#if you read all the way to the bottom I love you

[myespresso]

attractive things they do while you're dating

pairing: batboys (plus clark lol) & reader ❀ׄ ꥈ

𓍢ִ໋☕ cassidy's note: for funsies. not edited. i love reading variations of these. i haven't written since 2020. if you can like this, reblog too.

bruce 🦇ᡣ𐭩˚.

navigating paparazzi: the careful way he guides you to block the flaring flashes from cameras with his broad shoulders.

bruce wraps his fingers to pull on your waist, tugging you further behind him, ensuring no shots of you are taken on what was meant to be a private night out.

despite the urgency of the situation--his face still stays controlled and imperturbable, but his grip is firm to reassure you, as he leans down and mumbles in your ear, "just a bit farther, the car's close," before his voice cuts through the cries and shutters lowly: "we're done here."

listens intently, and remembers every single detail about you, despite whether you think it's significant or not for him to know.

bruce stores your favorite shampoo and conditioner in his bathroom when you stay the night over.

and when you're sitting on the edge of his sink, removing his makeup from under his eyes, you notice it sitting amongst his own body-wash and pine scented soap.

but when you ask him about it, he simply shrugs and waves it off.

dick 🏙ɞ♥️*

teaches you self defense: his hands gently curl over yours to demonstrate how they should look before you throw a punch.

his touch is light, "keep your thumb on the outside", dick's finger taps the inside of your palm, "if you keep it inside, you'll break it--not fun."

he whistles when you hit him solidly in the side with a wide grin, despite the force of your blow, "better."

insists on helping you put on all your jewellery and shoes.

he turns you around, and pulls your hair to one side of your neck, before fiddling with the clasp. he's clumsy at first, but eventually gets the hang of it the more he does it. his hands linger on the slope of your neck for a moment longer than necessary.

later, as you reach for your shoes, he beats you to it, kneeling in front of you. dick's motions are all exaggerated as he does it.

your hand cards through his hair when he's looking up through his lashes after he's fastened the straps, and kissing the inside of your calf slowly.

jason ❤️‍🩹⋆｡

reads on public transportation: jason pulls out a beat up paperback he picked up from a secondhand bookstore from his back pocket. it has dog eared pages and a weathered spine.

there's a baby crying on the train, but he doesn't seem to notice as he flicks a ringed finger to the page he last read.

he pulls a pencil from his jacket pocket, and traces a line in a passage--a part he thinks you'd like. when he leans forward, his shirt rides up a bit so a strip of his skin is visible to you.

doesn't wipe your lipgloss from his cheek.

the shimmer from it stains his cheek after you pressed a kiss to it. you go to wipe it with a laugh, reaching with your thumb, and jason catches it mid-air. "you've got glitter on your face jay, people are gonna-"

"next time, wear red."

tim 🪽❥˚

gnaws at his lip as he concentrates.

the hum of the keys click in the batcave and papers rustle. tim's focus is sharp as he attempts piecing together his newest case, and his teeth catch in his bottom lip. an unconscious habit.

you can't help but tease him about it, "that's a terrible habit to have, you know that?" you lean against his desk."it helps me think."

sure enough, he does it again. "you're gonna chew your lip off your face one day." his lips curve upwards at your observation, but your gaze was now intense as you observed his lip in his teeth, and before you can state another snarky remark, he shoots you a knowing look before pulling your belt loops, and kissing you.

wears your hair tie on his wrist. it was never really ever a big deal. one day you handed it to him while getting ready for bed one night as you pulled out your ponytail and he snapped it onto his wrist without much thought. now, it's routine. it doesn't matter where he is exactly, if tim's at a gala or in a meeting or out in gotham on patrol, the hair tie is around his wrist.

you heard him cursing from the other room when he misplaced it once.

clark 🌟.*☆

saves you a seat, always: whether it's evenings in or out, clark always makes you feel like you're the most important person there.

it's not something that's said but understood, as he pulls the chair next to him, letting it be out long enough for you to get comfortable, before gently scooting it inwards.

when you eat, and when he thinks you're not looking--clark will adjust your plate, and glace over at your water glass to make sure it is filled. and if you want extra bread, don't even worry because he kept an extra piece on his plate for you.

pushing his glasses up. there's something kinda charming about the way he does it that you wish you could explain it better. it's absentminded, he does it a lot!

when he's looking over articles or reading or just talking to you. in the elevator, he'll lean forward to look over the numbered floors, and they won't stay in place, sliding down the bridge of his nose. you don't say anything, but smile slightly, and he'll return it goofily and with more teeth, before he asks, "what?"

tags: @retvenkos

[wosoloml]

— third date || alessia russo x reader

summary: after your third date with alessia things get heated and one things lead to the other

from this request

masterlist

wanrings: smut, alessia top, reader bottom, fingering, use of nicknames, oral, thats it kinda

smut but with fluff

wc: 2,464 words.

a/n: I hope my girlfriend isn’t reading this. If you do, you don’t. <3 I’ve been listening to too sweet by Hozier while writing this, so maybe it’s fun to listen to it while reading! enjoy !

—————

"This was an amazing movie choice, I have to admit," Alessia said, her smile growing as she glanced at me.

"Really?" I arched an eyebrow, a hint of skepticism in my voice. "I thought you hated cheesy romcoms."

Alessia stepped closer, her hands resting gently on my waist. She brushed a strand of hair behind my ear and leaned in, her voice a soft whisper. "How could I hate something so sweet when I’m experiencing it with the person who means the world to me?"

Her words made my heart flutter, but I fought to keep my composure. "God, Russo," I said with a smirk, "you should be writing those movies next time."

Something changed between us at the cinema—I could feel it.

It all began when I picked her up from her home. The way she greeted me—her smile, her tone—everything about today felt so much more intense.

From the not-so-innocent touches we exchanged at the cinema to the way her tongue slipped into my mouth when we kissed tonight, every moment carried a spark I couldn’t ignore.

And I have to admit—I liked it.

We’ve been on two other dates before today, and ever since the last time we met, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about taking the next step.

It won’t be our first time, but I’m still nervous. I mean, it’s the Alessia Russo. I’m sure she’s far more experienced than I am.

The way she linked her arm through mine pulled me back into reality. "Lost in your thoughts, darling?" she asked, and I felt exposed.

"I was just thinking about the movie," I tried to play it cool. "I really liked it."

She narrowed her eyes slightly, sensing I might be holding something back. She gave my arm a gentle squeeze as we continued walking.

"The movie? That's it? Nothing else on your mind?" she teased, nudging me lightly with her shoulder.

"Nothing else," I smiled innocently in her direction.

I tried to change the subject by asking if I should drop her off at home, and of course, she agreed. The drive back to her apartment was relaxed… except for her hand on my thigh, and that damn thumb of hers, slowly circling higher the closer we got to her place. It was getting harder to focus on the road with a certain blonde teasing me like that.

As we approached her door, she suddenly grew quiet and looked deep into my eyes. I knew she wanted to say something, so I stayed silent. Her voice broke the intense silence between us.

"Thanks for driving me home," she said, her voice low and sultry. I was unable to find the right words, so I pulled her close and pressed my lips to hers. After a few seconds of processing what was happening, she kissed me back. And when I say she kissed me back, I mean she kissed me back. The way her hands cupped my face, her tongue pleading for me to let her in, and the fight for dominance made me weak in the knees. I knew she liked to be the dominant one in the relationship, but I never imagined I'd enjoy it this much.

She leaned back slightly, being the first to break the silence.

"Wow, if that’s how you react every time I thank you, I should do it more often," she smirked, her mischievous grin lighting up her face. I could feel my cheeks flush, and my smile shifted into a shy giggle.

"Maybe you want to come upstairs with me? I could show you my little cozy apartment. But only if you want to—it's totally fine if you don't." She trailed off, and I had to interrupt her before she started getting too wild.

"Lessi," I said, grabbing her hand. "I'd love to come upstairs with you."

I thought it was cute how she turned all shy, asking me to come into her private space after just kissing me like that. But that’s why I fell for her.

Little did I know that the part where she shows me her apartment would be the most irrelevant one.

As Alessia pulled you into her house and closed the door behind you, she pushed you up against the wall, her lips crashing into yours in a heated kiss. Her hands roamed over your body as she pressed herself closer to you. Her lips traced a path down your jawline, finding a sensitive spot on your neck that made you gasp lightly. She noticed your soft gasp but simply smirked at your neck as she continued.

Alessia's smirk widened as she kissed and nipped at your neck, noticing the effect it had on you. Her hands slowly moved down your body, unbuttoning your shirt and revealing more of your skin to her touch.

She locked eyes with you, seeking permission. You were too lost for words, so you simply nodded in her direction. But that wasn't enough for her. "Use your words, baby," were the only words that left her mouth, breathless.

A shiver ran down your spine as Alessia spoke, her breathless voice sending a wave of desire through you. You met her gaze, your own eyes filled with a mixture of arousal and eagerness.

"Yes," you managed to say, your own voice betraying your desperation. "Please, yes."

"Yes what my love? What do you want?"

As Alessia asked the question, her lips hovered just above your ear, her breath hot against your skin, her body still pressed against yours. You could feel her body heat, the way she trembled with her own desire.

"I want you," you said, your voice low and raspy. "I want you now."

Without saying a word, Alessia pulled you into her living room and guided you to the couch. Her hand remained linked with yours as she led you. The room was softly lit by a dim lamp, casting a warm, intimate glow. She gently pushed you down onto the plush cushions, straddling your lap as her gaze met yours. Her eyes, darkened with desire, locked onto you, her chest rising and falling with each heated breath.

"You're so gorgeous," she whispered, her fingertips tracing a path down your chest.

I'm too stunned by the fact that she's straddling my lap, so I just stare at her, my eyes filled with desire.

Alessia smiled at your reaction, enjoying the obvious effect she had on you. Her hips moved against yours, a slow and sensuous rhythm that drove you crazy. She brought her lips to your ear again, her voice a low murmur.

"I love seeing you like this," she said, her breath hot against your skin. "So flustered and undone already, and we've barely even started."

I gulped at her words, my throat tight with anticipation. "I need you so badly," I begged, desperate for her to touch me, to do whatever it took to relieve this overwhelming desire

Her own hunger and desire growing with every word. She leans closer, her lips grazing your earlobe, her voice a needy whisper.

"That's it," she murmurs, her hands roaming over your body. "Beg for me, baby. Tell me what you want. I want to hear you say it."

"I want you to fuck me," I said, my voice betraying the shock I felt at my own words, yet driven by the undeniable need to finish what we'd started.

As the words left your mouth, a shiver ran through Alessia's body. She looked down at you, her eyes darkened with need.

"That's what I wanted to hear," she whispered, her hands sliding to the hem of your shirt. "I'm going to give you what you need, my love."

Alessia slowly pulled your shirt up and over your head, her fingers trailing along your bare skin. She took a moment to admire the sight of you beneath her, her eyes roving over your chest, taking in every inch of you.

She murmured, "God, you're so beautiful." Her hands roamed down your sides. "I can't get enough of you." I close my eyes and enjoy every second of her hands on my bare skin.

She leans down and kisses your collarbone, her lips moving lower, her tongue tracing a path along your skin.

She teases me by kissing my titts and putting her tongue around my nipple. I made a small noise when I felt her mouth on my breast. With her hand, she made sure to stimulate my other nipple. She knew exactly what she was doing and how much she turns me on.

My back involuntarily arching as her lips and tongue worked their magic.

"I love hearing you moan," she murmured. "It drives me crazy when you make those sounds. She made sure that everyone passing her apartment knew who is fucking you right now.

Alessia's hands move to your thigh as she begins to unbutton your jeans. her touch is slow and deliberate, a torturous tease that leaves you aching for more.

"I want to taste you," she says quietly, her voice full of hunger. She is slipping her finger into your pants as she notices how already wet you are. "That's all for me, sweetheart? I blushed at her comment, feeling embarrassed that she had aroused me so much before even touching me. "God, you're so hot."

You shivered as her fingers teased your entrance. She hesitated for a few seconds before inserting her finger. I grasped at the sudden contact between my folds, I love how her finger feels inside of me.

As you took her fingers into your mouth, Alessia's eyes widened, her breath catching in her throat. She let out a ragged moan, the sight and feeling of you tasting her driving her wild.

As she leaned in to kiss you, her tongue slipped into your mouth, seeking out the taste of yourself on your lips. Alessia let out a low moan as she tasted you, hungry for more.

"You taste so sweet; I want you to come undone on my fingers."

Alessia's hand returned to your sensitive area, her fingers finding their way back. "You like that, baby?" she asked, a smirk playing on her lips. "You want more?" I nodded at her. "Your words, baby."

"Yes. I want more. Please stretch me with your fingers Alessia" unable to focus on anything else than her touch on your skin.

"Mmm good girl," she said, her fingers sliding deeper into your folds. A moan escaped my lips. It feels so good to have her inside me.

Her fingers curled inside you, seeking out that sweet spot that would have you moaning. She added another figer to fully satisfy me after noticing my reaction.

"Oh my god, please, Alessia." She began pushing her fingers roughly inside me, instantly understanding what I wanted from her. My hands found her hair as I tried to pull her head to my breast. Her fingers moved harder and faster as she began to suck on my nipples. The cozy room was filled with the sounds of my low moans and her palm pushing against my wet, bare pussy.

She knows exactly how to make you feel good, her lips finding their way back to your neck as she speaks. "You're so close, aren't you, baby.""Please" was the only word that left my mouth. "Please what, darling?" "Please let me cum."Her eyes darkened with desire, clearly enjoying how desperate you were for release.

She knew you were close by the way your folds were clenching around her fingers. "That's it, baby. You're such a good girl. Come for  me.  That's everything you needed to come undone on her fingers. She felt so amazing inside of you. Her fingers continued her movements to help you ride out your orgasm. She watches your face as you finish, her eyes dark with passion. A satisfied smile spreads over her face as she pulls her fingers out. She lifts them to her mouth, tasting you once again.

"You're so damn sweet," she muttered, clearly enjoying your taste. "I could do that all night."

"Now it's my turn.". 

[p0orbaby]

Request😍: y/n and alessia or leah (you decide! find your tumblr side and aaalll the stories of them. It leads to jealous alessia/leah bc of y/n being with other girls (like getting jealous when your partner cheats in your dream). Reader has to handle the situation and in the end manages to make less/leah focus on all the fluffy/spicy stuff there is about them. If you want to make it smutty (what we all love hehe): they eventually get inspired by tumblr and choose another story (you can decide which of all the good alessia/leah x reader smut on here) to reenact. Thank you!!! (If you dont want to write this feel free to repost for another writer, also you can switch the roles who is jealous, i dont care:)

i amended this a little, pls don’t hate me

it would be harsh to call this a crack fic but i honestly giggled the whole time writing it 🤭

-

You find Alessia on the sofa, her face illuminated by the blue glow of her phone screen. At first, you think she’s watching one of those oddly specific TikToks she loves—something about cats playing table tennis or an American teenager ranking their favourite crisps. But then you notice the furrow in her brow, the way her teeth tug at her bottom lip. Her expression is equal parts confusion, disbelief, and mild offence.

“Everything alright?” you ask, setting your keys on the counter.

She doesn’t answer immediately, which is a bad sign. Alessia always greets you the moment you walk through the door, even if it’s just to ask what you’ve brought for dinner. Instead, she tilts the phone slightly so you can see the screen.

“Do you know about this?” she asks, voice clipped.

You lean over, squinting at the screen. The webpage is clunky, its layout straight out of 2012, and the title reads something absurd like ‘Sunlit Smiles and Shadowed Hearts’. Your name is prominently featured in the summary, alongside a few other recognisable ones.

“It’s fanfiction,” she says, answering the question you haven’t asked yet. “About you”

You blink. “About me?”

“And other people,” she adds, her tone sharp now, like the edge of a too-clean knife.

The penny drops. “Wait—what?”

She sits up straighter, turning the phone to face you fully. “Look. This one has you with… God, Tooney. And this one—oh, this is just brilliant—you’re married to Ona. Married! Like we’re just some passing fling”

You bite the inside of your cheek to keep from laughing, which, given her expression, would be a tactical error. Alessia doesn’t do jealousy often, but when she does, it’s like an overdramatic romcom villain plotting their revenge.

“Well,” you say carefully, “at least they’ve got good taste?”

“Good taste?” she repeats, incredulous. “One of these has you sneaking off with Mary behind my back during a post-match interview!”

“Creative, though,” you offer.

She glares at you, tossing the phone onto the cushion beside her. “This isn’t funny”

“It’s a little funny,” you say, sitting down next to her.

“It’s not,” she insists, crossing her arms. “Do you know how many of these there are? And how many don’t have me in them at all? Like I’m just some side character in your life?”

You try to suppress the grin tugging at your lips, but it’s no use. “Less, you do realise this is all made up, right? None of it’s real”

She huffs, her cheeks pink now. “I know that. But still. It’s insulting”

You reach for her hand, gently uncrossing her arms. “Alright, let’s look at it this way. I’m obviously very popular. Isn’t that a good thing?”

“Not when you’re popular with everyone except me”

“Oh, come on,” you tease, squeezing her hand. “I’m pretty sure there’s stuff about us too. The fluffy, romantic, borderline inappropriate kind”

Alessia hesitates, her gaze flicking to the phone. “You think so?”

“I know so,” you say confidently. “Because we’re the superior couple. Clearly”

That earns a small smile, though she tries to hide it. “You’re an idiot”

“And yet, here I am, fully committed to proving my devotion,” you say, reaching for her phone. You type in a search, scrolling through pages until you find what you’re looking for. “See? Right here. This one’s about us”

She leans over, peering at the screen. Her eyes scan the words, and slowly, her frown starts to fade.

“This is… cute,” she admits reluctantly.

“Exactly,” you say, draping an arm around her shoulders. “So, no more being jealous of fictional versions of me, okay? They don’t get to go home with you. I do”

She turns to look at you, her expression softening further. “Fine. But I’m still not over the Mary thing”

You laugh, pressing a kiss to her temple. “Noted. I’ll make it up to you”

“You better,” she mumbles, but there’s no real bite to her words anymore.

It’s only later, as you’re cooking dinner together, that you catch her sneaking glances at her phone again, her lips twitching with the beginnings of a smile. If she’s reading more of those stories, you don’t mention it. Some battles are better left unpicked.

[chososbabymama]

Boyfriend!Sukuna who has a habit of saying ‘no’ when you ask him to do something as he immediately gets up to do what you asked.

Boyfriend!Sukuna who buys your pitbull a thick gold chain, ‘so the other dogs at the park take her seriously.’

Boyfriend!Sukuna who SWORE he wasn’t interested in your silly little tv shows but sits with you every Sunday to watch South Central Baddies.

Boyfriend!Sukuna who has a habit of chewing on things (bottle caps, pen caps, straws, etc.) so you buy him flavored toothpicks after he chewed the bottom of your favorite pen.

Boyfriend!Sukuna who bought you a huge bouquet of flowers because he knew you’d been feeling depressed the past couple of weeks and he missed seeing you smile.

Boyfriend!Sukuna who openly expresses his love for the way you handle Yuji, treating his nephew more like a son (Yuji definitely calls his uncle ‘dad’, and it makes both of you beam with joy each time).

Boyfriend!Sukuna who took great pleasure in being able to provide for you, taking you on trips, paying for your hair, treating you to dinner. In his mind, it was his way of saying thank you for taking care of him and being there . Always making sure Yuji was taken care of, doing the grocery shopping, not to mention you doing your own work for graduate school, Ryomen Sukuna would be a fool to not show you how much he valued you and your efforts.

Boyfriend!Sukuna who doesn't care to impress your folks. He knew he was a brash man, a little rough around the edges, that he wasn't the type of person your parents imagined you'd end up with. It'd taken 4 shots of Tito's and winning gin rummy against your father for them to start opening up to him (your favorite part of that night was when they'd decided to do a duet and sing I Like It by DeBarge)

Boyfriend!Sukuna who remembers your first date, how nervous he was sitting across from you that night. The poor man had spilled his glass of water all over himself because he was so nervous (he’ll deny it was nerves and claim the waiter bumped the table), accidentally stepped on your toes under the table (several times), and even caught part of his jacket sleeve on fire from reaching over the tables candle. What broke him was when he tried buying you flowers on the way home to try and make up for it, you BOTH were horrified to see hives suddenly break out on your skin and find out through a late night ER trip that your were allergic to that specific flower. Sukuna wont admit this either but he cried like a baby in your hospital room and again when you talked later and said you still wanted to go on a 2nd date with him (appalling luck aside, the date went extremely well).

Boyfriend!Sukuna who likes to bite you. He’ll be lying on your stomach while you use his back to read your book, when you first feel him start to suck on your tummy you don’t think much of it. As soon as you feel teeth you move your hands and look down to see your boyfriend with your tummy LITERALLY in his mouth, wide red eyes boring into yours as if you weren't essentially being used as a chew toy.

Boyfriend!Sukuna who'd gotten your name tattooed around his ring finger after your 7th date.

Boyfriend!Sukuna who was more excited than you when building your first pillow fort, arranging several pillows and blankets around you both to make a nest of sorts (he wasn't at all amused when you'd asked him if his omegas heat instincts were kickin in)

Boyfriend!Sukuna who feels the square velvet box burn a hole in his pocket. His fingers drum against the table anxiously as he watches you play with Yuji, wondering if you wanted the same things he did. But suddenly, you and his nephew turn in his direction. You’d taken one of Yuji’s hands and waved it his way, both of you having wide smiles on your faces as you giggle and tell the young boy to, “say hi to big grumpy!” At that moment Sukuna knew there was no way in hell he'd let another day go by without putting a ring on your finger.

Husband!Sukuna who watches you and Yuji make a house for the gingerbread family in the kitchen. He watched with adoring eyes as the boy in your arms picks up 3 gingerbreads, all decorated differently. With a wide, toothy grin Yuji proudly shows them to the tall man; declaring that, "dad! dad! guess what? it looks just like us! Do you like it?" The pink frosting smudging both of your cheeks, hair being held back by silly cartoon headbands, the fondness Sukuna felt for the both of you. He made his way to the kitchen island, wrapping an arm around your waist and the other to ruffle his boys hair before pressing a kiss to the crown. Nodding and gazing at you both with adoration, he coos out a sweet "Yeah little guy, I fuckin love it."

[revelboo]

A silly little thing,, but I’m an Optimus Prime girlie & happen to also be an ‘exotic dancer’ lmao, so when I was reading Gravity….you can imagine the actual surprise & joy I felt when the reader revealed she was (or used to be one) too, like 😭😭😭 what are the ODDS?? Must be his aura….I love him, your honor

It’s meant to be!

Gravity Pt 12

Optimus x Reader

• Staring at the screen long after Megatron’s little message ends and his fellow Autobots that had seen it start speculating, all he can think of is that he’s not alone. And it’s a relief. Leaving the warmth of you to report for his duties had been difficult. Especially since you’d woken up first and had straddled him. Even deep in recharge, his body responding to those soft hands touching him. Definitely not the worse way to come to alertness and even though he’d hit the washracks, he swears he can still scent you clinging to him. But then it really sinks in. That the Decepticons are taking humans and using them. Because that’s an atrocity that hadn’t even occurred to him.

• Stretching to touch your toes, you idly run through a few stances to limber up because you’re bored out of your mind. As much fun as playing with Optimus is, as soon as he leaves, you’re alone with your thoughts again. Remembering the look on his face before he’s schooled his expression into neutrality. Like a big, lovesick puppy, hurt that sex is all you want. Blowing out a breath as you spin in a slow circle, head tipping back, you know you’d lied to him. But then, you’d lied to yourself to. Saying you don’t want more, when deep down, you do. You’re just afraid to hope, to let down your defenses knowing you can get hurt again if you do. That love is just a pretty lie used to reach a goal.

• Sliding into his seat, he steeples his servos as he listen to the bits of gossip and conversation around him. How many humans are in the Ark at this point? Honestly, he’s not sure anymore. But he does know one thing, he’s probably not the only one who’s gotten attached to their ward. Who’s crossed that particular line. And it’s out there now for all of them, the fact that their species are at least compatible that way. Dropping his head into his hands, he stares at the floor. Because someone’s going to need to have that conversation with the Autobots keeping humans. On the ethics of taking advantage of a much younger species. And how is he supposed to do that when he’s interfacing with you?

• Head lifting when he finally returns, your smile wavers when he just stares at you. “You look like the other kids were bullying you, babe.” Venting he sits on the edge of the berth and then just slumps backwards, hands over his face. Oh. Well this is new, usually he’s so calm and serious. Climbing up his arm and over onto his chassis, you drop to straddle his neck, arms crossed on his chin. “Want me to beat up someone for you?” When his head tips to look at you, you lift an arm to flex your nonexistent muscle for him.

• Your mischievous expression twists through him as he lifts a servo to slide against your spine. “When we- er- interfaced,” he says, ignoring when you cheerfully interject ‘fucked like bunnies.’ “I didn’t pressure you. Right?” Because he can’t imagine what those poor humans captured by the Decepticons are suffering and can’t help but wonder if you’d let him have you out of intimidation or fear.

• “Oh, you are too sweet for words. If anything I seduced you, big guy.” Laughing as he frowns seriously at you, you push up to stand on his neck and drape yourself against his chin, tapping a finger on his bottom lip. “Don’t worry. I promise you didn’t corrupt my innocence.” More likely, you’re corrupting his.

• “I could have,” he says, joking as some of his worry eases and you grin, brows lifting. Expression giving away how much you doubt that. “I can be a bad influence.” His protest just makes you laugh, that warm sound stroking over him. How can this be wrong when you feel so much like home? When he wants to lay beside you and exchange stories. Ask about each other’s day and spend his free time in your arms, listening to you laugh with him. Wants so much more than your body. “The Decepticons are taking humans.” Unable to say to interface with.

Previous

[libraryofloveletters]

Stuck

Charles Leclerc x Fem!Reader

Warnings: snowball fights. nonsense from charles, joris and andrea, surrendering if that even counts lmao and one kiss.

