#let's call it market research
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tessabennet · 2 years ago
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cerealmonster15 · 4 days ago
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ok now that you've said it, im gonna ask for it. Azul X Cater, either friendship or romantic could be fun. Cater helping Azul relax without the stuffy business stuff and raising his confidence levels callin him cute or w/e? And Azul helping Cater with getting him super cool items to post on his magicam / putting spicy menu items in the monstro lounge for him to eat (not for like the art idea but like just in general on how the ship might play out)
HEHEHEHE THAT'S REALLY CUTE :3 they could be a power couple, i can see it in my mind's eye...
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azul acts all confident but i think if a cute boy got close and batted his eyelashes at him he'd get flustered and fold in an instant lol
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just-rogi · 2 years ago
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I’m fucking venting here bc I’m angry and don’t have anyone to talk to and I’m not sure if this is political correct or right or whatever but I’m fucking pissed - I’m a public school teacher who works in the inner city and this year alone there have been two shootings in my neighborhood involving students not dying school hours- and one student who went missing due to gang ties (they were found ALIVE a DAYS later) -
I’m fucking TIRED I’m FREAKED OUT and I’m ANGRY because I have to go into work tomorrow and I have to have that conversation with the kids during our SEL block because they will have questions and bc they are in middle school some will not know how to process it and will joke while others will be genuinely upset
and I feel nauseous thinking about the fact that my mother and four of my closest friends are all going through the same fucking shit as teachers at different schools right now- and my roommate who is trans- and unrelated to his identity is also kinda an asshole- has been shitting on me all night about how I’m not I’m danger like he is and how I don’t know his pain (and while I’m not making excuses I’m an openly gay teacher who works directly with the lgbt students and activly educated my kids on trans rights AND I work for a nonprofit organization that directly works to protect trans and queer rights and JUST LAST WEEK put out a video for our organization on antitrans laws - I’m not saying I fucking get what it’s like to be trans but Jesus fuck I’m fighting the fight for trans youth more than you are working at Whole Foods) why the FUCK are you quantifying suffering, why the FUCK are you lashing out at ME of all people, and why the fuck are you telling a public school teacher in inner city Boston that I have no idea what it’s like to be afraid- motherfucker I’m angry I’m sorry but why the fuck are you monopolizing suffering why do you think you have the right to talk to me this fucking way. I get you are scared but you work in Whole Foods in Massachusetts- the bluest state there is- )
there is no fucking cap on grief- sorry I’m upset at this as well but you saying it doesn’t directly effect me is just so fucking ignorant and suffering shouldn’t be quantifiable mf we are on the same fucking side why are you infighting right now (and I know this isn’t relevant and this is entirely unrelated to him being trans but god he is so fucking sexist- saying shit like I have no idea what it’s like to have my bodily autonomy at risk as if roe v wade didn’t get overturned THIS year???) sometimes it pisses me off like fucking sorry I’m being over emotional and overreacting to a school shooting as a fucking public school teacher GOD I should be allowed to be angry too in my own goddamn apartment-
you don’t get to sit on your high horse and say you suffer more than me and that I’m not allowed to be afraid ok I’m done I’m gonna go in tomorrow and make sure to hug my one openly trans kid extra hard bc I know they are suffering just like I know my roomate is suffering and needs a place to express his anger- I get I’m an easy target bc I’m a safe person to lash out at and I’m not telling anyone how to grieve and I know a lot of this is just knee jerk reaction to violence and anger- I just wish he wasn’t expressing it at the one fucking person who doesn’t deserve it, like fuck, the one thing people always say about public school teachers is that we have it TOO easy, especially the night after a school shooting
*Also fuck terfs and fuck anyone who is using a tragedy as an excuse to hate trans people*
#he keeps talking about how cis people need to do better#as if a) I haven’t talked in depth about my own gender identity and how I’m not entirely aligned with ‘cis womanhood’ as a lesbian#with a complexed identity#and b) even if I was cis (which in most cases it’s just easier to say that I am) IM THE ONE GETTING MY FUCKING BOOTS DIRTY HERE#IM THE ONE BRINGING IN BOOKS FOR MY QUEER KIDS WHEN THE LIBRARY DOESNT HAVE ANY#IM THE ONE ADVOCATING FOR CALLING OUR TRANS KIDS BY THEIR PREFERED PRONOUNS AND NAME#IM THE ONE GOING TO MEETINGS TWICE A WEEK TO ORGANIZE QUEER EVENTS IN RURAL AMERICA THAT PUT TRANS WOMEN AND DRAG QUEENS FRONT AND CENTER#IM THE ONE RESEARCHING LOCAL CIVIL RIGHTS LAWS ABOUT OUR TOWN DENYING APPROVAL FOR OUR EVENT ON THE BASIS OF CROSSDRESSING#NOT BEINF CHILD FRIENDLY (we are working on it dw we have a team on this )#IM LACING UP MY DYKE BOOTS EVERY FUCKING DAY AND SHAKING HANDS WITH SISTERS WHO HAVE WATCHED THEIR FRIENDS AND LOVERS DIE- INCLUDING#A SISTER WHO WAS AT FUCKING STONEWALL#I’m not trying to pull the whole ‘I’m gay so I get it ‘ card bc that’s not cool when cis people do that shit#but I’m a fucking public school teacher- I’m allowed to grieve a fucking school shooting FUCK#god why are you fucking quantifying suffering mf you work in a grocery store your life and the lives of others aren’t on the line daily#^^that also isn’t a dig at his work - working in a grocery store is a fine career and he deserves a living wage and dignity#but also… there haven’t been 130 shootings at Whole Foods market in 2023 alone so maybe fucking let me be angry#god#i really hope this shit doesn’t get twisted I just need to vent#if you don’t like this just block me idc I’m not fighting anymore#tw school shooting#tw gun violence#tw gun mention#school shooting
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clueless1995 · 1 year ago
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god hearing ads for true crime podcasts is bad enough but the ones where they use audio/dramatised audio of people screaming or crying on the phone to emergency services are so fucking evil what is wrong with you people
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narutomaki · 8 months ago
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Kiroumaru.... 🥺🥺🥺🥺😭😭😭😭
I miss you !!!!
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#WHYD HE HAVE TO DIE HUH?#COME ON...#LET ME HAVE HIM. :^(#fell asleep last night having an in depth fantasy about being some sort of plant catalouger and meeting queerats when theyre little#and then meeting Kiroumaru and becoming friend bcus i broke my leg and got an infection and instead of killing him#when he held a spear to my chest i reassured the young queerats that i understood and it would be okay#and so he carried me on his back for miles after i passed out to my village and then i kept working with his colony#and eventually we fell in LOVE and it was lovely and beautiful and happy unyil funding got moved so my research or whatever#got canceled and i was told i was being put on lab duty and i asked if i could go see to my research one last time and my boss#was like wow youre so smart and dedicated and cool of course and so i went and told him and said good bye and we finally#had penetrative sex (after dating for like 4 years and using our hands and mouths) but 2 months later find out im pregnant#and go 'hm. well this leads to some worrisome conclusions...' and then i have my kid and im an out cast#bcus i refuse to reveal who the father was/is and 6 years later Kiroumaru happens to come into my village#and i have to hold myself back from crying out for him in the market place so i try to steathily follow him and the humans hea with#and ofc he catches on and i see his steo stutter and his head twith toward me when i use yhe vocal stim id used all my life#as a means of calling each other lovers and he makes it back quietly and alightly different and the humans he ask get curious#and he says he thought he smelled something on the wind but it was just a battle memory#and then i loiter outside the building theyre meeting in and go oh wow what a coincidence wow i used to work with his colony wow he was so#smart i want to tell him some things and since no one knows hes my kids dad they just go eugh if he wants to i guess and roll their eyes and#i take him to my hoise but i dont go in bcus my parents would get mad and i call for my son and he comes running out of the house and i#spin him around in my arms and look at Kiroumaru and ask if hed like to take a walk in yhe woods with us where i tell him that hes OUR son#and Kiroumaru impulsively kisses me and we start crying and i eventually beg him to take me and his son back to his colony#but he doesnt want to take the risk but i ask him if he can walk me to the next village and leave me there and ill leave in 2 weeks and if#he shows up ill know me and my son can go with him and if he doesnt ill go home and just try to forget about him for reap now#and si he goes and asks his queen and she says yes ofc i always loved having a daughter for once and she says this to me too when i get#there and i start crying and drop to my knees and bow to her and tell her im home haha-ue! and she chirrups and laughs and welcomes me home#and ANY WAY IM SOOOO NORMAL ABOUT THIS NAKED MOLE RAT...#from the new world spoilers
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fatliberation · 1 year ago
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they have a point though. you wouldn't need everyone to accommodate you if you just lost weight, but you're too lazy to stick to a healthy diet and exercise. it's that simple. I'd like to see you back up your claims, but you have no proof. you have got to stop lying to yourselves and face the facts
Must I go through this again? Fine. FINE. You guys are working my nerves today. You want to talk about facing the facts? Let's face the fucking facts.
In 2022, the US market cap of the weight loss industry was $75 billion [1, 3]. In 2021, the global market cap of the weight loss industry was estimated at $224.27 billion [2]. 
In 2020, the market shrunk by about 25%, but rebounded and then some since then [1, 3] By 2030, the global weight loss industry is expected to be valued at $405.4 billion [2]. If diets really worked, this industry would fall overnight. 
1. LaRosa, J. March 10, 2022. "U.S. Weight Loss Market Shrinks by 25% in 2020 with Pandemic, but Rebounds in 2021." Market Research Blog. 2. Staff. February 09, 2023. "[Latest] Global Weight Loss and Weight Management Market Size/Share Worth." Facts and Factors Research. 3. LaRosa, J. March 27, 2023. "U.S. Weight Loss Market Partially Recovers from the Pandemic." Market Research Blog.
Over 50 years of research conclusively demonstrates that virtually everyone who intentionally loses weight by manipulating their eating and exercise habits will regain the weight they lost within 3-5 years. And 75% will actually regain more weight than they lost [4].
4. Mann, T., Tomiyama, A.J., Westling, E., Lew, A.M., Samuels, B., Chatman, J. (2007). "Medicare’s Search For Effective Obesity Treatments: Diets Are Not The Answer." The American Psychologist, 62, 220-233. U.S. National Library of Medicine, Apr. 2007.
The annual odds of a fat person attaining a so-called “normal” weight and maintaining that for 5 years is approximately 1 in 1000 [5].
5. Fildes, A., Charlton, J., Rudisill, C., Littlejohns, P., Prevost, A.T., & Gulliford, M.C. (2015). “Probability of an Obese Person Attaining Normal Body Weight: Cohort Study Using Electronic Health Records.” American Journal of Public Health, July 16, 2015: e1–e6.
Doctors became so desperate that they resorted to amputating parts of the digestive tract (bariatric surgery) in the hopes that it might finally result in long-term weight-loss. Except that doesn’t work either. [6] And it turns out it causes death [7],  addiction [8], malnutrition [9], and suicide [7].
6. Magro, Daniéla Oliviera, et al. “Long-Term Weight Regain after Gastric Bypass: A 5-Year Prospective Study - Obesity Surgery.” SpringerLink, 8 Apr. 2008. 7. Omalu, Bennet I, et al. “Death Rates and Causes of Death After Bariatric Surgery for Pennsylvania Residents, 1995 to 2004.” Jama Network, 1 Oct. 2007.  8. King, Wendy C., et al. “Prevalence of Alcohol Use Disorders Before and After Bariatric Surgery.” Jama Network, 20 June 2012.  9. Gletsu-Miller, Nana, and Breanne N. Wright. “Mineral Malnutrition Following Bariatric Surgery.” Advances In Nutrition: An International Review Journal, Sept. 2013.
Evidence suggests that repeatedly losing and gaining weight is linked to cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes and altered immune function [10].
10. Tomiyama, A Janet, et al. “Long‐term Effects of Dieting: Is Weight Loss Related to Health?” Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 6 July 2017.
Prescribed weight loss is the leading predictor of eating disorders [11].
11. Patton, GC, et al. “Onset of Adolescent Eating Disorders: Population Based Cohort Study over 3 Years.” BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.), 20 Mar. 1999.
The idea that “obesity” is unhealthy and can cause or exacerbate illnesses is a biased misrepresentation of the scientific literature that is informed more by bigotry than credible science [12]. 
12. Medvedyuk, Stella, et al. “Ideology, Obesity and the Social Determinants of Health: A Critical Analysis of the Obesity and Health Relationship” Taylor & Francis Online, 7 June 2017.
“Obesity” has no proven causative role in the onset of any chronic condition [13, 14] and its appearance may be a protective response to the onset of numerous chronic conditions generated from currently unknown causes [15, 16, 17, 18].
13. Kahn, BB, and JS Flier. “Obesity and Insulin Resistance.” The Journal of Clinical Investigation, Aug. 2000. 14. Cofield, Stacey S, et al. “Use of Causal Language in Observational Studies of Obesity and Nutrition.” Obesity Facts, 3 Dec. 2010.  15. Lavie, Carl J, et al. “Obesity and Cardiovascular Disease: Risk Factor, Paradox, and Impact of Weight Loss.” Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 26 May 2009.  16. Uretsky, Seth, et al. “Obesity Paradox in Patients with Hypertension and Coronary Artery Disease.” The American Journal of Medicine, Oct. 2007.  17. Mullen, John T, et al. “The Obesity Paradox: Body Mass Index and Outcomes in Patients Undergoing Nonbariatric General Surgery.” Annals of Surgery, July 2005. 18. Tseng, Chin-Hsiao. “Obesity Paradox: Differential Effects on Cancer and Noncancer Mortality in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.” Atherosclerosis, Jan. 2013.
Fatness was associated with only 1/3 the associated deaths that previous research estimated and being “overweight” conferred no increased risk at all, and may even be a protective factor against all-causes mortality relative to lower weight categories [19].
19. Flegal, Katherine M. “The Obesity Wars and the Education of a Researcher: A Personal Account.” Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases, 15 June 2021.
Studies have observed that about 30% of so-called “normal weight” people are “unhealthy” whereas about 50% of so-called “overweight” people are “healthy”. Thus, using the BMI as an indicator of health results in the misclassification of some 75 million people in the United States alone [20]. 
20. Rey-López, JP, et al. “The Prevalence of Metabolically Healthy Obesity: A Systematic Review and Critical Evaluation of the Definitions Used.” Obesity Reviews : An Official Journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity, 15 Oct. 2014.
While epidemiologists use BMI to calculate national obesity rates (nearly 35% for adults and 18% for kids), the distinctions can be arbitrary. In 1998, the National Institutes of Health lowered the overweight threshold from 27.8 to 25—branding roughly 29 million Americans as fat overnight—to match international guidelines. But critics noted that those guidelines were drafted in part by the International Obesity Task Force, whose two principal funders were companies making weight loss drugs [21].
21. Butler, Kiera. “Why BMI Is a Big Fat Scam.” Mother Jones, 25 Aug. 2014. 
Body size is largely determined by genetics [22].
22. Wardle, J. Carnell, C. Haworth, R. Plomin. “Evidence for a strong genetic influence on childhood adiposity despite the force of the obesogenic environment” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition Vol. 87, No. 2, Pages 398-404, February 2008.
Healthy lifestyle habits are associated with a significant decrease in mortality regardless of baseline body mass index [23].  
23. Matheson, Eric M, et al. “Healthy Lifestyle Habits and Mortality in Overweight and Obese Individuals.” Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine : JABFM, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 25 Feb. 2012.
Weight stigma itself is deadly. Research shows that weight-based discrimination increases risk of death by 60% [24].
24. Sutin, Angela R., et al. “Weight Discrimination and Risk of Mortality .” Association for Psychological Science, 25 Sept. 2015.
Fat stigma in the medical establishment [25] and society at large arguably [26] kills more fat people than fat does [27, 28, 29].
