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boldlyvoid · 4 years ago

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touch me

spencer reid x reader

Summary: Spencer is incredibly touch-starved and hard on himself since coming home from prison. Luckily, the medical examiner in this small town is really good at reading people, and exactly what he needs.

warnings: mentions of cases, insecurity issues, female reader, smut, blowjobs, riding, praise, emotional hurt/comfort. emotional sex, strangers to lovers, hook-ups,

word count: 5.8k

They had been in New Mexico for almost a week, solving a series of murders that seemed to have no end in sight. There was nothing they could do but go back to their hotels to sleep, hoping there’d be a connection in the morning.

Spencer and JJ were sharing a room as the small town hotel didn’t have accommodations for everyone that was visiting to help with the case. They didn’t mind, it was like a long sleep-over.

They did their own thing, kept their space and Spencer really did enjoy overhearing her on FaceTime with her kids. It was refreshing happiness in the middle of the madness murder sadness and despair they were swallowed by.

When his phone rang at 6 am, just shortly after he returned to his room for a quick rest, he sighed deeply, “Dr. Reid.”

“I’m so sorry to do this to you, but another body dropped and I need you to go to the ME,” Prentiss explained softly down the line. “It’s weirder than the other’s and you’re the only person who would be able to work it out with the examiner.”

“I’m on it,” he replied with a tightlipped smile. He hung up and looked over at JJ, already peacefully asleep on her bed. He closed the door softly on his way out, not wanting to disturb her any further.

At the other end of the hallway, Spencer stood and waited for the elevator. It seemed to be taking forever, everything he was doing lately dragged on and on with no end in sight. He was exhausted, still struggling with his PTSS, just all around not having the best time.

He was in the middle of rubbing the sleep out of his eyes when the elevator opened with an equally tired woman waiting inside. “Hi,” she said before covering her mouth to yawn, “sorry.”

“I get it,” he smiled as he stepped inside. “Lobby?”

“Yes please,” she smiled. “Are you here for the case too?”

“Uh, yes,” he answered softly, “I’m Dr. Spencer Reid, with the FBI.”

“Oh, hi! I’m Dr. Y/N Y/L/N, the medical examiner,” her face lit right up. “Agent Prentiss said you’d be joining me I just didn’t think this quickly.”

She was adorable, bubbly and happy in a way he envied. He missed the feeling of random giddiness, smiling at her as he felt the butterflies swirl in his stomach. “Do you need a ride? I have an SUV from the bureau.”

“Yeah,” her smiled got bigger. “That would be really nice.”

They walked closely together through the lobby and towards the parking structure, he hit the unlock button a few times while trying to figure out which SUV his keys matched to. Finally getting in and watching her climb in the passenger seat.

“Do you know anything yet about the body?” Spencer asked as he turned on the ignition.

“Yeah hold on,” she pulled her iPad out of her bag and started sliding through emails.

“Your tech girl sent me the initial police reports, witness statements and overview,” she began to explain. “Like the others, she’s a 25-year-old female, blond, blue-eyed, athletic.”

“Prentiss said it was a weird one?” Spencer added.

“They think she was embalmed before the unsub staged her,” Y/N added with a tone of disgust on her voice. “Do you have your tech girl’s number?”

“Yeah, hold on,” Spencer dug his phone from his pocket and dialled the number.

“Penelope Garcia, the 8th wonder of the world at your service,” she answered after just one ring. “How are you doing on this fine morning, my fine furry friend?”

“Not so hot,” Spencer replied. “I’m with the ME right now on the way to the body, she has a question for you.”

“Oh hello, ask away.”

Y/N was smiling on the front seat, enjoying the show they put on for her. “Um, hi I was wondering if you could look into anyone in this town buying embalming equipment, or if any has been stolen from the funeral home? This town is so under-resourced already, I don’t know where this guy could get this stuff.”

“Absolutely, I’ll add that to my parameters,” Garcia’s voice was lovely and soft. “I’ll call you back if I find anything!”

“She’s lovely,” Y/N exclaimed as Spencer place his phone back in his pocket.

“Yeah, she is.”

Spencer pulled into the morgue’s parking lot, the lights were all on and the Coroners van was parked by the loading doors. Inside there was just 1 officer, waiting beside a body bag as Spencer and Y/N walked in.

The officer gave them both a quick rundown of the crime scene findings, as well as information about where all the equipment was before leaving them to their work.

“Have you ever examined a body?” Y/N asked Spencer.

He nodded, “I’ve been present during a few, held some organs, but I’ve never done one myself.”

“They’re pretty gnarly,” She scrunched her face and giggled. “Let’s get you all geared up.”

She handed him a hairnet, a white plastic suit, goggles and a mask. “Gloves are on the wall, pick your size.”

He felt like a lunch lady standing beside her, taller than her by almost a foot, dressed in all white with a hairnet. He could tell she was smiling at him under her mask, her eyes gleamed up at him in a way that made his heart melt.

He had to remind himself multiple times that this was nowhere close to the time appropriate to want to flirt with someone. They were about to examine a dead body, and potentially solve a case. There would be time to flirt later.

But he was just so amazed by how she worked, being able to tell everything that was going on by just looking at the body. Making notes on her own and only occasionally explaining things to Spencer. In her own little world, solving the puzzle with expertise.

“The other 4 vics were just strangled and staged, dressed up and left in different areas around town,” she ran the case down more for herself, needing to hear the words to make a connection.

“Yes,” Spencer followed her train of thought, tilting his head as he listened.

“She was murdered, embalmed, staged and sexually assaulted. His MO is completely different and it’s only been 2 days since the last body dropped. I think he’s found his signature,” She explained her thoughts. “His sexual aspect comes out only when they’re dead and cold, we’re dealing with a necrophile.”

“While most serial killers start with small animals before moving on to humans, he started with women and then eventually grew to what he really wanted. That’s what we were missing,” Spencer’s eyes lit up.

“He’s a lot younger than you hypothesized in the original profile,” She added.

“You read it?”

She nodded, “yeah I like to know what you’re looking at to see if I have answers.”

“This is really going to help us,” Spencer smiled, his eyes mimicking hers now.

“I can finish up here if you want to go back to your team? I can get a cab,” She offered. “Go catch this guy.”

“Okay,” Spencer said, backing up from the table and taking his equipment off. Placing them in the hazmat garbage. “Are you sure?”

“Yes Dr. Reid, I’ll be fine,” She laughed. “Can I call you if anything comes up?”

He smiled again, “call me even if something doesn’t.” He dug a contact card out of his pocket and placed it on top of her purse. Waving as he walked out of the room.

—

He thought about her smile for the rest of the afternoon, leaving his findings with Prentiss before heading back to his room to sleep for a few hours.

He finally found his way back into the police department 5 hours later, coffee in hand as he tried to absorb all the new information. They had a lead, stolen embalming equipment from a funeral home a few towns over was reported 4 days ago.

He stayed back during the apprehension of the suspect. Simmons, Lewis and Rossi were closer and they didn’t think the unsub would be dangerous. No one was missing and he wasn’t expecting them, should be easy to get him to come in for some questions.

Much like the rest of this case, it didn’t go to plan. They found another woman in his home, having to shoot him in the process. Ending the spree, ridding the world of a necrophile. It just didn’t feel like justice was served when another person had to die.

Spencer sat on his bed, calming down slightly from the end of the case. Saving a woman, killing a murderer, it was all a lot to process in such a short time.

JJ was in her bed on the other side of the room, scrolling through Facebook as she looked at photos of her kids. It was a much easier way for her to calm down, remembering that she could go home to pure, unadulterated happiness at the end of a case.

They heard a small knock on the door, Spencer volunteered to answer, opening it only a small amount as he looked out.

“Oh, hi,” surprised to see Y/N behind the door.

“Would you like to come and drink with me?” She asked, holding up a bottle in her hand. “In my room,” she added.

“Yeah, yes um, hold on,” he closed the door on her softly.

“Who’s that?” JJ smirked at him.

“My friend,” he replied quickly, running to the bathroom to look at his hair and fix his shirt. “I’ll be back later.”

He grabbed his wallet, making sure he had a condom first, before opening the door only a small amount to slip out into the hall. Hiding Y/N from JJ as she tried to look out the door.

“Sorry, my co-worker and I are sharing,” he explained.

“It’s okay,” she smiled, heading towards the stairs. “I’m just a floor up, and the elevator takes a million years.”

Spencer held the door for her, watching her head up the stairs as he noticed the bottle in one of her hands and her shoes in the other. She walked up the steps in her socks, exhausted from the day.

“Did you get any sleep?” She asked him softly as she kept climbing the steps.

“A few hours, did you?”

“Yeah,” she laughed, “I woke up just before they called about the body this morning.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to just go to bed? You’ve been working for 12 hours,” Spencer worried for her.

She reached the door for floor 3, pulling it open with the hand she held her shoes in, “Sleep is the for weak.”

He laughed lightly, “do you want me to hold anything?”

“Here,” she handed him the bottle, “thanks.”

She dug the keycard from her pocket as he followed her towards the right door. Excitement bubbled in his chest as she opened the door and welcomed him inside.

It was exactly like his room downstairs, only there was just 1 queen bed and a few couches by the window. She set her things down on the bed, sighing deeply as she sat on the edge.

“Do you have any cups or mugs?” Spencer asked, reminding her that he was holding the alcohol still.

“Yeah, on the bar table over there,” she pointed. “I’m just going to change in the bathroom quickly, you can pour yourself a drink.”

“Okay,” he smiled awkwardly as he crossed the room.

She dug through her suitcase quickly. Spencer saw from the corner of his eye as she took out some shorts and a shirt, not even slightly worried about being so casual in front of a complete stranger.

He inspected the bottle, it was just a cheap scotch, nothing too special. He poured about an inch of the golden liquid into two cups, not a big fan of drinking but tonight he felt a little risky.

She came back looking more refreshed, very cozy, and still breathtakingly beautiful. He hadn’t felt this way about someone in a long time, the tightening in his chest as he wondered where the night was going to go.

Not to mention the longing he felt.

Even before prison, he wasn’t one to spend a lot of nights alone with a beautiful stranger. The added isolation in his life changed him on a fundamental level, he realized just how much he craved contact, and just how much he’s deprived himself over the years from both men and women. He just wanted to be loved properly.

He silently handed her one of the cups, smiling at each other softly as they tapped cups. Taking the whole drink, “oh, yep that was exactly what I needed.” Y/N’s eyes watered as her face scrunched up, coughing a bit.

Spencer felt the same, only being able to hide it a bit better. The burn was nice on his throat, it made him feel alive. “Did you want to order some food or anything or?”

She laughed, “that would be the smart and responsible thing to do.”

“Are you okay?” He asked softly.

She looked up at him, her shoulders dropping as she released the tension in her body. Looking into his eyes with care, it was so different from the way his co-workers looked at him. She didn’t think he was broken, she had to reason to believe he was even damaged.

“Yeah,” she smiled, placing her hand on his chest as she stepped in closer to him. “Do you like mushrooms on pizza?” She giggled, even this close to him with every opportunity to kiss him, she chose to just make him smile. Something that didn’t happen too often lately.

“I do, it’s my favourite topping actually.”

She took his tie in her hands and dragged him to the couch, “I enjoy topping sometimes too.”

She sat down on the couch and looked up at him, waiting for him to sit beside her. Patting the cushion beside herself while he swallowed sharply, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat, making her smirk.

“I won’t bite Spencer,” she laughed finally. “I’m sorry if that was too much?”

“No,” he said, sitting down beside her quickly. “No, it’s fine honestly, I’m just not used to it.”

“Too busy with the FBI to find anyone to hit on you?”

He shook his head softly, pushing his hair out of his face. “I uh, I was framed for murder and in prison for 3 months. I haven’t really had a conversation with anyone I don’t work with in a while.”

“Oh,” she didn’t look surprised or scared. “That makes sense.”

“What does?”

“You’re soft,” she leaned in to press her hand against his chest once more, eye level with him now. Seeing his eyes dart from her lips to her eyes every few seconds as he licked his lips. “You don’t look like you want to hurt anyone, but something about your aura is changing. You know how to protect yourself now, and you’re stuck thinking you’re still in danger.”

“How can you tell all that just from looking at me?” He asked softly.

“If I showed up at any other man’s door with a bottle of alcohol and the offer of a night alone, I would have been pushed against that door the second we got here,” she explained. “You respect me, almost a little too much.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” His face was soft and curious and proving her point.

“You see me as a person, but I can tell you’re touch starved. Every time I get close to you, it’s like you don’t want me to move away,” her voice was barely a whisper as she leaned in even closer to him.

She could feel his breath on her face, her nose was close enough to brush against his as she stared at his lips, “but you won’t make the first move. You want to protect me from you.”

He nodded his head lightly before rubbing the tip of his nose against hers and making her smile. He let out a sigh, relaxing his shoulders as she straddled his lap, leaning him back against the couch. He bit the bullet and let his hands rest on her hips, looking at her softly in the hopes it was okay.

“Tell me?” She begged, holding his tie in her hands, running it through her fingers as she waited. “What do you want? What you miss? Let me be that for you,” she begged.

“Anything,” he finally tells her. “Just touch me.”

She loosened his tie, freeing his neck finally. She slowly undoes every single button on his shirt, untucking the hem from his pants as she opens it up.

Her fingers are warm on his skin, but he still gasps at the touch. Her fingers were so soft, like angel kisses as the pads of her fingers traced the skin. Gliding over every freckle, raking through his chest hair, bumping along the barely-there abs.

His thumbs rubbed against her bare thighs, where he held her lightly. “You can touch me too,” she whispered.

His hands travelled up to her waist, he gently pulled her in closer. No longer resting on his legs, but pressed close to his chest. Her hands landed on his shoulders, looking down at him with nothing but pure lust as her breathing hitched.

She cupped his face, gliding her thumbs along his cheeks softly as she stared at his lips. He opened his mouth to breathe, his bottom lip was plump and beautiful and she couldn’t help herself from rubbing her thumb over it.

He kissed her thumbprint before taking it in his mouth, sucking on it softly making her hips buck into his lightly. The suction on her thumb was more erotic than she expected, the feel of his hot mouth, his wet tongue swirling around it before he let her go with a pop.

She accidentally let out a moan that excited him, “like that?”

She immediately felt her heartbeat in her clit, she nodded feverishly. Suddenly at a loss for words, wondering where this Spencer suddenly came from.

“How far are we taking this?” He asked softly. “We can stop and order that pizza at any time?”

There he was, the soft and sweet man that she brought here in the first place. “Pizza is even better after sex,” she couldn’t stop the giggle from erupting from her, even as she bit her lip.

He smiled at her like she was the world. A complete stranger making him feel more than anyone had in the last year. “I’m going to need longer than it takes to deliver a pizza,” he admitted.

“Luckily they’re open late,” she compromised, leaning in and finally kissing him.

It was soft at first, then he pulled her in even closer. She was chest to chest with him as he breathed her in deeply. She melted into his grasp as if he had just stolen her soul right out of her body.

She was his now.

She kept his face in her hands, holding him as he broke the kiss to explore her jaw. Kissing every inch of her neck and chest as she gripped his hair, making him moan as she used her nails to comb through the long locks.

“Does that feel nice?” She cooed, running her nails along his scalp as he tilted his head back.

“My favourite thing,” he explained as he closed his eyes, letting her repeat the same motion again and again.

He looked so peaceful, running his hands over her back and sides softly as she massaged him. She leaned in and kissed his cheeks, the tip of his nose, both eyelids and his forehead.

He wanted her to touch him everywhere, her delicate touch made him feel worthy for once. Every self-hatred of his washed from his body as she explored him with care, care only one would receive if they were a most prized possession.

He felt loved.

It was overwhelming, he didn’t realize a tear had slipped down his cheek until she was wiping it from his skin. Shushing him softly before kissing him quickly on the lips.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized, embarrassed.

“It’s okay, what’s on your mind beautiful?” She asked softly as she brushed through his hair once more.

“I just,” he looked in her eyes ever so innocently. “I’m not used to feeling cared for, no one pays attention to me this way.”

“That’s shameful,” she looked utterly perplexed. “Look at you? You’re gorgeous, you’re smart, you’re powerful. You’re kind and lovely and soft?”

“But I’m also weird and too much to handle,” he interjected.

“Not to me,” she corrected him. “this morning you could have said nothing in the elevator, you could have driven by yourself and awkwardly waited till I was finished my work. But you didn’t, you had a conversation with me, you helped me many times, you cared about me making it back here safely and you didn’t even know me. You’re a special kind of person Doctor Reid, and anyone who doesn’t see it is an idiot.”

He pressed his lips together in an awkward smile and furrowed his brow, “do you ever give out parts of yourself to everyone because you know how hard it is to feel appreciated?”

“All the time,” she laughed softly. “But not now.”

“Me either,” he whispered. “Thank you.”

“I’ll make you a deal, you tell me the worst thing you’ve ever done and I’ll tell you mine,” she offered. “Even the playing field.”

“How so?”

“Right now you think I’m super nice and kind right? And I just told you how I feel about you, but you hate yourself and outside of here I hate myself too. Share a secret, we can be fucked up together,” she smiled.

“In order to keep myself safe in prison, I poisoned a batch of heroin and almost killed a lot of people,” he responded without thinking.

“Okay,” she was a little shocked that he gave in so fast. “One time I stabbed a guy who tried to touch me after I pushed him off me twice already. He didn’t die, it barely even went in.”

“Both are technically self-defence,” he shrugged.

“See?” She smiled. “You’re not as bad and scary as you think you are. You’re smart and cunning.”

“Are you sure you’re not a therapist?” He teased her, “because this has been better for me than any therapy appointment I’ve ever gone to.”

She laughed again, kissing him softly. “I think it would be against the rules for your therapist to do this, I guess that’s why some men cheat.”

“How so?” He just liked listening to her speak.

“It’s easier to be open with someone you’ll never see again than it is with your therapist or wife because there are no consequences. They can’t judge you or hold anything against you, they do what you paid them for and they leave,” she explained herself.

“I’d like to see you again,” his voice barely a whisper. “If you’d like that?”

She nodded softly, “maybe I’ll move back to Virginia, finally.”

“Is that where you’re from?”

“Born and raised. I moved to Albuquerque with my girlfriend 5 years ago, and she left me about 2 years ago now,” Y/N explained. “I liked my job too much to move all the way back there and start over.”

“I can put in a good word for you where ever you want,” he offered before he could stop himself from looking too desperate.

“I’ll look into it,” she smiled.

He kissed the centre of her chest again before pulling her into a hug. Hearing her heart beating in her chest softly as she pressed her cheek to the top of his head and rubbed her hand over his back. Soothing him so completely, he felt beyond amazing.

And then she was gone, pulling back from him and standing up. “Wh-?” Before he could even ask, she was lifting her shirt off.

He stared at her breasts, eyes wide and jaw dropped. She walked over to the bar, taking another shot before she pushed her shorts down and climbed onto the bed. Completely naked in under a minute.

He stood then, pushing the opened shirt off his shoulders and immediately undoing his belt. He took a condom from his wallet before kicking off his shoes, dropping his pants and underwear to the floor and stepping out of them.

She was laying back against the pillows when he crawled over her, resting his naked body against hers ever so slightly. She just smirked as she looked up at him, “hi.”

“Hello,” he whispered.

“What do you want?” She asked.

“You.”

He kissed her softly on the lips, or at least he planned to. Y/N wrapped her arms around his back and pulled him down against her. Swiping her tongue across his bottom lip, begging to make out with him, finally.

Grabbing and tugging at each other as everything started to heat up, she could feel his erection against her leg as he ground down on her. Sucking on his tongue, lightly making him moan into her mouth.

His hair kept tickling her face, every time she’d push it away it would just fall right back against her skin. She pulled him off by his hair, gasping for air as they stared at each other again.