Word Count: 643

Author's Note: welcome to the holiday extravaganza 2024! I've left y'all without for quite a bit. hopefully this makes up for the lack of stuff :) happy holidays! <3

--

Prompt: “I'm stuck! White flag! I surrender!”

Northern Italy was cold, snowy and windy. Despite your best efforts, your boyfriend was determined to get everyone out of bed and on the slopes today.

You had regretted joining them on their pre season trip. You wanted to curl up by the fire, read your book and not be disturbed but your boyfriend, Charles, and his two sidekicks, Joris and Andrea, were all trouble wrapped up in snow pants.

They had decided that today would be an off day from training, that you'd all just relax. You thought you'd finally get a day in with your boyfriend instead of being dragged to multiple training sessions.

Their idea of relaxing was apparently skiing in the freezing temperature.

You trekked through the snow, Charles carrying your skis as you followed between him and Joris. You had done a few runs down the slope before giving up, sitting in the snow at the base off to the side. Joris joined you shortly after, letting Charles and Andrea make their way back up the slopes.

Watching as some other people skied down, you hear Joris yell. "Hey!" before something cold hits your arm.

"I know you did not just throw a snowball at me." You look at the man, a sheepish smile on his face. You and Joris had quickly become friends after you began dating Charles; the two of you acting like siblings.

Joris runs away as you form the snow into a ball, tossing it in his direction. The two of you chase each other, tossing snow in the direction of the other.

"Stop running, you started this!" You shouted, the snowball in your hand.

Tossing it at Joris, you missed his head but hit your boyfriend right in the face as he got to the bottom of the slope. Charles stops there, stunned and now cold. His glove on the floor as he brushes off the snow, rubbing some warmth into his face again.

You can't help but laugh, hand over your mouth as you giggle. "I'm so sorry, babe. I meant to hit Joris." You glance at his friend who was a few feet away in a fit of laughter.

"Yeah, no problem, love." Charles says, smiling at you. You smile back, turning around to get some more snow before planning to get Joris. Before you can do that, you feel something hit your back.

Charles smiles at you, snow on his glove. "Oops. I was aiming for Andrea." He tells you, the older man now coming down the slope; his lie uncovered.

"Oh, it's on!" You shout at him, throwing the snowball intended for Joris at Charles. It takes a few seconds for you to get some more snow in hand, meanwhile Andrea is throwing snowballs at Joris and indirectly forming teams; you and Joris vs Charles and Andrea.

The 4 of you are like children, fighting over who's gonna get who next and making a mess at the bottom of the slopes. It wasn't until Charles tripped over his own feet and fell face first into the fluffy white snow that you all stopped.

You look at Joris and Andrea, the three of you exchanging a look that said everything you needed to say without saying a word.

Before Charles could get up, you were all throwing snowballs at him. The Monegasque driver was barely able to turn over and throw his hands up.

“I'm stuck! White flag! I surrender!” He says between giggles, the snowballs halt and Andrea goes to pull him out of the snow.

You walk over, brushing the snow off of your boyfriend's face. You smile at him, kissing his cold cheek. Charles gives you a half pout, "that was so mean."

"Pay back for hitting me with a snowball, my love." You patted his chest, walking off.

Charles called after you, "you hit me first!"

[free-for-all-fics]

So I binge watched Squid Game season 2 a couple days ago and the brainrot is back in full force for The Recruiter and The Front Man. So here’s some more Squid Game prompts! Warning: These prompts are centered around Season 2 and contain spoilers! Pls tag me if you’re inspired by any of these and I’d love to read it! 🔴🔺🟥

1. You knew The Recruiter when he was younger, back before he worked in the games and was removing and burning up the bodies of countless people. He was like the game players and homeless people at one point in his life, having hit rock bottom. His actions in the park are an expression of self-hatred and an attempt to set himself apart from them. The Recruiter has nothing but contempt to people who choose the lottery and is more than happy to stomp the bread just to spite them, but he happens to at least approve the people who pick the bread.

“These things aren’t human. They’re just trash, uterrly useless in this world.” He kept telling himself that and worked hard for a few years. Then they gave him a gun. It felt pretty good. Like his existence was acknowledged for the first time in his life. He doesn’t know which year it was but one day he was about to shoot a man who had lost a game. The guy seemed familiar. His dad. His dad was suddenly standing right in front of him. He was in tears, desperately begging him to spare his life. He shot him right in the middle of his forehead, and realized, “Ah. I’m cut out for this job.”

He had absolutely no qualms about shooting his own father dead. He even admits that when he killed his father in the games, he realized he was totally the type for his job, mentioning no remorse or guilt. But what if him shooting his own father proved his loyalty to the people he worked for and so they rewarded him by making him a recruiter and letting him keep you, the love of his life or object of obsession from his past life in the outside world. Asking the Host and his higher ups for a companion is just one thing, but it’s a big thing, and he’s scared to death that he will never see you again once he asks. Most of the staff are ruthless killers motivated by profit, but out of all of them, The Recruiter is one of the few who seems genuinely psychopathic, his businesslike attitude masking a vicious sadist who revels in humiliation, torture, and murder.

Still, it’s nothing short of a miracle in his mind that he’s allowed to have you. You’re just living your life, but then you get kidnapped and brought to an undisclosed location and while the room you’re in is admittedly very nice, you’re terrified. Turns out your kidnapper is your childhood best friend or college sweetheart who you lost touch with years ago when he went into the games. To you, he ghosted you or went missing and you were never able to find him. His own family hadn’t heard from him and didn’t know where he was. He’d go so far to keep you that he’d fake your death. He spoils you rotten but he also punishes you if you misbehave or act out of line. Treats you like a princess, fucks you like a whore kind of thing. He doesn’t keep around those dog bone shaped gags and possibly even sex toys or buy you nice lingerie and jewelry for nothing. He doesn’t want to break you as you’re his favorite toy, but he’ll do what it takes to properly train you until you learn to accept your place as his lover. His amiable facade comes down and it turns out he's psychotic and it frightens you but a part of him gets off on your fear. You see yourself as a prisoner, but he insists it doesn’t have to be that way if you just relax and love him back and be a good girl. You loved him once, didn’t you? You were his only friend. The only woman he’s ever loved. How hard can it possibly be to love him again? He’s the only one who can protect you and love you now. Everyone else thinks you’re dead.

He’d go so far as to kill anyone who stands in his way of having you, even your significant other if you have one or your family and friends. The Recruiter absolutely enjoys what he does to his victims, especially during the Russian Roulette game. You have no one else to turn to for comfort or conversation besides him. A part of him hates it when you cry but the other part of him is turned on by your tears and the fear in your eyes. He doesn’t have a god complex, more like a death complex. He’s given himself over completely to his philosophy of death. He believes he’s Death incarnated into a man with how people’s lives are in his hands, and that includes yours. And aren’t there so many famous artworks of Death and His Maiden? Why shouldn’t he be able to keep you as his?

If he was your first ever sexual partner, he’d make for damn sure he’s the only one through silently and stealthily arranging for your other potential partners to die in tragic “accidents” or go missing with their bodies never found. Just like he’s dedicated himself to the games, he’s dedicated himself to proving he’s worthy of you everyday by protecting you and giving you everything you ask for - except real freedom, of course. He can only give you semblances of freedom by allowing you outside under heavy guard watch or his watch. You can’t go anywhere alone anymore. You can’t have a cell phone that connects to the internet (or if you are allowed the internet, you’re only given access to certain websites while the rest are blocked) or any phone numbers except his. He’s practically isolated you.

2. Going off the idea of what if you knew The Recruiter back when he was younger and working in the games: Alongside him, you’re also a pink guard. You’re one of, if not the only female guard. The Recruiter is the first to find out that you’re a woman despite the mask covering your face, the voice modulator, and the suit covering your body. You spend a lot of time together when you have to shoot the eliminated players and then remove and burn the bodies. You use a separate channel on your walkie-talkies to have private conversations while you’re on a job during the games or to talk from your separate dorms after the day’s work is done. When other male guards try to attack or sexually assault you in your room for getting in the way of their illegal organ harvesting side hustle due to you shooting the bodies in the heart or head to ensure the players die quickly and make the organs unusable, he comes to your rescue when he hears the struggle over the walkie when you manage to press the button. He practically breaks your door down and takes the guards out with his bare hands or a random object in your room. He’s so strong and skilled he doesn’t even need to use a gun or a knife (in the show he subdued two men just with his briefcase). You watch as he subdues both guards, knocking them out with ease. He would’ve loved to kill them in that moment, but he doesn’t have the right to do that. He can only report the incident to the Captain/In-Ho. Pink guards cannot kill other pink guards. They’re only permitted to kill players. Only the Captain can kill pink guards.

After interrogating them and reviewing the security footage, In-ho kills the guards who attacked you and puts an end to the organ harvesting for that year by killing all of the guards operating it. Whether they sell off organs from the dead or devour them, he doesn’t give a damn. However, the most crucial element of this place is equality. Everyone is equal in these games, including guards. Players compete in a fair game under the same conditions. Guards work under the same conditions. They are to follow the instructions they are given. There is a principle to these games. And those guards that attacked you for being a woman and doing your job and the guards operating the organ harvesting side hustle broke that principle.

Later, after work is done for the day and guards are ordered to return to their rooms, The Recruiter sneaks into yours so that the two of you can have sex. When he saw you getting attacked, he wanted more than anything to rush to your side and comfort you and hold your hand and ride his adrenaline-filled high by having sex with you after subduing the guards, but duty called so he couldn’t. When In-ho is overlooking the security cameras and notices The Recruiter in your room instead of his own with both of your masks off, locked in a heavy make out session while he has you lifted in his arms, your legs wrapped around his waist and your arms wrapped around his neck, your fingers tangling in and pulling his hair while his hands cup under your thighs to hold you up against the wall, your pink jumpsuits half way unzipped, he changes the cameras to play back earlier footage of both you and him so that it looks like you’re alone in your rooms so his higher ups won’t suspect anything while you inevitably do whatever it is you want to do. The Recruiter and you have proven your loyalty. You both deserve a reward. As long as you’re both back in your own rooms by morning call, he doesn’t care.

After that, The Recruiter shoots his own father dead after he fails a game. You and he work your way up to becoming the recruiters you are now, possibly even posing as a friendly married couple to get vulnerable people to trust you more (even better if you’re actually married as it makes the ruse more convincing). You do love each other in your own way, but you also are well aware that love makes people incredibly easy to manipulate and you use that to your advantage in your line of work. Together you prey on people who are hanging by a thread and are the best performing recruiters the games have ever had. In the privacy of your home, you listen to opera music, share drinks, and get down to all kinds of kinky shit when you find yourselves in the mood. You take turns when it comes to who’s dominant and who’s submissive, and your sex games often include bondage, roleplay, pain, and blood. And sometimes the blood isn’t even yours or his. When people get nosy for their too damn good, you and/or he have to take care of that.

3. Underneath the smiling facade, The Recruiter is little more than a small fry. When Gi-hun repeatedly calls him a lapdog and considers him nothing compared to whoever he works for, it gets under his skin, although he doesn't have a complete breakdown over it. Getting reminded of this repeatedly is part of why The Recruiter eventually shoots himself in the chin. But let’s pretend The Recruiter doesn’t commit suicide. Instead of being strictly dominant or strictly submissive, this man is a switch. While he loves to be in control sometimes and use your body however he wants, there’s also times when it’s you who’s the dominant one. You dress up and behave as a dominatrix while you put a mask over his face to blindfold him, gag him with the bone shaped gags and tie him up, doing to him whatever you want and calling him your dog. Your good boy. He runs, barks, wags his tail, does whatever you, his mistress, says and you reward him with praise, treats, etc. You do the same thing when it’s his turn to be the master and for you to be his good girl, his bitch. This man would probably be into puppy play whether it’s you who’s the puppy or him. And yeah that would probably include either of you being locked in a human sized cage or an actual dog kennel as punishment for whenever you misbehave. You’d take turns between who’s holding the leash and who’s on it on all fours, etc. The sex acts you do together, this dominatrix and roleplay arrangement you have, it’s like therapy for him in a way. A way for him to reclaim being called a dog when he was young and poor and turning it into something good. Even if it’s dehumanizing at times. The humiliation and the sadism is part of what turns you both on. Of course you’d have a safe word, aftercare, and all of that. But let’s be real: He’s just as skilled as you are at taking orders, deepthroating objects, and being penetrated.

4. Inspired by the film “The Odds”: You join an underground game of pain endurance, hoping to win the cash prize of one billion won. But it’s not the traditional squid games where you’re competing with other players in person. This is something different. This is the squid games before the squid games became what it is today. Instead, you’re isolated in a windowless room with little more than a table, a couple of chairs, a cot to sleep in and a toilet to shit in. It’s like a prison almost. Whenever you’re given a shower, if ever, you’re heavily sedated so you don’t lash out against the workers bathing you. The Recruiter is one of many who are assigned to players to keep them company, explain the rules of each game, and oversee their progress. Each player has their own recruiter assigned to them and The Recruiter we’re familiar with in the show is the one assigned to you. You have nobody else but him to keep you company. You don’t ever see anyone, don’t ever hear anyone except for him. He looks awfully familiar and you have a strong feeling you’ve met him before, that you know him from somewhere. Throughout the course of the week that you’re there, you’re determined to figure out how you know him. In the meantime, you flirt with each other, playfully talk about getting married and having a house and kids when you get out.

But at some point during the course of the games, the playfulness erodes and The Recruiter turns dead serious, revealing that he’s so in love with you that it’s like an unhinged obsession. Maybe you choosing to come here was in actuality you being lured into a trap, all a part of his elaborate plan to finally get you right where he wants you to fulfill his sick and twisted romantic and sexual fantasies. Maybe before that, he paid sex workers and strangers who looked like you to sleep with him, just to keep him satiated so he wouldn’t snap and kidnap you before the time was right. He might’ve gone so far as to call them by your name and become really scary real fast if they tried to correct him. The things he did to those women might’ve been so bad that they were unspeakable. But he paid good hush money to keep them quiet. And if that didn’t work, a bullet always did. But sleeping with all those women could never live up to the real thing. Nobody watching you now would be able to hear you nor would they care if he had sex with you in between games. He’s done it before with desperate female players who wanted to stay alive a little longer. And if they performed sexual favors for him as he asked - more like ordered them to do - Who is he to deny pretty women an extra five minutes of being allowed to breathe before he pulls the trigger? A deal is a deal and he’s a businessman.

He’s a man of do the wrong thing, yield rewards. To him, he’d feel like he’s entitled to your love and your body after all he went through in his life to get to this point. He’s worked his way up from a nobody who just disposed of and burned bodies, then they gave him a gun, then he became a recruiter. One of the best if not the best in the company. He’d kill for you. Even if you don’t ask him to. Even if you plead with him not to do anything and let it go. But he’s also so unhinged he might even hurt or kill you if you fail to live up to his deluded fantasies. If he does hurt you, he’d do the classic, “Look what you made me do! I didn’t want to have to do that. I didn’t want to hurt you but you gave me no choice so this is all your fault and not mine,” shtick.

You soon discover the game's rigged, and your real opponent is The Recruiter - a sadistic psychopath, who works for the Host and the organizers of the game and knows everything about you. He knows why you’re here and about your child, bringing them up to keep you motivated to continue before you ever mention them to him. He’s just one of many of a network of people ranging from VIPs to guards who are part of this game. The way you see it, you have three choices: Provoke The Recruiter into killing you if you don’t die from the games before then, give into The Recruiter’s sexual advances to survive without playing all of the games and join him, becoming his lover/wife and possibly a Recruiter yourself, or survive through all of the games and kill The Recruiter. He keeps saying you can leave at any point but you realize over time that this is a lie and if you try to leave, you’ll be shot dead either by him or one of the guards.

(Below is some dialogue from the movie with some minor changes to showcase how Recruiter coded this scenario is.)

~

“So, yes, it is necessary to keep the location a secret due to the legal technicalities of the game. You know the rules, right?”

“Yup, but you can tell me again, Mr...”

“No names. It works better for me if we keep things less personal, you know?”

“Right. Kind of like a manager-employee relationship. I get it.”

“If you like. Anyway, the game, there are 19 other players at 19 other locations just like this.”

“In this city?”

“All over the country. There's a clearing house that receives and broadcasts the signal to select clientele. The same clearing house acts as a broker for all wages concerning the game.” He puts in his earpiece and presses a button. “Receiving end, online? Okay. Yeah, just a couple minutes, we'll get started.” He sits across from you at the table.

“Have you done this a lot?”

“A few times, yeah. There are five preliminary rounds followed by the finalist round. If you leave at any point during the preliminary rounds, you will leave with zero prize money.”

“I won't quit.”

“All players who get to the finalist round are committed to the game and may not leave.”

“I said I won't quit.”

“Okay. Now, the finalists will continue to play until there's only one player left. That winner will receive the money.”

“Have you ever hosted a winner?”

“Let's not worry about that. You just stay focused.”

“It's weird that people would bet on something like this.”

“Do you know any real gamblers? Real gamblers will make odds on anything.”

“And the prize money, it's a lot?”

“Some people think so.”

“I heard it was a billion won.”

“Where'd you hear that?”

“Same place I heard about the game.”

“Hm. That's correct, and the funds will be deposited in the winner's account.”

“They must pay you a lot. That's why you're here, right?”

“I'm here for the same reason as you.”

“I doubt that.”

“Now it's almost time.” He takes a candle out of his briefcase and sets it on the table.

“I thought there was gonna be a gun.”

“Not yet.”

“Have I met you before?”

He listens to his device. “Congratulations, your drug test came back clean.”

“Of course it did.”

“I'm sorry, we have to check. Some players come in high, performance enhancing drugs, so to speak.”

“Well, drugs are where you go when you can't stand the pain anymore.”

“Where do you go, if you don't have drugs?”

“I guess we'll find out.”

He listens to his device. “Hm. Yes? We're good. You're good? Okay, standing by.”

“I know that they can see us, but can they...”

“Hear us? No. Say what you want. Your secrets are safe with me.”

“I don't have any secrets.”

“Everyone has secrets.”

“No, all my shit's pretty much out in the open.”

“All the shit you know about.”

“I think I know my shit pretty well.”

“This game has a way of illuminating a person.” He lights the candle.

“Oh, that's nice. You gonna put on some mood music? I'll take the Chardonnay.”

“So here's what's gonna happen, round one, on my signal, you, along with 19 other players, will hold your hand over the candle and keep it there. When three people have removed their hand, the round is over. Those players are out of the game. Everyone else will advance to the next round. Understand? Hello?”

“Yeah, I just... I heard it was different.”

“Used to be. They like to change things up, keep it exciting. You don't have to do this. It's still not too late to leave.”

“I've got nowhere else to be.”

“How about a home?”

“I messed that up.”

“You must have family somewhere. Everyone has family.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“Kids?”

“No.”

“But if you did, how would you feel if someone took him or her away from you?”

“I guess I wouldn't like it.”

“And how would you feel knowing that he or she should've been taken away from you...that she...he, was better off...and that maybe now the only thing to do is to win a big pile of money so that he or she could have the kind of life that he or she deserves?”

“Hm. I don't think I'd ever risk my life over a pile of money.”

“Well, that's all mine's good for at this point.”

“Hey, listen. Look at me. We're in this together, you and me. I'm rooting for you, you understand? So just settle in. We'll do this. Word of advice, this is as much a mental game as anything else, so just keep that in mind if you really want to see this through to the end.”

“I'm gonna hear the words ‘you win’, or I'm not gonna hear anything at all.”

“That's it. Visualize success, that's good.”

“You say that to all your players?”

“Just the ones that seem to need it.”

“Have you ever played, from my side?”

“Let's get through round one, then we'll talk. We're about to begin. Last chance before the pain starts.”

“The pain started a long time ago.”

~

Round One

You hold your hand over the candle, while The Recruiter encourages you the whole time.

“That's it. Keep going. You can do this. Come on. Just breathe. Focus on breathing. You can do this. Come on. Just breathe. Okay, focus on breathing. Focus on breathing. Another player's out. Just one more player. Just one more player has to quit. Number three's out! You made it. You did it. Let me see. Come on.” He takes out a first aid kit from his briefcase and treats your wound. “So, we made a deal, and no, I haven't played the game from your side of the table.”

“How many?”

“How many what?”

“How many times have you done this?”

“14.”

“And how many of those players won?”

“You don't want to know.” A long pause before he finally answers, “None of them. Most players quit before the final round.”

“But some of them made it.”

“I've seen two men and three women blow their brains out.”

“You're just a little bad luck charm, aren't you? Did you ask the other players why they did it?”

“Same reason as you, the money.”

“Same reason as everyone I'm playing against now?”

“I wouldn't worry about the other players.”

“I just want to know who my competition is.”

“Most games, you're competing against someone, right? But in this game, you can't affect the other players. Can they make you leave this room? Who can?”

“You could try.”

“Okay, take me out. Who does that leave? That's right, you. And that's what they're betting on, how much you can take.”

“I'll take whatever you throw at me.”

“It won't be me throwing it at you.”

“So there is someone else here.”

“I'm a facilitator. The challenges for each round, they've been chosen by the organizers.”

“So it's not you. You're just doing their dirty work for them.”

“I didn't make you come here. I didn't make you sit there. I didn't force you to put your hand over a candle. You think I enjoy watching you do this? You think I like watching people hurt themselves? Man. Things I've seen, you don't forget it, you know?”

“Then why do you keep doing it?”

“You've never done something you knew wasn't good for you? Sit down. We're on the same side. That's the thing about this game, it...” He’s interrupted by information coming through his earpiece. “Round two, ready.”

“The thing about this game?”

“What?”

“You were just about to say ‘the thing about this game.’”

“The thing about this game is that it changes you.”

“Good?”

“I don't know how good it's been for me.”

“Maybe you've been playing from the wrong side of the table. Are you sure we haven't met before?”

“It's time.”

~

Round Two

“Round two. Players will put their bare right foot inside the box. The three that remove their feet lose. The rest move onto the next round.”

“And there's something in the box?”

“Yes.”

“And you don't know what it is?”

“No.”

Something from inside the box moves and makes a noise, causing you to jump.

“Hey, hey. It's okay.”

“What's in there?”

“I don't know.”

“That's bullshit.”

“They don't tell us.”

“You said that you have done this before.”

“It's different every time. It's probably not as bad as you think.”

“Fuck it, I'm out of here.”

“Now wait. What about your child?”

“Why do you care? You get paid anyway, I assume.”

He removes his ear piece so the organizers won’t hear what he says to you next. “Are you afraid of rats?”

“What?”

“Are you afraid of rats?” He puts his earpiece back in. “You need to decide, soon. One player just dropped out. That just leaves two for elimination.”

“This is insane.” You remove your shoe and sock. “So it's just in there waiting for me to put my foot in?”

“There's a separation barrier. When I get the signal, I remove it.”

“How fun for you.”

“I'm right here with you.”

“That's a comfort.”

“No, I mean it, okay? I'll help you.”

“You better.”

“It's almost time.”

“I must be crazy.”

You put your foot in the box.

“You got this.”

“I got this.”

“I mean, nothing's gonna happen. Oh, god, it's moving. It keeps moving.”

“Breathe. Mm-hm.”

“It's touching me, it's touching me. It's on me. It's off, it's off, it's off. Oh, fuck!”

“Think something else, okay? Don't think about this.”

“Oh, God, ow, ow, ow! It's back on me.”

“Think of something else. Okay, think of something else, don't think about this.”

“Oh, shit. I can't do this.”

“You can, yes, you can.”

“Ow, it's biting me! It's biting me.”

“No, it's not... One player's out, okay? That just leaves one more left.”

“Ow! Ow, it's eating me!”

“Look at me, look at me! I'm right here with you. Do it for me. Say it. Say it!”

“Do it for you. Do it for you.”

“Good. Again.”

“Do it for you.”

“Good. Again.”

“Do it for you. Do it for you. Do it for you. Do it for you. Do it for you. Do it for you. Do it for you.”

“That's it! It's over. It's over.”

You remove your bleeding foot from the box and cry in The Recruiter’s arms as he holds you.

~

He’s wrapping your foot with fresh white gauze. “Don't look. Okay.” He kisses your bandaged foot. “I kissed your boo-boo.”

You have some time to kill while you and he wait for the next game. He gives you a bottle of water. You need to stay hydrated. Lots of water.

“Gonna figure out where I know you from.”

“Well, good luck. Okay, let's say you don't quit.”

“I won't.”

“Right, you won't. Let's say you make it. You've already told me what you're gonna do for your child. What are you gonna do for you? If you really think you're gonna make it through, you should have a plan.”

“Yeah, well, I'm not really big on plans.”

“No, seriously, instead of giving your child the money, why don't you take them somewhere instead? Find a nice quiet place, bring along their daddy.”

“You had me going till you mentioned that asshole.”

“Okay, not him, a nice guy.”

“Why is it that everyone thinks that if a woman has problems, a man is somehow the answer?”

“You don't believe in love?”

“Maybe some people just aren't meant for it. Maybe they're just not built...for it.”

“Maybe some people haven't met the right guy.”

“And that's you? From bad luck charm to Mr. Right?”

“You could do worse.”

“Okay. All right. So say it is you, Prince Charming, man of my dreams, we're living together.”

“Mm-hm, married.”

“Really?”

“I don't do that cohabitation shit. You either commit or you get out.”

“And that's you? Mr. Commitment?”

“Damn straight.”

“So, is this a proposal?”

“I guess it is.”

“Well, either it is or it isn't.”

“It is.”

“Sweep me up my feet, why don't you?”

“You don't find this place romantic? So, we're in our home...”

“I didn't say yes.”

“You playing hard to get?”

“No. Yes. Maybe. A little. I mean, come on, we just started dating. How do I know you're not just marrying me for my money?”

“What if I don't need your money? What if I already have money?”

“Great, then let's get outta here. I don't have to do this anymore.”

“Well, then again, maybe I don't have that much money.”

