing the past with the present time. Lies down between your legs and pushes your hips down onto your face.

And you ride him. His tongue, his nose. Fondle the kitty ears askew on his head. Let his moans envelop around those chambers of your heart, protecting them. Let his eyes seal your scorching, enchanting femininity with all its spirited confidence. And once he pacifies the grinding movement of your hips and takes control, palming your breasts, lips sucking your clit, tongue toying with it, you come in seconds that are not pathetic in nature, but outright exhilarating.

You lean back against Yoongi, out of breath. He wraps his hand around your throat. “What do you want now, honey? You want to get fucked?”

You hum, the idea clutching your body in tight excitement. “Yes. Badly. Please.”

At your words, Jungkook begins to tug at his length and the needy movement reverberates throughout your entire body. You coo at him, enjoying the view and you get on your knees in front of the couch to watch him, inhaling his sounds like he did yours.

“You want us to take turns? He stops, as if he was seconds away from coming, and you wrap your lips around him, letting him know how much you like the idea—at which he trembles, pulling you away. You grin at him in pure joy. “Like the sound of that?”

“Fuck yes. Please. Both holes.”

Jungkook hisses, round, dark eyes rolling back for a split moment, losing himself—thumb swiping across your mouth once he comes back. “Daddy’s so fucking needy for you. Come here.”

He manhandles you. Like a child he carries you to the dining space and bends you over the table. You turn your head to see where Yoongi is and he slowly swaggers towards you and Jungkook, popping his button open and pulling out his length. Tip red and painfully swollen, length long and hard—longer than you’ve ever seen it—balls tight. And when Jungkook begins to fuck you sluggishly with the butt plug, you grip the wood of the table with all your strength, fingertips white, and watch as it drives Yoongi to fuck his fist.

The same fist he cups under your chin when he reaches you. “Spit.”

And you do—at the same time that Jungkook forces out the silver toy, tongue immediately coming to whirl around the stretched muscle. Like before, as Jungkook fucks you there, Yoongi fucks his fist. The sounds that spill out of all three mouths are simultaneous, creating a harmony fitting just right for the paradise you find yourself in. It’s such a vigor that he eats your ass with—he does it much differently than Yoongi. Hungry and feral, he again buries his face in your ass, squeezing the flesh, before he drills the muscle with fast, strong jabs. You can’t see anything, the pleasure so intense, so darkly intense and heavily pressured that your vision remains perpetually in the back of your head. Your orgasm closes down upon you swiftly, at once, when he rubs your clit with all four fingers, not expecting it at all as no flashes danced across that night-doused canopy of nothingness before your eyes, no body heat nor pressure rose. Jungkook secures your release by slipping the butt plug back in, smacking his mouth in delight. You slump against the table, boneless.

Jungkook takes your arms and pins them behind your back, angling the hot tip of his cock at your entrance. “You ready for this?”

Your yes is but a tweet.

Jungkook hums, breaths hard. “You want this cock?”

This time, your yes is a louder screech, vibrating through the whole apartment.

“Hm, I’m gonna stretch you out for him. Make your hole nice and big for all the cum we’ll dump you with. You’re gonna take it all like the good girl you are, aren’t you?”

Both of your holes, your muscles, your organs clench at his words and you can’t halt the litany of vulgar words and agreement from pouring out. His grip around your intertwined forearms is deathly and when he fills you to the brim, tip kissing your cervix, walls stretching around his thick girth little by little and gives you a singular, hard stroke that shakes the table, you scream so loud that the sound echoes around the room, carrying it out into the feverish night.

Your words are jumbled, a perfect mess, and it takes more than a few tries for you to get them out coherently. “You’re—you’re giving me all of it?” you ask, because if there’s more inches for you to take, you’ll die.

Jungkook chuckles, darkly, lips at your ear, his body heat enveloping yours like a chunky blanket. Sneaks a hand to your hip bone. Sinks a little deeper until his pelvis touches yours, his heat spreading into all of your pores. You gasp. “I’m giving you every.” Thrust. “Fucking.” Thrust. “Inch.” Thrust. “And it’s all yours, sweetheart.”

You’re breathless, weak, and it’s a slow crescendo, the way he begins to roll his hips, the way he straightens and the fresh wind goes for the imprint of sweat of your and his origin on your back, cooling it, though he rips the briskness away almost instantaneously, repeating his hard stroke, the table banging against the wall. Doesn’t give you the time to prepare.

“Can you take it?” he asks, along with that dark chuckle again. Your hands begins to tingle due to the way he’s gripping your wrists, your blood at a standstill. “Can you take us both, huh?”

Brutal thrust. Just what you wanted. He takes you by the throat and presses you against his chest, kissing you with such vulgarity that you moan into his mouth, the fullness you feel only heightening it. He grinds in response, hands descending to your breasts, kneading them, pinching both of your nipples between his knuckles and thumbs. “Pretty fucking girl.”

You whine.

He withdraws, then. Motions over to Yoongi. The loss disappoints you.

A man of his word, Jungkook stretched you enough for Yoongi to easily slip inside you to the hilt. You expect him to give you a few strokes before giving you over to his friend, and you prop your hands on the table to ready yourself for it, for Yoongi’s hunger as he’s the only one who hasn’t felt any pleasure over the course of the adventure.

But Yoongi only grips himself and pulls out.

A thicker length. To the brim. A slender one. And they repeat it until all you can hear is the madness of their aroused laughter, their grunts and their pants. Hands all over you. The feeling is so overwhelming that everything becomes a blur. You don’t know whose hand is touching you, whose mouth is kissing you, whose cock is drilling you, senses ascending to a place beyond the paradise—

And then you feel both of their tips toying with your abused hole, acting, feignedly—drawing in and out, never fully penetrating.

A short-lived moment that causes you to forget who you are.

“Oh, god,” you drawl, slumping against the wood, helpless. They continue to take turns in fucking you fluidly, the symphony of your slick so loud, so filthy to your ears. You’re numb to the point that you don’t peep a sound, disoriented and so adrift in the place beyond paradise that they took you to.

Jungkook takes control once he hears your call for help. Begins to piston his length inside you rapidly until stars take shape across your vision, wrapping a forearm around your neck similarly to the way he did in the middle of your healing, digging crescent moons into your shoulder. Stops your head from knocking back and forth furiously. You feel his sweat drip down his pelvis—and with each hard thrust, its pearls jump over to your skin, trickling down your trembling legs. The pressure in your core is but a heartbeat away from bursting. You sense it—and you sense it vehemently.

“Are you gonna come around my cock or around his, hm? Whose is it gonna be, sweetheart?”

Your body answers him for you, your walls tightening around him so resolutely that Jungkook stills, whimpering onto your neck. You come so hard that there is absolutely nothing else that you hear but that whiny sound—and all you can see is the stars gaining vibrant colors to their pointed shapes, various, various colors that blind you. Colors that, like you, get dumped with hot, ivory, thick cum.

Your orgasm triggered his.

You mewl like a little kitty cat, so pleased that he came in you, so pleased that you felt it, that you felt the twitching of his cock. Pleased that when you gape at him, you can see how spent he is, content and illuminated like those stars.

You want to lick him up. You want to taste that glow on your tongue.

His cum drips out of you when you turn around. Jungkook collects it with two of his fingers and pumps it back inside you. The look you give him is almost predatory, so awfully fierce that he grows faintly timid, post-nut clarity cocooning him in a soft aura, bringing his puppy nature back to him.

You sit back down on the table and spread your legs for your boyfriend, but your gaze remains fixed on him. Blindly, you reach for Yoongi’s hand, drawing him closer, and he happily obliges your silent command. Lines himself up at your entrance and pumps Jungkook’s cum deeper into you.

You let the puppy see the exhilaration springing up your body, tugging the corners of your mouth to each side. The glint in your eyes. The pure joy that you feel. Then, the falling of that expression as it blends into a depiction of your pleasure—furrowed brows, pout, narrowed lids. You don’t take your eyes off of him. Not even for a second.

In fact, you curl your fingers in beckoning. And when he comes to you, you lick a stripe of the sweat coating his defined abdomen, tongue rolling around the valley of his hard muscle. Kiss the skin before you suck it into your mouth, moaning when Yoongi goes all in—fucking you with all of his energy. The taste of his glow only betters the experience, but you don’t think you can come again. You enjoy it, nonetheless.

And when you turn your attention to your boyfriend, deeming he deserves it—Jungkook steals it in typical fashion. “Feels good?” Light, much bigger than yours, covering his eyes. You nod, humming, girlishly so—the sound pitched. “You’re gonna come again? For him?”

You consider it an impossible task, but for him you’ll do anything. “I’ll try.”

Jungkook makes a sound of approval, leans in and kisses you gently. Yoongi turns your chin to him and as soon as your lips touch his, you feel his cock twitch. Unlike Jungkook, he fucks you through his orgasm, groaning loudly into your mouth and you reach to the place, where you’re connected and squeeze his balls, wanting his cum, needing it.

And when Yoongi emerges from his bliss, he smiles at you, breathing out a soft laugh. Features relaxed, drowsy. You give him a smile, too, the same tiredness engulfing you.

Slinking out of you, you discover he came so vastly that his male essence trickles out of you. You graze a finger across your slit and you gather so much of it that as you take your hand towards your mouth, it plops onto your stomach. You giggle, high on the hormones released through your body, high on the happy males watching you, high on life—high on rightness. The joy doesn’t even let you wrap your lips around your finger, adamant on showing them how well they gratified you by keeping them stretched in a dopey grin.

They’re so endeared by you that the same expression graces their faces. Exchanging a single glance, they start at once—picking you up like a child. Yoongi by your legs, Jungkook by your pits and it’s him, the healer, who leads the way to the bathroom, walking backwards hurriedly.

Though promptly, when putting you down, your legs are so sore, so weakened that if it weren’t for their arms, you’d fall onto the tiles. Giggles and obscenities are swallowed by the crooning sound of the streaming hot water in the shower and you sigh so deeply once it touches your skin. It alleviates the ache of your muscles, alleviates the throbbing memory of the last time you were under that burning cascade—especially when Yoongi twists your body, making you face Jungkook; especially when he says the words that quicken your heartbeat.

“Wash her clean.”

Making things right. Erasing that afternoon that ended in blood and bruises.

The wet, puppy eyes you give to Jungkook are enough for him to do as Yoongi says, mirroring your mien, greatly affected by the permission, by the act of something so forbidden untangling its inextricable knot. It happened so suddenly that he doesn’t truly believe he’s allowed to do it, hands shaking by his sides, clenched into fists. It is only when Yoongi begins to shampoo your hair that he’s spurred to do something.

And you help him. With a thudding heart and tight emotion lodged in your throat, you hand him your favorite almond-scented body wash. He doesn’t tear his gaze away from you when he spreads the aroma on your sternum. Doesn’t blink once, doesn’t let his eyes wander south to your body—as if it was sacred, as if it was not meant to be looked at with lust in this intimate scenario.

And you don’t feel fire when the heat of his hands glides down your neck, your shoulders and your arms. You feel something else entirely, something you can’t really pinpoint. Something holy, something so immensely heavenly. Maybe it’s brought about by the fact that he doesn’t touch your intimate parts—not your breasts, not your vulva. The only time he comes near to it is when he leads you into his chest and carefully, while peeking down, tries to pull out the forgotten toy. You sense Yoongi’s hands on your backside, watching over, and the feeling of being rid of it is so uncomfortable that you cringe against his pec, squeezing him hard, hugging him with everything in you. Jungkook makes gentle sounds for you, encouraging you and it relaxes your body enough that it lets go of the toy.