“Can I be on top?” She asked lightly.

He wrapped his arms under her, holding her close as he rolled over. Watching her settle more onto her knees as she sat on his hips. “Better?”

“Much,” she said as she sat up, taking a hairband off her wrist and putting her hair up. Raising her arms in a way that made her tits perk up. He reached up and cupped them, rubbing his thumb lightly across her nipples before giving them a squeeze.

She just laughed as she finished her ponytail, “having fun?”

“Absolutely,” he smiled up at her.

His hands followed the curve of her body, from her boobs to her waist and down over her hips. She was stunning, confident, everything he ever wanted and more.

She found the condom in the sheets, the bright purple packaging making it easy to see. She played with it in her hands, seeing how long it would take before he got desperate, but he never did.

“How long have you had this?” She asked, trying to tease him.

“Not long,” he was honest. “I just got out of prison, remember?”

“So you haven’t had sex since before you went in?” She looked excited.

“No, why?”

She smiled, “so I’m taking your free man’s virginity.”

“I don’t think that’s a thing?”

“It is now,” she giggled before leaning down to kiss him once more.

Trailing kisses down his neck, stopping only to suck a mark near his Adam’s apple. Hearing the sweet little gasps he made every time her tongue came in contact with his skin. She kissed his clavicle, his shoulder and down his chest. Making her way across his abs and over his lower tummy.

He gripped the sheets, not knowing what she had planned or where she was going. Spreading his legs, she kissed his groin, his right hip bone and the inside of his thighs. He couldn’t believe it, the way she explored him so delicately.

She ignored his cock for a while, kissing and sucking at any and all the visible skin she could find. He felt her smile against his thigh then, getting closer and closer before she took his cock in her hand and kissed the base.

He let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding in, settling into the bed like water filling a glass, he was liquid in her hands. Her mouth was a blessing and she chose him to worship.

“Fuck,” he moaned as she took all of him as far as she could. Dragging her tongue along the shaft as she pulled back up. Swirling her tongue around the tip before taking him all the way in once more.

She pulled off with a pop, sitting up now with his dick still in her hands. She tore the condom open with her teeth, taking the package off and rolling it over him.

His dick bounced back against his stomach when she let go of it, hard enough that it had a mind of its own now. She bit her lip as she lifted herself over him more, setting herself down softly where it laid against him.

The head of his cock brushed her clit as she ground down on him, his hands found her hips once more as he instinctively helped her find a rhythm.

He could feel how wet she was, the way she glided over him so easily. Her breath hitching every time her hips bucked, she was enjoying herself. It made him even more excited. She leaned back down then, kissing his neck once more as she continued to push down on him.

“I need you,” Spencer gasped.

She smiled against his skin, lifting her hips enough for him to line up with her before she started to sink down on it. He watched himself disappear inside of her, feeling the way she took him in like he was always meant to be there.

“Fuck,” she gasped as she sat down fully, her hands resting on Spencer’s stomach as she tried to get used to it all. Listing herself up and down little by little to get the rhythm going again.

Spencer pulled her back in again, arching her back so she could bounce easier. She held him close, tucking her face into the crook of his neck as she started to move faster and faster on him. Hearing his breathing pick up as his grip tightened on her asscheeks.

She kept one hand in his hair as her other hand reached for her clit, pleasuring herself slightly the way she knew she liked it. “Jesus Christ,” she whispered against his skin as she fucked him.

It had never felt like this before, it was so personal for the first time. They worked together perfectly, not having to communicate at all, following the other person’s rhythm like a well-oiled machine with a task.

He felt her everywhere. Her hands in his hair, her lips on his neck. The way her hot breath tickled right under his ear as she tried to catch her breath against him. The way she pulled off him and sucked him back in, again and again, her breasts against his chest and her ass in his hands.

He couldn’t believe it. That a real human being cared about and appreciated him, even after learning his worst secret. She was special and different and everything he needed.

He could feel himself getting closer, wanting to savour every moment with her that he could. His hands roamed her back, over her shoulders and arms. He wanted to touch every single inch of her while he had the chance.

“I’m so close,” she whispered in his ear, kissing his cheek and resting her open mouth against his.

They weren’t kissing, they were panting over each other with their foreheads resting together. Euphoria filling the empty spaces between them as she came, gasping and shaking violently over him.

“Fuck,” he groaned, bending his knees and driving into her a few more times before he finished.

She tugged on his hair then, biting his bottom lip as she felt him twitch inside of her. Letting out the smallest gasps and whimpers as she pulled her hand out from between them and pushed herself off him.

Dropping her body against his, resting her head on his chest as they caught their breath.

He wrapped his arms around her, holding her in a hug as he repeatedly kissed the top of her head. “Thank you,” he was still out of breath as he said it.

She smiled, laughing against his skin again as she hugged him back.

—

He woke up to the sun in his eyes and the feeling of lips against his skin. He blinked as gained consciousness, finding Y/N laying against his chest again. Her face in his heck where she was placing lazy kisses, trying to wake him up nicely.

“Good morning?” His voice was groggy and deep, it made her smile against his skin. A feeling he didn’t realize he missed so much during the night.

“What time is your flight back?”

“10:30, why?” He asked softly, rubbing his hand over her back softly.

She held him tighter, breathing him in deeply as she did so. Not wanting to let him go any time soon, “it’s 9:45.”

“Is it bad I’m hoping there’s a secret serial killer in Albuquerque?”

She laughed again, sitting up this time so she could look at him again. “Maybe I’ll come to visit my parents soon a find a reason to stay in Virginia?”

“I’d like that,” he smiled, pulling her into a kiss. Never wanting it to be the last one.

He waited till the last possible moment to finally peel himself out of her grasp, trying to find all his clothes and belongings from the night before

He kissed her quickly at the door before taking off down the steps and back to the room he was supposed to be sharing with JJ. He knocked on their door lightly, hoping to every god on earth she hadn’t left yet.

She opened the door and just stared at him with her mouth open, “oh my god?” She laughed.

“What?” He asked, completely oblivious to how he looked.

JJ dragged him inside, pulling him towards a mirror and pointing at his reflection. “What happened to you?”

His hair was a mess, he had hickeys all over his neck. His shirt was barely buttoned, definitely not untucked and he didn’t even have his shoes on. “oh.”

“Oh?” JJ couldn’t believe it. “Who is she?”

“Um, the ME from this case,” he explained, scratching the back of his head as he squinted.

JJ just laughed then, “hurry up and look somewhat presentable, pretty boy, the team is going to eat you alive for this.”

Sure enough, when he finally sat in his little corner of the plane with his glasses on and a hickey still visible above his collar, all eyes were on him. No one wanted to ask, they all just made it abundantly clear that they were curious.

Alvez even took a photo to send to Penelope, who sent it to Derek, who texted Reid only 20 minutes into the flight asking who she was. He rolled his eyes and put his phone back in his pocket. About to get really pissed when a second text came in.

555-0623: if you’re still serious about that recommendation, there is a spot available at the DC medical examiner’s office… I’d probably be closer to you than your therapist’s office 💋

He smiled then, saving her number and starting his letter.

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watchmegetobsessed · 5 years ago

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Flatmates - Harry Styles

i listened to kiwi while writing it so i strongly advise to listen to is while reading as well. without any further ado, i present you this flatmate!harry fic with some steamy smut!

word count: ~9k

warning: smut

masterlist

You were desperate to find a place to live, to say the least. You’ve always had trouble remembering deadlines and important dates, and thanks to this charming trait of yours, you successfully missed the deadline of the college dormitory applications. After a day of solid panic you started looking for cheap apartments, but living off campus seemed to be something only rich people could afford. Rents were ridiculously high and you were certain you couldn’t afford to spend thousands of dollars for a room smaller than your pantry back at home. You watched ad after ad, making calls all day for a week straight, but at the end, you always went to bed with the thought that you’ll have to live under a bridge through the first semester of your freshman year.

It was until a friend of yours, Rita, who was mature enough to apply to the dormitory in time called you with the best news you could receive.

“This friend of my future roomie is looking for a flat mate. You gave me his number, maybe you could give him a call and see if the room is still available. Just tell him Kimberly gave you his number, I’m sure he’ll offer you the room on a nicer price.”

“Oh my God, you just saved my life!” you gasped, almost feeling like crying. “I owe you big time, Rita!”

You called right away, not wanting to waste any time and maybe have the room already rented by then. A deep, male voice answered the call in a soothing British accent.

“Harry Styles,” he said in a calm tone.

“Hey! My name is Y/N and I got your number from Kimberly. I’m looking for a place to live from September and I was told you have a room to rent?”

Harry sounded a little hesitant at first, asked a few questions about you to have a better picture of you, but eventually offered the room. You quickly agreed that you’d be able to move in at the end of August. You were thankful you had one less worry about school finally.

August rolled around the corner faster than you expected and in no time, half your life was packed up into boxes and suitcases as you and your dad drove two hours on a Saturday to get you all settled in your new home. Up until this point, you hadn’t seen Harry just yet. Though you did search up his name, but he was the kind to never post about himself, but mostly about guitars, landscapes and animals. His Instagram was dry, no trait of what he looked like or even the slightest hint about himself. There was only one photo that featured the outline of a guy, which makes it clear that the person was fully naked, no trace of any clothes hanging on his body, but it was completely dark, so nothing could be really seen. However the tag on the figure made you think it wasn’t him, so it didn’t matter. His Facebook seemed even sadder, barely any posts, not even a decent profile picture. You were surprised to see there are people who don’t really use social media, but you didn’t take it as a bad sign. Harry must be a private person and you had nothing against that.

“Are you sure it’s a good idea to move in with a guy you’ve never met before?” your dad asks as the two of you are unloading the car in front of the apartment complex. Glancing up you shrug your shoulders with a little excitement, knowing that you are only minutes away from finally seeing the person you are gonna spend your next months living with.

“He sounded like a decent person, and I really don’t have any other choice, dad. Or do you want me to sleep in a park or something?”

“God, no. You really should be more careful about those deadlines next time,” he sighs kissing the top of your head before shutting the back of the car once everything is set on the ground.

“Don’t worry, I already bought a calendar so I can keep better track of everything.”

When you first told your parents that you’d be living with Harry, they didn’t seem to be a fan of the idea, but they realized you weren’t really swimming in options at the moment so they eventually come to peace that their daughter is going to be living with a guy. They didn’t make a big deal out of it, knowing well you were an adult now practically who can make choices for herself.

The two of you manage to bring everything up to the third floor and you ring the doorbell since you don’t have your keys yet. You immediately recognize Harry’s British accent as he calls out a “coming!” from the other side of the door and a few seconds later it opens, revealing him.

Your first thought is that he is tall. Very tall and oh my! How handsome! His green eyes find your gaze and his dimples come out as he smiles at you happily. This man is surely a nice sight, you think to yourself, but you quickly bring yourself back to reality as he takes a look at all the stuff surrounding you.

“Y/N, why didn’t you call me that you were here? I could have helped you!” Taking a step outside he stretches his hand out for your dad. “Nice to meet ya, you must be Mr. Y/L/N. I’m Harry.”

“Nice to meet you,” your dad nods at him shaking his head before Harry grabs a box from the floor himself, holding the door open for you.

“Come on in!”

The three of you quickly bring everything inside from the hallway and you finally have a moment to look around. It’s not a big apartment, but seemingly perfect for two people. Walking in you have a small kitchen on the left and a little dining area on the right with a simple table and four chairs around it. Further inside is the living room, it’s nicely furnished very bright thanks to the large windows across the front door. On the left there’s a door that leads to the bathroom and on the right there’s a small hallway, two doors on each side. The two rooms are exactly the same size, so there was no need to have a discussion about who is getting which room. Not that you were gonna go against Harry when he literally saved your life with letting you stay with him.

The place seems tidy and neat, it’s clear that Harry takes good care of his home and that is for sure a relief.

Your room has a double bed, a desk with a chair, a dresser and a built in little closet. Everything is white or a light beige color, nothing extreme and you already have plans about how you want to decorate it to make it cozier.

“I left two shelves free for you out of the three. I have a few hair products, but I figured you’d need more space,” Harry tells you when you put a smaller box into the bathroom that has all your toiletries.

“Thank you, I appreciate it,” you smile at him.

Your dad sticks around a little longer helping you unpack some of the bigger boxes, then you walk him down to his car before he leaves.

“Please call your mother often. You know how much she worries about you,” he asks as he pulls you into a quick hug.

“Will do.”

“And call us anytime you need help. Two hours is not that far away, I can always come and get you.”

“I’ll be alright, dad, but thank you.”

You watch him climb into the car and he rolls down the windows waving in your way as he leaves from the parking lot. You stand there until he disappears on the corner and then go back up to your apartment.

Harry is sitting in the living room when you get back, some quiet music playing from the Bluetooth speaker as he reads a book. He glances up at you and you flash him a smile closing the door behind you.

“Your dad seemed quite okay with you living with a guy.”

“He had time to get used to it. They’re not that strict though.”

“That’s cool. I was thinking, maybe we could order some food when you’re done unpacking and just get to know each other a little more.”

“That sounds great!” you smile, but can’t ignore how fast your heart is beating in your chest. Harry surely has an effect on you that you’ll need to gain control over if you don’t want to make living together hard for yourself.

It takes quite some time to unpack everything and find the right place for your stuff, you don’t even finish by the time the food arrives so you decide to leave the rest for tomorrow.

The Chinese food is all set on the table when you walk out and Harry is getting two plates for the two of you.

“Settled in?” he asks as you take one of the chairs and he sits across you.

“Not fully, but I’m getting there,” you chuckle as he hands you your order. “Thank you.”

You talk over the food, just getting to know each other and you finally get a better picture of Harry. It’s his third year of college, he is studying music and pedagogy, intending to one day use music as a helping tool for kids who have learning difficulties. He is a big fan of collecting vinyls and quite passionate about trashy rom coms.

“Really?” you chuckle when he mentions how his Netflix queue is filled with romantic movies.

“Guilty pleasure,” he nods smirking.

You tell a little about yourself too and he seems genuinely interested, which feels nice. You would have hated if he found your interests boring and negligible, but that’s not the case.

“How come you couldn’t find a roommate for so long?” you ask the question that’s been in the back of your mind for quite a while now. Both of you are done eating and you’re cleaning up the table.

Nothing really stood out about Harry just yet, it’s quite a mystery for you why he couldn’t find someone to live with him.

“Well, you could say I’m a little picky in this field. Lived with my best mate first year, and though I absolutely love him, he was horrible to live with. Felt like his personal maid the whole time. When Niall moved in with his girlfriend and I had to move on my own I promised myself I would choose carefully. Lived with a PhD student last year, he was pretty great, but he moved out when he graduated, and I couldn’t really find someone I liked since then.”

“Glad I passed then,” you chuckle as you take the dishes and start washing them while Harry stands next to you, leaning against the edge of the counter.

“You seemed like a decent person to live with, I hope I won’t be wrong about that,” he chuckles, but you can tell he is still a little scared you might turn out to be a total asshole.

“Don’t worry, I won’t be too much trouble. I’m quiet like a mouse and clean up after myself.”

“That’s all that matters,” he smiles. “Alright, I have some things to finish, I’ll be in my room if you need help with anything.”

“Thank you, Harry.”

He waves in your way before disappearing in his bedroom.

You spend most of your Sunday unpacking what was left and running errands, buying groceries so you don’t have to go to the store every other day during the week. You occasionally meet Harry in the kitchen or the living room, but you both just do your own thing and it’s totally fine by you.

School starts quiet smoothly, Harry was kind enough to give you a rundown of where you’ll find your lecture halls so you don’t really get lost around campus, easily finding your way.

Friday afternoon you and Rita are sitting at a café near campus to discuss the first week of school. You don’t have any classes together, so only grabbed lunch two times all week, but didn’t have more than twenty minutes together before one of you had to run to a class. Now you are both comfortably sat in a booth with two cappuccinos and plenty of time to talk.

“So, how is living with Harry?” she curiously asks.

“He is great! Though we don’t meet that much. He has a band so he has practice three times a week, spends the rest of his time at home reading or watching TV.”

You ate dinner together twice this week, but you haven’t really had the courage to join him in the living room when he was watching TV. It sounds stupid but you figured maybe it would bother him if you were out there with him. And since he didn’t invite you either, you just stayed in your room mostly.

“Kimberly told me he is hot, is that true?” she asks with a smirk as she takes a sip from her hot drink. You immediately feel your cheeks heating up.

“Well, he surely is a good looking guy,” you breathe out.

“Lucky you! There’s not much of those in an all girls dorm,” she pouts and you chuckle. “So are you gonna make a move on him?”

“That’s not gonna happen,” you shake your head laughing.

“Why not?”

“Because we live together and if he rejects me that would be so awkward for the rest of our time living together.”

“But you can’t know for sure if he would reject,” she points out, but she can’t bring up one thing that would change your mind.

“It’s better not to take the odds. I don’t want to end up on the street.”

As the days go by, things start to get busier in your everydays. Assignments and papers start to pile up so you have to start working on them if you don’t want to leave everything to the last moment. You become a regular in the library, the atmosphere is great for you to get into the flow and get a lot of work done.

It seems like Harry is in the same shoe, he is often in and out of the apartment, sometimes only spends home just a couple of minutes before he leaves again. However they slowly get accustomed to each other, learn the ways the other likes things and work up a schedule for things. Harry learns that Y/N likes to take a shower twice a day and washes her hair usually on Wednesdays and Sundays, so he doesn’t try to take too much time in the bathroom on those days. He also notices how she doesn’t have time to wash the dishes after herself on Thursdays when she just runs home to have a quick bite before she has to leave for another lecture, so they came to a silent agreement where Harry cleans up after her on Thursdays while she takes up on the dishes on Saturday when Harry leaves to band practice at eight.

They work well together and soon enough all of Harry’s doubts about Y/N fade into nothing and he realizes he has made the right choice with her.

Usually she stays at the library until seven on Mondays, but this week they are closing early because they are rearranging a whole department, so Y/N leaves a little after five. She pays a quick trip to the grocery store before she heads home. Opening up the door she immediately hears the music playing, one of Harry’s vinyls is twirling around in the record player and she hears the water running in the bathroom. Setting her bags on the counter she starts unpacking the groceries.

The music and the running water pushed the sound of her arriving down, Harry didn't realize that you were home early when he opens the bathroom door, singing to himself wearing absolutely nothing as he wants to go and grab a pair of clean underwear, but he is shocked to see you standing in the kitchen.

“Shit!” he snaps, hands immediately flying to cover himself as he sprints back to the bathroom quickly grabbing a towel to wrap around his waist.

Your cheeks are heating up immediately even though you didn’t see anything you weren’t supposed to, the counter top covered him just right above the critical line, but it’s the first time you’ve seen his upper body completely naked.

Even though it was just a spit second, the sight of his many tattoos and the defined V-line leading down to his crotch burned straight into your mind, leaving you flustered and shy all of a sudden.

“Sorry! I should have let you know I was coming home early!” you call out turning around, as if he was about to walk out naked again. Harry chuckles lightly as he returns, this time a towel wrapped around his waist.

“Don’t be silly, you don’t have to check in when you come home. It was my fault, I shouldn’t just walk around naked assuming you wouldn’t be home.”

You should, you think to yourself gulping as you turn around and dare to look at him again. You don’t see less than just a few seconds ago, his chest is glistening from the dampness, his curls are still wet and you are having a hard time not to stare at the tattoos on his lower stomach, so you busy yourself with the rest of your groceries as he walks into his room and returns in a pair of sweats and a white t-shirt.

“Any plans for the weekend?” he asks disappearing in the bathroom, but he leaves the door open and you hear him shuffle around, probably fixing up his hair. He uses some kind of mousse that keeps his curls perfectly and also happens to smell like mango and some kind of citrus.

