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chithereader · 1 month ago

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playing it cool / aaron hotchner

[credits to the owners of these photos!!]

word count: 1.9k

pairing: aaron hotchner x f!reader

genre: fluff!!!!!!

cw: sickeningly sweet and soft aaron x reader, so much of aaron’s thoughts because we know that man thinks soo much more than he speaks!!

a/n: hiiii this is my third post so far and tbh i was so nervous to post the first two as that was my first time ever posting any of my writings anywhere!! but i’ve been getting so much more love on those than expected and i just really wanted to say thank you so much for all the likes and reblogs <33 i was honestly only expecting less than 10 notes as a newbie and reaching up to 200 is so so so wonderful. and especially for the love of hotch i– ugh!!!!! i already love u all

The team had worked a straight 5 weeks worth of cases prior, which had warranted Strauss to grant them all a mandatory 3-day rest. This simply meant that for 3 whole days there are no cases, no deadlines, and no new case files. They could come to the office at whatever time they’d like as long as they finished some reports at the end of the day.

Aaron being Hotch the boss man still aimed to arrive at the office at a reasonable time– 7:30am. To be fair, this is an hour and a half later than when he usually arrives at the office. And in his mind, the earlier he arrives, the more he can get done, and the more he gets done, the earlier he can come home.

This is the only reason why he is up at 6:00am on a supposed rest day. He did expect that he’d struggle a bit more to drag himself out of bed, knowing you’d be keeping him hostage with limbs that wrap around him in ways he can’t begin to understand, but to his surprise, you weren’t there.

Dragging his feet across the carpeted floor, his pajama pants hanging low on his hips and white shirt fitting him oh-so-snugly, he tries to find you. He’s rubbing the sleep of his eyes as he peeks his head into your shared bathroom. No sign of you.

He’s covering his mouth as he yawns when he quietly opens the door to Jack’s bedroom–still no sign of you. Remembering his son has been nursing a stomach bug since yesterday, he opened the door further to check on him. No fever. No chills. No sign of discomfort.

When he’s sure Jack’s okay, he turns around to go back to find where you went. He even checked the backyard as he passed by a window to see if you’re at your favorite swing reading, that perhaps you just woke up early and wanted to feel the morning sun because you claimed it lightens you.

He smiles a little to himself as he treads downstairs, finally hearing your soft murmurs as you spoke with someone presumably over the phone. As he neared the kitchen he realized that the person on the line was your colleague and friend Tilly, and that she was on speaker phone making it easy to listen in.

He slows down his steps as he nears the landing and pauses when he gets behind a wall near the kitchen. He doesn’t know what came over him. He doesn’t usually sneak around to eavesdrop, nor did he ever feel the need to especially when it came to you. You tell him everything, prompted and unprompted.

But perhaps it was the haze of the morning or the curiosity of what could possibly get you out of bed this early when you’re usually the one snoozing away as he’s getting ready for work– he stayed quiet behind that wall and made it his mission to understand the conversation.

He clears his mind and strains his ear, going as far as making his breaths slow and far apart.

He hears Tilly giggling, “Don’t get me wrong, Adam from Finance is really cute but.. isn’t he just a little too serious? He’s always got that frown going on.”

You sigh a little loudly, obvious that it’s a sigh to humor and not of exasperation, “Tilly, you know I love you, but every day you complain about being single. And every other day there’s a decent guy who you always always find that one flaw in that just crosses them off for you forever.” Tilly lets out a sound that’s a mixture of a laugh and a gasp.

“That is so not tr–” “Oh, Hugh’s just too clean. And Frederick’s too hard, it’s like- scary. Yes, veiny hands are hot but there’s veiny and too veiny, and Jason was just a double too veiny.”

Aaron momentarily pauses his listening and looks down at his hands, suddenly conscious where he fit in that category. Factoring in his age, his work, and the action he gets from the field– these all show. He tried thinking of a time you could’ve shown any dislike or disgust towards his hands but all he could think of was that one night when he cupped your face and you leaned towards it more, turning slightly to take his thumb into your mou–

He’s shaken out of his thoughts when he hears Tilly asking about you leaving, “What time are you getting to the office by the way? I just don’t want to get there without you. Adam might ask about that second date and I just need you as my bluff, my beautiful girl.” He makes a mental note to message Jessica before you both get ready for work.

“Riiiight. Remind me how many guys have I scared off for you now? And how many times have I helped you scare them off? Besides, I can’t go today and I’ve already told Bobby I’m on leave.”

In a slight surprise and panic Tilly whines, “What?! Why? You’re such a traitor. You know damn well I get so bored without you.” Aaron didn’t even know you were planning on staying home. You hadn’t mentioned anything about it last night which made him even more curious what made you decide.

He hears your soft laugh, “Don’t be so dramatic. You’ll manage a day without me. I mean you have to– my son caught a stomach bug yesterday so I just want to make sure he’ll recover completely.”

Aaron can hear Tilly responding, something about soup and warm baths, but his heart has just stopped so he’s not really processing any new words at the moment.

My son. My son. My son. My son caught a stomach bug.

He feels lightheaded. His heart kickstarts again, his pulse is ringing in his ear. He can feel his chest pounding to his heart’s beat. The words that rolled off your lips so effortlessly, so mindlessly, echoes in his head.

Jack may be young but he is smart. So so smart beyond his years. And he has grown to understand what had happened to his mom Haley, but not once has he– and even you allowed Jack to forget who Haley is and how much she loves him.

Images of you joining in their traditions of honoring and remembering Haley plays in his head in flashes. You helping Jack arrange a bouquet for Haley’s death anniversary. You helping Jack make a card for her birthday. You mixing the paint to get the right shades as Jack paints a portrait of Haley for his Mothers’ Day homework.

Aaron had told you everything there was to know about Haley and you’ve listened. He knows you adore her. You adore her for the same reasons he adored her. You understood the space Haley had in his life and in Jack’s life, and not once were you ever jealous, immature, or selfish about it. Even though he would’ve completely understood if you were.

You were nothing but supportive, and understanding, and loving. Even when he didn’t deserve it. Even when you deserved better. Admittedly, there was a point in time when he struggled with coming to terms with falling in love– with you nonetheless. You’re young, ambitious, brilliant, talented, insanely beautiful, and unfairly kind.

When the two of you had met, this was his profile: divorced with a kid, recovering from trauma that stemmed from being stabbed multiple times in his own home, emotionally unavailable, annoyingly serious and fatally dull– which really makes him wonder what made you fall in love with him in the first place, and even more so what made you stay even when he was bafflingly dense about how you felt about him.

He didn’t know how long he was standing there, like a deer caught in headlights. Replaying your words and his memories over and over again, slowly coming to the conclusion that you’re absolutely perfect and he’s absolutely gone for you.

Slowly coming to his senses, Aaron becomes more aware of the silence. The call must have ended while he was having realizations about things. He rounds the corner silently, getting a feel of where you’re facing. Luckily he guesses right, that you’re facing away from him.

You were rummaging through the fridge– the vegetable drawer if he had to guess, judging by how much you’re slouching and reaching, and the sound of the glass containers you use to prolong their freshness.

He quickly surveys the scene- your phone is on the counter, beside it is a chopping board with carrots and onions, a carton of chicken broth, Jack’s favorite dinosaur-shaped pasta, and chocolate milk– the one drink you both know can make Jack feel instantly better, happier.

His heart pinches again. You got up early to make sure Jack had something to eat for breakfast in time for his medicine. You got up early even though you aren’t planning on going to work. You aren’t going to work because you want to stay with Jack. You called Jack your son.

With so many things running in his head, he stands quietly observing you finding god knows whatever vegetable. Maybe it's the intensity of his stare or the volume of his thoughts, or maybe he started to breathe loudly– but suddenly you knew he was there. He could tell.

You slowly straightened your back from when you were leaning. Your hands have stopped rummaging through the drawer, and he could see the goosebumps on your legs and shoulders from the way the sunlight hits you through the kitchen window.

You turn around slowly, as if you were just caught doing something you aren’t supposed to be doing, “I’m so sorry, did I wake you?” grimacing as if it was a crime to be hot and cute and gut-wrenchingly-sweet.

“No.” His voice is groggy. Deep and rough given that he just woke up minutes ago and hasn’t really used it since. Looking at you through studying eyes, he clears his throat “Uhm, I woke up to get ready for work and you weren’t there.”

Aaron suddenly feels a little cold. The thin material of his shirt and pajamas doing little to contain what warmth he has left in his body. Or maybe it’s you, maybe his body has sensed that you’re near and is now craving your warmth, making him feel a magnified amount of its absence.

“Oh.. I’m sorry I just wanted to get ahead of cooking so Jack can have soup before he takes his medicine at 8 and since I was also planning to do some work though I’m on leave, it just made sense to get an early start…” You slow your words, noticing how Hotch is studying you tenfold in the moment, as if you were an apparition, “Are you okay? Did you want soup too? I can pack you some before you go?”

His silence makes you panic a little. You can’t really tell if he’s upset about something or if he’s sleepwalking, “Or you can eat here. I mean– you live here, of course you can eat here. I mean like instead of bringing it to the office– not that if you eat here, you can’t bring some anymore.”

The longer he stays silent, adoring you, the more you scramble to fill the silence, “I’m just– you know you can do whatever you want. You can eat here, there, anywhere. Unless you don’t want soup. I mean we still have leftover steak, I cou–”

You pause your rambling because you can see a smile starting to form on his face. A real, big smile. Laugh lines and dimples and all, which makes you smile. Realizing how stupid you were sounding and how funny the situation was becoming, you started giggling.

And just as you think he’s about to join the laughter to make fun of you, his smile softens and he says, “Marry me.”

part 2 here!!!!!

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sbcdh · 16 days ago

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"You saw it?"

"For a second. Yeah. I saw one."