25. Puhl, Rebecca, and Kelly D. Bronwell. “Bias, Discrimination, and Obesity.” Obesity Research, 6 Sept. 2012. 26. Engber, Daniel. “Glutton Intolerance: What If a War on Obesity Only Makes the Problem Worse?” Slate, 5 Oct. 2009.  27. Teachman, B. A., Gapinski, K. D., Brownell, K. D., Rawlins, M., & Jeyaram, S. (2003). Demonstrations of implicit anti-fat bias: The impact of providing causal information and evoking empathy. Health Psychology, 22(1), 68–78. 28. Chastain, Ragen. “So My Doctor Tried to Kill Me.” Dances With Fat, 15 Dec. 2009. 29. Sutin, Angelina R, Yannick Stephan, and Antonio Terraciano. “Weight Discrimination and Risk of Mortality.” Psychological Science, 26 Nov. 2015.
There's my "proof." Where is yours?
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autolenaphilia · 1 year ago
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It's funny how clearly uninformed a lot of criticism of Mozilla and its browser Firefox is. Like people say "it's just another corporation, out to make profit, just like Google." And that ordinary users promoting Firefox are just giving them free advertising.
It's in basically any post criticizing Mozilla, including on this site. Like using tumblr search I quickly found a post that was largely positive, but argued that Mozilla operates "under capitalist incentives" And outside tumblr I found a blog post out on the interwebs that criticized Mozilla and outright wondered "I don't know if Mozilla's business model ever made sense, it makes a lot more sense if it's something closer to a nonprofit rather than a commercial entity."
Well, let's research the Mozilla Corporation, see what that business model actually is. Let's begin that research by going to the wikipedia article, and read the two introductory paragraphs. And it turns out that it's "a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation", which is a non-profit.
"The Mozilla Foundation will ultimately control the activities of the Mozilla Corporation and will retain its 100 percent ownership of the new subsidiary. Any profits made by the Mozilla Corporation will be invested back into the Mozilla project. There will be no shareholders, no stock options will be issued and no dividends will be paid. The Mozilla Corporation will not be floating on the stock market and it will be impossible for any company to take over or buy a stake in the subsidiary."
Turns out that it is not just "closer to a non-profit", it is literally a non-profit. Turns out you only needed two paragraphs on wikipedia to learn that, the most basic online research possible, which basically every post I found criticizing Mozilla failed to do.
This is entirely different from any other entity calling itself corporation, which is all about creating profit or money for its shareholders, the "capitalist incentives" spoken about earlier.
If you read further into that article, you will learn that the Mozilla corporation literally only exists separate from the foundation for tax and legal purposes, but it's still a non-profit operation.
This makes it reasonably immune from the enshittification process I've written about before. there is no incentive to fuck over the experience for end users for the sake of shareholder profits, like what tumblr is doing right now.
It means that Firefox is an exemption to the rule that "if something is free, you are the product", because there is no product to produce profits for shareholders, it's a charitable endeavour for a free and open internet, as laid out in the Mozilla manifesto.
This doesn't mean non-profits make corruption impossible, there is plenty of corruption in non-profit foundations. But unlike actual capitalist corporations, it doesn't have the greed and corruption built in. And if you are going to criticize Mozilla and Firefox, which it does sometimes deserve, you should have your basic facts straight before doing so, if you expect me to take you seriously.
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kyseya · 3 months ago
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The creation
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Imagine being the daughter of a wealthy family in the 1800s. Life was strict for you. You didn’t have much freedom and your only goal in life is to become a perfect wife. Your salvation was your brother. He stood up against your parents and helped you when no one else would. Without him you’d be even more lost.
Your brother is a genius. It seems like there is nothing he can’t do. Apart from creating life, that is. You love your brother so much, but there is a side to him you wished he could just abandon. Your whole life you’ve known him and during all that time he’s been obsessing over the topic of ‘life’ in all its forms.
He wants to uncover all its secrets and unlock the ultimate knowledge; to the point of sacrificing himself. That is how obsessed he is. You thought this research would be his downfall. But one day he did it, he created life!
Yandere! Creation who knows how hideous he is. It was no secret after all; both his creation and his scarring appearance. It was not pleasing to the eye. He wished he could forget about it and go on about his day, but it is hard when your creator reminds you every now and then.
Yandere! Creation who was introduced to you one day. His master made it a point to treat you with outmost care and respect, he would not tolerate any other behaviour. He didn’t want to face any punishment so he agreed.
Yandere! Creation who, at first, only treated you well because that was his instructions. But after getting to know you, he realised you deserved every bit of good in the world. You were so bright, almost like the sun itself(the one he wasn’t allowed to see). You were so kind to him. You spoke gently to him and never raised your voice, even during the moments where he did mess up. His master was never outright cruel, but he certainly wasn’t the warmest person. He looked at him like the creation he was. He was not a friend, not a family member, and he would never be.
You were the only one who acted as if he was a real person. You gave him the warmth he sought after but could receive. If he felt sad about his existence, you were there and let him use your as a pillow to cry on. You would hold him and softly comfort him. Not only that, you fought with your brother for his freedom. He didn’t deserve to be contained like some infectious desease.
Yandere! Creation who couldn’t help but fall for you. You didn’t act as if he was a monster, a creature, a being. He felt like a person whenever he was with you. He didn’t have to remember that he’s just parts stitched together into a horrid being.
Yandere! Creation who does everything to be able to spend more time with you. He is far from stupid and he knows how to manipulate situations in his favour. To be honest, he is a bit surprised how many of his antics flies under the radar of his master. The so-called genius might not be the smartest after all.
He loves using his super strength to assist you with different chores. Need someone to accompany you to the market? He’s on it! He’ll carry the stuff for you and fend off any unwanted attention. The men in the village are nothing short of pigs, so you should have someone protecting you. Can’t reach the high shelf? He’ll take down anything you can’t reach. There is no reason for you to strain yourself.
Yandere! Creation who wonders if you’d be happy being his wife?
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thelostconsultant · 4 months ago
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Invisible string
pairing: Max Verstappen x reader
summary: Red Bull Racing has a new sponsor. You host a party as the head of that company to celebrate this agreement. Max has no choice but to attend, but the evening ends with a pleasant surprise after he meets you in person. Maybe he was wrong about you all along.
note: I'm everything but a scientist. If you are one, please, ignore the amount of inaccuracies. There must be a lot.
part two
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“You're insane,” Robert told you for the hundredth time that day when he arrived at your place, although every time there was a little laugh accompanying the comment.
Maybe he was right. Deciding to spend over three hundred million dollars on sponsoring an F1 team did sound insane, but he did agree to do it, and you signed the contract together. Sure, sixty percent of the company was yours, it was mainly your call, but he was still your mentor.
But he didn't stand in your way, he knew how passionate you were about this sport, and your biotech company could use the PR and marketing opportunities that came with this partnership. And let's not forget about the political aspect, because there were lots of important people who loved the sport and supported a top team like Red Bull Racing.
Your assistant came up to you to ask a few questions, but once she was gone, you folded your arms and stuck out your tongue at Robert. “You’re just jealous because it was my idea. Jokes aside, it's a good thing. F1 comes to the US so many times these years, it's good to be a big sponsor of a top team. Have you seen what kind of people attend the races? Exactly who we need to charm.”
“You never had an issue with charming people without such a big investment,” he noted with a sigh.
You bit your lower lip and turned away to look out into the backyard that was by now full of party decorations. You wanted to celebrate the announcement with an elegant party at your place, and you invited board members, top employees, some important people to schmooze with, and people from the newly sponsored F1 team.
“We need some legislation changes to kickstart the new project, you know that,” you told him eventually when you turned back to him. “I wish we could afford to be patient, but we need to launch it as soon as we can.”
Robert put a hand on your shoulder and gently squeezed it. “You stress too much about that. Take it easy,” he said.
Easier said than done, but you didn't want to continue this conversation. “I need to get rid of my yoga pants and change into something red, so make yourself at home as usual,” you told him with a smile before rushing away.
“Oh, so you're still a Ferrari fan, aren't you?” he called after you, bringing up the elephant in the room.
With a laugh, you came to a halt and spinned on your heels to face him again. “Yeah, and my favorite team is a joke at the moment. This was purely a business decision.”
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Max did his research. Well, it was mostly the team handing out dossiers about the host and her business partner, along with a couple of other important people who were expected to attend the party, but he did read every single page and memorized each and every one of them.
When he reached the gate of his destination, he found armed guards outside, and he let out a frustrated groan at the sight. It was ridiculous. He didn't even want to be here. But he had to be a good boy and attend to act as the poster boy of the team. Hopefully he just says hi, maybe says a few words about how great this partnership will be, exchanges a few sentences with a few people and that would be it.
“Loosen up a bit, you look terribly tense,” Adrian told him from the passenger seat.
Easy for him, at least he would have a funny story to tell at the party. The car he wanted to come with had been stolen from the hotel’s garage, and no one knew how anyone could take it. This gave him the ammunition to keep up conversations. Lucky bastard.
Meanwhile, what was he supposed to talk about? Driving? He talks about that all the time. His hobbies? These people probably weren't the target audience. “I’m not in the mood for this,” he eventually replied with a sigh.
“No one is, but sometimes we just have to play nice and schmooze with our sponsors. This is the first time they support an F1 team, I guess they're just excited.”
“Yeah, I know that,” Max replied with a roll of his eyes. “I just… I don't know, with all the things I've heard about our host, it sounds like she is some real life female Tony Stark. She already built such a huge company, she's responsible for big innovations, and she was on Forbes' 30 under 30 list… I mean, come on.”
Adrian watched him with a deep frown. “Does it have anything to do with the fact she's a woman?”
Okay, this was getting ridiculous. “God, no, it's because of her age. This isn't some app you can make in a college dorm, then sell for a lot of money. Building that company must have taken a lot of work, she couldn't have done it alone, yet every article the team cherry-picked for us failed to mention how she did it.”
“Well, from what I've read elsewhere, her partner really did help her with the administrative part of the project, but they talked to investors together. She's smart, and nice, and I one hundred percent believe she's capable of achieving this at her age. Might I add she's only a year younger than you? You don't seem to be in such a bad situation at your age either.”
Max took a deep breath to calm himself, but in the end he couldn’t hold back the painful grunt that's been waiting to come out. “I'm miserable,” he noted sadly as he parked the car.
But Adrian wasn't in the mood for this. “You're just whining now,” he pointed out patiently.
“Whatever.”
They got out of the car and walked up to the main entrance, passing by some people who looked like boring businessmen and their airhead partners. Maybe there was a politician among them too, at least one with a big voice sure made him believe that.
Inside the two of them separated, and Max took his time to take a look around. The house was impressive; four stories as he counted outside, modern, clean design, combined with a huge backyard that ended in a lake. It must have been peaceful when there was no crowd around.
After a while he went back inside but was soon intercepted by Christian. Crap, so much for a peaceful evening. “Oh, and here's Max,” he said happily as he put a hand on his shoulder and guided him over to their little group.
“Hi,” was all Max managed to come up with.
“Welcome,” you said with a warm smile. “And good luck for this year.”
“Thanks.”
You turned to his boss with a curious look. “And where's Checo? I thought he would be coming as well.”
Christian seemed a little uneasy, but he managed to explain the absence of the team's other driver. “He has a family emergency,” he replied curtly.
Max bit the inside of his cheek in order to keep back a comment. He didn't want to attend this stupid party either, but for some reason he didn't have a choice. He never had a choice.
To his surprise, you began to laugh at this, then took a sip of your champagne with a mischievous look in your eyes. “Oh, the real get out of jail free card,” you noted.
Max snorted at this, and there was no way he could hide the huge grin that wanted to break out. All right, you got a brownie point for this comment, that's for sure.
“I'm sure he would love to be here,” Christian assured you.
“Sure.” You remained silent for a while, but just when Max was beginning to assume an awkward break would settle into the conversation, you spoke up again. “Well, I'm glad you're all here. Thank you for taking the time. Please, just make yourselves at home, and enjoy the rest of the evening.”
At one point Adrian joined the little group and decided to become a part of the conversation with one last question. “Where's Mr. Hartford?” he asked.
You let out a thoughtful hum as you looked around. “I don't know, last time I saw him he was talking to a board member. But I'm sure he'll find and greet you too. Well, if you'll excuse me, I need to say hello to a few more people. Have fun.”
The three of them watched as you walked away, and Max couldn't help but appreciate the view. That red jumpsuit you wore tonight hugged your figure so perfectly it almost made him drool. Almost. He could easily push that stupid part of his mind to the side for now. He couldn't let himself be fooled into believing you really were oh so perfect, there had to be something that was wrong with you.
“Did it kill you?” he heard Adrian's voice, and when he turned to him, he saw a knowing smile on his face.
Meanwhile Christian looked a little confused. “Did what kill him?”
“Talking to her.”
“What, you had an issue with that?”
“No,” Max protested, sending a disapproving look to the engineer who only laughed at him.
“Sure? You sounded kin–” he began, but was quickly interrupted.
“You two are insufferable, you know that, right?” Max asked them with a sigh, then rolled his eyes and left without waiting for their answer. All he wanted was a quiet corner and another glass of champagne, maybe a few bites of those delicious sliders a waiter offered him not long ago.
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“Are you planning to come up with something that can race against Neuralink?”
Oh, for fuck’s sake, not this again. But you forced a polite smile on your face and took a deep breath. “It's easy to come up with new, flashy innovations, but let's not forget that the root of the problem is always a bioethical one. Let's take them and their animal testing procedures for example. Whether you like it or not, euthanizing so many animals does raise ethical questions.”
“But it's for a greater good,” another man noted, earning a few nods from the people around him.
“I don't know, I believe we need to find a way to test new technologies without hurting anything or anyone first. That's one of the things we're working on at the moment. Also there's another bioethical aspect, and that's the fact these things would be expensive. The general availability is highly questionable, it would only help the rich.”
That one politician you had no choice but to invite despite every cell in your body protesting against it began to laugh at this. “And what's wrong with that as long as they pay?”
Oh, you son of a bitch, how could you be so dense? You took a deep breath and tried to calm yourself, but it was really hard at the moment. Luckily, Robert realized that this was a touchy subject, so he put a hand on your shoulder to calm you down.
“What she's trying to say is that it should be more than just a discussion about profit,” he began to explain. “Sure, that's important to finance our research, but science is supposed to help people.”
The man gave him a condescending look, as if he was disappointed that you would both choose to help people instead of earning a lot of money. What he didn't understand was the fact your company had highly profitable solutions, which gave you the opportunity to work on things that weren't as successful financially.
“For us,” you suddenly began, your finger moving in a circle as a sign that you were talking about the members of this little group, “going to a private hospital to get treatment and paying for our prescribed medication is normal. But let's not forget that almost 8 percent of the US population is uninsured. That's 26 million people. Let's say they start coughing. What do they do? They turn to home remedies because they can't afford the medical bill. Then things get worse as it turns into pneumonia and if they're lucky, they can go to a free clinic where they're prescribed meds. But can they pay for them?”
Robert nodded, then went on to add, “And it can be anything, really, even something contagious.” Clever. That guy was known for being a germaphobe, if anything, that could surely get his attention.
But he remained silent and a woman jumped in to drive the conversation instead of him. “What about different cybernetic implants? I mean, those are pretty impressive in movies, but how close are we to actually having them?”
You shrugged. “Depends on who you ask.”
A painful half an hour later you and Robert went outside, walking all the way out to the lake to build a little distance from the guests. “Thanks for backing me up there,” you told him before taking a sip of your cocktail.
“Anytime,” he said as he clinked his glass with yours.
Before he could say anything else, though, you heard someone clear their throat behind you. The both of you turned around and saw Max stand there with his hands in his pockets, watching you with a polite smile.
“You have a second?” he asked.
“Sure,” you replied as you took a few steps closer to him.
“I have to go, I just wanted to thank you for the invitation and say goodbye.”
You weren't used to guests you didn't really know coming over to say goodbye before they left. Most people usually just got in their cars and drove off without a word, but honestly, you were honestly grateful for that. But this goodbye was flattering, after all you could see it on his face that under the polite smile he just wanted to get out of here as soon as possible.
With a nod, you held out your hand, and he took it without thinking. “Thanks for coming. I hope you could enjoy yourself a little bit. I know it's not a fun kind of party.”
“It was okay. Well, except for that woman who was raging about people who want to replace real meat with artificial meat,” he added with a laugh.
You froze and your eyes slowly narrowed at him. “Wait a second.”
Max looked genuinely confused, and his hand was still holding yours without either of you realizing it. “What?” he asked you.
“You're a genius! Excuse me.”
As you dropped his hand and began to walk away, he turned to Robert with a confused look on his face. “What did I say?” No response, only a shrug. “Where are you going?” he called after you.
