#no offense to the professionals (lie) but i know more than they do | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

breakyourrxles · 1 year ago

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❥business attire (m)

↳ You have no qualms with doing what it takes to get ahead professionally: a white lie here, a bit of cheating there—sleeping with your boss? Simple.

Until a business trip with a rival colleague puts quite a wrench into all of that.

bang chan x fem!reader — colleagues/rivals to lovers, romcom, porn with plot, explicit sexual content. [12k wc] cws: alcohol drinking, themes of sexism in the work place!!, penetrative sex, body cum shot, oral sex (m+f), dirty talking (very mild condescension/humiliation), teasing, chan has a big dick of course because i wrote this.

Everything has led up to this moment.

Years of studying, internships, exams; grueling schedules and lost hours of sleep, not even accounting for the people stepped over and lost along the way. You had made the decision long ago that you were willing to do whatever it would take to make it to the top, to achieve the kind of success that you knew was waiting for you somewhere out and into the future.

You're no stranger to the CEO's office, all shining and glittering gold with accents and glossed, white marble, though you do have to admit, you're not used to being here with a third, as far as company is concerned.

No, typically you find yourself here in the later hours of the evening, partaking in a particular set of extra curricular activities that you know will bargain your way up the professional ladder. Ethical? Questionable. Do you care? Not even a little bit.

Granted, you can't imagine the other guy—Chris—to feel similarly about your leg-up on him, as it were.

Your colleague in question stands beside you with hands behind his back like he's a child waiting to hear his grades called out by the teacher. It's a little charming, you've got to admit, though nothing if not sad given the fact that he's awaiting something that was never really going to be offered to him to begin with.

And you don't know anything about this guy because you don't tend to bother learning much of anything about the people surrounding you in your workplace, outside of the smallest inkling of weaknesses that can be used to your advantage. Susan in accounting, for example, one to have something of an issue with getting to work on time in the mornings; no problem, the time clocks can be easily forged to make up for the discrepancy.

Except, of course, for the fact that it's against company policy to do so, and an offense that can find one terminated in an instant—it certainly was a shame the evening that the CEO had come to find out about that, after a bottle of wine and a particularly enthusiastic blowjob from you.

But Chris keeps to himself, and if not for this meeting here, you'd not even know his name. He works on business contact profiles not unlike yourself, which makes him someone that sits directly in your crosshair. You glance over his features for a brief second—his high nose bridge and his full lips, and acknowledge that he's sort of handsome for someone that you have to destroy the will of today. Well, it's not you destroying it, though you've more than put in the work to ensure it to happen.

The CEO of the company brings his attention up from the paper work laid out in front of him and finally grants it to the both of you. Your eyes meet with his in an instant and you try to bite back the knowing grin of victory that threatens to pull at the corners of your lips. Be mature about this, you think to yourself. Humility not a strong suit of yours, sure, but no need to rub it all into the wound.

"There's a massive account that needs an exquisite set of eyes and ears on it this coming weekend, this kind of business trip is the type that makes or breaks a company, a supervisor of the company." The man pauses, eyes falling back down to the papers as he shuffles them about lightly across the desk. "So, you understand that the utmost sensitivity and attention to detail is necessary when deciding who it is to send out on these sorts of things, but in the event of a net gain, then it's easy to understand that the trickle down effect is one that can be felt by everyone involved."

You smile, this time unable to hold it back.

He continues. "The success of this means the immediate success of the supervisor involved."

Then, he looks up to the both of you.

"Which is why I have decided to send the both of you out, and based on the return, I will make a decision in relation to who will be the benefactor."

Your eyes widen, smile falling, and in the moment you find yourself incapable of holding your feelings of unjust back.

"What? What do you mean you're sending both of us? What benefit could me or the company see in having this guy tag along?"

"Hey?" Chris cuts in, a little wounded. You ignore him for the most part.

"Chris does good work, has proven himself on numerous occasions. I think the two of you will work just fine together, and if that's not the case, then consider it a friendly workplace competition to get the fires really burning for results."

Jaw clenched and teeth gritted tightly, you take a step towards the man happily seated in his position of taking, and dare to point a finger out towards him.

"I've earned this."

But to that, a knowing, shit-eating grin pulls at a single corner of his mouth. An understanding of this, of the anger you're feeling and where it's coming from and how absolutely fruitless it will be.

"Have you?" he questions lightly, a disgusting chime in his tone that makes your stomach turn. His eyes drop back down to the desk, not bothering to even look at you for the following question. "And how is it that you've done that, exactly?"

Freezing in place, even just the question mortifies you. Chris' being there feels far too illuminating now in comparison to the emptiness that he carried before, and you know that this man knows that you are incapable of answering that as diligently as you may like to.

But still, the both of you know.

You close your eyes slowly, exhale steadily and try to center yourself into something more professional once more. "I've worked incredibly hard for this kind of opportunity, sir."

"And so has Chan! Sorry, I mean Chris. I'm afraid we spend so much time together leisurely that I often forget to address you properly in a professional setting nowadays!"

What's worse than the initial blow of this knowledge dawning upon you is the way that the man beside you laughs, like it's the funniest thing in the world that you're being made a fool of in front of these men. Granted, he doesn't know—does he know?—regardless, the humiliation toiling in your gut twists unrelentingly whether your colleague is privy or not.

You don't get a chance to respond before the man who has wronged you continues on with the thought, however.

"You are still getting the opportunity, it's just that you're sharing it with someone else. If your work continues to shine above and beyond your peers, then you have nothing to worry about, now do you?"

It takes everything you have inside of you not to snarl out a reply. "Yes, sir. I'll see to it getting done."

"Excellent news! You and Chan are set to leave tomorrow, a red-eye to Los Angeles for three days. I trust that the two of you can have it settled in that time?"

"Yes, sir," the both of you reply in unison, and even just that twists like a dagger in your back.

The airport terminal is busy, too much, for your liking.

There are perks to being in such places, though, and you choose to revel in those small things. No one is interested in you or what you're doing. No one around you cares about your immaculately pressed garment or the fact that your luggage is slightly scuffed. They pay you no mind as you look up from your phone and towards the screen sitting atop the gate entrance as you await your boarding signal.

"Hey."

You sigh aloud at the simple word, easily recognizing the voice that carries it through the crowds. Glancing to your other side, your colleague stands with phone and luggage in hand; a suit jacket just ill-fitting enough that it perturbs you that much more.

So, you don't reply. Chris sits next to you and settles his belongings in such a haphazard way that it grates on your nerves—much like everything that he seems to do, does—and you silently await for him to make his presence unknown to you for what you hope to be the rest of the near week that the two of you are forced to spend together.

Not so lucky, however.

"I think it's going to be good that we're working on this together," he says cheerfully. Annoyingly. "By the way, you can call me Chan. Chris is so formal and professional."

"Well, Chris, we are workplace colleagues, so it only makes sense that we remain professional," you respond.

He leans in towards you, "Our work place isn't that professional, I'm sure you've noticed."

You don't like the sound of that, though it could very well be more of your hurt feelings and humiliation taking the driver's seat. Thus, you temper the anger that threatens to burst out at what you think could be certain implications and simply meet his eyes with a glare.

"So I have."

Chris, Chan, whatever—leans back in his seat, crosses his arms over his chest before continuing on with the thought that you don't care to hear more of but know you're going to be prisoned with, regardless.

"I think we can learn a lot from one another during this."

"And what is it that I can learn from you that I've not yet gathered from years of study, internships, and work in the field? Do you think it's an accident that I've landed myself so far up the corporate ladder?"

His head cocks to the side, and for a moment, you think it to be daringly condescending.

"No, but it's no accident that I've landed myself here, either."

You roll your eyes and focus down on the phone in hand.

"The truth of the matter is that in a lot of cases, the best way to get ahead is to take everyone else down around you," he carries on, voice dropping down to something more akin to a whisper. "Playing nice only gets you so far."

The snort of a laugh that escapes you is so quick you don't have a chance in fighting it back.

"If you think you're going to be conniving enough to wrestle this out of my hands, then I'm afraid you've been paired up against the wrong adversary," you reply. "Better, stronger, smarter men than you have tried, and failed."

Chan's eyebrows perk at that, like he's amused by the comeback. There's a part of you that appreciates the fact that he doesn't immediately wither in the shadow of your toughness, though you're far from desiring a fight for this trip as it carries on, either. Withering, in some cases, might be best.

"You don't know anything about me, yet you're so willing to assume I'm unworthy of the challenge of taking you on. Unfortunately for you, I love a good, friendly competition."

To that, you huff out yet another mildly amused laugh.

"It will be anything but friendly."

The flight to Los Angeles gives you plenty of time to conjure up a game plan, not that you think you're going to need anything all that involved to conquer your adversary.

Chan enjoys the in-flight entertainment alongside of you as you do—laughs along to the film that he's watching and orders himself a drink to truly settle in. You do neither. Instead, you crack open your laptop and mull over the numerous documents and spreadsheets of information that you'll want to know like the back of your hand by the time that you land.

As well as how best to handle him.

Thankfully, your colleague seems whimsically dim despite your earlier conversation in the airport. He talks a big game as far as a competition and winning is to be concerned, but you rack your brain trying to recall a time in which his name has ever come up at work previously; no accolades, no parties thrown, no cheers for a job well done. In fact, the majority of those moments have been granted to you, and incredibly hard-earned, at that.

But, you have to give it to him: he doesn't appear frightened by you. Chalk that up to naivete, sexism, or stupidity—you couldn't care less which pin it is that he lands on, because either way, the outcome will be the same.

So sure of himself, and yet nothing to show for it besides a bizarrely personal relationship with the CEO. Well, you have that, too.

With the way that things have played out, you want to call things off, however. This man back at the office has humiliated you and taken from you but not held up his end of the bargain. Is it worth it to continue carrying on? Will it harm your career if you don't? Probably best to maintain the status quo as far as sexual endeavors go. Besides, the sex isn't half bad, either.

When you and Chan land in Los Angeles it's far too early for your liking and with how little sleep you are now on, but the thrum of the bustling, awaiting city excites you. This opportunity is going to be everything—is going to grant you everything—and in all likelihood, you wouldn't be able to sleep if you were to try.

Chan attempts to take your bags from you once you're both walking the busy halls of LAX and you fight him off with every try. He smiles and laughs and rolls his eyes at your unwillingness to cooperate, but this is no comical matter to you. Little does he know how close to danger he sits at every passing moment.

One taxi down and making your way to the hotel, Chan rushes his way out of the car and around to the back so that you have no hope in fighting him this time. He is so insufferable, you think to yourself, though you can't deny yourself the joy of having him hauling your luggage about. Good, perhaps you will be useful to me, after all.

The hotel is a lavish one; all white marble, silver accenting and lush green foliage at every turn. You're thankful for that much, because in so many ways there is nowhere else that you wish to be less than here.

You spot a bar down the corridor just a bit and make a mental note of it, as you may be spending ample time there when not constructing the professional downfall of your idiot colleague. In that moment, Chan forces himself into your line of vision with a wide grin and nods his head over towards the elevator.

"Floor seven," he says, handing you one of the room keys.

You look at it, sitting thoughtfully placed inside of its red paper envelope with a number written on in gold ink. Then, you glance at his, still remaining in his hand.

The same number.

"We don't have separate rooms?" you question, though you're capable enough to already know the answer to such an asinine question. Thus, you move onto the next most obvious one. "Why don't we have separate rooms?"

"There's two beds, it's not a big deal."

"It is a big deal," you all but shout, forcing the tail end of your anger back as to maintain a semblance of professionality. "We need to go back down and get this sorted out. I'll handle it."

Chan laughs under his breath, watching the number on the LED change as the elevator rises.

"You won't be sorting anything out. There's about five major conferences in the area this weekend and this place is heavily booked, as is everywhere else decent in the region. You're just going to have to put your big girl pants on and deal with it."

You don't know Los Angeles well enough to hide a body. Unfortunate.

Though your fingers tingle and your head throbs, you don't bother fighting the fact any further. You are a logical woman, and you're perfectly capable of understanding the concept of there being no further vacancy in a hotel. Thus, you sigh, clench your jaw, and drop it altogether.

When the elevator stops with a ding, you couldn't feel more relieved. You rush out from between the metal doors so quickly that you nearly shoulder it as it continues its momentum. Down the hall and pausing in front of your shared, temporary residence, you press the key to the reader and push inside without even so much as a thought about where Chan is or how he is fairing with the baggage load that he has taken upon himself to deal with.

The door nearly shuts him out, a leg craned in through the crack as he fights it without a word to you for help.

It is spacious. Bright and clean and smells of new linens like no one prior to the two of you has ever actually stayed in here before. The bathroom is large and pristine in the way that it glitters. A wide enough working space with two chairs and not nearly enough coffee offered straight away—though that's a simple enough fix as far as you are concerned.

"Pretty nice!"

Ah. You had nearly forgotten about him, but Chan always has a way of making his presence known. He hands you your bag and you pull it over towards the side of the bed that faces the large window, blinds drawn. Reaching towards them, Chan offers up his expertise once again.

"They said there's a balcony."

"Surely I could have gathered as much for myself."

He rolls his eyes and sits on the edge of his bed, intent on unpacking. You continue on towards the balcony, pulling the fabric away and gazing out through the massive, glass panes.

It's Los Angeles. Not a whole lot to offer as far as views go in the major city areas, but suppose it will have to do.

"We should get dinner tonight. Look over our plan of action for the next couple of days with these clients and get to know one another a little bit better." Chan isn't looking at you while he says it, but you can hear the hopefulness in the sound of his voice without necessarily seeing it on his face. "Besides, it's on company dime, might as well go all-out!"

While the idea of spending somewhat intimate, one-on-one time with this man is not something that excites you, suppose what does excite you is the possibility of putting your devilish little plan of hostile take-over into action. Unfortunately, what this also means for your future, is something that will be much, much more difficult than simply defeating him.

Being nice.

"Yeah, that sounds good, actually." You hope the sudden change in your demeanor doesn't raise any red flags in his mind, but you don't think him to be smart enough to consider the fact. "There was a nice looking place downstairs in the lobby, maybe we should go there."

"Perfect!"

He's so happy that it almost makes you feel guilty about the whole thing.

Chan continues on. "It's early and I've got a few things I want to get ahead on. I'll get out of here so that you can sleep, just in case that's what you'd like to do, but feel free to send me a message if you need me for anything. I'll just be downstairs."

He's so kind. How unfortunate.

"I will, thank you."

Chan grabs his work bag and scurries out of the shared room. How disastrous this whole thing is for him, a monumental case of wrong place, wrong time.

Dinner is good, but your trickery is far more delicious.

There's a stack of envelopes with paperwork inside of them sitting on the edge of the relatively small table, barely enough room for it now that entrees and glasses of wine have been poured, but now that the business portion of the evening has come to a close, the two of you are able to enjoy the perks that going on these sorts of trips often has to offer.

Chan sits ahead of you with a glass full of white wine and a nicer tie than the one he arrived with. He looks handsome–that, you can't deny—though it's something that will have to sit ignored in the back of your mind with far more important matters to consider.

"Are you seeing anyone?"

You're lost in your thoughts when he asks the question suddenly, and it jars you back into the present moment with what you imagine to be an incredibly evident startle.

"I'm not sure that's any of your business," you reply quickly, but on second thought, you remember that your plan is to reel him in. Thus, you amend the response. "No, I'm not. I'm much too wrapped up with my career for that."

Chan pouts, like he's sad about it for you. "Still, it gets lonely, yeah?"

He looks and sounds sincere in a way that you're not expecting, and suppose a little honesty won't completely hinder your end goal.

"It does, sometimes, but that's what I've chosen. Once I'm comfortable with where I am professionally, then I'll carve out time for dating." You look up at him, pointing your fork straight at him, "this isn't some thinly veiled commentary about how I'm getting too old to find someone, is it?"

And though you're somewhat joking in saying it, horror strikes through each and every one of Chan's facial features upon hearing the words.

"What? Oh, no! God, no! I was just thinking that working long hours like we do can be isolating, so it might be nice to have someone to go home to at the end of it all, you know?"

You do know.

"It's not that I don't get out and meet people, do things," you say, taking a sip from your glass to wash away the humiliation of honesty that lingers in your throat. "They're just not…long term acquaintances, if you will."

Chan grins knowingly, and you don't particularly like that look on him. As if you've not been the one giving up the information freely to get him to this point.

"Ah, I see," he says in an exhale and an accompanying nod, "just enough to keep the bed warm next to you sometimes, huh? I'm no stranger to that arrangement, myself."

This is far more information than you find you ever need to know about any of your colleagues, though the same could be said about anything at all regarding their personal lives. Spouses, kids, pets, what kind of car they drive; it's all more information than you care to know about any of them, though you can't help but feel the sizzle of intrigue inside of your chest at his willingness to offer up such particularly intimate knowledge in regards to his late night activities.

Perhaps playing with this guy will be more fun than originally considered.

And thus, you take something of a gamble in relation.

"To be honest with you, I've been seeing someone casually for a while, though I'm not sure if that arrangement is working out for me any longer."

Both of you take another sip from your glasses, but Chan's gaze lingers on you for an especially lengthy amount of time. He sets his glass down calmly on the table, sighs aloud, and then settles himself casually against the back of the chair.

"I know you've been sleeping with the CEO."

You are thankful to no longer be in the middle of your drink, because you'd certainly be choking on the swallow right about now.

There's an attempt to maintain your composure—something that you're quite adept at—though in situations like this you have far less experience in doing so. You're not quite sure whether or not the shock is obvious across your face, but it certainly feels like it is.

No point in lying, the both of you are already here, after all.

"Is that so." Not a question, a statement.

Chan shrugs, all nonchalant in a way that you don't really appreciate, either.

"Yeah, he let it slip one of the nights we were out late playing darts with the guys from the office. Sounded a bit like he was boasting, like I was supposed to be impressed with him for it, or something."

"I take it you're not the only one who knows then?"

"Nah, I don't think he told everyone. It was a moment where we were alone, I don't really know why he told me. I was just like, that's great, man, and then we started talking about the game."

Slumping into your chair, it's the first time you've felt well and truly defeated, and especially when it comes to any and all matters such as these. While you're not ashamed of the lengths gone through in order to attain what it is that you intend to attain, it is far from ideal for the entire office to be aware of it.

"Amazing, you didn't even have to sleep with him to get put on this assignment," you sigh, arms crossing over your chest. "Suppose I look foolish now."

"I don't really care about that, about you doing whatever you think you need to do to get ahead in life. If you want to sleep with our boss to do that then that's your prerogative," Chan says, tone simplistic and plain. "Where I do care is that you seem to be under the impression that you're the only person in the office who is worthy of anything, and that no one else is working hard in order to achieve anything. I am, we are, just most of us aren't going to the same lengths that you are."

A beat of silence passes between you, and in perfect timing, the waiter comes with the check and disappears just as swiftly. Once he disappears from the table side, Chan leans forward, dropping his volume even more in a way that expresses so wholly that the next words spoken are truly only meant for you.

"I've seen your work, I know you have what it takes to be a top executive in this company, and that's without all of the extra shit like fucking some rich scumbag who's just going to turn around and throw the fact back in your face." He leans back again, signs the receipt, and then begins reaching for the stack of papers. "But you're not the only one who works hard and puts in crazy hours to earn a place here. Let's work this case like the team we're meant to be, get it done like I know that we can, and shove it in that asshole's face once we get back."

It's a plan that seems so pleasant on the surface: working together with a colleague who you now have nothing to hide from, who knows all of your dirty little professional secrets and still appears to respect you in spite of it.

You watch Chan pack all of the belongings into a briefcase and can't help but wonder, why don't you care? Why would someone in direct competition with you not seem to be bothered by the fact that you're extending yourself well beyond a professional setting in order to no longer have to compete with him on equal footing?

Rather, you can't help but feel as though the tone of the conversation has taken a turn, almost as though Chan respects you and your work ethic more after the discussion of it all. With everything laid out onto the table, this man knows and understands you in a way that no one else really does, and beyond all of it—he still sees you. He sees how important all of this is, how you're capable of doing just about anything to achieve your purpose no matter how looked down upon it often is, and no matter how humiliating it has thus turned out to be.