"Start at the beginning."

"Hoo. Okay. Uhhh... It was 77. I think. I was air force. Or, hypnoengineering support staff contracted to help out around St. Louis."

"That's how you came into your supply of JVH-1"

"It was JVH-11 actually, and yeah, the fuckin, uh- the requisitions officer at Scott was an old buddy of mine. We used to fuck around in college before I, you know-"

"Yes I understand."

"I worked records for Sears-Roebuck, I had all the accounting expertise, as well as a ready supply of LSD."

"How did you start?"

"Oh it was easy at first. Really just selling off phials of the new experimental stuff to finance guys. They'd go nuts for the stuff, pay top dollar for it too. Hell, I could get 100$ for a milliliter. Made it easy to keep my contacts bought in and re-invested. Honestly I don't think the req office would even know that we were skimming if they weren't in on it.

But, you know how it is with hypnoregulation. Transchronological market data is worth it's weight in diamond. It started with the odd photo of a 2q-week readout, then biometric data, then, uh- then. Well, we decided to try it ourselves."

"You attempted full sub-finantial emmanation?"

"No no god no, what're you nuts? No, see. We figured if one person can meld their brain with the market, we just had to get as close as we could to that guy, and mark the twain, hypnologically speaking."

"Mark the twain?"

"Yeah, see, okay. A plutophant in full emmanation isn't like us. We exist at a single point in time, an R1 rational market actor. But they exist in multiple points in time, back in 77, I think the government could hit R6 with that analogue tech. Most people can hit R2 with a single hit of JVH-1, with practice you can hit R3, but anything higher than R3 takes a pretty serious support team. But here's the thing, I had a whole cadre of co-implicated members of a military grade hypnoengineering support team. All we needed was the space."

"The warehouse. Schaeffer Marble and Tile was it?"

"Bingo. See here's the thing. You know why the government had to start building those special regulation temples? It's not just for security. Once you crack the R6 barrier, Plutophants start leaving what's called a wake. You know, like a fuckin, uh, like a boat. They're imperceptible to normal people, but if you have sensitive enough instruments or, say, a person in the edge of sub-market emmanation.

See the government didn't know at the time, but if you balanced the drugs just right, and kept someone right on the edge of R4, you could actually read the plutophant's interpretations by their wake rather than their direct neurofeedback. It's not nearly as precise, but if you have a good team and you know what to look for, you can get some really, really valuable market data that way."

"And your co-worker?"

"You mean Mills? Fuck. Yeah...Mills. Right."

"Take your time."

"No, no I'm good. It's... It's uh, It's dangerous. Brains aren't meant to take that much JVH-11 all at once. We could stay on R4, but what we didn't have was a recovery team, or a medical team, or recon team. It was me, Mills, Israel, Connaught, and Marsh. The five of us were the only ones in the soup. Bruso was running the machines and Lasker was monitoring the readout."

"Can you tell us what happened?"

"Yeah. Yeah. It was a normal intrusion. Hypnogrid emmanation is pretty simple with our tech and support. Sedation was all green, hypnoinduction was green. Smooth as silk. Landed about 40 minutes from our work location. We had the codes from the IRSAW people that morning, all we had to do was maintain hypnoinduction for 40 minutes while traversing the colon and we'd be able to-"

"I'm sorry, colon?"

"Oh come on. Colon. Collective Unconscious. Col-Un. Colon."

"I- of course. Continue."

"Hey, have you ever been on a dive before?"

"Can we focus on your statement?"

"It's important. I need to know if this next bit is gonna make sense to you or not."

"I've undergone basic anti-intrusion training standard for IRS investigation task force officers."

"So you've done safe dives. White room? Castle training? Putting up the wall? All that jazz?"

"That's correct."

"Did they ever tell you why it's dangerous to perform off-site hypnoincursion in meta-unstsble hypnospace?"

"They did."

"Well they're lying...don't look at me like that. I'm not bullshitting you. They're lying...there's...there's shit out there okay? There's things out there."

"Mills?"

"Yeah. Mills. Uh..."

"Take your time."

"Yeah yeah. Quit interruptin me. Mills... Uh, yeah so we were T-Plus 30 into the dive. Bruso gives us a heads up that some hypnoflora is headed our way, but can't get a read on mass. Says we should steer clear, but we are so close. Israel had handled some hypnoflora before, so we weren't worried. But it was... I dunno. I can't explain."

"Do your best."

"Like. Okay. Meta-unstsble dives are fucked. They're acid trips. The St. Louis hypnoscape already doesn't look normal, but Scott Base looked like some kinda bastard lovechild of a medieval castle and a seashell, all twisting up into itself. The streets were a chessboard, and all the streetlights we're these tall kinda mannequin lookin' things holding a tiny sun in their hand. Everything is fucked, it's all topsy turvy. But it's okay, because it's meta-unstable hypnospace, its not SUPPOSED to be normal. And then there was a Red Sock."

"Like for the feet?"

"No. Like. In the middle of this fucked up dreamscape, there's suddenly a batter for the Boston Red Sox. He's standing there, maybe 50 feet away. He's got a bat in one hand and a mitt in the other, and he's just kinda walking towards us. Nobody really knew what to do. It didn't look dangerous, but something wasn't right. It didn't fit. We just kinda stood there, looking at the thing. Israel starts talking to Bruso, asking him what to do. Suddenly, Bruso is screaming at us, telling us to book it. He's screaming into the com, telling us to prepare for de-emmanation. Nobody knows what's happening. Israel is suddenly standing between Mills and the Red Sock, and..."

"Any information you can recall could be of use."

"It's...it's mostly feeling at this point. You ever been having a normal dream? Like, a good, normal dream? And suddenly you realize that something is really, really wrong? There's signs. For me? It's that the lights go out. Suddenly day turns to night, and something about this batter just makes me want to curl up and hide. Suddenly, moving through the world is like trying to swim through molasses. I try to run, but nothing moves, and everything is dark. The world is shifting. There's shadows under the bathroom door that can't be happening. A man who looks like Jesus. An old and terrible house and an old man with no name whose face I can't remember. The batter swings at Mills and she just...vanishes. Shes gone. Bruso pulls us out a second later."

"So this, batter killed Ms. Mills?"

"No."

"No?"

"No. We get out, she's comatose. Whatever that thing did to her, she was still in hypnospace. I gave her a hot shot of barbiturates. Her brain activity slowed to R0 after about 90 seconds."

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shewrites444 · 2 months ago

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pretty [ art donaldson x babysitter/age gap! reader smut ]

[ Hiii me popping up on here for the first time in forever lmao. I've been on a Challengers kick lately, let me know if I should write more on Art perhaps. :D ]

WC - 3.5k (unedited story, so apologies for any errors)

[ Summary - The reader and Art have been having an affair for the past few months after she became the Donaldsons' occasional babysitter. A lot of porn with a slight plot. ]

[ Warnings - Age gap (reader is college-aged, art is in his like mid-thirties), cursing, cheating/affair, oral (m&f receiving), dirty talk, tiny breeding kink mention, unprotected sex ]

It's not like it mattered to Tashi, well, anymore, what her husband did in his free time. A year or so ago, when Art found out about Tashi and Patrick's on-going affair at their challenger, he felt crushed, defeated, sickened, all emotions jumbled into one component, knowing what his wife was doing behind closed doors since they were teenagers. No amount of "I love you's" could make her drawn closer to him, no amount of care, compassion.. nothing. I mean, it would only make sense that an affair that lasted over ten years, especially with his former best friend and teammate, would fundamentally fuck up their marriage.

Tashi tried to fix it, she really did, by cutting off all connections to Patrick, promising Art she'd be better for not only him, but their daughter, Lily, and the careers and finances they shared together. She knew all the logic behind an affair was unjustifiable, and it made sense to fix a marriage with someone who genuinely cared for her and the family, careers, and finances they created together.

Art stopped playing tennis that year, and like they had promised each other months before, decided to work on the foundation full time, and with newer responsibilities, came the need for a sitter that wasn't only one of their parents when Art had a game or two.

That's where you came into the picture.

You were an undergraduate student at NYU, about to graduate in the spring with a heavy need for any sort of finances to help you afford your rent the rest of the semester. Knowing that your niece was in class with Art and Tashi Donaldson's daughter, that set up a fairly easy connection to a potential babysitting gig. They were millionaires, hell, maybe even billionaires at this point, so you'd be bound to get a pretty solid paycheck.

You were in luck. They needed an occasional sitter on the weekends, and a handful of nights during the week, and given that they both knew your sister, you were already trusted. Easy money.

You got along with Lily pretty well, too. Not to mention the Donaldsons were kind to you as well, and the amount of money they gave you for watching their one daughter, who was pretty self-sufficient other than needing to have a bedtime story or two read to her each night, was fucking ridiculous. Not like you were rolling in dough, but they surely overpaid you. Not like that was a problem for either parties, though.

Overtime, you talked more to Art when Tashi was starting to have more meetings, interviews, and other miscellaneous tasks that required her attention as they expanded connections to the foundation. At first, it was a bit awkward, given that when babysitting, usually the dad was a bit more absent, or quiet, but he warmed up to you after a few nights. He'd ask you about how Lily was, even ask you about school, or what you wanted to do after graduation, pay you, and that was really it. It was simple, really, until it wasn't.

And here you were, months later, standing at the small kitchen island in your apartment, which was, frankly, a bit inhumane in size for an inhabitant, but it's New York City, and it's what you could afford, even on the Donaldson's payroll. You had a small salad bowl in front of you, sliding the grape tomatoes off the cutting board in your hand into the mixture, as no other than Art Donaldson stood next to you, the tongs in his hand as you handed him the bowl.

Playing house with a married 35-year-old man wasn't on your list of things to do this year, but it's not like you were complaining.