“To the lab,” you finally told him without looking back.
Once again, Max turned back to the other man. “She's leaving her own party?”
“She has a lab in the basement,” you called back to answer his question.
Robert’s lips curled into an understanding smile. “Send me a text if it's something worth looking into,” he said, then turned back to Max and held up his hands. “Usually it's better not to ask.”
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Despite Robert's warning, Max was now way too curious to simply ignore your strange behavior. He wanted to know what was going on in your head, so he followed you to the lab inside the house. He first arrived in an office, but through the huge windows he could see the actual lab.
“Is everything okay?” he asked after he softly knocked on the open door.
“Hmm?” You turned around with a questioning look, but once you realized it was him, you nodded. “Oh, yeah, sure. What are you doing here?”
Max walked inside, feeling completely out of place. “You ran away so abruptly that I wanted to know what's going on.”
“You gave me an idea, that's what's going on.”
“Oookay… And what was the idea?” he asked as he watched you sit behind the desk and enter your password to unlock the laptop that was connected to several monitors.
“Using something artificial instead of the real thing. That way we can bypass a barrier that's been blocking us,” you replied without looking at him.
“You lost me.”
A sweet little laugh left your lips, a sound that drew him closer as if it was a siren’s song. “All right, can you promise to keep your mouth shut about what I'm about to tell you?” Max nodded, so you grabbed the chair next to you, then pulled it closer and pointed at it to make him sit down. “Good. So one of the issues with bioprinting is that we can't be sure whether or not the cells we're working with are damaged, meaning if there's a possibility of cancer showing up later on for example.”
You were so enthusiastic, but he was so damn lost. It was the result of an unfamiliar territory, and the fact his mind could mostly focus on the way your lips moved instead of the words that left them. “Wait, what's bioprinting exactly?” he asked, unsure if he had the right idea.
Nodding, you clicked on something and it brought up a video feed. “For example, this,” you said with a proud smile.
It looked like a 3D printer, that much he knew, but what it was printing was a mystery at the moment. “What's that?”
“A 3D printed heart that's being made from my own cells,” you replied with a wide grin. “Give it another few days and it'll be ready.”
“Is that real?”
“Yep. Although, and that's what I've just mentioned, I can't guarantee it doesn't have cancerous cells. But theoretically speaking, someone awaiting transplant could get it.”
Max let out a thoughtful hum as he looked back at you. “So what does it have to do with artificial things?”
“That's how we bypass the damaged cell issue. We just need to create artificial cells that we can then turn into whatever we want them to be.”
“You think it could work?”
After thinking about it for a short while, you eventually shrugged. “Maybe,” you said quietly as you leaned back in your swivel chair. “I need to put a team together and discuss our options, then we'll see. As of now it's just a wild idea.”
“Interesting.”
To be honest, he could spend the whole night doing nothing but listening to you talk about your work. Meeting you in person changed the way he had thought about you before arriving here, and now he wanted to use this opportunity to get to know you better.
He did a quick search after first talking to you, and he read an article from the end of the last year that stated you were single. That was two months ago, maybe that hadn't changed since then. But something told him you were way too in love with your career to worry about romantic relationships, so if he wanted to get your attention, he probably had to work hard for it.
Your phone's screen lit up on the desk and he didn't miss the wallpaper. It was one of those prayer circle memes with Charles’ photo on it, which made him realize something. “You're a Ferrari and Charles fan?” he asked you with a raised eyebrow.
“Yep, already getting ready for prayer circles as you can see,” you replied with a laugh as you showed him the screen. “That's their only hope, I swear.”
“Then why are you sponsoring us?” he asked.
“A business decision in its purest form.”
Was he disappointed? Maybe a little bit. In his head he was already making up scenarios, like the first time you went to a race to support him–yes, he was getting ahead of himself, so what–and now it felt like a bomb had been dropped on his plans. Sure, as a sponsor or his girlfriend you'd physically be in their garage, but your heart would be with the Italians.
Max let out a sigh as he nodded. “And here I was, thinking you just wanted to see your company's logo on a fast car. Didn't know you were actually watching the races.” He tried to keep a casual tone to make it sound like it didn't hurt him, but he had a feeling his disappointment was seeping through the cracks.
Because you remained silent for a while, and when you finally spoke up, your voice was soft and quiet. “Maybe there are a lot of things you don't know.”
“Yeah, maybe,” he responded as he rolled closer to you.
The sadness he felt slipped away as soon as it came, because it was like he got under your spell the moment he got close enough to you. Your pretty eyes were following his every move, carefully watching him as you waited for whatever was to come.
It only took him a minute to make up his mind, to take a risk and see if you were willing to play this little game with him. So he raised his hand and curled his index finger to signal you to move over to him with a playful smile on his lips. “C’mere,” he said quietly.
To his surprise, you didn't hesitate to do as you were told, you stood up and sat in his lap with your arms around his neck, meeting him halfway for a kiss. The need for something more grew inside him as the kiss deepened, and a small part of his mind shifted its focus to your jumpsuit, trying to figure out the fastest way to get you out of it.
“I'm going home on Sunday. Come with me,” he suddenly spoke up, pulling away a little to look you in the eye. “Stay for a few days. Or a week or two,” he tried with a cheeky grin.
You leaned back to reach for your phone that you left on the desk, but he had his hands firmly on your bottom to keep you in place. “I can't reach my phone,” you said with a pout. “I can't tell you if I can go without it.”
With a sigh, he rolled the two of you closer to the desk so you could get it, but he didn't take his hands off of you. As you checked your calendar, humming every now and then, he couldn't help but start and place kisses in the crook of your neck.
“How about the week after that?” you asked him as you lowered your phone. “We have meetings with the CFO, an important meeting with a certain someone that I can't delay or skip, and I want to put together the team to test my new idea. Next week's pretty crowded.”
Max cupped your cheek and made you look at him. “If there's one thing we learned from Covid is that you can do these things online. Come on, I have fast and stable connection back home,” he tried with a smile.
“But you'll let me work,” you told him sternly, to which he only responded with a laugh before kissing you again. “I hate you.”
“You don't, and you know it.”
1K notes · View notes
angelyuji · 3 months ago
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SOME MOREEE YANDERE PINES TWINS THOUGHTS
stan pines thoughts and professor ford pines??? HOLD ON LET ME COOK
18+!!!!
tw // yandere themes, gaslighting, manipulation, power imbalance, pervy uncle lowkey, also lowkey bimboification, noncon (not explicit)
professor ford pines!!!!!!!! known to be the eccentric professor who goes on tangents about trans-dimensional physics and other science junk, but also superrr lenient grader like no possible way anyone could fail his class. you’re def teacher’s pet type and he’s definitely aiming to make you a TA. always getting you involved in weird experiments, but you’re always down cuz ur there to learn! ford invites you to his house, you guys hang out outside of class and research, you’ve met his brother!! like u knew it was getting weird, but at the same time…. you need a good rec letter. so one day you guys are in his office at his home, grading papers…
“(y/n).” ford calls your name, sternly. the lights were dim and quiet classical music played in the office. you hum and turn to him. before you know it, his chapped lips press against yours. you push him away, scared and surprised.
“professor, what the hell are you doing?” you try back away, but ford grabs your hand.
“i think you are one of the most brilliant minds i know and i want to be with you, (y/n).” ford stands, pulling you into a hug. you push back, stumbling away from him.
“no, i-i never thought that! i thought we were just friends!”
“but, i invited you to my home.” ford’s face saddens, “you met my family…”
“i never… i never realized…” you felt embarrassed for the old professor. you take a step back. you can’t see his face, but you watch his fists clench.
“i suppose that means you’re okay with losing your job, as well as any opportunities in this field.” his voice was low, words drenched in anger.
“no…. no, no, no, professor you can’t do this to me.” your heart feels like it was being ripped out of your chest.
“no, i can’t, but who will you tell? who will believe you? i am a respected scientist in our field, (y/n). think once more on your decision.” ford looks at you, a smug smirk laying on his face. you don’t respond, knowing that you had no other choice. you step back to him and he pulls you into a soft, loving kiss. his 5 o’clock shadow scratches your face. “now, please (y/n), call me ford.”
stan pines who had known your dad when he lived in texas and saw him again in gravity falls. stan pines who gets invited over to meet his friend’s family for dinner and sees you. a cute, little thing in their early 20s. stan’s instantlyyy enamored. you’re so cute and respectful, explaining how you’re living at home while you work and save money for a house, blushing when stan compliments you, serving him food first. you were acting like a perfect homemaker and stan was instantly obsessed. your dad’s gonna tell stan before he leaves that you’re all moving somewhere cheaper:
“yeah, pines, we’re moving some time soon. you know how it is with retirement and the market going down.” your dad sighs, wearily. stan nods, trying to listen to your voice in the house. “can’t move till (y/n) finds a job though. its gonna be tough on them especially with how hard it is to find jobs these days.” stan perks up at his words.
“y’know, (y/n) don’t have to quit…” your dad looks at the older man in confusion. “my grandkids have gone back to california, shermie’s grandkids technically, so my attic is open for them to stay in. they can stay at their job and you guys can move.” stan offers, fighting a giddy smile.
your dad clasps stan’s hands, “stan pines, you are the kindest man i know.”
stan for sure acts like a feeble old man around you to get you to take care of him. like cooking dinner, doing laundry, and more. he conditions you into acting like his stay at home partner. he starts making advances, subtle at first, to see what you would tolerate. soon he’s dictating what you wear and bending you over on the kitchen counter to make sure you stay full :) (dont get me started on somnophilia cuz i have thoughts on those but idk if u guys are ready for the things im gonna say)
here are those thoughts i was talking abt… :))))
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juletheghoul · 2 months ago
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too close
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a/n: Yeah. The trailer got me again. I can't help myself!!! Also - I didn't actually want to write feelings for these two but I have no say anymore. They have feelings, they are obsessed with each other and I can't just ignore it lol. Not beta’d and barely proofread- any mistakes or errors are my own. Hopefully you enjoy! (PS I did a little research on fruits in Roman times- they had no word for orange, so any shade of orange was just called red)
Warnings; 18+ no minors, vague but big-legal age gap, piv sex, dirty talk, Marcus eats pussy and I don't CARE, giving him that gluckgluck3000, creampie, Marcus gets hurt (hurt comfort), hand stuff from him because he's my precious man and he likes to give his girl pleasure, master / slave dynamic (power imbalance) he’s still pretty possessive, Marcus calls reader Girl, reader calls Marcus Dominus (for now?👀), **FEELINGS** let me know if I missed any!
This is the fic I referenced in this preview
Pairing: Marcus Acaciusx F!Reader
word count: 5.1k (whoops!)
reblogs are appreciated
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You frowned, despite your station, the confusion and slight worry breaking through the years of training your face to remain neutral. For a moment, you forgot your place.
“But-“ he turned, head tilted in curiosity instead of anger, thankfully, “I am to stay here? You do not wish me to accompany you Dominus? To pour and serve…?” You could not keep the slight hurt from your voice, much to your dismay. 
“No Girl, you will stay here, at the villa.” He saw the confusion, the unabashed anguish on your face and his expression softened, “peace Girl, it is not a matter of not desiring your presence or your service.” You listened to him with a lump in your throat, a wild fear seizing your heart that he might have grown tired of you. 
“I will not have the luxury of a tent, the rebellion is small enough that I can squash it and be back in less than a moon’s turn.” He came close, close enough to have your face tilt up to stare into his eyes. “I would not have you waiting for me in such a meagre camp, I would not have you sleeping in the dirt.” His hand settled on your arm, a soft offering, a reassurance but it did nothing to calm you. You have grown so accustomed to having him close, to ending up in his bed of a night more often than not before heading to your own, naked and pleasantly sore; to falling asleep with his seed trickling out of your puffy little cunt.
“I am comfortable wherever you are Dominus, I could still be of use, to light your fires-“ 
“I would have you here, and safe. That is my decision, and no amount of temptation will sway me from it.” He lifted your hand, pressing his lips to your fingers in silent, but firm apology. You knew there was nothing to be said, you had already pushed the matter far more than would be allowed on a normal day. 
“Your will, Dominus.” You bowed your head, despite the hurt and worry swirling around in your belly. “I will pray to the Gods for your swift victory, and safe return home.” 
He nodded, leaving shortly after. 
Time passed, and a feeling of restlessness took firm root in your being. The house felt empty, despite the attendants and sentinels left to guard them as well as the property. The days found you listless, moving through the motions of your chores and daily duties practically numb. The days were marks on the wall of your mind, praying to the Gods to send him back to you. 
Whispers travelled swiftly through the city, through the market stalls and through the villa itself, most of them rumours and it was difficult to keep your emotions in check. 
He has advanced
He has killed the leaders of the rebellion
He is victorious, already on his way home
He has been hurt
He is dead
He is victorious - Rome's favoured son has triumphed once more
The moon turned, once, and then twice, finally a third time before he was home. The all encompassing relief was short lived however, that wash of relief turned to ashes in your mouth at the sight of him. One of the rumours had been true after all. A sword wound to the side had laid him low late into the battle, it hadn’t killed him, thank the Gods, but it had slowed him down and made his journey home nothing short of agony. 
Your heart raced to see him weakened, every fibre of your being itched to run to him, to press your lips to skin but you refrained. You stood aside, dutifully, letting his trusted soldiers practically carry him to his bed. The older women got to work, bringing fortified wine with all manner of powders and potions to aid in his recovery while you stood next to him, the little half-moon marks in your palms from your nails barely felt like anything compared to the ache in the back of your throat. 
Your eyes would not leave his face. 
He looked so tired, mud and grime still marring his skin as he lay prone on his bed. To forfend the ugly thoughts swirling around in your mind, you focused on the tasks at hand. 
He needs to be cleansed, after he eats something I will boil some water and move gently, leave him to gather his strength. An offering must be made so the Gods will hasten his healing-
“Girl.” His voice was soft, and instantly you rushed to his side. 
“Yes Dominus, I am here.” You took his hand tentatively, your heart soared to feel him squeeze it. 
“Fetch me some broth, and help me to sit up–a few pillows behind me. I would sit upright.” 
You rushed to comply, happy to focus on his instructions. With soft touch, you did your best to prop him up, biting your lip to stop your eyes from welling up when he winced. Once satisfied, you set about fetching hot water and linens, as well as his broth. He sighed at the sight of it, and drank almost all of it within a few heartbeats. 
“Shall I help you cleanse now Dominus?” You brought the basin closer, showing him the steaming water and he nodded. 
Tentatively, you removed the soiled clothes he wore, ears pricked up for any sign of discomfort. He beared it with good grace, keeping the twinges of pain to himself, you imagined for your benefit, and you were grateful. It took time, but finally, you had divested him of everything, and he half sat, half laid on his bed, not an ounce of shame for his nakedness. It was secondary, to see him bare, more alarming was the soiled linens with the dark bloom of dried blood staining it on his side like some grotesque flower. 
He was pale, weak, his injury robbing him of his normal, ruddy health. He watched you, his expression somewhere between exhaustion, and a calm content. 
With gentle hands, you dipped the clean linen into the steaming water of the basin, and methodically cleaned the dirt, and dried blood from his skin. Eventually his eyes closed, soft sighs filled the air with every pass of the warm cloth across his shoulders, down the firm muscles of his thighs, his hands, until you reached the contours of his face. The lines were more defined, this battle had taken a toll on him. 
Your thumbs smoothed over his brows, wiping dust and worry away with a bone deep gratitude that he had come back. He melted into your touch, and you tried and failed to suppress the smile. 
“I must clean the wound, Dominus.” You reached for more clean dressings, giving him a chance to steel himself but he kept his eyes closed. You thought he might have fallen asleep, but he nodded, and so you did what needed to be done. 
To his great credit, he didn’t make a sound. Even as you cleaned at the angry, but healing edges of the wound. He said nothing when you packed it with the poultice one of the women had brought, when you covered it in a clean dressing, even as he drank down the no doubt foul tasting potion to help him sleep. Instead he settled back, and sighed, his eyelashes fluttering against his skin. 
You gathered all of the soiled clothing and discarded bandages, and moved to leave him to rest but his hand snatched at your wrist. 