“Okay, so, no money. Why should I say yes?”

“Because, deep down inside, you believe in love too. So, what's it gonna be?”

“How about we get through the next round, then I'll tell you.”

“You are playing hard to get. Ready for round three.”

~

Round Three

“What the fuck is it? Or should I ask what goes in it?”

“Your other foot. We go till three players drop out. You can do this.”

“Have you ever done this one before?”

“No. This is new territory for me. They're telling me we need to get ready.”

“Should I sit or stand?”

“Whatever you prefer. We're ready.”

“I don't suppose anybody's dropped out yet. Just wait.”

“Okay. Round three, turn one. I'm sorry.”

“That feels as bad as it looks.”

“All players are still in. Second turn. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Do it for me, remember?”

“Wait, wait for me. Wait.”

“Turn number three.”

You pass out from the pain. You wake up to his voice.

“Player three has quit.”

~

He wraps up your other foot. “There. All better.”

“You’re pretty good at that.”

“One of my many talents.”

“Nine players are out by my count.”

“You're knocking them down. So...what about the answer now?”

“The answer to what?”

“Are we gonna do it, when all this is over? Are we gonna tie the knot?”

“Sure.”

“Well, then. Well, then how about a kiss for your fiancé?”

He kisses you. While he does, he slips a pill into your hand. “It's for the pain. Don't let them see,” he whispers into your ear. “Well, passed the halfway point.”

“Yeah, after this, marriage should be easy.”

“Yeah. Maybe every couple should go through something like this.”

“It's a great story to tell the grandkids.”

“Grandkids? We haven't even gone on the honeymoon.”

“Please, honeymoon.”

“Why not? Must be somewhere you want to go. Vegas, Paris, Costa Rica?”

“Not really.”

“Come on, nothing? Nothing interests you? And afterwards, when we get back to our apartment in the city...”

“In our house in the country.”

“Country's boring.”

“Can't have horses in the city.”

“Horses? More than one?”

“You can't have just one horse.”

“I'm not shoveling horse shit.”

“Fine, I want a divorce.”

“On what grounds?”

“Irreconcilable differences.”

“Okay, fine. A house in the country with horses.”

“Wow, what a pushover.”

“What can I say? I'm in love.”

You lay down on the ground with him, side by side, staring up at the ceiling.

His hands are behind his head. “You know, you can rest in that house in the woods.”

“Then I'd sleep for a week.”

“And after you wake up?”

“I don't know, maybe plant a garden.”

“What do you know about gardens?”

“As much as I know about anything else, I guess.”

“You think you could keep a bunch of plants alive?”

“What about you, mister? You're just gonna live off my money?”

He sits up. “There's lots of stuff I can do.” He gets up off the ground.

“I didn't mean anything by it.”

“I know what you meant.”

“Come on, I was just joking.”

“Sounded like an insult.”

“Why would I insult you? You're the only friend that I have.”

“That's true. Standing by.”

“God, can't they just give it a minute?”

“I know, like, what are they in a hurry for? They'll make their money.”

“Have you met them, the people running this?”

“A couple. They're not like what you think.”

“I think they're a bunch of weirdos who get off watching sick shit.”

“That's not it, at all. They're more like researchers of human behavior, and this is the ultimate laboratory.”

“Come on.”

“No, seriously, how do you think they have the money to fund an operation like this? They get to bet on human behavior every day, and win. Of course they'd be interested in a game like this.”

“We're just pawns to them. I doubt they even see us as people at all.”

“But it doesn't really matter what they think though, does it? And anyway, you should be grateful they've even given you this opportunity. If you weren't here, where would you be?” He sits on the table and slides his body over to you. “On the street, in a crack house sucking dick for a fix until your looks rot away and your teeth fall out? Where would your child be? In a group home getting daily beat downs from all the other toss aways with fuck-ups for parents. You know, you should be thanking the people who created this game, and you should be thanking me. This is the best opportunity for someone who screwed up all their other options.”

“Well, I'll be sure to send them thank you notes later.”

He suddenly smiles. “Look at that, our first fight. Come on, I was just playing. Let's get back to our house.”

“Maybe later.”

“Time’s up.”

~

Round Four

“How long can you hold your breath? It's a simple question, really. How long can you hold your breath?”

“I don't know.”

“Round four is easy. You just have to hold your breath.”

“I just have to hold my breath?”

“Yeah, well, that is while I'm holding your head underwater. You don't have a fear of drowning, do you? Hydrophobia, I think it's called. 'Cause if you did, this will be pretty tough.” He takes a bullet out of his pocket. “Bite on this. I'm kidding, just hold onto it. Jeez. Here's what's gonna happen, you're gonna face the tank, and when the time comes, I'm gonna hold your head under the water. You... You hold your arm out. If you want me to let you up, you just let go of the bullet. See? First three players to let go are out. Everyone else stays. You trust me, right? Well, you should, we're married.”

“I guess.”

“You guess? What do you mean you guess? You wouldn't marry somebody you don't trust, would you? Good. You know, it's good that you trust me 'cause that way you know that when it's time when everyone drops out, I won't just keep your head under the water. Oh. Looks like we have someone afraid of drowning. Our first dropout. You're not gonna drop out, right?”

“Right.”

“Because you want that house in the country, and you trust me, right?”

“Right.”

“Say it.”

“I trust you.”

“And you love me. Say it.”

“I love you.”

“Oh.” He tucks your hair behind your ear. “Whoops. Looks like we got another dropout. Okay, we got to get this thing going before we lose any more. Deep breaths. When the third player quits, I'll let you up. Get ready. On the count of three. One. Two. Three.”

While your head is underwater, you dissociate and experience flashbacks of your life before this, of your child. “I love you.” You hear their voice say. That’s the last thing you see before The Recruiter pulls you back up as you cough and move your wet hair out of your face.

“I thought you were gone! Jesus, why didn't you let go of the bullet?”

“I swallowed it. Only way to make sure that I didn't drop it.”

The Recruiter gives you a towel, admittedly impressed.

~

“You know, with a little effort you could be a very attractive woman.”

“What am I supposed to say to that?”

“Well, when someone compliments you, it's polite to thank 'em.”

“Thank you.”

“How many guys have you dated?��

“How's that any of your business?”

“Well, if we're gonna be married, it's something a husband should know. Come on.”

“Come on, what?”

“How many?”

“I don't know.”

“That many?”

“Do you want to know how many I've dated, or how many I've fucked? Because I didn't keep count, but it was a lot. And sometimes I didn't even know their names.”

“Now why do I get the feeling that you're saying this just to hurt me?”

“You're sick in the head.”

“I bet you were a real looker. I bet the boys couldn't keep their hands off you. Hey, how old were you when you did it the first time? Sweet 16, 15? Yeah. You were an early bloomer.” He cups your breast and you instinctively slap him. He slaps you back, harder. “I'm sorry, but you should not have made me do that.”

“You know, you can't do whatever the fuck you want.”

“Come on, don't be like that. Let's get back to how it was before. And, you know, to tell you the truth, I've been wanting to do that for a while now.”

“You can't do whatever it is that you want.”

“Who are you kidding? Like you didn't want me to.”

“What?”

“Look, if you didn't want me to do that, why are you still here? You could've left at any time.”

“I’m here for the game, that's all.”

“Maybe this is part of it. You ever think about that?”

“No.”

“No? Well, of course it is. Why else would you be here?”

“For my child.”

“No!” He slams his hand on the table. “Don't give me that shit. No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We alone walk the path. The Buddha said that. He was a smart guy, everyone says so. You put yourself here. You decided to stay 'cause you know that we belong together.”

“I didn't ask for any of this.”

“Why else are you here? Look, you could've gone any time. There's the door. It's always been there. Go on. Go on if this is so wrong. Nobody's stopping you. You won't go, because you know you belong here. You deserve this. Your whole life has been a long, long path that's led you to me.” He grabs your face and forcefully kisses you while you sob. At that moment, a guard walks in with a long bag containing something for the next game, causing him to move away and break the kiss. “We're on a schedule. You might want to reconsider. This might be your last chance.”

“For what?”

“To make love as a whole person. Round five. Here's where you really start to leave some skin in the game, so to speak.” He opens the bag, revealing a red hot branding iron. “It's not that bad, really. The Yakuza, you know the Yakuza, right? Japanese mafia, they do this kind of thing all the time. When they've screwed up, they remove body parts. It’s how they apologize for... Oh, forget it. Just take my word for it, you're not the first, you won't be the last, unless you want to leave. You go through with this, you won't be the same. Some cultures would consider you heavily scarred. Personally, I think you'll be plenty serviceable, but, you know.... If you're afraid of the pain, I can give you another Oxy.”

You take the Oxy that he gave you out of your pocket and set it on the table. He quickly swipes it off the table and puts it in pocket so the organizers don’t see.

“Jesus! Suit yourself. After this round, you'll probably be a freak, probably have a limp, from your legs being burned so much. Who will want to fuck you then?”

“I’m sure as long as I have all my lady parts, any sick fuck like you will.”

He pulls out protective gloves from the bag and puts them on. He takes hold of the branding rod.

“We're ready. Scoot your chair forward and remove your pants.”

You do as instructed, not letting yourself feel embarrassed for being sat half naked in front of him.

~

Round Five

Your ears ring from all the pain you’ve suffered so far. The skin on your thighs is burning still, your once flawless skin now marred with dark patches. Luckily the brand isn’t engraved with anything, but you know The Recruiter still gets a sick joy out of branding you. Like he thinks doing so means he owns you. Still, The Recruiter admits to you that he’s impressed with how many burns you’ve been able to endure so far. Some turns he held the branding iron to your skin longer than others, making the coloration in your skin vary. As the rounds progressed, you moved up from your thighs to one of your arms.

“Well, it's about time now. Turn seven. After this, your wrist will hurt so bad you won't be able to pull the trigger with your left hand. That career in trick shooting, it's out. Go on, get ready. You know, think about it, you don't really use your left arm much anyway. It's a right-handed world, you know?”

You’re whimpering and sobbing from the pain. Despite how difficult it is, you get up from your chair and walk away. You stand in front of the door.

“You're about to lose. You go through that door, all of this would've been for nothing. Is that what you want?”

You knock on the door.

“Wait! Three players have all just dropped out. You made it. Don't do it.”

“I have to pee.”

A masked guard opens the door and escorts you to the bathroom. He’s standing there the whole time, watching you impassively while you wash your hands and have an emotional breakdown in the corner. You stare at yourself in the mirror and gradually calm down, your resolve hardening as you think about your child. You hold a middle finger up in the mirror and pretend you’re giving it to The Recruiter.

~

When you make it back to the room, The Recruiter is sat in a chair, holding your discarded underwear in his hand. At some point during the game, it was too painful to wear them when the fabric brushed against the burns on your upper thighs.

“You mind? I thought I'd hold onto these. You know, something to remind me of our time together. What? Like you're not gonna use 'em. I’ll buy you much nicer lingerie to wear for me when this is over.” He tucks your underwear into his inner suit jacket pocket. “Well, sit if you're gonna. You know, I'll tell you something. I knew from the moment I saw you that you'd go the distance.”

“Is that right?”

“Mm-hm. Damaged people are tough. Fire, temper, steel, and all that.”

“You could tell I was damaged, huh.”

“Honey, you shone like a lighthouse. I wish I could've bet on you.” He gestures to the revolver on the table in between you. “Ever use one of those before? Don't worry, they're pretty user-friendly. You just point and click. If you don't hear the click, you're already dead.”

“Have you been a dick to all the players you've done this with, or am I just special?”

“I mean, they're all special, really, but if it makes you feel any better, you're my favorite.” He winks at you.

It’s finally clicked for you who The Recruiter is. “I knew I'd met you before.”

“No. I’d remember you.”

“I've known you my whole life. See, I watched you get drunk and smash my older sister’s head into the front door when you were dating her. I dropped out of high school when you got jealous of my friends because you thought I was sleeping with them. I lied for you every time the neighbors called the cops because of the noise. I know you, very well.”

“You know, now that you mention it, you do look familiar. You look like every smartass bitch I've ever known. All the teachers who thought they were so clever, thought that they could just push around a kid. All the bitches in school who thought they could just lead a guy on, tease him. Those women at the jobs where they just wiggle their tits and their ass to get ahead of some poor son of a bitch who does the real work, who carries his load and hers too. You look like every stupid cunt who thinks the world should bow down and worship her because she was born with a pussy made of solid gold.”

“Nice. You kiss your mother with that mouth?”

“I don't know what happened. You know, we started out so good. How did we end up like this?”

“I guess it was fate.”

“You think?”

“I think...I think…you know what I think?”

“Tell me.”

“I think that you found the perfect job to indulge in your sick fucked up fantasies.”

He slaps you, causing you to fall out of your chair and back up against the wall.

“You're right.” He slaps you again. “I can do anything I want to right now. You know what's funny? That's what you want me to do. You screwed your life up so bad, you'll take any punishment I dish out ‘cause you know you deserve it.”

“Don't touch me again.”

“I'm not finished.”

“You asshole. You have sat there and watched me do everything that I've done and you think that you can hurt me?!” You slap yourself.

“Oh, that's cute.”

You slap yourself again.

“Stop it.”

You slap yourself again and again and again and again and again. “You fucker. You wouldn't have the guts to do what I've done.”

Angry, he slams the camera face down on the table so the people watching can’t see as he grabs the gun off the table and wraps his arm around your neck, holding you in place and cutting off your oxygen. “You think you're some kind of hard bitch now?! Is this what you want, hard bitch?! You want to play?! Let's play.” He presses the gun to your head and pulls the trigger three times, all blanks as the gun clicks.

“What? What?!”

“You…don't…scare me.” You choke out.

He lets you go, slams the gun back on the table, and puts the camera back up. “That round’s a freebie.” He sits back down and combs his hands through his hair. “If you're gonna stay... It's time.”

You pull the chair back up off the floor and sit back down. “Just out of curiosity, later, if I decide to quit, what's gonna stop me?”

“You take that chair. If you try to leave the game, either me or my compatriots will shoot you dead.”

You sit down and scoot your chair up towards the table, getting ready.

~

Final Round

“There are five players in the final round. This will consist of as many turns as necessary to eliminate four players. All players will pull the trigger simultaneously.” He puts the bullet into the chamber and spins it, then places the revolver back on the table. “Wait for my signal. Take the position, please.”

You put the gun to your head.

“We're ready.”

He nods at you.

You pull the trigger. Blank.

“Thought you'd be disappointed.”

He laughs. “No. I'm glad you make it through the first round. I hope you last a long time. I want to see you break. That'll be fun, to watch you break down completely before you die.” He removes the bullet from the chamber and sets the gun aside. “Just waiting on the report. And one player has been eliminated. Down to you and three others. Relax. We'll give them a minute to place their bets. Is it everything you hoped for?”

“This is the easiest thing I've done all day.”

“Maybe so, but there's another asshole out there somewhere who went through everything you went through and now he's just a pile of meat, brain splattered everywhere. See, you think your pain buys you something, that you earn some kinda big cosmic karma where now you’ll get what you deserve. I got news for you, pain is just pain. It doesn't get you anything.”

“You're wrong.”

“We'll see, when it's your brains that are on the floor. Oh. Time for turn two. You know, if you die here...” he puts the bullet in the chamber and spins it. “…nobody will know. We'll just scoop up your body, throw it to an incinerator. It'll be like you never existed. Nobody will know you were ever here.”

“But I'll be dead, so I won't care.” You put the gun to your head and pull the trigger. Blank.

“Bang!” He yells, making you jump and drop the gun on the table as he laughs. “Oh. Oh, another one down. They're dropping like flies. The odds are catching up with you.”

“Yeah?”

“How many times you think you can beat this?”

“29.”

“That's a very specific number.”

“Well, it's as far as I ever got.”

“When?”

“When I practiced.”

“You practiced?”

“Oh, yeah. Bought a real gun, put an empty shell in the chamber, spun it around. It almost never came up, and I did it a lot.”

“What's the lowest number of times you went before it did come up?”

“3.”

“Hm. Well, just so happens we're coming up on turn number three.” He puts the bullet in the chamber and spins it.

“What part do you enjoy the most, watching all the pain, or this?”

“Darling, I like it all. Take your position, please.”

You take the gun from his hand and put it to your head. You pull the trigger. Blank. You slide the gun across the table at him so fast it nearly falls into his lap as he gasps.

“Why don't you take a turn?”

“Because I don't have to play.”

“That's a shame. I bet if you had to play, you'd see things a little differently.”

“Lucky for me, then, that I don't.”

“Lucky for you. So?”

“So, what?”

“What was the outcome of that round?”

“Oh. Nothing.”

“What?”

“No players were eliminated.” He tells you slowly, like you’re an idiot. “It happens, more often than you might think. Something wrong?”

“No.”

“Really? Because you look like every other dumb prick I've seen blow their brains out.”

“You ever see anybody win?”

“Not a one.”

“Then I'm due. See, it's kinda like the lottery, somebody's got to win.”

“Except when they don’t.”

“Every time you spin that cylinder, there are five chances out of six that that bullet won't come up.”

“That's true. Let's see if now is one of those times.” He puts the bullet in the chamber and spins it. “I think I got you on this one. No, seriously, I feel good about this. Go on. Do you feel it? This is it. Am I right? I think I have you. Come on, take the position. Yeah. This is the one. You ready to say goodbye? Say it. Say goodbye. Say it.”

“Fuck you.”

“Pull the fucking trigger.”

You pull the trigger. Blank.

“No players eliminated.”

“You think they're enjoying this as much as you are?”

“Maybe, probably more. You know, you last as long as you say you will, you're gonna make someone a lot of money.”

“And that's why they're doing this?”

“Sure, I told you, gamblers will bet on anything. This is the best game in town.”

“So they're putting money down on me right now?”

“Even as we speak, they're betting against you. Some are betting for you. They're betting to see how many rounds this will go on, whether we'll have a winner or not.”

“Whether what?”

“Sure, maybe one of these times, all the players are eliminated. It's possible.”

“But the odds of that happening...”

“Are 50/50, either it happens or it doesn't.”

“But that's not how odds work.”

“It's time.” He spins the chamber and sets the gun back on the table. “Pick it up.”

You hold the gun to your head and pull the trigger. Blank. You do it again. And again. And again. And again. You hold the gun to your head and pull the trigger 12 times. All blanks. You set the gun down again. The Recruiter takes the bullet out of the chamber and sets the gun off to the side.

“No players were eliminated. You know what I think? I think your child would be better off with no money and you dead than rich with a crazy bitch like you.”

“No.”

“No?”

“They need me. They need to know what love really is. They need to know what it looks like. They need someone to help them understand that they deserves it.”

“And that someone is you? You just figured this out?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Well, then this wasn't a total waste.”

“Guess not.”

“You know what I'm gonna do after this?”

“Drown a puppy?”

“I think I'll go find your child. That one got you, didn't it?”

“Tell me, how have you made it this far without someone killing you?”

“Just my luck, I guess. Oh. There's been a change of plans. Seems the longevity of the current players has made the people upstairs change the rules around.” He adds a second bullet. “Now what do your odds look like?”

“It's not fair.”

“All the other players have the exact same challenge.”

“No one said...”

“Said what? You didn't practice for this? I'll be sure to tell your kid you said hi.” He puts the two bullets in the chamber and spins it. “Pick it up. Come on. You know the drill.”

You hold the gun to your head and pull the trigger. Blank.

“How many are left?”

“How many what?”

“Players. Someone has to have been eliminated.”

“Oh, yeah, that. One player was eliminated...as far as you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, as far as you know, it's just you and one other player.”

“I don't understand.”

“Then let me explain it to you. All that you know about this game is what I've been telling you, right? So, what if I told you I've been making up these last couple of rounds? What if I told you you've already won? Kinda funny if you think about it. What if you're the only one playing the game?”

“That wouldn't work. How would you bet on that?”

“Maybe the bet's not about who wins the game. Maybe you're the bet and it's simply how many times you'll keep pulling that trigger until you lose. Think about it. How would you know?” He suddenly laughs. “I'm kidding, yeah, of course. One of the other players really was eliminated. That leaves you and one more. And it's that time again.”

“So there really is another player?”

“I was just joking. Jeez, you got to learn how to lighten up. If the player could take their position please?”

“There really is another player?”

“Yes,” he says, highly annoyed.

“Prove it.”

“Hold on a sec. Assume the position!” He orders you.

“Prove that there's another player.”

“That's not how this game works. You got to trust me.”

You put the gun to your head.

“Ready.”

After staring at The Recruiter for a long moment, you remove the gun from your head, an idea coming to you.

“Pull. The. Trigger.”

You stare at him.

“Do it!”

You put the gun to your head and pull the trigger. Blank.

“I've been instructed that if you fail to comply again, you forfeit the game.”

You laugh. “Forfeit?”

He pulls up his shirt, showing the other gun tucked in his pants. “Then I'm instructed to shoot you.”

“Your bosses, money is just their excuse for playing. They don't really care about winning. They just want to see blood.”

“Now you're catching on. And they don't care whose it is. Oh. And we're upping the ante again.”

He adds a bullet.

“You forgot to say whether a player was eliminated.”

“Did I? What if I told you there wasn't really a game? What if I told you this whole thing was just made up? What if I told you it's been you and me this whole time?” He asks as he loads the bullets into the chamber.

“You're a liar.”

“Well, I guess we'll find out.” He spins the chamber. “It's time. Position. Please. Mm-hm. You got it.”

You grab the gun but don’t put it to your head. “Let me ask you this. What if there is just one bet? What if it's a 50/50 one?”

“That wouldn't make any sense.” He taps his temple to signal you to sssume the position.

You put the gun to your head. You don’t pull the trigger. “You know what? I think I have already won.” You point the gun at him. “I think the bet now is simply who walks out of this room.”

“That's not how this game is played.”

“You said it yourself, real gamblers will make odds on anything.”

“What if I told you that gun doesn't have any bullets?”

“I watched you.”

“Dummies, blanks. The real bet was to see how long you'd play before you quit.”

“Liar.”

“Okay. Okay, you're right. It wasn't fair, so just put the gun down, and we'll talk about changing the rules.”

“You're gonna change the rules?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“Guys like you don't get to make the rules.” You pull back the hammer and stand up. “Do you know what your mistake was? You thought that the show was all about me, but you forgot that there are two animals in this cage.” You notice him sliding his hand back towards his gun. “You won't get it out before I pull the trigger.”

“If that chamber's empty, I got you.”

“I thought they were blanks.”

“You don't have the guts.”

You shoot. Blank. He flips the table up and makes a run for the door, failing to notice his gun has fallen out of his pocket as you keep shooting at him, firing off three live shots and then nothing but gun clicks. The door slides open to reveal a guard. You grab The Recruiter’s discarded gun off the ground and shoot at the the guards, killing some of them. You then play dead behind the upturned table. They let their guard down and when they get close, you shoot them dead too. The Recruiter comes from behind and tackles you to the ground and tries to strangle you to death. But you manage to get the upper hand.

Even though he could, he’s too proud to beg for your help as he lays on the ground, convulsing, dying. He just stares at you as he chokes on his own blood until he dies with his eyes wide open. A smile still on his face.

You pull his earpiece out of his ear and put it in your own, listening for the person on the other end to say something. And then you hear those two words:

“You win.”

5. What if The Recruiter faked his death like how Oh Il-nam did in season 1? He died with his eyes wide open and none of the other characters checked his pulse. This man is so unhinged and was always five steps ahead of the other characters, always knowing they were watching him and looking for him. He eluded them for two years. He got the jump on them and subdued two men with just his briefcase. So what if he had planned for every possible outcome during the Russian Roulette game too and had piping lined underneath his suit to spurt out fake blood at the right time and the bullet was a dummy or a blank? Squid game men love to fake their deaths. Gi-hun winning the Russian Roulette game and not giving into his mind games throws him into abject shock. That's the second time he loses his smug smile. Gi-hun throwing his words back in his face only makes it worse, to the point he's driven to suicide rather than admit Gi-hun is right. But what if his “suicide” was just a part of a contingency plan so he could lie low for a while and then eventually go back to recruiting players once Gi-hun wasn’t a problem anymore and it was deemed by the people he worked for that it was safe to do so?

After his fake death, he’s left alone in the room when the main characters leave. He gets up from the chair he was playing dead in, cleans himself up by changing his clothes and washing away the blood on his skin, and goes home to you, his wife, as if nothing happened. You’re kept in the dark about what he really does. (Or you’re in on it and help him get the bloodstains out of his clothes, though you work behind the scenes and use your computer and hacking skills to find potential players and learn everything about them. He has to get his information from somewhere, after all. But you don’t go “out into the field” so to speak like he does.) If you don’t know the truth, he explains that he’s been granted extended vacation time from his work and suggests a holiday outside of South Korea. What about Thailand? Or Italy might be nice. Anywhere you want to go, just say the word. He has plenty of money to sustain the both of you during said vacation so don’t worry if you can’t get the time off. You didn’t really like your job anyway, right? Or maybe you’re pregnant so you take advantage of maternity and paternity leave early. Either way, a months or years long holiday would sound heavenly, wouldn’t it? If you do know the truth, you’re prepared the second he gives you a call on your restricted phone and says just a few words. You’ve been prepared for this day for years.

6. A scenario very much like the Korean thriller movie “Addicted”. You’re the long time girlfriend of The Recruiter’s brother (Of course you know The Recruiter’s actual name but for simplicity’s sake, I’ll just call him The Recruiter so authors can choose whatever name they want to give him.) and get married. While he and his brother are very different as people, and the only thing they really have in common is the parents they share, they are very close despite having very different interests and personalities. You wonder if the only reason they get along so well is because of you since you’re the common link between them. The Recruiter decides to take part in a car race for money even though his brother, who is concerned for his safety, asks him not to do that particular race. With a heavy heart, your husband plans on attending the car race to support his brother. Running late, he has to hail a taxi. The speeding taxi crashes into a lorry, and your husband is seriously injured. At the same time as the taxi crashes, The Recruiter’s car overturns in the middle of the race and he is also badly injured. Both The Recruiter and your husband fall into comas.