From an outside perspective, it felt wrong, but to you, it felt just right. It was cliche, and well, bad, being apart of an affair for a multi-millionaire last name, and a man that was married, with a whole family, but you tried not to think about it.

Did you love him? You had never been in love, so you didn't really know, but probably not, at least not yet. Did he love you? You didn't think so, but he definitely favored you more than his own wife, and you weren't even thinking that because of the situation, you genuinely knew he preferred you.

"You want me to put a show on?" Art asked softly, glancing down at you as you walked over to the kitchen, rinsing off the cutting board. His eyes averted to your ass, glancing at the sweat shorts that hugged your figure, before looking up to meet your eyes when you turned around.

You knew he checked you out, it's not like that came to a surprise. Art was sweet, really, but it's not like he wasn't a sexual man because he was older. If anything, that made his sex drive higher. You shrugged, sliding past him to open the fridge and grab the salad dressing. "Eh, I'm good with whatever."

You can hear him set the bowl down, and his free hand travel to the side of your waist, over the thick cotton of your sweatshirt, as you grin to yourself, shaking your head while you set the dressing on the counter. "Shouldn't we eat first?"

"Just missed you today." Art muttered, lightly turning you around to face him before giving your forehead a light peck. "Haven't seen you all week, pretty."

Your cheeks redden, and the familiar pit in your stomach follows directly after. Fuck. Art was older than you, yes, but an emotional man at the fact of it, but he was so fucking needy. He'd come see you, not even two or three days between, and act like it had been two months without contact. He'd lay his head on your chest, play with your fingers, tell you how much he missed you, all because you hadn't seen him in not even a week. From the outside, that probably looked pathetic, a married man, who had a wife and child at home, coming to a college-aged girl's apartment, not even the size of his bedroom, cuddling her like he was a teenager. It was fucking toxic, actually, but again, you tried not to think about that part of it.

"Well, why don't we eat, and then you can show me that you missed me later, hm? That okay?" You step back slightly to look up to him, reaching forward to cup his rose-tinted, pale cheeks. You lean up to kiss him, pulling away to slide out of his embrace, your eyes following the meal you had just made together.

Art was pouting, basically, as he frowned at the corner of his mouth, walking towards the other side of you and gently taking the tongs out of your hand. "I'd rather show you now. You can't tell me you don't want me to fuck you right here, sweetheart."

"Art." You purse your lips together, shooting him a glare. You could pretend to be annoyed all you want, but he knew you weren't aggravated with him. It's not like you didn't enjoy him fucking the shit out of you on your kitchen counter, or anywhere, matter of fact. He'd fuck you right in your car when he walked you out of his house after babysitting, he didn't give a fuck. He liked you a lot, way more than he should, even in the given scenario of an affair.

"What?" He tilted his head, looking down at you with that stupid cheeky-ass grin he'd always give you when he knew you were fibbing. You wanted him, obviously. Sometimes, he didn't know why you even pretended to act like you didn't want it right then and there.

Art really wasn't even the most dominating guy, but if that's what you wanted, he'd put on a fucking show. He'd bend you over and fuck the shit out of you if that's what you wanted him to do. He'd make it hurt, if that's what you wanted him to do. But again, he liked you, so he'd never actually hurt you.

You glance down between you, the obviously erection in his sweatpants pointing right at you. You look back up to him, that look of pure want on his face so obvious. You glance to your bedroom. You don't have to speak, he already knows, and he listens so fucking easily.

The chemistry between the two of you was a fucking pain sometimes. You'd be so wet when he'd do as much as touch your back, it would piss you off sometimes, and you would think that after fucking him for a few months now, that feeling of freshness would go away, but it didn't.

You'd do more than just fuck, too. If he wasn't such a public figure, he'd take you out on real date, probably try to pursue you in some way if he wasn't married, and just a more normal-status guy, but that wasn't the case. He would make efforts though, buy you flowers sometimes when he'd come over, order the two of you something to eat, whether it was Chinese takeout or a 5-star review restaurant steak, he didn't care. He just wanted to please you, the best he could. All the time.

Right now, his definition of pleasing you was gesturing for you to lay down on your twin-sized bed, and plant his face between your legs, eating your pussy until you were begging him to fuck you with something other than his tongue.

You wiggled yourself out of your shorts and underwear in one, Art assisting you by pulling them off your ankles and onto the wooden floor. He spread your knees apart, kneeling on the hard ground before his hot breath was planting kisses between your thighs, his eyes never leaving yours.

You gulp, averting your attention to his mouth. You watch him get closer, and you can only gasp when he latches onto your clit. You feel him move his hand onto your thighs, wrapping around them from the back and holding your sides, his pale, calloused hands digging into your skin. It didn't hurt though, not at all.

"Oh my god." Leaves your mouth without a single thought. Art knew exactly how to please you. "Art, you're gonna make me cum before you even fuck me."

He looked up to you, lips still pressed against your pussy, his eyes locked with yours for a moment, before he focused his attention to your body again. He didn't care. Guess that was the point.

You shake your head in disbelief, your back naturally arching as he pressed his tongue harder against you. God, you couldn't even imagine what it was going to be like when his cock was inside you, even though you'd slept together plenty of times before.

His tongue kept pace on your clit, as he moved one of his hands off your thigh and closer to your pussy, gently pushing his middle finger through your folds. Fucking hell, as if he couldn't make you more turned on.

"Art." His name rolled off your tongue. "You're gonna make me cum. I wanna finish with you."

He listened to you, and he obliged, despite how much he wanted you to cum now. Art slowly pulled his finger out of you, and his mouth away from you. He leaned up, motioning himself on top of you, before you moved your hands to lightly push him off.

"What's wrong?" He asked, almost immediately, his eyes dropping, almost disappointed. You knew his cock was aching to be inside you.

You lean up, your hands traveling to rest against the sides of his broad shoulders. "Here. Lay down."

Art wasn't going to fight that. He eagerly nodded at your request, your positions switching in seconds as he laid down on your bed. Your hands began to pull at the waistband on his sweats, and his underwear, sliding them off his body in one.

You weren't one for sucking cock, but with Art, you fucking adored it. You liked to watch him fall apart at just your mouth, knowing that he'd crumble once he fucked your pussy. You liked edging him to the point he was whining, begging, pleading to fuck you, or you to fuck him. Just depended on the day.

"You gonna suck my cock, pretty girl?" Art asked you, softly, a half-smile on his pink lips as he moved one of his hands to cup your cheek, his elbow propping his body up slightly. "Gonna let me fuck your mouth?"

"Mhm." You murmur, nodding as you move down to spit on his cock, wetting the tip before you peck a few kisses against his tip, glancing up at him as you laid on your stomach towards the end of your bed, front of your body aligned with his middle. "Gonna let you fuck my throat, Art."

Art's grin followed the rest of his lips, his cheeks dark red as his mouth hung open. He watched you lean down, his cock enveloped by your mouth. You had pretty, plump lips. Pretty and full lashes you'd bat when he fucked your throat. He could watch you suck him off all day. He could just be with you all day.

"You're so beautiful, [Y/N]. My pretty girl." He praised you, his hand still glued to your cheek, bits of spit against his thumb as you bobbed your head, his cock hard and full in your mouth. "Gonna let me fill your mouth up, hm? Or should I fill your pussy instead? What do you want, baby?"

It's not like you could answer the question. You keep sucking him off, looking up to his blue eyes, before you force him down your throat, muffling any sort of gag that your body desperately wanted to let out. You wanted him to know you could take his cock.

"God." He moaned, his eyes never leaving yours. He rubbed your cheek. "Your mouth feel so good, but I really wanna fuck you. Please, baby. I wanna cum in you. That pretty pussy, please."

It didn't take you much convincing to slide his cock out of your mouth and lay down on your bed. It made you feel embarrassed, desperate even, with how eager you were to have him stuff his cock inside you. Not like he judged you for that at all, just internal thoughts you'd have occasionally.

He sat up, his cock hard and straight, as his knees dug into the mattress. He took his shirt off in one pull, tossing it into the pile of your combined clothes before he moved you more towards the middle of the bed. He aimed his cock at your pussy, your legs spread wide for him, before he leaned forward, slowly pushing himself inside you, the both of you moaning at the raw feeling.

Art could be rough if you wanted him to, and you'd do the same for him, but typically, he savored the moment he entered you each and every time. He'd told you several times, that you were no where near in comparison to any woman he'd been with. No competition. You were it. In every way. Part of him wished he had met you earlier, maybe at Stanford or even grade-school. God, he would've worshipped you back then, all the way to now, and the future. You checked off all his boxes, physically, emotionally, sexually, everything. In a different narrative, he would've married you and had a life with you. Fuck tennis. Fuck everything. He'd rather whatever life he could've had with you.

"You feel so good, pretty. You always do." Art leaned down to press a hard kiss against your lips. He pecked your cheek, his lips moving to your ear. "I'm gonna fill that pussy. Gonna make you mine, baby, my sweet girl.. You want that? You like that?"

You nod, your mouth open as you moan, rather loudly as he picked his pace up the more he talked to you. "Y-Yes, baby, fuck yes, fill me up. You're so fucking sexy.. You fuck me so good, Art."

Art groaned at your response, moving his head back to align above yours, his overgrown curls bouncing with his movements, the bed squeaking underneath you. He'd let his hair grow out a bit more lately since you complemented it awhile back.

"Gonna fill this pussy, pretty girl. Gonna give you my cum." He muttered, almost to himself, as he looked between your bodies at what he could see, watching himself fill your hole. It was obvious you were fucking a former pro-athlete. He could fuck you for hours if he wanted to with the amount of stamina he had, regardless of his age. It was fucking hot, how much, and how long, he could fuck you.

You could feel your orgasm increasing the more he penetrated you, the more he pulled his cock nearly out of you and forcing it back inside you, sending jolts through your body. You were already overstimulated enough from just slower sex, him fucking you like a bunny was almost too much for you to take. Not like that was a bad thing though.