“Wait, Girl, stay. Stay with me–” His words were almost slurred, and he didn’t finish his thought, his hand loosened around your wrist but you stayed, taking great care to lie beside him on his bed, and watched him sleep. Your heart raced with something you couldn’t–wouldn't name, something that threaded through your ribcage like smoke, wreathing its way around your lungs and taking root in your heart. You pressed the back of your hand to his brow, thankful that no fever lurked there and once satisfied that he was indeed resting, you rested your head next to his. 
Sleep took you, swiftly and without warning. 
The world outside was dark when your eyes opened, and it took a moment for you to get your bearings. His warm skin pressed to your arm and you jolted with the memory of his injury. 
“Peace, girl, I am well.” His voice was quiet, but stronger than before, “You did well in changing my dressings.” His praise squeezed at something in your belly, robbing you of any words you might have had. “You must be hungry, go and fetch something to eat and bring it here, I will share the meal with you.” The concern in his voice brought a smile to your lips, his thoughts on you, despite the pain he must have been in. 
“Yes Dominus, shall I fetch more of the potion as well? You should rest-” He raised his hand softly to forestall you. 
“I have rested enough, I would have my wits about me just now. Go on, you may fetch whatever else you need, I would have you sleeping in my bed.” 
His words rung in your ears as you moved throughout the silent house. They shone through your eyes as you piled a serving tray with olives and cheese, with bread and ripe fruits. They camped in your belly as it rolled with something when they repeated over and over like a prayer in your mind as you filled a serving jug with the wine he favoured, they strengthened your grip as you carried it with the utmost care down the moonlit halls of the house, almost sharpening your eyesight to bring you swiftly back to him. 
You set it down between you on his bed, careful not to spill anything or jostle him too much and just in time too, the hunger rung out from your empty belly loud as thunder but you ignored it, your priority was to help him sit up.
“Eat Girl, you are starving. I will pick at my leisure.” He frowned, gesturing to the food and you were grateful beyond words. It was a quiet meal, but comfortable. He usually ate by himself, most of the time while in his study and with you, it was after chores and duties had been completed. Despite all of your trysts and time spent together, it was the first meal you’d ever shared. 
“You do not favour the olives.” He said it without judgement. You shook your head shyly, covering your mouth to speak through bites of bread and cheese. 
“My desire for them is unpredictable.” He tilted his head, “Sometimes, they are all I want. Other times, I cannot stand the sight of them.” You wrinkled your nose, confirming that this time, the latter statement was true.
He smiled, huffing out an amused laugh through his nose.
“What else do you like? I see you favour the fruit, which one do you like most of all?” It was strange to be asked about yourself, no one in your life had ever wondered about what you might of preferred, for anything.
“Figs, I think. Pomegranates too, although peeling them takes a lifetime.” He huffed again, wincing slightly, “Are you in pain? Shall I fetch–” He raised a hand. 
“I am well, continue. Why do you favour them if they are so troublesome to eat?” He shifted a tiny bit, with great effort, turning to face you better. The room was dark, save for the few candles burning and the moon shining in through his window, casting stark shadows across his lovely face. 
“They are worth the effort.” 
He smiled, and finally reaches over to help himself to the food. Something about the darkness, about the quiet seclusion made you bolder.
“What about you Dominus? Is there a fruit you favour?” Your heart raced, fear that you might have overstepped grabbing hold of you but it was for naught, he merely frowned in thought. 
“I prefer plums.” He said after a moment, “I like figs as well.” It was both exhilarating and strange to speak with him like that, in the quiet dark, almost comfortable. “Although–in my younger days we fought in Spain, and there I tasted a fruit I have never seen again, I do not know the name of it but I enjoyed it very much.” 
“What was it like?”
“It was round, a strange shade of red with a thick peel but underneath it had segments like a lemon.” He continued eating, and you were content to sit with him, only moving the tray once he had eaten his fill.
“It is good to be home.” The words came out as a sigh, “I missed it while I was away, more than any other time I must admit.” He shifted slightly and winced again, “Help me lay flat, my back aches from sitting.” He held out his hand and you rushed to oblige, moving pillows and positioning him flat on his back. “That is better, gratitude Girl, let us blow out the candles and settle in.” 
“Yes Dominus.”
“Have you something to sleep in? What is most comfortable for you?” 
“I am content in this, Dominus.” You gestured to your tunic as you made your way around the room, snuffing out the candlelight.
“That is not what I asked you.” There was no bite in his words, but the expectation of truth was plain as day. 
“Most nights I sleep in the nude, it is what is most comfortable for me.” You made your way back to the bed but he did not let you get in. 
“Please, make yourself comfortable, there is no expectation from me, much as I have missed the pleasures of your body. I would have you sleep how you are accustomed.” You nodded once, undressing down to your skin before slipping into bed with him. In the dark, in the quiet, it was peaceful and the sound of his steady breathing worked it spell on you quicker than you would have thought. 
“Gratitude Girl.” He said it soft, and with a full belly and heavy lids, you questioned him. 
“For what Dominus?” The words were almost slurred, as the heavy press of sleep pushed you into the deep pool of blackness. You thought you heard him say everything, but you could not be sure, sleep had claimed you. 
-
You woke with the sun, the first few rays sliding across your skin like water and it was hard to move from your place. In the night, your body had brought you close to him, seeking out the warmth of him. He was still asleep, but his legs had tangled up with yours and it was strange to lay with him like this, both of you nude as the day you were born, yet incredibly comforting. 
You took the time to check over his wound, and were pleased to find it looking much better. The edges of it stitching together, thankfully without corruption. 
“It does not hurt as much as it did before.” His voice was sleepy, “I will be back on my feet soon enough.”
“Let me dress Dominus, and I will fetch you something to break your fast.” 
“Not just yet.” He shifted, and although you helped him, he didn’t struggle quite as much. “Come, lie with me.” He held out his arm, and you went to him, trembling like a leaf to rest your head on his shoulder. “Gods, I missed you, Girl.” He buried his nose into the mess of your hair and something inside you grew and swelled, was fed and made strong by his words and by his skin. 
“I missed you, Dominus.” Truer words had never been spoken by you, the ache for him had been unbearable.
“Did you?” There was something underneath, something desperate and had it not been so early, so peaceful, he might not have asked.
“Desperately Dominus, I feared you had abandoned me, I feared you no longer desired me.” You pressed your face into his neck, breathing him in, his scent, his warmth, him- sustenance
“Come now, Girl, you know of my desire for you, it is like a thirst I cannot quench. A hunger I cannot satisfy, despite my dark moods, despite my sour face, you are a source of joy and pleasure I have not known in some time.” His hand brought your face up, his gaze burned into yours and his words affected you so that tears welled in your eyes. He wiped them away, and the tenderness was too much, a sob clawed its way out from your throat. All of the worry, all of the fear that he might have left you alone in the world, to be sold to another bubbled up and he held you as you cried.
“Do you wish to be free of me? Is that why you cry?” Something in his voice broke your heart.
“No Dominus, no-“ you wiped at your eyes, moving to look him in the eye and the expression you saw in them was almost too much to bear. “I have never been so happy in all my life, I have never felt about anyone, the way I feel for you.” You pressed your lips to his, petal-soft. 
“Sometimes, the things I feel for you are almost too big for my body, I want to be with you always, I want to feel you always. I feared so much while you were gone that I could barely eat, barely sleep-” Your words were frantic, so many things to get out that you could barely speak and he pulled you close, shushing you softly. 
“My heart swells to hear you speak this way.” He reached down, sliding his hand towards the hinge in your knee, to pull it over his thigh. “Peace, let us just enjoy the silence.” You nodded into his neck, letting go of a great breath in your lungs. 
“If I was myself, and whole, I would be pulling every ounce of pleasure from you now.” 
You laughed at the annoyance in his tone.
“Soon enough Dominus, I would have you healthy and healed.” Your hand slid up the smooth expanse of his chest, threading through the curls at the base of his skull. “Once your wound has healed, you may have me any way you please.” 
“Any way?” His tone darkened, and your body responded, thighs clenching, heart racing, nipples hardening. “Any way I please? And what if I want you for a day and a night? What if I want you wet and spread for me in this bed until you’re so full of my gift it spills all over my linens?” The hand that had been softly stroking your back moved down and grabbed at your backside, pulling until the lips of your sex spread open. 
A moan slipped out at the feel of his hands, and he all but growled. 
“Do not make those noises Girl, not when I cannot fuck you how I wish to.” He pulled your face up, licking into your mouth with a hunger you could not satisfy, not in his current state. 
“Dominus, I beg of you not to taunt me, not when we cannot indulge.” You kissed him again, despite your words and finally he pulled away, the tremble of frustration in his grip. You shifted, and felt his manhood press against your thigh, the sight of him, leaking and hard against his belly made you sigh. 
“Do not concern yourself with that, I am ravenous for you, but my body cannot fulfill the wishes of my cock. Go and fetch something to break our fast. I will need you to change my dressing as well, if you could.” He sent you off with a kiss, and with desire dripping onto your thighs. 
“Yes Dominus.” You smiled, and rushed off to do what needed to be done. 
-
Weeks passed, and he healed beautifully. His wound knit together cleanly and with that, his strength came back. More often than not he stood and cleansed without your help, he left the safety of his bed and his chambers and sported a genuine smile as he made his rounds through his house.
You trailed behind him, your own smile in place to see him coming back into himself. 
Things were different. He was different. 
He spoke more, that was for one. Before he would keep his own council, his words were curt and his thoughts would be kept close to his chest. Some nights he reverted to his silence, but it had grown into something peaceful, something comfortable.
The biggest change though, was his attitude towards you. 
For one, he refused to sleep alone. The darkness of night found you tending to his needs and after the candles had been snuffed- he pulled your tunic off and pulled you into his bed, into his arms. 
At first, you thought it was his injury, a fear that he might suffer some setback in his sleep, but as the days passed on and he was well past the point of danger, he still refused to let you go. 
His desire had come back too, much quicker than his body could handle. Mornings would find you in the cage of his arms, with his lust pressed hard and hot at the cleft of your ass. You would pull away so as not to tease him, and he would let you at first, but as his body caught up to him, he stopped letting you pull away. 
Most mornings, he’d whisper how much he missed burying himself inside you, how he couldn’t wait to gift you with his seed while slipping his fingers between your legs and swirling them around your clit, only stopping after you’d fluttered around his fingers. Then he’d send you off to fetch food with a smile on your face and an ever-growing ache between your thighs. 
A part of you fretted as to why he hadn’t taken you yet, as the days passed it was clear that he was well enough to indulge. Another part, a hopeful, possibly quite foolish part of you thought maybe he was waiting for you to ask him. That couldn’t be, could it? You ruminated on your previous encounters, yes–he’d called you forth to warm his bed, but with every recalled memory it was clear that in his own way, he'd let you decide whether to push things or not. A luxury you knew was rare. It was an intoxicating thought though, to think that you could decide when and what you wanted him to do.
So many possibilities. 
When night came, you brought him his meal, and his wine and tried to keep the tremble of excitement out of your hands. You watched him move about his chambers, his strength back to normal as he dipped his hands into the fresh water in his basin. His hair had grown out a little, dark with silver mixed through and that thought struck you again, that he was some beautiful marble statue come to life. An emperor of old, standing before you in all his glory. 
“Dominus-” You called to him, unable to hold back any longer. His eyes raised, finding you as he dried his hands. 
“Before you take your meal, I would ask something of you.” Your voice shook, never had you openly asked him for anything before. He raised his eyebrows, more surprised than anything.
“What would you have of me Girl?” He moved towards you, eyes curious. 
“I would have you–” You stopped him, guiding him to sit on his bed, “I would have you sit here, and accept my mouth.” 
You kneeled before him, staring up at him with your lip caught between your teeth. Your hands landed on his knees, sliding up to pull his tunic up to expose his manhood. For a moment, he stared at you with wide, surprised eyes. 
“I have missed our times together, I have missed you filling me of a night and as much as I treasure your fingers in the morning, I would have you feel pleasure at my hand–or, my mouth.” He did not stop you from exposing him and heat flooded your body to see how quickly his cock responded to your words, to the soft exploration of your hand. 
“You would do this?” His palm landed on your shoulder, sliding up to cup your cheek. “You have no obligation, I would not command you to do this should you not want to.” You spit onto your palm and grasped him in hand and despite his words, he shudderred to feel the way you stroked him. 
“I dream about this Dominus, I desire you so deeply that I ache for you–” You opened your mouth and took the blunt tip of him into your mouth. He moaned, slack-jawed at the sight of you. You placed open mouthed kisses at the tip, and the sensitive underside, stroking at the base of him. His thighs spread, making room for you and you relished the warm strength of them under your arms. 
He tasted like the ocean. 
“God’s above Girl-” You pulled away, smiling as you continued to stroke him, he barely fit in the palm of your hand and with his passion dribbling out and your spit the sounds were loud and slick. Your own arousal unspooled between your legs, the ache intensifying as he tensed underneath you, hissing when you pressed soft kisses to the scar at his side, to the softness of his belly, to the firm golden thighs bracketing you to his hips. 
“Open your mouth.” His confidence resurfaced, and then his hand wrapped around yours, guiding you to stroke him the way he liked. He guided the reddened tip into your mouth. “Look at me when you take me in your mouth, open wide, I want to touch your throat.” You moaned around him, taking him deeper, breathing through your nose in an attempt to stay calm. 
“That’s it Girl, Gods be damned-” His tone was filthy as he held you there, eyes watering until you pulled away, sputtering and messy. 
“If you continue, I will spill in your mouth.” he guided your hand still, slowly stroking himself against your lips, smearing your spit and his salty arousal onto your lips. Never in your life have you felt that powerful, that beautiful, with tears spilling down your face and slick dripping down your thighs. He held himself suspended in his pleasure, awaiting your word. 
“Would you like to spill in my mouth Dominus? Or would you like to fill my cunt?” You held out your tongue, letting him rub the tip of himself against it while he decided. Your heart soared to see the conflict on his face. 
“I would fill your cunt, I have missed it terribly.” You smiled and rose with a final kiss to his cock and once you did, he ripped the tunic off your body. The loud tear of it made you squeal with a mix of shock and excitement. 
“I promise you, I will not last.” He all but tossed you onto his bed, spreading your legs wide for his gaze. “Greedy little cunt, so wet for me.” He spoke in a daze, staring at the place that ached at the mere thought of him. He slipped down and it’s with a shock that you watched him dip down to spear into you with his tongue. Never had anyone used their mouth on you and the sight of it was almost too much to bear.
It’s with a greedy, filthy groan that his lips dragged up to latch around the pert little pearl of you, his tongue stroking, stroking, stroking while his mouth suctioned around it. Your body was a taut string, legs shaking under the strong grip of his hands, holding you to him tight enough to hurt. Your breathing came in pants, the climax was already there, balancing on a knife's edge, so close you could almost taste it.
His hands moved, sliding up to pinch at your nipples and the wave crested. Your hands gripped into his curls, both holding him close, and desperately pushing him away while you fluttered into his mouth. 
You felt the strong muscle of his tongue slide down, drinking you from the source. 
He made his way back up, your slick shining on his face and on his whiskers. You’re almost too shocked, and too shy to look into his eyes. 
“I confess, I have wanted to do that for a long time.” He pulled his tunic up and off as you lay under him, boneless. “I know it’s not something commonly done, but I enjoy it. Did you enjoy it? I felt you flutter.” He raised your leg, wrapping it around his hip while his cock slipped inside you without any resistance. You let out a relieved sigh, finally, he was home. 
“Yes Dominus–” You almost whispered, half-shy as he dropped down, his arms holding himself up on either side of your skull. “No one has ever–Oh–” He snapped his hips hard, unable to hold himself back and already, the need built in your core, robbing you of any coherent thoughts. 
“No one but me ever will.” He kissed you, making you taste yourself and it was so perverse, so exhilarating you held him close, wrapping your arms and legs around him to feel as much of him as you could. His cock pushed and pulled, hitting that special place he owned and with a handful of thrusts, and a punched out groan he filled you with his gift. Finally. 
He watched himself pull out of the mess he'd made, watched in silence as his gift dripped out and onto his linens. 
Things felt different this time, there’s a vulnerability, an intimacy that is almost overwhelming. You pulled his face up, and pressed your lips to his softly, praying that you conveyed the feelings swirling in your chest. He kissed you back, his hand gliding up to wrap around your neck. When you opened your eyes, his brow was furrowed, the same feelings shining back at you through his dark eyes. 