Grabbing your shoulders, he studies your emotions. Sees only your same old tiredness and he pecks you, descending onto the tiled floor to cleanse you of your stickiness. Isn’t grossed out by the male essence that isn’t his. Kisses your trembling muscles on the apex of your thigh. Cradles your foot, massages it. The other one, too.

And when Yoongi rinses out your shampoo and the bubbles of your almond body wash, Jungkook tells him, gravely, “Wash her where she needs it.”

You’re so touched by the fact he doesn’t dare to lay a hand there in a non-sexual environment that it doesn’t leave any space for shock to come through. Your finger itches to hook around his, but you take one step further—you slide your hand into his. And like a child, you let yourself be washed in between your legs as Jungkook, like a father, watches over it.

Once you’re clean, the males take their turns. You observe the bubbles, the white foam, their veined hands gliding along their glistening bodies and, alternating, you touch them, helping them in a way. Touch the love bruise upon Jungkook’s abdomen; touch the indistinct happy trail on Yoongi’s. Rinse them off.

Needing to be held, you guide Jungkook’s hands to your waist and fold your arms around Yoongi’s shoulders, but both males think differently. Squishing you in the middle of them, they hug each other, each head buried in each crook of your neck. You feel their hearts beat as one and it nearly lulls you to sleep, its healing beauty soothing you to the point that your lids become heavier. And the three of you stand there, in a cozy, homely embrace, until coldness wraps around you, too.

They let you do your thing on your own.

Once you come out of the shower, Yoongi kisses you and asks you if he should bring you any clothes. You merely shake your head and he leaves it at that, following Jungkook out of the bathroom.

You lather your body in your mango butter in your aloneness. Blowdry your hair. Do your skincare. Note that there aren’t any thoughts in your brain, just deep, content silence swimming around with happy hormones. You’re so grateful for it that you could weep.

To bed, you wear your newest purchase. A pink lacy camisole with matching bodycon shorts. You slide your feet into your fluffy slippers and as you make your way into the living room, you hope with all your heart that Jungkook hasn’t left. You haven’t exchanged many words after the sex and because of that, you knife yourself with the expectation to find only Yoongi lounging around in the sitting area.

Midwalk, you bind it all into a loose braid. Don’t use a tie to seal it. Merely flip your hair back—with the futile wish it would untangle.

And it does when you find the males smoking on the balcony with the door wide open. Jungkook, fully dressed in the outfit he came in. Yoongi, wearing his pants. You let out a quiet breath of relief, stooping to the ground to pick up your robe and the cheese ball, a dreadful twinge in your lower body alarming you. And then, you notice that someone folded your little sheer outfit neatly on the chair.

“I wasn’t able to touch her after you,” you hear Yoongi say, the wholeness of the starry night plating his low pitch. You still your breathing, the perplexity from his words forcing you to whisk your head in his direction. “All I saw was my shortcomings… and—and I didn’t know how to please her anymore because you showed her new things. I felt less than. Unable to be the right person for her sexually.”

Your heart shrinks so much it pains you. Yoongi never told you these things during the therapy sessions. He mainly spoke about the sexual moments at the cabin, but never about the ones after, never about what truly bothered him on his healing journey. He bottled it up. Your throat fills with bile.

“Has what we did tonight changed that?” Jungkook asks, shoulders tense. “We practically did the same things and she was more than pleased.”

Your heart grows back to its full size at the positive mention of you. You rise to your full form, flinging the cheese ball into its empty bowl before folding your robe. Your ears perk in waiting for his answer.

“I think so.” The bile sinks back down, along with the pain coated with sadness. “I also think we should do this again.”

Your mind doesn’t allow your body to exult, knowing the reason why he said it.

He wants to either finish the hidden healing or… check if it has come to an end.

The tension doesn’t ease in Jungkook’s shoulders. “Only if you work hard and focus on her. I’m not consenting to this if you only touch her with me being present.”

Silence in your heart—a skipped beat. You don’t want to hear any more of that conversation. You put away your robe and grab the dishes, washing them in the sink.

No matter how much dish soap you use, you can’t scrub away the healer’s magic off of your hands. It pelts under your skin, to and fro, over and over as you repeat his words in your mind. Gives strength to your fingers as you hold the unusually heavy plates and bowls, the tiredness a hefty burden on your shoulders, weighing you down.

Such a good man. You’re so grateful to know such an extraordinary being like him. A good friend, the best you could wish for Yoongi. A good lover, too—

“I think it’s way bigger and deeper, this relationship and how I feel about it. I can’t help it—” Jungkook’s voice no longer a far-off murmuring, he halts his words at the sight of you. Calls your name. “I thought you were asleep already.”

You turn off the tap water, ignoring the question in your body about the incomplete sentence he uttered while being under the impression you were beyond hearing distance. Think you’ve learned and come about plenty enough of things tonight. You want to go to bed. With both of them.

You don’t say your reasoning behind why you’re here. Deem it’s pointless. “Let’s go to bed.”

You reach out your hand for him, but it is only the wind that encases your palm. You drop it.

A chaos of shoulds and desires swarms in him. You can see it, vividly. “I should go home.”

You’re having your way, you don’t care. “No. Stay.”

Jungkook calls your name again. Yoongi licks his lips, smiling, fondly. Walks towards you and grabs your hand, leading you towards the bedroom. The puppy stays fixed on his feet, not comprehending that you want him to sleep in Yoongi’s bed and not on the couch.

You raise your hand again for him. “Come, you’re sleeping with us.”

Jungkook has gone commando under his jeans. You eye the sliver of minimal hair on his pelvis and before you can ogle his worm, he cups himself.

Unabashedly, you click your tongue in disappointment, even though the recollection of your private decision to have his boxers as a keepsake, approved by him, suffuses your exhausted body in delight.

You get under the sheets, right in the middle, watching as Yoongi hands him his gray sweatpants to wear, holding your breath when Jungkook turns around and you gain a perfect view of his round, toned ass.

You’re certain that man will be the death of you.

Yoongi crawls into the bed, nuzzling into the crooks of your body that he knows well, cuddling to your arm. You hear him inhale the scent of your shampoo. “You smell so good.”

You stroke his forearm with your fingernails, transfixed by the way the waistband of the forbidden pants hangs low on Jungkook’s hips, by his slow, seductive walk that you don’t particularly think he’s doing on purpose. That’s just what makes him him, which worsens it all.

In similar fashion, he lays down beside you, but he doesn’t turn to his side as your boyfriend has done. No, like you, he rests on his back, hands by his body, touching you without meaning to. His warmth environs you, but you notice that a good half of his body isn’t covered by the sheets. You fix it right away, tucking him in—tucking the fabric right under his chin.

He gives you a strange look that makes you giggle. “You want me to burn?”

Oh, men and their body heat. You’ll never grow tired of it—it’ll forevermore fascinate you.

You shush him. “Sleep.” Pinch his nose, deepening his funny scowl. “Goodnight, sweet dreams.”

Yoongi begins to purr beside you and you know he’s halfway on his journey to dreamland. You lay back down, hip to hip with both males, hands on your tummy, your eyes languidly fluttering closed.

A hand on your thigh. You open them fleetingly, surprised at the contact, before they close on their own.

“I’ve missed his purring,” Jungkook whispers, thumb brushing across your smooth skin. Just once. “Haven’t heard it in a while. It’s better than brown noise.”

You laugh, softly, agreeing with him in your heart. Submit to the call of your own dreamland and you turn to your side, facing Yoongi, propping the back of your hand under your chin.

But then Jungkook folds into your form.

Mirrors your position. Arm around you, hand relaxed on the mattress an inch away from your tummy.

It makes you feel funny. It makes you wild, your body gaining the tiniest tendril of energy. You curse him, mentally, although you don’t mean a single word.

You feel his gentle breath fanning the nape of your neck. Along with it arrives the need for him to touch you. You purse your lips, burying your head deeper into the pillow in effort to shake that off and focus on relaxing your body—

“Hyung?”

He hums in response. You curse him, too.

“She didn’t come when you fucked her.”

Your eyes fly open. The audacity this man has—

Tense, tense nothingness. It thrums uncomfortably under your skin.

“Lemme make it right.”

Radio silence in your heart, its profound waves shaking through your entire body, tearing off its drowsiness.

“Okay, Jungkookie.”

Your gasp is so minimal, yet Jungkook feels it. He presses his palm against your stomach, pulling you closer to him. Yoongi turns to his other side, as if giving you the privacy for what Jungkook wants to do to you.

Reposing halfway on his back, halfway on his side, he maneuvers your form to mirror his position. And for the longest time, you both just lay there while Jungkook brushes his fingers along your clothed body. Back and forth, in circles, in peculiar patterns that soothe you. You thought you’d fall asleep this way, but the touches keep your body awake, promising it things in a silent language that it so evidently wants.

And it isn’t until Yoongi begins to snore that you perceive Jungkook waited until he entered his deep slumber. The breath you let out is loud, absorbed by your boyfriend’s much bigger ones, but it makes Jungkook hold your jaw steady as he draws his lips close to your ear.

“I didn’t like that he used you,” he whispers and his words fill your body with something foreign, something that drives your brows to knit, your muscles to clench, for butterflies to stir awake, although you disagree with him. Yoongi didn’t use you. You don’t really think he did. When you motioned him to take his turn, you expected to come again, but your body was so spent that it wasn’t able to do so, which is completely okay in your opinion. “If I fuck a girl and I come first before she does, I don’t stop until she creams all around me. Even if it hurts.”

You remember him pushing you away when you wanted to keep going after he orgasmed. “You don’t like to be overstimulated, though.”

He snickers again, softly and lowly. “And yet I don’t stop.” Both hands on your tummy, he glides them down, towards your hips, towards your thighs before he drags them back up. Lifts up your camisole this time around, getting a feel of your skin. Rubs circles. “I want to make you come like you deserved to. Can I?”

“I came a lot of times. I don’t know if I can.”

Jungkook caresses your bottom lip with his thumb, angling your jaw towards him. “We can try and see if you can.”

We. He kisses your cheek and you pout in his hand. Brain turned off, too numb by all the orgasms, the attention and the affection you’ve received, you take the other one and slide it beneath your shorts. Feel an onrush of freshness in your lungs when he whimpers at the contact of your lips with the pads of his fingers and you move your hips back against him, gaining another sound of similar nature that willingly tempts your madness to return to you.

He’s hard.

You grind your backside against his thick imprint, loving the feeling of it, loving the soft noises he makes as if he was trying to stifle them, but you were making it awfully difficult for him to do so.

“Don’t do that or I’ll cum in Yoongi’s pants.”

Your laugh is feral. Quiet, gentle. An oxymoron that could only belong to his name. To his art. The idea of him coming in your boyfriend’s pants drenches you and he gasps once he discovers it, teasing your entrance.

“You want me to come like this?” he asks and you hum your agreement, his fingers ascending to your clit, stroking it in slow, slow circles. His breath hardens in tandem with yours and he swears. “But I don’t and you will listen to me.”

He pulls out his hand and you whine, catching his wrist, bringing it back where it belongs. On your clothed, now swollen clit. You grind your hips with more fervor, just to work him up, just because you enjoy it and he fists the material of your shorts, stimulating you with the seam, dominating you through and through.

You merely beam at him, illuminating the room, fisting his cock. “Don’t stretch out my new shorts.”

