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[gghostwriter]

One Single Thread of Gold

Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader

Part 2 Summary: The three times Penelope tries to solve a Spencer Reid riddle and the one time she (and the team) meet the reason behind all the changes Trope: Fluff! Just fluff and team banter! w.c: 4.0k a/n: For some reason, my earlier post on this disappeared dunno why. But this is a very self indulgent fic as reader’s background is basically based on the industry I work in. I had a lot of fun writing the team banter and I hope you enjoy it too! Comments and reblogs are greatly appreciated 💗

The first clue presented itself on a dull Wednesday night as the team, minus Hotch and Rossi, were leaving the bullpen after a full day of pushing papers. Penelope in all of her sunshine and colorful glory was buzzing about these accessories that she once spotted on a storefront window.

“I saw a pair of earrings and a matching necklace that would look so good with that top you bought the other day, JJ. You know, the blue one with those soft sleeves—they would look great with it. It’s tres boho chic.”

JJ smiled, opening her mouth to reply, but Spencer beat her to it.

“Did you know that boho chic was actually a response to political and social movements?”

“Wait, what?” Emily interjected.

He took her disbelief as a sign to continue on. “Yeah, yeah. There’s an article written about it in Vogue—softness and femininity historically appears in moments of political stress and war. Just like in the 70s with the hippie and anti-war movement that defined their style as a generation.”

They all piled into the elevator and turned to face the boy genius like he grew another head. For all they knew, this could be a clone and a very bad one at that. The Spencer Reid that they knew had absolutely no interest in the realms of fashion.

Penelope was the first to break the silence. “Vogue?”

“Kid, what gives? Just the other time, you didn’t know how many shoes a woman owns and now you’re some kind of expert?” Derek asked with both eyebrows raised.

“Did not knowing activate some kind of button that made you want to read about it?” Emily added on, feeling like she was in some kind of TV prank show.

“What?” Spencer licked his lips, nervous with all the attention on him. He felt like he was about to slip something up that he had been keeping to himself for a while now. A hidden precious gem that was you. “I—I like to read.” A believable excuse except his voice went up an octave, giving him away.

The three women shared a look.

“But you read academic textbooks and classic literature,�� JJ stated.

Penelope added on. “Not fashion magazines.”

He shrugged, trying to act nonchalant. “I don’t discriminate when it comes to reading. If it’s interesting—” he shifted his weight one side to another, thinking that the ride down on the elevator seemed to be taking slower than usual. “—I’ll read it.”

Penelope narrowed her eyes. She was no profiler but she could smell a lie from a mile away way. That wasn’t the whole truth. Dr. Spencer Reid was hiding something.

“Okay, see you tomorrow!” he squeaked out as he ran out of the elevator once it hit the lobby.

She turned to the three profilers, stunned with the boy genius’ erratic behavior. “Huh, did anybody else get the feeling that Spencer was hiding something?”

“Maybe, but the kid does read a lot. Maybe he just ran out of books.” Morgan shrugged.

The other two profilers tilted their heads and slowly nodded in agreement. It wasn’t far off on something Spencer would do. He did once pick up a pamphlet in the airport to read as mentioned before to her by Derek, granted it was for a case but still, Penelope couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something else.

So when she arrived home that very same night, she propped up her laptop and got to digging. Boy Genius was hiding something big and Little Miss Oracle of Quantico can find anything with her tech skills. She’ll get to the bottom of this mystery, once and for all.

———

Spencer was glad to be coming home to your presence. Having spied the lights still on from the outside of the apartment, he took the steps two at a time, excited to see his 2nd favorite person after his mother—you.

“Spence?” You called out, having heard the mahogany front door open. “Is that you, baby?”

“Hey, love. I missed you,” he deposited his satchel to the nearby sofa and ran to give you a hug.

You burrowed yourself into his arms. All the muscles in your body relaxing as you caught a whiff of his cedar wood perfume—the same scent you’ve gifted to him during the early stages of dating. “I missed you too. How was your day?”

“Better now with you,” his words coming out muffled as he refused to detach himself from the embrace. “Actually, I almost slipped up today.”

You extricated from his arms to give him an inquisitive look. The slight scrunch on your nose and raised brows made his heart flutter. How expressive, free, and trusting you were. It reminded him of your first encounter. How you teasingly asked him if he was a serial killer when he offered you a ride home in the pouring rain and how you easily accepted regardless.

“Yeah? Did any of them catch on?” you probed as you pulled him by his belt loops to the direction of the bedroom.

He laughed, finding your aggression cute. “No. At least, I don’t think so.”

“Maybe we should schedule dinner with them sometime,” you coyly suggested as you slowly started to unravel his tie. “I mean, we’ve been together for over a year now and I have moved into your apartment, under the guise of watering your plants while you’re away. Which is a lie, by the way—”

“I have plants!” he protested. His hands divesting you out of his sweater, bringing to view his favorite silk set in deep purple that accentuated your skin and the blush on your cheeks.

“—that I brought over, Spence,” you quipped back. “But don’t worry, I won’t spill how the intelligent FBI agent fooled naive me into moving in with him.”

There was a glint in his eyes that sent shivers down your spine. “Love, I wouldn’t exactly call you naive—” his voice going an octave lower. “—not when you’re looking at me with those tempting eyes of yours.”

Giggling, you leaned in for a kiss, one that he quickly took over. His calloused dominant hand wrapped around the back of your neck, effectively caging you in while his other cradled your cheek—a stark contrast to the other. Kissing Spencer had always felt like a religious experience that you never want to part from.

Reluctantly pulling away, you caught glimpse of his need for you. His hazel eyes now dark as ink, nostrils slightly flared, teeth sinking into his lower lip, and his dominant hand dug into the fleshy nape of your neck. It made you feel desirable, like the goddess that he would call you when he’s on his knees tasting nectar from the source.

The discussion of inviting the team out for dinner was long forgotten. No other words were spoken as you pushed him on the bed—only the cries of his and your name and moans of ‘yes’ echoed well into the night.

***

The second clue was uncovered when Spencer walked into the cold windy bullpen with new black cardigan adorning his lithe body. It was non-descriptive to the untrained eye but for fashion enthusiast Penelope Garcia, she knew what those four white lines on the sleeve meant—luxury label and priced well above their pay grade.

She narrowed her eyes. The Spencer she knew wouldn’t dare spend his salary on anything besides limited first edition books. Something was truly up and she planned to get to the bottom of it as her initial online search turned up nothing.

“Reid, that’s a really nice sweater,” she complimented, throwing in her bait.

He smiled. The thought of who gave it to him warmed his heart. “Yeah. Yeah, thanks Garcia.”

Her sparkly pink kitten heels clacking on the floor as she came closer. “Can I see it?” she innocently asked.

The request threw Spencer off the loop but thought nothing of it as he shrugged and handed it to her—still warm from body temperature.

Her squeals caught the attention of the other profilers filling into the office.

“What is it, baby girl?” Morgan deposited his bag on the table and stationed himself beside her. “It’s Reid’s new sweater. Are you seeing something I’m not seeing?”

Garcia rolled her eyes. This was why females are considered more observant that their sex counterpart. Her chocolate thunder was a profiler but how could he not notice what she was deducing?

“Huh,” Emily surmised. “Based on the fibers, it’s definitely not polyester. Possibly a 100% wool, what do you think, JJ?”

“It says here on the tag—100% virgin wool,” she read out loud. “That makes it very expensive, right Garcia?”

The colorful tech analyst smiled. Her girls could never let her down. “Right you are, girlfriends! But it’s not only that, this—” pointing at the four stripes on the sleeve. “—this is a signature Thom Browne detail. Their prices go up to at least 600 dollars—” they all turned to Reid who seemed clearly agitated. “—now why does our boy wonder have a piece that could buy at most five cute heels?”

With his vast intellect, he couldn’t think of a way to weasel out of this impromptu interrogation. He couldn’t very well say that it was a gift now could he? If he did, that would lead to another hard hitting question ‘from who?’ He raked his hand through his curly hair, taking the same path as yours did just earlier as you gave him a kiss goodbye.

When you gifted him the cardigan from your last New York business trip, he really thought nothing of its material equivalence, besides feeling grateful and loved. It was proof that you paid attention to even the littlest details about him.

“Hey Spence, I got you something,” you looked up at him with sparkling eyes. The first thing you had done when you got home was run into his arms. A simple act that healed his aching heart from missing it’s other half.

You reached into your luggage, enthusiastically pulling out the black clothing wrapped in tissue paper like some magician pulling out a rabbit from a hat. “Here you go!”

“A new sweater!” He exclaimed.

You rocked on your heels, looking bashful as you explained the reasoning behind it. “I noticed you fidgeting when you wore the cardigan JJ gifted you last Christmas, the polyester fibers used on it must have been really itchy so I got you a new one—” your eyes widened at how your explanation could be taken the wrong way. “—not that her gift wasn’t great! No, it was very cute! It’s just—I want you to be comfortable and protected during your cases in cold states. Polyester is a good insulator of heat but wool is still the best.”

He loved how unabashed you rambled about your interests. That was one of the first things he piqued his notice. How you liked to share your knowledge about the fashion industry that you work for but never coming across as stuck up or snobby, you just genuinely wanted to educate anyone who had a wrong perception of the billion dollar commerce. Admittedly, he was one of them but hearing you rave about it’s nitty-gritty details and socio-economic movements changed his mind. It also helped that a beautiful and intelligent woman, such as yourself, was educating him.

He pulled you in for a kiss, stopping all the worries that ran through your head. “I love it. Thank you.”

“It’s nothing at all, baby. I like taking care of you. Just like how you take care of me,” you reasoned. “Plus I got it on sale courtesy of the magazine connections.”

A tap on his shoulder brought him out of his reverie. It was Penelope with an eyebrow raised at the subtle smile that graced his face while he replayed the moment in his head.

“Okay,” Morgan drawled. “What’s got you smiling, Pretty boy?”

“Nothing,” he squeaked out, turning to see Hotch make his way across the office. Spencer hurriedly collected his things and started to move even before their unit chief could call their attention.

“We have a case,” Hotch announced.

The remaining BAU members all looked at each other, silently communicating about Reid’s irregular demeanor, before piling into the conference room for another grueling scene of murder.

“He’s been acting weird,” Garcia rushed out. “Definitely hiding something. What do you think, Em?”

Emily nodded. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“A girl?” JJ guessed.

“Yes, must be a special one for him to keep secret for so long,” Garcia surmised. “Do you think he’ll hate it if I go further digging around to find out who she is?”

“Further?” Emily clarified.

JJ laughed. “Probably, let’s wait for him to volunteer the information. Okay, Garcia?”

She sighed, shoulders drooping, before nodding in agreement.

***

The third clue was quite literally handed to Penelope Garcia on the jet after a case when she accompanied the team.

“Cold Alaska is so not good for my skin,” she grumbled as she rummaged her bottomless bag for her favorite hand cream. “I love going with you all on trips rather than being stuck in my own tech cave but the weather wasn’t it.”

Morgan chuckled. “Aw c’mon baby girl, don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy our time together?”

“You, my sculpted hunk, and the fireplace were the highlight,” Penelope turned to the other female profilers. “My beauties, do any of you have lotion? I think I lost mine.”

Before JJ or Emily could even utter a word, a tube made its way to her lap courtesy of her seat mate, Dr. Spencer Reid.

“Reid, since when do you carry lotion?” Emily inquired.

He shrugged. “Hand cream has it’s benefits besides from moisturizing the skin, it also provides an additional layer of protection. Depending on it’s properties, it can also repair and undo damage.”

The females all shared a look. This was another unexplainable behavior from their resident genius.

“We know that,” JJ stated. “We just thought you didn’t.”

His brows furrowed. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Well, besides from the fact that you’ve never shown interest about skincare before, isn’t it a stereotype for men not to know? Unless—” Emily slyly smiled and nodded at Garcia to continue.

“Unless you have a girlfriend that we don’t know about,” Garcia bounced on her seat.

Hook, line, and sinker.

Spencer’s eyes widened in alarm. He didn’t realize he was walking into a trap before it was too late. “What makes you say that?”

They laughed.

JJ started. “Besides from you suddenly being knowledgeable in fashion—“

“—or having a pricey sweater you’d never buy for yourself—” Emily added on.

“Or, or—“ Garcia reached out to touch his hand. Which made Spencer react with a high pitched call of her name. “—having a shea butter lotion with rough hands!” She waved the tube up in the air. “Plus, this is half empty. So either it’s not working which I doubt since this is a good brand or you keep this in your bag for a special someone to use!”

Derek chuckled. “Baby girl, you could be a profiler at this point.”

“Oh tell me something I don’t know,” she quipped back. “So Reid, want to tell us the truth?”

He sighed, finding no escape. “Yes, yes I have a girlfriend.”

The girls all shrieked with laughter and their own corresponding questions of who is she? How did you meet? How long has this been going on? What does she do for a living? Is she pretty? Oh I bet she is!

“Looks like that cat is out of the bag,” Rossi nonchalantly stated.

Four sets of eyes turned to look at one of the BAU founders. “Rossi, you knew about this and didn’t tell me?” Garcia gasped, a hand to her chest at the thought of betrayal.

He laughed. “I caught them on a dinner date once and our boy wonder over here—“ nodded in Reid’s direction. “—begged me not to out him yet, said he wanted to be the one to tell the team the news but that was like what, six months ago?”

“Six months ago?” Emily repeated.

“Wait, wait. Hotch, don’t tell me you also knew?” Morgan asked.

The unit chief smiled. “She was added to Reid’s emergency contact last February.”

“February? That’s almost a year ago!” JJ sputtered out.

The tech analyst turned to glare at the youngest member of the BAU. “Reid, you better start spilling all the details or so help me, I will stalk all your digital footprint when we land until I find out who she is, where she lives, and what her deepest darkest secret is.”

“What about hearing it all from her, instead?” He rubbed the back of his neck. The secrecy had gone on for so long and there was no time like the present to introduce his chosen family to his chosen partner—hopefully until the end of time. “She wants to treat you all out for dinner tonight.”

All four nodded vigorously as they watched him pull out his phone and send a quick text to which you readily replied and agreed to.

“My man,” Derek sighed. “Can’t believe you got a girlfriend without me being your wingman.”

“Answer me at least this, is she pretty and does she make you happy?” Garcia asked. No matter how nosey she may be, she only wanted the best for Spencer and if the recent lightness and smiles were all caused by his mystery girlfriend, she already approved.

“The prettiest,” Spencer gushed out. “She’s my own personal sunshine.”

The three girls melted into their seats. Their youngest was all grown up waxing prose over his lover.

“She makes you sappy too,” Derek teased.

***

[EXTRA - When the mystery was uncovered]

Spencer had never felt any more nervous that this moment as he, with the rest of the team minus Hotch and Rossi, wait for your arrival. He sat with his back to the restaurant entrance and his cardigan laying on the empty seat beside him as a reservation mark. His eyes had been going back and forth to his idle phone and to the conversation the team was having.

Morgan noted his state of distress and chuckled. “You okay there, lover boy? She’s still coming right, your mystery girlfriend?”

“Yeah, yeah. She said she was on her way 9 minutes and 24 seconds ago and based on the route and traffic, she should have been here 45 seconds earlier. Just worried that something might have happened.”

Penelope leaned in, picking on her bubblegum pink choice of drink as she did. “You know, if you just told me her name I could have tracked every movement by now and you wouldn’t be sitting here worrying.”

“What—no Garcia, I don’t want her tracked plus she didn’t want you to know everything about her even before meeting her,” his voice going up an octave in your defense.

She shrugged. “I’m just saying. I mean we don’t know a single thing about her—”

“We do know she exists and you’ve been together for almost a year now,” Emily interjected.

“Actually, it’s been more than year—one year and 124 days to be exact.”

“Buttercup, all I’m saying is we don’t even know how she looks—” Garcia gasped, having spotted a passerby on the window and what she was wearing. “Oh my gosh, that maroon coat is to die for and that textured leather bag—I wonder if I could track her down and ask where she got it.”

“Oh she’s pretty,” JJ noted.

Derek smirked. “Baby girl, tell me if you plan to ask her ‘cause I wouldn’t mind asking for her number.”

The tech analyst’s eyes further widened as she noted the attractive woman going inside the restaurant.