“Um, not really.”

“We’re playing at this bar with the band, wanna come and watch us?” Walking out of the bathroom he switches the light off before walking to the couch and opening up his Netflix account on the TV. His invitation surprises you, but it also feels nice he wants you there.

“Oh, sounds fun! Can I bring someone?”

“Of course! I can have a table reserved for you, if you’d like,” he smiles at you before turning his attention to the screen.

“That would be great, thanks.”

You feel like after your little encounter it’s probably not the best day to join him at the TV, especially because you can’t stop yourself from blushing every time you look at him. The sight of his naked torso pops up in your mind every time and there’s no way you can just casually sit on the couch with him without your body lighting up on fire.

Rita is excited when you tell her about the invitation, you don’t even have to convince her to go with you since she is dying to finally meet Harry. When he leaves in the early afternoon on Saturday he assures you that there’s gonna be a table reserved under your name, and off he goes to practice, leaving you alone for the rest of the day since he tells you he won’t be back before the concert tonight. Rita comes over around six and the two of you get ready together.

“You have to wear something spicy,” she wiggles her eyebrows at you while you sit at your desk applying mascara to your lashes.

“I don’t want to overdress, it’s just a bar.”

“Yeah, but Harry invited you. I bet he wants you to see him play.”

“Of course he wants, why else would he invite me?” you ask with furrowed eyebrows.

“You don’t get it,” she chuckles turning to you, hands on her hips. “He wants you to see him play because it feeds his ego. Maybe even turns him on.”

“Stop acting like there is anything between us. We are flatmates and that’s all.”

“I think he wants to be more, you’re just too pussy to make a move yourself,” she shrugs turning back to your closet.

“Stop calling me a pussy for not wanting to make it awkward for the two of us to live together. I’m pretty sure Harry doesn’t see me as anything more than just the person he lives with.”

“Then we have to change that. And I think this is the perfect dress for that.”

Rita pulls out a little black dress you bought about a year ago, but never really got around to wear it. It’s so tight, pushes your tits up way too much for your liking, you’re not even sure why you bought it in the first place.

“I’m not wearing that,” you shake your head.

“Are you afraid he might get a boner from you in it?”

“Rita!” you snap at her, but she just chuckles.

“Look, if you’re so sure he doesn’t want you like that, why does it matter what you wear?”

She has a point. It’s not like this dress will change anything and it would be nice to wear at least once in your life this stupid dress if you bought it.

Grabbing it from her hands you throw it to the bed and start undressing as she claps in victory.

You remembered right, the dress leaves close to nothing to the imagination when it comes to your figure. The fabric hugs your figure tightly, and you put on a lacy bralette that peeks out at the top of the dress, kind of covering some more from your skin, since the dress doesn’t do much in that field itself. Rita tries to convince you not to take a jacket, but you throw your denim jacket on, feeling the need to have something give you the slightest sense of being covered.

You arrive at the bar twenty minutes before the concert starts and it’s a good thing Harry reserved a table for you, because the place is packed. You’re not sure if it’s because of them or it’s just a regular Saturday evening.

The little stage is all set up, but you see no sign of Harry anywhere as the two of you settle at your table with a drink. Luckily, the bartender did not ask for an ID, he was too busy looking at your chest. At least there’s one good thing in this dress.

The drum set at the back has the name of the band on it and you smile reading it. The word ‘Stylish’ is printed on it with bold blue letters, referring to Harry’s last name, who is most likely the front man of the band.

The place is buzzing and the two of you enjoy being out at a bar concert. When the lights go down you finally spot him walking out of the back followed by a guy and two girls.

“Welcome, folks,” he greets the audience, his accent filling up the place over the chatters. A round of cheering answers him, making him smile. “Thank you for coming out tonight, we hope to entertain you in the next hour. Our name is Stylish and now let’s get down to business,” he smirks and just as he takes a step back from the mic, the band starts playing. Harry grabs a guitar himself before stepping back to the mic and then he starts singing.

They play a mixture of covers and original songs, the transition between them is so smooth you sometimes forget it’s a whole different song that’s playing. Harry is clearly enjoying the spotlight, his presence on the stage is so natural and capturing, you often catch yourself forgetting about the rest of the band.

One song follows the other and you don’t even realize how fast this hour passes by. Harry sometimes stops in-between songs, entertaining the audience with small jokes and just casually interacting with them.

“Our last song is up next, so let me take a moment to introduce the band,” Harry speaks into the mic while softly playing the guitar so it’s not completely quiet as he talks. “At the drums, the amazing and talented Sarah Jones!”

A round of applause fills the bar as Sara waves around smiling widely, before Harry moves on to the next member.

“Playing the piano, the wonderful Charlotte Clark!”

Charlotte plays a short melody on the keys matching up with what Harry has been playing, before she also waves at the audience.

“The guy who is a way better guitarist than me, Mitch Rowland.”

Harry’s comment makes the audience laugh and Mitch just nods shyly, a smile pulling on his lips under his mustache.

“And this handsome Brit who sometimes acts like a comedian,” Sarah starts leaning closer to her mic. “Harry Styles.”

It’s no surprise that Harry gets the biggest cheering and he smirks sweetly, his fingers still strumming on the guitar. The clapping and screaming slowly dies down and as Harry steps back to his mic they start the last song.

It’s quite an upbeat, funky song, you just can’t resist dancing around on your chair and seemingly Rita is enjoying herself as well, cheering with her beer in her hand. The song comes to an end and they all line up at the front of the stage bowing down together as the whole bar cheers on them as one person.

“Woah, this was… something else,” Rita breathes out once they disappear at the back and chatter fills up the place once again and the lights come back.

“They smashed it!” you nod in agreement. You figured they are good if they get asked to perform, but this was way beyond what you were expecting.

Looking around you are hoping to see Harry somewhere, but they must be celebrating somewhere at the back. Maybe he won’t even come out, you think to yourself as you finish up your beer.

“I’ll get us another round,” you tell Rita as you make your way to the bar.

There are quite a few people waiting to be served, so you squeeze yourself into the crowd and hope to get to the front soon.

“So how did you like it?”

You jump in surprise when you hear Harry’s voice coming from behind you, and turning around you see how close he is standing to you.

“Hi! I didn’t even see you sneak up on me,” you chuckle making him smile as he squeezes himself next to you. The two of you finally reach the front, but the bartender is serving someone a little on the left so you have to wait. “I loved it, you were like a proper rockstar up there!”

“Thanks,” he chuckles and his dimples show up on his cheeks. The bartender finally gets to you and Harry is quick to order for the both of you. “’S probably better if I place the order since you’re not twenty one just yet.”

“Didn’t have any problem ordering the first time,” you smirk smugly and Harry raises his eyebrows at you before his eyes wander down your body for a second.

“I bet you didn’t in this dress.”

Suddenly, you’re very aware of how daring your outfit looks, so out of reflex, you pull your jacket tighter on yourself, Harry’s smile quickly fades as he realizes that he made you uncomfortable with his comment.

“I meant that you look really pretty. Definitely makes you appear a little older though.”

“My friend wanted me to wear it, I would have been fine with something else,” you admit as the bartender places your order in front of you and Harry pays for the whole thing.

“Glad she convinced you,” he grins down at you and you can feel your cheeks heating up once again.

He helps you carry the drinks to the table and Rita quickly puts her phone away when she sees who you are returning with.

“Harry, this is my friend, Rita. Rita, this is Harry,” you introduce them and Harry shakes her head smiling.

“Nice to meet you,” he nods kindly.

“Oh, same goes for you,” Rita smirks and you roll your eyes at her.

“I’ll go get the rest of the band, do you mind if we join you guys here? There are no empty tables.”

“Sure,” you nod smiling before the crowd swallows Harry.

“For fuck’s sake, you have to make a move on him, Y/N!” Rita turns to you as soon as he is gone.

“Would you stop?” you chuckle.

“No! This dude is so hot I forget my name when I look at him! And you live with him! You can’t miss this chance, Y/N.”

“I’m not missing anything. We live together, it’s not worth it.”

“Not missing anything?” Rita looks at you as if you were mental. “You are literally missing everything!”

“I’m done with this conversation,” you tell him just when Harry appears again, this time with two of his bandmates, Sarah and Mitch are following him smiling, hand in hand.

“Charlotte had to leave early, but this is Sarah and Mitch,” Harry introduces them as they join the two of you at the table. “And this is my flatmate, Y/N and her friend Rita.”

You all shake hands as Harry sorts out the extra beers he has ordered so everyone has a drink on their hand.

It’s no surprise, but Sarah and Mitch prove themselves to be just as cool as they seemed up on the stage. And the best thing is that they don’t shy away from sharing funny stories that include Harry.

“So have you been looking for a new place to stay, Y/N?” Mitch jokes. “I’m sure you’ve had enough of Harry by now.”

“Very funny,” Harry laughs at his bandmate’s comment.

“To be honest it’s pretty fine so far. He is a pleasant person to share your home with,” you say with a soft chuckle.

“What’s one thing you hate about living with him?” Sarah asks and Harry pretends to be hurt over the question.

“Who said there’s anything she hates?”

“Shush, I was asking her!” she hushes at him making you laugh.

“I really can’t point out anything in particular. Maybe he has been very careful, luring me into believing that he is the perfect flatmate so I get stuck with him.”

You stay for a while, just chatting and having a good time until the bar starts to empty out and you decide it’s better if you head home as well.

“We have to take care of the equipment, are you leaving or do you want to wait for me?” Harry asks you.

“We’ll just call an Uber, don’t worry about it,” you smile at him.

“Alright, see you at home.”

You say goodbye to Sarah and Mitch and part your ways with them as you and Rite head outside.

“I hope you noticed how Harry was looking at you,” Rita smirks at you when the two of you are sitting at the back of the Uber.

“What are you talking about?” you sigh leaning your head against the seat.

“I caught him staring at you quite a few times.”

“He was just probably looking at me when I was talking. Don’t try to talk something into it that’s not true.”

“Alright, I’ll stop,” she replies holding up her hands. “But I still think you are missing out on some amazing dick.”

You awkwardly glance at the driver who is hearing everything you say, but Rita seemingly doesn’t mind that you’re not alone.

“You know what? We should give Tinder a try.”

“What? Why?”

“If you don’t want to make a move on your hot flatmate, we need to get some satisfaction from others.”

“I’m fine, thanks.”

“Oh, you are not,” she chuckles. “But you will be when you match with the hottest guys on campus.”

You let Rita believe that she convinced you to sign up for Tinder, but you get out of the car with the intention of never downloading the app, like ever.

Walking into the apartment you grab a clean, oversized t-shirt and a pair of panties since your sleeping shorts are all dirty, but you were planning to do the laundry tomorrow. You decide it’s not a big deal and the shirt will probably cover enough of your body.

You take a quick shower to get off the thick smell of the bar that’s stuck on your skin, taking your time moisturizing yourself once you’re done. When you get dressed you see that the shirt does cover your bum, but if you lifted your arms up it surely shows a big portion of your ass, so you’ll have to be careful if Harry arrives.

You’re lounging on the couch watching a rerun of House M.D. and scrolling through your phone when Harry arrives.

“Hey there, rockstar!” you greet him teasingly and he just chuckles shyly.

“Is it gonna be my new nickname?”

“Well, you really were one tonight, so I think yes,” you nod making him laugh. Walking further inside his eyes stop on your bare legs and he is quick to notice that you’re not wearing any pants, like you usually do. You immediately tug on the end of the shirt to cover more of your skin, but it’s not really working.

“Ehm, I’ll go and take a quick shower,” he informs you before disappearing in his room first and then rushing into the bathroom.

Looking down at your attire you decide it’ll be better if you threw on some sweats. Harry clearly got a little uncomfortable seeing you so bare, so it’s better to cover up. You’ll just take them off when you go to bed.

Harry doesn’t take too long in there, and when he joins you on the couch you are pretty sure he took a cold shower since no steam followed him when he left the bathroom. His eyes flicker to your now covered legs, but he doesn’t say anything, just makes himself comfortable next to you.

“You like it?” he asks nodding at the TV.

“Yeah, he is such an asshole, but it’s funny,” you huff. “Hey, I took a few pictures tonight. Wanna see if you like any of them?”

“Sure,” he nods pushing himself up a little as you unlock your phone and show him the photos you took of him and the band while performing.

Some of them ended up really cool, you were able to catch the lights and their movements just the right way, especially one stands out where he was holding out a note, basically screaming into the mic, he really looks like a rockstar on that one.

“Can you send me this one?”

“Done,” you smile at him and glancing over you see that he opens the Instagram app on his phone. You watch him crop and adjust it a little bit, then tag his bandmates and finally, he posts it.

“Wow, this is the first picture on your page with you actually on it,” you tease him.

“So you’ve been stalking my profile?” he smirks at you.

“I wanted to check you out before I moved in, but your social media was no help in that.”

“Yeah, I’m not a fan of posting that much, but this was a cool picture.”

“It’s an honor to know that I took the first one featuring you.”

“Actually, this is the second one, but it is the first one where my face is visible,” Harry tells you before turning his attention back to the TV, but the gears start to turn wildly in your mind, trying to remember which picture could be the other one.

Later, when you’re lying in your bed with your door closed, you pull up his profile and stat scrolling down. Most of the pictures fall out, because they have absolutely no trace of any human being on them. But then you stop at the one that features a black silhouette of a man, the one you thought wasn’t him.

Opening up you tap on the tag and see that it leads to Mitch’s profile, but now that you’ve met him, you’re pretty sure it’s not him in the picture. So you take a closer look and as you go over the small details, like the line of his neck, how wide his shoulders are and the untamed curls, you soon realize that it is indeed Harry in the photo.

You push down a moan when realization sets in, because that means that you’re staring at the naked silhouette of Harry and it immediately starts a fire between your legs.

“Jesus,” you whisper as you let yourself stare at the photo a little longer. You weren’t expecting it, but it’s surely making you feel some kind of way.

Locking your phone you throw it to your nightstand before you bury your head into your pillow. You have to press your thighs together quite tightly to make the throbbing sensation stop so you can finally fall asleep. Well, it takes some time before that happens and it’s quite torturous.

Unlike how you planned, Rita finally gets you to download Tinder and give it a try. She helps you set up your profile, and though at first it feels incredibly awkward, you slowly adjust to being out there on the virtual market.

You start swiping left and right whenever you are bored during classes or you’re having a break from studying. Your matches start to pile up and soon enough you start getting messages as well. You reply to the ones you like or find funny and creative, giving them a chance, but not many end up going too far. Somehow the conversations always die down and you lose interest in the person.

Only one guy gets as far as asking you out and getting a yes as an answer. Jordan is a physics major and seemed like a nice and funny guy through the messages, good-looking too, so you decided to give it a go.

So Friday evening you dolled yourself up, put on a nice blouse with your favorite skinny jeans and black heels, ready to head out to your first ever Tinder date.

As you walk out of your room you find Harry in the kitchen in his basketball shorts and a simple black t-shirt making himself a cup of tea. The shorts are hanging low on his waist and as he reaches up to get the hones from the cupboard you get a glimpse of the soft skin on his lower waist. You quickly look away before you could have any further thoughts about what else is under the waistband of his shorts.

“Oh, where are you heading all dressed up?” he asks, eyebrows raised.

“I actually have a date,” you admit nervously as you grab your keys and put it away in your purse.

“Lucky guy,” he smiles and you can feel your cheeks heating up again. There’s just something in the way he compliments you, it makes your knees go jelly.

“Thanks. I’ll see you later? I’m not sure when I’ll be back,” you tell him grabbing your jacket from the hanger next to the front door.

“Have fun,” he nods before you walk out.

Jordan proves himself to be quite frankly the same guy you got to know through messages. He takes you to this Mexican themed bar and you are just chatting over some exciting looking cocktails, but you find yourself zoning out sometimes.

What is Harry doing right now? Is he staying at home? I should have asked if he had any plans. Maybe he is hooking up with someone right now.

You find yourself thinking about way more than you probably should and it’s making you lose your shit. So maybe this is why, or because Rita told you to just go with the flow, but when Jordan asks if you want to go up to his place you say yes.

It’s as awkward and bad as you were expecting, unfortunately. There’s a reason why you don’t hook up with every random guy you go out with once. You are totally on different pages, but when you are lying under him on his bed, you just know there’s no way out.

It’s not that he forces you, because you’re sure he would have stopped if you asked, but it would be so awkward to just walk out because you weren’t feeling the vibe. So at least one of you should enjoy it.

You should deserve an Oscar for that orgasm you fake, it’s so believable. Jordan doesn’t seem to notice that you felt absolutely nothing, just frustration and impatience, he tries to make you stay the night, but you save yourself with a lie that you have to wake up early in the morning so it’s best if you head home.

Your frustration just grows on your way home. You were really hoping to get laid tonight, so maybe that could stop you from fantasizing about Harry, because your thoughts have been wild since you found out that he is the one on that Instagram picture. It doesn’t help that he has been walking around shirtless quite a lot.

Shameful or not, you even touched yourself once thinking about him. You were home alone after a particularly boring day so you thought you’d just get yourself off. Before you could realize where your thoughts have wandered, you were moaning his name as you came hard. You couldn’t look into his eyes that day when he came home, he probably thought you were nuts, basically running away from him.

It’s almost midnight when you get back home, you were expecting Harry to be asleep by now since he has band practice in the morning, but you are surprised to see light coming from his room. As you close the front door, kicking your heels off he walks out, of course, without a shirt, his glorious body on full display.

“Hey, how was your date?” he asks as you step to the fridge to get yourself something to drink. You’ve been so damn thirsty since Jordan was… done with you, you could have asked for some water at least, but you just wanted to leave as fast as possible.

“Ugh, don’t even ask,” you whine, leaning against the counter.

“That bad?”

“Worse,” you roll your eyes and Harry chuckles softly.

“Come on, it couldn’t be that bad if you came home so late.”

“Well, it did start off nice, but I shouldn’t have said yes when he asked if I wanted to go to his place.”

“Oh.”

“Worst sex of my life, I wanted out the moment we arrived, to be honest,” you honestly say, feeling a little weird that you’re talking to Harry about it, but you just want to get it off your chest.

“Then why didn’t you just leave?”

“Dunno, I just… I was hoping for just a little satisfaction, but I guess I asked for too much,” you sigh finishing up your water and you walk past him with the intention to grab your pajamas and have a shower that would wash away the happenings of the night, but Harry’s voice stops you.

“Not everything is lost just yet.” Turning around you give him a puzzled look.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He bites into his bottom lip and lets his eyes travel down your body, his intent gaze sends a shiver down your spine. When his eyes return to your gaze your heart is wildly beating against your chest.

“I mean that… I can make you feel good, if you want.”

Your mouth hangs open and your eyebrows shoot up at the blunt offer he just made. At first you’re not even sure you heard him right, but as you replay his words you realize that you indeed heard him crystal clear.

“Are you messing with me right now?” you ask, feeling like it’s all just a joke. He did not just offer to satisfy you because you complained to him about how bad your date was.

Harry takes a few steps closer to you, a small smirk tugging on his lips.

“Not really. You want to get off and I would love to be the one to help you with it.”

“But… we live together,” you say and realize how stupid this just sounded, but you hope he gets what you were trying to say.

“So? Does that mean we can’t fuck?”

The way he said that makes your legs go weak for sure. You’ve been fantasizing about things similar to this, but those were nowhere near to actually hear him propose the idea of fucking.

“But… it’ll be weird, won’t it?”

“Only if we make it.”

He walks closer, closing the distance between the two of you and he cups your cheek in his hand as his eyes flicker down to your lips.

“Harry…” you breathe out, but you already know you gave in. There’s no way you can say him no, not after weeks of dreaming about the exact same thing.

“Just stop thinking,” he tells you before pressing his lips against yours.