“Don’t provoke me and we’ll reach an understanding,” he retorts, swirling his tongue around the bone of your jaw before he kisses it. Responding to it, you grind your pelvis back, angling your hips so his cock fits just right in between your cheeks. He tuts in disapproval, shifts a little bit more to his side nonetheless, pulling you flush to his body. “No, other way sweetheart. Grind your pussy against it.” You try it, placing your hand on top of his, unsure and he helps you, guiding your hips with his, grinding upwards, as if he was fucking you. You mewl at the pleasure permeating your veins and with his free hand, he clamps your mouth shut. “Yes, that’s it.” He tightens his hold on your shorts, hoisting it higher. “Feels so good like this, doesn’t it?” You nod, your noises loud, only slightly muffled by his clammy hand. He shushes you, breath hot against your ear. “You gotta be quiet. We don’t wanna wake Yoongi up, do we?” You shake your head ‘no’, squeezing your hold on his hand. Jungkook lets go of your shorts and slides beneath them again, fingers spreading your new arousal on your clit. You squeak again, terribly sensitive and turned on, bound in his arms. “I told you to be quiet. Do you know what happens to girls who don’t listen?”

You’re glad to hear he didn’t add “to me”, for some deranged reason and for that, you don’t peep a sound.

“They get punished,” he answers for you and you can’t stop the moan from escaping your throat, the idea of getting punished by him again making you utterly, utterly delirious.

He strains his fingers around your mouth until it hurts, but that’s not the reason why you draw it away. You do it so you can speak. “Teach me a lesson, please. I need it.”

You wish you could see his reaction, but the darkness keeps it to itself. You can only hear the sharp inhale of breath he takes—and you can feel the twitch of his cock against you that divulges to you that he’s gone mad just the same.

While silence takes place, he drags your shorts down to your thighs, the tight cotton preventing you from spreading your legs. He moves you so you lay on your back and from this position, you sense Yoongi’s body heat and the lift and fall of his chest, though he still remains facing you with his back. Jungkook lifts your camisole until your breasts are exposed. And then, he props the back of your head on his bicep, clamping your mouth back shut. He looks down at you and you can only slightly make out his features. The glint of his lip ring irradiates him. Mercifully.

You want to kiss him so bad.

“How does Yoongi punish you, hm?”

The question shocks you, coaxes out a string of your arousal to drop down your clenched thighs. Whilst he waits for your answer, he grazes his palm down your sternum, your stomach, your mound. Leaves it there.

It’s your body that responds out of its own will, not your brain. You can’t, for the life of you, think. He allows you to speak. “With his words. His cock. And… with pussy spanks.”

Jungkook hums. Puts the covers out, revealing you to himself. “Show me how he spanks you.” Your hand trembles as he lifts it. He brushes his thumb across your knuckles while he places it on your cunt, taking control of that expression of nerves. Wraps the other hand around your throat.

When your fingers collide with your clit, you hiss in sensitivity. Decide you will only show him this way. You can’t take any more. “Like this. Gently, but firmly. So it doesn’t hurt. He doesn’t like to cause me pain.”

He exchanges your hand with his and spanks you. With bigger firmness than Yoongi ever used. You arch your back, not expecting it with your dumb brain. He pinches your right nipple between his knuckle and thumb, making you moan softly, not having enough and enveloping it with his mouth, sucking briefly before he swirls his tongue around the nub. Your wetness rushes out, along with your noises that you’re just so incapable of stopping. You grip his hair on the back of his head and in response he flicks the muscle. Your hips buck, asking for attention.

Jungkook withdraws, stares you dead in the eye. “I’m punishing you for making a sound and yet you do as you please?”

You swear, eyes wide. “I’m sorry.”

He spanks your clit. “Sorry what?”

Remembrance flashes through your mind. “I’m sorry, Daddy.”

“Hm, that’s right.” He rubs your clit rapidly. Spanks it again. Your moans come out in strained breaths. “That was for the curse word. Say you’re sorry.”

But then, you can’t help but mewl at his fatherliness. “I’m sorry, Daddy.”

He pecks you, deeply. For the title, for your good manners or perhaps to silence you—you don’t know. “How sorry?”

His fingers find your clit again, strumming it, lips moving against you in a passionate kiss. Your brain malfunctions. “So sorry,” you whisper onto his mouth, gripping his hair.

He spanks you, softly, for pleasure, then continues. “You won’t say it again?”

“No.”

A sound of approval. “Good girl.” He sinks his middle finger inside you as far as your restrain allows him, fucking you slowly. The pressure of delight begins to build in you. “One more?”

“Yes, please, Daddy.”

Ring finger joins in, instantly. “Such a good girl. I love hearing you say that.” He jackhammers into you a few times before he stills, thumbing your clit. The fullness, the stimulation on your most needy part—it’s enough to make you come and you feel it chasing you again, nearing and nearing. “I want to fuck you like this with my fingers and have that toy on your clit. The one we used the last time. Keep the setting low, so it wouldn’t wake him up.”

A curse word rises on your tongue, but with the last brain cell you have—you swallow it down. You’re tiptoeing before the edge, knot tight in your tummy, pressure so enormous, and you tell him. “I’m gonna come.”

He lifts his thumb. “Hold it.”

You panic, faintly, standing still before the edge, face to face with your orgasm, close, terribly close. “I can’t.”

Jungkook shifts. “You will.” Bends you in half while keeping his fingers inside you, mouth latching onto your soaked cunt.

Takes control of your orgasm as he begins to toy with it, building it little by little with sluggish circles on your clit with the tip of his tongue. Then, he wraps his lips around it, nibbling on it and resumes the movement of his fingers, fucking you steadily.

The pleasure is so new, so different that you feel as though you’re levitating in heavenly places. You grind your hips against him, meeting him, but briefly. When he sucks your clit, he stills your motions and spreads shakes across your entire body. “Come for Daddy, sweetheart.”

He flicks his tongue—and you do. You come so violently for him that you grip his hair with all your might, surprised that he isn’t wincing in pain. And he doesn’t stop.

He keeps going until all that’s left of you is nothing but the cordiality of your high and those shudders, licking you up, devouring all that you’re giving him, wet fingers spread on the back of your thighs.

Then, he sets your legs down, straddles you and kisses you nastily. Makes you taste yourself on his lips, on his tongue and he enjoys the principle of it all. Enjoys giving back to you what you leaked for him. “I could have you come on my tongue all night.” He pecks you, swirls his tongue around yours. “You kept quiet through it all. Good girl. You learn so well.”

You’re speechless, satisfied, sensing something approaching you that you fail to understand. Something bigger than attachment, but smaller than feelings. Connected to his healing gift or perhaps invented from it. Something that’s smack dab in the middle, growing in you, and you submit to it, unafraid of it.

A certain desire fraternizes with it. You push at his shoulder, wanting him on his back. As if he senses what it is, he stays put. Solid as a rock. In both ways.

But you’ll have your own.

You tug the waistband of Yoongi’s sweats down his hips and grasp him in your hand, spreading his thick arousal down his length. Jungkook’s breath shakes, but his words don’t. “When did I tell you you could do that?”

You grab him with both hands, squeezing him. He hisses, muscles bulging along his arms on either side of you. “I’m sorry, Daddy. Can I?”

He coos. “Only because you’re so well-mannered.” Nods at you. “Keep going. Make your Daddy feel good.” Your Daddy. The fire it sparks in you, you put its wholeness into your movement—jerking him off, twisting your wrists, using all of your strength. “Hands off.” He spits on his head, the trail long and delicious to your eyes and you’re quick, you’re desperate, to resume and make him come, ache pressing down on your pussy all over again.

The slickness, his stifled noises, the snug warmth—you understand all of a sudden how he’s able to feel your pleasure because you’re experiencing it. You are pleasured because you’re pleasuring him. But still, you want more. You press him against your clit. “Fuck my hands like this, please.”

He repositions your hands. Slides them lower on his length, so his tip can stimulate your bundle of nerves. And when he begins to thrust, you’re transfixed.

By the roll of his hips, the clenching of his abdominal muscles, the evident delight overwhelming his body. You can’t take your eyes off of him. Especially not when he lets his guttural vocality loose.

You smile. “You should be quiet.”

He laughs down at you, softly. It vibrates in your core. He kisses you, humming into your mouth. “You’re right, but it feels so good like this. Doesn’t it feel good on your pussy?”

You nod, biting his lip, angling your head and devouring his mouth, plagued by his arousal, by his pleasure, by his response to your little slyness. He fucks your hands faster, gliding across your clit, not lasting for a moment longer. He shoots out his hot cum onto your tummy, cock twitching in your hands, his noises muffled by your mouth.

And he remains there. Even as he fingers you so fast that you come in seconds. Even as he takes those drenched digits, collects his male essence and plunges them into your mouth. “‘Atta girl. So good for me.”

He cleans your folds and thighs with his tongue. Dresses you, like a child. Fixes your camisole. Puts the covers back on you and spoons you.

Yoongi remains soundly asleep. You succumb to slumber faster than you came but before you do, it’s Jungkook’s words that lead you to that dreamland. “Goodnight, sweetheart. Sweet dreams.”

In the morning, you wake up first. And the sight you see is so profoundly beautiful that you take a moment to gape at it, folding it into your heart.

Jungkook drools in his sleep. Celestial countenance, tousled hair in all directions, broad chest lifting and falling in absolute tranquility. He twists his features for a split second, as if he was dreaming about something uncomfortable and you’re so affected by it that you look away.

Turn your gaze to your boyfriend instead.

Still snoring, mouth parted. Ebony hair brushed back, exposing his forehead. The corners of his lips tug up and stay and you think angels must be playing with him in his dreams. You kiss his arm, crawling back, painfully, until your feet hit the floor.

You take a long, long shower. Practice your gratitude, recollecting last night’s events and words spoken by Jungkook that weren’t as private as he thought. Hearing them, they were too fresh to be consumed, but now that you think about them—your own smile finds your lips and you agree with him in your heart. You can’t let him walk away after this. Can’t let him return to his normal life that exists without you, not when you’re something along the lines of attached to him. Hell, you can’t return to your own normal life without him. Without his touch, without his celestiality. Without his attentiveness and healing gift.

This has to be a continuous relationship.

Jungkook was the one who called it that way and it feels right. Even as you taste it on your tongue, it’s the most delicious thing you’ve ever swallowed. It fills your body with verve, one that you deem is essential at this point. One that you will need every single day from now on.

You have to talk about this with Yoongi. The idea doesn’t scare you, despite the fact you can’t really picture his reaction. Can’t imagine which way it will gravitate towards—whether to light or to dark. You don’t mind at all, in fact you look forward to it and you wash your body with greater care than you ever handled it with before.

With a face mask on, you take your cosmetic bag and do your makeup in the living room. The sunlight spills in, kissing your ebullient mien, and you imprint its red marks with a touch of blush across your cheeks, its lovely color with glitter on your eyelids and you finish the job with a few brushes of mascara upon your lashes and a singular swipe of a glimmering lip gloss on your lips.

It is only then that Jungkook appears in front of you.

“He still sleeps like a bear.”

You’re so happy to see him that it manifests on your face.

“Don’t try to wake him up or you’ll get eaten.”

Placing your cosmetic bag on his lap, he sits beside you. “I wouldn’t dare.” Examines your face for a good moment. “Why are you putting this on? You don’t need it.”

“I enjoy it,” you say, watching fondly as he takes out each makeup product and scans them. Once he comes across your tiny tubes of glitter of various shades, light flickers in his eyes. Your heart does the same thing. And a somersault right after.

“You wear glitter?”

You nod, a precious, girlish smile stretching your glossy mouth. “I’m wearing it right now.” You close your eyes for him, letting him see the small sparkles, resplendent of the sun. He praises you, the word ‘pretty’ embracing you tightly in all its snug simplicity, forcing your eyes open. A brighter spark shines in his irises. You brim with the yearning to doll up his eyes to match it and, having your way as always, you steal the tubes from him. “Which one do you want?”

He doesn’t even fight you. As a matter of fact, he’s already decided. Doesn’t waste a second to reply. “The silver one.”