"Come on." You talk to him, watching between the two of you, too. "Make me cum, baby. I wanna finish with you, Art. Please, baby. Fuck me so good."

He nods, his body rocking against yours, your legs moving up to wrap around his hips, keeping him closer, and more inside you. You wanted him to fill all of you, not missing a drop of his cum. You wanted him to make you ache when you woke up tomorrow morning.

"Fuck." He groaned, moaning into your mouth as he kissed you, his tongue sliding against yours as he came inside you.

You felt your body jolt, finishing at the same time, as he filled your pussy up. It felt so good to be on the same level, the same energy, as him. So fucking good.

He gave it a few seconds before he pulled out of you, sitting back up, making sure he fucked your right. He rolled to the side before he pulled you closer to him, his hand running through your frizzy hair, kissing the side of your forehead.

You smirked, looking up to him, a small laugh leaving your lips. "What? You can't be shocked, we've had sex so many times I can't even count it at this point."

"I'm not shocked." Art laughed, playing with your hair as he looked up to the ceiling. "It just feels so different with you. You know how much I like you, [Y/N]. Just feels good is all."

"Hm." You watch him look up. You wanted to bring something else up, more emotional topics, but, as much as you knew he did fancy you, you didn't want to fuck up the moment. "Feels good to me, too." Is all you say in return.

Art looks down at you after a moment. "Yeah?" He grins, moving closer to you as he kisses your lips. "Good."

"Yeah." You return his kiss, slightly leaning up as you look to the door. "You wanna eat now? Got your energy out?"

Art shrugs, sitting up. He pecks your bare shoulder. "Maybe not. Maybe can let the rest of it out later."

"God, you're hornier than me." You scoff, pushing him off with a red face, laughing to yourself at the man before you. "Let's eat. I'm starving."

"Whatever you say." He smirks, clearly teasing you, before stepping out of the bed, grabbing his clothes and tossing yours to you.

And that was what was odd about you and Art. It was casual, but not in a hookup sense. Casual in the way that you could sit down and eat with him, make a meal with him, watch shows and movies together, like a normal couple. It drove you insane sometimes. He felt the same way, but how the hell could he tell you that, when he could never actually be with you? He'd have to mask it some type of way, and usually that was through sex. Not like he didn't enjoy it solely for sexual reasons, because, god, he enjoyed fucking you, but he also enjoyed you.

He watched you finish your plate as you sat on the sofa together. You were gorgeous, the perfect picture of the woman he'd want to be with for more than just this. But that was something you'd have to figure out later.

#challengers #art donaldson #art donalson x reader #challengers 2024 #challengers movie #smut writing #x reader #x yn #fanfiction #fanfic #tashi duncan #mike faist #tashi donaldson #patrick zweig #challengers fic #challengers smut #challengers x reader

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eaterofman · 1 year ago

Text

Yandere Coworker Harem x New Hire Reader: A Meeting with the CEO

Follow up to this post

Finally fed up with it all, you decide to leave... but you learn it may not be that easy.

Content Warnings: General creepiness, yanderes, financial manipulation, manipulation, power difference, gaslighting

AN: Holy shit the first part blew up, more so than any post I've ever made on tumblr... ever. Thank y'all, and I hope this lives up to everyone's expectations? Had to ignore a few asks since they were essentially the plot to this part, haha.

As nice as Jake is... it starts to wear on you. The seclusion from your other coworkers, Warren and Jax's constant attention, it all becomes too much. This was the easiest money you've ever made, but it almost felt... condescending in a way. Seriously, you feel like you haven't actually worked in months, just given simple tasks to complete so that Jax could praise you. Otherwise, you felt like you were just eye candy set in a pretty office. No more, you figure. You make up your mind to go back to HR, it's been a long time coming. They either fix it, or you're gone.

With your mind made up, you return to Leon. He'd been so kind before, surely he'd help, right? As you explain your problems to him, he nods and gently smiles. In your distress, you don't notice his hand moving to cover yours, massaging yours comfortingly. You welcome the comforting sensation, overwhelmed to the point of not really considering the implications. You look into his dark eyes as you finish, silently pleading with him for help.

"That really is something. I'm sorry to hear your experience with the company has been so distressing. Tell me, do you have any proof?"

His demeanor seems to shift instantly back to the colder man you remember from your first sight of him. His fingers rubbing gentle circles into your palm shift into a harsher grip.

"Proof? I-I mean, the cameras have probably caught something?"

You'd say there were eyewitnesses, but all of your other coworkers had been avoiding you. You barely even knew their names...

"Unfortunately, our cameras have been malfunctioning lately, I doubt they'd catch anything. Without any actual witnesses, I'm afraid I can't do anything for you."

"How can you say that without even looking? This place is insane- you know what? I'm just quitting. I can't take this anymore."

You try to remove your hand but he keeps it there. His gaze is suddenly ice cold. He lets your hand go after a few moments of tension, fingers lingering before you yank your hand to your chest.

"Ah, you could quit... but I'd really recommend against it. You'd of course have to pay the dues you signed in your contract, as well as any additional fees. I'm not in charge of finances, but my estimate would be somewhere around... 200 thousand or so?"

You gasp, blood running cold. 200 thousand?! You don't remember signing that, but you also don't recall really reading over the contract in your excitement. You try to think of a way out, surely there had to be some sort of loophole-

"Of course, there's always the option of asking the CEO to change your contract, but..."

You'd tuned anything after that out, insisting to meet with the CEO as soon as possible. Which, to your surprise, was almost immediately. Almost like he'd been... waiting for you? Leon himself lead you to the CEO's room, at the very top of the skyscraper your office resided in. As you're let in, you're met with the biggest office you'd ever seen. It composed of the entire top floor of the skyscraper, massive windows encircling the entire ornate office.

You really try to ignore the feeling that you're walking into a trap.

The CEO was patiently waiting for you. Like a king on a throne, he sat in the middle of the room in front of a surprisingly simple desk. You'd heard of the CEO, Kennedy Grey, but you'd never met him in person before. He had an air of sophistication around him, an older gentlemen with salt and pepper hair and a well trimmed beard. His suit was pristine and looked expensive, probably costing more than your entire yearly salary. He smiled, urging the two of you to sit. His eyes glanced over to Leon's, a slight smirk on his face as if the two were in on a joke you weren't.

"So, what brings you two here? I've heard very good things about you from Jax. Things are going well, I presume?"

You fidget, despite his welcoming tone, he felt oddly... menacing. Like you weren't supposed to disagree with him, even if he asked you a question. You begin to explain your issues, but are quickly stopped with a firm look of disapproval when you bring up the idea of leaving the company.

"Now now, we can't have that, can we? With your contract, that wouldn't be a very smart idea, would it?"

Before you can even respond, he simply continues to talk over you.

"No, no it wouldn't. And you've just been such a good worker, we'd just hate to lose you."

"Well, I was actually hoping we could talk about the contract, I just don't think it's fair-" you can barely get your thoughts out as he cuts you off again.

"Unfair? But my dear, you signed it. I'd just hate to get my lawyers involved... they're top of the line, y'know? Besides, you don't actually want to leave, you're just... stressed. What do you need, a paid week off? A bonus for your hard work?"

"No-"

"Well, now that that's done, let's get back to work, shall we? You'll have a bonus on your next pay-"

You've had enough of his condescension and interruptions, it's time for you to interrupt him.

"You know what, I'll take the lawsuit. You people are insane. You can have the money if you want, but I'm out of here."

As you get up, you find you can't. Leon has moved behind you, surprisingly strong arms holding your chair in, preventing you from moving. You look up at him in angered confusion, but he's sharing a look with Kennedy. You once again feel like you're missing an important part of an inside joke again. You try to struggle, but you're stopped as Kennedy interrupts.

"Apartment 101, Evergreen Apartments, right?"

"W-wha-"

"You know, I've been venturing into the rental market recently. Very profitable at the moment. I actually just bought a few buildings in your area, including your little apartment. Such a shame, you know you could do better, right? All you have to do is ask..."

He smiles at you as if this was a normal conversation to him, like he was doing you a favor.

"I guess that makes me your landlord now, if you think about it!" his smile turns colder, eyes crinkling like he's laughing at you, "That being said, I just don't see how you're going to pay for the rent increase without this job. I hate to do it, but it's a necessity, y'know? Cost of living and such."

He waves his hand like it's no big deal, like he isn't playing with your livelihood and threatening you.

"You could move out, of course, but well, word gets around, and I just don't know how the other investors in the area would react to your... history."

You feel dread well up in the pit of your stomach and tears in your eyes. He... has you. What could you even do? Moving out of the city would mean starting over, and that's if you could even find a place and a job to pay for said place, and paying for the lawsuit-

In your panic, you can only whimper, "I just... why? Why me? i don't understand-"

"That's the beauty of it all, you don't have to. All you have to worry about is coming in and doing your job. We'll handle all the rest."

You jump, having almost forgotten Leon was behind you in your panic. You go to open your mouth-

"Wonderful insight, Leon. Now that we're all on the same foot, let's get back to work, shall we?"

You can only numbly nod your head, too overwhelmed to continue fighting.

You're finally allowed to sit up and begin walking towards the door, trying to speed walk out of the huge room that somehow managed to feel claustrophobic. You just wanted out at this point, you needed somewhere to think.

As you step into the elevator, Leon staying behind in the office-thank god-you're interrupted one final time.

"Oh, and I meant what I said. If you ever need any assistance, anything at all, just come to me. All you have to do is ask."

#yandere x reader #yandere harem #yandere boss #yandere coworkers #reader insert #reader #yandere scenarios #yandere imagines

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 month ago

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“That Makes Me Smart”

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/04/its-not-a-lie/#its-a-premature-truth

The Biden administration disappointed, frustrated and enraged in so many ways, including abetting a genocide – but one consistent bright spot over the past four years was the unseen-for-generations frontal assault on corporate power and corporate corruption.