He kisses you hard and you gladly let his tongue push into your mouth within a second, kissing him back with the same passion. You wrap your arms around his neck as his hands travel down on your sides until they reach your ass and they give it a bold squeeze, making you moan into his lips. You feel him grin as his hands move over to your thighs and he urges you to jump and so you do, wrapping your legs around his waist.

Though you keep your eyes closed, kissing him hard, you can tell he brings you to the couch, laying you down to your back, holding himself up above you. He starts kissing down your jawline and neck, sucking and biting on the sensitive skin. His hands grab the hem of your shirt and you lift yourself up a bit so he can pull it off, throwing it away to somewhere behind the couch. While his lips are sucking on your breasts wherever they are bulging out from the lacy bra, his hands work fast on your jeans, undoing the button and the zipper, tugging them down until you can just kick them right off.

“Matching set? You were really counting on having a good time tonight,” he mumbles against your tummy as he kisses his way down on your body.

His right hand reaches up and cups your breast before it slides under you and easily unclasps your bra. You quickly slide the straps off and throw it to the side, so now you are lying under him only in your panties, whimpering and panting at every kiss he leaves on your body.

“What do you want, Y/N?” he hums glancing up at you, sitting between your legs as he slides just one finger over your soaking wet panties, running it along your throbbing center.

“Fuck, I want you,” you breathe out.

“How exactly do you want me?”

“Jesus, just eat me out, Harry!” you shamelessly moan and he smugly smirks before he hooks his fingers into your panties and pulls them down, throwing it to the ground.

Now you’re lying completely naked in front of him, and he pushes your knees farther apart, looking down at you with lustful eyes.

“You have no idea how long I’ve been wanting to do this,” he growls as he gets closer and without a warning, he licks into you.

You moan in sensation as he starts sucking on your clit, his tongue working perfectly against your bud. Your hands find their way into his hair and you grab a handful of it in each. Oh, how many times you’ve thought about doing this!

“Harry!” you cry out when you feel him push a finger into you, slowly pumping it in and out a few times before he adds another to it. He quickly picks up his pace as he keeps sucking on your clit, getting you closer to your orgasm with every lick.

“Fuck, I’m so close!” you moan, your chest rising and falling rapidly as you struggle to even breathe.

“Cum for me, baby,” he mumbles against your wet clit and just a few more pumps later you came, screaming his name.

“Fucking hell, Harry!” you breathe out when he climbs up on you smirking.

“You think you can handle another one?” he asks, pecking your lips softly. Looking down you see how hard he is and even if you were on the verge of dying you would have said yes. There’s no way you let him get up from this couch unsatisfied after the orgasm he just gave you.

Instead of saying anything, you push on him until he is sitting on the couch and you have your knees on his sides.

“I think you are a little overdressed, aren’t you?” you ask teasingly as you bring a hand down to his erection, cupping it through his shorts and underwear.

Harry cranes his neck so his lips could meet yours again as he lifts his hips up, pushing his shorts down along with his boxers. You sit back down to his lap and his erection presses against your wet folds making you moan into his mouth.

“Do you want me to suck you off?” you ask breathlessly, but Harry shakes his head.

“I would last, I just want to fuck you,” he growls and you swear to God that was the hottest thing you’ve ever heard.

“Condom, we need a condom,” you tell him, still kissing his lips.

You get off him and he quickly runs into his room, shortly returning with a condom between his teeth. He rips the package on his way and falls back to the couch, rolling it on carefully. When he is done you swing your leg over him and get on top again, holding onto his broad shoulders. He grabs the base of his cock and lines himself up to your center and you give yourself a moment to admire his naked beauty right in front of you.

You look into his sparkling eyes and leaning down you kiss him hard as you slowly ease down to his length, his cock slowly filling you up fully.

“Oh fuck!” he moans at the feeling of you around him. His fingers dig deep into your waist as you stay still for a few moments, adjusting to his length. “You alright?” he asks breathlessly. Your eyes meet his and you nod a little before you start moving.

It takes a few moments to find the right pace and get yourself comfortable, but when you finally do, you just can’t stop. His hands are on your ass as he guides your hips a little and you feel the rings on his fingers against your heated skin. He buries his face into your neck nibbling and kissing on the soft skin wherever he reaches.

“Fuck, you look so fucking hot, Y/N,” he grunts when you let your head fall back, feeling your orgasm slowly building up again.

“Harry, I’m gonna cum again,” you pant, picking up a faster pace, desperate for release.

“Cum for me, baby. Let me make you feel good!” he moans wrapping his arms around you as he holds you still, stopping you from moving, but instead he starts thrusting into you, his cock buries so deep into your pussy, your eyes roll back into your head from the feeling.

“Yes! Don’t fucking stop!” you scream as he keeps fucking you hard.

It doesn’t take too long until you fall completely apart and cum again, your legs basically turning into jelly. Just a few thrusts later Harry cums as well, thrusting deep into you a few more times as he moans into your neck.

You lie completely numb on him, his fingers gently stroking your naked back as you try to come back to reality. When you lean back and your eyes meet again you are still speechless.

“I’ve literally wanted it since the day you walked into this place,” he admits with a soft chuckle.

“Really?” you giggle shyly.

“Oh, really. Seeing you around, sometimes without a bra under your shirt completely killed me most of the time.”

Your cheeks are heating up, you didn’t think he noticed when you weren’t wearing a bra.

“Don’t be so shy, you have amazing tits, you are not allowed to wear a bra anymore around here,” he teases you grinning as you laugh and leaning down you kiss him shortly.

“I had quite a few fantasies about you too,” you admit making him raise his eyebrows.

“Really?”

“Mhm, especially after you walked out of the bathroom naked, even though I didn’t even see your dick then.”

Harry chuckles lightly as he pushes his hair back from his forehead, resting his head against the back of the couch.

“So…” you shyly start, ”what now?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that… we live together and we just fucked. What does this mean for the future?”

“Well, I thought that next time we could do it the right way. I could take you out on a proper date, and then fuck you on the kitchen counter.”

You laugh at how blunt he is, but you love the idea he just proposed.

“Okay. Sounds fine by me.”

#harry #styles #harry styles #harry styles oneshot #harry styles one shot #harry styles smut #harry styles fiction #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fic #harry styles au #harry styles x you #harry styles x y/n #harry styles x reader #harry styles flatmates au #harry styles friends to lovers

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becomingkatie · 2 years ago

Note

Are you willing to share more about your outlining, writing, and editing processes?

Sure! I'll also start by saying that this process has evolved a little over the course of my three books and I'm sure it will continue to evolve as I become a more seasoned writer and my needs change.

I tend to do a very thorough outline. I call it my prototype draft because it's really something more than an outline but not quite a complete draft. This is approximately 10-20k words and I use Randy Ingermanson's snowflake method for the most part to get there. I start with a paragraph-level summary and grow it from there. Writing short synopses from the points of view of most of the main characters helps me to add depth and refine my synopsis, and then I move into a scene-level breakdown.

At the scene level, I pull out my copy of Save The Cat Writes a Novel. I usually really struggle with the portion of the story between the midpoint and the ~80% mark, but I make myself get it right at this stage instead of just diving into writing. I've tried the "I'll just start writing and figure it out when I get there" approach, and it didn't work for me.

I use Plottr and/or Google Sheets to make a list of major characters, locations, and plot points, and mark which ones are in each scene. Then I have a little visual that helps me see how often a character or subplot is brought up, and whether it's too much all at once or too sparse. This also helps me make sure I wrap up all the subplots and don't forget about them.

At this point, I've got anywhere from a sentence to two paragraphs per scene. Something like: "Opens at Virginia's birthday. Marney and Lawrence are there, and she's screening calls from her children. Forgets the cake in the oven and her kids show up just as Lawrence puts out the fire. Jack tells Virginia she should consider moving into a retirement home (gives her a binder of options he's researched) and uses the fire as evidence in his favor. Virginia kicks them out, but when she shuts the door behind them she finds a foreclosure notice on the door."

The above is a condensed version of the opening scene of my first book. When I have this for all of my scenes, I print it out and read through it. This is my prototype: it's a complete telling of the whole story, but without the prose or dialogue. I can work out problems with the story here, cutting scenes that aren't moving things forward, or adding or moving scenes where needed. I usually do two or three passes of reading and making notes/changes to my prototype.

Then I write it.

The writing is just a matter of butt-in-seat, which is really frickin' hard to make myself do, but at least when I sit down to write I know what I'm writing. I also use asterisks in my manuscript that I can ctrl+f and come back later, so if I can't think of a word or if something feels awkward, I don't have to disrupt my writing flow to address it in the moment. The worst thing for me to try to figure out later is a timeline, and yet I never remember to do this first. But thinks like, what day of the week is it, how many days has it been since whatever previous scene, etc... I always end up with notes to go back and figure this out in edits.

My edits include finding and fixing places where I put asterisks in the draft, addressing anything else I wrote in a "notes" doc to myself during the draft, running it through proWritingAid, then sending to my editor. I found my editor through a facebook group of authors. I only do one pass with her. After I send it to her, she turns around comments and corrections in under two weeks, and then I go through and make changes as needed. Sometimes it's big (she's a former police dispatcher and her comments on one scene led to a near-complete re-write of that scene), but most of her comments usually aren't.

And then I format my books for ebook and print using Vellum.

I hope this massive info-dump was helpful!

#asked and answered #writing

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antiporn-activist · 4 years ago

Text

The Children of Pornhub

Why does Canada allow this company to profit off videos of exploitation and assault?

By Nicholas Kristof, Opinion Columnist, Dec. 4, 2020, New York Times

This article contains descriptions of sexual assault. It’s also really long.

Pornhub prides itself on being the cheery, winking face of naughty, the website that buys a billboard in Times Square and provides snow plows to clear Boston streets. It donates to organizations fighting for racial equality and offers steamy content free to get people through Covid-19 shutdowns.

Yet there’s another side of the company: Its site is infested with rape videos. It monetizes child rapes, revenge pornography, spy cam videos of women showering, racist and misogynist content, and footage of women being asphyxiated in plastic bags. A search for “girls under18” (no space) or “14yo” leads in each case to more than 100,000 videos. Most aren’t of children being assaulted, but too many are.

After a 15-year-old girl went missing in Florida, her mother found her on Pornhub — in 58 sex videos. Sexual assaults on a 14-year-old California girl were posted on Pornhub and were reported to the authorities not by the company but by a classmate who saw the videos. In each case, offenders were arrested for the assaults, but Pornhub escaped responsibility for sharing the videos and profiting from them.

Pornhub is like YouTube in that it allows members of the public to post their own videos. A great majority of the 6.8 million new videos posted on the site each year probably involve consenting adults, but many depict child abuse and nonconsensual violence. Because it’s impossible to be sure whether a youth in a video is 14 or 18, neither Pornhub nor anyone else has a clear idea of how much content is illegal.

Unlike YouTube, Pornhub allows these videos to be downloaded directly from its website. So even if a rape video is removed at the request of the authorities, it may already be too late: The video lives on as it is shared with others or uploaded again and again.

“Pornhub became my trafficker,” a woman named Cali told me. She says she was adopted in the United States from China and then trafficked by her adoptive family and forced to appear in pornographic videos beginning when she was 9. Some videos of her being abused ended up on Pornhub and regularly reappear there, she said.

“I’m still getting sold, even though I’m five years out of that life,” Cali said. Now 23, she is studying in a university and hoping to become a lawyer — but those old videos hang over her.

“I may never be able to get away from this,” she said. “I may be 40 with eight kids, and people are still masturbating to my photos.”

“You type ‘Young Asian’ and you can probably find me,” she added.

Actually, maybe not. Pornhub recently was offering 26,000 videos in response to that search. That doesn’t count videos that show up under “related searches” that Pornhub suggests, including “young tiny teen,” “extra small petite teen,” “tiny Asian teen” or just “young girl.” Nor does it necessarily count videos on a Pornhub channel called “exploited teen Asia.”

I came across many videos on Pornhub that were recordings of assaults on unconscious women and girls. The rapists would open the eyelids of the victims and touch their eyeballs to show that they were nonresponsive.

Pornhub profited this fall from a video of a naked woman being tortured by a gang of men in China. It is monetizing video compilations with titles like “Screaming Teen,” “Degraded Teen” and “Extreme Choking.” Look at a choking video and it may suggest also searching for “She Can’t Breathe.”

It should be possible to be sex positive and Pornhub negative.

Pornhub declined to make executives available on the record, but it provided a statement. “Pornhub is unequivocally committed to combating child sexual abuse material, and has instituted a comprehensive, industry-leading trust and safety policy to identify and eradicate illegal material from our community,” it said. Pornhub added that any assertion that the company allows child videos on the site “is irresponsible and flagrantly untrue.”

II.

At 14, Serena K. Fleites was an A student in Bakersfield, Calif., who had never made out with a boy. But in the eighth grade she developed a crush on a boy a year older, and he asked her to take a naked video of herself. She sent it to him, and this changed her life.

He asked for another, then another; she was nervous but flattered. “That’s when I started getting strange looks in school,” she remembered. He had shared the videos with other boys, and someone posted them on Pornhub.

Fleites’s world imploded. It’s tough enough to be 14 without having your classmates entertain themselves by looking at you naked, and then mocking you as a slut. “People were texting me, if I didn’t send them a video, they were going to send them to my mom,” she said.

The boy was suspended, but Fleites began skipping class because she couldn’t bear the shame. Her mother persuaded Pornhub to remove the videos, and Fleites switched schools. But rumors reached the new school, and soon the videos were uploaded again to Pornhub and other websites.

Fleites quarreled with her mother and began cutting herself. Then one day she went to the medicine cabinet and took every antidepressant pill she could find.

Three days later, she woke up in the hospital, frustrated to be still alive. Next she hanged herself in the bathroom; her little sister found her, and medics revived her.

As Fleites spiraled downward, a friend introduced her to meth and opioids, and she became addicted to both. She dropped out of school and became homeless.

At 16, she advertised on Craigslist and began selling naked photos and videos of herself. It was a way to make a bit of money, and maybe also a way to punish herself. She thought, “I’m not worth anything any more because everybody has already seen my body,” she told me.

Those videos also ended up on Pornhub. Fleites would ask that they be removed. They usually would be, she says — but then would be uploaded again. One naked video of her at 14 had 400,000 views, she says, leaving her afraid to apply for fast-food jobs for fear that someone would recognize her.

So today Fleites, 19, off drugs for a year but unemployed and traumatized, is living in her car in Bakersfield, along with three dogs that have proved more loyal and loving than the human species. She dreams of becoming a vet technician but isn’t sure how to get there. “It’s kind of hard to go to school when you’re living in a car with dogs,” she said.

“I was dumb,” she acknowledged, noting that she had never imagined that the videos could be shared online. “It was one small thing that a teenager does, and it’s crazy how it turns into something so much bigger.

“A whole life can be changed because of one little mistake.”

III.

The problem goes far beyond one company. Indeed, a rival of Pornhub, XVideos, which arguably has even fewer scruples, may attract more visitors. Depictions of child abuse also appear on mainstream sites like Twitter, Reddit and Facebook. And Google supports the business models of companies that thrive on child molestation.

Google returns 920 million videos on a search for “young porn.” Top hits include a video of a naked “very young teen” engaging in sex acts on XVideo along with a video on Pornhub whose title is unprintable here.

I asked the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to compile the number of images, videos and other content related to child sexual exploitation reported to it each year. In 2015, it received reports of 6.5 million videos or other files; in 2017, 20.6 million; and in 2019, 69.2 million.

Facebook removed 12.4 million images related to child exploitation in a three-month period this year. Twitter closed 264,000 accounts in six months last year for engaging in sexual exploitation of children. By contrast, Pornhub notes that the Internet Watch Foundation, an England-based nonprofit that combats child sexual abuse imagery, reported only 118 instances of child sexual abuse imagery on its site over almost three years, seemingly a negligible figure. “Eliminating illegal content is an ongoing battle for every modern content platform, and we are committed to remaining at the forefront,” Pornhub said in its statement.

The Internet Watch Foundation couldn’t explain why its figure for Pornhub is so low. Perhaps it’s because people on Pornhub are inured to the material and unlikely to report it. But if you know what to look for, it’s possible to find hundreds of apparent child sexual abuse videos on Pornhub in 30 minutes. Pornhub has recently offered playlists with names including “less than 18,” “the best collection of young boys” and “under- - age.”

Congress and successive presidents have done almost nothing as this problem has grown. The tech world that made it possible has been mostly passive, in a defensive crouch. But pioneering reporting in 2019 by my Times colleagues has prodded Congress to begin debating competing strategies to address child exploitation.

Concerns about Pornhub are bubbling up. A petition to shut the site down has received 2.1 million signatures. Senator Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican, called on the Justice Department to investigate Pornhub. PayPal cut off services for the company, and credit card companies have been asked to do the same. An organization called Traffickinghub, led by an activist named Laila Mickelwait, documents abuses and calls for the site to be shut down. Twenty members of Canada’s Parliament have called on their government to crack down on Pornhub, which is effectively based in Montreal.

“They made money off my pain and suffering,” an 18-year-old woman named Taylor told me. A boyfriend secretly made a video of her performing a sex act when she was 14, and it ended up on Pornhub, the police confirmed. “I went to school the next day and everybody was looking at their phones and me as I walked down the hall,” she added, weeping as she spoke. “They were laughing.”

Taylor said she has twice attempted suicide because of the humiliation and trauma. Like others quoted here, she agreed to tell her story and help document it because she thought it might help other girls avoid suffering as she did.

IV.

Pornhub is owned by Mindgeek, a private pornography conglomerate with more than 100 websites, production companies and brands. Its sites include Redtube, Youporn, XTube, SpankWire, ExtremeTube, Men.com, My Dirty Hobby, Thumbzilla, PornMD, Brazzers and GayTube. There are other major players in porn outside the Mindgeek umbrella, most notably XHamster and XVideos, but Mindgeek is a porn titan. If it operated in another industry, the Justice Department could be discussing an antitrust case against it.

Pornhub and Mindgeek also stand out because of their influence. One study this year by a digital marketing company concluded that Pornhub was the technology company with the third greatest-impact on society in the 21st century, after Facebook and Google but ahead of Microsoft, Apple and Amazon.

Nominally based in Luxembourg for tax reasons, Mindgeek is a private company run from Montreal. It does not disclose who owns it, but it is led by Feras Antoon and David Tassillo, both Canadians, who declined to be interviewed.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada calls himself a feminist and has been proud of his government’s efforts to empower women worldwide. So a question for Trudeau and all Canadians: Why does Canada host a company that inflicts rape videos on the world?

Mindgeek’s moderators are charged with filtering out videos of children, but its business model profits from sex videos starring young people.

“The goal for a content moderator is to let as much content as possible go through,” a former Mindgeek employee told me. He said he believed that the top executives weren’t evil but were focused above all on maximizing revenue.

While Pornhub would not tell me how many moderators it employs, I interviewed one who said that there are about 80 worldwide who work on Mindgeek sites (by comparison, Facebook told me it has 15,000 moderators). With 1.36 million new hours of video uploaded a year to Pornhub, that means that each moderator would have to review hundreds of hours of content each week.

The moderators fast forward through videos, but it’s often difficult to assess whether a person is 14 or 18, or whether torture is real or fake. Most of the underage content involves teenagers, the moderator I spoke with said, but some comes from spy cams in toilets or changing rooms and shows children only 8 to 12.

“The job in itself is soul-destroying,” the moderator said.

Pornhub appears to be increasingly alarmed about civil or criminal liability. Lawyers are circling, and nine women sued the company in federal court after spy cam videos surfaced on Pornhub. The videos were shot in a locker room at Limestone College in South Carolina and showed women showering and changing clothes.