Excitedly, you quiver all over. Dab the applicator on the back of your hand and lift your sight to catch him smiling cutely at you like the puppy he is. Your hand itches to ruffle his hair. Grab his cheek and bite into it. Go for his nose next.

Whirling the pad of your finger on the splatter of glitter, you hover it above his lids. “Close your eyes.”

He listens, immediately. You pat the imitation of his glint across that soft skin, but you focus on that beautiful, pouty smile of his. Think you’ll save his lips for last and savor them as you eat them.

You swipe your finger for more and adorn his other eye. Take the rest and speckle it on the highest points of his cheekbones—this time with his attention all on you.

You lean back to observe your artwork and find that something is missing. You know right away what it is.

You dab the applicator on his cupid’s bow and drag it down his collarbones. Take care of that first before you move over to his lips. You blend it there with utmost care and he lets you, zeroining his gaze into yours. Deep, but gentle. Loving.

To finish it, you kiss him. And it’s not because you were driven by your emotions or by that stare of his. You do it because you want to. Kiss him again, so the highlight is perfectly blended.

He’s puzzled when you draw away, but you’re not unnerved by it. You’re firm and stable in your decisions, happy in the outcome, any hints of repercussions or doubts far, far away from you. In another world, in another galaxy. It has long forgotten your name and you’re glad for it.

“We shouldn’t do this.”

There he goes with ‘we’ again. It makes you weak.

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” you say, soothingness coating your voice, penetrating his negative emotion to the point that he relaxes. Before he can say anything, you continue. “I heard what you said last night. To Yoongi. That this relationship is way bigger and deeper.” Surprise and timidity bleeds into the glitter on his face and he’s unable to look you in the eye. You grab his palm, holding it with both of your hands in your lap. “I agree with you. I feel it, too. This wasn’t just a one time thing. I don’t think it was ever meant to be just for one night.”

There’s rawness to your words that make him reciprocate your eye contact. He gnaws at his lips, as if to eat away his nerves. You squeeze his hand harder and are about to continue, but the creak on the hardwood floors stops you.

Yoongi. With his wrinkled face and puffy, but awake eyes. In a pair of boxers and nothing else. You stand up to your feet, dropping Jungkook’s hand, and you go to meet him halfway, but you don’t make it far. The soreness between your legs won’t let you.

He grins at you, wrapping his arms around you. “Can’t walk?” His taunt is loving and scrunch your face at him. “Good morning, honey.”

You kiss his bare chest. “Good morning.”

Yoongi moves over to Jungkook and places a hand on his shoulder. “Sleep well?”

Wet softness in his eyes. “The best sleep of my life.”

“So, I want two boyfriends.”

While Yoongi made coffee for all three of you, you were more than happy to make breakfast. Scrambled eggs on avocado toast—one that Jungkook chokes on upon hearing your words and one that flings out of Yoongi’s mouth because he bursts into a violent laughter.

You laugh along with him—so hard that tears well in your eyes, slapping your palm down repeatedly on the round wooden table. Yoongi mirrors your movement on Jungkook’s back as he fights for his life, red in the face, eyes wide.

“What did you say?” the puppy croaks out, bewildered, letting go of his bread and you feel terribly bad for him, for shocking him so enormously.

The decision came upon you suddenly while you cooked. Easy, smooth. Appeared on your heart that sprang it up to your mind. Gave it pros and cons—good friendship, good sex, good time; Yoongi might get jealous and/or possessive, nothing else. It made sense to you, grazed your attachment ever so sweetly. How else would you keep last night continuous? Even Yoongi went around the matter when he talked Jungkook’s head off, asking him if he’d been with other people after you.

Boyfriend simply means that. No other people—just you and Yoongi.

You weren’t going to keep it to yourself. Even if there was a risk of it going downhill.

It’s not relief that you feel upon hearing Yoongi laugh—it’s a river of liberation, concocted with absolute joy, coursing in your bloodstream. He woke up in a good mood. Woke up happy. And you fold that fact into your heart, hoping it stays for a long time.

“Eat your toast, silly,” you say, smiling, eyes crinkled. Take a bite of your own. Happy that Yoongi is happy, happy that you’re eating your favorite fruit, sitting again at the table with your two favorite people. “You heard me.”

“Oh, fuck,” is all Jungkook says, whisking his eyes to Yoongi, who’s chuckling, bending down to pick up the piece of toast he was in the middle of chewing.

You look at him, too, waiting for his response.

Yoongi brushes his hair back, a lazy smile on his mouth. “I think it’s a fantastic idea.”

You grin so hard that your cheeks hurt. The river in you speeds its stream. “Thank you,” you exclaim, rubbing his arm, quivering with excitement. “I say we mess around and have a good time. We can go on dates.”

Jungkook relaxes a little bit, furrowing his brows as he chews on his toast.

“She wanted two cocks, don’t tell me you didn’t expect this,” Yoongi says to his friend, patting your thigh. “I did.”

Perhaps that’s why he had such a hard time in all of this. He knew it was inevitable—and he worked his way through it until he ended here. Fine with it. Healed.

“When did that happen?” you ask, sliding your hand down to his.

“When I decided the first time I was gonna give it to you. Then, again when I promised you we were gonna make this work,” he says and you pout at him, so grateful, so touched. He squeezes your thigh, looking at Jungkook. “I can see your questions all over your face. Out with them.”

Jungkook has finished his toast, brows still furrowed as he swallows. He leans back in his chair, manspreading, hands intertwining behind his head. Pokes a tongue in his cheek, smirking. “Don’t kill me for this, but,” he starts, showing his teeth. “Do I get to have her to myself? Without you? And vice versa?”

Your heart beats ferociously in your chest. Yoongi pauses for a moment, thinking about it. He let him do it last night, he let him have you to himself, though under different circumstances. You figure what Jungkook meant is whether he can fuck you without asking for permission and the idea exhilarates you.

And the vice versa part. Jungkook is one sly—

“It won’t be instant, but we’ll work hard. Work our way through it until we’re all comfortable and happy,” Yoongi finally says and you kiss his hand.

You’re so overwhelmed with joy that your blood buzzes.

Jungkook nods. “Of course, I understand.”

“Is this something you want?” Yoongi directs the question at you and you nod.

“Yes, once you’re ready.”

Silence settles like fine dust. You finish your toast quietly and as soon as you’re done, you deem Yoongi should know about what happened in the late hours. “We didn’t fuck last night. While you slept. It didn’t even cross my mind and I wouldn’t do it unless I had your… blessing.”

Yoongi cackles at your choice of word. “Good girl,” he praises. “You’ll get your blessing soon. I promise.”

You look at him for a long time and you wonder if there’s anything he wouldn’t do for you.

“So, it’s settled, then,” Jungkook says and places a hand on the table, opens it for you. You grab it and he squeezes you. “Let’s celebrate.”

BACK to masterlist / READ part one, READ part two, READ part three

#jungkook x oc #yoongi smut #jungkook x reader #jungkook x you #jungkook smut #bts smut #bts imagine #jungkook imagine #jeon jungkook #bts scenarios #jungkook scenarios #jungkook fluff #btscreatorscorner #kpop smut #jungkook one shot #yoongi x oc #yoongi x reader #yoongi imagine

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uvobreakmylegs · 2 months ago

Text

As Fate Would Have it

red thread of fate soulmate! AU with Razor x reader

Warnings: kidnapping, mentions of death

Word Count: 12.2k words

He hadn't said anything to you.

After returning to your hotel room only to immediately be jumped by the man who had clearly been laying in wait for you, he had yet to utter a single word, instead staying quiet through the process of grabbing and restraining you. Even when you had tried to kick and scream when you realized that you were being attacked, he didn't explain anything or mutter out any curses when you were successful in hitting him a few times. Not even to mock you when it was clear that you were lacking the strength needed to do any sort of damage to him.

It was only for a short period of time that your limbs were free, and now you were laying on the hotel bed, your wrists bound behind your back, your ankles tied together and a washcloth from the bathroom having been forced into your mouth in order to keep you quiet.

Earlier you were crying and screaming into the material of the makeshift gag, the terror of the situation overtaking you. But when nothing further happened, you managed to calm down enough to keep quiet, and now you were waiting for what he intended to do from here. With how tightly he had bound you, there was no scenario where you got out of your constraints on your own. Which meant there were only two possibilities: a third party would find and untie you, or he would untie you himself.

The first possibility seemed incredibly unlikely.

That second possibility seemed like it would only happen if he viewed you in a positive light.

So you stayed quiet, hoping that your silence would be interpreted as submission.

Currently the man was across from where you lay on the bed, sitting forward in the chair that had been placed in front of the window. In the initial attack, all you had truly registered was how much taller and stronger he was in the way he had picked you up and threw you onto the bed without any effort. Now that things had calmed down and you were trying to be smart about the moves you made, you were able to take in the details you hadn't noticed before. Like his short, spiky purple hair and his prominent cheekbones.

The way the light from the nearby lamp hit him somehow made him feel even more intimidating than he already was, the shadows almost creating an ominous aura about him. As if you weren't scared enough of him already.

At least he wasn't touching you anymore. After he'd gagged you, his hands stayed on you while you continued to struggle. And even after your struggles had died down completely, they stayed there, occasionally to gliding up and down your body while he stared at you.

What exactly those dark eyes were seeing when he stared at you in that way that felt so intense, you couldn't begin to imagine.

It was a relatively recent development that he'd had enough of it and moved away from the bed, shifting the blinds of the window slightly to peek out before sitting down across from you, watching you with a pensive look on his face.

Being that you were now in a calmer state, you wished you could ask him why he was doing this. What he wanted and what he planned to do with you.

…. It wasn't completely true that you wanted to know the answer to the last one; you were too scared that he would tell you that he planned on ending your life. Or maybe he was planning on selling you. Both of those things happening was also a possibility.

How much time had passed since you had first entered your room was unclear – you kept your gaze on him, waiting to see if and when he would act.

When that time finally came and he did speak, it surprised you.

“This must be terrible for you.”

You blinked when you heard his voice for the first time, but continued to keep quiet, waiting for him to continue.

“I kept thinking of what I should say,” he told you, “what I could say to make this easier on you, so you could understand what's going on. And while I don't think that I'm terrible when it comes to words, I've never found myself more stumped than I am right now.”

He sighed as he added “if only you could see it, or if I didn't have to get back so quick, it wouldn't be this way. I wouldn't have needed to do this to you.”

'Do this'?

Tears began to fill your eyes again, and despite how you had told yourself to keep quiet, you tried to speak. Desperation drove you to beg for your life, something that could've been a horrible decision if he was easily angered, but his eyebrows raised slightly while he hummed.

“You want to say something?” he asked.

You nodded eagerly.

He considered you a moment before he got to his feet, returning to sit on the edge of the bed and placing one hand firmly on your shoulder.

“I'll take this out,” he began, motioning to the washcloth before adding “but make sure you don't scream. It'll only end badly for you.”

You nodded again, this time in a much more steady manner as you were desperate to show that you were calm and wanted to cooperate.

The man was satisfied with that, and he pulled the washcloth out of your mouth, freeing your tongue from the taste and texture of the heavy fabric that had grown wet from your saliva. You couldn't help but cough for a moment, relieved to get that out of your mouth. All the while he kept that hand on your shoulder while also being prepared to gag you again if you got too loud.

But you followed his instruction, and he seemed to relax some when moments passed and you didn't start screaming.

Then you spoke to him.

“Sir,” you began, “please don't kill me.”

At that, he smiled.

“Ah, that was what you were worried about, was it?”

He squeezed your shoulder reassuringly as he said “don't worry. You aren't going to die.”

“R-really?”

“Really.”

He pulled you up into a sitting position and moved your legs so they were placed over his lap. With how your wrists and ankles were still bound, it felt awkward, but you didn't dare make any move to try and free yourself. Not right now.