“You weren’t kidding about that coat, Garcia, it looks really nice,” JJ appraised.

Emily squinted her eyes, taking note of the garment in question. “It looks high quality, probably vintage and—is she going near us?”

“Oh gods, she is! Act natural, act natural!” Penelope chanted as she repeatedly slapped Derek’s arm.

The stranger stopped behind Spencer. “Hey handsome,” your melodic voice was a siren that called to his every being. “Fancy seeing you here.”

Penelope’s jaw dropped as she took in Derek’s flustered reaction.

“Me?” He pointed at himself, getting picked up in such a public setting was new even for him—the ladies man of the BAU.

You laughed. “Well, you too but I was more of talking to this lover of mine—“ you bent down, kissing your boyfriend’s cheek. “Hey, Spence.”

A series of gasps were heard all around the table.

The youngest stood up and turned to give you a soft kiss on the lips. “Hey, Y/N. I was starting to get worried.”

“I missed the train, sorry I forgot to send an update,” you explained as he helped you into your seat.

Promptly seating back down, he angled his body to yours—all attention on you as if you were the only one in the room. And in a way you were, with how molten his doe eyes stared, alternating between yours and your painted lips that begged to be kissed.

He always felt breathless when you were near. It was as if he found his very own Aphrodite to worship here on earth. Spencer was no believer of fates or destiny but he would pray and light a candle if he needed to, just to keep you his. Your intelligent mind complimenting his, your outgoing personality that draws anyone in, and your face that could launch a thousand ships.

Those eyes that could read the deepest crevices of his fiber of being. Those cheeks that begged to be caressed by his calloused hands. Those soft lips that deserved to be kissed and devoured until you, in turn, were as breathless as he was. He suddenly wished you both were anywhere else but here—specifically in the confines of the apartment where he was free to express his love, devotion, and adoration until you scream his name and beg him to stop. His hand, having found it’s way to your thigh, squeezed the flesh three times—communicating his promise to have your hair laid around you like a halo as you lay under him, bare and writhing with need.

The blonde on the other end of the table cleared her throat, cutting through the tension.

“Okay, Spence,” she smiled. “Mind introducing us to your girlfriend?”

He brought your hand to his lips, leaving a series of sweet kisses on your knuckle. “This is Y/N, my girlfriend. Y/N, this is the rest of the team. Morgan—“ he gestured to each one. “Emily, JJ, and Garcia.”

“It’s nice to finally meet you!” You exclaimed. “So sorry we’re only meeting now. We wanted to stay in our little bubble for as long as we could plus this handsome FBI agent—” you nudged Spencer’s shoulder. “—wanted to keep me to himself. But where’s Aaron and Dave?”

Emily whispered under her breath. “Aaron? Dave?”

“They had prior commitments, love. They did send their regards and Rossi wants to invite you to the next gathering at his mansion,” Spencer explained.

“Love?” Penelope squeaked out. This was really starting to feel like Twilight zone for the team members.

You nodded. “I’ll definitely plot it on my calendar. Now, I heard you had some questions for me?”

“How’d you two meet?” JJ asked.

“When was the first date?” Emily inquired.

Penelope brought out a pen and paper. “What’s you social security number?”

Derek snorted at that. “Do you have any other siblings?”

Spencer’s eyebrows raised further and further up with each question while your shoulders shook with laughter.

“She has all the time in the world to get to know each of you,” Spencer laid out. “No need to make it sound like an interrogation.” He was wishing to keep you forever, if you’d let him.

You smiled as you caressed his cheek, having caught on to the veiled meaning behind his words. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Comments and reblogs are greatly appreciated!

[gotta-winwin]

12:34pm

🌷part of the 24hrs with seventeen series ! request a specific time + activity/scenario to experience it with seventeen yourself !

requests are now closed for this event! thank you to everyone who requested.

S.Coups takes pride in always being on time, as he rushes to pack his things. His phone is clutched precariously between his fingers as he types out a message, asking you to wait for him by the company lobby. 

S.Coups throws his things haphazardly in Joshua’s general direction, yelling out a quick goodbye without looking back. The members only smile fondly at the scene in front of them, knowing lunchtime was a special time for their leader.

S.Coups boards the elevator and pushes the lobby button with more force than necessary, fingers tapping against his thigh as he watches the floor numbers descend. He finds it amazing how the mere thought of you waiting for him can render him as impatient and nervous as his teenage self.

S.Coups sheds his leader identity and steps into Seungcheol the moment your arms wrap around his waist. 

He practically melts into your hold, smoothing down your hair as he listens to you jabber about updates from the morning. It’s only been a few hours since he left your shared bed, pressing a light kiss on your forehead as he got up to get ready. The nearby staff members hide smiles as they work, already used to the lovesick seventeen leader and his bride-to-be. Seungcheol all but latches onto you as he walks you both out, nodding along as you tell him about the cafe you found online. 

Seungcheol knows you prefer sitting on the outside instead of in the booth, so it’s second nature when he pulls the chair open for you to sit. Sliding into the booth, he watches fondly as you situate yourself until you’re comfortable, handing both your jacket and your bag over to him. 

Seungcheol pesters you to order more. He’s pointing at everything appetizing on the menu (which is basically everything) urging you to order it so you guys can share. He firmly states that he doesn’t mind taking the leftovers back to work, knowing the boys would happily finish whatever you guys couldn’t. 

Seungcheol has learned to pace himself as he eats, unconsciously matching your pace as the two of you converse, knowing how much you hate being the only one still eating. He pretends not to notice each time your fork makes its way into his plate, swiping bits of his food as discreetly as possible. He finds it endearing how you still sneak your stealing habits when he so openly shares his meals. 

Seungcheol also pretends not to notice the staring fans outside the cafe window. Although he usually books your meals in advance and requests it be made private, he cannot control what goes on outside. He’s cool with it as long as you are, giving fans a polite smile as you exit the cafe. They’ve long since learned to give some distance, ever since Seungcheol lightly scolded fans online for hounding you.

Seungcheol, who whips out his card like you guys didn’t just order the whole store. He doesn’t bother looking at the receipt, flashing you a warm smile as he offers you your jacket, chiding you about how cold it was and how you weren’t wearing enough. Your purse finds its home on his arm as you both walk out, rejuvenated and ready to get back to work.

Seungcheol, who walks extra, extra slowly on the way back to the company. He’s mentally trying to savour each second, taking extra care in each of his footsteps as he listens to you speak. He pauses at every storefront, every pretty flower, every passing dog, trying to delay the inevitable end of your lunch date. 

Seungcheol, who suffocates you in a hug by the company elevator, murmuring into your hair how fucking lucky he is to have you and how thankful he is that you came all this way to grab lunch with him. 

Seungcheol, who gives you the deadliest puppy eyes that make you marvel at how this man is almost 30 years old. He somehow ushers you into the elevator with him, despite promising to say goodbye at the lobby. He whines something about wanting more time, asking the dreaded question: do you hate me? He shoots you a teasing smile as he opens the door to their practice room, gently pushing you in.

Seungcheol, who watches from the side as his found family welcomes the love of his life in. He’s got a sappy smile on his face as he watches you interact with them all, giggling with Seokmin and trading stories with Joshua. It’s in those moments does he finally allow himself to just feel. To let the happiness of the moment sink deep into his bones, knowing it would keep him going throughout his most difficult times. 

Seungcheol, whose self control wanes, ending up leaving practice early to drive you both home. All it really takes is a knowing nudge from Jeonghan, who understands the love sickness and sheer want in his eyes, telling him silently that it’s okay to go home. 

Seungcheol, who sheepishly tells you the next morning that you guys might have to put a pause on your lunch dates. Their manager enforced a ban for any visits during comeback hours - a rule that was so obviously created due to Seungcheol, leaving him sulky and at the mercy of his bandmates.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

A profoundly stupid case about video game cheating could transform adblocking into a copyright infringement

I'm coming to DEFCON! On Aug 9, I'm emceeing the EFF POKER TOURNAMENT (noon at the Horseshoe Poker Room), and appearing on the BRICKED AND ABANDONED panel (5PM, LVCC - L1 - HW1–11–01). On Aug 10, I'm giving a keynote called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE! How hackers can seize the means of computation and build a new, good internet that is hardened against our asshole bosses' insatiable horniness for enshittification" (noon, LVCC - L1 - HW1–11–01).

Here's a weird consequence of our societal shift from capitalism (where riches come from profits) to feudalism (where riches come from rents): increasingly, your rights to your actual property (the physical stuff you own) are trumped by corporations' metaphorical "intellectual property" claims.

That's a lot to unpack! Let's start with a quick primer on profits and rents. Capitalists invest money in buying equipment, then they pay workers wages to use that equipment to produce goods and services. Profit is the sum a capitalist takes home from this arrangement: money made from paying workers to do productive things.

Now, rents: "rent" is the money a rentier makes by owning a "factor of production": something the capitalist needs in order to make profits. Capitalists risk their capital to get profits, but rents are heavily insulated from risk.

For example: a coffee shop owner buys espresso machines, hires baristas, and rents a storefront. If they do well, the landlord can raise their rent, denying them profits and increasing rents. But! If a great new cafe opens across the street and the coffee shop owner goes broke, the landlord is in great shape, because they now have a vacant storefront they can rent, and they can charge extra for a prime location across the street from the hottest new coffee shop in town.

The "moral philosophers" that today's self-described capitalists claim to worship – Adam Smith, David Ricardo – hated rents. For them, profits were the moral way to get rich, because when capitalists chase profits, they necessarily chase the production of things that people want.

When rentiers chase rents, they do so at the expense of profits. Every dollar a capitalist pays in rent – licenses for IP, rent for a building, etc – is a dollar that can't be extracted in profit, and then reinvested in the production of more goods and services that society desires.

The "free markets" of Adam Smith weren't free from regulation, they were free from rents.

The moral philosophers' hatred of rents was really a hatred of feudalism. The industrial revolution wasn't merely (or even primarily) the triumph of new machines: rather, it was the triumph of profits over rent. For the industrial revolution to succeed, the feudal arrangement had to end. Capitalism is incompatible with hereditary lords receiving guaranteed rents from hereditary serfs who are legally obliged to work for them. Capitalism triumphed over feudalism when the serfs were turned off of the land (becoming the "free labor" who went to work in the textile mills) and the land itself was given over to sheep grazing (providing the wool for those same mills).

But that doesn't mean that the industrial revolution invented profits. Profits were to be found in feudal societies, wherever a wealthy person increased their wealth by investing in machines and hiring workers to use them. The thing that made feudalism feudal was how conflicts between rents and profits cashed out. For so long as the legal system elevated the claims of rentiers over the claims of capitalists, the society was feudal. Once the legal system gave priority to profit over rent, it became capitalist.

Capitalists hate capitalism. The engine of capitalism is insecurity. The successful capitalist is like the fastest gun in the old west: there's always a young gun out there looking to "disrupt" their fortune with a new invention, product, or organizational strategy that "creatively destroys" the successful businesses of the day and replaces them with new ones:

https://locusmag.com/2024/03/cory-doctorow-capitalists-hate-capitalism/

That's a hard way to live, with your every success serving as a blinking KICK ME sign visible to every ambitious person in the world. Precarity makes people miserable and nuts:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/19/make-them-afraid/#fear-is-their-mind-killer

So capitalists universally aspire to become rentiers and investors seek out companies that have a plan to extract rent. This is why Warren Buffett is so priapatic for companies with "moats and walls" – legal privileges and market structures that protect the business from competition and disruption:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/warren-buffett-explains-moat-principle-164442359.html

Feudal rents were mostly derived from land, but even in the feudal era, the king was known to reward loyal lickspittles with rents over ideas. The "patents royal" were the legally protected right to decide who could make or do certain things: for example, you might have a patent royal over the production of silver ribbon, and anyone who wanted to make a silver ribbon would have to pay for your permission. If you chose to grant that permission exclusively to one manufacturer, then no one else could make it, and you could charge a license fee to the manufacturer that accounted for nearly all their profit.

Today, rentiers are also interested in land. Bill Gates is the country's number one landowner, and in many towns, private equity landlords are snappinig up every single family home that hits the market and converting it to a badly maintained slum:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/22/koteswar-jay-gajavelli/#if-you-ever-go-to-houston

But the 21st Century's defining source of rent is "IP" – a controversial term that I use here to mean, "Any law or policy that allows a company to exert legal control over its competitors, critics and customers":

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

IP is in irreconcilable conflict with real property rights. Think of HP selling you a printer and wanting to decide which ink you use, or John Deere selling you a tractor and wanting to tell you who can fix it. Or, for that matter, Apple selling you a phone and dictating which software you are allowed to install on it.

Think of Unity, a company that makes tools for video-game makers, demanding a royalty from every game that is eventually sold, calling this "shared success":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/03/not-feeling-lucky/#fundamental-laws-of-economics

Every time one of these conflicts ends with IP's triumph over real property rights, that is a notch in favor of calling the world we live in now "technofeudalist" rather than "technocapitalist":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/#cloud-capital

Once you start to think of "IP" as "laws that let me control how other people use their real property," a lot of the seemingly incoherent fights over IP snap into place. This also goes a long way to explaining how otherwise sensible people can agree on expansions of IP to achieve some short-term goal, irrespective of the spillover harms from such a move. Hard cases make bad law, and hard IP cases make terrible law.

Five years ago, some anti-fascist counterdemonstrators hit on the clever idea of blaring top 40 music during neo-Nazi marches, on the theory that this would prevent Nazis from uploading videos of their marches to Youtube and other platforms, whose filters would block any footage that included copyrighted music:

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/07/23/clever-hack-that-will-end-badly-playing-copyrighted-music-during-nazis-rallies-so-they-cant-be-posted-to-youtube/

Thankfully, this didn't work, but not for lack of trying. And it might still work, if calls for beefing up video copyright filters are heeded. Cops all over the place are already blaring Taylor Swift songs and Disney tunes to prevent their interactions with the public from being uploaded:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/07/moral-hazard-of-filternets/#dmas

The same thinking that causes progressives to recklessly argue in favor of upload filters also causes them to demand that web scraping be treated as a copyright crime. They think they're creating a world where AI companies can't rip off their creation to train a model; they're actually creating a world where the Internet Archive can't capture JD Vance's embarrassing old podcast appearances or newspaper editorial boards' advocacy for positions they now recant:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/17/how-to-think-about-scraping/

It's not that Nazi marches are good, or that scraping can't be bad – it's just that advocating for the use of IP to address either is a cure that's not just worse than the disease – it's also not a cure.

A problem can be real, and still not be solvable with IP. I have enormous sympathy for gamers who rail against cheaters who use aftermarket hacks to improve their aim, see through buildings, or command other unfair advantages.

If you want to tell a stranger how they must configure their PC or console, IP ("any law that lets you control your competitors, critics or customers") is an obvious answer. But – as with other attempts to solve real problems with IP – this is a cure that is both worse than the disease, and also not a cure after all.

Back in 2002, Blizzard sued some hobbyists over a program called "bnetd." Bnetd was a program that provided a game-server you could connect to with the Blizzard games that you'd bought. It was created as an alternative to Battlenet, Blizzard's notoriously unreliable game-server software that left gamers frustrated and furious due to frequent outages:

https://www.eff.org/cases/blizzard-v-bnetd

To the public, Blizzard made several arguments against bnetd. They claimed that it encouraged piracy, because – unlike the official Battlenet servers – it didn't check whether the copies of Blizzard software that connected to it had a valid license key. Gamers didn't really care about that, but they did respond to another argument: that bnetd lacked the anti-cheat checking of Battlenet.

But that wasn't what Blizzard took to the court: in court, they argued that the hobbyists who made bnetd violated copyright law. Specifically, Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which bans "circumvention of access controls to copyrighted works." Basically, Blizzard argued that bnetd's authors violated the law because they used debuggers to examine the software they'd paid for, while it ran on their own computers, to figure out how to make a game server of their own.

Blizzard didn't sue bnetd's authors for pirating Blizzard software (they didn't – they'd paid for their copies). They didn't sue them for abetting other gamers' piracy. They certainly didn't sue them for making a cheat-friendly game-server.

Blizzard sued them for analyzing software they'd paid for, while it was running on their own computers.