A year later, The Recruiter wakes up but is unable to walk properly, due in part to his physical injuries. He is brought home by you, where you attempt to take care of him while he recovers. Over time, you realize that The Recruiter is behaving identically to your husband. He tries to convince you that he feels like he is actually his brother, your husband, unable to explain why. He agrees to go for a hypnosis test and his answers so reflect his brother's character, that the doctor concludes your husband’s spirit has entered his brother (The Recruiter’s) body. You’re devastated by this revelation. You, unable to accept The Recruiter as your husband, tell his girlfriend that you are unable to live with him. She offers to take The Recruiter away and he agrees to go with her for your sake. One rainy day, he appears to you just as your husband had before. You discuss memories together and you finally accept The Recruiter as the "possessed" spirit of your husband. The Recruiter and you then share a slow, emotional night together where you have sex after the tearful revelation. You start to live life together as a happy and loving couple. In time, you become pregnant with The Recruiter’s child. Meanwhile, your real husband is still on life support. The doctor suggests to you that there is no chance of your husband waking up and it may be best if he were allowed to die in peace. You agree, and watch with The Recruiter as your husband is taken off life support.

The Recruiter’s girlfriend returns and tells you that she has accepted the fact that her now ex-boyfriend is no longer himself, and that she can no longer love him. She decides to go abroad to study (she may or may not have been blackmailed or bribed by the Recruiter and the people he works for to keep quiet and get lost or else be shot dead and her body burned and never found). The Recruiter, living as your husband, continues life as normal. Recruiting players for the games and keeping you in the dark about what he does or who he really is. You’re not feeling well while you’re out and about with him, so you decide to go home to get some rest and let him stay as what he’s doing is too important for him to just leave with you. While you’re home, a weird looking package addressed to The Recruiter arrives. You open it and find a necklace which had been given to you by The Recruiter. It went missing one day. You thought you just misplaced it.

You read the accompanying note, from The Recruiter’s ex-girlfriend, saying that she cannot understand his crazy love for you and could never ever hope to be you, no matter how hard he tried to mold her into you. Frantic, you dig through The Recruiter’s workroom and find a number of hidden photos of yourself that were taken by The Recruiter. You realize that he had loved you before you married his brother. You also find a notebook that The Recruiter wrote about loving you and being happy because he is able to watch you and live with you through his brother. You cry sorrowfully. You drive back to The Recruiter. You take him aside and ask him various questions about something innocuous like works of art and comment that some pieces may look good in your home and he should consider bidding on them or buying them outright. You continue to pretend that your husband’s spirit is in The Recruiter’s body despite knowing the truth. The Recruiter scatters his brother’s ashes across the sea. He loved you even before his brother, and had for the entire time you were with him. He faked his leg injury so you’d take care of him for a few weeks before he could pretend it was all healed thanks to you. The Recruiter also confesses that he made use of all of his brother's secrets to "transform" himself into him, to the extent of sacrificing his own identity and behavior. He claims that it was he who died after the accident. He tells his brother that you will forever love him under the identity of your dead husband. He apologizes and asks his brother never to forgive him for his deeds.

7. Hear me out: A consensual non-consent/CNC roleplay fic with The Recruiter. While you’re not a loan shark yourself, you’re part of the team Gi-hun hires to help track down The Recruiter due to being an associate of sorts of theirs and being personally recommended to Gi-hun by them. You’re the only woman and the youngest amongst the many men you’ve worked with the past two or three years. Despite your gender and age, you’ve proven to them and to Gi-hun that you’re experienced and have had great success in finding people that don’t want to be found. You’re highly capable and confident that you can do this and you’re not just in it for the one billion won he promised to whoever finds The Recruiter. You’re with Kim Jeong-rae and Choi Woo-seok when they spot The Recruiter at Jonggak Station. The three of you are told to follow him carefully but avoid making contact and do not approach him. You watch him in Tapgol Park when he gives bread and lottery tickets to homeless people, but he doesn’t approach you, Choi, or Kim. Secretly, while Kim and Choi are shocked at The Recruiter’s behavior and think he’s a total nutcase when he stomps on all the bread after making a short speech to everyone, you think he’s so hot when he’s a little disheveled after all his stomping and combs his fingers through his hair, slicking it back and tucking his tie back into his suit blazer.

Despite Gi-hun’s order to not engage, you get the idea to follow The Recruiter down the alleyway and tell Mr. Kim and Mr. Choi that you might lose him if you wait and should just get him by yourselves. Before they can protest or tell you to wait, you’re running ahead, yelling for The Recruiter to stop. They don’t have time to argue and run after you to help you. When they get close, they witness The Recruiter hit you a couple times, so hard that the force of his hits causes you to stumble backwards and fall to the ground. You’re seemingly knocked out cold when your head makes impact with the hard cement. Despite Mr. Choi having a knife, The Recruiter easily subdues the two men with just his briefcase, knocking them unconscious for real. Once he tells you it’s okay to do so, you open your eyes. He grabs your hand and helps you up. You dust yourself off then help The Recruiter drag and carry Kim Jeong-rae and Choi Woo-seok’s bodies inside to finish setting up the room for Russian Roulette. Together, you stand on the roof of a building and watch Gi-hun from above. When he tells you, you take your place in a chair that’s in the middle so you’ll be in perfect view of both men when they wake up and you’ll have The Recruiter standing directly behind you the entire time, his body pressed against the back of your chair and hovering over you. You nearly moan and rub your thighs together while he fastens your wrists to the armchair and pulls the ropes extra tight. As he ties the gag around your mouth, he gives you a warning to behave or else he’ll make use of your mouth later. But all you can think is, “Mmm. Don’t threaten me with a good time, daddy.” You see the lust swimming in his deep brown irises underneath his faux irritation with you. You know that if he could, he’d fuck you right now. But like you, he’s sticking to the plan and is going to wait to start the game until the real players wake up. On command, you let out a few tears to make your acting all the more believable.

Kim Jeong-rae and Choi Woo-seok wake up and The Recruiter puts on opera music and explains the rules of Rock, Paper, Scissors, Minus One, and Russian Roulette, dramatically illustrating the penalty for the loser when he points the gun to his own head and pulls the trigger. But there’s another twist. They may have noticed you’re tied to your chair a little differently than they’re tied to theirs. That’s because, unlike them, you’re not playing. You’ll be an observer of sorts and won’t need the use of your hands. To their horror, The Recruiter then takes a knife or pair of scissors out of his pocket and violently cuts your clothes off your body. When you try to thrash and pull away from him, he slaps you and orders you to sit still unless you want him to cut your pretty skin. He grips your hair to keep you in place as he grazes the knife or scissors against your cheek, not cutting you, but coming very close. You sob harder and squeal in fear as you comply until you’re left in just your underwear, (because he is the only man allowed to look at your cunt) your shredded clothes in pieces around you. You don’t even have your bra or socks anymore. He explains to Mr. Kim and Mr. Choi that, for every time they tie and have to go again, he will touch you however he wants in front of them, seemingly without your consent. The first time they’ll tie, it’ll be for fifteen seconds. Then thirty. Then forty-five, and so on. And they’ll be forced to watch for the duration. He’ll point the gun and pull the trigger at whoever diverts their eyes before the time is up. He has so many fun toys he could use on you in his briefcase.

Your acting really sells it and adds to their fear and disgust. Whenever they tie, you pretend to cringe and sob every time The Recruiter touches you, letting out muffled screams as you beg him not to. He’d do all sorts of things to you, from fondling and squeezing your breasts, to sticking out his tongue and licking a long path on your skin from your wrist to your shoulder to your neck to your cheek before ending in biting your ear. He’d remove your gag for just a second, not giving you time to cry out before he’s tilting your head back to kiss your mouth, violating your lips with his own and the inside of your mouth with his tongue. He’d kiss you so hard that he’d bite down and your lower lip would bleed. After he’s done kissing you, he’d lick up the blood from your bleeding lip and immediately put the gag back in place. He’d drag the gun down between your breasts and to the inside of your underwear, rubbing it against your mound and teasing the possibility of inserting it inside your cunt, only to actually reach his other hand inside your underwear and finger you instead, using toys on you, etc. You’re such a pretty little actress, aren’t you? So good for him.

The exhibitionism, the humiliation, and Mr. Kim and Mr. Choi’s fear of death makes it all the more exciting for you and The Recruiter, especially when Choi and Mr. Kim beg him to stop, for you to be left alone. Though their pleas are just as muffled as yours. The shame and pity in their eyes as they’re forced to watch what they believe to be you being sexually assaulted by a sadistic stranger almost makes you want to laugh. But all games must end eventually. The time comes when The Recruiter puts five bullets into the chamber, increasing the chances of death to 5 in 6. When Mr. Kim refuses to take a hand away and sacrifices himself to spare Choi Woo-seok, The Recruiter shoots him dead. His blood splatters over the space between your breasts but only a little bit of it lands on The Recruiter’s cheek. As he passes by you, he strokes your hair with one hand, running his fingers through it and then letting it go as he bends down and congratulates a traumatized Choi on his win. He looks over his shoulder at your practically naked form, shivering and twitching with the aftershock of everything he did to you with just his tongue, hands, and toys thus far. He hasn’t even given you his cock yet and already you’re like this. He gloats that while Choi won the game, he’s the real winner who received the grand prize - you. He asks if they can have a talk. The Recruiter asks questions on Gi-hun’s location.

After the interrogation, The Recruiter knocks Choi out again and unties you so he can unbuckle his pants and manhandle you however he wants so he can have sex with you properly. Against the wall, on the table, on the floor, on the couch, it doesn’t matter. He’ll take you wherever and however he wants to take you. Rock, Paper, Scissors, Minus One and Russian Roulette was just a warmup. But this…this is even more intense. Even more passionate, primal, painful. When he inserts his fingers and/or cock inside you, it always hurts so damn good. He’s demanding, he’s high maintenance, but you always are able to keep up and know exactly what he wants without him even having to say a word. You read his body language so well. He’s the same way with you. He can tell exactly what you want just from the noises you make. Though he loves to hear you use your words and say it. He can be such a tease sometimes. He loves driving you to the precipice but withholding your orgasm from you until he believes you’ve earned it. He planted you within the Loan Sharks’ circle and tasked you with earning their and Gi-hun’s trust by using the information he fed you so you could pretend to be good at finding people. The ploy worked. Good girls deserve rewards and bad girls earn punishments. And while you’ve been bad at times over the past three or more years you’ve known him and have been punished by him accordingly, you were such a good girl for him in the game, so he’ll reward you by fucking you however you want and then giving you amazing aftercare. He hit you rather hard to make the act believable and your skin might be bruising, but you took it so well. He’ll get out the first aid kit and make you feel better in more ways than one. This plan was as much your idea as it was his. God, you’re so fucking brilliant, a perfect match for him in mind and body. He fucking loves you, even if he’s not the kind of man to say it often.

You change into the outfit he picked out and bought for you, including new lingerie to replace the set he half-destroyed. Could be a nice women’s dress suit similar to his. Something expensive but overall inconspicuous. When he goes to confront Gi-hun and play Russian Roulette again, you’re hidden in an alley nearby, waiting behind the wheel in the getaway car for after he either wins the game or fakes his suicide/death. Whether The Recruiter wins, loses, or Gi-hun breaks the rules and tries to shoot him, it doesn’t matter. You’ve planned ahead for every possible outcome, and they all end with the both of you getting away and lying low for a while, continuing your work for the games from behind the scenes. It’s not long before he opens the passenger door and has you drive, opening his briefcase where he has guns at the ready. He gives you the directions throughout the drive and you’re off. You’re like a professional stunt driver at the wheel, having no issues going high speeds, making smooth and fast turns, and weaving in and out of traffic to evade pursuers if you have to. He needs to keep his hands free in case you’re followed and he needs to lean out the window and shoot at anyone.

8. Going off of a previous thought I had now that season 2 revealed In-ho had a wife who died young from acute cirrhosis of the liver, and that he took bribes when he was a dirty cop because of her condition: What if In-ho went so far to save you from your illness that it turned into a Nora and Mr. Freeze situation? You were just a happily married couple but then you started feeling unwell. You didn’t think much of it at first, thinking your symptoms were from something else like the flu or food poisoning. It possibly got so bad that you fainted and hit your head on the way down. When he got home from work, your place was filled with smoke but no fire as the smoke alarms went off. Covering his mouth and nose, he was quick to open windows to let the smoke out. He found you unconscious in the kitchen, your hair matted by the pool of blood forming on the floor from your head wound. He’d never been so terrified until that moment. As much as he wanted to rush to you and make sure you weren’t dead, he had to secure the house first. He had to make sure you weren’t attacked and that, if you were, the attacker wasn’t still inside, hiding somewhere. With his gun pointed, he searched every room. All clear and nothing appeared to be stolen or out of place. He didn’t care about the burned dinner you were in the middle of making as he rushed you to the hospital. He was there with you, holding your hand during every doctor appointment, every test. And that was when you got the news. When he has a heart to heart with Gi-hun while undercover as Oh Young-il/Player 001, he tells him the truth. Not the whole truth, but some of it: That you’re very sick with acute cirrhosis and need a liver transplant (or any other disease and treatment of your choosing). But when you were going through the tests, you found out you were pregnant. The doctor suggested a termination, but you wouldn’t listen. You said you’d give birth even if it killed you. You’re stubborn. Your husband has never been able to change your mind about anything. You were struggling to find a donor and your condition was getting worse.

“Breathe. I'm right here. Look at me. Where's the formoterol?” He kneeled down next to you, wrapping his arm around you as you coughed violently (possibly coughing up blood) and struggled to inhale and exhale properly. He found the bottle and gave you the pill, helping you to drink by tipping the glass of water to your lips. The attack gradually subsided.

“That was the worst one yet.”

“That was the last pill. Why didn't you tell me?”

“I'm sorry. I forgot. There's so many. There's so many,” you cried.

“If you have another attack and you don't have this medication, you could die. You can't let this happen again.”

“Why? Does it matter?”

“It matters. I'll be back. I need to get this refilled.”

He went to the pharmacy, leaving you alone in your house.

“Next.”

“I need to get this refilled.”

“Do you have the prescription?”

“I have the bottle.”

“That's not the same thing, is it?”

“Please, I just need it refilled.”

“The original prescription doesn't have a refill order. If it doesn't have a refill order, I can't refill it.”

“This medication is for my wife. She's sick. She's in pain.”

“Everyone that comes in here is sick or in pain. Have your doctor write a new prescription. Then I can refill it.”

“Just give me the medication.”

“No.”

“You son of a bitch!” In-ho lunged at the man, trying to strangle him. He was pulled off and away by two other workers.

“Get out! Get him out of here! Get out of here before I call the cops, you kook!”

Call the cops? He was a fucking cop.

“You shouldn't have done that. I'll be back,” he warned, pointing a finger as he left.

You were admitted to the hospital though you could barely afford it and your husband visited every day until his visits suddenly stopped. You were worried but he never returned your phone calls. For an entire week, you didn’t hear from him. He borrowed as much money as he could, but it still wasn’t enough. He was desperate, then one of his oldest vendors heard about the situation and offered to help. So he borrowed money from them. But people saw it as a bribe and he got fired from his job. He had devoted his entire youth to it. The games were his last hope. He really needed that money even if it was blood money. He needed that money to save you and your child. That all happened in 2015 during the 28th annual squid games.

When he came back after he won a week later, he was all in black, including gloves and a mask that covered his entire face and changed his voice (not his Front Man outfit, but something similar). He was carrying a Heckler & Koch MP5A3 sub-machine gun and his Smith & Wesson Model 19 revolver from back when he was a cop. Though he’d gone against the protocol of leaving one chamber empty and another filled with a blank. He had five live bullets loaded in the chamber and ready to fire as he pointed it at the worker that denied him before.

“Formoterol. Now.” He demanded. Upon entering the pharmacy, he shot the only other worker and person in the building not to kill but to incapacitate him so he couldn’t call for help.

“Okay. Okay. Take it all. Please, don't kill me. Please. I’ll-I'll do anything you want.” The worker begged, holding his hands up. He wasn’t so smug now, was he?

In-ho took all of the medication you needed. “Thank you. You and your friend here...are helping to save my wife.”

He shot both men dead and left.

To make sure nobody would make a missing persons report or come looking for you when he inevitably kidnapped you from the hospital you were staying in and brought you to the island, he faked your death by doing something crazy like impersonating a doctor and drugging you with something that wouldn’t kill you, but make your heart rate so slow that it caused a Code Blue and set off the alarms, making it look like you were flatlining. He even forged legal documents making it look like you consented to a “Do Not Resuscitate” order so that medical staff wouldn’t accidentally kill you by shocking you or break your ribs from performing chest compressions. Once they disabled all the alarms and unhooked you from the IVs and monitors that were attached to your skin and moved you to the morgue, he kidnapped you and replaced your unconscious body with an unclaimed female corpse that was unrecognizable in the face and teeth but looked enough like you to pass by planting stuff on it so his family would false identify it as you after DNA tests matched with you. After whisking you away to the island to get you the treatments you needed to overcome your sickness, whenever you were awake, he smoothly lied to you to leave you oblivious and in the dark about where you really were and what was really going on, taking advantage of your confusion and disorientation and other side effects from your condition to gaslight you.

“In-ho...?”

“I'm here, darling. I brought you home,” he said, holding your hand.

The room you were in didn’t look familiar. It didn’t look like home. It looked more like a luxurious hotel room.

“I'm so tired.”

“I know. It'll all be over soon.”

“In-ho... I want you to let me go. Let me die,” you begged, cupping his face in your hands.

“Honey, you don't mean that. We can do this. A donor has been found. The surgery will work. I'll be there when you wake up. I'll be there.”

“Okay.” You nodded your head and he kissed you.

Just as you were about to be put under, you stopped him and who you assumed to be doctors standing nearby (though they were dressed rather strangely) from injecting you with the sedative or putting the mask with knockout gas over your nose and mouth by grabbing his hand. “In-ho, wait. My necklace. The one that you gave me on our first anniversary. I left it on the nightstand in my hospital room when I had to go in for scans. Did you get it for me? Please, dear, tell me you did.”

He hesitated, unsure if you were just stalling for the sake of stalling or not. He brought it with him. Of course he did. “I got it. I've got it,” he said, pulling it out of his pocket to show you.

“Can you put it on me? Please, honey. I know it’s silly, but it’d make me feel…less afraid.”

He complied with your wish, bending over you to put it around your neck, clasping it into place. You fiddled with it, the familiarity of the metal bringing you comfort under your fingers. Now that he was close enough, you put your other hand on his cheek, rubbing it as you ran your fingers through his hair. “In-ho. I love you. If I don’t make it off the table… Please don't blame yourself.”

“You’ll make it. I’ll see you soon.” He reassured you, giving you one last kiss. “I love you,” was one of the last things you heard. A few minutes later, you were unconscious.

It’d take months, possibly even years to even begin to get you back to where you were, though you’ve shown signs of improvement after undergoing treatment. You were often unconscious from the surgeries and operations during your pregnancy and he’d tell himself he wasn’t gaslighting you out of malice, but out of love. The less you knew, the safer you’d be. He’d go as far to make sure you didn’t find out that he keeps hidden cameras around his quarters and a tracker hidden in either a piece of jewelry he knows you always wear or possibly under your skin even, claiming it was part of your surgeries so you wouldn’t question the stitches or the healing scar. You don’t feel it so you don’t know it’s there. You spent most of your pregnancy on bedrest. He couldn’t drug or sedate you too much because of the risk to the baby’s health, but even when you were awake, he’d do his damnedest to keep you safe, healthy, and comfortable even while lying to you or expertly deflecting your questions. Where’s your cell phone? Deflect. Why can’t this Apple computer in his office connect to the internet? Deflect. When can you go home? Deflect. Where are you? Deflect. Even though the circumstances of your new living situation were unclear and left you unsettled, you were excited to give birth despite the somewhat shady doctors your husband brought to care for you. If he ever detected you trying to leave his quarters, an alarm beeped just loud enough for him to hear it, signaling to him to put his quarters on complete lockdown with a push of a button so you couldn’t wander off and he’d rush to check on you. He’d either sedate you again if he absolutely had to out of fear your lashing out at him would be a danger to yourself or the baby, or he’d otherwise distract or dissuade you from asking too many questions or wandering too far. If you asked questions, he’d tell you to think of it as a dream, that it isn’t a bad dream for you anyway since you’ll have your baby soon. When the time came for you to give birth, your husband was there with doctors that were hired for their discretion (or he’d just kill them afterwards) and you gave birth to a healthy baby and survived, though the birth was difficult and took a great toll on your body. That was in 2015 or 2016.

You thought you’d be able to go home eventually, but in reality, you’re still practically a prisoner on an unknown island. During the first couple years, you took care of your baby while your husband oversaw vulnerable people being driven to kill others or themselves out of desperation for blood money for the entertainment of bored rich people in sadistic death games. Whenever it was lights out for the players, he came back and gave you your much needed break, taking his turn to care for your baby while you rested. You’re not sure why you’re still here as you’re feeling much better, but your husband and doctors keep saying your condition isn’t stable yet, you’re not in the clear, a few more tests and treatments. It’s always something. He won’t let you leave. You can’t leave this place without his permission.

And even worse, when your child reached a certain age, maybe around three or four (old enough to walk and talk), he took them away from you, sent them to be raised and cared for by people he knew he could trust until the time was right for you to take them back. He couldn’t let your child grow up in this place and become old enough to have awareness of their surroundings or start asking questions. When children reach a certain age, they get curious. Too curious. He couldn’t risk that. And this is no place for a child anyway. They need proper socialization and a healthy environment to grow and learn. When you found out what he’d done, you yelled at him, screamed at him, hit him repeatedly. He took it all. Then you ignored him, gave him the silent treatment. He took that too. He’d understand if you never forgive him but he needs you to understand that he does all of this because he loves and cares about you and your child - his family - more than he does a bunch of strangers. He’ll kill however many he needs to if it means you both get to live. And that’s why when Thanos is talking shit while he’s undercover in the games, telling him to stop running his mouth and take care of his own damn kids, to save the lecture for his own children, he snaps and beats the shit out of him, nearly choking him to death in the middle of the dorms. But, unbeknownst to him, after your child was taken away from you, you became more proactive in discovering the truth and getting off this damn island. You weren’t just gonna lie down and blindly love and trust your husband anymore. You can play dual roles and keep secrets as well as he can. You know your husband would never kill you. He’s done everything to save you. And even if he does kill you for going behind his back, you’re not afraid of dying. Your resolve is strong, unwavering. You’ll either get off this damn island and get your child back or die trying, with or without your husband. It’ll be up to him what he wants to do, if he comes with you or not. You just have to bide your time and play your cards right.

9. You’re a player and while In-ho is undercover as player 001/Oh Young-il, you and he form some kind of connection and stick together during the games. You likely have a considerate age gap between you. He’s probably at least fifteen years older than you but despite that, you’re hot for each other. You have been ever since surviving the six legged relay race. You’re so thankful he and his team took pity on you and let you join and bonded with him in the dorms afterwards. He sticks by you during the Mingle game and saves your life by grabbing your wrist and running with you, keeping you close for every round so you’re always in a room with him, no matter how many people are needed. On the last round, he kills a man in ten seconds before your very eyes after he refuses to leave. After the game, he comes to you during lights out and asks if you want to go with him somewhere away from everybody else to have some “much needed alone time together”. You know, despite his use of euphemism or polite language, that he’s inviting you to have sex to blow off some steam and come down from the high that the combined stress of playing the latest game and left over adrenaline gave you.

You follow his lead when he knocks on the door and asks a guard to use the bathroom. Together you ditch the guard (unbeknownst to you, he used his authority as the Front Man and subtly signaled the guard to go away.) and he takes you back to the room where the Mingle game was played, now spotless from clean up. No blood or bodies anywhere. The lights are mostly off and the few that are on are low, making the lighting in the room look dark purple, almost black, with hints of red. He tells you to pick any door of your choosing. You pick a door that’s your favorite color and he grabs you by the hand or lifts you up to carry you bridal style or over his shoulder into the room, closing the door behind you. You barely pay attention to the sound of the lock clicking into place as In-ho/Young-il is instantly on you, his hands and mouth all over your body, touching and feeling everywhere he can before you even begin to take your clothes off. That comes soon enough as, finally alone, you have sex on the floor in the colored room, the light above reflecting off the painted walls and creating makeshift “mood lighting” as you meet his hot kisses and touches with equal fervor. The potential danger of being caught by the pink guards only further turns you on. Unbeknownst to you, there’s no danger at all since you’re having sex with the Front Man and Host of the games. You’d hate to admit it, but you thought he was so sexy when he was strangling that man to death. It almost turned you on when he didn’t break eye contact with you and you heard the player’s neck snap. While he’s thrusting in and out of you, you beg him to choke you. He asks if you’re sure, and you confirm your consent. He tells you to tap his shoulder or scratch down his back three times if you want him to let go. While he fucks you, he chokes you so hard that your vision begins to blur and you see stars as you struggle to breathe. He doesn’t apply enough pressure to kill you or knock you out, but it’s enough to make your orgasm that much sweeter of a high.

10. While In-ho is undercover as player 001/Oh Young-il, he becomes obsessed with you because you’re visibly pregnant and/or have a resemblance to his deceased wife somehow. Even if it’s just one thing like your smile, eyes, or personality. After his wife got sick and both she and their unborn child died, he was devastated at the loss of his family, believing he went through the games and won, but it was all for nothing as he got out only to find his family was already dead. He felt guilty for not spending time with his wife in the hospital and being there for her before she died. (“I should go and be with my wife at the hospital,” he said to Gi-hun.) He never really forgave himself for just abandoning her without a word. And with nothing to go back to in the outside world - no wife, no child, no job - he dedicated himself to the games as the Front Man. That’s why he snapped and beat the shit out of Thanos and nearly choked him to death after his insensitive comments about “save the lecture for your own damn kids”. He thought he lost his beloved wife and his baby forever, but seeing you makes him believe he can have both a wife and a child again.