Chan just sees you.

"We have an early morning tomorrow, I know these guys are going to want us there at least twenty minutes before the time, so we should plan to have our coffee and look over the documents well before we're meant to arrive."

You glance up at him as he stands, baggage in hand and a smile that says all of the very same things you've just come to realize about him. It's back to normal, like nothing has happened, no conversation about any ethically questionable goings on has even taken place.

Back to regularly scheduled programming.

And you kind of like that.

Twenty minutes early becomes thirty minutes, due to your insistence. With a coffee in hand and perfectly manicured nails, you step out from one of the back doors of the taxi and leave the dealing with briefcases and paperwork to the guy who insists on going above and beyond to make himself useful to you. Good.

It's an early morning, but you find some comfort in that. Los Angeles never really turns off, but at least for now the sidewalks and streets are just a bit quieter than they will be at any other hour of the day. The weather is beautiful—perfectly breezy in just the right amount, with the sun coyly peeking through the clouds edges up above—and you can't help but think to yourself, no way that this day could possibly go wrong for me.

The office building that the two of you stand in front of is nothing special, as far as appearances go. Most in the surrounding area look much the same; worn down from the elements and barely seeing any architectural upkeep, but the spinning, glass front doors standing just a few paces ahead tell a different story of the interior. In ways, it brings a sort of feeling of the illuminated beauty of your professional future, standing between you, and there.

You're in your best set of dress. Black and white with a long skirt fitted just right. Chan is much of the same beside you in his immaculately tailored jacket, accentuating the wide slope of his shoulders and sleeves cutting off perfectly at his wrists.

He turns to look at you, and then smiles with a cute cock of his head.

"Ready to smash it?"

And not that you needed the added boost, but hearing the words vocalized from him adds just that much more fuel to your fire.

You nod. "Absolutely."

Hands are shaken and pleasantries exchanged once you and Chan are invited upstairs and into a large, white conference room that feels far too sterline and uninhabited for your liking. The place feels open, yet uninviting in a way that grates on your nerves and incites the kind of anxiety that you've not felt in these situations for many, many years.

One positive, is that the three men that you're meant to be working with today seem relatively uninterested in you, particularly. From one head of the table, you set your coffee down and begin unpacking a briefcase full of paperwork, envelopes, and a laptop crammed full of numbers and offerings and statistics meant to make this a home run. You know that it will be, you believe wholly that it will, but as you glance up and across what feels to be an impossibly long table towards the grouping of men chuckling and laughing amongst themselves, you can't help but feel something else that you've not felt in such a long time.

The all-encompassing suffocation of male cliquiness.

The Boys Club. They exist in so many spaces, and far from unheard of in your particular line of work. You watch on—particularly at Chan—as he smiles and laughs along with men that take absolutely no interest in you, your work, or what you bring to the table. They all playfully slap each other's arms and nod along to their stupid jokes like they've been best friends since the playground, and you are left out of it entirely.

Once you're settled, you stare at them and their childishness for what feels like an eternity, until finally you decide upon being the bad guy and taking matters into your own hands.

You clear your throat, "mind if we get started?"

The laughter stops dead in its tracks, all joy seemingly sucked out of the room at a lightning quick pace, and the men slowly turn to grant you their obvious looks of abject disapproval.

Though, you can't help but wonder which part they are disapproving of, exactly; be it the fact that it is time to begin the meeting, or the fact that a woman has the audacity to tell them as much.

Still, they follow suit without a disgruntled word. Chan makes his way around the table to meet you where you stand, but as the two of you meet eyes, he nods at you. The quiet insistence for you to take the lead. Not that you had any plans otherwise.

So, you do. With the laptop hooked up and the projection upon the wall, you begin going over statistics for the men to look over, take in, eventually discuss amongst themselves. It's easy work for you, knowing all of this information and all of the inner workings of your profession like the back of your hand.

One man raises a hand slightly into the air, a pen perched between his fingers as he nods towards the projector.

"What was the annual turnover for 2019 and how did that impact the immediate years going forward?"

He is looking at Chan when he asks the question, though your colleague has not said a word the entire time. You want to be better than the urge to present yourself in a way unbecoming of women in your position, because you know that anything you do can be interpreted as such, but the anger and desire for hostility gets the better of you when you reply back to him.

"2.3%, and the impact was minimal, easily dealt with internally with very little felt as a result of it throughout other sectors of the company."

The man asking raises his eyebrows, as if surprised by the fact that you have spoken. You've swallowed down your pride that would come out as far more aggressive than simply answering the question, so if he has an issue with you doing so now, you know precisely what to chalk it up as.

He turns to look at his colleagues first, then his attention falls back to you with a foul curl to the corner of his lips.

"I asked him," he says, pointing his pen at Chan. "Not you."

To this, Chan reels physically. You're not looking at him, not paying him any mind in particular, but you can see as much out of the corner of your eye from where he stands beside you. Now, your eyebrows perk up at the insidiousness of what's so outwardly and openly taking place here, but not so willing to take it on as a defeat just yet.

"With all due respect," you reply, calm and unshaken as you can be. Practiced, throughout the years. "I've been working at this company for six years, been through the lowest of the lows and had a personal hand in ensuring that it reached its highest of highs. While my colleague is knowledgeable and well-respected, this meeting is being led by me, so I would appreciate it if any questions be directed as such."

This feels good. Far from the first time you've had to stick up for yourself in such a way, you exhale the nerves through a semi-shaken breath and settle yourself where you stand. You're still not looking at him, but you do notice the fought back creeping of a smile across his lips.

The joys of victory end quickly, however.

Another man speaks up, this one seated across the way from the first indignant fellow.

"With all due respect," he begins, mocking you. "I believe I speak for all of the men in the room when I say that the only questions we're particularly interested in asking you relate to the snugness of your skirt around your hips and ass, and if there are ever questions relating back to the professional aspect of this engagement, we will be addressing your colleague."

The mixture of emotions that course through you is electric, impossible to parse through and pick just one out to focus on. Anxiety, anger, humiliation, regret, terror, sadness; they all rage through your nerves. Your skin feels hot, a sort of dizziness coming in on you quickly that you don't appreciate, because now is not the time to be experiencing weakness. Your lips part to speak, still unsure of what to even say. Flabbergasted, you attempt to find the words—some words—to fire back at these horrible men, but your mind feels simultaneously full and empty. How can that be.

A woman who prides herself on being the best and brightest in the room, dwindled down to nothing at the hands of useless, pathetic men who bring nothing to the table besides those already aforementioned.

"Alright, let's not get out of hand," Chan says, cutting in through the awkward silence. This appears to appease the men, which you dislike even more though you understand his reasoning for doing it. "My colleague is very well-respected in her profession and incredibly knowledgeable. Perhaps it would be best if we make quick work of wrapping this up and heading off on our separate ways."

For the rest of the meeting, Chan takes the lead. The men down the way open up splendidly, laugh and have a wonderful time with another man in charge, saying all of the same things you had said, reading off of all of the sheets of information that you compiled, that you slaved away at for weeks, for months at a time. Countless late nights with nothing more than the television for company in the background and a frozen pizza in the oven in order to make sure that you will never, ever be the recipient of the kinds of unreasonable lashings that you have taken on today.

All for nothing.

You don't dare speak another word, and sit in the shadow cast by your colleague. When the meeting concludes, the business men are happy; smiling and laughing along with any and everything Chan says. They love him. They love him not because he is knowledgeable, or good at his job in a way that is particularly extraordinary, but simply because he is not a woman. Simply because he is not you.

This sort of dichotomy has always existed, and in every facet of life, too. When buried into your work and the insular walls of your typical professional environment, suppose that it's easy to forget what it's like out here, in the real world. Where men do not respect you whether you're better than them or not, all in all, the result is the same, anyway.

Suppose the CEO has prepared you for this moment, a smaller humiliation only to set you up for one much larger and harder to swallow down the pain of.

Chan handles these men—the situation as a whole—as well as he can, you suppose. There is a kind of pain that settles in your chest at his unwillingness to turn it into a fight, though logically, you understand how pointless this might be for everyone involved. How short-lived the joy of bombing this meeting might be, only so that the suffering of your ego-death be even shorter-lived.

Just get in, and then get out, as relatively unscathed as you can manage. Chan has picked up the pieces left scattered around to the best of his ability and really, with flying colors.

It does not change, however, the deeply nestled pain of being on the receiving end of such corrupt wrongdoings.

The taxi ride back to the hotel is silent, and you're thankful for the fact that Chan does not make so much as an attempt to say a word.

On the small table just beside you, there sits a tall, green bottle of wine with no glass to accompany it. You've decided against it, and that drinking straight from the source will suit you just fine as a consolation prize on the balcony tonight.

One of the charms of Los Angeles, you find, is the weather in the evenings. A cool breeze that gently carries over your features and through your hair as you stand against the railing and gaze out at the still-busy streets down below. There's a part of you that wishes to have the will to go out and enjoy the city on the last night here, and with your work responsibilities settled, but the mood of previous encounters still sits heavy on your chest, dampening any hope of enjoying yourself before your flight tomorrow morning.

Though many, long hours have passed since the morning, conversation between you and Chan have been few and far between. You understand it well enough as him, knowing the time and place to engage with a person after being so horrifically wronged, so when the glass door slowly slides open and he brings himself outside to join you, your heavy heart welcomes the intrusion, rather than resents it.

"Hey," he says, barely above a whisper. "Mind if I come out?"

Your smile is thin and straight, hardly able to be called such. "Sure, take a seat."

There's only one wobbly wooden chair next to the table. A ridiculous design from all angles of consideration, but Chan doesn't bother arguing with you and slowly slinks himself down into what it has to offer him.

His hair is damp and freshly toweled off after a shower—loose curls sticking up every which way as if looking for a means to escape from his head. You smile at the sight, appreciate how approachable and kind he appears when he isn't done up in a professional setting like you're used to seeing. There's a realization that has dawned on you at some point during the day, though you have difficulty in pinpointing the precise time, where you come to accept your softening heart towards your colleague.

Perhaps on account of your forced togetherness, perhaps aided by his willingness to diffuse a situation in what might have been the best way that he knew how in the moment. No, he didn't enact violence upon those men in that office space, and yes, it would have been nice to see, but solve something, it wouldn't have, and suppose all you had really hoped to do was escape further escalation as quietly as the situation would allow for, anyway.

"I'm sorry about what happened earlier." Chan is the first to speak up since seated, the first to bring up the whole thing since its having taken place. "It's so fucked. Simple, pathetic men with a chip on their shoulder who can't handle acknowledging that a woman is capable of doing their job, and more."

"Yeah," you sigh, turning towards him in an effort to grab the wine bottle once more. "Guess it's not anything I'm not used to, though it's been a long time since it's so blatantly been shoved in front of my face."

You take a large sip, and then laugh to yourself before continuing on with a similar thought.

"Actually, I guess that's not true, considering our boss pretty much did the same thing right before sending us out on this mission."

Turned to face him now, you watch Chan's features scrunch like he's fighting back the urge to speak his mind plainly, though evidently, it is a fight meant to be lost.

"Look, it's really none of my business what you do," he says, a seemingly rattled hand rushing to run fingers through his hair, "but do you really think it serves you to keep seeing that guy? God, he's such a fucking asshole, airing out your personal business to other colleagues and then waving it around in the office right before sending us on this trip—I wouldn't be surprised if those guys were friends of his, too. Birds of a feather, and all that, you know?"

Another sip, though now you're looking down at Chan with a kind of surprised gratitude.

"No, I don't think it does, though it'll be mighty interesting finding out how navigating those professional waters will work out for me. Suppose that's the position I've put myself in, though."

It's then that Chan stands, all white bathrobe and silly hair that warms your heart as he closes much of the small amount of distance that previously would sit before the two of you. With this new, closer proximity, it's easier to take in the charming slope of his nose and the plump, pretty fullness of his lips.

"The only people in this equation who are wrong for what they've done is him, and those pieces of shit from this morning." He pauses—the both of you do—and for a moment you think each of your breaths to be held in suspension as to what it is that's going to happen next. Chan's eyes remain fixed on yours for so long, and as you feel your temperature rise across your skin and the beat of your heart pick up in some unfamiliar sort of anticipation, you're able to see his gaze flicker down to your lips for just a second before once again settling on maintaining eye contact. "Yeah, you've been kind of an asshole to me, to other people in the office, but that doesn't mean you're deserving of this. No woman is deserving of being subjected to this, regardless of who it is that you decide to sleep with, and for what reason."

If not for his soft demeanor standing right before you, you might believe him to be angry with how he sounds. He must be, though he carries himself well enough as to not let it come out in ugly and unpleasant ways; and as a result, the quick and hard beating of your heart within your chest only picks up that much more. Since when does this guy have such an absurd effect on you?

"I've seen the work you put in, so I'm in a pretty good position to make the call," Chan says, inching himself just ever so slightly closer to you. His voice drops lower now, and accompanying it, the less subtle eyeing of your mouth in relation to his. "You're better than this, you're better than probably all of these blokes here."

"Is that so?" you whisper in response, and though the sentiment is appreciated, you must acknowledge within yourself that the topic of conversation has fallen quite a bit to the wayside in favor of something far more intriguing, something far newer, and more enticing.

"It is." He inches closer yet, only suspected millimeters of distance still held between your mouths. "I'm a pretty good judge of character, you know."

"Says the guy who used to hang out with our boss to get ahead."

Chan grins at your playful combativeness before replying, "Just doing what it takes, I'd have slept with him too if the opportunity were to arise."

Free hand coming up to feather over the softness of his robe, your palm smoothes across his chest and the definition that lies beneath before speaking.

"You know, I'm technically your superior, too."

"Oh?" he chimes, eyebrows perked. "Is that so?"

"Technically," you answer with a small shrug. "I've got you on length of employment, by a couple of years."

Caged in against the railing of the balcony, Chan's lips reside so close to your own that they nearly ghost over the flesh. He smells of mint and rosemary from having been freshly washed—all the more damning for you and your budding curiosity about him.

"Should I give up on trying to sleep with him, then?" Chan asks, a seductive playfulness laced throughout each and every word. "Move on to different, more promising prospects?"

"Only one way to find out."

When Chan finally closes the distance fully and kisses you, it's not as hard, not as rushed as you previously had anticipated it to be. The kiss is careful, a want that resides deeply nestled beneath it but far from the thing that grants unbridled haste and need. His lips are soft, the tug of his teeth at your bottom lip experimental as he tests the waters in regard to what he should or should not be doing, but it's a kind of trepidation that only has you eager for more from him. Your fingers grip tightly into the robe, a light pull in order to have his body more firmly and intentionally against your own, and it must be precisely the sort of green light he had been looking for, because the delicate slide of his tongue to find yours enters into the mix, and now you have no other choice but to accept that your original plan in hostile takeover has ultimately ended up in yet another failure.

Though this one is far more appreciated, and you've got to admit, you're happy to go home tomorrow with this sort of loss sitting on your scorecard.

The day of your return home is long and full of travel, though this does little to stave off all of the thoughts of what could, and might be.

Falling hard and fast has never been you. Through the years you've dedicated to your professional development, you've met people, shared bed and intimacies with people that never were to develop beyond the simple gratification that the two of you granted each other in those moments. You try to think back to the last time you really wanted someone; not physically, not sexually, but as a larger and more intrinsic part of your life.

But you can't, not until now.

Chan offers you a ride back to your home from the airport once the both of you land. The taxi is long and expensive, and while money is of no consequence to you, there is a much firmer inkling within that wishes to have just a little bit more time together that isn't set between the walls of a stuffy office that you now have come to have great disdain for.

Driving on the highway, you roll your window down slightly and enjoy the breeze as it's offered to you. The horizon paints itself with colors of pink, purple, and orange as the sun begins to set; normally something of no interest to you, but now? Now, a newfound beauty in all of it.

You barely know Chan, but what you've learned in a short amount of time has you eager to find out more. You can't help but wonder if he feels the same.

"Hey, uh."

As if reading your mind, Chan pipes up from the driver's side, a nervousness in his voice that you aren't quite familiar with but has you eager to hear more.

"Look, no pressure, yeah? But…think you might be interested in coming back to mine and having a drink, or just to talk?"

Thank all of the powers that be, you think to yourself.

"Yeah, that'd be nice," you say, trying to temper your interest. "Let's do that."

Chan's place is nice. Comfortable, cared for, but cozy.

As you step inside and remove your shoes, you look around to take in your surroundings. The furniture is nice, but not lavishly so. Pretty vases with flowers and hanging picture frames showing memories of friends and family adorning his walls that come off as inviting, and not showy. In juxtaposition, you find yourself thinking back to so many other places that you've visited in the past—homes that feel far less like them, and more like museums. Do not touch. The empty atmosphere of being unlived in.

A cork pops off from a bottle just a bit inside and around a corner, thus, you follow the invitation of it. Chan stands in his kitchen pouring two glasses of wine, and you take a seat at the small, glass, dining room table in wait.

"Workplace romances are forbidden, you know."

Well, that is certainly one way for you to broach the topic.

And while you've been mulling it over the whole day, you had decided upon this as the best route. It's simplistic enough to get the point across, but also light-hearted in a way that it doesn't need to be taken too seriously in consideration by Chan. The concept of an office romance being so broad that there is difficulty in necessarily pinpointing what does, or does not, fit within the definition.

But the two of you have kissed, and there is clearly some degree of interest. So, it applies well enough to be used as the shoe horn.

However, Chan only smiles as he finishes up the task of pouring the drinks. He glances up at you briefly, then carries on with what it is that he is doing before replying.

"Okay," he says. Not giving you much to work with until he comes around the table and sits beside you, wine glasses set onto the tabletop. "Then I'll quit."

"Wait, what?"

You don't expect this answer, and it certainly doesn't make any sense to you, either. Yes, things have been moving relatively quickly in your own mind, and as far as your own feelings are concerned, but has the same been true for him? To this degree, at that?

He shrugs. "I'll quit. It's not a big deal, I don't even like that place, and I sure as hell don't like our boss, so I'll just find another job if it means we can keep doing this comfortably."

Chan punctuates the thought with a sip of his drink, so nonchalant. Like the most absurd thing hasn't just come out of his mouth with incredible conviction.

"I…but…" you stutter out, trying to gather your thoughts. "You barely even know me, and if I'm being honest, it sounds a little crazy to be willing to give up such a huge position at a company just to date a colleague that wasn't even that nice to you only a couple of days ago."

"Yeah, I suppose when you put it like that, it does sound a little crazy." Chan takes another bored sip of wine. "I did tell you I'm a pretty good judge of character, though."

A beat of silence passes between the two of you, and you take it as an opportunity to bring your own glass up and to your lips before speaking into the rim. "Going to give up your job so you can sleep with me."

"Well, not just sleep with you, though I guess that depends on how good it is."

You choke on the sip.

"I'm a big boy, I can make career decisions for myself, even if that decision is to effectively and temporarily blow mine up." Chan's hand finds your thigh beneath the table then, fingertips gently digging into the flesh of the inside. "The rest is up to you, though. We can call all of this off right here, right now, and go to work tomorrow like nothing ever happened."

With the back of your neck heating up and the light prickling of goosebumps across your skin, you set your glass down, inhale deeply, and then look Chan square in the eyes.

"Maybe it's about time you earn that next promotion."

"You know—"

Chan whispers the words out and against your lips, through fervent kisses so quick and needy that he's barely able to say anything, at all. Hands are busy at work to slip the both of you out of your business attire from the day; button down shirts, belts, slacks, and skirts strewn hastily about the hardwood flooring of his bedroom while stumbling desperately towards the bed.

"I never thought my next promotion would be getting myself fired."

"Life is just full of surprises," you say, pushing him to the edge of the bed and gently down on top of it. "Isn't it?"

He doesn't bother responding, however, instead fixated on the way you drop to your knees between his legs and lightly graze a palm over the tenting at the front of his undergarments.