Imagine if Walmart – one of the biggest book-retailers in America – had a policy that said that you could only shelve the books you bought at Walmart on shelves that you also bought at Walmart. Now imagine that Walmart successfully argued that measuring the books you bought from them and using those measurements to create your own compatible book-case violated their IP rights!

This is an outrageous triumph of IP rights over real property rights, and yet gamers vocally backed Blizzard in the early noughts, because gamers hate cheaters and because IP law is (correctly) understood as "the law that lets a company tell you how you can use your own real, physical property." Hard cases make bad law, hard IP cases make batshit law.

It's more than 20 years since bnetd, and cheating continues to serve as a Trojan horse to smuggle in batshit new IP laws. In Germany, Sony is suing the cheat-device maker Datel:

https://torrentfreak.com/sonys-ancient-lawsuit-vs-cheat-device-heads-in-right-direction-sonys-defeat-240705/

Sony argues that the Datel device – which rewrites the contents of a player's device's RAM, at the direction of that player – infringes copyright. Sony claims that the values that its programs write to your device's RAM chips are copyrighted works that it has created, and that altering that copyrighted work makes an unauthorized derivative work, which infringes its copyright.

Yes, this is batshit, and thankfully, Sony has been thwarted in court to date, but it is steaming ahead to the EU's highest court. If it succeeds, then it will open up every tool that modifies your computer at your direction to this kind of claim.

How bad can it be? Well, get this: the German publishing giant Axel Springer (owned by a monomaniacal Trumpist and Israel hardliner who has ordered journalists in his US news outlets to go easy on both) is suing Eyeo, makers of Adblock Plus, on the grounds that changing HTML to block an ad creates a "derivative work" of Axel Springer's web-pages:

https://torrentfreak.com/ad-blocking-infringes-copyright-ancient-sony-cheat-lawsuit-may-prove-pivotal-240729/

Axel Springer's filings cite the Sony/Datel case, using it to argue that their IP rights trump your property rights, and that you can only configure your web-browser, running on your computer, which you own, in ways that it approves of.

Axel Springer's war on browsers is a particularly pernicious maneuver, because browsers are the best example we have of internet software that serves as a "user agent." "User agent" is an old-timey engineering synonym for "browser" that reflects the browser's role: to go out onto the web on your behalf and bring back things for you, which it displays in the way you prefer:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/07/treacherous-computing/#rewilding-the-internet

Want to block flickering GIFs to forestall photosensitive epileptic servers? Ask your user agent to find and delete them. Want to shift colors into a gamut that accounts for your color-blindness? Ask your user-agent:

https://dankaminsky.com/2010/12/15/dankam/

Want to goose the font size and contrast so you can read the sadistic grey-on-white type that young designers use in the mistaken belief that black-on-white type is "hard on the eyes"? That's what Reader Mode is for:

https://frankgroeneveld.nl/2021/08/24/most-underused-browser-feature/

The foundation of any good digital relationship is a device that works for you, not for the people who own the servers you connect to. Even if they don't plan on screwing you over by directing your user agent to attack you on their behalf right now, the very existence of a facility in your technology that causes it to betray you, by design, is a moral hazard that inevitably results in your victimization:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/02/self-incrimination/#wei-bai-bai

"IP" ("a law that lets me control how you use your own property") is a tempting solution to every problem, but ultimately, IP ends up magnifying the power of the already powerful, in contests where your only hope of victory is having a user agent whose only loyalty is to you.

The monotonic, dangerous expansion of IP reflects the growing victory of rents over profits – income from owning things, rather than income from doing things. Everyday people may argue for IP in the belief that it will solve their immediate problems – with AI, or Nazis, or in-game cheats – but ultimately, the expansion of a law that limits how you can use your property (including your capital) to uses that don't threaten neofeudalists will doom you to technoserfdom.

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/29/faithful-user-agents/#hard-cases-make-bad-copyright-law

[please-destroy]

Mittens

Natasha Romanoff x Reader

Word Count: 1.1k

.

Tony laughed loudly when he first saw the grey woollen hat. 

It had a white pom pom on the end and Tony snorted when he caught sight of it bouncing.

Natasha paused momentarily and her eyes flickered over to him, sipping coffee as he read over a Stark Pad.

‘Sorry.’ He grinned unashamedly. ‘It’s just not very Black Widow.’

Natasha rolled her eyes pointedly, before letting your hesitant tug on her hand pull her away.

In the elevator, you watched the quiet embarrassment roll through her. Natasha regarded herself in the mirrored walls as you descended the skyscraper. Her eyes lingered on the hat. 

Her gaze wasn’t critical. You almost wished it was. There was something childish in her vulnerability. You read the indecision in the way she bit her lip. 

Your heart seized with a strange sadness. You’d never really seen how Natasha viewed herself, not until then. Tony’s comment had thrown her completely off.

Just before you reached the ground floor, Natasha’s hand raised to remove the hat. You instinctively lifted your fingers to brush her wrist. She froze at your touch.

‘Leave it.’ You murmured, taking the moment for a brief kiss of her cheek. ‘You look great.’

Her voice was husky in uncertain disagreement.

‘I look ridiculous.’

‘You look cute.’ You promised truthfully, your lips lingering next to her cheek. ‘That’s not a crime.’

Natasha took a small breath and you heard the shakiness of it. Your arm wrapped around her side. 

You met her gaze in the mirror, just before the doors parted.

‘Cute.’ You repeated, enjoying the way her eyes sparkled as her smile returned. 

.

You couldn’t be certain, but you had a suspicion that the moment in the elevator didn’t leave Natasha’s mind. You knew for sure that it didn’t leave yours.

You settled together into your planned day of Christmas shopping as you wandered through the cold, busy streets. You passed a clothes store with a large winter sale on, and both slowed down to peer into the window. Inside the store, you walked thoughtlessly in sync. Together, you roamed through the aisles with that easy familiarity that comes with time. 

When you found the mittens, you held them up questioningly to her. They were the same silver grey as her woolen hat.

Natasha’s face smoothed immediately. You watched her begin to dismiss your suggestion automatically as a joke. 

Then, you saw the same lingering uncertainty return to her face.

‘I don’t know.’ She admitted suddenly and her voice was raw. 

Customers weaved around you, uninterested in anything but the retail deals on offer.

‘I’ve never had mittens before.’ Natasha told you, unwarranted embarrassment flitting into her expression. 

Your stomach flipped and you didn’t know why. Maybe it was her shyness at such a minor secret.

‘Then, these are a must buy.’ You determined with sudden decisiveness, taking her hand and leading her to the checkout.

.

The cashier easily read your relationship as you approached the counter. Despite the bustle around you, she gave you both a small smile, handing the mittens purposefully over to Natasha.

Maybe it was the cold, but Natasha’s cheeks were glowing pink before you’d left the store.

Her woolen mittens matched her hat. Her pleased smile matched her eyes.

That was when you decided that the day was going to be something else.

.

Natasha’s brow furrowed in confusion when your course altered. You led her purposefully across the busy street, away from the storefronts. 

She first protested as you weaved through the pop up stalls, selling anything from winter themed street-food to Christmas tree baubles. She reminded you about the presents that you both still needed to buy.

As you approached the ice rink, Natasha stopped in her tracks entirely. She stood a few feet away from you with wide eyes.

Her head shook slowly. 

‘No.’ She whispered, her mittens slipping self consciously into her coat pockets. ‘I don’t know how.’

You shrugged, keeping your eyes steady on her.

‘We don’t have to.’ You promised, never wanting to scare her. 

You closed the distance between you carefully. Natasha’s lips were pressed together. The same nervous indecision worried her expression. 

‘I don’t know how.’ She repeated in a small voice, the words almost an apology.

You brushed her shoulders gently.

‘That’s not a crime.’ You hummed softly. ‘Do you want to try?’

Natasha’s stare was sudden and piercing. There was something unashamed now about her exposed vulnerability. She didn’t mind that you had seen her quiet fear.  

Pride stamped your chest as you realised that Natasha knew you were on her team.

You anticipated her answer before she said it.

Before anything else, Natasha was brave.

‘Okay.’ She determined, a soft mitten seeking out your own gloved hand.

.

The next few minutes moved with surprising simplicity. You brought back the skates from the rental desk.

You laced up your pair quickly, excited to get on the ice.

Natasha started laughing gently beside you.

You looked over and caught her grin. Her eyes sparkled with mirth. She raised her mittened hands helplessly and you started smiling too.

You knelt before her, tying up her laces with extra care. 

‘Thank you.’ Natasha murmured as you finished. You glanced up, surprised by the rush of warmth you felt from her gaze. 

A mitten brushed your cheek softly, and you felt your smile widen at the touch.

.

As you stepped onto the ice, Natasha’s grip was tight on your hand. 

The fairy lights above threaded together like a wedding arch.

You took an extra step forward, ready to skate. 

Natasha hesitated and you turned around, ready to skate slowly backwards as she practiced.

Your breath caught as you watched the lights sparkle in her eyes. The green and gold dappled together and Natasha seemed ethereal.

You could read the worry on her face before she said it aloud.

There was something inexplicable about the glowing softness of her. The woolen hat, the ringlets, the reddened cheeks.

Natasha’s lips parted as she exhaled anxiously.

‘I love you.’ You told her, because it was the only thing to do.

Natasha’s breath caught and her eyes sparkled impossibly more.

‘That’s not a crime.’ She considered aloud, her grin teasing.

You kissed her gently, wanting to live in this moment forever. 

She tasted much warmer than you’d expected. 

When your lips parted, Natasha hummed in satisfaction. Her forehead affectionately touched yours. The feeling of being entirely wanted spread over you like a blanket.

Natasha wobbled on the ice, but you held her steady. 

Christmas music crackled over the overhead speakers.

For a moment, there were only the bright lights and the pair of you. 

Then, with alarming speed, two teenagers skated past. You both startled.

Natasha sighed gently as she extricated herself from your hold. 

‘Come on.’ She said, taking your hand resolutely in her mittened one.

‘It’s time to go fall on my ass.’

[dinogoofymutated]

Hi there! I'm currently watching the original X men series to catch up to 97, and I'm in love with Gambit.

Would it be possible to ask for Remy and reader to be on a secret mission, and the Ole "make out so they don't suspect us" trope comes in, and gambit kinda (obviously) has feelings...?

It could be sfw or nsfw, either is perfect! Thank you for all that you do, I've been trying to find fics for the xmen for a while 🙏🙏

Kinda spicy! Gambit/GN!reader

YESS!! YESSSS!!! I legit had a dream about this situation with remy the day before you sent me this ask and I was cackling in joy when I saw this! I basically hyperfixated on it because I love this trope.

TWS: sexual themes n shit, no explicit smut. As always, reader written while picturing fem! but no specific pronouns mentioned. Semi-public making out and touching. Nipples be touched but size and type of breast not mentioned.

-Ps- reader can see heat signatures for plot purposes. I usually try to keep powers ambiguous but it was a NEED!

"In here, quick!" Remy's thick draw catches your attention, just before he yanks you into an alley. The two of you were in New Orleans, looking for a specific mutant Xavier wanted to talk to. The only downside was that Remy still had a warrant out for his arrest, and wanted posters plastered all over the city from bourbon Street to the garden district.

"Don't worry Cher. You said. NOPD 'dumber than a sack of rocks, you said!" You gripe at him. Remy laughs, tugging you around the corner. The alleyways on Burbon street are mostly private areas, owned and sealed off by the bars that line the storefronts- but Remy knew this city like the back of his hand. However, things had changed since he was here last. That became apperent when the two of you reach the end of the alleyway and there's a brand new brick wall, a dead end.

Remy curses and skids to a stop, causing you to slam into his back. You send him a dirty look as you whip around, eyes adjusting to the brick surroundings. It's hard to make out the figures of the cops through the walls of the busy bar in in front of you, too many people crowding the street for drinks even this late at night. You strain your eyes a bit, but are able to make out the stiff-shouldered men, heat signature slightly elevated from booking it after the two of you. Unfortunately, they're headed towards the mouth of the alleyway.

"Damnit." You mutter, turning back to Remy. He understands what you mean just by looking at your face. He hums, thinking for a moment before he begins to take out a playing card. You grab his arm to stop him, trying to ignore how warm his skin is against your own.

"Don't. The explosion will just lead them to us." You say. Remy nodds, glancing at the corner before suddenly caging you against the wall of the alleyway. You try not to blush as he does so. Remy smirks at you, and you think your heart might just explode. You remind yourself that this is standard Remy behavior, but it doesn't stop your face from heating up. You can only hope it's too dark for him to see you properly.

"Well, there is another way we could fool those pigs." Remy says, quieter than before. You cock an eyebrow at him before looking back over in the direction of the alleyways opening, able to spot the cops as they begin to enter. In your peripheral, you see Remy running his fingers through his hair to flatten it. You open your mouth to ask him what he has in mind, but the sound of footsteps cut you off.

"-Well, if you're going to do something, you better do it quick!" You whisper back at him. Remy pushes you further against the cold brick, his hands drifting down to your waist as he leans over to wisper in your ear.

"Trust me, Cher. I'll take care of you." His words cause goosebumps to rise at the back of your neck, and you hardly have time to react before he's kissing you. Your eyes are blown wide, heart thumping wildly as you start to slowly relax into the kiss.

Unsurprisingly, Remy is a really, really good kisser. It's hard to focus while he's touching you like this, kissing you deeply like he loves you. He nips at your lip, and you gasp, having forgotten about everything else already. His tongue darts into you mouth, caressing the skin he finds there. You let out a small moan as one of his hands drifts lower, caressing your thigh and hiking your leg up just a bit. Your own hands slowly slide up his chest, drifting to his neck.

The heat in your chest is unbearable when Gambit separates from the kiss, a string of spit connecting your mouths before he wipes it away, nothing but affection on his eyes. You're panting for breath while he kisses the corner of your mouth, then your cheek, and then lower. Remy places wet kisses on your neck, sucking and biting as he tries to swallow you whole. You thread your hands through his soft hair as his does so, fully encouraging him to ravage you in whatever way he would like. One of his hands begins to slide under your shirt when a cough startles you out of your heated state.

Your first instinct is to turn towards the noise, but Gambit is quick to cup your cheek and pull you into another heated kiss before your head could move a centimeter. He keeps you occupied as his other hand fully caresses the skin beneath your shirt, squeezing and caressing your chest. You hear another exhausted sigh from the cops. You crack and eye open slightly, knowing they cant see you do so in the dark. One of them begins to raise his voice, but the other smacks him on the shoulder.

"Just another pair of drunks. We've got bigger things to worry about right now." The cop says. You could practically hear the other roll his eyes before they turn to and walk away. Gambit brings your attention back to him and only him when you feel a finger brush lightly against your nipple. You gasp, and Remy chuckles, playfully biting your lip as he pulls away. He's smirking as he looks at you, and you can only imagine what you look like right now.

"Looks like you enjoyed that." He teases, voice low and husky. You can't seem to pull your thought together properly when he's looking at you like that. You nervously look away, hands playing with his collar.

"And if I did?" You ask, glancing back at him to gage his reaction. He looks surprised at first, face morphing into a lovestruck smile before he tries to cover it up with a smirk. Didn't stop you from being able to see the heat rise to his cheeks, however.

"Then gambit thinks we should do this more often."

[durtblog]

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[highlandwhackamole]

A Grand(ish) Theory of What the Heck

I love the utterly unhinged, super detailed theories about what's going on in Good Omens, especially in season 2. I hope one or more of them turn out to be true, as some kind of glorious puzzle-box-hidden-code monstrosity. And also I think that there has to be a simpler explanation for things, for the people who are at least Somewhat Normal (tm) about this show. (... I assume such people do exist somewhere...) This is what I have been pondering recently.

The thing that started me thinking about this was this post, containing some promotional materials for season 2 that feature main characters with scenes in their heads. Like this:

Seeing this created a very similar situation in my own head, but with a nice shiny lightbulb.

All the weirdness: the car, the sideburns, the clock, the behavior of the folks of Soho, the vanishing storefront signs. The absence of God. I think this is all because everything we see is in their heads.

I don't mean it's made up. At least not entirely. Memory is already a plot point. Why not explore it on a deeper level? I've read theories emphasizing the minisodes' stories being retold by Aziraphale and Crowley. I think the whole season is like that.

You know that sort of conventional-wisdom-fact-concept that you can only dream faces of people you've seen before (or variations therein), because your brain can't make new faces up? So it just fills in what it thinks is close enough? I think that idea, applied to remembering or recollecting things, could explain so many things that are wonky in this show.