Seconds passed, and the feeling did not disperse. Before he would have sent you away, but he held you close. Wordlessly he pressed his lips to yours over and over, he stroked at your skin, your shoulder and your thigh high on his ribs, your breast, your lips. He moved off, and went about dampening a cloth to clean himself off of you. Once he was done, he brought the food you’d served him and fed you from his own hand. 
You accepted the food, smiling shyly as he watched you, something like affection, like love shining out through his eyes. 
“Thank you Dominus–” He shook his head, a small frown at your words. 
“Call me Marcus.”
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endless-ineffabilities · 2 months ago
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Say Yes To Heaven
chapter 1 of the National Anthem series
President Aemond Targaryen x f!reporter reader
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synopsis: a reporter finds herself entangled in an affair with Aemond Targaryen, the President of Westeros.
in this chapter: the President has a proposition for the reader, one which she finds almost impossible to refuse. Will she say yes to entering the enticing world that he so offers? Will she yes to him?
word count: 5.2k
themes/warnings: mild smut (18+), tension that can cut like a damn knife, language, mutual pining, use of power for the purposes of pursuing the reader (obviously, he IS the President)
series masterlist ▪︎ main masterlist
best to read the intro chapter before this one!
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President Aemond Targaryen is in the second half of his tenure, and his presidency has already left an indelible mark on the political and historical landscape of Westeros.
From the start, Aemond's detractors were convinced he couldn’t do it. At just 28, they saw him as too young and too much a product of the Targaryen political dynasty. His election, they claimed, was less about his abilities and more about his family’s influence. Who’s to say he wasn’t just a puppet, with the real power lying in the hands of his powerful relatives? 
Now, two and a half years later, the country has seen what Aemond Targaryen can do. King’s Landing, once a cesspool of crime and poverty, has undergone a staggering transformation under his leadership. The capital’s streets now gleam with prosperity, lined with new businesses, cultural centres, and bustling markets. Even his detractors begrudgingly admit that his efficiency is something to marvel at. 
You’re aware of all this, of course. It’s part of the reason you were chosen to report on his presidency, giving the public a closer look at the enigmatic leader steering the nation. But lately, you can’t help but feel that your perspective on him has shifted, especially after that night in his private suite. 
Something lingers. You’ve started researching him more intensely, not because you have to, but because you want to. You pore over old interviews, articles, any scrap of information you can find. You’re supposed to be impartial, and you try to be. But you can’t deny that he fascinates you. 
Whatever it is, you’re determined to ignore it. You enjoy your work as a journalist, and you know you were extremely lucky to have landed a position at Highgarden News. Sure, you are still assigned to the team that reports on governmental affairs, but who’s to say that you can’t do your job from a distance? There is no need to get in deep into the thick of it all. The next time you see him, it can be as if that night in his suite at the Highgarden Hotel never happened. 
You are a professional. 
You know you are also a fool for thinking you can ever resist the attraction, but that does not matter.
Aemond, he asked you to call him, but that must only be reserved for his friends. Those close to him. As far as you’re concerned, you’re just a field reporter doing her job while he is the most powerful man in the country. He must remain President Aemond Targaryen to you. Mister President. 
Never mind that he calls you angel, and that it might be the most beautiful name anyone has ever given you. 
Angel – it had sounded like prayer on his lips. 
What must his wife call him behind closed doors? My dear? My love?
Sitting in the fluorescent-lit office of Highgarden News, the weight of your attraction feels overwhelming. Your eyes linger too long on articles about Aemond, replaying clips of his speeches, watching the way his mouth moves when he talks. It’s pathetic. You close all the tabs, scolding yourself for letting it get this far.
“Still obsessing over him, huh?”
Theon’s voice snaps you back to reality. He’s leaning over your cubicle wall, grinning ear to ear. 
Heat rises to your cheeks. “I’m not obsessing,” you mutter, though you can tell from the smirk on Theon’s face that he isn’t buying it.
“Sure,” he teases, nodding mockingly. “You’ve had tabs on Mister President open all morning. Don't think I haven't noticed.”
“I’m doing research. It’s my job, you know. Presidential affairs, national policy, all that fun stuff.”
“Uh-huh.” Theon crosses his arms, his grin widening. “Because staring at his pictures is totally related to national policy.”
You throw a pen at him, laughing despite yourself. “I’m not staring at him! He’s the President of Westeros, and I’m just doing my job.”
Theon raises a brow and leans in, lowering his voice. “Come on, just admit it. You’ve got this crush on him. I won’t tell anyone. Well… not a lot of anyones, at least.”
“He’s married, Theon,” you groan. "That means I can’t be interested.”
“Yeah, and I bet that’s half the appeal,” Theon says, unfazed. “Forbidden fruit, baby. Besides, have you seen the guy? If he looked at me the way he looks at you, I won’t even think twice.”
You bury your face in your hands. The worst part is that he’s not entirely wrong. “Theon, please. I’m trying to work here.”
“You’re trying not to think about how good he probably looks out of that suit.” He winks at you, not missing a beat.
You laugh, shaking your head. “Why are you like this?”
“Because I’m your best friend, and it’s my job to remind you that you need to get laid.” He taps your desk, his grin softening into something more genuine. “Seriously, though. Be careful. I’ve seen the way he looks at you in those press conferences. That man is starved.”
You roll your eyes, but your heart is pounding in your chest. If only he knew the truth of what happened that night. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” you lie, trying to sound casual.
Theon raises an eyebrow, giving you a knowing look. “Whatever you say. By the way, Loras is looking for you.”
You freeze, the mention of your supervisor snapping you back into focus. “Loras? What for?”
Theon shrugs. “No idea. But he’s in his office, waiting for you. Sounds urgent.”
Your stomach flips. Anxiety builds up in your chest as you make your way down the hall to Loras’s office.
Please don’t let this be about Aemond.
・ ⋆ ・ ⠄⠂⋆ ・ ⠄⠂⋆ ・ ⠄⠂⋆ ・ ⠄⠂⋆ ・ ⠄⠂⋆ ・ ⋆ ・ ⠄⠂⋆ ・
Loras is seated behind his desk when you walk in, flipping through a stack of papers. His sharp eyes flick up to meet yours as he gestures for you to sit.
“Thanks for coming,” he says, getting straight to the point. “I’ve got a pretty major opportunity for you.”
You nod, trying to keep your nerves in check. “What’s the assignment?”
“As you know, President Targaryen’s re-election campaign is kicking off soon,” Loras begins, his tone brisk and no-nonsense. “It’s one of the biggest political stories of the year. We need someone embedded with his team – full access to the President, travelling with him, covering every move.”
Your heart drops into your stomach. Oh no.
“And I want you to be that reporter,” Loras says, folding his hands as he looks at you expectantly. “You’re one of the few reporters we’ve got that are already pre-approved, and the best one for the task.”
You stare at him, your mind racing. “Me?”
“Yes, you.” Loras leans back in his chair, his gaze sharp. “You’ve been covering his administration ever since he got elected. You know him better than anyone else here.”
You swallow hard, trying to process what he’s saying. “That’s… a lot of responsibility.”
“It is,” Loras agrees. “But it’s also the kind of assignment that can make a career. Think of the exposure, the access. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
Your thoughts are spiralling. Travelling with Aemond? Watching him up close, day in and day out? You can barely keep it together after one night in his suite – how are you supposed to maintain professionalism while being that close to him for months?
“I don’t know if I’m the right person for this,” you say quietly, your voice barely above a whisper.
Loras raises an eyebrow, clearly surprised by your hesitation. "Why not? You’ve handled plenty of high-pressure situations before."
“It’s just… surely someone else is better qualified. What about Theon? He did a great job at covering the Lannister scandal last year,” you say, searching for the right words. How do you explain that the mere sight of Aemond makes your pulse race?
“That was gossip fodder. The President’s affairs are a completely different territory than what you’re going to cover here. This is serious news. A definitive political profile if you do it well, and I know you will.” Loras watches you for a moment, then leans forward, his voice lowering. “And I’ll be honest with you. The President specifically asked for you to cover the campaign.”
Your heart stops. “What?”
“He requested you by name,” Loras says, a small, knowing smile playing on his lips. “I don’t know what’s going on between you two, and frankly, I don’t care. But if the President wants you on this assignment, I suggest you take it. For your sake – and for the sake of the agency.”
He asked for me? The words send a thrill through you, even as you try to tamp it down. 
“I’ll think about it,” you say, trying to keep your voice steady.
“Don’t take too long,” Loras says. “The campaign starts next week. I need your answer as soon as possible.”
・ ⋆ ・ ⠄⠂⋆ ・ ⠄⠂⋆ ・ ⠄⠂⋆ ・ ⠄⠂⋆ ・ ⠄⠂⋆ ・ ⋆ ・ ⠄⠂⋆ ・
Hours later, you sit alone at your kitchen table, the contract in front of you. The paper feels heavy, like it’s mocking you. The more you think about it, the more your resolve weakens. This is an opportunity like no other. The benefits are staggering – the access, the prestige, the career-defining stories you could write. But then there’s him.
You know you should sign it and get it over with, but something inside you hesitates. A voice, small but insistent, telling you this is a bad idea. That if you do this, you’ll fall deeper into the pull of him, into something you can’t control.
But then your phone buzzes, and you glance down to see a message that sends your heart into overdrive.
Dinner tomorrow. 8 PM. I’ll have someone pick you up. - Aemond
You swallow hard, a mix of surprise and dread washing over you. How does he even have my number? But then again, he’s the President – of course he has access to everything. This isn’t a question; it’s a command, and he knows exactly how to get you. He must sense your wavering resolve.
Your fingers tremble as you type out a reply.
- Why? What for?
His response is immediate. I just want to discuss something with you, angel.
- The assignment. Did you really ask for me?
Yes. I did.
You hesitate, your mind racing through the implications.
- I’m considering it.
Allow me to convince you. Come see me tomorrow.
- Nothing can happen between us.
Understood. 
But I can’t pretend that I’m not curious about what could.
- You know what they say about curiosity.
So, what do you say? You take a moment, biting your lip, the playful banter igniting something inside you.
- Fine, I can agree to dinner. But we’ll keep it completely professional.
Deal. Looking forward to it, angel.
Good night.
- Good night to you too, Mister President.
Don’t test me, angel.
A shiver runs down your spine the moment you read those words. His response feels like both a promise and a threat – the kind that ignites something deep inside you. The kind that sends images flashing through your mind, unbidden, making your legs clench together despite your hesitation.
The three little dots disappear as you lock your phone and drop it onto the cushion beside you, as if cutting off the connection to Aemond will somehow help you regain control over your own thoughts.
Tomorrow, you swear to use every ounce of willpower you have to keep things professional. You just hope it’s enough.
A fool, indeed.
・ ⋆ ・ ⠄⠂⋆ ・ ⠄⠂⋆ ・ ⠄⠂⋆ ・ ⠄⠂⋆ ・ ⠄⠂⋆ ・ ⋆ ・ ⠄⠂⋆ ・
The next night, you're standing in front of the mirror, smoothing down the fabric of your blouse for what feels like the hundredth time. It’s appropriate – a crisp white blouse tucked into a knee-length skirt, modest enough for any work setting, but there’s something about the way you’ve put it together tonight. The way the blouse hugs your figure just right, the slight sheen of the fabric catching the light, the way the skirt fits snugly at your waist.
It’s nothing special, you tell yourself. Perfect for the occasion, suited for the upscale location you’ll likely be heading to. But deep down, you know better. You want to look good for him. And that very thought makes your stomach twist.
You adjust your hair one more time, glancing at the clock. It's almost time. You can handle this, you remind yourself. It’s just dinner. Just a business conversation. You’ve done this a hundred times before.
But you’ve never done this with him. And no matter how hard you try to ignore it, the anticipation buzzing through your veins is impossible to shake.
Suddenly, there’s a knock at the door. You smooth your skirt one more time and walk over, taking a deep breath before opening it.
You’re greeted by the sight of two familiar faces: the same two members of Aemond’s security detail who escorted you to his penthouse that night.
They’re as imposing as you remember – tall, sharp in their tailored suits, one blonde and one brunette, with eyes that give nothing away. The only difference tonight is the extravagant bouquet of flowers in the hands of one of them.
The flowers are breathtaking, an arrangement of deep red roses intertwined with white lilies that feel far too intimate for something as innocent as dinner. But then again, they could very well be a reflection of Aemond’s intentions.
“Good evening, ma’am,” the blonde says, his voice low and composed. “These are for you. From the President.”
Your heart skips a beat. Of course they are. You swallow, glancing at the flowers as if they could explain everything.
The fragrance wafts up to you, rich and intoxicating. You can’t help but wonder if this is just the beginning of the night’s games. Your fingers tremble slightly as you take the bouquet, its weight heavy in your arms, both literally and metaphorically.
“For me?” you murmur, as if the answer isn’t obvious. 
“Yes, ma’am,” the man confirms. “The car is ready when you are.”
You leave the flowers on the kitchen counter, stealing one last glance at them before closing the door to your apartment. They feel like a message – a reminder of who you’re dealing with tonight. Aemond Targaryen does not do things subtly.
Soon enough, you’re sitting in the back of a sleek black car, your hands nervously twisting in your lap. The city lights blur past the window, but all you can think about is the man waiting for you inside the restaurant.
After a few moments of silence, curiosity nudges at you. “I suppose you both already know who I am,” you say lightly, your voice cutting through the quiet hum of the car. “Probably more than I’d wish for you to know. So, would you care to tell me your names?”
The man in the passenger seat – the blonde – turns slightly, a smile playing on his lips. “I’m Steve, ma’am,” he says, his tone friendly and warm, a stark contrast to the serious atmosphere.
“James,” the other one says from behind the wheel, his voice low and gruff, eyes fixed on the road ahead. There’s a certain sternness about him, like he’s perpetually on duty.
“Steve and James,” you repeat, letting the names settle into your mind, humanising them. You glance at Steve. “So, James doesn't talk much?”
Steve chuckles, casting a quick glance at his partner. “That's just how he is,” he says. “You’ll get used to him. We all have.”
James doesn’t react, his focus still entirely on driving. You smirk softly to yourself, feeling some of the tension in the car ease with Steve’s casual demeanour. 
But the thought of their boss – the boss of the entire damn country, one could say – lingers heavy in the back of your mind.
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The car pulls up to the restaurant, a lavish affair located on the grounds of an exclusive country club just outside the city. As you step out, you recognize the place instantly – The Old Valyria, a restaurant housed in a grand, ornate building that looks more like a palace than a dining establishment. The stone facade is intricately carved, its old-world charm unmistakable.
You’d covered an event here earlier in the year, reporting on one of the prestigious galas held by the Highgarden elite. But tonight, even as a familiar face in the city, you feel like an outsider in this world. The guests you spot entering and leaving are dressed in the finest attire, their movements confident, as if they were born into this luxury.
But then you see him.
Aemond stands just outside the grand entrance, his tall frame unmistakable even from a distance. He’s dressed in a sleek black suit, but what catches you off guard is how casual it seems on him, especially with the black shirt underneath, its top buttons undone. It’s a departure from the rigid, formal image you’re used to seeing in the media. His silver hair is tousled, looser tonight, giving him a youthful, almost rebellious edge.
Your breath catches in your throat as he spots you and strides forward with purpose. His presence, as always, commands attention, but tonight you notice something softer in his expression. 
He reaches for you the moment you’re close enough, his fingers brushing over yours before lifting your hand to his lips. The kiss on the back of your hand is slow, deliberate. His eyes stay locked on yours the entire time, and you can’t control the heat that flushes through your body. 
“That gesture doesn’t seem very professional,” you manage, your voice a bit shakier than you intended.
Aemond smirks, a spark of amusement flickering in his eyes. He straightens but doesn’t let go of your hand right away. “Sometimes certain gestures are worth bending the rules for, angel.”
You bite the inside of your cheek to keep from smiling. He’s already playing with boundaries, the charming bastard, making it harder for you to maintain your resolve. And you haven’t even made it to the table yet.
“Shall we?” he says smoothly, gesturing toward the entrance.