He becomes immensely protective of you, so much so that it’s unnerving to the other players at times, possibly even you, but nobody would dare to say a thing to his face. He’s one of the most formidable players in the game. He kills several players in the games personally while telling you sweet and caring things when you’re given moments of respite during the games and when you’re back in the dorms after the games are over.

“When you get out of here, go see a doctor right away. You’ve been under a lot of stress. You need to get yourself checked out.”

He gives you his milk or shares his food with you, insisting on you taking it since you’re eating for two and need it more than he does. He lets you use his pillow or blanket during lights out. He’s always asking if you’re all right and cracking jokes to keep the mood light and make you smile despite the circumstances. He keeps you stuck to him during every game like velcro. During the six-legged race? Your arm is interlocked with his. During the Mingle game? He’s holding onto your arm or wrist so tightly when you run to gather enough players and get to a colored door in time that there’s no chance of other frantic players pushing you to the ground or separating you from him. When you need to go to the bathroom outside of hours and sneak out of bed, he’s awake and asks what you’re doing. When you sheepishly admit you need the bathroom, he’s there with you at the door demanding for you to be let out if the guards tell you no at first. Despite being a man, he’s in the women’s bathroom with you. You’re the only two people awake and using the bathroom, so who cares if he’s a man in the women’s bathroom? The guards definitely don’t care. (Because he’s their boss, but you don’t know that.) He’s leaning against the stall directly across from the one you go into or the sink and keeps you company, asking if you’re sick and if you need him to hold your hair back for you if you’re feeling nauseous when he notices you’ve been in there for a long time. If he hears you crying, he’s knocking on the stall before opening it and kneeling in front of you, immediately fretting over you, asking if it’s the baby and if you’re in any pain, are you in labor, is the baby coming? Then he’s holding you and comforting you when you admit you’re afraid. Same for if you have an emotional breakdown over not being allowed to go home after the vote doesn’t go the way you want it to. He’s there to hold you, stroke your hair and stomach (with your permission of course) and tell you you’re going to make it out of this and both you and your baby will be fine. You swear sometimes you hear him say “our” baby, or that he’s calling you pet names like darling, honey, and sweetheart, but he gaslights you and tells you that you must’ve misheard him whenever you call it out and ask him about it.

When he goes with the men to find the control room, you stay behind. While you’re not sure if you love him, you have grown to care for him and see him as a dear friend at least and are worried for him. After the game is over and he goes back to being the Front Man, the pink guards storm into the dorms, firing off two warning shots and ordering everyone to get down on the floor. The sight of the pink guards rushing forwards with their guns pointed and no sign of Young-il or any of the other players makes you fear for the worst. Curled up on your side on the floor, you panic when your water breaks at the exact moment you believe Young-il is dead. Other players might think you’ve peed your pants from fear, but you can feel the contractions already starting. Unbeknownst to you, the Front Man sees your water break on the cameras from the control room, the small puddle staining your sweatpants wet and forming on the floor under you as the women nearby try to comfort you. He orders some of the guards in the control room to escort you out of the dorm room and to his private quarters while the other pink guards are busy defusing the situation. He emphasizes to them to be gentle with you, meaning don’t walk too fast, make sure you don’t fall, and keep their guns pointed away from you at all times. You’re terrified when three or four pink guards approach you and two of them slowly lift you up by your arms and force you to follow them out of the dorms the second you get back on your feet. You’re the only player singled out and escorted away from the others. Your friends are yelling your name, asking the guards where they’re taking you, but they receive no answer. Once you’re in the hallways of many colorful stairs, they blindfold you so you can’t know where you’re going, making you more scared. Your arm is held the whole way to wherever it is you’re going. They don’t tell you anything or answer your questions. They only tell you when there are steps in front of you so you don’t trip and fall on them. But you think they’re holding onto you so you can’t run. You think for sure you’re going to be killed and your baby will be cut out of your dead body and sold to a black market along with your organs or something.

But when the blindfold is removed, you find yourself lying down on a plush bed in a very nice, almost luxurious room with the Front Man and who you think is a doctor of sorts. The Front Man orders the doctor to help you by giving you everything you need for a safe and healthy delivery. But while you’re given a clean and plain men’s t-shirt so you can change out of your ruined track suit, you’re unnerved that the Front Man won’t leave. He’s considerate enough to turn his back or let you change in his bathroom and doesn’t turn back around until you’re back in his bed with your lower half covered with the blankets and the men’s shirt, which is so big and long on you it’s like a nightgown almost. He stands either on your left or right side near your head so he can’t see between your legs. While a part of you is relieved you have that semblance of privacy, he just stands there, watching over you. And you can’t read his face since it’s covered by his black mask. And you can’t tell much emotion from his voice either. It unnerves you.

But the terror becomes confusion when he eventually asks if you need to hold his hand after watching you struggle through a few contractions despite the epidural you were given. What? He repeats the question. When you shakily say yes, he removes his black leather gloves to hold your hand in both of his, letting you squeeze as tightly as you can when the contractions are at their worst. Your strength is nothing compared to his so he barely feels it. His skin is so warm. This bed is warm too. Much warmer than the cot you were sleeping in. You hate to admit that it feels nice. He puts on some jazz music to help you relax. He tells you not to think and to just focus on the music, breathe, and push whenever the doctor tells you to. After who knows how many hours, you give one last push and hear a baby crying. Your baby. After the doctor cleans them up and does what needs to be done for aftercare for you including any stitches or disposing of the placenta, etc., the Front Man orders him to leave. Your baby is wrapped in a soft towel or sheet as a makeshift blanket and resting on your chest. For a moment, you’re too in awe of them to care about the Front Man or what’s happening around you.

But then you hear a soft click as he takes his mask off and reveals himself not as player 001, Oh Young-il - but Hwang In-ho, Captain and Host of the squid games following his predecessor’s death and, even more alarming, your husband and the father of your child. You can’t believe it. He joined Gi-hun's assault on the staff, dispatching several guards personally. He killed two players to effectively fake his death to resume his place amongst the staff. When you’re horrified and exclaim that all those players who went with him are dead because of him, he is quick to correct you that no, they’re all dead because of Gi-hun. Even worse for you, if the real father of your child is still alive, whether or not you have a relationship with him, he won’t be alive for much longer. Even if he’s in the outside world and not a part of the games, In-ho will still find a way to kill him discreetly and dispose of the body so he can have you and your child for himself. He effectively kidnaps you and keeps you and your baby captive in his quarters because he’s all kinds of fucked up after his wife and unborn child’s deaths. You thought the games made him so relentless, that the games changed him. What you don’t know is that this relentless drive to get what he wants was apparent even before becoming the Front Man, as there were many self-help books on achieving one's desires in his old apartment.

OR

If you’re not already pregnant when he meets you, he’d be determined to impregnate you and would go out of his way to seduce you through emotional and mental manipulation or bribes during downtime between the games. Even worse for you if it works and you sleep with him in a moment of clouded judgment due to your hormones and/or fragile mental and emotional state from the high stress of your near death experiences. Either in your bunk, a bathroom stall, the stairs, or inside one of the colored doors from the Mingle game. Whether or not you’re already pregnant, once you have sex with him, your fate is pretty much sealed. He’d be even more protective and possessive of you, as your consenting to have sex with him would affirm for him the delusion that you love him back and accept him as your husband and father of your child, whether or not he actually is the child’s father biologically.

Either way, it’d be like a Basement Wife trope but he keeps going back and forth between sweet and doting and cold and ruthless personalities so it’s like you’re dealing with a Jekyll and Hyde type situation while prisoner. He’d never hurt you, especially not while you’re in such a fragile condition. He doesn’t want to chain you to the bed or sedate you as it can’t be good for you or the baby, but he will if you persist in misbehaving and lashing out. Stress isn’t good for you or the baby. He has no fear about you harming him, he can easily overpower you without hurting you, but he won’t let you harm yourself or your baby in any way. He might strap a monitor on your wrist that you can’t take off because it has a very special lock only he has the key to. Kind of like a house arrest ankle monitor. But this monitor allows him to monitor your health, whereabouts, and call you if he’s away for any reason - like an Apple Watch. Either that or he’d implant a tracking chip under your skin somewhere on your body while you’re passed out from being sedated. If you wake up, he knows. If you get out of bed to get a glass of water, use the bathroom, take a shower, or otherwise move around his quarters, he knows. If you so much as get a goddamn paper cut from reading a book, he knows. He won’t let anything happen to you or your child. You should’ve known something was wrong with him when he strangled a man to death and broke his neck in front of you during the Mingle game just so you and he could be the only two people in the room needed to pass. He looked at you and you saw no remorse or horror in his eyes. Only pride at protecting you.

11. You’re pregnant during the games and go into labor at an inopportune moment, possibly during the games or during the “special game” of the lights out free for all when everybody was murdering each other. If it’s the special game, he’d hide under the bed on the bottom level with you and his “friends”, his arms wrapped around you and his body almost on top of yours like a human shield. His hand would clamp over your mouth to keep you quiet if you cried out from seeing a player get murdered right in front of your eyes. You’d cry out again and that’s when you’d both feel wetness coming from your sweatpants and you both know it’s not pee. However it happens, In-ho/Young-il is so fiercely protective of you, having a soft spot for you ever since you revealed you were pregnant when you approached him and his team for the six-legged race and since then giving you special treatment that you thought was just him being nice, like giving you extra food and milk or letting you use his pillow and blanket so you’d be more comfortable during lights out.

When pink guards burst in and the players enact their plan to steal the guards’ guns and infiltrate the control room to capture the Front Man, In-ho makes sure you stay down and out of the rain of fire as he shoots many pink guards dead. When enough guards are dead and the others have retreated, he gets ready to head out with Gi-hun and his team. He waits until everyone else in line is ahead of him before he helps you up and takes you out of the room with him, telling you that you can’t stay in the dorms and he knows a place where you’ll be safe to deliver your baby. While the others are being led by the pink guard they took hostage and aren’t looking at him and you at the very back of the line, he takes you down a different hallway. You’re confused as it appears to be a dead end. He looks up towards a camera and nods. You don’t have time to react or understand what’s happening when the wall behind you opens up and a couple of pink guards blindfold you and grab hold of you from behind, pulling you away as you scream Young-il’s name for help. The others are too far away and can’t hear you over the sounds of their own yelling and all the gunfire. The last thing you hear is gunfire and Young-il’s voice telling you to trust him and that you’re going to be fine before the wall slides shut again, cutting you off from him and everyone else. You have no choice but to go wherever the guards are leading you and hope you and your baby will be okay along with Young-il. That’s why when after In-ho shoots players 047 and 015 in the back, he tells the control room to start wrapping things up. The sooner Gi-hun’s failed attempt at playing the hero ends, the sooner he can drop the facade of being Young-il and be at your side while you give birth in his private quarters.

OR

In-ho arranges for you to be exempt from the game so you can be taken away and brought to a medical bay or his personal quarters quietly without the other players putting up too much of a fuss since you can’t compete while in labor. It wouldn’t be fair and the games are all about fairness, or so he likes to preach. (Just like how he exempted Mi-nyeo from the marbles game when nobody wanted to pair up with her.) Could be part of my previous ideas of you being pregnant or could be its own separate thing.

12. You’re his wife and you’re very sick with acute cirrhosis and need a liver transplant. (Or any other disease and treatment of your choosing.) But when you’re going through the tests, you find out you’re pregnant.

"What-what are you saying?" In-ho gasps out as panic and wishful thinking begin to battle in his mind.

You brush your hand against his and smile with teary eyes. "The doctor is saying I'm pregnant, In-ho. We're going to have a baby."

You’re happy about this. He can’t believe it. Under different circumstances, sure. He could understand you being happy then. But now? With you so sick? Being pregnant now is far too dangerous. Even the doctor suggests a termination, but you won’t listen. You tell your husband you’ll give birth even if it kills you. You’re stubborn. Your husband has never been able to change your mind about anything. But in the following weeks, you’re struggling to find a donor and your condition is getting worse. He borrows as much money as he can, but it still isn’t enough. Then one of his oldest vendors hears about the situation and offers to help. So he borrows money from them. But people see it as a bribe and he gets fired from his job. He had devoted his entire youth to it. He’s desperate. Desperate enough to do something terrible. An irrevocable betrayal.

The first scare is...relatively simple, in retrospect. That night, In-ho comes home to you, perfect and lovely, preparing a meal meant to be shared. He doesn’t have much time to stay before he has to leave for “work” once more, but just seeing you in your shared dingy little kitchen creating something with him in mind makes his heart skip a beat in his chest. It’s a wonderfully simple moment the two of you spend together, holding hands like lovestruck teenagers across the table while you eat. As he’s preparing to depart, you sit by the window and sip at a glass of your favorite non-alcoholic beverage, illuminated by the lights of the city. In-ho is certain he's never seen you more beautiful. You take another sip of your drink before a strange expression crosses your features. It’s mostly an unreadable expression, but there’s the undercurrent of something...sad. It’s something In-ho has never really seen before, and it makes the first tendrils of anxiety curl in his stomach.

"Darling? Is something wrong?" he asks, walking over to where you sit.

"No, no, not at all," you assure him. When you look up at him, the twinge of sadness is already gone. "I just had...a strange thought, that's all. I'm being silly." You reach over and place your hand on his cheek. He can’t help but nuzzle into the simple touch and press a kiss to your soft palm. "Go," you say comfortingly. "Work hard, do good."

In-ho manages a smile and places his hand over yours for a lingering moment before pulling away. "I’ll see you soon, my love."

The two of you share a smile before he turns to go. He’s halfway to the door when he hears your voice again. And what you say makes his blood run cold. To you, it’s something so innocent, so innocuous. But In-ho almost drops what he’s holding. Just from that one sentence, he can tell you’re worsening. He scrambles to remember when your last injection was, and his mind is already cataloguing the work he will need to do to prepare your next one. He curses himself internally for letting it go so long, for putting you in this position. You need your medicine and he’s going to get it for you.

In-ho almost forgets about that incident by the time something else happens.

You place his hand over your stomach, encouraging him to splay his fingers out as if you’re expecting something to happen from his touch. "Do you feel anything? Anything out of the ordinary?"

"Not at all." He tilts his head at you with confusion and a hint of worry. "Why? Are you feeling all right, is everything okay, darling?"

"No, In-ho, everything is fine!" You still hold his hand over your stomach, gently stroking over the skin on the back of it with your thumb to reassure him. "I feel great. You...didn't notice anything?"

He shakes his head, brows furrowed but relishing in the feel of your soft skin.

"Oh," you say with an edge of...disappointment? "I guess it must be too early, then. I thought I felt movement. Must’ve been phantom kicks.” The smile on your features steadily grows nevertheless.

His throat tightens and he feels the beginnings of hot tears prick behind his eyes, so he has to look away from you. All he can hear is the blood rushing through his ears, your words falling away somewhere behind him. Imagining you pregnant was one thing. It gave him a private thrill, the idea of having a family. With you. It was a beautiful fantasy he kept close to his heart, but he knows now that you’re getting further along, that you won’t survive childbirth even if you do manage to carry to term. In the forefront of his mind, he knows that his fantasies of having a child with you has to remain exactly that. Fantasies. At least until your disease is cured or, if it can’t be, then at the very least, he can get you treatment to pull you out of danger and make you healthy again. At a different time, perhaps, your pregnancy would be a joyous moment. How exuberant he would be were things different, to prepare to bring new life into the world. How beautiful you would look, growing with his child, your body undergoing glorious metamorphosis. His child.

But that is not the reality he can live in while you’re still sick. You’re in danger, a danger he helped perpetuate. The thought makes In-ho shudder almost violently. There is no way to guarantee your survival if you go through with this pregnancy, or even the child's survival if you do bring him or her into this world. The thought of you suffering hours of labor, of dying…only for your baby to die after a few feeble hours of breathing in the NICU… That shakes him down to his core, makes him sick to his stomach. It would be better, merciful even, to not introduce a child to this world at this time. It breaks In-ho’s heart to realize, but worse, he’ll have to break yours, too. He can’t just tell you why there’s so much danger in this joy. He tried that when the doctors first gave you the news and advised you to terminate. You wouldn’t listen to him then and it resulted in an argument that he worried would only add too much stress onto you. He pretended to acquiesce to you, telling you that you’re right and together you’ll find a way, you will. There's always hope. As long as you're alive, there's hope, right? And you told him yes. There's hope. And that was the end of the argument. If he brings it up again, what will you think? You definitely won’t change your mind now. Talking to you will get him nowhere. He knows that. He has to do what he has to do.

It isn’t hard to get the pill. It’s a simple thing, a beige color, unassuming overall. Yet, it seems to have the weight of a brick in In-ho’s coat pocket. Since your pregnancy reveal, you had managed to find books on prenatal care and baby names and were going through them religiously. It’s...painful for In-ho to reconcile your eagerness, your pure unadulterated excitement, with what he’s about to do. It’s necessary, he knows that, and he hopes you will understand that. Eventually. He trudges into the house and sure enough, there you are sitting at the kitchen table, flipping through the pages of one of your new baby name books with a highlighter. When you hear the door close, you smile up at In-ho and go to stand to greet him.

"Stay seated, darling, it's fine," he assures you, walking over and kissing your temple.

You giggle at him. "In-ho, I'm only three months along at most, I won't overexert myself by getting up to welcome my wonderful husband home."

"I know, I know." He plants another kiss on your forehead before he walks into the kitchen. "Hungry, my love?"

"I can make dinner, you've been working so hard lately. All that overtime at the precinct."

"Just tonight, honey. Let me do this for you. For...both of you."

Maybe it’s an underhanded manipulation tactic, but it works. You smile with a dreamy look in your eyes, turning back to your book.

In-ho isn’t much of a cook, but he grabbed a few fresh fruits and vegetables the last time he went out for groceries, purposefully so. With a blender he hasn't touched in years, he’s able to whip up a basic green smoothie. He hesitates when he reaches for the pill in his pocket. In that moment, he hears something from behind him: you begin humming to yourself. When he listens closer, he realizes the song is an easily recognizable lullaby. Nausea swirls in his gut and he has to fight the urge to look back at you. If he looks, he won’t be able to go through with it. He crushes the pill into powder and sprinkles it into the mixture, stirring it with a spoon before he can think about it anymore. It’s blended so much that you won’t feel or taste it at all. You won’t notice. When it’s finished, In-ho pushes a glass towards you and is greeted with a curious smile.

"Trying to keep me strong and healthy for the baby?" you tease. You smile warmly. "Thank you, honey. It looks great." You reach out and start to drink without hesitation.

It’s over. In-ho feels like he can breathe again, at least for the moment.

It doesn’t last long.

In-ho goes away to “work”, hoping you’ll be asleep while the pill works. He’s ready to be there for you once he returns, to be with you in any grief you feel.

The house is eerily silent and dark when he returns. In-ho climbs the stairs, eager to slip into bed with you for just a few moments of fitful rest. Just some time to be with you, before he has to face your hurt. The bedroom is empty when he walks in. The bedsheets on your side are haphazardly tossed aside, and you’re nowhere to be seen. He walks over and flips on the nightstand light, and notices out of the corner of his eye a discoloration in the sheets. A large stain rests in the middle of the bed, right where you would be lying, and when In-ho touches it, the tips of his fingers come back red. That’s when he notices the door to the master bathroom is closed, and a bit of light shines from underneath. If he focuses on the silence of the room, he can hear...something, from the other side. He makes his way over, slowly, a death march to the door. He reaches up to knock, but stops when he hears the faint sound again. Tiny gasps, hiccups. Sniffling. Muffled sobs. His heart shatters all over again.

"Darling?" He eventually calls, giving the door a strong but soft knock. "Darling, I'm coming in."

"In-ho?" You gasp out, your voice heavy with tears. "In-ho, no, please, don't-" you dissolve into more pronounced sobs, and In-ho hears something clatter to the floor.

"My love, please let me-"

"I said no!"

He freezes. He has never once heard you like this, the agonized sharpness turned to venom in your words. Not even when you were arguing with him in the doctor’s office over whether to terminate your pregnancy or not. He doesn’t try to knock or speak again, but he cannot bring his feet to drag his body from the door. He ends up sitting with his back against the door, listening to you cry. Alone. He doesn’t get any rest that night. Eventually, In-ho has to regretfully rise. Shady characters are in need of him once again and, in exchange, they’ll give him money he so desperately needs. It’s through such shady characters he was able to procure the medications that you needed so far. How he was able to get the pill to terminate your pregnancy. As he gathers his coat to go, he hears the door creak open, and turns to look at you. It’s like seeing a ghost. You’re pale, eyes red and ringed with dark circles, and even the way you hold yourself is as if you’re being dragged down to the earth. There’s a moment where the two of you simply exist in the same space. In-ho watches your features for even the most minuscule change, and it feels like hours pass as he waits. Eventually, you sigh in an attempt to speak, but your voice shakes with even the simple release of breath. In-ho takes a single step forward and waits again. This time, you meet him halfway, but keep your eyes firmly down and away from his own. Is it shame that motivates you to divert your gaze? The shame that rightfully only he should be feeling? The shame that is, in fact, burning in his core as he observes how much grief is weighing you down? You make an attempt to speak again, but just shake your head. You press your eyes closed to keep from outright sobbing but still stray tears escape. In-ho reaches up and brushes them away, letting his knuckles brush against your cheeks. The contact of his skin against yours shatters the tension and you walk forward into his arms, burying your face against his chest. He holds you close, knowing he’s wholly undeserving of the beautiful creature that is his wife seeking his arms for comfort. He allows himself a single tear that falls into your hair, not any more than that. How dare he compare his grief to yours, how dare he try and appropriate your sorrow? He can almost hear your voice in his head: How dare you? How dare you? Somehow, the embrace ends and he’s helping you into bed after stripping the bloodied sheets and putting on fresh ones. He pulls the blankets around your unmoving form, tucking you in and making sure you’re warm enough.

"I have to go," he whispers regretfully, not even sure if you’ll respond.

And you don’t. You don’t even look at him but, before he leaves, he kisses your lips and your hairline then steals a glance back at you. Your eyes fall closed, and silent tears are streaming down your cheeks as you cry yourself back to sleep.

But it doesn’t end there. You’re hospitalized shortly after and he’s driven to compete in the squid games after being recruited. The games are his last hope. He really needs that money even if it’s blood money. He needs that money to save you since he couldn’t save both you and your child. He could only save one. He wants to return home to you so he can get you the operation and medication you need to ensure you could one day have a healthy and safe pregnancy. He knows you still want a child despite the traumatic loss you suffered. You’ll never know what he did. After he won, you’re still in the hospital, waiting for him. As part of his reward for winning, a donor is found for you on top of the cash prize of 45.6 billion won. But he can’t go back to his old life after all the bridges that have been burned behind him. But he wants - no, needs to keep you. If there’s anyone or anything from his old life he will never let go of, it’s you. Bound by his duties as the Front Man for the games and his marriage vows to you, he has no other choice but to go undercover as a doctor and create a diversion to kidnap you from the hospital so he can whisk you away to an unknown and private island where you can receive the best medical attention for your condition. Somehow, police have already been notified of his activity and what he plans to do.

“He’s in the building, posing as a doctor. He’s armed and has already killed five people. Evacuation is underway. We have to go,” an attending physician says.

“No. An evacuation is exactly what he wants. The staff bailed when the alarms went off. This is a deliberate diversion to get everybody out and away from her. He’s here for her. We can't leave her alone in her room. She’ll die if we leave her alone here or if he takes her,” your personal doctor insists.

“So we take her with us. Come on. Careful.”

“Thank you,” you say weakly as your doctor helps you out of bed and into a wheelchair.

You don’t get very far when you’re stopped by your husband standing in the doorway to the ward you’re kept in, dressed in black scrubs, black gloves, and a medical face mask, just like the police said he’d be. He’s holding a Heckler & Koch MP5A3 sub-machine gun that’s strapped over his shoulder and across his body. “Ah... I'll take it from here.”

“In-ho… In-ho, listen to me. We're trying to help her.”

“You're killing her.”

“No. No, In-ho.”

“In-ho...” you rasp, your voice and body incredibly weak from your disease. Your eyes water when you look at him. Despite his black attire, you can still see the blood on him and you know it’s not his. You’re terrified.

“I understand why you're doing this,” your doctor tries to sympathize.

“I'm saving her life.”

“At the cost of how many other lives?”

“Too many to turn back now. As soon as I've done what I need to do, I'll give myself up. But now we have to leave.”

“In-ho, listen to me. I'm her doctor. I know her history. I’ve known her her entire adult life. If we move her now, she might die.”

“Her doctor. Good. You're coming with us to push the wheelchair. Let's go.”

“No. No way!” The attending physician tries to stop this from happening.

“I'm going. She's my patient,” your doctor insists.

“I can't let you do that. I'll go.”

“It's not your call. She needs me.”

“I'm not gonna hurt her. I don't want to hurt anyone, unless I have to.” Your husband insists.

“I'm going.”

“In-ho, please...don't do this. Please, she’s pregnant.” Pregnant just like I was, you want to say, but you don’t have the strength. Your voice shakes like a rattle as you struggle to breathe while you beg for him to not do this, to leave your doctor out of it, trying to get through to him, to get him to see reason.

“Honey, don't worry. It's all under control.”

“Help...” you beg, your body already feeling worse.

“We have to go. Now.”

You sob when you hear bullets go off, your husband having shot dead the attending physician left behind. He can’t afford to leave any extra witnesses.

“In-ho, please think about this. How will you take care of her if you're in prison?” Your doctor asks as she follows behind him and pushes your wheelchair.

“I won't. You will. The city will. It's the law. As long as she's legally alive, she's a ward of the city and the city has to keep her alive and safe.”

“So I shall undergo countless operations and spend days or weeks in medically-induced comas only to wake up one day with you in prison or dead? A life alone isn't one that I want. There must be another way. Please, In-ho,” you beg him again to reconsider, but he doesn’t listen.