Executives of Pornhub appear in the past to have assumed that they enjoyed immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects internet platforms on which members of the public post content. But in 2018 Congress limited Section 230 so that it may not be enough to shield the company, leading Mindgeek to behave better.

It has doubled the number of moderators in the last couple of years, the moderator told me, and this year Pornhub began voluntarily reporting illegal material to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. After previously dragging its feet in removing videos of children and nonconsensual content, Pornhub now is responding more rapidly.

It has also compiled a list of banned content. I obtained a copy of this list, and it purports to bar videos with terms or themes like “rape,” “preteen,” “pedophilia” and “bestiality” (it helpfully clarifies that this “includes eels, fish, octopus, insects”). Diapers are OK “if no scatophilia.” Mutilation depends on context but “cannot depict severing parts of the body.”

So while it is now no longer possible to search on Pornhub in English using terms like “underage” or “rape,” the company hasn’t tried hard to eliminate such videos. A member called “13yoboyteen” is allowed to post videos. A search for “r*pe,” turns up 1,901 videos. “Girl with braces” turns up 1,913 videos and suggests also trying “exxxtra small teens.” A search for “13yo” generates 155,000 videos. To be clear, most aren’t of 13-year-olds, but the fact that they’re promoted with that language seems to reflect an effort to attract pedophiles.

Moreover, some videos seem at odds with the list of banned content. “Runaway Girl Gets Ultimatum, Anal or the Streets” is the title of one Pornhub video. Another user posts videos documenting sex with teenage girls as they weep, protest and cry out in pain.

While Pornhub is becoming more careful about videos of potentially litigious Americans, it remains cavalier about overseas victims. One Indonesian video is titled “Junior High School Girl After Class” and shows what appears to be a young teenager having sex. A Chinese sex video, just taken down, was labeled: “Beautiful High School Girl Is Tricked by Classmates and Taken to the Top of a Building Where She Is Insulted and Raped.”

“They’re making money off the worst moment in my life, off my body,” a Colombian teenager who asked to be called Xela, a nickname, told me. Two American men paid her when she was 16 for a sexual encounter that they filmed and then posted on Pornhub. She was one of several Pornhub survivors who told me they had thought of or attempted suicide.

In the last few days as I was completing this article, two new videos of prepubescent girls being assaulted were posted, along with a sex video of a 15-year-old girl who was suicidal after it went online. I don’t see how good-faith moderators could approve any of these videos.

“It’s always going to be online,” Nicole, a British woman who has had naked videos of herself posted and reposted on Pornhub, told me. “That’s my big fear of having kids, them seeing this.”

That’s a recurring theme among survivors: An assault eventually ends, but Pornhub renders the suffering interminable.

Naked videos of Nicole at 15 were posted on Pornhub. Now 19, she has been trying for two years to get them removed.

“Why do videos of me from when I was 15 years old and blackmailed, which is child porn, continuously [get] uploaded?” Nicole protested plaintively to Pornhub last year, in a message. “You really need a better system. … I tried to kill myself multiple times after finding myself reuploaded on your website.”

Nicole’s lawyer, Dani Pinter, says there are still at least three naked videos of Nicole at age 15 or 16 on Pornhub that they are trying to get removed.

“It’s never going to end,” Nicole said. “They’re getting so much money from our trauma.”

Pornhub has introduced software that supposedly can “fingerprint” rape videos and prevent them from being uploaded again. But Vice showed how this technology is easily circumvented on Pornhub.

One Pornhub scandal involved the Girls Do Porn production company, which recruited young women for clothed modeling gigs and then pushed them to perform in sex videos, claiming that the videos would be sold only as DVDs in other countries and would never go online. Reassured that no one would ever know, some of the women agreed — and then were shattered when the footage was aggressively marketed on Pornhub.

Girls Do Porn was prosecuted for sex trafficking and shut down. But those videos continue to surface and resurface on Pornhub; last time I checked, videos of six victims of Girls Do Porn were on Pornhub, which continues to profit from them.

One of the Girls Do Porn women I saw on Pornhub is now dead. She was murdered at 20, allegedly by an angry ex-boyfriend who is about to go on trial. I’m not disclosing her name because she should be remembered as a vibrant college athlete, and not for a sex video that represented her most mortifying moment.

VI.

So what’s the solution?

I had expected the survivors to want to shut down Pornhub and send its executives to prison. Some did, but others were more nuanced. Lydia, now 20, was trafficked as a child and had many rape videos posted on the site. “My stomach hurts all the time” from the tension, she told me, but she doesn’t want to come across as hostile to porn itself.

“I don’t want people to hear ‘No porn!’” Lydia told me. “It’s more like, ‘Stop hurting kids.’”

Susan Padron told me that she had assumed that pornography was consensual, until a boyfriend filmed her in a sex act when she was 15 and posted it on Pornhub. She has struggled since and believes that only people who have confirmed their identities should be allowed to post videos.

Jessica Shumway, who was trafficked and had a customer post a sex video on Pornhub, agrees: “They need to figure out who’s underage in the videos and that there’s consent from everybody in it.”

I asked Leo, 18, who had videos of himself posted on Pornhub when he was 14, what he suggested.

“That’s tough,” he said. “My solution would be to leave porn to professional production companies,” because they require proof of age and consent.

Right now, those companies can’t compete with mostly free sites like Pornhub and XVideos.

“Pornhub has already destroyed the business model for pay sites,” said Stoya, an adult film actress and writer. She, too, thinks all platforms — from YouTube to Pornhub — should require proof of consent to upload videos of private individuals.

Columnists are supposed to offer answers, but I struggle with solutions. If Pornhub curated videos more rigorously, the most offensive material might just move to the dark web or to websites in less regulated countries. Yet at least they would then not be normalized on a mainstream site.

More pressure and less impunity would help. We’re already seeing that limiting Section 230 immunity leads to better self-policing.

And call me a prude, but I don’t see why search engines, banks or credit card companies should bolster a company that monetizes sexual assaults on children or unconscious women. If PayPal can suspend cooperation with Pornhub, so can American Express, Mastercard and Visa.

I don’t see any neat solution. But aside from limiting immunity so that companies are incentivized to behave better, here are three steps that would help: 1.) Allow only verified users to post videos. 2.) Prohibit downloads. 3.) Increase moderation.

These measures wouldn’t kill porn or much bother consumers of it; YouTube thrives without downloads. Siri Dahl, a prominent porn star who does business with Pornhub, told me that my three proposals are “insanely reasonable.”

The world has often been oblivious to child sexual abuse, from the Catholic Church to the Boy Scouts. Too late, we prosecute individuals like Jeffrey Epstein or R. Kelly. But we should also stand up to corporations that systematically exploit children. With Pornhub, we have Jeffrey Epstein times 1,000.

#if you use pornhub you're complicit in this #sorry i don't make the rules

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puckngrind · 4 years ago

Text

Leave Her Wild: 1.1 - N. MacKinnon

Author's note: This is a parallel to chapter 1 but via Nate's perspective. I started it thinking this was the way I was going to write the entire series but got going and never came back. In honor of the birthday boy, I figured might as release this unedited blurb.

Warnings: swearing

Word count: 900

Series masterlist / Puck ‘n Grind’s masterlist

Swipe.

"Took you long enough!" Tyson groaned as Nathan manages to open and shut Cale's condo door with pizzas in hand.

"What's wrong with you?" Cale emerges from the kitchen.

"Nothin', birthday boy? Really, you jackasses put birthday boy as my pick up name?" Nate lied through his teeth at what was wrong with him. Cale clearly read his face well.

"I'd say it was the best name ever for the birthday boy!" JT chirps from the couch.

The boys eat a piece of pie each before deciding to head out to play spike ball in the park across the street first. Nate nods at the man they passed in the hall then turns when he swears he hears a tiny whistle come from the stranger. Shaking it off they emerge from Tyson and Cale's building. Nathan fishes the game out of his Jeep then looks up before crossing the street.

"You good dude?" Tyson asks.

"Yeah, totally man. Just thought I saw people staring out the window. Must've been nothing." Nate hands the bag to Tyson a tad harder than Tyson was expecting.

"Sure." He coughs out.

The game was intense specially with the unseasonably warm start to September they were having in Denver. The boys were drenched in sweat by the time they crashed back at Cale's. Gaming started after more pizza and drinks. You would never know these were grown men and not teenagers by the trash talking gaming that was being spewed across the living room. Nate was distracted by adding some "Damn dude." comments here and there until finally he didn't start the next game. He retreated to a corner and started tapping on his phone. "Fuck." He thought it was in his head but when all three guys turned around he realized it was not.

"Talk. You have been different since you got here." JT states.

"How the fuck does tinder work? Or I don't know, Bumble?" Nate taps on his phone again.

"Wwwwhhhhyyyy are you all of a sudden interested in dating apps? Nate looking to get some?" Tyson blurted out then got hit with a pillow by JT. "Sorry." He whispered.

"There is a girl I met. She lives here. I this building. So I thought if she was on one of those damn apps I could find her cuz all I know is that she frequents the pizza place, lives here, has the cutest twang but also maybe midwestern voice, and her name is MacKenzie." Nate looks up to see his teammates all with their mouths hanging open.

"Here." Tyson hands over his phone. "And I fucking swear if you swipe left on someone I would totally go for I may in fact hurt you."

"Like you could do that." Cale retorts.

"Fine, I would sent Z after you." Tyson shook his head verifying he meant business.

Nate started swiping. He was looking for any version of her name. Mac, Kenzie, MacKenzie, Kenz... but really he was focused on her hair and that sparkle in her eyes. He did not notice that all three were standing around him.

"Swipe riiiiggg..." Tyson starts looking at Nathan's quick swipes left on his account.

"You aren't important here Tys." JT scolded.

"Check Instagram, Twitter, Facebook." Cale suggests.

"I don't fucking have Facebook." Tyson announces.

"I do." Nate sheepishly admitted. The shocked sounds escaping the group made him laugh quietly.

The boys spent the next hour unsuccessfully sleuthing for MacKenzie with no luck.

"She's our age, right?" JT questions flipping through the multiple results for MacKenzie on Instagram.

"I mean... she looked like she was. You know I'm bad at that shit." Nate blew out in frustration. "I guess..."

"We can keep looking Mac or go to the pizza place..." Cale taps his forehead trying to come up with more ideas.

"Yeah, no. Yeah. It was a good try. Maybe I'll run into here again, but Denver is a big ass city." Nate lays his head back on the couch.

"But this building isn't." Tyson sing-songs out.

Nate threw himself into pre-season training the rest of September. A visit from his mother set mind into work mode. She always had a way of making sure Nate was on track even from thousands of kilometers away.

"I'll see you in a few month, eh?" Kathy MacKinnon hugged her son tight.

"Whenever ya want." Nate squeezed back.

"And whatever is nagging at you, please fix before the season is in full bloom." Kathy placed her hand on his cheek patting it slightly. How she read her son like a book was something Nate only wish he could understand. He nodded not sure exactly what she was speaking of but went with it. "Enjoy the youth event next week, Son." She loosened their embrace to head towards TSA.

"Will do." Nate waves watching fish out her passport.

Nathan and Cale walked out from their locker room area to the sound of about forty kids or so attempt to skate.

"This should be fun." Cale elbowed Nate. "Mac?" He waves his hand over Nathan's face.

"It's her." Nate whispers.

"It's who?" Cale tries to follow his gaze but only sees a very tall, brunette man surrounded by kids.

"Mac... Kenzie." Nate can hardly speak.

"Pizza girl? Where?" Cale almost yells out. Nate ignores him and makes his way to the ice feeling a tug and goosebumps explode over his body.

#nate the great 29 #nathan mackinnon #nate mackinnon #n mackinnon fic #hbd nate mac #leave her wild fic #companion blurb

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fantasticstoryteller · 4 years ago

Text

New Amsterdam Chapter 13

Deadpool watched the people watching the cat with fascination. Peter had quickly been pushed to the side by the new arrivals, but he didn’t seem to mind standing on the sidelines with Wade as the cat gave birth to a sixth kitten.

{We should have ripped that bitch’s arms off for the way she pushed Petey-Pie out of the way.}

[You are going to get Spiderman to hate us.]

“She was rude,” muttered Wade.

Peter looked up (he was in the circle of Wade’s arms again) and said, “I don’t think she’s seem kittens born before.”

{Kiss those pink lips!}

[We’re supposed to get him to confide in us, remember? That won’t happen if we’re sexually harassing him.]

{But—but—but they’re so puffy!}

“Despicable Me reference,” muttered Wade. Most people tended to get anxious and give him space when he was talking to the boxes, even if he was doing it quietly. Peter just seemed content to stay there, in his arms, and listen to the madness. He didn’t even ask questions.

[To be fair, Tony doesn’t get anxious when you talk to us.]

{He just wants to kill us! But he can’t!}

Wade winced as Yellow’s unmusical laughter danced through his head. “Are you all right?” Peter asked. Softly, so as not to attract attention.

Wade chuckled low and soft and gently chucked Peter under the chin. “Peachy-keen Petey-Pie,” he said.

Peter frowned, clearly not believing him, and opened his mouth to say something when Pepper walked into the basement holding a cardboard box. Behind her, like uncomfortable puppy, trailed the dark haired former Winter Soldier himself, Bucky Barnes.

[Good timing. The kid doesn’t need to be burdened by our insanity.]

{Didn’t you hear him earlier? He’s legal. LEGAL. L to the E to the G to the—}

[DON’T YOU DARE!]

“All right everybody,” Pepper announced firmly. “As soon as the cat is finished giving birth, we’ll put her and the kittens in this box and then the incinerator will be back in working order.”

“That cat is going to shred your arms if you go to move her,” said the blonde that had pushed Peter out of her way to watch the cat give birth.

Pepper jerked a thumb to Bucky. “That’s why he’s here.” Bucky waved his metal arm at the people around them. “Now, it is in the middle of the work day—so get back to work!” Pepper ordered. The chaos began to straighten out as people, muttering to themselves the whole time, filed out of the basement.

{See? See? We’re just like the other people!}

[We are nothing like the other people! They only have one person in their heads!]

{You don’t know that!}

Peter went to leave with the others, but Deadpool’s arms tightened around him. He looked at the boxes he’d been supposed to put in the incinerator and then bit his lip. He was clearly torn between not wanting to get Pepper’s attention and leaving without completing his job. Deadpool didn’t know what was in those files that made them need to be burned so badly, but Peter was determined to do his job properly. Of course he was.

{Petey is a sweetie!}

[Shut up you psycho. You’re going to make me barf.]

“Peter.” The boy jumped when Pepper said his name and tried to back away—but Deadpool was right behind him blocking his escape.

Peter swallowed hard. “Mi—Miss Potts,” he said softly.

Pepper sighed as she looked at the boy. “I am not going to bite your head off,” she told him pertly. “I just came to ask if you’re being bothered.”

“I’m sure Mr. Stark doesn’t mean it,” began Peter.

Wade couldn't help it. He burst out laughing and hugged the cute boy to him tighter. “She’s talking about me,” he informed the innocent child.

He could see Peter’s nose wrinkle in confusion. “Why would I be bothered by you?” he asked.

The genuine innocence of the question took Deadpool’s breath away for a moment. “Oh, you sweetie!” he exclaimed as he rubbed his cheek against Peter’s.

[…I like this kid.]

{We should keep him forever!}

Pepper’s mouth twitched as Bucky, behind her, coughed. “Yes. Deadpool is known for being—extreme. And I heard about the slime.”

Peter winced.

{KILL HER!}

[Down!]

“I’m sorry,” said Peter.

Bucky scoffed from where he stood. “Don’t worry about it. We all know Chambers has a stick up his ass. And it’s not like the slime tried to eat him,” he added.

Peter relaxed—slightly. Pepper continued talking. “And I know just what to do with the cat and her kittens,” she said with a grim smile that made Deadpool tremble slightly.

“What are you going to do?” asked Deadpool with morbid fascination. He knew, because of all the cat pics on Pepper’s Facebook page, that she would never do anything to hurt the little things—but that was an evil smile.

“I’ll put them on Tony’s desk. It’ll give him something besides Peter to focus on.”

“I don’t know why he’s focused on me!” protested Peter. Deadpool could hear the panic hiding in his desperate voice.

{Hug him close! It makes him feel better!}

[That’s—actually a good idea.]

Since all three of them agreed (and solely because they wanted to make Peter feel better and not because it felt nice having Peter in his arms and tucked in close), Wade gently tightened his hold on Peter. Who, predictably, relaxed.

[We’re going to have to figure out why that happens. It’s not normal.]

{Just LIVE it!]

Pepper sighed. “Peter,” she said wearily, “you have the unfortunate distinction of being one of four people who have told Tony ‘no’.”

“Five,” corrected Bucky.

“Excuse me?” Pepper turned to look at him and he shrugged, fearlessly.

“Five,” Bucky repeated. “Steve also said ‘no’.”

“Since,” said Pepper frostily, “neither you nor Steve actually insisted and did, in fact, end up doing it anyway, the two of you don’t count.” She turned back to Peter and Wade. She looked at Peter with something like—pity? Sympathy? Wade wasn’t sure. “The other three are Howard, Tony’s father, me, and Spiderman. So you’re in good company.”

That had Deadpool’s attention. “Webs told Tin Dick ‘no’?” he asked. “To what?” He’d always thought the two of them had gotten along remarkably (and disgustingly) well. What in the world could Iron Man ask that Spiderman wouldn't agree to?

Pepper didn’t hold anything back. “Tony asked Spiderman to tell him who he was,” she said calmly.

Too calmly. Heroes just were not supposed to do that to each other. “What?” he demanded harshly.

[Think it’s connected to the suit who wanted to hire us for the same thing?]

{No wonder Spidey said ‘no’!}

“He wanted to know Spiderman’s identity,” Pepper calmly repeated, eyes on Deadpool.

“That’s wrong,” said Deadpool with uncharacteristic seriousness. He tried to meet Pepper’s eyes with his own, but she could only see the whites of his mask. “You know it’s wrong. Spidey has a reason he hasn’t told anyone who he is.”

A single eyebrow rose gently. “Has he told you?”

“I’m not asking,” said Deadpool firmly. He didn’t notice his grip tightened on Peter. “I know Webs. If he hasn’t told anyone who he is, he has a reason, a good reason.”

“Wade?” asked Peter.

Wade realized he was squeezing tight enough to hurt and released. “Sorry baby,” he said. “Are you okay?”

{No! Don’t let him go! He fits so nicely in our arms!}

The adorable nose scrunched up again. “I’m stronger than I look,” he said.

A harsh, metallic screeching mixed with hissing brought their attention to the cats as Barnes scooped them out of the furnace and into the padded box. “Done,” he said as he handed the box with its still hissing cats to Pepper. He looked at Wade. “I happen to agree,” he said softly. “But you know how Tony is.”

Deadpool snorted. “That’s why he built a tower shaped like a giant purple dick,” he said. He grinned as Peter snorted with stifled laughter.

#Spider-Man #Deadpool #Spideypool

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songtoyou · 4 years ago

Text

Chapter Seven: August

Would You Call That Love

Pairing: Chris Evans x Raina Morrison (OC)

Rating: PG to PG-13 (Might be 18+ for some chapters)

Description: There was always that one person Chris Evans tended to turn to when he was not in a committed relationship, Raina Morrison. He could confide in her about things going on in his life that he did not feel comfortable talking to his family or close friends about. Chris and Raina were able to establish a way to openly communicate with one another, but also being respectful of the other’s time and needs. It was the only constant “relationship” he had, but without all the nonsense of trying to build a life together. A “friends with benefits” situation. However, what happens when Chris starts rethinking his “relationship” with Raina and if either are willing to pursue something more?

Chapter Rating: PG

Warnings: None

Word Count: 1,889

Author’s Note: Okay, I think I am back to paying more attention to this fic. I already know how I want to approach the next chapter.