The three words that define this battle above all others are "unfair and deceptive" – words that appear in Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act and other legislation modeled on it, like USC40 Section 41712(a), which gives the Department of Transportation the power to ban "unfair and deceptive" practices as well:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

When Congress created an agency to punish "unfair and deceptive" conduct, they were saying to the American people, "You have a right not to be cheated." While this may sound obvious, it's hardly how the world works.

To get a sense of how many ripoffs are part of our daily lives, let's take a little tour of the ways that the FTC and other agencies have used the "unfair and deceptive" standard to defend you over the past four years. Take Amazon Prime: Amazon executives emailed one another, openly admitting that in their user tests, the public was consistently fooled by Amazon's "get free shipping with Prime" dialog boxes, thinking they were signing up for free shipping and not understanding that they were actually signing up to send the company $140/year. They had tested other versions of the signup workflow that users were able to correctly interpret, but they decided to go with the confusing version because it made them more money:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/05/amazon-execs-may-be-personally-liable-for-tricking-users-into-prime-sign-ups/

Getting you signed up for Prime isn't just a matter of taking $140 out of your pocket once – because while Amazon has produced a greased slide that whisks you into a recurring Prime subscription, the process for canceling that recurring payment is more like a greased pole you must climb to escape the Prime pit. This is typical of many services, where signing up happens in a couple clicks, but canceling is a Kafkaesque nightmare. The FTC decided that this was an "unfair and deceptive" business practice and used its authority to create a "Click to Cancel" rule that says businesses have to make it as easy to cancel a recurring payment as it was to sign up for it:

https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/12/ftc_cancel_subscriptions/

Once businesses have you locked in, they also spy on you, ingesting masses of commercial surveillance data that you "consented" to by buying a car, or clicking to a website, or installing an app, or just physically existing in space. They use this to implement "surveillance pricing," raising prices based on their estimation of your desperation. Uber got caught doing this a decade ago, raising the price of taxi rides for users whose batteries were about to die, but these days, everyone's in on the game. For example, McDonald's has invested in a company that spies on your finances to determine when your payday is, and then raises the price of your usual breakfast sandwich by a dollar the day you get paid:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/05/your-price-named/#privacy-first-again

Everything about this is "unfair and deceptive" – from switching prices the second you click into the store to the sham of consent that consists of, say, picking up your tickets to a show and being ordered to download an app that comes with 20,000 words of terms and conditions that allows the company that sends you a QR code to spy on you for the rest of your life in any way they can and sell the data to anyone who'll buy it.

As bad as it is to be trapped in an abusive relationship as a shopper, it's a million times worse to be trapped as a worker. One in 18 American workers is under a noncompete "agreement" that makes it illegal for you to change jobs and work for someone else in the same industry. The vast majority of these workers are in low-waged food-service jobs. The primary use of the American noncompete is to stop the cashier at Wendy's from getting an extra $0.25/hour by taking a job at McDonald's.

Noncompetes are shrouded in a fog of easily dispelled bossly bullshit: claims that noncompetes raise wages (empirically, this is untrue), or that they enable "IP"-intensive industries to grow by protecting their trade secrets. This claim is such bullshit: you can tell by the fact that noncompetes are banned under California's state constitution and yet the most IP-intensive industries have attracted hundreds of billions – if not trillions – in investment capital even though none of their workforce can be bound under a noncompete. The FTC's order banning noncompetes for every worker in America simply brings the labor regime that created Silicon Valley and Hollywood to the rest of the country:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/26/hit-with-a-brick/#graceful-failure

Noncompetes aren't the only "unfair and deceptive" practice used against American workers. The past decade has seen the rise of private equity consolidation in several low-waged industries, like pet grooming. The new owners of every pet grooming salon within 20 miles of your house haven't just slashed workers' wages, they've also cooked up a scheme that lets them charge workers thousands of dollars if they quit these shitty jobs. This scheme is called a "training repayment agreement provision" (TRAP!): workers who are TRAPped at Petsmart are made to work doing menial jobs like sweeping up the floor for three to four weeks. Petsmart calls this "training," and values it at $5,500. If you quit your pet grooming job in the next two years, you legally owe PetSmart $5,500 to "repay" them for the training:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/04/its-a-trap/#a-little-on-the-nose

Workers are also subjected to "unfair and deceptive" bossware: "AI" tools sold to bosses that claim they can sort good workers from bad, but actually serve as random-number generators that penalize workers in arbitrary, life-destroying ways:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/26/hawtch-hawtch/#you-treasure-what-you-measure

Some of the most "unfair and deceptive" conduct we endure happens in shadowy corners of industry, where obscure middlemen help consolidated industries raise prices and pick your pocket. All the meat you buy in the grocery store comes from a cartel of processing and packing companies that all subscribe to the same "price consulting" services that tells them how to coordinate across-the-board price rises (tell me again how greedflation isn't a thing?):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/04/dont-let-your-meat-loaf/#meaty-beaty-big-and-bouncy

It's not just food, it's all of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Take shelter: the highly consolidated landlord industry uses apps like Realpage to coordinate rental price hikes, turning the housing crisis into a housing emergency:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/24/gouging-the-all-seeing-eye/#i-spy

And of course, health is the most "unfair and deceptive" industry of all. Useless middlemen like "Pharmacy Benefit Managers" ("a spreadsheet with political power" -Matt Stoller) coordinate massive price-hikes in the drugs you need to stay alive, which is why Americans pay substantially more for medicine than anyone else in the world, even as the US government spends more than any other to fund pharma research, using public money:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/23/shield-of-boringness/#some-men-rob-you-with-a-fountain-pen

It's not just drugs: every piece of equipment – think hospital beds and nuclear medicine machines – as well as all the consumables – from bandages to saline – at your local hospital runs through a cartel of "Group Purchasing Organizations" that do for hospital equipment what PBMs do for medicine:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/27/lethal-dysfunction/#luxury-bones

For the past four years, we've lived in an America where a substantial portion of the administrative state went to war every day to stamp out unfair and deceptive practices. It's still happening: yesterday, the CFPB (which Musk has vowed to shut down) proposed a new rule that would ban the entire data brokerage industry, who nonconsensually harvest information about every American, and package it up into categories like "teenagers from red states seeking abortions" and "military service personnel with gambling habits" and "seniors with dementia" and sell this to marketers, stalkers, foreign governments and anyone else with a credit-card:

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-proposes-rule-to-stop-data-brokers-from-selling-sensitive-personal-data-to-scammers-stalkers-and-spies/

And on the same day, the FTC banned the location brokers who spy on your every movement and sell your past and present location, again, to marketers, stalkers, foreign governments and anyone with a credit card:

https://www.404media.co/ftc-bans-location-data-company-that-powers-the-surveillance-ecosystem/

These are tantalizing previews of a better life for every American, one in which the rule is, "play fair." That's not the world that Trump and his allies want to build. Their motto isn't "cheaters never prosper" – it's "caveat emptor," let the buyer beware.

Remember the 2016 debate where Clinton accused Trump of cheating on his taxes and he admitted to it, saying "That makes me smart?" Trumpism is the movement of "that makes me smart" life, where if you get scammed, that's your own damned fault. Sorry, loser, you lost.

Nowhere do you see this more than in cryptocurrencyland, so it's not a coincidence that tens – perhaps hundreds – in dark crypto money was flushed into the election, first to overpower Democratic primaries and kick out Dem legislators who'd used their power to fight the "unfair and deceptive" crowd:

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/california-playbook-pm/2024/02/13/crypto-comes-for-katie-porter-00141261

And then to fight Dems across the board (even the Dems whose primary victories were funded by dark crypto money) and elect the GOP as the party of "caveat emptor"/"that makes me smart":

https://www.coindesk.com/news-analysis/2024/12/02/crypto-cash-fueled-53-members-of-the-next-u-s-congress

Crypto epitomizes the caveat emptor economy. By design, fraudulent crypto transactions can't be reversed. If you get suckered, that's canonically a you problem. And boy oh boy, do crypto users get suckered (including and especially those who buy Trump's shitcoins):

https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/

And for crypto users who get ripped off because they've parked their "money" in an online wallet, there's no sympathy, just "not your keys, not your coins":

https://www.ledger.com/academy/not-your-keys-not-your-coins-why-it-matters

A cornerstone of the "unfair and deceptive" world is that only suckers – that is, outsiders, marks and little people – have to endure consequences when they get rooked. When insiders get ripped off, all principle is jettisoned. So it's not surprising that when crypto insiders got taken for millions the first time they created a DAO, they tore up all the rules of the crypto world and gave themselves the mulligan that none of the rest of us are entitled to in cryptoland:

https://blog.ethereum.org/2016/07/20/hard-fork-completed

Where you find crypto, you find Elon Musk, the guy who epitomizes caveat emptor thinking. This is a guy who has lied to drivers to get them to buy Teslas by promising "full self driving in one year," every year, since 2015:

https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/autonomous-driving/timeline-of-tesla-self-driving-aspirations-a9686689375/

Musk told investors that he had a "prototype" autonomous robot that could replace their workers, then demoed a guy in a robot suit, pretending to be a robot:

https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-unveils-his-funniest-vaporware-yet-1847523016

Then Musk did it again, two years later, demoing a remote-control robot while lying and claiming that it was autonomous:

https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/14/tesla-optimus-bots-were-controlled-by-humans-during-the-we-robot-event

This is entirely typical of the AI sector, in which "AIs" are revealed, over and over, to be low-waged workers pretending to be robots, so much so that Indian tech industry insiders joke that "AI" stands for "Absent Indians":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/29/pay-no-attention/#to-the-little-man-behind-the-curtain

Musk's view is that he's not a liar, merely a teller of premature truths. Autonomous cars and robots are just around the corner (just like the chatbots that can do your job, and not merely convince your boss to fire you while failing to do your job). He's not tricking you, he's just faking it until he makes it. It's not a scam, it's inspirational. Of course, if he's wrong and you are scammed, well, that's a you problem. Caveat emptor. That makes him smart.