Wonky Things

Crowley parking in an impossible London location? He definitely remembers it was in London, so his brain just stuck some obvious London landmarks in there.

Awkward clattering happening when Crowley throws the stacks of books he's inexplicably carrying around the bookshop? He wouldn't actually throw Aziraphale's books! But he'd like to think he's cool and nonchalant enough to do that, and if he did it would definitely make Some Kind of Noise.

Jim walking toward the bookshop from somewhere mysterious? Maggie and Nina saw him first, and he came from that direction, so he must've walked all that way. They don't know about the elevator in the Donkey.

Aziraphale remembers tartan hills and the Loch Ness monster because he was having a jolly time driving through Scotland, so obviously the scenery must've been whimsical Scottish things.

Nina put the Honolulu roast sign up, so she remembers its presence, but perhaps the occult/ethereal visitors to her shop do not.

Maggie really did text Aziraphale about the rent, but a note through the mail slot is a much more dignified way for a scholarly angel to imagine he received a message.

On the Fallibility of Recall

This season is loaded with unrealistic inclusions. The colors are turned up to 11. Some of the scenes are more caricature than believable interaction. Remembering things never copies or reproduces them with what one might call high fidelity.

Scenes recalled by separate memories will inherently vary. One person's hefty jigger might be another person's dash. Who knows for sure where the sun was that day? You and I might recall an event having different lighting or a different color palette, sort of like viewing something with different lens filters.

According to Neil, Crowley is an unreliable narrator of the story of his Fall. He labels the variations in clock times as a continuity error in a show where Everything Is Meant, but he doesn't say whose continuity error it is. He insists that the Bentley is the same through the whole season; maybe it was the same, but remembered differently. Maybe this is part of why there's more CGI but it's harder to spot.

So What?

Is this all there is to it? I sure hope not. I like my Good Omens with enough layers to put to shame an onion wrapped in a cake and covered in a parfait.

Is this possibly the fancy footwork that's distracting from the real magic trick? I wouldn't put it past Our Gaiman. There are a lot of things one could hide in the narrative of unreliable memory.

Is this going to stop me from rewatching and repondering and remaking theories for the next couple years? Not even at gunpoint.

[prince0fpaints]

Shiny New Shoes!

Venture x reader

August is a very special month for Sloan, their birthday! They make it oh so obvious what day it is but.. your mind may be fleeting..

You liked buying things for Sloan, it put a big bright smile on your face whenever they would sit down and childishly clap their pretty hands together with excitement

And you loved handing them the shoddily wrapped box, no matter the size they were always happy to revive a gift from you. 

And in return, they'd always leave cool rocks on your nightstand for you to wake up to, and a smiley, dirt covered Sloan sitting at the end of your bed waiting to wish you a good morning.

It was a small routine the two of you had, and one you looked forward to every morning. Every time you woke up to the feeling of the foot of your bed dipping, you knew the embodiment of sunshine would be eager to wrap you in a hug, dirt coating their clothes as they just returned from a late night dig. Their arms holding you in a vice grip getting you covered in dirt.

. . . 

You had heard your bedroom doors creak open, slow but loud footsteps inching closer to your bed, and that familiar sink and squeaky springs registered in your sleep ridden mind. You knew well what this meant, one; getting woken up by your lover. Two, getting coated in dirt and dust. And three; surprising them with the gift you had hidden under your Bed.

“Tesoro.. wakey wakey!”

You smiled as you felt Sloan gently shake your shoulder, you were hidden beneath the mound of blankets, wrapped up tight like a geode, and Sloan just couldn't wait to rip the covers off and see the pretty crystal inside. 

They loved you, every bit of you, especially in the morning, tangled hair, sleepy voice, cuddly demeanor, and they didn't care if you had morning breath, if they wanted a kiss from you, they'd get it. 

“Amor~ ven aquí quiero un beso~”

And you weren't about to deny a kiss. You chuckle as you sit up, pressing yourself to Sloan's chest, moving to kiss their neck, jaw, and finally their lips. You didn't care that they were covered in dust and dirt, nor that their boots were on your previously clean sheets, or that they were sweating from today's heat. You both wanted a kiss from each other. 

And dammit, you missed those sweet lips.

. . . 

It wasn't long before you were both getting ready for a long day of relaxing, Sloan in the shower and you brushing your teeth. As you spit into the sink you hear Sloan ask you a question over the running water.

“Honey, what's today?”

“August 6th, why?”

“Oh! No reason, just asking.”

No reason, oh there was definitely a reason. It was sloan’s birthday, and no you hadn't forgotten. Then may Zeus smite you down if you ever did. 

In the many times you've been shopping with Sloan, they've always made a request to go by a specific show store, and you just couldn't say no to those puppy dog eyes. Whenever you'd pass by the storefront they'd always point out a pair of Shiney black boots in the window, and that's when you knew you had the perfect birthday gift in mind. 

. . . 

Lunchtime rolled around and you were working in the backyard garden while Sloan was fixing up some birria tacos, ever since you tried them Sloan has always made them at any time you desire. It could be 2 am and if you said you were hungry, they'd be in the kitchen till sunrise. 

You wiped your forehead as you sat back on your haunches, sighing with satisfaction as you finished placing the last of your hydrangeas down, right next to sloan’s pet rock Rosetta and your own little rock; Marianne. They sat under a wedding arch surrounded by those pretty blue blooms. 

“All done Corazon! C'mon In and eat!”

You smiled as you headed over to the deck and up the stairs to the elevated level, sitting on the little bench you had up there as sloan handed you a plate with 6 of the tacos on there. You gasped at the amount and sighed.

“Baby, I can't eat this much.. they taste amazing but, I can only stomach so much.”

It felt like pure evil to reject Sloan-made food, but you knew exactly what they were doing, once again, silently reminding you of today's date, their birthday.

They frown but hide it with a pouty face, taking three and eating them themself and soon going back inside to sulk in your shared bedroom. 

. . . 

It was dinnertime now, and Sloan was sulking for about an hour and a half before you came upstairs to check on them, hands tucked behind your back as you stepped into the bedroom.

“Darlin..what's the matter?”

“You forgot.”

“What?”

“You forgot my birthday, didn't you ___?”

It hurt your heart when they said that, it felt even worse when you looked at their very hurt expression, like a guilty puppy. You gasp softly as you move to sit on the bed, while hiding the gift still behind your body, you cup their face in your gentle hands and day urgent apologies.

“Oh baby.. no no, how could I ever forget such a special day?..”

They cocked an eyebrow at your comment as you reached behind, grabbing a box wrapped in dinosaur paper and a yellow Bow, handing it to them as their sorrowful expression melted away rather quickly.

Replaced with pure joy, Sloan wrapped their strong arms around you and kissed your face, from your forehead, to your temple, nose, cheek, corners of your mouth and lips. They had you longing for more as they pulled away to open their present. 

As soon as the paper was gone, and the bow stuck to their hair, they were bouncing in place one the bed as they saw those Shiney black boots they wanted oh so badly. 

“You got them!? No way! Pinch me I have to be dreaming!”

You shake your head and smile at them as they're already lacing up their new shoes. Walking around with them as they made heavy footfall on the carpeted floor. You were so happy to see them so enamored as their wish came true.

“Happy birthday Sloan.”

[awkwardchick87]

Christmas Bells

Merry Christmas from my table at the @pixelcafe-network! This year we did Christmas gift exchange and I was given @mysteria157 as her secret Santa! There you go lovely! I hope you enjoy this fic and Merry Christmas to you darling!!

Heading overseas to see your long distance boyfriend and spend your first Christmas with him, making your own traditions together!

CW - None! This is SFW WC - 2122 Thank you @trxshpandax for beta reading this for me also!! <3

Hitting the send button on your phone, letting Nanami know you had landed, before closing the screen and walking towards the baggage area, a small smile on your face as you adjusted the carry on bag, a small jingle heard within as the bell you so carefully packed was jostled around. It was your first Christmas in Japan with your boyfriend. Meeting through a Jujutsu society joint excursion between America and Japan, meant to foster unity worldwide for all sorcerers, although there were few outside of Japan, thanks to Tengen. 

Reaching for your bag, a hand quickly shot forward. Turning your head, a familiar mop of blonde hair filled your vision. Your eyes suddenly blurry as you leapt up and into his arms. Burying your face into the crook of his neck as you hugged him. “Nanami! I just sent you a text!” 

His strong arms wrapped around you, lifting you off the ground, “I know, I watched you send it.” His smile is evident in his voice. “I didn’t want to wait in the car, so I came in to meet you.” 

Leaning back, you kissed the tip of his nose, making his face scrunch up, “You really are so sweet! I can’t wait to spend Christmas here.” 

Gently putting you down, he grabbed your luggage with one hand, threading his fingers through your other hand, leading you out of the airport and to the car. Placing your bag in the backseat and opening the passenger door for you. The warm car, a contrast to the cool December air. 

Snow gently fell across Tokyo as Nanami drove you towards his apartment, listening to you talk about the flight and how excited you were to be in Japan for the holidays, hands still intertwined. “So what kinds of things are we going to do? Do we have a real Christmas tree? Bake cookies? Sing carols?” you looked at him excitedly. 

“Real trees are hard to come by here, but I do have a tree set up. I was going to bring you out to look at lights, maybe buy whatever decorations you want for the apartment and tree.” His smile was wide as he watched your eyes light up, bringing the back of your hand up to his lips, pressing a small kiss to it. “As for cookies, can we bake them together?” He asked, hopeful.

Nodding, you looked over at him, “of course! I am an excellent baker! I also have a small surprise for you.” Reaching into your carry on bag, you carefully pulled out the silver bell, a perfect replica of the bell from the Polar Express movie, the small twinkling sound it made was almost soothing, “Its a tradition of mine to put this on the tree..” 

Nanami glanced down at the bell, a smile spreading across his face “Its our tradition now.” 

Small tears formed in your eyes as you nodded at him, smiling before turning again to glance out the window, taking in the sight of Tokyo’s Christmas lights. The trees lining the streets shone brightly as you passed them. More lights decorated the apartments, lamps and storefronts as Nanami drove through the city. Bright white and blue shimmering across the window. Nanami finally pulled into the underground parking of an apartment building, stopping the car and getting out to go around and open your door for you, his hand instantly wrapping around yours again as you walk to the elevator. Pushing the button, you both enter the elevator as he presses the button for his floor. Bringing your hand up to his lips again, kissing the back of it, making you blush slightly. 

Finally reaching his floor, the elevator chimes as the doors open. Pulling you gently down the hallway, taking the keys from his pocket, Nanami unlocks his door, guiding you inside. Looking around, you noticed it was a humble apartment. To the left of the door, there was a simple kitchen. A small island separated the kitchen from the living room with its modern couch and a smaller television. A small hallway to the right of the door had the bathroom and you could see into the bedroom and office space with the doors open.

A simple fake tree in the living room was the only christmas decoration that Nanami had in the entire apartment. 

“This is perfect” you turned to him, reaching up and kissing his cheek before removing your shoes. Nanami helping you with your coat and scarf, hanging them on a row of hooks behind the door. 

“I thought we could go out tomorrow and get decorations for the tree.” He looked down at you, a small smile on his face. 

“I’d love that. And we can get some things for cookies too!” you stepped into the living room of the apartment, plopped down on the couch, yawning. 

“Jet leg?” Nanami asked, sitting beside you, nodding and patting his lap for you to lay down.

“Yeah, I guess so. I am going to take a small nap, and then we can go out, promise.” Laying your head in his lap, you let out another yawn before your eyes fell shut, Nanami running his hands through your hair. 

Your eyes fluttered open the next morning, stretching your arms out, you realized you were in Nanami’s bed. ‘He must have helped me get to bed last night.’ you thought to yourself. The smell of eggs and bacon wafting into the room as you pulled the blankets from yourself. Spotting your bell on the table beside you, Nanami had taken it from your bag and placed it somewhere for you to see, nestling it on top of your scarf. Picking it up, you gave it a quick check, making sure to bring it out with you. 

Making your way to the kitchen, you spot Nanami at the stove, sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a cup of tea already on the island for you. Steam rising from the cup as you pull out a chair to sit at the island, placing the precious bell on the counter, still keeping it on the scarf, making sure it does not roll off the counter. 

 “Good morning love” Nanami placed a plate of breakfast in front of you, leaning down to kiss the top of your head, “Did you sleep ok?”

Nodding, as you let out a small yawn, “I did, thank you. I didn’t realize I was so tired from traveling. When did we move to the bed?” 

“A little after you fell asleep. I wanted you to be comfortable.” Nanami pulled up a chair beside you, passing you a fork and sliding your tea towards you. 

Diving into your breakfast, you smiled. “This is so good!” 

Nanami smiled, pulling out his phone and checking the time, “So when do you want to head out? I think we should get some decorations for the tree at least. It looks a little… bland right now.” He pointed at the tree with his fork. 

Nodding excitedly, “Yes. I just want to shower and get ready and then we can go out.” taking the last few bites of food, you got up from the island, leaning in and pressing a quick kiss to Nanami’s cheek, “Thank you for breakfast and tea. It was perfect. Don't you dare touch the dishes! I will wash them.” you pointed at him with one finger as you made your way to the bathroom to shower, eyes narrowed playfully at him. 

He couldn’t help but let out a small laugh as he stood, grabbing the plates from the island. 

Getting out of the shower, you heard the sink running. Scoffing slightly as you styled your hair and applied a simple makeup look before stepping out of the bathroom, “I said I would wash them.” You pointed between Nanami and the dishes as he laughed at you.

Drying his hands, he walked over to you, “You’re here to spend time with me, you don't need to worry about anything else.” placing his hands on either side of your face, tilting your head up, he pressed a kiss to the tip of your nose and then your forehead, “Now, let's go get some decorations, ok?” His face was bright as he smiled down at you. 

Looking up, you couldn’t help but smile back, nodding. 

Slipping on your shoes and grabbing your coat, Nanami opened the door for you, locking it behind him as you two set out. 

Stopping at the Christmas market first, Nanami parked the car a distance away so you could talk around for a bit, stopping to look at storefronts, refusing to let you pay for anything you found. Grabbing hot cocoa for you both, along with a few treats before he tucked the bags away in the trunk of the car before you set off shopping again. 

Finding a small shop, your face lit up. Excitedly pointing at the TV in the back of the store, playing Polar Express for the shoppers as they browsed the store. You quickly pulled Nanami into the shop, realizing it was a decorations store, specializing in Christmas tree decorations, “Oh wow, this is everything we will need!” You turned towards Nanami, eyes shining brightly with joy. 

“Are you sure? There are a few other shops down the street?” Nanami asked you.

“I’m sure.” you replied, grabbing a small bauble from a hook, admiring the gold and red glitter on it. 

Nanami watched you bounce around the shop, holding a small basket as you filled it with various decorations, a smile on his face, nodding when you turned to ask his opinion on anything you thought he might like for the tree. 

Bringing the basket of decorations to the counter, you watched the shopkeeper ring up the ornaments and Nanami tap his card on the reader, paying for the items, throwing a quick scowl his way as he did his best to ignore you. 

Getting back to the apartment with Nanami, you quickly set the decorations out on the island, beside the bell, left there from the morning, “I think this is more then enough decorations for the tree” you beamed up at him. 

Nanami rounded the island, passing you another cup of tea and nodded, “These will be perfect. Where should we start?” he asked, picking up a small reindeer ornament, holding it up to the tree. 

“Thats as good a start as any!” picking up your own small ornament, you grabbed his hand, guiding him to the tree, placing your own ornament on the tree. 

Soon, the sound of your small giggles and the clinking of ornaments filled the air. Nanami had turned on the TV, changing the channel to a classic fireplace as you both sipped tea and placed your newly bought ornaments on the tree. His height, an obvious advantage to reaching the taller branches while you made sure to direct him, as to not leave any branches bare or any spots overflowing with decorations. 

“Time for the moment of truth” You grabbed one end of the string of lights Nanami had placed on the tree when he assembled it, holding it in the air, ready to plug it in. Crouching down, you pushed the prongs into the plug and stood back. Watching the lights flicker and dance across the tree, lighting the apartment up as the glow shone on Nanami's face. 