Sadly, I do not know Chris Evans or anyone in his family, and this is just a fictional take on his life. I do not permit this fic to be reposted on other platforms.

Tag List: @patzammit

On the whole, George’s birthday celebration went well. Raina turned out to be right that her dad did not make the trip alone. She and Chris met up with her dad for a birthday lunch, where they got introduced to Diane. The woman was in her early fifties and was a widow. It turns out, George and Diane had met a few years ago at a group therapy session for people still grieving the loss of a family member. The two recently got back in touch through Facebook and have continued to talk. It was only recently that George and Diane began dating.

It was all new for Raina to see her dad with another woman. She was aware that he had been out on dates before but never actually seen the man in the company of other women. Raina was glad to have Chris around for support. He definitely helped ease any tension or uncomfortableness during brunch by telling stories and keep the atmosphere light.

However, Raina could not deny that Diane was a nice woman and liked how attentive she was to George and vice versa. Raina noticed the older couple had a nice camaraderie with one another. Best of all was that Diane made her dad laugh and smile. That is what Raina wanted for her dad, to be happy. Who was she to hold any grudges or contempt because her dad was living his life? It is what Marie would have wanted. She would be happy that her husband and daughter were living their life to the fullest.

That night after the show, George and Diane came backstage to see Raina. Her dad gave her flowers, which she cherished.

“Amazing, sweetheart. Absolutely brilliant,” George gushed, hugging his daughter.

“Thank you, Dad.”

“I cried so many times, I lost count,” Diane revealed. “You have such a beautiful voice.”

“Oh my God, stop. You both are going to make me cry,” said Raina. Their compliments touched her. “I’m so glad you both got the see the show. Especially you,” she added, pointing to her dad. “I know it is late, but thanks for sticking it out.”

“Anything for you, kiddo,” replied George. “So, lunch again, tomorrow night?”

“Absolutely. You two going to sightsee tomorrow?” asked Raina

“We got some stops we want to make. Like George, I never make it over to the City. We’re going to stop by the Metropolitan.”

“She begged me to take her,” teased George and wrapped his arm around Diane.

“Well, it is a great place. The Museum of Modern Art is really cool. I took Chris there not too long ago. He enjoyed it as well. Museums, great places to have dates,” stated Raina happily.

When Raina bid George and Diane a goodnight, she got out of her costume and took off her makeup. She put on a pair of comfortable jeans, a long sleeve shirt, running shoes and headed off home to Chris. He opted not to attend the show that night as he had other prior commitments.

Chris had been staying at Raina’s place for a couple of weeks, ever since they revealed their true feelings for one another. He did make a trip back up to Concord, but it was to bring some of his things and Dodger back to New York. Raina was surprised that Chris brought Dodger with him but was more than happy to have the four-legged creature around. Raina loved that dog immensely, and it warmed her heart to see the two lounging on the couch when she got home.

Normally, she wouldn’t allow dogs on the furniture, but it was hard to deny such cute faces.

“Hey, you two,” Raina spoke, getting both of their attention. “What have you been up to?”

“Not much,” Chris spoke, turning towards Raina. “Move Bubba,” he nudged Dodger away to get up off the couch. He greeted Raina with a kiss and got out a wine glass from the cupboard.

“Red or white?” he asked her.

“White,” she replied and sat down next to Dodger. “Hey, kid. How are you doing?”

Dodger also proceeded to greet Raina with kisses and laid himself across her lap. She began scratching behind his ears.

“Here you go, my dear,” said Chris handing Raina the glass of wine.

“Thank you, darling. Dad and Diane enjoyed the show. They had a good time. They’re cute together,” Raina confessed to Chris.

He nestled down next to Raina and Dodger, who was now laid across both of their laps. “Your dad looks happy, and Diane is great. You’re right; they are cute. It is nice that they found each other. Looks like they are the real deal. You can handle that, right? If your dad and Diane were to take their relationship to the next level?”

Raina knew Chris was referring to marriage. “I want my dad happy and not alone. He has taken his time when it comes to dating. He wasn’t in a rush to move on, which, honestly, I appreciate. Dad has supported me all these years, so I will return the favor,” she answered.

The two sat in comfortable silence while watching the news. Of course, Chris had it on CNN. “How can you stand watching this stuff? At least watch MSNBC. They have Rachel Maddow,” Raina complained.

“I’m trying to stay informed, that is all. You used to watch this stuff too when Trump got elected to office,” Chris noted with a smirk.

“Oh God, do not remind me. I was obsessed with CNN and MSNBC. The only reason I watched the news 24/7 because I was waiting for the bomb to finally go off, and they’d find something to implicate Trump, and he would get kicked out of office, but nothing ever happened. It was exhausting.”

Nudging Dodger off of her, Raina got up and downed her glass of wine. “I’m going to take a shower and head to bed. Tomorrow, I’m going to have lunch with dad and Diane. Did you want to come?”

“Uh, I can’t. I have an appointment with Josh tomorrow. His still has some additional shading to do on the eagle,” said Chris, indicating to his covered chest of the unfished eagle tattoo. “Hey, before you head for a shower and bed, you got another vase of flowers. I put them over there on the table,” he motioned, pointing to the flowers, which were a lovely medley of lavender and white blooms. The clear cylinder vase offsets the colors of the flowers nicely.

Raina noticed a small envelope within the flowers and opened it.

Dearest Raina,

Congratulations on the success of Moulin Rouge. I am so happy for you. It is a great joy to see someone you know accomplished what they’ve been hoping for and working toward. You are proof that good things come to those who are willing to sacrifice to reach a worthwhile goal. Words can’t express how proud I am. You have the creativity and determination to do whatever you can dream. It really warms my heart to see you achieving your goal of being on Broadway.

Warmest regards,

T.H.

“Aw, how sweet,” Raina gushed at the note.

“What?” Chris asked. “Who sent the flowers?”

“Tom sent them,” she answered, taking a whiff of the flowers. They smelt heavenly.

Chris was confused. “Tom? Tom who?”

“Hiddleston,” was all Raina said and placed the card in the flower arrangement. “He’s in New York as well doing that play, ‘Betrayal.’ We should stop by and see it. You know, to show support and all.”

Chris watched as Raina headed into the bedroom, but he still sat there a little stunned. He looked to make sure Raina was indeed out of earshot; he got up to look at the card.

“What the fuck,” Chris said, stunned at the card. ‘Who the fuck does this guy think he is? Sending my girlfriend flowers and writing all that in the card!’ he thought to himself.

“Let’s go for a walk, Bubba. Come on,” Chris said to Dodger and got the dog’s leash. He figured some fresh would help clear his mind.

Walking the usual route for Dodger, Chris looked around to see if there were anyone around. Thankfully, the street was quiet, and no sign of fans or paparazzi. He pulled out a cigarette and lit it. Chris always felt bad when he lit one but couldn’t deny how the nicotine helped relax his anxieties. And right now, he was in desperate need of something to take his mind off the card.

Chris knew he was acting ridiculous. That Raina had no lingering feelings for Tom, she told him that to his face. However, he could not get the small feeling of jealousy bubbling under his skin. Plus, Tom was his friend. They respected one another. It wasn’t like Tom wouldn’t have found out with the rest of the world that Chris and Raina were in a relationship. Everyone knew!

Looking down at Dodger, Chris saw that the pup was ready to head back inside. “Okay, we’re going to head back home.” The dog picked up the pace at the mention.

These past few weeks with Raina had been nice. Chris liked the domestic routine he had gotten into with Raina. It was definitely something he would like to continue, maybe say in Massachusetts. Unfortunately, Chris knew he would not be able to get Raina to live in Massachusetts full-time. She set on staying in New York. That was her home. It was the place where she grew up and most likely wanted to stay.

‘Don’t start overthinking things, Christopher,’ he more rational side began to say, which oddly sounded like his mother.

Finally making it back home, Chris made his way into the master bedroom with Dodger following along. He saw that Raina had finished her shower and was already in bed. Dodger got up on the bed to nestle in the middle. Chris tried to get him off the bed, but Raina wrapped her arm around the furball.

“No, he is fine. He’s like a stuffed animal,” she pleaded and snuggled closer to Dodger.

Chris sighed but couldn’t help but smile at the sight. It was precious, his girl and his dog. He quickly took out his phone and snapped a picture. Chris stored it in his ‘Raina’ file on his phone. A keepsake of pictures of his girl that were just for him and not for public consumption. That is what his entire friendship and now relationship with Raina had been, something that was just for him. It was never for the public to scrutinize or even fawn over. He wasn’t with her for PR or added media hype. Chris always felt that what he had with Raina was honest and true. A real friendship that developed organically between two people that had progressed towards real love and devotion.

Sadly, both Chris and Raina knew there would be naysayers and critics watching their every move to see if any cracks were forming. With the positive press, it will ultimately bring out the negatives. It was the way of the game. A game Chris and Raina knew they had to be up for the challenge if they wanted their relationship to flourish and not burn out in flames in front of the whole world.

#chris evans #chris evans x oc #chris evans x ofc #chris evans x original female character

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purplesurveys · 4 years ago

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1279

Are you and the last person you kissed in a relationship or just friends? I don’t keep contact.

Has anyone ever pointed out that your laugh was unusual? Hmmmm, I don’t think so. I feel like that would be the type of comment that would get to me so I definitely would’ve remembered it.

Would you get a lip piercing? I don’t plan on getting any piercings.

Nose piercing? Nopes.

What are you currently waiting for? For this fucking day to end so I can be closer to Thursday and to the weekend.

Do you have feelings for anyone? Nah.

Have you ever run over an animal? Nope. I’ve had extremely close calls with animals who suddenly dart into the road, but fortunately these have all been situations wherein I got to hit the brakes with nobody behind me.

Have you chewed gum after someone else already has? That’s disgusting, no.

When people sneeze do you say ‘bless you’? Sure, out of habit and just to be polite.

When was the last time you were on a bouncy castle? I don’t think I’ve ever been on a bouncy castle, but I’ve been on a lot of bouncy other things haha, like inflatable slides, soccer balls, Anpanmans, etc. The last time would probably be a nearly a decade ago; I definitely haven’t been near one in a while.

Have you ever went on a bouncy castle whilst drunk? Well no, because the ones I’ve been on were situated in school fairs, which is the last place I would want to be drunk in.

Have you ever entered an art competition? No, I have no justification to join one haha.

What is one thing you will never do? Try hardcore drugs. < Same.

What is one food that you detest? Pineapples.

Did you have a rebellious phase growing up? Yeah I was a bit of a handful to raise, but I’m in firm in my stance that it had a lot to do with the way I was raised. I grew up mostly without a father figure because my dad worked abroad and I felt neglected by my mom who had her own shit to deal with. There was no stable support system to lean on, so I ended up lashing out a lot in my puberty years. Unfortunately everyone else just saw a rebellious child and not a plea for help.

These days when I show off my achievements on social media, I’ll see congratulatory comments from my mom’s friends and she’ll usually go on about some “late bloomers grow with time” narrative and it pisses me off because nobody knows how much I’ve had to grow and mature and learn how to be happier all by myself, all from scratch. If I had just received the proper care and attention early on, I wouldn’t have had to do any catching up to begin with.

What religion were you brought up with? Roman Catholic.

Are you still that religion? Jesus no. I darted out of there as soon as I gained the consciousness to think about these sorts of things.

Do you often find yourself questioning your future? Sometimes, but I do my best to not let it get to me.

How many friends do you have on Facebook? Over 670.

What sort of music did you listen to when you were in high school? I started with punk rock in the first half of high school, so I had my Rancids, H2Os, Against Me!s, Cro-Mags, etc on my iPod. It evolved a little bit towards more indie, folksy sounds towards the latter half - Banks, alt-J, Hozier, Twenty One Pilots - which I largely attribute to the crowd I was part of at the time.

What pet names do you use with your significant other? I’m pretty straightforward so baby works out for me. Other, more specific pet names just grow naturally with the relationship, I think.

What’s the name of the store you usually get your groceries? S&R.

Have you ever seen a theatre show? Yeah. Most of them have been required.

What’s your favourite vegetable? Broccoli or bell peppers.

Have you ever missed a flight? Never. I’ve experienced several delayed flights, though, which is always such a hassle especially if the delays happen in provincial airports since they never have any recreational offers to keep passengers from getting bored other than TVs that run the same damn five ads.

Do your neighbours have any pets? Have you ever met them? Yeah, a lot of have dogs. I’ve met some.

What color is your bedroom door? Brown.

If you were ever to become famous, would you grow annoyed at fans? Only towards obsessive ones who wouldn’t give me time to breathe or would go so far so as to stalk me or my loved ones. But I am a fan too, so I imagine I would actually be understanding of those who would ask for pictures or whatever as long as they were polite and not at all intrusive.

Have you ever met your favourite band/singer? Nah. I am terrified of meeting celebrities HAHA so I’ve always shut down the chance. I’m pretty sure I would actually turn down the chance to meet BTS if I hypothetically suddenly got the magic keys to that door.

Are you embarrassed by any of the songs/singers/bands you like? No. I feel like that sort of thing just happens in like high school, when your friends are still a bit judgmental. Nowadays I don’t see why I should be embarrassed of anything I like, especially if it’s not hurting anyone.

Have you ever written a story? I’ve made attempts but was always terrible.

Think of the last poem you wrote: What inspired you to write it? My homework that required me to write said poem hahaha.

Do you have a chance with the person you like right now?

What’s the weirdest thing you were scared of as a child? Watching commercials at night. It’s still a slight fear of mine but it’s mostly dissipated now.

Are there any embarrassing stories your family tells about you? About me? No. I don’t have a lot of those since I was a really shy kid who barely moved a finger anyway.

In your opinion, what is the funniest TV show? I have a *really* soft spot for Perfect Strangers, which I actually revisited yesterday :) The show was never super popular so it’s near impossible to find clips online, but when I checked YouTube I did see a slight increase in short snippets from the show so I had a really fun time binge-watching yesterday.

What is the maximum number of children you’d ever have? Three, but that’s pushing it. Ideally, I’d have two so my first would have company.

Have you ever been concerned you had a serious illness? Mental ones, yes.

Are you comfortable with who you are? For the most part, yes.

Would you date someone even if you knew you’d get made fun of for it? No. Why would it be any of their business?

Does popularity matter to you at all? I mean, yeah in the sense that I honestly aspire to be well-liked by as many people as possible. But I don’t necessarily want to rub shoulders with popular kids.

Would you ever consider homeschooling your children? Continued from sometime this week ider. No. I don’t think I’m capable of teaching, and generally I’d want them to be able to learn in a more open environment where they can have regular contact with different kinds of people.

Who told you about the band/singer you are currently listening to? Well Angela got into them first and since we’re best friends, there was a certain point where she just decided to loop me into conversations that involved them. I was impossible to sway for a long time, but then one day a video compilation of them showed up on my feed, and for some reason I actually watched it, and I watched all the way through, and I was immediately intrigued – particularly by J-Hope haha. I then asked Angela to tell me more about them and the rest was...financially irresponsible history HAHAHAHA

Do you ever read fanfiction? OMG yes. Funny you should mention that because my favorite author uploaded a brand new fic this morning, which I obviously couldn’t get to all day because I had to go to work. I’ll be reading it in all its 44,000-word glory tonight :D

Would you rather die in a plane crash, ship wreck or fire? Plane crash. Instant and mostly painless.

What are your top five favourite TV shows? Breaking Bad, BoJack Horseman, Friends, The Crown even though I was never able to continue it since...andddd that’s all I got.

What is your favorite superhero movie? Not a fan of superhero movies.

If you died next week, what would be the cause of death? Stress from overworking. I’ve FINALLY started to consider taking a leave for the first time this year because I’ve just realized just how fucking exhausted, burned out, and overwhelmed I actually already am from having no rest at all in the last 13 months.

Have you ever taken a break from Facebook or other social media? Why? Yes, I do mass deactivations when I’m severely depressed. These days I can’t really afford to that anymore, though, since my work is closely tied to social media.

Who is the most talented person you know? Probably Andi.

Are you currently platonic friends with anyone you’ve had sex with? No.

Where did you and your current interest go on your first date?

Have you ever experienced two people fighting over you (physically or mentally)? What happened? Nah. I’ve had two people like me at the same time, but there was never any tension to watch out for since they mostly didn’t know each other.

Have your parents ever thought you were gay? What happened? I think they know I dated Gabie and that we broke up because they’ve stopped asking about her. Everyone knew we were best friends, so the fact that they’ve avoided her as a topic for a whole year is able to tell me something.

Are your parents more liberal or conservative? Dad’s on the liberal side, mom dances around on the spectrum a little bit. I know she’s fine with things like tattoos and having LGBTQ+ co-workers, but she’s also conservative especially towards matters like religion.

What year are you going into at the beginning of the next academic year? No longer in school.

How far away does your closest family member live? A few footsteps away.

If you’ve seen both, did you prefer the Disney version or the Tim Burton version of Alice in Wonderland? It’s not my type of movie/genre to begin with.

Would you have sex before marriage? Why or why not? Yes. I don’t see the big deal; I’ve already done it anyway.

Are you more liberal or conservative? Liberal.

Who is your favorite Harry Potter character? Ooh not sure. I haven’t gone back to the books in a while, so I don’t remember if there was anyone I had an attachment to.

What’s the worst that could come out of letting gays marry? Nothing.

What’s the most sexual thing you’ve done? Had sex...I guess? And a bunch of stuff that comes with it.

Name something that you are against. Racial discrimination.

Why are you against it? Because it is infuriating to see, and it shows me the very same treatment can happen to me or my family as well and that scares me, especially since some people turn particularly violent towards people of color.

Have you ever played the Tomb Raider games? No.

Do you like it or hate it when your partner is clingy? I imagine I wouldn’t enjoy it if I’m not as into whoever my next partner would be.

Beatles or Rolling Stones? I don’t listen to either.

When was the last time you changed your opinion on somebody? Not so sure about a whole change in opinion because that hasn’t happened in a while, but I grew more grateful for my manager today because I finally mustered the strength to tell her that I’m begin to struggle mentally with work and she not only encouraged (read: begged) me to file a damn leave for once, but she also got sushi delivered to my place.

What was the last thing that made you feel proud and why? Andi was telling me about their day today and how they handled being misgendered by a prof, who then proceeded to throw a fit when he got corrected, and how they, again, maturely handled said fit. I was proud of them because there are a million ways that incident could’ve turned out, but they dealt with it in an extremely mature and calm manner considering they were the one who was wronged.

Do you feel uncomfortable when people you hardly know confide in you? If it was about an extremely personal problem I would probably be taken aback at first, but I still would definitely make some time for them and help in however way I can, since they apparently trust me enough to confide.

What was the last thing to fascinate you? The music video for My Universe! Super cool to watch and I love that they made a short film out of it too.

Is there a certain noise/sound which scares you? Doors being slammed shut, because that’s what my mom does when she’s furious. She did that when I was a kid and she does it to this day, so I get extremely nervous when I hear the sound, even if it happens by accident.

Do you have a favourite microorganism? Nope.

Out of the people you know, whose birthday is next? My cousin Bree.

If you have pet fish do you bother to name them? I did when I had them as a kid.

Do you keep your eggs in the fridge? Yes?

Have you ever owned chickens? Nope.

When did you last listen to music? Like five minutes ago. I tried to have a jazz playlist on but I realized I wasn’t in the mood for music so I changed my background noise to have a random VLive on instead.