Holding your doctor at gunpoint in her car, he gives her directions and orders her to drive exactly where he tells her to go. You reach docks where a speedboat is waiting for you with masked and armed guards on board. He orders your doctor out of the car and to board the boat at gunpoint, then carefully lifts you into his arms bridal style and carries you onto the boat himself. You’re unconscious for most of the voyage, unable to bear the stress of the situation anymore, though it doesn’t take too long to get to your destination. Against your will, you’re taken to the island. You’re given the surgeries you need, the treatments and medications you need, etc. but despite the success of your operations and treatments, recovery still takes months. Most of it is spent on bedrest and In-ho is still hovering over you whenever he returns to your shared personal quarters, asking both you and your doctor how you’re faring, if you’re eating well and sleeping well, etc. as he comes to your bedside and rests his hand on your head to pet your hair and rub your cheek. You feel guilty that your doctor has been held captive alongside you all these months, kept by your side to attend your every need whenever In-ho is called away and can’t do it himself. You’re terrified of what might happen to her if you were to suddenly take a turn for the worst. It’s not rational, but you have a horrible sinking feeling in your gut that if anything involving you were to go wrong, In-ho would blame her, even if it’s something out of her control. And that he’d kill her if you were to die under her watch.

One day, when you’re alone, you confess to your doctor that she may be able to escape.

“I heard In-ho talking when he thought I was asleep. There’s speedboats and oxygen tanks docked on the coast of the island not far from here. If you hurry, you can take one and make it out before he gets back,” you plead to her.

“I'm not leaving you,” she insists, holding your hand to comfort you.

“This must be very stressful for you and your baby. And you’re almost due.”

“We're fine.”

“Could I have some water?” You ask instead, and she walks away to grab a glass and fill it with water from the sink. She hands it to you. “Thank you. You’ve heard him all these months. He's not a bad man at heart. You’ll get out of here alive, I promise. I’ll talk to In-ho. I’ll do everything in my power to make it so. If I’m not standing on the shoreline and waving you off as I watch you board a boat headed for home, then I’m not breathing at all.”

“Don’t talk like that. You’re going to be fine. The surgeries have been successes so far and your body has accepted the new organ with minimal issues. There have been no signs of rejection.”

“When you’re sent home, you have to tell them that he’s not a bad man. That he only wanted to save me because he loves me. Please.”

“I will.”

“And please tell them that I'm very sorry for my part in this. I saw the man that he was becoming and I did nothing. Because I loved him. You know what that's like, don't you?”

“I do.”

“Thank you. You've been very kind. Can you…would you mind if I ask… Have you picked out any names for your baby?”

You’re desperate to talk about something else, to think about something else. Something happy for her even if it’s bittersweet for you. You need a distraction from your current predicament. When she tells you about the baby’s gender (if she knows it) and the names she likes and has been considering, you smile and tell her about the names you highlighted in the baby name book you had at home. You’re not sure if you would’ve wanted to know the gender or be surprised. You talk about the dreams for the future you once had, whether you wanted your first to be a boy or girl, if you had a preference or not, etc.

During your recovery, your husband still acts as the Front Man for subsequent annual games and you’re kept in the dark. He’s in deeper than he was when he won the games. He’s now taken to arranging the games and acting as the Host following the original mastermind's death. He has continuously run the games for several years. It’s now 2024. Your doctor was set free and sent back home before her due date after all the precautions were taken to ensure she couldn’t find or disclose the location of the island, including having her being closely monitored by the pink guards, ready to shoot her dead and dispose of her body if she ever spoke out. But she’s kept quiet and gone along with the story that you and In-ho are dead, because of you. Because of you, she’s still alive and got to have her baby. And you? You’re still on the island. You understand that recovery for your condition could sometimes take more than a year, but you’ve been here nearly ten years. You can’t leave without his permission. You’ve tried more than once. Rather than tell you there’s no life for you to go back to since the world thinks you’re both dead, he keeps you here for so long by lying to you over and over and over. If he told you the truth, how could he admit to any of it without losing you? It’s his duty to protect you, the love of his life. Even if it’s painful. This relentless drive to get what he wants was apparent even before becoming the Front Man, as there were many self-help books on achieving one's desires in his old apartment.

But disruptions to his facilitation of the 36th iteration of the games have forced his hand to resort toward more drastic measures. As retaliation for Gi-hun's continued defiance against him for three years, he repeatedly tries to break him by forcing him to participate in the game. He joins the games specifically to break Gi-hun's spirit, and intentionally works his way into his inner circle, with no indication that he truly sees him as a friend, all to successfully sabotage his efforts to bring the game down by force. When Gi-hun's rebellion is successfully suppressed, the Front Man spares his life while personally ordering the execution of Jung-bae in front of him and telling him it’s the consequence of trying to play the hero. At the same time he’s undercover as a player, he’s still fulfilling his duties as your husband through proxy, having the pink guards give you whatever you need and keeping an eye on you so you don’t learn too much. He’s hidden the remote control he uses to watch the games on the big screen so you won’t know. But what if you’re stronger, smarter, and more resilient than you let on and manage to gather very valuable information by eavesdropping on In-ho’s conversations by feigning being asleep whenever he checks on you, sneaking away and stealthing around the building, etc., all to slowly discover the horrific truth your husband so desperately has kept hidden from you for the last ten years?

13. Like above with The Recruiter, a scenario very much like the Korean thriller movie “Addicted”. You’re the long time girlfriend of Jun-ho and get married. While he and In-ho are very different as people, and the only thing they really have in common is that they’re both cops, they are very close despite only being stepbrothers. You’ve also been very close to In-ho, though you always thought of your relationship as strictly friendly due to him being your brother-in-law and himself having a wife that you believe he loves. You’re there for In-ho and his wife when she gets sick and she views you as a sister not just because of your relation as sister-in-laws but because you’re always there to support her and do what you can to care for her and comfort her, from little things to big things, especially whenever In-ho is away due to his job. He and his wife can always count on you. You visit her more in the hospital than her own husband does. You’re the only other person besides In-ho to learn of her pregnancy and when she confides in you about it, she swears you to secrecy in case the worst happens. She tells you that in case she dies, she doesn’t want Jun-ho or his parents to know and feel even worse. In-ho tries to get you to talk to his wife, to try to convince her to change her mind and terminate the pregnancy, but she’s stubborn and won’t listen to anyone, not even you, despite your pleads that In-ho is only worried for her health and she can always try again after she’s better. Sometime in 2015, In-ho goes missing for a week. Neither you, Jun-ho, or his wife can get a hold of him. You’re all worried. You were always concerned for his safety while on the job and even his wife asked him not to be away from home so much anymore, but he’s just as stubborn as she was. You can understand that he needed more money to help her, but you grew concerned that he was putting himself at risk. And when she worsens and later succumbs to her acute cirrhosis, you’re devastated. Even more so when In-ho returns home and you have to break the news to him. You’re there for In-ho, taking him through the worst of his grief. In subsequent years, he asks you to go with him when he visits his wife’s grave on her death day to bring her fresh flowers, etc.

But then he goes missing again. For real this time.

Your husband becomes so obsessed with finding In-ho that he neglects you. You don’t divorce, but your marriage is deteriorating and while a part of you still loves him, the spark is slowly flickering out. You feel less like a wife and more like a single woman as time goes on. With a heavy heart, you carry on with your life and try to move on and find ways to be happy despite all the loss you’ve suffered. But your depression worsens when your husband stops coming home and stops answering your calls. It’s like he’s also vanished into thin air, exactly like In-ho. You can barely stand to be in your house anymore and often spend time outside or in hotels. One night, you have to hail a taxi when your car breaks down. The speeding taxi crashes into a black van, and while the driver is seriously injured, possibly even killed on impact, you’re only knocked unconscious with minor injuries.

Unbeknownst to you, this is a deliberate and orchestrated car crash, part of a plan to kidnap you and bring you to an unknown island. Under the Front Man’s orders, you’re sedated during the whole transportation process. You later wake up in an unfamiliar room, strapped down to a bed. You freak out, but freeze in shock when In-ho enters the room and comes to your bedside. He looks older, which is to be expected since you haven’t seen him in over five years, but it’s definitely him. He calms you down from your lashing out and panic attack, explaining the situation in a way that’ll keep you in the dark about what’s really going on but also serve his ulterior motives for why he brought you here. He takes care of you while you recover from the minor injuries you suffered in the collision, nothing major besides a concussion and a minor head wound and other scrapes and bruises. He tells you a fabricated but believable story about why he went missing, which includes that Jun-ho is dead, that he was shot and fell into the sea while on a job. To “prove it” he shows you doctored but eerily convincing confidential police files and death records from when that random body was found with Jun-ho’s ID on him. It was so damaged it was unrecognizable in pictures. With evidence in front of you, you have no choice but to believe In-ho and everything he tells you. Still, you’re devastated by this revelation. But he swears to take you through the worst of your grief, just like you did for him when his wife was sick and died.

Years go by of you living on the island, still kept in the dark. Could be through the use of drugs to make you disoriented and confused and blurring that edge of reality, gaslighting, and other manipulation tactics. When he does take you outside his private quarters to get some fresh air, it’s always brief and he stealthily knocks you out so you don’t get a full grasp of where you really are. You never know how you got there or how you got back. It’s so subtle you hardly notice and think you just fell asleep. You and In-ho eventually share a slow, emotional night together and have sex after the tearful revelation that you’ve fallen in love. You didn’t confess to him your feelings sooner because you felt so guilty due to being married to his brother even if he’s dead and you’re a widow now, and because In-ho’s wife was like your best friend. You felt awful for “stealing” her husband even though she died and he’s a widower who suffered the same loss you did. He helps you to overcome that guilt and you start to live life together as a happy and loving couple, despite the strange and unusual circumstances. In time, you become pregnant with In-ho’s child. One day you’re not feeling well, so you decide to go back to your private quarters to get some rest after he takes you outside for fresh air. While you’re there, a package addressed to In-ho arrives. You open it and find a necklace which you remember In-ho had given to his wife. You read the accompanying note from her, saying that she cannot wear this necklace anymore as it wasn’t meant for her and she cannot understand In-ho’s crazy love for you.

Frantic, you snoop around the other doors and find an underground chamber. You dig through In-ho’s secret workroom and find a number of hidden photos of yourself that were taken by him. You realize that In-ho had loved you before you married his brother and before he married his wife. You also find a notebook that In-ho wrote about loving you and being happy because he is able to watch you and live with you through his brother, Jun-ho. Through these secret documents, you discover your husband is possibly alive, having only been shot in the shoulder by In-ho himself and fallen into the sea. He lied to you just so that he could have you to himself. You were talking about getting married because you’re so in love and you thought it’s what Jun-ho and In-ho’s wife would want, at least for the sake of your unborn child. You were so happy mere hours ago and now, you’re crying sorrowfully. You don’t know what to do with the new information you’ve uncovered. Luckily, through some miracle, you’re not caught by In-ho. You put back everything exactly the way you found it as you’ve spent enough time in his personal office at home and remembered how he organizes his things, even down to which direction he sets down the phone receiver.

Do you take him aside and ask him various questions about his wife and where you are and when you can go home? Every time you tried in the past, he’d change the subject after giving you non-definite answers. Do you continue to pretend that Jun-ho is dead and you’ve moved on despite knowing the truth? You love In-ho and you know he loves you but this…this is much more than you could’ve ever imagined. You couldn’t have ever expected this. It’s been revealed that In-ho loved you even before Jun-ho, and had for the entire time you were with his brother. In-ho also confessed in a secret letter to Jun-ho that he’d never send that he made use of all of yours and his brother's secrets to "transform" himself into the perfect man for you. He tells his brother that you will forever love him as your husband. He apologizes and asks his brother never to forgive him for his deeds.

14. In-ho’s wife managed to successfully give birth to a healthy baby girl despite dying in the process. That baby girl is you, born sometime in 2015. When In-ho returned home and went to the hospital his wife was staying in after winning the 28th annual squid games, he received the bittersweet news that his wife was dead, having died in childbirth, but that you, his baby daughter, was alive and would be fine. You were either being kept in the hospital still or staying with Jun-ho and his parents. When he saw you and held you for the first time, he almost didn’t want to let go. He didn’t want to set you down or let you out of his sight. He gave you the name his wife picked. It’s now 2024 and you’re eight or nine years old. What would your life be like? Would In-ho take you with him to the island from infancy to keep you safe and under his watchful eye while he acts as Front Man/Host for the squid games because you’re the last living piece of his wife that he has and he doesn’t want to ever lose you or miss out on any milestone in your life? What would it be like, effectively being kept prisoner on the island but kept in the dark and oblivious about what he does? Having no real friends to play with except maybe the Pink Guards who are under strict orders to play with you or keep an eye on you? Or would he leave you to be raised by his parents and Jun-ho? Or would he keep your existence secret from Jun-ho and his parents and come up with a secret third option that entails you having a normal-ish life with other “family” of his that he personally arranged, but he visits you or sends you messages on a very special encrypted phone or through the mail through mysterious envelopes without return addresses on them whenever he can, even if it’s at the most random of times? Would you know he’s your father from the beginning or would you learn this fact later in life?

OR

For a darker and more fucked up version: What if Jun-hee isn’t the first heavily pregnant player to compete in the games? Sometime during his years working as the Front Man and overseeing the games, he kept a close eye on a heavily pregnant contestant. After she was shot and killed for failing a game (the guard responsible making sure to avoid her stomach and shoot her in the head), her body was quickly loaded up into a box and taken away. The guards working in the morgue only had about ten minutes if they wanted to save the baby growing inside her. And they were under clear and strict orders by The Front Man to do so. A post-mortem c-section was performed and, when they cut her open, they pulled out a crying and screaming baby girl. The baby was cleaned up and checked by the doctor stationed on the island, then wrapped in a blanket and handed over to the Front Man per his orders/request. And that’s how you came to be his daughter. He’s your father now. And as far as you’ll ever know, he’s your biological father who solely raised you after your mother, his wife, died in childbirth from complications of acute cirrhosis of the liver.

15. Being in a poly relationship with the Front Man and The Recruiter would include? I don’t know any specific plot ideas exactly or how you got to be their personal whore/toy, but just imagine being a sugar baby or lover to both of these men that are two different flavors of DILF. You’re given everything from clothes, lingerie, and jewelry to a car and a house, as well as all the money you could ever need to pay for whatever it is you need - college tuition, medical bills, etc., even if it’s not for you but for one of your loved ones. In exchange, you’re on call for whenever either or both of them are in need of you and your services. You do whatever they ask of you, no matter what it is. Doesn’t matter what time it is, you go to them whenever they call. (Or maybe The Recruiter would go so far as to having a key to your house and letting himself in through the door or through a window, without giving you prior warning he’s coming. He comes whenever he feels like it. Could be any time of the day. And if you’re not home when he gets there, he’ll call you and tell you to get your cute ass home. Now. Then he’ll make himself comfortable in your house while he’s waiting for you. But you know that the longer you make him wait, the worse your punishment will be. Maybe a stipulation to having the house is leaving the doors and windows unlocked. If it’s late at night, he’d just sneak into your bedroom while you’re asleep and rouse you awake by going down on you or something. Classic Somnophilia.)

You either drive to them yourself or a car and/or a boat is waiting for you to be picked up. Imagine being squeezed in between these men like a sandwich or being in an Eiffel Tower with them, whether or not either or both of them are covered in blood from shooting players. (They wouldn’t care if you were on your monthly cycle. If anything, your blood would turn them on even more.) Imagine getting fucked on the hood of or inside the white limousine. Imagine them taking turns to watch while the other one fucks you. Imagine them turning fucking you into all kinds of thrilling and borderline dangerous sex games along the same vein of the actual squid games. Like they tell you do something under a time limit and if you fail and the timer runs out, they won’t kill you, but they’ll punish you sexually. And sometimes their punishments are so intense they make you wish you were dead because being denied your orgasms over and over and over is a special kind of torture and the coiling in your gut from your building orgasm that’s unable to be released is almost unbearable. What if you’ve been at this “job” so long that it gets to a point where In-ho wants to give you a “raise” and get you pregnant because he wants a child after the death of his wife and their unborn child and he may or may not have a pregnancy kink?

That is all for now. Thank you for listening to my brainrot.

[cjlouwho]

Dear CJ,

I saw your post about needing Tommy bent over a table and I have to say that I too need this and I was wondering if you felt it in your heart to provide your thirsty fans, like me, with some more Bottom!Tommy? I feel you wanting him bent over a table would add to the hotness.

Thank you if you do write it,

Love,

Me!

A new addition to my Spite series! Read below or on ao3

Tommy's not exactly sure how he ended ass up with his face pressed against the dining room table, but it was hard to think of anything with three of Buck's fingers working their way inside of him.

"Uh, uh, uh," he panted, gripping onto the sides of the table as Buck twisted his hand on each thrust. "Ev- Evan, ohyesplease, Evan."

"That feel good, Baby?" Buck asked, his free hand pressing down at the small of Tommy's back.

"Uhhhh, uh-huh." There was a little puddle of drool just below Tommy's mouth. His whole body felt tingly. Cool where it laid against the table, but the rest of him burned like fire in the best way.

"You wanna come on my fingers or my cock?"

"Fuck," Tommy whined, voice just above a whisper. "Fuck. Shit, yeah."

Buck laughed, patting his hand against Tommy's thigh. "Babe, you hear me?"

"Mmm," Tommy pushed himself back on Buck's fingers as he stilled inside of him. "I'll do it. I'll work for it, Evan, yeahyeahyeah."

Once it was clear that Tommy wasn't paying attention to a word Buck was saying, Buck pulled his fingers out of Tommy entirely.

The sound that escaped Tommy's mouth was something akin to a puppy being crate trained. Hands still firmly gripped to the table, he lifted his head enough to look back at Buck.

"What... Why?"

Buck ran his hands up and down Tommy's back, kneading into the muscle. "You weren't listening to me," Buck informed him, leaning down to press a kiss between his shoulder blades. "Wanted to make sure you were still here."

"I'm here, I'm here," Tommy sighed, wiggling his ass against Buck. "What did you want?"

Buck snorted. "I asked if you wanna come on my fingers or my cock."

"Cock, I- I want your cock, please," Tommy pled. "Put it in me, come in me, make it drip down my legs."

"Fuck, Tommy." Buck grabbed the lube off the table and slicked up his cock before holding onto Tommy's hips and lining himself up.

He was gonna go slow, but Tommy had other plans. The second he felt the head of Buck's cock inside him, he pushed back until Buck was all the way in.

"Fuck!" Buck exclaimed, nearly coming right then and there. "Shit, Tommy, you're really desperate for it, aren't you?"

Tommy managed to hold onto the table tight enough to pull up and give himself some leverage. He used that leverage to begin working himself up and down Buck's cock. "For you," he replied, his own cock dripping with precum, "Always."

[elixirfromthestars]

A Snow Day With You

Pairing: Athlete!Bucky Barnes x Artist!Reader (college au)

Summary: The end of the semester has you stressing beyond belief, so Bucky decides to cheer you up by spending a snowy afternoon sledding.

Word Count: 1.4k

Warning(s): none. pure fluff.

Prompt/Event: @the-slumberparty december daze -> sledding isn't as fun as when we were kids

a/n: This fluffy drabble is my holiday gift to you my dear Ray @whatever-lmaoo ♡♡ Your comments on my first fic of these two have forever carved a home in my heart, so this one is for you ♡ I hope this fluffy piece can bring you a bit of happiness whenever college gets stressful ♡ This is a standalone fic, but everyone is welcome to read more of their story!₊˚⊹☆ Thank you everyone for reading! ₊˚⊹♡ Likes, comments, and reblogs are much appreciated!! ♡♡♡

where their love story began ♡ || fluffy winter fics masterlist ❆

“Babe, we're going to get hypothermia,” you grumble out, hugging your coat closer to your body. The frosty wind shoving past your face, chilling you to the bone. Bucky plops the wooden toboggan onto the snow, laughing in disbelief at your assertion, “Sweetheart, we’re not getting hypothermia.” He’s not wrong as he says this, since apart from the wind, the weather was tolerable. Last night’s snowstorm ended this morning, leaving behind ten inches of snow. Enough for a multitude of winter activities—like sledding—to be possible. 

“Maybe not, but one of us will break a bone,” you retort, watching in growing concern as other people slide down the snowy hill and end up tumbling out of their sleds when they reach the bottom. Bucky follows your line of sight and playfully rolls his eyes, “No one is going to break a bone, Y/n.” He goes to adjust your scarf, the indigo fabric a little too loose for his liking. Up close he can see the look in your eye, the one that tells him you’re not done trying to back out of this just yet. 

“Maybe you won’t, but I might. I’m not athletic enough to go sledding.”

“Baby, you don’t have to be athletic to go sledding.”

The more you speak the more Bucky’s amusement grows, but he tries not to show it too much as he sees the underlying nervousness dancing in your eyes. He finishes fixing your scarf and you plant a soft kiss on his cheek as a thank you. He smiles at you fondly, noticing your grumpy mood subside slightly. He doesn’t take your mood to heart, knowing the real reason you haven’t been feeling the best lately is because of one thing and one thing only. 

Finals.

More specifically, final grades—or the lack thereof. Most of your professors haven’t submitted them yet, leaving you in a state of limbo unsure of whether you managed to save the semester or not. 

Bucky has been your rock throughout finals season. Supporting you with extra study sessions, holding you close to soothe your frustration when it got the better of you, kissing all your tears away, and on those days you needed a break, he would put on your favorite comfort show and order takeout from your favorite restaurant. He did anything and everything he could to make you feel better. 

These last few days, however, all of that wasn’t enough to shake away the dread that insisted on making a home in your heart. Bucky knew he needed to do something different to cheer you up and get your mind off of things. After seeing how the snow had piled up overnight, he was either going to ask you to build a snowman or go sledding.

Your boyfriend—captain of your university’s baseball team—naturally chose sledding. 

“Just trust me, okay? I’ll hold you tight and make sure nothing happens to you,” Bucky promises as he makes his way over to the sled. He sits down on the end of it, his left hand gently outstretching to grab onto yours. Your gaze locks with his, your trepidation melting away the more you look into his eyes. There’s something about the snow all around him that makes his eyes a little more blue and it pulls you in with the assurance of safety. You nod, taking hold of his hand and letting him guide you to the front of the sled—slowly pulling you down to sit in front of him. 

He instructs you on everything you need to know to keep yourself stable and inside at all times. You’re not entirely paying attention as you focus more on the way he scoots forward and presses your back against his chest. His arms are on either side of you, encasing you in a protective embrace. You lean into it, letting the steadiness of his presence soothe the remaining unease in your body. 

“I’ll countdown from five and then I’ll push off, okay?” he mentions kindly, his chin resting on your shoulder as he awaits your response. You watch as others go down the snowy hill without a care in the world. Children and adults alike coasting down on sleds and pool floats, merriment written on their faces and echoing in their laughs. It helps subdue the butterflies in your stomach somewhat. 

At your silence, Bucky presses a comforting kiss to your cheek, the coldness of his lips bringing you back to him. You look over your shoulder to give him a reassuring smile, “Okay, but don’t you dare let me go, Bucky Barnes.” You warn playfully, feeling the way his chest rumbles with a laugh before he replies, “I wouldn’t dream of it, sweetheart.” 

He pulls you tighter against his chest as your hands grasp onto the steering rope. He starts the countdown from five gradually inching the sled to the edge of the peak. When the countdown ends, you feel the butterflies in your stomach flutter intensely as the descent begins. Your breath gets caught in your throat and your eyes close tightly the entire way down. While a shriek of adrenaline escapes you, Bucky chortles the entire time as he’s having the time of his life. 

“See, that wasn’t so bad was it?” Bucky poses the question when you reach the bottom, a boyish grin on his face. Your eyes open when you look behind you, noticing the way the apples of his cheeks and nose are rosy from the cold, his hair blown across his forehead, and yet the sparkle in his pretty blues unaffected by the chill. You’re reminded then and there that you’d do anything for him. Even sliding down the hill a million times if it meant keeping that joy on his face. 

“I think I left my stomach at the top of the hill, but apart from that—it wasn’t so bad,” you concede, your smile matching his. He hums in amusement, “We should probably go get it then. Shouldn’t we?” You know he’s really asking you if you two could go down the hill again, and there’s no way you would ever be able to say no, so you nod—knowing you would follow him anywhere. 

The second time you go down the hill you keep your eyes open. Marveling at the sight of the snowy trees blurring into one. By the third time, you're laughing along with Bucky and by the fourth you have the same sparkle in your eyes—enjoying the rush of the fall. And by the fifth, the stress of finals is long forgotten and Bucky feels an overwhelming sense of pride knowing he was able to lift that weight off your shoulders. 

On your last descent, things don’t go as smoothly as the other times. Halfway down the hill, the sled bumps into a large rock hidden beneath the layers of snow. You barely have time to register when Bucky yells your name, as the sled derails from its path—your stomach flipping along with the sled. 

You end up tumbling a few feet down the hill. Bucky holds you like a lifeline to his body as you land in the blanket of snow. You’re disoriented for a moment, but Bucky lifts himself to his knees in an instant, hovering above you to scan you from head to toe for any injuries. The worry etched into his features tugging at your heartstrings. 

“Y/n, are you okay? Sweetheart, please tell me you’re not hurt. Do I need to—” The fit of giggles that erupt from you cuts off his distressed rambling, a bewildered expression replacing his concern. Instead of telling him you’re alright, you decide to show him. Your hands reach out to grasp the edges of his coat and pull him down for a kiss. He melts into it faster than ice does, a cheesy smile replacing his frown. 

“I think that’s enough sledding for today,” you mumble into the kiss. He nods, agreeing wholeheartedly as he deepens it, “Mm, I second that. I can think of other ways we can spend the rest of the day,” his tone drips with suggestion, his eyes glimmering with playful mischief. You slap at his chest lightheartedly, which only elicits a deep chuckle from him before he plants a gentle kiss on your forehead. 