“Beautiful.” you heard him whisper. 

Turning your head to look up at him, you saw him looking towards you. The glow of the tree shining in both your eyes. 

A small blush crept up your face as he turned, reaching across the kitchen island, grabbing the bell. The soft chime rang in your ears as he held it out to you, “Its the last ornament, do you want to do the honours?” leaning in, he whispered as he grabbed your palm, placing the bell into it. 

Nodding, wrapping your fingers around the bell, you reached as high as you could on the tree, wrapping the small ribbon around a branch and letting it dangle. The bell rang gently as you watched it sway. 

Turning to look at Nanami, he stepped close to you, wiping a small tear you hadn’t realized you shed, “Happy tears? I hope?” He asked. 

Nodding you wiped your eyes, “Very happy tears.” you replied, wrapping your hands around Nanami as he kissed the top of your head. 

Taking a deep breath, you looked again at the tree. The ornaments were not perfect, and they were slightly mismatched, but it was perfect. Holding Nanami’s hand, you felt him bring it up to his lips, pressing a small kiss to the back of it. “Merry Christmas Darling.”

As always - credit for the dividers goes to the always talented @adornedwithlight <3

[pixelglam]

Hi Amelie! I love the aesthetic of your game and builds. You've shared some pictures of a build named "Residences & Shops in Munich, Germany". I have been reeally in love with "multipurpose" builds with more than 1 building in a block like that. I'd like to ask, do you have any tips in building a large "block/street" like that? I'm having a hard time visualizing compatible floorplans. Would you ever be interested in sharing a bit of how you build, like a backstage view of your process? Thank you

Hello! I really appreciate your kind words! I actually answered a question on my building tips and the steps I personally take when starting a build here. In terms of building larger multipurpose lots I actually haven't built anything else like this but here are some more tips that I thought of when building my Munich shops: (these are quite specific but hopefully will still be helpful to you!)

Define the Purpose: Start by deciding the main functions of your build (e.g., apartments, clothing store, office spaces). This will guide your design choices and floorplans.

Entrance Design: Ensure each area has its own entrance. For commercial spaces, a storefront with large windows is inviting, while residential units usually have private entries.

Access: Consider how Sims will move between the different areas. Use staircases or elevators to connect each floor.

Common Areas: For apartment buildings, consider creating shared spaces like a laundry room, lounge, or outdoor area that residents can enjoy and use.

Theme and Branding: Decide on a theme for your store (e.g., clothing, grocery, bakery). This will help everything look and feel cohesive.

Display and Layout: Create displays with items on shelves or counters. Feel free to look up actual floorplans of clothing or grocery stores for realism.

Backroom Storage: Include a small storage area or backroom for employees to manage inventory. This adds realism.

Functional Space (for Offices): Design offices with functional workspaces, including desks, chairs, and meeting areas. Consider creating cubicles or open spaces based on your inspiration photo/idea.

Break Area: Incorporate a break room or lounge where employees can relax. A kitchenette with a coffee maker and snacks can make it more inviting.

Decor: Use office-related decor like filing cabinets, plants, and artwork to make the space feel professional yet comfortable.

Here is an example that might further help you:

Ground Floor: Retail store with a large display area, checkout counter, and storage in the back.

Second Floor: Offices with multiple rooms, including a reception area and meeting room. Ensure there's a small break area for employees.

Third Floor: Apartments with a mix of layouts (one-bedroom and studio units). Each unit can have a small kitchen and living area, with balconies for outdoor space.

[paperclip-skz]

Hyunjin's Love and Leashes (part 3)

First Session

fem*Reader x Hyunjin

*WARNING*

contains: mentions of sexual content, and BDSM references, pet play, second hand embarrassment, this is going to be a lot of parts and little parts to it (there is a cliffhanger at the end)

Also note: This story is HEAVLY influenced by the Netflix movie Love and Leashes. This is just "my" version of it, you could say. I am writing to write and I recommend you watch Love and Leashes. *** This is not an original idea, this IS INSPIRED BY A MOVIE/ANIME**

WC: 3k part 1 part 2 part 4

*****

Hyunjin, As we have both confirmed the terms outlined in the contract, I have scheduled our upcoming "Play." Below is the address and your required attire. It is imperative that you arrive fully prepared; failure to do so will result in consequences. Keep your safe words in mind, and do not overthink our agreement. You have the power to end the play at any moment if you choose. Y/N L/N

You sent the email using his contact information from the work database, which included both his personal and work email addresses.

You thought it sounded right—both assertive and lighthearted. God, you were nervous. You set the scene to take place in a hotel. You had paid for a single room on an upper floor, so it was safe to assume that no one would be within earshot of the two of you.

But what would they hear? 

You read online the best way to introduce play is something as simple as instructing the sub into submission. Of course, they were talking about it in more of a sexual sense however you could play this into something innocent…you think.

As you settle into the plush seat of Hyunjin's car, a sense of exhilaration washes over you, and you grip your bag tightly in your lap. The cool leather feels reassuring against your fingers, but it doesn't fully quell the flutter of anticipation swirling in your stomach. The city streets whiz by outside the window, each neon sign and vibrant storefront a blur of color, mirroring the excitement bubbling up inside you.

Hyunjin glances over, his eyes sparkling with a mix of enthusiasm and determination. You can't help but notice the way his knuckles turn white against the steering wheel, a testament to both his focus on the road and the energy he carries with him. Every so often, he steals a glance at you, a broad smile breaking across his face, and you feel that contagious energy draw you in even more. The air is thick with an anticipating buzz that radiates off both of you. 

Your beat is erratic; you can’t possibly imagine what Hyunjin is feeling. The fact that this is his first play also makes this all the more nerve-racking. 

As soon as you both arrive at the hotel, the atmosphere shifts. You step out of the car, the cool air hitting your face, but it does little to soothe the whirlwind of emotions inside you. Every step toward the elevator feels like a mile; your legs tremble slightly as if they might buckle under the weight of your nervousness. With each passing moment, you can feel a buzz of anxiety coursing through your entire body, making your heart race and your palms sweat. You glance at Hyunjin, searching for reassurance, but your mind is racing with a flood of worries and doubts, amplifying the intensity of the moment. The elevator doors slide shut, enclosing you both in a small space, and time seems to stretch as you prepare for what lies ahead.

You both step into the cozy one-bedroom suite. The room has a TV mounted to the wall and a small living area with a pull-out couch folded to the side of the bed. You walk in first, trying to emulate confidence. 

You stride to the bed, where you sit and cross your legs. Your eyes scan over Hyunjin's tensed features, he’s walked in and leaned his body on the side wall, staring at every action you make. 

“Did you bring what I asked?” 

“Yes Ma’am” his body straightens and he squirms to be close to you. He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out the collar and the matching leach you both know all too well. He hands it to you in shaky hands and you take it. You set it on the bed next to you. 

He stays silent, just watching you….what do you do? What exactly are you supposed to do?

You try your hardest to remember what the video said….but then you remember your encounter in the closet. How he reacted when you were clear and stern. “Sit down, Hyunjin” 

His eyes glimmer from your voice, and he begins to find a place on the bed next to you, but you are quick to stop him, “not on the bed” You both hold eye contact, his breath holding. Your eyes dart to the floor, right before you cross your legs. 

The dress you’re wearing fits your body like a glove, perfectly sculpting your silhouette and highlighting your natural shape. The length of the dress falls elegantly just above your knees, making it both professional and sexy for any occasion. 

Hyunjins falls to his knees slowly, his eyes scanning their way up your legs. Your eyes dart to the side where the collar sits, your fingers trace the cool rim of the leather. 

“Have you worn it yet?” you ask bluntly. 

“I haven’t. Just looking at it brings me satisfaction,” he says, his eyes shimmering. 

“But things are meant to be used.” his body reacts by your choice of words. You can see the wave of electricity course through him at the thought of you using him. 

He leans forward so you can securely attach the collar around his neck, and you click the leach into place. You give it an experimental tug that sends him slightly barrelling toward your legs.

A small gasp escapes your lips as he leans in, bracing himself on your knee for support. His sudden movement catches you off guard, and you can feel the warmth radiating from his touch. He quickly glances up at you, his eyes wide with a hint of embarrassment, and stammers out an apology. Despite his words, you can't help but notice the flush that creeps across his cheeks, a deep crimson spreading like wildfire, betraying the vulnerability he tries to mask. The moment hangs in the air, charged with an unexpected intimacy, leaving you both acutely aware of the closeness between you.

Suddenly, a part of the video becomes clear as day in your mind, “simple instruction is the best way to start off” 

Your heart raced wildly in your chest, adrenaline surging through your veins as the moment hung in the air. You took a steadying breath and commanded, “Sit. " Your voice was firm and unwavering, masking the whirlwind of emotions inside you.

For a brief heartbeat, his eyes widened in disbelief, but the surprise quickly melted away as he instinctively fell to his knees, his posture radiating a mix of submission and eager anticipation. 

“Hand,” you instructed, watching intently as he extended his hand toward you. The sound of his palm meeting yours was sharp and clear. 

“Speak” you say again and Hyunjin lets out a broken bark. 

“Good boy,” you cooed, a smile tugging at the corners of your lips as you felt him shiver at your praise.

You pause and think for a moment. You planned this whole night in your head, but when the moment came all ideas left your mind. Until you remembered what you brought. 

You reach behind you and grab the small bag of treats you packed with you, which was actually just a bag of chocolate cookies. "Good boys get treats," you say as you hold out your hand with a single cookie resting in the middle.

He begins to reach for it with his hand but stops when he sees your eyes raised. Then he leans into your hand and takes the treat from your palm, kissing your palm before moving away. 

He’s so gentle, his touch a soft whisper against your skin, every action infused with a sensual energy that ignites your senses. You never imagined it would make you feel this way, so needy, yet completely in cotnrol. He gazes up into your eyes, his chin cradled delicately in the warmth of your palm, and his intense stare seems to penetrate the very depths of your soul, unveiling the unspoken longing within you. Then, with a tender smile, he leans down, brushing his lips against your hand, planting tiny, lingering kisses that send breathtaking shivers along your skin. Each kiss feels like an unhurried promise, drawing you even closer to him.

You are both so caught up in the moment, with barely a whisper to break the thick tension…until you hear something…almost like moaning?

Both you and Hyunjin break away from each other, listening to your assumed neihbors….going at it like rabbits. 

Hyunjin scrunches his face in exaggerated disgust, his playful demeanor taking an unexpectedly wild turn as he starts barking like a genuine dog! Completely immersed in his role, he directs his attention to the couple next door, barking furiously as if warning them of an impending threat. 

Desperately trying to redirect his enthusiasm, you quickly fill your palm with a handful of tasty treats, holding them out like a lifeline while chanting, “Here, here!” in a sing-song voice, hoping to catch his attention.

His gaze flickers back and forth, torn between the intriguing couple and the enticing morsels in your hand. Just as you think you might succeed, a sudden yelp escapes him; he’s accidentally knelt on one of the treats, the sharp discomfort making him whimper in surprise and pain.

( the next day ) 

Haunted by the events of your last “play,” could you even call it that? You were more than embarrassed. You were devastated. 

You were about to call the whole thing off, screw the contract, you were in way over your head. What the hell were you doing? All of this was too much….. 

Y/N,  I hope you're doing well! I wanted to chat about what happened during our session last night. Being a new dom can definitely be a bit tricky, especially if you feel like you didn’t have all the info you needed going in.  I really don’t want you to feel embarrassed or nervous about trying again. If you're up for it, I’d love to set up our next meeting! Just a reminder—our contract is still in place, and you’re in charge; I’ll just pick the setting this time. I can’t wait to hear back from you! Your,  Pretty Boy

 You can’t help but smile at his cheery tone. You write back to him, saying that you are willing to give it another go, but deep down, your stomach twists—either from excitement or discomfort; you're not quite sure which.

(that night)

Hyunjin contacted you the place and time of where to meet. He told you to dress the same as your first play, so you did. That same fitted dress with black heels to compliment it.

It's strange to have a session here. He sent you the address to an elegant restaurant. You walk in and see the doorman nodding to let you in.. the glass floor shines underneath you and the place lights up with a warm hue.  

“Y/Ninne,” you snap to the call of your name, seeing Hyunjin approaching you. 

Your breath is knocked out of you. He’s stunning. He’s wearing a silver-toned suite with a white shirt, making him both elegant and untouchable. He walks with such confidence anyone could be mistaken for what he truly is, for what only you get to see. 

The air escapes your lungs in a gasp as you take in the sight before you. He’s breathtakingly handsome, exuding an aura that commands attention. Clad in a sleek silver-toned suit that glimmers under the light, paired flawlessly with a crisp white shirt, he exudes an aura of elegance that feels almost otherworldly. Every step he takes carries with it an undeniable confidence, demanding attention. To the casual observer, he might appear simple, sophisticated, and dominant. But only you are utterly aware of his deeper truth, to the hidden layers only he has allowed you to see. 

You both share your hellos before Hyunjin, and a waiter guides you out of the central part of the restaurant. You realize you didn’t hear the usual buzz of people eating and talking; in fact, you didn’t hear a single soul. Hyunjin and the waiter guide you around the corner to a separate room, where a table and candles have been set up. 

“I made sure we had the whole place to ourselves,” Hyunjin says, his gaze locking onto yours, filled with a mix of mischief and tenderness. The soft glow of candlelight dances across his features, accentuating those expressive eyes that hold your attention completely.

****

“Can I get you both anything else?” the waiter inquires, interrupting the infectious laughter that had been bubbling between you two. His voice drifts into the cozy atmosphere like an uninvited guest, pulling you momentarily away from your shared joy.

“No, no. I think we may have had a bit too much,” you reply, still smiling. Your voice is laced with playful laughter as you hold your wine glass to your lips, its crimson liquid shimmering in the warm light. 

Hyunjin simply smiles, a soft, understanding grin spreading across his face as he nods to the waiter. The door clicks shut behind him. 

You both pause, waiting for the other to break the silence. “I got you something,” Hyunjin says. 

“Huh?” your eyes go wide; I thought I was supposed to be assigning the gifts. 

Hyunjin reaches under the table to retrieve a box. It is crystal white, shining in the dim lighting, as he places it on the table. He slightly pushes it towards you, and you can see the anticipation bubbling out of him; it makes you smile at just how cute he actually is. 

You take the box carefully and set it in your lap. Once you open the box, your eyes sparkle at the sleek red material of the shoes. The black soles make the red shine and scream at anyone who sees them. The pointed square heel makes your breath hitch.

You trace your heel up to his shoulder, pressing it to leave a mark. He closes his eyes at the pain, but you can see the hint of his smile creeping up. You press enough into his shoulder to leave the faint line of a mark into the fabric of his shirt. “Pl-please”. Your confidence breaks at his weak plea. 

Oh god did I actually hurt him? 

“Jinnie?” your voice laced with worry. 

“Please let me touch you,” he pleas, tears brimming his eyes. 

Your eyes shoot out of your skull. “Uuhh”

“I just want to kiss your skin,” he pauses, “please. let me make you feel just as good as you make me feel,” he cries. 

Dark shadows of doubt whisper seductively in your ear, trying to pull you under. Yet, beneath this seductive chaos, a fiery desire ignites within you, bold and insistent. It’s a sultry voice that commands you to surrender, a tempting “yes” that beckons you closer to the edge of your fantasies. 

You nod your head slowly, putting your leg back against his shoulder. His hand traces the outline of your calf. His head tilts and his lips press against your skin. 

He feels like a delicate flower petal, soft and inviting against your skin, igniting a sensual thrill. Each caress is like a whisper, tantalizing and teasing as it glides over your body. The petal, with its velvety texture and intoxicating fragrance, wraps around you, drawing you into a world of intimate pleasure. 

 He’s just as gentle as he was when he was kissing your palm, but this time, there are no distractions. You lean all the way back against the chair, letting your body relax. You let his kisses trail along your leg, not leading too far. 

He lifts his head slightly to make eye contact with you. You watch him carefully, “kiss me properly,” you dare. 

His eyes grow darker, and his smirk grows. He reattaches his lips to your skin, this time not being as gentle as before. His tongue flicks out to touch your skin, and his teeth gently graze it.