Musk does this all the time. Take the Twitter blue tick, originally conceived of as a way to keep Twitter users from being scammed ("unfair and deceptive") by con artists pretending to be famous people. Musk's inaugural act at Twitter was to take away blue ticks from verified users and sell them to anyone who'd pay $8/month. Almost no one coughed up for this – the main exception being scammers, who used their purchased, unverified blue ticks to steal from Twitter users ("that makes me smart").

As Twitter hemorrhaged advertising revenue and Musk became increasingly desperate to materialize an army of $8/month paid subscribers, he pulled another scam: he nonconsensually applied blue ticks to prominent accounts, in a bid to trick normies into thinking that widely read people valued blue ticks so much they were paying for them out of their own pockets:

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-65365366

If you were tricked into buying a blue tick on this pretense, well, caveat emptor. Besides, it's not a lie, it's a premature truth. Someday all those widely read users with nonconsensual blue ticks will surely value them so highly that they do start to pay for them. And if they don't? Well, Musk got your $8: "that makes me smart."

Scammers will always tell you that they're not lying to you, merely telling premature truths. Sam Bankman-Fried's defenders will tell you that he didn't actually steal all those billions. He gambled them on a bet that (sorta-kinda) paid off. Eventually, he was able to make all his victims (sorta-kinda) whole, so it's not even a theft:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/08/business/ftx-bankruptcy-plan-repay-creditors/index.html

Likewise, Tether, a "stablecoin" that was unable to pass an audit for many years as it issued unbacked, unregulated securities while lying and saying that for every dollar they minted, they had a dollar in reserves. Tether now (maybe) has reserves to equal its outstanding coins, so obviously all those years where they made false claims, they weren't lying, merely telling a premature truth:

https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/cryptocriticscorner/episodes/Tether-wins–Skeptics-lose-the-end-of-an-era-e2rhf5e

If Tether had failed a margin call during those years and you'd lost everything, well, caveat emptor. The Tether insiders were always insulated from that risk, and that's all that matters: "that makes me smart."

When I think about the next four years, this is how I frame it: the victory of "that makes me smart" over "fairness and truth."

For years, progressives have pointed out the right's hypocrisy, despite that fact that Americans have been conditioned to be so cynical that even the rankest hypocrisy doesn't register. But "caveat emptor?" That isn't just someone else's bad belief or low ethics: it's the way that your life is materially, significantly worsened. The Biden administration – divided between corporate Dems and the Warren/Sanders wing that went to war on "unfair and deceptive" – was ashamed and nearly silent on its groundbreaking work fighting for fairness and honesty. That was a titanic mistake.

Americans may not care about hypocrisy, but they really care about being stolen from. No one wants to be a sucker.

#tether #ftx #scams #trumpism #caveat emptor #cryptocurrency #twitter #sleaze #premature truths #bossware #pluralistic

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squoxle · 3 months ago

Text

[4] IMU - L. HS

...internet!bf!heeseung x long!distance!gf...

plot: after a long day, you have phone sex with your long-distance boyfriend, Heeseung. | wc: 3.5k | cw: lots of dialogue, pet names, dirty talk, mutual masturbation, smut, slight angst (typical bf x gf stuff)

"Good morning, baby," you picked up your phone to see a text from your boyfriend.

You promptly responded with a simple "Good morning" and a red heart emoji.

You and Heeseung first met about 2 years ago in a discord server. You were both obsessed with a very popular pvp shooting game. Interestingly enough, you played as a male character and he played as a female character.

You thought back to the first time you two turned on your mics and how you were both shocked to hear each other’s voices.

To be fair, you both just assumed that the character you used had the same gender orientation as the person playing. Obviously, you were wrong.

Anyways, it wasn't until last year around October when he first asked you to be his girlfriend. Nothing too corny. He just said that he'd liked you for a long time and he figured if you were an awesome friend, that you'd be an even better girlfriend.

You'd never met in person before, but it's always been your dream...

Distance may have kept you apart physically, but your hearts connected you emotionally.

Most of your days went the same.

Wake up.

Text your boyfriend.

Eat breakfast.

Get ready for school.

Eat a snack.

Go home, and eat again, before winding down around 11 o'clock to text your boyfriend until 2am.

You were a full-time student at a four-year university about an hour from your parent's house. You were there on scholarship money, so finances weren't a big priority for you. You live a short walk from the main campus and shared an apartment with your roommate.

You met her at the beginning of your freshman year when you were staying in a dorm at the time. You both agreed that dorm life sucked and decided to move in together. She usually went out with her girlfriend on Friday and, on special occasions, she'd even spend the night with her. This was the perfect opportunity for you and Heeseung to do a little mutual masturbation.

Your friend is confident in the idea that Heeseung is either catfishing you, he's an AI robot, or completely made up. Even though you've tried to show her proof, confirmation bias made her about as stubborn as a bull.

You plopped down at a desk closest to the door, slinging your backpack off your shoulder before placing it between your legs, it was always easier to leave when you sat here. And it was a lot less awkward than sitting in your seat, watching everyone leave before you all so you wouldn't get squished between the door frame and another student.

What made it even worse was when your professor would decide to ask you a series of questions about your classroom experience. Not that you had a problem answering that question, you knew it was only asked to see where they needed to improve. Still, sitting by the door was your safe space.

As the voice of your instructor faded away, you thought back to the dream you had last night. Yes, it was unrealistic and a little stupid, but that's what a dream was. 90 percent of the time dreams never made sense, but every now and then a few parts stuck with you. And sometimes remnants of them would dangle between your eyes at random points of the day.

Kind of like right now.

The dream was nothing too wild aside from the fact that you were able to physically touch your boyfriend. It was the one thing you've always wanted. But with your busy lives that seemed impossible. You were a full-time student, and he was one too, but going to school and working simultaneously isn't easy for anyone.

You were snatched out of your headspace by a loud sneeze. A lot of kids on campus were enduring seasonal allergies this weeks and you had to make sure you stayed on top of your health.

After the class was over, you texted your boyfriend to pass the time.

“Hey” you texted. One thing that made this relationship a lot easier was the amount of communication. He knew your class schedule and you knew his work AND class schedule.

Luckily the job he was working was very understanding of his living situation. So for the two days a week that he had to be on campus he was given a day off in between. “Hey, wyd” he replied.

“Waiting for my next class.”

“Did you eat lunch yet?”

“No, I’m not really hungry.”

“Okay, well just make sure you don’t forget to eat.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t. Right now I’m probably gonna go get some coffee and study for a bit.”

“Hmm, coffee sounds pretty good right about now.”

“I know right. Too bad you don’t have a coffee shop nearby.”

“Yeah, at my old job coffee was just a 5 minute walk away. Now it’s more like a 30 minute walk…I definitely can’t manage that during my break.”

“I wish I could see you right now,” you knew saying this was pretty random, but you haven’t been able to stop thinking about him all day. And texting him right now just made you miss him more.

“Me too, babe.”

“Like imagine if I could come see you right now while you’re on break.”

“Yeah that would be pretty awesome…”

“What’s wrong?”

“Now I miss you lol.”

“Did you wanna call for a bit?”

“Can’t. I gotta get back to my shift…”

“I thought you were on break.”

“Today’s really busy and I’m covering someone else’s shift.”

“Oh…”

“Sorry…I’ll try to call you tonight though, okay?”

“Okay. See ya.”

“Love you.”

“I love you too.”

You sighed before tucking your phone away in your back pocket. It was times like this that made a long distance relationship feel impossible.

You readjusted your backpack on your shoulder as you walked to the cafe. You were just gonna get your coffee and head to the library. As much as you’d love to be surrounded by the addictive scent of strong black coffee, sweet cream, and vanilla, the cafe was noisy most of the time.

“Hey,” your friend waved. She worked part time at the cafe. According to her, it’s a lot easier working this job than anywhere else. She lived a short 13 minute walk away from campus, so staying local, especially without a car, was her best bet.

Sometimes you wished she could just move in with you and your other roommate.

“Hey,” you smiled as you approached the counter.

“What’ll it be for you today, girlie? Are we feeling cocoa or caramel~” she flailed her hand in a circular motion.

“Hmm…how about you surprise me,” you suggested.

“Last time you told me that I gave you a seven dollar cup of iced water,” she chuckled. “Are you sure you wanna be surprised?”

“Oh, yeah. You’re right,” you smiled thinking back to the day that happened. “I’ll go for caramel, with a little of those toffee bits.”

“Alright, and did you want any chocolate syrup on top of that?”

“No—y’know what? Actually, yeah I’ll take some.”

“I knew you would,” she smiled. “Double shot of espresso and extra whip too?”

“Yes, please,” you smiled.

“I’m on it, and, just because I love you, that’ll be a friendly free ninety-nine.”

“No way, I already know this is gonna come straight out of your check.”

“Psh, I don’t care. You need this right now. Trust me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can see it all over your face. Something has you upset.”

“Well it’s just—nothing…”

“It’s okay you don’t have to tell me. As much as I’d really love to know, I respect you,” she smiled, giving you a gentle nod.

“Thanks,” you sighed.

“No problem, I’ll have your drink out in about 5 to 10 minutes.”

“Okay.”

“Butttt if you do change your mind and you feel like talking about it, you know how to reach me,” she winked.

You plopped down at one of the small, two-seater, round tables while you waited for your drink. You tilted your head to the side, bracing your cheek against your shoulder and the sound of the blender whirring faded into the background.