No matter what comes next, you know there’s nowhere else you’d rather be on a snowy day than with him.

[meidiary]

soo I read @popponn 's post and had to do it w bachira !

meguru bachira who always ends up in the weirdest positions when you wake up. the most normal one being when his leg is draped over you, his face somehow nuzzled in your chest, and his arm wrapped around your waist underneath your pyjama top, which he has a big problem with by the way! because why is it that he just can't seem to convince you to sleep commando? he'll find a way to get under those garments of yours anyway, so why not make it a bit easier for him?

meguru bachira who needs to have his hands on you at all times; on your hips, waist, hand, wrist, even just interlocking your pinky with his would suffice. try brushing your teeth in the morning without having a bachira hanging on your waist, his head right on top of your shoulder as he mumbles a cheeky "morning, pretty~" to you.

meguru bachira who wears your tight-fitted t-shirts (and somehow pulls them off better than you do, according to you) all to make you have to wear his clothes. just because he's addicted to the way his stomach flips when he sees you styling his hoodie, or the way his chest feels tighter when you walk towards him in his oversized white tee, it suddenly looking way better than when he was whining about it being too basic to wear.

meguru bachira who, when your shoelaces get loose and you bat your eyelashes at him, asking him to "baby, could you please tie 'em for me?", purposely ties them loose again, so you'll have to ask him yet another time. but can you blame him? he just loves how you bite the inside of your bottom lip, contemplating whether you should ask him again or do it yourself.

meguru bachira who puts his chin on your shoulder whenever you're finally sat all pretty on his lap, fiddling with his fingers on your thigh. the double date you had planned not fulfilling his desperate and constant needs of being as close to you as possible because your friend keeps pulling you away from him each time he tries keeping you close. oh, and don't get him started on that crusty 'boyfriend' of your friend who has looked at you with hearts in his eyes for way too many times.

meguru bachira who ends up grabbing you on top of his lap telling you he's this close to disfiguring that thing's face if he as much as breathes near you one more time.

meguru bachira who pins you against the wall the moment you're home, his mouth latching on your neck right away. he's nibbling on your soft skin while your fingers find their way to his hair, tugging on his back blond locks while you let out a quiet squeal when he moves up to the end of your jaw, marking the left side of your neck. "m-meg.." you gasped, feeling his fingers squeeze your hips even harder when he pulls you even closer to him. "mine-" nibble "mine-" nibble "all mine-" he mumbles in-between of each new spot his mouth latches on.

meguru bachira, who might be a tad bit too clingy for his own good, but god is he infatuated with you. your scent, your smile, your voice, the way you eyes widen when he whispers certain things in you ear when you're in public. he's just a silly guy in love y'know?

[ ♡ ]

[punkpandapatrixk]

Full Cold Moon in Gemini ♦︎ Moon Magick Pick A Card

Hello cute people~☃️ Happy holidays!~🎄✨🕊 Have you felt freer lately? We had a Full Cold Moon in Gemini on 15 December. Ruled by Mercury, Gemini's whole consciousness revolves around Intellect; and for some reason, I’ve always felt that the Gemini aenergy is also pure sunshine like it’s literally so bright and cheerful🍳 Perhaps it exudes from a passion for learning? Being the ‘toddler’ of the zodiac, Gemini is naturally carefree and curious about Life. Gemini wants to know all the trivial details of the world~📑

Although it's cold now, on some parts of the world, this Gemini FM aenergy is motivating us to get curious, get studying, get absolutely learning, about every little thing that piques our interest. Since you’re a spiritual one, I’m sure you sometimes get intuitive nudges for certain topics of study that you can easily google or youtube in this digital era. Ain’t that welcome?📚 This Full Cold Moon in Gemini, basically you're invited to just take it easy~♪

Relaaax, the real New Year is still ways ahead anyway😉

Study whatever you like when you want to, work as much or as little as it is sensible to you, and just… Know that you are safe now. This season, this coming year, it would be very sensible to get to know more about nutrition and the human body if you care enough. You can also discover real history and so much more. Basically, it’s time to celebrate Life itself, you celebrity!~★

To fall in love with Life all over again—because it’s good to be alive, to be breathing. For as long as your heart’s still beating, there’s still so much to be hopeful for~♡ Here's to a wonderful 2025~♦︎

ethics: Episode 3: L'Oreal Group on TRT World

documentary: How L’Oreal Poisoned the World on Jake Tran

deck-bottom: XIII The Death Rx, Gold Geographer (John Dee), Priestess of Inspiration

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☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・.

Pile 1 – Sweet Love, Fresh Air, New Land

subliminal: A clear mind makes for a happy soul by lanaes

dream – 2 of Cups Rx

When was the last time you felt safe in a connection? Hmm maybe never? Maybe all of the connections you’d ever made in the past disappointed you in the end? Spiritual narcissists might say it was ‘all on you’ LOL They’d say, you didn’t have a good relationship with yourself, so you naturally manifested disappointing connections with others. It’s very callous to put it that way, right? It’s not like YOU wanted things to go that way!

Who in their right mind would want to sabotage themselves when it comes to having fulfilling romance and friendships? The truth of the matter is, you took on the collective karma of many who didn’t know how to love themselves, because they were born by parents who didn’t know how to love them. You needed to live amongst the ‘peasants’, assume the role of a ‘peasant’, so you know what’s stopping the ‘peasants’ from manifesting wealth for themselves.

In this case, we’re talking a wealth, an abundance of true, soulful Love in our connections with other Humans. The truth of your being, actually, is that the whole time, you’re a ‘spiritual royalty’ who’s already got a mega wealth of Love you can always generate within yourself. Your task in this world is to help ‘teach’ others how they can do the same for themselves~♥︎

detail – Page of Wands Rx

This section is supposed to cover some beneficial habits and routines that can amplify your wellbeing this FM season, but it looks to me like this Pile, if anything, has done a shit ton of spiritual rehabilitation! XD If anything, you’ve done so much self-healing and self-soothing; you’ve done so much inner work on yourself, for yourself; you’ve isolated yourself from the world outside to keep you safe, to keep your aenergy pure. What else can I add to this? Hahah

So, what the Page of Wands in reverse is saying, is basically a validation for you to still take your time. Some of you tuning into this may just feel like nothing’s been changing at all in your physical Reality—you may feel like maybe your train or aeroplane is never gonna come to pick you up. Not the case at all. The train ain’t even late. The train is just still being built!! LMAO

Once it arrives though, the way it carries you towards your Destiny, you’re gonna be SHOOK to see how fast, how exciting, how luxury everything is! Think of your train or aeroplane as a luxury Patek Philippe watch—it can take years, even decades, for some pieces to finish being made!! Maybe now’s still just time for you to refine and develop your senses, so that when all of that luxury and spotlight become yours, you wouldn’t be cringe LMAOMFG

You know, new-money kinda cringe? You ain’t supposed to be like that XDD

digital – 8 of Cups

Finally! This has been a long time coming, but you’re totally moving away, inching ever closer to your Highest Destiny in the coming year. I’ve a feeling, especially if this is your main Pile, that you’ve heard this numerous times through other readings for yeaarrsss… And the change, the move, the luxury never quite was there? Or even when some changes were felt, they were so small and insignificant you found it hard to even appreciate them?

I know. The spirit of delay, right? I feel that you were only still battling the last remnants of the karmic bullshit you had taken on. But 2025 is different for so many Lightworkers and Starseeds, or anybody who’s been hard at work on their spiritual transmutation~♥︎

Between 2025 and 2026 (exactly within this time frame!) the change of scenery, the move, the travel that you’ve been known is meant for your Highest Intended Good will be manifest. There’s nothing else I need to say. Enjoy, my dear~ You’ve sacrificed, and survived, a lot for this~\`★_★`/

full moon self-care🔻🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘

Green Geographer (Gerardus Mercator) & Priestess of Luxury

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☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・.

Pile 2 – Total Reclamation of What Made You Divine~

subliminal: mathematical pursuits by lanaes

dream – 10 of Pentacles Rx

Oh my gosh, look at you! You’ve been dealing with a horrendous level of stress that’s caused you extreme exhaustion and prolonged fatigue. It seems either you’ve been sick throughout the holiday season or you’ve simply not been able to be as productive as you’d planned. It’s all for your good, honey. The truth of the matter is, your Higher Self and team of Spirit Guides made you sick or something like it, so you’d pause for a moment.

Because you’d been surviving, and hustling for survival, you’d forgotten what it felt like to just…live. If you look around, you’re already on safe waters. But your subconscious mind that got used to surviving hasn’t caught on XD In order to make you really see how safe it is now, you had to be sick. And voila, even when you thought you hadn’t been as productive, your basic needs are still met, right? :D There you go. It’s all taken care of now.

This season, all throughout spring, too, is all about you reclaiming every bit and piece of what made you Divine~ The bits and pieces that flew off when you went into survival mode. It’s like… …

detail – XII The Hanged Man Rx

When Sylvester Stallone was fighting tooth and nail for the script for Rocky, he got convicted out of his apartment and eventually felt forced to sell his puppy for $50 (when he had offered $100) to survive on the streets… He sobbed so hard on the way home. But as Destiny would have it, once Rocky became a box office hit, he was able to buy his little pup back for… $15,000!! He even had to fight for it! Whew, it was worth it, he said😊

In order to survive, you had to let go of some ‘aspects of your livelihood’ that were precious and fundamental to your sense of identity. You may resonate with having lost a huge chunk of your youth or life in general. It felt almost like, against your own freewill, you were led to dramatic events that got you feeling like you weren’t even allowed to live…like a normal person! Well, that’s the thing, you Prototype!

You know that you’re a Prototype, right? One of many of us tapping into this Pile right now😉 I saw a meme on Pinterest that perfectly encompasses this idea: ‘When the whole world is collectively going through their Dark Nights of the Soul but YOU have survived a few of your own~’ Exactly.

digital – Knight of Wands Rx

You, are now collecting and reclaiming your little Butkus (Stallone’s pup). All of the things that were important to your sense of identity or wellbeing. They’re all returning to you, bit by bit, maybe. But you’re gaining momentum for a full-life again—but better. You’re not returning to how things used to be! You’re reclaiming all of the small and big things that made you Divine~ TOTAL RECLAMATION OF YOUR DIVINITY.

I’ve a feeling you may resonate with those readings that say: ‘You’re going to be the first millionaire/billionaire in your bloodline!’ If you look at your birth chart, you may get some confirmation on how you’re literally destined for so much prosperity~♥︎

Well, tap into that pool of consciousness! If you’re already rich, do you think you’d be stressed out by survival? Of course not. You are already prosperous as of right now ^o^v It is safe to focus on just one thing at a time. Your time is unlimited! It is safe to work or do anything at a pace that’s sensible to you.

full moon self-care🔻🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘

Red Astronomer (Johannes Kepler) & Priestess of Energy

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☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・.

Pile 3 – Your Sandcastle Turning into Ice Castle

subliminal: revenge of the gifted by lanaes

dream – 3 of Cups

For a while now, you’ve been building a castle on sand. It wasn’t that you were stupid to do so, it was that you didn’t have any other material but sand. You were dealt bad cards in Life and still you did the best you could with what you knew, because you just had to. Because it’s in the nature of you to be building a castle of wonders. Because you made a promise before you were born here. And you were born with so many talents and such intelligence…

Of course you would be disappointed in the peasant Reality you were part of. You couldn’t understand why most people had such low expectations of themselves. If anything, you couldn’t understand why most people viewed themselves so lowly either. You had a regal essence in you since you were a child, and so many people’s ceilings were literally your FLOOR! Your barest minimum is literally the ceiling many people struggle to reach.

So you had to sketch a new Reality from scratch. And you did all of that almost all by yourself. Possibly guided by the inspiration of only your Cosmic Ancestors~♥︎

detail – 4 of Swords Rx

If this is your main pile, it seems you’ve been in some cocoon of isolation, which could’ve caused you a high degree of boredom. Feels like you’ve forever been in a healing/rehab phase but where’s the action? Sometimes you could almost taste the salt of the sea from another dimension! Your time is coming, babe~ All in Divine Timing, or should we say, Divine Alignment.

With this card in reverse, your rest period is literally almost up. Almost, but the world is still shifting frequencies until the world itself matches the Divinity you have to offer it. You’re a special op of a Soul. Everything was strategized and calculated in minute detail for you to serve your Higher Purpose. So, in essence, surprise, surprise, you’re not behind at all~☆

There is a kind of revenge you’re gonna pour unto the world. Like gasoline on the pavement. And when it finally burns… ooohhh…

digital – 6 of Wands Rx

Divine Punishment. A word I’m hearing the loudest. You’re going to swiftly carry some kind of a Divine Punishment for the evils of this world and subsequently liberate those who are innocent. If this has been your main pile, I trust that you know yourself that you’re meant to serve an audience. It’s great that we have the Internet today, right? In this era of Pluto in Aquarius, too.

The Internet is the new playground for enlightenment. Millennials and Gen Zs will resonate with this the loudest, even though plenty of Boomers are obviously also on it. If you jump into some kind of content creation—or whatever else you feel called to—which involves the usage of the Internet, you’re highly protected by the Higher Realms that want to see this world become liberated from the clutches of evil, both organic and digital.

I’m sure Pile 3 is serving a very specific type of Souls who are attracted to this aenergy. Beyond just the notion of an Ascended Master or Lightworker or Starseed… I feel like you belong to a special collective of highly-specialised ops whose name/terminology I’ve not tapped into LMAO

full moon self-care🔻🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘

Gold Physician (Hippocrates) & Priestess of Luck

Access full reading + cards on Patreon🌸

☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・.

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[emilys-bangs]

baby, if your love is in trouble | e.p

Tags: emt!reader, flirty!emily, blood and injury, established relationship (we won’t question how they went from point A to point B), canon typical injuries, quite a few mentions of blood in this one oops, medical inaccuracies, use of petnames, reader is pissed but emily’s a smooth mf with big brown eyes

Summary: You get called to a scene and find your girlfriend—yet again—all bruised and bloody. She flirts, you don’t reciprocate. Requested here.

Word count: 2.2k

Part one (you don’t have to read it to read this part)

When you arrive at an abandoned warehouse, the last person you expect to see is your girlfriend. The surprise is muffled; you were aware this wasn’t outside the realm of possibility once Emily told you two weeks ago that the unsub they’re hunting is local.

Even in a messy, crowded scene like this, crawling with FBI agents and police officers alike, it’s easy to spot her amidst the chaos. She doesn’t notice you, leaning against a cop car and shying away from a lanky guy who reaches out with his finger, attempting to prod at her bleeding nose. A crumpled tissue is held between her fingers; it’s soaked through with blood, barely an inch of it unblemished white. Emily doesn’t seem to mind it as she glares and avoids the guy’s touch, swatting at his hand with hers.

“It’s not broken, Reid.”

“I’m just saying, it looks a little swollen—”

“Emily.” You say unthinkingly. She turns, her ponytail swishing as her eyes meet yours. 

The first thing you notice is the bruises on her face, a violent galaxy etched around her right eye. The cut on her cheekbone, dried blood crusted around the skin you just recently discovered you loved to kiss. Not the way her brows lift in surprise, her mouth parting to breathe out your name.

“Hi,” she says. Her voice is muffled into the hand holding the tissue.

You can’t reply for the nausea in your throat. Emily’s coworker is frowning at you, no doubt mentally tearing this interaction to pieces. It kickstarts your brain into action, practicality forcing its way over the queasy roiling in your stomach. 

“Are you hurt?” You ask him.

He shakes his head.

Jaw set, you meet Emily’s eyes and try to pretend they’re anyone else’s. “Come with me, please.” You say tightly, one hand listlessly extended to her body.

This time, it’s easier to wrestle her into the back of the rig. Emily wordlessly shoves off of the cop car and lets your fingers grip her elbow, lets you drag her to the ambulance and force her to sit on the hard metal ledge. The heat of her eyes follows you as you get your kit, burning holes into your face when you set it down next to her and pinch the sodden tissue she’s holding. Her hand falls away, exposing the bottom half of her face; a blooming cut on her lip stains her chin red.

Your mouth flattens into a thin line.

“Hi,” Emily says again, softly. “I, uh, didn’t know you’d be here.” She tilts her head to meet your gaze.

You don’t let her.

She exhales a low sigh. You ignore it as you toss away the bloodied tissue and scan her face, surveying the damage but not settling on the near magnetic pull of her eyes. What you find is harrowing: bruises on her temple and brow, a black eye, a cut on her cheek. They’re quickly darkening into deep reds and purples, visciously marring her ivory skin. Oh, and not to forget her bloody nose and split lip. Her face is a kaleidoscope of color.

Jesus.

“What happened?” You ask, reaching for the straps of her kevlar. Velcro separates, screeching as you rip the wretched vest off of her body. Shoulders, hips; you free her, then toss it carelessly into the ambulance.

“Can I get a hi first?” Emily retorts tiredly. You finally meet her eyes, the weight of them a physical blow to your gut. The black eye doesn’t help. “Hi?” Her fingertips skim yours.

You swallow thickly. Grab her hand, squeeze. “Hi.” You say back.

A smile flickers over Emily’s face. “Hi, sweetheart. I’m okay, I just got a little banged up.”

A little.

Your lips purse. “What happened?”

Emily laces her fingers through yours. You need to pull away, but you can’t help the way your shoulders loosen under her touch. Her skin is warm, thumb skating over the back of your hand with her head ducked. 

“Doesn’t matter.” She murmurs.

“Emily.” You take your hand back. The movement isn’t quite so gentle; Emily’s brows dip into a frown as she winces, a low curse escaping past her lips. “What?” You demand. Taking her hand again—carefully—your eyes travel until you find a dampness on her shirt sleeve, the blood almost invisible against the navy blue fabric. You cut it off to expose a long cut, the width of her arm, just above her elbow. It’s still bleeding sluggishly, most of it staunched into her shirt.

Nausea stirs again. 

Your jaw is tightly set as you let go of Emily’s arm and snap on a pair of gloves, eyes fixed on your hands and the forceful sting of the elastic. If you look up, if you find the face of the woman you’re half in love with rather than some nameless stranger’s face, you’ll fucking lose it. Already your breathing is shallow, not enough oxygen filling your lungs as you try your best not to breathe in the scent of Emily’s blood.

“Hey,” she says quietly. You let the silence answer as you clean around her cut. It looks deep, deeper than you can manage, but at least it’s clean. Emily’s ragged inhale sours your mouth when you place pressure on it, stopping the flow. Blood blooms on the gauze, and—maddeningly—she still persists. “I’ll be home tonight.” Her voice is only slightly choked. “All on my lonesome. Would you like to keep me company?”

There’s a few things you’d like to do to her right now. You voice none of them.

When you’re certain the bleeding has stopped you grab a roll of gauze, wrap it around her arm. “We could order pizza. Get that cheese crust you like.” The first layer dampens; the second doesn’t. Neither does the third, but you still wrap another layer for good measure.

A low sigh tickles your ear.

“I miss you,” Emily says, velvet soft. 

Work had gotten in the way more than usual these past few days, both yours and hers. You missed her too, more than you think is in any way logical, but you can’t rise to her flirtations when she’s half beaten and bloody. Just the sight of the bruises on her pale face turns your stomach.

You snip the gauze and tuck the end under the layers. Her shirt is in tatters now; you don’t linger on the fact that it was one of your favorites on her.

“It’ll probably need stitches,” you lift your gaze from the bandages around her arm and grab another antiseptic wipe. You don’t mean to catch her eyes. It’s accidental, a stupid move that freezes you in place, stops your hand from meeting the cut on her cheekbone.

Her pupils are blown wide with adrenaline, the black carving out her irises until all that’s left is thin brown rings. And still they’re captivating. Emily shakes her head, tongue darting over her lip. “Honey, talk to me.” She says desperately.

You exhale a short breath through your nose. “What do you want me to say?” You murmur, dropping your eyes from hers and focusing your attention on cleaning her wound. The skin scrunches beneath your touch as she winces; guilt stabs you in the chest. Your heartbeat quickens, the pace of it making your hands shake. Briefly, ever so briefly, your eyes fall closed.

You can’t do this. Fuck, you can’t, not when it’s her.

“I already asked you what happened and you didn’t answer.” You toss the wipe away. Looking down, you take a moment to breathe in before grabbing the antiseptic ointment. She’s fine now, you try to remind yourself. Mostly. At least she’s in one piece.

“Don’t worry your pretty little head about that.” Emily says. Her fingers find your chin; she pinches it gently and tilts your face up, to her tentative smile. It tugs at the cut in her lip. “I’m fine now.”

You can’t tell if it’s profiling or if she can genuinely read your mind.

An exasperated breath parts your lips. “You have a skewed definition of fine.” You huff, dabbing ointment on her cut. Emily’s lashes flutter closed, a frown digging its way between her brows. You bite down on your lips, immediately hating yourself. “Hurts?” You ask quietly.

“Mmm,” she doesn’t verbally confirm nor deny. It’s answer enough. By the time you peel a bandage and are placing it over her cheek she’s opened her eyes. “Maybe you can kiss it better?”

“You’re bleeding.” You say flatly.

“Babe,” she murmurs, frowning as if you’re being unreasonable, “don’t be like that.”

Her too calm tone sparks fire in your blood.

“Like what?” You bite out. “Like someone whose girlfriend is beaten and bloody because of god knows what trouble she was in? How exactly do you want me to act, Emily?”

“Girlfriend?”

You falter. “W-What?”

Emily grins stupidly. “You called me your girlfriend.” Her eyes glitter.

Heat rushes to your cheeks. It knocks over the guilt, the nausea, swarms of butterflies crowding your lungs. God, what are you, fifteen? 

You huff out a flustered breath. “Well, aren’t you?”

You’d had this conversation weeks ago. Not over an intimate, candlelit dinner; rather Emily had found romance in the early morning light of her bedroom. Body warm over yours, she’d grabbed your sleep-pliant hand, murmured into your knuckles if you would be her partner, let her be your girlfriend.

It had taken a few slow blinks of your eyes, chasing the blurriness from your vision and sharpening her tentative silhouette, before you’d said yes.

“I am. It’s just the first time you’ve called me that.” Emily’s arm goes around your waist. Her smile is transcendent and bloody.

“Don’t try to distract me,” you rub at your temple. “I’m still mad.”

“I’m fine,” she says quietly. Her fingers squeeze your side. “Cross my heart.”

The childish promise makes you huff out a humorless laugh. It thins out quickly, dissolves into the air between the two of you.

“You can’t look me in the eye and honestly tell me you’re fine, Emily.” You sigh. This close, you can’t help yourself. You gently cup her jaw, your thumb just shy of the broken skin at her bottom lip. It’s wet with fresh blood, the cut deepening with her careless smiles.

Emily gives you another one. You internally wince, wishing she’d stop. “Okay, well, I’m banged up.” She murmurs, leaning into your hand and blinking long lashes at you. “At least I have you to stitch me back together.”

Stupidly, thoughtlessly, your heart jumps. With no regard for the violence on Emily’s face or the complete lack of privacy of the scene around you. It’s basically your first meeting, reincarnated.

“And if I wasn’t here?” You mumble half heartedly, beginning to crack under her persistent flirtations. “Do you flirt with all your EMT’s or just me?”

Emily gives you a soft smile, a dizzying flash of dimples. “Just you, sweetheart. Only ever you.” 

The saccharine drip of her voice only makes you feel more like shit. Here she is, actually, physically hurting, and taking the brunt of your sour attitude because you couldn’t stand seeing it for yourself. You don’t know how she wipes the pain almost clear from her voice, how she can brave injuries that make you squirm at the thought of bearing them yourself, but somewhere beneath all the worry, there’s awe. 

“That’s reassuring,” you say lamely. You give her fingers a squeeze, attempting to convey what your dry tone can’t as you lean away. “Just please don’t get so banged up next time.” Reaching for another patch of gauze, you gently press it to her bottom lip. Her knee bumps into yours. “You do already have my attention, y’know.” 

A whole lot of it. Who are you kidding, probably all of it is hers.

Emily tucks the gauze into the corner of her mouth. “Like to have it at all times.” She mumbles.

You shake your head, breathing out a slow breath through your nose as the corner of her lip turns up. The ring of bruises around her eye has darkened into purple, capillaries bursting in blooms to chase away the unblemished expanse of her skin. It’s a terrible contrast, unmistakably stark and dripping violence. Still, you try your best not to shy away from her gaze.

“Will you come home with me?” Emily asks again.

You’re nodding before you know it. “Yeah, baby. Is that okay?” It’s a miracle she still wants you around after your wretched demeanor.

“That’s a stupid question, Y/N.” She says, so bluntly a laugh is forced from your lungs. It bubbles past your lips, making Emily’s smile stretch into a beam.

“Don’t fucking do that,” you scold, grimacing when fresh blood soaks the bandage. “God, you’re an idiot.”

“Your idiot girlfriend.”

It’s no use trying to staunch the blood. Her grin is so wide you discard the gauze and reach for her jaw instead of another one. 

When you finally kiss her, the metallic taste of her blood flooding your mouth, you know you’re in too deep.

taglist: @suckerforcate @sickoherd @lextism @catssluvr @i-lovefandom @haiklya @justhereforthosefics @storiesofsvu@ashluvscaterina @basicallyvivi@temilyrights @professorsapphic

[manonssunset]

"UNWRAP ME"

pairing: huh yunjin x fem!reader

synopsys: yunjin mentioned she has a special christmas surprise waiting for you. when you arrived at home, you were surprised to find out that the special gift was her, seated beneath the christmas tree, ready for you to "unwrap" her.

warnings/tags: language, smut, nsfw content under the cut, established relationship, service top!reader, yunjin is the one giving commands, lingerie, dry humping (thigh riding)

wc: +3,4k

a/n: happy new year, guys! this is my special (super late) gift for you all, also first time posting something like this on the blog. I hope you find it hot, lol. this took me longer than expected, but I’m satisfied with the way it turned out. I reduced the smut part substantially because, honestly, you would have had to wait another 10 days to read it, bye 💀. but I still wrote almost 600 words of just them kissing, so there's that.

working through christmas was always quiet and a bit annoying, with clients constantly bragging about their exotic holiday plans or the luxurious gifts they were preparing to buy. but the truth was, you had no reason to feel envious. after all, you had the most priceless gift of all: yunjin, the kind of girl most could only wish for. 

the sharp ding of your phone’s notification pulled you out of your thoughts. it was a sudden interruption, cutting through the steady rhythm of clicking fingers on keyboards, sounds that were all too familiar in the office. you glanced at the screen, expecting to see an email or maybe a quick reminder from a colleague. instead, your gaze fell on a message from your girlfriend. she often checked in on you while you worked, and you always found it endearing. 

this time, however, the message wasn’t the usual question about how work was going or a casual mention of what she was making for dinner. no, this one felt entirely different.