You gently close your eyes, letting the warmth of his presence envelop you. As you savor the moment, the sensation of him lingering just below your thigh sends a shiver of anticipation coursing through you. Hyunjin’s touch is both tender and cautious as if he senses the fragility of this intimate space between you. Each moment stretches, filled with unspoken words and a shared connection, leaving you to wonder how long he will dare to stay at this intoxicating threshold, more tempting than the last.

That shared moment stayed with you for days after, but before that memory could taint you dreams; you took the heels home and said your goodbyes. The second you lay in your bed, you couldn’t fall asleep that night. You kept thinking about how he touched you, how gentle he was, and how his teeth felt against your calf. 

It lead your fingers to trace along the rim of your panties, sliding in every so carefully….you fell asleep easily after that. 😉

~~~~~

Hyunjin couldn’t sleep that night either. Roses, he thought, you smelt like roses. Freshly cut roses that reminded him of the garden he loved when he was a child. He loved that smell. He could easily get addicted to it, but that could be a problem. 

The last thing he needs is to complicate the contract. The last thing YOU need is more pressure on your shoulders. 

But God, those roses drive him nuts. He can feel his heart pounding as he lies in his silk sheets, thinking endlessly about that night in the restaurant. It wasn’t just your smell or the way your skin felt against his lips, or even the dress you were wearing. It was the way you looked at him. Dominating yet tender, that look possesed a gentleness that can send a thrilling chill down anyone's spine.

He could feel his boxers getting tighter, he told himself he would wait. Wait for your permission, for your first order to let him release, but he’s too pent up, too caught up in his own head. All he can see are your eyes, your beautiful eyes….

….oh no…

*****

A.N/

I really hope you guys are liking this little series as much as I am. It's honestly been a blast writing this :🤭 if yall have any suggestions on what you want to see next please don't be shy to leave a comment or ask me in my profile. And I can’t wait to show u want more this little series will bring 😝!

p.s you guys have no idea how excited I get when I see yalls comments!!!!☺

[violetmuses]

Tandem - Multifandom Crossover ❤️‍🩹

Title: Tandem - Multifandom Crossover ❤️‍🩹

Fandoms: “Rebel Ridge” + “Bad Boys” 

Characters: Terry Richmond + Armando Aretas

Love Interest: Female Reader 

Main Storyline: When Terry Richmond arrives in Miami, who knows what could happen next?

Tandem Masterlist

@peaxhygirl @superstar-t20 @adoresmiles @klssngss @deja-r @hyper-trash-panda @amethyst-loves-bucky @planetblaque @sweettea-and-honeybutter @lovedlover @xjjawsomex @readingisahobby @kindofaintrovert @nelo0wesker @gg-trini @cloveroctobers @maliagurl @nobodygetsza @twinklestarslight @yassbishimvintage @sweetiepie4190 @persethegawd @mangoes03 🏷

=====

2024

Relocating to Miami, veteran Terry Richmond wanted to start life all over again after escaping the rural and dangerous town of Shelby Springs. 

Upon entry, the new apartment offered more than enough space. Justice grounded some peace, but even with his cousin avenged, time still burned. 

After taking this much-needed shower to clear emotions, Richmond dumped the weathered backpack and organized his very few items. 

Learning the brand-new area, Terry signaled that elevator and chimed down. Modern decor prolonged this lobby as sunlight illuminated. 

Just before Richmond headed outside, one different man entered the building. 

Detective Mike Lowrey of the Miami Police Department would introduce himself to staff members. 

“Someone will move here, but we'll handle everything.” Lowrey took charge. 

Red and blue overcasts crossed that Florida skyline. Even sirens wailed. 

What the hell? Terry thought. 

Just when Richmond planned to ask questions, the entrance opened. 

Officials escorted this handcuffed man right into the complex and Richmond's nerves heightened with each passing moment. 

“Yo, what's going on? You good, man?” Terry almost gritted his teeth. 

This guy named Armando Aretas wouldn't respond at first. 

Wearing this Bud Light shirt, Aretas chose one trucker hat that veiled his brown eyes. Jeans covered both legs and boots stepped along. 

“It's fine, we got it.” Lowrey noticed Richmond's concern and tried to settle this problem down. 

“What in the world?” Several people offered questions as well. 

Yet when police unfastened Armando's handcuffs, voices shared relief in all directions. 

“Come with us.” Lowrey gestured to Richmond and led Aretas near the elevator. 

“Yes, Sir.” No matter what, Terry offered respect as all three individuals moved upstairs. 

________

“It's a long story, but Armando is my son.” Lowrey stood in the hall with Richmond once Aretas settled his own apartment. 

“Why bring out that police motorcade?” Terry squinted. 

“Like I said, it's a long story. Just know that he works for the department now.” Lowrey explained. 

“Aight.” Terry cleared his throat. “If he's not in trouble, I'll feel better honestly. Thank you.” 

“You're welcome.” Detective Lowrey excused himself from Richmond and returned to Armando's space.

Time would explain what happens now. 

*****

Armando woke up as sunlight greeted the bedroom windows. Gaining this furnished apartment, he organized essentials yesterday. 

Packing his new laptop bag, Aretas left to “explore.” 

Reaching the hallway, Armando pinged this elevator and noticed that someone joined. 

“Terry.” Richmond ended up clipping his name first. 

“Armando.” Aretas wouldn't make eye contact, but followed Terry's lead with introductions. 

“You good?” Terry repeated his genuine question from yesterday. 

“Yeah. Thanks.” Armando accepted Terry's kindness. 

Heading outside, both men walked in silence as vibrant lanes of South Beach lined up. 

Cheerful voices beamed and upbeat music played out loud from vehicles while Terry acknowledged surroundings. 

“Found a coffee shop.” Richmond pointed near one storefront and welcomed Armando past its threshold. 

“Good catch.” Aretas moved. 

_____

“Morning. Could I have some black coffee and a muffin, please?” This muscular man stepped toward the counter and greeted you. His bright eyes nearly prompted your heart to rattle. 

“Got it. Anything else?” You grinned while counting his order. 

“No, Ma'am.” Terry almost smiled not long after paying up.  

“Can I have a name for the order?” You set out markers. 

“Terry.” Richmond quickly stated his own first name

“Thank you. Just wait for a second.” You prepared everything. 

Stepping out of the line, Terry gave room for  different customers, but noticed Armando using his laptop from this window seat. 

“You want something?” Terry leaned inward this time around. 

“I'll get up in a second. Appreciate it.” Aretas noticed Richmond's words again. 

“Terry?”  As expected, you called Richmond's name. 

“Be right back.” Terry reached the main counter again. 

“Here you go.” You handed out his order and smiled once more. 

“Thank you.” Terry almost grinned before sitting back down. 

______

Armando stepped up next and Terry observed everything. 

Once you rang more items and called Aretas, Armando gathered his regular coffee and took one scone, not even messing up his device. 

“Not bad.” Aretas said. “I'll have to leave soon, but thanks for helping.” 

“No problem.” Terry nodded, but looked elsewhere as this Porsche rolled near the curb. 

“Gotta go.” Taking coffee, Armando stepped outdoors and joined the passenger seat of Mike Lowrey's classic ride. 

______

Staying behind at the coffee shop, Terry observed how you handled customers and clocked out that afternoon, leaving this place just in time for lunch. 

“Excuse me?” Richmond stood from that window seat and questioned you. 

“Yes?” You welcomed him outside as this bench waited near the storefront. 

“I'm new here, so thank you for the coffee.”  Terry stepped forward and shook hands.

“Of course.” You smiled. 

“Something happened at my apartment complex yesterday. This guy moved in, but officers showed up and…” Richmond trailed off when you cleared your throat. 

“Armando Aretas…” You nearly whispered. “The police are quiet for different reasons now, but look up his name whenever you can. Most of that information is public.” 

“I will. Thank you.” Terry stood and began to walk away, but you spoke up once more. 

“See you tomorrow?” You wanted to know if Terry would come back. 

“Yeah, I don't mind. Take care.” Terry nodded and bid farewell, leaving your side. 

******

Buying his own laptop, Richmond planned to learn information. 

Nothing could've prepared him for upcoming details, though. 

What the fuck?! 

Realization tunneled this search. Soon enough, Terry's heart raced and dropped all at once. 

Aretas launched havoc on several counts and attacked officials from the Miami precinct four years ago. 

Richmond even found one vital news report from the large-scale case: 

“Famed Miami Detective Mike Lowrey was shot one evening. The video quickly surfaced online and went viral in a matter of hours. Footage first appeared on the darknet and soon spread to mainstream social media platforms. Authorities believed that the shooter uploaded this video himself.”

Damn! Terry slammed his laptop, fed up beyond words. 

No matter what, Armando's crimes remained true with permanent ink. 

*****

Another morning brightened, yet Terry's mind clouded again. 

When Armando's main door opened, Richmond almost flinched while unarmed. 

“Hey, hey, Woah! You good, T?” Armando lifted his empty hands. 

“The barista warned me and I did some research last night. Y'all left out too much.” Richmond turned frustrated without yelling. “Nobody told me about your case.”

“Dammit!” Aretas paced back and forth, quietly upset. “I can explain what happened, all right?”

“Go ahead.” Terry arched his brow. “I got plenty of time on my hands.”

_______

Sitting with Terry in private, Armando started talking first. 

“After leaving the military, I joined the family cartel. My mother planned everything and hoped that I wouldn't spare Lowrey.” Aretas grounded his truth. 

“What happened to your mother?” Terry settled the question. 

She's dead.“ Armando never hesitated with that phrase. 

“Damn, man.” Richmond attempted. “The case is harsh, but I'm sorry.”

“Honestly, there was nothing good about our situation.” Armando declined. “She lied to so many people.” 

“You learned the truth now, right?” Richmond attempted. 

“Yeah, but you know what? I really don't wanna talk about this anymore.”  Mentally exhausted, Aretas stopped debating and glanced toward his new watch.

“Fair enough. You're right, so let's get out of here.” Apologizing, Terry stood from the bench and followed Armando to this new spot. 

*****

“Hi, Terry. Good morning.” You've smiled and already learned his order as Richmond faced the register. 

“Morning. Thank you for giving the update with Armando. We've talked.” Richmond quietly acknowledged how he checked details last night. 

“Of course. We can't risk more issues if people haven't learned that case because Armando just got back.” You nearly whispered the response like code 

“You know a lot about this one.” Terry glanced around. 

“I used to work as an informant.” Still facing Terry now, you offered black coffee and handed over this muffin again. 

Wow. Richmond noted. 

_____

“Hey.” Slightly accented English rasped near your direction when Armando stepped forward. 

“I'm not a snitch.” There's no joyful greeting this time around. “We've lost too many people and I just want everyone else to be safe.” 

“I know.” Aretas completely understood your point. 

“Listen, I'm not afraid.” You arched one brow while ringing up his regular coffee with another scone. 

“I searched your name, too. Why give up the police department for a coffee shop?” Aretas moved ten steps ahead and had learned all about your skills. 

“You.” Your genuinely pleasant voice darkened for the first time. “Once the case guaranteed prison, I quit.”

“Thought you weren't scared?” Armando slyly chuckled and departed the line, waiting for his order. 

____

“Armando?” When you called his name, the area nearly silenced and almost everyone held their breath. Even Terry closed one fist to veil his mouth. 

“Ooh!” Everyone observed as you traded the items. Within seconds, Armando stepped back and didn't face drama. 

When Aretas sat back down, Terry almost smirked. 

“Why the face?” Armando clipped. 

“She hasn't kicked you out.” Richmond pointed near the register as you kept working. 

“Whatever.” Aretas casted both eyes toward that ceiling. 

______

Armando exited that local coffee shop as Mike Lowrey's classic Porsche rolled out again. Before long,  Richmond sat with privacy this time. 

When you began to leave for lunch once more, Terry still noticed your presence. 

“Don't worry.” Terry laughed and opened the front door for you. ‘I'm not hard-headed like Armando.” 

“Very funny.” You walked toward Florida sunlight and joined the storefront bench as usual. “Any plans today?”

“No, Ma'am. Still figuring out my apartment complex.” Richmond glanced toward you. 

“You'll learn.” Now, your gentle voice encouraged him. “Living somewhere new is a process.”

“I understand.” Terry nodded. 

“Oh, shit! Sorry, but I gotta go.” Your phone buzzed seconds later. 

“No problem. See you.” Saying goodbye, Terry watched you almost jog around the block for some odd reason. 

What now? Richmond thought. 

*****

Once you entered this restaurant, confetti popped upwards. 

“Happy birthday!” Members of the AMMO squad cheered after standing from this large table. 

“I thought you needed something! This is my lunch break.” You hugged weapons expert Kelly and tech genius Dorn laughed for a moment. 

“We've already cleared the schedule with your manager.” Captain Rita Secada welcomed your spot from that table. “Take this weekend off.”

“Thank you, Rita. Everything looks great!” You smiled toward the platters and would share each meal with friends. 

Just before indulging, you realized that Detective Marcus Burnett, Mike Lowrey's longtime partner and best friend, peeked around one corner. 

“Where's my niece? Happy birthday, girl!” Marcus shuffled footsteps into the private room. 

“Thank you, Marcus!” You opened both arms to hug Burnett and still observed his recovered heart. 

Not long ago, Marcus collapsed during Mike Lowrey's wedding. 

Lowrey fell in love with Christine, an experienced physical therapist. She also help .ed Mike heal with his shooting recovery that took place years back. 

“Doesn't matter if you've left the team. You're still important, Rook.” Marcus shortened one of your nicknames. 

“I appreciate it. How's everyone?” You acknowledged Burnett's family. 

“Everybody's fine. Megan just gave birth to a baby girl.” Smiling, Marcus counted his second grandchild. 

“Aw! Congratulations, Grandpa.” You laughed while messing with Marcus. Even Kelly almost giggled. 

“Pop-Pop.” Marcus corrected the title and arched his brow toward you. 

“You're still old!” You joked right back and everyone cackled. 

_______

“Happy birthday to you!” Servers pushed the cake forward as everyone sang along. 

Grateful, you blew out candles and prepared your sweet tooth, sitting beside Kelly and Rita. 

“Oh, damn! You cut the cake already?” Detective Mike Lowrey showed up with his wife Christine. 

“Might bring this party to the house, Rook. Now we're crammed in here!” Marcus chuckled. 

“Stop it, Marcus! Let's get some cake and go from there.” Mike jokes with his best friend. 

Even you hugged Christine, sharing dessert with everyone as sunset arrived. 

There was no better feeling here. 

******

Armando returned to this apartment and showered after trading used car keys from Mike at the precinct. 

Lowrey had just picked up his wife Christine to celebrate your birthday elsewhere. 

“Going back home with everybody if you wanna visit.” Mike called. “We can't stay at this restaurant all night.” 

“I don't think she likes me.” Aretas knew better than to interrupt your surprise. 

“Even you and I need to work on things, but I'm trying all right?” Lowrey still attempted. “Come over. It'd be good.” 

“I know. See you later.” Armando hung up, prepared to deal with the occasion. 

****

“Don't argue tonight.” Marcus warned both  you and Armando. 

“Hey, be careful. Now you're instigating.” Lowrey cautioned Burnett. 

“Hold up, I brought wine.” Settling down Mike and Marcus, Aretas carefully held two bottles. 

“Thank you.” Mike welcomed Armando inside and you found Christine again, heading to the backyard. 

______

“Still mad at me?” Armando offered the question while sharing cake with you. 

“No.” You shook your head. “Only cautious.”

“That's fair.” Aretas nodded in return as music played. 

“In all seriousness, how are you doing?” You wanted to help Armando regardless. 

“Better. Things are pretty quiet.” Aretas offered his vague response. 

“Started messing with Terry yet?” You laughed about one regular from the coffee shop. Terry Richmond even became Armando's neighbor.

“No, but can I ask you something?” Aretas leaned back in his chair. 

“Yeah?” You silently waited for Armando's next move. 

“You want him?” Armando clipped the unexpected idea. 

“What are you talking about?” You squinted. “We just met.” 

“Y'all smile almost every day now.” Aretas pulled his observations with Terry. Even coffee transactions looked more joyful. 

“It's none of your business, but you sound jealous.” You nearly laughed. 

“C'mere.” Throwing out trash for both of you, Armando started flirting. 

“Yes?” You stand from the table and trailed Aretas, intrigued. 

“Stop ignoring me.” His slightly accented English nearly whispered to reveal this truth. “It actually hurts my feelings.”

“Did I hurt your feelings or bruise that ego?” You corrected his phrase this time. “Get it together, okay? You're not the big bad wolf anymore.” 

Taking your words, Armando became outright silent as you walked away and started dancing with everyone else that night. 

*****

The next morning, you wake up after somehow choosing this living room floor. 

In some corner, this air mattress waited nearby and even one of Armando's wine bottles looked empty. 

What happened last night? Your now pounding mind buzzed questions. 

When Kelly emerged from the kitchen, you took random sunglasses to dodge brightness. 