Yes, you love your boyfriend, but a relationship like this wasn’t easy. Still, nothing scared you more than the thought of losing him. You pulled out your phone to scroll through your old messages together. It had been a while since you did anything together. About 4 months at this point.

He’s just been so busy lately that staying up late to watch a movie over video chat with you would make waking up for work that much harder. Something in you wanted to cry. Not because you weren’t happy with him, but because you weren’t happy with the way your relationship was. Of course he made you happy but the lack of physical touch was really missing from your relationship.

“Here ya go,” the warmth from your friends smile was comforting, for a moment you stared at her, desiring this same closeness with Heeseung.

“Thanks,” you smiled gently. She placed the drink on the table before leaning over to give you a side hug.

“You looked like you needed one of those,” she smiled after pulling away. “Remember you can talk to me, okay?”

You nodded your head as she finished her sentence. “Don’t forget that,” she titled her head to the side as you stood up, pushing your chair in.

“I won’t,” you hummed before walking to the library to study.

By the time you made it home, the sun had already set. You took your time getting home, honestly because you knew it was impossible to keep your mind busy there.

“Heyyyy~” your roommate sang as you walked through the door.

“Hey,” you smiled. You had never been so happy to see her face. Hanging out with her would definitely keep Heeseung off your mind.

You kicked your shoes off at the door, heading straight over to the couch. You say on the arm of the sofa as your roommate scrolled through movies.

“Were you about to watch something?” You asked.

“Umm actually no. I was just about to turn the TV off.”

“Really?”

“Yep. I’m going out with Mia tonight.”

“Oh…”

“Today’s Friday. We go out the same day every week,” she giggled. “I’m sure your imaginary boyfriend will keep you company,” she teased before hopping off the couch and walking down the hall.

She was right…and it wasn’t long before she walked right out the door you came through.

The apartment had never felt so empty, like it did right now. Your mind had been beating the hell out of you recently.

You wanted—more than anything—to be with Heeseung. You would see couples holding hands around your campus and you desired that closeness. That element of physical touch was the only thing missing from your relationship.

Always hoping for one day, but craving today.

You took a quick shower before climbing in your bed. At least you could be sure that you could talk to him tonight.

You were in the middle of a documentary you had to watch for class when you get your phone buzzing from underneath your pillow.

“Hey, baby,” you could hear the smile in his voice. It was moments like this that it felt like he was right next to you.

“Hey,” you smiled back. “How was work?”

“Surprisingly it was very busy, at least I earned some pretty big tips.”

“That’s good. So what are you doing now,” you could hear the wind blowing in the background, but you were unsure if he was just getting off or headed inside.

“I’m walking inside my apartment right now. Anyways, how was your day,” you listened as the keys jingled in his hands as he unlocked the door.

“It was good.”

“Did you get your coffee?”

“Yeah. Reina actually gave it to me for free.”

“Really? Why?”

“She said I looked like I needed it.”

“Well you know what I need right now?”

You rolled over in your bed switching off the TV before plopping your head on the pillow, “What?”

“You,” you smiled hearing him say that. Even though it was just one word, it was exactly what you needed to hear right now.

“I really missed you today,” you said softly.

“I missed you too,” he hummed. “I’m gonna shower real quick before I get in my bed…I smell like sweat,” he chuckled under his breath. “I’m just gonna put you on speaker while I’m in the shower, okay?”

“Okay,” you nodded, readjusting yourself in the bed.

The sound of your covers shuffling echoed in his room as you heard the water start running. "I would ask if you wanted to watch, but I'm gonna be pretty fast today, so that would be a waste," you listened as the shower curtain slid open.

Just like he told you, that was a quick shower. No more than 5 minutes had passed before you heard the water shut off.

"Are you still awake?" he asked, ruffling his hair with the towel.

"Yeah, I'm still here."

"Okay, good because I'm gonna need your help with something."

"What do you mean?"

"I've been thinking about you all day."

"Oh really? What were you thinking about?"

"Coming home and seeing you laying in my bed wearing nothing but one of my shirts and a pair of panties that hugged your ass just right," he chuckled.

"Hmm and what would you do if you came home and saw me dressed like that?"

"D'you really wanna know?"

"Yeah," you hummed.

"If I came home and saw you like that, I'd press your body against the mattress and you'd lay there looking at me with those pretty eyes."

"And then?"

"And then, I'd lean in and whisper into your ear, I miss you," his voice sounded smoother than silk as he whispered into the phone.

"After that, I'd kiss your neck while I reach my hand under your shirt and cup your tit in my hand. I'd feel your legs wrap around my waist as I got harder and harder for you."

Listening to him talk to you like this was turning you on more than you expected. You felt the heat rushing through your body as he continued to describe his fantasy to you.

You reached your hand between your legs as every word he said played like a movie in your head.

"You'd feel my dick pressing hard against your pussy. I'd be so excited that you'd feel me throbbing through your panties. And your wetness would seep through, making me want you even more."

Your fingers circled your clit as the phone laid beside you. Your breath staggered slightly as you felt your juices dripping between your folds.

"Then I'd pull your shirt up, exposing your tits and you'd run your fingers through my hair as I sucked on your tits."

Even though you were trying your best to be quiet, a soft moan escaped your lips.

"Baby?" Heeseung called out as you immediately stopped. Feeling slightly embarrassed, you didn't even want to speak. "Are you touching yourself?"

"I-I...yes...sorry," you didn't want to lie to him, so you told the mortifying truth.

"It's okay, baby. You don't have to apologize. If I was there, I'd make sure you felt good. Even if that meant I had to please you all night. To be honest, I kinda wanna jerk off too," he chuckled. "Thinking about this just makes me really horny."

"Yeah, me too," you smiled. "Wait. Are you in the bed yet?"

"No, not yet. I'm still standing in the bathroom. I wish you could see how hard my dick is right now."

"I mean...you could always show me."

"Well, I don't want to be the only one with my camera on."

"I'll turn mine on too. Just let me go lock my door. I definitely wouldn't want my roommate to walk in on me."

"Is she there?"

"No, she's out right now. I'm doing it just in case she comes back," you climbed out of bed, locking the door before plugging your hanging light in. They were just bright enough for him to see everything, but not too bright.

"Oh, okay. I understand that," Heeseung switched on his camera. You loved seeing him like this. His hair was just wet enough to dangle in his eyes. "Sorry, my hair's a mess," he apologized, as he tried to comb his hair down with his fingers.

"You look cute," you smiled before turning on your camera.

"So do you," he smiled back. "I just can't stop wondering how you'd look with your lips wrapped around my dick," he smirked.

"Speaking of your dick," you hummed. "Isn't that the reason my camera is on in the first place?"

"Oh, I didn't forget," he smiled before tapping his screen.

He was shirtless, only wearing a pair of boxers. His bulge nearly pushed completely through the fabric.

"Oh...wow," you watched as his dick twitched from your reaction.

He gripped it through his pants as he continued the story from earlier. "I really wish you were here right now," he hummed.

"Me too," you bit your lip.

"You'd look so fucking hot between my legs, just sucking me off like a good girl," he cooed as he rubbed himself through his boxers.

The sound of his voice was already enough to turn you on, but getting to watch him touch himself was even sexier.

You reached your hand between your legs again as he kept talking. "Mmm, just the thought of hearing your sweet moans is enough to make me finish right now," he sucked his breath in.

"I would love to feel you stretching me open while you talk to me like this," you hummed. "Just telling me how much you love me and what you want to do to me...ngh," you groaned softly.

"Mmm fuck, baby," he groaned. "You sound so fucking sexy," you watched as he pulled his dick through the opening in his boxers. "I'd love to feel your pussy tightening around my dick as I fuck you."

You finger fucked yourself a little faster now, seeing his dick made you want him more, and watching your face contort from pleasure was enough to make him cum right there. But he wanted to enjoy this moment with you. He wanted you to finish first, and he wanted to make sure you felt just as good as he did.

"Mmm, you sound so wet," you listened as he took in a deep breath before spitting on his dick. "I wish I was there to fuck your sloppy cunt while I fill you with my cum," you moaned as he picked up the speed of his strokes.

"Heeseung...ah," you moaned.

"That's it, baby. Keep fucking yourself for me. I wanna hear those pretty little moans," he winced as he felt himself about to finish, slowing down just enough to stop himself from cumming without you.

At this point, you couldn't manage to say anything but his name. You dropped the phone between your legs, giving him a clear look at the way you played with your pussy. You watched as he sped up from looking at you pleasure yourself.

"Fuck! Fuck!" he swore as he pumped his dick harder and faster. A bit of precum dripped from his tip which made you squirt a bit, knowing just how excited you made him. You moaned a little louder as you came closer to finishing yourself.

"Fuck, I'm gonna fucking cum," you cooed.

"Do it, baby. I wanna see you cum for me," he groaned.

You were moaning beyond control at this point as your chest heaved up and down. You felt your heartbeat pumping in your chest as you circled your clit, feeling every sensation overtake your body as you came hard.

Your breathing slowed down as he let himself finish soon after you. You watched as his release dripped down his fingers. "Mmm, thank you, baby," he hummed.

"For what?"

"For everything. You're just so fucking perfect," he flipped the camera back around to face him. His face was still a bit flushed from finishing not too long ago.

"I'm not perfect," you hummed.

"I think you are. I wish I was there to say that to you in person while I wrap my arms around you and kiss you on the forehead."

"Well, I'll keep imagining it until one day it really happens," you smiled.

"I love you," he titled his head to the side before sliding down onto the pillow.

"I love you too," you smiled before laying down on your pillow too.

The two of you exchanged a few more words before the sound of Heeseung's gentle, rhythmic breathing let you know that he had fallen asleep.

Your phone was lying beside you facing the ceiling so you didn't see his sleeping face until you turned over to pick up your phone. "Good night," you whispered softly as you pulled the phone to your chest.