#surveys #survey

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ribcagecarnival · 5 years ago

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ADMIT ONE • NOSO

I met Abby Hwong, professionally known as NoSo, on Facebook. It was 2015, and USC’s newly admitted class of 2019 was scrambling to figure out who was cool. Abby was one of the only members of the pop program I could find online, so I added us plus a couple other stragglers to our own private Facebook group, eagerly awaiting our IRL meeting. That early meeting was sweaty and awkward—we clung to each other at a terribly uncomfortable orientation lunch—but when I heard her sing during a songwriting class, I was stricken. Her voice is warm and low and light, like a campfire, and her lyrics are some of the most surprising, witty, memorable lines I’ve ever heard. She’s also one of the best guitar players I’ve ever heard, full stop. Everything about her is one-of-a-kind, and she is also the funniest person I know. It has been a joy being best friends with Abby, whether we’re sending each other memes or having synchronized existential crises about our careers or planning the inevitable tour of our inevitable duo, Token Minority. I love NoSo, and you should too. Here is her ticket to the Carnival (plus some explanations behind her selections). She is a frequent guest of honor.

1. Running Up That Hill - Kate Bush (Kate Bush was truly ahead of her time with production choices and I can hear her influence on so many newer artists I love)

2. Everywhere - Michelle Branch (I! LOVE! THIS SONG!!!! It makes me feel like a character in an early 2000s movie (I would realistically be the token minority best friend to the protagonist 💓)

3. Eugene - Arlo Parks (The lyrics truly represent the adolescent queer experience. I love how blunt and straight forward the song is; it calls someone out in a gentle way that shows residual hurt and longing.)

4. Little Lies - Fleetwood Mac (this song makes me feel like a sneaky witchy bitch in the best way possible. I love Rumors but Tango in the Night is also one of my favorite albums)

5. Little Red Corvette - Prince (my parents are obsessed with prince and showed me clips of Purple Rain when I was a kid, but I didn’t get it at the time. Then in college while studying his music I fell in love with his discography and understood how brilliant he was)

6. I Was Tired of Being Alone - Patrice Rushen (Patrice is the dean of the program Jensen and I were in at school so her music always brings me immense joy, but also the arrangement on this album is CRAZY. Every instrumental part is so good)

7. Box of Rain - the Grateful Dead (this is my favorite song to walk to. It makes me want to lay in the grass and eat triscuits and fig newtons or something old men like)

8. Conrad - Ben Howard (probably the most beautiful guitar recording I’ve ever heard. he’s one of my favorite artists because his songs usually have unconventional structure and build in a cinematic way)

9. Peekaboo - Red Velvet (yes this is kpop and I LOVE THIS GROUP! I’m so thrilled that a small country like Korea has dominated a part of the music industry. It makes me proud to see people who look like me breaking into mainstream culture)

10. So Into You - Tamia (this is one of my favorite songs ever. I saw kehlani at pride where she performed a cover of it live and I still haven’t recovered)

11. Limp - Fiona Apple (the arrangement and production is SICK. Fiona Apple is one of my favorite vocalists because it’s almost like she’s singing through gritted teeth and you always believe what she’s singing)

12. Heart Like a Wheel - Linda ronstadt (this song is gorgeous, it made me want to learn piano because the melody is so lovely. I’m a sucker for a good ballad)

13. Prom - SZA (this is my favorite song off of Ctrl. That album was the soundtrack to a year where I experienced drastic and necessary life changes; that seems to be a universal experience also)

#noso #admitone #admit one #ribcagecarnival #ribcage carnival #playlist

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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 years ago

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MK-Ultra and the brainwashing grift

If you meet someone who claims to have created a system for controlling other peoples' minds, you know that they are:

a) Delusional;

b) A fraudster; and

c) A sociopath.

This goes for Rasputin, Mesmer, and self-satisfied Big Tech boasters who claim that machine learning deprives of us our free will.

And it DEFINITELY goes for the CIA, whose MK-Ultra plot to perfect mind control was a kind of ghastly running joke.

Writing in Jacobin, Alex de Jong offers a great potted history of MK-Ultra and its architect, the US government chemist Sidney Gottlieb, who, with "rehabilitated" Nazi and Imperial Japanese scientists, performed secret brainwashing experiments.

https://jacobinmag.com/2020/10/cia-brainwashing-program-mk-ultra-sidney-gottlieb/

The article is keyed to the upcoming paperback release of "Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control," Stephen Kinzer's award-winning 2019 book on Gottlieb and his brainwashing experiments.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250140432

The experiments were genuinely awful: from fogging the San Francisco Bay with bacterial pathogens to dosing suspected spies with stimulants and depressants to extract confessions from them, then secretly murdering them and dumping their bodies.

It all kicked into high gear when Gottlieb encountered LSD, and began nonconsensually dosing Americans with huge amounts of it, starting with prisoners in an Appalachian addiction hospital, then branching out to unwitting research subjects at MIT, Stanford and Johns Hopkins.

Then he hired sex-workers to entrap johns in NYC and SF, luring them to rooms where they were kidnapped and megadosed with acid.

All that is terrible, but what's fascinating about it from a modern perspective isn't merely their immorality, it's their scientific uselessness.

These CIA experiments were undertaken in secret, and they were exploring a hypothesis: is mind-control possible? Did American POWs defect to North Korea because the Soviets had mind-control?

Over and over, the answer these experiments generated was a resounding NO.

Everything they tried to do failed, repeatedly, dismally, and with terrible human costs. And yet, at every turn, the scientists involved - eminent scientists who'd done productive work in the nonsecret world of peer review - kept telling themselves they were succeeding.

And so did their paymasters! The entire operation is an incredible example of how the scientific method - and its transparency and adversarial peer review - are what prevents scientists and funders from falling prey to motivated reasoning.

Everything MK-Ultra did was a radioactively obvious failure, but all these super-smart, powerful people repeatedly talked themselves into viewing their experiments as success.

Their hypothesis ("Is mind control a thing?") was actually a conclusion ("Mind control is definitely a thing, and we have to figure it out"). But as we say in the crypto wars, wanting something badly is not enough.

All of this reminds me so much of Big Data and Big Tech, behavioral ads and behavioral modification. Back when hard drives got cheap and the web got wired for surveillance, the industry concluded, a priori, that with enough data, intentions could be divined... and shaped.

We were presented with this in IPO documents and conference presentations as a fait accompli, rather than as a hypothesis. The companies attracted vast amounts of capital and built vast surveillance and analysis systems.

For many of us, the existence of these systems was proof that they were onto something: "No one would fund this if it wasn't producing." Advertisers flocked to behavioral ads because they were convinced on this basis that they must work.

The ad industry's most successful product, of course, is itself: its ability to convince advertisers that it will spend its money wisely and multiply it through scientifically proven marketing techniques.

Just as the CIA's most successful product wasn't mind-control, it was the IDEA of mind-control, which excited the congressjerks who held their purse-strings.

And, like Gottlieb, the ad-tech industry performed nonconsensual human experiments. Remember back in 2012, when Facebook dosed 61,000,000 unsuspecting users with messages that were supposed to get them to vote?

https://www.nature.com/news/facebook-experiment-boosts-us-voter-turnout-1.11401

And, like Gottlieb, they trumpeted this as a success! Those 61,000,000 interventions yielded an additional 60,000 votes - that is, a little less than A TENTH OF A PERCENT of people who received the dose changed their behavior in a tiny way. SUCCESS!

Some people look at this experiment and recoil in horror at the thought that Facebook has perfected a mind-control ray. I look at it and think, well, the first time you exposed 61m people to a tactic, 0.1% of them responded.

Many of those people will become inured with repeat exposure, so mostly what this shows is that FB is really bad at doing what they charge people money for: influencing its users' behavior.

But it also shows something else: that FB are monsters.

Because anyone who TRIES to build a mind-control ray is a sociopath. Anyone who funds a mind-control ray is a sociopath. Anyone who invests in a mind-control ray is a sociopath. Trying to make mind-control a thing disqualifies you from participating in decent society.

But working in secret to do impossible, wicked things doesn't mean you'll succeed. It means you'll probably end up kidding yourself, even as you fail and fail and fail.

That doesn't make you harmless. Gottlieb and FB both destroyed the lives they touched.

But it means we should address you as a sociopathic fraudster who got high on your own supply - not as a supergenius whose secret invention puts the future of human free will at risk.

The only people these evil clowns really manage to brainwash is themselves and the people who pay their bills. Everyone else, they merely torture.

#pluralistic

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my4bears · 4 years ago

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Cancer Diaries - 7

Roller Coaster Ride=

When Cliff and I first began dating, I remember writing something to him that said our relationship was like summer breezes and roller coasters. That was over 40 years ago, and it holds true today.

This cancer journey has most certainly had very high highs and very low lows. His first treatment was last Thursday, and of course, we had no clue what to expect. The first day and night was hard; he had chills and sweats that we figured out were due to the combination of the chemo and the pain meds he was taking. After switching to something less strong, his side effects lessened and he was able to enjoy a wonderful weekend. On Saturday, he went fishing with the grandsons. And then Sunday, we had the anointing.

I have to pause and explain a little about the anointing. Immediately after discovering Cliff had cancer, I had a clear message that we were supposed to anoint him with oil. I know this is described in the Bible, but I have never participated in an anointing and had no idea how it was supposed to be done. I didn't mention it to anyone until Lori called me one day to tell me that a dear friend of ours had told her that God had told her we needed to anoint Cliff. At that point, I was sure it was something we SHOULD do, but I didn't know anything about what oil to use or how to go about it. Then one morning, I got the message that I was to mix an ounce of olive oil with 7 drops of frankincense, 7 drops of myrrh, 7 drops of spikenard, and 1 drop of what I thought was acacia oil. When I looked it up, I realized that wasn't right. Turned out it was 1 drop of cassia oil. These are all Biblical anointing oils. I had the first three because I have dabbled in essential oils for some time, but the last one I didn't have. However, Lori knew someone who did have it. I need to explain why I believe the amount of drops was significant. Seven is the biblical number of heavenly perfection. Multiplied by 3 (the number of Divinity) is the completeness of God's perfection. Eight is the number of new beginning. The one drop added the eighth. I mixed all of this up into a white container and let it sit overnight. I had and still have no idea why we were supposed to do this, but I am trying to be obedient to whatever God leads me to do.

I asked our Christian friends via Facebook to join us at 10:30 am to pray for Cliff. So at that time, several of our local friends joined our children as we gathered around Cliff. Lori read James 5: 14-16, Danny poured a little of the oil on Cliff's head, and then all of us prayed silently as hundreds of our friends and families across the country joined us. In the end, I prayed aloud just asking that God's will be done in this situation and that somehow we could bring glory to His Name. It was a simple, yet very moving moment for all of us. The thought that there were so many others lifting Cliff's situation up to the Throne of God is humbling. We don't know if the anointing was for a miraculous healing or preparation for burial, but whatever is in store, we want to show that our total trust lies in our Savior.

Those sweet kids that we consider our bonus children (and Lori's in-laws) proceeded to clean our house and work in the yard to ease the burden for us. We have had cards, calls, messages, texts, and visits from people that have sustained us. People have given and offered assistance that is just beyond anything I could have ever imagined. How will I ever be able to express my gratitude?

This journey has been exhausting. Much more than I even expected. In my mind, I think I can function normally, but the reality is that I am still tottering and spinning and unable to find any balance. I am frustrated that I don't handle this better. I want to be brave, but I also want to curl up into a fetal position and cover my head. It is astounding to me that life carries on around me. It's like trying to board an escalator that is running too fast. I can't find the rhythm to step on. How do people do this? I've seen other people go through tremendous hardships and sickness and they seem to carry on just fine. Why can't I? This roller coaster is running out of control and I'm afraid I will not master it the way I must.

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jenni42085 · 5 years ago

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Love in the Time of Corona <One>

One.

“So Scott, got a question for you, well, maybe your brother.”

“Honey, what’s wrong you look stressed.”

Colton sighs as he rolls over to look closer at his boyfriend Scott Evans. “I know we are on lockdown but. . . “

“But what?”

“I don’t know if I can stay here with you at your brother’s when my sister is alone at her apartment.”

Scott relaxes and runs his hand through his boyfriend’s curly dark brown hair. “You know we can ask Chris to come let her stay with us.”

“Do you think he would be ok with it?”

“If she’s family and she’s alone. I don’t see why not.” Scott stands and walks to the side of Colton’s bed pulling him to his feet. “Let’s go ask him now since I think you’ll keep tossing and turning if you don’t.” he says as he gives his boyfriend a hug and kiss.

*knock knock knock*

“Come in.” Chris sits up in bed waiting for his brother to come in. “What’s up?”

“Well I, well we have a HUGE favor to ask.”

Colton cuts off Scott while coming in behind him. “Feel free to say no. If it’s too much I understand but. . .” He takes a deep breath.

“So first off thanks for letting me stay with you and Scott but, my sister is quarantining alone and her birthday is in a few weeks and I’d rather her not be alone. So . . . “

“So you were wondering is she could stay here?” Chris asks letting his right eyebrow arch.

Colton’s eyes became large as two saucers when he was cut off but Chris. “Yeah. If it’s too much it’s fine I understand completely.”

Chris adjusts more in bed and thinks for a minute and figures the more the merrier. Plus it’s her birthday is coming up soon. It’ll suck being stuck in a house anyways but all by yourself would be worse. “Nah, it’s fine. Tell her to come on. Does she cook or anything?”

“Oh yeah she cooks and she cleans.” Colton says, “She makes amazing fried chicken but her pepperoni rolls are life.”

Chris and Scott both look at him curiously and reply in unison “Pepperoni rolls?”

“Yeah pepperoni rolls. Don’t worry I’ll call her before bed and tell her. I haven’t mentioned anything to her so it’ll be a good surprise. Thanks so much.” Colton says as he goes back to the bedroom he shares with Scott.

*Ring. Ring. Ring.*

“Hello?” Nico groggily answer her phone.

“Hey sis, did I wake you?” Colton replies.

A deep sigh comes out of Nico, she was in the progress of falling asleep in front of television yet again. “No, just laying here. What’s up? Are you ok?” he replies.

“Yeah, just worrying about you. So, do you want me to come quarantine with you?” He asks trying to test out the waters. He knows she is stubborn true to her Taurus sign so he has to ease her into it.

Nico adjusts her pillows then lays back in bed again. “Honestly, it would be great if you were here but I know you are with your new boyfriend Scott, so I don’t want to sound selfish and make you leave him.”

“Well, what if there is another way for us to be together.” He replies smiling after hearing her response. Always so giving, even if it hurts her.

“How’s that going to happen? I don’t even know where you are at.” She replies slowly shaking her head.

Colton takes a small breath, “ We are with his brother in the outskirts of Boston. He’s got a big house and yard, AND I asked if you could stay and as long as you help out with cooking and stuff you can come stay!”

“Colton . . . “

“Hear me out sis. It’s either this or I’ll have someone else come stay with you. And I don’t mean friends. Maybe mom and dad or one of the other sisters and their families.”

Hearing that threat makes Nico shoot up from bed instantly feeling stressed, “Why would you say that? Of all things! Why?”

“Because I’m your big brother and I worry about you and your mental health. So how about you load your car up with a month full of clothes and whatever else you need. I’ll have some extra groceries sent to us so you can make some of those delish pepperoni rolls.”

Nico’s head falls to the side. “Are you sure you actually miss me, or are you just craving pepperoni rolls?”

Colton chuckles at little bit at his sister, “Nah, I miss you but pepperoni rolls are like an added bonus.”

A deep sigh leaves her, “Fine. “I’ll pack up tonight and leave in the morning I guess.”

“Awesome! Can’t wait to see you, it’s like a 4 hour drive from New York so it’s not too bad. I’ll text you the addy. I’m going to bed and you should too since, you have some driving to do.”

“Yes yes, I’ll go to sleep after packing my stuff up. Nighty nighty Colton.”

“Night Nico.” He replies as he hangs up.

***********************************************************************************************

When Colton left to call his sister, Scott and Chris talk for a few more minutes, “So what do you know about his sister?”

“She’s a cosplayer and runs a party planning business. She’s the middle child out of the five of them, lives in New York.”

“Do you have any pictures or anything of her?” Chris asks wondering if inviting her is a good idea since Scott just mentioned her being a cosplayer. He wonders if she would be a fan girl or something making the quarantine lockdown a little awkward and miserable.

Scott looks at his brother perplexed, “Are you having second thoughts?”

“No, not really. But if she’s a cosplayer, is she a fan girl?”

“No idea to be honest. He talks about her the most but, didn’t mention her celebrity crushes. I’m sure she has met a few celebrities at conventions and knows how to act. Mainly, I know she’s a great cook. She’s sent him some cookies and cakes not to long ago and they were amazing.”

Chris nods his head in understanding but still curious. “Do you at least know her name?”

“Nico.” He replies with a happy face.

“Nico? What kind of name is that?”

Scoot sighs and rolls his eyes, “It’s short for Nicolette. The few times we’ve chatted on the phone she seemed really sweet. But don’t call her Nicolette. She’ll correct you.” Scott states and chuckles. “It's honestly like a curse word to her.”

“OK then, I’ll call her Nico.” He says with a small smile. “You do realize I’m going to Facebook stalk her.”

“Ohh I figured as much.” Scott shrugs as he leaves the room. “Thanks brother. I think he was really worried since the others have spouses and they usually do everything together. Plus he knows how her anxiety and depression gets a little crazy at times.”

“How crazy?” Chris asks as he stops typing her name on Facebook, “anything life threaten?”

“Ohh no no no, never anything like that at least I don't think so. But if you see her cleaning and organizing stuff, she is probably having some racing thoughts. Sometimes she can’t sleep or a few times she has called Colton in the midst of a panic attack and he has to talk her through things and breathing exercises. Apparently they get so bad it feels like a heart attack.”

Chris nods his head in understanding because he knows how this panic attacks feel. He’s gotten better at getting himself in the right head space but he can definitely sympathize with her. After typing in New York in location in Facebook he was able to pull up her page. “Gotcha, well I’m going to look around on her page. Good night.”

Scott picks up on his body language and leaves, “good night.”

***********************************************************************************************

Chris looks at Nico’s Facebook page, while most of it is under private which he likes there are a few pictures of her. She looks honestly beautiful. Her most current picture is of her dressed up as Pikachu with a few other girls as other Pokemon. Even though she isn’t center stage, his eyes automatically goes to her. He can’t tell how tall she is but, she is about average build with large brown eyes, her skin is a little lighter than her brother’s almost like a burnt caramel complexion, and a big curly head of black hair with purple tips.

The other profile pictures that were there shows a few other of her cosplays of a Hufflepuff student from Hogwarts, the Powerpuff girls where she was Buttercup, and the last one took him by surprise. A few years ago she was dressed as a female Captain America with another girl who has been in a few other pictures of hers as the Winter Soldier.

She nails the look of Captain America with the colors and the stripes and stars but the girlie feel for it. To be honest she looks hot with the corset and the tutu bottom and knee high blue boots. Her hair was still curly but hair of It pinned back with a few large silver stars. When she smiles her eyes light up making her star lip ring show most prominently.

Out of curiosity and boredom he looks at the Winter Solider girl’s profile to see if there were any other pictures of Nico. Fortunately, her page was public and he could see some other pictures of her. The sweetest picture was a shout to Nico being an amazing friend and godmother to her kids. She was laying on the couch with a small toddler in her lap asleep the caption read, “the sweetest and best godmother.”

With what he could see of her, she seems like a really sweet girl. And beautiful to boot. Hopefully she’ll be all that and more when she comes. He reclines a little more in bed and slowly starts to fall asleep.

***********************************************************************************************

Scott closes the door to his shared bedroom with Colton, “I think my brother will be shocked meeting Nico.”

Colton hits send on his message to Nico then looks up from his phone, “Shocked? Why?”

“Well because, she might be something he needs in life. He was Facebook stalking her and didn’t look to upset about her.” He says as he crawls back into bed with him.