Fingers hooking into the elastic sides, you drop them down his thighs, freeing what it is that you really wish to see of him. You wrap a hand around the thick base of his length, gently stroking him to a fullness that was already so close to being reached. Chan sighs into the touch first, then a light groan that catches in his throat at the feeling of your tongue traversing up the underside of him, only to curve around the tip and then sink down whole to take him in.

One hand comes up to find the back of your head, though there's no force behind the gesture as you work him with your mouth. The wide stretch is enough to already have you feeling the fatigue of such an offering, but the heavenly sound of Chan quickly unraveling beneath you is enough to have you ignoring the ache that comes along with the wonder of such a large cock.

"Fuck, you feel good," he exhales, hips ever so slightly canting up to meet your mouth as you take him deeper in.

You pull off slowly, looking up the length of his perfect, toned body to meet his heavily lidded eyes. Hand still stroking him as you do. "You know what feels better?"

"I can guess."

With that, Chan leans forward and grasps you by the wrist—pulls you up and onto the bed with the kind of strength you couldn't dare fight against if you wanted to. Swapping your positions, you find yourself splayed out against the mattress and with hands already busy prying your thighs apart to accommodate him before you're even able to gather your senses.

A lone finger slides up your wet crease, stilling at the most sensitive part of you. Your body jolts at the feeling, looking down as Chan grins only inches away from the place where you want him the most.

"Would you hold it against me if I told you I wanted to fuck you the moment we landed in LA?" he admits, and punctuates the thought with a languid stroke of his tongue following where his finger has just traveled. "Never would have said anything in a million years but—God, the way you look dressed for work like that? So professional and serious, couldn't stop thinking about what you'd sound like if I just—"

Chan pauses the thought, digs his tongue and the plush of his lips more firmly against your clit and gently offers the sensation of being filled by two fingers simultaneously. You can't help the whine that falls from your mouth, though you make a half-hearted attempt to catch it before it does. One hand of fingers curling into the bedding below, the other finding Chan's hair to wrap the curls up and between; he wastes no further time showing precisely the kind of want that he has quietly carried for you. Dizzying and electric beneath your skin, hips bucking up ever so slightly and without conscious thought to find more of him as he grants it to you.

"I was so mean to you, though," you manage to say through heavy breaths and moans, "would you hold it against me if I told you I considered fucking you to try to ruin you? Professionally, of course."

The sounds that this information musters up and out of Chan can only be described as the most animalistic, primal groan of hedonistic want that you've ever heard.

"Yeah? You're going to ruin me?" he replies, fingers still pressed inside of you and a thumb firmly sitting at your clit. "Might have to revisit who's going to be ruining who."

Disappearing off and to the side, Chan makes such quick work of dealing with the necessities that you almost don't even notice his having done so. He stands afterwards—all but hauls you further up the length of the bed to accommodate his being there as well, and then positions himself between your legs once more as he drags the thickness of his cock through the wetness that awaits him.

"Maybe I sort of like it when you're mean to me, ever consider that?" Chan asks, coy in tone. One hand gripping into the soft flesh of your thigh as to hold you open for him while the other sits firm at the base of his cock, blunt head only slightly pressing at your opening. "Maybe it was all just a plot by me to get you to talk to me like a piece of shit so that I could then, in turn, fuck you stupid like we both want."

And while you would love to fight the point, the steady drive of Chan's hips forward makes for that to be an impossibility. The stretch of him carving out space inside of you for his cock is dizzying, slow and careful as he does so. You whine and sigh out as he pulls your body onto him until he rests fully inside.

"You talk a big game," Chan says then, gently fucking into you as his hands slide down and settle around your hips for leverage. "But at least you can take a big dick too, can't you?"

It's so much happening all at once, your senses in overdrive at the way that he's speaking to you almost condescendingly, paired with how pulled apart from the seams your body feels in order to accommodate his thickness. Once settled into more of a steady, offering drive into you, the friction is mind-numbing—feeling so full that not one single nerve ending finding reprieve from the hug of your body around his cock.

You reach forward with one hand, grasping at a strong, tensed arm that shows beneath the flesh each and every muscle he has worked so hard for. Your nails dig in, and as a result, he fucks you harder, faster; hips snapping roughly against the undersides of your thighs.

"Fuck, Chan, don't—don't stop."

"Yeah? Like it that much, huh?" His grip on your hips gets harder, and the strength in his upper body now fully used to pull your body down and against his cock with every drive. "You're taking it so good, maybe one of these days we'll see how good your pretty body can take it when I fill you up with my cum, yeah?"

And you want to be better than this, stronger than this. Stronger than the way that the words go straight into your already pained and needing arousal—tightening around him, an orgasm now threatening on the horizon much faster than originally anticipated.

You gasp out his name, repeating expletives in droves like a hopeless chant that you have no control of as a knowing smirk paints across his lips and he continues on with the work he is putting into your body.

"Want that," he says, breath shaky. "Want me to come in you. Now who's the one of us earning something?"

Grip into his skin tightening just that much more, your back arches up and off of the bed; thighs shaking and muscles tightening as you grit your teeth through the way that your orgasm shakes you. Chan never stops, the glide of his cock so smooth and easy between your walls that even through the stiffness of your body as you come, the strength that he holds makes it easy to use your form to fuck himself with as he watches you release around him with enamored appreciation.

It doesn't take much more from him, and you feel the way he fucks into you becoming more erratic, more needy and without plan as he aims to find his release. Though you've just finished, and need and want for him still courses through your veins at a lightning quick pace, and thus, when you beg for him in a whine to come on your body, it's a kind of humiliation that you'll have to deal with only after the fact.

But not now.

Chan groans, deep and nestled into his chest as he pulls himself from the warmth of you and pulls the condom off—you watch him stroke over his wet, thick cock by hand quickly—taking in the sight of how the definition of his abdomen and chest flex as he reaches closer and closer to his end.

"Anything for you," he says, though the words are barely audible and totally destroyed in the dryness of his throat. "Little cock-drunk, are you? Don't worry baby, I'll give you what you want."

While his tone is just ever so slightly condescending, there's a sort of sexiness in the confidence of it that does, indeed, drive you even crazier with each and every utterance of it. Chan strokes himself to completion shortly after; free hand coming up to find your clit and carefully rubbing you along with him as he comes. The both of you moan in unison, watching the way his cum paints your chest and stomach in such a lewd fashion before the momentum naturally slows, as does his hand.

Chests heaving, Chan is the first to cough out a laugh in the aftermath of it all.

"Did I get carried away?"

"No," you say through a heavy, exhausted exhale. "No, not at all. Fuck."

"Good?"

You give him a tired look in response, not wanting to give him the pleasure of acknowledging it with words.

Chan appears to accept this with a smile, leaning down and capturing your lips with his own. It's not needy, not full of lust as before. Now, laced within it is something completely different, and not unlike the first time that the two of you shared a kiss together.

You opt out of spending the night together, on account of having work early in the morning and wanting to be proper fresh for the occasion. None of your belongings are here, none of your work clothes—only items hours traveled in and then lightly carrying the musk of two people far too hasty in going at one another.

Still, you can't help but consider what the aftermath of this truly looks like for the both of you in the workplace. Of course, Chan admits a willingness in the moment to quit his job for the opportunity of the two of you exploring this—but how much truth could really be lying within those words?

A man who barely knows you, who has no real reason to be willing to do such a thing for you. What makes you so special, anyway?

Suppose the next morning in the office will tell.

Stepping into the office, you aren't so sure what you expect to find, only that what you have found is most definitely not it.

People are running all about, through the corridors, in and out of cubicle spaces, phones ringing and ringing for what sounds like forever with the sound of shouting into receivers coming from every single direction.

You walk in further, down the hallway towards your own personal office—but just before you make it there, your boss cranes his head out from his own just a bit further down the way and shouts at you for the world to hear.

"You! Get in here, now! What have you done?"

Eyes wide and eyebrows pressed up towards the ceiling, you can't help but wonder to yourself; what have I done?

Once you make it inside, you don't even bother closing the door behind you. Privacy isn't needed now, in part because a new side of you has been unlocked since this trip—a part of you that doesn't care. A part of you that has long since resigned yourself to simply not giving a shit about any of this. Not like you used to, not in the same way that once allowed for it to take, and take, and take from you without ever truly giving back.

You're free now.

"Did you know that Chris quit?" the man shouts, hair tousled and random papers lying thoughtlessly around his desk. "What did you do on that trip? What did you do to him you little—you little…bitch."

These words, once upon a time that is not even all that long ago, might have hurt you in such an inexplicable way, but now, the concept of such a thing seems so unfathomable, so far away from you. The cutting edge of a knife meant to maim, only now it slides off of you effortlessly—this man can no longer hurt you, and soon, you have decided, he can no longer take from you, either.

"I didn't do anything to him, sir." You smile, accompanying the words. "Though I don't think the same can be said for me. I think he's done a lot to me in a very short time, and for that, I am incredibly thankful."

The man pauses, looks at you with an empty stare before his eyebrows firmly knit together in a grimace. He intends to speak, but you are no longer interested in hearing anything from him.

"I quit, too."

Turning back towards the door, you hear the man stumbling over his words in an attempt to get something of use out. For once, it would seem, he is left speechless. The ideal version of him, you can't help but think.

"You can pay out my severance as intended under typical circumstances, and if you don't, I'll send everything to HR and contact a lawyer to take you for everything that you're worth," you add in, glancing back over your shoulder. "And I will win."

"Oh, and thanks for fucking me over so exquisitely on this work trip, I actually think it worked out in everyone's best interest."

Halfway out of the door, you hum, then turn back towards him for the last time with a smug, gratified smirk.

"Well, except maybe for you."

Your hectic surroundings as you leave the office for the very last time feel like nothing but static noise. Inconsequential and unimportant in the grand scheme of things. You don't know what the future holds for you, or for Chan, or for whatever it is that the two of you might have budding and blossoming together. It sort of doesn't matter, which you find to be the beauty of a new beginning.

When the elevator sounds off upon reaching the bottom floor, the metal doors part, and standing in the marble lobby is a familiar face that you're certainly not expecting to see.

Chan stands there before you; all fitted jeans and comfortable black hoodie. A casual side of him that you've not seen before, but are so delighted to be able to that it ignites a fluttering in your chest that perhaps you've not felt since grade school.

"What are you doing here?" you ask.

He tries to fight back the smile, but to no avail. "I knew you were going to quit, so I figured I'd be here to get you when you did."

"I didn't come here this morning with the intention of doing that."

"I'm sure you didn't." Chan swings the loop of his keys around on a finger nonchalantly. "But I still knew you would. Breakfast?"

Three days isn't long enough to say I love you, but there's a previously locked away, fairytale side of you that's certainly thinking it right about now.

"We're both unemployed, should we be going out and getting breakfast?"

Chan tsks at that, "we're top executives in our field, we'll both be head-hunted before we even start looking. Besides—"

Reaching down, Chan takes the hand not holding a briefcase into his own, pointedly fitting fingers in between your own and looking straight into your eyes.

"Can't a guy take his girlfriend out for a waffle?"

Yes, yes he most certainly can.

♡ hope you enjoyed.

—this is a oneshot, there will be no part 2.

#bang chan smut #bang chan x reader #bang chan x y/n #bang chan x you #bang chan scenarios #bang chan imagines #stray kids smut #stray kids x you #stray kids x reader #stray kids x y/n #stray kids scenarios #stray kids imagines #skz smut #skz x reader #skz x you #skz x y/n #skz imagines #skz scenarios

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traumatizeddfox · 2 months ago

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Idk where I stand on the term narc abuse but 2 things to bring up.

First, the jury is out on if abuse via narcissistic tendencies (not related to npd inherently) via specifically the term "narc abuse" is real or not. Theres both official and unofficial sources, charities, University/medical journals, etc that acknowledge it as different from more common forms of abuse/how the abuse is brought on and why (someone being physically abused due to their abuser being on drugs and over-reacting to a small trigger vs someone getting physically abused due to percieved sin/religious undertones will have varying experiences, ones that reasonably involve different labels) this warrants a different label and plenty that do not and criticize it. I won't judge a terminology when even medical professionals can't seem to decide yay or nay. I just figured I'd mention it because the only way people know this term usually is TikTok but it's actually older than TikTok, they just picked it up. There is a difference between someone with npd and someone whose a narcissist in a non-medical/mood/personality disorder way and I do think the people trying to use the term should differentiate the two but to be fair, most people don't even know about npd and therefore would only be talking about egotistical people, not nessesarily pwnpd. I also think it's nessesary to bring up that Tumblr has obscure and hyper niche veiws on topics with zero room for conversation and just as plenty of pwnpd on Tumblr are adverse to the term, there also plenty of pwnpd on Tumblr and other platforms who acknowled/support it as a term, do not take offense and/or understand its usage and what it means without direct correlation to the disorder but more as a grouping of actions/beliefs with the label outside of medical contexts. The term narcissist and the actions associated have existed as a stand alone personality type (like sloth doesn't automatically mean someone with Chronic fatigue syndrome or Thief doesn't mean kleptomaniac) long before the disorder got its name and associations, plenty of people call egoists narcissists and it's not offensive suddenly. Understanding words have multiple meanings and contexts is important here, Rape dosent even automatically mean sexual assualt, sometimes it just means steal or kidnapping. All this to say it's budding mental health related language, it will take what already exists and expand upon it. Same as when the words triggers and gaslighting got popular then promptly died. Your free to take your stance, I'm not invalidating it, I'm just sharing some facts cause as a long time user of Tumblr, it seriously screwed my views of the world and narrowed them to a pin prick about what's acceptable and agreed upon and what isn't and should be shunned. Only after stepping outside the site did I learn just how little 90% of discourse here actually matters and affects the world at large. Consider this whole part devil's advocate but presenting only the people who side with you as evidence when this isn't a "is climate change real?" Sort of stance where 98% of the field agrees is disingenuous. The field is split here and very few people are actually considering this label to specifically mean pwnpd and more mean specific forms of mental and emotional abuse and neglect that usually comes from a place where the abuser sees themselves as better than others, see the victims as threats to their high standing and see others as means to their ends. Again, Idk if I support the term or not, I'm just relaying information.

Lastly, #2, trying to say that anyone who feels they are a victim of specifically "narc abuse" is just trying to "feel special" is fucking horrific and invalidating regardless of your feelings on the term. Regardless of the words they use to describe the abuse they experienced, they still experienced abuse and trying to imply they are lieing or attention-seeking is fundamentally abuse-apologist shit. The same shit gets said to every other victim of abuse and just because you don't like the label dose not mean they think they are special or different and what they describe is suddenly not fucking abuse. They are still actively victims even if they arnt perfect ones. I'm disabled, I'm fully aware if the term "disabled abuse" came out cause a few people got beat with grandma's cane or their disabled abuser used their mobility aid to hurt them I'd be fighting it cause that's not fair and disabled only means one thing, however, I would never EVER invalidate their trauma from that physical abuse. I would never say they never experienced any wrongs or they think they are special cause it was abuse from a disabled person. No matter where you stand, that was a fucking terrible thing to say and imply. You can shit on a label without invalidating real victims of real abuse. No one in this debate was questioning the victims until you just did, they only criticized the label they were using. You can get that victim-blaming perfect-victim shit and shove it up your ass. And no, I'm not a victim of that form of abuse, if it even exists, but I can see shit when I hear it and that was shit. Shame on you for that.

Okay first thing I want to say first is this. i am sorry if u read my post and misread it or misinterpreted what i was saying. i was not victim blaming anyone lmfao. I was NOT invalidating anyone when I said those who have been abused by narcissists think theyre special. what I was trying to say is that the language around narc abuse is that victims seem to talk about it like its a worse type of abuse. i see people say "if you have been abused by a narcissist its because they saw how special u are!!" and i think thats not ok to tell victims bc victims will romantizie why they were abused!! i remember believing my abuser (who does have npd btw) only abused me bc i was so special and he hated that!! but in reality, he abused me because he's an abuser. an abuser might be triggered by someone, they might hate someone and thats why they abuse. an abuser might have a disorder that can make them react abusively, but its because theyre an abuser. there are plenty of ppl without disorders who abuse, and there are those with npd who dont also abuse. its not a hive mind.

i do not understand why u think i was telling someone that they werent abused. if u spend more than 2 seconds on my blog u will know i validate everyone who has ever been a victim, and those who will become victims.

BUT my point was there are victims out there who seem to treat narc abuse like its a badge. we dont walk around and say ptsd abuse bc ppl would lose their shit if we ever did that. "Narc abuse" is not anything different than any other kind of abuse. can an abuser have npd? yes. can the npd make an abuser respond in a unique or different way? yes same with any pd. but narc abuse is just emotional abuse. ppl will say narc abuse and then go onto explain everything that an abuser does. "Theyre selfish" "They want control" yeah thats an abuser. i think the problem is people now look at symptoms of abuse and say narcissist. i literally see ppl call anyone a narcissist these days.

the issue i have with this as well is that i have seen and heard victims wonder if they are valid because their abuser doesnt have npd bc these victim spaces especially Tiktok have created this belief that abusers are narcissists and ONLY narcissists. can they be? yes. but can an abuser also be a neurotypical? yes.

abusers are just abusers. we dont need to slap some label on there. now is there different levels of abuse? yes ofc. emotional abuse, physical, spiritual, financial, etc are all different kinds of abuse. being abused by ur mother is different than being abused by ur teacher, or partner, etc. but it doesnt mean its worse. ofc there are SITUATIONS that can be considered "worse" in the eyes of the law but at the end of the day. abuse is abuse. a broken ankle is still a broken ankle no matter how it got broken.

victims are all on the same playing field but they try to fight each other and we need to stand together and realize that abusers are the issue!! i dont have any ISSUE or problem with victims who say they were abused by a narcissist but i do have an issue when ppl say narc abuse. and i know a lot of victims who say narc abuse might not even realize what theyre saying. i remember being that person until i started to talk to pwpd, espeically npd, did more research and realized how stigmatizing it is.

the MAIN issue with saying narc abuse is that what ur saying to people with npd that 1) they are not valid if they have been abused. 2) they are abusers. this is dangerous because its generalizing an entire group of those with a disorder that can not change or fix. a lot of victims worry if they have been the abuser bc abusers fuck with ur head thinking ur the bad guy, so if someone with npd sees a post that says all narcissists are abusers they might believe they are one when they arent. im speaking very general. every person with npd is a unique person and i dont SUPPORT every single person with npd bc ofc there are monsters out there who are also abusers , but i do support that people with npd get support and are also included when ppl say mental health matters, or believe all victims.

no one is saying that those with npd cant be abusers, what were trying to change is the language !!! before people believe everyone with schizophrenia was a violent killer until we learned that is not true. we need to do the same with personality disorders.

the history of the word rape does come from the meaning to steal, seize, or carry away but there is PLENTY of words we use in today that are not the same. just look up the history of the word "mother fucker" and you will never want to ever say that ever again. but i dont see what this has to do with ur point in mental health. no one would ever say rape when they mean "steal" we just dont use that word in that way anymore. but to add to this, its a great example as a way to change the meaning of narcissists to be only used for those with the disorder. (yeah ppl can have narcisstic tendencies, we ALL have some level of it, its how we survive but thats different than having a disorder.)

i know tumblr has always had weird takes, and some stuff is strictly an online discourse and doesnt happen irl, but that doesnt mean we cant change the way people view mental health. people have misused gaslighting, triggers, but that doesn't mean we cant stop or change that. most people learn to adapt.

but to finish, i understand where ur coming from and im sorry if u saw my post and were upset but when i see others with npd wishing they could die because they feel like a monster just because they have a diagnosis, it shatters me knowing they feel like there is no support. even therapists are sketchy with pwpd. i just think that we need to change the language around abuse. just say abuse idk why thats so hard!

#anon #narc abuse discourse #theres so much more i can say but

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discluded · 1 year ago

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not gonna lie it always hurts a little when mile & apo go to a promo party and they're wearing amazing fits, just these flattering pieces in colors that suit them so well and they look good enough to eat, but then they score an amazing brand deal with a big company and you're so happy for them only to see the pictures and think to yourself, "HOW?"

I mean like.... how is it that when mile & apo go out and they take pictures of each other, those pics look better than some of the "street art" pics (the apo ones in paris...) that professionals took of them?? Is it the style? Is it on purpose? Is there some trend going on?😭

Anyway, Mile in the red shirt and black slacks at bento has healed something in me that the vogue ski boots broke🙏🥹

hmmmm just gonna add this here cause I like this video and they both look delicious (and also Apo looks soooo prepared to be ravished 😏 but you didn't hear that from me...click for the edit cause I don't upload other people's edits if I can avoid it)

you know the most offensive part about Mile looking this edible today?

It's a freaking $40 Uniqlo shirt (thank you closet wizard!). If you told me this was a $500 silk shirt from idk, Hugo Boss, I'd probably have believed you.

It's not the product that's expensive, it's Mile Phakphum who makes it look expensive... 😭 The models even look like regular people wearing this shirt

As for Dior... as Apo said: what he really wants to do is acting, but the way the acting industry is structured in Thailand, it's way more lucrative to start your own brand/get sponsorships because the acting itself doesn't pay very well. As @blramblingx2 said here: "[...]if you see some actors without acting projects, that's what usually pops up because it's a lucrative way for them to get some income."

So the tl;dr version of it is... pretend to DO NOT SEE IT and just talk about how handsome and amazing and stylish they look in Dior. Do it for MileApo. Do it so we can continue projects where they don't have to compromise the art.

#mileapo #kinnporsche #man suang #man suang promo #mileapo x song wat #apo nattawin #mile phakphum #mileapo and fashion

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life-in-the-monster-haus · 2 years ago

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Nightmare Nightmore Highlights.

I'm not gonna recap or analyze the episode too much I just wanna share a few of my favorite things! Not really any spoilers, if you've already seen the leaks of Abbey and her mom floating around then you're all caught up.

Draculaura is throwing a party for the holiday of Nightmore, but I couldn't possibly care less. I'm here for Abbey!

Heath has the same reaction to seeing Abbey for the first time as a lot of us did. in Awe of her beauty. same dude, same.

She towers over everyone! even the boys! I am in love!

Draculaura is like a smurf compared to tall powerful Abbey.

Abbey's eyes aren't purple anymore, they are brown! and so pretty! breaks up the abundance of purple in her hair and outfit I am super into it!

Abbey's hair blend is the colors of the Bi flag and I have no choice but to stan.

Mama Bominable threatening to bring forth a cold harsh merciless winter upon Bloodgoods head if she doesn't produce Abbey is such a mood. I love me a good mama bear.

WHERE IS NIGHTMARE!? why is this messenger dragon hanging out in Bloodgood's office but her horse isn't!? The episode even has nightmare in the title but I see no Nightmare the horse. I don't like it. A headless horse person without their horse is just a zombie... why are you booing me? I'm right!

Draculaura already has her license in this gen? I'm here for it! Also Clawd chose to sit next to her. Also Clawd said "nailed it like a coffin" which was only ever said in G1 by Clawdeen and that makes me happy.

This is the second or third episode where Lagoona inexplicably has flat teeth, the music video for her doll did this too. I'm not exactly a professional animator but I've studied it enough to know that rendering characters off model is a fire-able offense. Fix it Nickelodeon.

Heath encouraging Abbey to use her ice powers telling her she is strong, charismatic and beautiful. ahhhh! my heart!... I've mentioned on here I'm not much of a shipper per-se. But that was a lie, Habbey was one of my OG ships and it brings me such joy to see them again! I needed this since the only Heath we got during G2 was this:

*Long suffering G2 sigh*

Yeti's in this universe seem to basically be water benders and I am okay with that! Mama Bominable is fuckin pissed! LOL Bye Bloodgood it's been nice knowing you!

Damn, Abbey's dad didn't contribute any genetics to that her at all. Mama Bominables genes were like "this is MY child!" I do love that she has horns and a more pronounced underbite, perhaps Abbey will get these traits as she grows? Or maybe her buns are hiding her horns? IDK but it's fun to imagine! I wonder where they got the idea to give their yeti Horns... HMMMMMMM

it's a mystery, we'll never know.

This isn't even a highlight I'm just taking pictures of Mama Bominabe at this point, I love a strong woman willing to murder the school principle for her daughters safety.

SHE CALLED ABBEY SNOW ANGEL AHHHHHH- I'm sorry I just had to get that out.

The boy is in love! .... And he actually says something really profound. I'm so impressed G3 is giving Heath some depth and not just making him a one note idiot... Don't get me wrong, I liked one note idiot Heath but there was more to him than that.

Heath trying to kiss Abbey on the first day of meeting her is absolutely a G1 call back.

in her intro episode he kissed her hand and his lips froze off.

I love everything about this episode! I love that Abbey is Nepali! it's way more accurate to her Monster type and before some nerd tries to get in the replies and go "Actually Russia occupied Nepal at one point" that's true, they did BUT! the myth of the Yeti originated in 1937, Russia didn't occupy the Himalayas until the 1960's.

This episode is my new favorite! I heard a rumor that we won't get any new Monster High episodes until after the new year, but if they are anything like this? they will be worth the wait!

#monster high #nightmare nightmore #abbey bominable

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bengiyo · 1 year ago

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Step By Step Ep 9 Stray Thoughts

Last week on HR Violations, Pat broke up with Put in a mature-but-devastating scene, and spent the bulk of the episode processing his grief about that. Put immediately went on the offensive against Jeng, and threatened to out Jeng if he pursued pat. Pat went on a not-date with Jeng to check out multiple restaurants before learning that Jeng is gay at a queer speakeasy. Jeng spent the entire episode working himself up to express his feelings to Pat, confessed them to a drunk Pat in an incredibly adorable way, and ran into his ex at the aforementioned speakeasy. Jaab and Jen are a hot mess, and are also at the speakeasy. Chot, amazing as ever, is not at the speakeasy, and this feels like a missed opportunity. Also, Ae went to the doctor with Pat and Beam.

Pat woke up holding a plushy with his handbag and phone nearby on striped sheets. He’s probably okay.

Oh, he’s definitely fine. He’s in his own house and his mom is here.

I like that Pat doesn’t lie to his mom. He just refuses to answer the questions.

Jeng is doing pushups shirtless. 743 dead, 2689 wounded.

Chot said, “My name is Paul and this between y’all.”

It’s just Pat and his instant noodles against the world.

Pat is a gay with a good relationship with his parents. You love to see it.

I love the way Chot checks in with Pat. He shares a little bit of his own queer insecurities to commiserate a bit.

Jeng’s friend is hot.

Who organized this awkward as hell gay movie event? Is this to watch the commercial they made?

Did Pat really pass Jeng’s jacket on to Chot? Oh, Jeng, I’m so sorry for your loss.

I kinda wish Pat was talking to Ae or Chot about what was going on, because I’d like to confirm what the core of his rejection of Jeng is about. Is it about his own self-worth? Is he feeling gun shy coming off of the relationship with Put? Is it about Jeng as a superior at work?

Jeng’s breakdown is honestly so fantastic. Absolutely incredible from Man. Jeng is such a self-controlled character. You can feel how long he’s been desperately trying to hold it together and how aware he is of his own fragile psyche with regard to Pat. We also got to see gay man get consoled by his gay brother.

I feel like a significant amount of time has passed without us realizing it because Ae is so much more pregnant than I remember.

Didn’t Jen leave the company last episode? What’s his status?

I feel like Jen and Pat are being really unfair to Jaab and Jeng.

“What is he doing?” Consoling his heartbroken brother!

Personally, I think it’s responsible of Jeng to leave his position when he knows he cannot maintain a healthy professional distance from a subordinate.

Jeng's cake is cute, but does not look large enough for the office.

Another cake scene immediately??

I'm not sure we got a good read on the crying scene with Pat's parents. When he mentions memories everywhere, is he talking about just Put or Put and Jeng? I'm a bit hazy on Pat this episode.

What's the deal with the parents bringing up their divorce. Is this about Pat being friends with his exes?

Ae is about to deliver this baby. Quick! Cut to Kanoon so we know where he is and can do an Oishii ad spot.

We should dramatically throw keys to Poppy more often.

Since I am a man, I'm going to refrain from commenting on this birth scene. I will leave only this gif as commentary on the writing.

Wait, why the hell is this girl filming this???

Oh good. Pat said something about the cameras.

These people are way too online.

Did Jeng really send Pat a box full of a snack he said he liked once as a birthday gift? My goodness, sir.

I never get tired of watching people type and delete messages on these dramas.

This episode and previews for next week feel like a Brian Jordan Alvarez bit.

I feel like we were over the place this week. This was kinda rough. I don't know that any of the plot threads really worked together this week well. Jen and Pat had a decent conversation, but I don't think I'm with Jen on this one.

#step by step #step by step meta #thai bl #bl series #Ben watches

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twentydaysofdrabbles · 1 year ago

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The Concierge’s Private Service (Part 16)

There was a time when you would never spend more than an hour asleep at any one time. Too much to do, too little time to do it in. Not enough safety. Needing to move and hunt and...

Suffice it to say you no longer have the youthful stamina you once did. A full day at work, then the excitement in the night, the long hours of waiting past midnight, then the exertion at dawn, and then now as you make your way into your second day without sleep...well, you’re tired.

The hour of shut eye that you caught in your room just has to do. It will.

For a mercy, no one comments on your state. Good, you made sure that you had not a single hair out of place, your clothes impeccably clean and neat, your complexion is as it always was, and your dead, dead eyes have no more of a spark of life than they ever did. With your polite, professional smile on your face, it is as if nothing had ever happened.

But it did, and it can be seen in the way that young-but-old Frisk approaches you at your counter.

I see what you mean when you said ‘not quite like me’.

They stayed at the side of the counter so that you can see them without leaning over the tall edge. Their expression is amused and knowing all at once, their dark eyes twinkling slightly.

You incline your head. "Admittedly, there are very few that are like you, Mx Frisk.” There were stories that came up with the monsters, of children who had fallen before Frisk. And only one of whom was quite like the child-but-not.

Frisk is the only one now, as far as you know.

The monster ambassador smiles and hides a laugh behind their hand. I don’t think there are many like you either. Their hands slow as they look at you, dark brows falling and then furrowing.

A part of you, the same part that had relished in the warm splatter over your face, suddenly tenses. The child-but-not is looking at something. Looking at you. And you don’t know what it is they are seeing.

All you can see is their expression. Going from curious, to concerned, to a frown. The air around you thickens slightly, as if a spell of a sort had been cast. It’s not the heavy taste of offensive magic and so you let it lie, but it’s not something you will tolerate, not even from the mysterious Mx Frisk.

“Mx Frisk, may I offer some wisdom?” you initiate the conversation politely.

Startled out of their thoughts, they look up at you with wide eyes.

Suddenly, they just...look like a child. You’re suddenly reminded of what you see in them - not quite like you, not quite a child, not quite an adult. Then...in-between? Too old to be the ten year old child they appear to be, too young to be an adult they try to project themselves as. Trapped. As new to this Surface world as the rest of the monsters.

And that thought stills the harsh warning from spilling from your lips. No, instead to temper yourself. Let the tired ache in your head stay there, your instinct curbing the worst of your words. “I suggest taking greater care with your Vision,” you wave to your eyes to explain. “It is quite a...heavy...stare.”

Frisk gapes at you for a brief moment. You...can feel it?

Rather than answer verbally, you merely nod.

To which Frisk scratches the back of their neck sheepishly. Sorry. No one usually notices. I’ll stop. But though they stop signing, they continue to stand at the corner of the counter.

Blinking slowly, you fold your hands before your belly, asking, “Is there something else I can help you with, Mx Frisk?” After all, very few people linger around your counter.

The child-but-not shuffles in place, briefly toeing the ground before they seem to force themselves to stop. Bringing their hands together, they speak. I know what happened last night and this morning.

Oh? You suppose Sans would hardly leave his Family out of the loop. But you did not expect them to be aware of what occurred in the early hours of the morning. “I apologise for the disruption, Mx Frisk. The indoor pools should be ready by tomorrow afternoon, should you wish to use them.” Best not to go further into what happened, not out in the open.

That’s okay. What about this morning?

“There was a performance at the Coliseum. The Manager did not want us to miss it.” You wouldn’t be surprised if someone was watching, if it were not Frisk themselves.

I was wondering why it was so crowded. Their eyes gleam and they smile. I saw that you had a leading part.

So they did watch. You only nod for a lack of anything else to say. They saw what they saw.

I thought the Continental was neutral? When Frisk only looks at you, as if expecting an explanation for the ‘performance’, you blink back down at them.

Hmm, the Manager didn’t fully apprise them of all that they should expect - it was hardly in her nature to be forthcoming anyway - but you would have thought they learned by now.

“The Hotel has one rule and when that rule is broken, punishment must be meted out,” you respond.

The attack on Sans. Their eyes turn dark, the flame within them familiar to you. As if they had wanted to get their hands on whoever was at fault and rip them to shreds.

You nod. “And on another. We enforce our own rule. Judiciously so.” That message was sent, and you hope it was received. It had better be.

Frisk smiles darkly, but signs no more. Ah, you must have answered their questions. So you tilt your head as Frisk remains standing there, their gaze to the floor as if considering something. “What else can I assist you with, Mx Frisk?”

Frisk hesitates for a moment more before their shoulders straighten and they shove their hand in their pocket. Coins jingle and jangle, and then they take several out to offer to you.

Taken completely by surprise, you just stare at the coin. “Mx Frisk?”

The child-but-not puts the coins on the desk space between you to free up their hands. Can you help me look for someone?

Ah. You shake your head, “I don’t offer private services any longer, Mx Frisk. But the Continental has many services--”

No! Their gesture is insistent. I saw you this morning. You still do some work, otherwise you wouldn’t have killed that man. Please, it’s...it’s my mum. I can’t find her.

Their mother. The former queen? That is interesting indeed, you weren’t aware that she was missing.

Your fingers press together briefly where they are folded up against your belly. “Mx Frisk, I serve the Continental and by extension the Manager,” you explain as politely as you can. What’s a professional way of declining the ambassador? “I unfortunately do not offer any personal, private services to guests.”

Frisk grabs the coins and holds the pile up to you in a pleading gesture, signing as best they can with one hand. Can’t trust. Asgore. Sans hurt. Papyrus obvious. Please.

You don’t want to admit that there is a tug in your chest at the way they beg you with hands and eyes and expression. It is genuine, the way that they are asking you. This isn’t a ploy, or a manipulation, as far as you can see. And you like to think you have become rather good at it.

Still. You shake your head. “My sincere apologies, Mx Frisk, I--”

Then can you set up a meeting? They sign with the coin in their hand.

Uh.

Polite confusion twists your expression the slightest bit. How did that change the request? Frisk seemed to be rewording their bargain to make it more palatable to your ear.

Then, before you can respond to that amended question, the phone rings. “One moment, Mx Frisk,” you say apologetically. Picking up the phone, you recognise the caller to be the Manager herself. Speak of the devil.

“My Heart. I know it has been a long morning, but there is something I would like you to do...”

“Of course, ma’am.” You can deny the Manager nothing. “How can I assist?”

“I’ve heard that a certain someone has come to request your assistance. It just so happens to align with what I need. Two birds with one stone, yes? I’d appreciate it if I had an ear to the ground, as it were.”

You close your eyes. Of course. The woman has eyes and ears everywhere. As do you.

“Certainly, ma’am.”

Upon hanging up, you turn to Frisk who has crept closer while you were on the phone. Close enough that they could hear the soft murmur of the Manager’s voice over the speaker. And yet, they still look up at you innocently with the widest of eyes, a small pile of coins cupped in their hands, raised in offer to you.

Looking around warily to check if anyone is watching, you kneel down and reach out to take one coin out of the pile. “Miss Toriel was last seen in the south of the city yesterday morning,” you murmur, pocketing the coin and pushing Frisk’s hands closed over the remainder.

They frown and look at you, dumping the coins in their pocket to sign at you. Wait, but the Manager said-- Their expression is a mix of confusion and frustration all in one.

“Patience, Mx Frisk,” you say evenly as you stand. “I’ve been advised by the kitchen that they are making pastries this afternoon. If you like, I can arrange to have some sent to your room.”

The child-but-not looks every bit of their physical age as they frown at you. You can only hope they catch your meaning.

After a few heartbeats, they bite their lip and nod. Chocolate chip cookies? Sans likes them too.

You can’t stop yourself from blinking, but you reflexively respond in the affirmative, “Of course, Mx Frisk.” Well, far be it for you to wonder why Frisk wants to involve Sans but not the others.

A smile blooms on the child-but-not’s face and they nod with a bounce. Okay! See you around! They wave and give your leg a brief hug. It only lasts a heartbeat, but to your frozen form, it feels like a heartbeat too long.

Your skin prickles uncomfortably where Frisk had hugged you. Looking down at them, you don’t move to reciprocate or push them away, only peering down at them curiously. Warily. “Have a good day, Mx Frisk.” That’s all you can think of to say.

Frisk seems to hold back a giggle as they sign thanks. They can clearly tell how uncomfortable you are despite the polite way you hold yourself, mercifully deciding to make themselves scarce.

As they go, you exhale through your nose slowly. What a strange child.

#undertale fics #mafiafell au #mafiafell sans x reader #sans x reader #although there's no sans in this chapter #the concierge #drabble #ficlet #these are slowly getting longer oh no

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chbobserver · 1 year ago

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welcome to the first edition of the CHB OBSERVER!

within the following post, you will find drama, intrigue, betrayal, hookups, unrequited love, well-seasoned hate--anything you could want to know about your fellow campers. this newsletter marks the first batch of asks sent since the blog was opened, and will be published on a regular basis. however, from this point on, asks may be published in-between newsletters, at the asker's request, or if the gossip is particularly piping. this publication is the result of countless hours of investigation, footage capture and review, interviewing, and of course, the contributions of readers like YOU! i really couldn't have done any of this without you, remember that!

-xoxo GhostPheme

so many missions back to back with so many new players on the board, and people were bound to be paying close attention to their neighbors antics!! let's get into the first drop:

"a little birdie tells me that the son of aphrodite can spark a little love triangle, xoxo"

and i wonder which son of aphrodite they mean, first of all. morgan, perhaps? we did hear corban express interest in wanting to chat him up..but if so, who's the third? everyone keep an eye on this, let us know if we can narrow it down.

“i was told era’s body count is currently 56. not sure if he can count that high, but my professionally estimated guess is around 87.”

oh wow, i'm not even sure which part is more offensive, but i bet erasmo will clear that up for us.

"i heard that holli has a wonky boob."

there's certainly several people that could confirm or deny this one. any takers?

"i heard charlie would rather sleep his way to the top than work for it. fucking mythological creatures in the name of science."

omg the centaurs! i heard centaurs--you think he's really doing it like that? if so, i know it's not for science.

"after whatever calliope did to nico, some might think that he's been corrupted by the other side."

oh fuck, can she do this? is this a thing that can happen? someone better check, and quick, before he can sabotage anything! or anything else...

"avi doesn't seem like he has that much trust in himself. i've heard that he's not the same since he came back from the dead. my guess is that magnolia or hart took over his body."

you're saying we have TWO interlopers? right under our noses, jfc!

"is it just me or does andreas and nico seem to have a thing for each other?"

oh i've been thinking this! they definitely have a special connection. andreas should keep an eye out for selenur for us! that's the best persona for the job, keep close to nico, and they'll probably do it for free!

"i heard a satyr say that greyson fucks ghosts"

and it would be so easy and no one would know! he literally lives with them!

"i heard kitty making horse noises to herself, is she delusional?"

i don't have the dsm5 open in front of me, so i'm not entirely sure, but i wouldn't put it past her. kitty's just a little cuckoo; she's the horse girl your cool friends warned you about.

"avi smells like rotted day old pizza. he reeks!"

is it that bad? he's probably scared to wash between his cheeks, poor thing; a really terminal case of incel. actually...since he's constantly rejecting holli, does that make him volcel? brb going to get him kicked off his fav quarantined reddit subs.

"nico is always walking around like a stick in the mud. lighten up dude!!!!"

lighten up! you're not even that old! you don't have to lie to kick it, nico, you're just as messy and nasty as everyone else.

"biggest floozy?? bet it's our favorite nature-loving bark boy."

now we're getting somewhere! i bet there's some people out there with some real good stories and i want to hear them! i know kit isn't all doe eyed wonder and nature's harmony...or maybe his last shock wasn't a fluke and he just does whatever anyone asks all the time...

"why does greyson smell like hot topic? yiiiikes"

audience, i'll take the leap for all of us, and assume this contributor means he tries too hard to be edgy. you're welcome. if the earlier greyson entry was true, this one definitely isn't.

"is it just me or does ganymede look like a yassified version of andreas?"

i don't want this to come off like complaining, but you're not wrong. maybe they're related--pretty sure i've heard someone else say this too. couldn't hurt to assume.

"i bet if corban cut his hair he'd be a solid 9..."

corban, you got a date lined up if you want it! get a stylist and come getcha man!

"holli is short for hollandaise."

like real name? like her mom calls her that? no wonder she's fucked up.

and that's all folks! hope you enjoyed! i always want to hear feedback, and if you weren't mentioned but want to be: be less boring, do more crime, and a healthy dose of scandal.

#chbonews #morgan #corban #erasmo #holli #charlie #nico #avi #andreas #greyson #kitty #kit

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yhwhrulz · 5 months ago

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Morning and Evening with A.W. Tozer Devotional for June 14

Tozer in the Morning In Word, Or In Power

Excerpted from The Divine Conqest

For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction, as you know what kind of men we were among you for your sake. (1Ths. 1:5)

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

You have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. (Revelation 3:1)

To one who is a student merely, these verses might be interesting, but to a serious man intent upon gaining eternal life they might well prove more than a little disturbing. For they evidently teach that the message of the gospel may be received in either of two ways: in word only, without power, or in word with power. Yet it is the same message whether it comes in word or in power. And these verses teach also that when the message is received in power it effects a change so radical as to be called a new creation. But the message may be received without power, and apparently some have so received it, for they have a name to live, and are dead. All this is present in these texts.

By observing the ways of men at play I have been able to understand better the ways of men at prayer. Most men, indeed, play at religion as they play at games, religion itself being of all games the one most universally played. The various sports have their rules and their balls and their players; the game excites interest, gives pleasure, and consumes time, and when it is over, the competing teams laugh and leave the field. It is common to see a player leave one team and join another and a few days later play against his old mates with as great zest as he formerly displayed when playing for them. The whole thing is arbitrary. It consists in solving artificial problems and attacking difficulties that have been deliberately created for the sake of the game. It has no moral roots and is not supposed to have. No one is the better for his self- imposed toil. It is all but a pleasant activity that changes nothing and settles nothing at last.

If the conditions we describe were confined to the ballpark, we might pass it over without further thought, but what are we to say when this same spirit enters the sanctuary and decides the attitude of men toward God and religion? For the Church has also its fields and its rules and its equipment for playing the game of pious words. It has its devotees, both laymen and professionals, who support the game with their money and encourage it with their presence, but who are no different in life or character from many who take in religion no interest at all.

As an athlete uses a ball, so do many of us use words: words spoken and words sung, words written and words uttered in prayer. We throw them swiftly across the field; we learn to handle them with dexterity and grace; we build reputations upon our word skill and gain as our reward the applause of those who have enjoyed the game. But the emptiness of it is apparent from the fact that after the pleasant religious game no one is basically any different from what he had been before. The basis of life remains unchanged; the same old principles govern, the same old Adam rules.

I have not said that religion without power makes no changes in a man's life, only that it makes no fundamental difference. Water may change from liquid to vapor, from vapor to snow, and back to liquid again, and still be fundamentally the same. So powerless religion may put a man through many surface changes and leave him exactly what he was before. Right there is where the snare lies. The changes are in form only; they are not in kind. Behind the activities of the nonreligious man and the man who has received the gospel without power lie the very same motives. An unblessed ego lies at the bottom of both lives, the difference being that the religious man has learned better to disguise his vice. His sins are refined and less offensive than before he took up religion, but the man himself is not a better man in the sight of God. He may indeed be a worse one, for always God hates artificiality and pretense. Selfishness still throbs like an engine at the center of the man's l ife. True he may learn to "redirect" his selfish impulses, but his woe is that self still lives unrebuked and even unsuspected deep within his heart. He is a victim of religion without power.

The man who has received the Word without power has trimmed his hedge, but it is a thorn hedge still and can never bring forth the fruits of the new life. Men do not gather grapes from thorns nor figs from thistles. Yet such a man may be a leader in the church, and his influence and his vote may go far to determine what religion shall be in his generation.

The truth received in power shifts the basis of life from Adam to Christ, and a new set of motives goes to work within the soul. A new and different Spirit enters the personality and makes the believing man new in every department of his being. His interests shift from things external to things internal, from things on earth to things in heaven. He loses faith in the soundness of external values, he sees clearly the deceptiveness of outward appearances, and his love for and confidence in the unseen and eternal world become stronger as his experience widens.

With the ideas here expressed most Christians will agree, but the gulf between theory and practice is so great as to be terrifying. For the gospel is too often preached and accepted without power, and the radical shift that the truth demands is never made. There may be, it is true, a change of some kind; an intellectual and emotional bargain may be struck with the truth, but whatever happens is not enough, not deep enough, not radical enough. The "creature" is changed, but he is not "new." And right there is the tragedy of it. The gospel is concerned with a new life, with a birth upward onto a new level of being, and until it has effected such a rebirth it has not done a saving work within the soul.

Wherever the Word comes without power its essential content is missed. For there is in divine truth an imperious note; there is about the gospel an urgency, a finality that will not be heard or felt except by the enabling of the Spirit. We must constantly keep in mind that the gospel is not good news only, but a judgment as well upon everyone that hears it. The message of the Cross is good news indeed for the penitent, but to those who "obey not the gospel" it carries an overtone of warning. The Spirit's ministry to the impenitent world is to tell of sin and righteousness and judgment. For sinners who want to cease being willful sinners and become obedient children of God, the gospel message is one of unqualified peace, but it is by its very nature also an arbiter of the future destinies of men.

This secondary aspect is almost wholly overlooked in our day. The gift element in the gospel is held to be its exclusive content, and the shift element is accordingly ignored. Theological assent is all that is required to make Christians. This assent is called faith and is thought to be the only difference between the saved and the lost. Faith is thus conceived as a kind of religious magic, bringing to the Lord great delight and possessing mysterious power to open the Kingdom of heaven.

I want to be fair to everyone and to find all the good I can in every man's religious beliefs, but the harmful effects of this faith-as-magic creed are greater than could be imagined by anyone who has not come face-to-face with them. Large assemblies today are being told fervently that the one essential qualification for heaven is to be an evil man, and the one sure bar to God's favor is to be a good one. The very word righteousness is spoken only in cold scorn, and the moral man is looked upon with pity. "A Christian," say these teachers, "is not morally better than a sinner; the only difference is that he has taken Jesus, and so he has a Savior." I trust it may not sound flippant to inquire, "A savior from what?" If not from sin and evil conduct and the old fallen life, then from what? And if the answer is, "From the consequences of past sins and from judgment to come," still we are not satisfied. Is justification from past offens es all that distinguishes a Christian from a sinner? Can a man become a believer in Christ and be no better than he was before? Does the gospel offer no more than a skillful Advocate to get guilty sinners off free at the Day of Judgment?

I think the truth of the matter is not too deep nor too difficult to discover. Self-righteousness is an effective bar to God's favor because it throws the sinner back upon his own merits and shuts him out from the imputed righteousness of Christ. And to be a sinner confessed and consciously lost is necessary to the act of receiving salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. This we joyously admit and constantly assert, but here is the truth that has been overlooked in our day: A sinner cannot enter the Kingdom of God. The Bible passages that declare this are too many and too familiar to need repeating here, but the skeptical might look at Galatians 5:19-21 and Revelation 21:8. How then can any man be saved? The penitent sinner me ets Christ, and after that saving encounter he is a sinner no more. The power of the gospel changes him, shifts the basis of his life from self to Christ, faces him about in a new direction, and makes him a new creation. The moral state of the penitent when he comes to Christ does not affect the result, for the work of Christ sweeps away both his good and his evil, and turns him into another man. The returning sinner is not saved by some judicial transaction apart from a corresponding moral change. Salvation must include a judicial change of status, but what is overlooked by most teachers is that it also includes an actual change in the life of the individual. And by this we mean more than a surface change; we mean a transformation as deep as the roots of his human life. If it does not go that deep, it does not go deep enough.

If we had not first suffered a serious decline in our expectations, we should not have accepted this tame technical view of faith. The churches (even the gospel churches) are worldly in spirit, morally anemic, on the defensive, imitating instead of initiating, and in a wretched state generally because for two full generations they have been told that justification is no more than a not guilty verdict pronounced by the heavenly Father upon a sinner who can present the magic in faith with the wondrous "open sesame" engraved upon it. If it is not stated as bluntly as that, at least the message is so presented as to create such an impression. The whole business is the result of hearing the Word preached without power and receiving it in the same way.

Now faith is indeed the open sesame to eternal blessedness. Without faith it is impossible to please God; neither can any man be saved apart from faith in the risen Savior. But the true quality of faith is almost universally missed, namely, its moral quality. It is more than mere confidence in the veracity of a statement made in Holy Writ. It is a highly moral thing and of a spiritual essence. It invariably effects radical transformation in the life of the one who exercises it. It shifts the inward gaze from self to God. It introduces its possessor into the life of heaven upon earth.

It is not my desire to minimize the justifying effect of faith. No man who knows the depths of his own wickedness would dare to appear before the ineffable Presence with nothing to recommend him but his own character, nor would any Christian, wise after the discipline of failures and imperfections, want his acceptance with God to depend upon any degree of holiness to which he might have attained through the operations of inward grace. All who know their own hearts and the provisions of the gospel will join in the prayer of the man of God:

When He shall come with trumpet sound,

O may I then in Him be found;

Dressed in His righteousness alone,

Faultless to stand before the throne.

It is a distressing thing that a truth so beautiful should have been so perverted. But perversion is the price we pay for failure to emphasize the moral content of truth; it is the curse that follows rational orthodoxy when it has quenched or rejected the Spirit of Truth.

In asserting that faith in the gospel effects a change of life motive from self to God, I am but stating the sober facts. Every man with moral intelligence must be aware of the curse that afflicts him inwardly; he must be conscious of the thing we call ego, by the Bible called flesh or self, but by whatever name called, a cruel master and a deadly foe. Pharaoh never ruled Israel as tyrannically as this hidden enemy rules the sons and daughters of men. The words of God to Moses concerning Israel in bondage may well describe us all: "I have indeed seen the misery of My people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering." And when, as the Nicene Creed so tenderly states, our Lord Jesus Christ, "for us men, and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered and w as buried, and the third day He arose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father," what was it all for? That He might pronounce us technically free and leave us in our bondage? Never. Did not God say to Moses, "I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey"? For sin's human captives God never intends anything less than full deliverance. The Christian message rightly understood means this: The God, who by the word of the gospel proclaims men free, by the power of the gospel actually makes them free. To accept less than this is to know the gospel in word only, without its power.

They to whom the Word comes in power know this deliverance, this inward migration of the soul from slavery to freedom, this release from moral bondage. They know in experience a radical shift in position, a real crossing over, and they stand consciously on another soil under another sky and breath another air. Their life motives are changed and their inward drives made new.

What are these old drives that once forced obedience at the end of a lash? What but little taskmasters, servants of the great taskmaster Self, who stand before him and do his will? To name them all would require a book in itself, but we would point out one as a type of sample of the rest. It is the desire for social approval. This is not bad in itself and might be perfectly innocent if we were living in a sinless world, but since the race of men has fallen off from God and joined itself to His foes, to be a friend of the world is to be a collaborator with evil and an enemy of God. Still the desire to please men is back of all social acts from the highest civilizations to the lowest levels upon which human life is found. No one can escape it. The outlaw who flouts the rules of society and the philosopher who rises in thought above its common ways may seem to have escaped from the snare, but they have in reality merely narrowed the circle of those they desire to please. The outlaw has his pals before whom he seeks to shine; the philosopher his little coterie of superior thinkers whose approval is necessary to his happiness. For both, the motive root remains uncut. Each draws his peace from the thought that he enjoys the esteem of his fellows, though each will interpret the whole business in his own way.

Every man looks to his fellowmen because he has no one else to whom he can look. David could say, "Whom have I in heaven but You? And earth has nothing I desire besides You," but the sons of this world have not God; they have only each other, and they walk holding to each other and looking to one another for assurance like frightened children. But their hope will fail them, for they are like a group of men, none of whom has learned to fly a plane, who suddenly find themselves aloft without a pilot, each looking to the other to bring them safely down. Their desperate but mistaken trust cannot save them from the crash which must certainly follow.

With this desire to please men so deeply implanted within us, how can we uproot it and shift our life drive from pleasing men to pleasing God? Well, no one can do it alone; nor can he do it with the help of others, nor by education, nor by training, nor by any other method known under the sun. What is required is a reversal of nature (that it is a fallen nature does not make it any the less powerful), and this reversal must be a supernatural act. That act the Spirit performs through the power of the gospel when it is received in living faith. Then He displaces the old with the new. Then He invades the life as sunlight invades a landscape and drives out the old motives as light drives away darkness from the sky.

The way it works in experience is something like this: The believing man is overwhelmed suddenly by a powerful feeling that only God matters; soon this works itself out into his mental life and conditions all his judgments and all his values. Now he finds himself free from slavery to man's opinions. A mighty desire to please only God lays hold of him. Soon he learns to love above all else the assurance that he is well pleasing to the Father in heaven.

It is this complete switch in their pleasure source that has made believing men invincible. So could saints and martyrs stand alone, deserted by every earthly friend, and die for Christ under the universal displeasure of mankind. When, to intimidate him, Athanasius' judges warned him that the whole world was against him, he dared to reply, "Then is Athanasius against the world!" That cry has come down the years and today may remind us that the gospel has power to deliver men from the tyranny of social approval and make them free to do the will of God.

I have singled out this one enemy for consideration, but it is only one, and there are many others. They seem to stand by themselves and have existence apart from each other, but it is only seeming. Actually they are but branches of the same poison vine, growing from the same evil root, and they die together when the root dies. That root is self, and the Cross is its only effective destroyer.

The message of the gospel, then, is the message of a new creation in the midst of an old, the message of the invasion of our human nature by the eternal life of God and the displacing of the old by the new. The new life seizes upon the believing man's nature and sets about its benign conquest, a conquest that is not complete until the invading life has taken full possession and a new creation has emerged. And this is an act of God without human aid, for it is a moral miracle and a spiritual resurrection.

Tozer in the Evening Those Museum Pieces

Now I do not think that Satan much cares to destroy us Christians physically. The soldier dead in battle who died performing some deed of heroism is not a great loss to the army but may rather be an object of pride to his country. On the other hand the soldier who cannot or will not fight but runs away at the sound of the first enemy gun is a shame to his family and a disgrace to his nation. So a Christian who dies in the faith represents no irreparable loss to the forces of righteousness on earth and certainly no victory for the devil. But when whole regiments of professed believers are too timid to fight and too smug to be ashamed, surely it must bring an astringent smile to the face of the enemy; and it should bring a blush to the cheeks of the whole Church of Christ. The devil's master strategy for us Christians then is not to kill us physically (though there may be some special situations where physical death fits into his plan better), but to destroy our power to w age spiritual warfare. And how well he has succeeded. The average Christian these days is a harmless enough thing. God knows. He is a child wearing with considerable self-consciousness the harness of the warrior; he is a sick eaglet that can never mount up with wings; he is a spent pilgrim who has given up the journey and sits with a waxy smile trying to get what pleasure he can from sniffing the wilted flowers he has plucked by the way. Such as these have been reached. Satan has gotten to them early. By means of false teaching or inadequate teaching, or the huge discouragement that comes from the example of a decadent church, he has succeeded in weakening their resolution, neutralizing their convictions and taming their original urge to do exploits; now they are little more than statistics that contribute financially to the upkeep of the religious institution. And how many a pastor is content to act as a patient, smiling curator of a church full (or a quarter full) of such b lessed spiritual museum pieces.

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anthonybialy · 1 year ago

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Buffalo Bills Out of Overtime

Sean McDermott probably doesn’t hate you. But he’d coach no differently if he did. The most Buffalo Bills result ever couldn’t have been engineered more deliberately to crush its supporters. This franchise should be taken to The Hague and tried for torture. Awful mistakes paired with maddening decisions are the legacy they can’t escape.

What was the most frustrating part? I’ll submit it’s that we’ll ever get to stop asking. The broader view brings understanding along with woe.

Removing Stefon Diggs in key situations is an experiment to measure your tolerance for aggravation. It’s paired by waiting almost a full quarter before targeting him. Haven’t the Bills seen the campaign lawn signs? Allen/Diggs campaign materials are this decade’s “Baby on board” accessory for Western New York households.

The Bills screwed that up so badly that they distracted from criminal officiating. The touchdown near half’s end showed Diggs is capable of righting a wrong. A horse collar is a penalty. On the collared player. Disregarding victimhood distracts from the atrocious intentional grounding in what we hope was unintentional incompetence by officials who act too ridiculously for professional wrestling. We saw “Ball don’t lie” in action as karma caused Philadelphia to fumble. The closest thing to justice in a rotten world is the afflicted party fixing it themselves.

Mistakes are bound to happen even in victories. For this cluv, that’s presently theoretical. The Eagles game evolved to where they’d overcome shortcomings or lose because of them. This is the Bills, so you already know it was the latter even if you just woke up from a Thanksgiving nap.

James Cook proves chaos theory. A butterfly flapping its wings leading to buffalos not stampeding. His drop on a seemingly sure score early on led to magnified aggravation that continued through the other team’s final score. Dalton Kincaid similarly knew he was going to get hit, so he may as well catch it.

Josh Allen’s determination went to waste this week just like it has for his sixth season. Ken Dorsey screamed at the Applebee’s TV that you can’t let him run like that. Maybe he knew the Bills would screw up anyway, so there’s no reason to expose the dear quarterback to hazard.

Nothing will teach ambivalence like sports. The interception was the absolute worst time for hasty Josh to arrive. I would rather deal with Date Mike than Allen thinking he’s too cool to check coverages. His costly turnover is near the bottom of the list of reasons why they lost, although he could make his own case easier.

Stopping the Eagles was often a lethargic process. It looked like Dorsey taught tackling. The Bills always have one good aspect and one lousy aspect. Special teams would like to point out that they’re not the dog despite two monumental missed field goals that might have changed the course of everything.

Sunday served as Jordan Poyer’s unofficial retirement. Keep him in if you’d like more plays from someone only technically playing. His clear unwillingness to have anything to do with stopping Hurts on the game-winning score was the cherry on top. By contrast, I hope hitting the Eagle who scored on his watch made him feel better. At least his partner is as unhelpful, as seen when Poyer combined with Micah Hyde to simultaneously whiff on the next touchdown. They’re presently at the same points in their respective careers. Unfortunately, that means they’re equally washed.

Younger players flaunted shortcomings, as well. Gabe Davis spaced out at the most inopportune time. The offense will struggle for as long as its second receiver is starring in a Cheech and Chong reboot.

Going in the wrong direction is not just figurative. We’ve seen Von Miller head toward the quarterback before. It was mostly with other teams. Now, he’s overshooting or turning inward. None of his moves are bringing him anywhere near sacks, which might be why they’re so easy to execute.

Monty Python fans know the legend of Brave Sean McDermott who bravely kneeled away. The capitulation to end regulation was the McDermottest play ever. Buffalo may not have even gotten to overtime if he had the ability to weigh benefits versus risks and believe he leads enough talent to overcome the latter. Those spreading the narrative of Josh going 0-6 in overtime should shift focus upward. His coach has this particular quarterback at his disposal yet still can’t prevail in ties.

Philadelphia is already a tough team to tackle or stop in any other regard. The Bills can’t blame a foreboding schedule for their failure to live up to the challenge. The better team displayed resolve. As a hint, it’s not the one McDermott coaches. His timidness haunts Buffalo.