You couldn't remember when you fell asleep, but the first thing you heard when you finally woke up was the sound of your boyfriend's sweet morning voice as his eyes fluttered open.

"Good morning, baby," he smiled.

𝒦𝒾𝓃𝓀𝓉𝑜𝒷𝑒𝓇 𝑀𝒶𝓈𝓉𝑒𝓇𝓁𝒾𝓈𝓉

❀ Thank you all so much for reading! Make sure to check out other works on my masterlist!

@chlorinecake

@wonbinisbabygurl

@nishiimuranights

@wildflowermooon

@heeseungshim

@ramyeonzprincess

@bangchans-gf5

@wand3rlustm3

@heeseunghee7

@norihoyeon

@gacktsa

511 notes · View notes

airybcby · 15 days ago

Note

hii I wanted to send a request for the more than a married couple event😋 I wanted to request rin and the emojis 🫐 and 🧁

Hi!!

A Rin Itoshi Blueberry Cupcake

જ⁀♡⊹｡° but my luck couldn't get any worse

♡ a/n — for my more than a married couple event

♡ content — rin itoshi x gn! reader, gn! reader, rin still plays soccer, people view rin as 'cold' and 'cruel', one bed trope, kinda forced proximity(?), made it where rin doesn't mean to be cold he just doesn't know how to interact with others, set in high school (third year/senior year), mention of god one or twice, rin is a DIVA (he doesn't wanna sleep on the couch)

♡ synopsis — you could live with rin itoshi as long as the two of you just stayed out of each others space. that was the easy part...until his bed decided to break.

The marriage simulation announcement hit the school like a tidal wave. Some students were giddy with anticipation, while others, like you, wanted to melt into the floor. Living with someone and pretending to be married for an entire month? The idea alone made your stomach churn.

But nothing prepared you for what happened next.

Your name. Rin Itoshi’s name. Side by side on the pairing list.

The moment you saw it, the air seemed to shift. Whispers darted through the room like wildfire, and everyone’s eyes locked on you. You looked over at Rin, who was leaning against the wall, arms crossed. His expression was as unreadable as ever, but his piercing teal eyes glanced briefly in your direction before looking away again.

"Good luck," someone muttered, half-pitying, half-jealous.

With the reputation Rin Itoshi held, you thought you may need more than luck to survive the next month.

The silence in the simulation apartment was deafening when you and Rin first arrived. Like the other couples, you were handed a list of tasks and expectations, ranging from grocery shopping to date nights to budgeting your "shared" finances. Unlike most of the other pairs, however, Rin made no effort to hide his disinterest.

He surveyed the apartment with a sharp gaze before retreating to his room with barely a word. You were left standing in the living room, clutching the folder of instructions and wondering how you’d survive the next month.

It didn’t help that Rin had a reputation. Brooding, blunt, and fiercely competitive—those were the words most people used to describe him. But as the days went on, you realized there was more to him than that.

Rin wasn’t completely unbearable. In fact, he was startlingly efficient when it came to the tasks. Cooking, cleaning, and even budgeting—he handled it all with precision, as if he were strategizing for a soccer match. But the atmosphere between you remained tense, like walking on eggshells.

Until the incident with the bed.

It happened a week into the simulation. You were reading through the task list when Rin walked out of his room, an unusually irritated look on his face.

“There’s a problem,” he said flatly.

“What kind of problem?” you asked warily, putting the list down.

He gestured toward the open door of his room. “The bed frame broke.”

You blinked. “Wait—what?”

“The bed frame,” he repeated, his tone clipped. “It’s broken. Maintenance won’t fix it until next week.”

“Oh.” You hesitated. “I guess you’ll have to… sleep on the couch?”

Rin’s eyes narrowed slightly, a flash of annoyance crossing his face. “The couch is too small.”

“Well, then what—” You stopped mid-sentence as the realization hit you. “No. Absolutely not.”

“It’s just a bed,” he said, crossing his arms. “I don’t care.”

“Yeah, but—” You faltered, heat rushing to your cheeks. Sharing a bed with Rin Itoshi? That sounded like the setup to a bad rom-com, not something you’d willingly agree to. But his expression left little room for argument.

“Fine,” you mumbled, avoiding his gaze. “But stay on your side.”

That night, you lay stiffly on one side of the bed, clutching the blanket like a lifeline. Rin was equally silent beside you, his back turned as if to create as much distance as possible. The bed wasn’t small, but it felt like it, the awareness of his presence making every breath feel amplified.

“This is ridiculous,” you muttered under your breath.

“What is?” Rin’s voice cut through the darkness.

“This. All of this,” you said, gesturing vaguely even though he couldn’t see. “The simulation, the tasks, the… shared bed situation.”

He didn’t respond right away. When he finally spoke, his voice was softer than you expected. “It’s not like I asked for this either.”

“I know,” you sighed. “But it’s just so… awkward.”

Rin shifted slightly, and you felt the mattress dip beneath his weight. “Then stop overthinking it.”

You turned your head to look at him, surprised by his candidness. His profile was outlined faintly by the moonlight streaming through the window, and for a moment, you saw a different side of him—less guarded, more human.

“Easier said than done,” you murmured, rolling onto your back.

Rin didn’t reply, but his presence felt a little less suffocating after that.

Oh and, also, the matienence people never came to fix his bedframe. You were sure this was some sort of malicious prank on you. As if god himself had been watching you like this was a comedy only he found funny.

One morning, about halfway through the week, you woke to the warmth of something solid and steady pressed against you. For a moment, you didn’t move, still caught in that hazy place between sleep and wakefulness. It wasn’t until you shifted slightly that you realized Rin’s arm was draped over your waist, his chest rising and falling against your back.

Your eyes flew open. How had this even happened?

Slowly, you turned your head to glance back at him, your heart racing. Rin was still asleep, his expression unusually peaceful. The usual tension in his features was gone, replaced by something softer, something you couldn’t quite describe.

You thought about moving, but the warmth of his arm, the weight of his presence—it wasn’t… uncomfortable. And judging by how relaxed he seemed, he didn’t seem to mind either.

So you stayed. Just for a little while longer.

When Rin finally stirred, his eyes fluttering open, you braced yourself for the inevitable awkwardness. But to your surprise, he didn’t pull away immediately. His gaze met yours, and for a moment, neither of you said anything. The silence was thick, but not unbearable.

Then, he spoke. “...How did this happen?”

“I don’t know,” you whispered, your voice barely audible.

Rin’s gaze lingered on you for a moment longer before he finally moved, his arm sliding away as he sat up. “It’s… whatever,” he muttered, his tone strangely subdued. “Don’t overthink it.”

You sat up too, your heart still pounding. “I wasn’t—”

“Good.” He got out of bed and walked toward the bathroom, his movements uncharacteristically hesitant. Just before disappearing inside, he paused. “...Sorry, by the way.”

You blinked. “For what?”

“For that,” he said, gesturing vaguely toward the bed. And then he was gone.

You stared after him, your thoughts swirling. Maybe it was nothing. Or maybe it was something.

The following days brought small but surprising changes. Rin, while still stoic, seemed to make more of an effort to engage with you. It wasn’t much—an extra question here, a quiet comment there—but it was enough to shift the dynamic between you.

And then there were the moments when the “fake couple” act forced you closer than you were comfortable admitting. Holding hands in public, sitting closer during classes, and—most unnerving of all—the lingering touches that came with the territory.

“It’s for the grade,” Rin said one afternoon, his hand resting lightly on your lower back as you walked into a mock “family dinner” event.

“Sure,” you replied, trying to ignore the way your heart sped up at his touch.

The bed situation, meanwhile, remained an unspoken tension between you. Every night, you’d lie on opposite sides, trying your best to ignore the proximity. But as the days went on, the awkwardness began to fade.

One night, after an exhausting day of tasks, you both collapsed onto the bed without much ceremony. You didn’t even realize how close you’d ended up until you felt Rin’s arm brush against yours.

“Sorry,” you mumbled, moving to create space.

“Don’t,” he said quietly. “It’s fine.”

You glanced at him, surprised. His eyes were closed, his breathing steady, but there was something oddly comforting about his presence. Against your better judgment, you allowed yourself to relax.

By the final week of the simulation, the line between “fake” and “real” had become increasingly blurred. Rin wasn’t just tolerable—he was… comforting. Reliable. And, though you hated to admit it, you found yourself looking forward to his company.

The realization hit you like a freight train one evening as you sat together on the couch, going over the final budget task. He looked up from the spreadsheet, his teal eyes meeting yours, and you felt your heart skip a beat.

“You’re staring,” he said bluntly.

You blinked, heat rushing to your face. “No, I’m not.”

He raised an eyebrow, clearly unconvinced, but didn’t press the issue. Instead, he returned to the spreadsheet, leaving you to grapple with your own feelings.

The final task—a formal dinner—was both a relief and a heartbreak. As you stood side by side, dressed to the nines and presenting your “marriage” portfolio to the grading panel, you couldn’t help but feel a pang of sadness. The simulation was almost over.

When it ended, the apartment felt strangely empty. You packed your things in silence, the weight of unspoken words hanging between you.

“Hey,” Rin said suddenly, breaking the quiet.

You turned to face him, your heart pounding. “Yeah?”

He hesitated, his usual confidence faltering. “I don’t want this to be over.”

You stared at him, unsure if you’d heard him correctly. “What?”

“This,” he said, his voice firmer now. “I don’t want it to go back to the way it was.”

A lump formed in your throat as his words sank in. “Rin…”

Before you could say anything else, he stepped closer, his teal eyes locking onto yours. “You don’t have to say anything now. Just… think about it.”

As if you needed time to think about being with the Rin Itoshi.

ugh i love rin so much

i hope you liked it!

likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated!