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Asuna is smiling at him when the world fades to black.
He opens his eyes.
"You're finally awake, Kirito."
~*~
"You're beautiful like this."
Fingers cascade through his hair, strands too long, much too long.
Kirito shifts on the bed, not the hospital bed like it should've been, body still weak and unable to protest the unwanted touch.
"I hadn't expected you to look quite so..."
"... Delectable."
Around them a golden cage glitters, not white walls like he'd been expecting. Kirito squeezes his eyes shut. The stranger continues his caressing. A dark victorious chuckle building in his chest.
"I may have caught the wrong fish," he murmurs darkly into Kirito's hair. "But I think this'll work out just fine."
"What say you to being my Queen of Fairies... Titania."
Oberon laughs.
~*~
The gown is beautiful. Kirito thinks that Asuna would've looked radiant in it. Except it's soured by the reality of how he came into possession of it.
"A beautiful Queen needs a beautiful wardrobe to match does she not? Aw, do not look at me with eyes like that my sweet Titania. I assure you that you'll look stunning in it."
Sometimes Kirito wonders if the madman keeping him captive remembers that he is a boy. Then he thinks that maybe that's the point, to take him down a peg for ever daring to claim Asuna's affections. And such a cruel and unusual punishment this was, forcing him into this foreign form, giving him wings he couldn't use to fly away, trapping him like a sweet song bird hidden from the rest of the world, dressing him in clothes of his choosing, and calling him by a different name.
Kirito is scared that the longer he stays here the more he'll forget himself, wiped away by a false identity born from a raving man's delusions.
Then he thinks to the continuously growing possessive hands that grasp at him in those visits. Never touching inappropriately, but holding him close nonetheless. If Kirito himself is losing to Titania he can only imagine what Oberon has come to see him as. Does the madman even remember Kirito's original identity? He fears that in his delusions the monster may one day take it took far.
The touches are innocent for now, possessive perhaps, but innocent enough.
But how long until they aren't?
~*~
Oberon presses his lips firmly against Kirito's forehead in greeting, a false gesture of affection, in the way he always does when he visits now-a-day. A hand runs through his hair behind him and Kirito is too exhausted with his situation to even try to rebel.
"Good morning my Queen," Oberon says with dark eyes flashing obsessively. "I saw my Asuna today, she was visiting you in the hospital again."
Kirito's heartbeat picks up, it seems that in these days only news of his love could stir him out of the crushing emptiness growing in his chest.
"Not to fret my sweet Titania," the Fae King laughs against his hair, one hand held gently on Kirito's lower back. "My affections for my future wife do not mean my affections for you wane my dear. You are both precious to my heart. How could you not? Being so similar after all, to the point you both had thought you were meant for one another!" Oberon laughs like it's the funniest joke he had ever heard. When he's finish he pushes Kirito gently down to the bed and gazed into his eyes with insanity. "My silly confused girls. I cannot fault you for misunderstanding that both of you were made for me." He plucks a dark strand between his fingers and brings it to his lips, "Asuna my wife in the outer world." He leans in close and whispers into Kirito's ear, breath moist and hot, a hand playing with the ribbon at his waist, "And you my sweet Titania, my Queen and wife in this world."
Kirito turns his face away and hides his tears.