“It would be terrible for me if you died,” he said, “so believe me when I say that's the last thing I could ever want.”

You didn't understand how exactly that could be bad for him, but you nodded as if you did.

“Um, so,” you began, “can I ask what exactly it is that you do want?”

“For you to come with me.”

“Come with you? Wh-where?”

“An island.”

“… An island?”

He saw the way your eyebrows furrowed and patted you on the cheek as he said “I feel all of this is something that will make more sense if you see it rather than have me explain it to you. So while it might be confusing for now, I promise it will become clear in time.”

“For now,” he continued, “I need your full cooperation.”

“….. So you can take me to an island?”

“Yes.”

You wanted to ask what happened after that, but he spoke again before you were able to.

“You can't use nen, so we'll need to go the long way to get there,” he said, “we'll be leaving tomorrow.”

What the fuck is nen?

That thought flashed through your head before you focused on the second part of his sentence: leaving tomorrow?

“I-I'm supposed to head back home tomorrow,” you told him, “people will notice when I don't come back.”

“Then we'll have to get going early.”

He smiled as he said that, speaking as though this was a last-minute trip that you were a willing participant in and brushing off what you said completely. Like the fact that there were people who would notice once you were gone wasn't a concern to him. He didn't care that he was taking you away from them. He didn't care that you didn't want to go with him.

And there was nothing you could do about that. After all, the first thing this man had done was prove to you that you couldn't fight him off.

As much as you wanted to scream and yell at him to let you go or cry out for help in the hopes your neighbors would hear you and call for help on your behalf, at best all that would do was get that washcloth stuffed inside your mouth again, and that was at best. If you wanted any chance of getting away from this man, you needed to get him to trust you enough so his guard relaxed.

It was the only way.

“With that said, we should get some sleep,” he told you, patting you on the cheek again while he added “we have a long drive ahead of us, and once we start, I want to make as few stops as possible.”

He gently pushed you back onto the mattress before moving your legs off of his lap and standing back up.

You were compelled to speak again when he began to walk away.

“Can I ask one last question?”

He paused, turning to look at you as he said “of course.”

“Who….. Who are you?”

He smiled at you and answered with his name.

“Razor.”

There was little sleep to be had that night. While the bed in the hotel room was incredibly soft and comfortable, it was hard to sleep when you had a kidnapper nearly twice your size laying next to you. The feeling was made worse during the times of the night when he put a hand on you again, running up and down your side with experimental touches. He knew you were awake during those times as well, as more often than not you weren't able to keep in the scared noises that came from your mouth whenever his hand brushed near your neck or went lower than your stomach, still fearful of his intentions. He didn't reprimand you, likely because you were doing your best to be quiet. But he didn't stop either, not seeming to care at all how much this was distressing you. To top it off, your arms remained bound, forcing you to try and rest in an uncomfortable position that guaranteed you would lose sleep no matter how soft the mattress was.

Dawn had barely cracked when Razor got up, shaking you awake when it felt like you had just barely gotten to sleep. Your tiredness was definitely showing even with how hard you tried to be alert, because he chuckled at you.

“Don't worry,” he told you, “you can sleep in the car if you need to.”

However, the moment you were placed in the passenger's seat, you were wide awake again. And as Razor drove you away from your hotel and down the highway in the opposite direction of the airport, despair settled in the pit of your stomach. You were being kidnapped, and you were doing nothing to stop it because there simply wasn't anything you could do.

So you sat there silently with your hands bound again as he took you, and the only saving grace of the situation was the fact that he'd tied them in front so you were a bit more comfortable this time.

Razor stayed silent as well while he kept his focus on the road.

An entire day passed with barely anything being said. You didn't say anything unless he spoke up first, and when you did speak, it was just to let out a “yes” or an “okay” to whatever he told you to do. Like when he tossed you a protein bar and told you to eat, or when he told you to keep your hands on your lap so no one passing by might catch sight of your bound wrists.

Cooperate fully. Make him think you were too scared to go against him. Wait for him to let his guard down.

The worst moment was when he stopped the car to fill up the gas tank, and he allowed your wrists to be free once more as he let you out to use the nearby restroom. Before letting you go, he whispered a warning as he told you not to get any stupid ideas. You didn't need any clarification: there was only one person at the station that you could see, standing away from the pumps so they could smoke their cigarette in peace. With only them seeming to be present, trying to get help here was a stupid idea, and one you would only do if you had no care for the innocent bystander who would undoubtedly suffer because of it.

It was when you were leaving the bathroom and heading back to the car that you felt heavy. Razor's eyes were fixed on you when you stepped out, and the sight had you frozen for a moment.

You didn't want to go to him. Every instinct in you was telling you to run, run as fast as you can and don't look back until you find somewhere safe.

But he was expecting that.

Despite the laid back body language he displayed, a gut feeling told you that he'd be on you the instant you tried getting away from him. That same gut feeling told you that it was better not to anger him. Even if he said that he didn't want you dead, how the hell could you trust a man who had kidnapped you?

You walked back to the car, albeit slowly. If your pace was enough to annoy him, he chose not to comment on it, though the instant you were both back in the car he restrained your wrists again.

Razor drove well into the night, not stopping to rest even when you felt it was too hard to keep your eyes open. You fell asleep like that, and when you woke up early the next morning with an ache in your neck, he was still driving, and you wondered if he had slept at all that night.

After another breakfast of an energy bar and bottled water, you got up the courage to ask him a question.

“How far will we be driving?” you asked.

“Until we reach the coast.”

“Ah.”

That would take a while, then. You weren't that close to any oceans. So it would be a long time spent being around him in the small space of the car.

At least he couldn't do anything to you while he was focused on the road, right?

Turning your attention to the window, you saw that the highway you were on was now slowly filling up with traffic. It was still early morning, thus the morning traffic was merging on the road. Much to Razor's displeasure, as you heard him make an annoyed grunt when he was forced to slow down the speed of the car.

It was disheartening to know that the trip would last that much longer.

You expected that today would be a repeat of the previous: he would say very little aside from ordering you now and then, and you would keep quiet and do as he said. The less you needed to speak with this man, the better.

But then he spoke up.

“You seem tired; are you sure you don't want to sleep more?” he asked.

It took you a few moments to reply, and during that time he glanced over to you. That was what spurred you to respond.

“I don't think I can,” you answered.

“If the front seat is too uncomfortable for you, I can pull over and you can move to the back.”

“I'm okay.”

“… I see.”

You kept your eyes averted from him, not sure what all of this was about but not wanting to poke the bear to find out. Why was he pretending to look out for your well-being? God, all you wanted was to be away from him.

But now with the traffic forcing him to drive far beneath the speed limit and the already long road you had ahead of you, getting away from him wouldn't come any time soon. And now it seemed that your previous question had encouraged him to talk to you, as Razor broke the silence once again.

“You're free to talk, if you'd like.”

“…. I'm okay.”

You didn't say anything after that, and once a few moments had passed, you sensed his gaze on you again when he looked over to you.

“You're getting bored of doing nothing but sitting, aren't you? Why don't you tell me about yourself?” he asked.

The fuck did that mean?

You shook your head, and you felt his confusion grow as he continued to watch you.

“You seemed more eager to speak the other night,” he commented.

Probably because I was panicked from getting jumped in my hotel room, you thought to yourself. Now you didn't want to say anything, or even know anything about what would happen to you. The previous day you had spent in silent dread only built up your paranoia and your fear and you didn't want to hear some story from him that was undoubtedly untrue all to keep you calm for the journey.

You didn't need to know the details of what would happen, the scenarios in your mind that slowly began running wild being all that you needed to guess as to what your fate would be at the end of all this. You were definitely going to die; the fact that he didn't care about you seeing his face seemed like proof of that.

So why give him the satisfaction of feeding you false hope that things wouldn't be as bad as you thought they would be?

Although…..

You had to admit that the island story felt like a weird lie to feed you. Surely he could've come up with something better, some reason that wasn't quite so mysterious. Then again, you couldn't think of any good lie to feed to someone who was being kidnapped.

But again, why in the world would he say that?

The traffic around you was starting to get better when you voiced that thought.

“Why do I need to go to the island?” you asked.

“Because I need you,” he answered.

“For what?”

He didn't answer, and you glanced back over to find that Razor's smile had fallen as he kept his gaze on the road. It didn't seem like he intended on answering you. If that was the case, then you should leave it be. No sense in angering him unnecessarily. He was the one in control, not you.

But he eventually surprised you when he chose to speak again.

“Unfortunately,” he began, “that's one thing I can only explain once we get there.”

“Oh.”

That again.

“Is there a reason why you can't explain now?” you asked.

“Because it may be a bit too difficult to believe simply hearing it.”

“So leaving me without answers for however long you lug me around is the better option?”

Your regretted saying that as soon as the words left your lips. It had been too forceful, too angry and not in line at all with the role of captive you were meant to play. Him not doing much to you had you growing too comfortable, too bold, and Razor obviously noticed it too as he looked over to you with one of his eyebrows raised.

One look from him was all it took for every fear to return, and you went back to cowering in your seat, mumbling a soft “sorry.”

He hummed but said nothing further.

An uncomfortable silence was now in the air, interrupted only by the way Razor tapped his finger against the steering wheel.

You noticed something then: a piece of teal colored string that was wrapped around his pinky. One with some sort of design printed all over it, though it was too small and too far away from you to make out any details.

Your eyebrows furrowed. With the way he'd been touching you that first night, shouldn't you have noticed that before? Then again, how could anyone be paying attention to such fine details after what you'd been going through in that moment?

Ultimately, you took your attention off of that; whatever that was, it couldn't have mattered.

“Have you ever seen my face before today?” he asked.

It was late in the afternoon when he asked that, the third day since he had kidnapped you playing out without much talk aside from the orders he would give you whenever he stopped to refill the car's tank. Despite the talk you had the previous day, he didn't push further to make you speak to him. Maybe the last conversation felt just as strange for him as it had for you.

Evidently he was moving past that now as this new question hung in the air.

Your eyebrows furrowed, but instead of asking him why he was asking, you looked at him and tried to recall if there was any spot in your memory where you had seen his face before all of this. There was a reason he had asked, right? He wouldn't just ask such a thing randomly, right?

Maybe he'd been stalking you for a long time.

As hard as you tried, however, you came up blank in terms of any previous memories that involved your kidnapper, and after a few moments you slowly shook your head “no” in response.

For some reason, Razor actually seemed relieved at that, smiling as he said “that's good.”

“…. Why is that good?” you asked against your better judgment.

With that smile still on his face, Razor shook his head as he replied “I'd rather not go into it. I don't want your opinion of me to go any lower.”

…. What?

“Why would my opinion of you matter?” you asked.

Now Razor seemed confused, glancing over to you while asking “why wouldn't it matter?”

Why wouldn't it matter?

Was he fucking serious?

“Because I've been kidnapped?” you responded, “because I have no say in any of this? Because you were waiting in my hotel room for me, and then you tied me up on the bed? Because it's pretty amazing that I haven't died yet, and there's still a good chance that everything you've been saying to me is a lie so you can keep me calm before you gut me like a pig and dump me in a ditch somewhere.”

He wasn't smiling anymore, his expression now turned serious. You should've been worried about how it didn't seem like he was paying attention to the road.

You should also stop talking. The way you were going right now, you were liable to say something bad that would upset him.

But did it matter if you upset him if you really believed he was going to kill you?

“After you did all of that, why the fuck does my opinion of you matter?” you asked, “why do you care about how your kidnapping victim feels? If you weren't such an awful person, you wouldn't have kidnapped me in the first place. How the fuck can you sit there and be worried about if I like you or not?”

Razor pulled the car over to the side of the road.