What does not seizing opportunities look like? Oh. Many promising moments got squandered if you don’t feel infuriated enough. We’re finally seeing players in motion, which can be very confusing. But don’t fret, as that’s the point. Philadelphia’s defense was thankfully as perplexed. Accepting underneath options is also a sign of offensive maturity. It took going to Philadelphia and firing Dorsey to holster the shotgun on fourth and short.

But meekness prevailed, which means the Bills didn’t. This week would’ve been a good time to make the sort of bold move McDermott never does, namely by firing someone who’s overseeing declining. Instead, ownership is as soft as his late-game zone.

McDermott’s real NFL home awaits him moving back. Sadly, he’ll stay right where he is. With the Carolina job open again as per annual tradition, he could stop kidnapping their players and simply keep them there. He’d be better off leading the Panthers out of woe than causing more for the Bills. The task most suited to McDermott’s abilities is naturally the opposite of the one he’ll retain. A coach who’s skilled at rebuilding is tearing down his previous work.

A bye means time to brood if you’re a fan of this particular team this season. We suffer through an extra agonizing week with nothing but memories while bracing for a game we rightfully fear will be just as brutal. It feels like we’re doomed. But there’s no blaming fate when the same workers are allowed to keep making regrettable decisions.

#Buffalo Bills #Josh Allen #Sean McDermott #football #NFL

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theerurishipper · 2 years ago

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Yes, exactly! I don't think people understand why it's so important that Zuko is "better" than Azula at the end. It's not just for cool action, or to watch him defeat her. It's a thematic element that emphasizes their character journeys. To say things like "Azula wouldn't have lost if she had the opportunity to meet the dragons" or that Zuko had an advantage because of this is missing the point.

Why did Zuko have that advantage? Because he went out of his way to find them and learn. It's like saying the reason a casual player of a sport is at an unfair disadvantage against a professional because "the professional practiced for years." Yes, but would that be the professional's fault? The professional worked hard for their skills and if the casual player feels cheated, would it be the fault of the professional? We would say no, right? Because the professional player worked hard to develop those skills and devoted time and effort to them. The casual player may have a variety of reasons for their inability to learn, but it would not be the fault of the professional that they didn't learn, in the end.

In the same vein, Azula simply would not think to learn from the dragons, because she considers herself superior. Of course that is what she has been taught and it is not her fault for being indoctrinated, but Zuko made a humongous effort to break free from his indoctrination and showed true humility and a willingness to learn. It's not his fault that Azula would not care to learn what he has. The fact that Zuko does everything he can to learn more and improve is precisely what makes him better than Azula. Throughout the series, Zuko is learning and constantly improving himself. Not just him, the whole Gaang is learning and growing. Even Toph, a prodigy amongst prodigies who starts the series as a master earthbender, is learning. But aside from one scene in the beginning where she is practicing something she already knows, we never see Azula learn anything! This tells us about her belief in her superiority, that she believes that she has achieved perfection and doesn't need to improve. She's already better than that weakling Zuzu, her father loves her and her strength, so why would she improve?

Another thing I've seen people say is that Azula too incorporates other styles of bending into her firebending, and it's just... come on. That's just not true. She wholeheartedly believes that fire is the superior element. Her keeping non-benders around isn't proof that she has great respect for other forms of bending. We know she believes she is better than Mai and Ty Lee as well. She may value her intellect as well, but to say that she isn't under the impression that firebending is the best form of bending is a lie. Her self-worth comes from being better than Zuko in every way, but one important aspect is that she finds self-worth from being a better bender than Zuko. Azula is heavily indoctrinated into her beliefs of superiority and her/the Fire Nation's divine rights to rule. She was born with that right, as she was born a firebender, the daughter of the Firelord. You can't say that she appreciates and learns from others unlike Ozai (which is apparently why she's better than him) and in the same breath say that Ozai indoctrinated her and that's why she wishes to do things like burn the Earth Kingdom down because she doesn't know any better. Either she is indoctrinated or she is not. You can't have it both ways, but these are takes I've seen. Everything suggests to her wholeheartedly believing in her inherent superiority over others.

Zuko's firebending is better because he understands the true essence of the element. Unlike Ozai and Azula who use firebending purely as weapon or a means to an end, Zuko knows the true meaning of fire, which is energy and life. We see him switch from an aggressive offense to a controlled defensive style. He actually incorporates other forms of bending into his own. Azula doesn't.

It's also really interesting how the Fire Nation discourages dancing, and yet one of the oldest firebending forms of firebending is a dance. And it's also interesting how we see Zuko do this breakdancing-esque move way before he meets the dragons. Did he understand the true meaning of firebending then? Definitely not. But it does show us that he isn't like his father or sister even though he tries. He punches and kicks but he also dances, just like when he yells and postures he also cares. When pushed to a tight spot he cares (like when he decided to get his ship and crew to safety despite his talk about not caring for anyone's safety), and when pushed into a corner he dances (like in the Agni Kai with Zhao), which shows that it's always been in him. He's always had an affinity for empathy and compassion, and he's always had an affinity for his fire. He just needed to grow and overcome his inner turmoil to really understand it and himself and let it show. And in the end, after everything, he finds himself and accepts his qualities of empathy and compassion, and he accepts his element, and his breakdancing move is the one that knocks Azula down.

Seeing, "Zuko is canonically bad at firebending," takes on my dash, so...

Zuko is canonically not bad at firebending. He may not be the natural prodigy that Azula or Iroh are, but skills don't work on a basis of either "extreme prodigy" or "not good at all."

Zuko works hard throughout the series to grow and improve in his firebending, and he does.

He defeats Zhao, an adult firebending master, in an Agni Kai when he's 16 and ostensibly still stuck on the basics, because mastering the fundamentals is a huge part of getting "good" at any skill.

He learns lightning redirection in about a day and later successfully uses it against Ozai, who is meant to be an extremely powerful firebender.

He learns to understand and appreciate his fire on a fundamental level from the dragons, who were the original firebenders, and in so doing he becomes a firebending master just as much as Katara (who had a few days/weeks at most of formal training) or Toph (who declared herself an earthbending master after learning from badgermoles) are masters of their elements.

And then he took everything he had learned about fire and put it together to help Aang master firebending over the course of a few weeks.

None of that says, "canonically bad firebender." It says that Zuko didn't start out as a major natural prodigy like his sister, but he worked hard, never stopped learning and growing, and developed into a very strong and capable firebending master in his own right by the end of the show.

#ATLA #Zuko #Azula #Meta #My meta

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addictedtostorytelling · 2 years ago

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when the latter is uttered as a question, “do you want to sleep with me?” and “you want to sleep with me?” are semantically identical sentences. however, within the context of grissom and sara’s relationship dynamic, there is a keen distinction. to grissom’s ears, from sara’s lips, “you want to sleep with me?” isn’t just a question but an assertion, one that comes across almost as an accusation, as her calling him out on something she empirically knows about him. she isn’t asking for him to supply an unknown variable in their equation but rather challenging him to deny a known one if he can; if he will; if he dares to—and, of course, she realizes that he can’t; that he won’t; that he couldn’t bring himself to, because to do so would be a lie. their sums wouldn’t add up, if he did. that’s part of what makes what she says so affronting: not just the fact that she has broached the topic of sex, which would be a taboo between any boss and his subordinate in any workplace setting, but that she has broached the topic of sex between them specifically and in so doing laid bare the truth of his desire, which usually neither one of them is bold enough to acknowledge head-on. throughout this episode runs a thread of tension between grissom’s powerful but ultimately ineffable wanting for sara and his sense of professional decorum; between the real reason why he is so compelled to solve the case and the reasons he is allowed to give to explain away why he is so. nowhere is that tension made more explicit than with this line of dialogue. sara knows exactly what she is doing here—that in omitting that one single verb, she will force grissom, if only for a split second, to confront the certitude of his attraction to her. in her vulnerability, she wants him to feel just as vulnerable as she does, and she succeeds. she has taken the dark thing and dragged it out, momentarily, into the light, impelling him to face it. yes, he does want to sleep with her. he always has. he still does, even now. she has stood before the man who fears nothing more than to be known and proved to him she knows his deepest secret, wielding it as a weapon to preempt him from digging any deeper into her behavior in this instance; to keep him from learning her own deepest secret, which this case has brought him dangerously close to unearthing. offense as defense. and, of course, ultimately, her maneuver works: grissom can’t muster a denial. all he can do is fumble, then voice his incredulity that she would dare to name the unnamable; that she would break their unwritten rules of engagement by speaking the truth that until now has remained decidedly, perpetually, achingly unspoken between them: “i know you want me. i know because i pay attention to you. because i want you, too.”

#csiedit #csi cbs #csi #gsr #gil grissom #sara sidle #sara x grissom #otp: gsr #william petersen #jorja fox #**#my gifs #my graveyard gifs #my meta #meta: csi #meta: gsr #01x10 #csiverse

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contemplativepancakes · 3 years ago

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Geralt is possibly the least interesting vampire in the world. Jaskier is strangely okay with that. 4k, G. read on AO3 here!

for @theamazingbard (:

Geralt holds up two ties in front of the mirror, comparing the fabrics against his suit. By now, he’s used to the headless suit that reflects back at him in the mirror. Geralt’s never been one to overly question things, so he couldn’t tell you why vampires don’t show up in mirrors, but really, that’s fine. A relief, even.

He’s not sure he wants to know what he looks like. He knew once, before he was turned. He wasn’t exactly a looker then, and he highly doubts he is now.

Geralt chooses the black tie with the tiny dots instead of the black tie with the stripes, and clips it on to his suit. What? He can’t be expected to tie a tie every single day. He smooths it down over his chest. Satisfied, he sits down on the bed to tie his dress shoes. Reliable double knots.

He walks down the hall to crouch in front of the refrigerator, pulling out one of the bags of blood he keeps there. He pauses to look at the label. It’s his favorite, AB. He tucks it into his lunchbox, then pauses to rip one open and dump it into his travel mug. He pours some protein powder in it to make the blood coagulate. He can definitely see the appeal of this boba tea the humans have been drinking recently.

As he heads out the door, he darkens a little as he looks at his neighbors’ decorations. He hates Halloween. A time for people to get everything wrong about monsters. They live with them, the least they could do is be a little considerate and do their research.

No, they can’t repel Geralt with garlic. He scowls at the thought.

Geralt’s distracted from his thoughts as a young man runs by him out of seemingly nowhere and falls on the sidewalk just in front of him, his knee splitting open.

Geralt rubs a hand on his neck as the man looks up at him beseechingly.

“Uh. Do you need any help?”

“My, you’re ever so kind,” the man says, extending a hand that Geralt uses to pull him to his feet.

“Probably want to get that cleaned off,” Geralt says. “Make sure it doesn’t get infected.”

“Oh, dear! You’re right. Would it be possible for me to use your sink?” he asks, batting his eyelashes.

Geralt squints. “I...guess?”

“Oh, thank you!”

Geralt unlocks his door and leads the man into his bathroom, graciously pretending not to notice the man looking around the apartment in wide eyed fascination. He must not know that Geralt is a vampire, then, or he wouldn’t be so quick to ask Geralt for help. People around here avoid Geralt for the most part.

“I’m Jaskier,” the man says, as he bends his leg so his knee is right under the faucet. Geralt politely looks away when he notices how the motion makes the material of his pants stretch right across the seat of his ass.

“Geralt,” he replies, watching Jaskier closely for a reaction.

There’s none, so Geralt kneels down and looks under the sink for his hydrogen peroxide. When he finds it, he hands it to Jaskier wordlessly.

Jaskier flashes him a winning smile. “I guess it was my lucky day to run into you, hmm?”

Geralt doesn’t think anyone has ever said that about him before. “Anyone would do what they could to help you avoid infection,” he says dutifully.

Jaskier deflates a bit. “Well, there must be some way I can repay you. How about coffee?”

“Oh. I don’t really...drink coffee.” Geralt waits for Jaskier to get it. It’s not like monsters like him are uncommon, per se.

“How about dinner, then? A steakhouse.”

“Sure,” Geralt says, surprising himself. He blinks. His brothers are always telling him he needs to make more friends. And a steak does sound particularly good. He rarely lets himself indulge in things like that.

Jaskier brightens. “Hey, would you mind putting a band aid on this for me? I can never get it to stay.”

“I’m not sure that applying band aids is exactly rocket science,” Geralt says, but he does it anyway, his nose twitching at the scent of the fresh blood.

Geralt is centuries old, though, so it’s not like a little blood is the end of the world. Maybe when he was a fledgling, but those days are long past him.

He gives Jaskier’s knee a tiny pat. “Looks like those pants are done in for,” he says inanely.

Jaskier shrugs. “A worthy sacrifice.”

Geralt doesn’t respond to that, and Jaskier lets the silence linger. Geralt clears his throat. “I’m going to be late for work.”

Before he leaves, Jaskier insists Geralt give him his number so that he can arrange their dinner. “I’m very much looking forward to it,” Jaskier says with a grin.

Geralt gives him a hesitant smile, looking at the clock. He really does need to get a move on.

Jaskier seems to get the hint and lets Geralt usher him out the door.

In the end, Geralt’s not late, but he is grumpy that he only arrived five minutes early instead of his customary fifteen. It throws his entire day off, and the numbers seem to swim before him on his computer screen like never before.

Geralt scowls. He should have picked the tie with the stripes.

Jaskier contains his pout as he walks along the sidewalk, away from Geralt’s house. He practically offered himself up on a platter to be ravished, and Geralt was completely unaffected. There was blood right in front of his nose!

Jaskier doubts his information for a second, but Priscilla was the one who told him in hushed whispers that the word was that Geralt was a vampire. If Valdo had been the one to tell him, then he would have had a few more qualms, but Priscilla wouldn’t lie to him like that.

She knows how the idea of being partners with a monster makes him feel hot under the collar.

Jaskier resolves to be better. If a cut knee wasn’t enough, he’ll just have to step up his game for this dinner. And surely, if Geralt didn’t want to be seduced, he would have sent Jaskier on his merry way after bandaging his knee instead of bandaging it for him, for gods’ sake.

Maybe Geralt wants to be the one being chased after for once. Well, Jaskier is happy to oblige.

When Geralt gets home from work, there’s a text waiting for him. How about Friday night for our little get together?

It’s not like Geralt ever has any plans that might get in the way besides his weekly meeting, so it’s not like he has to check his calendar before he replies. Sure.

Great! I’ll pick you up at 8! :D

Geralt frowns. This doesn’t seem right. He hasn’t made a new friend in possibly fifty years, and now one literally falls into his path?

He hums to himself as he does his nightly routine, pushing on the gum above each fang to make it pop out so he can properly brush it. Cleanliness is next to godliness, and all that. Actual dentists that weren’t just going to try to pull out his teeth have only been around for less than the majority of his life, so it’s habit to take good care of them.

Geralt strips off his clothes until he’s left in just his t-shirt and boxers and climbs into bed. No, he doesn’t have a coffin or hang upside down like some sort of bat. Geralt’s not sure where all that nonsense got its roots in the first place.

There’s so many things that humans seem to have no qualms believing about monsters, though, and Geralt frowns as he punches his pillow into a better shape. He’s almost 250. His lumbar health is no joke.

His anxiety bleeds into his work, making Excel blink more error messages back at him than he’s ever seen before. Geralt’s boss pulls him aside to ask if he’s okay. Geralt sulks.

He is the consummate professional, and he’s not going to let this dinner get the better of him. Geralt contends anyone would be nervous if they hadn’t made a new friend in decades, too.

Now, he stands in front of his closet. He’s certainly not going to wear a suit, but he rarely wears anything else. It’s not like he goes much of any place besides work and his weekly meetings. Geralt sighs as he pulls a pair of jeans out of his wardrobe.

They’re a lot tighter than he remembers, but this is all he has, so it’ll have to do. He finds a long sleeved shirt that is luckily on the baggier side. He hopes that will make up for his too-close fitting jeans.

Geralt brushes his hair, but he can’t see it in the mirror, so there’s no point in doing anything else with it. He’s more likely to make himself look ridiculous than presentable with whatever he might attempt.

Geralt plants himself on the couch, reaching for his book to read until the clock rolls around to the time Jaskier promised to pick him up. His fingers play with the corners of the pages, bending them in a way that he’s sure would make a librarian displeased.

Geralt huffs when he realizes he’s not going to get any reading done and sets the book down on his side table. He takes a deep breath through his nose. He is ancient; he shouldn’t be getting social anxiety right now.

His phone pings with a text. Outside!

Geralt looks out the window, and indeed, there’s a car there. It’s a lime green slug bug, with rust eating its way up from the undercarriage. Geralt pinches the bridge of his nose. That looks like Jaskier’s car, all right.

Jaskier tries not to drool as Geralt walks down his steps. He’s wearing pants that are skin tight, which should frankly be illegal, and his shirt hangs off of him so that it shows his collar bones. Jaskier thought that vampires should be the ones who wanted to bite, but he would really love to get his mouth on one of those.

Geralt gets into the passenger seat with a half smile playing around his lips. “Like my ride?” Jaskier asks.

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

Jaskier claps his hand to his heart in mock offense. “I’m wounded.”

Geralt hums, shifting in his seat as he fastens his seatbelt. Jaskier drums his fingers on the steering wheel, flexing his right arm to draw attention to the bandage he has there. He went and donated blood this afternoon, and if Geralt doesn’t get his hint this time, he is going to pound his head against the nearest wall.

Geralt shifts his head to look out the window as Jaskier keeps his arms on shameless display. He knows times have changed, but it’s also always a little dizzying to see so much of everyone’s skin on display all the time, their pulse thrumming invitingly underneath it.

Geralt shakes his head to clear it of its reverie as Jaskier pulls his car into drive. It gives a concerning lurch. Before Geralt can open his mouth to comment, Jaskier is holding up a hand. “I can assure you, we are perfectly safe.”

“Hmm.”

“Hey!” Jaskier protests. “It is. I take care of it.”

“All I said was hmm,” Geralt says with a tiny grin. “That’s why it has so much rust, right?”

Jaskier sighs. “I was going to get around to repaint it, and then I just...other things came up.”

Geralt makes a face at him, laughing at Jaskier’s increased defenses. Some of his anxiety fades away as he realizes this isn’t so bad, after all. Maybe Jaskier needs a new friend just as badly as him.

When they arrive at the restaurant, Jaskier pulls Geralt’s chair out for him. Geralt gives him a polite nod. He can’t say he has a firm grasp on all the recent customs. Lambert’s always telling him he’s stuck in the past.

Geralt crosses his fingers and rests his chin on his hands as he watches Jaskier eat his salad, taking endearingly large bites. Jaskier hasn’t even mentioned anything about vampires yet. Geralt is starting to feel a tiny bit guilty. Would he still want to spend all this time with him if he knew Geralt wasn’t human?

As he’s thinking that, Jaskier takes a big gulp of his water and starts to sputter. Geralt’s across the table in an instant, his hand around Jaskier’s bicep and another hand on his back. “Are you okay?” Geralt murmurs, tense and ready to help if the need arises.

Jaskier coughs and waves him off. “Just went down the wrong pipe.”

Geralt relaxes a bit, but as his hand lingers on Jaskier’s arm, he can’t help but feel how warm it is, such a contrast to his own constantly cool skin. When Jaskier turns his face to look up at him, Geralt quickly drops his arm and beats a hasty retreat back to his seat.

He could swear Jaskier looks disappointed. He must be delusional.

When the main course comes, Geralt cuts neatly into his pink steak, mouth watering as the juices come leaking out of it. He sucks the tip of his finger into his mouth, eyes fluttering shut at the salty taste of it.

He makes himself cut the steak into tiny pieces. He’ll have to tell Jaskier he’s a vampire eventually; he might as well make sure he doesn’t think he’s a barbaric onel. Geralt tries his best to keep his eyes on Jaskier’s face instead of his arms. He can’t help but notice that he has some very nice veins. They’re a striking blue, and a perfect compliment to his eyes.

Geralt bites his lip, flinching when one of his fangs pops out on its own, pressing into his lip.