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The restaurant is even more breathtaking from within. Crystal chandeliers hang from a vaulted ceiling adorned with intricate frescoes, and the soft glow of candlelight reflects off the polished marble floors. 
You’re guided to a secluded table near the back, tucked away from prying eyes. Aemond holds your seat out for you, and you thank him, smoothing your skirt as you settle in and try to compose yourself. 
He sits across from you, his gaze never leaving yours. He appears at ease, but there’s a sharpness in his eyes, a sense that he’s in control of every detail – of the night, of the atmosphere. Of you. 
“Thank you for coming,” he says, his lips curving into a small, satisfied smile. “I wasn’t sure if you would.”
“It was kind of hard to refuse the President,” you reply, trying to sound casual.
He chuckles softly. “Be that as it may, you could have, and yet here you are.”
The waiter appears, setting down wine glasses and pouring a deep, red vintage. You take a sip, hoping it’ll steady your nerves. Aemond watches you over the rim of his glass, his gaze glinting with something that you desperately wish to ignore. 
“I know you’ve been thinking about that night,” Aemond says, his voice low and smooth, cutting through the quiet like a blade.
You almost choke on your wine. Leave it to him to cut to the chase. “I… I don’t –” you stammer, but he doesn’t let you finish.
“I’ve been thinking about it too,” he continues, leaning forward slightly, his gaze piercing. “It’s not something I think I can ever forget, angel.”
Your throat feels dry, and you struggle to keep your composure. “It was a mistake.”
Aemond’s lips twitch, amusement flickering in his eyes. “A mistake?” He leans back, swirling the wine in his glass. “If that’s what you want to call it.”
“I came here because you said you have something you want to discuss, sir,” you say, more firmly this time. “My supervisor informed me that – ”
“Sir.” Aemond clicks his tongue, the word dripping with distaste as his expression shifts into something darker. His brow furrows briefly, and you think you’ve hit a nerve, but then his lips twitch into a smirk, his amusement unmistakable.
His posture is relaxed yet deliberate, his eyes gleaming with mischief. “I have to admit, I was about to protest. To tell you I never want you to call me something so impersonal as that.” His smirk widens, and there’s a spark of playful danger in his gaze. “But then… a scenario came to mind.”
“What scenario?” you ask, the words slipping out before you can stop them. 
His smile turns devilish as he leans forward slightly, elbows resting on the table, his fingers lacing together. “One where you do call me sir,” he says, his voice dropping lower, more intimate now. “But not in the way you just did. Not with that sharp, cold professionalism. No…” He lets the sentence hang in the air for a moment, drawing it out, savouring it. “In a different setting. One where it’s… earned.”
Your heart stutters, your breath catching as the meaning behind his words sinks in. Heat blooms in your cheeks, and you quickly break eye contact, staring down at the table as you try to collect yourself. 
“That’s… not what I meant,” you say, your voice unsteady, trying to bring the conversation back to safer ground. But it’s too late.
Aemond doesn’t seem fazed by your attempt to regain control. If anything, the flicker of a grin on his lips tells you he’s pleased with how easily you’ve been disarmed.
“Of course,” he says smoothly. “You’re here for a discussion.”
“I’m here for the assignment,” you manage to say. “To discuss my role. Professionally.”
His smirk fades into something more thoughtful, though the tension between you continues to coil tighter with every second that passes. “Is that how you really want to play this?”
“It’s the only way to play this,” you reply.
“Oh, is it?” Aemond’s voice is low, almost a whisper. “You always have a choice. You could walk out of here right now, tell your supervisor you’ve changed your mind, that you’re not up for the assignment.” He pauses, his eyes narrowing slightly as he studies you. “But you won’t.”
You swallow hard, his words hitting you squarely. He’s right, isn’t he?
“You need this job,” Aemond continues, his voice smooth as silk. “But I think it’s more than that. I think you want to be here. In my orbit.”
Of course he’s right, but admitting that would be walking into a trap. One that you might not be able to escape. 
“You’re wrong,” you say quietly, though the words sound weak, even to your own ears.
“Angel… I don’t think I am.”
For a moment, everything hangs in the balance, the tension thrumming in the air. It would be so easy to let go. To give in to whatever this is. But you can’t. Not yet.
You sit up straighter, forcing yourself to meet his eyes again. “As I mentioned, I came here for the assignment,” you say, more firmly this time, regaining some of your composure. “So, if there’s something you need to discuss, let’s talk about that.”
Aemond watches you for a moment, his gaze lingering on your face, searching for something. Then, finally, he sits back, exhaling softly as if deciding to play along – for now.
“Very well,” he says, his tone shifting back to something more neutral, though you can tell he’s not finished with you yet. “We’ll have dinner, and then discuss.”
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The dinner goes better than you expected. Aemond is calm, composed, and – surprisingly – reigning himself in. He makes casual conversation, steering the discussion toward neutral topics. Politics, the upcoming campaign, even light-hearted comments about the restaurant. Every word is measured, delivered with that cool confidence you know so well.
But no matter how carefully he plays it, the tension simmers just beneath the surface, a constant pulse between you. Every glance he steals in your direction, every time his hand brushes yours as he reaches for his glass, it sends a jolt through your body. You feel it, deep in your core, the magnetic energy that makes it impossible to stay unaffected. Like the way his eyes linger on your lips when you smile… it’s all so subtle, but dripping with intention.
By the time dessert arrives, your heart is racing, and you’re almost grateful when the dinner ends. Because while Aemond has kept it together, you’re not sure how much longer you can.
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The ride back is a different story.
You sit on one side of the sleek, leather seat, your body tense, trying to create as much distance between you and Aemond as possible. He’s stoic, seemingly focused on something else entirely, his eyes fixed on the window as the city lights flash by. But the air inside the car is practically electric.
It’s only when you glance forward that you notice the screen divider has been put up. Steve, or maybe James – you’re not sure who did it – must have done it without you noticing. The realisation sinks in, laden with meaning. What did they think would happen? What did they expect?
Your pulse quickens. You cross your legs, a nervous habit, but when you do, your skirt rides up just a little too high, exposing more of your thigh than you intended.
That’s when you notice Aemond’s gaze shift. His eyes, dark and intense, flick down to your leg. The moment hangs in the air, thick and heavy. His face, calm and controlled just a second ago, hardens with something primal. And that look – it’s all it takes to flick a switch inside you.
In a flash, he’s on you.
The restraint he held so carefully through dinner shatters. His hands are on you, gripping your thighs, pulling you toward him, and his mouth crashes against yours, hungry, desperate, ravaging. You let out a gasp, but it’s swallowed by the intensity of his kiss, his tongue sliding against yours with a raw urgency that leaves you breathless.
You meet him in the middle of the seat, your bodies colliding with a heat you’ve tried so hard to ignore. His hands are everywhere, sliding under your now untucked blouse, searching, gripping, pulling you closer. The feel of him against you, the strength in his hands, the way he kisses you like he’s starving – it sends a rush of warmth straight through your core.
Your head spins, your breath coming in shallow gasps between kisses as you manage to push back, if only for a second. “We can’t,” you whisper, your voice shaky, weak. But you’re not pulling away. Your hands are still tangled in his hair, your body still pressed against his.
“Fuck, I know, angel,” Aemond growls, his mouth moving to your neck, his breath hot against your skin. “But I want you…” His words trail off, full of frustration.
You should stop this. Every logical part of your mind screams at you to pull away, to remember who he is, who you are. This can’t happen. Not with him. Not like this. But the other part of you – the part that’s burning, aching for him – doesn’t care. That part wants him more than anything.
His lips find yours again, and this time, it’s slower. His hand pushes your skirt higher, his fingers grazing your bare skin. You kiss him back, your hands sliding down his chest, gripping his shirt as if it’s the only thing keeping you grounded.
Between kisses, you manage to pull back, your lips barely an inch from his. “We can't do this... sir,” you whisper, your voice trembling, the word sir meant to ground you, to remind yourself that he’s your superior, that this is wrong. But even as you say it, the way your body reacts to him betrays the word’s other meaning.
It shifts something inside him. You see it. His eyes darken, his breathing quickens, and for a moment, it’s like a switch has been flipped.
Aemond growls low in his throat, the sound vibrating between your bodies as his hand grips your thigh even harder, pulling you flush against him. “Say that again,” he murmurs, his voice rough, his lips brushing against your jaw as he speaks. “Call me that again.”
Your breath hitches, a dizzying mixture of fear and desire coursing through you. “Sir,” you whisper, and the way his body responds – the way his fingers dig in the soft flesh of your thighs – it’s overwhelming.
He kisses you, sucking on your bottom lip. He moves his hand higher, fingers grazing the inside of your thigh, teasing the heat pooling between your legs, and you let out a gasp, your body trembling against him.
“This is wrong,” you whisper, but your legs clench around his hand, trapping it within, pressed against the material of your panties.
“We can’t… sir,” you repeat, but the word sir falls from your lips like a plea, and it’s the final straw.
“Fuck,” he growls, his mouth hot against your neck, his words slurred with need. “You keep saying that we can’t, but I don’t think you mean it.”
He’s right. You don’t.
But just as his fingers nudge the material of your panties to the side, his thumb teasing your clit, the car slows, the outside lights shifting. Reality crashes back in – suddenly, you’re aware of the sound of the tires on gravel, of the car pulling up to the curb. You blink, the haze of heat between you shattering as the car stops.
“We’re here,” you whisper, breathless, your body still pressed against his.
For a moment, Aemond’s hand freezes on your thigh, his breath hot against your neck as he pulls away just slightly. He looks at you, his gaze still dark, filled with that same intensity, but there’s a flicker of something else now. Frustration.
You take a deep, shaky breath and pull yourself back, your lips swollen, your body still burning. “This can’t happen again,” you say, your voice unsteady, though you don’t even believe your own words.
Aemond doesn’t respond at first. His eyes stay locked on yours, and for a second, you wonder if he’s going to drag you back into him, consequences be damned. But then, slowly, torturously, his hand slides higher again, fingers curling under the waistband of your panties.
Your breath catches in your throat, the world narrowing to the sensation of his touch. Then, with steady precision, he pulls the delicate fabric down, his fingertips grazing over the slick, sensitive lips of your cunt. The touch sends a shockwave through your body, a shiver of need that leaves you breathless.
Aemond slips your panties off in one smooth motion, and with a smirk that’s maddening, tucks them into the pocket of his trousers, his eyes never leaving yours. The gesture is possessive, unhinged, filled with a promise that you know you can’t outrun.
“See you soon,” he murmurs, his voice low. His lips curl into that same wicked smirk, but this time it’s softer, almost reverent as he adds, "Angel."
The word hangs in the air as you step out of the car.
You’re his angel, and there is no turning back now. 
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Series only taglist (comment to be added) - @aemond-lover98 @pinkpeachbloom @whencokewascasual @salinaiacono6 @mycheersricochet @bloodstained-porcelain-doll @chattylurker
General HotD taglists (refer here)
Vhagar taglist 1 - @kravitzwhore @litchifaerie @g-cf2020 @noxytopy @fan-goddess @m00n5t0n3 @diannnnsss @nsr-15 @the-awkward-barbie @rockstwrsz @yellowstonebaby @urdeftonesgrrrl @eddieslut69 @callsigncrushx @starwarsdinosaur @qweq-6802 @tulips2715 @hotdismylife @joyismm @itseunaimonia @just-mj-or-not @crystal-siren @zaldrizzes @all-for-aemond @ajantanijhum @darylandbethfanforever9 @vhwyrm @purpleskiesandroses @technicallystrangereview @jjkysnk @anukulee (continued...)
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Some notes in the margins...
Well... that sure escalated quickly. How could you have ever resisted? Good luck keeping it professional on the campaign trail, angel. 😇
Some new characters are introduced: Loras and Theon. Steve and James (*wink*). Soon we'll meet the Vice President, the campaign manager. etc. etc.... the wife (!!!)
Let me know how you're faring! It's only just begun 🤍
481 notes · View notes
ma1dita · 8 months ago
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to catch a thief
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a 'partners in crime' installment - luke castellan x dionysus!reader
words: 3.7k
summary: (post-TLT, sea of monsters compliant/spoilers) The one where duty calls at Camp Half-Blood. Again. Your reunion with Luke is nothing you both could have ever expected. (Luke Castellan x fem!Dionysus!reader)
a/n: we’re so back trouble!verse ;) sorry for the post birthday hiatus on this, hope you like it! crack banter but err... she got a lil angsty
(posted 3/22/24, semi-edited)
When you wake up to the gentle rolling of the sea, it feels like a comforting embrace in a distant dream. Tangled within pristine white sheets, you could smell the salt through the small opening in the bay window–though this was a far cry from a fairytale conjured by your mind.
This was your reality. 
You wouldn’t call it a nightmare per se, but the circumstances were definitely less than preferred. 
This is not the CSS Birmingham. No, that went up in flames. Retracing your steps to what led you to this—cushy cruise line of a prison, you reckon it’s been a few days now since you’ve become a stowaway, or a hostage. You haven’t quite decided yet. 
Gods, this is what you get for passing up on that summer research internship. 
Dropping off Percy, Annabeth, and Tyson at camp was supposed to be a fun walk down memory lane—until meeting with your dad, finding out Thalia’s tree had been poisoned, watching Chiron get fired, and essentially getting kicked out by the troll of a man who originally got sent to the Fields of Punishment for marketing the taste of human flesh made you remember that nothing at camp is the way it used to be.
Not like before, when you and Luke used to run it.
Your dad told you to go home and wait till you were needed. Home. Driving away from it this time around was harder than you thought it would be. You’d never been the patient type, and to drop everything just because a god told you to?
Hilarious, really.
But almost a week later, after rejoining your friends on an undead ship that you let the kids commandeer, your vital mistake was thinking that Clarisse’s quest would be a breeze. Rookie move, since the last one you were on left you almost as scarred as Luke was. Even thinking of him now, you run your thumb over the rough patch of skin on your palm. 
At the very least you hoped Tyson was okay. The last memory you have of the young Cyclops was watching him from your place on the ladder as he stopped the engines from overheating. Maybe it was the ex-head counselor in you, or your increased threshold to pain, but there was no way in hell you were leaving that kid behind.
The sound of voices from outside your door gets louder now, your throat feeling like you’ve been swallowing wads of cotton and a persistent ringing in your ear that hurts just as bad as when you watch Chris Rodriguez walk in with a plate of food. The last one he slid through the door bumps against his boot, still uneaten and he sighs. 
“So what, you’re on a hunger strike now? I forgot how difficult you could be.”
You bark out a laugh. Thankfully it’s loud enough that it almost conceals the rumble of your stomach. Gritting your teeth, you mumble, “Wish it could be an idiot strike. I forgot how much of a bitch you are when it comes to your brother, Rodriguez. How long are you going to keep me here? It’s been days.”
Your former friend rolls his eyes at your dramatics like he doesn’t hold the key to your freedom.
“Three since you woke up, actually. Come on, you’ve gotta eat, or I’ll get my ass kicked,” he grumbles. You raise an eyebrow at that, walking towards the window to dodge the uncomfortable tension that fills the room. He plucks an apple slice off your plate.
“He couldn’t splurge on a balcony view? Monsters aside, it’s not like you’ve reached full occupancy.”
“There are more mortals here than you think. To be honest, he was worried you would find a way to overthrow us,” the tanned boy admits, placing the tray on the dresser. It was always a wonder to him how you and Luke were more alike than you think, even now—even when Luke hasn’t come to see you. Talking to you reminded him that you’re both pains in his ass, and Chris was still unsure of who to be more wary of, but he’s been in charge of watching you for the most part.
“Well tell your stupid captain he has no right to be worried about me. I’d much rather try to jump if given the opportunity.”
There’s no response, so you turn to face Chris who’s eating a croissant with a bashful grin.
“Seriously dude?”
“Listen, I’m hoping if I think of the right words to say, he’ll come in and deal with you himself. Opposite sides of a war and you’re still both giving me a headache. Just like old times,” he chuckles, flakes of pastry dotting across his chest plate. Your mouth quirks into a bitter smile. Old times, when Luke would shove you if he couldn’t think of a reply fast enough. When you’d punch him to get your point across if he wasn’t listening. How a kiss could end any waging war between the both of you.
You swallow, turning slowly to watch your reflection in the glass of the windowpane.