Fuck

You averted your eyes as you started to shake.

He'll do it here. Shoot or strangle you and then dump you in the back. Take whatever it was he wanted from you and then throw you away like garbage. That would be the way your life would end, and you were powerless to stop it.

There was no chance of survival, and there was nothing you could do but prepare yourself for the inevitable.

He's gonna kill me he's gonna kill me he's gonna kill me

Razor placed his hand on top of yours.

Your heart leapt into your throat and you jerked your body away. The furthest you could go was the door, slamming your hands on the window as you ended up against it, pressing yourself against it as far as you could while tears began to fall. This was it. You shut your eyes, waiting for something bad to happen. Either metal being placed against your flesh or his hands wrapping around your neck. Maybe even a plastic bag placed over your head.

Why did he need to pick you?

Why couldn't he have left you alone?

You flinched again when you felt his hand on your shoulder. As this time there was nowhere else for you to go, his hand stayed.

Nothing more than that.

It took you a while to realize that he wasn't doing anything else. With however many minutes had passed with you hyperventilating and crying, he hadn't moved forward with any action other than the hand that he had placed on your shoulder.

After realizing that you were still alive when everything was telling you that you should be dead by now, you came to another realization: the way his hand was placed on your shoulder was almost as if he had done it as a way to comfort you.

His hand was warm where he touched you. Were it not for the horrible situation, it just might have made you feel a bit better.

By that point your cries had quieted down, and he took that as an opportunity to softly speak your name.

You glanced over at him through blurry vision.

He was frowning and his eyebrows were furrowed, but he didn't seem angry.

Razor actually looked sad.

“Are you really that scared of me?” he asked.

Tears continued to roll down your cheeks as you nodded, and that only seemed to discourage him even more.

“Even after I told you that I'm not going to hurt you?”

“How can you expect me to trust anything you say?” was your response.

Razor stared at you, his hand still on you. His lips began to part as if to speak, but then he turned his head away from you, looking out through the windshield and at the highway before him.

“Can't argue with that,” you heard him mumble.

Then he removed his hand and returned his attention to driving the car, pulling back out onto the road and continuing on.

Neither of you said anything for the rest of the drive.

It was late when Razor decided to stop for a bit, pulling off of the highway and renting a room from a small and rather seedy-looking motel. He'd left you in the car while he went to get a room, and while he still warned you not to try anything, his tone wasn't quite as harsh as it had been those times earlier. It was as though he was trying to be more gentle with you.

You didn't respond except to nod silently.

Now it felt like you were repeating the situation from that first night: the both of you on the bed with you feeling incredibly unsafe while trying and failing to get any sleep. The biggest difference this time was that the mattress of the motel was uncomfortable as shit, and you shifted every few minutes as you tried to find a spot that felt nicer.

At least you weren't sleeping in the car again, you told yourself.

He was still awake. Although you tried not to pay attention to him, it was hard to keep your eyes averted whenever you turned to face his direction. More than once the two of you made eye contact, and immediately after you would turn away. You would have stayed facing away from him if only the goddamn mattress wasn't so awful. And shouldn't he be asleep by now?

The fact that Razor was still awake and alert after three days of what appeared to be constant driving wasn't normal; who the hell could go that long without rest? How had the two of you not yet died in a car crash?

Maybe kidnappers were built different, you dryly thought to yourself.

“…. Do you want to watch anything?”

Razor's voice interrupted that thought train, and you noted that his tone was soft again when he asked, but you shook your head as you stared straight ahead at the wall next to you.

He hummed, and it sounded like he was disappointed.

But for some reason that wasn't the end of it.

“What can I do to make you trust me?”

….. He had some nerve to ask that, after everything. Was he aware of that? Probably. Despite that odd thing regarding your opinion of him, he was pretty self-aware on how wrong all of this was. You'd be justified in ignoring him, though. Razor would probably recognize and understand that, as well.

…..

Even if you were justified, what good would that do you?

After a moment, you remained where you were but pulled your arms upward, holding your bound wrists in the air for him to see.

A few seconds passed and nothing happened.

You figured that his lack of action meant “no”, and with a sigh, you began to pull them back down.

Razor grabbed them.

For a second, all you felt was panic at his sudden touch. You were reminded of that first night and how powerless you were.

It only lasted a moment, however, as Razor grabbed at the zip-tie and, with a slight tug, snapped the plastic off of you. Within a moment, your wrists were free.

… Were they supposed to break that easily?

“Is that better?” Razor asked.

“…. Yeah.”

He pulled away, his eyes remaining on you after. And now that he had done as you wanted, there was a certain level of expectation in the air, such as you would look at him and have a conversation. A proper one.

Continuing to ignore him now seemed like it would be a bad idea.

So you sat up, turning around on the bed so you were facing him. He seemed pleased by that, so that wasn't bad.

But fuck he was intimidating.

Surely after the past few days your fear of just looking at and speaking to him should have gone down somewhat, but no. Looking at him head on while he had his full attention on you had your palms beginning to sweat.

You grabbed the pillow you'd been resting on and wrapped your arms around it as you held it close. Maybe that was pathetic but it made you feel better.

“Ready to talk?” Razor asked.

“Depends on what you have to say,” you answered, “if you're going to tell me that you'll be knocking out my teeth before you feed me to pigs then I'd rather you not say anything.”

He let out an exasperated sigh.

“I told you that you're not going to die.”

The firmness was back in his tone, and you sensed that he was getting to the point of being aggravated.

You looked away as you held the pillow tighter.

“Okay,” you breathed out, “I'll believe you. But then….”

You inhaled before you spoke.

“I want to know why you're taking me. And I don't want an excuse about needing to wait until we get to wherever. I want answers now.”

“I've been pretty cooperative, so I at least deserve that much,” you added.

You glanced over and then away again, still nervous about his potential reaction. While he didn't seem to have anger issues, he more than likely had limits when he was pushed too far. If he wasn't going to kill you, he could keep you alive to experience worse.

A second quick glance revealed that he was staring at that string around his finger.

Then he made eye contact again as he asked “do you think you could listen to what I have to say with an open mind?”

“Uh, sure?”

Razor didn't seem as pleased about the uncertainty that made it's way into your voice, but after a moment's hesitation, he seemed to resolve himself as he spoke again.

“Do you believe in soulmates?”

You blinked.

“….. What do you mean?” you asked.

“That there are people in this world who are connected and are meant to be together?” he explained.

“Connected how?”

“By a force that's invisible to most,” said Razor, “like a red thread that you can only see if you have the ability to look.”

What

You blinked again, not sure of what to say.

“I… I guess I've never thought about it,” you began, “if I'm being honest, I'm really not sure.”

“I see.”

Again, there was disappointment in his tone.

Despite being worried to question him, you hesitantly asked “is…. Is there a reason why you asked?”

You had a bad idea as to why he'd mention such a thing. But you held onto hope that this tangent about soulmates was just his way of trying to make a joke so you felt better. Or maybe he was bringing up something this random just to fuck with you. Even that wouldn't be too bad.

He answered your question with a question of his own.

“What would you do if I said we were soulmates?” he asked.

“….”

…. Oh god.

This entire time you'd been convinced that Razor was going to kill you, no matter how much he said otherwise. And if not that, maybe that he would sell you off to someone. Now you were learning that all of this was happening because he was crazy. He'd seen you and was pushing some sort of fantasy onto you while justifying it with the notion of 'soulmates'. That had been all he needed to feel no guilt over tying you up and kidnapping you – because in his mind, what he was doing was right.

Of all the combinations he needed to be, why did he need to be both mentally unstable and unreasonably strong?

That was the other important thing: regardless of his sanity, he still posed an incredibly dangerous threat physically. As he continued to watch you while he waited for you to say something, you were aware that it would be a bad idea to flat-out say 'no'. Better to play along at least somewhat.

“…. I don't know,” you eventually told him.

Razor let out a soft sigh as he said “you think I'm insane, don't you?”

“N-no. Nothing like that,” you replied.

He hummed, and the way he hummed sounded as though he didn't believe you. Then he reached over and began to caress your cheek, making you cringe internally. While you wished you could get his hand off of you, you told yourself to deal with it for now.

“I wish I could show you proof – I really do,” Razor said, “but I'll get into some serious trouble if I use nen while I'm out here.”

That word…. He'd mentioned it before, though you still had no idea what it meant.

“So it needs to wait for the island?” you asked.

“Exactly.”

“…. Okay.”

Better to not make a fuss, you told yourself. Act like you're potentially open to the delusions he's spewing out. Delusional people prefer it when others agree with them, right?

Still, to find out that he had taken you because of such a reason….

The worst case scenario now was that you wouldn't get away and you'd be stuck playing out Razor's romance fantasy with him. At least you wouldn't be dead, right?

…..

It might be a good idea to get off of the soulmate subject, at least for now. And since he was mostly willing to be open and honest with you, now might not be a bad time to question something else he had said.

“Can I ask something else?”

The fact that you were changing subjects was obvious, but he seemed to accept it as he pulled his hand away as he answered “go ahead.”

“Why did you ask if I had seen you before?”

For some reason, that question was the one that had him frowning, and he tore his gaze away from you as he sighed.

“I don't know that you want to hear that answer,” he told you.

“Why?”

“It's not pleasant.”

“So?”

“… I'd rather we wait a while before we get to that discussion,” Razor said.

“I don't want to do that,” you replied.

He grimaced at your response, but oddly enough he didn't seem to be getting upset as he had been when you made that comment about him killing you. Maybe that was why you were spurred to push for him to speak.

“You said you want me to trust you, right? Why not answer?”

“Because you won't be happy with what I tell you.”

“Can it really be worse than what you've done to me so far?” you asked.

“If you can imagine the sort of crimes that get someone sent to death row, then yes.”

“…. Oh.”

Razor turned his head towards you, and you got a certain sense of “I told you so” when he looked over.

What he did couldn't have been any small crime – given how easy it had been to imagine him killing you, murder was the first thing you thought of. But even then, convicted killers didn't always get sentenced to death. There was that guy from Zaban who had literally torn his victims to pieces and while he had gotten over 900 years in prison, the fact that he hadn't been put to death was mind boggling to many.

So just what had Razor done to get himself on death row?

And why was literally everything about this only managing to become worse and worse?

“Why were you sent to death row?” you whispered after a few moments.

It wasn't much of a surprise when he took a bit to answer, frowning again as he stared off at the space in front of him. He didn't want you to know anything about this for some reason.

But eventually, he answered.

“I killed some people,” he said.

“How many?”

“You don't need to know.”

“Why did you kill them?”

“Because I could.”

“That's it?”

“That's it.”

That's horrible, you wanted to say. But you refrained. Not only because it would be pointing out the obvious, but it probably wouldn't do any good saying that to a man who admitted to something as awful as murder.

Because I could

The words echoed in your head, and you couldn't help but note how there had been a distinct lack of remorse in his tone. Almost as if he didn't care about the lives he had snuffed out for no reason.

A weight settled in your chest at that thought. Why it did remained unclear, but you found yourself wanting to make this better somehow.

“Do you feel bad about it?” you asked.

“What?”

His confusion was evident.

“Do you feel bad for killing those people?” you clarified, “if you could do it all over again, would you leave them alone?”

Why you now wanted so badly for him to agree with what you said was also unclear. Razor was a kidnapper and an admitted murderer – one who was bad enough that he earned himself a spot on death row. Why did it matter to you whether he was sorry for what he'd done?

But regardless, it seemed that was what your heart wanted.

Razor hadn't answered you, and in fact, he was looking at you as though you had grown three heads.

… That wasn't a good sign.

After a few moments where it seemed he was trying to pick his words carefully, he spoke up.