[jen 💋]: your special gift is waiting for you under the tree, please get home as soon as you can ;) 

[you]: 10 minutes and I'm out

the message felt playful, almost teasing, and you were thrilled at the thought of what awaited you at home. she had mentioned before that she had something special prepared just for you, a gift that, in her words, you were going to absolutely love, said in that sensual tone of hers that always left your head spinning. to say you were eager to find out what she meant was an understatement.

-♧-

your hand trembled slightly as you gripped the keys to your shared apartment, anticipation rising with every turn of the metal. when the door finally clicked open, the soothing scent of vanilla and wood greeted you, wrapping around you like a warm embrace. as you stepped inside, you were immediately struck by an unexpected darkness in the room, the only light coming from the flickering glow of candles scattered around the space.

the silence was unnerving, an absence that made you pause. the only sound was the occasional crackle of the candles, yet it felt like something, or someone, was missing. yunjin’s presence, which you had so eagerly anticipated, wasn’t there to greet you as you had expected. she had promised to show you the long-awaited gift she’d been teasing you about all week, and yet, there was no sign of her.

your gaze instinctively shifted to the bottom of the christmas tree, and for a moment, you froze. your heart skipped a beat, and it took a second for your mind to catch up with what your eyes were seeing. she was there, wearing a black silk robe, held together with a red rope tied into a bow, like some kind of living present waiting just for you. the light from the candles reflected off the fabric, giving her an almost ethereal glow. she lay on the carpet, looking up at you with an inviting, seductive gaze.

your breath caught up in your throat, and for a brief second, you weren't sure if you should move closer or stay rooted in place. you gulped as you stood still, speechless, completely captivated by the sight before you. “you're finally home, I've been waiting for you” you felt your knees weaken at the tone of her voice, filled with control and sensuality. you couldn’t form a response, too overwhelmed by the intensity of the moment to be able to articulate anything.

she rose with grace, and, as she closed the distance between you two, each of her steps were accompanied by heels tapping against the floor. It was as though a muse was walking towards you, her hips swaying from side to side with an elegant, almost hypnotic confidence. your heartbeat quickened as she got closer, and instinctively, you started taking steps back, your senses heightened, your mind a mix of conflicting emotions. part of you wanted to ask what was happening, but another part was curious to see where this moment would lead.

the back of your legs collided with the couch, and you suddenly felt cornered, with nowhere to go, no escape from her approaching presence. a sly smirk tugged at her lips as she closed the distance, gently pushing you to sit down. the coldness of the cushions on your skin contrasted sharply with the warmth spreading inside you. your gazes locked, and in that instant, the desire in her eyes was so intense it felt almost magnetic, drawing you in, making you want to lose yourself in her and everything she embodied.

she positioned herself comfortably on your lap, her movements slow, milky legs peeking out from beneath the robe. it was then that you noticed the meticulous attention she had paid to her makeup, each detail enhancing her beauty. she had even chosen your favorite perfume, a sweet vanilla scent that perfectly complemented the fragrance of the candles. it was clear now that she had carefully orchestrated this moment, aiming to give you a show that you were bound to enjoy.

the sudden closeness caused heat to flood your face. the slight pressure of her body pressed against yours sent your mind into overdrive. you could feel every subtle shift of her weight, making it hard to focus on anything else that wasn’t her. your hand instinctively went to her thighs, gently massaging the soft skin that radiated warmth under your fingertips. she gently traced her fingers up your arms, the light touch sending a wave of goosebumps across your skin, before placing them on top of your shoulders. 

you stilled as her face inched closer, her lips just centimetres from your ear. in this proximity, the intoxicating scent of her perfume magnified tenfold, its sweetness filling your senses and clouding your thoughts. her breath was warm against your skin as she whispered “unwrap me”, her voice drenched in the same seductive tone that never failed to unsettle and allure you in. she noticed the subtle tension in your body after her words, the air thickened, growing more charged than before. your hands slowly made their way to the ribbon, fingertips grazing the soft fabric, before you finally gripped its ends. 

you trembled as you undid the knot, the cool, soft fabric of the ribbon slipping smoothly beneath your fingers. the knot was simple but each movement felt agonizingly slow, as though time itself was stretching, drawn out by the weight of her gaze. her eyes, full of expectation, never left you, and the intensity of her look made your breath catch in your throat.

you held your breath as the ribbon finally loosened, your heartbeat thudding loudly in your ears. all the anticipation that had built from the moment she’d sent that text was unraveling now, piece by piece, and you couldn’t help but feel the tension hang in the air.

your eyes followed the path of her robe as it fell open, slipping off her shoulder to reveal what she had kept hidden until now. you couldn't help it when a gasp escaped your lips as you finally took in the sight before you: yunjin, all dolled up for you, wearing nothing more than a red lace set of lingerie. it accentuated her curves in a way that left your jaw slightly open, yet her elegance remained unmistakable. her set was far from tacky or overly explicit, it clung to her body with a sensuality that balanced provocativeness and sophistication. it revealed just enough, embracing her shape while maintaining a sense of grace and modesty. 

the warm, golden hues of the room bathed her exposed skin, creating a soft, radiant glow. she resembled a living version of venus, as if she had stepped out of a renaissance painting, one that belonged in a museum. arousal swept through you as a tingling sensation began to rise. the tightness that had formed in your stomach spread lower, a pulsing ache that clouded your mind with lust. it was clear that the feeling was mutual. the intensity of her gaze and the way her eyes locked with yours was a telltale sign that she was consumed too by the same need. her restless shifting, searching for the friction she desperately craved, also spoke volume.

she broke the silence with a question, her voice quieter, tinged with an unexpected hint of uncertainty. “do you like it?” despite your obvious reaction, she still sought confirmation, her usual confidence momentarily slipping. “jen, I don't think you understand how much I love it,” you said, almost baffled by her question. it wasn’t just about the lingerie, although it was stunning, it was everything she had done for this moment, all the care and effort she had put into it, just for you. and above all, it was her, the most important person for you. “thank you, baby,” she replied, her seductive tone returning as she cupped your face with both hands and leaned closer. “now, let’s get to the good part.”

her lips crashed against yours with urgency, the relentlessness evident in the way she yanked you closer, her fingers gripping the back of your head, anchoring themselves in your hair. the contact was frantic, as if she couldn't get enough of you. she tilted her head slightly to the side, deepening the kiss as you let your hands roam her body freely, your fingers caressing her skin before resting on her waist. there was a raw desperation in the way she kissed you, as if she was trying to devour you; her longing for you was unmistakable, like she could no longer keep it contained.

the way her lips moved with yours was soothing, the warmth of her skin sinking deep into you, making everything else fade away. your bodies were so close, it was almost as if you were breathing each other in, each subtle movement heightening the feeling of intimacy. the kiss was the physical manifestation of the desire you had both been hiding, the need to feel every part of each other becoming almost overwhelming. it wasn't anymore just about meeting lips, it was about being intertwined, your bodies pressing against each other in perfect harmony. 

you both pulled away briefly, her breath was ragged and shallow, a soft whimper escaping her as you squeezed the flesh of her ass. you both lingered there, a brief pause from the intensity of the session, both of your lips slightly parted as you caught your breath, chest rising and falling in sync. her pupils were dilated, a hint of something in her eyes, an unspoken impulse that was being held back, waiting to be released. you heard her mumble a quiet “fuck it” and before you could even register her words, she tugged you forward by the collar of your shirt, your lips making contact again. 

her tongue ran gently over your lips, applying pressure as a silent invitation to enter. you granted her request, allowing her muscle to invade your mouth, lightly sucking on it. she let out a surprised gasp at the sensation, her fingers tightly gripping the fabric of your button up shirt. as you massaged your tongues together in a gentle but intense dance, teeth clicking and saliva exchanging, your hands returned around her waist, pressing into the softness of her skin. you carefully bit her bottom lip, drawing it between yours as you continued sucking. it was all too much for her, the sensation was overwhelming, and her control slowly slipped away.

she began grinding on your lap as you were still kissing, her body moving effortlessly as she chased her own pleasure. you guided her hips and pressed her down further more, and she let out little, desperate gasps every time your lips parted to allow oxygen in. you couldn't lie and say that yunjin using you as a way to get off didn't turn you on, the sensation was electrifying, and you felt your own desire seep through your panties, soaking them. 

“mmph–ahh, jesus—” her sweet moans were muffled by your lips, creating a delicious symphony that reverberated in the confines of your mouth, sending shivers down your spine. the rough fabric of your work pants against her thin panties generated the ideal friction on her clit, making her mind go fuzzy. her hands roamed aimlessly, grasping and gripping whatever lay within reach: the fabric of your shirt, your arms, the back of your neck, your hair, and so on. she was riding your thigh so desperately it was almost cinematic: erratically moving her hips, grinding down, attempting to rub every time on the same perfect spot that gave her immense pleasure.

the room was starting to feel too hot for you. the heat from the candles, but especially from the union of your two bodies so close together, was becoming unbearable, so you decided to break the kiss to remove some of your clothing. after you delicately pushed yunjin back, allowing her body to rest on your legs, your eyes widened in surprise at the sight before you. it was beautiful; a clear, glassy strand of saliva was still connecting the two of you, a quiet reminder of your closeness. she was about to whine at the loss of contact when she also realized what she was seeing, and a small genuine smile tugged at her lips. 

you took advantage of the quiet moment to finally contemplate your girlfriend’s physical state: her face had a subtle pink flush that still peeped through even under her makeup, her lips were a strong red color that matched her lingerie, and they were quite swollen, an evident consequence of the kissing. her eyes were like a window to the multitude of emotions that pervaded her: delight, confidence, a bit of frustration, and, above all, desire. as your gaze moved lower down her body, you spotted a wet patch on her underwear; the fabric turned a much darker shade of red, and you wanted nothing more than to get a taste of the source of that change.

she noticed your intense stare and turned her head, flustered. “stop staring at me like that,” she said softly, her voice pulling you out of your trance as you felt her left hand brush over the skin of your face, settling on your jaw. in that moment, all your focus was on her. “no, but seriously,” she started, her tone firm like she needed you to be serious with her. “why did you stop?” her question was accompanied by a tiny pout, which made you smile, her frustration evident in her puppy-like features. you let out a slight chuckle in response, placing your hand over hers as a sign of reassurance. 

“I was honestly just too hot and wanted to take my shirt off,” you truthfully replied with a grin, finding the simplicity of your answer pretty amusing. as the words left your mouth, her pout melted away into a smile, mirroring yours. underlying her happiness though, she felt a tingling sensation begin to rise, a silent excitement at seeing you without your shirt. “do that then,” you caught her need by the urgency of her command and by the way she looked at you, as if she had already taken your shirt off with her eyes. you were more than happy to comply, gradually undoing all of your buttons just to tease her.

her whole demeanor was full of anticipation, she had folded her hands diligently on her lap while she watched you do your thing. as you slowly stripped for her, dragging out all of your movements since you knew it would turn her on more, she spotted your sculpted abs and your muscular arms, finally free of your shirt. the sight hit her all at once, causing her thighs to impulsively clench around yours and her hips to buck into the air.

heat flooded her face as she blushed in embarrassment, her reaction an obvious indication of her neediness; her head dropped into the crook of your now fully exposed neck, as if she was trying to hide from you. she took advantage of the closeness to inhale the scent your body. it was a mix of the aquatic and musky fragrance you used at work, one she could never resist whenever you wore it, mingled with the natural, comforting aroma of your skin. this mixture was fatal for yunjin, the scent did unspeakable things to her, her already soaked panties now starting to leave a wet spot on your own pants, and she was growing more desperate with each second that passed.

you were quick to detect it, knowing exactly what she was craving for in that moment, taking the lead for the first time that night. ���come on, ride my thigh,” you ordered as you patted your right leg, knowing that having just one of your thighs between her legs would cause her far more friction than simply rocking into your lap. the sudden switch in your tone of voice went straight to yunjin's core as more of her fluids gushed out. she weakly nodded and stood on her trembling knees, holding onto your bare shoulders and submissively following your order. you gripped her waist to keep her stable as she moved over to your thigh, carefully positioning herself. 

“fuck!” she exclaimed when you suddenly pulled her down onto your leg with force, the unexpected contact with her sensitive clit causing her to gasp loudly in response. her face contorted with pleasure as she began riding your thigh, her hips moving like waves, crashing and withdrawing in a rhythmic pattern. “oh–oh my god,” she moaned beautifully, letting out melodic sounds with each movement of her hips. “this feels so good,” the pleasure she was experiencing led her eyes to close tightly and her mouth to open. 

“good girl, keep moving,” you purred into her ear as your hands dragged her back and forth. her brain short-circuited at the name you gave her: she squirmed on top of you, her hips stuttering as a familiar sensation started to build inside her. she mewled in response; the commanding, dominant yunjin who had left you flustered just minutes ago was now a moaning mess under your touch. “ah— god” she threw her head back as she felt your thigh twitch and stiffen beneath her, providing the perfect solidity against her clit. 

as she continued to hump, your hands left her waist and slowly worked their way up to her chest, not without lightly scratching her skin, causing a burning sensation to spread beneath the surface. you began massaging and caressing her tits over her bra, lazily rubbing circles with your thumbs across the fabric. just the light pressure was enough for her to feel pleasure as more lewd sounds left her mouth. so it came as no surprise that, when you exposed her nipples and pinched them with your fingers, she let out a guttural scream. “fu-fuck–please, keep— ahh— keep doing that,” she begged as you twisted and pulled her sensitive buds.

her insides started to burn, a tight knot in her low abdomen indicated that her orgasm was near. “are you close?” you asked as you noticed her movements become sloppier and her moans rising in pitch. “y-yes, I— please— please let me come.” her voice trembled as she pleaded for your permission. as much as you wanted to tease her, to push her just a little further, you couldn’t resist and granted her request. “go ahead baby,” the moment you were done speaking you felt her body still in your hands, her back arched and her head thrown back. her vision faded to black as she reached her climax, a wave of pleasure washing over her as she cried out a mixture of curse words and little “thank you”s.

she collapsed into your arms, her body was now a limp weight pressed against your chest. her head nestled against your neck, her eyes closed as she focused on regaining the stable rhythm of her breath. you gently stroked her hair as a comfortable silence enveloped the two of you, the only sounds being the soft crackle of the candles and her breathing. the warmth of her body pressed against yours was like a gentle caress, a comforting embrace that made you melt into your seat. “can we stay like this for a bit?” she asked softly, her voice hoarse from all the moaning, and her arms tightened around you as she clung to your torso. “of course,” you replied, leaning your head over hers and caressing her back, savoring the closeness. “whatever you want.”

a/n: oof, this one was really long to write, I'm so sorry for the wait, guys, hope you like it!

[raelyn-dreams]

Enstars Japanese Support Ticket - Walkthrough & Example Template

The recent AKATSUKI event has made many egregiously bad and offensive choices regarding the unit and Ibuki (long story short - he joined them, effectively destroying AKATSUKI's buildup & writing, AND japanizing a proudly Ryukyuan idol. Please check (but do not overwhelm) @/gitsunegal on twt for more threads and details regarding this), earning the justified ire of fans of all units and languages.

One way of effectively utilizing your anger productively is to send a support ticket to Happy Elements, explaining your dissatisfaction with these decisions and urging them to reconsider. This shows them that fans are not happy with this decision, and (more importantly, to most companies) that they stand to lose profits for this choice.

Therefore, I have created this guide for sending the support email to them, as well as provided a template email in Japanese & English that you can use, which was very graciously proofread by a kind fan on twt. You can also send them your own inquiry in English, or also send an inquiry through the English website (the more, the better!). They will read it, and it does hold weight, even if you may not get a reply from the Japanese side of things!

Walkthrough + Template under the cut!

Firstly, go to https://www.happyelements.co.jp/contact/form_guide/. The page should initially look like the one below (desktop).

This is the section of the official Happy Elements website where contact inquiry links are. In order to more easily navigate this page, I highly recommend that you use a built-in translator tool to translate the webpage in real time (example below).

Scroll down until you hit the Ensemble Stars section (below, translated).

You can choose either Basic or Music to send an inquiry to - the process is the same (I suggest one to both, if you can). That will then lead you to this screen (below, translated).

Click the little box next to "agree" at the bottom of the page. That will then cause a drop down menu to appear at the top of the virtual paper. Click the last drop-down menu option - Opinions, requests, and feeback (below, translated).

By selecting this option, you will automatically be directed to the actual inquiry form (below, translated).

From there, fill out the form. Put your email in the example box (I recommend using the same email as your JPstars account - if you don't have one, simply use whichever). Either keep the "-" in the optional reply box, or select "not desired", if you don't want a reply from support. In your inquiry box, you can either put your own inquiry fed through a translation machine (I recommend DeepL, and having a Japanese speaker look it over before sending if possible - be short, blunt, and professional!), or use the template inquiry I provide at the end of this post, which you can edit as you see fit! Creating your own inquiry in English is also an option, though you are more likely to get a reply through the English Happy Elements website (example inquiry below, translated page).

Make sure to click the box next to "agree" at the bottom of the page. Then, click send, and you're done!

Template Email:

こんにちは。

私は維吹が紅月に加入するという決定に同意できないことをお伝えします。私はこの決定に非常に憤慨しており、この決定が変更されない限り、あんさんぶるスターズを応援し続けるつもりはありません。紅月のファンを失望させている。沖縄の方々に対しても酷く無神経で失礼です。私はあんさんぶるスターズも紅月も維吹も大好きなので、この話には心を痛めました。運営側が私の意見を真剣に検討してくれることを願っています。

ありがとうございます。

Translation of Template Email:

"Hello.

I am writing to inform you that I disagree with the decision to have Ibuki join AKATSUKI. I am very upset that this choice was made, and will not continue to support Ensemble Stars unless it is changed. It is disappointing to fans of AKATSUKI. It is also very insensitive and disrespectful to the Okinawan people. I love Ensemble Stars, AKATSUKI, and Ibuki, and am heartbroken by this story. I hope the management will seriously consider my inquiry.

Thank you very much."

Other things you can mention:

Go into more detail about how offensive it is for Ibuki to join a Japanese unit, given his identity as an indigenous character.

Reiterate how much AKATSUKI's writing has emphasized that the unit is the three of them (I suspect this one won't receive much attention though, considering the story basically mocks the line of thinking :/)

Mention how much you spend on the game, and how much they would be losing. Especially effective if you spend a lot on an account linked to your inquiry email, and if you actually boycott (no playing or spending).

If you're a producer of Knights, Switch, Eden, or Valkyrie (units who have not had their center this rotation), you can say that you have decided not to tier or play for them now. Especially effective because three out of the four are big moneymakers (Knights being the biggest in the game), they're already on thin ice with Sora fans after VS GLADIATOR, and it's been several months since a lot of their producers have spent money tiering (17, in Valkyrie's face).

Really, anything you can do to get it through their heads is great, especially if you follow through and don't spend money or play the game for this time period.

-

I hope that this guide was informative, and that you are able to send a support ticket to Happy Elements regarding these events! For me, the one good thing to come out of this disaster was the support and solidarity I saw within the fandom, and while I may personally be stepping back from Enstars, I hope to encourage that energy how I can on my end.

Feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns in the comments, reblogs, my Neospring (Frostedonut6297) or my email (letempsdesacanthe@gmail.com)! Sending love and support to everyone <3

[thunderandsage]

pre-arcane caitvi: or fuck, why i am voluntarily reading league of legends lore

so there’s been a lot of effort to preserve a lot of viktor and jayce’s old stories, bios and dynamics, but not so much for the other characters??? i don’t play league, but i still feel it’s cool to look at older versions of these characters as an “alternate universe” kind of thing

so, here they are for Caitlyn and Vi (all info from the official league of legends website):

Caitlyn Kiramman

top: LoL Caitlyn, bottom: Arcane Caitlyn

“To be the best hunter, you have to be able to think like your prey.”

Renowned as its finest peacekeeper, Caitlyn Kiramman is also Piltover’s best shot at ridding the city of its elusive criminal elements. She is often paired with Vi, acting as a cool counterpoint to her partner’s more impetuous nature. Even though she carries a one-of-a-kind hextech rifle, Caitlyn’s most powerful weapon is her superior intellect, allowing her to lay elaborate traps for any lawbreakers foolish enough to operate in the City of Progress.

Bio

Short story “The Thrill of the Chase”

my notes:

very different from arcane caitlyn, what with supportive (and both alive) parents, and especially this line:

“Her mother […] would always warn Caitlyn of Piltover’s seductions, and its gilded promises that could harden the kindest heart”

so it’s a caitlyn who is also focused on keeping piltover in line—could be an interesting avenue to explore with post-canon arcane fics?

definitely a happier timeline for her

Vi

top: LoL Vi, bottom: Arcane Vi

“We can either do this the hard way or… Oh wait, no. There's just the hard way.”

Raised on the mean streets of Zaun, Vi is a hotheaded, impulsive, and fearsome woman with very little respect for authority. She has always been a shrewd survivor, both from her youthful troublemaking topside and an unfairly long stint in Stillwater Hold. Now working with the Piltover Enforcers to keep the peace instead of breaking it, she wields mighty hextech gauntlets that can punch through walls—and criminals—with equal ease.

Bio

Short story “Interrogation 101”

my notes:

so this backstory seems to line up more with arcane vi, but then comes the line in the short story:

“as if he was talking to the old Vi, the Vi from the Lanes. He wasn’t bright enough to know that Vi wasn’t the one standing in front of him”

so what i’m getting is this idea of a vi who’s divorced herself from the undercity, in a way arcane vi’s hasn’t?

and i have… conflicted feelings about this, since arcane vi is shown to be very caring and protective in contrast to this iteration—like the closest she is to the original also coincides with her being depressed, while lol vi just overall… doesn’t seem to care

(but at least being hella gay for cait is a constant across universes)

(also who isn’t to say we can’t dig into the tragedy of a vi who’s lost her connection to home?)

Bonus - screenshots of the bios if you want to stay on tumbr

Caitlyn

Vi

Also the art that inspired this whole thread of thought:

[violetvines]

Hi can you please write some HCs of Libby and Nash as parents

sure, ofc!

libby & nash hawthorne as parents 🤍

- it's canon that libby gave birth to more than one child (since rohan congratulated nash on the "babies") so i'm seeing one girl [hannah] and one boy [nicholas]

- libby and nash are very particular with treating both of their kids equally so that neither of them feel left out

- when hannah and nicholas were toddlers, every week, libby and nash would alternate going into their kids' rooms for bedtime stories and games

𓍢ִ໋ eg. nash would go into nicholas' room one week and libby into hannah's, and it would switch the next week

- they never force their kids to do anything they don't want to do

𓍢ִ໋ eg. nash and nicholas had weekly weekend basketball matches and when nicholas wanted to start basketball as an extracurricular, nash checked in with him every month or so on whether he was still enjoying it or not

- they are very protective of their children

𓍢ִ໋ eg. when he started kindergarten, nicholas was framed of hurting another kid. libby didn't believe that (nicholas was a gentle kid), so she rushed to the scene with nash and got to the bottom of it. nash even lectured the kid that framed his son (in his nice nash way) and got the other kid to apologise all on his own (that kid ended up becoming nicholas' bsf)

- as a toddler, nicholas loved being pampered (he's a mommy's boy), so every night he would beg libby to read him more than one bedtime story and she eventually ran out of storybooks, but she could never refuse him so she started telling him stories of hawthorne brother shenanigans (strategically replacing their names in case nicholas asked his uncles to "glitter bomb their house" or "egg the house with tinsel bombs")

𓍢ִ໋ note: here, i assume that libby and nash have moved out of hawthorne house and have a house of their own

- hannah is a daddy's girl, so nash just buys her anything she asks for (libby has to stop him from doing that all the time bc she doesn't want hannah to become a spoilt little kid)

- when hannah was old enough, libby told her about who inspired her name. she also ended up telling her: hannah the first's and toby's story, and eventually, hannah asked for libby and nash's love story

- libby made it her sworn duty to raise her daughter's standards regarding men (because of her past experiences)

- when hannah got her first boyfriend, nash never took his eyes off that guy and bombarded him with questions. poor guy had to sit through an interview...

- nash is the kind of dad that makes it hard for your boyfriend at first, (trials and tribulations yk), but after he warms up to you, he becomes your boyfriend's new bestie and second father (literally)

- "if he really loves you, he won't be afraid to stand up to me." was what he said to hannah once. because he was pushing the guy to his limits just to test if the guy had guts

- if libby raised hannah's standards, nash taught nicholas how to top those standards. (just going to say that any girl would be ridiculous to turn down nicholas <3)

- and he also taught nicholas how to choose the right girl

- libby and nash have a tradition of getting their kids cowboy hats every birthday (it changes with their favourite colours)... so yes... they have a whole closet just for cowboy hats

- hannah and nicholas are good at horseriding because ever since they were old enough, libby and nash would take them to a ranch for summer break

- libby loves having hannah and nicholas around when she bakes, even if it gets messy, because it heals her inner child to see them happy and licking frosting off all the utensils

hope you like these~ any names not in the series are purely fictitious! n for nash, n for nicholas yk