“Where's everybody?” You stood up and joined K, greeted by many choices to eat. 

“Mike and Christine are running errands, Rita left, and Dorn took my car to the auto shop.” Kelly pinpointed almost everyone. 

Before you'd question Armando's spot, footsteps moved toward the living room. 

“You're wearing my sunglasses.” Aretas chuckled and gestured by your face. 

As you gaped while embarrassed, Kelly covered her mouth in shock. 

______

“What happened last night?” You offered the question between Armando and Kelly. 

“Lots of drinking and dancing.” Kelly just smiled towards you. “We all crashed down here when Mike and Christine went upstairs.” 

“How much did I drink?” You absolutely cringed right now. 

“You finished that wine bottle with Armando and danced together.” Kelly took a moment and drank water. 

“Dancing?” You then furrowed your brow near Aretas. 

“Yeah, it was fun.” Armando nearly smiled, but caught himself. 

“I definitely have some videos. Hold on.” Kelly seemed more and more humored. 

“Oh, no!” You removed the sunglasses, but still veiled your face this time. 

Just when Kelly began scrolling, Armando's phone started ringing.  

“Hello?” Both you and Kelly stopped messing around when Aretas picked up the call. 

“Dude, it's Terry. We need help, man!” Terry Richmond somehow contacted Armando. 

“What happened? I'm listening.” Aretas put Richmond on speakerphone to hear every detail. 

“The coffee shop's manager is dead.” Terry exposed that truth loud and clear. 

*****

As sirens wailed throughout and emergency lights flashed beyond direction, yellow tape met that coffee shop when law enforcement intervened. 

For the first time since quitting, you prepped one of the uniform jackets and dodged guidelines to help. Sitting back would never become an option. 

“Estimated time of death?” You questioned experts after joining that crime scene. 

“Last night around 10:00 PM.” One professional spoke up this time. 

“Quick kill. Discreet enough to avoid some outward panic.” Mike observed, requesting for you to bring Terry Richmond for questions. “Get Terry, Rook.”

“All right.” You turned away from that body bag while the forensics team moved along. 

______

“Explain what happened, T.” Drifting back to the police station, you joined Armando while Terry occupied this interrogation room.  

“Uh, everything seemed normal. Walked by the coffee shop and picked up my order as usual, but when I left that restroom to go home, there was spotting on the floor.” Terry leveled his response right now as bright eyes focused. 

Spotting? Fuck! You realized. Blood. 

“Where did you find that spotting?” You offered more questions for Richmond while Armando typed. “Did you see anything in the restroom?” 

“No, Ma'am.” Terry cleared his throat. “There's an employee door and office space located directly across from restrooms.”

Bingo! Of course you memorized the layout this year and pictured each area. 

“Who found that body?” You offered that chance just in case. 

“I found your manager sitting dead in his office chair.” Richmond's deep tone answered. 

Despite remaining composed, your heart still dropped. 

______

“We'll block this area until further notice. Who knows what else happened?” Returning to the crime scene, Lowrey took charge again. 

“Looks like another homicide case.” Marcus Burnett cringed. 

“Nope.” Lowrey declined. “Our squad just confiscated plenty of drugs, too.” 

“What the hell?” Burnett still can't believe what's going on. 

“Rook, bring Terry along.” Lowrey asked you to invite Richmond near everyone else as a precaution. 

Here we go. 

*******

Once this team confirmed an investigation, Mike, Marcus and Rita returned home before kicking off the police department's brand-new game plan. 

You bring Terry around as expected and gathered remaining members of the AMMO squad. 

“Sorry for the last-minute rush. We can't take any chances if you stay near that crime scene.” You explained this plan as Terry entered your house. 

“Don't worry. I get it.” Terry nodded, glancing around. 

“Make yourself at home. Kelly and Dorn would crash here all the time.” You welcomed Richmond. 

“Thank you.” Terry nodded and gathered his backpack, scoping the residence just in case.  

______

While Kelly and Dorn occupied one of the guest rooms, Terry showered upstairs. 

Down by that kitchen, you've set up this Bluetooth speaker and quietly played music while cooking for everyone. If only circumstances improved. 

“Hey.” Slightly accented English caught your attention and you carefully turned around. 

“Almost done making dinner. Did you need something?” You asked. 

“Where's your outlet? I just need to charge my phone. ” Aretas lifted his cell. 

“Check underneath my kitchen counter.” You gestured for a moment and finished cooking as Armando walked over. 

“Thanks.” Armando plugged the phone and washed his hands, setting the table with five plates or matching silverware like second nature.  

When that kitchen table looked ready this evening, you'd texted the group chat and everyone started heading downstairs without fail. 

“Smells good in here.” Terry almost smiled over some good news. 

“Thank you, T.” You still expressed gratitude right now. 

“You're welcome.” Terry's bright eyes almost glinted once more. 

Kelly and Dorn sat together, but Armando observed when Terry found this spot near you. 

“Let's not mention the case. How's everyone feeling?” Dorn spoke up next. 

“Never respond. We'll end up with therapy cards…Ow!” When Armando faced Terry, you stepped on his foot under the table. 

“Don't be rude.” You say.

“That hurt.” Aretas clenched his words near you and Terry sipped water to avoid laughing. 

“Get some ice or stop complaining.” You're just trying to eat and Armando frustrated nerves once more. 

“Damn!” Even Terry chuckled while Kelly and Dorn almost looked on. 

“What's so funny?” Armando clipped venom toward Richmond this time. 

“Chill…” Terry warned. “Regardless of the case, you're getting uptight now.”

At that moment, Armando stopped talking and excused himself from this table, choosing to finish his meal outside near the patio. 

Ditching your meal, you followed his path and closed the sliding door. 

______

“What the hell?” Your voice started debating. “You can't keep doing this shit!”

“Go back inside and leave me alone.” Ignoring his plate now, Aretas locked eye contact with you. 

“Don't tell me what to do in my own house!” This nearly raging tone gritted anger. “I brought y'all here for safety reasons.” 

“Why even do it?” Armando kept going. “We can take care of ourselves and you're not a babysitter.” 

“I won't leave anyone behind, not even you, Armando.” No matter what happened next, your words shared this vow. 

“Thanks.” Heading back, Aretas found his spot at the table and tried to feel better. 

******

“Everything okay?” Terry checked on both of you when Kelly and Dorn planned to sleep. 

“We're good. See you in the morning.” Armando nodded and would shower late before resting himself. 

“Aight, see you tomorrow.” Richmond dapped up Aretas for the evening, but stayed downstairs with you. 

Glancing over your shoulder, smiled for their moment of kindness. 

_____

“Don't worry. I'll straighten things up. It's the least that I can do. Terry wanted to help out as you'd reorganize the kitchen. 

“We'll work together. Deal?” You compromised instead. 

“Deal.” Terry cleared different places as you cleaned up. “So how long did you stay with the police? Y'all have pictures everywhere.” 

“About seven years.” You've signaled the dishwasher. “AMMO wasn't even founded yet when I joined that precinct.” 

“Impressive.” Terry almost whistled before fanning out this new trash bag for the garbage. 

“Thank you.” You smiled and described the origin of your nickname: Rookie. “Mike and Marcus call me Rook because of my age. It's not an academy thing.”

“You know enough information and can't feel outdated here.” Terry washed his hands before sitting down in the living room once you both finished responsibilities. 

“Yeah. It's sad, but let's just say that older CIs aren't discreet anymore.” You joined Terry. “No comfort means no details.” 

“How did you find Big Dawg?” Almost laughing, Richmond vaguely referenced Armando. 

“Someone called with an anonymous tip that night.” You explained. “We locked down coordinates and found a bloodbath sprawled out near the Miami Harbor.” 

Shit! Richmond shook his head. 

“How rough?” Terry went on. 

“No survivors: shootings, stabbings, money toppled over that dock. It was one of the scariest things I've ever seen.” You remembered the problem, but never crossed Aretas until now. 

Before Terry asked further questions, you both looked up to see Armando heading back downstairs. 

Fuck. You thought. 

Fresh out of the shower, Aretas wore this tank top with loose pants, heading back to the kitchen. 

“What are you doing?” Changing the subject, you leave this couch and watch Armando get a snack. 

“Can't sleep?” You laughed. 

“Isn't it obvious?” Aretas casted both eyes toward that ceiling and found one bowl, dumping popcorn. 

“Grouch.” Chiding Armando, you gathered more snacks to share with Terry as well. “What's wrong this time?”

“Nothing.” Aretas declined. 

“Hey, don't start that shit again. “She's just checking on you, all right?” As his deep voice returned, Terry defended you while correcting Armando. 

“Stay out of it because I wasn't even talking to you.” Aretas clipped right back. 

“Be grateful that she didn't throw us to the wolves now.” Richmond nearly sized up Aretas while talking about your home. “What the hell is wrong with you, man?” 

“Stop taking charge.” Armando backed off and gestured around. 

“What are you talking about?” Terry squinted, puzzled. 

“You moved here and everybody thinks you're special, but I can't even spend five minutes alone with her.” Armando expressed himself. “Maybe we'd have a better relationship if you'd back off.” 

“Not my problem.” Terry lifted both hands, sitting beside you once more. 

“What do you want?” You crossed both arms and looked toward Armando. 

“Don't ask me that.” His voice noticed you even more as Armando took the popcorn and headed right back upstairs. 

“What?” Frustrated, you squinted near Terry by this point. 

“It's better for everybody if you talk to him. Good night.” Arching his brow, Richmond leaves you as well. 

______

When you finally planned to sleep in your own bedroom, someone knocked. 

You opened this door to see Armando standing in the hall.

“Hey. I'm sorry for irritating you…” Your voice trailed off when Aretas stepped closer. 

“I'm sorry.” His brown eyes locked your presence when Armando sniffled quietly. “I just…”

“Yeah?” You tried to listen because his voice still mattered. 

“Nothing changes what I did, but y'all still ganging up on me doesn't help, either.” Aretas expressed more feelings. “I might as well go back to prison.” 

“Maybe if you weren't so quick to hide from everyone, things would be different.” You offered another perspective. “I just wanna solve this case and go back to normal.”

“I know. It's not easy for me, but I'll try. Get some rest, okay?” Struggling this time, Armando stepped back and you could sleep without interruptions. 

******

By morning, everyone settled around the kitchen together when you finished cooking breakfast. 

“Pass the hot sauce, baby girl?” Terry slipped that nickname by you while looking for one condiment. 

“Here, T.” You didn't even correct him and exchanged the bottle, picking up silverware to eat again. 

“Thank you.” Terry nodded and spiced eggs for his meal, moving on. 

Dorn and Kelly froze in unison here, surprised beyond words. 

“Espero que te quemes la lengua.” Using his native language of Spanish, Armando wanted Richmond's tongue to burn. 

“What was that?” Terry caught on. 

“Doesn't matter.” Aretas stood from the table and noticed Richmond once more. “Help us solve the case or leave.”

“Back up. Gettin’ tired of your attitude.” Of course Terry wouldn't fight, yet patience grew thin. 

“Guys…” Dorn wanted to settle this problem for  everyone, but Kelly stopped him. 

Terry sat back down and still warned Armando. “I thought you wanted another chance here.”

“Stop assuming shit. You have no idea what's going on with me.” Aretas defended himself again. 

Out of nowhere, your phone rings, breaking silence and moving tension elsewhere. 

Putting the call on speaker for everyone, you know better this time. 

“Hello, who is this?” You leveled this question for so many reasons. 

“Hola, Mami. Que tal?” One familiar chuckle reached your phone when Armando's old goon Zway Rodriguez picked up. 

“What did you do?!” After reaching his breaking point, Aretas snapped upon realization, held back by Terry and Dorn when hearing Zway's voice. 

“Just keep me out of prison and I'll explain everything. Otherwise…” Zway requested his own terms. 

“What?!” Armando's rage only worsened, but Terry and Dorn still wouldn't let go of Aretas. 

“Be careful, man. I'd hate for this special girl to be the next target.” Zway dropped that call, bringing everyone into this chaotic frenzy. 

******

“Are you saying that Zway killed this coffee shop manager?” As you stayed home, Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett gathered AMMO members near the department. 

“We'll find out soon enough.” Dorn tracked information to find puzzle pieces for the case. 

“Compromised again?” Mike questioned protocol once more. 

“No, but if we don't listen to Rodriguez, she'll be dead.” Dorn grounded the truth with your safety and planned to lock that case. 

“Be careful while you plan Zway's interrogation, all right?” Marcus and Mike also warned Captain Rita Secada. “We can't even put Armando in the same building.” 

“Fair enough. Go ahead and deal with Rodriguez yourselves.” Rita stepped out of the precinct. 

________

“Listen, be grateful. Armando would've kicked your ass, Zway.” Marcus Burnett paced back and forth while questioning Rodriguez. 

“No, Marcus. If it wasn't for us, Zway would be dead at the morgue tonight.” Mike folded both arms and stood in one corner. 

“Keep me out of prison.” Zway dared to speak this time. 

“First of all, don't fuck around. Did you kill the coffee shop manager or not?” Mike Lowrey squinted. 

“Yeah.” Zway dropped his bored response without showing emotions. 

“Why?” Mike prompted immediate eye contact, keeping composure. 

“It's all revenge.” Zway continued. “I even planted drugs y'all found at the coffee shop.”

“Revenge for what?” Mike questioned. 

“When Armando shot me near that helicopter four years ago, I fell into water, but survived.” Zway revealed. “Keep me away from prison unless you want problems.” 

Glancing toward one another, Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett left the interrogation room. 

_______

“It's official, y'all. Zway just confessed to everything.” Marcus exposed the truth. 

“Is it possible to keep him out of prison?” Dorn looked concerned. 

“No. We need a different plan.” Marcus shook his head. 

“We've got no other choice, then.” Lowrey darkened his voice. 

“What the hell are we supposed to do?” Marcus worried. 

“Somebody needs to kill Zway.” Lowrey couldn't turn back this time. 

_______

While staying home as a precaution, you find Terry and Armando in the living room. 

“Hi.” You spoke up. 

“Hey.” Both protective men faced your direction as sympathy reached their eyes. 

“Thank you for looking out.” You've expressed so much more gratitude. 

The doorbell prompted all three of you to glance forward, but Terry checked your RING Camera first. 

“It's Lowrey and Burnett.” Terry pinpointed your friends. 

“Let them in, T.” You offered permission, but Armando stood up anyway, ready for the next plan. 

“Before we start talking about this shit, c'mere, Rook.” Lowrey opened both arms to hug you. 

And for the first time since handling Zway's call, your eyes began to well up. Even Marcus wouldn't pass jokes. 

“What's the plan?” Your kind voice lowered without hesitation. 

“Somebody needs to kill Zway, but Armando can't do it or he'll go right back to prison.” Mike revealed this truth. 

There's no other choice. You've realized the possible outcome. 

“All right, then.” Enough was enough. “Bring the squad together and back me up. Whatever happens, I'm not going down without a fight.”

______

By nightfall, members of the AMMO squad returned to your home and prepared this attack from different corners. 

“Watch the house, Terry.” You offered brief yet vital instructions. “That's all we need from you.” 

“Yes, Ma'am. Be careful.” Armed himself, Richmond focused as you rolled out with everyone and silently waited for more. 

******

“Have Armando take henchmen, Mike!” Marcus yelled out loud while steering another motorcycle and neon lights painted streets. "Don't let him catch Zway!” 

“This is a battlefield, Marcus!” Lowrey moved among blaring engines. “No more rules. I am not responsible for Armando tonight.” 

“What about his redemption, Mike?” Marcus still attempted to be logical. 

“If Rook dies, Armando's second chance won't even matter.” Lowrey gritted his teeth over your chance to live. “Let's go!” 

______

Zway Rodriguez punched speed without fail as racing motorcycles caught up. 

Glancing past his shoulder, Zway quickly realized that someone lifted their firearm while still directing the motorcycle. 

No! Only one person crossed missions through anger four years ago. 

Armando returned. 

“It's Aretas, move faster!” Zway attempted to warn other goons. 

While Zway prepared to dodge Armando, he didn't even notice that your motorcycle joined this fight. 

“Here's payback.” You pulled this trigger and immediately spiraled Zway's route, dashing to escape between shadows. 

“Zway's dead!” Armando turned near you without removing his helmet. 

“Follow back to my house! We gotta check on Terry.” You would return home as expected. 

******

No targets, only silence. 

Terry Richmond heightened awareness while keeping watch in your home. Even distant sounds located for the neighborhood matter at this point. 

When engines revved out loud to line up vehicles this evening, Terry knew that signal. 

The AMMO squad returned. 

“Open the door, T!” You hurried to run inside with everyone else. 

“C'mon!” Terry almost pulled the doorknob this time. 

Kelly and Dorn entered first, no longer hiding in that surveillance van. 

Mike and Marcus pulled through next as Rita stepped up before long. 