“I don't see much value in thinking about things I could've done differently in the past,” Razor answered.

Then he reached over to you.

While this time you didn't flinch or jerk away, you stiffened immediately, the pillow you held becoming squished between against you as you anticipated him putting his hands on you again.

Surprisingly, Razor paused when he saw your reaction, seeming thoughtful as he watched the way you sat, virtually petrified on the bed with a terrified look on your face.

Could he really blame you? He just told you a lot that warranted being worried about him. Even moreso than before.

Evidently he didn't, as he pulled his hand back and smiling at you again as he said “the important thing is what's happening now, and what our lives will be like from this point onward.”

“So let's not focus anymore on that,” he added.

Stop talking about it, was what he meant.

“Okay,” you whispered, nodding in agreement.

Razor seemed pleased with that.

Not long after he told you to rest up, and within a few minutes the lights were off. Once more you needed to try and get some sleep while you lay next to your kidnapper, and the only saving grace was the fact that he was keeping his hands off of you this time. But while you tried to get some meager amount of sleep, you weren't able to focus much on his semblance of respecting your personal space. Instead, there was only one thought going through your head in that moment:

He wasn't sorry

Your wrists weren't tied up when you left the motel the next morning.

That was nice.

And while Razor wouldn't let you out of the car, he did stop at a restaurant to get you a to-go order of pancakes when you asked him to. Eating them in the moving car was awkward but you appreciated that he humored your request.

That was also nice, even if it had the potential of being your last meal before Razor took you to that island.

The knowledge soured the meal somewhat, but as much as you hated to admit it, you weren't so sure now that you would be escaping him. Razor hadn't given you any opportunity to take advantage of, and even with him giving you a bit more freedom of movement, he made a point to lock you inside the car during the time he was gone.

That made sense. After everything, you couldn't see him being foolish enough to leave you alone without having taken some step to secure you beforehand. It was actually pretty surprising that he was giving you the freedom he was after what he'd told you in that motel room.

Though maybe it wasn't too surprising when you considered the fact that he wanted you to like him. While the soulmate thing was complete bullshit, that was what Razor believed. So it made sense that he would want you to feel good about him since he planned on keeping you with him from now on.

That last part had never been said, but you got the sense that would be what happened if Razor got his way.

The rest of your life being spent playing into this man's delusions….

You would have shuddered at the thought if not for your fear that Razor would notice it.

“We'll be driving through the rest of the night,” he told you some time later, “and by tomorrow morning we'll have made it to our boat. From there it won't be too long of a journey to the island.”

You nodded along, though hearing what he said caused a pit to form in your stomach.

Once you were on that boat, the chances of escape were next to zero. It would be better to throw away any thoughts of escape if you were to reach that point.

To try and get away while on the water would be suicide.

He asked you questions every now and then, and though it wasn't as strong as it had been the previous night, you felt that pressure like you needed to answer him in exchange for the kindnesses he had shown you.

So you did what he wanted, and every time you glanced to him after, you saw a pleased look on his face.

You should've felt bad for him. Razor was the one who clearly had a lot of issues – things that, if he was a bit more mentally well, he probably wouldn't have done. Maybe. But then again, you were the one being dragged along with him against your will, so your sympathy could only go so far.

The sun was setting when Razor pulled over to another gas station to refill the tank. This was probably the last stop like this that you'd be making, if what Razor said earlier was correct.

The hand drier in the bathroom was still roaring when you left, only to be muted once the door shut behind you. As you had done a lot over the past few days, you immediately headed back towards the car as you knew your kidnapper wanted you to.

Only this time he wasn't watching you like a hawk.

Razor was by the car as the tank continued to fill, leaning against it as he stared out into the distance. Your gaze followed his, and you found that he seemed to be staring at a factory that sat in the distance, if the long, rectangular building accompanied by several smokestacks were any indication. Or perhaps he was looking beyond that, at the city that which was several miles away but still visible from where you stood. Or maybe it was just the sunset. It was at the time of day where the sky was at its prettiest.

Instead of entering the car once you returned, you went to his side and stood next to him, copying the way he leaned on it. He glanced at you, but said nothing about what you were doing. He only returned his gaze to the sight in front of him.

And then an odd expression morphed onto his face.

One that was almost wistful.

“Are you okay?” you asked cautiously.

Razor seemed surprised, looking back at you as he asked “why?”

“You look a little sad, I guess.”

“Do I?”

He looked back in the direction of the factory and the city that sat far off in the distance, and that wistful expression returned. As much as you wanted to ask him what he was thinking about, that question felt like it might be too intrusive and could potentially cause a bad reaction from him, particularly if it involved his past. He really didn't want you to know much in regard to that.

He let out a sigh.

“I guess I am, a little bit,” Razor said, “this is the last time I get to be out and about in the world like this. Once we get back to the island, I know I'll never leave again.”

“Never?” you repeated.

“Never,” he said, “the purpose of leaving the island every so often was to find you, and now that I have, there's no reason for me to come out here like this.”

He leaned his head back, now looking at the darkening sky above him as he added “I knew it was coming, but I didn't think it would bother me, knowing that this is the last time I can walk around like I'm free.”

“… Are you not?”

“Not really.”

“Why?”

“Death row convict.”

“Ah. Right.”

You went over the new information in your head.

“So you can't leave the island once you go back?” you asked, “is it a prison?”

He let out a short laugh.

“It's a prison for some of us, but even then it's nicer than any traditional prison you'll find,” he said.

“Us? There are others like you?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, “but don't worry, you won't need to interact with them.”

You nodded, though your eyebrows furrowed as you thought on it a bit more.

“Will I be able to leave at all?” you asked.

“No.”

You sighed.

“Figures.”

Kicking at a bit of rubble by your foot, you said “so, the plan from here is to go to an island where we'll never leave, and then just….. Hang out there forever?”

“There's a bit more to it than that.”

“Hm.”

When Razor reached for you that time, you didn't flinch or shy away. And when his hand settled on your shoulder, you didn't give much reaction other than to look at him.

“It won't be that bad. The places you'll be able to go to are the nice ones,” he said.

“…. It's still really depressing that I can't ever leave once I get there.”

Razor smiled at you, and this time the sadness he felt was even more obvious.

“I know.”

Then he stood up straight, announcing “we should get going.”

You nodded, and you wordlessly walked around the car to get to the front passenger's seat.

When you were both in the car and after you'd buckled up, something else strange happened.

Razor reached out and pulled you towards him, your head resting on his chest while he kept you in something that resembled a hug.

“I do regret that you've gotten dragged into this,” he whispered against your hair, “I really mean that. While I can't do anything to stop it, I'll do my best to make it easier for you. I promise.”

In that moment, you had no insights as to what Razor was truly thinking or feeling, no clue that everything he'd just said was a genuine promise from him that he intended to keep. So you had no idea how his heart skipped a beat when he felt your hands reach up and hold onto his jacket. You had no idea of the relief that filled him when you moved in closer and reciprocated his hug.

“I trust you, Razor.”

As those words were whispered from your lips, you had no idea that, in that moment, Razor truly believed that he had your acceptance.

There was no one else on the docks when you got there in the morning, arriving early enough that the morning mist was still present as Razor navigated the car through various warehouses and massive walls of shipping containers. Was it unusual for such a place to be completely empty at this time of day? You weren't sure; you didn't know enough about this kind of place to be able to tell what was normal or not.

All the sight did was guarantee that no one other than Razor would witness the last moments you had on the mainland.

Eventually the car came to a stop not far from the edge. Just as he had said, there was a boat sitting in the water. It wasn't anything new as it looked quite battered, but presumably it would make the journey that Razor wanted it to.

Though it would be morbidly funny if, after all of his efforts, it were to sink in the middle of the trip.

“Let's go,” Razor told you.

He stepped out of the car, and after a few moments, you copied the action.

The smell of the ocean air hit you after you got out. You stood there, your hand gripping at the top of the door to keep yourself steady as you looked out at the water before you, and then the boat.

One last leg of the journey, and then you'd be stuck with Razor for good.

…..

No one would ever find you, probably. Your disappearance had more than likely been reported by now, but all efforts to find you would be focused on that hotel you'd been staying at and the surrounding area; who would ever think to look for you on the water? Even if someone remembered seeing your face and informed the authorities, how would they reach anything other than a dead end once they got to the shoreline? You didn't have the time to leave some sign of you behind, nor could you with Razor undoubtedly watching you as close as he had been. You couldn't do anything.

Once you stepped on that boat, you weren't getting away from him. To try and do so would be suicide, you reminded yourself.

Your grip on the door became harder and breathing became more difficult the longer you stared at the boat.

I don't want to go I don't want to go I don't want to go

And again you asked why he needed to pick you.

Razor's voice saying your name forced you away from your thoughts, and you turned your head to see that he had your luggage slung over his shoulder and a concerned look on his face as he watched you. Your internal freak out wasn't as internal as you thought it was, then.

Swallowing a few times, you eventually asked “can I just….. Can I have a minute?”

“…. Alright.”

Then, to your utter surprise, Razor turned and began walking towards the boat.

Leaving you behind.

……

Was this some kind of test? Or maybe…. Did he think that since you were now at this point, he could relax a bit in watching you? Was he that confident you weren't going anywhere?

Razor continued making his way to the boat without a single glance back at you.

Your heart began to beat hard against your chest as you realized: you could run.

If you waited until he reached the boat and then made a break for it, you might just have a decent head start. If not to escape the area completely, then to find someplace to hide. Maybe find a phone and call for help. If it was a landline phone, they should be able to figure out your location without you needing to try and figure out where you were exactly.

If he caught you, it'd be bad for you, sure. But….

As he went further and further away, you were acutely aware that this was the first chance you had gotten to make an escape. The only chance you had. Were you really going to waste it by being too afraid of him?

….. No.

For once, you were going to take control of the situation.

And you were leaving.

You kept watch as Razor stepped off the dock and onto the boat, your things still in hand as he made his way to the cabin. Your hand was still gripping the door, your knuckles becoming pale from how hard you held onto it.

When he went inside. That was when you would run.

Once he stepped through the low doorway of the cabin, you did just that.

You pushed off from the door and you ran.

All you heard was your shoes on the dock and your own heartbeat in your ears as you propelled yourself forward. That felt a bit odd; you would have expected to hear him call out in anger on seeing you running. But at you reached the end and turned a corner past a line of containers, you didn't hear anything from him. There was no indication he even noticed that you had fled.

That was even better. While he would notice soon enough, every second you got with him being unaware would help in aiding your escape. You could do this. With every step forward you took with no sign of Razor coming after you, your confidence grew.

And then, after exiting the row of containers and reaching a warehouse, you saw a godsend:

A man.

He stood at the end of the structure, standing with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on you once you rounded the corner. With black hair sticking out of a odd blue cap and the rest of his blue and white clothing looking slightly worn, he looked raised an eyebrow as he took in your disheveled state.

You, on the other hand, felt relief upon seeing him. This was someone who could help. If you could explain what was happening, he could get you away and call the police. Then all of your problems would be over.

You could go home.

So you ran towards him, calling out “sir! Please, help me!”

He said nothing, but when you stumbled as you reached him, he took his hands out of his pockets so as to steady you, keeping his hands on your arms while you grabbed at the long blue scarf that hung from his neck.

“Please,” you said again, gulping as you did your best to maintain your composure, “I've been kidnapped. We need to get out of here and call the police.”

“Kidnapped? Who would kidnap you?” the man asked.

“He-he said that he's a death row convict,” you began, “he was waiting for me in my hotel room, and he tied me up and took me with him. Now he's trying to take me to some island and he says I can't ever come back.”

When the man didn't immediately respond, you got a bit more frantic as you cried “I swear, I'm not making this up! I've really been kidnapped, and I need the police before he tries to get me again! All of this is true!”