Why hasn't he come to see you? The first day, you remember spending out on the sea—treading water with no land in sight, calling out to your friends until your voice went hoarse, but you didn’t cry. You know better than to show weakness now, even when no one’s around. Chris tells you over a gulp of orange juice that you washed up next to the Princess Andromeda on the second day like it was fate. Though fate was never truly that kind to anyone; it felt like it was laughing in your face. Knocked out cold for two days after, and ignoring all of Chris’s attempts to keep you alive in the days that followed, you’ve been in this room ever since. You barely notice Chris’s departure. 
Entering the ensuite bathroom, you splash your face and sip on water from the tap before stopping at the doorway. A shadow flits at the seam near your feet, someone standing just out of sight when you peer through the peephole.
But you know Luke’s there. Sons of Hermes have almost undetectable footsteps, however, Luke walking in and out of your life for as long as he has—there’s no inconceivable way to not know him. Perhaps you couldn’t hear the sound of his feet, but there’s a way the wind shifts your hair, your heart slowing in ease at his presence, and the scent of him reminiscent of skin kissed with the peel of an orange. The skin you used to kiss and greet and know like your own.
The shadow fades just as your hand reaches out towards it, leaving like he always does. Always out of reach.
Even as the Princess Andromeda continues to set sail upon the calm waters of the Atlantic Coast, you look out to the unending horizon and still feel like you’re drowning.
“Status report, soldier?”
Chris rolls his eyes, popping the last piece of apple into his mouth as he strolls into the command deck. The both of you had a flair for the dramatic—it serves as his reminder of why you two worked so well. Luke is sitting in his captain’s seat, watching the waves crash against the hull as the sun begins to set on the skyline.
“She’s angry. Anyone would be if they were locked up like that.”
“Well, yeah, but tell me something I don’t know. Something useful, Rodriguez,” Luke says, flicking his pocket knife closed. It’s still sticky with the juice of the fruit, catching onto his finger. He hisses, but then the sound of loud footsteps boom down the corridor, along with the sound of maniacal laughter as the door slams open. The two sons of Hermes look at each other curiously, knowing it all too well.
“You know, the next time you send a 9-year-old to stand guard, remember to not make it the one we used to throw into the lake,” you drawl, sauntering into the bridge and looking around until your eyes land on your ex, “and also remember that you taught me how to pick locks.”
Ethan Nakamura heaves behind you, hands on his knees before he stands to attention and salutes his captain.
“Sir, I was just following orders… and I’m not 9 anymore!” he snaps, glaring at you. Laughing at the absurdity of the situation makes it easier to get through. You thought being surrounded by the undead on the CSS Birmingham was scary enough, but standing in a room with ghosts from your past was somehow worse. Honestly, you learned a lot more by being in that room than if you were to jump ship like you wanted to.
“I taught you how to tie your shoes, Ethan. You’re always gonna be a little kid to me,” you scoff, brushing him aside and walking towards Luke, “your new digs are fancy, by the way. I could tell by all the teenage soldiers chasing me through the tourists.”
He stands up and meets you head to head, as the both of you inspect each other closely. 
It’s been a long year without you.
You look thinner. You’ve lost the softness in your cheeks and your eyes are tired. He wonders what you chose to major in, who your roommates are, if you still think of him with a smile on your face. You’re still beautiful.
“You know me, I like to travel in style,” Luke says offhandedly, a half smile on his face. For someone leading a war against the gods, he’s calm in your presence.
“Back when I knew you, we traveled in a tin can that we also called a car.”
His clothes are nicer than anything you’ve ever seen him in. He looks really fucking good, for someone on the run. It’s almost frustrating to see how brawny he’s gotten, muscles rippling as he crosses his arms. You suppose he has nothing to do now but practice and spar (that or he’s definitely flexing for you). Pulling at the drawstring of the joggers you wear, you realize his initials are embroidered on the pocket. Pretentious fuck. Did he change you once you got on board?
Chris and Ethan suddenly get the feeling that they’re interrupting something—a reunion in a blockbuster romantic movie they’ve seen the mortals play out on the ship deck’s projector on Friday nights. The two of you stand there arguing like a married couple despite the fact you are no longer lovers and the bickering continues even when more of Kronos’ army files in. You laugh again at the sight of children walking in—some strangers, others you’ve sung to sleep in cabin 11, all still children, even back from the time before when laughter didn’t have to have a reason, light and airy in the summer sun.
“You’re sick, you know that? Did you just plan to let me rot in that room until it was all over? You didn’t even talk to m—”
“Classic, you’re more mad that I didn’t talk to you over the fact that you’re a prisoner,” he seethes, but you don’t stand down—not now or ever.
“Prisoner? I walked out and none of your Boy Scouts could do anything about it!”
His face is turning red now, jaw tightening at the angst but deep down he misses this—the banter, the thin line between hate and love you both tread on. You may be a damsel. But you were not in distress.
To further prove your point, you swing an arm toward one of the boys in black (their uniforms were annoyingly corny), and they all take a step back toward the wall. Your eyebrows furrow, “What type of prison has guards terrified of the prisoner?”
He shrugs, “It was only time before you came and found me. I even gave you a bay window.”
That was not the right thing to say.
“I’ll fucking kill yo—”
“Sir? So do we try and detain her, or….” one of the demigods you don’t know interjects, and Chris Rodriguez sucks at his teeth before he responds. 
“Alright. We’ve seen enough of the show. Everyone file out and let Castellan reunite with his girlfriend.”
“GIRLFRIEND?”
“Girlfriend…”
The both of you look at each other, one in anger, the other in sheepishness now that you’re alone. It's even funnier that neither of you deny it.
“You left me there in that room, and by the sight of things around here you prefer being in the company of monsters than being with me, so by the gods, what do you want, Castellan?”
You fall into the captain’s chair exasperatedly, watching him watch you.
“I’m giving you a choice,” he says simply. “You can stay here with me, or you can go.”
“A choice? You captured me to tell me I have a choice,” you spit, as if that was the stupidest thing he could say. “You didn’t give me a choice when you left me.”
“It was a matter of the circumstances. And I didn't capture you—are you mad that I betrayed everyone or not, because I can’t really read you right now, Trouble…”
Your eye twitches and your hands are in fists across your lap. Another wrong thing to say.
“Keeping me here until I get the nerve to talk to you is not a choice, asshole. Do you think you could just hide me away until the bad part’s over? To save me until everything's good enough for you?” Your eyes catch onto the droplets of blood that fall onto the hardwood flooring near your feet. His hand is bleeding, and like it’s nothing of the sort you reach out for it.
Luke thinks that if he lets you your hand will still perfectly fit in his, so after a moment, he pulls his hand away out of your reach. Pulling a handkerchief out of your pocket (also embroidered with his initials—note to self, never let a son of Hermes have money), you stand to wrap it around his hand to stop the bleeding. You pretend not to notice his heartbeat increase through the throbbing of the cloth.
“Don’t let my actions make you believe that what we had wasn’t good, Trouble.”
“Stop calling me that. Why are they all scared of me? Why won’t you let me touch you?” you whisper, putting pressure on his finger until the blood clots. It doesn’t even hurt, to tell you the truth. Not touching you when you’re right here in front of him is a pain he can’t find the words to describe. But what he’ll never understand is that he’s right. You two were good together. You’d have him through the bad too, if only he let you.
“Because you might think you can fix me.” Or worse, you might change his mind. You don't have to say you love him for him to know it. A part of him wishes he didn’t have to do all of this to prove to you he feels the same. 
“Would you have left with me?” he mutters. A wistful look cuts through your anger and he knows he’s finally said something right. His pocket knife is on the control board and your hands drop to your side again when you realize that he may have forgotten to tell his battalion of who you are to him, but he still remembers how you like your apples cut. The silence is loud, even with the twinge that comes with the pain in your eardrum as you sway a little on your feet. Your body still knows it can relax with him, knees buckling with a false sense of security despite your willpower.
“I would've made it so that there was no other option for you but to want to stay.”
A soldier bursts through the door and apologizes for the intrusion, but the both of you have found out all you need to know. The moment is over and Percy Jackson has been captured by the army in his efforts of trying to save the day. There’s a look shared between the two of you that wonders if this will become a trend.
Licking your lips as your… Luke guides you out onto the main deck with your hands behind your back, you can taste the salt in your air. It’s almost as evident as the surprise in your friends’ faces when they see you alive. This time, they don’t question your allegiance but in the chaos that ensues, for a moment, you do.
For a moment, you wonder what would change if you decided to stay with him. Would the sky fall under your feet? Would the gods kneel like Luke said they would? Looking at him in your periphery, you realize it’s not what the both of you want, even if it’s the easier way out—to be together despite it all.
The two of you against the world instead of the world against the both of you.
But he won't even touch you—he’s holding you over the sleeves of your shirt, too scared of what you’ve become in his absence. You suppose you’re scared of what he’s become too. 
The realization hits that you could defect from your friends, family, and home. You could undo everything that you and your friends have worked towards. But nothing he can say will change the fact that he didn’t choose you.
Luke was right, then.
You did have a choice, one that he still forces you to make as you nod at Percy to flip his last drachma into the open water, opening a direct line of communication to your father to catch the thief—of both lightning and the beat of your heart, in the act.
You realize that if the gods were the least bit grateful that you’ve kept their kids alive for the past half-decade, perhaps fate would be on your side and Luke would still be yours. But life has a funny way of working itself out when Luke admits to the open air of another crime to tack onto his list.
“Kronos was right. I should’ve killed you, Percy.”
The son of Poseidon goads Luke into another duel and you survey your surroundings for a way out. Annabeth burns holes into the side of your head and it gets you thinking, moving faster than you have in days as you walk towards her and Grover. At the raise of your hand, the demigods holding onto the pair drop to the deck, incapacitated with illusions of madness they will never comprehend. The more of them that surround you drop like flies as Luke’s eyes flicker between you and the boy he has at swordpoint.
You’ve gotten stronger in his absence—you never needed to touch him to use your powers after all. Just waiting for the right moment to strike, attacking when Luke finally let his guard down for you. He cracks his neck, knowing you’ve made your choice, so he makes his. 
“Get them.” 
The monster scrambles across the deck but it approaches you first, clawing at the wood and barely missing your feet as you scream for help, defenseless without a sword and you hear Luke yell your name in alarm before a punching glove-tipped arrow sends it hurtling overboard.
Your eyes lock with his again as you disembark with the Party Ponies, you with your crew as he corrals the mess you made of his. It has to be the salt air that makes your eyes seem a little misty.
Your fates have always been tied. 
You protect your home, and he does what he can to protect you. Luke looks over your form like he’s checking if you’re okay, even from a distance— and it makes you wonder if this is how it's supposed to be. Someone leaving, and the both of you apart. 
It’s weird to be the one leaving this time, but it isn't as easy as Luke makes it seem each time he does it.
You avert your eyes once you see him put his hand in his pocket, him finding what you snuck in on the way to the deck. Luke pulls out a leather bracelet with a black camp bead, the one he missed in the year he’s been gone. He rolls the bead between his fingers, the thing you last touched before leaving him, an emblem of his archnemesis and the summer that changed everything—the consequences of his actions ripping you away from him. When he slides it on his wrist, it lightly clinks against the hilt of his sword, the lone clay bead a force of its own against Backbiter's reverberating power. He feels nostalgia for what could have been crawling through him—though Luke supposes he’s always been too vulnerable when it comes to you.
Is this what you’ve been feeling every time he walks away? 
It starts to rain after you leave. Luke watches his crew take cover from the downpour, running in all different directions to hide away from the storm that ravages the Princess Andromeda. 
But he stands still, looking up at the sky and hating it for how openly it’s able to cry. Luke is far away from home again—from you and it makes him wonder how much longer he’ll have to be away from you when being with you is what he truly wants.
The mission continues and the ship keeps pushing forward even as the rain washes over him, soaking through his armor and straight to the bone. Raindrops pelt through every crevice, though this onslaught is much kinder, more gentle, even when it’s angry. He closes his eyes and lets it touch his skin. 
For a moment, it feels like you. 
A hand penetrates the tide searching for yours, gripping onto your unconscious one. He’s spent hours ripping holes through time to try to find you, an advantage given to him in a dream by the Titan. The agreement, what keeps him from not running back to you is that you live—and as Luke pulls you out of the ocean waterlogged and turning blue, he wonders if it’s all a farce. 
Losing you isn’t worth the wrath of the gods if you’re lifeless in his arms like this. 
He shouts your name, pumping your chest with his fists and breathing life back into your lips until you cough out saltwater, head lolling against his knee. Luke’s fingers stroke your hair, touching you for the first time in a year. As life slowly brings the color back into your cheeks he silently thanks Hestia for keeping your flame alight. His soldiers call out to him from the deck, and he steels his resolve as he rows the lifeboat back to the ship. Still, Luke has to uphold his side of the agreement. 
He wonders if you’d stay. Even if he knows the answer, Luke wonders if you would ever change it for him.
And they tell me you are evil and I answer: Yes, I know. –Patricia Smith
 ½ luke taglist: @kissingyourgrl @dorcas4meadowes @lorarri @andrewgarfldsgf @noodlesketchbook @10ava01 @poppysrin @ashisabitgay @timhalamet @liv1104 @leeknows-wife @mxtokko @bugcuti3 @luvvfromme @midmourn @2hiigh2cry @yuminako @niktwazny303  @lukecastellandefender @intergalactic-padawan @iliketopgun @annybah @dangelnleif @thegrinningghost @alyssajunelle @obxstiles @m00ng4z3r @visndcaitswhore @b0ok-lover @elegant-face-tree @this-barbie-is-having-breakdowns @amortencjja @idonevenknow1359 @maliaaaa @targaryenluvs @sakyira @dhdjdjjdhsjdiri
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mostlysignssomeportents · 8 months ago
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Too big to care
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I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in BOSTON with Randall "XKCD" Munroe (Apr 11), then PROVIDENCE (Apr 12), and beyond!
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Remember the first time you used Google search? It was like magic. After years of progressively worsening search quality from Altavista and Yahoo, Google was literally stunning, a gateway to the very best things on the internet.
Today, Google has a 90% search market-share. They got it the hard way: they cheated. Google spends tens of billions of dollars on payola in order to ensure that they are the default search engine behind every search box you encounter on every device, every service and every website:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/03/not-feeling-lucky/#fundamental-laws-of-economics
Not coincidentally, Google's search is getting progressively, monotonically worse. It is a cesspool of botshit, spam, scams, and nonsense. Important resources that I never bothered to bookmark because I could find them with a quick Google search no longer show up in the first ten screens of results:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#not-up-to-the-task
Even after all that payola, Google is still absurdly profitable. They have so much money, they were able to do a $80 billion stock buyback. Just a few months later, Google fired 12,000 skilled technical workers. Essentially, Google is saying that they don't need to spend money on quality, because we're all locked into using Google search. It's cheaper to buy the default search box everywhere in the world than it is to make a product that is so good that even if we tried another search engine, we'd still prefer Google.
This is enshittification. Google is shifting value away from end users (searchers) and business customers (advertisers, publishers and merchants) to itself:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/05/the-map-is-not-the-territory/#apor-locksmith
And here's the thing: there are search engines out there that are so good that if you just try them, you'll get that same feeling you got the first time you tried Google.
When I was in Tucson last month on my book-tour for my new novel The Bezzle, I crashed with my pals Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden. I've know them since I was a teenager (Patrick is my editor).
We were sitting in his living room on our laptops – just like old times! – and Patrick asked me if I'd tried Kagi, a new search-engine.
Teresa chimed in, extolling the advanced search features, the "lenses" that surfaced specific kinds of resources on the web.
I hadn't even heard of Kagi, but the Nielsen Haydens are among the most effective researchers I know – both in their professional editorial lives and in their many obsessive hobbies. If it was good enough for them…
I tried it. It was magic.
No, seriously. All those things Google couldn't find anymore? Top of the search pile. Queries that generated pages of spam in Google results? Fucking pristine on Kagi – the right answers, over and over again.
That was before I started playing with Kagi's lenses and other bells and whistles, which elevated the search experience from "magic" to sorcerous.
The catch is that Kagi costs money – after 100 queries, they want you to cough up $10/month ($14 for a couple or $20 for a family with up to six accounts, and some kid-specific features):
https://kagi.com/settings?p=billing_plan&plan=family
I immediately bought a family plan. I've been using it for a month. I've basically stopped using Google search altogether.