When you and Armando reached this house, pain nearly dampened Terry's face. 

Regardless of the plan, it's still a miracle that you're alive. 

Just when this group would settle with relief, lights shut down as the home turned pitch-black. 

“Stay armed and keep watch here! No friendly fire.” Terry warned you and the AMMO squad. 

Within seconds, glasses shattered from rear living room windows as bullets rattled, searching for carnage. 

“Look out!” You screamed, trying to defend yourself while every moment prompted chaos. 

Yet when lights returned for the living room, everyone else glanced around, realizing that Armando and Terry no longer battled here.

“Be careful while searching for them. We gotta move!” Lowrey stepped over countless bodies while instructing all of you. 

Where did y'all go?! Your thoughts rushed as panic heightened even more. 

______

“No corras!” Rasping Spanish once more, Aretas warned enemies not to run. Seconds later, vengeful bullets sparked through lethal fire. 

“I hear Armando's voice in the garage.” Kelly finally noticed echos. “Go, go, go!” 

Scoring the garage, you found absolute carnage here. Even Terry moved forward and disarmed other goons.

“Listen! Either deal with me or I'm throwing you to him. It's your choice.” Richmond still warned targets about Aretas. 

As bullets raced, fear struck combatants every single time. 

“Give me your weapons and leave.” Terry gritted without hesitation. 

While still fighting others, everything slowed down when this bullet pierced time. 

You fell back and toppled against the hard floor right now. 

“Dammit, she's hit. Armando!” Terry barked through shock. 

As blood spilled with each passing moment, you wince despite the guard of your own vest. 

Footsteps rushed to your aid as you still recognized Kelly and Dorn. 

“Call paramedics!” Dorn hurried. 

Rita, Mike and Marcus kept fighting elsewhere in the house, not realizing your injury yet. 

“T….” You struggled, grimacing without assistance. 

“We'll handle this, all right?” Terry still planned to help right now. “Keep your eyes open.” 

Soon enough, Footfalls dashed to reveal Armando's presence. 

“Move!” Slightly accented English pulled more feelings when Aretas shoved Richmond out of his way. “What the fuck happened?!

Entering the garage themselves, Mike, Marcus and Rita stood flabbergasted on sight. 

“Aw, shit!” Mike grilled everyone over your accident. “She's losing too much blood past the vest. Where's medical?!” 

“I already called for help!” Dorn shouted with an explanation. 

“Well, medics better hurry up and reach that bullet!” Marcus exposed his anger. “My niece is dying.” 

Just when you trembled near deadly pain, sirens wailed outside once more. 

******

While beeping sounded, fluorescent lights almost blinded your vision as you woke up in the hospital. 

“Hey, Rook.” Detective Mike Lowrey joined your bedside this morning. 

“H-Hi...” As you struggled talking, exhaustion replaced that cheerful voice. 

“Just take it easy.” Mike cautioned. When you sat up, different wires aided. 

“Terry and Armando?” You looked for Richmond and Aretas. 

“You got it. I'll get 'em right now.” Mike pointed between you and the door. 

_____

“She's awake, c'mon.” Crossing the lobby, Mike updated Terry and Armando as you wished.  

“Made it. How are you doing?” Before long, Terry knocked first and held flowers, showing this rare yet great smile. 

“Tired.” You attempted.

“Better than nothing. You're still here.” Terry joined the bedside chair and sat down. 

“What happened?” You couldn't help asking questions despite everything. 

“We barely reached the hospital and experts took out your bullet during surgery.” Richmond never lied. 

“Thank you.” Your pained voice expressed gratitude once more. 

“You're welcome.” Terry said. “Have you eaten yet?” 

“I can't stomach anything. Maybe later.” Even your throat seems uncomfortable. 

“Okay.” Richmond took notice. Let me know and we'll help out.” 

Knocks resumed and Armando stepped in, no longer wearing tactical gear. 

“Hey, sorry.” Aretas walked closer. “I got some water for you and the vending machine held up.”

“Thanks.” You tried. 

“We just found out that you'll be discharged soon.” Armando revealed. 

“How soon?” You questioned. 

“Tonight or tomorrow.” Armando nodded.

“Thank you.” It's a habit just to repeat that kind phrase. 

Even while you smiled through fatigue, your mood  brightened again. 

*****

Given permission to leave that hospital, you could finally return home, but wouldn't handle work until further notice. There's no other choice this time. 

Headlines soon revealed that the coffee shop became defunct. This establishment pulled too much drama following Zway's dark investigation. 

During your recovery, even Armando helped on a regular basis and only slept from his downtown apartment when working at the police station. 

Sooner than later, Mike Lowrey and Marcus  Burnett had planned another special cookout for the department. Friends still invited you today. 

Planning to leave with Armando, you both signaled the group chat first. 

“Where's Terry?” Moving near that driveway, you haven't heard from Richmond yet. 

“I don't know.” Armando finished packing this car as you joined the passenger seat. “He might've gone to the park early or something.”

Just before Aretas would drive, another vehicle pulled up. 

Richmond turned down the driver's seat window of this brand-new SUV.  

“What are y'all waiting for? Let's go!” Chuckling through joy, Terry guided your route toward the public park. 

This happy ending could shine at last. 

[3liza]

re: last reblog - saw a TikTok ad the other day of a zoomer lifestyle peddler visually coded as a Nonbinary Dirtbag Leftist (dyed ratty hair, conspicuous piercings, cheap punk clothing) attempting to sell me an ebook about how to elevate my class position by buying a turnkey business like a laundromat.

so, exploiting the poor. and I mean they aren't wrong, that's how you get class mobile. I don't think it's actually possible to run a business like that ethically and still make a profit. maybe I'm wrong. but it seems like every bit of the profit is extracted from a dependence upon the poverty of the clientele, eg, lack of access to home laundry, charging greater than cost for time, water, soap and cleanliness which are all human rights, hiring employees at minimum wage, etc. the entire basis of charging money for such an amenity is a process of creating waste also, it creates waste in travel from home to the Laundromat, it creates waste in putting a laundromat in a storefront where housing could be, it creates waste in handling money and bills for a business that isnt essential etc etc. and it's an economic coercion because clean clothes aren't something you can budget or cut down on, you basically have your clientele by the balls.

on the other hand I'm rapidly approaching a grinding surface in terms of either entering into one of these exploitative processes as a means-of-production owner, which would be accomplished purely through debt on my part, or having to withdraw to permanent poverty, and the third option is winning the lottery either literally or figuratively through an unforeseen inheritance, sudden recovery from illness, or getting popular on social media in a way that produces profit

I think the anarcho syndicalists are broadly correct in that small organization is the correct move, eg, I'm about to lead test my apartment water supply and do some other moves that I expect to use to lower my rent, but the bigger project would be to contact the other tenants and see if they'd be interested in essential a "hostile" acquisition of the building based on having it fail a bunch of inspections, which I absolutely think is possible.

I could see using a small syndicate of partners/friends to collectively purchase the laundromat as a co-op. but would the profit splitting make it not worthwhile? maybe we would recoup from not having to hire any employees and just taking the shifts ourselves. this is the classic American immigrant model and it's a classic for a reason. I would really hate trying to do all that horizontal organizing though (huge cost for me personally)

idk how any of those stuff works. my parents are from the managerial-intellegentsia officer class and are stupid about money from a weird combination of having too much of it and too little. the overeducated poor. food insecure people who get all the jokes on Frasier. extraordinarily weird class position, it's sort of like being in the circus or being a pickpocket. you can fool people into thinking you're wealthy when you aren't, which is why I'm so insane on here about grammar and spelling, because you don't know until you're actually on the other side of it how much your level of education affects your material existence, even if the education is DIY. I have been literally homeless for periods of time and have almost always been poor, and the amount of "skating by" you can do on good grammar and nice table manners is like a big secret no one tells you anymore because the boomers pretended they got rid of all that jive during the summer of love. people have gotten REALLY mad at me on here about this topic I think because they think I'm enforcing these cultural standards every time I try to teach people about them. I'm trying to warn you!!

think of it this way: how long is someone willing to let you stay in their coffee shop or diner or house if you're "acting poor", vs how long if you're charming and helpful and conscientious? if you're loud and using "low class" dialect vs if someone has at some point taught you to act fancy? this is extremely racialized obviously. I can't speak on that.

the communist coin op laundry could have a shuttle service and group wash nights where people can combine laundry to use the big washers and dryers for larger loads at lower total cost if they were willing to sort out their clothes at the end 😔

[cozmowrites]

Wistoragic: One

Chapter One - 1160 words

The world wasn't supposed to end this way.

You sat cross-legged on the worn carpet of your cramped apartment, your back resting against the couch as you stared at the flickering candle in front of you. The power had gone out three days ago, and your phone's battery was almost dead. You had turned it off hours ago to conserve what little charge remained—just in case.

For now, the silence was your companion, broken only by the occasional distant scream or crash echoing from the streets below.

The news had started to take a dark turn a week ago. It began with reports of a mysterious virus sweeping through cities—a fast-moving illness that caused fever, disorientation, and, in some cases, violent outbursts. At first, people reacted like they always did: panic-buying milk, bread, and bottled water as though they were preparing for a snowstorm.

But you hadn't followed the crowd. You had listened, read between the lines, and noticed the patterns others missed. The violence wasn't random. The "illness" wasn't just another flu strain. So while your neighbors emptied the grocery aisles of perishable goods, you had calmly filled your cart with canned soup, vegetables, protein bars, and a bulk pack of bottled water. You even splurged on a solar-powered battery pack, a purchase that felt paranoid at the time. Now it felt like a lifeline.

From your window on the twelfth floor, you could see the city unraveling. The streets below were chaos—abandoned cars clogging intersections, storefronts looted, and the shambling, unnatural movements of those who had succumbed to the virus. Zombies. You still couldn't believe it, even as you watched it unfold. Something that was merely a concept in a movie or a video game was now real.

You'd always considered your apartment height a downside of living in this building—so many stairs to climb when the elevator was broken, so far from ground-level conveniences. But now, it was a fortress. The zombies didn't seem to have the coordination or inclination to climb, and with the stairwell barricaded from the inside, you felt safer than most.

Still, safety was a relative term.

Your stomach growled, pulling you from your thoughts. You crawled over to the corner of the living room where you'd stacked your supplies. The sight of the canned goods and water bottles gave you a small sense of relief. You wouldn't starve anytime soon.

Grabbing a can of soup, you sat back on the couch and pulled out the hand-crank can opener you'd found in a drawer. It was old and rusted but still functional. As you worked the crank, you let your mind wander, trying to ignore the constant weight of dread pressing on your chest.

You thought about the first day you realized something was wrong—really wrong. A video on social media had gone viral: a man in a hospital gown staggering through a busy street, his head lolling unnaturally to one side. He'd grabbed a woman at random and sunk his teeth into her shoulder, blood spraying across the pavement as people screamed and ran. The video had been dismissed as a hoax at first, some 3D rendering. Maybe they were filming a movie and didn't notify the mayor or governor.

Even you had doubted it.

But now, the memory of that video made your hands shake as you spooned cold soup into your mouth. The smell of iron and decay seemed to linger in the air, though it was probably just your imagination.

You set the half-empty can aside, your appetite gone. Shuffling back to the window, you peeked through the curtains, keeping to the shadows. The streets were quieter now, though not completely still. A lone zombie shuffled past an overturned bus, its head jerking with every step. In the distance, a fire raged, the smoke curling up into the night sky.

You wondered how long it would take for the fires to consume the city. How many people had already fallen to the infection.

A sudden noise made you freeze—a faint but distinct tapping sound coming from the apartment next door. You strained to listen, your breath caught in your throat. It wasn't the erratic thumping of a zombie; it was deliberate. Measured.

You considered your options. You hadn't seen any of your neighbors in days, though you'd heard plenty of them screaming when the outbreak reached your building. You'd locked yourself in, unwilling to take the risk of venturing out to help. That decision had weighed heavily on you, but you couldn't afford to think about it now.

The tapping continued, but it grew softer, as though whoever—or whatever—it was had moved further away. You exhaled slowly, your fingers brushing the knife at your side.

It was too risky to investigate.

Instead, you returned to the couch, trying to focus on practical things. Inventory. You needed to ration your supplies more carefully if you were going to make it through the next few weeks—or months. You mentally calculated how many days the canned goods would last if you limited yourself to one meal a day. The answer wasn't comforting.

You shook your head, trying to push the negative thoughts away. Surviving meant staying calm and thinking logically, not spiraling into fear. You'd made it this far because you'd been prepared. Because you'd trusted your instincts.

But instincts weren't enough. You needed a plan.

Your eyes wandered to the map pinned to the wall above your desk. It was a relic from your college days, covered in faded markers and push pins marking places you'd dreamed of visiting. Now, it seemed almost comically irrelevant.

Still, it sparked an idea. If the city was overrun, maybe the outskirts would be safer. Fewer people meant fewer zombies. You'd need transportation, though, and the streets were impossible to navigate.

Your mind churned with possibilities, none of them particularly appealing. Stay put and risk running out of supplies, or venture out and risk everything.

For now, there was no decision to make. The sun was setting, and darkness brought new dangers. You would survive tonight, and tomorrow you would reassess.

Grabbing your blanket, you curled up on the couch, the knife never leaving your grip. The faint sounds of the outside world filtered through the walls—the groans of the undead, the distant wail of a siren, the occasional crackle of gunfire.

You didn't know what the future held, but one thing was certain: the world wasn't going back to the way it was. Not ever.

The door to your apartment rattles suddenly. Your heart leaps into your throat as heavy fists slam against it. You quickly grab a kitchen knife, though dull, if you stab it hard enough then maybe you could kill a zombie. With a pounding heart, you press your ear against the wood.

"Open the damn door!" A gruff voice growls.

You hesitate. That voice doesn't sound like the undead. Surely, no zombie could climb the steps. Though, you're not sure you can trust anyone right now.

Another voice joins in, still masculine, calmer, but urgent. "Hey, we're not infected! We just need to get off the street during the night. Please!"

=====

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[89rooms]

You were last seen walking through a field of pianos. No. A museum of mouths. In the kitchen of a bustling restaurant, cracking eggs and releasing doves. No. Eating glow worms and waltzing past my bedroom. Last seen riding the subway, literally, straddling its metal back, clutching electrical cables as reins. You were wearing a dress made out of envelopes and stamps, this was how you travelled. I was the mannequin in the storefront window you could have sworn moved. The library card in the book you were reading until that dog trotted up and licked your face. The cookie with two fortunes. The one jamming herself through the paper shredder, afraid to talk to you. The beggar. Hat outstretched bumming for more minutes. The phone number on the bathroom stall with no agenda other than a good time. The good time is a picnic on water, or a movie theatre that only plays your childhood home videos and no one hushes when you talk through them. When you play my videos I throw milk duds at the screen during the scenes I watch myself letting you go — lost to the other side of an elevator — your face switching to someone else’s with the swish of a geisha’s fan. My father could have been a travelling salesman. I could have been born on any doorstep. There are 2,469,501 cities in this world, and a lot of doorsteps. Meet me on the boardwalk. I’ll be sure to wear my eyes. Do not forget your face. I could never.

new york craigslist personals - 'missed connections'