“One of my uncles is a werewolf,” Jaskier says, apropos of nothing, looking at Geralt meaningfully.

A trickle of sweat runs down Geralt’s back. Does Jaskier think he’s a werewolf? Werewolves are generally regarded better than vampires; at least they’re only monsters one night a month.

“Hmm,” Geralt says, not hearing the rest of Jaskier’s sentence.

Jaskier laughs at his own joke, and Geralt blinks rapidly until he can focus again on what Jaskier’s saying.

When the waiter comes with the check, Jaskier insists on paying for it. Is this what friendship has evolved to since Geralt last had one? He doesn’t know enough about it to argue with Jaskier, so he lets him do what he wants.

Outside of Geralt’s house, Jaskier puts a hand on the console between them, making eye contact with Geralt before dropping his gaze down to his lips. Geralt gives him a gentle smile, his eyes crinkling. His white hair looks ethereal in the moonlight, and Jaskier is only a little infatuated.

Geralt’s exterior is stony, but he also had no problems giving Jaskier all sorts of secret smiles throughout the night. Jaskier’s not sure he’s met a better listener than Geralt, and he tends to drone on and on, so that’s somewhat important to him.

Jaskier closes his eyes and starts to lean in when Geralt opens the car door. Jaskier opens his eyes.

“I had a great time, thank you,” Geralt says, one hand on the top of the car.

Jaskier bites his lip, stopping himself from saying what he wants. “Me, too. Let’s do it again some time?”

Geralt nods eagerly, and Jaskier watches him walk away, his gaze fixed on Geralt’s devastating pants and not at all on the way his ass looks in them.

Jaskier rests his head on the steering wheel in despair. He doesn’t know how to be any more heavy handed than this. He went and donated blood! And Geralt let him pay for their meal! He’s not sure how he can get across the point any better that he’s a talking blood bag, and he’s open for business.

Jaskier heaves a gigantic sigh and resolves to go home and plot his next move.

Maybe Geralt’s just shy.

Well. Jaskier can work with that

Geralt’s weekend passes in its normal fashion. He goes for a run, drinks some blood out of his supply in the fridge, then crashes on the couch for a whole day while he thinks of anything other than work. Sometimes Eskel lets himself in using his key, but he doesn’t that weekend, and Geralt crosses his arms over his chest as he tortures himself thinking of what Eskel might be doing.

Eskel’s never had problems making friends, unlike Geralt, so he’s sure he’s out having a good time with them.

Geralt used to be good at making friends, gods damn it, before all of them died of old age and he just didn’t see the point anymore. He’s come to suppose that there’s not all that much of a point in immortality if all he does is work, though.

The weekend’s over just as quickly as it began, and on Monday night, he can’t help the smile that creeps across his face when Jaskier texts him about some inane thing he noticed. Was he thinking of Geralt? That’s...nice.

Cautiously, Geralt lets himself hope that something is going to come out of this.

But first, he needs to tell Jaskier he’s a vampire. He wouldn’t be the first person to run away screaming, even though they are much more accepted now than they used to be.

Geralt shudders as he thinks of the industrial revolution. No regard for any monsters then. Humans invent light bulbs, and all of a sudden they think they’re too good for a healthy dash of respect.

Geralt looks back down at his phone, at a music video Jaskier sent him of someone playing a singing saw.

He lets himself focus on that a while.

Wednesday creeps around, and with it, Geralt’s weekly meeting.

He takes his spot in his customary chair, and looks around for Lambert, ignoring the look Eskel is trying to burn through the side of his face with.

“Why do I have to be here, again?” Geralt asks, when he gives up on Lambert to come save him.

Eskel rolls his eyes. It’s an argument they’ve had more than once. “If you won’t become a sponsor, you have to at least show them that things get better.”

Geralt huffs a breath out through his nose as he watches the regulars file in. There’s one new person, and Geralt eyes her curiously. She looks a little terrified, and Geralt softens in sympathy.

The meeting starts, and they go around in the circle, the seat beside Geralt still empty in Lambert’s tardiness.

“Hi, I’m Geralt, and I’m a blood addict,” he drones when it’s his turn.

When they’ve moved on to their personal struggles for the week, Lambert finally appears, dropping into his chair.

He elbows Geralt, seemingly unaware of everyone staring at them.

“Hey, what’s got you in such a good mood?”

Geralt firmly fixes a scowl in place and ignores him. He’s not sure why he even wanted Lambert to show up in the first place.

Geralt leans back in his chair, crossing his arms as he listens to everyone else, Eskel being disgustingly reassuring to them all, as per usual. Geralt stamps the jealousy down. It’s not Eskel’s fault he’s so good with people.

The meeting drags by, and when it’s finally over, Lambert doesn’t let Geralt just sneak away. He digs his elbow into his side again, holding Geralt by the shoulder. “You didn’t answer me earlier. What’s got you in such a good mood?”

“I’m not,” Geralt says.

Lambert hums. “You don’t have your usual storm cloud above your head, so I’m going to count it.”

Geralt scowls at him and looks at Eskel for back up, but Eskel just raises his eyebrows at him.

“I hate you both,” Geralt grumbles.

“You love us,” Lambert says.

“Fine. I made a new friend,” he grates out.

Lambert and Eskel exchange an insufferable look.

“What?” Geralt demands.

“You, make a friend? Well, we’re just going to have to hear all about this to believe it.”

Geralt huffs, but he tells them about Jaskier.

“He took you to dinner? And paid? And you think he wants to be just friends?” Lambert asks.

Geralt flaps his hands around and hisses, “Look, I’ve barely been anywhere that isn’t here or work in the last three decades, how am I supposed to keep up with all this human nonsense? And besides, I haven’t even told him I’m a vampire yet. I’ll be lucky if he even wants to be my friend after that.”

Eskel bites his lip. “You know that’s a turn on for some humans, right?”

“What?”

“And you said he scraped his knee the first time he saw you? Geralt, I think he already knows, and he’s just trying to get in your pants.”

Geralt deflates. That makes a twisted sort of sense. “Oh.”

Lambert punches him in the arm. “Hey, lighten up. If anyone can charm him with their stunning personality, it’s you.”

“Fuck off.”

It’s difficult to fall asleep that night.

A week goes by without him answering any of Jaskier’s texts. He still painstakingly reads and savors each one, but he can’t bring himself to reply. If he was looking for some sort of...fling, he would have gone on one of those apps Eskel keeps telling him about.

As pathetic as it sounds, he could really use a friend. And if sex came later, well, Geralt wouldn’t complain, but he just desperately needs someone who’s going to stick around. He needs someone just for himself, someone outside of Lambert and Eskel who isn’t going to tease him about every little thing.

Geralt sighs. This was at least good practice. Maybe he can try again with someone else.

His heart sinks at the thought. He doesn’t really want someone else. Jaskier wormed his way into his chest in just a week, and Geralt knows he could yank him out with only a little pain if he tried, he doesn’t want to.

Geralt wants to have something nice, for once.

Jaskier bites his lip as he peers out the car window at Geralt’s house. He’s half scared there’s not going to be an answer when he knocks, and he doesn’t know what he’ll do then. He thought their date went swimmingly, so he’s not sure why Geralt suddenly stopped answering him unless something happened.

Jaskier has a vision of getting into the house only to find Geralt on the floor, the only way to revive him being letting Geralt drink straight from his neck, obviously leading to Geralt ravishing him against the nearest wall.

Jaskier shakes himself like a dog. Geralt’s given him no interest in anything like that at all. Maybe he needs to lower his expectations. The dude seems lonely, anyway, so maybe he just wants someone to talk to that’s not one of his coworkers.

Geralt told him he’s an actuary, and from the questions he asked of Geralt and Geralt didn’t answer, he’s not convinced that Geralt talks to his coworkers at all.

Jaskier blows out a puff of breath as he unbuckles his seatbelt and opens the door. He’s not sure what he hopes is going to happen when he opens the door.

He walks up the door and knocks.

He waits an agonizing moment before the door swings open, revealing Geralt. He looks even paler than Jaskier remembered him, wearing a pair of sweatpants with a hole in the crotch that he can see Geralt’s plaid boxers through and a t-shirt with a collar that’s outrageously stretched. Jaskier swallows hard.

“Have you considered not oiling the hinges? I think it would do you a world of good to develop a creaky door aesthetic.”

Geralt’s forehead wrinkles adorably. “What?”

“Just, you know. Being a vampire and all.”

Geralt slumps against the door frame. “How long have you known?”

Now it’s Jaskier’s turn to be confused. “Known what?”

“That I’m a vampire!”

“Oh.” Jaskier pauses. “I didn’t think it was a secret.”

Geralt’s hand pauses in its path of trailing the wood grain of the door. “Do you have a...kink?” he spits.

Jaskier raises his hands. “Well, I wouldn’t say that.”

Geralt fixes him with an unconvinced look.

“Look, that might have been part of the initial intrigue, but—”

Geralt raises his eyebrows expectantly.

“But, you’re really fucking hot and also possibly the most boring person I know, but...I’m into it. You know all these weird facts and—gods know I could use a little stability in my life.”

Geralt gives him a bashful smile, and Jaskier wonders if anyone has said anything nice to him at some point this century. “Yeah?”

Jaskier leans across the threshold and cups Geralt’s face with his hands, their mouths a breath apart. “Yeah.”

#the witcher #geralt of rivia #jaskier #geraskier #contemplative writing #vampire! geralt

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maximoffcarter · 3 years ago

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The world against us.

Pairings: Peggy Carter x reader

TW: homophobia, offensive words.

Summary: Peggy Carter x fem!reader. Maybe some angst about the time typical homophobia and having to hide being a couple?

A/n: I enjoy writing Peggy even if sometimes I think I don't quiet write her in the best way. But I hope you all like this! If you have more requests, you can send them! There are more coming! Also, it was hard to write the homophobia and did not like it but I tried my best.

Year: 1951. The life after war seemed to go as normal as it was before it, but not for everyone. For Peggy a lot had changed, not just the way she saw life now, but her job, the way they treated her, with the years things seemed to get better. Mr. Jarvis teased her about working too hard and forgetting about her love life, after all, some sparks had appeared between her and Sousa, but nothing more than just a simple dating thing happened and she felt bad about it, but she couldn’t force something that just wasn’t there. She knew there was no rush, after her failed engagement, she really thought she wouldn’t find a lover, she’d only spend her living years in missions.

But that entirely changed when she met a certain someone; unexpected perfect someone, as she described it. She literally had no one to talk about it, she could only think about it and keep it to herself, something that bothered her because her other option had been to push it away, vanish it from her mind, but it was impossible. She was good at hiding this sort of thing, so how could she not get over this teenage feeling? It was absurd. It was silly. It wasn’t her. She also recognized the year she lived in; people were barely being respectful to women, and it was still hard, so having feelings for…no. Not time to think about it. She couldn’t-

“Agent Carter?”

Peggy snapped from her thoughts as she looked up to find that someone she was just thinking about. “Y-Yes?”

“I was just going to say that Mr. Jarvis called and asked if you were going to join them for dinner?”

“Oh. Yes. I will call him, go back to your work. Do not worry.” Peggy offered a shy smile.

“Great then.” They offered a smile and left the office.

Peggy groaned as she saw her leaving. Y/n Y/l/n. How was it possible? A woman. She was feeling…weirdly good for a woman. How? Why? When did this happen? She had been a little annoyed at first hearing how everyone talked about her, not because she was not okay with another woman working with them, but more like…they were talking about her beauty and made disgusting comments about her. But they were right about her beauty, she was beautiful, and she was so nice to everyone. Maybe she had fallen under the spell too, and now she was having such a hard time getting over it. It was stupid.

____________________

What started like something innocent, it turned into something dangerous. Peggy was always one to let out simple and teasing comments, to everyone, but she saved specific teasing comments for a certain someone. No one noticed, no one said a thing, but she knew y/n started knowing the meaning when she had come backs. She started off easy, one work replies, sometimes two words, a smile, a stare, something simple. Then the confidence appeared, and Peggy knew there was no going back. She’d lie if she said she didn’t enjoy them, it was a little game they had, until that made them become closer to each other.

It started off as simple compliments, then it went on with small and sweet touches, nothing that people could notice or talk about, they were careful with their words and anything they did together. Even in missions they were professional enough to know their place and when to act the way they normally did. But then late nights started happening, and even if some were accompanied with Howard, they still didn’t stop, not like Howard could know or would notice; too oblivious.

“And he said that?” Y/n laughed as she walked with Peggy.

“Exactly that. I don’t know what in heavens I was expecting, it was obvious he’d react that way.” Peggy looked back at y/n as they both laughed. She then noticed they were already in front of y/n’s house, making her sigh. “Here we are.”

Y/n looked at Peggy with some sort of doubt in her eyes, she didn’t know if it was right to talk or just leave. “It’s only 9:40, maybe…maybe you would like to have a cup of tea?”

Peggy smiled as she nodded. “Wouldn’t be bad.”

Both women entered the house, y/n closing the door behind her, looking back at Peggy the moment she locked it. They both stared into each other’s eyes for a moment, not sure what they were supposed to say or do. The atmosphere was suddenly tense but with a small hint of safety, no one would see them here, it was only the two of them, nothing seemed to matter anymore.

Y/n opened her mouth to say something but was interrupted by Peggy. “I really do not fancy some tea right now.”

Y/n stopped for a moment before she grinned. “Neither do I.”

Peggy smiled as she walked to y/n, placing both her hands on y/n cheeks. “Tell me you don’t want this, and I’ll stop.”

Y/n placed her hands on Peggy’s side carefully as she smiled. “I’d be a fool if I said I didn’t want this.”

Peggy then smiled as she closed the gap between them, both women wrapped in a sweet and tender kiss, one that they had never felt before, one that they always wanted to feel. Y/n pulled Peggy impossibly closer to her body, running her hands up her back just as Peggy tangled her fingers in y/n’s hair.

“Why if it’s wrong it feels so right?” Y/n whispered against Peggy’s lips as they pulled away for air.

Peggy shook her head. “I have no idea.” She then looked into y/n’s eyes. “It shouldn’t be wrong.”

“No it shouldn’t.” Y/n sighed. “I’ve never done this, or felt like this before.”

“There’s always a first time for everything.” Peggy grinned as she pulled y/n for another kiss.

Y/n smiled against her lips as she kissed her back, turning them so she could push Peggy against the door. Peggy was right, there’s always a first time for everything…

____________________

It had happened 4 weeks ago. Not that y/n had been counting the days. She had just been…she didn’t know what to say honestly; yes, she had counted the days because since then, they had been busy and they hadn’t seen each other as much as they used to. Yes, they did have their sudden encounters but only that.

“Agent y/l/n, would you be so kind and follow me to my office?” Peggy asked as she raised her brow.

Y/n looked up and nodded as she stood up, noticing that no one had really put attention to them. “Sure.”

They both walked into the office and as soon as Peggy closed the door, she pulled y/n to her and kissed her lips softly. Y/n smiled against her lips and wrapped her arms around her neck, pulling her impossibly closer.

“Missed me?” Y/n asked against her lips.

“Every second.” Peggy smiled as she kissed her forehead. “You have been busy, darling.”

“I know.” Y/n bit her lip. “But…maybe you could come to my house tonight? I can make us dinner.” She offered a sweet smile.

Peggy smiled. “I’d like that.”

Y/n smiled and pulled Peggy back for another kiss, but just as it started to get heated, there was a sudden knock on the door and as soon as they pulled away, Mr. Jarvis walked into the office.

“Ms. Carter- oh, hello, agent y/l/n. I didn’t know you were here.” He smiled.

“Yes. Work.” Y/n chuckled as she tried to cover the redness of her face.

“I think you applied your lipstick wrong, ma’am. You have a little bit on the corner of your lips.”

Y/n’s heart stopped for a moment as she cleaned it. “Yes, I-I just ate. Maybe it was that.” She chuckled nervously. “I’ll go. I’ll bring the reports later, agent. Excuse me.” She said rapidly as she left the office.

“Huh…I may be intruding, but I’ve never seen agent y/l/n wearing such a bright color.” Jarvis closed the door behind him.

“Are you here to comment about everyone’s appearance or you came to tell me something important?” Peggy raised her brow.

“Fair enough.”

Peggy sat down just like Jarvis and listened to him talk, though part of her was relieved that they had pulled away before he could see them. That was a close call that she hoped they never went through it again.

____________________

She had noticed Peggy staring at her every now and then, just like y/n had been doing. It was impossible not to do it, it was painful to be away from her when she had already tasted the waters. She couldn’t imagine herself without Peggy, as wrong as it was. And she also noticed one of the agents trying to get Peggy’s attention, which pissed her off so much because he didn’t have a little of decency, knowing perfectly that Peggy was their boss.

She had tried to stay as calm as possible, not wanting to make a scene. She went back to work as soon as she felt Peggy turning to look at her, feeling bad for staring too much.

“Did you hear what happened on Tuesday?” One of the agents whispered.

Y/n wasn’t too far away from them, so she could definitely hear everything. “Something always happens, I don’t even read the newspaper anymore.”

“They caught two women in a room, together.” The agent chuckled. “Poor husbands, I guess they weren’t enough for them or the two women were complete sluts.”

“Well, don’t we all want to see that?” The agent laughed. “Either way, it’s disgusting to know your girl is with someone else, more if it’s with another woman.”

“That’s what I’m saying. They gonna start now like those f*ggots out there. They should definitely have a punishment. I heard something about conversion therapy, they should all go through that.”

Y/n felt her heart beating faster than ever as she heard the conversation, suddenly standing up from her desk. “Don’t you guys have work to do instead of gossip?”

One of the agents turned to look at her. “That’s why you’re here, aren’t you?” He smirked as he sat back in his desk.

Y/n breathed heavily as she left her desk and went straight to the bathroom. She felt tears in her eyes as she looked around, making sure no one was around. As soon as she stopped looking, she fell to the floor and hugged her legs as she cried. How could it be so wrong? Why having feelings for another girl was so wrong? Why was it so important? She didn’t understand really, she didn’t get it. Why couldn’t it be a normal thing just like dating a guy? They could screw every woman they wanted, and people would put them in a pedestal. But if it was a woman, they’d call her more names than they could every imagine.

So why dating someone from your same sex was so wrong? Did it affect them? We’re they causing them pain or something? It was none of their business. She only wanted to live in a world where she wouldn’t have to hide. She heard the bathroom door opening and her heart stopped for a moment, looking up and finding Peggy staring st her with a concern look.

“Darling? What happened?” Peggy locked the door and knelt down in front of her.

Y/n sobbed as she shook her head. “Why is it wrong, Pegs? Why can’t I tell the world that I like someone?”

“What do you mean?”

“The guys…they…they talked about two women who were found together. And they were talking badly about them, they said such horrible words, I couldn’t…” y/n ran her hands through her hair as she shook her head. “I can’t believe this.”

Peggy placed both hands in y/n’s cheeks to make her look up. “My love…you have to stop thinking about this. It was just-“

“It can happen to anyone, Peggy.” She snapped suddenly as she swallowed. “It can happen to us.”

Peggy stopped for a moment as she stared down at her. “Are you saying that-“

“Peg, I don’t want to…I just…” y/n sniffed as she looked back down. “What if they find out? What if…what if they start talking? We have become closer and they could notice.”

“But they don’t. They won’t. Darling, we have been perfectly careful. No one but us knows.”

“I’m scared, Peggy.”

Peggy felt tears in her eyes as she let her hands fall to her lap. “Do you want us to…” she sniffed. “You want us to go back as before?”

Y/n looked up and saw the pain in Peggy’s eyes, something she never wanted to see. Her heart ached at the thought of ending whatever was happening with Peggy, it hadn’t even been long since they had started, and she was about to end it. Not because she wanted to, but they had to.

“Do you?” Y/n whispered.

Peggy offered a small smile. “I want you to be comfortable.”

Y/n nodded as she looked back down, not even being able to look at her anymore. “I think we should.”

Peggy nodded softly as she stood up. “I perfectly understand.”

Y/n stood up and grabbed Peggy’s hands. “Peggy…it’s not that I don’t want this. I’ve never wanted anything else more than I want this.” She licked her lips. “But it’s too dangerous. You’re the director here, I don’t want them talking badly about you.”