Kagi just let me get a lot more done, and I assumed that they were some kind of wildly capitalized startup that was running their own crawl and and their own data-centers. But this morning, I read Jason Koebler's 404 Media report on his own experiences using it:
https://www.404media.co/friendship-ended-with-google-now-kagi-is-my-best-friend/
Koebler's piece contained a key detail that I'd somehow missed:
When you search on Kagi, the service makes a series of “anonymized API calls to traditional search indexes like Google, Yandex, Mojeek, and Brave,” as well as a handful of other specialized search engines, Wikimedia Commons, Flickr, etc. Kagi then combines this with its own web index and news index (for news searches) to build the results pages that you see. So, essentially, you are getting some mix of Google search results combined with results from other indexes.
In other words: Kagi is a heavily customized, anonymized front-end to Google.
The implications of this are stunning. It means that Google's enshittified search-results are a choice. Those ad-strewn, sub-Altavista, spam-drowned search pages are a feature, not a bug. Google prefers those results to Kagi, because Google makes more money out of shit than they would out of delivering a good product:
https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/2/24117976/best-printer-2024-home-use-office-use-labels-school-homework
No wonder Google spends a whole-ass Twitter every year to make sure you never try a rival search engine. Bottom line: they ran the numbers and figured out their most profitable course of action is to enshittify their flagship product and bribe their "competitors" like Apple and Samsung so that you never try another search engine and have another one of those magic moments that sent all those Jeeves-askin' Yahooers to Google a quarter-century ago.
One of my favorite TV comedy bits is Lily Tomlin as Ernestine the AT&T operator; Tomlin would do these pitches for the Bell System and end every ad with "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company":
https://snltranscripts.jt.org/76/76aphonecompany.phtml
Speaking of TV comedy: this week saw FTC chair Lina Khan appear on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. It was amazing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaDTiWaYfcM
The coverage of Khan's appearance has focused on Stewart's revelation that when he was doing a show on Apple TV, the company prohibited him from interviewing her (presumably because of her hostility to tech monopolies):
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/apple-got-caught-censoring-its-own
But for me, the big moment came when Khan described tech monopolists as "too big to care."
What a phrase!
Since the subprime crisis, we're all familiar with businesses being "too big to fail" and "too big to jail." But "too big to care?" Oof, that got me right in the feels.
Because that's what it feels like to use enshittified Google. That's what it feels like to discover that Kagi – the good search engine – is mostly Google with the weights adjusted to serve users, not shareholders.
Google used to care. They cared because they were worried about competitors and regulators. They cared because their workers made them care:
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/4/4/18295933/google-cancels-ai-ethics-board
Google doesn't care anymore. They don't have to. They're the search company.
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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/2024/04/04/teach-me-how-to-shruggie/#kagi
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octuscle · 2 months ago
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Cholo Life
“First the damned Democrats stole the elections from us and now they are stealing our identity!” Manolo began to roll his eyes. He was familiar with this. When KJ worked himself into a rage, he sounded like a personal disciple of Trump. ‘I mean that they eat the cats in Springfield and the dogs, it's not just an isolated incident, they do it everywhere!’ ‘Kyle…’ Manuel began. KJ gave Manolo a friendly punch on the shoulder. He knew that when Manuel called him “Kyle,” Manolo was angry. “Of course I don't mean you,” said KJ. “You're an American through and through, you're American as peanut butter!” Of course that wasn't true. Manolo was born in Lima, went to school in Lima, and only came to Minnesota with his parents at the age of eight. But his parents had placed great importance on him learning the language quickly, and today Manolo speaks better English than his best friend from school days, KJ.
Kj, on the other hand, was a prime example of a junior at an American college: muscular, bright eyes, fair complexion, of course he played American football, and of course he parroted what Trump said without thinking. Yes, he was damn good-looking, but yes, he was also a real airhead. And even though olu secretly had a crush on KJ, KJ was out of reach for Manolo. You couldn't be more straighter than KJ.
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KJ was studying business. With a bit of luck, he would at least get his bachelor's degree. Manolo had already graduated from high school two years before KJ and was about to get his bachelor's degree in biochemistry. He wanted to follow in his father's footsteps, who ran the research department of a seed company here. KJ, on the other hand, would join his father's trucking company and would alternate between driving trucks on the highways and struggling with the accounting in the office.
“Besides, you yourself admitted that you eat pets. You said that your grandmother serves guinea pigs.” ”Yes, but first of all, my grandmother doesn't steal the guinea pigs from some guys in Ohio, but has her cook buy and prepare them at the market, and secondly, guinea pigs are a delicacy where we come from. We find it rather absurd that you…” “All fake news!” KJ countered. ”Admit that the whole world would be in ruins without the USA. Our culture is simply superior!” There were situations in which Manolo was annoyed at being physically inferior to KJ. There were situations in which he just wanted to smash KJ's face in. It was really crazy that a guy who already classified cartoons as art wanted to lecture him on culture. His abuela had once given him a lucky charm that he always carried in his pocket. In situations like this, squeezing the stone firmly helped him. It drained the anger out of him. But this time was different. The stone became warm. The stone became hot! Manolo let go of it. He reached for the cold coke glass to cool his hand.
“Are you okay, hermano?” KJ asked. Manolo winced. That was the first time KJ had used a Spanish word correctly. ‘Would you order me another tequila? ¡Tengo que mear!’ Manolo looked after his friend. He had never drunk tequila before. KJ was also a feast for the eyes from behind. The torn jeans clung to his firm ass. His shoulders were broad. He was muscular. But not exaggerated. And his patriotic tattoos emphasized his masculinity. Manolo waved at the waitress and ordered two tequilas. He didn't usually drink. But maybe he could stand KJ better today if he was a little drunk.
The tequila arrived before KJ. And when KJ sat down, Manolo was playing with his cell phone. KJ took his tequila glass. “A nuestra salud y amistad, hermano” “A nuestra salud y amistad, KJ” Manolo replied distractedly, picked up the glass and was about to toast. He was frozen for a few seconds. What the hell had happened to Kyle? The smooth cheeks were covered by a hint of a beard. His tattoos had expanded. And now they had a lot more space too. Because KJ's muscles had almost exploded. His slender neck, with the Adam's apple whose movements always made Manolo so horny, had become a bull's neck tattooed all over. “Dude, you look like you've seen a ghost,” KJ said. His English had a slight Spanish accent. And there was a tear tattooed under his one eye. Manolo ordered two more tequilas… Their conversation turned into Spanglish gibberish. And at some point into Spanish. KJ got terribly worked up about the gringos. In doing so, he accidentally knocked his trucker cap off his head. He picked up a bandana and tied it around his head. KJ's gaze became somehow different. While they were talking, he played with his nipples more and more. He looked at Manolo more intensely. Somehow… lustfully? “Tengo que ir al baño otra vez. ¿Y no te gustaría venir conmigo?” KJ stood up. He was a muscleman. His tight-fitting tank top emphasized his muscles even more. With every twitch of the muscles, the tattoos moved, creating a real cartoon. His ass looked phenomenal in the pleated pants. If Manolo had to create a wank fantasy, this is what it would look like. And now the wank fantasy was telling him to follow him to the restrooms. Damn it! KJ looked like a real cholo. And he was a square college student in khakis and a button-down. Manolo hesitated for a moment. And then he followed KJ. KJ? Why “KJ”? I have no idea when the nickname developed. César Jesus should have been called CJ. But some stupid gringo hadn't understood that in elementary school. And so he had eventually become KJ. And the nickname stuck.
KJ was standing at the urinal. Manolo could see from behind that he was about to jerk off. Even though they had known each other since childhood, he had never seen KJ's cock. KJ's father had the typical conglomerate that enterprising wetbacks build. He had a few trucks that he used to transport goods or help with removals, he owned a few cafes, a laundry… And KJ was supposed to take over this small local empire at some point. His parents had always hoped that the friendship with the clever and ambitious Manolo would have a positive effect on KJ. But KJ had always been the type to hang out with the bad boys. And who could blame him? He looked just as brutal and manly as his father.
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Manolo stood next to César at the urinal. César pretended not to notice Manolo. His tattooed hand jerked his cock, which was also covered in tattoos. It was a monster that offered almost as much surface area for artistic decoration as Manolo's thin forearm. César pushed up his tank top with his other hand, revealing his granite abs and finally his nipples. He played with his right nipple with his left hand. And Manolo, whose cock was almost as hard as César's muscles, couldn't help but suck on the left nipple. “Siempre supe que detrás de la fachada de empollón se escondía una zorrita,” César moaned. He let go of his nipple and pushed Manolo gently but firmly onto his knees. And Manolo greedily licked the precum from César's gleaming glans. This beast was not the first cock he sucked. But it was the biggest. And its owner was the one he wanted to satisfy more than anyone before. They had been like dissimilar brothers. Now he wanted to be this giant's whore. And César obviously wanted him to be his whore. He enjoyed the blow job and moaned loudly enough to signal to anyone who wanted to use the toilet that it was occupied. Manolo sucked César's cock and jerked his own. Both came almost simultaneously. It was impossible for Manolo to swallow all of César's cum. And his own cum splashed onto his shirt. Exhausted, he fell back. César was breathing heavily, too. “Necesitas una camisa nueva, hermanito,” he said. Manolo certainly couldn't go out like that. César took off Manolo's shirt and wiped his cum-smeared face with it. Then he took off his sweaty tank top. It was a bit difficult because it couldn't be easily pulled over his muscular body. He handed it to Manolo. Of course it was too big. But it felt good. And César would make sure that he would fill it out better soon. Today two men became real cholos.
Pics by @ki-kink
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adrienneleclerc · 8 months ago
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Little Bit of Food
Pairing: Henry Cavill x Hispanic/Latina! Reader
Summary: Y/N sees a TikTok video of couple where the women serves her partner more food on his plate than on hers. For research purposes, she just wants to see how he would react.
Warning: no translated Spanish, spelling and grammar errors, SHORT
A/N: since I am Mexican and Peruvian, the foods mentioned are typical foods that I grew up eating, I LOVE these foods so much, if any other Latine readers have suggestions of what dishes should be mentioned, comment below and I’ll tag you when I use them in another one shot. Also, sorry if it’s short, I don’t think I can build off a lot of “story material” over a TikTok trend, you know?
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Y/N was watching TikTok and she saw a video that was interesting to her.
It was of a couple and a woman served her husband more food on his plate than on her own. The husband insisted that his wife should have more food and that he could eat something later.
Y/N knew that Henry was going to busy at the gym for a few hours so that gave her plenty of time to make one of Henry’s favorite meals that Y/N introduced him to, and that’s bistec a lo pobre. She bought sliced New York steaks from the Mexican grocery store (there’s always a butcher there), also some tortillas and 2 avocados to make guacamole or a sandwich later. When she went back to Henry’s house, she started cutting up tomatoes and onions so it would give the steak flavor. She put the onions and tomatoes aside in a bowl and got out the white rice in the pantry to wash the rice.
Half an hour later, Henry was came through the door sweaty and with a happy Kal.
“Ay hola, Kal, como te fue con tu papi, hm?” Y/N asked, kneeling to pet Kal.
“You call me papi?” Henry asked, drinking water from his sports bottle.
“When I’m talking about you to Kal, yes. Ain’t no way I’m calling you that though, it’s weird because I call my actual dad, papi. So don’t even think about it.” Y/N warned Henry as she washed her hands in the kitchen sink.
“Too late, I’m already thinking about, my lady.” Henry said, kissing her cheek as he hugged her from behind.
“Stop it. I’m making your favorite so please take a quick shower and then I’ll call you when it’s ready. Do you want one or two eggs?” Y/N asked.
“Two please, thanks love.” Henry said, kissing her lips before heading upstairs for his shower.
Y/N began sautéing the onions and tomatoes in the pan before adding in two pieces of steak for Henry, we’ll, one and a half, she cut a half piece for her plate. She got a plate out of the pantry to serve two ‘scoops’ of rice, adding the cooked steaks with tomatoes and onions on top of it, and preceded to fry two eggs on a different pan.
“Toro, food!” Y/N shouted and Kal calming running. “I said ‘toro’, not ‘oso’, you need to practice your Spanish, Kal.” Y/N said and placed Henry’s plate on his side of the table. Henry came running downstairs with his hair wet but he’s dressed in some shorts and a t-shirt.
“Thanks love, it looks amazing.” Henry said, kissing her.
“That’s good, now eat up, you’ve had a long workout.” Y/N said and that’s when she got a smaller plate, served herself a half scoop of rice, her half steak with 3 pieces of tomatoes and onions, and no eggs. When she sat down and said “let’s eat”, Henry looked at Y/N’s plate, then at his own.
“Darling, were you snacking while you were cooking again?” Henry asked, trying to find a reasonable explanation for the lack of food on his girlfriend’s plate.
“No, no, I didn’t snack at all. Eat before the eggs become cold.” Y/N pointed at him with her fork.
“Are you sick? You didn’t have to cook if you weren’t feeling well, love.” Henry said in a concerned voice.
“I’m fine Henry, I went to Fernando’s market today but the steak was too expensive so I only bought 2.” Y/N lied, she buys like half a pound of steak, there’s still 3 or 4 pieces in the fridge. Henry got up and grabbed his keys. “Where are you going?”
“To the market to buy more steak, what cut do you order a again? Med-ee-ya Libra de what?” Henry asked, opening the door,
“No no no, Henry, there’s no need for that, I can survive without bistec, please sit down and eat.” Y/N said, Henry closed the door, put down his keys, and sat back down.
“What about the eggs or the rice? I’m sure you could fill up on that, you told me you ate that when you were younger when there was nothing to eat.” Henry said.
“The last eggs were used on you, Toro. Now please eat before your food gets cold. You want something to drink? I got chicha (It’s a purple corn drink) if you don’t want soda.” Y/N said.
“Yeah, that’s fine, darling.” Henry said, when Y/N walked into the kitchen, Henry switched his plate for Y/N’s. When Y/N came back with chicha for Henry and soda for her, she saw what Henry did.
“Toro! You weren’t supposed to do that. You had a big workout, you’re bigger than me, you need all the protein you can get from this.” Y/N said, trying to switch the plates back but Henry refused.
“Nope, you cooked all this, you deserve to eat your delicious food. I could find something later.” Henry said,
“But you must be hungry, just eat it, I can make myself some potato quesadillas later.” Y/N said, attempting to get the plate back from Henry but he swatted her hand. “Toro!”
“I’m sorry love, but it’s for your good.” Henry said.
“I Don’t want you to be starving,” Y/N said,
“I won’t starve, my love. Watching you enjoy your food is filling enough for me.” Henry said and Y/N’s heart melted. She got out of her seat to sit on Henry’s lag, placing her hands on his neck to hug him.
“Amor, it’s a prank. There’s more steak in the fridge that I can fry up, there’s a lot of rice on the stove and plenty of eggs. Now please eat while I go serve myself more food.” Y/N said getting off him and grabbing her plate to do exactly that.
“You scared me, love. I was about to head over to the market…where is it by the way?” Henry asked,
“Haha, i can’t even tell you, I just know how to get there.” Y/N said, placing her steak in the pan and she watched Henry eat his meal.
“Delicious! This might even be better than your bistec empanado, did I pronounce that right?” Henry asked,
“Yes you did, Toro, but bistec empanado with sopita aguada is comfort food, along with quesadilla de papas, which I will be making tomorrow, I’ve been craving it,” Y/N said.
“That sounds so good, I have to make sure I work out even more. When I made you my girlfriend, I had no idea you would try to fatten me up.” Henry said and Y/N gasped, flipping the steak.
“I would never, how dare you accuse me. I’m gonna make flan for my friend’s birthday on Saturday so I’m gonna make another one just for us.” Y/N said and that made Henry laugh.
“I love your flan, darling. Your cooking skills put mine to shame.” Henry said. Y/N placed her steak on her place, serving more rice, and began frying an egg.
“I was born with that sazón, Toro.” Y/N said teasingly. She finished frying the egg, served it on her plate, and went to sit down. “Better?” Y/n asked, showing Henry her plate.
“Much better, my lady.” Henry said, kissing her. Kal barked. “Yes bear, you can have some steak too.” Henry said,
The End
Taglist: @warriormirkwood
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