“Oh wow. Has he ever been with a black girl?” He looks at Scott as his raised eye brow finally returns back to its normal position. “Because I’ll be honest she's only ever dated white guys so it’s no problem for her. But I don’t want his end game to get in her pants. No pun intended. But she is my little.”

“As far as I know, he has never dated a black girl but it’s not out of the realm of possibly. He’s open minded but he’s not just trying to have sex with her. He’s ready to settle down.”

“I guess that is good. But we shall see tomorrow how they interact.”

Scott nods his head in agreement, “Did you tell her who my brother was?”

Colton runs his head through he hair, “No I did not because . . .”

“Because why?”

“Well because I don’t want her up all night overthinking or her changing her mind and staying home. Plus, I want her to be shocked. I like seeing her shocked. It’s funny.”

“Gotcha, I love you Colton.”

“I love you too Scottie. Now let’s go to bed. I’m exhausted.”

***********************************************************************************************

After getting off the phone with her brother Nico goes to her closet and pulls out her two biggest suitcases, sighing she starts to pack to stay with people she doesn’t really know for a month or so. While she’s not really thrilled with going outside of her comfort zone but she knows she can see and hang out with her brother, so there is some comfort and security in that.

Moving to New York has been the best and worse thing she has ever done. She enjoyed being away from small town life but sometimes she missed not knowing really anyone here minus her close friends and coworkers.

Thankfully, her brother did make frequent visits but after he got with Scott it was less frequent. She wasn’t jealous or anything just wishing to see him more with or without Scott.

Sighing once again, she starts packing leggings, tank tops, and other clothes. She knows she won’t be going anywhere so she doesn’t feel the urge to pack anything to fancy. Thinking harder on what to pack, she goes ahead and packs some crafts, her MacBook, and her Nintendo switch.

Looking at the clock she realizes it’s almost midnight and she’s not even tired. Since there were no places open for her to go she takes her wet curly hair out of her messy bun and decides to blow dry it straight then flat iron it. It’s been a while since she’s straighten her hair but figures that it’s better now then never. After an hour she is finished straighten it and does a quick trim on it then braids it and puts on her bonnet and falls asleep.

***********************************************************************************************

The sun shines into Nico’s room slowly waking her up. She stretches and gets a hot shower then packs up all of toiletries. She opts to wear a black pair of leggings and a cami along with an oversized mustard yellow sweater that compliments her skin. She brushes her now straight hair again and rebraids it into a side ponytail.

Finally after a few hours she was able to finish packing different odds and ins that she might need or want, emailing and calling a few coworkers to let her know she was going to be out of town but still be available for conference calls. She notified her neighbors so they could keep an eye on her place. After putting the address into her map app, she lets her Driving Mix on Apple Music and hits the road.

***********************************************************************************************

Chris walks into the yet to be occupied bedroom to make sure everything looked good for her arrival. Even though he slept good last night, he would be lying if he didn’t dream about Nico. He was excited for her arrival. Not because she was beautiful but, for a new person for to have there and someone who actually cooks from scratch, plus she would not make him the third wheel with Scott and Colton.

It had only been a week but he was already getting burnt out on take out and fast food already. He didn’t want to bug his mom with her making food for not only him but Scott and Colton even though he knows she wouldn’t mind. But seeing as older people are more at risk, he would rather her just keep interactions to FaceTime.

“So, when’s your sister getting here?” He asks casually as he walks into the kitchen. Colton and Scott are sitting at the island drinking coffee.

Colton looks at the clock and counts, “She should be here in about 30 minutes or so. Keep an eye out for a silver Subaru Outback with hello kitty on it.”

“Wow, ok then.” Scott says, “I’m surer that doesn’t stick out at all.” The three chuckle at the description of her car.

“So, is she excited to come here?” Chris asks.

“Honestly not too sure. She was a little apprehensive, but after I threaten to tell the rest of family she was glad to pack up her car and make the drive.” Colton replies with a smirk.

“You had to threaten her?’ Chris laughs.

“Wow, I thought I was bad but I can see you know how to twist her arm. So, I’m just going to be nosey.”

“Shoot. Be nosey. I don’t mind.” Colton says as he takes another sip of coffee.

“Why did she not want to be with other family members?”

Colton makes a small smile, “Don’t get me wrong, we love our parents and sisters BUT they are all married and have kids and we don’t. We have kind of have always been the black sheep of the family. Nico and I haven’t always gone down the beaten path of our family. I’m gay and she’s a blerdy girl.”

Chris’ head cocks to the side, “Blerdy girl?”

“A black nerd. Geez, Chris get hip with the slang.” Scott says while rolling his eyes.

“Exactly. It was kind of hard for us growing up with family being very straight lace while, I was out and proud since I was 17 and she finally accepted the fact that she would never have a stuffy office job that would make her hate her life. She’s great though. Her love of rainbows, unicorns, Hello Kitty among other things helped her to forget our family kinds of forgets that it’s ok to be different.” Colton looks at the clock and realizes she should be here any moment.

“I have to admit, I looked at her Facebook page. What I could see of it she looks pretty awesome. I just kind of hope she doesn’t completely freak when she sees me.” Chris says while smiling.

“Nah, she should be ok. She’s met a few people from the Avenger movies so she should be ok.”

“Really ?” Chris asks as he stands up to stretch. “Who has she met?”

“She met Chris Hemsworth and said that he was really nice and funny. I think I have a picture of her with him I think.” Colton answers as he scrolls through pictures on his phone. “Here I’ll send it to you. Ask him if he remembers her.”

Scott looks at his boyfriend like he is a little crazy. “I doubt he is going to remember her out of all the fans he has met.”

“Hey now, you never know. My sister has a way that people never forget her.”

Chris looks at his and saves the picture of Nico and Hemsworth. He decides what the hell and send it to the group chat he has with him, Sebastian, Anthony, Jeremy, and RDJ. “He might remember her, it was from a few months ago.”

The room gets quiet when they hear a car pull up the drive way. Dodger starts barking at the sound of someone new. Sure enough the three walk outside to a silver Subaru being put in park. Colton walks over to the drivers side to greet his sister.

“There she is! My little sister.” Colton says in an excited tone.

“Colton!” Nico replies as she gets out the car to give her brother a hug. She’s considerably shorter than her 6’4 tall brother. As he hugs her, he picks her up and spins her as her legs dangle. “I’ve missed your face brother bear.”

“I’ve missed you too! You look cute and comfy. Is that the sweater I got you for Christmas?”

“Of course, it’s like the most comfortable sweater I own and it works well with leggings.” She replies as she does a spin. “So where is this new man of yours? I get to finally meet him and not just talking on the phone!”

Scott pipes in excitedly from behind the pair. “I’m right here! Hi I’m Scott it’s good to finally meet you in person. He’s told me a lot about you.” He extends his arms and give her a hug. “Sorry, I don’t know if you are a hugger but I am. Even with all this going on, I like a good hug.”

“No, it’s fine. I haven’t touched anything outside of my apartment minus me lysoling my car so I’m clean. And no point of social distancing if we might be here for the next month or so.” She pulls away and looks at him again to figure out where she has seen him. “You look like someone I’ve seen before. I know my brother says you are an actor but I still can’t place your face.”

“It’ll hit you don’t worry. Ohh and here is my brother Chris.” Scott replies with a wink.

Chris slowly approaches the three of them waiting for Nico to either faint or fangirl. “Hello Nico, I’m Chis.”

Nico’s large brown eyes became even bigger as she realizes that Chris wasn’t just Chris but Chis freaking Evans and Scott was Scott Evans. Don’t freak out. Don’t freak out. “Oh wow, Chris Evans. Nice to meet you.” She sticks out her hand and gets pulled in for a a big bear hug from Chris. When he pulls away her cheeks were a little red.

“Sorry, just figured since you gave everyone else a hug I’d get one also.” He replies sheepishly as he pulls away.

“No worries, just wasn’t expecting to meet you. And . . . yeah.” She replies still blushing.

While the two were having this awkwardly cute interaction Scott pokes Colton in his side and mouths “See!” Colton shakes his head and looks at the pair and can kind of see it.

“So, if you two are done with the awkward meeting how about we get you and your stuff inside.” Colton says as he walks past Chris and Nico and opens her trunk and back door. “Did you pack enough stuff?”

Nico’s head tilts to the side and gives her brother a dirty look, “Hey now! It's honestly not a lot of thing, PLUS I’m sure you packed WAY more than me.”

“That he did.” Scott states with humor in his voice. “Also you need extra stuff because you really had no idea of where you were going and what we already had.”

“Exactly!” Nico squeals as she puts an arm around Scott, “I think I like you already.”

***********************************************************************************************

After one trip they successfully all of Nico’s things in her guest room. Walking into the house Dodger greets Nico by jumping up on her a few times. Chris tried to pull the dog away from her but she wasn’t even upset she welcomed the dog’s affection. He was kind of surprised that Dodger took to her so quickly but it was cute.

While she was unpacking in getting settled, Dodger sat outside of door watching happily and wagging her tail. Every once in a while he would come in for a few pats then goes back to watching her unpack.

***********************************************************************************************

Chris goes to his room to relax for a few minutes and looks at his phone to see a few messages from the guys:

RDJ: So who is this girl with Hemsworth exactly? She’s adorably pint sized.

Hemsworth: Ohh! I remember her. She was from a convention a few months ago. The girls loved her Eevee cosplay.

Sebastian: She’s cute. Why do you have a picture of Hemsworth with a random girl?

Chris: That’s Nicolette, Scott’s boyfriend’s sister. She is joining us for the quarantine. What do you guys think of her?

Hemsworth: What I can remember of her, she’s very sweet and has a few Avenger tattoos. If I can remember correctly her right upper arm has the symbols lined up with the Black Panther one included.

RDJ: That’s really specific.

Chris: Agreed. How do you know this?

Hemsworth: Well if you look at the outfit she has on it was strapless and her friend pointed it out. Her friend was fangirling a bunch but she was just so chill and a little shy.

Sebastian: Is she single? If so, your quarantine time might be a lot more fun. 🍆🍆

Chris: LOL. I honestly have no idea. I’d imagine single because she is staying with us but you never know. She is beautiful. Much more in person than the pictures. I did hug her and it was nice.

RDJ: Watch out hugging her. You really do sound like Cap right now. I think he really has rubbed off on you.

Chris: Dude! I just met her and in front of her brother no less couldn’t be grabby. You know that's not how I roll.

Jeremy: Yeah you very well couldn't dick her down in front of everyone. lol.

Anthony: Sorry guys late to the party once again. I remember seeing her at another convention. She was Pikachu and it wasn’t revealing but still sexy.

Hemsworth: Agreed a subtle sexy. I’d say that is your kind of girl.

Anthony: Most definitely. She might be the girl next door with a wild side.

Chris: I don’t know about all that but she is currently unpacking in the guest room and Dodger won’t leave her side.

Sebastian: Dogs always know the good ones. Might want to continue making a good impression on her.

Jeremy: Did you find out her favorite avenger yet?

Chris: No. Should I?

RDJ: Ummm yes up your chance to see if she likes you.

On that note, Chris closes out the texts and sees how she is doing.

***********************************************************************************************

*knock knock*

“Come in.” Nico says as she is putting her last stack of clothes in the drawer. She was expecting to see her brother but saw Chris instead. Her eyes got slightly larger but her face stayed neutral. “Oh hey!”

“Hey, so hows the unpacking going.” He asks while leaning against the doorway taking in her form better now that she has taken off the oversized sweater and is now in a tank top with her black leggings and pastel hulk no show socks.

She surveys her open suitcases one more time, ”Actually I think I’m done. I didn’t overpack because I didn’t see myself going out anywhere so it was just lounge clothes mainly.”

“Yeah, don’t blame you. It’s crazy how quickly it all escalated. You know?”

“I couldn’t agreed with you more. One moment I’m going into the office. Next I’m working from home and then I’m here, thankfully I'm still getting paid but I can at least work on future events that I've been putting off.” Her facial expression looks unreadable so Chris walks in closet just to make sure she is ok. His movements caught her attention and she gave him a small smile with a hint of sadness in her eyes. “It’s ok though. I’m alive and I have a job. Just stresses me out a little bit.”

“Understandable. How’s the anxiety?” Chris asks gently.

She turns fully to him and gives him a half smile. “Surprisingly, that’s been pretty okay considering. I’ve only had a small panic attack but nothing major.”

He shakes his head in agreement. “I’ve been making sure friends and family are safe. It went from nothing to something big. But I just hope people don't forget to do mental health check ups to make sure they can survive this.”

Dodger comes up and puts his nose under her hand because he wanted so affection so Nico reaches down and scratches him behind the ears. “I bet having him around helps. They know when their owner feels stressed.”

“Yeah, he sure does. So, are you hungry or anything?”

“Not yet. I had some oatmeal before I left.”

He nods his head not really sure of what else to say because he wants to know more about her,” Would you like a tour of my humble abode?”

“Sure! That sounds great.” She replies. He puts his arm out and she links it with his as he shows her around the house and the outside.

***********************************************************************************************

After Nico finishes her tour with Chris, she goes to the living room and sits down on the tan ultra plush couch with her legs under her. Since being here Dodger has followed her around like a baby duck. Once she gets comfy he places his head on her leg and cuddles closer to her. Even though she slept last night she was kind of anxious to get on the road and get resettled.

Looking at her phone she sees that is almost 5 and the sun was slowly setting as much as she knows it’s way to late for a nap she gets cozy with Dodger and drifts into dreamland.

***********************************************************************************************

Chris was done with working on his few projects for his website and wanted to check in with everyone. Scott and Clinton were in their room about to come out. “Hey guys, any thoughts for dinner tonight ?”

“Nothing really. We could see if my sister wants to cook something for us.” Colton replied as he walks towards the door.

“Where is she anyway? I know she unpacked and looked around with Chris but haven’t seen her since.” Scott asks. He couldn’t help but bring up that Nico and Chris were together just so Colton would acknowledge the fact that Chris night have some interest.

“Hard to say. She wanders off a lot. . . Especially if she is drunk. Go check her room.”

Chris pipes in, “Nah she want there I already checked." His statement makes Colton look at him but doesn't say anything.

The three walk into the living room/ kitchen area and see a sleeping Nico on the couch with Dodger curled up to her for warmth. Chris being worries that she might be cold since she was curled up almost in a ball so he gets his favorite blanket off the other side of the couch and covers her with it. Once the warmth is around her, she snuggles closer under it with Dodger.

“So . . . Should we wake her?” Scott asks as he sees her body rise and fall in a deep sleep.

“Nah, it’s best to just leave her there for maybe another 45 mins to an hour.” Colton says as he walks back to the kitchen to figure out what their dinner plans will be. “But you don’t want her up all night making noise.” He laughs at his own statement, “she’s done it before a few times. Growing up she would nap during the day then 2 o’clock in the morning she would be up doing art or her hair or just something.”

Chris nods his head with a chuckle running his hand through his hair. “Noted.”

Colton pulls out a bag of chicken nuggets and French fries then places them on a baking sheet and seasons them while the oven was preheating. He sees the way Chris is admiring his sister and feels unsure of it all. He wants the best for his sister and has always been leery of any man who wants to be with her but, a celebrity has never been interested in her and wants her to be happy and safe.

“Ni Ni, wake up.”

“Five more minutes, I’ve only been asleep for like 20 minutes.” Nico says sleepily.

“You mean more like 2 hours or more.” Scott says as he helps Colton pull the blanket off of her.

Her body goes from stretched out into a small ball as soon as the cool air hits her skin. Slowly she shifts and sits up to stretch remembering where she is. “Sorry guys, didn’t mean to be asleep that long I was going to make dinner.”

“It’s fine your brother has it right Colton?” Chris says as he lets Dodger out.

“Yeah. Yeah, Baby sis already slacking. I swear.” Colton replies with a chuckle as he shakes his head.

Nico rolls her eyes and walks over to her brother giving him a hug. “I’m sorry. Don’t worry I’ll make pepperoni rolls for us tomorrow and that will fix it all.”

***********************************************************************************************

After a tasty dinner, the group watched a few BuzzFeed Unsolved: True Crime episodes then at around 10 they all said their good nights and went to bed for the night. Nico laid down and played some online games but honestly, she just wasn’t tired. She finally laid down and closed her eyes but then tossed and turned for a while.

11:45 the clock blared at her, after realizing that she wasn’t going to sleep, Nico pulls on some gray cotton shorts, readjusts her tank top, brushes her hair, and throws it into a high messy bun. Thankfully, her brother had kept the promise of getting extra ingredients sent to the house so she decided since she couldn’t sleep she would make his pepperoni rolls.

Nico finally figured out where everything was located in the massive kitchen and started mixing the dough. The wooden spoon wasn’t really mixing it like she liked but, didn’t want to pull out the mixer because that would more then likely wake the whole house. So after a few more stirs with the wooden spoon she pulls out the spoon and washes her hands again really good with soap and water then starts mixing it with her hands.

She got tired of the silence of just her breathing and decided to have Sir pull up one of her mix playlist to keep her company. Even though she was cooking, she decides to load her Shower Time Mix on Apple Music. Good Thing by Kehlani & Zedd fills the kitchen and she is swaying and humming. Baking and music were part of her happy place and helped to soothe her nerves. Lost in the music and mixing the bread she didn’t hear or sense anyone watching her.

Chris had tried to sleep but couldn’t so he laid there for a little bit until he heard faint music and decided to go see what was going on. He notices the door to Nico's room was open and figured she was in the kitchen. She was there with her back to him swaying to the music . After a few minutes of watching her short frame saying he decides to see what she could possibly be doing at almost 12 at night.

“So, should I be concerned that you are in my kitchen at almost 12 at night and it has been pulled apart and your hands are covered in dough?” He asks as he comes into the kitchen. Humor laces his voice which causes her body to jump and she slowly turns around her eyes were like a deer caught in headlights.

“Chris, oh hey!” She replies as she scrunches her nose and pulls her hands out of the now blended dough. “I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to start working on the pepperoni rolls.”

“Ohhh ok.” He replies as looks into the bowl. “Is that going to make enough dough?”

“It has to rise silly. I measured out enough to make about 24 rolls.” Nico replies as she washes her hands again then moves the dough into a greased bowl and then covers with plastic wrap and a dish towel.

He nods his head and crosses his arms across his chest. “It’s a little late to be doing all of this you know?”

“Maybe just a little bit but I couldn’t sleep and then you guys can have it for lunch tomorrow.”

“Point taken. He’s been talking about you and the pepperoni rolls kind of nonstop. I’ve never heard of them or had one.”

Nico doesn’t look too shocked but places her hand on her chest, “Well, you are totally in for a treat. They are soo yummy and filling. This is actually the recipe of the school kind so it’s authentic.”

“Noted. So would you like some company while the dough is rising?”

“I mean if you want to hang out with me in YOUR house, I wouldn’t mind. Some days it gets boring being alone.” She replies lightly.

He smiles at her answer while uncrossing his arms and takes in her beauty while she starts cleaning up the kitchen while the dough rises. “Minus the few things your brother has told me, what else should I know about you?”

She stops and looks at him curiously making her colorful unicorn glass fall down her little nose. Cutely and probably unconsciously she wiggles her nose to push the glasses back up. “Not really sure what all you are wanting to know about me. Honestly, I’m not that exciting.”

“Sure you are! You are a late night baker!” He states with humor laced in his voice making her chuckle.

Soon the kitchen was cleaned up while the oven was pre-heating to help make the dough rise quicker, she joins him on the couch. “Point taken. I’m a nerdy black girl. Currently, I work as a party planner so since the world is on lockdown, I’m just on break. It helps to relax me and help give me more ideas for planning and for cosplay ideas.”

Chris looks at her as she slouches on the couch, the action caused the back of her shirt to ride up her back. “Don’t blame you, I needed a small break and this is so helpful.”

#chris evans x black reader #chris evans interracial #Chris Evans

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