“I know.” Peggy nodded.

Y/n’s lips trembled as she felt more tears in her eyes. She placed one of her hands on Peggy’s cheek and leaned in for a kiss. “I’m so sorry.” She whispered against her lips.

“I’m sorry too.” Peggy sighed as she kissed her lips again. Closing her eyes as y/n pulled away from her and walked out of the bathroom.

Peggy looked at herself in the mirror and sobbed slightly. She was never one to cry, she never let herself cry like his, but she couldn’t help it, this is the last thing she wanted to happen.

____________________

3 months. 3 months since y/n had decided to take a mission in New York City. 3 months of being away from Peggy. Yes, they sometimes had to talk because of the mission, but mostly to inform and that was it. 1 or 2 minutes call, nothing more. They were both hurt by what had happened, even in the newspaper you could see how they talked about people like that, it was painful, and Peggy understood why y/n had taken that decision.

And then one day, Stark called Peggy. It had been weird at first, knowing how he normally joked about everything, but he sounded so serious; something about y/n getting hurt, something about HYDRA finding their locations and hurting y/n, they didn’t know much about it, and that didn’t help Peggy at all.

It was probably 1 am, Peggy hadn’t really checked the time in a while, not since she gotten home. She normally didn’t drink at this hour, she didn’t normally drink at all, or not as much as she wanted to, but this was a bad occasion, so she needed this.

She felt herself dizzy as she sat down on the couch, the whole house was dark, she didn’t need any light for her head to hurt even more. She had been crying for hours, she probably fell asleep for 15 min and then woke up because of a nightmare. She left her glass on the small table in front of her and laid back on the couch. As she was about to close her eyes, she heard a knock on the door.

Peggy furrowed her brows and stood up, trying her best not to fall. As soon as she opened the door, her heart stopped for a slight moment, her eyes widening. This was a joke, now her mind was playing tricks with her and it was not fair at all, it was so unfair, why was this happening.

“I’m losing my mind now.” Peggy touched her head.

“Maybe so. Or you’re just…drunk, maybe?” She chuckled.

Peggy looked back up at her and her face softened. “Is it really you?”

“I hope I am. Broken rib, broken wrist, almost broken ankle, bruises…but other than that, I guess I am me.” Y/n chuckled softly as she looked back at Peggy. “I’m here.”

“It really is you.” Peggy smiled as she wrapped her arms around y/n carefully, burying her face on the crock of her neck. “You are here.”

“I am, Pegs. I’m back.” Y/n didn’t care about the pain, she had missed her british girl.

“Come on in.” Peggy stepped aside for her to walk into the house, closing the door afterwards. “I was worried. W-We, we were worried.” She chuckled.

“Yeah. Stark said something about it.” Y/n chuckled as she put her things down. “I’m sorry I didn’t call.”

“You are here. Nothing else matters."

Y/n nodded. She looked at Peggy and smiled. “I missed you.”

“Likewise.” Peggy grinned.

Y/n smiled. “I’m sorry. About everything. I should’ve never done that.”

“You had your reasons. And they were fair. I couldn’t force you into anything.”

“But you weren’t, Peg.” Y/n walked closer to Peggy. “I wanted this. I wanted you and me. More than anything in the world. I was a coward.”

“I saw why you were so afraid, I couldn’t blame you. Secretly, I was too. It’s terrifying what they do to those people, and how much they suffer. I would never let that happen to you.”

“I know. And I wouldn’t either. I wouldn’t stand it.” Y/n then grinned. “Though, I know you wouldn’t let anyone even touch you.”

“You know me so well.” Peggy laughed as she looked at her. “We can make it work.”

Y/n smiled. “I know we can.” She took Peggy’s hands and brought them to her lips. “I don’t care if we have to hide it. All I want is to be with you.”

“I’d love that, my love.” Peggy placed her hands on y/n’s cheeks and pulled her closer to kiss her, feeling some tears in her eyes as y/n pulled her even closer.

#peggy carter #peggy x reader #peggy carter/reader #peggy carter x you #peggy carter fic #peggy carter x reader #peggy x you #marvel fic #marvel fanfiction

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yesimwriting · 4 years ago

Text

Searing Starlight (chapter one)

SERIES SUMMARY: the most powerful inferni alive, raised to see herself as a god-in-the-making, the bastard of the barrel and his team, and a shadow summoner with a common goal. What could go wrong? The giant mass of darkness known as the shadow fold and y/n’s sense of humor.

CHAPTER SUMMARY: Y/n is sent to hustle the Crow Club. Technically it’s not cheating, but Kaz Brekker isn’t the type to let people off on technicalities alone. Especially when the one that committed the offense could help him earn 1 million kruge.

a/n just a little something based on the show bc IM OBSESSED :)) --I’m planning on making this a series so if you want to be tagged let me know :)

The candles flicker as Kenya's palm makes contact with my face. I used to cry after he hit me; I used to run to Anya’s room for comfort and my energy would became so irritated I snuffed out all the candles in the church. Now, I just stand there. You get punished worse for showing fear. Gods fear nothing, and that’s what he wants from us--to turn into Gods so that the heavens will owe him.

“You risk us again and again!”

The yelling is worse than the stinging of the slap. I make a point of keeping my palms flat; the candles of the room flicker as if feeling my restraint. “Watch yourself or the tidemaker you’re so fond of will feel my wrath instead of you. At least when I bruise his face it doesn’t cost me a night of revenue.”

I want to point out that the men I trick in the pleasure district don’t care about bruises, but the reminder of Jace has me frozen in place. Jace is good. He doesn’t deserve this treatment. “It won’t happen again, Father Kenya.”

He nods once, unsatisfied but growing bored. “Disappear from my sight before my flesh wins and I forget to show you mercy.” Kenya turns sharply, watching Anya’s stoic expression. “Anya--we’re in need of funding, take these coins and triple it by morning.”

Anya’s lips part; I shake my head once, a subtle plea for her silence. “Father Kenya, y/n’s the most talented card player we have--if she comes with us we can bring five times what you’re going to give us.”

The promise Anya makes is that of a fool, but I know I’m capable of it. People are easy to read when they’re drunk, they’re easy to trick and lie to. And drunk people exude the clearest energy, something about their bluffing is as tangible as fog to me.

Kenya squeezes the drawstring bag between his violent fingers. He loathes me more than the others. He expects more from me. He’d lock me in the cellar if he could afford to. But he can’t--he knows what I’m capable of.

“Go somewhere in the Barrel--somewhere that doesn’t ask questions if the money is good.” Kenya looks at me, the bruises on my arms and cheeks. “Clean yourself up beforehand.”

I nod once, stomach rolling at the thought of going out and knotting at the thought of staying here. I keep my steps even as I approach Anya, grateful for the excuse to disappear behind the chapel’s doors.

----

This club is louder than most, boisterous men drinking constantly, slurring their words and leaning over bars. I only smile when someone’s looking, tugging on the dress Anya picked for me subconsciously.

“Relax, y/n,” Anya hums, “Men don’t understand they’re being hustled when someone pretty is the one swindling them, and you look hot.”

A particularly drunk man walks by slowly, eyes reflecting no shame as he blatantly rakes his gaze down my form. I shift uneasily. “That might be the problem.”

She tilts her head back, gaze focusing on the crow marking etched into the back wall of the club. A very strange and consistent crow theme in here. “Maybe you should keep the dress on until you run into Jace.”

The mention of Jace in that context leaves my face warm. “Wha--what?” Great. I’m sputtering. “Shut up!”

She laughs easily, “I’m only teasing--he’d probably ta--”

“Anya!”

Again, her laugh is loud and bright. “Kidding!” Before I can scorch her, she nods her head towards a gambling table. “An open seat--go, you know Kenya’ll have our heads if we don’t multiply this,” she tosses me the drawstring bag, I catch it awkwardly, “By five.”

There are a lot of things I’ve ruined--but I never mess up when it comes to gambling. We’re all entitled to our talents and mine are destruction and trickery. “I’ll have six times this amount before midnight.”

A little cocky, but it’s well deserved. I stroll up to the table easily, comforted by the fact that Anya’s only a few feet away.

“You’re playing this round?”

I smile politely, used to this kind of hesitance. “I think I’d like to try it.” The mock-hesitance in my voice burns coming up, but the dumber I seem the faster I make up my money. The rest of the participants snicker. Expected. I’m going to enjoy taking their money. “I can pay if that’s the issue.”

The sound of me fishing through the small bag of golden coins silences the men at a table. The man closest to me, the one with smooth brown skin and a smile I imagine has convinced many people to play into sins for him, leans forward slightly. I let him peek at the coins, the more they want my money the more they’ll believe my lies.

“How much to enter?”

A tall man snorts. I fight back the urge to glare.

“Three of those coins should do.” The boy next to me is decent enough to answer. I’ll steal from him least. “I’m Jesper.”

I’ve been to enough clubs to know when a man is attempting to find company for the night. I hope the playful niceness I see in him is real. “Kamil.” My sister’s name is salt water on my tongue.

The first game is easy enough to throw. The second, I have to work at a little more--their smugness is killing me. I pretend to be ready to step away from the table.

“Where are you going?”

I shrug at the stranger. “I shouldn’t lose any more money, my father won’t be happy with me as it is.”

The stranger leans forward, glancing at his chips. “We don’t want a girl like you in trouble at home--why don’t we up the stakes? You win this next hand, and you’ll win double what I did.” He pauses, eyeing my drawstring bag, “Of course--you’ll have to be willing to risk a matching sum.”

Awful odds. “Deep odds,” Jesper mumbles, “Consider cutting your losses.”

Jesper is a better person than the other men here. I almost feel bad he’s going to be losing any money. “One more game won’t kill me,” I smile as politely as I can manage, “Besides--my luck could be about to change and I’d never know.”

I hand the coins over to the dealer. I watch as the money is shuffled onto the center of the table, suppressing the grin of someone about to release her killshot. Ten minutes later, I’ve doubled what I’ve lost. The man who upped the bet is gaping, Jesper’s expression has shifted entirely, and everyone’s staring at me like I’ve shifted into another person entirely.

“Wow--luck really does change quickly here.” I’ve hooked them. They’ll want to play again, to prove that my victory was a fluke. “Do you guys want to play again? It only seems fair I give you a chance to win back everything you just lost since you did the same for me.”

Everyone’s quick to agree, but I’m quicker to win the second round. Some men look murderous, some look ready to play again, their egos incapable of handling defeat at my hands.

“You came in with a surprising amount of coins,” Jesper muses, reaching over to pick up a piece of gold that rolled towards him, “I hate to accuse you of counterfeiting, but one has to wonder.”

Typical. “I swear my money’s real.”

“Real money can take a bullet…” Is he going to shoot it...in doors? Jesper tosses the coin easily, letting it flip in the air before taking out a pistol and shooting it dead center in a movement so casually fluid and deadly I’m taken back.

The coin clatters onto the table, the bullet embedded into the precious metal. I eye it cautiously, beyond relieved that Kenya at least doesn’t lie. “T-told you.”

His eyebrows narrow as he reholsters his pistol. “About that, I guess you did.”

Jesper’s skepticism is a red flag. I need to get out of here before my winnings are taken from me and Kenya kills me or Jace for my failure. “I didn’t take you for such a sore loser.”

Before Jesper can respond, something black raps against the table once. “What did I tell you about loud noises at the table?”

Jesper’s gaze leaves mine immediately. “Sorry boss, just checking a swindler.”

He--he knows. I blink twice, forcing surprise to color my features. “Swindler?” I look between him and the man he called his boss. “N--no, it was just--luck. I played a hand, I lost some money, I played again and I won some money. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?”

“You only started winning after the stakes were raised--I’ve seen that tactic before and it’s not appreciated here.”

I swallow once, a pinch of dread making its way through my stomach. He had shot that coin with no hesitation--I didn’t even see him click off the safety. How dangerous is the man at my table? How dangerous is his boss? Everyone seemed to straighten at the sight of the stranger with the cane.

“There was no tactic--it was a game.”

The man I don’t know tears his gaze away from Jesper. “Someone like you shouldn’t even be here.”

He has a point--my demeanor doesn’t exactly scream someone who frequents establishments at the Barrel during the night. “I’m only here to keep my friend out of trouble.” A fair enough response. “And I played a game and someone can’t handle a loss.”

“You should have seen her bluff, I’ve met professional thieves that lie less fluently than her.”

At Jesper’s words, the stranger’s grip around his cane tightens. I imagine that beneath his gloves, the color of marred souls, his knuckles are white. “Who do you work for? Who sent a girl to invade my business?”

Who do I work for? No one that has any business with him. “What?” How self absorbed can one man be?

“If playing the fool didn’t get you through a card game--don’t think it will get you through this.”

What? Before I can question him, Anya grabs my shoulder, pulling me so that there’s a safer distance between me and the man.

“You’re an idiot,” her whisper is pointed, directed solely at me. “Of course you’d find trouble with Dirtyhands.” Did I hear that correctly? Dirtyhands--as in the Dirtyhands? I stare at her, eyes wide. How had I been so stupid? I should have recognized him from his gloves alone. Anya turns her head towards them. “We don’t want any trouble--forgive my friend, she’s not a spy she’s just an oblivious idiot.”

“Rude.”

She throws me a glare. “But she did win.” The money isn’t worth the trouble we’ll find trying to keep it but Kenya’s words follow us wherever we go. “We’ll take what we earned and never come back.”

“I don’t concede often.”

I reach for Anya’s arm, brushing her forearm in hopes of telling her things will be okay. Kaz Brekker may be feared, but we’re gods in the making. “Neither do we.”

He seems to want to play at an odd, power-filled standstill, but Anya and I are more desperate than him. Anya leans forward, ready to take the money from the table, but the unidentified man who upped the stakes earlier is quick to grab her forearm.

“I don’t take losses, little girl.”

Anya. I can only imagine the horror she feels when a strange man touches her. Screw precaution. “Is that money worth burning for?”

“Y/n.” Anya’s warning comes out low; Jesper raises an eyebrow. I guess being Kamil was short lived.

“Excuse me?”

The man will not intimidate me. Fear is a crutch men use to keep women in check. “You heard my question.” I hold up my hand, releasing enough energy to develop a flame in my palm. “And if your answer is ‘no’, I suggest you release my friend before your body is nothing more than a pile of ash your own mother wouldn’t even be able to identify.”

The stranger blinks, touches the gun on his hip, and then releases Anya’s arm.

“You can’t come into my club, hustle money away from my men, and walk away unscathed because you’re a grisha.”

Words cannot express how badly I do not want to speak to Kaz Brekker at any point in my life. His grip on his cane is a silent warning--a threat. But what is a man’s threat to a girl that’s meant to be a god? “You can kill me but I’ll use my dying breath to burn this entire building.” I’ve publicly backed him into a corner--I’m insane.

Dirtyhands opens his mouth to reply, anyone within earshot holding on for his next words. Anya yanks me back as the sound of something explosive interrupts the room. A bullet flies past directly where I was standing and strikes the wall behind me. Anya just saved my life. Someone just shot at me.

“Y/n, do you think it’s--”

“No.” It can’t be. There’s no way a soldier found me again. “It can’t be--we were--we’ve been careful--and Kenya said they wouldn’t look for me--that he purchased me fully.”

A man is moving through the crowd. A blue kefta. No. No.

Not here. Not now.

And why are they shooting at me? “Anya,” I breathe out as cautiously as possible, “Run and no matter what don’t turn around.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

Anya. Always the older sister. “They don’t want you--they want me.”

“You’re not a real Sun Summoner--it’s suicide for you.”

I don’t have the heart to tell Anya I don’t particularly care about my life. It’s never truly been mine anyway. “I’ll make it out.”

“You’re an inferni, not a miracle worker.”

My lips pull into an odd sort of grimace. The gentle kind one hopes is mistaken for a smile. “I thought we were meant to be gods.”

“A god can’t do what they want from you.” She mumbles. “So you’re capable of producing more fire than most--it’s not the same as creating light. It doesn’t matter how many drugs they pump into you it’s--”

I shake my head once, “Anya--go.”

“They want you to play Sun Summoner.” Dirtyhand’s tone is too smooth to trust. I know when someone’s trying to sell dreams that don’t exist. “The way they’ll have you do it will cost you, but the way I’ll have you do it will be practically painless.”

Is he always this confusing? “What?”

The question is an irritation, that’s apparent in the cold tint that takes over his practically blank expression. “I need a Sun Summoner for a business deal--and lucky for you I’m out of time.”

“You don’t want to work with me.”

“No,” his voice is dismissive, he didn’t understand I meant that as a warning, “But I need to have some form of mass light before sunrise.”

“The man I’m indentured to will never go for it.” Proposing such an idea would leave me with a broken rib again.

Dirtyhands nods once, a vague acknowledgement. “That’s not your problem.” I keep my jaw set, scanning at the crowd for a flash of that blue kefta. “After all, it wasn’t his problem when he hurt you.”

I had been careful to hide the bruises. The reminders of my humanity. My weaknesses, my failures, written onto my skin in purple and blue ink. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I didn’t until I got that reaction.” I’ve never so quickly felt the need to loathe someone. “It was easy enough to assume--young girl, desperate for money, a grisha powerful enough to be hunted down.”

Is that supposed to be some sort of consolation? “My freedom would never come so easily.”

“It wouldn’t be freedom--you’d owe me more than you already do for the kruge scam.”

I swallow before I can make the mistake of telling him I’d consider any escape from Kenya freedom. “Close enough.”

The grisha’s closer now, the light blue kefta so easy to spot amongst a sea of darkness. “You’re running out of time.”

“Can you get my friend out?”

“Y/n.” She can be mad for the rest of her life if she wants.

He nods his head once. “She’ll be out the back before anyone knows she was even here.”

“And she can take the money I won.” Maybe the income will be enough to spare her from Kenya’s wrath. “That’s a dealbreaker.”

Kaz Brekker hesitates. It’s such a normal pause I almost think it’s a trap. “If she takes it there will be no way out for you--you will do what I ask even if it endangers your life.”

“Y/n, it’s not worth it.”

I don’t look at Anya. “You have my word.”

“Y/n, I’m not taking anything and I’m not leaving you.”

I finally turn. “Don’t be a self-sacrificing idiot--it’s not in your nature and frankly it doesn’t suit you.” Acts of goodness towards me have always left me feeling raw. Too raw. Like I’m bleeding out. “Sorry, I just…” Anya’s eyes are soft. She knows. She always knows. “I’ll get through whatever it is he’s planning and I’ll come back.” I swallow once, nerve draining from my body slowly. “Take the money--Kenya will be angry enough as is.”

Anya drops her gaze as she collects from the table. It takes me a moment longer than it should to recognize this is shameful for her. I consider telling her that she’s doing the right thing, but that would burn her heart more.

“You’re my sister,” Anya’s voice is lower than it’s ever been, “I should have stopped him.”

Her guilt hurts more than the bruises. “You were as hurt as me--you have nothing to feel guilty about.”

This is already more emotion than we’re used to expressing when alone let alone around others. Anya stretches out an arm, squeezes my shoulder once, and then takes a step back. “I’ll see you again.”

“Yes,” I nod once.

“Jesper, take the girl out the back.” Turning forward blankly, Kaz begins to speak to me, “Hide behind the bar--my wraith will find you and take you somewhere else.”

“Y--you have a wraith?” And I thought Kenya was weird. He lets out a sigh. “Sorry. Not the time.”

“Desperation leads to bad decisions.”

Dramatic. “I agree.”

His gaze falls on me, taking in my narrow-eyed glare. There’s a moment in which I think the left corner of his mouth twitches upwards, but then he turns his head again. A trick of the light. “Go before you’re found and I’m out the money I let your friend take.”

Yes. I’m not exactly safe right now, but Kaz Brekker needs me for something. That means I will not be leaving this building. By force or willingly.

Silently, I turn, melting into those in the crowd that are either oblivious or don’t care enough to react to the cat and mouse game I’m currently in. When I reach the bar, I’m quick to duck behind it, pressing my back against shelves of alcohol.

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