The logical part of your brain knew that getting hysterical wouldn't help you. But you weren't able to be completely logical in that moment. Now that you were so close to escape, you couldn't control yourself. You needed him to listen to what you were saying.

Finally, the man nodded.

“I believe you,” he said.

Relief rushed through you as you smiled, and you held onto his scarf tighter, unwilling to let go of this lifeline.

You spoke to the man again, asking if he had a phone, or better yet, if he had a car, and if he knew how far away the nearest police station was. He didn't really answer, though perhaps he couldn't with the way you were rambling in that moment. But you noticed when he looked past you and down the path that you'd just come from.

Your eyes followed his gaze and just like that your words died in your throat as your grip on the man's scarf became tighter, this time from fear.

Razor was there. Staring at you.

And for the first time, you saw true anger in him. Those dark eyes glared at you across the distance as he saw you in this unknown man's arms.

He's going to kill me

You looked back to the man, ready to beg for him to help again, for him to get you out of here before Razor murdered both you.

The man spoke before you could.

“Is this them, Razor?” he asked.

…. Huh?

He knew Razor's name?

How? You hadn't told this man what your kidnapper's name was. You were certain that you hadn't.

“Yeah,” your kidnapper answered.

Razor was talking to him? Not flying into a murderous rage and killing you both? The nonchalance of his reply was also a shock.

“Huh. I'm a little surprised,” the man said as he looked back to you.

“Surprised at what?” Razor asked. He started to walk forward at a moderate pace, taking his time while he kept his eyes fixed on you.

“That they got away from you,” the man answered.

You tried pulling away from him then. But the grip he had on your arms was ironclad, and no amount of wriggling would free you.

This man was far, far stronger than he looked.

“That was an error in judgment on my part,” Razor answered, coming to a stop as he had now reached the two of you by the warehouse.

“I'm sorry to have made you step in, Ging,” Razor added.

Ging?

The man who held you laughed.

“I don't mind,” Ging answered, “saves you the hassle of catching them again, right?”

“Right…..”

Razor's voice trailed off as he stared at you again, and with him being so much closer this time, you felt your entire body shudder while your heart beat pounded in your chest again, now being caused by pure, unadulterated fear.

He was so, so mad.

Ging then smiled at your kidnapper.

“Well, aside from this little mishap, everything else work out well?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Razor answered. His attention finally went back to Ging, and you felt like you could breathe again.

“Glad to hear it.”

Ging was saying something else to him but you couldn't completely hear it. You still tried to slip your way out of Ging's fingers, but it was no use; he wasn't letting go unless he wanted to. Tears were welling up as you continued the futile effort. And somehow, the fact that he wasn't even acknowledging your attempt to get away only made it worse.

Why? Why did Ging need to be here to catch you? Why did you need to have such awful luck?

What was going to happen to you now?

You didn't want to find out, and so despite knowing that there was no hope of getting away now, you still tried.

If there was such a thing as divine intervention, you wanted it right now.

“Ah, Right. Before you go, I need to see that you haven't used your nen,” said Ging.

Instead of answering, Razor held up his hand, showing the teal bit of string that was still wrapped around his pinky.

“Just needed to check,” Ging told him, “we'd both be in trouble if that was broken.”

“I know.”

“Well, now that we've gotten that out of the way-”

Finally removing his hand from where he'd been gripping you, Ging unexpectedly turned you around and pushed you, causing you to stumble forward.

Right into Razor.

He wrapped his arms around you instantly, and his hold on you was immediate and unforgiving, gripping you to the point that it hurt. Like with Ging, you wanted to struggle. You wanted to try and do everything in your power to break free of him.

But unlike with Ging, there was an air around Razor now that felt dangerous.

No, worse than that.

It truly felt like he was ready to kill someone.

And with that aura that surrounded you to the point that you felt like it might actually smother you to death, you couldn't bring yourself to fight against him. It was all you could do to keep your feet planted firmly on the ground.

Meanwhile, Ging and Razor were continuing their conversation.

“Think your replacement will be happy to see you back?” Ging asked.

“They'll probably just be relieved that they'll be done overseeing my duties,” Razor answered, “it usually takes them a few days after before they're at one hundred percent power again.”

“Well of course. The emission system was designed with specifically you in mind. There's no way anyone can run it as smoothly as you do.”

“Yeah.”

Despite his short answer, there was a hint of pride within Razor's voice, and the heavy air around you lifted somewhat.

Ging then looked back to you, smiling as he said “and now we've got this one, it'll be even better than before.”

And just like that, the air was suffocating again. It was like Razor had briefly forgotten the way he had been upset with you only to be shortly reminded of it.

Did Ging know that would happen?

…. Did he do it on purpose?

“Well, I'll let you get going then,” Ging then said, “I'm sure there's a lot you need to talk to them about.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, and you're free to use your hatsu now if you need to.”

Razor nodded as he said “see you, Ging.”

Ging waved in response before he turned away.

Razor did the same, one hand remaining on your arm as he began to drag you behind him.

Except your legs didn't want to work, still feeling weak and like they would bend beneath you at any moment. You stumbled along for only a few steps before he bent down to pick you up and throw you over his shoulder.

He handled you roughly as he did so, the breath in your lungs pushing out with a sharp gasp before he continued along. Again he was holding you tightly after, as if with the intent to bruise, like he wanted to leave marks on your skin beneath your clothing. You frequently felt the way his fingers twitched, like he was fighting the urge to do something violent. You were crying now, but your throat was too clogged up to make any noise.

The position you were now in allowed you to watch Ging as he walked away from the two of you. His hands were in his pockets again and he walked at a relaxed pace.

If you weren't so terrified of Razor you might have screamed at the man who gave you back to your kidnapper. Maybe wish torture and death upon him.

But you didn't dare let any noise escape you now.

Why did this need to happen to you?

That thought repeated itself through the entire walk back to the boat while you quietly cried atop Razor's shoulder. Like that very first night, he had yet to say anything. And once you reached the small flight of stairs that led down inside the boat, he moved you off his shoulder.

He pushed you down the stairs just as quickly and you tumbled down into the darkness.

Despite the short fall, it still hurt when you landed, your arms taking the brunt of it. However, you barely let out a pained groan afterwards, instead quietly sitting upright before you curled in on yourself, nursing your bruised arms. It still felt like a bad idea to say anything. Even though Razor hadn't come down, you still felt that air around you. Something bad was going to happen shortly.

The sound of an engine coming to life and reverberating through the small vessel caught your attention, as did the way the boat began to move away from the docks and out onto the water.

Perhaps that meant he wouldn't come down. If he was too busy driving the boat, then you would probably be left here until he reached his destination. That wasn't bad. If he took some time away from you, then maybe he wouldn't be as upset when he saw you again.

Deciding on that being what was most likely to happen, you settled down on the floor, anticipating a long, lonely journey.

Someone's hand grabbed at you in the darkness.

Now you screamed.

On instinct, you tried to pull your arm away. Your attempt was unsuccessful, and the hand hauled you up to your feet.

Another hand grabbed at you, this time clamping down onto your leg. No matter how hard you tried to kick them away, you couldn't escape their grip.

Someone else grabbed your legs, wrapping their arms around one of your knees so you were unable to move. At that same time, someone else grabbed your free hand, and both of your arms were stretched out away from your body, making it even harder to struggle.

You still tried, though. Even when a body came up from behind you and hooked their elbows beneath your armpits, you did everything in your power to wiggle out of those hands that held onto you.

If only that had been enough.

Within moments you were completely immobilized, your body held down by the multitude of hands that had come from the darkness. The only thing you could do was scream, and the ability to do even that was taken away when a large palm slapped over your mouth. Tears continued to stream down your face.

The lights were suddenly turned on, forcing you to close your eyes while you heard Razor descend the small flight of stairs. It took a few moments of blearily opening your eyes before they adjusted to the light, but when they did, you found Razor standing in front of you.

But you weren't able to keep your focus on him for long, not when you saw who was holding you. Several men dressed in white and blue, their blue caps covering their eyes.

….. No, not men.

Things.

They weren't human. They couldn't be. Despite their humanoid shapes, the wide smiles that were filled with the dangerously sharp teeth wasn't something any human you knew of possessed. The pure white skin was also a sign that these weren't human. Not just from the sight alone, but from how that skin felt against your own. It felt artificial, and their touch was completely cold. And while you weren't able to see any of their eyes due to the blue caps adorned with numbers, every single one of them was looking right at you, smiling at you while they held you down.

Your breathing became harsher as you began to truly panic, your sobs muffled by the hand that kept you silent. You were quickly becoming lightheaded.

Somehow, the one that was covering your mouth realized this as they pulled their hand away, and you took in a few desperate gulps of air before you focused on Razor again.

His expression was just as grim as it had been when he was outside.

“Trust is an awful thing to break,” he said.

He stepped forward, and your body tensed as you tried to back away from him. Unsurprisingly, the grip those creatures had on you remained strong.

“It can take a long time to build up even in the best of circumstances, and then it can shatter completely with a single lie,” he continued.

“Or a single act.”

Razor stood before you now, towering over you with a dark look in his eyes.

“I thought we had an understanding,” he said to you, “after what we talked about, after what you said to me yesterday, I really thought that we had gotten somewhere. That even if you didn't entirely understand it, the soulmate connection was enough to keep you from running,” he continued.

“But you were lying through your teeth about everything, weren't you?”

His expression when he said that was too scary and you looked down, focusing instead on the creature that had wrapped it's arms around your knee.

You weren't allowed to look away for long as Razor grabbed you by your face and forced you to look up at him, being forced to maintain the uncomfortable eye contact.

Unable to keep yourself calm, your breathing came in harsh as you stared back at him.

And for some reason that seemed to have an effect, as the look on his face softened ever so slightly.

Razor sighed.

“Maybe…. Maybe this hurts a bit more than I expected because we're soulmates,” he thought aloud, “maybe I thought, even without the nen, that you would understand faster because the connection should have been enough.”

“I-I'm – I'm not-” you began.

He moved his hand up so it covered your mouth, cutting you off from whatever excuse he felt would fall from your mouth. Now that you were again unable to speak, you sniffled against his hand while the tears that ran down your cheek met with his fingers.

The boat was still moving, and had seemingly picked up a bit more speed as it continued forward through the water. It was going further and further away from the land, further and further out to the open ocean. You remembered what you had told yourself before:

You weren't getting away now.

Resigning yourself to your fate, you slumped over in the grip of those monsters, your body going limp. Continuing to resist now was thoroughly meaningless.

And some part of you said that it always had been.

It was still quiet; Razor said nothing more, you only continued to quietly cry and those creatures hadn't uttered a single word the entire time. The only things that kept it from being completely silent were the hum of the engine and the sound of the waves that hit the hull of the boat.

When he pulled his hand off of your mouth, you said nothing, continuing to stare up at him as you bit your lip.

Then Razor smiled.

“Ah well. Us being soulmates doesn't mean that we won't make some mistakes now and then, right?”

Despite the pleasant expression on his face, the mood in the room was anything but. Even when he used his thumb to wipe the tears from your face, the action lacked any sort of kindness. There was still a smothering aura that surrounded both him and you, though now it had significantly lessened.

But that didn't make him feel any less dangerous.

“We have several hours before we get to Greed Island – that's plenty of time for us to become acquainted properly. And I'm sure that by the end of it, we'll have both learned some things about each other.”

The smile on Razor's face had never looked more menacing.

“After all, if there's anyone who can forgive me about what I'm about to do, it'll be my soulmate, right?”

#reader insert #yandere x reader #yandere hunter x hunter #yandere razor #razor x reader #hxh razor #yandere hxh #hxh x reader #yandere

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